Little Naked Wood Sprite

Dad called the day before my birthday and reached my answering machine.  He left the following message to the tune of "Happy Birthday:" 

Hmm hm hm hm tomorrow,
Hmm hm hm hm tomorrow,
You are older than Methu-hoo-se-lah (Methuselah),
Hmm hm hm hm tomorrow.

Click.  He hung up the phone.

Right away he called my sister and told her approximately this, "Shannon, I just left your sister a deeply spiritual message on her answering machine.  It was beautiful.  You know, I am like a little naked wood sprite with gossamer wings, dashing through the forest and shooting love and happiness into the world with my tiny bow and arrow."

And right now, somewhere on the East Coast, that little naked wood sprite is driving a very large truck down some crowded freeway, fluttering those gossamer wings and singing along with Willie Nelson on the radio.

I do love my father.

Teddy Roosevelt Buys Some Wood Screws

Dad says:

"If Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, and say he were enjoying some down time at his mansion in Oyster Bay, and let’s just say he needed a new hammer or a handful of wood screws, he might consult the pamphlet he received in the mail from a certain major national hardware chain.  From that pamphlet he would determine that the nearest store is in Hicksville, New York, not so far from Oyster Bay.  He would drive a few miles to the Hicksville branch, where he would then buy the very wood screws that were unloaded, along with a lot of other freight, from my truck earlier today. 

Now that is a legitimate, close brush with fame.  The real deal.  No padding the expense account on this one."

Location Update

We were not home when he called, but later we heard his voice on the answering machine.  He sounded tired, or lonely, or possibly both.  He is on the East Coast now, and to me that seems like a lonely place, far away from the western mountain trails and cold blue lakes that sustain him in his imagination. 

He said, "Hey, it's Bomp (short for Bompa, which means Grandpa in kid speak).  Got a little location update for you.  I'm on Staten Island.  That's right adjacent to New York City.  And I got to drive over the Bayonne Bridge, which is a remarkable device.  AND, I saw downtown New York from there, including the new Freedom Tower, which still has cranes on top.  OK, Bye."

                                                                    Bayonne Bridge


Dad recently hit a another truck with his own in the parking lot of a truck stop.  The damage was minimal, though the driver of the other truck when crazy with anger and called raving to the Portland police, who told him they don't come to truck stops to inspect fender benders, and that he should settle down and call his insurance company.

Dad felt sure he would be fired.  He learned over and over again in truck driver training school that hitting anything with his truck, ever, would get him instantly terminated.

From Portland he drove to my sister's house for a week of home time.  He faxed photos of the damage and a report of the accident to his bosses at the terminal.  He unloaded everything in his truck that he couldn't carry, feeling that he would have to ride a Greyhound home after returning the Peterbilt and being officially let go. 

But he wasn't fired.  He is now on probation, which means he can't slip up at all for six full months.  He was so relieved.  And to celebrate his continuing employment, he decided to take a temporary route on the East Coast between Staten Island and New Jersey, in hazardous, unceasing urban traffic, where accidents are occurring at a rate of something like a million per minute.

He has always wanted to see that part of the country, though, so what the Hell.  He's a risk taker.

Cheerio!

It must have been a summer day sometime in the early 1960’s.  My father, a boy, was out in a pasture with a couple of neighbor kids, including a boy named Matt Banks.  Matt Banks had a thing for speaking with phony accents.  He was always repeating the word “blackberries” over and over in his fake French, pronouncing it like “vlack-veyees.”   In his British accent he often said the word, “Cheerio,” in a way that sounded like, “Chiddio.”

The boys didn’t have much to do in the pasture that day.  Inspired by their boredom  they decided they would try to lasso the big Holstein cow grazing there.  They had never really lassoed anything, but they had seen it done and it seemed interesting.   They tied the rope, tossed it and were surprised when it landed fairly easily around the cow’s heavy neck.  The hard part turned out to be getting the rope back off again.  They tried and tried, but every time they got close enough to put some slack in the rope, the cow took a couple steps forward and tightened the loop.  

