The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The last few weeks we’ve had a few windstorms so I’ve been patrolling my little county park lately, picking up fir branches and limbs, looking for downed trees, all that stuff we get in the winter storms. I had pretty much made the circuit of trails right about dusk, but when I rounded the last corner, I stumbled on a guy with a hoodie and bags of what I assume were groceries from Tyee Store sitting on a wet log scrolling through his cellphone that cast an electronic light on his nearly hidden face. We’re talking here about a spot back in the park where virtually no one goes even in the daytime, much less after dark. Being the vigilant ranger I am, I assumed he was homeless, probably had a makeshift campground nearby.

Not certain he had even noticed me, as intent as he was on his phone and possibly drug addled to boot, I just moved along in the gathering darkness. If he needed a place to sleep, why not leave him alone? If Hooverville starts to form in the coming months, well, I guess I’ll have to recalculate my response. I don’t really want garbage and human waste building up back there.

But what I thought about as I left our mystery man was this: if he’s as destitute as I suspect he is, how does he afford a cellphone?

I remember my couple of years living in the ghetto of Seattle and Gomorrah with neighbors who could barely afford rent, but managed to own a plasma TV in a barely furnished living room and a Cadillac parked on the lawn. I know, priorities might be different for folks. But if I were nearly destitute, what luxuries would I jettison? My boy tonight obviously had ditched the Cadillac. Or any wheeled contraption. And I suspect a TV hookup in those woods was out of the question, even one without cable, just an antenna hanging from a tree.

What I wondered is if the last vestige of civilization for us when the dystopic future strikes … or abject poverty in this case … would be a cellphone? Once that was gone, after all, what slim shred of society remains? I picture my park indigent tonight, huddled near a smoldering campfire, the trees wild in the wind and a darkness closing in, scrolling through his text messages. Even if I had a cellphone myself and had his number, what on earth could I possibly say to him? E.T., phone home? Tomorrow, I suppose, after tonight’s storm, I’ll have to go over there and see if he’s okay.

We just got an inquiry from a woman who wanted to rent our little bungalow next door, the 1940’s house we bought that Ruby, our resident stripper from the ‘30’s built with her vaudevillian husband Harry Vine. Nice stage name, Harry! Ruby grew up in our old shack before hitting the circuits but eventually came home to the South End, built her house next to her mom’s and taught dancing in town. Probably not pole dancing, just waltzes and such.

The inquiry wanted to know if we could disconnect wi-fi and if there were power lines around the house. She had recently returned from Nepal and apparently the electronic ‘grid’ was more than she could bear, having become sensitized in her absence to what the rest of us barely notice. We replied that the wi-fi could be turned off but the electricity that flows throughout the house might be an issue. Me, I’d have told her we could shut it off at the breaker panel and she could live in the dark without heat or hot water, might feel like a Tibetan monk in a cave after a few days. But the mizzus told her that maybe Ruby’s wasn’t the dream vacation she envisioned for herself and good luck finding what was.

I suppose if I spent a year in Nepal, coming home would be a shock. Television, internet, commercials, billboards, the constant bombardment of 21st century technologies. Most folks, it’s just the opposite. They can no longer imagine living life if it meant sacrificing those. We got a renter up at Ruby’s this weekend and last night the power went off about 4 in the morning. When he woke up, no lights, no toaster, no coffee maker, no TV, no reason to live. He called his daughter who texted us and said her pop was ‘freaking out’. I had gone down to get the Sunday papers and noticed all his curtains and shades pulled. I guess if you have no lights, why let any from the outside in either? Or … maybe this was an indication that our guest was in full panic attack. As you can well imagine, the situation was Grim. How many more minutes could he manage? How long before suicide seemed the better option? When, oh Lord would help arrive or the power come back on? Was the entire country de-electrified? Had the Russians cyber-struck the Grid? Or aliens? Or … worse?

Well, one minute after the distress call came in, the power company had restored the lines and electricity was flowing normally down to the South End. Yeah, it was a close call. But no life was lost. I did notice, though, the shades are still drawn, probably an indication of lasting scars. Even an hour living in pre-digital America can leave irreparable wounds.

So okay, it’s easy these days to criticize the President, to take him to task for every little peccadillo, misstatement, faux pas or small exaggeration. The poor guy can’t blow his nose without the failing N.Y. Times or the lying Washington Post going honkers on it. Sure, it took him awhile to visit the troops on the battlefield. Big deal, the man is bizzy. So what if he waited until he announced he’s pulling the troops out of Syria and declaring victory, Mission Accomplished! Might as well take a victory tour. You know, in Iraq. The country he criticized Obama for pulling the troops out early. Not much action going on there, no need for flak jackets. Hell, bring the mizzus. Sure not going into Kabul or Kandahar.

And I know, he fudged a bit telling the troops he got them a 10% raise, first one they’ve seen in a decade, but god almighty, he’s trying to boost their morale. After all, they’re stuck in some desert hellhole during Christmas so why not play Santa? They’ll learn soon enough it’s only a quarter of what he promised, about what they get every year, nobody really believes there’s a Santa anyway.

Of course there was that kerfuffle about blaming the Democrats for not funding the Wall, not spozed to turn a visit into a political rally, after all, there might be a couple of soldiers who voted for Hillary who might get bent out of shape. They lost, get over it, Private! And now that Santa’s back stateside, he doesn’t even get to spend his New Year at the Mar-a-Lago bash with all his pals because … well, you know why. Because those same Democrats who wouldn’t give the troops a raise, they’re blocking his Wall and letting all those killers and rapists and gang members and disease carriers and future welfare cheats into our country because … well, you know why. Because they’re un-American. He’s going to stay at the White House until they decide to come on over and negotiate a Deal. As in, the Art of…

Negotiation is his strong suit in case you hadn’t heard. That talk and bluster about being proud to own the government shutdown if the Dems wouldn’t fund a Wall, just that, a hard line, a bluff, a negotiating tactic. Chapter 7 in the book. If you don’t have a copy, you ought to get one on Amazon Prime, get it in a day, but still might be too late before the Democrats cave and once again, the man wins, the man shows em who’s boss, the man carries the day. Mission Accomplished, amigo!

