Wheels, Pt I

Like a lot of guys, I've been in love with anything on wheels almost as far back as I can recall. Cars, trucks, bikes, skates, you name it.

My first serious wreck was on a trike, towing a Radio Flyer wagon. One of my best friends (and next door neighbor), Clifford Bossie, and I had been playing some intense game with our trikes for hours. All I remember was that it involved going really fast and stopping suddenly. It grew dark as we played. For the thousandth time I stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk but this time Clifford ran into me. I ate the bars on the way down, and broke all my front teeth, seriously repositioning them all along the way. The dental surgeon who pulled them left fragments. It took two more visits to get all the pieces out. The permanent teeth grew in the same screwball way the baby teeth had come out. It took several years of braces in Jr. High & High school to mostly straighten the mess out. I think my parents blamed Clifford, but it was just one of those things; we were always running into each other. We were boys.

My first bike was a bright red, used Murray with a luggage rack on the back sporting a skull and crossbones sticker courtesy of the previous owner. I rode the wheels off it until it was stolen. For some reason I always had problems with bicycles and thieves.

I then got an honest-to-goodness Schwinn, a big hunka steel with 20" wheels and a front basket. When this one got stolen from school my dad and I rode around the neighborhood until we saw a kid on it. We followed him home. Dad confronted his disbelieving parents and we got the bike back. The same kid stole the bike twice more; the last time my Dad made it clear the police would knock on their door the next time. The thefts stopped.

All my first real 2-wheeled wrecks were on this bike, including my first head dive from showing off, and my first run-in with a car.

I remember riding this thing to school in all kinds of weather. In the 6th grade I even did this carrying a trombone by its case's handle looped over one handlebar.

Head dive

One day in the 3rd or 4th grade, Clifford and I were riding our bikes home from school, engaged in typical 9 year old boy type bike-riding activities - showing off, playing combat aircraft, playing cops & robbers, playing cowboys & Indians, trying new things.

After a particularly brutal chase of some sort, during which I'm pretty sure we killed each other at least a dozen times, he started weaving. I wove wilder. He wove insanely. I switched to a high-speed, fast wobble, which got out of control and I ended up doing a headstand at 5 or 10 MPH. Screaming, I jumped back on the bike, raced home, with Clifford trying to keep up with this madman, ran in and denied I had done anything. In fact, Clifford must have cut me off!

I wasn't a habitual liar. But somewhere between panic (blood gushing from my head!), pain, shock, and embarrassment I'd lost it. Mom put me on restriction from playing with "that kid" for life. It was several years before I admitted it had been my fault. Clifford forgave me, figured I had been out of it. I don't think my Mom ever really believed that, and last I knew, she still thought it was Clifford's fault. She did let us play together the last year I was in El Paso. We'd had to play together as outlaws til then. I lost a couple of years of excellent friendship because I couldn't accept responsibility for my own mistakes, and it would have served me right to have lost his friendship forever.

Meet the Truck

One summer when I was 8 or so, I was riding back home from a nearby 7-11 on my shiny, red Schwinn. Once I got away from traffic and onto the quiet street I lived on, I couldn't stand waiting, and started reading the comic I had just bought.

While riding the bike.

People almost never parked their cars on the street; everyone had ample driveways and carports. Unfortunately someone was washing a car and had moved their pickup into the street. Keeping the curb in my peripheral vision, I knew I was doing fine, and just as some new kid in Sgt. Rock's platoon, whom everyone had been ragging on, spotted an enemy in a tree, I ran Smack Dab into a bumper. Blam! Stop. Splat. The guy washing his car almost wet himself laughing.

I jumped on the bike and tore out for home, my face the color of my nice, red bicycle, to read my comic in the privacy of my bedroom.

Are They Real?

Late last night, on the long, dark, empty stretch of Ranch Road 620, I had an eerie experience.

There was this car. It appeared out of nowhere, about 100 yards behind me. I watched it for a while; it stayed the same distance back. (I'm good at judging speed and distance; it's one of the reasons I survived so many years on motorcycles in Atlanta and Austin.) Eventually I took my eyes off it for a couple of seconds. When I looked again, it was maybe 75 yards away.

I watched a while, up hill and down. No change for at least half a minute. I quit watching a few seconds. Fifty yards away. I did a couple more, shorter glances away. It got to within 25 yards. I kept it in at least my peripheral vision for a few minutes until it gave up and turned off, presumably in search of easier prey.

Weeping angel automobiles. They're out there. Keep your eyes open.

This Ain't My First Rodeo

Tonight my wife asked me to do something unusual. Very personal. Something intimate. I happily agreed to do it. I'm going to be bold and tell you about it. But first, let's go back to my hippie days, to explain why I was willing.

