45 Years of Subtle Annoyance

I have this one customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who is annoying in small ways. Many small ways. He never does anything so bad as to allow me a reason to throw him out of the Shop bodily. That's an aggravation by itself; you almost want the guy to become outlandish and obnoxious enough that you can tell him to go hell. I'm sure you have such a friend too. Quiet Ron.

Cloyce likes to do things such as inspect my work every time I do it. Every. Single. Time. On the one hand, I get it. A fella wants assurance that the thing he's about to pay for is done well and proper. On the other, he's watched me do stuff for 45 years (cue old guy stating emphatically, and perhaps angrily as though offended, 'I been doin' this for well on 45 years now') and I feel he ought to trust my abilities at this point.

The other day as I finished welding a fitting onto his drain snake cable he asked upon inspection, "You sure that's enough weld on there, Marty?"

What to do, what to say? "Here's the welding lead, Cloyce. How 'bout, rather than me doing it and charging you $40, you show me how it's done and I'll pay you forty bucks?" Or, "It's just like I've done it for the 45 years you've known me (a variation on the earlier old man rant) Cloyce. What's yer problem?" 

But then, why get mad? He's going to act the same damn way next time, ain't he?

Depths of Feeling

We like to believe that we mature as we get older. I think that I've become a better, more considerate man as I get along. But we generally aren't the best judges of our own character either.

Still, experience does - or at least ought to - lead us to a greater understanding of ourselves and others. I can't recall ever feeling at all lost until the last few days. The feeling of aimlessness, of drift, is much more pervasive than I'd have guessed.

Monday, Tuesday I simply had no strong feelings about doing anything at all. I asked me son Charlie to handle the petitions during Mom's funeral Mass because I didn't think I could. It wasn't about not caring that she have a proper send off. I simply felt that the strength, the will, wasn't really there. I described the feeling to one person who asked as not having any 'giddyup'. I didn't want to move.

Of course I moved about a bit. You have to, to one degree or another. Things were easier to handle when I did, and as the days unfolded. But yesterday, Wednesday, I woke again with no honest desire to attempt anything. I managed to answer some emails and phone calls, and do a few small repairs at the Shop. That helped, yet each time I stopped I had to bull through the malaise all over.

Grief seems to have many and varied facets. I'm certainly and profoundly sad - at moments on the verge of an emotional collapse - but the very depth of feeling lost; I believe I can appreciate it all the more with the next person who tells me they are dealing with it.

 

Mischief Makers

Allow me one more repeat today, then I'll try to be more original tomorrow. Quiet Ron. 

Me Mom gets very repetitive these days. That's understandable and we all just roll with it. There are times where she realizes herself that's she's doing it, repeating herself constantly.

While we were out yesterday she must have asked me a dozen times in the first half hour, "Are we going to eat?" After about the sixth time she paused and cackled, "I'm giving you are a hard time aren't I?" After another pause she added, "But it ain't like you never gave me a hard time growing up!"

"Nuh-uh, Mrs. Cosgriff, that were them other boys of yours giving you trouble!" I protested playfully. Understand here that I have four brothers.

Mom got quiet and commenced to staring at me out the corner of her sharpened eye. When she had stared at me for several seconds she responded simply, "I'm sure you done enough mischief on your own."

What could I say? Moms know those things.

Formal Farewell

It's been quite a journey for her. Mom first stepped foot into her house in December 1957 and left it last Thursday. In between was the Purgatory of raising her brood. Those siblings of mine could be quite a handful.

Today is the, well, not really the final farewell as every memory in the future will surely bring about a flood of emotion. We'll be saying so long for the rest of our lives. So perhaps this is the formal farewell. Fair enough.

Love you Mom. Sundays without putting 150 miles on the new old van will be something of an adjustment.

Playing Favorites

So long as I'm replaying favorites, here's another, from about a year ago.

Yesterday was a good day. I managed to find what I was looking for at Meijer, namely Old Spice deodorant. Regular old Old Spice, not all the hipster variations which seem to dominate the brand lately. What in the name of all that is good and holy is wolfbane anyway? 

With such a difficult time finding it, having actually found what I wanted I bought four. That should hold me for a minute. Quiet Ron.

Being Sunday of course me Mom was with me. As we rode along she remarked, "I am enjoying this! I like the ride and the company!" Then turning towards me she asked, jokingly, "Who are you?"

