Category Archives: Human relations

Epinions (reclaimed), Human relations

College days, roommates, and what I learned

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In the fall of 1981, I left a miserable lumber town to attend college in Seattle, which was not yet the capital of grunge and coffee. I was only seventeen (due to long ago getting promoted out of kindergarten in mid-year) and came from a very repressive family environment. For example, in our house, to question my father’s interpretation of the Bible was equated with doing Satan’s work. Free at last to seek out pre-marital sex and alcohol, I worked harder at either than my studies. I was also overwhelmed academically due to the rudimentary education of a small-town school with low standards, and was particularly deficient in critical thinking because neither my home nor my school offered much intellectual challenge to dumb ideas. College tends to fix that.

Lesson: if your new roommate is from a repressed environment, look out. They will probably go completely hog wild.

My first roommate was Math, a brilliant mathematician from a conservative suburb (West Seattle) with a clutch of intelligent, pleasant high school friends. He was the only roommate I’d never met before I moved in with him, and the best one I ever had. He was in honors math–at UW, an intimidating program–and after putting up with me for two quarters, moved out to a single room in a quiet dorm. He promptly tried to kill himself. I may have been a flaming pain in the butt, but it turns out that my antics helped him deal with the pressure.

Lesson: don’t be too quick to judge a roommate. He or she may seem swinish, and may even be a swine, but may also fill a need that you don’t realize. Get to know the person.

For my second year I stayed on the same floor, rooming with Markdove, a senior from Tukwila (a suburb of Seattle). We had planned this because we were both a) hardcore political conservatives (this was a long time ago, folks) and serious drunkards. I used to pour Everclear in Markdove’s beer when he went to the can. One time he puked.

Lesson: if you keep Everclear around your dorm room, it will ultimately be misused somehow.

While in that living arrangement, I came to realize that I needed to control my drinking before it got full control of me. As luck would have it, the night after I chose to hit the wagon for a month, our cluster living area decided to pitch a massive wingding. I stuck to my guns. In so doing, I gained the psychological upper hand over alcohol. I still drank, but never as heavily or as out of control.

Lesson: in the college dorm environment, you are in a sea of behaviors, attitudes and parties. There will come a time at which you will have to choose to steer rather than drift. Know that the day will come. A lot is riding on it.

Markdove and I had an arrangement: lights and noise were allowed at all hours. We would use blindfolds and earplugs as necessary, and often did.

Lesson: at some point the issue of room usage, noise, study and sleep will confront all roommates. If you want consideration, you have to give consideration. Gentle hints tend to work better than open confrontation, especially with Young College Students who are Now Big Adults and who Can Now Totally Manage Their Own Lives Quite Nicely, Thank You.

I soon moved to a different dorm. My roommate was Kenpeck, and it was a good thing that I spent most of my nights (ok, all of them) in my girlfriend’s room because Kenpeck and I politely hated each other. He was a community college transfer from Aberdeen (a depressed coastal fishing and former lumber town), and was actually there for the purposes of studying and learning. My rowdiness somewhat cramped his style. In retrospect, we both judged each other quickly and unfairly, but he was the adult in the room.

Lesson: rooming with someone is a total-immersion living experience. If you don’t like each other, move. However, if you never bother to get to know each other, your roomie relations will disappoint.

I spent the next two years as an RA (Resident Advisor) in McMahon Hall, the most freshmany dorm in the UW system, and the place where I’d begun with Math as my roommate. For me, it was a little like the old show Welcome Back, Kotter. In those days, it wasn’t rare for Residential Life to hire RAs from among the rowdiest souses in the dorm system, on the grounds that it was harder to put stuff over on us. I wasn’t a very good RA, especially in my second year, and I was fortunate not to be fired by supervisors who showed me unearned compassion. But I did witness and umpire a lot of roommate conflicts.

Lesson: most of the conflicts I saw were involved one person being totally inconsiderate or anal. If you run to either extreme, you are going to have roommate conflicts. If you can compromise, you will tend not to.

Lesson: roommate relationships tend to become exaggerated. “I love her.” “I hate his guts.” “She’s such a snot.” “He and I have become best friends.” It’s better to shoot for an even keel no matter how good or bad it seems at first, try not to peak or valley, expect strengths and weaknesses. They’re there.

Lesson: most high school friends who signed up as roommates ended up no longer friends. You’re often better off with someone you’ve never met.

Lesson: being a roommate is good training for someday living with a partner, so it is a good time to learn to do small acts of consideration. Pay for your share of the pizza, or don’t eat any; try and pick up a little; bring a Coke back from the cafeteria.

After two tours of duty in VietMcNam, I retired (read: I was rejected for a third year of RAing employment for generally being an immature idiot; they had spent my entire second year kicking themselves for rehiring me) to the UW dorms’ equivalent of a country gentleman’s life: Hansee Hall.

Hansee was the quiet dorm, and you had to have a lot of quarters of priority to get in. It was all single rooms, very tiny, and very quiet and mature. Not that you couldn’t get drunk in Hansee; I proved often enough that one could. If you got raucous drunk, though, the math wonks would narc on you yesterday and you’d be exiled to the Lower Planes of McMahon or Haggett (another fairly wild place), right now. I had a weird adjoining room arrangement; there were only three like it in Hansee. Two rooms shared one bath. You had to go through my roommate’s room to get to the throne room. You had to go through mine to get out. Thus, it wasn’t really private, but you didn’t have to tramp around in eight or fifty other people’s foot fungi in a communal shower.

At first I was in with Raybird, a sourdough Alaskan and general screwoff. (By this time I was actually deigning to study and get decent grades, though obviously I still found time to act immaturely.) He was unmotivated and could dish it out but not take it. He soon quit school. I tried to encourage him not to fold the tent, but if anything I probably made it worse. If I’d had Raybird as my first roommate, though, it probably would have had an adverse effect.

Lesson: the first thing people have to learn at college is that it’s up to them. Also, you need enough distance to insulate yourself from soaking up your roommate’s moods (or letting yours soak them).

Then I had Frédéric, a Frenchman in the MBA program. We had a few cultural differences here and there, but for the short time we roomed together, we got along fine. He taught me a lot, especially bad words in French for which his girlfriend (also French) punished him roughly.

Lesson: if your roommate is from a different country, you have some adjustments ahead, but you also have a great opportunity. Not only can you learn to be an idiot in another language, but you can learn a lot about other cultures–including how to respect differences. If you were ever thinking of traveling abroad, having a foreign roommate is a good learning/warmup experience.

Finally I had Harcourt, my final college roommate. This gives me the opportunity to tell the story of the funniest thing I ever did in college.

Harcourt was a big guy from Spokane. He bore a powerful likeness to the Abominable Snowman in that old Bugs Bunny cartoon, remember that? Who would “hug him and pet him and squeeze him?” He was blond, about 6’5″ and 270, and hated football. He was a French major.

Harcourt’s pals were Connie and Pam. Connie, a petite blonde, liked to be called ‘Commie’ and was into left-wing politics. Pam was African American, not petite, and was comparatively sedate and easygoing; I had been her RA the previous year. Pam and Commie had attended Holy Names Academy and were definitely in Young Catholic Women’s School Alumnae Busting The Chains mode. I was fond of both.

After about a week or so, I couldn’t say the same of Harcourt. He was difficult to deal with, and offended by everything–and by now, I’d done some growing up and tended to be a considerate fellow. He was also a lazy slob whose natural habitat was bed and who rarely attended morning classes at all.

Harcourt most certainly didn’t drink, though it might have done him some good. Despite his size, he wasn’t the athletic type, so I never worried about him decking me in a rage. Knowing what I know now, I suspect that he was gay and closeted/questioning/conflicted, but one couldn’t have a discussion about such things with Harcourt, not even in a supportive way. Normal conversation offended him enough. An actual personal question was beyond the pale, however tactful and well-meant.

Anyhow, it was 3 AM on a Saturday night. From this simple statement, a knowing reader could ascertain precisely the situation in L112 Hansee. Harcourt had been snoring away for about four hours in his room, bothering no one. I was dinking around with a massive board wargame and well into my cups, having depleted a quart of rum just enough to be crocked but not sloppy. All was right with the world. In that state, I do not tend toward confrontationalism, which probably explains why I’ve never had a bar fight. On the contrary: I become more accepting and adventuresome.

Therefore, when the telephone rang, far from being grumpy, I was delighted. Ah! Just what I need to make my happiness complete: the milk of human companionship! Someone wants to talk with me! I cheerfully answered the telephone: “Hello?”

Three things were immediately apparent:
a) it was Pam.
b) Pam, too, had taken a drink.
c) Pam sounded lonely.

