Petchulia.... Petchaula... Spatula?

 

So, I had another birthday over the weekend. I find my birthday to be very stressful, especially when I say my age out loud. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the well wishes and attention. It's just that it coincides with all the other holiday hoopla going on at the end of the year. I also don't like to be reminded of how old I am. I was watching television and they had a news conference with the cops that heroically had evacuated people in Nashville. That's where some mentally unstable moron, blew himself up in a recreational vehicle on a downtown street. He had wired the thing to play Downtown, by Petula Clark, on loudspeakers just before it exploded. The cops were describing what they heard and one struggled with the song. 

"It was something about downtown where the lights shine bright....I'm told it's a song called Downtown by Pe..tu..lia Clark?"

Well, of course this cop had never heard of that song, never heard of Petula Clark. He wasn't even born yet when I was entering my midlife crisis or Bill Clinton was creating scandal with a cigar and an intern in the Oval Office. That song is from fifty six years ago, when I was a freshman in high school. It's little things like that which will slap you into realizing just how damn old you are. Anyway, other than having to face old age and way too much sugar Sunday, my birthday was okay. Besides, I got the best birthday present ever. That's because I bought it myself. 

My Birthday Present

 

Merry Christmas Week

 

What an exciting week this would be for me, sixty seven years ago. That was when I still believed that some hairy character in a red suit would somehow break into our house and leave a bunch of gifts under our Christmas tree. I seriously believed this guy and his livestock could fly around the world in one night and do that for everybody. I was an easy mark. I never once questioned why some kids on my block got much nicer toys and gifts than I did. And it made perfect sense that he lived up north and worked all year making those toys. Which he then would advertise on afternoon television for a whole month, even though he gave them away for free. After all, at that age I believed that little people lived in the kitchen radio and were putting on a show just for us. I also believed that invisible people were all around me when I was alone in the living room. You could just about tell me anything at that age and I'd believe it. So imagine the crushing realization I had that day in December of 1955 when I opened the door to the attic at the top of the stairs, and saw a pile of new toys in boxes. There was the Daisy BB gun my brother wanted. There was the Lionel Train, instead of the American Flyer Train that I really wanted. There, in that cold attic, was a stack of toys hidden under a blanket. So that's how Santa Claus did it. He pre-delivered everything. It took me a few more days to process what I had seen up there. When I finally figured out that it was all a hoax, that there was no Santa Claus, no flying reindeer, no magic toy factory somewhere north of Wisconsin, I started looking at other things that just didn't seem plausible. Poor Sister Mary Ellen, she never had a chance.

California Dreaming

 

I was scanning more old photos last night. This time from my visit to California in 1985. It brought back some interesting memories. That's because while I was there, I visited many of the places that I remembered from 1978. That's the year I lived in Oakland, California. One place I remember quite clearly is the 7 eleven store where I worked the midnight to 8AM shift. If you're going to work in a 7 eleven, the midnight shift is the one you want. If you can put up with the drunks and the guys with guns telling you to open the cash register, the rest of the night is usually quite calm. There was one 'high class' prostitute who used to come in every morning, around four. She drove a brand new Corvette, and she was probably the person who was nicest to me. Treated me like a real human. Besides the guys who wanted to hold up a 7 eleven, you also had the teenagers who constantly were trying to steal beer. They almost never were successful on my shift. Only once did someone almost get away with it. I chased that little asshole out the door and across the parking lot as he threw bottles of Heineken at me. Broke every bottle he had stolen, but didn't get any beer that night. You would think the cops would always be around sucking down that free coffee. They were, only never when I actually needed them. I guess the squad car out front put the troublemakers off. Anyway, out of curiosity I Googled that 7 eleven. It is still there and still looks exactly the same as it did in 1978. I know that because when I Googled it, a news story came up about three people getting shot in front of the 7 eleven. One died. See, nothing changes.

 

Me and Garret on vacation in California, 1985

Frango Mints

 

I was around eight or nine years old when my brother handed me a business opportunity. You see, my older brother had a paper route five mornings a week. He would have to go out every morning before school to deliver the Chicago Sun-Times, and Tribune. He'd usually leave by seven in the morning to do this task which covered most of our little subdivision. But Dave had a problem. He had one lady who insisted on getting her newspaper delivered by six in the morning. That meant that Dave would have to roll out of his warm bed an hour earlier than he wanted to. So in a flash of brilliance he gave me the job of delivering that six o'clock newspaper. At first it wasn't too bad. I'd get up, get dressed, and grab one newspaper to deliver to the lady who lived about three blocks away. For this my brother paid me fifteen cents a week. Fifteen cents went far over at Rudy's candy store, so I didn't complain. Then months passed and it was now December. Fifteen cents didn't seem to be nearly enough for getting up before it was even light outside, putting on all my winter clothes, and trudging through the snowy streets. One morning stands out clearly in my memory. It was snowing hard and a few inches were already on the ground. No snow plow had passed through, yet I slogged on. Just fifty feet from the ladies house, a dog started barking at me. A dog running loose on the street. The dog did not like me and came running up and snapped at my legs. At first I tried to just stand still, but the beast persisted, pulling at my snow pants with its fangs. I tried swatting it with the Tribune in my hand, but that only angered the dog even more. So I started screaming. Screaming like the little boy that I was. Finally, the lady whose newspaper I was delivering opened her front door and yelled at the dog to come home. Remember, I was just a little kid. I wasn't allowed to be rude to grownups. So with tears in my eyes, I handed the lady her newspaper. It was a couple of weeks later, just before Christmas, that the lady opened her front door for me again. She said, "Merry Christmas." and handed me a box. It was a large box of Frango Mints. Expensive candy from Marshall Fields. It didn't make things right, but did help a little bit. When I got home, I did not share that box of candy. I did not give any to Dave. I tell you, it was pure joy eating those mints in front of him.   

Vaccination Anticipation

 

I haven't been this excited since I was a kid and hadn't figured out that Santa Claus wasn't real. Kind of a letdown learning that my dad was responsible for not getting me the Remco Deluxe Playmobile. It would have been better if I could blame it on some magical guy who delivered billions of gifts in one day. Anyway, it appears, according to the CDC, that sometime in February I will have access to the covid19 vaccine. That's because I'm over sixty five years old, and I have a previous health issue I can use to get in there sooner. Seriously, who knew that having cancer thirty years ago would come in handy one day. Now all I have to do is hang in there through the Christmas season, New Years, all the snow and crap of January, and if I'm still alive by February I get the shot. Two more months of this goddamned hermit life. Even the dogs are tired of me hanging around all the time. I do check in with my upstairs neighbor, Dennis, at least once every day. He says that he checks the hallway security cameras to see if I'm still alive. If I were to miss the morning dog duty, Dennis would know and come right on down to see if paramedics, police, or the undertaker are needed. Which is good because it would forestall the dogs getting so hungry they'd eat me. So happy holidays. Wear a mask, stay at home, and if you must go out shopping for groceries at the Jewel, don't sneeze in there. Specifically, the Jewel at Foster and Pulaski.