"I'm your favorite son," I answered. It's become a running joke between us really.

But she got me pretty good yesterday. "Well, if that's what it takes to get you through the day we'll say it."

Give her a rim shot. She earned it. 

Where Art Thou?

I spoke yesterday of taking me Mom through the neighborhoods of Romeo, Michigan a couple of Sundays ago. God bless her, her memory had been fading for a while. She asked constantly, "Now where are we?"

"Romeo," I'd answer.

Mom would nod that she understood, then she'd smile broadly and recite happily, "Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?" This happened about every five minutes the entire hour or so we cruised Romeo's streets. I could have told her a different city, but then she'd surely ask, "Isn't this Romeo?" because that's what happens, right? I didn't feel I ought to play games with her like that anyway.

Still, things quickly reached the point where I thought, "If I hear Romeo, Romeo, just one more time I swear I'll, I'll..."

...I'll do absolutely nothing but chuckle at it again. Just like I am right now.

Ella Cosgriff

My mother, Ella Cosgriff, passed away suddenly yesterday. No matter how much you see it on the horizon, you can't quite grasp what's happened when it finally does arrive, eh?

I took her out most Sundays. She loved driving through neighborhoods and seeing the houses. Consequently, I tried to find areas she would enjoy. One of them was Romeo, Michigan. It has a lot of historic homes.

The last Sunday I took her out was to there. I wasn't sure I wanted to; it was nothing but feeling lazy. It's about 35 miles north of Detroit; not a terrible drive but a bit of one. I considered waiting for October to see the fall colors and the Halloween decorations. Romeo, Tillson Street in particular, really does itself up for October 31st, and she enjoyed it immensely last year.

Ah, take her to Romeo, Marty. You can come back next month for all of that other stuff, a voice told me. So we went to Romeo, and she loved it. Mom always liked the older wooden clapboard homes. 

I have to say I'm glad I listened to that little voice which had been encouraging me. If there had to be a last Sunday with Mom, that was a great place for it.

Stoner Michigan

Me son Frank was in town over the weekend, and he mentioned something I hadn't noticed. While many states have legalized marijuana besides our Great Lake State, Michigan has truly taken it to heart. 

Frank remarked to me that billboards for weed stores, sorry, dispensaries, whatever difference that makes, hit you right at the state line, and are many and varied. I hadn't noticed it, despite regular travels with my job that take me into nearby Ohio and Indiana routinely. So as I returned home yesterday from a sales trip, I was keen to look.

I saw while I was still about a tenth of a mile in Ohio that, yep, weed store signs are quite prominent starting smack at the border. They continue for the first several miles up Interstate 75 above Toledo heading towards the D. They are indeed everywhere.

I really don't care if you smoke dope for your recreation. I really don't. But when our state motto has become, "Dude! We got weed!" I'm not that sure we're projecting the best message either. I'm just sayin'.

Not Knowing What You Want

The other day I walked into a party store because I had thought I wanted a snack. But then the strangest thing happened.

The potato chips in all their myriad flavors did not appeal to me. The candy bars in all their grandeur, well, they also failed an appeal to me. The hard candies or the gummies or even the chewing gum did not call my name. I began to look over the beef jerky and other meat and cheese snacks and lo, I didn't really have a taste for any of them either. And that's when I remembered one of me Grandpa Joe's standards.

"If you don't know what you want, you don't want nuthin." I actually heard his voice saying it as I thought it.

It struck me that is a great truth in that. So I made exit from the store and was quickly back on the road.

Wither Baseball

All sports carry within them grains of absurdity. I mean that. That doesn't make them wrong; it doesn't take any fun away from them. Yet the absurdities, be honest, exist. I'll use my beloved baseball, the world's greatest game, for an example.

Let's have two people, we'll call them Cloyce and Boyce to give them names, standing out in a field. Cloyce has a ball in his hands. He begins to ruminate. Eventually he instructs Boyce, "Go stand over there, maybe sixty feet away from me."

"Why should I do that?" Boyce, reasonably enough, asks.

"I'm going to throw this ball towards you."

Boyce demands, "You're going to hit me with that ball?"

"No, no, no," Cloyce assures his friend. "Towards you, that's all. But hold that thought about hitting you. Maybe if my throw is too close we might invent dodgeball. But I won't throw at you, only towards you."

"What's in it for me?" the every prescient Boyce responds.

