Paying homage to Angela’s ashes

I rarely write about things I haven’t lived through myself. It’s too easy to get the facts wrong when relating the experiences of others, and when I get facts wrong, I like it to be on purpose.

But every so often I’ll hear a story so good I just have to share it. Like the one I received yesterday in an email from my nephew, Justin.

Justin’s a good kid and an honest one. I yelled at him once when he was making a fuss at a movie theater, but that was over 25 years ago, when he was six or seven, and I’m sure he’s forgiven me for that by now. So I think I can trust in the veracity of his tale.

I’m changing the names and a few locations, to – as Jack Webb might say – protect the innocent.

Everyone was sad when Grandma Angela died two years ago. She had been a great mother, grandmother and friend to many. It was generally agreed upon that she would be missed. The funeral was held, family mourned, people moved on.

Angela’s ashes were left in the care of her eldest daughter, Nadine. Nadine knew Angela’s wishes were that her ashes be scattered around the family’s lakefront property near Marquette in the Upper Peninsula, but as it was late October and the property over eight hours north, Nadine figured she would take care of that detail when the weather warmed.

The months went by; winter turned to spring, spring to summer, then autumn, then winter again. Meanwhile, Angela’s ashes maintained their place on the mantle over the fireplace.

When summer finally rolled around again, the family decided it was time to honor grandma’s wishes. A trip to the property up north was planned and everyone got in on the act. Uncles, cousins, sons and daughters; everyone wanted to be a part of Angela’s final farewell.

Someone came up with the idea of a memorial garden. Angela’s ashes would be tilled into the fertile soil, flowers planted, some sort of engraving installed. It would be a fitting testament to a woman who had touched so many lives.

The excitement grew as trip day neared. This would not be a solemn occasion only, but a chance for Angela’s friends and family to gather together and enjoy one another’s company; to raise a toast to kinsfolk, lineage, and the tenacity of familial blood. It would be a reunion, vacation and memorial all rolled into one.

Trip day came and the clan gathered at Nadine’s house. Everyone in attendance brought gardening equipment and a careful inventory was taken; spades, rakes, hoes? Check, check, check. Flower seeds? Check. Watering cans, fertilizer, nutrient-rich topsoil? Check, check and check.

The caravan moving north consisted of two mini-vans, a jeep, two sedans and a rusted pickup loaded down with gardening supplies.

Lakeside, family members dug, hoed and raked, breaking only once, around noon, for a family picnic. The tilling then continued into the afternoon, until, near dusk, the time finally came to lay Angela’s ashes to rest.

It was at this point that Nadine noticed one family member had not made the trip as planned.

Angela.

Grandma was still sitting on the mantle back home.

Maybe next summer.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com

(616) 548-8273

Escalation happens naturally in yard wars

I fear I have made a powerful enemy. Well, maybe not all that powerful, but since I’m not particularly powerful myself, even a wimpy enemy is one more than I need. Also, my enemy lives next door, so it’ll be hard to avoid him as the summer drags on.

The only statement I can make in my defense is the same one I gave Sister Sulpichia when she caught me fighting on the playground back in fourth grade: He started it.

He did, too.

It was a week ago. My neighbor, who until this point seemed like a nice enough fella, yanked up a bunch of vines growing on MY side of the fence, the one that allegedly separates our two properties. Adding insult to injury, he tossed the debris back into my yard.

I have no idea why my neighbor did this. I know it’s not because he’s too lazy to clean it up himself. His own yard is clipped tighter and with more precision than a Marine recruit’s first military haircut. Every hedge is trimmed to a geometrical perfection that would bring tears to the eyes of Euclid. All he does all day, every day, is work in his yard, and it shows. His yard is a showcase.

I had liked the vines and was hoping they would prosper. Now, here they were lying in a tangled clump in my back yard.

At this point, I was faced with several choices. I could gather the debris and toss it in a yard waste bag; I could go next door and calmly ask why he had done such a thing; I could mow over the dying vines, pretend nothing had happened, and live out my days quietly and free of the aggravation a confrontation would almost certainly create. There were, in fact, many ways I could handle the problem like a mature, intelligent adult.

