I’m Marty Mitchell, aka Captain Crash, the guy behind Mitchell Way. MitchellWay.com is the story of my misadventures in life and reflections on faith. ... Is Mitchell Way a state of mind? A real place? A way of life? Tough to say. You be the judge.
I have long suspected that we have ghosts in our house. The original structure was built in 1890 so it has a lot of history. One night during the time we were giving it a complete renovation, I was upstairs pulling ship lap boards off the walls and tossing them through a hole to a pile outside. It was 10:00 pm and there was no light except my one bulb shop light, although I was there by myself I could hear children’s voices and I stopped several times to shine the light around the empty house to see if I could find the source. Later one of my young step-sons told me he was afraid of the lamp beside his bed because a face would appear in the lampshade.
First of all, excuse me for whistling. If I don’t let the music out, my head will explode.
I am a chronic whistler, more so when I am stressed. I also constantly have a melody looping in my mind. That same tune can loop for hours until I nearly go crazy listening to it.
Number one: Candied Beets. (I told you). Why at Thanksgiving would you serve a dish that looks like cranberry sauce? Why would this dish not be clearly labeled “Beets”? What are you supposed to do with a large mouthful of beets while red juice leaks out of the corners of your mouth, and you are sitting around the dinner table with 15 relatives? Unforgivable!
Number two: Commercial super roll toilet paper. You know the type: two 12” diameter rolls with a mile of paper each, housed in a dark plastic wall mounted container. The paper is not the issue. The custodian leaving the roll taped up is the issue. I have literally spent a half hour spinning the roll trying to find the loose end. Somewhere a custodian is giggling. Unforgivable!
Number three: Technology. Why do they have to keep upgrading my operating system? Why do I have to invite my granddaughters over to show me how to work my phone, my TV remotes, the microwave? Why can’t Pong still be played on my computer? I really need technology to stop for about six months just so I can catch up. It’s all very unforgivable. Which brings me to my wife’s friend Becky and her Pekingese dog Ginger.
Zechariah 8:23 (ESV): Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.
As long as I have known my wife Cheryl, she has had a relationship with her Lord that is firmly grounded. If you know her, you know who she lives for and you know that she is not afraid to share the gospel with anyone who seeks her counsel.
I really hate to use the term “band geek” but I guess that is exactly what I was. I think the term was conceived by the football players who hung out in the jock hall at high school. They had nothing better to do than to whistle at the girls and polish the pins on their Letterman jackets. They would huddle in groups like a band of jackals and label students as they walked by:
Somewhere, deep in the woods of northwest Montana where there were outlaws and no laws, there lived a man named Ardis Staylee. In Ardis’ town a four-way stop meant that whoever got to the intersection second, stopped. Buying license tabs or getting permits was an inconvenience that no one bothered with and those who were chronic troublemakers one day disappeared deep in the woods and were very rarely found.
My wife Cheryl walked across the gravel parkway to her school bus which sat parked partially out of the bus garage. It was a new bus to the school and hadn’t made its maiden voyage with students yet.
“Morning Sunshine,” called another driver who was walking to her bus. “Here we go again!”
All the buses had been pulled partially from the garage stalls by Arnie the bus maintenance man. The engines were all running, and the lights were turned on. This was to aid the drivers with their morning pre-trip inspections.
Sitting in the cushy air-leveling driver’s seat, Cheryl shut off the engine. With the air system fully charged, she was going to bleed the air brakes. She pumped the brake pedal repeatedly, each pump sending a blast of air to the ground under the bus.
The air pressure, which started at 120 pounds, had dropped to 90, then 60, then 30. Then . . .
Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
The bus horn went off.
“What the heck?” Cheryl screamed.
The 10 other drivers stepped from their buses and looked over at the new bus. They covered their ears to silence the dreadful sound. A flock of migrating geese flying over the bus garage split formation. One goose appeared to fall out of the sky.
Frantically trying to shut off the alarm while at the same time plugging her fingers in her ears, Cheryl’s curly platinum hair began to straighten.
Bounding up the steps into the bus came Arnie. He was wearing his noise canceling earmuffs.
“I got this! I got it!”
Cheryl jumped from the bus, the palms of her hands covering her ears. Arnie frantically pushed and pulled buttons.
“Blasted computerized buses,” he yelled. His face was red, his eyes bulged, and perspiration drops ran down his face soaking his coveralls.
