(256 pages, Willy Olds, Blowhard Media, 2007)
WARNING: This is in poor taste on several levels. You Have Been Warned.
Donald Macronald (Big Mack to his family, BM to his friends) is devastated when his toy poodle is brutally given a horrible haircut by an unknown assailant in a dog park. Determined to find the man and bring him to justice, he sends his family on vacation in Mosquito Bite, Wyoming. BM then borrows a friend's dirt bike and haunts the dog park, armed with duct tape, hedge clippers, a vile shade of hair dye, and mousse. Instead of the assailant, he runs into Shaquille O'Neal. Literally. Bouncing off Shaq, his bike a wreck, BM is thrown into the park's two ton pile of dog poo. While there, he encounters God, who to his astonishment looks and acts nothing like George Burns. After several amazing days BM limps home, but smells so bad nobody will go near him for a month. Eventually the odor washes off, and his changed life amazes everyone. Shaq goes on TV and tells funny stories about the man who bounced off him and flew into "the world's biggest pile of poo outside Washington, DC".
Ob note: I love _The Shack_. I just free associate a lot.
15 March 2011
11 March 2011
The Great Chuys Dots War
(A diversion to the diversion. One of my favorite Chuys stories. This is all true.)
I'd only been in Austin 2-3 years when Teresa became my office mate. Some of use were together at lunch one day at Chuys (where else), when she started talking about how often she was at Chuys, A couple of friends who'd known me longer than she had assured he I was there way more than her. Back and forth they went, until she threw down a challenge. For a year, each of us would keep the sticky dot off our silverware wrapper each time we went to Chuys and bought a meal or drink; we'd stick each dot on the back of our drivers license. At the end of the year, whoever had the most dots would win and the other would buy them a lunch. Having no idea how it would turn out, but loving the idea, I accepted.
Over the next year, whenever people would see the dots on our licenses they'd ask what was up with that. We came up with a variety of stores, but our favorite (worked out together on the spot at Chuys when asked about the dots) went like this.
"APD (Austin Police Department) loves Chuys, too. They have this thing, it's not official or advertised, that if you have enough Chuys dots on your license and get pulled over, they'll let you off minor traffic violations and such. Not real crimes, but little stuff. But they take the dots off and you have to start over. It's kind of like a Get Out of Jail Free card in Monopoly."
The best part is that a lot of people really believed it. It was pretty funny. We really hoped one day someone would try this when they got pulled over. If it happened we never heard about it.
Eventually, the year was up. While I knew I'd eaten at Chuys a ridiculous amount that year, I had no idea just how ridiculous. We each counted our dots, then counted the others' dots as a sanity check. The tallies per license were within 1 or 2, and the spread was more than that.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but Teresa had around 190 or 200. I neat her by 10 or 20. We were both stunned, not so much at the outcome as the number of times we'd each eaten at Chuys. Actually, it was crazier than that. Some of hers were not even for meals, they were for celebrating after a soccer game with her team- a drink. Whereas all mine were for meals. that has to be my all time high count for eating at *any* restaurant in a year. That included just me, groups from work, family meals, meals with friends, etc. But only one dot per visit! (This was, IIRC, the year I ate 21 times during the 21 day Green Chile Festival.) That's a lot of Tex Mex. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of awesome.
I don't recall what my victory lunch was (probably chile rellenos, because I was ordering those a lot around then) but Teresa was the gracious loser. I offered her a rematch but she declined. Neither of us had eaten a lot more because of the contest, but we had both admittedly pushed it a little, and we figured at least some of that money ought to go somewhere besides Chuys, especially since we weren't getting stock.
But it gets better.
Teresa not only played soccer, she coached a young girls' team. Shortly before the contest ended, she had to coach her girls at a tournament in Houston on a weekend, She also had her own game to play in Sunday afternoon. Since it was her team's first year, they weren't all that good, so she knew she'd be home Saturday. Imagine her dual excitement and consternation when her team went to the finals. I don't recall if they made it to the very final game or not. I do know they did well, and that Teresa had two and a half hours or less to make a three hour trip. She was flying low, a good 15 or 20 over the speed limit when she crested a hill on 290 a half hour outside Austin and the flashing lights came on.
She pulled over and got out her license and insurance card. "I'm sorry, officer, I know I was speeding." The usual drill. Until.... "Ma'am, may I ask why you have all these... dots... on the back of your license?
