The Older Brother!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:                   The Older Brother!

He was Larger Than Life in so many ways.  Bold, brash,  loud, boisterous, full of fun, funny, a comedic presence, an exceptional talent!  He lived and loved his remarkably full life.  He acted in plays, including several theatrical musical productions.  He sang loudly, energetically.  He loved his family unconditionally, all six of them, Jaynie and five exceptional children, his life, his many friends, cribbage, pool, his work, his teaching adventures imparting his engineering knowledge and skill, until retirement at last beckoned.  He painted, he sculpted, he built things -- furniture, cribbage boards and so much more, even a sentry enclosure!

Walking Stick!

He volunteered.  His spirit was always a generous and lively thing, like a separate creature had attached itself to him exploding out of his trunk like a great,  floating, inflatable bear.  Those who rode his tour vehicle throughout a beautifully-flowered and lushly festooned arboretum enjoyed the narration, were always captivated by him, ultimately loved him too!  He was that extraordinary, that entertaining.  He was charismatic, an original, a true and rare first edition!

My year-and-a-month older brother, Kris, died in early August.  The entire process was quick, too damn quick.  Diagnosed with stage four lung 

cancer, that miserable 

Kris and Wife Jaynie were volunteer rangers at Rocky 
Mountain National Park, something they loved doing,
and for several years running!  The 50th!!!

disease  too 

suddenly traveled to and claimed his amazingly fertile brain, and then his lymph nodes as well.  Nothing could be done; that treacherous and evil entity, like a ravenous beast, eats its way into and destroys the best of us, indiscriminately, too fast, too hungry, too furious.

Enough of that.  Let's travel many years into his past, with apologies for a lack of chronology.  He played football for his high school team, and he played superbly, winning accolades, a major letter; he quite possibly might have won a scholarship had it not been for a knee, a badly wounded knee.  

Number 50, Kris, Out-
standing Football Lineman!

His mother, who was mine as well, saw no real advantage in having that knee properly repaired.  No point, she'd insist repeatedly.  A promising career as a pigskin athlete ended abruptly. 

(Years later, when he leapt skyward to capture a ripe pear in his Rowlett, Texas neighborhood -- the lower branches having already been denuded -- the knee collapsed anew.  He finally had it fixed correctly, but...   advanced age, no possible appearance of pro scouts...  far too late in the game!) 

He had many great pals in high school, one of whom shot him in his bicep, or was it the shoulder.  His gang was out hunting or just shooting at things, both alive and dead things.  Doc James removed the bullet, along with portions of T-shirt, sweatshirt and jacket.  His school pals were not always terribly bright or cautious when discharging firearms.  His family was greatly thankful the lad's aim was not directed further to the left...   or right.  Can't recall which bicep or which shoulder.  Doesn't really matter, I suppose!

In our youth, our teen years, Brother Kris was my hero, my ideal.  Other members of our nuclear family were either significantly years older, or absent or unconcerned or angry.  He and I were a kind of team, poised to stand tall, like sturdy, fortified and determined ramparts, a bulwark against the others.

In the mid-60s, My brother honored me by asking that I be a groomsman in his and Jaynie's wedding.  I can't recall...  second or third in line, maybe even best man.  I can't remember.  Doesn't matter.  I was truly honored, because I loved him best among my family members.  Didn't matter, the pecking order unimportant.

In our youth, in the double bed we shared on 68th Street, we wrestled constantly, every night at bedtime.  We invariably broke down the bed.  Our father burst in with angry, flashing eyes.  Unpleasant consequences ensued, physical ones!  In the old house on HiMount Boulevard, Mother painted clowns on the walls on either sides of our beds.  She claimed we were her inspiration, her models.  (Should we have been offended??!!)

Back on 68th Street...   In subsequent double beds, we wrestled; he queried, could he "toss" me like a coin, jujitsu style.  "Leemee flip you, Joey," he'd asked.  "If I hurt you
I'll give you a quarter."  I'd collide against the wall on my side, the wall adjacent to the parents' room.  Father burst in with angry, flashing eyes.  He'd pick up brother Kris by one leg and smack him, in a leg, or on his derriere...  It happened often.  The older brother took the brunt of it owing to the racket we made, his status as older sibling. We always seemed to wake the angry male parent.  Being tossed and flipped, I was often bruised or dazed crashing into the wall, but I never did get that quarter!! 