To spell it out, Pam seemed to be in an advanced state of erotic need. She was very specific about the regions of her body requiring stimulation, the type of contact she anticipated and desired in those regions, and the sentiments she expected to experience as a result. It was also clear that Pam had an adventuresome soul in ways I hadn’t ever anticipated, touching on such topics as rope use, feathers, and mild flagellation. Pam’s language was anything but clinical.

Being somewhat of a pervert, I listened to Pam’s porno for a couple of minutes. It was entertaining, and I was in my most accepting of moods. However, the male physiology is such that alcohol can cause a tragic effect: even if the libido is active, the flesh may be monastic, if you know what I mean. As sorry as I felt for Pam, and as willing as I might be to expend the considerable effort needed to improve her condition, I knew I couldn’t help her.

Now, while I make no claim to be a gentleman, I don’t believe in being callous without good reason. If I couldn’t satisfy Pam, clearly the decent act was to offer her a referral. For once in my life, as she stopped for air, I thought quickly on my feet. I positively beamed into the phone. “Well, in that case, the person you need to speak with is right here. Please hold for a moment.”

I opened Harcourt’s door. This was before the days of cordless phones. He was snoring quietly in a large puddle on the bed. I shook him. “Harcourt!”

“Hwrmwhvn.” When sleepy, Harcourt lost enough vowels that he could be speaking Serbo-Croatian.

Shook him harder. “Hey, Harcourt. Telephone.”

“Whaa.”

Spoke up a bit. “Get up, Harcourt. Someone’s on the phone.”

“Wthhllzcallngathream?” Harcourt shambled to the phone in his undies. I sat down and took a drink to enjoy the spectacle. “Hllo,” he said, eyes still half shut. I took a belt of rum and smirked the drunkard’s idiotic smirk.

Harcourt’s eyes went from sleep to awake to about this big in fifteen seconds. Remember, Harcourt had a cow about everything. Finally he bellowed into the phone, recovering his vowels: “I have never been so offended in my entire life!!”

It pains me to report that Harcourt then ended the conversation without taking the time to lay the phone down gently, nor to offer the lady a courteous parting salutation. Lamentable.

He fixed me with a gaze of the purest loathing. Were Harcourt a violent man, that would have sent him over the edge. As it was, though I was smaller, I was far and away the more physical. I replied by toasting him, upraised cup, foolish smile.

He stalked back to bed. Didn’t speak to me for two weeks.

Harcourt simply had no sense of humor.

Lesson: in a roommate situation, never walk around as though you had a steel rod rammed far up your rear. It’ll just get you mocked.

Postscript: many years later, I caught back up with Pam through the original publication of this story. She enjoyed it, and filled me in on her half of the tale. As she related to me, she and her friends had been drinking wine coolers and decided to have some fun with the guys.

[This article was originally published by me at Epinions. They can’t have it anymore. Not theirs. I have adapted it for format, context and writing skills improvements, and assert intellectual property rights.]

Human relations, Married life

Mrs. Ed

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When Deb and I first moved in together, we were kind of on a budget. I called it the Debt-of-the-Month Club budget. Before she came to Seattle, Deb had lived with a man called Dickmunch. Her family had called him Charlie, after Manson, which tells you their opinion of him. Dickmunch got his moniker when, in my presence, she once referred to him as that. I embraced the term with cold pleasure, and it is not swearing. It is his name, a proper noun, and okay to say in front of your granny.

Dickmunch was not a nice man. He caused and welched on a lot of their household debt, as his money management skills were right up there with Manson’s social adjustment skills. Every month, therefore, I would learn of a new and delinquent debt burden of some kind, with no real way to make Dickmunch pay his proper share. It was a financially tight and not entirely happy way for Deb and I to begin our cohabitation, especially as I learned that (single credit, stellar) + (single credit, wrecked by Dickmunch) = (household/marital credit wrecked by Dickmunch).

If you are ever seeking a single kind word said about our credit reporting and legal system, don’t bother seeking me out.

Due to our circumstances, we were living in a crappy two-bedroom apartment up in Shoreline (a northern suburb of Seattle). It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, for the most part, though very dingy in that way that older Seattle neighborhoods get if they are not maintained against the impact of rain and moss. We were not far south of Deja Goo, as the women working for shadowy types at Déjà Vu referred to their entertainment venue. I’ve lived in worse places. Our building was small, with four apartments including ours (upstairs and on the southern side). A weird, reclusive old guy lived next to us, your prototypical elderly Seattle apartment dweller with absolutely nothing to say. The worst part about the joint was the fleas left over from the previous owners, which defied all bombing and drove our cat crazy (for real).

The second worst was living upstairs from Mrs. Ed.

Had she been a little more bearable, we would not have called her such an unflattering name. Mrs. Ed was a big, strong-looking woman in her late twenties, not heavyset but substantial, blessed with a somewhat equine countenance and a bratty colt fond of going all horsiewhompus around 11 PM. I had to be up at 4 AM to be at work by 6:30 AM, for I worked in the investment industry, and that’s when the markets open on Pacific time. One day I decided to show my displeasure by going for a conditioning run around my living room, making sure that every one of my rather noisy footfalls was a stomp hard enough to rattle anything on shelves in our place or below. Mrs. Ed had some sort of boyfriend whom we didn’t know, and they traditionally spent the weekend in verbal or physical combat. My money would be on Mrs. Ed.

I did a shameful thing in that summer of 1997, and I still feel badly about it. I was unfair, craven and unethical. My relatives from Kansas very rarely visit out west. My little cousin Melissa (a grown matron with a master’s degree and preternatural physical strength who can crack my back with a determined hug, but is still my little cousin nonetheless, my only first cousin and about eight years my junior) and her new husband Adam (a really nice Kansas boy from Ark City, who finds our family relatively sane and kind) had scheduled a visit for around August. They’d planned it months before. Unfortunately, on 17 July 1997, I took one step toward the dugout at inning’s end and felt my achilles tendon pop. Full rupture.

The rehab regimen was rough: surgery within days, a cast from toes to top of shin with foot canted downward and counterclockwise, six weeks of no weight bearing at all. Five weeks in a walking cast; three months and a week in heel lifts or high heels; six months of no activity more strenuous than a walk. One year from date of surgery, resumption of normal activity. Those first six weeks involved great inconvenience and pain, so bad I could barely sleep even with medication. That I even took the medication says a great deal to those who know me well.

I didn’t tell Melissa and Adam. I was afraid they’d cancel the trip out of concern for me, or for some other reason. I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t going to be very good company, and I owed it to them to mention that as soon as I knew, ideally when we got home from the ER, or at the very least after surgery when I realized what my next six weeks would be like. They learned about it when they arrived in early August.

I suck for that. Cousins, I’m very, very sorry. My mental and physical state are not valid excuses, and I offer none, just my shamed apologies. I don’t care if it has been sixteen years (not far from the actual date, just so happens). I also apologize to my then-fiancée and now wife, on whom the brunt of entertainment fell, which was about six kinds of unfair to her. She was a better person than me, and took care of everything while also looking out for me. We have traced much of the truly serious growth in our relationship to that injury, and the way it forced me to need someone. I have never done ‘need’ well.

So, while Adam and Melissa were visiting, having the amazing forbearance not to ask me valid questions like: “You douchecanoe, what in the hell were you thinking, not warning us about this before we traveled halfway across the country to see you?” and “Do you suppose, in light of what you’ve pulled here, there might be a damn reason why people do not regularly rush out here to associate with you?”, Mrs. Ed had one of her signature moments in a fairly comical weekend.

It was a Saturday night, and Deb had taken us all up to Vancouver and back; A&M hadn’t ever been to Canada, as I recall. This was back when you didn’t need a passport or EDL, just answer the Customs Canada officers’ questions and clarify that you are not bringing weapons or anything else prohibited, and go on your way. It gets dark late in a Seattle August, and around 10 or 11 PM, Mrs. Ed and her swain began a great ruckus that got worse as midnight approached. We went to bed anyway, but later on we could hear banging, crashing, full-throated naughty words in contralto and (I’m guessing) baritone, and it started to sound like a bar fight. Deb called 911, wondering if anyone was getting seriously hurt down there.

