I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.
I take my little poodle Toby for a walk up and down our street twice a day. And before we leave, I call to him and say, “Come on, Toby. Let’s go yell at the neighbours.”
And we do, although I leave almost all the yelling to the little sparkplug at my feet. He always leads the way, something I have discovered 14 years too late you should never let a dog do, and barks his head off at strangers and most other dogs.
Toby is a known feature of our street now, and in spite of his crusty exterior, those who know the little dickens get a kick out of him. I always point out that while he is yelling his head off, his tail is wagging up a storm, so he is not angry. He just has a lot of announcements to make.
I have tried to think of something to compare these little adventures to. The best I can come up with is it is like walking down the street with a live “weed whacker” in your hand. We have one of those things. It weighs about the same as the dog, is just as noisy and sometimes has a mind of its own, and will go where it wants to go if you don’t hang onto it just right.
Fourteen years is a long time to carry a weed whacker down the street twice a day and there are times I would rather stay in my rocking chair. But I know the day is coming, and I know it will come too soon, when the whacker will be out of gas and will stop running for good.
Coincidentally, that will be the exact same time my overactive tear factory will open its doors and who knows when they will close again.
And after a month or two in my rocking chair, I will start strolling down the street again, the loneliest guy in my town.
I don’t know if it’s normal to worry about the birds that gather in our backyard every day but when you are a worrier (I’ve been told I was born with a worried look on my face) I guess it was probably inevitable that our birds would be the targets of my anxiety eventually.
I am especially concerned about our many mourning doves who, while they do drink from our water sources now and then, hardly ever take a bath. This can’t be good for their coats. They should look for inspiration from the grackles who thrash away so vigorously in the bath that they practically create a wave pool out of it. Their bodies are black and blue and shiny and they look good.
However, they crap big time in the birdbath and I am afraid the other birds who drink from it might become contaminated though none of them seem put off by it so far.
Also very concerning are the sparrows who never, from one month to the next, bathe at all, although that might be a good thing as I fear they are so tiny, they could drown if they were ever to plunge right in.
And while I admire the fact that these little buggers don’t seem to be afraid of any other flying creature – they march right up to birds 10 times their size and kick them in their knees – I can’t help but wonder if they will pay for their boldness someday soon.
I am concerned about some of the robins who seem to me to be too chunky for their own good. One day I saw what looked like two robins taking a bath at the same time and was shocked to discover that all the splashing about was being made by only one red-breasted behemoth. These guys need to get more exercise or cut back on the worms. Their cholesterol levels must be sky high, pun intended.
I love to look at the cardinals and blue jays but I wonder how their colourful wings, bodies and heads don’t easily attract whatever predators they might be trying to stay away from. (We all have our predators. Mine use our doorbell and landline.) They seem almost to be sitting ducks, though we don’t actually have any sitting ducks at the moment. We do have a couple in the front yard every spring when Fred and Ginger show up for a day or two of waddling around.
The cowbirds have been around a lot this summer and the silly brown things walk everywhere. I worry if they keep doing that they will forget how to fly. Also, they are not suitably afraid of other creatures such as squirrels, rabbits and grackles and even humans. I have almost bumped into them from time to time.
And of the grackles, we used to have 20 of them till a month ago when they all disappeared. So, I worried about what might have happened to them till 10 of them reappeared last week, hungry and obnoxious as ever. Where are the other 10, I fretted. And when the 10 we have now returned, they brought a flock of starlings with them. The starlings are a very rambunctious gang and I worry about our grackles getting mixed up with them and the bad effects that might have on their attitudes.
But maybe my bird fears are misplaced. It’s been a long time since I found a dead one anywhere. And they do seem to have their own lifesaving medics. One day, I happened on a big bird of some sort that was sitting on an arm of one of our lawnchairs, obviously badly stunned. Sometimes birds will fly headfirst into our windows which cramps their style. I could have reached out and grabbed this guy but I kept on walking. A few minutes later, a second bird of the same species landed on the first guy’s back and proceeded to use its wings to beat the hell out of it. I thought it was performing a mercy killing. In fact, it was more akin to CPR. After the assaulter flew off, the one in a coma came to life, shook itself a time or two and took off after its physiotherapist, good as new.
In the end, of course, I don’t know what the future holds for the birds or for me, but if I come back as a winged creature someday, I hope I am a bold little sparrow.