Fat chance.

I threw the crippled vines over the fence again, back onto my neighbor’s immaculate grass. Then I stomped back into my apartment to await developments.

I hadn’t long to wait. The next morning, the vines were back in my yard, a little deader now, brown leaves dropping away from the desiccated branches.

I considered hurtling them over the fence again, but, for once, I decided to think things through first. Throughout the day, I considered alternatives. Maybe I could leave the vines on my neighbor’s front porch. But wouldn’t he just put them back on MY porch? 

What would I do then? How far was I willing to take this?

I thought about bundling the vines together, setting them on fire, and tossing them through his front window. That’s probably against the law, but I plan to check, just to be sure.

I have seen the Godfather movies, “Scarface,” and several episodes of “The Sopranos.” So I’m obviously nobody to be trifled with, an expert on the manly art of conflict resolution.

If my neighbor’s not careful, he may wake one morning to find those vines in bed with him along with the head of a race horse. Or I may invite him to “say hello to my little friend.” In this case, my “little friend” is my son’s old paintball gun, but still, those things can sting! Or they would if I could figure out how to hook up the little compressed air tank thingy.

I could dig up one of my neighbor’s rose bushes and leave the deflowered corpse on the deck of his pontoon by the lake, just to show him what I’m capable of.

But I worry about how he would retaliate. Like I said, he seems nice enough. He seems reasonable. He seems friendly. Then again, so do I until someone throws yard waste on my lawn.

If this continues, how long will it be before we’re dousing each other’s oak trees in kerosene and setting them aflame? Do I really want both our yards looking like a demilitarized zone come September?

Well, no, I don’t. The sensible thing would be to take the high road, make amends, be mature, shake hands and forget about it.

But, well, he started it.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com

(616) 548-8273

Say what you want to about Romney and Donnie and Marie, but I have a soft spot for Mormons

I read an article the other day, one of about 600,000 thus far written on the topic, regarding presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith; will it work against him or for him; will voters accept a Mormon president; will this, will that, blah, blah, blah. Who cares?

I know some folks live and die by this stuff, but personally, I feel about politics the same way I feel about “American Idol”; I know it exists, but the less I have to hear about it the better I like it. That goes double for the private lives of the politicians running; I just don’t care.

If this disinterest makes me a bad American, I can live with that.

The only reason the Mormon issue is of any interest at all to me is that I used to know some. Mormons, I mean. They weren’t Utah-Donnie-and-Marie-Temple-marrying Mormons, but rather members of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints church, an offshoot of the “regular” Mormons. (Though, if you ask an RLDS congregant, they’ll tell you the regular Mormons are an offshoot of them. Again, I could not possibly care less, even if doing so resulted in a lifetime supply of free beer.)

I don’t know much about Mitt Romney, but because of my previous experience with Mormons, I’m inclined to like him.

My Mormon encounter took place the summer following my 17th birthday. I was hitchhiking — with my parents’ permission, which now seems to me utterly insane and irresponsible — from Grand Rapids to Phoenix, Arizona. 

The entire trip wound up taking over two months, but I was only on my third or fourth day of travel when on a sunny Sunday morning I rolled into Independence, Missouri, home to the third largest pipe organ in the world and Galactic Central Point for the RLDS church.

Independence is a nice, little town, or was at the time; very Mayberry-esque; white-spired churches, neatly-trimmed lawns, litter-free avenues bereft of traffic jams. It seemed a friendly place.

No cops came running when I leaned my backpack against a small tree in the town square and set up my little camp stove to make lunch, Lipton Cup-a-Soup. It was all I had with me.

Water had begun to boil in my undersized aluminum sauce pan when church bells rang and, on the other side of the avenue, Mormons streamed out through the front door of a modest chapel. I made eye contact with a young, ginger-haired boy, maybe nine years old. I waved. He waved back, smiling lopsidedly from ear-to-ear.

