Category: A Very Short Story

…Our parents were never around. They were too busy making a living. And they were happy and relieved to leave us to our own devices.  And we were happy that they did for that park bore the limits to our huge and timeless imagination and universe of fun.  My first serious crush manifested itself in that park.  No doubt a park volunteer, a summer counsellor of some sort.  Probably sixteen.  I think I was three. Funny that, but the age difference didn’t seem to bother me or anyone else at the time.  I followed her everywhere, even with a shit load in my summer shorts. I am sure that they, the grownups, thought that that was sweet but I had other canorous thoughts on my young and feeble mind.  Today that girl, if she is still alive, would be in her late 70s.  Yikes!

Funny why kids cannot and will not do what is expected of them.  I am convinced that there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.  It’s ingrained in their psyche, in their young DNA. To do the very opposite of what is expected, acceptable and piss off the parents.  It’s called exploration, finding our way, for as kids we were all Lewis and Clarks, Radishes and Gooseberries – LaSalle, “Tin Tin,” or DiCrapio. I remember when wifey and I bought a contraption for our twins called a “Jungle Jim,” or as it is affectionately known in suburbia as a suburban, backyard torture chamber for kids or for those fathers unfortunate enough to have to put the damn thing together.  And all I could hear that Saturday morning – and afternoon – were the cursed remarks floating wirelessly to my sensitive ears coming across over the various fences of our neighbourhood yards. And so, after many hours, this plumber’s nightmare finally took shape. Finished, proud and turning the keys over to my four year old twins, I watched them from a safe distance but out of sight. To my chagrin, to my horror, but not terribly surprised, they immediately began climbing all over the damn thing.  Forget the swings, forget the slide, and forget about the double see-saw with the cold bright yellow metal seats. Their goal was to check this thing out; explore their environment and see how this contraption was put together.  Inquisitive and enquiring minds these youngsters! Sure enough, one of them fell from the top cross bar onto the grass below. Getting up, brushing himself off, he looked around at nothing really then at himself then at his twin brother, in silence and in shock. After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time all hell broke loose:  screaming, wailing, crying and the gnashing of teeth.  Oh the horror of it all. Dante’s inferno! Then looking around as if lost and in a panic for where the hell was mom?

Where the hell was mom indeed?…

…..That incident with my friend at the Hug and Slug occurred over 40 years ago yet it is as clear today in my tiny brain box as if it happened yesterday.  And as clear as that may be how many of us can really remember our first few years of life? Like most people I can recall brief snippets – like the time my older sister broke her arm on the teeter-totter in the small peckerette, I mean parkette, across the road from the house I was born in.  And why do they call these places parkettes? Is that a feminine park? No, no nooo! A small park in the city where I spent most of my formative years is now called a parkette.  So when does a parkette become a regular park you might ask? Don’t know. When it grows up I guess.  I may have to ask the city’s parkette-heads for an answer to that one.  But to be all inclusive in today’s world we will need a park, a parkette, a gay-park and a trans-park.  

So how does one break their arm on a teeter-totter? Easy!  My sister was sitting at one end of the teeter-totter with some of her friends at the other end. Up and down, up and down, up and down they went – good clean but oh so monotonous fun.  Pretty boring stuff!  And kids hate being bored.  Especially brats and some of the little brats that day had a better idea of fun.  I knew exactly what they were thinking, these brats. “Let’s get her, my sister, up as high as one can” one whispered, and then, in precise military fashion squealed “hold it down, hold it there, wait, then, on signal, jump off” at the opposite end of the teeter and watch how they taught her. Poor ole Mary. She took Newton’s Law of Gravity to heart and took the path of least resistance straight down into the ground landing on her arm: broken, physically, and in spirit. And those brats sure as hell had a good laugh. I think I even chuckled.  After all she is my older sister.  And, as it turned out, 1953 was the hottest year on record so Mary had to endure weeks of forearm sweat and severe, unrelenting and continuous itchiness.   Oooooo! Too bad!

