Scamp Tramp-Long Way for a Little Camper

I Just got back from a 3500 mile trip to pick up my camper in Backus, Minnesota.  I Went with Richie Acevedo-my main-man in a pinch.  He was the only friend one who would go without conditions (it was not the sort of trip many folks are interested in undertaking!) and Richard is the kind of guy who is able to weather the inevitable storms of long distance travel.  He is sometimes difficult to deal with but most of the time he is the guy you want with you when the shit hits the fan. 

Day 1-From home to just outside Chicago. I picked Rich up in Yonkers before dawn.    It was a Long, long day ~850 miles.  Our mood was good.  The miles flew bye until we hit the rain in Chi town.  The traffic in the city was fierce and Rich, who was behind the wheel and decided he wanted to go sightseeing, took a detour.  We got to see downtown Chicago but I was just too tired to appreciate it.    No desire to sightsee.  I think Rich thought this was gonna be more tourist-like.  I am mostly business. We spent the night in a Holiday Inn motel.  I was happy just to lay my head on a pillow. 

Day 2- Chicago to the “Twin Cities” Minneapolis / St. Paul.  Surprise!! Rich has a friend in Minneapolis.  Went to visit Richie’s friend Hector and Hector's family at their home in the suburbs.  If I’d known about the diversion I might not have eaten the huge meal Richard bought for us just before we stopped to visit Hector’s!  I sat at their dining room table while they served up a gigantic Puerto Rican feast.  I couldn’t begin to do it justice.  Hector’s dad (or father-in-law?) told me the story of his life including a detailed rendering of his work experience.  I was so full and exhausted that I kept nodding off.  He maintained the narrative and poked me in the shoulder at intervals so I would not doze-bless him!  We checked into another Holiday Inn and I passed out.  Richie went out “partying” with Hector and the entire Puerto Rican population of  Minneapolis / St. Paul.  All three of them enjoyed the evening. 

Day 3- Minneapolis to Backus, Minnesota and into the maw of Canada... 

Minnesota is unexpectedly beautiful.  We are both impressed.  Cross the Mississippi and run with it for a while. The muddy river on one side and lush forests, vacation homes and thick green hills on the other.  I’ve always wondered why people settled anywhere but New York, Philadelphia or Florida-now I know.  My favorite place was Red Wing, Minnesota.  It’s a real town that is so perfect that it could have been built by the crew who built Disney World.  It is also the home of Red Wing boots.  Great boots!

About 10:00am we pulled up at the Scamp factory in Backus.  This experience belongs in its own story.  Suffice it to say we picked up trailer and continued toward Canada.

By the time we left the factory we were already tired and we stopped a few minutes at a beautiful campground about 40 miles north of Backus.  Stream running through, showers, and warm level campsites--perfect!  But we chose to push on to a campground we were told about that was supposedly wonderful and just over on the Canadian side.  That was the biggest mistake of the trip!  We were to find little comfort or convenience in the hundreds of miles to come, once we’d crossed the Canadian border.  They should have a sign over the border check-point that says, “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”.

Border Crossing at International Falls.  Rich argues with the Mounties about using his driver’s license to cross…I have an enhanced drivers license which is no problem.  He is adamant about not producing his passport, though in the end that is what he had to do.  Just to prove who’s boss the Police search the car and the Scamp.  They have an abbreviated sense of humor up there in the Northland, and they just don’t appreciate Richards Caribbean wit.  After International Falls (and the campground we were told about that was closed for the season!) we found no place to camp, no stores, and no gas.  We drove on and finally camped that night in the woods at the perimeter of a vacant fishing camp.  The temperature dropped and Richie tossed and turned and snorted until about 2:00am when we decided to just “book” and hit the road again.  The Kings Highway was mostly a good, two lane road, but deserted except for pulp trucks hauling logs.  We came to one section of the road that was gravel and that was when the gasoline warning light came on.  At that point I thought we were never going to get back to civilization.  Finally, after having driven close to 200 miles without seeing one hint of commercial civilization we rolled into a gas station on fumes in Kakabek Falls on Hywy 17. 

Day 4-  From the camp along the Kings Highway (Rt 11/17) on to Thunder Bay and Sault Saint Marie.  This was a day of easy driving and magnificent views of the hills and Lake Superior.  Just before sunset, exhausted once again, we found a decrepit pine paneled motel in the First Nation Reservation.  It was manned by an English owner with a limp and his wife who he called “Mother”.  As old and rundown and mismatched as it was the room was warm and comfortable. We were the only patrons at the restaurant attached to the motel.  There was no way to tell if the food was any good.  Rich ate the chicken.  My fish and chips was dripping in oil and almost inedible.  Rich tipped them 50% anyway and pissed me off.  He got his “reward” for the ridiculous tip the next day when he was horribly ill.  “No good deed will go unpunished!”

