Funhouse Glasses (A.K.A. Bifocals)

Some years ago, I realized I needed glasses.  I had spent my youth with vision problems without realizing what was wrong.  Actually, I had constant headaches, but I had never associated it with my poor vision.  In my late teens I was given a position with a company where I had to read fine print on a checklist for products being shipped out.  I made a few mistakes, which ultimately led to a vision exam.  The eye doctor commented that I had enough astigmatism for an entire family, and when he corrected my vision through the machine thing I was looking through, I realized my problem.  The idea of ‘two eyes, two objects’ suddenly was no longer valid.  Thus came the first set of glasses.

This first pair of glasses was for me a learning curve.  Actually, it was more like a spiral.  Downward.  I had always known the object on the left was a false image allowing me to walk through it.  But there was no longer an image on the left.  I walked into people, walls, doors, and just about anything else in front of me, although as time went on, I learned and adjusted to this new vision.

Over the years I changed prescriptions several times, with my true vision degenerating steadily.  My eye doctor told me I was just keeping ahead of technology by only a small amount, meaning my eyesight was barely correctible each time I visited him, even though it was always a bit worse than the last time I was in.  And after each adjustment in the prescription, there was another learning curve.  At some point I decided to not get new glasses until I couldn’t read the citation I was issued for running the stop sign I didn't see. 

Then came the bifocals.  Such fun.  After my first fitting, I was afraid to walk, as someone had moved the floor somewhere else.  I took short slow steps, each time feeling with my feet to see if the floor was still there.  I made it out of the doctor's office only to be confronted with a curb.  Even though I could see the curb, the step down to the level of the parking lot appeared to be about 75 feet.  I was literally afraid to take the step.  I got down on my hands and knees and felt the distance with my hands before swinging my legs over the edge.  Well, I felt like an idiot, especially after I changed back to my old glasses and realized how many people were watching me.

It only took a couple of weeks to adjust to my new reality, and I was very happy about not having to struggle to read a book.  The only problem was that it was time to renew my driver’s license.  At the DMV I could not read the eye chart.  It was just too blurry.  Back to the eye doctor. 

“David, your eyes are corrected as much as technology can correct them.  With three points or axis of astigmatism in each eye and a near-sighted vision of 20/180, it’s almost a miracle just to keep you from being legally blind.  I went back to the DMV with a note from the doctor, and, reluctantly, they renewed my license.  Two years later I was fitted with trifocals.  And it began again.

It was always obvious to everyone when my prescription changed.  1) My lenses would be thicker, and 2) I would be covered in bruises.  Ultimately the progressive lenses arrived.   And I was in love.  I could almost see, even though my lenses were so heavy my glasses would cut into the top of my nose.  Lightweight lenses were not around back then. 

About 12 or so years ago I realized everything was turning a foggy brown.  I put up with it for a while, but eventually I had to have cataract surgery.  First up the right eye.  After it was over and I spent a couple of weeks recovering, my doctor did the left eye.  Wow! What a difference!  Colors were brighter, and my vision was significantly better.  Not perfect, but I no longer was at the edge of technology.

In the 10 or so years since my surgery, my vision has changed very little.  I still wear glasses for near sightedness (not completely correctable during the surgery), and for a bit of uncorrectable astigmatism.  However, now when I walk into a wall, it’s not because I can’t see.  I chalk it up to moving walls.

The Colonel

I served with the Colonel.  There.  I said it.  I don’t know if I’m proud of it or not, but it was a part of my life I can’t deny happened. 

In the mid-1960’s I took a job at a local drive-in fast food restaurant in Fort Worth.  My position was to run a subsidiary business within the store serving a pressure fried chicken.  I didn’t know anything about this chicken from Kentucky except it wasn’t like any fried chicken I’d ever tasted.  But it wasn’t bad.  One of the perks was I could eat all I wanted, and to a growing teenager, this was as good as money.

About six months into the job, my manager (a kid a year younger than me) quit, and someone from an office somewhere showed up to promote me.  Other than that, nothing changed.  I still did all the work, and I still worked both shifts.  About two months into being a manager I was asked why I hadn’t hired someone to help me.  For some reason I replied, “Why hire someone we don’t need?”

The powers that be liked that answer and told me I was just the person they were looking for to run the new free-standing store they were building.  It was located near where I was living, and it included a big raise.  (I was making $1.05 per hour and would be raised up to $1.25, which was minimum wage at the time.)  This was big money to me. 

The new store was a challenge for the company to open and it took longer than expected to get the new equipment to work properly; however, I was right there with the problems and helped to get them solved.  What I didn’t realize was the real challenges would come when hiring new staff to be trained to operate the restaurant.  Wow.  What a learning curve.  Since the store was located just a few blocks away from my high school (yeah, I was still in school at this time) most of the applicants were people I knew.  And I knew I didn’t want THEM working for me.  It took a while, but eventually we were staffed and trained.

Opening day saw a rush of hundreds of customers wanting to try this strange new chicken, and everyone was up for the task of sending them on their way with bags, boxes, and buckets filled with food.  It was hard work, but we were successful, and it didn’t go unnoticed by the area supervisors.

For many months I kept a tight reign on the operation.  Every day I inspected each person’s appearance to make certain the required “uniform” was worn, and all the men were wearing their ribbon bow tie.  I also made certain the building was cleaned every day in every corner and that everything not in use was in its proper place.  It was a lot of extra work to do this, but I figured if I kept it clean from day one, it would be easier to maintain than having to do it all at once every month or so.  This actually paid off.

The store had been open for about ten months and several of my employees were getting very tired of the cleaning routine.  I can’t really blame them.  I hate cleaning as much as the next person, but if they were cleaning, then I was cleaning.  I didn’t exempt myself, and this is what probably prevented a mutiny.  Then I received a phone call.

“The Colonel is on his way over!”  A store manager across town called to let me know he had received a surprise visit from The Colonel, and the results weren’t pretty.  Several employees were fired on the spot, and the manager was taking a pay cut.  I almost panicked.  I had less than thirty minutes to prepare, so I went to each employee, explained the situation, and hoped for the best.

I had never seen the Colonel before other than his likeness on the buckets of chicken, but I would have known him anywhere.  Few persons were ever as distinctive appearing as the Colonel.  White hair, white beard, white suit, black ribbon tie, and a gold handled cane.  His image is forever burned into my brain.

He walked in with an entourage of what I now call “Yes” men.  The Colonel stared a me for a minute until I finally got up the courage to introduce myself and offered to show him around.  He grumped out some words my direction and began his own inspection of the place.

The first thing he did was put on a pair of white gloves and reach above the door to wipe a finger across the sill.  Nothing.  He looked surprised.  He then set one of his men to counting the cash register and comparing it to receipts.  It was to the penny.  He grabbed a chicken drumstick and gave it a tug.  The bone slipped out properly.  He lifted up several of the floor mats in the kitchen and found a clean floor under them.  He examined the food storage facilities and came out of the rooms looking puzzled.  He even watched as one of the staff prepared the chicken for the cooker just to see if it was being done the official way.  Then he motioned me over to one of the booths and asked me to sit down.

“How much warning did you have there, boy?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Tell me the truth, now.  I know it took longer than twenty minutes to get this place clean like this.”

“Yes, sir.  I started cleaning it the day we opened almost a year ago.  All I did today was tell the workers you would be stopping by.

I was dismissed to help with the customers (it wasn’t busy at that time, but there was still some traffic) while he interviewed each of the employees.  Later he had me join him again.

