This morning I took what I consider my first training walk in preparation for next November's Breast Cancer 3Day walk in San Diego. I can't believe I am doing this. I should never have gone to the closing ceremony of this year's walk, even if Karen was in it. Sixty miles in three days. The Germans have a phrase for people like me: "Ich, Narr." It means, "I Fool," or, "You Effing Idiot," or, "Inspire THIS!" I believe I will put "Ich, Narr" on my walk tshirt next November.
When I walk, I am two countries, North Michael and South Michael. The two are separated by the thin nation of Titania. Titania used to be Arthritica, until Arthritica fell to a physicians' coup. You can see it clearly in xrays: titanium hip joints, like gigantic, deformed golf tees, and those chicken scratches between them are some kind of interior metal stitching where they took my prostate cancer out. This maturity business has its hazards, I tell you.
So North Michael is sort of teed up on Titania, and when he leans forward South Michael sort of follows along by dint of the long shafts of the titanium tees rammed halfway down my thigh bones. Missing is the old sense of natural attachment between North and South, but I don't miss it that much, because Arthritica was a dictatorship of pain and evil sadists wielding bone spurs.
Walking doesn't hurt now, which makes a big difference in miles per gallon. I walked for 50 minutes this morning. Yeah, I know. But it's the first day. I don't know how many miles, but this morning I decided not to measure that way. There's no way I will ever be able to walk 20 miles in one day. I am training to walk seven or eight hours in one day.
The farthest I have ever walked at one time was probably eight miles. When I was in college, I was a summer substitute mailman. It turned out to be a great job – second-best job I ever had – but I almost didn't survive the first day. I carried the route in penny loafers because my mailman shoes hadn't come yet. It was June in West Texas, and the route was mean, dusty and long. By noon I was as done as a rest-home ribeye.
I stumbled into the first blocks of the afternoon leg. Three blocks along, a screen door slammed two houses behind me and the resident yelled: "Hey! This isn't my mail! This is Peach Street!" I looked at the letters in my hand. All for Palm Street. One block over.
So I have experienced walking survival. Why I undertake it again, Ich Narr, I do not know. So far, I am walking for my late wife Meredith, for prostate brother Mike Bryant, for Peggy Odam, battling breast cancer in Houston, and for Karen, who this morning walked twice as far as I did in 50 minutes. Did I say I have to raise $2,700 in donations?
December 06, 2008
December 04, 2008
Get your "Toolpusher from Snyder" right here
When his eyes fell on Slim Willet's name in my Thanksgiving blog, my old (approaching ancient) Abilene pal Ray Finfer more or less immediately posted a comment saying: "Slim Willet has a CD?"
Well, yes, he does, but that is getting ahead of the story. The CD I was listening to on Thanksgiving morning was loaned to me by another native Abilenian, Jon Standefer, who got it from a thoughtful Texas friend of his. It was home-burned, a compilation, and I have to say I was disappointed when there were like only five cuts on it. One of them, "Toolpusher from Snyder," though, is an all-time favorite and naturally left me wanting more. But there was only "Hadacol Corners," and then "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," which of course hit the national charts in 1952 when it was covered by the crooner Perry Como.
I actually thought "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" was inferior, compared to the primary Willet genre, which were songs about the oilpatch. They were vigorously regional (if you didn't know what a stem and a rotary table were, it was no use listening to Slim Willet) and never would make the charts, but you couldn't beat 'em for unique.
So when I saw Ray's comment, I thought, no, Slim Willet doesn't have a CD. But for a couple of years now, every time I say or think the word, "doesn't," I immediately think of Google. So it was more or less automatic that my eyes, reading Ray's comment, told my fingers to Google Slim Willet. There were 3,360 results. One of them is artistdirect.com and, yes, they do have a Slim Willet CD, 30 cuts in all, including all the oilpatch songs "mastered from original vinyl," and available on special order for $16.99. I hope their site doesn't crash in the rush, which is why I'm going to wait awhile to order.
