So it wasn't a bad Christmas, as Christmases go - how about yours? Oh sure, there wasn't a Ferrari (red) under the tree, or a Triumph Bonneville (black), or a wide screen HDTV (any color), or any of the other trifles which would make my life on this earth just that little bit pleasanter. And I was able to procure a train set all by myself this year so for once, wasn't expecting Santa to come up with one. Still, I made a modest but satisfying haul largely based around my fondness for quality alcohol and British food.
I'm long past the age of needing to be up at the crack of sparrowfart to see what Santa has brought - I'm well aware of his "naughty or nice" technicality and as I've been nailed by it more often than not, Christmas morning doesn't hold the same thrall it did back in simpler times. We have some friends who routinely open their gifts midway through Christmas Eve, others who check them out as soon as they receive them. Me, I can happily wait until the day itself and instead, was looking forward to my first lie-in for months. It wasn't to be of course. The World's Most Irritating Dog ™ had us awake and cursing long before the sun had put in an appearance.
Once I was dressed and had spent several minutes shivering outdoors, there was little point in going back to bed and even though it was only morning by a mere technicality, Dear Wife was awake too so we decided to commence the gift grab. As I said, it was a modest Christmas and this didn't take particularly long so we had the presents unwrapped, the oohing and aahing completed and torn paper and empty boxes out in the bin before most sensible people were even awake. Just like being a kid again.
Back in mediaeval times, when I could be classified as a kid (physically, not just mentally) my parents used to impose a rule that they couldn't be woken until 7am, whether Santa had visited or not. Maybe it was 4am, I don't recall but I do remember it seemed ridiculously late. Of course they were awake anyway because my sister and I used to sit in the hallway outside their bedroom counting off the minutes, but they didn't actually surface until they were good and ready. Which meant presents couldn't be opened until the old folks officially declared Christmas Day had commenced. Wish I had that kind of obedience from my dogs.
I seem to remember Christmas going on a lot longer back in those days too. Not just in the sense that there were more presents (although there were) but that the day itself was much more of an event. I'm sure it would be different if we had kids in the house but other than the brief spell of gift opening, the day itself wasn't a whole lot different from any other. Maybe it's changed now but when I was growing up in Britain the TV companies pulled out all the stops to put on their best programming with Christmas specials and spectacular variety bonanzas. This went on for two to three weeks. Looking at the TV guide, I see our stations here just put out the same reality TV, trailer trash talk shows and celebrity worship garbage that I ignore the rest of the year.
One advantage of the early start was of course, that I had plenty of time to get things done. I was able to walk the pupsters, do some yoga, practice my drumming and still had time for a lie down before it was time to get ready to head out for Christmas dinner. It was at the house of some friends this year; an intimate little affair of just them, us and about thirty other people.
It began with such traditional Christmas activities as firing potato guns of the deck and peppering the side of an old jeep with paintballs; just like they did in Dickens' day. By the time we had that out of our systems, the yard was strewn with enough mashed potato to keep every skunk in the neighborhood fat and happy 'till spring, while the jeep looked like something which might be driven by the Partridge Family. If it had an engine that is.
Target shooting got a little harder, but not impossible, as the sun began to drop, but finally, dinner was served. Turkeys of two varieties; Cajun spice injected and deep fried to perfection; and reg'lar style. Mashed spuds, veggies, salad, yams, breads, oh I could go on for ever - and very nearly did. There weren't enough seats, so some stood, some sat on the floor, some on the deck outside, others just shared stools, cheek to cheek. But everybody ate their fill and speaking for myself; I had to work hard to leave enough room for me beer.
The Guinness didn't last as long as I'd hoped - I think the pixies must have been drinking it; but the hostesses had thoughtfully provided a large bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label to help lubricate my vocal cords. Even so, I suspect I left the cap off a little too long because it seemed to evaporate rather quickly. Fortunately, Dear Wife had the car keys as I suspect Park County's tax collectors, who were out in force, may have paid me more attention than I would have liked. I'll was aware that I'd had my share, so with a maturity I don't often show; I decided to forego my usual nightly dram and headed straight to bed.
Which meant that to my pleasant surprise, I awoke remarkably hangover free the next morn, and was even able to manage a short run before breakfast. How very virtuous of me, don't you agree?
So Santa, ya listening? That's got to be worth at least a Triumph Bonneville (black) next year, huh?
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Only 24 Hours in a Day
05:30- Huh? What? That beeping noise...what is it? Ohfercryinoutloud, it can't be the alarm already, I've only been in bed five minutes! Ughhhhh, I frickin' hate mornings.
05:35- Yes, I know I said I was going to exercise before leaving for work this morning, but that was at 10pm, with a glass of ice-cold vodka in my hand. Must have been mad.
05:50- I'm turning into a prune. Must get out of the shower. In a minute.
06:10- Look dog, I'm freezin' my arse off here. Will you just pee already?
06:20- (Singing) "On the road again" Of all the inventions modern man has come up with, I'd say heated car seats rank right up at the top. Coffee's pretty darn good too. That said; I'd still rather be back in bed. At least until the sun comes up.
07:30- Yanno, it's all very well parking on the other side of the river in order to save having to pay, and in the summer the ten minute walk is really quite delightful. But on a bitter winter's morning it's amazing how exposed this stretch across the park really is. It's not often I actually look forward to arriving in the office.
07:55- You can tell it's going to be a rough day at the office when you've handled five phone calls before making it to the bathroom. More coffee, that's the answer.
10:15- If there really is a hell, I'll bet it involves conference calls. 10,000 lost souls sitting in eternal torment while two of them repeat the same information over and over again. Wonder what's happening to my e-mail in-box right now. Dang, I've got so much to do; I don't have time for this. What? My turn to speak? No, I don't have an update. No, I don't know when they'll have it completed. Yes, I'll follow up. Hmm, did that sound frustrated? I think I sounded frustrated. Should probably watch that.
11:55- Lady, you're pushing my buttons today. It really isn't that complicated - your problem is that you haven't attended any of the training classes and when I try to explain it to you, you just don't listen. That and you have the IQ of a throw cushion. How do you manage to dress yourself? OK, let's go over it one more time.
12:45- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
13:55- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
14:15- Note to self: When mixing up tuna and salad dressing for sandwiches, it's a good idea to prevent the mixture from being too moist. Soggy bread with the filling falling out doesn't an appetizing lunch make.
14:59- Say what?
15:01- OK, this isn't looking good. Surely not.
15:03- Oh surely...NOT! They could NOT have been so stupid as to roll out the product without making sure this feature auto-updated. Please, please, please, please, please don't tell me I'm going to have to go in and enter all this manually! I don't have to do this manually do I? Tell me I don't have to do this manually. I do have to do this manually? Oh.
15:05- Hi, it's me. You'd best go ahead and have dinner without me. I'm going to be here late tonight. I don't know, very late. I'll call you in a bit. Because it's my job that's why.
15:45- I swear, if this laptop freezes up on me one more time, it's going straight out the window. This is going to take forever.
17:35- I'm telling you - one more freeze up and it's a fast trip to the ground floor for you my little electronic friend.
17:58- Yep, you deserve a medal for staying an hour late. You must be exhausted poor lamb. But considering you didn't come in 'till 9:30, I'll hold off on the rose petals at your feet for the moment, OK? See you tomorrow.
18:25- I wonder how long a human can live on vending machine food. And why is it, the orange juice is always the first one to run out? Ooh look, Twix.
19:20- Crap look at the time, and I've barely scratched the surface. There must be a more efficient way to do this. Hmm, how about if I create a spreadsheet and then...
19:55- Well that was a colossal waste of time. OK, back to doing it the original way. Music, that's what I need. Music feeds the soul. Let's see what music I can find.
20:20- Have I really just spent the last hour getting no further forward with this? OK, come on now, focus. Grind it out.
22:10- Hi, it's me. Yep, looks like I'm going to be here all night. I'm not sure, probably 4 or 5-ish. OK, I'll call you when I pull into the driveway so you can unlock the door. Sleep well.
12:05- Whoa, where did the time go? Making progress though, if I can keep going at this pace, I should be done by about...Friday. Dang, that's depressing.
01:25- Consider the Twix my friends. Shortcake, caramel, all coated in a layer of milk chocolate. And just when you get done…there's another one. Perfection in confectionary. Oh man, I'm tired. Wonder if I could get an hour's shut-eye if I laid on the floor. No, no - push on, push on. The sooner this is done, the sooner you'll get home. But oh dearie me, is it ever going to be over?
02:45- Feeling a little fuzzy round the edges now. Must focus on the task at hancze@gh
04:15- OK, that's it - I've had enough. Time to head home. Just send out a few e-mails so everyone can see the time stamp and notice how virtuous I am.
04:30- It's an odd feeling walking through a totally deserted city. Nobody, but nobody is about. OK, well now that car's just gone and spoiled it. But apart from that, there's nobody about.
04:45- Has the steering wheel always been so heavy? Have I always lived so far away? Traffic's pretty busy going the other way though. Lot of people must start work pretty early. Poor bastards.
05:15- Honey, I'm home!
05:30- Oh it's so nice to snuggle into warm sheets ready for a good night's sleep. But first though, I need to set the alarm.
Got to get up for work in the morning.
05:35- Yes, I know I said I was going to exercise before leaving for work this morning, but that was at 10pm, with a glass of ice-cold vodka in my hand. Must have been mad.
05:50- I'm turning into a prune. Must get out of the shower. In a minute.
06:10- Look dog, I'm freezin' my arse off here. Will you just pee already?
06:20- (Singing) "On the road again" Of all the inventions modern man has come up with, I'd say heated car seats rank right up at the top. Coffee's pretty darn good too. That said; I'd still rather be back in bed. At least until the sun comes up.
07:30- Yanno, it's all very well parking on the other side of the river in order to save having to pay, and in the summer the ten minute walk is really quite delightful. But on a bitter winter's morning it's amazing how exposed this stretch across the park really is. It's not often I actually look forward to arriving in the office.
07:55- You can tell it's going to be a rough day at the office when you've handled five phone calls before making it to the bathroom. More coffee, that's the answer.
10:15- If there really is a hell, I'll bet it involves conference calls. 10,000 lost souls sitting in eternal torment while two of them repeat the same information over and over again. Wonder what's happening to my e-mail in-box right now. Dang, I've got so much to do; I don't have time for this. What? My turn to speak? No, I don't have an update. No, I don't know when they'll have it completed. Yes, I'll follow up. Hmm, did that sound frustrated? I think I sounded frustrated. Should probably watch that.
11:55- Lady, you're pushing my buttons today. It really isn't that complicated - your problem is that you haven't attended any of the training classes and when I try to explain it to you, you just don't listen. That and you have the IQ of a throw cushion. How do you manage to dress yourself? OK, let's go over it one more time.
12:45- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
13:55- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
14:15- Note to self: When mixing up tuna and salad dressing for sandwiches, it's a good idea to prevent the mixture from being too moist. Soggy bread with the filling falling out doesn't an appetizing lunch make.
14:59- Say what?
15:01- OK, this isn't looking good. Surely not.
15:03- Oh surely...NOT! They could NOT have been so stupid as to roll out the product without making sure this feature auto-updated. Please, please, please, please, please don't tell me I'm going to have to go in and enter all this manually! I don't have to do this manually do I? Tell me I don't have to do this manually. I do have to do this manually? Oh.
15:05- Hi, it's me. You'd best go ahead and have dinner without me. I'm going to be here late tonight. I don't know, very late. I'll call you in a bit. Because it's my job that's why.
15:45- I swear, if this laptop freezes up on me one more time, it's going straight out the window. This is going to take forever.
17:35- I'm telling you - one more freeze up and it's a fast trip to the ground floor for you my little electronic friend.
17:58- Yep, you deserve a medal for staying an hour late. You must be exhausted poor lamb. But considering you didn't come in 'till 9:30, I'll hold off on the rose petals at your feet for the moment, OK? See you tomorrow.
18:25- I wonder how long a human can live on vending machine food. And why is it, the orange juice is always the first one to run out? Ooh look, Twix.
19:20- Crap look at the time, and I've barely scratched the surface. There must be a more efficient way to do this. Hmm, how about if I create a spreadsheet and then...
19:55- Well that was a colossal waste of time. OK, back to doing it the original way. Music, that's what I need. Music feeds the soul. Let's see what music I can find.
20:20- Have I really just spent the last hour getting no further forward with this? OK, come on now, focus. Grind it out.
22:10- Hi, it's me. Yep, looks like I'm going to be here all night. I'm not sure, probably 4 or 5-ish. OK, I'll call you when I pull into the driveway so you can unlock the door. Sleep well.
12:05- Whoa, where did the time go? Making progress though, if I can keep going at this pace, I should be done by about...Friday. Dang, that's depressing.
01:25- Consider the Twix my friends. Shortcake, caramel, all coated in a layer of milk chocolate. And just when you get done…there's another one. Perfection in confectionary. Oh man, I'm tired. Wonder if I could get an hour's shut-eye if I laid on the floor. No, no - push on, push on. The sooner this is done, the sooner you'll get home. But oh dearie me, is it ever going to be over?
02:45- Feeling a little fuzzy round the edges now. Must focus on the task at hancze@gh
04:15- OK, that's it - I've had enough. Time to head home. Just send out a few e-mails so everyone can see the time stamp and notice how virtuous I am.
04:30- It's an odd feeling walking through a totally deserted city. Nobody, but nobody is about. OK, well now that car's just gone and spoiled it. But apart from that, there's nobody about.
04:45- Has the steering wheel always been so heavy? Have I always lived so far away? Traffic's pretty busy going the other way though. Lot of people must start work pretty early. Poor bastards.
05:15- Honey, I'm home!
05:30- Oh it's so nice to snuggle into warm sheets ready for a good night's sleep. But first though, I need to set the alarm.
Got to get up for work in the morning.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Heeeeere fishy fishy
I can see myself fly fishing. Standing in a pristine mountain stream with golden late afternoon sunlight streaming behind me as, with the skill and patience of a Zen master, I carve a graceful arc with my line before reeling in a trout of epic proportions. I release the fish, return it to the water and admire the way the light plays off its silvery scales as it swims away. Think Brad Pitt in "A River Runs Through It" and you'll have the general idea.
Still, I barely have time for the hobbies I have now and fly-fishing isn't all that cheap a sport in which to get started. Until fairly recently I wasn't aware that I had any special interest in taking up fishing at all but after giving the sport a go for the first time in years during a camping trip in the summer (where I was the only one in the group to catch a fish - a monster of at least 4 inches) the desire was formed.
I also hadn't realized how comparatively inexpensive simple spinning rods are. Sure there are the pricey ones for people who take the sport seriously, but ambling round a hardware store one day, I came across some on sale starting at around $20 - $30. That's well within my price range but first I consulted my friend Ed. Ed's been kicking around a lot longer than me (well, 7 years longer) and knows about these things.
"So is a $30 fishing rod OK to buy, or is it just a waste of $30?" I asked. Having received confirmation that the rod on which I'd caught my record breaker back in the summer probably only cost about that much, the decision was made. I was to become an angler.
Of course time passed, real life got in the way and if it hadn't have been for another friend, Melissa, I probably wouldn't have done anything about it.
"OK, I'm picking you up from work on Friday," she told me authoritively last week. "We'll go to Sportsman's Warehouse" (a kind of retail toy box for enthusiasts of outdoor pursuits) and pick out a fishing rod for you." Of course, it wasn't just going to be just me and her. Christmas is coming and too many other people wanted an excuse to visit the place so the simple act of choosing a gift for me, turned into a team event. Ed was there, of course, along with Robin and Karen so the five of us descended on the place like locusts with charge cards.
Once inside, the womenfolk spread out and headed for their respective interests. Robin took off for the shoes, Karen for the hats and Melissa for the jeans while Ed and I manned the shopping trolley and gave helpful advice. While waiting Ed, found a camouflage bathrobe, which he thought, would be ideal for hiding among the potted plants, while I came across a pair of shoulder length camouflage gloves. To avoid being spotted during formal evening functions I suppose.
Soon it was time to hit the fishing section and having rejected my first choice, a 3 ft "My Little Pony" type number in a shade of pink which would match my eyes some mornings, we moved onto my next selection. It was a cool looking silver thing but Ed decided it wasn't flexible enough. Apparently flexible is a good thing when it comes to fishing rods so he moved along the row and picked out another for me. This one was black and the tip zipped up and down like a whip when I swung it. OK, decision made, but of course - that was just the beginning.
I needed line, hooks, bobbers, sinkers, scissors, a tackle box and of course, the all important bait. You would think it would simply be a case of walking along the shelves and grabbing the stuff but instead the process involved a level of discussion which would have made a Bedouin camel trader weep. Melissa learned her fishing in West Virginia where the fish are very different animals to our Colorado natives. Ed's the local expert while I was utterly clueless so we went back and forth over the merits of # 8 hooks versus # 10s, bobbers or not, light line or heavy, the debate went on.
