Boring Personalities

Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton wrote that "It Takes a Village".  With all due respect to our Secretary of State, I beg to differ.  All it takes is an amalgam of 705 water district users, 2 convenience stores, 2 taverns, 2 traffic signals, 1 espresso stand, 1 gas station, 1 barbershop, 1 post office, and a steadfast refusal to be politically or even geographically defined.  That is Boring, the land of continuous excitement, and Mount Hood's gateway to Clackamas County.  Within that aggregation rise a few warm hearts who, over the years have contributed significantly to the pleasantries along a bi-way of life, known to the outside world as Oregon Highway 212.  They are the focus of this month's entry.

Barristas and bartenders must have the same degrees hanging somewhere in their establishments, though I've yet to spot them.  Mixology is one that's mandatory.  To be successful, both have to know the deft touches for the perfect blend of flavors, and if they know their patrons well enough, they don't ever have to ask what the latter would like to quaff.  They already know, just as they already know their clienteles' favored conversational topics while the drinks are being prepared.  Our own barrista of ten years, Jeff, also has this vital degree in communications.  Its a cinch that he runs through his own mental checklist every morning as we drive up:  the San Francisco Giants, the University of Portland Pilots, our two-mile daily constitutional on the Springwater Trail, etc.  And when he invariably asks us, "How's it going?", he's genuinely interested in our answer.  There is nowhere else on the planet where you can enjoy up-beat conversation while purchasing the tastiest of double lattes with sugar-free vanilla; all for the almost-embarrassingly modest tab of $2.50.  Take that, Starbucks.  Espresso Depot (hard by the post office) rules!

               The year we retired from the ed. biz was also the year that Annie retired as my personal barber.  Yours truly did not have to venture far to find her successor.  Enter Wendy, proprietor of Wendy's Salon.  The first thing a newcomer notices on entering this establishment is not the old-timey barber's chair.  No No. The big game hunter family patriarch has seen to that.  What greets you fore-most are the trophies, hung from three quarters of the walls of the business; heads of a cape water buffalo, zebra, and wart hog, for example.  She is a Cezanne with Scissors, especially when it comes to the limited distribution on this writer's dome.  Her popularity demonstrates that the "Salon" designation hardly dissuades legions of greybeards from frequenting her shop.  Her artistry includes the all-important attention to the eyebrows, lest they become "caterpillars", burgeoning above the baby blues.  Wendy, like our barrista, has a corresponding advanced degree in communications.  Your scribe just recently learned that his "every-other-Friday-gal" married into a family of former professional hockey players, who once played for the old Portland Buckaroos.  What a gab bonanza for the future!  Coif-clipping, beard briefing are, of course, standard entrees on her menu.  Ahh- but throw in guy-pedicures, and you've definitely changed the name of the game...though it must be confessed that I've yet to avail myself of this added dimension.  One is obliged to ask, where else in the free world can you have all of these services provided...in a museum of natural history?!

                 Presenting Helen Priority and Kristi First-Class; Boring's Marvels of Mail.  These ladies have special gifts which raise a p.o. trip to a plane above the mundane.  Among them are ever-ready smiles, words of levity and good cheer.  Not only that, they both are endowed with...let's call it "postal prescience", that for them foretells the exact request a customer will have before he even gives voice to it, ie.; "Are you here to pick up your mail?", which is almost invariably accompanied by "Where did your travels take you this time?" Patrons come into their place of business by the fives and tens every day.  How could either of them possibly suspect that this scribe had been travelling?  (Others might have presumed that I had been engaged in a covert CIA operation.)  "Care to resume delivery?"  "Would you like cash back with your stamps?"  Considering the vast array of services their employer provides, no ordinary, mortal clerk could possibly anticipate the specific need without an uncanny sixth sense.  It has to be much more than female intuition.  What's more, they are dear hearts.

