File this one under the category of I can't believe I didn't know better. Apparently, the scam du jour in Petersburg is to make the rounds of the local businesses, telling the proprietors a sob story of the teller's recent release from incarceration out of state. Of the recent, lonely, dusty bus trip down as far south as he could afford, to The Burg to make a new start. Stop me if you've heard this one.
A young fellow came by the other day and gave me his version. It was actually the second recently incarcerated story I'd heard, which should have sounded some warning bells. But he was clean cut, neat, well-spoken, normal looking. He introduced himself with a handshake, came in and looked around for a minute, then left without buying anything or making any demands. I took him at face value, thinking that Petersburg, with its double the state's unemployment rate, was one heck of a place to pick to make a new start, but whatever. I wished him well, and he went on his way. A couple of weeks later, right after I opened that morning, he was back. He was trying to get on his feet and, cue the foot shuffling embarrassment, he hated to have to ask, but he had just gotten a job and a car, and lo and behold, he knew he shouldn't have parked it there, but, golly gee it was an honest mistake. It was towed. And he was short a very specific $17 to get it out of hock. He was exceptionally polite and earnest. He was deferential and respectful and willing to work for the money. He was also full of shit. I put him to work weed-eating in the mass of weeds that is my parking lot. Five minutes later, the weed whacker was conveniently out of string. I couldn't leave the store to go get more, so I told him he'd have to come back the next day. But he had to get his car out of impound today, he whined, or it was going to cost him an extra $25, which he, of course, wouldn't have. So I gave him $20, took and verified his phone number and told him to come back the next day to finish up. See it coming? It's like a horror movie. Groan now, and brace for gratuitous predictability. Of course, he didn't show up the next day, and he was unreachable by phone. I finally got ahold of him yesterday and told him I was bringing the weed whacker in today and expected him to come do his job. He showed up today, but because it had sprinkled a few drops and was threatening to rain more, begged off until tomorrow.
I had told this story earlier this week to my friend who is a fellow business owner here in Petersburg. Interestingly, she had already made the young man's acquaintance. He had insinuated himself into her business by asking to use the bathroom a couple of times, telling his prison story in the process. Today, she called me with a crazy happenstance. Mike came by and told her his car was towed again last night! He needed $18 from my friend to get it out of hock! Can you believe the coincidence? I can't. Especially since I've been in this downtown every day for over a year and have yet to see anything resembling parking violation enforcement.
So, shame on me. I've been all over the world and half of Georgia, and I still can't tell when I'm being had. But these kinds of incidents always lead me to wonder--is it better to be cynical and undupeable? Or is it better to trust and believe the best about our fellow humans, in spite of repeated incidents of evidence to the contrary? I have a theory called the Theory of Universal Justice. It states very simply that people DO get what they deserve, whether good or bad. We may not get to see it, but it happens every day. We don't get to be in charge of that, so we might as well not get our drawers in a wad about it.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Sinatra Garden
As I've previously written, I plan to move the store to a more visible location as soon as I'm able to sell this building. So logic dictates that I don't spend a bunch of (okay, any) money on physical improvements at the store at the moment. This makes sense to me on a cerebral level. On a more visceral level, I decided a few days ago that I can no longer take driving up to the industrial wasteland of my storefront. I can live with the fact that there are bald spots around the door from my last ill-advised attempt at decorating (duct tape was involved). I can handle that the bathroom has all the monotone personality of Ben Stein. I can deal with the dust bowl of the adjacent parking lot...well, on most days. I cannot take the bland wilderness of white grass and weeds staring at me as I walk down the hill to start my day of bookselling. So this past week, I planted the Sinatra Memorial Garden in the front center flower bed. I call it that because, if those plants can make it there, they're gonna make it anywhere. In spite of a solid couple of months of strenuous preparation last summer, the bed remains a curious hodgepodge of dirt, rock, peat and old car parts. Couple this with my general tendency to mess up anything green that requires the remotest level of care, and we may have herbal homicide before the summer. The petunias are already looking mighty peaked. If they come back around, I'll post some pictures.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Subject of My Latest Rant: Piracy
Anyone who has been breathing air for the past couple of weeks now knows that there is an epidemic of modern-day piracy off the coast of Somalia. Anyone who has been there knows that this is not new. Pirates have been operating with impunity in the lawless waters off the Horn of Africa for many years. It's only with the seizure of the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama with its all-American crew that the problem has blipped onto our national radar scope. Cue the knee-jerk response, preferably one flavored with a gunslinger mentality more suited to the wild west. The sleeping giant of national righteous indignation has awakened and, boy, is he mad! He's slobbering, lashing out, ranting. I can't BELIEVE the most powerful Navy in the world can't stop a few third-rate thugs in dinghies with outboard motors. We've got Aegis missile destroyers on station, helicopters, large caliber guns, hundreds of sailors and special forces operators. They've got a couple of RPGs and machine guns in boats that are barely seaworthy, and we can't take 'em out? Jesus H. Christ. It makes me wish for George W. Bush. I may be putting a few words in his mouth.
