Uh huh. Uh huh. Well, yes, the December piece did have a certain Dr. Seuss quality to it, but the man’s still warm in his grave and it would be presumptuous. Uh huh. No, I don’t think it has pulp romance appeal, but I’m not sure that works for me anyway (click, click) . . . wait one (click, click) . . . uh, Mr. Pulitzer, I’m gonna hafta get back to you, I have another call . . . your people? Yeah, mine’ll call . . . love ‘ya, b’bye."
Sorry about that, ever since December, he’s been so persistent. What’s that? You still on about Jan/Feb ‘n March? Yeah, they were kind of a let down after December. Hey, it’s the Dark Ages, gimme a break. What’s up with me? Not much, still doin’ the Crystal City merchant of death thing, crankin’ 100 a day on the car, lovin’ life, lovin’ the wife ‘n kids? Fine, fine. No complaints. No, winter wasn’t too bad, dodged Ma Nature’s bullet this time. Truth is DC winters never really happen, just kinda 40ish, grey, and wet. Maine? Yeah, BOHICA central. In the shorts, took it, they did . . . the ice dude cometh ‘n whatever. Do I know anyone up there? Yeah, a few. I think Fuzz froze to death, but I got a letter from a girl from school, Patty Murphy, lived through it, she did. I trimmed it a bit, but check it out:
"Thanks to all who have been so concerned about us during the past week and a half. Maine is in one hell of a mess after the series of ice storms last week. The National Guard and utility trucks from a dozen other states have been helping put us back together. Here is where we stand.
The campus lost the bulk of its power on Thursday morning (1/8). We powered critical buildings by generator for a couple days, but since much of our campus is on the same grid as the hospital, we were largely up and running quite quickly. Although we have had numerous power outages of short durations since then, we are in decent shape. My office was up and running this weekend (ta-dah!) although the campus still had eight student houses, two academic buildings, the health center, and numerous staff and faculty houses without power until Tuesday morning (1/20). Now only one remains without power 13 days after the storm. Since around 30% of my crew are STILL without power, they are here day and night taking showers, doing laundry, and basically giving their families a warm place to hang out. The trees on campus took a big hit. Clearly 90% of the trees sustained significant damage. The evergreens fared the best. The crews have been just outstanding through all of this, even when Saturday morning and yesterday brought eight new inches of snow to grease up the ice!
(At home) we lost power Wednesday (1/7) night. Our street was hit pretty hard and we lost a good 90% of the branches on the big tree out front. Our big birch was lying in the road so the town cut it down. Dozens of others will have to be cut down and the woods out back looks like a war zone. Thankfully, the damage to the house and barn were minimal. The TV antenna was relocated to another part of the roof, but I haven’t been up yet to see if there is any roof damage (I’m rarely home during daylight hours). Thankfully, only the smaller branches hit the house. I wish I could describe the sound of those large branches breaking and falling, one after another, under the weight of the ice during the night. It was eerie. We slept with the kids on a mattress in front of the fireplace on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I got up about every hour or so to stoke the fire to keep us minimally warm. Chris is a sound sleeper so those through-the-night stokings fell largely to me—kind of like those midnight feedings when the kids were small (Many of you know what I’m talking about here).
We melted snow to flush toilets and wash dishes for the first couple days until we found a shallow well out back from which we drew water. It reminded me of camping when I was a kid only I wasn’t quite sure when I would get to go home. Somehow my recollections of camping trips seemed more fun than this. By Sunday morning I got a call that my parents had power in Machias, so they could take the kids until we got power. I drove to Bangor (1/2 way to Machias) to meet my parents on Sunday. It was a relief that the kids would be safe and warm, especially with the hours I was spending at work. By the time I finished the nearly four hour round trip to Bangor, I was exhausted, but had three emergency messages from campus and found myself in at work again until 10:00 that night. It was a long week of long hours, sleeping on the floor by the fireplace, showering at work. As the weather became colder and colder, we decided to buy a generator, but they were almost impossible to find. We were now living like true white trash with the dog cage in the living room, dirty clothes in a pile on the floor, bottles, cans, food, and toothbrushes all on the kitchen counter. I was finally able to get a generator from New Hampshire and we hooked it up on Wednesday as the temperatures approached zero. Even though we were still without power, we missed the kids so Chris headed to Machias Wednesday night to bring them home on Thursday.
The generator gave us the basics (heat, water, some light). The babysitter had a generator as well. No school was scheduled until at least the 20th. The kids should be fine. Wednesday night was a long one for me. I stayed awake until midnight when I fueled the generator. After six nights of sleeping on the floor, my voice was hoarse, so when the dog ran off, I had trouble calling her back, especially over the sound of the generator. Then I dropped my flashlight and broke it. I finally found the dog by the light of the moon and settled in for a decent night’s sleep in my bed. At 1:30 I woke to silence. The generator had cut off. At that hour, I found myself trying to restart the generator (it’s a little tougher than the lawn mowers and snowmobiles I pull started as a teenager). I guess I need to work on my arm strength because after 20 minutes of trying, I gave up, started a fire, and pulled the mattress back over in front of the fireplace for my seventh night of sleeping on the floor. By 4:30, I was at work in the shower. I guess the crew could see the stress in my face (and lack of sleep in my eyes) so one of the electricians and a plumber came home with me and got the generator fixed up for me. My plumbing supervisor commented with a smile, "That’s what you get when you send an engineer to do a technician’s job."
