R Blog

Now I’m Starting to Worry

A 70 year old retired Army Colonel (dentist) has been called to active duty and ordered to report to Afghanistan. Read the story. 
Up until this point I only felt mild disgust/amusement reading about older folks, long out of the service, being called up to plug the holes in Rumsfeld’s “army you go to war with.” Now I’m starting to worry. I got out of the service in 1968 and retired with twenty-one years in the reserve in 1985. But I’m only 62. Just a youngster compared to Col. Dr. Caulfield in the referenced news story. The military used to be pretty strict about dumping you when you reached retirement age. But now it appears there might be some sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy developing for the military elderly. If you’ve read the linked story you will learn that Col. Caulfield is saddling up. He’s apparently yearning to smell the cordite, or maybe the Novocain, one more time. Actually, I think this is one of Bush/Rumsfeld’s better ideas. Let’s go to war with an army of the middle-aged and elderly. We’ll then see peace in our time.

Shipwreck Status Report

Old Don's sailboat appears to be upside down. That is, capsized. Weather is still rough. We hope Don is sitting in a bar in Bellingham and not floating around in his survival suit.

Shipwreck

It’s windy this morning. Blowing steadily out of the Northeast. Not quite a Nor’ easter but making some nice waves and keeping us indoors. We watch Canadian TV stations up here (that’s all we get) and last night on the news they were hoping for respite from the heavy rains which caused some flooding into Vancouver’s water supply. However, the news anchor said no one had anything to worry about as long as they had “a healthy immune system.” (All of Canada must be a no spin zone).

There’s not much news on Lummi Island. Garrison Keeler is lucky he doesn’t have to depend on us for his weekly narrative. The Community Club puts out the Lummi Tome newsletter once a month and it features obituaries. But, stuff is happening. For the last couple of weeks it’s been “the shipwreck.” The shipwreck is the main topic of conversation. Everyone knows something about it. The smaller Coast Guard boat just sloshed by our house heading up to Migley Point where we saw the green trimaran anchored yesterday. Lummi is a friendly, helpful, neighborly place and the shipwrecked sailor is so happy here it doesn’t seem to want to leave. Although, for the last few days, no one can find Old Don. Don is old. He’s 83. A bit too old to be sailing single handed in the San Juans in the winter time.

Don’s adventure started a couple weeks ago when he lost control of his craft and smashed onto the beach near the Willow Inns, our local upscale place to stay. He wandered into the inn soaking wet and hypothermic and the innkeepers did the most logical thing—they put him in the hot tub. They also called the local volunteer fire department and when they finally arrived Old Don was decked out in a Willows Inn terry cloth bathrobe and wandering through the kitchen making himself coffee and snacks. The Inn was full of paying guests and they wanted to get rid of Old Don so Jim Lane, one of our neighbors and the EMT who responded called the Red Cross who put up Don in a motel in Bellingham for a couple days. Jim and a bunch of other guys secured the boat and a few days later a dozen or so of them jacked it up and waited for a high tide to float it off the rocks, then towed it over to Lego Bay.

We first spotted Old Don and his green craft when we noticed him tied up to a buoy at Lane Spit which is just south of us. It appeared that he had a crew and that he was trying to get his sails up, perhaps to leave. It was unusual to see him there as no one leaves their boat tied up in Hales Passage in the winter. Too rough and windy. We watched off and on through the binocs as Old Don messed around on deck. The younger male on board was watching Don but the woman was just sitting quietly as if in meditation. They never got underway while we watched. The next day they were gone.

Yesterday we walked around the north end of the island and spotted the trimaran bouncing up and down in the chop anchored a couple hundred yards off Migley Point in Hale’s Passage. The night before the Coast Guard helicopter had made several passes along the shoreline low enough so we could see the pilots. We ran into Jim and he filled us in.

