Reflections: Sunday on the deck with Dad

(My brother, Steve, spent many years in the newspaper business and is a fine writer.  This is a piece he wrote in June of 1990 about our father.  Dad has been gone more than twenty years now, but this still resonates.)

By: Steve Copper

"There is a deranged duck in the pond," my dad informs me matter-of-factly.

It's Sunday afternoon, Father's Day.  We are standing one story above the ground on the narrow deck of my parents' condo squinting out into the glary light.  It is hot and breezy, the sky a dizzying whirl of blue and cirrus clouds.

My dad, who is retired and has time on his hands, keeps a close watch on the ducks these days as they come and go in the small lake out beyond the manicured lawn behind the condo complex.  He counts the ducklings ("Snapping turtles got most of them this year.") and enjoys what, to his admittedly inexpert eye, seem to be the vagaries of duck social life.

If there is a weird duck out there, I'm sure my dad knows about it.  When he points out the wayward fowl in question--a lone duck, a diver, he says--I observe him for a while too.  He (or is it a she?) swims erratically around the lake avoiding the other ducks.  My dad thinks maybe it has lost its mate and is grief-stricken.  Through binoculars, the duck looks to me to be young and scrawny and glassy-eyed, maybe a little disheveled (a tuft of feathers is askew on its head).  Dangerous, I think.  A loner, a rebel.  The John Hinckley or the Travis Bickle of the duck world.

Hinckley Duck goes away eventually, paddling with a sudden purpose (off to buy a handgun?) toward a distant corner of the lake and out of sight.  Our thoughts and conversation drift to other things.

I have been thinking a lot about the old man lately, and about the inexorability of genes.

There was a rebellious time when I thought I had little in common with my dad and I don't think he knew quite what to make of me.  If there's one thing he can't stand in the world it's a smart-aleck.  "Stay away from that guy.  He's a smart-aleck," was a warning I heard repeatedly as a kid.

Dad is your basic solid-citizen--a patient, portly Ward Cleaver type interested in insurance, real estate, the crops, golf, washing the car, moderation and fairness.  He is cursed, however, with two kids who are Eddie Haskells.  Classic smart-alecks.  My brother is a big city DJ, I'm a small town newspaper drone--jobs for un-solid citizens--two businesses fraught with cynics, burn-outs, booze-hounds and other unsavory characters.

At one point, I think my dad dreamed that I could be a golf pro.  He bought me golf clubs and got me started playing when I was little.  I was pretty good and he kept encouraging me.  Of course I gave it up in high school.

I was a brooding, solitary, wiseacre kid and I have become a brooding, semi-solitary, wiseacre adult.  Lately though, in the mornings before I had time to activate my arsenal of self-delusions, I am often startled by the slightly puffy countenance returning my myopic gaze in the mirror.  "Dad," I think.  Time and circumstance (and booze) work their magic on a face, but the genes will out.  I notice too, I am taking new pleasure in things like washing the car and mowing the yard.  Perhaps moderation and a resumption of my golf career are next.

Dad has gotten jolly in retirement, though, to be honest, the last few years have not been especially kind to him.  A man who, as I recall, was never sick a day in his life had barely said goodbye to the everyday work grind when he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, then diabetes.  He developed an ulcer, needed back surgery, spent the better part of a winter in the hospital or flat on his back at home.

My family is small but not what I imagine most people would consider particularly close-knit.  Much is left unsaid between us.  We share, rightly or wrongly, a distrust of anybody who talks too openly about his feelings, and a sense that life's important stuff, its essential truths, are ineffable.  Maybe it's this Midwestern reticence, but I never heard my dad complain through any of his troubles.  (He will be embarrassed, of course, that I'm committing any of this to paper.)

I think he's having a good year this year, I'm happy to say.  He's able to golf again.  His White Sox are winning (he's a life-long fan; naturally, to be contrary, I became a Cubs fan).  Most of all, he seems comfortable with himself--untortured by regret--which, I imagine, must be the best part of growing old.  He's done OK.

When it's time to leave, my dad walks out to the parking lot to see me off.  Night has begun to crouch down around the lake and the white brick condos.  My folks decided to move to this place when the house got to be too much for them to care for, and I sense they are just now starting to feel at home here.  It still seems foreign to me.  We stand by the car for a moment as insects whir incessantly from the shimmering trees.  He notes with some pride that I am keeping my car clean.

"Happy Father's Day.  And thanks," I say for a final time, and we shake hands this Sunday.  Father's Day.

"Another day long gone," he says to me cheerfully.  And in my head on the quiet drive home my father's voice echoes back to me as my own.


