The Ash Creek Papers

… or why it is not a good idea to have two martinis before story time

“Let’s see… Berenstain Bears?  Winnie the Pooh?  Bread and Jam for Frances?  I love the drawings in that book.”

“Dad… you always fall asleep when you read Frances stories to me…”

“I’ve had a long day.  How ’bout Stand Back the Elephant is Going to Sneeze! The drawings in that book are hysterical.”

“Dad… do we have any Super Hero stories?”

“Super Hero?  Super Hero!  Who told you about Super Hero’s?”

“Ari Widlansky’s father reads him Super Hero stories.”

“You mean Ari Widlansky’s father reads him comic books!”

“But Dad… they’re fun.  Lots of action… saving people, beating up the bad guys and driving cool cars like the Bat Mobile!  At Tumblebugs, sometimes Ari and I pretend that we’re Batman and Robin!”

“Batman and Robin?  When I was a kid I used to like the Green Hornet and Kato.”

“I don’t know them.  Are they good guys or bad guys?”

“They’re good guys… just like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans.”

“And they’re Super Hero’s, too?”

“In a manner of speaking.  Hey… here’s Blueberries For Sal.  That’s a great story!”

“Dad… are there any Jewish Super Hero’s?”

“Other than Sandy Koufax and Groucho Marx?”

“Dad!  Stop making stuff up!”

“Well… when I was a kid we had Bagel Man…”

“For real?”

“For real.  He had super power strength… could walk thru brick walls.  He had an enormous brain capacity and could instantly solve complex math problems, he scored a perfect 800 on his college boards, he had total memory recall and he could name every English Ruler going back to Ethelred the Unready.  And for all his Super Power strength and smarts, he still was someone who was kind and thoughtful enough to help an elderly woman to walk across the street… and if some wise-guy delivery person on a bike got too close, he would whip out his Reverse Semi-Automatic Bialystok Stun Gun, and shout, ‘Stand fast you knave!’ and then blast the kid into the next time zone!”

“Wow!  Did Bagel Man have a side kick?”

“Side Kick?  Sure!  Shmear!  Shmear went everywhere with BagelMan… they were a team.  They even went to the opera together!  One time they got first row mezzanine seats for the Metropolitan’s production of Don Giovanni.  And in the scene when Don Giovanni sings, “Versalino! Eccelente Marzemino!” as he was about to descend into the dark netherworld, Bagel Man stood up from his seat and shouted, ‘Don’t do it!  I’ll save you!’ And he started to jump down to the stage, when Shmear stopped him and said, ‘It’s OK BM, Mozart wrote it that way.’ And Bagel Man looked around at all the people in the audience staring at him, and said to Shmear, ‘Thanks, dear friend.’ And Shmear said, ‘That’s what friends are for!’  That was Shmear’s famous line… he was always saying, that’s what friends are for… Like when they went to the 21 Club for dinner and Shmear picked up the check, he would say, ‘That’s what friends are for!’  Bagel Man and Shmear!  Truth, Justice, Observing the Sabbath and making sure that young men get into medical school!  And like all Super Hero’s they had one vulnerability… they wouldn’t rescue the downtrodden or stop a felony on Rosh Hashonah or Yom Kippur.”

“Dad?  Why don’t we read Bread and Jam for Frances.”

There are gems, and then there are the real gems.  This is from a New Yorker‘s “Shouts & Murmurs” section written by Ian Frazier. I love this type of elaborate, detail filled comedy writing.

CRANIAL FRACKING

Recently, I signed a lease with a major oil company allowing it to begin “cranial fracking” – deep drilling to tap the vast reserves of natural gas found in the human head.  These reserves are not distributed uniformly in all individuals.  In my case, however, a gas-rich formation known as the Jersey Deposit runs from behind my eyebrows to beneath my bald spot and then angles downward to the point of my chin.  According to the prospecting crews, this cranial structure holds enough CH4 (methane) to power all ofNew Englandfor twenty to fifty years.  When this bonanza was discovered, oil-company representatives came to me hoping to lock in permanent and exclusive extraction rights for a fee that was truly eye-popping (although that may also have been a result of seismic “thumper trucks” they used).