“Well, I believe you told me the truth.  I’ll see to it everyone here gets a 20-cent raise for doing things the right way.”  He then reached over and grabbed one of the ribbons of my bow tie and pinned a likeness of himself onto it.  “I don’t give many of these away.  Don’t lose it.”

That twenty-cent raise kept the employees happy about cleaning the place for about two weeks, but still with Twinkies costing a nickel a package, it was a lot of money.

I never saw the Colonel in person again, but I still remember his words to me, “Don’t lose it.”  I didn’t.

Texas Barbeque Trail

 I’ve said it before, and I’ve said it many times, “Barbeque is where you find it,” but in Texas all trails lead to barbeque.  In central Texas, just crossing the street can lead to barbeque.  While I haven’t been able to get back to Texas for a few years, I’m certain the number of barbeque joints in the state is greater than ever.  Needless to say, I have many fond memories of Texas barbeque.

 In the mid-‘forties, my grandfather and his friend Sam put their heads together to start a barbeque restaurant.  My grandfather built the pits and a barn-like building for the restaurant and left the rest to Sam and his family.  Sammie’s Bar-b-q is still there near the corner of N. Beach and E. Belknap in Fort Worth, although the original pits were rebuilt long ago, and I doubt if it is still family owned.  This was one of two main places providing the store-bought barbeque I grew up eating.  It was good, but my memories of barbeque really began when I was a kid on a family vacation, and we made stops in Elgin and Lockhart.  ‘OMG!’ was not a phrase used back then, but I can apply it in retrospect.

 In the late ‘sixties, Hank and I traveled to Austin to visit a friend enrolled in the University of Texas.  Bobber decided to take us to a couple of barbeque restaurants he liked to frequent, and we couldn’t say ‘No.’ 

 We spent nearly three days just traveling from joint to joint sampling barbeque (Bobber told us it was just two places, but one thing leads to another).  While some were better than others, only one place we decided shouldn’t keep its doors open.  It was a Santa Maria California-style place specializing in tri-tip.  Now that I live in California I realize that place in Texas was far better than many of the ones in California.  Anyway, we quickly reached capacity, but that didn’t stop us from buying the barbeque and taking it with us.

 Hank and I drove back to Fort Worth with more than thirty pounds of barbeque.  Well, maybe I should say we left Austin with more than thirty pounds of barbeque.  By the time we reached Fort Worth, our smoky stash was considerably smaller.  And we were considerably bigger.

 Just before I moved to California in 1975, I decided to spend a couple of weeks or so driving around Texas.  I had been to almost every corner of the state many times, but business was involved for most of those journeys, and I just wanted to take time to enjoy this world I was leaving one last time.  The one criteria I had for the journey was to have barbeque and Tex-Mex every day—several times every day.

 I packed my car, and the next morning I left the old farmhouse about 8am.  My first stop was a small restaurant about 10 miles away where I had a very small breakfast of eggs, chicken fried steak, sausages, ham, bacon, biscuits and gravy, and French fries.  I needed to save room for my next stop—Angelo’s.

 I met my great-uncle George for an early lunch at Angelo’s and we worked our way through way too much brisket and beer.  From there I drove south to Hillsboro where I met a couple of old friends for “2nd Lunch.”   The small café near the old county courthouse was owned by a family from Harlingen, and they understood what Tex-Mex was all about.  Oh, my.  I was full.  Too full.  But I left there to visit some friends in Waco where we were going to have an early dinner.

 Waco is not known for the world’s greatest Tex-Mex or barbeque, but at it’s worst, it’s still very good.  However, early dinner was at my friend’s home where they were preparing brisket and sausage with several sides.  I couldn’t say ‘no,’ and I ended up taking a small container of food with me when I left later that evening to get to my reserved lodging in Killeen.

 Killeen is home to Fort Hood where my friend Zeke was stationed.  He had a week’s pass, and he was going to accompany me on some of my journeys through the state.  I picked Zeke up about 7am the next morning and we immediately drove east a few miles to Belton for a Tex-Mex breakfast.  This was the last Tex-Mex I would see for a week.  We were entering the heart of Barbeque Country—Central Texas.

 For a solid week we ate barbeque.  Every meal.  Snacks in between meals.  Desserts.  Because it was there.  There is no remembering just how many places we visited.  Usually we ate at the restaurant, but we often got it ‘to go’ so we could eat outside in a park or at a roadside picnic table (remember those?). 

 After returning Zeke to Fort Hood, I continued my travels through other parts of the state (El Paso, Alpine, Marfa, Marathon, Eagle Pass, McAllen, Corpus Christi, etc.), and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but the barbeque was the highlight.

 Today, well over forty years later, many of those barbeque joints are still there.  Yes, some are gone, and new ones have taken their places.  I started hearing some twenty years ago about the ‘Texas Barbeque Trail,’ and as I did a little research as to what it was about, I realized that there is no actual ‘trail.’  It is simply a word used in relation to all the barbeque places in central Texas.  Some places are famous, and some are not.  All are worth stopping at, just like Zeke and I once did.

 One could make a case for a ‘barbeque trail’ by mapping out a series of stops at the more well known places in a roughly fifty mile circle around Austin, but one would be missing out on some great places only the locals know about.  Sometimes the place is located behind, or in, a grocery store, or bar, or gas station.  Sometimes it’s in front of a church or junkyard.  You never know—as I’ve said many times before, ‘Barbeque is where you find it.’

 To me the best barbeque trail begins where you live (even in California).  It’s local, and that’s a good start.  To expand the trail, just take the time on your travels to stop and eat barbeque at a new place.  And if your travels ever take you to central Texas, your trail will be complete.

Home Repairs—Garbage Disposal Edition

I had to replace my garbage disposal, and I wasn’t happy about it.  But who would be happy about replacing a garbage disposal other than a plumber?  At a visitation fee of $250 plus $450 per hour, I'd be happy; however, I am not a plumber, and I wouldn’t know how to invoice myself anyway.

The trouble first started when it suddenly stopped running.  I had been hand washing some dishes, and I thought I would run the disposal a few moments to clean out the stuff that had collected in it after draining the sink.  I turned on the water, and then I turned on the disposal.  The disposal started and suddenly stopped.  I turned the disposal off for a minute or so, and then turned it back on.  It ran perfectly.  Okay.  Problem solved.  Or so I thought. 

The next morning I went into the kitchen to make breakfast, and there was water everywhere.  A small search located the crack in the side of the disposal causing drainage every time the sink was utilized.  Oh, the joy!

Every hardware store in the area was out of the replacement for this disposal, and I didn’t want to re-plumb under the sink any more than I had to.  Fortunately I could order the replacement on line, and for just $72.50 additional, I could have it the next day.  Well, it was still cheaper than the quote from the plumber.

The instructions were simple.  The first line said, ‘Do not try this at home!’  The second line said, ‘Do not use in or near water!'  I never read the third line.

I gathered my tools and crawled under the sink to remove the old disposal.  A couple of screws, a bolt or two, and a smashed finger later, the old unit was out and headed for the trash bin.  Now to replace it with the identical new one.  Did I say ‘identical?’  Every thing was the same.  Every fitting, every wire, every bracket, every thing.  Why didn’t it fit?

Gravity was the reason the old disposal was easy to remove.  Now I had to work against gravity to install the new one.  I’m not really certain just how much the disposal weights, but my estimate is about 75 pounds.  Plus or minus.  Mostly plus.  I was on my left side holding the new disposal in place with my left arm, and attempting to replace screws and bolts with my right hand.  Four and one-half hours later it was in place.  One problem--I forgot to install the electrical cord.  Thirty minutes later the disposal was uninstalled.

