ACCOMPLISHMENT

I saw a television commercial this afternoon that caught my attention. It showed a man walking across some boulders in a stream, something that I would venture a bet that at least 90% of us have done and survived it without drowning or breaking any bones. At the bottom of the TV screen were three words directed at the viewing audience:

DO NOT ATTEMPT.

In another commercial later on, there was a teenager jumping off a 10' rock ledge into a pond. Again:

DO NOT ATTEMPT.

Then but a few minutes later, there was a commercial with a man working on his car. You guessed it:

DO NOT ATTEMPT.

I've always believed that one of the things that makes America great is the fearless determination of its people. Only by saying "to hell with the risks involved" were the citizens of the U.S. able to create the country that we have become. To be sure, that attitude has gotten us in over our heads from time to time, but, overall, success speaks for itself.

Consider this:

May 14, 1804: Lewis and Clark depart Camp DuBois beginning their voyage to the Pacific Ocean.

DO NOT ATTEMPT?

June 6, 1944: 156,000 soldiers land at Normandy, France to liberate northwestern Europe from Nazi control.

DO NOT ATTEMPT?

May 5, 1961: Alan B. Shepard becomes the first American in space, completing a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard his space capsule, Freedom 7, powered by a Redstone rocket.

DO NOT ATTEMPT?

I'm inspired by our forefathers' dedication to accomplishment. "Think big" will be my credo from now on.

I'll start by sweeping out the garage.

Readers, enjoy your day.

FAMILY TREE

In my previous post I discussed the finer points regarding cheapskates. One thing we cannot resist is the offer of something "free". I had such an offer yesterday presented by Ancestry.com. These folks seemingly have every birth, death, marriage and divorce record in the world. Through this information their users can look up relatives long since dead and create a family tree. To entice me, Ancestry.com waived the cost of their service for a month. Anything beyond that would cost $34.99. So, armed with a free month of this service, I dug into their extensive search capabilities.

My motivation behind this interest (beyond the free offer) was based on a TV series that I watched called "Suddenly Royal". This reality show featured an ordinary man who worked in an auto parts store. Through an internet search he discovered that he was related to the last king of the Isle of Mann. Because he was the last surviving relative, according to English law he was (technically) the king of the Isle of Mann.

One never knows what sorts of interesting characters lie at the roots and lower branches of one's family tree. Perhaps my family has a few interesting twigs that will be stimulating cocktail party fodder.

So it began.

I started tracing my father's side of the family. My grandfather's name was Auguste, "Gus" for short. He was fairly easy to trace. He died when I was 11 years old so I really didn't know much about him. According to 1930 census data, he was a machinist. Not exactly the king of England as I was hoping but it was a start. Other information gleaned about him showed that his first wife (who had given birth to several children) died. Then he married his widow's sister several years hence (who later gave birth to my father). My mind, eager for an interesting story, imagined a family love triangle with dark secrets.

The best I could come up with was this: my father's sister's mother was my father's mother's sister.

Take a few minutes to process that.

Looking beyond Grandpa Gus, I sifted through birth and marriage records - his father was named Georges (that's how they spell George in French...just thought you'd like to know). He was a carpenter who lived in Quebec, Canada. He was married to Marie Bourgein whose parents were Louis Bourgein and Alivetite Belanger. Louis was a laborer of sorts.

I took a quick look at my mother's side of the family. Nothing interesting there either.

Although I had only gone as far as the mid-1800's, my mind was pretty well fried. Plus, looking at hand-scribbled documents written in French didn't seem like much fun. So, two hours into my free month of Ancestry.com, I cancelled my subscription.

Although it was tempting to think that my family tree contained some interesting, scandalous and/or famous people, it's comforting to know that they are just ordinary people.

Kind of like me.


Readers, enjoy your day.

CHEAPSKATES

I've always been rather cheap. My father was that way and he taught me well. At a very early age he showed me that some of the best bargains in the world were at the city dump. Need a shovel? Five dollars at the store, free at the dump.

I used to be ashamed of the fact that I was so cheap. Now I look upon it as a badge of honor. This designation is for one and only reason:

Being cheap makes you a better person. I'll explain why.

In my past, I was employed as a bartender - mixing drinks to help put me through college. It was an interesting and fun time in my life, except on New Year's Eve (but that's another story).

During those years, in addition to being a mixologist, I was a psychologist and counselor to many of my customers, many of whom were females. I learned more about their personal lives and loves than I would have cared to know but I listened, nonetheless. If there was a thread that ran through all of the sordid stories told to me by these women it was that they were emotionally involved with men who were (FILL IN THE BLANKS).

The blanks included gambling, unfaithfulness, drinking, drug use and spending money foolishly. When asked, I would give my opinion as to how I saw the situation. I took a rather pedestrian approach to this, telling them to simply leave the bum and find someone else. In many of the cases they did just that. Within a few months they were back at the bar stool pouring out their hearts to me, the only one left in the bar at 12:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before (mercifully) my shift was over.