As the details were explained, I wished I had paid more attention during the brief cranial section of my earth-sciences classes in high school.  Apparently, back in the Silurian period, some four hundred and thirty-eight million years ago, my head was completely covered by a shallow inland sea.  In time the sea receded and a swampy Carboniferous growth sprang up.  In the resultant ooze, distinct parietal ridges appeared, trapping some of the carbon.  Ages passed, I was officially born, there was the difficult year in kindergarten, and very slowly, under extreme pressure, valuable gas was formed.  I have suspected its existence since about the fourth grade.  I was hammering a nail into my nostril, just to see what would happen, as kids will do, when suddenly there was a tremendous explosion that sent the nail and the hammer flying and injured a neighbor in his yard across the street.  After that, I knew that I was different, although I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be.  But now like thousands of similar people, I count myself lucky to possess this resource.

Getting at it has always been the hard part.  With some guys (and most of those whose heads contain the Jersey Deposit formation are men, curiously), a gas seep rises clear to the surface of the head.  Then all that the extraction workers have to do is part the hair (where there is hair) and screw in a well cap and valve directly into the skull.  With me and others like me, however – no so easy.  First, entry sites must be established just at the front of each ear, where the overburden is shallow and the head is narrowest.  Then multidirectional diamond-tipped drills bore through the obstructing bone until they reach the remote inner levels, where the richest concentrations of gas lie hidden.  Often, this is a hit-or-miss process.  A moment’s inattention on the part of the drilling technician, who is sitting in his apartment and also checking his e-mail, can cause mistakes.  The bit may emerge unexpectedly, scattering skull fragments, and plunge onward through one’s hat or glasses, as has happened on more than one occasion to me, I am sorry to say.

Quite honestly, the whole process hurts like bloody hell.  After the drill has reached the gas deposits, contained in thousands of tiny pockets no more than a few molecules across, the surrounding bone must be microscopically shattered to free them.  This is done by backing out the drill, taping on a small firecracker, lighting it, shoving it back in the well bore, and shouting, “Fire in the hole!”  After a muffled sound, smoke comes out, sometimes accompanied by bits of teeth and brain lining, depending on how accurately the charge has been shaped.  I don’t have to tell you that this is the moment when I must keep our country’s energy future in mind in order to withstand this horrible agony.  Also, unavoidably, some of the gas escapes before the well can be capped and hooked into the distribution network.  Cranial gas is itself a very potent agent of climate change, and my own, as it turns out, is considerable worse than most.

A stream of surfactant at very high p.s.i. is then shot back into the well bore to flush it, and then the fluid is sealed up permanently in skull chambers, sometimes causing temporary dizziness and nausea.  This fluid-containment system insures that nothing will ever come out, although in the unlikely (but not uncommon) event that it does migrate into your mouth, it tastes like pineapple.  Reports have said that a flammable facial exudate possibly also results from this process, though no connection has been found.

Until the past few years, none of the technologies I’ve described were available.  If you had a head full of top-grade crude, you simply went to the squasher and, 0ne-two, you were done.  Back then nobody bothered about utilizing other cranial hydrocarbons, because there was no need.  Today, the equipment is so sophisticated that it can find a single molecule of gas in a head of almost solid bone, like Senator Inhofe’s.  However, I am no blind to the controversies – that is, when the pumping mechanism is working properly and I am not blind for other reasons.  I know that people have made negative comments, which are right, but they are not the ones who know about this personally and are getting paid.  Yes, everything now tastes like pineapple to me, and there’s the pain, and I have these Christmas-tree valve arrays that make it impossible to fly on air-planes, and my pores combust spontaneously if I don’t keep the moistened towels on, but I recommend the procedure without reservation.

The only thing I would say is, if you are thinking of putting your signature on the cranial-gas lease agreement, it’s best to wait until your kids are grown and out of the house.  If you have a spouse or domestic partner, separate, and obtain a divorce if necessary.  You will want to spend all your time in a corrugated-metal building with an oil-soaked earthen floor.  Find a good oil-patch lawyer and have him begin proceeding against you as a preventative measure.  Direct wire transfer of lease monies to the Caymans is the only way to go.  And here’s a secret: guy wires.  Attached from your head to the building’s rafters, they provide neck support that feels wonderful.  You will thank me down the road.

Emperor Penguins endure the harshest climate on earth… the Antarctic.  The Penguins mate for life and share in caring for the single egg that is produced during the winter breeding season.  After laying the egg, the female transfers the egg to her mate who balances it on the top of his feet to keep the egg off the pack ice.  While the females of the colony head to the ocean to feed, the males gather together in a protective huddle to help withstand the -40° air temperatures and wind gusts that can reach 89 mph during the darkness of the Antarctic Winter.  After 64 days of foraging at sea, the females return to the colony, identify their mate’s distinctive call, and then the pair alternate in going back to the sea, in feeding and in caring for their newly hatched chick.