At "Flying Saucer" on the shores of Lake
Ray Hubbard.  Dinner and Pop!

There were steel-tipped darts and blunt-headed arrows.  We were "great rabbit hunters" in the Washington Highlands.  Kris liked to "skin me," as if I were a circus target, better than knife throwing, I suppose, but the darts stuck once in a while, and they sort of stung my delicate flesh!  (We tried to keep it from Mother; no need to upset her further!)     

Oh yeah, the house on 68th Street again...    One night, Kris had an epiphany.  He

Another Kris Creation!

announced, "Hey Dad, Joey's in this too.  He's just as much a part of the noise making as me.  Why don't you smack him for a change?"   The next night, Father came in angry as a building storm, awakened by the noise of me hitting the wall, the result of a successful jujitsu-style and dizzying air toss, picked me up by the leg and gave me a good hard smack, somewhere on my anatomy.  Can't remember the exact location.  

"Kris," I blasted him angrily when the ticked off Father exited, "Why the hell couldn't you just leave well enough alone?!"  He must have laughed for half an hour.  I fumed fecklessly! 

The orange crate...   The Lone Ranger gun butt....   The radiator incident...  As kids, we always found some means of battling one another!  In the orange crate, he insisted upon being the "chief FBI man," facing what he believed to be the driver's seat.  Defiantly, I sat with my back to his back, insisting I'd be the chief.  He plucked me out of said crate like rotten fruit, picked it up and bashed me in the head with that "FBI squad" crate!

The gun butt...  he pulled the trigger and claimed he shot me dead.   I "raspberries" him, my tongue waggling, spittle flying.  He used his gun to bash me in the head.  

The radiator...  Mother had large yellow cushions for the patio glider.  We held them in front of ourselves declaring ourselves "waring umpires."  We flew at one another,

cushions bumping.  I flew backward into an iron radiator.  In all three instances, my head was nicely bloodied!  

In each of the aforementioned episodes, Mother shouted with angry vigor, "Joel...  Why do you let him do that to you??!!"  I gaped incredulously, speechless, then was shortly hauled off to an emergency room or, who can remember such things, possibly off to the family doctor.  Partial head shavings, several stitches!  Three different times!  Or were there more??  Hmmm.....

It wasn't that he was constantly trying to murder me.  He was just much bigger, much stronger, taller.  He didn't mean it...  "I didn't mean it," he said to Mother, his voice raised emphatically.   "I mean, it was Joey's fault.  He wouldn't let me be the Chief FBI guy...   He wouldn't die when I told him I shot him dead...  He lost his balance...  Wasn't my fault..."  

On the positive end of the spectrum, he defended me.  He praised me when I incurred or deserved his praise, and he did so often and unfailingly.  I think he actually respected me, loved me in his way.  He was a great brother, fair, lovable, positive, strong in body and spirit!  We had a terrific, shared sense of humor, a sense of silliness as well.  We had such fun together, poking fun at the absurd, laughing uncontrollably, enjoying summer days and water, such as sailing on Big Cedar Lake aboard the "Big Barn Dancer" with its red and white stripes, he the skipper, me the crew!  I'll miss him terribly, already do!  I know I always will, at least until that "Big Beckoning Digit" sends me packing! 

(Dedicated to Brother Kris, and to SweetHeart who supplied great photos and other memorabilia, his family, my much-loved family members as well, in honor of an upcoming Celebration of Life, honoring Kris P. K...  1942 - 2024!)

Humbly Submitted, 08-23-2024 -- Joel K 

   

 

    

  

 

   

An Homage to Cribbage... All A-Board...!!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:        An Homage to Cribbage...  All A-Board...!!

There are those of us who play and enjoy card games as if the activity were a kind of religious ritual, a passion, a necessary endeavor to ensure one's salvation or the attainment of true bliss.  And, there are those of us who have never quite embraced the apparent joy of playing cards and the many variations that lure the faithful to green, felt-topped altars and smoky recreation rooms or basement sanctuaries.  

Of course, there are exceptions.  Cribbage, for example.  GeezerHood, my current state of being, is a fine time to to haul out the cribbage board, I must admit.  And frequently!  