Ed's an aficionado of the fishing vest, while Melissa's a tackle box devotee. Being blessed with skinny, weedy looking arms I knew that a bulky vest wouldn't be much of a fashion statement on me as you probably know, anglers are a stylish bunch so I decided on the tackle box.
"You'll want one with a shoulder strap," explained Melissa, "because you'll have your rod and stuff in one hand, your beer cooler in the other and you won't want to be messing with a tackle box in your third." Sound advice that, so we picked out a green one and moved on.
Selecting my first supply of bait was another big decision. Back in the days when I last fished, you either purchased a small bag of some unidentified marine life from a crusty old guy in a kiosk at the head of the pier, or you went into the back yard and dug up worms. I haven't seen a worm in Colorado and I doubt they would keep 'till the warm weather so instead we checked out the endless supply of commercial offerings. It would never have occurred to me that fish would go after some of these fluorescent concoctions but it seems those are the "in" colors. Bright red salmon eggs, neon orange Power Bait, glitter balls called "Drag Queen Bait", which tickled Melissa no end - it was all here. Even little jars of multi-colored paste which you use, presumably, to roll your own. It's all very hi-tech these days.
Finally we were done and I headed for the checkout to hand over a sum of cash considerably higher than the $20-$30 I had originally anticipated. Still, Christmas only comes once a year. I'll need Melissa and Ed to show me how to work most of this stuff but I did spend a happy hour on Saturday unwrapping it all and placing it neatly in my new tackle box. I also picked up my first fishing injury, drawing blood when the snap of the box ripped open my index finger. How manly is that?
Still, I'm all set to go now. The gear is primed, I'm ready for the hunt and fish had best beware. Everything is in place.
So how long is it 'till Spring?
Still, I barely have time for the hobbies I have now and fly-fishing isn't all that cheap a sport in which to get started. Until fairly recently I wasn't aware that I had any special interest in taking up fishing at all but after giving the sport a go for the first time in years during a camping trip in the summer (where I was the only one in the group to catch a fish - a monster of at least 4 inches) the desire was formed.
I also hadn't realized how comparatively inexpensive simple spinning rods are. Sure there are the pricey ones for people who take the sport seriously, but ambling round a hardware store one day, I came across some on sale starting at around $20 - $30. That's well within my price range but first I consulted my friend Ed. Ed's been kicking around a lot longer than me (well, 7 years longer) and knows about these things.
"So is a $30 fishing rod OK to buy, or is it just a waste of $30?" I asked. Having received confirmation that the rod on which I'd caught my record breaker back in the summer probably only cost about that much, the decision was made. I was to become an angler.
Of course time passed, real life got in the way and if it hadn't have been for another friend, Melissa, I probably wouldn't have done anything about it.
"OK, I'm picking you up from work on Friday," she told me authoritively last week. "We'll go to Sportsman's Warehouse" (a kind of retail toy box for enthusiasts of outdoor pursuits) and pick out a fishing rod for you." Of course, it wasn't just going to be just me and her. Christmas is coming and too many other people wanted an excuse to visit the place so the simple act of choosing a gift for me, turned into a team event. Ed was there, of course, along with Robin and Karen so the five of us descended on the place like locusts with charge cards.
Once inside, the womenfolk spread out and headed for their respective interests. Robin took off for the shoes, Karen for the hats and Melissa for the jeans while Ed and I manned the shopping trolley and gave helpful advice. While waiting Ed, found a camouflage bathrobe, which he thought, would be ideal for hiding among the potted plants, while I came across a pair of shoulder length camouflage gloves. To avoid being spotted during formal evening functions I suppose.
Soon it was time to hit the fishing section and having rejected my first choice, a 3 ft "My Little Pony" type number in a shade of pink which would match my eyes some mornings, we moved onto my next selection. It was a cool looking silver thing but Ed decided it wasn't flexible enough. Apparently flexible is a good thing when it comes to fishing rods so he moved along the row and picked out another for me. This one was black and the tip zipped up and down like a whip when I swung it. OK, decision made, but of course - that was just the beginning.
I needed line, hooks, bobbers, sinkers, scissors, a tackle box and of course, the all important bait. You would think it would simply be a case of walking along the shelves and grabbing the stuff but instead the process involved a level of discussion which would have made a Bedouin camel trader weep. Melissa learned her fishing in West Virginia where the fish are very different animals to our Colorado natives. Ed's the local expert while I was utterly clueless so we went back and forth over the merits of # 8 hooks versus # 10s, bobbers or not, light line or heavy, the debate went on.
Ed's an aficionado of the fishing vest, while Melissa's a tackle box devotee. Being blessed with skinny, weedy looking arms I knew that a bulky vest wouldn't be much of a fashion statement on me as you probably know, anglers are a stylish bunch so I decided on the tackle box.
"You'll want one with a shoulder strap," explained Melissa, "because you'll have your rod and stuff in one hand, your beer cooler in the other and you won't want to be messing with a tackle box in your third." Sound advice that, so we picked out a green one and moved on.
Selecting my first supply of bait was another big decision. Back in the days when I last fished, you either purchased a small bag of some unidentified marine life from a crusty old guy in a kiosk at the head of the pier, or you went into the back yard and dug up worms. I haven't seen a worm in Colorado and I doubt they would keep 'till the warm weather so instead we checked out the endless supply of commercial offerings. It would never have occurred to me that fish would go after some of these fluorescent concoctions but it seems those are the "in" colors. Bright red salmon eggs, neon orange Power Bait, glitter balls called "Drag Queen Bait", which tickled Melissa no end - it was all here. Even little jars of multi-colored paste which you use, presumably, to roll your own. It's all very hi-tech these days.
Finally we were done and I headed for the checkout to hand over a sum of cash considerably higher than the $20-$30 I had originally anticipated. Still, Christmas only comes once a year. I'll need Melissa and Ed to show me how to work most of this stuff but I did spend a happy hour on Saturday unwrapping it all and placing it neatly in my new tackle box. I also picked up my first fishing injury, drawing blood when the snap of the box ripped open my index finger. How manly is that?
Still, I'm all set to go now. The gear is primed, I'm ready for the hunt and fish had best beware. Everything is in place.
So how long is it 'till Spring?
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
By 'eck, it's cawd!
When I got home the other night, Dear Wife was sitting bundled up in scarf and fleece sweater. "I think there's something wrong with the boiler," she said "I can't get the house warm".
"Well, do you realize how cold it is outside?" I asked "That could have something to do with it."
Our house is comparatively small, which means it heats up very quickly, but it's also made of papier-mâché and spit, which means it cools down very quickly too. Our gas fire only has two settings, "On" and "Not On". When it's running, it has the living room toasty in no time, when it's off, things cool down fast. So, we spend a lot of time hopping up and down to meddle with the switch.
However, the fire only heats one room. The rest of the house relies on an ancient and rather frightening boiler which sits in a closet and emits loud rattles and clunks at regular intervals. The thermostat seems to operate under it's own volition with very little regard for the actual temperature and we've spent many a happy night, lying awake listening to it fire up and switch off, fire up and switch off, sometimes several times a minute. We've been warned by people who know about these things that it will need replacing soon, but at the moment we're frittering away our income on food and car repairs so it will have to wait. And to be fair, it does a passable job of keeping the house warm.
Except when temperatures plummet the way they have this week.
The very first Gunsmoke File relates how our friends in Phoenix were horrified when we announced our relocation to the frozen wastes of Colorado.
"Don't you know it's cold up there?" they asked. Well yeah, of course we did but as I pointed out repeatedly, it's supposed to be cold in winter. And one of the many delightful things about Colorado is that even in winter, the sun shines most days so while there may be snow on the ground, and ice in the shady spots, it's usually still comfortably warm outside.
But not this week.
I was spoiled on Monday because I drove the Subaru to work. With its powerful heater, road hugging tires and best of all, heated leather seats, I cruised down that hill and back up again at night, all the while wondering what everyone else was complaining about - the roads were fine, the snow wasn't so bad, it wasn't that cold. Sure, there were hurricane force winds out there (109mph recorded in Golden) but they didn't affect me. What's the big deal? I found out on Tuesday when I was back to driving my usual transport, Angus the 4Runner. Now I love Angus to bits, and he's taken me places I would be scared to attempt in the shiny new Subaru, but it has to be said, when it comes to luxury, the car manufacturers have moved on somewhat in the eighteen years since he rolled off the production line.
The heater works, sort of, in that it dries out your eyeballs while making no discernible difference to the temperature. The tires don't hug the road so much as caress it, in a gentle stroking motion. And worst of all, the seats have to be heated manually, namely by placing your butt on them for 45 minutes or so. Even the tape player refused to be roused from its slumbers, forcing me to rely on the radio, which never helps my mood.
Although the drive through the mountains wasn't too bad. It was only when I hit the town that things got really gnarly as a winter storm was in full force and traffic at a virtual standstill. Still, I made it into the office eventually, much to the surprise of the city dwellers who hadn't expected to see me at all. Having arrived late, I had to remain shackled to my desk until well after 7pm, but at least, I thought smugly, the roads will be better now. Wrong again Einstein.
Although the snow had for the most part been cleared, the ground itself was slick and shiny as sub-zero temperatures caused everything to be coated in a film of ice. There's nothing quite like that exhilarating little thrill when you feel your car begin to slide beneath you, especially if you're surrounded by much bigger vehicles, often traveling faster than you are. 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive, it's all the same when you're on ice and I think that's the best workout my heart's had since the last time I went out jogging.
Creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. About 1/2 a mile ahead I saw her taillights suddenly begin to zig-zag as she fishtailed across three lanes of traffic. Luckily the drivers around her were driving cautiously and each had time to avoid her so she ended up on the hard shoulder, completely unharmed. As I passed her she was staring fixedly ahead with her knuckles white on the steering wheel. About 5 miles further on, creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. Sigh.
Still, Angus and I made it home unscathed and in no time I was indoors and ready for dinner. There's nothing like a big bowl of steaming hot, home-made soup on a night like this so it was a shame we didn't have any. Instead, I microwaved a pizza and munched disconsolately while huddling over the space heater. By bedtime we were, according to our cheapo thermometer on the front deck, down to -13F. I talked to the dogs to see if I could persuade them not to pee until say, May, but it was no dice. So, wrapping myself up like Nanook of the North, I dragged them outdoors for their evening constitutional. It was ear nipping, toe stinging, booger freezing cold out there - the kind of cold that sucks your breath from your lungs. Still, there's something inherently comically in watching a dog try to pee without putting any feet on the ground.
When I dragged my butt out of bed at 5:30, the windows were coated in Jack Frost's artwork - even on the inside. Cheapo thermometer told me it was -28F, which is bloody cold. I took one look at Angus, buried in a cocoon of ice, another look back at the kettle, and thought.
"Today, I'm going to work from home."
"Well, do you realize how cold it is outside?" I asked "That could have something to do with it."
Our house is comparatively small, which means it heats up very quickly, but it's also made of papier-mâché and spit, which means it cools down very quickly too. Our gas fire only has two settings, "On" and "Not On". When it's running, it has the living room toasty in no time, when it's off, things cool down fast. So, we spend a lot of time hopping up and down to meddle with the switch.
However, the fire only heats one room. The rest of the house relies on an ancient and rather frightening boiler which sits in a closet and emits loud rattles and clunks at regular intervals. The thermostat seems to operate under it's own volition with very little regard for the actual temperature and we've spent many a happy night, lying awake listening to it fire up and switch off, fire up and switch off, sometimes several times a minute. We've been warned by people who know about these things that it will need replacing soon, but at the moment we're frittering away our income on food and car repairs so it will have to wait. And to be fair, it does a passable job of keeping the house warm.
Except when temperatures plummet the way they have this week.
The very first Gunsmoke File relates how our friends in Phoenix were horrified when we announced our relocation to the frozen wastes of Colorado.
"Don't you know it's cold up there?" they asked. Well yeah, of course we did but as I pointed out repeatedly, it's supposed to be cold in winter. And one of the many delightful things about Colorado is that even in winter, the sun shines most days so while there may be snow on the ground, and ice in the shady spots, it's usually still comfortably warm outside.
But not this week.
I was spoiled on Monday because I drove the Subaru to work. With its powerful heater, road hugging tires and best of all, heated leather seats, I cruised down that hill and back up again at night, all the while wondering what everyone else was complaining about - the roads were fine, the snow wasn't so bad, it wasn't that cold. Sure, there were hurricane force winds out there (109mph recorded in Golden) but they didn't affect me. What's the big deal? I found out on Tuesday when I was back to driving my usual transport, Angus the 4Runner. Now I love Angus to bits, and he's taken me places I would be scared to attempt in the shiny new Subaru, but it has to be said, when it comes to luxury, the car manufacturers have moved on somewhat in the eighteen years since he rolled off the production line.
The heater works, sort of, in that it dries out your eyeballs while making no discernible difference to the temperature. The tires don't hug the road so much as caress it, in a gentle stroking motion. And worst of all, the seats have to be heated manually, namely by placing your butt on them for 45 minutes or so. Even the tape player refused to be roused from its slumbers, forcing me to rely on the radio, which never helps my mood.
Although the drive through the mountains wasn't too bad. It was only when I hit the town that things got really gnarly as a winter storm was in full force and traffic at a virtual standstill. Still, I made it into the office eventually, much to the surprise of the city dwellers who hadn't expected to see me at all. Having arrived late, I had to remain shackled to my desk until well after 7pm, but at least, I thought smugly, the roads will be better now. Wrong again Einstein.
Although the snow had for the most part been cleared, the ground itself was slick and shiny as sub-zero temperatures caused everything to be coated in a film of ice. There's nothing quite like that exhilarating little thrill when you feel your car begin to slide beneath you, especially if you're surrounded by much bigger vehicles, often traveling faster than you are. 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive, it's all the same when you're on ice and I think that's the best workout my heart's had since the last time I went out jogging.
Creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. About 1/2 a mile ahead I saw her taillights suddenly begin to zig-zag as she fishtailed across three lanes of traffic. Luckily the drivers around her were driving cautiously and each had time to avoid her so she ended up on the hard shoulder, completely unharmed. As I passed her she was staring fixedly ahead with her knuckles white on the steering wheel. About 5 miles further on, creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. Sigh.
Still, Angus and I made it home unscathed and in no time I was indoors and ready for dinner. There's nothing like a big bowl of steaming hot, home-made soup on a night like this so it was a shame we didn't have any. Instead, I microwaved a pizza and munched disconsolately while huddling over the space heater. By bedtime we were, according to our cheapo thermometer on the front deck, down to -13F. I talked to the dogs to see if I could persuade them not to pee until say, May, but it was no dice. So, wrapping myself up like Nanook of the North, I dragged them outdoors for their evening constitutional. It was ear nipping, toe stinging, booger freezing cold out there - the kind of cold that sucks your breath from your lungs. Still, there's something inherently comically in watching a dog try to pee without putting any feet on the ground.
When I dragged my butt out of bed at 5:30, the windows were coated in Jack Frost's artwork - even on the inside. Cheapo thermometer told me it was -28F, which is bloody cold. I took one look at Angus, buried in a cocoon of ice, another look back at the kettle, and thought.
"Today, I'm going to work from home."
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Beat of a Different Drum
I’ve always envied people with musical talent. Those who can pick up a guitar, sit at a piano, or pull a harmonica from their pocket and instantly produce that magic that is music. I’m afraid I don’t fit into that category. While me Ma sent me to piano lessons as a kid, it was pretty obvious that bash away though I might, Rachmaninov wasn’t going to have to lose sleep worrying about the competition. When I finally told my teacher I was giving it up, I swear a look of relief crossed his face. Only briefly, but it was there.
It’s a terrible affliction, to be blessed with the desire to create music, but not have a shred of talent to back it up. The movie "Amadeus" is ostensibly the life story of Mozart but told through the eyes of his contemporary Salieri, who desperately yearned to create the same beautiful sounds, but knowing he lacked the gifts to do so, drove himself mad in the attempt. I’m not even close to him in talent, (although I often have cause to question my sanity) but I can relate to his desire.
A couple of years ago, I joined the Colorado Isle of Mull St Andrew Pipes & Drums with a goal of learning the snare drum. As my attempts to self-teach had proven unsuccessful, (harmonica, tin whistle, bodhrán etc.) I figured that I might have more luck in a group setting with more experienced musicians around me. And to a point, that was true – it’s a whole lot better to be receiving regular guidance from those who actually know what they’re doing, rather than attempting to guess how things are supposed to sound. But, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s a lot harder to learn a musical instrument at age 40 than it is at age 14 and as the months ticked by it got harder and harder to hide behind my ‘beginner’ status.
The thing is; talent or no talent, nobody improves without practice and this is another area in which I’m challenged. With my work hours and commute, there isn’t too much time left in the day for things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. Many nights, by the time I’ve arrived home, eaten dinner and prepared for work the next day, it’s time for bed. Exercising, walking the dogs, paying the bills and of course, practicing my drumming all eat into sleep time and I’m afraid I’m not as disciplined as I should be about keeping up.