Momentarily uncertain, Cloyce soon says, "Pick up that stick over there. Now, when I throw the ball towards you, you swing that stick and try to hit it. If I get it past you, good for me."

"All right," Boyce allows skeptically, "But what if I hit it? What exactly am I trying to do?"

Growing just a bit exasperated and impatient Cloyce says, "You see Fred way out behind me?"

"Yeah."

"You have to hit it past him."

"What?" Boyce cries out incredulously. "He's maybe 400 feet away!"

"Just try. It'll be fun." 

Boyce, beginning to appreciate the logic of it, says, "Okay. And if I manage to I win, right?"

Cloyce can't see any way his buddy can do it. Yet he adds a wrinkle just the same. Putting four rocks, including one at Boyce's feet, into a diamond shape he instructs, "No. You drop the stick and run, touching each rock until you touch them all."

Boyce then started to lose incentive. "I think I need to go home and paint my house or something."

"Don't do that. Fred'll chase the ball and throw it back to me while you run the, run the, bases. Yes, bases."

"So?" 

"So if I catch the ball from Fred," Cloyce patiently explains, "I'll try to touch you with it before you touch all four rocks. If I do, I win. If I don't, you do."

Pondering the idea for a moment, Boyce finally says, a wide smile growing across his face, "All right, Cloyce, I'm in. But only if I get 27 chances at it."

Boyce never got his house painted. He had a new passion.

Nostalgia

All the kids were in town over the weekend for the first time in, well, a long time. 

We needed to be somewhere at Noon this past Sunday. A couple of hours before departure I went to remind them of that. Tapping on their bedroom doors, as they all slept in their childhood bedrooms, I informed each, "Let's go. We have to be there at 12."

I hadn't had to do that in ages. For one Sunday morning I was a Dad again. It felt good. How they felt, I don't know.

But I'm the Dad. They're the ones who have to adjust to that.

Thinking Back

I really shouldn't write this blog, because it's the kind that becomes about you and you really don't want it to be that. The simple act of writing it, I suppose, makes it about you. Still, I think, I hope, that I may be making a worthwhile statement, so I'll go ahead just the same.

My brother-in-law passed away this week. I always liked the guy well enough. We never had a cross word between us that I recall, yet for years I never felt we had found a comfort zone with one another. It was as though we weren't ever quite on the same page. Our conversations were always civil enough but in my mind stilted, as though there was a space between us, a gap that we couldn't quite bridge.

Then when my wife told me he had died, the first thing I remembered was a baseball game he and I were at at old Tiger Stadium back during Detroit's World Series run in 1984. It was a great evening. We had fun over a couple of beers. There were some pickup ball games and rounds of golf back in the day too.

Soon I was thinking about a few good favors he did for me and my family over the years. I thought about when he arranged for his son, my nephew, to set me up for a practical joke at a Boy Scout meeting one night. It was funny, I have to admit.

Before long I was thinking, man, I'm gonna miss the big lug. Maybe we were more on a level than I thought.

Goodspeed, Chuck, and you're in my prayers.

Same Difference

I took a call yesterday from a guy who wanted an air pedal and hose assembly. Basically, that's a rubber or plastic hose, typically six feet long, with what amounts to a ball on the end. When connected to a machine, it acts as an on/off switch, starting the unit when you depress the pedal (You're a useless, no good pedal!) with your foot and stopping it when you step off. He was disappointed when I said I needed the make and model number of the machine. "What difference does it make?" he asked incredulously.

It makes a lot of difference. There are different hose sizes. There are differences in how the hose attaches to the diaphragm switch which they generally must engage. The length sometimes matters. You get the point.

He seemed to believe that such items are universal. They aren't. To be sure, they act the same in principle. Yet in particular they can be significantly different. Fords aren't Chevys, as any Ford (or Chevy) man will tell you.

From the way he responded to my questions, I believe the man thinks I was giving him a snow job. I wasn't: I wanted his money. Indeed, I truly wanted to help him. Yet without complete information there isn't much I can do.

He said he'd have to get the machine out of his storage place and get back to me. We'll see what happens.

Upsetness

 I fear that we prefer being upset over being consoled.

This is an interesting phrase. I can't help thinking there is a tremendous truth in it.

