I'm Walkin' Here!

Hobbies            A contribution to the cause of better mental health.

Neighbors
You might be a New England Yankee if..

Choppers
Your new dentures explained.

Friends
Go ahead! Give 'em the 'friend test'

Economies  How to ruin the world economy in one relatively easy step.

Hobbies

 This week is Better Mental Health Week here in America, so I'm going to do my part to promote it by asking a question:

 When you complain that your life is dull and boring and meaningless, why do people automatically suggest you take up a hobby? 

Excuse me. Are they nuts!

 A hobby is at best a throttled compulsive obsession. At worst, it's a 20-ride bus pass to your local mental health clinic via the almshouse. 

 Mental healthcare professionals know all about this strange hobby business but are most reluctant to discuss the subject, except on an hourly fee basis. I recently asked my therapist if he thought it would help if I took up a hobby to occupy my spare time.

 I said, "I like model trains!"

He replied, "That's not a good idea. In your case Jocko, I was going to suggest that perhaps you should get a job."

 I know it's a bad habit that I need to work on, but I never follow the advice of friends, neighbors, experts or professionals. I can't help it. They're always wrong! 

Right then and there I decided to join the lunatic fringe. I would get myself a hobby. 

 I was walking by a downtown pawnshop one day a few weeks later, where I noticed a strange object hanging in the display window. I went inside and asked the clerk, "What the heck is that silver thing hanging in your front window?"

He replied, "It's a glockenspiel."

I asked, "What do you do with it?"

He said, "Have you ever watched the Mummer's Parade on New Year's Day? It's a musical instrument."

I replied, "Looks sorta' like a Marimba that someone left out in the rain too long. How does one play a glockenspiel?" 

He said, "You carry it in this belt holster, and you strike the metal bars with this glock."

 The clerk dismounted the bulky instrument from its perch, picked up the metal lollipop and started playing. Not only was this guy a decent salesperson, he was also a fair 'glockenspielist'. 

After a powerful eight bars of Oh! 'Dem Golden Slippers, followed by excerpts from a pair of rousing Sousa marches, I was hooked.

"How much is it?", I asked.

He paused, "The old guy who pawned it died last week, so he ain't coming back for it. I can let you have it for 50. Sixty bucks if you want the holster and the music liar." 

"Sold!", I replied excitedly. "I'll take the holster, but I'm already a pretty decent liar. How about $55."

  I want to tell you, this new hobby of mine returned instant dividends. I strapped on the belt holster and carried my new glockenspiel the better part of two miles through city streets. Everywhere I went car horns honked, and people offered shouts of encouragement.

 Spurred on by this newfound attention, I decided to stop in front of Mitchell's Pharmacy to play an encore performance. Among the large throng of well-wishers and music lovers who had gathered to listen, I also met two courteous men in dark blue uniforms, and a woman who said her name was Ms. Tulley from the Department of Social Services, and did I have a minute to chat with her?

 My new hobby was fun. The only small problem was that I had no musical talent whatever. After two months of steady practice the only tune I could play on the thing was the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

  Undaunted, I decided that if I had no talent for music, then so be it. I would just have to find an auxiliary hobby to occupy my time. As luck would have it, I almost instantly found one.

You're looking at the founder and Executive Director of the:

 Glockenspiel Hurlers of America

 We've already signed up over 8 million members, and the organization is growing exponentially. I won't ask you to guess what goes on at our meetings, but I will say that a glockenspiel is a moderately heavy musical instrument. Consequently, the average person can't hurl it far. 

 As organizational policymaker and executive main squeeze, I've ordered a gross of red, white and blue T-shirts to sell to new members. On the back is emblazoned our organizational buzz:

Kiss Me! I'm a 'Glock Jock'

 The moral of this long story is this: 

If you're bored with life, take my shrink's advice and forget about hobbies. Try working the overnight shift at Wal-Mart instead. 

Although I've no actual firsthand experience to back this up, I've been told by experts that paychecks are highly collectible.

Neighbors

  It's been twenty-one years since we moved from the place where we used to live to the place where we now live in rural New England.  

