Autumn Song

The last leaves have fallen from their perches on high,
And litter the ground right up to ones thigh.
In their legions and armies they boldly stack
Small children and dogs have to turn back.
As he thinks of his wife it gives him the lumps
She can't go to work with leaves on her pumps!

He rattles the heavens with a mighty cry.
“If you weren’t already dead, now you would die!”
He straps on his vacuum, the dreaded El Toro.
(Which he had to buy since he couldn’t borrow.)
He falls upon them from hillock and gulch
And grinds the quivering foe to a powdery mulch.


Like the heroes of old he absorbs all his licks,
Leaf dust up the nose and bites from the ticks.
Still he lays about him like a ninja on narcotics.
He doesn’t care, he’s on antibiotics.
For weeks and weeks the grim battle roils
On and on the suburban Hercules toils.
At missing his football and baseball, he curses.
He is caught in an epic with too many verses.
As the Aeolian blast delivers the neighbors pile,
“I’ll bet they’ll miss their cat,” he says with a smile.

The bags of the fallen line the drive.
Oak, maple, cherry, none made it alive.
He shoulders El Toro and surveys the field.
He is glad he fought on and never did yield.
His chest swells with pride like mighty El Cid
Then his wife whispers: “Next year, hire a kid.”

Watson, Come Here. I Need You

Our downstairs phone broke.

It hung on the kitchen wall for about five years delivering faithful, reliable service: You spoke into it and you could hear another person speaking back. Mission accomplished.

Then its number two broke. We could still call a lot of friends and family, but only those without a two in their phone number. We could, of course, just drop any two bearing individuals from our social network, but this seemed harsh.

As usual, since I am home, the task fell to me to find a replacement. Kathie’s only criterion was that it had to be a wall phone and hence not take up precious counter space. Buying a phone used to be easy. In fact, you often didn’t have to buy one. A subscription to Sports Illustrated netted you a football shaped phone; an example of which was in my son’s bedroom for years.

When you got your new phone, you plugged the jack into the wall and you were in business.

Not so today. I was greeted at Best Buy with an enormous array of phones. Oddly, most of the true wall units are still corded and you can still attach a 20 foot cord to them and multi-task around the kitchen, as Kathie did twenty years ago, gleefully garroting spouse and children while dicing the carrots.

I decided not to go this retro. The helpful young man who waited on me suggested a model that did what I wanted: mounted on the wall, was cordless, had an extra hand-set, and an answering machine. The best news was that it was under fifty bucks.

As soon as I got home, I started the installation. In no time, it was hanging on the wall ready to go. It looked a little odd since it is not a true wall phone but a desk top model fitted with a wall bracket. It appeared to be emerging from the wall like something out of a Dali painting as it sat there without any visible means of support.

It also didn’t work. A read-out on the hand set said “Connecting……..” Of course, if it had said “this phone doesn’t work and never will”, I would have known right away that it had to go. But no, all those animated little dots implied that important electronic stuff was happening and soon all of the necessary handshakes, protocols, etc. would be completed and communication with the outside world restored.

Three hours later, of course, the same message and busy little dots were still there.
I went to the manual and, sure enough, there was a description of what to do if you got a persistent “connecting” message. I performed the steps as outlined in the book by disconnecting and unplugging the phone, disconnecting the batteries and starting over.
No luck.

The instructions then threw in the towel and confessed that if this procedure failed, the phone is probably being interfered with by some other electronic devise like a wireless router, TV, or microwave.

Well, this would be the perfect phone if you were a survivalist living in the great north woods who decides it would be nice to check in with mom once in awhile, but in a modern household like ours where the air crackles with every brain damaging wave known to science this phone is not going to hack it.

Although, you could use it like a canary in a coal mine: "Mary, the phone just died we must leave at once before our heads explode."

So back to Best Buy I went where another bright young man discovered that the returned phone was not compatible with my digital phone service. He sold me one that worked with my service and soon all our two bearing relations were back on the A list.