My family was and is devoted to the splendid game of Cribbage, a game of counting 15's, double runs, pairs, three and four of a kind, the fine art of "pegging..."  There is a degree of skill, but the cards dealt are of paramount importance if one is be the first to travel successfully along the 121 peg holes on the classic board. 

My brother claims to be among the world's finest cribbage players, if not THE finest!  He scored a 29-hand during his illustrious career, the highest point total one can achieve when playing the game -- three 5's dealt along with the "right Jack," and then the fourth 5 is cut, and is the same suit as the Jack!  My father and paternal grandfather (both now deceased) laid claim to the "best player" title.  Perhaps my dear brother feels entitled to be heralded as heir apparent to the throne.  Our dear friend, Jimmy J., would argue the point.

Somewhat recently, perhaps seized by a didactic fit of semi-lunacy, I asked my beloved grandson, Seany, if he'd care to learn the game.  He agreed.  I taught him the rudiments.   In our first outing, the little scoundrel actually "skunked" me.  The term applies to beating an opponent by 30 points or more, the number that constitutes a "street" in the game of cribbage.  There are four of them, perhaps needless to add, given the information offered in paragraph three of this writing.  There are also "double skunks," one of the ultimate humiliations one can endure when playing cribbage.

Seany seeks to play his Uncle Kris, my brother, and hopes to "skunk" him.  When informed of this outrageous suggestion, Brother Kris responded, "The kid's a real dreamer..."

There's a certain kind of hubris that attaches to the game, as many self-described astute players, or "experts" or champions, feel themselves so extravagantly superior as "masters of the game" that any upstart who might deign to refute their claims are forever labeled "anathema"!  (Deserving, perhaps, of "excommunication" from the exalted playing fields of cribbage!?)

My brother has actually constructed cribbage boards, even a cribbage table.  Although, regarding the latter, his zeal to execute the thing caused him to drill holes completely through the table.  (Maybe not a mistake, as an opponent's peg might disappear from view causing a "backward march" along the board...   "advantage to the champion"...   meaning the creator of the cribbage table!  ("Hey, if you can't keep track of where your front peg is supposed to be, you should be penalized...   Let me just move your peg a little further back...  There, that's better!" )  

My grandson has truly fallen in love with the great game of cribbage, and frequently asks me or his Baba (grandmother / SweetHeart) to make special dates to play a game or two (perhaps three, in case players need to determine the overall winner by means of a rubber match!)  He now controls possession of my favorite cribbage board.  I fear it may never return to my custody!!  

Seany's sister is almost 11 years old.  I call her Phi Phi (like "Fee Fee"), or Sweet Angel Face.  She, too, has taken to the game of cribbage, and is doing so impressively well.  She understands the cards or point counting process and the art of pegging.  She and her brother play frequently.  It is, after all, a family tradition!  It was imperative that both learn the game, and play regularly!

SweetHeart's grandmother had a way of making her grandson, SweetHeart's brother Boobers, a bit crazy when they played.  The grandmother would make a smirky face when she'd win, scrunch up her eyes and nose and smile with a kind of excessive "in your face" flavor.  Boobers' (actually Bob!) would turn purple in the face and become more than a bit angry.  He, too, considered himself the finest player on the planet.  Losing for Bobby was not a pleasant experience, and probably, according to him, a rare one!  (Hmmm...  We wonder if he's playing cribbage in some ethereal place or card table afterlife!)

Here's another thing.  Cribbage is often a pastime within a pastime.  Fishing, for example.  When

it's too dark to "toss a line in," what's there to do?  Play cards, of course...  Cribbage!  Oh, and drink beer, lots of beer.  Salted peanuts go well also with cribbage and beer.  My own dear father was, in a way, immortalized (if unseen!) in the picture above, painted by my brother, Kris, and entitled, "Dad Wins."  A copy hangs proudly on the east wall of my cluttered office.  (The fish board at right is a photo of a work of art, not a painting!)

At one point in my brilliant career in marketing communications of one sort or another, I had a cribbage board designed and built by a fine wood working professional.  The board sported the shape and logo of a well-know beer producing company, a client of mine at the time.  It had a hinged lid for storing playing cards and wooden pegs.  I packed it with logo'ed cards and presented it with great

aplomb and confidence to my client.  He kept it, but never placed an order for hundreds as I had hoped.  Possibly he felt it was a "one of a kind" treasure, a magnificent keepsake that should never be duplicated or reproduced en masse, an original that only he could possess!  (Jerk!)

