Think Good Thoughts.

BMI at School

The principal of our children’s elementary school puts together a weekly newsletter and sends it home with the kids every Friday without fail. Most principals don’t take the time to communicate with families, and I really appreciate it.

The “Friday Flier,” as it is known, is usually only one page, and even then, the principal doesn’t always have enough content to fill both sides. So, quite often she will grab something that is relevant or meaningful and slap it on the backside of the sheet. This might be parenting tips, information from the school district, or fluff, none of which, as you can imagine is urgent and all of it has been suitably whitewashed to be comply with the labyrinth of district policies.

The back of the March 13th issue, published a day early to accommodate on of the many teacher planning days, contained a gem called “Nutrition Nuggets.” It had a snappy headline and three columns of handy little tidbits to help me make my kids healthier. Mind you, the apparent source of Nutrition Nugget is the same institution that feeds our kids “Cheese Pleesers,” a rather tormented doughy bagel stick injected with an extremely fatty American Cream Cheese and sugar mixture that is then microwaved inside its plastic wrapper. This is the same institution where “Crustables” are served every day as an alternative lunch choice. This is the same institution whose salad bar is iceberg lettuce, carrot sticks that have been stored so long that they are beginning to curl, apple slices that magically never get brown and your choice full fat Thousand Island or Ranch dressing. This is the same institution (and principal) to which I written two letters forbidding it to feed my children.

Turns out, the Nutrition Nugget is a product that is produced by Aspen Publishers of Front Royal, Virginia. Although this particular issue has been customized with the principal’s name, as if she wrote it, using it is part of the service for which our school pays, probably $198.00 a year depending on the type of license.

I didn’t really look the Nutrition Nuggets, and handed to my wife with an off-hand comment like, “I wonder what kind of propaganda does this have in it?” My wife stood there with an intense look as she read, then her jaw dropped open. I thought that I was kidding, but I wasn’t.

“Find out your child’s Body Mass Index,” the article says. “That’s the number that measures height against weight and lets you know if your youngster is at a healthy weight. You can use the parent-friendly online tool at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/Calculator.aspx, or ask your pediatrician to figure it out at your child’s next visit.”

In the nineteenth century, a Belgian statistician came up a way to determine a person’s degree of overweighness using, as a statistician would, a mathematical formula. Remember, this is the same era of time when doctors regularly drained half a person’s blood from their body and drilled holes in patient’s heads. The formula simply divides a person’s weight by their height squared. A line was drawn up the middle of the chart the formula created, and it was determined that if a person’s index was on one side of the line they were good, and on that side of the line they were fat.

It has also been explained, mainly by the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry, that obesity was an epidemic in America. Meaning that people’s BMI was going up at the same rate as those who died in the flu epidemic or by HIV-AIDS. Or maybe they mean that fat is ‘catchy.’ In fact, this same issue of the Nutrition Nugget said, “Childhood obesity is an epidemic in America today. About 15 percent of children are obese, and another 30 percent are overweight. Experts blame the problem on too much television and too little exercise, along with soda and junk food crowding out fruits, vegetables, and healthy drinks in youngsters’ diets.”

Obesity is blamed for all manner of diseases, like heart disease, diabetes, bone diseases, and others. If, consequently, your BMI is high the assumption is that you are at greater risk for these diseases. What they don’t tell you is that the lines on the BMI chart that delineate over-weight or obese have never been studied to make sure that they are in the right place. See, we simply do not know if a person who, for example, is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds is significantly more at risk of obesity-related disease than another person who is 6 foot tall and weighs 175 pounds. In fact there is significant evidence to the contrary. One doesn’t have to be a scientist, or an 18th century statistician, to realize that people have different body shapes and consequently different healthy weights. Even the National Institutes of Health recommends a three pronged approach to determine one’s risk of obesity-related disease, and will flat out tell you that the BMI should not be used as a single factor for judging a person’s weight-health.

The information is bad and misleading. Not only does it scare parents into thinking that their pudgy child has a problem, but frantic parents can start their child on the road to having a nice, comfortable eating disorder. Start your child early on the ping-pong dieting. Perhaps middle school really is too late for a child to develop self-esteem issues, and we should start them in elementary school.

But after all the talk about the epidemic of obesity and how to tell if your kid is another Tubby McFatty, the Nutrition Nugget throws this in:

“Good news: Flavored milk gives your youngster the same nutrients and health benefits as white milk does. And many children are more apt to drink milk when it tastes like strawberry or chocolate. Whichever flavor your child likes, use milk that’s 1 percent or, better yet, fat-free.”

Ok, maybe the milk does provide some B vitamins and protein, but flavored milk gets more than half its calories from sugar. Not only that, but a carton of chocolate milk has as much fat as a Taco Bell taco! One can argue the health benefits of drinking cows milk, however here is a school publication that is telling us our kids are too fat based on an arbitrary scale thought up by a guy who, to cure a headache, probably had leeches applied to his noggin, and then who tells us that we should feed our kids chocolate milk. Strawberry is just as bad, with 232 calories, 74 of which are from fat, and 5 grams of saturated fat. That is very close to feeding your child a tablespoon of butter.

A tablespoon of butter three times a day will definitely have a negative affect on your BMI. Flavor it with chocolate to make it taste better.

No Principals

I got an email from my kid's principal today that just really got to me. I have included it below, but have changed the names:

To: Playmaker
From: Principal
Subject: Table Talk

Dear Playmaker,
Hope all is well as I didn't see you at the PTA meeting yesterday. I just wanted to give you a brief FYI about a matter that came to Mr. GymTeacher's attention today during lunch. [Your son] was talking with his friends about sneaking beer to his bedroom at night to drink etc., the students then reported this conversation to Mr. GymTeacher. Later after lunch I had [your son] fill out a "Think Sheet" and in the spot for what were you doing he indicated "bad table talk" when I asked him what he meant by this he couldn't give me a clear answer. We went on to talk about how it isn't okay to talk about drugs and alcohol at school. We thought you would want to know about his conversation and reinforce the no drug talk. He has a letter with him with the referral and a copy of his "think sheet'.
Thanks,
Principal

First, what kind of children are we raising that they are learning to run and tattle about what the other kids are talking about? All of a sudden I was struck with a horrible feeling that eight years of fear mongering from the government is turning our institutions into places where there is no longer freedom of speech. Not that the institution is suppressing it directly, but pressure from Homeland Security, from Children's Services and other governmental agencies is creating an environment where suppression of speech is becoming part of the culture.

Here, in this example, the hearsay is twice removed and being reported by a nine-year-old child. Yet, Mr. GymTeacher feels obligated to report the conversation. Mind you, he is not reporting any behavior, nor was he party to the conversation. He was only reporting rumor about a conversation.

The truth is that we rarely keep beer in the house, and my third grade son has not had the opportunity to sneak it or be alone with beer as we don't have any on premises. The truth is that other kids were bragging about drinking wine and beer, as kids will do, and my son bragged that once, while camping, he had been given a sip of non-alcoholic beer by his uncle. And he hated it.

But my child was singled out, to be made an example of, and the suppression of speech was complete. The kid who reported it was praised and my son's classmates, who watch him being trotted off to the principal's office, learned to mind what they say. If they don't, someone might turn them in for saying the wrong thing.

I am not unsympathetic to the pressures of the modern elementary school. Our school principals are some of the most over-worked, under-paid, over-stressed people in the country. I am also not saying that we should allow our elementary school children have the unfettered freedom to repeat anything they hear on the mean streets or in movies. However, it is remarkable to me that a thinking, educated woman can be completely satisfied punishing a nine-year-old for bragging about drinking non-alcoholic beer, and consequently making him into an example for other scofflaws who would dare to say what is on their mind. More importantly, it sends the clear message that ratting out your friends for saying what they think is approved behavior. This is the wrong message to be sending. We need to be telling our kids about the scores of youth who died defending freedoms that prevent McCarthyistic whispers from sending speakers to their unjust punishment.

Our educators time does not need the additional burden of monitoring and punishing thought-crime or speech-crime. They need to be teaching children to speak up and to defend the other children's right to do the same.

Finally, it is really irresponsible for any principal to hand out permanent marks on a child's record for the act of speaking based on hearsay. I hope that this is not a symptom of a systemic problem, or else our country is in far worse shape than I could have ever imagined.

OK. Now I am Pissed.

We don't allow toy guns in our house. We don't allow toy knives in our house. No army men. No swords, sword carriers, no clubs or weapons of any kind. We don't allow our children to be exposed to violent movies or books. We don't subscribe to a newspaper or magazine that might bring violent imagery into our home. Violence and aggression is the single biggest problem in our country, my wife and I believe, and we are doing everything we can to make sure that we don't propagate it to our children.

My son has mild Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). The symptoms for which include impulse control, lack of depth perception, and a strong desire to seek sensory stimulation. He is also the largest kid in his class. Seeking sensory input along with impulse control creates a child who is constantly making troublesome or strange decisions. In a public school system setting he is way outside the box. Although I take an active roll in his school and the teacher and principal are aware of his condition, diagnosis and therapy, they continue to mark him as a 'problem child.'

