You got the stuff, man???

Word spread like a prairie fire in August.

The first hint that there was a fresh supply in the county and someone was holding came when we were at Walgreens replacing toothbrushes – those on the rack in the bathroom had suffered an unfortunate mishap, due in part to the poor planning by an architect 80 years ago who decided that placement of the toothbrush holder over the toilet made sense.

Architects will have their own form of purgatory, and it involves having to live in the houses which they have designed, with doors that swing the wrong way, light switches placed so they are impossible to find in the dark, and outlets behind the only possible place to locate a couch in a room that are a mere six inches beyond where anyone with common sense would place them.

But I digress. We needed new toothbrushes.

We stopped by after dinner and overheard some buzz in the store as we shopped. It seemed they had H1N1 vaccine. You couldn’t be sure, though, and an inquiry to the young lady manning the front cash register proved to be less than informative. She was more interested in when to go take her break than actually answering questions about the availability of the shots.

I’m not sure that I can blame her, though. At 20, flu shots seemed much less important to me than break time, too.

Figuring it was just a rumor, we headed back to the house and stripped down to our “flop around and be comfortable clothes” to watch television.

What if it wasn’t just a rumor, though? Could we risk not checking it out?

A phone call back to Walgreens to talk to the pharmacy confirmed the chatter. They did, in fact, have the vaccine and would be dispensing to those in the defined categories until 10:00 that night.

It was 9:08 when we leapt into action.

First, we had to change back into something acceptable to go out in public, lest we end up on the drugstore equivalent of www.peopleofwalmart.com. A vintage and very comfortable Lynard Skynard T-shirt from 1973 was hardly going to fit the bill for “appropriate attire”, especially since it seemed to have spent some time as a piano dust rag during its life.

At the same time, messages started going out. Networks had been informally created for weeks to spread information about who was “holding”, or where you could get good “stuff”. Crystal Meth dealers got nothing on people intent on flu shots. Calls and messages went out, bringing people who would normally be in their pre-slumber torpor by that point in the evening wide awake and ready for action.

“Hon, I got the hottest tip in the County.”

“Really? Who got caught in bed with someone that shouldn’ta been there? Somebody die? That guy at the farmer’s market gonna have them big mums for $5.00 again?”

“No, nothin’ trashy like that. Walgreens has H1N1 flu shots. Haul your butt on down there NOW!”

But I’m halfway through a bottle of wine.”

“Good, just bring it along with another glass. I need a bump and will meet you in the parking lot.”

Thus people in various states of dress found themselves rushing to Walgreens to hit before the bewitching hour when the magic elixir would stop.

People were, for the most part cordial and well behaved. There was no pushing or shoving, no whacking with canes or tripping to get ahead. A very pregnant woman dragged in with her husband, haggard and quite obviously in the latter stages of their vigil much like Mary and Joseph on the donkey looking for rest and succor.

Chivalry is not completely dead in the South, and most everyone insisted that they take the front of the line although there was some shushing of those who dared murmur objections.

There was more eye as the young lady who was doing the intake asked, “Now which of the categories do you fit,” the vaccine being available only to those in one of five specified categories.

Honestly, the poor woman waddled like a duck who’d swallowed a basketball, and “pregnant females” was at the top of the list of qualifiers!

You learn a lot about the people in your community standing in a line like that. Those ugly Croc shoes are far more popular than one would think. Did you know they make a fleece lined version? More than one person has bedroom slippers that do not match. Throwing a sweatshirt on without thinking through the fact that in order to get a vaccination one must bare a shoulder seemed to lead to more than a bit of embarrassment.

Note to self – Momma’s admonition to always wear clean underwear has some merit. It is interesting that the people driving the fancy cars and living in the gated neighborhoods sometimes have the dingiest undies beneath those designer clothes!

It was like the line at the methadone clinic had suddenly transported itself to a retail outlet except the nurses in scrubs were on the receiving side of the counter rather than the dispensing one. Many, many texts were sent to lots of people about where to make a buy and the line continued to grow, the pharmacist on duty being unable to stab and push the syringes faster than the waves of people converged. The buzz in line was that the store manager had put an announcement on the marquis outside, drawing the public in off the street. The fact that word had gotten around was confirmed when those in line started getting messages from others about availability at this venue.

Soon our names were called. Proximity was our friend and we had the good fortune of being at the front of the line. I hadn’t been that excited over getting a shot since I was four and being prepped for kindergarten. There was a lot less anxiety and fewer tears this time, although in retrospect I regret getting it in the same arm that only yesterday got both a tetnus booster and a regular flu shot. I shoulda spread the love a bit to the other arm.

People left with that kind of relaxed look that addicts take on after they’ve had a fix. Although the vaccine carries no buzz, peace of mind is in itself a high to be appreciated.

The chaser from the wine bottle in the parking lot didn’t hurt any, either.

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!!!

OK, maybe it’s not really, but the signs are already there that it soon WILL look that way. It’s not like you can tell by the weather. In North Carolina, you can wear shorts and short sleeves well past Thanksgiving. In a place that sees less than 4 inches of snow a year on average, the weather is hardly a good indicator of the season.

Nope, I base it on something much more reliable than the weather. I saw my first displays of Christmas merchandise in stores at the beginning of this month. I can almost forget about that, though, because it does take time and planning to decorate, especially if someone is going to go all Martha Stewart and stuff. It seems like the big hobby stores have their stuff out by the 4th of July.

That’s somewhat understandable.

This was Target, though, that not only has decorations and Christmas cards out already, but they’re playing Christmas carols in that department. It’s not store-wide yet although I suspect that will change on Sunday, when November arrives and we are suddenly thrust IN THE SEASON.

Having worked retail at Montgomery Wards for many, many years in high school and college, I can’t imagine listening to that same tape over and over and over for all of those weeks. There, the music didn’t start until Thanksgiving weekend and it still drove us crazy after the first two or three days. Of course, there aren’t nearly as many clerks in a store now as there was then so it doesn’t impact quite as many people.

Small comfort if you’re stationed under a speaker playing Muzak versions of the same 15 carols over and over and over.

The other thing I’ve noticed is the toy-push that’s happening on television already. Kiddie toys aren’t just advertised on Saturday mornings or during the day any more. Now, they’re being hyped during prime-time adult programs, I suspect to get the discretionary grandparent dollars that might be available. After all, Nana and Paw-Paw have to know what the kiddies are begging for before they can be expected to go and buy them.

The first television commercial playing a Christmas Carol (that I saw, anyhow) appeared last week, too, but it was for some place offering to buy your old gold and jewelry to give you Christmas money, so I’m not sure if that counts.

I’m not sure that I’m ready to even anticipate Christmas ’09 yet, although it’s gotten much easier over the last few years. The kids are now old enough to make specific requests, and then to follow it up by sending links to the items online. They recognize the value of having something shipped directly to the house, and that it takes time for Santa’s little UPS elves to get all of their chores done.

The magic of the surprise may be gone a bit, but as they’ve gotten older they’ve learned that surprise can be offset by getting exactly what you want instead. Surprise is left primarily to grandparents who have more time to shop.

