Who's A Good Girl?

Yes, I’m crazy about my wife and think my kids walk on water. Most of my friends excite and challenge me, and generally accept me for who I am, warts and all. But no one, ever, is as hopelessly devoted, or as ecstatically in love with me, or outright thrilled, to do whatever I want, together, anywhere, anytime, as this little mutt.

You may well have one of your own like this.

Chica studies me, stares at my face for clues. She alerts if I raise an eyebrow, and knows the sound of the lower right vegetable drawer in the fridge. That’s where I keep the cheap hot dogs. Dog treats. She usually begins staring at the outside door, ten minutes before Carla gets home from work, and hears me putting on jeans to go outside from two rooms away.

Let’s go somewhere fun! Everywhere is fun. Want to go for a ride, maybe take a hike down the trail at Moses Creek Preserve? Want to just kick back, have a lazy day and watch a show or play with your iPhone? I’ll lie on top of your chest and make sure your heart is beating properly. I like your breath. Want me to go to the grocery store with you? I’ll keep your seat warm. Do you want to march into a live volcano, a den of snakes, or even certain death? OK, great, I’m your girl! And at night, when you slip off and softly walk into the bedroom and slide under the sheets, I’ll hear the comforter move and I’ll be there for you, with you.

That’s our routine. Chica mysteriously hears me slip almost silently into bed and comes running, even out of her own deep dreams in the other room. She jumps up and tries to get close to my face to kiss me. I say: “No girl. Go down there” as I lift the comforter for her to crawl down under it and sleep at the foot of the bed. If I get up in the night, she happily shakes the covers off and runs into the bathroom with me, just to make sure I’m alright. In the morning, we get up together and share light conversation while I make coffee. She doesn’t care what the subject is as long as I’m happy with it. That’s the important thing.

Everything, 100%, all the time, 24-7. This dog is next to me, on me, or staring at me. If I look at the TV, she’s got her back to it, looking at me, always reading my body language like a skilled behaviorist. She often knows what I’m going to do before I know myself.

So bright, so alert and perceptive. Yet she doesn’t recognize her own reflection in a mirror or have any concept of the fact that someone built the chair we’re sitting in. No real concept of time, other than this time right now.

How can this odd, adoring little animal be so smart and so oblivious to many things that I think matter? Maybe I’m the one with stinkin thinkin. They don’t burden themselves with a lot of worries about stuff that never happens anyway, they just enjoy the moment. Idiot savants perhaps. I don’t know, but I’m jealous.

And actually, humans are the dumb ones anyway. We think we’re superior to all other life forms on this blue marble, but maybe we should take a look around at what a mess we make of it all, including our own environment. Even dogs don’t like to shit in their own yard. Humans act so smug and superior, like we’re the be all and end all. Years ago, we were amazed to find that animals are able to use tools. That was a major discovery back in the day, a big deal, but we now know that lots of them do. It’s like the standardized testing in schools. We only measure a very limited spectrum. But even at that, crows can unlock ten different puzzles they’ve never seen before to get a treat. They’re smarter than half of my Facebook friends, and I’m firmly in the wrong half of that crowd. We think it’s so cute and charming that a dog can do tricks. Roll over, stay, play dead, but they can do one hell of a lot more than that, know more than we do, and will probably survive the holocaust long after humans, the smart mammals, have wiped ourselves off the face of the Earth. We’ll be the ones playing dead, permanently.

Dogs will survive, evolve, and probably wind up making their own damn hot dog treats. Maybe a crow or two will help get the factory started. They’re good at figuring out stuff like that.

The Price of Gas...

My Mother-In-Law was a wonderful lady, a perfect Grandma for our two daughters; we lived 5 houses down when they were little. But for some reason, she was obsessed with the price of gas, even though she didn’t drive. It aggravated her tremendously that I had no idea what the gas prices were at any of the stations nearby. I just filled-up when necessary, at the closest station. I don’t really understand people's concern with gas prices, are you really going to drive across town to save 20 cents a gallon? What is your own time worth? And when the prices go high, what can you do about it?

Groceries are another one of those things. I shop at the Publix close to me. They’re friendly and familiar. No, I don’t remember what the groceries cost last time. My eyes glaze over when the cashier tells me. It’s not that we’re rich, but I know that I have enough in the bank to buy gas and groceries. So I don't worry about it.

No coupons for me either, but I always tell the checker that if my wife asks, I used tons of coupons and saved a bundle. Is that just a gender thing? Women use coupons and men don’t?