In fact, when he was a kindergartner, he was suspended from school. Who ever heard of a kindergartner being suspended -- as if a kindergartner were of an age capable of understanding a suspension. His offense was that he pointed his finger at another child and went bang. That's it.

My child had no point of reference for what a gun is or certainly for what it does, having never, ever seen one in real life or the movies. I understand that in the post Columbine days, schools are on edge all the time about guns and bombs. But seriously! A kindergartner! The boy was simply modeling play he had seen time and time again on the playground and had no idea what he was doing. Yet he was sent home. From kindergarten. Suspended for a day. Permanent mark. A kindergartner!

The principal has simply ear-marked him as a bad child and to hell with reason. We wrote a letter and had a meeting, but, as Neil said, needle and the damage done.

Last week was the topper. Another child accosted my son and two other children in the bathroom. He grabbed them by the throat and threatened to kill them. Seriously. Now in first grade, the boys who were accosted, mine included, were confused and one child was in tears.

The principal, however, allowed that child to return to school the next day. Without so much as a how-do-you-do. No punishment, no notification to the parents... nothing.

I learned about it from another parent, not from the teacher. So there was no notification sent to me that the kid had threatened the life of my child.

Ironically, I was able to confront the teacher on this issue after visiting with her and my son in the principal's office. My son had been sent there for touching another child's arm while asking him/her to sit next to him.

This doesn't come from a dad who is just pissed about some incident at school. I know how boys are (I am raising two of them) and I know there are things that happen at school as kids mature and grow. It is really a part of the learning process to be in trouble at least once and sent to the principal's office. It is almost a rite of passage. This comes from a dad who is seeing a pattern -- a pattern of punishing inconsistently and without regard to the weight of the infraction. This leads to a wearing down of the child's self-esteem and ultimately creates the problem child they determine he is. A child will rise to adults expectations, even when they are expected to act badly.

.................

To: Principal Wacky
Wacky.edu
My City

Ms. Wacky,

It has come to my attention that at Wacky.edu some kids are not being disciplined for making death threats, in a premeditated way, being out of sight of an adult, while others are being suspended from school for pointing fingers at each other, in play, after the fashion of an imaginary weapon.

It is clear that you are being punitive to some children, while clearly playing favorites to others. This will not stand, and we require that you take immediate action.

It is required that you publish a standard disipline policy and adhear to it religiously. This should include offenses for which you intend to punish and what degree of punishment you plan to execute for those offences. This is critical to our trust as it will assure that you are treating all children fairly.

This policy should also explicitly speak to the developmental diffrences between grade levels, learning disabilities and other special needs for the children we willingly place under your stewardship. This is critical as it will demonstrate that you understand the special needs of your student poplulation and that you are prepared to meet those need even where discipline is concerend.

Finally, this policy should state the procedures you have in place to notify parents when another child threatens or causes harm to their child and what conditions make this notification manditory. This is critical that we can trust that our children are safe and that you are in control of their continued safety.

This is necessary for our continued parental support of you, as principal. Failure to publish such a policy, in a timely way, will result in our seeking your replacement. Failure to follow your policy will result in our seeking your replacement.

And furthermore, any future incidents which may have even the appearance of you being punitive or unfair will be met with us seeking your replacement.

The Strange Things We Say.

Sitting around the dinner table with my adorable family, I ran head-on into a very intrusive thought.

Having been a theatre major in college, it was my privilege to say boldly, in front of a crowd of complete strangers the following line:

"...reamed up the rectum with a radish."

I'll take that little jewel to my grave. If you want to know more about the context, read The Birds by Aristophane. I think its funnier out of context.

Fred 'The Crook' Meyer

We all know that ever since Kroger took over Fred Meyer the place went to the dogs. They are now using their muscle to keep their prices high. We stopped shopping at Fred Meyer and save almost $300 per month -- not kidding. We cut our grocery bill in half buy shopping at Winco and Trader Joes.

Here's an example: Westsoy 64 oz. Lite Plain soy milk. Trader Joes: $2.19. Fred Meyer: $3.85!

They can get away with this because they are bullies. Don't shop at Fred Meyer.

