The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I love a good holiday as much as the next yahoo … but c’mon, this Groundhog’s Day business, let’s be honest, the Chamber of Commerce out there in Pullmyleg, Pennsylvania has pulled a fast one on those of us who take meteorologic prediction seriously. Down here on the convergence zoned South End, No Way is a groundhog going to see his shadow on Feb. 2nd. Even if we had groundhogs! This thing just gives Science a bad name. And lately, the last thing it needs in these superstitious, Mayan Calendar, end-of-the-world times is a black eye over some mammalian hairball on the East Coast seeing its hairball shadow (or not) and then extrapolating that to El Nino or asteroid strikes on Wall Street or global warming.
Which is precisely why some of the more empirically minded boyz down at the Mabana Body Shop have been searching, in a deductive sort of methodology, an alternative Predictor of winter longevity. Hellfire, if winter’s just going to last until April, we figure there’s no point in fighting serious incentive-reducing Inevitability. We’ll just pull the covers up, collect unemployment and wait for spring. This is how civilizations thrive: they figure out tides and seasons for planting schedules and harvest times and happy hours.
The model the boyz constructed over the past decade or so is a local paradigm that utilizes a 5 gallon polyethylene bucket of fresh caught Dungeness crabs —- I KNOW you’re going to point out they’re illegal this time of season, but listen, we’re putting em back when the data is collected. Spirit of the Law, if not the Letter and that, in a clamshell is the very essence of the South End Way. —- So you got a pail of clacking claws and now you bring out a dog, any dog, any breed, random sampling, see? And you let the pooch check out the crustaceans. No shadows, no hibernating drowsy marmots. And if the crab gets a lock on Snoopy’s snout, voila, studies have shown that is a true omen of an early spring. The dog schnozz slips the noose, 6 more weeks of sleeping in.
Simple. Like Einstein says, the more elegant the theory, the higher the probability it’s correct. And the boyz down at the body shop will tell you, the accuracy here is in the 90 percentile range, statistically astounding. We’re not claiming, like those unabashed self-promoters in Pennsylvania, that this will predict spring for the entire country, but for all us Left Coasters, rest assured, Feb 2nd now has science as its bedrock foundation. We’ll leave it to the South End Chamber of Commerce how they want to capitalize on it. Crab Dog Day. Nice profitable ring to it, don’t you think, kind of like a cash register. If we can keep PETA at bay….

In between playoff football games the talk down at the Pilot House Lounge usually turns to politics. These days, even during the games…. The other evening Bobby, the night bartender, had the TV turned to CNN at the request of the Vandiver Brothers who had wearied of the hockey game on ESPN. “Puck this, Bob! How about some news instead of this stupid game with teams we never heard of.” Bob’s a little new to the Lounge scene, a recent hire, and so he acquiesced, not realizing, I guess, he might as well have tossed a Roman Candle in the middle of the bar and yelled Fire!

The channel couldn’t have been switched more than 30 seconds before Wally, seeing a newscrawl about Trump firing his attorney general over his new immigration policy, went ballistic. “That stupid %#@!!*$” he hollered, “What terrorists does he think he’s keeping out?” From the back corner, Little Jimmy fired back, “The Muslims, that’s who!” If this had been Tombstone circa 1880, tables would’ve been overturned, the mirror shot out, bottles broken over drunken heads, the pandemonium spreading into the street outside, panicking the horses. It would’ve taken the Marshall to restore order, haul a few of the cowpokes to the hoosegow, maybe even lynch one or two.

But … this was the Pilot Lounge, and while it isn’t a bastion of civility in these decidedly uncivil times on the wild wild South End, violence is pretty much verbal and even occasionally regretted in the sober light of the following day. The argument went from banning Muslims from a few countries to letting Belgium and France immigrate, sides forming in the bar and the shouting making it impossible to carry any one argument to a logical conclusion. Finally it was Bob who shouted for order, swearing to cut everyone off if they didn’t shut the *%$#! UP!! Like I said, Bob was new and didn’t really understand the Rules of the Lounge. Course, who does?

But one of them is this: the bartender does not take a side. Not once, not slightly, not ever. Bob said to the suddenly quiet room, his threat to curtail their Monday night drinking effective as a punch to the gut, “I’ll tell you something about Extreme Vetting. Forget the damn Muslims, forget that. Forget even vetting the President. He never showed anybody any tax returns. You haven’t got a clue what he’s going to do. Nobody knows and maybe nobody cares. Just vote the man into office and see what happens. Vetting? Cripes! But here’s some Exteme Vetting for tonight. One more word from anybody about politics and I’m 86’ing you. You can go home and argue with your wife.” And with that Bob turned the hockey game back on and the sound way up. “Now,” he said, “who needs a refill?”

I don’t remember who won the game and I doubt anyone else did either. But we chose up sides and rooted for one team or the other. I hope I never watch another hockey game as long as I live.

We Shall Overcomb

This week an avalanche buried a resort hotel in Italy, tornadoes destroyed towns in Georgia and Florida and Alabama, mudslides crushed homes in Southern California after monster rainstorms, a train flipped over onto an adjoining one in India and a bus full of kids hit a barrier in Europe and burst into flames killing most of the passengers. Fire, pestilence and mayhem! Fear and loathing!

And, of course, Trump. It was a week of disasters, catastrophes and portents of things to come. If I were a biblical sort, I might sacrifice a first born, the omens seem so fraught with terror. But … an old friend sent me words of hope, a message of optimism, a life preserver for these turbulent seas boiling with foul toxins. It said: WE SHALL OVERCOMB.

