Pete Rose is trying to get into the wrong hall

Saw Pete Rose on television the other day. It wasn’t by choice. Bruce and Chip, the guys in our newspaper’s sports department, had commandeered the TV.

I’m not really a sports guy and don’t apologize for it, but even I had heard of Pete Rose; heard of the big scandal, anyway. For those few readers even less in tune with the wide world of sports than am I, Rose was busted for betting on his own team. I’m not sure which team it was, but I think it was a baseball one. (Like I said, my ignorance of sports, while not complete, is darn close.)

According to Bruce — who knows about this stuff — Rose was banned for life from induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. They didn’t like the fact he was betting on games at the same time he was in a position to influence their outcome. 

This is an emotional issue for some folks; I base this on the fact Bruce and Chip were ready to take hostages and detonate WMD’s over the possibility Hall of Fame bigwigs might reconsider their ban.

Rose admitted he’s still got a gambling problem, but said, “Hey, forgive me anyway.” Hard to argue with that kind of sincerity.

My own personal take on the matter is I care even less about this than I did about Bruce Jenner putting on a dress. I figure it’s none of my business and fully believe the world would be a better place if more people shared my philosophy.

Still, the controversy got me thinking about the disparity between The Baseball Hall of Fame and the hall I actually care about: The Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Frankly, if the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s rules were as stringent as are baseball’s equivalent, that hall would be empty except for Karen Carpenter and maybe one or two of the less-offensive Monkees. Davy and Peter, I’m thinking.

I mean, baseball’s hall won’t let you in if you’ve done drugs, had inappropriate relations with passed-out teenage girls, used steroids, run naked through a luxury hotel or committed any one of a number of grievously heinous crimes.

At the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, these atrocities are part of the entrance checklist.

It doesn’t seem fair. Sports celebrities are every bit as coddled, overpaid and lawyered-up as are rock ’n’ roll icons, yet they’re expected to behave themselves and be good role models for spoiled yuppie children.

Rockers, meanwhile, are considered more trustworthy than Mother Theresa if they stay two nights in a hotel room without trashing it and somehow manage to live into their mid-30s without dying of a heroin overdose.

I don’t see an easy answer to Mr. Rose’s dilemma. But maybe it’s not too late for him to buy an old Stratocaster, learn a few chords and put out a hit record.

He may never find acceptance in Cooperstown, but I’m betting they’d welcome him with open arms in Cleveland.

It’s the things my new machine can’t do that make it great

My birthday was a couple weeks ago; it was a big one, a “decade” birthday. My family never made a big deal over the birthday of anyone old enough to shave. This is as it should be.

So when I got only one present, I was in no way disappointed, particularly since it’s quite possibly the coolest gift I’ve ever received. I’m writing on it now.

Unlike my old laptop, it runs forever on a single charge. It completely filters out junk emails, instant messages, annoying Facebook memes and even bothersome text notifications. All of these things used to slow down my productivity, but not any more.

Also, the resolution is as close to real life as you can get. I don’t know how many pixels-per-inch there are in real life, but whatever that number is, my new machine has got ‘em.

Even better, it comes with a built-in printer that is 100 percent compatible with all the software the machine runs. Speaking of which, there’s no software to install and nothing to set up. Boot-up time is zero seconds; it’s ready to go right out of the box and even a novice user can figure out its entire feature set in less than a minute without cracking the manual.

I know, I know, you’re wondering where you can find one of these miracle machines for yourself, right? Well, that’s the downside, they’re rarer than hen’s teeth and often prohibitively expensive. My sweetie, Lori, tracked mine down at an antique store.

See, it was manufactured in 1923 in New York City by the Underwood Typewriter Company. For all its amazing features, it — like me — is old. But I like that.

It means there’s at least a chance I’m currently writing this column on the same machine used by F. Scott Fitzgerald to hammer out “The Great Gatsby.” Probably not, but there’s a chance and that’s more than you can say about my MacBook. 

