Monday, December 7, 2015

The Cable Guy

In Lake County Illinois, the soil tends to be heavily laden with clay, which goes from soggy-squishy to dry and powdery in a matter of days in early summer. A particularly troublesome area on the side of our otherwise wooded lot bakes in the sun most of the day, making it difficult to grow grass. The area drains downhill away from the house, which contributes further to burnout in this small area.

Several years ago, I decided to turn the entire problem into a gardening opportunity, making use of some 6x6 timbers to terrace the hill before planting a variety of sun-friendly plants. As I mentioned, we have lots of trees, and as a result, lots of shallow roots under the lawn. I quickly carved out the necessary spots for timbers, but had to bring out an axe to deal with a variety of criss-crossing roots that prevented me from finishing the job.

I made quick work of the dirt-encrusted woody underground branches. It was a beautiful day, and I heard music coming from the living room a few yards away. My daughter was watching one of her assortment of television shows. The dog barked at a passing jogger on the street behind me.

I worked like a machine. Thwack. Chop. Pull the root and toss it aside on a growing pile. Over and over, with only a few roots remaining, I repeated the strenuous hurtling downward motion, aiming and cleaving first air, then dirt and wood.

There comes a brief moment in your mind when a realization takes shape. It is a spark of a thought that lags just behind the momentum of your muscles and the physics of an object in motion. The root I was about to sever was strangely uniform in shape, despite the clinging mud that obscured the majority of it’s unusually smooth circumference. Thwack.
Ohhhhhh, noooooo.

“DAD!” I heard my daughter yell from inside the house, “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE TV?!”


Obviously, I had removed not only an assortment of roots from the new garden patch, but severed the coaxial cable that provides our house with internet access and …cable TV. I spent the next couple of hours crudely splicing the “root” back together until our cable provider could come out several days later. And clearly, I would be more careful next time.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

A Yorkshire on Oxford

“Just another strange day in paradise,” I said as we strolled down Oxford Lane. Our neighborhood in the far north suburbs of Chicago was shady and serene, a picturesque place to stroll after morning coffee with a pup in need of some fresh air. The large brick homes were set on half acre lots, lawns professionally manicured, and the drama that accompanies humans regardless of affluence or education comfortably distant from the street, behind heavy double doors and large picture windows. And therein lay the absurdity of it all. We joked about being the poor folks in town and never quite felt like we fit in.

Our twenty-pound black Cocker Spaniel tugged hard at his leash, choking to get to the next hydrant or tree, nearer yet to the story told by another lingering delicious scent.

“You think he’ll ever learn to walk like a normal dog?” Jeanne asked.

“Doesn’t seem likely. It’s been four years,” I said.

We soon found that a harness alleviated choking and much pulling, making walks much more pleasant for us all. It was one of those magical discoveries that don’t get nearly enough publicity.

We rescued Jett from Orphans of the Storm. He generally behaved like a stuffed animal with a bladder, and needed only to be brought into the back yard for one stop to the count of twenty, emptying himself of a hot yellow stream. Then, back inside to sprawl on the couch, or in a comfy beam of sunshine on the dining room carpet. We walked him only for his health, for exercise.

“Oh great, look at this,” I said, motioning to an unfamiliar dog-walker with a retractable leash fully played out.

A crazed looking Yorkshire Terrier the size of a coffee cup darted left and right like a sweeper seeking mines. Twenty feet behind him, striding like a hurried penguin on bejeweled high-heeled slippers came an excited “dog person” eager to make a new friend. The dog was just an excuse to meet us and talk at us. These conversations are seldom much more than monologues that begin with, “Oh they want to be friends!”

Our dog was a runner. He could never be taken off-leash without a significant risk of having him wind up back at Orphans. He was also fairly unpredictable when mixing with other dogs. We preferred to avoid encounters with strangers, both human and canine, for fear of what might happen.

We were completing our Saturday morning walk, enjoying the quiet and pleasant summer weather when “Gucci” and his human, “Ditsy” approached on a rapid and clearly intentional vector in our direction, with a motion that resembled an early morning beach walker with a metal detector, eager to communicate. Jett was finishing up his business, and we were at a disadvantage, being in recovery mode from the awkward inside-out bag poop retrieval protocol. It’s the one that results in a trophy swinging like a shrunken head in a plastic grocery sack at your side for the remainder of your walk unless it’s garbage day.

“He doesn’t get along wi…” I tried to blurt as quickly as possible when I saw the crazed looking Yorkie rapidly closing ranks. Gucci decided to go nose to nose with Jett instead of the more customary nose-to-rear introduction that always makes us laugh and go, “Eeewww.”

As the words left my mouth the woman on heels was spewing the usual friendless pick-up line about the kindly nature of her adorable little dog. His messy orange and brown top-knot made him look like he’d recently stuck his cute little tongue into an electric outlet.

Jett apparently thought him ridiculous looking as well. Or tasty and bite sized. Or a threat.

The two stood nose-to-nose for less time than it takes to say, “Your perception of dogs is about to change forever, and today is going to be really bad.” Much, much less time.

