The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was chatting it up over the fence with a couple of my neighbors when one of their cellphones set off in a cute and personalized ringtone, actually the same one my brother has, sounds like a flying saucer landing in a 1950’s sci-fi movie. Of course he took the call, I guess figuring the answering machine voicemail function might not work. My guess: it never gets used. The call was from his mizzus wondering where he had got off to now.

“Right here in the backyard with Skeeter and Ralph,” I heard him say. Ralph, both of us waiting for Barry to finish up, pulled out his own cell and fiddled with it, maybe checking to see what our weather was. “I-phone 7,” he said proudly, like I’d done research on what phones are what. “Yours?” he asked.

“My what?” I answered and Barry joined back in now that his whereabouts were no longer the mizzus’ concern.

“Cellphone,” Ralph said. I told him I didn’t have one. “Seriously?” he asked, fairly new to the neighborhood, not yet tuned into the Time Warp across the highway where I lived in the early 20th Century. “How do you talk to anyone?”

“Like we’re doing now,” I told him. He looked at me mistrustfully, the way an urbanite might look at a hayseed, not certain his leg wasn’t being pulled by the local yokel. It’s ten years now since Apple introduced the I-phone. Ten short years and now I’m a hopeless anachronism, a cave man in New York. “When I first came here we had a party line,” I informed Ralph and Barry too.

“My god,” Barry said, “how long have you been here?”

I wanted to say 1915, phones just invented, but I worried they might believe me. Or that I might shock them with tales of outhouses and no TV, horror stories of shack life circa 1977 when I left civilization to come out to this backwash cul-de-sac of the American Dream. But now it was Ralph’s phone ringing. “I gotta take this,” he explained unapologetically, answering it on the first ring.

“And I gotta go,” I replied and drifted back across the highway that separates us into a now distant past, a small figure moving into the fogbanks of a history soon to be forgotten completely, far far from cell range.

Eight guys. Count em. Eight. Eight men own more wealth on this planet than 3.6 billion of the bottom half of Earth’s population. Think about that for more than a few seconds. I don’t know about you, but I find it sort of staggering. Even though we have Bill Gates in the area. And Paul Allen. And Jeff Bezos. And more than just a few dot.com millionaires dotting the landscape. So it’s not a surprise that we have wealth inequity in this country. We drive by the ragged tents under Seattle’s freeway and see the folks on the other end of the scale. Probably just lazier than those eight Captains of Industry. Or dumber. Or more interested in drugs. Some good reason so no point in trying to figure out a more equitable system.

Down at the Diner the other day, Lotto Larry was telling us what he planned to do with his winnings if he ever won the Big One. Sure wasn’t going to give it to the poor or the hungry, you can bet. No, he plans for a house in Hawaii, swimming pool, housecleaners, BMW sports car, a fully stocked bar in the lanai, hot tubs … hell, he could — and did — go on for half an hour and three refills of coffee from Brenda. “Going to hire a high price accountant to cut down on the upper bracket taxes I’d probably owe. Figure out some shelters.”

“What did Trump say,” Brenda asked, pouring another round in between the cruises to the Bahamas and the condo in San Francisco, “only the stupid pay their taxes?”

Larry couldn’t have agreed more. “That’s why, sweetheart, the rich get richer,” he intoned, slopping cream into his cup and four packs of sugar. Brenda shook her head sadly. “Can’t wait to see what kind of tips you’ll give then,” she muttered, walking off. Larry was the worst tipper among us and that says a lot. Sometimes, if he didn’t have spare change in his pocket, he’d leave the lint.

Bobby across the table pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and shook his head too. Bobby lived in the same neighborhood as Larry, two doors down, 4000 square foot houses, travel trailers in the high garage, vacation lots down in Green Valley, Arizona where they both spent part of the winters. Neither knew where Brenda lived, down in the trailer court past Tyee Store, trying to support two kids after her divorce. “Jeez, Larry,” Bobby said, “you don’t have to rub it in, buddy.”

Larry, ever the charitable one, chuckled and added, “And the poor get poorer.” Bobby groaned and the rest of us 1 %’ers shook our heads. I did notice, though, we all left a little larger tip than usual. Well, except for Larry.

Tyee Country Club is sort of a misnomer. Oh, they got a clubhouse all right. And they even have a pool. Plus some pool tables. What they don’t have is the golf course the local developer promised the new property owners in the slick sales brochures. He didn’t put it in the contracts, of course, and in the end he sold off the golf course lot by lot. Folks can live on Fairway Street and Back 9 Way, but if they want to actually play golf, they need to go up the road to Camaloch. Sure, people were mad as hell, but there wasn’t much they could do about it short of buying a gun and administering frontier justice. A stint of 5 to 10 for justifiable homicide wasn’t probably what they had in mind for their Golden Years.