Teresa toyed briefly with the idea of telling him the whole tale but (probably wisely) decided against it. She went for brevity. "A friend and I eat at Chuys a lot and we're having a contest to see who eats there the most. That's how we keep track."
"Chuys? The Tex Mex restaurant in Austin? I love that place!" They spent a few minutes discussing favorite dishes, their favorite waiters and waitresses, etc. All the while Teresa was trying not to bust out laughing, worried about being late to her game, and thinking how weird this was. Finally the policeman said, "Well. anyone who likes Chuys that much is all right by me. But please, keep it slow, OK?" He handed her the license, and walked back to his car. Not even a warning. She made the game.
Sometimes, life imitates art. It was so cool I bought her lunch. We were even. At Chuys, everybody wins.
I'd only been in Austin 2-3 years when Teresa became my office mate. Some of use were together at lunch one day at Chuys (where else), when she started talking about how often she was at Chuys, A couple of friends who'd known me longer than she had assured he I was there way more than her. Back and forth they went, until she threw down a challenge. For a year, each of us would keep the sticky dot off our silverware wrapper each time we went to Chuys and bought a meal or drink; we'd stick each dot on the back of our drivers license. At the end of the year, whoever had the most dots would win and the other would buy them a lunch. Having no idea how it would turn out, but loving the idea, I accepted.
Over the next year, whenever people would see the dots on our licenses they'd ask what was up with that. We came up with a variety of stores, but our favorite (worked out together on the spot at Chuys when asked about the dots) went like this.
"APD (Austin Police Department) loves Chuys, too. They have this thing, it's not official or advertised, that if you have enough Chuys dots on your license and get pulled over, they'll let you off minor traffic violations and such. Not real crimes, but little stuff. But they take the dots off and you have to start over. It's kind of like a Get Out of Jail Free card in Monopoly."
The best part is that a lot of people really believed it. It was pretty funny. We really hoped one day someone would try this when they got pulled over. If it happened we never heard about it.
Eventually, the year was up. While I knew I'd eaten at Chuys a ridiculous amount that year, I had no idea just how ridiculous. We each counted our dots, then counted the others' dots as a sanity check. The tallies per license were within 1 or 2, and the spread was more than that.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but Teresa had around 190 or 200. I neat her by 10 or 20. We were both stunned, not so much at the outcome as the number of times we'd each eaten at Chuys. Actually, it was crazier than that. Some of hers were not even for meals, they were for celebrating after a soccer game with her team- a drink. Whereas all mine were for meals. that has to be my all time high count for eating at *any* restaurant in a year. That included just me, groups from work, family meals, meals with friends, etc. But only one dot per visit! (This was, IIRC, the year I ate 21 times during the 21 day Green Chile Festival.) That's a lot of Tex Mex. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of awesome.
I don't recall what my victory lunch was (probably chile rellenos, because I was ordering those a lot around then) but Teresa was the gracious loser. I offered her a rematch but she declined. Neither of us had eaten a lot more because of the contest, but we had both admittedly pushed it a little, and we figured at least some of that money ought to go somewhere besides Chuys, especially since we weren't getting stock.
But it gets better.
Teresa not only played soccer, she coached a young girls' team. Shortly before the contest ended, she had to coach her girls at a tournament in Houston on a weekend, She also had her own game to play in Sunday afternoon. Since it was her team's first year, they weren't all that good, so she knew she'd be home Saturday. Imagine her dual excitement and consternation when her team went to the finals. I don't recall if they made it to the very final game or not. I do know they did well, and that Teresa had two and a half hours or less to make a three hour trip. She was flying low, a good 15 or 20 over the speed limit when she crested a hill on 290 a half hour outside Austin and the flashing lights came on.
She pulled over and got out her license and insurance card. "I'm sorry, officer, I know I was speeding." The usual drill. Until.... "Ma'am, may I ask why you have all these... dots... on the back of your license?
Teresa toyed briefly with the idea of telling him the whole tale but (probably wisely) decided against it. She went for brevity. "A friend and I eat at Chuys a lot and we're having a contest to see who eats there the most. That's how we keep track."
"Chuys? The Tex Mex restaurant in Austin? I love that place!" They spent a few minutes discussing favorite dishes, their favorite waiters and waitresses, etc. All the while Teresa was trying not to bust out laughing, worried about being late to her game, and thinking how weird this was. Finally the policeman said, "Well. anyone who likes Chuys that much is all right by me. But please, keep it slow, OK?" He handed her the license, and walked back to his car. Not even a warning. She made the game.
