The last time we bought a new car was back in the Bronze Age. Or maybe it was 2002. Anyway, it was a long time ago when we bought the pickup truck I drive every day. It was even farther back in the annals of history when we bought my wife’s 1999 Chevrolet 4X4 Suburban, the vehicle our family always affectionately called the “Big Blue Bus,” or my favorite, “The Beast.”
The Beast was actually our second Suburban, having bought our first one nearly ten years earlier, soon after our third child was born and not long after the earth cooled. Since this first ‘burban was a bright fire engine red, we quickly christened her the “Red Sled.” We realized we needed to supersize our family car because we needed something to fit not only our growing family, but also our two dogs, bicycles, toys and other paraphernalia – something big enough to shuttle everybody and everything to school activities and all over town. We also needed a rig large enough to transport our burgeoning brood and a cargo hold’s worth of luggage north to Mammoth Lakes and back for our often-as-possible getaways. The cavernous, gas-gulping Suburban was ideal. And so we drove the wheels off first one, then a second of Chevy’s oversized people movers.
And then, all too suddenly, our family grew up and away. Now when my wife and I drive to the Sierras, we’re able to fit our “stuff” including our latest duo of dogs into my smaller truck, which gets ridiculously better mileage and is easier to drive than the Beast ever was. Not being glared at by angry Prius owners when I pick them out from between our Suburban’s tire treads is a plus, too.
Alas, with its advanced age that had seen more than 140,000 miles roll past under its oil-dripping chassis, our Blue Behemoth was getting increasingly expensive to keep on the road. (It cost a whopping $850 recently just to replace a dead fuel pump!)
And did I mention the gas factor? Our Suburban could hold nearly 40-gallons of fuel. Of course, when we bought it in September of 1999, unleaded was a measly $1.47 per gallon. Today, even the cheapest gas is prairie-doggin’ the $4-a-gallon mark. You do the math; it ain’t pretty.
In short, it was time to sell the poor thing and put it out of our misery.
Now, over the years I’ve bought and sold dozens of vehicles; beginning with an ancient Ford Econoline panel van that had been rode hard and put away wet by the phone company and barely got me to La Crescenta and back and from Cal State San Diego. I bought that olive drab deathtrap out of a desperate need for transportation and because it was within my college-afflicted budget of $200. I sold it less than six months later for nearly the same amount; which proved to me that I wasn’t the only sucker in San Diego County.
During the ensuing decades, I have bought and sold countless other vehicles –from abused Accords to cop-baiting Z-cars. No matter what make or model, domestic or foreign, sports car or four-wheel-drive – I’ve always sold every vehicle myself. Mind you, it’s not that I enjoy the process of selling cars. In fact, I loathe it; with all those awkward moments involving test drives and price negotiations and trying to figure out if the person you just handed your keys to is an escaped serial killer or merely seriously creepy.
Heck, just trying to explain to classified ad callers how to get to La Crescenta (much less how to spell it!) is a part of the car-selling process that has always been a big pain in the Pontiac.
But when it came time to sell our Suburban, my selling streak came to a screeching halt. Why? We’ll look under that hood next week.
Until then, I’ll see you ‘round town.
Continuing on the subject of out-of-control grade school paranoia about gun-related toys, actions and speech in our grade schools, I’ve been asked if I made up any of the news items in my last column. Sadly, no. In fact, I didn’t have room last week for even more examples of ridiculous acts of overzealous administrators and fear mongers. Like these additional recent news items:
Two seven-year old boys were recently suspended from school in Suffolk County, VA for pointing pencils at each other while making shooting sounds. According to news reports, one of the boys was pretending to be a U.S. Marine – like his father – and the other a “bad guy” (which is no doubt is media speak for a white, Christian conservative male).
Elsewhere in the land of the not-so-free (Mount Carmel, PA, to be exact), a five-year old girl was suspended after she made what school officials called a “terrorist threat” with ... wait for it ... a small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower. Well, duh. We should rise up and demand that politicians enact an immediate ban on automatic bubble blowers, for crying out loud. I mean, a single-action bubble blower should be more than enough firepower.
Moving on with this parade of paranoia; even a teacher’s permission doesn’t seem to matter to the enlightened chuckleheads running far too many of our schools today. Just this month, several grade-school students in Edmonds, WA were kicked out of school for shooting Nerf gun darts before class. Just imagine the carnage. To add insult to injury, their teacher had specifically requested that bring Nerf guns to class to use in a probability study. But in our elite education system, the god of zero tolerance must be worshiped at the cost of common sense.
