Another cemetery walk, her and me.
The preacher said that it’s not the numbers on the stone that matter, but what we put into that dash.
I think he’s wrong about that dash. What matters is the name.
You get that name for only so long. As long as that dash, the preacher says.
But barring an incident or bad workmanship, the stone gets that name for longer than you do.
We walk along the path, reading names.
Getrude… Rosemary… Eunice…
“Betty?” I ask.
She thinks. “No,” she says.
We’ll take a different route tomorrow, unless her water breaks first.
Tag: childhood
Dan Bakerology
I had a hard time choosing a major in college, so I decided on Dan Bakerology.
That’s the study of me, Dan Baker.
I got straight A’s in it, too.
Graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Barely beat out my girlfriend, who was minoring in Dan Bakerology.
Well, ex-girlfriend. She dropped me, but didn’t drop the minor.
The campus police called it stalking.
She was allowed to graduate anyway.
For my masters thesis, I plan to turn in a mirror.
The big question is, how the hell do I get a job with this degree?
I knew I should have chosen Sociology.
SAT
Back in my day, the SAT was a test on paper that you picked the best answers or combination of answers.
It went electronic a few years after I graduated.
Then, it went immersive. A neural halo that measured knowledge and analytical skills directly in the brain.
But some kids had their brains fried when they tried to cheat with chemical boosters.
Their parents sued the college board, claiming it was the neural halo, not the boosters that caused the damage.
Eventually, the whole system was disbanded. Smart or dumb, it didn’t matter anymore.
Only the rich could afford college.
Wickeder
What was the name of the Wicked Witch?
Which one?
The West one was the one played by Margaret Hamilton, right?
They dropped the house on her sister from the East.
Well, they never said the name of the one from the West.
But The Wicked Witch of the East was named Ding Dong.
All those midgets sang “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” right?
The witch down the street is named Olivia.
She turns kids into frogs.
Especially those who throw buckets of water at her, or use the garden hose.
I once set off her lawn sprinklers.
Ribbit.
Par for the ruins of a course
My grandfather used to take us miniature golfing.
The course was near the Adler Planetarium. It was a decent enough place to play when we first went there, but each time we went, something else was broken, or a water basin drained, or they didn’t bother sweeping up the fallen leaves.
The last time we went, it was all in ruins. The paint on the rails was peeling. The turf carpet was worn. And the obstacles were all a wreck.
The railroad gate had to be held up to let the ball roll under it.
We never went back again.
Slippery When Lard
Usually, The Girl Scouts sell cookies to fund their troops and overhead costs.
But the boxes of cookies don’t offer much of a profit margin, and sometimes people flake out on their orders.
Meagan, who has an Entrepreneurship badge, suggested that her troop sell something with much greater profit potential.
So, they did the market research and came up with a plan to sell titanium hip replacements to the residents of the nearby nursing home.
“Installation not included,” she said with a wink.
The troop giggled with her, and they went back to wiping the floors down with slippery Crisco.
After Brown
After Encyclopedia Brown went off to college, the next kid to become the town know-it-all was Glossary Jones.
This kid knew a whole bunch of obscure terms and jargon, but he kept them to himself until the other kids would solve the mystery.
Then there was Footnote Martin. Every now and then, he’d make a comment about something, or provide some obscure reference that nobody had time to look up.
Finally, there was Almanac Lewis. He was always blithering useless trivia and weather tables.
“Just call the goddamned police,” people say now. “They’re incompetent, but at least they’re not annoying.”
Red Goes Green
Back in the day, Little Red Riding Hood would walk through the woods to visit her grandmother.
But now that Little Red Riding Hood is a grandmother, do her grandchildren come and visit her?
Hardly, and they don’t call, either. Or send letters.
Maybe they send a birthday card now and then. And they say they send emails, but Red doesn’t know how use email, or the Skype or any of those things.
The Big Bad Wolf was long dead, and he didn’t have any grandkids.
Same with the Woodsman.
Red sat on the porch, smoked joints, and read books.
Play With Fire
Other kids played with action figures and board games.
I played with fire.
Fire was fun and cheap. And it was so much more fun than action figures and board games.
And it was great for ending arguments.
Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and fire beats them all.
Water beats fire?
No! Fire boils water and turns it to steam. Fire beats water.
I’ve heard people say that children shouldn’t play with fire, but fire has no warning labels on it.
That must mean that fire is safe for all ages, right?
Here’s some fire… enjoy!
Schools Were Closed
Monday, schools were closed because the weatherman said there were icy conditions on the roads, so they couldn’t run the buses.
Tuesday, schools were closed because the weatherman said there was a hurricane warning.
Wednesday, schools were closed because the weatherman said that there were wildfires in the area that were threatening populated areas.
Thursday, schools were closed because the weatherman warned of flash floods.
And on Friday, schools were closed.
No, the weatherman didn’t say anything.
It was because everybody with children had moved away.
What kind of person would raise their kids in a crazy place like this?