Never have I been a blue calm sea. I have always been a storm. Ahem. Technically, that was Stevie Nicks, on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album. But I know what she meant.
I am not one to see the silver lining in every cloud. If somebody asked me if the glass was half empty or half full, I would probably grumble because I didn't like the glass. My husband says I would complain if I was hung with a new rope. I'm not sure I understand that one, but I think it's the complain part that he's emphasizing. I do not live in a cotton candy, rainbow, puppies and kittens, unicorn world.
Sometimes I need to dwell on the negative. The obstacle that prevents me from attaining world domination. The fly in my ointment, the bug up my butt, the thorn in my side, the rain on my parade, my bone of contention, the wad in my panties, the yanker of my chain, the thief of my candy. I just have to let it out.
Like the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the scorpion his nature, I must work things out in my own way. Which does not mean that I am a predator, or sting people who help me across the river. I am a bit skeptical and scope out a situation from all angles before committing myself wholeheartedly. And I don't see anything wrong with that. What a boring world this would be if everybody was Pollyanna.
I have never seen Pollyanna in its entirety. A couple of weeks ago I found it by accident on one of my free movie channels. I watched some, and let it play in the background. Who can resist a Hayley Mills accent? Not me. The character I identified with was Angelica, the sour-puss servant. Or as some would recognizer her, Ralph. You know, of Alf and Ralph Monroe, the carpenters on Green Acres. Mary Grace Canfield, the actress.
Even Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory needed something or somebody to cut the sweetness. Violet, anyone? And Survivor constantly needs villains, from Sue Hawk and Richard Hatch in season one, Borneo, to Jerri Manthey in season two, Australian Outback, to Russell Hantz in the most recent incarnation. Seinfeld had his Even Steven moments. There's Yin and Yang. Magnets have positive and negative poles. Atoms contain protons and electrons. The water cycle runs on evaporation and condensation.
We are not all meant to be alike.
Unbagging the Cats 1
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Lord of the Pig's Flies
When I was a child, the highlight of the summer was vacation at Grandma's house. She only lived six miles from us, but Grandma and Grandpa kindly volunteered two weeks of their time to host the grandchildren. Back then, I thought they were doing it for the kids. Now, I know they were doing it for our moms and dads. My mom has three older brothers. Lucky for Grandma, one lived in Alaska. So his three kids were not part of the summer situation. That left her with six of us. Five girls, one boy. Ages 6-15, that one particular summer.
We were pretty much left to our own devices during the day. Grandma worked nights at the state hospital, and slept part of the day. One of the perks of working there was the opportunity to bring home giant jigsaw puzzles of seascapes and cloudless skies. Those things can keep six kids busy for quite a while. She took some vacation time to deal with us, but after years on that schedule, habits were hard to break. Grandpa worked a 7:00 to 3:00 shift in the lead mines, and came home to an early supper and work in his various gardens and hog lot until dark.
Some of the childcare duties fell to my oldest girl cousin. Things like tying shoes and getting everybody dressed and out of the house for the day. We had the run of more than fifty acres. Sometimes we split up, sometimes we stayed together. There was no four-wheel riding back then. We walked. We rode our bikes that we had brought along. We rode the ponies. We drove the tractor. My boy cousin even drove the Ford Galaxie 500 to town. Grandma didn't see any reason a 12-year-old boy shouldn't take his cousins out for a spin. Under her supervision, of course.
We all had our strengths. Boy12 drove us to town for candy. A dollar's worth for each of us. Grandma made sure we went to two different general stores to get the best from both. And that we sat down in the car. Seat belts? Surely you jest. Boy12 was also the ring leader of the Great Grapevine-Smoking Experiment. Shh...nobody is supposed to know about that. He and Girl12 were the only ones to enjoy it. The rest of us just said, "Ick."
Girl15 was good with the critters. A regular Ellie May. She's the one who found the nest of baby birds under the tractor seat, and taught the dogs their tricks, and bridled up the ponies for the Daring Bareback Riders of the Front Yard. She's the one who picked me up when I slid off the back of old Sugarfoot when he ran up the hill toward the house. And made me get back on.
Girl12 would have been voted Most Likely to End Up in Juvie if we took a vote. Which we did not. She was my fishing buddy in the hog lot pond. I think she picked me because she knew she could outrun me. When the old boar came a-chargin', all I saw was her butt going over the fence. Lucky for me, that boar found a bucket of perch more tasty than 9-year-old girl. I made my exit out the wooden loading ramp.