Catalyst for Change

     David Brown was the biggest kid in school. He was in fourth grade and I was in third. The year was 1968 and the whole world was at war, or so it seemed. It was the year of the Tet Offensive, the Chicago Democratic Convention, and the year that Nixon was nominated. Abby Hoffman wrote his book that year, and some out-of-control American Marines killed over 500 in My Lai. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968, Andy Warhol was shot and Arlo Guthrie rolled out Alice's Restaurant for the first time. The tightly wrapped world of my parents had begun to unravel years before, but by 1968 it was in a full-blown tailspin.
     Bring into this David Brown. He was as tall as a teacher and as mean as a principal. He had a little paunch and it seemed like he always wore a gold-colored peasant shirt. He was the king of the school – every school has one of these. The guy who was always in trouble but always had the admiration of the other kids; the elementary school version of a rebel without a cause. David was always pushing the rules, and the teachers in this uncertain and insane world were lost in their efforts to reach him. He became a bully, and because of his size nobody except the Principal, "Craterface" Barnes, could back him down.
     Me, on the other hand, being sheltered within a tight church community, was Craterface's dream. Crew-cutted and chubby, kids like me were the establishment's last best hope. As the country shattered around the knees of the adults at Northwood Elementary, they needed only to look into my plump, red cheeks to find a little solace that the world would be okay if I was the future of it. For me, I was in third grade and my biggest issue was why there was hair beginning to grow 'down there.' But for the adults around me, a respectful, well-groomed, polite kid was a relief and they gravitated toward me like victims to a life raft.
     David Brown, on the other hand, had long hair and often wore sunglasses. He was the anti-me, and in the Elementary School universe, it was only a matter of time before we clashed. He was the symbol of what was wrong with the new world and I was the last remnant of the old, Rat Pack world. So we were meant to be together, like yin and yang.
     The beginning of the end started when I was promoted to Hall Monitor. It was a position that I took very seriously. Regardless of how cold it was outside, students were not allowed in the school until 8:10am. Since Northwood Elementary was in Anchorage, Alaska it got cold in the mornings outside the school. In the peak of winter, it could get down to 20 below zero, and at those times, kids huddled around the entrances like penguins on the sea ice. We Hall Monitors, however, got to stand inside the doors, warm and cozy, and keep the kids out. It was a tough job. Children would pound on the glass doors, shouting curses. Some would blindly scratch at the panes like lab mice and others would just huddle in the corners of the entrance pleading for death to take them quickly. As I look back on it, I think that it was a Union thing. I can't be certain but I believe that the teacher's union contract prevented them from interacting with children, frost-bitten or not, more than 20 minutes before school started.
     One Thursday morning, well before the sun was up, the temperature dropped. I am not sure how cold it was, but it was one of those rare and beautiful winter days in the north when morning fog turns into airborne ice. It covers everything with frigid flocking, sometimes several inches thick. Trees look like rock candy and the light from street lamps reflect off the airborne ice crystals straight into the air like a thousand Hollywood premiers all at once. Sound doesn't carry well in the icy fog, and the world is deafly quiet. It is haunting and beautiful, but cold. The air is still and cuts into your flesh, starting with whatever is exposed. Cheeks and fingertips first, then toes, thighs and ears. After a few minutes your mouth doesn't move correctly and you find it hard to talk, and if you have accidentally left your fly unzipped, forget about it because your fingers will be too cold to "X-Y-Z."
     On this Thursday, David Brown arrived first at school, even before the Hall Monitors like me. I met Trey Taylor at the south door and we pushed by the towering David and pounded on the door. Craterface came to the entrance with his clipboard, saw that it was Trey and I, checked his list, and opened the door without saying a word. We turned up our noses and waltzed right in, fully satisfied that our authority was deserving of special treatment. David glared through the glass doors as he watched ol' Craterface disappear into his office. I took off my coat and hung it on special hooks reserved just for the Hall Monitors and checked the duty roster. My position was at the north door, but Trey gulped hard when he realized that he had to face David Brown, alone, at the south door. I reminded him that he should do his duty; he was hired for a job and, by God, and the rest of the school was depending on him to perform his duty with honor. He understood. I also reminded him that a hallway connected the two entranceways and I could keep an eye on him from my post.
     No sooner did I get to my post and I heard a commotion down at the south door. David had trapped Trey behind one of the doors and was slamming him between the glass and the wall.
     "Breech," I screamed. "We have a breech at the south entrance." My mind raced as I tried to determine what to do. I couldn't leave my post, even for a moment, or the same could happen to me. At the same time, there was a small stream of children trickling past David and his victim, stomping their feet and sighing with relief at the rapture of warmth. What could I do? It was only 7:59 and nobody was supposed to be in the building for another 11 minutes. David was too big for me to take on by myself and, by all appearances, Trey was either dead or unconscious already. Then it occurred to me that I was closer to the Craterface's office than Trey. I would have to get help and risk leaving my post to do it. I leapt into action and ran to the office door.
     "Mr. Barnes," I screamed, "Mr. Barnes!" Craterface appeared and told him what was going on right under his pockmarked nose.
     "Go back to your post," was his command, and he tore out of his office like Bruce Wayne from the Bat Cave.
     I was too busy keeping the growing frozen swarm from coming in my door to see what happened next. But a few minutes later, Mr. Barnes marched past me toward his office dragging David Brown by the ear. David was very unhappy and scowled at me as I watched him get hauled away to his certain execution.
     By the afternoon recess, the weather had warmed to just below freezing. Trey and I were playing on the swings. He had only spent 20 minutes in the nurse's office and was going to be fine, he said, after a few days rest. Suddenly, from behind, I heard David's voice. Trey wet his pants.
     "You the one that turned me in," he said gruffly.
     "I don't know what you mean," I said, trying to act innocent.
     "You're dead," he said matter-of-factly.
     "What did I do?" I asked, trying to save my own neck.
     "You know what you did. After school. I am going to kill you after school," he said, and disappeared into the mass if recessing kids.
     I walked straight home after school and missed David completely. Day after day, week after week, I kept expecting to meet my maker at the hands of the adult-sized Brown, but nothing happened. Soon winter gave way to spring, and the matter of the South Door Breach was a thing of the distant past, remembered only by the Hall Monitor log. Then, as you can probably guess, I got the call.
     It was a warm spring afternoon. Most of the kids had gone home, but my friend, Keith, and I stayed after, playing on the swings and dreaming of starting our own circus. I flew back and forth on the giant iron swing set, pretending I was launching into space or that I was flying a jet over the jungles of Viet Nam. Keith was my wingman, and we kept up the radio chatter until we saw David Brown standing right in front of us.
     "Stop swingin'," he said, punching one palm with the other sledge-sized fist.
     "Why?" I said. "There's another swing right over there."
     "'Cuz I'm gonna kick your ass, that's why."
     I wasn't the type to want to get my ass kicked by someone as tall as my father. So I just kept swinging, and so did Keith. In fact, Keith even started up with the radio talk again, wishing that this would all just go away.
     "Stop swinging," he said even more viciously. "You're doomed, and you just better make your peace with it."
     "David," I pleaded, "I don't want to fight you. I was just doing what I was told to do." Then I started pumping harder to get some altitude. After all, that's what the pilots in the movies always did. David, however, did not want to hear any of it, and he reached in and grabbed one of the swing chains. My momentum was too great and I broke free of his grip easily. Then on the way past him again, I stuck out one of my booted feet and landed a grand sole right onto his big ugly belt buckle. He lurched back with a giant "oooff." I got him, I thought, and tried to right my aircraft for another attack. I swung back and pumped hard but he was quicker. He stood up, held out one great paw and I swung right into it with my face.
     I was stunned. I had never been hit in the face before. Sure, I had been paddled with my dad's belt, and been beaten by my big brothers, but this was a full-knuckled punch directly into the bone and flesh above my right eye. The hit broke my glasses, sending the lens flying and driving one sharp end of the broken frame into the flesh beneath my eyebrow. It didn't even really hurt at first. I was sort of shocked, unaware of what just happened. I stopped swinging instantly and looked up at David with a completely pitiful expression of surprise and pain.
     My poor glasses were wrecked. The force of the punch had driven one of the plastic shards under my skin, which is all that was keeping them on my face. The blood was tremendous as well. Gobs and gobs of it poured down my cheek, dripping off the shattered frames and puddling up on the ground. It must have been completely gruesome. David looked at me with complete shock as I sat in the saddle letting the blood pour out. Suddenly he ran. He didn't wait around for the killing shot, or to pound me further into the ground, he just ran, as fast as he could, out of sight.
     Keith and I did our best to find the missing lens, but there was no telling where it had gone. We gave up, and he walked me home. It was late in the afternoon by the time I go to my house. My mother had been cooking most of the day, but she had finally found the time to sit down with her Avon Lady. The two women, and a couple of others were chattering in the living room, sniffing each other's wrists and talking about strange lipstick colors like "Pompeii" and "Avanti." I walked into the house, being barely noticed, and yelled hello to my mom as I walked to the bathroom to get cleaned up.
     The mirror was not very friendly to my injuries. There was a very deep wound caused by my broken frames and my eye was already turning black. I used a washcloth and cleaned all the blood off my face and neck. It took quite a while, but the bleeding eventually stopped and the puncture wound began turning a nice shade of coagulated black. My clothes, however, were a disaster and I threw them off and into the hamper that stood in the hallway between the bathroom and my room. Then I got dressed and played in my room.
     I few minutes later I heard the doorbell ring. I was going to get up and answer it but I knew that my mom would beat me there. I got up slowly and as I walked out I heard David Brown's voice. The towering Visigoth came back to finish the job! I hid in the hallway and listened carefully.
     "Hello, Ma'am," he said.
     "Hello," my mother said.
     "I'm David Brown," he said.
     "Yes …" she replied, expecting more.
     "I'm the one who hit your son," he said.
     My mother completely lost it. Here was a longhaired kid who looked like he could be driving, and she thought that he had hit me with his car. She screamed my name and all the ladies in the living room came rushing to her aid as she nearly passed out. I stepped out from my hiding spot.
     "He's right there, Margaret," one of the ladies said. "He's fine."
     She ran up to me and grabbed me by the cheeks. "Are you OK, son," she said and then she patted me all over.
     "Fine mom," I said. Then she saw the wound and my black eye.
     "What happened?" she screamed, and then she turned and looked at David.
     "I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said boldly. "We got into a fight, Ma'am."
     "Are you alright?" she asked David.
     "Oh, yes Ma'am," he said meekly.
     "Did you start it, son?" she asked me.
     "No, Ma'am," David said immediately. "I started it, Ma'am. I didn't mean to hurt him."
     Suddenly, my mom realized that she wasn't dealing with an adult, and despite his size, the boy in the doorway was my age. "Come on in," she said. "Let's talk about it."

     He felt pretty bad about the whole thing, and even gave my mom a $20 to help pay to replace my glasses. We actually became friends, and I changed the way I walked to school so that he, Keith and I could walk together. Then one day we went by his house and it was empty. His family was gone and I don't know what happened to him after that. I do know that he never got into trouble at my school after that, and without meaning to, or even wanting to, I may have been the catalyst for change for David Brown.

The Lies we Tell Ourselves

It should be no secret to the reader that my relationship with my father is somewhat strained. It should also be no surprise that I am an aspiring, as yet unpublished, writer. It may surprise the reader, however, to learn that my father is a book publisher.

So why has my father never published one of my books, you may ask. Well, there are several reasons, not the least of which is that I have never asked him. He owns one of those vanity press publishing companies and would charge me to publish; he has told me as much. But there is more to this picture, as is often the case with father/son relationships.

Nearly a decade ago, my father had an AM radio show in the evening in a very small market. An avid sportsman, his show revolved around hunting, fishing, and other manly pursuits. At the end of every show, he would close by telling some story about spending time in the great outdoors with friends or family. These were often folksy yarns of the "one that got away" variety. Give a fishing pole to a kid, put him or her in front of a body of water and chances are that the result can easily be a folksy yarn. After he was fired from his show, he compiled those stories in a book, and since he was in the publishing business, he published it. And now, at least according to him, he is a published author.

As was his habit in the early days of his vanity publishing business, he would send books out to the family for Christmas and birthdays. I don't think he ever wrote down which books he sent to which sibling. One year, between the holidays, my birthday, the birthday of my children and so on, we received five copies of the same book. Of course, in one of those shipments was a copy of the book he wrote.

Despite the fact that I want to be a writer, I have never been a good reader. I try, but I find certain types of print difficult to see, and my ability to read had always been rather below grade level. However, I do love a good book, and find Heinlien, Clark, Bradbury and Vonnegut among my favorites. I did read my father's book, and it was a permanent feature in my bathroom for quite a while. I am no book reviewer, but I found my dad's book disjointed, rife with punctuation problems, riddled with hackneyed phrases, and incredibly difficult to slog through. Although some of the stories were heartwarming, in a Reader's Digest way, they were so poorly written that it got in the way. There was even a cute story about me in the book, but whatever affinity I may have had with that chapter got completely lost in swirl of mixed metaphor and trite phrases. So, whenever he has asked me if I have read it, I have always told him no, for fear of telling him what I really think, as I am want to do. In all fairness, my dad never had an education past high school, and it is not surprising that his work – his only published work – was thoroughly representative of his education level.

My dad does call me from time to time, and the other evening when we talked I mentioned that I was looking for a publisher for my sci-fi series. One of the first questions he asked, after asking me whether or not I had downloaded the marketing material from his web site, was whether or not I had read his book, as if reading his book was the carrot on the stick that I needed to chase to receive accommodation from him. This time, I said nothing. His book was obviously very, very important to him, and all this time I should have been telling him that I had read it and lied about how I felt about it. However, I am not built that way, as any regular reader would guess. But there it was, the one thing that would finally put me back into favor with my dad; the one think that could, perhaps, turn this black sheep's wool to a mediocre gray; the one thing that could allow me to fork over some of my own greenbacks and get published. All I would have to do is read his book.

This is the book he talks about when he talks to authors and tells them he is familiar with their plight. This is the book, that the road to its publication is littered with life lessons and wisdom. This is the book that represents the pinnacle of his professional achievement. This one. And according to him I never read it. Bad, bad son.

