A Weekend of Cuddles

The first weekend in October was much too much like the weekends yet to come between now and May. The clouds rolled in Friday and never left. They weren't the great thunderheads of summer that bring excitement along with inclemency. The sky this weekend was the dirty, dull dishwater gray of winter, unending blandness from horizon to horizon. And it rained - it rained a lot - but not as a display of Nature's wrath; this rain was the dripping of a million leaky faucets. If the thermometer topped fifty, it did just barely and not for long.

The weekend wasn't without a bright spot, however, and that bright spot was Cuddles the Cat. During the summer, Cuddles was in her Vanna White mode. She was out of sight most of the time, and when she did make an appearance, it was only to slink suggestively across the room, lest her two-legged acquaintances forget that she is ravishing, indeed.

Perhaps the unrelenting overcast made Cuddles' favorite spots too drab for her finicky feline tastes. Or maybe, because the sun was no longer doing its job, she moved around in an effort to generate some warmth. I think it was a combination of the two.

Cuddles was eager to play fetch again - and again and again. As with all things, Cuddles decides when we will play fetch, and she seldom had much interest in it over the summer. This weekend, we played four times, maybe even five or six times.

Our games begin when I am at the table reading or doing a crossword puzzle, and Cuddles finds a rubber band or other small object she can easily carry in her mouth. She jumps on to the table with greatest of ease, and lets the object fall from her mouth. If I fail to notice, she uses her front paws to push it closer. If that doesn't work, she takes advantage of my habit of keeping the book or newspaper flat on the table as I read and stretches across it. She faces me when she does this the first time. Should I fail to respond, she tries again. But now she adjusts her angle so that as her forelegs go out and her chin drops between them, her nether regions rise before my eyes.

Never let be said I can't take a hint. I pick up whatever it is she wants to chase, place it at the edge of table, and with flick of my finger send it across the room. Cuddles leaps from the table and makes a mad dash to retrieve it. Sometimes she brings it back right away, other times she'll bat it around on the floor, giving the impression that she was a soccer player in a previous life, before she allows me to rejoin the game. This goes on as long as Cuddles wants it to go on. When she is done, we're done, and not a moment before.

With the cooler weather, the furnace went on and the space heater I use to help keep my legs warm came out. I'm not so naïve as to believe Cuddles is fond of me, but she does like the space heater. Once on Saturday and twice Sunday, Cuddles got on the table and acted as though she wanted to play fetch, but she hadn't brought along anything to fetch. Eventually, she got me to understand that I was to move back a foot or so from the table so she could plop on my lap. Once there, she hung her head over my forearm, looking like Snoopy peering down from the roof of his doghouse, and enjoyed the warm air from the space heater blowing against her face.

By Wednesday, it's supposed to be sunny and seventy, and Cuddles will go back to being Vanna.

Time Marches On Without Me

A lot of the cursing you hear these days is from people bemoaning the demise of cursive writing. Indiana no longer requires schools to teach cursive, and several other states are reducing the amount of time schools must spend teaching it. In this age of computers and electronic tablets, pen-and-paper skills are assumed to be passé. The 21st Century teenager seldom if ever writes in cursive, and apparently more than a few cannot read the notes Grandma includes with their birthday cards. Of course, for the last fifty-five years, people have been cursing my attempts at cursive and claiming they can't read them. But a quick survey of the fonts available in my standard issue Microsoft Word reveals five cursive options. So what's the big deal?

The big deal is the decline of cursive writing is further evidence that I am antiquated. The world wasn't always this way. If a man from ancient Rome suddenly found himself in New York in 1800, life would have been much the same as the life he knew in the city of Romulus and Remus. He'd be surprised to discover that he didn't fall off the end of the earth on his way to New York, of course, and the printing press and gunpowder would be new to him. Otherwise, the skills he needed to get through the day in New York at the start of the 19th Century differed little from ones he had learned in Rome.

I am not, it should be noted, a Luddite. Progress and innovation are often good things. For instance, typing is one of 20th Century skills I never mastered, and I am, therefore, eternally grateful for the computer and its word processing capabilities. I don't type any better than I did in 1970, but my mistakes, assuming I can spot them, are so much easier to correct. The truth is, I am now of the opinion that the best thing to use on a Smith Corona is a Smith and Wesson.

But as a youngster, back when our phone number was COlonial 3-8944, back before it became TEnnyson 5-8944 and then the prosaic 835-8944, I mastered the rotary-dial telephone. And forty years later, in the final decade of the 20th century, I saw no reason why that skill wouldn't serve me well for the rest of my life. Some of this was the product of miserliness: the phone company provided a rotary-dial phone; we would have needed to purchase a touch-tone phone. This satisfied feeling ended the day a nephew visiting from Georgia went to make a phone call at our house and asked, "How do you work this thing?"

