For years my normal weight was around 155 to 160 pounds, depending mostly on my Pabst Blue Ribbon and Budweiser intake. My height was a tad over 5' 8 ”, but I could stretch another half an inch if there were any tall girls around.

Last year at the doctor's office the nurse weighed and measured me. I was shocked when she told me “135 pounds and 5 feet 6 inches!”

What in the hell happened, I wondered. I don't remember going through any radioactive clouds in my kayak or accidentally taking any of Carol's diet pills.

When I asked the doctor, he told me that some Parkinson's patients lose weight and some don't. Thanks a lot, Doc! He suggested drinking a bottle of “Ensure” between meals. I doubted that would help me get my height back but decided to give it a try anyway.

Mmm, Strawberry flavored Ensure! If you want to kill your appetite for the rest of the day, drink a bottle of that gunk. It sits in your stomach like a puddle of mud.

Since then I've been steadily shrinking. This morning I weighed in at a hefty 126! I haven't measured my height lately, I'm almost afraid to. The tension that I have to keep on my suspenders to hold my pants up has probably compressed my spine another inch or two.

If this keeps up I'm afraid one of our little dogs will confuse one of my skinny legs for a dog bone some night and I'll wake up missing a few more pounds.

There are countless web sites and TV ads on how to lose weight but not much on how to pack it on. I guess I could try steroids but I'd probably end up looking like Popeye.

Almost all of my clothing is too large, I'm real close to buying small instead of medium in mens size and if this keeps up I'll probably be in boys size before long.

Oh well, I guess I can always live in a doll house like the guy in the movie.........

The Wind Chime

Almost every afternoon for eight years I walked the mile to my brother's house and we would sit at the table on his deck, drinking wine and talking. Sometimes we'd talk about computers, sometimes we'd talk about books we'd read, or tell fishing stories, and sometimes we didn't talk much at all.

“There's a spider hanging from the bill of your cap,” he said one day.

“Yeah I see it,” I said crossing my eyes.

“Maybe that means you're not moving enough.”

“Well, I'm comfortable,”I said, as the spider lowered himself down to my leg and scurried off.

“Hey, where did you get that wind chime that hangs on your apple tree?”

“I made it,” I told him, “If you want, I'll make one for you.”

“Yeah, I liked the sounds it made when we were having our barby at your house the other day.”

The next morning I went out to the shop and sawed some aluminum conduit into various lengths, drilled holes to hang them with yellow cord and tapped on them with a hammer. A couple of them sounded sour so I sawed a little more off until they sounded sweeter. I hung them from a round scrap of wood I'd saved from another project, and in the center I hung a heavy nut and a big washer to bang against the pipes. Below that I tied an old Windows 95 CD to catch the wind. It wasn't pretty, but it sounded good.

I put the contraption in a grocery bag and carried it up to John's that afternoon.

“That was fast!” He said,” Let's hang it up and see how it sounds!”

We hung it from the awning over the center of the table and sat back, sipping our wine and waiting for the wind to blow.

“Sure is calm today, isn't it!”

“Yeah the wind usually picks up about this time, though!”

We sat, sipping and waiting for at least a slight breeze to move things and make some noise but there was no wind at all. We poked it and wiggled it and it sounded good, but it was supposed to be a wind chime.

Finally, a few days later the wind from an incoming storm got it working and it was so loud we had to move it to the end of the deck. It survived year after year through rain and wind, chiming away.

A few weeks after John died I went out on the deck. The table and chairs were stacked for the winter and the deck seemed abandoned and empty. The wind chime was hanging there, weathered, beat up and ugly, but still dinging, bonging and chiming the same old tune.

Taz

There's nothing more fun than a puppy!

Frog Song

1997 was the year of the frogs.

That summer our little backyard pond seemed to be a magnet for Bullfrogs. They'd come hopping in at night, establish their territory on a rock or a lily pad, the big ones sometimes eating the smaller ones, along with anything else they could get their mouth around.

They provided us with hours of entertainment and we even named some of them. “Bud” eventually became the biggest and he hibernated through two winters in the bottom of the pond. In the spring when I cleaned out the debris and leaves I'd find him dark skinned and lethargic, but after a little sun and a few bugs he was his old self for another summer.

After that first year, the frog population thinned out, I think Bud ate most of them.

I had taken hours of video with a hand held, shaky camcorder, and when I came across it yesterday I decided to edit it down to a little over four minutes of ribbiting video.