The ferocious reflex with which two snarling masses of hair became one is not an image I will ever forget. The law of physics about two objects being unable to occupy the same space at the same time ceased to apply, at least in the region of Jett’s fanged mouth, which entirely engulfed Gucci’s head.  Yes, little Gucci’s head was completely missing if you were to review National Geographic-quality ultra-slow-motion footage of the attack. That footage is stuck in my brain and continues to play back at the annoyingly slow speed characterized by horrifying events or periods of extreme pain.

Our adorably mellow stuffed animal proceeded to shake Gucci from the neck the way a panther whips its prey from side to side at break neck speed, and with force enough to, well, break a neck. Gucci’s body was limp and lifeless. I imagined his last thoughts, peering down the length of a long pink tongue into a darkened throat. Lights out.

“DROP IT!” I yelled, shattering the Saturday morning silence, accompanied by a chorus of screams from Ditsy, whose own head began to revolve and emit demonic accusations about our “effing dog” and other unintelligible exorcist-like ranting.

“SPIT HIM OUT!” I shouted, lifting Jett up by the leash like a reverse-motion gallows scene, rising from the ground, suspended by the neck at the end of his leash in a most uncomfortable manner. At some subconscious level I was remembering guidance not to get between two fighting dogs. Not that it was possible at the point at which the two appeared to be one.

My ploy worked. Gucci was dropped. I set Jett back down on all fours. He was choking a bit, but not much more than his usual gasping leash-pulling routine.

Gucci was not in fact dead. He scampered off-balance a few feet sideways, looking even more confused and crazed than normal, with a bit of blood and saliva complementing the natural earth tones of his complexion and Sassoon coiffure.

We were stunned into silence. Not so with Gucci’s mom, who was as verbose while cursing us to Hell as she was when trying to make new friends.

Her string of first-rate expletives started with an accusatory “You” and ended with a wailing sound somewhere between a wolf’s howl and a vacuum cleaner. She scrambled through the grass, dropping to her knees and falling out of her slippers as she tried to comfort her ravaged puppy.

Neighbors began to peer from front doors and emerged into the street-side Hellscape theater the way neighbors always do when the sirens and flashing lights of fire trucks and ambulances stop nearby. But this was a much more intimate setting, on the parkway maintained by their landscaping crews, just off the asphalt where the Rockwell-esque Fourth of July parade passed by with never a worry or a care.

More expletives ensued with high energy, trembling and tears, not at all the very put together image that approached us minutes earlier.  She proceeded to unfasten Gucci’s leash from his collar, we assume to comfort him. It was another bad decision, something of a core competency for this barefoot human.

Gucci saw a chance to escape from his nightmare and took it, full speed on a ninety-degree tangent to the lawn-based vivisection his morning had become.

“OOOOHHH, GU, HU HU CHI…” sobbed his liberator, bounding to her feet and giving chase, crossing the street without looking in either direction, across two lawns and into…

“He’s going into our back yard!” said Jeanne.

“Oh no, where are the kids?” I asked, and then I saw them staring out the patio sliders on the side of the house facing the commotion, wide-eyed and clearly scarred for life.

We were left holding a dog, a bag of poop and what was left of our dignity on our neighbor’s lawn in an area of strangely matted grass, a bit of blood and two eastward facing high-heeled slippers. I remember choking back a laugh, immensely relieved that Gucci was alive, but struck by the absurdity of the scene and the outrageous outburst from our new “friend.”

Later that evening, our doorbell rang. It was an apologetic Ditsy with her older brother, our neighbor. She declined our offer to pay any vet bills and said that Gucci was fine. He just had a small puncture wound on his face. We hoped that the episode had been a series of learning moments, and returned to the living room sofa to snuggle with our little buddy, vowing never again to take for granted the instinctive nature of this domesticated friend, or any other. It had indeed become a very strange day in paradise.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Beach Boys

I know that what I remember happened between 7 and 8pm, because that’s when the Ed Sullivan show aired each Sunday. If I were to guess, I’d say that we were trick-or-treating, or going door-to-door singing Christmas carols. Those were the events that brought kids of varying ages together as a group back then. But the timing is all wrong, because the Beach Boys made their first of two appearances on the iconic show on September 27, 1964. And that’s what I recall seeing on TV through the front door when we stopped to pick up my sister’s friend Lenore. Perhaps we were going on a scavenger hunt. It was dark. I was ten. And in hindsight it feels like I drove by Woodstock and wondered what that music was. I barely paid attention, but the memory stuck with me.

In the intervening years I came to understand Lenore’s obsession with the legendary surf band. She wouldn’t leave the house until they finished playing “Wendy” and “I Get Around.” The broadcast was monochromatic, which perfectly suited the band’s wide-striped black and white shirts. Earlier that year the Beatles made their American debut on the same stage, so we had gotten somewhat used to audiences filled with screaming girls, and curious parents looking puzzled and somewhat horrified.

It is now days before Brian Wilson is scheduled to play at Ravinia in Highland Park Illinois. We have pavilion tickets for the show. I am neither puzzled nor horrified, but I am now the parent of a second generation Beach Boys fan. My daughter shares my love of all things Beach Boys, and her boyfriend is equally obsessed with Brian Wilson. Go figure.

