World Cup Games on VHS

Day 323: World Cup Games on VHS

When I was a kid my grandfather used to tell stories about the way things were when he was a boy. Once, he snuck his mother's wool blanket out on a camping trip. The boys made a bonfire on the beach, and the blanket got singed. He hid it in the bottom of the cedar chest, but the smell of smoke led her to it. Boy, did he get a whipping! Imagine that: ten-year-old boys camping on Lake Michigan, alone with a bonfire. Another time, he was riding on a horse-drawn double-decker sleigh in Muskegon. The sleigh crashed; everyone on the bottom died, but he was thrown clear. Back in those days, he said, a Baby Ruth bar the size of a football only cost five cents.

When my grandfather was a boy, the stars throbbed in the sky like pinholes to heaven. People went to bed when the sun set, and got up with the sun rose in the morning. The city streets were mostly unpaved; sometimes, they were paved in slippery red brick. Bicycles were new. People bought food from familiar shopkeepers or farmers, and put it in a basket to carry it home. Store bought bread was a special treat.

I got a look at my grandfather's college application a couple weeks ago, pulled from the archives at the Bentley Historical Library. Handwritten, and including a self-assessment of his intellectual capabilities, industry, and scholastic achievement. A couple of sentences about the latest book he'd read, and a postage stamp sized photograph of himself.

When I was growing up, I felt so modern. My grandfather never had t.v.! Not even a radio! No telephone! He didn't have a car! Didn't need one...no interstate! Women couldn't vote, interracial marriage was illegal, and my grandfather played both offense and defense with a real leather helmet and a hand-stitched soft leather ball!

Now I have teenagers, and in their eyes, my own childhood is as quaint and obsolete as my grandfather's was to me. Remember how exciting it was to go to the video store, choose whatever movie you wanted to see, and bring it home to watch it? Remember when a 50 pound personal computer that wouldn't quite fit in the trunk of your car replaced that old manual typewriter, and your word processor allowed you to edit without having to retype the whole thing? Remember when answering machines allowed people to leave a message, even when you weren't at home? Remember when cable t.v. gave you better reception and no advertising?

Wow, that was cool!

Suddenly, I'm more sympathetic to my grandmother, who used always to tell us about her friends and their diseases. Every kid's favorite topic. The days tick past, and I don't notice that wrinkles are a little deeper, or knees a little creakier, or hair a little grayer. Mine, and yours. But lately, I've been to more funerals than in my whole life before. My friends' parents are getting sick, or dying. Once or twice, it's my own friends who are sick, or dying.

The older generation is the front line. I've been soldiering away in the back phalanx, taking it one day at a time. Soccer practices, oil changes, breakfast, vaccinations, budget season, choir performances, Christmas, grocery shopping, car trips, thank you notes, elliptical machine, solitaire, haircuts, diaper changes, yoga classes, driver's training, weddings, coffee dates, trips to the library, toilet plunging, junk mail, cooking, sleep.

And now the front lines are starting to falter, and it's sad, and it's scary, and it's just life. Moving and moving on, like a river. Always changing. Always the same.

Hair Stuff

Day 322: Hair Stuff

Nothing more to say today.

A

Last of the Bee Stuff

Day 321: Last of the Bee Stuff

Our mission-related groups are coming on Thursday afternoon, including Ann Arbor Backyard Beekeepers, aka, A2B2, a group I am proud to say I named. An opportunity to get rid of the very last of my beekeeping stuff, a medium box with a single frame and some honeycomb. I used it as a demonstration at the Things with Wings event at the Gardens last year, and it's been sitting on top of the bookshelf in my office ever since.

Meghan (my former beekeeping mentor) will put it to good use. At least I still have a dozen jars of honey.

Electric Toothbrush Bases

Day 320: Electric Toothbrush Bases

Repeat yesterday's post. Two bases for electric toothbrushes, no electric toothbrushes. Realization that teeth can be cleaned very well with just two minutes of brushing with the old-fashioned plastic toothbrush the dentist hands out for free.

