Season's Bleatings

‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the mouth, I chomped into chicken and a molar went south. This violent and unexpected collision with a thigh bone cracked said tooth all the way down to the root. (Actually, this occurred on the afternoon of October 19, but just trying to keep with some Christmas spirit here.) Days later, I had a merry little extraction, gaily festooned with gaudy gauze soaked in gum blood, and now my dentist and oral surgeon wonder if I might like to spend $2,500 on an implant and crown. I doubt I will. First, the new hole in my mouth makes a terrific storage place for spit wads. Second, I don’t have $2,500.

In a case such as this, what would Jesus do? I’m sure He was never confronted with a quandary such as this. I have a theory about Jesus’s teeth: I believe He dazzled with heavenly pearly whites, and may have even sported a striking pair of buck teeth. Let’s face it: those biblical throngs were a huddling mass of gummers. Ever see a toothy grin in a portrait of Madonna or Her saintly peers? Gummers, all. No wonder the average life span of your average adult was about 28 years. It’s tough to chew your standard mutton chop with dried out gums. No, I think Jesus not only dazzled with his markers for eternal life, but the huddled masses also came to adore His Pepsodent smile, the envy of Jew and gentile alike.

I am proud to announce that both my children have selected partners with excellent teeth. I’m sure that Brendan (28) will get a professional cleaning in the next year because HE’S ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED TO HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART JODI GRIFFIN. Not only that, Brendan and Jodi have just purchased a house in Ada, Michigan, that has lots of ROOM FOR CHILDREN. Their words, not mine. Brendan works for Chase Bank, plays tuba with the Holland Symphony Orchestra, and gives tuba lessons at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids. Jodi is project coordinator at Michigan Public Health Institute. Together they could almost afford an implant and crown. They have a terrier named Daphne.

Elizabeth (26) brushes every day, mainly in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she is a graduate student in poetry at Georgia College and State University. As part of her duties, Elizabeth teaches freshman composition to students who are predominately Atlanta suburbanites and text-messaging addicts. She shares life with boyfriend Roger, a fine writer in his own right, and together, I might point out, are NOT engaged to be married. They have a dog named Wendy and a new socialist puppy named Omar, whose long and upright ears lean decidedly to the left.

Dog has a softball-sized goiter on her chest that bounces when she runs. She could use a merry little extraction or a custom-made bra. The goiter doesn’t slow her down as she’s remained consistent in her lifelong quest to destroy squirrels who invade our bird feeders. This year’s score: Squirrels - 816, Dog - 0. And getting together with family, of course, means Dog, Daphne, Wendy, and now that little communist Omar, romp and grovel together as one, swarming from one room to the next, sliding and growling en masse across slippery hardwood floors, slobbering, shedding, and kicking up dander. Humans remain safe by keeping their feet propped up on ottomans. A lively household, this.

And Sue Bohnhorst? What on earth can be said about Sue? Oh, I could tell you that in order to counteract the side effects of chemotherapy, her doctor offered a prescription for medical marijuana, and Sue took him up on it, but soon one drug led to another, and the next thing you know, she’s gone for days at a time, until finally I get a collect call from a phone booth in Butte, Montana, she begging for money, for a bus ticket back to Traverse City, and she would change her ways. But that wouldn’t be right to say. Actually, it was Spokane.  No, no, no… we shall not joke about that which is off limits to joking about.

This is brutal business, this ovarian cancer, this chemotherapy, this exhaustion, this diminishment of form. After the shock and gut ache from The News, a stranger intrudes and enters your lives, and while at first the stranger intimidates, you begin to step around, learn to step over, and finally, to step through the fears that once ruled the day. Sue is doing great. After five months of “phase one” of her clinical trial chemo, she is now working through “phase two” which is more of a maintenance regimen, and not nearly as debilitating. Her strength is returning and her hair has come back silky soft and gray as granite. All markers say positive things, but while we are never out of the woods, this is a pleasant forest we live in. The foundation of Sue’s recovery was built by the tremendous love and support of family and friends. And I could resound with a chorus of Sue superlatives, describing her heroic fight and so on. But she reads this too, and she wouldn’t like it. So I will say this: her hair is very cute.

This Christmas, there will be an empty chair at the dinner table. Sue’s dad, Les Klauer, died in May after complications from a fall in April. He loved Christmas, and we will miss him, especially on this day. Les was 91.

Now, like a miracle, I am newly 60 with a fresh hole in my mouth.  The Detroit Lions, like a miracle, are in contention for a playoff spot.  Newt Gingrich, by a miracle, is the Republican frontrunner.  And up in the air, miraculous winter pigs fly in a perfect V oer this northern land… Hey, these could be lyrics to a new Christmas carol, “Will Wonders Never Cease?”

I think Jesus would pass on the implant and crown, and use the hole for convenient spit wad storage. And I think He would give $2,500 to a poor family who needs food and shelter.

Enough already.  Merry Christmas.




Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com
 

　
　
　
　
　

Tongue of Cow (and other lessons)

November 11 was the birthday of Kurt Vonnegut.  Happy belated birthday Kurt, you dead person you.

In 1999, Mr. V. wrote a piece called "How To Write With Style."  He ended this essay by summing up his seven most important tips: (1) find a subject you care about; (2) do not ramble; (3) keep it simple; (4) have guts to cut; (5) sound like yourself; (6) say what you mean; and (7) pity the reader.

Here now, in my continuous effort to gain your approval, I show that I am a multi-dimensional writer of style.

1. Find a subject you care about.   At the top of the list, I care about Chobani Blueberry Non-Fat Greek Yogurt.  And my care for it is deep.  Chobani yogurt is authentically strained by authentic Greeks who have been straining hard ever since that one Greek ran all the way to Marathon.  Chobani  has two times more protein than other regular crappy yogurts.  The blueberries and the blueberry gop on the bottom, when consumed slowly, causes a sexual tingle.  This explains why the blueberry flavor of the product keeps flying off the shelves.  Meander down a downtown sidewalk and you'll notice that many passersby have a certain smile with a purple stain on their lips.  I am one of those passersby.  I care about Chobani.

2. Do not ramble.   I took my first driving test in a 1959 Rambler coupe.  I was under the influence of cannabis sativa at the time, so technically, I ran a risk for getting arrested for driving while under the influence of drugs while trying to show the State of Michigan that I would be a safe and capable driver.  Chances are I had some pot in my pocket to boot, but the State of Michigan thought I did a fine job in that borrowed Rambler and gave me a driver's license.  I could ramble on in this rambling tale, but Kurt would be proud if I stopped it now.      

3. Keep it simple.  Amen to that Dr. V.!  There is nothing so mortifying in the strands of the soul, nay to the very heartbreak of psoriasis, than to lie supine like the mythical Nell, hog-tied and screeching bloody murder in the perpendicular between railroad tracks, tracks of bloated words, tracks of puffed up and self aggrandizing piffle, tracks that lead like a tedious argument of insidious intent, those railroad tracks that endure the incessant hum and vibration of a thunderous locomotive that vomits an utter vacuousness, that fails to deliver on the dried and salty sprits of spittle of so many arrogant "literary adventurers"!   No, just call the cops.   Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties arrives backwards on his steed. Dudley is just in the nick to save Nell from becoming bloody hamburger under the cow catcher.  All you really need is a good looking cop, a damsel in distress, and a horse that knows the way.

4. Have guts to cut.   Let's face it, it's tough to toss pure gold down the shithole.  Every year I construct a Christmas letter to our beloved brethren, and over the years I have received invaluable feedback as to what's not been informative, what's not been amusing, what's not been appropriate, and especially about what not to do next time.  This year, I've taken a vow to follow this advice.  Per my readers' pleas,  I now have guts to cut.  Here is a draft of this year's version:

"Dear Family and Friends:

We're all fine, except for the bats.

Merry Christmas.

The Bohnhorsts"

5. Sound like yourself.  This is sound advice, I suppose, if you know who in the hell you are.  But I would like to expand on The Gutt's proviso:  "Sound like yourself, but not too much like yourself."  Allow me to illustrate from an experience I had in 10th grade geometry, Lafayette, Indiana, in the fall of 1967.

We were assigned homework assignments and as customary, given time before the bell to work quietly at our desks.  I was bored and decided to pass a note to Mark Garrison, the kid sitting across the aisle from me.  The note read:  "Is that a banana in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"  Mark read the note, gave out a soft chuckle, and quietly passed his response back.  It read:  "No, that's just my enormous tongue of cow that you're always trying to bite."

For some reason, this caused me to chuckle quite out loud in that silent place and in a moment, the outstretched hand of Mr. Hobaugh, our drab and dour math teacher, was at my left.  I handed him the folded paper, he read it to himself, became an even dourer man, and ordered Garrison and me out into that empty and cavernous hallway.  Mr. Hobaugh then handed back the note and commanded solemnly, "Read it.  Out loud."

My voice had not fully changed, and my soft chirping echoed down the hall.  I started out meek and scared:  "Is that a banana in your pocket... or... are you... are you just glad to see me?   No... "

I paused as I began to shake, began to struggle with keeping a cork on the funny monkey in my gut.