I had dropped out of college (and life in general as most of you know it) for a couple of quarters. But I still lived in a dorm and used the university's labs and computers. A couple of friends and I had found ways into various buildings to use terminals that were sitting idle nights and weekends. We programmed, learned, played games and chatted. I learned as much about software on my own as I did in some of my classes.

One of the EE building's glass doors was never locked properly. The bolt at the top would engage, but not fully, and the bottom bolt wouldn't engage at all. A good hard yank would flex the door and it would open.

It was a comfortable, if gray, Sunday afternoon about four o'clock. The only person around was a little, old lady walking her dog. I yanked on the door. It flexed as usual... but didn't open. I yanked again. No dice.

"Miles, maybe you shouldn't..."

"No problem." I yanked a lot harder. The door flexed. The glass got angry. "You won't like me when I'm angry."

The glass shattered. It was right. I didn't like it angry.

A large piece of glass, about 3/8" thick and more than a foot square was falling straight toward my left foot. My arm spazzed and ran interference. The glass deflected, leaving a ragged, two and a half inch gash in my arm. It (the glass) shattered gloriously and beautifully in the dull light, showering my bare toes with shards. Somehow they remained unscathed. But bright red drops fell from my arm.

As silence followed in the wake of the glass explosions, an old woman's voice shrieked a sing song, up and down pattern. "You broke the glay-ass! You broke the glay-ass!"

"Yes, ma'am, I know." I held out my bleeding arm. "We're going to the doctor, OK?"

"You broke the glay-ass! You broke the glay-ass!" Her small, beautifully coiffed poodle began barking a furious counterpoint. It was a rather nice polyrhythm but I wasn't properly appreciative at the time.

I shrugged and we began the two or three block trek toward the infirmary, me trying to stop the bleeding, one friend helpfully reminding me they told me not to yank on the door, another talking about the crazy old lady, the third joining in her refrain (possibly quoting the dog as well, but I don't recall). As we turned the corner a block away, the woman was still rooted to her spot, stuck in an infinite loop. Thankfully the sound fading with distance and obstacles.

While I had my old, student ID, I didn't have a currently stamped fee card for some reason I'm sure was unrelated to the fact I wasn't actually in school that quarter. At the infirmary the nurse at the desk explained that they couldn't help me without that card. But another nurse overrode her and let me see the doctor.

He had a lovely, cultured, London accent; he was "doing an across the pond residency exchange". I got two stitches, a roll of gauze, and a pressure bandage. He didn't press for details; I got the impression from things he said he might have some escapades in his past. In any event, he told me to come back after 10 days (or something like that) so he could check the stitches.

I was meticulous about cleaning the wound and applying antibiotic. I went through plenty of gauze and wrapped my arm in the pressure bandage to keep the seam immobile. It healed up nicely. When I went back, only the nurse who'd been overridden was on duty. She refused (properly, which I recognized even then) to let me see the doctor. But the same doctor was on duty, and he overheard. He called from the other room.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"It's the boy who cut his arm. He still doesn't have his fee card. I told him he has to produce one or leave."

"Oh, quite right! We can't have that. But it's too bad, because I'd love to have seen how it healed. But he needs to go to [the local charity hospital]. Or if it looks really good, I'd have told him he could always just take the sutures out himself. If I could see him. But of course, without a fee card, I can't."

I thanked the (somewhat irritated) nurse, said I understood she was just doing her job, and left. As I walked past a window, the doctor waved and smiled.

Back at the dorm, we pooled our resources. We had no hemostats. The only sharp knife we could find was my Bowie knife-- a bit large and unwieldy for the task. We had no scissors. We had needle nose pliers. We had fingernail clippers.

Since the wound was on my forearm, I couldn't wield both pliers and the clippers. My friends, it turned out, were a bit too squeamish to help. If you've ever looked at properly done sutures (these were beautiful) they're small and tight. There's not a lot to work with, and they're snug against the skin. At the same time, they do flex when you push against them... including down into the skin.

It took a half hour, working one handed with only a pair of nail clippers, but I finally got those sutures out! Without tearing the nicely knit skin. Without any new cuts. A little alcohol, a little antibiotic, a little gauze and a pressure bandage, and I was home free. Thank you, British doctor!

...

Fast forward to this evening. My wife had six sutures in her arm. (Her cuts did not involved breaking and entering. She exercised her constitutional right to have a highly trained doctor slice her open and sew her up.)

This time we had tweezers and small, sharp scissors. Only a couple of the sutures offered any real resistance, and I had them all out in well under ten minutes.

