For Sunday, May 4, 2008 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 821 words


Just fishing


Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Give a fisherman a fish and he’ll cut it up and make bait. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime. Starve a man and he’ll figure out how to fish on his own.

These and other circular semantics were shared around the campfire along the East Carson River south of Markleeville last Saturday night.

Gino and I went first-day fishing again with the boys. These boys range from tall teens to our senior member who is 90. For about 40 years these men have rendezvoused at the same primitive campsite made up of boulder-strewn fire rings, rocky roads, tall trees, and a one-pit bathroom shack.

This was an exceptionally cold weekend in the high country. The sun had difficulty beaming through the canopy of ponderosas and cedar to warm the campgrounds, and at dusk, which comes early in the Sierras because the sun sinks suddenly behind 8,000-foot high mountain ridges to the west, the alpine chill settles in like invisible fog.

Notice I said the words campfire and Saturday in the same sentence.

Funny thing happened on Friday night.

For the first time in anyone’s memory, the local sheriff paid a visit to the campground. If you can picture this arrangement, there are so many guys in this fishing party that they split off into about five groups, each with its own fire ring. The largest core group has a huge, deep fire pit, big enough to roast a hippo and have room for potatoes. As usual it was banked with huge piles of cut logs, diced up with chainsaws in advance, ready for their bonfire sacrifice.

Groups with younger members, like father-son teams, camp further away, away from the wild influences and bohemian behaviors that emerge at the core when the moon rises. Gino and I are in one of those fringe groups. We’re with the the semi-retired and the geezers.

Anyhow, the sheriff pulled up to the core camp. We watched from afar. Many gathered around the SUV. Heads were scratched. Shoulders were shrugged. Finally, one of the guys, who happen to have traveled all the way from the Florida Keys to be here, walked down to our site, just as the sun was vanishing.

“Hey, eh, any of you guys have a fire permit?”

“Fire permit? Why do we need a fire permit? This is a campground. There’s a toilet over there.”

“Don’t matter. The fire rings aren’t maintained by a park service.”

Don, our graybeard patriarch life-long veteran, knew this. He came on Wednesday. “I tried twice to get a fire permit,” he said. “I stopped in Markleeville on Wednesday and drove back again on Thursday. The fire station was closed both times.”

“Well, guys, no fires tonight. Sheriff’s orders.”

Brrrrr. That was bad news for our old bears. We sat around the Weber barbecue in the dark trying to draw some warmth from its glowing embers. Our poor 90-year-old friend sat bundled up like Kenny from South Park. Finally we all turned in early, eager to slip into our sleeping bags.

The next day, all that misery was forgotten. The trout were biting. Gino and I drove down the road a few miles, took our folding chairs and tackle down the bank, found a flat spot, cast our lines into a deep pool, and took naps. Now, that’s fishing.

I slept with my pole jammed in some rocks and the line wrapped around my index finger. From some rapturous dream I felt a tug. I awoke to find a nice foot-long rainbow bending my pole. I reeled him in, measured him, and set him free. Gino caught one and released, lost two.

At 1 p.m. we drove back to camp for another tradition: Joe Capone’s cold cut sandwiches. Each year he stops at Corti Brothers in Sacramento and buys pounds of various salami and Italian meats and big bread.

We shared fishing stories. Some had their limits of five. Some had fewer. Some had none. After lunch, we headed back to the river. This time Gino and I walked from camp through the woods and down a steep bank. It was a smart move. We got a lot of nibbles and bites. Our bait kept getting stolen. And we each caught another big trout, biggest of the day.

We let them go.

That’s about it. Nothing exceptional. Just relaxation, good company, and hungry trout.

One the way home, Gino and I engaged in another tradition. We detoured and explored the Sierras. This trip we left Highway 50 at Placerville and drove up to Mosquito, across the cable bridge. Then we drove 23 miles of dirt logging road and came out at Stumpy Meadows, above Georgetown. We stopped halfway, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, pulled out our chairs, and had a picnic in the road. Ate salami. Listened to the birds.

For Sunday, April 27, 2008 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 837 words



Betting on uncertainty


My wife just took out a $100,000 life insurance policy on me. She did it against my better judgment. I don’t like insurance of any kind, though I’m insured to the eyeballs on property. I’m especially averse to life insurance because of the morbid nature of it. It’s a lose-lose proposition. If I outlive the policy, we lose money. If I die, I lose it all. She loses me. Only the creditors win. That’s the only joyful outcome. That whole line up gives me the puckers.

Why did she take out the policy? Of course, so she could pay off some bills if I go and prepare herself for a life of comfortable if sad solitude. But why now? Because I turned 54? That’s not a big, important number on the death charts. There is no spike in dying at age 54. Is it because she’s watched me eat poorly, gain weight, collect a string of health problems, and grow indifferent to my blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index? If so, why didn’t she take out this policy when I was 30?

Personally, I think it’s because of something she read in the checkout line at Safeway or Raleys. She picked up a Ladies Home Journal or Money magazine that advised her to insure her spouse for her own well-being.

I think it’s because of something she heard on Oprah or in her monthly subscription to AARP magazine. Usually she leaves those out for me in our bathroom library rack, but lately a few recent installments have been missing.

I also think she is inspired by the hardships of those around her. She doesn’t mind that men my age are dropping like flies all around the planet Earth. However, if a friend’s husband goes to his dirt nap prematurely, she goes immediately on guard.

Whatever the inspiration, she became determined that I get myself insured against SHDS, Sudden Husband Death Syndrome, right away.

I remember when the traveling health inspector came to the house about a month ago. She advised me he was coming to take my fluids and measurements. She even forced a hearty oatmeal breakfast on me for one day out of 365 in the hopes of magically lowering my bad cholesterol by noon. She didn’t take into consideration the fine print that said I shouldn’t eat or drink for 12 hours before the test.

The man came while I was trimming my garden. I had just put an orange peel in my mouth to frighten my grandchild when he pulled up to the curb. I spit it out, and offered to take him into my living room, but he was happy to set up his blood tests on a cluttered workbench in my garage. We blew away the sawdust and I laid out a red rag from the bulk pack I had bought at Home Depot.

I confess, I did what I could to make myself appear a bad candidate. I told him I’d just finished a big bowl of oatmeal piled high in brown sugar, plus two coffees with cream. He didn’t seem to care. I told him of all the sick people in my family, mentally and physically, and all my aches and pains and irregularities. He didn’t seem to care. He took my blood and drove away.

This agency then began to send me letters for my signature so they could view my Kaiser records. I’d find them in the mail and secretly shred them. They’d send them again, and I’d shred them again. Finally, they sent them to my wife. She made me sign them and mail them back.

I passed their tests with flying colors and we got our first bill, which Susan paid with alacrity. The very thought of it almost brought on a coronary for me. Mailing money to some strange company to insure my life. Arg. I know that if I did keel over, they’d find some fine-print oversight in my application that would disqualify me.

The inspector asked me about my family’s health history. What do I know about them? My mother and two sisters don’t tell me their health problems and I don’t ask. I told the inspector my family is fine. After all, they are alive. If I keel, they’ll probably dig into my mother’s health records and find she has undisclosed high blood pressure, or my sister will have undisclosed kidney problems or something, and they will disqualify my insurance claim and my poor grieving wife will get nothing, and in the meantime they will get monthly checks from us.

I try and explain these concerns to my wife, but she just calls me paranoid, skeptical, cynical. I say, “Yes, that’s true. But those things won’t kill you. If anything, they’ll keep you alive longer.”

Still we pay for her peace of mind. Her peace of mind gives me peace of mind. Now I’m going to be calm and relaxed and screw it all up and live forever.

For Sunday, April 20, 2008 811 words



No rhyme or reason


This has been a bad week for me, full of fumbles, failures, and phlegm. I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with my brand new blown-up $400 Toro lawnmower.

My wife and I drove to Sacramento to mow the lawn at our rental house. We need to hire a gardener now that I have installed a sprinkler system that makes the grass grow so I can cut it down. We haven’t seemed to yet find the time to scour Craig’s List and the Sac Bee for someone to trust with our gate keys. So, in the meantime, we do the mowing.

I was running the weed whacker while Sue was pushing the mower through the tall grass. Suddenly, the mower stopped. I checked the gas. It was full. I primed and pumped and pulled the rip chord again and again to no avail. Then I checked the oil dipstick, or should I say lack-of-oil dipstick. Or should I say I’m a dipstick. Doh!

We’d just performed a typical small-town American mistake. We didn’t check our fluid levels as instructed. Letting the mower cool, adding oil, nothing helped. I’m bitter. I’m going to go cling to my guns and my religion.

I contracted lung sludge from somewhere. I wrote last week about my trip to the doctor to check for strep. Good news – it’s not strep. It’s just 6 buckets of Crazy Glue clinging to the linings of my lungs, throat, and nostrils. It kept me home from work on Monday and has made every day since an endless snag in the space-time continuum, fraught with pounding head, nostril spigots, and useless coughing.

Worst of the worst: I accidentally painted my beautiful three-level redwood deck orange. Oh, it’s so ugly. I could hide pumpkins on it. Spilled apricots would look like burl. I can hardly stand to go into my backyard. And I worked so hard to make it beautiful for my upcoming annual Cinco de Mayo Hawaiian Backyard Luau.

