MEMORIES? WHERE DO THEY GO TO HIDE? Why do they pop back into your conscious mind after a lifetime stored in the folds and wrinkles of your brain?
I had such a memory bob back to the surface the other day and, when it did, all of the details were as fresh as if it had just happened yesterday.
TO QUOTE THE FOUNDER OF THAT GREAT INSTITUTION OF HIGHER LEARNING – FABER COLLEGE, “KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD.”
Knowledge is that which is universally agreed upon to be really good “Stuff”. And it is better to go through life with good “Stuff”.
MONDAY MORNINGS JUST AREN’T THE SAME AS THEY USED TO BE. When I was a kid Monday morning used to start on Sunday when there was a scramble to make sure that all my homework was finished. I’d had all weekend to do it, but it would be Sunday evening before I’d even look at it.
When I finished my education and got into the real world where people actually paid you to be somewhere on Monday morning things got rougher. How rough depended on how stupid I was over the weekend.
JOBS. WE’VE ALL HAD THEM OR WILL IN THE FUTURE. Some jobs lead to careers while others serve only to put food on the table and keep the wolf away from the door.
There are full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs that are one-time things – like bank jobs. Not jobs for a bank, but in a bank – with a note, concealed weapon, and a getaway car.
Some jobs are better than others. That’s true whether you are just starting out or nearing retirement.
IF I SAY THE WORD “FLARP” TO YOU WHAT COMES TO MIND? If you are over the age of 12 probably nothing – I hope. Unfortunately, it does carry a very specific meaning to me and I can blame several children and one adult for that.
“Flarp” is a product that is gloriously described as “Noise Putty.”
Indeed.
Throwback Thursday from January 2015
I LIKE SNOW LESS than I like going up and down flights of stairs. I like snow less than I like going up and down flights of stairs that don’t have handrails on both sides.
I like snow less than I like Jeff Bridges movies – and that is saying something.
But why do I feel this way? Is there some deep, dark, pseudo-psychological, brain cell tweak memory that has made me feel this way? Could be.
Reaching back into the musty attic of my memory I am sure that, up until the age of ten or so, I was really into winter and snow. There were snowball fights defending the snow-fort we constructed in the back yard. And there was sledding down the sloping streets in the neighborhood. We did that, ignoring the fact that we lived two blocks from a steel mill, which had heavy duty semis going up and down the streets twenty-four hours a day. We rode our sleds down hills where the streets were under construction from dirt to pavement. I think that that might be the when and where that my feelings toward snow may have changed.
I was about nine or ten years old and just one block away from our house was a street that went downhill for three whole blocks until it hit the railroad tracks. There was a lot of work going on along the way downhill. Huge storm drain pipes were being installed and they sat along the side of the street waiting to be buried come spring.
To get a really good rate of speed downhill you would get a running start, then throw yourself down onto the sled and hold on. Steering was accomplished mostly by dragging one foot or the other into the ice. On the day in question, when my love for snow disappeared, I was just flying down that hill!
From what I was told by the other kids, I have no direct personal memory, I was going downhill at a good clip when another kid lost control and swerved right into my path. By reflex I dropped my left foot into the ice and made a sharp right turn right into a huge section of the storm drain pipe by the side of the street.
The next thing I actually recall is being carried by several kids back to our house and my mother screaming. It seems that my face was covered in blood and already swelling up to resemble an overripe cantaloupe.
After a quick preliminary inspection somebody drove us to the hospital emergency room. This was in an era before Paramedics came to you.
The immediate end result was three stitches under my left eye, a face so bloated that I ate soup through a straw for a week, and parental confiscation of my sled. They failed to appreciate my quick reaction time, avoiding a potential collision with another kid, and only saw my failure to choose the lesser of the two collision targets. There were few soups available that could be navigated successfully through a soda straw.
Yup. I think it was then that my love affair with winter and snow ended in an image seared into my brain of scar tissue and sucking up broth through a paper straw.
So, don’t blame me if I grumble and moan about winter. Blame that other kid who couldn’t keep his own sled under control.
ONE OF THE MORE INTERESTING PARTS OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON – maybe the most interesting part – is taking time to observe the children. Take a moment to watch a three year old when they first see all of the colorful and glittering lights.
I never knew eyes could be that big.
The look on the face of a Little One must be similar to when the first self-aware humans looked up at the night sky.
Fiction Saturday – Continued
Chapter Twenty
“Happy Communion to you. Happy Communion, Dear Beverly. Happy Communion to you.”
She had loved the party celebrating her First Holy Communion. She loved the white dress that looked so much like a small wedding dress as she walked down the aisle at St. Rocco’s Church. She felt like she was getting married to Jesus. It was a little Catholic girl’s dream. It was a holy day for the family.
