I called Lyman to see how he was doing.
He had a request and I was thrilled to help.
We were going on an adventure of sorts.
He wanted a simple shelf installed in his bathroom...
a place to set his extra rolls of toilet tissue.
I can do that.
As a carpenter for nearly 35 years, I figured this would be easy.
And there would be little bloodshed on my part...
Little did we know what we were getting into...
I drove over to his place and went in to get some measurements.
Then it would be off to Orchard Supply and Hardware, nearby.
Crawling in my own one ton van is a process when my knee is not cooperating.
Helping Lyman into the passenger side with his bum knee,
convinced us both we lacked any gracefulness.
Getting out? ...the samething in reverse.
Those electric scooters that stores offer to customers are nice.
Each has it's own quirks about steering and acceleration, though.
We found the shelving department,
and we both got very involved in the lengths needed and other details.
One thing we did not keep track of was the running total cost of materials.
At the register, we were both stunned when the checker said the total would be $29 and change.
Suddenly, the shelf seemed to be a lavish alter upon which tissue would set, for all to admire.
I mean... it was toilet paper , for crying out loud.
I could and would do a lot of other things with $29 dollars.
We both knew this was not gonna happen.
We sat for a minute and commizerated,
I said I had shelving and brackets in my shop I'd be happy to give him,
Just to get it out of my way.
We headed the electric scooter for the return line.
There was some "rolling of the eyes" by the checkout lady but neither of us cared.
Twenty nine dollars is twenty nine dollars, no matter how you count it.
And toilet paper is... well....
We had a good laugh and were glad to head back to the van.
We went to Burger King to shoot the breeze and glory in our wise money management.
We had a fun afternoon, and then I realized I had over committed my afternoon.
I was supposed to help put the cub scout pine wood derby track together for a ward dinner and activity.
I was already late to meet with Floyd Searle who was "Mr. Derby" to anyone involved.
I was gonna have to bring Lyman along, and he was understanding.
I felt bad.
While I was trying to put stuff together Lyman chatted with Frank Hammond and Dan Flaman.
Eventually I saw that I was gonna be "tied up" a long time.
Dan offered to drive Lyman back to his room.
Dan happened to be driving his convertable Volks Wagon.
Seeing the two of them take off ...
and Lyman wearing his jaunty plaid cap was like seeing two guys heading out to "paint the town"
What a sight.
What a way to end a day.
Two single guys, cruisin' thru town in a convertable.
It was classic.
Lyman was smiling...
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Visit with Lyman Parker
The door was ajar and I peeked in.
Sitting in his chair was Lyman Parker, television on, snacking on a bag of those 'airy' sunchips.
I'd walked through the halls of the old folks home and it was dinner time.
Lots of elderly residents were sitting around tables.
Like a restaurant, ...clean, ...respectable,
Each resident with a look of dignity about them but,
... but with something very noticeable ....missing.
Call it atmosphere, or ..."life" or "joy",
...there was a sense of boredom and dullness.
Of having been forgotten...
With some, they themselves have forgotten, ...events, ...faces, ...names...
Perhaps calling it a stockyard, or feedlot is too brutal for a cafeteria setting.
Get 'em in, ...fed, ...cleaned up and back to their rooms, IS the project for the day though.
Lyman was by himself, in his room.
I hadn't been to see him in a couple months.
At first glance, there's something a bit sad about a lifetime ...nearly over, ending up alone.
It almost seems tragic in our society, but there are millions of such stories.
A room with a chair, a bed ...and a television for company.
Of course, that's all some people need,
...for others, it's all that's left.
If one were to allow themselves to ponder about their own final days,
they'd probably envision a large bed in a comfortable home with loved ones gathered around. Regularly.
When he saw me, Lyman set his chips down and invited me in.
The awkwardness of not visiting for months soon left me as I offered to put away the food.
Nothing grand, just stuff I remember my Dad liked me to bring.
Sharp cheddar cheese, two apples, a bunch of grapes, and tiny candy bars.
I showed him the bag's contents as I placed it in his little refrigerator.
I had to explain about the apples.
They were Fuji apples, our family loved them.
Years ago, I'd bring similar tokens when visiting my parents.
My dad loved anything I brought until one day, he asked the apples' variety.
I said they were called "Fuji".
...and he'd banned them from his house, right on the spot.
I knew there was no point reasoning with him as I walked them back out to my van.
It did not matter the apples were probably locally grown, the name was enough.
Two and a half years in the South Pacific as a combat Marine, 3rd Division, Raider trained.
He wanted no part of anything "Japanese".
Afterwards, in order to bring them in the house, I'd invented "a little white lie".
My mom was willing... but never would have crossed my dad on her own.
We just had to make sure those tiny stickers naming the fruit were removed.
I said, "Guess what? I found a variety of apples named after your commanding officer."
("Major James Roosevelt", the President's son, served in the Marine Raiders.
The Raiders, formed in 1942, distinguished themselves in their 2 year history in the Pacific.
Later disbanded as a fighting unit by late 1944, were absorbed into other Marine units.
The Raider training received was a high point in my father's memory. My dad was 17, never met the man, never claimed to. Was probably never even on the same troop ship that transported them all to there destinies.)
But "Major Roosevelt" became the popular apple in the home.
*****
This visit wasn't all about me missing my dad, but was certainly in the back of my mind.
He'd died nearly 6 years ago, and Lyman Parker filled two empty places in my soul.
Lyman had been a World War 2 era military B-17 pilot awaiting orders to deploy to the Pacific.
Lucky or not, the war ended before he ever flew a war time mission over enemy territory.
But he was trained ...and ready.
Lyman said he felt badly about never actually doing anything for the war effort.
I assured him that his service was just as important.
Allowing ones self to be ready ...and waiting for his chance was needed just as much.
It was all a matter of timing.
*****
Those two 'empty spots' were voids left by my dad,
...and his best friend from Sonora high school, Rex Howell Miles
My dad enlisted in the Marine Corps ...and Rex went into the U.S. Army....
They were barely seventeen, needed signatures from a parent to go.
Imagine that ...in today's American culture.
My dad went to the South Pacific, ...Guam, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima.
Rex Miles, I know only a little about,
...from stories my dad had told over the years,
...and from his 1955 obituary, clipped out of Sonora's local paper.
Rex's brothers never talked about him, to me..
I was just that little reminder of their dead brother.
I knew them by sight, even went to school with some of their kids.
Small towns are like that.
The family was Jehovah's Witnesses and Rex was the patriotic black sheep.
Sgt. Rex Howell Miles saw action in the Battle of the Bulge among other WW2 adventures.
He used his G.I. Bill benefits to learn to fly at Columbia airport after the war.
Owned his own plane, which I'd seen many times in a rundown garage near the airport.
With it's wings removed so it could fit inside the building, it sat there, silently waiting.
As a 5 or 6 year old, in the late 1950's, early 1960's,
I'd rubbed dirt off the old garage's window panes many times,
Looking in at the dusty relic...and dreamt about flying.
Fixing up and flying Rex's old Aeronca Chief could keep a kid's imagination busy for hours.
As Lyman reflected on his early flight training, he mentioned an "Aeronca".
One of the early aircraft used as trainers.
To get the basics of flying committed to "second nature".
In Rex's plane, I found out much later from a potential buyer,
The bigger engine barely fit the airframe and modifications had been done to the cowling.
A hot rod airplane with that modified crop duster prop?
The engine and prop could make it do things my Dad said shouldn't be tried while flying.
Dad told me, sometimes while flying together, Rex would say to him,
''Do something crazy and let me see if I can get us out of it."
Dad said he was never so adventurous as to test Rex's limits.
Common sense ...at 10,000 ft. seemed a better choice.
My dad learned to fly along with Rex but never got a license, who'd stayed in the Army Reserves.
Partly because of the extra $55.00 a month the Gov't offered.
Nice pocket money for a bachelor in his mid to late twenties.
*****
Then there arose this nasty little business of a conflict in a place called Korea.
Rex was called up right away and as a pilot, he was perfect for flying Recon or as a spotter.
He lasted 8 months.
The only report was that another aircraft saw his plane go down and there was a visible fire.
Orders were, if you survived such a crash landing, burn the plane and it's contents.
Often there was no need to "start" a fire, the impact took care of that for you.
Rex was declared "Missing in Action".
About a year later, December 31, 1953, he was moved to the "Killed in Action" list.
Sometimes, ...but not often, government paper work is that easy.
Nothing was ever recovered.
Fifty six years later... somewhere in a far off land, in an overgrown ravine,
...or a field ...or mountainside,
Lies what's left of a scorched U. S. Army recon aircraft.
...and two young, well trained men. A pilot and a spotter.
...a story repeated too many times, too many places.
Families... and friends grieve... not knowing.
Ever.
Their loved one merely becomes a face to remember on a mantle,
and a statistic forgotten.
And their name becomes just another one engraved on marble in the local Veteran's Memorial.
Six months after the efficient paperwork, I was born ...and was named after him.
I've always felt a connection to my dad's best friend.
I've always felt a need to honor his name.
*****
Lyman and I chat... mostly about family... and the current news and events.
Or life's early adventures ...
Even with us being from different generations,
we can both look back to when we didn't wake up with achy joints.
Choices made.
Good times,
...regrets.
We talked about our friends and ward members.
There were only two of us in the room, two chairs.
But as we talked, the room filled with people, ... not tangible or visible.
Lyman tells me about his pilot training in 1943-45.
...and the various aircraft he'd been in.
The Aeronca Chief. The BT-13s, B-25s, B-26s. The B-17s.
The B-29s he was to start training in, in Roswell, New Mexico.
He can list off names of military friends lost while training.
Dying ....during the training.
Now ...that seems like a hollow sacrifice...
I notice Lyman's far away look, ...perhaps, visualizing them the last time they spoke.
He reminisces ... about his lovely wife, Rose and how much he misses her.
He tells me about how and when they'd met.
She'd tearfully sent a suitor off to an Academy, a girlfriend encouraged her to go to a dance.
Lyman met Rose at that dance.
Held at the Donsonte Hall, (sp) near Logan, Utah, where many such events were held.
He courted her... and they were married in 3 weeks in the Logan Temple.
Marriage during the war years ...while in flight school, when everything seems uncertain,
...accelerated and amplified connections of the heart.
All the travel to different locations...
to expand his breadth of flight training.
Chickasaw, Oklahoma, ... Sherman, and Waco, Texas.
Life was young and exciting.
It was in Sherman where he was flying BT-13s, and they developed "the signal".
When he was flying at night and knew he was passing overhead, near where she stayed,
he'd give a simple Morse Code signal by revving the throttle.
"Short, l-o-n-g, short" or "dit... dah... dit"
It was his signal to her ..."R"... for Rose.
She'd know he was overhead and doing OK.
Men and women, then, seemed to have more interest in gritting out relationships.
than the next generation.
More of a sense of commitment.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I'd like to think it could still be that way.
He talks about his son, Randall, who also preceded him in death.
We review a couple of their family photos.
Pictures of all the priesthood ordinations together, mounted on the wall.
Proud father and son,
...."parents should not outlive their children" ... comes to our lips at about the same time.
I am no replacement for his son, in my mind...
But in a way ...he soothes my feelings about not being able to go visit or call my dad.
You know... it's not that fun to bury a parent either.
But most people have to experience it.
It's somewhat comforting to know that even someone you look to as older and wiser,
shares similar feelings of...
"...if I'd only done ...such and such..."
During some phase of life.
Ultimately, we all hang our hats on a very little nail...
...that we, ourselves, drive in the wall.
It's called "our life" ...and we own it.
Like it or not.
Sometimes it doesn't look like much when we consider what we did with our time.
And we'll beg for mercy from a divine creator and Saviour who dealt with much larger nails.
Only a few other mementos are mounted on his wall...
Eighty plus years, and there are many more things framed ...in his memories,
than on the wall...
I'm staring hard at a fifty-fifth birthday in a couple months and know the feeling.
I gave up on having a wall. My stuff is in some boxes.
As I leave, ...the room seems ... full.
Of people.
Of memories.
A friendship, needed by us both, is strengthened.
I see only two chairs,
One smile.
But I know there are more.
Sitting in his chair was Lyman Parker, television on, snacking on a bag of those 'airy' sunchips.
I'd walked through the halls of the old folks home and it was dinner time.
Lots of elderly residents were sitting around tables.
Like a restaurant, ...clean, ...respectable,
Each resident with a look of dignity about them but,
... but with something very noticeable ....missing.
Call it atmosphere, or ..."life" or "joy",
...there was a sense of boredom and dullness.
Of having been forgotten...
With some, they themselves have forgotten, ...events, ...faces, ...names...
Perhaps calling it a stockyard, or feedlot is too brutal for a cafeteria setting.
Get 'em in, ...fed, ...cleaned up and back to their rooms, IS the project for the day though.
Lyman was by himself, in his room.
I hadn't been to see him in a couple months.
At first glance, there's something a bit sad about a lifetime ...nearly over, ending up alone.
It almost seems tragic in our society, but there are millions of such stories.
A room with a chair, a bed ...and a television for company.
Of course, that's all some people need,
...for others, it's all that's left.
If one were to allow themselves to ponder about their own final days,
they'd probably envision a large bed in a comfortable home with loved ones gathered around. Regularly.
When he saw me, Lyman set his chips down and invited me in.
The awkwardness of not visiting for months soon left me as I offered to put away the food.
Nothing grand, just stuff I remember my Dad liked me to bring.
Sharp cheddar cheese, two apples, a bunch of grapes, and tiny candy bars.
I showed him the bag's contents as I placed it in his little refrigerator.
I had to explain about the apples.
They were Fuji apples, our family loved them.
Years ago, I'd bring similar tokens when visiting my parents.
My dad loved anything I brought until one day, he asked the apples' variety.
I said they were called "Fuji".
...and he'd banned them from his house, right on the spot.
I knew there was no point reasoning with him as I walked them back out to my van.
It did not matter the apples were probably locally grown, the name was enough.
Two and a half years in the South Pacific as a combat Marine, 3rd Division, Raider trained.
He wanted no part of anything "Japanese".
Afterwards, in order to bring them in the house, I'd invented "a little white lie".
My mom was willing... but never would have crossed my dad on her own.
We just had to make sure those tiny stickers naming the fruit were removed.
I said, "Guess what? I found a variety of apples named after your commanding officer."
("Major James Roosevelt", the President's son, served in the Marine Raiders.
The Raiders, formed in 1942, distinguished themselves in their 2 year history in the Pacific.
Later disbanded as a fighting unit by late 1944, were absorbed into other Marine units.
The Raider training received was a high point in my father's memory. My dad was 17, never met the man, never claimed to. Was probably never even on the same troop ship that transported them all to there destinies.)
But "Major Roosevelt" became the popular apple in the home.
*****
This visit wasn't all about me missing my dad, but was certainly in the back of my mind.
He'd died nearly 6 years ago, and Lyman Parker filled two empty places in my soul.
Lyman had been a World War 2 era military B-17 pilot awaiting orders to deploy to the Pacific.
Lucky or not, the war ended before he ever flew a war time mission over enemy territory.
But he was trained ...and ready.
Lyman said he felt badly about never actually doing anything for the war effort.
I assured him that his service was just as important.
Allowing ones self to be ready ...and waiting for his chance was needed just as much.
It was all a matter of timing.
*****
Those two 'empty spots' were voids left by my dad,
...and his best friend from Sonora high school, Rex Howell Miles
My dad enlisted in the Marine Corps ...and Rex went into the U.S. Army....
They were barely seventeen, needed signatures from a parent to go.
Imagine that ...in today's American culture.
My dad went to the South Pacific, ...Guam, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima.
Rex Miles, I know only a little about,
...from stories my dad had told over the years,
...and from his 1955 obituary, clipped out of Sonora's local paper.
Rex's brothers never talked about him, to me..
I was just that little reminder of their dead brother.
I knew them by sight, even went to school with some of their kids.
Small towns are like that.
The family was Jehovah's Witnesses and Rex was the patriotic black sheep.
Sgt. Rex Howell Miles saw action in the Battle of the Bulge among other WW2 adventures.
He used his G.I. Bill benefits to learn to fly at Columbia airport after the war.
Owned his own plane, which I'd seen many times in a rundown garage near the airport.
With it's wings removed so it could fit inside the building, it sat there, silently waiting.
As a 5 or 6 year old, in the late 1950's, early 1960's,
I'd rubbed dirt off the old garage's window panes many times,
Looking in at the dusty relic...and dreamt about flying.
Fixing up and flying Rex's old Aeronca Chief could keep a kid's imagination busy for hours.
As Lyman reflected on his early flight training, he mentioned an "Aeronca".
One of the early aircraft used as trainers.
To get the basics of flying committed to "second nature".
In Rex's plane, I found out much later from a potential buyer,
The bigger engine barely fit the airframe and modifications had been done to the cowling.
A hot rod airplane with that modified crop duster prop?
The engine and prop could make it do things my Dad said shouldn't be tried while flying.
Dad told me, sometimes while flying together, Rex would say to him,
''Do something crazy and let me see if I can get us out of it."
Dad said he was never so adventurous as to test Rex's limits.
Common sense ...at 10,000 ft. seemed a better choice.
My dad learned to fly along with Rex but never got a license, who'd stayed in the Army Reserves.
Partly because of the extra $55.00 a month the Gov't offered.
Nice pocket money for a bachelor in his mid to late twenties.
*****
Then there arose this nasty little business of a conflict in a place called Korea.
Rex was called up right away and as a pilot, he was perfect for flying Recon or as a spotter.
He lasted 8 months.
The only report was that another aircraft saw his plane go down and there was a visible fire.
Orders were, if you survived such a crash landing, burn the plane and it's contents.
Often there was no need to "start" a fire, the impact took care of that for you.
Rex was declared "Missing in Action".
About a year later, December 31, 1953, he was moved to the "Killed in Action" list.
Sometimes, ...but not often, government paper work is that easy.
Nothing was ever recovered.
Fifty six years later... somewhere in a far off land, in an overgrown ravine,
...or a field ...or mountainside,
Lies what's left of a scorched U. S. Army recon aircraft.
...and two young, well trained men. A pilot and a spotter.
...a story repeated too many times, too many places.
Families... and friends grieve... not knowing.
Ever.
Their loved one merely becomes a face to remember on a mantle,
and a statistic forgotten.
And their name becomes just another one engraved on marble in the local Veteran's Memorial.
Six months after the efficient paperwork, I was born ...and was named after him.
I've always felt a connection to my dad's best friend.
I've always felt a need to honor his name.
*****
Lyman and I chat... mostly about family... and the current news and events.
Or life's early adventures ...
Even with us being from different generations,
we can both look back to when we didn't wake up with achy joints.
Choices made.
Good times,
...regrets.
We talked about our friends and ward members.
There were only two of us in the room, two chairs.
But as we talked, the room filled with people, ... not tangible or visible.
Lyman tells me about his pilot training in 1943-45.
...and the various aircraft he'd been in.
The Aeronca Chief. The BT-13s, B-25s, B-26s. The B-17s.
The B-29s he was to start training in, in Roswell, New Mexico.
He can list off names of military friends lost while training.
Dying ....during the training.
Now ...that seems like a hollow sacrifice...
I notice Lyman's far away look, ...perhaps, visualizing them the last time they spoke.
He reminisces ... about his lovely wife, Rose and how much he misses her.
He tells me about how and when they'd met.
She'd tearfully sent a suitor off to an Academy, a girlfriend encouraged her to go to a dance.
Lyman met Rose at that dance.
Held at the Donsonte Hall, (sp) near Logan, Utah, where many such events were held.
He courted her... and they were married in 3 weeks in the Logan Temple.
Marriage during the war years ...while in flight school, when everything seems uncertain,
...accelerated and amplified connections of the heart.
All the travel to different locations...
to expand his breadth of flight training.
Chickasaw, Oklahoma, ... Sherman, and Waco, Texas.
Life was young and exciting.
It was in Sherman where he was flying BT-13s, and they developed "the signal".
When he was flying at night and knew he was passing overhead, near where she stayed,
he'd give a simple Morse Code signal by revving the throttle.
"Short, l-o-n-g, short" or "dit... dah... dit"
It was his signal to her ..."R"... for Rose.
She'd know he was overhead and doing OK.
Men and women, then, seemed to have more interest in gritting out relationships.
than the next generation.
More of a sense of commitment.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I'd like to think it could still be that way.
He talks about his son, Randall, who also preceded him in death.
We review a couple of their family photos.
Pictures of all the priesthood ordinations together, mounted on the wall.
Proud father and son,
...."parents should not outlive their children" ... comes to our lips at about the same time.
I am no replacement for his son, in my mind...
But in a way ...he soothes my feelings about not being able to go visit or call my dad.
You know... it's not that fun to bury a parent either.
But most people have to experience it.
It's somewhat comforting to know that even someone you look to as older and wiser,
shares similar feelings of...
"...if I'd only done ...such and such..."
During some phase of life.
Ultimately, we all hang our hats on a very little nail...
...that we, ourselves, drive in the wall.
It's called "our life" ...and we own it.
Like it or not.
Sometimes it doesn't look like much when we consider what we did with our time.
And we'll beg for mercy from a divine creator and Saviour who dealt with much larger nails.
Only a few other mementos are mounted on his wall...
Eighty plus years, and there are many more things framed ...in his memories,
than on the wall...
I'm staring hard at a fifty-fifth birthday in a couple months and know the feeling.
I gave up on having a wall. My stuff is in some boxes.
As I leave, ...the room seems ... full.
Of people.
Of memories.
A friendship, needed by us both, is strengthened.
I see only two chairs,
One smile.
But I know there are more.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
...today's Title of Liberty
I observed a series of vivid photos taken of a graveside military funeral.
The photos spoke of the soberness of the ceremony.
Crisply uniformed soldiers of the military funeral services detail.
Lifting and moving a flag draped coffin with the greatest of respect.
Pictures of what appeared to be family, friends standing, trying to be strong.
Seeing their loved one off, on that eternal journey.
Our eyes are always drawn to the flag, it's brilliant colors.
Performing it's own task that day of representing the deep meaning of the event.
The phrase "Title of Liberty" comes to mind.
Some of us observers may not have thought much beyond the pictures.
Beneath the flag were the mortal remains of perhaps a young man or woman.
One who felt the call of duty.
Felt the love of country to willingly place him or herself in personal danger.
Or, it might have been the remains of one of America's old warriors.
Another time, another conflict somewhere early in his life.
He'd had the good fortune to survive, to come home and live his life as he chose.
Perhaps a very normal life.
A career, a wife and kids, grandkids.
He might have been the man across the street who waved when he mowed his lawn.
********
An ancient record contains more of the story behind the "Title of Liberty".
In it, a valiant leader rallies his faltering fellow countrymen.
To stand and fight against an overwhelming enemy ...or perish.
He tore a large piece from his coat or cape and wrote these words,
placing it upon a pole, for all to see.
"In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."
This event took place on this continent, about 73 years before Christ's birth.
Find it in The Book of Mormon, page 323. (Alma chap. 46)
Could this not be something from today's headlines?
Could there be anything more important than what he wrote upon that cloth?
********
I will always remember my dad's flag draped coffin.
I was 48.
My dad had lived to 78.
My parents had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
We knew he was about done.
Failing fast.
He had instilled in me a love of country.
A love and respect for the flag.
Our early lives were very different.
At 17, I was driving my 1962 Dodge truck around, listening to 8 track tapes.
The farthest from home I'd been was Phoenix, AZ.
When my dad was 17 he was visiting far off, exotic places.
Compliments of the United States Marine Corps.
Guam.
Guadalcanal.
Iwo Jima.
Well, he was 19 and a half when he went ashore, February 1945, at Iwo Jima.
With a bunch of his friends.
Some of them lived, and I got to talk to them over the years.
I called a couple of them and let them know the day Dad died.
Old warriors.
I've tried to help Boy Scouts...
...and my daughters understand what the flag represents.
Once I was with my visiting daughter, Rachel, at a Swap Meet.
Swap Meets are an interesting hodge podge of people, cultures ...and junk.
Some good junk, lots of bad junk.
We wandered by table after table heaped with stuff.
One item visually jumped out at me.
An American flag, unfolded and mixed in with a lot of other clutter.
Treated like an old towel or blanket.
To the table's 'proprietors', it meant nothing, amongst all the other items.
Perhaps hundreds of people had walked by, not noticing it.
I removed it from the pile and gave it a good shake.
Asked Rachel to help me fold it.
"Just follow my movements."
Years of showing Scouts how to care for and fold the flag made it easy.
Rachel was great.
The older Mexican gentleman who "owned" it, or owned the table ...watched.
Closely.
Some people stopped and watched the folding.
No more than a dozen or so.
But that day they saw, close up, an American flag being folded with respect.
By two, born and bred, Americans.
The older man, in broken english said the word "soldier" with a questioning voice.
"American Boy Scout" was my answer.
I laid the now properly folded flag back on the table.
Prominently.
I could have bought it, carried it away under my arm, but it had a job to do.
It now rested there on his table as a symbol.
A symbol of the very freedoms he was enjoying that day.
Something that is not purchased with coin and currency.
That folded flag meant more to me than all the red, white and green flags displayed.
Flags with an eagle holding a serpent in it's grasp.
Flags they were using for atmosphere and ...shade, of all things.
********
We don't usually know who's funeral it is in photos, nor is it important.
We should remember though, that somewhere, sometime, somehow the person stepped up.
To make a difference.
A contribution.
Of self.
The person may have traded his future for something he felt.
We are enjoying our "todays" because others gave up their "tomorrows".
The photos spoke of the soberness of the ceremony.
Crisply uniformed soldiers of the military funeral services detail.
Lifting and moving a flag draped coffin with the greatest of respect.
Pictures of what appeared to be family, friends standing, trying to be strong.
Seeing their loved one off, on that eternal journey.
Our eyes are always drawn to the flag, it's brilliant colors.
Performing it's own task that day of representing the deep meaning of the event.
The phrase "Title of Liberty" comes to mind.
Some of us observers may not have thought much beyond the pictures.
Beneath the flag were the mortal remains of perhaps a young man or woman.
One who felt the call of duty.
Felt the love of country to willingly place him or herself in personal danger.
Or, it might have been the remains of one of America's old warriors.
Another time, another conflict somewhere early in his life.
He'd had the good fortune to survive, to come home and live his life as he chose.
Perhaps a very normal life.
A career, a wife and kids, grandkids.
He might have been the man across the street who waved when he mowed his lawn.
********
An ancient record contains more of the story behind the "Title of Liberty".
In it, a valiant leader rallies his faltering fellow countrymen.
To stand and fight against an overwhelming enemy ...or perish.
He tore a large piece from his coat or cape and wrote these words,
placing it upon a pole, for all to see.
"In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children."
This event took place on this continent, about 73 years before Christ's birth.
Find it in The Book of Mormon, page 323. (Alma chap. 46)
Could this not be something from today's headlines?
Could there be anything more important than what he wrote upon that cloth?
********
I will always remember my dad's flag draped coffin.
I was 48.
My dad had lived to 78.
My parents had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.
We knew he was about done.
Failing fast.
He had instilled in me a love of country.
A love and respect for the flag.
Our early lives were very different.
At 17, I was driving my 1962 Dodge truck around, listening to 8 track tapes.
The farthest from home I'd been was Phoenix, AZ.
When my dad was 17 he was visiting far off, exotic places.
Compliments of the United States Marine Corps.
Guam.
Guadalcanal.
Iwo Jima.
Well, he was 19 and a half when he went ashore, February 1945, at Iwo Jima.
With a bunch of his friends.
Some of them lived, and I got to talk to them over the years.
I called a couple of them and let them know the day Dad died.
Old warriors.
I've tried to help Boy Scouts...
...and my daughters understand what the flag represents.
Once I was with my visiting daughter, Rachel, at a Swap Meet.
Swap Meets are an interesting hodge podge of people, cultures ...and junk.
Some good junk, lots of bad junk.
We wandered by table after table heaped with stuff.
One item visually jumped out at me.
An American flag, unfolded and mixed in with a lot of other clutter.
Treated like an old towel or blanket.
To the table's 'proprietors', it meant nothing, amongst all the other items.
Perhaps hundreds of people had walked by, not noticing it.
I removed it from the pile and gave it a good shake.
Asked Rachel to help me fold it.
"Just follow my movements."
Years of showing Scouts how to care for and fold the flag made it easy.
Rachel was great.
The older Mexican gentleman who "owned" it, or owned the table ...watched.
Closely.
Some people stopped and watched the folding.
No more than a dozen or so.
But that day they saw, close up, an American flag being folded with respect.
By two, born and bred, Americans.
The older man, in broken english said the word "soldier" with a questioning voice.
"American Boy Scout" was my answer.
I laid the now properly folded flag back on the table.
Prominently.
I could have bought it, carried it away under my arm, but it had a job to do.
It now rested there on his table as a symbol.
A symbol of the very freedoms he was enjoying that day.
Something that is not purchased with coin and currency.
That folded flag meant more to me than all the red, white and green flags displayed.
Flags with an eagle holding a serpent in it's grasp.
Flags they were using for atmosphere and ...shade, of all things.
********
We don't usually know who's funeral it is in photos, nor is it important.
We should remember though, that somewhere, sometime, somehow the person stepped up.
To make a difference.
A contribution.
Of self.
The person may have traded his future for something he felt.
We are enjoying our "todays" because others gave up their "tomorrows".
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
...uuuh
Well, where the heck have you been?
You would ask the same of me.
I spent a lot of time at this "blogging" in October and November.
I wrote a few more entries.
Genius and classic stuff.
Like making career choices you'll regret.
Even if you love the work.
Comparisons of well stocked first aid kits.
Tips on how to alienate ex-wives and children.
Bachelor cooking and decorating tips.
Just to name a few.
I also edited some old essays that I felt were significant to these times;
...the 2008 national election and all.
An interesting perspective (to me, at least) from 16 years earlier.
Uncanny parallels.
Campaigns where the word "change" was horribly over used, etc.
"Change" seems to be a change back to more of the same old crap.
Some of the same old faces.
I swear, if there is a blue, stained dress in this next administration, I'll scream.
I was doing all this blogging at my shop.
I only has access to a weak wireless connection.
1, 5, or 11 Mbps most of the time.
It was worse than "surfing the net" today with an old "dial up" connection.
(In fact I'm on dial up this very minute at my Mom's house, WAY out in the 'sticks')
About 7 miles beyond Twain Harte, CA.
It's like sending email by SMOKE SIGNALS, with a small fire and damp blanket.
At the shop, I can't ask for much when I'm poaching some wi fi connection.
It's floating around just waiting to be tapped.
Plugging a phone line into the back of my laptop also seems primitive.
Downloads of something will take a minute for every second of YouTube I wanna watch.
So, I don't watch.
Wanna see a video of the grandkids that's six minutes long?
It will take SIX HOURS to get to the end.
If, everything goes right.
It's "start, stop, start, stop, start..." every few seconds.
When one is suffering from "cabin fever", cooped up somewhere...
Waiting like that causes one to spend time cleaning and loading firearms.
I've developed a nervous 'tic' and I talk to myself.
I answer back.
And therein lies my problem of no activity on my blog.
All that thinking, typing, editing... and then I'd see the on-screen warning,
About having 'lost' the wi fi signal... the 'piece' I was writing could not be saved.
If I could have gotten my printer to work, I could have at least created a hard copy and re-entered it manually.
But, no...
Remember, I am a carpenter, a high school education with fewer fingers than you.
I'm also apparently tech-illiterate.
If it doesn't have a plug-in cord, a trigger AND a sharp blade...
I can screw it up.
If one or two smacks along side the tower or screen won't solve it...
...or wiggling a wire, my created wordpile goes up in smoke...
...or into "outer space" which is what my Mom calls the "Internet".
Lost forever...
I have resorted to venting occasionally via text messaging.
To the regret of friends and family who wish I didn't know their cellphone numbers.
Not many people abuse the text format like I do.
The typical length of an email of the 1990s... one or 2 sentences, or maybe a paragraph is what my text messages look like.
Rachel has stated that I need to get back to my griping in print.
I'll try.
You would ask the same of me.
I spent a lot of time at this "blogging" in October and November.
I wrote a few more entries.
Genius and classic stuff.
Like making career choices you'll regret.
Even if you love the work.
Comparisons of well stocked first aid kits.
Tips on how to alienate ex-wives and children.
Bachelor cooking and decorating tips.
Just to name a few.
I also edited some old essays that I felt were significant to these times;
...the 2008 national election and all.
An interesting perspective (to me, at least) from 16 years earlier.
Uncanny parallels.
Campaigns where the word "change" was horribly over used, etc.
"Change" seems to be a change back to more of the same old crap.
Some of the same old faces.
I swear, if there is a blue, stained dress in this next administration, I'll scream.
I was doing all this blogging at my shop.
I only has access to a weak wireless connection.
1, 5, or 11 Mbps most of the time.
It was worse than "surfing the net" today with an old "dial up" connection.
(In fact I'm on dial up this very minute at my Mom's house, WAY out in the 'sticks')
About 7 miles beyond Twain Harte, CA.
It's like sending email by SMOKE SIGNALS, with a small fire and damp blanket.
At the shop, I can't ask for much when I'm poaching some wi fi connection.
It's floating around just waiting to be tapped.
Plugging a phone line into the back of my laptop also seems primitive.
Downloads of something will take a minute for every second of YouTube I wanna watch.
So, I don't watch.
Wanna see a video of the grandkids that's six minutes long?
It will take SIX HOURS to get to the end.
If, everything goes right.
It's "start, stop, start, stop, start..." every few seconds.
When one is suffering from "cabin fever", cooped up somewhere...
Waiting like that causes one to spend time cleaning and loading firearms.
I've developed a nervous 'tic' and I talk to myself.
I answer back.
And therein lies my problem of no activity on my blog.
All that thinking, typing, editing... and then I'd see the on-screen warning,
About having 'lost' the wi fi signal... the 'piece' I was writing could not be saved.
If I could have gotten my printer to work, I could have at least created a hard copy and re-entered it manually.
But, no...
Remember, I am a carpenter, a high school education with fewer fingers than you.
I'm also apparently tech-illiterate.
If it doesn't have a plug-in cord, a trigger AND a sharp blade...
I can screw it up.
If one or two smacks along side the tower or screen won't solve it...
...or wiggling a wire, my created wordpile goes up in smoke...
...or into "outer space" which is what my Mom calls the "Internet".
Lost forever...
I have resorted to venting occasionally via text messaging.
To the regret of friends and family who wish I didn't know their cellphone numbers.
Not many people abuse the text format like I do.
The typical length of an email of the 1990s... one or 2 sentences, or maybe a paragraph is what my text messages look like.
Rachel has stated that I need to get back to my griping in print.
I'll try.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
"Thinking..." (written the summer of 1999)
The Ex-wife mentioned several times during our marriage that she wished I would...
"think better, on my feet".
I admit that, as a carpenter for the last 24 years, my thinking has pretty much been...
"Cut the board, nail the board".
I've always come up with a good idea or one-liner 10 minutes too late to be useful.
I have relied on instinct, ...or tolerated embarrassment to get me through most situations.
She was 'pro-active' and I am 're-active'.
Her family was producing it's second generation of college graduates at the same time my family was getting the hang of crude tool implements and learning to walk upright.
That's the impression I got.
This past week, I'd wished I was able to think on my feet several different times.
It would have kept me from putting one of those feet in my mouth.
Within hours of getting my daughters off to a week of Girl's Camp, I was talking with my neighbor, Eugene.
We were coordinating schedules so we could take care of a fence repair.
Tuesday? No. Wednesday..., no.
Thursday? No, his wife was having surgery that day...
"Oh, gosh." I said. "I hope it's nothing serious."
He lets me know she was having "breast augmentation".
My mouth fell open and no words came out.
I could not think of anything to say. I mumbled something to the effect of...
"I'll try to act as if I don't notice... or stare at her."
A man who can think on his feet would surely have responded better than I did.
In case you happen to find yourself in a similar situation, make a mental note.
Have a snappy one-liner ready for such situations.
My neighbor said, "I hope you DO stare at her so I can get my money's worth out of it."
I don't know... maybe silence would serve best.
I was asked by an ecclesiastical leader (stake president's counselor) to help with the rappeling event at Girl's Camp.
When I said I considered myself fairly accomplished at repelling females and would be happy to help, Ray Bingham corrected me. He explained the difference between "RA-pelling" and "RE-peling".
I still offered to help although I had only seen it done on TV.
*****
That day at camp, my youngest daughter, Heidi, age 14 was in the age group scheduled to rappel down an 80 foot granite vertical cliff.
Hey... I didn't even want to hike to the top to look things over,
let alone... allow my fatness to be eased over the edge on a rope the size of my little finger.
My daughter was showing the same lack of enthusiasm.
At least I had the excuse of falling off a roof 8 days earlier and was still stiff and sore.
Heidi wasn't warming to my encouragement to give it a try.
She had seen my bruises from a 10 foot fall...
and we were at the bottom staring at eight times that distance, rising before us.
I pulled out a $20 dollar bill.
I said, in front of witnesses, "There's a JACKSON waiting for you if you do it."
Some manipulative woman leader, apparently skilled at being a 'chiseler' said to hold out for a "LINCOLN" as well, meaning a $5 dollar bill.
Of course, word spread quickly amongst the girls and Heidi went over the edge to the chant of...
"TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!" by all the girls, both at the top AND at the bottom.
I was proud of her, and when she touched down I paid up right on the spot with my last $20.
I doubt I can use a penny as a 'Lincoln'.
*****
My 16 year old daughter, Aubrey, threw me for a loop later that day by saying, "Dad, I forgot to bring pads."
It took a minute for that one to sink in.
I was pretty sure I heard the rotation of the entire solar system grind to a halt.
I'm 45 years old and managed to dodge any such 'request' my whole life.
I don't even like walking down that aisle in stores.
Aubrey was getting ready to leave on an over-nighter with her age group and...
"Could (I) PLEASE run to the store and get some?" Some?
Any real store was 40 minutes away, so I went to a tourist trap rip-off mini market, 5 miles up the road.
It was a LONG twenty five foot walk from my truck in the parking lot, into the tiny market.
The life of a father of daughters is a difficult journey, at times.
One store shelf was stocked with a dozen packages of the needed items, all different.
I checked to see if anyone was watching.
In less than a minute I received quite an education about "Lady Time Treats"
...as my daughters refer to them.
There were "innies" and "outies"... medium, large and maxi.
I didn't have a clue what she wanted, so I just grabbed something.
I walked by the "reach in" refrigerator to get some milk to calm my churning stomach and headed for the checkout.
I set the milk and the "things" on the counter, then awkwardly tried to hide them with a big handful of candy bars and a bag of chips.
I tried to not make eye contact with the checkout lady behind the counter.
Now would have been a good time to 'think, on my feet'.
A "thinking guy" wouldn't have said anything... letting the transaction be completed in silence. Even quoting that great American, Jerome Horwitz, when he said those now famous words...
"I'm a victim of Soy-com-stance!" would have been better than my comment.
(Note: Don't recognize the name of this early to mid-20th century humorist?...ask any guy).
My comment...?
"Uh, ....uh, I've never... uh, bought these kind of things before but but my daughter needed them. I don't know if they are the right things ... or size..."
The checkout lady said her late husband wouldn't get them for her either.
I didn't ask why he died...
...for fear it might have been in a hail of bullets during "that time of month".
*****
Later, I was preparing to leave the camp, head home, so I could enjoy peace and quiet for the rest of the week.
Heidi saw me and asked me to stay to see her in some campfire skit later in the evening.
OK... So I helped burn trash with 3 other men-in-camp so the bears wouldn't be a problem.
After an endless parade of giggly skits, I was too tired to drive 2 hours back home.
I spent the night under a tree in my sleeping bag.
I slept through the Camp's "breakfast".
A tragedy, since normally I enjoy my morning meal,
...sitting with over 200 singing and chanting teenage girls, ...usually.
I wandered over to the 3 men-in-camp to see what they were up to.
They were gonna cut some firewood.
The camp chainsaw was an engineering work of art. Unusual.
It fired up EVERY time the starter rope was pulled. Unheard of!
Only problem was the chain and bar was too worn out to cut efficiently.
Made firewood cutting twice the effort.
We were quite tired by lunch.
A Young Women's Camp Leader approached us, calmly said a girl had a possible concussion.
She needed to be taken to a Sonora hospital, over an hour away.
None of the other men said a word... or moved their hands...
A sure sign they wouldn't be the first to 'blink' in a stare down or poker.
Oh well, I knew my way around Sonora anyway.
After all, it was my old hometown...
...But I was planning on going home to Modesto after lunch.
The Camp Leader laid out the acceptable, approved policy for this sort of thing:
"... A chaperon would need to go along.
If the 'injured' girl stayed at the hospital, 'the chaperon' would need a chaperon while traveling back to camp."
Huh? I don't have that many seat belts.
This would mean a trip half way to my home destination,
delivering the 'injured' girl to the hospital.
Then travel BACK to camp to drop off the 'chaperon' ...and her 'chaperon'...
I was going to have to write all this down to keep it straight.
Once we loaded up, I witnessed a miracle in my truck.
The 'injured' Princess made a remarkable recovery.
As soon as the Camp Nurse closed my truck door, wishing us well,
...Princess asked if the truck had air conditioning.
The 3 young women and I were squeezed into the truck seat.
We must have looked like packaged, pressed ham if someone were looking into the windows.
The 'injured' Princess didn't care for the cassette taped music I was playing.
She asked if the radio worked.
...Well, not much radio signal at this mountainous altitude.
Before long she was working the buttons and knobs as if she were attempting an "instruments only" landing of a 747.
She'd instantly forgotten all about her 'concussion'.
*****
Our posse escorted the 'injured' princess into the ER and checked her in.
I called her parents, a good hour's drive away.
Two hours later, the 'chaperon' and her 'chaperon' and I headed back to Camp.
The whole day... and I was driving away from where I'd originally planned on going.
Back at Camp, Heidi came up to me, saying something about "warm and fuzzies".
Someone had given her some, or had exposed her to them.
Or something like that.
I defended myself, saying it wasn't my fault and reminded her I'd bought her insect repellent before she left for Camp.
She gave me a sideways look and dropped the subject.
I keep getting roped into doing stuff that gives me something to complain about later.
I wonder if there's a "How-To" book written on "thinking on your feet".
Or, a book on How to say "NO".
I'm "thinking" a couple days of lake fishing might be nice...
"think better, on my feet".
I admit that, as a carpenter for the last 24 years, my thinking has pretty much been...
"Cut the board, nail the board".
I've always come up with a good idea or one-liner 10 minutes too late to be useful.
I have relied on instinct, ...or tolerated embarrassment to get me through most situations.
She was 'pro-active' and I am 're-active'.
Her family was producing it's second generation of college graduates at the same time my family was getting the hang of crude tool implements and learning to walk upright.
That's the impression I got.
This past week, I'd wished I was able to think on my feet several different times.
It would have kept me from putting one of those feet in my mouth.
Within hours of getting my daughters off to a week of Girl's Camp, I was talking with my neighbor, Eugene.
We were coordinating schedules so we could take care of a fence repair.
Tuesday? No. Wednesday..., no.
Thursday? No, his wife was having surgery that day...
"Oh, gosh." I said. "I hope it's nothing serious."
He lets me know she was having "breast augmentation".
My mouth fell open and no words came out.
I could not think of anything to say. I mumbled something to the effect of...
"I'll try to act as if I don't notice... or stare at her."
A man who can think on his feet would surely have responded better than I did.
In case you happen to find yourself in a similar situation, make a mental note.
Have a snappy one-liner ready for such situations.
My neighbor said, "I hope you DO stare at her so I can get my money's worth out of it."
I don't know... maybe silence would serve best.
I was asked by an ecclesiastical leader (stake president's counselor) to help with the rappeling event at Girl's Camp.
When I said I considered myself fairly accomplished at repelling females and would be happy to help, Ray Bingham corrected me. He explained the difference between "RA-pelling" and "RE-peling".
I still offered to help although I had only seen it done on TV.
*****
That day at camp, my youngest daughter, Heidi, age 14 was in the age group scheduled to rappel down an 80 foot granite vertical cliff.
Hey... I didn't even want to hike to the top to look things over,
let alone... allow my fatness to be eased over the edge on a rope the size of my little finger.
My daughter was showing the same lack of enthusiasm.
At least I had the excuse of falling off a roof 8 days earlier and was still stiff and sore.
Heidi wasn't warming to my encouragement to give it a try.
She had seen my bruises from a 10 foot fall...
and we were at the bottom staring at eight times that distance, rising before us.
I pulled out a $20 dollar bill.
I said, in front of witnesses, "There's a JACKSON waiting for you if you do it."
Some manipulative woman leader, apparently skilled at being a 'chiseler' said to hold out for a "LINCOLN" as well, meaning a $5 dollar bill.
Of course, word spread quickly amongst the girls and Heidi went over the edge to the chant of...
"TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS!" by all the girls, both at the top AND at the bottom.
I was proud of her, and when she touched down I paid up right on the spot with my last $20.
I doubt I can use a penny as a 'Lincoln'.
*****
My 16 year old daughter, Aubrey, threw me for a loop later that day by saying, "Dad, I forgot to bring pads."
It took a minute for that one to sink in.
I was pretty sure I heard the rotation of the entire solar system grind to a halt.
I'm 45 years old and managed to dodge any such 'request' my whole life.
I don't even like walking down that aisle in stores.
Aubrey was getting ready to leave on an over-nighter with her age group and...
"Could (I) PLEASE run to the store and get some?" Some?
Any real store was 40 minutes away, so I went to a tourist trap rip-off mini market, 5 miles up the road.
It was a LONG twenty five foot walk from my truck in the parking lot, into the tiny market.
The life of a father of daughters is a difficult journey, at times.
One store shelf was stocked with a dozen packages of the needed items, all different.
I checked to see if anyone was watching.
In less than a minute I received quite an education about "Lady Time Treats"
...as my daughters refer to them.
There were "innies" and "outies"... medium, large and maxi.
I didn't have a clue what she wanted, so I just grabbed something.
I walked by the "reach in" refrigerator to get some milk to calm my churning stomach and headed for the checkout.
I set the milk and the "things" on the counter, then awkwardly tried to hide them with a big handful of candy bars and a bag of chips.
I tried to not make eye contact with the checkout lady behind the counter.
Now would have been a good time to 'think, on my feet'.
A "thinking guy" wouldn't have said anything... letting the transaction be completed in silence. Even quoting that great American, Jerome Horwitz, when he said those now famous words...
"I'm a victim of Soy-com-stance!" would have been better than my comment.
(Note: Don't recognize the name of this early to mid-20th century humorist?...ask any guy).
My comment...?
"Uh, ....uh, I've never... uh, bought these kind of things before but but my daughter needed them. I don't know if they are the right things ... or size..."
The checkout lady said her late husband wouldn't get them for her either.
I didn't ask why he died...
...for fear it might have been in a hail of bullets during "that time of month".
*****
Later, I was preparing to leave the camp, head home, so I could enjoy peace and quiet for the rest of the week.
Heidi saw me and asked me to stay to see her in some campfire skit later in the evening.
OK... So I helped burn trash with 3 other men-in-camp so the bears wouldn't be a problem.
After an endless parade of giggly skits, I was too tired to drive 2 hours back home.
I spent the night under a tree in my sleeping bag.
I slept through the Camp's "breakfast".
A tragedy, since normally I enjoy my morning meal,
...sitting with over 200 singing and chanting teenage girls, ...usually.
I wandered over to the 3 men-in-camp to see what they were up to.
They were gonna cut some firewood.
The camp chainsaw was an engineering work of art. Unusual.
It fired up EVERY time the starter rope was pulled. Unheard of!
Only problem was the chain and bar was too worn out to cut efficiently.
Made firewood cutting twice the effort.
We were quite tired by lunch.
A Young Women's Camp Leader approached us, calmly said a girl had a possible concussion.
She needed to be taken to a Sonora hospital, over an hour away.
None of the other men said a word... or moved their hands...
A sure sign they wouldn't be the first to 'blink' in a stare down or poker.
Oh well, I knew my way around Sonora anyway.
After all, it was my old hometown...
...But I was planning on going home to Modesto after lunch.
The Camp Leader laid out the acceptable, approved policy for this sort of thing:
"... A chaperon would need to go along.
If the 'injured' girl stayed at the hospital, 'the chaperon' would need a chaperon while traveling back to camp."
Huh? I don't have that many seat belts.
This would mean a trip half way to my home destination,
delivering the 'injured' girl to the hospital.
Then travel BACK to camp to drop off the 'chaperon' ...and her 'chaperon'...
I was going to have to write all this down to keep it straight.
Once we loaded up, I witnessed a miracle in my truck.
The 'injured' Princess made a remarkable recovery.
As soon as the Camp Nurse closed my truck door, wishing us well,
...Princess asked if the truck had air conditioning.
The 3 young women and I were squeezed into the truck seat.
We must have looked like packaged, pressed ham if someone were looking into the windows.
The 'injured' Princess didn't care for the cassette taped music I was playing.
She asked if the radio worked.
...Well, not much radio signal at this mountainous altitude.
Before long she was working the buttons and knobs as if she were attempting an "instruments only" landing of a 747.
She'd instantly forgotten all about her 'concussion'.
*****
Our posse escorted the 'injured' princess into the ER and checked her in.
I called her parents, a good hour's drive away.
Two hours later, the 'chaperon' and her 'chaperon' and I headed back to Camp.
The whole day... and I was driving away from where I'd originally planned on going.
Back at Camp, Heidi came up to me, saying something about "warm and fuzzies".
Someone had given her some, or had exposed her to them.
Or something like that.
I defended myself, saying it wasn't my fault and reminded her I'd bought her insect repellent before she left for Camp.
She gave me a sideways look and dropped the subject.
I keep getting roped into doing stuff that gives me something to complain about later.
I wonder if there's a "How-To" book written on "thinking on your feet".
Or, a book on How to say "NO".
I'm "thinking" a couple days of lake fishing might be nice...
Friday, October 3, 2008
Capitalism, Free Market Tomales in the parking lot...
Walking towards the entrance of the Home Depot today, I observed the scene of a minor, ...and perhaps ...not kosher, business transaction.
A huge man, who reminded me of actor John Goodman was standing at the rear of a mini-van, waiting for something to be prepared for him.
The mini-van, about 10 to 15 years old was covered with primer spots, ...repairs waiting to be painted.
The rear hatch door was up and a 30ish mexican mom was laboring over stainless steel cookpots, serving up a food product, probably made earlier in her kitchen.
A small boy approached me and asked if I was interested in buying some "tomales".
He said they were delicious.
A sales pitch from a 7 year old. Mom spoke no english.
I said I'd think about it in the store.
Normally, someone hawking 'food' in a parking lot turns me off for all the typical reasons:
-Sanitation during food prep comes to mind.
-Were proper temps and cleanliness observed?
-Quality of ingredients comes to mind.
-Where did she get these ingredients?
-Was the meat fresh? Or, out of date crap from a dumpster?
-Or did she butcher home grown chickens from her yard and a couple of cats to make the filler for the tomales.
Before heading on into the store I gave the whole operation the "once over".
A peek into the van and I saw 3 kids, ...one of them a little girl, about four, and she was wearing a princess tiara and a pink dress.
This lowered my defenses.
I have 3 daughters and they wore that kind of stuff when little...
The John Goodman guy and I both left the Depot store with our hardware purchases about the same time.
I asked him what exactly the lady was selling and the price.
"Twelve tomales for twelve bucks. She's kept them hot." (A good sign.)
He seemed pleased with his purchase but hadn't eaten one yet.
From the size of John Goodman, I gathered that cheap and 'quantity' was more important than ...high end "quality."
He headed for his truck and I had to pass by the Tomale Lady to get to my car.
Another smaller boy comes out and asks me again.
The cuteness of the kids and the earnest work ethic of the Mom caused me to hold up two fingers, for two tomales.
(...so much for my two years of high school Spanish.)
...What? ...like two tomales are going to kill me?
I nearly vomit regular pre-packaged food some days.
This sort of food event goes against my grain, normally.
When I wander the aisles of Costco with all the hair-netted employees offering various food samples on toothpicks or in tiny cups, I am repelled.
Sure, they are 'clean' and wearing aprons and clear food handling gloves.
Dozens or hundreds of well-fed people walk by and sample ...or cough ...or sneeze ...or fart.
The Costco thing bothers me for some reason, my little quirk.
Never have ...and never will try their samples.
Others seem to relish the chance to "discover" a new product.
Some take it to an extreme and hit as many sample tables as possible.
I guess if you hit the sample table circuit hard enough inside, you could save yourself the expense and time of waiting for a buck-fifty polish dog out front.
*****
The tomales smell good.
Mom's too shy to make eye contact.
She hands me two chicken tomales wrapped in cornhusks, parentetically, in a Home Depot plastic shopping bag.
I hand her 3 one dollar bills. Just because... ...the kids.
She hesitates...as if confused or wondering about the 'counting out change' thing.
Centavos? Pesos? Dolleros? Aye, carumba! whatever that means...
I turn toward my car.
My opinion, she earned the extra buck.
If I were in a fast food drive up window, I would have burned a buck in fuel just waiting in line.
Then there's the typical struggle of repeating my order to get it correct.
Hollering at a stupid metal box attached to a lit up menu sign.
Trying to figure out the nationality and accent blaring out of the crackling speaker.
Getting the change correct.
The food tasting the same, order after order. Year after year.
This simple tomale transaction was direct. Quick.
I opened the bag and consumed them directly from the roof of my car.
No wife would have put up with that... she'd want a table cloth. Napkins.
I used my shirt sleeve.
I guess they were good. Again, the smell registers and is more important than taste.
There seemed to be plenty of chicken, cat or whatever.
There was a bit more and different spice than I'm used to.
Perhaps she had her own "11 herbs and spices" thing.
Who knows? Maybe I tasted future greatness.
The new version of KFC.
Parking Lot Tomales. PLT... The new American Dream.
A huge man, who reminded me of actor John Goodman was standing at the rear of a mini-van, waiting for something to be prepared for him.
The mini-van, about 10 to 15 years old was covered with primer spots, ...repairs waiting to be painted.
The rear hatch door was up and a 30ish mexican mom was laboring over stainless steel cookpots, serving up a food product, probably made earlier in her kitchen.
A small boy approached me and asked if I was interested in buying some "tomales".
He said they were delicious.
A sales pitch from a 7 year old. Mom spoke no english.
I said I'd think about it in the store.
Normally, someone hawking 'food' in a parking lot turns me off for all the typical reasons:
-Sanitation during food prep comes to mind.
-Were proper temps and cleanliness observed?
-Quality of ingredients comes to mind.
-Where did she get these ingredients?
-Was the meat fresh? Or, out of date crap from a dumpster?
-Or did she butcher home grown chickens from her yard and a couple of cats to make the filler for the tomales.
Before heading on into the store I gave the whole operation the "once over".
A peek into the van and I saw 3 kids, ...one of them a little girl, about four, and she was wearing a princess tiara and a pink dress.
This lowered my defenses.
I have 3 daughters and they wore that kind of stuff when little...
The John Goodman guy and I both left the Depot store with our hardware purchases about the same time.
I asked him what exactly the lady was selling and the price.
"Twelve tomales for twelve bucks. She's kept them hot." (A good sign.)
He seemed pleased with his purchase but hadn't eaten one yet.
From the size of John Goodman, I gathered that cheap and 'quantity' was more important than ...high end "quality."
He headed for his truck and I had to pass by the Tomale Lady to get to my car.
Another smaller boy comes out and asks me again.
The cuteness of the kids and the earnest work ethic of the Mom caused me to hold up two fingers, for two tomales.
(...so much for my two years of high school Spanish.)
...What? ...like two tomales are going to kill me?
I nearly vomit regular pre-packaged food some days.
This sort of food event goes against my grain, normally.
When I wander the aisles of Costco with all the hair-netted employees offering various food samples on toothpicks or in tiny cups, I am repelled.
Sure, they are 'clean' and wearing aprons and clear food handling gloves.
Dozens or hundreds of well-fed people walk by and sample ...or cough ...or sneeze ...or fart.
The Costco thing bothers me for some reason, my little quirk.
Never have ...and never will try their samples.
Others seem to relish the chance to "discover" a new product.
Some take it to an extreme and hit as many sample tables as possible.
I guess if you hit the sample table circuit hard enough inside, you could save yourself the expense and time of waiting for a buck-fifty polish dog out front.
*****
The tomales smell good.
Mom's too shy to make eye contact.
She hands me two chicken tomales wrapped in cornhusks, parentetically, in a Home Depot plastic shopping bag.
I hand her 3 one dollar bills. Just because... ...the kids.
She hesitates...as if confused or wondering about the 'counting out change' thing.
Centavos? Pesos? Dolleros? Aye, carumba! whatever that means...
I turn toward my car.
My opinion, she earned the extra buck.
If I were in a fast food drive up window, I would have burned a buck in fuel just waiting in line.
Then there's the typical struggle of repeating my order to get it correct.
Hollering at a stupid metal box attached to a lit up menu sign.
Trying to figure out the nationality and accent blaring out of the crackling speaker.
Getting the change correct.
The food tasting the same, order after order. Year after year.
This simple tomale transaction was direct. Quick.
I opened the bag and consumed them directly from the roof of my car.
No wife would have put up with that... she'd want a table cloth. Napkins.
I used my shirt sleeve.
I guess they were good. Again, the smell registers and is more important than taste.
There seemed to be plenty of chicken, cat or whatever.
There was a bit more and different spice than I'm used to.
Perhaps she had her own "11 herbs and spices" thing.
Who knows? Maybe I tasted future greatness.
The new version of KFC.
Parking Lot Tomales. PLT... The new American Dream.
Friday, September 26, 2008
International diplomacy just two doors down...
My workshop in located in a "light industrial" complex on Kansas Ave.
The suite I occupy is located off the main street, next to painters, welding shops, a sign shop, a billiards/pool table supply and other contractors.
As "back streeters", we don't have nice store fronts... just a "man" door and a roll-up door. A place for a sign if we want the public to know we exist. Most of us don't...
Here, advertising is more than just an expense you incurr for a tax writeoff.
It can invite more trouble and more loss than you can absorb. Nice, huh?
Advertising... to the mind and focus of the ''street vermin'' ...says that your stuff can get them their next "fix".
I have, over the years, unwittingly and certainly not by active choice, enabled many a drunk and drug addict to continue in his (or her... but probably his) preferred choice of self-destruction.
Like many who earn their keep with tools of a trade, I've awakened to discover a break-in ...OR, have been awakened BY the noise created during the event, itself.
Excitement ensues.
Trade tools are easy to "fence" to someone else for "a few cents on the dollar".
There is a painfully expensive story behind each break-in.
Sometimes "the law" is called.
Mostly, the flashing lights and uniforms... when and if they show up... are just another layer of frustration.
Not worth your time or the expense to taxpayers.
I'm not anti-police. Glad they are out there.
They have to take care of the bigger stuff.
They cannot be bogged down with hour after hour of petty break ins and theft.
Insurance, you say?
I've found insurance (homeowners & equipment protection, primarily) to be a different, more sophisticated form of theft.
They collect premiums ...and squirm out of covering 'loss'.
When there's a carcass to be feasted upon, ...vultures, flies ...AND maggots barely pay attention to each other.
They are there, either side by side or come to the feast once another has cleared out.
One is usually better dressed.
The insurance guy gets his fill before it's a carcass.
Then turns his nose up at you during the nasty aftermath...
You get hit in the original incident, known as a break-in.
Then you get worked over by a guy behind a desk, known as a 'claims adjuster'.
Both events hurt.
Only my opinion, AND my experience, of course...
The suite I occupy is located off the main street, next to painters, welding shops, a sign shop, a billiards/pool table supply and other contractors.
As "back streeters", we don't have nice store fronts... just a "man" door and a roll-up door. A place for a sign if we want the public to know we exist. Most of us don't...
Here, advertising is more than just an expense you incurr for a tax writeoff.
It can invite more trouble and more loss than you can absorb. Nice, huh?
Advertising... to the mind and focus of the ''street vermin'' ...says that your stuff can get them their next "fix".
I have, over the years, unwittingly and certainly not by active choice, enabled many a drunk and drug addict to continue in his (or her... but probably his) preferred choice of self-destruction.
Like many who earn their keep with tools of a trade, I've awakened to discover a break-in ...OR, have been awakened BY the noise created during the event, itself.
Excitement ensues.
Trade tools are easy to "fence" to someone else for "a few cents on the dollar".
There is a painfully expensive story behind each break-in.
Sometimes "the law" is called.
Mostly, the flashing lights and uniforms... when and if they show up... are just another layer of frustration.
Not worth your time or the expense to taxpayers.
I'm not anti-police. Glad they are out there.
They have to take care of the bigger stuff.
They cannot be bogged down with hour after hour of petty break ins and theft.
Insurance, you say?
I've found insurance (homeowners & equipment protection, primarily) to be a different, more sophisticated form of theft.
They collect premiums ...and squirm out of covering 'loss'.
When there's a carcass to be feasted upon, ...vultures, flies ...AND maggots barely pay attention to each other.
They are there, either side by side or come to the feast once another has cleared out.
One is usually better dressed.
The insurance guy gets his fill before it's a carcass.
Then turns his nose up at you during the nasty aftermath...
You get hit in the original incident, known as a break-in.
Then you get worked over by a guy behind a desk, known as a 'claims adjuster'.
Both events hurt.
Only my opinion, AND my experience, of course...
Some other time I'll relate stories of:
"the shovel in the windshield"
"the van goes for a Sunday morning drive... without me"
"my dodge springs a leak"
"the case of the rocking van"
"the case of the rocking pickup truck"
"the morning surprise, on my fender"
"sorry, Captain, no cookies for the 7 firemen"
"the sentry dozes off"
"somewhere, there's a well dressed homeless guy"
"surprise! a homeless guy sees my 9mm"
"backwards, St-st-steven Richardson"
"panhandling with a bad line"
"the homeless meteor wakes me up"
"feral cats and guinea pigs" ... and many other adventures.
*****
There's an unofficial 'chop-shop'... creating low rider cars that do the bouncy up-and-down thing. I always wonder about the goings-on down at that end of the building.
It's rare that a truly spectacular car is here. Most are marginal works-in-progress.
One night my van got broken into and I lost, among other things, a brand new compressor.
A certain type, model, color and style.
I was stunned to see a compressor, exactly like it in the chop shop, days later as I walked by.
I hadn't marked or engraved my compressor yet... so asking where they got it might have led to more trouble for me.
Hey. There is one of me....
...and there's a constant flow of tattooed "toughs" around, mostly working at night.
...All night. I never see fewer than 3 when they are "open for business".
My 'scrapping and duking it out' days are well behind me.
My dad loved the fisticuffs.
He would come home with shiners and bruised lumps on his cheeks clear into his 60s.
I am too good looking for that sort of activity.
There's enough pain in life without seeking out more.
I already stirred the bubbling cauldron of trouble here, early on, when I went down to their shop to discuss ...bathroom etiquette... with the 'boys'.
It seems we Americans have differing standards than the Third World.
I knew that, of course but thought the Third World was someplace else.
I only saw it on TV and it was somewhere else on the globe.
But not in the 'Common' shared toilet facilities all our shops have a key for.
Recall your most horrifying public toilet experience and then imagine it on a regular basis.
Daily....
If your story would be "oh, no. there's no toilet tissue, again." Please... you and 'your royal highness' types just go away.
You will not relate.
It's one thing to clean out the family chicken coop, or shovel pig and cow 'plop'.
Or even scoop used dogfood 'landmines' from a lawn with a variety of long handled garden implements..
I've done that. (I have NOT however walked a dog ...and used a rubber glove or baggie to comply with a city ordinance. Not gonna happen. I don't care how rich or good looking the dog's owner is.)
Taking my morning "Constitutional" ...an old school term for the right we have to make that trip to the 'privy' or outhouse, is much more complicated, here.
It's a real flush toilet but when you walk in, you better approach with caution.
I had to invest in a 5 gallon bucket, a toilet snake, a plunger and some 'tongs' to carry back and forth on my walks of 50 feet to the toilet.
Almost every damn time.
If you need to pack 'tongs'... just so you can relieve yourself, you either need a lot more fiber in your diet or, it's time to exercise some diplomacy and discuss a couple things with fellow tenants.
There are some things to do, to get ready, for this "meeting".
How you handle this is up to you, but if you are gonna "get in someones face" ...be prepared.
-One should be in an even temperament.
-One should be polite. Smile.
-One should be conversant in the language of the people you wish to engage.
-One should maintain a calm voice.
-One should bring a pencil and paper or calender to work out details and a possible schedule for sharing the bathroom "tidying up" responsibilities.
-If a 'welcome to the neighborhood' gift basket should be employed, a toilet plunger amongst the goodies should be a new one, price tag still attached.
-One should probably not bring your bucket and it's contents down for use as evidence. Even if the evidence is dead cinch proof... linking it to the fine citizens you are addressing.
-One should not use any profanity or profane terms describing events which have lead up to this meeting.
This is because you are going to be negotiating toilet usage and proper etiquette and hygiene with people who came from another culture.
People who may have lived in adobe huts and a bathroom facility consisted of a hole in the ground ...or a low horizontal tree branch.
Personal cleanup was either a handful of leaves or a corn cob.
Typically, some of these Third Worlders arrive in the First World and appear to NOT grasp the mechanics of a flush toilet.
The enameled or plastic lid and seat must be a puzzle to them.
Otherwise, how does one explain always finding shoe marks and dirt ON the seat... where they stood precariously positioned and squatted.
Their marksmanship or bombing skills show a need for improvement.
Sometimes a putty knife is needed to restore the seat to it's proper availability.
Toilet paper?
These people appear to be as entertained as any toddler with a roll of paper.
Most is un-used but on the floor laying haphazardly where it spooled off.
Of course, it's mostly un-use able.
More often than not, I've used the tongs or the 'snake' to retrieve Spanish language newspapers, paint rags or grease rags plugging the hole.
Once there was a sock.
A real surprise once, was to discover a very full shopping cart in the room as I flipped on the light, one night. To my surprise, I had awakened a homeless dude asleep on the floor. I left and drove to a fast food joint just down the street to take care of my business. When I came back, "Dude" was gone but he left the cart and a lot of trash.
Back to negotiating with multiple "car dismantlers/fabricators" at night....
If you feel inclined to deal directly with them: ...be diplomatic, not wimpy. A wimp would most likely just keep cleaning up after them and not make a scene ....like their oppressed barefoot women and madres.
A diplomat will work all kinds of suggestions into the chat hoping these guys are good natured enough to reciprocate in some way.
Or, you can be the "tougher than they are" type and do some insisting.
Wearing a firearm, ammo belts crossed over your chest and shoulders, "Bandito style" is a nice touch but should not be considered, as this can set a certain tone for the meeting. Your attire might remind them of an early childhood family outing with all those uncles and family friends. A sombrero would be nice but might be a bit too much.
In your conversation, try to work in the line ..."Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!"
This will show them you are familiar with their culture and 'down' with the lingo.
They will respect that.
I overlooked this small detail while trying to get my point across, encircled by 7 or 8 smiling guys. All younger and tougher.
When I yelled at one guy for peeing on my van wheel I knew I had waded in too far ...and needed to back out.
Even my spoken logic that he should pee on his own wheel was not very convincing.
My arsenal, in reality, was in my gun safe 70 feet away.
I was living by my wits... and that is not a comforting feeling. Not for a dumb ass like me. I guess every man who finds himself carelessly walking into an ambush must feel this way at some level.
Oscar, the tallest guy, was cool about defusing the situation. An uneasy peace was declared.
Manuel and Oscar decided that a bathroom key would be hanging up at their shop. OKaaaaay... This wasn't much of a concession for me. ACCESS to the toilet was about a 3 percent problem. Hell, homeless guys with NO key, slept there. A key? But a diplomate will seize upon anything and see it as progress.
Time for Quid pro Quo.
I very generously offer a toilet plunger for the room. This created no visible response and I realize they probably don't even know what that is. The need for one never came up as they were sitting on that low tree branch. If a toilet plunger magically appeared in their village it might become the village leader's scepter.
Their offering of an available key never materialized. The toilet plunger soon disappeared. Who collects used toilet plungers?
My toilet facility bucket gained a new plunger for my own use, rubber gloves and various disinfectants.
But my van wheel wasn't a target anymore.
On "Tamale/Taco Night" or "TTN" as I refer to it, ...there may be a dozen cars, two dozen of East L.A. type brothers and the occasional girlfriend ...cutting, welding, grinding, painting.
Test flights of welded-on hydraulics are interesting.
Some nights there is 'musica allegre' (That's 'lively music' for the unschooled in Spanish lingo) to be enjoyed by all... whether you like it or not. Rarely... there is the crash of a beer bottle.
*****
Out front, along Kansas, there's a motel, a restaurant, a great sandwich shop, tire and custom wheel shop. It's an older part of town, a bit rundown but mostly, we are all working stiffs, chasing the buck.
At night on Kansas, things change from an older, light industrial area... ...into a 'busy-meth-addicts-riding-bikes-around-talking-on-cellphones-looking-for-vehicles-or-places-to-break-into' area.
Oh yes. I could describe more than two dozen incidents in... ...wait...
Don't get me started.
Two blocks away, on Needham ...you can see workers of the oldest profession known to man plying their trade. Sad.
Every one of them is, or was, someone's daughter.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Bachelor culinary Archeology, 101
At 10 pm, top ramen for the second time in one day did not sound appealing. I had too many tools and lumber out... scattered around... to close up shop. That would have been a head ache.
Using my Boy Scout survival skills I decide to cook up something here... at the shop.
The shop is all set up for what I call "urban indoor camping"... a phrase I coined to describe and make the situation I find myself in ...more tolerable.
I have it all.
A frig and pantry full of 'food', a microwave, a toaster oven, a crockpot... and a deluxe hot plate that Heidi gave me. These items are in my shop's inventory just like the tablesaw, lumber rack and camp cot.
I am able to heat stuff enough to get it smelling like food... even if it may not visually resemble it. Attempts at 'tasty' food is something I abandoned years ago. There are too many radiation treatments and chemotherapy sessions in my past.
I decide to explore the far reaches of my freezer.
This soon becomes more like an archeological expedition in Antartica. Mittens, a parka and spiked boots, and one of those pick ax walking sticks are needed to navigate in my freezer.
Some other time I'll detail and record for posterity... and science the things I found. Since hunger was what propelled me, as soon as I located a package of Armour Jumbo hot dogs I was ready to retrace my steps back out to a milder climate.
Once the frost was hacked off, the true worth of my find as historic evidence, came to light. The package the hot dogs were in, bore witness to their age.
This was something of an Indiana Jones type discovery... or at least was a form of "cold case" detective work. Literally.
In big letters, beneath a layer of frost on the promotional pack it said "Pick a Star!"
I placed my warm hand over the frost to thaw out the faces of 3 baseball players.
Ken Griffey Jr., Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. ... Geez, how old is this package?
I don't follow major league baseball anymore. I stopped paying attention the year of the player's strike. What? 1994? That was also the year the wife and kids packed up and left. Not a good year.
Do these three guys even play nowadays or have they retired? I mean... sure I know their names. They were major league superstars. And two of them have the stink of steroid scandal.
They aren't 'ancient' history.
But we are talking about a food product here... My potential dinner... I'm hungry... Age is a good thing for wine, I've heard. Cheese also.
But frozen hot dogs?
Scraping away more ice and frost I discover very useful information. Evidence, even... to help me do additional research. Near the "pick a star" is an 800 number to call. More thawing and I find that I can "listen to the players sing the Armour jingle." ...
"Hot dogs! Armour Hot dogs! What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Fat kids, Skinny kids, kids who (???) a lot. Tough kids, (wimpy?) kids. Even kids with chicken pox, love hot dogs. Armour hot dogs! The dogs kids love to bite!"
It's scary, but I pulled that out of some old, dusty brain cells.
It says on the next line I can... "VOTE your favorite."
What... like which one sings the best?
Holy Crap! I can "WIN authentic autographed memorabilia!"
I grab my cellphone and call. Who cares that it's after 11 pm. The small print on the package has an address of ConAgra foods in Downers Grove, Illinois. Let's see... maybe two or three hours difference. One a.m. or 2:00 a.m. ...I'm sure someone is there to answer my call. I can have an aging ball player sing to me? ... or ...at least I can explain my predicament?
Gee, which star should I talk to? ... Sammy Sosa? ... No..., no one could even understand him in some of the old interviews I heard. ... "Base-a-ball, been Berry Good to me!" is not what I want to listen to this time of night. Bet he even sings with a bad accent...
Roger Clemens? No. If he were napping right now and my phone call woke him, ...he might go into a "roid rage' and my image of him would 'diminish'. I might start choking up... and say something like... "Roger! Say it ain't so!" ...Or, he might yell the Armour jingle into the phone and I'd be holding mine at arm's length, rubbing my sore ear. I might miss the chance to ask him about the gamble of eating freezer burned hot dogs. Or how to best fix them. I can't even picture Roger Clemens wearing an apron in a kitchen, anyway. Delicately turning over 'red hots' so they are "... just right".
Uh, I better go with Ken Griffey Jr. ... A reported nice guy in his day. I bet he can tell me if these hot dogs are safe despite their age ...AFTER he sings to me, of course. Maybe he can offer some serving suggestions, also.
My palms are sweaty as I dial. 1-800-555-6556...
..."We are sorry, but this program HAS ended and no further calls are being taken. Thank you for calling."
I'm crushed. I realize I'm on my own, going to have to take matters into my own hands. I cut open the pack and toss 2 dogs on a paper plate and shove it into the microwave. While waiting I read other info on the package.
Ingredients:
-Mechanically separated chicken. (What, they don't have cowboy-type guys... riding thru the chicken herd... "heading off " some of them toward a corral for branding? They use a robot?)
-Pork.
-Water.
-Corn syrup. (Really?)
-Salt.
-Potato starch.
-Contains 2%... or less of beef. (Gee, how much less? 1 percent?)
-Dextrose.
-Flavorings. (oh, that's good. Maybe I won't notice the freezer burn flavor.)
-Mechanically separated turkey. (Again, with the robot... Also, being this far down on the list, just how little turkey is in it?)
-Oleoresin of paprika. (What?)
-Sodium nitrite.
-Sodium phosphate. (That's good. I was feeling a bit low on these two.)
-Vitamin C - ascorbic acid. (Good ol' Uncle Sam and his USDA always watching out for my nutritional needs.)
[Ding!] Hmm... (one last bit of detective-like observation, sans the rubber gloves)... looks ok... smells ok...
I'll hide the dogs with mustard, relish and catsup. Tastes like most every other thing I eat. Let's see... Rolaids for later... I'm all set.
I wonder how Ken Griffey likes his hot dog. Guess I'll never get the chance to ask.
Using my Boy Scout survival skills I decide to cook up something here... at the shop.
The shop is all set up for what I call "urban indoor camping"... a phrase I coined to describe and make the situation I find myself in ...more tolerable.
I have it all.
A frig and pantry full of 'food', a microwave, a toaster oven, a crockpot... and a deluxe hot plate that Heidi gave me. These items are in my shop's inventory just like the tablesaw, lumber rack and camp cot.
I am able to heat stuff enough to get it smelling like food... even if it may not visually resemble it. Attempts at 'tasty' food is something I abandoned years ago. There are too many radiation treatments and chemotherapy sessions in my past.
I decide to explore the far reaches of my freezer.
This soon becomes more like an archeological expedition in Antartica. Mittens, a parka and spiked boots, and one of those pick ax walking sticks are needed to navigate in my freezer.
Some other time I'll detail and record for posterity... and science the things I found. Since hunger was what propelled me, as soon as I located a package of Armour Jumbo hot dogs I was ready to retrace my steps back out to a milder climate.
Once the frost was hacked off, the true worth of my find as historic evidence, came to light. The package the hot dogs were in, bore witness to their age.
This was something of an Indiana Jones type discovery... or at least was a form of "cold case" detective work. Literally.
In big letters, beneath a layer of frost on the promotional pack it said "Pick a Star!"
I placed my warm hand over the frost to thaw out the faces of 3 baseball players.
Ken Griffey Jr., Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. ... Geez, how old is this package?
I don't follow major league baseball anymore. I stopped paying attention the year of the player's strike. What? 1994? That was also the year the wife and kids packed up and left. Not a good year.
Do these three guys even play nowadays or have they retired? I mean... sure I know their names. They were major league superstars. And two of them have the stink of steroid scandal.
They aren't 'ancient' history.
But we are talking about a food product here... My potential dinner... I'm hungry... Age is a good thing for wine, I've heard. Cheese also.
But frozen hot dogs?
Scraping away more ice and frost I discover very useful information. Evidence, even... to help me do additional research. Near the "pick a star" is an 800 number to call. More thawing and I find that I can "listen to the players sing the Armour jingle." ...
"Hot dogs! Armour Hot dogs! What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Fat kids, Skinny kids, kids who (???) a lot. Tough kids, (wimpy?) kids. Even kids with chicken pox, love hot dogs. Armour hot dogs! The dogs kids love to bite!"
It's scary, but I pulled that out of some old, dusty brain cells.
It says on the next line I can... "VOTE your favorite."
What... like which one sings the best?
Holy Crap! I can "WIN authentic autographed memorabilia!"
I grab my cellphone and call. Who cares that it's after 11 pm. The small print on the package has an address of ConAgra foods in Downers Grove, Illinois. Let's see... maybe two or three hours difference. One a.m. or 2:00 a.m. ...I'm sure someone is there to answer my call. I can have an aging ball player sing to me? ... or ...at least I can explain my predicament?
Gee, which star should I talk to? ... Sammy Sosa? ... No..., no one could even understand him in some of the old interviews I heard. ... "Base-a-ball, been Berry Good to me!" is not what I want to listen to this time of night. Bet he even sings with a bad accent...
Roger Clemens? No. If he were napping right now and my phone call woke him, ...he might go into a "roid rage' and my image of him would 'diminish'. I might start choking up... and say something like... "Roger! Say it ain't so!" ...Or, he might yell the Armour jingle into the phone and I'd be holding mine at arm's length, rubbing my sore ear. I might miss the chance to ask him about the gamble of eating freezer burned hot dogs. Or how to best fix them. I can't even picture Roger Clemens wearing an apron in a kitchen, anyway. Delicately turning over 'red hots' so they are "... just right".
Uh, I better go with Ken Griffey Jr. ... A reported nice guy in his day. I bet he can tell me if these hot dogs are safe despite their age ...AFTER he sings to me, of course. Maybe he can offer some serving suggestions, also.
My palms are sweaty as I dial. 1-800-555-6556...
..."We are sorry, but this program HAS ended and no further calls are being taken. Thank you for calling."
I'm crushed. I realize I'm on my own, going to have to take matters into my own hands. I cut open the pack and toss 2 dogs on a paper plate and shove it into the microwave. While waiting I read other info on the package.
Ingredients:
-Mechanically separated chicken. (What, they don't have cowboy-type guys... riding thru the chicken herd... "heading off " some of them toward a corral for branding? They use a robot?)
-Pork.
-Water.
-Corn syrup. (Really?)
-Salt.
-Potato starch.
-Contains 2%... or less of beef. (Gee, how much less? 1 percent?)
-Dextrose.
-Flavorings. (oh, that's good. Maybe I won't notice the freezer burn flavor.)
-Mechanically separated turkey. (Again, with the robot... Also, being this far down on the list, just how little turkey is in it?)
-Oleoresin of paprika. (What?)
-Sodium nitrite.
-Sodium phosphate. (That's good. I was feeling a bit low on these two.)
-Vitamin C - ascorbic acid. (Good ol' Uncle Sam and his USDA always watching out for my nutritional needs.)
[Ding!] Hmm... (one last bit of detective-like observation, sans the rubber gloves)... looks ok... smells ok...
I'll hide the dogs with mustard, relish and catsup. Tastes like most every other thing I eat. Let's see... Rolaids for later... I'm all set.
I wonder how Ken Griffey likes his hot dog. Guess I'll never get the chance to ask.
...wings and G.A.S.
Today, I walk into a Modesto Save Mart, a big chain grocer here in central California. The aroma of golden fried chicken ... and fresh baked bread wafts by. It is planned that way. Retailers use every one of your senses to 'hook' you, once you walk in.
***
It's afternoon and I haven't felt like eating yet today.
The first half of some days is a battle of decision making, for me.
Nausea, often decides that I'm not interested in eating.
But I need something in my stomach first thing, to take the meds... or I will get a "gut ache" and/or will sometimes "toss my crackers".
The meds end up in the sink or where ever I'm aiming at the moment. (Note: "crackers" means soda crackers which I tend to eat a lot of.)
Occasionally, when it's bad, I take an OTC medicine to reduce nausea. It's like a cough syrup.
I could buy a couple of fast food breakfasts with the money spent on this particular med. A bottle will last me 2 or 3 mornings, depending on the feeling...
Why is it that my mornings have so many health and financial decisions right off the bat? Before I'm even clear headed? I can choose to :
a. eat some food... while feeling nausea, in order to take meds... and possibly 'toss the crackers' and my meds?
OR:
b. take OTC meds to suspend the nausea... and eventually eat some crackers... so I can take the meds... to start my day...?
Seems that wasting/using pennies worth of food and meds before I even lace my boots is just part of the routine some mornings.
I'd have been a terrible pregnant woman... I probably sound like a cranky pregnant woman right now. ... Please don't show this to a pregnant woman, I'm already in enough trouble... Forget you read this...
Some days I feel 'normal'... I think I remember what that is...
(Don't suggest I see a doctor. He... no ... THEY know all about it. I've seen more doctors more often than I've seen my own family. Some of it is just common sense i.e. 'food before meds'... We all know what it is... or ...that it's all part of my life's grand adventure.)
Normally, I'm fine. Some days it's just the "gut ache", ...but not as bad as what I call a... "green apple stomach ache".
***
This "green apple stomach ache" revelation came to me early in life, while growing up a short bike ride from two apple orchards. Unfortunately, the "enlightenment" that a revelation should bestow on the recipient, came very slowly.
As renegade mountain boys, our master "raiding" plan, conceived as 9 or 10 year olds, worked nearly every time. Right down to the miserable aftermath. We thought we had life and it's rewards for cunning and perseverance all figured out. We were, in reality, slow learners.
A pre-raid checklist went something like this:
-First, check your bike for flats and loose nuts/bolts. ...Naw, we usually found out along the way that our equipment might not hold up.
-Ride down the long driveway towards the paved road.
- At speed, you must lock your brake, slide your tire and "spin a hooker", creating a big cloud of dust as you approach the pavement.
-Aim your front tire towards the day's adventure in the direction of one of the the orchards.
-Riding on pavement was a luxury when you live 13 miles out of town. City kids were wimps. But the paved road gave us a chance to earn some extra money picking up "return for deposit" glass soda bottles.
In the 1960s, drivers ... "adults" ...mind you... threw perfectly good glass empties out the windows of moving cars and trucks along the roads of America. Probably millions of dollars worth, ...or so we speculated, ...all over the world. Well, except where they sold soda in goat skins or clay pots. Those people dressed funny and didn't speak American. Our bike tires wouldn't make that kind of trip anyway. Some day, we'd make our fortune riding bikes, collecting soda bottles all over the U.S. and paying our own way. The purest form of the free spirited American Dream.
In my day, if we collected enough 3 cent bottles, it was worth a bike ride to the little markets in Mona Vista or Soulsbyville to buy 5 or 10 cent candy bars, sodas or comic books.
A couple of times I bought cigars.
Yeah, yeah... I heard it from Mrs. Poole too... I was "too young for cigars." Hey, I was eleven. I needed to hone my appreciation for a good cigar however, by puffing on old, fragile stogies wrapped in cellophane that when lit, smelled like... and must have tasted like old dog turds. I wouldn't know about the tasting part, though.
...back to the adventure...
-Ditch your bike in the tall grass... climb through the barbwire fence where the deer have squeezed through... and have already stretched the wire fencing ...and thereby eased the passage.
-Unhook what's left of your t-shirt from the fence.
-Check to see if any of the scratches you feel ...are bleeding.
-Wipe any blood on the t-shirt.
-Follow the deer trails to your favorite variety of apple.
-Enjoy the fruits of your efforts while watching out for those two big ol' hound dogs. The one named "Lummox" was particularly pesky. The other, whose name I forgot had a bum foot and was no real threat. Just noisey.
These forays started in June or July, when the apples were small ...and could last clear into October, if we wished. The earlier June/July raids were the one's most likely to create the distress I'd later call the "green apple stomach ache" or "G.A.S."
There's no real need to explain further how these episodes happened or the curse which goes with it. It is how I knew there was a God. A God who apparently has rules about stealing apples. The penalty for breaking one of the Ten Commandments.
At the time, I wasn't sure which commandment was being broken. We were merely sampling apples ...just like the deer, so we weren't stealing. We considered it our duty to be ready to tell Mr. Longeway which of his apples were best. If... he ever asked.
Covet? False witness? We'd need to get a dictionary and check those out the next time we were near a well-stocked bookshelf and felt the urge.
The ride home at the end of the day's adventure could be a miserable one. The afore mentioned ache was the worst. No one liked being so uncomfortable that we had to push our bikes, or worse, ditch them until later rather than ride.
Other times, we enjoyed the added propulsion to our ride, laughing and passing a different sort of GAS. We never mastered how to harness this form of energy to our advantage. Again, we were ten, eleven, ...fourteen, tops. We'd experience what the extra roughage, suddenly added to one's diet could be like. We never made the connection, though.
These apple sampling bike rides/raids lessened the older we got. So did my episodes of G.A.S. coincidently. By the time I was in high school, I had completely outgrown the childhood malady. Wisdom comes with age, I guess.
Mr. Longeway, realizing we knew our way around his orchards pretty well, offered us work. We could either pick apples or fell and cut up oak firewood for him and his wife. They were old, as parents go, but their son, Jim or "Jimbo" was our friend.
Mr. Longeway was born right there in that very house. Their house was a hundred years old and they still cooked on a woodstove. The creaky house smelled like wood smoke, cigarettes, coffee and maple syrup or pancakes or something like that.
We got to drive his old Ford tractor around the orchards. Through the creeks. Around his woodlot acreage. There was more driving than cutting wood or picking apples.
***
Today, back at the Save Mart grocery store the smell of fried chicken forces me to wander by the deli. I feel like eating.
Behind the glass display are heaps and mounds of assorted fried pieces of the delicacy. I do believe I'll try some...
Twenty, maybe thirty chickens gave the last full measure of their devotion... for the privilege of being "center stage" and, if only briefly in the spotlight... in a stainless steel pan. Their sacrifice shows their love for making all mankind happy... or at least being sated for a couple hours. My eyes begin to tear up and I reach for my hanky. An emotional moment for me.
I want ...hmmm... WINGS! I want some wings... Look at them... And about 6 ought to do.
I see ... numbers...prices... and slowly it begins to sink in to my brain's pre or post trans-fat or hydrogenated oil clogged arteries...
Wha-WHAT? 90 cents?... for ONE? One lousy, scrawny chicken wing? NINETY CENTS?
I believe I'm in the mood for some top ramen...
***
It's afternoon and I haven't felt like eating yet today.
The first half of some days is a battle of decision making, for me.
Nausea, often decides that I'm not interested in eating.
But I need something in my stomach first thing, to take the meds... or I will get a "gut ache" and/or will sometimes "toss my crackers".
The meds end up in the sink or where ever I'm aiming at the moment. (Note: "crackers" means soda crackers which I tend to eat a lot of.)
Occasionally, when it's bad, I take an OTC medicine to reduce nausea. It's like a cough syrup.
I could buy a couple of fast food breakfasts with the money spent on this particular med. A bottle will last me 2 or 3 mornings, depending on the feeling...
Why is it that my mornings have so many health and financial decisions right off the bat? Before I'm even clear headed? I can choose to :
a. eat some food... while feeling nausea, in order to take meds... and possibly 'toss the crackers' and my meds?
OR:
b. take OTC meds to suspend the nausea... and eventually eat some crackers... so I can take the meds... to start my day...?
Seems that wasting/using pennies worth of food and meds before I even lace my boots is just part of the routine some mornings.
I'd have been a terrible pregnant woman... I probably sound like a cranky pregnant woman right now. ... Please don't show this to a pregnant woman, I'm already in enough trouble... Forget you read this...
Some days I feel 'normal'... I think I remember what that is...
(Don't suggest I see a doctor. He... no ... THEY know all about it. I've seen more doctors more often than I've seen my own family. Some of it is just common sense i.e. 'food before meds'... We all know what it is... or ...that it's all part of my life's grand adventure.)
Normally, I'm fine. Some days it's just the "gut ache", ...but not as bad as what I call a... "green apple stomach ache".
***
This "green apple stomach ache" revelation came to me early in life, while growing up a short bike ride from two apple orchards. Unfortunately, the "enlightenment" that a revelation should bestow on the recipient, came very slowly.
As renegade mountain boys, our master "raiding" plan, conceived as 9 or 10 year olds, worked nearly every time. Right down to the miserable aftermath. We thought we had life and it's rewards for cunning and perseverance all figured out. We were, in reality, slow learners.
A pre-raid checklist went something like this:
-First, check your bike for flats and loose nuts/bolts. ...Naw, we usually found out along the way that our equipment might not hold up.
-Ride down the long driveway towards the paved road.
- At speed, you must lock your brake, slide your tire and "spin a hooker", creating a big cloud of dust as you approach the pavement.
-Aim your front tire towards the day's adventure in the direction of one of the the orchards.
-Riding on pavement was a luxury when you live 13 miles out of town. City kids were wimps. But the paved road gave us a chance to earn some extra money picking up "return for deposit" glass soda bottles.
In the 1960s, drivers ... "adults" ...mind you... threw perfectly good glass empties out the windows of moving cars and trucks along the roads of America. Probably millions of dollars worth, ...or so we speculated, ...all over the world. Well, except where they sold soda in goat skins or clay pots. Those people dressed funny and didn't speak American. Our bike tires wouldn't make that kind of trip anyway. Some day, we'd make our fortune riding bikes, collecting soda bottles all over the U.S. and paying our own way. The purest form of the free spirited American Dream.
In my day, if we collected enough 3 cent bottles, it was worth a bike ride to the little markets in Mona Vista or Soulsbyville to buy 5 or 10 cent candy bars, sodas or comic books.
A couple of times I bought cigars.
Yeah, yeah... I heard it from Mrs. Poole too... I was "too young for cigars." Hey, I was eleven. I needed to hone my appreciation for a good cigar however, by puffing on old, fragile stogies wrapped in cellophane that when lit, smelled like... and must have tasted like old dog turds. I wouldn't know about the tasting part, though.
...back to the adventure...
-Ditch your bike in the tall grass... climb through the barbwire fence where the deer have squeezed through... and have already stretched the wire fencing ...and thereby eased the passage.
-Unhook what's left of your t-shirt from the fence.
-Check to see if any of the scratches you feel ...are bleeding.
-Wipe any blood on the t-shirt.
-Follow the deer trails to your favorite variety of apple.
-Enjoy the fruits of your efforts while watching out for those two big ol' hound dogs. The one named "Lummox" was particularly pesky. The other, whose name I forgot had a bum foot and was no real threat. Just noisey.
These forays started in June or July, when the apples were small ...and could last clear into October, if we wished. The earlier June/July raids were the one's most likely to create the distress I'd later call the "green apple stomach ache" or "G.A.S."
There's no real need to explain further how these episodes happened or the curse which goes with it. It is how I knew there was a God. A God who apparently has rules about stealing apples. The penalty for breaking one of the Ten Commandments.
At the time, I wasn't sure which commandment was being broken. We were merely sampling apples ...just like the deer, so we weren't stealing. We considered it our duty to be ready to tell Mr. Longeway which of his apples were best. If... he ever asked.
Covet? False witness? We'd need to get a dictionary and check those out the next time we were near a well-stocked bookshelf and felt the urge.
The ride home at the end of the day's adventure could be a miserable one. The afore mentioned ache was the worst. No one liked being so uncomfortable that we had to push our bikes, or worse, ditch them until later rather than ride.
Other times, we enjoyed the added propulsion to our ride, laughing and passing a different sort of GAS. We never mastered how to harness this form of energy to our advantage. Again, we were ten, eleven, ...fourteen, tops. We'd experience what the extra roughage, suddenly added to one's diet could be like. We never made the connection, though.
These apple sampling bike rides/raids lessened the older we got. So did my episodes of G.A.S. coincidently. By the time I was in high school, I had completely outgrown the childhood malady. Wisdom comes with age, I guess.
Mr. Longeway, realizing we knew our way around his orchards pretty well, offered us work. We could either pick apples or fell and cut up oak firewood for him and his wife. They were old, as parents go, but their son, Jim or "Jimbo" was our friend.
Mr. Longeway was born right there in that very house. Their house was a hundred years old and they still cooked on a woodstove. The creaky house smelled like wood smoke, cigarettes, coffee and maple syrup or pancakes or something like that.
We got to drive his old Ford tractor around the orchards. Through the creeks. Around his woodlot acreage. There was more driving than cutting wood or picking apples.
***
Today, back at the Save Mart grocery store the smell of fried chicken forces me to wander by the deli. I feel like eating.
Behind the glass display are heaps and mounds of assorted fried pieces of the delicacy. I do believe I'll try some...
Twenty, maybe thirty chickens gave the last full measure of their devotion... for the privilege of being "center stage" and, if only briefly in the spotlight... in a stainless steel pan. Their sacrifice shows their love for making all mankind happy... or at least being sated for a couple hours. My eyes begin to tear up and I reach for my hanky. An emotional moment for me.
I want ...hmmm... WINGS! I want some wings... Look at them... And about 6 ought to do.
I see ... numbers...prices... and slowly it begins to sink in to my brain's pre or post trans-fat or hydrogenated oil clogged arteries...
Wha-WHAT? 90 cents?... for ONE? One lousy, scrawny chicken wing? NINETY CENTS?
I believe I'm in the mood for some top ramen...
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