Saints North

It started well enough. The craze for roller-skating was in full swing when I was a XX- year-old. I started wobbly, like everyone else, and got up to speed. Except I have this psychological flaw.
I love music. Music reaches a part of my soul that’s directly wired in to my body. Music gets exciting; I jazz up and get moving. Music slows and I sway. I am not Fred Astair. I’m not even Fred’s accountant. If I needed to dance to save my life, maybe I could escape during the helpless laughter. Anyway, roller-skating…

So if you don’t remember roller-rinks, there were three main “skates”. “Open:” Open skates were for all of us, the sick, lame and stupid could skate along side the Fred & Gingers of the roller-skating world. Then there was the “Couples’ Only” skate. This was to show off those who had reached a certain level of sexual sophistication-and those who wanted to meet girls/boys/geeks could ask a girl/boy/geek to skate with them-and then, the super-duper couples skate, “The Snowball.”

If there was ever proof needed that there is a Caste system of childhood, The Snowball is it. This wasn’t just any Couples’ Skate; this was one you had to be actually picked for. I can still see the Teenagers doing their skate-while-fused-together thing. Some of ‘em were joined at a hip; some of them skated and danced with one partner-usually the girl- skating backwards. The key was wearing tight white clothing. That way, the UV light would cause you to glow in the dark and show off the fact that you had secondary sexual characteristics. You also had to know what you were doing. Dynamic Fusion on the floor. There were different forms of dynamic fusion: Face to Face, in which Rich and Shelly would gracefully circle the rink in waltzing poses. Then there was the Hip-to-Hip in which Ronnie would skate with Natalie with their leg fused to the other one-apparently one being with two genders, three legs and millions of pheromones. Then there was the Woven Few: Billy and Laurie would somehow manage to orbit with their arms around each other and legs between one another’s. You knew damn well that they did this without skates or much else upon occasion, the bastards.

So after the strains of some interminable love song died away, the permanently jacked DJ would announce “OOOoooKaaay Let’s get everybody out on the floor and speed things back up with…The Who!” and you’d joyously leap to your feet and slide stumble or crawl to the rink and gradually sweep out into the mass of puberty winging around the center island. I’d resented watching the couples stuff-mostly because I was terrified of girls, and come to think of it, boys, and probably trees rocks and small birds. The frustration would get to my feet about the time the Who stopped playing and there’d be this insistent drum beat…”You ready Steve?” “Uh-Huh!” “Andy?” “Yeah!” “Mick?!” “Okay!” “Alrighht Fellas, Lets Gooooooo!” (The guitar yanks you up to speed)”Oh it’s been getting’ so hard, livin’ with the things you do to me, uh huh why things are getting so strange, I’d like to tell you everything I see, whoa yeah!”

I’m doing 80 mph. Taking corners like lightning with a bug up its ass. Then nothing but these explosions of white light like being inside a firecracker.

Saints North. Roller skating rink. The robin’s egg blue floor, the red cinderblock walls. Bright glittery disco ball. Elton John is playing in the background. Yup, I’d lived. Now, why was I laying in the snack bar?
A wheel on my left skate had come off at some point. This of course was not a good thing. I was told later that I’d done what was then called an aerial and then a forward roll over the wall and onto the floor. That explained the snack bar. I was hoping that the liquid I could feel on my chest was blood, and that I was mortally wounded so that I wouldn’t have to get up. Well, it was red but in an artificial black cherry sort of way. And the cardboard cup was there crushed under my elbow. Ice too. “Damn it! I’m going to live.” So to the strains of “Brown Sugar” I get pulled to my feet. “That must have been the table I slid across.” I thought to myself-there were two people in white polyester looking angrily at me over a suspiciously clean table. After the manager stopped yelling at me, I slowly pulled off my skates, comforted by thoughts of people suddenly dropping dead for no reason after having accidents that only seemed to cause minor injuries. Ronnie, Billy and Rich were amusing their disco chick dates with a reenactment of the Flight of the Geek, which was getting the crowd roaring. I pulled on my all-stars and looked at the new rip in my burgundy corduroys. A cherry stained flannel shirt stuck to my chest, and somehow, miraculously, my bifocals were intact. Well, thank you Jesus. At least I still look like a bug-eyed freak. I couldn’t hear the music, just the crowd noise, and the laughter as I slowly wound my way outside.