(Since this was written Steve has become the father of Walter Copper a young man who will no doubt think his dad is the dumbest most unfair clown on the planet until he comes to grips with the limits of his own intelligence and lack of experience.  That's just the way it is with fathers and sons.  I was lucky.  I had daughters; they knew I was a moron but loved me anyway.)  KC-retired smart-aleck

Summertime, And The Livin' Is Wistful

The change to summer came suddenly here in the Pacific Northwest.  We went from a rainy cool spring to lazy, hazy the sun doesn't set until almost nine, full blown summer the day after Memorial Day.  I know it's not official until the solstice but the intoxicating perfume of driftwood fires and suntan lotion from the beach just below our house says otherwise.

It catches me by surprise every year.  A whiff of tanning cream, lotion or oil instantly transports me to my teenage years of the mid 1960's.  There is decidedly more bare skin on display in 2016 than there was in the season of my raging hormones and I find myself wondering how young guys of today handle it.  It was distracting enough when bikinis were more modest, but now it must be excruciatingly difficult for a guy to keep a Speedo from levitating.

Tattoos are everywhere and I regret our society has reached a point where body mutilation is considered an acceptable fashion statement.  Was it really that long ago when this kind of body "art" was strictly the province of carnival workers and ex-cons?  Of course there were the unfortunate tats still worn by military vets of my dad's generation as mute testimony of alcohol poisoning in foreign ports, but that was different.  Wisely, most of those guys knew enough to get inked on surfaces they could easily hide when they returned to civilian life.  The neck and head tattoos of today are a far different story.  And, sorry, I don't care how petite and discretely placed, tattoos on women don't do a thing for Boomer boys like me.  We associate that with a show we saw in Tijuana 45 years ago.

Note to self:  Buy as much stock as possible in companies that manufacture laser tattoo removal equipment.  It's only a matter of time...

Think she'll still like these in thirty years?

The Year Santa Got Rolled

Why it popped into my consciousness in this month of June leaves me scratching my head.

Perhaps as we get older the file cabinet of stories acquired over a lifetime of misadventures becomes so loaded with material that a synapse misfire will produce a decidedly "out of season" memory.  For example, just this morning I awoke recalling an event from Christmastime 1970.  

 I was working for a radio station in Gainesville, Florida that had studios located in the largest shopping mall in town.  Being far less sophisticated in those days,  merchants in the shopping center thought having a broadcast station on the premises was a smart promotional move as shoppers would stop to watch the paid monkeys (see disc jockeys) do radio shows from our glassed in studios.  As if it weren't bad enough being reduced to a circus act, management also required the air staff to dress as if we had real jobs.  This meant combing our hair, wearing ties and refraining from scratching our privates.  All major concessions on the part of those of us engaged to honk the hits for WUWU.  (It was already tough enough just saying those call letters!)

The Saturday before Christmas I was into the final hour of my 6-10AM morning show when the manager of the mall's Sears store dropped by the station and asked the receptionist if he could have a word with me.  In those days Sears was a major player in retail nationwide and, just as in many malls, Sears was the anchor tenant of this particular retail development.  After entering the studio and some initial small talk he got to the point of his visit.   Santa was to arrive at the Sears store shortly after 10AM and he wondered if I would be interested in picking up a quick $100 to handle the microphone and help keep the crowd of kids in line.  In those days a hundred bucks was a considerable addition to my weekly salary and I quickly agreed.

Talking up the intro to the treacle infused and eternally crappy "Make It With You" by Bread at approximately 9:56AM I practically skipped out of the station.  Not only was I on my way to a cool $100 for doing next to nothing, I also didn't have to listen to that musical meadow muffin.  It was going to be a great day!

"Piece of cake.  What could go wrong?"

When I arrived at Sears the manager handed me my check and pointed me toward the microphone and the parking lot which already had a large area blocked off for Santa's helicopter arrival.  There was rope and yellow tape to restrict the crowd and I was tasked with reminding everyone to stay behind the barriers to ensure the safety of all.  The crowd was huge and was mostly composed of grade school aged children and their parents.  I had been given a few promotional and sales items to announce in addition to my reminders to stay back and allow plenty of room for the helicopter and Santa.  When the helicopter came into view the kids began jumping up and down with excitement.  I had to keep repeating the admonishment to "STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW TAPE" so that Santa could land.  Once the chopper was on the ground the crowd began to surge forward.  They could see that Santa had many bags full of small packages that looked to contain candy and small toys.  As he backed his non-padded ample ass out of the whirlybird, the crowd jumped the line.  In spite of my pleas, chaos reined, Santa was rolled, the helicopter nearly turned over and...the cops were called.  It was like drag queens at a wig sale.  In the confusion I made for my car and a nearby bank.  Oh, the humanity!

