Bodego Bay Expose'

We were approaching Bodego Bay. I sat in the back seat of the tiny Kia SUV. My wife, Claudette, was driving with her friend Jane* riding shotgun. Jane was a friend of Claudette's from when she lived in California. It was my first trip to California since I was there in the 1960s. As a sailor in the U.S. Navy my knowledge of California centered around the beaches and the topless dancers that were introduced into bars by Carol Doda, San Francisco's famous topless dancer. Today I was to see more of the natural landscape. 

We had visited Jane and found that she was a "cat person". She had two cats which I should politely refer to as the "cats from hell". A brief explanation may be needed here. When we visited Jane some things became obvious. What once had probably been a nice fabric covered sofa had been reduced to shreds. Claudette asked Jane if the cats had been declawed. She said they had not, because it was against California law. Claudette then asked if the tomcat had been "fixed". Our host said "Yes". My wife wanted to know if the cat had been given a choice, which would he have chosen to give up, his claws or his manhood or would that be cathood?

Jane’s kitchen wasn’t safe from the cats either. Jane explained that they were always “rearranging”  things in the lower cabinets, so she decided that the lower cabinets would be a cat apartment complex.  Jane kept her upstairs bath locked.  The cats had determined how to turn the doorknob and get in.  Actually the doorknob wasn’t an actual knob, it was more like some kind of lever.  We had to retrieve the key from the window sill opposite the bathroom in order to access it.  Yes, they were truly cats from hell.  

Earlier we had visited the city by the bay made famous by Tony Bennet and Carol Doda. We  did the touristy things like getting Ghirardelli's chocolate and seeing the sea lions at Pier 39. I did not adapt well as Claudette's passenger when we drove around the hilly streets. There was something about looking out over the hood of a car and seeing nothing but sky that unnerved me. But on this particular day we were traveling up Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. Jane lived in Alameda and we were driving north then west toward Point Reyes and along Bodega Bay.

We stopped for lunch in one of those small California coastal towns. The restaurant was a repurposed Victorian house. We dined on the patio. I had a golden beet salad.  It was delicious but I think I chose the wrong wine. The pinot fought with balsamic salad dressing.   We enjoyed the lunch entertainment. A young woman sang to the bossa nova beat. I had not heard this music in many years, but remembered it well from a visit to Rio. She had a beautiful voice, was easy on the eyes and had a great acoustic guitarist as an accompanist. I could have stayed longer but the ladies wanted to get to the beach. 

The little SUV wound its way up the highway along the coast. Soon we were at a small beach town. It was an overcast day, none of the California sun the Beachboys sang about. But there were people laying on blankets under the sunless sky. My traveling companions were the first to notice a young woman lounging in a monokini. It looked like the bottom half of a bikini to me. We did not stay at the beach very long and were soon driving south toward San Francisco. 

The ride back to Jane's house was rather uneventful. From the back seat I overheard quite a conversation concerning the topless bather. Claudette said, " Why do you think she was showing them off? I wouldn't do that!"

" I wouldn't either. But I never had that much to show!" Jane said.

"She sure was proud of them. It looked to me like she was posing. Did you notice how she made such a big deal about how she brushed the sand off?" Claudette wanted to know.

"I think they were new! And she was just showing them off!" said Jane.

"You mean she paid for them?" Claudette wanted to know.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure." Jane answered.

"I remember Holliday Chidress' song, Plastics,  about them. He's the lead singer of the Goodies.  Could you see the scars?" asked Claudette.

I continued to listen to the conversation and was not asked to contribute.  I did get a visual reprimand when Claudette caught a glimpse of my grin in the rearview mirror. 

__________________________________________________*not her real name

Man to Man

COVID-19, the faceless enemy, has changed our lives in many ways. Obviously, the most dramatic way our lives would be changed would be by contracting the virus itself. Contracting the virus can not only change a life but also extinguish it.

However, it has affected us in other less dramatic ways as well. Most particularly in our relationships with other people. I’m speaking of those relationships of a non-electronic nature. Those relationships which exclude social media. It is possible to have, based on my experience, true personal relationships on social media, but for this discussion it will be excluded. Those relationships curtailed by COVID-19 are those relationships dependent on the senses of touch, smell, or taste.