It’s blessedly quiet in parking lots. You can hear yourself scream internally. I decided I would call home, and get picked up. As I walked back into the building, my friend Tracy asked if I’m okay. “What would you think?” “I think you scared me.” “Huh?” Her eyes were really blue behind her glasses, and wet too. “I heard you land, and it sounded like crushing Styrofoam, I thought you broke something.” I blinked. “I did; a cup, it was Styrofoam.” We looked at each other for a moment then broke into howls of laughter.
“Wanna skip out and go to the library?” We both said it simultaneously.

Okay, maybe the next time the Snowball happened… I’d ask Tracy to have a Coke with me.

Anna's Hill

There are days I wish I had a normal brain. Rellys say that I was "born to hang."

Cattail weeds; did you have them in your area where you grew up? In the spring, these were tough green stalks headed by the seedpod. In summer, they’d slowly get taller and thicker, the leaves getting longer and longer. In autumn, they’d be hardened by the sun, the stalks still supple, but desiccated into a triangle stalk like an epee blade. The leaves used to whittle bark off small twigs. When the wind blew you could hear them rattling like vegetable copperheads.

I grew up by a swamp. Billions of cattails grew every year. I remember the smell of dried marsh and hearing the weeds banging together in the wind- the hot sun of an Indian summer pulling every element of gold out of the air. We used to take our bikes to the top of the hill by Anna’s place. By the bottom of the hill was the swamp; looking down it looked like an army of cattail pike men.

This was the time of motorcycle daredevils and Starsky & Hutch. I had my trusty red Schwinn, brave in its banana seat and monkey-bar, stingrayesque fenders and “slick” back tire.

It is important to point out that Anna was a girl I really, really liked. A lot.

Anna’s place was next to a “tail hill”. For those of you who didn’t grow up in Dog Patch the way I did, a tail hill was a few thousand tons of assorted sand, rock, gravel, and general former lakebed left over from when a lake is drained (turning it into swamp) for which to create a place to build housing for folks who don’t make a Hell of a Lot of money. Over the years, this gets compacted into a sort of sandy pebbledash concrete.

I was infatuated with Anna. O boy, golden curls, big eyes, and had a certain element that I couldn’t identify other than she seemed to smell really good, if you know what I mean.

It was inevitable. We were talking (Miggsy and me) at the top of the hill, and Anna came out to see what we were up to. We had been talking about Evil Kineval. Daring stunts. Before long, under the gaze of those eyes, I told Miggsy that we should see if we could coast down the hill, and see if we could stop before the cattails. “Not daring enough!” says Miggsy. He suggests we do it one handed. I ask what we do with the other hand. He says that we should grab wrists to keep us from “cheating”. Fabulous!

So as dear Anna looks on, we start back from the edge, grab wrists, and peddle like mad to the edge of the hill.

As the front tires went over the edge, Miggsy’s hand ripped free from my wrist, there was a cloud of dust and rock, and something that sounded something like:“owowwowowowowwowowoWAAAAAAAA!Thuff Thuff Wrrrrrrrk ClanketaclanketaKLONG.”

Then, a few whimpers.

But I never have been sure, as I had problems of my own. See, I couldn’t stop peddling. So down the cliff of a hill, I was accelerating.

Schwinn made good bikes. Even though my bike was never meant for the speed at which it was traveling, indeed flying as sometimes-more than once-both tires were no longer on the ground, the frame only sustained minor magnetization from air friction. I somehow made it to the bottom of the hill in a semi-erect fashion, although it was hard to tell from the cloud of detritus I had kicked up.