Girl7, my sister, was known for her tangled orange hair and boy toes. A headband took care of the former for two weeks, and we found that it was best not to mention the latter. She might have started that old wives' tale about redheads and their temper.
Girl5 found most delight in chasing Boy12, shouting, "I'm going to kiss you." He ran from sunup until sundown. In a game of Annie Annie Over, he usually volunteered to be a team by himself. And could still beat us.
We never knew a dull moment. Sometimes, Grandma organized an afternoon game of croquet. An ongoing tournament of sorts. Funny how the winner was always Grandma. She could not stand to lose. Let her catch your green wooden ball next to her red one, and she would soundly whack that sucker across the county blacktop road and into an unfenced deciduous forest. Then everybody would have to go find your ball before play could resume. Rummy, Crazy 8's, Pit, you name it, Grandma won it. She was a formidable opponent.
Sometimes Grandma took mercy on us, and called for a game of Who Can Throw the Most Hedgeapples Across the Road. We gathered them in five-gallon plastic buckets and pitched like future Cy Young Award contenders. Now I know she was just ridding her yard of hedgeapples. While Grandma snapped green beans for supper, or dug up dandelion greens with a paring knife, we busied ourselves by dropping anything not nailed down into the sinkhole by the driveway. You could hear water running down there, but not see the bottom. Funny how Grandma was not particularly vigilant about supervising us. I guess she figure that God looks out for children and fools, or in nature's way of thinning the herd.
If Grandma ventured into the nearby field to pick some dill for canning pickles, we fought over which two got to fish in the little pond. It was about the size of a round, backyard swimming pool. Green slime covered the surface. No bait was necessary. That little pond was so overpopulated that fish practically jumped up shouting, "Take me! Take me!" Toss in an unbaited hook, and two or three fish fought to attach themselves. If we were not going to cook them up, Grandma told us to throw them into the weeds.
When Grandpa got home at 3:30, we ate supper. Then we went to work in the garden. We picked food for supper the next night. Tomatoes, ears of corn, peppers, okra (which none of us were crazy about), onions, and potatoes. That was our favorite, digging potatoes out of the hills hoed up by Grandma. After gardening, Grandpa took a shower in the basement. Every now and then one of us kids got to use that cold-water shower as a treat. Otherwise, we parceled out bath time.
Evenings were spent watching a Cardinal's game if one was on TV, or maybe The Waltons, or Gunsmoke. We laid in the floor in front of the TV, some of us under the round coffee table by the sectional sofa. That's because there was a white mountain goat rug from my Alaskan uncle under that table. If you weren't the lucky one to lay on it, you could still stroke the fur. Grandma popped up some popcorn and poured real butter over it. Or we went outside and had watermelon. Some nights we had slices of Neapolitan ice cream. Other nights Grandma hand-cranked vanilla ice cream. I loved to stir mine until it was soupy, until Girl12 told me, "I don't like it that way. It turns into what it was before it turned into ice cream." We ate ours in the little silver teardrop camping trailer parked out by the carport.
Sometimes we were allowed to sleep in that little camper. Other nights, we slept in the front yard under the mimosa trees. I thought it was for fun, but now I realize that Grandma never had air conditioning. Grandpa put a couple of pieces of plywood on two sawhorses, and brought out the mattress. Some of us slept on chaise lounges with thick cushions, others on the kind with nylon webbing. We nodded off looking at the big dipper and listening to the whippoorwills.
Our parents dropped in for infrequent visits. Maybe they just showed up for hog-butchering day to get some meat. We loved to play around the severed head propped up on the carport wall. Nobody ever told us to get away. Some genius could have marketed a toy called Severed Hog's Head and made a fortune. I did not feel bad for that little piggy. We poked it with sticks, swatted at the buzzing flies, marveled at the tongue handing out the side of the mouth, looked up its nostrils, touched the coarse hairs, and never considered that it was being saved for the purpose of head cheese.
Chicken, the other white meat, was also a staple on Grandma's table. She dispatched them herself in the side yard by the water faucet. We gathered to watch. But not too close. When she was done swinging that chicken by the head to wring its neck, she chopped the body loose. We didn't want that blood-spouting poultry-corpse to run into us. It's not like it could see where it was going.
Ah...simpler times.
*******************************************************
Thanks to Tammy at Message in a Bloggle for giving me this scathingly brilliant idea in a comment a few days ago.
