Pay Phone Call

I guess there is now a generation of people who hardly know what a pay phone is, let alone what a phone booth is. But I remember a time where I lived with no phone at all.

I'm not sure we had a phone in Seattle. I didn't have a phone in New York, but there was a phone in the sublet. There must have been a phone in Santa Fe. I know we had a phone in L.A. and certainly my wife and I had a phone in Montana.

But I'm thinking of the Florida panhandle--Grayton Beach, Seaside, Seagrove Beach--of south Walton County. I'm not sure, when Brock, Matt and I lived in that stilt house in "New Grayton", that we had a phone, but perhaps we did. I do know that when I returned to that area I did not.

What I'm specifically thinking of is when I came back maybe the third time to south Walton County and I lived with Brad for a spell, a place east of Seagrove but west of Panama City, and found a job painting houses close to Destin--some place called Topsail, if I remember right. This was all after the fiasco with Teresa, with the Iowa Writers Workshop and being in Seattle. If I remember right . . .

What I do remember right is stopping now and then at a lonely pay phone near the beach to call my parents.To reassure them that I was okay, working, that I was still alive. It was a pay phone near a quiet road under ragged live oak trees. It was not a phone booth. I'm not sure why it was located there, as it was not connected to a store or gas station or such. I'd usually call at night, once a week or two weeks--maybe on my way home from work or coming back from the little store in Seagrove Beach--and the phone had a single light above it and the road would be carless, the landscape desolate in its way. Quiet. Dark. Wind blowing in off the Gulf. The smell of the Gulf and trees and decaying plants and, well, just the sounds and smells peculiar to that region, to the proximity of that heat and saltwater and plant material, the southern sandy loaminess . . . And here I was, not exactly immune to loneliness, making  a brief call to Des Moines, talking to my mother, my father, standing in the cone of light cast over the phone, feeling the aloneness, the alienness of where I was compared to where I had come from, that sense of both failure and survival, of renewal and end-of-youth ennui. I guess. Or, it was just a sad little phone call to my folks at night from a pay phone near the beach.

Old Mornings, With Eggs

I'm thinking mainly of Vancouver, Washington here, but it would also be a little of Sioux Falls, SD and Johnson City/Jonesborough TN and, I suppose, Urbandale/Des Moines IA. I'm thinking mainly of my mother, in the morning, cooking eggs. I'm thinking early, me lying in my bed, trying to stay asleep while the dread builds within me knowing I have to get up and go off to school. (I hated school for most of my life--unfortunate but true.)

We were a family of seven--five kids--in a not very large house. I could hear my mother rise most of the time, hear my father, smell coffee, then smell the eggs. Sometimes bacon or sausage--but almost always eggs. My mother in the little kitchen frying on the little stove those little eggs over-easy for my father, eggs with butter, salt, pepper, turned and cooked at a high temp so that the edges burned brown to black. And if she cooked we kids eggs later it would be in that same pan and the eggs would get progressively darker, crisper on the edges depending in what order your serving fell. And peppery.

My mother was not the best of cooks. I miss my mother's cooking.

My father had a loud voice. My mother and father had a sometimes contentious relationship. Not a volatile one by any means, but there were arguments, a daily yelling of instructions if not true insults. So I would hear that each morning. And I could hear my father drink his coffee as he sat at the table with my mother at the stove frying his eggs. Slurrrp. Ahhh. Slurrp. Ahh. Slurrp. Ahh. Like that. Repetitious and constant and familiar as anything in the morning.

That was mainly weekday mornings. Maybe weekends were not that much different, though we'd be more likely to eat all together at times on weekends. Or, we kids would eat our bowls of sugar-cereal and line up in front of the TV to watch cartoons. Cartoons cartoons cartoons: Saturday mornings. More sugar than eggs.

Then there were the days when we were going on vacation. Vacation meant a long car trip somewhere. My father was a firm believer in an early start and that meant getting up well before dawn, having my mother cook eggs for everyone before dressing and packing and getting in the car--all seven of us--and rambling off in the just-before-dawn light to whatever destination we were destined for: The Black Hills or Red Oak, IA; Yellowstone or Crater Lake; Myrtle Beach or the Smokey Mountains; Arlington, SD or Leech Lake, MN. But being up so early with the clear purpose of hitting the road was kind of exciting. Eating eggs at four or five in the morning was also special--a full stomach for a full day's drive. My father would also buy a loaf of ham sandwiches to eat along the way--a time-saving and economical lunch, I suppose. Thin ham on thin white bread with butter. That was it.