I began the maintenance a week ago using a 1750 psi pressure washer. I scrubbed away the old stain down to the bare wood. Then I went shopping for new stain. My core mistake – I never buy the same stain twice.

I began this year with Behr semi-transparent California rustic for the railings. It looked good in the store, but applied it was a hard red and I didn’t like it. The natural wood grain got buried. However, I paid $40 to have two gallons blended and couldn’t return it, so I used it, swearing to use something else on the floor boards.

For the floor I first bought three gallons of Behr Natural Tone. It looked benign and was premixed and returnable. I sponged it onto one level. Yuk. It looked like nothing. It looked like the wood was wet. No luster. No enhanced grain. No glow at all. Too understated.

I returned it and spent a half-hour looking over the color samples. Behr Semi-Transparent Redwood looked less red that CA Rustic, and my deck is redwood after all, so ordered three gallons of no-return redwood deck stain for $65. Seems like a safe bet, right? I felt confident I’d love the look.

Oh, my stars and stripes. Oh, my guns and religion. The stuff is ORANGE! I kept sponging it on thinking, “What am I doing? This is terrible. I should stop! I should stop! But I paid for it. I can’t return it. I should stop. Maybe it just looks this way while it’s wet. Maybe it will tone down when it dries. Yeah. That’s it. It’s a temporary condition, like drinking too much carrot juice.” Wrong.
I have an orange deck, spanning three levels. It looks like a fake deck. Behr should have called the color California Poppy. It looks like a deck from a coloring book for color-blind children. It looks like candy corn. It looks like I found Nemo. It looks like a landing strip for monarch butterflies. It looks like I’m a Bengal’s fan. It looks like my 32 Irish Setters are shedding. It looks like I painted my deck with yams. It looks like OJ’s prison jumpsuit. It looks like a CalTrans Safety ad. It looks like Cheesy Poofs. It looks like cheddar. It looks like a Coppertone Tan. It looks like a loading dock for life jackets. It looks like three Reese Cup wrappers. It looks like I burgled the paint warehouse for the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks like a baboon’s behind.

My wife says, “I like it, honey. I think it looks fine.” Of course, in the back of her mind are my doctor’s recent words rattling about, warning me of my high blood pressure. If I kick now we’d go into foreclosure. And who in their right mind would buy a house with an orange deck?

For Sunday, April 13, 2008 774 words


Run, fat boy, run


Went to see my doctor today. Got scolded, soundly. I asked him to scold me. I need that. I explained that I am more motivated to be healthy when my doctor gives me orders.
I had a sore throat. Thought it might be strep. I babysat my 3-year-old grandson, Jack, last Saturday, and we shared an orange juice. Got a call two days ago from his father, Chad.
“Dude. If you get a sore throat in the next few days it’s probably strep. We all have it. Jack has lemons hanging in the back of his throat.”
Yesterday, I got a sore throat. This morning, Thursday, it was worse. I called the Advice Nurse at 5 a.m. – no waiting. She scheduled me for a same-day appointment with my old doctor buddy, Neil Watter. I just got home.
Neil took my temperature, blood pressure, and gave me a quick exam. He concluded that it was probably not strep, just a run-of-the-mill sore throat. He did a swab and sent it to the lab to be sure, but he had strong doubts.
I started to get up. He said, “Hold on. I want to talk to you about your blood pressure. It’s high and you don’t take any medication for it.”
“Eh, yeah, Doc, I know. I am doing my best to avoid the pills.”
“Well,” he said, squinting at his computer screen, “your best isn’t good enough. You have the same weight and blood pressure you had last year.”
“Eh, that’s good, right? I’m maintaining a plateau.”
He shook his head and gave me a big white-bearded smile. “You promised me you were going to drop 20 pounds and modify your diet.”
“You’re right, Neil. I confess. I blew it. I spent the last six months sitting at computers and dinner tables and theaters.”
“So, should I order up the pills?”
“No, Neil, please, give me one more chance. Didn’t you read my recent column. This summer is Camping Summer. I intend to do a lot of hiking and exercise.”
“Steve. I don’t read your column. I live in Napa.”
“OK. Well, I do intend to eat better and exercise more. Please don’t give me the pills. Instead, threaten me, Neil. Give me a deadline. Give me a goal. I do better when I’m under doctor’s orders.”
He swiveled his chair away from his computer to face me. He said, with his hands on his knees, “All right. I’ll give you one more chance. You have until August to drop 15 to 20 pounds. I also want to see a drop in your blood pressure. Otherwise, the pills!”
“Arg. Not the pills. I’ll do it. I promise. I’ll even alert the media. I’ll let the whole town know. Then if I fail I’ll be publically humiliated. That might push me.”
“Hmm. I’m also prescribing a diet.”
“Ah. Rats. I suck at diets.”
“Too bad. You’re doing it. It’s called the DASH diet. ‘Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension’. I’ll print it out. You can start today. It’s all about fruits and vegetables and whole grains.”
“Oh, geez. I eat that stuff now. It hasn’t helped. I guess I need to eat a whole lot more if I want to lose weight, huh?”
“Go ahead. Crack jokes.”
“All right, I’ll do it. Well, I’ve got to go. Bye, Neil.”
“Hold on. Not so fast. As long as I have you here. You’re past due for a colonoscopy, and a blood sample, and a physical, and a stool sample. And how is your diastasis recti? It’s been 10 years.”
“Arg. You mean my Pregnant Woman’s Disease? My busted gut? I confess. It hurts, Neil, ever since I pushed that wheelbarrow of wet cement up the hill in 1998. It hurts when I run, sit up, sweep, rake, hoe in the garden. Maybe that’s why I’m overweight?”
“Maybe. You know surgery is the only cure. We’d sew a Gortex patch over it. You’d be laid up for a few weeks.”
“Yes. I need to do that before I retire and my benefits crumble. But I wouldn’t want to do it with all this excess weight around my middle. I’d have to lose 15 to 20 pounds first. Hey, wait a minute. You’re thinking what I’m thinking. If I lose the weight, I could maybe have the surgery this fall.” He nodded. “Now, there is a motivation.”
“I’ll enter that request into your records,” he said. “It’s all dependent on you losing the weight and lowering the blood pressure. If you fail, you keep your pregnant woman’s disease another year, and you get the pills.”
“I shall not fail.”

For Sunday, April 6, 2008 820 words

The story of Gino

Gino’s gone. He moved out. He’s my old college roommate who has been living with us since the start of 2005. Yippee for him.
We’ve been friends since Penn State 1974. We parted ways at graduation. I moved to Modesto to live with my ex-girlfriend, Cheryl, and her new husband, Al. Gino moved back to Philadelphia with a Wildlife Technology degree and took up work as a carpenter.
Times have changed. Gino could be the Poster Boy for Good Karma.
He had a hard first 50 years, then things turned around. He moved to California on his 50th birthday, fell in love, and as of last month lives with his sweetheart, Deb, in San Francisco. They met on match.com. I see true love between them. I’ve given the matter my keenest discernment. I am greatly happy.
Gino is a good soul to the core, but he’s had tough times. He blew out a knee over a decade ago playing volleyball in a lumpy backyard. Pop. Laid him up for a couple years. Operations. Rehab. It cost him his vegetarian lifestyle. His leg muscles were so atrophied that he needed a heavy protein diet to recover. He ordered up a hamburger one day, and never looked back. He now eats more chicken than any man in the state, except Jim Morrison.
Gino’s wife of a year, Deb, also dumped him while he was in bandages. He had to pack his bags hopping on one foot and move out to nowhere on crutches. Deb had another fella she wanted to move in his place.
Miserable and limping, he holed up in an expensive little apartment, dedicated himself to his craft, and worked seven days a week for the next umpteen years, mostly for family members. They paid him squarely when he asked for it. Often he worked for fun and stayed for dinner.
Gino lived alone after his breakup. During this time he honed his craft through experience and much reading of construction periodicals. He learned to do everything – plumbing, electrical, masonry, cabinetry, fine finish work. He was Mr. Zippity Doo Dah.
Huge family he had. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, all noisy and scattered all over the southeast corner of the Keystone State. They kept him busy and gave him enough references to last a lifetime.
He would visit me in California about once every two three years. I always made his visits whirlwinds of activity. We drove all over the state. Hiked Yosemite and Big Sur. Took the Fun Train to Reno. Drove Highway 1 from stem to stern. Camped among the big, big redwoods up in Orick, the coastal center of Redwood National Park.
He’d fly home after his visits to his long, dark apartment, and the comparison contrast dilemma of memories would manifest in his mind and bring a burden into his soul.
He finally threw down the C clamp. Said, “I’m done. I’m moving to California.” And he did. You’ve read of our many exploits since he arrived. We’ve kept up the Schedule of Fun.
Anyhow. To loop back to the start. Gino is gone. Of course, he didn’t say anything. What’s to say? I came home one day and my garage was empty. His 65 tools were gone. I opened the drawers in his bathroom. No toothpaste, soap, toenail clippers. He was out of there.
Brooks our cat meowed a lot when Gino left. Gino used to rub Brooks’s belly with his sock foot for hours watching TV. He called the cat Frankie. He didn’t like the name Brooks. Refused to use it.
While Gino lived here our kitchen sink was under a magic spell. I could put a dirty dish into it and the dish would disappear. That magic is gone. Right now it looks like the Cypress Expressway.
While Gino lived here our dining room table was under a magic spell. A cornucopia of well seasoned meals in delicate sauces used to appear in the evenings. The pop of fine wine signaled the start of our many banquets. Now it’s steamed rice and store-roasted chickens.
Gino is in his happy place. He’s with Deb, and the dogs, Winston and Shiloh. He doesn’t have to work so hard for the first time in his life. Deb’s family has done all right for themselves. Deb and Gino are able to live a good life. He walks the dogs. Scoops poop. Sleeps without pain. Smiles a lot. Has time to pay attention to details, like the smell of roses.
We go visit a lot. Deb has a beautiful house off Union Street, walking distance to a dozen night clubs and restaurants. The Betelnut is only two blocks away. How great is that?
They come here. Last week Gino helped me put in a sliding glass door and bathroom window.
It’s funny ironic how Gino’s life has revolved. Now, visiting me means work, and staying home is bliss.

