Mitchell Way
Sitting in the “Lab for Creative Ideas,” I had just hung up the phone after talking to my Patent attorney, Butch Cassidy whom, like his historical namesake, was trying to rob me blind. Apparently, ideas #407, the stick gum dispenser, and #408, the “Sleepy Sling” baby carrier had proven to be unpatentable in his findings during patent searches.
It was the third time the airport manager had caught us riding our motorcycles on the old taxiways at the airport. This time he meant business as he accelerated the airport pickup, gradually gaining on our two bikes. If we could just make it to the old logging trail and cut into the woods, we could lose him. My best friend Chuck looked over at me with a worried look on his face, the high pitched whine of his two stroke Suzuki 90 made my step-through Honda 50 sound like the voice of a 12 year old boy going through puberty.
My best friend, Chuck, walked down from his house to mine to borrow my impact driver. Apparently, he hadn’t completed his set of all my tools. He found me in my back half-acre with two of my fishing poles.
“What’s up with the two fishing poles,” he asked.
“I’m finishing up my final preparations for river fishing tomorrow and I wanted to see which of these poles will cast a 2-ounce sinker the furthest since I want the lure to make it at least into the middle of the river.”
Chuck looked at both poles closely.
“They are the same length. They both have spinning reels with approximately the same amount of line on the spools. The eyes on the poles are made for a spinning reel.”
He took one and waved the tip up and down rapidly. Then he took the second and did the same with it.
“Very close in the flex of the poles. I think that they will both cast your sinker about the same distance.”
Chuck and I spent many a day fishing when we were growing up, both in lakes and rivers. We would even take our sleeping bags and hike up into the hills to sleep overnight next to a pond or a creek we wanted to spend time fishing in. I valued his opinion of my fishing gear.
“It’s 125 feet from this fence line, across to the other fence line on the far end. I have an unobstructed mowed field, and the only obstacle is that 100-year-old apple tree off to the right side. The poles are labelled ‘A’ and ‘B’, and the 2-ounce lead sinker is attached to ‘A’. I’ll just cast the sinker and pace off the feet where it lands.”
Flipping the bale over, I brought the pole back over my head and gave the sinker a mighty cast, keeping the pole parallel to the fence line on my left side. The sinker arced high into the air, curved to the right and landed in the top of the apple tree.
“Nasty slice, Mitchell,” Chuck snarked. “It’s almost like the sinker was magnetically attracted to the tree.”
Looking at the sinker dangling high up in the old dead limbs and realizing that it would be a lost cause to try to retrieve it, I growled to myself.
“I’m going to have to work on my follow-through. That sinker is a goner. I’ll cut the line and use another 2-ounce sinker on pole ‘B’.”
Clipping another sinker onto the line of pole “B”, I took a slow practice cast without opening the bale. Watching the tip of the pole go over my head, I pointed it directly at the far fence line.
“Perfecto,” I said, and opening the bale, I brought the tip of the pole over my head and gave the sinker a mighty cast. It too arced to the right and landed in the high branches of the apple tree.
“Cripes!” I muttered.
“I’d say that both poles are about the same and they really aren’t the problem,” Chuck said. “It’s the same problem you had in elementary school when you were pitching in a baseball game. You were aiming for home plate, but the ball went consistently between home and third base. It was always an easy walk for the batter.”
“Yah, I think my right shoulder is a little tight. I’ll have Cheryl massage the muscles.”
“It all depends on what you were trying to accomplish, Mitchell old boy. If you were trying to land the sinkers in the top of the apple tree, you were spot-on accurate. Now, about that impact driver.”
Those sinkers still hang from the apple tree like ornaments on a Christmas Tree.
Fishing is an addiction for me. Once I get started, it’s hard for me to stop until I catch my fill of fish. Sadly enough, it is like someone who goes to the casino regularly because they are so close to winning the big one. It ruins them financially. This, I’m afraid is also the case with a fish-o-holic.
