The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I heard a study recently that said the poor are more charitable than the rich. On average they give almost twice as much of their income percentage-wise to those in need than their wealthier brethren. They also volunteer more for charities and non profits, service groups and outreach programs. Basically, if my sociology statistical studies are still in semi-working order, this proves, not quite conclusively but damn close, the South End is way more philanthropic than our neighbors up yonder ensconced behind their key carded gated communities.

I had a friend tell me in all seriousness awhile back (in regard to my bemusement over her financial plight at the time) that a million dollars just wasn’t what it used to be. What exactly do you say to a pronouncement like that? Do you work out the math of inflation vs. income? Do you shrug your overburdened shoulders and just agree? Or do you take pity and offer up a loan …. you know, to get her by until that devalued million dollars returns to its rightful place in the economy?

These are tough times. Especially, I guess, for the rich. Or, more aptly, the folks who no longer count themselves among the Gatsbys of Camano. Their stocks have slipped, the value of their two homes has dropped, their retirement funds seem inadequate now, even their hedge fund broker refuses to return their frantic calls — that vast chasm between Us and Them looks like a ditch, not a Grand Canyon. And if sacrifices must be made — and believe me, they must — a little less giving to the needy is definitely the order of the day.

Meanwhile, down here on the Lower Tiers, we kind of see we’re all in this together. So we still donate, we still volunteer and we still give. We don’t have much, but it never seemed too little somehow. Even though a hundred dollars isn’t what it used to be.

We all make mistakes. So okay, us South Enders make a few more than most. I don’t know whether poverty leads to more tragedy per person or tragedy leads to more poverty. My Republican neighbors think they know. Even the ones who are poor and have more than their fair share of bad drama.

I’m not one who thinks money can buy you luck, but it can sure narrow the odds. And I am a believer in keeping a buffer between me and the wolves outside the shack door. Bad luck comes to us all; I just don’t want it to carry me over the Edge.

Jenny was driving her beat up Chevy station wagon to town a month ago. It’s a relic from the days of cheap gas, wide as a semi and half as long as the Exxon Valdez. She needs it to haul hay for her horses, she says. I could ask, of course, how it is a woman barely able to pay the rent can afford horses, but I’ve learned to keep my prying mouth shut. It’s a free country, they tell me, at least until the credit stops.

Jenny was lighting a Marlboro, trying to reach the length of Kansas to the cigarette lighter gizmo over by Abilene, and hit the CD replay to hear her favorite song one more time, dropped her unlit cig on the floormat and of course reached down to find it. Happens all the time. One brief moment of inattention, next thing you know, you’re in the ditch, wheels up, blood on the dash.

Jenny’s in shock, the ambulance hauls her to the Skagit hospital emergency room, Carl hauls the Exxon Valdez to his South End Towing impound lot back behind O-Zi-Ya trailer court, the sheriff issues a citation for Inattentive Driving, Jenny goes through a few surgeries for lacerations and a torn shoulder, the hospital and doctors bill her more money than she’s earned since 2004, the horses go hungry and are given away, Carl wants $600 to release her wagon, Jenny can’t work with a cast, probably couldn’t work with one, and now the rent is due.

I sure don’t want to cast judgement, but judgement is definitely at issue here. The very least I can say is if you live on the South End, watch where you’re going. It’s a winding narrow road. And trust me, the ditches are damn deep…..

My neighbor Fred is standing next to his 40 foot expandable travel trailer with his SUV hitched to its bumper as he’s venting his ire at the free transit bus that’s just gone by. “See that?” he asks, waving irately at the emergency lights flashing while the driver picks up another neighbor’s teenage kid, skateboard under one arm. I give him a fish face, not much meaning he can read, because I know where Freddie’s headed. He’ll start with the bus subsidy for all the freeloaders on the South End, then he’ll move on to taxes, most of them wasted, frittered away on government services he sure doesn’t want or need. He voted for our Tea Party commissioner, he’ll tell me again and again, in hopes she’ll ‘starve the beast’, what he calls shrinking government down to something the size he can flush in a toilet.