Oh well, and what the hell, those are the ups and downs of life in commerce.  Success is and can be a capricious imp, and that in a way brings us back to the main topic.  Is cribbage, therefore, like life, a kind of metaphor?  Sometimes we're dealt a 12 or an 18 or a 24 hand, sometimes it's 19!  (It's impossible to score 19 in cribbage...  can't be done!)       

My brother, SweetHeart and I, with like-minded friends, have held Cribbage Tournaments, several in private homes, at least one in a popular saloon.  My brother has gone so far as to participate in a fabled cribbage tournament in Las Vegas, NV.  Amazing how pervasive the game has become over time...  like bowling, maybe??!  

In the end, I guess, we simply have to play the cards we're dealt.  (Don't you just love tired cliches?)  Those of us who are excessively fond of the fine game of cribbage will continue to play on, to count our hands and move our pegs ever closer to the 121st peg hole.  Hoping to win.  Hoping that one day we'll stare in wonder at three fives and a jack, praying to the gambling gods that our opponent will cut the fourth five! And then, at last, we can pass into oblivion knowing that our lives have been richly fulfilled!!  

(Special Note of Dedication:   For Brother Kris, SweetHeart, Seany, Phi Phi, Jimmy J. and all of our dear friends and relatives similarly obsessed with Cribbage and the lure of the Double Skunk!!) 

Humbly Submitted, 09-23-2020 -- Joel K.

 

 

    

Night of the Moth!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:              Night of the Moth!!

You probably know how it is with GeezerHood, particularly if you, yourself are a Geezer.  We tend to recall "Great Stories and Great Events" in our lives, especially when asked to relate such memorable stories or events to our children, grandchildren, other fascinated parties...  meaning anyone who might foolishly ask for a re-recitation.  It's sort of like a great novel being read by someone with a sonorous voice via public radio...  rapturous, mesmerizing!  (Or maybe not!)

A number of years ago, SweetHeart and I, along with our, then, only offspring, rented a cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan, near Cedar Grove, Wisconsin.  We routinely invited SweetHeart's brother and his wife, Boobers and Patsy, to join us.  They were best friends of ours, in addition to being beloved relatives.  

On a memorable early morning on one of those glorious summer days at the cottage, probably about 2:00AM, Boobers and I had consumed a great deal of beer and other spirited potables.  We were in the rubber round of a cribbage match, laughing and belching and telling each other lies and other "true adventures."  

Boobers flicked a cigarette out the screen door.  As he did so, an enormous moth flew into the kitchen area of the compact cottage.  We watched the moth flit about irritatingly, disrupting our keen, if admittedly drunken concentration.  Booby stumbled about, his hand with fingers outstretched, trying to capture the pesky moth.  He, Boobers, became a knight errant, as if fully armored with broadsword and bludgeon at the ready.  Eventually he

succeeded in capturing the moth.  

He cradled the still living winged creature in his hand, stomped boldly with a great sense of purpose while staggering into the bathroom, and thrust the offensive prey into the toilet, flushing simultaneously.  He walked back to the table and our cribbage game, a triumphant scowl on his face!  "It's done for," he announced, confidently!

But then, the moth reappeared.  It had obviously escaped the crazy, dizzying vortex of the flushing toilet, crawled up the bowl and took once again to the air.  "Damn," we both shouted in disbelief.  "How in the hell did that thing get out of the toilet?!" Booby re-captured the moth, this time a bit more roughly and threw it with great force into the toilet, flushing once again as he did so.  "That'll show 'em," he said.

Boobers stayed in the bathroom, just to be sure.  As the moth escaped the whirlpool and began crawling up the porcelain, out of the bowl, Booby used his beer and whisky-laden breath to force the moth into the vortex, flushing and blowing at the thing, like a mighty wind, and glowering at the seemingly indestructible "beast." The moth appeared to be a goner

It wasn't.  It was soon flitting about the room.  It seemed almost to have a triumphant and haughty look upon its mothy face!  Another capture ensued.  More thrusting, flushing and blowing.  Repeated escapes!  Nothing worked.


