The Politics of Dogs

 

I walk my dog Scout at least once a day, sometimes twice. One thing I am very careful of is to not piss off any neighbors who don't take as kindly to dogs pissing on their lawns as I might. There are my neighbor's Mildred and Caesar who have the most manicured yard on our street. Perfectly cut, perfectly planted flowers, and not a weed in sight. So I hold Scout in check as we waddle past that house and the one next door. That one belongs to Sam who seems to be in competition with Caesar and Mildred. He's losing, but I don't let Scout piss there anyway. Then there is the three flat on the corner of Thorndale and Fairfield. The guy who owns that place hates dogs. He used to put little signs in his yard that said things like, "Pick up your dog shit!!", and "How about if I shit in your yard?" He isn't wrong. So I make sure Scout doesn't shit in his yard. He's put up a wrought iron fence anyway, so she's not likely to poop there. Over on Washtenaw there is an old coot, and I say that because I'm pretty sure he's older than me, who also hates dogs. Last year the city cut down the giant tree in the parkway in front of his house. Old Coot was out there after they chopped down that tree, and as I walked by with Scout I asked him if he was going to have another tree planted  there. "The city will plant a tree for free. All you have to do is ask." Anyway, Old Coot looked at me and said, "Why the fuck should I? Your goddamned dog will only piss on it and kill it." I was surprised, and all I could mutter as Scout and I waddled away was, "I'm not sure that's how it works." So to this day, I do not let Scout even think about pissing on his fucking tree that the city planted for free.

Out in front of my house there was no tree when I moved in. So I called the city and they planted a nice maple. This year I put one of my old Model A tires around that tree and planted flowers within the tire. Kind of cute, but the flowers are looking very sickly. They don't seem to be very robust and I think I know why. Yesterday evening I watched in horror as a big male Rottweiler lifted his leg and pissed all over my flowers. Worst of all, Scout simply sat there in the window and didn't bark at him. I think she was impressed. My poor little marigolds. No wonder they aren't growing very well out there. However, I did not throw open the window and yell at the guy for letting his dog piss on my flowers. The hell if I'm going to be known as one of the old coots of the neighborhood.

Scout and I Visit One Of My Seven Sisters

 

For four days I have been trying to figure out how to tell this story without giving instructions to burglars on how to break into my sister's house. So here it is. While it is a true story, none of the facts are necessarily in order or even factual. Without explicit instructions from my sister, you will probably end up dead at the bottom of the stairs.

On Saturday Scout and I went out to my sister's house for a visit. I stopped at the bakery and picked up some goodies on the way, which is always the right thing to do. Better than bringing a bottle of wine. Unless you're visiting me, then bring the wine...  and the bakery goods. My sister told me she would be home by two in the afternoon, but I got there about thirty minutes early because I always drive much faster than I think I will drive. So I call my sister from her driveway and she tells me, in a long and convoluted explanation, how to get into her house without a key. Her first instruction was, "Find a twig, a thin twig. Now go down the stairs and around the corner of the house and look for a tiny hole. Stick the twig in the hole and the garage door will open." Much to my surprise, the garage door opened. However, I had forgot the rest of the instructions. Most homes have a door in the garage that leads right into the kitchen. I thought I found that door, but I ended up in the back yard, not the kitchen. I called my sister back.

"Okay, I'm in the garage. The only door I see goes to the back yard."

"Good. As you face that door, to your right, are some stairs. Go down those stairs."

I had hit the button that closed the garage door and now it was pitch black in garage.

"I don't see anything."

"Find the stairs and when you do, a light will come on."

Meanwhile, Scout is tugging and pulling on her leash, which is a good thing because she now pulled me over to the stairs, which I almost fell down, which triggered the motion detector light. The LED on the radio next to my bed is brighter than the light at the bottom of the stairs in my sister's garage. Scout and I gingerly made our way down. Well, I did. Scout just kept tugging on the leash, trying to pull me to my death.

"Okay, I'm down. There is a door that seems to be locked."

"It's not locked. You have to slam into it with your shoulder."

Which I did, which scared Scout who then tried to drag me back up the stairs. The door opened and ahead of me stretched a long... I'll say corridor, but really, it looked more like the tunnel entrance to Dracula's lair. Between me and the end of the corridor was a sump pump hole and about a hundred spider webs. I didn't fall into the sump pump hole, but I did get my share of spider web in my face. Four days later and I still think I feel spiders down the back of my shirt. 

