Gender proclivities...

"Behind every great man there is a surprised woman." Maryon Pearson

Henry Higggins:  “Why can't a woman be more like a man?”

Jack Nicholson as a writer in “As good as it gets”: Asked: “How do you write women so well?” Nicholson: “I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.”

"As long as you know most men are like children, you know everything." CoCo Chanel

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Babies learn the difference right away. Mom is the nurturer 24/7. She’s the grocery store as well. Dad seems like a nice enough guy but he refuses to be nursed. Mostly he just holds you high up in the air over his head while grinning like a fool and making stupid noises like Curly did with Moe.

We’re dogs and cats. Equal but different. Men know we’re not equal, but we like to pretend that we are. Women are stronger and have more common sense.

Certainly, we’re wired very differently. A prominent psychologist offered a visual representation of a man’s brain and a woman’s brain. It showed the man’s brain as a wooden chest with many little drawers that he opens as needed to deal with an issue and close back up it when done. The woman’s brain is like a big mass of wires, everything is connected to everything, no little drawers to close and be done with it.

For women, some issues last forever.

It’s a bit that way in conversation too. When I get home from work, I may say: “I saw an old friend today. Remember Ted? He’s really looking great after losing all that weight!”

In Carla speak that is: “I was shopping at Goodwill, looking for…and guess who I ran into?...You remember Denise? She’s the one who had that operation…. whose brother used to ….remember she had that little dog that could…I saw an old red Toyota pull into the parking lot and I immediately thought about Denise! It’s amazing how…she is working now down by…her boss used to live with… guess where that guy is now? I think he once dated…she was the one at the daycare who said…”Etc, etc, etc, the story goes on forever. Everything is connected, no drawer is ever closed.

I really want to scream: WHAT IS YOUR POINT? I DON’T KNOW OR GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT Denise or ANY OF THESE PEOPLE!”  Thoughts of humane euthanasia run through my head as she drones on. 

It could be for her or for me, doesn’t matter.

I just want it to stop.

Then there is that joke about how to please a woman. You know, just listen, don’t try to solve the problem, just sit there quietly and bite your lip as you think of obvious solutions that you better not verbalize. Be sympathetic. Hold her. Be gentle and understanding.

How to please a man? Show up naked. Bring beer.

Simple, right?

Dogs and cats

Men need to feel like they are in charge. That’s why we’ll drive hundreds of miles into the wrong damn state before we would ask directions. Fortunately, Siri or Alexa help prevent that from happening these days.

Funny how they’re both women.

Men don’t ever want to admit weakness or fear, which is itself a weakness and a fear. Women share that stuff with each other in exhausting detail. TMI! 

We all know that if a guy needs something in a store, he goes into the store, directly to that item, buys it, and immediately walks back out. My wife doesn’t even need to have an excuse, she’ll just go into a store to touch and smell every item in there. Every item. If we’re together, I’m constantly saying: “You don’t have to pick that up. I can see it.”

But she does have to pick it up.

When I was doing my thing on a treadmill at the gym the other morning morning, I saw Bob and Pat pull up outside. We’ve shared a similar morning routine for years. Bob got on the treadmill next to me and we greeted each other “Good Morning!” we both put in our earphones and zoned out for 25 minutes. Bob’s wife, Pat, got on the treadmill to my right, started talking to Caroline on the treadmill next to her, and never stopped talking. Twenty minutes later, the women were still jabbering away when Caroline finished up, cleaned her machine and walked off. Another lady immediately got on the same treadmill. Pat started talking to her and they were both still going strong when I left.

There was unbroken continuity in Pat’s diatribe, any lady on the treadmill next to her would do.

Gender even affects the way we eat. Men want a full slab of BBQ ribs, not many women do. Women want a healthy salad, most men don’t crave that so much...unless it comes with a big slab of BBQ ribs.

A few basics:

Women want to talk it out after a hard day at work. Men want the exact opposite.

Women need to feel it, men need to solve it.

Men are attracted to youth & beauty. Women are attracted to status.

A man will give comfort and companionship in order to get sex, a woman will give sex in order to get comfort and companionship.

When a man and woman walk down the street and an attractive female passes by, the woman looks at the other woman’s clothes, the man mentally looks through the other woman’s clothes.

A guy marries his girlfriend hoping that she’ll never change. The woman marries the guy thinking she can change him.

The list of differences is endless. Cats and dogs.

There’s a popular You Tube video that shows a cat riding a Roomba. Sitting up tall and regal, she glides over by the goofy dog in his bed. Dog gets up, eager to play, cat floats by, swats the dog’s face, and glides off in an orbit that will soon bring her back for a repeat performance. The dog is surprised and offended every time. What did I do? He wonders. the cat is thinking: "Well if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you!" 

Here comes the Cat on the Roomba again… dog stands up, all goofy and hoping to play.

He hasn’t learned a damn thing in the last 38 times the cat has guided by. The cat looks serious and somber, but I know she is laughing inside.

Metaphorically, Carla has been riding that Roomba for a very long time and, of course, I’m always eager to play.

Go figure.

Death Spray...

There was an ad on TV the other day that promoted the services of an attorney who represents clients harmed by Monsanto’s “Round Up” and similar weed & grass killers. It sparked a memory of a summer job that my friend Jeff Devlin and I shared some 50 years ago, working for a weed control company.

Our job was to drive a water tank truck up into New England to service established customers. Once on site, we mixed dry chemicals into the water tank and sprayed the parking lots of grocery stores, movie theaters, gas stations, drive in movies, anywhere that clients had large areas of open blacktop where weeds were trying to poke through.