Or maybe Hemingway used it to write “A Farewell to Arms” while sitting in the Spanish sun and drinking absinthe on some cheap hotel terraza. Did Papa flesh out the fictional lives of Jake Barnes and Lady Bret Ashley on my Underwood #5? Maybe, maybe.

It’s even possible I’m writing on the very same Underwood #5 my mother purchased for me at a yard sale for my 11th birthday, not long after I informed her of my intent to be a famous writer. (I’m still working on the “famous” part; there are those, in fact, who would argue I’m still working on the “writer” part.) 

I would love for this to be the typewriter from my childhood; it certainly looks exactly the same. And I’m a huge fan of cosmic symmetry. 

It’s impossible to know for sure. But regardless of its origin or history, I feel a real sense of “rightness” about writing on the thing. The clackety-clack of the mechanical keys, the pinging of the little bell reminding me to operate the carriage return (I was surprised how fast this habit came back!), the smell of machine oil and time, time, time.

My Underwood #5 is only a handful of years shy of 100, after all, and works as well as the day it left that New York factory. Built like a tank (and almost as attractive) it was crafted by the hands of people that cried the day Lincoln was shot, read with open wonder the accounts of Orville and Wilbur’s miracle at Kittyhawk; people who were still maybe reeling over the sinking of the Titanic.

This old typewriter has seen things I can only imagine. And at 93, it’s still going strong. Somehow, this inspires me and gives me hope in a way no super-fast-quad-seven processor or flashy bit of software out of Silicon Valley ever will.

Sure, the auto-correct feature doesn’t work worth a damn. But it turns out you can purchase an accessory item known as “dictionary.” 

What will they think of next?

It’s time to put the earthquake rumors to rest

If you live within 200 miles of town, you’re probably still reeling over the events of Sunday afternoon. Like so many, you’re no doubt wondering what caused the earthquake-like tremors that  shattered windows, startled small children and caused cows to stop producing milk.

Local news networks speculated the quake was caused by a meteor impact. This prompted at least one presidential candidate to propose a temporary ban on all undocumented meteors entering U.S. airspace. This in turn lead to strident protests on the part of the M-DAC (Meteor Diversity Action Committee), which pointed out that banning meteors based on their previous location in the solar system was not only unconstitutional, but just plain stupid.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, suggested fracking caused the tremors. Spokespersons for FY-WDA (Forget You, We’re Drilling Anyway) countered that earthquakes are a common occurrence in Michigan and Sunday’s event had nothing to do with fracking. They then added, “Yes, we do always keep our fingers crossed — just for luck. It’s got nothing to do with lying or anything.”

Several farmers reported seeing UFOs in the area around the time of the incident. Homeland Security established a perimeter and declared the area under “maroon alert.”

At any rate, before all this gets completely out of hand, I figured I’d better come clean: it was me. I caused the quake.

I didn’t mean to and I’ll happily pay for damages caused by my actions, which again, were entirely unintentional. If you simply must lay blame, blame the holiday.

It happened, after all, while I was putting up Christmas lights.

I’ve written in the past about my abject cowardice when it comes to heights. It sounds funny in print, but in real life, lemme tell ya, it’s a drag. I can’t wear boots with tall heels without getting all light in the head.

I once actually fainted in one of those glass elevators that run up the side of a tall building in Detroit. I can’t watch movies featuring mountain climbers, tightrope walkers or gymnasts on a balance beam without spilling my beer.

(If you’d like to insert a “plucka-plucka” chicken sound into this narrative, now would be the time.)

And yet, every December I get up on that blasted ladder to hang Christmas lights. It’s only 10 steps up, but it was from Number Nine that I toppled. 

That was several days ago, as I write this. It’s raining today and water is filling the impact crater left by my fall. A few late season ducks have gathered there for a last swim before heading south for the winter.

I’m typing with my arm in a sling, not the easiest task in the world. The urgent care doc says I may need surgery to get my humerus settled back into its rotator cuff, whatever that is.