Of these senses, I place the tactile sense of touch at the top of my list. Why? Because to me the handshake, the touching of hands, is the way I remember many of the people I meet and have met.  The most globally accepted greeting since the ninth century BC is the handshake. Handshakes are frowned upon and in some municipalities forbidden during the COVID-19 pandemic. I miss this form of greeting, and I frequently find myself stopping my hand a few inches from the hand of the person I have just met.

I remember handshakes. It is one of the characteristics by which I remember the men I meet. Clay, my mechanic, had a strong handshake, and I could usually expect a transfer of a bit of axle grease from his hand to mine. My Uncle Dewey’s hand was that of a farmer, strong and calloused. Our blind preacher had soft hands with a stern but not extremely strong grip. While in Toledo, Spain, I met Manual, a sword maker. In his handshake I noticed he was missing part of his third finger on his right hand. But the most memorable handshake from my past is that of Mr. Sam Rogers. 

When I was a boy I attended a small Baptist church.  On Sunday morning I dreaded meeting Mr. Sam.  He would call me by name, including surname, and shake my hand. Thankfully the bones of youth are somewhat flexible and none broke. These are the handshakes of some of the men in my memories and why I remember them. My Daddy always said, “You can tell a lot about a man by his handshake.”

Whose handshakes of today will I remember? There aren’t any.  According to miscellaneous and sundry experts we aren’t allowed to shake hands due to the virus. It is almost like being denied one of the rites of manhood. I don’t like it. With the aura of mystery and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 virus, should I/we have given up a custom which has been around since the 9th century B.C.?

Jimbo's Big Money-making Scheme

“We won!” Jimbo exclaimed. 

I was not surprised at Jimbo’s show of jubilation. He was always more emotional than I. But as part owner of the enterprise, Jimbo and Tony Racing Team, I was happy that we had won our first race.  We were in our fifth year at Bradley elementary school and life was good.  It was good to have my blood brother with me at school now. His family had moved during the summer and now Jimbo and I could attend the same school.  It had been a number of years since we had stood under that big oak tree and cut our palms with our pocket knives and shook hands mixing our blood. He had a Roy Rogers knife and I had a Hopalong Cassidy knife.  I wasn’t exactly a Hoppy fan but Santa Clause somehow got confused. It was said that the great Cherokee chief, Attakulakula, had held war council under that tree. 

Neither Jimbo nor I came from very well-to-do families.  We didn’t receive allowances like the rich kids did.  We were always trying to find ways to get some money.  There was bubble gum to buy and fireworks and other necessities for growing boys that required money. Jimbo was always very clever at coming up with ways to get some money other than out right stealing. His latest scheme was a pretty good one although it did involve gambling.  As a Baptist, I was against gambling, or at least my momma said I was. Now Jimbo was a Methodist and he said they looked at things a bit differently. In other words, if we put a percentage of our winnings in the collection plate on Sunday, everything would be alright. But in the back of my mind I knew that if Momma found out I was betting on the races she would skin me alive. And that was no happy thought! So Jimbo came up with the idea of a critter race. Most folks reading this probably have never heard of a critter race much less seen one. 

The critter race idea was a spark of genius. A six foot in diameter circle was drawn on the dirt.  The critters were released in the center of the circle and the first one to get outside the circle was the winner. The only rule was that the critter had to be small enough to be hidden in your hand.

We won the first race easily.  Jimbo had found us one of the fastest critters around. It may sound weird but one of our critter’s biggest advantages was that it was afraid of the light. Jimbo was the trainer, vet and everything else pertaining to the critter. I was the financial manager.  I took care of the money. I covered our bets. The lowest bet allowed was a penny and you could go as high as you wanted. Billy Pickelsteimer would bet a quarter. His daddy owned the local gin and cottonseed oil mill. We liked Billy! 

On the second day we had a bit of controversy.  We could have said that Jimmy Robinson was trying to cheat but in order to cheat you have to break a rule. The only rule about contestants was that they had to fit in the palm of your hand. Jimmy’s critter was a spider with eight legs. We all complained and Craig Steifle wanted to fight about it but things were solved without violence. Jimmy plucked two legs off the spider and everyone quit complaining. People tried all kinds of critters though. Davey Wardlaw brought some kind of flying bug but it wouldn’t fly when he released it.  We were proud of our critter and kept him in a Three Torches matchbox. 