Day 5- Though the trip through Canada was almost the exact same mileage as the one through the states (from whence we came) it was much, much slower and seemed interminable.  The final leg through Sudbury, Perry Sound to about 90 km’s outside Toronto was tiring.  We found a Day’s Inn that looked to have been built with close-out purchases from Home Depot-cheap and not very well designed.  We went out and had a decent meal in a chain steak house.  It was a fitful night and about 1:00 am Richie turned on the TV and brought me out of a deep sleep.  I tossed and turned the rest of the night.  Morning came and I couldn’t find my keys.  Luckily I’d brought two sets.  I was ready-as I am at some point in all of my travels-to be home again.    

Day 6- cross into US at Niagara Falls into Buffalo and home.  We stopped at the “Falls” for 45 seconds, just long enough to snap 6 pictures.  The town held no attraction for me.  It looked like post cards of the strip in Las Vegas.  By this time even Richie is no longer feeling like a tourist.  At the border crossing Rich tries his drivers license routine again!  The U.S. Customs was having none of it and after Rich finally fishes out his passport they let us through easily. God Bless America!  We drive down rt. 17 through the Catskills.  Nice to be on familiar ground.  Our mood is good.  Happy to be near home.  At my house Richard’s wife Haddie met us and Lizzy made a wonderful meal. 

Day 7- clean up the CRV Honda and my luggage, etc.  Found my keys and Richards Passport. 

Titanium "Spork"

It is a good thing that we turn a “blind eye” to some of our friend’s behavior.  If we held everyone to the strictest of standards we would have no friends.  Everyone has weaknesses and everyone has faults.  Ideally we should hold ourselves up to a high standard and choose our friends according to those same criteria.  If I shall not kill then Thou shall not kill…(Is this what is called a “match made in heaven”?)

Titanium Spork

I had a dream last night that I was living in Hollywood.  I was writing for the movies.  I don’t know if I was any good but I appear, in the dream, to be prospering.  I had a nice car.  I dream that I am having lunch with a producer and I am pitching a plot to him.  Of course I suggest that the actors be very famous, in this case they are Bert and Ernie of the Muppets. 

In the story Bert lives next door to Ernie in a suburb that looks very much like the neighborhood where my house used to be in South Miami.  In the back yard there are lime trees and avocado trees and a lot of mango trees…The porches are open air and the sun filters through the leaves and warms two old men-Bert and Ernie-in their lawn chairs, near the fence, in adjacent yards.  Inside Ernie’s house his two sons (neat middle aged Muppets with ties and combed down hair) are packing up Ernie’s belongings and getting the house ready to sell.  Ernie is going to live in Fort Lauderdale with one of his “boy’s” families.  The “Golden Years”. 

Out in the yard Bert and Ernie are ‘talking’ and Ernie is suggesting that it would be much better if they both went to live in Ernie’s son’s house.  Ernie knows this is impossible.  Bert is just listening.  He is not all there anymore.  Ernie hatches an idea during a curious and amusing one-sided conversation punctuated by grunts and an occasional smile or frown from Bert.  He decides it would be a wonderful thing if both he and Bert moved in together and he could help take care of Bert.  Ernie knows that Bert’s children (little monster Muppets) are planning to put him in an old age home.  There is a call from inside Ernie’s house that lunch is ready and Ernie leaves Bert in the yard and goes in to eat.  Inside the ‘boys’ have set out a meal from Burger King and Ernie cuts his sandwich neatly in half and calls out the door to invite Bert over to share.  Bert comes in the jalousie door and sits-same blank look and quiet demeanor-and begins eating French fries. 

Ernie picks up a book of photos off the top of a cardboard box and as he thumbs through the pages he casually suggests that he doesn’t want to move into his son’s place but would like to move in with Bert.  They argue.  The conversation travels.  They reminisce about old times when Ernie’s boys would play with Bert’s kids and about the two families living side by side, going to the beach, to school, how the old Muppets played golf together and bet on the Sunday football games…At some point they come across a picture of a toilet seat Bert used as a picture frame which he hung proudly in his “Florida Room”  Inside the toilet seat he had an eight by ten glossy of Ernie glued to the lid.  Everyone laughs including Bert!  For a moment he is back in real time.  Smiling.  All of a sudden he jumps up and runs out of the door and across the yard back to his own house. 