We were pretty much left to our own devices during the day. Grandma worked nights at the state hospital, and slept part of the day. One of the perks of working there was the opportunity to bring home giant jigsaw puzzles of seascapes and cloudless skies. Those things can keep six kids busy for quite a while. She took some vacation time to deal with us, but after years on that schedule, habits were hard to break. Grandpa worked a 7:00 to 3:00 shift in the lead mines, and came home to an early supper and work in his various gardens and hog lot until dark.
Some of the childcare duties fell to my oldest girl cousin. Things like tying shoes and getting everybody dressed and out of the house for the day. We had the run of more than fifty acres. Sometimes we split up, sometimes we stayed together. There was no four-wheel riding back then. We walked. We rode our bikes that we had brought along. We rode the ponies. We drove the tractor. My boy cousin even drove the Ford Galaxie 500 to town. Grandma didn't see any reason a 12-year-old boy shouldn't take his cousins out for a spin. Under her supervision, of course.
We all had our strengths. Boy12 drove us to town for candy. A dollar's worth for each of us. Grandma made sure we went to two different general stores to get the best from both. And that we sat down in the car. Seat belts? Surely you jest. Boy12 was also the ring leader of the Great Grapevine-Smoking Experiment. Shh...nobody is supposed to know about that. He and Girl12 were the only ones to enjoy it. The rest of us just said, "Ick."
Girl15 was good with the critters. A regular Ellie May. She's the one who found the nest of baby birds under the tractor seat, and taught the dogs their tricks, and bridled up the ponies for the Daring Bareback Riders of the Front Yard. She's the one who picked me up when I slid off the back of old Sugarfoot when he ran up the hill toward the house. And made me get back on.
Girl12 would have been voted Most Likely to End Up in Juvie if we took a vote. Which we did not. She was my fishing buddy in the hog lot pond. I think she picked me because she knew she could outrun me. When the old boar came a-chargin', all I saw was her butt going over the fence. Lucky for me, that boar found a bucket of perch more tasty than 9-year-old girl. I made my exit out the wooden loading ramp.
Girl7, my sister, was known for her tangled orange hair and boy toes. A headband took care of the former for two weeks, and we found that it was best not to mention the latter. She might have started that old wives' tale about redheads and their temper.
Girl5 found most delight in chasing Boy12, shouting, "I'm going to kiss you." He ran from sunup until sundown. In a game of Annie Annie Over, he usually volunteered to be a team by himself. And could still beat us.
We never knew a dull moment. Sometimes, Grandma organized an afternoon game of croquet. An ongoing tournament of sorts. Funny how the winner was always Grandma. She could not stand to lose. Let her catch your green wooden ball next to her red one, and she would soundly whack that sucker across the county blacktop road and into an unfenced deciduous forest. Then everybody would have to go find your ball before play could resume. Rummy, Crazy 8's, Pit, you name it, Grandma won it. She was a formidable opponent.
Sometimes Grandma took mercy on us, and called for a game of Who Can Throw the Most Hedgeapples Across the Road. We gathered them in five-gallon plastic buckets and pitched like future Cy Young Award contenders. Now I know she was just ridding her yard of hedgeapples. While Grandma snapped green beans for supper, or dug up dandelion greens with a paring knife, we busied ourselves by dropping anything not nailed down into the sinkhole by the driveway. You could hear water running down there, but not see the bottom. Funny how Grandma was not particularly vigilant about supervising us. I guess she figure that God looks out for children and fools, or in nature's way of thinning the herd.
If Grandma ventured into the nearby field to pick some dill for canning pickles, we fought over which two got to fish in the little pond. It was about the size of a round, backyard swimming pool. Green slime covered the surface. No bait was necessary. That little pond was so overpopulated that fish practically jumped up shouting, "Take me! Take me!" Toss in an unbaited hook, and two or three fish fought to attach themselves. If we were not going to cook them up, Grandma told us to throw them into the weeds.
When Grandpa got home at 3:30, we ate supper. Then we went to work in the garden. We picked food for supper the next night. Tomatoes, ears of corn, peppers, okra (which none of us were crazy about), onions, and potatoes. That was our favorite, digging potatoes out of the hills hoed up by Grandma. After gardening, Grandpa took a shower in the basement. Every now and then one of us kids got to use that cold-water shower as a treat. Otherwise, we parceled out bath time.
Evenings were spent watching a Cardinal's game if one was on TV, or maybe The Waltons, or Gunsmoke. We laid in the floor in front of the TV, some of us under the round coffee table by the sectional sofa. That's because there was a white mountain goat rug from my Alaskan uncle under that table. If you weren't the lucky one to lay on it, you could still stroke the fur. Grandma popped up some popcorn and poured real butter over it. Or we went outside and had watermelon. Some nights we had slices of Neapolitan ice cream. Other nights Grandma hand-cranked vanilla ice cream. I loved to stir mine until it was soupy, until Girl12 told me, "I don't like it that way. It turns into what it was before it turned into ice cream." We ate ours in the little silver teardrop camping trailer parked out by the carport.
