Random Friday Stuff
September 3, 2010 | 1 Comment
I’ve got lots to tell you about. I mean, lots.
But the best news is that I understand you are hearing those voices in your head too. Your neighbor told me about it. She heard them. You seem to be a loud thinker.
It’s going to be okay.
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I’ve been using most of my louder thoughts to ricochet off the Worcester Range. The words break into tiny shards, then drop, softly, but still plenty sharp for the townspeople below.
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Hey wait, aren’t you the guy who opposed the fireworks?
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A mosque in the city?
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Oh Mr. America, you can be such a stupid bastard.
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What I Did Not Learn in Therapy:
I’m not so sure about something: You.
Mostly because it takes the pressure off: Me.
They frown on that shit.
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Daughter Test: I got to stop cutting wood early the other morning to take Izzie, as she’s now demanding to be called, to her dentist appointment.
It was over by noon.
So, being the responsible father that I am, I gave her two choices (it’s all about empowerment, baby):
“I can take you back to school or we can go home, grab the kayaks, and go to No. 10 Pond and head to our favorite swimming spot for the afternoon.”
I’m big on offering choices. I learned it from my parents, the folks who convinced me as an eleven-year-old that seeing “The Exorcist” was a fine “choice.” [Note to self: Mention this to future therapists).
Izzie – as she’s now demanding that she be called – passed the test: She chose me! No, not the kayaks, the gloriously clean and crisp waters of No. 10 Pond, and an afternoon of total water play, but me.
Deal with it. It’s my blog.
I’m glad Izzie passed her test.
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Speaking of Izzie, her new school recently had a “parents’ night” for the parents of the “new kids.” On the way there, I got words of warning from both the girl and woman in my life about behaving myself. My daughter didn’t want me to embarrass her by, say, talking. And my wife didn’t want me to…well…do the same.
I had been warned.
It’s a good thing, too, because I had to sit through things like this:
“We do things differently around here,” said the principal to the gathering of about 200 parents in a school’s elegant auditorium. “We call everyone by their first name, students AND faculty.”
Oh my.
“The kids don’t have a hard time with this,” he continued, “but the parents do.”
My wife put her hand on my knee and gave it a gentle squeeze, providing a quick reminder about the warnings delivered on the way there.
“So let’s practice,” the principal said.
My wife squeezed harder.
“I’m going to say, ‘hello, parents,’ and I’d like all of you to say, ‘hello, Keith,’ right back to me.”
I began to lose circulation in my lower leg.
“Hello, parents!” he called out, just like he said he was going to do.
“Hello, Keith!” we offered back, just like he asked us to.
I suspect I will be in a knee brace for the next six years.
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I would very much like Keith to call me Mr. Colby.
And that goes for the rest of you, too.
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Wait, I’m having a school flashback:
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Class dismissed.
I (heart) Hope, Too.
September 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Book World: Eileen Myles Edition
September 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Watch it to the end. It gets better as it rolls along.
Oh yeah, and then buy the book.
On War and Walden
August 31, 2010 | 3 Comments
I went to Walden on Sunday to pick wild apples and swim.
On the way, just outside of Hardwick, I noticed I was following a big, shiny black van with license plates that said: GOVERNMENT. It was also sporting a “Vermont National Guard” decal.
I knew where they were going: To the home of the Walden man, Tristan Southworth, who died last week in Afghanistan as a member of the Vermont National Guard.
And I guess I’m getting old, too. Because calling the 21-year-old Tristan “a man” seems odd. He did, after all, only just become legal to buy a cold can of beer at the same Hardwick Quick Stop that I stopped at on Sunday afternoon.
Tristan’s home is about a half mile from our camp in Walden. Or about a mile from the home we lived in for nearly a decade while dutifully serving our Walden Time.
Walden, of course, is wicked cold, isolated (No store! No post office! And nobody seems to notice!), and economically challenged. It is, therefore, prime recruiting ground for young men and women like Tristan who are looking for some way to “stick around.”
Frankly, we should be ashamed of what we are offering our youth.
Imagine, for example, if a young man like Tristan was offered a chance to serve the country by helping to truly protect it from the real boogeymen: poverty and its sinister and willing accomplice, greed.
Sticking with that theme, consider these words from the Vermont National Guard’s mission statement:
[To] p rovide to the State of Vermont trained and equipped personnel to protect life and property, preserve the peace, order and public safety. Add value to our communities by involvement in local and state programs.
