Used To Be

There's this Pretenders song called "My City Was Gone." Chrissy Hynde sings about going back to her hometown, Akron, Ohio. She laments, "My childhood memories, Slowly swirled past, Like the wind through the trees." I heard her sing this song as I was running around the streets of my own hometown. I was there on vacation. A visit to check out the place where I was from. The place where my family still maintains an outpost. 
I thought a lot about that song as I went looking for landmarks and locales that had been replaced by new points of interest. There was no Arby's. The one that was left when I left a year ago has become a Wendy's. I suppose that's not the kind of thing that would get Chrissy Hynde upset, but it stuck with me. For a while. 
And then it was gone. Because Thomas Wolfe wrote a whole book about it. And before that, way before that, Heraclitus said, "You cannot step in the same river twice." Something about the way water rushes on and fast food franchises spring up where another one used to be. He probably went looking for that gyro shop where he used to work. 
Or maybe he was just struck by the way the streets started getting these odd dips and turns. When I was a kid, you could go north and south, stopping at lights or stop signs, but there was no need to jog slightly to the left or right to continue on your way. Perhaps in an effort to slow punks like I used to be from racing down residential streets, these divots were installed to inhibit such vehicular behavior. A pause before resuming, perhaps. A motor comma.
And yet, there were still plenty of things that kept me content. Not the least of these was the drinking water. I spent a great portion of most days hydrating because of what came so lovingly from the tap. That was great. And so were the people. My mother and her endless supply of patience for me and her bottomless jellybean dish. My loves from the past and present nearly converged as a group. And that was like going home again.
Which is what I was doing, with or without Chrissy Hynde's approval. There were definitely places that had become parking spots and parking meters where I used to park for free. No free parking. No beef 'n' cheddar. But somehow I got around to the places where I used to be. 

Like The Do-Dah Man

I have never been to a Grateful Dead show. But last week I got very close. A very good friend and I drove up to our old high school and found the parking lot staked out with a man who held a sign: $20 Concert Parking. Would we be afforded a free spot if we told him that we used to go there. That we started dating back then. We were in marching band together. This was a reunion some twenty years in the making. Back in the 1980s, we had attended a great many concerts just up the hill from there. At Folsom Field, home of the Colorado Sun Day series. All-day rock and roll marathons. We didn't have tickets for the Dead show that particular evening.
So, instead, we found a free spot to park just across the street from the high school and wandered up onto the campus. We passed buildings in which we had classes, and eventually made our way over to the University Memorial Center. There we found the grill, named for inspiration for Cannibal! The Musical, Alfred Packer. It was closed. We went upstairs and found the doors to the Glenn Miller Ballroom unlocked. Inside, I recounted my glory days as part of a Trivia Bowl team: Renegade Poodles From Hell.
Having expended the memories of that came from inside, we walked outside the Memorial Center. Here we found the spot where we, and a few other brave souls, had braved the elements and camped out for concert tickets. Before the advent of click and refresh Internet purchase of seats, this was the way we rolled. Or sat. For days. This reverie was broken as a young man called out to us, "You got an extra ticket?" The collapse of our reality was profound. Wouldn't you just go around  the corner, as we once had, to see if there were any available at the Select-A-Seat outlet?
Sorry, man. Hoping you got your miracle.
Off we went, finding ourselves outside the University Art Museum. A new structure, and we found ourselves amused at the notion that the powers that be would keep it open while just across campus there was a huge crowd forming outside the football stadium. We were happy once we were inside. Air conditioned and a thought-provoking exhibit describing the history of climate change, we were entertained, but not by the Grateful Dead.
Once we finished taking in our dose of culture, it was time to see what all the fuss was about. The closer we got to the stadium, the more tie-dye we encountered. Just across the way from the security gates, a bazaar had been set up for the sale of T-shirts, cool drinks and even more of that ever-present  tie-dye. As we waded through the sweaty throng, we agreed that it had never really occurred to either one of us that we might be missing something, concert veterans that we both  were. When we had finally reached the other side of the gathering mass of humanity, we breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it through. Now we could proceed back down the hill, back to the place we had parked before all this nostalgia. Walking down the path, a teenager flew past us on a bicycle. "Hey," he called out, "Nice couple!"
To which I yelled back, "Couple of what?"
That's when another teenager bicycler whizzed by, hollering something that was almost certainly amusing, at least to his friends. We couldn't make it out. We, as a couple, were left wondering. Reaching the car, and noting that we were the only ones heading away from the Dead and Company. I suggested that before we drove away that we might try and  sell our curbside spot to some anxious concert-goer who might see ten dollars as a fair asking price. Instead, we made room for that last minute fan who needed a place. We drove away, leaving all that tie-dye behind.
And we didn't look back.

