One of the Facebook diversions floating around lately is “30 Things
For Which You Are Thankful.” Being grateful for one’s blessings is critical to happiness, so I am happy to provide my own modest list. Just don’t ask me to join Farmville or any of those other silly FB games. (For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, in this case ignorance is, if not bliss, at least the wiser route.) So here goes.
I am thankful for:
• My bride of five-and-a-half months, Julie, newest daughter Abbie, and my two “grown” daughters, Kasey and Mere. I am constantly astounded that these four really smart, beautiful females put up with my ways — at least most of the time. They always give me joy and love, and I would be lost without them. Talk about blessings.
• The family I joined when marrying my Beautiful Mystery Companion on a warm June afternoon out in the East Texas countryside. Recently, they have experienced great loss with the death of one of the clan, 20-year-old Cody Norris, while serving our country in Afghanistan. The service in La Porte, southeast of Houston, three days before Thanksgiving was both heart-wrenching and uplifting, the support from the community amazing. Still, tough times remain in those quiet days when the hubbub has ended, the flowers faded, the embraces fewer and far between.
• That I was able to be at my mother’s side, along with my brother Gregg and daughter Mere, when she passed away in mid-May. I did not want her to go out of this world alone, and will forever be grateful that we could all get there from out-of-town and ease her passing. I miss her.
• My faith, a terrific pastor, a friendly church, and a peace about what happens next, whatever it might be. I guess part of finally growing up is learning to ride that roller coaster. Most days, I’m good with that.
• Good health, few aches and pains, and the ability to walk three miles daily. You quit taking such things for granted as one ages.
• That I have a dog. Well, technically my BMC has the dog since we still have a commuter marriage. But Rosie the Wonder Dog loves me as unconditionally as the rest of the peeps. Sometime soon, I will tell you the story of how this little dog vanished for two weeks, and the adventures she faced until we got her back. I forgot how much joy a little creature can bring to a family. Rosie is a fine little dog and a leading candidate for Cutest Dog in the Universe. Just saying.
OK, gonna start devolving into the less weighty. Fair warning as to what else I am grateful for:
• The Republican presidential debates. These have provided considerable entertainment and an excuse, besides football, to keep up my cable subscription. I was an eyewitness to Rick Perry’s forgetting that third federal agency he wants to eliminate. It is the first time I have felt sorry for the man. I watched yet another debate two nights before Thanksgiving. Bless their hearts. That’s all I have to say.
• There won’t be any Democratic primary debates. Whew.
• Rain. We haven’t had nearly enough, but at least the skies have opened a bit.
• I have gotten old and hardened enough to not mourn more than five minutes if UT loses a football game. I have bigger fish to fry.
• The ubiquitous presence of excellent breakfast tacos in Austin and in my alternate domicile, East Texas. I will not prejudice you by naming favorites, because new ones pop up constantly in both locales. The rise of breakfast tacos in popularity provides me hope that Western Civilization indeed will survive. But that’s just me.
• Affordable GPS devices. Man, talk about saving this middle-aged
soul some angst. I’m thinking this is the wisest $100 I ever spent.
• That I watched in person as the Boston Red Sox won Game One of the 2007 World Series. The ticket was expensive, but the way last season ended, I might be pushing 80 before they’re back in it. Besides, now it’s off the bucket list.
• Wolf Brand turkey chili.
• Satellite radio, even though I only listen to about three of the
gazillion choices.
• The Geico commercials. They make me laugh.
• None of my children turned out to be Aggies. At least not yet. (Kidding. I couldn’t care less.)
• Summer has finally left Texas.
• Owning more books than I could ever hope to read before dying.
• People with a sense of humor, like the anonymous soul who added an extra letter with duct tape to a sign I saw: It then read: Futility
Work Ahead. We can all relate.
• I can still do math in my head.
• Fried okra from Chicken Express. It’s the best in the nation. We
get the okra and skip the chicken.
• Clint Eastwood.
• Dolly Parton.
• Gimme caps that effectively hide my receding hairline and bald spot.
• Not having to wear a necktie every day.
• Never having had the urge to wear a bowtie. I’m not dexterous enough to tie one properly.
• Plumbers. I’m dangerous with a pipe wrench.
• Automatic transmissions. I am over my love affair with stick shifts.
• Comfortable shoes.
Finally, and seriously, I’m thankful for those who take the time to read these modest offerings and send comments, critiques and kudos. Thank you, and God bless.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Old Darkroom Sparks Memories
I visited an old photo darkroom recently. It hasn’t been used in at least a decade, maybe longer. Digital cameras began replacing film in the early 1990s, as newspapers and other print media figured out it was a way to both save money and speed up the process of producing a photograph. At the small daily newspaper where I worked in East Texas, we plunked down $20,000 in 1992 or ’93 for our first Nikon digital camera. A similar model today might cost $500 at most. An entire generation of photographers has arrived, never knowing the thrill of watching a print come to life in a tray of smelly chemicals, the image illuminated only by the faint yellow glow of a safelight.
All the tools necessary to develop rolls of film and make prints were still in that old darkroom, stacked in piles and on cabinets. Stained plastic trays gathered dust on a shelf. An enlarger was perched on a shelf in the corner, 8x10 print boxes stacked on its base. Film reels lay abandoned on the floor, along with yet another enlarger for making color prints. The desiccated crust of photographic chemicals clung to the vats in which chemicals were once mixed: Fixer, D-76 for developing film, Dektol for prints.
The place still possessed that darkroom smell, which I was first introduced to more than 40 years ago in the basement of the Longview newspaper. There I developed sheets of 4x5 film and rolls of 120 negatives shot by other photographers, and learned how to make prints. For the next 20-plus years, I held jobs that required at least a part of my workweek was spent in a darkroom, until digital arrived. Sometimes I miss having a darkroom in which to retreat, music playing in the background as I methodically cranked out prints for the next issue of whatever newspaper I toiled for. It was a form of therapy, an escape from the world. But I can’t say I miss have fingers stained a subtle tinge of yellow from the chemicals, or the inevitable bleached spots on my clothes from sloshing prints from tray to tray, even though I always wore an apron. I finally sold my personal darkroom equipment in the mid-1990s, when it became obvious digital was here to stay, and film was largely confined to art photographers.
As mentioned, I recently moved once again, buying a house in a quiet subdivision in North Austin. I methodically unpacked a couple of boxes stuffed with three-ring binders of photo negatives, boxes of prints, even a half-dozen carousels of slides. If you remember slide carousels, then like me you’re eligible to join AARP, not that I recommend it. Nobody gets out alive when they join AARP. Just saying.
As I dutifully stacked a yard-long collection of three-ring binders on my closet shelf, accompanied by a couple dozen old print boxes filled with photos, I thought of my children. If I can’t figure out what to do with all this stuff, they will have to deal with it at some point.
I’m loath to chunk those negatives, contact sheets and boxes of prints. They represent the modest contribution I have made to capture a slice of East Texas in those pre-digital decades. So, I will likely keep carrying around these shelves of old negatives and prints until I can talk some archival collection repository into taking them.
At long last, the old darkroom is slated to be cleared out in the next few months. The negatives and photographs will end up in the university’s collections, the enlargers and other darkroom equipment hauled to surplus. A couple coats of fresh paint should eliminate that darkroom smell. I will continue to spend nights at home making prints the modern way, on a big-screen Macintosh attached to a photo printer. I manipulate the images in Photoshop with lights out, to better see the true tones on the screen.
So in a sense I’m still hanging out in a darkroom, just without the smell.
All the tools necessary to develop rolls of film and make prints were still in that old darkroom, stacked in piles and on cabinets. Stained plastic trays gathered dust on a shelf. An enlarger was perched on a shelf in the corner, 8x10 print boxes stacked on its base. Film reels lay abandoned on the floor, along with yet another enlarger for making color prints. The desiccated crust of photographic chemicals clung to the vats in which chemicals were once mixed: Fixer, D-76 for developing film, Dektol for prints.
