The ‘Water Follies’

July 27, 2012 jkkblog 2 Comments

This weekend is what we in Kennewick call ‘Boat Race Weekend.’ It’s official name is ‘Water Follies.’ What it is, okay, is an air show and hydroplane races on the Columbia. It’s the big annual event here, and happens in Columbia Park, which is one of the few things that was done right from the city’s earliest development. Our entire river shore, all 5-6 miles of it, is a park. Some is nearly undeveloped, despite the best efforts of corporations to turn it into a profit center, and the best efforts of certain Distinguished Statespersons to permit this. However, Boat Races isn’t really much happening anywhere else in the Tri-Cities, except on the opposite (Pasco) river shore. It’s fairly easy for most of us to avoid, long as we don’t have to go over the blue bridge at the wrong time.

“So what, J.K.? In what universe do we care?”

Credit to thefreedictionary.com:

fol·ly (f

)

n. pl. fol·lies

1. A lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight.

a. An act or instance of foolishness: regretted the follies of his youth.

b. A costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome.

3. follies (used with a sing. or pl. verb) An elaborate theatrical revue consisting of music, dance, and skits.

4. Obsolete

a. Perilously or criminally foolish action.

b. Evil; wickedness.

c. Lewdness; lasciviousness.

Well, we may certainly assume there will be a lack of good sense exercised. Why this should be a civic virtue eludes me. Then I look at the way the city runs, and maybe it’s just a frank moment of civic intellectual honesty. All right, but why celebrate foolishness? Why call these ‘follies?’ Aren’t we supposed to put our foolishness in the closet with Uncle Fred, not out on the lawn with the Travelocity gnomes for all creatures great and small to see?

I suppose it is a very costly undertaking, and does have ruinous outcomes. It somewhat ruins my weekend, for example, if I had hopes of going to the park. Boats blow over, people get drunk and sunburned, and all this for the sake of a sport that has to rig itself; that sounds ruinous. As I understand it, if you win too often, the sport’s organizers nerf your boat so it doesn’t get boring. (Even though this is limiting, it’s technically called ‘unlimited’ hydroplane racing. Oh, okay.) Imagine requiring Michael Phelps to swim with ankle weights on. Essentially, though, hydro racing is Nascar on the water, in nearly every sense but the duration of action. Nascar takes a lot longer.

Okay, very well, there’s another meaning: a vaudeville show or its modern incarnation. Saturday Night Live is mostly ‘follies.’ Tony Orlando and Dawn also was. (And you had blocked them from your memory until this moment, hadn’t you?) That one doesn’t apply at all.

There will be perilous and criminally foolish action, such as young people drinking too much, and boats blowing over. Someone could break his neck, drown, etc. Evil and wickedness? Seems pushing it to me. There’ll be a few boat race pregnancies, and probably someone will end up in the ER for being drunk, but neither of those are evil or wicked, just folly. Lewdness and lascivious used to be the order of the day, where (I am told) “What happened at Boat Races, stayed at Boat Races.” Yeah. This from most of the same people who call east Kennewick and east Pasco ‘bad areas.’ I do not really believe them. I think they remember it through a lens that imagines the event more bacchanalian than it really was. Populations are very capable of a collective dementia in which they distort the past perception.

In the end, though, the title ‘Follies’ is unintentionally candid. A bunch of people will get together and some of them will show great folly. They will watch a sport that meets a couple definitions of folly, though not the ones the event planners intended. About the only thing not a folly is the air show, which is cool.

Best of all, I can watch that from my deck, go nowhere near Columbia Park, and stay out of the way of folly. But if you like that stuff, hey, party on.

Social comment

Why learning to drive stick still has value

July 22, 2012 jkkblog 4 Comments

This is simple. The obvious reason is that you might need to drive a vehicle someday that has manual transmission. If you cannot, you will be helpless when that day comes.

The less obvious reason is that it teaches you how the car works. If you have never driven stick, you really have no idea what’s happening in your trannie. Why does your car go in and out of gear on hills? When are you close to lagging in gear, and when are you revving your RPMs? If you can drive stick, you understand the sounds you’re hearing. You can drive with greater fuel efficiency, and make the vehicle last longer.

