Dumb And Dumber
"I think something is burning...I think something is burning..."
The following accounts are true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. This week we present the culinary offenses of two brothers for your consideration. No partners in crime, they committed their transgressions independently and inadvertently decades ago. Despite having moved on to competency in the kitchen, the siblings have not forgotten what they once did, nor have they ever stopped arguing about it. At issue is the question of whose kitchen mishap is the stupidest. As both jury and judge, you will see for yourself that there exists no debate whatsoever as to whether each unfortunate cooking decision was stupid, for you will soon observe that this is a given. Rather, you must weigh their relative stupidity.
The defendants would prefer that you take into account their youth and inexperience in the kitchen before rendering a verdict. They were raised in a coddled and protective environment by a generous and solicitous mother who saw to it that they were provided with delicious and nutritious meals on a daily basis. Thus, when left to fend for themselves at ages somewhere between late adolescence and early adulthood, they encountered what the general public might think of as common kitchen situations for the very first time. In the spirit of fairness and impartiality, and to spare them further embarrassment, you shall learn of their crimes without direct reference to their age at the time of the incidents. Nevertheless, the defendents reiterate their pitiable excuse that their actions were understandable because they were young and inexperienced, and hereafter they submit themselves to the mercy of the court.
The Reluctant Athlete
If gloves could talk...this one wouldn't have much to say.
"You want me to play softball in a prison?" I asked incredulously.
"I know," said Brian in a calm tone that resonated with sympathy and reassurance. We both knew that my objection had little to do with the unusual venue, and it was painfully obvious that he was desperate for players. So desperate, in fact, that he was approaching one of the last people you would want to ask if you wanted to forge a decent softball team. My brother tried to bolster his sincerity with a smile, but he could barely suppress a laugh as he tried to entice me by adding, "It'll be fun!"
"Yeah, fun," I grumbled. Brian belonged to a service organization that not only did the occasional good thing for the community but also participated in a recreational softball league. Scheduling a game against the inmates of our local minimum-security prison was a way to join the two vocations. Unfortunately, only a handful of members had signed up for the opportunity. Joining Brian in this endeavor would be the noble thing to do, but it would require a complete consumption of my pride. It was akin to taking a willing dive into a pool of embarrassment. "Let me think about it."
Sweet Home, Perstai
Standing before my 2-story home in Perstai. I hope to add a basement soon.
"You should get a home in Perstai, Dad," urged Melinda. I had reservations. I was not looking for new ways to occupy my time, and I had seen how willingly Melinda would sacrifice a free hour here and there to amble about her virtual world. I couldn't quite get it. It seemed like her avatar never did anything of much significance, yet unwinding within this mythical land apparently provided her much pleasure. I had to admit that Animal Crossing, the Nintendo Wii title that made Melinda's imaginary journeys possible, was a clever game. Its designers had crafted a tightly controlled environment that gave a satisfying sense of individual freedom within a dynamic fictional society fueled by limited artificial intelligence. Melinda was well aware that she was playing a game by herself and that her illusory interactions with pixelated neighbors were nothing more than simple, scripted encounters. But she didn't care, because it was fun.
"Maybe," I said, by which I meant, "No."
She had already persuaded Mom to establish residence in Perstai, and I had noticed Julie starting to take almost as much pleasure in this digital alternative existence as Melinda did. Sometimes one of them would watch the other strolling about town for awhile, then the one playing would log off and the one watching would log on. It didn't seem to make much difference who was actually playing, as both gamer and observer appeared to be equally absorbed by Perstai culture.
"Look," one of them would say, "Bones just clapped when I caught that fish!"
"Ha, ha!" the other would guffaw, and I would glance at them with withering condescension. Time wasters. It would be a cold day in Perstai before I indulged myself in that sort of pointless activity.
Stranger Danger
One minute everything is fine, and then...
Twice in my life I have been momentarily convinced that a total stranger was about to kill me. Given my sheltered upbringing and habitual avoidance of risky behavior and potentially unsafe scenarios, it seems an unlikely statistic. Both incidents occurred when I was a college student engaged in the most humdrum of pursuits. One moment I was just another Joe Average going about his ordinary business, and then suddenly I was staring death in the face. Or so I thought.
My first brush with mortality happened on an otherwise dull September evening. I had moved into my dorm room a few days earlier than most students due to required training for my work-study job. As a member of the dormitory security staff, I would be expected to know what I was doing by the time the rest of the residents arrived. I didn't mind getting a head start on campus life, especially since it was easier for me to move in while almost everyone else was still out.