The place still possessed that darkroom smell, which I was first introduced to more than 40 years ago in the basement of the Longview newspaper. There I developed sheets of 4x5 film and rolls of 120 negatives shot by other photographers, and learned how to make prints. For the next 20-plus years, I held jobs that required at least a part of my workweek was spent in a darkroom, until digital arrived. Sometimes I miss having a darkroom in which to retreat, music playing in the background as I methodically cranked out prints for the next issue of whatever newspaper I toiled for. It was a form of therapy, an escape from the world. But I can’t say I miss have fingers stained a subtle tinge of yellow from the chemicals, or the inevitable bleached spots on my clothes from sloshing prints from tray to tray, even though I always wore an apron. I finally sold my personal darkroom equipment in the mid-1990s, when it became obvious digital was here to stay, and film was largely confined to art photographers.
As mentioned, I recently moved once again, buying a house in a quiet subdivision in North Austin. I methodically unpacked a couple of boxes stuffed with three-ring binders of photo negatives, boxes of prints, even a half-dozen carousels of slides. If you remember slide carousels, then like me you’re eligible to join AARP, not that I recommend it. Nobody gets out alive when they join AARP. Just saying.
As I dutifully stacked a yard-long collection of three-ring binders on my closet shelf, accompanied by a couple dozen old print boxes filled with photos, I thought of my children. If I can’t figure out what to do with all this stuff, they will have to deal with it at some point.
I’m loath to chunk those negatives, contact sheets and boxes of prints. They represent the modest contribution I have made to capture a slice of East Texas in those pre-digital decades. So, I will likely keep carrying around these shelves of old negatives and prints until I can talk some archival collection repository into taking them.
At long last, the old darkroom is slated to be cleared out in the next few months. The negatives and photographs will end up in the university’s collections, the enlargers and other darkroom equipment hauled to surplus. A couple coats of fresh paint should eliminate that darkroom smell. I will continue to spend nights at home making prints the modern way, on a big-screen Macintosh attached to a photo printer. I manipulate the images in Photoshop with lights out, to better see the true tones on the screen.
So in a sense I’m still hanging out in a darkroom, just without the smell.
Friday, November 11, 2011
The War, Tragically, Comes Home
I met Cody Norris a couple of times at holiday gatherings of my wife’s extended family, most of whom live in Northeast Texas. He was tall and thin, clearly in shape. Cody was my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s nephew. He grew up in the Houston area and clearly loved the chance to spend time in the country. For simplicity’s sake he was considered one of the cousins. Cody usually showed up with his dad, Reese, at the East Texas farm that serves as our outdoor gathering spot when the weather is tolerable. These throw-downs invariably involve a fish fry, a bonfire if there is even a hint of chill in the air, an impressive display of weaponry to fire at targets and soda cans, four-wheelers — and, for some, deer hunting when in season and wild hog hunting any time someone spots one of those pests.
Cody was a polite young man who enjoyed hunting there with his dad and brother, firing off weapons, and hanging out with his extended family. His older brother, Michael, is enrolled at West Point. Cody chose to join the Army in October 2010 and became a 240B Gunner stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas and deployed to Afghanistan, according to his Facebook page. That page consists of a number of cell-phone portraits of Cody in his battle fatigues, with an Army-prescribed shaved head, even a few close-ups of a mashed fingernail, the result of getting it caught between a tripod and a rocky surface. The comments about that photo are clearly from peers, asking when he’s going to be deployed to Afghanistan, and for how long. He says it will probably be for a year, according to his paperwork.
He left for Afghanistan in April, about six months shy of his 20th birthday. On Nov. 9 he was killed while on patrol. As of this writing, that’s about all I know. Except that another family is heartbroken. This time it is a family that I have joined, and it is people that I love who are grieving. A grandmother, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, are all mourning the loss of one who died too young. Cody was killed not quite a month after turning 20 years old, serving in a war that has lasted more than half his life.
I am writing this on Veterans Day, early in the morning because I can’t sleep, haunted by how Cody’s death forever will change the lives of these folks to whom I’m now connected. They will survive this loss because we don’t really have much choice when tragedy shows up uninvited. We deal with it best we can. And they surely will take solace that Cody died in the service of his country. I think the term “hero” is used a bit loosely these days, but surely it applies to those who volunteer to serve our country in combat and die doing so. No matter the political arguments flying back and forth on whether we should continue to fight that war or not. The soldiers do what soldiers do — obey orders and fight for our country.
NPR ran a week-long series of stories in October about the terrible losses taken by one platoon, and the effect it had on the families of those killed or wounded. A young wife who gave birth to the couple’s child a few weeks after her husband died in Afghanistan. A soldier who came home maimed and unable to find work. It was nearly impossible to drive down the road, heading home from work, and listen to these stories, eyes welling with tears.
Now the war has come home hard to people that I love dearly. I have no words other than the usual condolences they have already heard far too often in these early days. We all tend to say the same thing, because we don’t know what else to say. I just hope it provides some comfort. All I know to say is that I am heartsick this has happened, but I am glad I was privileged to meet a fine young man who volunteered to fight to protect this country.
Finally, I pray for peace, for our soldiers to come home out of harm’s way, the sooner the better.
Cody was a polite young man who enjoyed hunting there with his dad and brother, firing off weapons, and hanging out with his extended family. His older brother, Michael, is enrolled at West Point. Cody chose to join the Army in October 2010 and became a 240B Gunner stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas and deployed to Afghanistan, according to his Facebook page. That page consists of a number of cell-phone portraits of Cody in his battle fatigues, with an Army-prescribed shaved head, even a few close-ups of a mashed fingernail, the result of getting it caught between a tripod and a rocky surface. The comments about that photo are clearly from peers, asking when he’s going to be deployed to Afghanistan, and for how long. He says it will probably be for a year, according to his paperwork.
He left for Afghanistan in April, about six months shy of his 20th birthday. On Nov. 9 he was killed while on patrol. As of this writing, that’s about all I know. Except that another family is heartbroken. This time it is a family that I have joined, and it is people that I love who are grieving. A grandmother, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, are all mourning the loss of one who died too young. Cody was killed not quite a month after turning 20 years old, serving in a war that has lasted more than half his life.
I am writing this on Veterans Day, early in the morning because I can’t sleep, haunted by how Cody’s death forever will change the lives of these folks to whom I’m now connected. They will survive this loss because we don’t really have much choice when tragedy shows up uninvited. We deal with it best we can. And they surely will take solace that Cody died in the service of his country. I think the term “hero” is used a bit loosely these days, but surely it applies to those who volunteer to serve our country in combat and die doing so. No matter the political arguments flying back and forth on whether we should continue to fight that war or not. The soldiers do what soldiers do — obey orders and fight for our country.
NPR ran a week-long series of stories in October about the terrible losses taken by one platoon, and the effect it had on the families of those killed or wounded. A young wife who gave birth to the couple’s child a few weeks after her husband died in Afghanistan. A soldier who came home maimed and unable to find work. It was nearly impossible to drive down the road, heading home from work, and listen to these stories, eyes welling with tears.
Now the war has come home hard to people that I love dearly. I have no words other than the usual condolences they have already heard far too often in these early days. We all tend to say the same thing, because we don’t know what else to say. I just hope it provides some comfort. All I know to say is that I am heartsick this has happened, but I am glad I was privileged to meet a fine young man who volunteered to fight to protect this country.
Finally, I pray for peace, for our soldiers to come home out of harm’s way, the sooner the better.