Ironically, it was on Bush's watch that the problem grew to these proportions. That's not to say it's his fault. He certainly had more than enough on his plate to keep him busy. When the city is burning around them, most folks don't worry about what color to paint the living room. But now that we've had our attention grabbed: Piracy off the Horn of Africa is a multi-faceted problem that will require a multi-pronged approach to solve. I've talked with a lot of people recently who can't get their brains around why the U.S., in particular, can't do something about it. But here's the thing, Somalia's coast line is approximately the same length as the eastern seaboard of the United States. Unclassified source documentation has chronicled attacks over 300 nautical miles from the Somali coast. Do the multiplication, and you have several thousand square miles that would need to be patrolled consistently to even make a dent in the pirates' habits. Even if a merchant ship can get a call out to a patrolling warship on VHF radio, there are a couple of problems with that as well. 1) the warship would have to be within 20-30 miles to even hear the distress call and 2) they'd have to be considerably closer than that to do anything about it in a timely manner. Add all this to the chameleon acts of the pirates themselves (the same guys who were pirates on one outing may have been fishermen on the last one, and may well be fishermen again on the next one), and you have a real time-distance problem. Somalia is the end of the food chain logistically, so any military action is complicated by replenishment and basing issues. A couple of years ago, shipping authorities responded to the increased piracy threat by issuing warnings to stay at least 200 miles off the coast of Somalia. The pirates responded to this by working out a new tactic that enables them to reach ships further from the coast. Then there's the minor inconvenience that most of the ships that have been hijacked recently have been BOUND for Somalia, which also makes it difficult to stay well off the coast. All that to say this: If Iraq didn't teach us anything else, it should have taught us that military action is not the end all, be all. Without the creation of a strong central government, without proactive engagement on the land side, without an economic strategy that brings Somalis out of the abject poverty that makes piracy so attractive, nothing done on the sea will have much effect. It's a big problem that, so far, has not been deemed worth pursuing. A few million paid out by shipping companies to get their ships and crews back unharmed has been considered the price of sailing the seas off of Somalia. Now the ante has been upped. It will be interesting to see how, and indeed if, the new administration responds to the groggy giant of national consciousness.
Ironically, it was on Bush's watch that the problem grew to these proportions. That's not to say it's his fault. He certainly had more than enough on his plate to keep him busy. When the city is burning around them, most folks don't worry about what color to paint the living room. But now that we've had our attention grabbed: Piracy off the Horn of Africa is a multi-faceted problem that will require a multi-pronged approach to solve. I've talked with a lot of people recently who can't get their brains around why the U.S., in particular, can't do something about it. But here's the thing, Somalia's coast line is approximately the same length as the eastern seaboard of the United States. Unclassified source documentation has chronicled attacks over 300 nautical miles from the Somali coast. Do the multiplication, and you have several thousand square miles that would need to be patrolled consistently to even make a dent in the pirates' habits. Even if a merchant ship can get a call out to a patrolling warship on VHF radio, there are a couple of problems with that as well. 1) the warship would have to be within 20-30 miles to even hear the distress call and 2) they'd have to be considerably closer than that to do anything about it in a timely manner. Add all this to the chameleon acts of the pirates themselves (the same guys who were pirates on one outing may have been fishermen on the last one, and may well be fishermen again on the next one), and you have a real time-distance problem. Somalia is the end of the food chain logistically, so any military action is complicated by replenishment and basing issues. A couple of years ago, shipping authorities responded to the increased piracy threat by issuing warnings to stay at least 200 miles off the coast of Somalia. The pirates responded to this by working out a new tactic that enables them to reach ships further from the coast. Then there's the minor inconvenience that most of the ships that have been hijacked recently have been BOUND for Somalia, which also makes it difficult to stay well off the coast. All that to say this: If Iraq didn't teach us anything else, it should have taught us that military action is not the end all, be all. Without the creation of a strong central government, without proactive engagement on the land side, without an economic strategy that brings Somalis out of the abject poverty that makes piracy so attractive, nothing done on the sea will have much effect. It's a big problem that, so far, has not been deemed worth pursuing. A few million paid out by shipping companies to get their ships and crews back unharmed has been considered the price of sailing the seas off of Somalia. Now the ante has been upped. It will be interesting to see how, and indeed if, the new administration responds to the groggy giant of national consciousness.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Occupational Hazards
When I got out of the military and opened the bookstore, I thought my days of living dangerously were over. I reflected with gratitude that I had survived brushes with ebola, Hezbollah and Saddam Hussein to embrace the bookish, professorial lifestyle of a book maven. I thought the worst hazard of this job would be an occasional papercut. Oh, to have the halcyon days of pre-bookstore naivete back.
Last weekend, I cleaned up after my first toilet accident. I don't mean the toilet overflowed. If you've followed this blog from back in the Myspace days, you know we should be (knock on wood) immune from that for quite some time. I mean, yes, worst case scenario--activate the hazardous materials response team. Well, it just so happens that like most other titles associated with this business, I am also captain and sole member of the Hazmat response team. You might think that a bookstore is a strange place to have any need for a Hazmat response team. You might think this a more likely scenario in a bar, or even a restaurant. At 11 am last Saturday, I would have thought the same. At 12, I was dry heaving and cleaning up the big nasty. An elderly gentleman had apparently taken the military slang name for the trash can literally and relieved himself all over it and the surrounding area, and with a most unfortunate constitution to boot. I'm not telling this story to put his business out there. I know he didn't know what he was doing and, more than anything, I felt great empathy for him. But the younger woman who was with him, who went in there after him and made only a single swipe at the mess before heading for the hills, now she could have done a little better by the old KBster. As embarrassing as it would have been, if she didn't want to or couldn't clean it up herself, she might have at least told me and spared me the ten minutes of wandering around the shop, trying to figure out where the smell was coming from (and worrying in the back of my mind that, somehow, my sewer problems were back). Regardless, there I was, alone in the shop, and the buck stopped with me. So I worked through it. Unfortunately, I had also had a few drinks the night before, so it was doubly painful. I managed to avoid adding to the mess, but just barely. Fast forward a week...