It was a fun job. No pressure. We set our own route. Our employer wasn’t overly concerned about the time-frame as long as the job got done within a week or two.

The summer of 1969 was a great time to be 21, carefree and driving someone else’s vehicle into unfamiliar territory, with plenty of time to explore along the way,

After quickly realizing that we could mix in half of the prescribed weed killer with no downside, we went rogue. Using only 50% of the allotted chemicals was still way more than enough to kill all vegetation that even got a whiff of the stuff.

That doubled our killing power and our income. We had enough left-over chemicals, and plenty of time, to offer the same service to any lot owners with a weed problem that we may pass in our travels.

This was long before anyone thought about the harm those chemicals could do to things other than parking lot weeds. You know, silly things like plants, water tables, animals…and humans. Especially humans that had frequent and direct contact.

All of it unknown collateral damage at the time.

Jeff and I wore no protective gear of any kind.

Holding large hoses that allowed for 30-foot sprays, the wind often shifted. We were frequently drenched. Our clothes stayed wet.

Sometimes we had wars between us and sprayed each other directly, on purpose. Week killer up the nose, in the ears and eyes, cold and clingy in the nether regions like a wet bathing suit.

Several years after Vietnam, Agent Orange killed a mutual buddy of ours. Cancer ravaged his body and brain.

That Monsanto lawyer on TV is making legal drug money, big bucks.

Why didn’t we have any problems? I choose to think it’s because we only sprayed with a diluted, 50% version of what we were told to use. (That’s a lesson I’ve taken very seriously. I never do anything I’m told to do.)

It’s a miracle that after all these years, Jeff and I are still alive and kicking. Amazing that neither of us are pushing a neck tumor the size of a pot-bellied pig, in a baby stroller in front of us.

I know that I feel great, and Jeff looks healthy in his pictures. (but I think he may use Photoshop to spruce up his image, just to make me jealous.)

I do wonder about this recent swelling on my neck though. I’m glad daughter Ruth left behind the baby stroller on her last visit.

I may...grow into it.

Quietly Joyful...

Joy doesn’t need to be loud or flashy.

Appreciation can flourish without fanfare, walking quietly in shades of grey.

This morning’s new weather took the stage, fresh and crisp, doing what it could to blow down my loose collar, an ascot of intrusive cold. Clouds lay down a puffy quilt above as we walked the narrow gauntlet of the farmers market, stem to stern, flanked by tables stacked with artesian muffins, across from one adorned with sharks’ teeth twisted into jewelry by thin copper restraints.

We savored the day, a steaming cup of matcha with soy and chocolate.

Back home, we shared justifications that pardoned each other from any chores we had discussed, stamping the “To Do” list with one that said; “Tomorrow”.

At dinner, no stereo, no TV, no cellphones.

The two of us, quietly ecstatic in the moment.

Dungeness crab with Butternut squash ravioli, fresh cut strawberries spooned out with cane sugar and lemon juice from the tree that leans on stair rails by the deck off the bedroom, heavy with beaming yellow globes framed in green.

All of it, each moment, a subtle offering that screamed joy to the world.

Our own good fortune to live this life, glowing like a hot coal blown gently with the breath of god...

Baby Tales...

Here’s the thing about babies. I’m an expert after having one live with us in the house for a week.

They’re a LOT of damn work!

Ruth had to be with Wilder 24/7. Every minute, every hour. He needed to nurse, to eat stuff put on his tray, to reject all offers to eat, to play, to refuse to play, to be pushed around the neighborhood in his stroller, to be entertained, bathed several times a day and to be put down to sleep, or not sleep. 

None of it lasts very long.

The baby monitor buzzes with the sound of his distress as poor Ruth sits down to eat her own dinner, but rushes in to calm the Wild one instead.

It’s unending.

Ruth put the baby on the floor of the great room, nestled on a clean blanket surrounded by baby stuff. Mostly he paid no attention to the baby toys designed to attract and occupy his attention. It turns out that Wilder prefers soup ladles from the kitchen drawer. Three different plastic ones with deep cup dippers that he tried very hard to fit entirely into his mouth. Ruth said that she needed to use the restroom and asked me to watch him for a minute.

Even though she came right back, it was stressful. I’m sure that I couldn’t even handle a full five minutes by myself, much less the hours, days, weeks and months that are necessary.

It’s exhausting. Why do mothers even keep them?

Ruth changed his diapers throughout the day, often having to put on new outfits when the diapers leaked, or when the food on his tray was used more for throwing, dropping, or rubbing in his hair, than for actual consumption.

The dogs quickly learned that hanging out under Wilder’s highchair at feeding time was a good place for them to be.

Did you know that there are organic baby foods, pureed and extruded from a tube that looks like a double size Crest toothpaste? They’re the 2019 version of astronaut chow.

Remember to carry several of those everywhere you go. Always carry a huge backpack full of stuff. Don’t forget to bring the car seat and stroller, the baby wipes, extra diapers and outfits. Bring water, the white noise machine to slip down by the pillow under his head if he starts to look sleepy, a baby hat, and a reverse back pack to carry him around in when the stroller just won’t do.

So. Much. Stuff.

I popped into the guest bedroom when the Wildman was being changed. Ruth took his shitty diaper off and put it to one side. At his age, when Wilder gets changed, he tries to do a quick Alligator roll across the bed to avoid any kind of clothing. As I watched his diaper avoidance moves, he managed to flip his hand into the shitty diaper that had just come off of him, scoop up a handful of poop puree, and quickly sling it around on himself, the clean bed, his clean outfit, his face, and Ruth’s hair.

Nice.