The shifting dynamics of pipe bands mean that over the course of a couple of years, several members come and go. Some leave to join other bands; others decide the genre isn’t for them. Right now, I’m the only beginning snare drummer in the band – the others are all playing at competition standard. This makes it harder for the teachers to spend as much time with me, focusing as they need to on working with the higher level performers. I can still bash around on my own of course, but it means it will be even longer before I improve to the point where I’m playing at that level myself.
So when, a few weeks ago, my drum sergeant Megan floated the idea that I might like to give tenor drumming a go, I wasn’t totally against the idea. Tenor drums are a very different animal to the snare. With a beat something similar to the base, the skill of a tenor comes from twirling the mallets clockwise, counter-clockwise, in spirals and loops, in front of the face, down to the side and back again. The tenor line has always been made up of girls during my time in the band but Megan sent me photos of Grade 1 drum lines where the tenors were all men. Big, burly men she assured me. I’m neither big, nor burly but fragile male ego pacified, I decided to give it a go.
"Don’t give up the snare" I was urged, learn the two together and you’ll find that developing your skills in one improves your playing in the other. OK, I can do that although I did feel a nagging worry that if I don’t have time to learn one instrument, how the hell was I going to manage two?
As it happened that weekend I, along with a number of other drummers from our band and others in the area, was already signed up for a two-day band workshop. Megan was teaching the tenors, while the snare was being covered by a drumming god being flown in especially from out of state. I decided to spend the first day with the snares, and try my hand at the tenor on the second. If ever I needed confirmation that I wasn’t going to make it in the snare world it came that Saturday. Oh, I was OK for the first few minutes during the warm up exercises but as soon as we got going into the harder stuff, I just couldn’t keep up.
"OK, let’s try this" he would say and off the group would go, while I’d flail around, not even close to playing the same beat. It was abundantly clear that even when I win the lottery (my retirement plan) and have an infinite amount of time to practice, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to play at that level. And we hadn’t even started on the intricate stuff yet. So, the following day found me the only guy in a room full of girls attempting to master the art of mallet twirling.
I have to tell you, it’s a lot harder than it looks. The mallets are connected to your hands by means of knotted shoelaces wound around the fingers, which means that as soon as one attempts to spin them, they cinch up tight around the digits, cutting off your circulation and coming to a screeching halt in one swift movement. In time, I improved to the point where I could spin the things for several seconds at a time but still couldn’t help whacking myself on the wrists, the head and the face at frequent intervals.
I’ve still to pick up a tenor drum, but I am getting a little better at the twirling. I can now swing the things for a couple of minutes at a time before something goes wrong. Maybe this will be the musical instrument on which I finally discover talent. Although I haven’t yet noticed the promised improvement in my snare drumming.
Still, it’s got to be easier than marching around with a piano.
It’s a terrible affliction, to be blessed with the desire to create music, but not have a shred of talent to back it up. The movie "Amadeus" is ostensibly the life story of Mozart but told through the eyes of his contemporary Salieri, who desperately yearned to create the same beautiful sounds, but knowing he lacked the gifts to do so, drove himself mad in the attempt. I’m not even close to him in talent, (although I often have cause to question my sanity) but I can relate to his desire.
A couple of years ago, I joined the Colorado Isle of Mull St Andrew Pipes & Drums with a goal of learning the snare drum. As my attempts to self-teach had proven unsuccessful, (harmonica, tin whistle, bodhrán etc.) I figured that I might have more luck in a group setting with more experienced musicians around me. And to a point, that was true – it’s a whole lot better to be receiving regular guidance from those who actually know what they’re doing, rather than attempting to guess how things are supposed to sound. But, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s a lot harder to learn a musical instrument at age 40 than it is at age 14 and as the months ticked by it got harder and harder to hide behind my ‘beginner’ status.
The thing is; talent or no talent, nobody improves without practice and this is another area in which I’m challenged. With my work hours and commute, there isn’t too much time left in the day for things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. Many nights, by the time I’ve arrived home, eaten dinner and prepared for work the next day, it’s time for bed. Exercising, walking the dogs, paying the bills and of course, practicing my drumming all eat into sleep time and I’m afraid I’m not as disciplined as I should be about keeping up.
The shifting dynamics of pipe bands mean that over the course of a couple of years, several members come and go. Some leave to join other bands; others decide the genre isn’t for them. Right now, I’m the only beginning snare drummer in the band – the others are all playing at competition standard. This makes it harder for the teachers to spend as much time with me, focusing as they need to on working with the higher level performers. I can still bash around on my own of course, but it means it will be even longer before I improve to the point where I’m playing at that level myself.
So when, a few weeks ago, my drum sergeant Megan floated the idea that I might like to give tenor drumming a go, I wasn’t totally against the idea. Tenor drums are a very different animal to the snare. With a beat something similar to the base, the skill of a tenor comes from twirling the mallets clockwise, counter-clockwise, in spirals and loops, in front of the face, down to the side and back again. The tenor line has always been made up of girls during my time in the band but Megan sent me photos of Grade 1 drum lines where the tenors were all men. Big, burly men she assured me. I’m neither big, nor burly but fragile male ego pacified, I decided to give it a go.
"Don’t give up the snare" I was urged, learn the two together and you’ll find that developing your skills in one improves your playing in the other. OK, I can do that although I did feel a nagging worry that if I don’t have time to learn one instrument, how the hell was I going to manage two?
As it happened that weekend I, along with a number of other drummers from our band and others in the area, was already signed up for a two-day band workshop. Megan was teaching the tenors, while the snare was being covered by a drumming god being flown in especially from out of state. I decided to spend the first day with the snares, and try my hand at the tenor on the second. If ever I needed confirmation that I wasn’t going to make it in the snare world it came that Saturday. Oh, I was OK for the first few minutes during the warm up exercises but as soon as we got going into the harder stuff, I just couldn’t keep up.
"OK, let’s try this" he would say and off the group would go, while I’d flail around, not even close to playing the same beat. It was abundantly clear that even when I win the lottery (my retirement plan) and have an infinite amount of time to practice, there’s no way I’m ever going to be able to play at that level. And we hadn’t even started on the intricate stuff yet. So, the following day found me the only guy in a room full of girls attempting to master the art of mallet twirling.
I have to tell you, it’s a lot harder than it looks. The mallets are connected to your hands by means of knotted shoelaces wound around the fingers, which means that as soon as one attempts to spin them, they cinch up tight around the digits, cutting off your circulation and coming to a screeching halt in one swift movement. In time, I improved to the point where I could spin the things for several seconds at a time but still couldn’t help whacking myself on the wrists, the head and the face at frequent intervals.
I’ve still to pick up a tenor drum, but I am getting a little better at the twirling. I can now swing the things for a couple of minutes at a time before something goes wrong. Maybe this will be the musical instrument on which I finally discover talent. Although I haven’t yet noticed the promised improvement in my snare drumming.
Still, it’s got to be easier than marching around with a piano.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Guising
Back in the day, when Halloween night rolled around, Scots children would go out 'guising'. I’m told the word ‘guising’ is very similar to the German word for 'ghost' and suspect that’s no coincidence. All evening long, ghosts, goblins and other scary creatures could be seen roaming the streets in search of goodies. Neighbors would open their homes to guisers and invite them to partake in such delicacies as lemonade, shortbread, treacle pancakes and black bun. (No, I’m not sure what black bun is either – some kind of suet based cake, I think.) However, and this is important, unlike trick-or-treaters, guisers had to perform for their sweets. Sing a song, tell a joke, do a dance; something.
Although I was born in Scotland, I grew up in the North of England where Britain’s ancient pagan traditions held less sway and Halloween wasn’t much of an occasion. Our big event came less than a week later on November 5th, 'Bonfire Night', or in actuality, the night before when following tradition, we wired car bumpers together, liberated garden gates and performed all kinds of other devilry that my parents don’t need to read about here.
But even in Scotland, guising was already dying out by the time I was in my formative years. Public paranoia over the issue of child safety meant parents were less enthusiastic about their un-chaperoned kiddies entering the homes of strangers. Likewise, strangers were increasingly reluctant to open their homes to un-chaperoned kiddies. That was sad enough, but to make matters worse, Britain’s youth discovered the American custom of trick-or-treating.
What’s wrong with that? I hear my American readers asking. We all grew up with trick-or-treating and it’s a charming tradition. Little kids dressed as pirates and bumble bees and whatnot, leading their parents up garden paths towards porches decorated with pumpkins and fake cobwebs where cheerful homeowners are ready to dispense vast amounts of candy. It’s heartwarming – how could you be opposed to that?
Well, because British kids never really got into the spirit of trick or treating. What we had there was a formed of legalized extortion with a sentiment along the lines of
"Give us something good or we’ll make you sorry."
I have to tell you it was quite alarming to open the front door and find oneself confronted with five or six thuggish looking delinquents, some of them larger than me but non in costume of any sort who demanded a reward in exchange for not breaking your windows or something equally unpleasant.
Worst of all this transition took place at a time when I was too old to partake but as a homeowner, was instead on the receiving end. Where’s the justice in that? No, I learned quite early on that the best way to handle Halloween was to switch off all the lights, and hide in the bedroom until it was over.
Which is what I did on my first Halloween as an American resident. We were still in Phoenix at the time although Dear Wife was out of town and I had no intention of navigating the minefield of an unfamiliar tradition by myself. As a newly married man, I had no money to go out for the night so I turned out all the lights which could be seen from the street and sat on the bed with the television turned low.
Somebody rang the doorbell anyway which sent the dogs into paroxysms of rage at this breach of etiquette but I steadfastly refused to reveal my presence. Although I did sneak to the spare bedroom for a peek out the window where I was heartbroken to see a little fairy tale princess, who couldn’t have been more than about 5 years old, traipsing disconsolately down the drive towards her Dad. I felt like the biggest scrooge on the planet and had to resist the urge to run after her shouting
"Wait! I don’t have any candy but here’s some uh, canned tuna!"
In subsequent years I got more into the spirit of the thing and invested huge amounts of dosh on candy to dispense to the little monsters that appeared every few minutes at the door. One year in particular I apparently overdid the largess as I realized upon opening the door to the same group for the fourth or fifth time.
"You’re the only one who has any candy left" they told me matter of factly.
I always tended to be somewhat paranoid about running out of candy. The prospect of cleaning raw egg off the garage door, or unwrapping toilet paper from the organ pipe cactus in the front yard held little appeal, and I was much more wary of the later arrivals. As the evening wore on, the innocent little toddlers were replaced by hockey-masked serial killers and corpse brides. Things got worse still as the nine O’clock hour approached.
Although our suburb could appropriately be classified as “white bread”, we bordered on a less salubrious neighborhood. Around 8:30 or so, a convoy of mini-vans would appear, out of which tumbled an array of gang-bangers, hoodlums and L.A. Raider fans. Halloween doesn’t get much scarier than that. I’m pretty sure none of them were actually packing guns, but that didn’t stop me wondering what these future Guests of the State would consider a suitable ‘trick’ should I not complete my side of the bargain. I always made sure to keep some candy in reserve for the later arrivals.
Since moving to our little cabin, down a dirt road, miles from the nearest town, trick or treating has become something of a distant memory. There are no streetlights up here and most homes are on fairly large lots which makes traipsing from house to house less appealing. Most of the local schools now host "trunk or treat" events where the little darlings can gorge themselves senseless in a perfectly safe environment. I’m not exactly sure how the process works, but they sound like a splendid idea.
Still, we usually get two or three groups coming a-knocking over the course of the evening so I made sure to stop at the gas station on my way home to purchase a bag of Reese’s peanut buttercup miniatures. I put on the porch light, poured the treats into a bowl and sat back to wait. Not one single knock on the door. What a disappointment.
Have you ever tried Reese’s peanut buttercup miniatures? You should, they’re really good. Just don’t eat an entire bag by yourself.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be lying down.
Although I was born in Scotland, I grew up in the North of England where Britain’s ancient pagan traditions held less sway and Halloween wasn’t much of an occasion. Our big event came less than a week later on November 5th, 'Bonfire Night', or in actuality, the night before when following tradition, we wired car bumpers together, liberated garden gates and performed all kinds of other devilry that my parents don’t need to read about here.
But even in Scotland, guising was already dying out by the time I was in my formative years. Public paranoia over the issue of child safety meant parents were less enthusiastic about their un-chaperoned kiddies entering the homes of strangers. Likewise, strangers were increasingly reluctant to open their homes to un-chaperoned kiddies. That was sad enough, but to make matters worse, Britain’s youth discovered the American custom of trick-or-treating.
What’s wrong with that? I hear my American readers asking. We all grew up with trick-or-treating and it’s a charming tradition. Little kids dressed as pirates and bumble bees and whatnot, leading their parents up garden paths towards porches decorated with pumpkins and fake cobwebs where cheerful homeowners are ready to dispense vast amounts of candy. It’s heartwarming – how could you be opposed to that?
Well, because British kids never really got into the spirit of trick or treating. What we had there was a formed of legalized extortion with a sentiment along the lines of
"Give us something good or we’ll make you sorry."
I have to tell you it was quite alarming to open the front door and find oneself confronted with five or six thuggish looking delinquents, some of them larger than me but non in costume of any sort who demanded a reward in exchange for not breaking your windows or something equally unpleasant.
Worst of all this transition took place at a time when I was too old to partake but as a homeowner, was instead on the receiving end. Where’s the justice in that? No, I learned quite early on that the best way to handle Halloween was to switch off all the lights, and hide in the bedroom until it was over.
Which is what I did on my first Halloween as an American resident. We were still in Phoenix at the time although Dear Wife was out of town and I had no intention of navigating the minefield of an unfamiliar tradition by myself. As a newly married man, I had no money to go out for the night so I turned out all the lights which could be seen from the street and sat on the bed with the television turned low.
Somebody rang the doorbell anyway which sent the dogs into paroxysms of rage at this breach of etiquette but I steadfastly refused to reveal my presence. Although I did sneak to the spare bedroom for a peek out the window where I was heartbroken to see a little fairy tale princess, who couldn’t have been more than about 5 years old, traipsing disconsolately down the drive towards her Dad. I felt like the biggest scrooge on the planet and had to resist the urge to run after her shouting
"Wait! I don’t have any candy but here’s some uh, canned tuna!"
In subsequent years I got more into the spirit of the thing and invested huge amounts of dosh on candy to dispense to the little monsters that appeared every few minutes at the door. One year in particular I apparently overdid the largess as I realized upon opening the door to the same group for the fourth or fifth time.
"You’re the only one who has any candy left" they told me matter of factly.
I always tended to be somewhat paranoid about running out of candy. The prospect of cleaning raw egg off the garage door, or unwrapping toilet paper from the organ pipe cactus in the front yard held little appeal, and I was much more wary of the later arrivals. As the evening wore on, the innocent little toddlers were replaced by hockey-masked serial killers and corpse brides. Things got worse still as the nine O’clock hour approached.
Although our suburb could appropriately be classified as “white bread”, we bordered on a less salubrious neighborhood. Around 8:30 or so, a convoy of mini-vans would appear, out of which tumbled an array of gang-bangers, hoodlums and L.A. Raider fans. Halloween doesn’t get much scarier than that. I’m pretty sure none of them were actually packing guns, but that didn’t stop me wondering what these future Guests of the State would consider a suitable ‘trick’ should I not complete my side of the bargain. I always made sure to keep some candy in reserve for the later arrivals.
Since moving to our little cabin, down a dirt road, miles from the nearest town, trick or treating has become something of a distant memory. There are no streetlights up here and most homes are on fairly large lots which makes traipsing from house to house less appealing. Most of the local schools now host "trunk or treat" events where the little darlings can gorge themselves senseless in a perfectly safe environment. I’m not exactly sure how the process works, but they sound like a splendid idea.
Still, we usually get two or three groups coming a-knocking over the course of the evening so I made sure to stop at the gas station on my way home to purchase a bag of Reese’s peanut buttercup miniatures. I put on the porch light, poured the treats into a bowl and sat back to wait. Not one single knock on the door. What a disappointment.
Have you ever tried Reese’s peanut buttercup miniatures? You should, they’re really good. Just don’t eat an entire bag by yourself.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be lying down.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Fly me to the Moon
(Just don’t make me go in coach)
As and when I win the lottery ($340 million this week) one of the things I’d like to do with my new found leisure time is learn to fly. Soaring above the clouds, free as a bird, with the Rocky Mountains way beneath me and the wild blue up above. Yeah, I can see myself doing that. I’m an aviator at heart.
But when it comes to commercial flying; well, you can keep it. Oh, it has its practicalities, I know. America’s a big place and there’s rarely enough time to travel across country in any other manner; whether for business or pleasure. It’s just the process itself I don’t like. The claustrophobic seating, the harassed staff, the recycled air and the hours of waiting around all depress my spirit. Invariably, I’m just glad when I reach my final destination.