This morning, I came in early to sweep and mop the store. Because I'm situated next to the Dust Bowl (the tattoo parlor parking lot is unpaved--a combination of gravel, dirt and trash), this is a fairly frequent occurrence that I've pretty much gotten down to a science. So I finished that up in short order and went out on my deck that juts out over the creek out back to give it some much needed attention. I noticed that I had some impressive weeds growing from the wall at one end, an eyesore my patrons surely did not need to see as they sat out and enjoyed their coffee and the sound of running water. Tree hugger that I am, I dismissed the idea of coming inside and grabbing my herbicidal sprayer. I congratulated myself on my environmental stewardship, crouched down to reach through my wrought iron railing and commenced to pulling weeds. First one, no problem. Second one, cool. Third one, oh my God, is that a snake? I won't keep you in suspense. It was. A little juvenile SOMETHING coiled up tight under what had formerly been its private green room. My mind always goes to worst case scenario, so naturally whatever it actually was became the meanest individual of a poisonous species lying in wait. So the strange blend of National Geographic, Man vs Wild and the Crocodile Hunter started playing in my head. Yep, the juveniles, they're always the meanest ones too. Blimey! He's a beaut! Their venom is concentrated because they don't know how to control the dosage. He has a small mouth, but he could bite me in the space between my fingers and kill me! Oh Lord, what to do? I don't want to hurt him--he's a beaut aint he?--but one wrong move and... So I ended up taking an ashtray off a nearby table and carefully raking him into the creek below. I watched him swim off before shakily retreating to the store to retrieve my herbicide sprayer. I love all of nature but, hell, it ain't worth DYING over.
Last weekend, I cleaned up after my first toilet accident. I don't mean the toilet overflowed. If you've followed this blog from back in the Myspace days, you know we should be (knock on wood) immune from that for quite some time. I mean, yes, worst case scenario--activate the hazardous materials response team. Well, it just so happens that like most other titles associated with this business, I am also captain and sole member of the Hazmat response team. You might think that a bookstore is a strange place to have any need for a Hazmat response team. You might think this a more likely scenario in a bar, or even a restaurant. At 11 am last Saturday, I would have thought the same. At 12, I was dry heaving and cleaning up the big nasty. An elderly gentleman had apparently taken the military slang name for the trash can literally and relieved himself all over it and the surrounding area, and with a most unfortunate constitution to boot. I'm not telling this story to put his business out there. I know he didn't know what he was doing and, more than anything, I felt great empathy for him. But the younger woman who was with him, who went in there after him and made only a single swipe at the mess before heading for the hills, now she could have done a little better by the old KBster. As embarrassing as it would have been, if she didn't want to or couldn't clean it up herself, she might have at least told me and spared me the ten minutes of wandering around the shop, trying to figure out where the smell was coming from (and worrying in the back of my mind that, somehow, my sewer problems were back). Regardless, there I was, alone in the shop, and the buck stopped with me. So I worked through it. Unfortunately, I had also had a few drinks the night before, so it was doubly painful. I managed to avoid adding to the mess, but just barely. Fast forward a week...
This morning, I came in early to sweep and mop the store. Because I'm situated next to the Dust Bowl (the tattoo parlor parking lot is unpaved--a combination of gravel, dirt and trash), this is a fairly frequent occurrence that I've pretty much gotten down to a science. So I finished that up in short order and went out on my deck that juts out over the creek out back to give it some much needed attention. I noticed that I had some impressive weeds growing from the wall at one end, an eyesore my patrons surely did not need to see as they sat out and enjoyed their coffee and the sound of running water. Tree hugger that I am, I dismissed the idea of coming inside and grabbing my herbicidal sprayer. I congratulated myself on my environmental stewardship, crouched down to reach through my wrought iron railing and commenced to pulling weeds. First one, no problem. Second one, cool. Third one, oh my God, is that a snake? I won't keep you in suspense. It was. A little juvenile SOMETHING coiled up tight under what had formerly been its private green room. My mind always goes to worst case scenario, so naturally whatever it actually was became the meanest individual of a poisonous species lying in wait. So the strange blend of National Geographic, Man vs Wild and the Crocodile Hunter started playing in my head. Yep, the juveniles, they're always the meanest ones too. Blimey! He's a beaut! Their venom is concentrated because they don't know how to control the dosage. He has a small mouth, but he could bite me in the space between my fingers and kill me! Oh Lord, what to do? I don't want to hurt him--he's a beaut aint he?--but one wrong move and... So I ended up taking an ashtray off a nearby table and carefully raking him into the creek below. I watched him swim off before shakily retreating to the store to retrieve my herbicide sprayer. I love all of nature but, hell, it ain't worth DYING over.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Here's My Sign
One of the more tedious aspects to my current situation is that everyone who reads the gaudy For Sale sign out front with the Business Relocating attachment comes in and asks the obvious question of where the business is relocating TO. Well-intentioned people who aren't satisfied with my stock answer of shrug/"Don't know yet" will ask further questions that proceed inevitably down the same line, and I invariably give up little chunks on information at a time, until I run through the same spiel several times a day of, "Well, I have to sell this building first and then see what's available. I can't afford to pay a mortgage and rent at the same time. I'm looking for a place out toward the main drag, where I can have better visibility and some foot traffic. Probably somewhere on Sycamore St." After several dozen cycles of lather, rinse, repeat, this has almost become verbatim phraseology...and a Pavlovian response. I hear chimes (like the ones that jangle when someone opens my door) and automatically launch into it. I'm thinking of recording it and just hitting play when someone walks in. Or posting a sign on the door. Or wearing one around my neck like the little bus-shaped signs the kindergarten teacher hung around your neck with yarn that reminded you of which bus to get on, in case you forgot. I'm brainstorming here.