 The place where we used to live is not located in rural New England, but is located some ways north of Little Duck Key, Florida, and way east of Medicine Bow, Wyoming.

To be specific, our present home is located in the quaint and charming artist's haven of Peterborough, New Hampshire. The town population is 5,281, which does not include the homeless guy who sleeps in the public gazebo down on Depot Square.

 Among other things, Peterborough claims the title of being the only town in America that ends with a preposition. That's entirely because of the large wooden signs posted on both approaches to town that state:

Welcome to Peterborough. A Good Town To Live in.

   Oh! Before I get too far here, I have an apology to offer. If you're a regular reader (I think we still have a few), you know that I often refer jokingly to the state where I live as the State of New Hamster.

 I shouldn't do that.

  Anyway, what I want to talk about today is not a state thing. It's a regional thing. It has to do with the entire body of land and people in our United States that people commonly call New England and Yankees, respectively. 

  To be even more specific, what I want to talk about today is New England Yankee Neighbors. In rural New England a neighbor is not the same as a typical neighbor you might have, say, in Duluth, Minnesota. 

  In New England a neighbor is 'that guy who bought the Barrett place', or 'the couple that lives on the Sotheby Farm'. In New England all inhabitants are referred to by the name of the person or family who used to own the property in the year 1621.  

 The age-old practice of gentryism survives here. If your ancestors didn't arrive here on the good ship Mayflower (a moving truck by that name doesn't count), you can expect a bumpy ride on the neighbormobile for at least the first twenty-five years of your 'stay.' 

 Last week I was down in the cellar playing with my model trains when I thought I heard a muffled knock at the door.

I scurried up the steps and opened the front door. 

There was no one there.

 So I went to the side door.

 There was no one there, either.

 Back door.

 Same thing. 

Finally, in desperation, I went back down into the cellar and swung open the heavy bulkhead doors.

"Thought I'd tell 'ya. 'Yer shed's on fire."

I looked past a giant sequoia in a checkered Woolrich, only to discover that the giant was correct.

"Holy shit!"

After the fire department people had all departed, the checkered tree was still standing approximately where he had first greeted me.

 I said, "Hey! Thanks for telling me. It could have been a lot worse."

He replied, "May be."

I asked, "Where did you come from, I don't see your car anywhere?"

He replied, "Over thea", pointing to the house directly across the street, about thirty yards away.

"Well thanks, neighbor!"

I stuck out my hand and added, "My name's John, but my friends all call me Jocko."

 He did not offer a hand in return, but managed to answer in an almost inaudible voice, "People call me Mister Cunningham." 

I added nervously, "Yeah! I recall you now. We chatted about ten years ago when your septic overflowed during that bitter cold spell. Remember?"

He replied, "No."

I said cheerily, "Well, thanks again.. and don't be a stranger for another twenty-one years."

As he padded back across the street to his little white clapboard house I thought I heard him murmur, 

" 'Ya oughta' be moah damn careful."

Choppers

  Do you remember the old Vaudeville routine that goes like this:  'There are two ways to remove sticky peanut butter from the roof of your mouth. 

You can lick it off

 .. lick .. lick

  or you can blow it off

 ppphhhhhrrrrruuuu! .....'

 In the case of someone who wears dentures, there's also a third way to remove sticky peanut butter from the roof of your mouth.

You can take out your teeth and wipe it off.

O.K. This subject is probably not going to be a knee-slapper, but something has to be said about dentures because everyone I know who obviously wears them, refuses to admit they wear them. 

Who do you people think you're kidding?

For openers, I think a good set of false choppers looks way better than the natural teeth that most non-tooth challenged adults show us after the age of, say, forty-five.  

Second, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Is it our fault we were born with genetically defective gums?

 What bothers me more is that some dentists neglect to tell us the unvarnished truth about what we can expect from our expensive new eating devices.

They look fine. They fit fine. The problem is they don't work fine!

  Non-denture wearers will probably be quick to remind me that millions of people wear dentures. Would dentists recommend and sell them if they didn't work? My answer is 'Uh huh.'