"Read!" commanded the teacher.

"No, that's just my tongue... my tongue of cow... my TONGUE OF COW!  my TONGUE OF COW!"  I was a goner.  I doubled over in laughter, out of control, crying helplessly in this supremely absurd moment, now lost to any possible lessons that might come.  Mr. Hobaugh really couldn't deal with this hysterical meltdown and simply pointed us back into the classroom after I caught my breath.  I walked back to my desk, laughing all the way before the bewildered class.  And from that moment on, Mark Garrison and I forged an unspoken bond for life.

This is an example of what I mean by not sounding too much like yourself.  In that delicate and dangerous moment of impending doom, my words "tongue of cow" came echoing back to me, destroyed me, but also provided an odd salvation.  Be careful that you not scrape the innards too closely.

6. Say what you mean.  Here's how I describe the early days of dealing with our new puppy, Dog.   And I mean every word:

Dog is a drum major on four legs with the parading forth of toilet plungers and waving embarrassingly soiled undergarments.  Here are the battle scars of puppy potty training as yellow ovals splotched with paper towels freckle the floors.  They must resemble the oozing sores of biblical lepers.  I've grown accustomed to sidestepping regurgitated Kleenex and the transmuted skeletons of moles.  But it's hard not to love a dog who falls asleep with her head inside a boot.

7. Pity the reader.  I am sorry to put you through all this.  Notice that I did not say that I am SO sorry.  Well, I'm not SO sorry, I'm just sorry.  When the hosts of the Today show take their turns for their inane morning TV segments, Al Roker might say, "And now here's Ann."  And Ann Currie will respond, "Thank you SO much, Al."  They're always SO appreciative of each other or for some guest, Madame So and So, coming on and explaining that to lose weight, a person needs to watch their diet and exercise.  Ann will end by saying, "So and So, thank you SO much."

I try to take responsibility for other people's feelings, for your feelings.  If you are cranky, I did that.  If you are bored, my bad. Therefore, I am sorry to put you through all this.  But then again, you didn't have to visit here, did you?  All right, then. We're even.

Still...  I'm sorry.




Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com

Words of comfort head for the sea.

While language experts curl their lower lips and bemoan our ebbing word supply, my four year-old insists on wearing his pajamas tops backwards.  That's because it give him a free hand with which to eee-eee while his other eee-eees his bockie.

This goes to show that while grown-up English words are evaporating from dusty disuse, our children are still getting a decent night's sleep and sometimes infusing new words to boot.  So I'm not too awfully worried.

Trouble is, of course, the words our children introduce rarely make it.  These  silly words are newly-hatched sea turtles, scampering for the ebbing tides, and more often than not, are plucked from the beach by marauding scavangers.  Poor baby turtles -- poor baby words.

But my four year-old Brendan has no intention of relinquishing certain words he has brought with him from, well, a soft-shelled egg under a pile of sand.  In fact, two words survive to this day, and never is their use more vital than at bedtime.

The other night Brendan emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas, and I noticed that his collar was choked over has Adam's apple with the store tag hanging out like a necktie.  This came as a surpirse because the kid has taken himself in and out of pajamas for a couple of years now with an excellent inside-in and rightside-front ratio.

"Uh, Brendan," I said.  "I think you've got your pajama top on backwards."

"No, he doesn't," my wife corrected.  "He likes to eee-eee the tag during stories and in bed."

Which made perfect sense to me.

So while my wife was reading him a tale of Pooh, there sat my enchanted son, the silken tag of his pajamas top held gently and perfectly between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.  And as each page of Pooh was turned, he'd give the tag a rub, and you could hear the faintest sigh of "eeeeeeee."

As is his custom, his left arm cradled a pale yellow blanket and small red Teddy bear.  The blanket he's dubbed his "bockie."  It has a silky border which has been eee'd nearly since egg-hatching day.

And long ago, Brendan chose "Red Bear" as his loved one from his full fleet of stuffed animals.  It was chosen for the preferred silkiness of its rectangular tag -- the lettering, "Made in Korea -- All New Material Consisiting of Polyester Fiber," has been eee'd out since his third birthday.

Sitting there, watching him eee-eee his pajamas top tag with his right hand, and eee-eee his red bear tag with his left hand, I dreamed back to my own days of eee, back when a particular word in my version of the English language had a wonderful power to comfort.  The word was "munga."

That's me sitting there, Linus-like, my mouth yanking on my thumb, my munga hoisted over my shoulder.  Neither Snoopy nor bogeyman nor dread of night could ever pry from me my silk-on-the-cheek munga security.  Nor smoldering fireplace.

I must have eee-eee'd the bejesus out of munga, because when my parents took me to a babysitter one dark and stormy night, my ample blanket apparently had taken on a most odious countenance.  The rag had been eee'd and dragged through the dirt so much, my mother's attempts at keeping it clean must have been abandoned long before.

The babysitter was so mortified by the sight and smell of this frazzled fabric that she immediately threw it in her fireplace where it sort of fried and smoldered.  I was four years-old and not amused.  Munga had been armor against a babysitter I feared.

Nothing but nothing could soothe hysteria upon a coughing tantrum but to fish from the smoke my prized and sizzling munga.  But by this time, the only salvageable section free from blackness and crispness was sooty square of threads about the size of a sheet of toilet paper. 

But this mattered not.  After scissors cut it free, I just eee'd it and eee-eee'd it and coaxed from it every delicious drop of comfort I could coax until my parents might take me home again.  And I am told my beleagured patch of munga was never out of eee-eee's reach for a long, long time to come.

You won't fund "munga" in the dictionary, just as Brendan's "bockie" will one day go by the wayside once he's eee'd his last eee-eee from it.  They're just like my nephew's "diti" and my niece's "pasha" and probably a million other ill-fated words born in the Land of Eee.

No, these words run their brief course for as long as their silky borders lend comfort to a child's cheek or a child's finger and thumb.  For surely, the business of growing up has a lot to do with forsaking emotional crutches at different stages along the way.

So when I learned the English language is losing thousands if words, especially describing words, I wondered whether Brendan's words might have a chance at replenishing the supply, of scampering into the sea of language like heroic baby sea turtles.

"Bockie" will have a long life in the hearts and minds of Brendan's family.  But we all know Father Time, that marauding scavenger, will someday sentence the word to ashes and dust, just like my frittered and forsaken munga.

But something tells me "eee" has a real shot at survival.  Picture this:  A lonely and desperate man takes a stool at a bar and directs the bartender, "You there, right now, give me a double martineee-eee."

Or this:  While a man is walking down a  dark city street, a strange woman approaches and say, "Hey, baby, how about a little eee-eee?"

It could happen.  We may be running out of describers.  But we'll never run out of our need to describe our craving for comfort.


-- from the Traverse City Record-Eagle Summer Magazine, June 26, 1997. 



Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com

Artichokes

My mother coveted the artichoke's heart
But I preferred the leaves,
Dipped one by one in mayonnaise
Then scraped across the teeth.

Mullato men macheted the stalks
In a violent Georgia field.
Before a brown servant steamed them
In a gigantic, blackened pot.

The family of five found peculiar ways
To assault the artichoke center:
My brother plucked from north to south,
My sister dismembered in circles.

My father constructed a wall of green,
A plate of murdered tongues,
His Sherman march surrounded the core
The dinner light yellow and lean.

A feast of leaves, a harvest of hearts
With mayonnaise for flavor.
Atlanta cicadas screamed through screens,
Before Huntley and Brinkley got started.


-- from The Dunes Review, December, 2002



Comments are welcome at tombohn2@yahoo.com

When I Grow Up

I grew up as a child.  And while my peers wanted to grow up to become train engineers, firemen, and cowboys, I  wanted to become a urologist. I never did become a urologist, probably because my father wound up passing his kidney stones even before I was allowed to stay outdoors after the sun went down.  Besides, I later learned that urologists deal with lots of droopy body tubes near other internal parts that look like raw sausages. 

My father passed his kidney-stone-passing talents on to me.  A few years ago I wound up in the E.R. where, in the midst of a kidney stone attack, I vocalized a now-famous screech the likes of which had never been heard before.  That's why a commemorative plaque marks the place where that ear-piercing echo first erupted.  E.R. staff there still refer to it as the "Tomaso Tremolo".  You must admit, this is quite a feat in a theater where screams of pain punctuate the day. 

But the Tremolo was small potatoes compared to the frenzy of suffering I witnessed circa 1958. My mother banished me to the outside patio while Dad lay prone on our couch, convulsing in pain so extreme that it sent me into hysterics.  My mother ping-ponged between attending to my father and trying to shield me from those horrors and persuade me that my daddy wasn't about to die.  Given the experience, you might have expected that I would grow up wanting to become an ambulance driver.  But by the time the medics arrived, I had already run off into the woods to scream at the Georgia clay and weep violently in the willows.

In my current job, I sometimes encounter young men whose career hopes get derailed because they got arrested for beating their wives and girlfriends. Many had grown up wanting to become police officers, to become just like those brave cops who arrived in the nick of time and saved their mothers from further beatings by their drunken fathers.  These boys grew up wanting to save the day with their badges, shiny belts, and their good guns of justice.  But in the end, they were too much their fathers' sons.