At first the “boys were alarmed but Ernie says “It’s ok.  He’s alright.  He’ll be back.”  Ernie and the “boys” continue to reminisce and look through the old photos.  In a few minutes Bert comes back in clutching a “spork” in his fist.  He sits back down and begins spearing French fries with the fork end of the tool.  The boys remember the story of the “spork”.  Bert used to be the Boy Scout leader in the local troop.  On a camping trip he sat down to dinner and proudly announced that he had bought a new tool, a $19.95 titanium “spork”!  A dozen times during that meal he was heard extolling the virtues of that “spork”.  “Lighter than aluminum!  Stronger than steel!” Soon all the boys were calling Bert “Spork-Man… Lighter than aluminum!  Stronger than steel!”  and the name stuck.  It was an affectionate name for a man who gave them leadership and love. 

Bert was sick now.  After looking through those old photos and talking with their dad and considering how long and deep the relationship was between the two old Muppets they hatch a plan to get them together in one house, with an aid.  They decide to call Bert’s “kids”.  They all pull the plan together and with the money from the sale of Ernie’s house and their combined savings they make it happen.  “Spork-Man” and Ernie…coming to a theater near you!

Mr. K.W. Stanberry's titanium "spork"

(I hope I have not broken too many laws "borrowing" the pic of B&E...thou shalt not steal!)

Bees

Where do carpenter bees go when they get the munchies?  Well…My house!  They sneak into the space between the aluminum clad fascia boards of the gable ends of the roof and the vinyl siding and they bore into the beams.  Or they chew on the unpainted beams of my porch roof.  Actually they don’t do it to eat the wood, they do it to make a home for their little, baby carpenter bees.  But the effect is the same as if they were ‘eating’ the wood.  There is sawdust all over the place and their dribbly spit mixed with the sawdust from their chewing is all over the siding and the railings and the deck.  It is a mess.  And it is not too good for the house either. 

Over the years I have pretty much ignored all this chewing up of my house.  Every once in a while (when I see a little pile of sawdust on the deck or under the gable end of the roof) I would climb up and find the hole and plug it up with a little bit of aluminum foil.  Before I would put the plug of Reynolds’s Wrap into the neat, 3/8” hole, I would bang on the affected area just to make sure I wasn’t trapping one of the little suckers in the hole.  Then I would push a healthy plug of metal foil in and that was that.  But lately the sawdust piles have proliferated and I see swarms of the docile bees hovering over the roof and near the raw wood of my porch beams. 

Enough is enough, I said to myself, and I have instituted the “RSG Program of Carpenter Bee Banishment”.  I bought a power washer.  I bought foam “backer rod” (which is a material to fill large gaps prior to caulking).  I bought plenty of silicone caulk.  I have taken out my ladders and tools, and I have mounted an offensive equal to the effort brought forth on this date by the Allies in 1944.   It is my intent to clean, fill and paint every area that might be deemed “desirable” by a carpenter bee and I began to implement my plan today.  My team and I started on the low gable on the north end of the building.

I will not bore you, dear reader, with the details of the effort except to say that many, many trips were made up and down an extension ladder, much energy was spent diligently stuffing/caulking/wiping/moving ladder/ surrounded by a very pissed off swarm of giant yellow and black, hairy looking bees.  No need for more detail than that!  When I was done with the north elevation I sat for quite a while observing the bees from a perch on the rock wall below the area of the former bee residences.  I marveled at how persistently one of them strafed and hovered over the area that had, up until an hour ago, been the front door to the apartment complex he and his friends had under construction in the end beam of my roof.  In fact I marveled that a creature so ungainly in appearance could fly at all.  It seemed to defy the laws of aerodynamics.  

After working next to the swarm for a couple of hours while I sealed the area it became obvious that they are very peaceful bees.  They’d come close and veer off, come back, veer off…etc.  More curious than aggressive.  I never worried about being stung.  The possibility of falling off the ladder was much more likely so I paid attention to my balance and position first, my work second and the bees a distant third.  I am still alive tonight.  The work got done.  The bees are homeless and pissed!

It was suggested by someone I discussed the “bee situation” with that I should just get some of that wasp stuff that shoots out of a can thirty feet high, and kill ‘em.  I rejected that as a possible solution.  It would have temporarily “solved” one problem but in the long run I would have also set in motion my own death.

You see, we must co-exist, the bees and I, for one very important reason.  That is-I may kill a few of the bees or even all of the bees who are attempting to cohabit in my home,  But, and this is the most important consideration, the bees will eventually kill me.  Merely by no longer being there the bees will cause myself and all the humans I represent in this mini-drama to perish.  Who will pollinate my eggplant in my garden when the bees are gone?  In fact, Life with out honey…?  I would rather be dead.

So,  Let us bee-proof our homes.   Let us look on the Bee in wonder-at its industry and it's purpose.  Long live the Bees.