Confidentially…
What do Bugs Bunny, taking a bath, and a precocious vocabulary have in common?
This is a cautionary tale, a story of how ignorance and the nuances of language can combine with coincidence to convey an unintended message of a mortifying caliber. It is the true account of a boy who was unaware that the unpleasantness confronting him was a consequence of his own actions, for he knew not what he was doing. Thankfully he remained in this state of immaturity for several years, allowing his fragile psyche to recover from the staggering truth when, at last, the individual links merged into an undeniable chain of events.
To appreciate the predicament fully, we must begin in the middle. Our protagonist - let's call him, say, Bobby - is a quiet second grader at a Catholic elementary school. He is in the class of one Miss M., a teacher beloved by most students and yet prone to a certain foulness of mood when crossed. It is the very same Miss M. who once made a spectacle of her displeasure with Bobby's older brother (whom we shall call B.J.) and the sloppiness of his desk by dumping B.J.'s accumulated possessions onto the floor before his peers. B.J. stood there stunned and uncomprehending, wondering why Miss M. did not simply order him to clean out his desk rather than unleashing her pent-up fury. But Bobby does not know about this darker side of his instructor, nor can he conceive that he is about to similarly provoke her ire.
Son Of A Son Of A Son Of A Son Of A Civil War Soldier
The Hunt men: from left, Grandfather Roy, Great-Grandfather Frank, and Great-Great-Grandfather Horace.
I drive past two thousand, two hundred and sixty dead Confederate soldiers every morning on my way to work. Perhaps this would not be noteworthy were I a denizen of the south, but I live in Columbus, Ohio, well into old Union territory. The fallen rebels are permanent residents of the last surviving parcel of Camp Chase, a military installation that prepared Ohio recruits for battle in the Civil War and housed a prison for captured enemy soldiers.
Today the once-sprawling complex is nothing more than a modest cemetery enclosed by stone walls. Among its neighbors are a library branch, an ice cream stand, and a deserted corner gas station. It is probable that most commuters traveling along Sullivant Avenue are unaware of the sacred historic landmark they are passing.
One step within its iron gates is a sobering antidote to such ignorance. Walk around outside the cemetery's perimeter, or scan its area as depicted in a satellite photograph, and you may perceive only a small rectangle of land. Stand within its walls, however, and its interior seems to expand to impossible dimensions. Row after row after row of small white headstones crowded together evoke the seemingly infinite crosses of Arlington National Cemetery. The Confederates buried there were once held captive on Union soil, and following their deaths due to disease, they remain prisoners to this day.
I Once Was A Man Who Lived In A ‘Shoe…
It was the only campus dorm in which every resident was suspended. Literally.
Ohio Stadium is not quite what it used to be. Though its tradition of hosting Buckeye football games continues unabated and the structure itself remains an unmistakable landmark for sports fans and aircraft pilots alike, a piece of it that thrived for six decades is missing. You might be forgiven for walking within it and failing to notice this omission. Even when it existed, few people seemed to be aware of the Stadium Dorm.
Make that The Ohio Stadium Scholarship Dormitory, as it was officially known. Its genesis was a spartan facility constructed inside the southwest tower in 1933, a mere eleven years after the stadium itself was built. From that humble beginning as a no-frills campus residence for 78 men of limited financial means, the dorm gradually expanded along the west concourse into a much larger, coed residence hall. The additions were elevated structures, their three floors of rooms suspended from the underside of the stadium seating. In its final form, the Stadium Dorm was comprised of five major sections accessed by tiny entrance foyers featuring a flight of stairs leading up to the “first” floor. Up to thirty students lived in each of the fifteen gender-segregated floor units, sharing communal bathrooms, taping posters to the paper-thin walls, and taking meals in the dorm cafeteria. Meanwhile, throngs of Buckeye supporters sauntered beneath these quarters on many a football Saturday without noticing that a vibrant and lively dormitory was hanging above them.
By the time I lived there in the late eighties, its longevity had done little to raise its profile, nor to rectify popular misconceptions.
Broadway Boogie-Woogie
As Aunt Peg would have said, "Isn't that somethin'?"
I remember my Great Aunt Peg as a kindly old woman who seemed to be in a perpetual state of amusement. She ambled about with her stout frame and white hair, her sparkling eyes framed by glacial grooves of laugh-worn wrinkles, her cherubic mouth always somewhere on the continuum from Mona Lisa grin to tooth-baring smile.