In our family we don’t do presents with adults in the family any more, having decided that we already have too much ‘stuff’ and not wanting to add to it. Instead, especially as the senior family members have fallen away over the last few years, we recognize the gifts of conversation and time are much better, plus they don’t have to be stored or dusted. We also like the experience of travel, and those experiences make a gift that never goes out of style as well.

So I don’t think I’ll drag the decorations out of the attic just yet. I need at least a little bit of chill in the air to begin to get in the mood, and that’s not possible while the trees still have leaves on them.

But it’s coming, sooner than we realize.

Merging Errors

I’m late with today’s post because I was in a minor fender bender while running an errand this morning.

Fortunately, it wasn’t anything big, nobody got hurt (unless pride counts, of course). I simply tried to merge my big Ford pickup over a little plastic car that I didn’t see. There were reasons, of course – the sun was shining so that I didn’t see the little black car, there was a big semi in the middle of the road trying to make a turn and the little car came around it, but the reality is, I didn’t have the right of way and I zigged when I shoulda zagged.

The damage to a 10 year old pickup is infinitesimal. Had I walked out to the parking lot I likely would not have noticed it, and if I did I would have thought, “Hmmm, wonder how that happened,” and went on. The corner of my front passenger bumper nicked the rear drive’s door on the other car, then scraped along it until the back wheel well.  There are far worse badges of distinction as to how I've used the beast over the years, and this on hardly merits mention.

I’ve hit parking bumpers harder.

The sad reality, though, is that parking bumpers are harder than little plastic cars. They’re probably less expensive to fix, too.

We pulled into a mini-mart, got out and looked at his car – after all, the damage to mine was self-inflicted --and exchanged information. Had the damage been in the low-dollar category, my intent was to simply pay for it rather than submitting it to the insurance carrier and being subjected to higher premiums.

Part of what surprised me was the other driver’s reticence to take the information I gave at face value. Color me naïve, but I dutifully wrote down my name, address, telephone numbers, insurance carrier and policy – all that good stuff you’re supposed to swap.

It never occurred to me that someone would give false information like that, but he was thinking that might happen.

After waiting about half an hour with still no sign of a police officer in sight, though, we both were ready to be on about the day. I finally convinced him that the data was accurate by showing him my driver’s license, insurance card, and letting him call my cell phone so that he could hear the phone ring.

Eventually, we parted ways. About an hour after I got home, he called with an estimate from a local body shop. The cost for my little lapse of judgment is now going to exceed $1,500.00, including a rental car for the two days his car will be in the shop. Given that, it’s been turned to the insurance carrier who assures me that it won’t cause me either to be dropped or the premiums to go to something just shy of the national debt. They’ve already called for my statement and confirmed that there’s coverage, even for a rental car for the other driver, so other than a bit of nuisance things should be back to the way they were in a few days.

It’s kind of a sad commentary on society, though, that we have to be so suspicious about other people, especially if we think they’re going to be untruthful, or not, “. . . do the right thing.”  I totally understood the other driver's reticence and thought he was pretty sharp about it; I woudln't have thought of the cell phone thing, but will file that lesson away, though.  I may as well get something out of this mess, after all!

The tuition for that pass/fail class was bit expensive, though, and I’d just as soon not repeat it if possible.

Within .... Thus .... Without

There was a time when going to a conference or seminar had two aspects of continuing your education. The first was the more formal, stated reason – the class is about a particular topic, and you learn about that topic in the lectures and, later, watching the unending PowerPoint presentations.

Sometimes, though, this wasn’t the most important part of the learning process. After all, you could get most of the knowledge offered in the class from the book or materials provided, should you actually chose to read them.

Incidentally, does anyone ever really come away from a continuing education class and actually read the materials afterwards? Everyone I know just grabs the forms, then when the topic comes up again they look back at the stuff as necessary to get through the immediate project. After a while – either when the bookshelf gets full or the material becomes dated, the binders and essential bits are harvested like organs from a donor and another topic takes its place.

The more informational aspect of many seminars, though, came from the conversations that you had during breaks with the other attendees. It was a way for older, more knowledgeable professionals to impart some of the “tricks of the trade” to newbies. I don’t know how many times the random person I sat next to at lunch ended up offering suggestions on how to approach a situation I might be encountering at work, thus making my life easier.

The more gray hair I got, the more that I got to be the one offering suggestions, too, and in this way refined my own craft since explaining something to someone makes you think through how and why you do particular things, thus getting the fundamentals down.

In the last few years, though, that sense of camaraderie has tended to go away, sucked into the ether by those little musical totems that most everyone carries with them from the moment they get out of bed in the morning until their eyes finally shut at night.

I speak, of course, of the cell phone.

Now, instead of chatting with the folks next to you while standing in line for the buffet that invariably includes some form of chicken, most everyone seems to instantly clap their little noisebox to their ear and immediately depart to the far corners of the meeting halls to call the office, their spouse, the babysitter, or any of the other places that seem to need our attention.

Before cell phones, when we knew that there were only 6 pay phones for 150 people attending a seminar this continuous contact wasn’t possible. The important people in our lives were simply told, “I’ll be unavailable tomorrow. Handle it.”

Amazingly enough, things usually got handled. Those that didn’t waited until the following day. If something was really, really urgent, a note got put on the door at the conference hall, but that rarely happened.

Instead we talked with people who had similar interests, sharing tips and suggestions, and occasionally made a friend of a colleague.

I remember reading sometime in the early 1990’s a book by Faith Popcorn called “The Popcorn Report.” In it she predicted a future trend of “cocooning” whereby people retreat into their own dark little world exhausted from the constant barrage of people, things, and technology. At the time, I thought it was referring to staying at home and isolating ones self. Now I realize that you can do that anywhere by simply holding the box to your ear or putting in your earplugs – instant solitude.

But I do miss the occasional random chat at a conference.

Ancestor Traits

It’s happening. I never thought it would, but it is. The older I get, the more I’m turning into the generations of my family that went before me. I think this is further proof in support of the genetic quality of “nature v. nurture.”

In some cases, things have skipped a generation. I note that I’m becoming my grandmother more and more.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

She embodies many admirable qualities which I sometimes don’t allow to shine in myself. She is unfailingly polite and nice, even to people she doesn’t care for. That group of people is few and far between, at least as well as anyone can tell because she seldom says an ill word about anyone.

In years past, I thought children rushed to her because of her personality; I now suspect it’s also now in part because physically she and the children are the same size. She’s lost about 4 inches of her claimed height of 4’11 and stands a mere 4’7. On a good day, she totters at 88 pounds. She is a tiny bird of a person, but with a spirit and personality that is much larger than her physical presence.

Until age and infirmity took it from her, Grandma was always the gardener. On the farm where she lived for almost 50 years, and where I remember spending substantial amounts of time growing up there were things green and growing everywhere. She saw the beauty in the symmetrical rows of corn and potatoes, in the bushy heads of cabbage, the yellow of a squash blossom, and the enormous leaves of the okra plants and pumpkin vines. She marked the milestones of the seasonal lives of these plants by bringing in evidence of the garden’s progress and bounty into the house to show my grandfather, who was a paraplegic from early in their marriage and for the last 45 years or so of his life.

