Comfort, thy name is Recliner

I was flying from Raleigh to Charlotte in one of those little prop planes that forces you into a personal relationship with your seatmate. Mine was a slim gentleman, a German with dark rimmed utilitarian glasses. His name was Hartwin.

He had interviewed with the University of London and was now scheduled to interview for a position at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He asked about the people of Charlotte. I said they were the salt of the earth, full of kindness and decency, no pretense, they don’t live to show off, what you see is what you get, they’re as sweet as candy, the sky is blue--I was getting rhapsodic. Myself, I would never consider moving to Charlotte.

I saw him later in the airport, he’d found some associates and was looking relaxed—he had the world by the tail. I realized that a man choosing between London and Charlotte has a wide range of options. I waved from across the lobby.

I am a very domesticated creature myself, enamored with routine, resistant to change or moves. I like my mornings to begin at the manor estate under blankets in the master’s bed, then progress to blue jeans, next the local newspaper on the front steps, my favorite stained coffee cup, the dog scratching at the door, a blue car in the garage, the bent basketball hoop over the door to the shop, the Williams family next door—it’s all nice. There is a bit of drama when I choose between a white or blue shirt—I gave up patterns and stripes years ago. And though it’s now embarrassing to be considered monolingual, I choose English, every morning. It’s a good language to horse around in and my editor prefers it. The day ends in my old recliner, it has a place wallowed out just the size of my butt. I fit nicely.

The recliner came from a store across town and I insisted on hauling it home in my pick-up truck to avoid delivery fees. I chose to leave the tailgate down after loading the chair because I could place the heavy recliner closer to the back edge and not have so far to pull it out again. The furniture guy questioned this. Amazing how gifted and talented people such as me always seem to be at odds with experts.

I was accelerating up a steep hill, it was about 8:00 at night, on a Friday, when I realize the chair that had been blocking my rear view had slid out--- it was gone. I pulled over and spotted the recliner straddling both lanes--it was just sitting there, reclined.

I dashed through a gap in the traffic and raced towards the chair. Brakes screeched, somewhere a woman screamed, a car swerved and horns started blowing. A truck whooshed by and I got to experience the Doppler Effect and suddenly I remembered all the words to “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. A car’s headlights suddenly bore down on me as if I was a raccoon, I shrieked and scurried on.

I made it to the chair and with the help of a Good Samaritan wrestled it back onto my truck. I arrived home and my wife asked “How’d it go?” I looked sideways, focused on a picture on the far wall and said “No problemo.”

When I finish writing this column I will go downstairs and sit in my old worn recliner. After having risked life and limb, why would I ever consider leaving it for London or another city? It’s comfortable, I have a TV remote and I fit, oh so nicely.

I call freedom by cell phone

Hot summer nights in July, darkness descends and the fragrance of grilled hamburgers and fresh cut grass wafts in the air, night creatures chatter and chirp and children come and go while we stand on our front porch occasionally rattling the ice cubes in a near empty glass of ice tea. In Washington D.C. our elected lawmakers debate the national budget while millions of people await the outcome, their lives on hold. But we all know what’s really crucial---our cell phones.

Cell phones are more important than the budget as I recently learned when my phone went missing-- a small bit of technology which I found in the washing machine. I immediately adopted our government’s strategy of finances by ignoring lack of funds and decided it must be replaced immediately. Until then my life really was on hold.

Cell phones are crucial and used so much that it’s illegal in North Carolina to drive while text-messaging. Trying to type out a message on a tiny keyboard while traveling at 65 m.p.h. is dangerous (“I’m hurrying home dear. I’ll be there in 15 min---NO NO NO aieeeeeeee!”) but it’s okay to call and talk on a cell phone at 65 m.p.h. I have to scroll down to find a number so I steer with my knees and call my mother which she thinks is a marvel since she is 76 and remembers when phones hung on walls, had cords and you talked standing in one place. “But honey, is this safe?” she asks.

Well, no, it’s not but then nothing in life is completely safe. Cholesterol, gamma rays, cigarette smoke, a tsunami just as you walk out on the beach, your housekeeper seduces you and has your baby and years later you have to secretly buy her a $100,000 house---it’s a jungle out there.

Back in the day the highway was a place of freedom without fear. We worshiped cars. I loved to run errands for my mother that involved driving to the city which was 21 miles from our farm. Why? There was a perfectly straight stretch of lawless road, highway 43, that ran through lonely tobacco fields and towering pine forests on which I maintained my 1971 Pontiac Firebird at 105 m.p.h. ( no seatbelt, mind you) for 13 miles of that trip. I weighed the chances of a farmer slowly pulling his old pick-up truck onto the highway and our two lives becoming tangled together but I raced anyway, and when I got to the city limits I changed back into a nice Christian boy helping his poor mother.

A little bureaucrat inside me wants to crack down on speeding and cell phone users but a young boy in me wants the free open highway. We all want contradictory things. You can go to the theater and experience a musical and leave feeling uplifted and enlightened but then hear Willie Nelson sing “On the Road Again” and feel just as enlightened and happy. And a sweet child singing “Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam” can tear your heart apart like all get out
.
So let us be smart and drive carefully and let our leaders work through their political tangles and squabbles. They are working with our contradictions—we are a people that want much but we have not the means. We need reforms yet we are leery of reform and those fears cluster like seagulls gathered in the K-Mart parking lot. But they will rise as a cloud when we drive through them and we’ll motor down the road with our cell phones, call our families and life will go on