The Road Through Oblivion

I just spent five hours driving from Anacortes, Washington, to Portland, Oregon, and I'm struggling to remember something about the trip. I don't do long drives alone much anymore, perhaps because the time is filled with little more than background noise, creating few memories and much lost time.

On this trip, A cop was directing traffic around a stalled 18-wheeler in Anacortes.

I heard the guy from Breaking Bad interviewed on Fresh Air. Later, I played some vintage Paul Simon. Still Crazy after all These Years left me morose.

I pulled into line behind a silver Prius at the gas station on the Swinomish reservation. After he'd filled his tank, the driver gave me a friendly wave, probably because I drive a Prius too. As a group, I think Prius drivers are constantly amazed that anyone chooses to drive something other than a Prius, unless maybe they need a truck.

I took the scenic route to the interstate, down a back road and through Mount Vernon. There was a train of seemingly infinite length blocking the road in Mount Vernon. The growling wall of a thing rattled and squealed through the heart of town for a nearly 15 minutes while the drivers of cars and trucks bound for Seattle and Portland and the Mount Vernon Food Co-Op stared vacantly at traffic lights shining red in all outbound directions.

When I finally reached I-5 and turned south, past Dick's Restaurant Supply, I had a flashback of the Christmas when I gave my mother a set of restaurant-quality chef's knives. She said she had always worried about what would happen if someone broke into the house and attacked her with one of her old knives. “Lord knows,” she said, “the newspaper would have reported I was killed with a blunt instrument.”

As evening came I fumbled with the MP3 player and the radio. The windshield wipers were on sometimes, off more often. Mostly I just drove snake-eyed, nothing registering but unexpected movements.

I vaguely remember glancing at the Space Needle and the Tacoma Dome, and reflecting for the thousandth time about how awful the residents of Federal Way must feel about living in a town named “Federal Way.” Puyallup may be pronounced as if it refers to a malodorous whallop in the face, but at least that name has color and history. As for Federal Way, I suspect nobody showed up for the naming committee meeting.

At 9:30 p.m., about 20 miles north of Vancouver, Washington, I called Susan to let her know my progress. She was still up and sounding fresh. She let on that she was a little pissed that I would be spending the night at our condo in Portland. She'd already staged it to make the perfect first time impression on the girl friend she's bringing down to see it next week, and she reminded me to put everything back exactly the way she'd left it.

The condo did look nice when I opened the door a half-hour later. There was, however, an unfortunate shell necklace laid around a bucket-sized candle in the middle of the small dining room table. I stared at it for a while, but left it alone.

So as not sully the kitchen, I walked down to the corner McMenamins for a late dinner. The server dropped a brochure on the table promising that I would become a “Cosmic Tripster” if I got my McMenamins passport stamped at every McMenamins in the world.

It's an intriguing idea. I wonder what I would remember.

Killing an Old Tree

The soggy, gray winter finally gave way to a weekend with crisp blue skies and scattered flowers, and I decided that it was finally time to take out the gnarled old eyesore of a tree that lived by our winding driveway.

I'd left it standing when I cleared the brush away from it, hoping it would leaf out and be more attractive when it had more room, but it had been stunted and maimed by battles with choker vines and encroaching brush, and its branches remained twisted and bristling with bare, misdirected twigs.

The trunk was little more than a foot in diameter, so I went to the shed and pulled out an ax rather than a chainsaw, thinking it would be good exercise.

My first blow with the ax stung like I'd struck a rock. Neglect had dulled the cutting edge of my old axe so that I might as well have been swinging a baseball bat.

I couldn't find a file or stone to sharpen it with, so I drove up to Browne's and picked up a ten inch bastard cut file. I laid it on the counter and told the clerk, “I want this little bastard.” She took my money without a word and tried to avoid eye contact.

My attack with the sharpened ax felt little different. Each blow stung right through my heavy work gloves.

I put my body into it, starting with my hands split on the ax handle, building momentum with my shoulders as I came around, until my hands slid together and I whipped the ax head into the cut.

One hundred blows cut a notch halfway through the tree. When I stripped off my sweatshirt, steam rose off my skin in the chilly air.

“Where is it going to fall?” Susan asked.