If fathers really are to blame for their sons' career choices, it's possible to trace my seeds to another bout of Georgia screaming.  One night when I was about seven, Dad went into the bathroom, and unleashed in that small space and from the bottom of his guts, profound wails that rattled the walls.  These were not screams of physical pain, but convulsions of outrage and anger, primal and deep.  One scream followed another, and on and on they roared.

What's a seven year-old to do?  Why, join right in, of course.  I opened the bathroom door, walked in, and starting screaming with all that my little voice would carry.  My father seemed oblivious to me, and so together we howled, me in my pipsqueak falsetto, he as turned inside out as a man could be.

Unfortunately, this was a warm Atlanta evening and all this happened with our windows wide open.  Our neighbors, the elderly McConnells, who lived next door and enjoyed their evenings relaxing in their screened-in porch, made a hasty retreat back inside.  What must they have thought?  It must have sounded like murder going down in the neighborhood. Either that or an attack of kidney stones.

But my father wasn't one to spew forth and rage against innocents.  Quite the contrary.  He was a gentle, thoughtful, enthusiastic, pipe-smoking college professor who never raised a hand to his children and who gained fame among his students for expounding the value, of giving and receiving hugs.  On that particular night, Dad simply sought the only sanctuary he could find, and let loose his pent-up store of personal agony.  I never learned what it was about, and to my knowledge, he never had another screaming spell after that.

Now that I am all grown up, what have I grown up to become?  Before drifting off to sleep, I did love the distant sounds of those southern freight trains as they rolled through my Atlanta childhood nights.  Such a comfort it was to feel that low and steady note while gazing half awake through the darkened web of dogwood limbs outside my bedroom window.  I did not want to be the man who led the charge, the grimy engineer, the leader of the pack.  Instead, I dreamed of pulling up the rear, the solitary man in the caboose, keeping the lantern lit, feeding the small coal-burning stove, and smoking a pipe just like the one my father smoked.  Before the next depot, all the while, there's the caboosey cricket call, clickity-clack, clickity-clack, clickety clack, the cool tempo of the railroad track. 

The Caboose Man.  I hope that's who I've become.




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Paint, paint, paint, dip.

When medical marijuana was legalized in Michigan, there suddenly emerged an epidemic of chronic back pain.  From the Porcupine Mountains all the way down to Monroe, doctors' offices were teeming with goateed sufferers in their tie-dyed t-shirts, tattoo artists, and everyday Joes and Jessicas, wincing in pain.  And the outbreak seemed precisely confined within Michigan's state lines. 

Back when I lived day after day, month after month, in that yellow fog, I despised the dreary tunnel of sobriety.  As a young kid, after I first heard the word "sober", I was amazed to learn what it meant.  "You mean, there's a word for feeling like I always feel, for feeling un-drunk?" This made no sense.  But when I got older, but still a kid, I ventured on a constant quest to change the way I felt...  a tough job when expected to play the good son, the good student, and the good citizen.  

I'm convinced that had it been available to me, medical marijuana would have helped me discover some hidden back pain or other malady.   I would not have had to play the good son or participate in any other charade.  I could bask in the comfort of constant availability.  I would have gladly eased into a most convenient shift:  from a quest to numb those pesky anxieties, to medicating imagined nerve endings that wreaked havoc in the small of my back... or wherever.  Hell, given the drug's momentum and staying power, chances are good that I would still be bogarting that joint to, you know, treat the pain and wander around shit-faced in muted dreams. 

Way to go, Michigan!  Just don't disclose this little-known fact: many a sufferer will be cured of pain, by necessity, if they move to a different state.  A state where the green leaf is used solely to get high, and to get high again, and again, and again, and again, and again... where the aim remains the same:  to build a cloud of yellow fog from which to preside in bleary and lazy discontent.

I can forestall discontent with a pill and a pail.  I found that my anti-depressant kicks me best when I do the repetitive and menial thing, recently as I painted my house.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  I pay attention to painting and dipping.  I trim the corner and fill the nail hole with acryllic. I watch as my house slowly turns a new and comforting color, and with each paint, paint, paint, dip occurrence, I grow in Presence.  It's a slow process, I suppose, but as there is no expectation in Presence, there is no parameter of speed. 

But the brain wanders, of course, and look, her comes another objection:  Is this really the best use of your time?  Couldn't you just pay someone to do this?  You're cheap. You are a cheap bastard...  But, I like painting.  I like painting and I save money at the same time.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  Another mental wandering:  I might consider less salt next time in the tomato sauce.  Salt will end your life. You, Tom, live your life in a salt mine.  Who can live in a salt mine?  People kick the bucket in salt mines. My house kicks the paint bucket when I am depressed.  The paint depresses the house when it is kicked.   I am against kicking in the door with a paint can.  And ANYWAY, who cares if the doors EVER get painted?

Hey, who is doing the talking here?  There are two me's.  One me who talks to me and one me who answers me.  We all have two selves, but which is which?  I prefer to think our true selves are the meek respondents, and not stern prosecutors.  Little Meek says, "Just kickin' the can down the road, boss, and mindin' my own bizznass."  

I descend and move the ladder.  I am brought back to this place in this time.  This moment.  I climb up again and dip the brush in the can.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  Paint, paint, paint, dip.  Slowly the house transforms. Sometimes I am present with it, the house, as it transforms.  I am at ease then, and my gladness pills have a heyday, having their merry way with me.  But off the brain wanders again, back to words I never spoke.  Back to actions I never took.  Or I fixate on words I wish I had never spoken, or to the words of others spoken years and tens of years ago, that still whisper purely in the caverns of memory.    

How to slip free from those rusty shackles?  How to become Present after all this time?  After daydreaming out the proverbial classroom window for 50 straight years?  I want to commune with the grasses, with the bumblebees of summer, and the whipping winds of winter.  Okay, maybe not the whipping winds of winter, but you get my snow drift.  It's where you and I belong, after all, not in a snow drift, but in the here and now.  Here, as in, right here.  Now, as in, right now.  But this ego-driving brain of mine willfully ponders the pink elephant even though the instructions explicitly state: do NOT consider the elephant in pink. You will either turn to a block of salt or become banished to wander among mind holes forever!

Eckhart Tolle writes beautifully about the spirit of Now.   I consider this and ponder this and think about this until I'm raw from thoughts.  My thoughts chafe with the collisions of thinking.  The human condition:  lost in thought. I think therefore I am not.  I am when I don't think, when I simply am.  Do dogs think up a plan, then set an agenda for the digging of holes?  Dig, dig, pitch the dirt.  Dig, dig, pitch the dirt.  

My daughter and her boyfriend recently visited and brought along their persistent puppy, Wendy.   Wendy was born and abandoned in rural central Georgia.  Wendy had visited three months earlier when, like most dogs from Georgia, she dug holes to lie in.  When I was a boy living in Atlanta, we had a dog named Josephine. Josephine loved to wallow around in dusty holes, but then again, she may have been part wildebeest.  A Georgia mongrel instinctively seeks the cool red clay beneath a soil that simmers under that sadistic sun.  Three months ago, Wendy dug five holes in our back yard.  Large holes, small holes, three shallow, and two deep.  She lay in them, in our cool Michigan spring, as though she were test-driving Georgia holes as yet undug. 

During Wendy's recent visit, I went to work one morning.  When I returned in the evening, there were five fresh holes in the back yard.  Large holes, small holes, three shallow and two deep.  These five holes were in the EXACT LOCATION as the previous holes, the EXACT SIZE as the previous holes, and the EXACT SHAPE as the previous holes.

Salmon return to spawn and die in the exact locations were they were hatched.  Just like these mysterious creatures, dogs, at least central Georgia dogs, must hold a genetic code that wills them to dig holes repeatedly at the same locations in the exact same way. 

With my shovel, I again filled them in.  Dig, dig, fill with dirt.  Dig, dig, fill with dirt.  All the while I sang, "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, that stops my mind from wandering, where it will go-o-o-o-o."  Later, I wonder if I filled the holes in exactly the same way as I filled them the first time around.  I doubt it. What am I, a salmon?

All that digging and all that ladder-climbing gave me an aching back, but it feels fine now.  No yellow fog was prescribed.




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A Gas By Any Other Name

My wife has changed her nickname for me.  She used to call me "Slush."

This originated early in our marriage one time when I had strep throat.  Apparently I was moaning in my sleep, delirious with fever, and she reached over, put her hand on my forehead, and asked, "Are you okay, Honey?"

I woke up slightly and blurted assertively, "Don't call me Honey...  call me Slush."

I could have said, "Call me Ishmael."  Or, "Call me in the morning."  Or, "They call me Mr. Tibbs."   But no, up from the depths of mental quicksand, I burped, "Call me Slush."  Don't ask me why.

And for years and years, that's exactly what she did.  And sometimes she would embellish the word with an affectionate Southern drawl, as in:  "Now don't leave your clipped toenails on the coffee table, Sluuuuuuush."  She would often cushion such wicked commandments with this term of endearment.