Someone wasn’t, at least not yet. The Shoreline Police showed up to find the place trashed (which I doubt was too abnormal chez Mrs. Ed), strewn with evidence of angry horseplay. She must have convinced the cops it was okay, because they left. Once the police were gone, she cantered upstairs to scream at us for calling the law, and threatened us with a hoof trampling if CPS took her kid away. I could see why she might worry about that, and we may fairly guess that it wouldn’t have been the first time. In any event, Deb gave her both barrels back, telling her in blunt Alaskan language to get off our porch. Mrs. Ed eventually stomped back down to her stable. I should have been out there, but one isn’t too intimidating when one cannot place any weight on one foot. A&M seemed torn between shock, amusement and nervousness, wondering what kind of a trash heap their cousins inhabited. They live in rural Kansas, where this sort of behavior is uncommon in earshot of their peaceful Flint Hills home surrounded by pasture. However, at least that meant they were not afraid of horses, though they treat them with sane respect.

Before long, the Mrs. Ed stables became noisy and violent again, so Deb called the police again. When they came this time, they were sure something was amiss. The best evidence for that was the knife slash Mrs. Ed had inflicted on her dear lover’s arm, bleeding enough to require medical attention. The police hate domestic disputes with good reason, and they probably hated this one worse than most. Mrs. Ed, relatively unharmed, accused the guy of domestic violence. Despite the bloody wound to his arm, and perhaps other evidence (one suspects that Mrs. Ed committed most of the violence) he refused to accuse her of the same thing. Thus, he went to jail. She did not.

We’d had a big night, so we all went back to bed. The fun was only over for the time being.

Later that night, it rained fairly hard. While Seattle has nice summers, it still rains often enough even in August. I swear this to be true: many buildings in Seattle are built with flat roofs. I can’t speculate why anyone would do this, but it’s a stupid practice anywhere that receives lots of precipitation. Our building was one of these; it needed a plaque at the base saying BUILT BY IDIOTS. In a rainy climate, any flat roof will someday leak. While I was in our bathroom first thing Sunday morning, the ceiling drywall began to leak. As I recall, I tried holing it over the bathtub, hoping for the leakage to land in there. Instead, a big piece of sheetrock reached its failure point with my meddling. It caved in, dumping a few gallons of water on the floor with more to come.

What a great visit for my cousins, eh? There was one final comic chapter, and this one I enjoyed. Melissa hit the restroom not much later, and its window was open. So was Mrs. Ed’s, directly below…as Melissa could tell by the sounds of Mrs. Ed noisily puking up last night’s intoxication plus whatever Cheerios, oats or hay she’d had so far that morning. The mental image of Mrs. Ed kneeling in misery before the commode was cheeriest thing I’d imagined in weeks. When Melissa exited the restroom, we could all still hear our volatile neighbor through the open window in the throes of what had to be multiple regrets. Snickering ensued.

Come back, cousins. I promise: we have our own house, and it doesn’t rain much in Boise, and in any case ours doesn’t have a flat roof. None of our neighbors have knife-wielding domestic disputes that we know of. And if I contract even a sore toe, sprain my duodenum or even bonk my head on a cabinet in any way that would mess up anything, I promise to let you know. As soon as I know.

I can’t promise, though, that I won’t whicker and whinny now and then. Just for old times’ sake.

Human relations, Social comment, Sports

Mistaken for Santa

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An armpit-length beard has a way of drawing attention and comment. Some of the discussion is interesting and promotes conversation (“what motivated you to grow it?”) and some of it is high-water-pants dumb and tiresome (“how long you been growing that?”), but the choice to own this facial hair requires some patient acceptance of reactions from strangers. I have heard it described as ‘scruffy’ (that’s uncomplimentary) and ‘kingly’ (that’s pretty nice; thanks, Marcy).

The beard confers the benefit of starting me on at least neutral terms with any big shaggy/bikery/Vietnamy guy, some of whom have potential to be dangerous if offended, so I like that part. One downside is that some women, incredibly, think they can just reach in and play with it, or want to braid it and otherwise diddle around with it. Not enamored of that part. I never know what sort of reaction it’ll bring. The kids on my last baseball team immediately nicknamed me “ZZ” as well as “Badger” and “Scrap Iron,” all of which fit perfectly, except that I had to look up ZZ Top to find out why. I knew they were a Southern band, but that was it.

It wouldn’t be strange to mistake me for Santa Claus, or at least a younger version. When I describe myself to people, I usually explain that I look like Santa in his dissolute middle age. I get shoutouts from mall Santas at the holidays, and near-constant stares from wide-eyed children (whose parents should correct this discourtesy, but there’s nothing I can do…as a boy I was told to stop, and would have been spanked had I kept it up), so it’d be hard to be unaware of the resemblance. But in my baseball uniform?

Before I tore up my knee, I was an amateur baseball player with minimal talent but significant hustle and combative spirit. When my knees could take it, I loved to catch in spite of my mediocre arm to second base. I liked handling pitchers, wearing the gear, and quarterbacking the infield. I even liked catching the knuckleball, which I also threw during my rare mound appearances. Few catchers like catching the knuck. I gained great amusement watching the batter try to follow it.

One fine July Saturday afternoon in my late thirties, I had just caught a full game at Roy Johnson Field in Kennewick. If you have never done time behind the dish, you may not be aware of the filthiness involved. The mercury exceeded 100° F. Most home plate areas are full of powdery dirt called ‘moon dust,’ which clings to all moisture. Soaked with sweat, and squatting down frequently amid clouds of moon dust for nearly three hours plus batting and baserunning, I was disgusting. I always refused to wear the skullcap. The catcher’s correct gear involves wearing your regular baseball cap backward as the gods intended, and doesn’t include a helmet, so my cap was also gross from the frequent need to toss aside the mask. I wore a royal blue jersey and cap, grey pants, and beige dust which had turned to tan salty mud on the numerous sweaty spots. Each cleated shoe contained its own miniature sand dune. I didn’t need a shower; I needed hosing off.

I’d gathered up all the gear (I assume that we lost, as was our custom) and was leaving the field. My knees ached, and heavy bags of gear hung from my shoulders: one for my regular equipment, and one for the Tools of Intelligence, as the catcher’s gear ought to be called. As I walked behind the backstop toward the parking area, two pleasant-looking African American girls aged maybe seven and five blocked my path. They gazed up at me in wonder, even adoration. Kennewick has a very small black population, less than 2%*; it is 1/4 Hispanic, by comparison. If I had spent my morning coffee time imagining “stuff I expect will happen to me today,” “be adored by young African American girls in my filthy, smelly baseball uniform” would not have made the list. I assumed the kids must be related to the opposing shortstop, a good guy named Taylor who gave us fits as a fielder, hitter and baserunner. With him being the only black player present on either team, this wasn’t a reckless presumption.

I stopped, looked down and smiled. On rare occasions, little kids would ask for autographs, having no idea how insignificant we were in the grand scheme of the game. Not this time. The older girl began with “I want…” and started reciting her Christmas list.

I don’t remember what all she asked for, but most of it didn’t sound too exorbitant. The pony might have been a little over the top, but I doubt I was the first ‘Santa’ who ever fielded a girl’s request for an horse. When she finished, the younger gal took her turn.

Since I wasn’t in my ideal mental frame of mind thanks to aches, fatigue and disgustingness, I was glad it took them a while to finish telling me what they wanted. It gave me time to decide how to react. I decided to play along, with a sidelong wink at their adult relatives wearing amused smiles in the nearby third-base bleachers. When very tired (or drunk), I tend to drawl. “Okay. Well, a couple of things for ya. First of all, please make sure y’also tell your parents, because Ah’m kinda off duty and tired, and don’t have anything to write with, and my memory isn’t what it once was. Also, remember that in order to even have a chance at any of this stuff, you need to be real good for the rest of the year, and mind your parents. Especially no going cattiewhompus in the restaurant. Everyone understand?” Both nodded, still gazing up in wonder. “Good to meet you young ladies. You have a good day now,” I finished. I don’t remember the rest of their reactions, but it was probably the big moment of their day.

Nothing more came of it, though I had a chance to talk with Taylor about it a few weeks later, either before or after another game. They were his nieces. Evidently the incident had amused everyone, which gratified me because any time I’m taken by surprise and manage not to say anything dumb, I count it as a win. In hindsight, it amuses me too. Those girls must be near adult womanhood now, and I wonder how they’re doing. Well, I hope.

If they never got all the stuff on their list, I hope they forgave me.

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* Thanks to Kennewick’s deeply racist history as a sundown town, with racially restrictive covenants still technically on the books (albeit unenforceable, and in fairness, it’s unlikely anyone would try to enforce them), few black people choose to live in Kennewick. Same for nearby Richland, which was a different type of sundown town: with the whole townsite run by Westinghouse, one had to work there to live there. By hiring very few African Americans, segregation was de facto if not de jure. Most of the black population of the Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick, Pasco) lives in Pasco. Many older black Pasconians much dislike Kennewick to this day, and I can’t blame them.

