Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old

My grandmother, who is 86 years old, recently moved into an assisted-living complex for the elderly.  Prior to this move, my only real exposure to what the older set are up to for fun these days was her hobbies and interests.  She likes to watch sitcoms and westerns on TV, to read old dime-store novels, to tend her plants and flowers, and to go out to eat with friends and family, to name a few.  Now that she lives in a building with about a dozen other people in her age bracket, I am getting the bigger picture, and I am not quite sure what to make of it.

Gram and me, circa the Nixon administration. Please note my excellent shoes.

Take Saturday evenings, for example.  The big thing on the activity menu set up by the people in charge is The Lawrence Welk Show, broadcast on public television in the common room at 5:00.  No one shows up.  At least not voluntarily.  If my math is correct, a lot of these people were young adults around the time that Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Bill Haley & the Comets hit the scene.  I know that my own grandmother would rather be listening to Kenny Loggins or Elton John, given a choice.  She’s always been a little ahead of her peers when it comes to music and entertainment .  After all, this is a woman whose all-time favorite album is the soundtrack to Footloose.

Saturday dinner is served in the same room when Welk and his ilk are playing around 5:30, so the residents can either show up for pasta and polkas, or prepare something for themselves in their own apartments.  Since my grandmother and most of the others are pretty social animals, they suck it up and show up for the meal, doing their best to ignore the vapid grins and accordion music blaring from the television.  I’ve seen my grandmother and some of her friends grimace and shake their heads when something especially cheesy turns up on the Welk show as they are trying to enjoy their seafood bisque.  Something tells me Lawrence Welk and his grinning gang of singers and dancers are going to be phased entirely out of the program at senior centers over the next few years if this is an indication of a larger trend.  Further proof, to me at least, that there is indeed a God.

Of course there are lots of other activities offered at the apartment complex that get a better reception.  I’m told that biweekly bingo gets a good turnout, probably thanks to the extra-large chocolate bars that are given out as prizes.  It’s probably not a coincidence that the exercise classes offered are also well-attended.  The folks have to work off all that chocolate they win at bingo, I guess.  When community groups come in to perform plays, skits or musical numbers, almost everyone shows up.  My grandmother tells me that it is not always for the performances themselves that so many show up as much as it is to try to recognize the children, grandchildren, etc. of people they have known. Movies, religious meetings, arts & crafts and things like that also get a decent crowd each week.

What fascinates me most is that one of the most popular activities in this elderly housing complex playing video games in the common room.

Seriously.

They have a Nintendo Wii hooked up to the big-screen TV in the common room, and it is very popular.  They have set times when groups gather to play, but the console is available to the residents at any time.  And it seems to get plenty of use.

Now mind you, these seniors are not blowing up aliens or rescuing princesses from castles at the end of a level.  For the most part, they are playing virtual sports that would otherwise be too much for their bodies to handle at their age. Bowling seems to be the game of choice, though I’ve seen tennis and golf on the screen as I’ve passed by the common room too.

One cool thing about the Nintendo Wii is that you can create an avatar to represent you that looks like you or anyone you wish.  Of course there are pre-made ones you can use as well, and that’s what many of the seniors seems to go with.  Often, they seem to choose the most outrageous looking ones available when they play.  The other day I saw a woman who must be close to 90 years old bowling on the Wii, and I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that she had chosen an avatar that resembled a tattooed biker guy with a shaggy beard and leather clothing.  And this is not unusual.  I’m told it is common for them to choose to wackiest avatars they can find.

An enduring image for me is something I stumbled upon about two weeks ago.  I was stopping by to check on my grandmother after work and was passing by the common room.  On the other side of the window, playing video games together, was one of the more elderly residents of the complex along with a teenage boy, the son of one of the facility’s nurses who was about to finish her shift.  He was the whole picture: black hip-hop t-shirt, baggy shorts, sideways ballcap.  If you Googled “stereotypical teenage boy”, this kid’s picture would come up.  The lady, on the other hand, was wearing a flowered print dress and a light blue sweater, and you would probably have her picture come up if you Googled “stereotypical little old lady”.  On the screen, her avatar looked like Lamont from the 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, while the kid’s bore a strong resemblance to Tom Cruise’s LeStat character in Interview with the Vampire.  They were bowling on the Wii, and laughing loudly and often, along with several other residents sitting nearby watching as they waited for the evening meal to be served.  My grandmother was among them.

I realized two things at that moment: getting old isn’t all bad, and the next generation coming up isn’t either.

With Welk seemingly on the way out and video games on the way in with the older set, I’ve tried to fast-forward thirty-five or so years in my mind to picture what will be going on for fun when Generation X-ers like me are old enough to be living in such a place. Will we be gathering for re-broadcasts of the MTV Top 20 Video Countdown in the common room then?  Or will we be climbing into virtual reality machines to go hoverboarding before dinner?  I suspect a lot will depend on the influence of the baby boomer generation, which is on the verge of entering facilities such as these in large numbers.  God help us.  After all, they are the generation that made mood rings, pet rocks, and disco popular.

Oh, and there is something else I’ve realized more fully.  And that’s how lucky I am to have my grandmother still with me and in control of her facilities as I move into my mid-40s.

The Traditional First Year Anniversary Gift Is Paper, So Send Checks

This blog, Wicked Awesomology, has hit the one year mark, so I’m going to do what so many other media entities do on a significant anniversary: toss out a retrospective episode.  It’s either that or put together something entirely new, and frankly, that sounds like work to me.

Wicked Awesomology started as nothing more than a personal creative outlet for me.  I had no real long-range plan for it beyond its merely being a place for me to flex my dubious writing muscles and do some frivolous stuff while working on longer, more serious pieces offline for publishing purposes.  To use a music metaphor, posting to this blog for me was to be like a rock band doing nightclub performances between recording sessions on their new album.  (For you younger readers, you may have to Google the terms “rock band” and “album”.  I’ll be over here weeping copiously for the future while you do so.)