But no longer.

Now she calls me "Beaner."  I assumed, as anyone would, that this was a nasty reference to the frequency with which I experience a profusion of intestinal gas.  This was cruel, I thought.  I probably enjoy asparagus and frijoles as much as the next guy, and I don't think I am a standout in the area of sound effects.  So, "Beaner" seemed a bit harsh and inappropriate.

There was a vaudeville performer in the 1890s, I read about years ago, whose talent was this:  he could fart at will.  Out on the stage he would go, and with certain "maneuvering", he could produce musical tones of varying pitches and volume.  I am not proud that I have made this factoid available in my memory reserves in case I have needed it.  But the point is this:  If ever an individual earned the nickname, it would have been that brilliant vaudevillian:  "And now ladies and gentlemen, presenting for your auditory and olfactory amazement,  Beaner the Magnificent!"

But as it turns out, I misunderstood my wife.  Recently while she was on the phone, I was talking to Dog, as I often do, in high-pitched Spanish.  Dog was groggy, had just left her nap on the couch, and both of her ears were inadvertently turned inside out.  You can often see Dog with one of her ears all cockeyed this way, but two for the price of one, au naturale, was kind of a treat.   As such, I was trying to tell Dog, in high-pitched Spanish, that she looked like an Italian prostitute.  I'm sorry, but such a one-sided conversation in our house is not that unusual.  Dog is used to it.  She just yawns, shakes her head to right her ears, and wants to be let outside.  She is either trying to ignore me, or maybe she hasn't learned Spanish.

Apparently, the person on the other end of the line asked my wife what all the noise was about, because I heard my wife say, "Oh that?  That's just Beaner."

"That's just Beaner"?  When she hung up, I asked her if Dog had been having gas.  No, she explained, "Beaner" had nothing to do with beans, that I was the Beaner.  It was an expansion of B.N. and that at those times when I was manic, such as then, it helped her focus on tasks by referring to me as B. N., or BeaNer, short for...   "Background Noise".  My betrothed, for richer or poorer, believes I resemble background noise.

In elementary school I was called "Shrimp" because I was so small for my age.  In junior high, they called my "Bonnie", short for Bohnhorst.  In college, I became known first as "Turk" because I lived in Turkey, and then it expanded to "The Lustful Turk", the name, apparently, of an old silent film.  But mainly, The Lustful Turk fit the persona I had created at parties and impromptu jam sessions, when I would down about 10 beers, grab the microphone in front of my rockin', electric guitar totin' friends, and famously wail and strut and kick out the vocal jams to rock "songs" never before heard and never heard since.  The unbridled energy and sheer (drunken) showmanship of The Lustful Turk would have shamed Mick Jagger and his meek brethren by comparison.

To these former names, I could identify.  I didn't like Shrimp, but I was small.  Bonnie was said with affection, the way a puppy gets a pat on the head.  The Lustful Turk made a name for himself on the Michigan State University circuit of alcohol abuse mixed on weekends with roaring rock.  Slush, I brought on myself.

But, Background Noise?  Like elevator music heading up to the fifth floor?  Like frogs in concert on a spring night in a meadow pond?  My incessant chucklehead chortling had become synonomous with the indistinguishable croaks of frogs?  What was that familiar yet strangely annoying sound?  Oh that?  That's just Beaner.

I feel a case of strep throat coming on. It will be the middle of the night. I will become delirious as my faux fever soars.  I will moan.  And my wife will touch my forehead and whisper, "Are you okay, Beaner?"

To which I will counter, "Don't call me Beaner.  Just call me Honey."




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Self Golfulation

If I play golf well, for days I feel sweet.  If I play golf like a hack, for days I feel sour.

Ah, me. During golf season, I'm usually puckered up like a rich boy in an outhouse.

If I play well, I reek of compassion and charity.  I greet the shy neighbor.  I whistle while I weed.  Dog gets the extra biscuit. If I roll in a 30 footer and sink everything under six feet, Putter gets to ride shotgun on the way home. If I hit some beautiful sand shots, I want to reserve a condo at the beach.  If I hit beautiful iron shots, I want to brand a barn full of cows.  If I hit long and lusty drives, I want to buy some dirty magazines.  If I escape disaster with a miraculous shot, I want to watch the Shawshank Redemption.

But when I slice a drive deep into the woods, I want to assault any nearby chipmunk.  When I chunk my ball into a pond, I want to foul any nearby goose, or if no goose, foul any fowl at all.  When I miss a two-footer, I want to swing said goose by its neck. If no goose, I want to insert my tongue in a ball washer.

My ego is a yoyo, bound to the string of the golf god's whim.

Once when a friend missed a two-footer, he spontaneously heaved his putter skyward.  The thing got hung up on the top branches of a pine tree. My muttering mate had to climb aloft, limb by limb, while several groups behind were allowed to "play through."  They must have wondered, "Why is that fat man in the plaid shorts climbing that tree?"

Furious golfers always entertain. I used to live near a golf course and every day would drive around the front nine en route to work or errands. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of some poor hack, after a pathetic whack at his ball, hurl his golf club at full throttle like a whirling boomerang up the fairway.  One time I saw some miserable bastard, after he missed a short putt, break his putter over his knee and throw the two pieces into the long grass that rimmed my road.  I completely sympathize, but when you're on the outside looking in, it's pretty damn funny. I would like to view a montage of such candid scenes placed on film. For comic effect, they could be juxtaposed with shots of volcanoes erupting.

I know a guy, we'll call Mr. Nice Guy, who once couldn't get out of a bunker.  Mr. Nice Guy kept chunking his ball about a foot in the air before it would roll back gently by his sand-immersed feet.  After his last failed attempt, he hurled his sand wedge into a nearby pond.  This forever enshrined Mr. Nice Guy into the local Golf Hall of Infamy. A month later, a full four weeks later, someone in the pro shop teased him by asking him which brand of sand wedge he would recommend. Mr. Nice Guy recoiled like a shotgun, screamed a shrill expletive, and stormed out. 

Go ahead and say it:  "It's just a game." To normal people it is. My father-in-law played the game like it was a game, and felt the game was a game.  He laughed at his many foibles and when he made a rare par now and then, he would celebrate with a happy "hooray!" His wife, my mother-in-law, however, was over-the-top serious and constantly shoved her irons down his throat, so to speak, which constantly endangered his emotional health.  For him, it was just a game, unless he was playing with his wife. He would try to soothe her. Can you soothe a wounded hornet by pointing out its swing flaw? No, you get a seven iron shoved down your throat. 

You can hear laughter on a golf course when normal people play the game.  Like my father-in-law, they cheer at the flukish par and howl at the absurdities.  When an errant shot careens off a tree and plops back into water, they are overjoyed.  But I, like my non-human ilk, just simmer and stew just below the boiling point.  I can't laugh at myself, the stubbed chip, the bladed wedge, or the fat iron shot that splashes like a breeching whale into a water hazard. I may chuckle to dampen my embarrassment, but inside, and I hate to admit this, I pout.

I once was a pretty good golfer.  I could launch straight and nicely arcing drives from the tee box.  I could hit crisp and consistent irons that took toupee-sized divots. I could pitch and chip short shots that mostly wound up near the hole. And I was a great putter. I could almost close my eyes.

But in golf, thine opponent is thyself.

Of course, there are the external challenges that lurk: the bunkers, the swamps, the woods, the ponds, the grasses, the humps, the dips, the mud, the rocks, the winds, the rains, the heat, the cold, the sun, the bugs, the crappy lies that befall unfairly.  Even alligators.  In Turkey, I had to watch out for wild dogs.

And golf makes for strange bedfellows. I have a friend who pays off his golf debts in nickels and dimes. I have another friend who suddenly suffers from "tendonitis" whenever his game goes awry.  I have another friend who is consistently calm and cool when he plays, a sweet and regular guy, except for about two times a round when he releases a piercing primal scream. Then, like it never happened, he's fine again.

Three cronies and I once went out to Sundance Golf Course, overlooking beautiful Torch Lake, for our regular Tuesday outing. I was looking forward to it. To further tantalize, here is the description of the 17th Hole on the Sundance website:

 "A magnificent setting with an eighty-foot drop to the green. A breathtaking view is yours from a tee complex that overlooks the shimmering Caribbean blue waters of Torch Lake and the pristine beauty of the forested horizon surrounding it. Below you, surrounded by deep bunkers and aggressive heather, the green awaits as a rose among thorns."

A rose among thorns, my ass. There was nothing magnificent about Torch on that Tuesday, or should I say nothing visible, blinded as we were by driving drizzle under a low-slung cloud cover. We slogged around the front nine with our golf balls splatting down on saturated fairways and squirting chaotically on super fast greens. I wore light gray trousers that wound up heavy and dark gray from the knee down as water continually seeped up and through. Even so, I hit the long ball fairly well, but my short game lacked any common decency. After I four-putted the sixth hole, a depression emptied me, fathoms below the plunging barometric pressure. The strain, for me at least, is always compounded by the competitive spirit of the group, as gambling for precious quarters torques the pressure. I was losing and I was wet and I was pissed.