"You little bastards are going on the naughty list!"

As I write this it occurs to me that perhaps recent television coverage of Bernie Sanders supporters may have jogged my memory.  Maybe a warning phone call to old St. Nick is in order?  I happen to know he has a Trump sticker on his sleigh.

As George Carlin once observed: "The world is a freak show.  If you're an American, you have a front row seat."

Never Forget

"A veteran is someone who, at one point, wrote a check made payable to The United States of America for an amount up to and including their life."

I've searched and have yet to find the source of that quote, but it's beautiful. During this long Memorial Day weekend let's all spend some time thanking the unselfish men and women who's checks were cashed so that we might continue to live in freedom and prosperity.  They earned what we so often take for granted in these United States of America.  May their sacrifice never be forgotten.

Nathan's Turns 100...and other stuff

I see that Nathan's Famous franks just turned 100.  Until you've had one at their New York Coney Island stand, you haven't lived the American dream.  These days you can buy Nathan's at most supermarkets but the dogs eaten after watching the freak show at the Coney carnival are the best.   The guy who eats glass and the Elastic Lady

Coney Island Freak Show cast

 are a great opening act for a Nathan's redhot loaded with mustard. The olfactory lobe assault of the Big Apple summer miasma of slightly ripe garbage, pizza and pee is guaranteed transport to hot dog heaven.

Not that I mean to inflict harshness on Nathan's centennial celebration, but I do have a question for their management:  What the hell have you done with the tube steaks proffered in "natural casings"??  I can't find those bad boys anywhere of late and they most certainly were the crown jewel of the franchise.  The snap as you bite into a hotdog with skin is far superior to the wimpy "skinless" wienie.  What gives?   Surely this can't be a nod to those millennial sissies who want nothing to do with resistance of any kind, including food they actually have to chew. Is there a "safe zone" for processed meats that I don't know about?   Trigger words?  I need answers!

Moving on to other annoyances:  It's official, I will no longer watch the evening news on any one of the three major TV networks.  These shows, once captained by real news hounds, have deteriorated into programs not unlike those godawful local PM Magazine atrocities of the 1980's that featured lost dogs, cute kids, weather, and lovable curmudgeons.  CBS, NBC and ABC are completely bereft of any real news at all.  Stripped clean, they make USA Today seem like the Congressional Record.  Unwatchable!

And, since we're on a media rant, have you noticed that the majority of the TV meatheads have now dropped all pretense of objectivity?  The embarrassment of these idiots being turned out by our nation's journalism schools is beyond tragic.  I guess it should be no surprise as they are all being "taught" by the losers who couldn't get hired for genuine newspaper, radio or TV jobs thirty years ago and are now chairing college communications departments.  These clowns have given us TV reporters who have, at both the local and network level, turned "guys" into an all purpose, non gender specific collective noun.  Nothing says mental midget quite like, "now back to YOU GUYS in the studio".  More often than not they are tossing back to at least one or two "guys" who wear dresses and use the ladies room.  (Oh, that's right, bathrooms are no longer gender specific.  Don't get me started.)

With the November election looming like taxes and/or tooth extraction and already inflicting plenty of unwanted pain,  check this out for network "objective reporting":  Norah O'Donnell of the CBS Morning (ha!) News recently sat down with Donald Trump's daughter to grill her about allegations that her father had made unwanted advances toward women.  This had been reported in a New York Times article and was fair game for any reporter until you consider that Elvis will turn up alive and well in a Florida retirement community before ANY reporter dares to put the same questions to  Chelsea Clinton.  The sad part of all this is that most journalists are too dumb to see that there is a problem.

Other problems that need to be handled:  basketball season is still WAY too long, baseball has made no progress toward speeding up the game, Obama remains in the White House and Survivor is still on television.   Get these things fixed and bring me a Nathan's dog in natural casing and maybe I'll calm down.

Or not.

Now, back to you GUYS in the studio.

Nirvana!

If You Haven't Read Him, You Should

Jim Harrison

In March Jim Harrison, a man of big appetites and even bigger talent, slipped out the side door of life while at his home in Patagonia, Arizona.  He was 78 and, lucky for us, left a magnificent collection of prose and poetry to wander through for generations.  The man could write.

He was a product of northern Michigan and his style, like the woods of the Upper Peninsula, is rough, hard scrabble and often reflective in the kind of "born there, die there" mentality of the people who inhabit that state.  Unlike Hemingway, he employed complex sentences and far more complex characters who almost always struggle with a weakness for both sex and alcohol, problems not unknown to Mr. Harrison himself.