If It Ain’t Fixed, Don’t Broke It!

The postal service is a dinosaur.  It is a Brontosaurus sinking in a fiscal tar pit. Like a tortoise on its back in the desert sand it has been trying to right itself for decades.  Most of the stuff it brings to my mailbox is junk.  A shredder right next to the mailbox would be a blessing.  Just pop the majority of the day’s delivery directly into the jaws of machine, no need to carry it up the driveway and chop it up in the shredder in the dining room and wait for the paper collection day and bring it back down the driveway where it ends up in the maw of the garbage truck…

Coupon books from the auto parts store, announcements for the opening of a new Party City or Chinese restaurant menus-that’s the sort of stuff I would like to drop right into the new, conveniently located shredder.  I sort through the junk to find the one or two valid pieces of communication I get each week.  Similar to the percentage/number of actual important phone calls I get each week on our land-line phone.  The rest of the mail is a waste of my time, as are the phone calls for time shares, carpet cleaning services, flue cleaning services, electricity providers and scam artists from Zimbabwe and India.  No, I don’t want you to service my computer from your remote location in Sumatra and I don’t want your penny saver publication from Crugers/Montross.

Anyway, back to the postal service. 

It started as a great idea.  Ben Franklin started it and for two hundred years it held our nation together.  Letters and documents traveled by foot, by horse, by train, wagon, and truck for all that time and people depended on the postal service for personal communication and commerce.  But, like so many other inventions it has seen its utility pass and is now as useful as an infected appendix.  No one writes letters any more (with some exceptions, such as me) and important information is transmitted via e-mail, text messages, Facetime and Skype.  Most school kids would not know how to put a stamp on and address an envelope, for that matter they probably don’t even know where to buy stamps.  Handwriting skills have degenerated to uselessness and I am not sure if it is even a subject in the school system.  Any communication over 160 characters would similarly be a mystery to anyone under the age of thirty-five.  So, of what use is a service whose sole purpose is to transport and deliver written material when written material is extinct?  Answer: None!

It will not be easy to put an end to a service that is integral to the concept of our nationhood and as ubiquitous as the Lincoln head cent.  Who is strong enough to pose the proposition that we should get rid of all the white, red and blue emblazoned delivery trucks, the little hand carts with the canvas sacks full of envelopes, and the letter carrier with his/her powder blue shirt and Bermuda shorts, and where in the world did the safari hat come from?  Merely suggesting the Postal Service curtail Saturday delivery to staunch the fiscal bloodletting caused an outcry in congress and the population.  And I will admit I am torn as well by the thought that there will be no more government delivered mail coming to my house but, I also miss the rotary dial telephone, three speed on the column, and free TV but nothing is forever.  

It is time to recognize the direction of our civilization.  That is, we require world class, fast and affordable internet-universally available to everyone and regulated in the same manner that any vital utility is regulated-not subject to the greed and whim of money- grubbing conglomerates (read “Time Warner/Comcast/Verizon).  We do not need government bureaucracy delivering shoes from Amazon-there are plenty of private companies who do this very well already!  We do need educational systems which include art, physical education, nutrition and health education as well as the traditional three R’s.  Why do I bring this up while discussing the postal system?  Because the postal system of the United States is only part of the joke shared by the rest of the world.  We are becoming a nation of test takers, wasters and fall-behinders!  We squander our resources on old technology when we support the P.O. and ignore the health and education of our population.  We support the P.O. and accept our faulty digital infrastructure (or worse, leave it to the back-room antics of the monopolies and politicians who keep it slow and make it expensive).  We ignore the bridges and roads we need to maintain our society but build drones and billion dollar planes and trillion dollar armies.  We have an obligation to ourselves to have the best educational system, medical delivery system, healthy people and clean water and…Oh, my God!  There are so many things that are more important than propping up the United States Postal Service!  Just let it go.

The Second Son

It is a curse

to be the second son

and not a blast

to be the last

but maybe it’s worst

to be the first.

To be a dad

is the greatest burn,

or a blessing-

puffing up

almost to burst-

depending on the day

and the turn

of the earth

or the pain

or the pleasure

of the child

whether second

or third

or first.