Besides shitting my pants from time to time I do remember spending countless hours, or what seemed so, in that park. I remember walking there alone one windy fall Sunday morning beside a huge cedar hedge. Then again everything is huge when you’re three years old.  Like a celestial call from high on high, a branch came thundering down hitting me on the side of the head.  I was knocked silly and still have the small indentation in my cranium to this day.  It almost feels the same as those small soft dents on the top middle portion of the skull that babies have after they are born.  And all fathers know of those little soft pliable dents in the cranium.  For in our small, male, minute, mindless minds we all wonder what would happen if…if….if, I still shiver when I think about that one.  So I now had two. One on the top of my head that eventually hardened up with nature and another carved by a wayward cedar branch that fell on my head that cold autumn Sunday morning.  Eventually it healed itself.  And where were my parents when all of this occurred?  Don’t remember.  But I can still feel the feeling of feeling that dent even as I am transcribing here.  I shiver to think of it….

 

I once knew a guy, a very close friend of mine at the time, who ate 15 “Big Macs” at one sitting.  It occurred very late at night after an evening of drinking and debauchery.  It was a small bet to start with to see how far he could go as he loved “Big Macs” but the challenge progressed nonsensically as we kept egging him on. Great fun! He did it although a wee bit pail at the end of it all.

Those were carefree days, as all days are carefree when you are young. And those burgs only cost 49 cents each back then.  Not too sure if he ever touched another one after that though.  I do think that he is a vegan today.

I can still see in my mind’s feeble eye this same guy being dragged down a set of stairs by his shirt collar by a tall buxom blonde Norwegian gal who truly was an Amazon Olympian at 6 feet and some.  Very athletic and as my friend tells it later the next day – very ambidextrous, triple jointed.

This blatant kidnapping occurred at a Country and Western club that we called the “Hug and Slug”- a colloquial term for “The Army, Navy and Air Force Club, so called by all the WESTPAC Widows that frequented this abode.  An appropriate name I can tell you. WESTPAC Widows were those women married to sailors who were deployed from home in the Western Pacific operating areas for very long periods of time.  To normalize, these widows would frequent this Country and Western Bar every Friday and Saturday night for a bit of dancing fun and then some.  And we, being the young and restless lads that we were, naive thank God and wet behind the ears, were navy recruits who were alone from home for the very first time and were delighted to provide the required entertainment for we yearned for motherly comfort.  This was also a time when very long hair was the fashionable norm so we, with our newbie brushed and navy white-walled haircuts, were social outcasts as the saying goes especially at the bars, the discos and the dance halls of this parochial port town.  Yes we would tempt our fate from time to time and test our sense of belonging and manhood at these discotheques but after striking out early we would all head down to the ole “Hug and Slug” to test the waters. It never disappointed.

Country and Western clubs are extremely down to earth, value oriented, and patriotic old fashioned but all welcoming fun. We would end up having a great time there to the wee hours dancing with these widows to such memorable tunes such as “All My Exes Live in Texas.”[1] Or the equally memorable and nostalgic “Ten Tall Beers With A Shooter of Whiskey Is All It Took.”  Great stuff!  A good time was had by all for these women could not have cared less about our appearance. As long as we had some hair on the top of our heads, was all that mattered. And my friend?  Battered and bruised by the pounding he took on those stairs and, helpless as he was, had a very big smile on his face for he knew his fate.  She, a determined and predatory look if I ever saw one and, as I recall, entirely attuned to her prey and purring ” You’re coming home with me sonny boy.”

“Oooooookay!  He whimpered. To us. “See ya!”….

[1] George Strait

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Who ever thought that a single word like “please”, in context, could be so humorous?  Yet Henny Youngman made a comedic career out of four simple words and a pregnant pause: “Take my wife….. please” (Youngman).  Yes, the word “timing” says it all.

