Old Jack

“Jack be nimble. Jack be quick,” and Jack was very nimble and extremely quick... nimble and quick enough in fact to make it to the top of the Nursery Rhyme Pop Charts season after season, but today Jack finds himself reduced to jumping over candlesticks at PartyLite® Candle Parties in and around Plymouth, Massachusetts on weekends just to make ends meet. You see kids, superstars like Jack didn’t make the kind of coin that celebrities make these days. Even in his prime, when Jack wasn’t jumping candlesticks before an adoring public, he was working the swing-shift at a local candle factory to support his family. This was back when professional baseball players had to take up side jobs during the offseason to pay the rent. Your grandfather can tell you all about it. But back to Jack: As poor ol’ Jack performs today at candle parties for ladies yelling “jump over the peach one Jack, jump over the peach one!" all I can say is that life isn’t fair, especially as we grow older. Some of us who were great in our prime don’t look like much in our later years, so as you see Jack jump (and sometimes miss) and as you walk past that old person on the street, give them a smile and a little extra respect, because once upon a time they were great too… and truth be told, they probably still are.

Old Screen Doors and Telephones

Gosh, I miss the soothing sound of a rotary telephone, and the way it used to take twice as long to dial SK9-9978 as it did to dial SK2-1312. And I miss saying Skyline instead of SK, and I miss saying SK instead of 75 …and if none of this makes any sense to you, you’ve probably never heard the sound of a wood screen door slamming either. What a shame. You grew up in a world of aluminum screen doors with hydraulic screen door closers. For crying out loud, you can’t even slam one of those damn things! …and don’t even get me started on TV dials, and radio knobs!!

Walmart Doesn't Love You (and Exxon doesn't either)

I haven’t warned America about corporate evil-doers in a while, so here goes for old time’s sake:

WARNING: Until further notice Representative Government in The United States has been suspended! Our eminent (i.e. eminently stupid) Supreme Court has effectively (if not officially) granted corporations the power to pick and choose our leaders for us, and dictate what laws they pass, thus accomplishing what Benito Mussolini (“Booo, hissss, booo!”) failed to do seven decades ago… bring fascism to America.

ENTER TOM: (“Yeah Tom!!”) Thomas Jefferson was wary of the Supreme Court for a reason. He warned us long ago that the Supreme Court’s power must be curbed or it would overrun the other branches of government. Jefferson argued that the Court’s independence from the will of the people would eventually upset the checks and balances established by the Constitution, and I now present to you exhibit A.) the recent Citizens United decision as proof that Mr. Jefferson was absolutely right… But Mr. Jefferson is way too dead to help us now, so EXIT TOM.

ENTER AL: (“Al who? Oh, that Al,” …polite, yet unenthusiastic applause.) Al Gore (like him or not) was also absolutely right when he said in his new book The Future, that Congress “is now incapable of passing laws without permission from the corporate lobbies and other special interests that control their campaign finances.” The Als, Gore and Franken, along with Robert Reich, Bernie Sanders, and other hefty lefties are sounding the alarm (and by hefty I don’t mean fat, with the possible exception of one of the Als. I mean important and imposing, like Robert Reich) and we need to tune into their message before it’s too late! Unfortunately however, those who control most of our media are doing their best to mute this information, and distract us with their own brand of pseudo news and propaganda, as they continue to build unprecedented wealth, and consolidate their power.

MY WARNING CONTINUED: (“Is he almost done mom?” “Yes, I think he’s almost finished dear…  Here, have a lifesaver.”)  Ahem! …We can fall for their propaganda and continue to arm ourselves against every other nation on the planet, especially those damn commies, and we can pretend that Muslim terrorists are the threat of the future, but the greatest threat to our American way of life is not foreign. It is domestic! We created it, and we feed it, and only we can kill it… but not if it keeps us divided and ignorant, and that IS the strategy of corporate America… to keep us divided and ignorant, and they're doing a bang up job. As I suggested above, the Citizens United Decision, if we let it stand will be looked back on as the birth of fascism in America. Okay, run along now and save your country while there’s still time.
  

If We Accept Wayne Lapierre's Logic:

I had planned to write an article about what things might look like if we embrace Wayne Lapierre's vision of gun use in America, but instead, for better or worse I ended up creating a magazine ad that you just might read in that alternate future:

 

 

 

click image to enlarge

The Kid (and the jump)

We never learned his name, but the Kid would be hard to forget.

