Tree Jumping

As I have spoken before, Bobby was not just a friend.  He was a good friend with a good heart and a complete lack of self control.  There was no finer gift than his friendship to me.  A close second attribute was his desire, no compulsion to try anything that looked or sounded fun.  I supplied the creativity and Bobby supplied the reckless abandon.  I would say, Hey Bobby, you know what is really cool and does not require any money?  Riding your bike off of the dock at Collier's house.  If you hit it just right, you can get great air and distance.  I'll bet with the way you pedal like a madman you could do a flip or something.  Doug went about fifteen feet on a tricycle.

Bobby:  Well, I can out pedal Doug.  Remember that day at the beach with the dead shark.  I was on it that day.

Creativity:  You were all over it, Bobby, you can't run for shit but you can pedal that banana bike.  You have a whole nother gear. 

The hook was set, Bobby would nearly bleed to death with that broken tricycle stuck in his leg.

Then there was tree jumping, I invented it.  It is a modification of the Tarzan vine swinging thing.  Basically you jump from one tree to another by climbing to the very top of a suitable Australian Pine tree and start it swaying.  This tree is very flexible.  Casuarina equisetifolia is native to Australia and is always green but it is everywhere in Florida.  This tree can grow to fifty feet or more and is very flexible and easy to climb.  

The tree in the background of this picture is perfect for tree jumping.  Near the top you can start the thing swaying back and forth and bend it over to get near a neighboring tree.  At the appropriate time, one "simply jumps" to the other tree.  Bobby, having the ability to learn from his mistakes and not being made sport of, said,  "I am not sure how to do this, you show me".  Bobby was at that adolescent age where his eyes, arms, feet and brain were growing way to fast and not at all talking to each other.  He was bigger than me even though I was older.  At any given time, every part of his body was doing something different and going in a different direction.  Today they would classify him as ADD or have him on drugs.  In those days we called it "entertainment".  I climbed the tree and started it swaying.  Since I was the greatest tree climber in these parts, I had a reputation to uphold so I really got the tree swaying.  When the tree bends  back up and slings me to the other side, I remember asking my grip to not fail me.  It took everything I had to hang on and swing my body out because in the next moment I was going to "jump" to the nearby tree.

Yes, I felt bad about Bobby landing on a shrubbery and getting the breath knocked out of him.  I told him that since this was not the first time he could not breath and he was going to be "OK", I really did not have to stop laughing.  I called him Bobby the flying squirrel and he started laughing but without any breath he just turned red and then blue.  The only other time I had seen him that blue was when he held is breath for four minutes at the Holiday Inn pool.  On the walk back home he got over being mad at me for laughing and he said, maybe we can do that again sometime!

Dandruff Shampoo

Dandruff shampoo or anti-dandruff shampoo?  There is a grammar war going on in the shampoo isle of the grocery store.  Technically, shampoo to fight dandruff would be anti-dandruff shampoo.  I see anti-itch but not itch shampoo.  I see anti itch dandruff shampoo.  I do not see anti itch anti dandruff stuff. 

I have always assumed "dandruff" shampoo is for those who have dandruff and that they prevent flaking and itching.  Well here is a news flash.  The medical community does not completely understand Seborrhea or flaking skin mostly associated with dandruff.  What are we paying them for, geez louiz.  I mean we have the human genome project and we do not understand dandruff. We spend a billion dollars a year on shampoo that the medical people do not make any money on.  I find that hard to believe.  According to my sources, most shampoos and treatments are directed toward reducing inflammation of the skin.  The skin must flame up and flake off like heat tiles on the Shuttle.  The itching is associated with the skin flaking.  The shampoos try to reduce the inflammation.  I know, that sounds quite simplistic. 

I do not think we should be anti dandruff.  Have we walked a mile in their shoes?  Have we tried to imagine being dry skin, a flake?  Well, I have and sloughing off to be left behind for a mite's dinner is no way to live.  Flakes have rights.  Give me adhesion or give me dandruff shampoo.  Don't chafe on me.  I will itch no more forever!

