The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Well, okay, about a third of us in this country have been hacked. Social Security numbers, driver’s license, date of birth, all the necessary ingredients some crimninal in Belarus can sell to identity fraud specialists. I didn’t realize there were 3 or 4 companies that kept credit databases, much less 3 or 4 companies who were wide open to hackers. Silly me.

And here I was worried about Big Brother. The Damn Government, I mean, not Mark Zuckerberg. Turns out all of us are just one big happy data family, smooshed together in some internet Cloud that knows everything important about us. Now we’re sharing that information with hacker hoodlums. Swell. Just swell.

Back in the dark days of the 1970’s I lived with a bunch of freewheeling yahoos in Seattle and Gomorrah who majored in various studies at the University of Washington, but spent most of their time experimenting with drug abuse of various sorts ranging from hash oil production to laughing gas theft. They grew pot and they raised psilocybin mushrooms. They scored opiated hashish and they drank legal whisky. The place we lived in was a veritable criminal operation. ‘Honest, Officer, I only rent a room here.’

On our bulletin board we had a Social Security card pinned up. Ralph Speidel. The kidz had gone down to the local cemetery and searched for a deceased child, then gotten a card in Ralph’s name, they told me when I asked who Ralph Speidel was. ‘Just in case,’ they said. Just in case of what, I asked. ‘You never know,’ they replied. ‘We might need to go underground. Set up a new identity.’

Jeez, I thought at the time, these are drug addled paranoiacs. But they were playing with fire, stealing canisters of nitrous oxide from hospitals, selling various illegal drugs. Nixon was gone by then, the VietNam War was lost and the draft was over. These weren’t SDS roommates or Weathermen, they were college students doing a little research, nothing the FBI would find particularly interesting. Yet.

When I moved out a few months later to my ghetto home and some fresh roommates, I considered taking Ralph’s card with me but I left it on the bulletin board, just glad to be shed of these goofballs finally. Now, of course, in light of current events, I wish I’d snatched it. You just never know when a new identity might come in handy.

The South End Advisory Committee met last night in emergency session. The last time they convened a similar gathering was back in 2001 following the Trade Tower attacks when an alarmed citizenry demanded they beef up our shoreline defenses to counter what, at the time, seemed like imminent terrorist incursions. Since then the South End has pretty much kept its head in the sand, so to speak, ignoring the Great Recession (which seemed to most of us just a continuation of our unemployment woes), the Iraq War (we’re pretty much all too old to enlist) and the rise of ISIS (it’s hard to behead those with theirs buried in the beach). But sometimes events arise that demand attention, demand action, demand a committee meeting.

And certainly this was one of those times. Now that the Trump Tweet presidency has left the station, small groups around the country have declared themselves Sanctuary Zones. Sanctuary cities, sanctuary universities, sanctuary Starbucks, sanctuary nursing homes, sanctuary daycare centers. The question on last night’s table: should we declare ourselves a sanctuary too? Ethel Birmbach, current President of the Council, called the meeting to order. “Deportation is not an option,” she declared almost immediately. “These are our neighbors and friends, not our enemies.”

Randy Primplucker, a realtor for WindyRear Realty and the only member on the council actually born on the South End, argued for a quick vote “to protect our neighbors”, but Betsy Birdcall took him to task. “We don’t really know who some of these people are, Randy. Sure, you might have sold them their property, but beyond a credit check, how do you know what their backgrounds are? I’m not arguing for detention camps or even forced deportation, I’m just saying we shouldn’t assume there’s nothing nefarious going on in our community. The government won’t be looking out for us, that’s for sure.”

“These people already have detention camps,” Ralph Van Vleet practically shouted. “They put up their own gates! What are they hiding behind those gated walls? Why are they so nervous? Who are they trying to protect? Who do they think they’re fooling?”

“For godsake, Ralph,” Patty Plankton replied. “These people pay the lion’s share of our property taxes. Let’s don’t charge in half-cocked.”
Ethel pounded her hard rubber mallet on the desk that served as podium. “Calm down, everybody,” she commanded. “Randy, we all know you have financial ties to these folks. Maybe you should recuse yourself on this issue. This is way too important to have monetary issues clouding our judgement.” Randy protested meekly, but finally acquiesced.

In the end the Council voted 5 to 3 to declare the South End a Sanctuary. Up in the gated communities the 1% breathed a collective sigh of relief that, for the time being at least, their taxes would not go any higher. At least not until after the Trump presidency or a turnover in the South End Council. Down here we protect our own.

Randy Thornton has been a contractor since we first met back in about 1990 when I was thinking about building my own house and leaving the shack we’d lived in for 17 hardscrabble years. He wanted me to have him build it, you know, go to the bank, get a 30 year mortgage, pay the interest, stay in debt most of my damn life, something I told him I wouldn’t do.

“I get it, Skeeter,” he confided. “I’m going to build my own home some day, same reason.” Yah, two boyz with hammers, limited skill sets, plenty of spit and sass. Took me two years, cost me a total of $43,000 start to finish. Randy, in the meantime, built plenty of houses, the first just remodels, additions, simple affairs, but by the end, mansions for the rich, all the while living in the 1930’s house he’d originally rented but now owned along with 17 acres that adjoined our 7.

We’d pretty much lost touch over the years, mostly after he’d found Jesus and was admonished to avoid us sinners. The church did provide him with plenty of clients and maybe that’s proof enough as to the rewards of faith. But one day I found him under his 4 wheel ATV in a blackberry thicket where he’d been spraying weedkiller along the property line. Jesus wasn’t going to get that half ton vehicle off his chest but he had me to help so maybe it was the same thing. Might have saved his life, nobody nearby to hear him calling for help.