Not that race mattered here; I just resent Kennewick’s efforts to shovel its odious past under the rug, and have made a decision to remind the city of it online every excuse I get until some official acknowledgement is forthcoming, ideally in the form of an exhibit at the East Benton County Historical Museum. Perhaps they thought me moving to Idaho would make me stop this. Nah. All that has done is put me beyond retaliation. If they can put an exhibit in the museum about the Asatru Folk Assembly’s claim that Kennewick Man (ancient bones found along the Columbia) might have been a proto-Viking, piously stating that they respect all viewpoints on the issue, they can find a photo of the sign on the old green bridge to Pasco that said something like ‘All Blacks Must Be Out By Sunset,’ and talk about those years honestly. The civic spirit of Kennewick is ‘stuff it into the closet until all the eyewitnesses die out.’ To quote Lee Corso: “Not so fast, my friend.”

By the way, any live witnesses to those sordid days are welcome to get in touch and tell me their stories, that they may be recorded. I offer you any terms of confidentiality you wish, and consideration that the memories not be pleasant to recall. If you are younger but have older relatives who remember, it would be a service to history if you could persuade them to speak with me. Memories do not last forever. You may contact me as tc_vitki at yahoo dot com.

Entertainment and music, Human relations, Social comment

Big Brother 15: CBS’s gigantic disconnect

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If you were ever tempted to believe that ‘reality’ TV accurately reflected the events that occurred during taping, this should fix that wagon.

In case you have better taste than I do, Big Brother 15 is the current season of CBS’ reality’ franchise, in which some 14-18 ‘houseguests’ take up residence in a sound stage mocked up to resemble a large ‘house.’ They get little to no news from the outside world except in the most serious cases, such as 9/11, when one contestant had a relative in the WTC (happily, the relative was uninjured). Each week, contestants compete to become Head of Household, which has perks, including nominating others for a live eviction vote. There are more twists and curves involved than a debate with my wife, but that’s the game in a nutshell. It lasts between two and three months, with taped shows airing twice weekly and a once-weekly live show. Live camera feeds are available for subscription, which makes it impossible for CBS to cover up the full story. Even when they cut all the feeds, contestants are sure to discuss events spontaneously after the fact.

Over the years, there has been plenty of drama on the sound stage. With dozens of cameras and microphones inside the residential portion of the sound stage, CBS has a vast surplus of footage available per week, compressible into about an hour and a half of TV time. You’d expect a lot to fall through the cracks, but you’d like to expect that you got a representative sample of how people acted.

Nothing of the kind.

We’ve had a few near-fistfights, a lot of tears, some sexual activity, plenty of nudity, shouting matches, outright delusions, meltdowns, ejections, a knife held on someone, vandalism, and quite a few objectionable comments. We got to see most of that unfold, most of the time, on some level–it was the sort of TV the producers love. (By the way, the production company is called Endemol. Who came up with that name? It sounds like a medication you’d hear about on pharmercials. “I was always listless and depressed. My spleen seemed out of whack. I had lost my sex drive and had a craving for raw leeks. So, despite never having heard of it before, I asked my doctor about Endemol.”)

This season, it’s gotten bad. One contestant, Aaryn from Texas, has behaved like a narcissistic ‘mean girl,’ throwing out ethnic and homophobic remarks that have earned her the nickname ‘Aryan’ from recappers. Another, Gina Marie from Staten Oiland, hasn’t been much better. Contestants have sarcastically ordered Helen, the affable Asian mom and political consultant from Illinois, to ‘go cook some rice.’ They’ve mocked Candice, a resilient African American speech therapist from Houston, for the size of her derrière (which isn’t even that substantial). Every season of BB has one visibly gay man; sometimes they also cast a lesbian, though it’s always a lipstick lesbian. This season’s visibly gay contestant is Andy, a witty public speaking professor from Illinois. It didn’t take the bigots long to locate the word ‘faggot.’ And none of the racism and homophobia is any secret to anyone in the house; Howard, a sincere, ripped African American youth counselor from Mississippi, has said on the live feeds that he has to bottle up most of what he feels in order to get through the game. I’m impressed that he can. There have also been anti-Semitic slurs. The more of this I learn, the more I respect the minorities in the sound stage, and the more I want them to win simply because their path to victory will be that much harder, thus more well deserved. I want to see them celebrate as, one by one, the bigots get booted.

And this brings us to the gigantic disconnect: the TV show has shown none of the bigotry. I suspect CBS was told by its advertising sponsors: “Do it and we’re done with you.” It’s not that the word isn’t out. Gina Marie (pageant production) and Aryan (modeling) have already been sacked by their real-world employers; the press release from Gina Marie’s employer was corrosive. Thanks to the live feeds, and those who recap them (my brain would suffer irreparable harm), the whole nation knows or can know the truth. Yet CBS refuses to show it, even though people using vile words like ‘nigger’ or ‘faggot’ would certainly spike ratings as people would watch in outrage. What cannot be hidden is Julie Chen’s obvious loathing for the cast. I’ve never felt much sympathy for Chen until now. I can only try to imagine how she felt when Aryan described Helen as the first Asian she’d ever met who wasn’t doing her nails.

Yeah. It’s that bad.

There’s a movement to have the bigots kicked off the show, and of course the usual “We Hate PC” counter-movement. Here’s the thing: if CBS did boot them, they’d have to field awkward questions about why they failed to televise the bigotry to begin with. That would prove to even the most gullible that what they see is not representative of reality. I myself don’t think the bigots should be ejected from the game, because then we wouldn’t get the joy of watching them crushed. I want the targets of their abuse to have the satisfaction and material rewards of well-earned victory. I also believe that it’s important for us to see that, while these attitudes may be in decline, they are not dead, and they still need to be countered and rejected by honest women and men. I do think it’s dishonest of Endemol and CBS not to show some of the despicable behavior, so that the casual viewing public remains hoodwinked, and so that they can duck some of the controversy–and, if my analysis is correct, keep the ad dollars.

Reality TV is unreal. Never forget that–or if you didn’t grasp it, know it now.

Update: one of my favorite blogs, angry asian man, seems to see this as I do.

Entertainment and music, Human relations

Naked & Afraid, Discovery Channel

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Was watching the first two episodes of this last night. I kind of like the show’s concept, although it’s even more compressed than Survivor–three weeks compressed into forty minutes of edited episode. Short summary: abandoned naked, with a bag and one survival tool of choice. Shortly meeting up with another person of the opposite sex, similarly outfitted. The pair must reach an extraction point within twenty-one days, living off the land.

One trend I do not like so far, in our limited sample base, is the Jerk Male Factor. The first guy was basically a self-admitted misanthrope who had a sort of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle attitude, looking at the experienced survival teacher he was paired with as Jane. Yeah, it’s no great revelation that women rarely equal men in size, strength, bone mass, skin toughness and so on. And yet it’s a team effort, in which either person could on short notice have to rely upon the other for the most intimate personal care; where two can always achieve more than either alone.

I grant that a good number of men are stupid enough not to grasp this immediately upon peeling down to the Eden ensemble, but it’s hard to imagine this slowness of perception continuing very long. Hoping to see some guys on the show who start the adventure with the attitude that their partner probably has knowledge they do not. So far, as so often in life, the women are turning out to be the grownups in the room.

The naked aspect is cool, forcing them to deal with issues like foot care. The SF guy who made the bark sandals had the right idea, which makes me wonder: why, in an area full of dropped acacia thorns (which are about the size of needle-tipped Olympic javelins), did that not become a priority sooner? “We must focus on water!” Yeah, tough guy, and if you come up lame, you will never reach that water. Hard to fathom–and he spent 2/3 of the experience barely able to walk due to a badly infected thorn in his foot. Interesting that Ms. Minnesota made a fair effort to make something like a bikini, to cover up for Tarzan and the cams. Ms. Alaska just let it all hang out, including sitting in the murky creek with her legs spread, fishing barehanded–catching three catfish. Now you see why I married an Alaskan woman.

This may be a lot of fun to watch, depending on who they cast. If it were on Fox, you know it would forever be brain-damagingly predictable and transparent, and follow the exact same pattern as we have seen: Sexist Pig First Oinks Loudly, Then Learns His Lesson In Gender Humility. Fox is incapable of presenting anything to challenge the minds of the hyenas on the second episode of N&A, much less a human being with an eighth grade education. Not sure how Discovery’s track record is in this area. If they get the right varieties of people in casting, it could get interesting. Let us see some diversity in attitudes, skills, strengths and ethnicity.

My wife, of course, when she learns that I watch this, will probably offer more succinct commentary about my lack of taste. Then she’ll see my observation about Alaska’s women. If there are no blog posts for a week after July 4 weekend, please send someone over to investigate my fate.