Sometimes we were allowed to sleep in that little camper. Other nights, we slept in the front yard under the mimosa trees. I thought it was for fun, but now I realize that Grandma never had air conditioning. Grandpa put a couple of pieces of plywood on two sawhorses, and brought out the mattress. Some of us slept on chaise lounges with thick cushions, others on the kind with nylon webbing. We nodded off looking at the big dipper and listening to the whippoorwills.
Our parents dropped in for infrequent visits. Maybe they just showed up for hog-butchering day to get some meat. We loved to play around the severed head propped up on the carport wall. Nobody ever told us to get away. Some genius could have marketed a toy called Severed Hog's Head and made a fortune. I did not feel bad for that little piggy. We poked it with sticks, swatted at the buzzing flies, marveled at the tongue handing out the side of the mouth, looked up its nostrils, touched the coarse hairs, and never considered that it was being saved for the purpose of head cheese.
Chicken, the other white meat, was also a staple on Grandma's table. She dispatched them herself in the side yard by the water faucet. We gathered to watch. But not too close. When she was done swinging that chicken by the head to wring its neck, she chopped the body loose. We didn't want that blood-spouting poultry-corpse to run into us. It's not like it could see where it was going.
Ah...simpler times.
*******************************************************
Thanks to Tammy at Message in a Bloggle for giving me this scathingly brilliant idea in a comment a few days ago.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Backroads Miz Manners Cops an Attitude
Backroads Miz Manners is at it again, dispensing timely advice to the whiners among us.
_____________________________________________________
Dear Backroads Miz Manners,
For years, I have borne the lion's share of household duties. I know that my husband works hard outside the home. But so do I. I have grown accustomed to being that lioness who slaughters the wildebeest and brings it home for the males in my pride to feast on before I get my share. I understand that the main chore of the males is to lounge around, napping. And that the secondary chore is to occasionally fight with one another to establish dominance. I don't expect any help from them in cleaning up our little portion of the savanna.
Imagine my surprise this morning when I schlepped the full pail of dehumidifier water out the basement door, only to find that my old jug of bleach had disappeared. I put half a cap of bleach in the dehumidifier bucket once a day. That keeps it sparkling fresh. No mold is going to take hold on my watch. I searched the back yard. Perhaps last night's storm had blown the bleach into the edge of the woods. Or under the pool deck. I searched high and low. No bleach.
My husband returned from a jaunt on his John Deere Gator. Supposing that he had traveled more ground this morning on his little green jalopy than I had on foot, I asked if, perchance, he had run across my bleach jug. Silence. And then..."Oh. That was bleach in there? I threw that away yesterday."
It's not the price of bleach that annoys me. I have another jug in the laundry room. It's just the fact that my man would sooner give away a goat than lift a finger to assist me. And yet...he took it upon himself to toss out a jug of bleach remnants that had been residing on the concrete retaining wall under the house by the basement door since 2009, when he used it for something to do with the pool.
Is it just me, Miz Manners, or is my husband trying to drive me crazy?
Signed, Curiously Chlorine Free
_____________________________________________________
Dear Chlorine,
It's just you. Toughen up, Buttercup. Save the drama for your mama and have some cheese with that whine. Your man takes the initiative to discard some back yard jetsam, and all you can do is bawl about it? Tote that pail with a smile on your face, woman, and stop berating your significant other. It's Father's Day, for cryin' out loud. Get off the guy's back for one day, why don't you, and let him pat himself on it for his good deed.
Stand by your man, darlin', and in another fifteen years he might do another chore.
Signed, Backroads Miz Manners
_____________________________________________________
Dear Backroads Miz Manners,
For years, I have borne the lion's share of household duties. I know that my husband works hard outside the home. But so do I. I have grown accustomed to being that lioness who slaughters the wildebeest and brings it home for the males in my pride to feast on before I get my share. I understand that the main chore of the males is to lounge around, napping. And that the secondary chore is to occasionally fight with one another to establish dominance. I don't expect any help from them in cleaning up our little portion of the savanna.
Imagine my surprise this morning when I schlepped the full pail of dehumidifier water out the basement door, only to find that my old jug of bleach had disappeared. I put half a cap of bleach in the dehumidifier bucket once a day. That keeps it sparkling fresh. No mold is going to take hold on my watch. I searched the back yard. Perhaps last night's storm had blown the bleach into the edge of the woods. Or under the pool deck. I searched high and low. No bleach.