For Sunday, March 30, 2008                                      Drummer Column, Gibbs, 808 words

 

Into the Wild with accoutrements

 

     This summer has been dubbed Camping Summer by me just now. I haven’t been out in the woods in too long. As you know if you’ve been reading this column over the years, I used to be the backpacking club advisor at the high school. I spent every summer in the California backcountry, hiked 1,000 miles, rafted a dozen rivers, explored caves, endured countless bouts of poison oak.

     Then in October of 2000 I twisted my back carrying a table. All that wilderness jazz went right out the window. I spent the next three years unable to sit down without excruciating pain. I went through therapy, acupuncture, epidurals, exercises, Vicodin. I spent my waking hours coming to terms with my new future – a lifetime of chronic misery.

     Then the pain went away around the fifth year. I found I was able to work hard, tote barges, lift bales once again. If I overdid it, I got sore, but it was acute, not chronic.

     I spent the next few years catching up on my chores. I’ve been fixing things for three summers. We bought a couple of houses when the stock market went in the crapper, and now it’s my fate to maintain them or pay professionals.

     Happy to announce I’m caught up for the time being. Summer 2008 is mine all mine. That spells road trips and random left turns. Yosemite here I come.

     I can hardly wait. Here’s my idea of a favorite day in the woods: Get up. Go. Build a fire. Make coffee. Drink coffee in front of the fire. Socialize. Watch the morning sun rise over the campsite. More coffee. Eat breakfast. Wander off and do something – hike, swim, climb, explore, fish, ski, boat, read – return to the campsite in late afternoon, build a fire, cook, eat, watch the sun set, socialize with jokes and long stories, star gaze, turn in, flip my pillow to the cool side. No unique rituals. Just plain and simple leisure.

     Speaking of leisure. We camped with our children and grandchildren for a weekend last summer. Chad and Kristi had a huge tent with an inflatable mattress and fluffy pillows. Susan and I slept nearby in my 2x8’ stuff-tent on Therm-A-Rest pads with clothes jammed into t-shirts as pillows.

     Next morning, Chad gave me a hard time. “Dude. What are you doing sleeping on the hard ground? You should be nicer to your wife. Why are you making her sleep on that elongated pancake?”

     I explained, “We like to travel light. She’s comfortable. We’ve been sleeping on these same Therm-A-Rests for 20 years.”

     “Dude. That’s what I’m saying. Move up. Get an air mattress. Think of Susan.”

     To this Susan said, “Yea. Think of me.”

     “Hey, wait a minute. You’ve been sleeping in my thumb tent on these pads without complaint all these years. Now suddenly you’re uncomfortable? Thanks a lot, Chad.”

     “Face it, dude. You’re both getting older.”

     Last week I blew $500 at REI. I did not buy an air mattress. I bought a new sleeping bag and two nice latest-model Therm-A-Rests. They’re thick. Inches thick.

     Chad won’t like them. He favors his king-size floater with its electric pump. I’m hoping Susan will like them. Chad’s having an influence on her.

 

     On the way to the cashier, feeling ambivalent, I walked past a camping display in the tent area. There was a cot, and it caught my eye. It was six feet long, a foot off the ground, and firmly padded. Folded, it fit snugly into a small bag. I bought one. It’s not a mattress, but it doesn’t need a pump.

     If Chad starts ragging on me again in Yosemite about my poor suffering wife, and she decides to chime in, I’ll whip out the cot. That will put them in their places. Or I’ll look like an idiot.

     I can hear him now. “Dude. What is that? You bought your wife a cot? What, is she in the army? Come on. What were you thinking? Pamper your woman.”

     “Cut it out, dude. You’re blowing it for me.”

     Nice thing about REI: you can bring anything back for any reason. We’ll see how these new accommodations fair in the field. If Susan doesn’t like them, I’ll trade them in on a Serta.

     Besides Yosemite, we intend to visit Crystal Basin, Kennedy Meadows, South Fork of the Yuba, Dinky Lakes, and maybe down the coast to Andrew Molera Park near Big Sur. We will go other places of which we know not yet. Random lefts will determine that.

     We expect to be taking the grandkids with us as often as possible. I look forward to showing them the splendors of nature. I shall get many vicarious thrills watching them climb and jump about. We will all go barefoot and grow calluses on the soles of our feet.

     

     

For Sunday, March 9, 2008                                        Drummer Column, Gibbs, 789 words

 

If I were President of these United States

 

     If I were President of the United States of America, these would be the planks of my platform.

     Before I give them, be advised, I’m a liberal democrat when it comes to social policies, and a fiscal conservative when it comes to restricting the money flow. I’d have voted for a Ron Paul Dennis Kucinich ticket.

     I don’t want to restrict how people live their lives or shape their families. If gays want to get married, good for them. If people feel that medicinal marijuana helps them deal with their perceived illnesses, leave them alone in their victimless indulgences. If people want to visit Vancouver or Tijuana, I’d make it easy. If people from Vancouver or Tijuana want to visit America, I’d make it harder, but not impossible. At least currently, more people want to sneak in than sneak out. That may change if I’m not elected.

     One of the first things I would do is trash this nonsense about small government. I would trash the claim that deregulation is good for Americans. I would stop the move to privatize everything we do for profit. I will turn a deaf ear to the hollow claim that business can do anything and everything better than the government. Business needs profits. Governments don’t. Doing it right is all about hiring the best people and paying them well.

     Most say that a government’s core responsibility is to protect its citizens. The rest should be left to the open market. I agree with that. My lingering question is protection from whom? We all agree terrorists and invaders need repelled. However, I think the government also needs to protect its citizens in the open market.  We need a powerful law-enforcing guardian against price fixers, shortage makers, faulty manufacturers, careless providers, false marketers, rampant polluters, market corner-ers, scoundrels and other such flim-flam. There is too much of that going on.

     I would take back the voting process 10 seconds into office. All voting machines would become government property. Voting computers would be programmed by government technicians or through contracts with private companies who win their bids open and fair. The software and hardware would be thoroughly criss-cross-cross-criss-cross checked for accuracy. Every one of them would produce paper receipts. Those receipts would be dropped into sealed vaults in case recounts are needed. I would work to make voter math the exact science it was intended to be.

     I would bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Equal time for opposing viewpoints would be resurrected from its tomb. This notion that news corporations have the same first amendment rights as humans, and the right to squelch all opposing views, would end. No more could their amplified voices that reach millions be allowed to say, “My network supports one political ideology only, and we do world news.” They could have both. It is a free country. But news and opinions would have to be separated: objective reporting on one channel, philosophical debates on another, and a third channel for the detractors – sort of like Fox owning Comedy Central.

     I would take back the private prisons. I would repeal all bills passed by the lobbied efforts to increase prison sentences for lesser and lesser crimes in order to increase the prison population and turn a profit. I would release a lot of our victimless criminals, or lower their sentences, or send them to hospitals and therapy.

     I would protect and reward all whistle-blowers. I would provide them with witness relocation if it were necessary. I would encourage them to step forward through a series of posters that read: “Uncle Sam Wants You.”

     I would protect our public water system. I would push back the private interests that are buying up many of our lakes, reservoirs, and streams in preparation for controlling water. Water would forever be, during my administration, a public resource, safe, sound, and inexpensive.

     I would rewrite NAFTA until it fairly met the needs of the American worker and stopped its enticements for factories to outsource.

     Oil. What would I do there? I’d take the trillions we are spending trying to seize it from others and invest in the alternatives. Instead of sending 12 billion a month to Iraq, like we are now, I’d put 12 billion toward solar, 12 toward wind, 12 toward hydrogen, 12 toward conservation, a few million toward ethanol, and 12 for education. That would take me into the summer of my first year in office.

     I don’t hate big business, my fellow Americans. That’s not it. Big businesses are just small businesses run right. I only want them to play fair. That, too, is a battle I wouldn’t expect to win, but it is a battle I would commit to fight ceaselessly. If elected.

