Love and law enforcement go hand in hand

People who know me these days will be surprised to learn this: I once had a promising career in law enforcement.

That’s right; I carried a badge, baby! And I wasn’t afraid to whip it out if some perp failed to respect my duly appointed authority. Actually, I didn’t have to whip it out; it was pinned to my safety belt.

I was in fifth grade and bore the heady responsibility of making sure my fellow students were able to cross Fountain Street without getting squished by a car. It was a job I took seriously.

My motives for going into law enforcement were not altruistic, however. Sure, I enjoyed the prestige and respect the uniform (a white belt with a pin-on badge) brought me. I liked the hot chocolate we safeties got after our “shift” on cold mornings. And I REALLY liked being able to yell at kindergarden babies to “step on it, already!”

I liked pretty much everything about being a cop.

But after all these years, I guess I can admit this; I joined the force not out of any love for the law, but for a dame, a goil, a skirt — pick the 1930s detective novel euphemism of your choice.

Marietta Bartilotti — who five days a week sat directly in front of me in Mrs. Lewandowski’s class — had as much in common with the rest of the knocked-kneed, brace-toothed fifth grade female rabble as a swan has with a hedgehog. Marietta … even her name was beautiful.

Long hair, so black it was almost blue, flowed like India ink over shoulders both fragile and strong. Any errant breeze brought about by the opening of the classroom door carried her scent to me; Wrigley’s gum and strawberry shampoo.

Her laugh was the tinkling of glass wind chimes, musical, delicate, ineffably precious.

To say I was in love is a gross understatement. What I felt for Marietta was all-consuming, potent, life altering. I would have climbed mountains for her, swum oceans, crossed deserts.

So when she volunteered to be a safety, I signed up as well. It gave me another 15 minutes with her every day.

Marietta impressed me as a woman who would appreciate a man in uniform. I’d seen enough World War II movies to know the beautiful Italian girl always falls in love with the rugged G.I. I figured it was just a matter of time.

Standing together on our cold corner post, I told her knock-knock jokes, I recited poetry (a dirty limerick I’d learned from my Uncle Ed), I punched her in the shoulder — basically, every trick in the fourth-grade boy’s lexicon of love.

And miracle of miracles, after a couple weeks, it worked! One blustery Friday morning, on the walk from our corner back to school, Marietta shyly took my hand. And held it. Buddha receiving universal enlightenment beneath the banyan tree couldn’t match the sublime transcendence I felt at that moment.

Nirvana! Valhalla! Heaven! 

It was the singular, most perfect moment of my life. Even viewed through the dark tunnel of all these years, that morning still shines like gold.

I have loved a few women since I last saw Marietta — her parents transferred her to a Catholic school a week after the hand-holding incident that consummated our devotion — but I’ve never again loved like that; never like I loved Marietta.

And I’ve never again felt the urge to wear a badge.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

If America is to remain number one, we must take fork in hand and work together

Patriotism runs through my veins like fire through dry tinder, not just around the Fourth of July, but all year long. I’m one of those people who get choked up singing the National Anthem at a White Caps baseball game. Despite its problems, I believe with all my heart in the U.S. of A., mom, and apple pie.

That’s why I get worried when I hear we’re falling behind other countries.

A friend recently sent me a link to an article that originally appeared on the website, Salon.com. That article noted several areas in which the U.S. is number one in the world.

Among those “number ones” is obesity. Yup, we’re fatter, overall, than anybody else on the entire planet. We’re number one! We’re number one!

Here’s the problem; Mexico is gaining on us, and fast.

And when I say “gaining,” I mean that in all permutations of the word. In a way, it’s not surprising. They do have Mexican food on their side, after all. I know I can gain six pounds just being in the same room with a bean and beef burrito or deep-fried chimichanga; imagine what would happen if I were surrounded by a whole country filled with that sort of food? 

Sure, we probably have more McRestaurants than anyone else in the world and that can only help us maintain the walrus-like physiques we need to prevent Mexico from out-blubbering us. But it’s not enough. We must try harder.