Finally, I can’t finish this skewering of child-minded adults without mentioning one of the most idiotic and useless exercises yet. Last month in Hayward, CA, the Strobridge Elementary School hosted a toy gun buyback program for kids. You read that right; a toy gun buyback.
Does anyone wonder why charter and home school movements are thriving all across this once great country?
What’s next? All of this foolishness makes me wonder if school kids will soon be expelled for playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors” with each other. Wouldn’t want the others traumatized by such dangerously lethal play now, would we? Boys with the nickname of “Boomer” will no doubt be asked to stay home until they are given a less explosive handle. And woe unto anyone who calls a rambunctious kid a “pistol,” or says a teacher has a “hair trigger” temper. Yep, those poor innocent people will surely find themselves “under the gun” to use more politically correct language sanitized for everyone’s protection.
Remember the boy named “Hunter” I wrote about last week – whose parents were told by his school for the deaf administrators that he had to change his given name because the sign for that name went against their school “no weapons” policy? What about the poor kid whose parents were evil enough to name him Gunnar? And can school districts even set a “target” for test results or fundraising without recklessly creating an atmosphere of violence? Wait, what about all the ink “cartridges” they order for photocopiers? Should high school quarterbacks no longer be allowed to “rifle” a football downfield? I mean, if we’re gonna have zero tolerance, let’s go all the way.
As a kid I played pretend shoot ‘em up around my neighborhood on a regular basis. One of my all-time-favorite Christmas gifts ever was a “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” gun with a pretend scope, pretend removable magazine, pretend bipod, pretend silencer – the whole horrible, loathsome lot. Back then, the barrels of toy guns didn’t even have neon orange safety bands on them.
And yet somehow I didn’t become a soulless mass murderer. Today, I would have been suspended before the first recess at kindergarten.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
I’ll begin by stating unequivocally that I don’t for one minute think students should be allowed to bring guns or any other actual weapon to school. Period. No exceptions. Should teachers and administrators be armed? Possibly; under very strict circumstances and with considerable training and supervision (like airline pilots). But the likelihood of this ever happening is nil, so it’s not worth discussion here.
That said, we as a people who value our precious children must do something about the rampant psychological violence being inflicted upon them in school districts across the nation. By that I mean the ridiculous, inane, foolish, immature, over-reactive actions taken against youngsters and perpetrated by so many of those charged with protecting these very same students in our public schools.
To wit, news item one from earlier this year (February) when an eight-year old boy in Virginia was suspended for having “pointed a finger like a gun” in the hallway after a friend pretended to shoot him with a pretend bow and arrow. The children’s class had been studying Native American culture and had just learned a song about deer-hunting, according to news reports. The hapless kid served an in-school suspension for the day and was charged with “threatening to harm self or others” on par with bringing an actual weapon to school. Really?
News item two: in March an elementary school in Baltimore suspended a seven-year old boy for chewing a breakfast pasty into the shape school officials said resembled a gun. Seriously; a pop-gun Pop Tart? I wonder if, because the pastry had a filling, the asinine administrators considered it to be a loaded weapon? To add insult to the insanity, the school then sent home letters to parents offering counseling for any students who may have been traumatized by the non-event. How about the trauma inflicted on the poor seven year old boy? Shameful. But it gets worse.
News item three: just last month, a six-year old kindergarten student in Massachusetts was accused of causing a disturbance and of traumatizing other students on his school bus by bringing a teeny tiny plastic toy gun (like something those green toy soldiers in “Toy Story” would hold) along with him. I’ve seen a picture of the offending item. It is the size of a quarter. The kindergartner was forced to write an apology letter to the bus driver, was given detention and may lose his bus riding privileges.
News item four: a middle-schooler in Maryland was suspended for ten days for merely talking about guns on the bus ride home. The bus driver had overheard the boy talk about wishing he could protect everyone by having a gun to use against bad guys. Not only was he subsequently interrogated by the school principal, but also a Sheriff’s deputy who then attempted to search (without a warrant) the boy’s home.
News item five: In May, a five-year-old boy (also in Maryland) was interrogated so ruthlessly he wet his pants. He was then suspended for ten days after school officials “caught” him with a cowboy-style cap gun in his backpack. The frightened child was viciously badgered by school officials before they bothered to call his parents. Then the pinhead of a principal told the boy’s mother that, had the cap gun been loaded with a roll of paper caps, they would have deemed it an “explosive device” and called in the police. I deem the school principal a dangerous idiot.
