Snakes and Dadders

The great white hunter

In preparation for submitting my jobs blog for publication at Kindle Digital Publishing (link coming soon!), I visited Buffi in Vallejo to look through some old phamily photo albums to harvest some good images for the book. Upon seeing the picture at the top of this post, I asked, "Why did Dad have a gun?", to which Buffi said, "Because... he had a gun."

A simple answer to a silly-sounding question. The reason I asked it is because I had never seen any guns around the house, nor do I recall my father ever mentioning any interest in firearms or hunting. The picture was taken a few years before I came on the scene. Buffi then told me a remarkable story.

Our family lived in various areas of California -- mostly around the Los Angeles area, Sacramento, and the rural north state. Dad always enjoyed hikes, and we kids enjoyed going on them with him. Not because we necessarily enjoyed his company, but kids usually want to be included in things their parents do, and also he tended to yell at us less when he was enjoying himself.

So he had that rifle ostensibly to protect my siblings from such threats as coyotes, mountain lions, and other dangerous wildlife. I also think his trigger finger was itching to shoot something, without having to go to the trouble of obtaining a hunting permit.

The story goes that on one hike, Dad and the sibs happened upon a rattlesnake next to the trail. Rather than just keeping their distance and going their separate way from the serpent, Dad decided that this "threat" needed to be dealt with by meting out some good old-fashioned frontier justice. He told the kids to head up the trail to a "safe" distance while he dispatched the menace. He then put the barrel of the rifle (which I believe she said was a .22 caliber) right up close to the snake's head. Admittedly, a snake is pretty hard to hit, especially with anything other than a shotgun, but c'mon! Obviously, I didn't get my natural sharpshooting skills from Dad.

I am told that a rattle snake can strike up to two-thirds of its body length, so even if that snake was just a three-footer, it could easily have bridged the distance between the end of the barrel and Dad. I can't help but think that the snake must have been coiled and shaking its rattles like crazy.

So Dad fired, and simultaneously the snake dove down a hole. He wasn't sure if he had actually hit it, so he proceeded to stop up the hole with rocks, because that always works with snakes.

I later had my own experience with Dad and a rattlesnake. The sibs had long since moved out on their own, so it was just me and a now-unarmed Dad against nature, red in tooth and claw. I can't help but wonder if, upon hearing of the attempted assassination and subsequent Cask of Amontillado-ing of the snake, Mom made her husband give up firearms.

Dad and I were hiking somewhere. As I recall it, I was a few yards behind Dad. Suddenly, I saw a rattlesnake within striking distance of me. Perhaps it was rattling, which caused me to notice it. I froze in terror, but I managed to scream for Dad. He came back, and somehow we were able to get away without harm to any parties. But when Dad related the story later, he said the snake was right next to him, and it was I who alerted him to the danger. I don't know how I would have seen it, since I distinctly recall being several feet to the rear. I guess since he had been emasculated by not having a handy weapon, he had to make his part of the story seem more important. I guess we'll never know what really happened that day.

This post is actually supposed to be about what a fuck-up Dad was, but while we're on the subject of snakes, I would like to relay my own battle with a ferocious reptile.

It was when I worked as a wooden utility pole inspection and treatment foreman -- which you can read all about over on the jobs blog, or soon to be available wherever fine Kindle digital and print books are sold.

My crew and I were working a line of poles in the arid lands east of Reno, Nevada, along the Truckee River. My digger Art and I had walked ahead of our treater Cory, who was still preparing the tools and materials of his trade at the truck. We were crossing a plain of rocks and sagebrush. It was a windy day. As we approached our first pole, we became aware of a buzzing sound ahead of us. Sometimes the tops of old poles become kind of frayed, resembling Bart Simpson's hair. When the wind blows over and through these fissures in the wood, it makes a buzzing sound. We assumed that's what we were hearing, and proceeded on our quest. Suddenly the buzzing became much louder. We realized it was a rattlesnake, and a big one by the sound of it. We immediately turned tail and ran at top speed back whence we came.