On the bright side, my Christmas lights look nice and cheery, with the exception of that last string on the west end of the house; that one’s hanging askew, one end stapled to the roof, the other curled forlornly beside the impact crater.

So if you happen to drive by my house next August and see a guy paddling a floaty around his front lawn lake while Christmas lights blaze away on his roofline, you’ll know why.

What makes folks think critters even want to be human?

I can’t stand it. I just can’t. Must … vent.

But first, a bit of history. I’ve always been an animal person; I’ve owned dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, tropical fish, ferrets, hermit crabs, parrots, parakeets, doves, lizards, snakes and even once kept a pet cricket in a cage on the hearth, until it died.

I’m a conscientious pet owner and take good care of the fauna to whose upkeep I have been entrusted. But I never forget one important fact: they are animals.

That’s a fact manufacturers of most pet products would just as soon you forget. Why? In a word: money.

Dog #1, who is “just a dog” needs a) his shots, b) a big bag of dog food. 

Dog #2, who is “a beloved member of the family” needs a) his shots, b) several cans of expensive “gourmet” food in a variety of flavors designed to appeal to your canine’s enlightened palate, c) a cozy bed next to the fireplace (if you don’t have a fireplace, for heaven’s sake have one installed immediately!), d) more toys than Elvis’ kid, e) a collar, custom crafted from organic hemp by Uruguayan artisans, f) frequent sessions with a dog psychologist (there really is such a thing) to figure out why he’s peeing on the carpet, and g) non-fattening treats made from select cuts of beef considered too expensive for inclusion in diplomatic dinners at the White House.

Now, provided there’s frequent scratching behind the ears and the occasional “What a good dog!” comment, both of these mutts are equally happy. And they’ll both — if given half a chance — gleefully dine from the cat’s litter box.

Because they’re dogs, folks!

I’m engaged to a lunatic, so I currently live with five cats. All are healthy, shiny-furred and about as happy as cats get (which isn’t all that happy except for those moments when they’re engaged in the dismemberment of some hapless field mouse).

Lori (the aforementioned lunatic and confessed “crazy cat lady”) buys them toys and gourmet food galore. She buys them fancy cat collars, which they promptly slip out of and lose in the woods. 

All I buy for them is catnip, because nothing’s funnier than a stoned cat.

Though they’re treated like spoiled children, the cats prefer to be, well, cats. Their favorite food, despite Lori’s careful selection of canned food that looks better than most of the stuff I eat, is still raw rodent entrails. They love ‘em!

Because they’re cats!

Sigh.

So what preceded today’s rant? I’ll tell ya.

Gluten free dog food. I saw it today at the grocery. They also offered vegetarian pet food. And low sodium. And reduced fat. And lactose intolerant. 

I wish I were kidding. 

I swear, the world’s going to the dogs, one Fancy Feast at a time.

My new crackpot religion will bring an end to winter

I’m an atheist. There. I said it and I’m glad. 

Oh, I’m not your garden variety atheist. My atheism is very specific: I don’t believe in snow. I’m a Snow Atheist.

The principals of Snow Atheism are simple, as are its rites and practices, at least for the time being. Eventually, I hope to add a few colorful ceremonies like sacrificing virgins, cutting the heads off chickens by the light of a full moon, wearing hats made from tinfoil — that sort of thing. But for now, it’s all about NOT believing in snow.

I know that sounds a little crazy, but so did a lot of religions when they were still theologically wet behind the ears. 

The cornerstone of Snow Atheism is simple enough and one deeply rooted in western theological ideology: if you believe something strongly enough, eventually, it happens. Religious texts are filled with examples of this.

I keep referring to Snow Atheism as a religion, but it’s not, not really. I mean, let’s be real, it does contain the word “atheism,” right? In actuality, it’s more of a belief system, a philosophy (one I’m inventing as I go along, so don’t expect too much). 

It doesn’t infringe on other religions (at least not until I start adding the human sacrifices and tinfoil hats, at which point I’m sure clergy from more conventional churches will begin to take a dim view of it all).