Even as a child, there was some little man in my brain that stayed on duty while the rest of my thought processes were out hiding. Two words occurred to me. “Coaster Brakes.”

Actually, how it came to my head was 'Oh, Ben, if you love me, BACK her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal SOUL out of her! ‘(I’d been reading Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi” for the umpteenth, but seemingly at that moment, last, time).

My feet stopped going one way and reversed. Alas, the slick tire on the back had about as much grab as melted butter on an old grease rag.

The cattails of my memory are gloriously lit under a cobalt blue sky, their golden stalks pointed and gleaming. I can feel the heat of the sun on my bare arms, the feeling of my cut-offs of soft washed denim –my sunburned skin only beginning to prickle a bit against them…and then there was the feeling of being thrown into thousands of angry cane whips. All I could see was a cloud of white fluffy seeds and exploding cattail heads, all I could feel was every stalk, every razor-edged leaf, and the soft loam kicked up by my suddenly horizontal bike.

All was at last, blessed silence.

Eventually I staggered out of the weeds, bike in tow, and looked up the hill. Miggsy looked like the “after the Crucifixion” paintings popular in our Sunday school. I looked as though I were covered in snow, as if a down comforter had exploded with me on the bull’s eye. Napoleon's soldier, retreating from Moscow.

Anna looked…amused, horrified, something. It was hard to tell, she was sitting at the top of the tail hill with the oddest look on her face. It was a sort of realization of unknown power.

Anna's family moved away a month later. Their house was abandoned for about a year, and then one night it caught fire and burned down. I don't know what ever became of her, but I feel that somehow, she's alright. I sometimes wonder where she is now.

Green Fairy

The waiter put a small but heavy glass in front of me. There was a measure of a chartreuse or crème de menthe like liquid in it. He placed a small, flat stainless spoon like a small pie-server over the glass, and set a carafe of chilled water next to the glass. A moment later, a small dish of sugar lumps sat next to the glass. He withdrew. I looked at the label of the bottle he poured the liquid from. It's Swiss. Odd that the first glass of absinthe I have is from the first country to make it illegal back in the day. This is the real, true absinthe-with the northern wormwood and all. So.

I extract a sugar lump, place it on the spoon, and pick up the carafe of water. The idea is to pour slowly the water over the sugar lump, letting it dissolve into the green liquid below-the liquid turns a green opalescent color, which has a specific word to describe it; this is the absinthe's "louche". It only happens when real anise has been used in the production. It's an appropriate word, considering absinthe's historical use among artists, bohemians, and the leisured classes. Mind? Absinthe was consumed by everybody. Like whisky wasn't just about the cowboys.

The sugar dissolves. The last crystals sweep in a cloud into the glass, so a couple stirs of the now opaque liquid. I have a glass of the Green Fairy. La Fée Verte. The aroma is that of licorice Allsorts, the resemblance is to green milk. A taste, and the licorice spreads over my tongue-the volatile elements waft into my nose and fill my mind with pictures of candy counters, the painting of the Bar at the Follies Bergere by Manet…Toulouse Lautrec crossing his eyes at the camera, and shocking dances like the Can Can. There's something in with the anise. Some slight sharpness, some small metal. I swallow almost reflexively, and the liquid slides down and spreads. There is a warmth, the alcohol of 110-proof spirits making its presence felt.

So why am I drinking this substance? A link with history- the opportunity to have something forbidden by the law of the country I live in. It was forbidden here in France as well, but the French have relaxed that law now- if people choose to drink absinthe, then let them do so and work out their own damnation. The French can occasionally be grown up about things- not their race policies, but certainly their drinking ones.

I wait for the bang. There is no bang. There is a buzz, or perhaps hum. Kylie Minogue fails to appear. Pity. I grin. But I always grin. So far this has been nothing but a strong drink. I finish the glass. The waiter shimmers into being next to me. "Un autre, s'il vous plait." "Oui Monsieur". And in a moment, a second glass, another sugar lump, another louche. Another drink.