So, I thought that I would back track a little and see if I could recover from this. I decided to check out his book from the library. They didn't have a copy. In fact, one of the best library systems in these 50 states had no record of my dad being an author. I decided to buy a copy, and I did find one on Amazon. The Amazon page for this book had four reviews and one customer comment, and as I read, I began to feel so dirty. Two guys wrote the four reviews. One reviewer was the friend of my dad who wrote the foreword to the book, and the other was an old fishing buddy and fellow radio show host. But what made me feel particularly awful was the one customer review. It was clearly written by my dad using my grandmother's name.

I felt so sad for my father. In his life, there is a façade of belief that the work he produced was grand or at least good. There is a wall, behind which he holds onto the idea that he is a published author. In front of the wall, however is the reality that he had to buy a copy of the book under the name of his own mother and write a review of it so that someone would say something about it. It was so completely pitiful. And what was even more pitiful was that he so believed the truth about his book that he was willing to withhold love from his son over it. It is so very sad.

I am Smarter Than You

I get nasty comments all the time. Most go like this: "You are such a fucking hypocrite. How can you name your blog 'Think Good Thoughts' and then talk so nasty?"

The people who ask this have no sense of irony. I gave the blog this name because people often say exactly the opposite of what they mean in order to avoid confrontation or for the purposes of civility. I am not one to curse civility, but I think it odd that people will gossip and say nasty stuff about someone in private, but if it appears in print, on a blog for example, then it has crossed some sort of weird social line. So I started this blog to do exactly the opposite – that is to say everything and exactly what I mean. And I named it Think Good Thoughts because it is cathartic for me to rant about the crap I run into on a daily basis, and to me it is the one place I can come to exorcise those demons. These are my personal thoughts. It is my blog, and I am letting you see into the rant and tirade that is going on in my head. I am not trying to convince you of anything, I am just writing in an unusual online diary, as it were. So, the name of the blog is ironic (also see sarcastic).

There are really very few 'Nice' thoughts here. And most of it is sheer angry rant. Please, rant with me! And please keep your comments coming. Swearing is good too.

You may ask what makes me qualified to stand in judgment and write with such anger? I am qualified because I am smarter than you. I am superior in every way. The relationship I have with my wife and kids is better than the relationship you have with your wife and kids. If you don't have a wife, or kids, then my relationship is better than the relationship that you will have in the future. I am a better writer than you too. And better at operating the computer. I am also more insightful than you. After all, I get the joke that this blog has an ironic title and you don't. I am more spiritual than you too, and God loves me more than He loves you. I really don't want to sit in judgment over you, but being so superior to you, I have no choice in the matter. I work harder and more ethically than you do. And my kids are smarter than your kids. I am certain that I am making better choices about my life than you do, and there is no question that I am an over-all happier person than you. In fact, the things I say are even more truthful than the things that you say because I am a more honest person than you. I am not egotistical, however, because I don't mind instructing you or sharing my vastly more expansive knowledge with you. I do have time to spend with you and to teach you to be more like me. I am only doing what is right for you, because without the knowledge that I have, your life cannot possibly be as happy as mine. If you only did what I do, then you would be better off. For instance, if you shopped as good as I do, you would save money. If you took care of your finances as well as I do, you would become as rich as I am. I am not demeaning you, deliberately. It is just that I cannot help being smarter than you, and better at everything. So there is quite a bit that you can learn from me if you just listen.

I haven't always been better than you, however. It was actually very hard to get to this superior point in my life. You see, my life has been littered with failure after failure. I was taken advantage of by a person who was smarter than me, but thank God I learned from that and now I am smarter than him. My business failed because I was stupid. I lost a wife, too. I have had miserable failure after miserable failure and have struggled with self-doubt more than once. In fact, I was an emotional wreck for several years after my own father kicked me out of the house, and just when I was getting over that, I caught my ex-wife fooling around with my best friend. I have a degree in theatre, which is of no use whatsoever, and I failed at being both an actor and director. I started several bands, all of which failed. I lost my hair and my body looks like a pear into which someone stuck two toothpicks for legs. After several years of working hard and getting back on my feet, the business that I started failed. Then I injured my back and have spent more than five years working to get my strength back. And this is why I am so much better than you are. I just know more stuff and have so much more experience than you.

This is why I am allowed to say the mean things that I do. I am entitled to do so, simply by the power of my vast superiority. It has nothing at all to do with feeling like a complete failure most of the time and searching for a way to put together the shreds of my hopeless existence. No, that is the situation that you find yourself in, and so that is why I am so qualified to tell you how to think, work, act and be. I am simply better than you. See. Don't you see? Really. Trust me, I know. I do know. I am good at this. Really. Please, please, please like me.

Is it Spishak?

I received a link to an Amazon.com page the other day. The person who sent it said that the product mentioned on the page had to be a joke, perhaps akin to the Spishak EasyBake Oven as seen on Mad TV.

It was, however, not a joke. It is, in fact a real product described by its inventor as a toy that will "lessen some of the fear children often suffer in our security conscience society." It is, of course, the "Scan It Operation Checkpoint Airport Security Scanner," you know, for kids. Not kidding.

Apparently, when housewife, inventor and lawsuit aficionado, Kathy Arena, was dragging her young daughter in and out of a Los Gatos, California court house during her messy divorce, the kid was mystified and boggled by the anti-terrorist security measures and x-ray scanners. Feeling unable to describe how crippling fear is whittling away personal freedoms and rights to privacy to her daughter, Ms. Arena invented a toy scanner, complete with metal detector. Posed as a learning toy, now your child can face their fear of overpowering government and learn to love the abuses. After all, "Homeland Security" is the new "Doctor" in the world of child's play.

I think what this shows is our amazing ability to integrate government abuse into our lifestyle. Just as Nazi Germany was able to nationalize hatred within a few short years, it has taken only about six for us to mainstream our fear to the point that we are integrating reckless fear-mongering into our children's toys. Now, even the national symbol for privacy abuses, the x-ray scanner, has been turned into a toy and rationalized as a "tool for teaching and familiarizing children with today's security processes."

I have a few suggestions for Ms. Arena's next toys. How about the Operation Sister Spy Wire Tap Electronics Kit, as a tool for teaching the fundamentals of electronics and the realities of warrentless wire taps. How about the Ohio & Florida Voting Machine Math Learning Tool, a calculator used as a tool to learn math by correcting false addition results. She could package it with the Rigid Voter Identity Test Kit, a learning tool to teach the proper identification that all rich white voters must carry. Finally, how about Operation Profile, a matching game using pictures of ethnic people designed as a learning tool to help children identify peoples from around the world.

A Little About Paul and Linda McCartney

I admire Paul McCartney. At least at one point in my life I did. On many occasions, I found my beliefs and life goals in parallel with his. And during the time before his wife, Linda, died, I found myself checking in with Paul to see how I was doing.

When I considered my vegetarianism, it was nice to know that Paul and Linda were also vegetarians. It took away any self-doubt that I may have had about that life-style choice. Linda and Paul also had a great relationship, or so I am told, and their love for each other is well known.

When Linda died, I was very sad. Usually when a celebrity dies I am socially sad. I mean that I might say, "how sad," to my friends, but down in my gut I have very little sadness because his or her death doesn't really have an impact on my life. And when a celebrity dies, it doesn't affect me because they are not my close friends. But when Linda McCartney died I had a deep and noticeable sadness that only a few other celebrity deaths have caused. John Lennon, Ruth Gordon, Linda McCartney and Jerry Garcia, these deaths got to me.

I didn't know Linda, of course, and she died without ever knowing about me either. But I did enjoy her recipes and even her cameo on The Simpsons. More importantly, I appreciated the love that she and Paul shared, at least publicly. And I had thought that I would like to have that kind of relationship too, one day. And as it turns out, I did.

My wife is a heroic woman. She's a graduate of law school and she passed the bar exam the first time through. She is the mother of twins, which, by itself is quite an accomplishment. She is also a cat lover, but she gave up ever having a cat because I am allergic. She works full time. She does laundry. She cleans floors. She really is, although I constantly argue to the contrary, the only one in the house who cleans the toilets.

Once, she was a stay-at-home-mom. But when my sudden illness prevented me from working she became the breadwinner. Within days of my becoming bed-ridden, she was gainfully employed and saved our family from complete economic collapse. Now that I am back on my feet, at least somewhat, she still works and I watch the kids. But she is forever the housewife, and never, ever complains about having to work and do housework. She is the first to get out of bed to see to a sick child, and is the one who reads to them at night. My wife is a compelling woman, with strength of character and depth of soul.

What drives a woman so? What makes her continue on, day after day, seeing to the needs of her children and disabled husband? Why doesn't she just leave and tell the rest of us to get screwed? Well, she isn't built that way, to begin with. Her commitment to this marriage and to our family is solid steel. But also she says, in our intimate moments that she loves me. Me! I am still trying to wrap my mind around that one. And I must also confess that I love her too. And why shouldn't I? She's fantastic.

