The day my barber left town

When I was young and moody any change was good but when you get on the far end of fifty it seems nothing changes for the better nor does it completely heal and so you grieve for the first leaf that falls in autumn and wince when your tennis elbow flares up. So I went to my medical specialist---together we’re putting his kids through college---- pointed to my offending elbow and he injected my arm with steroids and I thanked him. No problemo.

Having mended my wing and contributed to higher education I walked outside into a warm sunny day with clear blue skies which naturally put me the mood for a haircut.
But my barber, Jim, had left town for two weeks. I rode around the city hoping, looking, and slowing down to peer at store fronts that might contain a barber. Finally I found myself in a mall standing in front of a hair salon that said “Professional Hairstylist. Walk-ins Welcome” so I walked in.

Everything was black and white. The floor was black tile and the chairs were black too. The walls were white with big mirrors and there were posters of men and women looking insulted and anemic dressed in black leather with rows of rings in their ears and their thumbs jammed into the front pockets of their jeans. A mobile was suspended from the ceiling made of objects like a tennis ball (black), a spoon (white) and a plastic pair of scissors (black). The magazines had themes about being All Woman--- even the men’s magazines were about that.

A young lady appeared from out of nowhere wearing black leather and white ear rings with black and white streaked hair ---I realized she had been standing in front of me, camouflaged—and said her name was Star and asked me how I was doing. I said I was fine. She appeared to be eighteen but at my age half the population looks eighteen.

“Dja know whatcha want?” she asked chewing and snapping some gum.
I wanted to say “my normal” but I didn’t think Star knew “normal” so I told her just a trim and I shrugged as though this wasn’t a big deal. I’m Baptist, beauty is not what we’re about--- it’s your soul that’s important, that and stories about Hell and being humble.

“First time here?” ( Snap!) She said. I replied yes which completely satisfied her curiosity about me. She began to cut and snip. In ten minutes she removed the black and white zebra patterned smock, turned me to face the mirror and asked “Howszat?” (Snap!)

I looked and saw an aging man whose hair was chopped and spiked-- like it was reacting to low voltage. But I was raised to always be polite so I told her it was fine, thank you very much, paid her and left. If this was a trim then my rear end was a keyboard.

I walked through the mall anticipating to see women swoon and pamphlets thrust at me advertising intervention programs. I found an old NC State baseball cap in my truck and pulled it down tight on my head.

I got home angry and full of regrets about what I should have said, like the way most people get thirty minutes after something happens.

My wife was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce when I walked in and when she saw me take off my cap she put the big spoon down and said “Well, look at you.”

“Yea?” I growled.

“Yes, you’ve got the most beautiful blue eyes. Come here sailor.”

Thanksgiving is about tradition, God help us

A pre-Thanksgiving phone call:

Adult son: But mother—

Mother: No. I want your family to be happy and do what you really want to do. If you don’t want to come over for a Thanksgiving meal, I understand---I don’t want anyone to feel they have to come on my account—

Adult son: But Mother, we thought just this once Deb would cook the turkey and you ----

Mother: I would rather spend Thanksgiving alone than with people who feel forced to sit at my table---the one your father ate at for 58 years.

Adult son: Mother, all I said was---

Mother: I heard you. I would rather sit here alone—on my couch— and eat a frozen turkey dinner than be with people who don’t want to be with me.

Adult son: Oh, Mother!

Mother: You know, I should just sell the house-- make everybody happy, give the money to the church and move into the Golden Gate retirement home then my children won’t have to take time out of their busy schedule----.

Adult son (voice catching in his throat): Now please Mother, I didn’t mean---

Mother: I’ll just go to The Home and make some real friends. You won’t be bothered by me anymore. I’ll be fine Honey. Really.

Adult son (clutching phone receiver, lying on the floor in a fetal position, sobbing): Momma----Mommy-----

Mother: When you come bring some bread. I’m out and I know you love my stuffing.

___________________________

And this is why an entire generation of young women cannot cook a turkey.


Every year new wives and daughters try to lift the burden of holiday cooking from the shoulders of our mothers and grandmothers only to be treated like a potted plant ( “Sweetheart, you just stand there in case I need something”).

Less you consider breaking with tradition you are reminded of your cousin Lindsey. She went rogue in ’98 when to her husband’ dismay she decided to bake the turkey herself. She studied books on the culinary preparation of turkey, took an on-line turkey baking course and even joined a Tuesday night support group. She prepared the turkey, set the oven to 350 degrees and let the bird cooked for two and half hours per instructions. No one knows what happened--- during it’s life maybe the bird snorted PCB’s or ate Teflon, who knows--- but it came out looking like a mummified Egyptian bird, it’s baked wings spread as though it had been terrorized at the moment of death. It would have taken the Jaws of Life to cut off a drumstick.

The mother-in-law retired to the living room while Italian music played in the background and the family took turns bowing and kissing the top of her right hand as Lindsey watched alone from a smoky kitchen. An In-law realized Lindsey was watching and quickly closed the door on this view of the family scene. Now Lindsey lives alone under a restraining order and has a very bad vermouth problem.

But still you want to contribute so you offer to bring a simple pie, but you may be walking into a mine field. The crust could come out burnt or soggy. Do you own a rolling pin? Is your marriage up to this? Suppose the filling tastes like dead hamsters?

For days you ponder the wisdom of baking a pie. You pray about this and then one night while flossing your teeth God sends you a vision of a Food Lion supermarket with its wonderful selection of pies-- in the frozen section.