At this point, our uproarious laughter woke our respective spouses, SweetHeart and Patsy.  "What are you two lunatics doing?" one of them asked in a sleepy and rather irritated voice.  We related our adventure with the moth, pointing out the pesky creature as it flew jerkily around the kitchen, circling the overhead light!  Booby captured the moth yet again.  He had a look of murder in his eyes.  "Wait a minute," said Patsy, "Let it live...  If we can believe your ridiculous tale, the thing deserves to live after all you put it through."

Two more thumbs flew upward -- spectators at a Roman coliseum -- affirming the "winged gladiator's" right to life, after having endured so many indignities and near-death experiences!  

"Oh, alright," said Boobers, resignedly.  He opened the screen door and thrust it out.  Another moth flew in!   

Humbly Submitted, March 4, 2020! -- Joel K.    

The Drinking Culture! Or, Fine Pubs and Their Pickling Potions!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      The Drinking Culture!...    or, maybe...  "Pickles" at the Gate!   

“Where the hell's ‘Lare the Hair' ?” I bellowed within the private confines of my skull, silent rage and  impatience growing inside my brain like a bulbous nodule of fatty tissue, my face a plate of purple beets.  I was seething.  He was seriously late.  I hated to be anything but on time for a Seattle Totems hockey match, though they were doing poorly in the 1970 season. 

Didn’t matter.  I was hooked; we were both hooked on the "Totes."  “So where the hell is he?” I asked aloud to Arnold, the bartender on duty at The 400 Club.  Arnold shrugged. He murmured, "Huh?"
  

The tavern’s name was a small mystery that, long before, may have had something to do with its location or address (but of no relevance at the time!), perhaps the number of drunkards thrown out and banned for life?!  No one really knew, and there was no one in the place who had the answer, nor was there an obvious clue to provide one on its walls or from those wobbling on its vinyl-padded stools.

I dumped down a couple more bottles of Rainier beer, paced nervously, played the punch boards.  At some point in the anxious and impatient waiting game, I walked to the men’s room where a smallish, high window was the only “periscope” through which to view the tavern’s parking lot.  I climbed onto the commode, the sole elevation from which to see the lot and its contents, searching for Lare’s “midnight blue” Pontiac.  I slipped off the rim of the bowl, my right foot twisting badly as it and I fell into the bowl, plunging into the cold water of the toilet.  I hollered in agony.

I hoped no one in the crowded bar had heard my pitiful screech of pain, something like the ear-piecing cry of a particular owl -- so named for its strident sound -- streaking from its perch in pursuit of a hapless rodent.  I hobbled to the bar.  “Arnold, gimme a bottle of Olympia this time.  I feel like I fell off a precipice.  I got a ‘soaker’ when I hit bottom.” Arnold was unlike the stereotypical bartender. He lacked the quality of attentive listening!

  

“Hey,” said Arnold, at some point coming round to the patrons' side of the bar to prop up a drunkard, then turning his quizzical gaze to me, “Why’s there a puddle under your foot?”  The “Hair” finally showed up, wearing a sheepish and apologetic grin. 
"We've missed the whole damn first period," I complained. "Why so late?! What if we missed Claudie DuFour catching a puck in his mouth?!"

*******************************

My own dear father collected them!  Saloons, taverns, bars, gin joints, whatever one's preferred nomenclature might be!  He had a catalog of them, his favorites and those of secondary appeal, given what they charged for a large beer (the chaser!) and a shot of brandy, and whether or not they had a cribbage board.  As I look back in time from the high mountains of wizened geezerhood -- soberly these days -- I freely admit I inherited his fondness for them. I had my own collection!  Sometimes when I'm daydreaming in my office -- on extremely rare occasions, of course! -- I recall certain brilliant episodes of tavern life, glorious

"Yeah, that's the ticket!  Back
me up Five Deep!  Hey, where
are my shots?"  

memories of the Boozing Culture! 

There's a village in the "Lakes Country" west of our major metropolis.  Okauchee -- with its nearby waters of the same name -- boasted, like so many small towns in Wisconsin, a saloon for every 10 residents, or so it seemed! Westphal's was our favorite. Always the joint resounded with brilliant conversation, and equally brilliant patrons.  
"Hey, Stinky, what's it again you do fer work?"