I don't want to give the impression that our lives are perfect. Do we argue? Oh, yes. Do we frustrate each other? Quite often. But I think that what has made our relationship last and be so fantastic is the fact that early on we decided that we would communicate through all the rough patches. And that we would never, ever say anything bad about the other partner to anyone outside or inside the family. And finally, we decided that we would never, ever, ever, break up – our marriage would last our life time. So we had to convince ourselves that every trouble and every single issue had a solution. We promised to work through everything, no matter how hard, to make sure that our marriage stayed intact. We are going on a dozen years together – not a terribly long time for a marriage but we have managed to come through very hard times together.

And really, who knows how Paul and Linda's marriage really was in their private moments. Only he knows now, and he isn't really telling the truth. So to be honest, I really don't want their marriage, I guess I am pretty happy with mine. No, I am very happy with mine. And what I don't get, is how that man ended up marrying that one-legged model? Seriously!

Eat A Tomato

"Eat an organic pear." That's what she said over and over again. Sometimes she said it with an expletive in the middle. And then she would take a slurpy, sucking bite, and say it again. I watched her for several minutes, my mouth agape. Her message was lost in the sheer craziness of they way it was presented. And I watched like it was a slow motion train wreck, the sound of screeching brakes and crumpling metal replaced by pear juice slurping and four letter words.

Later, I walked into the garden, gingerly pulled a ripe tomato off one of my plants, and went back into the kitchen. I laid it gently onto the cutting board, after washing it carefully under cool water. I stood back and drew the large chef's knife out of the drawer. I vigilantly slid the fat blade along my sharpening steel and noticed, with every draw, the slightest imperfections in the cutting edge. Even the slightest change in tone garnered my special attention and I was sure, before breaking the flesh of the tomato that my knife would slice it flawlessly. I felt like a diamond cutter preparing to practice his craft.

I rinsed my knife in the sink to make sure that not even the smallest bit of metal from the sharpening process could contaminate my most perfect crop. I raised the knife and before I cut, I was struck with a memory of when I planted this beauty.

Two years ago is when I planted this one, or rather planted her mother and father. I saved the seeds from last year's crop and sewed them again in the spring. I was about to slice into a second generation tomato. My mind wandered to when it was in a four inch pot under the cold frame. I waltzed back to when I transplanted it and when I pruned it and when I watered it. The tomato was perfect.

Its skin was delicate and waxy. A crimson color that occurs only on the curve of its back and in the blood that flows through my veins. It wasn't perfectly spherical like the pseudo-tomatoes they sell in the grocery store. The ones whose color comes from dye and edible wax. No, it was shaped more like a large bean, a crown of green at its apex, and luscious, burgeoning sides that seemed pregnant with life. It was a queen of the garden, without a doubt.

The tomato surrendered willingly to my sharp blade and a thin slice fell gently onto the cutting board. It was nearly heart-shaped, and inside were tiny yellow seeds, which, when taken from one of her sisters, will start tomatoes in the spring again – a third generation of pure beauty. I couldn't wait and slowly dropped the first slice into my mouth as if it were a priceless delicacy. Its flavor was the sheer essence of summer, transporting me to a warm evening on the back porch under candlelight. My knife slid through the second slice and a third and fourth. And I marveled at the perfection of this miracle of my own toil. Exquisite in its complexity of color and flavor, robust, and still quite perfectly designed to feed many and to propagate ad infinitum.

I laid each slice on half a bagel as if it were an alter. Then covered each with a thin slice of mozzarella as if I was covering a sleeping child with my mother's quilt. And finally, I ground pepper onto the top and placed my creations under the broiler.

As I sat and ate, slicing and savoring each little bite, letting each little bit of flavor roll like thunder inside my mouth, I said, aloud to nobody, "Eat an organic tomato, Susan. Eat an organic tomato that you grew from a seed. Eat a fucking organic tomato."

Three Saints

Three saints? Hardly. Great men of the ancient past? Biblical heroes? No.

David, Timothy and Michael were friends of mine from my past whose only similarity with biblical figures is their names.

And that they are all dead.

David did, come to think of it, face a Goliath on his own personal battlefield. Just like the one in the Bible. Only my friend David never became king of anything. In fact, he lost his battle. By the end, he was so disinherited by his father that he wasn't even buried in his family's plot in Alaska. He now lays alone at Forest Lawn, or something like that, in Sacramento, California.

David thought of himself as a musician. In fact he was a superb guitar player. Sometimes, when he was really digging into that big riff, you could see his nostrils open and watch him inhale a tremendous breath. It was as if he had to smell the sound too because simply hearing it wasn't enough.

He also had this crazy notion too that, since his heroes had reached spectacular musical heights through the use of drugs, he should take them too. Not just his musical heroes, but the ones he read about too Leary, Castaneda, Kafka, Kerouac, and Kesey. In the beginning of the 1980's everything was within easy reach, both the myth of the drug counter-culture and the means to pursue it. David decided that his calling was to take music into a different and new experience through the use of psychedelics. That was his Goliath. It was the monster that called to him in his sleep. He would wake and fight it with a custom-made Gibson, a cup of bad coffee, and tab of acid. He kept waiting for the doors of perception to open, but all he got was crazy.

David's life was taken, although not immediately, by a hit-and-run driver on a dirt road, somewhere near Sacramento. He was penniless and without a single possession. He didn't have a sleeping bag or even a driver's license when they found him almost 24 hours after the accident. He had been crazy and wandering on a dark road when his Goliath struck the final blow and my David fell.

It took almost two weeks for the officials to find out who he was and to contact his dad. I talked to his dad several years afterward and he told me that when he arrived at the hospital, David was unconscious and had lost both legs and one arm. His dad sat with him for a day or so and one night David finally became very lucid. His dad explained to David where he was, what had happened, and what was left of his 24 year old body. David had a very small but very significant moment with his dad. They talked and even laughed a little. But in the night, David died. Died from wounds sustained in battle. His dad told me that it was very clear that David was just unwilling to live in his broken body and gave up the fight.

Michael was the fighter. He was barely in his 30's but his skin was dry and stretched and his blond hair was very thin and weak. It made him look like he was in his 40's. When he was 25 he had begun waking with nose bleeds almost every night. Then he started suffering long and painful headaches, which everyone had thought were migraines. But it was only after he had started to go blind after months and months of fighting this agony that he went to see a doctor. That's when he was told that there was a tumor the size of a softball in his sinus.

But, just like his namesake he fought the devil cancer. Radiation and chemotherapy was the first wave. The operation they performed was, as Michael put it, just like when priests removed the brain from a deceased pharaoh by carefully spooning it out through the nose. A series of small cameras, knives, cauterizing instruments and grabbers were systematically jammed up his nose. It was a 6 hour surgery that he bravely bore. And on his 30th birthday his doctor called to say that he was triumphant his cancer was officially in remission.

Michael had won. He started his life over. If you are that young and are diagnosed with cancer, it would be difficult to think of the future. You would be trapped in each painful moment and a young man's thoughts of wife and family and home and career would simply take a back seat to how to get through the next treatment. Mike, at 30, had that chance. He married and had a little boy. But he admitted to me that he was a bit hasty and the marriage ended in divorce about a year after the baby was born. During his illness Michael discovered that he could endure the pain and nausea by smoking marijuana, and after his divorce he got into it a little more than was safe. He started selling a little here and there to pay for his own head, and his son went to live with his mother so he wouldn't be around it.

Michael was at home one Saturday and a fellow who wanted to buy a little grass came over. And then he stabbed Michael to death. The murderer left with about $200 in cash and a bag of weed the size of a small sandwich. Michael was mortally wounded, stabbed through his heart, and in 20 other places like his leg, both hands and even his penis. But he managed to crawl to the phone to dial 911. However, he died before he could finish dialing, and they found him with the phone in his hand. Michael fought to his very last breath. First with cancer, then with addiction and finally with death. If it is true that it is the journey that is important and not the destination, then maybe it is the fight and not who wins that is important. Perhaps winning isn't everything, but I tend to think that picking the right battle is just as important. With Michael, he just picked the wrong foe. Drugs are mightier than cancer.

Timothy picked wrong as well. The biblical saint was Paul's constant companion. Their relationship was very strong. Timothy's relationship with my wife's uncle was strong too. In fact, they were lovers.

When Uncle Ronnie died, Timothy -- Timmy to most -- was in the worst kind of shape. Although he had always been a drinker, he poured himself into it like it was a calling from the Almighty Himself after Ronnie's death. Alcoholism was probably what made him a poor judge of character. After all, he did end up living with his own murderer. Timmy was full of the world. Funny, quick to make a joke and to laugh at one, and heads always turned when he walked into a room.

Timmy's is just another story of domestic abuse, and because it was between homosexuals, it went largely unnoticed. Timothy of the Bible was stoned to death for his devotion to Paul but his story seldom taught in most Sunday schools. Timmy wasn't stoned to death. That would have been kind.

Despite many reports of abuse and police visits, Timmy kept expecting the relationship to go the way it had when Ronnie was around. But his new lover kept beating him until one night he was beaten to death. I keep imagining how it must have felt for him to look up into the face of the man that he supposedly loved while that same man beat him over and over again. Finally, Timmy couldn't take any more and he died. But that wasn't enough. His boyfriend packed him into the bath with ice to keep him around and to humiliate him for four days.