My point is that I think it is an unhealthy waste of time to worry about the cost of necessities, unless, of course, you don’t have enough money to cover them. But if you are an average American, the cost of water, propane, electricity, phone, cable, flea meds for the dogs or vacuum cleaner bags…are what they are and I would rather talk about something else. Food, music, art, a book or movie, our children, animals, other people, the meaning of life…isn’t all that stuff a lot more interesting?

90% of the things most people worry about never happen. Are gas prices going up? Electric? Water? Yes, all of them are going up. Other than electronics, what prices go down? Is it worth worrying about? What are important priorities in our daily lives anyway?

I believe the Beatles were right about love. That matters. On my deathbed I suspect I’ll cling to art and love the most.

But if there is a huge sale on Royal Red Shrimp going on out of that Ford F150 the guy parks in the Walmart parking lot every Saturday afternoon, I’m going. Not for the savings so much, as for the shrimp. Even if I have to totally rearrange my schedule to get there, I'll do it, because that is an example of a high priority worth thinking about...and I don't care how much gas it takes to get there either!

Royal for a Reason...

Not your average shrimp, Royal Reds never see the light of day, preferring to run with their peeps in the cold black deep. Like rock stars, they live out at the edge. That’s where the gently sloping bottom of the Gulf drops abruptly off the continental shelf. Depths from 1,200 ft. to over a half mile down are the home to this sweetest of all shrimp, ranging from the Desoto Canyon off of Pensacola all the way along the shelf's edge to the Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys.

Royal Reds are bigger, cleaner, and considerably easier to peel and devein than regular shrimp. Hands down though, is their winning taste and texture that elevates them to the status of seafood divinity. Like a cross between shrimp and lobster but a lot more tender than both. Given their delicate texture, their cook time is half that of ordinary shrimp. They aren’t called Royal for no reason.

Carla isn’t nearly as fixated with the joy of special ingredients or recipes as I am, but I obnoxiously dog her: “If you had to pick, would you rather have a cup of fresh lump crab meat, lobster, snow crab, crawfish tails, or Royal Reds?” She loves all of that too. Ultimate culinary treats. No frills. All bathed in melted butter with a dusting of Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Seafood Magic. When your ingredients are this special, they are like the best aged whisky, you don’t want to mix them with a lot of other ingredients. Sometimes she won’t join my fantasy though and says” “I’m just going to have some of the Ziti you made.”

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s great Ziti, ridiculously cheesy and covered with an extra ladle of my vegetarian spaghetti sauce, but that’s not the point. I want to talk seafood.

So right now it’s 3:04AM. I’m up cooking with Etta James. She’s singing tunes from her Chess Box Sessions. The dogs both have one of the bones I roast for them, so they are happy and preoccupied. Carla is at the hospital dealing with people oozing death. Good for her, I couldn’t handle any of that and would probably call just Orkin and have the whole wing tented. Good thing I don’t work in health care.

But I want to give her a memorable breakfast when she gets home. Actually, that’s my goal every morning before I go to work myself. 

So this morning I’ll serve up Royal Red Shrimp Scampi over a blend of Texamti white, brown, wild and red rice. That and a cup of my organic chicken/vegetable soup and some fresh squeezed orange juice from our Blood Orange tree in the backyard.

I ask her: “Does Donald Trump eat any better than this? Does he love his life any more than we do? Does he enjoy a breeze off the marsh or the stinging sun that cuts through the cool air like a knife through Pound cake, like we have right here?”

She agrees that life is good, breakfast is wonderful and then she brings me back to reality with a quick appeal: “Will you please put on the episode of Sister Wives we didn’t finish?”

She is always good about pulling me back in, away from the edge.

Dad? Is That You in My Mirror?

“In 69 I was twenty-one and I called the road my own

I don’t know when that road turned onto the road I’m on”

Jackson Browne, “Running on Empty”

As is true with most young men, when testosterone levels take mastery over common sense, I was sure that my path would be totally different than that of my father. He was the establishment; I was a rebel. We were miles apart. But even as I told myself that, much as I fancied the image, I knew the hardest person to convince, was myself.

There would be no suit and tie for me, no office filled with artificial light and small talk. I harbored undisguised distain for the confining uniforms of the white-collar world, and expected to live a life free of such structured standardization. But in college, I shuffled along to classes, exchanging small talk with my peers, all of us “tangled up in blue”, bell bottom jeans dirty and frayed at the bottom, adorned with Zig Zag patches and bright green ganja leaves. They performed much the same decorative function as the multicolored ties that distinguished one suit from another in my father’s world.  Navy Pea coats from the Goodwill store were our jackets. Uniforms worn daily to classes, where we sat, bathed in artificial light.

