Giving and Getting

Invited “Anne” over last night for a glass of wine and a movie. I can not tell you exactly why I did it. This is not a friendly place- Tequesta Hills Condominium”- and no one even expects a smile when passing in the street, let alone an invitation for the evening. But she and I had begun a dog-walking relationship over the past few weeks and I thought she might appreciate a little company. I went over to her apartment and she invited me in. She showed me her paintings and her drawings. They were very good. I could learn a lot from her. Her dog Ollie came over to me and let me pet him. She said that it was rare for him to be so trusting. ( I didn’t tell her I am the “Dog Man” and have a secret key that unlocks the hearts of all dogs!) I told her to come on by at about 7:30 and we would watch a movie from the library and have a glass of wine, etc... I told her to bring Ollie too. Gurler wouldn’t mind the company.



She came on time and we sat, she, Elisabeth and I in our place and I turned on the TV. Lizzy poured them some white wine while I que’d up the DVD. We talked a while and the DVD player went into sleep mode which meant it played a slide show of my photographs on the TV screen. Anne seemed interested in the pictures and we ended up talking about the photos for the better part of an hour. It was fun but I was self-conscious of being a bore and making her view and talk about our camper and our sons and our lives in general. I got over it when I realized she was genuinely interested.



We watched the movie (What the Deaf Man Heard-about a boy who is abandoned and who plays deaf for twenty years. Dickens-esque story that was sweet and innocent. Perfect for the evening ) and Lizzy made popcorn and tea. It was a strange coincidence that Anne has an adopted son who is deaf. She told us a little bit about him while we watched the film. Her insights about the handicap were heartfelt and informative. And then she said something that made me feel wonderful. She said “You two are so easy to be around...” I could tell she was enjoying the evening and the company and if she didn’t enjoy the family photos then she was a brilliant actress. How lovely our lives really seem when viewed through the eyes of another person. Elisabeth and I are so lucky and creative and happy. But we lose sight of our good fortune and it takes another perspective to see that sometimes. In the end what seemed like an act of kindness inviting a stranger into our home turned into a reaffirmation of ourselves. We got, from the evening, so much more than we gave, which, I guess is what friendship is all about.



Gurler and I walked Anne home after. The weather was starting to threaten and the coming rain was foreshadowed by the humidity that hung in the wind. The orange colored street lights lit our way. Gurler was happy to be out. We dropped Anne off by her gate and went home cutting across the lawn and the parking areas, just before the rain blew into Tequesta.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015



The weather has turned cool. The leaves are putting on a show. Our bags are open and we’re packing our things to go. An awful feeling comes over me when I think about closing down this house. Twenty three years of heating and cooking and building and repairing and maintaining and now it is all going to stop... There will be a cold, damp winter chill invading the depths of this house. I am not worried about the pipes freezing-I am confident that I can drain and protect them. It is the spirit of the house, an organic, breathing presence I feel in this house that is somehow being put at risk. It is like I have created a work of love, and art-no different from a painting or a sculpture-and I am putting it out into a field under a sheet of plastic and the snow and the wind will have at it all winter.



In the spring when we get back it will be different. I remember the cabin up in Mountaindale. I would “winterize” it each fall and in the spring when we returned it would be cold and damp and it had a different smell. I hated that smell. It never completely goes away no matter how you air it out with the warm air of summer. Something sinks down into the wooden skeleton of the structure and does not want to leave. It is the combined smell of humidity and cold and sometimes death. Bugs die and mice die and freeze and thaw. A winter’s worth of dust settles on the heating convectors and when the system re-starts it burns off with the odor of dry bones. I don’t want that smell in this house.



Out in the garage my toys will sit for six months. Batteries to the car and motorcycle will be hooked up to chargers and they will look like patients on life-support. My tools are all hung in their places. All of our food, the cosmetics, the cleaning solutions, paint, anything that might freeze will sit sharing the tool room with the tools for the same six months protected by a tiny heater. The heater is fixed to a thermostat that will maintain 35 to 45 degrees. The cast iron furnace that has not had a day off in twenty-three years will get a six month nap and in April Julio-the boiler guy-will clean it and “kick” it back into service. I fear that, like an old person waking from a nap, the furnace will never be quite the same. It will creak back grudgingly and find excuses to stop from time to time, and rest.  Other appliances might take the cue and hobble along. The web of our daily lives is woven around a loom of conveniences we take for granted. Pumps in dishwashers and clothes washers and tubes to ice makers and the condensate traps in A/C units up in the attic, all full of water. Toilet tanks, and sink traps, hoses, and hose-cocks...and after I lock the front door and set the car on a path for Florida all that water will want to start freezing. I have to empty all those pipes and appliances, disconnect all those hoses, all those traps. I’ll blow everything out with a compressor. I’ll dump some anti-freeze into the pipes to seek the low spots where water I’ve missed might be laying, waiting for the cold.