Six months ago, my eye doctor announced that I would be taking a field vision test in August. Six months is the ideal time frame for me to whip myself into a high state of anxiety about a trip to the doctor – any doctor.
Most of my worry came from my ignorance regarding what exactly a field vision test might be. I didn’t have the courage to ask the doctor or the energy to consult the Internet, so my lack of knowledge on the subject underpinned my jittery nerves.
Would I be driven out to a field south of the city and told to count the number of corn stalks I could see in a sixty-second period? Would I be shown aerial photos of a number of different fields and commanded to identify which one was the sharpest?
So many possibilities, so many dangers. Failure to pass the field vision test could obviously lead to my eyeballs being removed and used as doorstops.
I couldn’t even share my concern with anyone else as there was nobody I knew who had ever taken a field vision test.
Tuesday, the night before the test, I felt like Tom Dooley awaiting to ascend the scaffold the next day. I tossed and turned. Slept very little. And showed up wearily on time for the test.
At the eye clinic, I was led into a room with all sorts of fancy hardware. I was seated in a chair and a pirate’s eyepatch was installed over my left eye. I rested my chin on a metal chinrest and the room went dark. I was handed a little joystick and told to press a button every time I saw a little burst of light. Those bursts appeared randomly all over the screen.
I nailed it.
The eyepatch was switched to my left eye and the process repeated. But this time, due I suppose to my poor night’s sleep, I nodded off three times in the middle of the test. It is hard to identify brief flashing lights on a screen when you are asleep. To all future test takers, I would recommend drinking three energy drinks in a row before grabbing that joystick.
I mentioned to the doctor that I had slipped into unconsciousness three times during the test but he seemed unconcerned. Said I had passed with flying colours.
Which now has me worrying at the value of a test which you can pass while sound asleep.
All I know is I am getting new glasses. Whether I will be able to see a flea on a buffalo’s back at 500 paces or not able to see the end of my nose, I have no idea.
I just hope I can still count the corn stalks in the fields south of the city as this is a practice that has always brought me peace.
I remember the day we were married. I especially recall how well-behaved both the bride and groom were. We definitely put our best feet forward. I would say we got off to a pretty good start.
But we are polite Canadians, after all. How else could our wedding have gone?
Now had we been from Tennessee, things might have been different.
A case in point, just hours after saying “I do,” a Tennessee bride pulled a 9 mm pistol from her wedding dress, pointed it at her groom and pulled the trigger, according to court documents and media reports.
The gunslinger, 25, of Kenton, Tennessee, faces a charge of aggravated domestic assault. Her husband was not injured in Monday’s incident.
As far as I know, my bride was not concealing a pistol in her wedding dress but if she did, she never produced it. I got off lucky, I think. She is very precise in the things she does. I don’t think she would have missed.
In the Tennessee case, responding officers let the husband know the honeymoon was over and his new wife was going to jail, police said. His bride was still in her wedding dress when she was arrested.
Now, lest you get the idea there was no reason for the shooting, you would be wrong, of course. The incident followed an argument between the loving couple at the Clarion Inn motel near Murfreesboro, according to court documents.
The new wife, at first, pointed the gun at her new husband’s head, and pulled the trigger, but no shot was fired. She then racked a round into the gun chamber and shot it into the air, the court documents show.
So, not only did she have an empty head, but her gun wasn’t loaded either. That is, until she put some bullets in it.
However, when the cops showed up, both bride and groom stuck together and wouldn’t cooperate. Something tells me they’re gonna get along just fine.
When you consume watermelon with just a little less enthusiasm than a very hungry warthog might do, you are bound to dribble some of the juicy goodness down the front of your shirt. If that garment happens to be a brand new T-shirt which you have saved up for a year to buy, your distress will be instant and real.
The solution to this dilemma, of course, sits in bottles on the shelves of the local Pennyrama but being frugal, you are not in the mood to shell out many bucks for a container of Stainaway or Slopstop. As effective as these treatments might be, you are sure there is an easier answer in the materials you already have somewhere in your cupboards and on the shelves in the garage.
So, you consult the Internet and sure enough, you already have all it takes to remove any and all stains from your clothes, new and old. Best of all, the remedies are easy and work quickly.
Here are a few practical home formulas for removing watermelon stains and many other non-lethal spots.