You rinse your mouth and smile. Everything is going to be okay.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Draw on your ear and sing like a Viking

Recently my mind took a short vacation and went to Cancun, or Myrtle Beach or somewhere and left me sitting in Starbuck’s reading a story I had written on a napkin. The top of my ear began to itch and I absent mindedly scratched it with a ball point pen. A minute later I realized I had drawn all over my ear and cheek. A quick glance into a nearby mirror showed I had sketched a rough draft of South America---or maybe my digestive system and a parrot.

I felt my face turn red and I noticed an attractive woman walking my way. She stopped, placed a clean napkin on the table and said, “I’ve never seen anybody do that before. Never.” And she didn’t mean it as a compliment. The very next day I slipped off a curb and with arms waving in the air I over compensated and crashed backwards onto the asphalt. My first thought was that I could do that even better with a banana peel and some vaudeville music. A passing lady stopped, looked down at me and just as her mother had taught her regarding people lying in public streets she asked “Are you alright?” “Yes,” I said. “I’m okay. Thank you very much”.

And I am okay too, really. The pen and ear incident was due to inattention and so was the ungraceful fall but once winter sets in and autumn is done with all its drama, emotional upheavals and lost opportunities to lose weight before the holidays and we start wearing heavy coats and anticipate the first snow--- then we will recover our sense of balance and we’ll focus on survival instead of scribbling on ourselves and falling about.

I know people who are hoping for some more clear 70 degree Saturdays for leaf-raking but it’s not going to happen. God has moved on. Most of us have raked our yards and are pumped up about the coming snows. We’re like a chorus of Nordic villagers coming on stage in an opera at the end of Act I dressed in thick bear skin coats with a backdrop of blowing snow and Beigarth the Viking wearing a furry cap with horns has captured the beautiful Princess and with sword raised vows to make her love him, and we all sing “The cold makes us strong and brave! The winter winds strengthen our hearts and make us grateful for Beef Wellington with a light salad for we know proper diet is the secret of happiness. Hurrah!” Cue the curtain.

As a Baptist I grow suspicious of spontaneous joy and tend to favor adversity and mild depression---that’s just how I roll. Winter keeps me focused on decongestants and shoveling snow. When you’re an old guy passing through heart attack country you pick up a snow shovel with trepidation, then you take a deep breath and attack the driveway with the fatal heroism of Old Yeller. Suddenly you feel closer to God. Really close.

Meanwhile the lazy non-leaf-rakers will see their yards ruined due to fungus that grows under the leaves and secrete poisons into the soil. Their home will decrease in value and the bank will foreclose and the family will move south to work in the sugar cane fields and their cars will sit on cinder blocks and their wives will be ravished by cruel land owners who wear suspenders over dirty undershirts. Those folks will wish a thousand times they had resisted autumn’s drama and buckled down and raked their leaves like the good neighbors did.

Now, what was I talking about? Oh yea, Cancun.

One man's pornography is another man's home

I was sitting in the Milwaukee airport when I found a piece of paper in my pocket, a Bible verse from Sunday school. It was Ecclesiastes 5:12 “The sleep of a laboring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” which explains why over 80 million Americans get less than six hours of the required eight hours sleep. Americans are wealthy by the world’s standards and according to some statistics we each have at least 1.3 houses, two cars and cholesterol levels high enough to start a grease fire.

And now the housing market has tanked, health care costs are daunting, oil prices are rising and we wonder how long before the Chinese cut off our credit. You lie in bed at night with the covers pulled up to your chin, your eyes wide open wondering if you should learn to speak Mandarin.

Sitting beside me waiting for the boarding call was a gentleman looking at real estate ads in a newspaper. He was holding up a full page advertisement for a $12.5M home and appeared to be ogling it. Aware I was watching him he turned and said “I’m in real estate. From Chicago.” He grinned, “This is like pornography to me!” You smile and quietly move to another row of seats.

I was raised in Greenville, NC in a $20K 3BR, 1B ranch style house with one large picture window that looked directly into the picture window of the neighbors across the street. But I saw beyond that--- all the way to New York City where I imagined I use to live with my real parents, Charles and Adelle Jacquard, famous actors from France who were involved in a train accident that left them with amnesia and not knowing who I was they gave me up for adoption to a group of Baptists. I would imagine my early years in Manhattan playing in my cathedral ceiling bedroom and my sophisticated celebrity mother rushing in wearing a black formal dress, a red feather boa around her neck holding a martini glass in one hand saying “Bonjour, mon cher!”

But the Baptist family I grew up with shunned elegance. There were peanuts, small toys and loose change beneath the couch cushions and clothes scattered about the house. If the door bell rang announcing guests, we exploded off the couch, everyone picked up debris, hurled it into the bedrooms and we shoved the dog out the back door.

I lived afraid that people may realize we lacked sophistication and so I never got close to anyone. I was drawn to blues singers and gypsies, always moving about, constantly looking over my shoulder. It was a lonely life. I wished to be wealthy.
But one day I realized I no longer yearned for a $14.8 M Cape Cod mansion with 6BR, 7B, 2LR, Guest House and a scenic ocean view. Instead I was a father buying Pokémon cards and attending PTA meetings.

Now I live in a house with 1WIFE, 3BR, 2B and 1DOG.
My cell phone rings. It’s my wife and she says “Hi, miss you. What time will you be home?”

What a wonderful question.

To be missed and longed for---God’s gift to both rich and poor—like cold water or flirting.

The humble home proper—what a blessing. Without it life would be nomadic and you would be nowhere at any point in time, neither “gone” nor “returning”.

But right now I’m 30,000 feet in the air thinking about my recliner, sweet kisses and a pampered dog. I’ll be home soon. Bonjour, mon cheri!