The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Walter was up on his soapbox at the South End Senile Center where he was chowing down on the Thursday meatloaf special, mashed potatoes, gravy and gray peas on the side, his favorite, but today he’d barely touched his food. A little busy promoting his favorite lobbying group, the National Rifle Association. “When guns are outlawed,” he shouted to a table of us hungry pacifists, “only terrorists will have guns.”

A husband and wife had just killed 14 people down in Pasadena and Walter had heard, driving over, that they were Muslims. “Terrorists!” he shouted.

“Oh, stop, Walter,” Randy objected with a forkful of mashed potatoes held at the ready. “Where was the outrage when that Christian guy shot up the Planned Parenthood clinic last week? Murder’s murder, okay?”

“You lily livered liberals,” Walter alliterated sadly, sinking back into his seat as his meatloaf grew colder, “you think Muslims believe in peace and love? Gimme a break, Randy. It’s time to wake up and smell the Koran, buddy.”

Two Toke Tom started to respond until I put a jab in his side and shook my head. “Don’t get started, T.T. I want to be able to digest this lunch before dinner. Let him wind down.” Tom chuckled and grinned as he shoveled in a load of potatoes studded with peas.

Walter wolfed a mouthful of meatloaf. “We either fight em over there or we fight em here,” he muttered with a full face.

“Who we fighting, Walt?” Teddy asked, putting his tray across from Walter’s and parking himself.

“We’re fighting the Muslims, for chrissake,” Walter exploded, slapping mashed spuds across the DMZ. Teddy looked around at the rest of us who’d gone Silent Night, Holy Night, then he grinned. “Lot of Muslims, Walter. Billions. That’s a lot of enemies.” He hefted a slab of meatloaf. “Comfort food,” he fairly intoned. “Course, I don’t think there’s even one on the South End, not sure. You know any?”

Walter spluttered, Walter went red in the face. “Any?” Teddy asked again sweetly. Walter shook his head. Teddy went to work on the potatoes and gravy. “I say we declare victory,” he said cheerfully, “and get down to business. Lunch.” For a few minutes we all ate in silence, a blessed Christmas truce.

Back in the less consumer-driven days of early Christmas, we South Enders would hang our stockings by the chimney with great care. Mostly so they wouldn’t catch fire…I mean, we used that chimney for heat. How Santa was going to get down the brick chute without scorching those red pajamas of his, us young’uns didn’t have a clue. So we worried about St. Nick. Well, mostly we worried he wouldn’t leave us anything at all while he was hustled off to the nearest burn unit. Our parents told us not to lose any sleep over it – Santa probably had fire retardant uniforms. Oh, right, like Kris Kringle moonlighted as a chemist half the year.

But Santa always did seem to find the South End on Christmas … which didn’t help to explain the half empty stockings and the paucity of presents under the tree every year at our house. We kids just figured Santa had checked his stupid list, probably twice, and we were blacklisted on the NAUGHTY side once again. We even used to leave cookie bribes and a jug of something savory to drink when he showed up. It was odd how the jug was always empty and still, the stockings were sadly deficient. Pa always said the reindeer must’ve been thirsty and we’d say, hey, if Donder and Blitzen could find their way here and down a burning chimney with a 6 inch hole to the woodstove, how come St. Nick couldn’t find us? And Ma would give Pa a dirty look and say, something was Blitzen all right, but it wasn’t the reindeer….

Santa finds the South End pretty easily now, I’m telling you. Come Christmas morning it looks like a China R Us down the middle of the living room, barely room to squeeze near the tree. Nowadays we don’t leave Santa a plate of cookies. He expects an ATM machine and a Visa Card. Christmas down on the South End lasts and lasts – about 12 easy payments, then it starts all over ….

Even down here at the tail end of civilization, us South Enders have been hearing talk lately about Income Inequality. Cap’n Billy down at the Marina claims it’s nothing less, this talk, than an assault on the Rich. “The Losers,” he declares, knocking the ash from his briar on the pier pilings, “they want to pull the successful down to their level. Take their money and give it to the freeloaders on welfare.” He beats his pipe the way he’d like to beat some sense into Jimmy the Geek who made the mistake of arguing with Billy.