The Art Of Survival

Pine cones are seeds, or seed pods. They are the way pine trees propagate. They are also more importantly, according to Al Gore's Internet, fuel for craft projects. They can be turkeys or bird feeders or elves or even miniature versions of the trees they aspire to be. When they grow up. If they grow up.
Because, like so many seeds, they don't always get the chance to grow strong and tall. In many places around the globe, they are the litter of the forest world. This was very apparent on my visit to my mother's house in Colorado. She lives on a suburban cul de sac with a Homeowner's Association. Part of her daily routine is to scour her driveway for errant pine droppings since the HA frowns on such things. I learned while I was there to pick up the morning paper and all the pine cones I could see and bring them inside for dissemination. The paper, after it was read, would find its way to the recycling bin and the pine cones were dropped into the compost.
But that wasn't always the way. When I was a kid, and our family lived in the mountains above Boulder every summer, part of our chores each day was to bring back a paper bag full of pine cones. Not for compost. Not for craft projects. For kindling. For making a fire. Each morning, in our cabin in the woods, a fire needed to be made. To take the chill off. To heat the water. To cook dinner. When you put a bed of newspaper and then a layer of pine cones, lighting the paper ignites the cones which burn quickly and hot. They will set the logs on top of that ablaze and then there's a fire in the stove that won't go out until after everyone has gone to bed for the night. The next morning my little brother and I would get up and after breakfast we would take our paper bags and fan out. Over the hillsides and down to the meadow. Picking up what would be the beginnings of the next day's fire.
And it all started with pine cones. Not litter. Not compost. Fire bombs. Energy. Fuel to last through the summer. And some of those that we left on the ground outside fulfilled their natural purpose and became trees that grew up straight and tall. And dropped pine cones on the ground for years to come. I can't possibly pick them all up. Not for fire. Not for compost.
Not my job.
Not anymore. 

Hard To Find Words

Blecch.
If I was asked for one word to describe my feelings upon hearing that Mad Magazine would cease to be, that would be it: Blecch. If you had not spent your youth or any significant part of your life with "the usual gang of idiots," then that word may not have the same ring it has for me. It sounds a lot like "ecch" and "yecch." These were words used to great effect by the humor magazine that helped shape my world view as much as any other. Any other magazine. Any other printed material. In so very many ways, Mad was there for me as I grew up.
Don Martin.
Dave Berg.
Mort Drucker.
Jack Davis.
Al Jaffee.
Antonio Phorias.
If those names mean nothing to you, I can only say, "Blecch." I encourage you to take a moment or two to pick one or more of them to explore the wit and wonderfulness they generated over the decades. Sixty-seven years of funny bits. Movie parodies. Comics. Satire.
And now, after all those yuks, the magazine is ceasing its regular publication and will only available at comic book stores and via subscriptions. It won't cease to be, but it won't be available on newsstands. Collections and old material will still be produced, but what used to be will be no more. Like so many magazines, the time has come for Mad to become less. And in this version of the universe, less is not more.
I learned to read, in part, by going from cover to cover, including the fold-in. I learned about things that were presented to me in black and white, there was a stand taken, and the primary objective was laughter. Sure there was a dalliance or two with the Pepsi to Mad's Coke, Cracked. But, dare I say it, there was something a little juvenile about it. My mom had her New Yorker, and I had that usual gang of idiots.
And it won't ever really go away. It will live in clicks on Al Gore's Internet. Which will help those of us who tasted the tart sting of parody and jest for all those years, but what about the kids of today? What, Me Worry? You bet.

