Just For Fun

If you really want some insights about the person you share your life with, just go with him to a high-school class reunion.

It's best if this event is at least three or four decades past graduation. By that time, the alumni have pretty much given up on trying to impress one another. True, everyone does want to look good. For the women, looking good means losing ten pounds, buying a new outfit, having their hair done, and digging out the good jewelry. For the men, looking good means putting on a new pair of jeans—or, in a few cases, having a sport jacket cleaned and wearing a tie.

Still, the focus of a more mature class reunion is on where people have been rather than where they hope to go. At this age, they have mostly raised their kids, achieved the high points in their careers, and become comfortable in their own skins. By and large, they go to a class reunion to reminisce and see old friends, not to show off.

What that meant to me, as an outsider at this particular reunion, was being greeted warmly by a bunch of friendly people. A couple of them did comment that they could tell I was from up North (they were too polite to actually say "Yankee") because of my "accent." This surprised me, since I know perfectly well that I don't have an accent. All those New Mexicans and Texans were the ones with the accents; they just didn't seem to realize it.

Another surprise was how often my respectable, college-professor partner's name came up in connection with certain nefarious activities. I had heard about the trash can on top of the flag pole, but the cherry bomb in the hallway was new to me.

I also was aware of the "borrowed" outhouse that ended up on the school roof, but I didn't realize he was the one who came up with the idea in the first place. Nor had I fully appreciated the importance of his role in designing a method of reassembling the outhouse using only four screws. If you're putting an outhouse together on a rooftop, in the dark, and you need to be out of there before you get caught, those finer engineering details can make a big difference.

It appeared, actually, that most members of the outhouse gang had gone on to careers in science and engineering. It just goes to show how important it is for kids to have those early hands-on educational experiences.

The overall impression I had from this reunion was a sense of amazement. How could the kids they all were back then have turned into the adults they are now, and done it so quickly?

Yes, they're older, they (the men, anyway) have gray hair, and they're probably a lot wiser. But the kids they were then are still around, as my partner realized. He reported one of the evening's high points this way: "After all these years, I finally got something I wanted desperately all through high school—a kiss from one of the cheerleaders. It was great."

Then he added, "It would be even better if I could remember her name."

The other day I noticed a personalized license plate that announced REDBUG. It was—I know this may come as a surprise—on a bright red Volkswagen beetle. A couple of blocks later I pulled up at a stop sign behind a Toyota Land Cruiser. The name of the vehicle was laid out across its tailgate, as clear as could be. Still, just to remove all doubt, its license plate proudly announced CRUISER.

If you're going to go to all the trouble of getting a personalized license plate, why would you use it merely to tell us the make of your car? We can see that for ourselves. It's especially silly when the car is as instantly recognizable as a red bug or, say, a Hummer.

When people use them creatively, personalized license plates can make a point or simply be fun to figure out. Here in town we have a RDHTGMA, who either wants us to know she's still as hot as ever or who brags about her grandchildren when she wears her red hat to lunch. My former dentist announced himself as a 2THDR. A few years ago a local woman had to fight the DMV to get her license plate to read MPEACHW. I didn't necessarily agree with her political sentiments, but I certainly supported her right to state them.

WASHIS, of course, says it all. TOPLESS can be a bit startling until you realize that it applies not to the driver but the convertible it's attached to. One woman here has a plate reading CMENKD. It owner might be either a stripper or a massage therapist, depending on whether you assume the nakedness to be hers or her clients.

Some license plates I haven't seen yet: A busy soccer mom's mini-van could be EAT&RUN or DINNGRM. A successful tax lawyer's Mercedes might announce ILUVIRS. The driver of a tiny sub-compact, wary of driving at eye level with other vehicles' bumpers, might plead DNTHTME. An up-and-coming politician might be direct with SEND$. Someone who thinks a Hummer is the right vehicle for commuting to work might as well get straight to the point with GASHOG, $TOBURN, or $BUTNO¢. A teenager could just as well admit DVRTXTG. A lot of us could admit IOBANK or NOTPDFR. And, so other drivers wouldn't expect us to interrupt our conversations for minor details like turn signals and stop signs, we could warn IMONFON. 

