Shuman Hall is haunted by the ghosts of my youth or "How many years did it take to get the smell out of your clothes"

"At the top of the stairs, take a right; go all the way to the end."

"Thanks."

I had been in this office before, tho it was a very long time ago, four/five sitcoms at least.  (Maybe it's the fact that I grew up watching "Mary Tyler Moore"

, "Laverne and Shirley" and "the Jeffersons", but, I tend to think of the different times in my life as sitcoms - and, yes, I have a theme song for most of them).  This had been the office of the Academic Dean and I had been up here for good reasons, bad reasons and dumb reasons...  Dean Collard (I couldn't tell you his first name) had been a prof that I'd had in college for a "Modern Thought" class.  He didn't lecture, he simply had you read a chapter and discuss it with him.  It was very tricky.  Oddly enough, it was one of those classes that required "permission" and how someone like me ever got in is still a mystery (to the other people in the class).

Dean Collard is long gone, but something he said back then still haunts me.  "Your generation doesn't pick up pennies because they don't see value in them.  When we begin to think of insignificant things as valueless things it hurts us.  We begin to think of insignificant people as having no value and it only goes down from there."  I started picking up pennies - and my friends started picking up Purell.

But today, I was on my way to see another Prof I had had in college. (It's funny to think that at 43 I am older now than he was when I had him as a professor).  When I got to the office that I believed was his I had a very strange feeling that I was in the wrong place.  Tho I couldn't put my finger on it until later, realize now that I still associated him with the "smell."  

I was in college in the 80s, he was a young man in the 80s...  in the 80s the cologne was Polo.  ...and he wore Polo.  Now, I won't remark that he wore too much cologne because Polo is one of those scents that is not unlike the QEII.  If you were in a row boat and were hit by the QEII you couldn't complain that the liner had hit you harder than was necessary...  ...and so it was in college that I knew he was coming down the hallways long before I ever saw him and years afterward the smell of Polo would bring to mind this man who was, at the same time, my professor and my friend.

Upon arrival at his "new" office (Dean Collard's old office) I had the suspicion I was in the wrong place because I did not smell the cologne - so odd how the brain works.

He was there and seemed genuinely pleased that I had come to see him.  We decided to go for lunch, Mongolian BBQ.  

Our conversation over lunch was what you would expect of that between the head of a college and his unemployed blogging former student from years past...

"What are you doing these days?"

"I'm unemployed."

"Which explains why you're in such great shape."

(If you read my blog regularly, tho we've never met, you can see the expression on my face.)

"When did you go blind?" was not my response.

"Was I that fat in college?" was also not my response.

Instead I laughed and said,

"It's amazing what a VERY TIGHT stretchy t-shirt will do to your body under a very loose sweater."  (and it is!) 

I was amazed to find that it did not seem at all as tho 25 years had passed since last I had sat to talk with him.

I was amazed to find that, when he began to suggest possible job paths for me, he was spot in terms of what I know and what I can do...

I was amazed to find that he had changed so very little and that, while I think I have changed so very much, (perhaps) I have not.

On my way back to the car, I glanced at the ground and saw an old metal spoon in the mud along the path.  It was bent and twisted, tho not rusty.  I left it where it was because it was garbage...  ...but it was right at the foot of a gate that I had never noticed.

 

-silly

Cheaters cheat, Liars lie and Dreamers dream (sometimes with hilarious results) or "It's not what you expect, but just what you want"...

I love to cheat and I love to lie.  

Never for personal gain or to harm anyone, but simply to play that fun little game that people play.  It's not unlike those scenes in the police dramas where the suspect is interrogated while the rest of the drama's cast (because there are no other criminals to catch) stands on the other side of the two-way mirror (or is it one-way?) watching it unfold.  Yeah, that's it really, I love to watch it unfold.

I was a youth minister for a while and always enjoyed working with the kids.  Being somewhat of a misfit myself I enjoyed the kids outside of the circle just as much as I enjoyed the ones that always seemed to shine.  Wiley was one of those kids.  Not quite part of the group, not really an outsider, just a guy with a self image that didn't quite function properly.  He prided himself in the fact that he never won anything and this got old with me really fast...