I’m receiving too many e-mails of despair. My old man is still sending bogus news about the Obamas. The folks who put Trump in office won’t let go of their bogeyman. The Clintons have a secret plan to get back into power! The lying press won’t recognize ‘alternative facts’! We’re still arguing if the Inauguration wasn’t the hugest one in the history of the universe, as if anyone but the man with the biggest ego in the universe cares. As if anyone of us care. We shall overcomb is what I think. The world will keep spinning on its little axis, the Syrian War will spill more blood, the Middle East won’t have peace in my lifetime, the immigrants from the south will keep on coming wall or no wall, the Russians have a new best buddy, the rich will get richer and the poor can eat cake. Jobs are going to the robots, privacy is a joke, there are more channels than ever before on cable TV. What’s changed?

I’m pruning my 26 fruit trees. The firewood needs to be hauled in from this winter’s downfall. Taxes are due. Our health insurance is about to expire. Same as when Nixon resigned. Same as when Reagan came in threatening to shrink government. Same as when Clinton cut back welfare, same as Bush when he invaded Iraq looking for those pesky weapons of mass destruction, same as Obama fighting on with drones, same as the yahoo we got now bringing back coal jobs, same as always….

We shall overcomb! Yes, indeed, we surely shall. Meanwhile, I got trees that need some serious pruning.

Fiscal Phil lives up north of me in one of our many gated communities. He owns a few rental houses down in Seattle and Gomorrah, bought when prices were pre-Amazon and the town was driveable, now worth fortunes. We’ve been friends since before the War, the Iraq ones, and so occasionally I drive through the gate after telling the guard who I am and who I’m visiting and he pops up the wooden swing arm that has STOP stenciled on its side in case us barbarians can read.

For as long as I’ve known him, Fiscal Phil has been convinced the world economy is on the verge of Total Collapse. Trump’s election only confirmed his paranoia. “The Dow just broke 20,000,” I offered as cheerful counterpoint to his apocalyptic vision, but he only shook his balding head sadly and placed his coffee cup in the built-in expresso machine he’d custom installed. Beans got ground, the grounds got pressed, water was steam injected and a few moments later he had a fresh cup, Starbucks on demand.

“Two years, Skeeter, that’s what I give the market before the Crash. I’ll be out before it does,” he said, an old prediction. Predictable as that perfect cup of joe, he rattled off his strategies for survival I’d only heard 100 times, everything from Krugerrands in his safety deposit boxes to raw silver buried in some hidey-hole in the back yard. A few thousand bucks in cash. Food stored in the basement, enough to last longer than a Mormons storehouse. Phil still has his Y-2K stockpile: generator, barrels of water, gasoline. “Doomsday,” he always intoned at the end. “It’s going to get ugly, Skeet, you better prepare yourself.”

I mumbled, as I always did, that things didn’t seem too bad. Pretty good, in fact, and Phil, true to form, shook his head sadly. “Survival of the Prepared. Don’t be a victim. What’ll you do when the money’s worthless and the food runs out?” he asked, less concerned for my welfare than for proving he was ready.

“Probably come over here, Phil. With a gun. Survival of the Most Well Armed.” Phil, never big on humor, especially the dark variety, looked shocked. Next visit, I knew, he’d tell me about his new arsenal. Dog eat dog. I guess I got two good years at least.

It was a sunny day yesterday so I decided to take a stroll through the neighborhood, maybe see if any crocuses had poked up into the sunlight early this year. Call me an optimist, but I’m forever hoping to quit my hibernative tendencies of these dark winters. Daryl and his mizzus Claudia were out by their garage when I waltzed by so they asked me in for a cup of coffee. I said sure even though I wanted to stay out in the sunshine as much as possible, not sit in their dark kitchen where half the time the curtains remained drawn.

Before I could say ‘cream’, Claudia was off on the election, so heated up she could’ve boiled the water for our coffee on her nose. “You believe that egomaniac?” she started out and by the time I’d gotten my java she was ranting about the cuts coming to Planned Parenthood, the next Supreme Court nominee, the pipeline in North Dakota and the undisclosed tax returns of the newly minted President of the Free World. Daryl smiled at each verbal fusillade and sipped his black coffee, occasionally offering up fresh meat for Claudia to gut and dress.

Claudia and Daryl pretty much stick to their god’s little quarter acre. Like a lot of us down here on the xenophobic South End. But unlike most of us, they see storm clouds on the horizon, tempests coming onshore, pestilence creeping in from the woods. The glaciers are melting, the seas are rising, the earthquake is around the corner and the bird flu will kill half the world. Sinkholes will take their car, the government will ruin the global economy, tomorrow is something to be dreaded. I don’t usually take sweetener in my coffee, but given the extra bite of bitter, I spooned in a little honey. This launched a tirade about killer sugar and the food conglomerates’ greed, high fructose sugar, transfats, GMO’s, additives, diabetes on the rise and the end of Obamacare. I could feel my stomach starting to roil.

By the time I got back outside dark coastal clouds had rolled in and the sun was pretty much blotted out. I knew I wouldn’t find a crocus trying to reach for spring; instead, I’d see the nettles poking up back on the trail in my woods. The groundhog wouldn’t see his shadow this year, he’d be dead of groundhog flu. An ill wind blew through the firs and I wondered if rain wasn’t far behind. Rain and toads, hail and misery. I hurried up, hoping I could make it back to the house before the sky fell in. Darkness seemed to come early. The house seemed miles away. And even if I made it back, it probably would’ve burned down by the time I got there. I thought I heard wolves howling. No, I was sure I heard wolves.

Turned out it was just the neighbor’s dachshund yapping. I could see the house. It was unburned. The sun had come back out. The Olympics were incandescent across the Sound and a warm breeze greeted me when I came out of the woods. A little cluster of snowdrops were poking up by the woodsheds and the hellebores were blooming. Maybe, just maybe, spring wasn’t far behind.