After a day off to recover, I wired in the electrical cord to the unit, and just 5 hours later it was working.  No sparks, no leaks.  It really worked.  Now I understand the first instruction, ‘Do not try this at home!’

Bob Lost His Keys

 Last year my neighbor passed away 3 months shy of his 100^th birthday.  Bob was a big loss to our neighborhood, and he will not soon be forgotten. 

Bob had lived in his house more than seventy years.  Back in the late 1940’s he moved to California, got married, built his house from scratch, and raised a family.  Bob would never consider, even in the smallest amount, ever moving out of his house.  And he was true to the end.  Bob passed away at home, in his bed, surrounded by family.  Who could ask for more?

I was privileged to know Bob for his final 3 ½ years.  He was funny, generous, and kind.  Even though he was struggling to walk, he would often find a way to step onto his porch to greet my wife and I if we were outside.  Every Thursday he would have someone drive him to the local Senior Center where he would play Bingo for a few hours.  And every Friday he would find it necessary to tell me how much he won playing the game.  It was usually 2 or 3 dollars, and he played only 12 games (at 1 dollar per game) to win it.  But he had fun being the only man at the venue. 

During his last year, I began taking his trashcans to the curb each week for the sanitation engineers to pick up.  I noticed very little in the cans beyond ice cream cartons, so I asked the obvious question: "Do you need help getting groceries, or preparing food?”  To this I received 3 minutes of laughter as a reply.  It seems Bob decided that healthy eating habits were only for those persons hoping for a long healthy life, and he had already accomplished that.  At his age (98 at the time) he decided to eat what he wanted, and what he wanted was an unlimited supply of ice cream.   The only variance in his ice cream diet was found in brand and flavor. 

About 2 months before Bob passed away, I spend an afternoon with him on his back porch listening to the many stories he had lived through in his lifetime.  Neither of us really wanted to be sitting on his porch, but Bob couldn’t find the keys to his door, and managed to lock himself out of his home.  Spare keys had been hidden is very specific spots around his property, and I knew where most of them were, so I started searching. 

The first place I looked, Bob immediate informed me he had loaned those keys to his grandson.  So I went to the second place only to be told his grandson’s wife had those keys.  Number 3 went to another grandson.  Number 4 went to his daughter’s partner’s brother.  And so forth.  No spare keys were remaining.  So we sat on his back porch trying to call everyone with a key.  Not answering.  Out of town.  Lost the key.  Oh, I have a key?  Etc. 

For several hours I listened to Bob’s stories.  He spent World War II in Africa as a supply clerk near Casablanca where he went swimming in the ocean every afternoon.  When it was time to return home, he flew back in the open door bomb bay of a B-24.  He said he watch the Atlantic Ocean beneath his feed for the many hours of the flight, all the time hoping not to fall out.  When I asked him if he was strapped in, he replied, “Where's the fun in that?"  ‘Quite a character’ does not begin to describe Bob.

Finally Bob ran out of stories, and we grew tired of waiting for some of those persons not answering their phones to return messages.  Bob’s neighbor to the east (I live on the west side) noticed us and came over to visit.  When we told him the circumstances, he retrieved some tools from his home to break into Bob’s house.  In just a few minutes Bob was inside eating ice cream.  The next day I repaired the damage to the doorframe, and was handed a spare set of keys--just in case. 

Bob left this world a little over a year ago, and every day when I step outside the first thing I do is check to see if Bob is out on his porch to greet me.  I know he is no longer there, but I still see him every time I look at the house that Bob built.  

Quarantined

I know it’s not a complete lockdown, but I'm treating it as such--sort of.  I still need to get groceries, water, and visit my doctors for routine maintenance, but for the most part, I’m staying home.  It’s not a lot of fun.  But I’m trying to do my part in stopping this virus.

Many adjustments have been made to accomplish this minimalization of lifestyle, and I know I’m not alone.  I was talking with my neighbors (over the phone) a few days ago, and the discussion of toilet paper came up.  Oh, boy!  Neither of us knows of anyone who has even seen a roll of the stuff in a month.  Well, sort of.  Almost everyone has seen it in abundance in someone else’s shopping cart.  Earlier this week I was at a Costco and saw a person with eleven shopping carts lined up each with a bundle of toilet paper in it, along with paper towels and hand sanitizer in most of them.  I watched as this person (along with her shopping cart guard) took one of the carts through checkout, then handed it off to a waiting friend to remove from the store.  This person then took another cart through checkout and did the same thing again.  It took a team of four or five people to work this out, but it was all purchased by one person.  And I didn’t get any.  The store was out.

The phone discussion with my neighbor turned into a “what did people do before toilet paper” discussion.  Well I was raised on a farm with an outhouse, and I know what to do, but I’m not real excited about doing it.  I remember when Papa brought home a wagon load of dried corncobs, and piled them by the outhouse.  Just grab a few on the way in and scrape away.  Fortunately dried corncobs are scarcer than toilet paper today.  Of course, corncobs were a last resort.  The usual choice was a few pages from a catalog, such as Sears or Montgomery Ward, that is until they started printing in color on the slick glossy paper.  Then it was back to corncobs or even a handful of hay from a bale lying next to the pile of corncobs.

This morning I called to make an appointment to see my doctor about some problems stemming from an accident some time in my past.  What a circus!  The doctors at the clinic I go to are now on a rotating schedule with no one working more than two random days per week.  To get an appointment one must be in an emergency situation and call on the day their doctor is available.  If the doctor is not available, one must wait until the following day to try again.  When I asked what days my doctor will be in, I was told the schedule is known only to the doctors, so I must try every day until I get it right.  What is this? 

I went to a local grocery a few days ago only to discover a line wrapping around the building.  The estimate was a seven to eight hour wait to enter the store.  The next morning I returned at five a.m. only to discover the line was already wrapped around the building.  I asked some people near the front of the line what time they arrived, and I was shocked to discover they were in line when the store closed at nine p.m the night before. 

On the plus side, I needed gasoline (for the first time in many weeks), and there was no one in line at Costco.  I drove straight to the pump and filled my gas tank.  Unbelievable.  It’s usually a twenty to thirty minute wait, and sometimes much longer. 

A sign on the front of a hardware store said “Face Masks Required.”  Underneath it was a sticker on the glass reading “Facial Coverings Not Allowed.” 

It’s a crazy world we are now living in, but the key word here is "living."  I'm seeing on the television reports of protesting crowds and crowded beaches.  I don’t understand why these people have such a death wish.  This pandemic will only grow longer if people don’t isolate.  More time inside will help to end this tragedy sooner.  To me that is obvious, but apparently not everyone agrees.  Oh, well.  I'll just stay as isolated as possible until this is over.  Hopefully you will also.

Stay safe everyone.

Blackberries

I was walking through the produce section of a local organic market when I spotted a sale on blackberries.  Immediately my thoughts turned to the cobblers my grandfather used to make after an afternoon of picking blackberries on the side of the roads around Fort Worth.

In the 1950’s many of the narrow secondary roads around Fort Worth were either dirt or crudely paved with asphalt.  If dirt, then the road had mud holes deep enough to "bottom out" a car.  If paved, then the road had potholes deep enough to “bottom out” a car.  Either way, the roads were an experience unto themselves.  Along the sides of any of these roads were bar ditches often filled with weeds, junk, and snakes, but in many places were wild blackberry vines.  And it was to these vines we would journey.

