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.
Christmas was coming on and my poor family had to go through the annual struggle to come up with a good “Santa” present for Dad. This has never been an easy thing to do because, whereas most fathers know their own mind, this Dad behaves as though he’s never even been introduced to his.
One thing I did know is that I long ago left those years behind where I “wanted” things for Christmas. I exchanged those wants for things I needed and the holiday became, for me, an opportunity to stock up on some necessities. The family hit the hardware and clothing stores and played along.
But this year, for some reason, I decided to live a little and ask for something exotic. What that might be, I had no clue, but I relied on my family to figure it out.
To help them, I provided a few hints.
I wanted something sleek and shiny, something in black and white, the colours I grew up with. TV shows were in black and white and I used to develop those kinds of photos in a darkroom at work.
I asked for something simple, something a child could use. It needed to be sturdy and use materials such as wood and rubber, also things I grew up with on the farm, as I slogged around in my rubber boots, helping to build fences and sheds.
I was explicit about one thing. I did not want any electronics, the use of which I would have to master. Nothing that needed to be plugged in, no battery to recharge. No blinking lights, no annoying sounds. Most of all, no instructions.
But I was also living dangerously. I wanted something that probably no other Dad on Earth would open up on Christmas morning. Something that would not be easy to wrap and that I couldn’t guess what was being hidden by all that beautiful paper.
So, here it is. My prize is pictured below. And before you think to criticize my loved ones for their choice, you need to know that I was overjoyed with it and couldn’t wait for the chance to use it.
I provided that chance after supper on Boxing Day and as I plunged away, I thought about what a wonderful family I have.
We all have things that are important in our lives.
Our little dog Toby is 13 pounds of fun and fury. He’s a poodle and smart as, well, a poodle, which, next to the border collie, is the second smartest dog of all the breeds. So I have heard. And after 10 years of living with this little dynamo, I believe it.
Every time I take him to the groomer, she finishes off his bath and haircut by tying a fresh new neckerchief on him. He looks cute as a button when I bring him home, all freshly trimmed, and with his new scarf around his neck. His latest one is bright green with white polka dots.
The other night, the poor little fella suffered a wardrobe malfunction. I was sitting on the couch watching TV when he jumped up beside me with his kerchief in his mouth. He laid it down carefully beside my leg, and looked with great concern directly at me. It was his “do something” look I am accustomed to seeing several times a day, but this time was different. He has a whole mess of toys and plays with all of them on a regular basis but he never plays with a scarf that has fallen off, which they tend to do now and then.
This seemed to be the scenario. His neckerchief fell off which apparently upset him. He then put it together that if he brought it to me, I would probably put it back on him again. He got his wish.
We know what matters to animals. Food, shelter and if they have been domesticated, friendship. But I would have never guessed that a polka dot kerchief would be of importance to a little dog. As it was to Toby.
I have officially embarked on The Flashlight Years, the period in a man’s life when artificial beams of light are his only hope for survival. Without them, he cannot expect to find the potato chips in the cupboard and without potato chips, of course, he will eventually perish. Without light he is apt to dab the wrong ointment on the wrong wound and put his underwear on backwards. Not even necessarily his own underwear.
I don’t know if girls and women have the same kind of relationship that boys and men have with flashlights but I suspect they don’t. The ones I know seem to have the ability to snatch a flea off a black cat in a dark room in the middle of the night but maybe some of them are light challenged too.
With males, there is a lifelong fascination with the idea that when you press a button, a light beams its way out of a little cylinder. If childbirth is a mystery to the female, a flashlight is perhaps the male’s equivalent, minus the baby shower.
I have loved flashlights since I was a boy and have been surrounded by them all my life but strangely, I have hardly ever bought any of them. They just show up. Like the heavenly gifts they are.
And this Christmas, not just one but two flashlights ended up under our tree with my name on them. The bigger one was thought out in a lab somewhere by the smartest person in the world. It uses LED (Light for Every Dude) and has several intense magnets strategically placed on it, allowing me to attach it to practically anything. I have carried this thing with me day and night since I opened my gift and seemingly can’t even find a spoon in the cutlery drawer without it now.
But the smaller package that was wrapped and stuffed in my Christmas stocking held the best surprise of all. A flashlight that attaches to the peak of my caps, allowing me to feel like a coal miner 24/7. It has three LED bulbs on it but here’s the best part. I can make them flash.