Over the years, I’ve seen how my father’s life and mine were different in our priorities and expectations, but the deeper I look, the more undeniable the similarities. I am my father’s son.

We both share a love of bad limericks and good prose. A healthy skepticism is our natural filter, especially when it comes to anyone who claims to have insider information about God’s will. Dad never called himself an atheist, he knew Mom wouldn’t have liked that, but I know that he didn’t believe in a personal god. The laws of nature? Definitely. He and I both believe in science and logic. If you take two Hydrogen atoms and one Oxygen and combine them under identical conditions anywhere in this universe, you’ll get water. The laws of nature, absolute and irrefutable. A God who suspends the laws of nature to grant favors, maybe heal an unseen tumor on Bennie Hinn’s stage…not so much.

When I was home from college, he and I could enjoy the Hell out of, or in,  a TV preacher. We found comedic common ground in their absurd spin that always lead back to “send money”. At one point, we also shared common ground with the Dick Van Dike Show, more specifically, our mutual appreciation of Mary Tyler Moore in Capri pants.

Dad was an introvert, happiest at home or in his office. Me too. Mom had to really push him to go anywhere new even though he usually enjoyed it tremendously when she was successful in getting him out. Then he would make a verbal commitment to travel, to go out more frequently, but unless Mom started pushing again, it wouldn’t happen. Carla does the same with me, and I make the same claims to be a new, improved, traveling man, knowing it’s not going to happen.

Every night after work, Dad had to watch Lawrence Welk. I thought it was embarrassingly corny, even though I secretly liked some of the music, and one or two of the Lennon sisters. Now, l watch The Marty Stuart Show. Although I love the music, I’m sure that our girls must think it’s embarrassingly corny.

Other than Mom, dogs took the main prize with Dad, as they do with me. We both like people moderately, but love our dogs way more than most humans we see.

My father was a quiet, gentlemanly man who almost never made a fuss in public. He hated bullies with a passion though and was unafraid to call them out, knowing that he was armed with the most powerful of all weapons, an articulate truth. My feelings exactly.

Mom was the center of Dad’s universe. That was true until he drew his last breath. Now Carla and I are in our 40^th year together and I’m as smitten with her as I was on the day we married.

Now I see myself through my father’s eyes, and see him in my own. Differences that once appeared so obvious to me, insurmountable in their width and depth, have slowly merged and become almost undetectable. The mirror tells me that I am my father’s son, and always have been. I hope he knows I understand that now and am proud of him. Proud of us.

Here, in my advancing dotage, I not only look like my father more than ever, but we even live in a place that is also called “The Shores”, and yes, I frequently nap on the couch with a dog induced slouch.

Boy Scout Life Lessons...

A Scout Is:

Trustworthy, Loyal,

Helpful, Friendly,

Courteous, Kind,

Obedient, Cheerful,

Thrifty, Brave,

Clean, and Reverent.

Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful, and clean were all OK, but I substituted crafty for brave, and resourceful for thrifty. Obedient, is a reflection of the of the perception of others and I’ve always been skilled at manipulating that perception. I wasn’t obedient at all, but I sure looked like I was.

You can forget about reverent altogether. “A feeling or attitude of deep respect tinged with awe.” Nope, never been big on that one.

But yes, I was a Boy Scout, as most boys were back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Like the other kids, I enjoyed getting together with our small group of guys to do fun stuff. You know, go camping, build fires, cut everything in sight with knives and hatchets, and seriously stress out some other kid’s dad on “project night” once every other week, on a rotating basis. My own dad would have nothing to do with any of it. Not very giving, perhaps, but smart.

Like the time when Robbie Rink said “fuck” while we were cutting out four foot Santa Clause images from large sheets of plywood in Mr. Robinson’s basement. The room appeared to be a war zone, he had expected as much. But back in those days, for an eleven-year-old Boy Scout to say the evil “F” word, was pretty much on par with committing a double homicide. Mr. Robinson heard it and went ballistic. Zero to 100 in no time. Everybody out! Go home! Where did you even hear such a thing? We’re never doing this again! I try to help you kids and you behave as if you grew up in a gutter! Of course, we heard it all the time among ourselves, but to give it voice in front of an adult was a high crime. He turned so red, all the veins on his forehead were pulsing, spittle spraying from his mouth as he yelled at us. I thought he was going to have an aneurysm and was looking forward to ramping up the excitement with a flood of paramedics rushing down the basement stairs as we talked Jon Rodgers into giving Mr. Robinson mouth-to-mouth.

