The Sleepover That Never Happened

It so happened that at the age of seven I was to have my first sleepover -- at my pal Wayne Matsuura's house, across the street from me on 19th Avenue S.E. in Minneapolis.

Wayne and I had been friends ever since my memories began. There never was a time when we weren't pals -- thick as thieves, our mothers described us somewhat sourly. I had to be actively discouraged from hanging around Wayne's house at all hours of the day and night. I would have gladly taken all my meals there; Mrs. Matsuura served rice every night with great lumps of  tangy sauteed meat and vegetables, with sweet pickled daikon on the side. A notoriously picky eater, her cooking seemed to me to be the complete opposite of my mother's bland Midwestern hash from leftovers and tuna casseroles. Looking back, I'm sure I hurt her feelings many a time by baldly asserting that I wished I could eat over at the Matsuura's every day, because Mrs. Matsuura really knew how to cook. Consideration for the feelings of others was never my long suit as a child. It still isn't, sixty years on.

I had angled for a sleepover at Wayne's house for more than a year, throwing out broad hints about how clean and comfortable his basement was -- filled with bean bag chairs, a ping pong table, and a workbench where Wayne fiddled with a crystal set he ordered from Boys Life magazine that promised to bring in the broadcast wonders of India and Patagonia but only managed a scratchy reception of the local U of M student radio station KUOM. He also had a fine and orderly chemistry set, with rows upon rows of crystals and chemicals and gooey liquids and reams of litmus paper -- unlike my own chemistry set, which I had managed to incinerate during a particularly daring experiment with Clorox bleach and powdered manganese.

And there was a chest freezer, too -- chock full of Fudgesicles. I knew better than to aspire to sleeping up in Wayne's bedroom -- we weren't even allowed to play with his chaste Lincoln Logs up there. But the basement, and the Fudgesicles, would do just fine.

Came the day when all my finagling paid off and I was invited to spend Friday night sleeping over in the basement. Puffed up with an unseemly pride, I grandly told my sisters that I would not be taking my ease with them in our shared bedroom that night -- I had made other arrangements. Sue Ellen chose to snigger at my social coup, wounding me deeply by implying my old bedwetting proclivity would probably return to haunt me. Snubbing her completely, I gathered up my bedding and the cheap plastic crucifix that hung above my bed (I was not really religious, but I was deeply superstitious.) Then I marched over to Wayne's house as the sun began to set. 

We spent the evening constructing a robot out of some old cardboard boxes that Mr. Matsuura kept under the basement stairs. Not having anything for legs, we put it on roller skates. Wayne dumped a bundle of loose wires and some spark plugs he got from out in the garage into the trunk of our robot. We tacked yellow rubber gloves on each side for arms. The shoe box head we filled with a large dirty sponge from the laundry sink -- it looked remarkably like all the illustrations of the human brain we had ever seen in encyclopedias. And then Wayne bored two holes in the shoe box for eye sockets and stuck in two pen lights he kept on his work bench. He turned them on, and our robot seemed to come to life, with his eyes glowing eerily straight ahead. I had the unfortunate inspiration to draw in a mouth with large fangs with a Magic Marker. Wayne and I stepped back to inspect our handiwork.

"Looks pretty good" said Wayne.

"Sure does" I agreed. " I bet our robot could beat Frankenstein if we could start it up with a big ol' battery." 

This gave Wayne an idea. He shook the Eveready batteries out of his dad's electric lamp and put them inside the trunk of the robot. 

"It could even beat the Wolfman now" said Wayne.

"Yeah" I replied uneasily, "if it was alive, you mean. But it's not. It's just a hunk of junk, really -- isn't it?"

"Oh, I dunno" replied Wayne speculatively. "There's lots of wires in there that might pick up the electricity from the battery and start somethin' up. It might make him move around a bit tonight. Maybe."

I gulped, audibly.

"Naw" I said with a bravado I did not feel. "Your mom'll make us take it apart tomorrow anyway before she gives us breakfast, I bet." 