For Sunday, March 2, 2008                                        Drummer Column, Gibbs, 811 words

 

Taking time to stop and smell the contractors

 

     “O.K. We’ll go, but we’re not buying anything. Agreed?”

     “Agreed.”

     “Nothing. Not one solitary thing.”

     “Right. Nothing. We’re just looking. Window shopping.”

     “Exactly. It’s going to cost five dollars to park. That’s our limit.”

     Thus our conversation tumbled out last weekend as Susan and I drove toward the Home and Garden Show at the Solano County Fairgrounds in Vallejo.

     It doesn’t matter who said what in that conversation because we were in agreement. Our budget is limited to bills, food, and fossil fuels.

     Notice some tense shifting between past and present verbs. Ideals are eternal. Our resolve was adamant, initially.

     Keep in mind this wasn’t a craft fair. It was not about knick knacks, baubles and porcelain statuettes of painted ladies in hoopskirts holding parasols. This show was all about house and home, living quarters, daily comforts, daily needs. I would have called it the Mostly Essentials Trade Fair.

     We barely made it in the door to the first booth before I said, “Oh, honey, look at that. We need that. We’ve needed that for years.”

     “True. True. Let’s move on. We can always come back.”

     Twenty steps later Susan said, “Now, that I like. That makes a lot of sense. Honey, this would be a wise investment.”

     “Wow. Look over there. I’ve never seen anything like it. Follow me. It’s a new invention. We have to have it. It will save us money.”

     “Oh, isn’t that beautiful? Come here. That would really finish off the dining room.”

     “Hon, can you see that in our back yard? I can.” I said and went bounding off to the big back wall display. Susan turned right and disappeared down aisle two, where I heard her say, “Oooh. Oooh.” Then she walked quickstep back to find me, fluttering her hands, grinning, beckoning me to follow her. “You’ve got to see this. You won’t believe it. They’re using our exact kitchen as the ‘before’ picture.”

     “Um. Nice. That’s the look. We need that in time for Cinco de Mayo. Geez, oh, man, look down there. See at the end? It’s the thing, the thing above all things.”

     And so it went through the afternoon, from booth to booth. We fluttered about like honeybees in a flower garden, soaking up brochures and signing on for free home estimates. We became hypnotized with the practicality of the ambiance.

     I’ve had a string of estimators and sales people at my house throughout the week. All told we may be into this home improvement hysteria for about ten grand. Where does it come from? I guess it will fly out with the monkeys.

     Here’s what we bought. A company named LeafGuard makes an ingenious never-clog gutter. It has a solid aluminum cover over the gutter pan. This cover is curved at the outer edge and tucks underneath. Water follows the curve under, while the leaves fall harmlessly to the ground. I have a towering maple tree in my front yard that goes bald every year. “I’ll take one.”

     We hired Natural Light Inc to install another solar tube. We have two already. I bought one for this dark den. The new tube has an electric light and opaque plates inside. I can light up the night, or lower the plates and block the sun in the day. That’s perfect if my den becomes a bedroom again someday. I also bought two solar roof fans for cooling my attic air in the hot summer. Pay once and I’m done. They whir silently all day every day. I’m disconnecting my 30-year old, rumbling, rattling, electric bill-killer fans.

     Granite Transformations makes solid-slab granite counters that adhere to existing counter tops. No need to tear anything out. They just drop new tops over old tile. Slip, slap, slam, and you’re done. Theirs was the demo that had our white tile countertops in their ‘before’ display.

     In fact, the estimator for the counters called me while I was typing that last paragraph. What are the odds of that? She was parked in front of my house. I peeked out my den window and waved at her. She came in and she just left. Susan and I went ooh and aah over our color choices. We decided to go with a granite sink as well. What the heck, eh? As long as we’re in it up to our necks, might as well get our hair wet.

     You see, ten years ago I tiled our kitchen. It was my first tile job. It shows. It looks OK, but barely. The grout is too high, too wide and gets dirty. My contractor friends laugh at me when they see it. Laymen visitors don’t notice – or if they do, they are being polite. At last I’ll be able to cover over my daily embarrassment. There will be peace in the valley.

     I’m seriously looking at that artificial grass.

For Sunday, February 24, 2008                                  Drummer Column, Gibbs, 824 words

 

Put technology into your education

     It’s that time of year again, parents and students. It’s time for high schoolers to choose their classes for next year. The forms are out, the course descriptions are published, the presentations are being made, kids are running around campus gathering teacher signatures for electives.

     It’s time for me to speak on technology in education, by bailiwick.

     Note an odd paradox riddled with reasons and open for self determination. We have international technology standards, goals, and expectations (ISTE.org) that set detailed and specific guidelines for administrators, teachers, and students. We have national technology standards put forth by Washington, the department of education, and No Child Left Behind. We have state technology guidelines, and we have our own local district guidelines detailed in a ever-evolving 5-year plan.

     However, and this is the crux of the climb, when we get right down to the school site and the classroom, all involvement in curriculum-based technology is voluntary. There are no mandatory tech-centric classes. It is possible for a student to weave his or her way through four years of high school without every sitting in front of a computer.

     It is not mandatory that any specific teacher integrate technology into his or her classroom activities. Tech integration is all voluntary. A teacher can go an entire career here without ever doing a tech-centric lesson plan with students.

     There’s the rub. It’s up to you, boys and girls, moms and dads, to show a desire for better understanding of the academic applications of computers and software.

     What we do have is a plethora of tech-centric electives and a whole new paradigm for how they inter-relate. We are moving in a new direction with careers and technology. With guidance from the state, we have overhauled and rechristened our traditional vocational education program. It is now called Career Technical Education. Our electives are being daisy-chained to create pathways to careers. Interested in business, medicine, construction, art, broadcasting? Students can now participate in multi-year preparatory classes to better prepare them for college and their preferred field of study.

     We have nine (9) computer labs and a mobile lab at Benicia High. We offer yearbook, journalism, graphic design, biotechnology, architectural design, animation, photography, film making, keyboarding, virtual enterprise, web design, and a new and important elective for freshmen – Computer Applications for College.

     It is possible for a student to become a computer whiz kid at BHS. It simply requires personal initiative. It requires self-determination. And it requires an early start.

     Here is where I pitch the first class – a mostly freshman elective – Computer Applications for College. This course, though voluntary, is an essential gateway to proceeding to all the other tech-centric electives at BHS.

     In this class students will be introduced to operating system and network navigation, file and folder management, and the whole bouquet of top-flight software titles we have to offer. Students will explore to the advanced-feature level all of Microsoft Office and all of the Adobe Suite of programs. We’re talking Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Word, MovieMaker, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, and so on.

     With the lessons of this class ingrained into a student’s skill set, they will glide easily into the more advanced classes that specialize in specific applications.

     For example, I teach a challenging and popular elective called Art Production, aka photography and film making. We go deep into these areas. The students who are best equipped to hit the ground running are those who feel comfortable with the basics - how to map themselves around our network to access resources, printers, and scanners; how to save, move, and submit digital work; how to structure folders to build multi-year portfolios of accomplishments, and so on.

     Students who come into my digital photography class as upper classmen without any focused technical experience have a tough go at it. They mis-name files. They lose files. They save in incorrect formats. They submit the wrong files for grading. Presentations crash and crumble because their multimedia resources are in disarray. It also slows the whole course down in the beginning as we address these issues. September through November are fraught with technical difficulties that could be remedied by taking the preferred prerequisite freshman introductory course. These same issues plague the other advanced technology classes.

     As a closing statement, I implore parents and students to plan ahead. If you want computers and technology to play a major role in your high school education, take the initiative to utilize our voluntary tech-centric electives and start early.

     I know many students feel like they are already experts because they spend so much time on their computers at home. Some feel an intro course would be beneath them. Ho. Ho. Ho. I know better from field experience. I see it every day. I know what teens do mostly on computers – they play games, listen to music, watch video, and communicate with friends. That’s important. Now, come play with Word. Come play with Excel. Come play in the major leagues.

For Sunday, February 17, 2008                                  Drummer Column, Gibbs, 800 words

Reno Nein Won Won

 

     My wife took me to Reno for three days to celebrate my 54^th birthday and nothing exceptional happened. You’re still going to hear about it because that’s what I’ve got.

     We had fun, but it was depressing, too. Reno, if you leave the Virginia Street Strip, is a ghost town. Somebody call 911. A lot of old casinos have shut their doors, mostly because the California Indian Gaming industry and the price of gas have put the city off its reservations.

     The Riverboat is an empty shell. The Comstock and the Sundowner are being converted to condos. I guess that’s the only way the owners will ever be able to sell the buildings. Imagine the expense and limited success of knocking down walls to turn two or three hotel rooms into a condo on a street lined with abandoned buildings. Who will buy and at what price? 

     The Sands is still holding on, but its hourglass is running. We walked the side streets for a couple hours reminiscing of the heydays when we were young and used to sleep in the car to save money so we could play blackjack and count cards all night. Blackjack ain’t what it used to be. Now it’s four decks, or 6 to 5 win on a blackjack. Why bother. We played Pai Gow for 15 hours.