Old Don had wandered into a transient camp on Chuckanutt Drive in Bellingham and asked if anyone wanted to sail to Acapulco. He recruited three crew members and somehow got them back to Lummi Island. Jim came home to find them in his house, some of them wearing his old clothes. By this time he’d about had it with Don and ran them off. But before that he found out the phone number of Old Don’s daughter in Chico and called her a couple times to tell her what was going on. She seemed unconcerned. This was her dad’s modus operendi. “He does this stuff all the time,” she told Jim. “And, he’s always at loose ends and mooching off someone. Don’t worry about it.”

The crew got discouraged by their afternoon off Lane Spit and split for the transient camp. Acapulco seemed so far away. Don was on his own again. His sleeping bag got soaked in the shipwreck so Jim had kindly given him a survival suit so he was warm while his crew was cold. Hale’s Passage with a northeast wind is not Mexico. “I’ve had it with the old drunk,” said the very patient Jim. “Gave him almost a week of my life. He’s probably sleeping it off in a motel in Bellingham. He’s caught a ride with crabbers twice I know of. Or, he’s floating down the Sound in his survival suit. He’ll probably show up.”

Now no one can find him and the green sailboat bounces up and down in the brisk wind. Where’s Old Don? If we find out before we leave this week, we’ll report. If there’s no news, then we’ll have to wait for the next Lummi Tome.

Becky Sharp Has a Personality Disorder

Vanity Fair by William Thackery reviewed on Bookends.

The Danger of Thinking Outside the Box

December 9, 2004. Anniversary bells are ringing for me and my gal. Thirty-eight years. What does one do for the thirty-eighth? Anniversaries are traditionally commemorated with a precious material associated with that year. For example, gold jewelry is recommended for the first anniversary. I was too poor that year to comply.  On the 17th anniversary, a watch is appropriate. Very close to that anniversary I came through with a gold and diamond watch (which still runs but has hands so small it is no longer useful as a timepiece. Nice bracelet, though). The twentieth calls for the emerald. Couldn’t hack that but did scare up a 32 ct Ellensburg blue agate wrapped in gold. The twenty-fifth year of marriage is the diamond jubilee. There was a nice, if small, diamond pendant in there somewhere.  The thirtieth is pearls and I do recall a strand of freshwater pearls along the way. But, face it, there are only so many precious stones available to hawk to hapless anniverseharied husbands and, at a point in time, you outlast the bloody jewelers and get to a place where practicality sets in. Maturity puts an end to this jewelry foolishness. Let’s face it. If she put it all on at once, she would approximate a royal. When your jewel box is full. Well, it’s full. You don’t need another bauble—paste, fake or certified. Thirty-eight years of marriage calls for a reality check. If you’ve had the stones to last thirty-eight big ones, a gift of real significance is demanded.

Thus, it was with great satisfaction that I decided ‘roofing materials’ is the appropriate gift for the thirty-eighth anniversary. I have hidden in the old Lummi chicken coop a roll of thirty year (it doesn’t come in thirty-eight) roofing material in a charcoal gray. My hope is that in her excitement on receiving this gift she will ask for my help in repairing the damage to the woodshed roof which was ripped and torn in the recent windstorm. What, I ask, could be more symbolic than repairing a roof? A roof connotes shelter, warmth, security. A roof means protection from the elements, the storms of life. Oh sure, there’s dryness, if you are the kind who sees the glass half empty. But that kind of chronic dryness is what we are really after, isn’t it?

I have a clear visualization of us on our ladders preparing a patch and partnering as we have on so many important projects. We will join together in cementing this asphalt in the same way that we have stuck to each other these past years.

I just looked out the window. It’s starting to pour. The roof will have to wait. The roofing material is starting to seem like a bad idea. No back up plan. I’m sunk. S.O.L. Up anniversary creek without a little jewelers box to help me paddle. Got to quit thinking outside the box (so to speak).

Bette Midler Plays Everett, WA!

