General Stench – Page 13 – HappyStinkingJoy

Music Scene in the Nebraska Panhandle!

Sometimes, I am able to step back from my own perceived issues and take a look at the issues of someone else. No matter how bad you think you have it, there is someone else who can evoke feelings of pity from you. Such is the case with Mr. Jimmie Van Zant.

In the panhandle of Nebraska, there are few choices for entertainment. Very seldom does musical entertainment that fits my likes find its way here. On the 3rd of July this past summer, one of the local bars made a very lame attempt at bringing some “rock & roll” to the panhandle. The area is flooded with extremely lame cover-bands, so this bar thought it would bring in a person with a semi-famous last name so that person could perform hit songs! YEAH!… right? Except this person really has no claim to fame himself. He is riding the coattails of famous relatives of his which makes him and his band a… uh… cover-band.

Every time I see this, I have to laugh. I’m not laughing with you, Mr. Van Zant, I’m laughing at you. Jimmie is performing hits… by his first cousins. Hahaha! Seriously?!? How lame of a promo is that?

“I’ve never really amounted to much of anything, but my cousins had some success, so I’m gonna be performing some of their songs. Come see me perform, ’cause I got famous cousins! And I ain’t talking about 2nd or 3rd cousins… these are 1st cousins!”

For crying our loud. Don’t you just feel for Jimmie? I do. I feel really bad for him. He had first cousins in two bands that are icons of Southern Rock… and the biggest fame he could find is riding their coattails like 30 years later. Poor dude. My way of thinking leads me to believe that if he really had any talent, his cousins could have got him on with Lynyrd Skynyrd or 38 Special… not left him hanging only to cover their hits 30 years after the fact… at a dinky bar… in the-middle-of-nowhere Nebraska. I realize that Jimmie may have been to young to perform with the great bands during their heydays, but as far as I know, both Lynard Skynyrd and 38 Special still tour. Of course, maybe Jimmie just wants to do his own thing. Why play with the actual bands that had the hits when you can cover their songs and promote your 1st-cousin-status. Oh well.

Even more pathetic than Jimmie Van Zant is his opening act. The Driving Dynamics have quite a reputation around these parts. They are, after all, the “longest running rock & roll band in Nebraska”. I think Larry Soto is actually the founder of this group… and he still plays… and sings. Yeah, if you are thinking what I am thinking, the dude has to be like 90-years-old. That has to be entertaining. I’ve heard that Larry is like the only one of the original members who still plays. I guess he either fired the rest, they quit to enjoy the fruits of grand-parenthood, or they have died of old age. You can only imagine how exciting one of The Driving Dynamics’ shows must be.

Looking at the current band members according to the band’s website, Larry plays guitars and does vocals. The Dynamics also have two additional vocalists and a drummer. Three singers, one guitar and drums… and apparently a tape player playing bass, keyboard and whatever else is needed. That’s gotta suck 🙂 But the old Germans love this group, apparently because, even at 90, Larry makes the gray-hairs swoon.

Larry took this picture while looking down at his multitude of fans

Yeah, western Nebraska ain’t known for its music scene…

Sometimes, Life is Like football?!?

Everyone has probably already seen the following videos, but it struck me as I watched them on a Yahoo! News earlier this week… these are SO like life. In this first video, the poor running back gets an awful pitch from the quarterback. He gets turned around and begins running the wrong way. You can tell he is trying to veer back in the right direction, but his momentum and the players on his back prevent him from gaining positive ground. Yet, the little whipper-snapper just keeps plugging away. He is giving it his all. He is trying to make a positive outcome out of a very negative situation. He is an optimist.

With a certain realization, he becomes desperate. He tosses the ball to no one and suddenly he is either the biggest optimist on the planet, or he has come down from the ozone to join the rest of us and realized that all of that effort really wasn’t worth it. Whichever the case may be, I highly doubt he was much of an optimist for the next few days (or years… or decades). Welcome to the real world, Sparky.

This second video shows why sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better not to succeed. The Otters have this game in the bag. The field goal is well short of the mark. YEAH us! We win! We have succeeded! All of the hard work we put in finally paid off! A big “V”!

Caught up in the momentum of “victory”, the young optimist goes into celebration-mode… a bit too early. He forgets the fundamentals of his “profession”. In less than 4 seconds, he goes from probably one of the happiest moments of his young life to utter horror. Watch the clip again. After Mr. Prep spikes the ball and the other dude scores the touchdown, you see Mr. Prep falling to his knees and grabbing his face mask in utter disbelief. You can almost feel his stomach churning, can’t you. You can almost feel his tears running down your cheek, can’t you? “WHAT DID I JUST DO?” HAHAHA! See how easily one stupid mistake can undermine all of that hard work? See how easy it is to disappoint many people by losing your head for one brief moment?

I guess the positive is, if there is a positive to be found, in both of these videos: you can find your own success through the miserable failings of others. Be on the lookout for someone else to make a huge mistake, because therein may lie your huge opportunity for success. If you can’t find success on your own, wait for some poor sap to screw up for you.

101 Things to do in Wyobraska!

Here it is, Saturday evening, and I was trying to figure out something to do with the family. I get tired of sitting around on the weekends doing nothing fun. Our local crappaper, the Star-Herald, is always trying new things to get people to fork over a buck for a paper not worth 25¢. This is a newspaper that charges for obituaries, so I have little respect for the heads of this paper (who are based in Omaha… so they are complete idiots who know nothing about life in rural Nebraska). The Star-Herald‘s most recent attempt at suckering people into purchasing this rag was a little insert they put in the regular paper called “101 Things to do in Wyobraska”. I kept this insert to use as a reference for times just like this; times when I’m trying to find something for my family to do to get out of the house and away from the TV and computer. Well, after glancing through the Star-Herald’s “101 Things to do in Wyobraska,” I was still clueless.

The wife says, “Did you decide what you want to do… I kinda wanted to take a shower tonight, so if we’re going to do something, let’s do it.”

“Go ahead and take your shower,” I say. “I’m going to spend yet another night on the stinking computer. The boys will rot their brains in front of the TV and I’m going to write a blog post about how there really is nothing to do around the Craphole… and how the Star-Herald’s suggestions suck!”

“Okay, have fun with that,” says the wife as she heads off to take her shower. I get no sympathy.