Cory by then was following us with his wares, and was surprised to see us charging in his direction. When we stopped and explained why were running, Cory (who was Black) said, "I've never seen White people move that fast!"

We began throwing rocks towards where we had last heard the snake. We hoped to be able to encourage it to move away from its spot between us and the pole. We couldn't see it, but one of my missiles apparently was a direct hit. A furious hissing and buzzing ensued, and a sage bush began shaking violently. I don't know if I had dealt it a mortal wound, and it was in its death throes, or if it was just injured and angry and lashing out at anything near it. Eventually the sound and the fury abated, but we didn't bother to confirm any possible kill. Instead we treated the pole (and all the other ones in the area) as quickly as we could, with at least one person keeping a lookout for more snakes when not otherwise busy.

Back to the business at hand. Buffi told me another story that convinced me that Dad was a major doofus. He was always headstrong and stubborn. He liked to "do his own thing", and didn't like to be told what to do by others. I think this overweening independent trait is what lead him into some of his more boneheaded misadventures.

Mom had a lifelong friend named Jean Wynn. Jean's husband Bill was a successful dentist in Concord, California. The Wynns owned a motorboat. When I was a toddler, our families were enjoying a day of swimming and boating at a place called Steamboat Slough on the Sacramento River. Bill, Dad, and the sibs were out in the boat. At one point, Dad stood up and moved from one side of the boat to the other, which caused everyone, including Bill the driver, to spill into the water. The boat kept going in circles. There was a very real danger that it might run over one or more of them. Mom witnessed this incident from the shore, and was so frightened that she peed herself.

On one pass, Bill was able to grab the boat and pull himself aboard and bring it under control. No one was injured. Mom was wearing a bathing suit, so she just had to rinse herself off in the water.

I have a feeling that there is a good chance that Bill had told everyone not to stand up in the boat while it was in motion, but Dad being Dad, he didn't heed that advice.

Those stories made me reflect about how Dad always acted like he was SO good at things, and his way was superior to any other person's. Everyone makes mistakes, but he could have killed or injured himself or one the sibs with a ricochet in the snake incident, or gotten one or more of the boating party chopped into fish bait. So it was gratifying in a horrible kind of way to hear what an absolute dumb shit he was at times.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Baja Humbug!

 

A portrait of the author as Groucho Marx, accompanied by his parents as Harpo and Chico. 

Mom was always interested in art. She took a lot of classes. Her preferred medium was watercolors. In their middle years, Dad made enough money as a union heavy equipment mechanic to afford to indulge Mom's artistic pursuits. She went on several extended painting classes/trips to exotic locales such as Portugal and Baja California. Most of these trips were led by famous watercolor artist Richard Yip.

For the Portugal trip, Mom flew there by herself. I have several pictures of her from that trip. She looks extremely happy. It was the first time she had been out of the country, and I'm sure she was enjoying being away from her overbearing husband for a week or so.

The picture at the top of this post was taken in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico around 1976. For other students of Mr. Yip, there were arrangements for air fare and lodging. In fact, the photo was taken at the hotel where the other students were staying. Perhaps in the interests of frugality, Dad drove Mom and I down to Mexico in our motorhome. It was during the Christmas school holiday, and Dad usually had his vacations at that time, when work in the construction industry was slow. I remember riding in the cab of the motorhome on the narrow, winding roads of Baja California. Drivers of oncoming vehicles showed signs of panic upon seeing the giant motorhome lumbering towards them. Dad would stick his left arm out his window and wave them onward, yelling, "Plenty of room!". Of course, they couldn't hear him, and probably wondered what the crazy gringo was gesticulating and shouting about.

Instead of staying at the hotel with the other students, we stayed at an RV campground near the beach. I thought that Mexico was always warm. Not so. Oh, there were a few days when we didn't need jackets, but it was December, so it was often chilly. At the time, the motorhome had a toilet, but it didn't have a built-in shower (Dad later remodeled and expanded it to include one). One cold, windy day, the 'rents made me go and bathe at the communal shower facility at the campground. The chilly zephyrs whipped through the open windows set high in the concrete walls of the bath house, and the water wasn't even warm! I bravely tried to shower, and made a fair job of it, but arrived back at the motorhome a shivering, blue mess. Mom said that if it was that bad, I shouldn't have done it, but I was raised to do what I was told. I couldn't help but be envious of the smarter guests enjoying warm showers at the hotel.

