William Martin
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If I...Will You?

8/29/2013

5 Comments

 
            This is probably fairly easy to believe, but when I was younger, I wasn’t very smart. Even now there are those who would recommend that I wear a helmet while I write this and put Saran Wrap over the keyboard in case I drool. When I was younger I was also a bit naïve and even more immature than I am now. That being said, I was eager to learn (actually, I was eager to make a living and if that required having to learn something, so be it).

            My being a brick-head in my early 20’s often resulted in making quick decisions. Unfortunately, those decisions didn’t include a lot of thought. In about a four week period, I quit my job, married my wife (not that that was a poor decision, it’s just about the timing), bought a brand new pickup (the salesman didn’t know I’d quit my job) and landed in Anchorage, Alaska with all of our stuff crammed into the back of the pickup.

            Upon arrival at that great state, it occurred to me that I had no job (see what lack of thought will do for you?). I needed to pay rent, make a pickup payment and there were those other annoying things a person has to pay for like food, clothing, and a cold beer now and then.

            I went into scramble mode.

            I went everywhere looking for work. I literally went downtown and walked store-to-store looking for work. Did I mention that at the time I had absolutely no marketable work skills? Another result of poor thinking.

            Finally, I landed at a furniture store. They were looking for a salesman. They asked if I had experience in sales and I said, “A bit.” Complete lie right there, but I was desperate.

            Amazingly, they hired me. They told me they would put me under the wing of their top salesman, T.J.

            Picture the slipperiest, sneakiest, oiled-back-haired, cheap-suit-wearing, paunch-stomached salesman with a toothpick poking out the side of his mouth. There ya go. You just met T.J.

            I quickly found that T.J. had an embarrassing habit. Whenever within the proximity of any woman (and I mean ANY woman), he rarely looked them in the eye. His gaze went from breast to crotch and back again…repeatedly…over and over. After three or four up and down circuits, he’d glance up at them and give them a flash of a lecherous smile and then go back to perusing their nether regions.

            The thing of it is, he got away with it every time and every month he was consistently the store’s top salesman. I didn’t care for being under his slimy wing, but if it kept me the job…well, what are you going to do?

            He coached me on the ABC’s: Always Be Closing (the sale). Continually ask for the sale. Once you close the sale, push the ad-ons hard. Ad-ons primarily included fabric treatment and extended warranties. (Here’s a rock-solid tip: extended warranties are a total waste of money. They equate to pure profit for the store and a healthy bonus for the salesman. If a salesman keeps offering you the extended warranty, just tell him you used to sell them yourself. He’ll drop it like a hot biscuit straight from the microwave.)

            T.J. also schooled me on the “If I, will you?” method of always asking for the sale. If a customer says, “Does this chair come in blue?” your response should be, “If I can get it for you in blue, will you buy it?” This can be done with just about any question the customer might ask. Try it. It’s kind of fun. He also taught me how to quickly judge whether a customer will buy or not.

            T.J.: “Throw them a ridiculously low price. If they don’t pounce on it, they’re wasting your time. Dump ‘em and grab the next sucker, uh, I mean customer.”

            Then he gave me what he said was his biggest piece of advice: never, never, EVER try to sell to two women who come in to the store together. Avoid them like the plague (his words, not mine). He told me they always talk each other out of buying something.

            Me: “But I see you try to sell to two women who come in all the time.”

            He gave me a lecherous grin and wiggled his eyebrows up and down a few times.

            Eww.

            Him: “So you understand everything?”

            Me: “Yeah, I think so.”

            Him: “Okay, the next customer through the door, I’ll sell ‘em and you just tag along and watch.”

            The next customers through the door were two women. T.J. wiggled his eyebrows and bounced out of his chair to greet them. I followed behind like a mute puppy dog.

            He greeted them, jerked a thumb at me and told them to ignore me, I was the new kid in training and he was seeing to it that I learned how to “best serve the customer.” Of course, he said this while scanning both women from bulkheads to sterns. The older of the two did the talking. The younger of the two avoided looking at T.J. I avoided looking at any of them. If a rock had been handy, I would have crawled under it.

            Woman: “Where are your dinette sets?”

            T.J.: “If I show you where they are, will you buy one?”

            Lots of nervous chuckling. He winked at me.