I was ten when the Kid appeared. Summer break had just begun, and all the neighborhood boys my age were gathered at the corner of our block. The Kid coasted up on an old bicycle that instantly told us he didn’t belong in our gang, but he asked me anyway, “Can I jump?”

The Kid was taller than any of us, and skinny, but he didn't look much older than we were. None of us knew who he was, or where he came from, but that didn't stop him from riding up and asking that question, “Can I jump?”

I was standing astride my metallic gold Schwinn Stingray. My buddy Matt was making a final adjustment to the ramp we had just set up a short distance down the sidewalk. “On that bike?” I asked.

“Sure, why not?” he answered.

Matt walked back from the ramp. “It’s ready,” he said. The ramp consisted of a plywood board leaned up against an assortment of bricks and cinder blocks collected from a nearby alley.

My friends and I all rode Schwinn Stingray bicycles that summer with banana seats and ape-hanger handlebars. We reveled in the thought that we rode the coolest bikes around; except for Brad. Brad had a Huffy. We pretended not to notice, but we were all very aware that Brad had a Huffy. The Kid’s bike was different from all of ours though. It didn’t even try to look like a Stingray the way that Brad’s Huffy tried. It was a taller bike, like an adult would ride. “You can jump if you want to,” I said.

Jumping was the reason we were there. More times than I can remember we set up the makeshift ramp and took turns riding our bikes over it. We jumped high over imaginary obstacles to the dismay of elderly neighbors who peered at us through foggy windows in the fall, and over neatly trimmed hedges in the spring and summer. “Someday we’ll jump over a car,” Matt would declare.

“Two cars!” one of us would add. That’s what young boys did back in the daredevil days of Evel Knievel.

Without a word I pedaled toward the ramp to show the Kid how it was done. I quickly sped up to a pace that would launch me nearly two feet off the ground, and shoot me two yards down the sidewalk. An impressive jump by neighborhood standards.

Just before hitting the ramp I stood up on my pedals, and held tight to the handle grips. As I flew off the end of the plywood board I leaned forward just enough to keep the bike level with the ground, and braced for the landing. Then, as the imaginary crowd cheered, I slammed on the brake and did my signature half turn skid before circling back to the corner.

As I pedaled up to the gang I saw the Kid riding away. “Scared?” someone taunted.

“I wouldn’t jump that bike either!” sneered another voice.

The Kid rode across the street and up the hill to the next corner. Then he turned around and stopped. Even though the Kid was tall, his bike was too big for him. He stood there looking down at us with one foot on the ground, and his bike leaning way too far over to look comfortable. I didn’t really know what to make of him. But I do know if it hadn’t been for what he did next, that image of him up there on the hill would have faded from my memory long ago.

With a hard shove off the ground the Kid was suddenly back up on his bike, and peddling toward us. He accelerated faster and faster down the hill. As he neared the intersection his intent became clear. We scattered out of the way. Matt ran into the middle of the street and yelled, “No cars!” to let the Kid know that the coast was clear. With no curbs to watch out for in the neighborhood the Kid flew across the street and was now back on our block speeding toward the ramp.

“Oh no!” we must have all thought at the same time. Who would run to get his parents? We didn’t even know where he lived. I always hated running to adults for help. The last time I had to do it was when Kenny jumped into the telephone pole hole.

One Friday afternoon the phone company drilled a hole for a new telephone pole, and set an orange cone next to it to warn people away during the weekend. Well by Sunday Kenny just couldn’t resist any longer. He walked up to the edge of the hole and jumped in. Three of us witnessed the event. It looked like someone jumping into a swimming pool, except there wasn’t a splash when Kenny submerged himself into the earth. There was just a thump and grunt as he instantly disappeared up to his arm pits.

The next thing we heard was our own laughter followed by Kenny’s frantic screaming. “Get my mom!” he yelled. Not wanting to face Kenny’s mom, we pulled on his arms. We couldn’t budge him. “I can’t breathe,” he cried. Tears began streaming down his now bright red face. His house was four blocks away, so I ran and pounded on the nearest door for help. After I managed to spit out the details of Kenny’s stunt to Mrs. Olsen, she went back inside and made the necessary phone calls. A policeman came. A fire truck came. Kenny’s mom came. Half the neighborhood came to watch them dig Kenny out of the hole. We called him Kenny the Cork for a long time after that.