Not that I'm complaining. Okay, yes I am. But I at least recognize that I shouldn't be complaining. That counts for something, right? What is a blog, really, except a personal electronic bully pulpit? If I really wanted to complain about something, I should raise hell about the fact that, with the warmer spring weather, has come a return of Crap Alley. I picked up one fresh pile not four feet away from my Dog Relief Station the other, only to step in another fresh pile buried in a pile of weeds. I finished weedeating, left that pair of shoes on top of my trunk to air out, forgot them and only remembered when I looked up to see only one of the pair in my rearview mirror. I retrieved the other one from the middle of Sycamore Street. But I digress. I wish I could say the question and answer scenario plays out several hundred times a day, because that would mean several hundred people are walking in the door (or that I'm on reality television). But the fact that I haven't yet had to make a sign is further testament to the fact that I need to relocate.
Not that I'm complaining. Okay, yes I am. But I at least recognize that I shouldn't be complaining. That counts for something, right? What is a blog, really, except a personal electronic bully pulpit? If I really wanted to complain about something, I should raise hell about the fact that, with the warmer spring weather, has come a return of Crap Alley. I picked up one fresh pile not four feet away from my Dog Relief Station the other, only to step in another fresh pile buried in a pile of weeds. I finished weedeating, left that pair of shoes on top of my trunk to air out, forgot them and only remembered when I looked up to see only one of the pair in my rearview mirror. I retrieved the other one from the middle of Sycamore Street. But I digress. I wish I could say the question and answer scenario plays out several hundred times a day, because that would mean several hundred people are walking in the door (or that I'm on reality television). But the fact that I haven't yet had to make a sign is further testament to the fact that I need to relocate.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
First, Kill Yourself
I am bone tired of the seemingly constant stream of malcontents who go on shooting sprees because their girlfriend left them, or they got fired from the meat packing plant and their Dungeons and Dragons group kicked them out on the same day. I am exhausted with a society that keeps churning out members who think of lives, theirs and others', as a cheap medium for making a personal statement. To those who think that violence will finally free you from a life that is disproportionately harder than everyone else's, that shooting multiple someones will quell your anger at the world and give you the power no one has yet bestowed upon you, I say this. How about doing what the rest of the world does when faced with a crisis? GET OVER IT. Ask for the help you need, talk to someone, pop off a few rounds at some beer cans, hammer a couple hundred nails into scrap wood, take up an exercise regimen, whatever! Stop wallowing in the idea that your particular set of woe-is-me's are any worse than anyone else's, or that your latest bout with mediocrity entitles you to anything other than dusting yourself off and trying again. This is a novel approach for a professed liberal, I know, that of individual responsibility. And I'm not so naive as to not understand that most folks who are prone to violent rampages lack some critical coping mechanism to deal as the rest of the world does with disappointment and despair. So here's the corollary to the "deal with it" maxim. If your life is so hopeless, so miserable that you don't have any belief in redemption, if you are so sick of everything and so angry because no one in the world understands you, if you cannot face that you're no longer the high scorer in HALO or that you were picked on in 9th grade for not having the right kind of tennis shoes; rather than go out and indiscriminately spray bullets at a bunch of innocent people, and then end with yourself, try this. Show a little courage. START with yourself. Shoot yourself at point blank range in the head. This is all but guaranteed to cure any urge you have to shoot someone else.
Before anyone thinks I've lost what little stability I had before, I don't normally advocate suicide, even if it's for the greater good. And I don't really think what I ranted about in the first paragraph is the answer. But I'm so angry about the blame game and the recurring mantra of questions around these incidents that are never adequately answered. Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Germany, Arkansas. The accents are different, the questions are always the same. How could this happen? Someone should have known. Someone should have done a background check at the gun show. Why didn't the teacher who read the fiction story he wrote in 2006 see that it was a cry for help? The National Rifle Association, it's their fault--assault rifles are the root cause of all this! Please. This is not a gun control problem. This is a society control problem. This is the function of a couple of generations of people who have been raised by electronic surrogates that are violent and desensitizing instead of parents who are involved and unafraid. This is the function of absentee authority figures and even more absent moral codes. When one of these incidents goes down, the scene is always the same, instant saturation news coverage, constant images of the shocked townspeople who can't believe that quiet guy could do this. We're outraged, we're shocked...at least for a few minutes. We pound our fists and demand that someone be brought to justice. We content ourselves with burying the dead and looking for clues in hindsight. Maybe we scratch around in the trailer dirt and figure out the specific string of triggers that set our latest shooter off. We are missing the big picture and missing the point. We never get down to cause and effect. To do that would require holding a mirror up to ourselves, and that has never been this country's strong suit. Instead, we shake our heads in disbelief, shudder a little as we run off to the next obligation. Meanwhile the kids take the shooting game off pause and "kill a few more guys."