I know, quite honestly, that I find it in me. It's easy - indeed it is, in a bizarre, repugnant manner, satisfying and desired - to be self righteously upset. I see it in the manners of both Trump supporters and BLM proponents: the will to be outraged for the sake of outrage. It feeds, not the soul, but the fires of vengeance.

This is not a good thing. Especially when we ought to be seeking understanding and conciliation. 

Woodbridge Fishmonger

I know it still happens to a degree - Schwan's comes to mind, and I suppose ice cream trucks count - but it seems to me that there used to be a lot more neighborhood door to door food vendors. Twin Pines milk and dairy products used to ply their wares when I was a boy. I'm not sure Twin Pines even exists anymore.

I remember a fishmonger who used to come around regularly. Man, he had a voice; you could hear him blocks away. "Fer-esh, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish," he'd yell. "Fer-esh, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish." It was a booming tenor, I tell you. I hear it like yesterday.

Eventually I'd look up and there he'd be, bounding down the street with a bounty of freshly caught fish hanging by his side. Me Mom never bought any as I recall, but he must have done all right for himself. He came around for years.

That's it. That's my boyhood memory for today. I remember the fishmonger.

Dollar For Dollar

I firmly believe that we ought to appreciate the little things in life. The older I get, the more the little things can seem, well, really little.

This past July as I spent a few days in Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula with the Ohio Cosgriffs, we took a day trip all the way to DeTour Village. For da UP, it wasn't much of a trip: a mere 28 miles each way from Hessel. But there was a rummage sale at Sacred Heart Church, and we all know that small town rummage sales are well worth exploration. So off we went, me happily spending me daughter-in-law's gas on the journey.

I bought something at the sale with someone else's money (me son or me daughter-in-law one, I forget; such great kids!) and then we stopped at the brand new DeTour Dollar General. Throughout the walk through the store all I could think was, 'This is one great Dollar General'.

A little thing, but it made an impression on me. But have I gone too far the other way? Should something as mundane as a small town variety store mean so much? Or am I just getting old?

Surely not that last question.

For the Love of Candy

There are things which I simply can't understand. Many, many things indeed. Some are important while others are not. In the are not category is the apparent hatred, indeed downright despising, of certain candies. 

Why is there such loathing for candy corn? Sure, it's far too sweet. Yet not, as far as I am concerned, so much so that it invites invective. A few, kernels I suppose, satisfy whatever desire I may have for it to be sure. But to simply toss a bag of it into the trash, as many memes suggest? Save that for kale. 

Black licorice is another sweet treat which is often derided. Now this candy, I will defend heart and soul. What exactly is wrong with it? Good black licorice has a wonderfully subdued molasses flavor. How is that bad? 

Candy corn and black licorice. I ask you, what am I missing? Because I can't see it.

Bioengineered Granola

As I sat with me Mom at her kitchen table this past Saturday morning, me brother Ed came in with a box of granola bars. They keep granola bars on hand because Mom has taken a liking to them, and the doctor has said to let her eat want she wants so long as she's eating. Granola bars aren't bad for you anyway, right?

Me brother said this new brand he found was very, very good. "Here: try one," Ed tells me, and I do. They are very good, excellent really, especially the apple spice for what that's worth. But as I was too lazy to get my cell phone out of my pocket to read something, uh, substantial while I ate, I began reading the wrapper which the granola bar came in.

That one granola bar, all one inch by three inches by 3/8 of an inch thick, had forty-four, count 'em, 44 ingredients. They ran the gamut from the unpronounceable super long, vaguely Latin word to the simple and almost expected 'salt'. But at the end of the line, set off to itself in its own paragraph, I was informed that the bar 'contains a bioengineered food ingredient'.

I don't really care about that as such. Bioengineering doesn't bother me per se; we've been modifying our foodstuffs in many ways, shapes, and forms for all of human history. What perplexed and upset me was that in all the rambling quasi-nonsense about the forty-four ingredients, they couldn't take a minute to tell me which one was in fact bioengineered.

I mean, come on, now. If it's important to put on a package that something has been altered, how is it not important enough to tell me which item was so callously tampered with? There's a virtual litany of ingredients, foreign and domestic, all crammed onto the back of the wrapper like an eleventh grader trying to cheat on a history test which he must pass to become a senior, yet you won't say which one was genetically modified? I don't get that at all.

Cool Ghoul Cloyce

As he sat on the front porch with a cup of coffee one warm summer morning me Pops heard an old friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, coming down the street. "George!" Cloyce was yelling. "Here George! Come here, George!"