I shook my head. The tree was so twisted and gnarled that I couldn't even guess where its center of gravity lay. I'd notched it on the side facing the house, parallel to the driveway, but there was no safe bet.

Another hundred chops and I could no longer see what kept the tree standing. I stepped back to look at the damage I'd done when I heard the wrenching sound of the old tree giving up. First a crack, then the crackle of wood fibers stretching and breaking and then the screech of a huge, rusty hinge as the tree majestically leaned farther and farther away from me. It hit the ground with a soft whomph as the tree's branches cushioned its fall, then it settled with a sound that could have been a sigh.

The old tree looked even more tired, twisted and wizened at rest than when it stood. Looking at it, I felt pangs of sadness, rather than triumph. The tree had fought its way through its youth and finally been shaped into a caricature of what it might have been, had its life been easier.

My back ached, my hands throbbed and I could barely raise my arms, but I'd made promises to Susan and if I was to keep them I needed to start cutting it up right away.

But when I tried to fuel up my chainsaw the fuel cap cracked and came apart in my hand. At that hour there was no replacement on the island and the thought of plugging it with a rag conjured images of a motorized Molotov cocktail.

I called my friend Pete at his home on the upper half of the island, and he promised to bring his chainsaw with him when he came over for our early Sunday morning run.

In Sunday's morning chill, we ran the winding trail through American Camp, across its prairie and down to the beach. As we ran along the shore, a promising rim of blue appeared on the horizon, separating the flat, gray sky from the flat gray sea.

I called a break on a long uphill stretch and while I caught my breath, Pete talked about his 92-year-old uncle with an eidetic memory. He said his uncle remembers names, dates and places of family events that happened even before he was born. Until the past few years, he'd worked in a Sonoma Valley vineyard and grew tomatoes he sold under the label: “The World's Best Tomatoes.”

Pete wants to write a fitting eulogy for his uncle while the old man is still breathing. He does a lot of family eulogies. He has a gift for it.

After we finished our run, Pete pulled his chainsaw and a half-gallon of chain oil and a container of fuel mix out of the trunk of his car, and made sure the saw started before he left it with me.

When he drove away, Susan set the table with a plate of eggs, sausage and chunks of the warm, crusty bread she'd baked while I was running. After we ate, I put on work clothes and walked out to cut up the tree. It looked sad and uncomfortable at rest, an old soldier no longer able to stand his post.

Pete's chainsaw growled and chewed through the wood, sputtering now and then like most seldom-used machinery. Once, the saw got pinched and I had to open the case to reseat the chain, but I forgot to tighten one nut when I put it back together. The nut vibrated loose when I started back up and the chain to flew off track again in a spectacular explosion of unmuffled motor noise. The nut itself fell off and disappeared into the thick layer of bark, pine needles and wood chips around the old tree.

I scavenged a compatible nut off my own chainsaw and finally got back to work. By the time I cut the last section of wood, I was moving in painfully slow motion; a parody of the old man I pretend not to be.

When I was still in my full youthful gallop, I'd marveled at how slowly and steadily my father, and his father, worked their truck gardens. Now I saw their hands picking up the stacks of wood as I loaded the old tree's dismembered body into my battered pick-up and drove it the short distance to our burn pile.

Susan still fairly danced around, raking up the fallen branches and the accumulated winter's blow-down from the big Douglas firs and hemlocks on our property.

After I showered off the sweat and saw dust and tossed my clothes in the washer, I drove over and returned Pete's saw while Susan stayed home to tend the old tree's funeral pyre. On the way home I picked up burgers at our favorite pub and we sat on lawn chairs and ate while we watched the fire burn down.

Now the day has ended and the orange glowing embers and the last flickering flames in the burn pile look like a melting jack-o-lantern.

Susan is still attending the fire, sitting with her e-reader, sipping wine in the smokey warmth of the gnarled old tree's smoldering ashes. From time to time Marv, our black Lab, gets a nose full of smoke and snuffles and sneezes, reminding us that he is curled up just a few feet away, invisible in the liquid darkness.

Finally, I defer to the chill and my aching back and leave Susan and the fire for the comfort of the house.

The morning will bring a new day, curious to see if we can still to stand our posts.