Yeah, it’s easy to say we should eat more and exercise less. Everyone’s heard this advice. But it can be so hard to follow. Even with television to while away the sedentary hours, most people eventually feel the urge to get up off the couch and walk somewhere, even if it’s just to the kitchen to fetch more donuts.

All this walking burns waaaay too many calories! My advice: If you must walk, do so only slowly and remember to take frequent breaks, even naps, along the way.

Granted, Mexico is far ahead of us in “siesta technology.” They’ve been doing the afternoon nap deal for generations and have it down to a science.

Another factor that’s working against us — which also was mentioned in the Salon.com article — is cocaine use. When it comes to nose candy, we’re in a dead heat with Spain for most users per capita.

This must stop. I don’t advocate drug use, or use anything stronger than vitamins myself, but it’s never mattered much to me what others do. That’s all changing now, now that I know the Peruvian Marching Powder is keeping America from that cherished Obesity Gold Medal.

It’s a known fact (or, maybe it’s not; I make a lot of this stuff up) that coke heads don’t get fat, because they never eat. So I’m advising now, just say no to blow and yes to extra helpings of Moo Goo Gai Pan. 

We can do this if we work together, people. But don’t work TOO hard. Work burns calories we just can’t afford to lose.

More Reality Check online at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I once was lost, but now … I’m still lost

I got lost coming home from the bar last Saturday night. I hadn’t been drinking, no, I’d been working with my little weekend band, The Guinness Brothers (which, admittedly, is named for the beer; but no, again, I swear, I hadn’t had any beer myself).

The club was one we’ve played dozens of times over the years, less than an hour’s drive from my house. I’m almost sure I know how to get there without the GPS, but after all this time, I still don’t quite trust myself to do so.

Which is why it’s odd I left the club without programming my return route into the directional gadget. I guess for once I was feeling fairly confident I could find my way home on my own.

I couldn’t. Two hours later, I realized I was in Cadillac. Somewhere along the line, I’d started daydreaming and had gone the exact opposite direction from where I wanted to be. I pulled to the side of the road and punched my own address into the GPS.

Thus guided, I finally rolled in to my driveway around 5 a.m.

I wish I could say this was an unusual occurrence. It’s not. I’ve been directionally handicapped since birth.

As a kid, I would get lost walking the six blocks home from school. It was so common my mother stopped worrying about me when I was late. If I still wasn’t home an hour after school let out, she’d stop what she was doing and drive around the neighborhood until she found me. More often than not, I wasn’t even aware I was lost.

This problem followed me into my teen years, where I spent a couple summers hitch-hiking around the country. Never knowing for sure just where you are or where you’re going can make for some interesting travels. Phoenix, Independence, Chicago and Tulsa are all cities I’ve seen by accident, because I turned left when I meant to turn right, or vice-versa.

At 17, accompanied by my girlfriend Dianne, I left a church camp near Kalamazoo and drove all the way to Indianapolis before I realized I was not headed toward Grand Rapids, where Dianne (and her father, the grim-eyed pastor) lived. The old man was neither amused, nor inclined to believe my stuttering explanation when his daughter and I pulled into his driveway around sunup the following morning.

As an adult, most of my geographical miscalculations have resulted in only minor inconveniences. Sometimes, especially when I’m out late at night, I’ll accidentally drive “home” to a house I’ve not lived at in years. That’s happened a couple times.

In recent years, I guess my worst directional faux pas happened after I’d gone to Lansing, where I interviewed then-Governor Jennifer Granholm. As a rule, I dislike covering politics, but there was a free lunch involved.

Miraculously, I found my way there just fine, despite the fact driving in Lansing provides an experience almost identical to that of being a blind mouse in a particularly complex maze, one with no cheese at the other end.

It wasn’t until the drive home that things got dicey. It was a beautiful, autumn afternoon; the sun was shining, the sugar maples ablaze with color, the roads clear of heavy traffic. The perfect day for a quiet drive back to Big Rapids.