Freddie worked all his life at Boeing, bastion, he says, of a Free Enterprise system. I used to argue with him about all the military contracts and tax breaks, but Fred worked on 747’s , not cruise missiles. He retired a wealthy man after 30 years, bought a nice home, owns motorcycles and sports cars and travel trailers and about every piston driven device that he can fit in his driveway, the motorcoach shed and a three car garage. He’s got HIS and by god he doesn’t want a red cent going to someone who didn’t work to get THEIRS. Not directly and not indirectly. That free bus bugs him no end and it’s only one item on a very long list of Grievances.

No one says you have to be generous. Or magnanimous. Or take care of the needy or the poor or the infirm. Freddie doesn’t see any, not one, familiar face among the downtrodden and he doesn’t see it as his problem. More than half us South Enders and the island too don’t either. They got theirs and they can’t imagine losing it to bad health or a bad economy or just bad luck. They aren’t their brothers keepers.

“See that kid getting a free ride,” Freddie says sneeringly. “you just taught him he doesn’t need to work.”

“He’s 13 years old, Fred,” I say. “Too young to drive, too young to buy a car. He goes to middle school. You think he should pay tuition?”

Fred pauses a nanosecond. “Might not be a bad idea.” I expect he’ll write a letter tonight to the commissioner.

Even on the cable-free South End, we still get the evening news out of Seattle and Gomorrah. Mostly chilling tales of drive-by shootings, carjackings, arson, medical marijuana robberies, kiddie porn, celebrity divorces, all those Big City horror stories the neighbors think has spread up here with the rising tide of moral turpitude. They got security systems, deadbolts, surveillance monitors from Costco with 6 cameras they can watch Sector 1 through 6 on their Smartphones. Must be some great videos of raccoons going through the evening garbage….

Now… I’m not suggesting there’s no criminal activity going on here in Shangri-La-La Land. We just had some campaign signs torn down in the heated race for South End Fire Commissioner – big news! – that would indicate not only the race is heating up, but crime too. And down the block a purse and laptop were stolen … while the homeowner was at home in the broad daylight. Even their dog failed miserably in basic bark duty. And even closer to home, I recently gave testimony to a deputy regarding a beach shanty that had been nearly ruined by 14 teenage kids on a baseball team partying at a parent’s cottage down at the aptly named Summerland. We spent close to two hours going over my deposition — only to have the deputy who’d put this painstakingly into his police laptop, tell me he’d need a signature and would need to come back next day. Crime being rampant, he never returned, probably too busy with terror prevention than testosterone fueled vandalism. Not all crimes are created equal.

When I fell off the rutabaga truck here on the pioneer island, we had one deputy sheriff on evening duty. At midnight he went home for a nap, leaving the South End and the rest of the island to do the same until 6 A.M. next morning. Criminals sleep too, contrary to the evening news’ alarmist pronouncements. At least ours did. A neighbor told me he was awakened at 2 in the morning recently by 2 squad cars when his neighbor called 9-1-1 to report his sliding door to the beach open. Two more sheriff’s cars arrived for backup. He explained the door was ajar for his cat to go outside. They seemed suspicious, but finally, with an admonishment to secure the premises, roared off to the next emergency, all 4 vehicles. As my neighbors would say, you can’t be too careful.

The South End Gun Club meets every 3rd Thursday of the month, rain, shine, Hell or High Water. They have a short meeting, discuss New Bizness, welcome the new recruits (mostly women these days), then move right on out to the Range. Drinking used to be allowed, but after the incident with Fast Draw Davy, the club reluctantly voted to make abstinence a requirement. Probably a wise decision.

Davy was always, drunk or dead sober, a hothead. He could shoot the eyes off the Obama photo the Club loved to use for a target at 50 yards with everything from his Glock to a favorite semi-auto to a full auto. Some of the boyz had mixed feelings about this. No, not the President as target — they were almost universally hostile to a Muslim as Commander-in-Chief — but whether Davy should brandish his AR-15 at the Range, considering it was illegal to own a weapon of mass mayhem. But Davy had helped half the membership in conversion techniques and they felt somewhat reluctant to take a stand against a gun they themselves now owned … or coveted. Davy was damn proud of that machine and its undisputed firepower. He meant to show it off every chance he got.

The Range has a long and checkered history of late night firefights and high decibel debates, and the new arrivals to the adjoining properties, once pastures or woods, but now expensive McMansions whose professional owners liked their peace and quiet, didn’t much cotton to all these NRA zealots with their high caliber hi-jinx. As always, one man’s rights are another’s pain in the ass, but … welcome to the land of the free, home of the bravado.