And I realize I'm having the clearest humming buzz of my life. There isn't precisely an aura around things, I'm not hallucinating anything, but in drinking terms, I'm in a comfortable licorice-flavored armchair. The flavors are growing on me. I can see why the time after work but before dinner was referred to as "The Green Hour." Everybody drank this stuff, until a horrible set of murders took place- never mind that the murderer had been drinking brandy, beer and marc since he had been awake, he blamed it on the glass of absinthe, and so did the early temperance society. The fairy's death knell was sounded as the premier drink of the people.

In a few months, the beginning of the campaign to make absinthe demonized-like rum or beer in a later day-was in full war cry. It was blamed for everything. Nancy Reagan would have felt right at home. It became illegal in country after country.

At the end of my second glass, and a small bowl of olives that came with it, I begin to understand. People need demons. A Green Fairy doesn't stand a chance against the squad that needs convenient villains. As the liberal, so the Fée Verte. And an era came to a close.

Of course, the myths grew, the powers ascribed to the drink grew. Precisely because it was forbidden. The illicit return of the Fairy in unmarked bottles-some with dangerous levels of wormwood, some with metholated alcohol, some with other poisons added…all added to the terrible myth of absinthe. Oh, there were the legitimate substitutes- Pernod, once the primiere producer of absinthe, came out with the pastis we drink now, and others-chartreuse, Campari, and so on.

And now? Absinthe is back. 110-proof, but with most versions now having the gentler southern wormwood used in them. The levels carefully controlled. The fairy has to be on her best behavior, or the door may close again.

My absinthe glass empty yet again, I paid my tab. Stood up, and walked out the door. I may have had difficulty with putting on my scarf, and perhaps the hat was at a rakish angle, and I may have had moments of navigational uncertainty, but it didn't matter. I was walking with my old friend Toulouse-and he knew this wonderful café. Everything was glowing very faintly with a green opal glow. And I strolled into the Paris night laughing about Can Can dancers, pretty green girls with wings, and Toulouse's latest adventures.

A fragment from the opera I never finished: "The One Penny Opera"

Opening scene:

The forest, little animals skip about in the twilight as Soprano 1 enters, stage left, and begins commenting on such a beautiful, yet melancholy night it is. Soprano 2 enters stage right this time and says yup; it's pretty melancholy, yet strangely beautiful all the same. Tenor then enters and asks directions to the haunted castle, where due to the family curse, he must spend the next three nights in, or go completely stark, raving bonkers and die. The two sopranos then enter a duet about general road conditions in the kingdom, and complain that taxes just don't get spent properly. Tenor then sings a solo about how he has a brother-in-law in local government whom he leant his toolbox to, and has yet to see hide or hair of his 3/4-inch grip pliers to this very day. The Altos pop out of nowhere (center stage behind the tree) and chorus about getting on with the visit to the haunted castle; after all he doesn't want to end up like his (rather dead) Uncle Shipley, the one with the vest and frog problems. Tenor then moves his butt to

Scene two

The haunted castle. Boy, is it ominous, so ominous in fact that Tenor sings intense solo on how big and gray and frightening the castle is, and how his leotard (so useful for treks through the forest, don't you think?) is now rather in danger of being soiled. From the postern gate the Ghost of Uncle Shipley leaps down to center stage just in front of Tenor. The Ghost then announces he's been chosen to guide the Tenor (now singing softly that that's it for his leotard) through his stay at the castle, and watch that drawbridge; it hasn't been the same since a German fellow came through and placed a very annoyed dragon on it. Apparently it had something to do with an over priced ring caught in a spin cycle-it took hours to find it. Alto chorus once again sings for them to get on with the story, and Uncle Shipley then responds to mind their own business and all right all right and so on... for no reason other than we really like the idea and it'll confuse the living daylights out of the audience, a troop of delicate ballet dancers come pirouetting on stage dressed as various gardening implements. Uncle Shipley and Tenor now enter the postern gate and into the dreadfully ominous castles courtyard, which for some reason appears enshrouded in fog, or at least the flat part is. They are joined by Sopranos One and Two, who apparently snuck in while the gardening implements were doing their spins. The Sopranos then sing a haunting duet about the fact that, like most sopranos in these things, they know of an enchanted princess in the basement, er, dungeon who will be magically wakened by the kiss of a Tenor with a soiled leotard (eeeew!). The Tenor now sings a quick question that can he please avoid the soiled leotard part and take an operatic shower, a downpour immediately starts, ending his immediate discomfort and commencing a new problem in that it's difficult to sing in a raging thunderstorm, but he tries anyway. Lets bring the curtain down now to keep the poor sod from getting pneumonia.
Intermission-get some popcorn with your champagne...