Snideness aside, I recently have developed a little more understanding for drivers who use their personalized license plates to brag about their cars. By the time my daughter's foot heals enough so I can get my Honda back (see my earlier post, Driving Miss Rosie), I'll be ready to tell the world that I LVMYCRV.

Skimming through a magazine the other day, I came across a full-page ad for “sculpting cream.” This is not, as you might think, a whipped topping you could use to create fancy designs on top of your hot chocolate or your strawberry shortcake.

No, this is “facial sculpting cream.” “Instant facial sculpting cream,” yet. It is supposed to lift and tighten your skin to minimize the appearance of fine lines and make you look years younger. It supposedly will make your face look more defined by transforming your entire facial contour.

It obviously works, too. As proof, the ad included a photo of a model without a single wrinkle or sagging spot on her face. She didn’t look a day over 25.

Of course, a cynic might point out that this just possibly was due to the fact that she wasn’t a day over 25. But never mind that. Sculpting creams, according to the ad, are “definitely this year’s hottest new products.”

And no wonder, as I realized when I read the rest of the ad. It exposed my ignorance of a major age-related issue. This is a huge concern that I didn’t even know I should be worried about.

Ear wrinkles.

Not wrinkles on or in your ears, which would be hidden by all the little ridges and curves that are in there already. These are much more visible than that. The ad described them as “those nasty little lines in front of your ears (you know, the wrinkles you ignore but everyone else gets to see).”

I never even knew about ear wrinkles. Obviously, I must have been ignoring mine for years now. Meanwhile, no doubt my friends have been tittering behind my back. “Did you notice how prominent her ear wrinkles are getting? Poor thing; hasn’t she ever heard about facial sculpting cream? Do you think we should let her know?”

Some things even your best friends won’t tell you.

For those too skeptical or too cheap to pony up forty bucks for a half-ounce jar of facial sculpting cream, there must be other options for camouflaging those unsightly ear wrinkles. A hairstyle that comes forward over the temples might seem to be an obvious choice. Yet for women of an age to be susceptible to ear wrinkles, this would only replace one problem with another by calling attention to hair that isn’t nearly as abundant as it used to be.

Maybe this explains why some mature women go in for those big button earrings. It might be more effective, though, just to hang little curtains of miniature beads from the bows of one’s reading glasses. It might be a bit distracting, especially on a windy day, but that’s a minor sacrifice in the cause of youthful beauty.

I don’t know whether I can handle the stress of coping with ear wrinkles. Worrying about it is probably giving me new frown lines. Maybe I’d better order two jars of facial sculpting cream.

(For extra credit, an anonymous survey. How many of you, after reading this, promptly went to a mirror to check for ear wrinkles?)

TO ALL THE GIRLS WHO'VE DANCED BEFORE

*With apologies to Hal David and Albert Hammond, who wrote “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” and also to Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, who sang it.

*With appreciation to my partners in rhyme: Patty, Tim, and Alvis.

For all the girls I’ve held before
When learning dancing seemed a chore.
I thank you all so much
For “step, together, touch”
And jitterbugging just once more.

For all the patient smiles you wore
While counting, “One, two, three, and four.”
You held my sweaty hand
And told me it was grand
To learn to move about the floor.

For all the toes I’ve bruised before
While stumbling across the floor.
It was an accident,
No injury was meant—
I hope your feet aren’t very sore.

You worked so hard that you would “glow”
As round and round the floor we’d go.
You tried to let me lead,
My signals you would heed
Before I’d even let you know.

My thanks to all who touched my life
So I could dance to please my wife.
By now I’m in the groove,
I know just how to move.
And it’s brought joy into my life.

April is violet. February was red, of course, and March was inevitably green. May is coming up with a profusion of roses that are pink enough to make my teeth hurt.

At least that’s the way they appear on the calendar in my office. I didn’t choose this calendar for its pastel floral paintings. Nor did I select it for the inspirational sayings that accompany each month. Both the paintings and the phrases are a bit too pretty for my taste, in a “can’t we all just enjoy the sweet little butterflies and flowers and love one another” sort of way.