It’s not all my fault of course. I ride my bike on the dike over the river and I see other fisherman out on the sand bar, and I know that this year there is going to be a great run of Pink Salmon and Coho. The little demon on my left shoulder whispers in my ear, “You want to go fishing, don’t you?”
My guardian angel, who is on my right shoulder, slaps me on the side of the head and reminds me of the toll it will take on me and that I better get that thought right out of my mind.
But when I go home and tell Cheryl that I saw fishermen out on the sandbar, she says, “I think you ought to go fishing. What else do you have to do with your day? You can’t sit at your computer all day writing stories.”
“But it’s addicting,” I remind her.
“You will be able to control your urges,” she assures me. “Go fishing.”
So, you see. It’s Cheryl’s fault. She’s an enabler.
And actually, this year was the reason I started fishing again because I am 70 years old, and my fishing license is free – which was the only thing free for me about fishing. I went to the local sporting goods stores and began buying lures at six to eight dollars apiece. Adding to that, sinkers, barrel clips and shrimp oil. I also grabbed a Washington State Fishing Rules magazine so I would clearly know the type and number of salmon I could catch in the Nooksack River. Included inside are photos and descriptions of the salmon so that if on a long shot, I did catch one, I would know what it was. Once on a deer hunting trip, I accidentally shot a rabbit. A clear misidentification issue.
Putting all the newly purchased gear in my tackle box, I chose pole “B”, and placed everything in the back of my SUV for an early morning start the next day. This also was not something that I was used to – getting up at 6 a.m. The desire to fish is greatly diminished when the alarm goes off at that hour. But with a shove from Cheryl’s foot, I was out of bed and onto the floor, ready for my first day of fishing.
Here is where the similarities between fishing and sitting at a slot machine begin. Standing on the riverbank in a secluded area, I began to lose lures at an average of $7.00 a piece and not just the lure, but the barrel swivels and the lead sinkers too. All this was happening without me ever getting a fish to strike. The lures were hooking up on debris in the water. And being that I was sitting under the low hanging branches of a tree on the bank, I was constantly swatting the limbs with the tip of my pole which greatly reduced the distance a lure would land out in the river.
Here is where fish-o-holism takes over. The fisherman cannot stop from taking another lure out of his tackle box after he has lost the previous one. He doesn’t know when to say enough is enough. I would go home at the end of the day embarrassed that I had a $30.00 day on the river, but not only did I lose that much, I also stopped by the sporting goods store and replaced what I had lost. I was beginning to see that I needed help.
Then, on my third day out, I was sitting on the riverbank in the sunshine. My lure was not in the water. From totally out of nowhere I heard someone say, “Good morning, sir.” Startled, I turned and stared directly into the face of Fish and Game Warden, Steve Michaels. I immediately wondered if I had remembered to hang my Discovery Vehicle Pass on my rearview mirror. From stories I have heard from other fishermen and hunters, these Wardens can be ornery, but Steve was very cordial.
“Can I see your fishing license and salmon catch record card?” he asked.
Reaching into my wallet, I handed him the fresh pieces of paper.
“You haven’t been logging your catches on the record card,” he noted.
“If I ever catch a salmon, I will be sure to do just that,” I assured him. “I consider a good day of fishing, not going home after losing $30.00 worth of lures.”
Steve and I chatted about fifteen minutes on easy ways to properly identify a variety of salmon and then he turned to leave, but only five steps away he again turned to ask me a question.
“I’m just curious, how long have you been trying to get your lure out of that tree? You’re never going to fill your catch card if the lure isn’t in the water.”
“Thank you, Officer Steve. By the way, do you know if there is a fishermens-anonymous meeting anywhere in the county?”
** Title photo salmon was caught by Braydn Kruger.
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
Standing in front of the church Elder board, I was being asked the usual questions as to why I felt the need to give the church free publicity in the newspaper. I guess I did have quite a knack for it and really, it did not take much effort to get it.
My contractor friend, Homer Bentnail, was standing out in the driveway with me looking at my newly installed metal carport next to the garage.