 As a public service, I've recreated here a few verbatim excerpts from the documentation I received with my new dentures. I hope this will help to take the stigma, fear and mystery out of wearing your new dentures. To further enhance learning, I've also included a convenient lay translation of each paragraph:

Ask your dentist for a container that will conceal your dentures while they soak, so your dentures won't sit out in plain view, but make sure that the container is labeled or placed in a safe place, especially if you are visiting someone or have visitors at your home. Never place a denture in boiling water or the microwave oven.

which means:

Dentures are durable enough to stand up to chewing and biting, but fragile when they are out of your mouth. Dropping them or throwing them down on a sink or counter can break a tooth or part of the denture base.

which means:

 When your denture teeth are front teeth, avoid biting down directly on crunchy or hard foods, like hard pretzels, crusty bread, or even oversized sandwiches. They can all cause a denture to break because of the angle where your denture tooth meets the hard surface. Be careful when biting into whole apples as well; cut them into wedges instead.

which means:

Inherent Lower Denture Problems

A lower denture interfaces with more movable mouth surfaces than an upper denture.

which means:

The lower denture has less stabilizing surface to rest upon. For example, there is no broad palatal surface (roof of the mouth) as in an upper denture.

which means:

Loss of jawbone over time brings a lower denture into closer contact with tissue extensions called frenum attachments, which create dislodging forces.

which means:

A thin band-like tissue extension (called a frenum) may attach between a jaw ridge (called an alveolar ridge) and the inside of the cheek. This strip of tissue may become active while eating or speaking and can lift a denture from its alveolar ridge. This frenum attachment may be surgically moved (this is called a frenectomy).

which means:
 

As an alveolar ridge loses bone, it often may be built-up by surgically placing various substances beneath the gum tissue to increase both bulk and height of the ridge. This is called alveolar ridge augmentation.
 

which means:

As a person eats and speaks, the lips and cheeks exert forces towards the inside of the mouth while the tongue exerts an outward counter force. There is a space between the tongue and lips and cheeks, called the neutral zone, where there are balanced forces during function. These opposing forces can help maintain a denture in place, with surprising power, if the denture is fabricated so that its bulk and teeth rest within this space.
 

which means:

Friends 

  As is my occasional wont, I was looking at life in my rearview mirror the other day. After some scrutiny it came to my undivided attention that other than my loving wife, I appear to have somehow misplaced my friends. What has happened to them? 

Holy Chesterfields!

I've become friend challenged. 

 Anyway, that sobering thought got me to thinking some about friendship, and what it means to have a friend. When the brain smoke cleared, I had come up with a few things I thought might be worthy of passing along to other near-friendless people.

First off, I want to emphasize that one can be happy without friends. However, having a few of them around adds vanilla icing to this chocolate cake we call life.

A friend, unlike an acquaintance, is the result of an ongoing emotional bond between two entities. Please note that I have used the word entities here, instead of the word persons. That's because you can have a dog, a cat, or even an Aardvark as a friend; as long as an ongoing emotional bond has first been established between the entities.

 What we commonly refer to as love is a well-used metaphor for the word friendship. For example, if you're married and your wife is not your friend, you should consider divorce.

 I don't believe there are incremental degrees of friendship that mean anything that matters; such as 'best' friend, 'casual' friend, 'good' friend, 'close' friend, or even 'true' friend. 

You either have a friend, or you have an acquaintance. Period.

 Friends don't just materialize out of thin air, either. If I want to have friends, I've got to roll up my sleeves and work at it. I shouldn't expect to pop over to my new social club one morning for a game of gin, and then pout because I didn't come home with a pocketful of new friends. It doesn't work that way.

 An emotional bond takes time and effort to develop. Although I stated there are no real degrees of friendship, I think there are varying degrees of bond. Like cement, the longer a bond has been in place, the deeper a friendship becomes.

 More important, the bond must be ongoing. In my experience, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' is a useless empty phrase. I shouldn't be dismayed when a person who I haven't seen or spoken to in years suddenly ceases to acknowledge that I exist. Friendships, like car batteries, tend to die when left idle for too long.