But for now, it’s perfectly cool to be a Catholic Snow Atheist (like me) or a Jewish SA, or Protestant SA or whatever. All it takes is a willingness to not believe in snow.

I’ve been a Snow Atheist for years. I’ll admit that, so far, my beliefs — fervent as they are — have had very little affect on Michigan’s winter weather. 

That’s why I’m so anxious to expand my church membership; I’ve come to realize I can’t do this myself. As they say, there’s strength in numbers.

The problem is, too many of you folks still believe in snow. I blame this on TV meteorologists, who just loooooove to talk about it. When Snow Atheism finally becomes an established religion (with tax exempt status, I’m hoping), TV meteorologists will be among the first human sacrifices (yes, even Craig James, who seems like a nice enough fella).

Though I would dearly love to charge dues for church membership, I’m so desperate for congregants that I won’t, at least not at first.

So I urge you, join the Snow Atheists today! All you need do is step outside, shake your fist at the pendulous, gray canopy of clouds, and shout, “I don’t believe in you, snow! I DON’T! So there!”

I figure if we all do this, the universe will be powerless to do other than raise the temperature by 40 degrees, bring on the sun, and melt away whatever the heck that white stuff is clogging up my driveway.

I don’t know what it is. I just know what it’s not! 

It’s not snow.

Believe, brothers and sisters! Believe!

If I can’t bring my potbellied pig to the office, I’ll sue!

I’m not opposed to political correctness. It may sometimes seem that way to regular readers of this column, but the truth is I’m a PC fan. At least in cases where political correctness doesn’t veer off into ridiculousness.

I’m old enough to remember when jokes about folks of a Polish persuasion (complete with frequent references to the “P” word) were considered hilarious. These days those jokes just make folks uncomfortable. As they should. If they don’t, you need to wake up and smell the 21st Century, pal.

The times they have a’changed. Mostly for the better, in my opinion.

But every so often, somebody will drive the PC Love Train right off the rails and down the mountainside. Not surprisingly, mis-navigation of this sort often takes place at universities, where the “L” word (Liberal) has yet to be Rush Limbaughed out of existence.

Such is the case in New York, where rampant inclusiveness has me wanting to erect a sign outside the dean’s office reading, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

The situation involves animals. No, not the frat brothers. Real animals.

It began rationally enough, as these things often do, with New York colleges declaring it “OK” for students who require service animals to bring them to class. Why should a sightless person be denied a college education, right? 

Guide dogs are highly trained, know their business and can easily maintain an unobtrusive presence in the classroom. It’s a no brainer.

And speaking of no brains, here we go: students started stretching that “service animal” definition. Kids who suffered from depression if they didn’t get to pet their kitty on a regular basis were allowed to bring their cats on campus.

As were students who experienced panic attacks if denied hourly face-licks from a golden retriever. 

And let’s not forget the students who need ongoing guinea pig snuggles to avoid feeling “stressed” by final exams.

Am I kidding? No, I am not.

Other student “service” animal requests have included tarantulas, potbellied pigs, ferrets and flying Australian marsupials.

The few requests that were denied resulted in (surprise, surprise!) lawsuits against some universities.

The dust hasn’t even begun to settle on this issue; that’ll take years. And just about the time it does, some kid with an allergy will file a formal complaint over the dander being spread by his dorm-mate’s chimpanzee. 

At this point administrators will ban all animals on campus. After all, it’s the PC thing to do.

There’s no fracking way I like covering hard news

Several years ago I wrote a series of serious articles on fracking. 

I didn’t want to, but when your editor tells you to write about fracking you write about fracking. So I did, even though I hated every minute of it. 

Why?

Well, for the same reason I hate writing about religion, politics, women’s reproductive rights and Donald Trump’s haircut; no matter what you say, somebody’s going to wind up hating your guts.

If I enjoyed having my guts hated I’d still be married to one of my previous wives.

But I don’t. I like people to like me, or at least pretend to.

