Half Past Awesome

Is the nature of man really that competitive? If we use the holiday season as a barometer of our desire to slap the snot out of the Joneses, then I think the answer is an undeniable “hells yes”. Leading the charge in this water-boarding of festive cheer are all of the radio stations who deem it necessary to begin their holiday rotations the day after Halloween. I am not sure who the marketing genius is that decided that sixty days of the same five songs is far superior to thirty days of said music, but whoever he or she is, they deserve to be slapped in the face. Sort of like how it was at sixteen, when every other sentence to your girlfriend was “I love you”, the heavy handed tactics of bombarding us with the same rotation for two months results in the diminishment of the sentiment. Your first girlfriend, and I, are sick of hearing it over and over, and pretty soon the Pavlovian response to hearing “White Christmas” for the 784th time is to choke the living daylights out of someone (and then break up with you). And don’t give me any of this “Scrooge” business – I really like the holidays, I swear I do, but there is such a thing as saturation overload – it’s tawdry and cheap. About the only thing I cannot abide this time of year is eggnog, and that is a result of an experiment gone horribly awry when I was about five years old; the details are unimportant, just suffice to say that eggnog is not a good substitute for milk on your breakfast cereal.

The mindset that follows sixty days of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer in your ears is one that celebrates “Black Friday”. This is a shopping phenomenon that The Wife, along with millions of others, really gets into; it appeals to me about as much as kicking puppies for sport. Despite the ability to save the same amount of money by looking for deals online, there is some sort of joy to be found in getting up at three a.m. just for the opportunity to catch pneumonia and then promptly elbow some woman to death over the last Tickle-Me-Elmo doll. Over Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws, I heard some ladies discussing strategy and “product-location” as though they were preparing to initiate a hostile takeover of a third world nation. They would assemble in a line three miles long, disperse throughout the stores and meet back up in the checkout lines for a few hours of gloating over their conquests like Viking warriors with lattes. This sounds like a lovely time, indeed. I’ve never been one for getting whipped into a frenzy over pricing, so this experience is one which I think I’ll avoid, if for no other reason than to keep from murdering other shoppers in a looting extravaganza.

One aspect I can’t avoid, however, is hanging the lights for Christmas. I enjoy the way homes look at night, all lit up; it’s as though whatever else is wrong around the globe, a home warmly decorated with colored bulbs on the exterior indicates that all is right in your corner of the world, your home is happy and you are, in fact, NOT a tax cheat or some other public nuisance. But, much like the music and the shopping mobs, there is an intense, unspoken pressure to get your house lit up. Some may claim taking advantage of remaining good weather, others may boldly proclaim they “just want to get all that shit over with”, but I think the truth is lurking elsewhere in the shadows. I think, again, that there’s a competitive edge to getting your domicile adorned with exterior lighting. I do like how each persons home can serve as a creative expression for their inner holiday artist; that part I really like, but it’s the subtle hints that really frost my cocktail tumbler. The unspoken insinuation that your neighbor is maybe just a bit more of an embodiment of holiday cheer because they had their lawn Santas up on November 1st. They hauled their pre-lit fake tree down from the attic sometime in October, and because of that, you suck. In a way, I feel sorry for Thanksgiving, because soon it will be known merely as pre-Christmas dinner. We don’t do this with other holidays – there’s no pressure to give your wife a Valentines day gift in January, nor do we dress in spooky costumes in August, demanding free candy from our neighbors. So why do I feel as though hanging my Christmas light on November 29th makes me late for the party? When did we inherit the cultural mores of The Whos of Whoville? Is there a marketing department of a faceless institution that I can blame for this, shake my fist at and mumble about the decline of Western civilization?