On the third day the other boys were getting a bit upset because we were winning all the races. So we made thiem a deal they could not resist.  We said that we would bet all our winnings on Friday’s race. Our winnings tallied up to $3.53. We were already planning on how to spend it. I was thinking that the races might get so popular that maybe we should think about charging admission. 

For whatever reason, I don’t remember, Jimbo had asked me to keep Pedro, that was the name of our critter, at our house. Friday morning at breakfast.  Mamma said to me, “Son, I was in your room putting away some clean underwear for you when I saw a pile of change on your dresser. There was over three dollars there. Where’d you get all that money?”

“Eh..” I began, “...at school Susie Wilkerson’s puppy got run over by a car so we’re collecting money to help her buy a new one.” I had lied. I  hoped Momma would never find out or I would have a rough row to hoe.

“Well, that’s a nice thing to do,” she said, then added, ” While I was in your underwear drawer, I found a match box. You know you’re not supposed to have matches! I opened  the box and would you believe a nasty, dirty, filthy cockroach jumped out. I stomped him flat, twisting my foot so there’s nothing but a greasy spot on the floor now. Now you’ve got to tell me what that cockroach was doing in your underwear drawer?”

I was speechless. I put my hand over my mouth, blew out my cheeks looking like I was about to throw up, knocked my chair over getting up from the table and ran out of the room. 

I was able to avoid Momma and get on the school bus. At school I told Jimbo the story. We forfeited our race and gave everybody their money back. When I got home I told Momma about the critter races but conveniently left out the part about betting on the races.

However, Pedro, whom we billed as the fastest cockroach in Mexico will live in infamy!  At least for us. And I never got skinned alive!

_____________________________________________________________

This is a work of fiction.

Night Ride With Sarge

“You can call me John, Frank, or Sarge,” he said.

I was trying to keep up with the tall man in blue as we walked across the parking lot toward the police cars. It was the last part of the Citizen Police Academy offered by our local police department. This was the “ride along”; the event we class members were waiting for.  And I was no different.  All  other lectures with exception of D.U.I. stops and using speed detection equipment had been at the station. 

“Okay, Sarge,” I said.

“We’ll be using this old Crown Vic since my car is in the shop,” he said as we approached the patrol car. “And remember, you will stay in the car at all times.  I don’t care if I’m getting my ass beat, you stay in the car!”

“Got it,” I said,  I did not feel argumentative. 

Once I entered the car, I realized the lack of space in the front. With the space needed for the laptop and other electronics the passenger seating was rather limited. 

“This car doesn’t have a laptop, so I’ll be doing things the old fashioned way,” he said as he lay several printed pages on the platform designed to hold the laptop.

He fired up the Crown Vic and we were on our way. I listened as he explained how the papers on the platform contained a list of what he had to do during his shift. “There’s something I always do at the beginning of each shift before I begin work on the list. We’re going to Bucky’s Quick Stop,” he said.

“We taking a break to get started?” I said with a smile.

“Yes and no,” Sarge retorted without any humor in his voice. 

H“Bucky’s is my local source of information about the community.  I can find out if anything suspicious is going on around there.”

“Pretty smart,” I said.  

There was no response. I had hoped I would see some kind of action. Cops, Adam 12, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues and more recently Blue Bloods were my favorite TV shows. 

We drove around while Sarge worked his list. He checked one place for a vagrant and a house where criminal activity was suspected.  And finally we were heading out of town on a busy fourlane street when Sarge said, “Hold on!”

He turned on the blue lights and he executed a u-turn. The tires squealed. I heard the engine gasping for air as the acceleration threw me back in my seat. I always get an adrenaline rush when I’m in a vehicle accelerating. Our quarry was a small red pick-up truck. 

"What’d he do?” I wanted to know.

“He didn’t dim his lights,” Sarge said.

The truck pulled over into the center and stopped. Sarge alighted and approached the vehicle but soon returned to the car. He was holding a driver’s license in his hand. “Do you know how to pronounce this name?” he asked, showing the license to me.