I was glad when Mr. Robinson recovered and let us come back into his basement to finish the project the following week though. Those wooden Santa’s were cool. Kenny Kimmel drew a penis on his, but Mr. Robinson never saw it. I still have mine around the house here someplace. I think I slid it behind one of the bookcases. Every December I tell myself that I’ll really look for it this year, but I never do.

Our Scout master, Mr. Scott, was a manly guy, an outdoors man who appeared to be able to conquer any survival challenge. A hairy chested man, Teddy Roosevelt in Khaki regalia. Bully! He was great; most of the kids were in awe of him. I wasn’t so much but knew better than to cross him in any way. The assistant Scout master, Mr. Irvin, was just the opposite. A creepy wannabe leader who circled the Scout master like a submissive pup but was a bully when he was alone with the boys.

One particular weekend, I was super excited to go camping with the Scouts. We were going to build a fire in the woods, cook dinner there, and sleep in tents. Cool! Both Scoutmasters were in attendance. After hiking to a prearranged clearing in the pine forest, Teddy Roosevelt told us to dig a long trench in the ground inside some staked-out lines he had marked out. The plan was to fill it with dry wood that we were to gather from the surrounding area, and build a fire to roast chickens on. He had large grill plates to put over the fire.

Grilled BBQ chicken and corn. That sounded pretty great to me. When Teddy started to hike back to his truck to get the cooler full of chicken, he left Mr. Irvin in charge. That was fine since we all had our assigned duties anyway, so some guys got busy digging the pit as instructed, and the rest of us went foraging for dry wood. The plan was to build a nice bed of coals and cover them with the rectangular grill plates that Teddy owned. I dragged a heavy dead branch over next to the pit, eager to cut it into proper size with my ax. Any excuse to cut stuff and act like a frontiersman was most welcome.

Fess Parker played Davy Crockett on TV in those days. We all wanted to be like him.

While I was chopping away, Mr. Irvin pointed to a small dead tree wrapped tightly with brown vines and told one of the boys to cut it down and put it on the fire. I believe almost any of the other boys, myself included, would have ignored his instructions, pretending not to hear. But Irvin picked on my friend because he knew the boy to be quiet and obedient and would do as he was told. That’s exactly what he did.

About a half hour later, Teddy came crashing back into the clearing, pulling a large cooler on wheels. Marching straight up to the fire pit to critique our progress, he stopped cold and pointed at the chopped up pieces of that vine covered tree that Mr. Irvin had my buddy put on the stack of firewood, ready to light. “Poison Ivy! That’s all Poison Ivy there, get those logs out of there, the smoke will put us all in the hospital!” He yelled. Careful to only touch the tree parts themselves, several of us quickly removed the offending branches and vines, carrying them off to drop well away from our clearing. Walking back slowly, I could hear the Scout Master in a loud voice: “You guys know better than that! That’s a rookie mistake that could have been a huge problem! Who put that mess on the fire anyway?” I looked over at my friend who seemed to be frozen with fear. It’s not that he wouldn’t take any blame that he had coming, but he was silenced by his own usual lack of self-confidence to speak up. That was when I saw Mr. Irvin raise his right arm and point his finger at him. “That boy, I saw that boy put those logs on the fire.”

My friend lowered his head and I could see his shoulders begin to shake. Teddy Roosevelt, the manly man, rushed over to him and dropped to his knees, kneeling face to face. Telling my friend that it was OK. No problem. The good news is that we caught it. No harm done, and now you know. He handed the boy his kerchief to wipe away his tears and have a good blow. As he gave the boy a big hug, I watched my friends face lighten up, the immense relief that he got from the warm reassurance of the big guy himself was palatable to all of us. I remember thinking: That man, that is what real leadership is all about. He leads by example. I would follow him anywhere and feel lucky to have him lead the way.

Throughout all of this, I noticed that Mr. Irvin had been slowly backing up, behind everyone, almost in the tree line. He was waiting to see if my friend told on him, told the Scout Master that he had put the logs on the pit because he had been told to do it by the assistant Scout Master, Mr. Irvin.

But my friend never squealed and I’m sure the whole incident was forgotten by most, but not by me and certainly not by him.