Before anyone thinks I've lost what little stability I had before, I don't normally advocate suicide, even if it's for the greater good. And I don't really think what I ranted about in the first paragraph is the answer. But I'm so angry about the blame game and the recurring mantra of questions around these incidents that are never adequately answered. Alabama, Michigan, Colorado, Germany, Arkansas. The accents are different, the questions are always the same. How could this happen? Someone should have known. Someone should have done a background check at the gun show. Why didn't the teacher who read the fiction story he wrote in 2006 see that it was a cry for help? The National Rifle Association, it's their fault--assault rifles are the root cause of all this! Please. This is not a gun control problem. This is a society control problem. This is the function of a couple of generations of people who have been raised by electronic surrogates that are violent and desensitizing instead of parents who are involved and unafraid. This is the function of absentee authority figures and even more absent moral codes. When one of these incidents goes down, the scene is always the same, instant saturation news coverage, constant images of the shocked townspeople who can't believe that quiet guy could do this. We're outraged, we're shocked...at least for a few minutes. We pound our fists and demand that someone be brought to justice. We content ourselves with burying the dead and looking for clues in hindsight. Maybe we scratch around in the trailer dirt and figure out the specific string of triggers that set our latest shooter off. We are missing the big picture and missing the point. We never get down to cause and effect. To do that would require holding a mirror up to ourselves, and that has never been this country's strong suit. Instead, we shake our heads in disbelief, shudder a little as we run off to the next obligation. Meanwhile the kids take the shooting game off pause and "kill a few more guys."
Catulence and Dog Nation
I always said when I was younger that if I ever got out of that animal-hating, penny-pinching, cleanliness-obsessed house where I was raised, I would have a whole HOUSEFUL of animals when I grew up. Well, I'm all grown up, and I do have a house full of animalia...and a new appreciation for why my mother always resisted my efforts to populate the house with every stray thing that wandered up.
Typical morning: I get up and start getting ready to exercise, almost stepping in a hairball puke pile on the way to the bathroom. Now anybody who has dogs knows that this is not really a problem. You call the pile to the attention of one or both of them and, HOOVER, problem solved. Except that they aren't having any part of this particular pile, probably because The Bug (our girl cat) always makes it a point to find the one narrow strip of carpet in the house and puke all over it, rather than the nice, easily cleaned hardwood that covers 99% of the floor. So far, I'm taking it in stride. I clean it up, get my tennis shoes and running stuff on, go downstairs, and find that the cats have gone off their litter. Little SPCA veterans that they are, they steadfastly resist any effort to refine their tastes to a more gucci (read, less disgusting to the primary pooper scooper--me) version of litter and can only be coaxed to pee and crap in a litter box filled with the most vilely cheap and dust contaminating stuff ever known to clog an air conditioning filter. They have also recently adopted a policy of refusing to drink after the dogs, preferring instead to alternately drink from the tub, toilet or any glass that is left uncovered. Let's just say, for example, that I forget and leave the bathroom door closed. Catulence, as the two cats are collectively known, has no qualms about breaking a glass to get to the inch of water left at the bottom. But I digress. Now that I have my running stuff on, the girl half of Dog Nation, as the dogs are collectively known, thinks she's going on a walk, so she's apoplectic. She's thrashing around like she's lost all sense of muscle control and spatial perception. The boy dog, whose given name is Tucker but who we call Dwayne Grubb, couldn't care less about going for a walk or anything else that involves a leash. So I thrust Harper, the girl dog out the door long enough to put his electronic transmitter collar on him before I saddle Harper up with her harness for a run. I'm just hitting my stride when I hear the clicking of toenails behind me. I should stop here and explain why Tucker is also known as Dwayne Grubb. It's because he's an old country good-ole-boy dog, who looks like he ought to be wearing a grimy John Deere cap and slugging a Budweiser while simultaneously working over a plug of Red Man. In short, he's a good fellow, the kind that if he were human, would throw his shoulder out a la Tim McGraw trying to win you a teddy bear at the fair, but he ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. He will not ever be called a pretty dog. The best way to describe him is he's kind of a dog centaur: he has a torso that is at least as long as his legs and it's all the same width from his chest to his neck, all the way up to his preternaturally large dog head. So he's clicking along behind me, unnaturally large head swaying dody-do, to and fro. And he doesn't have any interest in going back to the yard, especially since he's made his break, and I dont have a leash to use on him. Finally I manage to corral him by his transmitter collar and drag him back to the yard, along with Harper, who is pissed because she was short-changed on her run. By this point, I am late in my morning schedule, and I haven't even had a run, although I HAVE had a workout of sorts. Fast forward to the part of the morning "routine" where I leave.
Now, Dwayne Grubb spent the first 7 months of his life in a 10 x 10 kennel so when he became a house dog, it wasn't just country come to town, it was country come to a whole other country. Ole Dwayne has gotten used to the lap of luxury and no longer feels the call of the wild (or the outside). To the tune of, once he hears me making motions to leave, he trots his happy butt upstairs and lies down on the dog bed. No amount of coaxing, cajoling or threatening will get him up and out the front door. So I end up picking his 55 pound ass up and hauling it down the stairs and outside via the side door. Then I quickly grab my stuff, cursing because I'm late, open up the front door, and there he is. If I'm lucky and quick, I make it out before he scoots in past me.