My husband returned from a jaunt on his John Deere Gator. Supposing that he had traveled more ground this morning on his little green jalopy than I had on foot, I asked if, perchance, he had run across my bleach jug. Silence. And then..."Oh. That was bleach in there? I threw that away yesterday."
It's not the price of bleach that annoys me. I have another jug in the laundry room. It's just the fact that my man would sooner give away a goat than lift a finger to assist me. And yet...he took it upon himself to toss out a jug of bleach remnants that had been residing on the concrete retaining wall under the house by the basement door since 2009, when he used it for something to do with the pool.
Is it just me, Miz Manners, or is my husband trying to drive me crazy?
Signed, Curiously Chlorine Free
_____________________________________________________
Dear Chlorine,
It's just you. Toughen up, Buttercup. Save the drama for your mama and have some cheese with that whine. Your man takes the initiative to discard some back yard jetsam, and all you can do is bawl about it? Tote that pail with a smile on your face, woman, and stop berating your significant other. It's Father's Day, for cryin' out loud. Get off the guy's back for one day, why don't you, and let him pat himself on it for his good deed.
Stand by your man, darlin', and in another fifteen years he might do another chore.
Signed, Backroads Miz Manners
Saturday, June 18, 2011
What a Wonderful World Val's Would Be
What a wonderful world Val's would be, if...
...her attendance at a writer's group did not cause all other members to stay away.
...expired cans of biscuits did not explode inside her refrigerator.
...the basement egress she used for dumping the dehumidifier twice a day did not lead through a weird, wacky, multi-level rock garden of sorts.
...her kitchen sink was stainless steel as she had requested at the time her house was built, instead of a light almond color preferred by her husband, or better yet if her dishes were washed in a dishwasher for which a space was left under the counter, which has remained vacant for the past 13 years.
...the young lass who worked the Sonic drive-thru window understood that change from $20.63 for a bill of $9.63 was $11.00, not $10.00.
...various minimum-wage workers did not recoil in horror and exclaim, "Eww!" when she answered their inquiries as to what she does for a living with, "I'm a teacher."
...she had one of those beds that people can jump on and not spill a glass of wine, instead of one which acted as a trampoline to vault her halfway to the ceiling every time her husband turned over in his sleep.
...the four or five people per day that she encountered walking in the road realized that a road was for automobiles, and that they really should have stepped off the pavement so a driver did not have to make the choice of slamming on brakes to avoid (A) hitting them and (B) colliding head-on with oncoming traffic.
...teardrops were pennies, and heartaches were gold.
...her attendance at a writer's group did not cause all other members to stay away.
...expired cans of biscuits did not explode inside her refrigerator.
...the basement egress she used for dumping the dehumidifier twice a day did not lead through a weird, wacky, multi-level rock garden of sorts.
...her kitchen sink was stainless steel as she had requested at the time her house was built, instead of a light almond color preferred by her husband, or better yet if her dishes were washed in a dishwasher for which a space was left under the counter, which has remained vacant for the past 13 years.
...the young lass who worked the Sonic drive-thru window understood that change from $20.63 for a bill of $9.63 was $11.00, not $10.00.
...various minimum-wage workers did not recoil in horror and exclaim, "Eww!" when she answered their inquiries as to what she does for a living with, "I'm a teacher."
...she had one of those beds that people can jump on and not spill a glass of wine, instead of one which acted as a trampoline to vault her halfway to the ceiling every time her husband turned over in his sleep.
...the four or five people per day that she encountered walking in the road realized that a road was for automobiles, and that they really should have stepped off the pavement so a driver did not have to make the choice of slamming on brakes to avoid (A) hitting them and (B) colliding head-on with oncoming traffic.
...teardrops were pennies, and heartaches were gold.
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Telltale Drip
Don't be afraid. I know. It's too quiet. Nobody is stirring, not even a tiny, big-eared field mouse that could have snuck in under the basement door to run across my stylish red Croc as I sit in my dark basement lair, illuminated only by the glow of my desktop computer monitor.
Shh...did you hear that? Oh. It's nothing. Just the drip, drip, drip of the dehumidifier. Not the beating of a telltale Diomedes fishing spider's non-chambered heart. There's nobody here. Just me and me.