After two years of this routine, I decided to be a bit more probing in my approach. I found myself asking these women why they were interested in these men in the first place. Virtully all of these women replied that they were interested in these men because they were "fun".

Fun.

As one who has dated some women because they had nice thighs or had a cute laugh, I'm hardly in any position to judge the shallowness of others' choices in partners. Thus, I forgot about these women to whom I had provided complimentary counseling to accompany their late-night binges.

Years later it occurred to me that I had finally figured it out. I had provided the wrong answers to these vulnerable women, thus sending them back into miserable, meaningless relationships with other "fun" guys. It's a good thing that you can't sue a bartender for malpractice. If so, I'd still be locked up in San Quentin.

If I could rewind my life back to the days when I was a quasi-psychologist, I would individually tell these abused women to dump their present partner and seek out the cheapest guy she can find. Do whatever it takes to get the guy to marry her (all it would take is a 6-pack of cheap beer and tacos at her house every Tuesday).

For those of you who think I'm kidding, think about these points:

Would a cheapskate...

...have a mistress on the side?
...gamble away his money?
...drink excessively?
...do drugs?
...spend money foolishly?

The answer to all.of these questions is an emphatic "no". Why? Because they're too cheap.

So, ladies, if you're looking for a great husband, don't look for the great dancer, football player, driver of the BMW or the guy who goes to Las Vegas every few weeks. Hang around the places where the good potential husbands hang out - the all-you-can-eat buffets, the junk yards, the used car lots, the Goodwill Stores and the taverns with free chicken wings. Better still, when you go to the grocery store, look for the guy at the checkout stand who has a fistful of coupons and pays with an eBay credit card. Follow him to the parking lot and, if he drives a Plymouth Volare station wagon, you've found your true soul mate.

Enjoy your wedding and remember that the money that you are saving by honeymooning at Carlsbad Caverns will help pay for your next 1970's used car.


Readers, enjoy your day.

LEADER OF THE LAUNDROMAT

Anybody remember the '60's song "Leader of the Laundromat"? I didn't think so. It was a spoof of the song "Leader of the Pack" by an all - female band called the Shangri-Las. Plug those titles into YouTube if you care to give them a listen.

Anyway, today my exciting life finds me sitting in a laundromat doing a small load of clothes. Are my washer and dryer broken? No, they work just fine. I'm just here on a nostalgic journey back to the days when I was in college (a boldface lie). Back then I used to make my weekly journey to the local "washeteria". In the town where I went to college (not the one I graduated from, the one I was asked to leave) there was the world's greatest laundromat. Picture a local tavern with the obligatory stools facing a bar. Behind those bar stools was a row of washers and dryers. A 12-ounce draught beer was the same price as a load of laundry, 25 cents. A dryer would cost the same as a bag of chips, 10 cents.

Those were the days.

The only drawback to this bar/laundromat was that your clothes always smelled like tobacco and stale beer. College students, however, paid little attention to such trivialities.

One thing that hasn't changed over the years is the character of people who frequent laundromats - simple, honest, genuine folks. In reality, laundromat people tend to be very secretive, covering the garments with plastic so as to hide their identity. But, "why the secrecy?", I've always wondered.

At this point I'd like to say that I met the wife at a laundromat as that would serve to juice up my story a bit.

Oh, hell, I'll do it anyway.

"Do you have an extra quarter?" asked the attractive young woman in the laundromat. "Sorry, I just spent my last quarter on a glass of Schlitz", said the slovenly college student who was in his underwear because his only pair of pants were in the washer.

And that's how we met.

Not really. We really met at a gas station - not quite as interesting as a laundromat but not too bad.

Readers, enjoy your day.

FISHING

I love catching fish but I hate fishing. You know the drill - you stand on the shore and toss lures at salmon who generally ignore them. Odd that all of the fishing lure manufacturers use the same language when advertising their products:

DRIVES SALMON CRAZY!!

I think that they mean that the salmon go crazy laughing at the stupid things that we throw at them to get them to bite. Here on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I am the most unsuccessful fisherman in history, having spent many hours tossing useless lures into the ocean with nothing to show for it. People ask me where the best fishing is in town and I tell them "at the local grocery store".

When I was a kid there was a Saturday afternoon fishing show featuring an older man named Gadabout Gaddis. He called himself "the flying fisherman" because he was a licensed pilot and had a float plane which he would land at choice, remote lakes. The fishing was always fantastic and Gaddis would head home with a plane load of fish. I've always envied him.

The key to being a successful fisherman is twofold: patience and having a lot of time to kill. I spoke to one fisherman the other day and asked him how the fishing was. He said it was "terrific". I asked him how many he caught. He said "one". I asked him how long he had been there. He said "8 hours".

I'd love to be able to waste that much time but what about my afternoon soap opera? What about my nap? What about free Tuesday tacos at the senior center?

