Sorry About That, Chief

Maxwell Smart, the famous Agent 86, used to say that with regularity to his boss, called simply the Chief. Indeed it became one of the Max's catch phrases. Yet it seems appropriate to me and my family.

We had a beagle named Chief. We had that dog for about 12 years. He was a good, family dog.

Trying to encourage our kids to eat healthy as they grew, we tried to keep a lot of fruit around the house. Apples had kind of defaulted to the fruit of choice; they were plentiful and cheap. 

Over time, who knows how such things start, old Chief began to follow an apple eater around the house. We all took to tossing him the apple core when we were done. Chief would typically catch it in the air and chomp it down in a few bites.

It turns out (we discovered this relatively recently) that the seeds in apple cores contain trace amounts of cyanide. I don't think it had any serious long term health effects on the old family pet. Further, how could we have ever imagined such stuff as that? Still, I think about it from time to time now and feel bad about it.

Sorry about that, Chief. But we all thought at the time, including you, that it simply a nice treat. 

Toddlers Being Heard

One fine summer day a few years ago a neighbor woman stopped by me Mom's house as she, me self, and me brother Phil sat on the porch. It was a nice, friendly visit. I'll call her Mrs. Cloyce just to give her a name; she had her toddler son in tow.

"We're just coming back from his first protest!" She was explaining in great excitement. "I was so happy to have this experience with him. I hope he'll remember it the rest of his life." She went on to coo and ahh and gush over the event as if the child had just said Mama or Dada the first time or had taken his first steps. In her opinion apparently this was a great thing for the boy. She sure was making that big a deal out of it.

Okay, fine, I guess. We all expose our children to what we think important, even early on. Yet the best observation of the whole thing came after Mrs. Cloyce and her son had left to go home. "So that's the trouble with our world," me brother Phil remarked when they were out of earshot, "The lack of a social consciousness on the part of our nation's two-year-olds."

I personally believe it a rather apt interpretation.

Mom Playing Cards

I know this is a retread (the original post is dated 2017) but I like it and I'm running it again.

When we watch others playing games, it's kind of hard not to at least want to tell them what to do. Even when they're playing solitaire.

Klondike solitaire is the choice among my family. Grandpa Joe played it often; I remember fondly watching him run through a game as we sat in silence at his kitchen table. Pops played it a lot too, sitting at our kitchen table contentedly reshuffling actual decks of cards for each new game, unlike lazy players such as myself who play on the computer and reshuffle at the touch of a key. My 82 year old mother never played it that I know until Dad passed. Now she plays it all the time, I think because it connects her to him. But it's also good intellectual exercise, which is itself a good thing too.

I was visiting her the other day. We were at that same kitchen table where Pops played, and Mom was occupied playing Klondike even as we talked. And she had this four of diamonds which she could play on a five of clubs. Only she wasn't playing it. 'You could play that 4 onto that 5', I thought, but didn't say it out loud.

We went on talking about whatever. She kept on going through her draw cards yet doing nothing with that four of diamonds. Still I thought to myself, ever more insistently, you can play that red four onto that black five. Still also I remained silent.

The conversation went on. The four continued to sit untouched. The thought, 'Come on Ma, play the stupid four' repeated itself over and over in my head. Yet I still said nothing aloud, despite how increasingly anxious I was becoming.

Minutes passed by as we went on conversing. Finally she stopped, looked up at me over the top of her glasses and asked, "Do you want to me play that red four on that black five?"

"Yes, dear Lord, please. Play that four!" I responded emphatically.

"I knew it was there. We were just talking and I kept forgetting it."

I don't believe that for a minute. She sensed I was getting antsy and was driving that feeling along. Moms.

All in a Day's Work

Granted, I came in in the middle of the movie, so perhaps I missed important background information. Still, what happened in the old melodrama which I woke up to a few minutes ago perplexes me. 

I tend to leave the TV on when I go to bed at night. I probably shouldn't exactly for these moments, but that's another question. As it is, I woke up to see two men in a heated discussion, one a young man, another quite obviously elderly. The older guy was the accountant for the firm the younger man apparently owned.

The accountant was agitated, angry, and adamant about what needed to be done. The young man came towards him threateningly. "What are you going to do?" Elderly Accountant demanded.

"I'm going to kill you!" Young Business Owner asserted. He grabbed the accountant's neck and began to choke him.

