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

December 4, 2011
answering machine message

It's me, Bomp.  You don't have to call me back.  I'm driving through Northeast Colorado on my way to Milwaukee, Wisconson with a load of--listen carefully Matt Brannon (that's my husband)--Miller Beer!  That's right!  Ha ha! (My dad doesn't drink at all--he has never been interested in alcohol.  But he knows Matt likes beer.) 

And I'll tell you this: the Miller Beer area of Milwaukee is pretty interesting.  It's like a perfectly restored, I don't know, turn of the century kind of place.  If you ever go to Milwaukee, it's worth a tour just to see all the old buildings and stuff.

Alright, so I am signing off. 

Just tooling along through the snow, listening to my Christmas records.  I've decided the best of the three--and they're all kind of crappy--is the Burl Ives.

Thanksgiving Highlights

My dad was deeply disappointed when he learned he would not be able to make it to my house for Thanksgiving.  I felt sad at the thought of him spending another holiday alone in his truck.  Then things turned in his favor.  Suddenly there was a load to drop in Seattle, so Dad would get his home time after all.  On his way here he discovered a route that took hours off his drive time, so he arrived early.  My neighbors said it would be fine for him to park his truck right outside my house (I live in a sort of wooded neighborhood with wide streets, and on a corner, so he could park Big Blue out of the way.)  So, to our mutual surprise and delight, he pulled in just an hour after my sister and her family arrived, surprising them all.  It was a happy way to meet.  In the last couple years I have seen him only for brief periods of time at the truck stop 40 minutes away.

Here are some of the things Dad did during his visit:

1.       Played Barbies.  I’m not crazy about those half-starved, spiky-heeled creatures, and yet they have infiltrated our home.  Most of them have been to the kid-scissors hair salon, have had permanent ball-point makeup applied and are looking a little worse for the wear (why should I protect them when I dislike them so?).  Dad got hold of an old, beaten-down mermaid doll with matted hair and a scratched fin.  He named her Barbara and made her an antagonist.  “Oh it’s OK,” he said, “She’s just got a few hard miles on her.”  He gave her a rough, gravelly voice.  She shouted, “Where are my cigarettes!!!”  This has become one of my daughters’ favorite new phrases.  He also had her do a lot of cussing.  I could hear the string of kid-friendly profanity from three rooms away: “Manure, diaper, droppings, underpants, bottom!”  My girls thought this was the best game in the history of the world.  I muttered things like, “Oh dear.”

2.       Got Choked Up.  At Thanksgiving Dinner he started to say something about how glad he was to be with everyone, and then paused for a moment.  I figured he had lost his train of thought, when he said, “Boy, I’m getting a little choked up, here.”  He then managed that this was the best Thanksgiving he can remember since the last Thanksgiving before his mom died. 

3.       Placed his Order.   Dad’s a big fellow and, I’ll say, no longer spry.  When he finds a comfortable spot on the couch, he is likely to stay there for a spell.  The morning after Thanksgiving Dad was comfortably sitting and called out to my sister and me, “Excuse me, don’t bring me any coffee.  I don’t care for any, thank you.”  Shan said, “Oh no, Dad, did I forget to take your order?”  “I have been sitting here for nearly four minutes,” he said.  Shan poured him a steaming mug of black coffee and delivered it to him at the couch.  He said, “Couldn’t I get some kind of English tea biscuit to go with this?”  Shan came back to the kitchen and told me, “Dad wants an English tea biscuit.  That means he’ll take anything sweet.”  We looked around and found some leftover pumpkin pie.  Shan delivered the plate of pie, along with a napkin and a fork.  Dad said, “Now, can I get a little fork?  I like to take tiny little bites, so my pie will last for my whole cup of coffee.”  Shan dug around until she found the largest, heaviest serving fork I have, and brought it to him with a smile.

4.       Told Stories: He told me about the foundered horse his dad bought for cheap at an auction, and how they spent months caring for her and nursing her back to health.   She turned out to be a wonderful animal.  He told me a story about truck-driver coffee that he was certain would make his “yuppie children…swoon with hatred.”  He talked about the first time he visited the Grand Canyon, and the excruciating donkey ride down that sounded to me like a metaphorical trip into his own, personal deep canyons. 

5.       Disappeared Into the Night:  At about 9 p.m. on Sunday Dad, or “Bompa” as my girls say, fired up Big Blue and drove off into the mystery of the darkness and the road and the vastness of the country’s great territory.  My four-year-old, taking a short break from cussing and shouting out for cigarettes, started to cry.  “Where does Bompa live?” she said.  “What if he gets lonely?  What if he feels scared.”  A couple days later he assured her over the phone that he was quite happy, sitting outside in mild California sunshine and doing a crossword puzzle.  This helped her to feel a little better, though she still imagines him alone in the night and prays that he’ll be OK.

