MJ Logan | Monday Muse

Valentine

by MJ Logan | Apr 25, 2013 | Cool Stories

Oh sure, I know that St. Valentine’s Day is February 14th, and this is April 25th. But how could I do all this writing and not write about my sweetie, the lovely Mrs. Goodwife, the woman who puts up with me writing into the wee hours of the morning.

I met my Valentine a few weeks before Valentine’s day in 1990. The people I worked with talked me into joining their team, though my real plans were a move out of state and away from the company. Fate intervened a dark-haired Italian with mysterious eyes showed up to substitute for an absent team member.

I finally managed the courage to ask her out and on our first date, a double date no less with my neurotic former roommate and his far less neurotic girlfriend, we went to an Italian Restaurant and had the strangest waiter you would ever meet. He wasn’t even a waiter, but people jumped when he spoke. All the tables were full when we arrived, and he clapped his hands, had someone bring a table out and set it up, chairs brought and a linen cloth put over the top.

In no time, we were seated and he brought a bottle of wine that he picked out, and then he asked if we wanted an antipasto. Without waiting for an answer, he was off and running and shortly brought a platter that would have fed ten people. It was right after he delivered the antipasto when he announced that he was off his meds and feeling little bit crazy.

Dinner was different to say the least, and halfway through it, our “waiter” disappeared and we suddenly had a real waiter. Very strange indeed.

After dinner, the four of us went to the movies and saw Driving Miss Daisy. Marg and I held hands on our way out of the theater. Then we had an after-dinner drink at the former roommate’s girlfriend’s house. I took Marg home and got a peck on the cheek. It must have been some peck and I couldn’t even think on my way home that night.

The following weekend I had to go to Colorado and serve as Chef for my cousin’s wedding, but the week after Marg and I had another date and I had a big feeling that my life was suddenly and unexpectedly changing.

Disaster! Valentine’s Day, 1990 brought a huge snowstorm down on Chicagoland, and I was caught in the mess of traffic. Despite having a four-wheel drive jeep-like vehicle, I could barely move and for two hours, sat in traffic as I vented my frustration at the world and wondered if she’d ever even speak to me when I finally arrived.

I finally pulled into her driveway, gathered up all my courage, and picked up the flowers from the passenger seat. They had wilted! Could the day get any worse?

Wilted flowers in hand (at least she would know I remembered flowers), I rang the bell in hopes she’d understand.

The door opened and there she was. A worried look on her face and she made me come in, took the flowers, and even though they were pretty much ruined, put them in a vase anyway. One of the pathetic flower heads even fell off and I was so embarrassed. But I knew then that I had found someone extra special and that I had better hang on to her.

Somehow I managed to do that and here were are 23 years later.

It’s great fun to tease her about the day she picked me up in a bowling alley.

No republication without expressly written consent.

Untold

by MJ Logan | Apr 24, 2013 | Rambling

C-119 Fairchild “Flying Boxcar” Troop Carrier

The untold stories that fill my head should keep me busy for the next decade or so. By the time I use up what is up there now, I’ll have another batch to share. I could even stretch a few true stories into tall tales and make you guess what is true and not true.

This untold story is about the time we went to the dump to watch bears when I was about eight years old. Bears would show up at the town dump for a free meal. One time this big bruiser came waddling out of the pit with a big grocery bag hanging from his teeth. He looked like he was headed for work and brown bagging that evening.

In between bear sightings, people would get out and talk to each other, as they often do in Small Town America. I was talking to this other kid and he said he had seen a big plane. I had just watched a war movie with my dad in which the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was featured. I told the kid about it, and then the kid went over to his dad and pointed at me.

“That boy saw a flying train.”

His dad took a good look at me, and then he whispered in his son’s ear. That boy never spoke to me again.

When I got older, the other fun thing to do at the dump was shoot rats. They had rats down there as big as small dogs it seemed. We went with our .22 rifles. The guy who sat at the gate would warn us not to shoot each other or the people who came to dump garbage. I never heard of anyone getting shot, but a kid named Reggie got his skin caught in the bolt of his .22 and it took off a strip of skin about a 1/4 inch wide and two inches long.