“101 Things to do in Wyobraska”… seriously!?! In the introduction to this guide, the editors of the Star-Herald admit that a common complaint around our area is that there is nothing to do here. They don’t believe that is true (because if young people continue to leave the area, all that will be left are old people, and although old people are more likely to read newspapers than young people, old people die… and there will be no one left to pay for their overpriced paper… so what else are they going to say?) In their introduction, the editors go on about how they know there are way more than 101 things to do in our area, and don’t worry if your favorite is missing because they are going to be making this an annual project, blah blah blah blah. An annual project?!? It seems like they were seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel just to come up with this stinking list! There is no way I am going to waste your time or mine covering each of the 101 things covered in the Star-Herald’s guide. I’m just going to cover some of the highlights… and then it will be off to bed… early… again… because there is nothing fun to do here.

#28 – Reel in a pike at Box Butte Reservoir

#48 – Troll for a monster at Walgren Lake near Hay Springs

#52 – Battle a bluegill at Smith Lake

#61 – Fish walleyes through the ice at Whitney Lake

#83 – Wet a line in the waters at Fort Robinson State Park

#87 – Fish for trout on Nine Mile Creek

Apparently someone on the Star-Herald’s staff really likes his fishing.

I can’t get my kids to sit still for fishing for more than 15 minutes, so driving umpteen miles to some middle-of-nowhere fishing destination only to leave with screaming, fighting kids only 15 minutes later and have to drive all the way back home does not sound like something to do… it sounds like something to AVOID! Those six are out immediately.

#24 – Eat a Tin Roof Sundae in Potter

Potter is over 60 miles from where we live. 60 miles. It would be an hour each way. That’s two hours of drive time for an ice cream sundae. My car gets 25 miler-per-gallon, so we’re looking at almost 5 gallons of gas at almost $3 per gallon. That’s 2 hours and $15 just to make the trip! That doesn’t include the cost of the sundae’s once you get there. The drive from the Scottsbluff to Potter, by the way, is far from scenic. These would have to be the best sundaes in the entire world to get me to make this trip… which I highly doubt they are. I’m sure they are good, but I doubt they are worth a 2 hour drive and $15 in gas.

#39 – Listen to a windmill whisper at the wind farm near Kimball

“Windmill whisper”… really!?! These are not your typical windmills. These are wind turbines used to create energy.

They are really tall, and I agree they are cool to look at from the road, but making a 45 minute trip to listen to them “whisper”… not a family fun activity.

#54 – Photograph the foundations of Nebraska’s potash boom near Antioch

Yeah, I didn’t know what potash was either. Apparently potash is used in fertilizer. Potash is separated from alkaline lakes, and Antioch was at the head of this boom… which apparently lasted about 5 years and no one really remembers it. The only traces of the “boom” are some foundations to some buildings. So, driving out to the middle-of-nowhere to look at some old foundations from a boom that no one remembers…

…see what I mean by scraping the bottom of the barrel?

#60 – Buy a pair of spurs at Morgan’s Cowpoke Haven in Ellsworth

I don’t own a horse, so why would I need spurs? I don’t think most of the residents of our community own horses, so I doubt they need spurs either.

Not to mention the fact that Ellsworth is almost 100 miles away and seriously in the middle-of-nowhere. I’m packing up the family for a trip to Ellsworth as I write… sure I am.

#64 – Spin a yarn at the Scotts Bluff Valley Fiber Arts Fair

Wow, I’ve always wanted to learn how to knit. Nothing brings to mind a night of family fun like the word “knit.”

There really is stuff to do in Wyobraska. Someone shoot me now, please!

#72 – Get history on the go at the region’s wayside markers

Wayside markers… you know, those little signs on the side of the road that explain trivial bits of history that no one actually stops to read unless it’s a guy who really has to take a leak.

This is one of the “101 Things to do in Wyobraska”? I think we may have actually dug through the bottom of the barrel and mucking around in the dirt below.

#14 – Relive history at Robidoux Pass National Historic Landmark

This one really hit home for me. When I saw this listed at #14, I knew this list was going to mostly be a joke. You see, I have actually done this. One day, a few years ago, I took the wife and our son (at that time, we only had one) to Fort Laramie National Historic Site (which comes in at #66 – Enjoy any season at Fort Laramie with the spirits of past visitors). Fort Laramie, I’ll admit, is pretty cool. This historic site is an old fort with many of the original buildings still standing. It is fun to go to… about once every 10 years. We’re only a couple of years from going again. Anyway, after a spending a day in history, we didn’t want our history lesson to end.

After leaving the fort, I said to the wife, “Hey, what about that Robidoux Trading Post? Have you ever been there. It sounds cool.”

“Nope, never been there,” says the wife. “Why don’t we go.”

So, we drive all the way back to Scottsbluff from Ft. Laramie and go on a search for the historic Robidoux Trading Post. We drive and we drive and we drive over bumpy gravel road and breath in the wonderful dust of Nebraska. Finally, off to the south, we see a crappy looking shack.

“I think that’s it,” says the wife.

“That’s it? I ask.

“Pretty sure that’s it,” says the wife.

You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. “For crying out loud. That’s just a shack.”

“Says here,” the wife says, looking at the wayside marker by the shack, “that this isn’t even the original shack. This is a reproduction.”

“Why would anyone reproduce a crappy little shack?” I ask, my head starting to hurt.

“For historic preservation?” ventures the wife.

“Why would anyone reproduce a crappy little shack and put it out in the middle-of-nowhere and encourage people to drive over crappy, bumpy gravel roads and breath in all of that crappy dust just to get to it and be disappointed?” By this time, I’m actually rubbing my temples.

“I guess some people like stuff like this,” says the wife.

“IT’S A CRAPPY REPRODUCTION OF A CRAPPY LITTLE SHACK IN THE MIDDLE-OF-NOWHERE!”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” says the wife. “Let’s go home.” The wife doesn’t let things stress her out like I do.

Of course, this list of things to do includes a lot of “eat this here” and “buy that there”, many of which I have tried and few of which I would consider a destination for family fun. The Star-Herald’s lame attempt at giving the average family something to do in Wyobraska actually made me reconsider my stance that there is nothing to do here. There is all kinds of stuff to do here… it’s all just really, really lame.

Wireless Cowboys in St. Louis

I haven’t flown in a lot of years. I hate lines, I hate large groups of people, I hate being searched, I hate being presumed guilty until proven innocent, and I think hurling to my death from 2000 ft knowing survival is not gonna happen would be the absolute worst way to die. So, on the flight to St Louis for the WISPA Regional Meeting, I entered a sweaty, heart-poundy, semi-zombie trance state for an hour and a half, clutching the armrest on one side with both hands and quietly chanting, “We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die…”

Even stewardesses tend to avoid me on flights.

