Here is a picture. Her name was Trisha. She was a pretty good cat.
Salsa Fixin's
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
42. Intermission
This blog is temporarily closed in memory of the owner's cat, who passed away.
Here is a picture. Her name was Trisha. She was a pretty good cat.
Here is a picture. Her name was Trisha. She was a pretty good cat.
41. Anise and Kookie Review Recipe for Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa
Anise: Sign of
the end times, I’m afraid.*
Kookie: It’s not
that bad.
Anise: I thought
we were friends.
(Silence.)
Kookie: Let’s
introduce ourselves. I’m Kookie and my lifelong friend (at least that’s what we
want you to believe in TV World) over there in the shadows is Anise. We’re
going to review an online recipe we discovered when the author sent it to us.
Anise: (Sulking)
Hardly a discovery then, is it. I heard from several informed sources that you
refused to read it because this Hawkinson character is smarter than you are.
Kookie: That
definitely remains to be seen.
Anise: . . . and more clever and funnier and more
inventive—
Kookie: Anise!
That’s enough. Do you want to do the dishwashing tonight?
Anise: We’re
partners, you! So don’t start bossing me around. Besides, in our usual forum, I’m
the boss. Do you want to confuse our followers?
Kookie: Let’s
talk about the recipe.
Anise: Well,
clearly, it has no business being called a recipe. It’s just a long joke by a
silly American south of the border.
Kookie: Oh, Anise,
are you on your anti-American binge again?
Anise: Have you
ever seen a nation so full of dum-dums? I mean, really?
Kookie: Something
tells me you flunked the Preliminary
Self-Evaluation (post #3).
Anise: Then let
me talk about the recipe (post #3). The story about his grandmother was
preposterous. First of all, who puts a story about his grandmother in the
middle of the recipe? Talk about falling off the rails. And second of all, I
don’t believe it for a minute. Whose grandmother could be so evil?
Kookie: I like
how he suggests naming the vegetables.
Anise: You would—
Kookie: That was
cute.
Anise: And did
you ever try to follow the recipe?
Kookie: Oh, no.
It took me so long to read it that I didn’t have time to try it.
Anise: My point
exactly.
Kookie: Anise,
you need a boyfriend. You’re getting just so, oh, what’s the word—BITTER!
Anise: Well, at
least I made the salsa following the recipe!
Kookie: Oh, how
was it?
Anise: Pretty good, I guess.
Anise: Pretty good, I guess.
Editor's Note: If you think Anise and Kookie's recipe review was useful, please e-mail us at duane.hawkinson@gmail.com (a real e-mail, so we will track you down if you get out of line), and we may post your comments here, assuming a minimum of spelling and grammar errors. As always, your e-mail makes you eligible for a free jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. If you think Anise and Kookie are pseudonyms for actual people, please identify the people and include a 2000 word essay explaining yourself (a video will suffice if you're a millennial). If you make a strong case, your name will go TWICE into the drawing for a free jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. Who doesn't like improved odds, after all? And if you think the review was actually a parody written by someone on Hawkinson's staff, please include a 5000 word essay explaining yourself (a video will suffice if you're a millennial). Your comments will be posted, and, in this case, your name will be entered 5 times for a free jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. That's a pretty good deal. Don't rush into anything. You'll probably want to read the review about 5-10 times to catch all the nuances; it might also be helpful to learn the names of folks who review recipes for a living--not that we're giving anything away here. Sometimes, it's fun to throw people off track--not that that's what we're doing here. Just saying.
*Anise and Kookie do not claim to be funny. This post does nothing to discredit their claim.
*Anise and Kookie do not claim to be funny. This post does nothing to discredit their claim.
40. Another (yes, another one) Interview with Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, part 4, and final one (Senior Editor promise)
Reporter: Okay, we're about to wrap this up. I'm running out of tapes, and your material so far is about as exciting as a hummingbird fart. Whaddaya say, let's end this thing with a bang.
Hawkinson: Once more to the woods, eh?
Reporter: Don't try to be funny. It doesn't suit you.
Hawkinson: Not everyone would agree with you on that point.
Reporter: Enough would.
Hawkinson: You used to be nice. Must be the beers--
Reporter: Tape's running in 3-2-1 . . .
Hawkinson: Well, let me finish by telling you a hunting story . . .
. . . When the alpha males weren't telling the rest of us neighborhood kids what to do, sometimes I found myself following along on "hunting" trips in our little woods. Though there were often four or five of us on these trips along the sheep paths, there was only one BB gun, so whenever anyone saw a critter--a bird, any kind of bird, a squirrel, a chipmunk--he'd try to pull the gun out of the arms of whoever had it at the time, whether the safety was on hardly mattering, leading generally to a skirmish and some hotly traded epithets, some so uniquely worded that they often led to long strings of every nasty word imaginable placed alongside other long strings of every nasty word imaginable, to the point that the words made no sense other than to express a certain level of disdain over losing rights over the BB gun and its limited supply of BBs.
Reporter: Please shorten your sentences, for god's sakes!
Hawkinson: Right. And if they ever thought a clean shot was possible, they'd race toward their intended victim like little air bubbles flowing along a vein of a freshly slaughtered sheep.
Reporter: And let's skip the fancy literary-type language. This is not the place for it . . .
Hawkinson: Right. Well, as they'd race toward a critter, I'd half-race to keep a safe distance behind the rest, partly because I was not a strong runner and partly because I'd expect them to trip over each other and land in a patch of brambles. It happened more often than you'd think. That usually led to a whole lot of swearing and finger pointing and accusations about incompetence in the shoe-tying department (some of us always ran around with shoes untied with laces like string licorice).
One day, one of the hunters spotted a chipmunk high up in an oak tree, chattering at us from a safe distance. The hunter took a shot at it, the BB ricocheting off the trunk of the tree, and his brother yelling at him for wasting bullets. He called everything bullets. So we kept moving
These kids would later be the makings of slaughterhouse workers, stunning the livestock with a reliable captive bolt pistol, raising inverted yet still alive carcasses with chains, slashing their throats with muscular authority, and draining the blood into drainage pools--while the hearts were still alive and acting as exsanguination pumps.
Reporter: Uh, uh, what did I say about getting all literary up in my face?
Hawkinson: Finally, and by pure luck--bad luck for the critter--someone knocked the chipmunk out of the tree with the BB gun. Hysterically, everyone screamed and raced and out-shouldered each other to where it had fallen to the ground. It was already dead, but that didn't stop them from passing around the BB gun and each plugging it again and again until it was virtually shredded--its little mouth fixed open in stunned surprise, its eyes still open but making no eye contact with any of its attackers, its fur soaked in its own blood. Then one of the older boys grabbed the chipmunk by its bloodied belly and, ripping apart the skin, dumped its entrails on the ground. Just for good measure, he flicked the intestines up into the face of the smallest "hunter," who immediately began to wail. Then it was over. I was struck by how quickly the hunting party lost interest in the bloodied, eviscerated body of the lifeless little chipmunk. After kicking it off the path under a patch of ferns, they set their sights on the next would-be victim. I turned and went home for lunch.
Along the way I felt something tugging at me; I felt bad that I hadn't participated in the hunt, that I hadn't gotten more worked up about chasing the chipmunk, that I didn't even bother to muster up a "Whoop!" during the chase. (The others seemed to sense my lack of enthusiasm; no one shared the BB gun with me share during the community plugging.) I felt like a misfit. The reason: I was falling behind in my progress as a rotten little kid. That eventually would mean the other rotten little kids would start to notice, which would mean they'd start to single me out for taunts, possibly abuse (depending upon whether my older brother was around). They might even shun me from playing a pick-up game of basketball or baseball. And that would mean I'd find myself spending too much time alone--possibly helping my mother or reading books or playing with my G.I. Joe in the bathtub or staring out the window and wondering what everyone else was doing. Already, a classic anxiety presented itself: FOMO. Clearly, something had to be done. The course of my life stood in the balance.
My best hope was to prove myself a worthy hunter.
Reporter: My best hope to get this interview published is to wrap it up ASAP!
