“Todd, I got a birthday card from Yeti.”

“What?” Sounded as though he didn’t think he’d heard me correctly.

“Yeah.”

“I’m coming over.” he said, and was at my house five minutes later. I handed him the card. He looked at it, grabbed the envelope and did exactly what I’d done, looking carefully at the postmark and the date, which was from the day before. Then, after looking at the card and reading the note, shook his head, “What the....”

“I know! I tried to call Chris... but he wouldn’t have sent this. I doubt if he knows anything about it.”

“This is definitely Yeti’s writing.” Todd said and we found ourselves smiling. “You think...?”

“Fuck yes I think... You call Sue, I’ll get a hold of Clara and Ronnie and we’ll both keep trying Chris...”

“Okay.”

“Tomorrow? You got anything you can’t miss?”

Todd thought for a second. “First hour. I’ve got a test I shouldn’t miss. Can we leave after that?”

“Yeah. Why don’t we plan on leaving after school and we’ll get on the river Friday morning. We can camp at that livery guy’s place.”

“Perfect.” Todd rushed out, though I’m not sure either of us knew why he was in a hurry, or even if he was. We just found ourselves truly excited and we were loving it.

I called Clara, who was coming over anyway later for dinner. She started crying as soon as I told her about the card. She drove over right away, and I called Chris’s parents to find out where they thought he might be. They gave me the phone number to the bookstore where he was working.

For my birthday dinner that night, my Grandma and Grandpa Lewis came over and met Clara for the first time. Grandma and Clara hit it off right away and were laughing together within minutes.

I’d invited Mrs. Neville too, but she, much to both Clara’s and my astonishment, had a date. It seemed she’d been seeing a guy who taught at the other high school in town, and they were going to a play that night. She’d asked me to stop by her classroom the next day, saying she had a card for me, and I’d meant to, but I’d forgotten. Now I couldn’t wait to see her the next day to show her Yeti’s card.

I half wondered whether she’d been the sender. I really had no idea who’d sent it, and so far, none of the rest of us did either, although the idea of calling the Hinkles to see if they’d played a role didn’t seem like the thing to do.

I’d talked to both of them a time or two since Yeti’s death and they’d still been in absolute shock. Mr. Hinkle especially, was dealing with what appeared to be some awful guilt over forcing his hand regarding Yeti’s military service. Chris had spent more time with them than I had and he’d told me that he felt real tension between Mr. and Mrs. Hinkle. Mrs. Hinkle seemed to have laid the blame for Yeti’s death at the feet of her husband, who’d gamely picked it up and was carrying it; an extremely heavy cross.

Chris said that there’d been a change in Mrs. Hinkle. She’d been a quiet woman; whom, to our eyes, had always been subservient to the whims of Mr. H. Now, though, with the death of her son, she was somehow seeming stronger, rather than weaker. Her voice was different, with an edge that hadn’t been there before; not shrill at all, but confident and poised.

Ronnie had noticed a similar change in his Mom after Alma had died. What was it, I wondered, that made women get stronger in the face of tragedy while men, at least those I’d seen dealing with it, seemed to get weaker - or at least more outwardly so. Maybe; Chris had speculated about Mrs. Hinkle; she was feeling guilty too, for not speaking out against the idea of forcing Yeti to join up if she been against it. Maybe, he’d said, she’d wanted to but hadn’t, whether out of fear or some other emotion she’d never dealt with satisfactorily, and had concluded that she'd never make that particular mistake again.

That made sense to me, but I’d only talked to them a half dozen times in my whole life, and never at any length. I simply didn’t know them as well as Chris, who’d been around them since he was a toddler, so I hadn’t really noticed the dynamics in the relationship change anywhere near to the extent he had, though I had no reason to doubt his observations.

Suffice it to say, we were pretty sure the Hinkles hadn’t sent the card, and I sure didn’t want to upset them any further by bringing it up to them, at least for the time being.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

I am one of those annoying men who tends to use mild terms of endearment when I encounter women in the world. My father did it, and somehow I've always done it as well.

