Traveling Then, Now... Coffee vs. Whiskey!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      Traveling Then and Now...  Coffee vs. Whiskey!

Many people love to travel; to some it's a kind of religion.  I'm one of those who could travel almost constantly, if time and resources allowed.  I think there ought to be a travel channel and books specifically geared to the older traveler...  The Travel Geezer, for example, or A Geezer's Guide to a Sedentary Sort of Almost Adventurous Travel with Lots of Sitting Down...  something of that nature.  Wait a minute!  Mustn't forget television...    GLOBE SHUFFLER?

Just Imagine the Glories of this Thing
in the Middle of the Night!!?

In one's callow youth, mine, that is, I enjoyed traveling with my dear old friend, Patrick.  (At least I think so! Memory sometimes fogs a bit resulting from prodigious ingestion of spirits!)  On one occasion we took a road trip bound for California, commencing in Cheyenne, Wyoming, then ever onward and west bound. We were keen to visit the Grand Canyon along the way to the coast. Trouble was we liked to visit every saloon and tavern as we wandered westward.  In Williams, Arizona, for

Here's a view of at least one of the fabulous saloons in
Williams...  and, Oh Yeah, a postcard (at right).  I think
we actually purchased a postcard there...  possibly!

example, we couldn't resist the beckoning gin joints and the marvelous characters who practically therein resided!  "Big Biff" and "Gert the Guzzler" and "Cactus Smelly Rictus," to name a few.  Lots of cowboys, too, or so they claimed.  (I suppose ancient, filthy cowboy hats lent some credence to their alleged veracity!) 

We claimed to have seen the great gaping hole that is the Grand Canyon, although, owing to frequent patronage of saloons, we arrived at night.  The great gaping hole was a black hole. What a sight for two weary travelers who likely couldn't see straight in any case.  You shoulda seen the pictures we took!  (But you wouldn't have been able to see anything...  sort of like "artistic" shots inside coal bins or un-illuminated cave walls!)

We reached Las Vegas at night too.  Same impediments prevented an earlier arrival.  The casinos served us lots of drinks while we were losing lots of currency.  Such elegant travelers!... because we failed to engage our brains, we failed to engage a room.  We slept in the 

Arrived at Night; Slept in the Car;
Lost Lots of Folding Currency.  What
a Time we Had!!?

car, a compact.  Police woke us in the AM and accused us of vagrancy.  We opened our wallets, pockets too maybe, to reveal spare amounts of folding money and a couple of expired credit cards.  But, ever resourceful, we booked a cheap motel and spent another exciting night losing more money. What a time we had!  We made it to California, finally, on money borrowed and wired.     

Times change, sometimes for the better.  As age piled onto our bones and empty bourbon bottles remained un-replenished, travel adventures became a little less perilous, a bit less robust.  Sweetheart and I "travel" about five miles a day as we walk to one of several locations of our favorite coffee house.  I'm thinking someday I'd like to adopt a permanent persona as a "coffee house character," having some years ago replaced a fondness for beer and whiskey with a love of good coffee.

I begin to imagine my own brilliant pontifications as I listen to typical coffee cafe exchanges. They tend to go something like this:

"Hey Bumpy, how ya doin'?"
"How YOU doin' ?"
"I assed you foist.  How YOU doin'?"
"How YOU doin'?"
"You don't ass me how I'm doin' when I assed you foist.  Politeness, Bumpy!  You're s'posed to Follow a proper protocol, like....  aaah, the hell wid it.  I'm doin' OK.  Got a touch of the quinsy, I tink....  Udder den dat...  Oh, and pustules..."
"Doin' any travelin'?"
"Yeah, me an Lumpy drove over to, uh... whatchacallit last week.  Had a few beers, played some cribbage wid, uh, ya know, them chunky pals o' ours in the bib overalls....  We got lost on the way back.  Hadda ass a farmer where we was." 
"Sounds like a real nice, uh...  whatchacallit...  How's yer, uh...?  Whatsit...  yer nose still looks a little brownish, like maybe, like, it's phlebotomized..."  

