Dear You,
As it is wherever I've been, here in Florida between Tampa and Sarasota the nearest dump (excuse me, "landfill") is out of sight, in nobody's backyard, off the beaten track. I thought of that because the other evening I found myself AT the track.
It was a particularly chilly evening for Florida, even for February, and I was watching the light fade as I sat on the top level of the bleachers. Just ahead of me, across the path in front of the risers, was a double layer of chainlink, the top bent inward the way it is to prevent inmates from escaping their prison. This, my companion/guide -- a Racing True Believer -- explained was to "cut down on the rocks and dirt that will fly in our direction."
Just on the other side of the fence was the outer track, and to the left a little the platform where the guy with all those colorful flags would do his dance. The track is more like a D than an oval, for a reason I didn't really understand, but I nodded appreciatively during the explanation. And inside that track was a smaller one, raised just a little, with its own flagger-platform on the far side.
My eyes just then, however, were fixed on the dump on the other side of the track -- a long, flattened hill with black pipes snaking up and down, and big yellow machines parked at the top. To my eyes, everything in sight seemed dump-like: dirt, debris, gray clouds . . . even the audience. Except for the occasional colorful logo on a jacket, the clothing looked like work jeans and hoodies, not unlike that which the fellows wear while collecting the garbage at my curbside.
Many of the people in my view looked a bit like society's rejects -- the fellow with the mohawk, dangly earring and tattoos; the woman with the Raceway jacket, long bleached hair, cigarette -- although I hesitate to judge too harshly. Mohawk and I exchanged a pleasantry about the cold, and Bleach Blonde smiled when she looked my way. No doubt suburbanites with lawns and kids and paying their taxes.
I won't dawdle any longer. Noise, a blur of colors, air filled with dirt, and . . . yes, I was struck on the shoulder by a stone and in the stomach with a clod of dirt. Dinner in the stands was catered -- by me: hot dog, hamburger, fries and soda.
Altogether an almost palatable evening.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Monday, September 14, 2009
Don't Be So Forward
Dear You,
When my email has the subject heading RE: I am on guard. Usually it's just a REPLY from a correspondent about something I've sent, but too often it's one of those dreary FORWARDS.
You know what I mean, I'm sure. Opened, the message contains block after block of email addresses of others who have received the thing, and when I finally get to the actual contents, it is something (a) I've probably been sent before, (b) really stupid, (c) really sappy, (d) really obnoxious, or (e) all of those. It's getting so that I feel about the people sending me this stuff the way I once felt for people who said "between my brother and I" or couldn't pronounce "dour" or "err" the proper way. Superior. (Okay, snobbishly and arrogantly so.)
The worse are those emails clearly wrong. I just got the one about the photographs taken at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. These were from negatives found in "a Kodak box camera found recently in a sailor's locker and still in amazing condition." This gifted photographer was, it seems, everywhere in that area, including in a plane, judging from some of the shots. Also in the future, since one of the ships he recorded wasn't built until a few years after that event.
How did I know this was another hoax, begun by someone with wayyyy too much time on his (probably) hands and forwarded by dozens of unthinking (okay, perhaps well-meaning . . .) people before it reached me? Well, Postman wrote that an education is supposed to give people a "built-in crap detector." When I get stuff like this, mine goes off. Loudly. And I open Snopes.com and type a few of the words from the message into the search box. Voila!
It's crap. As I thought. And my next action is to delete it. I don't think it does much good. It won't be long before someone else forwards it to me for my enjoyment.
In Cyberspace what goes around gets around and around and around. Endlessly.
When my email has the subject heading RE: I am on guard. Usually it's just a REPLY from a correspondent about something I've sent, but too often it's one of those dreary FORWARDS.
You know what I mean, I'm sure. Opened, the message contains block after block of email addresses of others who have received the thing, and when I finally get to the actual contents, it is something (a) I've probably been sent before, (b) really stupid, (c) really sappy, (d) really obnoxious, or (e) all of those. It's getting so that I feel about the people sending me this stuff the way I once felt for people who said "between my brother and I" or couldn't pronounce "dour" or "err" the proper way. Superior. (Okay, snobbishly and arrogantly so.)
