Haircut? Me?

CAPTION: "What do you mean where's my comb?"

There was a wonderful moment of humor relief at the service for my niece Donna this summer. (For any new comers, Donna died of breast cancer at 42. Donna was a beautiful woman.) One of Donna's male neighbors recalls welcoming Matt and Donna when they first moved in. The neighbor clearly recalls looking at Matt, then Donna, and then whispering to himself, "man did this guy over achieve."

I, of course,  did the generic laugh with everyone else. But whilst drawing last night? First a likeness of Peggy? (The first one by the way she's ever allowed me to show in public.)Then a self portrait? That little joke became a lot more personal.  

We were up in Breckenridge (mountain ski and tourist area) this past week. Whilst there we bought Peggy an appropriate cup stenciled with the message, "Living With A Norwegian Builds Character."

Look at these drawings and "I GUESS SO!"

I mean how would you like to wake up to this guy every morning? Just think how much worse it would be if I hadn't combed my hair?

Some people, Peggy included I believe, think its high time I got back to school and occupied my mind with activities that might benefit society. That comes tommorrow unless someone with decision making power reads this first.  Ta Ta summer.

So Long Pal

CAPTION: "Is that you Sheila?"

My heart weighs a ton today. When I was a child I had a standing wish that someday I would have a Pen Pal. It would be someone from a distant land, someone I'd probably never meet in person, but someone I could just let loose with, be vulnerable with, care about, long for the wisdom of.  I know I gave it a shot a few times, but it never worked out.

Then along comes this blog, and out of the woodwork comes Sheila from Yonkers, New York. She is a woman of many wonderful words, a few of which I share with you now.

From Sighlemaccaba:

"I was right there with you, feeling the blissful peace of the storm."

"Absolutely gob smackingly brilliant. Ay Hombre!"

"I guess you qualify for OLD when you know what a BLOG is but never heard of My Space."

"Baited breath, dear boy, baited breath. You sure know how to keep a person in suspenders."

"As for escalators? First of all why is it called an escalator? Does it escalate anything? It crawls up through space at a snail's pace. But.....if you ride backwards, you can check out the cute guys and gals behind you. I find an escalator soothing and relaxing, a good place to have a nice cup of tea, or maybe a gin and tonic."

"No Comment."

I haven't heard from Sheila from Yonkers for while. I know she's been fighting cancer. Two days ago I was excited to see an email pop up with her user name. But when I opened it, it read, "Remove from Mailing List."

I sure miss you pen pal.

My First Wish Is....

CAPTION: "It is the Year of The Chihuahua, and I am here to grant you 20 wishes."

 

I got up and watched dust particles burn up in the atmosphere overnight. I caught about 20 of the little devils. According to my myth memory, that means I get 20 wishes granted this year. Wish number one is that I get a little nap time later today.

For those of you who've never experienced insomnia in August? And those of you who are just generally astronomically disinterested?  The sky over night in August, in just the right conditions, has a shooting star performance called the PERSEID SHOWER. Personally I wish no one had ever told me that shooting stars are just dust particles discarded by passing comets. It takes away the romance, don't you think?

But? I'm not ready to give up this GRANT YOU A WISH myth. I don't know about you, but 20 wishes granted over a 12 month period would be, in today's vernacular, AWESOME! 

Now for the uninitiated wish maker? Don't be greedy. I can tell you right now from personal experience? Wishes for eternal youth and "astronomical" wealth are not typically granted.

I think its only when you "blow out a candle" on a birthday cake that you are supposed to keep your mouth shut about your wishes. So I'm going to give you my twenty right here, right now. We'll check it next August to see how I did.

1. I WISH they'd build at least 20 percent fewer traffic circles in new developments across the country. Those of you who've visited often know I hate those things. Remember the scene in European Vacation where Chevy Chase can't get off the circle? ( I may need one of you who is good at counting to help me out with this one.)

2. I WISH there will be enough of a fuel crisis this year to get half the 32 to 45 year old soccer moms out from behind the wheels of SUVS.  There must some other way they can release their agresssion. I've seen women in the boxing ring? (I suppose that rules out asking any woman in that age group to count traffic circles for me.)

3. I WISH some scientist would invent some sort of food additive that tastes like transfat.

4. I WISH we'll all learn to "love our neighbors" so much this year, some lawmaker will be motivated to write a bill that will outlaw Home Owner's Associations.

5. I WISH they'd finished this damned road project behind our house.

6. I WISH  the Colorado peach crop will have a better yearahead. (This year's offerings are puny and not quite as tasty.)

7. I WISH they'd decide to bring back Peggy's favorite Ice Cream Variety. (That wish is not quite as altruistic as it may appear. You ever seen or heard a woman scream in the cold storage aisle of a grocery store? It's not pretty!)