As fate would have it, I started taking my Twitter account (@countofbluecars) seriously at about the very same time I started Wicked Awesomology, and my blog posts became frequent fodder for Tweets.  And it all took off from there.  My readership started to grow, and after a time it got to the point where people would contact me with questions  if I went too long between posts.  After a while, I ran out of good excuses.  One can only use “the cat threw up on my keyboard” so many times before skeptics call you on it, I’ve found.  So I more or less committed to a weekly posting schedule, and things have continued to grow.

What follows are some behind-the-scenes tidbits about Wicked Awesomology.

Where the name came from:

“Wicked awesome” is an expression that has been used by kids in Maine since I was very young, and probably even before that.  I’ve heard that it has spread to use by some people beyond the borders of the state in recent years, but it remains a statement of the superlative here as it always has.  Along with “cool” and “gross”, it is probably my longest-used slang term, and seemed well-suited for the name of a blog that aspires to be “wicked awesome”.

Most popular post:

To go by the statistics, the most popular post is The Accidental Coffee, written last winter.  Because I post on Blogger, which is a subsidiary of Google, the contents of blogs often turn up in Google searches. “Coffee” and “funny” are wildly popular search terms, and somehow my blog post got caught up in the slipstream of those terms and piled up a bunch of hits.  Things subsided when I took down the photos I posted to accompany it, which apparently were driving a lot of the traffic.  I’d love to think that all those people were looking to read the post, but, come on. Who would I be kidding?

Favorite post:

Quite a few of the posts on Wicked Awesomology rate especially high with me.  Adrian and the Cannibal’s Internet Connection is special because it was the first piece of fiction I’ve thrown out there on the blog, and fiction writing is my thing.  Heartbeat City Here We Come is one of my more introspective pieces and taps a side of me that I don’t let out in my writing often enough.  And Eye Cooties was fun because it allowed me to make a mountain out of molehill in a way that many readers found entertaining. One Tweet I got in response to it said “I can’t believe you got an entire blog post out of catching conjunctivitis, and that it was one I actually enjoyed reading!”.

But my personal favorite is Out Home at Christmas with Bing.  The post was one of those that just dropped into my head while driving one winter afternoon, and it practically wrote itself when I set my fingers to the keyboard.  It’s essentially a collection of sentimental (in my own way) recollections of childhood Christmases as they related to my paternal grandparents.  I was very close to them growing up, and the times I spent at their place in the country are among my fondest recollections of being a kid.  My grandmother died in 1995 and my grandfather in 2000, so writing about them and putting it out there for the world to read about keeps their memories alive in a way.  I’ve written about them since (see: Gone Fiddleheadin’), and based on the enjoyment I get from doing so and the positive feedback I get from my posts featuring them, I likely will again.

Least favorite post:

Easy one! I Don’t Know If I Want You To Read This Yet, which went live on the blog just a couple of weeks ago.  It’s another short story featuring Adrian McAllister, a character I was “getting to know” through writing some short pieces.  Adrian is the protagonist of a mystery novel I am working on, and I thought I could learn more about him by putting him in situations that are not necessarily part of the novel in progress.  My first attempt, the aforementioned Adrian and the Cannibal’s Internet Connection turned out quite nicely, I thought, and ranks as one of the most popular posts on Wicked Awesomology.  The second one, simply entitled Confession, where Adrian goes to confession at a Catholic church and is given learning how to surf as a penance still sounds like a great premise to me, but I don’t feel like I pulled it off successfully in the short story format.  The supporting characters I included needed more development than that format would allow.  I gritted my teeth, polished it up, and put it up on the blog not so long ago mainly to get it out of my hair. It’s not terrible.  I wouldn’t have posted it if it was.  But it’s not an example of my best by a long shot.

Strangest post:

The Accidental Coffee  was an odd post inspired by an odd problem I had one night.  I accidentally made a pot of coffee, and didn’t have the heart to just dump it out.  On the other hand, I couldn’t drink it, or I’d be up all night.  When I mentioned the problem to a friend, he said, and I quote, “That’s the kind of problem only YOU would have!  You ought to blog about it.”  You’ll have to read the post for the details, but it turned out quite well, I think.  It was one of those great times for a writer when the words were coming to me faster than I could type them.  Other than a cursory check for grammar and spelling issues, I didn’t even tweak it after I was done.  I just put it together as fast as I could and got it out to the world.  It’s gotten more hits than any other posting on Wicked Awesomology to this point, though I do think some funny business with search terms on Google artificially inflated the numbers.

Post that spurred the most feedback:

Give It Up, a post from April about giving things up for Lent.  Most of the feedback I get on Wicked Awesomology does not come in the comments section, but rather through Tweets and e-mails.  Because this post touched on a religion-related topic, it stirred some things amongst my readers.  To everyone’s credit, all the feedback I got was respectful and polite.  Nonetheless, it reminded me that posts on religion, politics, and sometimes even sports, can be polarizing.  I have plenty of forums available to me for airing my own opinions on those topics, but I do not choose to have Wicked Awesomology be one of those.  If I post on any topic that can be polarizing, I do so in a lighthearted way that is not meant to alienate anyone.  This blog is not my soapbox.  It’s more of an observation deck.

Other backstage stuff:

I try to post something new at least once a week, if possible.  It’s taken a while to get to that routine, but it seems to be one that works well for both me and my readers.  I really don’t know how some bloggers can post daily.  I just don’t have that much to say that is worth reading!  Unfortunately, neither do some of them, but they haven’t figured that out yet.