“It wasn’t that bad,” I said. “It only took four months.”
“Well, it was your own fault,” he said. “You applied for a permit. You should have just had them come out in June when they called and had them put it up.”
“Wait a minute, this is brand new construction thirty feet from the road. Any county truck driving by would notice it right away and he’d come pulling up into my driveway and ask me to show him the permit.”
“To which you would just tell him, ‘I didn’t know I needed to have a permit.’ It’s better to get the job done and ask for forgiveness later. They might slap you with an after-the-fact fine and then you move on with life.”
“So, if you had a customer who wanted a new garage built thirty feet from the main road, would you build it for him without engineered plans and a permit?”
“No, of course not. I could lose my contractor’s license for doing something like that. I’m just saying that you made a mistake going for a permit.”
“I happen to know of a friend of mine who put up a shed on his property without a permit,” I said. “An inspector driving by noticed it and stopped in and asked him for his paperwork which he didn’t have. The inspector slapped a red notice on the shed saying that until corrections were made, the shed was unusable and if anyone went inside, the owner would be fined $5000.00.”
And so, we went around in circles with the permit topic for over thirty minutes.
The carport idea started many years ago when Cheryl came out of retirement and started driving school bus. Her car was always parked outside, next to the garage which housed my nicer, more expensive car. I would lie in bed some mornings listening to her grumbling outside as she used the broom to wipe the snow off her car before going to work. Sometimes she had the audacity to wake me up from a sound sleep with the continuous rasping sound of her ice scraper going back and forth on her front windshield.
“Hey, I am trying to sleep!” I’d yell from the bedroom window. Then I heard the front door slam and snow boots stomping up the stairs. Opening the bedroom door and flipping on the lights, she threw an armload of snow on my head.
“I want a garage!” she yelled.
In the months and years to follow, she brought up the garage topic just to annoy me and I ably dismissed the idea. And why, you ask? Well, there is the lumber cost of a stick-built garage. Add to that the hourly rate of a contractor, the engineered plans, the concrete pad, and then the permits. The total cost of a project like that was just out of the question. So, Cheryl continued to park her car outside, exposed to the elements. I might add though, that on the really inclement nights, I offered to let her park her car in the garage, as long as she mopped the melted snow off the floor.
Then one day, four months ago, I was driving through an older development outside of town and I saw in the driveway of a home, a metal carport. It had a red roof with red siding and was big enough for two cars, and it was attractive. I wouldn’t mind putting something like that up next to the garage, I thought. It can’t cost that much. I wonder if Cheryl would go for it. So, I drove home, picked her up, and showed it to her. And she said, yes. Now to find out where the owner bought it.
Walking to his front door, the owner came outside and was only too happy to tell me where he’d bought the building and how much it had cost him ten years ago.
“Did you have to get a permit?” I asked him.
“Well, let me think,” the old geezer said, rubbing his chin with his thumb and pointer finger. “That was such a long time ago. But now that you mention it, I think I did get one.”
“Thanks,” I said. “We’ll go check on pricing and maybe I’ll get one.”
On the next Sunday after church, Cheryl and I drove out into the county and found the company that was selling the carports. The owner gave us pricing for an 18 by 25-footer and showed us color options for the roof and the siding. The total out-the-door price was $2800.00. Well, that was a heck of a lot cheaper than the price of a stick-built garage, and it was a no-brainer.
“How about a permit. Do I need to get one?” I asked.
He hemmed and hawed and asked where I lived. When I told him, he said, “I’ve never had anyone from that area say they had to get a permit.”
So, I paid the non-refundable deposit after Cheryl picked the colors she wanted. We were told that the manufacturer out of Oregon would be giving me a call when they were ready to come up and install. I was also given a sheet of requirements that had to be met before they would erect the carport. These items included having the ground level and having two feet of clearance around the perimeter of the building, plus gas and power lines were to be marked. These things were all doable.