So, one Friday night the group got together to play some board games.  Out came Monopoly (UGH and Yuck - there is only one way to win at this game) and everyone wanted to play.  Wiley repeated the "I'll lose" mantra.  I explained that I always lose too (did I mention the lying thing?) and that, if paired up, we couldn't possibly lose.  (Flawless)  You see, I knew something that he didn't know...  every game has "givens" and in Monopoly they are:

A)  No one wants to be the banker

B)  No one watches the banker

C)  Players that run out of money lose

D)  The banker has an endless supply of money

So it went like this.

Out came the game.  Teams were picked.  Given A kicked in.  I agreed to be the banker.  

You do the math...

Sadly, when it was all said and done I realized that Wiley had most likely never won a game.  The look of surprise and amazement as we cleaned up the board was fantastic.  LOL...  watching him win and the others lose was more like a controlled experiment than a board game...  and my confession, after the fact, never diminished his win...  (of course, he's in prison now)

Not really...

...and that leads me to thing number 2.  The game of lying.

It's not about deceiving, but about toying with someone in regard to something so outlandish that they shouldn't possibly believe it...  People do it to themselves, I just play along.

So it is that I was having a conversation with a "continuing acquaintance" who has (and rightfully so) categorized me as "a creative type".  It has something to do with my being involved in theatre... so, when I told her that I was thinking of teaching, she asked if I would be teaching drama...  and when I mentioned that I went on an interview (I had an interview last week) she asked if it was for drama.

As an aside, this is enough to make me howl with laughter as one doesn't actually go on an interview "for drama"...   so this is how the lie unfolded...

"Hey."

"Hi."

"How's the job search going?"

"eh, ok, tho I did have an interview this week."

"Great.  Good for you."  Who knows why she didn't stop there...

"Yeah, well, we'll see."

"Was it for drama?"

"It was at an animal shelter."  In her defense, if there is one, I could have started the sentence with "No," but I hadn't thought that was necessary.

"Really?  What kinds of animals?"

"Dogs, cats...  mostly"

"Wow.  Now, have you actually done drama with dogs and cats before?"

(At this point one is not allowed to pause.)

"When I was working on my masters."

"I guess, I'm not certain how that would work."

"Well, you don't actually use a script."

"Of course not.  It's like improvisation?"

"...and choreography..."

"Oh, sure.  Movement and cooperation.  Probably very good for socializing the animals."

"Give me a job that requires a little imagination and I'm a happy man.  It's not really something I ever though I'd be doing."

"...but a dream job for an animal lover.  When do you think you'll hear?"

"Sometime next week."

"Great!  Oh good luck!  Did you see an ad for the job in the paper?"

"Um...  what?"  now I'm laughing.

"How did you find out about the job?"

...still laughing...

"What?"

(No way, right? no way!)

"Ummm..."

"Yeah, it's not really a job for animal welfare creative dramatics."

"Oh.  what's the job?"

"Book keeper."

"Oh" (the disappointment was nearly insulting) "have you ever actually done book keeping?"

"No, but I always end up the banker in Monopoly."

-silly

The Hopeful Archeologist or "Mr Martin takes a vacation"

When the girl decided that she would run the light instead of stopping it meant that I was out of a car for a while... and that was the first time I knew that Rick considered me a friend.  He called and offered me the use of their spare car.

"Can you drive a manual shift?"

"I can."

"Then you'll be fine, tho you have to be a little creative."

What he meant by creative was that the car had no 2nd or 3rd gear.  From 1st you had to shift to 4th, of course there was also the ever faithful Reverse.  It was a challenge, but I never had to drive it in traffic and the jaunt from home to work was just under 2 miles.  It was really OK.

After Rick's dad died he called me and asked me to stop by the house.  He and his wife and kids had lived in his dad's house to care for him; Rick wasn't fond of his father; while he spoke of his dad often I'd never heard him say a nice thing about him.  

