"He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction."—from the song The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 by Kris Kristofferson
"Now then, that is the tale. Some of it is true."—from The Autobiography of Mark Twain
Introduction. These are vignettes, not necessarily parts of longer stories, that have been inspired by real incidents or ideas. They range from being slightly altered to highly modified from what may actually have transpired.
I have in mind writings such as Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, long regarded as nonfiction narrative, which has since been found to be at least partly fiction. Another book that comes to mind is John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, published as nonfiction travel writing; but recent fact-checking revealed the book to be a mix of fiction and nonfiction or highly re-worked nonfiction, the latter of which may as well be labeled fiction (see this link). I am also reminded of Jack London's novel Martin Eden, which draws heavily upon the author's own experiences; and of what Jim Harrison wrote in The Ancient Minstrel, a collection of three novellas, that he would continue his memoir "...in the form of a novella. At this late date I couldn't bear to lapse into any delusions of reality in nonfiction."
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Posted March 1, 2024
Advice for the Sports Industry
Sometimes Julie and I will look at houses for a potential move. Nothing organized, just curiosity as to what might be out there. She has specific fine tastes for the house itself, while I tend to be more concerned about the property and surrounding area. One day, as we toured around a little neighborhood near the outskirts of town, our conversation took quite an unexpected turn.
“Look at all the damn basketball nets on this street, almost every other house,” I observed.
“Is that a problem?” asked Julie.
“They’re just so noisy,” I said. “You know, if you live next door, you not only hear the ball bouncing when you’re in your own house, but you can actually feel it through the floor.”
“Well, when I was a kid, we had a basketball net by our garage and we loved it. All the neighborhood kids came over to play. It was wonderful. A fond memory.”
“Yeah,” I said, “neighborhood kids yelling and screaming. No thanks.”
“You really kind of have a problem with sports, don’t you?” asked Julie.
“As you know, I was never into sports, except possibly bowling for a while. Maybe it’s the competitive nature of sports that gets to me. It seems to bring out the worst of human characteristics like toxic aggression and promotes rudeness. Like when the guys on the other team shove their hands in your face as you’re trying to make a basket. Rude. Or how about stealing the ball when you’re trying to concentrate on dribbling? And what about the audience? Shouting insults at the opposing team. I just could never get into it.”
“But you’re six feet four inches tall!” said Julie. “I would think that you of all people would be good at basketball.”
“Yeah well,” I replied, “that’s what everyone thought at the beginning of the school year. In gym class, at first both sides wanted me when choosing teams. But by the end of the school year, it was either between me and the other worst player or I had to be assigned to a team.”
“Did you ever even try?”
“What for? Let’s say your team wins. Wins what? I never could see the point.”
“I’m starting to think you had a deprived childhood. What about having fun? F. U. N. Fun!”
“I think sports would be more interesting and fun if all the players were not so good. And fair too. As it is now, sports are biased toward the exceptional players and they discriminate—yes, discriminate, I emphasize—against everyone else.”
“Here we go,” said Julie.
“Let’s just look at basketball. The ball should be bigger and heavier so a player with big hands cannot handle it like it was nothing. And the nets should be higher, beyond the height that even an eight-foot player can reach by jumping. No more hanging off the edge of the net. And the net’s diameter should be just about a millimeter larger than the ball, so even the good players might not look so good. And I think the ball should be harder to bounce.”
“You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
“Well…I guess— ”
“Okay,” said Julie, “What else?”
“All skill levels get to play—and I’m talking here about professional sports. If you get too good, though, you’re temporarily suspended.”
“So you really think people would rather see players dropping the balls, falling down, and generally screwing up?”
“Well, you may want to mix it up with regular people and maybe have a few really good players. That would add drama and unpredictability to the game; you’d never know what might happen. Imagine an uncoordinated, geeky guy dribbling the basketball and just losing it. It would be fun. Or in baseball, you’d never know if the first baseman would actually catch the ball to make an out. Drama.”
“The world according to Tom.”
“Yes.”
“Anything at all appeal on this street?” asked Julie, returning to the reason we were out driving around.
“Sorry, not with all those basketball nets.”
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Posted August 2, 2023
A Table for One
A lot of folks, I suspect, avoid eating alone in restaurants, especially having an evening meal at an upscale establishment filled with couples out on dates. The single person feels conspicuous, and there’s not much to do while waiting for your food except to look around, watching others having a good time. I’m different, though, having long ago learned to bring a book as a companion, along with a set of large black clips to hold the book open, while calmly enjoying my dinner and not looking around at other diners.