Monday morning, I decided to stop by the Whatcom County Planning and Permits center, just to clarify if I needed a permit. Bringing in the color brochure, I asked the young lady at the counter, “Do I need a permit to put one of these up in Whatcom County?”
“You most definitely do,” she answered. “An unattached shed less than 120 square feet does not require a permit, but your carport is 450 square feet and as soon as you drive rods into the ground and anchor it, it is a permanent structure.”
So, the dealer of the carports wasn’t being truthful and didn’t have signage stating that if you buy a carport in Whatcom County, you will need to go through the permitting process. The permit lady helped me set up an account on the computer and printed me off a list of what they required.
Maybe a seasoned contractor would understand the terminologies of what was being asked but I didn’t have a clue. Like for instance, site plan, elevations, engineered drawings, and to start the permit process, it cost me $150.00.
“Hmm. This could be harder that I thought.”
Going back home, I called the manufacturer in Oregon. “Hey, as it turns out, you can’t put up a carport in this county without a permit which your dealer didn’t tell me. I am going to need engineered plans from you.”
Now, you would think that a company who manufactures the buildings, would have engineered plans to send out to a buyer to help them get their permit.
“Well sir, some counties require permits, and some don’t. There will be an additional fee for us to send you the plans drawn to the county’s specifications. Being that the carport will have to be built to the County’s specifications now, the additional materials will also be added to the cost of the carport. Do you want us to continue with the process?”
“Cripes! I’ve already lost $500.00 in non-refundable fees. Yes, I want you to continue!”
“I will send you a PDF form for the specifics that the county needs and you send it back to me when it is filled in,” he squeaked in his mousy voice.
The form came to my computer, and I took it to the Planning and Permit Police and let them fill in all the numbers that they wanted, such as the ability to withstand a hurricane and the weight of twenty feet of snow on the roof. I then sent the specs to the manufacturer and started my wait.
In the meantime, there was a permanent lean-to building on the site of the carport that had to be torn down and since they needed two feet of clearance around the perimeter to construct it, I had to cut down two rows of hedge trees. Then I had to level the ground which looked level already. To do this I bought four pieces of rebar and hammered them into the ground in the corners of the 18 by 25 foot dimensions. Next, using my unskilled mind, I ran a string from one corner to the next and using a line level, I tied that length tight. Then went to the next corner and tied it off when it was level. This also worked going to the third corner, but when going from the third corner back to the first corner, the string was three inches too high.
“What the heck?”
So, I untied the string from the corners and started all over again and after leveling each corner, I ended up with the same result. Returning to the starting corner – three inches too high.
“Yah, string and line levels never really work well for that distance,” Homer told me over the phone. “Better use a laser level.” I went to his house and borrowed his laser level which to an experienced contractor would make total sense and of course the contractor would know how to use one. After a short demonstration, I returned home to find out that my level-to-the-eye gravel pad was actually five inches high on one side. After a few hours digging with a trowel on my knees and tamping, the two 25-foot runs for the carport base were level within a quarter inch.
Next, I got an email from the Planning Police which told me that if I didn’t have all my required paperwork into their office by a certain date, the application would be tossed out, I would have to open my application over again and it would cost another $150.00. This required yet another trip to the planning office to explain to them that my plans were being drawn and I couldn’t do anything until I received them. I got a smirk from the woman behind the counter as if to say, “We’re going to wear you down until you have a nervous breakdown.” I am so lucky to live only four miles from the county office, since I made multiple trips there to have them explain to a layman what it was that they actually wanted.
My next job was to figure out how to draw a one-square-acre land parcel with all the buildings, power lines, septic and freshwater pipes on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper for the county site plan. After buying a 100-foot tape measure, Cheryl and I walked the property and measured everything, getting the distance from the road to the house, the width of the driveway, and the footprint where the carport would sit. All the numbers and sketches were put on a piece of notebook paper. Then, I found some graph paper and I looked at the numbers.