I’m not much of a duffer. Last time up at Camaloch’s premiere course I took a Chicago buddy who’d never hit a golf ball in his life. We took three clubs each and plenty of balls just in case we lost a few dozen. Back then the fairways were designed for a very small acreage. Quite a few laid out right beside oncoming fairways. This might work fine for professional golfers, but for fellas who never play, this is like playing scrimmage in Iraq. We sent balls incoming toward approaching carts, bounced them across fairways to the right and fairways to the left. Titleists ricocheted off houses at the course’s edge. Dunlops rained down on putters working nearby greens. Divots flew like manhole covers next to IED’s.

The game, I’m sure, never attained greater excitement than our Chicago- style play created that fine summer day on the links of Camano. We finished 9 hard holes with a few balls left over and all but one club in our duffel, probably mislaid near a green. We asked in the clubhouse if anyone had turned one in, but when they inquired what club, what brand, I was at a loss as to either, although Chi-town Larry swore up and down it was a Goodwill 5 iron. We had two in our bag so I kind of doubted it. Let’s just say I didn’t think we’d need it any time soon. And whoever found it, I doubt he’d want it, but he’s certainly welcome to it, a small gift from one duffer to another.

Why the Rich Get Richer …

I heard a study recently that said the poor are more charitable than the rich. On average they give almost twice as much of their income percentage-wise to those in need than their wealthier brethren. They also volunteer more for charities and non profits, service groups and outreach programs. Basically, if my sociology statistical studies are still in semi-working order, this proves, not quite conclusively but damn close, the South End is way more philanthropic than our neighbors up yonder ensconced behind their key carded gated communities.
I had a friend tell me in all seriousness awhile back (in regard to my bemusement over her financial plight at the time) that a million dollars just wasn’t what it used to be. What exactly do you say to a pronouncement like that? Do you work out the math of inflation vs. income? Do you shrug your overburdened shoulders and just agree? Or do you take pity and offer up a loan …. you know, to get her by until that devalued million dollars returns to its rightful place in the economy?
These are tough times. Especially, I guess, for the rich. Or, more aptly, the folks who no longer count themselves among the Gatsbys of Camano. Their stocks have slipped, the value of their two homes has dropped, their retirement funds seem inadequate now, even their hedge fund broker refuses to return their frantic calls — that vast chasm between Us and Them looks like a ditch, not a Grand Canyon. And if sacrifices must be made — and believe me, they must — a little less giving to the needy is definitely the order of the day.
Meanwhile, down here on the Lower Tiers, we kind of see we’re all in this together. So we still donate, we still volunteer and we still give. We don’t have much, but it never seemed too little somehow. Even though a hundred dollars isn’t what it used to be.

Retirement’s a touchy subject down at the Diner. The Flatheads, those vintage car guyz, they found a way to make retirement work, just build a garage, heat the damn thing and stay out there dawn to dusk or even later working on their latest ‘restoration’. They could give seminars in Golden Year Living if they had that kind of ambition, but like I said, they’re retired fellows. Like myself for the most part.

No, it’s the poor sap who thought that once he’d accumulated his pension nest egg, he’d be set. Kick back, putter around the house in his sweatpants all day, maybe give the mizzus advice on housekeeping and cooking, sit in the car while she went grocery shopping, help her balance the checkbook finally. The Good Life. Well, for him….

Quiet Billy is going on 65. The boyz at the Diner catch him on his lunch break where he rolls in daily for his usual, grilled cheese on rye, side of potato salad, cup of whatever soup they serve that day, cup of coffee, one refill. Billy manages the South End Water Association, monitors the pumps and tanks up the hill from Windyrear Realty, takes care of line breaks in the mains, monitors the readings for monthly usage. Retirement could be in his future, but Billy doesn’t think of that as an option. He thinks of that as a living burning Hell.

A few months ago Quiet Billy came down with the flu. Laid him down hard and beat on him with coughing fits, body chills, sweat fevers, headache and the urge to die. His mizzus, Betty Lou, not the warmest of women on her good days, shook her head at Billy lounging around under a blanket by the third day and insisted he ‘man up’ and get his butt back to work, he was driving her crazy. She had better things to do than serve him oatmeal gruel and listen to his constant coughing. “Die if you’re going to die, but do it quick or get back to work. I haven’t got time for this nursey nursey stuff.”

Billy had caught the flu from Betty Lou who had taken two weeks sick leave and expected him to wait hand and foot on her until she had recovered. Compassion, apparently, wasn’t high on Betty Lou’s list. Or reciprocity. If Quiet Billy had ever entertained fantasies of a contemplative retirement, puttering around the house, plunking on his favorite guitar half the day, that week with the swine flu or whatever killer crud he had, well, that pretty picture got folded, spindled and crumpled into a wad. He told me over the last of his potato salad one mournful lunch that he wanted to work until the grave. The sad part of that, the really sad part I mean, is Billy hates his job.