Sometimes, life imitates art. It was so cool I bought her lunch. We were even. At Chuys, everybody wins.
08 March 2011
The Roadkill Saga
(we interrupt our regularly scheduled series, "Growing Up Miles", for a word from our sponsor.)
Years ago, when the net was young, before Al Gore took credit for it, before the world wide web was more than a glimmer in someone's eye, when dinosaurs and usenet ruled the planet, I was working very long hours (80+ hour weeks). At lunch and dinner, if I weren't going anywhere, I'd eat something at my desk and write nonsense and throw it out into the ether as stress relief.
One night, out of nowhere, I came up with Roadkills-R-Us, recycling as high up the food chain as possible, turning roadkill into meals. I posted jobs for everything from Roadkill Removal Technician I all the way up to VP. I committed the unpardonable sin of posting this farce in the "help wanted" newsgroup rather than somewhere meant for silliness. It went over great.
Soon after, I posted an opening for a software engineer at RRU, with absurd requirements, based on some of the silly (but serious) job ads I was seeing. I received four (serious) resumes in the U. S. Mail.
From time to time I added to the company lore over the next few years. When the web was in its infancy, I wanted to explore the technology. I put together a throw away web site for RRU. Because there were is few sites out there, it got reasonable traffic. I moved it off the company server to one at home just ion time to get attacked by Toys-R-Us (true, and documented at http://www.rru.com/ ). When I gave up on trying to talk rationally with them and took it to the media, things really took off, and the site got well known.
Some friends started calling me Roadkill. I started using the name at restaurants when there was a waiting list (half the fun was when people had to announce us: "Roadkill, party of four, your table is ready.") Since we eat at Chuys a lot (1-2x a week for almost 20 years as of this writing), that's how they all know us-- as Mr. and Mrs. Roadkill.
When we have leftovers in take out boxes, we always label them as to whose they are and the date. On mine, I draw a roadkill fish. (Why a fish? Because it's absurd, of course! And because two of my best friends nicknamed me "Fish" years ago for no apparent reason.) Once, at a Chuys lunch with the Weier clan (no, they are not wolves), Rachel asked if she could add to my "artwork". The result was an instant classic.
Artists: Rachel Weier and Miles O'Neal
Medium: Pen and crayon on styrofoam
Date: Nov 26, 2010 A.D.
Years ago, when the net was young, before Al Gore took credit for it, before the world wide web was more than a glimmer in someone's eye, when dinosaurs and usenet ruled the planet, I was working very long hours (80+ hour weeks). At lunch and dinner, if I weren't going anywhere, I'd eat something at my desk and write nonsense and throw it out into the ether as stress relief.
One night, out of nowhere, I came up with Roadkills-R-Us, recycling as high up the food chain as possible, turning roadkill into meals. I posted jobs for everything from Roadkill Removal Technician I all the way up to VP. I committed the unpardonable sin of posting this farce in the "help wanted" newsgroup rather than somewhere meant for silliness. It went over great.
Soon after, I posted an opening for a software engineer at RRU, with absurd requirements, based on some of the silly (but serious) job ads I was seeing. I received four (serious) resumes in the U. S. Mail.
From time to time I added to the company lore over the next few years. When the web was in its infancy, I wanted to explore the technology. I put together a throw away web site for RRU. Because there were is few sites out there, it got reasonable traffic. I moved it off the company server to one at home just ion time to get attacked by Toys-R-Us (true, and documented at http://www.rru.com/ ). When I gave up on trying to talk rationally with them and took it to the media, things really took off, and the site got well known.
Some friends started calling me Roadkill. I started using the name at restaurants when there was a waiting list (half the fun was when people had to announce us: "Roadkill, party of four, your table is ready.") Since we eat at Chuys a lot (1-2x a week for almost 20 years as of this writing), that's how they all know us-- as Mr. and Mrs. Roadkill.
When we have leftovers in take out boxes, we always label them as to whose they are and the date. On mine, I draw a roadkill fish. (Why a fish? Because it's absurd, of course! And because two of my best friends nicknamed me "Fish" years ago for no apparent reason.) Once, at a Chuys lunch with the Weier clan (no, they are not wolves), Rachel asked if she could add to my "artwork". The result was an instant classic.
Artists: Rachel Weier and Miles O'Neal
Medium: Pen and crayon on styrofoam
Date: Nov 26, 2010 A.D.
