Archive for September, 2010
Win
In July 2010, at 91, a man named Win passed away. High school football star, WWII veteran, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather. And, for the past 13 years, my neighbor—and friend.
Up until about two years ago, he was a force of nature. Cutting hedges. Mowing the lawn. Always at work. No weeds growing out of his driveway. No cinders or gum wrappers in front of his sidewalk. And snow? Pfft. His was gone before I’d even got a boot on. And never moved out in blobby patches. We’re talking pristine, edge to edge, straight lines and bare concrete. No snow-blower, just a shovel.
He always kept an eye on my place. One, because he was watching out for me. And two, because I am fairly certain that my obvious lack of skill, blatant procrastination, and resulting misadventures were a regular source of amusement.
When my garage door went bonkers, he was the one who crossed the street when I was out to re-shut it and/or scramble under it. The icy winter morning my driveway wall fell, he called to warn me before I’d even looked outside. It was his ladder that got me in the dining room window when I locked myself out. His hand that scattered the mystery salt on my sidewalk on days that it snowed while I was at work. His concern breaking into laughter at the inadvertent somersault or prat fall.
He has always been that sweet old guy masquerading as curmudgeon, and a bit of deserved and rather charming actual curmudgeon, a wise man, an extra grandparent, a firecracker.
I got another glimpse of him this week in some photos his wife shared.
In a scrapbook he made, these guys were “The Gang,” and they had nicknames (I kid you not) like Shorty and Jitterbug. Most of the above were taken in Arizona (near the Boulder/Hoover Dam) shortly before he left for France and Germany and World War II. And, although taken long before I was even born, I love these pictures, and I am somewhat overcome with a sense of joy and relief that he did all this and then came home, married his sweetheart, raised a family.
It was about 2 years ago that his legs, which had carried him around a football field, the City of Pittsburgh, and the world, began to slow. A betrayal in his eyes as everyday things became difficult and surgeries and long stays in rehab centers took their toll. He drew the line when the only remaining option, and the recommendation by doctors, became amputation. There was a fierceness and strength and dignity in his decision. He wanted to go home. And there was an acquiescence by doctors. And understanding as well as tremendous support from his family.
I admire them all.
When he arrived home later that day, he emerged from the passenger side of the car and was helped into a wheelchair. They were wheeling him into the house backwards, so he was facing me, and I was stunned to see this thin, ghostly pale figure; hands held still in his lap; head down. They were having a time of it, getting the chair up over the threshold. The jostling made him look so fragile.
Then, with one last big ol’ bumpity-bu-bump and the front two wheels precariously high in the air, Win raised his head. He gave me a great big smile, threw his hands in the air, and yelled “Wheeeee!”
I raise a glass to humor and bravado and life. To our elders. To our veterans. To our tough guys.
God speed, Win McCluskey.
Thank You, U.S. Soldier
September 11 is not a subject I would normally consider a topic for this blog. But, with respect, I would like to share a story.
A few years back, I joined a group called Soldiers Angels, a non-profit organization designed to support the troops. You sign up and, once approved, receive a name and a military address of an active-duty military person.
You “adopt” a soldier and commit to sending letters and care packages for as long as that person is deployed. (I do think “adopt” is a bit too familiar and quite the overstatement. I think of it more like being a secret Santa or airmail waitress.)
Should you want to, you can learn more about Soldiers Angels at soldiersangels.org. In addition to adopting a soldier, there are a variety of one-time things you can do to support the troops via the website.
On Tuesday of this week, in a completely unexpected, totally unnecessary table-turn, I received a care package from one of my “adopted” soldiers. (He is home safe.)
Inside the box was an American flag with a note explaining that this flag had flown, in Iraq, on the anniversary of September 11 in 2008.
I was stunned and amazed.
And goose-bumped and teary-eyed.
And something more. Something I’m not sure I can totally explain, but I feel the need to try.