I guess Randy was appreciative, maybe even a bit sheepish about dropping our friendship when, after all, we’d been close for quite a few years. But bygones, as they say, are bygones. To celebrate his survival we went up to the shop next to the barn and he popped a couple of cold ones, religious strictures be damned. Temporarily.

“So you never built your own house,” I said, sitting in the fanciest shop on the South End, arched mahogany doors, stained glass by someone other than me, beveled leaded windows, architectural beams overhead, a Taj Mahal of a workshop. But he still lived in the little house down by the road.

“I keep trying to. But Janie can’t make up her mind what kind of house she wants. First it was a Victorian farmhouse, lots of gingerbread, even had Harold at Puget Architecture draw up plans. Then she changed her mind. Too old fashioned. We went through I couldn’t tell you how many design changes. One story. Two. Modern. Frank Lloyd Wright. Two or three different architects, a couple of designers. Every time I thought we were ready to go, nope, she’d think of something better. Mostly worried that the latest pick wouldn’t be up to snuff. Afraid to pull the trigger.”

“I got clients like that,” I said. “Keep changing their mind, find something wrong with the design or the colors or the weather that day. Some just bag the whole thing, no way they’re going to take a chance and be wrong. They want something that’s perfect. I try to tell em art isn’t about being perfect, maybe just the opposite. I spoze Janie thinks houses are the same way. Plus you got to live in it if you make a mistake.”

Randy muttered something under his breath. We opened another beer. I guess heaven could wait. Why not, heaven might not come even close to our expectations, just a colossal disappointment?

The ‘Population Bomb’ author, Paul Ehrlich, just died. Old age mostly, not starvation brought on by world famines, over populations, water wars or cataclysmic migrations. Probably had clogged arteries from too much over saturated foods. Or … just too much food, period. For awhile back there in the halcyon days of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, Paul was our most famous Doomsayer, the guy who predicted civilizational collapse, major famines, a world breeding itself to death, a planet too small to support billions and billions of us humans. He made a bundle prophesying our demise. The End is Near — not predicted by a cult nut but by a rational guy.

The population of the planet when he wrote the book was 3.5 billion. It’s now 8.3 billion. We could each have gotten a McDonald burger but maybe not fries. Paul was right about one thing — the population exploded! And there were a few famines and still are. What he didn’t factor in was the steep curve out of world poverty. Or the advances in agriculture, medicine, pharmaceuticals and technology. Who’d have guessed, right? Well, not Paul.

The trouble with folks who cried ‘Wolf’ too early is when the wolf shows up, nobody was listening to the alarms anymore. But … the future may prove him right posthumously. We’re fishing out the seas, watching the insect and bird die-offs, polluting our waters then pumping the aquifers dry. All us billions of people are pumping CO2 into our greenhouse and if climate change isn’t a direct result of population, well, kick some dirt on Paul’s grave and whistle through the graveyard.

If you want to be a prophet, all I can say is don’t be too specific about the day of the week Doomsday is coming. The End is Near, Not Tomorrow. Maybe not even next month. We’ll need some time to get ready.

Down at the Kustom Kar Body Shop the latest news of declining life expectancy for us Americans was met with some degree of skepticism at closing time. Fairlane Fred had looked up from reading the article in the newspaper he’d brought to the shop and the assembled hangers-on were smirking and laughing even before he’d finished the last paragraph.

“Gee, Fred you think those statistics apply to us?” Jake asked, lighting up a Marlboro. His empty beer can served as make-do ashtray where it balanced nicely on his beer belly and barely jiggled as he popped his third Bud. Quitting time at the Kustom was early today, it being Friday and all. George, the owner, had sent his crew home already and the Flatheads had assembled for their usual Friday wrap up. A ’62 Malibu two door sat in the paint room, its butterscotch epoxy gleaming behind the makeshift plastic sheet doorway that separated the finish room from the body shop’s clutter and mayhem. Monday George would put the wax to it, seven coats at least. Today he was more interested in putting the finish on the week. He had the fridge loaded with two cases of beer.

“Says here we’re dying faster than we did four years ago. Only going to live to be 78. Hell, Jake, you’re 73 now. The Japs get six more years than us. Time’s running out, buddy.” Freddie tipped his can at Jake. “Here’s to an early grave.”

“You believe that crap they put in the paper, go ahead, Fred, but I plan to live a long happy life.” He took a drag on his cigarette, a good pull on the Bud and laughed. “Clean living will do it every time, boys. That and a clear conscience.”

“I don’t know, Jake,” Big Ralph said, one foot on the mangled rear bumper of a Camry the towing company dropped off that morning. “You don’t look like the poster boy for ObamaCare to me. More like the Before picture of erectile dysfunction. And didn’t your doc tell you to quit smoking that last stent?”
“Doctors!” Jake snorted, “what the hell do they know?”

This sent the shop floor into waves of amusement. Half the assembled Flatheads were on doctor’s orders to quit drinking, quit smoking, get some exercise and maybe even eat right. Only Little Billy was thin enough to avoid qualifying as obese and that was barely. Little Billy didn’t really eat much of anything. He was like one of those bromeliads that attach to trees and live only off air and beer. 78 wasn’t likely to be in Billy’s cards. He said, “I haven’t been to a doctor in 40 years. And now they want to force me to buy insurance.”

“Here we go again” Phil growled, “another bitch session about health care. Trump’s gonna get rid of all that, let’s skip the crying for once.” He crumpled his can and tossed it in the industrial sized waste container George filled at least twice weekly. “Who’s ready for another beer?” he cried, rubbing his hands and heading toward the fridge.

And so another weekend got off to a great start at the Kustom Kar. Mercifully, no one would be keeping statistics down there. Or as Jake likes to say, what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Words to live by on the South End.