Ridin'

In my late 20's and early 30's I spent a lot of weekend days the boonies with my dirt-riding buddies: my best friend, Dan, and my brother, Denis. We would spend full days riding our motorcycles through mud, dirt, rain, snow, and everything else, pausing only occasionally to smoke a bowl or munch a candy bar while hiding beneath a dripping fir tree.

I was usually the instigator of our weekend forays into the damp Pacific Northwest forests, and if it was raining that didn't stop me. I'd pick up the phone Saturday morning and call Dan.

"You ready to go?" I'd ask, knowing his answer.

"It's pouring down rain!" he'd groan, trying to talk me out of it.

"Damn right--perfect for bike riding!"

It was always the same song and dance, and with the same results: We went ridin'. As we would say, "The worst day ridin' is still a damn good day."

Good times.

My Favorite Copilot

One of the best chapters of my life began when Sarah was born. I was privileged to see her arrival into the world, and from that time on I couldn't get enough of her.

One of my favorite activities was reading books to her. Being the garage sale shoppers that we were, we amassed a considerable library of kids books. We always selected the books with interesting story lines, nice artwork, rhymes, and all sorts of various creative criteria. In other words, we didn't pick just any book. The end result of our efforts was a shelf that contained over 600 books. When she was at her toddler stage she would arm herself with as many books as she could carry (which was quite a few since they were mostly softcover books), wander over to where I was sitting, plop the pile in my lap, and climb up. She would pay rapt attention to everything before her, absorbing every word and picture like it was the only thing in the world at that moment. When I eventually would close the last one, it was not at all uncommon for her to go directly over to her bookshelf and repeat the process. She didn't grab just any books either--she was as selective with her choices as we were when we first bought them. She had favorites, but she loved them all.

Sarah was copilot in my old 1962 Chevy 4x4 when she was a toddler. I loved having her sitting next to me as I drove around!  She sat in a forward-facing booster seat we found at a garage sale that placed us almost shoulder to shoulder when she was strapped in, sitting as tall as we did. She enjoyed seeing the world unfold before her eyes as we drove around. She had a great view of everything instead of being hidden way down low the way most small kids are kept in car seats. I wanted her to see what I saw!

Random Remembering

It's funny how things--random things--pop into my mind for no apparent reason. One evening I was sitting in the hot tub, staring up at the dark sky and thinking of nothing in particular. All of a sudden I flashed back to a movie I watched back when I was in the Air Force.

It was 1974 and I was in Biloxi, Mississippi, the electronics training facility for Air Force personnel. I was somewhere in the early stages of an 8-month stay. The base theater was just a short walk away, and I went to the movies as often as I could. I saw a lot of good movies and a lot of bad ones. This particular one was called It's Alive. I don't remember the details, but I believe it was the very last line spoken in the entire movie. It was the epic moment in the movie when the "regular" people had beaten the odds and won. The leading man was doing some equivalent of the symbolic wiping of the brow when his co-star got off the phone and uttered matter-of-factly,

"Another one was born in Seattle."

With perfect timing a guy down near the front of the theater wails, "Nooooo..!!"

It was perfectly hilarious, both for its comedic timing and delivery, but also for breaking the tension of the movie climax. The whole theater laughed.

I have no idea why that popped into my mind suddenly after over 40 years, but it did. I guess I just needed to share it with the world.

Our Favorite Car Dealer

There was a legend in these parts a few decades ago. Well, he was somewhat legendary.

Dick Balch was a wacky car dealer with a maniacal laugh that you just couldn't ignore. He and his sledgehammer were notoriety in the Seattle/Tacoma area. His typical TV commercial would consist of him delivering a few choice tidbits of car salesmanship, followed directly with his signature line, "If you can't trust your car dealer, who can you trust?" At that point he would swing his sledgehammer into the car he was trying to sell you. It almost always resulted in a broken window or dented body. That's when he'd utter his crazy laugh and say something like, "how was that?" as he looked off camera laughing. Sometimes his blows just glanced off with little or no damage, but he didn't care. We still got the crazy laugh.

People of the Pacific Northwest thought of him as a celebrity of sorts. Imagine how cool it was to have him show up at a high school basketball game one evening! I played the alto saxophone back then (badly, I might add) and during basketball season played in the "pep band" that sat in the bleachers during all the games. Dick Balch made a flamboyant appearance one evening, and spent a long time signing autographs on his 8 x 12 promo glossies. He was wearing the exact getup that he wore in the picture too. Here's mine:

Facing Junior High

I was pretty nervous starting junior high school.  I knew very little about it.  For instance, I couldn't quite wrap my head around the fact that I would have six different teachers every day.  I wouldn't have that one devoted teacher that would be my caretaker, nurturer, and tutor for a year-long slice of my life.  That one teacher that--whether loved or hated--would be there every day for me.  I wouldn't have my own desk to keep my personal belongings in, and I would instead have a locker somewhere.  It was a lot to digest.  It sounded very scary.  Maybe for most people the transition of going from grade school to junior high is probably not that big of a deal.  Sure, they're going to a different school, on a different bus, in a different place, but their friends are all there with them in the same situation.  They have that familiarity to keep them from being too scared.  They can compare information and share knowledge during their transition.

I was not so lucky.

Students from Auburn, Algona, and Pacific were all in the same school district, but having moved from Algona to Auburn right after I finished the 6th grade meant I was on the other side of that district. I had to attend a different junior high school than I would have otherwise.  In those days there were two junior high schools in Auburn, and where you lived within the district determined which one you attended. The fact that our family moved from the southern part of the district to the northern part during the summer meant I was going to the other one, so while I may still have been in the same town (but at opposite ends) as the junior high school I would have attended had we not moved, it might as well been in a completely different state. The result was the same: I didn't know anybody.  I had no friends there, no knowledge of the school, and wasn't ready for the shock of having six different teachers in as many hours.

I can't even imagine what must have been going through my head then.  Puberty was screaming through my body, and with that of course came awkwardness, anxiety, and fear.  I was a mess I'm sure.  Everything anyone said that was directed at me was likely amplified by the hormones and lack of self-esteem and blown out of proportion in my mind. I walked through the throng of students feeling like I had a spotlight on me or a storm cloud above me much of the time.  I felt overwhelmed and alien. 

When any particular class ended at the bell ringing was a thing that took some getting used to. Jumping up and surfing a crowd of people in the hallways as we all tried to get to our next class on time was like salmon swimming upstream.

I don't remember many of my teachers.  I do remember a couple of them, but given how many I had I should remember more.  I guess they didn't have a huge impact on me. I remember Mr. Srail, my band teacher, Mrs, Williams who taught me typing, Mrs. Emerson that read classic literature to the class in English, and Mr. Taylor, who threw me out of his math class every now and then.  Usually some sort of wisecrack I made tipped the scale, followed closely by a, "Williams! Out of the class!"