The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Retirement’s a touchy subject down at the Diner. The Flatheads, those vintage car guyz, they found a way to make retirement work, just build a garage, heat the damn thing and stay out there dawn to dusk or even later working on their latest ‘restoration’. They could give seminars in Golden Year Living if they had that kind of ambition, but like I said, they’re retired fellows. Like myself for the most part.

No, it’s the poor sap who thought that once he’d accumulated his pension nest egg, he’d be set. Kick back, putter around the house in his sweatpants all day, maybe give the mizzus advice on housekeeping and cooking, sit in the car while she went grocery shopping, help her balance the checkbook finally. The Good Life. Well, for him….

Quiet Billy is going on 65. The boyz at the Diner catch him on his lunch break where he rolls in daily for his usual, grilled cheese on rye, side of potato salad, cup of whatever soup they serve that day, cup of coffee, one refill. Billy manages the South End Water Association, monitors the pumps and tanks up the hill from Windyrear Realty, takes care of line breaks in the mains, monitors the readings for monthly usage. Retirement could be in his future, but Billy doesn’t think of that as an option. He thinks of that as a living burning Hell.

A few months ago Quiet Billy came down with the flu. Laid him down hard and beat on him with coughing fits, body chills, sweat fevers, headache and the urge to die. His mizzus, Betty Lou, not the warmest of women on her good days, shook her head at Billy lounging around under a blanket by the third day and insisted he ‘man up’ and get his butt back to work, he was driving her crazy. She had better things to do than serve him oatmeal gruel and listen to his constant coughing. “Die if you’re going to die, but do it quick or get back to work. I haven’t got time for this nursey nursey stuff.”

Billy had caught the flu from Betty Lou who had taken two weeks sick leave and expected him to wait hand and foot on her until she had recovered. Compassion, apparently, wasn’t high on Betty Lou’s list. Or reciprocity. If Quiet Billy had ever entertained fantasies of a contemplative retirement, puttering around the house, plunking on his favorite guitar half the day, that week with the swine flu or whatever killer crud he had, well, that pretty picture got folded, spindled and crumpled into a wad. He told me over the last of his potato salad one mournful lunch that he wanted to work until the grave. The sad part of that, the really sad part I mean, is Billy hates his job.

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While I was cutting glass in the shack for a stained glass project, I was listening to a woman who won the McArthur ‘genius’ award for her theory on ‘grit. I think maybe by that she means stick-to-it-ness, what we South Enders call stubborn as a mule. If mules and jackasses are ever considered smart, we South Enders may yet win Nobels and Pulitzers, although maybe not the McArthur award.

This Grit Theory, though, caught my interest. Awhile back a fellow named Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book that postulated that successful people put in 10,000 hours of work before they reached competency enough to be considered successful. Masters of their Chosen Field. I guess it takes true grit to put in 10,000 hours of anything so maybe they’re saying the same thing.

Me, I consider myself a Dabbler. A dabbler, if you look it up in those old dictionaries nobody uses anymore, is a person who refuses to take himself seriously. Probably drinks, sleeps in, doesn’t read directions or take instruction, would rather cut off his right arm at the elbow than shoot for perfection, can’t be bothered with too many details, probably wanders the garden rather than finish an honest day’s work ….

I’m happy to be a Dabbler. I always intended to be a Bum, but dabbling saved me from the vicissitudes of bumhood. I found this old shack when shacks cost what shacks should cost. Then I stumbled into glass art and managed to dabble myself into gigs that kept me from working. I’d tell you I have 10,000 hours logged, but hell, I’m not going to waste time doing the math, all that multiplication, and anyway, I don’t punch a timeclock. Plus, then I’d want to do some long division, figure out my hourly wage and send myself spiraling into a deep depression.

Always dabble, that’s my preference, that’s my motto. Although, I will admit, I’m pretty gritty about it.

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Skeeter is headed east into the blunt force of this winter’s cold blast, first to Wisconsin, then on to Philadelphia. He had intended to have his android servant write sketches in his absence, but unfortunately, he’s fallen in love with the loveable robot and has decided to take her with him on this junket. So … you readers desperate for news of a non-Trumpian nature will have to make do with the Jolie/Pitt gossip pages in his absence. That, or as always, scroll down a couple of years here on this blogsite, dig thru the archaeological ruins and see what pottery shards of prose you can find. Pre-Donald artifacts.

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I listened to a guy the other day on the radio postulating how, in a few decades or so, robots will be so ubiquitous in our lives that we’ll actually marry them. I know, I know, it sounds whacked. Until you take a step back and watch your friends with their ‘devices’. I know people who sleep with their cellphones. I don’t ask them questions, I don’t pry, I don’t pass judgement. But it does get you to wondering. Me anyway.

I called up a credit card company yesterday and got the automated voice operator. Except now, instead of the usual 4 options to ‘her’ questions, my robotic friend could understand what I asked outside the parameters of her options when I asked to speak to a homo sapien, nothing that would surprise you folks with smartphones used to chatting it up with Siri.