It was not unusual to fill every pot and bowl we owned with wild blackberries on a single outing.  It was also not unusual to disturb rabbits, snakes, wild dogs, and a skunk or two, making the adventure an adventure.  We would always come home with enough blackberries to fill our big chest freezer, and our arms would be a mess of scratches warranting half a bottle of Mercurochrome or Iodine.  Such fun!  And Papa would always make a blackberry cobbler.

For years I tried to duplicate the taste of Papa’s cobblers, but I didn't succeed.  But I won't call it a failure either.  After all, I got to eat a lot of blackberry cobbler.  It doesn’t get any better!

Changes

Today my wife and I were talking about how things have changed over the years.  It wasn’t a discussion about how things were better in the ‘60’s or ‘70’s, it was just an observation about changes.  For instance, I grew up with Twinkies costing a nickel a package.  When they jumped to a dime, I thought I was going to starve to death.

We have been privileged to witness the transition from a world without computers to the marvels of the Internet surrounding us.  The world of gourmet foods was only for the upper class not too long ago.  A telephone was strapped down to the walls for a long time, and now it’s unusual not to have one in our pocket.  Does anyone remember film?  How about a pocket calculator—never mind a slide rule?  Transistor radio?  How about defrosting the refrigerator?  Ice box?

My wife’s mother once told her about watching a movie projected onto the side of a barn back in the 1920’s.  It showed a train coming directly at the viewers, and they began to panic because their minds weren’t used to such realism.  Nowadays we watch almost any kind of action movie with a wide array of special effects, and we just sit and enjoy the movie.  Not often do we go into panic mode when something appears to be coming directly at us.

My mother’s mother remembered the first car she ever saw.  She described it as a light buggy with a motor and a paddle for steering.  My mother’s father used to talk about using wooden tools as an electrician (Sparky) in the navy a number of years before WWI.  I remember my mother trying to learn to drive a car with power steering and power brakes.  It took a while, and many bruises, for her to transition to such a luxury.

Even in my own (almost) seventy years, I’ve witnessed many changes.  Sputnik.  A man on the moon.  We had party line, crank box telephones.  Electricity was from a generator in back of one of the barns. How about well water?  Outhouse?  Wood burning stove?

I remember the good times of days long past, and I remember the bad times as well.  But I don’t long for the “good old days.”  I’m enjoying those right now.

The Sunburn

In the early 1970’s I loaded my canoe on top of my car and drove to a lake in northeast Texas.  It was called Lake Texarkana at the time I was there, but about a year later the name was changed to Wright Patman Lake.  A rose by any other name.  I was seeking a couple of days of solitude away from the endless business meetings of corporate life, and I thought exploring a lake I hadn’t seen before was just the thing for me.

The trip was an uneventful few hours as I drove the 190 miles from my home to Douglassville where I rented a room as my base of operations.  Since I had left my home at about 3am I had plenty of time to drive on over to the lake and launch my canoe, and long before noon I was well out on the water.   The idea was to simply explore, but I had brought with me some basic fishing equipment just in case a likely spot appeared. 

I paddled along the shoreline for about an hour as I soaked in the solitude and warm sun.  I found myself getting sleepy and decided to drop my anchor and do some “fishing” while taking a nap.  Best laid plans.  I dropped my line in the water, settled down in the bottom of the canoe where I could stretch out and lean back against the seat, and promptly fell asleep. 

While the nap was not unexpected, the next thing to happen was a shock.  I was awakened by the game warden.  He had drifted his boat up beside me to check on what appeared to him to be an empty canoe, but instead he thought he had found a body.  We were both relieved there was no lifeless body in my canoe, and he understood my explanation of seeking solitude from the rat race I lived in.  He had the opposite problem.  He sometimes drove into Texarkana just to be around people.

Since it was nearly 6pm he offered to tow me back to where I had launched my canoe, and I accepted.  I guess I had been asleep for about 3 or 4 hours when he awakened me, and I was acutely aware that my skin was quite burned.  If I had tried to paddle back to the launch area, I may not have made it. 

That night I visited a store where I could load up on baby oil, skin cream, and aspirin.  I hadn’t been sunburned since I was a kid, and I was not overly fond of what I was feeling.  I was able to lie flat on my back to try to sleep, but any movement make my skin feel like old brittle cellophane being crushed into a ball.  Not fun.  The next morning I loaded up my things and drove home.

Have you ever had a sunburn?  I believe I had rather have endless leg cramps.  Even worse is the aftermath as the skin tries to repair itself.  I had to return to the job of wearing a suit every day and giving presentations in different cities almost every day.  Burning, itching, peeling skin looks almost as bad as it feels, and having to travel around the country gave me very little time to try to solve the problem.

About six or seven weeks later I thought I was repaired and ready enough to go back to the lake to finish what I had started.  I wanted to explore this big lake, and this time I did not take either the fishing equipment or the canoe.  I decided to take along an old friend and rent a boat. 

Mike and I were out on the lake about 7am and were well prepared with extra fuel, water, lunch, and a huge pile of snacks.  We motored for a few hours exploring, snacking, and reminiscing our childhood.  We had had many adventures together as kids, and we were actually reconnecting after a few years apart.  About 1pm we found a spot near the shore where we could drop anchor and have lunch.  And a nap.  A long nap.

Mike woke me up, and I remember looking at the reddest person I had ever seen.  Then the pain hit me.  Not only had I done it again, but this time I had inflicted the pain on my friend as well.

The sun was going down as we finally returned to the boat landing.  The manager of the boathouse said we should see a doctor.  I think he was right, but we didn’t listen.  We spent the night bathing our skins in various oils and lotions, and attempting to cool off.  Nothing worked.  Needless to say a second day exploring the lake was out of the question for both of us.

We returned home and dealt with our problems in our own ways.  I saw Mike a couple of weeks later, and he was beginning to heal reasonably well.  But I was still ultra sensitive to the touch.  In fact, my new skin from the first burn was not fully developed before the second burn occurred.  For about six months afterward I found it difficult to go outside during the daytime without experiencing physical pain.  And for almost a year my skin had a pink to light red cast to it.  To make matters worse, I spent much of the next year in Spain where the hot sun is a way of life.

I know you are thinking, “Why didn’t you wear sunscreen?”  But to be honest, I didn’t really know about it.  I had heard of suntan lotions; however, I thought that suntan lotions were only for getting a suntan.  Live and learn.  And it’s a lesson I don’t want to learn again.

Tomatoes

I spent much of my formative years on a working farm.  It was there I learned the basics of raising various crops for food—or so I thought.  It seemed easy when my grandfathers or uncles were in charge of things.  They always knew just what to do when things changed.  And things were always changing.  Rain, wind, hot sun, high humidity, bugs, big bugs, birds, rodents, etc., were always a problem to face.  I just didn’t realize how big the problems were until I planted a few tomatoes last spring.

It seemed easy enough.  I had three frames for shallow raised beds laid out on the ground where the sun would reach them about 8 to 9 hours each day.  I filled them with quality soil and amendments, and covered them with weed cloth and mulch.  I cut holes into the surface and planted eight tomato plants, two tomatillos, and eight pepper plants.  I gave them a good soaking, and sat down to admire my garden of four-inch high green twigs.  After a couple of hours I went into the house.

The following morning I rushed out to check on my new garden.  (Actually I got dressed first, had breakfast, worked on my computer, and did a few other things before I remembered the garden.)  My tomato plants were already a full inch taller than the day before, but the pepper plants were exactly the same.  I was disappointed.  I expected to have tomatoes and peppers by now.  Oh, well. 