I would be happy if all shampoo would eliminate or reduce dandruff.  It is possible, only to dream.  I wonder if they had dandruff on Star Trek, they did not have headaches.  Mom said children cannot have headaches. 

To go forward

I wonder if I could get on with my minimal hermetical lifestyle.  I have eliminated so many constraints of a capitalistic lifestyle.  Henry David Thoreau may have been proud of me for shunning much of society. Would Jesus be proud of my socialist bent, my care for the poor and the widowed?  I do not think He would feel I have done close to enough.   Could anyone more sane than insane deal with this society, this world?  Was society always this frustrating, this hedonistic?

Thoreau would not even notice me, our types are invisible.  Not only do I live in seclusion, I shun the light of cameras, the light of day and the light of life.  Jesus will keep prodding me, giving me not only the opportunity to see the light but join the light.  Shadow dwellers will see a great light!

What I can see is a logical end to a position and none of the ends to any positions have light in the tunnel, not to mention at the end.  No, I am not depressed, I am resigned to long suffering.  I am sure the end years of my life will not be better than the beginning years or the middle decades.  My children will not have an easier time than I.  I have not prepared them properly, how can a wannabe hermit prepare his children.  My grandchildren will have such a completely different life, I assume much harder, certainly more complicated and less prosperous.  Danger, not fear will play a major role in shaping the next millennium. 

I am not afraid of something so uncontrollable as nuclear war or a Cuban hoard invading the US.  The danger will be from my neighbors, people with no hope, starving people with starving children.  I will be attacked by extremely well armed people that will take what they want.  Some of them will be the same ones that hate working, hate immigrants, hate people with less than white skin.  Some of them will just have hungry children, sick kids.  They will look across the fence and see a house, a yard and people with fake smiles.  They will see a car seemingly going to work every day.  They will see fat horses, cats and a swollen dog. 

Our society is collapsing and all we can do is dig in.  Well that is not all.  We will need to dig in as we reach out to help others dig in.  We will need to create a survival network. An atmosphere of love, not enablement.  It would be so nice if the end would be a meteor hitting the ocean or all the continents slamming into each other.  The end would be swift and very few would survive to blame, or to be jealous of anyone.  How can anyone really blame a government for a meteor although some would try.  I can hear these words already, "They should have hired a Sunni to run the government, or a white guy, or at least make sure it was a guy. "

A cave is a better hiding place than my farm, and better than a secret room in a boarding house. Instead, I am going to hide in plain sight.  I will keep the lights off, keep the dog quiet.  I will make sure the house does not look too fine or the yard too well kept.  I will have yard sales once in a while to make it look like I need money like the rest of us.  I will wear cloths with holes in them but we all know they are the most comfortable.  I will plant a useless garden, one that does not really produce anything.  I will wave to all the passerbys and force a frown from my face.  A crooked down spout and a leaning fence will go a long way to forcing others to assume I am needy and broke.  Hiding in  plain sight is harder than living in a cave.

We will all have to do with less, and there is less time to do what needs to be done.  Minimal pay, minimal work.  Minimal life.  Niiiiiiiice!

Parent Teacher Conference

At the first of many sixth grade parent teacher conferences which Wikipedia describes as "

 

A parent-teacher conference is a short meeting or conference between the parents and teachers of students to discuss children's progress at school and find solutions to academic or behavioral problems.

There was a time when we would take Nathan with us, we now choose not to do that any more!
Mr. Moore: (with Mrs. Moore dutifully by his side) Mrs. Cullison, I can understand your frustration with him, Nathan is not a "normal" child.  His mind does not operate the same as other children, or even yours or mine.  Is he being disrespectful or rude, anything like that.  He knows I  do not tolerate that kind of shit?  Mrs. Moore nods her head in agreement as she squeezes her husbands hand.

Mrs. Cullison:  No not that at all, for example  He wrote the answers on Mandy Crawford's history test, upside down and backwards.  It was the answer to some of the questions, She could not read it so technically they were not cheating.  Mrs. Cullison sneaks a quick glance at Mrs. Moore's scuffed shoes while she is talking.

