The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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About 1980 I picked up two good old boys hitching into Tyee Grocery, which was Ted and Ellen Snowdens’ back then.  Part store, part junkyard, part tow truck outfit, part well drilling, part gas station.  Looked like an Ozark shopping mall run by Ma and Pa Kettle.  These two gentlemen were hitch-hiking in the middle of nowhere, drunk as purple skunks in the afternoon, so naturally I was curious where they’d come from, them being neighbors and all,  so I offered to take them back home after they’d purchased their groceries for supper.

Supper, it turned out, was some crackers and a big can of tomato juice they’d mistook for tomato soup.  And a couple quarts of their fortified favorite wine, Thunderbird, their drink of choice.  I kindly declined their dinner invitation, but I WAS interested in seeing where they lived, which was back in the boonies I’d never been, a nice little cabin they’d trashed up nicely sitting on a half acre trout pond like you’d see on a picture postcard.  Turned out they netted the trout and smoked the fish and sold them down at the Pike Street Market for a small fortune.

Well, finally they got to arguing about the ruined dinner menu, what with the big can of soup being juice, and who was to blame –so I said I got to go now, boys.  They said stop by any time and fish all you want and I said thank you kindly, I might just do that.

Course it being the only fishing hole on the entire South End, I was back there, pole in hand, two days later as soon as I knew they’d gone back home to Seattle and Gomorrah.  Had three two pounders in no time flat, dinner for Ma and me.  For awhile I thought I had a gold mine.

But I kept noticing nasty notes on the door of their cabin from creditors and ex-spouses and aggrieved parties and folks who just plain didn’t like the trout ranchers, folks who’d come all the way to the hollers of the South End looking for money or revenge or Lord knows what from these boys, and one day I noticed somebody had stuffed garbage in the wood smoker and let it rot, not a good sign for making flavorful smoked fish.  And that was when the fish were gone, netted up, I figure, on one last drunken weekend.

Every once in awhile I’d go back, hoping the trout might reappear, but of course, like a lot of our fishing around here, it never rebounded.  Still, I can say with some pride, I’m the only fisherman you’ll meet who ever caught a trout on the South End.

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I read in the news the other day that the average kid text messages 200 times per day.  You might be skeptical of that number … unless you’ve sat in a room with some of these nimble fingerers.  They will ignore an incoming meteor before they put down their I-phone or whatever device their parents have empowered them with.  Hell, I even see the folks now just as addicted, drifting off from our conversation to check an incoming text message.

200 messages!  The phone companies must be making a gazillion bucks on our kids.  They’re making nearly as much on their folks.

People ask me — well, people who don’t know me, ask me— what my cellphone number is.  When I tell them I don’t really have one, they look at me now like I just walked out of a jungle in Southendzonia, possibly the Missing Link between apes and Cellular Magnon Man.  They check for opposing thumbs, incipient language skills, tool usage.  Sadly, I fare poorly.

But in my defense, I have a telephone.  Which, I point out, is connected to a digital answering machine and a computer modem.  I receive and send e-mails.  I can surf the Web.  I just don’t happen to do it 24/7.  I don’t want to be that connected.  I don’t want to send or receive text messages 200 times a day.  I’m just not that social an animal  — and if that makes me maladjusted or by definition, sociopathic, I guess I will plead guilty on Facebook.

You know, when I join.  Right after I buy my I-phone.  The day after hell freezes over.

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If you’re going after me, I’m going after you.. Don Trumpleone, the Godfather.

These are going to be interesting times, these next few months, another indictment due any day, make that the fourth. What is that Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times? It definitely looks like the mob boss is going to have his day in court. Or days. Probably weeks and months. Indictments, arraignments, depositions, trials, sentencings, then appeals, a country divided into warring camps, possibly Civil War, bad craziness. Count on one more year of the Donald Trump Show, season 7, probably 8, possibly even a resolution to the cliffhanger this has been. What a ride it’s been!! Impeachments, insurrections, political intrigue, porn stars. Porn stars!! No wonder the ratings are through the roof. The show has everything.

But … most of us are pretty burned out. We just want the guy to go away. Too much binge-watching. Too much social media. Too much of everything! You have to give the guy credit, he knows how to keep the spotlight on himself, all the time. He’s the entire Kardashian Klan. And even under a withering assault from multiple inquests the man turns the attacks into money. He’s not above selling a T-shirt or two. He’s not embarrassed to ask his MAGA minions for financial support. And … they keep sending in their checks to the billionaire snake oil salesman. So he won’t have to fund his own defense. You think that isn’t amazing???

Sure, you had televangelists who could squeeze nickels out of turnips. You had mobsters who could make millions. You’ve had politician crazy for power. But you never saw a huckster like this, a vice king wanting more, always more. The judicial system must be corrupt, the FBI must be in on it, the Bidens were worse, I’m doing this for you, please send money. I need more money. Please send more!

The gullibility of the American people is boundless. Maybe we just want entertainment, worth the price of admission. The guy is a one man train wreck, no way can you not watch. The fact that he’s willing to destroy democracy itself – or save it if you believe him – isn’t that exactly the kind of reality TV we must crave? Hoo boy, hang onto yer hats, the next and possibly final season is about to start.

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Some of us old codgers here on the South End Shangri-La are starting to cash in our chips.  After a lifetime of skimming the surface of sinning, it’s finally time, I guess, to face the music.  Oh, a few of us will probably make it to heaven but we’re in no great rush, although this lifestyle of excess and bad habits might make you think we’re on the Fast Track to hell.

Other places, you see folks buying their cemetery plots or ordering fancy marble headstones with a pithy Bible verse as a hedge against being denied entry into the Gated Community in the sky.  They make living wills and put their estates in order, plan the funeral service ahead of time with their favorite music and slides, sort of an MTV for the soon-to-be-departed.  Probably working even now on the special Facebook update and that final Tweet :  Bye, I’m dead.

Down here the boyz have our own mortuarial customs.  We like to put an obituary photo in the local newspaper stating date of birth, date of death, who got left behind and something about going now to be with Jesus.  The grieving missuz writes this.  What we do is pick the obit photograph ahead of time.  Custom dictates that it is at least 30 years old when we still had our hair and didn’t have that beergut, and most importantly it shows us proudly holding a trophy size fish.  Salmon’s good, halibut’s better.  Anything that takes both hands to hold up for the camera is best.  If necessary, a string of trout or a mess of panfish works, but only as a last resort. 

The Deceased As Sportsman is the idea here, even if the sportsman’s features are blurry (the photographer was drinking and celebrating too, you see).
No, I don’t know where this custom originated, we just follow the dictums.  Most of us haven’t fished in the last 30 years.  I suppose we all hope Heaven is just one big lake, fully stocked with whopper Chinook and 150 pound halibut.  Hell, I figure, might be the same …. Only we have to clean the catch ourselves.  Until  the missuz shows up.

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