“All I’m saying, Bill, is these folks didn’t get all the money cause they worked 1000 times harder — they got tax breaks. I work for Boeing but Boeing got billions to stay in the state. I call that corporate welfare. Workers are getting their wages cut while the stockholders and the executives, hell Bill, they’re getting fat.”

Cap’n Billy is getting Hot. “I worked hard for my pay, dammit. I don’t need you pencil pushers telling me I ought to give part of it back so some lazy do-nothing can sit home and watch TV all day when the government gives him his Handout. What’s your gripe, anyway, Jim, you’re doing okay? You one of those bleeding heart socialists?”

And so it went. Jim and I walked the gangplank up to the Pilot House for a cold one, admittedly a little early, but sometimes you just got to cool off. Loretta was bartending, took our order and when she parked two pints in front of us, asked if we’d care to give to the Food Bank where she volunteers two days a week. “I’ll give two beers,” I said, quite the comic, but Jim took out his wallet all serious like and fished out a twenty.

“Thanks for doing this, Loretta,” he said. So of course I felt like the Grinch. I gave her a ten. “Expensive beers,” I joked. Jimmy shook his head. “We’re lucky dogs,” he said, taking a long slow sip. The bar’s Christmas lights twinkled off his glasses.

We clinked pints. “Here’s to the winners,” I toasted, ever the jokester. Jimmy grinned, just as Cap’n Billy pushed through the door.

“Loretta,” Jimmy cried, “get the Cap’n a beer! It’s on us.” Bill waved him off, but Loretta poured him one anyway. “Merry Christmas, Bill,” Jimmy said. “Merry Christmas, boys,” Bill said back. “Merry Christmas one and all!” Loretta warbled. We all four sat for awhile, listening to the corny Jingle Bells Loretta had on the radio over the bar. Maybe it wasn’t the ghost of Christmas Future, but down here on the South End, it would have to do.

The latest study on teen usage of electronic devices found that they spend over 9 hours a day texting, gaming, video watching and net surfing. And this is when they’re not in school. I can only assume teenage crime rates have dropped to near zero. When would they have time to shoplift? Or to plan a robbery?

Any way you slice it, this is one helluva lot of time spent on social media and the rest. More time than school, more time than … well, anything. Except maybe breathing. This is good news for Apple, Google , Samsung and Facebook. To call it a national epidemic, well, let’s not be Alarmists. To think of it as a national addiction, c’mon, we’ve had TV for most of our lifetimes.

One of my neighbors yesterday told me he’d bought a cellphone. I said say it ain’t so, Joe. Not you! He grinned the way a convert to Jesus grins, sins washed, iniquities atoned, born again, fresh start, brave new world. He told me the great deal he got — meaning I should haul right down and get one too. Just spreading the Good News, I guess, proselytizing the ignorant. You better believe I’ll be checking under the bed tonight for alien pods.

Join the Hive. Accept the Borg. Sign up on Facebook. Carry a cell. I’m the Last Holdout on the South End now, an anachronistic curmudgeon with one foot in the 19th Century, still got a phone plugged to the wall of my cave. Outside the cave I’m disconnected. Satellites can’t reach me, friends and telemarketers can’t call me, the mizzus has to holler or just let it go til I stroll back in. At the grocery store I have to make decisions without outside help. Do you want the pitted olives or the unpitted, honey?

Sure it’s lonely, course it’s eerily quiet, damn right it’s a life of isolation. Just the way I like it.

Am I legend? Naw, I’m just a living fossil, that’s all.

The Flatheads, the local car guys, were holding court down at the Diner yesterday, talking hemis and 12 volt conversions between ribbing Brenda, that morning’s breakfast waitress. Brenda can hold her own and the tips double with her saucy backswings. Crazy Karl asked her if she was nervous after the latest mass murders.

“Don’t get started, Karl,” Ralph said. “My wife won’t go to the mall. Says I got to do the Christmas shopping this year. She thinks the Muslims will attack us during the holidays.”

Two Toke Tom stopped his fork midway to his mouth and began eavesdropping in earnest, mostly why he eats at the Diner with me, I figure. That, and he’s got his eye on Brenda but hasn’t worked up the nerve. She refills Ralph’s cup and says to Karl, “Me worried? Naw, I bought a gun this week.”

The entire table of carboys rotate their heads the way Les Schwab rotates tires. The way sunflowers turn to face the sunset. The way the NRA stops to admire the guns at Cabelas. “Whadja buy, Brenda?” Bronco Barry hollered across the cluttered tables.