07 March 2011
Growing Up Miles, Part 2 (mostly El Paso)
I was born a geek. Because I loved learning and asked questions, my parents taught me the four basic math operations (yes, including simple, long division) by the time I was 5. I had my own library card by 5 and flummoxed the librarian because I didn't want preschool books; I was reading at (at least) a 3rd grade level. On my 5th or 6th birthday, Uncle Doug (not by blood, it was all the same to us) gave me my first chemistry set (dad was a chem prof at TWC, which is now UTEP). Uncle Doug's mom gave me a couple of 20 piece jigsaw puzzles; to her I was still just an adorable little tyke!
I spent a fair amount of my childhood wanting to be a sports star, an astronaut, a train engineer, a cowboy, and a mad scientist. I had a tender heart, but was already somewhat out there.
The first day of 1st grade, I ended up sharing a desk with Joe Don Manbeck, who turned out to be a fellow geek. The first lesson in class involved a piece of paper with two, large circles, labeled "left" and "right". "Does everyone know which is their left hand? How about their right?" After straightening a few kids out, our teacher explained we needed to color the left circle blue ("Raise you left hand. No, Tommy (whoever), your other hand. OK, the circle on the side of your raised hand is the left circle. We'll color that blue. Does everyone know what blue is?") Since we had been given only a blue and red crayon, Joe Don and I were nearly through by the time she finished explaining what to do with the left circle, and we started talking. Before the day was out, the teacher understood we both could print and spell just fine, and we each had to write "I will not talk in class" 50 times (or maybe 100, I forget). Before that year was out, we'd written many thousands of lines, including several evenings where we had to write 500 lines, and one weekend with 1,000. Not always the same lines, though ("I will not draw in class", "I will not write on the desk", etc.)
I remember when Joe Don learned about ditto marks. That day we had 500 lines to write. So we wrote one line at the top of each page, then drew ditto marks for each word all the way down the page (we discussed one ditto mark per line, but felt we should be thorough, in the spirit of honoring our teacher). We discussed whether it was more efficient to do all the marks on each line before going to the next line vs all the marks under one word, then the next word. I don't recall what we decided, but I know we evaluated both ways thoroughly. We proudly turned these in and were promptly told to redo them without ditto marks, and write "I will not use ditto marks." 50 times (without using ditto marks). We weren't learning much from this (except sloppy penmanship because we were hurrying), but at least the teacher (who was otherwise a good, sweet teacher) didn't seem to be learning from it, either (though we didn't see this at the time).
Joe Don had a plastic, scale model of the X-15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15) to which he had attached an antenna. He also had a remote control for a model plane. We couldn't understand why the X15 wouldn't fly with all that cool electronic gear attached (who knew that that a plastic model of a rocket motor wouldn't work?)
One of the cool things about the (real) X-15 was that it launched from a B-52 Stratofortress. There was an air base out in the desert, and we saw B-52's flying around all the time (early Vietnam war escalation). Very cool looking bombers. I also remember fighters breaking the sound barrier over the desert. Thunder without a cloud in the sky? Look for jets!
I had my first girlfriend in 4th grade. I pledged my troth to Tobie Self and she pledged hers to me. We definitely planned to get married one day. During recess that year we usually played "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (a spy show on TV). I headed up UNCLE most days, and Tobie headed up T.H.R.U.S.H. most days. Except when one of us defected because of our love for a day or three, was captured, etc. Shortly into 5th grade, her dad was transferred to Japan. I never heard from her again.[1] I was crushed.
I read a lot. I tried sports, but was never that good. In little league I played in left field, got bored, and usually missed the odd ball that came my way because I was looking for four leaf clovers or running away from wasps and bees. I watched a fair amount of TV-- lots of cartoons and older, silly shows (I started watching the Three Stooges pretty early), sci fi and war movies, roller derby, bingo, bull fighting and dog racing (El Paso is on the Mexican border)...
Dad worked an extra job each summer. One year I remember him working a couple of hours away at White Sands (missile test grounds, etc). Probably rocket propulsion stuff. One weekend he brought home a bunch of movie reels labeled "Secret" or something and kept them at the house (can you imagine that happening today?). Another summer he worked at Oak Ridge National Labs. His summer jobs were usually classified. During the summer before 6th grade he accepted a job in Augusta, GA, as head of the chem department as Augusta College.
That summer he worked in Augusta. As the 10 y/o man of the house, I was expected to help mom, watch out for the family (for instance a tramp lived in the desert that year and was stealing clothes off lines and food from gardens and freezers on porches and nobody knew if he was dangerous). I kept my baseball bat and darts next to my bed at night, just in case. One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again.