A man walking his neighbourhood at night with a cap flashlight blinking is a wealthy man indeed, although his ability to sneak up on people, assuming he might want to do this, is somewhat impaired.
But let’s face it, he has the world by the tail (and if that tail has a flea on it, he’ll spot it right away.)
I recently wrote about how important it is for some retired men to have a project. Preferably one project at a time that holds the possibility of someday being completed as opposed to six at a time for which there will never be an end to any of them. I encouraged the man’s loved ones to tolerate his projects because, as his age creeps up on him, his projects can chase away his fears.
But what I didn’t address, until now, is how this very same man, as the days on his calendar tick down, might someday become a project himself, a task undertaken by serious people usually dressed in white coats.
But this is where I am at now, as the days of my 74th year on Earth dwindle down. And I have become a project on multiple levels, thankfully, so far, confined to the areas of my body from the neck up. Specifically, my teeth, ears, eyes and skin. From the neck down, so far at least, I am still as spry as a wily chicken, albeit a sometimes creaky one that’s missing a few feathers. I am grateful mobility is still a possibility with me.
I can still walk and even almost run, if a wild animal, real or imagined, is chasing me. I can still bend down to pick up a dime off a sidewalk, and can still climb a ladder, although these days I prefer ones that have no more than three or four steps.
I don’t mind being a series of projects for other people, for the most part, but those projects differ in a few aspects from the projects I choose for myself, which are enjoyable, or I wouldn’t choose to do them.
With the projects being selected by all the specialists that are regularly in my life these days, a major difference is I get sent home after each appointment will long lists of do’s and don’ts. How this differs from my self-chosen projects is I don’t want to do any of the do’s and I really don’t want to avoid any of the don’ts that are detailed on my very long nice and naughty lists. Among those items is the strong suggestion that I order sun-protective garments from Australia.
So having become a cranky old bugger who has only gotten more stubborn about following orders as the years have gone by, I often do all the don’ts and I don’t do all the do’s.
Someday, some final specialist I am sent to, will tell me with a long, sad face, that I should have done the do’s and not have done the don’ts but his assessment won’t come as any surprise to me and maybe not even as a disappointment.
Because among the many features of my body located above my neck that keep me swamped with medical demands large and small, another one located up there is my brain, which so far hasn’t attracted much attention. And it is in that brain, and the heart it is somehow connected to, where lies my freedom of choosing my various paths. And while the thoughts and desires within those entities are often flawed, they are what make me, me. That old brain and its partner, my heart, are what have gotten me this far.
So, rather than doing more things from the do list and not doing other things from the don’t list, I think, instead, I’ll go outside and build another bird feeder. I will forget about being other people’s projects for a while, and go back to working on one of my own. That will chase away my fears and I’ll enjoy watching my fat happy birds – and the bunnies and squirrels that feast on the seeds my flying friends kick onto the ground.
Thirty minutes of cheerily sawing and hammering out in the fresh air, to my way of thinking, beats grudgingly flossing, cream smearing, eye dropping and pill popping ten times out of ten, although, I will admit I will do all those things when the spirit moves me. Can a man be foolish without being a total fool?
As we all are, I am doing the best I can with what I have left. But it has never been a goal of mine to cross that finish line in perfect shape. I don’t know exactly what the term “benign neglect” refers to but if I have a choice to brush my tongue daily to reduce the germs living on it and painting a birdhouse I am reconstructing, I will be digging out my painting supplies before I reach for my “tongue brush”, and, yes, there is such a thing.
I am grateful for those professionals who have made a project out of me and I am sure I am not the first old guy they’ve met who would rather slather motor oil on his bald head than sunscreen, but I am one of those fairly common male creatures who is half smartass and half dumbass.
Some days, though not every day, the dumbass is running away with it.
When your wife and daughter unexpectedly invite you to see Mary Poppins Returns with them at the local theatre on New Year’s eve, you don’t really have much choice in the matter. Turn them down like a schmuck or show up. So, I agreed to go. We watched the original Mary Poppins endlessly when the kids were young and I was interested to see the follow-up, especially with Dick Van Dyke appearing in both.
“Meet us there at 3:45,” I was told, just after 1 p.m. when my movie companions left the house to go shopping.
“I’ll be there,” I promised, glad to have so much time to prepare.