A quick word to his mother and he shot across the street at full gallop.

“Hi,” he said, panting to a stop in front of my makeshift kitchen. “Are you camping?”

“Just fixing lunch,” I said.

“Y’wanna have lunch with us?” he asked.

Now, I had been on the road only four or five days by this time, but it was the height of summer and I hadn’t had a shower in nearly a week. No one would mistake me for a rose.

“Mmm…maybe you’d better ask your mom first,” I said, assuming the invitation would be rescinded by the management.

It wasn’t. Instead the whole Smith family (not related to the church’s founder, Joseph Smith) came over to my campsite and insisted I join them at their home for Sunday dinner.

Mom, it turned out, had grown up in England and was quite possibly the worst cook in the civilized world. Despite this, I wound up staying at their home for over a week. 

I wanted to leave, and tried to every morning. And every morning the Smiths would convince me to stay just one day longer. I helped Rory, their red-headed, Huckleberry Finn son, with his paper route every afternoon. I mowed the yard. But mostly, I just hung around Independence, taking in the sites, enjoying the hospitality.

By the time the Smiths finally decided to let me mosey on down the road, we were like family. Mrs. Smith filled my backpack with food, Mr. Smith snuck a couple twenties into my wallet and they drove me a hundred miles further along toward Phoenix.

Mrs. Smith cried when they dropped me off, saying she would worry for me every day until I arrived safely home. I wasn’t sure whether she was talking about my home in Grand Rapids, or the Smith residence.

I have no idea if the Smiths were typical Mormons, but I can’t help but think more fondly of Mitt Romney because of his affiliation. Maybe if he’s elected, he’ll let me stay at the White House next time I’m hitching through Washington.

I hope the First Lady can cook.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 548-8273

It is from bears like this that legends are made

The bear roaming through town this past Sunday weighed well over 500 pounds, was followed by three cubs, and viciously attacked at least one mail carrier and two toy poodles before being brought down by a sniper's bullet. She left a path of destruction not unlike what one might expect from a small tornado. It was chaos! Madness! Panic in the streets!

That's not true, of course. The bear clocked in at about 170 pounds, didn't attack anybody, had no cubs and was a he, not a she. Moreover, the poor, frightened thing beat cheeks out of town at the first opportunity, leaving no path of destruction other than the occasional pyramid of bear scat.

But that doesn't matter; my far superior (and highly inaccurate) story will be the one told around dinner tables and campfires 10, 20, however-many years from now. In many cases the narrator — who may never have seen a bear in his life outside a zoo — will insert himself into the story, generally in a role far more heroic than any he ever played in real life.

It is from such mundane events as a wayward bear that legends are born. Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, the Lincoln Death Train; all probably had their origins in some long-ago, real-life occurrence. All were stories told and re-told, gaining weight with each telling, gathering embellishments the way a grain of sand gathers nacre inside an oyster shell until, in the fullness of time, a pearl is born.

The first paragraph of this column is my attempt to get that pearl started with regard to the bear story. 

Earlier this week I read the accurate, honest account of the bear's trek through town on the newspaper's website and Facebook pages. I related the tale to Sweet Annie, more or less factually, increasing the bear's weight by only 20 or 30 pounds and allowing him to chase after a couple kids who unexpectedly walked out of a restaurant and surprised the critter. Not much of an embellishment, but a start.

When I share the story with my daughter during her visit next week, the bear will have grown larger still, more vicious, and will have chased a hapless state trooper up an oak tree; maybe one of the oaks in my back yard. I may snag a couple torn shreds of blue fabric in one of the lower branches, just to add some semblance of credibility to the tale.

Even with the planted physical evidence, my daughter — who knows me too well — may not believe me. But my grandson, Edison, will. And someday he'll tell the story of the killer bear to his kids, who will tell it to their kids and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-doo right on down the line.