But having been married for seventeen years, I rarely use these single-man techniques. I was recently reminded of those olden days while dining with my wife Julie. The location of our table was the memory trigger.
“I don’t like this table. Let’s move,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the table, sweetheart. This is where they seated us,” Julie replied. Our table was located directly under a large speaker that was blasting out a mix of current pop music and contemporary country, neither of which I found very enjoyable. I love music, but not all music; and some types, I even find annoying.
“Look, there’s an open table on the other side of the room. Let’s move.”
“No, I think we should stay right here. They put customers at specific tables so that all of the waitresses have their fair share.”
At that point in the conversation, my vibe barometer was giving me a “code yellow” to abort this discussion without delay. Over the years, I’ve learned to pay attention to code yellow, well before it might turn to code red. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess this table’s fine then.”
As our conversation was taken over by the rhythmic vibrations of bass guitar, pounding drums, and raunchy electric guitars (and this was supposed to be country music!), my mind drifted back to the late 1990s. I had just walked into a nice restaurant, book in hand, and stood in front of a sign that stated: “Please wait to be seated.” After a few minutes, a nicely dressed young woman, with menus in hand, approached, stood next to the sign, and asked, “Table for one?” Was it that obvious, I thought, that I was alone? My date could have been in the restroom. It must have been certain clues that gave me away: overall disheveled appearance, thick glasses, clothes and hair out of style, carries a large hardback book. Her conclusion? Table for one.
The restaurant was not busy, so there were quite a few tables to choose from. But she sat me down right next to a large family with two rambunctious little kids and an unhappy baby. I knew immediately why she dumped me at that table. It was the closest one to the kitchen. She could have placed me on the other side of the room so that I would be more comfortable. But she would then have had a longer walk to my table. It was all about making her job easier.
After the waitress seated me with a menu and took my drink order, she left the room. I sat there, propped up my book with a salt shaker, and began to read. Then the baby started screaming, the two kids started pushing each other, and the parents were heroically attempting to hold it all together and somehow eat their own meals. I read the same sentence three times and forgot what it meant as soon as I finished reading it. Why am I putting up with this, I asked myself? Without an answer, I abruptly picked up my book and moved to a small table on the other side of the room. The parents gave me a pitiful look and mouthed the words, “Sorry.” I felt bad for the suffering parents, but I never did have the emotional constitution for being a martyr.
In about ten minutes, the waitress quickly entered the dining area with a basket of rolls and a bottle of beer for me, and just as quickly stopped and stared at my now empty former table. She looked around in a state of panic, and I gently waved at her in response from across the room.
“Sorry I moved,” I said as she approached my table.
“Oh, that’s okay. Are you ready to order?”
“Yes.”
After taking my order, she again left the room for the kitchen. It was a slow night, and it looked as if she was the only waitress on duty. So she probably had plenty to do in the kitchen as well as wait on customers. I opened my book again and propped it up to just the right angle for easy reading while I ate. And then the music started—not loud, but louder than it needed to be, in my opinion. Cocktail Lounge-type crooner music: Dean Martin, Steve Lawrence, Andy Williams. Not my kind of music. And the speaker was directly above my table, which I did not notice when I chose this new table. What to do? As I began stumbling over words and re-reading sentences, only one choice became obvious. I closed my book, picked up my plate, cloth napkin, utensils, water, and beer, and moved to a small corner table that was far from the speaker and far from the busy little family.
I was happily reading my book again when the waitress entered the dining room carrying a large tray of food. She was on a pathway to my second abandoned table when she again abruptly stopped, and her eyes quickly widened as she saw I was not there. So I vigorously waved my arm to catch her attention. She looked relieved, but her irritation was quite obvious. I had seen that irritated look on women many times before; in fact, I considered myself a bit of an expert at recognizing the signature telltale signs of that particular emotional state.
But she remained a pure professional, and only said, “Oh, that’s okay.” But I knew from her body language that it was really not okay.
