![A Rather Fishy Monday]()
by Richard Timothy | May 17, 2010 | Adolescent Shenanigans, I Just Don't Get It, I Think There's a Point, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Something I Know Nothing About, When I Was a Kid
So I walked into my office today, not necessarily with a case of the Mondays, but I was very aware that it was a Monday. I had spent my commute to working listing to Neil Gaiman reading his book, The Graveyard Book and pondering what I could write about today, but mostly listening to Neil. Then I walked into my office and the first thing my office mate said to me was, “Dude, its 80 degrees today. The fish are going to be biting!” And as simple as that, I had a topic.
I’m not sure what it is about fishing, but for some people there appears to be me some magical obsessionary mind control power associated to it. I believe it was Steven Wright that said, “There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.” Besides being obvious, I think there’s a lot of truth in that statement, especially coming from the idiot side of the coin. Still, today was a reminder that of what it means to be a fisherman.
Fishing has been a topic that seems to keep coming up over and over again, randomly and without any real interest on my part. There is the daily discussion I have with my office mate. Then there was some strange that talked to me about fishing for about two hours the last flight I was on. Plus, the last time I was in my acupuncturists office there was a lady having a very loud and intense conversation about the fishing her and her husband had just gotten back from.
Still, talking to a fisher-person about fishing is a lot like talking to my niece about Scooby-Doo. They get this look in their eyes as they begin talking about it. It’s a combination of love, joy, reverence, and bouncy excitement. As my office mate said today as he was leaving work three and a half hours early so he could go fishing for the afternoon, “It’s like crack. I’ve got the fever. I’m twitching and getting out of my seat every five minutes to go look outside to see how the weather is. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in an hour if I don’t catch anything.”
I told him he wasn’t going to be back in an hour regardless if he caught anything or not. He agreed, and with that I had the office to myself for the rest of the day. He did ask me and anyone else that walked into our office if we wanted to go fishing with him. It’s not that I didn’t want to go… ok it was that actually. He did dance a little jig in the office when he did get off the phone, commenting that he had found someone to go with him. Apparently fishing is a “bring a friend” activity. I would have never guessed that.
This belief is mainly a result of the one and only fishing trip I took with my grandfather while growing up in Wyoming. My grandpa was an avid fisherman. He had four or five poles hanging on the wall in the entry way of the house between the garage and the main living area. Out of all the things that were off limits at my grandparent’s house, grandpa’s fishing equipment was the holy grail of them all. We’d sneak into the back yard and invade grandma’s raspberry bushes no matter how many times we were told to stay out. We’d sneak downstairs and look though all of grandpa’s old tvs. He was a television repair man so the house was full or old non-operating televisions saved simply for the prospect of possible used parts. But when it came to grandpa’s fishing goods, we would look at them from afar, but never dared get close enough to even touch them.
You can imagine my and my brother Mike’s surprise when one day, my mother informed us that grandpa would like to take us fishing that Saturday. I believe I was 7, so that would have made Mike 8. Self control and patience were words that had been said to us many, many times, but we really didn’t have a clear understanding of what they meant at that age. So you can imagine the concept of sitting quietly so as to not scare the fish did not last very long.
I mean for the first half hour to an hour it was all rather grand, we learned to cast, and reel in the hook, and then cast again. It was explained that we needed to reel in slowly so that the shiny spinning lure could attract the fish. This lasted about four casts. Being only fourteen months apart in age Mike and I were a bit competitive at this point in our lives, and soon the casting game began. We would take turns casting with all our might to see how far out into the lake we could make a splash. The second the splash was made we would reel in the hook as fast as possible so we could cast again.
Grandpa informed us we would not catch any fish that way and to just cast and leave the line out there. We were to sit quietly on the ground and wait for the fish to bite. This lasted maybe 10 minutes before I had a brilliant idea. It was clear to me that the reason the fish were not biting was because they were too far away from the hook and could not see the little worm, wiggling and calling to the fish to come over and have a snack. So I carefully placed the pole on the ground and started throwing rocks as far as I could into the lake.