Broken Water Pik

Day 319: Broken Water Pik

The stuff project has made me suspicious of single-purpose appliances, especially ones that use an external power source and that have a perfectly sensible alternative. In June, I was sorely tempted to use part of the Sur la Table birthday gift certificate from my parents to purchase a machine that turns tap water into soda. I used all my self-control to focus on cooking classes, an excellent non-stick frying pan and a couple of really good knives instead. Iced tea is a perfectly good cold beverage, and if I really want soda, I can just buy a bottle (and recycle it when it's empty). This way, I won't be giving away a soda machine in a couple of years, and I can cut a tomato without losing the seeds.

Over the years, we've resisted the urge to buy gas powered yard equipment. We've turned up our noses at our neighbors' power mowers and leaf blowers, with their stink of gas, noisiness and lack of personal grit. Working up a sweat while doing yard work is healthier, more environmentally friendly and provides visible evidence of our moral superiority.

Our days of moral rectitude are over. Rich went out earlier this season and bought a bright red 21 inch Toro snowblower with a 35-foot throwing capacity, a four horsepower engine and the capacity to clear nine inches of snowfall in an eight-car driveway. Woohoo! Yesterday, twelve inches of snow fell, and he and I each spent about a half-hour removing 100% of the snow from our driveway and sidewalks, including the entire driveway apron. In past years, all four of us would have spent a good four hours clearing off the snow - or more likely, two of us would have spent seven hours, and two of us would have spent an hour each, max - and we still would have had to catapult the snow mountain at the base of the driveway like Tough Mudders climbing a greased wall.

Yes, it was loud and it stank. But it was fun, and it was fast. Me and my Fusion slid out of the driveway this morning like butter.

Go power tools!

We may just stay in Michigan after all.

Drawerful of Razors and More

Day 318: Drawerful of Razors and More

When we were in high school, my brother would always finish the Dorito's and put the empty bag back in the cupboard. I had the experience again and again of reaching into the cupboard for some delectable treat, only to find the package empty. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise to me to find the drawers and cupboard of the upstairs vanity full of junk so useless, it is fair to all it garbage.

Such as these dull razors, a single hair roller, a suction cup to hang an unidentified item, and a lid.

Sam asks how I can possibly blog about garbage, and there's a certain embarrassing truth to the question. On the one hand, I'm hitting rock bottom here. On the other hand, how could a person keep a drawerful of garbage. Especially when there are only two tiny working drawers?

Spongebob Squarepants Toothbrush Holder and Cup

Day 317: Spongebob Squarepants Toothbrush Holder and Cup

Jackpot! The vanity in our upstairs bathroom needs to be replaced, which means everything in it has to go. This will take care of at least a week of the stuff project.

Dusty in one of the drawers, this Spongebob Squarepants toothbrush holder and cup. No, it is not a vestige of early childhood. Sam received it, new in box, at his forum's white elephant exchange his freshman year at Community. The white elephant exchange to which I forced him to take a funny old thing from our house - a neon blue liquid-filled squishy rubber ball with soft droopy spikes and eyes that bulged when you squeezed it, like a cross between a water balloon and a soft porcupine - instead of a new thing as he had requested. By definition, I told him, a white elephant exchange is an exchange of funny old things.

Silly me. At a teenager white elephant exchange, embarrassment must be avoided at all costs. He was the only kid to bring a used thing, an embarrassment that he will be still talking about in psychotherapy in the year 2050.

A white elephant exchange - in theory so eco-friendly, so hilarious and so low-cost as to be a completely egalitarian team-builder - is a non-starter for high school kids. Conformity or death! This is why the franchise Plato's Closet, which buys and resells gently used teen clothing, is a great idea, while Style Encore, which does the same but for women, is a bust. Adolescent girls all wear the same size and like the same style. Grown women wear a wide variety of sizes and an even wider variety of styles. One is great business, the other a recipe for bankruptcy. You can see this exquisitely painful conventionality from the audience of every high school performance, which feature 97 girls with long straight hair, two rebel girls with short haircuts, and at least three girls above 5'8" with hunched shoulders.

Individual style is an ironic artifact of mass production. One hundred fifty years ago, no one had individual style. Everyone had homemade. Were adolescents peer-identified and conformist back then? Who knows? I suppose they were mostly married with children and chapped hands, a little underweight and with only a dress or two in the closet.

Well, times have changed. It's probably a good thing to get rid of this ever-smiling reminder of Sam's humiliation.