I'm in no hurry. See, I don't have a Slim Willet CD, but I do have the original LP, "Oil Patch Songs," with Slim in oilpatch duds and hard hat, looking down at the camera from the rig floor. I haven't played it in years because I haven't had anything to play it on. The only people with turntables anymore are still churning their own butter. My plan is to order the CD and frame the LP and hang it in the hallway and every time I pass it think about Ray and the boys eating their hearts out.
Well, yes, he does, but that is getting ahead of the story. The CD I was listening to on Thanksgiving morning was loaned to me by another native Abilenian, Jon Standefer, who got it from a thoughtful Texas friend of his. It was home-burned, a compilation, and I have to say I was disappointed when there were like only five cuts on it. One of them, "Toolpusher from Snyder," though, is an all-time favorite and naturally left me wanting more. But there was only "Hadacol Corners," and then "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," which of course hit the national charts in 1952 when it was covered by the crooner Perry Como.
I actually thought "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" was inferior, compared to the primary Willet genre, which were songs about the oilpatch. They were vigorously regional (if you didn't know what a stem and a rotary table were, it was no use listening to Slim Willet) and never would make the charts, but you couldn't beat 'em for unique.
So when I saw Ray's comment, I thought, no, Slim Willet doesn't have a CD. But for a couple of years now, every time I say or think the word, "doesn't," I immediately think of Google. So it was more or less automatic that my eyes, reading Ray's comment, told my fingers to Google Slim Willet. There were 3,360 results. One of them is artistdirect.com and, yes, they do have a Slim Willet CD, 30 cuts in all, including all the oilpatch songs "mastered from original vinyl," and available on special order for $16.99. I hope their site doesn't crash in the rush, which is why I'm going to wait awhile to order.
I'm in no hurry. See, I don't have a Slim Willet CD, but I do have the original LP, "Oil Patch Songs," with Slim in oilpatch duds and hard hat, looking down at the camera from the rig floor. I haven't played it in years because I haven't had anything to play it on. The only people with turntables anymore are still churning their own butter. My plan is to order the CD and frame the LP and hang it in the hallway and every time I pass it think about Ray and the boys eating their hearts out.
A rose in my teeth, pizza in his
My dog bit my wife. On our wedding anniversary. Seriously.
Of course he’s my dog when he bites my wife or barfs on the living room rug. All other times, he’s OUR dog.
And we are HIS people, but only on dog world terms, whose inhabitants view life thusly: 1. food; 2. people; 3. everything else. And that is how he got in trouble.
Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, the third anniversary of the main people (the people who feed him) in Gulliver's life, he and I went down to the street to get the paper. I came back up with the paper, and Gully generally is right behind. Not on this morning. I stood by the front door and called him, then walked back down toward the street and called him again.
He darted past me with something in his jaws. I followed him back to the door. He was standing at the door but as I approached he moved away several feet and turned to face me. In his jaws was clamped a thick wedge of not very tasty looking pizza, probably of the frozen, bake it at home variety. Didn't matter to him. He had a prize.
I called him to come to me. Damned if he didn't, a step at a time, until I could reach out and get my fingers on the crusty rim of the pizza. He tore away and retreated. "Okay, fine, I don’t care if you do eat it," I said. That was true. In the back of my mind I viewed myself later in the day scooping up pizza barf off the floor, but that was okay, compared to actually wrestling him for it.
He was also telling me something in dog language. He hadn't eaten the pizza yet. Why didn't he eat it where he found it on the street? Because he wasn't hungry. He had just had breakfast, before we went out for the paper. He intended to bury the pizza for later. In fact he intended to bury it in the house. When I opened the door, he ran right in. I advised Karen, my lovely bride of three years that very morning, what was happening, then walked back down to the street to find where the pizza came from.
Karen sized up the situation for about one second and decided that Gully was not going to eat the pizza in her house, or bury it, or retain possession, or do anything else with it but give it to her. This of course was the last thing on his mind. Just a couple of days previously, we had watched a show on television featuring a brave man called the "Dog Whisperer," who was able to correct bad dog behavior by a routine of "exercise, discipline and affection." During the show he demonstrated several times. Unfortunately, they didn't include a male Sheltie with pizza clamped in his jaws.