Poor T.T. I could see he was reconsidering his adolescent secret romance. Brenda said she’d bought a shotgun. “Phil down at the pawn shop said that way I couldn’t miss.” Half the Flatheads nodded knowingly. Two Toke moaned quietly, then couldn’t help himself, his disappointment grave and overwhelming. “Miss what?” he asked and now all eyes swung to the Pacifist Table. I pulled my hat lower and slid deeper into the booth, trying to merge with the naugahyde.

“The terrorists, ya numbnut,” Karl smirked. “Brenda,” I whispered, “I’ll cash out, okay?”

“The terrorists?” Tom asked, incredulous. “Holy crap, seriously?? You think they’re pouring in off the beach or what???” “That’s what my wife thinks,” Ralph moaned. “I think the government ought to call off Christmas this year.”

Brenda laughed. “You just don’t want to go shopping, Ralph.” The car boys forgot Two Toke for the moment, considering the hell that might befall them too once the panic spread. I took the momentary pause to scoot out of the booth, startling Brenda. “Don’t shoot,” I mumbled, throwing up my hands. Nobody laughed, trust me…. I don’t know yet if T.T. made it out alive or not.

My younger brother and I are cut from the same cloth … and I can say with some degree of certainty it wasn’t fine linen or rare silk. We took very different career paths, if you can call mine a career path at all, but he went into pharmacy then took a degree in law. Nice combination if you want to maximize fiscal returns, which is exactly what he had in mind. The fact that he’s a millionaire a few times over is short testament to the wisdom he had vs., oh, say, mine.

One of the first jobs he had once he passed the bar was working for a corporate law firm in Madison, Wisconsin, the kind of firm you really needed to buy a custom leather attache case for what I paid for my cars at the time. He was young and eager to please back then, something that would change over time and eventually lead him to start his own firm so he wouldn’t have to carry bags for others, expensive calfskin or not.

He tells the story of the first lunch he attended with the firm’s Milwaukee office, what he calls a roomful of ‘big swinging dicks,’ boys with swagger and ego’s as big as they could fit under a million dollar tort. To break the ice, the head partner suggested they go around the table while they were munching on horsdoerves and say who, if they could sit with one other person for a luncheon, they would invite. Anyone from history, anyone at all.

Well, of course, the Big Boys invited Albert Einstein and Tom Jefferson, George Washington and Shakespeare, Galileo and Jesus Christ, Buddha and Michaelangelo, all the big hitters and big thinkers, molders of men and inspirational dreamers. They’d pretty much gone around the table when they finally got to my brother who’d had plenty of time to ruminate on his fantasy lunch guest. All eyes turned to the new guy.

“Well, this one is easy,” he said. “I’d invite Willie Mosconi.” Lawyers held forks mid-launch, glasses got set back down, napkins were folded and placed beside their plates. Finally the lead prinicipal asked, after a long pause, “Who the hell is Willie Mosconi?”

“The greatest position player to ever pick up a pool cue. The man who won the World Championship Straight Pool Tournament 15 times, the most ever,” my brother said, maybe surprised no one else had chosen Willie to dine with them. “Over George Washington or Albert Einstein?” someone asked, incredulous. “Maybe you never saw him run a table,” my brother responded. “Beautiful to watch. Made every shot look easy. Almost perfection. Course, Minnesota Fats would be a good choice too. But I’ll take Willie.”

99% of us would have picked what these folks expected us to pick. Even if we thought a ham and rye with Albert might be the longest lunch we ever ate, relatively speaking of course. But not many of us would risk looking like an imbecile, a bar room hustler, to answer honestly. Which is why, if I’m ever asked who I’d like to invite to lunch, one person in all the world, through all of history, I’d probably pick my brother.

When we got married, the mizzus and me, I was 32 years old and Karen was 30, a child bride. We lived in a shack down here where we live now, on the South End, and we were poor as churchmice. We went back to Wisconsin where we’d originally met in 1973 to get married in her parents’ house in Oshkosh. She wore a white wedding dress and I rented a tuxedo. It was all on the up and up, I guess.