            He led them over to the dinettes and they landed on one they kind of liked.

            Woman: “Can we see this with the leaf taken out?”

            T.J.: “If I take the leaf out, will you buy it?” 

            Quick wink at me.  More nervous chuckling.

            He took the leaf out. The ladies looked over the dinette set again. T.J. looked over the ladies again.

            Woman: “I like it, but $1,200 seems like quite a lot for a small dinette set.”

            T.J.: “If I can sell it to you for $400 will you buy it?”

            There was more nervous chuckling as he checked to make sure their female parts were still in place. Behind his back he held up two fingers, indicating that in one question he had tested to see if they were serious buyers and fit in the “If I, will you” thing.

            I couldn’t take it anymore. It was too embarrassing. I felt like I had been witnessing some weird kind of visual sexual assault and a purse snatching at the same time. I walked to the other side of the store and sat at the desk wondering how I was going to do a job like this and still be able to sleep at night.

            Soon, T.J. came jogging over to the desk, grabbed a sales contract, winked once again at me (he may have even given me the pointy-finger-gun-bang thing as well) and jogged back over to where the women sat at the dinette set.

            I was in shock. He’d sold them. Two women. However repulsive he was, this guy could sell.

            But it didn’t last. After a couple of minutes, the woman who did the talking jumped up, knocking her chair over backward. She said something through clinched teeth, but I was too far away to hear. Both women stomped to the front door and slammed it behind them on their way out.

            T.J. came back to the desk, his head down a bit, the sales contract hanging listlessly in his hand.

            Me: “What happened? I thought you had it sold?”

            T.J.: “I did, but when I wrote $1,200 on the contract she said I quoted her $400. I had to clarify. I told her ‘No, I said if I could sell it to you for $400. I can’t.”

            For just a split second I almost felt sorry for him.

            But then another woman came through the door and he launched out of his chair like he had pulled an ejection lever, grinned at me and winked. I wondered how this one would take the visual undressing. I wondered if I would be able to do this job. I wondered if all sales jobs were like this.

            I never found out, because after leaving that job, I never tried sales again.

* I hope you enjoyed this installment of my blog. If I keep writing them, will you keep reading? 

Be well.     

        --William


5 Comments

Classic Smack-Down

8/26/2013

4 Comments

 
            Okay, I should probably start by admitting the title of this blog is a bit misleading. It implies you’re soon to read about some terrible act of violence when in fact, that’s not the case (hey, and shame on you if you’re so easily enticed by violence).

            Actually I was thinking of classic as in the literature sense.

            WAIT. HOLD ON.

            Before you think, “Oh, God. Literature? Next stop yawns-ville” give it a chance. What I propose is to burst the bubble on a couple of books you probably had to endure in high school. They are and have been considered classics. Classic? Um, not so much. I’ll only pick on a couple and tell you what your teachers would not or could not.  First up:

            “To Kill a Mockingbird”

            Already there are a lot of intellectuals (ladies mostly) who are probably trying to figure out how to give me a classic smack down. Atticus Finch, they’ll say, is the greatest literary hero…ever. But here’s the thing: most people who say it’s the greatest book ever never even read the book. They’re referring to the film with Gregory Peck. Yes that is a classic also (rightfully so) and one of the things that saves the book. There is a ton –and I mean a ton—of crap in the book that the film wisely took a chainsaw, a ripsaw and a blowtorch to.

            When people tell me how much they loved reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” I like to test them a bit by saying, “Me too! And you know, Aunt Alexandra is my favorite character!” Usually, you can tell by their expression they’re thinking of the film and not the book. Sometimes they’ll even come clean and say, “Aunt who?” The reason they don’t recognize the character is because the filmmakers wisely killed her off before they even began thinking of making the book into a film.  I’m hoping they killed her off in some slow, horrendous unspeakable way, because she is one of the most singularly annoying characters (second only to one I’ll mention in just a minute) in all of literature. Aunt Alexandra represents socioeconomic prejudice in mind-numbing amounts.

