Can we really afford to lose our Bovinians?

California’s thinking of leaving. So is Oregon and Washington.

They’re calling it the #calexit movement. (On a personal note, I’m old and have no idea what all this “hashtag” baloney is about, nor do I care, but I hate it.)

According to an article I recently read in the Seattle Times, Californians, Oregonians and Washingtonites (or whatever you call ‘em) have decided they want to secede from the Union, learn to speak Canadian and throw in their allegiance with our neighbors to the north.

It has something to do with a recent election. You may have read about it in the papers or seen a comment or two on Facebook. Apparently, there was a last-minute surprise in the vote, one with which not every American is entirely happy.

I’m not sure which states would have wanted to secede had the other candidate won; Mississippi, maybe? But what I don’t know about politics is a lot; maybe I’m being unfair to Mississippians.

Regardless, California, Oregon and Washington all want to boogie out of the U.S. of A.

Nobody’s asked for my opinion on this. To be honest, I’m rarely consulted on these matters. This is probably a good thing, since I have no more idea how government works than does our president-to-be. But I’m wondering if those three westernmost states have considered whether this is something they truly want to do.

Sure, residents in those states voted overwhelmingly for Hillary and – let’s be real – Trump doesn’t exactly exemplify the laid-back West Coast mindset. But c’mon, you guys want to pull up stakes and ditch the United States, after all we’ve meant to each other? After all we’ve been through?

Yeah, I know Canada has great universal health care and they’re moving toward legalizing pot, something California, Oregon and Washington have done already. Also, Canadians are big into combating climate change, just like C., O. and W. (Which, I just realized, spells “COW.” If those three states do actually become a Canadian province, they could call themselves “Bovinites” or “Bovinians,” something cattle-related like that. Just a thought.)

The real question, though, and the one nobody seems to be asking, is this: does Canada really want these states?

I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada, beginning one summer when I was just 16; I rode my bicycle from Windsor to Quebec. On that trip alone I met a lot of Canadians and lemme tell ya, their reputation for being nicer than us is earned. They really are nicer.

They’re polite, helpful, kind. And unlike most of the rest of the world, they don’t hate Americans. Or if they do, they hide it better, which is just as good.

But does that mean Canadians want a bunch of rowdy Americans roaming willy-nilly over their borders, maybe doing to their electoral process what we’ve done to our own?

 And as to those (former) Americans, are they going to blithely relinquish their God-given right to pack heat? There is no Second Amendment in Canada and if there is, I think it has something to do with granting Pentecostal Church members educational rights in Newfoundland – I dunno, the website was confusing and I’m lazy when it comes to research.

Point is, the handgun laws are strict in Canada, at least when compared to our own. How would Bovinians (I’ve decided to go ahead and name the new province now; they can change it later if they like) defend themselves against a rampaging Moose?

But the thing I think most Bovinians would have a hard time adjusting to is this: Canadians must buy their beer in special stores that sell nothing else.

It’s probably just me, but I consider the beer store thing a deal-breaker.

Anyway, I’m hoping the Bovinians decide to stick with us. I’d miss them. I don’t want to have to live without Disneyland or great coffee and grunge music. And whatever it is they make in Oregon.

So my advice to the potential secessionists? Just hang in there for now. I know we’re likely in for a rough go of it for a while, but at least we can buy beer at the grocery. Good thing, too, things being what they are. We’re gonna need ready access to beer.

Maybe this hashtag will help put things in perspective: #nobeerstores!

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

Chocolate and beer, the twin keys to longevity?

This is a great time to be alive. For me, at least.

Why? Because science, at last, is on my side. This has not always been the case. For most of my life, science kept trying to take away the things I love. 

All life’s little amenities, the things that make it worth living, were, according to science, bad for me. A few of these, like cigarettes and heroin, still are. But since I’ve never smoked or used heroin, I’m not bothered by their inclusion on the Food and Drug Administration’s “naughty” list.

I’m talking about things that used to be bad for me that no longer are. Like coffee. Believe it or not, I was a Mormon once, a long time ago. I don’t know what the current church thinking is, but at that time, Mormons didn’t drink coffee. They weren’t supposed to, anyway. A lot of them still did.

But I didn’t. Because not only did the church elders say it was evil, science kept telling me it was unhealthy. 

Now, I stopped caring what church elders say a long time ago, but I still pay attention to scientific studies. Which is why I was so gratified to learn coffee is good for me after all. 

I don’t drink more or less of it than I ever did — two cups every morning — but it’s nice to know I’m doing my body good rather than harm.

Beer. (You just knew beer was going to find its way into this somewhere, right?) Turns out a little of it is good for you. Same story with wine. To be on the safe side, I drink both, though admittedly in quantities that might be construed by some as “more than a little.” Best to err on the side of caution, I figure.

Avocados. Until a few years ago, I’d never eaten an avocado. I shy away from fruits or vegetables that look more exotic than a potato, say. But an ex-girlfriend introduced them to me and it turns out they’re great! At first, science said don’t eat them because they have more calories per pound than bacon, a statistic I just made up.

But then science reversed itself and said they’re not only OK, they’re good for me.

The latest addition to the “nice” list is chocolate. Turns out eating 100 grams per day of chocolate can lower blood pressure, reduce your chance of suffering a stroke and even make you slimmer.

I don’t know what “100 grams” equates to in the real world, but I’m going to assume its the equivalent of about 2 1/2 Snicker’s Bars.

I figure if I go on a strict diet of coffee, beer, wine, avocados and Snicker’s Bars, I’ll live well into my mid-100s. 

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

Me and the beer can lady; it’s gonna get ugly fast

I finally had it out with the beer can lady. The throw-down was a long time coming and in the end, nowhere near as satisfying as I had hoped it would be.