     I needed to make a movie. I teach movie making at BHS and I needed some refresher practice because all the software has changed. So, I decided to film our trip. I haven’t transferred it from the camera yet, but I can assure you it will be real bad. We didn’t try hard. We just turned the camera on and talked into it, impromptu. There’s no script, no plot, no real beginning or end. We didn’t film anything until the second day, and the battery died in the middle of filming on the last day. That will be OK for my needs. I just need to practice cutting, splicing, dicing, and rendering. It may never see the light of day. However, if it is salvageable and not too embarrassing, I’ll post it on Youtube and let you know.

     I post a lot of stuff on Youtube, as do my students. It’s a great way to share. If you search for any of these keyword combos you’ll find all our films. “Steve Gibbs Benicia” or “Benicia Art Production” or “Steve Gibbs Ridgway”.

     We saw some bad live entertainment. We paid to see the musical Forbidden Broadway at the El Dorado, where we stayed for $57 a night. I didn’t care much for the parts I didn’t sleep through. It was four singers and a piano player. They’d come out, parody a Broadway play with a corny song and corny costumes, run off, change costumes and do it again. To bring me pleasure I imagined myself laying bricks.

     The over-priced Sienna and the area around the Truckee River are nice. Some non-gaming nightclubs have opened. We spent one afternoon at the movies. Saw Michael Clayton. Zowie. Great film. When the hired assassins killed off Tom Wilkinson’s character, it was so smooth and professional, it made me think that that sort of thing probably goes on in real life a lot more than people imagine.

     When we came out I noticed a butter stain on my good shirt, so we stopped in a nearby pub, the Sierra Tap House, to use their bathroom and soap dispenser. To be polite we had a cocktail. They served absinthe, so we gave it a try. $11 per. Pretty jazzy stuff this green fairy. In the back room they were setting up for a home-brew competition between 23 local competitors. Price to taste them all: $5. The winner in my book was a hefeweizen.

     We left 6 hours later. Stopped in the Nugget for an after-midnight Awful Awful burger and fries. Thank God that little niche has survived. We ate there twice.

     We never made it down to the Peppermill Atlantis area. Drove by but didn’t stop. It’s still thriving. Dealers say that’s where the locals go. Peppermill is generous with its comps.

     We spent the last day in lovely Yerington. That’s where I have my little 34-garage mini-storage business. When I bought it in 2004, there were four storage businesses in town. Now there are seven. A jumbo 240-unit storage facility just opened right across the street from me. Scoundrels. They charge $65 for a 10x20-foot garage. We drove up so I could hang my new gigantic road sign that says very simply: “$45 mo.” in big red letters.

     I’m still mostly sold out. Have 2 vacancies currently. Used the opportunity to have the doors serviced. Tumbleweeds are still regular tenants. I tossed them over the fence into the open desert. Filmed it.

    # 

For Thursday, March 2, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 786 words



The old and the rested


I learned something about myself last weekend. I’m old. I hate to admit it, and relatively speaking at 52, I’m not that doggone old, but still, I’m old.
We went to a blues concert last Friday, the legendary Buddy Guy at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Susan was there, as was Gino and his date for the evening, Gloria. Thousands showed up. Together we filled the cavernous venue to the back walls. Buddy ran out, shiny bald in bib overalls, celebrating his upcoming 70th birthday, and tore up the night air with guitar riffs and old favorites.
At the Fillmore there are no chairs in the audience arena. It’s just a gigantic room with eight chandeliers and a stage. People must stand all night, huddled tightly together in a musical elevator to the stars.
The music started at 10 p.m. and by 11:30 p.m. I needed to sit myself down. I loved every song. I enjoyed Buddy’s stories about growing up without electricity and flipping his first light switch at the age of 17, but my feet ached. My knees ached. Buddy wasn’t playing dancehall music. If I were dancing, I’d have been all right. Buddy was playing mostly slow, contemplative numbers, and we were packed in like overseas chicken.
Finally, the music became no longer pleasurable. I took Susan by the hand and said, “I’m done.” I nodded toward the door and she nodded back. We told Gino and Gloria good-bye, figuring they would stay to the last song, but they followed us.
Upstairs we found chairs and fell into them. “Thank God somebody said something,” sighed Gloria. “My feet are killing me. I thought I was the only one suffering, so I kept my mouth shut.” She peeled off her shoes and put her feet on Gino. Everyone’s feet hurt. We listened to two more songs and left. We walked down the street, passing the Boom Boom Room without even going in, and drove home. I slept in the car.
Then Saturday night came – Emily’s party. Gino and I were invited to his 25-year-old niece’s birthday party at Eli’s Mile High Club in North Oakland on MLK Way. Eli’s is a tiny blues club with chairs and tables, so we accepted the invitation. Susan stayed home on the couch.
The first hour went fine. We arrived early, grabbed front seats, and ordered cocktails. A young, very young Paul Delucca Blues Band from Santa Cruz was setting up to play. “Now, this is more like it,” I said. Gino agreed. We clinked our glasses.
Then the music started. It was good, good and loud, extremely loud, and faster than a rugby player’s heartbeat. “What kind of blues is this?” asked Gino. Paul had apparently confused blues with hard rock. He was so good at playing guitar with swift intensity, that that’s what Paul did, song after song after song, and yelled the lyrics over the noise. “I’m too old for this, too,” I said.
We had to get up and move to the farthest corner of the nightclub, back around the corner behind the bar near the Mrs. Pacman machine.
Emily and two dozen friends showed up. Gino and I mingled and met everyone, Stephanie, Eric, Anabelle, Gina, Christina, Maggie, Ahmet, Mike, Joe, Bill, and on. We traded stories. Talked about careers, hometowns, life in California. More friends kept pouring in. Beautiful, smart, gregarious Emily has a lot of friends.
Apparently, no one called Eli’s in advance with a head count because the crowd overwhelmed the solo bartender. She couldn’t keep up with the three-thick throng of customers.
Gino and I tried for a half-hour to buy drinks with no luck. We gave up. We found ourselves standing on the fringe of the young crowd with our glasses completely empty. The kids were chattering up a storm, flirting, joshing, making new friends, establishing future contacts, emerging into life. Then there was Gino and me, two old guys who just wanted a cocktail, a chair, and some easy listening. “Let’s go somewhere else,” said Gino. We slipped out unnoticed. The night was young.
We drove up Shattuck to the Thalassa bar with its 21 pool tables. It too was jam packed with young people, five thick at the bar like suckling pups.
“We don’t belong here,” said Gino. “We have nothing to offer.” We left and drove to Club Mallard in Albany. It was packed with younguns. Younguns were everywhere.
“Where are the old-people bars?” asked Gino.
“Eh. I don’t know. I’ve never gone to them. I was young when I lived in Berkeley.”
“Well, we better start going to them, because we’re old. Now, let’s go home and watch the news.”

For Thursday, February 23, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 770 words


Ah, frigate


Whew. I just finished booking a cruise to celebrate out 20th wedding anniversary. Last week I wrote of picking foiled cruises and earning bruises. I tried to reserve under the radar to surprise Susan, but broke down and told her before locking in the fees. Lucky I did. She didn’t like my choices and challenged me to try harder and surprise her again later, before locking in the fees.
It’s like any Christmas or birthday present. People tell family, friends and Santa what they want as a gift, then they want to be surprised with it on the big day. They want a colorful package sealed with ribbons and bows, and they want to know what’s inside.
If I were to ask for a dog, but not specify the breed, age, and attitude, I’m likely to get a one-eyed schnauzer with a feral past a bad cough. I can respect a woman’s need to say to her husband, “Honey, surprise me this year by giving me what I want.”
So I went back into research mode. I scoured the Internet, visited travel agencies, called cruise lines direct, spoke to agents, interviewed friends who’ve floated, collected recommendations. I’m exhausted. I need a vacation.
OK. I have to share one unique voyage venue I found. I didn’t select it, but it was tempting. I’m talking about the slow boat to China. Taking a freighter cruise.
I’d never considered freighter cruises until I logged into my fee-based Consumer Reports website and read an article about them in the preface to their special “How to plan a cruise,” advice section. They sounded interesting, so I checked out freighterworld.com. Wow.
Freighters like the ones we see drifting through Benicia bay may have up to a dozen rooms for paying travelers. I didn’t know that. Many have a pool, sauna, recreation room, ping pong tables, sun deck, lending book and video library, all the basics for relaxation, peace, quiet, and solitude. Food is included. The cost is approximately $100 a day and some of these voyages last for months.
The Reederie F. Laeisz GmbH line has eight sister ships that float regularly from Long Beach to Oakland then across the Pacific to Tokyo, Osaka, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, up the Suez Canal, around Spain to Le Havre, France, through the English Channel to Hamburg, Germany, and finally to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where they turn around and retrace their steps. The entire trip is 84 days long. The cost is $8,736. That is a true blue dyed-in-the-wool no-doubt-about-it get-away vacation.
A trip like that would be perfect if one were writing a book, or newly married and deeply, deeply in love, or just retiring and wanting to do something monumental, or too old and seasoned by life to be thrilled by pleasure cruise casinos and cabaret shows, or living with a wild spirit and a tight budget, or trying to learn Japanese, or escaping a hectic lifestyle, or someone who just loves the open sea.
One website shows passenger photos of former trips, often in clusters of four to six senior couples, happy together picnicking, playing cards, hanging out.
If 84 days is too short, you can take a trip around the world on the Andrew Weir or the Rickmers-Linie in 124 days for $13,500. It stops at over a dozen ports, including Tahiti, Fiji, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Australia, Malaysia and on and on. There are also many trips lasting two to three weeks. These would provide a taste test.
Ah, well. A freighter cruise is not for me now. “Honey, guess where we’re going? The rainforests of Papua. We’ll be back by Halloween.” I don’t think so. However, I’m intrigued by the whole concept of barge world travel. Someday, maybe.
I booked the Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas tour to the Mexican Riviera for seven days this spring. I was able to barter a discount fare on the phone than was not mentioned on the website, $1,900 with airfare.
We wanted a balcony, but that was an extra $1,200, and the ship is lined in sundecks, so we settled for an ocean view. Why, I could book passage on a Polynesian frigate for the price of a balcony.
So, anyhow, this will be my first Mexican cruise. If anyone reading this has been on this particular cruise and has advise for us of things to do, not do, enjoy, not enjoy, approach, avoid, eat, drink not eat, drink, and has no intention of selling me a time-share in Cabo, send me an email, please. I’m an empty vessel. gibbz@pacbell.net