Death Makes a Courtesy Call

   Death stopped by last night to see how I was doing. It didn't touch me, it just paid its respects and reminded me that we are scheduled to meet professionally within the next few years, so – you know – I should probably be getting ready, burning all the embarrassing stuff, making sure everyone knows where the will is, think seriously about funerals and final arrangements.

    It occurred to me that I'll be 65 years old later this year. Susan and I just got back from an event in Palm Springs where we hung out with retirees who, to a person said, “There's no reason to be here if you don't play golf.”

    I asked one woman, part of an older couple who was worth a few hundred million dollars, how she'd spent her day.

    “Busy” she said. “I was up before 6 a.m. this morning, walking my dog on the golf course, then from 8:00 until 9:00 I worked out with my personal trainer, then I played 18 holes of golf with two girl friends and one of their daughters, then we had lunch out, and by the time I got showered and took a nap I had to start getting ready for this event.”

    A male guest noted that he tries to get out on the golf course early every day. “I like to finish up by 11:00 or 11:30 A.M. so I have the rest of the day free."

    These are good people who were successful in their business lives, wise (or fortunate) in their investments, and generous with their philanthropy. I admit to being jealous of their financial freedom and ability to literally save lives and make dreams come true with their wealth. But confronting them for a brief period of time, surrounded by people who are desperate to “facilitate their philanthropy” was a little unsettling.

    I'm angry with myself for not seeking more insight into their world and their comfort level with their lives.

    When death stopped by last night, the thing that immediately worried me was what if Susan died first. I really have no clue about putting on a funeral or a memorial service. I doubt, at this moment, that I could compile a list of invitees. One used to be able to grab the Christmas Card list. I suppose these days you just post to the deceased person's Facebook friends.

    From the time we got married a quarter century ago, we always said we wanted to go together. Tonight I imagined the logistics of one of us dragging the other's pain-wracked body out to the berm by the pond where the frogs serenade us in the spring, having a final kiss, then calling the Sheriff to come collect our bodies, hanging up and fulfilling our suicide pact.

    Of course there are the logistical problems. We don't own a pistol, we'd have to arrange to have someone look after our dog, and since we don't get cell phone coverage out here in the sticks, I'd have to get a long cord so we could bring the base station for our wireless phone out onto the deck so we'd be able to call. And what if, after one partner is dispatched, the other realizes we forgot to hit send on the email to our family, so the surviving spouse has to run back into the house, finds the computer is off, then discovers that it has to finish 44 updates so please don't turn it off or unplug it . . .

    This whole death thing seems less scarey than annoying.

    But but death will come. No way to know when, but at my age it's easy to figure out that it will be sooner rather than later. I certainly hope I don't end up being one of those 110 year olds who shows up on the news gumming birthday cake and saying the secret to life is eating legumes, drinking a glass of whiskey every day, and never masturbating.

    On his 90th birthday, Studs Terkel told Garrison Keillor that when he was young, he had wondered who the hell wants to live to be 90. “Now I know,” he said. “It's every 89-year-old I meet.”

    Well, the time has come to think about it, the time to deal with quantity versus quality. My health and money may run out at different times. What happens when I can't feed myself, deal with my own bodily functions and it's clear that I'm not going to get better? I wonder whether I'll recognize when I'm starting that final glide path, further and further down, until I reach that truly hopeless spiral into death's arms?

        In his final days, my father was aware of it and it made him mad. "I'm not finished yet,” he said. He still had things to do that he'd been planning for a long time.

    I wonder if many of those wealthy, aging retirees in Palm Springs feel that, somehow, they have finished.

    Someone told me Palm Springs's nickname is “God's waiting room.” It seemed like it a pleasant enough place to wait, if you are finished.

Good Dog

Marv, his black fur smooth as velvet, lays his warm head on my lap and looks up at me.

Mark Knofler plays the Sultans of Swing, backed by the chorus of frogs in the pond outside my library window.

Marv smiles at me as I scratch behind his good ear, and he rumbles contentedly when I cup his soft graying jowls in my hand and tell him he is my favorite dog in the world.

Diana Krall croons Let's Face the Music and Dance, and Marv sighs and ambles over to his bed and curls up, positioning himself so he can watch me.