Well, the kids got home to a warm, lighted house thanks to the generator. Five days away from them was too much for Mom. Low and behold, that night power was restored, but I am still trying to get back to normal. Doing laundry, sanding our ice slick of a driveway. I still haven’t been up on the roof to see if there’s much damage. Since Friday, I have been coordinating some of the college’s efforts with the Red Cross. My crew has been delivering food and firewood to those still in need. I took Erik with me and we made two deliveries ourselves on Sunday. He decided it was hard work. My body decided that it did not like sleeping on the floor and lugging wood. I can’t complain, though. We sustained minimal damage compared to some, my kids are home, the power is on, the sun should be out today, and Primestar works so life is good. Keep in touch. Pat."
Yeah, I’ll say "What’s up with that?" If the deities wanted us to be polar bears we woulda been born with fur rumps. Hey, Pat, remember what a wise man once said, "Watch out where the huskies go, don’t you eat that . . ." I forget the rest.
The picture? It’s this frienda mine, Tim Disher. Yeah, he’s in this Navy thing. Get this--when you get in, a line grows on your shoulder and, after you’re in for a while, another line grows. Yeah, they start out real thin, but then get wider and then another thin one starts and when you get real old they all kinda blur together into one big patch instead of a bunch of lines and then you’re like Thor or something, yeah, sacred ‘n stuff. Well, Tim had two big lines and a little one in the middle and then the little one grew into a big one and then a bunch of his friends gave him a beer IV for a few hours last October. Yeah, it’s weird, like every time a new one grows or a little one gets big, friends give you beer IVs. What’s up with that? Tribal. Yeah, but on they sweep with thrashing oars.
Here’s something. I got this note about another guy I know, Terry Kraft, yeah, like the mayo & cheese dudes, but different. Get this, he’s CO of a whole thing of airplanes. No, man, not "co," you say each letter separately like "See-Oh," right. The airplanes? VAQ-131. Yeah, it’s not a word either, just say the letters one at a time. Where? Up near Seattle where it rains all the time . . . some place called Whidbey Island. Uh-huh. I guess it has water around it. Hey, that reminds me, another guy I know got the same, CO deal a few months back, Pete Sciabarra’s his name. His only goal was to reach the western shore and now he flies helos out in San Diego, HC-11. Me? No, I’d never hack that CO stuff . . . problem with authority ‘n all, you know.
What else? Nada. Well, one thing. This other guy, Jerry Carson, got a new email address, carsonj@tst.tracor.com. Whazzat? It’s sorta like regular mail ‘cept you have to have a mouse on your table. Yeah, those little pellets are gross, but I have my kids clean ‘em up. Sent me this other thing, he did. It’s like "You might be a lifer if: The family car is the ‘liberty boat;’ Driving thru McDonald’s is an UNREP; Your wife says she has PMS and you ask her if she verified her MRC; Your kids can’t leave home without a collared shirt; You take hourly readings of the fridge and the oven; You call the back porch the fantail; Closing the house up at night is ‘Setting Zebra:’ You call the operator for a phone check; Upstairs is the 01 level; 5th gear in the car is ‘Ahead Flank;’ When you walk out the front door, you feel obligated to put on a hat. Yeah, they do have their own language. It’s like a big club, I guess, sorta like Club Med ‘cept the fat people don’t have tans.
No, haven’t heard from anyone else. Yeah, some folks have like dropped off the edge of the Earth or something, not even a message in a bottle. Can I name one? Fer sure, I can name 36 that I bet I’ll never hear from: Double dog dare me? Check it out: Arlan Biesecker, Claude Hubbard, Dan Lyons, Bill Tate, Ricky Ladau, Rowley Molina, Kirk Lippold, Mary Bartlo, Mark Washington, Bill Bensinger, Curt Gainer, Kathy Engleman, Dave Krev, Rich Racine, Dan Pederson, Alex Bragado, Greg Point, Wally Ruehlin, Bob Anoll, Bob Skillen, Chuck Chandonnet, Kevin Tolbert, Tom Giedlin, Don Logar, Nelson Littaua, Dick Manski, Fred Lee, T.J. Best, John Pierse, Fred Tettelback, Sandy Hinds, Tom Johnson, Don Mueth, Rich Hagen, Jim Knock, and Bob Freer. I’ll give you and any one of them a dollar if they get to me before Mother’s Day. Deal, schlemeel?
Bud Womer? Naw, I didn’t bother listing him. I think maybe he built himself a cabin in Montana with no utilities (‘cept for a steam room) or nothing and has just, like, regressed ‘n stopped bathing ‘n all. Yeah, the Navy can do that to ya. Now, if he’da been a Marine and moved to Montana, I fer sure wouldn’t be asking for mail from him, not me. Yeah, I used ‘ta live next to him and this other guy, Bob? They used to get, like, Fruit-of-the-Loom-only naked and try to twist off each other’s nips until they bled and then they’d scream bloody blue murder ‘til the OOD came. What’s that? No, not the ODD, the OOD, you say each letter by itself . . . forget it. Anyway, Bob grew up to be like a stock guy or something and Bud, well he just faded away like the Cheshire cat ‘cept he didn’t even leave a smile and, let me tell you, he had a weird smile, like Satan laughing with delight, man.
What’s that? Gotta go? OK. Call me in a month or so. Hey, one mo’ thin’, man, that golf thing I told you about? It’s June 5th, yeah, right between Midway Day and D-Day. Uh-huh. 11:00. Ft. Meade, MD. Lunch. Shotgun start @ 13 o’clock. Who ya gonna call? Fred Reitzel. MyThreeSons@erols.com. Aloha.
Now try to get some answers for me while you’re gone. Like, who is this General Failure dude and why is he reading my hard drive? Is it a West Point thing? And, like, what happens when you get scared half to death twice or what is the speed of dark? I mean, the inquiring mindless gotta know. Oh and check this, next time a computer geek gets in your face, tell ‘em "Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity." He’ll hafta reboot his bad self, fer sure, after that.
Later, .