When my grandpa yelled at me to stop throwing rocks because I was scaring the fish, I told him I knew that. I then explained that if I threw the rocks far enough then I’d scare the fish closer to the shore so they could seem my hook and I’d catch more fish. I mean it made perfect sense to me at the time, and Mike agreed wholeheartedly. It was a fool proof plan. I’ve later come to learn that it was proof that I was a fool when it came to fishing.
Grandpa just stared at me for a bit. Then shook his head and told us to stay around the lake. He was going to the river and would be back in an hour or two. Mike and I followed orders and stayed by the lake. After twenty minutes of throwing rocks and not getting any bites we decided that we needed to go around to the other side of the lake (it was a very small lake). Apparently the fish were swimming away from the poles instead of towards them because we were not throwing the rocks far enough. Once on the other side we started throwing rocks again. After half an hour we went back to our poles, sure that we would have a fish on the end. Elusive little buggers… there was no fish on either of our hooks, and there was no worm either at that point. The fish had picked the hook clean. So we took a break, and got out our sack lunches and enjoyed some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a can of soda, and some homemade cookies, which I ate first.
After lunch we were both certain that grandpa didn’t know what he was doing. It was clear that there were no fish in that lake. We even spent about three minutes not moving and looking at the water and didn’t see a single fish! So we had a water fight instead. Soon we were both quite soaked and shivering and done with this crazy myth called fishing. We wanted to go home, so we started yelling for grandpa. A little while later he came up a small trail with one small fish on a string. It was an amazing thing to see. I kept asking to see the magic lamp grandpa had so he could wish for a fish. At the time it seemed like the only logical explanation there was for where it came from. I suggested that next time he should wish for a bigger fish. He didn’t smile at me once on during the drive back home, which only took about 10 to 15 minutes, but I would have sworn it was closer to an hour.
Once we got home we jumped out of the truck and ran into the house yelling for mom. Having grown up with her father, she was a touch surprised we were home so soon from fishing. She asked how it went and we told her all about our day, interrupting ourselves only twice to ask if there were any cookies left and if we could have some more. After the story of our day was finished, we went to change into some dry clothes and mom talked to grandpa. Once grandpa left, mom checked with us to see if we enjoyed the fishing part. We were honest, we enjoyed playing in the forest, but the fishing thing was not our favorite part of the day. Mom smiled and told us that maybe we could go back to the lake for a picnic sometime soon.
It wasn’t until years later that we learned that grandpa was so unimpressed by our first fishing outing that he had no intention on taking us a second time. It didn’t matter though, he still let up play with some of his old broken televisions when we’d go over to visit, and that was a lot more fun than catching a slimy old fish any day of the week.
I’ve stayed pretty consistent about my lack of interest when it comes to fishing, but I’ll listen and encourage. Fishing folk really seem to enjoy having an ear around that will listen. I still don’t get it. It seems like a rather unrewarding time suck in my opinion. Then again, to be fair, they probably think that spending hours at a computer writing tangents and random observations is a lot like combing your hair with a cheese grater, slightly amusing, but mostly painful. And as that old Chinese proverb says… Give a man a fish and if you’re lucky you might get some sushi, but teach a man to fish who doesn’t want to learn and you’re probably going to get slapped in the face with a wet fish.
What are your thoughts about fishing?
Image Source:
Google Images, key words: fishing, gone fishing, throwing rocks, genie lamp, fish slap, and homemade cookies.
![A Rather Fishy Monday]()
by Richard Timothy | Apr 12, 2010 | Adolescent Shenanigans, Confessed Confidentially, I Think There's a Point, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Something to Wine About, When I Was a Kid
So I had one of my best friends visiting from out of town this weekend, which is always a grand time. We have known each other since I broke his collar bone during recess in kindergarten and we’ve just sort of been friends ever since. Look, it wasn’t my fault. Ok, it was, but it was not intentional. I was 5 and I had just recently been introduced to the magical devices known as slides. It was a big slide too. It was your standard straight run slide with an accelerator hump half way down. It was steel, shiny, and obviously a gift from the gods. Apparently Zeus had shagged one of the locals and at some point blessed that child and all generations of that child with this brilliant gift of sliding perfection.