After a while they started to get nervous.  If their dads saw the Holstein wandering around with the lasso around its neck the boys were sure to be in trouble.   They decided to get serious.  They all held onto the rope and pulled as hard as they could.  They wanted the cow to stand still and eventually move back.  Even as the kids used all their strength, pulling until their faces went red, the cow would take a few effortless steps forward to reach a new patch of grass, and topple the boys like dominoes.  One of the boys was dragged through a cow pie.

Matt Banks thought this was hilarious, and said to the cow-pied kid in a jaunty sort of way, “chiddio mate!”  The other kid said, “Don’t you mean shittio?  I’ve got your shittio right here!”  Then he picked up a cow pie and hurled it at the others.  This spontaneous move led, in just moments, to a full, passionate poop fight.  No one was even concerned about the filth, they just kept on scooping and throwing.  Some of the cow pies were as hard as Frisbees.  Others smooshed and splatted. 

They carried on slinging poop and shouting “shittio!” and other bad words at each other, crazy with kid-madness, when  all of a sudden my dad’s father, Ancel, was just standing there.  He had seen everything.  Heard everything.   They had been so absorbed in the poop fight they hadn’t even noticed his approach.  The bad words still hung in the air near their lips, they were all covered with poop and the Holstein was still securely lassoed.  The boys froze, terrified, and silently waited for the punishment to begin.

Ancel walked in silence over to the cow and slipped the rope from around its neck.  He then rolled up the rope, hopped over the fence and walked away.  Somehow—no one could believe it—they had escaped with their lives.  Shittio!

How To Stick a Dorito to Your Shirt

For Halloween this past fall, my brother Chris decided he would disguise himself as a man with a chip on his shoulder.  After considering many types of chips he might use, he felt a Nacho Cheese Dorito would be his best option. 

During my dad’s Thanksgiving visit we discussed the unexpected hardship Chris encountered in trying to assemble the costume.  He couldn’t glue the chip to his shirt because no glue would adhere adequately to the oily chip coating.  After a couple of failed attempts with glue he decided he would have to sew the Dorito in place.  He bored two tiny holes in a chip (smashing a dozen before he succeeded) and fastened it to the shoulder of his shirt with needle and thread.  Shortly after he finished this painstaking project, a co-worker came in the door of the Portland restaurant where they both work and said, “Oh, man, you’ve got something on your…” and, trying to brush the embarrassing junk off Chris’s sleeve, he smashed the sewn Dorito to bits.  Chris had to start over.

Dad listened with interest, and offered these ideas for how Chris could have had better luck:

1.       He could have fashioned a fake chip out of falafel, like a vegan chip sculpture.  This would have been more pliable and easier to sew.

2.       He could have used a dessicant to suck the oil and moisture out of the chip before trying to glue it on to the fabric.

3.       Did he try hot glue?

4.       He could have applied a lacquer coating to the chip before gluing.

5.       He could have dipped the chip in hot paraffin wax, then melted it to the shirt sleeve.

6.       What about quick-dry cement?  You dunk the chip, then squish it onto the shirt sleeve before it dries.

7.       A silicone sealant? 

8.       What about magnets?

My brother-in-law, Dan, intervened.  “I think you’re over thinking this.  Had he built a frame for the chip…a simple wooden structure…”

Then I related the story that Chris told me about the guy with the ironic beard who works at the Whole Foods in Portland: any time Chris goes through his check-out line the guy is cold and unfriendly.  It’s the ironic beard, Chris says, that causes him to behave this way.  (What is an ironic beard, I asked.  Oh, it’s a beard that’s intentionally ugly, grown for the purpose of seeming ironic and artsy and mysterious.)  At first Chris tried to be friendly, and claims to have been repeatedly snubbed by Whole Foods Beard Man.  Except for this—on Halloween, while leaving Whole Foods dressed in his “costume,” Beard Man looked at him, then looked again, and for the first time he brightened.  His face lit up and he smiled and he said, “Oh, I get it.  You have a chip on your shoulder!”