It started over a decade ago, when I moved to Lakeview, the tiny hamlet north of Grand Rapids where I would spend the next ten years of my life. The town, as I’ve mentioned before, grew on me in that time, and I was sorry to leave it when I relocated to Ada a month ago.

In the ensuing weeks, I’ve made the drive back and forth a dozen times or more, each trip hauling a couple loads of dishes, bathroom stuff or clothing in my dinosaur of a car. I could have rented a U-Haul truck three times over for what I’ve spent so far in gas, but I’m far too clever for that.

It was during my last trip that I finally had it out with the beer can lady.

It’s a tale that, like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, “grew in the telling.” Or it will, once I tell it. And heavily embellish.

The beer can lady always hated me. She works at the town’s lone grocery store, back in the room where they store the returnable cans and bottles. Unlike most stores which now feature automated can return machines, the grocery in Lakeview still hires a (omigod, how archaic!) human to do the job.

It works like this: I take my empties for the week to the store, toss them in a cart (or carts, if my sons have been visiting), wheel them to the back of the store and turn them over to the beer can lady. She counts ‘em up and prints out a little receipt which I must then sign (first and last name, just in case I’m some kind of beer can forger or something) and take to the checkout.

It’s a good system, far better than the machines at other stores. You leave the store without all that sticky goop on your hands, and a job is provided for the beer can lady, who, I’m guessing, could never find work elsewhere because she’s so flippin’ mean.

She really is. I’m not sure if she’s mean to everyone, but like I said, she’s hated my lousy guts for ten years and hasn’t missed a chance to show it. And the other day as I was returning what will be my last beer cans ever at that store, I asked her why.

Why has she given me dirty looks every time I drop off cans and bottles? Why does she never say thank you? Why does she always count my cans so slowly, like she thinks I’m trying to pull one over on her?

Why does she hate me? Why, beer can lady, why?

That’s exactly how I asked the question: “Why do you hate me?”

I asked boldly enough, knowing I never would have to face her again. I asked and—for the first time in ten years—the beer can lady looked at me and … smiled. I could tell this was a question she’d been waiting for, hoping for. She wanted to answer me.

“You always bring your cans back in plastic garbage bags,” she said. “The sign says to use paper.” She pointed to the sign, a 3-by-3 inch card taped near the storage room’s entrance. I’d never noticed it before.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought it was personal.”

“Nope,” she said. “The plastic bags are just a lot messier. This ain’t a fun job to begin with. I wish they’d get one of those machines.”

It’s almost a shame I won’t be seeing the beer can lady again. I’d like to make amends, start using paper instead of plastic. Maybe even rinse the cans out, like the ex was always trying to get me to do. I could even learn her name, so I wouldn’t have to call her the beer can lady.

The fancy machine at my new neighborhood grocery works faster and doesn’t hate me. It doesn’t think about me at all, in fact. I think I’m already starting to miss the beer can lady.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

Scorpions, tarantulas and beer – they go together better than you may think

I had my first beer the summer I turned 15. I had my second beer 57 seconds later. My third beer I didn’t have until I was in my late 20s and even then I wasn’t sure I liked it.

But that first beer was wonderful.

It was late August and I was living in Phoenix. My mother had decided a few months earlier that we should move there for the clean, dry air. The Arizona Tourism Council brochures neglected to mention the dust storms that blow through that godforsaken city every few weeks, turning the air into the breathable equivalent of a kitty litter box.

It was sweltering that summer. My Michigan physiology was not adapting well and I spent most days trying to find shady spots near the apartment complex’s swimming pool.

I had made one friend, Morgan, an Apache that had been adopted off the reservation by a white family. I thought he was cool because he looked like a character out of a John Wayne movie, he thought I was cool because I thought he was cool.

We spent most of that summer hanging together; with Morgan teaching me about life lived on the edge of the desert. We caught lizards, climbed trees, built forts, and did the stuff boys did before the advent of Play Station III.

So I was a little surprised by Morgan’s reaction when I told him I was going into the desert to find insects for a science class project.

“You’ll get lost out there,” he said, “or stung by a scorpion.”

“It’s right across the road,” I said, pointing to the miles of empty saguaro-studded sand only four lanes of blacktop away. Snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance. If I walked toward them I was going away from home. If I walked away from them I was headed back. I figured.

Morgan was worried for my safety, but he didn’t offer to serve as my faithful Indian guide. Fifteen-year-old boys have a strong survival instinct and, unlike me, Morgan wasn’t an idiot.

Butterfly net in one hand and canteen in the other, I crossed the road and stumped boldly into the trackless wasteland.

Seven hours later, my canteen long empty, I stumbled onto a dirt road, the first sign of civilization I had seen since wandering too far west of the four-lane blacktop.

My throat was an arid tube with a dry sweat sock stuffed in it. My sunburn had gone from bright pink to an alarming shade of red. I had been seeing honest-to-goodness mirages for hours, shimmers on the desert floor that looked for all the world like cool ponds. They remained elusively out of reach.

I sat by the side of the road for a good hour, falling slowly in and out of consciousness, before the battered pickup truck rumbled to a halt beside me. Through the cloud of dust it kicked up I saw an old fellow – what down there they call “desert rats” – stick his head out the window.

“Need a lift, son?” he said.

I did. More than that, I needed a drink. All the desert rat had was beer, a warm six-pack nestled on his front seat.

I drank one beer, opened the passenger door and was sick by the side of the road. I drank another and kept it down.

Morgan was waiting for me back at the house, sipping a cold Coke and talking with my sister. He gazed placidly as I stumbled from the pickup and dragged myself inside for a shower and sleep.

The next time Morgan gave me advice about the desert, I listened.

Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.