I don’t have many good things to say about our time in Phoenix but one thing I did like was that we lived about twenty minutes from the airport. Now we’re well over an hour away; nearer to two in traffic and I had plenty of time to reflect on this as I inched my way through the I-70 morning snarl. The fact that my flight to San Diego was connecting through Phoenix was simply another cause for irritation.
If you’ve flown at all recently you’ll know that in an effort to "serve you better" (Read: "Bump up the CEO’s salary by operating with less staff.") the airlines have installed self-check in monitors where by pressing segments of a TV screen, one can handle the process oneself. Except of course, it doesn’t work like that.
If, like most of us, you have a bag to check, you still need assistance from the one remaining, harassed and cranky check-in clerk. And of course, by the time you’ve established this, you’re already out of the line and milling about in bovine fashion along with the other two dozen passengers who like you, are stalled in limbo. It’s chaos and slows down the process no end. I’ll bet a chunk of those potential lottery winnings that America’s airline CEO’s have never once attempted to check themselves in under this system.
I personally have a further reason for resenting this cost-cutting measure. Following the creation of that abomination known as The Department of Homeland Security (sic) my name found its way onto a special list requiring the check-in clerk to disappear into the back, presumably to call Donald Rumsfeld who looks to see what web-sites I’ve visited recently before consenting to let me travel. That’s irritating enough but it also renders me incapable of using the auto check-in and adds a good twenty minutes to the process every time I attempt to travel.
Showing remarkable dexterity, the clerk switched from insincerely cheerful to openly hostile as soon as the red flag came up on the computer, but after making the requisite call, grudgingly consented to let me board his airplane. Which took me down to security; usually another source of vexation. Except this time, it was all plain sailing and I was out the far end almost as fast as if I’d walked through unimpeded. Obviously, that doesn’t make for an interesting story so instead I’ll tell you about the time my mother came to visit us and attempted to take a needle into the departure lounge.
In these paranoid times, transatlantic flights require travelers to be at the airport ridiculously early so to pass the time, she took along her needlepoint. Now she was savvy enough to realize that she wouldn’t be allowed to take the needle onto the plane, but mistakenly thought there would be no problem taking it through security but dumping it before boarding. To nobody’s surprise but hers the officials thought otherwise. She argued the point but being a white haired, 72-year old Scots woman, she obviously fit the terrorist profile and they were unmoved.
Hours later, she was indignantly recounting the tale while unpacking her case at our house. Pulling out her needlepoint to illustrate the story she unzipped the bag to reveal the biggest, baddest, looking pair of scissors you’ve ever set eyes on. Everybody was so intent on the damage this 5’4” woman could do with a sewing needle; that nobody had looked in her carry-on bag to notice she was carrying a set of shears capable of severing a flight-attendant’s jugular faster than you could say “These pretzels taste stale.”
So anyway, back to me.
The flights themselves were remarkably uneventful. Oh sure, the airplanes were possibly the smallest on which I’ve ever flown. The screaming babies were all sat right behind me, although as screaming babies go, these ones weren’t particularly bad. And the flight attendants weren’t even unpleasant. We took off on time, landed on time and other than a challenge with the endless lines at the food vendors in Phoenix causing me to settle for a bag of cashew nuts and an orange juice for lunch, the trip was comparatively pain free.
Certainly not as bad as some of the previous flights I’ve made. Such as the time when the turbulence from a thunderstorm near Cleveland caused the lady in the seat behind to go into a full on hysteria attack, complete with screaming, arm waving and later, projectile vomiting. Or the occasion when we spent 45 minutes in a holding pattern above Geneva and a hitherto unnoticed toothache kept my head pinned to the back of the seat. Or when I flew Air Pakistan out of Singapore and realized as we taxied down the runway, that I was the only person on board observing the “No Smoking” sign. This included the flight attendants and, as I could see through a curtain at the front, the pilot.
The only real negative aspect of this trip was when we finally landed in San Diego and were greeted with torrential rain; the result of a tropical depression which has been sitting over the city for the last few days. It never rains in Southern California, according to the song and I was crushed. Until the next day when I overheard my colleague Jon, staring gloomily out at the beach and complaining.
“Here’s me with my white Speedos™, my wife beater and my cowboy boots and I’m not going to get a chance to wear them.”
As Jon weighs in at a little over 300lbs, I think we should all be grateful for small mercies.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The First Snow of Winter
As usual, the media were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. “Major storm warning!” They told us “1-2 feet of snow expected in the foothills by Sunday night.” People were talking about winterizing their houses, were we all ready for this, did we have enough food, drinking water, spare batteries? Were we going to be able to cope?
Me? As a grizzled veteran of 2 ½ Colorado winters I listened with a jaundiced eye, to mix a metaphor. I’ve heard it so many times before, you see. Our news media, in their endless quest to procure ratings without actually reporting any real news are constantly scaring the bejasus out of Colorado’s populace by predicting storms of biblical proportions which turn out to be little more than scattered showers. Sure, occasionally we will get a decent sized dump, such as the blizzard of ’03 which put 10-12 feet down in some areas (although not ours) but generally when the weather service tells us to expect a foot of snow, we can anticipate 2 or 3 inches.
The ski resorts love it of course. Snow reports this early in the season are good for business and a decent blizzard during the Broncos game on Sunday night TV sets their phones a-ringing. So as the players slipped and fumbled in the rain, the commentators continually reassured us that “this is going to turn into a decent sized winter storm later tonight.”
Whatever.
I’d driven up from town in a steady rain but other than getting to try out the Subaru’s heated seats for the first time (did I mention how much I love our new car?) there was little evidence of winter outside the window. By 6pm it had settled into a sort of lumpy slush and by 7 there were traces of snow on the ground. But by the time I turned in, a little after 10 O’clock, it was raining once more and not showing signs of changing.
The alarm heaved me from my warm nest a little after 5am and bleary-eyed I stumbled to the window to see whether or not I was snowed in (2 hours more in bed…come on! You can do it!) Maybe an inch sitting on the railing. If that. Whoop-de-frickin’-do!
As it turned out, there was a bit more than that on the ground. 2 inches, perhaps three in places as I observed while shivering as the dogs sniffed around the yard making no attempt to pee. Still; knowing this was the first fall in several months, and on a Monday at that, I elected to take the bus rather than deal with the other drivers myself.
Scraping a view port on the windows of Angus the 4Runner took longer than I expected. The snow was much wetter and heavier than we’re used and the “good” scraper was sitting in the truck at the other end of the yard. Still, in time I had a little clear spot through which to peer and before long was creeping slowly out of the neighborhood. Even this pitiful amount of snow was enough to change the landscape entirely. Blanketed in white, the trees seemed to close in on the road, leaving just a narrow tunnel for me to drive through.
Once out on the highway, we inched our way cautiously along in single file, unsure whether ice lay beneath the slush. Well, at least most of us did. There were of course, a handful of cretins in big trucks and SUVs who, still smarting from the recent high gas prices needed to assert their manhood by tail-gating the slower drivers, passing on blind bends and forcing their way into gaps to small for their behemothic vehicles. Still, I arrived unharmed at the bus stop and was soon curled up with my book.
Which was really a perfect way to spend a day like this. Ideally I would have had a fire, a pot of coffee and an open packet of cookies on my lap but that was not to be. I did at least have a mug of coffee and the warm sweater I’d dug out from the back of the closet was keeping me toasty as we ground our way down the hill. Occasionally, I would wipe the steam from the window and attempt to ascertain our progress but with the clouds reaching almost to the edge of the road, and the visible landmarks coated in a layer of white, that wasn’t as easy as it seems.
There was little snow in town, where we arrived only a few minutes late. Just a dreary, wet, early winter’s day. Crises of international importance kept me shackled to my desk for most of the day but on the rare occasions when I found an excuse to visit somebody with a window, I could see the rain coming down in steady sheets. I wondered if this was falling as rain up on the high ground. Maybe we’d get that 1-2 feet after all.
I thought the ride home might take longer than the ride in, particularly if the snow had been falling all day so knowing that I was taking work home anyway, I cut and ran a few minutes early to catch the earlier bus. I needn't really have bothered. Oh sure, there was snow on the ground and it was obvious that if it lasted until the sun comes back out it's going to be really pretty, but 1-2 feet? I didn't even have to scrape anything off Angus' windshield. What a disappointment.
I suppose sooner or later there will come a time when the weather service predicts a big storm and we actually get a big storm. Everybody else will be there with their kerosene lanterns and bags of rice and bullets to fend off looters and whatnot, while I'll be freezing and/or starving to death because I wasn't prepared.
Still, until then, who's up for a snowball fight?
Me? As a grizzled veteran of 2 ½ Colorado winters I listened with a jaundiced eye, to mix a metaphor. I’ve heard it so many times before, you see. Our news media, in their endless quest to procure ratings without actually reporting any real news are constantly scaring the bejasus out of Colorado’s populace by predicting storms of biblical proportions which turn out to be little more than scattered showers. Sure, occasionally we will get a decent sized dump, such as the blizzard of ’03 which put 10-12 feet down in some areas (although not ours) but generally when the weather service tells us to expect a foot of snow, we can anticipate 2 or 3 inches.
The ski resorts love it of course. Snow reports this early in the season are good for business and a decent blizzard during the Broncos game on Sunday night TV sets their phones a-ringing. So as the players slipped and fumbled in the rain, the commentators continually reassured us that “this is going to turn into a decent sized winter storm later tonight.”
Whatever.
I’d driven up from town in a steady rain but other than getting to try out the Subaru’s heated seats for the first time (did I mention how much I love our new car?) there was little evidence of winter outside the window. By 6pm it had settled into a sort of lumpy slush and by 7 there were traces of snow on the ground. But by the time I turned in, a little after 10 O’clock, it was raining once more and not showing signs of changing.
The alarm heaved me from my warm nest a little after 5am and bleary-eyed I stumbled to the window to see whether or not I was snowed in (2 hours more in bed…come on! You can do it!) Maybe an inch sitting on the railing. If that. Whoop-de-frickin’-do!
As it turned out, there was a bit more than that on the ground. 2 inches, perhaps three in places as I observed while shivering as the dogs sniffed around the yard making no attempt to pee. Still; knowing this was the first fall in several months, and on a Monday at that, I elected to take the bus rather than deal with the other drivers myself.
Scraping a view port on the windows of Angus the 4Runner took longer than I expected. The snow was much wetter and heavier than we’re used and the “good” scraper was sitting in the truck at the other end of the yard. Still, in time I had a little clear spot through which to peer and before long was creeping slowly out of the neighborhood. Even this pitiful amount of snow was enough to change the landscape entirely. Blanketed in white, the trees seemed to close in on the road, leaving just a narrow tunnel for me to drive through.
Once out on the highway, we inched our way cautiously along in single file, unsure whether ice lay beneath the slush. Well, at least most of us did. There were of course, a handful of cretins in big trucks and SUVs who, still smarting from the recent high gas prices needed to assert their manhood by tail-gating the slower drivers, passing on blind bends and forcing their way into gaps to small for their behemothic vehicles. Still, I arrived unharmed at the bus stop and was soon curled up with my book.
Which was really a perfect way to spend a day like this. Ideally I would have had a fire, a pot of coffee and an open packet of cookies on my lap but that was not to be. I did at least have a mug of coffee and the warm sweater I’d dug out from the back of the closet was keeping me toasty as we ground our way down the hill. Occasionally, I would wipe the steam from the window and attempt to ascertain our progress but with the clouds reaching almost to the edge of the road, and the visible landmarks coated in a layer of white, that wasn’t as easy as it seems.
There was little snow in town, where we arrived only a few minutes late. Just a dreary, wet, early winter’s day. Crises of international importance kept me shackled to my desk for most of the day but on the rare occasions when I found an excuse to visit somebody with a window, I could see the rain coming down in steady sheets. I wondered if this was falling as rain up on the high ground. Maybe we’d get that 1-2 feet after all.
I thought the ride home might take longer than the ride in, particularly if the snow had been falling all day so knowing that I was taking work home anyway, I cut and ran a few minutes early to catch the earlier bus. I needn't really have bothered. Oh sure, there was snow on the ground and it was obvious that if it lasted until the sun comes back out it's going to be really pretty, but 1-2 feet? I didn't even have to scrape anything off Angus' windshield. What a disappointment.
I suppose sooner or later there will come a time when the weather service predicts a big storm and we actually get a big storm. Everybody else will be there with their kerosene lanterns and bags of rice and bullets to fend off looters and whatnot, while I'll be freezing and/or starving to death because I wasn't prepared.
Still, until then, who's up for a snowball fight?
Footnote: I finished composing this Gunsmoke File just before heading to bed. No more than 15 minutes later, our power went out. Not just a flicker like we're used to, but a full blown outage. No heat, no light, and worst of all, no Internet. It stayed out until 3am. Turned out the weight of snow had caused a tree to tip and blow out a power line. Maybe it was a real winter storm after all.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Mosquito Coast (without the coast)
Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch it will only make things worse mustn’t scratch oh fercryinoutloud OK then perhaps just a little scratch.
Ahhhhhhh, sweet relief.
Mustn’t scratch
Mustn’t scratch.
So I was out walking with one of the pupsters on Sunday morning. I try and get out for a longish hike at least one day each weekend and this spell of beautifully warm fall weather is a perfect antidote to a week spent suffocating in an office. The sky is pure cobalt blue, the aspens are shining in all their golden glory and butterflies are everywhere you look.
As are the insects.
I’ve always had a love-hate affair with insects in that I hate them while they love me. At least the biters do. For some reason, they want to eat me up, piece by tiny piece. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of fear, payback for misdeeds in a former life or if I simply taste good but invariably, if there are nibblers around, they’ll make a bee-line for me. (Bee-line! Get it?)
I’m told one of the early uses for lap-dogs was that fleas were more inclined to live on pooch than a human. Ergo, carry an ugly little dog on your lap and he’ll soon be flea-ridden while you remain comparatively free. Sad to say, it appears my role in the circle of life appears to be that of a Pekingese. In the sense that as long as I’m around, everybody else can enjoy the great outdoors while I slap, scratch and curse as the little devils eat me alive.
I once spent a couple of weeks in the far north of Australia doing volunteer work for a conservation group. We were laying the foundation for an elevated boardwalk which would allow day-trippers to experience the rain forest once ‘the wet’ set in and the land would be under 3-4 feet of water. The work involved digging holes, moving concrete blocks and worst of all, carrying twenty-foot long steel girders called perlons through the trees, sometimes for ½ a mile or more, before dropping them by the side of the path. This wasn’t too far from Kakadu National Park – Crocodile Dundee country but what the movies didn’t show, was just how steamy hot that terrain was.
From early morning ‘till dusk we toiled in the oppressive heat of the jungle, while our begrimed clothes stuck to our bodies and the sweat ran into our eyes. The air was so thick you almost had to swim through it. We smokers found ourselves uncharacteristically popular because our glowing cigarette tips were the perfect solution for removing the leeches which could be found stuck to inappropriate parts of one’s anatomy at any given time.
But no matter how grueling the work days, the evenings were the worst because that’s when the vampire mosquitoes came out to play. And they made straight for me.
Oh, everybody else took a share and the conversation was punctuated by slaps and oaths as we tried to keep them at bay. However, none were so persecuted, so abused and so miserable as I. It was rare I completed a sentence without flailing at some part of my anatomy in a vain attempt to exact retribution. Great minefields of welts sprang up on my neck, arms, shoulders and legs as the little fiends lined up to feast on my blood.
Eventually I could take it no more and began dressing in jeans and a sweatshirt every evening. That’s no picnic in 95 degree weather with 100+ degrees humidity but if I’d owned gloves and a balaclava, I would have worn them too. And still the little b******s got to me. On my wrists, on my ankles and around my head and on one memorable occasion during a late night nature call, on the tip of my willie. The pain was relentless.
After a few days my joints swelled up – the exact symptoms of some hideous tropical disease the name of which escapes me now. "Get into town and have it checked right away." I was told "You don’t mess around with that!" Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing more serious than the sheer volume of bites I’d received on such a small area of skin that had caused my flesh to balloon.
The mosskeeters chased me halfway round Australia and most of Asia and in time, I came to dread that little nasal whine. Usually it came just minutes after lights out and a few moments before I began cursing myself for not paying the extra for a hotel that provided mozzie nets. Even today, over a decade later my stomach still knots up whenever I hear that noise. Mosquito coils, scented candles, repellant with contents-banned-in-most-western-countries, I became an expert in the effectiveness of each. (They’re all useless).
When we were looking to relocate from Phoenix, I had one criterion above all. No mosquitoes. Amazingly we even had a few right there in the desert, mainly due to the influx of easterners and their lawn fetishes, not to mention the golf course which have spread like a virus in Arizona. All those sprinkler systems and artificial lakes brought them running. Bailey, at a little under 9,000 feet seemed to fit the bill and although I have seen a couple of mozzies since we moved here (having been bitten by both of them) they are blessedly rare.