The least obvious reason is very subtle, but pervasive. Our society lurches, increasingly, toward not knowing how to do things, letting things be done for us. The complexity of things we use makes it so. No, that cannot be stopped, but that does not mean we should yield tamely to it. There is value in knowing how to do it yourself. The more you cannot do for yourself, the more you must depend upon others’ goodwill, honesty and efficiency. The more you can do for yourself, the freer you are. No, you cannot learn to speak every language while learning to repair every vehicle, grow every crop, diagnose your own computer problems and re-plumb your own house. It’s too much. I get it.

That does not mean you should put up your hands and go calmly into dependency. The sensible way to battle this is to do for yourself, at the very least, that which you can. That which you cannot, you cannot. Everyone sucks at something. We have to accept that, too. It does mean that learning to drive stick has value, because it makes a statement of refusal to ‘just let the machine do it for you.’ The machine may not always work, overall. Your cell phone doesn’t work everywhere. Your Internet doesn’t work all the time.

When a crisis hits a city hard enough to trash its transportation infrastructure, starvation will begin in about 48 hours. At those times, the people who truly believe that food comes from grocery stores are in worse shape. They live in dependency, choosing to imagine that a grocery store is a farm, ranch and factory all in one. Sometimes, that which you depend upon fails you. Ask the people of New Orleans whether or not this is bullshit.

The mentality that insists on knowing how to drive stick is the freer mentality. That which yields tamely to the machine is the less free, the more dependent. It’s not so much about the off chance you might need to drive a vehicle. It’s about your outlook on life, emblemized by the ways you can manipulate the gears of a vehicle.

What’ll it be…dependency or liberty?

Adventures

I watch lightning

July 17, 2012 jkkblog 6 Comments

I watch lightning.

For all of my life, few natural phenomena give me such a thrill as lightning and thunder. Its fundamental randomness renders it superior to any fireworks display, that and each bolt’s brevity; each gives you half a second or so to absorb, as you begin to count down the distance. After that, the bolt is gone, as certainly as a wave is gone once it surges ashore. It is a thing, created in an instant and lost without trace when the sound rumbles away.

I sit or stand, choose a likely area of sky, and stare. Sometimes it comes with a mild or distant flash. Other times it comes bright and nearby, a sudden white crack spreading and forking across the heavens, as if they were giving way at a line of fracture. The imminent thunder confirms the sensation, at times rumbling, at times booming. All our works, all our technologies and engineering, and still I must disconnect my computer from the wall unless I want to risk my primary writing tool.

I watch lightning, and it feels as though an angry divinity were pitching a colossal, god-sized temper fit. I can stand out in the midst of it without fear, without feeling chill from the acute soaking rain and its bald-spot-seeking drops. The last thing I desire is to take cover; not only are statistics on my side, if one has to go, I can think of few more sublime ways to pass on. If I cannot feel the rain and humidity of the storm, I did not truly experience it.

We get not so much lightning here in eastern Washington, but back in Kansas it means business. I recall a visit to my grandparents when the storm was loud and bright enough to jolt me out of bed at 2 AM, lightning and thunder alike both constant. It occurred to me that I could easily read a book to this display without turning on a lamp. For two hours I did just that, one of the redolent old tomes from my grandfather’s western-inspired library.

I find that with any climatic situation of extremes, there are two reactions: huddle against it, or soak it in. Sip it gingerly as if forced, or tilt your chin toward the skies and pound the whole thing, yelling for more? Huddle and shiver against the cold, or breathe deeply and feel the ice? Shake one’s fist at the flaming star, or bask in it and battle on? Hiss curses at the downpour, or splash through it? They relate to our ways of living life, and in rather too many aspects of life I sip gingerly. In all those aspects, I take more harm and discomfort from my gingerness than from what I forced down my throat. In those aspects where I guzzle the whole quart and give a cheer, I do better. I emerge from them somewhat more bruised, and gods know what I did to my system, but exhilarated and suffused with adventure. We might liken life to trying a series of drugs. Do you split the tablets, just try a bit, or do you just swallow the stuff and hang on?

The stream of thought reminds me of the words of an ancient woman, in her nineties, asked what she would do different were she to take the walk of life again. One line: “I would have more real worries, but less imaginary ones.”

Well said, ma’am. Well said indeed.