Friday, November 4, 2011
On Firewood and Fried Catfish
The first fire of the season was exceedingly modest, just one fat log buttressed by a couple of sticks of kindling in my BMC’s fireplace in East Texas, fired up with the natural-gas pipe starter in a quick attempt to warm up the living room before we headed to church. More than anything, it was our announcement that summer had at last been banished. Autumn was finally in the house, a tardy arrival but still welcomed. We have been pining for cool weather for many months. Who hasn’t of those who survived this Summer From Hades?
We spent most of Saturday trekking through Northeast Texas, pulling my brother-in-law’s trailer up to my father-in-law’s farm to load up a season’s worth of firewood. Here’s a pleasant surprise, given the terrible drought (which has eased a bit in East Texas but still has us Austin-dwellers by the throat). The fall foliage is certainly muted this year, beaten down by a lack of moisture and unrelenting heat, but patches popped up along the 90-minute drive to the farm near Texarkana. Mainly it’s the scrubby trees, bushes really, whose leaves have taken advantage of a smattering of moisture combined with cool weather to show off a bit, flash a panoply of plumage despite the depredations of summer.
I have inherited a gaggle of in-laws, whom I love dearly for many reasons. They are a hilarious bunch who love to cook, fire off massive amounts of ammo, play practical jokes on each other, root for the Longhorns and are always there when you need a hand. Plus, this family has stockpiled enough filleted catfish caught on a trotline on Wright Patman Lake, and chain-sawed up enough firewood from deadfall on their acreage to survive the Revolution. We might have a difference of opinion on exactly who’s going to be spearheading that Revolution, but I know I’m welcome at the fish fry — and there will be plenty of firewood to stoke the hearth.
It provides my battered soul some balm to take a drive through the country, meandering along winding ribbons of asphalt ringed by trees, only occasionally meeting an oncoming vehicle. Better yet is actually tromping through the woods, to the cache of firewood stored under a pole shed my wife helped build years ago, next to the long-abandoned forest-green Atlanta ISD school bus. There is a window unit air-conditioner stuck in the engine well of the bus, which once served as the family camping retreat. We quickly piled up a load of firewood on the trailer, being careful to balance it over the axle and not overload the SUV. I have no way to hook up brake lights on this borrowed trailer, since the connector is different. So, in time-honored East Texas tradition, I’m hauling this back to Longview — 90 minutes away — by the backroads, hoping a DPS trooper doesn’t notice, and trying to beat darkness at the same time.
Before we leave, I help my father-in-law take his flat-bottom boat to the lake. I back it into the water under his watchful and skeptical eye. Luckily, I have learned how to back a trailer even if I’m not worth a darn on checking trotlines. Once the outboard is in the water, he starts it to run the gas out. Fishing season is over until next spring. He appraises the fall harvest as modest, says he pulled in a couple of 40-pounders, no big deal. My father-in-law is 80 and tougher than shoe leather. I am a quarter-century younger and would rather not face a 40-pound catfish no doubt highly irritated at being hooked to a piece of rope and hauled overboard.
But I sure do love eating that fried catfish.
My father-in-law goes his way, and we go ours, taking a plastic sack filled with jalapeño, banana, Tabasco and cayenne peppers from his brother’s garden, on the farm across the road. At 85, Brad says he’s slowing down. Yeah, well, I should slow down as much. The man still works the land as if his livelihood depended on it, with an amazing organically grown garden that provides a bounty of produce. He and his brother are like the two old coots in “Secondhand Lions,” always grousing at each other but working together nonetheless, whether it’s plowing the garden in preparation for spring, or trying to figure out how to run off the feral hogs.
A day in the country, doing a bit of physical work while enjoying the smell of pine trees, red dirt and a fine fall breeze. That’s just what this reluctant big-city boy needed.
We spent most of Saturday trekking through Northeast Texas, pulling my brother-in-law’s trailer up to my father-in-law’s farm to load up a season’s worth of firewood. Here’s a pleasant surprise, given the terrible drought (which has eased a bit in East Texas but still has us Austin-dwellers by the throat). The fall foliage is certainly muted this year, beaten down by a lack of moisture and unrelenting heat, but patches popped up along the 90-minute drive to the farm near Texarkana. Mainly it’s the scrubby trees, bushes really, whose leaves have taken advantage of a smattering of moisture combined with cool weather to show off a bit, flash a panoply of plumage despite the depredations of summer.
I have inherited a gaggle of in-laws, whom I love dearly for many reasons. They are a hilarious bunch who love to cook, fire off massive amounts of ammo, play practical jokes on each other, root for the Longhorns and are always there when you need a hand. Plus, this family has stockpiled enough filleted catfish caught on a trotline on Wright Patman Lake, and chain-sawed up enough firewood from deadfall on their acreage to survive the Revolution. We might have a difference of opinion on exactly who’s going to be spearheading that Revolution, but I know I’m welcome at the fish fry — and there will be plenty of firewood to stoke the hearth.
It provides my battered soul some balm to take a drive through the country, meandering along winding ribbons of asphalt ringed by trees, only occasionally meeting an oncoming vehicle. Better yet is actually tromping through the woods, to the cache of firewood stored under a pole shed my wife helped build years ago, next to the long-abandoned forest-green Atlanta ISD school bus. There is a window unit air-conditioner stuck in the engine well of the bus, which once served as the family camping retreat. We quickly piled up a load of firewood on the trailer, being careful to balance it over the axle and not overload the SUV. I have no way to hook up brake lights on this borrowed trailer, since the connector is different. So, in time-honored East Texas tradition, I’m hauling this back to Longview — 90 minutes away — by the backroads, hoping a DPS trooper doesn’t notice, and trying to beat darkness at the same time.
Before we leave, I help my father-in-law take his flat-bottom boat to the lake. I back it into the water under his watchful and skeptical eye. Luckily, I have learned how to back a trailer even if I’m not worth a darn on checking trotlines. Once the outboard is in the water, he starts it to run the gas out. Fishing season is over until next spring. He appraises the fall harvest as modest, says he pulled in a couple of 40-pounders, no big deal. My father-in-law is 80 and tougher than shoe leather. I am a quarter-century younger and would rather not face a 40-pound catfish no doubt highly irritated at being hooked to a piece of rope and hauled overboard.
But I sure do love eating that fried catfish.
My father-in-law goes his way, and we go ours, taking a plastic sack filled with jalapeño, banana, Tabasco and cayenne peppers from his brother’s garden, on the farm across the road. At 85, Brad says he’s slowing down. Yeah, well, I should slow down as much. The man still works the land as if his livelihood depended on it, with an amazing organically grown garden that provides a bounty of produce. He and his brother are like the two old coots in “Secondhand Lions,” always grousing at each other but working together nonetheless, whether it’s plowing the garden in preparation for spring, or trying to figure out how to run off the feral hogs.
A day in the country, doing a bit of physical work while enjoying the smell of pine trees, red dirt and a fine fall breeze. That’s just what this reluctant big-city boy needed.
Friday, October 28, 2011
It Was A Moving Experience
My move from the City Where All The Houses Look Somewhat Alike (aka the Town With No Downtown) into North Austin is finally complete, about seven weeks after it began. It truly is less trouble to move cross-country than cross-town. One must pack up everything and ensure that it all goes on the big truck when moving a significant distance. Cross-town moves involve, at least for me, a few dozen trips pulling my utility trailer, climaxed by hiring movers to haul the heavy stuff. I probably spent $100 on tolls hauling my stuff down Hwy. 183A.
I itemized the other day, during a moment of idleness, each time I have moved since becoming an alleged adult. This latest trek was the 33rd time I have moved in 38 years. Now that’s just ridiculous. The excellent news is that we now co-own (with the mortgage company) a lovely house with huge oak trees. The lot backs up to a greenbelt. Well, it is a brownbelt actually, given the drought. Maybe someday it will be green again. Still, it’s pretty sweet for city living.