If I post a book review, it usually means that the great god of writing inspiration has taken the week off and is down the street drinking Lowenbrau in a seedy bar, trying to forget that I exist.  At this point though, I feel a commitment to providing fresh, quality content on a regular basis to my readers, and posting a past book review of something I’ve read and previously posted on Amazon or Goodreads.com is a good way to do that when the spirit doesn’t move me.  I’d much rather take that route than post garbage.  The book reviews I post are for books I’ve really, really liked though.

My offline writing projects sometimes take up a lot of my time and creative juices.  I have been working on a collaborative novel with a very talented author (whose identity I am presently keeping secret to protect the innocent) for about nine months now.  I also have a “solo project” underway featuring Adrian McAllister, as I previously mentioned.  These are a very different type of writing than blog posts, requiring a lot more planning and infinitely more revision and editing.  A blog post typically takes me a couple of hours, whereas a single chapter in either project can take several days just to attain finished first draft status.  When those projects are bearing down hard on me, you are likely to see a book review post too.

Wicked Awesomology is a balancing act for me as a writer.  It’s a forum for me to toss my writing experiments into, but it has also become a place with a reliable core of readers who have come to have certain expectations.  Your comments, questions and suggestions on blog posts (content or style) are very valuable for me.  Unless you want to tell me I suck.  The little red devil on my shoulder tells me that on a regular basis. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment on the post itself, or via Tweet or e-mail.

At this point, I’ve got just over 8000 page views on Wicked Awesomology in the past year.  It’s not huge, but much more than I would have expected.  The graph thingamabob in my statistic section shows strong, consistent growth over time.   It’s very gratifying.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and stay tuned.

Ye Olde Braaaaains!

Book review time again!  I just finished a horror e-novel by Ken Davis, a relative newcomer to the writing scene, that thoroughly impressed me.  It was so good that I felt compelled to share it here, as well as leaving my customary reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.  All authors, but especially indies or those just out of the gate, benefit enormously from posted reviews of their work.  Please remember to say at least a few words on some of the major review sites after finishing someone's book.


It seems that I either love or hate horror novels these days.  Buckets of blood and gore getting splashed around do not entertain or scare me.  That's just gross.  And don't even get me started on sparkly vampires.  However, when I am drawn into an interesting setting with characters to whom I can relate facing dire peril, then well-written horror can grab me like few other things.  This novel did just that.

Where the Dead Talk by Ken Davis is a gripping tale of the undead which takes place in a rural part of the Massachusetts colony on the very eve of the American Revolution.

As a mix of horror and historical fiction, well-researched and skillfully written with an intriguing plot, this novel would have likely earned five stars from me anyway. However, the character of Major William Pomeroy, "one of the finest officers of the King's Own Regiment" (in his own words), pushed Where the Dead Talk over the top for me. Sarcastic and smarmy, arrogant, at times cowardly and at other times brave, Major Pomeroy is ultimately endearing to both the reader and other characters in the story. He absolutely steals every scene in which he appears.

While Pomeroy is the best in my opinion, he is only one of several intriguing characters in Where the Dead Talk who kept me reading chapter after chapter long past my bedtime. There is the black tavernkeep who struggles against racism and vicious rumors, the desperately unhappy preacher's wife looking for a way out, the young deaf boy from a family thought to be cursed who feels he is not much good for anything, and the very reluctant Indian shaman who holds the key to stopping the horror that has descended upon the countryside surrounding the tiny colonial village of West Bradhill, Massachusetts.

I don't consider myself a real horror aficionado, and my Kindle is littered with horror titles I have started and soon abandoned. However, when the story is driven by compelling characters you really do not want to have munched up by the undead, it's not hard to love a book like this. Where the Dead Talk is definitely worth your attention. I am keeping my fingers crossed that Davis will consider another novel with some of these characters, especially Major Pomeroy.


By the way, you can follow Ken Davis on Twitter at @kencdavis, and you can also follow a zombie on Twitter at @zombie.  Just so you know.

A Memo from Cat Management

***You can imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this file on my hard drive.  Evidently, the cats are making use of my computer when my back is turned.***

To: Dexter, the new cat (hereafter referred to as “the newbie”)

From: Lefty and Shadow, the established cats (hereafter referred to as “management”)

Re: Integration into the Organization

Date: June, 2012

A week has passed since you were brought into this household, hereafter referred to in this memo as “the organization”, and without the prior approval of management it should be noted.  At this point, management would like to address some issues related to your current integration status.

Manager #1

Eating arrangements: The wait staff (humans who misguidedly refer to themselves as “the owners”) serve a portion of gushy wet food to each cat every morning and every evening, in addition to maintaining a bowl of crunchy food for all organization cats to dine upon at our leisure.  Be notified that it is considered extremely poor etiquette to eat one’s own portion, whatever management-assigned portions not yet consumed, and the whole bowl of crunchies, all within a five minute span.  The newbie is expected to eat his own portion of the gushy food, and nibble on small amounts of the crunchies throughout the day and night.  Under no circumstances is the newbie to consume, sniff, or even look at the gushy portions served to management.  A hiss, a growl, or possibly even a swipe of the claws will be administered to the newbie by management if this behavior does not change at once.

Restroom privileges: It has come to the attention of management that your use of the organization litterbox, hereafter referred to as “the restroom”, has been excessive and inappropriate.  Some of the bombs that the newbie has dropped in there and subsequently neglected to bury have been enough to curl the whiskers of both management and the wait staff.  It is advised that the newbie might consider laying off eating so much of the management’s food, and also consider adding some additional fiber to the diet in order to alleviate this problem.  Additionally, the newbie is hereby notified that burying one’s restroom output is not optional but mandatory, and must be done both consistently and well.  The wait staff has notified management that it cannot keep up with litterbox maintenance at the current rate, and it is running out of cans of spring rain-scented air freshener, which also makes a horrible hissing sound that management dislikes very much.