I have lost track of the number of Beach Boys concerts I’ve attended through the years. A double bill with Chicago was a definite highlight in 1975. Changing outfits, hairstyles and band members never distracted from the overriding joyous California dream that pervaded each experience. Dennis and Carl died, but life went on. Brian toured sporadically, but his music carried the band’s legacy forward through the decades.

I have blasted surf music from an 8-track player through the open T-tops of a Corvette on hot summer nights, from cassettes in a mini-van with kids in the back seat, and poolside from an iPod at the house where I plan to retire. For me, the music is timeless, my reaction is visceral and mood-altering. The Beach Boys make the sun shine on the cloudiest of days.

There used to be a concert venue called Poplar Creek in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. I was among the first to subscribe to the “mellow” series – performers like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Jimmy Buffet and the Beach Boys. My seats were in the third row, renewable each year as long as I wished.

It is now well-documented, in an autobiography and the recently released film, “Love and Mercy” how Brian Wilson struggled with drugs and an emotional breakdown, becoming an obese, bearded recluse while the band played on. Dennis’s death during 1983 shook the Wilson brothers and fans alike. The endless summer was over, for Dennis anyway. Brian quit appearing on stage again.

At a memorable show during Brian’s absence in the early 80s, I smuggled half a dozen small, un-inflated beach balls into the open-air theater. I blew them up, hunched over in my seat, and surreptitiously set them loose. Security tried to snag them over the sound of jeering fans. Eventually, one made it’s way onto the stage to the feet of Mike Love, who never flinched. Holding a microphone in one hand, singing a classic surf tune, he landed a well-place kick on the nearby ball and sent it sailing up and over the head of a man in the front row.

Oh, that man. Motionless, bearded and obese. I wondered how he could be so detached from the action on stage and all around him. He occupied the best seat in the house, alone in the otherwise empty front row. He sat staring at the stage, perhaps experiencing the concert on a level that no one but he could ever understand. There may have been other tunes in his mind, complicated chords or instrumentation that no one else would ever hear.

In yet another Forest Gump moment, I repeated the metaphoric Woodstock drive-by. I barely paid attention, but the visual stuck with me. It wasn’t until years later that I learned what until that time had been only rumored about the health and condition of my musical hero. I turned my attention back to the antics on stage, the music, the magic, the glorious summer sounds on an endless summer night, blissfully unaware that I was sitting twenty feet from the genius who created it all.



Friday, April 24, 2015

Just the Fax

Remember back, or imagine, a time before the Internet, before email. Incredibly, correspondence was conducted by paper. Documents for loans, credit card applications, legal proceedings or apartment leases were submitted in person or by U.S. Mail. Life proceeded at a snail’s pace. And then the fax (facsimile) was mass-produced and the speed of conducting business changed overnight.

In my work I deal with a variety of suppliers. Periodically throughout the year we sign and exchange necessary documents so that we can continue to do business. It is the rare company at this point that is unable to scan and email the forms I need. When asked for my fax number, I encourage them to use email instead. The fax is essentially obsolete, just a few decades after it gained mainstream acceptance.

I remember my first fax. I was working in California at a computer services company with offices in several locations across the country. We were notified that an important document was being sent from our Boston office.  Get ready to receive a fax!

The machine I was trained on resembled something out of the archives of Alexander Graham Bell, the one that produced the audio, “Mary had a little lamb.”  Pictured below is a system similar to the one I used in 1986. I think it had been around for a while. It communicated through acoustic couplers via a 4800 baud modem. Those of you who recall dialing into AOL in the 1990s are familiar with the electronic whir and chirp of a “handshake” connection being established through a phone line. I heard my first modem siren song in 1972 at the University of Illinois’s computer lab. I remember dialing a 1200 baud connection from our home phone just to see if it would work (it did). That was the year Steve Jobs dropped out of college in Portland, Oregon.


The fax machine I first used had an elongated shiny metal drum. We carefully wrapped a piece of rather expensive heat-sensitive paper around the drum in preparation for an incoming document. We had one chance at receiving the transmission. Screwing up the fax meant having to call the sender to request a re-send. Not cool.

When our machine was ready, we called the Boston office and told them to begin transmitting. Then magic happened. We heard the screeching phone signal through our system. The two machines agreed to talk, and then a thin metal armature began a journey across the slowly rotating metal drum. Variances in temperature were transferred from the armature to the thermally sensitive paper, etching out a rather poor quality representation of the original document. The paper had a slightly oily coating, and touching it anywhere on the surface smudged it immediately due to skin heat. It curled upon removal from the drum, making it even harder to handle.

I dreaded the instances when I was required to use the fax, even though I thought it was pretty fascinating. The opportunity for human error (mine) was far too great. And having come full circle, I still dread receiving faxes. I’m unsure where the receiving multifunction device is located. I have to look up the number, and worse still, it requires that I get out of my chair and walk down the hall. Just send me an email please. I’ll pick it up on my iPhone.