But the golf gods smiled down on the 11th green. I snaked in a long and (heretofore) impossible par putt that not only won the skin, but bested my opponents by several strokes and put me squarely in the driver's seat to win, win, win! It was as though the finest strain of Prozac found traction in my brain. Despite the added weight of my soaked shoes and socks, I found a sudden lightness in my step, a grin undid my face, and I even found love for my freshly flattened friends. And in this fresh momentum of joy, I did go on to win the match, collected a few dollars, and on the drive home, felt an unfamiliar hope against the wicked ways of the world.

As I retrace those soggy steps, I am stunned at the sheer shallowness and smallness of it all. To be plunged headlong into despair, and then thanks to a blind-squirrel putt to become at once resurrected, I admit to feeling ashamed. Those down and up feelings weren't guided by beliefs or values, but the knee-jerkiness of a needy ego.

Should I not, therefore, take up pickle ball instead?  Listen, there are cows to brand and chipmunks to chase and dirty magazines with which to read my putter to sleep.  Besides, I've just started a collection of old nickels and dimes. 

  

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A Plaque on Both Your Houses

At a recent staff meeting, my boss presented me with a plaque.  The plaque conveys appreciation for 20 years of "dedicated service."  There was also something engraved about "commitment, compassion, and leadership."  The staff gave me a round of applause and I took an embarrasingly lengthy bow.  And in my 30-minute appreciation speech, I pointed out that there were only two faces present at that meeting who had been there before I arrived in 1991.  I informed the rest of the staff I thought of them as rookies, always rookies in my book.

Don't get me wrong:  I did appreciate it.  I do appreciate it.  Even though the plaque etcher made a typographical error, I still hung it on my office wall near the scorecard that recorded my second hole-in-one.  It was at Mistwood's White Number Two hole about four years ago.  Eight iron, 140 yards.  Trickled in at the last moment.  My opponents had to pay me 50 cents each.

Anyway, boss, thanks.

Speaking of typos, I worked at a golf course about 20 years ago which opened an attached restaurant.  The owner hired a sign-maker to advertise the place, to give it character and pizzazz.  The sign maker charged hundreds and must have toiled away for dozens of hours.  And at the unveiling, he presented an enormous and beautifully carved cedar sign.  There it was, prominently affixed to the main exterior wall,  for all of Benzie County to behold:  "DINNING".  The owner could not have been more pleased and took the wood carver inside and bought him a beer.

The plaque from work was almost the first plaque I ever received.  I got my first in 2003 when I was on the foursome that took first place at the Leelanau Children's Center fundraiser.  That plaque is also in my office juxtaposed ever so nicely to the scorecard that recorded my second hole-in-one.  Just thought I would mention that again.

So really, just two plaques, not counting the plaque I had when I was about 27.  I had not been to a dentist in eight years, and even though I brushed twice a day, the build-up of plaque on my teeth was just spectacular.  It took three hour-long appointments with a muscular dentist and his jackhammer to chisel through the petrified crap and unearth my teeth.  He was a paleontologist digging for bones.  Never mind that I needed a few units of O-positive for all the blood that gushed from my gums, I soon got back to decent dental health.  There should be a plaque in that dentist's office to commemorate his bravery in the face of my plaque disease.  It was a bubonic plaque.

It's very nice that my boss thought to honor my so-called compassion and leadership the way he did.  I realize his secretary was behind it all -- everyone gets a plaque for staying put.  Turn a calendar page and somebody gets to throw some hardware on their wall.   I didn't expect the cool hundred dollar bonus though.  I really needed it to fill my gas tank.
If the Brutal Truth were really known by those lofty plaque writers. they could have etched far different commemorations, to wit:

To Thomas Bohnhorst:  In appreciation for wearing a clean shirt every day for 20 years.  Sometimes the pants were stained and looked like they just weeded the garden, buy hey, the shirts were terrific!

To Thomas Bohnhorst:  In appreciation for 20 years of repeating the same old social work jargon to the point that you can recite this moronic stuff to clients while simultaneously stressing about that blown putt on the 17th hole last Tuesday.  Amazing accomplishment!

To Thomas Bohnhorst:   In appreciation for 20 years of showing up.  For this money, how many people would actually show up for 1,040 weeks minus vacation?  Zero.  Thanks!

To Thomas Bohnhorst:  In appreciation for finally removing that phallic cactus and spread-eagled Barbie from your window sill.  Sad that staff no longer linger at your office door.  By the way, where did you put those items?

To Thomas Bohnhorst:  You have been tolerated for 20 years.  We know what you do.  Let's just leave it at that.




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Postcard from Traverse City

Having a wonderful time.  The weather is great.  Wish you were here.

Last week's New York Times Sunday Crossword puzzle has caused me indigestion and to spew vulgarities.  One of the clues is:  "Bass lover."  Which bass?  The fish?  The guitar?  The lower musical clef?  Who the hell knows?  As a friend pointed out long ago...  I may be dumb, but at least I'm stupid. 

After I imposed on her some inventive forms of torture, Dog has stopped running through the invisible fence.  This has brought peace of mind to the squirrels who now jeer and catcall from just outside the wire.  Weird:  she went for a few years without ever going through, then suddenly started globetrotting.  Gone are the days when neighborhood dogs can roam around unimpeded by property lines.  When I was a kid, we had a dog named Josephine.  We would let her out, and if she went galavanting around the town, no big whoop.  All the neighbors knew Josephine and she knew them, and if she pooped in someone's yard, it was chocked up to "some poop in someone's yard."   Maybe Dog is hanging closer to home because the strata of snow have slowly melted, unveiling whole new sets of shit smells with each passing day.  Dog may be dumb, but at least she's stupid.  Bottom line: she is mainly interested in chasing squirrels and smelling stuff.  Come to think of it, sort of reminds me of my college days.

It looks like the answer to "Bass lover" is "oldman"  That makes no sense, unless you think, "Okay, an old man might love to fish for bass." Give me a break.

When I was four years old, we lived in Atlanta and took a week-long vacation to Jekyll Island, Georgia.  The main thing I remember about that trip was that my sister, Terry, mass-produced peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches by applying the peanut butter and mayonnaise to separate pieces of bread before mooshing them together.  I had a fit about this.  My mother always applied the mayonnaise directly on top of the peanut butter on one slice of bread before putting a blank piece on top.  That's how it was done, and that's how I liked it.  In my book, Terry had done the unthinkable, and I let the whole island know about it.  Anyway, we took Josephine with us on that trip and when we returned, our house was electric with jumping fleas.  There were thousands of them bouncing off the walls.  So... when I think back to our Jekyll Island trip, I think of mismatched peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches and those rowdy fleas who welcomed us home.

Our little flea-infested house in Atlanta was surrounded by forest, and I spent days out in those woods, adventuring away in that red clay world.  As a second grader, I went through a cigarette smoking phase and sometimes my friends and I would get naked and light up five Kools at a time.  One day, I was secretly following my brother through the woods when I came face to face with an enormous snake lazily slithering down a log.  I ran like hell for home, screaming "Snake!" all the way there.  My father pulled out the "S" edition from our World Book Encyclopedia and the whole family congregated around those snake pictures to identify the species I had seen.  I saw immediately that it was a yellow rat snake, but when my father read that it was non-poisonous, I passed on it.  When they showed me a picture of a copperhead and told me that the copperhead was VERY poisonous, then yes, by God, I swore that was the very snake I had seen.  I felt my family loved me all the more because I had come eye to eye with the vicious copperhead, and had barely escaped a gruesome and very, very sad death.  Even though everyone long ago forgot about it, I was reminded of my little lie whenever snakes came to mind.  I'm sorry Mom, Dad, Terry, Mark, Julie, and Josephine.  It wasn't really a copperhead after all.  It was a yellow rat snake.




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Pelican Brief

Pelicans are underrated.  They don't get the credit they deserve.  Well, just listen to this:  My niece, Olivia, once wrote an ode to a pelican when she was about ten years old.  Here it is:

A clumsy pelican
glides above
the crystal blue
ocean          
Its cream beak
as long       
as a sword
but as dull 
as              
a boring poem.
Its sharp  
oak brown eyes
scan the water
searching                  
for colorful fish.

It dives

into the water

and disappears

under

a crashing wave

Waiting

watching

waiting,

SPLASH!

It shoots up

with a peach fish

in its mouth.

It sways a while

then soars away

into the big

tangerine sun.

This little piece of writing should be required reading for all students everywhere.  It describes a miracle just as it happens.  Pelicans are dinosaur throwbacks with attitude.  Pelicans are the underappreciated soldiers of the oceans' edges. After watching these "swords" dive-bomb into chocolate Jekyll Island waters against that "tangerine sun", I knew it was time.   I vowed to carry a pelican back to Michigan.  I vowed to plant a concrete pelican to stand sentry over my Michigan yard.

