Mitchell Way
The hallway in front of the nurse’s office at Alderwood Elementary School was lined with whimpering children and one moaning adult. The principal, Mr. Alan Thon, looked out of his office door and shook his head.
“Well, there are five less than yesterday,” he noted to the school secretary, Mrs. Lingbloom.
It’s been a long time since anyone has called me a potty mouth; even so when my wife hears the words, she still gets the giggles.
If any of you have worked in the industry world like I have most of my life, terms like “Lock, Tag, Try” and “Three Way Communication” are slogans that the safety departments drill into us to keep employees from getting hurt.
“Lock, Tag, Try” of course means to lock out a piece of machinery and tag it with an explanation of why it is locked out. Then you try to start the piece of machinery to verify it is indeed dead.
“Three-way communication” means that someone gives you an instruction and you repeat it back. Then, the original person confirms that yes, that is indeed is what he meant or in my case, I get a blank look and the requestor starts all over again.
I was rummaging through what my wife calls the “sentimental junk” in my tool shed when I came across a rather large box labeled “Patents”. You see, in my quest to make the world a better place, I have patented, patent searched, and copyrighted treasures sure to impress my relatives for centuries. I call it a hobby.
I have pulled from the box one of my prize inventions: “The Mitchell Methane Arrestor.” Now I don’t want to give away too many trade secrets, but it consists of a plywood box I made which holds a used vacuum cleaner motor which I purchased from Rector’s Vacuum Cleaner Store. Also, in the wooden box are mounted two carbon filters which the exhaust air flows through.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Cheryl and I have visited four of the Hawaiian islands: Oahu, Kauai, The Big Island, and Maui.
I would rate them as #1 Kauai, #2 The Big Island, #3 Maui, and #4 Oahu. This is based on things that interest me.
Thirty years ago, there was a different mentality about weddings. It seemed that “most” couples preferred to be married in a church. Nowadays, I really can’t remember the last time we had a wedding in our church.
“Good evening, sir. My name is Officer Luke. My partner, Officer Lease, is in the next room talking with your wife.”
“Talking about what?”
“The hospital,” Officer Luke continued, “is required to call us when they suspect domestic violence.”