My Ode to Summer

What will you do with your summer? It's a big ol' world out there. 

Swimming, diving, camping, hiking, and don't forget sports. Perhaps it's time to work on that tennis game or try your hand at windsurfing. How about a few weeks at the lake? Snorkeling is good. Maybe you'll finally make that California trip. Branson, Las Vegas...you might even get around to that cruise vacation! Even in the old neighborhood there's plenty of community parks around!

When I was a kid ( seems like last month ) I would go to the playground on Prospect Avenue near my boyhood home... that would be in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. We had a softball team and a couple of patient college aged supervisors who taught macramé and boondoggle when they weren't breaking up some minor altercation! Anyone care for a pot holder?

On the weekends I'd  have a traveling lemonade stand in the bed of a little red wagon pulled by the younger brother. Hardly anyone would venture into my marginal neighborhood so I had to get the product out to them ( I'm actually still doing that ). In later years I had the summer job thing happening... I picked strawberries for ten cents a quart. ( I really hated that job. ) When I was old enough I had a small lawn mowing business and was actually able to buy my first guitar with the proceeds. Of course Dad had to haul me and the mower around which was not high on his happiness list.

Each year the family made it's annual pilgrimage to Roseland Amusement Park in nearby Canandaigua, NY. It was a kind of budgety Six Flags but we always had a ball. I could hardly wait till I was old enough to go on the adult rides. Dad had an old black and white Mercury with a 'merc-o-matic' transmission... the gear shift was mounted on the dashboard and the starter was on the floor. Curiously there were a number of cigarette lighter burns on the front seat... oops!

Occasionally we'd all head out to the 'cottage'. This was a small lake house built by one uncle on the 'high banks' of Seneca lake. A long rickety staircase led down a shear embankment to the shore. The water was nearly always freezing and the bottom was covered with sharp rocky shale... quite the perfect way to slice open your chubby pink toes! It was always exciting when we were permitted to drive my uncles' home made go-cart up and down the dirt access road. For some reason I always associate these days with the spice 'dill weed'. That aroma always rekindles the 'cottage day' experience.

 

Around mid-evening a street vendor would pass by selling ice cream treats. There was one street light near our house. The pavement was red brick, and the neighborhood was integrated. As often as possible we'd all try to stay out late to play 'kick the can' under that streetlight. Generally by 9 pm the sun would set. The folks would tire of that 'can sound' and call us all inside.

One night each year June bugs would hatch out ( kind of an over large ladybug ). We children, being cruel things, would do our best to swat at them with baseball bats. Once in a while we'd all go to nearby Genesee Street park and play 'Red rover, red rover, I dare you come over'! Chestnuts would fall from the trees at the end of summer and be collected just to see who could gather the most. 

 

I was a small town boy. In fact my graduation class had around 64 students. We would not have been so crowded except that our school district merged with another in the last semester thereby doubling the size of the senior class! Those summer nights meant so much to me and are one reason why I love South Florida. Now every night is a summer night! 

The heat, the beach, ( sometimes ) the strawberries... if only there was someone in this neighborhood who played 'kick the can'.

Make a memory this summer. You won't regret it!

POLITICS FOR WOMEN

It’s time for our society to realize that men are not good at politics.

We’ve seen arrogant dictators world wide ( all male ) who would rather slaughter the innocent than relinquish power. There is nary a place on the globe where males can be found who succeed as political representatives. Period. Apparently men are not very adept at governance.

Men suck at budgeting. Men can’t get along. They bicker. They posture. They draw a line in the sand. They war. They don’t say what they mean. The ‘good old boy’ mentality has been running Washington D.C. for so very long that America has been driven into the proverbial ‘ditch’.  The US government seems broken at every level. Wars, debt, poverty, cronyism, a crumbling infrastructure, a diminished economy and of course 'catering to the very wealthiest' ... the list goes on and on and on without end.

And what is the legacy? What has been accomplished? How can we Americans move forward?