For Thursday, February 16, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 780 words



The female mind


I’ll never understand the female mind. I don’t even try. I just marvel at it and shake my head. Thank goodness something in this repetitive, mundane life of ours remains unpredictable.
Out of a million possible examples, I’ll pick this one: Ten years ago I wanted to plan a romantic get-away for our tenth wedding anniversary. I said, “Honey, what do you want to do? We could drive up the coast to a bed-and-breakfast, maybe Mendocino, or go to the mountains, find a small town, rent a room. Or fly somewhere. What do you think?”
Instead of telling me what she thought, she gave me a piece of her mind. First she admonished me for being unromantic, then began to train me on the art of woman wooing. She explained it like this.
“Honey, when you want to do something romantic, don’t tell me about it. Surprise me. Be the man. Plan the trip yourself. Make the reservations. Plot the course, then spring it on me. Wave tickets and say, ‘Guess where we’re going?’ That’s romantic. I don’t want to sit and negotiate all the terms. Just sweep me off my feet.”
I took that advice to heart, ten years later. A month ago, I began planning a romantic get-away for our upcoming 20th anniversary. I decided we would take our first sea cruise. Oowee, baby. I kept it a big secret. Hush. Hush. I researched in private. First I drove to Costco and poured over their members’ vacation brochure, chock full of options and cruise lines. None of their bargains fit my timeframe. I surfed cruise-line websites, critique groups, and Consumer Reports. I read and read.
Finally, I settled on a Mexican six-day voyage on a Carnival Cruise out of San Diego. We’d visit Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo and come home. I took a virtual ship tour on the Internet. Looked at cabin, nightclub, and cabaret photos. Inspected decks. Hours I spent, days, a month.
Finally, the day came for me to book the journey. The house was empty. I logged onto Expedia, Travelocity, one of those websites, and selected our itinerary from flight to finish. Ultimately, I reached the page of no return where I had to enter a credit card number and click “Confirm.”
Just at that moment, Susan came home. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said as she breezed through the house. “Board meeting tonight. Gotta go.”
My feet turned cold. She was in the next room. Before I clicked and cost myself a couple thousand dollars, I said, “Eh. Hon. Got a minute?” I thought I ought to run it past her just in case, you know, whatever. I minimized the screen. I figured I would surprise her with a pop-up screen, one step removed from waving tickets.
“What do you want? I only have a minute.” She came into my den.
“You know what year this is? Right? Of course, you do. Well, guess what we’re going to do, baby. I’m taking you on a Mexican cruise! Surprise! Yipee!” I popped up the itinerary screen.
She looked at it long. She grimaced, pushed her lips up under her nose, and said, “Oh. Hmm. Really? Carnival? Our kids took that line. Didn’t like the food. I’m not so sure.” Then she ran out the door.
Geez, oh, man. Lucky I asked her opinion. She completely forgot to give me the How-unromantic-of-you-to-tell-me lecture.
Back to the drawing board for me. I phoned our kids. Friends of theirs liked Royal Caribbean. They liked the Cayman Islands. I researched two more days and settled on a 6-day cruise out of Florida. I got back on the same travel website, selected everything anew, and, before hitting the “Confirm” button, called singingly, “Susan, darling, come up here, please. I have something to show you.” This trip was an extra thousand, but I read up on all the ports of call, and it looked like a blast.
“Yes. What, Honey?” she asked, at my side.
“Surprise!” I said and popped up the new, improved itinerary screen. “Here is where we’re going.” I smiled, mouth open.
She looked at it long. Chewed her lip. “Florida, eh? We have to fly all the way to Florida? That’s an extra thousand dollars and twelve hours in the air. Can’t we depart out of California and put the airfare toward a cabin upgrade? Let me talk to my friend, Barry. He knows all about cruises. I’ll ask him to recommend something. Don’t make any decisions until you hear back from me.” She slid out the door like Morticia, down the hall, and back to frittering with whatever she was doing before I surprised her.

For Thursday, February 9, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 783 words



Odds on odd


I believe in good luck. It is possible to be in the right place at the right time. I never was optimistic enough to believe it could happen twice in two hours, but I am now.
This is no earth-shaking story of me buying the winning numbers to the power-ball lottery and then finding in my change one of the 40 existing 1943 copper pennies. Though, that’s not a bad run of luck.
This is a homeowner’s tale about saving my house, a tale to make insurance agents chew their lips in anxious relief.
Gino and I were installing new floor tile in a seldom-used downstairs bathroom. We had just poured liquid floor leveler and I was standing around uselessly by the door watching Gino sprawled on his hands and knees spreading the mud around with a trowel.
From my unique vantage point of leaning against the door jamb holding a cup of coffee, I spotted an odd thing. In the center of my bathroom ceiling, a drop of water formed. It wobbled for a second, then dripped down into the floor leveler. It was the first drop to fall. Then another drop fell. And another.
“What the…?” I put my finger into the next collecting drop and it ran down my hand and puddled up along my wristband. “Where is this coming from?”
“Where is what coming from?” asked Gino, looking up. “Oh. You have a leak. What’s overhead?”
“Eh. The refrigerator.”
“Well, then, your refrigerator is probably leaking.” Gino is matter-of-fact about the obvious. He got up. We went upstairs. The refrigerator looked fine. No water on the kitchen floor. No tell-tale sign that anything was leaking, unless one was fortunate enough to be downstairs in the seldom-used bathroom.
Gino rolled the refrigerator out of its cubby. Fssssssst! Behind the ‘fridge, water was spewing forcefully from the coupling on the rubber ice-maker hose. It had just popped its gasket. Gino turned off the water and the leak was fixed.
“You are so lucky,” said Gino. “If we hadn’t been working tonight, that could have leaked for days. Your ceiling would have collapsed. Your framing would be damaged.”
“I saw the first drop,” I said.
“Geez, oh, man.” Gino laughed as he wiped up the water in the narrow cubby, while I stood there. We bought replacement steel flex-hose at the hardware store. Gino installed it. We tore away a bit of water-damaged hard cardboard at the bottom of the ‘fridge to fit in the higher-gauge hose. Problem solved.
We cleaned up for the night and rented a movie. The kids came over. The whole family moved to the living room with snacks and beverages. We turned out the kitchen light.
Normally, I don’t get up once I settle into my psychiatrist-couch lounge. It’s my segue to sleep and then to bed. However, this night I did get up, early. I remembered that I had bought some Odwallas at 2 for $4. When I opened the refrigerator, I noticed that the door was hot to the touch. Not warm. Hot. The center frame between the doors was hotter.
“Yeo, Gino. Come here. Check this out. Something’s wrong.”
“What now? I’m watching the movie,” he said as he was coming.
“My refrigerator is about to burn up.” He felt it and pulled back.
“It sure is.” He rolled the ‘fridge away from the wall again and yanked the plug. Heat radiated up from the motor and condenser like an over-fired barbecue. “Hm. I don’t know what happened. This may be too much for me to fix.”
“Maybe you pulled a wire by accident,” I volunteered.
He gave me his purse-lipped, crinkly eyed Gino look. “I didn’t pull a wire.”
The wife, kids, and I were standing there thinking aloud, “Well, I guess we better start eating. We’ll eat until morning and then call Sears.”
All this while, Gino is behind the refrigerator with a flashlight, removing the cardboard paneling at the bottom. “Oh, man! Geez, oh, man.”
“What, what, what?”
“I found your problem. Look for yourself.”
I bent down and peered into the back of the refrigerator. Inside, with its back legs in the air, was a former mouse, his head stuck firmly in the fan. He was jammed in there pretty tight. I needed needle-nosed pliers to extract him. We plugged the refrigerator back in. It purred coolly to life, fan spinning. Another disaster diverted.
“You are so lucky you bought those Odwallas,” said Gino. “I’ve seen refrigerators catch on fire and burn down the kitchen.”
“That mouse must have just crawled in there through the bigger hole we made.”
“He must have,” agreed Gino. “What are the odds of that?”