One of the things you could always count on in kindergarten was the b-line all the kids made to that slide once the recess bell rang. Kids would like climb up the two story ladder, which was probably about 6 feet up, but when you are only half the size of an adult Ewok a ladder that high is only about three steps shy of being able to grab the moon so you can use it to play catch. This slide was Mount Olympus, and then you got to the top you would look over all of the known world.
Apparently, on the day of the event I was a little imaginationly blinded. I saw the top of the slide as the one place on the planet that had to be at, as soon as humanly possible. If I was not on the ladder platform, the world was going to explode. The off switch was on the top of the slide platform and I was the only one who knew exactly where it was. I had to save everyone on the planet. So I pushed and stepped and climbed over, around and on the other kids climbing the ladder to the top of the slide so that I could get to the top. Once there I pushed the Cancel World Destruction button and saved the planet. Then I had to slide down before the platform dissolved making it impossible for anyone to ever push the Earth Self Destruct button ever again.
As my feet hit the ground I made an explosion noise and jumped away from the slide. I was safe! But something wasn’t right. There was a congregation of kids gathered around the slide, but none of them were trying to get on the slide. No, this was a group of kids trying to get a look at something that had just happened on the ground. When I got closer to see what was happening, I was greeted with a flank of little fingers pointing at me yelling, “You did it!” This was not the “Hooray you just saved us all” meaning of “You did it!” No, this was the “It’s all your fault.” translation accompanied by the finger of blame. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I did notice there was a kid lying on the ground a little dazed and a teacher was picking him up and rushing him to the small school building we had class in.
As I faced the horde of my peers taunting me with blame, and telling me I had just pushed Anson off the top of the slide, and that my teacher was going to find out, and that I would going to have to go to the principal’s office, and was going to get a spanking, and that they were going to call my parents and tell on me, I did what any hero who had just save all those people and the Earth would do, I started crying. Then I tried running away. The problem I discovered with being 5 and trying to flee the scene of a crime is… short legs. You can run has fast as you can, but you really don’t get that far.
Because I was the unintentional assailant of the whole affair part of my punishment was to face the person I had so carelessly pushed off the slide and apologize. I still claimed that I didn’t do it. I mean I honestly did not see him. The 30 eye witnesses saying contrary sealed my blame. So when my mom took me to see Anson and told me to apologize to him, I did it. No questions asked, whether I agreed or not.
Anson responded in the only way a 5 year old wearing a new cast knows how when confronted by another kid of the same age. He handed me a marker and let me draw on his arm sling. Our parents took this as a good sign that the apology was accepted, and we, not sure what apology really meant, were way past talking about broken bones and were now discussing the finer points of spaceship themed Legos. And it just sort of kept going from there. Now, 31 years later we’re still going strong, and I always try to make sure I buy him Legos for his birthday.
So now, since we has moved to Iowa to teach 3D animation, he has a sort of yearly ceremony where, when spring break rolls around he takes advantage of the off week and pops by Utah for a week of play, party, and possible parental visits. Meaning he possibly visits his parents if there’s time and not that he visits people that might possibly be his parents. He does have a lot of family in the area, so it’s always a good trip for him to catch up with friends and family. During this time my brother and I will always take at least one day (sometimes more) off of work to hang out and catch up.
There are always three things that always happen when he visits. One is that we go out and eat epic amounts of sushi for dinner one of the nights he in town. Second, we always watch at least one MST (or MST subsidiary). And last, we have a party. As it worked out, we were having the monthly wine party the same Saturday that he was going to be in town. Granted it worked out that way because we planned it that way, but when given the opportunity to go with a “happenstance” explanation vs. a “we planned it that way” explanation, I’m usually going to go with the “and it just so happened that…” version of the story.
