Mitchell Way
I was lamenting to my wife Cheryl a few years back about being out of shape and how the young muscular guys at work were giving me a complex. She was quick to remind me that the best I could hope for was a simplex. Then she suggested that we take the grandkids on a hike in the mountains.
I found it hard to explain to my daughter Kalene that there were no such thing as haunted toilets. After my traumatic experience, I had a hard time convincing myself.
It was a curving section of the county road with a posted speed of 35 mph. Farms and homesteads lined both sides of the road as did overhanging maple and alder trees.
“Slow up in the curve. Almost to . . . yep, there he is.”
From the top of a tree, we clung to the remaining trunk which we could wrap our hands around.
Standing on branches below us which strained under our weight, we looked out over the forest treetops. We were at the same height as the giants. We were one of them.
I am standing out on the Meridian High School infield next to the pole vault pit. It is a multi-school track meet. The weather is absolutely atrocious. Quite possibly, this is the end of the world as we know it. Roars of thunder, flashes of lightning, sheets of rain followed by hail the size of marbles which are trying to destroy my umbrella, and yet, the track meet goes on.
From the laundry room came a piercing scream … “My delicate underwear is completely tangled with your Velcro helmet liner! How many times have I told you…”?
I tried calming the situation by assuring her, “Don’t worry dear, good commercial grade Velcro is hard to damage.”
I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast as Cheryl entered with a large ball of fabric just taken from the dryer. I could tell by the look on her face that I would be buying new underwear when suddenly she looked out the back window and realized she had left the porch umbrella up all night.
“Oh crumb! Look at the umbrella rocking back and forth in the wind. I’d better go out there and collapse it before it gets torn to shreds.”
“Don’t go off half-cocked!”
Have you ever wondered what that means?
Elwood K was the old man who lived in a small self-made home behind our house when I was growing up. I never had a grandpa after I was four so I adopted him. Everyone knew him as “Swede” which was interesting since the name is Scottish and English. He was known by the white Popeye cap he always wore. His house was full of them. Taking his lead, I wear a black Army Ranger cap which my house is also full of.
Swede was fond of four things: guns, Canadian Mist whiskey, both of which he had hidden all over his house, his yellow half ton Dodge Ram pickup and his mutt dog Digger Odell. Several times a week you could see his old Dodge driving ten miles under the speed limit using both sides of the road. Old Swede was returning from a trip to the liquor store to get his “medicine”. On the seat beside him would sit Digger, head and tongue hanging out the open window. Sometimes Digger was the designated passenger and sometimes he was the designated driver; it all depended on how Swede was feeling.
It was a time after the Vietnam War but before Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt by Delta Force to end the Iran hostage crisis. The years 1974 through 1978 when the average American thought the wars were over, but wars are never over. It was a time that at an undisclosed, seemingly insignificant spot in Washington I was trained to fly high risk helicopter missions and was considered by the US Government to have a license to kill. And though, some 40 years later I can now talk about it, it still haunts me of the death and destruction I caused.
I was just out in my tool shed looking through some old cottage cheese containers which I use to hold nails, nuts, washers, bolts, and screws etc. I learned of this storage technique from the old man who lived behind me named Swede. He was a course speaking old man with a temper, but I was the only person he had for a son, so he put up with me. Swede taught me many things about hunting, fishing, bee keeping, and gardening, and he kept every spare nut, bolt, and washer in cottage cheese containers in his shed. I inherited them when he died. My only complaint was that he never would wash out the containers before he would fill them with stuff and today, I am trying to find one 3/8-16 x 3.5” bolt as I hold my breath while rummaging through one rancid cottage cheese container after another.
Beak and Bill sat on the end of a dock at Lake Padden. The morning was cool, and a light fog drifted across the surface of the water.
The two met every morning during fishing season and sometimes out of season. It was not only a place to catch fish and banter the latest gossip, but it was also a place to sit quietly to let one’s mind drift before the busyness of the day began.
The time in history was the late 1800s. The place was the Wild West. A murderous outlaw known as El Indio has broken free from prison by killing his guards; and his gang is terrorizing and robbing the citizens of the region. With a price on El Indio’s head, two bounty hunters, Monco (Clint Eastwood) and Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), come to collect the prize. Though the two men view each other as rivals, they eventually agree to become partners in their mutual pursuit of the vicious criminal.
I met a man sitting on a sidewalk bench in Lynden the other day. He had a heavy Chicago Bears sweatshirt on, and it was obvious to me that he wasn’t a local.
I had a nudge from my inner self to say “hi”. He was a nice guy, but it was hard for me to understand the inner city slang he was using. Basically, I understood that he was in the county visiting a brother who had moved out from Chicago. The brother was encouraging him to move out before he got shot in the streets.
My best friend, Chuck, and I stood in front of the mirror in the Music building’s Men’s Restroom.
“At the rate these sideburns are growing out, we are going to be out of high school before we get a good set,” I bemoaned.
“Hello. My name is Marty. And your name is. . .”
I leaned forward and squinted to see the name on her identification badge.
“Angus. Nice to meet you, Angus.”
“It’s Agnus, you insulting twit!” she barked as she spun around and walked away.
The effectiveness of a good presentation is solely dependent upon the speaker’s ability to hold their audience’s attention. (A guy named Marty.)
I had an opportunity in my 20s to work with youth groups, kids aged kindergarten through 5th grade. This was done in a church setting at vacation Bible schools, junior church, and AWANA kids clubs.