News item six: In June the parents of a three-year old deaf boy in Nebraska were told that they must change their son’s first name because when it is “signed” it looks like a finger-pistol. The boy’s name is Hunter. His school has said that the way in which he signs his name is a violation of its “weapons in school” policy. You can’t make this stuff up.
I could go on with more examples of this foolishness. And I will, next week.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
Last week I wrote about the post-Independence Day shock I received when coming face-to-face with the latest in a long streak of over-regulation courtesy of the fine folks in Glendale City government. Namely, that as of July 1, retailers in the Jewel City are no longer allowed to provide plastic bags to customers.
That this new ordinance went into effect a mere three days away from Independence Day, the day America celebrates its freedom from tyranny and op
pression, only made the news even more frustrating.
I’m old enough to remember when grocery stores began making the switch from traditional paper bags (the kind we made school book covers from) to ridiculously thin plastic ones. At first, checkers would offer a choice, thus giving birth to the cliché, “paper or plastic?” Eventually, plastic was the default option, requiring shoppers who preferred the sturdier paper bags to ask for them. But I always had the feeling that if you asked for paper, somewhere in a remote Sierra Club outpost a red light and klaxon would sound the alarm. Even so, I always secretly admired customers who showed their capitalistic chutzpa by requesting a paper bag inside of a plastic bag for their groceries; aka “double bagging.” Boo ya and take that, you environmental Gestapos!
So now that plastic bags are verboten, why can’t stores just go back to giving us paper bags like they all did once-upon-a-better-country? I suspect it’s because this new reality provides an opportunity to turn bags into yet another profit center – by either selling reusable cloth bags, or charging for the paper version. Ah, but here’s the problem; Google “unsanitary reusable grocery bags” and you’ll be horrified at the hundreds of available articles discussing how filthy and unsafe reusable cloth grocery bags can be if not WASHED AFTER EACH USE. Seriously? And how much water and energy will that waste?
Don’t you just know that eventually there will be a law requiring that only government-approved, sanitized reusable bags be allowed into stores? All it will take is for one child to become deathly ill from e-coli courtesy of the T-bone steak his mommy brought home in her environmentalist-approved, earth-friendly, all-natural free-trade fabric, reusable bag, printed with soy-based ink and handmade by living-wage-earning third world indigenous peoples working for a start-up company made possible by a micro-loan from a progressive activist foundation in Marin County. A bag crawling with bacteria and other assorted pathogens. Yummo!
On the other hand, I’m sure some enterprising entrepreneur is already working on disposable liners to solve the health concerns endemic with reusable bags. Oh wait, these would probably look almost exactly like ... plastic bags. Never mind.
Being in advertising, I also can’t help but wonder how store managers like seeing bags with competitors’ logos parading out from their stores all day long. So, here’s a suggestion, supermarketers: why not offer frequent shopper/rewards club members free reusable bags with your store branding? You’ve already pestered us into signing up for these clubs. So reward us, already. Give us something useful, like a half dozen or so free reusable bags. It would sure beat getting a nickel off a tub of low-fat cottage cheese on Fridays.
In the meantime, I for one will try to shop whenever possible only at stores (there are still a few locally) who provide free paper bags. Just like the good ol’ days.
One last thought: as I finish this column, one of the top Southern California news stories is about the determined efforts of an elite group of do-gooders to have cement fire rings removed from all beaches in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The fire pits have been a tradition for generations of beach-going Californians and tourists and have been one of most treasured So Cal experiences. But a tiny group of nattering nanny types want to take away this privilege used by so many in the pursuit of an admittedly imperceptible improvement in air quality. Shame on them. What they’re trying to do is worthy of being scooped up in a plastic bag.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
Life has a way of creating ironic moments when you least expect it. For example, last Sunday my wife and I were returning from celebrating the long Independence Day holiday in the Eastern Sierra in Central California. Arriving back home in sweltering the Crescenta Valley (a suburb north of Glendale), we made a quick stop at our usual local grocery store to pick up some provisions for the coming week.
Upon checking out, the young store employee who would normally have already started bagging our groceries just looked at us blankly and muttered, “Did you bring your own bags or do you want to buy some?” I returned his conversational lob with, “Um ... what?”
“Your bags. Did you bring anything to put your stuff in? Or did you, like, wanna buy paper bags for ten cents each?” he parried.