Other than having my trailer twice come off the hitch and nearly make this move truly my final trek, things went fairly swimmingly. After nearly three dozen moves, I have the routine down — unlike moves in my misspent youth. I once tried to move a revolving bookrack with the books still on the shelves, figuring if I went really slow everything would be fine. I still have some of those paperbacks with road rash speckling the covers. In addition, after a certain age, one realizes that your friends really don’t want to help you move in exchange for beer, though I did lean on one buddy to make a few trips.
The movers I hired showed up on time, both slugging down fat cans of energy drinks. They were about half my age, twice as tall (OK, not twice but considerably) and three times stronger than I was at that age — and I thought I was in shape back then. I own a futon sofa for guests that had to be carried down an L-shaped stairway. The previous mover took it apart to get it upstairs, then put it back together. These guys lifted it up over the banister to clear the first hurdle, then one of them put the sofa frame — now in bed position — under his arm and carried it out to the truck. I tried to get my cell phone out to take a photo and send to my Beautiful Mystery Companion, but he was too fast.
These guys ran back and forth from the truck to the house. They had my possessions loaded in just a couple of hours. I left a minute or so before they did, pulling my haunted trailer filled with boxes. About halfway down 183 toward the new house, the movers blew by me, most of my worldly possessions packed in their gooseneck trailer. That is a strange feeling, watching your stuff fly by in a truck driven by a guy with way too much caffeine in his bloodstream. But they arrived safely at the new house and in 30 minutes had the trailer unloaded. The rest was up to me, with help on a couple of weekends from my BMC, who remains in East Texas.
It took a bit longer than usual for me to unpack everything, hang dozens of photos and artwork, and sell the used boxes. Perhaps it is a sign of optimism that I sold the boxes, which have been used for three moves in the past 18 months. But my moving days are hardly over. Over Christmas break I hope to retrieve my shop equipment from my son-in-law and commence to making sawdust once again. And someday, my BMC, daughter Abbie, and Rosie the Wonder Dog all hope to live under one roof. Whether it is the roof under which I now live during the workweek, well… I have learned to take life one day at a time these days.
I itemized the other day, during a moment of idleness, each time I have moved since becoming an alleged adult. This latest trek was the 33rd time I have moved in 38 years. Now that’s just ridiculous. The excellent news is that we now co-own (with the mortgage company) a lovely house with huge oak trees. The lot backs up to a greenbelt. Well, it is a brownbelt actually, given the drought. Maybe someday it will be green again. Still, it’s pretty sweet for city living.
Other than having my trailer twice come off the hitch and nearly make this move truly my final trek, things went fairly swimmingly. After nearly three dozen moves, I have the routine down — unlike moves in my misspent youth. I once tried to move a revolving bookrack with the books still on the shelves, figuring if I went really slow everything would be fine. I still have some of those paperbacks with road rash speckling the covers. In addition, after a certain age, one realizes that your friends really don’t want to help you move in exchange for beer, though I did lean on one buddy to make a few trips.
The movers I hired showed up on time, both slugging down fat cans of energy drinks. They were about half my age, twice as tall (OK, not twice but considerably) and three times stronger than I was at that age — and I thought I was in shape back then. I own a futon sofa for guests that had to be carried down an L-shaped stairway. The previous mover took it apart to get it upstairs, then put it back together. These guys lifted it up over the banister to clear the first hurdle, then one of them put the sofa frame — now in bed position — under his arm and carried it out to the truck. I tried to get my cell phone out to take a photo and send to my Beautiful Mystery Companion, but he was too fast.
These guys ran back and forth from the truck to the house. They had my possessions loaded in just a couple of hours. I left a minute or so before they did, pulling my haunted trailer filled with boxes. About halfway down 183 toward the new house, the movers blew by me, most of my worldly possessions packed in their gooseneck trailer. That is a strange feeling, watching your stuff fly by in a truck driven by a guy with way too much caffeine in his bloodstream. But they arrived safely at the new house and in 30 minutes had the trailer unloaded. The rest was up to me, with help on a couple of weekends from my BMC, who remains in East Texas.
It took a bit longer than usual for me to unpack everything, hang dozens of photos and artwork, and sell the used boxes. Perhaps it is a sign of optimism that I sold the boxes, which have been used for three moves in the past 18 months. But my moving days are hardly over. Over Christmas break I hope to retrieve my shop equipment from my son-in-law and commence to making sawdust once again. And someday, my BMC, daughter Abbie, and Rosie the Wonder Dog all hope to live under one roof. Whether it is the roof under which I now live during the workweek, well… I have learned to take life one day at a time these days.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Birthday Wishes to The Abster
In just a few days my youngest daughter turns 14, going on 20. Anybody who has raised a teenager knows what I mean. One moment they’re still kids, giggling while rolling on the floor with the puppy, complaining because we’re making them take a bath. Moments later, they’re trying on massive amounts of makeup and spending hours primping in front of the mirror, wearing out the hair straightener while adding a sawbuck to the electric bill.
Teens’ heads can spin on a dime, ala Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” Suddenly your IQ has dropped below freezing, in their estimation, because you won’t let them do what the mysterious “Mr. or Ms. Everybody” are doing. As in, “But Mom, everybody is going to the midnight showing of “Zombies Eat Their Young.”” If I ever meet this Everybody Duo, I’m going to chastise them for making the responsible parent’s life such a challenge.
This isn’t my first foray into raising teens, so not much surprises me in my dotage. The Abster, as we call her, became my daughter when her mom — the Beautiful Mystery Companion — and I married last June. It was a package deal and quite the bargain for yours truly — a woman I adore, another daughter to love, and Rosie, the World’s Cutest Dog. Seriously. We could rent Rosie out to single adults looking for a mate. Take her down the jogging trail, and folks just swoon over that pooch.
Abbie is smart, gorgeous, has a huge heart and will likely serve on the U.S. Supreme Court after a distinguished legal career — unless she decides to become president instead. The girl can argue with a rock— the material that at times she believes comprises the space between her parents’ ears. I look forward to hearing her first trial summation, if she chooses that path. The other side doesn’t stand a chance; her parents rarely do.
She remains our compass — literally. It remains a tossup which of us alleged adults is worse at finding our way around. We rely heavily on our two GPS devices — both named Gretel because she leaves electronic crumbs for us to find our way back. The GPS isn’t much help when walking unfamiliar streets on vacation, trying to remember where we parked. Abster has rescued us from meandering any number of times, shaking her head in bemusement at her directionally challenged parents.
In the nearly four years we have been hanging out, Ab is the go-to girl when it comes to all electronic gadgets. Her mom and I will be poring over the owner’s manual trying to decipher instructions written by someone for who English is not a native language, while Abster just grabs the device and starts figuring out how it works. It doesn’t matter what it is: iPhone, digital camera, new television, the aforementioned GPS. She will have it up and running before we have managed to find the index in the owner’s manual.
It will not come as a shock to parents or grandparents of teens reading this to learn that our daughter would prefer to spend every waking moment on Facebook, while clutching her phone in anticipation of the next text message, the iPod’s earbuds implanted in her skull. It is a grave injustice, in her view, that we don’t let her do that, that there are limits to electronic use. Tough turkey. This ain’t my first rodeo listening to teenagers complain about how mean I am as a dad. She will thank me someday when she approaches middle age and hopefully can still hear and see without glasses or hearing aids. Of course, I will be decrepit or dust by the time Ab is middle-aged. Best not dwell on that.
We have had some grand times together, the three of us, with lots of laughter as well as holding on to each other during times of loss and sorrow. I feel blessed and privileged to be Abbie’s dad and to do whatever I can to help her grow into the fine young woman she is certain to become. It’s been a wonderful journey thus far, and God willing it will continue for many years.
Happy Birthday, Abster. And turn down that iPod.