Human relations, Married life

The fine art of Emergency Anniversary Present Finding

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Having taught this to enough people, I figured it’s time to write it down and help the brothers out.

A lot of men have a hard time with anniversary presents for their wives. What the hell does she want? It depends on her, obviously, and one size never fits all. My philosophy is that she doesn’t want something practical, useful or that will go away (wilt, be eaten, etc.). She also doesn’t tend to want something that isn’t specific to her. The money matters a lot less than the thought you put into it, so there are not easy outs. Flowers and candy? Throwing money at the problem. Anyone can go out and buy that. Jewelry? If you have that kind of money and it’s something that would matter mainly to her, and not to just any woman. If you’re celebrating being married to her, she isn’t just any woman. She’s your wife. She’s special. She was better than the rest, and I should hope you still think so.

Sure, tickets to her favorite concert are an option, and those go away, which could be okay. But I cling to the view that something she can keep over the years, and remember what you meant, is most likely to be treasured. Five years from now, none of her friends are going to look at concert tickets, adore them and ask where she got them.

If you have time and are handy, making something is nice. Anything that is unique–that there is only one of, and just for her–sends a very welcome message. Something you already have, in a display you made that adds to it, is a good thing. Some years you just spot the perfect thing. And some years, it’s down to the wire, and damn it, nothing has shown up, no ideas, you’re stuck. You went out and looked at all the usual places. Nada. There isn’t any more time to mess around. This is a dilemma.

When that happens, do this.

You are going to deploy the ultimate weapon: women. You won’t even know any of them, and you don’t care. This is a sure shot. All you have to do is think a little bit beforehand, and cooperate when the time comes. I’m not making this up. I have done this more than once.

First: game face. It shouldn’t be hard for you to look a little frustrated, but don’t look angry frustrated. You’re going to a place where you are somewhat out of your element, and it is important to seem a little vulnerable. Many of us don’t do vulnerable well. You must. Drop your guard. There is something about a vulnerable man that lights up the ‘I must help’ indicators in women like a Christmas tree. It’s one of the greatest reasons to value them as relatives, friends and partners–and there are so many. Not every woman, no given woman all the time, but in the main, most of them most of the time.

Second: use your brain. Look back on the last year of her life and yours together, what was major for her. A big achievement? What all did she do? Think of something to celebrate, to commemorate, something you’re proud of about her. Something where she reached a goal, finished something, conquered something. It can involve you in some way but it should center on her role. Have that stuff in mind, because you’re going to need it.

Next, game face on, go to the kind of place she likes to look around, typically an artwork or craft type of place, small business, no chains. Make sure you go at a time when there are several women in the store, including a female shopkeeper/cashier. Go in, greet the shopkeeper politely, and look around a bit. Wait for her to ask if she can help you find anything. Your finger is on the launch button; push it. Keep wandering sort of aimlessly and dumbly, and say something like: “Well, I’m having trouble. Our anniversary is coming up. I’m really proud of my wife, she’s done a lot this year, and I want to get her something that will celebrate that. I haven’t had any luck finding the right thing.” Don’t be loud, but do not make any effort not to be heard by the other shoppers. Most of all, don’t be embarrassed about it. You want to be the man who just showed that he loves his wife and isn’t one damn bit ashamed of that, doesn’t give a shit who hears him.

Ignition. Now it’s a treasure hunt. The shopkeeper will start to ask you questions. Trust that the other women heard you. What does she like? What did she accomplish or do? What colors does she like? Any flowers or animals or symbols that mean a lot to her? What’s your budget range? Be completely honest. Answer anything and everything. If it’s about what she did, let your pride shine a bit. Before you came in, the shopkeeper was bored and most of the women were just puttering around. Now they have a mission.

See, this is the women’s world. It’s different, and this must be respected. In their world, change is swift and sudden, and they tend to handle it more smoothly than we do. Now the lines between shopkeeper and customer tend to blur, even vanish. The other women are likely to ask you questions. Answer everyone. This is fun for them on a couple of levels. Not only are they helping someone who seems like a very nice man, they have a goal. Their shopping day just got better and you are the cause. They like this.

Now all you have to do is come look at stuff when summoned. They will consider your budget, everything you said. Go around and look at the stuff. Don’t be afraid to say something wouldn’t quite work, but obviously, be polite, as to any volunteer taking time to help a stranger. If it surely wouldn’t work, explain why, so that adds to what they know. Keep checking out things, and in between, you of course keep looking, or making a show of it. You won’t be the one who finds it, but you have to keep trying for appearance’s sake.

Eventually someone will find something suitable, the kind of thing you would never have thought of as fitting, because you do not see the world through your wife’s eyes. Sometimes takes only a few minutes. The women are more likely to see it as she would see it. If you think the thing sends a radically different different message than the woman who found it, it’s fine to say so, but if your helper stands her ground, be prepared. That’s the signal for the other women to come over and weigh in. They will all agree with each other about the interpretation, exactly as custom specifies. At this point, custom and good manners require you to bow to their collective wisdom and agree with them. That’s the debate you should lose, and gracefully–because if that’s how they all see it, you probably just found the perfect gift. One year I was doing this, and one lady found a statuette of a female figure in chrome, head back, holding a platter (spiked for a votive candle) high in the air. I asked: “That looks like the barmaid bringing beer. Is that what I should be saying?” The women gathered around to evaluate the piece and weigh in. They all agreed that it looked very feminine and triumphant and strong, and not like a barmaid. Of course, I followed the script, and accepted their judgment without being grumpy. (At anniversary time, my wife loved it. Later, when I told her the barmaid story, she laughed and laughed. More to the point, she agreed with my helpers, and chided me good-naturedly for the utter, sheer, egregious maleness of my own first impression.)

At some point, they find it, and you know it. Now all there is to do is thank the women for their help, tell them you’re sure your wife will love it, pay for your purchase, and head out. Everyone is happy. You’re bailed out. The shopkeeper did some business and had fun. The other shoppers had fun, and helped a nice guy do something thoughtful. They loved the romance of it, the process of it, the newness and difference.

Not much was asked of you. All you did was show up, say the right things, answer questions, be appreciative and respectful, and pay the cashier.

This is not hard. And it will save your husbandly ass from a big disappointment.

If you blow it at anniversary time, it is now officially your own damn fault.

Adventures, Human relations, Social comment

A European’s guide to podunk American café dining

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If you’re from Europe (including the UK; if Cuba counts as Latin American, you count as European), and you visit the United States as it was meant to be visited, you will drive across some emptinesses. You will get hungry, and there won’t be many restaurants. While passing through Marmot Creek, West Dakota or Beauregard, East Carolina, you will get hungry enough to stop and eat in a podunk (small-town) café.

Americans will tell you, over and over, that podunk little diners are always the best places to eat. It’s not true. Some of them are great, some are all right, and some need to be closed down–and probably would be, if there were anywhere else in town to eat, and if small-county administrations and health departments weren’t so corrupt in general. Most podunk diners have kind, friendly people and decent food, but some have surly crabby types and haphazard food. I grew up in Kansas and have traveled by road around a lot of the country, so I have visited many such places. I’m here to help you have a good experience.

To have a good experience, you’re going to have to get over some things that may be quite alien to you, but don’t affect you too much. Let’s make a list:

  • The likelihood that some of the patrons are armed. With live ammunition–stuff that would get you arrested at once at home, and sent to counseling or something. Many of us are used to it, but I understand you probably aren’t.
  • The near-certainty that no one in the cafe speaks your native language (including British English), can name your country’s leader, or could even find the nation on a globe. (Don’t feel bad; they don’t speak their own native language well, they can’t name their Congressthief, and they would be hard pressed to find their own nation’s capital on a globe. If we can’t be multilingual, we can be multi-ignorant.)
  • Belying the stereotype of us as loud, vapid grinners, in some parts of the country no one is smiling like an imbecile, nor raising their voice. We act worse abroad than at home. This may mess with your perceptions.
  • A lot of the food is fried, and definitely would not get your cardiologist’s seal of approval. You should brace for a crise de foie.
  • To them, football is played by people wearing helmets who want to crush each other; far as they’re concerned, the version where you can’t touch the ball with your hands is for people afraid of properly violent combat.
  • In most cases, you stand out as if covered in neon lights proclaiming your Euroness, so expect to be noticed even before you say anything. That’s okay. What matters is what you do with it.
  • Nothing is, or will be, the way you are used to it. More to the point, the phrase “it should be this way” is fruitless. In fact, ‘should’ is generally fruitless. You are better off dealing with ‘is’ and ‘is not’ than ‘should’ and ‘should not.’ Should I have been able to flush the toilet paper in Greece? Doesn’t matter what I think. One can’t, and that’s that.
  • Every American in the café is absolutely convinced that his or her country is the greatest and strongest in all world history, and that the world wants only to be just like them, and that if you don’t have Jesus, you are for sure destined for eternity in Hell. If you plan to argue openly with them on any of these points, my advice is ‘don’t go.’ I happen to agree with you that they are wrong on absolutely every count, but my agreement changes nothing. This is what is.