The worse are those emails clearly wrong. I just got the one about the photographs taken at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. These were from negatives found in "a Kodak box camera found recently in a sailor's locker and still in amazing condition." This gifted photographer was, it seems, everywhere in that area, including in a plane, judging from some of the shots. Also in the future, since one of the ships he recorded wasn't built until a few years after that event.
How did I know this was another hoax, begun by someone with wayyyy too much time on his (probably) hands and forwarded by dozens of unthinking (okay, perhaps well-meaning . . .) people before it reached me? Well, Postman wrote that an education is supposed to give people a "built-in crap detector." When I get stuff like this, mine goes off. Loudly. And I open Snopes.com and type a few of the words from the message into the search box. Voila!
It's crap. As I thought. And my next action is to delete it. I don't think it does much good. It won't be long before someone else forwards it to me for my enjoyment.
In Cyberspace what goes around gets around and around and around. Endlessly.
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Things I Carry
Dear You,
Do other men like cargo pants? I live in them and have several pairs, both long and short. I'm wearing shorts at the moment, and my pockets are stuffed like a chipmunk's cheeks.
In my back pocket is my wallet, of course, with more plastic rectangles than I can possibly remember. Last week the fellow in the ticket kiosk asked if I were a member of the Crown Regal Club. Who knew? After a search through the wallet, I came up with the card, and if I go to the movies a few more times I'll get in for free. Or is it a free small popcorn?
A constant companion is my Leatherman micra. It's in the top side pocket, and with it I can adjust my glasses (the right lens is forever falling out), tweeze a hair, open a beer, scissors a lock of milady's hair and/or file my fingernail. And more, if I'm creative. Aaron gave it to me for Christmas years ago, and every so often it goes missing. Generally I find it in a pocket of a pair of cargo pants I've hung back in the closet.
In that same pocket is a cloth handkerchief. Men of a certain age, I'm told, have these things. I never blow my nose with it (it's for wiping the lens after I re-install it in the glasses), and I am ever vigilant for the possibility of presenting it to a weeping damsel. So far no luck on that one!
My new iTouch rides in the lower left pocket, and I reach for it at every excuse. I like to think it makes me au courant. The grandchildren love it -- I have some games on the thing. What I like is that it holds several novels and a handy reader. Also the most up-to-date weather reports. And I can keep up with the latest musings on Facebook.
What else? Oh, yes, my keys, some receipts, a pen (can't go anywhere without something to write with, even with the little Notepad function on the iTouch), the grocery list, my tiny bottle of nitroglycerin tablets . . . Tim O'Brien wrote a book about what the soldiers in Vietnam carried. Should I be uncomfortable making this association with the contents of my pants?
Do other men like cargo pants? I live in them and have several pairs, both long and short. I'm wearing shorts at the moment, and my pockets are stuffed like a chipmunk's cheeks.
In my back pocket is my wallet, of course, with more plastic rectangles than I can possibly remember. Last week the fellow in the ticket kiosk asked if I were a member of the Crown Regal Club. Who knew? After a search through the wallet, I came up with the card, and if I go to the movies a few more times I'll get in for free. Or is it a free small popcorn?
A constant companion is my Leatherman micra. It's in the top side pocket, and with it I can adjust my glasses (the right lens is forever falling out), tweeze a hair, open a beer, scissors a lock of milady's hair and/or file my fingernail. And more, if I'm creative. Aaron gave it to me for Christmas years ago, and every so often it goes missing. Generally I find it in a pocket of a pair of cargo pants I've hung back in the closet.
In that same pocket is a cloth handkerchief. Men of a certain age, I'm told, have these things. I never blow my nose with it (it's for wiping the lens after I re-install it in the glasses), and I am ever vigilant for the possibility of presenting it to a weeping damsel. So far no luck on that one!
My new iTouch rides in the lower left pocket, and I reach for it at every excuse. I like to think it makes me au courant. The grandchildren love it -- I have some games on the thing. What I like is that it holds several novels and a handy reader. Also the most up-to-date weather reports. And I can keep up with the latest musings on Facebook.
What else? Oh, yes, my keys, some receipts, a pen (can't go anywhere without something to write with, even with the little Notepad function on the iTouch), the grocery list, my tiny bottle of nitroglycerin tablets . . . Tim O'Brien wrote a book about what the soldiers in Vietnam carried. Should I be uncomfortable making this association with the contents of my pants?
