BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

It was the late 60’s.

The most important things in my world were my bicycle, Shakey’s Pizza, and committing my multiplication tables to memory so the teacher wouldn’t frown at me. Television had three channels – on a good day – and it came at you from behind a wall of staticky snow on a thirteen inch, black & white Philco with tin-foil molded around the rabbit ear antennae.

Yeah. Back then they made foil out of tin instead of aluminum. Probably because it was a better conductor for the airwaves and they knew damn well that just as much of it would be used as antenna boosters as it would be for wrapping foodstuffs.

So, that was my world, living in that little house on Baltimore Avenue.  However, on a daily basis I heard about a place called “Vietnam”. It was a faraway land. The ghostly TV screen images of newscasters like Walter Cronkite told me all about it, and convinced me that it was someplace I never wanted to go.

Then, one morning, my mother was opening the drapes on our front windows. As they slid apart she gasped, then muttered, “Oh no…”

My father joined her at the window and his expression turned grim. Being a kid, I had to know what had elicited such a reaction from my parents. I ran to the window and peered out. What I saw didn’t fit with the way they were acting – at least, it didn’t to my young mind. But then, I didn’t understand what I was seeing and I hadn’t lived through the things my parents had.

The tableau on the other side of the picture window was normal as far as I could see. The street. The houses. Nothing had changed. The only difference I could detect was the dark blue, four door sedan parked in front of the house across the street. On close inspection, one could see some official looking words stenciled on the driver’s side door, although they were unreadable at this distance. The only other things out of place besides the car were the two solemn looking men in uniform standing on our neighbor’s front porch.

Back then, I didn’t understand. There are those times now that I wish I still didn’t. But, I am also thankful that I do.

Yesterday I posted a Facebook status update lamenting the fact that I hadn’t yet written my Sunday morning blog entry, and wondering at what the subject should be. I received many suggestions, most of which will probably end up as future entries. However, when I sat down to pen this one something dawned on me…

I have an uncle buried at Jefferson Barracks Cemetery. He saw action with the Navy in Korea. I have a great uncle who saw action in Korea as well. My grandfather was in the National Guard during WWI. My father-in-law was in the National Guard. At least one of EKay’s uncles saw action in WWII.

I have an uncle who was in Vietnam. I have friends who were in Vietnam. I have friends who were deployed during Desert Shield and eventually, Desert Storm. I have relatives who pulled multiple tours in Iraq. I have friends whose children – kids that I watched grow up at our weekend BBQ’s and float trips – who have seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Friends in the Air Force. A nephew who was a Marine. A nephew who is going into the Air Force…

The list goes on, and on…

So, today, instead of writing something funny, I thought maybe I’d take a moment to say thanks to all of my family, friends, and everyone else in uniform who is separated from me by a mere six degrees… I may not always agree with the reason behind a given war, (conflict, or whatever they may want to call it), but I’m thankful for those who defend my right to be funny the other 364 days out of the year.

More to come…

Murv

Competition, in and of itself, is a good thing. A bit of healthy competition helps folks to strive toward excellence. It forces them to work harder for a reward, thereby helping them become better at what it is they are competing over, about, around, on, under, or otherwise with.

In the marketplace, it even tends to promote a little better pricing here and there. Sometimes it even spurs honesty – but then again, sometimes it spurs dishonesty, which is a bit less than healthy.

But, we aren’t talking about the marketplace here today. What we are talking about is “healthy competition” among friends. A contest, as it were, on an impromptu family & friend game night.

And it all starts with coffee…

You see, a dear friend of mine – we call her DeathStar because… well, if you ever meet her you’ll understand… Anyway, this dear friend of mine is a coffee roasting hobbyist. Actually, I think she has migrated from hobbyist to professional in recent months, but the real point is that DeathStar  hand roasts and custom blends some of the most INCREDIBLE coffee on the planet. And, since I am her friend I am fortunate enough to receive freshly roasted – as in less than 3 days old – coffee beans on a regular basis. If you are a coffee drinker at all you understand me when I say this is almost literally a case of “Java Nirvana. ” The aromas when you open the sealed package, the aromas when you grind the beans, and everything else that comes along with it… Because of DeathStar I even went out and purchased a French Press… Well, actually E K picked it up for me, and she doesn’t even like the smell of coffee, which just goes to show you that even someone who hates coffee with a passion knows how to respect the “Beans o’ DeathStar”.

And so… I have this coffee. And, I have this other friend who is a coffee fanatic. We’ll call her Anastasia. We won’t, however, call her ‘Stasia Mae. Only her husband gets away with that. But, if we’re going to be honest, we mostly just call her Luets. Long story there… But, anyway, Luets is a coffee fanatic, and whenever I come into possession of the sacred beans, she shows up at my door. As was the case recently.

Luets and her husband came by for freshly roasted, ground, and pressed coffee one Saturday. After juicing several of the beans and sitting around talking it had progressed into the late afternoon, so we invited them to stay for dinner. Afterwards, as we all sat around drinking Vodka-Tonics the Evil Redhead decided we should play a game (see… now I need a friend who distills their own Vodka…)

Now, normally when this happens it usually involves me wearing a collar and fetching sticks, tennis balls, and various chew toys for E K. However, on this particular evening the Redhead was looking for something we could all do, and she didn’t have enough leashes on hand to accommodate everyone.

But, seriously… E K came up with the idea that maybe we should play Uno or some other card game. Since the O-spring was involved, we let her pick and she decided upon Phase 10. If you’ve never played it, Phase 10 is sort of like what would happen if Rummy and Uno had a child. It’s a lot of fun, and we really enjoy it. And, it’s healthy competition…

Or, so we thought.

You see, Luets is competitive. When I say competitive I don’t mean healthy competitive. I mean insano, take no prisoners, needs a straitjacket competitive. With everyone…

Her husband, Mike, however, is not what you would call competitive at all. He’s more along the line of “Yay! Everybody wins!”… In fact, he is sooooo diametrically opposed in “competitiveness” to Luets, that he will literally go out of his way to help someone else win, even if it costs him points. In fact, he readily admits that he is happy to lose as long as he is able to drive Luets up a wall. It seems that when it comes to games, making Luets crazy is Mike’s real entertainment.

And so, we discovered this… with extreme prejudice, mind you…

At one point during the game Luets used a skip card, but didn’t skip Mike, even though he wanted her to. The reasoning, announced loudly and without apology, was that, “You don’t play the cards right.” You see, had she skipped him it would have set him up to help someone else win on the next round. She knew he was going to do this and was vying to prevent it, all the while seething and generally turning into a psychopath whenever anyone would inch ahead of her. To give you a verbal illustration of her behavior, Luets was even going head to head with our 10 year old, and was being brutal.

Fortunately, the O-spring can hold her own, as I shall now illustrate…

During a later hand, as Luets whined, seethed, grumbled, and shrieked, it came around to the kid’s turn. O-spring was in possession of a skip card herself, and she played it. On Luets…

Well, I probably don’t have to tell you that Competition Girl immediately became pissy. She demanded to know why the O-spring didn’t skip Mike instead because in her mind that would have been a better play. Without missing a beat our 10 year old looked across the table and completely owned her by saying, “Because just like you said, he won’t play the cards right!”

Yeah… The O-spring doesn’t fall far from the tree… Next time we play cards though, I’m thinking we might need to dial back on the amount of DeathStar Coffee we allow Luets to drink…

More to come…

Murv