               Three years ago, the Bride and I formulated a ten-year plan to vacate this abode, and transition to something more amenable to the inevitable.  The plan was to attack one room in our house each year, and eliminate all things within that we both agreed would be superfluous in the smaller picture.  Truth to tell, we have yet to confront that first room.  It's good people, such as these Boring Personalities, that make it easier to just kick back, forget the plan, and continue to smell the roses.

y

Sweet Mysteries of Life

During a lifetime, we must all acknowledge a trickle, like a leaky faucet, of questions for which satisfying answers could never be found; no matter how long we lived nor how far into the cosmos our thought waves radiate.  While we accept the fate, we are never dissuaded from posing the all-encompassing question, "Why"?  What follows, then, is a sampling of this writers collection; all prefaced with that single, solitary word, Why......

.....when we dine at a restaurant, does the bride always get the prime people-watching place at the table. while I get to stare at the wall behind her?
.....does "one good turn" always get her most of the blanket?
.....is it imperative for me to hang onto 150 vhs tapes of movies I watched once, and will probably never watch again?
.....Chica, our West Highland terrier, is forever being conned by jackrabbits into believing that they are catchable?
.....has life treated me better than I deserved, especially in matters matrimonial?
.....can't most women enjoy driving a car with a six-speed manual transmission?
.....do competetive juices need to surge when the car, once behind you, pulls up alongside to your right at the stop signal, while ahead of you, traffic narrows to one lane?
.....did the Wasco Country sheriff's deputy let me off, without even so much as a warning when he had me nailed for going over the 55 speed limit by a good 20 mph?
.....upon furtively reaching for my wallet as the plate is passed, at a church other than my own, are the odds less than 50-50 that the first "pull" will yield a bill that's the right "denomination"?
.....should I feel emasculated for no longer owning a pickup truck, nor having ever grilled steaks on a 500 hp barbecue with surround sound?
.....in our society, did an upraised middle finger become the commonly recognized gesture of scorn, while an upraised thumb has come to connote approval?
.....during some times of desperate need, has an angel, in the guise of a total stranger, appeared in response to that specific need?
.....do casual acquaintances casually ask, "How are you?", all the while knowing that anything more than a three-word response will probably amount to something more than they'd want to hear?
.....did a flock (yes, flock) of over thirty rufous hummingbirds gather, and hover like helicopters over our deck, of a summer's day, for close to two minutes before dispersing?
.....when traveling, does the outbound leg always seem to take longer than the journey home, even when the route is the same?
.....is it no longer astronomically correct to call Pluto a planet?  For heaven's sake, if it isn't a planet, what is it?
.....doesn't Hallmark call Valentine's Day what it is: the "Sweetie-you'd-better- deliver-the-goods-or-you're-toas-titos" day?
.....do rhetorical questions require a question mark?

"T" is for "Tolerance"

       It's a given: as attention-arrestors go, pet behavior is a slam-dunk.  The video clip which accompanies this entry is instructive, albeit in an admittedly simplistic and child-like fashion.  If only what is seen could be applied in the world of adult-like contention!  The interplay between puppy and cat does provide us with a teaching moment or two about the virtue of tolerance.  Who knows how much of the following litany of lament could have been erased, were principle offenders compelled to watch it, and watch yet again:
               A former Oregon State engineering student who happens to be muslim, failed in his attempts to detonate a bomb during a tree-lighting ceremony in a jam-packed Pioneer Square, a.k.a. "Portland's living room".  Short days following, an inmate in a local correctional facility was severely beaten; ostensibly because he happened to be muslim.  At about the same time, a mosque in Corvallis was fire-bombed.  (Whether either of the latter two incidents came as a consequence of the former is moot, and for the sake of this argument, frankly beside the point.)
                The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas routinely sends out "emissaries" to attend soldiers' funerals nation-wide, in protest.  Their claim is that war deaths are God's punishment for immorality in our society.
                Outside a Multnomah County tavern, patronized by gays, two customers are mugged.  The only "justification" provided was the victims' alternative life-style.  This is an all too frequent occurrence, according to sheriff's deputies.
               The forgoing is a small sampling of the most recent, local news items which underline the flagrant disregard for the freedom, and personal space of others.  Like weeds, swastikas and racist epithets blight the urban landscape.  Bombings of abortion clinics and murders of its practitioners continue.  So do trash-talk, arrests, and deportation of illegal immigrants who come to this country only in hopes of etching out a less meager existence in a world shadowed by fiscal ruin.
                 To those who pull constantly against the forces of greed, jealousy and hate, while pushing for humane treatment of others, you are to be commended.  As the poet/musician, Leonard Cohen, wrote, "There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in."  Thank you for continuing to seek it out.
               To the light-challenged we encounter, isn't it about time that we extend a calm, but assertive "paw" while admonishing with but one word...."ENOUGH!"?
               There is much to be learned from our pets.

