That Thankfulness Thing 2014 - First of Three Bite-size Pieces

Remember a couple of years ago, when a lot of people spent the month of November sharing via social media one thing per day for which they were thankful?  And remember how I did all 30 of mine at once, via blog post, in 2012, and again (a day late) in 2013?  No?  That's okay.  I don't remember what song my iPod finished playing 22 seconds ago.

Anyway, those posts were way too long for today's short attention spans, so-- hey?  HEY! OVER HERE! (snaps fingers)... Geez.  I'm trying to help!  This year, I'll post my list in three MUCH more reasonably-sized parts, so that you, dear reader, can get back to your pintstergram and skype-chat and whatever this year's Candy Crush is.  See - aren't I nice?  Well, sure I am.  You have a bad attitude, today.  Wait - I didn't mean that.  You're very busy - I know. 

So let's do this!  This year, I find myself especially thankful for...

1.  Hypnotoad.  All glory to the Hypnotoad... And to everyone involved in any aspect of the production of "Futurama."  It was a most skillfully-crafted show, and it was unapologetically nerdy - even before that was trendy. 

All Glory to the Hypnotoad...

2.  Robin Williams.  Versatile, fun, gifted, and flawed - just like the rest of us, only more so.

3.  Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and Carl Sagan - bridging the gap between us and science.  Dr. Sagan is irreplaceable, of course, but Nye and Tyson are engaging and smart and witty, and they're doing an admirable job, despite the astonishing power of the willful ignorance that stands in their way.

4.  Two words:  Red Stapler.
 

5.  The fact that, as she did in November 2012, my old (snow) car surprised me and the DMV by once again passing her emissions test.

6.  Beach webcams.  Especially THIS ONE.

7.  Game Sevens - especially when the yankees and braves are not involved.  In the sports world, it doesn't get much more dramatic than a game seven.  Unless, of course, it's a best-of-nine series, in which case WOWEE GAME NINE!!

8.  Lizards.  They HATE me, but I still think they're groovy.

9.  My office (cubicle) toy corner...

Oh, the personal history on that shelf.

10.  The Internet Arcade!  Free, old-timey (1980s is old-timey) arcade machine emulator software you can run right in your browser.  I'm wallowing in nostalgia, here!


And with that, Bite #1 is complete.  Will Lionel trains finally make the list, this year?  Tune in on the 20th for Part Two, to find out!  Seriously.  Tune in.  Don't make me beg.  I'll be thankful for not having to beg, maybe...
 

When Fear Was Fun

It's Flashback Friday, gang.  Why not?  Recently, I've been finding magic in unusual places.  Tonight's story, however, is real.  It occurred in the late 1970s, during one of my family's August trips to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  It is sad.  It is creepy.  It is kind of gross.  And it is a childhood memory which simply refuses to leave me.

We arrived for our two-week stay, unloaded the car and helped Mom make the beds as quickly as humanly possible.  Then, all six of us headed down to the Boardwalk before our annual first-night dinner at the Crab Pot, to assess what was new since last year.  My brothers and I were mostly interested in mini-golf, arcades and rides, while our parents lamented the demise of the old chicken stand.  But something weird was in the air.  I didn't notice it until my older brother pointed it out, but then it immediately became palpable, even to my ten(ish)-year old senses.

Instead of the usual happily-milling crowds, we found a couple of hundred people gathered at the edge of the Boardwalk near Rehoboth Avenue.  They were all watching a hovering helicopter and several small boats very close to shore.  Three black-suited divers were in the water, disappearing for a couple of minutes at a time, just beyond the waves.  Word was efficiently passed from mother to mother that a boy had disappeared in those waves not two hours prior, and the operation was now focused on finding his body. 

They did not find a body that night, and the next day the search was called off. Grownups seemed sad.  The big kids were fascinated.  Little kids - like me and my younger brother - were spooked.  Playing in the waves had a new potential hazard, as we were sure at any moment a dead kid would brush against our feet.  Our father explained as carefully as he could just how a submerged body works - rolling on the ocean floor, potentially catching a current that takes it many miles away, and so forth.  Still, we were afraid.

We went about our vacation, but there was a haunted quality to everything.  Even the magical boardwalk, with its rides, arcades, cotton candy and Nick's Pizza, was different.  That body was out there in the ocean. 

We stubbornly went ahead with our nightly family walks on the beach, and there were plenty of chilling moments there, too.  Any odd shadow in the sand or surf looked liked a body, and some were quite convincing until proven to be otherwise.  I secretly hoped we would be the ones to find the body, and I assumed it would be at night, for maximum creepiness.  I gave myself more than one nightmare, thinking about it night after night.  What would it look like?  Smell like?  Would the eyes be open?  Would stuff already be living in it?  It terrified me, but it also lit a new spark in my young imagination, because it was real - finding that body was not impossible.  Now, I know boys are stupid, but rest assured, Mom made sure we all had the proper appreciation and respect for the fact that a boy - not that much older than myself - had been playing one minute and dead the next, that his parents were devastated, that it could have been one of us, and that it wasn't "neat."  Still, it kind of was.  It was electrifying, in spite of all the negatives.