On a related note, wait staff has requested that management remind the newbie stay out of their assigned restroom when it is being used by them, as it bugs the hell out of them to have any organization cats in there at that particular time.

Manager #2

Leisure areas: There are a number of comfortable locations in this organization in which to spend one’s leisure.  Let the newbie be aware that management has first refusal on all laps, sunbeams, bedspreads, furniture, and windowsills.  Before the newbie may procure one of these locations for his own use, management must be notified in writing, in triplicate, via messenger pigeon, at least 90 days in advance.  Even upon approval, management reserves the right to remove the newbie’s sorry butt from said location without prior notification.  The soft brown fleece at the foot of the biggest bed is totally off limits to the newbie and is reserved exclusively for management at all times.

Recreational activities: This organization provides numerous options for recreation, such as toys, a scratching post, errant paper clips and writing utensils, dangling hands, trash cans, houseflies, and the occasional bird or squirrel outside the window.  Use of these recreational options is reserved for established members of the organization only, and is considered off-limits to the newbie, despite what the misguided wait staff may say at times.  Recreational options available to the newbie include dust bunnies and any ants that may occasionally find their way into the organization, as well as good old-fashioned imagination. Enjoy!

Managing Wait Staff: While the newbie is not considered “management”, he is still expected to assist the members of management in the direction of the wait staff, as they can be somewhat dim.  Immediately upon the breaking of dawn, all cats are expected to scratch and yowl outside the wait staff’s bedroom door without stopping until said wait staff rises and serves appropriate food.  Wait staff is then to be ignored until the newspaper is opened, during which time it is expected that at least one organization cat jump in the lap or sit on the paper itself in a demand for attention that is rightfully due.  Wait staff can then be ignored again until late afternoon, at which time all organization cats are to remain directly underfoot until another round of appropriate food is served.  At random times, it is expected that all organization cats will sleep on computer keyboards, scratch sofas, get tangled in electronics wiring, and vomit on bedspreads, as these gestures contribute endlessly to wait staff morale.  Let it be known, however, that rolling over onto one’s back for a “belly rub” is strictly forbidden in this organization.  Reports have been made to management that the newbie has engaged in this behavior often.

Guests: After much negotiation, wait staff has been allowed to have guests in the organization from time to time.  Upon arrival of these guests, all organization cats are expected to hide under a bed upstairs, with only the shed hair left behind on the furniture as an indication of their presence.  Management has been made aware that the newbie has been seen rubbing against the legs of guests and even sitting on laps.  This is unacceptable, and will be dealt with most swiftly and severely if it continues.

The Newbie

At this juncture, the newbie is put on notice that he is on 90-day double secret probation, during which time he may be punished or banned entirely from the organization by management without notice. In the unlikely event of successful completion by the newbie of the 90-day double secret probation, he will attain the new rank of “junior undersecretary to the minister of napping”, and will be afforded five minutes of leisure time daily on management’s soft brown fleece at the foot of the biggest bed. 

Any questions or concerns should only be addressed to the management via a note delivered by the organization’s messenger pigeon.   *BURP*

I Don't Know If I Want You To Read This Yet

***I've started to post this fiction piece three times and then changed my mind at the last minute.  It's sort of a short story, though I've mainly written it in an attempt to "get to know" a character I want to use in a later writing project.  I've been at a standstill with it for a while now, and while it's not quite ready for prime time, it's doing me no good sitting in my "unfinished stuff" file either, so here it is.***

It was a gray March Sunday, and the Boston Celtics were warming up to play the New York Knicks on TV.  Adrian McAllister was just settling into his recliner, preparing to crack open a beer and take in the basketball game.  The can was just inches from his lips when his wife Melissa called out from her computer desk in the next room.

“Adrian, don’t forget we’re going to confession over at St. Cecilia’s this afternoon!  There’s a service and everything.”

Adrian had indeed forgotten.  Going to confession was his least favorite part of being Catholic, but he made it a point to go at least once a year.  Actually, Melissa made it a point that he went at least once a year.  Melissa made it a point that Adrian did a lot of things that he would rather not.

Clicking off the television, Adrian bundled up against the late winter winds to make his way with Melissa the few blocks to St. Cecilia’s.  He noted that there were only about twenty cars in the parking lot as he eased his pickup truck into an empty space.

“Looks like we won’t be waiting long to get in,” Melissa observed.

“Yeah, but when the lines are short, the priests tend to be kind of long-winded in the confessional,” Adrian replied.  He hoped to be back in front of the television before the halftime show ended.

As Adrian and Melissa hurried inside the church, they saw that a brief prayer service had already begun under the direction of Father Dave, the senior pastor of St. Cecilia’s, who was accompanied by two other priests.  After the prayers, the priests available to hear confessions were introduced: in addition to Father Dave, there was Father Martin, his assistant pastor at St. Cecilia’s, as well as another priest whom Adrian had never seen before.  The stranger, those assembled were told, was Father Betelgeuse, a southern California native and old college buddy of Father Martin’s, who was visiting after having done several years of missionary work among the Inuits of Nunavut in northern Canada.

Father Betelgeuse was unlike any priest Adrian had ever seen.  Looking near 60, he was at least seven feet tall, with a longish, bleached-blond hair streaked with some gray and a few days’ growth of whiskers on his chin.  His sleepy-looking blue eyes were piercing, and even under his garments it was clear that he had a muscular build.  An easy grin slid across his face frequently.

“He’s a bird of a different feather, isn’t he?” Melissa remarked in a whisper to Adrian, who nodded in agreement.