“This is it,” I replied. “I’m staying at this table no matter what.” She just looked at me. And thereafter, each time she entered the dining area from the kitchen, she immediately narrowed her eyes and looked in my direction. There were few other customers that evening while I was there, but my recollection is that she visited the dining area a lot more often than when I was first seated. Looking back now, I hope that I left her a nice tip, she having to clean off three tables, after all, for one customer.
“What are you thinking?” said Julie. She often asks me that question when I’ve been silent for a time, imagining me to be deep in thought on important matters in science or world affairs (my interpretation).
“Oh, nothing much. Just thinking about when I was single, when I would eat alone in restaurants. The music’s kind of loud, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Music’s kind of loud,” I shouted.
“Yeah, let’s move.”
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Posted June 18, 2023
Too Much Feeling
Things were quiet for a Saturday afternoon at the Shotgun Shack Bar and Grill. Jack Thompson and his friend Duff Makem sat alone at the bar looking out on the Mississippi River, both minds in a sort of mid-summer haze. Neither spoke for long periods, except to order more rounds of beer. So, of course, during one of their more voluble moments, the conversation inevitably turned toward women; or rather, relationship problems.
“Helen says I ‘lack empathy,’” said Duff using air quotes.
“And you responded by saying…”
“I responded by sayin’, ‘How can I be lacking in what I don’t even know what it is?’”
“So, what set this off?” asked Jack.
“Aw, it all goes back to last weekend. We took my 90-year-old grandma to Goodwill so she can get a new sweater—she’s always cold, even though she never lets her house fall below 85 degrees. I drop her and Helen off at the door, and then go to park the truck. As I’m walking back, I see a nice wooden stool by the entrance. It’s only three dollars. So I pick it up and go inside to pay.”
“Okay…”
“There’s this long line of customers at the cashier, and it’s movin’ real slow, if at all. The cashier picks up every item and does this super close inspection. Half the time, the price is missing and she has to call in the manager. And damn near everybody in line is about as old as gran. And slow. Man, you don’t know the meaning of the word slow until you see a bunch of old ladies paying for things with change, digging down to the bottoms of their big handbags for pennies.”
“I’m beginning maybe to see what Helen might have been referring to,” said Jack. Duff just looked at Jack as if he had said something in Chinese.
“Anyway… Gran’s at the end of the line with a wool sweater on a hanger, so I get behind her. After about ten minutes, the line hardly moves forward at all, and there are now more old ladies behind me. Helen is lost somewhere in the store. It’s hot, and I just want to get the hell out of there. Know what I mean?”
“I can imagine the situation.”
“So I’m thinkin’, Hey I got this stool, what am I standing here for?”
“I knew it!” said Jack. “As soon as you mentioned the stool, I knew you would be sitting on it.”
“Now wait a minute. I first asked gran if she wanted to sit. She says ‘no,’ and so, what else am I supposed to do?” Jack just laughed and shook his head.
“But now here comes Helen from behind one of the aisles. She comes up to me and says, close to my ear, like no one else can hear, ‘Duff you lazy slob! You’re sitting here on your fat ass letting all these poor elderly women stand! Have you no empathy?’ So there’s the word: empathy.
“I said, ‘Hey, I asked her if she wanted to sit.’ Helen then says, ‘Well, what about the other women in line?’ I just hold up my hands and look around. What about them? I’m thinking. So I just sit there. Helen says, ‘No empathy,’ and walks off.”
“So what happened next?”
“What happened next? What happened is that I look up that word on my phone. It means something about feeling the feelings of someone else’s feelings. I’m not sure I get it. But I will tell you this: sometimes I think there can be just too damn much feelin’ goin’ on for your own good.”
“So, how’s the stool working out?”
“Feel’s just fine.”
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Posted February 14, 2023
Code Red and the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020
“I’m grocery shopping today,” said Julie. “Is there anything we need other than, maybe, toilet paper?”
“We need toilet paper?” I asked in a panic. “I thought I was keeping close track of that. So we’re at Code Red?”
“No, not ‘Code Red,’” responded Julie with air quotes and a smile. “We still have four rolls left.”
“But four rolls is Code Red! Remember, I changed the coding system in 2020 after COVID hit.”