I didn’t realize I’d gone off course until I began seeing signs informing me that the Mackinac Bridge was coming up in a mile or so.

My editor, who was almost as used to me getting lost as my mom had been decades earlier, let me file the story from a McDonald’s in Mackinaw City, rather than try to make it back to the paper before deadline.

I’m pretty sure I had a point for this column when I started writing it, or some punch-line … something. But somehow, it has gotten lost along the way.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available in eBook format at Amazon and in paperback from Robbins Book List in Greenville. mtaylor325@gmail.com

Recent polls of 11-year-old boys show: I’m cool

I look like a complete dork. When I’m riding my little motorbike, I mean. It’s not even a real moped, which are nerdy enough; it’s an old, black mountain bike onto which the previous owner slapped a 50cc motor manufactured in some Hangzhou sweat shop.

I traded an old laptop for it a year ago. Since then — even though I look like a dork when I do so — I drive it to work every day.

Part of the reason for this is that I hate driving cars. Or trucks. I hate being cooped up inside a vehicle; any vehicle.

On the other end of that spectrum is the fact I’m too chicken to ride a real motorcycle. They go too fast and there’s something in the water around here that makes deer suicidal. I do not want to provide some buck with his two-wheeled ticket to the afterlife.

The motorbike is a great middle ground solution. It goes fast enough to get me around town almost as quickly as my car, but if I smack into a deer I will (probably) get off with just a scrape or two and maybe get some venison steaks in the bargain.

Also, the motorbike is WAY fun to drive! It zips along at a comfortable 25 mph, burns through less than a gallon of gas PER MONTH, and if it breaks down or blows up, I can buy a new one for under $500.

Granted, the build quality of the thing is less than one might find on, say, a Rolls-Royce. Or a Yugo. It requires regular adjustment of the cabling system, the clutch, the carb … but it’s all minor stuff that takes just a few minutes once you know what you’re doing.

When I’m riding it I feel like Steve McQueen racing across the French countryside in an old WWII movie, the Nazis in hot pursuit.

Of course, I don’t LOOK like Steve McQueen. I look like a dork. Or thought I did, until the other day.

I was buzzing the periphery of the lake, up through the cemetery, down to the grocery store; just putzing around with no particular destination. When you’re getting 150 miles per gallon, you can afford to putz around.

Three young boys, who had been fishing in the lake, came running over when I sputtered to a halt beside my mailbox.

“Whoa,” said the oldest, maybe 11. “What is that?”

“Just a mountain bike with a motor on it,” I said.

“How fast does it go?”

“About 25, maybe 30.” It doesn’t really go 30, but I was trying to impress the kid. I have security issues.

“Awesome!” enthused one of the other kids.

“Yeah!” agreed another.

The boys unselfconsciously inspected the bike from stem to stern as I sorted my mail, ooh-ing and ah-ing the way a Cessna pilot might ooh and ah over a Bombardier Learjet 85.

“That is SO cool,” said the 11-year-old. “How old do you have to be to ride one?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. When you’re old enough to get a senior discount at McDonald’s, you no longer bother checking that sort of thing.

I rode away, wishing I was wearing a leather jacket with the collar turned up. I may look like a dork to the rest of the world, but to 11-year-old boys? I’m Steve McQueen, baby.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available at Robbins Book List in Greenville and in eBook format from Amazon.

Congress must address this egregious injustice!

I rarely mention political topics in this column. This is, in large part, because I don’t really give a hoot about politics. I know there are those who consider this attitude the height of hubris and all that is wrong with this country, but I just can’t get interested in the goings-on in Washington, Lansing, or any other governmental epicenter.

Politics have been around for thousands of years and we’re still pretty much governed — for whatever reason — by the least competent and most corrupt among us. It just seems to me a huge waste of resources, emotional and mental, to get too worked up over things.