It was about two weeks later before I realized the pepper plants were not showing much improvement.  Certainly they were bigger and had more leaves, but the leaves were wrinkled and had holes in them.  I also noticed the tomato plants were showing some leaf stress.  What do I do now?  My grandfathers and uncles are long ago gone from this earth, so I turned to the internet.  Oh Good Grief!!

First I addressed the leaf stress in the tomatoes.  According to the internet the causes were not enough water, too much water, not watering often enough, watering too often, too much sun, not enough sun, too much wind, not enough wind, humidity too high, humidity too low, white flies, lady bugs, honey bees, aphids, birds, squirrels, and noise from having a freeway within five miles.  So I decided to look up the pepper problems.

Apparently (according to the internet) my peppers were stunted from a lack of calcium, they had wrinkled leaves from a lack of calcium, but they had holes in them from too much calcium.  It was time to cry.  When I had regained my composure, I thought a trip to a nearby reputable nursery was in order.

I left the nursery with a car full of amendments and fertilizers, an empty wallet, and a stunned look on my face.  But I did what I was told, and in a few days all of the plants began to show signs of improvement, and after about nine weeks I had tomatoes and peppers forming.  I also had more bugs than I thought possible.  I think an entomologist would have a field day identifying new species in my garden.  I believe there are at least four.  Maybe more.

What was I thinking when I reached back to my farmer days and decided to plant a small garden?  I know I was remembering the taste of vine-ripened tomatoes picked and eaten out of hand in the field.  I know I was remembering the times I picked fresh jalapenos for breakfast.  I seemed to have forgotten the volume of work it takes to bring a crop to the table.  I also forgot that I wasn’t the one making all the decisions necessary to raise a successful crop.  And I forgot about the insects.

Well, a hot spell cooked the tomatoes and peppers.  When the tomatoes and peppers are charred on the vine, it’s just too hot to continue, but the few that ripened were worth all the trouble.  There is no substitute for ripe tomatoes and peppers right off the vine.  Next year I’ll try again, but this time I’m adding some corn to the planters.  I may not be a good farmer, but I can’t deny my roots.

When Life Gives You Lemons

A few days ago my 98-year-old neighbor came bouncing out his front door to catch me in my driveway. 

“David," he shouted, “I’ve got something for you!"  And with that he handed me a big bag of lemons.

Bob had been sitting on his back porch earlier that morning looking at the lemon tree he planted in 1948, seventy years ago just after he built his house.  He said it has produced bushels of lemons every year since 1949, and the only thing he has ever done to the tree since planting it is pick the lemons.  No water, no fertilizer, no pruning, nothing.  Just pick the lemons.  He said he is running out of people to give the lemons to, so it’s up to me to take up the slack.

Well, I like lemons, but this seems to be a bigger job than I wish to deal with; however, for now I’ll use as many lemons as I can.  Let’s see, lemon pound cake, lemon water, lemon iced tea, lemon pie, lemonade, lemon chicken, uh, lemon ice cubes, lemon …  Oh, my!  This brings back into my thoughts a few lemon incidences.

At one time I had a position with a company that required a lot of travel.  My main office was in Chicago, but I was often away, and my assistant James kept things running in my absence.  Needless to say, James knew my schedule, and once when I was slated to return to the office, his wife baked me a lemon pie.

James brought the pie to work and somehow managed to sneak it past the security guard and other employees and into my office without being seen.  Believe me when I say if just just one person had noticed it, the pie would not have made it to its destination.  Rather than leave it on my desk where anyone walking by would have noticed it, James placed the pie in my desk’s chair where I would be certain to see it.  Best laid plans.

I arrived at the office a few minutes later, pulled out my chair, and promptly sat on the pie.  At first I was confused.  My chair didn’t feel right.  Did someone swap chairs with me?  As I stood up, I realized what had happened.  To be honest I really wanted to sample some of the pie parts that appeared to have been left in tact, but I thought better of it.  After all, my bottom had just sat on that pie.  At least I had a couple of extra suits in the travel bags I kept in the office.

Another time lemons impacted my life was again at the same office about a year later.  One of the other department heads had made some limoncello using a recipe from his Italian grandfather.  He managed to get it past the security guards and into my office where he closed the door behind him.  I watched as he pulled out two oversized shot glasses and the bottle of limoncello from his overcoat.  He uncorked the bottle and filled both glasses.  He picked up one of the glasses and knocked it back in one gulp, and then he pointed to the second glass and to me.  I must say it was good.

A second round was poured, and it went down even easier than the first.  Then a third round was poured.  I can remember asking him if I really wanted to do this, but I absolutely do not remember his answer.  Later—much later—he told me I didn’t make it to the fourth round.  It turns out his old Italian grandfather’s recipe started with a bottle of Everclear 190 proof.

So I thanked my neighbor Bob for the bag of lemons, and proceeded into my home to brew up some lemonade and iced tea.  And later out of curiosity I drove over to an adult beverage store to price some Everclear.  Thank goodness it is outlawed where I now live, and I’ll need to find other ways of dealing with life’s lemons.  Maybe I’ll make a pie.  But I won't sit in it.

The Frog Gig

Recently I was in a sporting goods store and I saw something that brought back a flood of memories.  It was a frog gig.  I’m certain it could find many uses other than for catching frogs, so I guess it makes sense for it to be in a store in an area that isn’t exactly known for bullfrogs, but when I see a frog gig, all I can think of is frog hunting.

When I was about six or seven years old I came across some photos from the late 1930’s of my grandfather and his son (my uncle I had never met) showing off the results of a night spent catching bullfrogs.  I asked a few questions about the frogs and why they hunted them, but all I got in return was a sad look and a sigh.  I didn’t understand what it was about, but I didn’t ask any more questions.  (I discovered a few years later my uncle had been a casualty of WWII’s Pacific theater.)

Some time passed and one day my grandfather brought home from somewhere a bunch of frog legs to cook up for me to try.  He showed me how to skin them, and how to cut the tendon between the drumstick and the thigh.  He said if we didn’t cut it, the frog leg would try to jump out of the frying pan.  Okay.  Well, he fried them up like chicken legs and let me try one.  Then I understood why he and my uncle hunted them.  They were good.  Really good.

A couple of years passed and I was now eight or nine, maybe ten, years old.  Papa brought me out to one of the old barns where he had some long bamboo poles with a three-pronged spike tied on each one (sort of like a trident but bent a little differently).  He told me we were going frog gigging in a couple of days.  Actually it would be at night with a flashlight, and I should expect to get muddy.

The evening finally came for the hunt.  I really didn’t know how this worked, but Papa assured me that if I just watched him for a few minutes, I would understand what to do.  We arrived at the big stock tank of one of the nearby ranches about the same time as the sun set, and Papa grabbed a pole and started off towards some reeds along the bank, and I just mimicked what he did.

At the edged of the reeds Papa held up his pole with both hands in a striking position and simply froze in place.  At first I thought something was wrong, but I quickly realized he was waiting for a frog to make his appearance.  Suddenly there was a loud croak, and Papa turned slightly and thrust his pole into the reeds.  Then he backed away pulling out a huge bullfrog.  I caught on quickly.  In about two hours we had a washtub full of frogs.

We drove home where I learned the joys of cleaning frogs.  But the results were a couple of meals of frog legs.  I like frog legs although I rarely find them on any menu.  And I also don’t live where I can easily hunt them, but that’s okay since I wouldn’t be physically able to do it anyway.

Papa and I went frog gigging a couple of more times before he became ill and couldn’t do it anymore.  I tried it on my own a few times, but it just wasn’t any fun by myself, and I couldn’t talk any of my friends into trying it.