Her soil-based prowess wasn’t limited solely to those things that could be harvested and put in jars of home canned goods in the cellar, either. Nearer the house, she struggled to make rose bushes bloom, shade trees thrive and flowers appear on the landscape. The harsh environment of western Oklahoma, very near the geographic center of the 1930’s Dust Bowl, didn’t afford a great deal of encouragement considering that water was a precious commodity to be used sparingly just to keep things alive, much less to encourage them to thrive.

A lawn was not even a consideration and the Bermuda grass that managed to stake out a hold was mowed as required, but was allowed to blend with the clover, chickweed, sandburs and other things that seemed to invade. Every summer evening, though, when the sun finally stopped baking the earth for the day, this tiny wisp of a woman dragged several hundred feet of garden hose from plant to plant, daily visits to friends who, like her human friends that were aging, depended on her for companionship as well as sustenance from the realities of climate.

I’m like her in that I got her gardening gene, although not especially of the vegetable variety. Instead, I see in myself her desire to work in the yard, to always add more, to move an ill placed shrub, or to change the landscape to achieve a particular goal. A small Japanese Maple, rescued from a construction site several years ago, moved four different times in our yard before finally finding the perfect place to call home.

Whenever walking through the yard or garden, Grandma’s hands are seldom idle. Should someone drop by to visit and find her working out of doors, they will soon find that work doesn’t cease just because they’ve graced her with their presence. It’s far more likely that they’ll find themselves picking tomatoes or harvesting zucchini while they chat, and then a large paper grocery sack of produce will go home with them.

I love sharing the starts and blooms from our yard with those who stop by to admire, sometimes random strangers who simply want to know where to purchase something they see growing at our house.

Sharing is another aspect of her life that I find I want to do, sometimes to the chagrin of the recipients of my bounty. The old joke about “how many zucchini do we have to take to get tomatoes” works on other things as well. I’ve been known to thin my iris plants and take off on a Saturday morning, driving through the countryside looking for other people who have iris of a color that I’d like to introduce to my yard. You just pull into the driveway, introduce yourself and offer to trade. I’ve yet to be turned down, and frequently have offers of others or different plants that I couldn’t see from the road.

That inability to stop moving, to be unable to sit and enjoy the yard and the beauty of the plants and the birds, is another gift (or curse) from her. I may sit in the shade to rest for a bit, but I soon look out and see a branch on a rosebush that needs trimming or where the cheet grass has invaded the flowerbeds. It won’t take a minute to pull those out, so my brain says, although in reality I find that it’s often hours later, my back is stiff from bending over for so long and I’m being directed to come back inside and engage with others, the day having slipped away amidst the greenery.

These qualities are ones that I get from my grandmother – or at least, I hope that I get them. I’m different, of course, in that I’m more prone to pull out a sharp retort than to ignore the slight. I frequently avoid people that I simply don’t like and at times have the W.C. Fields attitude toward children (“Go away, kid, you bother me”). Perhaps, however, that is the nature of time and evolution; we gather and embody those traits that are embedded in our DNA and allow them to mutate slightly.

Today is her birthday. It’s the first in 86 years that she’s not been around to celebrate, as her journey on this world ended last January. It was time for her to move on, as everyone – including she – recognized. Her mind had begun to shrink in on itself just as her body had been doing, so that the only acknowledgment that those who loved her were coming to say their last goodbyes a smile, and later just a blink, as she prepared to leave the prairie plain she’d lived on for so long and rejoin those who went before.

It is a testimony to how much she was loved that her family (most of her friends having already passed beyond) wanted to see her, “. . . just one more time,” before she left this life. She knew, though, and gradually responded less and less, as her hugs held on for just the right amount of time in both greeting and departure, easing the transition for those who remained behind. Her love and concern for others continued to her last moments on earth.

The world will have less beauty because of her departure. I’m thankful that I got to say my goodbye while she was still responding and have no regrets about not returning to Oklahoma for those last few days in the nursing home. Just before we parted for the last time, she left her dementia for a few minutes to say goodbye to me. Her eyes were the sparkling blue that I remembered from childhood, sharp and clear and unclouded by confusion.

Although it’s been almost a year, I still miss her. I hope that what was good in her will show as being good in me. So I plant the green things. And pull the weeds. And share the bounty with others.

And I wish her a Happy Birthday today.

Fryin' Chicken

I had to reprogram the television remote because of its impact on kitchen appliances. It’s not that the little invisible ray that comes out the front was making the microwave incinerate things. I had to remove Food TV from the channel lineup because of the nasty impact it was having on things at home.

We’re big fans of Food TV. At first, it was things like the grilling programs, then it was the contests where guest chefs from around the world created impossibly fantastic sugar sculptures, cakes or other things entirely of food. They had to operate within a specified amount of time, usually under some adverse conditions, and then had to carry their creation over an obstacle course, or at least from the kitchen to a display table, all without it crashing to the floor.

It was more exciting than NASCAR, although the anxiety over the crashes was about the same.

The remote had to be reprogrammed because of a program by Alton Brown called “Good Eats”.

This is a great show. It takes all the stuff your Grandma taught you about cooking things and explains why it works the way it does. “Yes, things taste better if fried in hog lard. But only until the heart attack and then you’re gonna be facing a lifetime of iceberg lettuce. How about a little moderation in the meantime?”

I happened to see one show in particular twice. Alton talked about how to fry a chicken.

Not to dump it in the little deep fryer with the plastic lid that holds grease from eons of the past, like a starter on some alternate energy source for mankind, but like Grandma and Momma did, rolled in flour and in a big cast iron skillet with a crispy flavorful crust composed primarily of the skin of the poor beast.

I know, you’re not supposed to eat the skin. But this is real fried chicken, not something that the Colonel trolled in from a megavat and left under a warming light for a while.

It looked easy enough. First, he talked about the reasons for buying a whole chicken and cutting it up yourself rather than letting the grocery store do it for you. I should have changed to an infomercial about making my fortune flipping real estate right then; it would have been less expensive and time consuming.

I’d never before cut up a whole chicken. I like the little Styrofoam trays that keeps actual physical contact with that oogey yellow fat as far away from me as possible. But I decided to have a go at it, to get the “full culinary experience.” Julia Childs would have been proud. Mom would have said, “You’re crazy; that just makes a mess.” Unfortunately, I didn’t consult Mom before starting this adventure.

The first problem is finding a suitable knife. Had the movie Psycho been filmed in our house, the infamous shower scene would have had a very different outcome; Janet Leigh would not have screamed in horror when the curtain was pulled back, exposing the knife poised to slash. Instead, she would have simply said, “I told you to get the chicken already cut up; you know that thing is as dull as a hoe. Now get out, I’ll be done in a minute.”

I had two fully cleaned chickens, though (one was backup) sitting on the counter and waiting to become dinner. I had on my apron (showing that I was serious about this whole process), had selected the largest and sharpest of the utensils available and a frontiersman’s determination to reduce these things to a dinner that would have made my ancestors proud.