I remember the night the next door neighbor called mom (again we were up late watching a movie) because she had seen the tramp out back. Mom grabbed the pistol and looked out the window; the tramp was stealing sheets from the clothes line next door! I got my baseball bat and stood by nervously. I think mom and the neighbor turned on porch lights at the same time and the tramp ran away.
The rest of the family joined Dad in Augusta in November after he found a house and ours sold, and again I was crushed. Devastated, in fact. I didn't want to leave my friends or school. I had just started band (trombone). I was close to having another girlfriend (turned out all three of Tobie's best friends were interested, but Mr. Geek was too clueless and shy to ask. Still don't know how I ever ended up having Tobie as a g/f.) Never mind that everything was a stupid GREEN color instead of my beautiful desert, and I got claustrophobic outdoors because I could hardly see the sky.
It went downhill from there.
[1] The day after I posted this as a facebook note, Tobie's husband found it looking for her name on google, and pointed it out, so we got back in touch. We're both happily married, but not to each other.
(to be continued)
I spent a fair amount of my childhood wanting to be a sports star, an astronaut, a train engineer, a cowboy, and a mad scientist. I had a tender heart, but was already somewhat out there.
The first day of 1st grade, I ended up sharing a desk with Joe Don Manbeck, who turned out to be a fellow geek. The first lesson in class involved a piece of paper with two, large circles, labeled "left" and "right". "Does everyone know which is their left hand? How about their right?" After straightening a few kids out, our teacher explained we needed to color the left circle blue ("Raise you left hand. No, Tommy (whoever), your other hand. OK, the circle on the side of your raised hand is the left circle. We'll color that blue. Does everyone know what blue is?") Since we had been given only a blue and red crayon, Joe Don and I were nearly through by the time she finished explaining what to do with the left circle, and we started talking. Before the day was out, the teacher understood we both could print and spell just fine, and we each had to write "I will not talk in class" 50 times (or maybe 100, I forget). Before that year was out, we'd written many thousands of lines, including several evenings where we had to write 500 lines, and one weekend with 1,000. Not always the same lines, though ("I will not draw in class", "I will not write on the desk", etc.)
I remember when Joe Don learned about ditto marks. That day we had 500 lines to write. So we wrote one line at the top of each page, then drew ditto marks for each word all the way down the page (we discussed one ditto mark per line, but felt we should be thorough, in the spirit of honoring our teacher). We discussed whether it was more efficient to do all the marks on each line before going to the next line vs all the marks under one word, then the next word. I don't recall what we decided, but I know we evaluated both ways thoroughly. We proudly turned these in and were promptly told to redo them without ditto marks, and write "I will not use ditto marks." 50 times (without using ditto marks). We weren't learning much from this (except sloppy penmanship because we were hurrying), but at least the teacher (who was otherwise a good, sweet teacher) didn't seem to be learning from it, either (though we didn't see this at the time).
Joe Don had a plastic, scale model of the X-15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15) to which he had attached an antenna. He also had a remote control for a model plane. We couldn't understand why the X15 wouldn't fly with all that cool electronic gear attached (who knew that that a plastic model of a rocket motor wouldn't work?)
One of the cool things about the (real) X-15 was that it launched from a B-52 Stratofortress. There was an air base out in the desert, and we saw B-52's flying around all the time (early Vietnam war escalation). Very cool looking bombers. I also remember fighters breaking the sound barrier over the desert. Thunder without a cloud in the sky? Look for jets!
I had my first girlfriend in 4th grade. I pledged my troth to Tobie Self and she pledged hers to me. We definitely planned to get married one day. During recess that year we usually played "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (a spy show on TV). I headed up UNCLE most days, and Tobie headed up T.H.R.U.S.H. most days. Except when one of us defected because of our love for a day or three, was captured, etc. Shortly into 5th grade, her dad was transferred to Japan. I never heard from her again.[1] I was crushed.
I read a lot. I tried sports, but was never that good. In little league I played in left field, got bored, and usually missed the odd ball that came my way because I was looking for four leaf clovers or running away from wasps and bees. I watched a fair amount of TV-- lots of cartoons and older, silly shows (I started watching the Three Stooges pretty early), sci fi and war movies, roller derby, bingo, bull fighting and dog racing (El Paso is on the Mexican border)...