When the sheriff’s deputies had come out on successive Thursday night meedings responding to the neighbors’ complaints that there was automatic weapon fire, Davy, being Davy, had become belligerent. He could quote the 4th Amendment backwards and forwards and by god, no tin star punk kid was going to tell him what gun he could or couldn’t own. Maybe the fact that he was holding his prized rifle in one hand a beer in the other set off alarm bells in Deppity Richards playbook, but fifteen minutes later every available cop on the island was parked with blue lights strobing at the Club’s back lawn next to the shooting range and they were moving in, shotguns up and safeties off, and for a few moments it looked like an O.K. Corral showdown. Everybody but Davy put their armaments on the ground — obviously this was out of hand.

Davy, though…. Davy seemed to be considering his options. Seriously considering them. Which, if you’re an officer of the law and you’ve asked an armed man once, in a not polite way, to drop his weapon, you are expecting an immediate acquiescence, not a fidgety wild-eyed hesitation. When Davy set his beer can down, the Gun Club stepped backwards almost as one crowd. The cops brought down their riot guns and holy moly, what seemed almost comical a minute ago, wasn’t at all funny right now.

Billy Wasserman, the current president of the Club, said, ‘Jesus Christ, Dave …” about the time Deputy Richards repeated his demand the gun be put down NOW!

Well, Davy did. The officers handcuffed him, put his AR-15 in a squad car trunk and that night’s practice on the Range turned into a late night conference where alcohol was banned from all future meetings. As well as illegal firearms…. Davy got his gun confiscated along with a steep fine and two years of probation. He got himself another semi-automatic, converted it, but he never tries to bring it to the Club. Just like the rest. Laws might be made to be broken, but not flaunted. Even on the wild South End.

Most folks think homeless people live in the Big City. Seattle and Gomorrah. Portland. Stanwoodopolis. But that’s not true. There’s homeless people living everywhere — even the South End. If you’re the type of cautious soul who’d never pick up a hitchhiker, you’d never have met Stinky Steve. Or you’d think, even now, how mean it was to call Steve ‘Stinky’.

For those of us who DO pick up folks with their thumbs out, we didn’t call him that out of spiteful cruelty. Steve was genuinely, and I mean Full Bore, Head On, Hold Yer Nose, No Kidding, olfactorily displeasing. He had an odor part old B.O., part beer breath, part cigarette smoke and the rest I probably wouldn’t want to guess. I don’t think he minded us rolling a window down even in rain or cold weather. After all, those were his elements.

When I first picked him up, he was living in an abandoned shed a neighbor a couple miles north kindly let him use. He was on his way to work digging soft shell clams on the tideflats near Stanwood, or so he said. Later he lived in a pup tent near me and worked various jobs clearing trail or weed-eating the neighbors’ land for minimum wage. Some even offered him free use of their showers, but Steve wasn’t much for personal hygiene and always politely demurred.

Guitar Bob and me got to know Steve better than most. We used to play the 12 beer blues every Sunday night, and at some point Steve joined our little outdoor guitar duet, singing some ditty to our rambling fingerwork that always sounded oddly familiar. When some kids slashed his tent and strewed his meager belongings, Bob’s neighbors gave him a little trailer to live in … on condition he work around the place and go to Social Services and sign up for disability. Mental disability. They meant well, these Do-Gooders, but the end result of all this was that the State of Washington gave Steve a modest stipend that effectively resulted in Steve’s early retirement from the part time workforce and paid for his malt liquor without him having to work all day to earn it. Steve, predictably enough, had his alcoholism subsidized by the State. And we had a singer more and more off key, schnockered by the time we’d only started to warm up.

I guess the ditches beside the Road of Good Intentions are strewn with folks like Steve. We forget that not all of us want a suburban home, a square meal or even a hot bath. Some of us just want to be left the hell alone, to live our life a different way altogether, without sympathy, without a handout, without a whole lot of socio-psycho hand wringing. I’m not saying you should pick them up hitchhiking into town for their cigarettes and beer. I’m just saying they’re here, they’re not that crazy and they’re okay decent people. There’s no law that says they have to bathe.