The Anson wine party was brilliant, and I’m tickled with the new people that are becoming more regular wine party attendees. Although, I did experience a wine party first this past party. We actually had some wine left over. In the four or five years we’ve been doing it, it’s never happened. I mean sure there have been cases were there was one or two half bottles left by the time people were sober enough to drive home. But as it turned out, we had 5 unopened bottles left! When I got up Sunday morning I walked downstairs and saw the dinner table covered with wine bottles. Then, I noticed it. There was only one at first, but as I started examining the collection of empty bottles I found that there were 2, no 3, no 4, no 5… yes 5! There were 5 bottles of unopened wine. Ha ha ha. (Count von Count would be so proud.)
Traditionally the recommendation for our wine party is to bring a side dish to share and bottle of wine for people to try. This applies to couples and singles, meaning that if you come as a couple you bring a bottle and if you come alone you bring a bottle. What happened is that people were in a “let’s try wine” mood. Instead of one bottle per couple, we had each person bring a bottle. We even had one friend bring three bottles just from him, the little sweetheart. I tried too. We were all for trying every wine that graced our presence that evening, but I’ll tell you, after 16 bottles of wine, and one small bottle of 12 year old scotch we reached a universal “I’m done” point in the evening 5 bottle shy of completion.
As for the wine of the month, I believe I’m going to have to go with the 2007 Trapiche Broquel Malbec, although we did have a 2008 there as well. Both were yummy, but if given the choice, I recommend the 2007 over the 2008. It’s an Argentinean red wine that upon the first sip, asks your mouth if you’d like to dance the tango. I recommend that you speak for your mouth when this happens by nodding yes and then take another sip. After the third swallow of this wine your tongue will stop prancing around your mouth and begin to get the hang of the rhythm the wine and tongue need to make together to fully enjoy all of the flavors and depth that this wine brings to the table. At only $14 a bottle, it’s a fabulous wine for a very reasonable price.
I did have one kind of, sort of epiphany like thought during the night. One friend brought me a wine in hopes that I could save it. He claimed it was one of the worst wines he has ever tasted, ass wine if you will, and wanted it out of his house forever. He thought it was sacrilege to just dump it. So he was hoping I could work some of my drink mixing magic and get it to a point where people might actually enjoy drinking it. Well I do love a good challenge and after 2 lemons, some strawberries and pineapple, a hint of honey, and a handful of a cinnamon and sugar the wine abomination did become quite drinkable, in a “no too bad” kind of way.
Well when my little sister arrived someone handed her a wine glass that had a tiny bit of the pre-surgery ass wine. Her face, after tasting the wine, announced to everyone in the house that she agreed that it was one of the worst wines every made. The thing was that every other wine she tried that night was “fabulous” according to her. So this was my though, if you are sharing wine with someone who is trying to work their way up to drinking and appreciating more wine, a tiny sample of ass wine might be helpful. For the sheer fact that anything else you try the rest of the night is going to be so monumentally better that you sort of shock a struggling palate into appreciation. I think it could work, then again it just might be one of the “seems like a good idea at the time” ideas, and we all know how those usually end.
As with all my wine reviews, what are some of your wine suggestions? I’d love to hear them… the good I mean. Thanks.
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: Trapiche Broquel Malbec 07, playground slide, running kid, save the world, broken collarbone, bad taste face, and bottles of wine.
![A Rather Fishy Monday]()
by Richard Timothy | Jan 24, 2010 | Adolescent Shenanigans, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid
This weekend hit a transitional moment in my life… Ohhh sounds ominous doesn’t it? Truth is, it’s probably just a fluke or a random phenomenon, enous, eni, no ena… yeah phenomena, I think that’s right. So a phenomena in opposition to what is a staple of my aging night life.