Eventually he came into sight. "What's going on, Cloyce?" Pops asked as his friend.

"The dog ran off," his buddy explained. "I'm trying to find him."

"Well, good luck," Dad offered. Then he asked what you would think an obvious question. "The dog's name is George?"

Cloyce bristled just a bit. "Nah, the kids named him Cool Ghoul."  He gave a quick, dismissive wave to me Pops unspoken question, then continued, "But I ain't going around the neighborhood yelling, Cool Ghoul! Here Cool Ghoul!" 

Pops laughed. Eventually Cloyce found George. Er, Cool Ghoul.

Take Five

Okay, I don't mean to take five in the sense of a rest. I mean it in the sense of, isn't that odd?

I had two very minor repairs done on my new old van this past Thursday. It needed an oil pressure switch, and a hanger replaced on the exhaust system. The bill came out to the rather unusual price of $111.11.

What really are the chances of that? Parts, labor, sales tax and all, One Hundred Eleven Dollars and Eleven Cents. 

I paid it in exact cash too. It wouldn't have been right if I hadn't. Is it worth playing 11111 in the lottery? Can I even do that?

Not Fooling Anyone

Diet Pepsi is favorite drink of mine. When I order fast food on the road, I usually do the stupid thing and get the large size meal. But always with a Diet Pepsi.

I am well familiar with the joke. I am sure that the restaurant employees and many of you out there have or will remark on the humor of it in your minds. Look at that: he's large sizing and trying to be cute, thinking he can offset all those extra calories and saturated fats by drinking a diet pop.

I'm know I'm not. Joke all you want, I do it because I like the taste of Diet Pepsi. That's really all there is to it.

Quiet Ron.

The Flutter of the Wings

I am currently reading Ronald Reagan's autobiography, An American Life. I've read a lot about the former President, I would guess about a dozen books so far, but never in (essentially) his own words until now. You would think a guy could only read so much about a figure or event without it all becoming a rehash, but different perspectives do offer deeper understandings, and I do admire the man. I'm truly enjoying the book.

Early on Reagan talks frankly about his father, Jack Reagan's, alcoholism and the troubles it caused his family. Yet the elder Reagan was finally able to conquer it late in life. A few years before his death he was able to quit cold turkey, returning to Church in the process. President Reagan was, with admiration for his father, one day relating the story to fellow actor Jimmy Cagney. Cagney thoughtfully responded, "He heard the flutter of the wings."

He heard the flutter of the wings. Damn but if that don't bring a lump to my throat.

Red Sox Toothpaste

Boy, them Red Sox have everything. They even have their own official toothpaste.

When me boys and I were at Fenway Park in June, there were giving away samples of it. The boxes say  'Dr. Sheffield's, the Original Toothpaste'. I suppose we just have to take the good doctor's word on it. I mean, I don't happen to have any contrary proof, so there it is.

Everyone received four small tubes, each in their own little boxes with the two red socks of the Red Sox logo on the flaps. There were Extra Whitening, Peppermint, Cinnamon, and Chocolate flavors. To my knowledge those are all standard toothpaste flavors, except for the chocolate. Expecting not to like it, I tried that one first.

I like it. I wish I'd tried it last. Not only do I get the taste of milk chocolate as I brush me teeth, when I use mint mouthwash afterwards, instant chocolate mint. 

Who says the world's not a good place to live?

I Will, Will I?

I get voice messages. The bulk of them are clipped and straight to the point, which is what I want. Tell me your issue in the voicemail; it helps me know what to tell you when I call back. If I am aware of your question I can determine the answer before talking to you. Or develop a really creative lie.

Last week a fellow left a voicemail which I laughed at upon hearing it. I don't think he meant anything, but it was funny.

After giving a brief description of what he was looking for, he proceeded to finish with, "You will call me back at 555.5555." 

Oh, I will, will I? 

Of course I did. He didn't say it like an order either, it was simply in the flow of the message, merely his off the cuff choice of words. Still, it's funny.

Summer Holidays

We really need one more three day weekend during the summer. It's nice to have one to start summer and another to end it. But unless July 4 happens to be a Sunday or Monday, that's it. Summer holiday bookends are cool and all, but one actually during summer would fit right into the season.

Just sayin.