So I’m not entirely sure what was noshing on me this weekend. I’ve picked up a handful of bites each summer, some of them quite painful but I don’t believe I’ve been feasted on quite like this since moving to Colorado. Both arms, my legs and the back of my neck are a rash of little red bumps, each one feeling as though I’ve been stabbed with a needle dipped in Tabasco sauce. And the itching, oh dearie me, the itching.
They tell me that eating copious amounts of garlic will deter the little blighters from coming too near. Sadly, that would also deter most humans from coming too near so it’s not entirely practical. Plus, it isn’t really much good after the event so instead; I resorted to Benadryl, my anti-histamine of choice.
Benadryl is known to cause drowsiness, although it didn’t help me sleep last night. I am however, more than usually tired today as I sit at my desk and pretend to work. The label says not to take whilst operating heavy machinery and while my laptop isn’t exactly heavy, I’m still having challenges driving it today.
So if anybody needs me, I’ll be xvcnxzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Working on the Chain Gang
Wayne, the gang boss started out by giving us "The Rules".
"Watch out for traffic. Make sure you have your orange vest on at all times. And you don’t have to go down steep bankings unless you want to."
OK so far, but then he went on.
"If you come across any bags containing pipes or bottles, don’t touch them. Apparently, because the polis can trace stuff from dumpsters, the meth producers are now driving out into the country to dump their old equipment. However, if you open those bags, the fumes can kill you. Also, if you come across anything like a human body or a weapon, simply mark the spot and leave it alone."
Melissa and I both perked up at the thought of finding a gun or maybe a bazooka or rocket launcher by the side of the road. Who knew highway cleanup would be this big of an adventure?
A bunch of us had volunteered to give up our Sunday afternoon by doing our bit for the neighborhood as part of the "Adopt-A-Highway" trash collection program where concerned citizens wishing to help clean up littered thoroughfares can "adopt" a 1-mile stretch of road. The local government provides trash bags and reflective vest and twice a year, the volunteers go out and tidy "their" stretch of highway. The program was founded in Texas in 1985 and since then, thousands of groups have volunteered their time and effort picking up litter on highways all over the country. Forty-nine of the 50 states in the U.S. now have a program like Adopt a Highway.
One of my favorite web sites (Pinecam.com) has assumed responsibility for not one, not two, but two and a half miles of SR285 (there was an administrative mix-up, apparently) on either side of Pine Junction and a different crew had already spent a couple of hours the day before, cleaning up one stretch of road. It was our turn today. Suitably kitted out in our orange vests ("Mine doesn’t fit." "This clashes with my T-shirt." "What other colors you got?" etc.) and carrying our heavy-duty orange garbage bags and pointy sticks, we split into two groups and each took a side of the road.
I soon became a connoisseur of the different qualities of garbage. Beer cans were the easiest to collect as a swift stab with the pointy stick speared them easily on the nail. Bottles meant bending over to pick up by hand. Paper was straightforward enough too but the very worst was the plastic bags. Usually, these were tangled amongst the weeds but any attempt to extricate them invariably saw the plastic disintegrate. It didn’t take long to establish that unless the bag was easily accessible, it was best to simply leave it where it was.
It was also a learning experience to discover just how many beer cans and bottles 285’s drivers throw out of their windows. They aren’t beer snobs by any stretch of the imagination - with the exception of a few Corona bottles they were all domestic brews and let’s face it; you’d have to drink a lot of Coors Lite before you got any kind of benefit from its pitiful alcohol content. Even so, it does go a long way to explain some of the displays of reckless driving we routinely see.
The first dead body we came across turned out to have once belonged to a cat. We never did find any human ones but there were plenty more corpses by the side of the road. It was really rather tragic just how many. A couple of them were complete, such as the raccoon and one of the deer. However, most were in a state of disrepair and the majority were nothing more than partial skeletons. (Although you have to wonder; what kind of person would throw a deer skeleton out of a car window while driving.) Here’s a tip kids, write this down. If you’re ever in need of deer bones, skulls, ribs, vertebrae or teeth, just take a walk along any stretch of Colorado highway. They’re everywhere.
With the amount of meat lying around, it was inevitable the conversation would turn to the suitability of road-kill when it comes to making dinner plans.
"Oh yeah, I can just see the look on my daughter’s face if I told her I was cooking up road-kill." said Mary.
"You should go to Safeway" I told her. "Buy a ham bone and drop it in the pot. Then when she gets home, tell her you aren’t sure what it is but you found it this afternoon."
Nobody ever takes me up on my bright ideas.
We also came across the remains of that morning’s serious car accident. Judging from the skid marks it would appear the driver came around the corner too fast, apparently unaware that in Colorado the tradition is that whenever the road goes from two lanes to one, all drivers slam on the brakes and drop to 10 miles an hour below the speed limit. Nobody’s quite sure why; it’s just the way things are done around here. From the fast food wrappers we found at the site, it also suggests the driver didn’t have his full attention on the road but by the damage to the trees, I suspect he got pretty banged up.
On and on we trudged, under the blazing September sun. As each bag was filled we tied them in a knot and left them by the roadside from where they would magically disappear sometime the next day. We also added the tires, lumps of wood and larger car parts such as the bumper Ed found. Ed was particularly attentive when it came to recovering the old tires but we suspected that was because he was checking to see if they were better than the ones currently on his Jeep.
Finally, we made it down to the end of our designated mile where, grubby and tired but feeling pretty darn good about ourselves, we waited for the mini-van ride back to the start. 33 orange bags in total, which wasn’t a bad haul for such a short stretch. And it wasn’t just paper, beer cans, plastic bags and dead animal parts either; we came across some real treasure. A fire extinguisher, a thermos flask, an intact beer glass, lots of socks and several car parts among other things. However, Wayne won first prize with his trophy.
An empty can of "Karma Sutra Honey Dust."
You have to wonder just how much attention that driver was paying to the road.
"Watch out for traffic. Make sure you have your orange vest on at all times. And you don’t have to go down steep bankings unless you want to."
OK so far, but then he went on.
"If you come across any bags containing pipes or bottles, don’t touch them. Apparently, because the polis can trace stuff from dumpsters, the meth producers are now driving out into the country to dump their old equipment. However, if you open those bags, the fumes can kill you. Also, if you come across anything like a human body or a weapon, simply mark the spot and leave it alone."
Melissa and I both perked up at the thought of finding a gun or maybe a bazooka or rocket launcher by the side of the road. Who knew highway cleanup would be this big of an adventure?
A bunch of us had volunteered to give up our Sunday afternoon by doing our bit for the neighborhood as part of the "Adopt-A-Highway" trash collection program where concerned citizens wishing to help clean up littered thoroughfares can "adopt" a 1-mile stretch of road. The local government provides trash bags and reflective vest and twice a year, the volunteers go out and tidy "their" stretch of highway. The program was founded in Texas in 1985 and since then, thousands of groups have volunteered their time and effort picking up litter on highways all over the country. Forty-nine of the 50 states in the U.S. now have a program like Adopt a Highway.
One of my favorite web sites (Pinecam.com) has assumed responsibility for not one, not two, but two and a half miles of SR285 (there was an administrative mix-up, apparently) on either side of Pine Junction and a different crew had already spent a couple of hours the day before, cleaning up one stretch of road. It was our turn today. Suitably kitted out in our orange vests ("Mine doesn’t fit." "This clashes with my T-shirt." "What other colors you got?" etc.) and carrying our heavy-duty orange garbage bags and pointy sticks, we split into two groups and each took a side of the road.
I soon became a connoisseur of the different qualities of garbage. Beer cans were the easiest to collect as a swift stab with the pointy stick speared them easily on the nail. Bottles meant bending over to pick up by hand. Paper was straightforward enough too but the very worst was the plastic bags. Usually, these were tangled amongst the weeds but any attempt to extricate them invariably saw the plastic disintegrate. It didn’t take long to establish that unless the bag was easily accessible, it was best to simply leave it where it was.
It was also a learning experience to discover just how many beer cans and bottles 285’s drivers throw out of their windows. They aren’t beer snobs by any stretch of the imagination - with the exception of a few Corona bottles they were all domestic brews and let’s face it; you’d have to drink a lot of Coors Lite before you got any kind of benefit from its pitiful alcohol content. Even so, it does go a long way to explain some of the displays of reckless driving we routinely see.
The first dead body we came across turned out to have once belonged to a cat. We never did find any human ones but there were plenty more corpses by the side of the road. It was really rather tragic just how many. A couple of them were complete, such as the raccoon and one of the deer. However, most were in a state of disrepair and the majority were nothing more than partial skeletons. (Although you have to wonder; what kind of person would throw a deer skeleton out of a car window while driving.) Here’s a tip kids, write this down. If you’re ever in need of deer bones, skulls, ribs, vertebrae or teeth, just take a walk along any stretch of Colorado highway. They’re everywhere.
With the amount of meat lying around, it was inevitable the conversation would turn to the suitability of road-kill when it comes to making dinner plans.
"Oh yeah, I can just see the look on my daughter’s face if I told her I was cooking up road-kill." said Mary.
"You should go to Safeway" I told her. "Buy a ham bone and drop it in the pot. Then when she gets home, tell her you aren’t sure what it is but you found it this afternoon."
Nobody ever takes me up on my bright ideas.
We also came across the remains of that morning’s serious car accident. Judging from the skid marks it would appear the driver came around the corner too fast, apparently unaware that in Colorado the tradition is that whenever the road goes from two lanes to one, all drivers slam on the brakes and drop to 10 miles an hour below the speed limit. Nobody’s quite sure why; it’s just the way things are done around here. From the fast food wrappers we found at the site, it also suggests the driver didn’t have his full attention on the road but by the damage to the trees, I suspect he got pretty banged up.
On and on we trudged, under the blazing September sun. As each bag was filled we tied them in a knot and left them by the roadside from where they would magically disappear sometime the next day. We also added the tires, lumps of wood and larger car parts such as the bumper Ed found. Ed was particularly attentive when it came to recovering the old tires but we suspected that was because he was checking to see if they were better than the ones currently on his Jeep.
Finally, we made it down to the end of our designated mile where, grubby and tired but feeling pretty darn good about ourselves, we waited for the mini-van ride back to the start. 33 orange bags in total, which wasn’t a bad haul for such a short stretch. And it wasn’t just paper, beer cans, plastic bags and dead animal parts either; we came across some real treasure. A fire extinguisher, a thermos flask, an intact beer glass, lots of socks and several car parts among other things. However, Wayne won first prize with his trophy.
An empty can of "Karma Sutra Honey Dust."
You have to wonder just how much attention that driver was paying to the road.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
L.A. Story
I’d visited Los Angeles once before, a couple of weeks earlier when I’d arrived fresh off the plane from Hong Kong. Well actually, nobody’s really all that fresh after they’ve been sat on a plane for eighteen hours, but the point is, while I was still comparatively new to the United States, I was already an old hand at negotiating my way around the City of Angels. OK, that’s not really true either – my experience so far was limited to the shuttle bus ride from the airport to the backpackers’ hostel, the area around Hollywood Boulevard and a day trip to Venice beach. There’s only so much you can do in L.A. in three days when you don’t have a car.
This time however, I was just paying a flying visit, arriving on the Greyhound bus in the early morning hours, leaving by the same method late that night. I would have been quite happy not to return at all except me dear ol’ Mum had sent a birthday present to the central post office there and as I’d been out of touch with my family for some weeks, I figured it was worth a side trip to pick it up.
When you tour the United States by Greyhound bus you get to see a side of America of most residents don’t. Most residents are probably unaware this side of America even exists and it’s worth noting that most residents are perfectly OK with that. Greyhound doesn’t run buses to Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. They do however; service the grottiest, seediest and most dangerous areas of the country’s major cities. Homeless people, alcoholics, the mentally deranged and other colorful characters tend to hang out in the waiting rooms and the sad thing is; those are still much nicer than the neighborhoods immediately outside.
I had three hours to kill before the post office opened and as I knew it wasn’t too far from the bus station, I partook of breakfast while perusing my guide book.
"Upon leaving the station" it read, "be sure to turn left. Turning right will take you into deepest skid row."
That sounded like good advice so turning smartly left, I strode out towards the post office. What the birthday present actually was, has I’m afraid been lost to the mists of time. However, I’m sure I appreciated it on the day. Thanks Mum. Either way, once it had been collected, I had some fourteen hours to kill before my bus out of town. There were two reasons for the late departure; both of them sound. For one, it would allow me to arrive at my next destination in daylight, when it’s far easier to search for accommodation. Secondly, even though I’ve never been great at sleeping while sitting up, it would save me the cost of a room for the night. I had however, decided that roaming the streets after dark wouldn’t be a good idea; even if I stayed to the left of East L.A. so decided to be sure I was back at the Greyhound Station well before sundown.
Downtown Los Angeles doesn’t see too many tourists itself these days and while I learned later that I wasn’t too far from the La Brea tar pits, I had never heard of them at the time and wouldn’t have noticed until I was up to my waist. I killed an hour on the free tour of the Los Angeles Times’ offices which was pretty interesting but other than that, the day passed slowly. Even so, I dawdled somewhat and it was with more than a little alarm I noticed the sun heading swiftly towards where I assumed the Pacific Ocean must be. Time to head back.
I knew the street I needed and had scouted it out earlier in the day. According to my guidebook it was only a little over a mile so I figured twenty minutes, thirty tops. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that the Greyhound Bus station had moved since my guidebook was written. It was still on the same street but a good two miles further along. Never mind "turning right will take you deepest skid row" the bus station was already up to it’s armpits in the ghetto. A fact that became painfully obvious the further I walked and the darker it got.
As evening stole across the streets the hustlers, pimps, dealers and low-lifes materialized around me, presumably from cracks in the walls, all pumped and ready to begin their day.
"Hey white boy! Gringo! Whacha doin’ here?" came the catcalls from the doorways as I strode purposefully down the center of the sidewalk, trying to make it look as if I wasn’t totally lost. Pulling out my guide book didn’t seem like a good idea, nor was asking directions. My money belt dug uncomfortably into my stomach below my T-shirt and I was only too aware just how vulnerable I would be if I didn’t find the bus station soon. Where the hell was it?
Fortunately, I came across a police cruiser. A muscular young guy was spread over its hood and I waited ‘till the cops had finished cuffing him before calling out.
"Is the Greyhound Station this way?"
"Yes," they yelled back "About 1/2 a mile – but hurry!"
They didn’t have to tell me twice and I kicked it up a notch to cover the distance before the atmosphere got even worse.
Finally up ahead, I saw the familiar electric sign of the skinny dog and stepped into the sanctuary. Except it wasn’t much better inside. People screaming, running, fighting and openly dealing drugs. It was like an 18th century insane asylum but without the charm. I sat on one of the hard plastic chairs and buried my head in my book, not making eye contact with anyone. Not even when a chair went sailing past my head. Not even when I had to step around the paramedics treating a stabbing victim on my way to the restroom.
Finally it was boarding time and I took my place on the bus out of that hell hole. A couple of nights later I sat with a bunch of other backpackers watching a movie on a tiny television. It was the usual cliché, about a small town girl desperate to escape and "go to Hollywood".
I couldn’t help thinking, "You know hon, with $60 and a packet of sandwiches, you could be there by tomorrow morning. Go ahead, do it – I dare ya!"
This time however, I was just paying a flying visit, arriving on the Greyhound bus in the early morning hours, leaving by the same method late that night. I would have been quite happy not to return at all except me dear ol’ Mum had sent a birthday present to the central post office there and as I’d been out of touch with my family for some weeks, I figured it was worth a side trip to pick it up.
When you tour the United States by Greyhound bus you get to see a side of America of most residents don’t. Most residents are probably unaware this side of America even exists and it’s worth noting that most residents are perfectly OK with that. Greyhound doesn’t run buses to Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. They do however; service the grottiest, seediest and most dangerous areas of the country’s major cities. Homeless people, alcoholics, the mentally deranged and other colorful characters tend to hang out in the waiting rooms and the sad thing is; those are still much nicer than the neighborhoods immediately outside.
I had three hours to kill before the post office opened and as I knew it wasn’t too far from the bus station, I partook of breakfast while perusing my guide book.
"Upon leaving the station" it read, "be sure to turn left. Turning right will take you into deepest skid row."
That sounded like good advice so turning smartly left, I strode out towards the post office. What the birthday present actually was, has I’m afraid been lost to the mists of time. However, I’m sure I appreciated it on the day. Thanks Mum. Either way, once it had been collected, I had some fourteen hours to kill before my bus out of town. There were two reasons for the late departure; both of them sound. For one, it would allow me to arrive at my next destination in daylight, when it’s far easier to search for accommodation. Secondly, even though I’ve never been great at sleeping while sitting up, it would save me the cost of a room for the night. I had however, decided that roaming the streets after dark wouldn’t be a good idea; even if I stayed to the left of East L.A. so decided to be sure I was back at the Greyhound Station well before sundown.