Maybe I'm good for another pet, maybe a moonlit walk, maybe just a smile and a sense of belonging.

Whatever he wants.

And Marv is thinking, whatever he needs.

SMALL TALK
A Monologue (Excerpt)
By Stan Matthews

[Lights up]

(Middle aged guy walks on stage carrying a coffee cup as if he's looking for a place to sit, walks up to table)

It's a little crowded today, mind if I join you?

(sets his coffee cup on the table and sits down)

You a regular here?

Yeah, I know it's really none of my business, just small talk.

(sips coffee)

That's one of the problems with this country—too much small talk. We used to talk big: "54-40 or fight", "Give me liberty or give me death", and my favorite: "Bring it on!"

Yeah, BRING IT ON!

George W., now there was a President who had...how do I say it politely? Kuh-JONES. Brain the size of a pea, but cojones like pair of cantaloupes.

(Gestures like he's holding a cantaloupe in each hand)

Bring it OWN! Root hog or die!

(Shakes head and sips coffee)

You know what makes me mad these days? Everything.

Ev-er-EEE-thing.

Four dollar coffee, welfare cheats, Obamacare, politicians—I'll tell you something though, that Ted Cruz, the senator? Harvard man, he's smart.

But the left-wing, lamestream media makes him out like he's stupid because he read a kids book on the Senate Floor when he was filibustering Obamacare, and they claim he didn’t understand it—said he got the moral of the story wrong.

Well pardon my French, but that's a load of manure.

Have you ever read it - Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss?

Well, I went down to the library and checked it out, and I was shocked. It's not really a kids book.

It's about a creepy little guy named Sam who is trying to get this doggy-looking guy to eat some (finger quotes) "green egg and ham." But the dog guy doesn't want to eat it.

I mean, who the hell would? If you look at the pictures, it's not just the eggs that are green, the ham is green too! Probably spoiled rotten, for god's sake.

But this Sam guy is relentless. He keeps pushing and pushing and pushing until finally the doggy man gives in just to get Sam off his back.

Well, one taste was all it took. Lights out, major brain freeze. As soon as he tastes it, this upstanding doggy guy is afflicted with an all-consuming Jones for the green stuff.

The first thing he says is: "I'd eat them in a boat, I'd eat them with a goat."

Did you catch that? That Satanic reference?

The man clearly says "I would eat this stuff with a freakin' goat." That means Satan.

Makes my skin crawl.

So Ted Cruz seems to be the only one who recognizes that this Sam guy is a pusher, just like Obama. See, he turns this honest, hardworking dog man into a slobbering Satan worshiper just by giving him a taste of affordable health care.

The book ends there, but anybody can see where it's going. One day this guy is going to find out his kids have been getting into his stash and his teenage daughter is so hooked on the stuff that she's gone out and gotten pregnant, just so she can score some of that free pre-natal care.

That's where it goes. End of America.

Am I right?

(Pause, stare until he audience absorbs the implications, then nod.)

So, what does the liberal media do in the face of this undeniable truth? They try to crucify Ted Cruz, because he has the courage to speak the truth.

(Short pause for effect, sip coffee, mentally shift gears)

This kind of thing has been going on for centuries.

Ever heard of Martin Luther? He tried to speak out and the Pope made him eat worms.

A lot of people never heard that, but I'm something of a history buff and it's in all the history books.

The Pope didn't like the way Martin Luther was talking, so he forced him to have the "Diet of Worms." Check it out.

(Glances down at the opposite side of the table)

Are you gonna finish that cannoli?

Cool, I just didn't want to see it go to waste. That's something my mother drilled into me - "Clean your plate, there are children starving in China."

I always wised off when she said it, but it stuck with me.

I hate to see anything go to waste. I compost everything-leftover food, grass clippings, leaves.

I made a worm composter out an old refrigerator, just laid it on its side. I figure, if Obama decides to put me on a diet of worms, at least I'll have my own supply. Eh?

(pause as if waiting for an affirmation. Takes a sip of coffee.)

You aren't a liberal are you?

Independent?

Pardon my saying so, but I don't see how anyone can be an independent these days—just like I can't understand how anyone could be bisexual.