Or...    maybe NOT a coffee house character!  

We get to a lot of coffee places these days.  We really like the stuff, and our habituation of "mud joints" is a kind of motivational "carrot" to keep us on our daily five-mile trek, maintain the discipline it requires.  Knowing that at the end, or nearing the end of the hike, we'll have our reward.  Our preferred coffee purveyor has two locations in Madison. We've been to both.  Now that's traveling, eh?!  In Chicago, one has to frequent a different establishment, like Intelligencia, not a bad substitute, though!  

And so we adapt to changing times and altered behaviors.  We still get to Florida, taking

advantage of a generous cousin and an inexpensive condo rental.  And, Door County...  Dubuque... Dickeyville...  Duluth... Clam Falls...  Footville...  Before I kick off the mortal coil, however, I'd like to get to Italy.  I want to sit around with pasta sauce dribbling from my chin and have a chat with wonderful old Italians, even though there'll be no real comprehension on either end of the dialogue!  I plan to bring a Berlitz Book or the Geezer's Guild to Italian and How to Eat Pasta without Looking Like a Dopey Tourist with Red Chin Whisker Stains!  (I tend to prefer red sauce!)

And yet, travel, any kind of travel, is a gift!  (That is, apart from being kicked down a flight of stairs!)  I enjoy looking at the public access pages of bookface where travel adventures of all types and sizes are posted.  Relatives who just went to bask in the warmth of the Dominican Republic and they didn't invite us!!...  for example.  Yes, my dears, I love travel.  Maybe one day Sweetheart and I will get to pack a sack and catch a Number 32 bus and re-visit the old west... you know, Wauwatosa!!  In the meantime...   "Sweetheart, where's my re-fillable coffee mug? I can't find...  Hey!  Where'd you put the lid?  What??!!  I lost the lid?!?..."

(Special Note of Gratitude and Dedication:  To, Pat, my wonderful friend of long standing, who's currently undergoing a difficult challenge, and he's doing so with courage and grace.  Hope to see you soon in person. Thought you might enjoy recalling one of our memorable travel adventures. Thank you for sharing with me some of the greatest travel experiences one can store in memory...  or maybe needs to forget!  In any event, I raise a cheer to you and memories of the "Grand Hook-a-Thons of our youth!"  And thanks to Joey, too, for her generous forbearance!  With love to Both!)  

Humbly Submitted, 04-06-16 -- Joel K.                

        

  
           

Newspaper Chronicles -- The Many Labors of a Young Reporter!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

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

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    Newspaper Chronicles -- The Many Labors of a Young Reporter!

The roadway was impossibly dark and twisted.  Headlamps reflected blazing green-eyed beasts at every turn, causing electric shocks of panic and frenzied braking.  Once even a specter, bald and wrinkled, walking in the middle of the endless blacktop.  Each a brief slap of awakening from dangerous exhaustion.  Monolithic sentries cast their stony glances of disapproval on the lone traveler.  Or were they being protective, eyes intent and guiding?  Seeing, at last, a turnoff, I pulled over and slept.  Some hours later, a brilliant rising sun re-ignited the odyssey, and I moved on, obsessively eager to reach a destination both frightening and alluring.  

Next morning -- it was sometime in the very late 1960's -- I arrived at the offices of The Southwest Gawker Talker!  It's masthead proudly announced, The Only Newspaper in the World that Gives a Hoot about Our Portion of the Metroplex! The owner and publisher, Ferd Fozzlefinger, bade me sit.  I sat.  I produced my credentials, including a bound diploma attesting to a BA degree in Journalism, along with my Honorable Discharge from the US Armed Forces, something upon which Ferd insisted.  The interview lasted maybe five minutes.  Ferd looked pleased; I offered silent thanks to the Colorado Press Association.

"Can you start today?" Ferd Fozzlefinger asked.  

"You mean like right now?

"Yes, today, right now.  Can you do it?" Ferd asked with emphasis.

"Sure.  I guess so."  

