Picture caption: "Are you sure you got the marshmellow slicer in?"
Flirtatious: "I see what you're saying!"
Real Mood? Subdued
Prediction? Brad will tell us why he really dumped Jennifer.
So I mention a few entries or two ago, that I'm going to talk about our trip to California to pick up a car load of family trinkets. I'm struggling with how best to reveal the enlightenment that's come from that trip.
Here I am looking at the trek as kind of a give-in gesture on my part, to some irrational passion about "things." I'm reducing the whole mission to an innate female folly of attaching human sentiment to manufactured goodies. I don't THINK I'm being mean. I think I'm just teasin'. I think it's going to be amusing to put it all into the context of early man's distinction as a "Hunter-Gatherer." Here, I say, is a chance to toss in something "In Defense of The Cave Woman." ( If you are in a heteorsexual relationship with anyone, don't miss "In Defense of The Caveman" when it comes to a town near you. It puts "Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars" to shame.)
I'm also trying to equate this journey with a squirrel's drive to store up nuts for the winter, JUST IN CASE. And there is the pack rat's seemingly senseless storing of anything it finds lying around. I'm thinking all this when Peggy and I simultaneously espy this truck. At first we are united in our amazement and amusement at the irony. In fact it's Peggy who turns shutterbug, cranking off frame after frame of this bizarre sight. It could pass for a "circus act."
I've said, and here's a case in point, that I'm letting you know when I yank my tongue out of my cheek and get serious. Whilst I'm enjoying the humor of the highway, I sense something. I see a little tear and I know the mood is changing. She tells me, but I already know what it's all about. I don't think she wants me to talk about it so I won't get specific in her case. But I'll give you some other bell ringing instances that tell us "things" often have value beyond their surface.
At least once a year I, or a reporter nearby, covers a story about a hoarder. First time reaction is just disgust. How can anyone stack up all these newspapers and old boxes for no good reason? Why is this woman keeping 200 cats in her home?
The disgust goes away when it dawns on you there are answers to those questions. Something very dramatic and traumatic triggers this behavior. But it isn't the hoarders getting my attention right now. And it isn't, for the most part, women.
I think one of the reasons men like women is 'cause women cry. Women get to let out the tears men hold back. Men get some relief by comforting the female soul. But this is not universally the case. I've seen many a "macho" man reduced to tears over the loss of "things."
One of my brother-in-laws can do anything with a tool. I'm still mad (kidding) that I traded him an old volkswagen for a TV set decades ago. At the time I was just sure I'd come out ahead in the deal. I just knew that VW was on it's last legs. Well the TV lasted about a year. He turns the VW into a dune buggy that may still be bouncing over sandhills today.
This is the same adult guy I see sitting on a curb in front of his house bawling his eyes out. It was probably an electrical short that set his garage on fire destroying everything inside. Seeing him probably wraps up any arson investigator's job for the day.
I cover a natural gas explosion that totally destroys a home. I'm at the scene the following day when the home owner arrives. This is a home the man spends everything he has remodeling. He does it all with his own hands. He gives it his soul. He's just just returned from a celebratory family vacation. He, his wife, and his two children will move into the home he built.
The home is collapsed and so is the man. He crumbles into a crouch amongst the splintered lumber and the twisted pipes. He wails in unbelievable pain. At this moment he sees no future. Once again the arson investigator can head on home.
My sister Brenda is on the phone with me. I'm in the newsroom and she is at her home in the Oakland Hills. There is a fire nearby and she thinks she should get out but doesn't know what to take. "Just get out now," I yell. Like many a fire victim she makes some strange decisions. Yes, she runs around grabbing family photos. She runs to the car and tosses them in and decides she can go back for one more thing. She runs back into the house, looks around, and grabs a bunch of bananas. A bunch of bananas. Who knows why? Things!
It's one of the worst property loss fires in California history. Block after block of nothing but ashes. Peggy and I join her the following week walking through the gray dust. It's her first trip back. Her tears have been shed. Now she's looking for things. Not washing machine things. Not couches or television set things. She is looking for real value. She is looking for things that when you touch them a life time of emotional memories explode in your brain. There is some fused glass that represents two pieces of art she admires. There are some keepsake remnants of the kid's (both adult kids) she hadn't thought to save. Left behind for a bunch of bananas.
Let's sample the cliche. "A least we're alive. Everything else is just things." No. Not just things. Some things are more than that. They have value. They are packed with emotion and memories. And by golly they ought to saved.
Still, isn't that pickup truck the funniest thing you've ever seen on a highway?
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