A bit of an explanation here might be in order. After Julie and I married in 2006, it eventually became obvious that I needed to pay more attention to the toilet paper inventory. As a single man up until the age of 48, I never had toilet paper supply issues; I never thought about toilet paper; and I don’t recall ever running out at a critical moment. But with two people in the household, then, the pace of the bathroom supply chain noticeably increased. So, being an organized sort of person, I instituted a coding system modeled on the terrorist threat system used by the federal government just after 9/11: Code Red = Completely out of toilet paper; Code Yellow = Down to one roll; Code Green = Two or more rolls. In this way, the romance of our marriage would never again be strained by having to say the words: We’re out of toilet paper.
But in 2020, when COVID hit the headlines, it seemed that the first question in a panicked population was not are we all going to die, is society collapsing, is grandma safe at the nursing home. No, the first question was: If we run out of toilet paper, how am I going to wipe my ass? My impression at the time was that within minutes of the news mentioning possible lockdowns, frantic customers emptied grocery store shelves of toilet paper. And then they went for the paper towels and napkins: shelves emptied. There was a video on YouTube showing two women in a store fighting over the last package of toilet paper; they literally were trying to kill each other, and probably would have done so if one of them had not finally secured a firm hold on the package and run to the exit. Sewage systems in big cities were soon being clogged with the more durable paper towels after stocks of proper toilet tissue ran out. There were reports of hoarding and a black market.
After being caught unprepared, I vowed never to let such a threat to domestic tranquility enter our household again. Hence, the updated coding system: Code Red = Four rolls; Code Yellow = Five rolls; Code Green = Six or more rolls.
“Oh yes…the new coding system,” said Julie, sounding as if she was ready for a new topic in our conversation. “You should see the look of panic on your face. Quite amusing.”
“Well, this is serious business. I’m the man. And I feel that I’ve let us down.”
“It’s okay honey,” she said while patting my hand. “We’ll get through this.”
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Posted January 1, 2023
The True Meaning of Sharing
“That was a great pizza, the best we’ve had in a long time!” I said, quite aware of there being only one slice remaining.
“Yes, it was,” said Julie, apparently ignoring that last slice.
I’ve always wondered why, when two or more folks are sharing a pizza, there is such reluctance for anyone to take the last slice, even though everyone wants it. After some obligatory minimum time period, though, the person who wants it the most will inevitably say something like, “Would anyone like that last piece?” Of course, no one will usually step forward. So the person who asked the question will get the last piece, and at the same time appear magnanimous and mannerly.
Sometimes, though, someone in the group may respond with, “I’ll take it…if …no one else wants it.” And the person who made the initial inquiry will lose out. It’s kind of like a chess game. In the most extremely rare case, no one will take the last piece, and it will continue to sit lonely and abandoned on the tray, probably ending up in the garbage. Such a waste.
Who made up these stupid manners anyway? But there exists a perfectly acceptable way to circumvent the rules by carefully framing the initial inquiry.
“You don’t want that last slice, do you?” I craftily asked.
“You take it,” replied Julie, polite as ever. And with that over, we could resume normal conversation, but not before I quickly grabbed that last piece of pizza.
“They had free homemade oatmeal cookies at the birding field trip last Saturday,” I said.
“And how many did you eat?” asked Julie.
“One, but in the old days….“
“You mean before being married to me,” she quickly added.
“Uh…in the old days, I would have immediately taken two, and then gone back for more. But I heard you in my head saying, ‘Please don’t take more than one.’ The thing is, why shouldn’t I have more? Why should somebody else get more than me?”
“You don’t like sharing, do you?” Julie replied, suspecting my response.
I had to think for a few seconds, and then said, “Ah, ‘sharing’ is just a shorter way of saying ‘less for me.’ Am I wrong?”
“No comment.”
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Posted September 1, 2022
The Baby Picture
It was one of those nonsense conversations that tend to occur in noisy bars late at night. We were loosely discussing inherent differences between men and women. My point was that these differences went far deeper than mere physical traits, down to the DNA, ingrained since the beginning of humanity. Lisa, the one woman in our group of three, disagreed; she maintained that I knew nothing about women. And given the fact of her gender, some might say that her opinion would hold more weight than mine. But I could not accept her counter hypothesis. So I tried a different tactic.
“We’re all biologists with advanced degrees,” I stated; “so let’s run an experiment.”
“Okay moron,” replied Lisa. I knew for some time that she was not my biggest fan. But it also seemed to me that the longer we knew each other, the more easily she could be offended by the simplest of my comments. And yet I persisted, if only to prove her wrong one more time (according to my records).
