Trickle of Semi-consciousness

End of the Line

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:35:57 GMT

Visit me at http://singlemanwriting.blogspot.com/

The First Skateboarder in Massachusetts

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 04:11:14 GMT

When I was about thirteen, I stayed for a while with my Aunt and Uncle in Rancho Palos Verdes near Los Angeles. My two cousins, Paul (who would later become a champion surfer and move to Australia) and Billy (who would later work as a crewman on ocean racing yachts) had recently taken up a new sport that involved something resembling a small skimboard on wheels. They would place one foot on the board, push off a few times with the other, and then glide down the street.

Skateboarding was new then, and the gravity and common sense-defying skater park tricks hadn’t been invented yet. I was a pretty fair skimboarder (skimboards are used at low tide on sand flats--you throw them ahead of you in very shallow water, then catch up and jump on), so I thought I’d give it a try. To my surprise and the chagrin of my cousins, who were hoping for at least a pair of bloodied knees, I was successful on my very first attempt, even negotiating the steep hill on Golden Arrow Drive without mishap.

I returned to Massachusetts, determined to parlay this skill into California Surfer Coolness and Chick Magnetism (even then I was obsessed). The problem was, I had no skateboard. The fad hadn’t hit New England yet, and the stores didn’t even stock skateboards.

Not to be deterred, I examined one of my sister’s old roller skates, the kind that used to clamp onto your shoes, the kind Melanie Safka sang about in her overtly phallic “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key” song. The skates were adjustable and came apart. I took the two sets of wheels from one skate and screwed them onto a two-foot length of #2 pine I found in the cellar. Then I used magic markers to draw a design, involving flames and lightning bolts, on the board.

There was a hill outside of my house, and I took my invention to the top. With several of the neighborhood kids (but no chicks) watching, I hurtled down the hill, past the houses of the Boyds, the Mullens, the MacLeods, and the Thorntons. As I began to slow I managed a turn into the Days’ driveway. The machine worked.

My friend Allen, the only other neighborhood kid who, like me, sledded that hill in the winter standing up on the sled, wanted in. Figuring I would need a wingman once the surfer groupies began to gather, I gave him mysister’s other roller skate, and we fashioned a second skateboard from a piece of plywood we found in his father’s workshop. After a few tentative forays, Allen got the hang of it, and soon we were weaving our way down the hill, waiting for word of our California Coolness to spread.

Unbeknownst to us, we were being watched--surveiled by a sinister presence behind the draperies in the Mullens' house. It was Richard Mullen, the spoiled brat of the neighborhood, whose father owned a Piper Cub and a cabin cruiser. Richard’s stern Lutheran mother, who used to summon him in at dusk with a piercing whistle, was not going to stand by while the Irish Catholic hooligan next door was outstripping her son in the possible next big thing. I should point out here that, although Richard was bigger than me, I pummeled him semi-regularly, usually when he tried to pick on my little brother. So Mrs. Mullen’s characterization of me had some basis in fact.

Allen and I had been skateboarding the hill for about two weeks when Richard showed up with an authentic, store-bought skateboard shipped from California. He smirked at our home-made creations, which did indeed look pathetic next to his tapered, gaudily painted professional model. Richard placed the skateboard on the pavement, and stepped on.

It was over so quickly. The skateboard shot out from under his considerable weight, and he rolled his ankle as he crashed to the street. His eyeglasses (I always thought he wore them just so I wouldn’t hit him) flew off and shattered. Richard lay there in a heap, sobbing, his ankle broken. His skateboarding career had lasted less than one second.

Allen and I went on skateboarding that year until the wheel bearings gave out. We were always careful to look California Cool, wearing our Beach Boys in Concert outfits and wraparound shades. But other than Kenny Rawson’s little sister, the chicks never materialized; the hill was never lined with adoring babes. Well, it was their loss.