No wonder Sports Illustrated stopped giving out football phones.

A Trip to New England

Kathie and I just got back from a quick trip to New England to attend a folk art show and have a visit with the kids.

I have been pleading for this because it felt like I haven’t been out of the house since July.

We left on Saturday morning and got back on Sunday evening. It was one of those trips where everything dovetailed perfectly. We called Elisabeth from the road and set up a lunch with her and her fiancé, Alex, at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant in the Natick Mall. They were coming from Boston and we were on the Mass. Pike. Not only did we get there at the same time, but they were parking in a spot two spaces over from ours when we arrived. The visit was great and the food was okay. The noteworthy thing about the Cheesecake factory is that they have an 18 page menu. How they turn any tables is a mystery since it took me a half hour to get to the end. I suspect most people are like me and order something from the last page, since by then they have forgotten the tasty morsels they spied on pages 5 and 12.

We got back on the road and headed north for Marlboro, Mass., the site of the craft fair. We checked into our hotel and headed for the show. There were lots of wood carvers there and I soon developed an inferiority complex. While most seemed to be more technically adept than me, they seemed to devote most of their creativity to carving images of Santa and Uncle Sam.

The highlight of the show was the presence of Will Moses, noted folk painter and grandson of the even more famous Grandma Moses. Kathie and I are fans of his work and actually own several lithographs. He was sitting alone at a table waiting to sign copies of his books and calendars. After a brief conversation with him, I understood why he was alone. He brings new meaning to the term taciturn New Englander. I asked what he remembered about his grandmother hoping to gain some insight into the life and work of this beloved American icon. “She was old,” he replied after a few moments consideration.

After the show we headed to Andover and spent a delightful evening trick or treating with our grandson, Owen, and Kris and Jen.

We had a comfortable night in our hotel room and in the morning decided to avail ourselves of the complementary breakfast. Here I had another in my long series of epic struggles with technology. As I perused the buffet I decided to have a piece of toast. The toaster was one of those commercial conveyor types where you put your bread in the top and it comes out the bottom all nice and toasty. I did this and got a piece of barely warm bread for my troubles. I tried again with the same result. Frustrated, I found the temperature control and turned it all the way up. My piece disappeared into the toaster and slowly made its way through the inner workings. After what only seemed a few seconds into its journey smoke started to belch from the machine. Of course I broke into a sweat as there was no way I could stop it or retrieve the toast.

After what seemed like hours, and just as management was arriving on the scene, the charred remains of my toast plopped onto the plate. “I like it well done,” I commented with all the cool I could muster to the panicked looking kitchen staff surrounding the smoking machine.

When I got back to our table, Kathie said: “Where is all the smoke coming from?”
“I just set fire to the buffet area,” I replied.
“Oh. I’m not surprised,” she said without looking up from her plate.
“You’re not going to eat that?”, she said as she gazed at the steaming slab of pure carbon on my plate.
“No. I just didn’t want to leave it for evidence.”

We checked out and headed down Route 28 on the way to Andover for another visit with Owen. Two fire trucks with sirens wailing passed in the opposite direction. I stepped on the gas.

The Diet

I am on a diet.

I gained 20 pounds in the five or so years before I retired, and packed on 20 more since. So I have dug a 40 pound hole I have to climb out of.
My motivation is simple: I want to be able to fit back into the tux I wore to Kris’ wedding 7 years ago by the time of Elisabeth’s in July.

I’ve been down this road before. In the mid-1980s I hit my all time high of 267 pounds. I fought my way to 175, regained 30 pounds over the ensuing years, lost that, and tacked on the 40 I am currently toting around.

My problem with dieting is I am either all in or all out. I can’t see a 5 pound gain and say “Oh gosh, I’d better get on that.” I have to wait until I’ve added the weight of an average sixth grader before I swing into action. Once I am on a diet, I am the very soul of virtue and usually see pretty fast results.

I love to eat. I have an eating disorder which I refer to as the Boa Constrictor Syndrome:
If I can get my mouth around it, I will eat it; If I can swallow it, I can digest it.