            There’s a reason Harper Lee only wrote one book. Pssst. Don’t tell anyone, but she’s kind of a crappy writer. The big scene, the trial of Tom Robinson that forever after associated Gregory Peck as Atticus, only lasts 46 pages in a paperback that is 376 pages long. The rest of the book is Lee making a point about various forms of prejudice, which is commendable, but she beats it into the ground –and I’m not talking with a shovel kind of beat it into the ground. I’m talking beat it with a shove, then take a sledgehammer to it, then roll over it with a dump truck kind of beat it into the ground. What’s worse is that much of the remaining 330 pages are filled with the annoying Aunt Alexandra. However, as annoying as her character is, she can’t hold a candle to the main character in the next ‘classic.’

            “Catcher in the Rye”
  
            If you’ve had to fight your way through this ‘classic’ before, then you will know exactly who I mean: Holden Caulfield. I think there’s a very good reason J. D. Salinger became a recluse. After unleashing the ultimate in annoying characters on society he probably thought it would be much safer behind closed doors…made of metal…three inches thick…with heavy bars and chains…and locks, lots and lots of locks.

            The novel starts with what many consider one of the greatest opening lines in all of literature. But the reality is that it opens with Holden (in a first-person narration) bitching about how he doesn’t even want to tell his story. I won’t give you the entire line (hey, that’s what Wikipedia is for), but the first eight words “If you really want to hear about it…” The thing is, within about two pages he whines, bitches, and moans so much that I REALLY didn’t want to hear about it. I get that the Holden Caulfield character embodies teen angst, depression, cynicism, isolation, etc., etc., and that it’s supposedly a reflection of society, but let me tell you this about how annoying Holden is: one of the most empathetic, sweetest, always-gives-you-cookies-when-you-see-her old ladies I know wanted to choke him out by the fourth page.  And there are 220 more pages to go.

            I’ll leave classic smack downs there for now, but may be forced to pick it up again in the future.

            Wait till you see the beating I give Huckleberry Finn.

* If you agree with my assessments on the aforementioned classics, click the ‘like’ button below and it will register your vote. If you disagree with my assessment, I’m okay with that. Just click the ‘like’ button below to record your vote. My classic software will sort it all out.  Feel free to also visit my Facebook page. I’ll try to leave something open there if you’d care to respond.

4 Comments

Swattin' the Cool

8/23/2013

2 Comments

 
A few posts back I made mention of how, back in the day, it was okay to smack your kid. In fact it was encouraged. In the post I wrote mainly about how my mom found “Mom’s Helping Hand,” which gave her the edge (pun intended –you’ll have to read back if you missed it) over three unruly brothers in the backseat on a traveling vacation.

What I didn’t get into is that smacking a kid was also okay at school. Again, it was encouraged. Some teachers still refer to that time as “the good old days.”

Let me preface this next part by admitting that when I was 15 I was an ass. I’m not saying that justifies hitting a 15-year-old, only that in a lot of cases where I was smacked I kinda had it coming. However, a couple of times I was at least a bit undeserving of what I got.

One time was in shop class. I forget the teacher’s name, but he gave us the mind-numbing task of taking a piece of sheet metal and a small ball-peen hammer and tapping on the sheet metal until we shaped it into a bowl. This took hours, days. I think it may have taken some kids a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the teacher sat back and watched us or sat in his office and watched television. All the students were small ball-peen hammers, a small anvil, some safety glasses and the ear-ringing sound of 30 kids tapping for an hour every day.

Finally, after hours, days of tapping I had a somewhat bowl shaped piece of metal. I thought perhaps this would be enough to satisfy him so he would at least give me some other mind-numbing task to do.

I set my hammer and safety glasses down on the anvil and called him over. Please, please, please let this piece of crap look enough like a bowl that he’ll let me move on. He came over and I showed it to him. As I was showing it to him and desperately pointing out all of its bowl-like features, he reached over, picked up the small ball-peen hammer and hit me above my eye. You know the spot: that ridge of bone that’s covered by your eyebrow.

Funny thing –an eyebrow doesn’t afford much cushion when you get hit with a ball-peen hammer. Granted the hammer was small, maybe 10 or 12 ounces, but it was a friggin’ hammer.

I jumped back in case he tried to hit me again and put my hand to my eye. I looked up at him and he said, “See? If you would have had your safety glasses on, that would have hardly hurt at all. Now what did you learn today?”

