The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

When I was just out of college — we’re talking the early ‘70’s here — I wanted to join a commune and be a hippie. I know, a little late for the show, but better late than never, I figured. And anyway, I didn’t want to work so that narrowed my options down to very few. Bum, artist or hippie — or, in my case, all of the above. So a few of us went up to an abandoned farm in Northern Wisconsin and set up shop in an old Polish farmhouse, no indoor plumbing, a couple of electric outlets, a handpump out in the yard and a falling down outhouse.

Rick and I were the two males in the encampment so we he-men took it on ourselves to construct a state of the art outhouse. We found some lumber in the barn — which we learned later, much to our embarrassment, belonged to Ernie, the son-in-law of Felix, the farmer across the road — and armed with hammer and hand saw, we set to work. Now maybe you know how to go about outhouse construction, but Rick and me didn’t have Clue One. We were like Cro-Magnons who’d heard rumor of wheels but had never seen one in action. We knew you needed walls, roof would be good, a seat with one or two holes and of course one in the ground. That last one we figured out okay, but the rest, they were real headscratchers.

Somewhere on the 2nd or 3rd day we’d nailed together some boards, hoping, I guess, inspiration would carry the day. Eddie, our other next door neighbor, who’d probably been laughing himself sick watching from across the field, finally took mercy on us wanna-be hippies and brought over his extension cord, a skilsaw and his cousin Tony who lived in Chicago but had the house down the dirt road we all lived on. Rick and I managed to do just enough to make nuisances of ourselves while Eddie and Tony slapped up our new shithouse in no time flat.

We all sat around afterwards, all us men, drinking cheap beer, warming ourselves in manly companionship and camaraderie, pleased as punch like all masculine carpenters at our ability to erect cathedrals and skyscrapers with our own two hands. So okay, civilization rests on shaky assumptions. Nevertheless, you’d have been pleased too to have an outhouse, not the woods.

When I moved to the wilds of Northern Wisconsin as a high school kid, the Big Deal was to letter in sports. They had, for a school out in the swampy boondocks, a reputation for winning teams, particularly swimming and tennis. Maybe there just wasn’t much else to do for us future paper mill workers.

A buddy of mine was a helluva swimmer. Won state championship when he was a junior, set records when he was a senior. We all figured he’d go on to collegiate swimming, probably try for a shot at the Olympics. Every morning before school, every afternoon after, he’d be in the pool. The kid was half porpoise. The future, through his swim goggles, looked bright. After graduation we both went off to seek our destinies, John to win awards, me to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life, a 50/50 proposition. It pays, in case you hadn’t noticed, to decide on directions early then stick to it. Tiger Woods started at 3, kids nowadays probably are doing laps in the womb.

A few years after leaving for our separate colleges, I ran into John. “Still swimming?” I asked, expecting new gills and a long rundown on trophies, awards, scholarships, endorsements from nose plug sponsors.

“No,” he said matter-of-factly, “I quit it. Gave it up.”

“Seriously?” I asked, wondering if he’d been hurt maybe, but no, he said, just wanted to live a life, not just live in chlorinated pools, training for a shot at the Olympics.

The Olympics are going on this week in Rio de Janeiro, the world’s best athletes competing in beach volleyball, ping pong, target shooting, side pocket pool, mudwrestling, horseshoes, every sport imaginable. I’m betting John and I are two of the few who don’t follow the Games. He’s a professor now in Idaho, I’m still wondering what to do with my life. But … I suspect our lives are more interesting than the ones of those dedicated to some sport only the very few will ultimately succeed at. It’s easy enough to be a Loser in this specialized world without taking on the longest odds possible. John, well, he’d be surprised to hear it, but he’s always been a hero to me, a man who could walk away while he was ahead.

Rita Jansen, ever since her husband died a few years back, volunteers at the South End Senior Center’s thrift store. Beats sitting at home watching stupid talk shows, she says, and it keeps the emptiness at bay. For awhile anyway. And … it supports the Senile Center. Which offers her a whole new gang of friends to keep her company, a good bargain for the Center, a good deal for Rita.

She was working as cashier one day when I came through with my newfound used shirt and found her working a crossword in the Crab Cracker, our local Pulitzer-less bi-weekly tabloid of events, calendars, tide tables, poetry, ads and all things local. Including a crossword puzzle. ‘Whatcha got there, Rita?” I asked. “You so desperate you got to read the Cracker?”