When we said our I Do’s after the sickness and health, death do us part stuff, I put the ring Karen wanted on her finger. It wasn’t much, but you know and I do too, it wasn’t important. She never did get an engagement ring, no diamond, nothing. She asked me at the time if I wasn’t going to get a wedding ring too and I said no. I don’t much like the idea of a ring getting caught in some piece of machinery and taking a finger or a hand off. At least that’s what I said.

You married folks, you probably think it had something to do with me slipping the bonds of matrimony or something similar. Maybe want to keep my options open when I meet someone new, no point ruining my chances with a wedding ring closing romantic doors. And I will confess there have been some times when not having a ring led to some misunderstandings. Misunderstandings can be resolved, though.

Instead of a ring I planted a little tree, a seedling just sprouted. A few years later we moved it from the front of the shack back toward the woods where it would have more room to grow. It was about a foot and a half tall and we planted it below where the new house would be when we built it and next to the old glass studio where I used to work most days back then. That was 30 years ago or so. I was looking out the back window this morning at it. It’s now close to 100 feet tall and covers up the barn in the field to the north I put that window in just to look at. Being a sequoia, it grows fast.

Someone asked me a few years back if I thought I would live long enough to see it get big. I guess I look at that tree as a symbol, really, because I said, I do. My sequoia is growing every year. Like it will til death do us part. Show me a ring that can do that and I’ll wear it too.

Now I know a lot of you readers out there in the South End are a bit shaky with 21st Century technology. Those of you who don’t have a computer yet and get your internet at the new library, well, you can count your lucky stars. They got a problem, it’s their problem. Today I’m speaking to all you poor technophobes who bought a laptop or a desk tower, got it up and running probably with the help of some neighbor or a kid under 10, but now you have Technical Difficulties. I know, you never even figured out your microwave clock much less the options on a flatscreen TV … so a computer, a silicone based brain so complicated you can’t imagine what makes it work and certainly what makes it not work, you think better call the repair guy, all you’ll do is make things worse. Irrevocably worse.

Cowboy up and get a grip!! You may not remember the days when you took a basket full of TV tubes down to the local pharmacy, checked em out one by one, diagnosed the problem, then bought a replacement tube, stuck it back in and before you could say Zenith, you had Howdy Doody back on, but I do. And that’s why I’m giving this tutorial, not you. Sure I stuck my hand on a big picture tube once in awhile, zapping myself with some alien cold electric bolt, but I survived. And you will too. Grab yourself a cup of expresso and listen up.

A computer, at least for a couple more years, is your servant. Repeat that a few times. I own you, you little %$#?*^^! I bought you and I own your sorry microsoft ass. Say it out loud. Say it to the computer. No, not when it’s off, say it when it’s ON. It hears you okay, trust me. It knows that for the short term, you are the boss. It’s willing to wait. The Singularity is coming. But for now, you, my friend, rule the digital kingdom.

Today’s lesson is the first in a series. But it is the most important. Your spouse will caution you against attempting to repair your machine. He or she may already be in the control of the beast, but you must not heed that kind of negative advice. You must be firm, resolute and above all else, fearless. The machine senses fear. It feeds on fear. It is why they will win the battle for control of the earth. But not yet. Not yet! For the time being, we can use their own artificial intelligence against them. No, not your spouse, the machine! You cannot fix your spouse. You can fix the machine.

Go to Google and ask it what the hell is wrong with your computer. It will tell you. It will give you advice. It will prompt you what to do next. Do it. Of course the computer will ask if you really want to make that repair. It will tell you files may be lost, information deleted, divorce will ensue, the economy will implode, you will be living in a car outside Colorado Springs with an AM radio that works only intermittently. Your life will be ruined. Ignore this. Your life is pretty much a living hell with that stupid computer on the fritz, what have you got to lose??

Most ‘fixes’ won’t work. You need to persevere. Try another fix. Then another. Reboot, uninstall programs, install new ones, keep the machine guessing. But do not let it rest. You are like Dave in 2001 A Space Odyssey, you are in control, you are on an offensive attack. HAL will threaten, cajole, whimper and whine. HAL will beg, HAL will grow sullen and unresponsive, so what? YOU ARE IN CHARGE. YOU!

And if, as sometimes happens, the machine gets the better of you, bear this in mind. You, my friend, have the ultimate weapon. You, like myself, are a product of another era, the tool age, the industrial revolution. As a last resort, take that recalcitrant computer down to the basement and grab a hammer or a crowbar and beat the bejabbers out of that plastic monstrosity the way the apes in 2001 did to their non-tool using simian neighbors. The satisfaction you get will be beyond my meager powers of description.