The Kid was going way too fast. All of us knew it, but it was too late to stop him. He’ll swerve around the ramp I thought. He’d be crazy not to. But he stayed in the middle of the sidewalk peddling harder and harder as the ramp got closer. We should have all been yelling at him to stop, but we just stood there speechless. I heard his tires hit the ramp, and I saw the board flex and bounce up as the Kid went airborne.

I don’t think any of us could believe what we were seeing. Not even Matt would dare to hit the ramp at full speed, let alone with the gravity of that hill pushing behind him. Why would the Kid do something so stupid?

When I was nine I met a bunch of strange boys who were rolling a big culvert pipe down our street. They said they were headed to the park to push it off the big hill. It sounded like a cool idea, so I tagged along. Then as we all stood at the top of the hill someone came up with a second cool idea. “I’ll do it!” I quickly said. For reasons I can’t explain I had just volunteered to ride inside the tube.

Moments later there I was, inside the thing. “Ready?” they yelled.

“Ready!” I yelled back. As soon as the boys started pushing I knew I’d made a mistake, but I couldn’t take it back. My head slammed against the inside of the pipe repeatedly as I bounced and rolled like a cat in a tumble dryer all the way to the bottom. The boys stood whooping and laughing at the top of the hill. When everything finally stopped spinning, I crawled out of the tube, and threw up in the grass.

Frozen with fear, we just stood there staring slack-jawed as the Kid soared high into the air. “Lean forward!” I willed, but he didn’t lean forward. In fact he seemed to be pulling back on the handlebars. The entire gang watched in horror. Evel Knievel’s infamous Caesars Palace jump replayed in my mind. “Someday we’ll jump over a car,” a voice inside my head whispered. “Two cars!” a second voice added.

The Kid would easily fly high enough to clear two cars on this day, but he was turning upside down now. He looked like he might even do a full back flip, but he had no landing ramp. Evel Knievel always had a landing ramp, but Evel never tried to do a back flip. If holding our collective breath could have helped the Kid complete the flip and land on his wheels, then he certainly would have landed on his wheels. He would have completed the greatest stunt a kid could ever dream of pulling off. But nothing we did now could alter the chain of events that was about to occur.

At the peak of his jump the Kid abandoned the bike. Still tumbling backwards, he twisted and turned, desperately searching for the ground below. If he caught a glimpse of the ramp, it must have seemed very far away.

Nothing but concrete awaited the Kid now, like tarmac awaiting a crippled airplane descending for an emergency landing. But instead of firemen and medics, only a bunch of ten year old boys were standing by.

When the silence was finally broken there was yelling, and crying, and panic. I tried to run to the nearest adult for help, but the door flew open before I could even reach the porch. Mr. Harris bolted past me toward the Kid, with Mrs. Harris chasing behind. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled, and she ran back inside the house.

Mr. Harris tried to comfort the Kid as he lay in a heap in the middle of the sidewalk. Jenny Harris brought her dad a towel that he used to soak up the blood from the Kid’s face, and arms, and chest. Mrs. Harris yelled from the porch that an ambulance was on the way. Moments later she came running across the yard holding a green wool army blanket. They carefully lifted the Kid off the sidewalk and set him on the blanket in the grass. Mrs. Harris took Jenny back inside the house, leaving Mr. Harris alone with the Kid.

Some of the gang fled, but most of us remained in a wide semi-circle around the scene. The circle soon filled with onlookers from nearby homes, one muttering, “This was bound to happen eventually,” and others nodding in agreement. A siren could be heard in the distance.

Some of the gang’s parents started showing up. Brad’s dad came running over from across the street. He went straight to helping Mr. Harris tend to the Kid. He knelt down and assured the Kid that everything would be okay. “You’re going to be fine,” he said, “Just try not to move.” Matt’s Mom walked up and took him home. A couple other parents did likewise.

Soon the siren’s promise of help arrived. Two men in white uniforms quickly took over the Kid’s care. They asked him some questions and thoroughly looked him over from head to toe. Next they wrapped him in gauze, one damaged section at a time until there wasn’t much left of the Kid to see. Then they carefully loaded him into the ambulance, and shut the doors.

I was standing astride my new metallic gold Schwinn Stingray when they rushed the Kid away. As he disappeared around the corner I pedaled up the hill to where his daredevil ride began. I turned around and stopped where the he had stopped. I looked down at the ramp and imagined racing toward it. I watched Mr. Harris wash the blood off the sidewalk. I watched Brad’s dad dismantle the ramp, and discard its various parts. When they were finished I coasted home.