Hawkinson: Coming to that . . . So I begged for weeks. (I was a pretty good beggar--what I lacked in strategy I made up for in relentlessness and whining. I would have driven myself crazy if I were my own parent.) Finally, my dad, worn to a frazzle, took me up to the Coast to Coast store and picked out a BB gun. He gave me the usual warnings about safety, or at least I think he did; I wasn't paying attention to a single word he was saying. I was already daydreaming about myself as the greatest rotten little kid hunter on this side of town, possibly even in the entire town. Now, I thought, I was on my way to redemption with the other neighborhood kids.
After practicing loading my "bullets" and taking aim at old pop cans, I was ready to strike out on my own to the neighborhood woods. I had already decided that I'd go solo during my first hunting trip. If something went wrong or I wasn't the eagle eye I thought I had become with ten minutes' practice, I didn't want any witnesses. I'd never hear the end of it. My childhood friends, the rotten little kids in the neighborhood, could be real bastards.
I headed down the central sheep path looking for chipmunks or squirrels. Nothing was around. All was quiet. I kept going until I reached the end of the trail, which led out to the town dump and low lying swamp land across the road--still nothing.
I pivoted the barrel of my new BB gun, listening to the BB's rolling back and forth. Plenty of ammo.
I turned to retrace my steps and trudged homeward, defeated, without the thrill of a kill. I was perhaps ten yards from stepping out into a vacant lot when I heard it, a songbird, an American Robin to be more precise, about ten feet off the ground in a nearby tree just off the path. It alone was filling the woods with its cheery song. I froze. Lifting the barrel of the BB gun ever so slowly, I aimed at the bird. Its back faced me. It continued to sing. I put the gun down. I thought of the neighborhood kids. I re-aimed and fired, and in a second I knew that I had hit it. Its song stopped. It toppled to the ground and flailed about in the underbrush. It seemed to writhe in agony. I shot again and again and again, until it lay still. Immediately, I kicked leaf debris over it until it was completely buried. I dropped to my knees; nausea had overcome me; my head was swimming. I got up again and ran from the woods.
At home, I threw the BB gun into the corner of my closet--next to the old box of seeds that would be the false start of my new business. I never shot it again. Never touched it again. In the years that followed, I'd think about the first time I'd heard of the Red Ryder BB gun from the movie Christmas Story. Everyone warned Ralphie that the worst thing about having a BB gun was that he'd shoot his eye out. It wasn't the worst thing.
The worst thing about having a BB gun was shooting a songbird up the backside in the middle of its song.
Hawkinson: Once more to the woods, eh?
Reporter: Don't try to be funny. It doesn't suit you.
Hawkinson: Not everyone would agree with you on that point.
Reporter: Enough would.
Hawkinson: You used to be nice. Must be the beers--
Reporter: Tape's running in 3-2-1 . . .
Hawkinson: Well, let me finish by telling you a hunting story . . .
. . . When the alpha males weren't telling the rest of us neighborhood kids what to do, sometimes I found myself following along on "hunting" trips in our little woods. Though there were often four or five of us on these trips along the sheep paths, there was only one BB gun, so whenever anyone saw a critter--a bird, any kind of bird, a squirrel, a chipmunk--he'd try to pull the gun out of the arms of whoever had it at the time, whether the safety was on hardly mattering, leading generally to a skirmish and some hotly traded epithets, some so uniquely worded that they often led to long strings of every nasty word imaginable placed alongside other long strings of every nasty word imaginable, to the point that the words made no sense other than to express a certain level of disdain over losing rights over the BB gun and its limited supply of BBs.
Reporter: Please shorten your sentences, for god's sakes!
Hawkinson: Right. And if they ever thought a clean shot was possible, they'd race toward their intended victim like little air bubbles flowing along a vein of a freshly slaughtered sheep.
Reporter: And let's skip the fancy literary-type language. This is not the place for it . . .
Hawkinson: Right. Well, as they'd race toward a critter, I'd half-race to keep a safe distance behind the rest, partly because I was not a strong runner and partly because I'd expect them to trip over each other and land in a patch of brambles. It happened more often than you'd think. That usually led to a whole lot of swearing and finger pointing and accusations about incompetence in the shoe-tying department (some of us always ran around with shoes untied with laces like string licorice).
One day, one of the hunters spotted a chipmunk high up in an oak tree, chattering at us from a safe distance. The hunter took a shot at it, the BB ricocheting off the trunk of the tree, and his brother yelling at him for wasting bullets. He called everything bullets. So we kept moving
These kids would later be the makings of slaughterhouse workers, stunning the livestock with a reliable captive bolt pistol, raising inverted yet still alive carcasses with chains, slashing their throats with muscular authority, and draining the blood into drainage pools--while the hearts were still alive and acting as exsanguination pumps.
Reporter: Uh, uh, what did I say about getting all literary up in my face?
Hawkinson: Finally, and by pure luck--bad luck for the critter--someone knocked the chipmunk out of the tree with the BB gun. Hysterically, everyone screamed and raced and out-shouldered each other to where it had fallen to the ground. It was already dead, but that didn't stop them from passing around the BB gun and each plugging it again and again until it was virtually shredded--its little mouth fixed open in stunned surprise, its eyes still open but making no eye contact with any of its attackers, its fur soaked in its own blood. Then one of the older boys grabbed the chipmunk by its bloodied belly and, ripping apart the skin, dumped its entrails on the ground. Just for good measure, he flicked the intestines up into the face of the smallest "hunter," who immediately began to wail. Then it was over. I was struck by how quickly the hunting party lost interest in the bloodied, eviscerated body of the lifeless little chipmunk. After kicking it off the path under a patch of ferns, they set their sights on the next would-be victim. I turned and went home for lunch.
Along the way I felt something tugging at me; I felt bad that I hadn't participated in the hunt, that I hadn't gotten more worked up about chasing the chipmunk, that I didn't even bother to muster up a "Whoop!" during the chase. (The others seemed to sense my lack of enthusiasm; no one shared the BB gun with me share during the community plugging.) I felt like a misfit. The reason: I was falling behind in my progress as a rotten little kid. That eventually would mean the other rotten little kids would start to notice, which would mean they'd start to single me out for taunts, possibly abuse (depending upon whether my older brother was around). They might even shun me from playing a pick-up game of basketball or baseball. And that would mean I'd find myself spending too much time alone--possibly helping my mother or reading books or playing with my G.I. Joe in the bathtub or staring out the window and wondering what everyone else was doing. Already, a classic anxiety presented itself: FOMO. Clearly, something had to be done. The course of my life stood in the balance.
My best hope was to prove myself a worthy hunter.
Reporter: My best hope to get this interview published is to wrap it up ASAP!
Hawkinson: Coming to that . . . So I begged for weeks. (I was a pretty good beggar--what I lacked in strategy I made up for in relentlessness and whining. I would have driven myself crazy if I were my own parent.) Finally, my dad, worn to a frazzle, took me up to the Coast to Coast store and picked out a BB gun. He gave me the usual warnings about safety, or at least I think he did; I wasn't paying attention to a single word he was saying. I was already daydreaming about myself as the greatest rotten little kid hunter on this side of town, possibly even in the entire town. Now, I thought, I was on my way to redemption with the other neighborhood kids.
After practicing loading my "bullets" and taking aim at old pop cans, I was ready to strike out on my own to the neighborhood woods. I had already decided that I'd go solo during my first hunting trip. If something went wrong or I wasn't the eagle eye I thought I had become with ten minutes' practice, I didn't want any witnesses. I'd never hear the end of it. My childhood friends, the rotten little kids in the neighborhood, could be real bastards.
I headed down the central sheep path looking for chipmunks or squirrels. Nothing was around. All was quiet. I kept going until I reached the end of the trail, which led out to the town dump and low lying swamp land across the road--still nothing.
I pivoted the barrel of my new BB gun, listening to the BB's rolling back and forth. Plenty of ammo.
I turned to retrace my steps and trudged homeward, defeated, without the thrill of a kill. I was perhaps ten yards from stepping out into a vacant lot when I heard it, a songbird, an American Robin to be more precise, about ten feet off the ground in a nearby tree just off the path. It alone was filling the woods with its cheery song. I froze. Lifting the barrel of the BB gun ever so slowly, I aimed at the bird. Its back faced me. It continued to sing. I put the gun down. I thought of the neighborhood kids. I re-aimed and fired, and in a second I knew that I had hit it. Its song stopped. It toppled to the ground and flailed about in the underbrush. It seemed to writhe in agony. I shot again and again and again, until it lay still. Immediately, I kicked leaf debris over it until it was completely buried. I dropped to my knees; nausea had overcome me; my head was swimming. I got up again and ran from the woods.