It was so wonderful for me to be able to back out of the room, quietly shutting the door.

Although I’ve always believed women to be the stronger gender, my respect is multiplied tenfold for mothers.

Why you don’t conveniently “forget” that you left the baby in the produce isle next to the carrots and simply go home, free, free at last…I don’t understand.

Why women don’t more frequently “Bobbittize” their husbands is a mystery.

But I soon started to get it when after a day of bonding, every time Wilder would get up from a nap and see me, he lit up like a light bulb. A smile ear to ear for his Grandpa. I was so flattered and charmed.

That’s when I saw him give the same toothless grin to either one of the dogs when they came close. It didn’t matter which one.

I'm as special as a smelly black mutt that licks Wilder's face, not so much out of affection but more like a kid licking the beater used for cake batter. Lots of flavor hanging out there.

Oh well, I'll take it anyway.
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When I got up around three am, the house was too quiet. No baby monitor hissing in the kitchen. 

Knowing that Ruth and Wilder were now 2,122 miles away, back home, our house felt empty and pointless.

I felt pointless.

Sitting on the couch in the dark, next to an abandoned high chair with broccoli soup stains on the tray, I cried for the first time in many years.

Full Circle

When Ruth and Hannah were very little girls, Carla made them wear matching hats, just like this one, except theirs were white.

The kids wore them even in warm weather when they were often wearing nothing else. Nude, mosquito bitten, sweaty…happily chasing Ohio the Wonder Dog around in our remote front yard…under the protection of magic hats.

Carla thought the hats kept the children safe from just about everything that could harm them, especially any kind of infectious illness or disease. They were a knitted version of Mormon underwear.

But the girls despised them.

Ruth was older and somewhat fatalistic. She knew that her Mom insisted that they wear the hats and it was easiest to take the path of least resistance and just do it.

Hannah wasn’t built that way.

So, on a visit to see the Grandparents who lived at the beach, Hannah dug a deep hole in the sand and buried her hat.

Fini... Let it sleep with the fishes!

Now I’m surprised to see that little Wilder Maverick is wearing a magic hat. Just like one her Mom hated so much, only Wilder’s hat is in Salmon.

He lives in San Diego, so that explains it.

The other odd thing about this picture is the pan. When we first moved to St Augustine, 30 years ago, we lived with Carla’s Mom and Dad for three months until we could afford to get our own place. While I was at work during the day, Carla would take the pots and pans out of Grandma’s cupboard and give them to Hannah to play with. Carla’s Mom, Marie, didn’t like that. Noisy, dirty, not a proper way to raise children. It became an issue that expedited our transition into a place of our own, just down the street.

Now I see Ruth doing the “let’s play with pans” thing, with the protection of a San Diego Salmon colored magic hat on the noggin of Little Stinky.

Wow, how quickly we forget. What’s next for Ruth, Miss Organic Vegetarian bookworm...a gallon of Bluebell Vanilla Chocolate Chip high-fat content ice cream, a bent spoon, and reruns of “Forensic Files” on the tube… like Carla is wallowing in out on the recliner right now?

Life Journey...

Physically, going from age 20 to 30 was nothing. I thought I was bulletproof.

Aging from 30 to 50 was still all peace and love.

I thought 50 to 60 could be a problem, but it wasn’t.

It surprised me that 60 to 65 was still all quiet on the Western Front, even though I saw high casualty rates among peers that were falling all around me. I silently thanked my parents for giving me good genes.

I assured myself that I would be an exception.

That’s when the shit hit the fan. It was like living in an idyllic Scandinavian country one day and waking up in Somalia the next. An abrupt transition from peacefully smelling tulips in Holland to being thrust into the middle of a war zone with skirmishes and coups breaking out all over the damn place.

By the time my mother passed at age 94, she had only half a colon, no breasts, and the major veins stripped out of her left leg. Surgery scars crisscrossed her body like so many zippers. Even so, like the energizer bunny, she kept on going. With a smile. Mom even started weight training at age 87. When I visited her a year later, she called me into her kitchen. “Look at this!” she bragged while lifting two bags of groceries high in the air, one in each hand. Then she had me watch her unscrew the top on a jar of dill pickles, just because she could.

My doctor told me that the blood issue I have is not something you die of, it’s something you die with.

You manage it.

Certainly, more things will come down the pike. I’ll manage them too.

Birth to death, we never know where we’re standing in line. We just hope no one taps us on the shoulder and asks us to step to the front.

We all walk a similar path but each one is unique. There may be pitfalls and quicksand just around the corner, but we’ll take on the challenges and, like mom, keep on going, remembering to smile.

That’s the essence of life itself.

Pretty Green Turtle

Carla is out on the couch, looking cute in her house shorts and cruising Facebook, searching for her peeps who want to talk about Native American issues, Dolly Parton…or maybe Bernese Mountain Dogs. Today it’s all about the dogs because a guy doing work in our house has three. Pedigreed and beautiful. For me, too big and too much hair. $3,000 a pop is hard to justify when there are so many misfits that are wonderful animals, languishing in the shelter.

Anyway, in passing, I let her know how much I love her when I say: “You know, honey, 42 years and I still get a thrill when I see you here.”

She smiles warmly up to me.

“Yea, you’re so much better than a just having a Parakeet or one of those green turtles in a stinky plastic aquarium!”

She still smiles, unrattled, enjoying thoughts of just how deep I’m digging the hole that I’ll need her forgiveness and good graces to climb out of.

A Note from Hannah...