All of this is probably why I insist on resisting the lure of the fake Christmas tree. Sure, it may be easier, and it may look (artificially) more perfect, but there is an intrinsic aspect of Christmas that comes with a real tree. Much like having a home with a brick front and vinyl siding on three sides, there are those for whom a fake tree is a cheap concession they’re willing to indulge because it looks good from afar. As a kid, my mom took me to the the neighborhood barber shop that served as a de facto tree lot in December, and I remember all the scents and the sounds of the electric chainsaws and the way the overhead strings of white bulbs gave it all a surreal feel. It was as though this was NOT the asphalt parking lot of a low-cost clip joint, but a magical place where the democratic process of selecting a tree was undertaken. When I lived in Alaska, there was a group of us that went out into the woods and found our own trees and cut them down, a ceremony that involved lots of drinking, good times and impromptu snowball fights. Anymore, it seems as though you would give the selection of a simulated tree no more thought than as an addition to your shopping list at Wal-Mart: milk, bread, diapers, some PVC pipe, and……oh yeah, a Christmas tree. And now, as an adult, father and avowed contrarian, I insist on dragging my kids to a swimming pool sales establishment parking lot, one where Cub Scouts are selling trees to fund their ascension up the Boy Scout chain of accomplishment. The trees aren’t necessarily the prettiest nor the cheapest, but they’re real, and this is one of the few times in their childhood where our kids will have a say in interior decor, so it’s a bit of a rite of passage.

Before long, I think that those who we labeled as “crazy” for keeping their lights up year round will be hailed as visionaries of the future. Black Friday will be preceded by “Purple Thursday” and “Sea-Foam Green Wednesday”. The day after Christmas will be advertised with loud radio voices proclaiming “ONLY 364 days to get your loved one the diamonds they so richly deserve!! And now here’s Bing Crosby with his rendition of Jingle Bells!” People looking for a haircut or a swimming pool installation will have to negotiate pine trees in the parking lot year round. Candy cane manufacturers will experience unheard-of  endless demand and you’ll get the opportunity to get a picture with Santa while he is water skiing in July. And you’ll probably find me in the month of May, trying to choke down some eggnog in a last-ditch effort to get into the season.

Smoking kills. Apparently, however,  it kills in a decidedly random pattern, as evidenced by my family. We seem to be tougher than cigarettes and there are quite a few of us who smoke like freight trains (present company exempt). We are the family that Big Tobacco wishes they’d known during all of those messy legal troubles a few years back. I’ve watched as my father, The Lyin’ Dutchman himself, swore on his grave to his pulmonologist that he’d never touch another smoke, only to pick up the habit within weeks of his discharge, blowing off his diagnosis of emphysema as “a bad cough”. Hard as a coffin nail, the old man refuses to give up his beloved butts, claiming that they’re really no big deal and that doctors, on the whole, are idiots.

As kids, this presented my brothers and I quite the conundrum. Most kids smoke as a form of rebellion against their oppressive parents who don’t know the meaning of cool. But we were actually encouraged to smoke from, like, age ten. I wasn’t a fan and never could manage to pick up the habit, something which no doubt brought my father great shame. He smoked during meals, in the car, in the shower, in other peoples homes, in stores, at work, at Little League games and any other time he deemed fit. To be fair, when I was growing up, smoking was NOT as socially frowned upon; in fact, if you looked at any faded pics from my youth, at least 87% of the adults are holding on to cigarettes, as ubiquitous as cell phones are today. Auto parts stores had a smoking requirement if you were ever to be taken seriously as a customer.

And this…..this was the environment that The Lyin’ Dutchman was born to inhabit – that era when it was thought that women really did appreciate a nice swat on the ass as they walked by, when veiled bigotry was a way of doing business and cars got 7 miles per gallon. There are pictures of him riding the carousel at Disneyland with a cigarette clenched in his teeth, eyes set with the maniacal intensity of a crusty sea captain, and me on the horse behind him, choking on the smoke and face twisted up tight to avoid his exhaust. All of our household furniture had the associated burns and smelling like Harry’s Cocktail Lounge upon arrival at school was the norm. Unfortunately, as society progressed and we left smoking to angst ridden teens and twenty-something models looking to cover up the scent of their bulimic lunches, The Dutchman chose to remain behind. He still enjoys referring to complete strangers as “sweetheart” and casually muttering racial epithets at dining establishments. And oddly enough, he still seems irritated when informed that he cannot light up in an airplane, an indignation that he’ll remedy by strolling around airports with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips; this lets everyone know he’s both cool and insane.