Electricity will still flow in the cold so I unplug everything. Used to be that something was either “off” or “on”. If you turned the dial on the TV to “off” that was that, no more electrons flowed. Now there is “off” and “on” and “standby”. There are vampire chargers that continue to suck juice so long as they are plugged in whether or not they are charging anything. TVs and microwaves stand at a low level attention twenty four hours a day so that we will not be inconvenienced even one moment waiting for them to warm up so we can thaw our bagel or watch Good Evening America. All of these little creatures must be disconnected. All the batteries taken from the remotes so they will not liquefy and rot the metal guts of our “clickers”. And still the job goes on.



Screw shut windows. Double lock doors. Secure the garage door and unplug the operator. One last look back as I pull the trailer down the drive. I will leave a light on a timer so that if I come home and it is already night I will see a light shining in the upstairs window.

The Customer is Always Wrong!

When did the “customer” begin to be “wrong”? I mean, wasn’t the old saying “The customer is always right”? When did that change? Why didn’t I get the memo? I dunno but something changed and now the customer doesn’t mean shit. (Sorry for the language but that’s how I talk normally and I just decided today that I am gonna talk like I talk and fuck the fucking fucks who don’t like it. If you’re offended stop reading now because it is only gonna get worse!)



The Customer is Always Right Wrong (chapter 1)

I took a train into the city today. I know the “train to the city experience” as good as most because I did it for a third of my life and I know the trains, the stations, the routine (buy the ticket, show the ticket, keep your feet offa the seats and put your luggage into the overhead rack. Don’t talk too loud. If someone is talking too loud keep your mouth shut because you don’t know who’s packin’ and who might whale the living shit outta you if you mouth off. Just get on and get there-pretty much the name of the game.) I bought my ticket. I waited for the in-bound Hudson train and watched the new normal at the Peekskill train station. This new normal includes about twenty or twenty-five heavy, track-bound, construction related machines parked on the western most track between the platform and the Hudson River.

The Hudson River view is the reason (the only reason!) anyone could possibly comment favorably on the beauty of the Peekskill Train Station! There is nothing else beautiful about that train station. It is just a place to get on the train and get out of Peekskill... I wish I had a nickle for every minute I have spent looking out at that majestic river. I watched until I could see the train rounding the bend at the Annsville Creek and the bridge and screech into the station. I looked out over that vista for twenty plus years and it never got less beautiful until today.

Today there were the multitude of afore mentioned vehicles parked between the platform and the view and they were crawling with Metro North employees thinking about work-not doing any, just thinking about it-starting up the noisy diesel engines. They sat and idled there, belching their smoke and fumes. They sat and waited to move them out to the track removal and re-installation at 10:00 am while we, the customers, choked and had no view and yelled at our families to be heard over the din... It was painful. Do you know what twenty diesel engines sounds and feels and smells like when you are five or ten feet away and have no choice but to stand there? It sucks! It is not what the customer paid for, but that’s what they get.

Why, I ask you, could they not position those work vehicles/machines 200 yards further up the track? Why, I ask you, could they not walk up there a short bit and start them where they would not fuck up the eye/ears/nose and throats of a hundred or so “customers” condemned to remain on the platform to wait for the train? I had to laugh when I saw the cautionary signage on the sides of these machines that warns “Hearing Protection Must Be Worn!” No body gave me no Motherfucking hearing protection! I would much rather have been sitting inside of the cab of one of those machines wearing my “hearing protection” and waiting for the caravan from hell to move to the section of track to be worked on today and being paid mucho dollars per hour with little to worry about except keepin’ track of my lunchbox (I saw a lot of lunch boxes out there!) than to be stuck on the platform waiting for the train I paid to take into the Big Apple! Damn Right!

To add insult to injury, the Metro North repair team had roped off a huge section of the commuter parking for their own use. So they could be close to their work while the paying customers park farther away and take an hours ride into the city to get to theirs. My favorite memory from today was the bright yellow forty-thousand dollar pickup truck parked in the shade in the taxi pick up area. Two over-weight “workers” sitting comfortably cool in their vehicle while the taxis struggle to maneuver all day and fight for a fare and sweat in the heat in the sun between trains. Upon arriving back in the station seven hours later I noted the same two hard working employees-being indirectly paid by me and all the other “customers” of Metro North--were asleep in the truck waiting, no doubt, for the end of their very productive shift so they could go home.

I am sure I missed the memo. The customer is always wrong.

The Hillside

The Hillside

I spent a couple of hours in the back of the house clearing the tangle of growth that yearly covers the hillside. (I hesitate to call it a yard as it is only a thin, six to twelve foot strip of earth with my tool shed at the widest part. Behind the strip is the hill side ascending steeply and held back by a monster rock wall. It could not be less yard-like...) Knots of tough vines, low-growing bushes and ground cover, including brambles, wild roses, golden rod, poison ivy, etc.