Let’s see. Looking at the county’s example of what a site map looks like, 1-inch equals 10 feet. Heck, I can’t fit that on an 8 ½ by 11 inch piece of paper. Let’s try 1-inch equals 30 feet.
By the time the one-acre parcel was drawn to scale, the entire house was the size of a postage stamp and the area for the proposed carport was a quarter by half inch. Oh well. I’ll add a magnetic north arrow at the top and the scale of 1” equals 30’ and it will have to be good enough. Amazingly enough, it was good enough. Actually, I was told that in the old days, site maps were drawn on the face of napkins and handed to the inspector.
After a few weeks wait, I was called by the mousy voiced sales representative from Oregon.
“Your engineered plans are ready sir. We will need a deposit of $2644.43 and we will send them to you. The remainder of the cost will be paid at the time that the carport is installed.”
My deposit was now up to the cost of the originally quoted carport and there was more to come. I gave him my credit card number and moments later, PDF files of my engineered plans showed up in my email box. Now all I had to do was compile all the necessary drawings and information converted to PDF and send them via email to the County. I breathed a sigh of relief realizing that I had made the County’s deadline and now it was in their ballcourt.
Weeks later, I received a letter from the County stating that the permitting process was complete and for $850.00, I could download all my permit paperwork. 850 flippin’ dollars. What are you going to do? They’ve got me right where they want me.
With permits now printed, I made a call to Oregon and told them to put me on the schedule. Three weeks later, two workers drove up with all the steel on a trailer and put it up in two hours.
Homer and I stood out in the driveway looking at their finished construction.
“Well, let me just add this up,” I said. “The original quoted price without a permit was $2800.00. The upgraded, engineered carport came to $4596.26. The fees to the Whatcom County Planning and Permits department were another $1000.00 which means my $2800.00 carport ended up costing $5596.26.”
“Yah, but look at the bright side of this,” Homer added. “You won’t get awakened by the sound of Cheryl scraping the ice off her windows anymore.”
“So true,” I said. “So true.”
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
Adventure. My best friend Chuck and I were always on the lookout for some new and strange adventure. Something that most kids would never have considered trying. Something that while sitting in front of our parents would cause them to scream, “Why in the world would you try a stunt like that?”
The components of a great comedy skit must include some, if not all the following suggestions to be successful. By not meeting these criteria, you may well receive blank looks from your audience and the possibility of being booed off the stage (believe me, I know.) The list is as follows:
There was a period in my life, during the teens and twenties, when I was going through the Monty Python/ Maxwell Smart phase. It just so happened that everyone in my college group was going through it also, so we became an improv act.
All our skits were clean humored because we were, after all, a college church group. We started out with small announcement skits at the morning church service. After proving ourselves, and getting laughs, we were soon asked to create skits for multiple events around the church throughout the year.
We had a program for elementary age children called Junior Church. It was an alternative for them, which got them out of the adult service on Sunday mornings. The ages of the kids ranged from kindergarten through fifth grade. Stories from the Bible were taught so that a child could understand them. There was also a time for crafts.
Because there was a shortage of older adults who were willing to be leaders for Junior Church, I volunteered. My wife, Cheryl, reminds me that I was the perfect fit since I also had the maturity of an elementary school student. Each week we would creatively come up with skits and crafts to entertain ten to fifteen children. For the most part, they were all good kids, or rascals, depending on how you looked at them. The only boy who challenged me was an imp named Silas Wiseacre.
Silas was a red-headed third grader covered in freckles. With his oversized crooked adult teeth coming in and his baby teeth falling out, he had quite a smile. He had quite an oversized attitude also and Silas and I faced off many times.
“You better not, Silas!” I’d growl.
“What are you going to do if I do,” he’d ask, just to see how far he could go. It was frustrating.
So, just because I could, I played tricks on him, which I found out backfired, because he realized that he could also play tricks on me.