About a week after the drowning, my brothers and I were in our beds in the awesome front bedroom of our rented Philadelphia Street house when a beach patrol truck (they weren't called SUVs, yet) roared past, headed toward the beach.  It was followed immediately by an ambulance (no sirens) and several police cars (again - no sirens).  We knew.  The body had been found.  Also, confirming our creepiest fears, it was found at the end of OUR street, where we'd been playing in the surf for a week, and where we had poked a washed-up jellyfish with a stick that very evening.

The fact that a boy had drowned was not fun, even to a little kid, but this vacation enjoys special status in my memory.  It was exciting to be that creeped-out by something real, at that age.  It gave our whole family a common ground we didn't often enjoy.  We were all spooked, and somehow that unified us - especially me and my brothers.  It wasn't exactly Stand By Me, but it was still very cool and utterly unforgettable.  Somehow, death had become magic.  Dark magic, perhaps, but magic nonetheless.

The only way it could have been more gross would have been for us to find the body.  The only way it could have been scarier would have been for the body to have never been found.  ::shudder::

There.  This concludes our flashback.  I'm going to go watch a bunch of cartoons or a Will Ferrell movie or something.  See ya!

Sand On The Tracks - A Bum Finds His Beach

It started in a rail yard in 1930...

East Brunswick, Maryland

A hobo was being escorted from the property for the umpteenth and final time.  Scabpicker Rump, whose name is not important, had worked for the B&O, and had helped build and maintain some of the bridges and viaducts that carried the rails over the creeks and rivers that feed the Potomac.  He had been fired for insubordination.

His parents had abandoned him when he was ten, because they had grown tired of his "unflagging need for supper, every single night."  He later learned that they had both been killed in a bizarre ice skating accident the police had labeled "suspicious."  

As he was kicked out of Brunswick yard that chilly fall evening, Lemmy, the burly watchman, who Rump had known for years, gave him a piece of advice that would change his life.  "I know times are tough, old friend, but if you're gonna be a hobo, you gotta head south in the winter - like the snowbirds that migrate from New York City to Florida every fall.  And I hear they still need labor to maintain the FEC's Key West extension."

"That's a mighty long way from here, Lemmy," Scabpicker sighed.

"Think about it, buddy.  Parts of it get washed out by hurricanes every other year, seems to me, and it's all bridges.  They could probably use a man like you."

"Thanks for the tip.  I'll think about it."

Three months of hard hobo-ing later, Scabpicker Rump was working again, helping to maintain, among three dozen others, this bridge...

The old Bahia Honda Bridge, connecting Bahia Honda Key with Spanish Harbor Key - Photo by [Maris]

It didn't take long for him to prove the old "once a hobo, always a hobo" adage I just made up, and within a year, he was fired - for insubordination.  But he had fallen in love with both the Overseas Railroad and the beach.  He occasionally stowed away on trains, but mostly he walked the rails and "his bridges" between Key Largo and Key West.  His hobo name was amended slightly, and he came to be known, down here at the end of road, as Scabpicker Sandy Rump.

And he sat.  He sat on the sand - actually crushed coral, in most cases - and drank and fished and stole coconuts and stone crabs.  Gradually, his hobo life transformed into that of a beach bum.  When the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 destroyed most of Henry Flagler's beloved overseas railroad - this time beyond repair - Scabpicker Sandy Rump stayed in Key West, where he lived his remaining years in challenging but happy homelessness.  

In 1937, his old friend Lemmy received a long, rambling letter from Scabpicker.  Much of it was nearly incomprehensible, drunken blather, but it had one paragraph of clarity:

"People come to these beaches and marvel at the white sand and the iridescent water, but I hardly pay those things any mind.  I love the AIR at the land's end.  I find it utterly delicious.  I am reborn with every breath of it.  It's salty and warm, sure, but there's more to it, down here.  At the beach, even with hardly a wave in sight, the air is filled with sound.  At some beaches, when the wind turns around, the air is filled with sea life aromas that send the snowbirds scurrying back to their hotels, but I love that rotten smell; to me, it smells of life.  During Key West summers, the air is heavy and sticky and the clouds get unruly, but I love that, too.  For it's not just salt or heat or fish, nor is it simply that this place is becoming a playground.  There is something in the air here that I feel blessed and privileged to sense.  This air, my friend, is absolutely soaked through with MAGIC."

Magic Key West Air

[This post was written in response to a prompt - a writing prompt - from my friends at Studio Thirty Plus.  Please stop by and check out some of the fine writers who hang out at S30P!]