(ed. note: The additional videos you may have noticed came as "part of the package", could not be separated or divorced from the intended, and do not represent the political views of this writer.  Asking him if the inclusion was really worth it, is a fair question.)

Verbicide

       Motherhood richly deserves its lofty status and celebrity.  It undeniably belongs just beneath God; and just above, the flag and apple pie.  It also occupies an uncontested niche, a few wrungs up from gold deposits (mother lode), computer circuitry ( mother board), and a time-honored anthology of chidrens' nursery rhymes.

          What distresses this writer is the absence of any veneration for the Mother Tongue.  Where, for example, would Mother Goose, or our pledge to "Old Glory" be without it?  Sadly, no national consciousness has surfaced in the cause of guarding and protecting our precious and beloved English language from the forces of decay.  The following  is presented as prima facie evidence of this neglect:  

Verbicide: The practice of arbitrarily ascribing verb status to words previously recognized as nouns only.  
            "incentive" which has been given coinage as "incentivize", as in, "to get others involved, we must incentivize participation."
             "message" with three (3) definitions in the Websters New Collegiate Dictionary; none of which are verbs has been "economized" by political pundits into "messaging" (v. trans.), as in "the brand x political party must do a better job of messaging its platform." (The economy must be found in the fact that "sending a message of....." requires four times (4) times the number of words.  That's obviously too labor intensive.
              "calendar" has transitioned into "calendaring" (v. trans), which has become a regrettable part of the spoken word of business, and is oft-heard in the vernacular of agenda: "Our next meeting will include the "calendaring" of the upcoming month."
                  A notable also-ran is "foundationing". which was summarily red-lined by this writer's spell-check software.

Misuseticide: Why can't disciples of our language make obvious distinctions of usage?  For example, "further" has assumed the meaning of "farther".  Can't we all agree that we travel farther on a gallon of Signal gasoline,  and not further?
Does anything further need to be said?  Well, yes.
                  In moments of candor,  practitioners have been given to say, "To be honest" as a preface to a heavy disclosure.  Oh, really! Should I be re-evaluating what you told me previously? Hmmm.  Maybe, if you had said, "quite frankly", any doubts could have been dismissed.

Overuseticide: "Twenty-four/seven" ("constantly" still works for me, and it's a two syllable-advantage in energy efficiency)  "There you go". (The standard charge for servers at a restaurant)  Well, where am I supposed to go, now that the meal is placed in front of me?  "Good job!"  (The classic phrase where high praise and low expectations converge)  Usually heard where minimal effort is expended, then acknowledged.  Commonly used with kids, while they perform tasks that are routinely expected of them as in: "You may have swung at the ball three times, and missed, but good job, Ned!"  In classroom evaluation, that's a "D-level" result, at best; accorded a courtesy "B".  (It is hoped that a "B" grade in the classroom still signifies above average performance.)

Frankensteinicide: Words so grotesque that they must have been created with spare parts in the baron's laboratory.  Foremost examples include: "Misunderestimated" (Dr. G.W. Bush), and "refudiate" (Dr. S. Palin).

         Please note that with all the "cides" previously taken, all were employed for illustrative, one-time-only purposes.