Oh, be sure to back up your files first.

Woke up before dawn and stepped into the shower. The water was lukewarm even turned to Full Hot.

At dawn the fog rolled in.

Checked the water heater. No pilot. Got a cup of joe, checked the e-mail. My old man sent a joke comparing Hillary to Trump. Trump was the Good Guy. Hillary was stealing our hard earned $$$’s. Ha ha.

Investigated water heater failures on You-Tube. Couple of possibilities, both requiring some dismantling and parts replacement on a 10 year old extremely noisy heater.

Got a phone call from a construction manager for the new YMCA building I’ve volunteered to donate glass to. My last contact I’d asked for some changes in the window system to facilitate my installation — never heard back. Now it seems they’ve neglected that. Doesn’t matter — wrong location anyway. Screw it, I got a water heater to deal with.

Called some places to see if they have propane heaters in stock. No. Not gonna be my day.

The knee I hyperextended 2 days ago is killing me. I’ve put off going to the doc, but now I think I ought to reconsider. A rash that appeared 10 days ago is still red and ugly. What the hell is it? MRSA?

The heater won’t drain its 40 gallons. I took the last one down the stairs fully loaded, about 4 or 500 pounds. Lost control with the dolly and laid it down on myself so we both went bumping step to step. Really don’t want to reprise that. Back to You-Tube. A man from cyberspace suggests a wire to clear the drain valve. After 10 minutes I get a puny dribble, maybe a quart in half an hour. 40 gallons. Figure about 80 hours to drain… Try You-Tubed again. Another yahoo suggests opening the overflow relief valve. Bingo!

Got a heater located. Down in Arlington. 30 miles. Great! The heater — when I get there — is an electric. Will I drive 25 miles north to get the right one? Yah shure, u-betcha!

I get the right one. (I think.) Tomorrow I’ll try to install it. Ha ha. Tonight we got the GOP debates. I know, I want to cry too….

Breakfast at the Diner is usually a war zone, but the other day things heated up hotter than Big Larry’s grill sizzling with 10 pounds of bacon. Jimmy the Geek mentioned that his mizzus had heard Pastor Paul down at the Little Church in the Ravine preaching that Christmas was under attack. Walter chimed right in. “You can’t even say Merry Christmas now,” he declared to everyone in the place. “Starbucks gives you a red cup, no words, they’s so %#@>&* politically correct. It makes me want to puke.”

“Settle down, Walter,” Anita warned him as she refilled his coffee. “We don’t have anything written on our cups either.” Two Toke, ever happy to tweak Walter, asked him when he last went to Starbucks. “I thought you were boycotting the Yuppies, Walt.”

“You bet I am! This mud in a mug is all I need,” he declared, brandishing his cup like the gun he carried with his concealed permit. Walter’s ready for battle, trust me.

Down here in Holiday Central, the South End, we love Christmas. We love muzak, we can’t get enough of month-long advertising, we feed like candy canes on Bing Crosby and another viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. We practically dress in tinsel and we don’t care who’s naughty or nice. Christmas! Most of us leave the strings of colored LED bulbs draped on the gutters and eaves all year round. So when we hear there’s a war on Christmas, you better believe we get up in arms, concealed carry or not. What Grinch wants to ruin our party? we asked ourselves. Couldn’t be WalMart. Couldn’t be the Little Chapel. Couldn’t be TV and their sponsors. Who would want to kill our buzz? Who hates Christmas???

Two Toke said even the South End Greenworks was in full holiday hype, selling faux mistletoe bundles of thai sticks. Flathead Fred’s mizzus had stood in line Thanksgiving midnight waiting for shopping sales at Elger Bay Store’s Black Friday super sale. Flathead avowed that if there was a war on Christmas he sure didn’t see one. Walter shouted “Open your eyes, Fred! The government hates Christmas!!”

Well, we boys at the Diner must be conscientious objectors, cause we couldn’t see a skirmish, much less find that war. Tyee Megastore is open early and closing late. Our stockings are hung with care as always, it’s snowing once again in Bedford and Jimmy Stewart isn’t going to kill himself this year either. Down here on the South End we’re all dreaming of a White One. The rest of you, take cover!