The Old Grove

The Old Grove

No body is worried a lick about calories at the Old Grove Market at seven a.m. on a Wednesday.  No body is in a hurry either.  Good ol’ boys plop their butts down on the red, fake leather couch that surrounds the big coffee table and they consume their coffee by the quart while reading the morning papers.  The players are constantly changing as one fella gets up to get his breakfast and another sets down with a plate of food.  Regarding the caloric content of the heaping platters, it is not posted anywhere on the wall, there are no menus, and, as noted, no one is keeping track anyway.  Typical selections include scrambled eggs by the ladleful, grits, piles of bacon, sausage, or a soft, warm biscuit topped up with white, pork gravy.  The coffee is hot and strong and nobody is putting skim milk in it.  Just sugar and some half and half.  It is a breakfast once peculiar to the South.  You could get it in Tallahassee or Atlanta or Asheville or any other town, city or village south of Washington D.C. and as of late items from the menu seems to have begun to evidenced themselves in the North as the country becomes more homogenized and much less regional.  The Old Grove is a throw-back to days when lawyers and farmers, garage mechanics and town clerks met early in the day in the town café to exchange news and rumors in the deep south. 

I look for these types of places when I travel.  Though I try to be careful about what I eat I relish mom and pop cafes like the Old Grove and when I find one I take what they have to offer and, in an effort to strike a nutritional balance, cut back on one of my other gastrointestinal indulgences.  The grits are real, not instant.  The bacon is smoky and salty and crisp.  The eggs over easy are flavorful and made in an oily frying pan before my eyes by a guy who has been flipping eggs for twenty-five years.  The yokes will be bright yellow and runny and the edges of the whites will be slightly crisp.  The biscuits will melt in your mouth and coat your fingers with lard but you will never taste a wedding cake with such delicate, yeasty flavor. 

As for the good ol’ boys (and girls) I know that the same fellow who will cut me off in traffic or issue me a summons for speeding or pump my gas with surly disdain (seeing my New York license plates) will greet me with a smile while waiting for a helping of biscuits and gravy.  “How Y’all doin’ today?”  “Mighty purty out there today, but I hear it’s gonna git hot in the afternoon!”  I will answer them right back with a “Yep! Great day to be alive!”  Having spent my youth being the secret Jew in public school in South Dade and college in Tallahassee it comes natural to me-blending in in the South.  So long as my last name remains a secret and no body asks me to drop my drawers to check the head of my dick I can pass.  I noticed that when I travel back ‘home’ I slide into a slight drawl.  Like an otter down a muddy river bank, it just happens the first time I hear the twang of a southern accent and the menu has grits on it.  I just blend.

Breakfast in the Old Grove Market takes a little while longer to eat.  You can’t order from your car.   You will never shed a single pound if you make a habit of eating there.  But you will see a bunch of happy people-happy polite people-chowing down in a manner that is fast disappearing in our sprawling, big-boxed country.  Catch it while you can. 

Circumnavigating Wallace Pond

Yesterday

Somewhere around 3:00pm I couldn’t stay inside any longer.  Cold as it was I had to be outside.  Bundled up, dog excited by the prospect of a mid-day walk, we trucked down the driveway and stopped at the bottom to decide which way to go.  We decided on an adventure.  Over the top of the road-side ice bank and onto some virgin snow under Mr. Turner’s pines we stepped out onto the ice and began a 360 degree walk around Wallace Pond.

Despite the cold this was a fair weather adventure.  The sun was strong and the wind was light.  I had no idea how long it would take to walk all the way around the lake.  I had never done it before. 

Even though the weather had been so cold for so long, and I was reasonably certain that the ice was very, very thick, we proceeded with caution.  Some of the stuff at the very edge looked watery.  I kept to a path about ten or twelve feet from the edge just to be sure. 

There were two types of ice I had to walk on.  Clear to milky looking stuff that was extremely slick and stuff covered with a little bit (1/4” to a few inches) of frost or snow.  The former was extremely hard to stay up on as it gave me no traction at all.  To walk on this polished ice I had to assume a crouched stance (for balance) and slide almost as if I were skating.  Many times my feet almost flew out from under me but I never fell.  My walking stick was little help on the slick stuff.  On the snow-covered ice I walked comfortably, upright and with confidence.  Consequently I plotted my path along the shadows where there was more crunchy snow and as few patches of the slick stuff as possible.  The alternating pattern of my progress was Walk, Walk, Walk, Walk, Slide, Slide, Walk, Walk, Walk, Slide, Walk, Slide…etc. 

Gurler plotted her own path more or less parallel to my own, but mostly on the snow to the ‘landward’ side of the shoreline.  I had to keep one eye on her as she gave no thought to coming close to the patches of ice that seemed thin and watery.  I came close to one of those watery areas to inspect it and was surprised to see how thick it actually was.  It was strong enough to hold me easily but had no entrained air so it was perfectly clear.  I could see down to the bottom a foot beneath the surface.  Still cautious, I worried less about the dog’s curious path and paid attention to my own efforts to stay upright.