I mean, I personally don't care if you are straight or gay, but at least you ought to pick a side so everyone knows what to expect.

I'd really hate to go home and find my wife with another man—I mean I'd probably cut his head off and throw it in the worm bin; but if I found out she was fooling around with another woman ... I mean, what are you supposed to do? How's a guy supposed to act?

(Sips coffee, shakes his head)

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, politics and you said you are an independent—middle of the road, out there on the yellow line with the raccoon carcasses and dead snakes—no offense intended.

You aren't one of those gun control freaks are you?

No, you look too intelligent. I can usually spot the gun control nuts, they freak out when they find out I'm packing a piece of artillery.

(Pulls back his jacket and points to a holstered pistol)

Have you ever read the Constitution cover to cover?

No shit?

Well, I've gotta be honest, I haven't actually read it word for word myself, but I know what it says. I spend a lot of time in my car and I make a point of listening to Constitutional experts on the radio when I'm driving around.

That Rush Limbaugh, he's another guy the liberal media can't stand because he's so smart.

Okay, he's not a doctor. He got a lot of grief because he didn't understand the exact number of birth control pills a woman has to take so she can be a slut, but he stood his ground.

The man never apologizes. You have to respect that.

Liberals? They go running around like babies begging forgiveness when they make some stupid mistake. But Rush? He just keeps kicking ass and naming names. Standing up for the working man.

That's why he can afford his own private jet. And he comes right out and says it, "I'm just in it for the money," he says. No apologies.

Do or die.

Liberty or death.

Truth or consequences.

Commitment. That's the difference between big talk and small talk.

...

Mean Spirits

I briefly posted a column entitled “Oh Yeah?” last week, then took it down after my wife said it seemed mean-spirited. After I read it over, I had to agree. It mostly consisted of things I've refrained from saying aloud to people who commit the increasingly common sin of annoying me.

Unfortunately, as I grow older, I find my baseline dudgeon level is dangerously high and my sharp tongue slips out of its scabbard too easily.

One of the “wish I'd said” exchanges in that self-censored essay went like this:

Annoying guy: “I'm a big picture person, I just need someone to fill in the details.”

Me:  “Actually, you are a lazy, self-absorbed, vacuous dilettante who wants other people to clean up for you after you smear your own excrement on the wall and call it art.”

Upon reflection, that does seem a little harsh.

In general, my biggest problem these days is impatience. When a telephone salesperson calls, then asks if I'd mind holding, I tend to ask them to please hold while I transfer their call to the dial tone.

I know telephone sales people are underpaid and likely to be supporting young children who need expensive, life-saving operations; but I'm also becoming dreadfully aware of my own ticking countdown clock.

Stealing my money is one thing, but wasting my time is stealing something that is both precious and irreplaceable. These days, I am much less patient with people who are late for appointments than I used to be. I took some pains, recently, to explain to someone that when he kept me waiting, he was showing that he thought my time was worth less than his.

I'm also starting to get impatient with people who call, wanting something that could be handled quickly and easily, but who feel obligated to begin with a bit of pallid small talk first. When someone asks how I'm doing, obviously not caring in the least, I've been sorely tempted to let them know in excruciating detail. But experience holds me back.

There was the time I gave a friendly wave and a “How are you doing?” to a nice fellow who had recently waited on my wife and me at a furniture store. It was a beautiful day, I was on foot and he was in his car, stopped at a red light downtown with his windows rolled down.

“Not so good,” he shouted back to me. “My brother died last night.” Then he burst into tears, and the traffic light turned green.

I really hadn't cared how he was doing, other than to wish all humankind a nice day, but after I asked and got the answer, we both felt terrible.

Revealing? I think so, but not in the way I expected when I first wrote it.

Of course people are no more or less annoying now they've ever been.

Reminders of my mortality abound – seeing parents and old friends disappear from the earth, and hearing dinner party conversions turn into obituaries of the latest local deaths and disabilities. Mortality's nagging drumbeat sets us on edge, causing everyday tickles and taunts and jostles and bumps to provoke disproportionate responses. 

What's really annoying me, of course, is not the minor inconveniences and delays of daily life, but the realization that I've already wasted so many precious hours and days and years doing nonsensical things that neither gave me joy nor made the world a better place.

