First come, first served

My mind wanders. And while it’s out wandering, it wonders. Who’s flying that plane that just passed over my house? Who’s out mowing their yard at 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning? Who’s going to clean the cat litter boxes?

Washing dishes by hand really sends my mind out for a hike. In the year I was born — 1962 — Judy Garland became the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. Why was I thinking about Judy Garland? I was scrubbing the leftover enchilada casserole off a dinner plate, the combination of grease and dish soap formed a rainbow in the dishwater, Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Judy Garland, and there you have it.

Remember Hazel Johnson? She became the first African American woman to become a general in the U.S. Army. She was Chief of the Army Nurse Corps in 1979. My brother joined the Army in 1984. He drove tanks. He hurt his knee in 1986, got a medical discharge, and started working for American Airlines. Gen. Johnson retired from the army in 1984. They just missed each other. What a shame.

I was in the Air Force. In basic training, we learned about The Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military pilots and support personnel to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. I think about them every time that Vietnam-era Huey helicopter flies over my house. I drop my wash rag, run out through the front door in the hopes of catching a glimpse, and am so thankful I didn’t break a leg running down the front steps. Boy, that would be a bad day.

Gus Grajales was the first Mexican American I ever met who grew up in the Lower Rio Grand Valley. He lived in Harlingen, Texas, about 30 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. I met him in college. He played trombone and was the funniest guy in band. Everybody loved Gus. He died a few days ago from cancer. We were the same age.

I can’t remember a time when chemotherapy wasn’t available in the fight against cancer. We can thank a lot of people for that discovery, including Min Chuiu Li, an immigrant from Shenyang, China. He was the first scientist to use chemotherapy to cure widely metastatic, malignant cancer. Unfortunately, the disease was just too much for my friend Gus. 

Nobody really knows who invented the first kitchen sink. It just developed throughout the ages. We started out drinking water from puddles, somebody invented the spoon, somebody’s mother thought it might be nice to clean it every now and then, and there you have it — a kitchen sink. Building and health codes soon followed, the Victorians stopped dumping their chamber pots into the streets, people started living longer, which brings us to the modern day where we hate the regulations that keep us healthy, so “Don’t tell me that I have to wash my hands before heading back to work. I’m not a pre-schooler.”

There’s no telling who will be the first person to walk on Mars. I just hope I’m still alive to see it; to be in awe once again of human ingenuity. But go there myself? No way. We’ve got “awe” covered right here on good old Mother Earth. Enough awe to last forever. Green grass, eagles circling on thermals, neighbors helping neighbors, snow, birthday parties, new discoveries, love. And let’s not forget our… hold on a minute.

No worries. Toby the Siamese had a King Snake cornered in the front yard. Pert near dropped a soapy dish trying to get out there and referee. But he had it covered. It was awesome. You’ll never see THAT up there on the Red Planet, no sir.

Getting into good trouble

Just putting our shiniest protest on.

Welcome to the Variety Show

My long-dead father didn’t rear me to be no left-leaning hippo who’d stand up on all fours to openly opinionate on every dipsy-doodle decree of the government, no sirree. If the president said to pay $20.50 for a half gallon of Blue Bell Vanilla Ice Cream that cost only $10.25 the week before, then by golly we were paying the $20.50. We may not have been able to buy vegetables that month, but we were certainly not going to whine about it like some tree-hugging sociable vegetarian.

And what would he have thought of an executive odor distinguishing only two kinds of Ice Cream, Vanilla and Chocolate? It would’ve whiffled my Dad a bit because he loved Strawberry, but he would’ve adapticated. He’d just order his Banana Splint with two dollops of Vanilla and a Chocolate in the muddle. No muddle, no fuddle. 

“Add extra nuts and lots of whiffle cream and you’ll never know the deference,” I can hear him saying.

My long-dead mother certainly wouldn’t have minded the abstinence of variety in the grocery store’s Ice Cream Freezer. No more having to ponder if Dad would like the Jamocoa Almond Fudge this week or the Old Fashioned Butter Pecan. 

“The Neapolitan? Not in MY house,” I imagine her shouting. “Vanilla or Chocolate. Shoot, maybe I’ll buy both.”

Of course, my parents would’ve been solidified to know the exclusion of all the other flavors would pert near put Baskin-Robbins out of business.

“But that’s the troll you pay for wanting to live under a ’Nothing But Vanilla or Chocolate’ bridge,” they might have said. “If you want to surf a rainbow, then move to Portugal. Or Canada.”

Let’s now imagine the Soup Aisle in this crazy “can’t happen in a million years” world. Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Chicken. That’s it. Anything else would be particularly prohibited. Are you pining for a portion of pretentious Pork N Pea Soup? Sorry. That’s been alliterated. 

“Mushroom or Chicken. Those are the candidates,” my Mom might have said. “If you can’t vote for either, there’s plenty of White Bread and Vanilla Ice Cream in the House and Senate.”