*     *     *

While vacationing on Jekyll Island a few years back, my wife, Sue, came down with a sudden and convenient urinary tract infection which made a purchase possible.  When a thing like a cement pelican comes together with a thing like a bladder infection, it's called a thing in Turkish known as "kismet".  And amazingly, the Turkish word for "bladder infection" is "pelikan".

So when there was a lull in Sue's urgent need to pee, we shot off the Island and over the sprawling bridge and causeway to the city of Brunswick, Georgia. Sue got on her cell phone to her doctor's office about her symptoms and reported that she's had these UTIs before, and that all she really needed was for them to prescribe some antibiotics, and to fax the prescription to Rite Aid in Traverse City, and we would call and have them fax the prescription to the Rite Aid in Brunswick...  all this talk occurring while we sat in our car in the Brunswick Rite Aid parking lot.  They said they would let us know in a while.

Waiting for the callback, we killed some time by asking random people where we could buy a pelican.  Finally at a Target store, I sheepishly asked a cashier, "Ma'am, where can I buy a CEEment pelican?"  (Later, I would learn that Sue, who was having a hard time NOT peeing herself as it was, came very close when she heard the "CEEment" come out of my mouth.  I told her I was just trying to relate to the natives.) The cashier studied me for a few silent seconds, and when I explained that I was looking for a CEEment lawn sculpture, her brain light came on.  "Oh yeah, one of those things," she said.  She didn't know, but she would ask the store manager who was organizing shopping carts a good thirty yards away.  I figured she would ask the manager to come over to help, but instead she yelled across the store, "Juanita!  These people want a pelican!  Where can they buy a pelican?"

Juanita yelled back, "A WHAT?!?!"

The cashier yelled back, "A pelican, a CEEment pelican, you know, like you put in your yard."

At this point, I figured every customer in Target was pondering where the hell a person could purchase cement lawn ornaments in Brunswick.  But Juanita took full charge and yelled from in great volume and from a great distance that you go down the I-95 spur, then take a right at the light, then two more lights, then take a left across from the Nissan dealer, and there you are.

*     *     *

Sue again called her doctor's office, this time from the Target parking lot, who then informed her that they refused to write her a prescription for her bladder problem, that she would have to see a doctor in Brunswick, come hell or high water, like it or lump it, and while you're at it, don't call us again.

Because of this, I recalled right then the name of an old Frank Zappa album, "Weasels Ripped My Flesh."  Weasels certainly were ripping the day apart in a bloody, fleshy mess!  As much as we might scream, "FAX the damn prescription, you bastards!", the more they wouldn't.

After a minute of spewing some cuss words, we calmed down and set out.  With the help of a receptionist at a chiropractic office, we found our way to an urgent care clinic.  And while Sue waited for a doctor, I ventured forth to pursue a pelican, per the shouted directions from Juanita.

I took my I-95 spur, took my traffic lights, found no Nissan dealer but found a Honda dealer, took my left, and wound up at a city cemetery.  There were plenty of cement sculptures around, mostly Jesuses and Marys, but none of them were for sale, and none of them were pelicans.  So I aimlessly drove the asphalt streets of Brunswick, lonely as a cloud, until I came upon a traffic light into a Home Depot, with a Home Depot Garden Center of Hope, I hoped.

The guy in his orange Home Depot apron, "Wayne" on his nametag, couldn't have been nicer.  I told him what I was looking for and he dropped everything, actually looked up, rubbed his chin whiskers, and pondered.  He was the vision of pondering.  "I can see it in my head," he said.  "I pass it every day, a great big fenced-in yard with with all these concrete statues.  But where is that?  I drive down from the overpass every day and I can see it from above on the left.  But where is that?  How do you get there from here?"  He finally seized on the solution and gave some clear directions which involved only three nearby traffic lights.

As I was winding my way out through the crowd, Wayne hailed me from quite a distance away.  I figured he wanted to amend the directions somehow, but when I walked up to him he said with a grin, "Do you want to hear my joke about a penguin?"  All these needy customers milling around, and laid-back employee Wayne wants to tell me a goddamn joke!

So he told me this story about a penguin whose car breaks down, and while the penguin's waiting for it to get fixed, he walks over to a nearby ice cream shop to wait, (he was a penguin, after all) and in an hour returns to the garage.  The mechanic walks up to the penguin and says, "Man, looks like you blew a seal."  The penguin replies, as he's wiping his chin, "No, that's just vanilla frozen yogurt."

A pretty good joke, I thought.  But here's an interesting thing about Wayne's telling:  When the mechanic recommended that the penguin wait in a nearby ice cream shop, the penguin told the mechanic that he was allergic to ice cream.  The mechanic pointed out that the shop also served frozen yogurt, which the penguin was okay with.  I've wondered, why the embellishment?  Does it really advance the story by bringing in an irrelevent fact?  Was Wayne just trying to deepen the realism by saying the penguin was allergic to ice cream?  If so, who would believe that a penguin might be allergic to ice cream?  I mean, penguins and ice cream bars are so synonymous.

What I'm wondering is this:  Why do so many storytellers get lost in tangents?  Just get to the point, for godssake.

*     *     *

Wayne's directions were spot on, and within minutes I pulled into one of those concrete statuary businesses that sell all manner of earthly species and inspirational objects. There must have been an acre of CEEment statues. My favorite was a laughing Buddha, but I had come for a bird and, by God, I would leave with one.  The proprietor in her sweet Georgia drawl walked up and greeted me as I perused a throng of Jesuses.

"May I help you?"

To which I replied, "Yes, ma'am.  Do you by chance sell CEEment statues?"

This old wrinkled woman threw back her head and howled at the gods.  She was very happy with me, indeed.  If you can share a bit of irony right off the bat, it makes any interaction with strangers a whole lot of fun.  "Well, I reckon I do," she laughed.

Turns out she had a nice selection of various-sized pelicans, all looking quite content behind their boring-poem beaks.  I picked out a small-to-medium sized statue for 21 bucks, a fair price for the guardian of the realm, I thought.  The Buddha, although adorable, would have to laugh another day.

In the office, the wrinkled woman took my Mastercard and she talked about her "angels", her grandchildren who adorned the office walls in several photographs.  I said, "It's clear you don't like 'em much," to which she threw back her head, howled again at the gods, and wished me a safe journey back up north.

When I arrived back at the clinic, Sue was being discharged with a prescription for the antibiotics we had hoped Michigan would give her.  A urinary tract infection, sure enough. But the wait wasn't long, the staff there were exceptionally friendly, and I had a small-to-medium sized pelican riding in the back seat.  We stopped at Rite-Aide for the medicine, and before we reached the causeway taking us back to Jekyll Island, the antibiotics were coarsing through her veins.

From the top of the bridge south of Brunswick, you are perched atop an enormous expanse, a hundred square miles of salt marsh, a secondary protective buffer lying leeward to the Golden Isles of Georgia. It is a magnificent sight. And from way up there, you can see in the distances squadrons of pelicans in single file as they maneuver for prime position to dive-bomb over peach-colored fish in the shallow waters.

Sue got better almost immediately. She claims it happened when we paid the five dollar entry fee to get back onto the island. I claim it happened the moment the wrinkled woman with the concrete statues swiped my credit card under the laughing eyes of her grandchildren.

Postcard from Jekyll Island

Having a wonderful time.  The weather is great.  Wish you were here.

A. Jekyll Island is where, during the turn of the century (19th to 20th), the American titans of industry convened at the Jekyll Beach Hotel and smoked big fat cigars.  While smoking big fat cigars, they did things like form the Federal Reserve, merge companies, make millions in minutes, and slap each others' backs.  Their wives or mistresses played croquet on the front lawn.  They built (or had built) opulent "cottages" which you can visit.  Jekyll Island was quite the exclusive playground back in the day.

B. Before entering the Jekyll Beach Hotel to look around, I got a wonderful and memorable dirty look from a well-quaffed gentleman with a sweater tied around his neck.

C. While visiting a "nature center" on the southern side of the island, I wanted to inquire about kayak rentals, but no one was in the place.  Walking back to the car, I noticed a guy down by a salt pond working on something.  I asked if he worked there, but then noticed he was adjusting an accordian.  He told me he didn't work there, and that he was waiting for his girlfriend.  I said, "So, while waiting for your girlfriend, you decided to work on your accordian."  He said, "Yeah, weird, isn't it?"  I told him of course it wasn't, why the hell should a person NOT work on his accordian when waiting for his girlfriend while down at the salt marsh?

D. While visiting the sarcophagii of some French residents from the 1800s, I was maliciously attacked by salt marsh gnats.  Over the past three days, I have had itching welts all over my arms and legs and a despicable case of diarrhea.  There is orgasmic lift, however, in vigorously plowing my fingernails across said welts.  This just intensifies the itch, of course, and brings blood to the skin.  I have learned, now from two exposures, that I am allergic to the bites of sea marsh gnats.