Now take the word “value”….please.  How I hate this word.  There are so many variations to the theme that surround this word that any smart minded non English speaking immigrant to our country would think twice about trying to learn or understand the English language.  For example, an individual or group’s perception of worth, based upon personal or collective experiences in a shared environment can only define or measure “value”.  “Value”” is illusive, as there are more perceptions of “value” out there are there are cars on the road…

Let me try to exemplify exactly what I mean here:

In 2005, I picked up my dear ole mother’s car: a 1979 Mercury Zephyr, something akin to a Falcon or Fairmont – Ford only knows.  My mother could not drive anymore. She was 91 for heaven’s sake.  Anyway, the car had about 56,000 kilometers on the O.D.  Mint condition! Lime green with a sickly, yellowed tan interior.

Now the market “value” of that car in 1979 was $6,500.00. Twenty-six years later the book “value” was about zilch. The insured “value” – who knows, but the assessed “value” was about $3,000.00 and climbing, as long as it didn’t disintegrate during the long hard winters.  Its “value” would continue to rise in “value”” as long as its condition remains, well, “valuable.”

Obviously my mother held considerable sentimental “value” in that automobile.  As I pulled away from the big city for the drive back to my home town, I came to understand the hereditary “value” of this gift to me and the intrinsic “value” of the trust she placed in me to take good care of Betsy.

I made it back home in one piece although the water pump went out around some god forsaken country hick town.  Between that and thinking about the local Elvis sightings, I was beginning to ponder the meaning of life and the mechanical “value” of the car; the emotional “value” that this machine may have had and its effect on my own sense of “value” and well being. 

Arriving home I thought about its economical “value” as it had taken over a tank of gas to cover the 300 miles from the really big city to my hometown.  Had I been taken for a ride?  Were there aspects of this car that were known only to my mother, the parish priest, her hairdresser and the bagger at her local supermarket?  I had to contemplate its utility “value” considering the other two cars I had. 

Yet, thinking of my dear ole mother and somewhat excited about the possibility of getting perhaps $3,000.00 for the car’s assessed “value”, I thought hmmm, but quickly shook any thought of that out of my mind for if I “valued” my life I dared not even think about selling dear ole Betsy.

Trying to define “value” can be problematic, which in itself is an extremely overused word.  It’s like common sense.  Something that is taken for granted yet is extremely rare in today’s world.  And trying to make sense out of “value” as in “What are your values?” as opposed to someone else’s values is like an academia nut trying to make sense out of common sense and coming up with pure nonsense.

Continuing on….

Words are not enough when communicating.  Context and understanding are crucial. Without context confusion arises to the point of ridiculousness.  Let me try to illustrate this by something that I learned in school:

Take the word “nit.” The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines “nit” as a stupid person, a louse.  Then add the letter “k” before the “n” and you have “knit.” Yet the word “nit” from the word “knit” is a whole different kettle of fish.  And what is that anyway: a kettle of fish?

Now, let’s take the word “wit:” defined as someone with a sharp sense of humour, a player of words perhaps.  As in “that man possesses wit.  He has a sharp mind.” But then add the letter “t” before the “w” and you have “twit.”  Or, combine the word “nit” with the word “wit” and you have a “nitwit.” But “nit” and “twit” together does not sound quite right – “nit-twit?”

Nonetheless, given that a “nit” is already defined as a stupid person, and “wit” is someone who has a sharp mind, then “nitwit” defiles all logic in a descriptive sense except perhaps to define someone who possesses a stupid “wit” – which in itself is oxymoronic.  But “dimwit” already has that locked up.  Yet what is really frustrating about the undercurrent of this word is that “dimwit” is the opposite of someone who has a sharp “wit.”   So, that being the case, let’s call him or her a “blunt-sharp” person!

To make matters worse a “twit” could be someone who has a sharp “wit,” and is still a “nitwit” or a “dimwit.”  So why can’t we call him or her a nit-twit?  Or a “dim-twit”?  The bottom line is that “nitwit” or “dimwit” sounds better.  The other bottom line is that English words are just downright confusing without context and a shared understanding of the contextual environment we are communicating in.

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