It is perhaps strange that in my life, David lost his battle with his Goliath, Michael's wars did not always end in triumph, and my Timothy died because of his devotion. The stories in the Bible are much more interesting, what with flaming swords, boy heroes and everlasting devotion and faith. But my stories are modern, and in our modern world, friends die because of choices they make and because nobody can stop them from making those choices. There is no mysticism in that. There is only pain and grief. That is real world stuff.

Advertising Slogan

While nursing on the glass teat last night it occurred to me how weird are some of the glittering phrases marketeers use... so I thought of one of my own:

[cue music] Film of sporty car going fast along the back roads of Generica. [cue commentator]

"Somewhere between where you were and where you're going is where you are."

Perl District

I just read today, while getting my free coffee from the bank, that the Rotary Club wants to raise money for a giant granite statue of a bear (something like half a million) to put in Jamison Park and is asking for contributions.

Do you think the Rotary would be interested in knowing that there are people hungry in the Pearl and other parts of the city where money might be better spent???

I just about cried.

The Train Don't Stop Here Anymore

Hundreds of tables

Over 1000 trains

Fantasy play area where all kids can be engineers

A riding train for your kids

These were just a few of the promises made in the Great Western and Atlantic Train Show, November 12 & 13 at the Clark County Fair Grounds in Vancouver, Washington.

This was an excellent example of a real life pop-up advertising. It drew you in and continued to suck money like pop-ups suck up your screen real estate. It was the most dishonest bag of trickery since the 2000 election.

My wife and kids are mildly interested in the hobby, and thought it might be a great way to spend a rainy, November afternoon with the kids. After taking the time to download the internet coupon, and knowing that it would be $12 for she and I to get in, we drove 10 miles up the freeway to Exhibition Hall C. Although not mentioned in the news paper or in the on-line ads we were also required to pay an additional $5 to park.

Think about that... $5 to park. I can understand if it were a concert or another major event, where parking was at a premium the Clark Co. Fair Grounds would be in their rights to charge a little to park up near the venue. This, however, was a model train show. How heavy do you think the flow of traffic was coming into or out of the parking lot in front of Exhibition Hall C? My estimate was that there was fewer than 100 cars in that lot -- a parking area designed for thousands.

We didn't want to disappoint our children. They were eager to ride the train and even run one in the "Fantasy Play Area." So we got our tickets and before even seeing a single train, we spent the better part of a $20.

Imagine a room, maybe 200' x 200', more or less, with about 25 vendors and 10 to 12 model train exhibits. There is no way on this planet you could come up with "hundreds of tables," number as was advertised. Not even if you counted the ticket table, the door prize table and the small standing tables at the concessionaire.

The "Fantasy Play Area" turned out to be 16 small carpets, duct taped together with a single... one ... model train that could be run by a child. There were about 8 or 10 small plastic toy, Thomas the Tank Engine trains that ran on batteries, but only a few of them were working. This was nothing like the ad said. One model train. Blow me. I have played in bars with better carpeting than this... cleaner to be sure. And again... one train.... blow me again.

If you counted every single train car in the entire place you might come up with "Thousands of trains," as described. The word "thousands" means more than two thousand. Any less than that would be referred to as hundreds, or even over a thousand. But unless I missed another 40,000 square feet of almost empty showroom, there were not multiple thousands of trains.

Finally... what we had come for was to ride the train. You know the one that was in the ad. It was a badly converted golf cart, drawing a couple of really scary looking carts behind. And a ride on it cost SEVEN DOLLARS! PER PERSON! Give me a break. Seven bones per person my kids could ride that very dangerous looking piece of dung around the parking lot (you know the one that cost me a fiver to park in) at the off-season Clark Co. Fair Grounds, in the rain, in Novemeber. Nice. Needless to say we told the boys that it was a rip-off and for far less than the $14 we could ride the kind diesel trains around the Washington Park Zoo, where we could at least see some other animals getting wet.

It was simply a waste of gas and of time. Two things struck me as we left and they are kind of related. First how sick has our addiction to consumerism become when we willingly pay ($12 buck in my case, not counting $5 for parking) for admission into a shopping area. Shouldn't the vendors who are selling items want to attract as many people as possible, through incentives like free train rides, free admission, free cotton candy, pictures with the clown conductor, etc. Not any more. We think it perfectly normal to have to pay to shop. I wonder if the Gap started charging a buck admission how long they would stay in business. Which brings up my second thought.

It is well-known that the days of the model train hobbyist are numbered. There were very few young people running any of the displays at this show. What started in the 40's and 50's just doesn't have the same appeal to the Playstation kids of today. Doesn't it seem ironic, however, that there were be so many disincentives to get my kids thinking about taing up this hobby. Don't you think that it is counter-intuitive to make the showcase of one's livelihood so unappealing and difficult to access? You would think it completely the opposite. You would think that, considering I had two young boys in tow, I should have left with a bag full of free goodies, a good feeling and a couple of sons begging me for a model train for Christmas.

Instead, Great Western and Atlantic Train Show left me $20 poorer, upset that I was lied to, and left my kids thinking that model trains are a rip-off.

OLD BLUE-HAIRED THIEF IN THE PEARL

So, I got transplanted, through no fault of my own, from a small town back to the city and got put into the only place I could afford to be; a new, low income high rise, Station Place Tower, smack dab in the middle of the Pearl District (the PURL as the trendy bastards like to say). Everyone here is 55 or older, all in various stages of decay.

The most excitement, until last night, was a dance for the elder alliance, a gay and lesbian group who rented the community room and scared the hell out of most of the little old lady tenants who were certain they needed to put chairs against their doors during the activity to avoid being raped.

Now, about last night, Halloween to be exact, when all kinds of strange and scary things go bump in the night. Someone made their way into the community room on the second floor and made off with the DVD player and VCR. Then they got into the computer room to haul off the systems, only to find the computers chained to monitors. So they took the cases off and stole the guts.

By marks left on the chains, it was apparent they first gave it a good go with some sort of sawing device but the chain wouldn't break away. So, for all you PURLIES let me tell you...there is, no doubt, a blue haired senior thief running amok amid your rich mans real estate, lifting electronics, possible hacksaw in hand, able to navigate with DVD,VCR and the innards from computers and a possible walker. They were nimble enough to get the job done quickly (possibly before the bi-polar medication had taken effect or on viagra with no outlet). Tonight the computer room is locked tightly. The televison was rolled out on a cart and locked up in a secret room and the kitchen was padlocked so the blue haired thief could not steal the microwave while we all slept. Right here in the Pearl District! A baby boomer faster than a witch on Halloween night pulled off the caper.

I'm not certain but, as rumors go, my favorite one so far, since the big heist, is that whoever the "old" thief was, they just couldn't come to grips with the high price of shopping in the Pearl and took matters in their own hands.

Struggling With my own Peasantry

The other day I was thinking about a friend of mine. He is alone and single, living with his cats (see this), working a dead-end job and spending far too much on eBay. He has filed for bankruptcy a couple of times, and still spends beyond his means. The worst part of it is that he is a nice guy.

But he is contributing nothing -- nothing to society. He is just a replaceable part in his job, where most everyone with whom he works does not know his name. He is simply invisible. When he dies, of course I'll attend, but I don't think I'll be able to use all my fingers to count the rest of the guests.

He isn't the only one, either. This country is filled with poor cogs who spend each day simply filling the hours until they die. They might have families and friends, but will have little or no impact on society, their work and even their friends when they pass. Into the dark night without notice.

This is the peasant of today. For thousands of years millions have passed through the veil without so much as a ripple. There are even no grave markers or places to visit for many and their names have been lost for all time. It is as if they were never here at all.

I wonder if that will be me. I remember my grandfather and my grandmother, who have passed. Certainly my uncles and aunts, their children, and my siblings still remember them. But my children never had the privilege, and in one more generation, there will be no one left to remember them.

Someday, when my kids have kids, someone will pass by the grave marker and wonder who the guy was who is buried where my grandfather is. The will wonder if he was ever angry in traffic, if he drank, if he had children, how many times he was married, and if he was nice (for the record: no;no;five;once;very).

My friend will also, one day, be in the ground and someone may wander by and wonder the same of him. Myself too. And in that way, we are no different that each other. My grandfather was a great man but to the worms and the rest, he, my friend and I are all just peasants.

John Sabastain's Turds

While listening to tapes this morning, (yes tapes, cassettes, those little strips of celluloid wrapped in plastic that some of us really do still have) I got to thinking about John Sabastian.

It was sixty something in Sausilito and a big house in the hills. I was sitting in the yard watching the night sky, enjoying some herb when Sabastian wandered outside. Now, if you don't play "tapes" you might not know who Sabastian is but that's ok cause he got lost somewhere between trying to pull off Woodstock two and three.

We sat on the porch awhile and talked. "Do ya think some body should check on Slick?" "She's been sitting in the bath tub a damn long time." "Wonder if Leary will show in the park in the morning?" Then John stood under the big trees, bent over and filled the tails of his flannel shirt with something I couldn't see. He came back to sit on the step and I saw he had little round balls, sort of covered with furry stuff. Peeling the furry stuff off, I could see the little skeletons inside. "Owl turds he said." "Owls like mice."

