The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Well, it’s a sad day down here on the South End for many of the faithful congregation who worshipped every Sunday with the man we called Father Freddy. Father Freddy was summoned home far too early to the Halls of Heaven this week and his sudden departure was a terrible shock to his many followers, many of whom have held vigil at the make-shift church that once was the Tyee Grocery. Candles flickered in the old concrete block store, giving a mournful reminder to traffic out on the highway that one of our own has passed.

Father Freddy died the way he lived, doing what he loved. He was what the press called — with so little real understanding — a Nettle Handler, one of those men who believed that the Word of God could be divined through manipulation of the dangerous weed. Every Sunday, as his congregation held their collective breaths, Father Freddy would grab those eight foot stalks of Itching Torment and squeeze Testimony from each and every one as the congregation moaned and swayed and sang and prayed. Every Sunday, until this last, Father Freddy would wrassle those stinging stalks to their Rightful Place, prone against the homemade pulpit of stacked Coca-Cola crates left over from Tyee Grocery’s halcyon days.

“Get thee BACK, you poisonous serpents,” he’d yell, wrapped in their toxic embrace. “You hold no fear for those assembled here!” he’d holler, soon to be victorious. And as One, the entire flock, exhausted from exhortation, would wail their Hosannahs on High, their faith once more confirmed and restored.

Last Sunday, Father Freddy succumbed to the hideous stings of a 10 foot monster he’d grown under halogens in the nettlearium behind his trailer, a greenhouse filled with stingers of every size and variety. Parishioners wanted to call 911, but Fred avowed that his faith would sustain him. Horrified, they watched him slowly scratch himself to death. Services will be held this coming Saturday in Father Fred’s special grove of wild nettles back in the ravine behind the church. Gloves are recommended. Donations can be made to the Nettle Survivor Network in the name of the Nettlecostal Church. Father Fred, I know, will be Sorely missed!!

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Folks are all the time making suggestions for how I can improve this South End literature I’m writing, figuring, I guess, a little tweak here, an improvement there, we got the Pulitzer sewed up. The Camano James Joyce or another Homer ready to be passed down orally generation to generation around the smoldering trash barrels. And sometimes, as much as I hate to admit it, they’re right. Doesn’t make me wrong, you understand, just amenable to perfection.

The other day some folks up north wanted me to write about the North End. I said okay, that’s well and good, but I might just as soon write about France for all I know about their customs and cuisine and odd ways of speaking. Then, a few days later, a neighbor mentioned how what I was doing was creating an Us vs. Them scenario. I said, gee, I sure don’t want to do that. Not so much because I’m afraid folks would scapegoat Stanwoodopolis or Utsalady, but I wouldn’t want all the refugees afterward.

I once offered KSER, our Everett public radio station, the opportunity to have Skeeter read these aloud. But the program manager said he didn’t want to ‘offend’ people living on the South End of Camano by inflicting these on them. God forbid! And so those poor wretched citizens will have to succeed or fail on toeing their own Straight and Narrow, no help from me.

It’s hard to tell, I guess, whether the South End is more to be pitied or more to be envied. I’d say yes, but other folks feel different. Okay by me, I’m a great believer in co-existence, not only between Us and the North End (Them), but between my editors (Them) and me (Us). As always, your criticism is welcome and your suggestions duly considered. Just remember, though, you may be the next story. No hard feelings, I hope. We sure don’t need another Rwanda on Camano.

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1. START THE DAY BEFORE NOON

At least on work days. The other five days, sleep in. You earned it.

2. LEARN HOW TO READ
Writing is no longer essential, but … the successful South Ender can tweet, twitter and text, even if spelling is marginal.

3. LISTEN TO OTHERS
Especially on Facebook and other social media. Keeping track of friends’ and enemies’ likes and dislikes is an invaluable tool in the South End toolbox. Decision making is easy, just see what the herd is doing.

4. WORK AT LEAST ONE HOUR A DAY.

No matter how severe the hangover, the lethargy, the ennui or excess hedonistic activities. Work isn’t ALL bad.

5. WORK OFF THE GRID

No South Ender worth his or her salt works in order to pay half his or her income to the IRS. Barter heavily with your neighbors and friends. Crab, clam, trap, fish, hunt or grow it! Food is free and food is fun! If you buy your dinners, food is neither.