The Wasted Land

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 22:19:54 GMT

It’s Wednesday, two days after the monstrous storm shredded the lives of thousands in the South and of the millions who care about them. The wind here is Massachusetts is gusting this afternoon, a warm wind carrying the tropical mugginess of remnants of the hurricane and of those lives. Thunderheads are building, and there are warnings of tropical downpours, flash floods and severe thunderstorms. A tornado watch, almost unheard of in New England, is possible, even likely, for this evening.

This wind, this rain, are mere echoes of the catastrophe that has befallen those in the South. Oh, I resented them last November, but I embrace them now. I will do what I can, as puny as that seems in the face of such staggering need.

I am one usually energized by weather, but not today. Today the wind seems insidious, seeking out a few last bits of damage to cause before it dies out over Canada. The clouds wait for unmanageable amounts of water content to re-form before bursting anew. Yet I do not romanticize the weather. I don’t think of it as magical or mythic; meteorology can explain it, or should be able to explain it. But weather is no longer purely a natural phenomenon. Emissions and greenhouse gases have seen to that.

I have no patience with those who speak with platitudes and bromides such as “things happen for a reason." Spare me from any sanctimonious morons who talk about this horrific loss of life and dreams being “God’s will” or “The work of the devil." Already, there are those who use the misdeeds of the ruthless few as a reason to ignore the pleas of the desperate and the dispossessed.

The Earth is in our care, and so now also are these thousands of victims.

Doing it on the cheap

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 17:01:23 GMT

I bought a new fishing rod the other day. It’s a moderate power, medium fast-action graphite two piece St. Croix. I know of no finer surfcastng rod on the market. As I paid, the store owner asked what reel I would be using with the rod. When I answered, "A Shakespeare Sigma," there was an almost imperceptible wince. “You’re right,” I said. “Give me that Penn 550ssg there.”

I had almost done it again. I’d almost stopped short of getting what I really wanted in order to save a few bucks. I never worry about being short-changed by strangers, because I do it to myself.

Extreme parsimony is one of the vestigial characteristics of growing up with depression-era parents. My grandparents taught my parents to eke every last mil out of every dollar, and they never forgot the lesson. For my father, it took the form of never paying for a service if there was the remote possibility he could do it himself. He was his own plumber, electrician, builder, landscaper, painter, auto mechanic, and even architect. My mother’s penurious habits focused on the food budget. Meat was expensive; potatoes were cheap. Frankfurters went twice as far if you split them down the middle, as did ground beef if you added an equal measure of bread crumbs. No sandwich ever required more than one slice of bologna.

When my father deviated from this pattern, it was for one of two reasons: my mother; or the children’s education (although I’ll admit that in those days, being female, my sister got short shrift). My mother deviated for one reason: my mother. She had a taste for diamond jewelry, the gaudier the better, and was an inveterate gambler. Whether it was the daily number, Bingo, the lottery, or later trips to Foxwoods Casino, she always seemed to find the cash for games of chance.

I have inherited a bit from each. Like my father, I will bust a gut doing something myself rather than spend a few dollars to bring in an expert. Like my mother, I’ll often settle for mediocrity rather than spend for high quality. These patterns are so ingrained that I don’t even realize that I’m following them. The exceptions are travel and my kids. To those, I’d like to add a boat purchase, but I keep finding reasons--dockage, storage, towing--to put it off.

I had already owned a bunch of fishing rods. All of them had been purchased at places like Ocean State Job Lot (everything you need to fish for $36.00). The St. Croix is a start.

Decadence Lost

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 20:17:24 GMT

I have reached the point in my life where I no longer have to work during the summer. This situation is not as stress-free as it sounds, however. It is amazing how my free days can fill up with have-to’s and should-do’s (hello, Mum) so that I have to schedule in…well, doing nothing.

Take today. I thought I had perfected the Art of the Pool Read. The last two weeks have been hot (not Arizona hot, but hot) and humid (not Georgia humid, but humid), and I established a routine that I thought was flawless. I have two extraordinarily comfortable floating chaises. They are full of air and prone to leaking, so I have taken to calling them Rummy and Karl.