Let The Children Sing

I would imagine that my mother is glad that she's not running for President of the United States. Not because she's not qualified. Patient, wise and fair: what else could one want? I do believe that where she might run into trouble is keeping track of her children's behavior. Like when our current "president's" son relays racist tweets. Junior passed along this gem last week: "Kamala Harris is implying she is descended from American Black Slaves," read the message written by Ali Alexander, a fringe alt-right activist. "She's not. She comes from Jamaican Slave Owners. That's fine. She's not an American Black. Period." As is his fashion, Junior deleted the tweet from his account after it generated a cyberstorm of reaction, defining once again his family's courage in their convictions. 
Then there's Daddy's little girl, Ivanka. She got to go along on daddy's business trip to Japan, and had a lot of fun pretending to do her daddy's job. She got to sit at the grown-up's table at the G20 Summit. Then she got another plane ride to Korea, where she accompanied daddy to the DMZ. She described the experience as "surreal." 
I think we get that.
Meanwhile, in the not-so-red corner, we have the recent interview with Joe Biden's son in The New Yorker. The one in which he describes being held at gunpoint while attempting to buy crack cocaine, and how he dated his dead brother's widow. After being torched in the second Democratic debate, by Kamala Harris, I'm not guessing that Joe really needs this kind of publicity. 
All of this sends a message to my mom: Don't run. I am sure that the time that I ate a Hostess Ho-Ho dipped in cheese fondue would almost certainly come to light. 
And then there's this blog.
Sorry, America, for depriving you of one of the best and brightest. You're just going to have to trust me on this. 
Yes, I know: Trust me. 

Four Hours

It came up again on the television the other day. The lesson I learned back in the fall of 1992. Everything takes four hours. It comes from the sit-com Mad About You, starring Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser. If you weren't watching television back in the early nineties or have a "thing" about either of the stars, or just couldn't stand being exhorted into "must see TV," it was a vital component in the earliest years of my marriage. The pretty blonde lady marrying the neurotic funny guy opened the door to what would be all kinds of life-affirming wisdom. The number of times my lovely bride and I would be watching this half hour NBC program that I was able to point to the screen and say, "See, there it is!" was significant.
And the idea that everything takes four hours is perhaps key among those revelations. The idea that nothing takes "just a second" once you have embarked in a relationship of a most any kind was calming for me. To have someone affirm the idea that all tasks, in this case purchasing a new couch, takes four hours because you can never do just that one thing. Paul Reiser, who played Paul Buchman on the show insisted that you would have to get something to eat and then complain about where you ate and then do the thing and worry that you didn't do the thing exactly the way you might have all of which tallies up to four hours.
You can't rush something like buying a couch. Or, at the time that I watched that particular episode with  my wife, you can't rush buying a mattress. "This will be," she said tearfully, "the mattress that we will sleep on together for the next..." And as she trailed off, I began to understand that there are moments that become bigger than the simple act of acquisition. Getting just the right mattress was a discussion that, I confess, for which I was singularly unprepared. Getting something to eat beforehand slowed down the sleep train to give me a chance to come up with opinions and preferences about mattresses. It took us right about four hours to accomplish the task, not including the actual delivery and setup.
Which was, as a newlywed, a shock. But as I have traversed the years since with my mate, the four hour rule doesn't seem as oppressive.  Not when compared to the decades we have spent together. Made up of four hour blocks of couches, tile, and the like. Totally worth it.

Crime And Punishment

Justice. Not always swift. Not always easy to detect. Not always ready when we are.
I was ready on August 12, 2017 to send James Alex Fields Jr. to prison for the rest of his life. Mister Fields is the gentleman who has now been tried and convicted of ramming his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of protesters which led to the death of Heather Heyer and injuring several others. The judge sentenced him to life in prion. For the rest of his sad, miserable life. 
His attorneys had asked for leniency, suggesting that "No amount of punishment imposed on James can repair the damage he caused to dozens of innocent people. But this Court should find that retribution has limits." This request came after they had wrangled a deal for their client by which he pleaded guilty to twenty-nine of the thirty counts against him in order to avoid a potential death sentence. 
That was the federal case. In the related state case against Mister Fields, the jury recommends life in prison. Plus an additional four hundred nineteen years. That's what you get for first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated malicious wounding and three counts of malicious wounding in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heather Heyer's mother had this to say: "I don't hate Mr. Fields ... I'm leaving him in the hands of justice."
With a light shining brightly on the murderous attack of a White Nationalist who claimed that he was acting in in self defense when he accelerated into a group of people, none of whom were armed with a motor vehicle of their own. And he ran a stop sign. The standard fine for running a stop sign in Virginia is eighty-eight dollars. 
I would imagine Mister Fields can arrange some sort of work program where he can make restitution for that part of his crime. While he tries to remember what the outside world looks like. And that extra four hundred nineteen years.