Map reading was once a useful skill. The intrepid traveler pulled out his road map to figure out where he was and how to get to where he wanted to be. That was the easy part. The real difficulty was folding the map properly when I was done so it would fit neatly into the glove compartment. Now there is the GPS, with its computer-generated voice that sounds like an impatient mother who isn't quite sure if her son is being uncooperative or if he's just not all that smart.

The ability to make change was also necessary skill. But what good is it now with the fancy-schamcy cash registers that tell the clerk how much change is due the customer and remind the clerk to tell the customer to have a nice day? Although, it is fun to see the deer-in-the-headlight look come over the clerk's face when you don't have the correct change and the computer isn't working.

Everywhere I look there is evidence of things changing more rapidly than I. Even in the newspaper, which is also well on its way to becoming a relic, there are reminders of my archaic life. Most of them can be found in the celebrity news column. There are days, sometimes several days in a row, when all the celebrity news is about celebrities I've never heard of. And most of the time when there is a familiar name, it is to mark a birthday beginning with a digit higher than seven, or to make note of some former star's decent into senility.

Grandma always said, "It's hell getting old." Well, I'm not getting older I'm just getting a little less young. It's the world around me that's getting younger, and I wish it would stop reminding me of it. And if you hear me cursing, that's why.

Unforgotten Moments

The most joyous moments of parenthood are not the big events, the birthday parties, the Christmas mornings, the few minutes of elation that follow days and weeks and months of planning. The unplanned, unscripted, unexpected moments are the ones that endure long after the nest has emptied.

Before Russell started school and I was working in the afternoons, he and I often went to Lake Shore Park in the morning. He was enthralled by The Wizard of Oz, and when we got to the park, he'd tell me to follow him. He'd run by the duck pond and up the hills and back down again. "OK, stop," he'd tell me and take a moment to look around. "This doesn't look like Kansas," he'd say, and off we'd go again.

Back home, he had the sound-track album, and he played it constantly. Russ never tired of Dorothy and the Munchkins and, strangely, neither did I. I had never paid much attention to the lyrics, and it was only after listening to the album day after day that I realized how much fun E.Y. Harburg, the lyricist, must have had - "How about a hippopotamus? Why I'd trash him from top to bottomamus. Supposin' you met an elephant? I'd wrap him up in cellophant." My dad, as usual, was right: they don't write songs like they used to.

Not long after that, I began working days. And because I got home from work an hour-and-a-half before my wife Debbie, I did the cooking during the week. This was matter of convenience and had nothing to do with our respective culinary talents. But one night at the dinner table when Russell was in junior high, Debbie said, "This is really good." Russell looked up from his plate, said "Look who made it," and pointed to me. It has always been my favorite family joke.

And one evening when Bethany was four or five, I was reading at the kitchen table. She wandered in, got up on my lap and then up on the table. She looked at me with her big, expressive eyes and talked about her adventures at day care. She asked me if I wanted to hear a song she had learned there. I told her I did. More than twenty years later, I can still see Bethany's face as she sang:

Say, say my playmate,

come out and play with me

and bring your dollies three,

climb up the apple tree.

Slide down my rain barrel

into my cellar door

and we'll be jolly friends

forever more - more - more!

In the words of another old song, "No, no, they can't take that away from me."

Going to the Doggerels Again

In a Word, Please

Before you commence

Your yakking, condense

The words you dispense.

Don't make your two cents

A verbal offense,

A spiel that's immense

And terribly dense

With wordy nonsense.

What if the Tulip?

What if the tulip had just one?

And what if that one lip was fat?

Why did that tulip come undone?

What if the tulip had just one

Because the other weighed a ton

And fell off one day, then went splat?

What if the tulip had just one?

And what if that one lip was fat?

Cogito too much

I wonder if Descartes's a sham,

Less thoughtful than he's thought to be.

He says he thinks, therefore he am.

I wonder if Descartes's a sham,

Why not, "I am, ergo I'm Sam."?

It's all a Frenchman's fantasy.

I wonder if Descartes's a sham,

Less thoughtful than he's thought to be.

At the Bar

Edna, the floozy,

Was feeling bluesy

And getting boozy

And somewhat woozy.

This guy, a doozy,

Did not look choosey.

She wondered, "Who's he?"