Please, which part of this mission involved sending a Walden boy to Afghanistan?
I only met Tristan once, as far as I can remember. He was a little boy, probably about six. His mom was friends with Steve Hale, a friend of mine too, the fella who first called me, “Moike.”
Steve was about as local Walden as local Walden can be. But we hit it off really well. We organized the “locals vs. the flatlanders” softball game. Yes, game. Because, quite frankly, we (flatlanders, duh) were so bad that it was hardly worth the effort.
Steve invited the Southworth family to be on his side. And that’s when I met Tristan.
Like I said, I didn’t know him. But following the government van to Tristan’s house on Sunday made me want to try and remember him.
I gathered apples throughout the day, looking down the hill toward Tristan’s house from time to time. You could hear the cars coming and going.
It was a rare but perfect Walden day: sunny, warm, no bugs and the water looked thick in the late-summer light.
I picked apples. I swam. And I thought.
The best I can report is: This sucks.
We were fooled. We refuse to admit that we were fooled. And we continue down a national warpath that is killing thousands of U.S. citizens like Tristan and hundreds of thousands of Afghanistan and Iraq citizens, many innocent civilians.
Until we realize that war is the most pathetic and misguided place to channel our so-called patriotism, we will continue to be fooled. Time after time.
Worse, many good Democrats will be fooled again tonight by President Obama’s speech to the nation regarding “the end of the Iraq War.” They will allow themselves to feel better about the new rhetoric and the timelines. Oh, the timelines!
But they will be fooled. Because from the moment President Obama says that, “the combat mission is over,” there will still be 50,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and twice that many “military contractors.”
“Wink, wink, nod, nod,” is what Obama is offering the nation tonight.
Because he can. That’s what we, the people, tolerate: Strong leaders! And liars! Well, as long as the liars are on “our team!”
Sadly, the script for tonight has already been written – and well-rehearsed: The Good Democrats will cheer that “their man” has a plan for calling war something not so unpleasant and The Good Republicans will jeer since “their man” isn’t able to do the same (and better!), damn it.
Did you detect the difference? Good. Keep it in mind in November. Or not.
Otherwise, just keep saying this to yourself in the mirror whenever you hear “the parties” speak: Keep fooling me. Bring it. I like it. Over and over. Go team. Better than YOUR team.
And, whatever you do, don’t admit that Tristan in Walden had absolutely no business being in Afghanistan doing what he was dutifully doing for a U.S. military/industrial complex that is being led by a man from one party while the members of the “other” party happily play along.
Ah! Two-party bliss!
The same two-party bliss that led to the policies that took Tristan Southworth from the wilds of Walden to the all-too-different wilds of Afghanistan.
Support the troops? Hear, hear, cried the party faithful. Both parties.
Whatever you do, don’t spoil the mood. The two-party mood, as in: Support the Troops! (Read: And the absolutely incomprehensible and simply unsupportable reasons to support the mission that these troops are – wink, wink, nod, nod – trying to carry out.)
Got that? Good.
But the truth of the matter is: Tristan Southworth should have been picking apples with me on Sunday in Walden.
Which is to say: Stop the wars. Now.
Rest in peace (yes, peace), Tristan.
Corn Dreams Die Hard [updated]
August 30, 2010 | 1 Comment
Overwhelmed with corn, we set up a stand in front of our house on Saturday. Better yet, we placed a sign that read “Sweet Corn for Sale” at the intersection of the town’s busier streets.
Sales were slow at first. But then we remembered from our Farmers’ Market days that abundance sells. So, instead of putting a couple dozen ears of corn on the table, I harvested about seven dozen and piled them high. Bingo.
I couldn’t pick the corn fast enough – by the wheelbarrow full. Which, of course, begs the question: Why, Moike, did you plant so much goddamn corn?
To which, I can only answer (as I have on several times to my wife): Because.
It works sometime. That, or she’s just come to privately accept that she married a fucking idiot nearly twenty years ago.
Yeah, that’s it.
But the corn was selling. Flying off the table. Word was spreading through the town, I just know it, that “Colby was selling the best goddamn corn in all of the land.” And they flocked for it.
My mind swam in the deep waters of corn-king possibilities.
“Vermont,” I thought, “meet Iowa.”
And there truly could not be a better ambassador. Hand, meet glove.
I admit it, some of my corn ideas were stupid. One Google effort revealed a gentleman who had one of the exact same ideas as I had.