We just sat there looking at the little round balls and the delicate skeletons for a good long time. It was a long time ago but I thought about it today when I was playing my cassette tapes.

Day of the Knife

Was thinking today about Mike. The last time I saw him alive was in the summer of 1985. He was standing, bare-chested, holding his naked son, and almost tearfully smelling his toddler-son's hair.

He couldn't cry, of course, because of the chemotherapy that he took to kill the softball sized tumor in his sinus. He couldn't smell for that matter either. Only a parent can know the smell of their own child, and there is something monstrous and inexplicable about it. Tumor or not, Mike buried his face deep into his son, Russell's, hair.

That was the last time I saw him alive. It wasn't the cancer that took him, however. It was a hunting knife. It went into his aorta and he bled to death while trying to dial 911.

The guy that took Russell's daddy fled, stabbing a police officer on the way and was finally extradited from an Indian reservation about three years later. Still doing time, I think.

Mike only kept around enough for his own head. Less than a pound. Sold, or gave away, little bits. He started smoking it to help him through the chemotherapy, and just kept right on smoking it until the day of the knife.

I just thought about that last moment while Mike was trying to call 911, bleeding badly from 12 wounds. He must have realized at some point that he was too weak to make the call. I wonder, as his life faded, if he wished that he hadn't smoked, or cursed himself for letting that guy in, or if he thought about Russell. They say a calm comes over you right at the moment before you go, and that you are blessed with clarity. I wonder if he felt that way at that last moment. Probably, knowing Mike.

Me? If I were in his same shoes? I'd have gone out being pissed that the damn 911 operator put me on hold.

Overheard on the Street

As I was walking out of the school after dropping my kids off, I heard two elementary girls talking. One said to the other, "well I think that sugar is good for breakfast."

She was right. Sugar is good for breakfast. Who among us has not enjoyed a donut along with a cuppa-joe to kick start the day? Syrup on pancakes. A Danish. Waffle with powdered sugar. It's da' kine.

Really, if we are really honest with ourselves, there are really very few things which are not enhanced with sugar. The honey-roasted hazelnut. The strawberry. Jellies and jams and fruit of any kind. My mother sprinkled the stuff on grapefruit to get us kids to eat it. Tony would be out of a job had not someone figured out how to sugar coat the corn flake.

Add a slight bit of water to a healthy helping of powdered sugar, scoop in the peanut butter and you got yourself peanut butter fudge that is killer! Dip the end of a perfect strawberry in powdered sugar, add a close-up of red lips and you got sheer pornography.

Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar. Fantastic.

What's more it is 100% fat free and 100% vegetarian. Guiltless and good.

Excuse me, I have to go eat something now.

Where Did That Guy Go?

I am listening to a found CD. It contains five songs from a Grateful Dead cover band, a very hot Grateful Dead cover band. Specifically Bird Song and Uncle Johns Band are amazing. These are every bit as good as the Zen Tricksters, Dark Star Orchestra or other Dead cross-over group. These cuts were recorded live at a little speakeasy in Portland about five years ago -- at somebody's going away party.

The Bird Song jam is light and full of interesting dynamics. The approach to the song is perfect, neither beating it over the head nor statically camping on the rhythm. There are two guitar players who trade off between solos or echo each other. But each know exactly when to let the other go and they never bully or trample each other.

The bass player is melodic. He channels some muse that allows him to walk a fine line between train wreck and holding down the rhythm section.

Strange thing is that the bass player is me. It is a recording of me playing bass. I can't play like that anymore. I have tried and tried, searched my soul and prayed to the muse, but I have simply lost that guy who played on Bird Song.

What is it that allows one to let the delicate spirit of music in, and let it flow through oneself and only to have the door close again? Bob Dylan spoke of that guy who wrote so many great songs and is now missing. Although no Dylan or Lesh, I too somehow lost that guy who played so magnificently on Bird Song.

As one who has studied art, I cannot accept the fact that I cannot reach that place again. Isn't it just about applying oneself and practicing ones craft? No. It is the muse. The guy passed to make space for someone else, perhaps daddy, husband, or even blogger. I guess I'll just sit and listen and try to find the inner muse of one of the other people in my head.

Crater Lake a Service Hole.

I have an occasion to volunteer for several charities or non-profit organizations. It is always a pleasure, especially when, from time to time, one receives the unexpected gift of appreciation. Last year, we received a gift certificate to Crater Lake Lodge, and we just returned from visiting there.

Crater Lake is truly one of this nation's treasures, right along with Mt. Rushmore, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. It is a remarkable area of beauty with deep scientific and geological significance. Our hikes and tours took us through a pumas desert, a forest of fossilized fumerols and mile after mile of breath-taking views of the 2000 feet deep blue waters of the Mazama caldera. And the jewel of the park: the Crater Lake Grand Lodge.

The National Park Service, in its infinite wisdom, contracted with Xanterra Corporation to provide staff and services to the lodge. We stayed at the lodge complements of a non-profit for which I volunteer. This grand lodge, complete with a history well into the last century, tries to be a world class hotel, and if you look at their brochure, you will get the impression that, although rustic, the lodge caters to the wealthy traveler and visitor. We paid $180 for our room.

The Xanterra Corporation is the same company whose CEO turns a blind eye while his employee/guides instruct visitors of the Grand Canyon the proper way to beat their mules, according to Peta. This company has successfully productized eco-tourism, but from my examination I only saw organic, fair-trade coffee as a symbol of their earth-friendly ways.

The service at the lodge was the worst I have ever seen. Being unable to carry our bags because of injury, I fully expected the bellhop to offer to relieve my wife from carrying our luggage upon our arrival. He was too busy flirting with another employee. The front desk people never said hello. They were all business and very abrupt. We had made our reservations more than a year in advance and were promised the very room in the brochure. However, our room was on the 2nd floor, was about 12'x 14', right at the top of the stairs. Later we discovered that the room we wanted was the only one of its kind even though the picture of it is in all their literature.

We knew that the lodge's restaurant required reservations months in advance. What they failed to tell us was that they were renovating the only other place to eat in the entire "Rim Village." So there was no reasonable way to obtain food without driving down the mountain. They did put up a hot dog stand for poor visitors, which was a nightmare for us vegetarians. We were spending $180 a night, and had to bring our own cooler just to eat!

In the Grand Room on can sit by the phoney fire and get served drinks, appetizers, salads, and desserts. There were three different times when a waiter looked at me, I signaled for service and was ignored. Every waiter and waitress we encountered were arrogant, rude and unbearably slow. I even witnessed a verbal fight between a waiter and waitress right in front of guests!

The only reservation we could get to the restaurant, made a month before, was late and we walked up to the hostess to ask if there had been a cancellation and if we could move up our reservation. Our question was greeted with absolutely the most rude attitude. Without even the courtesy of looking in her book she peered into my wife's eyes and said, "No. I said no!"

When we finally got seated we discovered that there were only two items on the entire menu that we could eat. Seriously.... snubbed by waiters, buffeted by staff arguments, verbally abused, and the only damn thing we could eat was ravioli. The good news is that we paid onehundredeightyfuckingdollars per night for the privilege.

We couldn't wait to leave. We I went to check out I was prepared to answer the front desk clerk's question "How was your stay." I had loaded both barrels and was going to make sure that someone knew how we felt about our stay. She never asked the question... no "how was your stay" ... no "good morning"... no "thanks for staying with us" ... and no "can I get someone to help you with your bags."

The romantic, anniversary weekend we had planned, the first we had in seven years, was completely spoiled by Xanterra and their ignorant staff. It is clear to me now that instead of showing guests how to beat mules, Xanterra should beat their management until they hire staff who know how to provide service.

When Mom is at the Door

Our new house is actually very old. Built in 1911, it required some amount of renovation prior to its sale. The person from whom we purchased it did a great job, but was stingy in the weirdest places. He installed very expensive, well made, custom wooden cabinets in the kitchen but did not put a finish on them. He also did not hard-wire a door bell. Instead, he installed an inexpensive wireless doorbell. Once in a while the doorbell rings spontaneously, triggered, perhaps, by a passing car or a child's remote control for a toy car.

We disconnected the bell button outside so that when it rings we know it is a phony.

My mother died a few years ago. She was an incredible person with a uncanny capacity for empathy. She was the world's confidant. Our family felt her loss very strongly as did her large group of friends. There was standing room only at her funeral. She was a simple woman with an enormous ability to love.

We have decided that when the doorbell spontaneously rings it is the spirit of my mother saying hello. We always respond with "Hello Margaret."

There is a Dead Cat in My Freezer.

First of all, I am a well known cat hater. Hate me for hating cats. I know it is unreasonable and irrational, but I can't help myself.

Next door, the woman has to work two jobs to support the virtual farm of cats she owns. I think the they number well into double digits. If a person owned that many dogs they would receive citations and probably make the news, even if the dogs were the same size as cats. If a neighbor's dogs were allowed to roam freely at night, pooping or spraying in every planter box on the block, the citizen's watch would have animal control on their speed dial.