Typical morning: I get up and start getting ready to exercise, almost stepping in a hairball puke pile on the way to the bathroom. Now anybody who has dogs knows that this is not really a problem. You call the pile to the attention of one or both of them and, HOOVER, problem solved. Except that they aren't having any part of this particular pile, probably because The Bug (our girl cat) always makes it a point to find the one narrow strip of carpet in the house and puke all over it, rather than the nice, easily cleaned hardwood that covers 99% of the floor. So far, I'm taking it in stride. I clean it up, get my tennis shoes and running stuff on, go downstairs, and find that the cats have gone off their litter. Little SPCA veterans that they are, they steadfastly resist any effort to refine their tastes to a more gucci (read, less disgusting to the primary pooper scooper--me) version of litter and can only be coaxed to pee and crap in a litter box filled with the most vilely cheap and dust contaminating stuff ever known to clog an air conditioning filter. They have also recently adopted a policy of refusing to drink after the dogs, preferring instead to alternately drink from the tub, toilet or any glass that is left uncovered. Let's just say, for example, that I forget and leave the bathroom door closed. Catulence, as the two cats are collectively known, has no qualms about breaking a glass to get to the inch of water left at the bottom. But I digress. Now that I have my running stuff on, the girl half of Dog Nation, as the dogs are collectively known, thinks she's going on a walk, so she's apoplectic. She's thrashing around like she's lost all sense of muscle control and spatial perception. The boy dog, whose given name is Tucker but who we call Dwayne Grubb, couldn't care less about going for a walk or anything else that involves a leash. So I thrust Harper, the girl dog out the door long enough to put his electronic transmitter collar on him before I saddle Harper up with her harness for a run. I'm just hitting my stride when I hear the clicking of toenails behind me. I should stop here and explain why Tucker is also known as Dwayne Grubb. It's because he's an old country good-ole-boy dog, who looks like he ought to be wearing a grimy John Deere cap and slugging a Budweiser while simultaneously working over a plug of Red Man. In short, he's a good fellow, the kind that if he were human, would throw his shoulder out a la Tim McGraw trying to win you a teddy bear at the fair, but he ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. He will not ever be called a pretty dog. The best way to describe him is he's kind of a dog centaur: he has a torso that is at least as long as his legs and it's all the same width from his chest to his neck, all the way up to his preternaturally large dog head. So he's clicking along behind me, unnaturally large head swaying dody-do, to and fro. And he doesn't have any interest in going back to the yard, especially since he's made his break, and I dont have a leash to use on him. Finally I manage to corral him by his transmitter collar and drag him back to the yard, along with Harper, who is pissed because she was short-changed on her run. By this point, I am late in my morning schedule, and I haven't even had a run, although I HAVE had a workout of sorts. Fast forward to the part of the morning "routine" where I leave.
Now, Dwayne Grubb spent the first 7 months of his life in a 10 x 10 kennel so when he became a house dog, it wasn't just country come to town, it was country come to a whole other country. Ole Dwayne has gotten used to the lap of luxury and no longer feels the call of the wild (or the outside). To the tune of, once he hears me making motions to leave, he trots his happy butt upstairs and lies down on the dog bed. No amount of coaxing, cajoling or threatening will get him up and out the front door. So I end up picking his 55 pound ass up and hauling it down the stairs and outside via the side door. Then I quickly grab my stuff, cursing because I'm late, open up the front door, and there he is. If I'm lucky and quick, I make it out before he scoots in past me.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
313 Troy Street
313 Troy Street
I don't know how to commemorate a life
except to show a snapshot of it
exactly the way it was
at some point in time
or, at least, exactly the way I remember
The poets say to be concrete, specific.
So I've turned my lens to their house
that weathered old nondescript place
across the street from the mill
I've tasted peanut dust and machinery hum
suspended
in mid-summer afternoon haze
watched a little white-haired woman
brush off the porch with a sage broom,
cuss horse flies under her breath.
I have racked my brain for details
I have gotten most of them wrong
The color of the carpet is fuzzy
I do not remember the neighbor at 311
the wall where the deer heads were
blurred subjects of yellowed pictures
or the yawning black maw of the fireplace.
But this much is vivid and true
and bathed in blazing technicolor:
There lived in that little old house
the greatest love story I've ever known.
I was fourteen, an eye-rolling know it all
when Granny told the story of their first date
the bumbling bumpy ride to Snellgrove's Mill
the dashing, daring figure he cut
when he dove headlong from the bridge.
I imagined the girlish squeal, the flood of relief
when his head popped up, turtle like
far below.
She said she could have killed him
instead they were married
for more than fifty years
clinging together through
poor and crumb-scraping poor
through ruddy health and the last stages
of time-shifter disease
and everything in between.
This, I believe, is where she is now.
They are on their first date
young and strong and beautiful
She has leaped off the bridge to join him
without fear or pain or hesitation.
He is waiting
and the water is fine.
I don't know how to commemorate a life
except to show a snapshot of it
exactly the way it was
at some point in time
or, at least, exactly the way I remember
The poets say to be concrete, specific.
So I've turned my lens to their house
that weathered old nondescript place
across the street from the mill
I've tasted peanut dust and machinery hum
suspended
in mid-summer afternoon haze
watched a little white-haired woman
brush off the porch with a sage broom,
cuss horse flies under her breath.
I have racked my brain for details
I have gotten most of them wrong
The color of the carpet is fuzzy
I do not remember the neighbor at 311
the wall where the deer heads were
blurred subjects of yellowed pictures
or the yawning black maw of the fireplace.
But this much is vivid and true
and bathed in blazing technicolor:
There lived in that little old house
the greatest love story I've ever known.
I was fourteen, an eye-rolling know it all
when Granny told the story of their first date
the bumbling bumpy ride to Snellgrove's Mill
the dashing, daring figure he cut
when he dove headlong from the bridge.
I imagined the girlish squeal, the flood of relief
when his head popped up, turtle like
far below.
She said she could have killed him
instead they were married
for more than fifty years
clinging together through
poor and crumb-scraping poor
through ruddy health and the last stages
of time-shifter disease
and everything in between.