I found no pizza evidence on the street, and when I returned, Karen described what happened. Gully is gentle but skittish when he doesn't approve of what people are doing to him, such as grooming or brushing or scratching him around the tail. He regularly snaps at me when I am trying to brush foxtails out of his coat. So when Karen, dog whisperer style, got him on his side and commenced to relieve him of his pizza, he took umbrage and actually snarled, she reported, as he struck at her hand.
It was over when I got there. Karen showed me a bloody scratch on the back of her wrist and another tooth mark farther up. The pizza was in the sink. Gully was brooding in the hallway. He now knew, as Karen had said to me, dog whisperer style, that he was in her pack, and not the other way around. He laid low for several hours, then was his old self, but I don't think he'll be bringing prizes to the front door any time soon, and never, I hope, on anniversary mornings.
Of course he’s my dog when he bites my wife or barfs on the living room rug. All other times, he’s OUR dog.
And we are HIS people, but only on dog world terms, whose inhabitants view life thusly: 1. food; 2. people; 3. everything else. And that is how he got in trouble.
Wednesday morning, Dec. 3, the third anniversary of the main people (the people who feed him) in Gulliver's life, he and I went down to the street to get the paper. I came back up with the paper, and Gully generally is right behind. Not on this morning. I stood by the front door and called him, then walked back down toward the street and called him again.
He darted past me with something in his jaws. I followed him back to the door. He was standing at the door but as I approached he moved away several feet and turned to face me. In his jaws was clamped a thick wedge of not very tasty looking pizza, probably of the frozen, bake it at home variety. Didn't matter to him. He had a prize.
I called him to come to me. Damned if he didn't, a step at a time, until I could reach out and get my fingers on the crusty rim of the pizza. He tore away and retreated. "Okay, fine, I don’t care if you do eat it," I said. That was true. In the back of my mind I viewed myself later in the day scooping up pizza barf off the floor, but that was okay, compared to actually wrestling him for it.
He was also telling me something in dog language. He hadn't eaten the pizza yet. Why didn't he eat it where he found it on the street? Because he wasn't hungry. He had just had breakfast, before we went out for the paper. He intended to bury the pizza for later. In fact he intended to bury it in the house. When I opened the door, he ran right in. I advised Karen, my lovely bride of three years that very morning, what was happening, then walked back down to the street to find where the pizza came from.
Karen sized up the situation for about one second and decided that Gully was not going to eat the pizza in her house, or bury it, or retain possession, or do anything else with it but give it to her. This of course was the last thing on his mind. Just a couple of days previously, we had watched a show on television featuring a brave man called the "Dog Whisperer," who was able to correct bad dog behavior by a routine of "exercise, discipline and affection." During the show he demonstrated several times. Unfortunately, they didn't include a male Sheltie with pizza clamped in his jaws.
I found no pizza evidence on the street, and when I returned, Karen described what happened. Gully is gentle but skittish when he doesn't approve of what people are doing to him, such as grooming or brushing or scratching him around the tail. He regularly snaps at me when I am trying to brush foxtails out of his coat. So when Karen, dog whisperer style, got him on his side and commenced to relieve him of his pizza, he took umbrage and actually snarled, she reported, as he struck at her hand.
It was over when I got there. Karen showed me a bloody scratch on the back of her wrist and another tooth mark farther up. The pizza was in the sink. Gully was brooding in the hallway. He now knew, as Karen had said to me, dog whisperer style, that he was in her pack, and not the other way around. He laid low for several hours, then was his old self, but I don't think he'll be bringing prizes to the front door any time soon, and never, I hope, on anniversary mornings.
December 02, 2008
Looking for an angle on a brand
The New York Times had a reporter in Abilene for at least a couple of days last week, writing a story about a couple of Abilene Christian University football players.