Young waitress fills my coffee cup? "Thank you hun."

Older female teller at the bank cashes my check? "Thanks Ma'am."

That sort of thing...

It's habit and it's ingrained in me as deeply as any other personality trait I can think of.

So it was that yesterday afternoon I pulled through a McDonalds drive-thru in Grand Rapids.

At the speaker: "Thank you for choosing McDonalds. How may I help you?"

"Hi. Large Coffee. 2 creams, 2 sugars please."

"Is that all?"

"That's it."

"Would you like to contribute a dollar to senior meals on wheels?"

"Not now." (I'd already pulled the change out of my pocket to pay for the coffee.)

"That's a dollar thirty-eight at the first window please."

I pulled up and handed over exact change.

"Thank you."

"Thank YOU!"

I pulled up to the second window. A man spoke with the slightest trace of a lisp and talked with one shoulder turned toward the window just a bit.

"Hello sir. You have the large coffee with two creams and two sugars?"

"Yep."

"Can you wait a sec?. A new pot is almost done - less than a minute."

"Cool."

"Oh, would you look at this. The creamer's out. I'll be right back. I'll just get some from the other machine, OK?"

"Sure." Like I might object...

He was back in fifteen seconds and poured the just brewed coffee in the cup and fit the lid to it and handed it over. "Here ya goOOoo." Sing-song.

And God forgive me, it just came out. "Thank you dear."

And he smiled at me. No, he absolutely BEAMED at me. Did he actually bat his eyes? I'm not sure.

I pulled away and felt both guilty, embarrassed by my slip, and thankful I hadn't offended the guy. Anything but!

Then I started laughing.

And I realized, as I drove up the hill on Leonard, that even though it was wholely accidentally, I'd just made his day!

Good enough.


Be good to everyone.

Good morning Boys and Girls.

Happy anniversary.

Four years ago, I'd just moved to Florida, and I mean "just" - like a day or two before.

Sat and watched Shock and Awe like so many of the rest of us. Then over the next weeks got used to the 24-7 coverage, a never-ending video-magazine article of the proof of American military might.

Watched "Embedded" Newspeople.

Saw the statue come down.

Heard they'd fired the entire Iraqi Army... huh? The same guys who'd come running to surrender ten years earlier during the first gulf war?

Heard the predictions the war would be virtually free to wage because of the Oil - this, not from some oil company executive, but from the administration.

Started hearing our guys and girls weren't being provided with the proper equipment.

Heard the Prez. insist that no tax raise would be enacted to pay for the war, nor would there be a draft.

Ah, I thought, I get it. It's for show.

It was. It is and it will be - unless and until all Americans are asked to provide their own loved ones as cannon fodder (or IED fodder) and their own bread and money to ensure a quick, swift and complete victory.

Problem. No way to define victory. We stabilize Iraq? The people we should have been going after in the first place simply move elsewhere.

That's a fact.

We can't kill off people we don't know about, and we only know about the people who've decided to let us see their current actions. Plus, we've created generations of people who will happily grow into enemies of the U.S.

(Still recommend John Steinbeck's "The Moon Is Down." Written at the behest of the administration during WWII, it instructs about the impossibility of ever changing the hearts and minds of the citizens of an occupied country - no matter the occupying force.)

It's not nearly as complicated as they'd like us to believe.

This is a show war. What did Bush say at Christmas time this year? Go fight terrorism by buying more Christmas presents?

And we still have 80 - 100 million people who support this action?

Is that possible?

Of course.

Want me to support the War?

1. Conscript every kid for two years of service the minute they turn 18
2. Tax everyone an extra 15% to cover the costs

Ya know, like it's a real war.

Either it is an action that justifies real and tangible sacrifice from all of us, or it isn't justifiable at all.

Be good to everyone.