And then we landed. I was kind of hoping I’d see the Arch on the way in, but I didn’t. All I saw was the Missouri River flooding part of the city… and, let me tell you, it was kind of cool!

So, the boss and I get on a shuttle bus to the Renaissance Hotel, which we are staying at and where the conference is. Little do I realize at this point how close that hotel and I are about to become. I’m still under the illusion that I’m going to get to see the city… hahaha… foolish illusion.

So, we get into the hotel, check in, put our crap in the room (which I am sharing with the boss… and sharing hotels rooms with dudes makes me uncomfortable… but I know that my ability to explode eardrums with my snore will prevent any future sleeping arrangement similar to this), and go check out the conference area. There are already WISPA dudes working on putting together welcome packets and I am quickly recruited to help. Stuffing packets turns into checking in attendees as they arrive turns in to many hours sitting at a stinking table in front of a stinking computer looking out a stinking window at a stinking fountain.

Oh, I know, “that’s a pretty cool fountain,” you may be saying to yourself. Yeah. it was… for about the first five hours staring at it.

So, we had arrived in St. Louis around noon and it was pretty much sitting at that table in the “prefunction area” (i.e. the hallway outside the concourses) until around 8 or 9 at night.

Around 7pm, a group of people talked one of the hotel shuttle drivers into a trip to go see the Gateway Arch (something they apparently don’t do, but for the right amount of tip…)… and I needed to man the WISPA table, so actually seeing the Arch wasn’t in the cards for this trip to St. Louis… maybe next time. It only took me 40 years to make it to St. Louis the first time… so maybe when I’m 80 (me, live to be eighty… hahaha) I may make it back to St. Louis to see that arch.

After a supper of what tasted very much like overcooked Freshetta pizzas at the meet-and-greet (which I enjoyed from the WISPA table while staring at the fountain)

I was finally allowed to shut down the WISPA table for the day.

Next morning, back to the WISPA table, checking people in, selling tickets, registering new members, selling shirts (yeah… selling shirts), and once again I have a lovely view for the day.
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Lunch rolls around, and all the WISPA dudes and attendees go to the 13th floor for lunch. Of course, I’m asked to man the WISPA table through lunch. I do, and lunch is brought to me… I think it was a bologna sandwich. So far, I’m loving St. Louis!

Lunch gets over and all of the WISPA members seem to be enjoying the meeting. Everyone is friendly and excited and, every once in awhile, someone goes all tech on me (apparently thinking that because I’m sitting at the WISPA table staring at the stinking fountain
I must be techie myself). I’m not very techie, so I smile and nod.

“You know, if the FCC would allow us access to portion of the white space spectrum, many of our current interference issues would fall by the way-side,” says the techie dude.

I smile.

“Just the thought of getting into that 3650 MHz spectrum makes my routing redirect, but in a positive way, if you know what I mean,” the techie laughs, nudging me with his elbow and winking.

I nod, having not the foggiest.

“Nice talking to ya, man,” says techie. “Nice to find someone with a similar point of view.”

I smile and nod.

Evening rolls around, and one of the vendors at the meeting sponsors a supper for everyone. Well, I, of course, am sitting at the WISPA table. Everyone goes upstairs to the big feast. I sit at the table looking at the fountain.

Around 7pm, when I finally shut down the WISPA table, I decide I’m gonna go for a walk. My boss warned me, “Uh, I don’t think this is the best area to go walking around in.”

“How bad can it be?” I glance at the fountain one more time

… and I start on my walk.

Within a couple of blocks of the hotel, I notice that the neighborhood may be a little questionable.
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Still, I’m thinking, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

As I continue, I notice that the neighborhood really isn’t getting any better
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“Well, if I can just find someplace to get something to eat, I’ll be fine.” I continue on my way when I notice these dudes strolling my way:
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Being completely homophobic, I quickly turn down a side street
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and I run into
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these guys:

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CRAP!
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Roofers! They are insisting that they “fix roof cheap, less than gringo, insurance will pay.” I tell them that I don’t even live in St. Louis, but it’s like they don’t understand English. So I run away and find myself down a dark alley. At the end of the alley I see:
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Killer clowns… seriously?!? St. Louis SUCKS!

Not wanting to mess with killer clowns in any way, shape or fashion, I quickly turn around and make my way back out of the alley. I’m not going to take on killer clowns. The odds of surviving a killer clown attack are like 1 in 900,000,000,000. A person has a much higher chance of winning the Lottery than he or she does of surviving a killer clown attack. I’m not that stupid.

As I’m leaving the killer clowns in my dust, I notice something in the shadows up ahead. It seems to be moving. As I get closer, it starts to emerge from the shadows. When I first see its face, I can’t believe what I am seeing. I freeze, a deer in the headlights, sure I am about to meet my ultimate doom. As It comes into full light, I scream the scream of a little girl being eaten alive by rats
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I turn and run back at the killer clowns. They are about to pounce when they spy the monstrosity behind me. They, too, scream like little girls and fall in behind me as they retreat from certain doom.

I run and I run and I run until I find myself sitting at the base of the fountain outside the hotel.
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Okay, there may be a slight amount of exaggeration in my description of my escapade into St. Louis… slight… but it wasn’t very fun. Stupid fountain never looked so good. I went in and up to my room. Ordered an Imo’s Pizza (a St. Louis classic, I’m told) and was very pleased with my supper choice. At least I got to try some real St. Louis style pizza while in St. Louis.

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Next day, another day at the WISPA table; another day staring at the fountain. This time, for lunch, there was no bologna sandwich. This time for lunch, there was nothing.

By the time the WISPA Regional Meeting started wrapping up in the late afternoon, I was starving. After we got everything cleaned up and everyone headed their separate ways, I snuck out of the hotel and went the opposite direction from which I had gone the night before. On the next block… Jack In The Box. I like trying places I’ve never eaten at when I travel, and I had never eaten at a Jack In The Box, so I did. Had me some Jack In The Box tacos… you know, the 2 for 99-cent kind.
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Seriously, nastiest tacos ever. Deep-fried grossness with almost no filling. These are something I will never eat again. What a disappointment.

Later that night, the boss told me a bunch of guys were meeting by the hotel pool and just kind of hanging out. I decided to throw aside my loathing of St. Louis and try to hang out with these guys (and I don’t really like people, so I thought this would be a challenge). I ended up having a pretty good time. Before going to bed, I actually went outside and ran through that stinking fountain in front of the Renaissance Hotel (which is kind of supposed to be off limits). I went to my room stinking like rancid pond water and feeling a bit of the sweet, sweet taste of revenge on that stinking fountain.

