BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

“The what?” I asked.

I wasn’t trying to be difficult, and even though my hearing is really and truly shot, I thought I’d heard him okay. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be sure because what John had just said didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

“You know,” he replied. “The rankstankle.”

“What the hell is a rankstankle?” I asked.

“You know.”

Obviously – well, to me at least – I didn’t. John, however, was absolutely certain that I knew just what a “rankstankle” happened to be. Everyone should. After all, it had been on TV.

I suppose I should back up just a second…

You see, John was a guy a worked with. In fact, this was back in the days of T & W Typewriter and Computer Repair… And just as I have explained before, NO, the T didn’t stand for Typewriter and we didn’t spell computer with a W. Those were the owner’s initials. But, I digress… My point here is that this was eons ago, back when I worked in the computer – printer repair field. This is the company where Chris worked (see Whoa! Was That A Sasquatch?). Mike too. And Bill. In fact, the owner used to call us the “bearded wonders,” because we could fix just about anything and we all had beards. Except Mike and Bill that is. But, they were the new kids on the block, relatively speaking.

Anyhow, there we were, in the shop, working on stuff and chatting about all manner of inane crap. It’s how we would pass the time while waiting for the three or four pieces of equipment we had on the bench to finish testing, or formatting, or whatever. And that’s when John mentioned the “rankstankle.”

You see, we were talking about stuff from our childhoods. Television shows, games, and all sorts of other crap. Like I said, just passing the time. The thing that really made this all surreal is that “rankstankle” wasn’t the first thing he’d said that had us all scratching our heads. It had actually started out with one of his favorite shows when he was a kid, that being, “The Sea Hag”…

We’d never heard of it. Of course, that didn’t mean much. They’d never heard of “Cousin Fred” either. He was the host of a morning kids show back home in Kentucky. I suspect nobody outside Paducah and surrounding area had any clue about “Cousin Fred.”

However, John claimed that “The Sea Hag” was one of those big time national shows on a major network. And then, he came up with “rankstankle.” It seems that the “rankstankle” was an integral part of a board game he’d played as a kid. So integral, in fact, that it was prominently mentioned during the commercial for the game.

After pondering all of this for a while, I asked, “What game was this again?”

“You know…” he said. “The one with the fat guy and the tweezers.”

“Fat guy and tweezers?” I asked. Obviously, there were all sorts of places my warped mind could take this, but since we were talking about a childrens board game I knew they wouldn’t fit.

“Yeah,” he said. “And his nose would light up.”

Pieces fell into place – figuratively, that is – and I put two and two together to come up with seventeen. “You mean, Operation?”

“Yeah, that’s it!” he replied. “You had to take out his rankstankle.”

I kept putting two and two together with the seventeen, trying to remember the commercial. Finally, after running through all 206 bones in my head, it dawned on me.

“Do you by any chance mean, wrenched ankle?” I asked.

“Oh,” John said. “I always thought it was rankstankle. Guess that’s why it was shaped like a wrench, huh?”

And, “The Sea Hag”? Well… Turns out that was “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”

More to come…

Murv

Or, When The Hair Gets In Your Eyes…

I had myself one of those deja vu flashback sort of things happen the other day… But, we’ll get to that in a minute. Right now I have to take you on a nostalgic tour of my brain in order to confuse, befuddle, bewilder, and otherwise create massive amounts of obfuscation, all in order to make the punch line even funnier… I hope.

So… Buckle up. Here we go…

Some of you may or may not know that I write my blogs in advance. Sort of a “whenever the mood strikes” type of thing. And, in addition to that if I happen to come up with an idea, but don’t have time to actually write the entry in its entirety, I will make notes. These notes will then end up as “draft” copies of blog entries, complete with titles and a few notes in the body to remind me what it is I wanted to write about in the first place.

Suffice it to say, you are going to discover that the aforementioned deja vu flashback actually occurred better than a year ago.

Now, let’s go over here and see what’s happening in my right brain…

Martha Ackmann is an author, journalist, editor and speaker.  I know this because it says so right there on her bio. If you don’t trust me, follow the link and have a look for yourself… I’ll wait right here for you. I promise. No, really. I promise…

Done? Good. See there, I was telling the truth, wasn’t I? Uh-huh…

Okay, let’s move on…

For me personally, Martha Ackmann is much more than what it says in her bio, because to put it very simply she was also a mentor of sorts. You see, way back in the stone age – that being when I was in high school – Martha, or “Ma” as we liked to call her, was my Journalism teacher. While I was only blessed with a few semesters of her tutelage, she literally taught me more about Journalism and writing in that short time than I ever gleaned from any other classes, high school and college combined. Seriously. I’m not trying to blow smoke up anyone’s anything. She is literally that spectacular.