Also, though I do have a few strongly-held political views, I care not at all whether anyone else agrees with them. When it comes to politics, I am the polar opposite of a proselytizer.  I never managed to lose that ‘60s “do your own thing” attitude, and I think the world would be a better place if no one else had lost it, either.

But sometimes, even a sit-by-the-sidelines, mind-his-own-business, go-with-the-flow guy like me has to speak up and take a stand. Sometimes an injustice is simply too heinous to ignore.

I’m talking about back-to-school sales in early July.

About this, Congress needs to do something, and do it now. Now, I say!

I noticed the problem a few days ago, while shopping a local retailer with my grandson, Edison. We were hunting for a new bicycle so he would have something to do while visiting my place this summer.

We already fish together and hang at the beach, but when all your 12-year-old buds are back in Detroit and you’re stuck at G-pa’s house (“G-pa” is what they call me; I kind of like it. Makes me sound like a gangsta rapper) things can get boring fast. 

At any rate, we were going store to store, trying to find the cheapest bike that would fill the bill, when there before us loomed up two entire aisles crammed, not with bikes, but with shiny new notebooks, pencil boxes, crayons, protractors, rulers, pens, staplers, locker organizers, stickers and erasers, all displayed brazenly under a huge banner announcing the store’s BACK TO SCHOOL SALE!!

“Ugh,” Edison groaned. “Already?”

I haven’t been a kid in a very long time, but I understood how he felt. It’s no different than if my boss were to call me the first day into my two-week vacation with a reminder that “the Wentworth account is due as soon as you get back.”

No. Shut up. I don’t want to hear about the Wentworth account and Edison doesn’t want to have to think about Algebra class. Not in July. And not for the first two weeks of August.

After that, OK, maybe, in small doses.

But there’s no way retailers are going to show any restraint here, no more than they show restraint in putting Christmas decorations up in October. That’s why we need a law. And that’s why, despite my alleged lack on interest in politics, I’m urging each of you to call your Congressperson. 

Demand the passage of the Back to School Sale Limitations Act, the details of which I will happily make up on the spot once Congress calls me and asks me to.

 It’s time to Take Back Summer, to Occupy a Swimming Hole, to Just Say No to anything that doesn’t involve long, lazy days spent soaking up the sunshine!

Vive la révolution!

Buy my book!  Looking at the Pint Half Full is available at Robbins Book List in Greenville and in eBook format from Amazon.com. 

Bury me with my spatula and I’ll go happy

“Do you have a shirt that you really love

One that you feel so groovy in?

You don't even mind if it starts to fade

That only makes it nicer still”

— Donovan, “I Love My Shirt”

I’m beginning to develop an unnatural — some might say unhealthy — attachment to inanimate objects. More than an attachment, really; I have a relationship with these … things.

Sure, a lot of guys love their cars, bass boats, wives. Women love their homes, kids and, occasionally, their husbands.

I love my spatula.

At least that’s where it started, this unnatural fixation I have. Greenie. That’s my spatula’s name.

Greenie is a small, plastic spatula with just the exact right amount of “flex.” That spatula mixed scrambled eggs when my kids — now long grown and with kids of their own — were in elementary school.

I’ve flipped a thousand pancakes with Greenie, sauteed a million onions, stirred soups. Greenie has been with me longer than my past three wives, cumulatively.

I once thought I’d lost Greenie. For months I didn’t feel quite right; then she turned up packed away in some shipping boxes and all was again right with my world.

I feel a genuine … fondness … for that spatula. She’s a friend who has never let me down. (And yes, I realize I’ve “genderized” the thing; made it a “she.” Don’t care what Freud would say about that.)

My lucky shirt is a “he.” Whitey began life as a relatively pricey white dress shirt. I bought him to wear to a banquet where I received an award from the Associated Press Association. It was a big deal for me and I wanted to look good.