Well, long story way too short, the good-hearted neighbors signed him up for computer training in Spokane, detox, three square meals a day and a life as alien to him as a heroine addict in a nursery school. Guitar Bob and I got a couple of letters, half computer hieroglyphics, half semi-sensible musings on his new life and about 2/3rds sadness expressed with a stiff upper lip. We never saw him again. Shortly after those letters he was diagnosed with colon cancer. Then we heard he died. Bob and I bought a 6 pack each and played our 12 beer blues long into the dark night for Steve, a fallen comrade, another loner on the sad old South End the newcomers won’t have to pass by as he stands in a cold drizzle with his tobacco stained thumb held out for the alms of a ride.

Being the ‘professional’ that I am, I got an invitation to Linked-In, sort of the Facebook of career people like myself, all us Movers and Shakers of the South End. I must’ve been medicating heavily or just being inattentive, cause I said okay to this friend who wanted to put me on their high caliber list of associates, the emphasis here on ‘high’. Pretty soon — hell, almost immediately — everyone from Uncle Joe in Kokomo to Banjo Billy wants to link up.

Link up? I got a telephone. And even if it’s not cellular, I answer it. Even without caller ID. I’m not afraid to talk to anyone. Or hang up on em. Give me a call — I’m in the book. I even list my address, something, I notice, 90% of us don’t want to give out. Like we’re unfindable on Google. Jeez, gimme a break and another beer. We want to put every statistic we got on the social medias, but we’re too private to list a phone. We cough up our most private thoughts, wants, desires and naked photos …. But won’t list our address in a phone book.

Hello?? Has the physical reality gotten too frightening for ya? And do you really think there’s some kind of sanctuary in Facebook? Oh, sweetheart, have I got a great deal on a website for you. Forget the Brooklyn Bridge — this is way better. A La-La Land with firewalls and spam filters and virus screens, a place where no harm can befall you, no advertisers can reach you, no government agency can spy on you, a virtual paradise where only you and your one million closest friends can tell each other your most intimate secrets. What movie you liked, what car you covet, what your boyfriend whispered to you after incredible unprotected sex, what cereal you eat every damn morning ….

Sign up NOW! Call me NOW! Like I said, I’m in the phonebook. My operators are standing by. Okay, it’s just me. No friends. No associates. Just little old me. Call Now — I promise I won’t bite. Or sell your information to 16 million third parties. Without your permission. Your call, however, may be monitored. You know, for your own protection. Call. Call now!

Now that the Hot Talk down at the Diner has moved on from the IRS taking too long to give Tea Party groups their 501-C-4 status so they don’t have to pay taxes or even tell who they get their money from while they advocate for all those ‘non-political’ issues they’ve got, the table pounders have taken up immigration once more. A lot of the Diner’s customers are Latinos in for lunch between lawn shifts, mostly quiet fellas who sit toward the back by the restrooms. They order a la carte or sometimes the Broken Plate Special. Their English is okay, but at their table, the language slows down when they order, no longer native. By far they’re the most polite customers in the joint and they leave modest tips, double what most of the locals leave, according to Anita, the lunch waitress.

Most of the immigration debate takes place at the breakfast forums, before the lawn crews come in — and if they should stop by to fill a thermos with coffee — the topic is tabled until they leave. The Hispanics must think us Anglos are one sleepy crowd until our caffeine kicks in. Sleepy and obviously without any apparent jobs. Retired and rich, they must think — and by their standards , they’re right.

“No damn amnesty for these illegals!” Nils responds to any all arguments. “You never see white boys framing houses anymore,” Jerry, back in a window booth pipes in. Jerry pretty much doesn’t see the sunny side of anything, not even the eggs he orders every morning easy over. “They can’t work for what these aliens work for!”

Big Larry, out from behind his grill, who works for pretty much what ‘those aliens’ work for, points a greasy spatula at Jerry across a sea of tanned white faces. “Nobody here wants those jobs, Jerry. They wanna sit jockey on a computer screen and make 6 figures, not throw a two pound framing hammer all day.” Ernie, who ramrods Ernie’s Custom Remodels, agrees. “Last gringo kid I hired — at $16 an hour — lasted til lunch. Said he could make twice that with his Mac. I figure he’ll do it with a Mac all right, a Big Mac, tossin burgers.”

Ernie looks quickly at Big Larry and says “No offense, Larry.” Larry shakes his head wearily. “None taken. You fellas enjoy your naps today,” he says and smiles a sad smile. “It’s a hard life out there in the jungle.”