Book reviews

Current read: Kosher Chinese

July 11, 2012 jkkblog Leave a comment

Kosher Chinese, by Michael Levy, tells the story of his two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guiyang, PRC. Guiyang is in the southern Chinese interior–east of Tibet, northeast of Burma, north of Vietnam. Even though it’s a city of four million (larger than Seattle), it says a lot about China’s population that I’d never heard of Guiyang before now. Guiyang has about the same population as New Zealand, and Levy spent two years teaching English in its schools from 2005-2007. I am sort of reviewing Levy’s book, and sort of adding my own observations as influenced by and derived partly from it, so I admit this isn’t a strictly disciplined book review. That’s why it’s free.

You’d figure that a semi-observing American Jew might have an interesting take on a country that doesn’t have many Jews, and as Levy makes clear, understands Judaism mainly through stereotypes. In fact, the statements Levy reports hearing about Jews jumped out at me early on. If they came out an American mouth, we’d call them anti-Semitic. Racism evidently doesn’t carry the same fundamental stigma in China, and most of the stereotypes recited to Levy about his culture weren’t meant to offend, but put admiringly (which would not excuse them here).

Very good travel/adventure writing, as I see it, tells the story and lets the reader discover the comedy. Levy does a fine job of this. A small example: some Chinese studying English, lacking a bit of context, are prone to choose English names for themselves that aren’t even actual names. When two female students introduced themselves to Levy as Shitty and Pussy, we got an amusing example. Must have been interesting for him to try and call on them in class with a straight face. He was able to write about it with a straight face, and I’m not sure I’d have had as much discipline.

The rise of PRC economic muscle hasn’t reached a lot of the population, including areas like Guiyang. When Maoist semi-socialism became ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ what that meant was ‘all the corruption, none of the safety net.’ Since corruption happens in all types of government, we may interpret ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ as ‘capitalism.’ Authoritarian one-party capitalism, of course, but capitalism. Levy gives us a good look at how it’s working, with one’s connections and influence completely trumping merit or need. If you’re connected and influential, you get taken care of, and you might be able to get rich. If not, good luck. I wonder if or when the Chinese will realize how deeply American their system has become; quite ironic when their education presents the U.S. to them as the ultimate exploitative capitalist plutocracy. (I take exception to ‘ultimate.’ )

The whole book was entertaining. If I had to pick the most informative and revealing aspect, it would be the central reason for Levy’s time in Guiyang: education. The Chinese students Levy taught and spoke with affected (outwardly, at least) to believe everything they read in a textbook. The notion of critical thinking, to doubt or question textbooks or teachers, was more alien to them than Passover. We hear about this in the West, but it’s educational to have some firsthand description. It’s tempting to think that China’s demonstrated proclivity for copying, counterfeiting and imitating (rather than inventing, which was once a signature national quality) has a connection to this concept of education as indoctrination. I’d be wary of asserting it without broader reading, but it’s certainly got me thinking.

I think this book would get most people thinking. Well worth the read.

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

On Stephen King

July 7, 2012 jkkblog 6 Comments

Reading on Salon today, I came across Stephen King: You can be popular and good. Author Erik Nelson is much perturbed by another article by a chap named Dwight Allen, which Nelson considers…well, let’s let him say it:

“Allen’s article isn’t just a bile-drenched, meandering hatchet job, it is a hatchet job with a rusty, dull blade, devoid of insight into anything other than the insecurities of its writer.”

Careful when you drop the gloves. The disagreeing side also has guys who don’t hesitate to do so. I had to learn that myself, writing reviews at Amazon. Nelson is good on his skates, has a good jersey grab and throws hard. Plenty of accepted adventure classics were not great successes in their time, and did not grab the literati of the day. It is later generations who start ‘rediscovering’ your literary merit after you are gone, in some cases. I like that Nelson got this hacked off; he writes like he means it. It’s a fun read if you like this sort of thing.

