Perchance to Answer

Me Grandpa Joe had a welder rental business which me Pops by and large ran. Dad frequently spoke about two calls. One he refused on principle, the other he nearly refused on a different principle, but took. 

One large company would only call Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals on weekends, and I mean late on weekends. They'd call at, oh, 11 PM on a Saturday night, all in a dither over some presumed emergency. Joe would grumble, but dutifully take the order and fill it, delivering whatever in the wee hours of a Sunday.

He happened to be out of town one weekend. That company called, and me Pops answered. He refused the rental. "You call somebody else during regular hours but us at off hours. We're not doing business that way," Dad blithely explained to the company rep.

Pops worried a bit what Joe would think, but grandfather sided with his son. Say what you want about Joe, and much can and has been said, when he delegated authority to Pops he never questioned what Dad did. Joe figured, "I told him to run it, so I gotta let him run it."

Another time we were in a recession, and business was bad. That wouldn't stop Joe from taking his trips, so he decided one day to go off on an adventure. Dad, of course, took the reins of the Shop.

He took a call from a very large company (you would recognize it but I won't tell you, just for safety's sake, discretion being the better part of valor) who were notorious for being slow to pay. Me Pops did not like dealing with them. Yet they wanted ten machines asap and there wasn't much other work. Dad opted to take the chance and fill the order, which ballooned into almost every one of the welders Joe owned at the time. At the height of the job, they had 210 units rented.

And, they paid promptly. "I'm glad I took that call!" Dad would say in telling the story. I know Joe did not question his decision on that one.

Poison Girls

I will venture out and say that we have all occasionally heard song lyrics wrong. At times it's simply an honest mistake of the ear. Me brother Phil for example heard the lyric at the start of The Beatles' track Savoy Truffle, which is 'Cream Tangerine, and Montelemar (a French sweet BTW) as, 'Cream Tangerine, go tell your mom'. You get the point.

One of the funniest of such instances came from a friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a  name, over the Three Dog Night hit Joy to the World. You know, the song which famously begins, Jeremiah was a bullfrog! The chorus starts, Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Yet Cloyce heard it as, 'Joy to the world, all the poison girls'.

So there's my gift to you today. An earworm with the wrong words. You're welcome. 

And The Fight Was On

As I take my morning walks these days, I always pass Sam's house. When I do I always think of his relationship with me Grandpa Joe. It was, ah, an interesting friendship.

Sam would come by the old barn regularly. His mission seemed to be to needle Joe. It must be admitted, he was very good at that.

Once Joe had me younger brother painting a car of his with a sponge brush and a can of off the shelf paint. Now, I know that's not the best way to paint a car, but it was Grandpa's car and Patrick didn't mind to get paid to paint it however he was told. Sam happened by and exclaimed emphatically, "You can't paint a car like that!"

"The hell I can't!" Joe replied with an incredibly equal incredulity. And the fight was on.

Another time Sam was paying a visit and Joe was going on about something or other which concerned him. When he finished his rant Sam remarked sullenly, "Ah, I don't care, Joe".

Joe barked in response, an incredibly accurate and proper response, "Yeah, but I do!"

"I just said I don't care!" Sam yelled in reply. And the fight was on.

Similar events occurred countless times over the years. Sam would show up, a conversation would start, sometimes slowly, sometimes explosively, and those two old coots would end up arguing, howling at each other over some kind of nonsense.

The darn thing is, I think they both looked forward to it. I am inclined to think that the more modern term 'frenemies' would describe the situation well.

Evaporating Cloyce

Awhile back I was out to dinner with an old friend; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. As a start, I ordered a Diet Coke and he asked for milk, then he excused himself for a moment.

The waitress came back shortly with a my glass of pop. For Cloyce, she left an empty glass but set two 4 ounce cartons of milk to the side. Cloyce returned and sat down in front of the empty glass. We began chatting.

Not having noticed the two small cartons, Cloyce eventually picked up the empty glass and remarked, "What? Did I order evaporated milk?" 