E.  Walking from our condo complex to a nearby beach, there is a sign on a post which points the way.  It says, "Driftwood Beach.  Rated the Fifth Most Romantic Beach in the World."  Driftwood Beach is the home of hundreds of dead trees whose trunks and remaining branches have been half-swallowed by sand.  It is a unique and eery place.  If the sign had said, "Rated the Fifth Most Haunted Beach in the World," I would have been more of a believer.  Romantic?  So, as I was walking amid the gnarled wooden remains, I came across some writing in the sand.  It said, "I LOVE ROGER".  And just like that, words written by my daughter just hours before, there was the proof.

F.  Roger has three tattoos.  Each is oriental calligraphy, small in size, with one on his upper left arm, one on his upper right arm, and one in the middle of his back.  They are beautiful and must convey some mystical truths, I thought.  Truth be told, they mean:  "See Rock City".

G.  While on Jekyll Island, I have had a very annoying song going on in my head:  "Sometimes... all I need is the air that I breathe and to love you..."  I asked Sue if she ever had a song in her head she couldn't lose.  She said that, as a matter of fact, she had had a song going on that very day:  "Jingle Bells."

H.  Squadrons of pelicans protect this place and provide endless entertainment.  Pelicans are so impossible, they deserve their own blog entry, if they'll have me.




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Chasin' Jackie

There goes Jackie, scamperin’ by in his pamper.  All he got on is that pamper.  He's a pamper scamper, I say, and he smell to pee yew, too, and that pamper is fresh new.  "Slow down, Jackie," I say. "Grampa got to change you."  I yells at him, he scamperin' out the room, "Hey you! You got poop in the stoop!"

Jackie yell from the kitchen, “Poop in the stoop! Poop in the stoop!" And he want to play chase like every time when he carryin' around a cannonball in his butt.  So I rouse me up off the couch and I yell like I always do, "I’m going to catch you, Jackie, and I's going to dump you in the stinky, stinky city dump!'" and he giggling and he running and hiding from me when I does this.

I say, "Grampa gonna get you, Jackie!" and I open the hallway door and I'm teasing him with, "Now where did that smelly child go? Is he behind this door? Hmmm. No, he ain't. Maybe is he behind this other door? No, he ain't there neither. Hmmm. I wonder where that child could go."

I holler, "Jackie! You got poop in the stoop?  Tell me now, you got a pipe in the dipe? I know you does. Where is that smelly boy who got, what is it now, coal in the hole?"

And Jackie busts out from behind them coats in the closet and he wiggles through my legs, and he's screamin', "You can't catch me, Grampa!” And he does smell, like I say, oh my goodness. There ain't no doubt about it!

And I yells the words he know I will say: "You got poop in the stoop! Here I come! You got a pipe in the dipe? Here I come! You got coal in the hole! Here I come!"

And Jackie screams all gleeful and runs away and goes hiding again in the parlor. I follow and sees him standing still but a-giggling behind a curtain, and his little feet sticking out. He whispers to hisself, “coal in the hole," and giggles again.

I am playing the game, and I say slow and gruff in my low voice like a old troll, "Jackie, you is rank in the flank."

Jackie now is wild with a scream and busts out from behind there and hugs onto my leg, gazing up all sweet. “Grampa, you ain't a monster!"

I know he a bit afraid, but I say I definitely is one, a old troll, and I hoist Jackie over my shoulder, and I say he smell horrible like a rotten sack of garbage, and I’m a gonna dump him in the city dump or change that pamper come hell or high water.  I'm a monster who eats a child who can't stay smelling good, and I carry Jackie up the steps. And I stop on each step and growl low and hungry.

Just turned three and Jackie still going round in that pamper. His momma tell me he won't quit em, cause Jackie want to play the poop rhymes and I should stop it. I suppose I should stop it.

But when we come at the top, Jackie go, “Now say all of ‘em, Grampa. Like you do.”

So I act all bogged down like I is carrying a sack of rocks, and huffin' and puffin', and down the hall I totter with Jackie over my shoulder, and I say each one like he want me to:

"Jackie, you is one stinky child, gone stinky all the way to the pee-yew! Oooo-weee! You must got poop in the stoop!

Jackie say, "No, I ain't!"

"You got crap in you lap?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a pipe in the dipe?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got stink in the pink?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got shit in the pit?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a smell in the dell?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got rank in the flank?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got coal in the hole?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a stench in the trench?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a pack in the crack?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a turd in the snerd?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a lump in the rump?"

"No, I ain't!"

"You got a clog in the bog?"

"No, I ain't! I ain't! I ain't! I ain't!"

And Jackie, as I sets him down to change, goes from a little voice to his hollered finish-it joke like he always do: “No, Grampa! I gots me a great... big...  cannonball!” Course, when he holler cannonball we both laugh, me and my little Jackie, like we always do.

Except this time when I say, "A cannonball, you sure does, Jackie," Jackie say back at me all serious, "A supersaurus cannonball, Grampa!"

Now where did Jackie get that? Where did he get that name, supersaurus cannonball?" What is that? I ain't teached him that. That Jackie! Supersaurus cannonball outta the mouth of that child.  




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Exhibit A

Commencement Address Made to the Graduating Class
Associates Degree -- School of Social Work
University of Phoenix, Kokomo Campus
Bypass Highway 68, Holiday Inn Express
Kokomo, Indiana
January 29, 2011
Thomas R. Bohnhorst, MSW, LMSW
In Private Practice
Traverse City, MI

Transcript



Gooooood Moooooorrrrrning  Ko...!!! Ko...!!!  Mo...!!!

(silence)

I've never seen so many Subarus in one parking lot in my whole life!  What, is there a Subaru factory in Kokomo?  No, wait...   That's right: we're a bunch of social workers.  Hey, it's 2011 people.  You can remove the Obama bumper stickers now.

(silence)

But seriously, don't they have any fresh donuts here in Kokomo?  I mean, seriously.

(silence)

Thank you, thank you.  My fellow social workers, I come before you today to tell you a little story, my little story really, about a little social worker with a whole lotta love for his profession. First, let me color in a picture for you, my friends:  The year is 1998, and I am in my agency counseling office, waiting for my next client, flossing my teeth.  Don't laugh.  Flossing does two major things: it stimulates the gums which stimulates the blood which stimulates energy.  I would lay odds that people who take Viagra don't floss very much.  Now, there's a promising research project for you.  But more important, flossing will freshen the breath.  You ever lean in to someone who hasn't flossed for a month?  Especially a meat eater?  Strand of meat gets caught between the molars and just sits there and sits there.  Pretty soon it smells to high heaven.  It's all you can do to breathe without grabbing a gas mask.  But I should talk.  One time, I was flossing and unbeknownst to me, the floss breaks off at my tooth.  The client comes in --  very hyper woman, teen-age daughter ran off with a carnival -- and the whole session she's mesmerized by my mouth.  Turns out that string of floss is hanging out the corner of my mouth the whole time.

By 1998, I had moved through my "unconditional positive regard" phase and what I like to call my "Gestalt funk".  I'll tell you a little secret:  back when I was using Gestalt on agoraphobics, I'd come home from work and listen to Grand Funk Railroad... cranked up full blast!  It was very liberating!  I may not have been able to get people to ride an elevator, but at least I could reverberate my own rafters!  Anyway, that's why I called that stretch of time my "Gestalt funk" on account of that band and because I was kind of  "stuck at home" so to speak.  So, I got past those therapeutic approaches, when I discovered and sank my teeth into Solution-Focused Therapy.  No psychoanalytic mumbo jumbo for these boys.  They were let's-cut-to-the-chase, let's-get-down-to-some-solutions, no-nonsense theoreticians.  One of the things I liked was they said, "If you can resolve the problem in 20 minutes, then just have a 20- minute session."  No reason to sit there examining each other's ear wax for the whole 50-minute hour if you don't need to.

So, in comes Pete, we'll call him.  In comes Pete looking like his pet beagle, his only friend, just ate Pete's last Prozac and then ran across the street and got hit by a truck.  Pete had been doing this to me for three months, coming in every week and whining about every little hangnail or every time someone gave him a disapproving look.  To tell you the truth, I got sick of commiserating with him or figuring out why his mother denied him her breast too soon or maybe conspiring that a different anti-depressant might give him the warm and fuzzies.  So he sits down and I say, like always, "How are we feeling today, Pete?"  Pete starts right in about how the alternator on his van went out, and how he has a headache, and how his mother hung up on him the other day, and blah, blah, blah, cry me a slow-moving, muddy-ass river.

I had had enough!  I wouldn't let him do it to me for one more second!  We needed a solution and we needed a focus!  Right this second!

"Pete?" I asked him.  "What is the opposite of sadness?"  Pete was taken aback a bit, but offered that happiness, of course, was the opposite.  "Pete?" I asked him again. "How can you tell if a person is happy?"  Pete thought a moment, then offered that a happy person smiles and laughs easily.  "Pete?" I asked. "Do you want to smile and laugh easily?"  Pete thought for a moment, and responded that he would if he could.  So I told him,  "Let me see if I can offer a solution."