This voracious reader is not enamored of King’s books. We have a good percentage of the full set (all but one volume now for sale on Alibris) and I have only been able to finish one Stephen King book in my life. That does not make him a lousy writer, merely means his genre and style do not attract me. It’s possible to write bestsellers and truly suck as a storyteller (hello there, Dale Brown and Fatal Terrain). We can bring up all the old stuff about how you do not make money writing to please literati, but rather, by writing to please Visigoths who read trash. We can bring up the free-market paradigm, which says that financial success by virtue of crazy sales volume speaks for itself. We could argue about that all year, none of us walking away convinced and none of us changing our habits. We also won’t make one dent in King’s pocketbook. He could buy us and sell us into slavery if he were the type. If I were him, I doubt I’d care too much what the LA Review of Books thought. I might even send Allen a $500 check with the memo line “to help you make rent next month; thanks for the pub.”

While I may not fancy King’s fiction, he wrote what I consider the most worthwhile book on the craft of writing that I’ve had the good fortune to read. I would be many kinds of a dolt if I dared ignore whatever wisdom King had to offer about this pursuit. You may call the title On Writing frank and descriptive, or you can call it generic and uninspiring. Your judgment won’t change the value of the content, which is a Polar Bear Plunge into the way King creates a novel. Deb bought it for me one Christmas. I smiled politely, thanked her, pretended enthusiasm, groaned inwardly, then started reading. The enthusiasm ceased to be pretend. So many novice writers’ Frequent Mistake Points, all disposed of with such candor.

If you are trying to break into fiction writing, and you ask me for guidance, that book is my first recommendation. Most of the time, when people ask me about writing, they don’t really want advice. They want approval for their process. If they don’t get it, they get miffed: “Well, that’s my creative process.” Wonderful–best of luck and success! But please don’t get all chapped because I didn’t bless your creative process, or even told you I thought you were doing it wrong. Just disregard me and do it however you want to. I neither gain nor lose from what you do with the guidance you asked for, but you did ask for it. Remember?

When you no longer try to get everyone to read your stuff even if they show dubious interest, and you no longer argue with authors whom you ask for advice–in short, when you stop needing a steady flow of validation in order to continue–you level up as a writer.

Married life

It looks like Shrek puked in our blender

July 2, 2012 jkkblog Leave a comment

Deb and I are fond of the HBO fang series True Blood. While the plotline sometimes goes to dippy places, for the most part it’s quite entertaining. The dry comedy never fails to crack us up, and the characters grow in complexity over time. I’ve got no use for this whole zombie fad, which I think, hope and trust will fade away like a crappy dream, but some of the vampire stuff is pretty good.

One of our TB traditions, as I’ve mentioned in the past, is strawberry milkshakes with a ton of red food coloring in them. She makes them with Splenda and low sugar ice cream, and they are surprisingly good. The strawberries? Dumped frozen straight into the blender. That thing can’t last much longer.

Last night I came upstairs just before the show, having heard the construction work noises of the blender going to work on the fruit. Before I got around the corner, Deb lamented in her traditional way (at the volume you’d use to address a gathering of deaf elderly people): “Jonathan! I screwed up really bad!”

“What happened, dear?”

“LOOK!” I did. The blender was full of green slurry. “I was trying to mix colors and I forgot that blue and yellow don’t make red! I’m so sorry!”

I started laughing so hard I doubled over. My wife is a brilliant woman in the many areas where she is brilliant, but when it comes to chemistry, physics or biology, they barely register. She was and is entirely capable of forgetting color mixing while cooking, though she would never forget it while painting (at which she is quite capable). Between gales, I reassured her: “It won’t taste any different, dear, it’s fine.”

“Noooo! I can’t believe I did this! It looks like Shrek puked in our blender!”

“It really is fine, dear.” And it was, if you didn’t mind imagining strawberry flavor colored emerald green. We watch the show with the lights off, which made that a little easier. As I believe wise old colonial horndog Ben Franklin once said, ‘in the dark all cats are grey.’ We started to watch the show, with all its nudity, violence and adult themes (everything you want!). Except that every so often, I’d turn and laugh at her.

After a while, I said, “Dear, I just figured out what would be perfect for this.”

A sidelong look of foreboding. In resignation: “What?”

“There needs to be a Vulcan vampire show. Can you imagine Spock as a vampire? We could drink this every time!”

“You’re weird.”

Many of our conversations conclude with those words from her.