His father had been an avid reader and prided himself in the library he had amassed.  Rick led me into the library and told me that I could take anything I wanted.  He and his brother had picked through it themselves; I would get a shot at it and the rest would be donated or thrown away.  There were empty boxes on the floor.

"Fill them with whatever you want."

I felt guilty, but, undeterred, I started filling a box.  

The man had multiple editions of what must have been his favorites.  Finely bound copies of the classics, shelved one with the other, were held in place by some of the most interesting bookends I'd ever seen.  

After I'd filled a box I called for Rick and asked him to check what I'd taken.  He came to the room, looked in the box.

"Is this okay to take?"

"Yeah.  I told you, anything you want."

The box went out to my car and I started on another one.  Again, I called him when it was full.

"You don't have to call me to check out every box; take what you want."

"Bookends?"

"We have taken everything we want."

And so it was that I packed up my small red car with boxes of "stuff" from his deceased father's library.

The bookcases in my office housed both the books I'd read in college...  and by office I mean converted closet.  I'm not one to complete any task right away and so I simply deposited the boxes on the floor to deal with at another time.

And another time came, bringing Peter into my office, looking for some boxes and curious about the contents of mine.

"If I help you unpack these can I use the boxes?"

The question mark (and the tone of his voice) would lead one to believe that this was a question, but Peter was hindered by very little.  I knew that this was not a question.  I watched as he began to move the books from the boxes to the empty shelves.  He remarked on everything; early additions caught his eye, fancy bindings and the bookend...  the marble bookend...

"This is cool."

...it was a square block, of sorts...

"The shape, the color...  very cool...  hmmm..."

I told him how it had been sitting by itself on one of the shelves.

"You know, there's a nut on the bottom."

He turned it over in his hands, studying the piece.

"You get it.  Right?"

I was just watching him, his determination to abscond with my boxes diminished by his growing curiosity with this bookend.

"The bolt holds the bookend together."

He studied the top, the bottom.

"There is probably a compartment inside."

...and now I was curious, too...

"Don't you want to know what's inside?"

I did.  I wanted to know what was inside.  I'd pillaged an old man's library and walked off with the bookend that had the secret compartment.  I knew in my heart that I'd never keep what was inside, but I also knew that I had to find out.  I was the archeologist who'd unearth the mummy's treasure, but give it back to the rightful owner.  

The nut was tight.      (I love short sentences that say so very much)

"I have a wrench that will fit this in my office."  Peter had an office.  The phone rang.  It was my day to answer the phones, but I couldn't be disturbed now.  It rang again, Charlie was letting it ring because it was my day to answer the phones.  One more ring as Peter came back to my "office".  Charlie took the call; I took the wrench from Peter; with nothing for Peter to take, he sat on the edge of my desk.

Clearly the block was not meant to be opened and there was no clear angle at which you catch the nut with the wrench, but determination is my middle name.  (Not really and... not really) It started to move, but had to be worked with the wrench.

"Don't turn it over.  If the whole thing comes loose, whatever is inside will spill out."

Charlie stepped into my office; Peter held the marble bookend over my head; I knelt on the floor working loose the nut that held captive the treasure in the box.

"Your friend Rick called."

"Yeah?" working, working, working...

"He wants you to call him..."

"About?" almost there... almost there... almost there...

"He said his father's ashes have disappeared and you might have taken them without realizing what they were."

Peter looked at the box over my head.  I looked at the box over my head.  Charlie laughed and turned to go, saying,

"If I'd only waited five minutes."

-silly

Taping a nickel to the needle of my mind... or "cruelty beyond measure"

Steve was my best friend in college, he had a chipped front tooth that graced an otherwise perfect smile which resided right under that cheesy mustache we all grew when we arrived on campus.  (mine was a full beard)  His folks lived in Lake George which was a few hours up the NY Thruway and when we knew it was a dull weekend ahead, we'd hop in his car and head up to see them.  

His mom made the best fried egg sandwich you ever had.  That was the reason I went along...  actually, that was the reason I'd continually suggest that we go for a visit...  and "go" we did...  gas was cheap...