Flash forward quite a few years and I began attending an annual event known in SoCal as the Wild Game Feed where frog legs are one of the appetizers served almost every year.  Needless to say, I’m always quick to get in line.  They are served with a couple of other interesting items, and every year I have some fun with someone who hasn’t tried them before.

One year I was in line with a guy who thought some of the items being served were not really as labeled.  I watched as he loaded up with what he called popcorn chicken, chicken drumsticks, and onion rings.  I took a small portion of each and stood nearby to watch as he tried each one.  First was the onion rings.

This guy chewed and chewed and finally swallowed, but he gave the rings a pass for eating any more.  Then he tried the drumsticks.  One bite, a strange look, and one more bite.  That was all.  Then for the popcorn chicken.  As he was chewing on the first bite, I walked up to him and simply said, “They really are labeled correctly.”

The man smiled at me and handed me his serving dish as he rinsed out his mouth with big swallows of beer.  “Please explain,” he choked out.

“Well the signs and labels are accurate.  The onion rings are actually calamari as stated.  Squid.  Very tasty, but not onion rings.  The frog legs really are frog legs, not chicken legs.  And the turkey nuts are actually turkey nuts.  This is a wild game feed, the real thing, not a fake.”

The guy was a bit pale for a few minutes, but he did ask for his dish back.  I encouraged him to sample in moderation, and ask questions if he was unsure.  I’ve seen him return year after year, and now he will try things I won’t. 

Speaking of things I won’t try, I was reading about how the Aztec’s served frog.  Basically they covered it is some kind of dough and wrapped that up in banana leaves.  A few hours of baking, and it was time to eat.  At first I thought it would be interesting until I read the frog was still alive when they wrapped it up.  Hmm…whole frog does not appeal to me.

Well, I stood there at the sporting goods store looking at that frog gig for quite a while reminiscing.  I was noticed by a sales clerk who came over to “help” me with my purchases.  At the moment he arrived I had taken the frog gig off the display hook and was actually considering buying it.

“Mister, that poker you’re holding is the best thing that ever happened to a fisherman.  You just put it on the end of your rod, and when the fish gets near you stick him with it.  Works every time.”

I looked at the clerk for a moment or two, replaced the frog gig on the display hook and left the store.  It just wasn’t worth trying to explain.

Restaurant Reviews

Everyone has their favorite places to dine, and reviews mean little or nothing if the diner is happy with the food and service.  I tend to be one of those people who will try a place once to give it a chance, and I make my own review of the place.  Sometimes I’m wrong.  Sometimes I’m very wrong.  And sometimes…well…

Local hot spots are often a good place to stop for something to eat.  If there is a line out front of a place, I make a note of it and will return when the line is much shorter.  Yesterday I had lunch at one of those places. 

This eatery has a great location across the street from the beach in a small town a few miles down the coast from where I live.  Every time I drive by people are lined up at both the take-out window and on benches waiting for a table inside.  But today the line to get in was very short, and I chose to stop to find out about the place.

Wow.  I received my plates of neutral colors, and overlapping stuff, and thought, “I hope it tastes better than it looks.”  It didn’t.  It tasted worse.  Much worse.  I looked around and saw people really digging in—and they seemed to be happy about it.  What am I missing here?  They had the same stuff I had.  I took another bite.  It still tasted bad.

I started to complain, but after thinking about it, I decided to have it boxed up to go.  After leaving, I dumped it into the nearest trash bin.  It was the right thing to do.  Now if I could just get rid of the gas it gave me without causing damage to something nearby.

I’ve eaten at some interesting places over the years.  On Galveston Island in the early ‘70’s there was a pizza place that guaranteed your pizza in 10 minutes or less, whether it was done or not.  A place in Wyoming offered your meal free if you could guess what type of meat was on your plate.  A place in Alabama offered a big discount if you could eat the meat on your plate.

Throughout the south I stopped at barbeque joints with screen doors hanging from one hinge, and luxury cars parked all around.  One place had security guards letting people in, but I noticed no one was leaving.  I drove on.  Another place had a big pen full of fat hogs outside the kitchen door.  I drove on.  But I stopped at many of these “off the main road” places over the years and was never disappointed.  Some places were better than others, but I was never disappointed.  Barbeque is well understood in the South.

A deli in Brooklyn (or was it in the Bronx?) served me a huge sandwich with a pickle.  I asked if I could have two pickles, and the server just reached over with a knife and split my pickle in half lengthwise.  Well, now I had two pickles, and one superb sandwich.

An Italian restaurant in the Bronx (or was it in Brooklyn?) served what they wanted to serve.  No menu.  No requests.  When leaving, the man in a dark suit seated on a high stool by the door told you what you were going to pay for your meal.  Believe me, you paid the price.  But it was worth it, and I returned several times.

There is a steak restaurant northeast of Phoenix where ties are forbidden.  If you wear one in, the server will produce a pair of scissors and cut it off.  Then your tie will be nailed to a wall for everyone to see.  The steaks are great, but don’t wear a tie.

In my youth there was a Mexican food buffet in my hometown that served “All You Can Stand for $1.79.”  I ate there many times until I realized I couldn’t stand it anymore.  The words “Mexican” and “Food Buffet” should never be used in the same sentence.

Shortly after getting married, my wife and I moved into a trailer park in an older part of town.  Money was tight, and it was close to work, so it worked for us.  A major highway ran along the edge of the park, and across the highway was a small pizza and pasta joint.  (Did I say ‘joint?’  I meant ‘restaurant.’)  The nearest corner to cross the highway was several hundred yards away, so running across the middle of the busy highway was the norm if we wanted pizza.

All too often we would make the crossing for pizza and a pitcher of beer.  Actually the pizza was pretty good, and we would sit and eat and talk and drink a bit too much beer.  At least we weren’t driving; however, there was a highway to cross.  The only reason I’m here today to write about this is because we finally came to our senses and moved away.  But I still miss that pizza.

I guess this isn’t really a restaurant review, but more like an indigestion rating.  One burp is good.  Four burps isn’t so good.  A couple of these places rate closer to four T.P.’s.  But life wouldn’t be as interesting if we didn’t experiment with our food.

Car Swap

In a previous posting I mentioned swapping around motorcycles and managing to upgrade as I went.  (Or at least I thought at the time I was upgrading.)  But I also swapped around some cars, and looking back on it, I made some big mistakes.  Many of those cars would become collectible classics.  In my defense, at the time they were just fun drives.

In no particular order, I had a 1946 MG TC, a 1953 Corvette, a 1956 T-Bird (with both tops), a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado 2-door convertible, a 1969 Ford Torino Cobra Jet, a 1969 Hurst/Olds, a 1968 Dodge Charger, and a 1968 Mustang G.T.500KR, as well as several others.

Today that’s an impressive line-up for anyone, but back in 1965 to about 1973, those were just cars—desirable even then, but still just cars.  Times have really changed.  The MG TC I paid $75 for.  I swapped it even for the Cadillac, and in turn swapped the Cadillac for the T-Bird.   I was driving the T-Bird one day when a guy offered me some cash and the ‘Vette he was driving for a trade.  I took it.  I still had a little sports car and a bunch of money.

The 1953 Corvette was white with a red interior, a two-speed automatic transmission and a six-cylinder engine.  It was fun to look at, but it was a pain to drive and maintain.  It was underpowered and unreliable.  The 6-volt electrical system just kept going out to pasture, and the thing drove like a tank.  I realized too late why the guy was willing to offer me such a good deal.  I’ve been afraid of good deals ever since.