So in an effort to cut down on the post-article gut-hating, I researched the heck outta the topic. I spoke with oil company execs, interviewed protestors, called out-of-state landowners who had leased property to energy companies; I pored over every fracking article I could find online.

It didn’t take me long to figure out writing a “balanced” piece was not going to be easy. Because everyone involved, on both sides of the fence, was a Big Fat Liar. Every one of ‘em.

The anti-fracking folks blamed the process — which is used to extract petroleum products from deep in the earth — for everything from earthquakes (maybe) to pollution (almost certainly) to three-headed deer (probably not).

The energy execs claimed fracking was 100 percent safe (not), made roses smell sweeter than ever (not), and was good for the economy (probably, at least for the part of the economy that owns a second summer home in Barbados).

There might have been a “truth” there somewhere, a “real” story, but I never got close to it. All I did was report what both sides were saying, what the research (much of it funded by energy companies and unsurprisingly slanted in favor of their agenda) said, and what residents living near fracking sites thought of it all.

In the end, the series was fair and balanced and presented both sides of the issue.

Which is my way of saying EVERYONE wound up hating me. In this business, that’s how you know you’ve written a balanced piece; nobody’s happy.

The eco-folks sent emails and letters accusing me of selling out and falling for the company line. The energy folks rattled their sabers and hinted at possible legal action. 

In the end, everybody got over it, forgot all about me and moved on to the next thing they were outraged over, whatever that might have been.

I think I won some sort of award for the series, but it’s been a while and can’t say for sure.

Next time I get stuck writing a big, national story like that, I think I’ll just see if anyone wants to offer me a little bribe, and then sculpt the story in their favor. I’m as corruptible as any of those big oil scientists who regularly release reports saying global warming is a sham. In short: I can be bought. Or at least rented.

And if the story is heavily-slanted enough, only half as many folks will wind up hating me. 

Read this column for at least 12 seconds

The world will end in seven days. Elvis was spotted in Kalamazoo. With Jim Morrison. President Obama was born on the planet B6-12. Apple announces the new iPhone 7q with 3-D girly photos technology. Moscow in flames; missiles headed for New York! 

That’s it. That’s 12 seconds.

According to a writing advice article I read a couple days ago, that’s all the time a writer has to “grab the attention” of the average reader. If you can’t snag ‘em in 12 seconds, you go unread.

Blame it on the proliferation of “junk writing” online, if you like. Or on schools forced to teach kids to test, rather than to think. Or on streaming video, or rap music, or Obama or Bush or the Tooth Fairy.

Doesn’t matter. It still comes down to that 12 seconds. 

For whatever reason, the average reader has (according to the aforementioned article) the attention span of a goldfish. That means if you’re still reading this (and you are), you’re above average. 

Good for you, and for me, too, since they pay me to write this and I’d very much like them to keep doing so.

But I’m still worried about that 12 seconds. The article I read said this 12 second rule wasn’t always in play. There was a time  a writer could meander away for a few paragraphs or even pages — if that’s where the muse took him — and then get around to the point somewhere down the line.

Not anymore. Now, the article claims, a writer must offer up explosions, car chases, soft-core pornography or murder in the first paragraph. Otherwise, well, he’s writing for himself.

Or herself, if he’s a woman.

At any rate, I personally HATE that 12 second rule. I think the 12 second rule may well be the final nail in an already tightly sealed coffin. This is particularly true when the rule is inexpertly applied by hack and newbie writers. (I’m talking about writers even worse than me and yes, there is such a thing.)

I see examples of this all the time in those 99-cent bargain ebooks trumpeted on Amazon, most of which aren’t as good as prose you can read for free on the wall of any gas station bathroom.

“For a good time, call Monica!” is far superior to some of the self-published pabulum I’ve paid money for online.

Makes me glad I’m a geezer. I grew up with Thurber, Yeats, Bradbury, Asimov, Welty, all of whom spread their golden treasures beneath a susurrating mantle of language, of words.

If you wanted that gold, you had to dig, sometimes deeply. But it was worth it.