Teens’ heads can spin on a dime, ala Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.” Suddenly your IQ has dropped below freezing, in their estimation, because you won’t let them do what the mysterious “Mr. or Ms. Everybody” are doing. As in, “But Mom, everybody is going to the midnight showing of “Zombies Eat Their Young.”” If I ever meet this Everybody Duo, I’m going to chastise them for making the responsible parent’s life such a challenge.
This isn’t my first foray into raising teens, so not much surprises me in my dotage. The Abster, as we call her, became my daughter when her mom — the Beautiful Mystery Companion — and I married last June. It was a package deal and quite the bargain for yours truly — a woman I adore, another daughter to love, and Rosie, the World’s Cutest Dog. Seriously. We could rent Rosie out to single adults looking for a mate. Take her down the jogging trail, and folks just swoon over that pooch.
Abbie is smart, gorgeous, has a huge heart and will likely serve on the U.S. Supreme Court after a distinguished legal career — unless she decides to become president instead. The girl can argue with a rock— the material that at times she believes comprises the space between her parents’ ears. I look forward to hearing her first trial summation, if she chooses that path. The other side doesn’t stand a chance; her parents rarely do.
She remains our compass — literally. It remains a tossup which of us alleged adults is worse at finding our way around. We rely heavily on our two GPS devices — both named Gretel because she leaves electronic crumbs for us to find our way back. The GPS isn’t much help when walking unfamiliar streets on vacation, trying to remember where we parked. Abster has rescued us from meandering any number of times, shaking her head in bemusement at her directionally challenged parents.
In the nearly four years we have been hanging out, Ab is the go-to girl when it comes to all electronic gadgets. Her mom and I will be poring over the owner’s manual trying to decipher instructions written by someone for who English is not a native language, while Abster just grabs the device and starts figuring out how it works. It doesn’t matter what it is: iPhone, digital camera, new television, the aforementioned GPS. She will have it up and running before we have managed to find the index in the owner’s manual.
It will not come as a shock to parents or grandparents of teens reading this to learn that our daughter would prefer to spend every waking moment on Facebook, while clutching her phone in anticipation of the next text message, the iPod’s earbuds implanted in her skull. It is a grave injustice, in her view, that we don’t let her do that, that there are limits to electronic use. Tough turkey. This ain’t my first rodeo listening to teenagers complain about how mean I am as a dad. She will thank me someday when she approaches middle age and hopefully can still hear and see without glasses or hearing aids. Of course, I will be decrepit or dust by the time Ab is middle-aged. Best not dwell on that.
We have had some grand times together, the three of us, with lots of laughter as well as holding on to each other during times of loss and sorrow. I feel blessed and privileged to be Abbie’s dad and to do whatever I can to help her grow into the fine young woman she is certain to become. It’s been a wonderful journey thus far, and God willing it will continue for many years.
Happy Birthday, Abster. And turn down that iPod.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Monk Left A Lasting Legacy
Monk Willis would have turned 95 a few days ago. He passed away in January. His many friends — and I was privileged to be one — know that Monk is still with us, just in a different way. For those of us who loved him, Monk is ever-present, his wisdom still whispering through our thoughts, his wit and humor bringing smiles to our faces, that silly giggle he had cracking us up.
We met in July 2008, about six months after I returned to run the Longview paper. Retired surgeon John Coppedge set up a lunch. I knew John from his bringing around Republican judicial candidates to the various East Texas newspapers I ran during the last couple decades. He called one day and requested I meet him at the Summit, a private dining club downtown.
Coppedge said, “There’s someone you need to get to know. He’s 92 (as Monk was at the time). He is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, plus he’s a damn liberal like you.” We three met, Monk and I hit it off, and in the next two-and-a-half years, Monk became like a second father to me, especially after my own dad died a few months later.
I talked to one of Monk’s daughters the other day. She remarked how hard it was to go back in the house on Noel Drive and see that all the books are gone. Monk and books were so intertwined. I recall going over to his house a few weeks after that first lunch. The dining room table groaned from the weight of books clearly just purchased. Stacks of them circled both the chair in the front parlor and his recliner in the back study. You had to pick your way carefully through those rooms, narrow paths left open through piles of books. I had never seen anything quite like it. I began wondering that I would spend my dotage hemmed in by books. There are worse fates, I concluded.
That day, I asked Monk where he bought his books. He snorted and lit another cigarette. “Well, Amazon, of course. Where the hell else would I get them?”
Soon I was enlisted in helping Monk navigate that confusing online world to order more books, or print out articles that he wished to share from newspaper websites.
Monk clearly had a testy relationship with the computer that his daughters bought him. He cussed it regularly, pecked on its keyboard one finger at a time with a belligerence that just dared that machine to malfunction, clicked the mouse as if he was snapping a trap on a real rodent’s neck. He would yell at me regularly as I tried to figure out what electronic rabbit hole he had sent his website bookmarks down — as always cracking me up.
The computer for Monk was just a means to an end, a way to get more books to read, articles to peruse and disseminate. He truly was a man of letters, who could recall stanzas of poems he had memorized when Hoover was president. He once borrowed from me two volumes of Will and Ariel Durant’s “Lives of Western Civilization,” when he realized I owned a set bought at rummage sales over the years. He had been, as he put it, “thinking about the Greeks.”
We talked after he had finished reading about the Greeks, about memory and history. Monk was skeptical about accounts of events that had occurred three thousand years ago, of the level of minutiae that Herodotus and others provided. How could they possibly have remembered what happened in such detail, he asked me. Hell, you and I can’t remember where we ate lunch last week, he pointed out. I wanted to reply — but didn’t — that I could remember because we either ate at Sally’s (Man, I miss that place) or Jack’s Health Food Store, with an occasional venture to Rodriguez or Hu Pei 2. He loved Jack’s because women were constantly coming up and hugging him. One day, I was giving him the raised-eyebrow look after the fourth well-kept woman squeezed him.
“One of the few fringe benefits of being older than Methuselah,” he said, cracking that grin.
Monk to his death remained a sharer of ideas, of books and policies, politics and even sports. But he was more than that. He was a doer and a fixer, someone who was more interested in making life better for the least among us than personally enriching himself or his family. He loved politics not just because of the action, though he clearly loved that, but for what could be accomplished to make this part of our world a better place to live. I remember picking up a 4x6 snapshot of the library at North Texas on one of my first visits, which he kept on a table by the front door. In the photo, students are walking by a nondescript building with a sign out front, and you had to hold it close to read what the sign says.
I looked at Monk and asked, “They named the library for you?” Usually you have to be dead or filthy rich for that to happen with a university building these days.
“Yeah,” Monk said. “And I never gave them a damn dime, either.”
He gave far more to North Texas, of course. Eighteen years as a regent, a dozen as its chair. Monk gave of his talents, his energy, his passion and his money, until the very end.
He left his friends and family some very precious gifts. Mainly was the gift of serving others selflessly, of loving largely and with great tolerance, and of being humble. My days with Monk on this earth were not that numerous, compared to many. But the lessons I learned, the wisdom he imparted that resonates still today of an examined life, the friendship we shared, all that will remain as long as I’m around.
Looking back — which always is easier than looking forward — there seem to be three reasons God brought me back to Longview for a brief and tumultuous time. First was to be able to bring my parents home to live out their final days, to care for them until they too passed away. Second was to meet the love of my life — my wife, Julie, and our daughter, Abbie. Finally, it was to be able to share the joy of being able to call Monk Willis a friend and a mentor.
We met in July 2008, about six months after I returned to run the Longview paper. Retired surgeon John Coppedge set up a lunch. I knew John from his bringing around Republican judicial candidates to the various East Texas newspapers I ran during the last couple decades. He called one day and requested I meet him at the Summit, a private dining club downtown.