Shelter: A Tent Trailer, Sweet Butter and a Cinderblock Acky-Tack

It was the middle of July at Crater Lake, high in the mountains of Oregon.  They stopped there for just one night, on their way to someplace else.  The first thing Dad did was walk with his father, Ancel, to find the “acky-tack.”  Ancel always liked to know where and under what conditions he would be relieving himself.  After all the outhouses, bushes and dirt holes they had used on wilder trips, the heated, lighted cinderblock restroom was a palace of comfort.

His mom Ruth, meantime, was back at the campsite, standing at a picnic table with her curly hair and wide, round hips.  Maybe she was smiling.  She could have been humming.  She made some simple sandwiches, then locked the big block of commissary butter in the metal cooler.

After dinner the air turned cold and the family climbed into their snug Apache tent trailer, where a gas lantern hissed and glowed.  Wrapped in a sleeping bag with a Hardy Boys novel, my dad was happy.  I mean, so safe and happy and whole.

Sometime in the middle of the night— in the middle of July—it began to snow.  The hush of the falling flakes gave a dreamy kind of softness to the scraping, clattering noise just outside. A bear had come through the trees.  She tried in vain to reach the sweet butter Ruth had locked away.  Ancel woke, stuck his top half out of the trailer and banged a spoon against an iron skillet to scare the bear away.  That butter must have smelled so sweet, though, because the bear wouldn't give up.  Finally, in the early half-light, Ancel climbed out, trudged through the now deep snow, opened the scratched, dented, ruined cooler, tossed the butter into the woods, and went back to bed. 

When the sun had risen, Ancel and dad walked their route to the acky-tack.  There they found a motorcycle that hadn’t been there before.  It was half buried in snow and parked crooked with the front tire butted up against the cinderblock wall.  Inside a man dressed in leather lay curled on the bathroom floor, sound asleep.  He woke when he heard them moving around and explained how he had come to be there.

Seems that just the night before, the summer sky and cool air had lured him out for a ride.  He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t even think of turning back.  He climbed higher and higher, and got farther and farther away from cities and towns when the air grew suddenly colder and the snow started falling hard and fast.  The roads were buried almost instantly and he could hardly get his bike to move at all.  It was difficult for him to differentiate between the road and the white expanse on either side.  He became disoriented and afraid, wondering if he would freeze to death, when he saw a light shining through the trees.  He didn’t know where the light was coming from and didn’t care.  He steered his motorcycle toward it, and went skidding and sliding along until he bumped into the building.  He went inside and lay down, grateful for the simple pleasures of shelter and warmth.

This is a story my dad told me, and I’m recalling it from memory.  I'm sure some of it is wrong.  I wasn’t there.  I can’t tell you exactly how life was for my dad when he was a boy.  I can tell you that his childhood memories glow like that gas lantern.  They are golden with rubies.  They levitate.  They hum. 

Hunting Krugers

Notes:
1. This is a letter my 4-year-old daughter received this week in the mail.

2. When my dad realized his father was making a joke about using pitch forks to get rid of "Krugers," he felt a great sense of relief.  See, until then Dad had always assumed that his parents enjoyed visits from the Kruger family, because of course they tried to be polite and welcoming whenever the group popped in.  Dad said it something like this, in a squeaky, mock-cheerful voice: "Oh, hi, wonderful, yes it's Sunday afternoon and we would just love to stop relaxing quietly and cook a big meal for you while your children tear our house to pieces.  Oh boy."

Dad had always assumed that he alone dreaded the Kruger visits.  On that day he not only figured out the grown-up joke on his own, but came into a sense of common understanding with his mom and dad.

3. "Unga" is a nickname we grandkids developed for my dad's father, Ancel.

The ol' Fig Newton

November 15, 2011

7:30 a.m.

I’m in Andrews, Texas.  That’s in the panhandle.  Last night I slept in Lubbock, Texas, birth place of Buddy Holly.  And speaking of that, on another occasion I slept in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy Holly passed into the arms of Jesus, as they say, over an abandoned corn field.  I was parked along the same corn field where he was killed.

It’s like I told your brother, Chris: it’s just another Mike Dugan Brush with Greatness.   I could write a whole book about it.  It would be all about me standing in a ditch or me with a bunch of shopping carts or me next to a corn field, but it all ties in with famous people one way or another.  Hey!  Remember the time I almost ran over Bill Nye the Science Guy on his bike and he gave me the Fig Newton?

No, I told him.  I don’t remember.