To be Fair to Football

A good friend of mine, one who's a huge football fan, posted a meme on Saturday which said you can't trust someone who didn't watch at least ten hours of college football that day. Well, I guess I can't be trusted. But for better reasons that than, I assure you.

I am less and less of a football fan every year. Yes, I still watch a few minutes during the course of a season, and I'm happy enough Michigan won Saturday, even against a patsy. I sincerely hope the Detroit Lions turn themselves around in my lifetime. But the game is just too brutal, folks. I've read far too many stories of my own old football heroes from 40 years ago who've ended up dead by suicide or severely incapacitated simply because I wanted to be entertained. Don't give me that tired old 'nobody made them play' nonsense. We did, by promising them fame and fortune. Or at least college scholarships for often silly, useless degrees. That in itself is a whole 'nother screed.

I don't want to go off on football only today, because I really don't want to make too much out of a surely humorous meme. I mean, it was intended to be funny, right? The sharer didn't really mean it, did he? I feel that I have to ask, because I wonder that about strident football fans quite honestly. They seem to take themselves insanely seriously. But in fairness to football, part of my attitude towards it has little (I hope) to do with the actual game. Sports in general are becoming less sportsmanlike and far too, shall we say, in your face.

I was watching the Little League World Series last month and was honestly appalled at the number of twelve year old players doing fancy bat flips after hitting home runs. That used to be a no-no, because it was, correctly, I will argue, interpreted as showing up your opponent. Look at what I did, you losers, it's saying to the other bench. Dare to challenge me, will you? Yet it was simply accepted as part of the game this time around, to the point where the broadcast commentators were praising the acts. ESPN was rerunning them for our, I suppose pleasure. We're apparently expected to be impressed by the disrespect.

I don't like it, and there's too much of it in too many of our sports and games. I see it with my beloved Detroit Tigers, an embarrassingly horrible squad this season, where players hit meek, ground ball singles and then in triumph mime silly messages back to the dugout. They have no right being so impressed with themselves. Yet what have we been told, how are we typically sold on the importance of sports for youth? That it teaches sportsmanship, the idea of learning integrity and respect in how and what we play. It used to be you didn't 'show up' the other team. You played your best and let that speak for you.

Sports are becoming too much about bravado and too little about respect. I do think it's particularly glaring with football, where the degree to which players seem to need to 'fire themselves up' before and during games is downright garish, if not flat out ostentatious. But it's becoming part of our sports in general, and I do not believe it is a good thing.

Misused Labor

Now Ben, he was a true son of the South, being born in Alabam awhile back. He was lanky; he was several hands high as horses be measured, a tall drink of water in the local tongue of the American South. Like many sons of Dixie, he came north after the War, seekin' work in the Northern Industry which at the time prospered. In his case, fortune led him to Detroit, Michigan, to a job at one of the Big Three auto makers. That was a blessing for him, as in the quick years after his arrival he had acquired a family, a wife and three kids as I recall, which he needed to manage through his labor. He had also acquired some 60 year ago as a friend me Pops, Bill Cosgriff.

Now the economy, it likes to act on its own every so often. When that happens it puts a hurt on industry, the car makers so much as anyone else. So his company, they go and lay him off. Tell him the layoff is for about three, four months. Look for a letter they say, to tell him when he might return to his toil.

Now Ben, he figures he and his blessings might as well spend their downtime with kin in Alabam. Makes sense, of course: might as well show off the family by being with them, you know, for a minute. So he packs up everyone in the old sedan and goes south.

That were no easy trip by car back then. Two, likely three days, depending on a lot of unforeseen factors. There was the roads, many two lane blacktop and of dubious quality, and there was the cities and towns which one had to plow through, there being no superhighways as we are all familiar with these days, no convenient bypasses taking folks around them urban areas. Unknown backups may also delay traffic. And car troubles; there was no 80,000 mile guaranteed tires in 1955. And you slept in your car to save money on motels. It was a journey in them days, a true journey.

Yet they make it, and they settle in with family grateful to see them. Then in six weeks a letter arrives, demanding Ben get back to Detroit straight away, as his job had returned to necessity.

The two, three day journey begins again. They arrive safely in Detroit. Ben finds lodging in me Grandpa Joe's rooming houses, good enough for a short spell until Ben's income allows them to stay in a home. Ben dutifully reports to work on Monday morning. But the line foreman, he has no clue to what he's to do with Ben. He sends him to his supervisor.