It might have been the stunned look on my face, or maybe my wife sensed that the conversation was about to get ugly, because she jumped in with, “Since when do we have to bring our own bags?”
At this point, the checker came to the rescue of her underling and informed us that as of July 1, thanks to new Glendale city regulations, stores are no longer allowed to provide customers with plastic bags and could only load up customer-provided reusable bags or use paper bags. And apparently, our “home” store has decided to gouge its customers a dime per paper bag.
Sensing our obvious frustration, the poor checker must’ve thought it would soften the blow to inform us that, “In January, all of L.A. County will outlaw plastic bags.”
At that exact moment, I could’ve sworn I heard a post-July 4th fireworks rocket explode out in the parking lot. Turns out it was just another one of our liberties going up in legislative smoke.
The term, nanny state, is defined as “a government perceived as authoritarian, totalitarian, interfering or overprotective”; which, unfortunately, sounds an awful lot like the state (and country) we live in today.
Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised that the powers-that-be would have gone after yet another one of our contemporary conveniences. Like most good progressives they have successfully set their sights (excuse the violent gun-related reference) on plastic bags, having already taxed, over-regulated or outright banned certain light bulbs, flush toilets, smoking, salt, trans fats, saturated fats, guns, helmets, pledges of allegiance, high fructose corn syrup, oil, meat, carbon dioxide, fireplaces, school vouchers, conservative talk radio, voter IDs, Christmas carols, manger scenes, coal, home schooling, fast food, soda, pesticides, large homes, large families, large SUVs, spanking, discipline, responsibility, gasoline-engines, minimum wage, the Bible, genetically modified foods, accountability, personal responsibility and conservative talk radio.
To be fair, the nanny numbskulls in far too many positions of influence and authority are very much in favor of some things; like seatbelts, air bags, helmets, electric cars, abortion, the use of drones against U.S. citizens, taxes, even bigger government, condoms, sex ed in grade school, Plan B pills in middle school and day care centers in high school. Oh, and they definitely are in favor of control and power. Lots and lots of power.
Now, plastic grocery bags may or may not be the environmental plague that do-gooder activists and politicians claim them to be. I only know that in my own travels to countless areas of our city, county and country, I have yet to look around and think to myself, wow, we’re being overrun by plastic grocery bags – there ought to be a law! On the other hand, graffiti on public property, ugly retail strip malls and adult males wearing their baseball caps backwards are a real and present blight I wouldn’t mind seeing legislated out of existence.
For the time being, at least, we still live in the land of the relatively free. Unless, that is, you’re talking about grocery bags. Then you’d better be ready to pay up.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
Forget Mom, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. In my book of cultural icons, the quintessence of Americana is the Fourth of July trinity made of of flags, fireworks and fried chicken (make mine with panko flakes, please!) Oh, and I’d definitely drop a dollop of potato salad on that patriotic plate, too.
Whatever decorations and cuisine are included in your family’s Independence Day traditions, I think we’d all agree that nothing says “America” like a nighttime display of fireworks – bombs bursting in air accompanied by an earthbound crowd of “oooh”s, “aaaah”s and “wow”s in all the right places.
While I’m sure I got to see the annual pyrotechnics extravaganza at the Rose Bowl at least once or twice growing up here in the Southland, I don’t remember much more than a sea of cars all trying to leave after the show. Yes, local traffic was a nightmare even in the 60s.
But raising my own kids for the past twenty some-odd years, we’ve certainly experienced our share of booms, blasts and blooms of colorful explosives. Some of our favorite displays have exploded in the rarefied air over Crowley Lake, high in the Eastern Sierras. To witness the powerful presentation of pyrotechnics against the natural alpine beauty of the surrounding mountains is breathtaking on so many levels. One year when the annual fireworks show was cancelled at the last minute, we drove even further north along Hwy 395 to watch the free annual show put on at the small airfield outside the historical town of Bridgeport.
Our most memorable family fireworks experience to date was watching fireworks burst at eye level, seen from the balcony of a house we rented one summer at the end of a dirt road, high up on the side of a cliff above the tiny Rocky Mountain hamlet of Ouray, Colorado. The house was aptly named, “Eagle’s Nest.” Truly majestic.
Closer to home, we’ve enjoyed fireworks up close and deafening many times from a blanket on the lawn directly under the explosions at Lacy Park in San Marino. But, lucky us, we live within walking distance of Crescenta Valley High School, where nearly every year since 1989 there has been a carnival and fireworks spectacle to rival any fireworks display in Southern California.