It was a terrific opportunity for the city to make the sort of impression envisioned by the Abilene Branding Partnership. But the opportunity went pffft. The reporter, Thayer Evans, came into town and left again, then wrote not one, but two stories, one of them very long, that appeared in last Saturday's Times. Nowhere in either story is there any evidence that Abilene, the kind of city it is, or that it might aspire to be, entered Evans' consciousness, though in both stories there was a natural opening, if the right brand had existed.
Of course there are no guarantees. Even an effective brand couldn't have done anything more than give Abilene its best chance to enter Evans' thinking, as he worked on his stories. As it stood, the city had no chance at all, and free publicity for Abilene in The New York Times, publicity with tangible value, was lost.
I am looking at this loss through a couple of lenses. One, I have been writing newspaper stories for almost four decades, and with every story I was always looking for a good angle, which is one that attracts readers because it provides more than information. If you want an example of the master of the good angle, look at the way Calvin Trillin wrote his story in The New Yorker about Snow's Barbecue, Texas Monthly's choice as the state's No. 1 barbecue joint. The story is one good angle after another, and to me, reading the story was almost as good as eating the barbecue.
The second lens is the brand that I think would be right for Abilene: "Abilene, Texas Style." I have been blogging about that for more than a year, most recently, coincidentally, in the last couple of weeks as the Branding Partnership went public with its brand choice, "Abilene Frontiering," which did not receive a warm response.
Then I opened up Saturday's Times and there were two stories with an Abilene dateline, complete with a photo of Shotwell Stadium, and neither story said a thing about Abilene, except to refer to Abilene Christian University as "an unlikely place on the rolling plains of West Texas," which doesn’t exactly set the imagination ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. There was good stuff Thayer Evans could have said about Abilene, which would have been applicable to the stories he was writing. He just didn't have a trigger. The brand is the trigger.
I was reading the stories a second time when I wondered if I – playing Evans now – might have found something useful to the story in discovering, in signage or in media or on restaurant book matches, that Abilene marketed itself as "Abilene, Texas Style." Even Evans would have heard of Texas Style, which is an old, familiar, even storied, brand: big, best, west, excess, strong, courage, honest, the Alamo, "Giant," oil, cattle, wide open spaces, lone stars, stars at night, friendly, warm, pious, tough, hard-working people as good as their word, deep in the heart of Texas.
Abilene, Texas Style, would be new to him, but he has seen western movies set in Texas towns like Abilene, with wide streets and stores and hotels and barber shops and cafes and saloons and churches and rodeos and stock shows and piety and power and characters and bankers and leaders and plain citizens always going about their business in the background and a sheriff and scalawags and renegades and all of them local representatives of their native Texas Style and proud of the local spin they put on it in a demanding country under a vast West Texas sky.
I don't see how Evans could use any of that in his stories, but the point is, the brand, "Abilene, Texas Style," engaged his thinking. And he keeps thinking. Is there something about Abilene, Texas Style, that gives me an angle? Then he remembers: giving people a second chance always happens in the westerns. And that's what Evans' stories were about: two football players getting a second chance, not in an unlikely place with rolling plains, but in a town that markets itself as doing things Abilene, Texas Style. And that is all he has to say, for the town and its brand to get the publicity. Not a bad angle.
It was a terrific opportunity for the city to make the sort of impression envisioned by the Abilene Branding Partnership. But the opportunity went pffft. The reporter, Thayer Evans, came into town and left again, then wrote not one, but two stories, one of them very long, that appeared in last Saturday's Times. Nowhere in either story is there any evidence that Abilene, the kind of city it is, or that it might aspire to be, entered Evans' consciousness, though in both stories there was a natural opening, if the right brand had existed.
Of course there are no guarantees. Even an effective brand couldn't have done anything more than give Abilene its best chance to enter Evans' thinking, as he worked on his stories. As it stood, the city had no chance at all, and free publicity for Abilene in The New York Times, publicity with tangible value, was lost.