That said, you can expect to see the following ad in the local Craig's List:

FOR SALE:

SALMON FISHING EQUIPMENT IN GOOD SHAPE. SHIMANO 410 REEL WITH 12 LB. LINE. "UGLY STICK" ROD (8 1/2' LENGTH) ASSORTED LURES AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GEAR.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: NONE OF THIS EQUIPMENT WORKS AND HAS NEVER CAUGHT ONE SALMON DESPITE MANY HOURS OF USE.

PRICE IS NEGOTIABLE - HIGHLY MOTIVATED SELLER.

Readers, enjoy your day.

DANCING

Women love to dance. Most men tolerate it. But there are exceptions. I have a friend we'll call "Eddie" (because that's his real name). The guy's a dancing maniac, traveling all over the country to go dancing. He's a good-looking guy with a steady, well-paying job, and he doesn't drink, smoke or use Aqua Velva.

And he can't get a steady date. More about that later.

Now, on to my life. The wife loves to dance and I oblige her when she makes it clear that it's dance or pork and beans for a week. At last night's concert I knew I was in trouble when the band started singing "...and I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more"... In all, we danced to two songs. Under normal circumstances, barring the playing of 500 miles, I should be covered until 2017.

Now back to my friend, Eddie.

Eddie gets a date every now and then but, like the boxer Apollo Creed wearing out his sparring partners, Eddie wears out these women on the dance floor. After a few dates their legs simply give out from dancing three nights in a row. In absolute fatigue, they beg for an evening of staying home and watching TV. But Eddie already has another dance lined up. In utter fatigue they kindly tell him that "this just isn't working out".

There's a valuable lesson to be learned here. Sadly, rather than now, I should have learned this lesson 30 years ago. Recognizing that every person has his/her breaking point, Eddie is really on to something. If a guy is dating a woman who loves to dance, he should make it clear that it's all he wants to do. At first she'll think she died and went to heaven but soon will realize that she's in a living hell. Within a few days, much like Eddie's short-term girlfriends, she'll be begging for the dancing to be over.

A smart guy will oblige, and the woman, who for fear of re-opening the gates of hell, will never bring up the subject again.

And they will live happily ever after.


Readers, enjoy your day.

PURPOSE IN LIFE

All of us have heard the words "purpose in life". While aware of this ubiquitous phrase, I never gave it much thought until I announced my retirement several years ago. At that point, people started asking me my purpose after I retired. If I were a candidate for Miss America I would have given an answer having to do with children, clean air, whales and/or mosquito eradication. Truthfully, I really did not have an immediate answer to what my purpose in life would be, once I was retired.

I was put on the spot one night at a friend's house standing around with two other recent retirees. One of them spoke of his need to find himself - to learn the true nature of was his life means. The other person stated that she wished to be closer to her grandchildren - watching the grow up on a daily basis.

I had to think quickly, something that I have always found difficult.

Truthfully, I wanted to say that my purpose in retired life was to drink beer, watch football and keep the couch warm. However, in light of the intelligent responses of my two acquaintances, the truth would have only served as a point of ridicule with me being the target thereof. So, I blurted out that I wanted to "be creative". One person asked "how?"

Now I was trapped. I had to come up with something quickly that would indicate to my friends that I've been thinking about this for some time. So, I blurted out "write a blog, for starters". That seemed to satisfy their immediate needs and, thus, I was able to deflect any additional curiosity about my intentions.

So, a few days later, I started the blog West of Denver which has entertained (at last count) two readers who keep coming back in hopes of reading something meaningful. And it's been fun. I enjoy writing and it gives me a wonderful creative outlet.

In sharp contrast, the musical side of my life (guitar playing) has been at a relative standstill for a few years. I was playing in an old time music band and was having the time of my life for several years. Suddenly, the band broke up, leaving its loyal members in relative ruin. Thus, I have been in a state of musical mourning, picking up the guitar on occasion and playing depressing songs while I wallowed in the misery of our band's sudden demise. After two years of playing "...remember the Red River Valley and the cowboy who loved you so true..." I had had enough.

Time to move on. But where?

The answer came at our local brewery (imagine that) where, on Friday evenings, there are free concerts. On that particular evening, an excellent blues band was playing. Somewhere in the middle of "Sweet Home Chicago" my left hand began to twitch. By the end of "Big Boss Man" my right hand was rhythmically swinging back and forth. By the middle of "Hootchie Cootchie Man" my musical future was sealed.

The blues.

Since that concert I have been eagerly diving back into re-learning blues scales, riffs and licks. I ordered a new guitar...where is that UPS truck - it should have been here an hour ago. Again, my musical life has purpose.

At present, I'm almost as good as the five-year old down the street who plays a plastic ukulele. I expect to overtake him in a few weeks.

Eric Clapton, watch out.

You're next.


Readers, enjoy your day.