One-hundred years from now, that lost, frightened bear will be transformed into a 100-foot tall giant whose rein of terror lasted decades and encompassed half the state. He'll have gained a name, one the primitive, provincial yokels of the time (us) uttered only in whispers, their voices tremulous with awe and fear. Caesar, maybe. Or Xerxes. Something to inspire terror in kids as they gather ‘round the fire cooking s'mores. 

And since no legend is complete without a hero, someone to vanquish the unvanquishable foe, and since I'm kind of getting in on the ground floor of this particular legend, I humbly nominate myself for the role. OK, OK, in real life I slept through the entire incident.

Who cares? You think there's really a Lincoln Death Train? You think Paul Bunyan actually had a blue ox named Babe? Not a chance, buddy.

So what's so hard to believe about Mighty Mike the Bear Slayer? It's got a ring, yeah? And who's to say I couldn't wrestle a giant bear bare-handed? (Well, anyone with a modicum of common sense, but that's not how these things work.)

I just wish I could be around 100 years from now to hear of my exploits.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com

(616) 548-8273

Am I just sick, or a harbinger of the Apocalypse?

Being sick is no fun at all if you're doing it alone. I'm in bed as I write this, home with the flu. At least I think it's the flu. Then again, maybe I'm Patient Zero, harbinger of a new pandemic that will sweep the planet in a matter of days, killing 99 percent of the population and leaving the world a savage wasteland in which my dog and I will drive around in a souped-up, former cop car looking for open Wesco stations offering fresh donuts.

Nah, I couldn't be that lucky. It's probably just the flu, or something like it. Whatever it is, it kept me up all night and it's keeping me down today.

I wouldn't mind, really, except for the fact I'm living alone. That means there's no woman here to baby me, which is the only reason for ever being sick.

Sweet Annie's a real Florence Nightingale whenever I'm ill, but she's an hour's drive away and has things to do today that don't involve homemade chicken soup or cool washcloths placed gently across my feverish brow.

If I had a dog, he could sit near the foot of my bed and gaze at me with concern in his canine eyes, the way dogs sometimes do. But I don't have a dog, much less one that's worried I'm sick.

A cat, which I also don't have, wouldn't care one way or the other about my health unless I got so sick I forgot to feed her. If that happened, the cat would start counting the days until I died, after which she would have plenty to eat. Cats have a strong survival instinct and no discernible conscience.

Upon my friend Kelly's advice, I bought a couple hermit crabs the other day. I don't believe they're concerned for my well-being, though it's hard to say for sure. The moment I put them in their elaborate and fairly expensive terrarium home, they buried themselves in the cedar bark substrate and haven't been seen since. 

Kelly assures me they will eventually emerge, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. I should check the bottom of the cage to see if they've somehow managed to tunnel their way to freedom.

But I digress. It's easy to do when you're running a fever so high you keep forgetting what it is, exactly, that you're writing about. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with being sick, at least at the beginning there. Let me check.

Yup. Being sick it is; that and the fact there's no woman here to baby me through this bout with the cooties.

If there were, I'd be having the time of my life. Being sick with a good woman in the house is one of life's great experiences. Chicken soup, or "broth," if you really, really ill. Toast and tea. Bland food you would never, ever eat under normal circumstances, but which for some reason tastes great when your belly's not up to the rigors of burritos or pizza.

A woman will bring you these things if you are sick. You don't even have to get out of bed. Frankly, I've known men (me) who have faked illness on a Sunday afternoon just to get the free room service. I probably shouldn't admit to that, since I may want to do it again someday, but this stupid fever is diminishing my naturally occurring masculine deception skills.

Maybe it's a good thing there's no woman here to ask me incriminating questions. Fabricating answers seems like too much trouble at the moment, and I firmly believe the truth should only be used as a last resort when all else fails.