The reason this particular calendar is hanging on my wall (off to one side, where it’s out of my direct line of sight) is that each month comes complete with a handy-dandy little pocket to hold deadline-driven pieces of paper such as bills that need to be paid. This organizational feature seemed like a good idea after that little matter last fall of the property taxes that weren’t paid by the deadline. The resulting $18.02 in interest wasn’t all that bad. What really bothered me, since I like to imagine myself as a conscientious and organized person, was the embarrassment.

So I don’t pay a lot of attention to the decorative part of this calendar; I just make sure I keep an eye on the pockets. When I turned the page over at the beginning of April, however, I couldn’t help but notice its bit of inspiration: “Reach for the stars that lie brilliantly within your soul.”

Or at least I assume that’s what was intended. What is actually printed on the page is, “Reach for the stars that lie brilliantly within your sole.”

Wow. I mean, really. That is just so, you know, profound. It makes me feel so, like, grounded.

All those times I’ve stopped to take off my shoe and shake out an annoying bit of something or other, I always thought it was just plain old gravel. Now I find it may have been a star. I’ve never known that the inspiration of the heavens could be so down-to-earth.

The next time I’m feeling less than brilliant, all I need to do is take off my shoe and rummage around inside it in search of stars. If it smells a little funky in there, it can’t be plain old sweaty feet; it must be stardust.

This surely will inspire me to stride forward in a new appreciation of my own inner wisdom. Or at least it will inspire me to a new appreciation of my own inner proofreader. Not to mention a new understanding of the term “twinkletoes.”

The good news? My daughter got the cast off of her broken ankle after less than five weeks.

The bad news? The bone is fine, but it will be another month or more before the torn ligament heals.

The good news? Freed of the cast and crutches, she can drive.

The bad news? She can’t drive her own small car, Rosie, which has a manual transmission, because using the clutch hurts her injured ankle.

The good news? She can drive my car, which is an automatic.

The bad news? I get to drive Rosie.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate Rosie. I do. She’s been a reliable, economical means of transportation for my daughter for several years. She's still reliable, but it's true that she's ten years old and showing her age. There’s her peeling paint, thanks to lack of acquaintance with a garage. There’s the crumpled hood, thanks to a too-close encounter of the unexpected kind with the back of a truck. (My daughter wasn’t driving at the time, by the way. Neither was I.)

Then there are the missing interior door handles. Getting out of Rosie requires rolling down the window, reaching out to open the door with the outside handle, and rolling up the window again. In the summertime, this could be done inconspicuously. This time of year, it's a little more obvious. I always hope no one I know is watching and resist the urge to get a bumper sticker that reads, "This Isn't My Car."

Worst of all, though, Rosie is a reminder that I’m out of the habit of driving a stick shift. Killing the engine in traffic, because you tried to start in third instead of first or you let the clutch out just a tiny bit too fast, is embarrassing for a mature, capable woman who considers herself a competent driver. On a hill (There are a lot of hills in Rapid City; I've never notice before just how many of them have red lights at the top.), it can be scary as well as embarrassing.

The good news? Two spring blizzards in the space of a week brought needed moisture.

The bad news? Two spring blizzards in the space of a week left us digging out from under a couple feet of heavy, wet snow.

The good news? With my all-wheel-drive baby SUV, my daughter had no trouble getting to work.

The bad news? Rosie, dry and warm inside my garage at the bottom of a long, steep driveway, wasn’t going anywhere until most of the snow was gone.

The good news? The snow melted fast. By Thursday, I figured Rosie and I could get out with no problem to run some necessary errands.

The bad news? On Wednesday—April Fools Day—at 4:49 p.m., my daughter remembered that Rosie’s license tags and expired the day before. She hied herself off to the courthouse to see whether she could get them before the treasurer’s office closed. She could have, too, if she hadn’t forgotten her driver’s license in the car.

The good news? A small announcement in Thursday morning’s paper. Due to the blizzards, which had closed many county offices on the last two days of March, the deadline for March license renewals was extended for a few days. Rosie was still legal until Monday.