I prefer good food but in a pinch, any food will do.

I never get indigestion or gas (this is subject to dispute in my household). I can polish off a box of Cheezits before bed time and sleep like a baby.

I never leave food on my plate. I blame my mother for this whose mantra was “you better finish that there are children starving in Korea.” I feel that if I don’t clean my plate the population of the entire Asian sub-continent is endangered.

No doggy bags for me. Recently, we were dining in Cajun restaurant and I ordered a spicy rice and seafood dish. It came piled so high on my plate that snow was forming on the peak. As the waiter was clearing, he was stunned to see not a single, solitary grain of rice on my plate. He remarked that in all the years the dish had been on the menu, he had never seen anyone finish it. He called another waiter over to confirm this observation. “You should be embarrassed,” Kathie said. I wasn’t. I had a warm glow in my tummy as I pictured all of those contented Korean children.

I am also a serial eater. I eat constantly. This has been the source of my downfall since I am at home. If there is food around, I will find it. I’ll go for the good stuff first, and when I have gone through that I will get creative. I have no problem scooping peanut butter from the jar and eating it by the spoonful, or gnawing on a chunk of parmesan cheese from the rock-hard block.

Pretzels are a real weak spot. I can demolish a bag of pretzels in one sitting. One night I consumed three quarters of a one pound bag, and in a fit of self-loathing tossed the rest in the garbage. The next day, I was pleased to see Kathie hadn’t taken the trash out so I dug through the coffee grounds and potato peels, fetched the bag, and polished off the contents. I guess my self-loathing spell had passed.

I’ve stopped doing this sort of thing, at least for the duration of my diet. Basically, I’ve cut my portions and stopped noshing. In three weeks, I have lost 8 pounds.

To paraphrase Mark Twain’s remark about quitting smoking, dieting is easy, I’ve done it hundreds of times.

The Bear

It must be Newfoundland retriever, I thought as I gazed at the large, black creature looking back at me from the middle of the trail about 50 yards away.

I raised my binoculars and all doubt was removed: it was a big black bear. It was looking at me, but not in an aggressive way. Its expression was more “uh oh what’s he up to” than “yum lunch.” He slowly wandered across the trail and into the woods. By the time I reached the spot, he was no longer in sight.

I was very excited. Bears are common enough in this part of New Jersey, but in all the years I have been walking the Colombia Trail I have never seen one. In fact, it is more common to see one raiding a dumpster than to come across one in the woods.

The reason is that bears are shy and have more sensitive noses than dogs; hence they will smell you coming a mile away and make themselves scarce. They also have very good reason to be frightened of humans.

I know this because I attended a lecture a few months ago called “Living with Bears.” At first I thought that this might be a talk aimed at helping women deal with the housekeeping habits of male family members. But no, it was about real bears.

Unlike grizzlies, black bears are not predators. Their diet consists mostly of vegetation, nuts and roots. They will, however, scavenge a carcass. The lecturer observed that if you are attacked by a grizzly, playing dead often works as a defense strategy. Not with black bears. They will just dig in.

Basically, they are not dangerous to humans. However, “habituated” bears can be a different story. These are not bears supporting a crack habit by preying on humans, but those that have lost their fear of us: the dumpster divers, in other words. Some people actually encourage this by leaving food out for them or not properly securing their trash. The lecturer told the story of a bald man in the area who used to coat his head with peanut butter and allow the bears in his yard to lick it off, proving that not all humans occupy the top rung of the evolutionary ladder.

The uh-oh look on “my” bear’s face, and the fact that he moved off, indicated he was not of that ilk, so I was not scared. However, if he had moved toward me aggressively it would have time for some serious pants pooping, because a human cannot outrun or out climb a bear.

Following my sighting, I called Kathie, texted the kids, and bounded down the trail with the hope I would run into someone to tell. Soon I encountered a lone woman walking along. “I’ve just seen a bear! I’ve just seen a bear,” I hollered while hopping up and down, like my 2 year old grandson does when he sees a tractor.