It's like this every weekend. I've prepared a festive little post for my guests, much like college roommates selling plasma to afford a few bags of pretzels to scatter around the apartment in mismatched Melmac bowls, pretzels being the snack of choice because nobody really likes them, so they last all night. But unlike a rockin' college party, my internet soiree is a virtual ghost town. Dust bunny tumbleweeds scoot to and fro on my gusty, carbon-dioxide sighs.
The weekend is not a friend of creative-juice-drooling Val.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Castaway Val in North Pacific
By really, really popular demand, (the request of FIVE people), I present: Castaway Val, in North Pacific.
Many years ago, my family took a two-week vacation to Ketchikan, Alaska. My mother's brother worked for the U.S. Forest Service. He and his family lived in Ketchikan, and graciously hosted my parents, my sister, my grandmother, and me in his house on the side of a mountain. It seemed to me that everything I saw in Alaska was on the side of a mountain, but that's how things look when you're from Missouri.
Uncle Joe (not his real name) made sure we saw the sights. We went to a salmon cannery, a paper mill, a totem pole park, the beach, Ketchikan's downtown shopping district by a bunch of piers, and the piece de resistance, a multi-day fishing trip to an island with a cabin reserved just for us.
Little did I know that the trip to the island would be made in Uncle Joe's boat. A boat just like my grandpa's, with an outboard motor, used back in Missouri to fish in the St. Francis river. I had never associated such a boat with a jaunt across the ocean. A strip of ocean so vast that one could barely discern terra firma along the horizon fore and aft. Wearing an orange life jacket, with a grip that surely left imprints in the metal hull, I was whisked to my destiny in the company of my sister, father, and Joe. That's all his boat could hold, you see. He would drop us off with the fishing poles, and make a return voyage to bring Mom and Grandma and our supplies.
I was ecstatic to step foot onto the island. Because it meant that I was not going to become a denizen of Davy Jones' Locker. Dad, Sis, and I took the poles and set off to explore. It was a sunny, early-August day, temperature in the 50s, fluffy clouds overhead. My dad was lovin' it. He led us to a creek and cast his line.
Several hours later, the buzz of a small red plane drew our attention skyward. We were impressed. In Missouri, we didn't see planes flying so low. "Look at that," Dad said. "It's one of those planes that lands on the water." Indeed, it was. The Red Baron started to circle. We were mesmerized. "I bet he's looking for somebody," Dad told us. The plane went round and round. Lower and lower. We could see the pilot. We waved. He dipped a wing. "He's looking for US!" said Dad.
We lost the Red Baron in the trees. Dad made us hike back past the cabin, to a little lake or lagoon kind of area. There was the pilot with his plane at the dock. Waiting for us. We introduced ourselves. The Red Baron said, "Joe had trouble with his motor. He's not going to be able to make it back out here today, so he sent me to pick you up."
Wasn't that a fine how-do-you-do? Not only had I sailed the high seas for naught, but now I was being bamboozled into a flight in a tiny ski-plane. Val has never been comfortable in the wild blue yonder nor the deep blue sea. This fishing trip was turning out to be the worst of both worlds.
Dad climbed into the shotgun seat. I went in behind him, then our fishing poles, then Sis behind the pilot. We were crammed in like sardines. Without the mustard sauce. The poles poked between Sis and me, intruding into the narrow space that separated Dad from the Red Baron. By this time, the sky had clouded over, and a light rain began to fall. The windshield of the plane was fogged over like it needed a good defroster.
The Red Baron noodled his plane away from the dock. He faced it into the wind or away from the wind or whatever pilots do when they want to sail their plane across the water and lift off. We began to pick up speed. The engine whined. The Red Baron wiped off his side window and peered out. He looked at Dad. "Can you see anything?" The silence was a negative in my book. "Well, I can't. Do you think we're going to clear those trees?" I could see the shadow of what must have been trees along the edge of the water, fast approaching through the foggy windshield. Dad still had no answer to what I was hoping was a rhetorical question. Because I was smart like that. Did I ever tell you that I was valedictorian?
We cleared the trees and made our way back to Ketchikan. Nobody was happier to reunite with the family than I was. I was pleasantly unaware that I would be headed right back out to the island on Joe's boat the next day. The second attempt was a success. All people and things were transported without incident. I even saw my first real live bear not in a cage on that trip. Along with some salmon snaggers. Who were inherently more dangerous than the bear, according to Uncle Joe.
And that's the story of Val's three-hour tour that left her stranded (briefly) on an Alaskan island.