P.S. So far the war has cost 350 billion. That 1166 dollars for every man, woman and child in the U.S. But, have your taxes gone up to pay for it? No. It's being passed on to our kids and grandkids. Nice.

The "surge" adds approximately 1 new troop on patrol at any given time for every 1750 Iraqis in Baghdad. Brilliant military strategy, don't you think?

Another oldy from December of '04

Good afternoon Boy and Girls!

Jesus reporting here today.

Surrogate and I were talking last night and he was telling me about when he worked at a radio station years ago. Most of what he told me sounded pretty goofy, but I've been thinking about this one story all day.

He wrote comedy for an afternoon DJ most of the time but to supplement his income ended up writing a lot of commercials too. Spots, he called them. From the way he talks about it, you'd have thought he was writing an emmy winning sitcom for years on end instead of 60 second commercials for local pest control companies with big plastic bugs on the tops of their vans. Anyway, he teamed up with another DJ who was more proficient with the recording equipment than surrogate was and together they wrote bunches and bunches of these stupid "spots."

The station was a busy place and because lots of people needed the production studio during business hours, they tended to meet at night when most of the staff had called it a day. Excepting whoever was on the air, a producer or two and a skeleton news staff, the place was usually empty. And, since the broadcast studios were down a long hall from production, they ususally felt like they had their own private recording studio at night causing, says surrogate, a more relaxed atmosphere in which they could work their "creative voodoo" and subsequently, be more productive.

One night surrogate's partner Sam showed up in a foul mood. For an hour, they worked on a project but neither of them were happy with what they'd come up with. Plus Sam snapped a few times at surrogate for things, (once again, this is according to surrogate) that he (Sam) had no business even being upset about.

Finally surrogate snapped back when Sam had "crossed the line" calling surrogate a stupid S.O.B. In the moments that followed the little argument, neither said much except things directly having to do with what they were working on. They muddled through the project, which was supposed to be a funny commercial for a tire chain, and decided not to start on another that evening.

As they started to leave, Sam apologized for being an a**hole.

Surrogate then also apologized and they decided to go have a beer before heading home to their respective families.

surrogate asked Sam why he'd been so testy all night. Sam started to answer, stopped and thought a second and then a grin plastered his face turning soon into uncontroled laughter. He settled dwon and shaking his head said, "They made me smile all day today."

"What?" surrogate asked, having no clue what Sam meant.

"They made me smile all through the mid-day show today. Every time I stopped smiling, this consultant they hired, who was sitting in on the show - in the studio with me, would give me give me a big fake grin to remind me to smile every time I spoke."

"Sam." surrogate said, eyebrows furrowed. "It's radio!"

"I know. But this moron said that you can "hear" the smile in someone's voice and that my voice sounded like a frown all the time, so they made me smile from 10:00 to 2:00 every time I said a word on the air. Oh, and he said that faking it wouldn't work. It had to be a "genuine smile"."

"Oh geez" surrogate had seen the consultant running around looking officious for the last day or two.

"So, by the time I got off the air, I was so pissed off I couldn't think straight. I kept seeing this guy grinning this stage grin at me telling me to smile naturally. I can't do it. I WON'T do it. If he comes in tomorrow and starts in on me... I'll walk... or I'm afraid I'll smash his face in."

And that's the part that's stayed with me all day.

How many thousands of times in life are we forced to act in ways we don't feel just to satisfy someone else's idea of who they think we should be? What does it do to us in the long run? Does that sort of thing keep us from actually feeling happy as often as we otherwise might?


I don't have an answer. But I do know that people who seem happy all the time scare me to death.



That doesn't mean we can't... Be Good To Everyone!

Good evenings Boys and Girls,

...and now for something completely different:

Seems there was a guy walking along a busy two-lane road one day - obviously looking for something. There was a sidewalk, but he chose to walk along the side of the road itself, perhaps looking for something that had come out of his hand while driving this same route.