So he told me about a trendy little pub near the Fremont Bridge in Seattle where famous people like to have their lunch.  It was years ago.  He had just left work in a company pickup, and was only blocks from this trendy pub when he realized he had forgotten something.  So I wheeled into a parking lot to turn around and I’ll tell you (here his voice gets a little small and squeaky when he says) I was being a little bit aggressive with my driving.  Anyway, in comes Bill Nye on a ten speed.  We were on a collision course.  I had to slam on the brakes and kick up all kinds of gravel just to avoid killing him.  He probably talked about it on the David Letterman show later.  Brush with greatness.”

Also there was the time Curt Cobain was in my insurance office.  This was before they got super famous.  I was chatting with him about how he and his associates had been on this tour of the Deep South, wearing their grunge style clothing and whatnot.   You can imagine how that went for them.  You know, “Hi.  We’d like to order some hamburgers, please.”  “Get out of here you hippie, faggot communists!  Go eat your hamburgers in your home country of Russia!”

Note: "Fig Newton" is my dad's word for "finger."  When I was a child he might have said, "Poke it with your fig newton," or "Come here and hold onto Dad's fig newton."  Of course, in Bill Nye's case, we're talking about one Fig Newton in particular.

P.S. I learned today that Dad wasn't able to get home time for Thanksgiving Day.  So, think fondly of him as you sit down to feast.  He'll be alone with Big Blue, eating truck stop nachos and hard boiled eggs.

The Moon's Healing Nectar

4:30 p.m. on Thursday

Dad says, "Livvy, the full moon in North Dakota is beautiful.  Yesterday, in Nebraska, I took a picture of the full moon at dusk.  I used my little camera phone.  I don't know how the picture turned out, or if it's even still on the phone somewhere.  But the moon was perfect.  Now, tonight, it's full dark in North Dakota, and the moon is shining."

Sidebar from Spokane: last night late I walked into the dark kitchen and saw the world outside the glass door glowing with a kind of translucent indigo.  So of course I walked right outside in my bare feet and pajamas.  The ground beneath me might as well have been the surface of the moon--that's how cold it was.  I stood there, shivering for a moment and whistling for my dog Ginger, who bounded cheerfully through the sea of soft light and warmed me with a flurry of unsolicited licks. 

I'm glad I don't have to travel all the way to Nebraska or North Dakota to get a look at the full moon.  What a generous body it is, to share its light so freely.  I'm glad my dad receives moonlight for free no matter where he is, and that he drinks it up like nectar, growing strong, a god of the highway on his throne, looking down with benevolence on all the little Fords and Chryslers.

The Record Player

I called my dad and, as usual, he was driving.  The rush of road noise mixed with a blaring radio made it difficult for him to hear me. 

"Hello?  Hello!  Oh, Olly!  Hold on a minute, let me turn down the record player."

Tooling Along

Today's answering machine message:

I’m in Colorado, and yes, it’s snowing like crazy.  Last night I had to go over a big pass IN the heavy snow, AND it was officially closed to everybody except people with chains. I was counting on tooling over going (uphill) about 30 miles per hour to keep up a little headway, you know, so I wouldn’t spin out.  Some guy ahead of me (another truck driver in a "fancy Peterbilt): 5 miles per hour!  And there were 2 or 3 other guys between me and him, all tooling at about 5 miles per hour.  I was hoping I wouldn’t skid.  Sometimes, when you’re going that slow, the load overcomes the traction.  But anyway, I made it over.  Now it’s sunny and nice.  OK.  I love you, bye bye.

Follow-up conversation
Dad asked, "Did you get my anwering machine message about going over the pass?  Oh, that was the trip from Hell!"
 
Apparently one of the truck drivers stuck behind the slow poke decided he'd had enough.  "So he pulled out and gunned it.  Now the rule is steady pressure--don't stop or speed up too fast--but he pulled out and starting getting on it too hard.  Pretty soon you could see all this slushy snow shooting out from the tires and the truck starting to slide.  The guy tried to get it back under control.  You could see him trying, but it was too late.  Once you break traction you're kind of screwed.  Pretty soon the truck went into a skid, and boom, jackknife.  We all just kept going, slow and steady and sort of weaved around him."

Conditions were so awful that my dad pulled off in a turn-out and thought about sleeping there for the night.  He put the tractor brakes on (he says he never uses the trailer brakes in the cold weather because they can freeze), tried to park, but the whole truck started sliding backwards down the hill.  "I thought, OH, Jeez, I better just try to make it through this."

A Small Logger Burned a Hole in his Canvas

Note:  Foster is my 7-year-old nephew. "Bompa" is a child's mispronunciation of "Grandpa," and "Tee Tee" is a child's mispronunciation of "auntie," sometimes shortened just to "teat."