Many years ago, my family took a two-week vacation to Ketchikan, Alaska. My mother's brother worked for the U.S. Forest Service. He and his family lived in Ketchikan, and graciously hosted my parents, my sister, my grandmother, and me in his house on the side of a mountain. It seemed to me that everything I saw in Alaska was on the side of a mountain, but that's how things look when you're from Missouri.
Uncle Joe (not his real name) made sure we saw the sights. We went to a salmon cannery, a paper mill, a totem pole park, the beach, Ketchikan's downtown shopping district by a bunch of piers, and the piece de resistance, a multi-day fishing trip to an island with a cabin reserved just for us.
Little did I know that the trip to the island would be made in Uncle Joe's boat. A boat just like my grandpa's, with an outboard motor, used back in Missouri to fish in the St. Francis river. I had never associated such a boat with a jaunt across the ocean. A strip of ocean so vast that one could barely discern terra firma along the horizon fore and aft. Wearing an orange life jacket, with a grip that surely left imprints in the metal hull, I was whisked to my destiny in the company of my sister, father, and Joe. That's all his boat could hold, you see. He would drop us off with the fishing poles, and make a return voyage to bring Mom and Grandma and our supplies.
I was ecstatic to step foot onto the island. Because it meant that I was not going to become a denizen of Davy Jones' Locker. Dad, Sis, and I took the poles and set off to explore. It was a sunny, early-August day, temperature in the 50s, fluffy clouds overhead. My dad was lovin' it. He led us to a creek and cast his line.
Several hours later, the buzz of a small red plane drew our attention skyward. We were impressed. In Missouri, we didn't see planes flying so low. "Look at that," Dad said. "It's one of those planes that lands on the water." Indeed, it was. The Red Baron started to circle. We were mesmerized. "I bet he's looking for somebody," Dad told us. The plane went round and round. Lower and lower. We could see the pilot. We waved. He dipped a wing. "He's looking for US!" said Dad.
We lost the Red Baron in the trees. Dad made us hike back past the cabin, to a little lake or lagoon kind of area. There was the pilot with his plane at the dock. Waiting for us. We introduced ourselves. The Red Baron said, "Joe had trouble with his motor. He's not going to be able to make it back out here today, so he sent me to pick you up."
Wasn't that a fine how-do-you-do? Not only had I sailed the high seas for naught, but now I was being bamboozled into a flight in a tiny ski-plane. Val has never been comfortable in the wild blue yonder nor the deep blue sea. This fishing trip was turning out to be the worst of both worlds.
Dad climbed into the shotgun seat. I went in behind him, then our fishing poles, then Sis behind the pilot. We were crammed in like sardines. Without the mustard sauce. The poles poked between Sis and me, intruding into the narrow space that separated Dad from the Red Baron. By this time, the sky had clouded over, and a light rain began to fall. The windshield of the plane was fogged over like it needed a good defroster.
The Red Baron noodled his plane away from the dock. He faced it into the wind or away from the wind or whatever pilots do when they want to sail their plane across the water and lift off. We began to pick up speed. The engine whined. The Red Baron wiped off his side window and peered out. He looked at Dad. "Can you see anything?" The silence was a negative in my book. "Well, I can't. Do you think we're going to clear those trees?" I could see the shadow of what must have been trees along the edge of the water, fast approaching through the foggy windshield. Dad still had no answer to what I was hoping was a rhetorical question. Because I was smart like that. Did I ever tell you that I was valedictorian?
We cleared the trees and made our way back to Ketchikan. Nobody was happier to reunite with the family than I was. I was pleasantly unaware that I would be headed right back out to the island on Joe's boat the next day. The second attempt was a success. All people and things were transported without incident. I even saw my first real live bear not in a cage on that trip. Along with some salmon snaggers. Who were inherently more dangerous than the bear, according to Uncle Joe.
And that's the story of Val's three-hour tour that left her stranded (briefly) on an Alaskan island.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
I Have Just the Place for It
Linda at Write from the Heart has kindly bestowed upon my blog a lovely green award. How did she know that green is my favorite color? I will now foist upon you seven facts about myself. Pay attention. There might be a quiz at the end of the quarter.
7 Facts About Val
1. For a year, I worked in an insurance salvage store. The bookkeeper later said she hired me because I looked clean. My work ethic impressed her so much that she gave me a nickel raise after the first month. Which did not fly well with the other employees, them seeing me as not yet having paid my dues. The place was rife with illicit affairs, backstabbing, power struggles, theft, embezzlement, revenge, hazing, unrequited love, trade secrets, off-site socializing, and attack dogs. A fictionalized memoir could practically write itself. I have no plans to write it.