          Ironically, this eviscerating of the English language stems from the fact that it is a living language.  With every passing year, Merriam and his merry band of Websters invite new words and definitions into our lexicon.  Verbiage that was once unkown or frowned upon by scholars has become accepted. "Refudiate", for example, may well eventually be accorded rights of entry.
          Latin, on the other hand, is stone-cold dead.  Apart from adaptations in animal-plant classification, and medical terminology, it is totally immune to the abuses previously described.  "In hoc signo vinces" means the same as it did 2,500 years ago; when all of Gaul was divided into five parts!  There is absolutely no need to fret over revision or addition with this most respected of western idioms, and the fount from which sprung not only our Mother Tongue, but also the romance languages of French, Spanish, and Italian.  The Romans knew what they were doing, didn't they??
            So while, in some quarters, the hue and cry has gone out to "take back our government", let us lovers of a pure, perfect, and undefiled idiom unite with one voice to counter-call, "Bring Back Our Latin!!!"
            Here's to you, my mentor, Miss Schmidt.


                             

Lawn Sign Wars

Many years ago, Giovanni Guareschi wrote a book entitled, "The Little World of Don Camillo" in which he chronicled the life of a priest and his atheist-antagonist-mayor; both of whom lived in a remote village of the Po River Valley region of Italy.  Fr. Camillo and his advesary were continually jousting in a game of one ups-manship.  Many of these games resulted in dialogues which the priest would have with the crucified Christ, who resided above the altar in the church sanctuary.  The Don was perpetually rationalizing his behavior to the risen Lord, stating, for example, that a verbal zinger or a blow to the backside with a pine bough was completely justified.  Naturally, Jesus had an entirely different perspective.
                      Welcome now, to the little world of Hal Camillo, where he and his adversary dwell in a hilltop hamlet of seven homes, overlooking greater Boring, Oregon, in the shadow of Mt. Hood.  His antagonist lives across the road and a scosh south of the Don's compound.  Without specific labelling, let it be said that one household belongs to the "R Squad", and the other is affiliated with the "D Squad".  Suffice to say, "Research and Development" is not applicable terminology in this duel of wits and deployment, which began in the fall of an even-numbered year, over a decade ago.
                         In preceding years, all was bliss and brotherhood.  Together, principal parties would wine, dine, joke and lie at a fairly friendly, neighborly clip.  Then, it happened.
                          The "R Squad" fired the opening salvo with a single, distinctly colored political lawn sign on HIS grass adjoining the neutral zone, which is Wally Road.  Well, a report such as that needed an equal and opposite return of fire, didn't it, and it came in short order.  Each year the stakes have been raised to the point where now, one cannot see the the elision fields for the political turf tussle.  Our opponent has appropriated the sod of a kindred spirit (aka: "henchman"), whose property adjoins his.  However,  he has not found a way to stake on claim on blacktop.  Hence, the first sign any passerby sees as they climb the upper reaches of our hilltop belongs to the team with the greatest frontage, namely moi.  Moi may be outnumbered, but he is not outflanked.
                            It behooves a newcomer or tradesman travelling in the neutral zone to be aware that heeding the signs - either to the left or to the right - for a significant period of time, he/she does so at his/her own peril, lest he/she be stamped as either an R or D Squad sympathizer.
                             Two other considerations are worthy of mention:  Firstly, ours is a dead-end road.  The only regular traffic it ever sees are meter-readers, mail, parcel and newspaper carriers. Secondly, the most mature, rational explanation for continuing this political battle: he started it.  Forgive me, Lord.

Here's to the Class of '55

Every five years, as summertime nears,

An announcement arrives in the mail.

A reunion is planned; it'll be really grand.

Make plans to attend without fail.

I'll never forget the first time we met;

We tried so hard to impress.

We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,

And wore our most elegant dress.

'twas quite an affair; the whole class was there. 

It was held in a fancy hotel.

We wined and dined, and acted refined.

Everyone thought it was swell.

The men conversed about who'd been first
To achieve fortune and fame.
While spouses described their fine houses,
And how beautiful their children became.

The homecoming queen, who'd once been
lean, now weighed in at one ninety-six.
The jocks who were there
Had all lost their hair.
Cheerleaders could no longer do kicks.

No one had heard about the class nerd
Who'd guided a spacecraft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who'd always been plain.
She married a shipping tycoon.