Steve's car was the kind of car that got you from point A to point B.  I had no car and never - ever complained about it.  Its radio could not be shut off or the volume lowered because the power/volume button had vanished...  that was fine, because we had (in that time between 8-tracks and CDs) a box of cassettes.

Somehow a Dire Straits cassette ended up in his car.  I do not know where it came from or whether he'd bought it and just never told me...

We hopped in his car after class that Friday night and headed north.  He popped in the Dire Straits tape and it played.  It was a single.  Side A was "Walk of Life" and side B was, well, the same song...

Steve liked the song...

Side A played, we bopped along up the Thruway to it.  Side B played, I didn't get all the lyrics, but, hey, it was catchy.  Side A started again and Steve pressed the eject button...

...but nothing happened.

"Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies, Bee-bop-a-lu, baby what I say"

"Hmm, that's weird..."

"What?"

"The tape is stuck."

He got the action, he got the motion

...and stuck it was...

Over and over it played...

Turning all the night time into the day...

There was nothing we could do...

Yeah, the boy can play.  The dedication devotion.  turning all the night time into the day...

...couldn't turn it down...

Here comes Johnny...

...we couldn't turn it off...

he got the action...

...I couldn't pry it out...

you do the walk, you do the walk of life

over and over and over and over for HOURS and HOURS...

Thru the tolls, after the stops at McDonalds...  ...it was maddening...

The outcome of this event in my life is that I have a tendency to get a song stuck in my head.  There are several songs that will send me over the brink of madness with just a phrase of the lyric or three or four of the notes strung together.  Haunted, I tell you, for weeks at a time, without rest like a man fleeing a ghost...

Among them:

The Muppet Show Song

If I Only had a Brain (very trying while Shrub reigned)

and

Supercalifragilistic

...but there's one that gets me every time...

...one, like no other...

...like a bear-trap, it catches in my brain...

...and I have this recurring dream...

- - -

It's a long corridor and the nurses watch her as she walks to the room.  This is her annual visit.   She enters the room and he sits there in his wheel chair wishing that he had flossed more often.  She kisses him and moves a chair over close to him.  She asks about the food and he scowls, waving a hand.  He never intended to live this long or here...  ...his heart starts to race as she gets up to leave.  He has forgotten to turn off his hearing aids.  The casual observer will think that she is leaning in to kiss him goodbye.  He pulls away.  She persists, holding his head in place as she whispers in his ear, almost inaudible.  His wild eyes stare at her as she collects her jacket and purse.

It's a long corridor and the nurses watch her as she walks to the elevator and rides it down to the ground floor.

"Do you think he'll have started yet?"

"I'm sure of it."

Standing just outside his door they listen for it.  It's weak, a mumble, the only breath he really has...  yes, but it's unmistakable, it's musical, it's catchy...

"We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...

We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...

We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...

We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine..."

I have decided to be very kind and very generous to my nieces...

-silly

Putting my finger on it (you can quote me)

If you're having that kind of day, I'm here to help you put it into words.  Here are a few of my faves...

"I'm having a double-espresso kind of day, but my brew is set on herbal tea."

"A few of the stars in my constellation went dim; somehow I went from the Big Dipper to just Dip."

"Some days I'm Tigger, some days I'm Eeyore, but most of the time I just feel like Pooh."

-silly

It's The Little Things or "the fly is down on the zipper of my brain and no one told me..."

It's the little things that make me laugh.  I seldom laugh at jokes, but let me catch someone in the corner of my eye doing something that hits my funny bone and I can't control myself.  An old friend used to avoid my right elbow because she had seen me squish a fly with it; I guess she wasn't sure how one could adequately wash their elbows...  She even asked me once, "Is that the FLY elbow?"  So, I caught her looking at my elbow a few times and would slowly move it toward her - when she would move away from it I would howl with laughter...  I keep odd friends in my life for just this reason.

It's the little things that offend me.  I'm not easily offended, but there just isn't a better word...  you know those times when someone says something that is clearly a window into how they truly feel...  I tried on a double-breasted suit once and asked the associate (who was paid to make me feel good about myself ) if she thought the suit made me look "boxy".  She replied, "You are boxy."  (NOTE: Husbands, this is not an exemplary response to the wife who asks if something makes her look fat.)