While I was on the slick ice, fighting to stay on my feet, I couldn’t enjoy the view, but when I was comfortably moving on the snowy surface I could relax and take it all in.  I was walking where I had never walked before.  Perhaps the winter would end and I would never have the privilege of this perspective again (at least without a boat).  It was beautiful in an agoraphobic sort of way.  On a floating, thirty acre raft of ice.  Tethered to nothing.  A flat, cold vista that nature rarely shares with humans unless they loose themselves from their books and T.V. and get in a boat or, like Gurler and I, decide to scuttle out there on foot.  Also, on the relative stability of the snowy surface it crossed my mind that I wished I’d brought my camera.  I killed the thought at birth and put myself back in the moment knowing I could easily enjoy the experience without my electronic geegaws.  (I would placate the impulse later with my cell phone camera-does that count?)

When I had turned the corner at the southeast corner of the pond (about half way around) I discovered the character of the ice had changed.  It was considerably thinner and I redoubled my watch for my own safety and for the dog’s.  She was in heaven smelling the smells of people’s backyards especially the ones who owned dogs.  She was in their runs.  She was sniffing their private smells.  Once or twice she even trapped herself in the fenced in confines of the yard and had to figure out how to get out.  I was proud of her in one case where she looked at me for direction and followed my hand signals to escape. 

The last and crowning moments of the trip as we got back to our side of the lake was the landing of a flock of Canadian geese onto the ice.  They circled a couple of times to see what we were up to.  They swooped down to get a closer look and seeing the dog they pulled up abruptly and stayed up in the air.  By some unseen/unheard signal they all landed twenty or thirty yards away in the middle of the pond and then ignored us completely.  Gurler, not so fond of the slick ice, ignored the birds as well.  I stopped and watched them for a while.  When I turned and looked for Gurler she was looking at me, waiting to climb the bank to get home.  It had taken us only an hour and five minutes to circumnavigate Wallace Pond.   

Pilgrimage to Weaverville

Pilgrimage to Weaverville

The evening is black out time. 

It is a lucky time to be tired and fall quickly asleep. 

The morning can be simply rushed. 

Off like a race horse to the sound of the clanking pipes when the boiler kicks in. 

Or the morning can be slow. 

Contemplative. 

Especially on a day born below zero and swaddled in a mango-colored sky.

Nothing is decided from under the covers at six a.m. 

The day is a map. 

It unfolds its complicated structure but can not be recombined to its origins. 

No matter how long I lie

between the blankets

studying the roads and planning the ride,

the sunrise only illuminates squiggly lines on imaginary paper. 

The daylight trip is always a surprise.

A hard day on a pile of rocks,

a trip to the store for groceries,

a pilgrimage to Mecca

or to Weaverville. 

It is all the same at six a.m. 

By seven the thoughts set aside when I put on my socks will be gone. 

Puffs of smoke or high, pink clouds

that the sun has burned away. 

Vague dreams drowned in a cup of coffee. 

Friday, Feburary 28

Another perfectly good month has slipped on by.  A short one to be sure but a very, very rough one.  Sick.  Snow.  I feel ok now and the snow is something I have finally just resigned myself to, but with a forecast of another 12” this weekend I am sinking into the valley of ‘shite’ once again. 

The Gurler and I have just crossed the frozen lake.  The sun was bright but did little to warm us as we slid across the surface of the Westchester Lake in the late afternoon.  The dog didn’t like the ice much and kept veering off towards the closest shore.  I had to keep calling her back-and she came, but reluctantly.  Off on the easternmost side, just shy of the dam I stopped short.  It looked like the water was fluid at the weir and I decided not to test the strength of the ice in that area.  Good chance it was plenty thick enough to support us as the rest of the lake seemed to be frozen a good foot thick.  Instead the dog and I climbed out and up the bank to walk home via the road.  Gurler looked relieved to be off the slippery ice.  I was overheated in my long johns, vest, and heavy coat.  Dressed way too warm.  

We stopped and visited our friend Jan and her dog Christie and played for twenty minutes until both dogs were exhausted and Gurler wanted to get home to dinner.  We finished the walk stamping our feet on the porch and leaning my walking staff in the corner near the front door.  Inside the house the air was thick and steamy with the smell of homemade soup.  Elisabeth put a ladle on Gurler’s dry food and the dog jumped like a circus performer in expectation of the treat.  She gulped her meal and came over to me to get ‘burped’, tail wagging.  I swear she smiles.  Yes I do!  I thought to myself (though I believe she can read my mind) I am lucky to have you.  You make a cold day on an icy lake seem like a vacation.  Thanks, Gurler.

