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Weak Minded Magoo

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I’m certain most people over 60 know the cartoon figure “Weak Eyed Magoo.” As I contemplate another move, I’m beginning wonder if I might qualify as a different Magoo, the “Weak Minded” version. I’m not worried about packing the house. Books, dishes, clothes, and other household items sort of have a logic as to how you pack them.

But when I look in the garden shed and in the garage, all I can think is “Too much stuff!” Most of which I have moved six times and almost all of which I intended to dump years ago. It is the detritus from the time when money was tight and when I personally rebuilt my car engines, replaced a front spring on my pickup, did my own brake jobs, painted my own house, poured my own concrete, put new shingles on my h0use and made up for lack of money with sweat.

On one level I know it doesn’t make sense to pack all that “stuff” around with me. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t like an adult version of a teddy bear. Like a kind of safety net, one which I sort of draw comfort from, knowing I can walk into the garage, pour a box of nuts and bolts out on the workbench and  find what I need to fix things. And maybe I can match a voltage converter to a gadget and save a buck or two. And I know I can fix the old Coleman gas lantern if I can find the right washer. (It’s only been broken for the past ten years.)

What I need is a boost of realism and a touch of character to help me reduce the clutter. I have cardboard boxes and plastic tubs full of nuts and bolt…some of which are actually rusty…a box of converters for only the Lord knows what…chargers for gadgets I probably don’t have anymore…a few plugins, each with only a short cord attached to nothing, but which could be attached to something.

There is a drawer in the fishing cabinet filled with spools of fishing line each of which holds maybe fifty yards of monofilament which will never be used for anything but leader…an old Mitchell fishing reel I haven’t used in years…and will never use again. And in the pole rack…fifteen fishing poles.

Two tall cupboards sit in one corner of the garage, one stacked with cans half full of paint, a couple of which might be dated around 2003. The other cupboard has cans of oil I’ll never use, transmission fluid I’ll never use, wheel bearing grease I will never use again, and other “stuff.”

The list goes on and on. Oh, yeah, and two piles of boards I could use to build “something” some time. And probably won’t. (But how do you turn good lumber into firewood??)

I think it is time for this Weak Minded Magoo to dump a lot of stuff and move on. Now, I wonder if any of my neighbors would want…

Rod

p.s.  I’ll let you know how I did…maybe.

Covid Conversations

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May 4, 2021

For the last fourteen months, the citizens of my town, my county, my state and my country (and the rest of the world) have been subjected to the unwanted dictates of runaway governments. As I see it, the rules for managing this covid (aka, China flu) are in constant flux. I’m now hearing we must all be vaccinated before the world will be safe again. And maybe before we will be allowed to travel. Or shop mask free. Or be allowed to sit in a full stadium with other sports fans.

The internet is full of contradictory information about the three vaccines the pharmaceutical companies rushed into production. The big questions: Are the tests for covid reliable? Does the vaccine work? Will it give long term protection? What are the long term effects? Can a person get covid again? If I have been vaccinated, can I still infect other people? Do the cheap masks we all wear actually do any good? If I have had covid, am I immune?

I took this set of questions to my good doctor, a person whose specialty is internal medicine. I started in on the questions by stating I thought I had covid in March of 2020.

Q: Could I be tested to find out?

A: Yes, but the tests are not totally reliable. False negatives and false positives are common.

Q: If I have had covid, am I immune?

A: Not necessarily.

Q: If I am vaccinated, am I immune?

A: Not necessarily.

Q: If I am vaccinated, can I get covid again?

A: Yes

Q: Why then should I be vaccinated?

A: To reduce the impact of covid on your system. Maybe.

Q: Will I have to be vaccinated more than once?

A: Yes

Q: What are the long term effects of the vaccine?

A: We don’t know yet.

Conclusion:

My good doctor said, “If you want a vaccination, you can get one at the Fair Grounds,” without actually telling me to do so.

It looks to me like I’m in limbo: Damned if I do and damned if I don’t get a vaccination. Doctors disagree, and no one knows what the long term effects will be. Some doctors, perhaps a majority, think we should all take a chance on the vaccine. Others think the risk out weighs the benefit.