Cars flew by and some honked their horns, and a truck nearly mowed him down, it being wider than the cars and not being able to move across the double yellow even a little since oncoming traffic was busy too. The man didn't even look up when the truck's driver honked and then yelled at the man as he did his best to avoid making the pedestrian so much tire goo.

The truck driver was upset enough at the episode that he pulled off the road a couple of hundred yards ahead into the parking lot of a small machine shop, set the brakes and purposefully walked back toward the man, who still seemed oblivious to his surroundings, so intent was his search for whatever it was he was looking for.

"Hey buddy. What the hell do you think you're doing? I almost killed you a few seconds ago."

"Oh," said the man, briefly glancing up. "I'm sorry. I'm looking for my fortune."

"Your fortune? What are you talking about? You looking for change?" The truck driver reached into his pocket to see if he had any coins he could give the man.

"No, no," said the man, now with his eyes back along the ground. "It flew out of my car a little while ago and I HAVE to find it."

Now the truck driver scratched his head and knew he'd found himself a loony-toons. "Your fortune flew out of your car window?"

"Oh well. I suppose it doesn't matter said the man. I know it by heart anyway, but it changed my life, and I was really hoping to find it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked the truck driver as they both walked, on the sidewalk now, back toward the lot where the truck, and as it turned out, the other man's car was parked as well.

"Well, I went our for lunch with a friend of mine a few months ago to one of those all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets and when she brought the check, the waitress had placed two fortune cookies on the little tray with the bill."

"Yeah, they always do that." said the truck driver.

"Right, and I always pick one up and then trade with whoever I'm with... supposed to be a good luck thing. So we did that, but this time, my fortune was so profound that it immediately changed my life, and has made the last few months the best time I've ever had, and I'd been keeping it in the ashtray of my car since I don't smoke. I'll bet I've picked it up and read it a hundred times or more, but I had to charge my cell phone, and the lighter's in part of the ashtray assembly - and my passenger window was open and when I went to plug in the charger, the wind caught the little fortune, it flew right out... just back there. Sure wish I'd found it.

"Well, for goodness sake; what was the fortune?" asked the truck driver.

The man smiled, embarrassed. "You'll think it's stupid... but I swear, it hit me."

"Well Jeez.. tell me already."

"It read... 'When you judge people, you don't have time to love them.'"

The truck driver stared at the other man for a few seconds, then furrowed his brow and turned away. "You're right. It's stupid." said the truck driver as he headed over to his truck.

"Maybe. But for me, it was exactly what I needed to read, and... well, like I said, it changed my life." The man said, now talking to the back of the departing truck driver.

"Good for you." said the truck driver, shaking his head and opening the door, and climbing up into his rig. "Friggen' idiot." he mumbled, and released the brake.



Be good to everyone.

(This was a post form 7-12-05 I kind of liked. Most of the folks who would have read it are long departed from tBlog, so what the hey.)

Good morning Boys and Girls,

Have a bit of an addictive personality. I admit it freely and only rarely has it become a problem for me.

I'm worried though.

I rarely drink sodas, (or pop, or soft drinks - guess what they're called depends on where you live.)

But... but. 

Anyone else out there tried Coke Blak?

It's a coffee/coke blend sold in the little old fashioned coke bottles shrouded in a thin plastic skin. I think they're trying to position it as an energy drink, though in some stores I've seen it shelved next to the Starbuck's Frapachino line of products, so I'm not sure where it "fits."

I think it deserves its own cooler. 

Oh my. Good stuff.

Too good and stupidly expensive; about $2.00 a bottle in convenience stores; though you can get it by the four pack for about half that in some supermarkets.

I'm still trying to find out where I can by it at a further discount by the case - or the truckload.

So far, I only have about one every three or four days, but... but...

I WANT.

Be good to everyone. 

Ronnie ran back to the camp site to get a hatchet. Once he returned, he deftly cut the thing's head off, expertly timing the blow between a couple of the fish’s violent gyrations. “I’m eating that myself.” Ronnie said. I was done cleaning all three bass before Ronnie had made a dent in filleting that pike which was all muscle and bone.