"I'm a drunkard."

"Is the pay any good?"

"Yo, Durwood, I like that sweater.  Argyle comes alive on youse! I could, maybe, sometime borrow it, if I ever, like, have a date??!"

"Anybody got any dope to sell? What?... I'm talking too loud?!"

"Hey Bry! Why must I always pay for my drinks? Am I not your duly-invited guest here? I mean, when you come to my house for cocktails, social and cultural interaction, do I ask you to pay for your drinks?"

During my days living in the Seattle, Washington area, my friend and fellow beverage host, Leonard, was frequently assaulted by his estranged wife, Mavis.  She'd sit at the bar, become extravagantly inebriated and then pelt him with the lemons he'd just cored.  She often grabbed him by his tie and punched his face.  Poor beleaguered Leonard.  Such elegant times! The boozing life at its zenith, its finest! Leonard disappeared after Mavis drove into the plate glass window at his last-known saloon job. As if it were a regular occurrence -- glass shards cascading onto the hood, twinkling like cheap baubles -- she calmly got out of her car, entered the joint and bombarded Leonard with lemons! (We don't know how she found him! But I believe at that point Leonard had already begun to wear clip-on neckties! Mavis was furious! No one's heard from Leonard since 1973!)

University life! Just like scenes from The Student Prince, eh?! The Ardmore, The Gym, The Vogue... Such sophistication! Entire mornings and afternoons spent in glorious intoxication. "Hey, you through with classes for the day already?"

"What?...  Oh, uh... I must check my schedule...  What time's Epistemology?"

Might be an interior shot of The
Ardmore, possibly the Vogue!
Doesn't really matter.  They
were both on or near the old
Marquette U. campus, an image of
which is pictured below...  (Suitably,
kind of tipsy in the mid-day sun!!)

My great friend, Pat, and I used to perform grand "hook-a-thons," meaning road trips on which we'd try to stop at every saloon we almost passed. Wonderful times, I think?? Prior to enlisting in the military he and I secured a case of cheap beer -- in quart bottles, 6 for each of us -- and consumed the entire ocean of suds at a drive-in movie theater. Police arrived at 2:30AM, roused us from our peaceful if unconscious state and hauled us to the town jail, and there we remained incarcerated until a parent came to spring us. Brilliant!  Oh yeah, and "flaming shots," particularly memorable at two different joints on Burleigh Street; often I resembled "Beppo the Human Torch" -- a brightly illuminated by-product of those highly intelligent episodes, hair and whiskers gorgeously ablaze!

There's a two-pronged point to all this nonsense! (At least I think there is?!): 

1.)  In the "drinking culture" -- the local bar as poor persons' club -- we hang with kindred souls, some tortured, some merely perpetually drunk, we regard ourselves and our companions as terribly amusing, wonderfully funny! Aren't we?  Are we merely forcing laughter and trying too hard to entertain and be entertained, to forget, to blend in, or to "be somebody"!

Not the "905" we actually consumed,
but, you know, quarts is quarts! (Please
see Paragraph 10 above for reference!)

2.)  When we've either quit entirely or cut way down on our consumption of alcoholic spirits, are we permitted to look back on those earlier times of life and recall them with laughter, with actual joy in our hearts, as cherished events worth remembering?

How the hell would I know? On the other foot, Sure! Why not?! I mean, I think we can't simply ignore or try to forget our days of magnificent inebriation, when we were stein-hoisting, falling-down members of the Drinking Set! That was simply us, or that was me, in a different sphere of consciousness, in younger times, in a previous "compartment" of life's richly eclectic trajectory! Aint it? Sure, they may not have been our finest hours, but they helped to mold us into who and what we are today, to construct and form our characters, to solidify and validate our attitudes and values! (True! Some of us never actually make the transition... !)  

Oh yeah, one more bright memory in the great panoply of boozing adventures...   Red Top, Muskie Don and I succeeded in being thrown out of Hooligans Super Bar, that was before it became gentrified! It was a beautifully planned affair. We were running drunk until it got yellow out, went to an all-night market and bought a half-gallon of Tutti-Frutti ice cream. We offered the frozen confection to Hooligan's early-morning opening bartender, and ordered him to make us each a cream drink. We decided to call our creation a "Tutti-Frutti Pink Gin Sissy." "Oh yeah," one of us insisted, "Don't forget the paper umbrellas and the fruity-tooty garnish!" 