Anyway, the routine goes like this. At the shallow end of the pool opposite the ladder, I pile a towel, my book, and a beverage. I bring Rummy or Karl over to the ladder and flop backwards into position (I confess this might appear somewhat ungainly to the untrained eye). The momentum of the reverse flop carries me across the pool, where I take the beverage and position it in the cup holder, dry off my hands, pick up the book, and cast off.

The pool water has a counter-clockwise circulation. It takes about five minutes to complete a circumnavigation, half of which is spent in the sun and half in shade from the house. This technique served me well last week through a complete reading of The Kite Runner, and I expected it would serve equally this week for a book I picked up on a whim, Skinny Dip.

So what went wrong? After I’d spent the relative cool of the morning scraping wallpaper, I began to align the supplies for a Pool Read, and--Skinny Dip had disappeared! I searched the whole house to no avail. The horror! The angst! It’s as if Skinny had Dipped through a dimensional door into Bizarro-World, or, like Billy Pilgrim, had entered the Chrono-Synclastic Infindibulum.

Luckily, from my childhood of being served frankfurts halved lengthwise and sandwiches filled with Cain’s Sandwich Spread all by itself, I have developed strong coping skills. I will adjust. Rummy, Karl, do you hear? I will be back.

Meanwhile, wherever Skinny Dip has run off to, I hope she and A. C. Remote are very happy together.

Friday update: I opened the linen closet yesterday to get a fresh pool towel,and there was Skinny Dip. A. C. Remote remains at large.

More Than a Summer Job

Sun, 03 Oct 2004 16:06:03 GMT

The best job I ever had paid twelve dollars an hour.

It came about by accident. It was the weekend before Memorial Day, and I’d just finished launching my little sloop, the Coracle. I went the marina office to pay my mooring fee, but emerged with a free slip and the aforementioned lofty compensation package as the new dockmaster of Sunset Marine.

Sunset was a small marina located in Hull, Massachusetts, a peninsular town jutting northwest into Boston Harbor. The property consisted of a Victorian-style building which housed the Lighthouse Restaurant on the first floor and the marina offices on the second, a long gas dock with half-dozen slips and a dockhouse at the end, and a mooring field. The Sunset company fleet was comprised of a Crosby launch, an Aquasport workboat, and an Avon inflatable..

In the marina business, early morning and late afternoon are the busy times. The lobstermen like to diesel up at first light. Sailors and fishermen prefer to get off to an early start, too; the power boaters tended to have the special at the Lighthouse and get underway by about 10:00. In the late afternoon, the boats would start coming in at about 4:00, and the radio and boat horn requests for launch pickup would go on for hours.

I had a great crew. Andrew, a college junior, liked to open so he’d have his afternoons free to prowl Nantasket Beach. Matthew was a dock rat who’d raised himself and could always start the balky Evinrude on the Aquasport. Jake was the son of a local lobsterman, a courteous young man and a favorite of the customers. The young women, Kate and Diane, usually ran Waveland, a satellite marina a half-mile to the south.

On weekends and holidays, Kim drove the launch. Then in his thirties, Kim was the only one of us with a six-pack license. His touch at the controls of the Crosby was surgically precise; he delivered passengers gunwale to gunwale, regardless of tide or current. Kim’s downside was his rather dissolute lifestyle. He was exceptionally attentive to attractive female launch customers, often to the consternation of their husbands (Kim was quite handsome), and he usually began thinking about beer by about 2:00 PM.

I dida little of everything at Sunset. On busy days (July 4th was a monster), I’d be just supervising and serving customers. On slow mid-week days, I’d run the launch and gas dock by myself. The important thing to me was the respite that the marina provided me. My marriage was in serious trouble at the time, and both my wife and I needed some space. Sunset gave me a place to be, a place to collect my thoughts and a place where I felt capable and in control.