At home, I threw the BB gun into the corner of my closet--next to the old box of seeds that would be the false start of my new business. I never shot it again. Never touched it again. In the years that followed, I'd think about the first time I'd heard of the Red Ryder BB gun from the movie Christmas Story. Everyone warned Ralphie that the worst thing about having a BB gun was that he'd shoot his eye out. It wasn't the worst thing.
The worst thing about having a BB gun was shooting a songbird up the backside in the middle of its song.
Monday, October 12, 2015
39. Another interview with Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, part 3, almost done
Reporter: Something tells me you're dancing around
the guts of your experiences in the woods. Playing among the toxic waste, well
who hasn't? Most people do that without having the slightest idea, even today.
Finding a dead dog, well, boohoo. Finding a suitcase. Big yawn. Let's get
something that will keep the readers awake. I'm about to snooze, myself. Let's
go. Get off the dime . . .
Hawkinson: How many beers have you had?
Reporter: Enough to know I should be recording this
interview, which I am doing. Now don't waste my tape. My beer is getting warm.
Here I go--I'm pushing the RECORD button.
Hawkinson: You were nicer a few minutes ago . . .
Reporter: (eyes a little blurry at this point)
Hawkinson: Okay. I really haven't talked about what
we neighborhood kids did while in the woods. Let me preface this by saying that
no matter what we did, it always ended up in a struggle for dominance.
Cooperation was a word for girls when I was a kid. Sissies. Wimps. All the
rest. When we organized into our gangs, someone always ended up in charge. That
was just the way it was back then. In a way, it was a competition to see who
would end up the ALPHA rotten kid--at least for a day or so. These titles
tended to be fluid, depending upon the situation. Most of the time it was a
title shared by my older brother or his arch nemesis three doors down.
One challenge was to see who could dominate the neighborhood’s
limited tree real estate in vacant lots. It was Donald Trump before anyone knew
Donald Trump. It was about arboreal domination, not just to build the largest
tree house but to monopolize entire acres—“zoning
out” anyone else from even competing. It was corporate-cutthroat before we had
ever heard of the term. And my brother was good at it.
My brother was an excellent tree-house builder, having recruited
about half the neighborhood, including me, to help him find, gather, transport,
and cut the various odd-sized pieces, and assist him with the overall framing
and finishing work. Where the materials came from was a question no one--and I
mean, NO ONE--was supposed to say.
My brother was also less than a good role
model as a boss--you worked for him until he said you could quit. No
exceptions. If you tried to sneak off, he'd either threaten you (which, coming from him, worked
for most kids), throw a few sizable chunks of lumber at you (and if he wanted
to clip the side of your head, he had an uncanny chunk-throwing aiming
ability), or demand that the other kids pile on you and beat you to a
pulp; lack of cooperation to follow his orders always placed them next in line to be beaten into a pulp. Overall, labor-management relations were a little
less than progressive.
In the end, however, my brother's tree house was an
architectural tour de force: completely walled in from the weather, a small
window for tracking the movements of opposing tree-house builders, a rain-proof
ceiling, and a chunk of carpeting for comfortable seating. The door, which
entered through the floor, was also secured by a padlock. Tree house Magazine would have given it Five Stars if it were
aware of its presence and if it were a publication that actually had existed.
Now if all that sounds a little boring . . .
Reporter: It does.
Hawkinson: Then this should grab your attention. As I just mentioned, as the CEO tree house builder, my brother abhorred any attempt by other neighborhood
kids to build their own tree houses anywhere near his.
When he sensed a threat, he’d immediately send out the general
orders:
First, threaten the intruders with massive bodily injury if they
even thought about building a tree house within a mile of ours.
Second, throw rocks at them if they refused to comply--and a lack
of compliance was common because, while you'd think otherwise, threatening
massive bodily injury was something most of us heard on a regular basis. It
just didn't have the kind of intimidation factor to produce any positive
results, especially if those hurtling the threats had yet to exceed a yard
stick in height. The problem with throwing rocks is that the enemy could also return
the favor, and with poor aim a given, and rocks ricocheting off trees, a rock
war could get messy very fast. Sometimes our own rocks boomeranged back to us,
barely missing our faces.
Third, our boss, my brother, would order us to steal the building
supplies from our enemies' tree houses, supplies which, by the way, had already
been stolen once or twice before. If the lumber were reasonably good, my
brother would incorporate it into his tree house, usually adding a
multi-leveled deck or something similar along those lines. He had a pretty good imagination in tree house design.
Fourth, and this happened only occasionally, if our enemies
persisted in continuing to build their own tree houses in my brother’s territory, my brother and his gang
of lackeys would sneak into the woods past everyone's curfew, with a can of gasoline, and torch the enemy's work-in-progress. (I can't speak in detail about what exactly happened or who was responsible for dropping the match. I was never involved; my level of rottenness
had not reached a threshold for this type of activity (maybe my brother was protecting me after all.))
The next morning both the tree house and the tree looked like
charcoal sketches: A scene right out of Lord of the Flies. And for some reason, no one ever called the fire department.
(After all the messes kids left, and the constant racket from hammers pounding
and kids yelling orders, screaming, and occasionally swearing in frustration, I
think neighbors were thankful to see a few of the tree houses removed.) Anyway,
the strategy proved effective, and my brother's reign lasted for three
years--until he got too old for tree houses and moved on to girls. (The kid
that replaced him ended up accidentally burning down his own tree house. He
later killed three people in an industrial accident. Some things never change.)
By the way, as a bad boy, a natural bully, with strong leadership
and organization skills, my brother ended up getting a lot of girls. A lot of girls. I admired him for that. Some of his girlfriends, with bodily aromas that often sent me into another world, would pat me on the head and comment on my "cute" stature. I didn't care so much for that. Just an
average rotten little kid myself, I was also not so much a bad boy. I didn’t get a
lot of girls. That’s been an unfortunate theme with me, which has persisted for
many years beyond my rotten-little-kid days (sigh). What happens in childhood too often happens in--
Reporter: (lost in reverie
or an alcoholic haze) I bet he rides a chopper . . . Let's talk about your brother. He sounds interesting.
Hawkinson: Let's not.
Reporter: C’mon.
Hawkinson: No.
Reporter: You brought him up.
Hawkinson: No.
Reporter: Then let’s take a break. I’m getting
tired.
Friday, October 9, 2015
38. Another interview with Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, part 2
Reporter: Okay, so you spent a lot of time at the town dump. What about the woods itself? Did you play games or go camping or anything like that?
Hawkinson: The woods had been a part of a farmer's property. It consisted of a grid of old sheep paths compacted so hard that nothing grew on them, which made them fairly smooth for bike riding or walking. (In our later years, we'd get away from the cops on our mini-bikes by detouring off the public streets and escaping to the paths and the camouflage of the woods. Cops never caught us, but that's another story.) A central path was the widest one, splitting the woods almost exactly in half, its entrance at the south end and its exit on the northeast side, adjoining a gravel road and a patch of weeds considered the favorite place for dumping dogs. Other paths veered off from the central path and either circled back to it or just came to their own dead ends, sometimes to a drop-off where erosion had left sharp drop-offs of gravel and rocks and exposed Basswood roots. A small stream trickled along the east side, filled with frogs that always went silent whenever we attempted to find them. (Frog legs over a fire was our favorite afternoon snack.)
Reporter: Did you ever run into any sheep?
Hawkinson: No, the farmer had re-fenced his land to keep the sheep out of the woods. I think he was concerned that the BAAAA-AAAAAA-BAAAAAA-ing of the sheep and the lambs would become something of a nuisance to new neighbors that had recently built their homes nearby. When the city grows toward the farm, the farm usually has to make sacrifices. Just ask pig farmers. (Then again, try standing downwind from a pig farm in the middle of a hot, humid summer day. You will not need decongestants. You will need nose plugs and eye protection--perhaps a gas mask in severe cases.)