"Get the hell out of here now," the bartender bellowed, as he reached for his Louisville Slugger, his red-blotched eyes blazing with ire!! We stumbled out, but with exemplary dignity!!

A couple of concluding thoughts! I have to state quite honestly, we truly enjoyed the Drinking Life while it lasted. It was our inheritance, in a manner of speaking. SweetHeart has often said, "Alcohol abuse doesn't run in our families, it gallops," borrowing a line from a famous movie comedy. Just as honestly, having now parted company from strong drink, we find our lives happier, more manageable and, in a sense, more secure in many different ways. We have no intention, here, of denigrating the Drinking Set and those who do imbibe alcoholic beverages. It's just not for us at this juncture. Many if not most of our

frequent companions drink. No problem for them, nor for us...  it's just a different beverage choice, and almost always in sensible moderation.  
So raise your glasses, friends and fellow lovers of fine literature (and the sweet nectar of your own choosing!), and drink a toast to great saloons and the great friends who frequently or occasionally populate them. Or, if the coffee house is your "social club" or gathering place of choice, raise your mugs! Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, 04-19-17 -- Joel K.

Questions:

What's your favorite tavern or bar or saloon?

What's your favorite beer?

Your favorite mixed or blended drink?

What's your favorite or funniest memory of tavern life?
What's your favorite coffee house, and its location?

           

      

    

  

   

  

Is Work Really Character Building... or What?

     

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    The Benefits of Labor -- Is Work Truly Character Building...  or What?

    I Hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
    Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
    The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
    The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
    The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
    The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands;

    The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at     sundown...            
                                                                    --  Walt Whitman...   from:   I Hear America Singing     

What a load of...   Hey!  Is it true that work enriches us, builds character?  Do we work solely to enjoy our leisure time?  Are the "joys of work" merely a clever piece of propaganda foolishness propagated by the wealthy -- the "mine and factory owners" -- to keep the working classes plodding along?

As I stand atop the wobbly tower of Geezerhood," I tend to gaze back upon the many strange and wondrous occupations I've had over the years.  Examples...  

I'm moving a Hot Tar Kettle into
position at the roofing Job Site!

"Bobby L." had a flat-roof-hot-tar roofing business in which he somehow hypnotized the none-too-bright to enlist their labors, certainly not their talents.  He even paid us once in a while!  I was one of his "Kettle Rats" who struggled in the blazing heat of high summer, filling buckets of hot tar and hoicking them up a giant step ladder to the roof above where Bobby "mopped in" and sometimes mopped scalding tar over the edge and onto the tender backs and chests of his faithful if misguided Kettle Rats.  "Hot!" he would holler.  That was the signal to fetch more hot tar up onto the roof!  Sometimes the kettle became overheated and caught fire.  Then we had to stop for the day and go to an air conditioned tavern.  Such misery!  To have to leave the inferno for the cool of a gin house!  Of course our wages were often burned up in beer, booze and bar dice!!  (I no longer take alcoholic beverages internally, and I have a horror of ladders!!)  

Then there was window cleaning on relatively tall buildings, true high-rises too, sometimes working with belts, crossing from one window to another, unhooking one end of the belt, re-hooking on the other side of the window, reaching for the hook on the next window, stretching in terror to cross the gap...  "Don't look down," says Baltazar, my Greek co-crazy.  "Good hooks!  Real safe!  You shouldn't worry much!"  Once a dentist pulled me into his window when a hook came out of the wall!  Oh, the joys of gondola lifts or "elevator" lift platforms...  I think we also called them "slip stages!"  Sometimes they'd slip...  Working on them in high winds was real exciting!  As a young college student, I actually survived and made lots of money one summer; was able to pay a large portion of my tuition.  Played cribbage with the boys during lunch hours, when we had them!  (Now I'm terrified of heights!)