I think I’ll wait a while and try to keep my immune system as strong as possible. For now, I’ll take my vitamin D3 daily, and get on with life. Maybe this Fall when flu season rolls around, I’ll think about trying the vaccine. Maybe.

God Bless and protect us all. And not just from covid. I think I fear my government more than the China Flu.

Rod

Vamping for Jesus

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A brief history of my brushes with Christianity:

I’ve long been attracted to Christianity, from my time as a child in Sunday School to adulthood, enduring full blown sermons.

As a child, I was obedient. I said my nightly prayer that ended in “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” (Now there’s prayer to reassure a kid.) I learned the song “Jesus loves me.” And when the  Sunday School teacher told us to ask Jesus to enter my heart, I’d sit on a swing in the school yard next to our house and say, “Jesus, enter my heart.”

But the truth is nothing ever happened. Nothing that is until age seven. Coming up from the basement classrooms of the Apostolic Faith Church to the main chapel, I found a lady with her skirt up around her neck, flat on her back, heels drumming the floor, foam coming from her mouth, eyes rolled back in her head, and babbling like a lunatic. I was to learn later she was speaking in tongues. I reckon that’s all right for adults, but as a kid all she did was she scare the hell out of me. I ran all the way home and never returned to that place.

My third brush with Christianity happened at the Reese Creek Community Church. My grandparents took me to hear their son, my Uncle Mendal, preach a sermon as a guest pastor. He was on a roll, preaching up a storm and people were looking like they were ready to be “saved.” One man had actually started down the aisle to the altar. But…I had to pee, and the only way to the outhouse…behind the church in those days…was down the main aisle…and I was in a hurry.

I reckon my fast trot to the front door broke the spell Uncle Mendal had cast on the congregation. If he had not been a religious man, I’d say he was pissed…and I’d say he stayed pissed at me for most of the rest of his life. (He mentioned this sad event one time when I was in my late thirties.) I think he had the notion I spoiled the mood on purpose. I was labeled a bad boy, or at least I felt that to be the case. Sure made me wary of church people, especially preachers.

My fourth brush with religion came when I was fourteen. A pretty young woman in my class rode my bus and decided to sit with me going to school and coming home from school. I can honestly say I enjoyed her attention.

She finally talked me into going to church with her. She prayed, she said, for my immortal soul. So when the preacher invited those who wished to be saved to come to the altar, I obliged. After I was prayed to safety, my pretty young friend beamed and patted my arm and blessed me. And I was in love.

My problems didn’t start for almost a week. I knew I’d been had when she started sitting with another boy about a year older than me and trying her best to talk him into going to church. I guess she figured I was a finished product.

I stuck it out at church for a few Sundays until the ranter preacher started telling me if I had an unclean thought, if I coveted, etc., I had sinned and was headed for everlasting hell fire. “Well, shoot,” I thought.  “I’m not supposed to think about girls?” I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

As I studied on it, I knew I was doomed no matter what I did, so I deliberately and loudly said every $*#&! cuss word I knew…and growing up in a logging town I knew quite a few. Took me a while, it did. And so I defiantly and with some sense of freedom quit the church. (I will admit to later finding a profound belief in God and the sanctity of Christ. But not right away. That is a story about angels, and a tale I seldom tell to anyone.)

As for my pretty young friend, she aged right along with the rest of us. In fact, in our late sixties, she was working on an old friend and classmate of mine, working to get him into her church and get him saved before it got too late for his redemption. He was single and interested in her, if not in church.

I laughed when I heard the story. I thought, “Yep…there she is, still vamping for Jesus.”

Good bless her.

Rod

The Last Cookie

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There seems to be something in the human psyche that makes each of us reluctant to eat the last cookie on the plate, especially if the cookie is part of a communal ritual. If a dozen cookies are on the plate and if a group of people are invited to “have a cookie,” no one is reluctant to eat the first one. But the last one might lie there until it turns stale. I have no idea why.

