News from the Big Yard Park on the Hill
…Right next to the busy road. –But that doesn’t sound as good.
by JP
There’s always been a cute little cottage next door to us out here in the rural-burbs, other than that we’re kinda on our own on an edge of a subdivision full of rules. We could raise cows if we wanted.
The church next to the cottage owned it and the several acres it sat on. They were going to turn it into a halfway house for battered women. 10 feet from our house. Nice. (“No, Mr. Madman, your Tw-Timin Gal is next door! Really!”) Well, it turns out that bureaucracy killed that scheme: cottage wouldn’t pass inspection. So they tore it down. Now we’re basically in the midst of the prettiest park you ever saw. So many big lovely trees. It’s not bad sitting here typing all day every day. It’s quite ironic that we neighborhood bums have the best lot in the area for free. I wonder what the chief surgeon across the street buried in his quicky mansion built in someone else’s back yard thinks of the situation. (The church says they won’t sell it.)
The trees shade us so that we have snow a month after everyone else! Our other neighbor has green grass on the other side of his hedge (we can’t really see him) and we have snow.
Had a funny experience with the cottage demo guy. The church had bungled the demo and it sat for a year being half torn down. Nice. Big dumpster and trash. First demo guy finally fired, new guy shows up. I ask if they’re going to finally get down to business. He acted like he wanted to punch me right then and there. I’d never really met such a pugnacious person. So I called his boss and asked what was the deal. Turns out he is a boxer! And comes from an Irish family of boxers. I knew his older brothers in high school days. Guys to watch out for. So then this guy and I got along better. He was scared of his brothers, too.
Man, this guy was a live wire. Boxers are different folk. Everything he did was snappy and quick, with a macho air. He was totally built, too. Not in a bodybuilder way, tho—that’s not very scary—in a 1000-jumprope, hour with a bag, hour sparring kinda way. Bouncer at night. He’s kind of a handyman enforcer for the church’s contractor. Yikes! Contractor was a young guy in a big black car, suit and cell phone. Boxer had shorts and gold chain.
Back when I wasn’t getting along with him, I told my buddy Tom Cannon, who was working on our house, about what happened. I told him to go ask him something. Tom looked over there and said Are you kidding? Tom has a sharp eye.
Which brings me to Tom. He’s an old friend who I grew up canoeing and skiing and skating and biking and attempting to chase girls with. He’s a sharp-eyed carpenter from the old school. He put a new room onto our kitchen this past summer. I helped a bit. A deadline got in the way. But I did dig the whole full basement of it by hand! And salvaged most of the framing and block from the demo’ed cottage next door. Two of the three nice big windows were salvages. We just moved the back door. Tom was the greatest to work with. He’s kinda quiet, but when he does something somehow it’s always right! He’d make occasional offhand suggestions about potential trouble spots or improvements…and I learned to pay attention and say Yes, coz they were darn good ideas. He’d lead off with “A person could…”
It’s good to see his kind of work ethic is still alive. This is kind of a boomin’ area and if I couldn’t’ve got him to do it, I probably couldn’t’ve afforded the other ’boutique’ type of builders with their big crews and shoddy materials.
Tom didn’t always like my old recycled oak studs or mismatched block, but when I offered to just toss it all in the hole next door if using new stuff would be both cheaper and quicker, he ignored me and just adapted to the various outdated widths of things perfectly. When we got to an interior arch he said we could just frame it in…or we could match the other plaster arch across the way. I’m new at this, but I was catching on: let’s match the cool old arch. He said he’d never done any such work before, but after looking at it awhile he left. A couple days later it was done. “You don’t get a chance to make something challenging like that every day, you know,” he said.
During breaks I got him to tell me about his canoeing adventures and every-weekend races. He’s one of the best marathoners in the land, but toward the end of summer talk of retirement came up a lot. Now that it’s a new year, I hear he’s back at it. With his wife partner—who’s probably the #1 best paddlin’ gal in the land. Of course, I try to take the pressure off ’em by telling them that anyone who paddles is #1 Best, or even anyone who doesn’t paddle. But they just keep hammerin’.