Hannah GypsyOn
June 18, 2017 ·

We didn't have a lot of money, but I don't remember ever wanting anything I didn't have. -

You liked my hair long when I was young, still do as far as I know. -

When I started to wear bracelets on my wrists you encouraged me to get more. You said they looked cool and I loved feeling 'cool' in your eyes. -

I made my own clothes and dreadlocked my hair, you never once said anything negative about it. -
You allowed me to grow up wild and free, and fostered my own creative process. -

You always had my back, no matter what, and you supported me on whatever endeavor I chose, whether it be worthy or not, I felt you in my corner. -

You have encouraged me to live for me, be me, and answer to no one but myself. A strong, independent woman you must have known I'd become. -

You taught me to watch the birds that fly over the water, listen to the cicadas at sunset, to love animals like our friends, and compliment strangers. -

I have never felt like I couldn't tell you something. -

Thanks for the daily chats, dad. Can't wait for you guys to come to Austin.💙 

#mydadsmybff #daddiesgirl #happyfathersday #myhero — in Austin, Texas.

 — with Hannah GypsyOn.

Midget!

My friend at the gym started to approach me as I was heading toward my favorite treadmill. He’s a single guy in his late 20’s. We often swap stories of bachelor trials and tribulations. Mine a distant memory, his as recent as last night.

He was grinning broadly, so I knew he had a good story to tell me.

It was about his buddy, also single. A big guy apparently, 6’6”, 250 pounds. Anyway, “He got a midget!” My friend said with a grin.

Remembering the MG Midget a girlfriend had many years ago, I replied. “Well, it's really going to be a squeeze for your buddy to get into and out of that little car. I hope he tried it out first.”

“No, no.” My gym friend went on “He got a real midget! A little person!”

The pride for his buddy’s unique conquest was undisguised.

“Your buddy is one sick motherfucker!” I responded. “Not only is that twisted, but it’s a bit like having sex with your sister. Not exactly something you talk about, much less brag about.”

Walking away, I said over my shoulder “Well I hope at least your buddy is a good guy and treated her well.”

“He should know that it’s important for guys to put their girlfriends…up on a pedestal...”

Lost Boy...

At Christmas time, when she still lived at home, I asked Ruth for the same present every year: "please write me a story." Here's one she sent me recently just because she knew I would remember her first boyfriend.

From Ruth:

Some mornings, my dad would ask me if I knew anything about the artifacts that had appeared in our side yard overnight. “Teenage scat”, he liked to call it: menthol cigarette butts, a soda bottle, handwritten love notes, a potato chip bag. I insisted on my ignorance but I knew exactly who had left them: my boyfriend, who had ridden his bike the 10 plus miles from his home to mine in the middle of the night, high on the promise of my sneaking out to meet him. I always chickened out, or fell asleep, or a combination of both, but that never stopped him from showing up, he had no reason to stay home anyways, no one cared where he was or what he was doing.

It was 1997; I was 14 going on 15 and deep in the throes of teenage girlhood. Alanis Morrisette, Curt Cobain and the Spice Girls were the soundtrack of my life, depending on my mood, and my friends were my entire world. I had met this boy by the lake at my grandma’s house. He was 6 months older than me and immediately took interest in who I was. I reveled in the attention.

He had big brown eyes that pleaded for someone to love him and even at my young age I could tell that the scars covering his hands matched the scars on his heart. His life had not been an easy one, and he quickly fell into a pattern of following me around like a puppy, which I welcomed with girlish delight. He never wanted to go home, and although I never asked, I could sense why.

Once, I got permission to leave my grandma’s house to meet up with him for a couple hours. Not long after I left, huge black clouds rolled in, bringing with them a summer afternoon thunderstorm. We ducked into a thicket of trees for cover. It was as if we had stepped through the wardrobe. In a land all our own, we stood, body against body, as the fat warm raindrops pelted us. We stood locked in an embrace, more in solidarity than in any type of love or lust and rode out the storm together.

I was grounded big time for that one, my grandma worried sick.

I would have done it again in a heartbeat.

I got my own phone line that year, the pinnacle of teenage cool. I spent hours holed up in my room, talking with girlfriends I had only parted with earlier that day, rehashing details of our bus rides home from school, who our crushes were, what we were going to wear tomorrow. Later, in the evenings, my boyfriend would call, after he got home from his job of bagging groceries at the local Winn-Dixie, and the rest of the night we would spend on the phone, sometimes not even speaking, as I did homework or we listened to CD’s together. He never wanted to hang up, and I got the feeling he just didn’t want to be alone, that he needed someone there, even if not physically in the same room. Some nights I would fall asleep cradling the receiver as he whispered, “Are you still awake?”

Time moved on, and we lost touch. That troubled young boy grew into a troubled young man. I moved across the country and would only hear snippets of news about him. The years didn’t get any easier for him and it seemed that anytime life presented him with a fork he chose the wrong tine. I learned that he took his own life a few years ago, the details surrounding his death as dark and muddy as his eyes were when he smiled at me. I shudder to think of the events leading up to his exit from this world.

In my memory, he will forever be a sweet young boy with freckled olive skin and a voice that cracked with puberty, lost in the world, his footing never quite stable. And I hope, wherever he is now, that he has finally found love. — with Ruth Haller Grubb.

Calm Before the Calm...

7:45am

Calm before the storm…or calm before the calm?

If Dorian veers off and decides to vacation elsewhere, how do I tell the dogs? They were so excited, having been raised with the stories, the dog lore passed down generation to generation. Tales of a time when their ancestors had the house all to themselves for a whole week. All the steak and ground beef they could stuff down. Ice cream, peeled shrimp, crab cakes…

We had lost power, so Carla and I checked into a no-dogs hotel. We ate out every night and had a wonderful vacation, but the dogs had to stay home by themselves. Fenced yard, doggie door, the whole house to run around in and no one to tell them to get off the bed.