                    

That Thankfulness Thing

Throughout November, many of my Facebook friends have been posting each day the things for which they are thankful.  I didn't get that memo in time, so I haven't been doing it.  Last night, my mother had what turned out to be a very small stroke - kind of like a stroke warning shot.  She's doing quite well, despite a long, sleepless night in a busy hospital, and for that I am extremely grateful.  It made me wish I had been doing the thanksgiving thing on Facebook, but those of you who know me will know that that kind of thing just isn't my style.

So.  Here's my solution.  I'm going to put all 30 of my November thankfulnesses right here, right now.  Obviously, I am aware of how boring that sounds, but fear not, for I will be sure to Joe it up for you.  And lest you think that I don't care about any of the important things in life -- it goes without saying that I am abundantly grateful for my awesome soulmate [Maris], for our families and our relatively good health, our jobs and the roofs over all our heads.  What else is there, right?

Well, I am immensely thankful for...

1.  Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Glen Howerton, Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito, collectively.  "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" is still the funniest show on TV.  Its annual return makes autumn life worth living.

2.  The supposedly benign nature of the ringing in my ear.  "It's nothing we can or need to do anything about, Joe.  Just tell your friends you have the same condition that affects Pete Townshend, and that you have it for more or less the same reason.  That'll be $600, please - and don't act like you can't hear me, because I know that you can."

3.  The end of Daylight Saving Time.  An extra hour of drinking and watching cartoons.  What more need I say?

4.  Three words:  Wal.  King.  Dead.  "The Walking Dead" is about so much more than zombies.  It's about the human condition pushed into uncharted territory.  It's about relationships.  It's about teamwork.  It's... It's... It's about zombies.  And it's just the bee's knees.

5 .  My 12 1/2-year old car (my "snow car") passed its emissions test!  I wasn't surprised, but I am thankful.

6.  The fact that I live in a country where we regularly elect our leaders, and I took part in that process.  Also - NO MORE POLITICAL ADS interfering with my enjoyment of TV, radio and the interwebs!!

7.  An election in which most of the candidates and ballot questions I favored actually won.  Of course, I realize that  it really Doesn't Matter (much), but it feels good to root for winners, once in a while.

8.  Leftover Chinese food.

9.  Mom's immediate realization that something stroke-like was happening, and her quick actions leading to treatment.  Of course, she did stop and feed the cat before the ambulance arrived, but still.  She and modern medicine most certainly kept a bad thing from becoming a tragic thing.  Of course, if she had a dog, she might have been warned before it even happened.  Cats just look at you and say "where's my dinner?"

10.  Mexican Coke.  No, not the illegal drug.  Do they even produce cocaine in Mexico?  I don't want to know.  No, I'm talking about the Coca-Cola - made in Mexico - that my grocery store has been selling lately.  It's in the classic greenish glass bottle, and it's made with real cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.  It's just better, rum or no rum, and it totally adds life.

11.  Box turtles.  They don't give you a hard time about ANYthing.

12.  The five-second rule.  I'm talking to you, taco-flavored Dorito.

13.  Cool lights and lasers from Spencer's Gifts.

14.  The way my new (less old) car tells me to watch out for ice when it's cold outside.  She's always looking out for me.  I should wash the poor thing more often.

15.  The waitress at Dogfish Head Alehouse who calls [Maris] simply "Mountain Dew!"

16.  1981.  Seriously, that year changed EVERYthing.

17.  Rum.  How can we not include rum on this list.  I love it, and it loves me.  And I live in Maryland, so that's totally legal, now.  That doesn't make sense?  Sorry!

18.  The smell of a t-shirt with a freshly ironed-on decal at a beach-side souvenir shop.  Bonus points for shirts featuring Chewbacca or Fonzie.  Do not attempt to replicate this aroma at home with your own iron.  It will not work.

19.  Mute buttons.  But really, what kind of button isn't mute?

20.  The fact that I once slammed the door in Robin Ficker's face, saying little more than "Aaahh!"  I'm mainly thankful for this for how it amused (and to this day continues to amuse) [Maris].  She was off to the side, and saw only a hand and a brochure thrust through our doorway, and she heard only "Hi, I'm Rob--" (SLAM!).

21.  My own discomfort at seeing other people's reaction to my eyes, when one is green and the other blue.  It gives me hope that maybe, just perhaps, I am human after all.

22.  Windows Vista.  Hahaha - just kidding - it's the WORST.

23.  Catalytic converters.  Not sure what it is that they do, but I'm thankful for them just the same.

24.  Flowers.  They make [Maris] so happy.  What could be easier?

25.  Legs.  Yep.  Legs.

26.  Flea-flickers.  Not so much the ones that get Joe Theismann's leg broken, but otherwise, they're awesome.

27.  Getting to sixth gear in my car.  My daily commute is so short (thankfully) that I can sometimes go a week or more without getting all the way through the gearbox.

28.  The fact that, despite Life being A Rock, The Radio Rolled Me.

29.  Rum.  What?

30.  I live in a place that is still mostly devoid of zombies.  I know that I wouldn't last five minutes in such a world.