But cats are cute. When I mentioned to a friend of mine that I found a cat fully standing on my kitchen counter one hot summer's evening, he just giggled. "Isn't that funny. They are so precocious."
But if a 7 pound poodle snuck into the kitchen through an opened door and was found sniffing around the counter, he would have suggested that I call the dog catcher.

I am not trying to say that dogs are better than cats, even though this is true. I am just saying that cats shouldn't be allowed to destroy property, inundate our air with sneeze powder, and run free just because they are cats. They should be controlled and be held to the same high standard of behavior as dogs.

My garden is not a litter box. However, as a dog owner I am expected to follow behind ol' Spot with a recycled produce bag picking up his droppings. Signs which say "Obey Scoop Law" picture only a dog. While the selfish cat owner can simply open her door and let the malicious satan-spawn free to bury its foul death in any unsuspecting planter, garden or flower bed.

The argument for this practice -- one cat lover explained. "If your neighbor has so many cats, it would be impossible to keep the litter box clean." Yeah, since she has so many, it makes sense that I should expend my energy, or at least dedicate some small portion of my real estate to their preservation! Imagine a world where people only took on as many pets as they could manage and which did not impact their neighbors.

Our obsession with a psuedo-agrarian lifestyle, with gardens and lawns, etc., should not extend to livestock, for chrissake. If a person wants a cat, for whatever reason, fine... but they should be required to treat it with the same standard of care and courtesy as is required for me as a dog owner.

Now to the cat in my freezer. A very dear friend lost her cat of 18 years to old age. She cannot afford to put Fluffy in a pet cemetary, but wants to have a place where she can come from time to time to visit her companion. So we told her that Fluffy's long sleep could be in our yard. Fluffy's in the basement freezer awaiting the service. When burried, I am secretly hoping that the other cats in my neighborhood get the word that I am more than happy to freeze and bury them right along with Fluffy.

Our Language

As we sat talking, my wife and I started to linger over the children and marvel at their growth. It is like time progresses at a speed relative to the length of time one has lived. When one is young, time passes at a rate more slowly because the amount of living one has done is smaller, and is therefore less compressed. But as one ages, and rushes to the certain end, time becomes more compressed and passes more and more quickly. It is as if life is a bottle of finite size, and you are traveling from top to bottom on your way to pushing up daisies. As you gain experiences they all get packed into your life/time bottle, compressing ever more dense as you live. You are still traveling at the same rate, but life seems to go by faster as the bottle fills up.

The time that my children have been alive is longer than the period of time that I was in high school. When I was in school, it seemed like I would never graduate.... ever. However, now it seems that my children have only been with us a few days and I cannot believe how fast the time has past.

We sat marveling about the relativity of time, not in an E=MC2 way, but in disbelief that we can actually see one of our son grow from day to day. Then it occurred to me that I have never known such love for another human being -- that I couldn't have imagined, when I was a teenager or college student, how love can be.

In our language, we have only one word for love. Despite how scientific our language is, we don't have separate words for the love for a lover, the love of onion soup, the love of a child, or the love for God. When we use the word love, we can only ascertain the word's true meaning from the context in which it is being used. We marveled together how short sighted our language is... when natives have 20 or so names for snow, and we only have one word for love.

There is the love that my wife and I share. It is mixed up with the brain as well. We need each other for our survival and we have to love each other through the arguments and daily strife. Our love is romantic and cerebral at the same time.

The love I have for my kids is completely different. It has elements of protection, a desire to teach, to provide roads to success, of wonder at their ability to play, and something deeper and inexplicable. Not the same thing at all as love for my wife or for grilled polenta.

So it is only in context that we can understand what someone means when they say the word love. Although at first blush this seems like a notable short-fall of our language. However, as I look at it more, it seems quite poetic that love can only be experienced in a context, so it is apropos that it can only be described in context as well.

It isn't Fair

This person has finally taken over my work crew. My work crew is just a bunch of volunteers working to help on a local event. This person is also a volunteer, but has always wanted to be in charge of the crew... ah, the politics of a large volunteer organization.

I finally discovered how he worked it so that he got to be in charge. First, he separated the crew into two groups... those who were likely to oppose him and those who where likely to be on his side. Those who he figured were on his side, he gave special favors... like jobs, kegger parties, and stuff like that. Then, through constant interaction and badgering, he turned his groupies against his enemies.

This made a very difficult situation for the people on this outside of his group, and extremely difficult for any new people who wanted to join the group because of all the in-fighting. Eventually, those with a weak stomach left the group, making available large numbers of available positions.

This gave him more and more power because he could give perks to people to encourage them to volunteer and to make them his friends with these perks and gifts. Once these kind new people out-numbered his band of henchmen, and most of those in opposing group were gone, he engineered a series of events to turn his own loyal group against the organization, forcing them to leave.

This left him with only a few opposing and many more new, fresh faces who didn't have knowledge of his history or who were soft to him because of his generosity.

One critical vote by the crew and that was it, his power struggle was complete. His opposition was made impotent, and now he got complete power over the group. He has forced most members to believe that he is working in their best interest and taken away all of their power to direct the group. Effectively bringing about the end of democracy in the crew. He is now the king.

Here is one clever example of how he manipulated things to achieve his kingdom....I was totally manipulated by him.... shame on me.

On the morning of the second day he confronted me about not being at the pre-work crew meeting the day before. He deliberately lead me out to an area where other crew people could hear. He knew I had been at the meeting...we had greeted each other just prior. He confronted me on working alone on a special project assigned to me by another team leader.

So there was no real issue, but he knew, rightly so, that it would upset me to be accused, in a veiled way, of not doing my job and for not adhering to the rules. I got upset and told him that I was at the meeting and that I was working on a project specifically assigned to me by another crew leader. He did so with an atypically calm kind voice so it would look like I was the Wako and he was the calm, considerate leader.

So, in effect he manipulated me into blowing my top over a non-issue, in front of the other crew, so that I would loose credibility with the group and he would look like a calm, considered leader. It's just not fair.

Lids

OK.. There are containers in my cupboard and lids. What the hell am I supposed to do with the lids. If I store them with the containers then the containers won't fit together and the lids get separated and lost in the back.

I think that there is some sort indoctrination that women, at a young age attend. Among the brainwashing that they are forced to endure is that lids must go in the cupboard with the containers.

Or "soap is a universal acid". When soaking dishes, one must put soap in there too because there is a chemical reaction caused but the stagnant soapy water that loosens baked on beans better that water alone.

Or dishwashers are ok, but they will remove the coating from non-stick pans. And since you must wash everything before it is put in the dishwasher, it is just simpler to wash the pans which have a non-stick coating.... or soak them overnight with the universal acid... soap.

Here is what I know, just to clear the air. If you have a dishwasher and you are buying cookware that is not safe to wash in it... shame. Soap does nothing to assist in the re-hydration of baked on food except to waste soap. Lids can be stored in a drawer by themselves... really.

Love ya' Kidden.

Getting Dressed...DOWN!

So..... I'm in the park watching my kids and playing a little git-fiddle with a friend of mine. I think we were just about to re-explore the meaning of Hunter's Dark Star when I looked over to see this kid from my kid's class totally loosing it.

When I say loosing it I mean he was out of his mind with rage and screaming his head off. Some mom was there putting her hand on his back but he would not be consoled.

I looked over at my friend and said, "Little Timmy has lost it again." He tells me that Timmy is always loosing it... we laugh.

About that time his alleged dad walks up and carries his frail baby out of the park and out of the hands of the other vicious six year olds who are torturing him. I look at the mom who was comforting him, she looks at my friend, my friend looks at me and we all give each other that knowing half chuckle/smile.

Not but a minute later the kid's mad-wolf mom comes clambering into the park with screaming Timmy and the alleged dad in tow.

"I was wondering," she starts off with that passive-aggressive tone that has become the trademark lilt of the Pacific Northwest Hippie. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute?"

"Uh yeah...," I said still holding my guitar in my hand. I waited for a minute watching her tremble. She tells my friend to take a hike.

"I was wondering if I could talk to David (my son...not really his name)?"

"Uh yeah...," I said still holding my guitar in my hand. "He's over there."

It was at that moment that she peels back the flesh of her head revealing a monstrous beak, sweating eyes, and a vomitous tongue gleefully producing words like shit, damn, and fucking. I believe she even said, "you are fucked up you fucking fucker." On and on she spoke about how my son was a miscreant and unworthy of the air which he breathed, and I was his example, willingly showing him the way to Kipkinklehood. I believe she thought it impossible that it was legal for me to breed in the first place. And, don't forget the delightful comments about my deceased mother.

I swear... I had no idea what the hell she was talking about and was was quite frightened she was going to exercise violence upon my person.

Frankly, it was quite a pleasure being taught so many valuable lessons about parenting by this single, pot-smoking, hairy-armed, cave-dwelling hippie and her tag-along, pussy-whipped henchman. The 12 weeks of parenting classes (given by professionals) that I was just about to finish suddenly seemed so trivial compared to the erudite and skillful guidelines given to me by the beak woman. You know like "I'll fuck you the fuck up you fucking fucker."

Later, I found out that little Timmy was mad because he didn't get an ice cream and lied to all about how my son pushed him.

I am sure she felt like even more of an ass than she looked when she found out that piece of trivia.