Right After These Words

I know four phone numbers. That's all. One is my current number, one is the number that served the Harris household so long and so well in Bethel Park, and one is the number that served another generation of Harrises for twenty years or more in Ashtabula. All the phone numbers I need these days are stored in my phone. When it goes, the numbers will go with it.

"Wait a minute," those paying attention are saying. "You said you know four numbers and you listed three. What's the other one?"

The problem is, I'm ashamed to say I know the remaining number. It is further proof, as if any were needed, that of the bumper crop of information I took in as a lad, all the wheat is gone and only the chaff remains. The fourth phone number on the tip of my tongue:

"Ding-a-ling-a-ling, give Roth a ring:/ Emerson-two-two-eight-oh-oh./ Mr. Roth is Mr. Rugs,/ Emerson-two-two-eight-oh-oh."

You see, far too much of what I know, or at least what I remember, I picked up during commercial breaks. Once a week or so, in quiet moments when I'm alone, I'll sing, "It's delightful, it's de-lovely, it's DeSoto." Chrysler stopped making the car fifty years ago, but the commercial still bangs around in my head. Dad used to sing old commercial jingles now and then, but he never sang about Hupmobiles.

Like topsoil on a hillside during a rainstorm, my valuable knowledge is eroding. And what remains is useless.

"Winston tastes good Like a cigarette should. / Winston gives you full flavor,/ Full, rich tobacco flavor. /Winston's easy drawing too,/ The filter lets the flavor through."

At the time, very few people were worried about the possible link between smoking and cancer. But the English mavens were up in arms because the ad writers ignored the rules of proper English usage. It should be, they said "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should." No one listened, of course, and now "like" is like the most like overused word in like the whole like English language.

The Pirates were on TV from time to time back then, and it's hard to forget Bob Prince. "How sweet it is!" "We had 'em all the way," and "You can kiss it goodbye." Beyond that, what do I remember? Not much besides this:

"Atlantic keeps your car on the go. /For business or pleasure, /In any kind of weather, /Atlantic keeps your car on the go, go, go./ So keep on the go with Atlantic."

Voice 1: Hey, Mr. Culligan man. Voice 2: You'll find him under water in the Yellow Pages.

And you'll find me drowning in a sea of commercials.

The Bear Facts

For reasons I can't fathom, my daughter Bethany has become an outdoorsman. It must be one of those recessive genes that surface every few generations. She certainly didn't get it from me.

I've caught one fish in my life. And all I know about firearms I learned from the U.S. Army. What I remember about firearms is when I was in Vietnam and had to carry a weapon, I worried more about shooting myself than being shot at by some VC.

When she was younger, Bethany never seemed much interested in the outdoors. She didn't avoid the outdoors, but she never strayed far from the indoors and its sundry conveniences.

All that started to change in 2001, when Debbie and I divorced, and Bethany and her mother headed for Orofino, Idaho. Now, if there is one thing Idaho has in abundance, it's outdoors. And for the folks along the banks of the Clearwater River, the wild life is mostly about the pursuit of wildlife, and game is about the only game in town.

In time, Bethany adapted. It took a while. She said of a boyfriend a few years ago: "Travis is so small town." That struck me as putting on cosmopolitan airs, coming as it did from someone who spent her first 17 years in Ashtabula.

But she found her way outside and in time became an avid sportswoman. Even so, I was taken aback a few days ago when I opened an email from her and found that she had bagged a bear. You know, one of those big furry things that Davy Crockett killed when he was only 3. But there it was, pictures and all.

"We had gone up in the Lochsa/Coolwater region of Idaho, which is heading out toward Missoula, Mont.," Bethany wrote. "We walked around this old logging road to the bluff that contained large trees and steep draws. We thought it would be the perfect place to set up a bear bait.

"So we set it up, using about 50-70 pounds of dog food and 10-15 gallons of grease. After we dumped all of that stuff down, we took large logs and branches and placed them on top of the dog food and grease. We would be able to determine the size of the bear that was there by noticing which logs had been moved. Then we finished it by starting a fire next to the bait and burning molasses. The molasses burns and produces a thick smoke that sticks to the trees, ground, etc. Basically it is a type of lure."

I like the way Bethany takes me through this step by step. Sometimes she is in such a hurry, but when it really matters, she is so patient with her old man.

"A few days had gone by and we ventured back into the bear bait to see if it had been hit. It had," Bethany went on. "Looking around the bait we noticed many bear tracks in the soft mud, including the smallest bear track I have ever seen. It was sooooo cute. We knew now it was just a matter of time."

OK, if you think the tracks are "sooooo cute," why would you want to risk shooting its mom or dad? Isn't it easier when the meat is prepackaged, and you don't have to concern yourself with questions of cuteness?