Bette Midler, a girl nearly my own age, showed up at the new Everett Arena the other night to face 7000 screaming fans. For someone like myself, who grew up in Everett, the idea that a legendary star like Bette Midler could play a date there is hard to grasp. We used to get excited if Stan Boreson (“the King of Scandinavian humor”) played at Normana Hall. But now, Everett is in the big time with the Arena rated the second best 5-10,000 seat venue in the country (after Radio City Music Hall). Want proof? Dolly Parton is there next week and Cher is coming in January. People are driving up from Seattle!

Bette flew onto the stage riding a carousel horse and showed good research with several local jokes that scored big. “I’ve always wanted to come to Snohomish County,” she told us. “Who says that dreams don’t come true?” Surprisingly, she ran through several election jokes proving that she isn’t over it either. With Bette Midler you get lively standup comedy and great singing. She’s funny. It’s a high energy show with a twelve piece orchestra and the backup group—the Harlettes. Ms. Midler allowed that she was upset with singers like Little Kim who she described wearing pasties and a G-string at a recent concert. “I’m fed up with these girls,” she said. “Not one of them have even sent me a note. Don’t they realize that I opened the door for trashy singers with bad taste and big tits?” For those of you who don’t watch Biography, Bette Midler made her name playing gigs in a gay bathhouse in New York with Barry Manilow as her piano player.

My first recollection of Bette Midler is in the 1979 film The Rose which Linda and I Tivo’d and watched again after we learned we were going to the concert. The Rose was as good as I remember with Bette chewing the scenery and singing lights out in a role that was meant to model the life of Janis Joplin. Bette was outrageous, creepy and pathetic yet somehow very appealing playing Mary Rose Foster. Another great B. Midler film is Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a pretty darn funny comedy about a rich guy (Richard Dreyfus) who saves a bum (Nick Nolte) who is trying to drown himself in Dreyfus’s Beverly Hills pool. Bette plays Dreyfus’s wife who becomes infatuated with the bum after he gets cleaned up. She’d had a few down years after The Rose, but this movie and Ruthless People brought her back.

Here’s an entertainer who has been on the top of the show business heap for forty years. It’s difficult to stay on top of anything for that long let alone the fickle entertainment industry. About the only thing she's flopped at is her recently canceled TV sitcom and she made fun of herself for this during the concert with a multimedia presentation featuring Judge Judy with the CBS eye as plaintiff against the overacting actress. She also did her famous Mae West bit telling a series of really blue jokes, mostly involving fornication, and making them sound kind of cute. “I’m so ashamed,” she told us, “but these jokes pay the tuition at a nice private school for my daughter. It’s not me. It’s the tuition talking.” And, of course, in the final act Bette and the Harlettes in mermaid costumes did an energetic review of Broadway tunes with fishy lyrics.

I timed out the show as 2 hrs and 15 minutes. Like President Bush is fond of saying, “It was hard work.” Strenuous activity for a fifty-nine year old woman who looks ageless and has the energy to back it up. We finished up with the expected standing “o” and a couple of planned encores. We got our money’s worth and so did Bette, I expect. I estimate the gate for the show at over $1,000,000. At the end she thanked the audience “for giving me this wonderful life.” I’m certain she was sincere. It’s got to be great to be only three years away from Social Security and and still hopping around in a mermaid suit, telling smutty jokes, singing great songs great, and getting paid for it.

(My niece Mariko was also there. Read a younger person's review of the show/)

Dressed for Success

Last night we attended a party for the Everett,  Washington, YMCA. My mom asked us to go. She didn't want to go alone. Who would? This is an event for folks who have donated to the Y's endowment fund which, apparently, she has. I was just about the only guy there not wearing a suit (because I didn't know we were going until we came up here and if I had I wouldn't have brought a suit anyway). As it turned out the slacks I wore had a gigantic rent in the seam which travels on the general course of one's butt crack. It was pretty much wide open. I didn't discover this until undressing later in the evening not having felt any unusual drafts or seen anyone pointing and laughing. Actually, I'm just not certain whether anyone noticed or not. It wasn't as bad as one of those dreams where you discover you are naked. However, there is good news. Although I grew up in Everett and there were several high school classmates in the audience I am so rarely in Everett that when I do make an appearance everyone thinks I am my brother Richard. They will actually say, "Hi Richard. Where's Mayumi tonight?" So, today, anyone who noticed my slovenly appearance will be saying, "You should have seen the trousers Richard Smith was wearing at the Y function last night." I am totally off the hook.