Just like they won’t know about life before the personal computer, riding in the back of a truck or the fear we had of the Soviet Union, The Heathens won’t have to worry about growing up in a house where there is the deathly pall of faded yellow on the walls or the mess of ashtrays and the associated stench. On the side of town where I work, we see a substantial share of folks who are living in squalor, and I’ve come to associate poverty with a certain smell; it always reeks of piss, cigarettes and cat shit. I think that’s a universal odor, known to firefighters, cops and EMS personnel the world over. So where those of my parents generation viewed smoking as a sign of urbane sophistication, I see it as living in a socioeconomic condition where cat waste is considered interior decor. No wonder my father hates cats.

This is not to say there aren’t plenty of good people out there who smoke: we ALL make conscious, horrible decisions when it comes to our habits and vices. I can’t rationalize my partaking of a dip now and then, nor my copious abuse of the liver, but then, when can we rationalize our bad choices? At the very least, should I take up smoking, my family history dictates that I can inhale with impunity. I just need to get my mind around having a cat using my house as a toilet.

Men. We have a fascination with things mechanical, engineered or crafted. It could be a 1959 small window Peterbilt with a small cam Cummins engine married to a 5×4 transmission or it could be a meticulously executed 3 on 1 rush in hockey; however you look at it, we love it when a plan comes together, to paraphrase  John “Hannibal” Smith of A-Team infamy. As a corollary, we love the associated detritus that comes with an appreciation of craftsmanship. For many woodworkers, the acquisition and collection of the tools is as meaningful as any sort of project they’ll ever turn out. A man will show off his shop to a new friend long before he’ll ever invite him into the house, and this is because the shop is where your tools and equipment live. Even as boys, it wasn’t what we’d DO with the Star Wars figures; it was that we HAD them. This is the sort of mindset that allowed us as a nation to purchase Alaska for $0.019 per acre from the Russians in 1867. We didn’t NEED the great state of Alaska, we just thought it’d look good in the garage.

I am such a man. Always have been. The Wife has expressed concerns that this will evolve into a hoarding situation. Even as as a kid, though, I was fascinated by gear. In the salad days of my attempts at Little League, this became abundantly clear. If you were horrible at baseball, and I was, you either played in the outfield, to be left alone with your thoughts and Matchbox cars, or you played catcher. Being as how I had already constructed my own catchers gear from a pasta strainer, an old pillow and some PVC pipe, this was a score of epic proportions. You mean to say I could actually wear all that gear, for real? Never mind that I’d turn my head with each pitch and the ball would fly right by me. Never mind that I was terrified of getting clobbered in the head with the bat (and with good reason); I wanted to wear that shit on the car ride home from practice. The best part about BMX racing? Trying to do well enough that someone would sponsor your “leathers”, or racing pants, and a cool helmet. The worst part? I sucked at that too, so that meant I wore a motorcycle style and weight helmet, a rugby shirt and Levi jeans,  and thereby came across as a slow Charlie Brown bobblehead figure. I didn’t care, I was wearing GEAR, and it was awesome.

The years rolled by, and I wanted more equipment. I became a certified SCUBA diver and harbored thoughts of becoming an underwater welder. I learned how to weld and spent more time thinking about different welding helmet styles than metallurgy. I thrilled at running the biggest dozer in the quarry’s fleet, because it was an emblem of mechanical engineering asserting itself over piles of dirt. I played lacrosse in high school, in part because it was the closest thing we had to hockey out there, and I’d always wanted to play hockey in part because of the enormous amount of cool gear players got to wear. Now I lug and curse my hockey bag and wonder, as I open it up and the stench wafts upwards, if I should have stuck with soccer. Soccer seems to give off less of a malevolent odor.