Downtown Los Angeles doesn’t see too many tourists itself these days and while I learned later that I wasn’t too far from the La Brea tar pits, I had never heard of them at the time and wouldn’t have noticed until I was up to my waist. I killed an hour on the free tour of the Los Angeles Times’ offices which was pretty interesting but other than that, the day passed slowly. Even so, I dawdled somewhat and it was with more than a little alarm I noticed the sun heading swiftly towards where I assumed the Pacific Ocean must be. Time to head back.
I knew the street I needed and had scouted it out earlier in the day. According to my guidebook it was only a little over a mile so I figured twenty minutes, thirty tops. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that the Greyhound Bus station had moved since my guidebook was written. It was still on the same street but a good two miles further along. Never mind "turning right will take you deepest skid row" the bus station was already up to it’s armpits in the ghetto. A fact that became painfully obvious the further I walked and the darker it got.
As evening stole across the streets the hustlers, pimps, dealers and low-lifes materialized around me, presumably from cracks in the walls, all pumped and ready to begin their day.
"Hey white boy! Gringo! Whacha doin’ here?" came the catcalls from the doorways as I strode purposefully down the center of the sidewalk, trying to make it look as if I wasn’t totally lost. Pulling out my guide book didn’t seem like a good idea, nor was asking directions. My money belt dug uncomfortably into my stomach below my T-shirt and I was only too aware just how vulnerable I would be if I didn’t find the bus station soon. Where the hell was it?
Fortunately, I came across a police cruiser. A muscular young guy was spread over its hood and I waited ‘till the cops had finished cuffing him before calling out.
"Is the Greyhound Station this way?"
"Yes," they yelled back "About 1/2 a mile – but hurry!"
They didn’t have to tell me twice and I kicked it up a notch to cover the distance before the atmosphere got even worse.
Finally up ahead, I saw the familiar electric sign of the skinny dog and stepped into the sanctuary. Except it wasn’t much better inside. People screaming, running, fighting and openly dealing drugs. It was like an 18th century insane asylum but without the charm. I sat on one of the hard plastic chairs and buried my head in my book, not making eye contact with anyone. Not even when a chair went sailing past my head. Not even when I had to step around the paramedics treating a stabbing victim on my way to the restroom.
Finally it was boarding time and I took my place on the bus out of that hell hole. A couple of nights later I sat with a bunch of other backpackers watching a movie on a tiny television. It was the usual cliché, about a small town girl desperate to escape and "go to Hollywood".
I couldn’t help thinking, "You know hon, with $60 and a packet of sandwiches, you could be there by tomorrow morning. Go ahead, do it – I dare ya!"
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Wheel of Fortune
So I put the spare wheel from the pickup truck back in place last weekend. That was quite an accomplishment because it’s been sitting in the bed for almost two years now. There's no way way to secure it there, which meant any time we planned to park the truck in town, muggins here had to heave the thing into the passenger seat. Then back again when we got home.
"Why didn’t you just put it away earlier?" I hear you ask. Well, mainly because it was such an ordeal getting the darn thing out in the first place and I had no enthusiasm for the process of trying to get it back. The good people at Ford who designed the spare wheel cradle for their truck line in the early 90’s obviously weren’t allowing for the fact that their customers might one day need to actually access the spare wheel.
First you have to crawl way, way under the truck, so it’s best if you only get a flat on dry days when you’re wearing old clothes. Then you use an enormous wrench (not the one that came with the truck, but a different sized enormous wrench, which of course, you knew to carry with you) to unwind a long bolt which lowers a three-foot long metal bar on which the spare wheel sits.
If the aforementioned long bolt isn’t shiny and new, maybe if it’s been somewhere dirty and wet for perhaps ten or eleven years, like say, underneath a truck, it will be more or less impossible to undo. It might take you an hour or so of struggle before you come to this conclusion, but come to it you will. This is why we have the American Automobile Association. However, lifesavers though they may be, they didn’t come back after the flat had been repaired to put the spare away for us.
I know it’s not a good idea to leave it there indefinitely and winter’s a-coming which would make crawling on the ground even less pleasant. So, last Saturday I spent a happy hour cursing and grunting as I tried to take the weight of a ¾ ton wheel with my left hand while screwing it into place with my right. Three days later, my back hardly hurt at all so as wheel changes go, this was far from being my worst.
One that comes to mind was the time when I decide to rotate the tires on Wilf, my first car, some (clears throat) years ago. As regular readers of The Gunsmoke Files will have gathered, I’m not exactly Mr. Fix-it and never have been, so why I chose to perform this task an hour before I was due to go out for the night is a mystery, even now. Citroen used an elaborate suspension system in those days, which they claimed would allow their cars to be driven on three wheels. I never put that to the test but it did make jacking up the car something of a process because even when the chassis was a good three feet in the air, the wheel remained firmly on the ground.
However, the real fun started after I’d given up and jacked the thing back down again. The chassis remained where it was. I suspect this was less to do with Citroen’s elaborate suspension and everything to do with my car being a decrepit bucket of bolts but either way, Wilf remained listing stubbornly to starboard at an angle of some 45 degrees. My friends weren’t best pleased when I called them to say I couldn’t take my turn at driving that night, but the good news was; he gradually eased himself back into place over the next couple of days.
Even so, that still wasn’t the least pleasant wheel change I’ve ever performed. That singular event took place late one winter’s night, high on the moors of Yorkshire. It wasn’t even my car, but instead belonged to my girlfriend at the time. We’d had a pleasant enough evening in a snug and cozy country pub. Crackling log fire, lots of dark wood, just the thing for a cold evening night. By the time we left, snow was beginning to fall in great swirling clouds and I was hoping we’d be well on our way home before it really got started.
Naturally, that wasn’t to be. We were a good fifteen miles from anywhere when my beloved steered us over a large rock sitting in the roadway. It didn’t have an orange flashing light on it, but it would scarcely have been less obvious if it had. Still, over it we went and immediately I heard the dreaded thump, thump, thump that signals a flat. I prepared to do my knight-in-shining-armor bit.
"Where’s your jack?" I asked before receiving the answer that strikes fear into any boyfriend’s heart.
"What’s a jack?"
With a sigh, I pulled on my thin jacket and headed towards the trunk. The jack was there, in a well under the wheel. Rotten with rust but semi-functional so I hauled it out of its nest and began the backbreaking task of jacking up the car. Mother Nature was obviously waiting for this moment to unleash her full force and the wind picked up to a terrific rate, sending flurries of snow down my neck and robbing me of the little body heat I had left. Visions of a crackling log fire danced in front of my eyes as I heaved and pulled while the car inched painfully higher.
Just when I figured a few more turns of the crank would do the trick, the car gave a sickening crunch as the jack punched its way through the rusted floor.
"Be careful!" yelled my darling from the interior, which would have been comforting had she been concerned about me, rather than her car. Gritting my teeth ever tighter, I searched around the verge until I found a flattish piece of wood and using that as a brace; began the task once more.
Finally the old wheel was off and I heaved the spare out of the trunk. You won’t be at all surprised to learn that it was flat. And of course, there was nowhere to fill it. Not on the Yorkshire moors after midnight, there wasn’t.
It was about that time, I decided my sweetheart wasn’t all that good-looking, there were plenty more fish in the sea, and there was no particular advantage in continuing to be polite. We had a full and frank exchange of views and agreed to go our separate ways.
But you know what? I’m OK with that.
"Why didn’t you just put it away earlier?" I hear you ask. Well, mainly because it was such an ordeal getting the darn thing out in the first place and I had no enthusiasm for the process of trying to get it back. The good people at Ford who designed the spare wheel cradle for their truck line in the early 90’s obviously weren’t allowing for the fact that their customers might one day need to actually access the spare wheel.
First you have to crawl way, way under the truck, so it’s best if you only get a flat on dry days when you’re wearing old clothes. Then you use an enormous wrench (not the one that came with the truck, but a different sized enormous wrench, which of course, you knew to carry with you) to unwind a long bolt which lowers a three-foot long metal bar on which the spare wheel sits.
If the aforementioned long bolt isn’t shiny and new, maybe if it’s been somewhere dirty and wet for perhaps ten or eleven years, like say, underneath a truck, it will be more or less impossible to undo. It might take you an hour or so of struggle before you come to this conclusion, but come to it you will. This is why we have the American Automobile Association. However, lifesavers though they may be, they didn’t come back after the flat had been repaired to put the spare away for us.
I know it’s not a good idea to leave it there indefinitely and winter’s a-coming which would make crawling on the ground even less pleasant. So, last Saturday I spent a happy hour cursing and grunting as I tried to take the weight of a ¾ ton wheel with my left hand while screwing it into place with my right. Three days later, my back hardly hurt at all so as wheel changes go, this was far from being my worst.
One that comes to mind was the time when I decide to rotate the tires on Wilf, my first car, some (clears throat) years ago. As regular readers of The Gunsmoke Files will have gathered, I’m not exactly Mr. Fix-it and never have been, so why I chose to perform this task an hour before I was due to go out for the night is a mystery, even now. Citroen used an elaborate suspension system in those days, which they claimed would allow their cars to be driven on three wheels. I never put that to the test but it did make jacking up the car something of a process because even when the chassis was a good three feet in the air, the wheel remained firmly on the ground.
However, the real fun started after I’d given up and jacked the thing back down again. The chassis remained where it was. I suspect this was less to do with Citroen’s elaborate suspension and everything to do with my car being a decrepit bucket of bolts but either way, Wilf remained listing stubbornly to starboard at an angle of some 45 degrees. My friends weren’t best pleased when I called them to say I couldn’t take my turn at driving that night, but the good news was; he gradually eased himself back into place over the next couple of days.
Even so, that still wasn’t the least pleasant wheel change I’ve ever performed. That singular event took place late one winter’s night, high on the moors of Yorkshire. It wasn’t even my car, but instead belonged to my girlfriend at the time. We’d had a pleasant enough evening in a snug and cozy country pub. Crackling log fire, lots of dark wood, just the thing for a cold evening night. By the time we left, snow was beginning to fall in great swirling clouds and I was hoping we’d be well on our way home before it really got started.
Naturally, that wasn’t to be. We were a good fifteen miles from anywhere when my beloved steered us over a large rock sitting in the roadway. It didn’t have an orange flashing light on it, but it would scarcely have been less obvious if it had. Still, over it we went and immediately I heard the dreaded thump, thump, thump that signals a flat. I prepared to do my knight-in-shining-armor bit.
"Where’s your jack?" I asked before receiving the answer that strikes fear into any boyfriend’s heart.
"What’s a jack?"
With a sigh, I pulled on my thin jacket and headed towards the trunk. The jack was there, in a well under the wheel. Rotten with rust but semi-functional so I hauled it out of its nest and began the backbreaking task of jacking up the car. Mother Nature was obviously waiting for this moment to unleash her full force and the wind picked up to a terrific rate, sending flurries of snow down my neck and robbing me of the little body heat I had left. Visions of a crackling log fire danced in front of my eyes as I heaved and pulled while the car inched painfully higher.
Just when I figured a few more turns of the crank would do the trick, the car gave a sickening crunch as the jack punched its way through the rusted floor.
"Be careful!" yelled my darling from the interior, which would have been comforting had she been concerned about me, rather than her car. Gritting my teeth ever tighter, I searched around the verge until I found a flattish piece of wood and using that as a brace; began the task once more.
Finally the old wheel was off and I heaved the spare out of the trunk. You won’t be at all surprised to learn that it was flat. And of course, there was nowhere to fill it. Not on the Yorkshire moors after midnight, there wasn’t.
It was about that time, I decided my sweetheart wasn’t all that good-looking, there were plenty more fish in the sea, and there was no particular advantage in continuing to be polite. We had a full and frank exchange of views and agreed to go our separate ways.
But you know what? I’m OK with that.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
To Catch a Fish
The seaweed was biting that day, my friends.
Every few minutes the fishermen (and fisherwomen, and fisherkids) would haul in their lines to find yet another long string of glistening fauna. Come to think, it probably wasn’t even seaweed, seeing as how we were at a lake some 1,300 miles from the nearest ocean. But there was certainly lots of it and they excitedly compared hauls. "Maybe we should take it back to the campsite" said Mary. "Make a seaweed salad?"
I’ve only been fishing a handful of times in my life. The very first time was off a pier in Tarbet, Scotland where the fish were so easy to catch the whole sport seemed rather pointless. Drop in the line, watch while the mackerel came up to check out the bait, jerk the pole (Note: This is called 'striking' – write that down kids!) then haul up the fish. Take out the hook; drop the fish back in the water, lather, rinse, repeat.
Any guilt I may have felt over the lack of sportsmanship on my first fishing trip was absolved on all my subsequent outings when I never came close to catching a single fish.
"I practice cruelty free fishing" I explain to anyone who will listen. "No fish were harmed in the making of this day out."
Possibly for that reason, I never really got into fishing and if I did go, it was usually to tag along with others who knew more about the sport than I. Although curiously, they never seemed to catch anything either. Maybe I was a jinx who had used my lifetime’s supply of fisherman’s luck on that first day out.
But really, that was OK with me. I like fish well enough when they’re coated in batter and deep fried with chips but getting up close and personal with a wriggly one on a hook doesn’t particularly appeal. Also, I’ve never had a desire to be one of those hardy souls you’ll see up to their privates in icy cold water while they try to trick the fishes into their nets. No, when I go fishing I want it to be a pleasant day out, preferably in beautiful scenery.
Which was the case today as I sat cross-legged on the shore of one of Colorado’s more picturesque lakes, with the sun on my face and the breeze gently ruffling my hair, simply watching as others went through the motions.
We were pretty sure there were fish in the lake. The campsite host was certainly charging enough for the privilege of attempting to catch them, although as I noted, this would be the scam to end all scams. Charge campers just to fish in a lake with no fish. How neat would that be? Sometimes I wonder why I’m not filthy rich.
Anyhoo, I questioned why Mary was using limburger cheese as bait.
"It may smell like old socks, but one of the old ladies I visit told me it’s the only thing to use. She hasn’t fished in years but she perked right up when I told her I would be going this weekend and she swears by it."
"Not doing much good so far is it?" observed Ed, "Why don’t you try some salmon eggs?"
"I dunno, they don’t seem to be working too well for you so far, do they Hotshot" came the retort.
Ed looked sadly at his own pile of seaweed and had to conclude that she was right. So, he hauled in his line and cast once more out into the big blue yonder. Or at least, 30 feet or so out into it – he was only using a small fishing pole.
After a while, Sophie lost interest and wandered off to chat to the rest of the group who were busy catching seaweed further down the shore. Her fishing pole lay unused near my feet and after watching Ed and Mary for a few minutes longer, I decided I could catch seaweed just as skillfully as them.
I checked to make sure both hooks were properly baited. Sophie had been using a curiously unnatural looking attraction called 'PowerBait'. These were pea-sized balls of putty like material in a shade of orange not found in nature. I would have thought this would scare the fish away, but what do I know. Everything appeared to be in order, so I laid the pole of my right shoulder and deftly cast out into the deep.
The hook barely reached the water.
It took another two equally abysmal efforts before I noticed that the reel had a wee lever on it, which I discovered, was the brake. Slide it the other way and the line has the opportunity to unwind as well as be reeled in. Probably fairly important, that. Flicking the lever to one side, I tried once more and this time, the line whizzed out across the water. That’s better.
After a few minutes of not very much happening, I decided I would give my new found casting skills another go and hauled in the line. I had to fight the urge to jump up and down when I felt an unmistakable tugging on the line. Could it be? Could I have caught a fish on my first cast while all these pros were hauling in nothing but seaweed? Could it be?
Well, no of course it couldn’t.
I had however, caught a twig. And quite an impressive one too; at least 6 inches long and quite formidable looking. I added it to the seaweed pile and tried once more. I didn’t catch a fish that time either. Or the next time, or the next. But you know what? I caught one on the next.
Oh, it wasn’t exactly a record breaker. At 5 inches or so, it was well under the limit which required me to throw it back, so no visit to the taxidermist for me. And it was an ugly little bugger too.
"A sucker fish" explained Ed. "A bottom feeder".
OK, so not exactly the sort of thing you’d read about in Hemingway’s work. Melville probably wouldn’t have written a novel about it (although if he had, it couldn’t have been any worse than Moby Dick.) But it was the only fish anyone caught that day. Mr. Rugged-Outdoorsman, that’s me. When civilization crumbles around us, I’ll be able to provide for my family.
So, (lowering voice an octave and hitchin’ up pants) if you need any advice on fish catchin’, I’m your man.
Just don’t ask me what’s in PowerBait.
Every few minutes the fishermen (and fisherwomen, and fisherkids) would haul in their lines to find yet another long string of glistening fauna. Come to think, it probably wasn’t even seaweed, seeing as how we were at a lake some 1,300 miles from the nearest ocean. But there was certainly lots of it and they excitedly compared hauls. "Maybe we should take it back to the campsite" said Mary. "Make a seaweed salad?"