"Go down the corridor until you come out into the laundry room."

Sure enough. At the end of the corridor there was a room with a washer and dryer.

"Good, you see the laundry. That means you're in. We'll be home in a short while."

I was in, but I still had to find my way up stairs while Scout clamored to escape. Not sure where she was going to escape to, but she wanted out.

So, for any burglar who thinks they can read this and figure out how to get into my sister's house without a key. It isn't worth it. Just break the damn window and walk in.

By the Time I Got to Woodstock

 

I had a great morning yesterday. I got to drive out to Woodstock, Illinois for the first time in forty five years. I used to have a job in the 1970s delivering supplies to shoe repair shops, and one of my stops was in Woodstock. It was a beautiful drive that I always enjoyed. It made my job very tolerable driving out into the countryside like that. Forty five years makes a big difference. For one thing, now I was able to buy gasoline for five dollars and two cents a gallon in Woodstock, instead of the forty nine cents per gallon I would have paid in 1976. Considering the price at the gas station a block from my house is five dollars and twenty nine cents, it was a bargain. Also, the quaint two lane highway that ran from the tollway north through farm country was now six lanes wide with strip shopping centers and housing developements most of the way.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. It was awful to see the countryside I remembered turned into another sprawling suburb of Chicago. Like I told my dad when I was a teenager, just before he slapped me, "We're over populating the planet!" However, here's the good part of the story. Just before the town of Woodstock, I turned off onto a very rural two lane highway. About a mile in, I turned up a gravel driveway to the home of a guy named Ken. At the end of that driveway was a very large garage with a few Ford Model A's parked outside. I was returning a tool Ken had loaned me. What I didn't expect was the tour he soon led me on. It was heaven. He had a parts room, a machine room, an antique collection room that was stuffed with some wonderful, oddball old crap. He took me around and showed me the cavernous garage filled with Model A's, a Model T, and best of all, a Model AA bus that he and a bunch of other guys are rebuilding from the frame up.  I know, it all sounds kind of nerdy and boring, but I left there feeling very happy. I now know a guy. A guy who knows Ford Model A's. Oh, and one last thing. He gave me three little parts for my car. Nothing fancy or expensive, but still, he gave them to me. Wouldn't take money for them. We are stardust, we are golden.

Goldilocks

 

As much as I hated shopping with Mark, he used to hate going shopping with me for shoes. I have weird feet. Wide at the ball of the foot, and narrow at the heel. Besides that, there was my neuroma problem where it always feels like I have a pebble in my shoe. So I would go into a shoe store and start trying on shoes. All kinds of shoes looking for one pair that fit and didn't hurt. Meanwhile Mark would be sighing and whining, but I hung in there even if it took trying on fifty pair.

Three months ago I walked into the La-z-boy furniture store looking for a new recliner chair. La-z-boy is famous for high quality crap so I figured that was where I would find the chair of my dreams. I started at the front of the store, plopping down in chair after chair. This one is too big, this one  is too ugly. Nope, my feet hang off the end too far, and this one is for tiny little people. My head is hanging off the back like a victim in Sweeny Todd. After testing most of the chairs in the place, I found one I liked. As the salesman was writing me up, I spied another chair. Just one more chair for me to try. I sat down, the clouds parted, and angels sang. I had finally found the perfect recliner chair. My feet didn't hang off the end and my head was well supported. Even better, it held my entire body in its arms like a mother holding an infant. This was the one. I gave the salesman my credit card and after a bunch of tapping away at his computer, he told me it was all done. I would be getting my chair in May. The problem is that it was February. Could I wait that long? Yes, I waited and I kept telling myself it was all worth it because this was the most comfortable chair I had ever sat in. Well, the chair is here and it is not the chair that was in the store. It is not the chair that I had sat in that gave me an orgasm. Sure, it looks like the chair. The right color, the right size and shape, but it is not the chair. The chair that took three months to deliver is not comfortable. Yes, I fell asleep in it almost immediately, but when I woke up my back was killing me. The chair is lumpy and I hate it. Man, I don't think I'll ever find the one that's just right. I'll bet the casket they bury me in will be lumpy and I'll hate that too.