 

As dusk approached that evening an old pickup truck drove down our street and stopped at the corner. The vehicle’s lone occupant, a tall thin man with dark hair got out and walked over to the Kid’s broken bicycle. He paused for a moment, studying the bent metal. Then he carefully loaded it into the back of the truck, climbed inside the cab, and slowly drove away. 

The Kid

We never learned his name, but the Kid would be hard to forget.

I was ten when the Kid appeared. Summer break had just begun, and all the neighborhood boys my age were gathered at the corner of our block. The Kid coasted up on an old bicycle that instantly told us he didn’t belong in our gang, but he asked us anyway, “Can I jump?” I was standing astride my new metallic gold Schwinn Stingray. My buddy Matt was making a final adjustment to the ramp we had just set up a short distance down the sidewalk.

The Kid was taller than any of us, and skinny, but he didn't look much older than we were. None of us knew who he was, or where he came from, but that didn't stop him from riding right up and asking that question, “Can I jump?”

“On that bike?” I asked.

“Sure, why not?” he answered.

Matt walked back from the ramp. “It’s ready,” he said. The ramp consisted of a plywood board leaned up against an assortment of bricks and cinder blocks collected from a nearby alley.

All my friends and I rode Schwinn Stingray bicycles that summer, with banana seats and ape-hanger handlebars. We reveled in the thought that we rode the coolest bikes around. Except for Brad. Brad had a Huffy. We pretended not to notice, but we were all very aware that Brad had a Huffy. The Kid’s bike was different from all of ours though. It didn’t even try to look like a Stingray the way that Brad’s Huffy tried. It was a taller bike, like an adult would ride. “You can jump if you want to,” I said.

Jumping was the reason we were there. Every week we set up the makeshift ramp and took turns riding our bikes over it. We jumped high over imaginary obstacles to the dismay of elderly neighbors who peered at us through foggy windows in the fall, and over neatly trimmed hedges in the spring and summer. “Someday we’ll jump over a car,” Matt often declared.

“Two cars!” one of us would then add. This is what young boys did back in the daredevil days of Evel Knievel.

Without a word I pedaled toward the ramp to show the Kid how it was done. I quickly sped up to a pace that would launch me nearly two feet off the ground, and shoot me almost two yards down the sidewalk. An impressive jump by neighborhood standards.

Just before hitting the ramp I stood up on my pedals, and held tight to the handle grips. As I flew off the end of the plywood board I leaned forward just enough to keep the bike level with the ground, and braced for the landing. Then, as the imaginary crowd cheered, I slammed on the brake and did my signature half turn skid before circling back to the corner.

As I pedaled up to the gang I saw the Kid riding away. “Scared?” someone taunted.

“I wouldn’t jump that bike either,” yelled another voice.

The Kid rode across the street and up the hill to the next corner. Then he turned around and stopped. Even though the Kid was tall, his bike was too big for him. He stood there looking back at us with one foot on the ground, and his bike leaning way too far over to look comfortable. I didn’t really know what to make of him. But I do know if it hadn’t been for what he did next, that image of him up there on the hill would have faded from my memory long ago.

With a hard shove off the ground the Kid was suddenly back up on his bike, and peddling toward us. He accelerated faster and faster down the hill. As he neared the intersection his intent became clear. We scattered out of the way. Matt ran into the middle of the street and yelled, “No cars!” to let the Kid know that the coast was clear. With no curbs to watch out for in the neighborhood the Kid flew across the street and was now back on our block speeding toward the ramp.

“Oh no!” we must have all thought at the same time. Who would run to get his parents? We didn’t even know where he lived. I always hated running to adults for help. The last time I had to do it was when Kenny jumped into the telephone pole hole.

One Friday afternoon the phone company drilled a hole for a new telephone pole, and set an orange cone next to it to warn people away during the weekend. Well by Sunday Kenny just couldn’t resist any longer. He walked up to the edge of the hole and jumped in. Three of us witnessed the event. It looked like someone jumping into a swimming pool, except there wasn’t a splash when Kenny submerged himself into the earth. There was just a thump and grunt as he instantly disappeared up to his arm pits.

The next thing we heard was our own laughter followed by Kenny’s frantic screaming. “Get my mom!” he yelled. Not wanting to face Kenny’s mom, we pulled on his arms. We couldn’t budge him. “I can’t breathe,” he cried. Tears began streaming down his now bright red face. His house was four blocks away, so I ran and pounded on the nearest door for help. After I managed to spit out the details of Kenny’s situation to Mrs. Olsen, she went back inside and made the necessary phone calls. A policeman came. A fire truck came. Kenny’s mom came. Half the neighborhood came to watch them dig Kenny out of the hole. We called him Kenny the Cork for a long time after that.