1. Mix a solution of blue dish detergent, white vinegar and water.
2. Stretch your shirt out fully in your bathtub. If you do not have a tub, consider getting one installed.
3. Submerge your shirt in lukewarm water, then spread the solution you have prepared over the stains. Rub in lightly with the forefinger of your left hand.
4. Let garment and solution sit for three full days.
5. Remove the shirt and without rinsing it, apply generous amounts of rubbing alcohol over the stain(s). Let sit for two days and then apply one cup of hydrogen peroxide.
6. One week later, hang the shirt on the line and if you have access to an air rifle or pistol, shoot pellets that have been dipped in premium gasoline at the stain. Leave the shirt on the line overnight.
7. Lay your shirt flat on a table and sprinkle equal amounts of baking soda and epsom salts across the stain. Rub in lightly with a toothbrush and if the stain is stubborn, eventually switch to a wirebrush.
8. Rinse the shirt in warm water and then dip the stained section into a mixture of turpentine and motor oil – 5W30.
9. Before the shirt is completely dry, spread crushed ice cubes over the stain, mixed with fine sawdust and play sand, if you have some available, along with a litre of warm cola. Leave sit for two days, then rinse in lukewarm water.
10. This final step is important. Tie your shirt to the radio aerial of your car and drive for one solid hour, slightly over the speed limit. The stain will be gone when you pull back into your driveway.
If, by some chance, these steps do not work, there is a sale on Stainaway at Pennyrama this week. Also, new tee shirts are half price till Saturday at Save a Buck.
There is a story that has disturbed me my whole life and I feel the need to address it as best I can. It involves the account of an old lady who swallowed a fly. Why anyone thought this was worthy of a news item I will never know but the journalist who brought the incident to light did a very poor job of reporting, in my opinion. And as a lifelong journalist myself, I feel my viewpoint should have some validity.
First off, that an old lady would swallow a fly is not an earth-shattering event so I really think the reporter should have found something more important to examine that day. But then the journalist said he didn’t know why the woman swallowed the fly. Well, a very poor job he did and I think I might have fired him if he brought that story back to the newsroom on my watch. He should have asked the subject of his story why she swallowed the fly. But he never did. And then he made the incredible prediction that because she swallowed a fly, the woman was likely to die. If she did, I believe she would be the first person on record to die from ingesting a fly, but the reporter was an alarmist and ignorant as well.
My fear is he told the old lady she was probably going to die because the first thing she did was chase down a spider somehow and swallowed that, in the hopes it would catch the fly. This could not have been easy for her to do with likely eyesight and mobility problems but she found a spider, opened her gob and popped it in.
Realizing she now had a spider and a fly inside her, she panicked, I think, and chased down a bird which she swallowed to catch the spider. Her alarm must have heightened even more as she then grabbed a cat and swallowed that, in the hope that the cat would catch the bird she had sent down her throat. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to swallow a cat but it is a sign of her distress that she would put herself through that. And I think she did that because that alarmist reporter put the idea into her head that she might die from swallowing the fly which I don’t believe she would have.
The incredible story the reporter ended up with then goes on to detail how the woman swallowed a dog to catch the cat. How much dog could one woman swallow, I wonder. I hope it was not a Great Dane.
In any case, the woman was desperate by then and found herself a cow to swallow to catch the dog. Now, any fifth grader could have told the poor lady that cows do not normally try to catch dogs. I hope it wasn’t the reporter who suggested to her that they do. In any case, she swallowed a cow.
And then, she went just one crazy step too far. She decided she had to do something about the cow and so she found a horse, stuffed the poor creature into her mouth and swallowed it, mane, hooves, tail, the whole shebang. Again, she was obviously starting to lose it because horses never try to catch cows.
And this is where the story took a tragic turn. After swallowing the horse, the old lady died. And all the reporter could say was, “She died, of course.” Of course? The reporter knew the horse would kill the woman but apparently he didn’t think to warn her. I just hope he didn’t encourage her.
So, to wrap up, one life was lost when the woman swallowed the fly. The unfortunate fly died, “of course”! Problem solved. Or at least it should have been. But because the old lady was acting on poor information and probably out of panic, the lives of six other creatures were also lost including that of the old lady herself.
I don’t want to sound mean, but I almost wish the old lady had survived swallowing that last big entree long enough to swallow the damn reporter to catch the horse. It would have served the silly scribe right to have suffered the indignity of slithering down into the old lady’s innards.