My earliest fireworks memories involved holding red-hot sparklers and lighting sidewalk-staining “snakes” that sizzle and hiss and squirm and leave a permanent black mark on any surface that you happen to light one on. Whoops, sorry neighbor.
Of course, there is a dark side to the tradition of Independence Day fireworks. Recently on the NBC News blog, for example, reporter JoNel Aleccia wrote that fireworks injuries sent more than 5,000 people to U.S. emergency departments in the 30 days surrounding the Fourth of July holiday last year. Six people died (all men, no surprise there), including a 17-year-old Arkansas boy who taped together about 300 sparklers to make a so-called “sparkler bomb.”
For some reason, the phrase, “thinning the herd” comes to mind.
When I think about all the times I held sparklers as kid, it’s more than a little sobering to realize that these curiously named “safe and sane” fireworks can burn at somewhere close to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Might as well hand your grade schooler a lit welding torch. Then again, in spite of my affinity for sparklers and Black Cat firecrackers, I somehow survived my youth. Just as I did without seatbelts, bike helmets and SPF 50 sunscreen. Go figure.
Speaking of fireworks, I’d love to see a barrage of outrage ignite when Americans consider that, at the same time many of our military bases have had to cancel their traditional fireworks shows due to petulantly targeted Federal budget cuts, our ever-traveling, vacation-prone President and his family have just spent over $100 million on a week-long African tour.
Light ‘em up, people. And happy Fourth of July! I’ll see you ‘round town.
On our family calendar during any given year, June is typically the month with the most entries. It’s a month with once-blank squares for each day crammed full of important date reminders notated in various colors of markers, ball point pens, pencils and highlighters and featuring cartoon-like stars, hearts, underlines, arrows, exclamation points and big, chunky, 3D lettering to mark the importance of a looming milestone birthday, for example, like someone turning 50. Or 55. Or … never mind. Let’s just say that the local Hallmark shop rolls out the red carpet for us in June.
One recent week in particular this month was crammed full with more milestone birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and miscellaneous events and celebrations than you can shake a Sharpie at. This one stretch alone, from June 10 through the 17, marked my father-in-law’s birthday, a niece’s birthday, our youngest son’s birthday and even my own birthday. If you’re playing along at home, Father’s Day also squeezed its celebratory little self into the end of this party-palooza of a week.
Following close by on the heels of this multi-celebration week was the milestone tenth anniversary of our oldest son and his beautiful bride. It’s humbling how the years seem to speed up the longer one has been married (my wife and I celebrated our own 27 year anniversary a mere two months ago), but in “only” ten years, these two exemplary young people have worked hard to build a healthy, happy and loving family and in the process, have given my wife and me our first three grandchildren; quite the accomplishment in a culture increasingly accepting of non-committed couples and babies raised without fathers in their lives.
Speaking of fathers, as this edition of the paper hits the street, yet another anniversary of sorts will have passed; although this one is not so worthy of celebration. You see, this week marks ten years since my own Dad passed away after a long, all-too-private battle with cancer.
That he lost his hard-fought fight only days after our oldest son was married has traditionally made this week a bittersweet one filled with mixed emotions for the past ten years.
I’ll always remember walking into the family room of my childhood home where Dad lay in a rented hospital bed, positioned in front of his beloved TV. Either his pain was too great or the morphine dose too heavy – or maybe a combination of both – but Dad didn’t respond in any way as I described our son’s wedding to him. Truth be told (and knowing him as well as I did), Dad most likely considered not having to attend a family wedding to be a welcome side effect of his condition.
To say that this tough, taciturn man was not one for sentimentality or emotional vulnerability would be a grand understatement. (It’s no wonder he never could understand me.) A few months before he died, in fact, I drove with him on a marathon, non-stop trip from La Crescenta up to my brother’s house in northern Oregon to help deliver a truck and trailer crammed full of tools and machinery Dad wanted my brother to inherit. On the mind-numbing drive up the coast and back, I tried several times to ask Dad about his childhood, early career, any particular cherished memories he might have at this stage of life – you know, the kind of thing you might expect a parent would want to pass along. No such luck. After my third or fourth attempt at such conversation he barked, “Why would I want to talk about such things? You’ve been watching too much Oprah.” And that was that. Man, it was a long, long drive home.
On a happier note, however, our family calendar pages next year will be even more jam-packed as we add not one, but two college graduations to our early summer celebrations. Yep, we’re definitely gonna need a bigger calendar. I’ll see you ‘round town.