We still needed a new countertop. After two local firms turned us down due to the uniqueness of our request and, I’m sure, the all-too-obvious slenderness of our wallet (those durn boutiquers!), enter Terry Place. He was a mile-a-minute with details-this and exceptions-that. Had me nervous at first. Then I decided to just go with the flow. I think he, too, was used to dealing with more well-heeled folk who had eccentric pickinesses about their ticky-tacky installations-probably usually enough to drive a guy nuts or make him adapt. We had no requests other than to match the old and close was good enough. Terry educated us as to the thousand special ways of countertops and laminating materials. He was the opposite of Tom in some ways, yet when the work was done, the entire custom-made, pre-built oddball shape glided into the house, poked out an open window, rotated then pivoted past a cabinet (with a 1/4″ to spare!) and floated perfectly into place. Ta-dah! A little off anywhere: disaster. I didn’t realize how tricky it all was going into it. His price was also perfectly reasonable and fair-not a whiff of ’boutique.’
I went out to his shop in the farmland a couple times to turn big pieces when they needed it and while we were driving around found out that Terry was the general builder for Michigan’s most famous outdoor sports TV shows until it went under due to a lawsuit. This was quite a notorious event statewide, as Michiganders were quite partial to Fred Trost’s “Michigan Outdoors.” And Terry filled me in on the thick and thin of it all. Seems Fred started out as righthand man to Mort Neff, who apparently was the Dean of all outdoor field’n’stream-type TV shows. A little local connection to history. See that latenight cable fishing show? Thank us Michiganders, I guess. I like those shows myself.
So we had quite a time building last year. Whew. Didn’t even lose our shirts.
I splurged and bought a $100 big, deep swimmin pool when it was hot last summer. Can hardly wait to get it filled again! ASAP! Sun will heat it up quick. Go for a run, jump in sweaty! Bought two nice lounger floats, too. Man, talk about an instant unwind. You don’t need a big lake. Just bobbin in a tiny pool will do it. Wish I wouldn’ve cut down that nice leafy walnut limb that hung over the pool, though. It was the perfect way to screen the sun if I wanted; and it contrasted great with the sky. “But Tom said…” the tree would develop two trunks if I didn’t tidy it up. Ya know, there’s a limit to sensible things and taking that branch down when past it. Oh well.
Martha got a piano. I got a big dog. Martha plays nice, simple 1930’s singalongs and hymns. Nothing tricky, but with nice melodies. Daisy the dog (a German Wirehair Pointer) is training up nicely. No jumping up on people even though she bounces like Tigger making the ground shake then tears around like a rubbery thoroughbred. She is eager to please, as they say. She must know I like speed, coz she gives racecar demos just like Skeeter used to. (He’s fine, just slowin’ down a bit.) He’s on my lap right now. Chin resting on my forearm. It’s so fun playing with a big dog, then with a little. Skeeter seems just like a squirrel after Daisy. Delicate and fine, yet muscley. Nice, sleek, loose fur and skin. He’s a little jealous. I think he wants training, too. He’s always been perfect, but a little more pleasin wouldn’t hurt.
I picked up my first regret recently. You know how I’m starting to dress like my Grampa, right? I’m singlehandedly bringing back nice fedoras around here. I’m starting to wear a sportcoat while I pick up sticks around the yard. Well, when he died my Mom told me after the funeral that she put his Bible in his coffin to be buried with him. This was one of those beauty Bibles. Handbound and leather, I’m sure. Cost him a month’s wages back when he bought it. The folks who made King James Family Bibles had a mission. Probably still do. It has to be the best book and it has to last. Gramps’s was real soft from use and full of little notes. I’m sure there were fine tiny rants throughout. I woulda liked that Bible. It’s probably the only one I coulda ever read. I woulda automatically hopped into the oracle category, whereas otherwise I can’t be bothered to open one up…I’d just feel this heaviness of inpenetrability. With Gramps’s that would be the whole point. That Bible had been waved at Billy Sunday tent revivals I bet. (Way before Billy Graham.) Well, I wasn’t in the mood a couple years ago. And I suppose we were just glad to be rid of Gramps when he died. I wished I coulda seen him a lot more, but that’s such an obvious regret. The Missing Bible is my first particular regret.
To help make up for it, we have lots of pictures of G&G up around the house from all decades. I’ve put up the Old Man Praying Over Bread dumpster-dived print like G&G had. I’ve put up an oldtime print of a Grampa in plaid raking leaves with a boy with a church across the street and a generic coachbus going by. That’s my Gramps!