The Kid was going way too fast. All of us knew it, but it was too late to stop him. He’ll swerve around the ramp I thought. He’d be crazy not to. But he stayed in the middle of the sidewalk peddling harder and harder as the ramp got closer. We should have all been screaming at him to stop, but we just stood there speechless. I heard his tires hit the ramp, and I saw the board flex and bounce up as the Kid went airborne.

When I was nine I met a bunch of boys who were rolling a big culvert pipe down our street. They said they were headed to the park to push it off the big hill. It sounded like a cool idea, so I tagged along. Then as we all stood at the top of the hill, someone came up with a second cool idea. I quickly said, “I’ll do it!”

I had just volunteered to pilot the tube on its maiden voyage. I crawled inside, like John Glenn climbing into Friendship 7, and yelled, “ready!” Soon after the launch my head slammed against the inside of the pipe as I bounced and rolled like a cat in a tumble dryer all the way to the bottom. When everything finally stopped spinning, I crawled out of the tube, and threw up in the grass.

The Kid’s ascent seemed to continue for a long time. Frozen with fear, we just stood there staring slack-jawed as he soared higher into the air. “Lean forward!” I willed, but he didn’t lean forward. In fact he was pulling back hard on the handlebars. The entire gang watched in horror. Evel Knievel’s infamous Caesars Palace jump replayed in my mind. “Someday we’ll jump over a car,” a voice inside my head whispered. “Two cars!” a second voice added.

The Kid would easily fly far enough to clear two cars on that day, but he was turning upside down now. He looked like he might even do a full back flip, but he had no landing ramp. Evel Knievel always had a landing ramp, but Evel never tried to do a back flip. If holding our collective breath could have helped the Kid complete the flip and land on his wheels, then he certainly would have landed on his wheels. He would have completed the greatest stunt a kid could have ever dreamed of pulling off. But nothing we did now could alter the chain of events that was about to occur.

When the Kid started falling back to earth he abandoned the bicycle. Still tumbling backwards, he twisted and turned, desperately searching for the ground below. If he caught a glimpse of the ramp, it must have seemed very far away.

Concrete awaited the Kid now, like tarmac awaiting a distressed airplane’s emergency landing. But instead of a qualified crew of firemen and medics, only a bunch of ten year old boys were standing by.

When our silence was finally broken by the crash, there was screaming, and yelling, and crying. I tried to run to the nearest adult for help, but the door flew open before I could even reach the porch. Mr. Harris bolted past me toward the Kid, with Mrs. Harris chasing behind. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled, and she ran back inside the house.

Mr. Harris tried to comfort the Kid as he lay in a heap in the middle of the sidewalk. Jenny brought a towel that Mr. Harris used to soak up blood from the Kid’s chest, and arms, and chin. Red stains on the Kid’s knees slowly grew as the sirens grew closer.

Some of the gang fled, but most of us remained in a wide semi-circle around the scene. The circle soon filled with onlookers from nearby homes, some muttering, “This was bound to happen eventually,” and others nodding in agreement. Matt and I sat on a lawn across the street and watched as they wrapped the Kid in gauze and loaded him into the ambulance. The crumpled bike remained where it landed until someone finally hauled it away the next morning. The ramp was dismantled and discarded. Our jumping days were over. We never saw the Kid again.

Gun Violence and Finger Pointing

Yesterday’s tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School saddens all of us, and today’s bickering and finger pointing between liberals and conservatives should anger all of us. This should NOT be political. A post that I read on my facebook feed today said that liberals blame guns and conservatives blame criminals for gun violence. Well I guess that sums it up for a lot of folks, but if each side draws a line in the sand separating those two simplistic viewpoints we will never solve the problem. Instead of blaming just the guns, or just the criminals, why don’t we work on keeping the two apart… As far apart as possible.

Lock up criminals, and lock up guns when they’re not under the direct control of their legal owners... and for God's sake let's get a handle on the mental illness problem in this country. Also, we need to change our mindset about guns, especially among young people. A gun is just a tool. There is nothing inherently cool about one, so let’s stop glorifying them in video games and movies. Hey kid! It’s a gun damn it, not a superpower! Treat it with respect.