I’ve only been fishing a handful of times in my life. The very first time was off a pier in Tarbet, Scotland where the fish were so easy to catch the whole sport seemed rather pointless. Drop in the line, watch while the mackerel came up to check out the bait, jerk the pole (Note: This is called 'striking' – write that down kids!) then haul up the fish. Take out the hook; drop the fish back in the water, lather, rinse, repeat.
Any guilt I may have felt over the lack of sportsmanship on my first fishing trip was absolved on all my subsequent outings when I never came close to catching a single fish.
"I practice cruelty free fishing" I explain to anyone who will listen. "No fish were harmed in the making of this day out."
Possibly for that reason, I never really got into fishing and if I did go, it was usually to tag along with others who knew more about the sport than I. Although curiously, they never seemed to catch anything either. Maybe I was a jinx who had used my lifetime’s supply of fisherman’s luck on that first day out.
But really, that was OK with me. I like fish well enough when they’re coated in batter and deep fried with chips but getting up close and personal with a wriggly one on a hook doesn’t particularly appeal. Also, I’ve never had a desire to be one of those hardy souls you’ll see up to their privates in icy cold water while they try to trick the fishes into their nets. No, when I go fishing I want it to be a pleasant day out, preferably in beautiful scenery.
Which was the case today as I sat cross-legged on the shore of one of Colorado’s more picturesque lakes, with the sun on my face and the breeze gently ruffling my hair, simply watching as others went through the motions.
We were pretty sure there were fish in the lake. The campsite host was certainly charging enough for the privilege of attempting to catch them, although as I noted, this would be the scam to end all scams. Charge campers just to fish in a lake with no fish. How neat would that be? Sometimes I wonder why I’m not filthy rich.
Anyhoo, I questioned why Mary was using limburger cheese as bait.
"It may smell like old socks, but one of the old ladies I visit told me it’s the only thing to use. She hasn’t fished in years but she perked right up when I told her I would be going this weekend and she swears by it."
"Not doing much good so far is it?" observed Ed, "Why don’t you try some salmon eggs?"
"I dunno, they don’t seem to be working too well for you so far, do they Hotshot" came the retort.
Ed looked sadly at his own pile of seaweed and had to conclude that she was right. So, he hauled in his line and cast once more out into the big blue yonder. Or at least, 30 feet or so out into it – he was only using a small fishing pole.
After a while, Sophie lost interest and wandered off to chat to the rest of the group who were busy catching seaweed further down the shore. Her fishing pole lay unused near my feet and after watching Ed and Mary for a few minutes longer, I decided I could catch seaweed just as skillfully as them.
I checked to make sure both hooks were properly baited. Sophie had been using a curiously unnatural looking attraction called 'PowerBait'. These were pea-sized balls of putty like material in a shade of orange not found in nature. I would have thought this would scare the fish away, but what do I know. Everything appeared to be in order, so I laid the pole of my right shoulder and deftly cast out into the deep.
The hook barely reached the water.
It took another two equally abysmal efforts before I noticed that the reel had a wee lever on it, which I discovered, was the brake. Slide it the other way and the line has the opportunity to unwind as well as be reeled in. Probably fairly important, that. Flicking the lever to one side, I tried once more and this time, the line whizzed out across the water. That’s better.
After a few minutes of not very much happening, I decided I would give my new found casting skills another go and hauled in the line. I had to fight the urge to jump up and down when I felt an unmistakable tugging on the line. Could it be? Could I have caught a fish on my first cast while all these pros were hauling in nothing but seaweed? Could it be?
Well, no of course it couldn’t.
I had however, caught a twig. And quite an impressive one too; at least 6 inches long and quite formidable looking. I added it to the seaweed pile and tried once more. I didn’t catch a fish that time either. Or the next time, or the next. But you know what? I caught one on the next.
Oh, it wasn’t exactly a record breaker. At 5 inches or so, it was well under the limit which required me to throw it back, so no visit to the taxidermist for me. And it was an ugly little bugger too.
"A sucker fish" explained Ed. "A bottom feeder".
OK, so not exactly the sort of thing you’d read about in Hemingway’s work. Melville probably wouldn’t have written a novel about it (although if he had, it couldn’t have been any worse than Moby Dick.) But it was the only fish anyone caught that day. Mr. Rugged-Outdoorsman, that’s me. When civilization crumbles around us, I’ll be able to provide for my family.
So, (lowering voice an octave and hitchin’ up pants) if you need any advice on fish catchin’, I’m your man.
Just don’t ask me what’s in PowerBait.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
He is not missing; he is here
In last week’s Gunsmoke File, I told of the time I was cycling in Belgium, quite possibly the most boring country on the planet for such an activity. Geometrically flat, damp and insufferably dull I found myself almost delirious with delight when I saw a barn or a road sign and had an object on which to focus while I crawled past. And crawl I did due to the ferocious headwind which was doing it’s best to push me back the way I’d come.
It didn’t help that I was still feeling the effects of some exceptionally strong beer the previous night so by the time I finally reached the outskirts of Ypres, my goal for the evening, I was grubby, ill-tempered and very, very tired. A solitary meal in an overpriced restaurant a few miles back hadn’t done much to lift my spirits and I was just looking forward to a lie down.
Until I entered the town proper by riding through an imposing archway known as the Menin Gate. We studied the First World War in school and I was already familiar with many of the names on my map. Ypres, Mons and Passchendaele had all been sites of bloody battles and the dull, flat fields which had bored me interminably as I rode through, had seen some of the worst carnage in human history only a few decades earlier.
North-western Europe is peppered with cemeteries holding the graves of the war dead. Geometric lines of brilliant white gravestones set on neatly trimmed lawns, they are somber, moving places and it’s hard to leave without being touched by the sacrifice made by those young men. Throughout Belgium, Holland and France local families take responsibility for ensuring that "their" soldier’s grave will be kept clean, tidy and manicured. They have done so for decades and will continue to do so as long as the graves are there.
Yet it’s a tragic fact that many of the fallen, particularly from the first war, have no graves. Many thousands of bodies were never recovered and the official war records list those soldiers simply as "Missing, believed killed." When peace finally came and all hope for their return was gone, the families of the lost men found their grief especially poignant. These relatives and friends had no grave to visit, nowhere to pay their last respects, nowhere to find closure.
So, it was decided that in Ypres, near where so many were known to have died, a memorial would be erected in honor of those whose bodies were never recovered. Originally there was talk of the British Government purchasing the land around the area and turning the entire town into a memorial to the Allied fallen. This was deemed impractical however. While years of war had reduced Ypres to little more than rubble, many Belgians still considered it home and they were anxious to return. Instead a memorial comprising of a mausoleum within a magnificent classical archway was built at the entrance to the town, over the river Menin.
Inside and out, huge panels contain the engraved names of the men of the Commonwealth forces who died in the Ypres Salient area but have no known graves. There are almost 55,000 of them and yet, immense though the Menin Gate is; this still didn’t come close to recording the names of all the missing soldiers. The Menin Gate contains only the names of those who died in the area between the outbreak of the war in 1914 and August 1917. Those who died between then and the end of the war, a little over a year later, are listed at another memorial, located in Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the slopes just below Passchendaele. 35,000 more.
And remember, these are just those whose bodies were never recovered.
At 8pm prompt, every single night of the year, the traffic through the gate is brought to a halt. Police guard the entrance and stand at salute while buglers from the local fire department play "The Last Post". This happens regardless of the weather and visitors from all over the world gather alongside the residents of the town to honor the young and brave who came to die in the defense of their town.
The service has taken place almost continuously since 1927. During the Second World War, when Ypres was occupied, the ceremony was banned. Yet the townspeople kept the bugles safe, and when the Germans finally left Ypres in 1945, the plaintive notes of the Last Post rang out under the Menin Gate that same night.
Evening was falling by the time I arrived in town and I knew I wouldn’t have time to find a hotel, wash, change and return in time. So instead, I sat by the side of the road and looked back the way I’d come. Across that vast expanse of flat nothing and tried to imagine the horrors that had taken place in those fields.
At a few minutes before 8, I smartened myself up as much as possible, and then stood at attention with the others while the haunting tune rang out into damp, cool night. Beside me stood an elderly white-haired gentleman, frail and stooped but at attention nonetheless. This was in 1988, exactly 70 years since the war’s end. Was he old enough, I wondered. Old enough to have been there? I glanced over to appraise the lines on his face, but when I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks, I looked away, embarrassed. Yes, he’d been there.
In somber mood, I wheeled my bike away and went in search of a bed. In the days that followed, I clocked up many more hours in the saddle, crossing into France before turning north and heading up the coast to catch the ferry home. The scenery changed as the miles rolled by, with the flat brown fields giving way to rolling hills and flower strewn meadows. The headwind didn’t let up though, fighting me with every turn of the crank no matter in which direction I was riding. Each night I flopped into bed, stiff, sore, thoroughly exhausted, and glad that another day was over.
Yet of course, I knew that my aches were nothing. Nothing compared to the misery suffered by those young men who never left. All 90,000 of them.
Words from the inscription carved on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
It didn’t help that I was still feeling the effects of some exceptionally strong beer the previous night so by the time I finally reached the outskirts of Ypres, my goal for the evening, I was grubby, ill-tempered and very, very tired. A solitary meal in an overpriced restaurant a few miles back hadn’t done much to lift my spirits and I was just looking forward to a lie down.
Until I entered the town proper by riding through an imposing archway known as the Menin Gate. We studied the First World War in school and I was already familiar with many of the names on my map. Ypres, Mons and Passchendaele had all been sites of bloody battles and the dull, flat fields which had bored me interminably as I rode through, had seen some of the worst carnage in human history only a few decades earlier.
North-western Europe is peppered with cemeteries holding the graves of the war dead. Geometric lines of brilliant white gravestones set on neatly trimmed lawns, they are somber, moving places and it’s hard to leave without being touched by the sacrifice made by those young men. Throughout Belgium, Holland and France local families take responsibility for ensuring that "their" soldier’s grave will be kept clean, tidy and manicured. They have done so for decades and will continue to do so as long as the graves are there.
Yet it’s a tragic fact that many of the fallen, particularly from the first war, have no graves. Many thousands of bodies were never recovered and the official war records list those soldiers simply as "Missing, believed killed." When peace finally came and all hope for their return was gone, the families of the lost men found their grief especially poignant. These relatives and friends had no grave to visit, nowhere to pay their last respects, nowhere to find closure.
So, it was decided that in Ypres, near where so many were known to have died, a memorial would be erected in honor of those whose bodies were never recovered. Originally there was talk of the British Government purchasing the land around the area and turning the entire town into a memorial to the Allied fallen. This was deemed impractical however. While years of war had reduced Ypres to little more than rubble, many Belgians still considered it home and they were anxious to return. Instead a memorial comprising of a mausoleum within a magnificent classical archway was built at the entrance to the town, over the river Menin.
Inside and out, huge panels contain the engraved names of the men of the Commonwealth forces who died in the Ypres Salient area but have no known graves. There are almost 55,000 of them and yet, immense though the Menin Gate is; this still didn’t come close to recording the names of all the missing soldiers. The Menin Gate contains only the names of those who died in the area between the outbreak of the war in 1914 and August 1917. Those who died between then and the end of the war, a little over a year later, are listed at another memorial, located in Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the slopes just below Passchendaele. 35,000 more.
And remember, these are just those whose bodies were never recovered.
At 8pm prompt, every single night of the year, the traffic through the gate is brought to a halt. Police guard the entrance and stand at salute while buglers from the local fire department play "The Last Post". This happens regardless of the weather and visitors from all over the world gather alongside the residents of the town to honor the young and brave who came to die in the defense of their town.
The service has taken place almost continuously since 1927. During the Second World War, when Ypres was occupied, the ceremony was banned. Yet the townspeople kept the bugles safe, and when the Germans finally left Ypres in 1945, the plaintive notes of the Last Post rang out under the Menin Gate that same night.
Evening was falling by the time I arrived in town and I knew I wouldn’t have time to find a hotel, wash, change and return in time. So instead, I sat by the side of the road and looked back the way I’d come. Across that vast expanse of flat nothing and tried to imagine the horrors that had taken place in those fields.
At a few minutes before 8, I smartened myself up as much as possible, and then stood at attention with the others while the haunting tune rang out into damp, cool night. Beside me stood an elderly white-haired gentleman, frail and stooped but at attention nonetheless. This was in 1988, exactly 70 years since the war’s end. Was he old enough, I wondered. Old enough to have been there? I glanced over to appraise the lines on his face, but when I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks, I looked away, embarrassed. Yes, he’d been there.
In somber mood, I wheeled my bike away and went in search of a bed. In the days that followed, I clocked up many more hours in the saddle, crossing into France before turning north and heading up the coast to catch the ferry home. The scenery changed as the miles rolled by, with the flat brown fields giving way to rolling hills and flower strewn meadows. The headwind didn’t let up though, fighting me with every turn of the crank no matter in which direction I was riding. Each night I flopped into bed, stiff, sore, thoroughly exhausted, and glad that another day was over.
Yet of course, I knew that my aches were nothing. Nothing compared to the misery suffered by those young men who never left. All 90,000 of them.
"...and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today:
He is not missing; he is here!"
Words from the inscription carved on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Against the Wind
So Belgium’s pretty flat.
By that I mean it’s flat, I don’t mean it’s pretty. Oh, I know it has its attractive parts – some of the squares in Brussels, the inside of its chocolate factories, and the breweries. But the country itself is flat. And dull. Flat and dull. Maybe you already knew that. I already knew that. But I still opted to go there for a cycling vacation. I’m not sure exactly why now, although it had something to do with being able to get there cheaply via car ferry, and I only had 4 days, and I figured I could cover a lot of the country in that time. So, Belgium it was.
And at first, it was really quite pretty. I rolled off the ferry in the early hours of a weekday morning and pointed my bike inland, towards the town of Bruges. This is a charming little place, with cobblestone streets, concertina trams and picturesque squares. Perhaps if I’d simply remained there for the full four days, I might have retained my initial positive impressions of the country. Instead I decided that as the town had yet to wake up, I wouldn’t hang around for breakfast, but would instead trundle on down the road.
But which road? Aye, there’s the rub. In Europe, Michelin road maps are treated with the same sort of reverence that is reserved for AAA’s guides in the US. Inexpensive, reliable and easy to read, a Michelin map is an indispensable tool for any traveler on the asphalt ribbons of that fair Continent and I’d made sure I had a Belgian one in my bag. Except on a number of occasions that first day, I had to check the cover to make sure it really was a map of Belgium and not somewhere else. The People's Republic of Chad, perhaps.
I’m fairly competent when it comes to map reading. Oh sure, I have some challenges working out just how far apart the contours are, and it always throws me when the wee symbols aren’t reproduced on the legend. But I can usually do a reasonably good job of tracking my whereabouts. However, even I’m at a loss when the roads mapped on the paper bear no resemblance to those on the ground, which is what was happening here.
Every 1/2 hour or so, I’d roll into some tiny hamlet and pull over to check my progress. To my consternation I was usually unable to find the village. Initially I figured this was because they were too small to be marked and would continue onwards. Eventually I came to a larger town which simply had to warrant a mention. But, try as I might, I still couldn’t place it. Until I happened to glance some three inches lower and found it miles away from where I thought I was. On a completely different road. But here’s the thing. I was now able to locate some of the places I’d already visited. Except they were all on different roads. Figure that one out.
I’m not sure how many miles I rode that day, but I’m guessing it was around twice the 60 I originally intended. By the time I wobbled into Ghent, that evening’s destination, my legs felt like overcooked noodles, while my poor butt was on fire. The first job was to find a room for the night and while young man at the tourist authority was very helpful, the address he gave me turned out to be that of a bank. I had no enthusiasm for riding any further so I simply walked my bike around the streets until I stumbled onto a small, cheap but clean looking lodging house and checked myself in for the night. Out to dinner and I decided that a quick beer as an aperitif would be just the pick-me-up I needed.
"Would you like a light beer or a dark beer?" asked the barkeep.
"I dunno, dark I suppose." Apparently in Belgium, "dark" is a euphemism for "so strong it will knock out a horse". I realized this was going to be a challenge when I placed my head over the goldfish bowl sized glass and almost passed out from the fumes but never one to resist a challenge, I manfully stuck at the task and after about an hour, finally drained the last drop. Problem was; I didn’t feel much like eating any more. I didn’t feel much like doing anything except lying down on my bed. And even achieving that goal was a challenge because my bed was some half mile away and the sidewalks had decided to bounce up and down, whilst the walls of the buildings took turns at leaping out and punching me.
I awoke the next morning, fully clothed and half off the bed but at least that told me I’d made it home. Southbound today, with a target of Ypres, around 65 miles away. No real problems with the roads this time, it was a straight shot. No, today’s challenge came from the headwind which I would estimate was only a little below hurricane force. You know you’ve got your work cut out when you’re riding a 10-speed bike and have to use the lowest gear to climb the gradient of a freeway overpass. (I should point out, I was in much better condition in those days – but this really was a serious headwind.)