Dad worked an extra job each summer. One year I remember him working a couple of hours away at White Sands (missile test grounds, etc). Probably rocket propulsion stuff. One weekend he brought home a bunch of movie reels labeled "Secret" or something and kept them at the house (can you imagine that happening today?). Another summer he worked at Oak Ridge National Labs. His summer jobs were usually classified. During the summer before 6th grade he accepted a job in Augusta, GA, as head of the chem department as Augusta College.
That summer he worked in Augusta. As the 10 y/o man of the house, I was expected to help mom, watch out for the family (for instance a tramp lived in the desert that year and was stealing clothes off lines and food from gardens and freezers on porches and nobody knew if he was dangerous). I kept my baseball bat and darts next to my bed at night, just in case. One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again.
I remember the night the next door neighbor called mom (again we were up late watching a movie) because she had seen the tramp out back. Mom grabbed the pistol and looked out the window; the tramp was stealing sheets from the clothes line next door! I got my baseball bat and stood by nervously. I think mom and the neighbor turned on porch lights at the same time and the tramp ran away.
The rest of the family joined Dad in Augusta in November after he found a house and ours sold, and again I was crushed. Devastated, in fact. I didn't want to leave my friends or school. I had just started band (trombone). I was close to having another girlfriend (turned out all three of Tobie's best friends were interested, but Mr. Geek was too clueless and shy to ask. Still don't know how I ever ended up having Tobie as a g/f.) Never mind that everything was a stupid GREEN color instead of my beautiful desert, and I got claustrophobic outdoors because I could hardly see the sky.
It went downhill from there.
[1] The day after I posted this as a facebook note, Tobie's husband found it looking for her name on google, and pointed it out, so we got back in touch. We're both happily married, but not to each other.
(to be continued)
06 March 2011
Growing Up Miles, Part 1 (mostly El Paso)
In a sense, this is Rebecca Palermo's fault. She asked what it had been like "growing up Miles". I, however, accept responsibility for the meandering style (think grandpa on a front porch, reminiscing about the days "after The War" when he walked uphill to and from school in a blinding blizzard, barefoot, fighting off saber toothed woolly mammoths), or perhaps I'm just reliving it as I thought then. Your guess probably isn't as good as mine, but it's all you have at this point.
I was the oldest of four planned children (two boys, two girls, exactly as planned)-- Miles, Sharon, Kathleen and Bill spread across 6 years. 10 years after the youngest, a surprise (unplanned, but wanted and loved!) sister showed up, but more on her later.
We lived in a couple of places in El Paso at first. Apparently as a baby I had colic and screamed a lot. We lived in a trailer park. One day mom was relieved that I had finally gotten quiet. After a bit she went to check on me, and I was not in my crib! She searched the trailer (I wasn't old enough to get out, but what could she think?), then, panicking, ran next door to call the police (I guess we didn't have a phone). When she beat on the locked screen door, the neighbor answered, holding a baby in her arms-- me. She'd gotten tired of hearing me scream. (The common A/C in the desert uses evaporative cooling, pulling hot air through a wet mat, blowing the now cooled, damp air through the house and out open windows.) I don't believe mom and the neighbor ever spoke again.
I remember a few things from super early ages, like dropping a baby spoon into a furnace grate in the floor and desperately wanting to get it (I couldn't) because I shouldn't have had it, and playing "tea party" with a girl down the street. When we moved away, I gave her a new, plastic tea set and she gave me a huge stuffed bear. I remember getting a set of rubber and plastic kid tools and being upset the saw wouldn't cut the stair rail. I remember lots of steps up to that house. Odd for El Paso, must have been in the foothills of the Franklin Mountains.
At age 3, we lived in Atlanta, GA for a year while Dad got his PhD (he's a genius, and kept finishing degrees much faster than possible). I don't remember much except I broke a pane in a greenhouse with a baseball. I'm told I woke up one night, smelled gas and got the family awake and out of the house, thereby saving all our lives. Apparently the pilot had gone out on the furnace. I vaguely remember standing outside the house in our pajamas and bath robes at night when it was chilly, but that's it.