So I guess I'll just lay here alone for the rest of the day, whimpering like a newborn with a misplaced pacifier, wishing I had someone to bring me tea and toast, Kleenex and the occasional hit of NyQuil. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. Unless Annie drops by with some homemade chicken soup, a cool washcloth and soothing words of comfort. If she does, it may take a couple extra days to fully, ahem, recover.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 548-8273

The perfect pet was right there all along

My new lakeside apartment is so small, it's like a (cue Rodney Dangerfield voiceover) "Hoo! I'll tell ya! My new apartment is so small..." joke. You know, "I've got to step outside to change my mind," "Even the mice are hunchbacked," "I turn around and bump into myself"...that sort of thing. It is, by far, the smallest place I've ever lived.

Over the years I've stayed in a lot of hotel rooms, all of them bigger than my new apartment. Those brightly-painted cement barrels that once were a staple of elementary school playgrounds? Yup, even those were bigger than my new apartment.

It's small.

I don't mind. It's large enough for my current needs. Thanks to the gradual diminution of my worldly goods over the past couple years, all my "stuff" fits inside, and what doesn't fit inside fits inside the garage (which also is bigger than the apartment). The view of the lake is spectacular, my futon is surprisingly comfortable, and there's plenty of cupboard space. Things could be worse.

The only downside is, I'm living there alone. Don't panic, this isn't a Lonely Hearts Club whimper; I have Sweet Annie, a brilliant blonde (they do exist, despite numerous jokes to the contrary). I see her on the weekends, which is just about as much of me as she can put up with, so that's fine.

What I need, what I miss, is a pet. A dog, a cat, even a bird would do. But there's no room.

I could get a little dog, but I'm almost never home. You can't leave a little dog home alone all day unless you want to open the door every evening with a pooper scooper in your hand and a forgiving nature in your heart.

Cats try to make you think they don't give a damn about your company, but most of 'em do. Cats are like beautiful women; they hate the idea of you knowing they need you. They may not even admit to themselves that they need you. But ignore a cat for a couple days and you'll likely find a "surprise" in your laundry basket. Passive aggressive little monsters.

In the warm-blooded critter category, that leaves birds and rodents. I had my share of rodents when the kids were younger; hamsters, gerbils, mice, rats, guinea pigs...my kids had them all at one time or another. And they all eventually escaped their cages and came to bad ends, usually behind a refrigerator or inside the walls, where your nose could inform you as to their demise, but where there was nothing you could do about it but wait for the long process of decomposition to run its course.

Birds I like a lot, but there's no place for a cage in my apartment. It really is that small. I could hang a cage, I suppose, but — again, due to space constraints — it would have to hang directly over: a) where I eat, b) where I sleep, or c) where I cook. I do not want to eat bird seed or anything else a bird might kick out of its cage during the day. Likewise, I don't want to wake up with molted feathers in my mouth. So a bird's out.

Fish? There's not much by way of interaction when it comes to fish. An aquarium can be a nice piece of home decor, but I've always thought of the fish themselves as either food or bait.

Reptiles? Again, the kids had them a'plenty when they were younger. For the most part, these also escaped their cages and ate the rodents who hadn't already died on their own. And, as is the case with fish, I just don't have much to say to the average iguana.

So I'm pet-less. Or nearly so.

There is one other "life-form" sharing my apartment. She's living in the shower, up in one high corner, above the shower-head. She was there when I moved in and I haven't had the heart to evict her.

Charlotte (of course I named her Charlotte) is a fairly large spider, about the size of a silver dollar. She's pale yellow with no clear markings I can see. Based on the number of insect corpses in her neat, little web, she shares my love of murdering flies and mosquitoes; another good reason to leave her right where she is.

And like I said, I need a pet. Granted, Charlotte may not be as cuddly as a puppy or kitten, she may not be as colorful as a Gouldian finch, she may not produce a lilting canary chirrup, but she doesn't take up much room, I don't have to feed her, and she's completely cool with me being gone most weekends.

In that desert island movie, Tom Hanks spent years with no company but a soccer ball named Wilson and he got by. For now, at least, Charlotte will have to be enough for me.