In the family room, the kids gathered about the table that was piled high with gifts. Wrapping paper with pictures of horses and bright ribbon were everywhere. Twelve little girls and boys were dressed in their best. The boys wore suits and several of the other girls wore their First Communion dresses. The mothers in the room were beaming.
Twelve boys and girls, all of whom were the children of her father’s friends. Family was Family. Outsiders were never allowed inside, even if that outsider was a seven-year-old classmate and lived across the street.
On a side table sat a twelve-hundred dollar crystal punch bowl filled with a bright red lake of Hawaiian Punch.
IS LIFE A SERIES OF EVERCHANGING ILLUSIONS? Can we ever be certain that things are as we perceive them to be? I’m not all that sure, Buckaroos.
When I was a kid, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, Time seemed to move much slower than it does now. Back then the span of time from Monday until Friday seemed to take forever. Each school day stretched out endlessly.
WHAT MUST IT BE LIKE TO BE SOMEONE ELSE – ANYONE ELSE? All of my life I have only been me. You have been you and, Thank God, They have always been them.
Despite the daily trials, tribulations, and just plain old pains in the tuchus, I would not want to be anyone else. Oh, sure, there have been those moments when becoming someone else seemed like an attractive option – like when you see flashing lights approaching in your rear view mirror.
The 7 year old me wanted to be Buck Rogers and the 10 year old me wanted to be Mickey Mantle. At 17 becoming Paul McCartney looked really cool – and it had nothing to do with music.
From September 2015
WE STAYED UP MUCH TOO LATE LAST NIGHT. When the SF Giants are playing on the west coast the games don’t even begin until 10:15.
Do the math. I can’t.
I didn’t crawl under the comforter until close to 2 AM and my eyes popped open just before 7 AM. I got up – stumbled to the bathroom – relied on a lifetime of aiming in the dark, and stumbled back to bed.
I DON’T CARE WHAT THE CALENDAR SAYS – Today is the last day of Summer. Astronomically, or maybe it’s Cosmologically, or it might even have to do with the window displays at the Hallmark Store, but Summer ends today.
FIRST IT WAS MOUNTAIN LIONS, then it was Black Bears – and now it’s Bats. So far there are no Tigers involved.
I swear, this town is beginning to look like the Waiting Room for Noah’s Ark.
SOMETIMES STAYING CLOSE TO HOME can be a lot like traveling to places far away. My wife, the lovely and increasingly once more left-handed, Dawn, and I had such an experience just the other day.
There we were in beautiful Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Look, a parking space.”) and we decided to pop into the local Staples store to pick up a few things – we tend to burn through office supplies.
WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN we all had fantasies about what we wanted to be when we “grew up.” I wanted to be a cowboy. Dawn wanted to be a Playwright – a rather precocious child. My brother wanted to be a baseball player. In one of my father’s high school yearbooks he listed that his career ambition was to become a “Traveling Silk Stocking Salesman.” I’m sure his mother was thrilled when she saw that. He ended up as a Roofer.
I’M GOOD AT GROCERY SHOPPING. I’M NOT GOOD AT DANCING.
Everybody has those little slices of life where they excel and others where they stink like the next morning in a fraternity house. No matter how hard we try to master a certain skill it evades us.
For example:
I WAS WATCHING TV THE OTHER DAY when I actually saw something new. It was an ad from the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company. They were singing the praises of a brand new product: Anti-Bacterial Paint.
The commercial showed this stereotypical suburban mommy gleefully painting away. She was certainly better dressed for painting than I had ever seen before. There was no drop cloth either, so I must assume that this new paint was also Anti-Gravity and never dripped.
YESTERDAY WAS FATHER’S DAY ACCORDING TO MY CALENDAR – another one of those days heavily supported by the greeting card industry and the world’s manufacturers of neckties.
I suppose if you are going to have a Mother’s Day you are somewhat obligated to have a Father’s Day. If you didn’t there would be a hue and cry about it. Therefore, we have a Father’s Day.
A few weeks ago my wife, the lovely and holiday conscious, Dawn, asked me what I would like for Father’s Day. Apparently she did not find my reply of, “The Monday morning after Father’s Day,” to be appropriate or all that helpful.
RONNIE WOOD OF THE ROLLING STONES IS EXPECTING A BABY? No. He and his wife are expecting twins. Ronnie is 68.
The other day I was having a conversation down at St. Arbucks with one of the Usual Suspects about Ronnie Wood – daddy to be.
My guess is that Ronnie has been itching to top Mick Jagger at something for a long time. Ronnie fathers a child at 68 while Mick’s youngest joined the world when Mick was 56.
Sorry, Ronnie, but Mick, born in 1943, is a great-grandfather. Mick wins.
Boy, there is a real hoo-haw going on about whether or not kids should be immunized against a number of diseases.
Down the Hall on Your Left 