I had actually learned a lot in that few seconds. I learned that getting hit above the eye with a ball-peen hammer really hurts. I learned that the shop teacher was an asshole. I learned how to dwell on revenge almost immediately. But I think I found the answer he was after.

“That I should always wear my safety glasses.”

He said I was right and signed me off on my bowl.

I didn’t tell my parents about it, because any kind of trouble I might have gotten into at school would have only been magnified and repeated at home. That was also a social norm at the time.

The next time I was hit by a teacher it was a vice-principal. (I still have trouble with the spelling of ‘principal.’ I deliberately want to spell it ‘principle,’ because friends, they are not your pal.)

I forget exactly what I did that landed me in his office. Maybe I threw a desk out a third story window or something equally smart. In any case, I sat across from him, slouched in the chair, maintaining my ‘cool.’ That’s what’s important when you’re 15 and crap hits the fan. You must do your best to remain looking cool.

He leaned back in his chair looking at me. I slouched in mine looking at him. Finally he sat up and leaned his forearms on his desk. It was obvious he had decided what to do with this miscreant before him.

But actually, he let me make the decision.

“Here’s the deal,” he said. “You can either take a week’s worth of lunch detention along with a phone call home or you can take a swat.”

Reminder: trouble at school meant trouble at home, only magnified. I didn’t care about detention; I was scared of the phone call home.

“Detention and phone call home or a swat?”

“Yep, those are your choices.”

“A swat? A single swat? That’s it?”

“Yep.”

I almost laughed. This was way too easy.

“Bring on the swat,” I said. Maintaining my coolness was fairly easy at this point.

He reached down to the lower right-hand drawer of his desk and brought forth the paddle. I think he did this rather slowly on purpose, you know, for dramatic effect.

The dramatic effect worked. As the paddle was revealed I could see it was made of three quarter-inch plywood, about ten inches wide by twelve inches long. The handle was long enough to grasp with both hands. He had even taken the time to drill a number of one-inch holes through the paddle to compensate for wind resistance.

He smiled and I realized my eyes were probably as large as pie plates. Then he said what no 15-year-old boy wants to hear from a grown man.

“Stand up, bend over and grab your ankles.”

I did as I was told, while still trying to maintain the cool (which was becoming increasingly harder to do). As I bent over I could see him through the space between my side and my arm. He gripped the handle of the paddle with both hands and had it raised like Babe Ruth wanting to tear the cover off one before it rocketed out of the ballpark. I held my breath as he stepped into his swing.

I can honestly say that I have never been hit harder by anything before or since. He hit me so hard with the paddle that it propelled me three steps forward and into the wall. I clung to the wall dry heaving. I could feel nothing on my backside. I actually felt the impact up into my insides. If the wall had not been there I would have went down.

I looked back at him while I continued to dry heave and catch my breath at the same time. He stood smiling, twirling the paddle in his hand.

Once I could breathe a bit, I tried to grasp at the cool, but it was pretty much gone.

“That it?” I croaked.

“Yep. You can go on back to class now.”

I really knew the cool was gone then, because I started feeling the pain in my backside. I could barely walk, but I managed. I shuffled slowly, like an old man who’s dropped a load in his pants. Definitely not cool. All the cool had been swatted out of me.

I think back on it now and I realize that I should have told my parents. I look back and realize there was something sick about that man. No grownup should derive that much pleasure from hitting a kid that hard.

But we can all learn from negative examples and a lot of those negative examples don’t involve a swat. So learn from it, apply what you’ve learned and move on.

Just don’t let anyone swat the cool out of you. That’s just wrong.


2 Comments

Next Stop: Oldfartsville

8/21/2013

4 Comments

 
For every change (turn, turn, turn…)

            Just about every one has a coming of age story. Most of those are poetic and bittersweet (and let’s face it, often a bit of a turn-on). Mine was neither poetic nor very sweet. I’m not sure if ‘turned-on’ was even in the same universe.

            Just about everyone has a “growing older” story as well. Those can range from comic to bittersweet or a bit of both. I have a couple of those, but mine range from embarrassing to even more embarrassing to outright shameful.

            The way I see it, in order to fully realize you’re rapidly aging, you have to take a heavy psychological hit and a pretty good physical hit as well. One by itself won’t do it. You need that one-two combination punch before you’re really knocked through the ropes and into official ‘old-fart’ territory.