Marriage Lessons

My beloved and I are coming up on our 38th wedding anniversary, a fact that will surprise anyone who knew us thirty years ago and then didn’t keep track. Marriage is, at its heart, a learning experience. I have learned many things from Linda. Life-changing lessons. The most important of which is this: you don’t have to answer the phone when it rings. I didn’t used to know this. When I was younger and uneducated I was certain that when the phone rang I was required to answer. The phone was signaling an obligation that inferred a responsibility. A ringing phone pretty much got me to my feet and heading toward the noise in a response that would make proud a Pavlovian dog. Early in our marriage I was annoyed and concerned that my sweetie didn’t jump up and run to the phone when it buzzed. It was as if she didn’t care; didn’t care who was calling. (She was like that pro golfer Fred Couples who is famous for saying, “I don’t like to answer the phone because there might be someone on the other end of the line.”) I worried about her lack of responsibility. For many years I expressed irritation and, the fact is, I occasionally still flare when the phone rings next to her and she, instead of answering, flips to the next page of O Magazine. Then it becomes clear. I am still learning. Still her student. Will I jump up and run across the room to catch the call or to at least view the caller ID? Or will I casually exhale and continue with my book? The phone continues to ring. I feel jumpy; even nervous. My heels metaphorically dig into the carpet. No. Wait! They are literally digging a groove in the nap. I will not answer, I say to myself. It is her turn. For as you can see, I haven’t really learned not to answer the phone. I have only learned to compete in a not-answering-the-phone contest. I desperately still want to know who is calling. Linda does not. She has many tricks, this wily wife. Just now our cell phone sang it’s strange little song (I need to learn to change it). I glanced at the number. My mother-in-law. “Your turn,” I sang out. “It’s your mother.” “I can’t,” she said. “My hands are messy.” She displayed them to me. They were covered with some sort of food product. Curses. Then she says, “Just answer it.” There it was. A test. Had I really learned a damn thing in thirty-eight years of mostly marital bliss? Or, was I an imbecile who couldn’t learn not to answer the phone? I hesitated for another ring, then pushed the little green phone symbol on the Nokia 6200. “Hey! How are ya?” I said.

Another Food Sermon From The Reverend R

Feast days like Thanksgiving should remind us all that we eat too much brown food. There is a lot of information about nutrition out there but eating nutritionally is really pretty simple. To be healthy, one needs to eat healthy food. Healthy food is colorful. Generally, the healthiest most colorful food is raw. And raw food is rarely brown or white or beige. But colorful food isn’t necessarily raw. Think of beets or squash, kale, chard or spinach. Even cooked, they retain a nice bright color. Brown food fills us up and makes us feel as if we’ve had a nice meal. Colorful food provides actual nutrition, often without harmful fats and sugars. Think of your plate as a palate. Don’t even note the items. Just look at the color. Is your plate mostly brown (colorless)? I’ll bet most of the time it’s 80% or more brown food with maybe a little dab of salad to color things up (salad covered with brown salad dressing). Try and reverse the ratio so that 80% of the plate has color. The best color is green. Think spinach, kale, chard, broccoli, beet geens, collards, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, avocado, and (other than iceberg) lettuce. Then add some red with beets and tomatoes, and some orange with squash and yams. Color is good. Fear no color when it comes to food. Avoid the brown meal, the fried and battered, the gravied and sauced. I believe it was Muhammad Ali back when he was Cassius Clay who said, “If you’re eatin’ brown, you’re goin’ down.”