                                                                                                                  The boy we decreed "most apt to succeed"

 Was serving ten years in the pen.

 While the one voted least was now a priest.

 How wrong we can be, now and then!

 They awarded a prize to one of the guys

 Who seemed to have aged the least.

 Another was given to the grad who'd driven

 The farthest to attend the feast.

 They took a class picture, a curious  

 mixture of beehives, crew cuts, wide ties.

 Tall, short or skinny, the style was mini;

 You never saw so many thighs.

  At our next get-together, no one had cared

  If they impressed their class mates, or not.

  The mood was informal, a whole lot more

  normal.

  By this time we'd all gone to pot.

It was held out-of-doors, at the meadow lake shores.

We ate hamburgers, cole slaw and beans.

Then most of us lay around in the shade

In our comfortable t-shirts and jeans.

By the fiftieth year, it was abundantly clear,

We were definitely over the hill.

Those who weren't dead had to crawl out of bed,

And be home in time for their pill.

And now, I can't wait; they've set the date!

Our sixtieth is coming, I'm told.

It should be a ball; they've rented a hall

At the Shady Rest Home for the old.

Repairs have been made on my hearing aid;

My pacemaker's been turned up on high.

My wheelchair is oiled, and my teeth have been boiled,

And I've bought a new wig and glass eye.

I'm feeling quite hearty, and I'm ready to party.

I'm gonna dance 'til dawn's early light.

It'll be lots of fun, but I just hope that there's one

Other person who can make it that night.

                                                                                                    

                                                                                         Iambic Hal-tameter, by poets laureate

                                                                                                                           Al Mond  and Phil Bert

                                                                                                                   

Ode to a Backstop

"TO everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose, under heaven." Who is to argue that the scribes of Ecclesiastes would not have included baseball backstops in "everything", had they but known?
           Our Beloved Backstop (hereafter referred to as "BB") has stood like a sentinel, watching over the diamond at BenWay Park-Rees(er) Stadium for eight summers.  Not only does it serve as guardian, it also has protected against a variety of slightly errant deliveries; from the knuckler, slider and cut fast-ball (all questionable) to the patented mystery ball and hesitation pitch (legitimate and verifiable).  A plethora of players, from as far away as Indianapolis,  have taken their swings at the plate in front of its perch.
                    It also has stood watch as Ben, the elder grandson, first cleared the fence with a mighty blast in June of '08, and Rees, the younger, followed suit two months later.
                    As the picture above attests, our BB has withstood the withering effects of the sun's glare in the central Oregon savannah since the summer of aught-two.  The strike zone shows symptoms of attrition, commonly referred to in humans as middle-age sag....not that any batter ever conceded a called strike to an un-erring, but voiceless umpire - sag or no sag.  It has endured the indignity of countless patchings and re-bindings, yet still manages to nobly preside over an infield with foul lines and pitcher's mound that are non-existent.
                 Every Memorial Day Weekend, "BB" has been paraded out of the shed; lately to the strains of the Colonel Bogey March (think: "Bridge on the River Kwai"), and correspondingly retired every Labor Day, all performed with the fervor, if not the precision, of a drill team.
                Alas, nothing lasts forever, as the characters of Toy Story 3 will tell you.  Ben, now approaching his fifteenth birthday, walks around the bases, unless severely challenged.  The Elder even suggested that our baseball be switched from soft hide to wiffle.  Evidently, the search for the homerun ball, after the fact and beyond the fence, has become a tad wearisome.  The Younger still swings and runs with gusto, and the fence, for him, still beckons.  The angst inevitably returns when pondering how long these good times will last.
               As Woody allowed to Buzz Lightyear, Mr.&Mrs. Potatohead, and company, "We all knew this day would come."  Understandably, their owner couldn't bring it upon himself to tote along his precious relics of childhood as he headed off to college.  So, it must be reluctantly acknowledged that other diversions and venues will one day occupy the place now held by "BB" and the spartan patch of turf in the backyard of 157 North Circle Drive.
               Yes, Lord, it all must come to pass.  But please, don't let this season be the last....for the sake of the Backstop, of course.