I am looking at this loss through a couple of lenses. One, I have been writing newspaper stories for almost four decades, and with every story I was always looking for a good angle, which is one that attracts readers because it provides more than information. If you want an example of the master of the good angle, look at the way Calvin Trillin wrote his story in The New Yorker about Snow's Barbecue, Texas Monthly's choice as the state's No. 1 barbecue joint. The story is one good angle after another, and to me, reading the story was almost as good as eating the barbecue.
The second lens is the brand that I think would be right for Abilene: "Abilene, Texas Style." I have been blogging about that for more than a year, most recently, coincidentally, in the last couple of weeks as the Branding Partnership went public with its brand choice, "Abilene Frontiering," which did not receive a warm response.
Then I opened up Saturday's Times and there were two stories with an Abilene dateline, complete with a photo of Shotwell Stadium, and neither story said a thing about Abilene, except to refer to Abilene Christian University as "an unlikely place on the rolling plains of West Texas," which doesn’t exactly set the imagination ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. There was good stuff Thayer Evans could have said about Abilene, which would have been applicable to the stories he was writing. He just didn't have a trigger. The brand is the trigger.
I was reading the stories a second time when I wondered if I – playing Evans now – might have found something useful to the story in discovering, in signage or in media or on restaurant book matches, that Abilene marketed itself as "Abilene, Texas Style." Even Evans would have heard of Texas Style, which is an old, familiar, even storied, brand: big, best, west, excess, strong, courage, honest, the Alamo, "Giant," oil, cattle, wide open spaces, lone stars, stars at night, friendly, warm, pious, tough, hard-working people as good as their word, deep in the heart of Texas.
Abilene, Texas Style, would be new to him, but he has seen western movies set in Texas towns like Abilene, with wide streets and stores and hotels and barber shops and cafes and saloons and churches and rodeos and stock shows and piety and power and characters and bankers and leaders and plain citizens always going about their business in the background and a sheriff and scalawags and renegades and all of them local representatives of their native Texas Style and proud of the local spin they put on it in a demanding country under a vast West Texas sky.
I don't see how Evans could use any of that in his stories, but the point is, the brand, "Abilene, Texas Style," engaged his thinking. And he keeps thinking. Is there something about Abilene, Texas Style, that gives me an angle? Then he remembers: giving people a second chance always happens in the westerns. And that's what Evans' stories were about: two football players getting a second chance, not in an unlikely place with rolling plains, but in a town that markets itself as doing things Abilene, Texas Style. And that is all he has to say, for the town and its brand to get the publicity. Not a bad angle.
December 01, 2008
An Idyllwildian Thanksgiving
We had a very quiet and restful Thanksgiving and only gained about 5 lbs. each. Hope you did the same.
We always spend Thanksgiving in a knotty-pine cabin in Idyllwild, a community in the Riverside County Mountains about two hours from here. Southern California is an amazing place to live. Any kind of atmospheric, cultural, economic and entertainment bioclimate is available within two hours of our front door.
With encouragement from the imps at the Weather Bureau, I had hoped for some weather, which in Idyllwild would have meant snow. But no, after some sprinkles on Thanksgiving Day it cleared up, nice blue skies, and temperatures that Idyllwildians would call suntanning weather.
We were in serious hibernation mode. Karen went up on Sunday after the closing ceremonies of the Breast Cancer 3Day and set foot out the cabin door one time, she said. I drove up on Thanksgiving morning, and it was a drive for a lifetime. Overnight rain had broken into patchy showers, enough to keep the interstate wet so it reflected the sky, with clouds letting enough light through to create an encompassing Impressionist smear of gray and rose and ivory. The highway was almost deserted at that hour, and the wet lanes became part of the sky smear, losing all suggestion of concrete, lane markers disappeared, flooding me with the impression of riding on the sky, words rolling over in my mind, looking for the ones that would best describe this suspension between earth and heaven.
I decided that if there was something I could be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning, it was being born into a species equipped with a brain that could seriously process its surroundings, admit they were too beautiful to describe, but possible to enjoy to the point of rapture even as it became convinced it was flying in total contradiction to the vibration of the tires on the interstate.