“Can’t help you, Sarge,”  I answered.  I have never been good at pronouncing  Middle Eastern names,

Sarge continued to stare at the driver’s license, then,  with a sigh he went back to the motorist.  Upon his reentering the police car, I asked him if he had given the driver a ticket. He said he had not, but had given him a stern lecture about driving on a restricted driver’s license.  The young man driving the pick-up was violating the restrictions of his license.

The night staggered on. No excitement.

The radio crackled.  Sarge said it was a rookie cop who needed a veteran’s help. A few minutes later we were at another convenience store. There was a young officer, an elderly lady, and a small Indian man in front of the store.

I stayed in the car as Sarge approached the trio.  Within a few minutes the young cop had put the old lady in his police car and the Indian man had disappeared back into the store. As they were leaving the young cop stopped his car beside our car. 

Sarge said to the young officer, “Remember, when you get her home go next door and tell her daughter what happened. She’ll take care of her.”

“What was that all about, Sarge?”  I wanted to know, thinking, did they arrest little old ladies?

As we turned back on the major street, Sarge said, ” Hijab, the store owner, called the police. He couldn’t get the lady to leave.  Even though she had driven there, she said the car wasn’t hers. He offered to call someone for her but she said she didn’t know anybody. So he called us. This happens every now and then with old people.  They shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”

I was not fond of Sarge’s last statement. I’m seventy-six. 

We had a few more traffic stops that night. Not much excitement, and that was good. In retrospect, I would go through the Citizen Police Academy again.

And I'll get my police excitement from television.

_____________________________________________________________

The names have been changed in thi story for obvious reasons.

Hog Killin'

"Hey, look, we're smokin'," I said to my buddies. We were huddled together in the predawn semi-darkness. As we breathed out the water vapor in our breaths condensed forming clouds of water droplets appearing as smoke. The morning air was cold.. It was like this every year at hog killin' time when it first got cold. I asked Daddy why we always waited until it got cold. He said the weather had to be cold or else the hog meat would spoil if the weather was warm. 

"I'll be glad when I'm old enough to make real smoke from a cigarette!" Jimbo, my very best friend said.  We were blood brothers.

"My grandpa says cigarettes make him cough a lot. I don't want to cough like he does, " BT said.

BT was our newest friend. He had just moved close by. "I ain't seen a hog killin' before," said the smaller boy with the kinky black hair. He was a bit smaller than we were but strong for his size. I recognized the cowboy shirt he had on. I had worn it until I outgrew it. Momma said I should add it to the clothing drive at the church. I didn' t want to give it up. But I did. 

“I can’t wait til breakfast.  We always have brains and eggs!” I said.

“Yum, yum!” added Jimbo.

BT said nothing.

Jimbo said, yawning, " The men do most of the work. We just keep the fires going around the wash pots for  boiling water and cooking lard. We do other stuff they ask us to do too. If we're lucky they'll make us a ball out of the hog's bladder and we can kick it around."

"They make a ball outta the hog's innards?" BT said. 

"They shore do!" Jimbo said. 

Uncle Joe always made us a ball of the hog's bladder when they were cutting up the hog. Momma said Uncle Joe was lazy but he was a lot of fun to be around. He showed me a lot about fishing. He went fishing a lot. 

“Y’all boys keep them fires burning,” Uncle Jack said as he hurried by. He was my mother’s brother and younger than the other men.

“Yessir,” we said together.

We three kept the fires a burning. BT had come with his daddy in this old beat up pulpwood truck. His daddy cut pulpwood for our cousin George and he let Big John, BT's daddy, use the truck off the job. His daddy deserved the name ' cause he sure was big. They called my daddy Big Jack but he was not near as big as Big John. BT, his daddy and momma lived about two miles away. Momma said that BT had a baby brother too. Daddy said they lived in a shotgun shack. I don't know what that is. But I never had seen Big John with no shotgun.  

Daddy and Uncle Luther, my grandpa’s brother, had buried a fifty-five gallon drum half way in the ground at an angle. Boiling water would be put in the drum to soak the hog in. Hot water softened the bristles of hog hair making them easier to pull out. When they finished pulling hair off the hog he would be clean as a pin.  The accident happened when Daddy and Uncle Jack were putting hot water in the drum.   