You can get over these. Or not, if having a good time is less important than feeling superior. They’re ready for either way, and thus they do not care which stance you adopt, as you’re going to be interesting either way. Thus, it begins with making some acceptance of these differences, or at least not stressing over them. The ideal approach would be an open mind and good cheer, if you packed that.

Now that you got over the rough stuff, let’s talk about the stuff you’ll like:

  • They value courtesy, if it’s honest and not forced. Good manners, especially toward elders, will warm everyone who sees them, and will generally be shown to you.
  • None of them plan to pull out the guns, much less use them. They are armed; they aren’t stupid or mean. The people who use guns in insane fashion aren’t tolerated here; realize also that if they did so in such a place, someone’s in a position to put a stop to that. You’re very safe.
  • Most are warm-hearted and kind, even if gruff. If you were stuck along the road with a flat tire, or any other problem, most would stop and help you without a second thought. If you were lost, most would take the time to lead you back to your intended path. If you tried to pay them, you would offend them beyond measure; they did it out of kindness, desiring no recompense. Given any excuse, they mean you well.
  • They may be ignorant as all hell, and often tactless (“Germany? Is that so! My grandaddy was in Germany, he helped liberate some concentration camp named Byoukenwald or Ossawich. Said it was real bad.”), but they are interested in what brought you to their town. They have ideas for things for you to see and experience. You may find yourself having a very nice conversation.
  • They can tell if you relax. If you relax, they relax. That’s just human nature. You have it in your power to put the situation at ease. They tend to be curious about outsiders, but not fundamentally suspicious in most places.
  • They have no expectations of dress, other than that you not show up nude. Come as you are. They judge people more on behavior than fashion.

Sizing up cafés like a native

Okay. You just pulled into Varmint Flats, Wyorado, hungry enough that your arm is starting to look appetizing sautéed in garlic butter, and there is only one café in sight. The building looks old and kind of rundown. There are four pickup trucks and two passenger cars parked outside, all with Wyorado license plates. A couple of them have political stickers hating liberals and heckling Obama (our political right is your equivalent of a fascist religious party; our political left is your moderate right wing; we don’t have a left wing at all, as you define the term), liking Jesus, or adoring country music. Should you be worried?

Nah. But you should check it out, and here is my method. Park and go inside, glance around. Ignore the dead animal heads on the wall, and count the number of calendars hanging on it. More is better. Try for a four-calendar place, ideally five or six. Two is lame. I learned this from reading William Least Heat-Moon’s books, and he’s right. Then (noting the sign that says you can sit wherever you like) hang back just a moment to see if the waitress greets you. She is probably named Rhonda, and addresses you as ‘hon’ or ‘sugar’ or ‘sweetie’, exactly as tradition specifies. If Rhonda has kind eyes and seems friendly, she sets that tone for the entire diner. If it has no calendars, or Rhonda seems indifferent and crabby, or you just get a creepy nasty feeling, move on. I know it’s your habitual mealtime, and the world will end if you do not eat precisely at half seven, but you’ll survive to the next town.

Getting acquainted

Okay, you are satisfied with the calendars and waitress and overall feel, and you sit down. If they have a breakfast bar (and they all do), sit up there on one of the barstools; this is a gesture of sociability. Tell Rhonda ‘howdy.’ As soon as she hears your accent, she’ll ask where you’re from, what brings you to this part of the world, general small talk. Just explain that you’re exploring the USA, and wanted to get away from big cities and see the good parts. Everyone who hears that will warm a bit, because they are all convinced (as am I, doubly so after sixteen years living in one) that our big cities are barbarous, rude, fast-talking places full of sin and sneaky car thieves. Plus, it may even be true–this may really be why you’re passing through. But even if it’s not, it’s okay to fib a little.

Socially, it is now permissible and normal for anyone in the diner to initiate conversation with you (easier at the breakfast bar). They think you are glad to be there, and are not judging them, so it would be bad manners for them to start judging you. With few exceptions, they won’t know anything about your country of origin, but they’ll know a lot about their own area. Ask for suggestions on what to see. Ask if there’s a high school sports event going on today–high school sports are as much a civic pastime in small town America as church. If there is one, consider attending: you will see the real America. (I would support the home team if I were you. In winter it might be basketball, which you actually understand.) Ask where the worst speed traps are; avoiding these is one of our national pastimes. Ask about local wildlife, the area’s industries or agriculture, scenic attractions, historical sites and curiosities.

Say nothing about religion or politics, even if they bring it up (some jackass often does). You can’t have a good result from discussing those. (Yes, it is the precise opposite of Europe, where the visiting American immediately becomes held to account by all s/he meets for everything wrong his or her country has done, and is pitied as a hopeless fool if he or she says “Sorry, not into politics.”) If some pushy slob asks why you don’t talk about it, tell them that you read a blog that said, “Any European who comes into a small American town and gets involved in talking religion or politics is a moron. I don’t want to be a moron.” They know that’s true, so it should break the ice and make them laugh, deftly evading a pitfall.

Don’t take offense if people ask you what work you do for a living. This is customary, unlike many parts of the world where it is unbearably rude. At least you can be sure they will not ask how much money you earn, for in the United States, that question is as rude as asking Rhonda her age. Need a WC/toilet? If you can’t spot the sign indicating the toilets, ask Rhonda for the restroom (if you’re male) or the ladies’ room (if female). Some places just have a unisex private restroom. Just don’t ask her for the toilets, even though that’s obviously what you want. If you ask for the washroom, like Canadians do, Rhonda won’t understand. If you ask for the WC, Rhonda will wonder what W.C. Fields has to do with diners.

Most of your jokes aren’t funny to Americans (not offensive, just that they won’t see what’s funny). Most of ours probably aren’t funny to you either, since most of ours aren’t very funny to begin with. Chuckling anyway would be appropriate, unless it’s a racist joke, or otherwise deeply offensive. There’s a species of bigoted redneck, I’m afraid, who cannot resist making offensive statements just to make outsiders squirm. In that case, I’d just not laugh, and move on to another topic, since you can’t win a debate. There’s no other good option.

Expect Westerners and upper Midwesterners to be a little more taciturn and less smiley, which does not mean they are not warm and kind; they are just less demonstrative about it. Expect Southerners and lower Midwesterners to be more outwardly friendly and approachable. They aren’t really very different; it just looks and sounds that way.

Customs

Unless told otherwise, anyone you reckon is old enough to be your parent, call ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ Never mind that they don’t much do it among themselves; they all know each other. However, don’t do it (or anything else) with stiff formality. Also, when greeting someone, don’t say ‘hello’ or ‘hullo’. Practice the word: ‘Howdy.’ If you smile and say ‘howdy’ to people you meet, you cannot fail. Yeah, I know it sounds like a bad cowboy movie. Take my word: if you manage to have a hard time in a small American town when you smile and say ‘howdy’ to people, that’s a real bad town, and other Americans are also eager avoid such a churlish dump. This is not to say you should attempt to adopt a rural accent in your accented English, as a good Swedish friend of mine is always tempted to do. You will sound mocking. It’s okay if you sound foreign and basically British. That’s being your authentic self, which they respect.

Hold doors for people when it seems natural, especially elders, especially women. Remember also that we are a people with a lot of room to maneuver (the way some of us eat, we need it), and we need a good reason to intrude on anyone else’s personal space. Thank Rhonda for bringing you things, even though this is stupid, since it’s her job to do that. Doesn’t matter; it’s the custom and she expects it, and thinks you are rude if you do not. If a man puts out his hand, shake it firmly and look him in the eye. If a woman puts out her hand to shake, do what I do: dread it. Some of them worked in sales, and they shake hands just as men are expected to do. Others just sort of hang down their fingers and you’re supposed to grasp them briefly. If you are a woman, you are safe, because men typically will not reach out to shake your hand (we dread it, and it’s not good manners), and women will do whatever women do (I’m not in a position to know those subtleties). I can only speak with surety about man to man: we expect the other man to meet our eyes and shake firmly. Men who shake weakly, or without eye contact, are registered as weak. Men who try to crush your hand are registered as bullies compensating for small penises. Unfortunately, there are some of those in rural America. Pretend it didn’t hurt.