Friday, September 4, 2009
It's always greener
Dear You,
So there I was, walking back and forth behind my mower, wondering why I love cutting the grass so much. So much, in fact, that annually I watch from my Winter perspective in Florida for news that the snow is melting and revealing the new Spring crop, and I hasten back to the North to begin the harvest, well ahead of many of my Snowbird neighbors.
Perhaps it's because it is by far the most pleasurable of my To-Do Things Around The House. Does anyone really enjoy cleaning the basement or the garage? Paying the bills or shampooing a carpet? Each swath shows accomplishment and progress toward completion. And that smell!
I've even considered the act to be an ancient echo of my agrarian roots. I won't plant a garden -- not so long as a grocery story is within a day's drive! No tilling and toiling for me, nosiree. Still, the urge to keep that grass at croquet-playing level is truly primal.
In addition, I rather like that throbbing that goes up my arms, along with the motorcycle-level of sound that lingers in my ears even after I've come back inside. I like waving at my neighbors on both sides of my line, and I feel smug because they're perched on their riding machines . . . the wimps!
Maybe I'll never really understand it. What I know is how I feel at this moment, showered and in fresh clothes after an hour out there. As I type this, I'm wondering if it will rain this weekend, enough to make it necessary to get back behind my mower in a couple of days. I hope so.
So there I was, walking back and forth behind my mower, wondering why I love cutting the grass so much. So much, in fact, that annually I watch from my Winter perspective in Florida for news that the snow is melting and revealing the new Spring crop, and I hasten back to the North to begin the harvest, well ahead of many of my Snowbird neighbors.
Perhaps it's because it is by far the most pleasurable of my To-Do Things Around The House. Does anyone really enjoy cleaning the basement or the garage? Paying the bills or shampooing a carpet? Each swath shows accomplishment and progress toward completion. And that smell!
I've even considered the act to be an ancient echo of my agrarian roots. I won't plant a garden -- not so long as a grocery story is within a day's drive! No tilling and toiling for me, nosiree. Still, the urge to keep that grass at croquet-playing level is truly primal.
In addition, I rather like that throbbing that goes up my arms, along with the motorcycle-level of sound that lingers in my ears even after I've come back inside. I like waving at my neighbors on both sides of my line, and I feel smug because they're perched on their riding machines . . . the wimps!
Maybe I'll never really understand it. What I know is how I feel at this moment, showered and in fresh clothes after an hour out there. As I type this, I'm wondering if it will rain this weekend, enough to make it necessary to get back behind my mower in a couple of days. I hope so.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Guilty
Dear You,
I'm a news junkie, so I cannot dodge the Economic Bad News. Each day, NPR and the St. Petersburg newspaper remove the layers of my otherwise insulated life. Increasingly, I am led to care about the plight of the world's poor.
It's not that I do much about it. I cannot dodge my responsibity here - being an American means being part of the problem. And hasn't everyone heard that it's good for one's peace of mind to stop watching the six o'clock news? A head-in-the-sand approach, though, cannot make anyone's life better.
A statistic: the 500 richest people in the world a few years ago earned more than the 416 million poorest people (United Nations report). A story: A woman in Haiti once sold shoes on the street, but falling demand has meant that she used all her income to buy food for her child and none to replace her inventory . . . and now she has nothing but an emaciated, dying child (Nicholas Kristoff).
I ingest the daily news of bank bailouts and million dollar bonuses for those who will never be hungry, and I pause on Sundays to pray for the poor. And I hope the leaders of the world are listening, too.
I'm a news junkie, so I cannot dodge the Economic Bad News. Each day, NPR and the St. Petersburg newspaper remove the layers of my otherwise insulated life. Increasingly, I am led to care about the plight of the world's poor.
It's not that I do much about it. I cannot dodge my responsibity here - being an American means being part of the problem. And hasn't everyone heard that it's good for one's peace of mind to stop watching the six o'clock news? A head-in-the-sand approach, though, cannot make anyone's life better.
A statistic: the 500 richest people in the world a few years ago earned more than the 416 million poorest people (United Nations report). A story: A woman in Haiti once sold shoes on the street, but falling demand has meant that she used all her income to buy food for her child and none to replace her inventory . . . and now she has nothing but an emaciated, dying child (Nicholas Kristoff).