Instead, I ended up with a kitchen that looked like a crime scene, missing only little white chicken-shaped outlines taped around on the counters and floor. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that eventually the carcasses were hacked into chunks small enough to fit into the skillet. They were in no way identifiable as poultry, though, and had little resemblance to the parts neatly packed in the Styrofoam trays down at the Piggly Wiggly.

All this time, Alton’s program continued on the television, having been faithfully saved as a real time tutorial, should I need it, exhorting me to mind the skin, because this was the best crispy part.

The only way the skin on that chicken was going to be crispy was if I scooped it out of the sink and fried it separately. For the most part, it had ceased being the biological constraint that held these poor hens together and had been reduced to offal, cast away like those bits and pieces that the grocer had already taken care of for me.

You’re supposed to then go through this long process of soaking the chicken in buttermilk, then sprinkling it with spices, rolling it in a flour mixture, dipping it again and then a final roll in the flour. The resemblance to powdering a baby’s butt was unavoidable – it also felt like the kid was trying like the dickens to get away, as the various chunks of chicken kept sliding through or around their intended targets. The “5 second rule” for items that hit the floor was liberally interpreted on the theory that hot grease will kill most anything infectious.

By this time, I was over two hours into the project with no sign of dinner. All thought of “letting it rest” before frying was out the window. I wanted to hide the bodies, scrape up the crime scene tape and drink something strong to erase the vision from my mind.

That wasn’t going to happen, though, because, “. . . we’re not wasting good food!” This reasoning is not rational, but it is ingrained upon my DNA, having been methodically reinforced by Dad whenever I faced something I didn’t care for on my dinner plate while growing up.

I’d dutifully filled my deepest frying pan with enough oil for a Roman orgy and was heating it to the prescribed temperature, trying to figure out how to suspend that glass thermometer so that it was at least an inch from the bottom of the pan and yet an inch below the surface when there was only 1 ½ inches of oil present.

I’ve seen turkeys fried in those outdoor contraptions before. The thought of watching the oil flow across the kitchen, spreading a lake of fire was on the radar scope as not being outside the realm of possibilities given the tenor of things thus far. I paused to make sure that the fire extinguisher in the pantry was readily accessible.

After about the third time the thermometer shot off the side of the pan like a rocket ship into orbit followed by splashdown in the pool of heating oil because that silly little metal clip doesn’t fit right, I gave up and decided to wing it, so to speak.

Erring on the side of “hotter is better” because there’s little that’s more unappetizing than rare chicken, I cranked up the burner and the first piece went into the pan. I think it was something from sort of in the breast area, kind of a big piece, although that really would not have been possible to determine without forensic reconstruction.

I’ve got pretty quick reflexes, but you can’t clap a lid on poppin’ grease fast enough to stop the mess. It’s also amazing how grease can aerosolize and make it across the entire kitchen in far less time than it takes to use up an adult male’s entire vocabulary of obscene words (including those normally reserved for hanging wallpaper).

Recognizing that by now that renovating the kitchen again was going to be easier than cleaning it, the rest of the chicken went into the grease at once and I held the lid down while something that felt like a thermo-nuclear explosion happened in the pan.

It was about this time that “someone” wandered through wondering when dinner might be ready, since it was already an hour beyond our normal eatin’ time. Big guys in their late 40’s are like babies – if we don’t eat regular, we get downright cranky, and once a schedule is established, biology is not to be denied. We won’t go into the response, other than to say that a large glass of red wine soon appeared at my side, after which I was again alone amidst the carnage.

Trying to tell when the inside of the chicken is done by looking at the outside is apparently a skill lost to the ages. After burning one side like an offering to the Gods, flipping it and cooking the other side until it looked “about right”, we sat down to eat only to find the insides still cold and pasty.

There’s a reason that the Colonel has stayed in business all this time. It’s pretty good chicken, and even if you factor in the time it takes to get across town and order, it’s faster than cleaning up the kitchen. If you add in the cost of remodeling after the grease fire, it’s actually pretty economical.

And now all the food programs have been blocked from the television remote.

Flic my Bic

When I was a teenager back in the dark ages of the late 70’s, we went to concerts. It didn’t matter whether you liked the music or not, the social aspect was far more important. I wasn’t a big music fan, but even I went to see Linda Ronstadt, Styx and a myriad of other B-level musical groups who made it to our college campus. I couldn’t afford tickets to A-level groups, and besides, the pot smoke always made me sleepy.

I didn’t smoke – pot or cigarettes – but the few times that I went to a concert I made sure I always had a lighter.

Why? So that you could “flick your Bic” and hold it up in the air and wave with everyone else during the ballads or when asking for an encore. It was a way to make sure that the performers knew that all the people out there in the dark appreciated their efforts – we could shine a tiny little light for them.

Of course, smoking -- tobacco or pot -- is no longer allowed in big auditoriums. Smoking overall is down, which is a good thing. But it means that people at concerts no longer have a lighter to wave.

From the perspective of thirty years older, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – all those open flames in that crowd is just an accident waiting to happen. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for crowds anyhow. I know where emergency exits and bathrooms are, in case I should have to suddenly depart for either.

There is a solution to the social unacceptability of open flames in confined areas that satisfies most everyone. You see, you can download an application for your iPhone that imitates a cigarette lighter. There are several to choose from, some free, some for a fee.

Probably the most ironic thing is that there’s a free one from Zippo (yeah, the same folks that made your grandfather’s lighter – they’re still around) that actually acts like the old style lighters. You touch your phone’s screen in certain ways to get it to perform. You can even customize the case on the screen so that it has a theme appropriate to the user.

The last concert we went to was a couple of years ago when Cher, was on one of her “Farewell Tours”. 12,000 fans, most over 40, dancing in the aisles and singing along. Unlike 30 years ago, lots of us got tired about halfway through and had to sit down. There was a shortage of handicap seating, and more than one person opted out of their “good” seats down low rather than brave all those stairs while being supported by a cane or walker.

Some of us also had ear plugs, recognizing that the decibels of our childhood have already come home to roost. Whoda thunk that you only get a limited number of those to use, and once they’re gone you can’t get any more? There are only so many bars available on the television volume control, and for those of us already in the upper realms, we got to ration what’s left to make sure we have enough to last!

But there weren’t any lighters to wave for Cher. All those geriatric fans had either given up smoking or were no longer the rebels that would have lit up -- cigarettes or pot -- during the concert regardless of the rules.

Next time they can go to the concert and hold their virtual flames high, because as the ads say, “. . . there’s an App for that.”

Except for those of us who have Blackberries. We still have to stop at the 7-Eleven and get a 99 cent Bic on the way to the concert. And make sure that we go to the bathroom while we’re there, because there’s always a line at the auditorium.

Ants!

We’ve been invaded by ants. Specifically, those tiny little black ones that seem to appear every spring. As best I can figure, their little biological clocks are out of whack since they decided to appear well after Labor Day and are still hanging around some weeks later.


What’s disconcerting is that they don’t seem to be waning. When they first appeared they were in their usual location – following the edge of the countertop, across the front of the sink and toward the microwave. There were occasional disbursals along the way, depending on whether or not we’d forgotten and left something edible out.