Scene three

After a long introduction from the orchestra, and I mean really, really interminably long, lights come up (pink wash? Oh What The Hell) revealing the interior of Ominous Castle-and the Set Designer's been reading Stephan King and deSade again, obviously. This is the kind of place where Freddie Kruger gets that creepy-crawly feeling. Enter Tenor, and Uncle Shipley-dialogue follows:

T: So I'm supposed to sleep here tonight? What are my options? Was it so bad going bonkers?
US: I carried a frog in my pocket for 52 years, and I never ever took my vest off.
T: I see, which pocket? It doesn't sound so bad.
US: The inside one.
T: Inside pocket? On the vest?
US: Nope. Guess again...

The Ghost of Uncle Shipley does a pantomime to Stage Left whilst the Tenor figures a nice comfy spot to lie down and have the snooze. Enter the wretched Sopranos again, this time singing that famous aria "Whoops, we forgot to Tell You Something."

The shortest sailing story I've written thusfar:

He stared at the rain that drizzled against the salon window, sipped his coffee and let his eyes drift across the waves. The grey sky blended into the quicksilver sea, broken only by the dark wave patterns and occasional whitecaps. He relived the terrible moments when Shelia had fallen overboard, the repeated desperate rescue attempts in the midst of high winds and terrible pounding seas, the horrible sense of failure as she was whisked far from the boat. He tried to find the silver lining to the stormy clouds above him. “At least,” he thought at last, “the nagging has stopped.”

Miggsy and the Tree Fort:

The sound of Miggsy screaming and branches breaking was probably a clue something was going wrong. I was too busy trying to nail the roof back on. Of course, that may have been a sign as well.

We wanted a tree fort. In this day of pre-fab cedar playground sets, the tree fort is a rapidly fading part of Americana. “But in my day” as an Old Fart usually begins these stories, “weren’t such thing yet “. Kids used scrap lumber, sticks, logs, buckets of nails from the back corners of garages, and various other items. The Honeycomb Hideout was the Beverly Hills model in the spectrum. You started with four planks of (hopefully) similar sizes. You then took a handful of nails, and either a hammer, or a rock, and pounded the boards together into a quadrilateral frame. Note- this was never actually square, or for that matter, rectangular. Think parallelogram, or tesseract. Next, you realized that what you really needed was altitude. Therefore, you’d find a suitable tree, haul the frame up into the branches and proceeded to begin to build your little castle in the sky. Nailing up boards as they came to hand was an art-not a science. Oh sure, you occasionally ran across the kid with the full set of (stolen from Dad) tools, but truth be told, all you really needed was a hammer- claw for preference, or ball peen, and a saw. And of the two, it was the saw that was optional. Walls were largely made of nails held together by boards. The heads of the nails added to the outer defenses - this was proven when Billy Cooper was playing with his older brother’s .410 “squirrel gun” shotgun and sent a cloud of lead into the side of the Wallman brothers’ fort. They were inside it at the time, and well, all they reported hearing was pings, and their picture of Miss October got shredded. The wood around the nails smelled like gunpowder after that. They thought that someone lit a firecracker. When a pale Mr. Cooper showed up, their response to “Are you boys okay?” was “Yeah! Try again!”

Billy Cooper went to private school that fall.