But first, I needed to scare my pants off by reading a few stories about American politics. That took about an hour, enough time to turn my white hair even whiter.
Unfortunately, I was a mess. I was badly in need of a shower and my clothes were about ripe enough to start walking around on their own without me in them. So in the washer they all went as I entered the bathroom to scrub myself clean. In the process of doing that, I poured baby oil in my ears to clean them out and immediately realized the error of my ways as the oil and subsequent warm water mixture left me deaf as a frying pan. I tried to revive my hearing, to no avail. I knew from experience that would take a day or more to achieve.
I don’t know if I was having fun during all this but time sure went fast. The washing machine, though I used only basic settings, took forever. At 3:15, I started to get a little frantic. Finally, I pulled everything out and threw it all in the dryer, cranking it to maximum heat. As it turned out, I needed a setting three times higher than maximum and my clothes took forever to dry.
The phone rang, and I was asked how I was getting along. Of course I said I was doing fine and would be there on time. After I asked the caller to repeat the question three times loudly so I could hear it.
But time had run out. I grabbed my still moist clothes from the dryer and slithered into them all. I raced upstairs to find that another member of the household had taken our second car and the driveway was empty. However, within minutes, it was back.
I jumped in the car, wet and deaf, and headed out. It had been raining and the old car doesn’t like that. It stalled at the first light I came to. At every red light after that, I had to put it in neutral and coast to a stop, revving the engine the whole time. Finally, I ventured into the theatre parking lot in my car with the chugging engine, and ran inside. I pulled out my debit card. Sorry, cash only. So, I had to pay $2 to a machine to get a $20 bill to pay my admission.
Just in time, I found the right theatre, and joined my family. There I sat in my wet clothes, trying to read the lips of the actors on the screen, as I could barely hear their voices.
Dick Van Dyke was great though. At least I think he was. Some day I will rent the movie and watch it, in dry clothes with even drier eardrums and my headphones on.
The homemade Christmas chocolate fudge appeared in its usual tin a few days before the Big Day. With my normal lack of restraint and total absence of conscience, I tore into it like a tiger that happened across a wildebeest by a lake. Incredibly, the apparent bottomless tin of fudge did have a bottom and by Christmas eve, the container sat there pathetically shiny but naked as a newborn. I moved on to the cookie tins.
But two members of our household sat down on the couch to watch a Christmas movie and there on the coffee table between them sat their two cups of tea and a plate of goodies. I had no choice but to inspect those goodies and to my astonishment, I counted on that plate eight large chunks of chocolate fudge. How, I wondered, do you get eight large chunks of fudge out of an empty fudge tin and using my best logic, I concluded that even Mandrake the Magician couldn’t pull that off.
The only other explanation I could think of was that these two close relatives of mine had purposely squirreled away a hidden stash of fudge which they had obviously decided to keep out of my reach. Such perfidy on the eve of such a Holy Day left me almost in tears. I felt such a stab of betrayal, I could hardly hold back the sobs.
But, later that evening, as I sat there Fudgeless on Albert Street, I also came to the conclusion that conspiring with my two close relatives was good old Karma who had decided to pay a visit. I used to hide cookies from our son and daughter when they were kids so I could access them after they had gone to bed. So all these years later, my sins were revisited and punished.
So what choice did I have? I yelled Fudge It and went off into a corner to pout. And I discovered something else about my family. This soulless bunch, who tried to pass off the extra fudge supply as a Christmas Miracle, are impervious to the sight of a sad man pouting in a corner on Christmas Eve. I was offered not even one small chunk of fudge.
In the morning I saw the dish on the counter in the kitchen and there were not enough crumbs on it to keep a fruit fly from starving. It isn’t always easy to keep the Christmas spirit alive.
P.S. The youngest member of my family has lodged a protest, reminding me I forgot to mention she baked a whole new batch of fudge on Christmas morning which, as far as I know at this point, I was allowed full access to. That batch is now gone. More news at 11.
Once in a while, in this fake and phony world, something truly honest comes along and I like that. In my stocking Christmas morning was a one-serving box of Sugar Pops. That’s right, Sugar Pops. Honest as the day is long, unlike Fruit Loops which contains 99 per cent sugar and zero per cent fruit not to mention hardly any loops.