Those mornings. These mornings. You can't stop morning's arrival. What's past is gone, what's coming will be gone as well. And it's best not to think about it for too long. Eat some eggs. Slurp your coffee. Get out of the house and soon it will be afternoon.

The Pacific Once Again: 2011

I had lived in Florida for close to seventeen years and could drive five or ten minutes to the Atlantic. But the Pacific was the ocean of my childhood and I had not seen the Pacific Ocean for twenty-one years or so.

In 2011, Fru and I went out to Oregon, to Bend, which is inland over the Cascades. We were there--Fru was there--for a job possibility. I convinced her, before we left, flying out of Portland, to drive to the coast for one night.

And so we did.

I chose Lincoln City and picked out a place called the Coho Lodge. I didn't know either place. As a kid, we used to drive down from Vancouver, WA to Tillamook and other spots in Oregon, and had been along most of its coast and a lot of California's coast and, of course, Washington's, but that was so long ago and, as I said, i was just a kid.

So we went over the Cascades, through Corvallis, through the costal range and into Newport. And there was the ocean, the Pacific. And I drove us upwards--north--through Depot Bay and into Lincoln City.

Lincoln City was a crowded town, a bit haphazard, but I didn't care. Our room at the Lodge, which was small, in elegant yet pleasant enough, looked out upon the ocean I'd come to see.

We went down to the water. We went out to eat at a place along the water. The next morning I wanted to go back down to the beach and the water.

"You're like a little kid," Fru said about my impatience as I waited for her to come with me that morning, waited to get down the bluff to the beach with its dark cold sand and wave-carved rocks.

Yes. I guess I was.

I don't know. It was just nice to see it. Smell it. Touch it. It's just a name--The Pacific Ocean--but it was a name, a huge body of water, that meant something to me nonetheless.

It was, you know, just good to see it again after all that time away.

Michigan 1988

In the summer of 88 I was working concrete construction in Champaign, Illinois. I worked with a number of good guys, but my best friend from that job was Kurt Strube.

At some point in the summer, I mentioned that I'd like to go to Michigan because I'd never been to Michigan. So, Kurt and I decided to go.

We only had the weekend, so there wasn't much time to get very far into the state. I'd wanted to go to Traverse City, to Mackinac Island, to the U.P. and places of the far north. But, looking at a map, I settled for a state park north of Muskegon.

Yes, we planned to camp.

But first off, Strube wanted to go to Holland, MI because he had an old friend--who used to work concrete construction in Champaign--who had moved there. So, we went to Holland.

No cell phones in those days, but Kurt had his number and he used a pay phone at some strip mall to call this guy and this guy said he'd come meet us at said strip mall. We waited and the guy walked right past us until Kurt made a quacking sound which was some kind of inside joke between them. Anyway, the guy was okay, kind of wacky like Kurt himself. I'm not sure what we did: drove around to see the town, known for its tulips (I think), drank a few brews at a bar and played pool.

Evening came and we told him we wanted to camp. The guy said he knew a place. we followed him there.

The place was some bottomland beneath a bridge along a river. It had weeds and trees and lost of junk.

Now, I don't mind camping, don't even mind sleeping in a car or truck, but I don't usually sleep beneath bridges in strange towns or even in familiar towns. But, this place was just fine with Kurt.

Okay.

It was summer. It was hot. There were tons of mosquitos. Who knew what kind of people came to a place like that beneath the bridge--evidence said people who drank beer and whiskey and dumped bulk trash and had furtive sex. But, again, this was fine with Kurt.

I elected to sleep in the vehicle--I think we took his truck, but maybe it was my ugly Ford maverick. Strube wandered around the detritus and picked out an old soggy stained mattress that someone had dumped in the weeds.

Okay.

So, he slept out there with the mosquitos and who knows what. I slept in the car with the mosquitos and, at least to some degree, I knew what.

Nothing happened beyond that, so the next day we drove up to Muskegon and past and to the campground of Silver Lake State Park, which was more to my liking and which was fine with Kurt.

We camped. Went swimming in the lake. Climbed dunes to see the bigger lake--lake Michigan. Later that evening we drove out to some bar.

The bar was next to a concert venue. The band Aerosmith was playing at that concert venue. There were crowds. In the bar some motorcycle guys wanted to play pool. We played pool. The biggest of them said to me: If I was going to fight you, I'd have to knock you out really quick because I'm in too bad shape to fight for very long.