The other drivers were now leaving the yard, not in their scheduled order, but more in a panicked retreat. Like getting to higher ground to avoid a tsunami wave.
The door of the office opened. Out walked the bus manager pulling on her sweater. She strolled across the parking lot toward the bellowing bus. The look on her face hinted that she thought all her drivers were morons.
Arnie was now in a state of emotional shock. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he stared blankly through the front windshield.
The bus manager climbed up into the bus and prying his hands off the steering wheel, she laid him on his back in the center aisle.
Then, restarting the bus, she allowed the air pressure to build, and the horn shut off.
“You’re late for your route,” she said to Cheryl as she pulled Arnie by the feet down the bus steps.
And so, for the first day’s morning run, there were brand new riders being picked up at new stops which caused all forms of chaos and confusion. The little kindergarten children who saw Cheryl for the first time as she opened the bus door, gasped, grinned, and ran up the bus steps to hug her and sit in her lap, mistakenly thinking she was Mrs. Santa Claus.
The radio chatter was frantic:
“Bus 201 to base. 201 to base.”
“This is base, go ahead.”
“I’ve got a puker. Mayday, Mayday. He’s at the back of the bus. Oh my gosh, he’s barfing again. It’s running down the center aisle! Mayday! Mayday!”
“Bus 201, this is base. Follow proper hazmat cleanup procedures after returning to the garage.”
“What? I didn’t sign up for this. Can’t Arnie do it?”
From somewhere in the shop Arnie yelled, “I’m not doing it!”
“Sorry 201, it’s your job. I’ll have the mop ready when you get back.”
Then, after the morning run was over, the drivers came back at 3:00 for the afternoon run to take the kids home.
“Base to bus 211.”
There was no answer.
“211, come in.”
“Base, this is 208. These route directions can’t be accurate. I’m in a housing development and the road dead ends. I’m going to have to back all the way out.”
“This is base. Don’t back into any parked cars this year.”
“Base to bus 211. Come in 211!”
“This is 270. I can hear you clearly. I’ll give him a call.”
“270, if you can hear me, he should hear me.”
“Bus 211, this is base.”
“Base this is 250. My route says to stop at 4489 Hammerhead to drop off Ginny. I see her house, but the driveway is on the other side of the creek. I’m going to have to go three miles up to cross the bridge and go to the house on another road. That’s putting me 15 minutes late. Please call the other parents.”
“Base, this is bus 211. We’re you trying to get me?”
“Yes 211. Is Stanley Harding on your bus?”
“I don’t have a Stanley Harding.”
“Yes, you do 211. I’m staring at his name on your roster.”
“He’s not on my bus, base.”
“Base, this is bus 302. I have a flashing dash light that says, ‘Shut engine down.’ “Suggestions?”
“302, this is base. Nurse it home.”
“307 to . . . base. (Gasp) Base . . . come in . . .”
“ Go ahead 307, this is base.”
“License plate (gasp) Washington (cough) XLF3589 (gasp), Jacked up Black 4X4 (gasp) . . .He ran my stop paddle.”
“307, Why are you gasping?”
“Well, I ran after him.”
“What?”
“211 to base.”
“Base”
“Stanley Harding is on my bus.”
“211, when will you be at the corner of Tyee and Crowley to meet his grandparents.”
“This is 211. That would have been 20 minutes ago.”
Muffled grumbles came from behind the closed office door.
If she had been a smoker, she would have been a chain smoker. If she could drink on the job, she would have been plowed by 5:00, but this is the life of a bus manager.
As she closed the shop that evening and walked to her car, her right eye twitched. Her car key could not find the lock because of her shaking hand. With a few tears on her face, she sat behind the steering wheel, letting out a sigh of relief.
The flying insects were still active as we crouched in the tall grass. A horse fly circled my head and I swatted at it for the 30th time. My best friend, Chuck, was squatting next to me, a piece of field grass hanging from his mouth. We stared at the commissary building, two hundred yards away. I looked at my watch.
“9:30. No activity spotted at the building,” I whispered.
“Roger,” Chuck responded.
“It’s Marty. It’s Marty, I’ve told you. Sheesh!”
It was 1970 and Chuck and I, and the rest of Troop 23 were spending the week at Camp Bonaparte Boy Scout Camp on Bonaparte Lake in Eastern Washington. It was a rustic camp and lacked the amenities which many scout camps held.