Anyway, we wanted a tree fort. So the great scrounge for wood began (nails, never a problem, were already to hand) and we assembled an attractive pile of 2x4 scraps, railroad ties (some not quite scrap yet, but that rail line was abandoned, or so we thought, at the time, but that’s another story). Plus, we had the mother load of all wooden shipping crates (which, to avoid sunburn, we brought from the back of the Municipal Yard at midnight). We had loads and loads of nails, and we got the frame into the elm tree by the driveway with no trouble whatsoever. The nails were prime stock; a three gallon bucket filled to the brim with four-inch nails. Sure, the planks and boards were only two inches thick, but, hey, you had a margin. When the nails came through the boards, you could also improve holding ability by bending the surplus at an angle to the boards. It was a good theory. Anyway, when you were done, you had a sort of sky-box, the gaps in the boards for windows, or rather peep holes, and you could always put a tarp over the roof when you were expecting rain. The unfortunate side effect of wet canvas is that it becomes nearly air-tight, sealing the structure not only against the elements, but also against intrusive atmospheric gasses.

We think that’s why the Wallman brothers were like the way they were. It had been a rainy summer.

Miggsy and I finished our fort. We had to test the strength of our build. So Miggsy got in, and jumped on the floor-or rather frog-hopped, as if he’d have attempted to stand, he probably would have banged his head, or got nails in his scalp. The interior was a bit like someone had turned a porcupine inside out. So Miggsy hopped, and I climbed on the roof to see what wasn’t holding, and quickly nail it back into place. The roof was letting in more daylight than it had, so I was walloping away with the hammer, when…well, the creak, then the scream and branches.

If you’ve ever heard the poem that begins,

“The boy stood on the burning deckWhence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead."

The tree fort version would go
“The boy stood on the tilting roof,
Whence all the rest had sudden gone “Poof!”,
The tree branch that over him waved,
could not stop Gravity’s crave..”

Bark, as a substance, often goes unremarked. I am here to tell you, it was not so that day. Miggsy left a tooth in that bark, and I, several feet of skin and denim.

Odd that so many nails missed me. You’d see a board coming straight for you, points a-tilt and gleaming, and ten it’d rebound off another board, or Miggsy, and then, when all was done and you were at the bottom of the tree, boards and leaves falling gently around you, you realized why you did stuff like this. For the peace of mind it gave you.

Diving the Mines

The water closed above my head, and I was on my way to 80 feet. The hiss of air escaping my BC filled my ears. Below me the tops of drowned trees stood like the spears of a mer-army, the green light of the depths bathing them in a fey luminosity. The pressure built around me with every inch, and I found myself equalizing, and equalizing again. The gloom increased, and the cold, promised at the surface, was given in full measure. My wrist computer’s depth gage ticked off the feet, 44, 47, 50…and I became aware that a giant was standing on my eyes. I try to exhale through my nose, but no good. I climb for the surface-too fast at first, and then I slow to rise with my bubbles. As I break surface the mask begins to pull away. In my nervousness I had pulled the mask too tight-as though I could keep the depth from getting too close. I loosen the mask, and in my mind I chide myself, this is how people get hurt-my buddies all ask if I’m all right. I signal that I’m okay, and swim back to the drop-off. Once again I dump the air from my BC, and I drop towards the spears again. Equalizing more slowly, I fall into the fey light, the cold returning and intensifying, and between counting the others, 1,2,3…1, 2,3… I glance at my depth gage. 60 feet, then 61…65…70. We level off for a moment. They’re all there around me, and again, we head down. 75, 77, 79-80. I have arrived, and though I am with three others, I am alone, 80 feet below, trees on all sides. It’s eternal twilight around me-in the forest of the mer-army, the surface sky rippling and blowing above. Exultantly we signal "OK" to one another, and proceed to explore. Our course leads up a gentle slope- this is a bounce dive, with the deepest part of the dive at first, then gradually ending in shallower depths. The floor is sandy, with last year’s autumn leaves in puffs and blows by the trees. The effect is Halloween-like, and at the moment, cold water down my spine has nothing to do with the water in my suit. We find ourselves moving closer together, like hikers will in a forest. There is safety in numbers from the unknown. Swimming through the branches of the trees draws the ancient simian forth, and I use my hands to pull me through the sunken canopy like a strange sort of aquatic ape. Exulting in the conquest of gravity, we all dart through the trees with elaborate swoops and twists.