Being a firefighter simply enables this love of accoutrements. We ride around on a mobile toolbox, carrying enough hydraulic, pneumatic and hand operated tools to break into most of your finer establishments. We have the firehouse engine bays, which is sort of like acquiring your own shop without any of the mechanic’s training. And to top it off, we wander into burning structures wearing more gear and equipment than I could have believed possible as a strainer wearing kid with a hyperactive imagination. Between the bunker gear, air pack, helmet and tools, we’re sauntering around in something like 60 pounds of personal protection and implements of destruction. And as I continue to age at ferocious pace, the feeling of awe at such cool junk has been replaced by aches, sores and future hernias.

Now I catch my boys wearing ninja masks to dinner and hockey helmets to the bath tub, as though this is the most normal course of action any young man can take. To them it is, for they are my boys. They love having a wide array of light sabers to choose from, even if they have no intention of going on an intergalactic assassination spree any time soon. I’ve seen them wear welding helmets while simulating flight on the riding mower; if I bring my fire gear home, they pounce like pimps who’ve stumbled across George Clinton’s wardrobe. No backyard battle is complete without them ending up in tool belts and yet somehow shirtless. While their mom might mutter and shake her head in confusion, I couldn’t be happier, for these boys, they get it. We don’t all outgrow our childhood dreams – we just get better at concealing them under layers of supposed “maturity”. It’s really a shame, because that which afforded you such wild tangents of the imagination as a child gets you labeled later in life by your spouse as a “potential hoarder”. So you grow up a bit, quit using cordless drills as laser-shooter-blasters and begin to laud the intended purpose of the tools that make our mechanical society function. You claim to appreciate the intrinsic and aesthetic qualities of tools and shops and safety gear, those things that make our lives that much better. And when no is looking, you grab a pasta strainer and see if the boys need another player.

I like the noise of democracy.   ~ James Buchanan

This past week I worked at a polling station, endorsing the passage of a sales tax here in our city that would provide funding for a badly underfunded pension system; it would also allow for monies to be freed up in order to begin filling massive holes the police and fire departments have in terms of manpower. A sticky, thorny situation, asking for the passage of a tax in these times, especially in an area of Missouri conservative enough to deem air conditioning in school classrooms a “fancy-pants luxury”. The long and short of it was that the naysayers lost, and the tax passed. I am glad for this, because it tells me that there are still people out there who care enough about local public safety to consider actually paying for it; this runs contrary to many places where entitlement is the rule of law (didn’t we discuss this?) But I digress.

One of the best parts of working the polls? Working a ten hour shift there is like a guarantee that SOMEone will have an episode in your presence. Jim and I booked our slot down at one of the libraries and let the good times roll. Here are a couple of characters worthy of mention.

1.) The Ghost Of Jerry Garcia
This cat was what we refer to on the northside as an “Urban Outdoorsman”, but is known on the southside as “homeless”. He looked like a toothless version of Jerry Garcia, stringy skullet style hair and the odor of old food and urine. He continued to berate us for a cigarette (neither of us smoke), demand of us the bus schedule (we kept telling him it seemed to come around every 20 minutes) and push us into buying his watch for some “lunch money”. Despite pointing out that neither of us needed watches, he remained undaunted in his quest to sell us his watch, even using yelling as a sales technique at one point. He also took the time to show us a couple of pictures that he had of himself in nothing but a diaper. As an adult. His explanation? Some kids offered to “put him on the internet” if he agreed to have his picture taken. One thing I love about the homeless – they never fail to be amused at their own stories, and are more than willing to laugh at appropriate moments, thereby alleviating us of the responsibility; this is critical, because we couldn’t understand more than every seventh word he uttered. So we all had a good laugh, checked the time on our corresponding watches and made sure to get him on the next bus, a process that took several hours due to his frequent need to take a piss and subsequently pass out behind the bushes every so often.