Every election cycle is the same tired and rather sad story... cycle after cycle without resolution. Immigration reform, women’s reproductive rights, entitlement funding, military funding, health care reform and more and more; nothing is resolved, nothing has changed. Nothing seems to move forward. It’s enough to make you blow red, white and blue chunks as one poseur after another conjures up cheap sentiment regarding faith, mom, and / or the American dream!

The fascinating thing about this is that every male at every level in every office in every civilized location worldwide knows with certainty that it’s women who are in charge.

Women keep the home in order. It's women who manage the household budget and bring meals to the table. Women manage a family’s financial and social obligations, plan for weddings and births and deftly manage the simple niceties of gifting, networking, child rearing and basically living together. These traits are the very root of the political skill set.

A burly guy who can move the sofa is probably a poor choice for political representation. A guy who fares well on the battlefield isn’t necessarily a good legislator. The descendant of some wealthy and familiar political dynasty is not automatically worthy of your vote. Be wise and examine the true reality of a candidate’s circumstance.

A woman has the final word in physical intimacy. Apparently some of the male electorate still do not understand basic biology! And still it’s the woman who must fight for her physical rights or even to march into battle along side her male counterparts. It’s also women who most effectively comfort the afflicted.

This has been such a load of ongoing rubbish! Apparently men fear women to a great extent. And whatever man fears he wants to control. Centuries past ( in the orient ) a woman’s feet were bound and broken and so women were made to hobble. Women have been collected into harems. The Islamic world still forces women to cover themselves head to toe with the ‘burka’. Islamic women are still denied a driver’s license. Even now daughters are bartered or sold or forced into arranged marriages for the good of the family. Women and children have been murdered for only their desire to be educated. Again, this has been such a load of rubbish!

None the less our society has been blessed with male dominance. What a piece of crap this has been for modern society! Peer closely at your world and you’ll see that this is all true.

I think men have had more than a fair chance at governing and they’ve blown it. It’s troubling to say this as a guy but I think it’s time for the long winded and long serving men ( who have manipulated American policy to their great personal benefit ) to vacate the halls of power.

Men excel at the kind of testosterone fueled bravado necessary to build fires, stab prey and sear meat ( let’s call it the slash, burn and barbecue effect ). These skills of conquest, once laudable, are barely appropriate in today's political arena. Women are schooled in subtle perceptions of detail that have yet to be employed in international circles. 

Come on good ole boys, step aside!

ABOUT ROOMMATES

The great thing about growing older (if there is a great thing) is that we gain life experience. We survived adolescence; we made peace with our siblings and our parents and somehow managed to side step the bullies having made our way into the world.


There have been a lot of residences in my own life and a number of addresses on both land and at sea. I’d estimate at least 7 US cities, 12 ships at sea and one Caribbean nation.


That having been said the first thing I would mention is that I don’t mind having a room mate. Certainly not all room mates are the same. Guys want to bring home women (not so bad), and women want to bring home guys. One female roommate actually received calls from 21 different guys in a single day before I told her to get her own phone! On several mornings I’ve come out of my room to find a pair of pants on the sofa and they weren’t my pants! Other times you go for morning coffee and find a complete stranger wearing a house coat preparing breakfast. Clearly one must maintain an open mind. As long as they all take the trouble to clean up after themselves I’m generally a fountain of good will. Still they are strangers whose past and intent is unknown.


But when a roommate begins to have guests it changes the balance. Suddenly it is no longer a one to one living arrangement but rather two to one (even if temporarily). Suddenly there is another entire nexus of a relationship using my furniture, my dishware, my flatware... and I am disregarded. I begin to feel disenfranchised in my own home and I don’t like it. The inconvenient person, the third wheel, three’s a crowd! There are whispers and hushed tones and planning. A complete stranger is staying in my home for an unspecified time? Not that I wish to be included in their plans though it’s still annoying. I’m the one who puts a household at risk. I’m the one who runs the dishwasher and returns everything to the drawers and to the cabinets and cleans up the unseen spatters. It isn’t as though they are family? It isn’t part of the lease agreement.


