I'm Comfortable in My Old Skin

         I don’t understand.  I’m a lot bigger than I used to be, but my skin is too loose for my body.  My outer layer wiggles, jiggles, folds, and wrinkles to the point that I could probably remove enough skin to cover a small teenager, and still have enough left over for me.  Still, I’m comfortable in this old skin; probably more comfortable in my skin than ever before.  Maybe it’s because it fits like an oversized pair of cotton sweatpants.  Or, maybe, it’s just because as I get older, I realize my prospects for a modeling career are pretty much dead.  That is, unless some entrepreneur opens a catalog business catering to the ever-increasing number of old, fat guys in this country—J. Crude?  The Nap?  Old R Us?

          I’m afraid I care a lot less about how I appear to the opposite gender these days.  After 30+ years, the little woman, Winnie, has gotten used to having me around, and I don’t think she’s likely to kick me to the curb at this point.  These days, I’m a lot more excited by her prowess in the kitchen than in the bedroom, and I’m almost certain she’d rather please me with Scampi than Whoopee.  That may sound sad to younger folks, but it’s a pretty comfortable place to be.

          I’ve noticed that the more birthdays I have, the less I care about what other people think of me.  I pretty much say what I think (sometimes to the horror of my children).  So, excuse me for being honest, but my daughter’s friend, Nicki (the former Miss Smalltown High Queen), does look pregnant; my Aunt Becky is a pain in the backside and does need a shave; and our waitress last week does look too old to be working at Hooters.

Winnie and the kids seem to worry about some of the outfits I wear in public.

 “Dad, you can’t go to town wearing short-shorts (I guess the style changed a few years ago), a white tee shirt and black work boots!”

“Why not?” I asked.  “I think I look fine.”

          “You’ll embarrass yourself, Dad.”

          “Nope.  I don’t care what folks think; I’m comfortable.”

          “Well, you’ll embarrass me.”

          “Alright, I’ll change into my ‘2 Sexy 2 B 40’ tee shirt.  Hope it still fits around my belly.”

          I used to worry about stupid stuff.  Now I live by the old mantra:  “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and Remember, It’s All Small Stuff”.

          This past November, I was deer hunting with my much younger, and therefore more worrisome, brother, K.C., up to our camp just north of Smalltown, when three inches of fresh “tracking snow” fell on Sunday evening.

          “I won’t be goin’ to work tomorrow,” I told him.

          “Ain’t you worried about losin’ your job, Joe?” he replied.

          “Hell, no, I ain’t worried.”  I went on to explain my lack of concern.  So what if I got fired?  Winnie and I would be fine.  We live in the “land of milk and honey”.  Or is it “milk the system”?  This is 2011, and my government will take care of me whether I carry my own weight or not, especially this new president.  He’ll just reach his magic hand into the bottomless pot of money, pull some out, and send it to me.  It’s free and there’s an endless supply.  I think Keebler elves or leprechauns are working double shifts to make more of it.  I don’t have to do anything.  So, what if I can’t pay my mortgage?  The government will take care of that.  They’ll give me a nice place to live, free food, and medical care.  It’s all free, thanks to hard working worriers, like my little brother. So, I won’t lose any sleep over the small stuff.  In the words of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neumann:  “What, me worry?”

 I may look like one of those dogs whose wrinkled up skin is too big for it’s body, but I’m comfortable in my old skin.

Do It Yourself

          I’m a frugal guy.  Winnie says I’m a cheapskate.  I don’t like to waste money.  I frequently do, but I don’t like to. Especially when it comes to home repairs.

          My buddy, Barnie, has a small engine repair business.  There’s a sign near his service counter which explains his labor rates.  It reads something like this:

Labor:  $30/hr

If You Want to Help:  $40/hr

If You’ve Already Tried To Fix Problem:  $50/hr.

          I’ve paid the $50/hr. many times.  Last summer, the little woman’s riding lawnmower needed a simple belt replacement.  There was no way I was paying Barnie $30/hr. to do an easy repair like that.

          So, I drove the old Eagle Star up onto some car ramps and crawled under her.  There were pulleys and gears and belts in every direction.  I had an owner’s manual (and I took a year of Spanish back in high school), so it took me only two hours to figure out how to remove the main drive pulley to get to the left serpentine pulley so I could replace the belt.

The repair was complicated by the fact that my metric socket set was in my camper, which was at Dick’s RV repair to replace a fitting on the water heater I’d broken by over-tightening a nut.

          Anyway, two hours later, the serpentine belt was replaced, and though in the meantime I’d missed the final game of the World Series, I was pleased with myself.  I fired up the old tractor, drove onto my front lawn and engaged the mower deck.  And, didn’t the Eagle Star cut a pretty, smooth swatch—about ten yards long—before I heard the ominous sound of clanging pulleys and flopping belts!  Not a problem, Three days and $160 later, Barnie had her fixed up good as new. 