Coppedge said, “There’s someone you need to get to know. He’s 92 (as Monk was at the time). He is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, plus he’s a damn liberal like you.” We three met, Monk and I hit it off, and in the next two-and-a-half years, Monk became like a second father to me, especially after my own dad died a few months later.
I talked to one of Monk’s daughters the other day. She remarked how hard it was to go back in the house on Noel Drive and see that all the books are gone. Monk and books were so intertwined. I recall going over to his house a few weeks after that first lunch. The dining room table groaned from the weight of books clearly just purchased. Stacks of them circled both the chair in the front parlor and his recliner in the back study. You had to pick your way carefully through those rooms, narrow paths left open through piles of books. I had never seen anything quite like it. I began wondering that I would spend my dotage hemmed in by books. There are worse fates, I concluded.
That day, I asked Monk where he bought his books. He snorted and lit another cigarette. “Well, Amazon, of course. Where the hell else would I get them?”
Soon I was enlisted in helping Monk navigate that confusing online world to order more books, or print out articles that he wished to share from newspaper websites.
Monk clearly had a testy relationship with the computer that his daughters bought him. He cussed it regularly, pecked on its keyboard one finger at a time with a belligerence that just dared that machine to malfunction, clicked the mouse as if he was snapping a trap on a real rodent’s neck. He would yell at me regularly as I tried to figure out what electronic rabbit hole he had sent his website bookmarks down — as always cracking me up.
The computer for Monk was just a means to an end, a way to get more books to read, articles to peruse and disseminate. He truly was a man of letters, who could recall stanzas of poems he had memorized when Hoover was president. He once borrowed from me two volumes of Will and Ariel Durant’s “Lives of Western Civilization,” when he realized I owned a set bought at rummage sales over the years. He had been, as he put it, “thinking about the Greeks.”
We talked after he had finished reading about the Greeks, about memory and history. Monk was skeptical about accounts of events that had occurred three thousand years ago, of the level of minutiae that Herodotus and others provided. How could they possibly have remembered what happened in such detail, he asked me. Hell, you and I can’t remember where we ate lunch last week, he pointed out. I wanted to reply — but didn’t — that I could remember because we either ate at Sally’s (Man, I miss that place) or Jack’s Health Food Store, with an occasional venture to Rodriguez or Hu Pei 2. He loved Jack’s because women were constantly coming up and hugging him. One day, I was giving him the raised-eyebrow look after the fourth well-kept woman squeezed him.
“One of the few fringe benefits of being older than Methuselah,” he said, cracking that grin.
Monk to his death remained a sharer of ideas, of books and policies, politics and even sports. But he was more than that. He was a doer and a fixer, someone who was more interested in making life better for the least among us than personally enriching himself or his family. He loved politics not just because of the action, though he clearly loved that, but for what could be accomplished to make this part of our world a better place to live. I remember picking up a 4x6 snapshot of the library at North Texas on one of my first visits, which he kept on a table by the front door. In the photo, students are walking by a nondescript building with a sign out front, and you had to hold it close to read what the sign says.
I looked at Monk and asked, “They named the library for you?” Usually you have to be dead or filthy rich for that to happen with a university building these days.
“Yeah,” Monk said. “And I never gave them a damn dime, either.”
He gave far more to North Texas, of course. Eighteen years as a regent, a dozen as its chair. Monk gave of his talents, his energy, his passion and his money, until the very end.
He left his friends and family some very precious gifts. Mainly was the gift of serving others selflessly, of loving largely and with great tolerance, and of being humble. My days with Monk on this earth were not that numerous, compared to many. But the lessons I learned, the wisdom he imparted that resonates still today of an examined life, the friendship we shared, all that will remain as long as I’m around.
Looking back — which always is easier than looking forward — there seem to be three reasons God brought me back to Longview for a brief and tumultuous time. First was to be able to bring my parents home to live out their final days, to care for them until they too passed away. Second was to meet the love of my life — my wife, Julie, and our daughter, Abbie. Finally, it was to be able to share the joy of being able to call Monk Willis a friend and a mentor.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Losing My Car A Common Calamity
I lost my car in the UT parking garage the other day. It was bound to happen. The fact that it took nearly four months for this unhappy event to occur counts as a minor victory. Perhaps I am making progress in the Not Losing One’s Car In A Parking Area department.
Still, it was annoying. I left at lunch to run errands, which meant I sacrificed my choice spot on the second level, always on the left side on the first ramp. (Parking in this garage is first-come, first serve.) I get to work early and park in the same area every morning, which is why I haven’t lost my car to this point. Upon returning, lost in reverie and in a hurry to get back for an appointment, I zig-zagged up the ramps until I finally found a spot in the nosebleed section of the garage. When work ended, I trudged back to the garage and realized I had no idea where I had parked, except that it wasn’t on the second level. Third maybe? Fifth? Seventh?
I climbed to the fourth level and hit the alarm button on the key fob, a trick that a fellow auto-amnesiac taught me. Sure enough, my car started honking, but I couldn’t tell if the sound was coming from above or below. I went up a level and tried again. Nothing. I went down a level and hit the red button once more. No response. I returned to the third level and walked the entire area, looking in vain for the oval “HR” sticker I put on the back window to help me find my car. That stands for Hurricane Ridge, in the Olympic National Forest of Washington state — one of the prettiest places on the planet. I suspect most people who see it think I work in human resources.
Fifteen minutes later I found my car on the fourth level. I have no idea why the car alarm would not go off when I was actually on that level, but it did when I was below. I was just glad it only took 15 minutes. My personal record is two hours, when I parked on a side street and walked to the football stadium to meet my daughters. After the game, in darkness I searched for my car down one street after another. I was about to take a cab back to the hotel and wait for sunrise to begin the search anew, when magically my vehicle appeared on a street I was fairly certain I had searched a half-dozen times already.
My inability to remember where I park appears to be both inherent and inherited. My dad was a dreamy, absent-minded guy who would often forget why my mom had sent him to the store. Bread? Milk? Cigarettes? What? Back then, in the Paleolitic era of my youth — before cell phones, GPS or car alarms were common — there weren’t any Big Box stores either, so he could usually find the car in a small lot. I have learned to park in the same general area in the sea of asphalt that fronts most stores I frequent, whether it’s the grocery store or a home-improvement establishment. Facing the store, I always park to the far right, as close to a shopping cart-return bin as possible.
A few Christmas seasons ago, I lost my car in the parking garage of the Austin Convention Center after going to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. Again, I could make the car alarm go off, but it took 45 minutes to pinpoint the sound. Several years ago, I parked at the Houston airport in an outdoor lot because it was cheaper. Aware of my handicap, I wrote down the location. Upon returning, my car was not where I had so diligently recorded the location. Finally, in utter bewilderment, I asked the attendant at the pay window for help. She laughed and said several rows of cars had been moved while I was gone so the parking lot could be repaved. She pointed, and far in the distance I spotted my car. This did nothing to bolster my confidence. Even writing down the location didn’t help.
My wife and about-to-turn 14-year-old daughter are well aware of my malady and carefully note where we park when we go somewhere. When I’m parking solo, all bets are off here in the big city. I guess I’m just a country boy at heart.
Still, it was annoying. I left at lunch to run errands, which meant I sacrificed my choice spot on the second level, always on the left side on the first ramp. (Parking in this garage is first-come, first serve.) I get to work early and park in the same area every morning, which is why I haven’t lost my car to this point. Upon returning, lost in reverie and in a hurry to get back for an appointment, I zig-zagged up the ramps until I finally found a spot in the nosebleed section of the garage. When work ended, I trudged back to the garage and realized I had no idea where I had parked, except that it wasn’t on the second level. Third maybe? Fifth? Seventh?