On a slightly different note, I once found a suitcase resting in the middle of the path. It was unopened, which to me, a rotten little kid, was an invitation to explore its inner secrets. I tried the clasps. They opened freely. This was going to be easy. Slowly I lifted the cover and discovered that it was packed with clothes--as if someone were planning a long trip, but apparently having second thoughts, considering the suitcase had been left on the trail. (Or maybe two star-crossed lovers were going to meet on the trail, and one didn't show up, causing the other to throw up her hands in abject misery and walk home. My mind goes to these places--not sure why.)
The suitcase held nothing too exciting, just a lot of girl clothes and a small package. Constantly looking around to make sure no one was sneaking up on me, I threw the clothes in a heap and directed my attention to the small package. I was tingly with excitement, as if I knew I was doing something naughty and about to get away with it. In a minute, I found a bunch of paper-covered cylinders inside. I removed the paper from one of the cylinders and found what looked like a tube of cotton attached to a string. Whatever it was, it held no value to me. (Maybe I could light it on fire and swing it with the string, but, with such a short string, that didn't seem too practical or fun, and my fingers were likely to get burned, which, by the way, happened a lot whenever I ate frog legs.) I threw the object in the weeds. After checking the side pockets and zippered compartments for the one thing I really was hoping for--cold, hard cash--I got up and kicked the suitcase from the path and decided to walk home. So much for finding un-buried treasure. Maybe that was the problem--left in the open made it too easy a target as potential treasure material.
As I walked home, I thought about the owner of the suitcase. Who was she? Why did she leave a suitcase in the middle of a sheep path? Was she running away from home? Was she really planning to meet someone? Did she have a change of heart and decided to return home, but the suitcase was too heavy after lugging it that far? Did she have to drop it to escape someone? Was she caught, murdered, and left in the weeds next to the slaughtered dogs? Something didn't feel right. It was time for me to go. As my pace picked up, I knew one thing: I'd be glad to get out of the woods and return home. And I'd also never check again on the murdered collie and its comrades. The thought that they may be joined by a poor little girl was more than I wanted to imagine. I also felt bad that I had left her suitcase in such a mess.*
I'm a little tired right now. Mind if we stop for a cup of coffee?
Reporter: No problem. I could probably use another beer.
*The suitcase and its contents were gone the next time I returned to the woods.
Editor’s Note: If you think you know who the suitcase belonged to--or if it's your suitcase--please send Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, an e-mail at Duane.hawkinson@gmail.com (This is a real e-mail address, so be polite, and if you're a dog shooter, don't bother to e-mail. No one wants to hear about it.) If your entry is corroborated, you are automatically eligible to receive a jar of Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. If you'd like to share the story in detail of your abandoned and then recovered suitcase with the readers, it will be included on this site, assuming our lawyers can clear it for plagiarism, libel, or other prevarications, which could take them the better part of a few months; they like to pad their billable hours. Lawyers. Coffee breaks are their middle names.
Hawkinson: The woods had been a part of a farmer's property. It consisted of a grid of old sheep paths compacted so hard that nothing grew on them, which made them fairly smooth for bike riding or walking. (In our later years, we'd get away from the cops on our mini-bikes by detouring off the public streets and escaping to the paths and the camouflage of the woods. Cops never caught us, but that's another story.) A central path was the widest one, splitting the woods almost exactly in half, its entrance at the south end and its exit on the northeast side, adjoining a gravel road and a patch of weeds considered the favorite place for dumping dogs. Other paths veered off from the central path and either circled back to it or just came to their own dead ends, sometimes to a drop-off where erosion had left sharp drop-offs of gravel and rocks and exposed Basswood roots. A small stream trickled along the east side, filled with frogs that always went silent whenever we attempted to find them. (Frog legs over a fire was our favorite afternoon snack.)
Reporter: Did you ever run into any sheep?
Hawkinson: No, the farmer had re-fenced his land to keep the sheep out of the woods. I think he was concerned that the BAAAA-AAAAAA-BAAAAAA-ing of the sheep and the lambs would become something of a nuisance to new neighbors that had recently built their homes nearby. When the city grows toward the farm, the farm usually has to make sacrifices. Just ask pig farmers. (Then again, try standing downwind from a pig farm in the middle of a hot, humid summer day. You will not need decongestants. You will need nose plugs and eye protection--perhaps a gas mask in severe cases.)
On a slightly different note, I once found a suitcase resting in the middle of the path. It was unopened, which to me, a rotten little kid, was an invitation to explore its inner secrets. I tried the clasps. They opened freely. This was going to be easy. Slowly I lifted the cover and discovered that it was packed with clothes--as if someone were planning a long trip, but apparently having second thoughts, considering the suitcase had been left on the trail. (Or maybe two star-crossed lovers were going to meet on the trail, and one didn't show up, causing the other to throw up her hands in abject misery and walk home. My mind goes to these places--not sure why.)
The suitcase held nothing too exciting, just a lot of girl clothes and a small package. Constantly looking around to make sure no one was sneaking up on me, I threw the clothes in a heap and directed my attention to the small package. I was tingly with excitement, as if I knew I was doing something naughty and about to get away with it. In a minute, I found a bunch of paper-covered cylinders inside. I removed the paper from one of the cylinders and found what looked like a tube of cotton attached to a string. Whatever it was, it held no value to me. (Maybe I could light it on fire and swing it with the string, but, with such a short string, that didn't seem too practical or fun, and my fingers were likely to get burned, which, by the way, happened a lot whenever I ate frog legs.) I threw the object in the weeds. After checking the side pockets and zippered compartments for the one thing I really was hoping for--cold, hard cash--I got up and kicked the suitcase from the path and decided to walk home. So much for finding un-buried treasure. Maybe that was the problem--left in the open made it too easy a target as potential treasure material.
As I walked home, I thought about the owner of the suitcase. Who was she? Why did she leave a suitcase in the middle of a sheep path? Was she running away from home? Was she really planning to meet someone? Did she have a change of heart and decided to return home, but the suitcase was too heavy after lugging it that far? Did she have to drop it to escape someone? Was she caught, murdered, and left in the weeds next to the slaughtered dogs? Something didn't feel right. It was time for me to go. As my pace picked up, I knew one thing: I'd be glad to get out of the woods and return home. And I'd also never check again on the murdered collie and its comrades. The thought that they may be joined by a poor little girl was more than I wanted to imagine. I also felt bad that I had left her suitcase in such a mess.*
I'm a little tired right now. Mind if we stop for a cup of coffee?
Reporter: No problem. I could probably use another beer.
*The suitcase and its contents were gone the next time I returned to the woods.
Editor’s Note: If you think you know who the suitcase belonged to--or if it's your suitcase--please send Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, an e-mail at Duane.hawkinson@gmail.com (This is a real e-mail address, so be polite, and if you're a dog shooter, don't bother to e-mail. No one wants to hear about it.) If your entry is corroborated, you are automatically eligible to receive a jar of Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa. If you'd like to share the story in detail of your abandoned and then recovered suitcase with the readers, it will be included on this site, assuming our lawyers can clear it for plagiarism, libel, or other prevarications, which could take them the better part of a few months; they like to pad their billable hours. Lawyers. Coffee breaks are their middle names.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
37. Another interview with Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, part 1
Editor’s Note:
Before she joined the biker gang, the local newspaper reporter, short on funds,
requested one more opportunity to submit a story about Hawkinson. Her editor
agreed, on the condition that she phone in stories about life on the road with
a biker gang. She agreed. Her fingers were crossed behind her back at the time.
Reporter: First
of all, it’s good to see you again. I’m glad you’re not dead. (See post #18.)
Hawkinson: It’s
good not to be dead.
Reporter: I guess
I have to blame myself.
Hawkinson: It’s
spilt milk—or Aquavit. We all make mistakes.
Reporter: I read
your interview with our newest intern. (See post #4.) And I must say, the
little squirt was quite aggressive with you. Did you ever feel like punching
him in the nose?
Hawkinson:
Fortunately, the effects of The Road to
Character had not worn off yet.
Reporter: Well, I
would have popped him about 10 times and then thrown him to my biker
associates.
Hawkinson: Yes. I
imagine that would have given him second thoughts.