The Cheapest Milk in Town

Report from the road:

Dad called a few days ago.  He was driving through the mountains of Montana, about a hundred miles outside of Billings.  The cell phone reception was patchy at best, and he knew he’d cut out at any moment, but had to tell me that he had just driven past a place called Adam and Eve Lingerie & More.  Right next door there was a store called Teasers.  He was trying to puzzle out what sort of product might be available at these shops.   At Adam and Eve Lingerie & More he assumed he could pick up some lingerie, obviously, but also possibly some “work clothes, hair care products, maybe some small, sliced snack items.”  That’s the great thing about “& more.”  It covers everything.  “They probably have the cheapest milk in town.”

As for the shop called Teasers, he guessed it must be a place to buy either fishing bait or cat toys.  It’s the most sensible assumption.   Probably cat toys, he said.  (“Jimmy!  Leave the cat alone!  But mom…I got these teasers.”)

My Sister is a Terrible Hostess

I spoke with my sister a few days ago while Dad was still there for home time.  She read to me a note that was posted on the refrigerator at her house.  Dad had been home all day while Shannon and her family were off at work and school.  It’s important to know that Dad speaks a rare dialect constructed of mispronounced Dugan-family baby words.  Here are a couple of words you must know in order to understand the note.

GooCoos: a child’s mispronunciation of “cookies.”

Aggs: a child’s mispronunciation of “eggs.”

Titi: a child’s mispronunciation of “auntie.” In this particular case, Titi is me.  It also, depending on the context, is my sister’s name, as we are both, technically speaking, aunts.

Here’s the note, reproduced according to his original composition.

ATTENTioN!

Residents, There are no GooCoos on top of the fridge, so don’t bother craning your little bird necks around to see up there.  P.S. Even if there were snacks up there, I’m pretty sure they would be off limits to all bad aggs (eggs: Titi baby talk).

AND THIS MEANS

Y-O-U!

Shan: My friend was here so I asked her to read the note and tell me what she thought it meant.

Friend: Well, it means don’t eat the cookies.

Shan: No, no, see, it’s an invitation to eat the cookies. 

(Translated it means: “Dear Family, I bought some cookies today.  They’re on top of the refrigerator.  Please help yourselves, you good little children.”)

As Shan was telling me this, I could hear Dad offering a number of comments in the background, but couldn’t make out all of what he was saying. 

Liv: What’s he talking about?

Shan:  Well, I’m trying to clean up a little.  His mom—when he was a kid, it really bothered her when she was a guest in someone’s home and that person would clean up while she was there, right in front of her, instead of sitting down to visit.

Dad: Something—blah, blah, blah—regarding Shannon’s “skills about being a hostess.”

Shan: You’re right, Dad.  A better plan would be for me not to clean anything for the whole five days of your home time.  I won’t wash any of the dishes or wipe the table.  I’ll just leave all the dirty clothes in piles.  It will be really comfortable and pleasant to be here at the end of this time. 

Dad: I don’t think you’d be this upset if you weren’t feeling a little guilty.

Shan: You’re right.

Dad: You know I’m right. 

Shan: My new tactic is to just agree with everything he says.

Dad: Indecipherable exclamations in the background.

Shan (calling out): You’re right, Dad.

Dad: I know it!

An untrained observer might feel uncomfortable to be present during such an argument, but Shan was perfectly relaxed.  That’s because this wasn’t actually an argument at all.  This is just a regular Dugan-style conversation that qualifies mostly as a mutual joke.

(Here's Shan, by the way.)

Liverwurst and Spearmint Tea

My daughter Norah said, “Well, Bompa, mom brought spearmint from our garden into my classroom, and then we did science with it.  We are trying to grow roots from some cuttings.”

Dad said this via speaker phone:

Oh Norah, let me tell you something about spearmint!  When I was growing up we had a bunch of spearmint growing wild in our ditch.  We didn’t know you could make anything with it.  We just mowed it.  It always smelled really good.  Well, we had these neighbor kids, Francis and Roy.  Their mom was from Germany.  One day she came and knocked on our door and, in kind of a shy way, asked if she could have a little bit of that spearmint from our ditch.  “Oh, sure!” my mom said.   “Take it all.  Put it in a wheelbarrow.  It’s yours.”

Francis and Roy’s mom from Germany made her own liverwurst.  At her house she gave us liverwurst sandwiches on homemade bread and mint tea to drink.  I didn’t necessarily like liverwurst, but I went along with it because of the concept.  There was something magical about the way she put it all together.  I mean, she got that mint from our ditch, and then made tea out of it?  Come on!  It was compelling, like a Rod Serling script.  She even spoke with an accent.  Woohoo.