The next morning, the boss and I grabbed a ride to the airport, flew an excruciating flight back to Denver (my hands once again gripping the one armrest I had access to the entire flight), and came home. I was glad to be back in the Craphole of Nebraska… ok, not really, but it was better than the killer clowns of St. Louis.

Overall, I am glad I went to St. Louis. Did I see the Arch? No. Did I have a splendid time? Did you see the picture of the anti-Christ Clinton? Not really. I did, however, gain a couple of insights. First, I learned that the people (or really, person… Rick H 🙂 ) who prepare for and execute at these conferences are amazing individuals. Everything at the 2010 WISPA Regional Meeting went pretty smoothly. I wouldn’t say that it went off without a hitch, because there were a couple of hitches; but considering the amount of variables that could have worked against us… things went quite well. Second, as technologically geeky as many of the participants at this conference were, it was utterly and completely cool to be surrounded by a bunch of men and women who are so passionate about what they do! My biggest bitch on this blog is the fact that I can’t find and follow my passion. Did I learn that wireless Internet is my passion? Nope. I did find, though, that there are really people out there who have a passion, follow that passion, and better the lives of those around them with their passion. Most of these WISPs are not raking in bu-cu bucks. They aren’t in it for the money. They are in it because they believe all people have the right to access the wonderful world of the Internet at something faster than dial-up… and these people should not have to take out a second mortgage to be able to afford the service. And there was serious passion.

My trip to St. Louis didn’t make me more passionate about anything. My trip to St. Louis did, however, help me see that wireless Internet is something to be passionate about. Seeing people with passion for something, whether it is a passion you can share or not, is good for the soul. My trip to St. Louis enriched my soul. Now, if only I could rid myself of the nightmares…

Wireless Cowboys

I work for a wireless Internet service provider. What exactly is a wireless Internet service provider, you may ask? Well, a wireless Internet service provider (WISP for short… which I could have notated a couple of “wireless Internet service provider” mentions ago… but I’m a sucker for the want to hunt and peck out extremely long, tedious sentences… which is why, I figure, most people who visit my blog stay less than 53 seconds… a person can’t read one of my posts in less than 5 minutes, ’cause I’m way to wordy and I take WAY to long to get to my point… as the current sentence proves… and if you are still reading this far into the sentence, you have my eternal debt:) ) is a person or company that provides Internet to people who cannot get (or are sick of dealing with) cable and DSL Internet.

Anyway, back to the whole wireless Internet provider (WISP) thingie. Three years ago, I had very little idea what a WISP was. I knew my wife did the finances for one, but I was still clueless. And then, out of nowhere and thanks to the urging of my wife, the owner of this WISP approaches me and says, “How’d you like to work for me?” Well, at the time, I was working for Alltel… which sucked… and I really liked the way the guy combined “how” and “would” into “how’d”… ’cause that shows a laid-back persona, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I was making fairly good money at Allhell… er… Alltel, and I would be taking a pretty significant cut in pay to work for this “WISP”… but I figured with the approaching-forty thing and the high blood pressure and the inability to deal with stress and/or pissed-off customers, how could I say no. So, I said yes and the rest is history. Now, I deal with the stress of pissed-off customers every day and I get to make less money. YEAH ME! Of course, I’m kidding (i.e. my boss reads this blog). In all seriousness, although not perfect, I don’t hate my current job. It frustrates me at times and there is stress (I don’t think the stress-free job exists because there is not a job where you do not have to have any contact with another person… and people cause stress… period). But, the lack of the corporate rules and rigidity and BS makes this job much preferable to the hack job I held at Alltel.

My boss is very active in an organization called WISPA. WISPA is the Wireless Internet Providers’ Association. WISPA is also Womens International Squash Players Association, but that may or may not be the topic of a future post.
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WISPA, the one with sweaty chicks.

Founding members of WISPA, the one without with less sweaty chicks… or maybe this is Microsoft… who knows. All them tech people look the same to me.

WISPA, a candy bar from Cadbury containing no known sweaty chicks.

WISPA is a non-profit organization that serves the interests of WISPs not only in the US but around the world. So still, you’re saying, “I still don’t understand what a WISP is.”

A WISP provides an alternative to the crappy, government-subsidized telephone company DSL and dial-up Internet services provided around the country. WISPs also compete against outrageously-priced cable and satellite Internet providers. A WISP does not need telephone lines or fiber-optic cables to bring the Internet to your home or business. WISPs mount radio equipment on towers and broadcast the Internet through microwaves to a receiver on your property that gives you the Internet. In other words, WISPs provide Internet in rural and hard-to-reach areas that cable providers and DSL providers are not willing to spend the money to service. WISPs are the cowboys of the modern age; they go into uncharted territory and do whatever it takes to bring civilization (i.e. high speed Internet) to the wastelands. I am, of course, stealing from my boss with the whole cowboy analogy. If you are at all technically savy and want to learn more about this industry, check out the boss’s blog at Wireless Cowboys .

Long-story short (I know… too late), the boss is active in WISPA, so somehow I end up handling a large portion of the billing and member-support responsibilities for WISPA as part of my job responsibilities. Normally, these responsibilities are a breeze and take little of my time. Then, all of a sudden, the WISPA people decide they need to hold a regional meeting. “Regional meeting” means that there are registrations and tickets and confirmations and whatnot and, somehow, a large portion of the dealing with this stuff gets thrown in my lap. All of a sudden the easy and somewhat fun WISPA responsibilities become a several-hour-a-day monstrosity that consumes much of the time I am supposed to be spending on my real job. This goes on for well over a month. This would probably not have been that big of a deal… except for the facts that I took a week off for scout camp with my son, and the family and I took our week-long family vacation, all during this registration period for the WISPA Regional Conference. It was kind of like ‘take some time off’ and then ‘really bust your ass’… then ‘take some more time off’ and then ‘really bust your ass’. I’m feeling like I am not meant to come back from these vacations. Then, the boss says, “I know you’ve been working hard, so I’d like to bring you to St. Louis to help with the conference.” I’m thinking he’s kind of blowing smoke up my rear to keep me from freaking out. Then, the president of WISPA calls me and says, “We know how much time you’ve put into this, and we are trying to talk the board into allowing you to help at the conference.” Well, all of a sudden I feel appreciated. All of a sudden, I’m potentially going to be rewarded for all of my hard work with a trip to St. Louis. I’ve never been to St. Louis, and I’m getting kind of excited.