Winnie decided we needed one of those fancy one-lever faucets, with the spray hose and all, to replace the one that came with our house of thirty years.  She picked up a fixture she liked down at Smalltown Hardware and called up Jacky Spencer to see what he’d charge to install it.  No way was I going to give that knucklehead plumber 80 bucks to come over and loosen a few fittings to install a simple faucet. Jackie was the dumbest guy in my class. He made it through eighth grade only because he was 16 years old and had been at Smalltown Elementary longer than any of the teachers there. So, I took off a day from work and commenced to putting in the little woman’s faucet.

There I am, wedged under the kitchen sink, my head and shoulders between half empty containers of Comet Cleanser and Kibbles & Bits, channel-lock pliers (the tool guaranteed to strip the corners off any nut) and vice-grips (designed to pinch that soft pad between the pinky finger and wrist and leave a painful bruise), at the ready.  I twisted and grunted and cursed until I realized I was turning the nut in the wrong direction because I was . . . well . . . upside down and backwards.  So I reversed directions with my wrenches.  Finally, the nut let go all of sudden, sending me sideways under the cabinet and reminding me, in the midst of the maneuver, that I’d forgotten one very important step.

By now, I was covered with about two gallons of water and had knocked over a bottle of ammonia, the cap of which Winnie hadn’t secured very well.  So, there I was, soaked in lukewarm water and smelling like I’d wet myself, when the little woman walked into the room.

“So, how’s it going, Einstein?” she innocently inquired.

“Oh, it’s going really well,” I yelled, ammonia-scented water dripping from my eyebrows.

“Call your friend, Jacky.  Tell him I’ve done the hard stuff and he can take over from here.”

Hunting Camp Characters

            I’ve been going to deer camp for well over 40 years—to the Wright Boys Camp up near Island Lake every year—but also to several others, at times, through my life.  I’ve noticed that every camp has some characters in common.

            There’s always The Loudmouth—the guy who just never shuts up and spends most of his time blabbering on about his favorite subject . . . himself.  Some of the guys I hunt with would be very content to stay in camp all day, consume adult beverages, eat chili, pass gas, and play cards; but they’d rather go out at -20° Fahrenheit, and develop piles from sitting on a frozen rock for six hours, than to stay in and endure the ramblings of The Loudmouth. 

            And, there’s always The Storyteller.  He tells the same stories several times every deer season, but he’s not totally repetitious because he lies, and consequently, can’t remember how he’s told the tall tales in the past.  So far, he’s shot the same twelve pointer with his shotgun, his 30-06, and his 303 Savage.  That deer weighed 202 to 246 pounds, depending on how many Wild Turkeys preceded the story.  Sometimes, he dragged that big buck four miles—all uphill—back to camp.  Other nights he wounded the animal, which ran back two miles towards his truck, and was kind enough to drop dead 10 yards away from his tailgate. 

            There seems to be The Moocher in every camp, too—the guy who shows up with no food, a six pack of beer (two hours worth), just enough cash for poker, and a huge appetite.  He always offers an excuse and a promise, but little else.

            “I was going to bring up a big pot of moose meat stew, but the old lady didn’t make it in time.  I’ll bring it next weekend, for sure.”  He’s the same guy who never cooks a meal or washes a dish.  He gets invited back every year only because he’s a relative and you can’t choose them.

            Every camp has The Bragger, too.  Up to the Wright Boys Camp, there’s a guy who, unfortunately, shot the biggest buck ever taken out of that cabin.  He fell asleep in his tree stand and, when he regained consciousness, the monstrous animal (temporarily stupid because of his total obsession with does in heat), was lying down  forty yards in front of him, apparently resting between lovemaking forays.  That buck was the only deer The Bragger ever shot, but we’ve heard about it over and over for 30 years now.

            So, there’s The Loudmouth, The Storytelling Liar, The Moocher, and The Bragger.  But enough about me.  There are those other characters, too.

The Joker knows hundreds of funny stories and can recall them at the mention of a word in a punchline.  Everyone in camp has heard all of his jokes at least a hundred times, but we laugh with every repeat performance because The Joker is really good at acting out the stories, and speaks with foreign accents and speech impediments. For some reason, he’s always funniest on Jose Cuervo Night at deer camp.

            Seems like every camp I visit has The Sleeper. My cousin, Smitty, is The Sleeper at the Wright Boys Camp.  He naps in the recliner in front of the woodstove for, at least, six hours a day, goes to bed right after dinner (but before clean-up or wood splitting), and wakes up tired at ten a.m., just in time for his one hour hunt.  I don’t know what Old Sleepy does when he’s not up at camp.  I figure he must stay awake from Labor Day until deer season, and then catches up on his shut-eye. 

            There’s The Slob in every camp, too.  You can track him like a deer by following the trail of empty beer cans, coffee cups, and dishes he leaves scattered throughout the cabin.  As you might expect, his personal hygiene isn’t all it could be, either.  He does fairly well at shooting deer and bear.  I think it’s because he smells kind of wild, and they mistake him for one of their own.

            A lot of camps have The Home Run King—the guy who can’t wait to get to camp and away from it all, but seems to come up with a thousand reasons to Run Home.  I’m not sure if he’s afraid his little woman misses him, or fears she’s not lonely at all.  I’m in luck that way; Winnie seems to enjoy my absence . . .