So I've resolved to stop letting so much time slip by unused, to meditate some of my impatience into zippity doo dah, and to try to keep a rein on my inner cranky old man. Sure, he may sneak out and cause trouble from time to time, but he doesn't get to take over.

Salesperson: “Excuse me sir, could I interest you —“

Cranky old man: “Kid, you couldn't interest me if you dressed up like a peacock and farted the Star Spangled Banner.”

Me: “Um . . . what I meant was, perhaps you could show me something in a Harris Tweed that would go well with a good book and good friends.”

After all. Time's a-wastin'.

By the Book

I tossed the last of my framed journalism awards and plaques into the trash this weekend. I found them while I was cleaning out our storage shed. They were packed in a retired cardboard pet carrier that bore tooth marks from our dear departed cat, Janet.

When I was in television news I won a lot of awards. People in television spend a lot of time giving each other awards. Since leaving television, I don't believe I've won any professional awards. Of course, there have been times when I haven't been sure what profession I was in, so perhaps I just didn't know where to enter.

But I'm pretty sure there are no awards for best ghost-written speech, best PowerPoint presentation, best original campaign management software, best staff report to a local legislative authority, or best series of news releases headlined, “Council Postpones action on . . .”

In any case, honors do not age well. Every time I get off the ferry in Anacortes, Washington, I pass a restaurant that bears the banner, “Voted best chef, 5 years in a row.” The sign looks sad, hanging over the entrance of a restaurant that closed years ago.

One of the award plaques I tossed out was “Best Documentary” from the New York International Firm and Television Festival. The awards show was emceed by the comedy duo, Stiller and Meara –  Ben Stiller's parents. Back then, they were still doing edgy stand up.

Another award I pulled out of the box was a gold-embossed “Broadcast Media Award” for consumer reporting. It was dated 1977. There are reporters on Seattle Television whose parents had not even met when I reported on whatever outrage it was that prompted the judges at San Francisco State to honor me that year.

I remember being a 20-something street reporter in Miami, Florida; standing out front of a place where a boatload of Haitian refugees were being processed. The refugees' boat had washed up on Palm Beach at sunset, so it was late at night by the time they'd been gathered up and bused to “Freedom Tower” in downtown Miami.

The only locals out in that neighborhood at that time of night were the alcoholics, addicts and schizophrenics who made themselves invisible by day, but took over the streets after dark.

One fellow with a bottle of cheap wine protruding from his side pocket, kept threatening to kill me if I didn't leave immediately. Finally I told him that my boss would kill me if I did leave. He nodded sympathetically and said he'd let me live this once.

Then another fellow walked up to me and complained that our government was spending all this money on refugees, but didn't give a damn about people like him. He said he'd been a police detective in New York, but his partner had gotten killed and he'd lost his house in a divorce, then lost his job because he started drinking. Now he was living on the street in Miami and nobody wanted to even look at him. “What the hell's wrong?” he asked.

After he walked off, I pointed him out to one of the Federal agents escorting the refugees and said he'd claimed that he'd been a cop. I'll never forget his matter-of-fact tone when he looked the wino up and down and said, “He probably was.”

In the day-to-day world, nobody really cares a whole lot about who or what we used to be but are no more.

I thought about that as I tried to decided what to do with that box of faded glory. We all know that the past is prologue, but it's hard to tell what part of the story we're in now.

Looking at the classic story structure, I'm either approaching my journey's end – settling down to let my wounds heal while I enjoy the rewards won in my life's battles; or I'm fast approaching the point in the story where the hero has to face the ultimate antagonist, and in doing so, face his own worst fears and internal demons.

If it's the latter, then the protagonist must strip down to the essentials and be prepared to use the lessons he's learned, the allies he's made and the weapons he's acquired to face the challenge the whole damned, convoluted story has led to. In a novel, it's usually something unexpected that the hero has held onto that tips the balance in the final battle.

I did feel as if a plot point was passing as I tossed that box of awards into the trash. A little while later, I decided to hang onto a box containing my collection of FBI Wanted posters from the 1960s and early '70s. Someday they might be of some value.

The protagonist never gets to know in advance.