As the conference approaches, the board decided to allow me to help at the conference… and I’m thinking, “Hey, St. Louis, here I come!” Bright lights, big city, right? Fast living and good-ol’ St. Louis style pizza right? Blues and a trip to the Arch, you know? There is an airplane flight that will be involved… and I hate flying… but I’m excited! This is going to be a great time. St. Louis, HERE I COME!!!

Enjoying Birthdays

It’s my youngest son’s 7th birthday today. He usually sleeps in at least a little bit during the summer, but he was up bright and early this morning. And I’m heading out the door for another day of incessantly ringing phones and dealing with the dreaded “people”. It’s funny how the older I get, the less I like dealing with people. Other people, whether they mean to or not, directly or indirectly cause over 99% of the stress in my life. I used to be able to deal with people and empathize with their problems and concerns. These days, I have enough of my own problems, whether real or imagined, that I really don’t want to listen to yours. So, another stress-filled day awaits me, while my boy is going to be enjoying his birthday.

“Happy birthday, buddy,” I tell him as I’m heading out the door, to which he gives me a big hug.

Man, I can remember being excited about birthdays like that. Almost. I do not, however, exactly remember when I realized that each passing year is not something to be celebrated; each passing year represents another year closer to death and another year where all of those goals I set for myself in youth go unrealized. And it’s a spiral, this death/unrealized-goals thing. The closer you get to death, the less time you have to realize your goals, and the faster time seems to pass with each passing birthday. Summers, which used to be a long season of leisure in my youth… a season where time actually seemed to slow down and a time filled with fun and frolic and development of the imagination and dreams of the future… summer, now, is the short season between all of the time-consuming activities that the kids have to be shuttled to and from (school, scouts, soccer, t-ball, youth group, AWANA… and this year the oldest starts confirmation and an after school program at the public library and the youngest wants to do Tae-kwon-doe). All of these activities are right around the corner, which the wife and I could probably be prepared for if we, too, had our entire summers off, which we didn’t. So time just goes faster and faster and those goals become more and more unrealistic and death looms closer and closer… and the spiral accelerates.

One of the main things I wish for my kids is the joy of birthdays. I hope that my sons never reach a point where they see the tornado of life as an out-of-control, stress-filled monstrosity. I hope my sons always find joy in their birthdays because their goals are being met and other people don’t tend to piss them off just by existing. This is a lot to hope for, I know, but it is my hope.

Tonight, my family will go out to eat in celebration of the youngest’s 7th birthday. We will eat Chinese, because sesame chicken is his favorite. We will then go home, light candles on the birthday cupcakes, sing “Happy Birthday”, watch him make a wish and blow out the candles. We will hope he wished for something important, something grand, and we will hope his wish comes true. We will watch him open his presents with certain giddiness. He will enjoy his birthday, and so will we.

Enjoy your birthdays, while you can. If you already can’t… well… you are not alone. I guess we can always try to enjoy the birthdays of someone else 🙂

How to Avoid Pretentiousness… NOT!

Pretentious: according to The Free Dictionary, this means “making claim to distinction or importance, esp undeservedly.” A large portion of my adult life has been spent trying to avoid looking pretentious. Pretentious people tend to make me mad, and pretentious people tend to show exactly how pretentious they are by the clothes they wear and the cars they drive… sigh.

This past weekend, the wife and I came to the conclusion that it was time to replace my car. “My car”… as if I own anything of my own anymore. Once you get married, you enter into a socialist state in which everything is community property. However, in the state of my marriage, I have always tended to get the crappy car. You know, we head to the dealership with my old piece of crap as the trade-in, we get a nice vehicle, the wife gets the nice vehicle, and I get the next piece of crap that used to be the wife’s. This has always been my choice, because I don’t mind driving a good car that looks like a piece of crap… what’s pretentious about a beat-up Taurus station wagon? Nothing, that’s what; so I drove the Taurus for a few years. It was a good, non-pretentious car.

Then, all of a sudden, the head gasket on the Taurus goes out. Well, that sucks. It’s gonna cost like $2000 to get that head gasket replaced, and the Blue Book on a 1996 Taurus wagon with a physical condition matching ours is like $1500. Doesn’t make sense to fix it, does it? So, I limp the thing along. I get used to it wanting to die at stop lights, and I get used to adding oil and antifreeze. No big deal. It’s all so un-pretentious, you know? Well, a few months later, I notice that the tires are looking a little ragged… as in, they are all completely bald at exactly the same time. Crap. Well, I just drive the thing around town, and I tell the Scoutmaster that I can’t haul the scouts in the Taurus anymore (which is a relief… ’cause hauling those kids around gets a little pricey when most of the parents aren’t kicking in for gas moolah). No big deal right… except, I notice that there is actually metal showing through on one of the tires.

Is metal supposed to show through on a tire? I’m kind of doubting it. I know the tires are “steel-belted”, and I know my “belt” shows most of the time (except when my belly is hanging over it… oh, who am I kidding, my belt never shows; but I know on normal people, belts show). I know next to nothing about anything auto-mechanically related (which the actual mechanics in our area seem to love), but I’m a figurin’ that metal fiber showing up on the outside of the tire ain’t a good thing. Crap.

Ok, so I’m justifying in my head how I can keep driving the Taurus around for a bit longer. I am, after all, just driving the thing in town. If the tires actually blows, I’ll probably be going less than 50 mph, so all is well, right? Sure! Until, all of a sudden, every time I step on the brakes, I hear the horrid sound of metal on metal. What the… aren’t the brakes supposed to squeal before you get the whole metal on metal thing? Again, a mechanic I am not; I know you are supposed to hear a stinking squeal before you hear the brain-gnashing nails-on-chalkboard-esque metal-on-metal horror-fest that all of a sudden I am experiencing. Crap. I am beginning to realize that it’s about time to call it quits with the Taurus.

The wife, for like the past six months, has been telling me we need to get a new car. I am finally at the point where I can agree. So, we go looking for cars. We will, as our main intention, buy a car on Saturday. So, Friday night, we go through some of the local lots to see what is available. One thing we learned by driving through the local lots: if you, as a local car lot dude, do not display the prices you are asking for your cars either on the car itself or, at least, on your website… I will not buy a car from you. There is absolutely nothing more exasperating to me when trying to make a multi-thousand-dollar purchase then not to be able to weigh your options before being assaulted by the onslaught of commission-based sales representatives. I will not do it. We saw plenty of cars that we really liked at several of the smaller lots, but we had no idea how much these things were selling for. We were looking in the $5000 range. We would have felt stupid asking about a car that we thought might have been in our range and finding out that car was being sold for $12,000 (which is what we expected to be the reality). Needless-to-say, we avoided all lots with no published prices. My duty was to myself and my family… not a salesman who was going to try to sell me more than what I was looking for.