Sweet!

I stopped by twice a day to dole out the thawing meat from the freezer. Another sirloin, girl? How about a nice dish of Beef Bourguignon? You know how to spit out the mushrooms.

Now it’s a beautiful morning and they’re starting to mope around. They can smell disappointment a mile away. Maybe I’ll give them one of the cheap hot dogs I keep just for situations like this. After all, they don't drink vodka. Just something to take their mind off of their certain disappointment when I break the news.

They were really looking forward to running loose in the wind and rain when it gets crazy outside.

Me too.

Childhood Home

A facebook site that features my hometown asked, “What house did you grow up in?”

For me? 530 Alden Avenue, Westfield, NJ. A suburb of NYC. That’s us in 1949. “Judy, Sue, Kenny Hugh. We all love you.” Mother would sing. I was a year old when we moved into that house. Fifteen years later we moved out to a new development near the end of Lawrence Ave, in an area we used to call “Egypt Hills”. It had been a barren, open field of dry straw grass where we hunted for insects with Mr. Ferguson, the Entomologist. His son Donny and I were best friends.

I thought we were rich moving into a new, split level out there. Everything sod green where the parched earth had been. Mom bought a new cage for her sun yellow canary that came with a matching yellow cover, a sure sign to me that we had gone big time.

Dad had a law firm at #5 Broadway, Mom ferried him to and from the train station five days a week. A goodbye & hello peck on the cheek, in or out, punctuated each ride. Dad’s idea of casual was a sports jacket on weekends, his uniform for pulling crabgrass in the front lawn while swearing under his breath about the world going to hell.

Mom was in charge of us kids, Dad brought home the bacon. You could do that in those days. Mom always made us “a good breakfast” to start the day. Eggs, bacon, toast, Kippered Herring, Cod fish cakes. Dad lived on Kent cigarettes, coffee and stress. He was exempt from Mom’s breakfast rules.

I walked to and from Franklin Elementary School five days a week, memorizing the irregularities in the sidewalks, playing a game with myself of only looking down to know my location. Sycamore trees shed their bark on both sides of the streets.

Donny Ferguson lived across the street. He and I rode our bikes like a couple of maniacs, racing down to the Mountainside News Stand every Saturday when we each got our $1.00 allowance. Cards in the spokes helped up pretend they were motorcycles even though they sounded like cards in spokes. Ten 5 cent candy bars and five 10 cent comic books. We spent all afternoon on his screen porch with Superman and a sugar high.

David Callahan lived behind us on Bradford Ave. We ran the smooth dirt path between our two houses, barefoot in the summertime. At night, fat slugs squished up between our toes when they came out to cross the path in the cool dark.

We strung a telegraph line between our houses. Bedroom to Bedroom, our first e-mail.

Choir practice at St Paul’s three nights a week, Boy Scout meeting at one of the guys houses twice a month. Dad was smart. He never hosted one. I still have the plywood Santa we cut out in Robbie Rink’s basement though. We finally got to finish them even though Jimmy Siebert had said “fuck!” when a splinter went into his thumb and Mr. Rink almost had an aneurysm. He said that was the end of our meetings, no more. Where did you kids ever learn to talk like that? We met in his basement again two weeks later, finished cutting and painting our plywood Santa and no mention was ever made of the evil language.

When Joe, my sister Judy’s first boyfriend came over to our house one night, sporting a crew cut and looking like one of the Kingston Trio, he carried a huge suitcase with him. Laying it carefully down on the ottoman at the foot of Moms big living room chair, we all gathered around as he opened it up to reveal two panels of flashing electronics straight out of a Buck Rogers movie. It was the first tape recorder I had ever seen. Totally magical stuff.

Christmas days, Easter baskets full of candy, a bottle of liquid mercury from Mr. Robinson, the paint chemist who lived next door.

Our dark, musty basement had stairs with no backing. They allowed the long bony arms of the pale monster to grab my ankles if I were to only walk down, but I didn’t, I flew. Quickly throwing open the door to the furnace room, I scurried over to the lone hanging bulb and pulled the string furiously before dark creatures could grab me. The bulb was always burnt out. It never worked. I would freeze with panic, spider webs covering my face and hair, deciding my next move. All senses on full alert as I listened for shuffling feet. That’s when the huge oil furnace, covered in peeling layers of asbestos insulation like a fat grey leper with curls of dead skin hanging loose, would fire up. WHOOMP! 

When that thing lit up it seemed to jump two feet into the air. Me too. I still get a tachycardia rush from the memory.

Those were the days of Ant Farms, BB guns, white rats that got loose and colonized the entire third floor, fat tire bikes, a brand-new Ford Fairlane 500 with rocket wings…

Sister Sue wrote on the wall by her bed: “Elvis is 24!” It looked like it said that Elvis was only 4 though because the plaster wall was so spotted and damaged from a particularly wet squirt gun fight that ended with water balloons. The cream-colored wall looked like the spotted, flaking legs of my Aunt Jeedie. When she was in the old people’s home.

Elvis made his debut on Ed Sullivan

Weenie, our attack dachshund, got loose and tried to protect the entire neighborhood from the trash truck by running backwards and biting the wheels. Not a good plan. T. hat truck turned poor Weenie into a spot three feet wide and one inch thick.

Mom and I sat on the front stoop and cried when I got home from school that day.

We played “Ain’t no bears out tonight” after dinner on Summer nights until it was too dark to see and we all had to go back inside

.