It’s not a rare event, and not even that alarming. They come every spring like the flooding of the Nile. Usually I put out a few drops of some type of bait that contains Borax and they’re gone within 48 hours.

Not this time, though. It’s been weeks, and I daily refresh the bait cards, replenishing the clear drops where they line up around the edges, like cars at a 1950’s drive in as they sip at the little hooka bar which I’ve created for them. Unfortunately, they appear to have simply become lethargic, laughing at juvenile jokes and slapping the ant waiters / waitresses on the backside while copping a feel of their antenna as they walk by. My kitchen counter has, in effect, become a crack house for ants.  I am the cranky neighbor that keeps calling the police to complain about traffic and parking and noise.

This is not how it is supposed to work. They’re supposed to eat the bait, take it home to their wives and kids, and then all go to sleep and never wake up so they don’t come back into the kitchen. Instead, I’m beginning to suspect that some are hooked and I am their dealer except that I don’t have a tricked out SUV with those wheel covers that continue to twirl as the car sits at the light while my stereo causes the windows to rattle for a five block area as I drive by.

In the past I’ve tried other things to get rid of them. Herbal remedies that are laughable and toxic poisons make me afraid to afterward kneed bread dough on the counter for weeks afterwards. In a fit of pique I once sucked a large swarm of them up in the vacuum cleaner, which proved to be a decidedly unfortunate choice since I didn’t think afterwards to throw the bag out immediately and they were merely relocated to the hall closet and pissed as hell.

In the meantime, though, I’m hoping that it’s a problem that will resolve itself as soon as we get our first freeze. Otherwise, I may be destined to spend the winter feeding and clothing them in the warmth of the kitchen. One would only hope that they’re like a nice retired couple, fleeing the frozen north, and not the wild spring break kids looking for a place to party.

My Rant About Illegal Immigrants

I hire undocumented aliens to work for me.  And I intend to continue to do so.  Normally, I’m pretty “by the book” and law abiding.  I’ll argue a point, but eventually I give in and follow the law.  This is an exception.  A law (actually, a set of laws) this wrong is in a different category.

For all the venom and hatred being spewed about by some folks about “illegal immigrants” it’s time for someone to take a stand for these guys.  Sure, there are some bad guys out there. Some drug dealers, murders or rapists.  Although I haven’t seen any hard studies on it, I suspect that they exist in about the same ratios as the population in general, including all of those uber-conservatives with confederate flag bumper stickers who are quick to point out what a drain these individuals are on “our” resources.

Let’s put a face on those undocumented folks, though.  The face I’m thinkin’ about in particular are the two kids that come work in my yard on a more-or-less regular basis.  Just for convenience sake, we’ll call them “Desi” and “Ricky”.  They’re brothers, 16 and 14, and are a couple of the nicest kids you could possibly hope to find.

Desi, the oldest, is kind of quiet and reserved at first.  After he gets to know you a bit, you learn that he’s an honors student in high school and is in martial arts classes after school.  He did play soccer, but had to quit when they moved to a different school district this year.  He's read most of the Harry Potter books.

Ricky, his brother, is 14 and a soccer whiz.  He’s in the 8th grade, has a grin that could melt butter and, like his older brother, is in martial arts classes at school.  They have 2 younger sisters and live with their mom and dad, who are married.  Desi was 4 years old and Ricky was 2 when they came to the United States.  Their next sister was an arm baby, and the baby sister was born after they arrived.  Of the six, only little Lucy is a “legal” resident.

I first learned of this family when a friend of mine called and said I needed to hire them to come do some yard work.  Dad, who’d worked in the same factory for over 10 years, was a victim of the economy and had been laid off.  Incidentally, he has a tax ID number and has paid his income taxes every year, just like us “legal” residents do.  After Dad lost his job, of course, they soon lost their home.  Who among us could continue to afford to put a roof over their head if their job went away?

So I hired them to help with the yard work.  I expected the two boys to show up and was a little surprised the first day when Dad was right there with them.  Although he didn’t speak much English, relying on the boys to translate, his eyes told me all that I needed to know – this was someone who was worried about how he was going to provide the necessities of life for his family.  He was determined to do a good job, and to make sure that the boys did, too.

Now, my grandfather, who was a very wise man and was well schooled in the art of extracting useful farm labor from teenagers often said that, “One boy’s a boy, two boys is half a boy, and three boys ain’t no boy a’tall.” 

This probably was a commentary on how much my brothers and I fought.  That wasn’t the case with these guys, though.  They never slowed down.  If there was a slight pause, Dad was right there focusing their attention back on task.  The next day, Ricky had a soccer match and didn’t come, but Mom was  there in his place.  She worked just as hard as the guys, and, thankfully, understood that not everything green in the flowerbed was a weed before coming across the fall bulbs that were starting to show through the mulch.

This started a pattern.  Ever 3 or 4 days Desi calls to see if the lawn needs mowed or I need any help.  If the weather’s good we’ll work in the yard, and if not we’ll work around the basement or doing other things that every house needs done.  Because it’s soccer season now, a lot of times it’s just Desi, so we get to visit a bit and I’ve gotten to know him.

You learn things doing mundane jobs like bagging lawn clippings or sweeping the sidewalk or hauling junk out of the basement.  Desi is a junior in high school, and left all his friends behind when they had to move from their home to the 14 x 70 singlewide mobile home they now occupy.  It’s in a different school system, and of course there’s no question of trying to go back to the other school. 

He worries about the fact that he can’t go to college and may be doomed to a life of common labor, without the opportunity to seek something better for himself or his family.  The family talks about the need for him to go to college, and there’s some discussion about him going back to their country of origin for that.  Such a plan presents a different set of problems, though.

Although both of the boys are bilingual, I asked if Desi thought he could do college level work in Spanish.  He doesn’t think so.  After all, he hasn’t ever had to read or write in Spanish.   It’s the primary language at home, but that’s all spoken.  He recognizes that he doesn’t have a good concept of grammar or sentence structure.  It’s a concern that a 16 year old kid shouldn’t have.

There are other things that they can’t do because of their status.  He can’t get a driver’s license, that right of passage for virtually all 16 year olds.  He won’t be able to get married whenever he falls in love, can’t go visit his grandparents in Mexico, or do any number of other things that we “legal” residents take for granted.

And yet, he wants to stay here.  Not to sponge off of the community, but to become a productive part of the society in which he has lived for most of his life.

This young man came here when he was 4 years old.  His siblings were even younger.  Realistically, they had no input whatsoever in the decision of whether or not to come to the United States.  Just as any other child would be, they were brought along for the ride.  To demand that they return to another country to live at this point makes about as much sense as telling me to sprout wings and fly.

Punishing people in this position makes no sense whatsoever.  These kids had nothing to do with the decisions that were made by their parents – the same decision, incidentally, which many of our forefathers made -- to simply try to go somewhere else to make a better life for their families.  They’ve been educated here, they speak English, they listen to the same music as other kids their age and go to church in this community.  They deserve, if not to be made full citizens, to at least be able to become law abiding by being allowed to get drivers licenses, go to school and make a better life for themselves and their communities. 