This is especially troubling because all the room mates I’ve hosted lease ‘utilities included’. Their rental is a constant. It never goes up or down. So if they have a guest it’s always on my nickel. Each time a guest makes use of the appliances or showers or flushes... it’s always my nickel. I’m gratified that guests at least shower and flush though I don’t think I should be paying for their visit! I have even stated in the lease agreement that guests are ‘not permitted’ and yet that provision continues to be conveniently ignored. From time to time an overnight guest is unavoidable and I’m not so rigid as to forbid it in the absolute. This all may seem like a trivial issue to the reader but when you add together dozens of guests over 25 years it totals quite a sum!


One trouble is that room mates are not very good at participating in the household. They are quick to avail themselves of your supplies like plastic cups and freezer bags and trash bags and aluminum foil and paper towels... but they don’t contribute. They replace nothing. Roommates help themselves as though they were entitled; as if it were included as a portion of their lease agreement.


In my home we do not wear shoes. The carpet is light beige and the parking lot is littered with glass shards, tar balls, duck droppings and an entire panorama of anomalies we do not want deposited on the carpet. So we remove our shoes in the doorway.


It isn’t that difficult. Men seem to catch on a bit more quickly than women even still they often need reminding. A woman will co-operate for two maybe three visits and then seem to forget as if they were never informed. Too lazy or too lofty to remove their shoes, especially after so much effort has gone into selecting their footwear!

My current room mate has been here 4 months. The spare room smells like a locker and the vacuum cannot pass because the floor is so cluttered. I can speak with some certainty that should I leave for even a few weeks he would have the rest of my house sporting that same disarray. He would never notice that the house plants needed water and so I would return to a house filled with weeds. People often fight for a window view and yet this guy never opens the blinds to let the sunshine enter. I can manage to clean myself properly in a 5 - 7 minute shower and yet this guy needs 15 - 17 minutes. Moreover, without my presence, I believe he would have his girl friend moved in full and proper, both enjoying themselves once again on my nickel!

It’s time to look for a new roommate.

THE GREETER

Some years past I was residing in Southern California.
It was a mixed blessing of sorts though I never tired of the exploration. California is the biggest and wealthiest state in the union but there's no place to park and they can't pay their bills!

One day I visited the small town of Laguna Beach. I suppose it's best known for the beach culture but there is very much more. I was quite taken by the 'artsy' and energetic quality of this village.

The South Coast Highway brings visitors into the town proper. It's a nice ride along the Pacific Coast.

At some point, many years past, (Eiler Larson) a homeless, rather itinerant looking WWI veteran (not unlike Gandalf and Santa combined) came to town. A Danish stranger who stationed himself on one corner (Greeters Corner) and made it his business to wave his welcoming hand to every vehicle as it entered town.

It's likely that residents were at first wary of this odd looking gent. He was scruffy. Unwashed. Poorly clothed. Heavily bearded. An undesireable. Though in time the 'Greeter' (as he was known) became a local novelty and endeared himself to many.

Local eateries began to offer meals to the 'Greeter' at the close of business. The holidays brought cash and gifts from local residents as trepidation faded and fondness grew. The 'Greeter' had become something of a local and trusted institution applauded by all and who thrived on a torrent of goodwill from the community.

A final and dignified resolution, the 'Greeter' passed away at the age of 84 in 1975 having bellowed and waved his hellos for 35 years. The community grieved. Residents would eventually commission two huge statues to celebrate what the 'Greeter' called his 'mission of friendliness'.

Some years later a new 'Greeter' appeared. He was equally thread bare and equally unknown. He was equally homeless and itinerant. And he was ultimately rejected.

The towns folk labeled him the 'false' Greeter. He was basically shunned. He was reviled even though performing the same well intentioned task. I've always wondered why?
The official Greeter's appeal to the community was clearly greater than that of some disheveled vagabond. Was it merely the cult of personality? Was the greeter adopted by the community because of his uniqueness alone? Was it merely a case of being in the right place at the right time? Is the original 'Greeter' irreplaceable? Was the 'false' greeter merely a pretender? Is the community now to carry on with no iconic 'Greeter'?

It would seem that the fullness of welcome has been lost.

And why is that?