Editing/writing life

Dear every reader

June 29, 2012 jkkblog 6 Comments

It always surprises me when I read something by a writer angry with his or her readership. There’s been some buzz about Laurell K. Hamilton’s post ‘Dear Negative Reader,’ which she put up several years back. It has become a trope. Thus, I address this post not to negative readers (I know I have some, based on Amazon reviews), and not to positive readers, but to all readers, because I value and respect you all.

(Digression: how many times have you heard author types use the term ‘trope’ and you still can’t figure out what it means? You’ve looked it up three times and the definitions still don’t make sense? (Guess who else did that.) Because I believe in liking my reader, in no wise do I plan to fail you. A trope is a figure of speech, essentially, such as a common phrase that has become a metaphor in its own right–something not necessarily taken literally. The idea is that you are familiar with it, it means something to you. For example, talking about women and society, when we refer to the Madonna/whore trope, the meaning is clear: it speaks of the mentality that admits of only two roles for a woman, the virgin–>virtuous matron or the promiscuous tramp. Most of you probably agree with me that this trope is a plague, but you understand it. That’s why it’s a trope.)

Thus, when I heard of the trope, I looked up Hamilton’s post and asked myself what wasn’t right with it. She isn’t the first author to write an annoyed letter to her readership. The fact that she wrote it tells us she was annoyed, and she annoyed her public in turn. There’s some irony in the fact that many of Hamilton’s characters seem to dislike one another, but seem to need each other. The readers have a point: Hamilton has taken the Anita Blake vampire series to a strange place, and they lament this. Hamilton also has a reasonable point: “if you don’t like it, stop reading. My sales figures tell me someone does.” Of course, not all reasonable points ought to be made. Suppose you have a control freak boss. You catch him in a complete contradiction where he cannot admit error. His hubris will permit no reaction except to sit there in humiliated rage, while plotting to get you for it. I hope it makes you feel better that you got to wear the mantle of rightness and score a point, because he’s about to make you regret it. Maybe it would have been smarter to shut up. Tact is knowing when to shut up.

Tact is good for public figures.

I understand Hamilton finally reaching the point where she cut loose about it. I do not understand the way she did it. Everyone who says they no longer like the series, almost surely once did. I have never walked a literary mile in Hamilton’s heels; I have no way to know what it feels like to write books that are guaranteed sales, nor to read screenfuls of vituperation against those books. But I’m pretty sure that it’s much better to have a lot of happy readers and some haters than to lack a readership. If no one is slamming your book, it’s because no one cares. Slamming the book is buzz. Buzz helps put your book on the endcap. The endcap is the only place you make any money working with New York’s big houses.

All that said, there’s a basic problem with the mentality. I think that how writers feel about their readership truly affects the quality and value of how they write. I know it’s true of me here on the blog. If you’re annoyed at your readers (those would also be your customers and free advertisers, just to put this in perspective), then your writing may show it. Perhaps you won’t be able to notice; they may not spot it outright, but they will feel it. Ask any women about guys who gave them a creepy feeling; couldn’t place why, couldn’t say how, just something about the guys made them want to take a shower.

The remedy is for the writer to like his or her readership.

You can tend to disagree with your readers and still like them. I worked on a Bible book. We all know I’m not a Christian, and mostly we all know how strong are my feelings about some of the church/state separation issues in US society today. Did that mean I was writing for readers I didn’t like? Quite the contrary. The reader comes to such a book seeking to learn, to grow, to expand understanding. I respect those goals no matter what the subject is. He or she may come bearing a friendly challenge: “I already know a lot about this. What can you tell me that will be new and fresh?” I like that challenge. If I didn’t, I’d have had no business writing about it. Part of liking your reader is to presume the positive, which is fair; by taking time to read your material, the reader may be said to have done the writer that courtesy. The writer owes its return.

I didn’t presume that my readers would loathe me if they knew about my own religious beliefs. I presumed they, as literate people seeking to learn by reading, might find a far kinder interpretation (pick one of many). They and I might have been different, but what united us was a love of reading and a wish that writing be well researched and competently executed.

Were I to give aspiring writers any guidance, it would first be three words: like your reader.

Adventures

The day I really screwed up on the planer

June 25, 2012 jkkblog 4 Comments

When I was in college, I had the good fortune (like all the college kids from town) to be hired at the mill in summers, and sometimes over Christmas. This often meant laboring in 105º F summer heat, or -13 F winter cold, but it was steady work at union wages. This is how I came out of college owing so little money, and why I remain sympathetic to the labor movement despite its sometime failings.