Reporter: I
noticed after the interview you went ahead and told a story about how you were
such a rotten little kid. I liked that. I liked how you explained how your
childhood experiences led to your becoming the owner of Duane’s pretty good Smokehouse Salsa.
Hawkinson: Of
course, they didn’t. You noticed that?
Reporter: Well, I
read it pretty fast. At any rate, unlike that other jerk journalist, I’m going
to take a different approach. I’d like to ask you one open-ended question and
then just let you go with it. Are you good with that?
Hawkinson: Just
give me a topic, and I’ll see what I can do.
Reporter: How
about your childhood. Have you ever been arrested?
Hawkinson: No,
but I was shot when I was a rotten little kid.
Reporter: Tell me
about it.
Hawkinson: The
shooters used blanks.
Reporter: Go on.
Hawkinson: I didn’t
die. Again.
Reporter: Not
much of a story.
Hawkinson:
Admittedly. Let me try again.
Reporter: Have
you ever done something really bad? Something that’s changed how you are now as
a human being person?
Hawkinson: Well,
I used to spend a lot of time with the little neighbor girl. She was two years
younger than me, and she was quite affectionate.
Reporter:
(cracking open another beer) This has possibilities.
Hawkinson: But
she moved away. Ended up very well off financially. I should have kept in touch
with her, in another manner of speaking.
Reporter: Is that
it? Now I’m getting frustrated.
Hawkinson: Well,
I could tell you about my summers in the woods . . .
Reporter: The
tape is running.
Hawkinson: When we weren’t playing scratch baseball games, we neighborhood kids lived our afternoons in the woods, a two by three square block of undeveloped land bordering the town dump, and just a short bike ride from the heart of our neighborhood. It had been shrinking for years as new houses intruded upon its space, but for much of my youth it was like exploring the Black Hills. When you’re little, everything is bigger.
Back in the sixties
(and earlier, I presume) towns had dumps as a means of expediently ridding
businesses and homeowners of their obsolete appliances and old oil cans and
bald tires and whatever chemical solvents that were likely to enter the aquafer
for the next two or three generations. Back then: NO QUESTIONS ASKED. But I
believe “No Dumping” signs evolved from these dumps at some point in the
reformist 1970s. I think that was around the time our neighborhood stopped
being sprayed by DDT; I can still remember the old utility truck wheezing along
the street with its BUG BOMB tank fogging everything in sight, including any
kids riding their bikes or playing ball in their front yards.*
The town dump was a treasure trove for exploring by the
rotten little kids of the neighborhood, which included just about all of us.
(The little neighborhood girl who moved away is exempted, of course.) We were free
to jump inside old refrigerators or hurl rocks at empty glass jugs, shattering
them or ricocheting off their plaster corners, depending upon our aim and
velocity. It was a miracle of sorts that none of us was ever hurt during our
activities. If someone hurtled a chunk of wood at a glass milk bottle and
completely missed it, however, he could expect a long string of taunts and
expletives until someone else did something even more stupid. The pee wees in
the gang would boldly join in with their older brothers until dirt bombs and
threats of having their heads bashed in cooled their ardor somewhat. Sometimes,
we’d line up Royal Crown Cola bottles and see who could smash them the fastest
with slabs of old foundation concrete removed from demolished houses no longer
fit for human habitation. (We liked to explore abandoned houses, but our
breaking and entering is another story.)
It never occurred to any of us that the bullet-pocked Mobile signs or oil cans or pop or beer
bottles or rusted out pieces of antiques or car parts would ever be the objects
of future pickers’ scavenger hunts. The future to us was pretty much limited to
waiting until the weekend to sneak into an R-rated movie. The Last
House on the Left was one of my favorites.
I also learned from
personal experience that the town dump was a place to dispose of animals,
usually stray dogs. I can still remember playing with a collie one day; it was
a beautiful dog, friendly, nice temperament, with big loving eyes, and a
noticeable cry in its bark. I could have petted it all day, but it ran off and never returned. About a week later,
I found it in the weeds at the edge of the town dump; the terrible sounds of maggot-bearing flies swarming over it caught my attention. I approached cautiously, afraid of what I'd find, afraid to see my new friend with a bullet wound in its
head. Its once beautiful fur was splattered and matted in blood. Its eyes, gray
and cloudy, were still partially opened; its tongue was hanging out—as if
thirsting for a final drink of water. It
had been dumped and left to rot--left to the maggots and the other vermin. No burial. The ironic executioner: The town
sheriff who supplemented his income as a dog catcher. Unfortunately, there were no
animal shelters, no Humane Society (although it had started in 1954) in our neck of the woods back then. His solution was as quick and brutal as it was unjust:
A .45 caliber bullet from a government issued service revolver into the brain of an abandoned pet, my new friend, if only for a little while.
Reporter:
(blowing her nose) The tape is almost out. Let’s take a break for a few moments
before continuing.
*DDT was banned in 1972. Lead paint wasn’t outlawed until
1978. Asbestos in 1989. Lead gas wasn’t banned until 1996. In retrospect, most
of our formative years were leaden with toxins. To this day, I wonder how years of exposure had affected us rotten little kids of the neighborhood.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
36. The Secret War, Chapter 4
Editor's Note: M.O.T.S.
The fog was finally lifting, and it was safer to walk—at least from a garbage hauling maniac’s perspective. Golden arches of McDonald’s glowed in the distance. Mountains that boxed in Squamish came into view. On the north end of town, a mountain that looked as though it had been hoisted straight up from the depths of hell by a cosmic crane glimmered like a gravestone in the morning light.
The fog was finally lifting, and it was safer to walk—at least from a garbage hauling maniac’s perspective. Golden arches of McDonald’s glowed in the distance. Mountains that boxed in Squamish came into view. On the north end of town, a mountain that looked as though it had been hoisted straight up from the depths of hell by a cosmic crane glimmered like a gravestone in the morning light.
It reminded me of a story in the Squamish Chief about a land broker who wanted to sell the rights to the side of the mountain for the World’s Biggest Billboard, “where the mountains meet the sea and the sea meets the sky,” guaranteed to last a millennium and then some. Minimum bids would start at $275 million, slightly less if the Stawamus Chief was used instead. When the locals said it was a stupid idea, he responded by saying they lacked “vision.” When they said it wasn’t his mountain to sell, he responded by saying, “Then whose is it? I call dibs!” When it was pointed out that “dibs” was not actually a legal term, he responded yet again with “Sez you!” The town council held several forums on the controversy. Leaders of the First Nation, who seldom attended council meetings due to the terrible coffee, stood firm: “No way, Hoser.” The land broker finally sweetened the deal by offering .0005% of the profits to the local animal shelter—“Pretty Good Critters”--after amortization, depreciation, and tax preparation, of course.
Coca Cola and Pfizer were the first to express
interest—the latter in advertising in tremendous, unprecedented grandiosity its
latest personality improvement medications. (The local townsfolks didn’t take
kindly to an advertisement that could be construed as reflecting badly upon
them (even though most of them would eventually end up taking massive doses of
the PIM’s in experimental drug trials (only to find that it made them even more
belligerent.))) Archer Daniels Midland
offered
to have a corn seed art contest on the side of the mountain. Community involvement, it thought, would break down the townsfolks’ resistance, especially if the winner were an eight-year-old girl. Who could be against that? But some folks openly wondered how safe it would be to tether an eight-year-old girl to the slippery side of a sheer, vertical slab of rock roughly two and a half a miles high.
to have a corn seed art contest on the side of the mountain. Community involvement, it thought, would break down the townsfolks’ resistance, especially if the winner were an eight-year-old girl. Who could be against that? But some folks openly wondered how safe it would be to tether an eight-year-old girl to the slippery side of a sheer, vertical slab of rock roughly two and a half a miles high.
Eventually, someone pointed out that the mountain
was outside of city limits and therefore the council did not have proper
jurisdiction. So in the end the whole matter was dropped. Furious, the land
broker warned there would be “severe, crushing repercussions if—“
“Hey, dummy!”
I kept walking, not falling for that old trick.
“Don’t cha want your money?”
My training told me not to, but I stopped and turned around. The cashier had been tracking me. Out of breath, she stopped and stared at me. “Where’s yer button?” she finally asked, sticking her finger
“A truck ate it,” I said, flatly.