I hope my parents don’t mind my focus on G&G. I guess it’s pretty standard for kids to be more attached to grandparents, who they get to do things and have fun with, than the hardworking parents who are just trying to raise a family and not lose their cool. It skips a generation.
I’ve still been going to the book-reading group meetings that have no rules unless you break one. This group has been meeting for 30 years now. About ten polite people, just the way a Michigander likes it and just the way to get things done. We stay quiet unless we’re moving ahead…or try to anyway.
This whole reading thing, since we’ve read a lot of Old Desert Fathers and Great Writers and the like, has done a lot to give me new perspective and fresh humility. A fresh new pursuit of the question “What am I doing here?”
My new angle is that we have energy and opportunity to contact then stay in touch with the core of life. Or we can waste our energy elsewhere. Or we can do things which create their own weird distracting energy to keep us from just being alive. Just living then working out from there is scary biz. It takes training. I feel all the sports and hobbies I do can point me to greater simplification as they show themselves to be variously wastes of time or just plain don’t pan out. It’s a negative path, as they say. Learn from your mistakes, learn what life isn’t. Bicycling can easily create its own energy as you get involved in it, get psyched for it, get rewards from it, create close friends in it. But whenever this energy tries to get you to separate from yourself or the roots of life, it’s illusory, I’m kinda thinkin. If it gets you to separate from other people for any other reason than it’s easier working with a small group, it’s bad.
So I still like all these activities, but I feel they each deserve strong cautionary tales. Funny how this method is so against the modern consumerist grain! Talk bad about the sport you love? You know we need it. I’m not saying don’t bike, just make sure you’re heading to the other side as fast as you can.
The greatest cyclist is the guy who’s walking. (Ha!)
I’m starting to suspect that biking is good in and of itself, but not as something we fixate upon. On the one hand, we should just let it be, let it do what it’s good for. On the other, we can use it for training whatever about us needs to be trained…a stiff body, a lazy mind, a proud spirit (here’s a thousand flats to show ya who’s boss!). But bike training isn’t for the sake of biking. I’m saying biking is good, but not to get lost or absorbed in. Use it for what it’s for. You decide. We’ll work on it together!
I’m feeling the same way about books and media. And I’m feeling pretty chagrined about the idea that the custom mix of things I like to read could mean anything to anyone else. Well, I guess I *could* edit with more restraint, think more about what you probably haven’t seen rather than what I like. My interests come and go, but you guys stay the same! You’re like college kids. A professor only has to have one course–all new people hear it continuously without knowing it’s the same thing over and over. It becomes like any job. I’ll do my best to uphold my duty. I’ll treat it like the Marines. Semper Fi! Fun isn’t the most important thing. It’s fulfilling my obligation to you readers and subscribers.
Now, it could be that you all *will* like whatever mix I put together, by and large. We’re probably a lot more alike than we think. Which is also kind of embarassing. We’ll all grow old together.
There’s a funny standards thing happening here, too. Sure, I like to read bad stuff, the occasional vented spleen, the offkilter youngster, demented loner. You could find it, too, if you wanted to. But do I want to recommend it? Do I want to pass it along *in general*? It seems my like for it is particular. ‘You had to be there.’ Why should I foist “Crank” or “Gunfag” on you? These people are stubbornly proud of their shallow opposition to those who annoy them. Know what? If you’re reacting to those you hate, you’re letting them be your masters. Maybe I’m so tempted to reprint such things because no one else ever would…because they’re honest and good, given their limitations…and because they’re no worse than the others. (By the way, that was a successful campaign slogan for a local city commissioner awhile back–“No worse than the others.”)
I find that if you’re willing to read some horizon expanding philosophy along with some other writing that shocks your pants off even though it’s about Regular People, you’ll start to get a better picture of humanity, the world and the media. You’ll see who’s really excluded and you’ll start to wonder why. Then, finally, as a disillusioning coup de grace you’ll see the blatant, ignorant and illfound biases of everyone who *is* admitted to various clubs. Maybe you’ll be more tolerant of those you thought were ‘out’ and more critical of those you blindly accepted. And perhaps much of it will be where even you, oh openminded one, least expected it. Ta dah! Another goal of OYB achieved.