2.) Christian Vigilantes
A couple of older dudes came by our area to talk about the pension issue, and then assured us that due to our profession, no matter the outcome of the vote, our lives in the after world were a sure thing. I asked him if he actually knew any firemen, because that might cause him to re-evaluate his position; of course they may have been damning us for an eternity at this point. I smelled it first, but Jim wasn’t as quick to sense a theological trap, and he was left to be the point man in the conversation. They then went on to insist that the resurrection of Jesus was the most undisputed, scientific, undeniable fact of existence. There were some terms thrown about that made no sense, talking about radiological testing and lots of talk of bloodshed. It was creepier than your common conversion session. They then made us promise we’d read the Book of John, immediately. And since they hadn’t cast their votes yet, I just nodded like a cult follower, eyes as big as saucers, throwing in the occasional “you got that right, sister!” and “can I get a witness?” They then asked if we’d like them to kick over the sign that the opposition had put up next to ours. We politely told them we couldn’t condone that kind of thing, but we weren’t there to police their behavior. So the shorter chubby one walked up to the sign as they headed to the lot after voting and sort of kicked it. Sort of. He more like tripped over it and stumbled and created a scene. I shouted out “Praise Jesus” (okay, I muttered it) while he picked himself off the lot and demanded his buddy ride in the back of the car. They peeled out of the parking lot like they’d just knocked over a liquor store instead of a plastic sign. Jim looked at me and asked “Did that really just happen?”
Yes James, it did. And it was awesome.

3.) The Ultimate Pessimist
The only thing we’d say to people heading into the polls was “Good morning” or “Doin’ all right?” There were no pleas, nor any entreaties to vote one way or another. We were there only to answer any questions folks might have about the pension and to put a face on this huge issue. Most folks would at least give us a “good morning” in return, or if a no voter (I’m guessing) pretend they didn’t hear us and take an obsessive interest in the ground near their feet. But one man, a nastily grouchy looking sort, said “good morning” at first and then saw who we were and took the time to stop, point at us and say “NO. Not a good morning”. And then he shuffled off to electorally shake his fist at us.  I turned and said “Think of the power we wield, James. We just converted the entire aspect of this morning merely by wearing a shirt. Think of what we could do by lunch.”

4.) The Recyclers
At some point in the day, a couple of ladies came out of the library with the backpack on wheels- kind of contraption I took it to be used for the transportation of reading material. They weren’t poorly dressed, nor did they have the air of desperate people; they were merely passing some time waiting for the next bus, and I thought nothing of it. There was one of those sand filled ashtrays near us (fanTAStic!) and once in a while a library patron / voter would throw their cancer stick into the sand receptacle as they entered the building – everyone on board so far? Yeah, well these ladies would wait for just such an occurrence and then saunter on up, looking us dead in the eye, as though they wanted to talk. But this was arrogance on my part to think they wanted anything to do with a couple of poll workers; no, they would stop at the ashtray, pick through the butts and either begin to smoke one, or already having one in their mouth, place them into the pockets of their sweat pants. Each time this happened? I gagged just a little and excitedly jabbed Jim with an elbow and said “Dude. They just did it. Again!”, to which Jim would nonchalantly reply “I wonder if they’re single” or “Man, that’s really ecologically responsible, how they don’t waste ANYthing.”
Which is precisely why I picked working with Jim.

And precisely why, when called upon again to represent the local firefighters at a polling place, my first pick will be to work at the library. I love the democratic process.

Last night on my way into the hockey rink, I noticed a vanity license plate on a non-descript car in the parking lot. It said, simply, “JRS PLS“. Most logical folks would assume that these are the owners initials, and rightly so. Not being logical, I began running scenarios through my mind, like “do they mean JUNIORS, PLEASE? Do they hate senior citizens?” And I wondered what their initials stood for. Are their names “Jamiroquai Rufus Steinbeck” and “Penelope Lorena Sanchez“? Or am I just completely out of my mind with idiocy for dwelling on something so inconsequential?  The answer is definitely, maybe.