He asked for some pointers but it looked to me like he was going about it exactly as I would have. “Just be patient,” I told him, You’re doing fine. It’s just a bitch.”

In the end Ronnie came up with two decent sized, if ragged looking filets, and allowed each of us a taste of the pike, which was very good, better than the bass really.

Todd had done the cooking in a larger pan than we’d ever had before, a birthday gift from his parents a few weeks earlier. He’d probably allowed the pan to get too hot and he overcooked the fish a little and was freer with the salt than I’d have been, but still, it was delicious.

Yeti had been yacking all day amid the fun that he was going to make the best desert we’d ever had, and after cleaning the pan took a boxed yellow cake mix out of his duffle and held it up as though it was the holy grail. “Stand back gentlemen,” he ordered and ripped open the box. He poured the powder right into the large skillet and then added water, butter and some powdered egg. He stirred a little and put the thing over the heat. Handing me me the spoon, he told me to stir the mixture slowly. He then pulled five hershey bars out of his bag, opened them and, as he broke each one, dropped them into the pan. “Lift the pan off the fire a minute,” he commanded. “Don’t want it to get too hot.”

For the next twenty minutes amid derisive comments from the rest of us, Yeti, who’d taken the spoon back from me, alternated between slowly stirring the mess and moving the big pan on and off the coals, seeking a temperature hot enough to cook, but not so hot he’d scorch the batter, which slowly became pudding like, then thicker still, till stirring was impossible. He took a little on the spoon, tasted it and smiled.

He handed me the spoon and I took a mouthful. Great. It was definitely a cake in texture, albeit a very moist one. “It’ll keep cooking for a minute or two as we eat it.” Yeti said, a proud papa. And we dug in.

“Where did you learn this one?” I asked him, talking with my mouth full.

“I tried it at home a few weeks ago late one night. I had the munchies.”

It was very good, and it became a staple we’d eat exactly once each trip. Eventually there’d be stir-cakes - his term for them - not only with chocolate, but with marshmallows, nuts, cherries, raisins, even various bits of different cookies and other candies. It became Yeti’s stamp on the trips, and he’d eventually refer to the weekends based on the sort of stir-cake he’d made. “Wasn’t that on the peanut butter and banana weekend on the White?” or, “Oh I remember that. That was on the Muskegon, the currant and saffron trip... Remember? We tried your Grandma’s recipe?”

It worked too. There were many weekend trips, but I don’t think he ever made exactly the same cake twice. We’d make suggestions, which he’d consider, but we never knew what was coming out of that duffle and going into that pan until we’d eaten, and Yeti did his schtick. I once made the mistake of bringing some pecans that I pulled out and gave to Yeti when he was starting to add the ingredients. He used them, but I could see he didn’t like it, and I never did it again. This wasn’t a potluck; this was his little thing, which certainly wasn't too much to ask.

I remember calling Chris in his dorm the Monday evening we got home after that first weekend and telling him about the cake, and how good it was. He was really disappointed not to have been there. “I can just see him,” Chris said, speaking of Yeti, “He must have been in his glory.” Aptly put I think.

That night though, when we’d finished eating and we sat around the fire, each of us wrapped in our sleeping bag; the temperature had dropped significantly; I felt good for the first time since Alma had died.

I’d left home at six a.m. and it was now after two. I’d driven straight to the property for a few minutes to make sure I could find it, and then had circled back to Marquette. I was tired of driving and I was hungry.

The reason I went back to Marquette was to see if and old favorite restaurant from my canoeing days was still around. It wasn’t, but up the street I saw a sign for a pasty place and there I enjoyed a veggie version of one of the Cornish meat pies I’d grown up eating at my Grandmother’s. It was remarkably flavorful and I was tempted to ask for the recipe, but thought better of it. I decided that one question from a stranger was about all they’d want to be bothered with, and my other one was more important.