I stood up, removed my sport jacket and began unbuttoning my shirt.  "Whoa," Pete said.  "What's going on here?"  I assured him it was okay, that I was helping him focus on a happiness solution.  I removed my shirt and stood before him, bare from the waist up.  "Now watch this," I instructed, and took a felt pen from my desk drawer, and carefully drew a pair of crossed eyes and a nose over my belly button which served as a mouth.  Then with both forefingers and thumbs, I squeezed the skin around my belly button to lip synch the words as I sang:  "Swing low, sweet chariot.  Coming for to carry me home..."

Pete sat there stunned, eyebrows raised.  He wasn't smiling and he didn't seem to be breathing.  Then it dawned on me that the song wasn't uplifting enough and it didn't really match spiritually the squinched face on my stomach.  So I decided to change songs, and if I do say so myself, I got pretty good with my belly button.  My stupid little face then went to town, "Put the lime in the coconut and drink 'em bot' together.  Put the lime in the coconut, then you'll feel better.  Put the lime in..."

Pete stood up and started to leave.  I put my hand on his shoulder, and said, "Hold on, Pete.  We're just getting started."  But Pete was having none of it and made a beeline for the door, saying "We're finished!"  And that's the last I ever saw of him.

But, my friends, I was anything but finished.  Oh, the agency director may have fired me over this, but on that day I set out on a new course and have never looked back.  My message to you today is simple and if you don't take anything else away from our time together, at least hold on to these three precious words: pyloric sphincter valve.  Believe me, the pyloric is by far my favorite sphincter.  This sneaky little valve maintains balance between the stomach and the duodenum.  Just think about that for a moment.  Maintains balance.

One time I got drunk at a social worker seminar and a whole bunch of us piled into  the hot tub there at the Wheeling, West Virginia, Comfort Inn.  Alcohol completely disrupts pyloric sphincter valve functioning, and by gosh, I spontaneously vomitted right there, a massive and ghastly explosion, which of course affected the emotional state of my fellow social workers.

My friends, I came away from that experience with a profound appreciation of the pyloric sphincter valve.  Hell, I had never even heard of the sphincter before this happened.  It's amazing how hindsight can...

Oh, is it time for a break?

(silence)

Yes,  I could use a stretch myself.

Wow, is this a fire drill?  Where is everybody going?

End of Transcript

 

 

 

 

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Waiter, there's a horse in my butter!

Transcript of Tom Rhoads' interview with Bean, author of the blog, Poop Ederim, from the WTRB broadcast of Blog Agog, January 22, 2019.


TOM: Welcome, listeners, to another edition of Blog Agog, the show that highlights the latest in creative blog publications. Today our guest is the producer of Poop Ederim, a site that has gone blogosphere bonkers in recent months. Welcome, Bean... you just go by Bean, is that right?

BEAN: Maybe I should go by Big Shot Bean. I mean, here I am on your show.

TOM:  Right, big shot. Now that you're such a big shot with a big shot blog, readers across the country are wanting some answers.

BEAN:  First of all, it's "readers across the WORLD," if you don't mind.  I have a solid following in Turkey, and also a following on an unregistered laptop in Nigeria.

TOM:  Okay, sure. International big shot then. About your name. Were you named Bean by your parents? Or was that a nickname you picked up?

BEAN: My last name is Bohnhorst. "Bohn" in German means bean, so it came from that.

TOM: And "horst"?

BEAN: I'd rather not say if you don't mind.

TOM:  Fair enough. Speaking of names, people are intrigued by your blog-title, Poop Ederim.  Your readers have googled it, consulted Merriam-Webster, called the National Weather Service.  Nobody can find a match. What does it mean?

BEAN:   People were googling it?  Cool!  What did they find?

TOM:  One listener was Googled to a website having to do with "poop dreams".  Any connection to your Poop Ederim?

BEAN:  No, but that's interesting.  Poop Dreams was a terrific documentary that came out some years ago.  It has a cult following.

TOM:  You must be thinking of Hoop Dreams.

BEAN:  No, I'm thinking of Poop Dreams.  Poop Dreams was a courageous documentary film about the heartbreak of constipation. Sadly, it missed a nod from the Oscars.

TOM:  Let's get back to the question.

BEAN:  Listen, just because the laptop in Africa can't be traced is no reason to eliminate Nigeria from my international blog checklist.  It's like a birder's life list.  Once you see a roseate spoonbill, even in the blink of an eye, you get credit for life.  Same goes for a laptop in Nigeria.  I can now say the African continent is following me! Officially.
 
TOM:  So what about it?

BEAN:  What about what?

TOM:  Poop Ederim!  How did you come up with that?

BEAN:  Poop Ederim has its origins in Turkish, or to be more precise, with Roger Price. It is a bit mysterious, isn't it?

TOM: That's why I'm asking.

BEAN:  Okay, I went to an American high school in Ankara, Turkey, in the late 60s as my family lived there. In 1973, I returned to Turkey and got a job teaching English to adult Turks at the Turkish-American Association in Ankara.  It was great fun.  I would stand in front of 20 students who were very enthusiastic about learning English.  One of the teaching techniques we used was "listen and repeat."  I would say something, and they would repeat it.  For example, I would say, "Good morning, Mr. Jones.  How are you today?"  And the class would respond in a resounding chorus:  "Good morning, Mr. Jones. How are you today?" And then I would insert a different name. For example, I might say "Mrs. Smith", and the class would chant, "Good morning, Mrs. Smith.  How are you today?"  And so on.  I had such power!

Sometimes I would close the textbook and insert my own names.  I'd say, "Batman."

And the class would respond, "Good morning, Batman.  How are you today?"

 Or, I'd make it more complex. "Richard Nixon and Jack the Ripper."

Without batting an eye, they would repeat, "Good morning, Richard Nixon and Jack the Ripper. How are you today?"

And then, the grande finale: "You idiot and your idiot goat."

Those trusty Turks would close the deal: "Good morning, you idiot and your idiot goat. How are you today?"

TOM:  I'm getting discouraged.

BEAN:  I didn't know it then, but as I was soon to learn, the English word "book" sounds like the Turkish word "bok".  "Bok" means, to be blunt, "shit".  So, at first many of my listen-and-repeat exercises caused some embarrassing disturbances. It turned out that I was unknowingly hurling verbal turds around the classroom. For example, when I modeled, "Hello, Johnny. May I see your book?", the class whimpered with giggles and probably wondered if I liked to hang around public restrooms. Some students pretended not to notice, but there was no ignoring the bok-faced elephant in the room.

Still not knowing their Turkish turd word, I singled out a "struggling" student to model some repeats for the rest of the class:  "Mehmet," I said. "Come on now, repeat after me:  'Yes, Mr. Brown. I will put my book on your desk.'"

Mehmet dutifully responded, "Yes, Mr. Brown...  I will put my b... b... b..."  Mehmet collapsed in howls and others buried their faces in hysterical tears. I was so puzzled. I was at a loss.

One brave lady approached me, took me aside, and helped me. "Mr. Tom," she whispered. "Your English word... book... sounds in Turkish like, how you say in English... poop? Book is a bad word."realize how this bookish/bokish intersection of languages had rendered these young souls hysterical and helpless.

Incidents like this made me a wildly popular English teacher.  My reputation, I'm afraid, had everything to do with my demonstrated deference to their, well, shit.  And whenever I then asked my students to "look in your book" or "bring your book", we exchanged knowing glances and grew in an appreciation of our teacher/student relationship.

TOM:  How bookish. And... so....?

BEAN:  Yes?

TOM:  So all that, somehow, in some obscure way, all that has something to do with, dare I ask, "Poop Ederim"?

BEAN:  Oh, no. Of course, not. When I was seventeen, I was traveling with my parents and little sister in southern Spain and we went to a nice restaurant for dinner. White tablecloths and all that. There was bread, but no butter, and I wanted some butter. So I asked the waiter in my school-learned Spanish to bring us some "burro", por favor. We had just been in Italy and the Italian word for butter is burro. I made an innocent mistake. The waiter looked perplexed but deferentially nodded and hiked back to the kitchen. We then noticed through the window back there a major debate going on between the waiter, the manager, and the chef. They kept arguing about something, looking over at our table, then going back to their argument. They must have debated over what exactly I wanted. Finally, the waiter sheepishly approached our table and from under a linen napkin, presented me with...  a box. I opened the box and there inside was a big, fat cigar. My father erupted in embarrassing and uncontrollable guffaws.  I wish I had a recording of that conversation in the kitchen.  My father told that story a hundred times over the years.

TOM:  Mantequilla.

BEAN:  Pardon?

TOM: Mantequilla: Spanish for butter. Burro: Spanish for donkey.

BEAN: Sure, I know. I wanted butter, ordered a donkey, and got served a cigar. Burro and bok. Both of those situations were innocent mistakes.

TOM: All right. Just let me try this one last time. Poop Ederim... where does your blog title come from?

BEAN: I've wondered what those guys said in that kitchen.: You didn't let me finish. Like I said, poop ederim has its origins in Turkish, but more precisely with Roger.

TOM: Who is Roger?

BEAN: You mean, who was Roger. He departed the world years ago, but was the funniest person I've ever known. Maybe the saddest, too.

TOM: And?




TOM:  Okay, I am leaving now.  I will take some Tums.  And I will lie down for a while on my bed.





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