That’s about all I remember from that weekend, and how indelible an impression the two leaders had made on me. One great, one pathetic and horrible.

Most of us knew that Mr. Irvin was a pedophile, having been seen going into some of the boys tents at night on two different camping trips. I assume he got fired because he suddenly stopped showing up at the big meetings. But before he disappeared, he made the mistake of trying to lead the large group meet in the auditorium of our local elementary school. It was our monthly gathering and Mr. Scott, the Teddy Roosevelt clone, was out of town. Mr. Irvin lost any semblance of control as soon as he marched up front and started barking out orders that were absurd and definitely not routine. The image is burned forever in my head of him turning to his left, looking at the far windows, as one boy with a great arm, stood up and threw an apple in a vicious fast pitch that would have made Whitey Ford proud. That Golden Delicious hit Mr. Irvin squarely in the temple and shattered into a spray of applesauce, a wet halo that soaked his hair and shirt. One large piece of apple stuck out from his right ear like a garnish on a hairy plate. Stunned, he immediately stumbled out of the auditorium as the kids cheered. He knew that if he tried to enforce any discipline at all, he would be covered like a beetle under a swarm of angry army ants. We got our vengeance and went home. Justice had been served.

Now I’ve been challenging all 12 of my remaining brain cells to come up with at least one thing that I actually learned in Boy Scouts. Come on, there must be something? There must be some lasting nugget after earning all those Merit Badges, right? Crickets. The whole thing was barely controlled mayhem, like convicts on a work release program who got a hold of some illegal booze. Our local group was 126 boys, age eleven and up. A bit like herding Ferrets, at least it was when Mr. Irvin was in charge. Lots of laughs and memories, but I suspect that most of the memories would not be something that the BSA would want to talk about.

Wait, I do remember something useful that I learned, and I’m proud to share it with you here. The next time you are out in the woods, caught in a driving rain, hundreds of miles from a Motel 6 or a Holiday Inn, and you have no dry wood for a fire because you fell asleep after drinking excessively in your tent all afternoon and your fire went out when you were unconscious and drooling, look for a Birch tree.

Birch bark will burn even when it is wet.

There you go! Valuable information from an experienced ex-Boy Scout!

Even the bark from a living tree will burn. Of course, if you are in a National Park, stripping a living tree is a felony. You can explain your survival needs to the Park Service guys when they come to rescue you. You’ll be charged with destruction of Government timber, a misdemeanor, and converting and disposing of Government property, a felony. If convicted, you can face up to 11 years in prison and a $350,000 fine. You could also could be ordered to make restitution.

So bring matches, and only camp in Northern States if you forget them. Birch trees don’t grow in the South.

Better yet, don’t ever go camping at all. Just book a room someplace nice, with a pool and an attentive bartender.

That’s your official Boy Scout lesson for today. Make it last; I’m all out.

Christians for Trump

“While telling his audience about his trip to Washington for the inauguration, disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker declared that anyone who dares raise his voice against Trump is possessed by the devil himself.”

The sex scandal that forced his resignation from the ministry back in the days when it was the Jim and Tammy show (Oh how I miss those Clarabelle eyes of hers and all those mascara stained tears) paled in comparison to the 45 years he got for mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy. He only served five though. Apparently Jesus was in the hearts of a few judges who saw to it that he got off easy, as a good man involved in sex scandals and fraud but still waving a bible in the air, should.

But, according to Jim,  all of that is small potatoes compared to the very real presence of a dark evil we see today in millions of American citizens, AKA people who don’t support Donald Trump.  Bakker is flabbergasted, dumbfounded, unable to explain how anyone can “come against a whole country” by protesting against Trump… especially at his inauguration! According to him, it’s obvious that they must be possessed by demons.

In other news, a North Carolina jury threw out a class action suit brought on behalf of more than 160,000 one time supporters who contributed as much as $7,000. each to Bakker’s coffers in the late 1980s. IRS liens identify him as owing $6,000,000, liens on which Jim Bakker still pays.

Hey, I’m just glad we have a true man of God like The Donald to bring this nation back from the brink of eternal damnation. The always humble Orange one is the first to say that The Bible is his favorite book, followed closely by his own “The Art of the Deal”. The latter being something that the publisher and Trump’s co-writer claim Trump had played no role in the actual writing of the book.

It sounds to me like The Donald and Jim Bakker share a lot in common. My hope is that in the future it will be a jail cell.