In addition to poetry and fiction, Harrison also wrote extensively about food and drink for magazines like Esquire.  His book, The Raw and The Cooked, is a collection of tales recalling his Rabelaisian immoderation.  For example:  there was the summer he personally tested 38 varieties  of Cotes du Rhone which he referred to as a "small wine festival, just me, really."  And, my personal favorite, the story of the day he ate 144 oysters just to see if he could finish them.  (He could.)  Having once, in 1971,  consumed 132 of those delicious bi-valves while in New Orleans, I am now ashamed to have often bragged of the feat.  In my defense, I was at Felix's  Oyster Bar on Iberville Street and may have been under the influence of ardent spirits.

Harrison lived most recently near Livingston, Montana during the summer where he often spent afternoons blasting rattlesnakes in his yard while quaffing a beverage or three.  Winters found him in Arizona near the Mexican border where he also took aim at any critters that dared offend him.  His prose still mostly employed Michigan as a backdrop but he no longer maintained a home there.

In his time the man produced an impressive amount of fiction, including Legends of the Fall,  Dalva, Farmer, Wolf, True North and many others.  Most recently The Ancient Minstrel  , a book of fiction, and Dead Man's Float, a poetry collection were both published.  Both are great.  But, if you have never read the man, I would suggest his memoir, Off to the Side,  and The Raw and the Cooked, as an excellent introduction to his work.  Do yourself a favor and order one or both from Amazon.  For my money he is one of the finest writers America has ever produced.  A true character of True North.

You're In Charge Now, Millennials...FIX THIS!

"Shake and shake the catsup bottle, none will come and then a lot'll."--  Richard Armour

Oh the humanity!  The squeeze bottle disaster continues.

Humorist Richard Armour penned those words in the 1950's when we boomers were still spelling ketchup C A T S U P and pounding the crap out of the bottom of its glass bottle just to get a delicious blob or two splattered onto our hamburger.  It was slow work but we got the job done.  A knife or a splash of vinegar was enough to free the last of the precious "red lead" before we tossed the empty container into the trash.  There was none of this recycling nonsense to contend with in those days.  EVERYTHING we didn't eat, drink or smoke went into the garbage can and was spirited away to the landfill or--even better-- was burned in a big old barrel behind the garage.  (Personally, I was a big fan of the trash barrel method of dispatch as it provided we youngsters a chance to play with matches while we practiced flame broiling weenies and marshmallows over smoldering household detritus.

Recently I read that the Millennial generation has now surpassed we Boomers as the largest demographic segment of our American society.  The torch has been passed as those of us brought forth via the lust of parents made horny by World War II's forced separation,  to a generation sired by helicopter progenitors hell bent on making sure every one of their offspring brought home a trophy  for merely showing up.  Is it any wonder that this now jumbo generation is enamored of a seventy-four year-old pink-o pant load from Vermont who promises them free college, condoms, and a carefree existence?  It's time to kick start some Millennial ass...er ambition!

Granted, it was most certainly a Boomer who decided that the glass bottle ketchup delivery system had to go and that a plastic squeeze bottle was the answer to the container that needed spanking before it gave up it's tomato wine.   Flip-top cap, plastic bottle, PROBLEM SOLVED!  Right??
WRONG!

TRIGGER WARNING!  (Millennials require notification prior to hearing scary stuff.)

SQUEEZE BOTTLE CONDIMENT DISPENSERS ARE A DISASTER!  They don't freaking work! Instead of making it easy to extract the very last drop of gooey goodness from a ketchup, relish, mustard, or mayo container, we've made it harder.  Starting with the flip-top cap that NOBODY ever remembers to snap shut to the embarrassing gastro-intestinal sounds made possible by air, goopy content and squeezable plastic,  the whole delivery system is a catastrophe. It must be fixed!

We Boomers, now that Millennials have pushed us aside, are too busy doing retired stuff to help with this one.  The torch has been passed Millennial youngsters.  Run with it.  We need a fix pronto, or sometime next week if you can manage.  Your country, the ketchup, mustard, relish and mayo need you!  When you have something let us know.  We'll be on the golf course, riding our bikes, fishing or doing other important retired people stuff like cheating on our taxes.  Don't want to accept the challenge of making condiment consumption great again?  Move to Russia and take that commie, Bernie, with you.   Now, if you'll excuse me,  I'll be in the bathroom.   I believe I left the flip-top cap off my toothpaste, which, by the way, doesn't work worth a damn.

This is just WRONG!