The idea of where this flag has been and what it stands for. This banner o’er the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. This badge of power. The Good Guys panache. This symbol of who we are. Of who we have always been.
For nine years, September 11 has triggered nothing but a deep and inconsolable sadness, a thick shadow of grief that doesn’t ebb, an abyss I must draw back from to function in the everyday. But. To have this flag in my hands and to have in my head this image of the spirit of those who serve. To imagine an American soldier flying this flag, honoring the Stars and Stripes–and all of us–in Iraq, on September 11. To hold something so beautiful and patriotic and . . . tangible.
Well.
It comforts me.
It humbles me.
God bless America. And God bless those who serve.
The Packaging People Must Be Stopped
We all know the OCD-inducing-pick-pick-pick-maybe-some-teeth-okay-the-new-song-I-wanted-to-hear-is-now-an-oldie frustrations of opening CD or DVD packaging. (Honestly? It’s one of the main reasons I like to buy used video games instead of new.) And we’ve all made the transition to the extra bit of paper lid or plastic wrap between us and our over-the-counter medications, a flimsy li’l bit of whatchamacallit to guard us from societal crazies. Heck, there are a lot of kids out there, now old enough to need a couple of Tylenol, Tums, and Vitamin C tablets on a Sunday morning who have no memory of it ever being any easier to get hangover relief.
(Yes, sometimes, on my Conspiracy Theory days, I do sort of wonder if someone didn’t just poison those Tylenol bottles because they had this shiny new business plan in the trunk of their car for a protective packaging business. But I digress. And it’s almost positively not the case.)
(But, you know, if it were true, that a-hole is now very, very rich.)
Some packaging makes sense, and I don’t begrudge the manufacturers a living. That white foam stuff that a computer or microwave oven comes in? Sure, that makes sense. It protects the electronics, makes things less expensive to ship, and getting to your new toy is as simple as opening a shoebox.
Fine.
But why is there a plastic-paper-tin-foil cap on my ketchup? Inside, beneath the real cap, beyond the bit of plastic that was wrapped around the cap. Why is there a super-secret hidden cap that you don’t know is there until you’re attempting to squirt that ketchup. (An-ti-ci-pa-tion, my ass.) Those secrets caps are everywhere now. Ketchup, mustard, mayo (and who the hell thought it was a good idea to put mayo in a squeeze bottle anyway?), salad dressing, chocolate syrup, coffee creamer. Half the time, you can’t get a pinky finger-hold on the spot marked “pull here,” and the other half the time, you pull and the contents go spurt! all over your new work blouse that you are now forced to wear around the office all damn day, including that important meeting with the big boss or the cute vendor.
Now, okay, deep down, you kind of tolerate all of that because, no matter how busy, lazy, or stressed out you may be, you generally don’t want to be poisoned. So, all right, fine.
But.
Let’s talk for a moment about non-edible-product packaging.
All of it designed solely to make a product look good on the shelf. None of it designed to enhance product enjoyment by the customer.
The customer cannot be king if ruled by the evil dictator Twisty-tie.
Twisty-ties made of some super-polymer-covered titanium-like alloy crunched into place by someone very strong. (Picture those hard-core weight lifters every gym has two of, grunting as they put each twisty-tie in place. Unh. Unh. Good one Gunther. Heh heh leetle boy never get to play with toy. Unh.) One small toy; 452 twisty ties holding it place, holding it to the hard plastic envelope thing, holding that to the box it came in. (Hundreds of thousands of twisty-ties that, thanks to my cats quick reflexes and fascination with anything small and plastic, now lie stockpiled beneath my dresser, under the non-rolling rolling file cabinet in my office, behind the dining room buffet, and in every other nook and cranny you might one day have to peer into in search of a dropped pen, a rolling quarter, or a missing passport.)
And if it’s not the twisty-ties, which are designed to make un-twisting, at least, a viable theory, it’s those hard-plastic bands that you need industrial wire cutters to get through. Could there be anything worse?
Uh, yes.