8. I WISH when we go out to dinner? Which is a lot? They stop asking us, "Is this your first time dining with us?" This is a wish Peggy and I devoutly share. Of what possible value would our answer be? We're going to lie!

9. I WISH they'd temper the "Overstock.Com" commercials in the coming year. I'm tired ot getting aroused with the thought of getting a mail order shirt a dollar cheaper. (Only those of you who've seen and focused on their ads will get this one.)

10. I WISH men and women will start knitting baby clothes at home. (My Stepdaughter Rhonda is with child, so I've been dragged into an incredible number of stores that cater to the little ones. Are you kidding me? I had no idea this industry existed. So these are those people living in those big houses on the golf courses.)

11. I WISH we'd find some path out of this real estate dilemma. (I fear these irrational price differentials are just part of some James Bond Villan's plot to get us all to move to some cheap land he bought in Mexico.)

12. I WISH bureaucrats who write for a living, will see the simplicity light. KISS. KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. I'm coming up on Medicare and I understand NOTHING.  

13. I wish the guys and gals at Jiffy Lube would stop showing me the air cleaner and telling me it's dirty. What's their point?

14. I WISH Target, and Costco, and Walmart and now SEARS will stop selling groceries.  I'm getting so confused. Can't anything stay the way it is for say, maybe a year?

15. I WISH the grocery industry will stop feeling the need to offer ten thousand varieties of chips. How are we supposed to remember which ones we like? I'mserious now. These thingsare taking up two full aisles in most grocery stores. (And that's not even counting the organic offerings.)

16. I WISH the MEDICAL COLLUSION will cut down on the number of daily medical reports. I can't even look at a cup of coffee with a straight face. I don't know if it's going to take ten years off my life, or cure my bunyons.

17. I WISH India the best, but hope they find better job opportunities there than helping us fix our computers over the phone.

18. I WISH students will stop writing to me asking how to get to a classroom I have no idea how to get to.

19. I WISH someone will invent a pencil sharpener that actually sharpens a pencil. ( I know pencils are passe as we progress into our "PAPERLESS" society. But, hey, if you've just gotten into drawing?)

20. I WISH....Oh, yeah, theres that nap.

"Perseid", by the way, means this dust comes from the Perseus constellation. Perseus is the Greek man-god who slew the many snake headed Gorgon Medusa. So? Greek to me!

So You See It's Like This.....

"What you been up to?", someone queried recently. I'm quite sure they were trying to disguise their disgust over my absence from this forum.

But look, the fall (school) is nigh, it's hot, and I just might not feel like doing this, okay?

But here's the truth, as I see it.  Recently many of my favorite Metropolitan State alumnae have asked for, and been gladly granted my aid and advice. It's a bit rewarding to be RIPE enough to actually have something to say that might help!

But that's only a piece of the truth.

"What have I been doing?"  Drawing!

Most of the women in my family, wife, sisters, neices and some female cousins are artists. At least two of them, my younger sister for one, pretend to make livings at it.

(I'll give you Brenda's web site at the end of this. She is pretty diverse. You'll find something you like.)

I have a late uncle, Gabe, who dabbled in oil. I have a male cousin, Joe, who had a studio in Santa Fe.  So you think it might be in my genes?

I've never been in an art class. I've looked at, but never read an art text. Art History was the only college course that put a 'D' on my transcript. I'm pretty sure I've never, ever drawn a straight line, or recognizable circle.  But I've always wanted to draw. So?

Too many well meaning elders in our societies? They wander around graduation parties telling just matriculated Dustin Hoffman, "Plastics my boy. Get into plastics." Today substitute IT, Pharaceuticals, Insurance, Brokerage for plastics. We are naysayers, and dream killers.   

I preach to all my students. Don't be a "WANNA BE!" Now be flexible, and prepared to adjust your dream as you go. But if you've got a dream? If you wanna be? WELL GO BE! You will never regret it.

So what's something I've always wanted to be? I've always wanted to be a DRAWER, and not the kind you keep your underwear in.

So that's what I've 'BEEN UP TO!"

"I been drawin'!"

Yeah, those are mine up there.

Oh, here's Brenda's web site. Tell her Paul sent you and she'll send me a ten dollar coupon towards an art lesson.

www.brendareinertson.com

Let's See Now.....

CAPTION: "Why are all those boys crying mommy?" "I'm not sure Sugar, but I'll bet it has something to do with that mean man."

I know this BLOGGING business can mean just about anything. As a LOG, why it oughta record significant events of an assigned day. But since there are no rules, why not use it once in a while to record fractured history.....events remembered.

Well I've had so much feedback telling the Narcolepsi story, I've decided to keep on this path of telling old media stories for a while. Here is one of the older ones. 