George Harris had a pet Raccoon that bit everything and everyone. I had rats, turtles, dogs, cats, snakes, toads, fish and birds, but a biting Raccoon? No way.

One Summer when I was 10, Donny Fergusons older sister, Betty, told us to be careful, that the police were looking for a bad man who was driving around in the neighborhood with no pants on. She was 14, stopped in the middle of our street on her bike, telling us about it. I stared at one long leg sticking out of her plaid shorts, realizing that she shaved her legs up just past her knees, where her brown skin was covered with downy blond hair. I was strangely excited by that and also wondered why a man would drive around with no pants on. I felt that the two things were somehow oddly connected but had no idea how or why.

Flying June bugs on a long thread with a noose around one rear leg, catching fireflies in a jar, smearing our faces at night with luminescent war paint from sacrificial lightning bugs.

The smell of cap guns.

The whole neighborhood was excited to learn that one of our own, Jeffery Hamlet from up the street, would be on The Howdy Doody Show. After Buffalo Bob finished speaking with Mr. Bluster, the camera panned the peanut gallery. With families up and down Alden Avenue on the edge of their chairs looking to spot Jeffrey, there he was! His forefinger buried so far up his nose it looked like he must be scratching his brain. Oblivious to the camera, he slowly pulled small nose oysters out from those damp cavities, examined them closely and licked his finger clean. A proud moment for the hood. 

Hell, even I was grossed out.

On his tenth birthday, David Callahan and I watched Steve McQueen fight “The Blob” in the Rialto Theater.

Teresa Smyth pulled the top of her bathing suit down in Kerry Hill’s back yard. She was nine but it still seemed like a big deal at the time.

I regularly dragged a beat-up red wagon filled with coke bottles down to the Mountainside Drug store to recycle. Two cents each.

At a middle school dance in 1963, I was flopping around out there on the floor with a girl I didn’t know, but whose words would be forever burned into my brain: “You sure know how to Mash Potatoes!”

That was a turning point. Time to put away childish things and embrace even more childish things. I was ready for the big time, High School and a new house.

After suffering through the humiliation of riding the school bus for my entire sophomore year, much like the human equivalent of my dog wearing a clown collar, I bought a motorcycle as soon as I turned 16.

Back then I looked 14 and got stopped by every cop in town whenever I went out. In wintertime my hands were frozen into useless claws for the first three periods. Even so, a small price to pay.

New house, new ride, new school…I was cool

I assumed childhood to be in the rear-view mirror, that I was an adult by then, no clue that it would be another 20 years before I was able to legitimately carry that mantle.

Hallers

My Grandfather, John Michael Haller, died in 1940. He was 80 years old and had lived in Frederick, Md his whole life, running his popular “Dry Goods” store there. On our last visit 20 years ago, we could still make out the advertising for his store, and the corsets they sold, on the side of a crumbling old red barn.

Haller ancestors had been among the first group of German settlers who founded the town in 1745.

The family story is that on the Sunday he died, he put on a suit and went out to see a movie. When he came back home, he walked upstairs, turned on the light switch, and dropped dead.

A great way to go.

He’s buried in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery there next to his wife, my Grandmother, Jennie Haller. She was only 31 when she died in 1906 of complications that resulted from the birth of my father. Prior to marrying, she had been on the faculty of the “Women’s College” in Washington, D.C. as a teacher of elocution (The study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone.)

So, my father, Hugh Kenneth Haller, grew up with no mother but had “three maiden Aunts” to keep him in line.

Dad died in 1994, age 79. A Johns Hopkins Phi Beta Kapa and Harvard trained attorney, Dad had his own successful law practice in Manhattan for many years. In retirement, he helped to incorporate the city of Pine Knoll Shores, NC, becoming its first Mayor and hiring the police and Fire departments.

Dad was crazy about Mom, his little dogs, crossword puzzles and Lawrence Welk. Kids were down the line somewhere. No sports in our house, we never threw a ball back and forth. Grades were everything to him and I never tried to compete. Dad just didn’t know what to do with kids. We finally connected when I grew up to his level and we shared bad limericks. That did the trick.

Now I’m 71 myself and when I look in the mirror, I see these guys. I never knew Father Haller and only got close with my own father in the last 20 years of his life.

If everything really does happen for a reason, I like to think that I’ve been close with my own daughters from the start. I don’t carry the academic credentials my father had, but I’ve definitely got the Dad credentials, and I’m more than OK with that.

Charles Carter-Farmer/Deacon/Guru

Charles Carter was many things.

Certainly, the local white community of that small country town viewed him as little more than a poor farm hand. A second-generation free slave, living and working for the man.

To his own community in town, he was a much-respected deacon at his church, and a teacher in the ramshackle black school. He was seen as a successful man, after all, he owned a house, 25 acres, and a pick-up truck.

Charles’s family roots ran as deep in local history as Jefferson’s serpentine walls.

For me, he was a good friend and all-around life guru. We were buds.

I would walk the old stagecoach road through deep woods, flanked by parallel scars that would never fully heal. They lead me to "Charles's Farm", land that Grandpa Maverick had signed over to him.

God knows he earned it.

Given to my ancient maiden aunts when he was only 12, his family believed that he would have a better life in their care, and they needed a “man” to do the manly things a farm demanded.

Those two old sisters wore long white dresses, faded yellow and smelling like a musty hamper. When I met them in 1955 the oldest one was 101, her kid sister 97. Their big house had been falling apart for years, the upper two floors closed down by the many leaks in the roof that fed the mildewed walls. The girls lived in what had once been a dining room off the kitchen. A bed unchanged since Truman first took office sat in the middle.