And this, just so you understand, just so you follow the logic, this is how you make America great again. Welcome to 2019!

This past summer a buddy and I were hauling up from the crab fields out front, bitching about our current President’s latest idiocy as we were wont to do almost incessantly, when we met Ken, my neighbor across the road, and in a burst of enthusiastic rancor I decided to share our political animosities with him, starting with, “Well, not really sure what your politics are, Ken, but Dave and I were just …” As most people know by the time they’re in long pants, assumptions about politics or religion are, what we call on the South End, a slippery slope. So naturally Ken pointed out that he and his mizzus had voted Trump/Pence, stopping my screed in mid-screech, sending Dave and me and two buckets of crabs home kind of embarrassed. Or at least as humiliated as two crab killers are capable of.

But just before we exiled ourselves Ken asked if I would participate in our local library’s new podcast series he explained he was putting together. Possibly it was out of a chagrined fluster brought on by our curtailed political gaffe, but in a moment of weakness, I said yeah, sure and immediately put it out of mind and returned with Dave to our pleasurable ranting and an agreeable afternoon of crab mutilation and devouring.

Well, maybe I forgot about my promise, but Ken didn’t, so when he called a few months back, I drove to the Sno-Isle headquarters, entered a state of the art sound booth, put on big cushy headphones, sat close to a very sensitive microphone our Band would dearly love to own and let Ken and his cohort, Jim Hills, ask anything they wanted. They weren’t the Mueller investigation, thankfully, and better yet, they were very nice fellows who were sweetly gentle with this old codger.

For any of you out there in Cyberville who’ve read more than a couple of these blog sketches of Skeeter’s, you probably notice I don’t talk much about my so-called career as a stained glass guy. So you can maybe imagine my argument with myself about injecting a podcast interview into the Skeeter Diaries. But it’s New Years Day, the year of our Lord 2019, and I’m a tad hungover and sleep deprived from last night’s late hour bash, meaning my willpower is weak and my logic flawed. If this podcast seems long and boring, you are probably right … but in my defense, I blame Trump. Unless of course you voted Trump/Pence. In which case I have no excuses.

For the foohardy, here’s the link:
https://blog.sno-isle.org/news/podcast/episode-12-the-art-of-breaking-glass-with-jack-archibald/

For the past 25 years or so the mizzus and me throw a big New Year’s Party here on the South End, partly so we don’t get to know the sheriff’s deputies any better than we do now, which is what we tell the neighbors, but the real reason is a bit more shrouded in the mists of lost memories. I got a call today from Brent, an old friend now in Alaska, and it triggered a couple of neurons into firing spasmodically once more and voila, I was back in, oh, 1985 down at the shack with just a few of us struggling mightily to make it to midnight so we could toast the new year and pass out in our bunks.
My brother was here with his wife and we had Brent and Liz visiting from Portland. My brother is what you’d call a spark plug for party stuff. Meaning, when conversations lag, he springs into instant action. ‘Let’s go around the room,’ he says, ‘and tell what the best day of the year was for each of us.’ So Brent goes first and he relates a warm summer day when he and his collie were at the park and the sun was shining and the Frisbees were sailing and it was just a golden day, a boy and his pooch, fetching the Frisbee. Not maybe what my brother had in mind, I bet, but just a hippie dippy zen day that stood out for Brent more than some birthday or Christmas or the day he got a raise or the usual dopey stuff we trot out when you play Name Your Best Day.
I don’t remember what my favorite day was. I don’t remember Karen’s or my brother’s or my brother’s wife’s favorite day. But I remember Liz’s turn, Brent’s girlfriend who I’d know a long time. A real long time. A way too long a time. And as the clock ticked glacially toward 1986, gears needing oil, glasses waiting for that toast and then goodnight everybody, my brother sez, ‘Okay, Liz, what was your favorite day?’ And to this day I can remember Liz turning to Brent who was rubbing his collie’s head, probably still warm in his remembrance of a summer day in the park, and the clock’s hands stopping forever, the wood stove throwing a heat nothing like what she was focusing on poor Brent with a laser look that would burn through titanium like it was cheap plastic, and our glasses with champagne broke in the sudden stillness before she said, ‘My favorite day …. (and the ‘my’ was a small caliber bullet) My favorite day was the day we got back together, Brent.’
Maybe you’ve had a New Year’s ‘Party’ like that. The room emptying of air and sound and mirth, as if a stopper had been pulled from the tub of our happiness and no matter how hard you try, and Brent desperately tried, that stopper won’t go back in and all the merriment drains out by your feet and deep down in your cold curling guts you know, you know absolutely this is not the way you wanted to ring in the next year. You know what they mean by ill-omened now and all the months to come you will dread the next New Years’ Eve the way you would dread death itself. And of course Liz and Brent broke up and Brent moved to the furthest corner of the earth and my brother admitted maybe that wasn’t the best holiday icebreaker of all time and we decided either to forsake New Year’s altogether or bring so many people in we couldn’t possibly go around the room and play parlor games like Stab Your Lover.
And that is how the South End got its gala New Year’s Extravaganza Potluck and BYOB Party. And of course, you’re invited! Unless you got some serious issues with your girlfriend or boyfriend, lover or husband, wife or mistress. Then I think you got a new parlor game for you and a few select friends. Happy New Year anyway.