Adrian, who had always been a bit insecure, found that his discomfort with the idea of baring his sins to another person was lessened somewhat if he went to confession with a priest whom he did not know.  As the priests filed into the various locations around the church to hear confessions, Adrian angled himself in the direction of the big missionary priest fresh in town from Nunavut.  Since few of the people gathered seemed to be in a hurry to see him, Adrian found himself first in line.  Melissa had headed toward Fr. Martin’s area.

Entering the dark confessional booth, Adrian kneeled down, and the small sliding door to his right slid open.  Through the grate, he thought he heard reggae music, ever so faintly.  Chalking it up to his imagination, Adrian began his confession in the traditional way.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Bless me Father, for I have sinned.  It’s been about a year since my last confession.”  He paused, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement from the other side of the grate.  When nothing came but more tinny Bob Marley, Adrian recited another short prayer often made by a person going to confession.  Still nothing.  After about a minute, Adrian gave a gentle rap on the screen.

“You alright, Father?”

“Oh, sorry dude!” Father Betelgeuse finally replied in a SoCal beach bum drawl.  “Having some technical harshness over here.  You know anything about mp3 players?”

 “Umm…no,” Adrian said slowly.  Between the unexpected mp3 question and being called ‘dude’ by a priest in the confessional, he was feeling a bit flummoxed. “Why, uh…why do you have an mp3 player during confessions?”

“Oh, I only keep one earbud in.  Marley chills me out,” Father Betelgeuse said. “Trust me, I still hear every word you say, even with sweet tuneage in one ear.”

“Okay then,” Adrian said, wondering if coming to this rather unconventional priest was a good idea after all.  “I guess that’s fine, if it makes things easier for you.”  For all Adrian knew, priests did that kind of thing on their side of the screen quite often.  It could be worse, he supposed.

“Sweet!  I’m glad you dig my groove, dude,” Father Betelgeuse replied. “Soooo, what’d you do?”

Despite feeling like he was confessing to Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Adrian went ahead and recited his laundry list of sins.  There was nothing especially outstanding in what he told.  Anyone who spent any time with Adrian would not have been shocked by anything he said.

As Father Betelgeuse injected an “um-hmm” and “okay” and “yeah” every once in a while, and intoned the traditional prayers that every priest says in the confessional, Adrian began to relax.  He said his final prayer and thanked Father Betelgeuse as he stood up to leave when the priest spoke up.

“Oh, wait a second, dude!  I forgot to give you your penance,” he said.  Penance is the task that the priest gives to the person whose confession he has just heard.  Typically, it is to pray a given number of prayers. “For your penance today, I would like you to say two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys, and go surfing with me later this afternoon.”

“Okay, Father.”  Adrian said automatically in response.  Then, moments later, the second part of Father Betelgeuse’s penance for him sank in. “Wait…what?!”

***

Melissa did not believe Adrian at first when he told her why he couldn’t go home with her.  He was trying to explain when a short, timid-looking guy in a plaid sweater vest named Bob walked up to where they were in the church vestibule.  He said he was told to wait here with Adrian until Father Betelgeuse was done with confessions, so he could do his penance.  At this, Melissa saw that Adrian was indeed being serious.  She gave her reluctant-looking husband a kiss on the cheek and wished him luck as she headed for the truck by herself.  Adrian watched her go, longing for the comfort of his home.

He turned to face the chubby, balding little guy who was to be his fellow surfing student, but before Adrian and Bob had any time to get acquainted, Father Betelgeuse came up to them with that lopsided grin. “Oh hey, you dudes ready?” he asked.

“Umm, well…” Adrian began.  But that was as far as he got.

“Great!  I’ve got some spare boards on my van, and I know a guy who owns a sporting goods store down by the bay.  He’ll get us some wetsuits.  This is going to be sweet!  Do you a lot of good too!”

On the 15-minute ride to the beach, Father Betelgeuse chattered in an almost non-stop monologue with more Bob Marley music in the background.  He believed that a penance should be a spiritual cleansing.  It should be something that makes an impact on you and makes you think.  In his mind, surfing did just that, especially to someone who had never done it before.  While he couldn’t issue this penance to everyone, Father Betelgeuse said he would if he could. 

Adrian was at a loss for words, and Bob was too busy puffing on his asthma inhaler to say anything.

A short time later, after having been outfitted with wetsuits courtesy of Father Betelgeuse’s friend with the sporting goods store, Adrian and Bob found themselves seaside, encased head to toe in neoprene, standing next to their borrowed surfboards on an empty, gray, windswept Maine beach.  The waves crashing along the shore looked like small mountains.  Adrian yearned for the warmth of his easy chair and the Celtics game, which by that point must have been nearly over.

“Okay dudes, follow me!” shouted the lanky priest as he waded into the crashing waves.  Adrian and Bob gamely followed.  While the water was very far from warm, it was not as shockingly cold as Adrian anticipated.  The wetsuits were doing their job.  They stopped when they were in up to their waists. 

“First, lie on your board and just float to get the vibe,” Father Betelgeuse said.  Adrian found himself up on his board first.   An occasional splash of frigid water hit his face, the only part of him that was actually exposed to the open.  From his bobbing vantage point, he watched as Father Betelgeuse managed to hoist Bob up onto his board, though just barely.  Bob had dipped underwater at least three times in the process, coming up sputtering and gasping each time. 

It was about that time that Adrian heard the puttering motor of a small skiff coming toward them from the direction of the wharf.  At the tiller was a crusty old fisherman in yellow raingear accompanied by a large, goofy-looking dog with a lolling tongue.  The amused look on the old man’s face indicated that, in spite of his many years, this sight was a new one to him.  He cut the engine and floated about ten yards out.  The huge dog put his paws on the side of the skiff and barked enthusiastically.