DVDs From the Library-The Van

In the library there is a bin full of DVDs. One may take up to five and keep them for a week. Don’t forget to return them on time or you will pay a hefty over-due penalty, or worse, they will develop a terminal mold and eat your furniture, flooring and, eventually, your brain. Join me now as I take a look at one…

I like the librarians at the local public library (The Field Library-Peekskill, NY).  Sometimes we talk about books and the weather and, well, that's pretty much it!  Fact is there is not a whole lot to talk about in Peekskill.  It's a funky little city that doesn't have too much going on and if it wasn't for the library, the coffee shop and the Social Security office I don't suppose anyone would ever need to go there.

I was reading a series of books by Roddy Doyle and the librarian mentioned another book that I might like by Mr. Doyle.  Not that I liked the other two all that much.  Both had been made into movies. "The Commitments", was a really good movie, about a Dublin soul band.  The second, "The Snapper"-about an expectant, unwed mother and her Irish family- was not much to my liking, either the book or the novel.  She put her recommendation on reserve for me.  When I went to pick it up I found instead the DVD pictured above.  What this DVD has to do with the works of Mr. Doyle is beyond me.  I checked it out anyway.  Oh well!  I got it, so I will review it.

In a sentence: an early 1970's porn film with no real good stuff (meaning sex) to speak of.  There are a few quick shots of natural bosoms (no implants at the time even in So. California!) but it has all the other fine qualities one would expect of a period correct porn piece from ca. 1977.  The hairstyles are perfect.  Forgetabout the clothes!  Short short cut-offs and tee shirts, etc.  And who doesn't love a Dodge B-100 "Tradesman" van with a waterbed, an 8track and furry stuff all over every interior surface except the roof (which is mirrored for optimal sexual enjoyment!).  The exterior paint job is bright yellow with a blazingly phallic arrow motif going on all over it.

It would be impossible to describe the plot besides to say it is boy-meets-girl, girl-hates-boy, girl-learns-to-love-boy, happily ever after.  Okay, now you know all you have to know about the movie except for some comments about the cast.  The DVD package notes that Danny Devito appears in the movie.  In fact his is the only name on the cover of the package but the truth is he plays a crappy little part of little consequence (that is, of even less consequence than all the other parts in the movie which have no consequence at all!)  I postulate that Mr. Divito was the only one on the crew who ever made another film so they used his name as a "grabber" to suck you into watching this movie.  The only thing worse than watching this movie might be paying to watch this movie.  God bless Andrew Carnegie and the free library system.

 I sadly have no more odoriferous award in my arsenal than "six smelly socks" but if I did I would gladly bestow it upon "The Van".  Instead I award "The Van"  "six smelly socks twice"!

 

Coffee

I love to make the coffee in the morning.  To do it I must be up and out of bed before Elisabeth, which is usually not possible.  She likes to get up very early and lately I have stayed in bed later and later…

Making the coffee is a religious ritual of a sort.  Its origins go back a long ways.  Its whys and wherefores are clouded in history.  I can try to give you the precise order and progression of the making of the coffee but I can not be 100% sure that I am correct in the telling, but I will try.

Only turn on the lights you need in the kitchen.  One over the sink is plenty.  If you need more than that perhaps the one over the stove. (Not for working-God no!  There is plenty of light for working with just the one over the sink or the one over the stove, but for warmth and comfort of the soul.  I need that.)  I come in sometimes and the kitchen is gray and cold even with four pots bubbling on the stove and a chicken in the oven.  Elisabeth can work in the dark and it doesn’t seem to bother her a bit. I am the one who needs light.  I turn on the strong, overheads and the kitchen brightens like a movie set and Elisabeth will look at me with a look that says “what a waste!”  When I leave she might shut them off and just turn on the one over the sink. 

Next I take out the ingredients and the coffee pot and the filter.  For the past thirty-five years we have made coffee with a glass pot and a filter and a funnel.  We have had Mr. Coffee, percolators, presses, and those new, tiny single-serve containers that make individual cups but none of the alternatives has lasted.  The funnel and filter survives (I think) because of the ritual.  Oh, the coffee is better too, but it is the ritual that has made us funnel/filter people.  

These are the essential elements of the morning making of the coffee:

The glass coffee pot and plastic filter funnel

The coffee

The spoon(s)

The glass pot filled with the correct amount of water

The stove

The coffee comes in a can.  It is already ground and is of the very fine, dark, drip variety.  We have a coffee bean grinder and it sits on the counter.  We have not used it in a while but it is left there, on the counter, to remind us that we may use it again sometime.  It is loud and disturbing and never became fully part of the ritual.  We are not purists when it comes to grinding our own beans.  Out-of-the-can and already ground is fine.  Elisabeth buys coffee like there will come a day when no more will ever be available.  When it is on sale she will come home with five or ten cans or whatever the limit is that she can buy.  We will never run out of coffee for the ritual. 