Unlike most of the Eastern seaboard, Sunset Marine faces west. My favorite part of the day was dusk, when the last duty would be to take the Crosby through the mooring field, checking for stranded boaters or frayed mooring rodes. The water would be nearly flat calm then, the low sun’s rays dripping down and coaxing a glimmering reflection from each little wavelet. The antique gurgling of the Crosby’s inboard accentuated rather than disturbed the quiet. I would feel at peace.

I remember my last day at Sunset. It was Labor Day, but by 4:30, all our boats were in. Kim shook my hand and told me I’d gotten him through the most successful working summer of his life. Jake’s dad stopped by with a crate of lobsters (mud-bugs, he called them), and a few of our favorite customers (they happened to be female—probably Kim fans) came by with tips and beer for the crew.

We had access—in exchange for free storage--to a 44’ ketch on jackstands in the yard. We sent Jake for corn and tomatoes and butter, and we soon had those lobsters steaming on the ketch’s stove. As my dockmaster career ended, I was seated on the foredeck of the ketch, cracking lobster claws with a pair of pliers, sipping a Rolling Rock longneck, listening to Jimmy Buffet sing "Changes in Latitude", and watching the summer's end sun slip behind Spinnaker Island.

Art: A Sergio, or a Garfunkel

Sat, 18 Sep 2004 23:55:16 GMT

This happened a few years ago. It was my usual, Thursday night, over-thirty, over-the-hill basketball league, where bedraggled aging males chased an elusive orange ball and even more elusive memories of past glories that may never have actually occurred. I’d begun finding ways to cover up for my fading athleticism, but there was no disguising the limp and aches on Friday mornings.

On this particular night, I was matched up against a new guy. He was younger, but couldn’t go to his left, nor could he stop my crossover or spin moves. I lit him up—no mercy. After the game, he shook my hand and introduced himself. I asked him what he did, and he told me he was a professional artist.

Artist. This appealed to the dilettante in me. Hey, I’ve been to the Louvre and the D’Orsay, the National Gallery, the MFA here in Boston (I’m fascinated by Watson and the Shark)…even the Isabelle Stewart Gardner, several times. "What do you paint?" I asked.

"Landscapes", he answered. "Maritime scenes. I used to work in watercolor, but now I work in oils. But you can see my work, if you want. I have a one-man show next week."

I was expecting a church basement, but instead, the exhibit was being held at the prestigious Guild of Boston Artists on Newbury Street. It seemed that Sergio Roffo, my basketball whipping boy, was a Copley Master who exhibited works in nationally known galleries. My crossover move was seeming less impressive by the minute..

The exhibit stunned me. I knew enough about the Hudson River School to recognize that Sergio was a luminist, a painter of light. The detail of the brush strokes was incredible. But everywhere I looked, Sergio had painted a place I knew, a place I thought I alone appreciated. He’d taken my memories of these places and improved upon them. The Great Point Lighthouse on Nantucket was improved by the detail of a goldenrod bush in the foreground; Edgartown Harbor was romanticized by the shades of white in a picket fence. The North River. World’s End. Pleasant Bay. Reed by reed, wave by wave, all were better than I could picture them in my mind’s eye.

Knowing an artist seems to make you more aware of all artists. Sergio is a neo-realist, but somehow, appreciating his art has broadened my appreciation of all art…impressionist, expressionist, abstract, symbolist…everything. I’ve learned that you can train your eye to see what the artist sees, so eventually your perceptions become almost as acute.

There has been another, practical benefit. My friendship with Sergio has made me into the sublime giftgiver. A visit to Sergio for a signed print or an artist’s proof, a call to Aisling Galleries for framing, and I soon have a thrilled recipient on my hands. My best friends Mark and Donna got the catboat in Pleasant Bay for their wedding. My godchild Paula got Nantucket Harbor for her housewarming, and my son Matt got Great Point Light for graduation.

Sergio recently returned to his birthplace in San Donato, Italy, where he completed a spectacular series of oils. He still can’t go to his left, but somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter much anymore.