Things I Learned on a Fishing Trip

 Each spring I go on a fishing trip to northern Maine with a bunch of my buddies.  This year, we traveled to Millinocket, then over the Golden Road to the Teles Road, and rented a rustic cabin on Spider Lake.  We fished Spider Lake and the many brooks and streams that crossed our path for brook trout.  On Saturday, we spent six hours driving, two hours fishing and swatting deer flies, and three hours emptying our coolers of the various liquid and solid provisions we’d packed for a hard day of trying to provide food for our families. 

Here’s what I learned:  My friend, Boozie, could fish in an aquarium containing a thousand trout and still catch and release the only chub (trash fish) on three consecutive casts.  Jimbo, a rookie on the trip, is a good guy and is very bright—a veritable encyclopedia of useless information—until you get a pint of Crown Royal into him.  Then, he’s even stupider than the rest of us.
There are a lot of regulations pertaining to the taking and possession of brook trout in Maine.  It seems that every body of water has its own rules.  We studied the 300 page summary provided by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, and were still confused.  We think we could keep up to five brookies over six inches, from brooks and streams, except those that were part of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, in which case the trout had to be over 12 inches and, we could keep only two fish of which only one could be over 14 inches, and each must have a notch in the dorsal fin, unless there were at least 35 orange spots on each side of the fish, except for fish in streams crossing the American Realty Road, which must have no more than 25 orange spots on each side.  We think we obeyed the laws.  My friend, Barnie, has hired a lawyer to review the regulations and get back to us prior to next year's trip.
 Another observation is that five inch trout will always swallow the hook to their bellies, where as 12 inchers will be hooked by just enough of their lip to allow you to land them on the shore, where they will slip off and flop around in a half inch of water, while the fisherman tries in vain to grab the slippery trophy before it escapes back into the stream.  The event, inevitably, results in a wild dance, a escaped fish, and a frustrated  fisherman with a hook through his thumb.

There is a lot of wildlife in the northern Maine woods.  We saw several moose, a few deer, and hundreds of rabbits.  We counted 108 cottontails on our drive back to the camp one evening.  Apparently, they really do  #%*! ( reproduce) . . . like . . . well . . . rabbits.

I also noticed that beer seems to evaporate in a cooler while I’m fishing.  It seems that Barnie and Roy fish faster than I do, and they’d always be waiting for me at the truck when I’d climb out of the brook.  They seemed really happy, even though several of our beer cans had apparently burst and were now empty.  I’m not too bright, but I figured out by noon that I’d been appointed the DF (designated fisherman).  Have you ever been too drunk to fish?  My buddies have.

It seems that the spare tire stored under the bed of a pickup truck is not intended to be actually used.  We passed three trucks with flat tires on logging company roads.  It think it is Murphy’s 37^th law which says that you can drive your truck around town for 100,000 miles on old, bald tires and never have a flat, but get into the woods a hundred or so miles, and you will finally need that spare, which is now corroded to the bottom of your truck.

We met several members of the Pelletier family; you know, the guys made famous by the American Loggers TV show.  We drove by their impressive logging company facility at Clayton Lake, and there was little sign of activity.  (We later discovered the reason for the inactivity).  It is apparently the off season for the TV show, and we met several of the loggers at their brand new restaurant and gift shop down in Millinocket.  They were busy signing posters and tee-shirts, and were not looking nearly as dirty or tired as they do on American Loggers. 

We had a great time and I’m hopeful we didn’t inadvertently poach any brookies with too few orange spots.  To be safe, we ate them before they could become evidence.

Wierd Dreams

My dreams scare me sometimes.  It’s not that they are frightening in a Freddy Krueger horror movie kind of way; it’s just that they make no sense, at least not to me.      
 Last week, I dreamt of being chased down the street where I lived as a kid by a 1968 VW bus with peace symbols and flowers painted on its exterior.  Instead of wheels, the bus had 1000 centipede legs and, where the grill and headlights belonged, was the face of my third grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson.  I haven’t thought about my third grade teacher, or her support hose covered kankles, since I was in fourth grade, about a hundred years ago.  So why is her face chasing me while I sleep?  And, why could that many-legged VW bus move so quickly while my legs were performing as if I was knee deep in quick sand?

I made the mistake of posing that very question to my buddy, Thurm Seigars, whose tofu loving, transcendental mediating wife, Moonbeam, is a self-proclaimed expert dream analyst. Thurm couldn’t wait to deliver my diagnosis:  “Moonbeam says you have some unresolved issue with your third grade teacher, which makes you invite conflict and fear into your life.  You are running from peace.”

“Well, tell Moonbeam she’s full of horse pucky!” I said.  “I ate three black bean burritos and a side of jalapeño poppers that night.  That’s the explanation for my crazy dream.”

Why do scary, weird dreams recur while more pleasant dreams disappear, for good, as soon as I wake from them?  Like when my dream involves two bikini clad Patriots cheerleaders, me, and a hot tub full of warm Mazola oil, I can’t fall back to sleep fast enough to see how it turns out.  The centipede legged, Mrs. Wilson-faced peace bus, however, is chasing me as soon as I fall asleep again.  Life just isn’t fair.