“Cool.” She removed her finger.
“Well, here it is,” she said, holding out her hand.
In it were a crumpled dollar and some change. “I was told to quit
short-changing people . . . on account of Marble thinks it’s unfriendly.”
The corn pancakes and the coffee churned and percolated in my
stomach. “What’s your name?” I asked. I noticed her gray eyes, along with her
gray coat, black boots, and black painted fingernails. From her hood escaped
wisps of purple and pink hair. Her nose was running. I tried not to notice.
“Summer Springs,” she replied. “Yeah, I know. My parents are morons . . . Well, good bye.” She took exactly four steps down the sidewalk, stopped, and turned around. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “This is for you.”
Summer Springs fished out a large, thick envelope and handed it to me. “This is for you,” she said, again, turning away immediately and retracing her steps.
“Who’s it from?” I asked.
She lit a cigar as she wandered off, waving it in the air like some kind of crazed signalman, waving in a wounded jetfighter onto the landing strip of an aircraft carrier. My training told me she might be signaling the completion of our transaction to some unseen surveillance camera.
“Is it from Marbles?” I shouted. My training had informed me that knowing who sent the message was a pretty good indication of what the message would say. I turned the delivery over in my hands. The envelope had my address on it and sufficient postage to cover the extra weight. The stamps had even been cancelled. In French, stamp cancellation is called obliteration. Not a good omen. I repeated my question, even louder, “Is it from Marbles?”
Now softened by distance, Summer Springs, without turning around, called out, “Who’s Marbles?”
**** ****
**** ****
Summer Springs had already returned to the restaurant, probably waiting to short-change the elderly dinner crowd. They’d be easy marks, I thought: Crooked glasses. Trifocals out of alignment. Hearing aids with dead batteries. Canes in the way; walkers even worse. Shaky hands, from Parkinson’s or Graves or, heaven forbid, a massive stroke or just too much coffee, especially Marble’s “coffee.” They’d be thankful to hang on to what’s left of their coin purse and get on the charter bus without falling down.
I looked around. Something wasn’t right. Walking alone was like a bull’s-eye on my back. My pace quickened. I hurried through a canyon of apartment buildings, all with a clear shot at me. I could feel a hundred unknown, unseen eyes on me. I checked for snipers, stooped, reversed, leapt, skipped, pirouetted, crawled serpentine-style—all in accordance with my training to make a would-be assassin miss. If only I had the squirt’s facemask: Wearing it may have been enough to further confuse a would-be assassin. (My training emphasized that would-be assassins don’t like to shoot the wrong people. It’s bad for their reputations. What’s worse: Then they have to offer a deep discount just to get more business.) On the other hand, the thought of the squirt’s pancake dribble covering the mouthpiece of the facemask made my stomach do belly flops.
I was on full alert, status level R-E-D.
A dog barked and I spun twice.
Ravens in the municipal park laughed at me.
 |
| Ravens like to mock |
I threatened them.
I called them names.
I threw snowballs at them.
I waved them away, and they laughed even harder.
A phone ringing.
I ducked behind a park bench.
Another block, another phone.
Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring.
I dove behind a cluster of mailboxes.
Curtains moving.
I rolled up into a ball for the count of three.
Gray squirrels gazing at me.
 |
| One of many critters watching my every movement |
I did a triple SowChow, stuck the landing--almost.
A little girl’s giggling.
Was it from an apartment building?
Which floor?
Which window?
A car not starting.
Was it the assassin’s?
I could smell onions cooking . . .
Later that afternoon, I returned to my own street and relaxed at the familiar scenes. I stopped and took a deep breath next to my neighbor’s house. I could still smell the “canning” factory. In his front yard was a doghouse made of pine. A sign on the doghouse said “Dog Killer.” A sign on my neighbor’s house said “Dog Killer’s Neighbor.” In his driveway stood an old orange truck with a broken light on the roof. A bumper sticker on the back bumper read “Dog Killer’s Neighbor’s Friendly Service for the Select.” A phone number was included.
I
checked my mailbox one more time, then rolled up the fishing line that had
failed me that morning. I checked my pocket again. The envelope was still
there. I checked for the photo. It too was still there. I decided to put them
together in the same pocket. Somehow, they belonged together . . .
Monday, October 5, 2015
35. A slight interruption in the narrative, one that you can easily skip because this post will do nothing to reduce your frustration over the lack of progress in any of the other narrative strings that, for some reason, seem to have come to a screeching halt
Editor's Note: Just about every year at this time, when the October air is crisp, the days are getting even shorter, and everything outside is either dead or dying, Duane Hawkinson, owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa, has a tendency to fall into a lethargic funk, staying in bed for days and avoiding looking out his bedroom window at what used to be a highly productive, happy little production facility. Well, not one to languish in self-pity (for too long, anyway), he attempts to lift the spirits of his staff by attempting to lift his own spirits with what he calls "the path of happiness via wit and silliness." In other words, here's another batch of his cornball attempts at humor, just delivered to me via an e-mail attachment with strict orders that it be posted immediately so that, and I quote, "everyone can have a little taste of salsa-like sunshine." He really said that. What a schmuck. (The first batch arrived in Post #11. I warned you then. Don't say I didn't warn you again.)
Riddle One: Why does an elephant have a trunk on its front? Answer: To keep an eye on its luggage. It's a jungle out there.
Riddle Two: What did the elephant say to the giraffe after they'd narrowly escaped hungry lions? Answer: Nothing. They're not really on speaking terms.
Riddle Three: When is an O a Q? Answer: When it's suffering from a prolapsed vowel. (This is a pun-based visual riddle intended for the medical community. God knows those folks could use a good laugh.)
Editor's Note (continued): Well, at least they were short. At any rate, I'm going to have a talk with Hawkinson about his humor, and whether it can't just be buried somewhere in longer narratives--to reduce the potential pain on you the reader. On the other hand, if you actually think his humor is funny (and you should probably go in for a psych evaluation if that's the case), please e-mail us at duane.hawkinson@gmail.com and we'll post your comment. We probably won't post it on this blog, though. Still, we'd like to hear what you think. Remember it's a real e-mail address, so keep your thoughts pure and your motivations virtuous--at least keep the profanity to a minimum. For your efforts, your name will be placed in the pool of candidates eligible to win a jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa (although this year's supply is exhausted, which means you may, if you win, have to wait about seven to eight months for your jar, if you win, which we've already stipulated, but it's worth repeating--to keep your expectations low, which makes the day you receive your salsa, after all hope has probably been lost, all that much better. Hawkinson believes in happy surprises, especially for dispirited people. If he were to be honest, he would admit that he has played a small role in causing their dispiritedness. He's funny that way. Maybe he believes the old saying, "Misery loves company." He's pretty miserable right now. Your e-mail could attempt to cheer him up, but don't try to be encouraging. He hates that.)
Thank you.
 |
| Elephants checking their trunks |
Riddle Two: What did the elephant say to the giraffe after they'd narrowly escaped hungry lions? Answer: Nothing. They're not really on speaking terms.
Riddle Three: When is an O a Q? Answer: When it's suffering from a prolapsed vowel. (This is a pun-based visual riddle intended for the medical community. God knows those folks could use a good laugh.)
Editor's Note (continued): Well, at least they were short. At any rate, I'm going to have a talk with Hawkinson about his humor, and whether it can't just be buried somewhere in longer narratives--to reduce the potential pain on you the reader. On the other hand, if you actually think his humor is funny (and you should probably go in for a psych evaluation if that's the case), please e-mail us at duane.hawkinson@gmail.com and we'll post your comment. We probably won't post it on this blog, though. Still, we'd like to hear what you think. Remember it's a real e-mail address, so keep your thoughts pure and your motivations virtuous--at least keep the profanity to a minimum. For your efforts, your name will be placed in the pool of candidates eligible to win a jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa (although this year's supply is exhausted, which means you may, if you win, have to wait about seven to eight months for your jar, if you win, which we've already stipulated, but it's worth repeating--to keep your expectations low, which makes the day you receive your salsa, after all hope has probably been lost, all that much better. Hawkinson believes in happy surprises, especially for dispirited people. If he were to be honest, he would admit that he has played a small role in causing their dispiritedness. He's funny that way. Maybe he believes the old saying, "Misery loves company." He's pretty miserable right now. Your e-mail could attempt to cheer him up, but don't try to be encouraging. He hates that.)