This, I believe, is where she is now.
They are on their first date
young and strong and beautiful
She has leaped off the bridge to join him
without fear or pain or hesitation.
He is waiting
and the water is fine.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Writing For Granny
There is probably nothing harder than writing a poem on demand. As one who has sat in the seedy dive bar of my poetic thoughts with the three ton elephant of a love's birthday breathing down my neck, I felt sorry for Elizabeth Alexander. You remember her, the Yale professor who was tapped to commemorate Barack Obama's inauguration as the first African-American President? How could she possibly come up with anything to say that was more profound than the moment itself? It couldn't have helped that she was writing it for probably the finest orator of his generation. Poor, poor Maya Angelou, who broke a 30 year moratorium on poets by performing a piece she wrote for the event at silver-tongued Bill Clinton's inauguration. No pressure there. And Robert Frost, who not only had the difficult task of writing something for Mr. Ask-Not-What-Your-Country-Can-Do-For-You, but then he lost half his pages in a gusting wind and had to wing a different poem from memory. By all accounts, the winged poem was better than its more pedestrian counterpart.
My sister sent me a terse little email about three weeks ago that said only, "Granny is not doing well. Machelle (our aunt) asked me to contact you about writing a poem for the funeral program." At first I got mad. I was mad as hell because she told/asked me in what I thought was a callous way. I was angry because something seemed inherently wrong with talking about Granny as if she was already dead, as if we'd given up on her. But the truth is, she's been waiting almost 20 years to get back with her husband, who died way back when I was in high school. And after thinking about it a bit more, it struck me as somewhat disingenuous and maybe even dishonest to have spent the entirety of my adulthood away from Alabama, only to criticize my relations' handling of a difficult situation from afar. So I shut up and got to work. I sat in the seedy dive bar of my poetic thoughts and dredged up memories and tried to figure out how to come up with something so profound that it adequately captures the magnitude of her life and all the spiraling circles of those it touched.
Now, I probably spent more time at Granny's during the school year than I did at home. We lived in Clio, which is 30 minutes from where we went to school, so my sister would drag me over there to hang out with the grandparents while she did her myriad after-school activities. She kept a schedule in high school any medical intern would be proud of, and I, being a year young for my grade, was an unintended beneficiary. Looking back, Granny ALWAYS made me feel welcome, even during play season, when the practices stretched until 9:30 every night. I know there were probably times when she wanted to go to bed early, or wanted a little time to herself, especially since she was spending every minute of her days taking care of her ailing husband (who we called PawPaw--that's grandfather, for you non-Southerners). But she smiled and welcomed me, fed me, asked me what I wanted to watch on TV. I grew to love The Addams Family and The Monkees and Andy Griffith, and I was fascinated with the cable channel that showed local weather and announcements. Granny taught me to cuss (she would deny that she ever did, but she was a champion cusser, and I learned through osmosis). To love the old folks' network (CBS). I'm still partial to it to this day. To pour sweet tea out of a two gallon jar without spilling it. To be content with the slow sweetness of sitting on the porch swing and talking. To swat flies with deadly efficacy. That the kind of love worth having stuck around through poor and really poor, through good and bad, through ruddy health and the last stages of Alzheimer's and everything in between. That little 110 pound woman all but singlehandedly cared for PawPaw at home as he forgot where he was, who she was, who he was--almost everything except that he constantly wanted to smoke. When he died, she wanted to go, too, but it wasn't her time yet. What's that old line from Byron---"The heart will break, yet brokenly live on."
I decided a while ago that everyone gets their own brand of heaven. Everybody who makes it gets to stay forever in the place where they were happiest. For Granny, she will be on her first date with PawPaw. They will be young and beautiful and strong, and she will ride in the rumble seat to Pea River at Snellgrove's Mill. The air will be sweet and cool and heavy with honeysuckle and anticipation. She'll see him climb up the tressle bridge and walk out to the middle. He'll look back to make sure she's watching, and she'll squeal as he dives off into the murky water below. She'll think he's gone for sure. Then his head will pop up and he'll laugh and call her to join him, and she will. So that's where she is now, up on that tressle, inching out to the middle. And she's about to join him, about to leap off without pain or fear or hesitation.
So yeah, the Alexanders and the Angelous and the Frosts might have had more folks listening, but Granny's story is at least as profound. And I'm trying to make sure I tell it right.
My sister sent me a terse little email about three weeks ago that said only, "Granny is not doing well. Machelle (our aunt) asked me to contact you about writing a poem for the funeral program." At first I got mad. I was mad as hell because she told/asked me in what I thought was a callous way. I was angry because something seemed inherently wrong with talking about Granny as if she was already dead, as if we'd given up on her. But the truth is, she's been waiting almost 20 years to get back with her husband, who died way back when I was in high school. And after thinking about it a bit more, it struck me as somewhat disingenuous and maybe even dishonest to have spent the entirety of my adulthood away from Alabama, only to criticize my relations' handling of a difficult situation from afar. So I shut up and got to work. I sat in the seedy dive bar of my poetic thoughts and dredged up memories and tried to figure out how to come up with something so profound that it adequately captures the magnitude of her life and all the spiraling circles of those it touched.