Little Jimmy was off on another of his Paul Revere speeches while the denizens of the Downrigger Lounge at the Yacht Club were hauling up the Happy Hour specials before the 6 p.m. cut-off. Little Jimmy believed, based on extensive reading, that the world economy was headed for fiscal Apocalypse. The Great Recession was only the first pealing of the doomsday bell about to toll.

“Get out of the stock market now,” he advised, bolstered by two gin and tonics. “Get gold and silver. Credit cards are a joke. Banks won’t open, nothing’s good but cold hard cash.”

Little Jimmy most likely had a stash buried someplace. “God help him if Alzheimers hits first,”Ralph said loud enough for Jimmy to hear. “Go ahead and laugh. It’ll be dog eat dog when the Crash comes.”

I got neighbors who believe – who hope, actually – Armageddon is coming. I got some who stockpile guns and ammo. In case Anything is coming. I got friends who keep pantries full of food and water. For the Pandemic. Or the earthquake. Or the attack of the zombies. Hell, I don’t know what to make of this spreading anxiety, but it’s floating up from the swamps down here. Jimmy says that’s one of the Signs, public unease.

When I was 10 years old a friend of the family built a fallout shelter in his basement. For after the Atomic War, he told me. Radiation everywhere, chaos, panic —- only those who planned ahead would survive. “Can we stay with you, Malcolm,” I asked, figuring, sure…. “Your dad didn’t plan for this,” he said sternly. “You see that rifle in the corner?”  I had noticed the gun propped next to a 55 gallon drum of water. “That’s to keep folks OUT. They’ll realize too late what’s what and I have to take care of my own. See?”

“You’d shoot us?” I asked incredulously. He said he’d have no choice. That night I mentioned this to my father, the father who hadn’t done much planning for the end of the world. His face darkened. All he said was, “Malcolm’s got too big a mouth. You have to learn not to listen to him.”

“What if he’s right?” I asked. My old man shook his head. “That would be a world you and me wouldn’t care much to live in. Malcolm would be welcome to it. Now go to bed and don’t listen to damn fools anymore.”

Little Jimmy was on to the collapse of the E.U. Then all the dominoes would go next, world wide panic. I left a tip for Cindy, our waitress, and a half finished beer that I’d lost the taste for. I wonder sometimes if Malcolm was disappointed nuclear war never came. Little Jimmy sure would be.

I was talking with Marta Gartengiggel down at the Tea ‘n Scones over demitasses of Turkish coffee, what we call Expresso now in the caffeinated Evergreen State. Marta was working on a biscotti the way my old dog Dr. Gonzo used to grind on a knucklebone. With intense fervor. I wanted to suggest she soak it in the Turkish bath a minute or two to make it chewable, but I knew from Gonzo any input would probably be met with a low warning snarl. I let her gnaw while I watched the crème de la crème of Stanwoodopolis society savoring their morning Darjeelings and dainty pastries. I felt as out of place as a fart in church.

Marta had asked to meet me to discuss the possibility of some of us South End artists donating work for a Garden Society fundraiser this fall. It would give us exposure to their ‘patrons’, she said, meaning, the fat wallet folks, who, being sophisticates, enjoyed ballet as much as a hydrangea … and presumably, might throw some crumbs our way after seeing our artwork sold on the auction block at firesale prices. Right ….

“Mrs. Gartengiggel,” I said, finally wearying of watching her genteely gnawing on her biscotti that must have been baked in the last century,” we get asked by everyone from the Happy Tot Daycare School to the Uff-Da Club for art donations. If we gave something to everyone who asked …..”

“It is hard, I know,” she interrupted with a dismissive wave of her molar-marred biscuit. “Art is difficult. I myself paint so I understand absolutely.”

A better man would have asked what, exactly, she painted. Shown some interest, feigned or otherwise, but I’m too old and way too cynical. That question is mostly a dead end street. Talking about art with an artist is like debating religion. Why would you bother? On the South End we’re all artists, near as I can tell. Since there’s no one to sell to, we barter among ourselves, a kind of third world economy, but somehow it works. Even if we don’t.

In the end Marta left half a bone on the china saucer. I promised to ask around among my art cronies if they’d consider a donation. And, of course, I ended up with the check. “Tank you, Mr. Daddle, we love your glass vases.” I started to mention she had me confused with the hotglass guyz, but thought better of it. Fame is a tough chew down by me.