After doing a brief bit of browsing, the wife and I had narrowed it down to one lot in particular (that had at least one non-pushy sales person and obviously-displayed prices… and the lot we bought our past two vehicles at). Now, we just had to decide on a vehicle.

Great time to interject that the wife finds my blog… this blog… a little disturbing. Through this blog, the wife has discovered that I feel kind of old and that turning forty really sucked for me and that I am kind of going through a mid-life crisis. The wife knows that I love her and I would never trade her in for a newer model… because, you know, I don’t sense a blown head gasket and she keeps her tires pretty well rotated. However, the wife is constantly looking for ways to improve my libido and self-esteem at this precarious point in my life ( if anyone has potential winning Power-ball numbers, please forward them to my wife). So, as we’re looking for cars, she keeps saying, “Make sure you pick something you are going to be happy driving.” I think she is messing with me, you know, just playing with my esteem so if I end up picking something I end up hating she can come back and say, “I told you to pick something that would make you happy.” Well, a Jeep Wrangler would make me happy, but there was none of those in the $5000 arena. However, there was this nice little Pontiac Firebird with funky orange paint.

Ahhh… a true lower-middle class mid-life crisis car. Thing is, no matter what we looked at, the wife kept saying, “Don’t forget about the Firebird.” I think she was serious! It was a little more than we were looking at spending, but we could have swung it. She either really wanted me to have the Firebird, or she knew that my reason would kick in and I would come to the conclusion on my own that a sports car is not a realistic option for a 40-year-old with a wife and two young-uns. Damn, I wanted that Firebird! But, the reason kicked in and I knew it would make more sense to drive something like that when I turn fifty… you know, when the senior discounts start to kick in… and the hair is completely gray… and the chances of actually losing that belly are ZERO… slightly less than 10 years from now…

…sigh…

… and she is still going to be able to say, “I told you to pick something you would be happy driving.” I married a pretty bright dame 🙂

Okay, so the Firebird is postponed for the next 10 years or so. We are seriously down to two cars within our range. One is a 2001 Cadillac Catera, the other is a Chevy Aveo. The Caddy has less than 100,000 miles and is in great shape… and is about a grand less than we were looking to spend.

The Aveo is a 2009 with less than 8,000 miles and in about a grand more than we were planning on spending.

I’m immediately leaning toward the Aveo. It’s low-mileage, it will last almost forever, it gets great gas mileage, and it is so stinking ugly that “pretentious” would never a word to describe it. The wife seems fine with my choice of one of the ugliest cars since the Vega, and I am ready to take her for a test drive… the car, not the wife.

Handles like a dream, pretty punchy for such a little piece of crap, rides like a cardboard soap-box derby car, but, hey… it can’t weight more than I do. It starts to get a little warm in her as we’re taking her around town.

“Turn on the AC,” says the wife.

Travis, our awesome little sales dude, looks kind of sheepishly at us from the back seat and says, “Uh, this one doesn’t have AC.”

Stardate: 2010. We have encountered an alien life form known as the Aveo. On her world, they still make cars with no AC. Hers is a dying world, but one on which we are momentarily trapped. I am quickly sending our coordinates to Spock so he can beam us the hell out of here.

“I could live with no AC,” I say. “I’ll be the one mostly driving it, it gets like 40 miles-per-gallon, and I don’t mind sweating a little… it’ll help me keep my weight down.”

“Having a car that gets 40 miles-per-gallon would make sense if we could take it on trips… but I will not ride in a car with no AC.” The wife doesn’t even smile as she makes her assertion.

“We could roll down the windows,” I smile, still hoping to avoid any chance of looking pretentious. After all, there is nothing I can imagine that would be less pretentious than my sweaty-ass driving around in this little piece of crap with all the windows down and me justifying at the top of my lungs to any passerby who looks my way, “I’m getting 40 miles-per-gallon, so screw you!”

“Can you imagine how cranky your boys will be if we’re taking a trip to Denver in this thing in the middle of the summer with no AC?” She has a point. The boys are barely bearable on any kind of lengthy trip when the climate is perfect. Hot wind blowing in our faces as sweat pours down our faces would not add to the delight of any of our outings.

“So, I guess it’s the Cadillac,” I surrender.

“There’s always the Firebird, ” the wife reminds me.”

The Cadillac, of course, drives like a dream… and has AC.

So, we head into the offices so Travis can help us figure out which car we want.

“Which car have you folks decided on,” Travis asks.

“Well, I guess we’d like the Cadillac,” I say.

“You don’t sound so sure,” says Travis.

“There is still the Firebird,” says the wife.

“Does the Firebird come with the blond?” I ask.

“No, I’m afraid not,” says Travis. “You wouldn’t believe how many 40-year-old-looking guys ask that, though.”

“…sigh… I guess the Cadillac it is.”

Here we are, a few days later, and I love the Cadillac. It really does drive like a dream… considering the thing is almost 10 years old. The Bose sound system is amazing, and the thing has more buttons than a person can push on a relatively lengthy drive. There is still the pretentious-factor. I still feel like the only people who drive Cadillacs are snotty people with money and posers. The wife insists I’m wrong, but I still have a vague recollection of an ad I once saw…

… maybe it’s just my imagination. I guess being a poser ain’t so bad… not when the tunes sound so flipping good on that Bose…

Camp Laramie Peak

I recently spent a week with my 12-year-old son at Camp Laramie Peak Boy Scout Camp in Wyoming.

Laramie Peak, WY

This is the second summer that my son and I have attended a scout camp. Last summer, we enjoyed a week in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota at Medicine Mountain (I say “enjoyed” only because it didn’t suck as much as Camp Laramie Peak).

Dead Dudes

(at Medicine Mountain, we actually set our tents right inside Washington’s nostril… who knew there was an entire scout camp inside the heads of the dead presidents?!?)

Ahh… sleeping on the ground in a tent as the rain pounds down and the winds gust up to 90 MPH, what could be more fun?

I am an Assistant Scoutmaster. This means that I don’t want (and am far from qualified for) the position of Scoutmaster, but I like helping the kids reach their goals. I am not an utterly complete pessimist (although I am within spitting distance), and I really do believe in trying to help young people find a measure of success. I have been a leader in scouts since my son was a tiger cub and he is now a Second Class Boy Scout. This means I have been involved in scouting for around six years. Six years is far longer than I have held any single job with any single employer. Let’s face it… I’m a quiter. When life throws an obstacle or stress my way, I quit. Quitting is easy, and starting something new is exciting, so there you have it. When something starts sucking, I quit; but I have never quit scouting (although, trust me, I have been very tempted).