So what did Chris do?  He snubbed Beard Man.  He gave a small grunt, ignored the friendly gesture, and left with his Dorito intact, but one small chip carved out of his everlasting soul.

Dad said, “Man, the guy stuck the olive branch out, and Chris broke it off and built a fire with it.”

Revenge is bittersweet. 

Candy Ass

From the crummy little room at the Motel 6 in Indianapolis, where he was trapped for seven days, Dad said, “The Midwest might just be the rectum of America, and if that’s true, then Indianapolis, Indiana is the rectum of the whole Earth.”

Now, it’s a good thing no Midwesterners read this, because that could be considered a slightly insulting assessment.  Let me briefly explain the circumstances under which he made this claim:

As a truck driver Dad is accountable to his log—the computerized system on board his truck that keeps track of how long he drives vs. how long he is stopped.  For insurance purposes he absolutely must stop driving after 11 hours.  No drivers are allowed to go more than 11 hours in a day.  Even if they can’t find a really good place to stop.  Even if they have to behave like “candy asses” and stop two hours early because they don’t want to go over.  Even if they’re almost home on Christmas morning, after traveling for so long, and they have to drive for a few hours past the limit to make it.

So Dad, over the months, got a little lax with the log.  Every time he went over he got a call from a company representative, but because they never yelled at him or threatened him, he figured it was no big deal.  Finally he received a suspension.  Again, the people administering this punishment were good-natured and helped him plan it to coincide with a home visit, so he thought of it more as a little vacation.  He continued ignoring his log requirements whenever he really wanted to.

When he stopped last week at the big trucking terminal in Indianapolis he was instructed to go inside to someone’s office for an official talk.  While in this office he learned that he was being placed on another suspension, this time for seven days.  He also found out that his truck (good old Big Blue) would be taken from him and that this suspension was his last warning before being fired.  Because he was so far from home he couldn’t ride the bus to stay with family.  That’s why he got a room at the Motel 6.  He had to clean everything out of his truck, and gave away his cooler and some other things because they wouldn’t all fit in the taxi.  He said he had to do the “walk of shame, hauling all my crap through the terminal.”  In his voice I could hear the guilt and sadness and fear.

At the end of his suspension, however, he was given a jet black Peterbilt and the news that his log offenses would clear from his record in July if he could avoid further offense.  He’s back on the road, feeling relieved and has resolved (for now) to be the biggest candy ass out on the highway.

Sightseeing In Kansas

Dad says:

So I’m in West Virginia, and I got so close to the New River Gorge Bridge.  Within 60 miles of it, I’d say. It’s one of the highest bridges in the world.  The road I was driving on runs right along the New River for miles and miles, then just at the place where the river enters the gorge my route took me clear around and bypassed the whole thing.  Man I would have liked to have seen that bridge.  Just another Mike Dugan brush with greatness. 

Want to hear about some of my other brushes with greatness?  Over in Colorado I was within 30 miles of the Royal Gorge  Bridge but, oops, no cigar.  The Royal Gorge Bridge might be the tallest in the world (it was the tallest, according to Wikipedia, from 1929 until 2001, when it was surpassed by the Liuguanghe Bridge in China).

Another time I passed within 35 miles of Mt. Rushmore.  I got about 19 miles from the Crazy Horse Monument.  Recently I was at a weigh station about 40 miles from Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.  I knew I wouldn’t see it, so I asked the lady working there—she was pretty clever—in what direction I would have to face to be looking at Devil’s Tower if it were close enough to be visible.  She thought about it for a minute and said, “Well, if you stand right about here…and look off this way…yeah, I think that’s about it.”  Then I asked her how high up I would have to be to see it from where I was standing.  “Oh, I think about, uh, 1,000 feet would probably do it.”