People breaking the law and coming to the United States as adults is a problem and they should be held accountable.  Our laws will determine if that means that they must pay a fine, go to jail, or even be removed from the country.  Children who are brought here, though, are not criminals, they are victims and they should be treated as such.

Salaries of Not For Profit Executives

Not-for-profit (NFP) organizations are justifiably taking a hit right now.  In addition to the poor economy, some have made some absolutely horrendous decisions that haven’t just jumped up to bite them, but have, instead, turned around and chewed off an arm.

Part of this is due to the individuals involved.  Many executive directors, especially after they’ve been in a position for a while, come up with a sense of entitlement that you don’t often see in other entities.  This is especially true in faith-based organizations, especially when they become the “family business” and the first generation of protagonists begin to give way to their children and grandchildren who take over operations.

Mind you, I have no objection to hiring the kids.  It’s a tough market out there, and there aren’t a lot of jobs for high school or college kids to fill.  It’s when they move up from stuffing envelopes to positions of responsibility and the “faith” part of the entity begins to take a considerable back seat to the “business” part that problems begin to occur.

One only needs to look at the Billy Graham Industries to see a perfect example of this.  Let me start by saying that I have a great deal of respect for Billy Graham individually.  I may disagree with his religion and his politics, but he started and grew a business that employees a lot of people and did a lot of good work.  Initially, his organization was very transparent and he and Ruth lived an extremely modest lifestyle.

For the last few years, though, given Billy’s advanced age and declining health it’s been operated by son Franklin, who’s twice the businessman that Billy ever thought about being.  He must be, because until he was exposed by a charity watchdog group, he held down the equivalent of two full-time positions, each with salaries beyond half a million dollars.  When confronted about it in the newspapers, he asked the Board of Directors to reduce his salary to zero for one of the entities, saying, “. . . it’s just not worth it.”

This happened just a few weeks after these organizations laid off dozens of rank-and-file employees, citing declining revenues and economic necessity as the reason.  Assuming a $40k salary for these individuals, at least a dozen of them could still be employed if it were not for Franklin Graham’s actions.

The problem with this kind of double-dipping in the NFP world, of course, is that it’s not like a hardware or grocery store, where you’re exchanging goods and services for fees.  Instead, the entity is asking the public to give money to be used to either further the goals of the organization or to benefit some third party.  There may not be a tangible product to which you can point as having been produced or distributed.

If I give money to be used to feed orphans, I expect that some part of that will go to pay for stamps and stationary and shipping and the administrative people that see that things get done.  I probably don’t expect to be funding a new Lexus for those people, though, or book-match walnut paneling in a corner office of a high rise office building.  That’s part of the social contract that’s implicit, if not explicit, in the transaction between the donor and the recipient organization.  When excessive amounts of the income don’t go to provide the benefits intended, but instead provide excessive perks and an over-the-top lifestyle for the individuals charged with fiduciary responsibility for the organization, it’s time to look at problems within the system.

Part of the problem comes with the faux-religiosity associated with many of these entities.  It’s fine to have a moral compass that guides your actions.  It’s important to make sure you don’t have the magnet of money throwing off the readings.  That, unfortunately, is one of the big problems that Franklin Graham is confronting right now and it may be the downfall of this institution.

Organizations that claim a base in religion are even more accountable than other NFP entities.  They are combining their “good works” with proselytizing of their beliefs which almost always have a moral element related to honesty and integrity.  When it comes out that their execs have their hand in the cookie jar, not only is their particular organization harmed but all faith based entities bear the brunt of their indiscretions. 

I am suspicious of any individual or organization that has either religious symbols or bible verses printed on their business cards or stationary, not because I am necessarily anti-religious, but rather because my experience teaches me that anyone who has to TELL you how religious he is probably wants to use that as a cover to keep you from SEEING how he or she doesn’t necessarily apply those principals to their lives and business transactions.

The argument of a “sacred calling” with regards to individuals leading these organizations tends to start to fall short after the 2nd generation or so, as well.  While one of the 12 Tribes of Israel may have had religion as the family business into which sons followed fathers, you seldom see that in modern churches or religious groups, and skepticism grows when we get to the 3rd and subsequent generations.  Too many preacher’s kids, choked down by the expectations of their families and the congregations that the parent pastors, run far away from the seminary as a career path and when they come back to the fold it’s primarily because they see the easy money to be made.  I note that Billy Graham’s children and grandchildren are now fully employed in the religious business and can’t help but be a bit cynical.

In a typical family business, adult children are frequently employed.  After all, if you’ve got a deadbeat child who can’t hold a job, and if the business is large enough to support it, eventually the kid will be hired in the home office.  If this does nothing else, it will get mom to stop nagging dad and quit worrying about how Junior is going to pay his bills.  If they’re going to finance poor choices anyhow, they may as well try to get some return on their investment by putting him to work.  Over time, hopefully, the kid will pick up some life skills that let them advance and begin to take more responsibility in the organization, maybe even pulling their own weight.  If not, well, Junior’s probably impacting no one but the family, who are making those choices with their own assets. It wouldn’t matter if it’s a grocery store, a dry cleaners, or any other business. 

The difference between the deadbeat kid working in the family dry cleaning business and working in a religiously based not-for-profit organization is that people remember where you came from.  If the son embezzles money from the dry cleaners, people remember and think, “Well, he was a wild kid.  His dad should have known better than to trust him.”  The company lives or dies and it’s of no more consequence to the community than the existence of any other business.

If he’s a pastor of a multi-million dollar TAX EXEMPT not-for-profit organization, though, lots of people are impacted.  Donations are cut off immediately – after all, unlike the grocery store, we don’t have to make charitable donations.  That is soundly within the realm of discretionary income for most people, and there are usually other causes which most individuals could or would support with those funds.  Even if they want to stay within a particular religiously based entity, it’s usually possible to find something else that has a similar mission without the taint.  It’s also easier than changing dry cleaners, because the purchaser / donor has no direct tangible return for their actions; the warm fuzzies we get from doing good things don’t have to emanate from a particular source; they come from the universe at large.

The thing that Franklin Graham and so many other executive directors has failed to recognize is that he is constantly under scrutiny, and has an obligation to be above reproach.  Politicians and captains of industry may be excused their indiscretions, because there isn’t necessarily a moral component to their professions (although I do admit a particular delight in discovering yet another conservative pundit or politician who has decried his righteous indignation at some liberal who’s engaged in a dalliance of one sort or another and is then caught, sometimes quite literally, with his pants down). 

I admit that I have no personal stake in Franklin’s actions.  I don’t agree with either the religious position or the politics of Billy Graham Industries, and my charitable dollars don’t go there.  My indignation comes from knowing how many elderly people especially, thinking they are doing good to help provide those truly in need have basic hygiene, education, or the other necessities of life, continue to donate to keep this type of hypocritical activity going.  If this is a calling rather than merely a career path, it would appear that Franklin is a wrong number.

Integrity is defined as many things.  One easy to remember standard, though, is that it’s a matter of simply doing the right thing when no one is watching.  Laying off dozens of employees because of declining revenues while keeping not one but TWO jobs which provide total compensation of over $1.2 million annually is never the right thing, but it’s especially not the right thing in an economy that is causing more and more people’s hopes and dreams to be crushed through no particular fault of their own.