“Now, you’ve frightened me,” she said.

I don’t think she was talking about the bear.

Don't Let the Storm Door Hit You in the Ass

Well, you’re packed up and ready to go. So leave already. See if I care.

Usually, I’m hanging onto your ankles begging you to stay for one more cigar on the patio, one more warm evening on the river with the katydids and crickets. Sometimes I even lay a guilt trip on you, whining that I might not even be here when you get back.

Not this time. So go already. To put it politely, as summers go, you’ve been an underachiever.

Twenty five days of rain in June? What was that all about? You ruined everyone’s tomatoes. I hope you’re happy. Oh, by the way, you stepped on autumn’s toes by spreading your blight to the pumpkins as well. I read that Smashing Pumpkins is changing their name to Squishing Pumpkins.

I schlep two enormous air conditioners from the garage to the third floor to create a little island of coolness for when you are pumping up the old heat and humidity index. Did I get to use them even once? Not. Now I have to take them out and haul them back to the garage. I’m not getting any younger, you know.

I don’t think I ever broke a sweat during your term in office. I blame you for my water retention problem. I like nothing better than digging in the yard and working up a good, stinky sweat in the heat of the August day and then settling down with an icy cold beer. You even took the fun out of beer and that takes party pooping to a new level. Oh, and thanks. Did I get out of one single back-breaking project because it was too hot to work?
I don’t think so.

Speaking of pooping on parties, I went to exactly one barbecue and got eaten alive by the horde of mosquitoes you brought with you.

Who told you people like mosquitoes? When was the last time you saw a mosquito feeder in someone’s front yard? I even got a bite on my ass this year and embarrassed Kathie by scratching it all through church. How could you be so inconsiderate of that good woman?

Well, get moving and light out for Argentina or wherever the hell you go next. Crank up Nat King Cole’s “Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer” and think about how you can be a better season next year.

Now go. I have to stack firewood on the porch.

National Cliche

It is what it is.

I am sick to death of hearing this. One hears it twenty times a day, and enough already. In the first place, as Sister Helen would point out with a crisp whack of her ruler, it is bad form to end a sentence with is. Although, she would have phrased it in such a way that it didn’t end in is.

In addition, this poorly structured sentence has virtually become the national catch phrase in these trouble times, and a poor reflection indeed of our can-do spirit.

My research has also revealed that it was authored by the Bush administration in an effort to justify its unfettered free-market policies: “We can’t rein in those crazy bankers because it is what it is.”

Once it entered the national lingo, it lulled us into a passive acceptance of their contemptible policies:

Dick Cheney: “We can only keep America safe by plucking out prisoners’ fingernails and wringing their nuts.”
American People: “Oh, well. It is what it is.”

Which raises another point: frequently it is not what it is, and it never was. A more appropriate national catch phrase for the Bush years would have been “You’re a lying bastard.”

Bush: “We have to invade Iraq because Saddam caused 9/11.”
American People: “You’re a lying bastard.”

Hear the difference?

I would like to propose a new catch phrase that reflects the new administration’s crisis mentality and interventionist policies: “Holy shit. We better do something about that.”

Now I know what you are thinking: the use of the S word in the national cliché will lose the religious right. Guess what? They are already lost. Let them go shit in their hats, as my Uncle Vinnie used to say. Come to think of it, this could also be the new national catch phrase as it totally reflects the level of bi-partisanship in the land.

However, I concede the point and now am prepared to offer a compromise: “Holy Barrack. We better do something about that.” This captures the near Gandhian status the president has achieved, particularly with the younger voters.

Or at least that’s how it was as of last January when Kathie cancelled my subscription to the New York Times. Now the only news I get is from my web browser. So while I know what Gavin MacCloud has been doing since the Love Boat sank, I am a little sketchy on political developments.

Kathie: “I am canceling your Times subscription because reading it only makes you depressed.”
Jerry: “Oh well. It is what it is.”