The thing is though, I should have kept the car.  I can’t recall the serial number, but it was very low.  “002,” “003,” “004,” something like that.  I doubt this car is still around today, but if it is, I’m certain the current owner is quite aware of its value.  I traded it for a 1961 Chevy Impala SS 409.

The trades and swaps continued for a few years, and I started driving a 1971 Ford Maverick as my regular car.  It was a late year model and was equipped with a very powerful V-8 that I later discovered had been installed by mistake.  It was a Boss 302 someone at the factory was tinkering with, but it got into the regular sales by accident.  I kept this for a number of years while the other cars came and went.

At some point about 1973 I sold the last muscle car I was hanging on to.  It was a 1970 Super Bee Hemi.  And for some reason I just stopped trading.  Work had me traveling constantly, and the car swapping was becoming boring as well as difficult to continue.  But looking back on the cars I was privileged to possess, even for a short time, I was a very fortunate man.  As I’ve discovered over the years, very few persons have ever had the opportunity to sit in just one of these cars, much less own and drive one.

The Simple Life

Recently a friend posted on Facebook the following quote:  “I’m so old that I’ve actually dialed a rotary phone before, while listening to an 8-track, next to a black & white TV with aluminum foil on top of its rabbit ear antennas!”

To this I replied:  “I used a crank-box phone while listening to a hand wound Victor Talking Machine playing wax pressed 78 rpm platters sitting next to a 3-dial tuner Marconi radio using electricity generated from a farm windmill.”

This started a brief exchange with another friend who had similar experiences to mine.  The reality is there was a time in America before Smart Phones, High Definition,  Internet, and Computers.  I don’t want to go back to the way things were.  Yeah, I remember these things, and they make fun memories, but that’s about as far as it goes.

My great-uncle John and his wife Gertrude were farmers, and I really enjoyed visiting with them.  At least it was a break from the farm my grandparents owned.  Uncle John lived in a very complex world often referred to as ‘the simple life.’  But it was anything but simple.  Every day John would have to replenish the woodpile next to the kitchen door so Gertrude would be able to fire up the old cast-iron wood-burning cook stove.  She would spend all day working in the kitchen (literally from about 4am until 7pm) just so they could have cooked meals.  John would work the watermelon fields and maintain the farm animals (again from about 4am to 7pm).  And in their spare time they would retire to the ‘parlor’ to relax, watch the radio, dance to some music from their old Victor Talking Machine, or just fall asleep reading a book.

I would visit the farm a few miles southeast of Fort Worth for a couple of weeks each summer from the time I was about 8 until John passed away just before my 13^th birthday.  I would work in the watermelon fields just as the harvest was beginning, and it was not easy.  Some of the melons would weigh in at 60 to 70 pounds.  But then again, I got paid real money for my contribution. 

There were days when we quit working the fields about noon and spent the rest of the day cleaning out barns, feeding animals, repairing fences, cutting and stacking wood, collecting eggs, milking cows, and several other things that couldn’t be neglected.  I suspect there were a few things, such as fence repair, that were neglected until I came for my summer visit, but that was okay.  I sort of liked the fence repair.

Uncle John was about seventy years older than me, but still, he could keep up a work pace that would drop a mule.  I do believe he would have worked longer days if the sun had stayed up a little longer.  In fact, during full moons he would often work into the night because of the extra light.

This is not to say all I did when I visited was work.  I had time to explore his old barns and look over items stored in them untouched for maybe a hundred years.  I opened a cabinet and discovered a cache of muskets from the Great War for Southern Independence.  I found a large number of pistols and swords from that era as well.  John told me he purchased the farm in 1911 from a civil war vet, and he had heard rumors that the place had once been used for meetings to stage another uprising.  He had also heard the place was used to store contraband weapons, since firearm ownership was outlawed in Texas from 1865 to about 1870.  He thought these were just rumors.

I asked why he had never opened up any of the boxes and cabinets in the barn before now, and he replied he never had the time.  There was always too much to do.  But he decided to join me for a day or so and just go through some of the old stuff.

There were built-in cabinets along one wall that yielded more than sixty rifles and muskets.  More than a dozen boxes contained pistols of varying types, and we found several trunks packed with old gray uniforms (mostly rotted).  Four or five crates of swords of several types and designs.  And under a pile of canvas tarps was a cannon.  It wasn’t enough to outfit a regiment, but it was far more than most people had lying around.   There was no powder for the weapons, but we did find a large box filled with shot canisters for the cannon.

The next morning John called someone at a museum to come out and look at this stuff.  I remember it was a long process of connecting through multiple operators to reach the museum less than 20 miles away.  .

My summer with Uncle John was over before the museum person came out to visit, so I never got to find out what happened with all those items.  I left with my family for a visit to Roaring River State Park in Missouri for a week, and when we returned, we found out Uncle John had been killed by falling through the roof of a barn he was repairing.  A few years later I went to the museum to inquire if they had purchased the war items from my uncle, but they had no record.  Aunt Gertrude also never answered my questions about them.

I’ll never forget the farm.  Candles, kerosene lamps, wood burning stove, windup record player, crank box telephone, outhouse (complete with bugs, spiders, snakes, and wasps), working from dark to dark, caring for animals, raising watermelons, etc.  And they called it the simple life.

The Caterpillar

Have you ever had a bad job?  I mean the type where absolutely nothing goes right?  I know I've had plenty of bad jobs due to incompetent bosses, too many bosses, responsibility without authority, understaffing, unpaid (but required) overtime, etc.  But what I'm referring to is this: everything that could go wrong does go wrong regardless of bosses, staffing, and so forth.

I once worked as a substitute paperboy.  When I was about 13 years old I lived in an area where there were about 15 different newspaper delivery routes within just a couple of miles of my home, and all of them had a permanent carrier assigned to it.  But I discovered there was no one to fill in for them if they were sick, or out of town, so I volunteered for the job, and I got it.

Each route had a skip list where any address on the list did not receive a paper.  Simple enough, but no one kept them up to date.  My first day as a substitute resulted in about a 40 percent error rate, yet I was completely accurate according to the list.  While my boss didn't blame me, I had to spend a couple of hours redelivering papers.  It turned out this was a problem on every route I filled in on.  After a while it just wasn't worth it.

My next job was at a golf driving range where I was assigned to pick up the golf balls by using a small tractor with a special device for scooping up the little round demons.  I discovered there were several golfers who were very accurate off the tee.  Still it took me about a month to decide I was tired of being the target for these sadistic idiots.  No wonder I never wanted to play golf.

A local dairy needed a bottle washer, and I thought I was up for the task.  The automated machinery worked wonders at cleaning almost all of the bottles, but a small amount had to be hand cleaned (it's amazing what can be found inside a milk bottle).  I had an arsenal of special scrubbers and solvents designed to remove everything from mice to tar.  I guess I didn't have the right touch since I ended up breaking about 1 in every 3 bottles.  My employer wasn't upset with me, but I didn't like breaking a bottle and covering myself with a combination of broken glass, solvent, and the contents (known or unknown) of the bottle.

After entering college, for one semester I had the job of driving a bus to shuttle students between the campus and a remote dormitory a few miles away.  The dorm was an unused housing facility for nursing students at a hospital and was located less than thirty yards from the quite zone entrance to the emergency room.  This would not have been a big deal except for the bus I was driving was completely uncooperative with any rule or regulation it had to follow.

The college had purchased the ancient machine from a national cross-country bus company, and the non-working odometer showed in excess of 300,000 miles on it.  How many miles it actually had was anyone's guess.  Rather than put money into repair for safety or reliability, the college decided to paint it in hopes that a good-looking bus would be a good running bus.  It was painted forest green with a big black splotch on the side that reminded everyone who looked at it of a giant grasshopper, but I had already named it the Caterpillar due to its slow lumbering movements.

