The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

TIME CAPSULES IN THE CLOSET

I was going through a cabinet drawer the other day where I kept VHS movies.  Big black plastic spools of brittling old tapes.  Course I don’t have a machine to play them on anymore.  Kind of like having an 8-track to go with my CD player.  Although my CD player still has a hole for cassette tapes and I remembered I have another drawerful of those.

Anyone remember floppy disks?  All those computer storage stragtegies now as obsolete as print film?  I got a drawer of those too … plus the zip disks, plus the drivers.  Be worth a cool million on E-Bay someday or else I’ll be hauling them, along with my Beta Video Player and my 35 mm Nikon, to Antiques Road Show next time they roll in to the Stanwoodopolis Convention Center.  If you don’t think the world is racing right along lickety split, dig through a couple of boxes in the back of the basement or the top of the closet.  It’s a time capsule of the 2^nd half of the 20^th Century, the century disappearing in the rearview of your Prius.

Trouble with living at the beginning of the Industrial Age — or now the Digital Age — you got one foot in, one toe out, sort of like Stanwoodopolis and the mainland drifting breakneck away from the island.  The bridge gets rebuilt every few months and some of us just figure it’s easier to stay home.  Stay long enough and we’ll be swimming to get into town.  Fancy transponder, pay-as-you-drive booths, no cash or credit accepted.  Sign up on your computer, but you better have DSL and on-line checking.

I tell my buddies here on the South End who figure Time must stand still or else they’ll die in the Mabana Sunset Villa before they’re left hopelessly behind, fossils frozen in drying mud, they better get off their rocker and take a couple of computer courses.  Another few years and they won’t know how to turn on a TV much less figure out the latest changes in Windows 27.  Then we’ll see how Old Age in the 21^st Century looks to them without American Idol or Wheel of Fortune to fill an evening with electronic pablum.

I remember about 30 years ago first coming up to Skagit Valley and seeing the tulip fields.  Pretty amazing.  Ten years later I drove down Best Road thinking I might catch a view of the fields and maybe lunch in La Conner.  It must’ve been two days later when I finally managed to get off Fir Island.  For some reason I’ve never liked tulips ever since. Sure got to thank the Chamber of Commerce for that.  I’m sure the farmers thank em too.

But I been thinking — how can we turn this public relations machine to our advantage — and I hit on something I think the Skagit Valley Economic Council can sink their sharp little teeth into.  Tulip Fuel.  Bio-diesel with Hi Octane Petal Power. You drive in the Tulip Station and you can choose from candy apple red to lemon drop yellow.  Earth Friendly, Home Grown Flower Power Fuel.  The Valley’s sort of where the 60’s hit the Sound, never really ended.  So Flower Power won’t be real hard to sell.  The Co-op’s next big Expansion will include 10,000 gallon underground tanks and those colorful pumps.  High pollen octane for the BMW crowd.  Bulb mulch for the Volkswagens.

Oh, I suppose the backups will be sort of long, but spread out longer than 2 weeks, nothing like the Tulip Festival.  Plus knowing you’re doing something great for the planet should help.  Something that should’ve been done long ago.  You know, putting a halt to that Tulip Gridlock.

Petal Power   —- think about it!

All us regulars down at the South End Diner were a little taken aback the other day to find a notice on the Special of the Day readerboard:  NO Pink Slime in our Burgers, Not Now, Not NEVER!!   I guess all the new coverage of offal mixed into whatever else the FDA deems safe for carnivores had finally hit a nerve in the nethermost regions of Rome.  Or at least Sammy the Skillet’s nerves.  He was slapping burgers around on the grill like he was looking for a domestic violence charge.

Most of us know when Sammy should be left alone, but Two Toke Tom might’ve been one toke over the line when he called out from his stool — “Hey, Sam, hold the slime, but go heavy on the antibiotics, will ya?  I got a cold comin’ on….”  Brenda, from the working side of the counter, whacked him sternly on the knuckles with a serving spoon, but it was too late, Sam was on his way, spatula dripping grease and growth hormones, and anybody near Two Toke moved perceptibly out of range of what looked to be certain meat-based mayhem.  Even T.T. realized his mistake.  Those dilated eyes of his widened to the width of twin coffee cup saucers as he threw up his hands defensively.  “Sorry, man, sorry.  Truly!  Sammy, I mean it!!”

Sam glowered menacingly, but finally shook his head, wiped grease on his apron and went back to his grilling.  Brenda rapped Two Toke once more for good measure and the rest of us all chuckled nervously and after a minute or three, the conversational pitch was almost back to normal, meaning caffeinated and lively.  I did notice, though, that the burger orders were few and far between.  BLT’s and frozen fish sandwiches were substituted instead.  I had my usual cheeseburger — nobody’s gonna accuse ME of wussing out over food additives.  After all, I’m a dyed pink in the wool South Ender.  But … I really did want to ask Brenda, confidentially and out of everyone else’s hearing range, what do you suppose they really do to that Velveeta?

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/audio-jimmy-the-gyppo.mp3[/podcast]audio — jimmy the gyppo

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/audio-johnny-appleseed-in-the-garden-of-eden.mp3[/podcast]audio — johnny appleseed in the garden of eden

Down at Jolene’s South End Boutique and Spa, the ladies come for hair repair and a weekly update on gossip.  The B&S is conveniently located just down the blacktop from the Diner so while their menfolk pile on another layer of winter cholesterol, the women can slide in for a touch-up.  Jolene and her cosmetologically adept staff — meaning Wanda and Ronald — offer everything from henna highlighting to full perm.  And, of course, like most retail establishments on the capitalist frontline here on the South End, they offer everything from local artworks and gifts to a plentiful assortment of salon products for the woman in search of a temporary bulwark against gravity and age.

In other words it’s a fine environment to get things off your chest.  Jolene is adept with a scissors and a necessary brake when the ‘unburdening’ gets excessive, but she knows, like most of us on the frontier of a receding civilization, the bitch sessions are not only cathartic, they’re as close to entertainment as we’ll get in the daytime.  Subjects range from Jolene’s no-account sister-in-law’s messy affairs to why there’s no damn holiday in America celebrating a woman.  Because men make the damn holidays, that’s the short and not so sweet of it…  Ronald might pipe in there’s none for gay men either but a moment later, scissors snipping like a crab on steroids, he’ll be off on a tangent about so and so’s snide comment about his new nose ring.  The salon is as abuzz with snide comments as it is with hairsprays and clippers.  Us men rarely pick up the missus there, and if we do, the place goes eerily silent.

Two Toke Tom has his hair coiffed by Ronald.  It changes color every month or two, blue streaks substituted for red locks.  One of the boyz at the Diner asked him what they talked about in there, like it was the Rosicrucians meeting in a graveyard after midnight.  Two Toke just smiled his Cheshire Cat stoned smile, put a hand to sizzling hot purple stripe and said wistfully, Girl Talk.

If I want to keep abreast of current events, it might be time I got my own south end’s trimmed down at Jolene’s.  But I probably won’t tell the boyz…

[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/audio-detroit-resurgence-on-the-south-end.mp3[/podcast]audio — detroit resurgence on the south end