Reggie’s mother came down to the dump after that and quizzed the gate keeper, and then all of us kids. Turns out, Reggie was trying to see how fast he could fire ten shots off and got his thumb caught. When he freed it, it stripped off the skin. For a while, we thought someone was getting arrested for shooting Reggie’s thumb, but it turned out to be his own darn fault and the only arrest that was made was his .22 winding up on the mantle for a month.

After our ammo was used up, we’d take our rats and the guy at the gate would give us a Nickle apiece for them. Eventually they stopped us from shooting rats out of concerns that they were paying underage kids to shoot rats and if someone got hurt, the county would have big trouble.

They tried trapping them after that, but it didn’t work. Poison was considered, but folk were concerned the poison would end up in a pet, or a game animal and then onto someone’s table. So the poison idea was tabled. Along came another guy who said for a 1000 dollars, he’d shoot 99 percent of the rats. He was hired without much talk and he set up a couple of shooting spots down at the dump.

There was a whole lot of shooting and the air was thick with gun smoke. When it was all over, he had himself a pile of rats. The next weekend, there were rats all over the place, same as always. It looked like there were more than ever.

And that was how I learned a good piece of wisdom about rats and well…

“Ya put politicians in charge, they multiply like rabbits and ye can’t get rid of them no how, just like rats.”

No republication without expressly written consent.

Peace

by MJ Logan | Apr 21, 2013 | Rambling

Peace is a Hope that Never Materializes, Like the Wispy Images of a Dream at Awakening ~ MJ Logan

A Dream Catcher Hangin From a Tree as the Sun Sets. Photo by Aline Berry at Pixabay.com

Peace is a fleeting glimpse of heaven. Throughout history, mankind has dreamed of peace, but I have come to sincerely doubt that we can ever truly be at peace. Throughout my lifetime, there has never truly been peace anywhere, and I’ve lived a few years on this piece of rock we call earth. Third rock from the sun. One of eight (or nine if you’re old like me) and of all the worlds in this solar system, ours seems the least peaceful, at least from our point of view.

I was born in 1961. We were in the Vietnam war and my Uncle served there in a front line medical unit. Remember the TV series M*A*S*H and the guys up at the front, who stabilized soldiers for the trip back the MASH unit? That’s where my uncle was, except it was Vietnam. Not a good place to be, and certainly not peaceful.

Eventually, the Vietnam war ended and we admitted, grudgingly perhaps, that were defeated. Or perhaps we just gave up. Maybe we did. It all seems so confused now. I was 14 in April of 1975 when they pulled the last (not counting men missing in action) of our people out there. Operation Frequent Wind was completed on April 30th of that year when the last of the U.S. Marines and U.S. Embassy personnel left by helicopter from the embassy grounds.

It should have meant peace, but it did not. South Vietnam was over run with communists and taken over. As many as 3 Million South Vietnamese died throughout the duration of the war.

Peace was not found here in the USA either. Returning troops were welcomed by families, but war protesters and agitators denigrated them, called them baby killers and worse. My uncle recalled a woman coming into their aid station who handed him a baby and ran. The baby had a grenade in its diaper, a booby trap. Fortunately, the grenade was disarmed and the baby and men at the aid station were not hurt. And here at home, we called returning soldiers baby killers. No Peace Anywhere, it seemed.

Somewhere in the world, there is always conflict and often we the people of the USA are involved in one way or another. Where is the peace? Why is it up to us to fix the world and destroy it in the process. Because fighting for right is right, and defending the weak is right, and defending our right to live in peace, is never peaceful.

We give money and planes and arms to people who hate us, then wonder why they use them against us. When terrorists strike at the heart of our nation and people, we cry out in anger. These people hate us for our ways and our freedoms and our religious views. We can’t reason with them or bargain with them or offer them appeasement. There can be no peace without mutual respect, and they do not respect us. Yet, we are expected to respect them, to tolerate their point of view and their religion.