2. I was once stranded on an Alaskan island, and had to be rescued by a four-seater plane that landed on water.
3. My idol is Dolly Parton. I find it amazing that she was born a nobody in the middle of nowhere, and made herself into a 950 million dollar force to be reckoned with. Did you know that Dolly dabbles in dinner theaters and amusement parks? Even if she was not a performing artist, she could make a healthy living off the rights to songs that she has written. Did you know Dolly wrote I Will Always Love You, and that the Whitney Houston version alone made her six million dollars in royalties? Or that Dolly provides free books for kids in certain communities each month from birth to the age of five? Or that when Porter Wagoner fell on hard times, Dolly bought the rights to all of his songs, and then sold them back to him for one dollar? I don't care how many people make fun of her most obvious attributes, Dolly is a class act.
4. Since childhood, people have told me I'm a funny gal. I'm hoping they mean funny ha, ha, not funny peculiar. Do you buy into that opposites attract theory? Because I seem to have married a man born without a funny bone.
5. My grandpa worked in the lead mines, and raised hogs on the side. It was not uncommon to spend a summer Saturday running barefoot in his yard, tossing hedgeapples into the sinkhole by the driveway, and poking at the severed hog head sitting on the concrete-block wall of the carport.
6. I have two grown stepsons and two growing sons. I pride myself on the fact that the toilet seats have always remained down. If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
7. I would rather be a follower than a leader, but when I am in a group, people expect me to be the one to speak. Customers in various stores accost me as if I am an employee, even though I wear no uniform, or even clothing that matches.
______________________________________________________
I would like to extend this award to any of my followers or commenters or readers, without pointing a specific finger. It's too good to keep to myself, on the mantle of one of my three electric fireplaces. Go on. Help yourself. It's free! You know you need a chance to tell your deep dark secrets, or brag that you can put your feet behind your head and walk across the floor on your buttocks. All you have to do is link back to me, tell seven things about yourself, and give the award to seven more people. Kind of like a scratch-off lottery ticket chain letter, but without the chance of winning cash.
7 Facts About Val
1. For a year, I worked in an insurance salvage store. The bookkeeper later said she hired me because I looked clean. My work ethic impressed her so much that she gave me a nickel raise after the first month. Which did not fly well with the other employees, them seeing me as not yet having paid my dues. The place was rife with illicit affairs, backstabbing, power struggles, theft, embezzlement, revenge, hazing, unrequited love, trade secrets, off-site socializing, and attack dogs. A fictionalized memoir could practically write itself. I have no plans to write it.
2. I was once stranded on an Alaskan island, and had to be rescued by a four-seater plane that landed on water.
3. My idol is Dolly Parton. I find it amazing that she was born a nobody in the middle of nowhere, and made herself into a 950 million dollar force to be reckoned with. Did you know that Dolly dabbles in dinner theaters and amusement parks? Even if she was not a performing artist, she could make a healthy living off the rights to songs that she has written. Did you know Dolly wrote I Will Always Love You, and that the Whitney Houston version alone made her six million dollars in royalties? Or that Dolly provides free books for kids in certain communities each month from birth to the age of five? Or that when Porter Wagoner fell on hard times, Dolly bought the rights to all of his songs, and then sold them back to him for one dollar? I don't care how many people make fun of her most obvious attributes, Dolly is a class act.
4. Since childhood, people have told me I'm a funny gal. I'm hoping they mean funny ha, ha, not funny peculiar. Do you buy into that opposites attract theory? Because I seem to have married a man born without a funny bone.
5. My grandpa worked in the lead mines, and raised hogs on the side. It was not uncommon to spend a summer Saturday running barefoot in his yard, tossing hedgeapples into the sinkhole by the driveway, and poking at the severed hog head sitting on the concrete-block wall of the carport.
6. I have two grown stepsons and two growing sons. I pride myself on the fact that the toilet seats have always remained down. If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
7. I would rather be a follower than a leader, but when I am in a group, people expect me to be the one to speak. Customers in various stores accost me as if I am an employee, even though I wear no uniform, or even clothing that matches.
______________________________________________________
I would like to extend this award to any of my followers or commenters or readers, without pointing a specific finger. It's too good to keep to myself, on the mantle of one of my three electric fireplaces. Go on. Help yourself. It's free! You know you need a chance to tell your deep dark secrets, or brag that you can put your feet behind your head and walk across the floor on your buttocks. All you have to do is link back to me, tell seven things about yourself, and give the award to seven more people. Kind of like a scratch-off lottery ticket chain letter, but without the chance of winning cash.
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