(He was looking toward this...)

(But what he saw looked something more like this...)

So I stood there at the weigh station on the side of the road looking at this view of nothing, but I knew Devil’s Tower was out there, somewhere. 

Brush with greatness!

(He simply is not allowed to take his truck off its designated route for personal sigtseeing excursions.  So he wasn't able to see the New River Gorge Bridge...)

(or the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado...)

 he missed Mt. Rushmore...)

(And he missed the Crazy Horse monument by just a few miles...)

But let’s remember I did get to see the world’s largest ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas. 

Ooh, and don’t forget about the Ball of Twine Museum and Gift Shop.  Also, in Greensburg, Kansas I viewed the world’s largest hand-dug well. 

Boy, there's really nothing like sightseeing in Kansas.

A Tiny Roll-Top Desk

My younger brother Chris came from Portland to Spokane for a visit during the holiday.  He was talking on the phone with my dad, who had managed to get home time to spend Christmas with my sisters a few hundred miles away.  I only caught half of the conversation.  First, Chris was listening a lot.  My dad always has so much to say.  Chris has said before that it takes a certain verbal athleticism to successfully interrupt and comment during a conversation with our father.  To Dad’s credit, once this maneuver has been successfully accomplished, he listens with great interest to the things his conversational partner has to say.

So Chris was silently listening for a long spell before he finally said, “OK Dad, do you want to hear my van fantasy?” Up to this point I assumed they were talking about holiday schedules and arranging a time to meet.  How dull.  Van fantasies: here is something to discuss!

Chris said, “I’d like to get an old, beat-up Ford Econoline van—the kind with no windows in the back, like a delivery van.”  From where I stood in the kitchen, washing dishes and countertops, I already wondered if the van would be parked on a dirty street or in an abandoned lot strewn with trash.  “Inside,” Chris said, “the van would have hardwood floors, wainscoting, and a copper ceiling.  There would possibly be a tiny little roll-top desk in there.  See, from the outside it would look like a heap of junk, like it didn’t even run.  Hey, maybe it wouldn’t run.  But inside it would be like a finely-appointed professor’s den.”

Dad must have replied with some enthusiasm, because on my end I heard Chris say, “Yeah, yeah.” 

From here they expanded the scenario to include the signs panhandlers often make—the ones that state variations of some half-truth, always beginning with, “Why lie…I want _____.”

“Why lie, I want caviar and a martini,” Chris said.

Dad threw out another idea, to which Chris responded, “which really means they want a hooker and some heroin.”

Finally Chris ended the van fantasy discussion with the comment, “Why lie?  I want some meth and meth.”

He finally hung up, not having arranged a meeting time with dad, as dad was much too tired to discuss schedules.  He had used up all his energy on van fantasies.  So, Chris picked up his old guitar and continued strumming, trying to work out his old arrangement for the Hall & Oates song my mom played constantly when we were teenagers.  Sadly, he couldn’t quite remember it.  If only he’d had some quiet studio or study.  A place where he could focus.  If only he’d had a tiny roll-top desk.

Here is Chris in my living room on Christmas day.  Two days later he traveled to my sister's house and met up with Dad for the first time in many months.  I was on the phone with Dad when he said, "Hold on, your baby brother Christopher just walked in the door.  Wait a minute.  He’s wearing...Levis.  (pause) Completely normal pants.  (He consults with Chris)  Yes, they’re 501’s.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear regular clothes before.  But he is wearing a tee shirt in what appears to be a size 1.  It’s almost a tummy shirt (Chris lifts the snug tee to reveal his navel.)  Ah, there we go.  Yeah.  And he’s got these pretty gay clog things on (see above photo)." 

Here's a link to a cozy moment with my sweet and mysterious little brother, Chris Dugan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo5g_CQPW64