That was 20 years ago. Now I wear Whitey fishing and to bum around the house Sunday afternoons. Whitey sports a number of holes, many of which I have patched more than once. The collar is frayed; there are places where the fabric has worn so thin it’s almost transparent. One cuff has a small stain left by spilled wine I drank with my last wife on our ninth anniversary. She sometimes borrowed it to sleep in.

I’ve been told by more than one woman I should throw the shirt away, but I never will. I want to be buried in that shirt.

Besides, when I wear Whitey on the lake, I catch more fish. It may not be scientific, but it is true.

My shaving mug also is a “he,” though I haven’t had him long enough to name him. “Mugsy” might do, but that sounds a lot like a 1930s gangster and who needs that kind of violent association first thing in the morning?

He was a Christmas gift from Sweet Annie, along with a shaving brush, which also has no name. As is the case with Whitey, I’d like to be buried with the mug. It’s that special to me. Greenie I’m going to pass along to my daughter. It’s her inheritance; at this point in my checkered career, her only inheritance.

Other things on my “bury me with ‘em” list include a clay statue of a dog crafted by my son, Jordan, when he was in Kindergarten, a small, inlaid box I’ve kept guitar picks in for the past 20 years, a nameless barbecue brush and a little, metal coin with a rose on one side and a Bible verse on the other that was a gift from a very, very good friend.

All of these are things I love. But maybe that’s not so unnatural after all, now that I think about it. I guess it’s not really the “things” I love, but the times, the places, the people they remind me of.

Maybe all I really need to take with me into the afterlife are the memories.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com / (616) 548-8273

It takes nothing but trash to boost my self esteem

I feel so self-righteous, holier than thou, and just a tiny bit superior. This is an unusual situation for me; usually I place my self worth somewhere between bag lady and politician, so, pretty low on the social totem pole.

But not anymore. From now on, when I walk down the street, I’ll hold my head high. There’ll be a spring in my step that says to the world, “I’m just a little better than you are, so there.”

Why this sudden change in my admittedly delusional self perception?

I got a recycling bin. That’s right, I’ve joined the tree-hugging, self-satisfied, legions of long-haired, hippy-type, Greenpeace-joining, electric car-driving, tofu-eating, Kerouac-reading, organic garden-planting, craft beer-drinking goody-goodies who want to do right by Mother Earth.

Well, I didn’t exactly join their ranks; I was kinda drafted. By Sweet Annie. She’s the one who signed me up for recycling. Until she did, I wasn’t even aware recycling was an option in our area.

Not only is it an option, it’s free! Turns out all I had to do was make a phone call (or, in my case, let Annie make a phone call) and voila, somebody drops off a recycling bin. I fill it up with discarded plastic, glass, metal and paper, then drag it to the curb and — presto — somebody picks it all up, grinds it down (or whatever it is they do to it) and turns it into new plastic, glass, metal and paper.

That seems so much better than seeing it all go to a landfill somewhere.

I know, I’m probably the last one to jump on this particular train, but now that I have, I intend to ride it all the way to the end of the line. I mean, recycling could be just the first step in my all-new, “ain’t I great?” lifestyle.

It turns out I enjoy feeling smug. Having so rarely done any good things in the past, I wasn’t sure this would be the case, but it is. It is!

So I can’t help but wonder, if recycling my trash makes me feel this self-satisfied, how much more unbearably self-congratulatory might I become if I did other good stuff?

If, for instance, I started wearing only all-natural, hemp shirts purchased at some pretentious mall store that specializes in “fair trade” clothing, how would that make me feel? Pretty superior, I’ll bet.

How about if I donated a few cans of lima beans to a local food bank? Or helped a little old lady to cross the street? Or … well … there are all sorts of “reformed Grinch” things I could do to make myself feel even more smug than I already do.

Of course, this could have a downside. If people start expecting me to be a decent human being all the time, I’ll almost certainly disappoint them eventually. That would make me feel bad, which would land my self-esteem right back there between bag lady and politician.

Maybe I’d better just stick with the recycling thing and see how that goes.

More Reality Check at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com. Contact Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.