I call it “Frog Song.”

Grief

They say that everyone expresses grief in their own way, and that there are stages that most people go through.

    When my mom died of cancer I didn't cry. When my dad died in a car wreck I didn't cry. Oh, I teared up a little but I didn't really break down and bawl. I loved them both and I felt guilty that I couldn't show my grief like everyone else. It wasn't a macho thing, I wanted to let loose and wail but I just couldn't.

    When our youngest son Rick died I felt as though I'd had a part ripped from my body, but when I looked down everything was still there. The pain was unbearable but I still didn't cry. Then we lost Fred that same year, and despite more pain and grief I remained mostly dry eyed.

    The next summer I was at work doing my job as a maintenance man. I came to work at 3am when the restaurant was empty, cleaning and repairing broken equipment. I always set the radio to come on at 5am when NPR began broadcasting. I listened to the usual intro and then they played a melody that I remembered from my youth; Happy trails to you, until we meet again... Roy Rogers and Dale Evans used to sing that song at the end of their old radio show, and somehow I just knew that Roy Rogers had died.

    Sure enough, in a few minutes the announcer declared, “Last night the 'Singing Cowboy,' Roy Rogers died peacefully at his ranch in Wyoming.”

    I remembered going to the Saturday matinee movies with my little brother John to watch Roy and Trigger the wonder horse catch black hatted bad guys.

    The tears started running down my face and I had to sit down. I bawled for a half an hour. I knew I wasn't crying for Roy, I guess it was just some kind of delayed reaction. Grief had finally caught up with me.

    I was in the middle of writing this when our nephew Kelly called, and from his voice we knew that after a long battle with cancer, John had died.

    I wonder how long it will take to catch me this time.

My Ass Fell Off

Since my ass fell off quite a few years ago I've been in an ever increasing battle to keep my pants from falling down. My first solution was to just take up another notch in my belt, but eventually that proved to be painful - my belly didn't desert me, my butt did.

I found an elastic, stretchable belt that I could cinch up without too much discomfort and that helped, but I still was constantly hitching up my trousers, which it seemed were trying to demonstrate the law of gravity to me.

I pared down the items in my pockets, took unneeded keys off of my key ring, shelved my trusty pocket knife, cleaned out my wallet and put all of my change in a coin box. My pants still slowly worked their way down, especially if I was carrying something heavy, and didn't have a free hand to pull them up.

Carol suggested getting some suspenders, but I cringed at the thought of yet another consession to becoming an old fart. “You want me to look like Larry King?” I asked.

Finally after years of fighting a losing battle, I gave in and bought a pair of suspenders at Walmart.

“Hey, honey, give me a hand hooking these damn things up.” “I got the front OK but if you'll just clip on the back ones...”

Carol hooked the two rear clips up and I tightened the front straps. “Don't get them too tight!” she warned. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. “God, am I always this stooped over?” Besides being bent over like the hunchback of Notre Dame, there also was considerable tightness in my crotch area.

“Maybe you're right!,” I squeaked,” I think they might be too tight!.” Actually, if anything had given way, I think I would have been shot like an arrow from a compound bow right into the ceiling. Or the floor, I'm not sure which.

I've since learned to live with them, although a few problems arise now and then; like inadvertently standing on a shoulder strap while trying to pull my pants up, or trying to take my shirt off without shucking the suspenders first.

I loaded my pockets back up with a full key ring, my trusty pocket knife and a wallet full of useless junk. I'm still kind of stooped over, but that's probably just gravity.

God forbid, I am starting to look like Larry King!

Leaping Lizards

Several years ago (actually about fifteen or maybe eighteen!) our son Don called and asked me if I wanted to go Crawdadding on the following Saturday. “It's Beachcomber Days,” I said, “but I'd rather be catching Crawdads than watching a dumb parade with a few fire engines, log trucks and the 4-H club!”

“Yeah, it's a good day to stay out of town anyway,” he said, “The parades at noon so lets go before the madhouse starts.”

The following Saturday he pulled into our driveway about eleven. “Let's take our pickup,” I said, as we grabbed a couple Crawdad nets and a burlap sack. “The truck needs gas but we can get it upriver at Tidewater.”

We hopped in and headed up Highway 34 towards our destination; the junction of Lobster Creek and Five Rivers. “I hear there are tons of Crawdads there,” Don said, “we should really clean up!”

“Oh oh” I said as we pulled into Tidewater. “The gas station's closed!”