            The first punch I received was when I was thirty and it was psychological. My wife and I had been married for seven years and I decided that as an anniversary present I would buy her a gift certificate at a day spa. (Okay, I’ll admit, I had visions that after spending a good part of a day at a spa she’d be in the mood to ‘suitably reward’ me for the gift when she arrived home. By ‘suitably reward,’ well, you know what I mean. If we’re honest, most gifts have at least a vision of a return gift attached to them.)

            I walked into the spa place and met a young lady at the counter. Yes, she was somewhat attractive. Yes, I sucked in my gut –but just a bit. She looked vaguely familiar. Like maybe I’d went to school with her or something.

            Me: “You look vaguely familiar. Where did you go to school?”

            Young hot chick: “Mountain View High.”

            Me (arching an eyebrow in my best Sean Connery pose): “I thought so. What year did you graduate?”

            Young hot chick: “Last June.”

            And there was the psychological gut-punch. She was twelve years younger than me. Like a pinched balloon when the air squeaks out I managed a feeble, “Oh.”

Deflated, I staggered. But she was not done yet.

Young hot chick (who I now kinda hated): “Why? Did you have a son or daughter that went there?”

I’m not sure how I got out of the spa building. All I remember is staggering and thinking I heard a faint echo of laughter as I got in my pickup, but that may have just been in my head.

I recovered. I still bobbed and weaved and maintained my idea of youth, because I had not yet been dealt the physical blow.

That came seven years later. It was voting time and I went to drop off my ballot. I had my seven and five-year-old daughters with me. The ballot place had a short flight of five steps up to a platform. Because there were a number of cars there, I had to park away from the steps, but almost even with the voting window. I walked down, up the steps, back up the platform and dropped off my ballot (I’m nothing if not an involved citizen). That’s when a fateful decision led to the second, physical punch into old age.

I turned from the window. My pickup was right there with both my girls in the front seat. Why would I walk all the way down the platform, down the five steps and then all the way back up to my pickup?

Vaulting the railing would be much easier.

After all, it was only a drop of about five feet.

I envisioned my hand on the top of the railing, my feet gliding over as I dropped cat-like to the ground. I’d seen it done in countless movies.

I went for it.

My foot hit the top railing, my hand slipped and for a brief second I hung upside down, my foot somehow around the railing, my entire world turned over on its axis. I dropped down to the pavement, landing on my head and one shoulder.

The thing about the physical part of the psychological/physical-one-two-you-are-now-an-official-old-fart-thing is that the physical has a huge amount of psychological mixed with it. I hurt, but my overriding sense was one of embarrassment and fear that I’d just scared the hell out of my girls with my Olympic style moves. Before even checking to see if I was seriously hurt, I jumped up and looked around to see if anyone had witnessed my act of poise and grace. Then I looked in my pickup to make sure my kids were okay after witnessing the possible death of their father.

They were both laughing so hard they were crying. My elder daughter was slapping the dash and my younger daughter was yelling, “Do it again, Daddy! Do it again!”

That’s when I felt the pain. I limped my way to the driver’s side and got in. As soon as the door shut, I immediately grounded them from “The Lion King” for two weeks for laughing at me.

Hey, I never said I was a good father.

And it felt like the right old-fart thing to do.


4 Comments

The Dog's End of the Deal

8/19/2013

2 Comments

 
            They say there are few bonds like the one between a boy and his dog. Admittedly, it’s been a few years since I was a boy (if you discount my immaturity) and as far as the bond with my dog –well, I don’t think she fully understands her end of the deal.

            My dog –a German Shepherd—seems to be very clear about my end of the deal. I provide food, water, shelter, payment on enormous vet bills, clean up her feces, grooming, exercising, AC in the summer and forced air heating in the winter. (Granted, I would have to pay for the AC and heat anyway, but she enjoys that advantage and I pay the bills, so I’m counting it.) Oh, and love. I’m supposed to provide that as well.

            She fully expects that I uphold my end of the deal.

            Where the confusion comes in is her understanding of her end of the deal. Her end of the deal includes staying out of the way while I’m trying to uphold my end of the deal in regards to cleaning the dog run. She doesn’t stay out of the way. She stays right in the middle of the way. She often assumes I’m so into this part of the deal that she’ll hunch over to do her business while looking at me, as if to say, “Wow. If this is what turns your crank, let me set up a tall one for ya here.”