I can't remember the order everything happened in, and some things were consistent without any logic behind them.  For instance the air brakes would engage at 35 mph unless it was in fourth gear.  The clutch may or may not return after being depressed.  More than once a window fell out onto the highway while driving, and once the entire exhaust system fell out just as I entered the Quiet Zone at the hospital.  An unmuffled diesel engine is rather loud.  Also every time I pulled up in front of the dorm I had to cross a speed bump.  No matter how softly I rolled over it the air horn would come on and stick so that I had to get out of the bus and run back to the engine compartment to unplug it.  But unplugging it also meant the loss of lights, and much of the driving was in the evening and night.  At least when I plugged it back in the lights usually came back on without the air horn sounding off.  Usually.

I wasn't alone with these problems as the other drivers all had similar experiences, but the head of the facilities department, who had oversight of the bus, never had a problem and refused to believe most of our complaints.  That all changed one day when he was filling in for one of the drivers and taking it to the hospital to pick up the students.  Along the way was a routine police traffic stop checking driver's licenses.  At the stop, the air horn came on, the engine backfired and the muffler fell off, and a window fell out.  He was ordered to pull the bus to the side of the road where it caught fire and burn to the ground along with one of the police cruisers.

I don't believe the students at the hospital dorm made it to classes that day, but the next morning a rental bus was available, and a few weeks later a brand new school bus in school colors arrived.  The old Caterpillar was never referenced again by orders of the school's chancellor.  I've occasionally wondered what that old bus cost the school in the long run.  I doubt they ever again purchased a used one.

David’s Lousy Eggs

The great poet Robert Frost published in 1916 a collection of poems titled Mountain Interval.  The first poem in the compilation is “The Road Not Taken,” and I have often read and pondered the myriad of meanings one can extract from this masterpiece.  I’m certain Mr. Frost had his own personal meaning(s) embedded within the lines, but I believe my own meanings would be significantly altered if I were to discover the true reason behind this poem.

Every day choices are made for better or for worse.  And sometimes worse isn’t so bad, it’s just not the best choice.  But then again, what is there to compare with?  If one chooses one way over another, how is that person to know if the other way would have been better or worse?

I eat; therefore, I cook.  I do not consider myself to be a great cook, and there are certain persons who have informed me my time spent in the kitchen is time wasted, but I like to cook.  I have a collection of recipes from many sources, mostly from my family or my own experiments, and usually I follow them (more or less).  My palate is not the most refined, and I must admit this is an advantage when cooking just for me.  However, I rarely get to cook just for me, so I have developed a list of “go to” recipes based upon observing the reactions from my guinea pigs guests.

Today I made scrambled eggs for myself.  Just me.  No one else.  And I did them up in David style.  Yes, I could have chosen a different road, but no, I chose the road less traveled.  Even I knew these eggs were lousy, but I licked the plate clean.  I even went back for seconds; however, seconds were not to be.  My wife discovered my afternoon snack, and she helped herself to what remained.  I didn’t know what to say.  She added salt, pepper, and my extra slice of toast to her plate and sat down to watch some television.

As she tasted the first fork full, she looked down at the plate as though it was something more akin to roadkill.  She lifted the plate to her nose and sniffed of it two or three times, and then with it at eye level, she moved some of it around with her fork.  I think she was trying to determine what was in those eggs, but she took a second bite, and a third.  Soon it was a clean plate, and she returned to the kitchen to look for more.

My scrambled eggs were simply a cleaning of the refrigerator.  To the four jumbo eggs I added some mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, sliced sweet mini-peppers, some kind of meat in a container, a splotch of cheap store-bought salsa, some forgotten corn kernels, and a few other things that had been sitting on the shelf way too long.  I’m not really certain what was in one of those containers, but it scrambled as well as everything else.

It’s not that I necessarily like this type of eggs, but I seem to do this every two or three weeks.  Maybe that road is more traveled than I realized.

The Motorcycle

The perfect vehicle for joining together both transportation and recreation is the motorcycle.  Back in the 1960’s a friend inherited a motorcycle shop from an uncle and he asked me to help him with some cleanup around there in exchange for one of the bikes.  It had been closed for about two years due to his uncle’s illness, and things were a mess, but we were both excited about eventually hitting the road for some fun.

The store was oddly shaped and we commented to each other more than once that it seemed much smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside.  One afternoon as we were talking about it, we decided to actually measure the building.  We were in for a surprise.  The northeast wall of the building was about eight feet shorter on the inside than the outside wall.  It didn’t take us long to determine there was a wall hiding a room on the other side.

Edd and I made quick work of opening a hole in that wall, and on the other side we discovered eight 1939 Harley’s with sidecars still in crates.  They were all painted a military grayish/greenish/brownish and looked as though they may have been surplus stock, or possibly “diverted” stock.  Either way, they were in the room we had discovered.  We took serial numbers and contacted Harley-Davidson and the United States Army, but no record of their existence could be found.  A bit of paperwork later, and Edd was the owner of seven of these machines, and I was the owner of the eighth one.

Oh, the work.  Restoring these vintage bikes wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.  Learning to ride one wasn’t easy either, but it was worth it.  Luckily for us, there were a number of ex-servicemen still around who had experience with some of the odd features of these rare motorcycles.

Over the next few years I did some trading around of motorcycles starting with trading the Harley for an Indian Chief (plus some cash).  The Indian was traded away for something else (also with some cash), and eventually I ended up with an almost new Harley (and a lot of cash). 

One day I was riding the motorcycle to work when I realized I needed to sell the bike and make a car my main form of transportation.  I was making the transition from westbound Interstate Loop 820 to southbound I35W on the north side of Fort Worth, and I was high on the long curving overpass when I spotted a skunk up ahead.  I moved to the left, and so did the skunk.  I moved to the right, and so did the skunk.  I moved back to the left, and so did the skunk.  Finally I just held on and ran over the skunk.  I really didn’t have much choice in the matter.  I returned home to let my employer know I wouldn’t be coming in for a couple of days, as I needed to get rid of a certain odor. 

While the odor eventually disappeared from my body (I threw my clothes away), the motorcycle was a different story altogether.  Each time I tried to ride it, as it warmed up the smell of skunk returned.  I completely dissembled the bike and washed each individual part in tomato juice and baking soda, but after reassembling my very clean bike, the odor returned just as strong as ever.

I advertised the motorcycle in a local newspaper, and went through a long list of potential buyers before I found one who didn’t mind the smell.  In fact, he liked it.  He was a biker from a nearby club (don’t ask), and his handle was “Skunk.”  Perfect.  I saw Skunk riding that bike a few times over the next few years, and once I saw it parked outside a store I was entering.  As I walked by it, there was no doubt who owned it.  It had been over three years, but the smell was still there. 

When I was preparing to leave Texas to move to California, Skunk stopped by my home just to chat.  I hadn’t spoken to him since the day he purchased my bike, so I thought it was unusual for him to show up at my door, but there he was.  He said he was getting married in a couple of months, and he was inviting me to the wedding.  He told me that bike had changed his life.  I didn’t ask details, but I went to the wedding. 

And what a wedding it was.  Everything was black and/or white.  Nothing smelled good.  Nothing.  And the happy couple rode off on that same smelly motorcycle leaving behind a trail anyone could follow, if they were brave enough.

I’ve stayed almost exclusively with cars ever since.