Whilst working in radio in Kansas back in the early 70's I stumbled on to this great opportunity in TV. A guy comes to town, Bob Sebby by name, and wants to be a weekend disc jockey. But his real mission in town is to set up the first Cable Local Orignination TV station. And in so doing it's part of his job to come up with local programming to serve the community.

As fate would have it Bob becomes my roommate. (Any of you considering careers in radio and TV? That first job in rural Kansas, or Arkansas, or Alaska?  You WILL need a roommate.) Well anyway with Bob a captive audience, I convince him we should start a little show for pre-schoolers called "Paul and the Little People."

Just so you know, at this juncture in life, I'd pretty much participated in pedagogy at almost all levels of education, sans PRE SCHOOL.

So I was a little taken back when on LIVE, one of my six pre-school stars stands up and proudly announces with magnificent volume and melifluous tone, "PAUL, I HAVE TO PEE. AND I HAVE TO PEE RIGHT NOW!"

Some things in life you just block out of your memory bank because you just don't want to remember how you solved a particular problem. That's the case here. I have no idea what we did on air while he was off peeing. Luckily in those early cable days local origination TV programming wasn't a really hot audience item.

A later event with "Paul and the Little People" does painfully stick in my mind. I wanted to spice up the show and so Bob and I decide to take the kids out to Rita and Doug's farm. (Rita is my cousin.)

There we would film the little whipper snappers getting their first experiences with farm beasts.

Well, the planned highlight of the shoot was to put all five of the kids who showed up that day on top a Shetland Pony. Cousin Rita suggested one or maybe two at a time would be good. No, I'm seeing all five of them up there at once.

(I don't know if Bob still has the film, but I can pretty much guarantee you it would pull down a prize on America's Funniest Home Video.)

Okay, I start the process, lifting the first pre-schooler up on top of, oh let's call him Shorty. So there is no saddle on Shorty. So once I get John-John up there I implore him to hang on to shorty's mane real tight.

Well John-John does pretty good while I'm hefting Rita's boy Matt up behind him. Pretty good means John-John  is slipping away from me in the slightest fashion. 

Okay, as I'm pulling him back to the starting position, Matt it now slipping towards me, or how do you say it, in the opposite direction?  But I'm young and agile. I pull the two together and implore Matt to hang on to John-John just as tight as possible.

This accomplished, I call for pre-schooler three. I get little Jimmy up there without a lot of difficulty, although the three of them are listing slightly toward port.

(Oh, Bob isn't a lot of help at this juncture because he's shooting. And Rita still can't believe I want all five of them up there.)

Up next is Robert. Well when I get Robert in place a new phenomenon crops up. Even though they are all hanging on to each other? John-John and Matt are now leaning East, and Jimmy and Robert are feeling the gravity pull of the West.  It takes all of my arm's lengths to avert disaster. But even averted, I'm starting to hear little whimpers. Okay let's get this over with, bring on little George.

Well George can't quite decide which way he is going to lean, but up straight is apparently not an option. So he just starts to fall like a rock off the other side? I run over there to the rescue him only to see Robert falling the other way. There just isn't enough agility on the planet for me to save the day.

You ever sit in the tub and have this little itty bitty sliver of soap left that you accidentally drop in the water?  Ever tryto retrieve that sliver? YOU GET THE PICTURE.

But I told you this would win a PRIZE on AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS!

Where did all these little Pre-School Wranglers land when the slid off Shorty? Right in the middle of this humungous sticker patch. The little whimpers of yore? Now we have bawling of immense proportions. I'm pretty sure they sent the heifers on the south 40 racing off in the opposite direction.

Me? Mercifully with help from Bob and Rita, it takes a about an hour to pull all the stickers one by one out of their little bodies.  They may still be bawling.

I think "Paul and The Little People" lasted maybe one more show?  Oddly about five years after that a Network series pops up calling itself, "Paul and The Little People."  

I used to put it on my resume that I hosted a TV show for pre-schoolers called "Paul and The Little People." But then people would ask what I did on that show.

I can still hear all five of them screaming at once. I still feel the guilt. I often wonder it the stickers left scars, of the skin and the soul.

Oh, well, now the truth as I recall it has been told. Bob Sebby is now some big Cable "Big Wig" in Omaha.  I hope he doesn't still have a copy of the film.  Bob?

Out Like a Lamb

CAPTION: "So what do you think we ought to feed the Reinertsons?"

 

We had dinner with Jeff and Janey at their house last night. Big Deal. We try to have dinner with Jeff and Janey at least once a year. You know typically it's women at this age that keep social relationships alive? And Peggy and Janey do have some tennis ties. But in this case its Jeff and I who are the driving force.  We've been friends since the mid 70's when we worked as journalists in the same market. On many levels our friendship just doesn't make sense.