Mike Taylor's book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in paperback from mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or in eBook format from Amazon.com. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@staffordmediasolutions.com.

mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions
(616) 548-8273

In the world of 5k athletics, there are cheetahs, wounded gazelles, and then me; the manatee

I was supposed to run a 5k race this past Sunday. Well, not actually the 5k part, and not actually run. I signed up to participate in the one mile walk. After a long winter of beer and burritos even that seemed daunting, but I was determined to do my part to help raise money for the Greenville Education Foundation.

My best turned out to be showing up late and missing the run entirely. No, that's not entirely true; I showed up with 20 minutes to spare, but spent that whole time looking around for the sign-in booth. By the time the starter's pistol fired, I still hadn't found it.

The Foundation still got my money, so I don't have to feel guilty about it. I'm a little bummed over missing the after-party with friends, but I'll live.

I still had a good time people watching. People watching is one of my favorite sports. If I had my way, Topps would sell bubble gum trading cards with regular people on them; you know — "One-tooth Guy from the County Fair", "Fat Lady with Red Hair and Seven Kids Under Age Five", "ZZ Top Beard Guy" — that sort of thing.

Strolling through the surprisingly large crowd of runners, joggers and walkers, I felt like anthropologist Jane Goodall, stealthily skirting the perimeter of a chimp-filled clearing, observing behavior, making mental notes on primate mores. Except in my opinion, humans make for far more interesting specimens than do chimpanzees. Unlike chimps, we not only talk, we usually refrain from throwing feces at each other (with the possible exception of politicians during election years).

And while all chimps look alike (at least to me and I hope that doesn't make me a species-ist) people are wildly diverse in both appearance and behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the starting line of a 5k run. Observing these differences was made easier by the fact that event organizers had already segregated participants into their component groups. As I walked among them, I began to realize the group to which I had previously assigned myself — the one-mile walkers — was never going to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, no, not even the Swimsuit Issue. In fact, especially not the Swimsuit Issue.

Leading the pack were the serious runners, those who planned to pour 100-percent of their considerable physical prowess into out-running every other runner in attendance. These folks were the amped-up cheetahs of the pack; lean, mean running machines, taut muscle flexing sinuously beneath lightweight running shorts and high-tech T-shirts designed to wick away moisture. Most of them sported sneakers that cost more than my car.

There was a time, long ago, when I might have fit in with this group. Not anymore. Now I felt like an old manatee waddling among young greyhounds.

Next in line were the 5k runners who planned to trot the whole course but didn't really give a hoot where they placed. These were the soccer moms who had recently taken up jogging to lose those extra winter pounds before the arrival of swimsuit season, the ex-high school jocks working a desk job for the past ten years who figured they still had one race left in them, the old guys with one too many Clint Eastwood movies under their belts and the feeling they had something to prove.

Five years ago, this would have been my crowd.

Not anymore. My crowd was farther back from the starting line. Much farther. But we'll get to them soon enough.

Next up were the walkers who planned to do the whole 5k course. Though there were still a few nice sneakers and water-wicking T-shirts in evidence, these folks were for the most part dressed in comfortable street clothes.

They looked reasonably fit, though lacking the muscular definition of runners closer to the starting line. A few were having second thoughts about tackling the whole course, but on the whole they appeared to be a confident, comfortable lot, the neighborly sort who would offer you a frosty front porch beer on a warm summer's evening. I felt at home in their company.

But their company, alas, was not my own. My place was in the back of the pack, with the one-mile walkers. With a few exceptions, this group was comprised of the very young, the moms tending the young, and those — like myself — who are a little older and going soft around the edges. If we were gazelles, the lions would have been trying to separate us from the rest of the pack.

These, I realized, were my people. In the past four decades, I've somehow gone from sleek cheetah to limping gazelle.

But that's OK. I've seen Disney movies. I know about the circle of life and I'm comfortable with my place in it. I don't have to be the fastest or the fittest; all I've got to do is make sure there's at least one limping gazelle behind me. Keeping the lions company.

Mike Taylor's book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in paperback from mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or in eBook format from Amazon.com. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.