Menu choices

For breakfast, they usually have some good omelets. I suggest a Spanish or taco omelet, out west. Anywhere else, pancakes are a good bet. In the South, they will bring grits unless you plead with them not to. Ask Rhonda what she likes to put on her grits, and try them that way. They’re still lousy, but don’t tell Rhonda that (a serious faux pas). One of the tribulations of breakfast in the South is that you have to eat and pretend to like your grits. Don’t ask if they have quiche, or what kind of cheese they use. Such petty questions will mark you as a snooty city slicker; this is a country diner, not a food boutique. Biscuits and gravy are a staple, and taste better than you imagine.

For lunch, sandwiches are usually pretty good, especially reubens and patty melts. Don’t ask if they have arugula salad; they might think it’s the Latin name for some internal organ. If you want to make everyone laugh (even kindly Rhonda), eat your French fries with a fork, smearing ketchup on them individually with a knife. A French couple I dined with actually did this. It won’t offend the onlookers, but expect to get kidded about it. If you are kidded about anything, laugh along. They kid each other, so if they kid you, it’s because they like you and are showing you acceptance. In any case, take my word that in the United States you are allowed to eat your fries with your hands. If you want vinegar for them, they probably have some. Rhonda will think it’s funny, but she won’t mind.

If it’s dinner, I’d avoid the liver and onions unless you’re up for a cultural experience. Steaks at diners are often surprisingly lousy for the price. They usually do a great job with chicken, though, and anything that says barbecue or BBQ is probably excellent. I realize that in Europe, maize (which we call corn; if you ask for maize, Rhonda will look at you as if you were an extra-terrestrial) is animal fodder, but you might be surprised how good it is with butter. When in doubt, ask Rhonda what is the best thing on the menu. She knows what the cook does well, and what he does badly, and what takes forever. Trust her.

Should you happen to have ‘saved room for dessert,’ as Rhonda will probably ask you, my advice is to go with pie. Ask her which pie is most popular. She probably baked it herself. In fact, in some small diners, she’s also your cook for everything. If there is one art that is done spectacularly well in small-town America, it is pie. However, you probably won’t have room for dessert because American portions are very large. If you are too full, Rhonda understands and isn’t hurt.

Leaving

When you’re ready to pay and leave, tip Rhonda 15-20%, minimum $2. Europeans are terrible tippers, but the good news is that Rhonda has hardly met any Europeans, so she doesn’t know that. Over 20% implies that you feel sorry for the poor country people, and is thus too much. Under 15% implies that you’re a cheap bastard. If you use a credit card–if they take cards–you can put it on the card, though Rhonda will be happier if you tip in cash because then she can avoid some of the tax. If you pay cash, set the tip in a discreet spot on the table. Rhonda lives on tips; in most states, she gets about 1/3 of the normal minimum hourly wage. She gets taxed on her tips as if they were all at least 9% of the check, so if she gets less than that, it stings both her pride and her budget. Rhonda probably has three children and her ex-husband is probably behind on his child support, and she works hard and tries to smile even when she’s had a bad day. Unless she did a very lousy job, she deserves a decent tip.

Exchange brief goodbyes with everyone you spoke with, and let them know you’re glad you stopped there, thanking them for any guidance they offered. No need to be ostentatious, but if you conversed with people, it is against custom to leave without acknowledging them. Wish Rhonda a good day/evening, or if it’s Friday, a good weekend. If anyone encourages you to ‘come back any time,’ or says ‘hope to see you again sometime,’ you should believe him or her. Yes, I know that you have heard and read a great deal about our vapid casual superficiality, where we supposedly mean nothing we say. This is an exception. We only say that when we truly want to make the point that we enjoyed visiting with you. If this occurs, you are mastering the art of Being European In Rural America.

Summary

If I had to summarize the key to good dining experiences in small town America, I’d say the key is to relax and not be afraid. Unless you’re rude to them, they mean you well. They hope you will tell people what a nice town it was, and that its people are pleasant. Just avoid a few taboos, trust your instincts, and you’ll find that eating is part of the American exploration adventure. After a few experiences, you’ll start to get good at this, and you’ll be looking forward to the next one.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life, Human relations, Married life

Professor Willis Konick

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Let us begin 2013 on the ‘Lancer with something joyous and uplifting. [This text is superceded in mood by the final para, but let it stand as set for what it meant while Willis was with us.]

It has been a quarter century since I last saw him in person, he has since retired; and still when I see a friend post about Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy, I think of Willis Konick.

To call him ‘Professor’ was unthinkable, as Willis would advise the entire class on the first day. An alumnus of and longtime professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, his entire life was bound up with the Russian language, Russian literature and UW. He taught Comparative Literature and Russian Literature there for so long it became hard to imagine UW without him. If I were to call him ‘Professor Konick’ in this blog post, someone would find out about it, and one of two things might happen. That person might call me out in comments as a complete fake, because anyone who ever actually attended a Willis lecture knew good and well that no one used his last name. Or that person might send the blog link to Willis, who would not only recognize my name and remember me, but who would write to me asking how I was doing, suggesting we have coffee any time I was in Seattle, and politely reminding me that his name was ‘Willis.’

I am not making any of this up, nor am I exaggerating. Willis did his best to have coffee with as many of his students as possible, and had an amazing memory for faces and names.

Willis’s class was the one no one skipped. It was always in a lecture hall with at least 200 seats, usually more like 300, purely because of demand. Yes. A literature professor so entertaining and appealing that the school was forced to schedule his classes in large lecture halls. People scrambled to get into a literature class. Whole decades of UW undergrads filled up their humanities distribution requirements with English 111 plus whatever Willis classes they could squeeze into. Except for a few hundred math and tech wonks from other countries who spoke such minimal English that a literature class was out of the question, at UW all 35,000 students learned of ‘Willis’ in the first week on campus.

While an excellent lecturer and student of the genre (he speaks and reads fluent Russian, and each year would read War & Peace or Anna Karenina, alternating), neither that nor his obvious love of everything about teaching accounted for all of his popularity. Much of that stemmed from his famous impromptu in-class skits to dramatize a character or concept. Willis would reach into the mass of 250 students, and without error, pick out the perfect individual as his foil. Didn’t matter whether it was a nervous young lady in a sorority sweatshirt, a blowhard, a future engineer, or one of his groupies. No one ever refused, even when he chose someone deliberately for shyness. He was known to dump buckets of water on his head on stage, strip to his underwear, open his shirt and claw at his pale chest, and so much more.

I too had my day, and the best way to convey Willis is to tell the story.

I can’t even remember whether it was a Comp Lit or Russian Lit class, not that the distinction ever made a difference with Willis. De facto always outshone de jure. He was teaching Anna, and as I recall, the class was in Gowen Hall on the Quad. Willis was explaining the nuances of Vronsky, and then his bespectacled eyes got that wild look which told us something was coming. He scanned the classroom like a confident quarterback whose pocket is just barely holding, quick head movements and a smile repressed only by force of professional will. The eyes achieved lock-on when they hit me. “JOHN! YES, YOU! JOHN! COME DOWN HERE, PLEASE, I’D LIKE A WORD WITH YOU!”

You know you are about to be had, but you go anyway. You know you are going to be embarrassed, but you also know you’ll remember it when you are twice as old as the day it happens. As I made my way to the aisle and descended the steps, I saw Willis do as he so often did, turning toward the stage and bounding onto it. Anything to do with acting or performance subtracted decades from his sixtyish physical age. He awaited me with sparkling eyes but as solemn a countenance as he could enforce. There was a sturdy wooden table up there, for some reason, and he encouraged me to have a seat.

“So, John, you were in my class last quarter,” began Willis.

“Yes, Willis, I was.”

“And you turned in your final paper.”

“Yep.”

“How do you feel about it?

Something in his tone cued me. I can’t explain it any other way. He had given me 4.0, and still I gave the right answer. “Not too good, Willis,” I responded glumly.

“No,” he answered gravely, making sure to pitch his voice so they could hear him in the back rows (he had an effect like Epidaurus that way). “I hate to say this, John, but that was the worst paper of the quarter.”

I waited, doing the despondent face as best I could.

“In fact, your paper was so terrible, it was the worst paper of the year. I’m confident that nothing that will come will be worse. Your paper was so awful, I have given you a 0.0 for the quarter. I trust you understand.”

Still I sat in mock glumness.

“Sadly, John, your paper was such a disgrace that I felt compelled to bring it to the attention of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He agreed with me that it was the worst paper he too had ever seen. It was so disappointing that, harsh as it may seem, you are being expelled from the University.”