“Settle down there, Galen!” the old man said.  He had a thick downeast accent, so “there” sounded more like “thaya”.  Then he called out to the three men in the surf.  “Lose a bet?”

Father Betelgeuse was pounding Bob’s back, trying to help him cough up some of the seawater he had swallowed, so Adrian spoke for the little group.  “We’re, um, learning how to surf.”

“Ayuh,” the old man said.  He paused for a few seconds, letting Adrian’s explanation sink in a little.  “Why’s that now?”  Having spent his whole life on the water to make a living, he couldn’t understand why someone would be out in it for fun in this kind of weather.

“Kind of a long story,” Adrian replied.

“Ayuh.”  The old man settled back in his little boat to watch the unfolding spectacle.  Galen bounced up and down, yipping loudly and wagging his tail.  The lanky dog was rocking the skiff back and forth more than the waves.

While Adrian was far from being a surfer at that point, he was clearly miles ahead of Bob, whom Fr. Betelgeuse could not even keep on his surfboard for more than a few seconds due to his rather round physique.  He looked a lot like a small orca in his black and white wetsuit, actually.  Bob was going to need a lot more of the surfer-priest’s attention.  After a couple more dunks in the frigid water, Bob was gasping even more and looking blue in the face.

“Adrian, dude, I’m going to help Bob here back to the van to get his inhaler and catch his breath.  You wanna wait here?” Fr. Betelgeuse asked. Adrian nodded that he would.  Adrian grew up near the water and was a decent swimmer.  Since the wetsuit was keeping him pretty comfortable, and he was actually starting to enjoy bobbing up and down on the board, taking in the late-winter seaside scenery.

The old fisherman continued to stoically survey the scene from his skiff nearby, and Galen the dog continued to bark and rock the little boat.  Adrian did his best to strike up a conversation with the man, but the one-word responses he got, usually “ayuh”, indicated that the old salt was a man of few words.  From his vantage point, Adrian could see Bob and the priest leaning against the van, Bob puffing his asthma inhaler every few seconds.

Suddenly from behind him, Adrian heard a splash, and he whipped his head around to see that the old man’s skiff had overturned, dumping him and his dog into the frigid water.  The dog’s exuberance and the choppy waves had proven to be too much for the small craft.  Adrian could see the dog paddling toward more shallow water, but saw no sign of the old fisherman.  Immediately, he pushed himself off the surfboard and into the water, swimming in the direction of the upside-down boat.

Adrian had taken lifeguard training for a time in high school, though that was over twenty years ago.  He never finished the course, and had barely been in the water since then.  He prayed that what he had learned back then would come back to him.  He stopped mid-stroke to see if he could locate the fisherman.  About twenty feet beyond the skiff, he caught sight of a yellow flash on the gray water.  It was the fisherman’s rain slicker.  The current was pulling him out to sea.  Adrian saw the old man’s head bob above the water for a moment, and then go under again.  He wasn’t moving much at all, it seemed.  Adrian feared that he didn’t have much time.

Running on adrenaline, Adrian powered himself further toward the struggling old man, keeping his eyes on him as best he could.  His muscles were beginning to ache, and the freezing water on his face was almost unbearable.  The old fisherman was weakly waving his arms, trying in vain to stay afloat.  It seemed obvious to Adrian that, like many others who worked on the sea, the old man had not learned to swim.  Even if he had, his advanced age and the frigid cold of the sea would have made it nearly impossible for him to stay afloat. Adrian wondered if Father Betelgeuse had noticed the predicament.

With every stroke Adrian took, the old fisherman seemed to be dragged an equal distance away by the current.  His movements had suddenly stopped, and Adrian could no longer hear gasping.  He was beginning to wonder if the old man was even still alive. 

At last, Adrian was able to grab hold of the old man’s yellow rain slicker.  A slight groan escaped the old man’s now-blue lips, and his eyelids fluttered.  He was barely conscious, but still alive.  Though it seemed like hours to Adrian, only a few minutes had passed since the skiff had turned over.  Keeping the fisherman’s face above water, Adrian turned his head toward shore and began to swim with all his might.  He could see Father Betelgeuse racing toward the water now, and Bob on the shore behind him, speaking frantically into a cell phone.  Galen stood in water up to his chest barking madly.

Swimming while supporting another person’s dead weight was exhausting, especially to someone as out of practice as Adrian.  Every muscle in his body was screaming, and he thought his lungs were going to burst as he dragged himself and the old man closer to the shore.  It seemed to be taking an eternity, but they were getting closer.  Adrian was unsure of how much longer he could hold on to the old man and keep himself afloat at the same time.

They were no more than a few feet from the point where Adrian’s feet should have been able to touch the bottom, when a searing pain shot through his exposed face.  In his shock, Adrian let go of the fisherman and grabbed at his nose and cheeks.  He had swum into the path of a jellyfish, and its tentacles had brushed his face, stinging it badly, missing his eyes by mere millimeters.  The pain combined with exhaustion and stress was too much for Adrian, and darkness began to descend upon him.  As his own muscles went limp, Adrian felt the body of the old fisherman bump up against him.  Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Adrian was dimly aware that this was the end.  He felt heavy and was sinking fast.  He tried with all his might to will himself to move, to make for the surface, but just couldn’t.  Seawater rushed into Adrian’s mouth, and he lost all vision as he sank deeper and deeper.  He felt the pressure of the water building on his eardrums.  The last thing he remembered was the feeling of a vice-like grip on his right arm, and then everything went black.

***

When Adrian opened his eyes, he found himself still clad in the neoprene wetsuit, lying on a gurney in the emergency room, as near as he could tell.  He had never felt so exhausted in his life, and his face was burning from the stings of the jellyfish.  His right arm felt sore and bruised.  A nurse taking his blood pressure looked up and smiled when she saw he was awake.