It’s kind of sad really. In the earlier version of myself I was quite a professional night owl. Of course I had very good teachers. My parents were always up until midnight or one, or two in the morning, or… actually 2AM on a weekday was usually the latest anyone would stay up when I was little. The thing was it was normal. I remember having a conversation with one of the local cops who said that one thing he could always count on was that the Timothy house would always be lit up well into the middle of the night.
The late night teen years encompassed the most concentrated collection of late nights and consecutive all-nighters. I think my record was three days without any sleep. It’s not that I have had anything to do or any homework, or any Atari games to keep me up. No, I think it’s because I wanted to write really bad teenage poetry about girls I had crushes on that I believe the parlance of the time was “didn’t even know I existed.” After the half way through the second night, I think the motivation shifted to, “I just wanted to see how long I could go without sleep.”
It was on the third day of no sleep where I had my first and only hallucination. It was during my art class, 5th period, right after lunch. I was working on a pencil drawing of a lady in a dress almost in a profile view and with her arm hanging down to the side, in front of the dress.
Everything was fine and normal. I was shading along the dress next to the arm and then it happened. The arm became three dimensional and popped out of the drawing, just hanging there in front of the dress. I wasn’t worried or confused was to why my a portion of drawing had decided to become three dimensional, I was just annoyed. I kept trying to shade the dress around the arm, but the arm kept moving to where I was shading, constantly getting in my way. So I started grabbing the arm and moving it out of the way so I could shade the dress. I kept losing my grip and the arm kept moving back to get in the way again.
This lasted about five minutes, until I heard someone saying my name. It pulled me out of the intense focus I was giving drawing. I looked up and sitting across me was one of the other kids in class. “Yeah?” He started explaining what he saw and wanted to know if I was alright. Apparently the action of my grabbing at my drawing, trying to push the arm out of the way was a little visually disturbing to the boy.
I told him I was just a little tired. Adding, “Damn it.” when I looked back down at my picture saw what I had being doing to my drawing. It was starting to look like the dress was coming through the middle of the lady’s arm. I commented I should probably go home a little early and started erasing my artistic result of my hallucination in art class. Once I got home I took a 13 hour nap.
Things have not changed all that much from my youth apart from the all-nighters. I mean I do get to bed a bit sooner, usually midnight. Going to bed early is being in bed by 11PM. So when this Friday arrived let’s just say it had been a full week, which left me a touch worn out. I thought about taking a nap, but got side tracked with a new book I’m reading. After thirty or forty pages my eyes started reminding, through a series of uncontrolled shutting that, oh yeah, I was going to take a little nap. Knowing that I had missed my window of napping opportunity I decided it was time to get some sleep instead.
I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. I looked at my clock and make sure the alarm was turned off so I could sleep in a bit and, guess what? It was just barely 10 o’clock. Un-bloody-believable, 10 PM on a Friday night, I was going to bed earlier than I have in almost 10 months (being ill the only exception). I thought about it for a few minutes, then came to the conclusion, “Bugger it”, I was tired.
Image Sources:
Google Images, key words: art class, lit up house, and man sleeping.
by Richard Timothy | Jan 5, 2010 | Adolescent Shenanigans, I Think There's a Point, When I Was a Kid
I was talking to my brother last night, and apparently his oldest kid has been working on a science fair project for school. During the course of the conversation, I was told about the list of restrictions the school gave my nephew in regards to him displaying his project. Turns out when it comes to science projects, all the school really wants is a 2D visual display showing pictures and what the outcome was. It seems the era of presenting your experiment in front of teachers and students is mostly over. At the very least it’s being reserved for college students that are required to present their dissertation to a panel of fellow scientists.
I was a little saddened by this. I have fond memories of the science fair. There were always at least 4 kids in each class that made a baking soda volcano and there was always the Styrofoam copy of the solar system… poor Pluto. We hardly knew ye.