"Good," said Ferd,  "You're hired."

"Where's the rest of the staff?" I inquired.

"You're it," said Ferd.  "Well, naturally we have our typesetter and graphic artist, Gimel Sneedby.  You'll like him.  He's good, real professional.  Also too, you'll be editor and head writer of The Big Bugle, a Legion Post newspaper.  I own that one also too."  (I enjoyed "total staff" status on that one "also too"!)

I met Gimel in the typesetting and reporting office.  Ferd showed me to a small desk, and I had my first real newspaper job.  Ferd provided a set of verbal instructions, including how to cover my daily beat, whom to call upon for advertising revenue, a listing of advertising prospects, addresses and directions for the local police department, fire house, municipal offices,

Young reporters must always keep
eyes wide open for big doings and
scoops (free ice cream and
important breaking news!)

area elementary and high schools, snitches, neighborhood people he termed "sources for anything of importance that's going on in our portion of the region."  So much to learn, so quickly.  I frowned purposely for dramatic effect, making sure my eyebrows were contorted with anxiety, my forehead a plowed field!    

"Don't worry," said Ferd.  "I'll be with you every step of the way."  I never saw him again.  Gimel and I -- he told me to call him "Gibby" -- became an effective team, collaborators, even great pals.  He operated a kind of photo-headline-making machine, a typesetting device that created neat columns of newsprint and something flat that whirred quietly and applied adhesive to strips of newsprint.  I was enthralled.  Page templates, chart packs, adhesive dingbats and black lines, "Press-Type" and sharp little picks with protective corks for placing graphic elements on the page.  This was newspaper compositor technology at its zenith!  

We did everything, just the two of us, to produce fine weekly editions of The Southwest Gawker Talker.  Eventually I established a beat, discovered news sources; I acquired some advertising contracts, got to know a police sergeant who became my primary source for crime news, an assistant fire chief, grocers, school officials, a pharmacist, city personnel, backyard gossips, a plumber, malcontents, neighborhood politicos, a guy who chased stray dogs and cats and told me he once roped a coyote in an urban public park.  And, of course, "Guttural Gus," my personal "rat-stoolie" who somehow collected vast material on sexual peccadilloes and nefarious tittle-tattle.  (More about "Gus" in a future edition, perhaps!) 

After a period of time had passed, I asked Gibby, "I mean, is there compensation involved with these fine career positions of ours?  Are there, like, paydays?"  

"Hey, don't worry," said Gibby.  " 'Ferdy the Finger' -- that's our pet name for the boss -- sends checks to the office.  He's not real consistent, but we get paid, ya know, like kind of regularly."  

"When?" I asked

"Lemme see...  I think we can expect some pay, well, something like next Wednesday," said Gibby.  "I'll make a note to call 'The Finger.'  He listens to me when I threaten to walk out.  I'll threaten for you too!"

"Good," I said.  "My room is small and cheap, but the landlady expects rent occasionally.  And food," I continued.  "I find that I must eat occasionally too."  Gibby thought this amusing.  He chuckled, raised a hand to his face and smeared his mouth with printer's ink.

As time passed, Gibby and I decided that we'd become, among our other duties, "Auntie Muriel," the advice columnist.  "We have to have a little fun around here," he insisted.  I agreed.  And thus we re-launched a column that, he said, "had been too long dormant, and it's an essential feature of the weekly newspaper format."  What a hoot, it was, and we loved writing or editing it, some entries real, most fictitious.  Here's an example:

Dear Auntie Muriel...  I don't do work, you see.  It's an agreement my lady friend of 12 years and I have.  She likes to work.  I distain work; I find it demeaning and undignified, and I have gout, I think.  I'd like to marry the woman, my dear lady friend of 12 years, but I worry she's a bit flighty and can't seem to commit herself to a single job for any purposeful length of time.  I worry a lot about this, and I try to tell her we need stability, money.  I mean, let me elucidate:  she's been a shrubbery trimmer, a gandy dancer, a coal dock worker, a governess, a butcher's apprentice, an underwear designer, a saloon keeper, a taxidermist, a rubber chicken packer, a mahout, a mob assassin, a tweedy wife of the drunken vicar of Islington, a deep sea diver, a communist infiltrator, an exterminator, an attorney, a garage door installer...  I could go on.  I once even threatened to purchase a girdle and become the tweedy wife of a drunken vicar myself.  Nothing works.  I'm a fine companion, after all.  A frightfully decent sort of chap.  I clean our living spaces at least bi-monthly, well, sort of.  I dress nice; I own a selection of handsome argyle sweater vests.  I once in a while cook excellent frozen dinners on aluminum platters.  I buy her the finest cleaning supplies.  Metal buckets, powders and self-squeezing mops.  I leave detailed instructions for her cooking assignments.  Recipes too; I clip them out neatly for her.  What can I do, Auntie Muriel, how can I convince my lady friend to find a position of permanence with real good pay?  (Signed)...

   Agonized in Argyle!

Dear Agonized in Argyle...  Shut up!  Whiney, obtuse fool!  Go out and get a job of work, you supercilious gnat-brained buffoon!  I obscenitize in the soured milk of your impotence!  I'm astonished the woman didn't leave you eleven and a-half years ago!  She's either a saint or an idiot.  You're certainly an idiot!  Give the woman some time to discover her true self, her real identity, her joie de vivre, her forte (the "e" is silent, you contemptible snot-nosed baboon!), her metier, her bag, man!  Instead of whining about your lady friend and her magnificent achievements, her attainment of varied, extraordinary skills, you should be on your knobbly knees in adoration of such a remarkable woman whom you clearly don't deserve.  You should bury your needy, reedy and haughty nose in the want ads, or at least get on relief, you brick-headed issue of a dung beetle.  (Don't take offense -- merely constructive criticism)...  But I believe you ought to take some responsibility for the economic sustenance of the relationship.  Jerk!  Thanks for your interesting and nicely-composed letter!  (Signed)...  Auntie Muriel!

The two Aunties Muriel discuss
Advice over greenery, biscuits
and booze (the latter pretending
to be weak tea!)  

Among letters actually published?  Whether or not is up to you, gentle reader.  Gibby and I enjoyed our "Auntie Muriel" correspondence enormously, both the real and the manufactured.  Over time, he and I produced a significant number of weekly editions of our newspaper; I edited and helped produce only two issues of The Big Bugle.  We received erratic payments from Ferb, but I never again saw him in the flesh.  Once he Fax'ed us a photo of himself eating snails in a French bistro, greasy dribble on his chin.  

Eventually, in the passage of journalistic time, I was lured to Cheyenne, Wyoming and a daily newspaper for which I served as general assignment reporter and erstwhile sportswriter and editor, all for the princely sum of $75.00 a week.  I covered and photographed a rodeo from a barrel...  (that, too, is a story for another time).  Other newspaper, broadcast journalism assignments as well, were 
joined like boxcars to my resume whenever the itch and unexplored geography beckoned.  

The weekly newspaper is, or was, an exceptionally good training ground for a young journalist.  That is, for a young reporter who worked in the field some 40 or more years ago.  Being long removed, one is not now an authority on the present status of the weekly press.  Never quite achieving fame or fortune in my journalistic career, I am lavishly enriched by the overall experience, having gained a treasure of knowledge and adventure, now zealously guarded in a cerebral vault, that I'll keep and cherish -- brain function willing -- all the way to the tomb.

(Special Note of Attribution and Gratitude:   The perpetrator of this Blog extends enormous thanks to his great friend, teacher and mentor, Larry Lorenz, a man of exceptional talent in the written word, author, broadcaster, educator, whose love of the profession of journalism and the power of the printed word is an enduring gift to all who have benefitted from his wisdom and intellectual generosity.  Thank you, my friend, for your most valued influence, and for sharing ideas, at least one of which led me to recall and recount some adventures in newspaper journalism!) 

Humbly Submitted 11-05-14 -- Joel K.