I was reared a city boy, Jeff a country kid. My dad was a Los Angeles County fireman, Jeff's was the Morgan Country Sheriff. His life career choice drifted towards public relations, mine stayed with news.

(It's a little known truth that news people and pr people sneak out and have drinks after work in anonymous sleazy bars. You also find liberals and conservatitives consorting with each other in these same establishments. And believe it or not? Print and electronic journalists are often caught tipping a few together in back booths of these dens of iniquity.)

Anyway, Jeff and I have somehow been able to deftly hop around issues that should have, by all rights, divided us. What has kept the friendship going I think? It's true we've helped each other through some critical life changing events. But more important than that, I think, has been a mutual insatiable irreverance for just about everything on the planet.

Let me give you a for instance. I was once the Public Affairs Director for a radio station. In essence that means, in addition to news responsibililties, it was my job to get 7 hours of public affairs programming on the air a week. Let me tell you, that is no mean feat. It doesn't take very long at that rate to run out of non-profit organizations (FCC Regs at the time) with an intelligible spokesperson. So, and I'm not kidding here, I was not beyond chatting for a half hour on the air with the head of the American Cheese Association.

Now you always like to have something in the can (recorded) for those times when someone cancels, or there is a technical problem with a tape. Well that happened one week when Jeff was dropping by the station for lunch. I think he was working for the health department at the time.  Anyway, I blurt out my frustration to him saying I need a half hour with somebody right now. So we share a glance and a common spark is lit.

"What's an interesting health issue going on right now?"

"Narcolepsy."

"Think you could fake it?"

"Heck, yeah."

So Jeff became a sufferer of Narcolepsy,  and the Morgan County President of the Narcolepsy Society. In addition to nodding off a couple of times during our interview, we were able to incorporate his role as head of the selection committee for the Miss Colorado Beauty Pageant, which was in fact at the time, being held in  his county.  Jeff tells this wonderful story of the pain and embarrassment he suffers falling asleep during the Swim Suit competition. 

I can tell this story now for two reasons. First, the ownership of that station changed five times since that interview.And I now think the call letters have gone to the great alphabet in the sky.

But more importantly? Something came up and we never had (got) to run it.

This is one of those long routes to getting to any point. But two days before dinner, Jeffs calls and says , "I hope you guys like Lamb."

To be fair at this moment I'm thinking he is going to suggest some mideast eatery where you sit on a pillow and eat with your fingers.

"No we don't like lamb. Not the way most people cook it."

(To be fair to myself I had no idea at this juncture he was going to be the cook.)

Now I'm just guessing here, and this is not a judgement call, just an observation. If Peggy and Janey had been on the phone the conversation would have been loaded with careful probing and tap dance responses with no one wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Jeff?

"Well I guess we'll have STEAK then."

Well as it turned out we had steak and lamb, and for the second time in my life, I liked the lamb. Yeah, Peggy and I both had some of both. That's it.

You know there may not BE a point to this story? I've been semi-retired for five years now. Jeff has joined me in that status this year. So I had hoped my brain would somehow tie this story into going "into retirement like a lamb, not a lion." 

Nope! It just is not going to happen.  Oh, well.  

I FEEL SO ALONE

CAPTION: "Round and round the Mulberry bush the monkey chased the weasel." 

 

Okay, I did my homework. It is not true the engineer who built one of this country's first traffic circles in Long Beach, California died in an accident in that circle. He'd designed it for getting to aquatic events in the 1932  L.A. Olympics. (Share that history with any developer who tells you he has this great new idea for traffic control in your neighborhood.) It's a little sad. It's always been such a wonderful urban myth for those of us who hate driving in circles.

I'm bringing this up because here in this state every developer and engineer with a protractor is dropping a traffic circle into our urban and suburban lives. You read the literature? Traffic circles slow traffic, reduce accidents, are friendly to pedestrians.

I'm sorry but this is TRULY  a case of WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES  AROUND. And I am NOT buying it.  I know there are people who've moved here form the East to get away from traffic circles ( Roundabout is the new fancy name).

Sorry guys. They never did really catch on in California, where it is actually codified into law to "EXPEDITE THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC." If traffic circles EXPEDITE the flow of traffic? California would have them, all kinds of them.

(I know that because I beat a traffic ticket in court with that argument once.)

Anyway, if you read most of the available literature on the damned things right now, they have come to save us from all our traffic sins. Where have I been?

I hate the things. Nobody I know knows how to use them. Nobody I know likes them. I am a nervous wreck getting into and out of them.  And I can't count the number of times I've missed my street because I was paying attention to the traffic instead of where I'm supposed to be going.

Well I just ran into one today...so I thought I'd share my frustration with you. If there is someone out there who loves them? Please stand up! I promise I'll keep it our little secret.