I also had hot coffee in a traveling mug and Slim Willet on the CD, so if you know who Slim Willet is, you realize my rapture was complete. I was in a moment unique to my life thus far, and I was thankful. And then I got to knock on a cabin door, and there was Karen!
Karen, with nothing more than a pot and a spoon, produced a turkey breast of considerable juiciness and she is hereby an honorary member of the Kettner Blvd. College of Turkey Surgeons and Airport Relocation Committee. We had stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole with real mushrooms, and Karen's special gorgonzola salad with pine nuts. Then pumpkin pie with walnuts and whipped cream. By then it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I was ready for bed. We watched a movie until 7, and then I did in fact crawl into bed and slept until 7 in the morning.
The Idyllwild community, augmented by a throng of flatlanders, has its Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the town circle every Thanksgiving holiday. On Saturday we stood bundled against shirtsleeve temperatures and precisely at 5 p.m., with the sun down and temperature dropping, the lights went on in a hundred-foot pine topped by a star of white lights. Above it, the sky was in evening blue, with Venus and a new moon in the background, and way up, the silver contrail of an airliner headed southeast.
We drove home early Sunday morning to beat the return rush, unlocked the front door, and there was Gully! Life is good.
We always spend Thanksgiving in a knotty-pine cabin in Idyllwild, a community in the Riverside County Mountains about two hours from here. Southern California is an amazing place to live. Any kind of atmospheric, cultural, economic and entertainment bioclimate is available within two hours of our front door.
With encouragement from the imps at the Weather Bureau, I had hoped for some weather, which in Idyllwild would have meant snow. But no, after some sprinkles on Thanksgiving Day it cleared up, nice blue skies, and temperatures that Idyllwildians would call suntanning weather.
We were in serious hibernation mode. Karen went up on Sunday after the closing ceremonies of the Breast Cancer 3Day and set foot out the cabin door one time, she said. I drove up on Thanksgiving morning, and it was a drive for a lifetime. Overnight rain had broken into patchy showers, enough to keep the interstate wet so it reflected the sky, with clouds letting enough light through to create an encompassing Impressionist smear of gray and rose and ivory. The highway was almost deserted at that hour, and the wet lanes became part of the sky smear, losing all suggestion of concrete, lane markers disappeared, flooding me with the impression of riding on the sky, words rolling over in my mind, looking for the ones that would best describe this suspension between earth and heaven.
I decided that if there was something I could be thankful for on Thanksgiving morning, it was being born into a species equipped with a brain that could seriously process its surroundings, admit they were too beautiful to describe, but possible to enjoy to the point of rapture even as it became convinced it was flying in total contradiction to the vibration of the tires on the interstate.
I also had hot coffee in a traveling mug and Slim Willet on the CD, so if you know who Slim Willet is, you realize my rapture was complete. I was in a moment unique to my life thus far, and I was thankful. And then I got to knock on a cabin door, and there was Karen!
Karen, with nothing more than a pot and a spoon, produced a turkey breast of considerable juiciness and she is hereby an honorary member of the Kettner Blvd. College of Turkey Surgeons and Airport Relocation Committee. We had stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole with real mushrooms, and Karen's special gorgonzola salad with pine nuts. Then pumpkin pie with walnuts and whipped cream. By then it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I was ready for bed. We watched a movie until 7, and then I did in fact crawl into bed and slept until 7 in the morning.
The Idyllwild community, augmented by a throng of flatlanders, has its Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the town circle every Thanksgiving holiday. On Saturday we stood bundled against shirtsleeve temperatures and precisely at 5 p.m., with the sun down and temperature dropping, the lights went on in a hundred-foot pine topped by a star of white lights. Above it, the sky was in evening blue, with Venus and a new moon in the background, and way up, the silver contrail of an airliner headed southeast.
We drove home early Sunday morning to beat the return rush, unlocked the front door, and there was Gully! Life is good.
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