I'm still not a pro; I don't get paid for suture removal. (I did get a kiss, but I get those even when I'm not pulling unnatural substances from her epidermis). I'm not even ready for Synchronized Suture Removal at the Olympic games in two weeks. But I do feel all medical and stuff. And I am pretty sure if you need thread cut and pulled from your epidermis that I can accept payment in small quantities of chocolate without triggering a "tax event".

So, for all your suture removal needs, contact me. For the right endorsements-- or sponsorship to the Olympics-- I'll even waive the chocolate.

Old Dog, New Trick

Did you ever wonder if you really can teach an old dog a new trick? It turns out you can. It works with people, too.

For instance, tonight taught me that putting coffee beans in the basket and trying to make coffee only makes slightly brown water, and turns the beans too soggy to use.

I love munching on coffee beans. Not these; they have the consistency of rubber. Yuck. Note to self: "Don't forget the grinder!"

Distractions and coffee making when you need coffee don't tend to mix.

Mom's Disease - Humor

Mom had this disease, a speech impediment which caused her to say hysterical, dumb, or embarrassing things. She explained it this way: "My tongue gets wrapped around my eye teeth, and I can't see what I'm saying."

A lot of things she said cracked us up, worried us, or embarrassed us. Sometimes all at once. I doubt most of them were original, but the way she used them, they were hers. Even during my teenage years, after I'd heard them all a thousand times, they would still crack me up. Even in front of my friends.

My brother, Bill, recalls, (you'll have to ask him how fondly) her saying, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out." I don't recall her saying that to me. Draw from this what you will.

Most double mastectomy breast cancer survivors don't tend to make a lot of jokes about it. Bill reminded me that Mom did.

"I was standing in a group (at Publix) showing off some new meatballs and my boob dropped onto the floor."
("Who else could say that with a straight face?" -Bill)
He forgot to mention the second part. "As I bent over to pick it up, apologizing to the embarrassed man in front of me, the other one fell out!"

The one that always made me nervous was the one she used if she owed me something, such as if she were a couple of bucks short at the grocery store and borrowed it from me.

"Mom, may I have my two dollars?"
"What two dollars?"
"You borrowed it from me a couple of days ago at Safeway, remember?"
"Don't worry. I'll owe you til I die before I'll cheat you out of it." "..."

Even when it made me nervous, the way she said it, so innocently, so sincerely, so tauntingly (all at once), usually made me smile.

She would have done well on stage.

Dad has a great sense of humor as well, but Mom articulated hers a lot more. We kids all ended up with it. When our self described "Evil stepmother" (who I lovingly call Mom now that Mom #1 is gone)-- a wonderful counselor and hospice manager-- called us together to help us prepare for Mom's death (her 412th (whatever) bout with cancer was finally claiming her physical life), it rapidly degenerated into a joke fest, discussing things such as bronzing Mom and standing her up over her grave, and what her pose should be (picking up her rubber boob after it fell out?). Wink just stared at us at first, then relaxed. We might not cope normally, but we'd cope.

And we have.

As I finished writing this, I realized that Mom kept her promise. Over my childhood and teenage years she probably borrowed $20 - $30 ($50 to $100 in today's money) from me. She owed me til she died, but she never cheated me out of it.

Paging Mr. Roadkill

(I wrote this Nov 11 of last year. It's been lurking ever since, but I found it just now, peeping through the disk drive.)

A while back at a restaurant, I ate spicy, Italian food and, shall we say, made the bench seat vibrate. My niece said, "I think your pager's going off."

"I don't have a pager."

She and my daughter looked at each other. Realization dawned. They both jumped up, making faces. "Eewwwww!"

Tonight, at Chuys (Tex-Mex) my pager went off a *lot*.

I still don't have a pager.

Hi, Ashley and Shaunda!

Who Needs Drugs?

On occasion, I'm asked why I don't drink. Once in a while, I get asked whether I do drugs. Although it's typically more like, "Really? You don't do drugs? Then how are you so weird?"

It's simple. My mind naturally produces controlled substances.

The DEA routinely kicks in the door to my skull, runs in wearing black masks and with guns drawn, seizes my brain, takes it to an open field, and burns it. Then they have to collect all the animals that breathed the fumes and sequester them in the hopes they'll return to normal. Apparently a rooster who thinks he can fly an airplane or cow who thinks she can produce technicolor milk (and especially one that does these things) is a threat to national security. Livestock that don't return to normal eventually end up in politics.

Which explains why so many of our federal legislators have absolutely no clue what the Constitution says. They're hallucinating.

So there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.

And don't forget, horses are livestock, too. If you see one repairing flats off I20 in west Texas, wave. That's Uncle Jerry.