"Two days after that, on a Sunday, we decided we were going to shoot a bear," Bethany said. "We drove up to the spot, got out of the truck, got the guns, video camera, knives etc., and we sneaked into the bait.

"As we were walking up to the bait, we could hear the ravens talking. On a bear bait, when you hear the ravens but do not see them, they are generally sitting on the bait, which means there is no bear there at that time. Sure enough, we looked over the hill and saw about five ravens sitting on top of the logs.

"No big deal. Having those ravens there actually enabled us to get a good spot and get prepared for a bear to walk in."

So, that's all there is to it? You sit around and wait for the bear to show up for its execution. I would have concluded that the ravens were saying "Nevermore" and headed back to town.

"So here I am sitting on this hill. I have my shooting sticks in place and the Remington 7 Mag sitting on the sticks," she went on. "I had it set up so all I had to do was look through the scope and it was already looking onto the bait.

"After about five minutes of preparation, I sat there for about another five minutes. I looked around and was completely silent. Then, in that short amount of time, my soon-to-be bear rug was walking into the bait. All of the sudden, my heart began pounding and I looked through the scope, got the bear in the sights, waited patiently until the bear turned so I could have a clean broadside shot, and BOOOOM.

"I hit the bear right in the shoulder, and he folded on top of the bait. I looked up at my friends and had the biggest smile in the world. I was sooooo excited."

For those like me who have no idea what Bethany is talking about: Shooting sticks are two sticks that are put into the ground to form an X. The shooter rests her gun on the sticks and awaits the prey. A Remington 7 Mag is a gun about which I know nothing.

"We began walking down to the bait to check out my kill," Bethany continues. "When we got there, we poked the bear a little with the butt of the gun to make sure I didn't just injure him, and that he wouldn't get up and attack me. But he was done - no movement or anything. I had made a perfect shot.

"After about a half hour of photography, we started to skin the bear out. After about 45 minutes of working on getting the bear cleaned up, Danny - a friend of mine - looked down the draw and said 'Beth give me the gun.' I looked at him and was like 'whatever.' He says, 'No, seriously, give me the gun.'

"So I give him the gun. He pops off a shot and I hear what sounds like a deep moan. I look down the hill and he had shot a bear, too.

"His bear was a beautiful blonde color. It was a boar and it was about 100 pounds. Mine was a black sow with a tan patch at about 175 pounds. So, that made for a long evening. We had to skin out not only my bear but his as well.

"It was probably the best hunting trip I have ever been on."

You know, I'm not sure I like the idea of my daughter using the term "like whatever" in written correspondence. Otherwise, she never ceases to amaze me.

This appeared in the Star Beacon, July 23, 2008

Out of Season

Life is a series of milestones, and I have reached another one. This one has to do with winter. Thirty years ago, I loved winter, I looked forward to winter. Some time in the 1980s, Masterpiece Theater presented a dramatization of The Last Place on Earth, the story of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen racing to the South Pole. That winter, as I walked to Dairy Mart each morning for the paper, the snow crunching beneath my feet, and the bitterly cold wind blowing off the ice-covered lake, I pictured myself slogging across Antarctica. Just to be on the safe side, I traveled with the Norwegians rather than with the always confidant but hopelessly incompetent Scott.

Shoveling snow was a challenge then, especially as the snow piled up and there was no more room to put it between our house and the neighbor's fence. I had to carry the excess to the backyard by the shovel full. But it was a welcome challenge. A job that once done, I wanted to say, "Come on, Mother Nature, is that the best you can do?" Then, oh so pleased with my indomitable spirit, I went inside for some hot chocolate.

Around the middle of February every year, winter would be interrupted by three or four spring-like days. Only then did my thoughts turn to warm winds and sunshine. When the seasonable weather returned, which it inevitably did, winter had lost its luster.

As the years past, winter began to lose its thrill. Well, maybe it didn't lose its thrill, but the thrill didn't last as long. For a while, I was fed up with winter by Groundhog's Day. A few years later, it was the middle of January, and by the turn of the century, a white Christmas seemed like a suitable finale for winter. I still looked forward to the first snowfall of the season, but not for long. Five or six years ago, the day we returned to standard time was the last of a string of wonderful fall days. It was followed by two weeks of unrelenting overcast and frequent rain. A dark and depressing fortnight that left me sick of winter several days before the first flurry fluttered by the window.

Which brings me to today's milestone. It's Tuesday; the autumnal equinox is Friday. Summer isn't over yet, and I'm already sick of winter. That's never happened before.