Speaking of White Bread: the bread aisle would only promote White and Wheat. The store manager could have told poor Pumpernickel that hard work might earn him a spot on the shelf, but that would be “playing fair,” and we’ll have none of that around here, mister. 

“Howdy White and Wheat! Welcome to our humble store, and enjoy your stay,” the manager would ceremoniously salute. “Pumpernickel? You’re not welcome here,” he’d sermonize. “Somebody should arrest you, put a brown paper sack over your head and ship you back to where you came from.”

But I am not my parents.

Vanilla and Chocolate are fine, but life is so much richer when you can choose between Cookies N Cream, Dr. Pepper Float, The Great Divide and Gooey Butter Cake. 

Having only two varieties of soup is just not fair to the millions of Clam Chowders, Ramens, Italian-Style Chickens, and Poblano Pepper & Corns that live among us in peace and harmony.

And no one has the right to tell me what Bread I should or shouldn’t eat. Sourdough, Dark Rye, Cornbread, Baguette, Brioche, Himbasha. They’re all good. To say different would make you no better than a card-carrying…

Not seeing the good in variety is like cooking with only Salt-N-Pepa. Sure, they’ll do in a pinch, but there’s a lot to be said for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Spice Girls, Sugar Ray, Bananarama, and The Bacon Brothers. And who among us would cast a stone at bacon? Certainly not me, you silly nilly.

The Morning Star

Taking a photograph of Venus with your cellphone is like taking a photograph of a chipmunk on a pile of rocks with your vintage Kodak Instamatic X-15 film camera. You could've sworn there's a chipmunk in that photograph, but for the life of you, you can't find it.

Venus comes out a little better in photographs, but still, it's not near as impressive as seeing it early in the morning while you're trying to convince the dog that it's really better to pee in the grass than on the carpet.

I'm just a guy

The human body is capable of withstanding a tremendous amount of hardship, whether it be suffering through polar vortexes, desert heat, ultra marathons or waiting for the grocery store to restock their shelves with more Blue Bell ice cream. But when you talk about the demands on the human body brought about by fatherhood — well, that’s a different story.

I remember when my children were young, I had no problem waking up to a child’s blood-curdling scream in the middle of the night and trying to calm them down after they’d had a nightmare. (Usually they were about being chased around the house by a hundred scary grey-haired grandmothers trying to change their diapers.) Today, I’d sleep right through the world coming to an end. 

I was proud of being an awesome horse because I knew my back could endure a gallop through the house with a young rider in the saddle. Today, anybody asking me for a ride is going to hear me saying “neigh” in no uncertain terms.

It didn’t bother me too much when a child would repeat, “Do it again, do it again,” after seeing me stump my hoof on a sofa leg and fall to the floor in a fair bit of pain. Today, they’d probably just put me out of my misery.

But what I couldn’t handle — and still can’t as a grandfather — is trying to figure out what my wife would spell at me so our children wouldn’t know what we were talking about.

“After we finish D-I-N-N-E-R, do you mind taking them all O-U-T-S-I-D-E and playing B-A-L-L with them?” she might ask, spitting out letters faster than I could interpret. “Then when you bring them I-N-S-I-D-E, I’ll give them a C-O-O-K-I-E and you can give them a B-A-T-H and put them to B-E-D. OK?”

By the time she’d finish spelling B-E-D, I was just understanding what D-I-N-N-E-R meant, and I knew I was in trouble because she wanted an answer and I was still trying to figure out the question.

My wife, mother and mother-in-law could sit and spell at each other for hours. It could have been Klingon for all I knew. I’d wonder if women were born with this ability, or did it manifest itself when they gave birth? And why weren’t fathers blessed with the gift? Was it not an option up there on Mars?

My wife’s answer was always, “You’re just a guy.”

My kids are all grown up now, and nobody has wasted their time spelling at me in years. Until this past weekend.

We were on an overnight trip to babysit the granddaughter, when out of the blue my wife and daughter starting spelling all sorts of can’t-say-aloud words in front of the toddler. 

“You can give her a quick S-N-A-C-K at 3 o’clock, then take her O-U-T-S-I-D-E because she loves to S-W-I-N-G on the S-W-I-N-G-S-E-T. After that, she’ll probably ask for some A-P-P-L-E-S-I-P. That’s her word for A-P-P-L-E-J-U-I-C-E. Not to be confused with A-P-P-L-E-S-A-P, which she calls A-P-P-L-E-S-A-U-C-E. Any questions? 

I should have known my daughter was gifted with the spelling skill. Her husband and I just looked at each other and shrugged.

DAUGHTER: “Do they ever L-E-A-R-N how to S-P-E-L-L on the F-L-Y?”

WIFE: “Your F-A-T-H-E-R hasn’t in almost F-O-R-T-Y years. Maybe J-A-M-E-S will, but I wouldn’t B-E-T on it.

ME: “Hey, they might be talking about us. I think they spelled your name.”

JAMES: “I don’t D-O-U-B-T it!”

ME: “Et tu, Brute?”

 

I'm only here for the cat