So. Though I’m not fit to brush the sand from the flip-flops of Thurber or Bradbury, I’m going to continue to ignore the 12 second rule. I’m not going to write for the “average” reader.

I’m going to write for you. 

And the money, of course. Guy’s gotta eat.

I’m ready for my 15 minutes of stupid

By the time you read this, my 15 minutes of fame will be over. 

Hopefully, I will not have squandered that time foolishly; I will not have said or done anything overtly stupid, offensive or illegal.

But the odds are not in my favor. Anytime I’m forced to speak in public, something terrible happens; my mouth moves, my lips part, my teeth rise and fall and sound escapes.

What comes out is usually stupid, offensive or illegal.

Tomorrow morning (as I write this) I’ll be doing two morning radio shows and one television appearance in Grand Rapids. I’m promoting an upcoming benefit concert* my band, The Guinness Brothers, is hosting with our all-girl “sister band,” The 6Pak.

We’re raising money for the Veteran’s Facility in Grand Rapids, so it’s a Really Good Cause and deserves to be promoted. I just wish someone other than me was doing it.

Fortunately, I’ll have Cindy with me, the drummer from The 6Pak. She’s a smart, articulate cookie and I’m hoping she’ll do most of the talking.

But at some point, that show’s host is sure to ask me a question or two. That’s the point at which things are going to get dicey.

I’ll try real hard to sound clever, witty, or at least sane, but I know from bitter experience that never works.

Oh, sure, I have a daily radio show on WGLM in Greenville. I’ve heard myself there and I sound OK. Garrison Keeler’s losing no sleep over my little two-minute program, but it’s not terrible. 

That’s because it’s scripted and I can do all the “takes” I need. I edit out the stupid, offensive and illegal parts. Listeners who tune in to the show (mostly my ex-wives, to see if I’ve told any more lies about them) hear me at my heavily edited and judiciously censored best. 

All the appearances tomorrow are live. Live! As in, back the truck up, open wide and unload a heapin’ helpin’ of dumb.

It’s inevitable.

The radio shows are during “drive time,” when there are, so I’m told, a lot of listeners. Thousands of chances for me to sound like a fool.

I don’t know if I’ll come up with something as memorable as “I am not a crook,” or “I did not have sex with that woman.” But I’m guessing I’ll blurt at least one spontaneous utterance that’ll rank up there with the most unfortunate comments of all time.

All I know for sure is, I’ll be glad when that 15 minutes is over.

Mrs. Kedzierski didn’t dig kids

“What if she finds the body? Oh, man, we should never have buried it there!”

This is not a sentence a guy would normally utter over a phone line, especially if he knew Mrs. Kedzierski was listening in.

But I was ten years old; the word “consequences” was not to be found in my vocabulary.

These were the days of the party line, back when four or five families — usually neighbors — all shared a single phone line. It seems impossible now, one step removed from smoke signals or beating sticks on a hollow log, but it happened kiddies, in the Long, Long Ago.

At any rate, every time anyone made or received a call, it was a given that Mrs. Kedzierski was listening in, probably taking notes. As she no doubt was now.

“Why did we kill him?” Jim moaned.

Jim was my buddy from down the street.

“Just keep your mouth shut and nobody’s ever going to find out,” I said, ad-libbing my end of our pre-arranged dialogue. “We buried him deep enough. Don’t worry.”

“But what if Mrs. Kedzierski starts digging around in her old garden? Oh man oh man…” Jim whined, adding just a touch too much breathless trepidation, in my opinion.

I heard a gasp, neither my own or Jim’s. Mrs. Kedzierski, of course, forgetting in her surprise to cup her hand over the phone’s mouthpiece.

Mrs. Kedzierski lived next door. She wasn’t as old as Moses, but she could remember when he played tight end on the varsity football team during her sophomore year of high school. 

She spoke just enough English to holler at the neighborhood kids who wandered too close to her yard (this included walking on “her” sidewalk). She was also diligent about reporting any juvenile transgression to the neighborhood’s parental contingent.