I tested my hypothesis over and over again during a year of my teaching career at Weiser High School. I came to depend on the last cookie, or the last piece of cake to sit in the teacher’s break room and wait for me until my afternoon prep period. The last cookie was always there. And I was grateful for the nice teacher who brought cookies most days.

At first I was reluctant to break the communal taboo. There was something almost sacred about the last cookie, but I finally decided I had enough strength of character to eat. If it was a sugar cookie, I’d dunk it in my coffee and enjoy.

Rod

Moccasins and the Romance of Wild Country

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I think I’ve reported before about reading my first full-length novel at about age seven…a Western novel. I can’t remember the author’s name, but the story sparked a latent penchant for the romance of the mountain men and the wild men who came before them. There was something about the notion of wandering wild country without the interruption of roads, fences, or power lines which just seemed the right state of things.

When I reached the ripe old age of nine, I was allowed to wander the hills up behind the house, the western edge of an area some ten miles square. I didn’t know as a boy it was manged by the Bureau of Land Management. I thought of it as wild country, a place to explore. And I came to think of it as my personal possession. At any rate, it was my private domain for the next six years.

I built lean-to shelters in various places in the hills…just in case I got caught out in the hills and couldn’t get home before dark. I explored the head of each little creek that trickled down the canyons, found salt licks and hunted for caves. The best caves were simple rock overhangs, although I did find a mine shaft dug into the side of a hill up Indian Creek. When I told Dad about the mine, he told me to stay out of it, especially since it hadn’t been shored up. I did as he said. (He had a way of keeping me in line. He’d say, “If you want to go hunting with the men this Fall, you better behave yourself.” That was enough to do the trick.)

When I joined Boy Scouts, I took the boy scout motto to heart: always be prepared. So I learned knot tying, how to sharpen an axe and a hunting knife, and I learned to make laces from round circles of leather, and how to make moccasins. I was in love with the notion of owning a pair of moccasins. I was pretty sure if I wore moccasins I’d be able to slip silently through the woods and sneak up on any critters living there. And when I saw a kit for making moccasins, I saved my allowance and bought it. When the stealthy moccasins were finished, I was pretty proud of my handiwork.

The Saturday routine at our place on the Rogue River was to get our chores done in the morning because that meant freedom for the rest of weekend. So one fine Saturday afternoon, chores done, I laced up my new moccasins…home made, sort of…at least I could say I made them even if it was from a kit…strapped on my hunting knife, stuffed some prunes in a jacket pocket, along with my snake bite kit, filled another pocket with .22 shells, matches, and salt, then grabbed my .22 rifle and headed for the hills.

I thought I’d take the first canyon upriver from the house and hike east over the top and into the canyon running below Bear Mountain. I figured to hunt the salt lick and then come back over the mountain and walk the cattle trail down to the Old Ferry Road.

It didn’t quite work out. The first thong on my left moccasin broke along about the time I crested the first ridge. I knotted it back together and started on downhill to the salt lick, and then the leather thong on my right moccasin broke. Before I had gone another two-hundred yards, the laces in the seam of the left moccasin broke, and I cut a piece of thong and tied what was left of the moccasin to my foot. You can probably guess the rest of the story. By the time I reached the salt lick which was up high on the north edge of the canyon below Bear Mountain, the thongs I’d used to tied each moccasin to my feet were worn in two, and I was barefoot. I guess you could say my new moccasins just disintegrated, and I hadn’t walked much over two miles.

There was no going back over the ridge barefoot, but I figured if I could reach the old road running down the bottom of the Bear Mountain canyon from the old cinnabar mine and out to the Rogue River, I’d have an easier time of it, even if it was about four miles further. I spent a lot time watching my step and cussing a little at the people who sold me the moccasin kit, but I finally got down to the old road. I can still remember the rocky road and how tender my feet were. I can also remember a long muddy stretch and how much better the mud felt than the rocks.

It was dark by the time I hooked up with the sandy trail running alongside the river, but the soft sand made for easier going, and I jogged the last mile home, hoping like crazy I wouldn’t step on a rattlesnake. I can tell you I was really hoofing it along the river. I figured I’d be gone before a snake could bite me.