The bad news? Friday’s forecast: more snow.

There was an article in the newspaper one morning this week that got me so excited I almost spilled hot English Breakfast tea on the headline. It wasn’t the latest news about the economy. It wasn’t the news about the huge blizzard that was heading our way. It wasn’t even the story about Montana’s “Petrified Man,” a probable hoax that visitors paid a quarter each to see back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s—though I must admit that one definitely caught my interest.

Nope, this was even more exciting than that. After five decades, the fifth and final volume (“S” to “Z”) of the Dictionary of American Regional English is about to be published. How did I not know about these books? I want a set.

I knew, of course, that there are plenty of regional differences in our speech. I knew that what is called “pop” around here is called “soda” in the eastern part of the United States, because when my stepkids were visiting in New York as teenagers they were teased about it. Their dad, incidentally, always rushed through the halls of Stevens High School when we went for conferences, because he claimed fathers weren’t allowed there. After all, they had signs up: “No Pop in Hallways.”

But I’ve gone for years not knowing that a drinking fountain is known as a “bubbler” in parts of Wisconsin. Or that a potluck supper might be called a “pitch-in” in Indiana or a “scramble” in parts of Illinois. Or that the flat cinnamon roll called a "bearclaw" isn't called that everywhere.

As I was reading the article about the Dictionary of American Regional English with such attention that my tea was getting cool, the realization came. I’m a nerd. A nerd about words, and also about odd stories and interesting bits of trivia. Thank God—or at least God’s legions of computer nerds—for the Internet, because I’m always using it to commit random acts of research.

I suspect at least part of this might be genetic, because I’m not the only one. A person in my family, who shall remain nameless to preserve her privacy—but Natalie, you know who you are—sent out an email this week, complete with photographic proof, about balancing an egg on one end. Supposedly this is something that only works during the spring equinox.

And I have a question. How many of the rest of you who received that email promptly went to the kitchen to get an egg and try it for yourselves? We did, but couldn’t manage to make ours balance. Either we were too far past the equinox, or our countertop isn’t level. Or maybe we just gave up too soon.

Of course, being a nerd, then I had to go look up the whole spring egg balancing thing. I found that, yes, it’s possible to balance an egg on end and no, the spring equinox doesn’t have anything to do with it. All that’s required, apparently, is a lot of patience.

I suppose that could mean spending an hour or more trying to get an egg to balance. But then, what’s time to an egg? Or to a nerd who is trying to find the answer to a completely pointless but fascinating question.

Last week at dance class, trying to protect my toes from a temporary partner who apparently was not born with an appreciation for three-four time, I was distracting myself by listening to the music. It occurred to me how ironic it was that so many people could have so much fun dancing to so many sad country songs.

This led, more or less inevitably, to thoughts about some country songs that, as far as I know, have yet to be written:

• I could waltz across Texas with you, if only you didn’t keep trying to do the two-step.

• I can’t even cry in my beer any more; the sodium is bad for my blood pressure.

• She was only a bootlegger’s daughter, but the sheriff loved her still.

• Send me the pillow that you drool on.

• Nights are so cold since you’ve been gone, I’m sleeping with my socks on.

• My eyes are as red as the dress that you wore on the night that you told me goodbye.

• You washed my new jeans with my underwear, and now I’m your faded love.

• Please take me back to that ice fishing shack, where we had love to keep us warm.

If any of these titles inspire you, feel free to write your own music and lyrics. All I ask for is ten percent of the royalties if the song should prove to be a hit.

Who is your favorite poet?

That’s the sort of question new sweethearts might ask each other during those first weeks of getting to know one another and falling in love. Especially if one of them is a romantic type who envisions tender scenes of cuddling in front of the fire or strolling in the spring sunshine while reading love poems to each other.

You know, that whole “loaf of bread, jug of wine, and thou” thing.

Love is wonderful, and romance is wonderful. I’m sure for those who enjoy that sort of thing, a loaf of bread with a jug of wine is wonderful, too, though I frankly would prefer my loaf of bread with some homemade chokecherry jelly.

