Snow Day

 

Last Friday all the weather reporters mentioned that there would be a "dusting" of snow that evening. Nothing to worry about, just a dusting. When I walked out of the bowling alley around nine thirty that evening, the parking lot was covered in snow and flakes the size of quarters were falling thick and fast. So fast that by the time I cleared the last window on my car, the snow on the first window was already too thick to see out of. The drive home was a challenge because the city did not have the trucks out. They also heard that it would only be a "dusting". Western Avenue was slipperier than baby shit on glass. The truth is, weather forecasters are often guessing.

When I was a kid, weather forecasts were kind of like one of those magic eightball toys.

"Will is snow?"

"Reply hazy, try again later"

"Okay, will it snow tonight?"

"Signs point to a dusting, no worry"

We would go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to a winter wonderland of snow. So much that maybe school would be closed that day. Mom always had the radio tuned to WGN and we would wait around the kitchen table waiting to hear our school announced.

"...no school today for Tinley Park district 146... no school for Saint George Elementary School, Tinley Park..."

Joy would fill the kitchen and within five minutes all my brothers and sisters would have our boots on, coats, mittens, hats, snowsuits, and run out to play in that beautiful snow. The snow that was so bad we couldn't possibly go to school in it. But hell, snowball fights, snowmen, and snow forts, yes. Also, there was the added bonus of my getting a reprieve on that homework I was supposed to do.

Fun in New Orleans

 

I think everyone should experience Mardi Gras at least once in their life. I went two years in a row, forty seven years ago, and it is burned into my memory. Most of it, good memories. Well, maybe not good, but fun. Yes, fun memories. Like people fighting for worthless aluminum coins and plastic beads thrown from parade floats. I learned not to bend over and try to pick them up off the ground. That's how you get injured. Beside the never ending parades on Canal Street, there is the crush of people on Bourbon Street. Colorful, drunken men on balconies yelling at women to show their tits, and colorful, drunken women actually showing their tits. Which they get paid for doing with those cheap plastic beads. Throw in a few men showing what they have, and you got yourself a show. By the way, this might be happening around nine in the morning because in New Orleans you can always find an open bar. Not to say it doesn't happen later, like at noon, or three in the afternoon. It does, all day long because the drinking never ends. Speaking of fun memories, you can always try to wedge yourself into a bar, specifically a gay bar, where you might find more explicit diversions. I can't say the same for the straight bars. I never went inside one of those. But with wall to wall sweating gay men in a dark bar, things might happen. None of the titty showing out on the street, or drunken debauchery inside the gay bars is legal. So you're kind of taking a chance should you partake. I would think that the cops probably aren't that happy to be working Mardi Gras. And that brings me to one bad memory of Mardi Gras. Finding a place to pee. There are places, but they have long lines and smell really bad. Don't pee on the street. The cops will humiliate you and drag you away. It's why at my age I could not deal with Mardi Gras again. I pee just about every fifteen minutes when I'm drinking beer.

So, if any of that sounds like fun to you, do go to Mardi Gras sometime in your life. Then go see your doctor when you get back home. Never hurts to get tested for contagious diseases.

Nebraska 1978

 

They stared at me like I had just stepped out of a flying saucer.

Sometimes I'll lay in bed trying to fall asleep, but my brain won't let me. It starts with a short memory triggered by something that happened earlier in the day. It's like pulling a loose thread only to have the whole garment unravel. Last night it was a photo of my old house from almost fifty years ago. That made me think of the cat I had at the time, Amanda. Which made me think of the time she climbed the Christmas tree, and rode it crashing to the ground in the middle of the night. That reminded me of the fact that when I sold that house, Amanda and I loaded up a 1965 Chevy pickup truck and moved to California. (Yes, I kept the cat because by this time she was my best companion. Instead of getting rid of the cat, I quit putting up Christmas trees.) I then remembered driving that pickup truck across the country on interstate 80, towing my eighteen foot sailboat also loaded with more crap. My memories continued. Somewhere west of Lincoln, Nebraska, while listening to Bob Seger's album, Stranger in Town, the Chevy's engine blew up. It was late winter, it was nighttime, and it was cold. What I don't remember is how I got a tow truck to come and get me. I do remember being stuck in a cheap motel next to interstate 80, in very rural Nebraska with Amanda. It took three days for the local mechanic to find another engine for the truck, and install it. I was bored, so on the second night I decided to go into the little town about a mile south of the interstate. The town was very small and had only one tavern. I went into that tavern. You would think that I had walked into a stranger's living room. The patrons that were there stared at me, and they didn't look happy. This was when I still had longish hair and everybody in the bar had flat top, buzz cuts. For about half an hour I sat there, and the only person who talked to me was the bartender. All he said was, "That's a dollar." as he put the gin and tonic I ordered in front of me. Which was another thing I remembered. When I ordered a gin and tonic, everybody in the bar looked at me as if I had just ordered a glass of piss. This included the bartender who had to search for the bottle of gin. 

My brain wouldn't stop. Memory after memory flooded my mind. Finally, after not being able to fall asleep and not wanting to lay in bed remembering all these weird things I'd done forty five years ago, I got up and went into the kitchen. I ate a small bowl of Cheerios, let Scout lap up the bottom of the bowl, and went back to bed.