But Wayne was in a mood to give vent to weird fancies.

"What if it started to move tonight after we fell asleep? What if it rolled right over to us and tried to make us robots, too? With some sort of radioactive ray."  

We both relished the cheap, hair-raising sci-fi movies that were the main fodder of drive-ins back then. Most of 'em featured some kind of fiendish ray from Dimension X that would turn anyone, even sweet little boys like us, into insane zombie monsters. I didn't care for Wayne's current train of thought, and attempted to divert his attention into more cheerful paths.

"How many Fudgesicles you think we can sneak out of the freezer tonight?" I asked hopefully. But Wayne was not to be distracted.

"Maybe we should put a bottle of calcium chloride inside, next to the battery -- that would sure give it super powers if it started up."

I was beginning to dislike our corrugated creation very, very much. 

Suddenly Wayne exclaimed: "I've got it! I'll put my crystal set inside it so it can have telepathic powers. Give us orders to build a flying saucer to go to Mars or somethin'." 

That's all I needed to hear. A killer robot let loose in the basement, hypnotizing me with radioactive rays and talking me into going to Mars to become a slave. My nervous bladder was ready to void in terror. I picked up my bedding and crucifix, told Wayne I had a belly ache, and scampered across the street to the safety of my own robot-less bedroom.

I was never invited to another sleepover again. But I didn't really mind. Wayne had revealed all the mental instability of a mad scientist that evening, and I didn't intend to be murdered in my sleep by one of his mechanical creatures or wake up with an extra head sewn onto my shoulders. When we graduated from high school I joined the circus and Wayne went to work at the Sears warehouse. Where they had plenty of cardboard boxes . . .    

2020 Census will bring major upheaval to Congressional representation -- Meet your meat -- Tax cuts for the wealthy

A citizenship question on the 2020 census has already drawn challenges from states that fear an undercount of immigrants and a loss of federal funds. But demographers say there could be even deeper consequences: The question could generate the data necessary to redefine how political power is apportioned in America.   NYT

The Census gets my name and age; my address and my weight.

I'll tell 'em I'm retired and I do not have a mate.

If they want anymore than that I'm gonna slam the door;

I don't like nosy parkers who do nothing else but schnorr. 

Fifty-eight percent of consumers say they are more concerned about the treatment of animals raised for food than they were a few years ago, according to a 2017 survey by market-research firm Packaged Facts based in Rockville, Md. As a result, language on packaging and menus is describing meat in more detail than ever before, linking food on the plate more directly to the animal and its provenance.  WSJ

I don't wanna know that the cow

I'm eating once pulled a farm plow.

I don't care a fig

that ribs from my pig

were used in the practice of Tao.

The Trump adminisration is considering a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans through a change that would not need approval from Congress, officials said, a move that would follow a package of tax cuts last year that also benefited the super-rich.   Washington Post.

Consider the poor plutocrat,

whose upkeep on his black silk hat

and stable of mares

and sunk Facebook shares

means giving up his baccarat.

They did submit cheerfully

 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

Mosiah. Chapter Twenty-Four. Verse 15.

How to be more cheerful with the burdens that I bear;

How to find the ease that comes beneath a load of care;

How to submit cheerfully to all the Lord decrees;

Forgive me, but this still seems one of Heaven's mysteries . . . 

Trump hopes to shut down federal government by the end of August -- Trump will meet with anyone but his own advisers -- Old tweets never die, and they never fade away either.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday reiterated a threat to shut down the federal government in September if Congress could not deliver on Republican demands to crack down on immigration by enforcing border security and building his long-promised wall on the United States border with Mexico.

NYT

He's chief of the crybabies now;

when crossed he must have a big cow.

But crying wolf leads

to much darker deeds -- 

could he be the next Chairman Mao?

WASHINGTON—President Trump said he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani without conditions.  “If they want to meet, I’ll meet,” Mr. Trump said Monday, adding that he would be willing to “meeting with anybody.”

WSJ

So Trump will meet with anyone? I wish that it were true.