MILTON: Cortie, my Son… it’s time for you and I to have a little chat!  Come here boy and listen to your Father!  Son… I know what you’re thinking… “Holy crow its cold!  And this is our Spring!”  Remember Cortie… We’re Emperor Penguins.  Emperor Penguins, I say!  And do Emperor Penguins let a little cold bother them?  No!  It would be like saying that Babe Ruth was bothered by an inside fastball!  Or that Stephen King was bothered by the dark!  Are you listening to me son?  Oh, sure… I can see worry written all over your face.  You’re thinking… “It’s cold now… what happens in the Winter when the wind picks up some and the temperature dips a bit… and we have to take care of a confounded egg?”

Well Son… {har, har, har} Let your Father put your mind to ease!  You see Son; all the guys get together… it’s like a club.  One timeBartlett called it the “He-Man Women Haters Club”.  But that got him into big time difficulty with Sheila, his bride.  Are you listening to me Son?

Yes, it gets a tad brisk… brisk I say, and all of the guys in the colony gather together in a tight formation that we call a huddle.  And then we take turns moving into the center of the huddle where it’s out of the wind and a bit warmer.  I know what you’re thinking… “What do we do in the huddle for two months in the dark?”  Well, Son… mostly we gossip about the ladies and tell jokes.

This is the joke that ‘ol Doc Reid told last year… “It seems that there’s this fellah who was walking down Chestnut St.in Philadelphiaholding a giraffe by the leg. {har, har, har… I love this joke} And a policeman stops him and says, ‘hey buddy, why don’t you take that giraffe to the zoo?’ So the guy and the giraffe set off walking in the direction of the zoo.  And about 2 hours later, the beat cop spots the guy and the giraffe walking in the other direction, so he stops them, ‘hey buddy, didn’t I tell you to take that giraffe to the zoo?’  And the guy answers, ‘I did.  And we had such a good time, so now we decided to go to the movies!’ {har, har, har… I love that joke!}

That’s a joke, Son!  You’re allowed to laugh!  {har, har, har… hmmm, this boy’s in the boat; but both oars aren’t in the water!}  That’s a knee slapper, Son… in fact Casey Martin laughed at that so hard that he stepped on his egg!  Are you listening to me boy? {I think I heard that joke 150 times in two months time and it’s still funny! No one tells a joke better than Doc Reid!}

Now look Cortie… the cold, the wind, the darkness, not eating for two months… it’s not as bad as it sounds.  Oh, once in awhile one of the guys in the huddle cuts a nasty fart and tries to lay the blame off on someone else… and some harsh words can be exchanged.  But nothing serious… are you following me boy?

I see that there still is concern in your eyes.  Hmmm?  I know what you’re thinking… “What about the ladies?”  {har, har, har}  Well son, you have no worries there… your Father is a natural “ladies’ man”!  Nod your head son!  Women won’t be able to resist you!  Oh, it will take a little practice for sure… pay attention Son.  The first thing you do is raise your head and look at the sky!  That’s when the ladies take note of our golden coloured “bib” and it sets their hearts aflutter. Follow me boy, then you drop your head low first to one side, hold the pose, and then the other side, hold the pose… pretend you’re checking under your wings for B.O.  See?  Why by the time I checked under my left wing your Mother’s heart melted.  I could hear her panties sliding to the floor!  That’s just an expression Cortie!  You payin’ attention to me boy? {I see there’s a light on in the attic; but no one’s home!}

PAIGE:  Milton!  What stories are you putting into our Son’s head! Cortland you pay your Father’s stories no never mind!

MILTON: Cortie, I see that your Mother has returned…  Paige, I hope you have brought our Son something to eat! He’s a growing boy you know!  I think I’ll head out for a swim and grab a little squid for lunch… Remember Cortie… We’re Emperor Penguins!  Emperor Penguins I say!  We stand in a line with Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and J. Edgar Hoover!

Go ahead, ask me why am I sitting in my blue club chair, naked as a jaybird, in the meat locker of the Stop & Shop in Southbury, reading Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation (in the original Latin).

I am glad you asked.

The matter of the blue chair has become a source of contention between myself and Gary Moss, my long standing friend (we go back to the 4^th grade, or so).  This chair originally graced the small study of my Brother Paul’s bedroom in our home on 25 Alston Avenue.  When Paul fledged the nest to Union College in 1957 and my Mother decided that rearing tropical fish was not in her skill set, the chair moved from the study to the bedroom proper, and to the place that had previously been home to a rather large fish tank.

Our two Bedlington Terriers took advantage of the chair’s more convenient location by using the chair as an indoor “fire hydrant.”