For Thursday, Feb 2, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 785 words


Beauty and Beast 2


Last week I was explaining why I would never take my outspoken feminist girlfriend, Janet, back to visit the rural roots of my Pennsylvania home town. I drew that conclusion after observing her in a close encounter with a crazy man in Modesto who was way too similar to the kinds of guys I grew up with. It became apparent that day that if I ever took Janet to meet my childhood friends, it could be bad for her health.
When we left off, Janet had just confronted Mark, a barrel-chested biker who lived in my Modesto studio apartment building. Eight single guys lived in eight studio apartments, one building, McHenry Blvd. near J Street. It was Janet’s premiere visit to my home after a month of dating, and I hadn’t introduced her yet.
As I explained last week, I’d left Janet lying in my Murphy bed while I went down the hall to a party that she didn’t want to attend. Why a woman wouldn’t want to go to a party peopled by eight lonely, desperate guys is beyond me.
I’d taken a bowl of my homemade chili with me, leaving gallons of it on my stovetop. Mad Mark, with his wild hair, flowing beard, tattoos and bullet holes, seeing the chili, moseyed down the hall to help himself, without telling me. That’s the way we lived, wandering in and out of each other’s apartments.
He encountered Janet in my bed, made a few rude, lewd comments to her, and continued to the kitchen, ignoring Janet’s ordering him to “Get out or I’ll call the police.”
When he returned to the party, he said, “You better go check on your old lady, man. She’s freakin’ out,” I dropped everything and ran to find Janet wrapped in my sheet, visibly shaken, on the phone to the Modesto police. I convinced her to hang up.
So there we were, on the edge of my bed. Janet was angry, offended, humiliated, insulted. “Let me call the police. No one has the right to barge in here and talk to me the way he did. How dare he.”
I tried to explain. “Janet. He didn’t know you were here. That’s how we live. He just walks into my apartment. I walk into his. It’s like a frat house.”
“I don’t care. I told him to leave and he ignored me.”
“He just wanted chili, then he came back to the party.”
“That’s not the point. I told him to get out and he swore at me. I have the right to have him arrested.”
“Jannie, please. Mark’s a good guy once you get to know him. He’s just obnoxious and vulgar. We accept him like that. He’s our friend. Geez, I live with him. I can’t have you calling the cops. How would I face him after that? It would make my living situation very ugly.”
“He has no right to talk to me that way. You should step in and defend me.”
Just then Mark opened the door wide and stepped in. “Hey, how’s your old lady?” he yelled. “Did she calm down?”
“Get out of here, you $%%#&!!” said delicate, petite Janet, my lovely outspoken feminist sweetheart. “Or I’ll call the police.”
“Calm down, chickie. Don’t get your shorts in a bind.”
“Don’t you talk to me that way.”
“I’ll talk to you any $#@%* way I want.”
“Get out of here.”
“I’ll go when I’m ready.”
During this exchange, I was directly in the middle. With my left hand, I was trying to console Janet. With my right hand, I was waving Mark out the door. It proved no use. They kept yelling. Finally, Mark flipped. He took a big step closer and whipped out a butterfly knife, which he deftly flicked open.
“Listen, b____. I’ll cut your throat out if you don’t shut up.”
Janet finally, miraculously, stopped yelling. I stood up and faced Mark. “Mark. Please. Put that away and go outside. Give me a break, will you?”
“Your old lady needs to learn how to control her tongue,” said Mark. He put his blade away and left. I shut the door.
We talked and talked about the right and wrong of my behavior, Mark’s behavior, Janet’s behavior, the best thing to do versus the right thing to do. We bickered over that incident for the three long, wonderful years we were together. We fought and resolved many other quarrels, but never, ever, to this very day, have we ever resolved what should have been done differently on that fateful day.
Her feisty temper was a trait that made me love her. It’s also the main reason I could never take her home.

For Thursday, January 26, 2006 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 743 words



Beauty and the Beast


Let me tell you a story about my old girlfriend, Janet. I mentioned her briefly in a recent column, stating that I wouldn’t invite her to visit my Pennsylvania hometown because she was (is?) an outspoken feminist and I feared for her safety in my backwater hometown of traditional chauvinists and lumbering woodsmen. Let me share the experience that convinced me Janet needed to stay out of Ridgway, PA.
I met Janet shortly after moving to California, Modesto, 1978. Fresh out of Penn State with a BA in English, I landed a job as an O operator with AT&T. My shift consisted of three guys and 90 women, so it was easy to be eligible. I fell hard for Janet on first sight. She was beautiful and delicate and bright.
Wanting to do things right, I asked her out to a Saturday Disney matinee. I wanted our first date to be friendly, harmless, and non-threatening. It was. We began dating. I waited a good month before inviting her to my tiny studio apartment for consummation.
My studio with its Murphy bed was one of eight in the J Street building, all identical, all inhabited by single, lonely, misfit guys like myself. Over my many months there, we all had become friends, meeting in the halls, stopping by each others’ apartments for coffee or beer. One guy in particular, Mark, on the first floor, was a huge dude, a wild haired, long-bearded, bug-eyed biker with leather jacket, a bullet hole in his chest the size of a dime and an exit wound on his back the size of a dinner plate. He liked to steal tombstones and had several in his apartment serving as end tables.
Down the hall from me on the second floor was another guy, Allen, a decent chap with a great stereo system. When we partied, we usually did so at Allen’s.
The day before I decided to invite Janet to my apartment, I cooked up a huge batch of chili. Single guys do that – make five gallons of chili and eat it for a week.
So, the big romantic Saturday was a successful episode of afternoon delight. Janet and I spent the day in the Murphy bed, talking and not talking. All was right with the world. I warmed my chili and we ate and ate.
Late that afternoon I heard music pulsating through the rear wall. Oh, that’s right! Allen was having a party. I asked Janet if she would like to go next door. “No,” she said. She was comfortable. Did she mind if I went for an hour or so? “No,” she didn’t mind.
I fixed myself another bowl of chili and walked down to Allen’s. We all hung out, talking, sipping beers, listening to tunes. Mad Mark showed up and the party’s pace picked up considerably. Then he said to me, “Man, where’d you get the chili?”
I said, “I just made five gallons of it.” He nodded. My attention shifted to something else. I didn’t think about it anymore. About fifteen minutes later, Mark stepped up to me with a bowl of chili in his hand and said, “Man. You better check on your old lady. She’s freakin’ out.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Got me. I just went in and helped myself to some chili.”
I dropped my bowl and raced down the hall. I burst into the room to find Janet wrapped in a sheet, sitting on the edge of the bed, trembling, on the phone saying, “Get me the police!”
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What are you doing? You can’t call the police on Mark. Come on. I live with the guy. Hang up. Tell me what happened.”
I quickly helped her press down the receiver.
Here’s what happened. Mark threw my door open and waltzed in without knocking, expecting an empty apartment. He saw Janet under the covers and said, “Hey, chickie!” That’s not something one says to an outspoken feminist. Then he did the unthinkable. He grabbed the lower hem of the sheet and flapped it like he was trying to lift it for a quick peek.
Janet screamed at him. “Get out of here. Go away. Leave me alone.”
Mark said, “Ah, relax, chickie. I’m just here for some chili.” He then went into my kitchen.
Janet kept screaming at him to “Get out. Get out or I’ll call the police.”
Mark, the lumbering beast that he is, ignored her. And so.

To be continued…

For Thursday, January 19, 2005 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 771 words


What counts?


