The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Kilauea, the volcano menacing Hawaii, has been a welcome diversion from the daily mass murders, Trump tirades and political polemics we’ve all been getting accustomed to as part of our consciousness in the Land of the Free. It takes a huge natural disaster to push those out of the headlines, I guess, but thank you, Pele. Nice to have a breather.

Apparently, not so much on the Big Island where now the danger is from toxic gases belched up by the angry god. The locals have been leaving booze along the highway toward the volcano, mostly gin which is reputed to be a preference, with or without tonic or vermouth, but this did little to abate the magma flow and now the scientists are talking about explosive eruptions and poison gases. Maybe a better quality gin, guys….

Many years ago I had one of those early coil top refrigerators and miracle of miracles, it still worked but I made the mistake of moving it out to my shop back in the woods and managed to inadvertently puncture one of the copper coils. The thing began hissing as coolant escaped and I began to panic as I considered something fast that would seal it back up. Immediately, however, I noticed the leaves downwind curling and dying in what apparently was a toxic drifting cloud of death and then my nose began to smart and I was forced to retreat to a safe distance upwind from the scene.

Turns out the coolant was sulfur dioxide or something similar, which, when combined with H20 becomes sulfuric acid. The plants provided all the water necessary, a vegetable suicide. Me, I stayed away until the hissing stopped the next day. For a hundred feet or so all the plants in the dead zone were curled up and killed. It looked like Syria after the mustard gas. And, of course, I was the perpetrator.

Lately the media has been playing up the Ring of Fire, all our volcanoes that will be next, take cover, take precautions, take out insurance, stock up on gin. Course, chances are good it won’t be in the next century or two, but hey, beats thinking about the Mueller investigation, don’tcha think? Meanwhile, we’re all getting a cheap chemistry lesson.

Gun Gospel

It’s been a few weeks since the Parkland killings down in Florida and Big Walter seems to think he’s Designated Spokesman for the NRA, judging by his non-stop harangues from the Diner to the Pilot Lounge. Last time I was fortunate enough for a reprise, he was on a soapbox in the big box grocery’s cafeteria off island presumably to spread his gun gospel to the gunless and misinformed citizens of Stanwood and Gomorrah.

“They could ban assault rifles all day long and not one life would be saved!” he fumed with a styrofoam cup of coffee waved to make a point. “Same with background checks. Any nutcase can buy a gun if he wants one. A psychiatric test, ha! He’ll just go buy one illegally on the street. Not gonna stop him! The only thing that’ll stop him is more guns … in the hands of the good guys!” Walter slammed his cup on the formica table and splattered coffee on the newspaper his victims had set down to listen all the better. Big mistake, but then, Walt was new to them.

Out here in the hinterlands the NRA P.R. machine is running full tilt. I guess if banning AR-15’s won’t prevent some other massacre, well, why bother at all? If some guy flunks the psycho test and buys a gun from a buddy, then what’s the use trying to stop him? The NRA sure doesn’t see the point when the correct answer is to arm everyone from daycare teachers to Walmart greeters. Next would-be massacre might look like the O.K. Corral, collateral damage sure, but the next psycho-killer would think twice, wouldn’t he? And if everyone’s blasting away, the cops are going to have a hard time sorting out the good guys from the bad guys, but that’s the price you pay for the god given right to bear arms, Walter would argue.

Meanwhile he’s explaining how he himself is ‘packing’ now. The lady at the table next door who’s evidently been listening suddenly picks up her tray of half eaten food and moves to the far end of the cafeteria, maybe figuring stray bullets would be considerably less likely. Me, I headed for the exit. Before I wanted to get a conceal carry myself. For Walter.

The Fender Bender Repair Shop hides down past Tyee Store’s huge footprint, mostly just a pole building with four stalls, one with a hydraulic lift over a three foot pit. Ben Paulsen started it then years ago as an auto repair business to replace the income he lost when the tool and die shop he’d worked at twenty years closed down during the Great Recession. Ben used his 401-K savings to buy the dilapidated metal shed and lost a fortune on the penalties for cashing in early.

“How’s Biz?” I asked when I drove up with my truck that needed a new clutch. Ben groaned and said sadly, “You’re it, that’s how business is lately.” Most days Ben and a few layabout cronies can be found in an upstairs office with large windows overlooking the empty bays, television on with Fox News yammering in the background and a refrigerator full of barely cold beer the boys haul in but never take out. If Benny’s making money, it pretty much goes into the fridge and cable. Us locals know to make our appointments in the morning before the noon Happy Hour if we want quality repairs. Late afternoon, we might as well do them ourselves, just as bad but far cheaper.

“Whatcha got for me, Skeeter?” Ben finally asked. I told him my clutch was starting to slip. “All right, lemme order a new one, get it tomorrow. That okay?” I said it was and asked if I needed an appointment. Ben cast an arm out over the barren bays. “I think you’ll be first in line.” He dug his grease fissured hands into his ancient overalls. “Trump don’t bring those jobs back soon, this place is toast,” he lamented forlornly. I didn’t have the heart to argue with him.

“I’ll see you morning after next,” I said and got back in my old pickup, started it and backed up. Ben stood watching, then turned and headed back up the stairs. Fox News was flickering through the big windows. The Fender Bender Repair sign, bordered by small theater lights, flickered too. In Ben’s mind, the whole damn country was doing the same.

You maybe remember Oliver North, the poster boy for the Iran/Contra affair, that black spot on American History where Reagan and his team played a little fast and loose with the law to secretly fund a war in Nicaragua with money from Iranian arms sales. Some might say this should have gotten Ronnie impeached, but in the malaise of Nixon’s exit, another presidential ousting was more than Congress could stomach. Ollie, some say, took the fall instead. Me, I think the belligerent little soldier of fortune deserved all the jail time we could give him.

So it was little surprise Fox News gave our traitor a hero’s welcome. They’d give Benedict Arnold an anchor spot if they saw George Washington as the status quo. And now the National Rifle Association just announced Ollie will be their new President, replacing, well … nobody we’d remember since Charleston Heston memorably played the role. Hard to beat Moses. But Oliver North isn’t a bad choice. You know, if you want a hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners, cold hearted sonofabitch for your spokesman. And apparently the NRA does.

I mean, you got these snot nosed high school kids tugging at your bump stocks, smarmy smart asses who wouldn’t know an AR-15 from an AK-47, who think a Glock is a pharmaceutical stock their parents have in their portfolio … punk kids who want to embarrass their legislators for taking money from the NRA, protectors of the second amendment, and whose aim is to ban all shooting irons in the Yew Ess of Aye. You need a killer for president. You need a paid assassin. You need, yep, you need Ollie. Apparently Stephen Seagal and Dick Cheney are busy. Personally, Dick would have been the better choice. He was willing to shoot his own duck hunting partner. You have to RESPECT a man who blasts his friends, a man would willingly lay waste to those high school kids, no twinge of conscience for him. Have gun, will travel.

The NRA apparently feels under siege. Thousands of high school girls and boys, placards held defiantly high, picketing and getting out the future vote. That’s more firepower than La Pierre and his paranoid thugs were prepared to confront. They needed a stronger offense, if you can imagine that. They needed an Oliver North. Probably to sell arms to the Iranian mullahs for cash to power up a P.R. blitz. All I can add is that Fox News’ loss is probably nobody’s gain. Go get em, Ollie!