To give you an illustration of what a tremendous teacher she is, in addition to instructing a bunch of whacked out, pimple faced teenagers in the finer points of writing and Journalism, shepherding us into and through competitions such as those held by the MIPA (Missouri Interscholastic Press Association), and chaperoning us at the JEA (Journalism Education Association) convention, “Ma” was also responsible for the creation of our high school radio station, KRSH (now KRHS)… Oh, and by the way – those competitions? We always came home with awards. While I like to think we all had a little bit of talent, the real credit goes to “Ma”, because she was responsible for teaching us how to use it. (By the way – don’t hurt yourself looking for me in the above picture. I was the guy behind the camera. I did, however, bring home an award from that MIPA conference. Martha, however, is the one with the grin on her face – second from the left against the back wall. Rumor has it she was kind of proud of us that day because – and I quote from the newspaper clipping – “Ritenour students won more broadcasting awards than any other students in the state.”)

Now, since she created our little 10 watt FM station, and acted as our staff adviser, those of us who put in time there were treated to even more learning opportunities. While we did in fact have an AP newswire teletype terminal in the station, “Ma” would never allow “rip and read” – that being the process of “ripping” the pages off the teletype and “reading” them verbatim on the air. No, we were expected to pick out the pertinent points of the story from the newswire copy, then write our own original lead and nut-graph. In short, she taught us to be reporters, not talking heads. We would sometimes grumble about it at the time – after all, who were we, a bunch of high school kids, to be re-writing copy that had already been produced by professionals? But looking back on those days, it was worth every second we spent, because we learned more from that exercise than any textbook could ever teach. What we didn’t realize at the time was that she was teaching us to be those professionals.

I could go on telling stories about the things we learned, and how we even managed to scoop AND upstage a local television station – all because of what “Ma” had taught us, not the least of which was professionalism. However, I will save some of those for a different blog or two… Right now, let’s bounce forward in time just a bit and see if we can eventually tie all this together. Hang on, because as usual there will be whiplash involved…

I’m assuming everyone has seen The Incredibles?

If not, well, you should. Fun movie. At any rate, the reason I bring this up is that there is a character named Violet. She is filled with teenage angst, and wears her hair hanging down mostly over her face. It’s sort of a visual metaphor to illustrate the angst and insecurity she is experiencing at that awkward age. At least, that’s what I gleaned from it. Maybe she was actually just hiding a zit and I’m reading too much into the characterization.

But, I digress…

I can hear you now. “But… But… What the hell does any of this have to do with your mentor, Murv?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. Here’s the thing – My 10 year old daughter does the same thing with her hair. It hangs down in her face and just drives us nuts (her teachers too). Apparently she can see just fine – if her grades are any indication. But, the rest of us on the other side of the follicular curtain have no clue how she manages it. I suppose she might have some sheepdog in her somewhere, but  I’m thinking it would have to come from E Kay’s side. But, don’t tell The Evil One I said that, okay?

Anywho, the other day I was doing the typical parental complaining at the O-spring regarding said hair. After all, as a parent it is a moral imperative that I do so. Finally, in exasperation, I threatened her with the fact that I was considering grabbing a “chip clip” from the potato chip bag in the kitchen and affixing her hair back out of her eyes with it.

As the words flew out of my mouth a long forgotten memory rose the the surface and began pummeling me about my head and shoulders. Yeah… This is where “Ma” comes back into the story.

Back in seventy-koff-koff, as I sat in the main studio of KRSH, reading news on the air, Martha was staring at me through the control room window. I had no clue what I’d done, or not done, but she had one of “those looks” on her face. If you don’t know the look of which I speak, well, I’m not sure what to say. I guess you had to be there and know “Ma”. But, when she had one of “those looks” we all knew she was either disappointed in us (deservedly, I assure you), torqued at something, or was up to some kind of mischief. At any rate, as soon as I finished the headlines and “tossed it” to the engineer for a recorded PSA break (Public Service Announcement), and the mics were dead, “Ma” disappeared. Before the first PSA was finished playing, the door to the studio opened and in she marched. Without saying a single word she pulled my hair back out of my face and clipped it to the top of my head with a large, spring binder clip. Then, still mute, she turned on her heel and exited.

Let me tell you, I finished the broadcast with the clip still in my hair, and even waited 10 minutes after I was off-air before I even thought about taking it out.

As it happens, it wasn’t very long after I had this flashback that Martha and I  ran into one another on Facebook, which was a great bit of serendipity. I say that because I was afforded the opportunity to tell her how important she had been in shaping my life and career. I mean, after all, writing became my profession, and I attribute much of that to her.

But, just as important, she is directly responsible for another skill set that I hadn’t realized I might one day need – I know how to do impromptu hairstyling with a paperclip.

Thanks, Ma. In your honor, I’m passing the knowledge along to a new generation…

More to come…

Murv

Note: Martha Ackmann wrote a wonderful non-fiction book titled, The Mercury 13, about women pilots involved in the early days of the Mercury space program. I highly recommend it. Her latest book is Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone.