I am now frighteningly close to 50 years old, and that has caused me to undergo some serious self-examination.
No, I don’t mean looking for new places from where hair is now sprouting. (Seriously, what’s up with that? I think if men could live to be 200 years old, we’d be covered in hair like an ape. I bet Methuselah resembled a Tibetan yak when he finally kicked the bucket).
I’m talking about the need to examine the type of person I’ve become, or person that I was all along, and am just now really realizing it. Let me give you an example:
The other day, I was running on the trail at a nearby elementary school, when I see this guy with a big dog. I immediately got agitated, because dogs aren’t allowed at this park, and there are signs posted everywhere to that effect, but this guy apparently just ignored it. But I decided to let it go, figuring he didn’t know any better.
Then I came around the corner and his dog –a big one, probably around 70 pounds – was running around without a leash. I came close to saying something but was still going to remain quiet, until the dog made a couple of kamikaze runs at my legs and knocked me off balance. I snatched out my earbuds, turned around and yelled at the guy “Hey, there’s no dogs allowed here. There are signs all over the place.”
The man said, “Really? I used to be able to bring my dog here.”
“Well, you can’t now,” I said. “And especially not on a leash. You can’t let a dog run anywhere in the county without a leash, dude.” Yes, I called him “dude”. And having told this fella what’s what, I haughtily snapped my earbuds back in place and did another lap.
When I came back around, I noticed he was sitting on a bench, and his dog was nowhere to be found. Well, this was ridiculous, I thought. He’s just going to ignore me and the signs and let his dog run around and terrorize people. So I walked over to have a word.
As I got closer, I noticed this man was pretty old – probably at least 75. He was sweating profusely, and as I got close he looked at me with a very sad expression.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I haven’t been here in 7 years and I didn’t’ know they had banned dogs from the park.” I said OK, no problem, then he said, “I can’t get him to come back. I just adopted him from the shelter a few weeks ago and he doesn’t mind me yet. I’m afraid I’m too old to go chase him.”
Well, now I was feeling lower than a frog’s ankle. I saw the dog a few feet away, near a creek, and I was able to go over and grab him and hold him while the man came over. He thanked me profusely and apologized again, and I nodded and ran off before he had a chance to tell me that his wife had just died or his other dog had gotten run over or something else that would make me feel even worse.
So I got to thinking as I continued my run, and a very troubling question popped into my brain and it wouldn’t go away, even when I put Van Halen on my iPod and turned the volume up to 11, and the question was this: Am I an a-hole?
I think it’s quite possible. I certainly acted like one toward that old man. And it’s not the first time I’ve done that.
There was a woman who worked downstairs in the cafeteria in my office building. She would dip the vegetables, and she was frighteningly slow and confused most of the time. You asked for squash, she’d give you corn. You asked for butterbeans, you might get cabbage. You get the picture.
I would get very frustrated with this woman, roll my eyes, say things under my breath, and generally act like – well, an a-hole. I remember once I actually muttered, “Is it really that hard?” I must have said it louder than I thought, cause I looked around at the other people in the line, and they were all staring at me like I’d just stepped on a kitten.
So one day, I was going through the checkout line, and there was a framed photo of the woman by the cash register, and I heard the cashier telling the customer in front of me that the lady had died the previous weekend. Feeling a bit abashed, I asked the cashier what had happened.
“Oh, she had Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” she said. “Poor thing, she just didn’t want to be stuck at home, so she kept working for as long as she could. We sure do miss her. She was the sweetest thing.”
Holy Crap. Lou Gehrig’s Disease? What kind of an a-hole would fuss at a woman fighting Lou Gehrig’s Disease? (In my defense, I didn’t KNOW she had that – but still).
So maybe I really am just an a-hole. I don’t have a reason to be. I complain about my job, but I know some folks who have been out of work for a long time and are desperate to find a job. I get frustrated because my back and stomach have hurt every day for 3 ½ years, but I have some friends who are fighting cancer, and they aren’t letting it get them down at all.
I actually got angry the other day when the DVR messed up and I missed about 15 minutes of the golf tournament I was watching. Think about that – I’m sitting in an air-conditioned house, watching a TV screen the size of a billboard, a bag of chips on my lap, and I’m able to hit the pause button so I can leave the room and never miss a second of what I’m watching – and it made me angry that I had to miss 15 minutes of millionaires hitting balls around a big green pasture.
There are other instances. There are probably drive-through windows all over metro Atlanta with my photo on the wall and the words “Be on the lookout for this impatient a-hole” underneath. There quite likely are photos taken by traffic cams that could be used against me in a political campaign because of the gestures I used. And God help me if any of the other drivers are lip-readers.
Now, again in my defense, there have been some a-holes through history who accomplished some great things. These include:
• King Herod, who allegedly killed a lot of babies, but also built some really cool things in Jerusalem.
• Gen. George Patton, who slapped a shell-shocked soldier in the face, but killed a lot of Nazis.
• Musicians such as John Lennon, Neil Young and Elvis Costello, who often weren’t much fun to be around but who made some of the greatest albums of all time.
Of course, I haven’t accomplished anything, so maybe I really need to just stop being an a-hole altogether. I have no excuse. I might some day get cancer or Lou Gehrig’s disease or a big dog I can’t control – wait, I already have that one – and the last thing I’ll want to deal with if any of that happens is some a-hole.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
How does my garden grow?
When I was growing up, my dad always planted a big vegetable garden. Being a stupid teenager (I know – redundant), I thought this was pure folly. After all, you could get pretty much any vegetable you wanted at the grocery store. All you needed was a can opener.
But he’d come home from his job at the General Motors assembly plant and get out there and plow up rows and plant seeds and hoe out the weeds. He’d grow butterbeans and peas and squash and cucumbers and okra, none of which I liked to eat. I pretty much lived off of Burger King. Had he planted Whoppers and french fries, I might have been interested.
The few times I’d actually pull myself away from watching Gilligan’s Island and look out there, it almost appeared that he was enjoying himself. I thought he must be insane.
However, the good part was, he pretty much left me out of it – until, that is, the vegetables were actually picked. Then HIS hobby became MY hobby, because all those beans and peas had to be shelled. Maybe I didn’t have the inclination – or sense – to get out and actually help in the garden, but I had two working thumbs, so I was expected to participate in the shelling process.
It was really kind of a social thing. We’d go visit people sometimes, and my late mother would grab a bucket and start shelling butterbeans while they talked. I shelled while watching Braves’ games or just sitting on the back porch talking to mom, shelled until my thumbs bled and my fingernails turned green. It was just part of life.
I grew out of my teenage years, so my brain became fully-formed and I realized that I actually enjoy eating vegetables, and that they’re so much better when they’re fresh. If I went to Burger King now I’d need to order a defibrillator as a side dish.
And this year, at the age of don’t-worry-about-it, I decided to plant a garden of my own – peas, squash, cucumbers, okra, and watermelon. My garden is planted right alongside that of my dad’s, on his land down in Lamar County. One half is mine.
I was going to plant pole beans, but dad informed me that you had to plant those next to a pole, so they’ll grow. Well, who knew THAT was why they called them pole beans? I just thought they were discovered in Poland or something.
I decided this would be a fun thing to do with my father. He’s 84 now, and I thought it would be a way to spend some quality time together. It’s hard to talk to him in the house, because he keeps the TV set at roughly the decibel level of a Black Sabbath concert. I’m going to have to learn sign language to communicate with him before long.
I had great plans to do a lot of stress-relieving, out-in-the-open work in this garden of mine – till the ground, put up some posts and wire and hang some things to keep the deer out, etc. I researched this thoroughly, meaning I Googled “Best way to grow vegetables in Georgia.” I was ready.
I went down to my garden spot to discover my father had already tilled the ground, put up posts, strung some wire, and hung some soap to keep the deer away. Then he proceeded to show me how to plant seeds - break up the ground, put in some fertilizer, mix it in, open the ground back up, put in the seeds, cover it up. Well, duh. What am I, a moron? Who didn’t know that? I DO have access to the Internet, you know.
I started working on my row, and then I looked up and my dad was at the other end of the row, opening up the ground with some sort of garden tool. It was 80 degrees and the sun was beating down and he was sweating – and did I mention he’s 84 YEARS OLD? – and I told him to stop, I would handle it, I knew how to do it.
Why was he giving me so much help? Well, half because he wanted to be helpful, and half because he suspects I’m an idiot who can’t do anything. He thinks this, in part, because he knew me when I was a teenager and a young adult, when I was an idiot who couldn’t do anything. And also, that’s sort of the default position for a father when he thinks of his son.
So I put out my fertilizer, and dropping my seeds on the ground when he looked at me and said, “Did you open the ground back up?” Well, no, matter of fact, I had not. “What are you, a moron?” he said.
Well anyway, I got the suckers planted, and when I went down to check on the garden a couple of weeks later, there were little green sprouts coming out of the ground. Dad is watering them for me, and I’m assuming that at some point they’ll get taller and I’ll have peas to shell and watermelons to cut and squash to – well, I don’t really know what you do to squash, but I can Google it.
Then I can get me a pan, fill it full of peas, turn on the Braves’ game and start working my thumbs while wishing my mom was there for me to talk to. I can hardly wait.
But he’d come home from his job at the General Motors assembly plant and get out there and plow up rows and plant seeds and hoe out the weeds. He’d grow butterbeans and peas and squash and cucumbers and okra, none of which I liked to eat. I pretty much lived off of Burger King. Had he planted Whoppers and french fries, I might have been interested.
The few times I’d actually pull myself away from watching Gilligan’s Island and look out there, it almost appeared that he was enjoying himself. I thought he must be insane.
However, the good part was, he pretty much left me out of it – until, that is, the vegetables were actually picked. Then HIS hobby became MY hobby, because all those beans and peas had to be shelled. Maybe I didn’t have the inclination – or sense – to get out and actually help in the garden, but I had two working thumbs, so I was expected to participate in the shelling process.
It was really kind of a social thing. We’d go visit people sometimes, and my late mother would grab a bucket and start shelling butterbeans while they talked. I shelled while watching Braves’ games or just sitting on the back porch talking to mom, shelled until my thumbs bled and my fingernails turned green. It was just part of life.
I grew out of my teenage years, so my brain became fully-formed and I realized that I actually enjoy eating vegetables, and that they’re so much better when they’re fresh. If I went to Burger King now I’d need to order a defibrillator as a side dish.
And this year, at the age of don’t-worry-about-it, I decided to plant a garden of my own – peas, squash, cucumbers, okra, and watermelon. My garden is planted right alongside that of my dad’s, on his land down in Lamar County. One half is mine.
I was going to plant pole beans, but dad informed me that you had to plant those next to a pole, so they’ll grow. Well, who knew THAT was why they called them pole beans? I just thought they were discovered in Poland or something.
I decided this would be a fun thing to do with my father. He’s 84 now, and I thought it would be a way to spend some quality time together. It’s hard to talk to him in the house, because he keeps the TV set at roughly the decibel level of a Black Sabbath concert. I’m going to have to learn sign language to communicate with him before long.
I had great plans to do a lot of stress-relieving, out-in-the-open work in this garden of mine – till the ground, put up some posts and wire and hang some things to keep the deer out, etc. I researched this thoroughly, meaning I Googled “Best way to grow vegetables in Georgia.” I was ready.
I went down to my garden spot to discover my father had already tilled the ground, put up posts, strung some wire, and hung some soap to keep the deer away. Then he proceeded to show me how to plant seeds - break up the ground, put in some fertilizer, mix it in, open the ground back up, put in the seeds, cover it up. Well, duh. What am I, a moron? Who didn’t know that? I DO have access to the Internet, you know.
I started working on my row, and then I looked up and my dad was at the other end of the row, opening up the ground with some sort of garden tool. It was 80 degrees and the sun was beating down and he was sweating – and did I mention he’s 84 YEARS OLD? – and I told him to stop, I would handle it, I knew how to do it.
Why was he giving me so much help? Well, half because he wanted to be helpful, and half because he suspects I’m an idiot who can’t do anything. He thinks this, in part, because he knew me when I was a teenager and a young adult, when I was an idiot who couldn’t do anything. And also, that’s sort of the default position for a father when he thinks of his son.
So I put out my fertilizer, and dropping my seeds on the ground when he looked at me and said, “Did you open the ground back up?” Well, no, matter of fact, I had not. “What are you, a moron?” he said.
Well anyway, I got the suckers planted, and when I went down to check on the garden a couple of weeks later, there were little green sprouts coming out of the ground. Dad is watering them for me, and I’m assuming that at some point they’ll get taller and I’ll have peas to shell and watermelons to cut and squash to – well, I don’t really know what you do to squash, but I can Google it.
Then I can get me a pan, fill it full of peas, turn on the Braves’ game and start working my thumbs while wishing my mom was there for me to talk to. I can hardly wait.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Dead zone
How are we supposed to act, or feel, when people die?
Our reflexive response when someone tells us of a death is, “I’m sorry to hear that.” We say this whether or not we’re actually sorry to hear it. It just seems like the polite thing to say.
We may not be sorry, though I assume what we’re really saying is, we’re sorry that somebody we know is experiencing a loss. And if it’s somebody we knew and liked who died, then we genuinely feel some degree of grief.
It’s pretty much accepted that you’re not allowed to be happy when somebody dies, unless it’s someone despicable like Hitler or Bin Laden or Urban Meyer. (for all you wearing blue jean shorts, that was just a joke.)
One of my professors from UGA, Conrad Fink, died recently. Now, I didn’t know him well at all, but I knew a few people who did, and they always spoke highly of him. I took one journalism class from him, and a few things stood out in my memory:
• He would throw erasers at me when I was drifting off to sleep or not paying attention in his class, which was often.
• He told a highly entertaining story about when, during his days as a reporter, he had a testy encounter with the King of Borneo. I don’t know nor care if it was true, but it was a great story.
• He always said to write for the “Kansas City milkman”, which meant keep your stories simple and understandable so even the least educated among us could enjoy them. I guess today he might say to write them for people who watch Jersey Shore.
• He pulled me into his office one day and told me that he thought I was the best writer in his class (is this bragging? Probably so), but that I didn’t have any “fire in my belly” and I should forget journalism and go somewhere like Coca-Cola and get a job in the public relations department. I was offended and angered by this and went on to have a lucrative 10-year career in newspapers, which ended when I went to Coca-Cola and got a job in their public relations department.
So even though I didn’t know Professor Fink that well or for that long, he did have an impact on my life, and I did note his death with some sadness.
Then recently, another person from my past died, and this was somebody I didn’t care for too much. He was generally not a nice person, thought most people thought he was. I found him to be dishonest, manipulative and mean-spirited. Maybe, as hard as this is to fathom, he just didn’t like me, so I never got to see whatever good side he might have had.
So while I didn’t pop open a cold bottle of Pink Champale when I learned he had died, I didn’t feel particularly sad, either. And I didn’t feel bad about not feeling sad. Maybe this makes me a bad person. I just don’t know.
The idea of death used to freak me out. I can remember going to funeral homes when some great-aunt or another died, and my mother would go to the casket and proclaim, “Oh, she looks so pretty!” Uh, hello, mom, no she doesn’t. Aunt Jenny is DEAD! She does not look pretty. She looks stuffed.
In The Return of the King, Gandalf tells one of the hobbits, “Death is just another part of the journey.” Of course, that was easy for him to say, since he had already died and been resurrected by that time. Oh, and he was a wizard. But I guess if that’s the case, we should just look at it as a chance to wish people well on the rest of their journey, and if we didn’t like them, hope we don’t run into them again when our time comes.
Our reflexive response when someone tells us of a death is, “I’m sorry to hear that.” We say this whether or not we’re actually sorry to hear it. It just seems like the polite thing to say.
We may not be sorry, though I assume what we’re really saying is, we’re sorry that somebody we know is experiencing a loss. And if it’s somebody we knew and liked who died, then we genuinely feel some degree of grief.
It’s pretty much accepted that you’re not allowed to be happy when somebody dies, unless it’s someone despicable like Hitler or Bin Laden or Urban Meyer. (for all you wearing blue jean shorts, that was just a joke.)
One of my professors from UGA, Conrad Fink, died recently. Now, I didn’t know him well at all, but I knew a few people who did, and they always spoke highly of him. I took one journalism class from him, and a few things stood out in my memory:
• He would throw erasers at me when I was drifting off to sleep or not paying attention in his class, which was often.
• He told a highly entertaining story about when, during his days as a reporter, he had a testy encounter with the King of Borneo. I don’t know nor care if it was true, but it was a great story.
• He always said to write for the “Kansas City milkman”, which meant keep your stories simple and understandable so even the least educated among us could enjoy them. I guess today he might say to write them for people who watch Jersey Shore.
• He pulled me into his office one day and told me that he thought I was the best writer in his class (is this bragging? Probably so), but that I didn’t have any “fire in my belly” and I should forget journalism and go somewhere like Coca-Cola and get a job in the public relations department. I was offended and angered by this and went on to have a lucrative 10-year career in newspapers, which ended when I went to Coca-Cola and got a job in their public relations department.
So even though I didn’t know Professor Fink that well or for that long, he did have an impact on my life, and I did note his death with some sadness.
Then recently, another person from my past died, and this was somebody I didn’t care for too much. He was generally not a nice person, thought most people thought he was. I found him to be dishonest, manipulative and mean-spirited. Maybe, as hard as this is to fathom, he just didn’t like me, so I never got to see whatever good side he might have had.
So while I didn’t pop open a cold bottle of Pink Champale when I learned he had died, I didn’t feel particularly sad, either. And I didn’t feel bad about not feeling sad. Maybe this makes me a bad person. I just don’t know.
The idea of death used to freak me out. I can remember going to funeral homes when some great-aunt or another died, and my mother would go to the casket and proclaim, “Oh, she looks so pretty!” Uh, hello, mom, no she doesn’t. Aunt Jenny is DEAD! She does not look pretty. She looks stuffed.
In The Return of the King, Gandalf tells one of the hobbits, “Death is just another part of the journey.” Of course, that was easy for him to say, since he had already died and been resurrected by that time. Oh, and he was a wizard. But I guess if that’s the case, we should just look at it as a chance to wish people well on the rest of their journey, and if we didn’t like them, hope we don’t run into them again when our time comes.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Paint the town beige
The driveway at my house generally looks like a used-car lot, in part because we haven’t been able to fit a vehicle in our garage since about a week after we moved in. There’s a refrigerator, freezer, dog crate, cedar chest and rusting universal gym in there, but no cars.
So the other day, I took notice of what was parked in front of my house:
- a fairly-new Saturn SUV, driven by my wife;
- a sporty red Ford Mustang with new rims and tires and all sorts of decals that my son added, I assume so he could attract even more police attention;
- a nice Dodge Stratus that is driven by my daughter and is only a few years old and in very good condition, except for the inexplicable make-up smears on the radio dial;
- and an absolute piece-of-crap 2000 beige Chevy Impala, with about 130,000 miles on it and a crack in the windshield that looks like an aerial view of the Snake River. This, of course, is my car.
How did this happen? My son’s car has a sound system that would be the envy of Dr. Dre, and all the Impala has is a radio and a cassette player. They stopped making cassettes about, what, 20 years ago? Do you know how tired I am of listening to sports-talk radio and Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits?
This morning went outside about 6:20 a.m. to discover the Beige Love Machine was covered in permafrost. So I got an empty cassette case, scraped off as much ice as I could, cranked the beast and headed off to work.
I’d gone about 10 miles when it dawned on me that, somehow, the air coming out of the vents was actually colder than the outside temperature. Instead of defrosting my windshield, it was glazing it. Try sticking your head out the window on I-75 so you can see where you’re going on a 30-degree morning. It’s a miracle a truck didn’t swerve into my lane and Ichabod Crane-me. My head was colder than Ted Williams’ when I finally got to work.
Before I got the Impala, I was sporting around town in a 1997 Plymouth mini-van, a chick magnet if there ever was one. But that was like a Lamborghini compared to the AARP-mobile I’m driving around in now.
Why does Dad, the guy who pays for the car insurance and makes sure the oil gets changed and the tires get rotated for everybody, have to drive the worst car? I should be tooling around in style, in some sort of turbo-charged sporty convertible while the rest of them drive Yugos that have to be parked facing downhill in order for them to start. It’s just not fair.
Nobody in the family but me and Lucky will even ride in my car, and even she won’t put her head out the window because she’s embarrassed for other dogs to see her.
Oh, well. Someday, when the house is paid for and I get the kids off the payroll, I’m going to get a nice car for myself, even if I’m too old to drive it. I’ll get something fancy that even has a CD player, and me and Bob Seger will just sit in the driveway and have the times of our lives.
So the other day, I took notice of what was parked in front of my house:
- a fairly-new Saturn SUV, driven by my wife;
- a sporty red Ford Mustang with new rims and tires and all sorts of decals that my son added, I assume so he could attract even more police attention;
- a nice Dodge Stratus that is driven by my daughter and is only a few years old and in very good condition, except for the inexplicable make-up smears on the radio dial;
- and an absolute piece-of-crap 2000 beige Chevy Impala, with about 130,000 miles on it and a crack in the windshield that looks like an aerial view of the Snake River. This, of course, is my car.
How did this happen? My son’s car has a sound system that would be the envy of Dr. Dre, and all the Impala has is a radio and a cassette player. They stopped making cassettes about, what, 20 years ago? Do you know how tired I am of listening to sports-talk radio and Bob Seger’s Greatest Hits?
This morning went outside about 6:20 a.m. to discover the Beige Love Machine was covered in permafrost. So I got an empty cassette case, scraped off as much ice as I could, cranked the beast and headed off to work.
I’d gone about 10 miles when it dawned on me that, somehow, the air coming out of the vents was actually colder than the outside temperature. Instead of defrosting my windshield, it was glazing it. Try sticking your head out the window on I-75 so you can see where you’re going on a 30-degree morning. It’s a miracle a truck didn’t swerve into my lane and Ichabod Crane-me. My head was colder than Ted Williams’ when I finally got to work.
Before I got the Impala, I was sporting around town in a 1997 Plymouth mini-van, a chick magnet if there ever was one. But that was like a Lamborghini compared to the AARP-mobile I’m driving around in now.
Why does Dad, the guy who pays for the car insurance and makes sure the oil gets changed and the tires get rotated for everybody, have to drive the worst car? I should be tooling around in style, in some sort of turbo-charged sporty convertible while the rest of them drive Yugos that have to be parked facing downhill in order for them to start. It’s just not fair.
Nobody in the family but me and Lucky will even ride in my car, and even she won’t put her head out the window because she’s embarrassed for other dogs to see her.
Oh, well. Someday, when the house is paid for and I get the kids off the payroll, I’m going to get a nice car for myself, even if I’m too old to drive it. I’ll get something fancy that even has a CD player, and me and Bob Seger will just sit in the driveway and have the times of our lives.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Phoning it in
There’s an exchange on my answering machine between me and my son that we’ve preserved to listen to whenever we want to laugh, or cry, perhaps.
It was one of those cases where I called the house and he didn’t pick up until after the answering machine had kicked on, so the entire conversation was recorded, and it went something like this:
Him: Hello?
Me: Hey. What’s going on?
Him: (uintelligible)
Me: Is your mom home?
Him: No.
Me: Do you know where she went?
Him: (grunt)
Me: Did she say when she was coming back?
Him: No.
Me: Ok, will you please tell her to call me when she gets in?
Him: (garbled):
Click.
I see these TV commercials where they tell us parents we should talk to our kids, and I’m like, YOU come try and talk to them. And bring a teenager-to-English dictionary to translate.
Of course, people under 20 don’t talk on the phone at all anymore. They send text messages with words like “u” and “r” and “l8r” and “idk” which is just a way to confuse us poor helpless parents and trick us into saying yes when they ask us if they can go to a marijuana-sampling party at a friend’s house.
When I was that age (yes, I use this phrase all the time now), it was quite different. We talked on the phone, which was a big old rotary beast that had to be dialed. We made prank calls, like calling the grocery store and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”, and when they said yes, we said “Well, you’d better let him out before he suffocates!” Funny, funny stuff.
I remember my first-ever prank call. I was a little boy, less than 10, and I wanted to call somebody, but I didn’t know anybody’s number. So I just dialed 0, and when the operator picked up, I said, “Go to hell,” then hung up the phone and wondered which one of my friends I would tell first, to impress.
About 5 seconds after I hung up, the phone rang, and a stab of fear went through my body like an errant javelin. I let it ring 4 times, then picked up to hear a woman say, “”Are you the little boy who was playing on the phone?”
“Yes, m’am,” I said in a trembling voice.
“Well, I’m going to call your mother and tell her when she gets home.”
That evil crone at the phone company scared me to death. That night, the next day, and for weeks and months and years after that, I waited for the day when that fateful phone call would be made, and my mother would look at me and say, “Go get me a switch.” But the call never came, which was the genius part of the operator’s diabolical plan. She made sure I lived in fear for my transgression. To this day, I still jump when the phone rings unexpectedly. I really don’t think the punishment fit the crime here.
When I was about 15, my parents moved to a neighboring county. As hard as this may be to believe now, in those days, calls to the next county were long distance, and thus cost more. This was important to me because all of the girls I wanted to woo were in the county I moved from, not the new one. And writing a letter is not a great way to ask a girl out, unless she lives in Russia and you’re planning to buy her.
My parents, after moving me to the wasteland of Lamar County, also informed me that I would have to pay for any long distance calls that I made. This was difficult, as I had no money, and even when I got a job at the age of 16, the little bit of money I had was ticketed for the expenses I would incur if/when I ever persuaded one of these girls to go on a date.
So I had to put some change in my pocket, get into my car and drive across the county line to a quaint little town/convenience store called Orchard Hill, where there was a pay phone. This method of calling girls – which, really, is the only reason a boy, or man for that matter, ever needs to use a telephone – was fraught with pitfalls.
For one, there was no guarantee the pay phone would be available. You couldn’t reserve it, or kick somebody off it. So I was taking a leap of faith just by driving up there.
Then, you could not be assured that the girl you were calling would be home. Most people didn’t have answering machines then, so you couldn’t leave a message. I would just stand there forlornly and listen to the ring, ring, ring, hoping maybe she was just in the shower or outside and would soon hear the phone ringing and rush in and pick it up breathlessly and – but that never happened. Instead, I’d just hang up and decide whether to try again.
Then there was the dreaded busy signal. This was worse than no answer, because now you knew she was probably at home, and talking to some skunk who you thought was your best friend, but who had been lucky enough to call her before you did, and was monopolizing the durn phone, and probably asking her out! (Do I still seem angry?) In truth, it was generally just her mom on the phone, or her sister, and I would get angry and have fantasies about purchasing a handgun and shooting my former best friend for nothing.
Of course, there was no call waiting or caller ID then, so if you got a busy signal, you got a busy signal. You could, in case of emergencies, have the operator break into a call, but that seemed a bit extreme for a 16-year-old boy trying to get a date. Then again, when you think about the raging hormones at that age, maybe it did qualify as an emergency.
My pay phone of choice was unfortunately located next to a train track. A roaring locomotive 10 feet away puts quite a damper on a conversation. I’d hear that train a’comin’, and I’d either hurry up and say what I was going to say - “HeywillyougooutwithmeSaturdaynight?” – or I’d ask her to hang on and wait for the train to pass. Inevitably, she’d have hung up by the time it got quiet again, having decided she didn’t want to go on a date with a loser who asked her out from a pay phone.
I guess it is easier to ask girls out these days, but then it’s probably easier for them so say no, too. So maybe the good old days had their selling points, after all.
It was one of those cases where I called the house and he didn’t pick up until after the answering machine had kicked on, so the entire conversation was recorded, and it went something like this:
Him: Hello?
Me: Hey. What’s going on?
Him: (uintelligible)
Me: Is your mom home?
Him: No.
Me: Do you know where she went?
Him: (grunt)
Me: Did she say when she was coming back?
Him: No.
Me: Ok, will you please tell her to call me when she gets in?
Him: (garbled):
Click.
I see these TV commercials where they tell us parents we should talk to our kids, and I’m like, YOU come try and talk to them. And bring a teenager-to-English dictionary to translate.
Of course, people under 20 don’t talk on the phone at all anymore. They send text messages with words like “u” and “r” and “l8r” and “idk” which is just a way to confuse us poor helpless parents and trick us into saying yes when they ask us if they can go to a marijuana-sampling party at a friend’s house.
When I was that age (yes, I use this phrase all the time now), it was quite different. We talked on the phone, which was a big old rotary beast that had to be dialed. We made prank calls, like calling the grocery store and asking, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”, and when they said yes, we said “Well, you’d better let him out before he suffocates!” Funny, funny stuff.
I remember my first-ever prank call. I was a little boy, less than 10, and I wanted to call somebody, but I didn’t know anybody’s number. So I just dialed 0, and when the operator picked up, I said, “Go to hell,” then hung up the phone and wondered which one of my friends I would tell first, to impress.
About 5 seconds after I hung up, the phone rang, and a stab of fear went through my body like an errant javelin. I let it ring 4 times, then picked up to hear a woman say, “”Are you the little boy who was playing on the phone?”
“Yes, m’am,” I said in a trembling voice.
“Well, I’m going to call your mother and tell her when she gets home.”
That evil crone at the phone company scared me to death. That night, the next day, and for weeks and months and years after that, I waited for the day when that fateful phone call would be made, and my mother would look at me and say, “Go get me a switch.” But the call never came, which was the genius part of the operator’s diabolical plan. She made sure I lived in fear for my transgression. To this day, I still jump when the phone rings unexpectedly. I really don’t think the punishment fit the crime here.
When I was about 15, my parents moved to a neighboring county. As hard as this may be to believe now, in those days, calls to the next county were long distance, and thus cost more. This was important to me because all of the girls I wanted to woo were in the county I moved from, not the new one. And writing a letter is not a great way to ask a girl out, unless she lives in Russia and you’re planning to buy her.
My parents, after moving me to the wasteland of Lamar County, also informed me that I would have to pay for any long distance calls that I made. This was difficult, as I had no money, and even when I got a job at the age of 16, the little bit of money I had was ticketed for the expenses I would incur if/when I ever persuaded one of these girls to go on a date.
So I had to put some change in my pocket, get into my car and drive across the county line to a quaint little town/convenience store called Orchard Hill, where there was a pay phone. This method of calling girls – which, really, is the only reason a boy, or man for that matter, ever needs to use a telephone – was fraught with pitfalls.
For one, there was no guarantee the pay phone would be available. You couldn’t reserve it, or kick somebody off it. So I was taking a leap of faith just by driving up there.
Then, you could not be assured that the girl you were calling would be home. Most people didn’t have answering machines then, so you couldn’t leave a message. I would just stand there forlornly and listen to the ring, ring, ring, hoping maybe she was just in the shower or outside and would soon hear the phone ringing and rush in and pick it up breathlessly and – but that never happened. Instead, I’d just hang up and decide whether to try again.
Then there was the dreaded busy signal. This was worse than no answer, because now you knew she was probably at home, and talking to some skunk who you thought was your best friend, but who had been lucky enough to call her before you did, and was monopolizing the durn phone, and probably asking her out! (Do I still seem angry?) In truth, it was generally just her mom on the phone, or her sister, and I would get angry and have fantasies about purchasing a handgun and shooting my former best friend for nothing.
Of course, there was no call waiting or caller ID then, so if you got a busy signal, you got a busy signal. You could, in case of emergencies, have the operator break into a call, but that seemed a bit extreme for a 16-year-old boy trying to get a date. Then again, when you think about the raging hormones at that age, maybe it did qualify as an emergency.
My pay phone of choice was unfortunately located next to a train track. A roaring locomotive 10 feet away puts quite a damper on a conversation. I’d hear that train a’comin’, and I’d either hurry up and say what I was going to say - “HeywillyougooutwithmeSaturdaynight?” – or I’d ask her to hang on and wait for the train to pass. Inevitably, she’d have hung up by the time it got quiet again, having decided she didn’t want to go on a date with a loser who asked her out from a pay phone.
I guess it is easier to ask girls out these days, but then it’s probably easier for them so say no, too. So maybe the good old days had their selling points, after all.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The heat is on
A terrible calamity struck my house this week – the air conditioning went on the fritz.
Since my house was apparently built by the first little pig, I’ve gotten used to having an annual major repair. Toilets, floors, walls, appliances, siding – I need an Obama stimulus package to take care of everything that needs attention around there.
But some repairs can’t wait, and a non-performing AC unit is at the top of that list. It’s not the first problem we’ve had with it, and my daughter asked me the other day why it always seems to quit working when it’s hot.
“Because, dear,” I said, remembering that I’m paying for her to go to college, “that’s when we use it. When it’s hot.”
My wife informed me that not having a working AC unit is a hardship on her, because it makes her hair frizz. My son hasn’t really complained, because he’s 17 years old and doesn’t talk to us except in case of emergency. The dog has said nothing, but she lives outside and isn’t really affected.
Anyway, I called a repairman, and for the price of a small Volkswagen, it is going to be repaired, and peace will again descend upon my household. The whole episode has served to remind me how spoiled we’ve all become.
Of course, when I was a boy, we didn’t live in 72-degree comfort from June through September. We didn’t have central air conditioning in our ranch-style house, just a couple of window units that rattled like a 747 on takeoff, and made about as much noise. These only ran at certain times - for example, when my father was at home.
Rooms that were deemed unnecessary to cool – i.e., my bedroom – were cut off from the cool air via a closed door. When I’d step from my bedroom into the hall, it was about a 20-degree temperature drop. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of pneumonia at the age of 10.
At night, the air conditioning was turned off completely, so I slept with the windows open on summer evenings. I could hear the chirp of crickets, the croak of bullfrogs, the far-off whistle of the train, and occasional arguments from the next-door neighbors. I learned some new curse words through that open window.
When I was about 15, we moved to a house that had central air conditioning, which would have been great had we ever used it. Instead, my dad installed a ceiling fan, which circulated air throughout the house. That sounds good in theory, but 85-degree air wafting over you at night is not terribly comfortable.
No, if you wanted to get cool in that house, you just had to wait for the winter. The house also had central heat, but he preferred to use a wood-burning stove. That thing required wood, which had to be chopped into smaller pieces, then stacked, then brought into the house. Who is going to do that, I asked my dad, and he responded by smiling and handing me an axe.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “What am I, Davy Crockett?”
OK, I didn’t really say that, I just thought it to myself. I learned how to chop, stack and carry wood, all while repeating the curse words I’d learned through the open window at my old house.
The wood-burning stove was something. If you were within, say, 10 feet of it, it was as warm as Lucifer’s kitchen. Again, my dad would close off the bedrooms, so none of that warmth reached me at night. Walking through that house in the winter was like going to visit the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser every day (that joke was for fans of The Year Without a Santa Claus).
After I moved out on my own, I couldn't help but notice when I came back to visit that my dad had at last embraced the notions of central heating and air, and the house was always at a nice, comfortable temperature. I guess he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t spoiled.
Since my house was apparently built by the first little pig, I’ve gotten used to having an annual major repair. Toilets, floors, walls, appliances, siding – I need an Obama stimulus package to take care of everything that needs attention around there.
But some repairs can’t wait, and a non-performing AC unit is at the top of that list. It’s not the first problem we’ve had with it, and my daughter asked me the other day why it always seems to quit working when it’s hot.
“Because, dear,” I said, remembering that I’m paying for her to go to college, “that’s when we use it. When it’s hot.”
My wife informed me that not having a working AC unit is a hardship on her, because it makes her hair frizz. My son hasn’t really complained, because he’s 17 years old and doesn’t talk to us except in case of emergency. The dog has said nothing, but she lives outside and isn’t really affected.
Anyway, I called a repairman, and for the price of a small Volkswagen, it is going to be repaired, and peace will again descend upon my household. The whole episode has served to remind me how spoiled we’ve all become.
Of course, when I was a boy, we didn’t live in 72-degree comfort from June through September. We didn’t have central air conditioning in our ranch-style house, just a couple of window units that rattled like a 747 on takeoff, and made about as much noise. These only ran at certain times - for example, when my father was at home.
Rooms that were deemed unnecessary to cool – i.e., my bedroom – were cut off from the cool air via a closed door. When I’d step from my bedroom into the hall, it was about a 20-degree temperature drop. It’s a wonder I didn’t die of pneumonia at the age of 10.
At night, the air conditioning was turned off completely, so I slept with the windows open on summer evenings. I could hear the chirp of crickets, the croak of bullfrogs, the far-off whistle of the train, and occasional arguments from the next-door neighbors. I learned some new curse words through that open window.
When I was about 15, we moved to a house that had central air conditioning, which would have been great had we ever used it. Instead, my dad installed a ceiling fan, which circulated air throughout the house. That sounds good in theory, but 85-degree air wafting over you at night is not terribly comfortable.
No, if you wanted to get cool in that house, you just had to wait for the winter. The house also had central heat, but he preferred to use a wood-burning stove. That thing required wood, which had to be chopped into smaller pieces, then stacked, then brought into the house. Who is going to do that, I asked my dad, and he responded by smiling and handing me an axe.
“Are you crazy?” I said. “What am I, Davy Crockett?”
OK, I didn’t really say that, I just thought it to myself. I learned how to chop, stack and carry wood, all while repeating the curse words I’d learned through the open window at my old house.
The wood-burning stove was something. If you were within, say, 10 feet of it, it was as warm as Lucifer’s kitchen. Again, my dad would close off the bedrooms, so none of that warmth reached me at night. Walking through that house in the winter was like going to visit the Heat Miser and the Snow Miser every day (that joke was for fans of The Year Without a Santa Claus).
After I moved out on my own, I couldn't help but notice when I came back to visit that my dad had at last embraced the notions of central heating and air, and the house was always at a nice, comfortable temperature. I guess he was just trying to make sure I wasn’t spoiled.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Kind of Blue
I have been accused in my day of not really noticing or appreciating things my wife Susan does to decorate our house.
I have to say, guilty as charged. About the only things I pay much attention to inside the house are the TV, my recliner and the contents of the refrigerator. As far as the rest of it goes, I may as well live in an Army barracks.
I tried to correct that once years ago, when she was a little frustrated after she had done some decorating and rearranging and I hadn’t noticed it. So one night I was sitting there on the couch, and I said, “You know, I like this lamp.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, I think it looks nice in here. I’m glad you got it. When did you get it?”
“About five years ago,” she said.
Oh, well. I tried.
One problem is, women love to watch all of those crazy home decorating and renovation shows that come on TV. They watch these shows and then they get the urge to go do some of that stuff themselves. I tried suggesting she watch a cooking show instead, but all I got was a dirty look.
The other day, riding in the car, she informed me that she had decided she wanted to paint the kitchen. I didn’t understand why. Didn’t we just paint it? I asked her.
“We painted it 10 years ago,” she said.
“Exactly!” I said. “It seems like just yesterday. Plus, I like it the color that it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “What color is it?”
I wasn’t sure, so I muttered something under my breath, turned up and radio loud and swerved the car violently, pretending a squirrel had run out in front of me, all in an effort to change the subject. Of course, she didn’t buy that, because she knows I hate squirrels, and am more likely to drive on up the sidewalk to run one over than I am to swerve to miss one.
Fine. So I didn’t know, from memory, the color of the kitchen. Knowing when I’m beaten, I gave in and said, sure, I think it would be a great idea for you to paint the kitchen, with an emphasis on the word “you”, cause I ain’t painting nothing!
This set off about a two-week quest to find the right color. She was going with blue, but apparently, there are about 967 different variations of blue paint available at Home Depot. She began to buy samples of the various blues, then would paint a small section of the wall to see if she liked it. Invariably, her initial reaction was to hate it; then, after a few hours, she’d decide she liked it; then she’d come around to hating it again. After a few days, there were so many different colors on our kitchen wall, it looked like the Partridge Family bus.
On about the 20th try, she called me in the kitchen, pointed out a new swath of color and said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think you need to be on Prozac. Just pick a color!”
One angry look later, she had decided on a color. It was blue. I thought it looked great. She hired some guy named Luis to come over and paint my kitchen. He had a puzzled look on his face when he walked in and saw the kaleidoscope of colors on the wall, but I just said to him, “Don’t ask, por favor.” He nodded and went to work.
Now, here’s a trick that women used that I’ve learned about. Basically, I look at home renovations in one way – how much is it going to cost? The price of painting the kitchen, and also the downstairs bathroom, seemed pretty reasonable to me, so I didn’t’ squawk much. But then, she hits you with the sucker punch – now that the room has changed color, everything else in there has to be replaced!
“I need some curtains for the kitchen,” she told me before the paint even dried. Why, I said. “Because, obviously, dummy, the green ones we have don’t match the blue walls now.” And she’s also commenced to buying new accessories for the bathroom, since it changed from whatever color it was before to blue, as well. I’ve hardly seen a woman as excited as she was the other day when she found a blue soap dispenser in Big Lots.
Hopefully, we’re through with the redecorating process for at least a few weeks. Now I can concentrate on the important stuff in the kitchen and bathroom, like leftovers and cold beverages and a stack of National Geographic magazines. I’ll let you figure out what belongs in which room.
I have to say, guilty as charged. About the only things I pay much attention to inside the house are the TV, my recliner and the contents of the refrigerator. As far as the rest of it goes, I may as well live in an Army barracks.
I tried to correct that once years ago, when she was a little frustrated after she had done some decorating and rearranging and I hadn’t noticed it. So one night I was sitting there on the couch, and I said, “You know, I like this lamp.”
“Really?” she said.
“Yes, I think it looks nice in here. I’m glad you got it. When did you get it?”
“About five years ago,” she said.
Oh, well. I tried.
One problem is, women love to watch all of those crazy home decorating and renovation shows that come on TV. They watch these shows and then they get the urge to go do some of that stuff themselves. I tried suggesting she watch a cooking show instead, but all I got was a dirty look.
The other day, riding in the car, she informed me that she had decided she wanted to paint the kitchen. I didn’t understand why. Didn’t we just paint it? I asked her.
“We painted it 10 years ago,” she said.
“Exactly!” I said. “It seems like just yesterday. Plus, I like it the color that it is.”
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “What color is it?”
I wasn’t sure, so I muttered something under my breath, turned up and radio loud and swerved the car violently, pretending a squirrel had run out in front of me, all in an effort to change the subject. Of course, she didn’t buy that, because she knows I hate squirrels, and am more likely to drive on up the sidewalk to run one over than I am to swerve to miss one.
Fine. So I didn’t know, from memory, the color of the kitchen. Knowing when I’m beaten, I gave in and said, sure, I think it would be a great idea for you to paint the kitchen, with an emphasis on the word “you”, cause I ain’t painting nothing!
This set off about a two-week quest to find the right color. She was going with blue, but apparently, there are about 967 different variations of blue paint available at Home Depot. She began to buy samples of the various blues, then would paint a small section of the wall to see if she liked it. Invariably, her initial reaction was to hate it; then, after a few hours, she’d decide she liked it; then she’d come around to hating it again. After a few days, there were so many different colors on our kitchen wall, it looked like the Partridge Family bus.
On about the 20th try, she called me in the kitchen, pointed out a new swath of color and said, “What do you think?” I said, “I think you need to be on Prozac. Just pick a color!”
One angry look later, she had decided on a color. It was blue. I thought it looked great. She hired some guy named Luis to come over and paint my kitchen. He had a puzzled look on his face when he walked in and saw the kaleidoscope of colors on the wall, but I just said to him, “Don’t ask, por favor.” He nodded and went to work.
Now, here’s a trick that women used that I’ve learned about. Basically, I look at home renovations in one way – how much is it going to cost? The price of painting the kitchen, and also the downstairs bathroom, seemed pretty reasonable to me, so I didn’t’ squawk much. But then, she hits you with the sucker punch – now that the room has changed color, everything else in there has to be replaced!
“I need some curtains for the kitchen,” she told me before the paint even dried. Why, I said. “Because, obviously, dummy, the green ones we have don’t match the blue walls now.” And she’s also commenced to buying new accessories for the bathroom, since it changed from whatever color it was before to blue, as well. I’ve hardly seen a woman as excited as she was the other day when she found a blue soap dispenser in Big Lots.
Hopefully, we’re through with the redecorating process for at least a few weeks. Now I can concentrate on the important stuff in the kitchen and bathroom, like leftovers and cold beverages and a stack of National Geographic magazines. I’ll let you figure out what belongs in which room.
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