After Dad became Dr. O'Neal we returned to El Paso, where we lived in the upper valley by the Rio Grande, with lots of trees and an irrigation canal out back. Mom and dad grew corn, tomatoes, etc. We had a tire swing. I shared a bedroom with Sharon, and I still have a picture of "the cat and the fiddle" from then, along with some cross-stitched pix my god-mother made me. This was also when I developed allergies to chocolate, strawberries, and anything with cane sugar in it. At the time, cane sugar was pretty much THE sweetener. I was not happy! Mom found some blueberry syrup with no cane sugar for pancakes and biscuits. It was pretty expensive, so only I got to use it. So I was jealous that everyone else got "real syrup" and my siblings were jealous that I got the "blueberry good stuff". Fortunately I grew out of these allergies!
About the time I turned 5 we moved to a house literally on the edge of the desert. These years were generally awesome-- very laid back. We had a new house, a new school, a YMCA nearby (swimming, trampoline, etc. all summer and other programs year round). Several kids my age nearby, peaceful neighborhood, etc. Pretty idyllic at first, other than the odd scorpion, tarantula, etc. Tumbleweeds! Cacti! Coyotes howling in the distance at night. Prairie dogs. The smell of mesquite just before it rained. I loved the desert...
There was a cinderblock wall behind our house, all the way down the subdivision. Every morning one summer, a roadrunner ran south along the wall (back of the house faced east). Every afternoon he'd run back north. As a kid I thought he was going to his job and then back home. I wondered if his kids were as happy to see him as we were to see our Dad when he got home.
If I was up early I could watch the sunrise out of the ground. In the evenings we watched the sun set into the Franklin mountains. Gorgeous.
I loved the rare storm (thunder or dust). The desert wasn't quite flat, lots of low (1 ft to 10 ft) dunes. It only rained 3-4 times a year, but that was usually a flash flood. For a couple of hours after a storm the desert looked like an ocean, with islands sticking up everywhere. The wet mesquite smelled soooo good! Two more hours and it was dry but for the odd puddle, and some cacti started to bloom. Two hours later the desert floor was cracked and parched as if it had never seen rain. I loved the desert. Played in it as much as I could get away with. (Oddly enough, one of mom's sisters and her family lived on the edge of the desert in Tuscon, AZ, so when we visited each other, it always felt like home.)
Have I mentioned how much I love the desert?
Sandstorms were interesting. Usually they blew through in a few minutes; seeing that giant, light brown wall coming at you was a cool but fearsome sight. There was hurricane fence around the school playground; when sandstorms came during recess, most kids would run for the building but a few of us guys would wait for the storm, see who could stand up in it the longest, then when we fell curl up in a ball and get blown like tumbleweeds across the (giant sandpit) playground. Fortunately we never hit anything hard, just blew into the fences. We were always late going back to class because we were getting all the sand out of our clothes, our ears, our eyes, our hair, our noses and mouths, etc., per teacher orders.
One year when I had a sore throat (tonsillitis) the mother of all sandstorms came through. For at least four hours, we had gale force windows sandblasting everything. Ours was the only house on the block with no broken windows. As the sand would blow out from under small, flat rocks, the rocks would get lifted up and flip over. Some of them would start tumbling, get sideways and start rolling at a good clip. Since the storm was coming from the east, they all headed west-- right toward our subdivision. Tumbleweeds and sand piled up against the wall out back, making a ramp. Several stones hit our house and roof, but neighbors had them come through windows. Which meant they then had glass flying as well as an indoor sandstorm. All our doors and windows were shut tight, but we still had 1/4" of dust on every surface in the house. My throat was NOT Happy. (I eventually got my tonsils and adenoids out, which helped a lot.)
(to be continued)
I was the oldest of four planned children (two boys, two girls, exactly as planned)-- Miles, Sharon, Kathleen and Bill spread across 6 years. 10 years after the youngest, a surprise (unplanned, but wanted and loved!) sister showed up, but more on her later.
We lived in a couple of places in El Paso at first. Apparently as a baby I had colic and screamed a lot. We lived in a trailer park. One day mom was relieved that I had finally gotten quiet. After a bit she went to check on me, and I was not in my crib! She searched the trailer (I wasn't old enough to get out, but what could she think?), then, panicking, ran next door to call the police (I guess we didn't have a phone). When she beat on the locked screen door, the neighbor answered, holding a baby in her arms-- me. She'd gotten tired of hearing me scream. (The common A/C in the desert uses evaporative cooling, pulling hot air through a wet mat, blowing the now cooled, damp air through the house and out open windows.) I don't believe mom and the neighbor ever spoke again.
I remember a few things from super early ages, like dropping a baby spoon into a furnace grate in the floor and desperately wanting to get it (I couldn't) because I shouldn't have had it, and playing "tea party" with a girl down the street. When we moved away, I gave her a new, plastic tea set and she gave me a huge stuffed bear. I remember getting a set of rubber and plastic kid tools and being upset the saw wouldn't cut the stair rail. I remember lots of steps up to that house. Odd for El Paso, must have been in the foothills of the Franklin Mountains.
At age 3, we lived in Atlanta, GA for a year while Dad got his PhD (he's a genius, and kept finishing degrees much faster than possible). I don't remember much except I broke a pane in a greenhouse with a baseball. I'm told I woke up one night, smelled gas and got the family awake and out of the house, thereby saving all our lives. Apparently the pilot had gone out on the furnace. I vaguely remember standing outside the house in our pajamas and bath robes at night when it was chilly, but that's it.
After Dad became Dr. O'Neal we returned to El Paso, where we lived in the upper valley by the Rio Grande, with lots of trees and an irrigation canal out back. Mom and dad grew corn, tomatoes, etc. We had a tire swing. I shared a bedroom with Sharon, and I still have a picture of "the cat and the fiddle" from then, along with some cross-stitched pix my god-mother made me. This was also when I developed allergies to chocolate, strawberries, and anything with cane sugar in it. At the time, cane sugar was pretty much THE sweetener. I was not happy! Mom found some blueberry syrup with no cane sugar for pancakes and biscuits. It was pretty expensive, so only I got to use it. So I was jealous that everyone else got "real syrup" and my siblings were jealous that I got the "blueberry good stuff". Fortunately I grew out of these allergies!
About the time I turned 5 we moved to a house literally on the edge of the desert. These years were generally awesome-- very laid back. We had a new house, a new school, a YMCA nearby (swimming, trampoline, etc. all summer and other programs year round). Several kids my age nearby, peaceful neighborhood, etc. Pretty idyllic at first, other than the odd scorpion, tarantula, etc. Tumbleweeds! Cacti! Coyotes howling in the distance at night. Prairie dogs. The smell of mesquite just before it rained. I loved the desert...
There was a cinderblock wall behind our house, all the way down the subdivision. Every morning one summer, a roadrunner ran south along the wall (back of the house faced east). Every afternoon he'd run back north. As a kid I thought he was going to his job and then back home. I wondered if his kids were as happy to see him as we were to see our Dad when he got home.
If I was up early I could watch the sunrise out of the ground. In the evenings we watched the sun set into the Franklin mountains. Gorgeous.
I loved the rare storm (thunder or dust). The desert wasn't quite flat, lots of low (1 ft to 10 ft) dunes. It only rained 3-4 times a year, but that was usually a flash flood. For a couple of hours after a storm the desert looked like an ocean, with islands sticking up everywhere. The wet mesquite smelled soooo good! Two more hours and it was dry but for the odd puddle, and some cacti started to bloom. Two hours later the desert floor was cracked and parched as if it had never seen rain. I loved the desert. Played in it as much as I could get away with. (Oddly enough, one of mom's sisters and her family lived on the edge of the desert in Tuscon, AZ, so when we visited each other, it always felt like home.)
Have I mentioned how much I love the desert?
Sandstorms were interesting. Usually they blew through in a few minutes; seeing that giant, light brown wall coming at you was a cool but fearsome sight. There was hurricane fence around the school playground; when sandstorms came during recess, most kids would run for the building but a few of us guys would wait for the storm, see who could stand up in it the longest, then when we fell curl up in a ball and get blown like tumbleweeds across the (giant sandpit) playground. Fortunately we never hit anything hard, just blew into the fences. We were always late going back to class because we were getting all the sand out of our clothes, our ears, our eyes, our hair, our noses and mouths, etc., per teacher orders.
One year when I had a sore throat (tonsillitis) the mother of all sandstorms came through. For at least four hours, we had gale force windows sandblasting everything. Ours was the only house on the block with no broken windows. As the sand would blow out from under small, flat rocks, the rocks would get lifted up and flip over. Some of them would start tumbling, get sideways and start rolling at a good clip. Since the storm was coming from the east, they all headed west-- right toward our subdivision. Tumbleweeds and sand piled up against the wall out back, making a ramp. Several stones hit our house and roof, but neighbors had them come through windows. Which meant they then had glass flying as well as an indoor sandstorm. All our doors and windows were shut tight, but we still had 1/4" of dust on every surface in the house. My throat was NOT Happy. (I eventually got my tonsils and adenoids out, which helped a lot.)
(to be continued)
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