Getting To Know You

You can't hide what's on your face. It's hanging out there for the world to see and unless you go Muslim and adopt the hijab as your attire of choice, you're stuck with what you created.  Because, of course, we all design and sculpt, minute by minute through the hours and years of our lives, the face we show to people as we maneuver through our days and nights.  It's such a subtle thing; impossible to pin down individual features but the mystical combination of those fleshed out thoughts and attitudes send the message of who we are.

So I'm on the train heading to my workout and I see, facing me three rows down and across the aisle, a man, probably early 40s, with a striking face.  Could be an American Indian warrior (maybe a cowboy or two thrown in) with strong cheek bones, hawk nose, intense eyes, short pony tail.  If only he had a scar running across his nose and down his cheek.  But he has that eye-grabbing look. I don't want to stare so I keep looking at him with my corner-of-eyes technique and wish I could know his back story.

I imagine this:

Me: "Hi.  I'm Bill and I wonder if I could hear your back story?"
Him: "What are you, some kind of creepy weirdo?
Me: "No, no. I'm a student of faces and yours fascinates me and challenges me to find out all about you."
Him:  "SECURITY, SECURITY."

It's not easy being a wannabe famous story teller.

To Buy Or Not To Buy

Georgann was the Albert Einstein of shopping.  To watch her move through a store, feeling and touching, was like watching Picasso paint.  Beyond the limits of  most mortals.

I would never presume to match the girl in her God-given talent for bringing price and quality together at their most advantageous point, but I'm attempting to learn some of the basics: Never purchase the first option.

One year we went to find the perfect Christmas tree and in the first lot we entered I spotted a prospect, which I stood up and slowly rotated.  Perfect configuration and balance.  "No," she said, "there may be a better one."  After cruising the entire lot we agreed to go back for the first one and, of course, it was gone.  One minor loss must not corrupt a master plan, she explained.  Do you want to tell Picasso his lady has two eyes on one side of her face?

So I'm doing my morning walk and this salon has a sign proclaiming a huge saving on eye lash extensions:  Three days only, $100, normally $175.  Wow! I could save $75.  But what if later I see some place that is offering them for, like, $50 and I'm stuck with these $100 jobs?  I don't know what to do and I've only got two more days to decide.  What would Georgann do?

Help!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Sadly, John Bolton has no redeeming qualities that might offset the horrors of that hideous growth of hair that commands the incredulous attention of anyone seeing him live or in pictures.  It makes one think of hiring thugs to pin him down to eradicate that offense to a humane society.  And it pains me to admit that John Bolton's unfortunate facial affectation has made an intrusion into my personal life.

He has made it necessary for me to change the way I shave.

I was probably 17 or 18 before I had to deal with the issue of facial hair and dealing with it established a life-long routine that, year after year, became a set-in-stone ritual: Soak face with hot wash cloth.  Apply shaving cream to whiskers (in early days with a brush and soap). Starting next to the right ear, down stroke to jaw line (rinse razor) and continue under jaw to base of neck. Back to top and repeat down strokes until reaching nose. Then go to left side of face and repeat down strokes at left ear.

OHMIGOD!  What's that foamy white blob above my top lip?  I'M JOHN BOLTON.

At my age I'm vulnerable to anything that plays tricks on my mind and so I changed a deeply ingrained ritual.  I now start at the foam mustache. Whack, whack.  Mustache gone (along with anything that might call up a thought about what'shisname). Continue with old system.

When life throws you a curve ball, bunt.

All's Well That Ends Well

Our home in Jerome Prairie where I grew up depended on a dug well for water.  It was just outside the house and was about six feet in diameter and a little over 35 feet deep. A rickety old wooden ladder gave access to the water below for whatever maintenance was needed.   And one day it was apparent some maintenance was needed because the water coming from the faucet was dirty.  Sister Virginia's husband, Carl, would supervise the operation while little Billy (that's me) would be the ladder descender (Carl was a big guy and that ladder would never support his weight).

What could go wrong?

First step was to get what water was in the well out so the additional dirt removal could proceed. Carl's and my knowledge of air pressure and gravity as it relates to moving water vertically was zero.  I would later learn that at sea level the weight of pressure from the air will move water up a pipe just short of 34 feet while the weight of the water in the pipe will be pulled down by gravity.

Carl lowered a fiber hose with about a two inch diameter into the well and connected it to a pump activated by a gas motor,  The pump started, sucking air out of the hose which caused it to collapse and seal shut so no water could enter.  Head scratching by the well cleaners.

OK, Carl said, what we got to do is push the water up the hose instead of trying to suck it up.  So we will build a little platform and put the motor on it and lower the pump down next to the water and Billy can go down the ladder and run the pump.  Doesn't that make perfect sense?

So we build the platform.  We rig a tripod over the well with a wheel to guide the support rope that is attached to the platform holding the pump (reviewing this operation years later I knew at this point we should have arranged for music to start playing, "Send in the clowns").  Down went the platform. Down went Billy (who learns where the expression, "colder than a well digger's ass" came from).  Billy pulled the rope to start the motor and the operation began.

Another scientific calculation  the well restoration crew failed to consider: how long does it take a small gas motor to fill a thirty-five foot deep, six-foot-diameter well with carbon-monoxide fumes?  Answer: Not very damn long.  I started getting dizzy and knew I had to get out of there.  Without shutting off the motor I started up the ladder and kept feeling worse and worse.  Just short of the top I passed out and Carl caught the back of my shirt and pulled me out of the well. (Where was Lassie?)