They were carrying the boiling water in foot tubs. BT had brought this little dog with him. It wasn't much more than a pup but it got in Daddy's path and tripped him up. He lost his footing and spilled that foot tub of boiling water on his left leg. We heard him holler and ran to see what happened. He was laying on the ground, his face clenched in pain. His face was pale. There was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He had bit his lip. Everybody was gathering around, they had heard him hollar. 

"We've gotta get him to a doctor. Put him in my car!” yelled Uncle Jack.  The tall thin man drove a race car for Stubby's Garage in the Saturday night stock car races at the fairgrounds. He always took off with tires a-spinning and stopped sliding.

"Ole Doc Brown ain't in his office on Saddays," chimed in Uncle Joe. 

Big John said, "I can go git Cindy."

"Why?" asked Uncle Jack.

The grizzled little man, my great uncle Luther, stretched up to his full five feet and two inches and said calmly, "Cindy can talk out the fire"

Uncle Jack's face was turning red.  He said a bad word. And then he said, "You know colored people always lie!"

“John, go get Cindy!” said Uncle Luther.

In a long minute Uncle Luther came face to face with Uncle Jack. He looked up into the younger man's face and said, " Jack, Big John don't lie!"

"BT, go get yo' mammy," Big John yelled. 

And BT was gone. Although it was two miles to his house by the dirt road, it was only bout a half mile through the woods. BT was probably the fastest boy I had ever seen. I saw him catch a young rabbit on the run once. 

The next time we saw him he was carrying a little baby and following his momma out of the woods behind our house. His momma was a kinda small woman with her head tied up in a bright red and yellow kerchief. I recognized the dress she had on, it used to be my momma's. Momma had given to the clothing drive for the poor at the Cedar Rock Baptist Church. Momma said she had worn it for twenty years and she was happy to let somebody else have it. 

Cindy took charge right away and said,” Y’all move Mister Jack to some place where I minister to him in private!”

Momma complained but complied with Cindy's wishes. They moved Daddy into a small building nearby and Cindy closed the door. 

However, young boys, being curious, found a way to see what was going on inside the building. We found a crack in the outside wall aboud an inch wide. We took turns looking inside. Daddy was laying on an old table and Cindy was bending over his leg. Her hand was palm down over the burn and moving away from her face it looked like she was blowing on the burned leg. She was saying something, but it sounded like mumbling to me. BT said, “Them’s words from the Bible.”

All of a sudden Daddy stopped moaning. Then he sat up and got off the table. We ran around to the door in time to see him and Cindy come out. 

We gathered around with the grown ups and looked at Daddy's leg. It looked bad but he said it didn’t hurt. Momma gave him a big hug and took him in the house to bandage his leg. Cindy gave us boys a hard look. I think she knew we had been watching.

The rest of us went about getting ready to kill the hog. BT, Jimbo and I had to get the water boiling again. By the time Daddy came out of the house it was boiling. He went over to Uncle Joe's truck and got the .22 rifle from the gun rack behind the seat and walked toward the hog pen. 

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Cindy had gone home with her baby. The evening sun was sinking low as Jimbo and I were cooking down the lard. BT was looking for his pup to take him home. Big John was waiting for him in the truck and he was taking home a lot more meat than the usual pig's feet. I left Jimbo with the fire to help BT. We found the little pup behind the barn. The pup snapped at BT and tried to bite him when he tried to pick him up. I saw what was the problem straight away. One of the pups front legs was broken.I guess when Daddy tripped over him his leg got broken.   It was twisted in an awkward way. When BT saw this he held his hand palm down over the pups leg and mumbled some words. I watched as the dog's leg moved back to the normal position without BT even touching it. The little dog stood up on four good legs and wagged his tail. BT abruptly turned around and said to me, "You didn't see that!"

Until now, I've never admitted that I did.

____________________________________________________________

In southern Appalachia and other parts of the rural South there are people with healing skills.  Some stop pain from burns, some can stop bleeding and heal other injuries. Some believe such claims to be true and others explain them away as hypnotism or local hoaxes. Although the story above is fiction, I remember that there was a man in our community who reportedly had such powers.