You think I’m just giving you cute stories for the heck of it? We’re not here to be entertained or kill time, coz neither thing can truly be done–boredom’s hot on our heels. It don’t work. Only as a marketing tool! I only want to show the good stuff or hassle people in a way I know stands a chance of helping.
All these hobbies are so embarassing. I just got a catalog of traditional archery supplies. It’s great that you can get anything you need. But it was also further eyeopening about how every activity in the land, if you want to do it ‘right,’ can quickly seperate you from your wallet, your time and most importantly…yourself. As we study, compare, build, perfect our hobbies or anything else, it’s so easy to just zone out and leave yourself behind: to become an effective machine of some kind. Look at me getting something done! Doing something tricky exactly right!
I’ll try to do my best with it. And, of course, as mentioned earlier, the funny thing does happen where my liking for things leaves as I see through them. As their magical power over me dissolves for whatever reason. Hey, biking is no better than walking. Cars are just metal, except when the metal’s an ambulance rushing you to the ER. I stop needing to enter races. But I start enjoying the shooting and fishing sports again. Then I see that I can be more successful as provider if I just go to the grocery store for my meat and fish. Maybe I should just be humble and be thankful for the food I get no matter how I get it.
Why don’t I just accept Rome and do as they do. –Until I get the call from within to martyr myself. Did you know that in the days of persecution, people, craftsmen, kids, would just stop what they were doing, see the truth of the world and rush to be martyred? I’m sure the government officials eventually became really weirded out by this. “Hey, Hank, you’re no Christian, what’s up?” “I am now, kill me!” “Whatever ya say, Boss.” I suppose it’s not much different from the vibe that officials in our land seem to be working up to: if we gotta put everyone in prison, so be it. I suppose people can adjust themselves to anything and wouldn’t think it odd in the least if their jobs hung in the balance. Ugh.
Anyway, I’m a modern guy living in the burbs. We can’t all have campfires or there’d be no trees. Face up to the facts. Life is just as meaningful without campfires.
One of the things about moderns is that they move. This alone prevents people from harvesting enough fish, game or produce to be cost and time effective. Life is serious. I imagine one needs all the experience one can get from childhood on to be able to know the cycles of an area and to know where to go and when to get food efficiently.
The fact that we moderns move, indeed, has created the entire Consumer Fishing Industry of Wild Crankbaits & Jive Stuff. People want to catch fish, but can’t since they don’t know the water. So they buy stuff guaranteed to get the lunkers. (See story.)
If you move you can’t go back. So you better be content with food at the store and with all other forms of mass necessity delivery. Coz that’s the only way it’ll work. You can still touch ground in such a life. But pray you don’t get caught up in fantasy or illusion, or someone will take advantage of you right quick.
I had the best discovery the other day: a desperate religion story in a punk zine. Sure it was wild, but it was also trying hard. Every type of genre eventually has its religion angle. I like that. It really isn’t just biking or music…well, it is, but we know we quickly start to take them for more than they are…and quickly get lost. So every good mag has its spirit pieces. Some try harder, seem to see farther than others. This punk zine’s piece was great. It tried to start from the very beginning. But it confused Good and Evil with affirmation and negation. Whups. A & N go with Being and Nonbeing. Good is beyond both. It’s things working as they should, which we with our limited senses can’t really know what that is. (He got the limited senses part down pat.) Good is also Unity, Wholeness, also beyond us, but a direction we can orient ourselves, something we can train towards. Evil is, by definition Deception, the cause of Confusion, a leading astray. Sin isn’t bad or wrong; it’s by definition a ‘missing the mark.’ So where the final result caused our punk writer bitter despair (I’m forever balanced on the horns of G & E!), I see the end as more of a search. Towards G, eyes open about E. Being and Nonbeing also have their little dance…but I see them mainly as humbling effects. (Wherever you go, there you are. If you stop, pretty soon you want to go.) Use and learn. Don’t stop. Try not to be a sucker, and when you see you can’t help it, let that lowly feeling give you perspective and your neighbor a break.
I’ll try to keep this issue simple: Stories about the outdoors and homegrown culture things you’re not likely to find anywhere else. A little directory gathered up neat and tidy.
Like Bukowski said on the first page of Pulp: “dedicated to bad writing”.