Scientific Delirium Madness

Thu, 19 May 2005 02:23:20 GMT

Today was day two of the madness known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment, the state’s response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Once the Bush administration removed almost all of the promised funding, what remains are a stultifying eight days of testing that totally disrupt the educational activities in the schools.

The Massachusetts DOE demands perfection in the handling of the 32 cartons of questionnaires, tests, formula cards, and answer booklets it sends to us, but seems to hold its testing contractors to a lower standard. Despite a 30 million dollar payoff, these companies year after year send out tests with flawed items; there are items with no correct answers, and items with more than one answer. The principal’s manual (more than 250 pages) and test administrator’s manuals come with enough “errata notices” to wallpaper a room. But misplace one of their thousands of forms, and your license is at risk.

What I hate the most is what these tests do to kids. Even if the tests were not flawed, they would be damaging, but being so flawed, they are actually abusive. Today a test administrator came to my office to tell me a girl was hysterical because the last section of questions made no sense to her. I went up to examine her booklet, and realized that the testing company had neglected to include the reading passage upon which the questions were based. The poor girl thought her diploma was going up in smoke.

I reassured the girl that I would take care of the problem. I called mcasservicecenter, knowing from past experience that the person I would reach would be (a.) incompetent, (b.) fatuous, or (c.) both. Well, it seemed that Form 46 of the test had that problem, I was told. “We just found out about it this morning.”

“Well, what are you planning to do about it?” I demanded.

“The DOE is sending out an e-mail.”

“An E-mail…An E-MAIL?” I was getting nasty now. “Hey, lady, I’ve got kids crying here. What do I tell them?”

“I didn’t print the test, you know.”

Two years ago, the Harcourt Company of Texas sent about one third of the Massachusetts tests to the wrong cities and towns. Somehow, the Boston Globe got wind of the story and ran it on page one, much to the dismay of the DOE. I heard that theinformation came from an anonymous tip.

The Globe already knows about Form 46. The tipster has struck again.

Ocean City, MD

Wed, 04 May 2005 20:51:24 GMT

Ocean City borders Delaware to the north, where a lighthouse and a plaque mark the eastern origin of the Mason/Dixon line. Ocean City is one of those resorts that is past its prime, a place where surpassing natural beauty is juxtaposed with images of glitz and honky-tonk. The sound of a calliope plays counterpoint to the rolling thunder of the surf; the salt air is tinged with the saccharine smells of cotton candy and fried dough.

The center of activity in the spring is the reawakening boardwalk, where early vacationers expose their winter legs and waists while slurping their first frozen yogurts of the season. The pier offers an expansive view of the beach but the east wind limits the viewers. Thrill machines in the amusement park suffer repair and inspection in silence as they await the arrival of the intrepid and the skeptical…the screams of joy and fear wait to be heard..

As I walk the boardwalk in Ocean City, the year could be 1957 or 1969. I could be at Old Orchard or Nantasket or Seaside Heights. I know the feel of these times and places: I know the greasers, the bleached blondes, the seaside Romeos, the honky-tonk women. Pensioners at skee-ball and pierced youths in the video arcade share an uneasy truce, their affinity for the boardwalk stronger than their mutual mistrust.

The boardwalk life has a soundtrack, and I discover that as I walk I am humming Springsteen‘s “Sandy” and “Jersey Girl”.

Thrill machines in the amusement park

Ripley's first visitor of the season

An artist/minister sculpts his Savior in sand

Back from Philadelphia

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 01:50:48 GMT

Just got in, and I want to remember the experience. My daughter is completely committed to her needful and needy clients. She lives just off the Penn campus in a four-floor attached house. I met two of her female housemates and one of the males--all fellow volunteers in mental health and poverty programs. I'm very proud.

We went to buy things she needed and little luxuries that she's missed. I stayed at the Inn at Penn, and she kicked back there for a while, enjoying the amenities. Dinner at Penne' was a highlight.