“Know a good place to stay up the coast a few miles?”

“East or West?” Asked the woman at the cash register as she made change for me.

“West. Preferably a clean but fairly inexpensive place.”

“Cheap.”

“Preferably,” I agreed.

She yelled toward the kitchen. “Ernie, is the Pine Bluff still open?”

“The Motel?” Came a voice from back there somewhere.

“No Ernie, The stock exchange. Yes, the Motel.” She looked at me apologetically, raising her eyes and shaking her head, sorry that I’d been forced to endure even the slightest peripheral dealing with her idiot cook; something, her look implied, that was her personal hell all day every day, but one she preferred to keep as a private burden.

‘As far as I know it is. Why? You moving out? Finally?”

I laughed realizing that their feigned animosity was a two way affair. “Your husband?” I asked, cocking my head toward the kitchen as I put a five back into my wallet. She nodded and in spite of herself, she too started to smile.

“Unfortunately. Thirty-eight years of living hell.”

“I’ll bet. So will I see this place along the shore?”

“Other side of the road. About ten miles. Big sign. You won’t miss it.”

“Thanks. The Pine Bluff.” I repeated the name and gave a little wave of thanks.

“Thanks for stopping in.”

That was nice, I thought as I hopped in my car.

The coastline along the Southern edge of Lake Superior isn’t inviting; it’s imposing, daring people to venture out into the greatest of the Great Lake’s ocean depths and unpredictable waters. This isn’t to say it isn’t beautiful, because it surely is, but to me, it’s more awesomely breathtaking than genuinely picturesque.

Boulders, cliffs and rocky beaches don’t exactly scream “come swim, relax, enjoy,” to me, and as I drove North and West, I was reminded of my first few glimpses of Superior many years before during those canoe trips, when the very sight of the thing gave me chills. What I’d thought to be my considerable experience spending time along the protected Thunder Bay portion of Lake Huron in no way prepared me to stick even my baby toes into this enormous cold swirling graveyard for ships.

Within minutes I found the motel, just as the pasty lady had said I would. It was perched up on a hill across the road from the coast. White aluminum siding covered the entirety of the exposed surfaces of the ten or twelve rooms. The office; set in the middle of the row; had a covered parking area to be used by customers checking in, but there were two cars parked underneath it so I pulled up into a random empty space a few doors down and made my way into the office.

A woman came to the desk a few seconds after I’d rung the little chrome bell. She was older than I was, but how much older I had no idea. Her face was one of those that precluded a fair guess at her age; enough lines to give her face the sort of character attained by women over forty but I couldn’t tell whether she was forty-five, fifty-five, or even sixty. One thing though, her face didn’t look like that of someone who’d enjoyed life much. She smiled a tired smile and greeted me. I didn’t think she was all that happy to see me, customer or not.

“Hi.” I said. “The folks at the Angela’s Pasty shop suggested this place. Any rooms available for the next few days?”

“Are you planning on staying for the weekend?” she asked me.

“As of now, I don’t plan on it; hopefully two or three nights.”

“Okay, we’ve got plenty of rooms till Thursday night, but we’re pretty booked up starting Friday through the weekend. If you’re going to need a room for the weekend, you’d best let me know as soon as you can.”

I thanked her. She asked me where my car was and then assigned me the room directly in front of my parking space. I paid for two nights in advance and promised to let her know as soon as possible if I’d be staying longer than I’d planned.

My room, number 9, was four down from the office. I assume the even numbered rooms were on the other side of the office since the rooms either side of mine were 7 and 11. I checked the john and shower for cleanliness, unpacked a few things, then grabbed the reports I had on the factory property and laid down on the bed to read until I feel asleep. I wanted a nap and I knew it wouldn’t take long for these dryer than sun-baked silica reports to put me out. I knew all the pertinent stuff anyway, as I’d already read through them thoroughly enough to have written a lengthy report on what I’d found. Perfect, I decided; better than a pill. I was asleep within seconds.