He goes off to the Russian steppes and sails the ocean blue.

But one group he will not agree to meet forevermore -- 

when his advisers come to call, he's out the White House door. 

Over the past few weeks, the act of cleaning up your past tweets has become simultaneously more popular and more suspect. Even non-celebrities want to prevent enemies from scrolling through their history. Others are promoting the idea that anyone who deletes their Twitter histories must have something to hide.

Washington Post

My tweets are historical docs

that scholars will study in flocks.

Deleting them thus

would history muss -- 

they're just like a jet plane's black box. 

 

Chipotle Wants to Get into Your Head -- Minnesota Politicians Make Nice -- Moving the Goal Post

“Our ultimate marketing mission is to make Chipotle not just a food brand but a purpose-driven lifestyle brand,” the executive, Christopher Brandt, said on an earnings call. By that, he added, he meant that “Chipotle will become a brand that people want to know about, want to be a part of and want to wear as a badge.”
NYT

I went into a fast food joint to grab a bite to eat;
the staff gave me a group hug, strewing flowers at my feet.
With only a half hour, I just wanted service quick;
but first I had to fill out a long survey, mighty thick.
Then a psychoanalyst was brought into my booth;
she wanted me to tell her all about my gilded youth.
And finally a doctor came to take my pulse and temp;
he offered me a sedative (I think twas made of hemp.)
I fled that place in terror; their compassion was intrusive --
and found refuge at KFC -- so careless and abusive! 

The author of the above NYT quote, Sapna Maheshwari, emailed me this reply:
"hah, this is a very funny one!"

The decline of civility in political debate was alarming. Harsh rhetoric was getting in the way of resolving bitter disputes.  This was Duluth, Minn., more than a decade ago as tensions rose over local budget strains.   The leaders of Duluth decided to do something about it. Civic leaders launched something called Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project. They drew up a list of nine guidelines for civilized debate so simple they could and did fit on a wallet card.  Then, a funny thing happened. People took the idea to heart. All six major units of regional government—city and county boards and school districts—adopted the guidelines. As debate improved, so did the process of addressing problems.
WSJ

Political niceness is rare;
it's likely something in the air.
With pine trees and lakes
and very few fakes,
Duluth would support a Voltaire. 

President Trump's defense in the Russia investigation has been a study in goal-post moving — constantly watering down previous denials and raising the standard for what would constitute actual wrongdoing.

Washington Post

To shrug off a carload of blame

the bigwigs like playing a game;

diluting the facts

and hiring hacks

to make their opponents look lame.

Hey Kings; Show Me the Money!

Awake, O kings of the earth! Come ye, O, come ye, with your gold and your silver, to the help of my people, to the house of the daughters of Zion.
Doctrine & Covenants. Section One-Twenty-Four. Verse 11.

Your majesty, I got some bills 
quite serious, and not for frills;
If you would heed these words of old,
then how about a bag of gold?
And then, my liege, perhaps you'll dowse
a place where you can build my house! 

Surprise! Trump Hates the New York Times -- If Trump Can Get a Job in the White House, You Can Get a Job Anywhere -- The City of Austin Wants a New Name

Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger told Trump in Oval Office meeting that newspapers were hiring armed guards because of threats against the press. Trump said he was surprised they didn’t already do that.
NYT

Because of his dull paradigms,
Trump thinks that the great New York Times
is full of riffraff
who relish and laugh
at all their own literate crimes.

Americans looking to land a first job or break into a dream career face their best odds of success in years. Employers say they are abandoning preferences for college degrees and specific skill sets to speed up hiring and broaden the pool of job candidates.

WSJ


Of course it is easy to find
a job of most any old kind.
Just look at the Trump --
a guaranteed chump --
who got a good job flying blind.

On Wednesday, Austin’s Equity Office recommended the renaming of seven streets and removal of three historical markers honoring Confederate history, calling it a high priority for the city to decide.  The office published a second list, without recommendations for action, but in need of review of items grimly yoked to the Confederacy, including slavery, racism and segregation.