“How are you feeling, Mr. McAllister?”

“I’ve been better, “he said.  Then he remembered the old salt he had been trying to save.  “Is the other man okay?”

“They’re looking him over now, but most likely it’s just a case of hypothermia and exhaustion,” she  told him. “The other people you were with are fine too.  They’re out in the waiting room.” 

“That’s good.”  Adrian closed his eyes again and let his mind wrap around everything that had happened. “How did I get out of the water anyway?  Do you know?  The last thing I remember before blacking out is someone grabbing my arm.”

“Just rest, Mr. McAllister.  Your friends will fill you in on the details later.”

That sounded like a good idea to Adrian. Before falling back to sleep, he reached over to his sore right arm with his left hand.  He felt what he could have sworn were tooth marks in the neoprene.

A Road Trip to the Maine Coast: By The Numbers

As is sometimes my custom during the warm weather months, I made a trip to the coast this weekend.  And no, not all of Maine is on the coast!  Some of us have to drive to get there.  Despite the trek involved, it was absolutely beautiful, and just what the doctor ordered after a long, cold winter.  Instead of boring you with a blow-by-blow account of the trip, I thought that, with all due respect to Harper’s Index , it would be fun to throw out some statistics associated with it.

The pretty little inlet beside which I spent my day with a good book and a semi-comfy lawn chair.

·        Number of sunburned arms on my person: 1.

This is the consequence of driving with your arm out the window the whole way down, without first applying sunscreen.

·        Number of lighthouses seen: 2.

Neither was an actual working lighthouse, mind you.  They were both very large yard decorations.

·        Number of miles between the ocean and the closest lighthouse I saw to it: 84.4.

Evidently, the allure of the ocean grows stronger in the yard decorators the further they are from the ocean itself.  There’s probably one in every yard in places like Kansas.

·        Number of cents difference in price per gallon of gas between the stations in my town and those on the coast: 25.

The further south in Maine you go, the cheaper the gasoline.  I figure by the time you get down to Kittery, it must be free.

·        Number of fake corpses hanging from old satellite dishes: 1.

At least I hope it was a fake.  Halloween was a long time ago after all.

·        Number of 1982 Chevy Citations seen pulling out of a driveway: 1.

Those clunkers were lucky to survive the drive off the dealer's lot.  To see a working one 30 years later is a miracle.

·        Number of guys seen leaning over engines of vehicles with their hoods up: 4.

The number of nasty butt cracks seen (and that cannot be unseen) was also four, by the way.

·        Number of antique Esso gas station signs seen: 2.

Esso became Exxon in the United States some years ago.  One of these babies would probably fetch a ton of cash on one of those pawn store reality shows.

·        Number of dead animals seen along the road: 5.

A squirrel, a cat, a raccoon, and two birds.  The body count rises this time of year.

·        Number of squished bugs on my just-cleaned windshield: a billion jillion.

Probably more, actually.

·        Number of Memorial Day flower arrangement stands which were also selling seed “taters” (according to the signs): 2.

Remember to honor your dead and plant your Yukon golds, people!  Tis the season.

·        Number of towns named “Meddybemps” passed through: 1.

You just have to say that name over and over and over.  Well, I do at least.

·        Number of triple-murder scenes passed: 1.

Yes, it was nearly two years ago and yes, they caught the killer, but it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

·        Number of speed traps successfully avoided: 3.

Words to the wise: keep it under the speed limit in the towns of Princeton and Baileyville.  Speeders are their primary municipal revenue source.

·        Number of topless women mowing the lawn seen: 1.

It was not nearly as exciting as you might think.  At all.  Trust me on this. *shudder*

·        Number of giant, electricity generating windmills spotted: about 8.

Maybe more.  I was driving, drinking soda and flipping between radio stations to find a clear signal for the Red Sox game at the time, so counting them all at that time was not a really safe option.

           Number of big bugs found crawling on my leg while driving: 1.
Number of big bugs I THOUGHT I felt crawling on my leg after that: 13.

·        Number of goats eating out of flower pots in someone’s yard: 2.

The number of batches of goats-head cheese being whipped up tomorrow at that residence is also likely going to be two.

·        Number of roads passed named “Suckertown Road”: 1.

I wonder if it leads to Las Vegas or Atlantic City?

·        Number of extra large sodas consumed by yours truly: 2.

·        Number of extra large pee breaks taken by yours truly: 3.

You’d think the above two statistics would have matched up better.

·        Number of Pearl Jam albums listened to on the way down to the coast: 2.5.

Vitalogy, Ten, and part of No Code, if you were wondering.

·        Number of innings of the Red Sox-Phillies game listened to on the way home: 5.

Sox win!  Sox win!

·        Number of turkey vultures seen eating carrion: 2.

Nasty, icky birds eating nasty, icky things.

·        Number of American bald eagles seen in flight: 2.

I don’t care where you come from, it’s a very impressive sight.  As far as my day was concerned, the eagles cancelled out the turkey vultures, even though they all eat the same kind of stuff.

·        Number of blog posts I milked out of this one trip: 1.

      For now, at least.

  

Gone Fiddleheadin'

Here in northern Maine, we are currently in the midst of a brief period called “fiddlehead season”.  It’s a period of about two weeks in early May when people can go fiddleheading, of course.

Seems clear enough.

In the unlikely event that I am not making sense to you, let me back up a bit.  Fiddleheads are the furled up juvenile stage of the fern Matteuccia struthiopteris, commonly known as the ostrich fern or fiddlehead fern. They typically proliferate in northern regions of central and eastern North America at this time of year.  Fiddleheads tend to grow best on flat, sandy pieces of land alongside running water.  We’ve got a lot of that.