Despite that, I had a pretty good time in Mexico. Minors could buy powerful fireworks there. I blew up a lot of M-80s. We visited the famous La Bufadora, a place where waves pound into narrow fissures in the cliffs and a geyser of water shoots out of a hole at the top.

M-80s. Contrary to urban legend, they are not a quarter stick of dynamite, but they're still a blast.

La Bufadora -- "the blowhole", or "the snorter".

For some reason there was a costume party held at the hotel. I was obsessed with the Marx Brothers at the time, and I talked the 'rents into dressing as Harpo, Chico and Groucho. Of course, I was Groucho. I had seen a lot of their movies, and I had the bit down. Dad was Harpo, and Mom was Chico. Mom and Dad were old enough to have seen Marx Brothers movies in theatres when they were new releases. I remember Mom telling me how she almost peed her pants at a particularly funny thing Harpo had done in "Night at the Opera".

I don't know if Dad had been to any of their movies in his youth, but he was familiar enough with the concept. I had to give him some coaching on some of Harpo's signature moves. He really got into his role, probably because he saw it as an opportunity to chase frightened women around. His take on Harpo was rather terrifying, as you can see by his mug in the picture.

I have another picture from that same party...

Cursed Image: View with Care.

Apparently these are the winners of various categories of costume. A young boy, whose entire costume seems to consist of a sombrero and bandana atop street clothes, is front and center with a blue and yellow ribbon. I'm guessing he won best in children's costumes. On the right are three... bears? Pigs? Mice? I can't tell, but all those species have famous fairy tales feature trios of them. One of the bear/pig/mouse creatures has an all-yellow ribbon, perhaps second prize for group costume? Behind the boy is a man apparently dressed as a samurai? I don't remember what Richard Yip looked like, and I can't find any pictures of him on the web, but I suspect that may be he. He doesn't seem to have a ribbon, so he may be in the picture in his capacity as host of the event.

And then there's Dad, mugging ferociously for the camera. At first I thought he had simply barged his way into the picture. It would be in keeping with his personality, enhanced by his method approach to his character. But then I noticed that he also has a blue and yellow ribbon. I don't remember him or us winning a prize for our costumes. Was I -- also a child -- passed over for youth costume by a punk in a sombrero and kerchief? If Dad's ribbon was first prize for group costume, why aren't Mom and I also in the picture? If his ribbon is for adult costume... well, I guess he deserved it for his scenery-chewing performance. It just seems unfair because the whole thing was MY idea! I demand a recount!

Lastly, I liked to point out, that if you look closely, there seems to be some sort of purple ectoplasm emananting from Dad's groinal area. This doesn't surprise me at all, considering how he seemed to be possessed by the horny spirit of Harpo Marx that night.

And that's how I spent my Christmas vacation.

Madonna's Sin

 

From around 1963 to about 1969, when I was between four and 10 years of I age, I lived in a sleepy college town called San Luis Obispo, a short drive from the Pacific Ocean on California's Central Coast. My father, Joe, worked as a heavy equipment mechanic for the Madonna Construction Company. The owner, Alex Madonna, was a wealthy and colorful character. He owned the famous Madonna Inn just outside town. The Inn sat on about a thousand acres, where Madonna had a horse ranch. My sister Buffi and I used to go horseback riding there. Madonna also had a zebra, imported all the way from Africa, running around on his ranch. According to Dad, the zebra was so violent that it had killed some of Madonna's horses. After that, it had a paddock all to itself.