The vines include wild grape and my least favorite plant, bitter sweet. This tough vine puts out tough, orange colored roots that form a web under the soil. It sends its shoots out from the roots and the shoots seek the sun, climbing whatever vertical ladder it can find. Trees, buildings and fences-it winds around its host and climbs. As the bitter sweet winds around the host, creeping up to the light, its spiral hold chokes and shapes the tree like a boa constrictor(this takes place over a year or two or ten) and the tree trunk takes on a cork-screw shape. The vine thickens and can be two or three inches thick if left uncut. Eventually the weight of the vine drags the host down to the floor of the forest. If one can pull the young vines out of the ground and get the tough, orange root the growth can be checked, but that is nearly impossible. The young shoots are soft and break off easily. The plant sacrifices the shoot to save the tough root system. Next year the shoots will sprout profusely from the old roots.

The wild grape and poison ivy grow in similar ways to the bittersweet. It is easy to walk by a huge old tree and not notice that the leaves that fill out the tree are not those of an oak or hickory or buttonwood it is a canopy of vine leaves. It is easy to miss the thick, hairy looking vine that clings like a cancer onto the trunk and spreads out into the branches. Closer inspection (not too close!) will show it to be old-growth poison ivy. It is easy to see in the fall when the magnificent colors of the ivy are on display, usually before the host tree takes on it’s own fall colors. If you try to chop the mature vine off of the side of the tree you risk major contamination by the poison sap that oozes from the root. It will, in time, also kill the host with the weight and blocking the sun and rain but the poison ivy takes its time.

Far easier to control is the wild grape. Young vines come loose when you pull them away from the rocks and soil. This vine is a house cat where the ivy and the bittersweet are tigers. Even when it grows old it does not poison and its thick, mature vines can be cut and sometimes pulled out of the host tree. Make no mistake though, it kills its host too and the forest around here is full of grape vine.

The smelly Ginko trees(Sumac) sprout and grow, soft and bright green, until they reach six or eight feet high-which they can and do within one or two growing seasons if left uncut. After a couple of years the Ginko hardens and is a hearty growing tree that can double in size each year. It is a mistake to ignore it because in a few seasons one will have a tree removal problem. Better to get it while still young and soft and easily cut. After cutting it down it is good to get the roots too but if you don’t it will wither in a season or two of consistent chopping. The roots will probably die off but don’t ignore it one year or it will come back. I have them return year after year with persistence.

Sycamore, Tulip, Locust and Black Birch are among the other trees that grow like weeds if unattended. Best to cut them with a vengeance. I love the smell of the Black (Sweet) Birch when you cut it. It smells like root beer and I have memories of this smell from my child hood (Royal Castle birch beer!) and from the Black Birch trees on the first piece of property I ever owned (Mountaindale N.Y.). These memories make it difficult for me to chop down a sweet birch tree but they must be cut. They grow like the Sumac-in leaps and bounds-and it is easy to end up with a huge tree where it is not wanted. I have several right now that will take a tactical assault to remove as they huge and are near electrical wires and growing out of rock walls. Best to get them gone while they are young.

Along with the trees and the vines the low-growing plants-weeds and flowers proliferate on the sunny hillside. I have a love/hate relationship with the flowering, thorny wild roses . Stubborn and dangerous, wild rose can snag your flesh and tear it like a sharp saw blade. The thorns are curved and long like a cat’s claws and if you get snagged it is difficult to extricate oneself from the barbs. And Oh so painful! (One of these tore our dog’s ear once and the bleeding would not stop. Finally had to staunch the flow by suturing the ear with crazy glue and tissue paper. It did the job) It is impossible to pull the roots of the rose out so cutting them back is a yearly ritual. I try to stay away from the thorns by pulling at the branches with a long-handled, stiff-toothed rake and lopping off the branches as close to the roots as I can possibly-and safely-reach. They come back stronger and stronger each year because of the pruning , but the exercise is rewarded with the smell of pungent wild rose.

Another thorn-bearing hazard is the raspberry (or maybe it is a black berry-I am not sure?). I try to leave them alone as they are less invasive on the hillside and they give me wonderful fruit. I prune them gently and carefully and reap quarts of sweet (but seedy)fruit.




The weeds (such as golden rod and mint) are controlled by cutting before they “bolt” or pulling them out roots and all. The golden rod comes out very easy. The mint clings and breaks leaving the roots which just continue to grow. Nothing is really easy on the hillside. Up until recently I used to use my scythe and rake and lopping shears and clear off the hill in a day by myself. My age has caught up with me and now I think it will take me two or three partial days work. Yesterday I cleaned about a 1/3 and I will go out again today for another session. The vines and thorns are merciless and do not give an inch even as I grow older. I feel like a huge, old tree with giant vines hanging from my branches, pulling me earthward. The work shapes my actions and I must spend my effort and energy wisely. Eventually the hillside and the other travails of life will pull me down. Until I can no longer do it, I will clean the hillside.

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.