It should be pointed out that back in the day the chair was covered in a black and ivory houndstooth check fabric of shetland wool sourced from the hand looms of Scotland’s Thomas Adie.  Also noteworthy, the wool for the handcrofted tweeds of the Isle of Harris is cured in sheep’s urine.  This latter tidbit of information explains why it’s not a great idea to stand next to a gent wearing a sturdy Harris Tweed sport coat during a light rain, as the moisture returns the wool to its original pungent aromas.

The fact that the Bedlingtons peed on the chair with alarming regularity produced a yellowish tinge to the black and ivory at “lifting the leg level”, not to mention giving the chair an earthy scent that would be immediately recognizable to anyone standing next to an Oxford Don in a drizzle. I won’t give dignity to the rumors that I may have contributed to the Bedlington’s activity in “blessing” the chair.  Certainly not while sober.

When I took full possession of the chair in 1972 the fabric was changed to its present blue so that it could be added to the other pieces that would become the living room on Courtland Avenue.  The chair has survived seven moves and was added most recently to the den in Woodbury where I can sometimes be observed reading, listening to tunes, watching a flick or enjoying a superbly assembled Tanqueray Martini.

If Sherlock Holmes needed Professor Moriarity as a raison d’être, and Adolf Hitler needed the Jews… then Gary Moss needs my blue club chair. For reasons that are best left to the analyst’s couch, Gary has launched a crusade to recover my chair. He has lamely suggested that he is trying restore the chair to the beauty it once possessed… this being a favor to the memory of my dear departed Father.  It is rare for a day to go by without an email being sent to me with fabric suggestions… a sea foam chintz, an Edwardian fox hunting scene, another print with leopards poised in ambush on the veldt.  And it doesn’t stop there.  Now I am getting recommendations for replacing the entire chair… divans that look like cast-offs from a Hollywood set for a French bordello and stiff wing chairs that look as comfortable as a saguaro cactus.  In the words of Sir Thomas More, he is hocking meir in chainik!  I like the chair the way it is!

He is not letting this rest.  He has recently removed the chair from our den without my consent (undoubtedly with the aid of a sympathetic confederate… I have my suspicions as to the person’s identity).  But I am not without my resources… and within days I was able to track down its new location, secreted in the aforementioned meat locker of Stop & Shop.

Now I sit in my beloved chair in this cozy refrigerated room… surrounded by hanging sides of beef.  I come here three times a week and spend an hour or two in the nude reading More and other classical scholars. 

I call this the silver lining in the cloud. 

You see… my metabolism has slowed to the rate of a tree sloth.  I swim 3000-4000yds four days a week and if I look at the pictures in Bon Appétit I gain two pounds!  I love those ads on TV promoting easy ways to lose weight without dieting. Intriguing, but bull shit!  But even with eating less and exercising more my results have been less than satisfactory.  There has to be a more efficient way to burn calories.  How about cold?  In cold temperatures our bodies have to burn more calories to keep our body temperature up to 98.6°!  I could always volunteer to spend a winter in a Siberian Gulag.  Good thought… but I want to lose some weight, not die of exhaustion and malnutrition!

Hmmmm, maybe I could take advantage of my friend’s passive aggressive hostility and find an alternate way to help shed some pounds?  The cold treatment!  Not only could I subject myself to the frigid air of the meat locker, I could magnify the demand from my “body thermostat” for heat by taking off my clothes!

There is some precedent for this Spartan behavior.  It’s the compulsory military training that free citizen males had to endure in Sparta’s heyday in the 6^th to 4^th centuries B.C.E.  The mental and physical rigour of the training became the model for every elite military formation from the Praetorian Guard, to the Knights Templar, to the Brigade of Guards, to the Navy Seals.

It is that legendary discipline that allowed a force of 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas to confront Xerxes’ Persian Army of 100,000 at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E.  Never mind that all the Spartans died in that battle… it’s the attitude that counts!

I sit here amongst the cows willing myself to ignore the cold, taking comfort in the wisdom of Thomas More’s well selected words, and the knowledge that I am burning extra calories.  I resist the urge to take a whiz on a hind quarter; but think to the day when my goal weight is reached and I can return my chair to the confines of our den.  Some have suggested that I could speed this process along if I were to sacrifice my enjoyment of gin, fine whisky and Côte de Beaune Burgundies.  Yeah, right… like that’s even a remote possibility!  No thank you!  I prefer to turn to More: “Adversarius vester diabolus tanquam leo rugiens circuit quoerens quem devoret…”

At 3:00pm a well chilled martini… next week I begin Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.