Since it was almost exactly half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Inn was popular with touring musicians. It was very large, and each of the rooms had a different theme and name. The common areas were decorated with large rock walls, beaten copper, and lots of pink paint. Madonna (or his wife) was obsessed with pink. There was a Union 76 gas station on the property. 76's symbol was a an orange ball with their number on it, which sat atop a pole outside each station. Madonna allegedly asked Union 76 for permission to paint the ball pink. Permission was denied.

Now imagine this in pink

I don't know if Madonna's employees got a discount for dining at the Inn, but I do know that our family seemed to eat there rather often. I loved those visits. The place was a labyrinth of passages, and I always found some new place to explore. I guess I felt a sense of ownership because my dad worked for Madonna.

Madonna Inn's famous "waterfall urinal"

One of the men's restrooms featured a "waterfall urinal", surrounded by rock down which trickled a man-made cataract to flush the piss away. According to a story told by my older brother Jack, he took a friend or cousin to show him the bizarre Madonna Inn. There was a large fake waterfall somewhere amongst the Inn's dining rooms, shops, and lobby. Upon seeing the waterfall, Jack's companion said, "Oh, this must be the urinal you were telling me about!" and stepped up to it and started to unzip his pants. Jack was able to hustle him away to the proper urinal before an incident could occur.

There was another men's restroom which also had an unusual flush delivery system. Water would run along a little wooden flume high up on a wall. It would then go over a waterwheel before entering the urinal itself. The water was activated by a motion sensor near the door. I don't know if the stream of water was actually strong enough to turn the wheel, or if the wheel was electrically operated. Either way I wasn't having it. The first time Dad took me to see this amazing contraption, that waterwheel terrified me, and I refused to ever visit that particular restroom ever again.

In my memory, the waterwheel was HUGE! My little mind could not fathom how such a dangerous juggernaut could be allowed to operate so close to a boy's favorite toy. I could easily picture myself somehow accidentally getting caught in the works and crushed to pulp.

Years later, as I was doing some research for my "High Turnover" blog, I found a picture of the hideous machine online. As you can see, it's not very large at all. Now it's hard for me to grasp why it was so fucking frightening to me at the time. Kids are weird, and I was an unusually weird kid.

Maybe I was more disturbed by the tacky decor

I'm Bringing Booty Shorts Back!

..

Me and the  'rents as the Marx Brothers at a Christmas costume party in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, circa 1975.

 Hey, all! Imma try to revive this blog. But first, a little catch-up, and a big announcement or two!

I have been putting the finishing touches on the manuscript of my "High Turnover" blog, in preparation for submitting it to Amazon's Kindle Digital Publishing. I'm hoping to have it submitted by the end of August. When I actually have a product page link, I will put it in a future post, as well as prominently off to the side of this here blog. Keep your eyes peeled.

I haven't forgotten about the Freakin' Green Elf Shorts photo caption competition. I am going to Australia in September, and I'm taking the Shorts with me. I'm hoping to capture a caption-worthy image of me wearing them, in the very land where their predecessors went sadly missing -- no offense, Princess, if you're reading this, but don't be too surprised if you should happen to look out your front window and see a doughy Yank flouncing up and down the footpath in front of your home wearing some shiny green shorts (and perhaps nothing else, depending on the weather). Ooh la la!

As far as reviving this blog, editing my memoir made me think of all kinds of other stories from my life that were not germane to a blog about having 88 jobs in my lifetime. If you've been paying attention, you may recall that the original subtitle of High Turnover was "87 Jobs in 35 Years". Well, guess what? Just the other day I remembered an 88th job. No, it wasn't the most recent! I'm not that senile yet. It was somewhere around my 34th or 35th job. I added it at the end of the manuscript in a special section called, "Updates!". As for the subtitle, it is now "Neurodivergence in the Workforce". A few years ago I found out I am autistic, and boy, howdy! does my past make so much more sense to me now.

As for those other random stories that I want to tell, I'm going to tell them here, and maybe also on my Tumblr blog, "Rimpy's Pinkeye" (it's not called that anymore). No particular order -- just as they come to me. And maybe when I've collected enough of them, I'll turn them into a book, too.

So I look forward to posting here more frequently. In the words of a great American orangutan, "Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Cheers!