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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