For instance, instead of sleeping cabins, the boys put up tents in clearings in the woods. Instead of a dining hall, the troops received a cooking crate from the commissary each meal for the preparation of their own food. Instead of bathrooms, the scouts ran up single path trails to strategically placed pit-toilet latrines. Bathing was done in the lake. We shared the camp with mule deer, elk, black bears, and rattlesnakes. It was a wise idea to follow the Scout Motto to “Be Prepared” since you didn’t know what you would find behind the next tree or under the next bush.
Troop 23 brought ten kids and two adults 247 miles from Bellingham for a week of scout camping. In all my years of camping, this was the closest to what scout camp should look like, that is, boys covered in mosquito bites and legs torn from thorn bushes.
Quite out of the ordinary, we brought a senior scout who was trying to finish his Eagle rank. His name was Dave Blotto. He was two years older than Chuck and I and was given the job of keeping the younger scouts in order.
“All right Tenderfeet, line up at attention in front of the flagpole. Mitchell and Bland, raise the flag. . . Attention!”
Chuck, with his severely bent bugle, began playing Reveille. My mind immediately jumped to Corporal Randolf Agarn on F-Troop who would regularly get an arrow shot into the bell of his bugle, although the local tribe denied they would ever do such a disrespectful act.
As Bland and I raised the flag, the scouts began snickering. I thought I heard the scoutmaster mutter, “Oh brother!”
Looking up the flagpole, I noticed that pinned to the flag was a pair of very well used underpants. . . My underpants.
“Hey Mitchell, I got you,” Dave snickered.
You’d think an average guy would lower the flag and unpin his underwear, but that would require an extra-long rendition of Chuck’s Reveille, so we sent the underpants to the top of the pole to air for the day.
Big Dave Blotto was, by looks and definition, a hillbilly. He was a head taller and thirty pounds heavier than any of the rest of the boys. His pants were too short, and his toes peaked through his tennis shoes. The buttons on his shirt were stressed beyond the manufacturer’s recommended limits and his belly fat poked through the gaps between the buttons the way Pillsbury dough pushes out through the broken seal of its container. He rarely removed the felt, broad-brimmed black hat from his head, but he washed it every time he took a shower. Currently, the headband was stained gray from sweat.
I don’t think that he had anything against us, he just chose to be obnoxious so we would know who was boss. We were forced to put up with his pranks for the week, and his pranks did continue.
He swapped out the sugar and salt containers. This made for tasty eggs but awful coffee.
Strange coincidences also happened: plugs were removed from the row boats, and a large Sasquatch type beast suddenly appeared on the trail to the outhouse in the darkness of night and chased terrified scouts through the woods. After each encounter, with a cackling laugh we heard, “Gotcha!”
“This has gone far enough!” Chuck yelled as apple sauce dripped out of the bell of his bugle one morning during Reveille.
There was no question as to who had poured sauce into the instrument because he laughed uncontrollably from the base of the flagpole.
From that point on, the tables were to be turned on David Blotto. We waited for an opportunity.
It was decided, on a Thursday night, that Chuck and I and two other scouts would move our sleeping bags further out into the woods onto the archery trails. Unfortunately, big Dave insisted on joining us. Our reasoning for moving away from the rest of the troop was that we were planning a late-night raid on the commissary.
The commissary was the building where all the food was stored, and the mess kits were put together for each meal. Inside the building was a chest freezer which held boxes of ice cream bars. There was a bunk room attached to the storage area for the adult in charge of the commissary to sleep and guard the supplies. Strangely enough, the commissary must have never been raided before, because the main door was never locked.
We all took our sleeping bags out into the woods and laid them down on the trail. Big Dave, having had an unusually busy day of tormenting the boys, took off his hat, crawled in his sleeping bag, and fell asleep. This gave us the perfect opportunity to begin our raid, and the rest of us crept back through the woods to the commissary.
We crouched in the brush watching the building as the evening light grew darker. The lights inside had been turned off and the commissary supervisor had gone to bed.
Sneaking to the edge of the building, we listened for any movement inside but only heard the snore of the single occupant.
“Flashlights,” I whispered.
We each turned on our personal lights.
Chuck slowly turned the knob on the door. It wasn’t locked. A quarter inch at a time he pulled the door open, stopping each time the hinges squeaked. Once it was opened wide enough, we crept inside.