They have no respect for women. Yet we must tolerate that. Where is the peace in that?

Maybe it is time to say, no to peace with these people.

Maybe if we want peace, its time to show them the price of not being peaceful.

Maybe peace is something you fight for and take with bloody hands.

Maybe.

No republication without expressly written consent.

Porcupine Quills

by MJ Logan | Apr 21, 2013 | Rambling

Porcupine Quills in Various Lengths. Imagine them entirely transluscent without color.

Quills. Usually I associate a quill with a porcupine. Their quills are actually hair. Long, thick, hard and sharp. Popular belief in years past was that a porcupine could flick his tail at you and fill the air with missiles that would puncture your skin and leave you hurting. The myth was untrue as porcupines cannot “throw” their quills. If they swat you or any other critter with their tail, the quills will easily puncture the skin, grab on with their barbs and indeed, a painful removal experience awaits those foolish enough to allow themselves to be swatted.

A friend once came knocking in the early morning. Actually, he didn’t knock, just came right on in. Don’t freak out, that was Small Town America in the 1970s and 80s, and even the 90s, where neighbors and friends might just walk right in, if they feel comfortable at your home.

Pileated Woodpecker Hunting Insects in a Tree/ The reason for his visit was a tiny critter he held in the palm of one hand. It was white, had pink eyes, and a multitude of quills–a baby, albino porcupine just a few days old. How cute. How interesting. And… you could hold it carefully and pet it as long as you stroked in the direction of the quills. If you didn’t you got stuck. Ouch. The baby’s quills were not actually white, but translucent.

Its mother was hit by a car and the cute little porky was motherless. As a side note, for a long time I wondered how mama porcupines gave birth without getting skewered. Turns out, the quills are soft and flexible before birth and stay that way for a short while afterward. This baby’s quills were hard, so probably it was a few days old.

However, that doesn’t answer the question of how adult porcupines make baby porcupines without skewering each other. We won’t explore that topic today.

Porcupines are solitary critters. They like to bumble along, looking for tasty stuff to eat. They never hurry, just mosey along. In the summer, they eat grass and clover and other yummy green plants. In the winter, their diet changes to the soft bark of a tree up near the top. They climb very well and will nestle in for days in the top of a prime tree, eating the bark all the way around the trunk and sometimes in a swath three to six feet tall.

Unfortunately for the tree, this is usually means the top will die. It also invites the infestation of insects that like to eat trees, and thus, the remaining tree may die as well.

However, this is not necessarily bad in the grand scheme of things. The bugs that burrow into the tree are tasty treats for woodpeckers. In fact, the piliated woodpecker (think Woody Woodpecker without the attitude) will bore large holes into these trees looking for insects to eat. In the process, they hollow out large portions of the trunk.

In the spring, a pileated woodpecker will make bigger holes to build their nests and raise a brood of woodpeckers that will benefit from the chewing of a porcupine. Once abandoned by the woodpeckers, the nesting holes are sometimes used in subsequent years by wood ducks. To see one flying at full speed and appear to literally crash into the tree is amazing. If you blink, you miss it and wonder where the duck went. Then the head emerges and it looks around for a moment before hiding again.

Our friend had some coffee with us and probably one or two of Mom’s homemade rolls, and took the baby porcupine home. A farmer supplied raw whole milk for it, and the baby grew. As it grew, it did what porcupines do best, and that is chew things. They love anything that has been in contact with salt and will eat entire ax handles because of the sweaty salt in them. Baby Porky wasn’t such a baby anymore, and it wasn’t much of a pet either. In fact, our friend never intended to keep it as a pet. Once it was weaned off the milk, it had to forage for grass and clover in the yard, just alike any other porky.

One day our friend put on his heavy leather gloves and loaded Porky into a bucket (Porky was used to short trips in the bucket by then.) He put the bucket into his backpack and drove to a remote area, then hiked about three miles into the woods. The last time our friend saw Porky, he had climbed into a willow bush and was happily munching on the bark, doing what porcupines do best.