Austin’s name fell on that list.

Washington Post

The mayor of Austin declared

the city was truly prepared

to switch the town name

to something more tame -- 

so activists would have them spared. 

Winter Driving

The Utah sun pours down on my cement patio until it's too hot for bare feet. My peony bushes take on a rusty brown patina, no matter how much I water them. Even the shade of the horse-chestnut trees as I take an early morning walk seems sullen with heat. It is high summer here in the desert, and all I can think about is winter driving.

I grew up with a father who was completely fearless when driving his car during the murderous Minnesota winter. It never seemed to occur to him that black ice or cunning slush lay in wait to send him slamming into a snowbank. True, he never drove very fast -- but he never took heed of the elements, either. During cold waves that sent the temperature plunging into the minus twenties or thirties he would carelessly roll down his window while driving so he could smoke one of his innumerable Salems, even while the rest of us in the car begged him for asphyxiation rather than a frozen death. The raging howls of a blizzard were to him but a spring zephyr -- he would throw a pan of boiling water on the windshield to clear off the ice and drive off through the white murk to Aarone's Bar & Grill on East Hennepin to pump suds for the regulars. Coming home late at night from his beery work, often half-crocked himself, he never had an accident on the snow-packed streets. Of course, during the winter, he was often preceded by a friendly snowplow, whose driver had been sampling boiler makers with dad to take the chill off. 

Until I was 27 I never drove a car at all. Up until then I never had to deal with winter driving. I walked or took the bus.  I well remember the April of 1972, when I was a First of May with Ringling Brothers Circus, appearing at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A snowstorm descended on the Big Apple early in April, and while cars crept along at a slug's pace and pedestrians were huddled in creeping masses of misery, I, in my cheap blue Army & Navy Surplus nylon parka, cavorted in Central Park, building snowmen and reveling in the bracing pure air -- such a great relief from the normal New York fug back when the Clean Air Act lacked teeth.

But my enjoyment of winter's delights was nearly extinguished once my wife Amy taught me to drive. Where before winter roads  seemed bucolic and inviting, they were now revealed to me as death traps -- just waiting to lure me onto a patch of invisible black ice. 

Some thirty-five years ago you could still put chains on your tires for winter traction in some Midwestern states. Getting them on was an operation fraught with tension and the temptation to use every bad word the Good Book proscribed -- and then some. First you laid out the chains, which formed a sort of horizontal ladder on the ground, and then you slowly backed over them until the tire was in the middle of the 'ladder.' Then you tried to wrap the chains around the tire and hook them together. It normally took me at least a dozen attempts per tire. By the time I had them on my back felt like the Rockettes had been performing on it, in stiletto heels. This was somewhat alleviated by the cheerful jingly sound the chains made as they bit into the compacted snow and ice of the road. I liked that sound when I was driving; it was the song of safety. But then state legislatures had to butt in to protect our sacred highways and byways by outlawing tire chains.

With a large family and a small income, buying winter tires each year was not always in the cards. I often had to navigate icy winter roads with tires as bald as Yul Brynner. It was more like skiing than driving. From November until April my knuckles stayed a milky white, from gripping the steering wheel so hard. 

And then there was the matter of starting an old clunker on a below-zero morning. I never had the luxury of a garage for the family jalopy. I kept a case of those yellow plastic bottles of Heet in the trunk, always pouring one into the gas tank in the evening if Barry ZeVan the Weatherman predicted an arctic sunrise. 

Most winters I invested more in Heet than I did in hot chocolate for the entire family.

I could never bring myself to dash a pan of boiling water onto the windshield like my dad, so I went through a variety of metal and plastic ice scrappers -- none of which ever seemed to do more than rearrange the thick frost into fiendish whorls that wouldn't disappear until I'd had the car running and the heater on for twenty minutes. And the winter grime that would collect on the windshield in a matter of minutes when I was on the freeway rarely budged when I turned on the windshield wipers, no matter how much of that blue fluid I spritzed on. 