Close call.  I was very sick and spent the rest of the day stretched out breathing fresh air.  Later, a few days of rain cleared the well water and we all lived happily ever after.  Not sure we ever got smarter.

Clean Sheets Every Monday

Editorial note: This blog and all others to follow, will be published in a new type face: "Georgia", from the Time Roman family. My friend Roy Paul Nelson, Professor of Journalism at the University of Oregon back in the day, taught his students that it is important to choose a type face that is appropriate to the subject of the narrative.  Since my blogs are written to give the reader my take on whatever it is I'm writing about, Georgia just seemed a perfect fit for my views.

Late last evening after the TV pontificators had called it a night, I was reflecting on the change that has come to my life as a lone ranger.  The culture change is shocking.  From
living with your life's companion in a big house with wonderful neighbors and a terrific shower, to living in a commune with many nice people connected to you by long hallways and occasional group gatherings, it shivers your timbers. It is not what you would prefer but it is what you've got and if you can slip by that boogey-man then you can deal with it.

The people who run this place do a nice job of providing a variety of activities to appeal to different interests. They run excursions to everything from shopping tours to destination travels to particular road side attractions. Fortunately, we are never required to hold hands and sing as we side-step around tables.

Conversations tend to focus on: Ailments. Weather. Food.  Everyone avoids politics and religion in group settings, and that is good.  If I was to be slammed against the wall by some truth-seeking vigilante and forced to confess my favorite part of my new situation, it would be this:  It's when, from time to time, I grab my rail pass and haul ass.

Get on the bus, Gus; make a new plan, Stan...

Those Were the Days, My Friend

Was that a school bell I heard ringing?  With September sneaking in and the autumn leaves starting to fall, it probably was.  Causing my wandering mind to drift to the fall of 1947 when a couple of Grants Pass High School students became a pair to draw to: Mary Joyce Smith and Bill Landers.  A line in the song, Summertime, from the opera Porgy and Bess goes..."Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin'."  That was us (who says you have to be modest in a blog?) The top girl, blonde, head-turner and the student body President/football Captain styling in their senior year.

The important take away from that scenario is, after high school, and through the years that followed, Josie and I remained good friends.  Along the way she hit the ball out of the park when she married Jerry Larson. He was a handsome, charismatic, funny, professional warrior who would rise to the rank of General in the United States Air Force.

A number of years ago, Josie and Jerry flew out from D.C. to meet Georgann and me, along with Larry Aschenbrenner (another classmate) and his wife in Arizona for the Fiesta Bowl where Oregon would play football against Colorado.  At one of our social hours,  Jerry asked me if I had ever been to the Air Force Academy and I told him I had.  When the Academy dedicated Falcon Field in 1962, the University of Oregon was their opponent for the game and I was there as a member of the Oregon athletic department.  I told the group that while I enjoyed the fact that Oregon won the game 35 to 20, my most awesome memory was being in the press box at half time and seeing two Air Force jets come screaming in from opposite ends of the field, about 12" above the stadium.  They were trailing smoke, and then they shot straight up with one hell of a roar, leaving their smoke trails crossing (swear to God) precisely over the fifty yard line.

Josie laughed and said, "It might make your story more interesting to learn Jerry was flying one of those jets."  (Sound of jaws dropping) Jerry said, with a grin, "I tried to talk my partner into doing the stunt flying upside down but he didn't like the idea."  Larson was actually in command of the Air Force Demonstration Squadron Thunderbirds at that time.

At one of our class reunions, we had a bon voyage Sunday brunch in the city park.  As the Landers and the Larsons were leaving, a number of Josie's and my classmates came running over and asked us to stand together for a photo op.  We, of course, modestly consented and as we moved into position, Jerry leaned into my ear and said, "Try not to look too guilty."

Fun to revisit the fall of '47...Summertime "So hush little baby, don't you cry."

Laugh And the World Laughs With You

OK, everybody off the train.  We're going to get serious about funny.  I never liked Bob Hope because he just told jokes other people had written for him.  I found exploding laughter watching Johnathan Winters.  He could just stand there doing nothing but moving his head and shifting his eyes and I was on the floor.  My search for laughter has been a favorite pursuit all my life.

When I was 10 and 12, like every other kid in America, I loved  the comics. Who knew if I had kept that original Superman in pristine condition, it would have made my declining years more comfortable? But my favorite 'zine was a monthly called 1,000 jokes. Ten cents for a collection of one- or two-liners that actually counted out to be about 100 basic jokes told in a hundred different ways.  Fine with me. But an incident in the sixth grade really did put a notch in the tree of my life- trail regarding humor (I wonder if my sister Mary will remember this since in the little country grade school we attended, two grades were in each room so that every other year we shared a class room?).

One day our teacher, Miss Hensley, introduced an exercise she must have picked up from some Sociology class in college.  She had every student in the two grades take a sheet of paper and write down three qualities they would look for in the person who might become their husband or their wife.  She then collected the papers and had a boy and a girl go to the black board and list the results as she read each paper.  Then she had a class discussion regarding the answers.

My take on the exercise was that every single girl, without exception, listed a variation of "sense of humor" or "funny."

Oh, look...I think I've found a key to the candy store?