Mitchell Way
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.”
“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.
Welcome to the Knot Head Years. This is your Captain speaking. For those of you aged 13 through 19, please check your brain in at the door. You may retrieve it at carousel 8 upon reaching the age of 26.
The 67-year-old man walked casually into the gym carefully checking out the competition. That day there were several high school age boys and girls, senior women who had just finished their aerobics class, and middle-aged warriors working different pieces of equipment.
“Okay Mr. Mitchell, step right over here and I will lower the screen.”
“Thank you, L-A,” I said while trying figure out the name on her badge.
“It’s pronounced, Ladasha,” she corrected, like I didn’t know anything.
L-A was a Walgreens employee who worked in the photo department. I’m not sure how old she was but with her dyed hair, tattoos, and studs, I figured her to be around twenty. Her face was bright red from freckles, and she stood no more than 4’6″.
I wasn’t aware that this day would come. It wasn’t on my radar as something to watch out for, but it happened. I crossed the line. Today I had my annual wellness physical and was given the Medicare Well Visit Questionnaire to fill out.
I have been asked by many of my readers, “When are you going to put all of your stories into a book? I’d buy one.”
“Ok. More to the left. Little more. Little more. Now go up two inches. There! Put the nail there.”
We were hanging pictures in the living room at my mom’s house, and she was sitting on the other side of the room directing me.
I take a nail, tap it into the sheetrock wall and hang the frame.
“Hmmm. It doesn’t look right. It needs to go up another inch.”
“Aarg, frakin, flip!” My blood pressure is climbing, and my right eye is twitching uncontrollably again.
“You know, every wrong hole I knock in the wall is another one I will have to fix later,” I groused.
We were like gunfighters as I stared out across the room, except I had a microphone and they had paper plates stapled to sticks.
Of all the unlikely people, I was asked to be the auctioneer for a church pie auction.
What were you thinking, dad? I don’t want to read about your untimely demise in the Herald obituaries. You’re not 35 years old anymore. I could almost hear my daughter Kalene yelling at me through the text.
Dearest Brooklyn,
Gram and I wanted to thank you for letting us use your house while you were away. I hope that we left it as clean and orderly as we found it. All supplies in the kitchen and bathroom were restocked, although I did lose track of a can of bacterial yeast which I purchased for your septic tank. Under no circumstances should you attempt to bake bread using a product called Tri-Zyme, although I guess that either way it will end up in your septic system.
I could hear him coming down Marine Drive. The slow squeak, squeak, squeak, of his bike and the off key singing of some song in his head. Here comes Clarence.
Decennial Census, also known as the Population and Housing Census, is designed to count every resident in the United States. It is mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and takes place every 10 years. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.
I recently attended a 50th class reunion. I declined to attend my 10-, 20-, or 30-year reunions because I feared that there would be the same high school cliques, the same arrogant scholars who would drone on and on about how they left university to become self-made millionaires, and of course the same mocking football players who would again tie me up in a laundry bag of unwashed game socks and jockstraps. I did attend my first reunion for year 40 and found, to my surprise that my fears were quite unfounded.
I have the same routine every morning, as does my wife. She puts conditioner in her thick platinum blonde hair, fluffing the back and adjusting the curls in the front. Sometimes it can take her ten minutes. In contrast, I slap Lectric Shave on my face and head, sit on the edge of the bathtub with my Norelco battery powered razor in hand and in three minutes have my whole head shaved clean. It is not uncommon, on groggy mornings, for me to unconsciously remove an eyebrow or two also.