Finally

 

It has been a very chilly and wet spring, but finally things have begun to straighten out. They say you shouldn't plant anything before Mother's Day anyway, so no loss. Over the weekend I worked in the garden planting shit. Well, not shit. That's for Scout to do. I planted a lot of flowers. I'm going with a little different look this year. Lots of begonias along with the ever popular marigolds. I think it will turn out pretty good in about a month when things fill in.

I also did some work on my old 1929 Ford. I had ordered a bunch of parts for the car and after planting flowers, I went into the garage and got to work on it. Unfortunately, I was not able to do exactly what I had wanted to do. That's because I am suffering from 'old man eyes', and I ordered the wrong parts. I needed rear spring shackles (Not important to know what those are for the story). When I opened the box I found that they had shipped me shackles for the front end spring. I was furious, but when I checked my order I saw that I had clicked on the wrong part. Same thing for the rear window seals I had ordered. When I tried to put them on the car, they didn't fit. Because they were for the front windows. This time I called the company I bought them from and while I was talking to the guy it became glaringly obvious that it was my fault. Again, checked the wrong box. At least I was able to do one thing I had been planning on. I brought together my gardening with my car hobby. I turned one of my old tires into a flower bed.

Riding With Mom

(This is a repost of something I wrote fourteen years ago on the twentieth anniversary of finding out I had cancer.)

The survival rate for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 1988 for a thirty eight year old man was about forty percent. Twenty years after being diagnosed with that form of cancer, I am still alive and in relatively good health. Besides the doctors and nurses who saved my life, I have to thank my friends, Garet and Dennis who helped me through my chemotherapy. I have to thank my brothers and sisters, who all took a blood test to see if they were candidates for bone marrow transplanting, if I needed it. If they ever wonder why I love them all so much, that is one reason why. Most of all I have to thank my mother and father, who drove into Chicago every Tuesday so they could accompany me to the clinic where I got my chemo-therapy.

The first time my parents went with me to the clinic, I believe my mom drove us in her shiny new, Dodge Caravan. Whether it was my mom or dad doesn't matter because, whoever it was, I didn't like their driving. Not that it was bad, just that I was/am a very impatient driver and I also didn't approve of the route they took, so the next time I insisted that I drive. As I slid into the drivers seat of my mom's car, she moved to the bench seat directly behind the driver. I don't think my mom or dad had ever rode with me before, at least not through the streets of Chicago. As I sped up Halsted Street, and whipped around onto Ogden Avenue, I kept hearing little squeaks and gasps from the back seat. It was my mom, "Alan, can't you slow down a little?", she asked. "No mom, trust me, I know what I'm doing." I replied. My dad just laughed.

So it went for twelve weeks, every Tuesday, dad in the passenger seat, mom in the back seat making sounds like a kid on a roller coaster, and me driving like a bat out of hell. The drive back was always much more sedate, because I had just been pumped full of toxic chemicals and vomiting was a very real possibility. The funny thing about it, is that my mom was one of the people who taught me how to drive, and I drive exactly like she does. Just ask Mark. He makes the same squeaks and gasping noises sitting in the back of moms Dodge Caravan when she drives.

How Alan Got His New Bedroom

 

I hurt my left hand, and I have no idea how or when. I just know that it hurts. I don't know what the hell it is with this turning seventy years old thing, but ever since that day in 2019, my shit has been falling apart. My back, my knees, just about everything hurts at some time or another. Old age sucks. I remember my mom coming down to Florida to visit thirty years ago. She had just turned seventy and her knees were messed up. Sure, she lived another twenty nine years, but her knees were messed up that entire time. So the rule seems to be, whatever breaks on you after seventy, it will never work right again.

Top of the page is a photo of my grandfather in 1961. He had just turned seventy five. I'm not sure how he did it. He worked at the Union Stockyards in Chicago for Armour Meat Packing Company for much of his adult life. He was a sheet metal worker and I assume he maintained the metal buildings that the livestock were kept in. In January of 1961 Armour made him retire from his job because he had just turned seventy five years old. I guess the bosses at the stock yards were freaked out seeing that old guy climbing around those buildings, doing all that physical work. So that summer, seeing that he had some free help, my dad had Grandpa up on the roof of our house in Tinley Park. He had him help build the new dormer addition so little Alan would have a nice new bedroom.

(By the way, Grandpa lived for another 26 years, 11 months, and 2 weeks. Eventually his knees also went bad. But not until he was nearly 100 years old.)