I climbed to the fourth level and hit the alarm button on the key fob, a trick that a fellow auto-amnesiac taught me. Sure enough, my car started honking, but I couldn’t tell if the sound was coming from above or below. I went up a level and tried again. Nothing. I went down a level and hit the red button once more. No response. I returned to the third level and walked the entire area, looking in vain for the oval “HR” sticker I put on the back window to help me find my car. That stands for Hurricane Ridge, in the Olympic National Forest of Washington state — one of the prettiest places on the planet. I suspect most people who see it think I work in human resources.
Fifteen minutes later I found my car on the fourth level. I have no idea why the car alarm would not go off when I was actually on that level, but it did when I was below. I was just glad it only took 15 minutes. My personal record is two hours, when I parked on a side street and walked to the football stadium to meet my daughters. After the game, in darkness I searched for my car down one street after another. I was about to take a cab back to the hotel and wait for sunrise to begin the search anew, when magically my vehicle appeared on a street I was fairly certain I had searched a half-dozen times already.
My inability to remember where I park appears to be both inherent and inherited. My dad was a dreamy, absent-minded guy who would often forget why my mom had sent him to the store. Bread? Milk? Cigarettes? What? Back then, in the Paleolitic era of my youth — before cell phones, GPS or car alarms were common — there weren’t any Big Box stores either, so he could usually find the car in a small lot. I have learned to park in the same general area in the sea of asphalt that fronts most stores I frequent, whether it’s the grocery store or a home-improvement establishment. Facing the store, I always park to the far right, as close to a shopping cart-return bin as possible.
A few Christmas seasons ago, I lost my car in the parking garage of the Austin Convention Center after going to the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. Again, I could make the car alarm go off, but it took 45 minutes to pinpoint the sound. Several years ago, I parked at the Houston airport in an outdoor lot because it was cheaper. Aware of my handicap, I wrote down the location. Upon returning, my car was not where I had so diligently recorded the location. Finally, in utter bewilderment, I asked the attendant at the pay window for help. She laughed and said several rows of cars had been moved while I was gone so the parking lot could be repaved. She pointed, and far in the distance I spotted my car. This did nothing to bolster my confidence. Even writing down the location didn’t help.
My wife and about-to-turn 14-year-old daughter are well aware of my malady and carefully note where we park when we go somewhere. When I’m parking solo, all bets are off here in the big city. I guess I’m just a country boy at heart.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
There's A Hitch To It
I have a checkered history with pulling trailers that continues unchecked. To wit: I recently hauled another load to the new house and decided to make a quick trip to the Big Box Home Improvement Stores nearby — one decked out in orange, the other in a red-and-blue motif. I figure you have shopped these establishments if you live in America. I prefer the mom-and-pops, with my current favorite being Breed & Co. near the UT campus, and Zenger Hardware, further north off Burnet. Both remind me of my all-time favorite hardware store, now greatly diminished, which was Cason Monk & Co. in downtown Nacogdoches.
In the day that was such a lovely store, with a distinctive smell emanating from the merchandise and hardwood floors, kept clean with Murphy Oil Soap. At least that is how those floors smelled to me. I search for places in Austin that remind me of Cason Monk. Someday after retirement I might end up working in a hometown hardware store, if there are any left. That’s how I think these days, post-crash, as do many folks of my age. We scheme about what our post-career job is going to be, not what we will do with all that leisure time in retirement. Fine with me. I have learned through a few brief periods of joblessness that idleness is definitely not my strong suit. I need to work to stay healthy and just this side of wacko.
That’s all I’m asking. Just keep me on the skinny side of sane.
Anyway, to get on task, I was aisle-shopping at a Big Box, making plans on what type of plastic storage unit to store lawn implements. I had taken a trailer-load to the new house and hauled it empty to the stores. As I cruised down Parmer Lane at about 50 mph with that unloaded trailer, I noticed it was bouncing more than usual. Loadless trailers bounce a bit, so it took a few hundred yards for me to realize my trailer was whip-sawing about. Somehow it had come off the trailer ball and was only connected by the safety chains. The tongue was bouncing off the road at 50 mph, likely kicking off sparks on the pavement. Other drivers gave me a wide berth as I pulled over on the shoulder. The trailer slid under my Ford Escape. Fortunately the hitch ball stopped it from plowing into the back of the vehicle. Even more fortunately, I wasn’t on MoPac going 70 mph when this occurred, which is where I had been an hour earlier.
Luckily the trailer was light enough to pull out from under the car and put it back on the ball. I drove slowly back to the new house and figured out that the latch that keeps the hitch locked on the ball had broken. I rigged it by wrapping a 6-foot bicycle cable around the hitch and ball and padlocking it, then slowly drove back to find someone who could fix the trailer. The fellow I found has tattoos on top of his tattoos, including his forehead, cheek and neck. I am hopeful he gets my trailer fixed before his parole is revoked.
It galls me a bit that I appear to finally have learned how to properly tie down loads — and the dang trailer breaks, potentially causing a pileup on Parmer Lane — a six-lane ribbon of traffic that evokes none of the pastoral feelings that the label “lane” implies. I once lost a load of one-by-six pine lumber — about 500 boards — on Highway 59 in Nacogdoches while helping my builder haul it to my shop on his 16-foot trailer. Hoo boy. I foresaw a criminal trial for negligence, as 18-wheelers bore down the hill. Providence played a role in that mishap not becoming a tragedy.
Some months later, I headed to the lumber yard one Saturday morning to buy a sheet of plywood, got home and realized with horror that the plywood was no longer in the trailer. Who knew a gust of wind could flip that sucker out of a trailer and me not notice? Thank goodness a motorcyclist wasn’t tailgating at the time. I found the plywood on the side of the Lufkin loop about a mile from where I bought it.
Now I carry two jugs of bungee cords in the back of the Escape. When loaded, the trailer looks as if it is ensnared in a giant spider web, with both jugs of bungees deployed.
My trailer is still being held hostage by the tattooed guy. Motorists in the Austin area are safe in the interim.
In the day that was such a lovely store, with a distinctive smell emanating from the merchandise and hardwood floors, kept clean with Murphy Oil Soap. At least that is how those floors smelled to me. I search for places in Austin that remind me of Cason Monk. Someday after retirement I might end up working in a hometown hardware store, if there are any left. That’s how I think these days, post-crash, as do many folks of my age. We scheme about what our post-career job is going to be, not what we will do with all that leisure time in retirement. Fine with me. I have learned through a few brief periods of joblessness that idleness is definitely not my strong suit. I need to work to stay healthy and just this side of wacko.
That’s all I’m asking. Just keep me on the skinny side of sane.
Anyway, to get on task, I was aisle-shopping at a Big Box, making plans on what type of plastic storage unit to store lawn implements. I had taken a trailer-load to the new house and hauled it empty to the stores. As I cruised down Parmer Lane at about 50 mph with that unloaded trailer, I noticed it was bouncing more than usual. Loadless trailers bounce a bit, so it took a few hundred yards for me to realize my trailer was whip-sawing about. Somehow it had come off the trailer ball and was only connected by the safety chains. The tongue was bouncing off the road at 50 mph, likely kicking off sparks on the pavement. Other drivers gave me a wide berth as I pulled over on the shoulder. The trailer slid under my Ford Escape. Fortunately the hitch ball stopped it from plowing into the back of the vehicle. Even more fortunately, I wasn’t on MoPac going 70 mph when this occurred, which is where I had been an hour earlier.
Luckily the trailer was light enough to pull out from under the car and put it back on the ball. I drove slowly back to the new house and figured out that the latch that keeps the hitch locked on the ball had broken. I rigged it by wrapping a 6-foot bicycle cable around the hitch and ball and padlocking it, then slowly drove back to find someone who could fix the trailer. The fellow I found has tattoos on top of his tattoos, including his forehead, cheek and neck. I am hopeful he gets my trailer fixed before his parole is revoked.