Nobody under 13 liked her and to all appearances that feeling was reciprocated with a vengeance.

Which was why Jim and I were doing our best to convince her we’d buried a dead kid in her garden. 

We’d planned this little caper a couple days in advance and had snuck out the night before with shovels to loosen the soil around the October remnants of her shriveled tomatoes and snap peas.

“Look,” I said, sotto voce. “Just keep your damn mouth shut and no one will ever know.” I figured using a swear would convince her if nothing else did, that we were unaware of her eavesdropping. Heaven knows Jim’s chops as an actor were not going to do it.

“OK, OK,” he said.

“Good,” I said, and hung up before Jim could gum up the works with any more of his over-acting.

Two minutes later Jim’s StingRay bike skidded to a halt in the alley bordering my side door. We watched from my upstairs bedroom window as Mrs. Kedzierski lurched to her garden, shovel in hand. 

She was out there digging for nearly two hours.

I never did figure out why she hated kids.

My life as a Martian has ruined the movie for me

Everybody but me, it seems, has seen that new Matt Damon movie, “The Martian.” It looks cool and I love science fiction, but I just can’t bring myself to buy a ticket.

I’m afraid it would be too painful.

Why? Because I’m still carrying the emotional scars of the three weeks I myself spent as a Martian.

It happened 50 years ago, in 1965. That was a bad year for me, even before I became a Martian. 

I was a skinny kid — a year younger than most of my classmates — with a big mouth. That was a bad combination in my old neighborhood. My days consisted mostly of angering nuns and getting in fist fights while walking home from St. Isadore Elementary School — fights I usually lost. (I would say “fights I always lost” but for one glorious afternoon when I punched Chuckie Scraab in the face and broke his nose.)

At any rate, I was not popular.

So maybe it’s only natural my favorite holiday was Halloween. For one day out of the year, at least, I could become someone else, someone well-liked and popular. Like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman.

This was 1965, though, and America was locked in a space race with our sworn enemies, the Soviet Union. The godless Commies had sent Sputnik into Earth orbit nearly a decade earlier and we were determined to keep outer space American, the way the Good Lord intended.

The country was gripped with a space fever that has taken decades to cool. Maybe if we find bug-eyed mermaids on Europa that’ll happen again; who knows.

My point is I was as space crazy as the next kid. Most of my friends wanted to be astronauts, but not me. I longed for the life of a Martian, preferably a scary one with ray guns, the sort that could enslave all humanity and finally get me my revenge on the bigger kids who administered my daily beatings.

To make this happen, my sainted Irish mother spent countless hours sewing a very authentic-looking Halloween costume. Lots of shiny silver fabric, futuristic zippers and snaps, a special pocket for my ray gun; it was a work of art.

To complete the look, however, I needed green skin. Martians have green skin. Everybody knows this.

Sadly, my skin was a boring pinkish-beige, same as now. So the evening before Halloween, I filled the bathtub with warm water and stirred in several bottles of green food coloring. Several. 

When I exited the tub after soaking for about an hour, my skin, my hair, everything, was green; real green. No part of me was not green.

I was the hit of the school during the Halloween parade the next day; my silver costume sparkled in the autumn sunlight, my green skin freaked out the little girls in my class in exactly the fashion I’d hoped it would.

Trick or treating that evening, everyone commented on my cool costume. I was the belle of the fourth grade ball.

Until the next morning. That’s when I learned green food dye doesn’t just wash off. It doesn’t scrub off. It doesn’t scrape off with washcloths, my mother’s facial cream, baby oil or 30-grit industrial-grade sandpaper. 

Green stays.

It was at least three weeks before I regained my pasty Irish beige. In the interim, I was in about 30 fights over my non-Earthling status. Some big kid would make a Martian joke, I’d take the first swing, and 20 seconds later I’d be picking my green butt up off the pavement.

So, “The Martian?” I think I’ll give that flick a miss.

Too many memories, Earthling.