Thank you.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
34. An update on Absinthe and Cliff . . . and why this post will not offer much satisfaction on that front
Editor's Note: For those of you who are anxious to return to the budding love story between Absinthe and Cliff, be patient. It will be returning soon. How soon is anyone's guess. If you haven't guessed by now, Hawkinson and his team are neither organized nor terribly ambitious. So things come when they come. You can sympathize, I'm sure. We've all known and tolerated such people. Often times, they show up as someone's uncle. Hawkinson is an uncle, so he fits the type. Anyway, I mean, what can you do? You can't shoot them. Well, you can, but then the story will never get finished and you're likely to get yourself into some amount of trouble, except maybe in Florida or California.
At least while Hawkinson and his team are still alive, there's hope.
There's hope.
While you're waiting, I was instructed to include the words of a love song to keep you in the mood of two middle-aged would-be star-crossed lovers, and that's a lot of hyphens. It seems, the older people get, the more hyphens enter their lives.
Here's what I found from the Beatles: The title is "Rocky Raccoon." It's a ballad. It's sort of fun.
Some of the lyrics . . .
D'da d'da d'da da da da
D'da d'da d'da da da da
D'da d'da d'da da d'da d'da d'da d'da
Do do do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do d'do d'do d'do d'do
Do do do do do do
If you'd like the rest of the lyrics, click here and enjoy.
At least while Hawkinson and his team are still alive, there's hope.
There's hope.
While you're waiting, I was instructed to include the words of a love song to keep you in the mood of two middle-aged would-be star-crossed lovers, and that's a lot of hyphens. It seems, the older people get, the more hyphens enter their lives.
Here's what I found from the Beatles: The title is "Rocky Raccoon." It's a ballad. It's sort of fun.
Some of the lyrics . . .
 |
| Rocky Raccoon--not so hot in gun fights |
D'da d'da d'da da da da
D'da d'da d'da da d'da d'da d'da d'da
Do do do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do do
D'do d'do d'do do do d'do d'do d'do d'do
Do do do do do do
If you'd like the rest of the lyrics, click here and enjoy.
33. Freida S.'s Graduate student stumbles upon the rest of Hawkinson's apology letter to the National Government of Canada in Ottawa
(Preliminary topic for dissertation, Freida S.'s Graduate Student)
To summarize Hawkinson's letter to the Canadians until it abruptly ended:
Other than a whole lot of digressions and annoying questions, Hawkinson's letter contained a "bad" surprise, and I quote from an earlier post: "Sometimes, unfortunately, surprises can be bad surprises, which gets me back to the purpose of this letter . . . " (Post #27).
After tireless hours and pots of espressos, I have found the rest of the letter . . . I visited the custodian in the national government of Ottawa and asked him about the letter. I had recalled from an earlier post (#16) that he had read the letter in its entirety and made the following comment about Hawkinson: "What a jerk." He said that he had mailed me the entire contents of the letter. I said he couldn't have because it ends without an ending, and he said, "Are you accusing me of lying?" And I said, "Of course not, maybe we could go out for a drink." And he said, "Are you buying? I'm just a custodian, for god's sakes." And so we went out for a drink, and after I made several ambiguous suggestions--that wouldn't hold up
in any court--he finally admitted that he wanted to keep the second half of the letter as a souvenir. "It was the best part," he mused. "The guy goes completely crackers!" I gave him $10, and he handed over the remainder. Four drinks and a few flicks of my hair, and he was putty in my hands. What a schmuck!
Citing the remainder of the letter directly, Hawkinson's letter continues:
"Such surprises are inevitable, and for that reason, I believe I owe you both an apology and an explanation. First, I apologize for inadvertently burning and stomping on your Maple Leaf flags. They are quite nice as flags go, wholly lacking in hostile imagery, while pleasant, simple, and outdoorsy, even. If I had one criticism--and it's barely a criticism--your flag lacks a certain pizzazz. Perhaps more symbols or more colors. Would you perhaps consider a moose or a blue
jay? Maybe an eagle snagging a trout from a stream? (You might be accused of copying the U.S., though.) I think they'd help fill out the wildlife/nature theme of your current flag. And how about more colors? Red and white are nice, but how about a little blue and maybe a touch of burnt umber? I like that. Since I consider myself something of an artist, and an amateur ornithologist, I would be willing to mock up something strictly at your pleasure, of course. (Are you Canadians the type of people who are open to criticism?)"
Graduate Student's Note: The letter went on for several more paragraphs about the flag, its design, and the highly volatile material from which it is made. At one point, Hawkinson implied that, had the material not been so volatile, he would not have burned his socks in the process of stomping out the flags, and that some sort of reimbursement by the National Canadian Government in Ottawa would be a neighborly gesture. Socks, after all, don't cost all that much. He would in turn, as an act of goodwill, offer the folks in Canada a jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa.
After that, he went off on a bizarre tangent, apparently to point out that Canada had wronged the U.S. in many of its own actions, and that maybe it should take responsibility for them, and that, on the whole, maybe it was Canada who owed Hawkinson--and Americans in general--a real Maple Leaf apology. Hard to believe. My guess is that he started drinking as he was writing the letter, and the alcohol put him in a somewhat belligerent mood. Read for yourself:
"Okay, so, let's stipulate that I'm a rotten adult and a poor example of an American. I've already admitted that I was a rotten little kid. Let's also stipulate that Canada has a lot of explaining to do. (I could talk about your oil stocks and their lousy performance, depleting American 401-K's, and the dirty pipelines that you Canucks want lining precious American land for the benefit of your crappy tar-sands oil that's not even making any money for investors, but I've already implied that. Don't think Americans aren't aware of your sketchy energy policies, too, or of your strict finance and lending policies that while stabilizing your own economy simply throw mud in the face of American free-wheeling and volatile monetary and lending practices. Don't think we don't notice, and don't think we don't think you're trying to show us up. We do. ALL THE TIME!)
"Instead, I'll start with Seth Rogan. Need I say more? Or worse yet. William Shatner. How could you dump William Shatner on the United States of America? Do you have any idea how badly he's polluted the American airwaves? Don't even get me started on Dustin Bieber. If I had my way, he'd have a ten-foot wall built around him, and I'd pass legislation that he never be photographed or videoed again nor allowed to produce another second of "music" for unsuspecting twelve-year-old girls. So don't get all self-righteous just because I've barely damaged a few of your cheap flags. (Are you Canadians the kind of people inclined toward self-righteousness?)
"If you're still not convinced that you owe me--I mean, America--an apology, just remember one more name: Ted Cruz. Oh, I shudder at the name. He was
yours once. Now he's ours. How did you manage that? You're clearly the big winner in freeing yourselves of this border crosser. . . (Graduate student's note: Text is indecipherable at this point, then continues in its attacks.)
"Oh, sure, you've given us a few good celebrities, such as Michael J. Fox, Alex Trebek, Neil Young, Shania Twain, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dan Aykroyd, and Rick Moranis. Curious that they're mostly comedians. But you still gave us Ted Cruz, one evil, repulsive individual, and that unforgivable act outweighs roughly 347 more attractive, more talented, more intelligent stars. (Are you Canadians the kind of people who admit when you've got the upper hand on an unsuspecting country to your south?)
"So National Government of Canada in Ottawa, I submit to you that it is not I but you who owe me an apology, and I will stand firm in this position. My actions are nothing, a drop in the proverbial ocean, compared to your barrels of toxic waste also known as Ted Cruz, and also known as barrels of toxic waste resulting from your toxic drilling of those toxic tar sand sites. You are a sneaky yet reasonable people--especially after cleverly convincing Cruz to infect America--and so you will, I believe, with time and thoughtful deliberation, deliver to me a heartfelt and sincere apology--and perhaps a small check. (I'm not a greedy man.)
"Thank you, and May the Queen Save Canada, but May God Bless America. We've got you on that one. God trumps the queen.