It meant a lot of jobs that sound worse than they were: pulling on the chain, sacking shavings, cleaning out the pit, sawmill cleanup, jackhammering the boilers, the bull gang (I managed to escape that joy), and feeding the planer. This story is about feeding the planer. Since I don’t expect you to know your way around a lumber mill, it works like this. The sawmill cuts logs into boards, which are then sorted for efficient drying. After kilns dry the loads, the dry chain breaks them down for surfacing (planing).

To imagine a planer, picture two elongated drums laying on their sides, one above, one below. (A picture of some drums laying loose.) Along the rounded side of the drums are knives–long steel blades set in at angles. The drums rotate on axles with a careful interval between them, knives cutting toward the incoming lumber which the machine rams through in a steady stream. It’s what you did (more like, you assumed was done; who actually did this?) with a plane in woodshop, just mechanical, larger and much more frightening. The sides of the lumber are planed by side-heads, basically smaller versions of the main drums set to specific widths, with their own little knives. Right near the drums is a big pipe that blows the shavings, sawdust and wood powder to a fuelhouse, whence it will be sent to burn as fuel.

To feed this machine is to stand out front of it operating a pedal-operated hoist which raises a load of rough lumber bit by bit. As one does this one breaks the incoming lumber down so that it goes through the planer in a solid steady stream of wood. This is dangerous, especially around the pineapples (rotating things that sort of guide the boards where they should go). You can get killed feeding the planer, if you are inattentive when something goes badly wrong. Our mill’s technology was very advanced. When there was a problem downstream, they’d flip a switch that turned on a naked light bulb, and the planer feeder was to stop. He had to pull a cord hanging from the ceiling until a steel bar rose up to a chalked line, then watch for it to hiccup, indicating that the last board was out.

Two people normally fed the planer: the operator (a permanent employee) and the helper (often me). However, the operator might have to be inside the shack about half the time dealing with this or that issue: jointing a nick out of the knives, filling oil, what have you. I fed #3 planer, whose operator was Bobby. Now, Bobby was a character. A good 6’5″ and at least 400 pounds, it was safe to assume he wasn’t an athlete. Bobby had a sort of shaking problem where his hands would tremble, but worked hard and was very conscious of safety and production speed. Like all planer operators, he was more than half deaf. He had thin dark hair, wore glasses, and yelled at one constantly. A lot of kids couldn’t work with him. For whatever reason, he liked me, though that didn’t stop him from yelling at me all the time. I understood that part of his yelling was over the mill noise, and part was to help me stay safe, but I admit I could have done with a few less ass-chewings over the summers.

To be fair to Bobby, since he once saved my life and I once saved his, I have to explain how goddamn noisy this place was, that he had to yell over. Guys who wore foam earplugs and earmuffs were half deaf. If you spoke in a normal voice, your sound failed to exist. If you spoke up very loudly without yelling, a person right next to you might catch some of it. If anyone actually needed to hear what you had to say, you yelled at the top of your lungs to pierce the steady background roar.

One fine summer early 1980s day, Bobby and I were feeding #3. The machine was having a lot of problems and Bobby spent much of the day inside. I never knew, really, when I should start up or stop the machine. The light was not a good indicator, because at times the light would be on but Bobby would want us to keep running. Other times, it would be off, yet Bobby would bellow like a rutting rhino for me to stop feeding. I never had any idea what was going on, so I grew used to being bellowed at for circumstances beyond my knowledge. A couple times so far that day, the light had gone off, I had hesitated to start up, and Bobby had come out to yell at me. “Why the hell aren’t you starting the lumber up?” Okay, Bobby, I’ll do it. Communication was not a strong suit there.

So, in early afternoon, came a time when the light went off–yet I could see the bulk of Bobby clambered all atop the planer (he had often been in this way at times I had been bitched at full bore for not starting up immediately). No idea what was wrong, and it was impossible to go back and ask Bobby whether I should start–he would yell at me for not knowing what was obvious to him and mystery to me. I decided it was better to be hollered at for productivity than for lazing about. I saw the light bulb go out, punched the ON button, pedaled the hoist up and adroitly arranged the flow of lumber. In seconds, through my earplugs came the high tearing whine of knives shaving wood. Here we go!