6. LEARN TO REPAIR

Your own car, truck, toaster, wellpump, toilets, etc. You can’t barter or sell busted stuff and repairmen cost an arm and a leg per hour PLUS that service fee to drive half a day to and from your hell-and-gone address. Knowing a few handyman tricks can save you another part-time job at the fast food joints 50 miles away.

7. MARRY UP!

Chances are you’ve embraced an aesthetic lifestyle. You artists and musicians need supplemental income and unless you plan to work full time low paid minimum hour jobs, a second salary is essential. Marry one.

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On the plague-ridden South End these days, the psychosomatics among us can find any number of alternative treatment centers. In addition to the New Age Naturopathic, the Mabana Chiro-Clinic and the Elger Bay Store Supplement aisle, the aggrieved can find remedy at Kristy’s Aroma Cure walk-in (no appointment necessary) or the AA Acupuncture. Wanda’s Massage and Shirley’s Hypno-Therapy advertise treatments ranging from stress to erectile dysfunction. The wonder of it all is that maladies still exist down here, so prevalent are the preventions. And we’re not even counting in the therapeutics of the Pilot Lounge and its 4-6 Happy Hour specials. Much less the Kannabis Klinik’s marijuana line of edibles and smokeables.

Essentially and factually we have plenty for what ails ya! So why is it, even with all these panaceas, there are still South Enders struggling with depression, pain, halsitosis, divorce, joblessness and any other manner of impediments to mental health, physical well-being and, quite frankly a 4 lane highway to spiritual enlightenment? I mean, what else can we offer these suffering neighbors? More Obamacare? Medicaid coupon sales? A new religion? New and improved pharmacology? A bus ticket to Tucson for the winter’s seasonally afflicted?

Honest to Zeus we’ve got more medical solutions than Carter had liver pills, you need a Snake Oil Outlet too? Madame Petrovsky has psychic readings in the old Tyee Grocery Store, might be time to consult her crystal ball or have her read your palm. Last time I did — and don’t assume I needed psychic treatment — she informed me solemnly that I had enemies, apparently people who wished me harm. She asked if I knew this and I said, well, not really, I mean sure, maybe a few. She asked if I understood this prevented any success at happiness for me. I said I’m pretty happy, Madame Petrovsky, but she assured me I would never attain True Happiness with these ill-wishers dragging my karma downward and would I like her to light some candles at her church, only $10 each, eventually I’d ditch these enemies, might take awhile. When I balked at the potential for innumerable candle purifications, she dropped the price to $5 a candle.

Judging by the nasty replies to some of these Skeeter blogs, I don’t necessarily recommend Madame P if other treatments don’t work for you. Even with her discounted prices. Obviously a few months of burning candles didn’t eliminate my enemy list.

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I guess we’ve all seen these folks at the freeway entry ramps with their mournful mendicant faces and their homemade signs that say they’re looking for work or money or food or a kind word and can you help, God Bless! They stand like stoic poster children for the poor, the homeless, the forgotten losers in the economic gears of a capitalist machine. They don’t seem to be on drugs or carry a bottle in a paper bag. They seem like us — okay, like me — just a bit down on their luck.

Myself, I’m a sucker for a panhandler on the sidewalk. I’ll empty my pockets even if I KNOW it’s going toward the purchase of the next bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. Maybe it’s the suspicion that there, but for the grace of God, go I …. Some wrong turns, a round of bad luck, an accident, a disease, you name it, that guy with the glazed eyes, the bad breath, the shabby clothes — he could be me. On my dark days, I think maybe he IS.

But the folks on the freeway ramp, looking like the one at exit 205 or 216 or, well, all of them, I have this uneasy suspicion they all work for an outfit run by some smooth operator registered with the State of Washington as Legitimate Beggars, Inc. or BumsRus, LLC or just Freeway Freeloaders.com. The signs are hand scrawled but they seem remarkably uniform like they were copied from a foreman’s template or made down at the home office.

Maybe it’s that I’m enclosed in a steel and glass vehicle, window up, eye contact minimal, that makes me more critical than I am with the guy on the street asking for spare change. They certainly don’t look like they’re flush with income. They never look anything but gaunt and underfed. They seem Totally Authentic and yet … I never roll down the window, I never dig for loose change or a spare buck, I never quite see myself working that intersection.

Course, when they’re finally standing by Elger Bay Store, hands out, signs lettered in the same printed childish script, maybe they’ll melt my heart. Then again, we got plenty of needy down here now. They just don’t stand all day at the closest busy intersection. Maybe why they’re still needy…. They just need a little organizing and we got plenty of artists who could help me with those signs.

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