I ingest the daily news of bank bailouts and million dollar bonuses for those who will never be hungry, and I pause on Sundays to pray for the poor. And I hope the leaders of the world are listening, too.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Nickles and Dimes
Dear You,
Riding the casino boat out of Melbourne, Florida, you look in vain for the Pretty People, the sort you might see at your neighborhood pool or PTA meeting. Take my word for it - I traveled fore and aft on all levels of the SunCruz ship looking for an unweathered face.
By and large (and that can be taken in a literal sense) they seemed a hard lot. Those who weren't smoking appeared to have burned a few cartons in their past. The several bars were busy before we cast off at 11 that morning.
The boat and its passengers weren't going anywhere. The goal for the former was to make its way outside the three-mile limit, after that cruising north and south and north for the next few hours. As for the passengers, most would drive home that afternoon with less in their pockets and purses than they brought. And not because the ticket was dear - only $8! - or the drinks were overpriced. As long as you pressed the button or rolled the dice, the drinks were free.
For whatever reason, I managed to stay above it all. Literally, since I found a quiet chair up top where I could watch the gulls and finish reading "Glory in Death" before it was time to learn how much money my companions had lost.
Riding the casino boat out of Melbourne, Florida, you look in vain for the Pretty People, the sort you might see at your neighborhood pool or PTA meeting. Take my word for it - I traveled fore and aft on all levels of the SunCruz ship looking for an unweathered face.
By and large (and that can be taken in a literal sense) they seemed a hard lot. Those who weren't smoking appeared to have burned a few cartons in their past. The several bars were busy before we cast off at 11 that morning.
The boat and its passengers weren't going anywhere. The goal for the former was to make its way outside the three-mile limit, after that cruising north and south and north for the next few hours. As for the passengers, most would drive home that afternoon with less in their pockets and purses than they brought. And not because the ticket was dear - only $8! - or the drinks were overpriced. As long as you pressed the button or rolled the dice, the drinks were free.
For whatever reason, I managed to stay above it all. Literally, since I found a quiet chair up top where I could watch the gulls and finish reading "Glory in Death" before it was time to learn how much money my companions had lost.
Monday, March 16, 2009
But don't call 9-1-1 just yet!
Dear You,
Every time I wind up in the hospital, and despite any pain that otherwise confuses my thinking, I remember to ask for one of those little pressurized containers of shaving cream.
These come with the plastic razor, the thin washcloth, the little bar of soap and the breakable comb, in a pink plastic tub that fits into the rollaway tray-table that also holds the get-well-soon flowers and ice water with the bendable straw. I make nice with the nurse after I hide the first can - it's about the size of an inhaler, so it can go unnoticed even in a pajama pocket! - and I request another. They have hundreds of the things, I figure, so I don't consider this larceny.
With luck, I am released back into the world with at least two - sometimes more! - of them. Back at home, my shaving needs are met with the big red and black can of Gillette Foamy I keep under the sink. This is just not suitable when I am Away.
In my toilet kit, everything is small and travel-sized: comb, toothpaste, anti-perspirant . . . all available in the supermarket or drugstore. And thanks to Rochester General, so is my shaving cream.
Every time I wind up in the hospital, and despite any pain that otherwise confuses my thinking, I remember to ask for one of those little pressurized containers of shaving cream.
These come with the plastic razor, the thin washcloth, the little bar of soap and the breakable comb, in a pink plastic tub that fits into the rollaway tray-table that also holds the get-well-soon flowers and ice water with the bendable straw. I make nice with the nurse after I hide the first can - it's about the size of an inhaler, so it can go unnoticed even in a pajama pocket! - and I request another. They have hundreds of the things, I figure, so I don't consider this larceny.
With luck, I am released back into the world with at least two - sometimes more! - of them. Back at home, my shaving needs are met with the big red and black can of Gillette Foamy I keep under the sink. This is just not suitable when I am Away.
In my toilet kit, everything is small and travel-sized: comb, toothpaste, anti-perspirant . . . all available in the supermarket or drugstore. And thanks to Rochester General, so is my shaving cream.
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