When I had finished laughing, I pointed to the milk cartons.

We're Cosgriffs, Ma'am

This past February me brother Phil and I faced a dilemma: could we load an entire cargo van with what appeared to be far too much stuff? But we did it, because we knew Dad could. We couldn't let him down. We got that van loaded.

Yesterday I helped my son pick up a sofa from IKEA. Even I was shocked at how much stuff went with it. The stock clerk as she brought everything out advised, "You can take part today and come back tomorrow for the rest," clearly believing our task insurmountable. The trouble was the IKEA was in Canton, Michigan and the sofa was going to Tawas, Michigan, around 200 miles north. A second trip wasn't very practical.

Me son Frank immediately said, "We can take everything out of the boxes and make it work." That's my boy. His grandfather, me Pops, was surely smiling on him too. In Frank's lead (It was his stuff, so I properly deferred to him) we commenced work. In twenty minutes, my new old van was loaded and we were off.

When we arrived in Tawas my daughter-in-law remarked, with proper awe, "Wow. You got all that into your van?"

"We're Cosgriffs, Ma'am. It's what we do," I responded. And that was that.

The Curmudgeon Speaks

The things which irritate an old man...

As I took my morning walk today I noticed a car with a bumper sticker that said, 'I'd rather be riding transit'. And my first thought was, then why aren't you? Why don't you sell that thing, give the cash to the government to put towards transit, and then take the damn bus where you want to go. They're all over the place. I see them every day. Stop signaling whatever virtue you mean to shame me over and put your money where your mouth is.

Then it hit me. You don't want your money to go to transit without a pile of mine to keep it company.

Well, guess what? I don't want to take transit. I want to take my money (which I earned and you did not, by the way), buy me a car, and go wherever the hell I want to go whenever the hell I want to do it. And I do not want nor expect any of your cash for that right.

In other words, blow that empty posturing out your nose, and keep your hand out of my pocket.

The Near Detention

Possibly the closest I came close to detention in high school was during my freshman year. But doggone it, I was in the right. I was.

It was May and we were in Gym class. It was warm, so the instructor took us outside to play softball. I'll call the gym teacher Miss Cloyce just to give her a name, and because, yes, I'm still upset about the injustice 51 years later. I suppose I can hold a grudge.

Be all that as it may, in my first at bat that day I singled. The next batter hit a ground ball to the kid playing first. Now, in baseball and softball, when you're on first and there's a ground ball you have to run for second base. It's called being 'forced': because it's a grounder the batter has the primary right to first base. This means a runner already occupying that base is forced to vacate. Make sense? If not, take my word for it. But you can look it up if you like.

Now in this case, the first baseman fielded the ball, took three steps, and touched first base with her foot. That meant the batter was out. But since the batter was out, I no longer had to surrender first. I could have returned to it as there was no longer a legal runner behind me. I was not 'forced'. That means that in order for me to be put out I had to be tagged with the ball, because I had two safe spots I could choose between. 

After the opposing player touched first, which I obviously saw, I continued towards second anyway. She threw to second. The second baseman caught the ball and touched the base. I slid; he did not tag me. So I was safe, under the rules of the game.

Miss Cloyce called me out because the throw from first beat me (which it did) and the kid playing second touched the bag ahead of me with control of the ball (which is true). But neither address the rules of baserunning.

I took exception. I pleaded my case, arguing to a degree which likely shocked my peers (believe it or not, I was a quiet kid, at least in ninth grade) that no, I was safe because a tag was required because the force was off. Miss Cloyce said I was wrong. I was not. I insisted upon this point quite vehemently.

I kept it up until she barked, "Say one more thing and you get detention." I sputtered and stammered, but went to the bench, muttering. The students nearby gave me a wide berth, shocked at my angry display.

To be fair, I know you shouldn't harshly argue with a teacher (even gym teachers count as teachers, I suppose) so I do admit that Miss Cloyce had to play the detention card, for the sake of discipline and respect. But dammit, I was safe.