And all the other pre-prepared foods on the shelves pretty much disguise their sugar content. Like ketchup, for example. Who knew there is sugar in ketchup, for Pete’s sake? It would probably be a short list, in fact, if I wrote down all the foods that don’t have sugar. Or salt, for that matter. Or both. In fact, there is probably sugar in salt, and salt in sugar.
But good old Sugar Pops! I’m not sure how many pops are in this cereal but I do know there is lots of sugar. And I am kind of grateful that the makers of Sugar Pops are not ashamed of their product. They put it right out there. No one would be fooled if the cereal was called “Poppin’ Good Round Little Balls”, especially after they were tasted. So why not just be honest?
On the front of a box of Cap’n Crunch, for example, are the words “It’s Cruncharific!” I think we all know what they mean by that.
I haven’t bought any bags of white sugar lately but I’m not even sure they put the word sugar on those.
Long Live Sugar Pops!
(This message brought to you by the Canadian Dental Health Association)
I don’t know if there are five people in the world who lie awake at night worrying about squirrels. I have no statistics to help me arrive at the number five but I do know for sure that I have never been one of those odd souls if, in fact, they even exist.
The squirrels at our place are complete menaces. They get into our bird feeders and chomp down most of the seed. They rip our flowers out of the soil after we plant them. They chew up things you wouldn’t think any animal would be interested in chewing.
So when our wee poodle caught one of the little buggers a few weeks ago, it didn’t seem to be something to be concerned about, assuming the squirrel was not rabid. I asked the person who saw doggie catch the critter what he did with it. The answer came back, he shook it like one of his toys.
So, it’s all good, as the expression goes.
Or at least, it was, until the next day when I saw a poor squirrel, his head all twisted to his right side, trying to gather up some birdseed the birds had kicked onto the ground. I can’t say I have ever actually hated squirrels, though they can and do annoy me. But instantly I felt very sorry for this little guy. Soon, where there had been two squirrels that regularly roamed our backyard, there now was one. One lonely one, ransacking the bird feeders all by himself.
So the next day, I went searching for that one’s mate, expecting to find his body somewhere in our yards. But unlike the little devils when they visit our feeders, I came up empty handed.
Every day, for three or four days, one squirrel only ran atop our wooden fence and attacked the feeders. No sign of little Crooked Head. Of course, he must have died.
And then there were two and not one twisted skull among them. I don’t know if this is a newcomer to the yard. I hope not. I hope the little dickens somehow survived. So I can yell at him three times a day to get out of the feeders. He and his pal have gotten so used to my rantings now they wait till I’m three feet away before they make a run for it.
Pest or not, I don’t want to start thinking of my sweet little doggie as a mad killer. I already have a cat that has that well-deserved reputation.
It’s not easy keeping the peace in our Backyard Wild Kingdom. But it’s a living.
There are many ways of knowing you are entering into senior territory. Looking in the mirror is one way. Another way is to go into shops and restaurants in your hometown and see displayed there memorabilia from a long-gone pop company that you once drove a truck for.
Twice in the past two weeks I have seen Kist Beverages signs, one in a shop and last night in a restaurant. Forty years ago I spent a summer lugging Kist pop into stores and restaurants. Hardest job I ever had. Glass bottles, no plastic. And wooden cases, no plastic or cardboard. No cans.
Hauling those cases up and down the rickety steps of some century-old small-town stores put a muscle or two on my arms and a suicidal thought or three in my brain. I shared some of this information with the young clerk in the store where I saw the sign the first time. She looked as interested as she might have been had I been explaining to her the correct and incorrect ways to lance a boil.
Don’t even get me started on antique shops. When half the stuff in those shops are things you had in your home growing up, you know the autumn of your life is on the horizon.
My Dad always said there is no such thing as antiques, just old furniture. Maybe he was right but I kind of wish I still had some of our old furniture to sell to antique lovers. Not to put them down, but apparently they will buy anything.
Modern technology has come so far. In my small city in Canada, there is a test site for driverless cars.
But I wonder if there are grander uses all our brilliance could be put to. Could guns, including pistols, machine guns and rocket launchers, be jammed remotely, let’s say, by the United Nations? Grenades and bombs defused by satellites? Landmines blown up in the same way?
Could every weapon produced be outfitted with an indestructible sensor that would make all this possible? A mass murderer foiled after his first shot when monitors jam his weapon, perhaps.
Urinals that flush automatically when the users move away from them are great, but devices that could stop human carnage might be a more worthy goal.