It's the little things that worry me.  ...and so it is that I found myself terrified today...  because I put the starch away or hadn't.  I had an interview yesterday and ironed my shirt (I know, momentous occasion "the ironing of the shirt"...  oh and excited about the interview too)...  I managed to put away the ironing board and empty the water from the iron before I put it back in the cabinet, but the starch never made it home...  so, this morning, after my second cup of coffee, I walked into the dining room and found that the starch was still sitting on the table.  I looked around for the cap - that yellow cap that could only go on the starch - but the cap was nowhere to be found.  Lest I miss more of "Ellen", I decided to put the starch away without the cap and, if I found the cap, I could put it on later.  I grabbed the can...  headed to the laundry room...  opened the cabinet and there it was...

the cap

...that yellow cap that could only go on the starch...

TERRIFYING

There were no hard plastic eyes to stare at me, no face to taunt me, no sneer to defy, but scariest of all... no legs to help it get back to the cabinet...

I had put it there.  In the midst of cleaning up the ironing chore, I had put away the cap.  While today, I had thought to find the cap before I put away the starch, yesterday, it had not even crossed my mind to find the starch when I grabbed the cap and stuck it in the cabinet.

I recognize that I don't hear as well as I used to hear and the mere fact that I have eight pair of very expensive frames (since getting glasses for the first time 4 years ago) says much about my eyesight...  ...but will I know when my brain goes?  

...or has it gone already and no one mentioned it...

-silly

Grey Squirrel, Grey Squirrel Swish Your Bushy BANG!!! or "finding something in the family tree for dinner"

Far be it from me to tout myself as an example of sophistication and gentility, afterall, I'm the guy who was asked to wear "big boy" shoes (instead of sneakers) for a date in the City, but when my sister brought home Bean (the man of her dreams who turned out to be a guy that, by comparison, makes Jeff Foxworthy's definition of a red neck seem like an urban metro-sexual) I should have said "something".  I didn't... not really.  ...not enough, anyway...

Sadly (and thankfully) he has moved on to wife number two.  She is credited (thanks to Bluetooth enabled pick-up trucks and nieces that don't miss a trick) with such great lines as "Darlin', pick up a couple six packs for me so that I can stand you this weekend" and "I got dinner for us at Taco Bell this afternoon, be a Darlin' and run by Walmart for some fresh cheese..."  I've not met Numero Dos (thank heavens) but I just can't get the image of  a shabby cotton house-dress and "Baby, grab the big spatula;  come help momma off the couch" out of my mind.

Must kill mental picture...

Must kill mental picture...

Alas, Bean moved my sis far and away from the real world (or at least my world) and there she lives with her three kids; all of whom I adore.

..and their world is very different from mine...

...so much so that when Mom read to me a letter from Sparrow (the youngest) that she had received in the mail it caused my brain to short-circuit.  It was as foreign to me as though she had moved her children to a distant country, one south of Bukina Faso, and raised them on the bugs that live under the lava rocks.

His letter read something like this:

Grandma,

Thanks for the birthday card and the check.  (How sweet! and how very gracious...)

I shot a raccoon.  (GASP!)

Mr. [the neighbor] helped me skin it.  (Bag please)

Mommy helped me nail the skin to a board and put salt on it so I can tan it.  (This Mommy person is clearly not the little girl who used to puke at the site of a frog and hang Andy Gibb posters on her bedroom walls)

But we didn't make stew with it like we did with the squirrel.  (BLANK)  

There was more, but nothing that my brain could take in; it was enough.

How did this happen?  Afterall, this is not about them... this is about me...  (rule number 1: it's always about me) ...these children will take care of me in my old age.

What will become of me?  

Sitting in a rocker just too close to the out-house on a warm summer day...

Staying warm under the skin of an animal killed in the backyard...

Listening to my sister telling stories of how she nailed that hairy thing to the wall... (the raccoon, not Andy Gibb)

Eating squirrel stew...

...and then I think...

...at least I'll finally be thin.

-silly