            She doesn’t uphold her end of the deal when it comes to going for a walk. A German Shepherd should look regal, stately even, while walking alongside her master who holds the leash lightly and his head high. She doesn’t get this. She goes nutzoid and runs back and forth, straining at the leash, her ears back and whining because I’m not walking fast enough.

            And she has to sniff everything we pass by. By everything, I mean everything. Her sniffer is a direct and constant source of embarrassment, particularly when meeting new people on our walks.

            There’s really nothing regal or stately about any of it.

            She doesn’t uphold her end of the deal when it comes to other exercise. She’s supposed to run and fetch the tennis ball I throw. She has the run part down, but then forgets the fetch part and turns the whole fiasco into a game of keep-away, while I look like an idiot trying to catch her to get the ball back. (Because we all know how much I value a slobber-soaked tennis ball.)

            She doesn’t understand that her end of the deal does not include coming up to me as I stretch out on the sofa and panting that heavy warm dog breath in my face. Her end of the deal doesn’t include shedding enough hair that I could conceivably build another dog with it. She doesn’t get that her end of the deal doesn’t involve belching loudly in the front room after eating and then looking at me with that, “What’s your problem?” look.

            But then she’ll come to me in my chair, bury her head between my arm and side, sit and sigh. She’ll nudge me a bit until I pet her.

            She’s got the reciprocation on the love thing down pretty well. And I guess I’m pretty okay with just that.


2 Comments

Mom's Helping Hand

8/13/2013

1 Comment

 
            Once upon a time, it was okay to smack your kid. In fact it was encouraged. If you didn’t have a kid to smack, you could borrow a relative’s kid to keep up. Sometimes a complete stranger would lend you their kid. People were nicer and more giving in those days.

I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing and I’m really not into making some kind of social commentary here. That’s not my place and, frankly, I’m not smart enough to take that on.

But it gives one pause to think: Maybe it just depends on the type of smack. It could be anywhere from a mild swat on the rear, to an open handed slap, to a closed fisted-our-relationship-is-about-done hit. There are varying degrees of smacking, varying degrees of reasons, and varying degrees of if it’s working for you or not.

My mom was big on spanking. She’d use anything from an open hand to a belt. But she was at a huge disadvantage – she had four boys and she only weighed about 110 lbs soaking wet.

She had more credibility when we younger. Swats actually hurt and you didn’t want to push her into the belt range or –the most terrifying of all—the dreaded “wait until your dad gets home” range. But as we grew bigger, her spankings became kind of a running joke among the siblings. She would spank while we were standing up and wear herself to a frazzle and we hardly noticed she was there.

It would often get to the point where we’d ask her to please stop because we feared she’d hurt herself. She was a belt-wielding tempest in a thimble.

Until she discovered “Mom’s Helping Hand.”

We were on a driving vacation (huge mistake on my parent’s part). It’s never a vacation if you’re driving all day with three boys between ten and sixteen in the back seat.

My brothers and I fought incessantly. We were civil during a roadside break or if we stopped to eat, but that just gave us a chance to rest up for the next round of fighting. We’d start off in the car again and start in on each other again. When you’re younger you always want to start fights with your siblings verbally, but know that it’s going to get physical, well, just because it will.

We’d start with the “He’s touching me!” thing and it quickly degenerated from there. Dad remained stoic in his driving, as though we didn’t even exist in his universe. Mom would try to turn in the passenger seat to smack us, but her position was awkward and her blows easy to deflect.

Finally, we stopped in a tiny town and went into a small store with all the usual small store accoutrements. As we spun the bumper sticker rack round and round, mom made a new discovery: a thin, plywood paddle in the shape of a hand. Written boldly across the paddle were the words: “Mom’s Helping Hand.” 

Yes, back in the day they actually sold weapons (under the guise of 'souvenirs') for parents to use to smack their kids.

Our eyes bugged out just a bit as she held it and smiled. I don’t remember if the thing cost a dollar or twenty dollars –whatever the price, I’m sure she would have paid it.

She bought it and soon we were on our way again. And soon my brothers and I were at it again in the back seat. Mom gave us the required warning then reached back to smack us with the paddle.