An underwater meadow opens before us-there’s a platform erected at 40 feet. We swing out of the trees and onto the platform. Only the bubbles escaping from our regulators break the silence. The light is different here: from fey twilight to a green gold diffusion, as though the light comes from everywhere and nowhere. We three apes look about us, now the forest is behind us, all is clear ahead. Evolving momentarily into men again, we stand upon the platform, the surface 40 feet above, and seek our next course.

Flexible Flyer

Time to break out music from warmer climates-like
Siberia. I am reminded of the infrequent snow days in
school (my district had the slogan "We Never Close")
when you'd get to stay at home. Sure, that meant
shoveling a quarter of a mile worth of driveway, but
we'd have to do that anyway. Back when I was in
elementary school, we'd go sledding on a hill in back
of the old Jory place. We used to build a ramp at the
end of the steepest part of the hill to see how far we
could fly. We even iced down the run once. Sheer
madness, really. It was an incredibly steep hill to
begin with. Adding ice was merely fuel to an already
dangerous fire. Hopping on my good old Flexible Flyer,
belly down, head forward, I remember that moment of
exhilarating fear that would lance through my body as
I tilted forward (Bang!) and shot down the nearly
vertical hill (Whoosh!). The rattle of the sled as it
flew down the run, the g-force of the ramp lifting me
at the end, and the amazing feel of zero gravity as
sled and I fled the Earth's bonds for a few
moments....then contact (WHAM!) with the ground and
trying to steer off the road without hitting the ditch
(6 foot drop), or hitting Old Jory's house (old
clapboard and railroad ties). I am only mildly
exaggerating when I claim there was a sonic boom after
each run, followed by an agonizing climb back to the
top, dragging a sled that weighed as much as I did.
The year we iced down the run it was twice as fast,
but alas, due to the method with which a rail sled is
steered, it eliminated any control I might have had
to begin with. So, tilt- Bang! Whoosh! About half way
through the whoosh-say about “whoo-“ I started getting
just the tiniest bit off-track, increasing as I flew
down the hill to the point of being about a foot to
the left of where I should have been. “-sh!” Flung out
of gravity's grip by the ramp, I hold on for dear life
as the horizon begins to turn and tilt. In a sight
reminiscent of the Blue Angels' Flight Precision team,
I and my sled did a full barrel roll mid-air, and
cleared the road entirely. Sadly, I also flew over the
embankment and down six feet to the ditch
(WHAM-AM-AM!).

Wile E. Coyote became a god to me that day.

Copper Horse

(Obligatory "This Is Mine" and "Any Similarity...")

I was 18, and in the Navy, NAS Millington. I had a
glorious start, but I was getting the tar beaten out
of me in training. I could barely make numbers work,
and I had had a couple go-rounds with a AW3 (he had
been an AW2) with short-timer syndrome, culminating in
a short but decisive action in a gymnasium after
hours. Then the jerk spilled his guts to the S.O. as
to how that nose of his got flatter than normal, and I
was given extra duty, and loss of liberty in a
"talking to" with my Chief. Assigned to the stables,
shoveling horse apples. I was on the only base in the
Navy with a horse battalion. I ended up knee deep in
something much talked of but seldom seen in the armed
forces these days.

Horses? On a Naval Air Station?

The Navy in conjunction with the county had a stable
for rescued horses-hard cases involving abuse, and
neglect. I was the manure pitcher for the 12-15 horses
they had. I stank from weekends of 16 hour days of
shoveling manure and working on roofs, stable doors,
painting-in short-hell.