Now, in full disclosure, let me admit here I write for the Cracker, have since issue #1, not worth maybe what the first Superman comic just sold for, but going on now something like 15 or 16 years. Rita, taking my money for the 2.75 shirt, declared how she loves the Crab Cracker and me, a hopeless wiseass, asks what in hell do you like about that rag, nothing in there but goofy humor and ….

Before I can finish she says again how she really loves the Cracker and I of course ask what in there could she possibly love and she says, “I’ll tell you what. I love that Skeeter Daddle guy.” Just so you know, once again, full disclosure, I’m that Daddle guy. But I say, hells bells, Rita, that’s crazy, he just writes weird stuff.”

“He’s funny, that’s why,” she tells me. So around we go, me making cracks about this Daddle kook and , geez, Rita defending me. When I’ve finally had enough of this hilarity, I blurt out, “Rita, I’m Skeeter Daddle.

“Oh right,” she says and hands me my change. “You wish ….” Just as the next customer rolls up to her register. So I pocketed my coins, took my used shirt and unceremoniously left. They say fame is fleeting. In my case, it’s flown the coop.

I’m standing at the bar in the South End String Band’s latest hangout after the last couple of dive bars closed. If you want to know why they closed, consider I’ve been here five minutes already, enough to write this much this far. The bartender watched me walk in, the fry cook apparently doesn’t serve liquor to people with a hat so here I stand, still scribbling in my notebook.

Ah … here comes my bartender now to take my drink order.

Oops, no, she’s going to serve the guy who followed me in three minutes after I came in, a regular, surely that justifies leaving the occasional customer to stand another few minutes while they catch up on gossip. There are four of us total in this shotgun alley of a bar. Trust me, only one of us ever leaves a tip. Oops, make that none of us today….

This particular tavern has always been a rough joint. Bikers back in the day, crack users next, meth heads for a time, now just down and outers idling away their afternoons, their evenings, their lives. If you are an aficionado of such places, a connoisseur of the hard drinking, chainsmoking denizens of these inns that the Liquor Board keeps on its permanent Watch List, you can’t really get upset with miserable service when the bartender cops an attitude. After all, the whole place comes with attitude and isn’t that why you come in the first place? You want brass and ferns, muted conversations, white wine in a stemmed glass, the hushed tones of incessant cellphones (‘Excuse me, I have to take this.’) and bartenders who enquire occasionally if you’d care for a refill or a ‘freshening’, you definitely leave town.

There’s some kind of ruckus among the three regulars down the bar but it ends as quickly as it ignited, too early for more than verbal violence anyway. My bandmates eventually arrive and after a short wait Charlene takes their orders. My glass sits empty, but just as she wheels suddenly I try to signal for another beer since she didn’t connect the empty glass with a possible refill. She strides away without turning. My kind of place, I realize, and sure, I’ll leave a tip.

Says here in the newspaper I read every morning, the one nobody believes is telling the truth, that 1 in 6 of us have taken some kind of pharmaceutical to relieve the anxiety of modern living. And here I thought TV, marijuana and alcohol were doing an adequate job.

Never hurts to supplement the relief. These are tough times and when the going gets tough, the tough turn to medication. I confess I haven’t consulted my primary physician yet about my stresses. Soon as I get a primary one, maybe I’ll see what he has on his shelf for Trump Dystopia or Faux News Phobia. Gonna take some powerful mood-altering meds to bodyslam those back down on reality’s mat. “Take two of these and call me in the morning. Avoid television news programs and get a little more exercise, Mr. Daddle. Wouldn’t hurt if you canceled those newspaper subscriptions either.”

I need a new drug, Doc. One that won’t keep me awake. One that won’t make me itch. One that won’t knock me out. A drug that doesn’t come with 50 side effects, one of them being suicidal ideation. Write me a prescription for the blues….

I tried immersing myself in work, even though it meant standing in a cold shack in a winter coat waiting for the woodstove to do its magic, usually about three hours after putting a match to the kindling. Yeah, I should’ve turned the radio to music, not news stations, but addiction is hard to kick. There must be a methadone for politics, Doc, something like that drug they give to alcoholics, the one that about kills the user if he takes another drink, give him pause next time he opens that bottle or turns the dial to BBC.

But the weather has turned Siberial and I couldn’t feel my feet half the morning. Where the hell is Global Warming when you need it? I retreated to the house here where I’m tending the fires all day and half the night. Stopped the subscription to two papers and downsized to the Seattle Times and the ever-newsless Stanwood Gazette. Helped a little, but what news filters through, from Aleppo to Trump’s latest tweet, chills me further. What I need, Doc, what I need as soon as possible, is a new drug.