Every piece of garbage and debris in Belgium seemed to be blowing down that road too. No tumbleweeds, but sheets of newspaper, bits of cardboard, dust clouds and on one memorable occasion, an empty coke can which bounced up and hit me in the chest. You know those little wooden sandwich board signs some stores have out on the sidewalk? I watched one of those cartwheel towards me from several hundred yards away.
"That’s going to hit me." I thought. "There’s no point in trying to swerve. Wherever I go, it will hit me." But I did swerve of course, right at the last minute. And for a brief second I thought I’d outsmarted it. But it wasn’t to be – it swerved too. I zigged, it zagged and caught me a pearler, right on the knee. I protested loudly and violently, but my curses were simply snatched away by the wind. Darkness was falling when I finally creaked my way into Ypres. Dirty, tired and very cranky, I was wrapped in a cocoon of self-pity.
Of course, at that point I didn’t know that in Ypres, I would experience something which brings a lump to my throat even now, almost twenty years later.
To be continued...
By that I mean it’s flat, I don’t mean it’s pretty. Oh, I know it has its attractive parts – some of the squares in Brussels, the inside of its chocolate factories, and the breweries. But the country itself is flat. And dull. Flat and dull. Maybe you already knew that. I already knew that. But I still opted to go there for a cycling vacation. I’m not sure exactly why now, although it had something to do with being able to get there cheaply via car ferry, and I only had 4 days, and I figured I could cover a lot of the country in that time. So, Belgium it was.
And at first, it was really quite pretty. I rolled off the ferry in the early hours of a weekday morning and pointed my bike inland, towards the town of Bruges. This is a charming little place, with cobblestone streets, concertina trams and picturesque squares. Perhaps if I’d simply remained there for the full four days, I might have retained my initial positive impressions of the country. Instead I decided that as the town had yet to wake up, I wouldn’t hang around for breakfast, but would instead trundle on down the road.
But which road? Aye, there’s the rub. In Europe, Michelin road maps are treated with the same sort of reverence that is reserved for AAA’s guides in the US. Inexpensive, reliable and easy to read, a Michelin map is an indispensable tool for any traveler on the asphalt ribbons of that fair Continent and I’d made sure I had a Belgian one in my bag. Except on a number of occasions that first day, I had to check the cover to make sure it really was a map of Belgium and not somewhere else. The People's Republic of Chad, perhaps.
I’m fairly competent when it comes to map reading. Oh sure, I have some challenges working out just how far apart the contours are, and it always throws me when the wee symbols aren’t reproduced on the legend. But I can usually do a reasonably good job of tracking my whereabouts. However, even I’m at a loss when the roads mapped on the paper bear no resemblance to those on the ground, which is what was happening here.
Every 1/2 hour or so, I’d roll into some tiny hamlet and pull over to check my progress. To my consternation I was usually unable to find the village. Initially I figured this was because they were too small to be marked and would continue onwards. Eventually I came to a larger town which simply had to warrant a mention. But, try as I might, I still couldn’t place it. Until I happened to glance some three inches lower and found it miles away from where I thought I was. On a completely different road. But here’s the thing. I was now able to locate some of the places I’d already visited. Except they were all on different roads. Figure that one out.
I’m not sure how many miles I rode that day, but I’m guessing it was around twice the 60 I originally intended. By the time I wobbled into Ghent, that evening’s destination, my legs felt like overcooked noodles, while my poor butt was on fire. The first job was to find a room for the night and while young man at the tourist authority was very helpful, the address he gave me turned out to be that of a bank. I had no enthusiasm for riding any further so I simply walked my bike around the streets until I stumbled onto a small, cheap but clean looking lodging house and checked myself in for the night. Out to dinner and I decided that a quick beer as an aperitif would be just the pick-me-up I needed.
"Would you like a light beer or a dark beer?" asked the barkeep.
"I dunno, dark I suppose." Apparently in Belgium, "dark" is a euphemism for "so strong it will knock out a horse". I realized this was going to be a challenge when I placed my head over the goldfish bowl sized glass and almost passed out from the fumes but never one to resist a challenge, I manfully stuck at the task and after about an hour, finally drained the last drop. Problem was; I didn’t feel much like eating any more. I didn’t feel much like doing anything except lying down on my bed. And even achieving that goal was a challenge because my bed was some half mile away and the sidewalks had decided to bounce up and down, whilst the walls of the buildings took turns at leaping out and punching me.
I awoke the next morning, fully clothed and half off the bed but at least that told me I’d made it home. Southbound today, with a target of Ypres, around 65 miles away. No real problems with the roads this time, it was a straight shot. No, today’s challenge came from the headwind which I would estimate was only a little below hurricane force. You know you’ve got your work cut out when you’re riding a 10-speed bike and have to use the lowest gear to climb the gradient of a freeway overpass. (I should point out, I was in much better condition in those days – but this really was a serious headwind.)
Every piece of garbage and debris in Belgium seemed to be blowing down that road too. No tumbleweeds, but sheets of newspaper, bits of cardboard, dust clouds and on one memorable occasion, an empty coke can which bounced up and hit me in the chest. You know those little wooden sandwich board signs some stores have out on the sidewalk? I watched one of those cartwheel towards me from several hundred yards away.
"That’s going to hit me." I thought. "There’s no point in trying to swerve. Wherever I go, it will hit me." But I did swerve of course, right at the last minute. And for a brief second I thought I’d outsmarted it. But it wasn’t to be – it swerved too. I zigged, it zagged and caught me a pearler, right on the knee. I protested loudly and violently, but my curses were simply snatched away by the wind. Darkness was falling when I finally creaked my way into Ypres. Dirty, tired and very cranky, I was wrapped in a cocoon of self-pity.
Of course, at that point I didn’t know that in Ypres, I would experience something which brings a lump to my throat even now, almost twenty years later.
To be continued...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Anatomy of a Pipe Band Contest
Day 1:
Wake at 6am. Switch off alarm and go back to sleep – plenty of time yet. Wake again at 8am. Way late; this is going to be problem. Look out window and am disappointed, yet somehow not surprised to see it’s cloudy, wet and gray. With sinking heart, realize this means endless jokes about "Typical Scottish weather". Race around like mad thing, loading car, feeding dogs and wondering why didn’t get stuff together night before. In and out of shower in record time before commencing battle with band uniform. Kilts not designed to be put on in hurry. Bad mood intensifies while taking dogs out and feeling fat raindrops splashing on clean, white shirt.
Set off down hill driving faster than Highway Patrol prefer. Scan lead gray sky and wonder if weather will keep crowds away. Or at least enough of them to allow parking close by. Problem turns out to be not crowds, but over-zealous parking attendants.
"If you don’t have a parking permit (nobody has parking permit) then you’ll have to drive to the nearby High School and come back on the shuttle bus."
"Are you kidding me? Look at all the stuff I have to carry! I’m one of the competitors."
"You can park in the unloading zone for 10 minutes, no more."
10 minutes! So-called "unloading zone" is more than 10 minutes walk from designated band site, especially with heavy drum, full cooler, uniform jacket in dry cleaning bag, folding chair, equipment bag and spare clothing. Loading zone also contains at rough estimate, 100 empty spaces. Spaces remain empty all day while band members struggle to carry gear from designated lots three miles away.
Drop off gear at band tent, relocate car to official parking lot and return on shuttle. Grunt "Mornin'" to band mates and set off in search of coffee. Negotiate complicated process of buying tickets from one tent before standing in line for breakfast at another. Vendor has run out of coffee. Explain to vendor that in civilized countries, this is hanging offence.
Head back to band tent and huddle with other sodden band members, trying to keep warm whilst whining about parking situation and attempting to practice drums with bloodless hands. Opening ceremony is at noon and by 11:30 mood changed to one of activity. Pipers are tuned, drummers are warmed up, ties are straightened. At 11:55, march in sort-of-formation over to join other bands in central arena.
Opening ceremony even longer than usual. Officials sit under dry tent whilst making interminable speeches, completely oblivious to participants standing in open field, exposed to elements. Official advises spectators of items on day’s program. Neglects to mention band competition, supposedly main event. Guest speaker conducts long prayer to Christian god, whilst non-Christian band members (overwhelming majority), make irreverent conversation. After opening ceremony, make second attempt to purchase coffee. Only decaff available. Wonder just how far up vendor’s nose drumstick would go.
Not good enough drummer to take part in competition. Instead have official role of cinematographer. Or 'video-bitch' as drum-corporal boorishly puts it. Take chair and borrowed video camera over to competition area and set up camp, wishing had remembered tripod. Competing bands take turns marching into arena before standing in circle facing one another with backs to audience while playing set, so camera focused mainly on kilted backsides with very little action. Audio more important really, however, did get footage of Youth Band drummers grimacing at each other while arguing wordlessly. Finish filming competition before heading back to band tent to drink beer and make catty remarks about other bands.
March back to central arena for closing ceremony, with more interminable speeches enlivened by announcement band has swept board finishing first in all categories. Much back slapping and high-fiving. Point out that good looks of video operator probably swung vote but magnanimously concede that band members who actually played in competition also helped in own small way. More beer drinking ensues. Details hazy.
Day 2:
Wake on time to see beautiful, blue sky. Slather self with sun block and head down hill in buoyant spirits. Hit cloudbank at 7,000 feet. Weather below, cloudy, wet and gray. Ignore parking attendants and leave car in little known hideaway, not too far from band tent. Early arrival means have to help set up waterlogged tent. Discover shirt lying on ground, unmissed 'till now. Head over to food vendor to purchase breakfast. Coffee available, but no food. Think murderous thoughts about food vendor. Take sip of coffee and wonder if previously drunk by someone else.
Sun makes weak attempt to shine in time for opening ceremony. Speeches even longer than yesterday, although largely same material. Announcer neglects to mention pipe band competition again. Observe loudly that "Bands required but not welcome" would be good motto for games. Announcer does remember to introduce every single breed in dog show. Remark on what a lot of breeds there are. By end of opening ceremony, food vendor offering limited range of menu. Unfortunately, vendor now out of coffee. Reflect once more how should have brought own food. And perhaps baseball bat to encourage better future performance from vendor.
Smaller entrance field for band competition so video taping doesn’t take so long. Take mean-spirited pleasure at mistakes of rival band, then listen in bemused horror when rival band marches out to own band’s signature tune. Tacky enough but made worse by horrible rendition. Own band plays very well, so can only hope judges overlook early, but rather noticeable mistake. Other serious competitor makes couple mistakes too. Could go either way.
Closing ceremony ninety minutes away so pass time drinking beer, swapping jokes and making more catty remarks about rival bands. Learn parking attendants are arranging to have cars towed from "unloading zone". Sympathize with band members hurrying off to move cars.
Grumble incessantly over new rule forbidding bands to take beer onto field for closing ceremony. Grumble even more when see official responsible for rule parading around field with beer in hand.
"I’m not in uniform, you are." Says official, with smirk.
Mollified by news that band has won competition again. Good looks of video-operator must really carry some weight with judges.
Pack up soaking wet tent and stare in dismay at amount of crap to be carried to car. Give thanks for helpful steward with golf-cart who carries heavy stuff. On to band member's house for beer, pizza and more self-congratulation.
Reflect on how last two days have been nothing but cold, wet weather, irritating officials, and minor slights, incompetent vendors and petty annoyances.
Spent in company of great bunch of people while kicking arses of all-comers. What a great weekend it’s been.
Wake at 6am. Switch off alarm and go back to sleep – plenty of time yet. Wake again at 8am. Way late; this is going to be problem. Look out window and am disappointed, yet somehow not surprised to see it’s cloudy, wet and gray. With sinking heart, realize this means endless jokes about "Typical Scottish weather". Race around like mad thing, loading car, feeding dogs and wondering why didn’t get stuff together night before. In and out of shower in record time before commencing battle with band uniform. Kilts not designed to be put on in hurry. Bad mood intensifies while taking dogs out and feeling fat raindrops splashing on clean, white shirt.
Set off down hill driving faster than Highway Patrol prefer. Scan lead gray sky and wonder if weather will keep crowds away. Or at least enough of them to allow parking close by. Problem turns out to be not crowds, but over-zealous parking attendants.
"If you don’t have a parking permit (nobody has parking permit) then you’ll have to drive to the nearby High School and come back on the shuttle bus."
"Are you kidding me? Look at all the stuff I have to carry! I’m one of the competitors."
"You can park in the unloading zone for 10 minutes, no more."
10 minutes! So-called "unloading zone" is more than 10 minutes walk from designated band site, especially with heavy drum, full cooler, uniform jacket in dry cleaning bag, folding chair, equipment bag and spare clothing. Loading zone also contains at rough estimate, 100 empty spaces. Spaces remain empty all day while band members struggle to carry gear from designated lots three miles away.
Drop off gear at band tent, relocate car to official parking lot and return on shuttle. Grunt "Mornin'" to band mates and set off in search of coffee. Negotiate complicated process of buying tickets from one tent before standing in line for breakfast at another. Vendor has run out of coffee. Explain to vendor that in civilized countries, this is hanging offence.
Head back to band tent and huddle with other sodden band members, trying to keep warm whilst whining about parking situation and attempting to practice drums with bloodless hands. Opening ceremony is at noon and by 11:30 mood changed to one of activity. Pipers are tuned, drummers are warmed up, ties are straightened. At 11:55, march in sort-of-formation over to join other bands in central arena.
Opening ceremony even longer than usual. Officials sit under dry tent whilst making interminable speeches, completely oblivious to participants standing in open field, exposed to elements. Official advises spectators of items on day’s program. Neglects to mention band competition, supposedly main event. Guest speaker conducts long prayer to Christian god, whilst non-Christian band members (overwhelming majority), make irreverent conversation. After opening ceremony, make second attempt to purchase coffee. Only decaff available. Wonder just how far up vendor’s nose drumstick would go.
Not good enough drummer to take part in competition. Instead have official role of cinematographer. Or 'video-bitch' as drum-corporal boorishly puts it. Take chair and borrowed video camera over to competition area and set up camp, wishing had remembered tripod. Competing bands take turns marching into arena before standing in circle facing one another with backs to audience while playing set, so camera focused mainly on kilted backsides with very little action. Audio more important really, however, did get footage of Youth Band drummers grimacing at each other while arguing wordlessly. Finish filming competition before heading back to band tent to drink beer and make catty remarks about other bands.
March back to central arena for closing ceremony, with more interminable speeches enlivened by announcement band has swept board finishing first in all categories. Much back slapping and high-fiving. Point out that good looks of video operator probably swung vote but magnanimously concede that band members who actually played in competition also helped in own small way. More beer drinking ensues. Details hazy.
Day 2:
Wake on time to see beautiful, blue sky. Slather self with sun block and head down hill in buoyant spirits. Hit cloudbank at 7,000 feet. Weather below, cloudy, wet and gray. Ignore parking attendants and leave car in little known hideaway, not too far from band tent. Early arrival means have to help set up waterlogged tent. Discover shirt lying on ground, unmissed 'till now. Head over to food vendor to purchase breakfast. Coffee available, but no food. Think murderous thoughts about food vendor. Take sip of coffee and wonder if previously drunk by someone else.
Sun makes weak attempt to shine in time for opening ceremony. Speeches even longer than yesterday, although largely same material. Announcer neglects to mention pipe band competition again. Observe loudly that "Bands required but not welcome" would be good motto for games. Announcer does remember to introduce every single breed in dog show. Remark on what a lot of breeds there are. By end of opening ceremony, food vendor offering limited range of menu. Unfortunately, vendor now out of coffee. Reflect once more how should have brought own food. And perhaps baseball bat to encourage better future performance from vendor.
Smaller entrance field for band competition so video taping doesn’t take so long. Take mean-spirited pleasure at mistakes of rival band, then listen in bemused horror when rival band marches out to own band’s signature tune. Tacky enough but made worse by horrible rendition. Own band plays very well, so can only hope judges overlook early, but rather noticeable mistake. Other serious competitor makes couple mistakes too. Could go either way.
Closing ceremony ninety minutes away so pass time drinking beer, swapping jokes and making more catty remarks about rival bands. Learn parking attendants are arranging to have cars towed from "unloading zone". Sympathize with band members hurrying off to move cars.
Grumble incessantly over new rule forbidding bands to take beer onto field for closing ceremony. Grumble even more when see official responsible for rule parading around field with beer in hand.
"I’m not in uniform, you are." Says official, with smirk.
Mollified by news that band has won competition again. Good looks of video-operator must really carry some weight with judges.
Pack up soaking wet tent and stare in dismay at amount of crap to be carried to car. Give thanks for helpful steward with golf-cart who carries heavy stuff. On to band member's house for beer, pizza and more self-congratulation.
Reflect on how last two days have been nothing but cold, wet weather, irritating officials, and minor slights, incompetent vendors and petty annoyances.
Spent in company of great bunch of people while kicking arses of all-comers. What a great weekend it’s been.
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