There was a knock on the door. Releasing his grip, the young man simply went and opened it. In walked a man who immediately showed a badge and identified himself as a police lieutenant. "I'd like to ask you fellows a few questions," he began. Pretty soon the business owner was clearly hedging in his answers to the cop's inquiries, while the old accountant in response to a demand began digging files out of a cabinet as though nothing had happened a few minutes earlier. And all I could think was, "Why don't you tell the nice police officer who arrived so fortunately as to prevent the attack that the other guy just tried to kill you?"

It never came up. Everyone just went on as though nothing dangerous had ever happened. The closest they came was when the old guy told the cop, while staring daggers at young guy, that he was now the former accountant of the company.

I suppose I would tender my resignation too if my boss tried to strangle me. I fact, I think I'd take it a few steps further, what with a police lieutenant present and all. But as I say, maybe I missed something.

James and Cloyce

I'm going to try to get this story right. I'll just ask all of you out there to remember that stories and memories can get garbled over time.

Me Great Grandpa James wasn't a drinker. Yet one day he found himself with a jug of whiskey; I just don't recall how. But as he tooled along in his horse drawn wagon headed for Church one Sunday (this would have been in early 1900s Illinois) he noticed the town drunk ambling towards him. I'll call the guy Cloyce just to give him a name.

Anyway, me great grandfather could tell that Cloyce was ailing. So he pulled up and asked what was wrong. He was recovering from a drunk, Cloyce explained, and that maybe a little hair of the dog would help. Yet he didn't know where he might find any that morning, a fine Sunday morning as it were. James simply gave him the whiskey he had and went about his business.

He ran into Cloyce a few days later and asked how the whiskey was. "Just fine, sir, just fine," Cloyce answered. "Any worse and I couldn't have drunk it, and any better and you wouldn't have given it to me." 

As an aside, me Great Grandpa later found out that Cloyce had been going all over town bragging that he had gotten a drink from old Jim Cosgriff, and on a Sunday morning no less. But great Grandpa James didn't mind such tales making the rounds.

Umpire Steak

Me Uncle John sometimes called Zeke, me old golf buddy from back in the day, had his own special form of humor. When he got on a roll I would laugh until I cried.

He had this story where he and another driver for Grandpa Joe, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, were racing south on Interstate 75, each with a truckload of welding machines, weaving in and out of traffic trying to best each other, to get to their destination first, recklessly tearin' up jack, all the while being trailed by an undertaker in anticipation of business. That was one hilarious tale. I wish I could recreate me Uncle's style when he was on his game. He could make you laugh until you hurt. Really. But I can't recreate it, so I won't even attempt that. I will, however, tell you one of his favorite, more droll jokes.

There was at one time, there probably still is I would assume, a school in Florida ran by MLB which trained its on field baseball officials. Uncle John used to say that if he had the money he would open up a restaurant directly across the street from the place. It would specialize in beef entrees. He would name his restaurant...

...wait for it...

...the Umpire Steak Building.

I have always liked that quip. Thanks Zeke.

Cloyce at 10

A fine way to get on my bad side is to try to dictate my schedule. One customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, tried to do that a few minutes ago.

Cloyce called yesterday and asked when he could bring his machine in for a chuck. I told him to be at the Shop this morning at 10 and I'd take care of it.

So why was he calling at 7:45 AM asking if I was available yet?

Times like that I completely sympathize with me Grandpa Joe's temper. I wanted to lose mine at Cloyce. "Cloyce, I told you be here at 10," I reminded him, calming myself enough to not yell it in his ear, even though Joe would've. 

That irritated me, no, angered me, no, infuriated me no end. He had an appointment. I would honor it. But I also had to honor commitments made to other customers, such as the ones I promised could get their orders or repairs by ten. If their stuff isn't ready at 10 they would be rightfully upset at the excuse, "But guys, Cloyce needed his machine." They would likely think, if not say out loud, if not half scream in consternation, "Cosgriff, you told me I could have mine by 10. I need mine too." I most certainly would not hear, "Oh? You had to get Cloyce's machine ready? I understand, Cosgriff. Go on and do it. Hey, I'll wait until next week if you need me to. Anything for Cloyce."

If I give you a time, I will honor it if humanly possible and anticipate that you will too. But as I write, if Cloyce gets at the old barn even at Nine Fifty Nine and Forty Five seconds, he'll get nothing but a stare for that last quarter minute.