Oh, and did I mention frozen car locks? Many a frigid morning the car door locks were frozen shut. Of course, I always kept a can of WD-40 for just such emergencies -- but I kept it inside the car, and if all the locks were frozen . . . well, you get the picture. I had to string together every pickin' extension cord in the house so I could run Amy's electric blow dryer to thaw out a lock -- risking electrocution in the process as the extension cords sank into the snow. 

But it wasn't all torture:  Driving out on Larpenteur Avenue with all the kids to look for a pungent pine to set up in the living room for Christmas. On the way back the magnificent turpentine fumes from the warming tree made us all a bit giddy, so we yodeled carols like Fred Waring's Young Pennsylvanians. There were occasional forays out onto the ice in the car at White Bear Lake, where my Uncle Jim kept a fishing shack during the winter fishing season. The kids didn't relish the fact that there was only two feet of ice between them and a watery grave, but I made light of it to such an extent that they would eventually start sliding about on their bellies in their snow suits while I vainly tried to inveigle so much as a single bony perch to take a meal worm. Driving back home I inevitably stopped at Bridgeman's for hot fudge sundaes. I had a deal with a waitress named Cindy -- for a generous tip she always made sure our sundaes had more hot fudge than ice cream. You haven't lived unless you've had a bowl of Bridgeman's hot fudge, with a dab of vanilla ice cream in the middle! 

The best part of winter driving was when I didn't have to do it. Sitting around the TV with Amy and the kids on a brisk winter's night, watching "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn for the umpteenth time, with a bowl of Orville Redenbacher and mugs of Swiss Miss -- knowing there was nothing to force me out into the bitter night to face extinction on those uncertain roads -- that's a happy feeling I still recall today. When it's 97 degrees in the shade.

Jesus Christ is Joy

"For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!"

President Russell M. Nelson

The quiet rise of sun and moon above the mountain peak;

the placid waters stirred by wind, the music birds do speak.

A child who takes my hand in theirs, a smile that's unrehearsed;

the joy this brings is from the Christ and makes my heart to burst.

  

***************************

An email response to this poem from Bruce Young, an assistant English professor at BYU:
Great thoughts. I especially love the phrase "a smile that's unrehearsed." Genuine, spontaneous joy and friendship are some of life's greatest gifts--and yes, like all good things, they come from and are contained in Christ.

Trump Takes Credit for Economic Boom -- Big Data is Now Big Brother -- How Safe from Russian Hacking Will the November Elections Be?

President Trump hailed the economic data as evidence that his policies on trade, taxes and other issues were working. Robust growth is good news for Republicans, who are counting on the economy to help them in midterm elections this fall.

NYT

I don't think Republicans know

their chances this fall are still low.

The data be damned;

most folks are still jammed -- 

and think that conservatives blow. 

Companies are facing an erosion of faith in their ability to do the right thing with what they’ve learned. Most of us are using Facebook , for instance, but a growing number of us don’t trust Silicon Valley tech giants to responsibly handle what we share.

WSJ

Big Data get out of my life.

You've caused me enough painful strife.

If I want to stress

some more and not less,

I'll spend extra time with my wife!

President Trump chaired a meeting Friday of his most senior national security advisers to discuss the administration’s effort to safeguard November’s elections from Russian interference, the first such meeting he’s led on the matter, but issued no new directives to counter or deter the threat.

Washington Post

November will be here real soon --

so what of that old Russian goon

who hacks into polls

and screws up the rolls --

will all of our votes he dragoon?

— The traffic sign that greets visitors on the south side of Ulysses, a tiny town in rural far north-central Pennsylvania, is suitably quaint — a silhouette of a horse-drawn cart reminding drivers that the Amish use the roads, too. But on the north side of town  is a far different display: a home dedicated to Adolf Hitler, where star-spangled banners and Nazi flags flutter side by side and wooden swastikas stand on poles.
Washington Post

Some minds close up shop when they're young,
and having accepted the dung
of mongering cheats
who think they're elites --
keep spreading manure with their tongue.