“That means we have to go back to town for gas. Crap!”

“They probably closed so they could go to Waldport for Beachcomber Days,” Don said, looking at his watch. “We'd better hurry or we'll get stopped by the parade.”

When we reached town we could see the ambulances, fire engines, and log trucks all lined up on a side street, waiting to start on their way through town, and we could see that the sidewalks were lined with spectators.

“Good! They haven't started yet, let's gas up and get out of here,” Don said.

There were a few cars ahead of us at the pump and we impatiently waited while they filled up. When we finally got to the pump I told the attendant, “We're in kind of a hurry, we want to get out of here before the parade starts.”

“I think you're too late!” he said. He was right, we could hear the fire trucks and ambulances demonstrating all the siren noises they could make with their WOOP WOOPs and WAH WAHs, a sure sign the world famous Beachcomber Days parade was underway. Our route out of town was blocked so we sat and watched the parade slowly crawl by.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it ended and we worked our way through the jammed up traffic and got underway again. We made good time to Five Rivers Road and a few minutes later we parked on a wide spot near the junction of Lobster Creek and Five Rivers.

“I can see Crawdads from here!” Don yelled as he piled out of the truck and started unloading our gear. Sure enough, there were Crawdads everywhere, and we waded in after them. Don would lift a rock and I'd hold the net downstream to catch them as they tried to escape. Then we'd chase after the ones we missed, splashing and sliding on the mossy rocks. I was wearing a loose fitting pair of Levis which soon became soaked and waterlogged along with every thing else. I was having a lot of trouble keeping them up they got so heavy. I was stumbling, sliding and splashing along, holding my pants up with one hand, carrying a burlap bag half full of Crawdads and a net in the other when I told Don,”Let's take a break, I'm pooped!”

We waded back down toward the truck, climbed out into the hot sunshine and sat on on a big rock to warm up. “Wow!' I said,”This feels great!” I squatted down on the stream side of the rock, my pants still at half mast with a lot of “plumbers butt” showing. On the other side of the rock I heard Don yell, “Hey Dad, I caught a lizard!” I looked over my shoulder just in time to see it flying though the air as he tossed it to me.

Unfortunately, since I had my back turned, I didn't try to catch it, and it landed perfectly in the crack of my plumbers butt. Being used to hiding in cracks it scrambled deeper. Now, I'm not much of a dancer, but much to Don's amusement I went through my whole repertoire. Starting with the River Dance, followed with lively versions of the Bunny Hop and the Funky Chicken, then some steps I made up on the spot.

Don was laughing so hard he was crying when I finally pulled the little guy out of my pants, his claws digging in all the way. I frantically tossed him out into the river and the last I saw he was swimming for the far bank, no doubt to find another crack to hide in.

We caught a lot of Crawdads and had a lot of laughs. It was a good trip.

I fell down...and did a magic trick!

I guess getting clumsy comes with getting old, and having Parkinson's disease doesn't help much.

Yesterday I was going into the dining room, sipping my lunchtime can of Pabst Blue Ribbon when I accidentally tripped over Taz and Squeak, our two constantly under foot, constantly shedding, growling, or barking to get in or out, fuzzy, funny, lovable (to us) dogs.

I did a not very graceful pirouette, stuck my other foot in a basket full of dog toys,and promptly threw the half full beer across the room where it bounced off a heavy brass lamp and disappeared behind an overstuffed chair. I landed in a pile of yipping dogs, squeaking bears, alligators, pandas and other unidentifiable stuffed animals .

Carol, who was on the phone talking to our son Brad, came running in to see what happened.

“Are you OK?” she asked as she helped me get up. I was more humiliated than hurt and the dogs looked kind of embarrassed too. Carol checked the three of us out, and after I hobbled around for a few minutes and the dogs returned to their normal exuberance she declared us “fit for duty.”

“Oh shit!”I said, “My beer.”

I peered behind the chair where I had seen it ricochet and there it was; sitting upright as though someone had put it there for safekeeping. I looked for spillage but there weren't any wet spots to be found – anywhere. I picked up the can and was amazed to find that it was still a half full!

I held my can of PBR high and said, “Ta-Daa! And now for my next trick...”

My Space ship

Over thirty years ago Carl Sagan hosted a TV show on PBS called Cosmos. One of the visual devices he used to transport his audience out into the billions and billions of galaxies, nebulae and star systems was what he called a “Star ship of the Imagination.” To me it was absolutely riveting television, even though his voice, and the soothing background music were mesmerizing. Watching the reruns years later I still find it spellbinding, piquing my imagination and conversely causing me to nod off into dreamland.