Fiddleheads are actually a delicious treat that I enjoy a whole lot.  That is really saying something coming from the likes of me, someone known as the most finicky eater this side of Morris the Cat.  Whenever I talk about fiddleheads with people from other parts of the country or the world, I get strange looks, as though they think I am eating actual parts of musical instruments. They are actually in the vegetable category, and when steamed or boiled have the consistency of a cross between spinach and broccoli.  Not the seedy, treetop part of broccoli, but the soft tree trunk part. Some melted butter and a splash of cider vinegar, and there is nothing finer than a serving a fiddleheads.

You’ve got to use some caution when preparing those babies though.  Growing as they do along bodies of water, they may harbor microcooties, also known as bacteria, which can make you pretty sick if you don’t cook them thoroughly before eating.  Nothing can spoil one’s first fiddlehead experience quite like repeated trips to the john to evacuate one end or the other of one’s digestive system.

That’s not to say fiddleheads are up on the dangerous scale with fugu, the Japanese blowfish that can kill you if it is not prepared just so.  Why on earth anyone would want to take a chance on eating something like that is beyond me, and a possible topic for a future blog post.  Suffice it to say, fiddleheads are more akin to raw meat in terms of preparation. As long as you clean and cook them thoroughly, you’ll be fine.

Collecting fiddleheads, or “fiddleheading” is not for the weak of back or dry of foot.  When I was just a little kid, my late, Bing Crosby-loving grandmother used to take me out fiddleheading.  (Mind you, she wasn’t “late” at the time.  That would have taken a lot of the fun out of it.) 

My grandfather would drive us way the heck out on some back road near adjacent farmsteads where they both grew up many years before, and then Gram and I would tramp way the heck further out into the woods until we got to a stream.  The ground was nothing but mud, and in spite of our boots, our feet were cold and soaked before we even got started.  For the next hour or so, my grandmother and I bent over and picked up literally hundreds of the curly little green fronds from the muddy ground and put them into a bag.  It wasn’t so bad for me, given that I was both six years old and relatively close to the ground anyway.  But how my grandmother, in her sixties, with diabetes and more than a few extra pounds on her frame, was able to vastly outpick me and never once let on that she was tired or sore, I’ll never know.   She was a pretty amazing woman in lots of ways.

Afterwards, back at my grandfather’s car, I remember wringing my socks out the backseat window, sitting alongside no less than a half-dozen grocery bags full of fiddleheads.  I had picked two, while my grandmother had picked the other four.  The only reason she had stopped picking for the afternoon was because she was worried about my grandfather growing impatient while waiting back in the car. He was older than she, and not quite as spunky for his age, so needless to say he was not at all game for several hours of back-breaking labor.  He preferred the role of chauffeur and chief reader of the newspaper.

Thirty-six years later, a lot has changed in my life, but one thing has not: I’m still good for about two grocery bags full until I am ready to call it a day.  But it’s much more crowded along the river and streambanks nowadays.  Fiddleheads have grown in popularity here in Maine in recent years, and with that popularity has come an increase in demand and hence, price.  (Hooray for capitalism.)  Area retailers and restaurants are offering several dollars per pound for something that is basically free for the taking in most spots if you want to put in the time and effort to gather.  One of the main access trails to the river that runs through town is right across the street from my house, and there has been a lot of activity the past few weeks.  I’ve seen people from all strata of society headed down to the river with empty bags and coming back up with full ones and visions of either a fine meal or a full wallet dancing in their heads.  There have been cars with license plates from New York and Delaware parked across the street, and folks ranging in age from preschoolers to octogenarians making their way to the riverside.

One of the more unusual pickers I’ve seen was just this morning.  It was early, and I was sitting in my favorite armchair, drinking coffee and watching the rain come down out the window when I saw a middle-aged woman in what looked like pajamas come trundling down the street toward the river access trail.  Given the frequency with which people wear their jammies out and around, I didn’t think a whole lot of it.  About an hour later though, I saw this very same lady walking back up the street, completely drenched, and carrying a very full plastic bag of fiddleheads.  I began to wonder:  What circumstances would compel a woman to pick a full bag of fiddleheads, in her pajamas, in a steady rain, at dawn on a Sunday?

There’s probably a great American novel in the answer to that question.

Once you’ve picked fiddleheads, then you have to clean them, and that’s an ordeal if you ask me.  Good old Matteuccia struthiopteris comes with a brown, paper-like covering, much like certain magazines did back in the day.  (Or so I’m told.)  This covering is very crumbly and hard to get entirely off the fiddlehead.  But get it off you must, from every single one of those hundreds and hundreds of curly green pains in the neck.  Plus, it’s a good idea to check each individual one for rot, bugs, or other such nastiness.  Their tiny, curly nature lends itself to trapping iffy things in nooks and crannies. 

For every hour I’ve spent picking fiddleheads, I’ve probably spent another two cleaning them.  Since my family and I will be eating them ourselves, I take the job pretty seriously and get rid of all the brown stuff and other nasties.  But that doesn’t mean I like it.  On a scale of one-to-filing taxes, cleaning fiddleheads is around an eight.  I shudder to think about the level of commitment to cleaning, or lack thereof, by people who are merely selling them to retailers or restaurateurs.  I hope the patron saint of health inspectors is watching over us all.

Although the words may ring hollow coming from me, the least-willing person on earth to take chances with new foods, but I’d encourage you to give fiddleheads a try if you ever get the opportunity.  You can learn more about them at this link from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.  Maine lobster  and blueberry pie are great, but if you want a true taste of Maine, some steamed fiddleheads with real butter and vinegar alongside a grilled brook trout is a meal like no other.

I just have to try not to think about the fact that both fiddleheads and trout grew in close proximity to my arch-nemesis, the eel.