No republication without expressly written consent.

Tromp On It

by MJ Logan | Apr 21, 2013 | Cool Stories

1975 Buick Electra Park Avenue. My 76 Park Avenue was the best car I ever owned. The very definition of 1970s luxury.

As in “Tromp” on the accelerator. Tromping is almost like stomping, except your foot is already on it and you press down hard. When you tromp on the gas, you’re punching it hard, to go as fast as you can, as quick as you can. Sometimes, tromping on the accelerator can save your life; other times it might get you a speeding ticket. Or get you out of one…

It was one of those perfect days for driving. The air was cool and the road was dry. The sun was high in the deep blue sky and everything was perfect, from the breeze in my hair to the rumble of the big engine under the hood to the girl sitting next to me. Back in those days, we didn’t worry much about big engines that guzzled gas faster than a crowd at a free beer tent. They drank lots of fuel, went fast, and could compete favorably with any of these little things they sell today, off the line or on a straightaway.

The big Buick Electra Park Avenue looked and drove like a boat. I bought it from an older couple who lived in Illinois and planned to buy a new car (another Buick) at a dealership. It was manufactured in 1976 and had a 455-cubic-inch engine (315 horsepower) with a four-barrel carburetor. The muffler I put on it wasn’t up to factory specs, and kept the big engine’s voice quieter than straight pipes, but there was a delicious rumble you could feel in your chest. That car held the road better than anything I had ever owned. Today, we have anti-lock brakes and traction control systems.

Torque is what matters in a big heavy car, and the 455, even weighted down with the newest smog prevention hardware was capable of 345 foot-pounds, enough to burn through a pair of tires in a weekend if you wanted to and had the money. Tires for that car were not cheap.

Sitting at the curb, the 1976 model I owned weighed just about 5000 pounds and was a bit over 18 feet long, one of the longest 4-door sedans ever made.

I was out and about purely for the fun of driving a luxury, boat-like car on back roads. The girl on the comfy-cushion, split-bench seat next to me held my arm tight as we went around curves and took corners faster than most people would. I’d slow slightly just before the curve, hold my speed coming around, and as the road straightened, I’d tromp the accelerator and the boat would grow wings and fly out of the bend with a satisfying whine from the tires.

The really cool thing about big engines and big cars with big carburetors is the way they suck air when they are working hard. You can hear it in the car and that is almost as satisfying as the weight in the seat of your pants as you step on the gas. If you happened to be on the side of the road, you might wonder if that engine was going to suck you right in.

We were coming up to the double-ess, a snakey-curvey section of road that wound through a low area with water on both sides and a narrow bridge that had a good bump on it. I slowed to about forty for the first curve to the left, wound to the right at about forty-five, then tromped on the gas to come into the second pair of bends. We hit the bridge-bump and caught a smidgen of air.

The yellow, winding-road sign flew past us and I entered the next curve at about 70 and kept it there. The tires were screaming and the girl clenched my arm so tight it made me grin. Coming out to the straight, I hit the gas again, really shoved it down hard and the tranny dropped down first one gear, then another. We were shoved back into the seat and as the car leaped forward, I caught a glimpse of white metal gleaming in the bright sunlight. It was too late and I turned my head to look at the cop hiding behind the tall weeds on a cutout I hadn’t even known was there until that very moment, and I knew that road very well.

Even at about 90 MPH, there was no mistaking the Plymouth with blue and red cherries on top and mirrored sunglasses behind the windshield.

“Cop!” the girl yelled over the growling engine.

But it was too late to slow down and as we roared past, I realized his chin was on his chest. I didn’t even slow down, just pressed harder on the gas and kept the middle of the road. The speedo needle topped out at 110 or 120 , I no longer remember exactly, and disappeared. It’s anyone’s guess how fast we were really going. The next curve was coming up fast and I had to brake hard to enter it at close to sane speed. I glanced into the rear view mirror and saw…

Nothing.

Sweet Dreams, Officer.

No republication without expressly written consent.

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