A few days ago I realized that I have my own “Star ship of the Imagination” and it disguises itself as an old, threadbare, beat up recliner. Carol picked it up at a local garage sale 20 years ago, with a broken foot rest and a dire need for some TLC.

“It looks pretty lumpy,” I said, thinking that maybe it really should have gone to the dump. After fixing the foot rest mechanism with a bit of wire, I sat down, pulled the handle up, and leaned back. With a series of clicks the chair enfolded and accepted me.

“Hmm, this is comfortable!” I said, as I realized that all of the lumps and grooves were in just the right places. It has been my favorite reading, napping, TV watching, and napping places ever since.

It's also been a favorite lap spot for 20 years of faithful dogs. Lady, a pound dog Cocker Spaniel, Chewy, our Lhasa Apso, and now Squeak and Taz come into the den when they hear the clicking of the foot rest and sit in front of it, waiting for me to give them permission to jump up onto my lap. Together we nod off into our separate dreams, happily snoring, growling, barking in falsetto and drooling as we travel on mysterious journeys in the “Star ship of Our Imagination.”

How Much?!!!!

Our old, (1992) Chevy pickup has been having problems lately. Like it's owners, they're mostly age related problems. It sits in the driveway rusting away most of the time these days, only getting used to haul trash to the dump or to move things too large or too dirty or smelly for our little Toyota wagon.

On the last dump trip, after unloading the recycled items and dumping the rest, the shift lever refused to go into Drive. I cussed and pushed on it until it finally clunked in to gear. When we got home I found that I couldn't shut the ignition switch off. I turned the key toward the Start position and was rewarded with a grinding noise as the starter tried to engage an already running engine, but at least then it let me turn it off.

The same problem came and went over several weeks while I tried to find out how to fix it. The consensus I arrived at, mostly from the Internet, was that the ignition lock cylinder needed to be replaced and that required removing the steering wheel with a special wheel puller and delving into the turn signal, windshield wiper and washer, cruise control, headlight dimmer, and turn signal wiring just to get at the thing. “A job for a Chevrolet mechanic, not me!” I reasoned.

The last straw happened at JC's house when no matter how I jiggled or wiggled the key the engine just kept running. I finally opened the hood, climbed up on the radiator shroud, removed the air cleaner and pulled the coil wire to shut it off. When I climbed down off of the engine compartment, JC asked me, “Why don't you get that damned thing fixed?”

“I guess you're right,” I said, “I'm afraid the Chevy dealer will rip me off, but I'm pretty sure from what I read on the Internet, that's where I should take it. The thing is, I think that they charge thirty or forty dollars an hour!”

“Get it fixed, I've got a lot off stuff to haul to the dump!” he said, “I'll even pay for it!”

The next morning I called the Chevy dealer in Newport, told the service manager the problem and made an appointment for the following day at 9 am.

JC followed me to Newport and we dropped the truck off. The mechanic showed me which fuse to pull, a much easier way to shut it off. We did some shopping and drove home. I'd just walked in the door when the phone rang and Carol handed it to me. It was the service manager who told me,”We found your problem. You need a new ignition cylinder and the canceling cam was completely crumbled. It will run about $400.00. Do you want us to go ahead and fix it?

I started to say OK, but then the $400 sunk in. “How much?” I sputtered. He repeated the amount. “Holy Crap!” I said.

He waited in silence while I thought about how much the truck saves us in monthly trash pickup charges and how handy it is for hauling stuff, but on the other hand is it really worth fixing...and what the hell is a crumbled canceling cam?

Reluctantly I said, “Yeah, go ahead.” I told him I'd pick it up in the morning and hung up, shaking my head.

“What's the matter? Carol asked from the kitchen.

“$400.00!” I replied.

“Holy Crap!” she said.

The next morning I asked the service manager for an explanation of the bill. He used his pen to point out the charges.

“Well, it needed a new lock cylinder, and that was $46.70. The canceling cam, which was crumbled, was $13.98 and it took the mechanic over three hours to do the repairs. He looked at me as if that explained everything. I'm not good at math, but as the wheels in my head slowly ground away, I finally spurted “But that's a hundred dollars an hour!”

I suffered through a detailed explanation about rising costs, yadda, yadda, yadda, reluctantly signed the bottom of the statement and left, poorer budweiser.