There is a specific amount of water that is put into the glass kettle and set on the back-left burner.  The gas for the back-left burner is turned on.  The knob for the front-right burner is turned to the “light” position and the stove ticks loudly and ignites the back-left burner.  After it is lit, quickly shut the front-right knob.  The igniter on the back-left burner is defective and this method allows one to light the burner without the use of matches.  There is a box of wooden kitchen matches on the top of the microwave but we never use it for the coffee ritual.

When the back-left igniter went defective I began for a short time using the front-left burner to heat the water but Elisabeth explained to me that is the wrong burner (there is a practical reason for this, but it is lost to the ages and the back-left burner is fully accepted as the correct burner now.  See note below for possible explanation.)

While the pot of water heats, take the filter and put it in the funnel.  We have used the white, bleached filters.  In a pinch, many, many years ago we even went through a phase of using folded paper towels.  The ritual now is firmly entrenched and we use brown paper, unbleached filters that come in a green and red box.  Again purchased en mass and stored in the pantry in the garage, but the ones we need each day are loose in the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinets where the Pyrex pie pans and casserole dishes are stored.

The finished carafe, funnel and filter are placed on the front-left hand burner-burner Off!

This is the point where the ritual turns contemplative.  There is time to think.  Time when the water is not boiled yet everything is prepared.  Incorporated into the ritual at this point the seemingly unrelated ritual of emptying the dishwasher may come into play.  If there are dishes that are clean they may be put into the cabinet. Quietly!  Very Quietly! 

Remember Elisabeth is still sleeping.  Banging dishes can wake her.  Clanging silverware may wake her.  (I don’t mind putting the dishes away, but I hate putting the silverware into the silverware drawer.  It is like an early morning test that a psychologist might have devised to see if one is capable/awake sufficiently to put the forks-into the fork place and the teaspoons- into the teaspoon place…etc.  It is a maddening test).  And finally the pot on the left-rear burner begins to whistle!

I have already measured out four, fully rounded tablespoons of coffee and put it into the filter.  That means I have a dirty tablespoon but no teaspoon with which to serve the sugar.  It used to be that the coffee was just dumped into the filter straight out of the can in a healthy dollop, but that part of the ritual has developed to a carefully measured four tablespoons.  But!  Where we once used a long handled ice-tea spoon for the sugar the tablespoon (which we just used for the coffee measure) has evolved into the ice-tea spoon’s place.  I don’t know…I find that uncomforting.  One can not use a tablespoon for sugar.  It must be unhealthy.  I grapple with the complexity as I grasp the kettle with the boiling water and begin the pouring.

(Note: one possible explanation as to why the left-rear burner must be used for the kettle.  If the front burner was used one would have to reach over the flame to pour the water over into the filter cone vessel sitting on the left-rear burner.  It is a longer reach not to mention the possibility of burns as ones arm lingers above an open flame/front burner.  As I said, the actual reason for this is lost so I only conjecture here.)

The pouring of the water.  I prefer to drizzle the water in a thin stream and just soak the coffee, not pour the water in and fill the cone up to the top with boiling water.  After the coffee is soaked I drip more and more on until all the water is used.  During this process I usually put my face over the cone once or twice and breathe deeply the aroma and steam of the brewing coffee water.  I swear I get high from the smell.  I also never let Elisabeth see me doing this.  I am not sure what she would think or do if she did. 

When all the water has dripped through I put the coffee pot with the filter, funnel and all onto the left-rear burner and turn the flame down to the lowest setting.  There is sits gently warming while I get my cup and sugar (using the long handled ice tea spoon) and dollop of whole milk ready.  I put that into the microwave for forty-four seconds so the milk is hot and then (and only then!) I pour in the coffee. 

I pretty much only use one of two cups (this is not strictly part of the ritual but I thought I would mention it here in case any of you ever sleeps over and inadvertently begins to use one of these cups-Don’t!).  One is the white mug with the blue letters underlined in red that says “Dad”, and the other is the Homer Simpson cup with the portrait of Homer and the words “Atomic Dad”!  These cups are the exact right size and weight and thickness for my coffee though I try to be flexible on this.  There are other cups that are very nice and if you visit you are free to use any of them.  One is a very thick mug with the saying on it- “Coffee should be black as night, hot as hell and strong as Love!”  and I find it very attractive but it is just too heavy for my coffee.  Besides, it would be incongruous for me to drink my coffee with milk in a mug that comes right out and says coffee should be black!  Am I wrong?