The house was lit up when I got home, and I think Mom and Dad were a little anxious before I opened the back door. Dad asked me what had happened, and I sheepishly reported my moccasins gave out. My parents tried hard not to laugh, but they just couldn’t hold back, and before it was over, I was laughing, too.

I’ll confess I felt a little dumb for trusting my homemade moccasins, but I never lost my love of wild places, or the desire to explore new mountains and country sides. I blame it all on the romance of Western writers. Now, if I could just find better leather for the next pair…

Rod

p.s. The “salt lick” was a place where the chemicals in the soil were concentrated. The deer would actually eat the soil for the chemicals. At the time of my story they had eaten quite a chunk out of the hillside. I hope you’ll trust my memory when I tell you the area was about twenty feet wide by thirty feet long and a couple of feet deep in places. You could tell the deer had been at it quite a few years. It was the only one of its kind in my part of the world.

ESP

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The longer I live, the harder it becomes to ignore the dozens of times over they years when the thought of a friend or family member pesters me until I call them. When they answer the phone, I sometimes  just say, “You were on my mind, and I thought I’d better find out what’s going on.” I can think of very few times when my “something is going on” feeling was wrong. I suspect some will dismiss this as coincidence, but I’ve come to believe in ESP…or at least in something like ESP.

When I was in High School, our American Problems teacher Mister Chamberlain brought up the subject of ESP. I don’t know why he did that. But the class jumped in with all sorts of opinions from ESP being nonsense to it is the work of the devil. Just for fun, I wrote the names of five of my classmates on a scrap of paper with a list of times I would “mentally” wake them up during the coming night. Then I handed the list to Mister Chamberlain.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll wake up five of you sometime tonight. I’ll ‘think’ you awake. Your job is to write the time down. Then we’ll see if it matches what I’ve given Mister Chamberlain.” (In truth I wasn’t very serious about the “experiment.” I was just having some fun with the notion of ESP.)

I might have been cheating some because I knew the bedrooms of the classmates I had chosen so I could visualize where they were sleeping.  (And, no, none of them were girls. We weren’t allowed in a girl’s room in those days.) Anyway, I woke at 1:00 a.m. and visualized Bob’s bedroom and told him to wake up. I concentrated until I figured I had about used up my ESP power for a while. And I repeated the exercise for the remaining four people at different times during the night.

The next day, four of the five classmates turned in their “woke up” times to Mister Chamberlain. The fifth didn’t wake up during the night. But I nailed the times almost exactly as reported by the four who did wake up. And I think I scared all of us into moving on to other more comfortable topics. We did not repeat the experiment.

Do I believe in ghosts? I’ll give that a strong maybe, although I’ve never seen a ghost, but I have “felt” the presence of people I was close to after they had died. Other family members have seen ghosts…or at least they tell me they have.

Do I believe in Angels? Absolutely. Once I had this conversation…well, it was more like a butt chewing than a conversation…with an Angel. I highly recommend you not try to bargain with God.

Do I believe there is magic in this old world? Absolutely. It’s all around us. How else can you explain thousands of varieties of flowers, the pattern of butterfly wings, life in a dry seed?

Do I believe in ESP? Yep, but do I think I can control it? Not really, but I almost always follow up on my “something is going on” feelings.

I wonder how many other people have had the same experience? More than those who admit it, I’m willing to bet.

Rod

p.s. I don’t know if this counts as seeing a ghost, but it just occurred to me it might. I was in the little waiting area next to the birthing unit at Salem Memorial Hospital waiting for the birth of my first child. I was alone until the elevator door opened and a man who looked just like my dead grandfather Truman Collins got off.

He came in, sat one chair over from me, unfolded a newspaper and read while never saying a word. When the doctor came out to tell me I was the proud father of a healthy baby girl, the silver haired old man folded his newspaper, walked to the elevator button, got on the elevator when the door opened and left. I was so dumbfounded by his appearance…and his disappearance…to mention the event for about ten years. Spooked me, it did. But was it a ghost? I’ll never know for certain.