Nothing.

The thing hardly hurt at all. In fact, my oldest brother laughed at her attempt. She tried smacking harder, but that only amused us all the more.

Then mom discovered the laws of physics or the laws of impact or just the simple fact that she could make a slight change that would have a profound impact (literally).

She lightly knocked my brother on the side of his head using the edge of the paddle.

His hands went up, one to defend himself from another paddle-edged blow, the other to rub the recent smack. Tears welled up in his eyes. My other brother and I watched in wonder.

What mom just did was effective.

Of course, we were just kids and too stupid to learn by the example just provided. We had to try it out for ourselves. And our theory was right: the edge of that damned paddle HURT.

We settled in quietly for the remainder of the vacation. Mom sat up front smiling. Dad was even smiling as he drove. If we even batted an eyelash in what could be construed as a confrontational manner, she’d lift the paddle and we’d shrink back into the seat.

I don’t know what ever became of that paddle, but however strange it may seem, I get nostalgic when I think of it.

I think I actually miss it.

And I know I miss my mom.


1 Comment

No Fluff

8/12/2013

2 Comments

 
            At one point, years ago, I had the faint idea that I just might be God’s gift to the world in terms of writing. No one in any of my high school classes could come near my writing skills. Same for college. I was the ‘example’ guy. You know the one. The one whose writing the teacher is always using as an example. People hate that guy and I actually enjoyed being hated for being that guy. I sometimes had to step sideways when entering a classroom doorway for fear of bumping my overly-confident, big head (for some reason it grew to resemble Stewie Griffen’s).

            It all came to a crashing halt because of one person.

            Eleanor Latham.

            I had Professor Latham in a writing class –I’m sorry, too many years have gone by and I forget the actual title of the class—and she metaphorically peed in my blissful writing punchbowl.

            I turned my first class paper in to Professor Latham, confident in the praise she would lavish upon my writing. Everyone else was tense about receiving their papers back. Not me. I remained calm in the knowledge that she would be absolutely floored by my writing prowess.

            We received the graded papers back and I heard a collective groan from the class. Smiling, I lifted the cover page of mine: C+.

            I joined in with the collective groaning. In fact, I think I out-groaned some of the louder groaners.

            I turned through the pages. Complete sentences (a few complete paragraphs) were now adorned with a red line through them and only two words written in the margin.

            No fluff.

            I scowled up from my paper at Professor Latham who didn’t seem to be bothered at all by the classroom moaning (which was reaching the level of an overcrowded cattle stockyard). I flipped through the pages again. Always the same two words.

            No fluff.

            I took it as a challenge. Okay, she didn’t want fluff, she wouldn’t get fluff –no matter how artsy-fartsy and poetic my fluff could be. No fluff for her. I would deprive her of my stylistic fluff.

            I turned in my next paper after cutting it over and over. I cut so much I thought I might physically start to bleed. I turned in the paper with a self-satisfied “There ya go.” A few days later, the paper was returned with the same two words (along with the red lines) throughout the paper.

            No fluff.

            But there wasn’t quite as much red ink this time around.

I looked up from my paper, caught her eye and she smiled. Dammit. The challenge was on. Absolutely no fluff for her. She would live the remainder of her life deprived of my artistic fluff.

            I began going through my papers over and over, checking for any extra “that” or an unneeded weak verb. I even imagined myself with a title: Mr. Flufflessness (which probably won’t make any superhero comics, but made me feel better).

            Throughout that semester we did battle. I cut my writing unmercifully, the red marks became less and less. Finally, we reached the last paper for the semester. A paper that I used to easily write in two hours I spent a week and a half on. When I turned it in I was certain there would not, could not be a single red mark on it.

            When it was returned to me I flipped through the pages. Each page was completely free of red ink. After I flipped a page I looked up and she stood there, indomitable, no sign of emotion on her face whatsoever, but she watched me. I finally made it to the last page without a speck of red.

            And there it was in the very last paragraph, about an eighth of an inch long, diagonally through a single comma and off in the margin:

            No fluff.

            I looked up incredulously. She looked sternly back at me…and then began to laugh. At that point, I began to laugh as well. And I understood there’s no way any of us can escape a good editor’s pen. All we can strive for is…

            No fluff.