I looked miserable.

“You know how Reagan calls the astronauts to congratulate them? President Reagan is calling your parents to chastise them for your paper!”

I heard the first giggles from the audience, but I held back my own.

His tone went almost sympathetic. “Now, John, it’s obvious you can’t stay here. You must go, as you must leave the University. But is there anything you’d like to say before you depart in complete disgrace? What would you like to say to the class, and to me? Would you like, for example, to ask for another chance?”

“Doesn’t seem right, Willis. It was a pretty poor effort.”

“Yes, it was,” he answered sternly. “Nor would you receive one. Would you like to plead that you tried your best?”

“That’d be lying. I didn’t try at all.”

“That much was obvious,” he said, voice mournful. “Would you like to tell them that in spite of all of this, you’re still a nice guy?”

He’d thrown a switch. Nothing in his tone signaled anything; it was all in the genius of his having chosen me for this specific skit. For the first time since he’d initially addressed me, my head snapped around to him. “YES!” I said, raising my voice a tad in indignation.

Willis smiled, stood up in his most professorial stance, actor’s posture discarded faster than you could think. He raised a finger. “I MAY BE A COMPLETE SCREW-UP, BUT AT LEAST I’M STILL A NICE GUY. And that is what Vronsky is trying to tell us here. John, thank you,” he added. I made my way back to my seat, as I had seen so many other students do. None of it had been rehearsed or planned. In a few seconds he could read precisely the type of person he needed, to react in the precise ways necessary to demonstrate his point, picking him or her out of nearly three hundred people.

Fifteen years later, when I was authoring my (as yet unpublished) Irish travel narrative, my wife encouraged me to write to Willis and ask him to author an introduction. I thought she was nuts, but I did it. He asked me to send him the ms, in print, and I did. He pointed out what was missing from it, and encouraged me to read a couple of other travel books that would demonstrate the qualities my ms needed in order to become publishable. You always take all personal career counseling given you by your most admired figures, or you’re an idiot. When I’d finished the rewrite, I sent him the portion he wanted to see. He praised my remedying of the flaws and agreed to write an introduction if I wished. While no one ended up publishing the book–which I still may do on my own–one more time, I learned a lot from Willis about writing.

He retired in 2007, aged 77. And if you think anything you just read is far-fetched at all, I have the Seattle Times to back me up.

Thanks, Willis, for everything on every level. Oh, and I’m re-reading Brothers. Maybe this time I’ll get at least half of it.

P.S., December 16, 2016: Willis passed away November 30, 2016. I feel so fortunate to have known him.

Human relations

My computer sales brain spasm

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Back in the years of the XT, AT and early 386 clones, I used to sell computers. Sales had its moments. I was never a big star in sales, but I did it well enough that when I left after two years, it was of my own choosing. Remember the Microsoft/IBM wars? I was a foot soldier in the trenches of those, five miles from the M$ campus. One of these days I’ll write about just how tremendously out of touch IBM was with dealers and clients. For now, I’m going to make fun of myself instead.

One of my best clients was an underwriting firm south of Seattle, run by two brothers named Doug and Dick Rodruck. Great guys, steady customers, the sort of people a commissioned salesperson could make a living by helping. I looked forward to all their calls.

The sales floor could be chaotic at times, with people needing help on the floor, calls announced for you while you were helping them, stressed-out receptionists desperately seeking someone to help the biggest salesman’s clients (with zero hope of profit or appreciation from him), and warehouse staff moving forty boxes in for storage wherever space could be found. One could lose one’s focus. Sometimes real badly.

Of course, I knew most of my customers by voice. When I wasn’t going in six different directions, I picked up on who I was talking to. At the same time, I had a lot of customers, very loyal ones, amazed that I could ‘remember’ what they bought a year and a half back. (I wrote it all on rolodex cards. I cheated.) So when I heard the page “Dick is on line 1 for Jonathan,” I didn’t think. I took the call and said hello.

“Hello, Jonathan, it’s Dick. [Here followed a bunch of specifications for new hardware they wanted to buy.]” I listened and started working up pricing, but after a time it occurred to me: I do not know who this is. I can’t place him. Well, I’ll eventually pinpoint him.

Which I did. Unfortunately, that was before I learned in life that not everything on one’s mind needs to be blurted out at random, especially stuff like evidence that you had no idea who was on the phone. I watched my mother do it all growing up, so in addition to the blurt genetics, I had an unhelpful example. I was still learning how to shut the hell up rather than spit out my latest revelation.

Thus, when Dick finished describing whatever computer need he was describing, and asked me a question, it was blurtin’ time: “Oh. Dick Rodruck! You’ll have to excuse me. There are a lot of Dicks out there.”

A very awkward silence. I realized what I’d just said.

Now what? The silence was mine to break. Or, at least, it had better be me.

“I do hope and trust you realize, Dick, that in no way did I intend that the way it came out. I apologize profusely.”

How you can know that Dick Rodruck was such a great guy? He forgave me. He said not to worry about it, and continued with the substance of the discussion. The bullet of a ruined relationship whistled past me.

Adventures, Human relations, Social comment

The only white guy on the bus

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With nearly zero experience of the east, a few years back I went to D.C. Deb had a training event in Silver Spring, MD, which gave me free housing. Now, I have zero basic interest in the nation’s capital for its own sake. Like many residents of Washington, I am habituated (if not accustomed) to people asking “oh, you mean the state?” It’s difficult. If I say what I’m thinking, it sounds very churlish. Sometimes it comes out anyway: “Of course, the state. Is there another place called Washington that is relevant?” I’m not good at holding back, unfortunately.

Of course, when the Smithsonian card is played, I fold. Is there anyone with a passion for history who would not brave our nation’s capital if it meant a chance to spend almost unlimited time browsing the Smithsonian museums? Besides meeting up with a longtime online acquaintance who lives in the area, the Smithsonian was the reason for tagging along. I didn’t care about anything else. My world resolved into the need to get to the Smithsonian in the morning, then back to the lodgings at night.

Living in Seattle for sixteen years, bus travel is old hat for me. Not so light rail, which Seattle didn’t build until I was safely out of town. My day therefore meant taking a bus from Silver Spring to Fort Totten, where I would board DC Metro for the National Mall. I could then choose my museum, and wander freely and joyfully, lingering until closing if I desired. It was, of course, complete museum overload–and in a good way. I’m not sure the Smithsonian museum complex has an equal in the world. Whatever percentage of my tax dollars keep the Smithsonian going, I will cheerfully pay.

Thus, I didn’t expect that commuting to the National Mall would be an educational experience. Oh, sure, I knew I’d be a minority. I’m not ignorant of demographics. Didn’t bother me, and I even kind of felt I might learn something.

It was about a forty-minute milk run to/from Fort Totten. In nearly every situation, I was the only white/Anglo on the bus. Everyone else was black or Hispanic (perhaps both). Many times in Seattle, there had been only one black person on the entire bus. Now I was getting some exposure to that feeling, however brief, and it was an interesting sensation. No one was friendly or talkative, but that’s big city bus travel, and is the same in Seattle. People are in their bubbles. No one was hostile, though; no glares saying “you’re in the wrong place.” I’d describe it as similar to a Seattle bus, except perhaps a little more polite overall. Seattle bus travelers can be quite indifferent to basic manners.

But as the bus filled up, the last vacant seat was always the one next to me. Sometimes it stayed vacant even when the bus had standing room only.

I don’t think it was conscious. But I saw that in reverse plenty of times in Seattle, and now I had a sense of how it felt. I wasn’t offended, nor terribly surprised. I guess I could have been offended, but it wouldn’t have done me any good. No action available to me was going to change habits overnight, or in a week. Nothing for it but to mind my own business, ride the bus to my stop, and that was that. It’s not as if anyone were singling me out on purpose; I just stood out, with my pale skin, crew cut and heavy beard. They weren’t talking to me, but they weren’t talking to each other either.

The only real epiphany from it, I suppose, would be this: I think I understand why minorities are sometimes bemused and philosophical about implied racism, rather than angry. The anger will kill you without changing the reality. One gains more from just observing, accepting that it’s not going to change today, and getting on with whatever life details face one that day. It’s not like anyone acted in a way to force me to take notice of the situation; they just decided not to sit next to me. I have no basic call or right to influence where someone chooses to sit on a bus. Or stand. The only way one can lose in that situation is to call more attention to oneself, which would probably confirm to everyone else on the bus–and one is heavily outnumbered–that it was smart of them not to sit next to one. That’s going backward.

It does make me wonder how different the world would be if we all made a better effort to bridge the gap. On all sides.