My plan to rule the world starts small

So, apparently, I’m now part of a neighborhood association. Until recently, when a letter arrived informing me of an upcoming meeting, I was unaware of this fact.

It happened when I moved into the Little House on the Prairie that I share with Lori (or that, technically, she shares with me since she was living here first).

The house is located dead center of the middle of nowhere. We barely have neighbors; the idea that the few we do have should have at some point formed an association seems strange to me. I mean, we’re all only marginally living in the same time zone.

The folks at the west end of the road speak with a different accent than those of us living on the east end.

OK, we may not be as spread out as all that, but it’s close.

There are so few members in the association that almost all of them serve on the association’s Board of Directors. Lori herself was treasurer for a while, before she got tired of dealing with the association’s most pressing political issue: snow plowing.

Our street is private, which sounds swanky, but isn’t. What it really means is, when it comes to public services, we’re on our own. As far as the city, county and state are concerned, come February we can all freeze to death beneath a six-foot blanket of ice and snow. They’re not getting involved.

I’m not sure why this is. I mean, I’m an American. I pay taxes (at least when the IRS gets all snippy about it). I vote for the candidates and issues that seem least stupid to me on election day.

And still, no government agency is willing to do diddley when it comes to lending us country bumpkins a helping hand.

So we have the association. There may be as many as 25 members, but only about a dozen of these show up for meetings.  Of those, fully 100 percent are retired folks with nothing better to do between reruns of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

Like I mentioned earlier, the most pressing topic at these meetings is how to get the snow off the road. 

I’m thinking of changing all that, starting with the next meeting. I figure, since we’re on our own for the most part anyway, maybe it’s time we declare our independence from the rest of Ionia County, Michigan and even the U.S. of A.

I even have an idea who our first president should be. 

Once I’m set up in the Oval Office (OK, Hank’s pole barn), I plan to consolidate my power. There’s another neighborhood association just a block over; they have virtually no defenses.

They will make easy pickings for my army of old guys on riding mowers. 

Once conquered, we can put the members of that other association to work, maybe clearing the snow from our road.

Given my choice between a scary pig and a stewardess…

Dreams are boring.

Every so often my sweetie has a particularly lucid dream and tries, over breakfast, to share it with me. 

It generally goes something like this: “I’m walking through a large, empty house. There are doors everywhere, but none of them open. The rooms are big. It’s quiet. I get the feeling someone’s chasing me, but I can’t see his face.”

And so on.

I rarely tell Lori about my dreams because so many of them involve Swedish stewardesses and unsavory situations. I’ll forego the details; suffice it to say if I were to relate these dreams to Lori, she would never stop slapping me.

Last night, though, I was the one dreaming of a big old, gothic mansion. I wandered from room to room until I happened upon the basement steps. It was dark down there, but I moved relentlessly ahead anyway. I heard movement. In a particularly murky corner I could just make out the contours of a large animal.

It was a hog, a big one, the granddaddy of all 4-H Fair winners, charcoal grey, with bright, red eyes. 

I woke up, scared witless and vowing to never again read Stephen King before bedtime.

As dreams go, it was fairly interesting. But even so, boring to hear about later.

It makes me think Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, must have been a patient man. He was into dreams big-time; thought they meant something, particularly those involving cigars or snakes.

Most modern psychiatrists agree Freud had a dirty mind.

I’ll bet he’d love hearing about my Swedish stewardess dreams. I’m not sure I’d want him to “interpret” them for me, though. I already know what they mean and the fewer other people who figure that out the better.

Personally, I think dreams are just our conscious minds performing a little after-hours housekeeping while we sleep. I doubt there’s much meaning to any of them other than what seems obvious upon waking.

According to the one website I checked (which is all the research I’m willing to put into one of these columns), dreaming of pigs indicates an impending uptick in your financial standing. In other words, if Freud was right, I’m gonna be rich!

That would be nice. But honestly, given the choice between dreaming of the scary hog or the plane full of stewardesses … let’s just say money’s not that important to me.