I didn't feel too threatened by that statement, but it did give me pause to think . . . Anyway, they were okay and we went out with them to stand along the fence as the Aerosmith concert wound down.

There were security people around this chain link fence. The motorcycle guy--who mentioned his need to knock me out quickly--asked the security guy how he could stop him if we rushed the fence to get in to the concert. I personally had no plans to rush the fence, but it was nice of the motorcycle guy to include me.

Well, we didn't rush the fence.
I didn't get knocked out.
I didn't sleep on an abandoned mattress under a bridge.
I did finally go to Michigan.

Dear Non-Readers: Repetition

The problem--or, a problem--with an inconsistent blog such as this, one that has gone on for years now at its own erratic pace, is that I can't always recall what I have written about previously. Oh, I could search through the titles, the archives, of my own stuff, but I'm too lazy to even do that. Also take into account that this blog sat idle for over a year (2012) and that I've been very busy with other, more serious writing projects, and the fact that--though I still (by my own estimation) have at least a decade in me before I assume the title of an Old Man--my mind is not quite as sharp as it used to be, then the repeating of some stories is bound to happen.

Tow of the last three posts, I felt in my gut, are such repetitions. I have not bothered myself to check for sure, nor will I. This blog is still, basically, an off-the-cuff kind of thing. And, with the Missouri Rules I imposed (or, de-imposed) upon the resurrection of this project, well, I'll just run with it however it turns out. (This also explains why I've let many miscues and typos and grammatical errors slide.) (It's always handy to have an excuse.)

So, Dear Non-Readers, bear with me.

And yes, I still have no readers.

And yes, it still suits me just fine.

The Biggest Fish: Fort Lauderdale 2009

I am not a fisherman. Yes, I've fished--as a kid on the lakes of South Dakota and Minnesota, in the streams and creeks of Iowa; a little bit in the rivers of Montana, more on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico and on the bayside of the Keys in Florida. But, I'll say again, I am not a fisherman.

I was back down in Fort Lauderdale just over a week ago. Stayed with Billy. Francis came down from Montreal and stayed at Billy's as well . . . Billy is a fisherman. Francis also, though not a saltwater one like Billy. But it was the three of us, maybe five years ago (the actual year is fuzzy, so I'm only making a guess on 2009), who went out on Billy's small Boston Whaler one gray morning to catch fish and hooked The Biggest Fish, one that Billy still talks about to this day.

As mentioned, it was a gray day, cool for Florida, spittles of rain. It was also rough--especially for a small boat like Billy's worn-down Whaler. Yet, out we went, bouncing high over the wake of freighters and cruise ships and tugs in the passage out of the port, then bouncing, pitching, popping among the cresting waves of the sea that day. I don't know--four to six feet. The waves did not come regular, rather they came at odd and divergent angles, piling into each other to create diamond-shaped crests that kept the boat tilted one way and another at all times. A churning sea. A washing machine sea. Few other fishermen were out there. But we were out there.

(Me? I like flat calm seas, like those in the Keys. But Billy says fishing is not good in those seas--he likes it a bit rougher. He won't sit in a boat and throw a line out along the reefs, for Snapper or Grouper or what-have-you. he only trolls, back and forth, usually south of the port, to Hollywood, Hallandale, North Miami and back, sometimes a mile or three out, six hundred to one thousand feet of water, fishing for Dolphin (Mahi mahi), Tuna, Wahoo. I've caught those fish (and Barracuda) except Wahoo, which is the fish I'd like to catch, of course . . . But we kept closer to shore that day--400, 200 ft--due to the rough seas.)

I was steering the boat when one of the lines went zinging. Billy got it and--as he usually does--handed the pole to someone else, in this case Francis. Francis was a little sea sick--what with the boat bouncing, the drinking of beer for breakfast, and the fact he was a lake fisherman. But Francis was game and he took it and he could tell it was something larger than he had ever caught before. he fought that fish--despite being seas sick--for a good half hour before Billy spelled him. And then Billy could tell that it was even a bigger fish than he had ever had. So, this was The Biggest Fish. It was a Dolphin. A Bull. Billy thought it was at least fifty pounds, maybe sixty.

I steered the boat (as said, I am not a fisherman and it was probably best I didn't take the line what with such a large fish on it, one that Billy wanted to see brought into his boat), keeping its bow forward in the tall diamond-waved sea as best I could at a very slow-to-null speed. And Billy fought that fish for a half an hour. Billy liked to see other people catch fish--he was/is generous like that and he handed the pole back to Francis who pulled and retrieved and let out line for another half hour or so and then they switched back and, after a time, switched back again.