One has to wonder what Billy would think, were he able to understand the shame his son has brought upon him.

Screwing In A Light Bulb

Dear Brother,

Just wanted to write and thank you again for the Gift Card to Super Mega Hardware that you sent for Christmas.  I went to there early Saturday morning to spend it.  We have a new superstore which is conveniently less than ½ a mile from the house now – much like putting the liquor store next to the AA meetings, it is something of a mixed blessing for me.   I thought you might find it interesting that I didn’t spend it on anything frivolous or silly, although there’s not much in there that qualifies as either of those in my opinion.  As Dad taught us, every project is the opportunity to acquire more tools.         

Instead I bought light bulbs.  Not those fancy curly ones that are all the rage now – we’ve got lots of those and are changing them out as the old ones expire – but instead on some teeennnnyyy little ones that are probably the most important bulbs in the house.

 It’s those little halogen ones that go in the kitchen stove hood.  They are the “NNNnnnnggggghhh – where’s the coffee” bulbs that produce only enough light to allow you to squint through the steps of creating that nectar of the Gods without searing lightning into your brain before you have sufficient caffeine in your system to provide protection and working brain cells.  The ones that put out enough light to make sure you’ve grabbed the regular COFFEE and not that wimpy decaf stuff.  They are probably some of the most essential light bulbs in the house, and they’d both been burned out for a couple of weeks and added to a general irritability with having to deal with mornings which tend to come sometime between 4 and 5.  Incidentally, those tiny little bulbs are $5.95 each.

Since I was on a light bulb kick in the kitchen, I decided to tackle the oven bulb as well.  If you think back to when we were growing up, appliances took a clear 40 watt bulb that screwed in to a normal fixture.  I always assumed something was special about it because it cost about 6 times what a regular bulb did and came specially packaged so that you could fling the bulb across the room while trying to pry it out.  In my cynicism of midlife, however, I begin to suspect that the hype and packaging was just a marketing ploy as I note that the same bulb works in the stove, refrigerator and microwave.  If it’s that versatile, it can’t be that special.

Our stove, however, doesn’t take one of these $1.99 appliance bulbs.  I didn’t know what it took, as the cover over the bulb (another innovation) was so securely fastened on by the factory that I couldn’t loosen it with my bare hands, and there are labels plastered all over inside there that warn “DISCONNECT ALL POWER BEFORE CHANGING LIGHT BULB”.  I am not sure how they keep from burning up inside the oven, but that’s another mystery to ponder at a different time.  I suspect the warning labels are there mandating that you cut the power  because the darned cover is fastened on so tightly that you’re likely to shatter it before you get it loose, and the inevitable blood could cause an electrical shock.

The problem, of course, is that the “power connection” is on the wall next to the floor behind this 400 pound stove that is fastened into a granite countertop, the adjacent cabinets AND the wall, just to insure that it doesn’t accidentally move.  It took 4 stout young men and a variety of levers, along with some powerful incantations that would have made Mom blush, to get the thing up the stairs, through the door and wedged into the appropriate spot.  Since about Thanksgiving of last year when the bulb burned out it’s just seemed easier to shine a flashlight through the oven window if there was something that I really needed to see.

t was fairly early in the morning, though, and still too cool and damp to go work in the yard, so I decided it was time to tackle this minor annoyance as well.  Armed with an assortment of screwdrivers I took out the oven racks, contorted myself into a position that defies the laws of physics and guarantees that I will at some point need a kidney transplant (please, take care of yourself, dear brother, since you are the most likely donor) and started to take out the light fixture inside the oven.

Except that it wouldn’t come out.  After I extracted myself from the required yoga position, got my “workin’ cap” with the little headlights out and my reading glasses, I tried again only to find that it wasn’t, in fact, a hex head screw but was instead a bolt.  Some nitwit bean counter with the manufacturer had apparently saved three-thousandths of a cent each by buying fasteners that didn’t have screwdriver slots cut.

By now, the workout of getting in and out of the stove was such that I’d done away with the need to go to the gym.  Again I climbed out of the stove (which is actually pretty roomy, except that I jump every time I hit the heating element, convinced that it has somehow turned itself on in punishment for my declination to disconnect the power to change a simple light bulb) and went to the basement for more tools.  I got found my sockets, put them back in order since I dropped the toolbox coming up the basement steps and spilled them all, and for the third time climbed back into the stove and removed the light fixture.  The elapsed time to change one light bulb was now exceeding 45 minutes with no end in sight.

After that, the job went pretty smoothly other than trying to stuff the insulation that came out with the socket back into the body of the stove.  The little screws, which wouldn’t break loose with the small socket handle, had obviously been installed by the brother of the guy at the filling station who thinks it’s OK to put your tires back on with a pneumatic wrench set with enough torque to spin the car around like a carnival ride, a sadist who has no empathy or compassion for his customers who’ll be stranded alongside the road in the dark and rain, cursing him as they try to change a flat with that little pressed-metal wrench for removing lug nuts that comes with cars today.

The oven bulb, incidentally, is also halogen, with 2 little prongs rather than a screw in base.  When I got to Super-Mega-Hardware, I discovered that they sell no less than 50 of them, all with microscopic writing on the base of the bulb in special iridized disappearing ink that you can see when turned at an angle so that your eyes can’t focus on what it says, but which disappears instantly when you put on your reading glasses and try to hold it under the “good light”.

Of course, since the bulb I was replacing was installed by the manufacturer in some third-world sweatshop, it doesn’t look exactly like any of the choices at Super-Mega-Hardware, but it looks “pretty close” to about a dozen and “nearly like” three.  In my attempt to reduce consumption and shrink my carbon footprint, I resisted my gut instinct, which was to buy one of each, knowing full well that those that didn’t fit would be relegated to the junk drawer in the kitchen and would never be returned, but would remain there until the other occupants of the house decided that they’d had enough and throw them out, after which I’d melt down because “. . . those cost money” and “. . . we might need them someday.”  Do not try and understand the rationality of that argument, there is none, but nonetheless that’s where it would go, genetics being involved and all.  You are my people, and I know you understand these things.  The fact that these tiny bulbs ranged in price from $5.95 to $11.95 probably had something to do with my decision as well.

My karma was good, however, probably improved from the chanting and yoga that I’d done earlier in the project, and upon my return the bulb slid into place, the cover was returned with reasonable force to insure that it functions as intended but can be removed in the future when necessary, and I went on to my project of the day – a “bottle tree”, a fine southern tradition that reuses the wine bottles we’ve been saving at a rate of about 3 or more a week for quite some time.  So long, in fact, that I may have to construct a “bottle forest” rather than a single tree.  I am looking forward to the increased storage space once they’re relocated, though.

I went to the basement, which has recently been cleaned to the point that there is reasonable workspace available, strung appropriate extension cords since there are NOT outlets conveniently placed there yet, spread out all the tools and materials only to find that my brand new $10 electric drill from El Cheapo Discount Store had quit.  It’s right there on the shelf, next to the other 3 name brand (and more expensive) drills that have also quit, and for which I still have hopes of finding a repairman.  This means yet another trip to Super Mega Hardware today . . . . .