My grandparents inherited Charles when they bought those 325 acres of rolling hills that had been in our own family since the early 1800’s. He simply came with the land.

After the dehydrated Apple dolls that he served finally died, Charles lived in the ruins of the big Victorian house. It had been cut in half when route 29 South moved its path 275 feet North. Those ruins were his shelter until Grandpa built him a new cinder-block palace capped with a roof covered by real shingles.

A 20’ by 30’ rectangle of molded concrete and coal cinder. One room for living, one bedroom for sleeping.

He loved it.

Charles would drop whatever he was doing when I came over, he was never doing much anyway.

 We both needed time to talk and play.

Charles never stopped talking, it’s how I would find him, stand real still where the woods opened up and listen to the quiet of the valley. If he was home, I could hear him laughing, engaged in animated conversation, with himself. Charles locator GPS. I knew that on Saturday afternoons and evenings he was probably in town. “Spooning” he called it.

A square wooden table with two ladder-back chairs took up most of the space in his main room. The door- less entry to his bedroom offering a view of the metal frame bed and his “Sunday-go-to meeting” suit hung on one wall.

During one of the periodic releases that my Uncle George got from the Western State Mental Hospital where he was a long-term patient, he, my brother Kenny, Charles and I stole an outhouse for Charles. Chain smoking unfiltered Camels, George managed to squeeze his 348 pounds behind the wheel and to back his pickup to the outhouse. We threw a rope around it and pulled it up into the truck-bed. Hauled ass down the road. Charles had never had a toilet other than God’s open woods. He didn't mind that, but it bothered Grandpa. He thought Charles should have his own shithouse.

Uncle George had gotten a brief release for keeping his pain-in-the-ass ness at a minimum and was staying in the guest cottage on the East side of the property, next to the main house. He was there with "Aunt" Connie who he met in the asylum. The buttons on her blouse were never aligned. She looked like a broken zipper and rocked silently throughout dinners, grinning at some unknown joke. George held his plate high up above his bulk, near his mouth, a burning cigarette between fingers of his left hand. Smoke, shovel, smoke, shovel. Connie grinned manically at the saltshaker and rocked.  

Not long after that, Uncle George finally managed to kill himself with Thorazine and beer, but before he did, we snatched that outhouse for Charles.

I would walk over to Charles place to sit at his table, hugged by the comforting familiarity of the smoky air from his pot of beans and ham hocks that simmered eternally on the wood stove. He added beans, meat and water from the springhouse throughout the week, months and years. Like the old bottles I would pull out of what had once been a cistern over next to the ruins of the big house, there must have been things in that pot that went back too many years to count.

There were no screens on his open windows so in warm weather that bean splattered dining table was a very busy airport of landings and takeoffs. Large bottle-flies circled overhead, just below the fly strips filled with the dried exoskeletons of their ancestors. A flyswatter hanging from the back of a chair, Charles would occasionally tire of the traffic and smash ten or fifteen fatties into table goo. When the layer of dried fly guts got too thick, Charles broke out another flower-patterned plastic tablecloth. Done! At least 8 such tablecloths were in service at any given time. He owned the only three-foot square octuple decker fly sandwich in existence.

I was missing that man last night, now gone some 50 years, so I fixed a meal in his honor. Black-eyed peas with ham hocks with a side of collard greens. This morning I’ll bake fresh buttermilk biscuits from scratch. Charles did the same in a cast iron Dutch oven on top of the stove. His biscuits were crispy black on the bottom, releasing a puff of deliciously moist promise when torn apart.

Charles taught me that a little can be more than enough, a smile and an eager approach, like that old stagecoach road, the best path to get to where I want to be.

He was a very wealthy man, and he celebrated that fact all day, every day.

hmh

Bacon Apple...

There was a “Bacon Apple” at the fair who called to me like a cheap hooker.

I knew it was trouble at first glance but was unable to stop obsessing about the crispy shredded bacon, pressed into a ball, wrapped in (drum roll) more bacon, deep fried.

Batter dipped, deep fried again & given the best Vlad the Impale treatment with a sharpened spear of white birch.

Served plasma hot like a glowing coal in partnership with a pleated white paper cup heavy with thick apple syrup. It all looks innocent enough but is eager to scald my lips, cheek; basically all hard and soft palates.

Throw in a nice glottis scald just for laughs.

Introduce the bacon ball to the syrup, like the Pentecostal preacher at a lakeside christening. 

Expect an epiphany.

That thing will offer a variation of cheap oral sex…but of the highest order.

Not so good for you perhaps, but hey, not their problem. For them it’s just business.

For me? I’ve got to practice moderation in all things...including moderation, of course.

We are all Animals in the Zoo...

Sitting in the shade, grateful for an empty bench among all the animal cages, I felt his eyes on me, even though there appeared to be no one else around.

No shit, Sherlock, and there he was.

On the other side of the worn wooden deck, stood a huge Marabou stork, upright and defiant, only 7 feet away.

He was staring me down.

We played the “Who’s going to blink first” game for a few minutes, until I said a silent “OK, fuck it” and engaged.

“Dude! I didn’t see you there! Whazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzsup?”  

He had been blank until then. I wanted to get him talking so I asked him to tell me his elevator story.

“You know, tell me about yourself in the time it would take to get to the 18^th floor. Where you from?

Marabou: “Africa, south of the Sahara.” He answered.

“You’re quite a bird! Huge! Can you even fly?”

That got him bragging.

Marabou: “In addition to hollow leg bones, I have hollow toe bones. That weight cut allows me to fly like a gazelle runs. It’s a beautiful thing. You should see me.”