For about five seconds. At which time I heard an indefinable bellow from the planer shack (we left the door open). Sort of a “HEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!” but that doesn’t really define it; that makes it sound like Fonzie. More like a stallion might emit when prohibited from approaching a mare in heat. Or perhaps a bull bison denied access to his favorite cow. I could hear it above the deafening roar of the planer, and looked to my left (toward Bobby).

There he was, and it was snowing. Snowing shavings, to be specific. The pipe to the fuelhouse was apart, causing the blower to vent the shavings into the air, settling onto Bobby’s shoulders and stringy sweaty hair. I’ll never forget it. He had his arms raised to the heavens and a look of full astonishment, as if I had just done the most creatively stupid deed he could ever recall. His mouth was wide open in the bellow as the ‘snow’ accumulated on him. A little surprised he didn’t inhale a few.

Oops.

Evidently I wasn’t supposed to start up the machine yet after all. I stopped putting lumber on the table, sent the last board through, pulled the cord and waited for the advanced technology to rid us of the final board. All the while, of course, there stood Bobby in a shaving snowstorm. He had about an inch of accumulation, I noted somewhat wryly, keeping any sign of a smirk off my face.

Out came Bobby. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

“I’m doing the boards, Bobby,” I answered, aware how lame and obvious this was.

“YOU DIDN’T DO ‘EM RIGHT! WHY THE HELL DID YOU START UP?”

“Well, the light went off, and you’ve yelled at me several times today if I didn’t get moving when the light went off.”

A point for me. However: “COULDN’T YOU SEE THAT I HAD EVERYTHING ALL TOOK APART IN THERE?”

Iron control, slay any hint of levity in the womb. “Uh… Bobby…you were…kind of in the way.” After all, he really did not make a very good window. “And you often have me running when you’re doing stuff.”

For his faults (his son being the chiefest), Bobby had some sense of fairness. He showed this, this time, by ceasing to yell at me. He simply gaped at me a little longer, as if stunned that anyone so mentally defective as myself could be admitted to a college (or begotten by his supervisor’s supervisor), turned and shambled back into the shack to finish his work.

I still got yelled at a lot, but I’ll never forget that rutting-animal bellow and the sight of shavings snowing on Bobby’s head.

Privacy

Can you comment on this blog entry?

June 23, 2012 jkkblog 26 Comments

Here is my request. It’s come to my attention that some people are asked for too much personal info in order to leave a comment. No likey. So:

Please make an attempt to comment on this post and tell me what that took. If for whatever reason you could not, or if it wanted more information or logging-in from you than giving a name and e-mail address, please e-mail me at jkkauthor@yahoo.com, and describe your experience. I need to understand what you are experiencing in order to see about improving it. Thanks!

Editing/writing life

Setting up a blog

June 23, 2012 jkkblog Leave a comment

There are lots of reasons to do this. Check all that apply:

You just want to spout about world affairs, or whatever else you care about.
You want to practice writing regularly.
You want a diary you can share with people.
You travel and like to share as you go.
You take a lot of pics and like to share.
You don’t trust Faceplant with that stuff any further than you can throw a cheesecake under water.
Other odd reasons I never thought of.

I haven’t tried anything but WP, recommended to me by the highly esteemed CJ Cherryh. There’s Blogger, Blogspot, Tumblr, and more. What I like about WP:

It’s pretty easy to get started and figure out all the doodads.
They make it easy to get a domain name.
Customer service is friendly and honest.

What I don’t like, so far:

Gallerys are a mess. If the gallery gets screwed up as you are creating it, you can’t fix it; you have to delete all the photos and start again, losing all the captions, sequencing, all that other work. We had that when I posted the Alaska pics.
When you make a post, it puts up a sidebar congratulating you for the number of posts. The sidebar does nothing useful, nor can you make it stop. And if I try clicking on it, my browser crashes. In the first place, I don’t need a brownie button for achieving 175 posts. In the second, I like to be able to make stuff like that shut up.

If I were looking over blog software, I’d try the basics of all of them and then just keep the one I liked best.

The Editorial Maverick