I asked him, "Nathan, did you write on Mandy's test?" his reply was,
 "Yes Mrs. Cullison, but I only have eyes of you!"
Mr. Moore, look at this test, he answered every question on the first page 100 percent correctly but did not answer any of the questions on the second page.  I had no choice but to give him a 72 on this test.  He wrote his name and the date on the second page upside down and backwards, that is it.  I know he knows the answers but he will not finish his test.  He does that on all his homework also.  I think he is very bright and can do the work, he just needs to finish his work.

Mr. Moore:  Nat does not feel the need to prove himself.  Once he figured out that he knew all the answers and apparently he knows you think he knows the answers so why is there a need to finish it.  He absolutely does not care about grades.  You taught his older sister, Marta, she was straight A's and we never had to get on her about homework or her study habits.  She wanted the A.  Nat wants to think and screw around with things, people.  Mrs. Moore's expression changes to concerned.

Mrs. Cullison:  What is with the upside down and backwards writing?

Mr.  Moore:  He started that soon after he learned to write.  He would sign his name and then write it backwards going left instead of to the right.  We thought it was unique.  Eventually, he just started skipping the front ways part and writing the backward part only.  A few years ago he started the upside down thing.  We are still surprised he writes normal most of the time in school.  I do not think he wants the attention it may cause.  For hell sake, the whole family knows how to read upside down and backwards.

Mrs. Cullison:  Because he is shy?

Mr. Moore:  Sly more than shy, mostly just different, odd.  He cannot operate if everyone is watching him.  Just keep trying to challenge his mind.  He is very satirical and often approaches rude so keep an eye on that. 

Mrs. Cullison:  We can have him tested. it is free?

Mr. Moore:  Tested for what?  I would not do that  if I was you.  He will have a field day with that, and oh, "nothing is free".  His pediatrician will only see him as the last patient of the day.  Nathan exasperates the poor lady.  She is no match for him.  Since you have not had him transferred to another class or called me before now, he must really like you. 

Mrs. Cullison:   He calls this young lady Mandy, "cat woman"?  Could you ask him to stop doing that. The other kids are teasing her about it.

After the conference and back at home:

Mr. Moore:  Nathan, lets talk about your conference.  Mrs. Moore leaves the room.  She hates conflict.  Nathan come into the room as wide eyed as ever.

Nathan:  Dad, can you make this quick, I am in the middle of "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu.  He is at the part where he talks about how taking prisoners early in a battle is a bad thing.  It screws up the supply chain.  I love that part.  So what did you think of Mrs. Cullison, did you review her work?

Mr. Moore:  Nate! concentrate, she says you never finish your work and she asked that you not call that Mandy Crawford "cat woman". 

Nathan: So you talked mostly about me again.  Whats up with that?  She actually said "never"?  And dad, Mandy has the perfect cat body.

Mr. Moore:  cat body?

Nathan:  Look at any cat, large or small.  They are perfectly proportioned.  The legs, the arms, the stomach are all perfectly matched with the head size.  Mandy's butt is the same size as her head.  Her arms are the same length as her legs.  You could throw her off a three story building and she could survive with only a broken hip joint and a few missing teeth. 

Mr. Moore:  Are you sure, do you have a picture?  Whatever, what is this about not finishing the tests?

Nathan sticks his hand up high above his head and pokes his finger abruptly at the sky. 

Mr. Moore:  Nathan, no hand signals and the "point" is,(as Mr. Moore pokes his finger in the air) finish your work or they will want to test you for something, Autism, Mad cow, Schistosomiasis.  You have not been eating snails or cow brains lately have you?  Oh, and your mother is happy you have a girl friend.

Nathan:  Schistosomiasis, That is a good one dad.  OK I will finish my work. 

Dad yells, "finish it correctly" as Nathan returns to Son Tzu. Nathan yells from his room, Mandy is not my...oh never mind!