We then started thinking about some of the science projects we either did or saw while in or elementary years. I remember the science fair was required for each 4th, 5th, and 6th grade kid. The thing was once we completed our science project at home, we had to bring it to class and give a working presentation to all our peers. I think this was to make sure the kids actually learned something about the project their parents either helped with, or completely did for them… depending on the kid, or, more often than not, the parents.
Still, in looking back, there were some things that… let’s just say I’m amazed what we got away with. Case and point, one girl did a presentation on the evil, wicked, mean, and bad, and nasty chemicals that the human body takes in from smoking cigarettes. The experiment consisted of the presenter starting their presentation by opening all of the windows in the classroom. Then she reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a new, unopened pack of cigarettes and lit up.
No, she didn’t personally start smoking. Instead, she put the cigarette in a little make shift device made out of an empty 2 liter bottle of soda. She then squeezed on the sides of the bottle and it essentially smoked the cigarette for her. So there we were, 25+ kids sitting at our desks while a plastic bottle smoked an entire cigarette. But it was fine see, because we avoided any health risks by opening the windows before hand. She then showed the class all of the discoloration that had seeped into the once white filter. We clapped, and she placed her smokes and smoking bottle in a box and went back to her chair.
Just so were all clear on this, the presentation for the experiment consisted of her smoking an entire cigarette in the classroom filled with 5th graders via an empty 2 liter bottle! Yes, feel free to insert any expletive you feel is fitting at this point.
Now let’s talk about my 6th grade science project. I didn’t have cable growing up. I only had three channels, ABC, CBS, and NBC, and that was it. Although, occasionally I did go to a friends house after school to watch Danger Mouse and You Can’t Do That on Television on Nickelodeon. It was during one of these after school viewings that I came across Bill Nye the Science Guy who was doing a presentation on density.
I thought it was fascinating, but only because he had a cylinder of four different liquids that were all different densities and thus had four different layers of liquid in the same container. Then he would drop random objects into the cylinder that would float on the different levels of liquid. It didn’t really get it at first, but it was cool to watch.
I wanted to do a reenactment of Bill’s experiment for my science project. So I talked to my dad about it, and he agreed to help out. It consisted of getting 15 one inch wood squares that were a variety of different densities. Then I collected the four liquids of different densities. Here’s how it broke down, one cup of mineral spirits, one up of water, one cup of cooking oil, and one cup of liquid mercury… yes, liquid mercury.
I was a 12 year old that had access to a vial of liquid mercury. I got to take to school, unsupervised, and show all my friends. We even played with it in our hands before and after I cleaned up my presentation… because liquid metal when you are 12 is just pretty damn cool. And no, I did not wear any protective gloves… I was 12. The finer points of how liquid mercury could possibly kill me if I handled it wrong was sort of lost on me.
And on top of it all off, was I was answering questions about my project, I… maybe it was the mixture of chemicals and the potent odor they gave off, maybe it was from playing with the mercury, but after the second question was asked, I got out about three words out and then hit the floor. Yes, I fainted mid sentence.
I did get third place out of the entire school that year though. I’m not sure if my fainting helped sway the vote or if my project was just that brilliant, but I did not appreciate it when the principle announced, “For our third place winner, we have our fainting scientist Richard Timothy!” But when they gave me that big shiny ribbon I really didn’t mind him saying that.
I believe my favorite experiment was the mini distillery, I mean fuel creation experiment. I was in 5th grade at the time and one of the 6th graders made a tiny distillery to make what he claimed was an alternative fuel source. He had all the components set up including an open flame Bunsen burner. He showed everyone that showed up at his booth how, if he took certain items and put them together, he could create an “alternative fuel” source.
Sugar coat it all you want, but the fact of the matter is that kid was making moonshine… which, if you stop and think about it, is rather impressive in its own right. Personally, I was amazed that the faculty didn’t confiscated it and set it up in the teachers lounge next to the Mr. Coffee.
Yeah, things have changed a bit in the school systems from when I was a kid. Are they better, who can really say? I mean sure they aren’t allowed to play with cigarettes, moonshine, open flames, or liquid mercury in the name of science, but then again that might not be a bad thing.
For the record, I do still have all my fingers and toes, and I only once burned down a small portion of my neighbor’s fence… by accident. I did learn first hand why adults tell you not to play with matches, and I haven’t burned down anything since. So there, lesson learned, but then again that’s a different story.
So, do any of you have any boggling science fair experiment stories? I’d be curious to hear what they are.
Image Source:
Google Images, key words: science fair, density liquid, liquid mercury, Danger Mouse, moonshine, and smoking.
by Richard Timothy | Nov 20, 2009 | Adolescent Shenanigans, I Think There's a Point
When I got into work this morning one of my coworkers told me that they read my Puddy Wagon post and was still suffering from fits of giggliousness because according to him the name carried with it a “naughty” connotation. I didn’t consider what he said to carry and validity because, well, he’s a bit of an odd duck… and he is very proficient in the art of the double entendre, so anything anyone ever says around him is going to go through his “suggestive” processor of a brain and end up being regurgitated in some type of suggestive innuendo that belongs in the cartoon section of a gentlemen’s magazine about women.
I guess the point is that if you are of this same disposition, please note that my intent was not to weave suggestive imagery into your already over active imaginations, but to simply relay that I have always refereed to these types of vehicles with a name that is both funny sounding and lacking in any masculinity whatsoever, the ultimate “man” truck is called a puddy wagon. It’s kind of like calling a man cave the tea party room, or a Mary Kay pink Cadillac a bumper car, or um… a dingo stomper… maybe a, hell I have no idea, let’s just call it a Smurf cannon.
Ok, so with that being cleared up… sort of, lets get back to topic at hand, how I, and my friends, were able to enact our revenge on the puddy wagon and their owners while growing up in Wyoming. I suppose it might help to explain why we felt compelled to wreak revenge in the first place.
Growing up, the owners of these trucks would typically zoom around town honking and waving at girls with high banged frizzy hair in tight jeans (see it’s all about attracting a mate). That is of course unless you were not of the cowperson variety or an adult.
If you were older than them, they left you alone. This is a general teenage rule, you never want to piss off an adult that might know your parents and would have no reservation calling your parents to tell them what a naughty boy you’ve been. Younger kids have the anti-tattle tale code and will commonly avoid ratting anyone out even if that person is a complete and total bastard.
If you were of the male teenage non-cowfolk variety, they would honk and yell profanities at you, usually derogatory and encompassing slang words pertaining to parts of the female anatomy. In the event you were in a car driving down Main Street with your friends, they would ride your bumper with their brights on, honking and suggesting, though a series of hand gestures, that we handle ourselves in a way that would require going to confession that following Sunday.
Our opinion of these folks was one of limited appreciation, but it was Wyoming… the Cowboy state. We were outnumber about 100 to 1, and that was on weekends when most if them were out killing small woodland creatures with high powered rifles. Which was another reason for never bad mouthing them in public, they were all armed. Hell, they made gun racks in wood shop that they put up in their puddy wagons so they could carry their rifles around with them. Anywhere else you would be considered armed and dangerous, but not in Wyoming… or Montana, or Idaho, rural parts of Utah, or Texas for that matter.
Those facts alone should help you understand why my relationship with these wagons was traditionally of the cat and mouse variety. Had they ever caught us I’m sure they would have killed and eaten us, well after about an hour of taunting, teasing, and throwing us up in the air.
Our retaliation was a result of late night hit and runs. Because this was during the 80s, my friends and took many copious notes pertaining to the art of black clothes and hiding and moving in shadows from the numerous ninja movies we repeatedly watched. I’m not sure why, but the 80s turned out to be the decade of the ninja. It seems more ninja movies were made during that ten year span than the 70’s, the 90’s, and present day combined.
Our attacks were always tactical and usually included rotten fruit like tomatoes or oranges that we found in the trash bins behind the restaurants on Main Street. We would crouch in places that we could always escape from in a variety of different ways. Places like behind fences of densely grassy fields, lumber yards, or on top or building. Once the target was confirmed, we would wait for them to drive by. As soon as they were within range we would unleash our supply of rotting ammo. Usually, out of the six or so bits of flying fruit, at least one would hit.
Once we heard the loud thud of rotten fruit splashing against the side of the evil puddy wagon, we would flee the scene, leaving the sound of screeching breaks behind us. With the fear of possible death screaming in the distance we let our adrenaline carry us over fences and under trees until we were at least two blocks away, hiding in some dark secluded area, giggling and congratulating each other on another successful attack.
Sometimes we’d even head home, change our clothes into lighter colored clothes, making it obvious that we were not sneaking around and go the 7-Eleven (the only 24 hour store in town at the time) to get some soda refills and possibly run into the our victims. If they were there, we’d listen to them bitch about what happened and then offer our support, telling them how much that sucked and the guys that did that are “wussies” and “good luck catching them.”
I even think there was one time that we offered to help them look for the culprits. We laughed the whole time we drove around. I think we finished the evening by telling them that we saw something moving in a field. They thanked us and headed for the field and we went home, calling it one of our greatest missions ever.
I guess, if you wanted to attach a lesson to this whole thing, it would be, don’t pick on the people you think you are so superior to. There’s a good chance they will get even, and you will never know it was them, because they’re probably a lot smarter than you are, and more devious than you could ever imagine.
So I walked into my office today, not necessarily with a case of the Mondays, but I was very aware that it was a Monday. I had spent my commute to working listing to Neil Gaiman reading his book, The Graveyard Book and pondering what I could write about today, but mostly listening to Neil. Then I walked into my office and the first thing my office mate said to me was, “Dude, its 80 degrees today. The fish are going to be biting!” And as simple as that, I had a topic.
I told him he wasn’t going to be back in an hour regardless if he caught anything or not. He agreed, and with that I had the office to myself for the rest of the day. He did ask me and anyone else that walked into our office if we wanted to go fishing with him. It’s not that I didn’t want to go… ok it was that actually. He did dance a little jig in the office when he did get off the phone, commenting that he had found someone to go with him. Apparently fishing is a “bring a friend” activity. I would have never guessed that.
When my grandpa yelled at me to stop throwing rocks because I was scaring the fish, I told him I knew that. I then explained that if I threw the rocks far enough then I’d scare the fish closer to the shore so they could seem my hook and I’d catch more fish. I mean it made perfect sense to me at the time, and Mike agreed wholeheartedly. It was a fool proof plan. I’ve later come to learn that it was proof that I was a fool when it came to fishing.
After lunch we were both certain that grandpa didn’t know what he was doing. It was clear that there were no fish in that lake. We even spent about three minutes not moving and looking at the water and didn’t see a single fish! So we had a water fight instead. Soon we were both quite soaked and shivering and done with this crazy myth called fishing. We wanted to go home, so we started yelling for grandpa. A little while later he came up a small trail with one small fish on a string. It was an amazing thing to see. I kept asking to see the magic lamp grandpa had so he could wish for a fish. At the time it seemed like the only logical explanation there was for where it came from. I suggested that next time he should wish for a bigger fish. He didn’t smile at me once on during the drive back home, which only took about 10 to 15 minutes, but I would have sworn it was closer to an hour.
I’ve stayed pretty consistent about my lack of interest when it comes to fishing, but I’ll listen and encourage. Fishing folk really seem to enjoy having an ear around that will listen. I still don’t get it. It seems like a rather unrewarding time suck in my opinion. Then again, to be fair, they probably think that spending hours at a computer writing tangents and random observations is a lot like combing your hair with a cheese grater, slightly amusing, but mostly painful. And as that old Chinese proverb says… Give a man a fish and if you’re lucky you might get some sushi, but teach a man to fish who doesn’t want to learn and you’re probably going to get slapped in the face with a wet fish.