The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in support of Oregon’s assisted-suicide law. This means that Oregon doctors can continue to assist any terminally ill patients with less that six months to live end their suffering on their own terms.
There are many sides to this controversy, just as there are many sides to other life-and-death issues like abortion and capital punishment. Seldom is any debate on these issues ever won or lost. They just rage on in perpetuity.
So, opponents, don’t get all worked up and start writing letters that put me in my place when I say I am happy as a bobtailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. When my turn comes, I just might drive up there. It’s only ten-hours round trip.
Bravo, Oregon! Good for you. I favor physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in chronic pain, and I personally respect states’ rights to vote on important laws that protect their citizenry. The people of Oregon want this assisted-suicide law, and that is fine by me. If folks don’t like it, they can move out of state, or simply not participate in the practice when their own number comes up.
People generally stick to their original convictions, either due to upbringing, politics, religion, race, unique personal experiences, or some combination thereof. So, I won’t debate the decision. I’d either be preaching to the choir or wasting my breath.
I’ve yet to see a discussion where a pro-lifer or a pro-choicer has ever slapped himself in the head, and said, “My gosh. You’re right. I never looked at it that way. I’m changing my opinion.” That’s because these particular opinions are special. They are bonded to moral convictions, which are not easily changed. A person may change his mind on whether or not he likes George Clooney as an actor, or whether he goes out to eat for Chinese New Year or not.
Studies by the Pew Research Center conducted in 1975, 1990, and 2005 show little change in percentages on a wide variety of life-and-death issues. Terry Schiavos and Jack Kevorkians create blips on the screen, but people in general go on disagreeing.
Currently, 46-percent of 1,500 Americans surveyed favor physician-assisted suicide, and 45-percent disapprove. The breakdown of voters makes the results more interesting. Only 30-percent of white evangelical Protestants were in favor, but 60-percent of white mainstream Protestants favored assisted suicide. Catholics were 40-percent in favor and 50-percent against. Only 34-percent of Republicans were in favor, but 52-percent of Democrats favored physicians’ assistance.
Here is one other interesting detail in the voter breakdown. Everyone was asked another question: if they thought about end-of-life issues a great deal, some, or not much? Those who thought about it a great deal voted 57-percent in favor. Those who thought about life and death issues seldom or not at all voted 35-percent in favor.
Faith in modern medicine seems to have had some minor influence in people’s decisions. In 1990 28-percent of those surveyed said that if they had an illness with no hope of improvement and great pain they would want the doctors to do all they could to keep them alive. In 2005 it went up six points: 34-percent said “save me if you can.”
In 1990 59-percent said “DNR. Pull the plug.” In 2005, that number had shrunk to 53-percent. Also, in 2005 39-percent of whites want to live to be 100, while 65-percent of blacks hope to see triple-digit living. This, too, is a modest increase from 1990.
Most, 70-percent, favor Right-to-Die laws and don’t mind if people in pain end their own suffering. This number hasn’t changed much in 15 years. However, neither have the distinctions: 60-percent believe in right to die if incurable and in great pain; if incurable but not in great pain – 53-percent; if life has become a burden due to illness – 33-percent; if patient has become a burden to family – 29-percent.
Seventy-percent don’t mind if the sick end their own suffering; 55-percent don’t mind if a spouse or loved-one pulls the plug; and 46-percent agree that the doctor can help if the patient requests it.
This tells me that our hope in modern medicine is growing stronger. Families carry the most weight in these decisions, but doctors are trusted and included. We all want to go on living as long as the living is good. However, when we know it’s over, we have the courage and willingness meet our fate head on, and seek professional help.
These numbers make as much sense as any others. I guess the only number that really matters is the one that is up.
.

For Thursday, January 12, 2005 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 776 words


Key out


What makes one person succeed in life while another fails? I don’t know. What is the measure of success? I don’t know. What I mean to say is that I can’t speak for everyone. That would require research and clinical studies. I can, however, speak for myself.
I survived a wild, wooly childhood. I grew up surrounded by not only the good things – which are subjects for another time – but the bad, as well.
I grew up surrounded by drugs and death by drugs, alcohol and death by alcohol, crime and death by crime, violence, spousal abuse, child abuse, and all the other ugly things that can happen to anyone with bad luck. I climbed out of that environment and went off to college. I have worked hard all my life and will continue past today to lead a happy, successful life with wife and children and grandchildren.
How did I do it? How did I escape my upbringing? What stopped me from mixing into the madness and disappearing? For me, it was as easy as 1 + 1 =2.
This New Year’s Eve we were sitting in our living room, my wife, Susan, my friend, Gino, and couple of other local folks bringing in 2006. Somehow, the conversation got around to childhoods, growing up, and me.
My wife has heard all the stories, and began to share a few. I sat quietly on the couch and listened to the chatter. Everyone else had sipped perhaps a wee bit more champagne that I had sipped, which made them more talkative.
Gino sat forward at one point and exclaimed in an amazed tone like someone who had just seen David Copperfield levitate a whale. “How did he do it?”
Gino was best man at my Ridgway wedding in July 1986. He only remembers that he was terrified the entire time, something about a guy with a big knife needing a ride home. His girlfriend was afraid to leave her motel room.
Last year Gino got another taste of my home town when we spent several weeks there fixing my mother’s house. He got invited to my family reunion. After 31 years of friendship, he finally met my whole family and many more of my surviving friends.
Once I had a girlfriend after I moved to California, Janet. We dated three years and were deep into our relationship. I recall deciding at that time to make my first return visit to Ridgway since running off to college and California. I had not been home in seven years. When I started calling airlines, I never once, not even for a second, entertained the idea of inviting Janet to join me. In fact, I struggled over a diplomatic way of telling her, “No way. You’re not going. Not gonna happen.”
Understand I acted that way, not because I was embarrassed about my roots, but because I was afraid for Janet. I feared she would get beaten up. Janet was a fearless feminist with a big mouth and an axe to grind. I doubt she’d have survived 24 hours in my neck of the woods without someone slapping the cultured objectivity right off her face.
Anyhow, back to the central thread. Since our recent trips, Gino has been on my case. “I never really knew you until now. All those years we were friends, and I never knew what you had gone through.” He’d give me his familiar slack-jawed stare. “How did you get out of there?”
So that was the topic on New Years, except no one was asking me. They were philosophizing amongst themselves. “Maybe it was this.” “Maybe it was that.” “Maybe it was something he read in a book.”
Finally, after listening to them concoct the mechanisms of my motivation in one convoluted theory after another, I felt I had to put an end to it. I sat up and raised my hand, which is how one gets a word in edgewise in a room full of teachers.
“It was none of that,” I said. “It wasn’t any anti-drug or anti-alcohol campaigns. It wasn’t from any profound heart-to-heart talks with respected elders or teachers, or proverbs from a paperback. It wasn’t brought on by any of my near-death experiences. My escape was as simple as one plus one.
“In short, I had hope. Hope alone saved me. I knew I was smart. I was unafraid of hard work. I was curious and I wanted things. I knew that’s what it took to make a life – being able to see the future. That alone was my key out. I don’t know if it would work for others.

For Thursday, Jan 5, 2005 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 778 words


In the dog house


I bought a dog kennel. It’s out in the middle of the Nevada desert. I believe in the three cardinal rules of real estate – location, location, location. What better place to pen up dogs so they can’t run around than out in the middle of nowhere?
My new business is a small cinderblock structure consisting of a 10 x 40-foot office and ten kennels, five on each side. The gray building sits in the front right corner of a .6 acre piece of property. The place has water, electricity, septic. It even has a few dogs.
It also has a built-in tenant, Michael, who has lived in the office and single-handedly run ARF, the non-profit Animal Rescue Foundation, over the last decade.
He is sanctioned to take in stray wolves. Not every shelter can say that. Michael had a wolf when I first met him. He kept her about a month before a tribe of Native Alaskans adopted her and released her into their outback.
Why did I buy a dog kennel? In Nevada? In the desert? That’s a story that ties together multiple threads of influence and need into a great harmonic, or perhaps moronic, convergence. I have my neck out, my head in the chopping block, my butt on the line, my feet in wet cement, my fingers in a vice, and my thumbs on the red and green buttons. In other words, I’m taking a risk. I’m also helping out an old man.
If you’ve been following, you know I also have a small mini-storage business out in the middle of the Nevada desert on an adjacent .6-acre parcel. Michael is my manager. I hired him last year when I bought the 34-garage business from an elderly couple who live in the California foothills. The old man broke his hip and couldn’t take care of the place anymore.
When I drive out there to work on the place -- spreading blacktop, digging French drains -- I spend plenty of time at Michael’s kennels. He helps me. He loans me hoses, water, electricity; he fixes broken doors. Then we sit in his office to escape the heat and drink bottled water. I visit with the dogs and cats.
On one spring visit he told me, “I’m worried. The owners have the land up for sale. What if someone buys it and runs me off?”
“That would suck,” I replied. “You’re the wolf whisperer. These dogs need you, and you need them. And I need you. Who would run my business?” Michael shrugged and fired up another unfiltered Camel.
“How much do they want for it?” I asked.
“Fifty-five thousand. But they said they’d sell it to me for twenty-five thousand.”
“Why don’t you buy it?”
“I don’t have twenty-five thousand dollars. Besides, I don’t want to own property. I don’t want the taxes and the paperwork and the b. s.”
I chewed on this awhile. For months I chewed. I chewed and chewed. Then I took a real estate attorney out to dinner. We chewed and chewed. Then we talked about dog kennels. I wanted to know if there was a way I could loan an old hermit who lives in the desert with dogs and feral cats $25,000 and feel safe about it. I would then use the property for collateral. He said, “You bet.” Then on a napkin he wrote the general language of a few legal contracts I would need written.
I spoke with Michael. “How about if I loan you the money, you buy the property, then deed the property over to me and I’ll forgive the loan? Then I’ll be your landlord and I won’t run you off and I’ll lower your rent, to boot.”
“It sounds like a good idea to me,” said Michael.
“What would the owners think of our arrangement?”
“They’ll be fine with it. They already told me I could do whatever I wanted with the property once I owned it. The old lady, the deceased owner, was a dog lover. She built this kennel. Then I took it over.”
I hired a Nevada lawyer. Explained the situation. I paid him $200 to write up a promissory note, deed of trust, and a few other documents. Michael and I visited a title company office last fall and opened an escrow. With my loan he bought the land, and now this month he will deed the land over to me.
I promised Michael he could live there as long as he wants. I will help him with his worn-out signs, drum up business. When he goes, I’ll try and rent the kennel again. If no one bites, I’ll build more storage units.