But sanity notwithstanding, it made me think about vanity plates as a concept. First off, I doubt anyone who has vanity plates ever refers to them as such, because it would make you sound, well, vain, if you peppered your cocktail party conversation with “I was down at the Department of Motor Vehicles today and ordered some vanity plates for my new Prius”. You are therefore announcing to the world that you are, yes, vain enough to display the word “TREHUGR” on your new hybrid. You are spending double digits to make this proclamation. So I like to imagine folks with vanity plates probably refer to them as “custom plates” or they try and bullshit their acquaintances with lines like “oh that? That’s mere coincidence that I, Alex Sheldon Smith, got a plate that said ‘ASS MAN‘”. And I’m fine with that, I really am. How a person chooses to spend their disposable income is an autonomous joy; some people choose to spend $50 on a bag of weed. And I would gladly piss away 50 bones in one evening at Patton Alley Pub just to enjoy good Guinness and good company. Therefore, I’m in no position to define what goes through the mind of the individual who feels the need to display a license plate on his ’72 Corvette that states that this is, indeed, a “72VETTE“. Other Corvette aficionados should be able to discern this fact without needing to be told by the State of Missouri plate, and quite frankly the rest of the populace isn’t going to waste too much time wondering “now just what year IS that iconic piece of automotive history? I won’t sleep until I have the answer. WAIT! There, on the plate……AHHHHHHHHHH, okay, just as I thought – it’s a ’72. I damn well suspected that all along, Edith, I really did.”

Which brings us to the next logical step when considering the importance of vanity plates in the collective scheme of things: The Lyin’ Dutchman. The Dutchman had/has a special place in his heart for vanity plates, but only one will do; it will read, boldly and simply, “GULJE“. I suspect this is for several reasons. The first is that he always wants the world to know he’s coming. This in and of itself is totally unnecessary, because my dad always has a flair for garish automobiles that could never be mistaken for anyone elses’ ride. From the screaming banana yellow Mustang (which resembled an infant’s full diaper in color) to the battleship grey Dodge Colt with the hand applied black “racing stripes” and corresponding numbers painted on the hood, there was never a doubt as to who owned the weirdest pile of car in the neighborhood. And if the make, model and custom paintwork did not alert you, there was comfort in knowing that he ALWAYS took the time to glue miniature figurines across the dashboard for his own amusement. Amusing, sure, to him, but fatally embarrassing when you arrived at school having to explain the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote chase scene taking place on the dash. Add to this some “custom” paintwork that he would apply to a spare tire cover on a beat up old Dodge Ram (usually it was the name he gave to the vehicle) and a Darth Vader mask that he would wear once in a while, and you begin to understand why my brothers and I preferred our bikes as a means of transportation.

Thus, our family had “GULJE” license plates in the old black and yellow colors of California, the blue and yellow ones, the white and red and other schematics that came out with each new vehicle purchase. By boldly pronouncing that “GULJE” was driving down the road, he was able to have a vehicular posse precede him, if you will. In fact, he was so enamored of the idea that he often referred to himself by his last name, and liked it when others did as well. That, or alternatively, “Mr. G“, which happened to ALSO be the name of his boat. So, conceivably, Mr. G could be driving Gulje to the lake so Gulje could take Mr. G out for a spin. It was a confusing time in which to grow up. This could also explain my love of random license plate numbers whose only purpose in life is to make it easier for the cops to expedite the ticket writing process. My last name is hard enough to pronounce, let alone explain and spell. So much so that it’s crossed my mind to take that old license plate off the shop wall and lug it around with me as a form of identification.

But, like clouds in my coffee, that would be pretty damn vain, wouldn’t it?