“I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,” he had written.
Dude, all you had to do was ask her. So much misery could have been spared.
I call journalistic malfeasance. Maybe an investigation is warranted. We have a dead old woman, and deceased fly, spider, cat, dog, cow and horse. The only one to walk away was the reporter.
Sounds a bit suspicious to me. From my experience as a newspaper editor, I know that some reporters will do anything for a good story. Anything
As a man gets on in years, he requires a metric or two to measure whether or not he is still on the righteous path he tried to trod so many decades ago. I think I may have discovered just such a marker by which a senior male can chart his progress or lack of it.
The possibility awaiting all men, we may as well be clear, is that he will slowly but surely slip into a state some might describe as grumpy but is better known by its proper name, curmudgeonitis.
Curmudgeonitis is a few steps beyond grumpy. Even kids, teenagers, and middle-agers can have bouts of grumpiness. But only old men can lay claim to the state of grumpy times ten.
To be a true curmudgeon, a man has to be able to get mad at things that no one else in the world could possibly get upset with.
So here is my test. You have erected a large plywood platform upon a steel pole in the backyard to serve as a bird feeder. A big tub of feed is dumped in the centre of the feeder each morning, topped off with a small cup of unsalted peanuts.
For a couple of months, the feeder is filled with a wide variety of birds from sparrows and chickadees to grackles, bluejays and cardinals.
Fantastic.
Then a pair of doves show up. Doves as a symbol of peace my ass. These greedy fat brown creatures decide the whole damn feeder is theirs and any other species uses the feeder at the same time at the risk of extreme pecking.
This is an intolerable situation and so you find yourself at your kitchen window, yelling at a pair of doves. The yelling has no effect.
So, I submit that when you reach the stage in life where you are yelling out your window at doves, curmudgeonitis has taken root. However, just to add another layer of complexity: It is not the yelling that is the indicator, it is the idea that a man shouting out his window at doves could conceivably have the effect of causing the doves to rethink their behaviour and to say to themselves, “Well, I guess we better cut that out!”
Next stage: Cursing at the clouds that now and then prevent a perfect view of the baby blue sky.
Here’s another thing that didn’t happen to you this week but did to me.
I was witness to the worst case of lawn rage I’ve ever seen. A guy speeding down my street yesterday went nuts when he saw that the road was blocked for construction but he didn’t let a little thing like a gigantic truck get in his way.
Instead, barely even slowing down, he detoured up onto my lawn, drove on it the whole width of our double lot, past our two maple trees and out the other side to the street again.
A neighbour and I happened to be standing on the lawn at the time watching the construction. Our angry driver came almost close enough to us to have run over our feet. I don’t know if he even saw us.
Obviously, our hero was on his way to the National Genius Convention in Toronto and must have been late.
The only thing that bothered me about the incident was I was supposed to catch a ride with him to the convention where I am to be a guest speaker but, in his haste, he must have forgot to pick me up.
I will go out on a limb and venture to say that you did not do this yesterday. If I am wrong, let me know.
I was at our back fence when I saw our cat Mario lurking by the composter. A few minutes later, I saw him streaking madly for the garage. With a mouse in his mouth. This meant only one thing. A half eaten rodent was soon to be deposited on the garage floor and I would be on my knees cleaning up blood and guts, a job I do not have a lot of good feelings for.
I took off running. I surprised myself and discovered that I am able to outrun a cat with a mouse in its mouth.
I got to the garage door and slammed it shut, then noticed the window was open too. I quickly closed it.
Mario was left frustrated outside with his bounty which he was bringing to me as a gift.
It’s funny. I hobble down the street every day and tell the neighbours (who also run away), how much my hip hurts. However, my true Olympian spirit showed in my high-speed, mouse-deflecting sprint to the garage, and my bones were not a factor.
The score so far is Mario, 35, Jim, 1, but at least I’m on the board.
I like to read the comments on Internet news sites but I am not always sure how seriously to take them.
I like those sites that require commenters to register and use their real names. But anonymous postings don’t bother me if the writer has something worthwhile to say.
However, I could not read the comment submitted by Throbby the Slobber Worm today. I just couldn’t.
And I hope, during my remaining days, however few or many they may be, that I never actually have to meet and converse with Throbby the Slobber Worm. Or Mrs. Throbby. Or any of the rest of the Slobber Worms. I really do.