It galls me a bit that I appear to finally have learned how to properly tie down loads — and the dang trailer breaks, potentially causing a pileup on Parmer Lane — a six-lane ribbon of traffic that evokes none of the pastoral feelings that the label “lane” implies. I once lost a load of one-by-six pine lumber — about 500 boards — on Highway 59 in Nacogdoches while helping my builder haul it to my shop on his 16-foot trailer. Hoo boy. I foresaw a criminal trial for negligence, as 18-wheelers bore down the hill. Providence played a role in that mishap not becoming a tragedy.
Some months later, I headed to the lumber yard one Saturday morning to buy a sheet of plywood, got home and realized with horror that the plywood was no longer in the trailer. Who knew a gust of wind could flip that sucker out of a trailer and me not notice? Thank goodness a motorcyclist wasn’t tailgating at the time. I found the plywood on the side of the Lufkin loop about a mile from where I bought it.
Now I carry two jugs of bungee cords in the back of the Escape. When loaded, the trailer looks as if it is ensnared in a giant spider web, with both jugs of bungees deployed.
My trailer is still being held hostage by the tattooed guy. Motorists in the Austin area are safe in the interim.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Unpacking A Passel Of Books
So, it turns out I have two copies of “The Corrections,” by Jonathan Franzen, a popular contemporary novelist who I’m still trying to decide whether I like or not. I have no clue how I ended up with two copies but learned long ago not to spend too much time trying to cipher such matters. I simply put the pair together on the shelf with his latest novel, “Freedom,” the other day while unpacking books. Again.
This is the fourth time in less than four years I have gone through the arduous process of book unpacking. Job moves have sent me hurtling around Texas and the Midwest, a middle-aged pinball zinging about — grateful for a job in these wacko times but flung about by the flippers of fate. I’m so grateful and optimistic, actually, that my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I just bought a house in North Austin.
Hence, the Moving of the Books once again, from the place I leased last fall.
I am in the midst of one of those ugly cross-town moves that last for weeks and involve sloppy packing. The last three moves were company-paid and traversed considerable distance. This trek is self-financed, meaning I will move everything I can myself. My friends are grateful I have become, like them, too old to risk back injury moving the really heavy stuff, like appliances and couches. I’ll hire a crew for that. But the books are my bailiwick.
Unpacking boxes of books soothes me, somehow, though lugging them upstairs to the bedroom where roughly half will reside puts a strain on my legs. It invariably takes far longer than it should. I become distracted by this title or that, happen across old friends that I forgot about owning. This probably explains why I possess two copies of “The Corrections.”
I always come across books that I have not yet read — a result of years being mailed unsolicited review copies at newspapers where I worked, gifts from friends and family that haven’t made it into the “need to read soon” pile, books I bought but never got around to delving into. Having lots of books still unread bothered me when I was younger. Now I realize that I will croak without having gotten around to reading this or that book that has been on my shelves for decades. As the T-shirt on the rack down at Book People, my favorite bookstore on the planet, puts it, “So Many Books, So Little Time.”
A dear friend who died last January at age 94 was an inspiration to me, in more than one way. He loved books with a greater passion than anyone I have known. He bought them by the armload from Amazon, pecking out his order on a computer given to him by his daughters. His dining room table was covered with new purchases, stacked to near-toppling height. Shelves everywhere creaked under the weight of books, with other stacks on the floor creating a maze in his study.
Unlike me, however, my friend had an incredible memory for what he had read, able to quote entire passages from books read a half-century or more earlier. I have a terrible memory that is getting worse. For self-improvement, I have been reading a fascinating book about memory and people who are able to train themselves to remember long lists of items, random number sequences, etc. I was telling a friend about it at lunch the other day but couldn’t remember the title and had to Google it from my phone. There is something ironic about forgetting the title of a book about memory. It’s called, “Moonwalking With Einstein,” by Josh Foer, a hilarious young man I met at a recent literary conference. Good thing it is sitting in front of me in the study, or I would have forgotten the title again.
I am about halfway through unpacking books, which comprise most of what I own. My kitchen-related possessions take up about two boxes, the books about 50. As always, a few volumes have made it onto the designated shelf for books on my reading radar, as a result of unpacking. That has meant relegating a few back to the stacks, where they will likely sit unattended until the next move — which I hope isn’t for a long time.
The best thing about unpacking books is it recalls the memory of a similar column I wrote nearly four years ago. A few days after it was published, a woman emailed me, asking if I would like to go to coffee, that she enjoyed my writing. Perhaps we would become friends, she wrote.
She is now my wife, the Beautiful Mystery Companion. She has a lot of books, too. I will be happy to haul them here from East Texas when the time comes.
This is the fourth time in less than four years I have gone through the arduous process of book unpacking. Job moves have sent me hurtling around Texas and the Midwest, a middle-aged pinball zinging about — grateful for a job in these wacko times but flung about by the flippers of fate. I’m so grateful and optimistic, actually, that my Beautiful Mystery Companion and I just bought a house in North Austin.
Hence, the Moving of the Books once again, from the place I leased last fall.
I am in the midst of one of those ugly cross-town moves that last for weeks and involve sloppy packing. The last three moves were company-paid and traversed considerable distance. This trek is self-financed, meaning I will move everything I can myself. My friends are grateful I have become, like them, too old to risk back injury moving the really heavy stuff, like appliances and couches. I’ll hire a crew for that. But the books are my bailiwick.
Unpacking boxes of books soothes me, somehow, though lugging them upstairs to the bedroom where roughly half will reside puts a strain on my legs. It invariably takes far longer than it should. I become distracted by this title or that, happen across old friends that I forgot about owning. This probably explains why I possess two copies of “The Corrections.”
I always come across books that I have not yet read — a result of years being mailed unsolicited review copies at newspapers where I worked, gifts from friends and family that haven’t made it into the “need to read soon” pile, books I bought but never got around to delving into. Having lots of books still unread bothered me when I was younger. Now I realize that I will croak without having gotten around to reading this or that book that has been on my shelves for decades. As the T-shirt on the rack down at Book People, my favorite bookstore on the planet, puts it, “So Many Books, So Little Time.”
A dear friend who died last January at age 94 was an inspiration to me, in more than one way. He loved books with a greater passion than anyone I have known. He bought them by the armload from Amazon, pecking out his order on a computer given to him by his daughters. His dining room table was covered with new purchases, stacked to near-toppling height. Shelves everywhere creaked under the weight of books, with other stacks on the floor creating a maze in his study.
Unlike me, however, my friend had an incredible memory for what he had read, able to quote entire passages from books read a half-century or more earlier. I have a terrible memory that is getting worse. For self-improvement, I have been reading a fascinating book about memory and people who are able to train themselves to remember long lists of items, random number sequences, etc. I was telling a friend about it at lunch the other day but couldn’t remember the title and had to Google it from my phone. There is something ironic about forgetting the title of a book about memory. It’s called, “Moonwalking With Einstein,” by Josh Foer, a hilarious young man I met at a recent literary conference. Good thing it is sitting in front of me in the study, or I would have forgotten the title again.
I am about halfway through unpacking books, which comprise most of what I own. My kitchen-related possessions take up about two boxes, the books about 50. As always, a few volumes have made it onto the designated shelf for books on my reading radar, as a result of unpacking. That has meant relegating a few back to the stacks, where they will likely sit unattended until the next move — which I hope isn’t for a long time.
The best thing about unpacking books is it recalls the memory of a similar column I wrote nearly four years ago. A few days after it was published, a woman emailed me, asking if I would like to go to coffee, that she enjoyed my writing. Perhaps we would become friends, she wrote.
She is now my wife, the Beautiful Mystery Companion. She has a lot of books, too. I will be happy to haul them here from East Texas when the time comes.
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