We were out there for two hours fighting one big fish. It was a dolphin. They got it to to surface, got it close to the boat. And even though I did not take a turn, I sympathized with the fish. (Which is why I'm not a good fisherman, or a good hunter, or much of a good spider-in-the-house-killer for that matter.) That big fish wanted to live. It fought like crazy to live. So, I was of the mind that, you know, it should live--though I never said this at the time, only later that day. Billy wanted it in his boat. Francis--a year or so later, said he was for the fish as well (though I had to promise to never tell Billy this, and I have not) but I don't think because of that he didn't try hard to land this dolphin fish, I know he didn't.

Well, the fish got tired. It did not give up but eventually we got it alongside the boat. Billy got the gaff and, just as he was going to gaff this huge colorful bull---PING--the line broke.

Goodbye The Biggest Fish.

It was free and it drifted--exhausted--down into the depths.

Secretly, I was okay with that.

Billy almost jumped into the churning Atlantic after it. he pounded the gaff in the water, on the boat. he yelled and screamed and cursed, animated, excited, angry and happy all the same. Francis felt horrible for losing it. It was the biggest fish Billy would have ever had in his little boat. No doubt he was already thinking of the photos, the pride, the stories and the great big fat filets that fish would provide.

But it was not to be.

And the sad thing was that that fish--so big and now so tired--would not survive. A huge hammerhead, in fact, came slipping by not long after the fish had escaped. Billy was certain it was going to get itself a nice lunch with our fish . . . So it goes.

Yet, though the fish was not caught, the story of almost catching it has become a legend in Billy-World. It is told and retold and alluded to all the time, especially this last time when Francis was there and I was there and we went out fishing twice (we caught nothing; nothing!; not even a bite).

I still hold out hope that the fish lived. That there was no shark (I did not see it, but I know Billy did) or that the shark was not after the fish who fought so hard to survive. Who can say what happened? I can't. But the story of the fish is, perhaps, greater than the fish. It is greater. And it will live on, for Billy and Francis and me, live on in the neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale and in the minds of anyone who hears the tale and who understands it, other fishermen of that ilk.

The Biggest Fish was not caught, but its mythos survives in oral tales amongst we who know of it.

Family Life 1974

I'm trying to conjure up those days when I was young, that is, a child. Not as a boy, exactly, but more those odd middle years when you are still part of the family yet also preparing to leave that family, though you don't know it. I grew up in a family of seven. Four boys, one girl, a mother and father. I was in the middle of the kids, birth-wise.

My father has been dead for close to fourteen years now. My mother gone for one and a half. My oldest brother has had heart issues, my second oldest substance abuse ones. My younger sister in no longer young and the youngest, my brother who was the baby of the family though we never called him that or thought along those terms, is also no longer young--that is, they are in their fifties. (Though, believe it or not, fifty can be young, depending on who is doing the counting.)

I have my own family--four of us--though that is starting to splinter a bit, as my kids are both late college-age. I don't mean splinter in a negative way, more in the sense that things move along as they are expected to or are going to whether you like it or not.

No, I was trying to recall my mindset, as well as physical details, from when the family I grew up in was still all together. When we--or at least I--were still dependent upon Father and Mother and had intimate history with fellow siblings. But also an age when we--or I--were on the cusp of leaving that family nest. And, it's kind of hard to do. For me, at least, those were awkward ages, those mid to late teens. I flowered later in life, I guess, or perhaps not, and was such an unhappy boy-becoming-a-young-man that I don't like to think much about those years. And so I didn't, haven't, struggle to at this time. And, in many ways, what's the point?

Does it make me sad? . . . Sure, a little. I guess one thing I think, or thought, as I tried to recall those odd years is that it is hard to believe, right now, where I am and who I am now--I mean NOW!--that that was my reality at the time. My scope of living. I don't think I had much sense of a real future in those days, a sense of what I wanted to accomplish and a belief that I would go out into the world and do it. I think I mainly fantasied about fantasy futures that included fame and adulation and probably a lot of money. And girls, no doubt. Ah, it was sad. Not as sad as losing my parents, but sad in a more epochal way--or do I mean ephemeral way? I'm not sure . . .

But I do remember the days when I was in that group and we--my brothers and sister, my mother and father, the pets, the places, the cars and furniture, friends and neighbors--when we were all together and we were all we had. I do. And that was our reality and I had no inkling of this reality and, yeah, I guess that makes me a little sad to think about it.

I don't know why.