"Sincerely,
"Duane Hawkinson,
owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa"
Graduate Student's Note: As you can tell by the relative incoherence in Hawkinson's last several sentences, he must have been stinking drunk, especially to make fun of the Queen that way. Nobody does that. I mean, nobody. What a jerk.
-----------------------------
Editor's Note: While throwing away her pizza crusts, Freida S.'s graduate student found yet another incriminating piece of evidence, this time an unopened envelope from the Acme Seed Company, Vancouver, B.C., stuck to the bottom of her pizza box. The return address included the slogan "We cater to kids because we care."
Freida S.'s graduate student ripped open the letter and started to read . . .
Master Hawkinson:
We at Acme Seed Company take responsibility very seriously, as we are certain you do, too, although you haven't responded to our previous four collection letters. So now, let's get serious, little man. You owe us money. We've been very civil to you up to this point. But now you're starting to really get annoying. It's time to pay up. Understand?
Let's just say for the sake of argument that you're not planning on paying us. Well, so be it. Our loss. But, little man, let's also say for the sake of argument that your bike goes missing, or someone accidentally runs over your favorite soccer ball. You wouldn't
like that, would you? And if the money still doesn't come in, then let's say for the sake of argument that you have a little sister . . .
Freida S.'s graduate student stopped reading. She had never seen such a mean spirited collection letter before. And to an eight year old boy on top of it. She was just thankful that she didn't have to expose herself to the graphic violence and uncensored language undoubtedly included in the letter.
Things were starting to make sense . . . Maybe he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. That would explain his behavior. It would, however, fail to explain that it was caused by a threatening letter that by all indications he had never opened, much less read.
Strange.
To summarize Hawkinson's letter to the Canadians until it abruptly ended:
Other than a whole lot of digressions and annoying questions, Hawkinson's letter contained a "bad" surprise, and I quote from an earlier post: "Sometimes, unfortunately, surprises can be bad surprises, which gets me back to the purpose of this letter . . . " (Post #27).
 |
| Finding the rest of the letter proved not all that difficult |
After tireless hours and pots of espressos, I have found the rest of the letter . . . I visited the custodian in the national government of Ottawa and asked him about the letter. I had recalled from an earlier post (#16) that he had read the letter in its entirety and made the following comment about Hawkinson: "What a jerk." He said that he had mailed me the entire contents of the letter. I said he couldn't have because it ends without an ending, and he said, "Are you accusing me of lying?" And I said, "Of course not, maybe we could go out for a drink." And he said, "Are you buying? I'm just a custodian, for god's sakes." And so we went out for a drink, and after I made several ambiguous suggestions--that wouldn't hold up
 |
| A few cocktails did the trick |
Citing the remainder of the letter directly, Hawkinson's letter continues:
"Such surprises are inevitable, and for that reason, I believe I owe you both an apology and an explanation. First, I apologize for inadvertently burning and stomping on your Maple Leaf flags. They are quite nice as flags go, wholly lacking in hostile imagery, while pleasant, simple, and outdoorsy, even. If I had one criticism--and it's barely a criticism--your flag lacks a certain pizzazz. Perhaps more symbols or more colors. Would you perhaps consider a moose or a blue
 |
| Just one possibility of a new Canadian flag |
Graduate Student's Note: The letter went on for several more paragraphs about the flag, its design, and the highly volatile material from which it is made. At one point, Hawkinson implied that, had the material not been so volatile, he would not have burned his socks in the process of stomping out the flags, and that some sort of reimbursement by the National Canadian Government in Ottawa would be a neighborly gesture. Socks, after all, don't cost all that much. He would in turn, as an act of goodwill, offer the folks in Canada a jar of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa.
After that, he went off on a bizarre tangent, apparently to point out that Canada had wronged the U.S. in many of its own actions, and that maybe it should take responsibility for them, and that, on the whole, maybe it was Canada who owed Hawkinson--and Americans in general--a real Maple Leaf apology. Hard to believe. My guess is that he started drinking as he was writing the letter, and the alcohol put him in a somewhat belligerent mood. Read for yourself:
"Okay, so, let's stipulate that I'm a rotten adult and a poor example of an American. I've already admitted that I was a rotten little kid. Let's also stipulate that Canada has a lot of explaining to do. (I could talk about your oil stocks and their lousy performance, depleting American 401-K's, and the dirty pipelines that you Canucks want lining precious American land for the benefit of your crappy tar-sands oil that's not even making any money for investors, but I've already implied that. Don't think Americans aren't aware of your sketchy energy policies, too, or of your strict finance and lending policies that while stabilizing your own economy simply throw mud in the face of American free-wheeling and volatile monetary and lending practices. Don't think we don't notice, and don't think we don't think you're trying to show us up. We do. ALL THE TIME!)
"Instead, I'll start with Seth Rogan. Need I say more? Or worse yet. William Shatner. How could you dump William Shatner on the United States of America? Do you have any idea how badly he's polluted the American airwaves? Don't even get me started on Dustin Bieber. If I had my way, he'd have a ten-foot wall built around him, and I'd pass legislation that he never be photographed or videoed again nor allowed to produce another second of "music" for unsuspecting twelve-year-old girls. So don't get all self-righteous just because I've barely damaged a few of your cheap flags. (Are you Canadians the kind of people inclined toward self-righteousness?)
"If you're still not convinced that you owe me--I mean, America--an apology, just remember one more name: Ted Cruz. Oh, I shudder at the name. He was
 |
| Canada came out ahead on this one |
"Oh, sure, you've given us a few good celebrities, such as Michael J. Fox, Alex Trebek, Neil Young, Shania Twain, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dan Aykroyd, and Rick Moranis. Curious that they're mostly comedians. But you still gave us Ted Cruz, one evil, repulsive individual, and that unforgivable act outweighs roughly 347 more attractive, more talented, more intelligent stars. (Are you Canadians the kind of people who admit when you've got the upper hand on an unsuspecting country to your south?)
"So National Government of Canada in Ottawa, I submit to you that it is not I but you who owe me an apology, and I will stand firm in this position. My actions are nothing, a drop in the proverbial ocean, compared to your barrels of toxic waste also known as Ted Cruz, and also known as barrels of toxic waste resulting from your toxic drilling of those toxic tar sand sites. You are a sneaky yet reasonable people--especially after cleverly convincing Cruz to infect America--and so you will, I believe, with time and thoughtful deliberation, deliver to me a heartfelt and sincere apology--and perhaps a small check. (I'm not a greedy man.)
 |
| Now anti-Canada (apparently doesn't break up well) |
"Thank you, and May the Queen Save Canada, but May God Bless America. We've got you on that one. God trumps the queen.
"Sincerely,
"Duane Hawkinson,
owner of Duane's pretty good Smokehouse Salsa"
Graduate Student's Note: As you can tell by the relative incoherence in Hawkinson's last several sentences, he must have been stinking drunk, especially to make fun of the Queen that way. Nobody does that. I mean, nobody. What a jerk.
-----------------------------
Editor's Note: While throwing away her pizza crusts, Freida S.'s graduate student found yet another incriminating piece of evidence, this time an unopened envelope from the Acme Seed Company, Vancouver, B.C., stuck to the bottom of her pizza box. The return address included the slogan "We cater to kids because we care."
Freida S.'s graduate student ripped open the letter and started to read . . .
Master Hawkinson:
We at Acme Seed Company take responsibility very seriously, as we are certain you do, too, although you haven't responded to our previous four collection letters. So now, let's get serious, little man. You owe us money. We've been very civil to you up to this point. But now you're starting to really get annoying. It's time to pay up. Understand?
Let's just say for the sake of argument that you're not planning on paying us. Well, so be it. Our loss. But, little man, let's also say for the sake of argument that your bike goes missing, or someone accidentally runs over your favorite soccer ball. You wouldn't
 |
| Dramatization: A seed company executive with the help of a Canadian (!) reveals what might happen to one person's little sister if the money doesn't come in |
Freida S.'s graduate student stopped reading. She had never seen such a mean spirited collection letter before. And to an eight year old boy on top of it. She was just thankful that she didn't have to expose herself to the graphic violence and uncensored language undoubtedly included in the letter.
Things were starting to make sense . . . Maybe he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. That would explain his behavior. It would, however, fail to explain that it was caused by a threatening letter that by all indications he had never opened, much less read.
Strange.
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