With the long Labor Day weekend, I, like many I would guess, start thinking “home project.” With that in mind yesterday, I stopped in at Bed Bath & Beyond to pick up a few things that needed fixing or replacing. I strolled through the sale rack. (50% off the already marked-down sale price? Who can resist?) There was a lot of really ugly crap. (There’s a reason stuff is 50% off the sale price of course.) But, in the midst of the tie-dye style curtains, the Disco-era bath accessories, and the super-tacky His and Hers laminated faux-antique wall hangings, I spied The Perfect Kitchen Clock.
Round red metal, white face, simple style, kind of 40s or 50s? It looks a lot like the one currently hanging in my kitchen, except that it isn’t a cheap, yellowing, plastic-piece-a-crap that I salvaged and painted red around the edge because I couldn’t afford to buy the cool round red metal clock I’d seen in a catalog. And it was on sale. And 50% off the sale price.
I gleefully snatched that clock out of the Beyond aisle and checked out.
This morning, after a good lounge in bed, sighing, “Ah Saturday.” and a good loungy stretchy yawny Ah-Saturday cuppa coffee, I thought, “Ooh! I’ll start the tasks of the day with a fun and easy one: I’ll put my new clock in its place of honor.”
It’s in a cardboard frame sort of lidless box. There’s not even any cellophane over the front. What could be simpler?
I grasped the clock and, one foot already on the step stool, pulled. Huh? No give. Not a budge. And not a twisty-tie in sight.
This clock is held to its packaging with screws. Screws! Two of them—drilled into the back of the box through washers. And, yep, you know it, Phillip’s head.
And so the Labor Day begins. I’ll be in the basement.
What packaging shenanigans would you put an end to if you could? Or, what sort of Labor Day fun are you getting into?
Life Preservers 
Nice Day, Isn’t It?
Late summer, early fall, Indian summer, Autumnal Equinox, ohmigawd-it’s-late-September? Call it what you will, I call it darn-near perfection.
Your favorite season and mine may not be the same. But, will you do me one favor, fair people of Earth?
Over the next several weeks, keep an eye out for co-workers, friends, and fellow human beings with a look in the eye that—if you take the time to look—bluntly and gleefully tells you, “Given half a chance, I will run from this office building to go out and play.”
You will see these people. They may be complete strangers. But one of them will turn to you, with a big ol’ grin and kite-flying eyes, and say, “Nice day, isn’t it?”
Here’s the favor. Try, please try, not to respond thusly:
“Eh, we’ll be needing snow shovels before you know it.”
“I guess, but . . .”
“Unh, but you know what’s coming.”
“Santa’s not real; you’ll never find love; and falling stars are, in actuality, flaming planets, inhabited mostly by puppies, hurtling toward certain destruction.”
Keep it to yourselves you party-pooping, parade-drenching doom-doom heads!
Yes. As a matter of fact, I do know that after autumn comes winter. I kind of mastered all four seasons a while back. (I also tie my own shoes and can draw an awesome turkey with a thumb-shaped head.)
Winter comes each year. But autumn is here now.
Grass and weed growth have slowed. Bathing suit as well as galoshes lie un-needed in the bottom of the closet. Sweatshirt weather. Rag-top days with brilliant sunlight and fabulous, numerous cumulus in startling Crayola skies. Jean jackets. Suede shoes. Campfires. S’mores. Football Sundays. Crock pot stews, crusty bread, Cabernet. Windows-open-no-furnace-needed-and-no-AC-neither sleeping weather. No humidity. Not much rain. Woodsy, ancient smells and scrunch-crunchiness and landscapes of impossible shades.
C’mon people!
It’s autumn. Gorgeous, lovely, genteel, snuggly, be-outside-without-sweating, breathe-without-your-boogars-freezing autumn.
Take a breath. Take a look. Take a moment to enjoy it.
What’s your favorite thing about autumn?
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September 22, 2010 at 1:47 am 3 comments