Fritz was our favorite tavern-keeper when I worked for a company he lovingly called, "Hair Felt."  The company had a more professional name; they made indoor-outdoor carpeting.  We unloaded box cars, lots of them.  I was smaller, shorter, and was treated to the joys of crawling into boiling hot, cramped spaces to shove 12-foot bales of carpeting out and down into the space between the two stacks of bales in each rail car.  The bales were then hefted onto specialized wooden hand trucks to be ferried into the warehouse.  Two men, one on either side, "walked" the bales onto their ends to stand in enormous stacks against the warehouse walls....  waiting for orders!   They looked like cigars for giants or concrete freeway bridge supports!  We sweat a lot...  buckets.  Eventually, after numbers of injuries to our fellow workers, including a 12-foot bale that fell down and landed on the head of "Carlos," we organized and started a union.  A great triumph!  A boon for the working classes!  (Today I prefer wood floors and small rugs!)  

Road crews!  What great fun!  "Jumping stakes," puddling in concrete, setting and pulling forms...  I did a lot of sewer cleaning on those jobs too; one had to keep the sand and gravel from clogging them, and there was often the bonus of traditional sewer content that had to be

removed along with construction debris.  I mean, you couldn't really separate the intermingled stuff while filling buckets to be lifted to the roadway surface...  could you??!!  (Recently, I tried to repair the mechanism of a toilet...  I removed a few parts, scratched my head, called the plumber!)  

Factories, foundries, shipyards, even a mine!  When I graduated from college and took to the road, I was able to find more elegant employment.  Hotel and restaurant labors in the absence of work in my chosen field.  Newspaper and radio jobs too.  But, back to the hospitality trade:  At a major hotel near Tacoma, Washington, I started as a lowly banquet bartender, then became a "bar-back" (schlepping cases of beer, re-filling coolers...), then a day shift co-bar-manager, then beverage manager, even ascending to catering management.  What a success; what a climb up a more prestigious ladder!!  (At my present age, once in a while I put pop in the ice box!)     

As a truck driver for a major metropolitan newspaper (like that guy on television with the blue long johns and red underwear he wore on the outside!), I was a mild-mannered news medium employee.  I made a great many "state runs" with the fat Sunday paper.  On one occasion I happened to be assigned a rental truck that had a canvas and chain tail gate.  Unbeknownst to me, all of the papers fell out of the back as I motored north.  A traffic cop rather easily followed my trail and made me retrace the route and retrieve all of the "jettisoned" paper bundles...  or pay a large fine.  I went back.  Oh, my yes, the character-building joys of work, the personal gratification and self-esteem enhancing glories of the workaday life!!  (These days I prefer to read the "free press," and discarded newspapers!)     

Oh well...  (this could go on far too long!)  I guess it must be true that work makes us better citizens, makes us appreciate the value of our labors and able to see the contributions we make to this great land.  My sweet and talented wife, for example, wrote manuals on "legal advocacy" and "child custody" while working in the domestic violence arena, manuals that, I'll wager, may still be the standards in use today!  My brother designed a couple of bridges -- one that serves dually as a runway -- and buildings that stand and function to this day!  Me?  I'll betcha the "electric blankets" I built when doing temp work at "Knot Labor Force" still melt ice on the bridge they were designed to serve.  I'll betcha motorists still silently praise my valorous effort as their tires gain purchase on what otherwise might have been a skating rink!! 

And so this, my friends, is my humble homage to work, labor and meaningful employment.  Today as I sit staring at a computer screen -- "sit" being the operative word -- I long for the fresh air of the gondola on a 70-story building, the sweet aroma of the factory floor and the lilting rhythms of the punch press, the ambiance of the sewers, the insults of drunken hotel bar regulars...  not to mention the angry growling of the dribbling, corpulent chef who'd holler, "No beverage host vermin in MY kitchen...!"  Verily, The joys and memories of labor echo in my skull, as do Whitman's elegant and elegiac * refrains  (* ...Walt's dead!  So are the "Singing Workers" of his verse, and so too may be the nation's respect for labor and ordinary working people)!  

(Special Note:   The perpetrator of this Blog wishes to make it abundantly clear that in no way is this posting intended to denigrate work or labor, or the value and dignity of work, in any of its multitudinous forms.  The objective is to poke a bit of fun at his "careers," and to make sport of the perhaps rather fatuous choices made over time by the writer...  who's kind of fatuous himself, sometimes!  The writer, by the by, is happy to have survived his many noble occupations!) 

Humbly Submitted 08-20-15 -- Joel K.