           

*Thank you Eleanor for taking a somewhat cocky kid who had a little promise and showing him that he “wasn’t all that,” but that if he continued to work hard, he could be so much more.

2 Comments

Of Spiders and Snakes...

8/9/2013

2 Comments

 
I don’t really hate much. Hate is a pretty strong emotion, so I’d just as soon save it for that one really big thing –or person—and then just hammer ‘em with hate.

I do hate wasps. I’m not a science guy, so it’s probably no surprise that I cannot think of a single thing in nature that a wasp is good for. Unless they sting someone you hate, then you’ve got the hate voodoo working for you pretty good. Other than that a wasp is worth nothing, zip, nada.

I have a healthy respect for spiders and snakes. I don’t hate them, but I do know they have nature’s aura of “don’t touch” and although I don’t hate them, they can be annoying as hell sometimes. I know, they’re all part of the “circle of life” thing, but sometimes I think they try to annoy me on purpose.

They annoy me by being sneaky.

I have a spider on my back deck that has become my nemesis. He is an industrious little bastard and he works all through the night to build his web exactly over the area I have to walk through every day to clean the dog run. I get a face full of web and wonder if there’s a spider attached to it somewhere. After slapping myself silly and screaming like a ten-year-old girl, I calm down and make a vow that it will not happen the next day.


The next day: déjà vu.

Snakes do the same thing, but they’re not as predictable (even though being predictable is fairly lost on me). I have snakes all through my yard. They’re just little garden snakes. Or is it garter snakes? I’ve heard it pronounced both ways and have never been sure. Except that 'garden' makes more sense, because what woman in her right mind would wear one for a garter? Anyway, I digress…

I first started noticing the snakes while I was mowing the yard. They like to wait until that last possible moment when you’re about to step on them, then they wriggle out of the way. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and jump up on the lawnmower screaming like a ten-year-old girl again. Once I’ve recognized what it is, I’m okay. It’s just that initial movement where you don’t expect movement to be.

I’ll be honest. I used to get a flash of anger when this happened and would reflexively bark over the snake with the mower. I’m kinder and gentler now. I now stand panting and work on getting my heart rate down as they slither away.

But once in awhile these aspects of nature work as great teaching tools –even for me who knows nothing about nature.

When we were cleaning out our backyard (previous house that sat on a rock pile) I heard a buzzing by me. I stopped clearing rock to listen, but it would stop. This happened a few times until I located the source. I picked up a rock from a pile and there was a wasp, caught in a Black Widow’s web (notice the capitalization there which is a sign of respect…or fear). The spider would move in for the kill and the wasp would buzz, turning it’s stinger towards the spider until it backed away again. The weird dance kept repeating.

I called my kids over to show them nature up close. Survival of the fittest. Darwin in action. I should have made a Nat-Geo film of it. The girls were about five and seven at the time and they watched on in wonder at the struggle. Finally, my oldest looked up at me.

“Who do you think will win, daddy?” she asked.

I picked up a rock and smashed the spider and the wasp with one blow.

“Man, honey,” I said. “Man always wins.”

We’re sneaky that way.

2 Comments

Lift off

8/8/2013

2 Comments

 
Whoo hoo! The site is up and running (well, maybe not running, but certainly limping with some confidence). Props to my friend Kathleen O'Donnell for her advice in setting this up. Although now she's told me I need to get a professional picture to put on the homepage, that is, if I want it to look professional. And therein lies the rub.


I'm not a big fan of cameras. Particularly the ones pointed at me. I've never thought of myself as handsome and certainly not very photogenic.


But now we have technology: mwah, ha, ha!


So I will go down to the cheapest photographer I can find and try to get a more professional photo. I'm sure with computer wizardry I can post a picture that makes me look like Brad Pitt (not the scruffy Brad Pitt where it looks like he hasn't washed his hair in two weeks, but the clean cut Brad Pitt that all the ladies and a good portion of men swoon over). 


Come to think of it, it would probably be easier just to download a copy of Brad's picture. But then we get into copyright stuff and lawsuits and to be honest, I don't think I'd be able to stand toe to toe financially with Brad and duke it out in court.


Could make a good story though.

2 Comments

    William Martin

    Just observing, sometimes remembering, often shaking my head, then writing.

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