One day I was sitting on the rail of the fence, eating
my lunch, and feeling completely down. My academic
scores were coming up, but not fast enough. I was
within a millisecond of washing out, to my eternal
disgrace. On top of that, I had watched, helplessly as
a good friend completely lost control of a water
exercise, and separated his shoulder. Not pretty. On
top of that, I had painted the wrong portion of a
wall, and gotten the chewing of a lifetime-then had to
strip and sand and repaint the whole damn wall again.
I was bone tired. I was blackly convinced I was next
to go, and I felt a complete failure. I sat on that
top rail and stewed.

Suddenly I was airborne. A horse had smacked into the
fence and me and sent me flying. I came up swearing
and spinning, Spitting dirt and gravel. And I saw the
brute. He was HUGE. Brown with a dark mane, and
puffing, blowing and making a hell of a lot of
noise-laughing I have no doubt. I Picked up my apple
and thought about winging it between his eyes. Then I
saw it. The horse had a long scar from his ear to his
shoulder. More across his rump. Only someone sitting
on the horse's back could've done this. Suddenly I
wanted to get my hands on the slime that had done
this. I walked slowly up to the big guy and fed him
the apple. Patted his nose, and of course, the one
moment I'm away from my own cares, I hear my Cheif in
the barn yelling for me at the top of his lungs

I thought a lot that night in my rack.I kept wondering
how long he had been owned by the slimy bastard.

I bought a bag of apples at the C-store, and headed
over to the stables before my muster time. There he
was, in his stall. I walked up, and realized the big
guy was watching me suspiciously. he turned the
unscarred side of his head twords me, and I held out
an apple. He popped his ears forward and slorp!
Bubbling and sighing he ate the apple. As he was
eating I noticed on the unscarred side some of his
hair was somewhat copper colored-just a patch-but it
gave me his name. "Hey Copper, have another apple!" I
fed him three, than I had to go to muster. I ended up
with the job of helping the vet give shots to the
horses-which consisted of a highly medical job of
holding the bag, or one of the harnesses. Three horses
later I was sent to unload feed from the pick-up, just
around the time Copper came in. As I was unloading I
heard a squeal and a thonk, and much bru-ha-ha. I get
over to the corral and the Vet's nursing a scalp
wound. I retrive my bag of apples and held one out-on
the opposite side from the vet, and the horse was at
me like a shot. "Look Out you dumb@$%*!" yells the
vet-I stand and hold out the apple-Copper grabs it on
the fly and calms down. Sticks his big head next to
mine, nose on my shoulder like a frightened kid. They
didn't get the horse his shot that day, but I made a
life-long friend. Nope, didn't whisper, but I did feed
him hay, and apples. Patted his forehead, rubbed his
nose.

Eventually, my scores went up, and I held on to a
comfortable upper 20% in my class. My Cheif calls me
in and is so impressed, he takes me off of extra duty.
Like Hell he does. I now am free on one day a weekend.
Didn't matter-I was at the stable both days, one day
taking my usual place shoveling end product-the other
taking care of, and eventually, riding Copper. Then
extra duty was done and I could spend the weekend
riding him! Heaven! It was like riding a hill! He put
me in mind of a Knight's heavy mount, and being an
overly romantic sort, I pictured us as such. Sort of a
nautical Don Quixote. Eventually, graduation rolled
around, and I had to leave him behind-it damn near
killed me on our last ride, and I bawled on his neck
for the last part of the trail-good thing we rode
alone- but the Stable master took great pains to keep
me informed on "my" horse.

He eventually went to a good home, right outside
Memphis. His new family were kind people, who had two
other horses from the same stable. All my heroes'
horses have been modeled on Copper-my "Platonic" horse.
My Copper horse.

Stuff that is available elsewhere.

The following stories are available other places, but I'll put 'em here too.

"Another damned, thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?"

Supposedly said by William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1781,to the author of "Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire."

It may not be true. It may not be accurately ascribed; but then, I love it and it seems to be an appropriate sentiment to start this blog.

I plan on placing bits and pieces, fragments and other meanderings here. So thus and sich.