Love to you all,

LJ

People of Walmart

There’s a website out there that has caused me to change my entire thinking process.  It’s not, as one might hope, one that might cause me to think on a deeper philosophical level, or to examine how I might better serve mankind.

Nope.  It’s www.PeopleofWalMart.com, and invites it readers and participants to snap photographs of outrageous people and things that they observe at this ubiquitous retail blight that defaces most of civilization.

As you might surmise, I am not a fan of this retail behemoth.  In my former life in local government, I had the opportunity to interact with the folks from Bentonville and experience first-hand some of their Mafioso tactics that put most street gangs to shame.

“What’s that?  You don’t like some building or zoning requirement in the City Code?  Of course, we’ll be glad to change it just for you.  We understand that you will crush us individually as city employees and as a municipality, in part by leasing up empty big box buildings and leaving them as a blight on our landscape if we don’t conform.  No, never mind that you will put a dozen locally owned businesses that have been a part of our culture for decades under in less than a year.  We don’t mind at all, especially since our citizens will now be able to shop 24 hours a day for things you’ve imported from foreign and exotic lands.  Yes, we understand that you’ve bought them there because our own American made goods simply weren’t cheap enough, considering that our laws require something close to health and safety standards, not to mention above-slavery wages for those who work there.  No, I don’t mind sharing my resume and last employee performance evaluation with you at all, to make sure that I meet your specific requirements for a government employee in a city where a Wal Mart is housed.”

Excuse me, I realize I’ve gotten off track.  Even though it’s been years, I still have the occasional nightmare and the therapy simply isn’t sufficient to do everything at once.

Wal Mart does offer some benefits to the community, though, especially for those pseudo-social scientists (i.e. “loafers”) who like to sit on the benches or in their cars and people watch. 

If there was ever a place that offers a cross-section of the community, this is it.  Because they’re so successful at running other people out of business, eventually most everyone will have to go to Wal Mart sometime, just because it’s the only place within a 100 mile radius that you can buy a particular item.

There are those, however, who view these treasure troves of retail veneration as a virtual nirvana, a social marketplace as well as the mercantile, to hang out, visit with compatriots and potentially meet your life-mate.  I’m sure there are dozens of stories about those very things, and probably a website devoted to them as well. 

That’s not what www.PeopleofWalMart is about.

Instead, contributors are urged to use their cell phones to take photographs of the myriad of outrageous things they observe in Wal Mart and then post them to the internet for the enjoyment and ridicule of others.  You can even comment on the various photographs, should you be so moved.

If you watch this site over a few days (and you will, because it is a mental narcotic that lures you back with the siren-song of curiosity as to what will next be posted), you notice one overriding thing.

People don’t really pay attention to what they wear in public.  Well, they may pay attention, but there’s such a wide range of what seems to be “acceptable” for public consumption in terms of wardrobe selection that there are those at the end of the bell curve that truly seem to draw attention.

Or, maybe even more surprising, they simply don’t seem to draw attention.

There was a time when an obviously anatomic male, complete with a full beard and mustache, choosing top wear a pink chiffon evening gown down the grocery aisle at 2:00 in the afternoon might have been so far outside reasonable that people would have doubted the reporter.  Photographs show that it barely draws a glance from other shoppers in Wal Mart.

Although I wouldn’t go that far, I have to admit that there have been times that I’ve considered leaving the house in an oversized black T-shirt with the motto “Save the Ta Ta’s” emblazoned in pink lettering and a pair of gym shorts that have survived the 30+ years since high school as an amazing testament to a 100% Cotton - Made in America – buy quality it’s a good value -- ideology to become my “flop around the house” wardrobe of choice.

After all, I’m just running to Wal Mart to pick something up.  Who’s going to care?

With the advent of cameras in cell phones, though, it’s not only possible to provide evidence of how low your standards are, but to share that with thousands of others.

Not that my shorts and T-shirt would even begin to make the cut, though.  Given the bazillion Wal Mart stores currently in just the United States alone, such attire would be close enough to the center of the bell curve to fly under the radar.  While that particular wardrobe might offend our children if they were accompanying me (an unlikely event since, having turned 16 and becoming mobile on their own we are seldom in the same physical location), it’s not going to even raise a blip on the national radar of Wal Mart folks.

Most of the things that show up on this site are not of individuals for whom you would have sympathy such as the homeless or obviously mentally ill.  Instead, most of these people have apparently put a great deal of effort into selecting their apparel, coordinating colors not only on their own bodies but also with those other individuals accompanying them.  One has to wonder if the “his and hers” zebra print tights came from Wal Mart, or if a more upscale boutique is required for that level of fashion.

Having some element of personal pride I now stop at the door when leaving and ask a few basic hygiene questions:

Is this outfit inappropriate for a man approaching 50 who believes that you should get the benefits of gym membership by merely paying your dues, rather than having to actually GO to the gym and break a sweat?

Did today’s wardrobe selection come from a local thrift store, or is it likely to be recognized by anyone who previously may have discarded it as too impossibly ugly or inappropriate to wear in public?

Does it hide all my “jiggly bits” sufficiently to prevent inappropriate anatomy lessons to prepubescent individuals who might be present?

And, of course, the voice in the back of my head, like most everyone else’s, is asking if I have on clean underwear, just in case I’m in an accident. 

That one is somewhat superfluous, though, if the pictures are to be believed because there are a significant number of people who dress for their shopping experience in such a way as to leave no doubt that underwear should be on their list of things to pick up or, alternatively, that a thong is apparently appropriate regardless of age, gender, or body mass.

If I pass these tests and meet the further requirement of not accenting my increasing tendency toward “Paw-Pawdom” (i.e. no black dress sox and wing tips with Bermuda shorts, regardless of how comfortable it may be), I am allowed to leave the house on my journey to retail nirvana. 

Since discovering this website, though, I now take an extra minute or two at the mirror by the door to make sure that I’m not camera-worthy.

I also make sure that I’ve got my cell phone; after all, you never know what you’ll see at Wal Mart.

Introduction

Larry J. is an overeducated late-40’s guy who seeks validation as a stained glass artisan, accordion player and Master Gardener in Hickory, North Carolina, where he lives with his life partner and cares for the ashes of his dog, the ever-faithful Bull, safely ensconced in the top drawer of his nightstand.

He is the author of a number of technical and professional articles in necessary but mundane topics about which few people outside very narrow fields of interest read.

Recognizing that he is doomed to continue a life of quiet desperation absent publication of something read outside a dentist’s office with only the choice of “Municipal Government” or “Periodontal Monthly,” he’s decided to try his hand scribbling about his travels, observations on life in general and the occasional rant about various stupidities in the world today.

These activities are made possible only through the generosity of his partner who is usually very patient with the creative process, as long as something is produced on a somewhat regular basis.

His life goal is to write something that takes longer to read than the average visit to the bathroom and which might actually be referred to in an e-mail between individuals not related to him under the subject line, “You gotta read this.”