Now, I probably spent more time at Granny's during the school year than I did at home. We lived in Clio, which is 30 minutes from where we went to school, so my sister would drag me over there to hang out with the grandparents while she did her myriad after-school activities. She kept a schedule in high school any medical intern would be proud of, and I, being a year young for my grade, was an unintended beneficiary. Looking back, Granny ALWAYS made me feel welcome, even during play season, when the practices stretched until 9:30 every night. I know there were probably times when she wanted to go to bed early, or wanted a little time to herself, especially since she was spending every minute of her days taking care of her ailing husband (who we called PawPaw--that's grandfather, for you non-Southerners). But she smiled and welcomed me, fed me, asked me what I wanted to watch on TV. I grew to love The Addams Family and The Monkees and Andy Griffith, and I was fascinated with the cable channel that showed local weather and announcements. Granny taught me to cuss (she would deny that she ever did, but she was a champion cusser, and I learned through osmosis). To love the old folks' network (CBS). I'm still partial to it to this day. To pour sweet tea out of a two gallon jar without spilling it. To be content with the slow sweetness of sitting on the porch swing and talking. To swat flies with deadly efficacy. That the kind of love worth having stuck around through poor and really poor, through good and bad, through ruddy health and the last stages of Alzheimer's and everything in between. That little 110 pound woman all but singlehandedly cared for PawPaw at home as he forgot where he was, who she was, who he was--almost everything except that he constantly wanted to smoke. When he died, she wanted to go, too, but it wasn't her time yet. What's that old line from Byron---"The heart will break, yet brokenly live on."
I decided a while ago that everyone gets their own brand of heaven. Everybody who makes it gets to stay forever in the place where they were happiest. For Granny, she will be on her first date with PawPaw. They will be young and beautiful and strong, and she will ride in the rumble seat to Pea River at Snellgrove's Mill. The air will be sweet and cool and heavy with honeysuckle and anticipation. She'll see him climb up the tressle bridge and walk out to the middle. He'll look back to make sure she's watching, and she'll squeal as he dives off into the murky water below. She'll think he's gone for sure. Then his head will pop up and he'll laugh and call her to join him, and she will. So that's where she is now, up on that tressle, inching out to the middle. And she's about to join him, about to leap off without pain or fear or hesitation.
So yeah, the Alexanders and the Angelous and the Frosts might have had more folks listening, but Granny's story is at least as profound. And I'm trying to make sure I tell it right.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Anti Squatter Policy
It's finally happened. I'm slightly mad. I broke down and made an anti-squatter policy. In other words, I explicitly spelled out Reading Room (seating area) policies for the store, and now I'm having second thoughts. I put together what I think is a tongue-in-cheek, light and gentle reminder that I'm not Barnes and Noble or the public library, posted it and now I'm second guessing: Does this REALLY need to be codified? Does there really need to be a sheet of paper on the coffee table that explains what is and is not appropriate behavior for the seating area of a small, independent bookstore? Do I need to take on the role of politeness police? The answer, apparently, is yes to all. I am amazed at how many people will sit here under my increasingly withering stare and read entire books with no intention of paying for them. I'm not talking about a 30 page children's book, either. I'm talking the entire epic scope of Desperate Duchesses, every sultry word of The Taste Of Innocence. I had one young lady drag no less than 15 different new books to her seating area lair over the course of several hours to research a paper for school. She even borrowed my pen. When she was done, she got up without so much as a thank you and rolled out--you guessed it--with my pen. The tattoo parlor next door opens at 1 pm; I open at 11 am. Sometimes, I get the benefit of their customers' company for the two hours between. They usually settle in with some trashy romance, invariably new, promptly bend the cover all the way around the back, and read until they see the tattoo parlor door swing open. Then, they hurriedly throw the book back in the direction of a shelf and rush over to be first in line for fresh ink. I've had people get comfortable (read, take their shoes off and loosen their belts) and sleep. I've had people hold entire phone conversations of a nature that should not be in the public domain.
In case you're wondering, I don't sit here and seethe in silence during these episodes. I did for a while. Confrontation is not something I enjoy. Now, I am neurotic, so generally, my internal dialogue goes something like this: hmm, looks like we've got another one. Oh come on Kristy, don't assume the worst about people. And don't be a chintzy b**** either. I'm not assuming the worst, I'm being realistic and besides, YOU just don't want to have to say something to them. Maybe they'll only stay a few minutes. Let me just wait and see. If they haven't closed up shop in the next 15 minutes, I'll say something. Please, you see them settling in for the long haul. What was that sound? Was that a pants button being undone? Oh, God. "Hey buddy, don't want to be a jerk or anything but if you're gonna hold that book captive much longer, we really ought to settle up." What happens next is always the same. They get up with a sigh, button their pants and leave without a backward glance.
My fickle faith in humanity doesn't need this kind of pressure. So now I have a policy to fall back on.
In case you're wondering, I don't sit here and seethe in silence during these episodes. I did for a while. Confrontation is not something I enjoy. Now, I am neurotic, so generally, my internal dialogue goes something like this: hmm, looks like we've got another one. Oh come on Kristy, don't assume the worst about people. And don't be a chintzy b**** either. I'm not assuming the worst, I'm being realistic and besides, YOU just don't want to have to say something to them. Maybe they'll only stay a few minutes. Let me just wait and see. If they haven't closed up shop in the next 15 minutes, I'll say something. Please, you see them settling in for the long haul. What was that sound? Was that a pants button being undone? Oh, God. "Hey buddy, don't want to be a jerk or anything but if you're gonna hold that book captive much longer, we really ought to settle up." What happens next is always the same. They get up with a sigh, button their pants and leave without a backward glance.
My fickle faith in humanity doesn't need this kind of pressure. So now I have a policy to fall back on.
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