I didn’t let it deter me.
Until tragedy struck the budding corn enterprise.
“Dad?” my daughter called out. “Where’s the corn table?”
“What?” was the only thing that came to mind.
“The corn table. It’s gone.”
And it was.
The corn sold so fast that the empty table looked like a free offering to the community. And off it went, apparently, to some happy folks who snagged one beauty of an antique table.
But the table can be replaced. Maybe. If we bought a table now and lived with it for a hundred years.
What can’t be replaced is the dream that died with that table.
Yes, this is to say that the corn dream is no more. The theft of the corn table was the surest sign yet that being the corn king isn’t worth it.
It’s clear: Corn attracts crime.
And I will not subject my family to it. Period.
Friends and neighbors: I am out of the corn business.
P.S. Please return my corn table.
[Update: At 5:27 pm this evening, just as I was feeding my family another meal of corn (and chard and beans, etc.), a man knocked on the door. "I was told that I took your corn table." Gotta love small towns and blogs, baby. But wait. Now I've got my corn table back. Oh shit.]
Monday Morning Alertness Test
August 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment
On Parenting (today)
August 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Today was the day. School and all.
And I had this on my blank screen: Good start.
I wasn’t much in the mood to write. Too much thinking.
Sometimes, a friend once told me, it’s best to get into your body and out of your mind. And so it was.
Running, perhaps. From it, for certain.
This blanket of newness, scratchy and odd fitting.
Fuck.
One day you’re a homeschooling dad.
And the next you’re just unemployed.
Oops.
August 27, 2010 | 7 Comments
I’ve been having trouble with WordPress, the platform used to publish Broadsides. And in a clumsy attempt to fix it myself (“Don’t do it, Moike!”) I apparently did a number of things I wasn’t supposed to.
Oops.
I think, from the readers’ end of things, the only think you’ll notice is a loss of a whole bunch of recent comments. [Note to Petey: Please don't rev up your conspiracy motor. And I'm pretty sure it all has nothing to do with 9/11.]
There will also be a continued lack of photos, the original problem I set out to fix. But I failed. Add it to the list.
Finally, I wanted to warn readers that I will be paying personal visits to each and every one of you in the coming weeks. I want to get to know you like you know me. Thanks to ReaderMap, I know where you live and more than I want to know about many of your personal habits. Which is to say, I know about the best times to visit you.
I look forward to meeting you.
Great Campaign Moments (part 1)
August 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment
A Beautiful Day (or: Today)
August 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment
There are people all over Vermont getting nervous about tonight, primary night. But I don’t want to hear any of their shit. Not. A. Word. Because while they might be all nervous about someone named Shumlin, Racine or Markowitz, (you know, people with a chance), I’ve been forced to host a primary-night gathering for Mr. Boots Wardinski.
It’s simple enough, really. I mean, it will be Boots, his sometimes-willing partner, Chris, and…and…my family. Trust me, if we didn’t live here, we wouldn’t be joining the party either.
But Boots wanted a party. Or, more accurately, Chris wanted Boots to having something to do on primary night, so Boots decided on a party. At my house. Surprise, surprise.
It gets worse. Boots has a strict bedtime. Which is why he clearly announced in his proclamation for a primary party at my house that he would be leaving when the polls close.
Let me repeat that for those of you not paying attention: Candidate Boots want to – no, make that, is having – a party in my home tonight to celebrate the end of his primary race for lt. governor and he will be leaving before the first votes have been counted. Um, that would be 7:00 pm.
“But you can carry on,” Boots continued.
Cool. Thanks. It will almost be like I’m at home.
And so it goes for those of us connected to Vermont’s political elite. What can I say, we have connections. We host the players. We roam the pastures of power. It is who we are. Deal with it.
And then we realize we’re home. And we go to sleep.
Ah, primary night in Worcester.
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Sorry, Mom, I forgot to take out the trash (again).
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Wait. This just in: Twelve-dozen ears of corn met their freezer-bound fate today in Worcester. A man and his daughter rejoiced in the farm-y-ness of it all. Well, the man did. The daughter seemed like she was on one of those obligatory trips to the senior center. But it was what it was to each.
Good enough for me.
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Wait, did I say twelve dozen? Fuck.
I need a job.
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And then six quarts of edamame met the same freezer fate.
Hire me now.
–
This day shall be called: Insanely beautiful.
And I’m glad to say that I enjoyed it.
So far.
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