Camp overall was pretty good (the food kind of sucked and there wasn’t enough of it, the weather was horrible, getting up early bites, etc.etc.etc. and all the other stuff I could go on and on bitching about) considering these camps are meant to build character in boys. I’m old and my crappy character is beyond help, so I tend to look at these camps as a chore and not a vacation (even though I have to use up precious vacation to attend).

Something that really struck me with camp this year was the way the counselors were “looking out” for the scouts. If you’ve ever been to a scout camp, you know that the majority of the counselors are not that much older than the scouts. Many of the counselors are high school and college kids just pulling a summer gig. It was easy to tell these counselors had been trained on how to make sure a kid isn’t being abused.

During this camp, many of us adult leaders went through “safety training”, which is little more than “how to cover your ass as an adult male when working with young boys”. I’d like to throw a big thanks out to all of the stupid pedophiles and the Catholic Church for making this stinking training necessary. Never be alone with a scout; never touch a scout; if you suspect a scout is being abused in any way, shape or form inside or outside of scouting, let the district council know (not the police, not the boy’s parents, not any kind of authoritative figure in the boy’s life whatsoever… the disctrict council; all of this is to cover your and BSA’s asses). The training really didn’t make it seem like we volunteer our time to help the boys succeed. The training really focused on how not to get Boy Scouts of America sued. Ah… what a wonderful world we live in.

Anyway, back to the counselors. Anyone who has spent a week with boys ranging in age from 17-years-old all the way down to 11-years-old knows that an 11 and 12-year-olds who are away from their mothers can have, well, to put it politely, mild emotional breakdowns. These vary from slight bouts of teary-eyed whininess to full-blown tantrums. On this trip, I got to deal with a couple of full blown tantrums, and during each tantrum, a counselor happened to walk by right smack in the middle of each.

When a young boy throws a tantrum, one of the first things he tends to do is try to stomp off on his own to show how mad he is. Of course, at scout camp, the boys are required to use the buddy system. There is to be no stomping off. A boy eaten by a mountain lion wouldn’t be good for BSA’s image. So when the boy with the attitude starts stomping off, you must stop him. Of course, you can’t touch the boy, so, at times, you have to raise your voice to get the boy to understand that he seriously can’t stomp off by himself. This is exactly what was happening with the first instance. A group of scouts was heading to a merit badge class for the afternoon and I was escorting them. One of the boys started getting, well, kind of tantrumy, because he wanted to hang around camp instead of going to the merit badge counseling. The more I told him he needed to go to his counseling, the less he wanted to go… until he got pissed-off and started stomping off. Of course, I couldn’t let him stomp off by himself, so I told him to get back with the group. He kept walking and the further he got away, the more I had to raise my voice. Finally, I ran to the boy and stood in front of him. “C’mon, man, get back with the group,” I told him. At this point is when the teen-aged counselor was walking by. The counselor stopped right beside us and looked straight at the scout.

“Are you okay?” the counselor asked.

“He’s fine,” I responded. “He’s just doesn’t want to go to his counseling and he thinks he needs to stomp off by himself.”

The counselor completely ignored me. He continued to look at the scout, “Are you okay?”

The scout finally responded, “Yeah, I’m fine,” to which the counselor simply turned and continued on his way.

As I watched the teen get farther and farther away, it popped into my head to yell, “Thanks for the help; couldn’t have done it without you,” but I thought better of it. It still took some time and effort to get the upset scout to rejoin our group, with no help from the interfering counselor. I figured that the counselors were trained to do exactly what this one had just done, which made me feel a little like a turd clinging to the side of the toilet bowl of scouting… but that’s why I volunteer my time, right?

Second instance was similar. One of the scouts wanted to borrow some money from me to buy some crap at the trading post. I have made it an official rule of mine that I do not lend money to scouts for unnecessary items. I have seen other leaders get burned in the past by lending scouts money and never receiving that money back. I volunteer my time… because time is more precious than money (and I have more time than I do money). Well, the fact that I wouldn’t lend the scout cash so he could buy an energy drink (yeah, just what I needed was a hopped-up 11-year-old to watch after for the afternoon), apparently was enough to send him into a stomping-away tantrum.

Right, crap, here we go again. I start hollering for the boy to rejoin the group right as a counselor is walking by. The scout is crying and whatnot because that stupid energy drink is so flipping important to him at that moment in time. I jog up to the scout right as the counselor is asking “Are you okay?”

For crying-out-flipping loud! These guys probably report all of this crap back to the “district council” and I’m gonna look like a child beater or something. “He’s just mad because I wouldn’t lend him money to buy a stupid energy drink,:” I explain, feeling a little stupid for having to explain the situation to an acne-faced teenager.

The counselor doesn’t acknowledge me at all, never taking his eyes of the boy. “Is there anything I can do?” the counselor asks the scout.

By this time, I’m getting to the verge of throwing a tantrum. I feel like I’m very discreetly being accused of doing something wrong. I spent my own money to “volunteer” my time to go to camp and help BSA accomplish it’s mission. I was not spending my time and money to be ignored and accused. I’m getting pissed.

I sooo wanted to say, “I’m glad your offering assistance, ’cause it’s so much easier to smack them silly if someone holds them… can you grab his arms?” just to see what kind of response I could get out of the counselor, but I didn’t. The scout finally shaped up and we all went our separate ways.

So, I guess the moral of the story is counselors at scout camps are trained to cover the ass of the camp, adult leaders are trained to cover not only their own asses but the ass of BSA, and the whole stupid thing makes me wonder if it’s really worth having to cover my ass to volunteer my time and money to an organization that apparently a lot of people want to sue.

You know, maybe I’m looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe I should be looking for a reason to sue. You know, all of the stupid bagels they served at the mess hall did tend to go straight to my ass… making it that much harder to cover.

barf
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I could sue for that, couldn’t I?

High School Graduation

I spent a weekend about a month ago going to a couple of high school graduation receptions. Man, I can remember back to my high school graduation. Remember those days… when you still partially believed that life was fair and you could accomplish any goal? You were going places and had a lot of success in front of you? Then, life smacked you upside the head and — POW— life not only is not even close to being fair… it spends a large portion of time stinking.