 (I lied and told him that hollow toe bones had always been high on my wish list, which encouraged him to continue.)

Marabou: “We Marabou storks are bald-headed.” He boasted.

(He acted like that was a good thing in the Marabou world although he did have a little ball of reddish hair on the back of his noggin that reminded me of my great Aunt Jeedie when she was fresh from having her hair fried at the beauty parlor. Mainly I thought: Been there, done that, still doing that bald thing. We’re Simpatico!)

Marabou: “All us guys carry large air sacs. We have a long, reddish pouch hanging from our necks. The pouch is used in our courtship rituals. Mine is especially beautiful. Chicks love it.”

(I was thinking that human guys could have their balls transplanted to their necks and see how that works out. Fill them full of silicon to get that irresistible look of a two-foot scrotum hanging off our chins.)

Marabou: Like our cousins, those Turkey Vulture in the next pen over, we Marabou Storks defecate on our legs and feet to stay and look cool!”

(Not everyone’s cup of tea I thought but then after all, we start out in life shitting ourselves and get back to it by the time we’re almost done. No biggie, I may rather enjoy warming my feet like that on a cold day.)

I had started thinking about lunch and asked him: “What do you guys eat?”

Marabou: “All of us love a good grass fire or large burns. We march in front of the advancing flames grabbing animals that are fleeing. It’s an awesome buffet. Many of those delicious, stupid critters are already partially grilled!”

 (I couldn’t help admiring his ingenuity.)

Marabou: “I love nothing more than a nice dead elephant for din-din. I’ll eat carcasses and rotting material, anything from termites, flamingos’ small birds and mammals to human refuse and dead elephants. I may be a foodie, but I’m flexible.” 

I had to ask: “But how do you feel about being locked up and on display?”

Then he grew dark, feeling misunderstood.

Marabou: Who is on display here, who’s watching who? What do you really know? Some idiot suggested that we are lazy birds, because we spend so much of our time standing around motionless…and that’s true. But if you were always thinking about quarks, hadrons, dark matter and the stability of protons like I do, you would need a lot of private time to really concentrate too.”

“Good point” I offered. “So maybe you want me to move along?”

Marabou: “That would be best for both of us. I’m tired of you. You seem quite dull, and to be honest, I would have much more interest in you if you were dead and rotting.”

Getting up to go find the rest of my group, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe Mr. Marabou was right. Humans are the ones on display on the world stage, being observed for the long haul.  We’re the ones who will eventually be running from burning buildings.

He scowled at me as I was walking away.

 We both knew that if, and when, humans run out of the fires, he and his buddies will be waiting…

hmh

Ned's Southside

A two-person table in the front by the windows or a booth up against the back wall, Neds is a happy place for me, for us.

Carla and I have been eating Ned’s food since grad school in the late 1970’s. Always comforting and delicious.

So when we moved to St Auggie in 1991, we were delighted to find Ned here. For many years we lived on the Island, three blocks from Gypsy Cab. It was awesome to see Ned on the regular. Gypsy Chicken, great pasta…and then there is the dressing. Nutritional yeast, olive oil, and tons of garlic. (It’s Ned’s, right? Tons of garlic.)

Our daughter worked there. Lots of local kids have. Ned is a great boss and helped out so many along the way.

Then when the market tanked, Ned sold Gypsy Cab and after a few years, opened Ned’s Southside. Cut the prices and portions back by a third. Smart. Nobody had any money then and it was still more food than most can eat in one sitting.

Little has changed. Ned retired to do his own thing It was good to see him at a concert in the AMP recently. Who doesn’t know and love Ned?

We all feared the worst though, when he left the Southside Kitchen. We thought it was like “Cheers”
 closing.

Not true! These days, Kenny is the man and he has done an amazing job keeping everything in place. You know, if it ain‘t broke… Little has changed. Kenny often meets and greets, watching his operation like a benevolent hawk. There are more specials on the board than ever. An enhanced Facebook presence keeps me lusting for another visit even if we just went the other day.

Chris, the best waiter in town, is still doing his thing there, the cook staff relatively unchanged. But the bottom line? The food. The food is always the best

Oh, and that dressing? Fagetaboutit!

Carla had the mushroom soup, creamy, thick and packed with chunky bits of fresh mushrooms.

The conch fritters will cause you serious injury if you’re foolish enough to bite into them too quickly. They’re lava hot. But split one open, let it breathe, smell that clammy batter? It has a little sweetness to it and a whole lot of crunch. Dip a piece in the pink sauce, cool, hot, soft, crunchy, doughy, clammy deliciousness.

I had a Galleon's golden ale from Ancient city brewing. Or three.

 The chicken livers were a first. A new item I think, since I had never had them before. Subbed out the fries for Onion straws. The livers were crunchy, warm and moist inside. We aren’t crazy about onion rings that are stiff with a heavy coat of batter. These are the opposite. Fresh, steaming & oniony, with a batter that is light and delicate, more like Tempura.

Carla got the lasagna special. She loves her pasta, but especially at Ned’s where the meat in their sauce seems to be double ground, not at all chunky. She loves that consistency and always asks for extra cheese too. See how far you can stretch that molten mozzarella.

We’re used to the waitress saying: “This is very hot, so be careful.” as she sits each plate down. We know it’s true, so we relax, unhurried, at peace with the world.

Once we’re seated and the food is served? It’s like when you’ve been out of town and get home late, hungry for sleep, and then you fall back into the familiar sheets and pillows of your own bed. So warm and comforting.

 Just exactly as it should be.