Now, one of the guys in the college group named Johnny Z had a mother whose name was Shirley. Shirley had the position in the church of being the Sunday School Superintendent, meaning that she set up all the programs for the youth. Realizing that we were starting to gain fame from our skits, she asked Johnny if we would do a series of four skits during the adult morning services. A whole month of skits. They should have a continuing story line with a message and all the Junior Church kids would be present. The kids would be able to see what happens in the adult church and the adults would be able to share in the kid’s program.
It sounded like the church had finally accepted and respected our talent. We accepted Shirley’s offer.
First, we got the whole crew together and came up with a four-week story line. It was of course, a storyline which bordered on the ridiculous. There would be a villain, a dimple-chinned would-be hero, a maiden in distress, and a horse named Fetalbalm. The rest of the crew would be off stage in charge of props and sound effects.
Of course we couldn’t have a real horse inside the church building, so we created one. Fetalbalm had a burlap bag for a head. Inside, the head was stuffed with straw. There were two red apples for eyes which were held onto the head with long pieces of string. If we wanted to, we could put slack in one of the pieces of string and slowly lower an apple to the floor.
Notice that we now had two of the required criteria: a story line, and sight gags.
A push broom head inside of the top of the bag gave Fetalbalm’s head its shape, and the handle allowed the operator to rotate the head. A brown Army blanket formed the body, and underneath, to provide the legs were two men; Mason who worked the front end, and me as the rump. Since we were always covered, no one in the audience knew who was playing those parts under the horse.
I might add here that my wife Cheryl has called me multiple variations of a horse’s rump over the last 40 years.
This is a brief synopsis of the storyline as I remember it:
The villain kidnaps the fair maiden, and each week the dimple-chinned hero and his faithful horse try to save her. During week four she is rescued, much to the delight of the crowd. Of course, each act included many sight gags and witty dialog which only the adults understood.
One of the gimmicks we used each week was that Fetalbalm would be missing his tail at the start of the skit. It was hidden somewhere on the stage. If one of the children could see the tail on the platform from his seat, he could point it out to the hero and then come up on the stage and tape the tail onto the rump of the horse. This made them excited to come to the skits because they might be the one to tape the tail on the horse.
Now here is something of interest I found about being the rump of a horse: flatulence, not from the back of the horse but from the guy in the front of the horse. The guy in the back of the horse is in no position to get out of the way of the guy in the front of the horse. I can remember being in position inside the horse one Sunday when a foul odor filled the inside of the blanket.
“Oomph! For crying out loud, Mason. What did you have to eat last night?”
“Quiet,” he whispered. “The kids will hear you – and it was Sauerkraut.”
Silas was there each Sunday of the skits, and he sat in the same aisle seat. So, each week to annoy him and get a laugh from the audience, as the horse walked past him, I would swing the horse’s butt into his back, or step on his shoe with my hoof. I’m realizing that I would not get away with a prank like that today because Silas is a 50-year-old truck driver who would most likely pound me into the carpet. As of week three, Silas had not been the first to spot the horse tail and he would shout something sarcastic at the child who did find it. It was during week four, our final skit, that things changed for us all.
As was usual for the scheduled format, Shirley and the Pastor took to the platform at the start of the service and Shirley welcomed the children and introduced the skit by reminding them to look for the horse’s tail. They both then sat down in their chairs on the platform facing the audience.
It is important to note here that the platform was three steps up off of the main floor where the audience sat. The skit began.
A dial telephone used as a prop, sitting on a small table on the platform, started to ring. It rang about seven times, when suddenly, the dimple chinned hero entered from a side door, dripping wet, wrapped only in a towel as if he had just stepped from the shower. He walked to the center of the platform, picked up the phone and began his dialog.
I had to hand it to Shirley. She didn’t even turn her head to look at him. She just followed him across the stage with her eyes. Her face, which some of the adults in the audience were also staring at, showed signs that she may soon pass out, but her knuckles, wrapped around the base of her seat brought out nicely the stained oak of the chair.