There was only one goal on our agenda, ice cream bars, so we slowly and quietly moved to the freezer. I tugged on the door which when opened turned on an interior light. Something we weren’t expecting. The snoring stopped and I heard a loud snort. I stuck my arm inside the door and depressed the light switch with my finger, shutting off the light.
“Cripes,” I spit out.
There was movement in the bed in the next room and the tinkling of liquid on the floor around our feet.
“Lights!” Chuck whispered. We each flipped off our light and waited in the darkness.
More rolling in the bed. All it would take to foil our evening would be for the man in the other room to stand up and flip on the commissary lights. The realization struck me that breaking, entering, and robbery added to our resumes was not going to help us get our Eagle ranks but of course, we were all now totally committed to completing the task.
Another roll in the bed and the snoring began again.
Letting my finger off the light switch, I found two boxes of the ice cream bars and I grabbed them both before quietly shutting the door. Holding up the two boxes of the ill-gotten booty, I pointed to the main door.
“Go!” I spoke.
“Roger,” Chuck whispered.
“Marty, it’s Marty, how many times?”
We began creeping back in the direction of the man-door. It was on the way back through the commissary shelves that we passed the dry goods. Chuck shined his light on the length of the shelves.
“Wait!” he whispered. We all froze.
He quietly crept to the shelf and grabbed a box of Chocolate Jello Instant Pudding.
“We need some milk,” he whispered to one of the boys, who crept to the milk cooler and carefully absconded with a half-gallon of 2%.
Getting out of the commissary was as terrifying as going in. There was the chance someone was passing by outside of the building and would catch us. Luckily, the snoring continued, and we all safely left the building and ran into the woods.
Once safely back at the sleeping bags, we found Big Dave snoring loudly, his hat lying on the ground next to his head. I broke open the ice cream bar boxes and we feasted ‘til we were sick. Chuck decided that before crawling into his sleeping bag he also needed to make his pudding, so he poured the powder in the container, added milk, and stirred it with a stick, leaving it to set up for the morning.
It was then thought to be in our best interests to move our sleeping bags back to the main camp to sleep the night.
It was 7:00 am, and the sleepy-eyed boys stood around the flagpole. Big Dave was nowhere in sight.
“Where is Blotto?” the Scout master asked.
“Must be sleeping in,” I answered.
“Blow Reveille, Chuck. Scouts . . . attention!”
It was an especially pleasant Reveille that day. The flag was nearly to the top of the pole when we heard a loud scream emanate from the depths of the forest.
“Sasquatch!” one of the boys yelled. And though that was as close to a Sasquatch that I have ever heard, what stumbled from the woods looked much worse.
Out into the clearing came big Dave. We shrieked from the horror of the sight. On his head he wore his black felt hat, but dripping down from the headband, running down his face, back, and all over his shirt was what looked to be Chocolate pudding.
“Gotcha,” Chuck smirked.
But the excitement didn’t end there. It was realized that the commissary had been raided. After a thorough search of the camp sites, the staff found Big Dave’s sleeping bag, the ice cream boxes and chocolate smeared sticks on the archery trail where he had spent the night by himself.
Paybacks are brutal.
Nine months later, Big Dave and I received our Eagle Scout ranks on the same night. The senior Scout Master called us both onto the platform: “I would like to introduce our new Eagle Scouts, Marty Mitchell, and our little puddin’ head, Dave Blotto.”
I never wanted a horse. To the best of my knowledge, my mom, my brother and my sister never made mention of wanting one either, and yet we had a horse. He was an American Pony and his name was Starfire.
The old man who lived behind us when I was a growing up was fond of reminding me that I was two drams short of having an ounce of common sense. I imagine this all started when my best friend Chuck and I were camping in the woods behind his house.
Believe it or not, when I was 18, my muscles were well built in the chest and arms. This came from spending most of my free time swinging on rope swings with the other guys in the neighborhood. After a while, with long shaggy hair and a decent tan, my wife said I began to resemble Tarzan. And so, that is how I looked when I went to my first quarter of schooling at Northwest Nazarene College in Idaho. I just mention that so I can better mentor young men in the fine art of showing off.
Thanksgiving 1965, my mom and my cousin Gae were alone in Gae’s kitchen. The buzzer on her counter sounded and Gae rushed to the oven door, looked through the glass window and announced, “The turkey looks done. Yell down the stairs and tell everyone to come up to the table.”
It must have been close to eleven o clock. I was in bed drifting in and out of sleep when I heard the bedroom door pop open. I felt the covers move and the bed settle.