Once we realize that success seems to only be for someone else, and then we start justifying crap to ourselves to make it seem like we found some measure of success… you know… “I have a great family, therefore I am successful”… “I get to go to work every day, and there isn’t much more to success than that”… “I don’t live in a trailer house, so I must be successful”… “I can put food on the table for my family and my kids love me; success, success, success!” I’m not saying that these things are bad; I’m just saying that these things are not a measure of success. These things are a measure of not being complete and utter trailer trash… which is the antithesis of success.

Success is a measure of worth. Worth is a value that you place on yourself and that others place on you. For example, people living in trailers (or low-income housing, or where ever) who feed their family exclusively with food stamps and don’t have job because, well, they can make more living off of the tax money paid in by people who actually work for a living, and a job may interfere with their addictions to medicaid-funded painkillers and Budweiser… I see these people as having very little worth. These people, however, may see themselves as having a lot of worth. Therefore, they are delusional. No… they have a feeling of self-worth but no actual worth, because they do nothing of value to society. When your feeling of self-worth and society’s value of your worth are both in the positive… Ta-Da… SUCCESS! It really isn’t hard to find something to do that society values. Society values a good Big Mac… and somebody has to flip it. Society values having trash collected and removed from houses once a week… and someone has to remove it. The problem is, as individuals, can we find a measure of self-worth in doing these “lowly” jobs? Maybe if these “lowly” paid paid more…

Our society is so majorly screwed up. I know this is going off on a tangent, but why aren’t the jobs that create the most value to society the ones that generate the largest income? Alex Rodriguez is a great baseball player. In other words, he is really good at playing a game. He makes millions of dollars a year. If A-Rod died tomorrow (and I am not wishing this on him by any stretch of the imagination), how would our society really be any worse off then it is today? In fact, if baseball completely disappeared off the face of the earth, other than lost marketing revenue and maybe a few people who make a living manufacturing baseball bats and stuff losing their jobs, society really wouldn’t be too severely hurt.

Now, let’s consider a garbage collector. These noble steeds who drive the big trucks around and take away all the stinky stuff you no longer want probably make around $30,000 to $40,ooo per year. Imagine if these people suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth. How much more would society suck without these guys collecting your crap. There would be a dramatic increase in the suck-o-tude of society without garbage collectors… yet they make only a small fraction of what a baseball player makes.

“Supply and demand” you may scream. “Anyone can be trained to collect garbage, but not everyone can hit like A-Rod!”

Right… not everyone can be trained to play a little kids game and be really good at it. If baseball never were, A-Rod would most likely be a lumberjack (one of the few “real world” places where the ability to “swing” has a payout). Anyway, it is hard to find the self-worth in your job when society deems you be paid only a small, small fraction of what someone who plays games for a living (or, in the case of an actor, pretends to be someone else and looks pretty while doing it) makes.

Okay, tangent over, back to high school graduation. High school graduates are people to be emulated. They are cocky and full of life. They are ready to succeed. They are, for the most part, full of delusions and will be bitterly disappointed with what life actually offers them, but they see the glass as half-full as opposed to half-empty. Me, I see the glass as not full. I don’t give a rat’s patootie if the stinking glass is half-empty or half-full… the glass is less than full and that sucks. I want a full glass, but a full glass is reserved for those who either were blessed with the ability to play games with an extreme amount of athleticism, people who are unnaturally pretty, people who are so full of self-confidence that they make the rest of us sick to our stomachs, and politicians. Working hard doesn’t cut it. Working smart doesn’t cut it. You have to work both hard and smart (and being pretty or tall doesn’t hurt) to succeed… and doing both at the same time gives me a headache. I don’t like headaches, therefore, I am not successful.

To all of the recent high school graduates out there who are reading this blog (seriously, there might be one!), keep your head high and keep dreaming of success. If you give up now, you are utterly screwed. If you remain positive… well… there is a chance you won’t be disappointed.

For the rest of us who are not recent high school graduates: if you haven’t found success yet, you probably never will. If success isn’t important to you, I’m sure you have a special spot in heaven with your name on it. If success is relatively important to you and you haven’t found it in your many years following high school… welcome to the happy stinking joy that is your life 🙂 It could be worse; you could be living in a trailer. If you are living in a trailer and have no future hope of getting out of that trailer as you improve your circumstances, QUIT USURPING MY TAX MONEY!!!

Man, I miss high school…

Tickle Me…

Last night, during the commencing of the bedtime rituals for my youngest son, we shared the nightly scratching of the backs. This means my little guy said, “Dad, can you lie down with me for a little bit?”

And I said, “You know what would keep me here?” to which he giggles and starts scratching my back.

This ritual happens almost every night. He will scratch my back for awhile, and I end having to scratch his back for at least twice as long as he scratched mine. We do this like two or three times every week because… well… I love having my back scratched and so does he 🙂

Last night, after he finished scratching the same five square-inches of my back for about 30 seconds, I began scratching his back all over, as I always do. As always, as I moved to the sides of his back, he wiggles around and giggles, “Quit ticklin.” Of course, I don’t stop. I continually tease him with the occasional tickle for a good four or five minutes. He loves it. Tonight, however, the tickles raised a question.

“How come you aren’t ticklish?”

I don’t know quite how to answer this. The youngest son, although he usually concentrates on a specific, limited portion of skin on my back for his scratching, has moved around the sides and underarm areas in an attempt to get a tickle-response out of his old man. I can think of no time that he has actually evoked the tickle-response. In fact, I can’t remember actually being ticklish since I was in high school.

“I guess I outgrew it,” I said to the boy.

He looks at me with those soft brown eyes that are always just wet enough to keep you guessing as to whether he is about to burst in to tears or burst into laughter, and he says, “That’s too bad.”

That’s too bad.

And it kind of hits me; that really is too bad. Since when did I not want to be ticklish? What part of growing up dictates that I can no longer be forced into uncontrollable bouts of laughter by someone brushing their fingers across my skin? What part of the aging process forces the skin to be not so easily moved to silliness by another person’s touch?

A part of my youth is gone… has been gone for an extremely long period of time… and I will never get that back. Neither of my sons nor my wife will be able to ever sink their fingers gently into my ribs to evoke a giggling response. I think I miss that.

Being tickled too much can be, at the least, annoying, and ,at the most, downright painful. Being tickled ‘just right’ is a fun way to connect with another human being. Even when someone is completely down in the dumps, applying slight pressure to the side of the rib area and wiggling the fingers to and fro usually can, at the very least, generate a smile 🙂 The fact that I will never experience this again kind of hit me last night.

That’s too bad.