Her infectious laugh was gentle and silly. It began with a short, guttural warning, followed by a cascading repetition of rollicking chortles. A-hill, hill, hill! A-hill, hill, hill, hill! If you didn’t happen to think that the object of her outburst was funny, it was no matter to her – she just went on a-hill-ing, and you couldn’t help but be amused yourself by that silly laugh.
She was a childless widow by the time I came along. Though she lived only a block away, I never visited her, as it was the custom for her to visit us. Then one day, by circumstances I do not recall, I found myself the sole guest in her modest home.
I was perhaps nine years old, and I must have known I was due for a visit of some length, for I remember bringing along a small collection of treasures to show and tell. We sat before a coffee table in her ordinary living room, sunlight filtering through the window from the quiet intersection that bordered her corner house. I embarked on a detailed lecture concerning the assorted items I had arranged on the table. Aunt Peg sat patiently and attentively through my thoughtful discourses on the merits of one trading card over another and the means by which my portable slide viewer worked.
“Oh, how ‘bout that, it has a little battery inside,” she enthused, “a little battery, a-hill, hill!”
When at last I had exhausted my knowledge and fell silent, Aunt Peg was ready to take her turn. She fixed her whimsical countenance upon me and asked, “Have you seen my tent room?” Her casual tone made it sound as though she was referring to something everyone had in their homes. Nonplussed and inquisitive, I followed her into the hall.
You’ll Probably Need Stitches
Those points are supposed to go down toward the ground.
The house in which I grew up had aluminum downspouts that descended from our gutters and curved away from the foundation atop beveled cinder block. They channeled rainwater adequately, but they were prone to rust and had sharp edges at their openings. Not much of a hazard for most people, but if you were an eight-year-old boy running around the perimeter of your house at top speed, they could be dangerous. I was surprised to discover this fact one summer afternoon, and I was further stunned when my bloody leg failed to elicit any sympathy from my mother but instead earned me a reprimand.
"Well, if you hadn't been running around the house instead of watching where you're going, this wouldn't have happened," I recall my mother scolding me as she tended to my injury. She probably tempered her criticism with compassion, but only her cool rebuke remained in my memory. Somewhere among my developing dendrites and synapses I stowed away the lone nugget of wisdom I managed to cull from the experience: If you're hurt, don't tell Mom. It was a maxim that was destined to lead me astray.
Hostel Is A Homophone
The bridge from Sandy Hook to Harpers Ferry...and also from lunacy to sanity.
"Nothing just happens! Nothing just happens!" thundered the evangelizing voice of T.D. Jakes as I gnawed on fried chicken from the comfort of my hotel bed. The congregation shouted its approval of their leader's assertion that there is no such thing as a coincidence. I pondered the idea for a moment, took another swig of cola, and clicked the remote. Now The Andy Griffith Show flickered from the screen. It was an episode I recognized, the classic "Man In A Hurry," in which a stranded big-city motorist finds his patience tested by the leisurely pace of Mayberry as he waits for his car to be repaired.
"Ah, what luck," I enthused before it occurred to me that T. D. Jakes would presumably disagree.
I was determined to squeeze whatever enjoyment I could out of my accommodations, as my room was costing me four times what I had budgeted. Perched high atop Harpers Ferry at the edge of the Catholic cemetery, my lodgings were in every way a far cut above my original reservations. In order to justify the indulgence of attending a five-day educational conference at my own expense (along with opportunities to do further research for my historical novel set in the area), I had intended to stay a little further down the Potomac, just across the river. There at the base of Maryland Heights is the small community of Sandy Hook, where a humble hostel offers shelter to Appalachian Trail hikers, assorted vagabonds, and fiscally prudent educators.
The idea of staying in a hostel held no appeal to me beyond its minimal cost. Multi-bunk barracks and community bath facilities are not what I would consider to be positive amenities. In addition, this establishment was only open in the evening, overnight and morning hours, outside of which the doors were locked. Still, I anticipated a busy week, and what more would I need from my accommodations but a safe bed and a shower? As I was traveling alone, I did not need to consider the comfort of my family. I could handle roughing it for a few days. It might even make the whole endeavor more fun, allowing me to assume the role of the itinerant writer, a rugged intellectual who cares not where he sleeps so long as he may practice his craft.