That man, he has no clue either. So he recommends Ben up the next step of the ladder, who himself has no clue. He says Ben ought to commute with the shop foreman, who sends him to an assistant plant manager, who sends him to the plant manager. Who after due consideration with the proper authority, grants him a new layoff notice.

So Ben proceeds this time down the ladder of authority, telling each and every one of them effectively and emphatically what he thinks of his treatment in this debacle. He causes them each to understand exactly how wrong his situation was and how deeply he did not appreciate it. He imparts upon them how truly in the wrong they all were with him and his situation.

"Bill', he says to me Pops after regaling him with his tale of woe, 'When I was done tellin' each and every one of them how I felt, I was paid off, laid off, told off and run off. That was how complete my damage was."

But that is the damage you must complete against the devil, lest someone misunderstand your plaint. Ben, he got that satisfaction. And may the Lord bless him for it.

The Pumpkin Spice Wars

Ah, Facebook. You do encourage folks to get lathered up about trivialities. 

Almost every day lately I've seen memes which hammer at the onrushing autumn and it's mavens who love pumpkin spice everything. It's not unlike those (one of whom might be me) who lament Christmas displays being raised in mid-October, nosing out Halloween when it's still two weeks away. "Summer isn't until September 22!" one friend, or, more to the point, one friend's meme yelled. "Put your pumpkin spice lattes away while I have another margarita!" Ah, hilarity.

But I've noticed that weathermen say something different. They say that fall began September 1st. Meteorological fall began this past Thursday. We are, to those stout professionals, at this very minute already in autumn.

There, I've sold both sides ammunition. Entertain me. Start the Pumpkin Spice Wars.

Loud Bass

Towards the end of a long day on the road Wednesday, when I was about 30 miles away from the old barn, I noticed a vibration in the steering wheel of my new old van. Nuts, I thought. Probably a wheel out of balance. Maybe it's thrown a weight, or a layer of tread had come loose. Hopefully it would get me home, and I could wait until tomorrow to visit the tire shop.

Yet this vibration began acting particularly odd. It had a beat, an honest to goodness beat. It actually throbbed: boom, buh-da-boom. Boom, buh-da-boom. It repeated itself over and over. I can't say I ever had that reaction from a car before.

The vibration steadily become more emphatic, more intense. Soon I was actually hearing a musical bass line exactly in time with the vibration. Boom, buh-da-boom. Boom, buh-da-boom, it went on. The beat matched the vibration precisely.

That's when I realized I was approaching a Honda Accord with its windows rolled up and dark tinted. The closer I got, the more profoundly the bass line droned and the more harshly my steering wheel vibrated. 

Dude, I could care less what music you listen to. I've even been know to turn my own car radio way up and lose myself in a song with a pronounced, driving (ha, ha) beat. But when your sound system is so loud and your bass up so high that it's causing vibrations in cars passing you on Interstate 94 at better than 70 miles per hour, I only have one thing to say.

It's. Too. Loud. That can't even be comfortable for you. 

Eat to Taste

"Lose weight!" I do believe that doctors must take a course on harangue for that simple exhortation. For who, it seems, does not get ordered by their family physician to take off a few pounds? A handful of us, yes, may be encouraged to gain mass. But they appear to be the outliers. We should envy them.

Still, most of us could stand to drop a few pounds. One way, perhaps, would be to not eat as though the meal in front of you is the first thing you've had in a week. Take your time and enjoy the taste of the food.

I'm trying to employ that manner of eating, though with little real success just yet. But I have my moments.

Just yesterday morning, in fact, a bowl of cereal in front of me, I forced myself to eat more gently. Rather than jam a heaping tablespoon of it into my mouth (I probably should have used a teaspoon, I know) I let the bulk of the cereal slide back into the milk. Further, I actually chewed that lessened helping instead of immediately forcing another huge spoonful into my gaping maw. This chewing the food led me to an interesting discovery.

A surprisingly pleasant, sweet taste appeared on my tongue. In eating slowly and deliberately, mind you, it hit me. I was tasting the raisins in the raisin bran. I was eating slow enough to taste the food. And it tasted good. No; it tasted great. I suppose because I was in fact tasting rather than inhaling my breakfast.

I'll have to try that with other meals. And maybe it could help me lose weight, although I'm sure my doctor will simply dredge up another personal habit of mine to criticize.