“John, do you have a photo of your baby?” I asked, taking a risk that if John did not have such a photo in his wallet, I would not have been the only one seeing daggers in his wife Lisa’s eyes. With trepidation, John held up the picture.
“Okay, give it to me,” I said.
“Wait!” Lisa demanded. “What are you going to do with that picture?”
“Nothing. It’s a scientific experiment. Watch and learn.”
And so I abruptly walked up to a man at the other end of the bar, and held the baby photo up to his face. His eyes narrowed, his back stiffened, and I believe his fingers may have contracted into large fists.
“Why’re you showin’ me a picture of a baby?” he suspiciously asked in a low, threatening growl, with not even a hint of smile.
“Forget it, just joking around…uh…never mind,” I nervously replied, waving him off and quickly slinking back to my friends.
“Did you see his reaction?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Lisa.
“Like he wanted to kill you,” added John.
“Okay,” I said, “now watch this.” And I slowly walked over to a friendly looking, pretty young woman at the other end of the bar, thinking on the way over that, beyond our little experiment, I might actually want to know her. I quickly showed her the baby picture.
“Oh! What a cute baby!” She gushed, and the walls came down. Who doesn’t understand women? I thought. Hah! And then I proceeded to fly too close to the Sun.
“It’s a picture of the baby,” I said, trying to sound as pathetic as possible. “I don’t see the baby very often. The mother and I are not married.”
“Aww,” she replied. “That’s so sad.” She was almost in tears, and she was in the palm of my hand. And so quickly. It was the power of the baby that did it. This is gold, I thought. And not only that, all of my claims were absolutely true: I hardly ever saw the baby, and the mother and I were not married. I never said the baby was my baby.
A picture of "the baby."
And the kind young woman kept smiling. I could feel the warmth of her soul embracing me, extending comfort and tenderness. Then, of course, guilt made its inevitable appearance. Why? I told no lies. But I could not continue the experiment. How could I marry this woman knowing our first encounter was only a crude scientific experiment. Damn guilt.
“Actually, it’s his baby,” I said, motioning toward John, who was laughing, and Lisa, who glared.
The beautiful woman looked back toward me, her smile replaced with an angry grimace, the aura of Venus becoming a shroud of acid. “I’m not talking to you anymore,” she announced and stormed away, an anonymous contributor to human behavioral science, whose name I shall never know.
“You’re an idiot,” said Lisa. Yeah, I thought, but who understands women better? Huh?
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Posted August 1, 2022
On Being “Carded”
I was standing in line at a local convenient store to buy some beer, not paying much attention to anything in particular, looking out the window, waiting for the attractive, young woman in front of me to complete her transaction. As she left the store, the somewhat elderly woman cashier called out, in-between a smoker’s hack, “’preciate yer business,” which to me sounded more sassy than sincere.
When it was finally my turn, I walked up to the register, placed my beer on the counter, and then stood there, waiting to be noticed. The cashier was obviously preoccupied with other priorities. I imagined that this tired-looking person should have long been retired, but she probably had to work just to keep the bills paid and to support a slew of grandkids.
In front of me, shelves were crammed tight with products of no interest to me: the many types of cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco; vaping; quick energy tablets; lottery tickets. Behind me in line, a guy had a slice of pizza in his hand, uncovered, and it was getting cold; I would have at least put the pizza in a small plastic bag to keep it away from the stagnant indoor air that I imagined held the combined exhaled breath from a full day’s complement of customers and staff. Shelves overflowing with chips and candy. Do people really eat so much candy? Then for lack of anything else of interest, my mind slowly began to drift off….
“Birth date?” the cashier harshly demanded in an instant, without looking up.
“December 3rd, 1956,” I answered, abruptly awakening from my slumbers, irritated at having to divulge personal information for all within earshot.
“Hey, that’s my mother’s birthday!” she replied, and then began hacking again.
“Your MOTHER! Did you say MOTHER!?”
“Yeah, I was born in 1974,” she said with a smile of tar-stained teeth, as I narrowed my eyes and took a much closer look at her. Must have been a hard life, I thought. Then I quickly did the math, and recalled that forty-eight years before, 1974 was the year I graduated from high school!
“Well, 1956 and 1974 were good years all around,” I said.
And she replied with, “Yep, ’preciate yer business.” I left with my 12-pack of Coors Light, wondering whether I should have picked up some Geritol and mineral water instead.
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