I watch with no small dismay the frantic and pervasive text messaging of kids these days (and now my own friends) who prefer digital communication over the messy face to face of human contact. They have pretty much abandoned phone conversations too, once the preferred domain of the shy, and now correspond with thumbs and 140 character maximum messages. We are bonding with our machines. The Flatheads, our local vintage car guyz, probably could explain this in 20th century terms, this love of their Buick 88’s and ’56 BelAirs, all that waxing and rubbing, but so far they haven’t entered into matrimony. Although … Fairlane Freddy sleeps in his a night or two a month when the mizzus is fed up with his drinking. If it could talk reassuringly to him, god only knows where things might lead.

Trouble is, we’re making these robots smarter than us. Probably make them more beautiful too. If you thought artificial intelligence was frightening, couple it with a movie star body. We’ll be slaves in the time it takes to say pornlove. I suppose we won’t have to worry about children so in one short generation the androids will have won, no doubt part of their master plan. We’ll probably think it’s worth the sacrifice. At least Fairlane Freddy will.

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I got more than a few pet peeves I’ve accumulated in my life and not too many got relegated to minor annoyances over all those years of mellowing into old age. One, though, deserves special mention, not because I overcame my peeve or even made the pet into petty, but because I learned the hard way how acting on those peeves can lead to something more dire.

There are days when the sight of a front end bumper trying to make love to my back bumper incites in me a loathing akin to those anti-porn Christians infuriated by teenage boys slumped over a library terminal. They’re probably not in a hurry, really, they just never had driver’s ed and the thought that the distance between us wouldn’t leave time for a short prayer to the Lord when a sudden stop was necessitated by a dog running out in front of us. Sometimes they’re simply preoccupied with a text message and possibly haven’t noticed we’re locking bumpers. Although … sometimes it is someone in a panic to go a little faster than my speed limit and they’ll eventually pass in a frantic run at slipping between me and the oncoming vehicle before both of us hit the shoulder. Usually they’ll be waiting at the next stoplight. Nobody makes time on this road, don’t they know that?

So the other day a truck was sucking wind off my muffler like a junkie off a crackpipe. I slowed down five miles per hour, then when that was insufficient signal, ten. This only angered the driver in the truck who flipped me off and edged closer. We looked like a NASCAR finish lap, the rear truck drafting before the sudden break for the checkered. Don’t ask me why, but occasionally in these moments, I like to hit the brakes. It’s a dangerous move, jab the pedal, lurch down ten mph, then stomp the accelerator to avoid the inevitable rear end collision. With some cooperation from the tailgator, perhaps a lesson is learned about the stopping distance between two vehicles moving at 50 mph. The student, naturally, may resist the education, but really, who cares?

My angry follower didn’t hit the brakes, however. He swerved instead. And not onto the shoulder but out into oncoming traffic. We were both a bit surprised, and so was the oncoming car. I hit the shoulder and so did the oncoming while our tailgator sailed through the breach.

I suppose this was a lesson primarily for me of unintended consequences. Today I had a car 5 feet behind my truck but I decided it was a nice day, a short distance home and an okay song playing on the radio. Like politics these days, there’s no point slamming the brakes, exchanging insurance info, dialing 911. Besides, I have plenty of other peeves to work on, better to pick one of those that won’t create collateral damage. Probably scratch tailgating strategies right off my New Year’s Resolution this year.

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I just crawled out of the cocoon of our 3 quilt bed after snoozing for 15 hours. At least I think it’s 15, although maybe it’s 39 and we missed a day. We had our annual New Years Party a day ago, or two, and I guess we were exhausted after two days of prepping for it and another cleaning up the debris. This year we had a lot of folks cancel because of colds, flu and icy roads so the crowd was limited to about 45 or 50, not the expected 75 or so.

We used to have a few folks over New Years eve, maybe have dinner, then wait patiently for the clock to hit midnight so we could all, mercifully, wish one another a Happy New Year, call it a night, then toddle off to bed. Those last couple of hours were painful. We finally decided to Go Big or go home. So … we went big. Course in the early years here, we didn’t know a lot of folks and we didn’t have many friends down here on the wild South End. Most of the pioneers were older and not that interested in us young upstart newcomers.

But it’s been about 35 years and us young upstart newcomers aren’t anymore. We old codgers have been worming our way into various island nooks and crannies, everything from the Historical Society to the Beach Watchers, the arts crowd to the music scene, the Senior Center to the fire departments, from the Grange to the Friends of the Parks. As the island grew, so did our social circles. And so did the New Years Party.

It’s more than a little ironic, I think, that the xenophobic kid who moved to a shack at the end of this long skinny ass island, the guy who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, should have, after all these years, so many good friends and close acquaintances, so many neighbors he’s happy to see. Life is a series of unexpected turns, some detours and more than a few great surprises, this party every year being proof of that. Happy New Year to all of you. Make a resolution, then don’t worry if it changes into something else. It might be for the best after all….

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