This was then our cue to bring Fetalbalm to the platform. Naturally, walking past Silas, I swung the horse’s rump into his back as we passed him. This got no reaction from him, but as we began climbing the stairs to the platform, he stood up and yelled, “There it is! I see the tail.”
To this day, I believe that someone in the cast told him where to look, because it wasn’t in plain sight. At any rate, Silas jumped up and ran to the platform to tape the tail onto Fetalbalm, but for Silas, it was not about winning, it was all about getting even. He took the tail to the rear of the horse and instead of taping the tail onto the rump, he reached under his coat and pulled out an upholstery stapler and fired two staples into my butt.
It is evident to me now, why the NFL has banned what they call the tush-push, where players get behind the quarterback and push him and the center far enough forward to get a first down or a touchdown. Mason was caught by surprise when I jumped forward, pushing him and I off the platform onto the floor below.
The mystery of who was under Fetalbalm was then revealed as I ran from the sanctuary trying to pull loose the Army blanket which was securely attached to my butt. Mason was left alone holding poor Fetalbalm’s head by the broom handle. As he let go of the string holding the apples and they started lowering to the floor, he grabbed one and took a bite out of it. This of course traumatized the children.
Although we fully covered all the essential criteria for a great skit, the Fetalbalm skit was our last. After receiving a tetanus shot, I gave Silas the tail to hang as a trophy on his bedroom wall and the two of us made a truce.
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
At Bellingham High School, the stereotypical gender pathway in the 70s was always the same; enter the school through the main doors, pass the main office following the hallway down between the auditorium and counselor’s offices. Upon reaching the next crossing hallway, the girls turn left walking north. The guys turn right or continue straight out the east end of the building. The girls were going to Home Economics and the boys to Industrial Arts.
My mother was a world traveler. Ask her about any country or region of the world and chances are that she had been there. She traveled by plane, train, bus, cruise ship, camel and elephant. She was never keen about bicycles or skis because she said that elegant ladies should never fall on their faces. It was her goal in life to see and do as much as she could possibly cram into her remaining years and, as much as possible, she wanted to share the experiences with her family.
Recently my wife has been ailing from sciatica in her left hip. This has been a blessing for me. For the first time in a long time, I am not the biggest pain in her backside.
It was a panoramic view which I am sure most people have never witnessed. The whole of Abbotsford, B.C. and further up the Fraser Valley to Harrison Lake, south to Bellingham, Washington and west to the San Juan Islands. There I sat in the morning sun; the wind was at my back — about 80 miles per hour of wind.
In a small cabin at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Curlew Lake, eight men prepared for a week of deer hunting on Vulcan Mountain. This was the opening weekend. This was the final weekend of the World Series and this was the year we witnessed “The Phantom.”
“I once sucked down a whole can of sardines — heads, guts and all, while only taking one breath.”
“Ok,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar.”
My friend Rex removed a can of sardines from his backpack, peeled back the lid, took one deep breath, and proceeded to slurp down the whole can — head, guts, and all.
It has always been my opinion that too much of a good thing is never advisable. Too many rides on the Zipper at the carnival can make you sick for the rest of the day as will too many hotdogs or pieces of pizza. After four days, relatives staying at my house begin to become annoying because they are in my space. Too much of a good thing. This is why I have my own office, or as I like to call it, The Laboratory for Creative Ideas. I can be around my wife Cheryl for a short amount of time before my adorable, sarcastic, small-talk drives her up the wall and she shouts, “Get out of here. Go to your office!”
Obviously, I’m too much of a good thing.
I have special interest in three sciences: Ornithology, because my wife says I am ornery. Ichthyology, because the girls in elementary school constantly said I was icky, and Entomology for my appreciation of honeybees. Not that we have not had our differences; the last time I was stung, my arm pits swelled up like there were golf balls under the skin. Now when I travel, I must bring my Epipen™ to prevent my tongue from swelling up and choking me. Yet, I find the little fellows interesting. They leave the hive in the early morning and work all day gathering honey only to give it up to the Queen and the 500 kids. (I won’t try to draw any parallels here.)