And poetry? That’s wonderful, too, but as an aid to romance it doesn’t work all that well for someone like me, a practical, non-romantic type who would be more likely to bake a loaf of bread than to write a poem about one. Especially because my favorite poet happens to be Ogden Nash.

For those unfamiliar with Ogden Nash, here’s a sample of his work (which, like much poetry, works best when read aloud):

The Clam

The clam, esteemed by gourmets highly,
Is said to live the life of Riley;
When you are lolling on a piazza
It’s what you are as happy as a.

True, it isn’t exactly Robert Browning or one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. But I love the way Nash played with words and twisted them into unconventional rhymes, slipped in unexpected humor, and would write 37 lines of verse for no other purpose than to set up a delightfully awful pun.

My taste in poetry was shaped at an early age. When I was growing up, one of the books in our household was an anthology, Best Loved Poems of the American People. It included poets from Shakespeare to Longfellow to Dickinson to Frost. I read most of those poems several times, enjoyed many of them, and can still quote several and recognize many more.

I can also still quote the parody of the first verse of Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith” that my father came up with one day at the supper table:

"Under the spindly willow tree the lady blacksmith stands;
The muscles in her scrawny arms are strong as rubber bands."

The poetry that I read and enjoyed the most as a child, though, and that really fed my pun-loving little soul, came from another book on our shelves. It was a collection called The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery. All that remains of that particular paperback copy, unfortunately, are pages 29 through 74, which I have, tucked into an old greeting card envelope for safekeeping. The book is long out of print; I would owe a debt of gratitude to anyone who could tell me where I could get a copy.

I’d even be happy to send you an unromantic loaf of homemade bread in return. Sorry, but you'd have to find your own "jug of wine and thou."

My father was in the back of the Jeep pickup, throwing bales of hay out for the cows. I was in the cab, driving. I was five years old.

Safety wasn’t a major issue, since we were on level ground out in the pasture, with acres and acres of room. In first gear, otherwise known as “granny low,” we were probably moving at the dizzying pace of least five miles an hour. There was no traffic, either, other than the cows, who were all safely occupied behind the Jeep where the food was.

Looking back now, I can see that the Jeep would have—and probably did, on days when my father fed the cows by himself—idled its way along perfectly well without me behind the wheel. At the time, though, I took my responsibility as the driver quite seriously. I must have been standing up, because I remember peering through the windshield, clutching the steering wheel with both small hands while we bumped across the prairie.

When the hay was all distributed, my real responsibility began. I was supposed to step on the brake and stop the Jeep so my father could get out of the back, get into the cab, and take over the driving chores. Following the directions he called through the open window on the driver’s side, I planted my foot on the pedal and pushed.

We didn’t stop. I tried again. We kept moving. If anything, we seemed to be going faster. I’m not sure whether I was stepping on the clutch or the accelerator instead of the brake, or whether I simply didn’t have enough oomph to push the brake in far enough to do any good. I rather think I had the wrong pedal.

At any rate, I wasn’t getting the Jeep stopped. And even with my somewhat limited view just barely above the dashboard, I could see that we were getting closer and closer to the fence.

I wasn’t sure of the consequences of driving through three strands of barbed wire, but I knew enough to know it couldn’t be good. I began to panic. This didn’t do anything to help my driving skills or my ability to follow directions.

Finally, my father swung down from the pickup bed and into the cab of the moving vehicle. My memory is that he climbed in through the window, though he may have leaned over from the box to open the door and scramble in.

Whichever way he did it, I was in awe. To climb from the box to the cab of a pickup while it was moving—granny low or not—seemed to me to be a feat of acrobatics worthy of a circus performer, or at least a cowboy.

True, I wasn’t exactly an adventurous child, not being the type to hurtle down steep hills in the little red wagon or try to fly from the roof of the porch. Maybe I was easily impressed. Still, it seems pretty cool to me even now.

Funny thing, though. For some reason, no one asked me to do any more driving until I was 13. Maybe they were just waiting until I was tall enough to reach the pedals. Or maybe it just took that long for me to figure out the difference between the clutch and the brake.