Friendship, therefore, is a fairly complex thing to get your arms around. However, the basic elements that define a friend are as follows. 

A friend is always:

For example, consider this case study of George and Fred:

 It's 2:29 AM. George is fast asleep in his warm and comfortable waterbed. The telephone rings:

Breee...Breee..

George!

Uh......Yeah. This is George. 

Freddie here.

It's 2:30 AM, you simple shit.

I know. Sorry. Say, it got a little drunk out tonight. I need a teensy weensy little favor from ya', bud. My car's run me into a ditch on Route 6, just down from Two Willows Store. Can you... hee.. hee... maybe swing by and pick me up?

(three seconds of silence)

Uh.. Yeah.. Gimmee fifteen minutes. Which side of the road?

The left as you're going toward town.

O.K.

Got a couple of tallboys in the back. I'll save one for ya'. Thanks old buddy. You're a lifesaver.

Yeah.

George is Freddie's friend, because he passes the 'friend test' with flying colors. Even though it's 2:30 AM, George agrees to leave his warm bed to help Freddie without asking questions. 

George is loyal.

George knows Freddie is drunk again, but makes no mention of it in the conversation. 

George is non-judgmental.

Finally, there's a common bond between the two men. They both like to tell jokes and drink beer. Although they're not identical twins, they like the same action movies, worship the Boston Celtics, and both take on life in the much the same way. Despite their flaws and differences, they've learned to enjoy each other's company.

George and Fred share common ground.

So the next time you think you've lassoed a bunch of new friends, why not give them the 'friend test' to find out for sure.

Economies

 It's a fine mess we're in this time, Ollie. Among the many weird and distressing things that have happened to Americans so far in this new century we - the charter peons in a new global economy - now seem to be stuck with an almost two decades-old concept I want to call marketing economics by stupidity.

 Say what? Now please don't chuckle too hard and shake your head too long at my silly name for it because I'm not a trained professional. I'm only doing what many trained professionals do these days. 

I'm making it all up as I go along.

  In case you've been on an extended vacation to Ursa Major and  haven't yet noticed, we have a national economy that has been behaving like a wet taco. What appears on the surface to be a vibrant and growing economy is actually a fragile facade propped in front of an a teetering structure that refuses to change its marketing habits. 

Are you looking for a scapegoat?  Well, don't blame the folks in Washington, the Chinese, or even our friends in Mexico. To find the real source of the problem you need only look as far as your local college or university, where marketing students are pumped out by the thousands; most seemingly without frontal lobes attached to their brainstems.

 A robust national or global economic system must always contain enough goods to sustain itself, and a few more buyers than it has sellers. Ideally, those buyers should also have at least some hard cash in their wallets.

 For years prior to the economic downturn fostered by the infamous 'Dot Com Bust' on Wall Street, both marketers and media advertisers in this country focused exclusively on 18-49 year old consumers, praying to capture their undivided attention before they establish some nebulous sort of product brand loyalty.

 In the process, unsuspecting young consumers have been sold an economic bill of goods based almost entirely upon thin air:

 "Why buy it when you can lease it?"

"Have another credit card. The gold ones are pretty!"

"Go ahead, buy the BIG house!"

As a result, we now have a generation or two of folks out there who, besides being unemployed because 4.5 million manufacturing and high-tech jobs have been moved offshore, are deeply in debt.

 To top it off these folks have established almost no personal net worth, and therefore have no cash to spend on consumer items that would help our economy grow at an acceptable pace without inflation:

nary a pot to pee in, nor a window to throw it out of..

What we have are advertisers spending billions of dollars each year to sell beer, CDs, video games, cell phones, and other trinkets to millions of young people who haven't a decent job, hard cash, or tangible assets. 

Does this sound like a formula for economic vigor to you?  

Me either.

 Hey guys! Have you thought about trying to sell big ticket items to we aging baby boomers who, despite millions of teenagers armed with dad's burnt-out credit cards, at this very moment control the lion's share of real discretionary income available in this country? 

To catch a mouse, you make a sound like a cheese..

 Like ostriches with their collective heads buried in the sand, many American companies today also remain in denial about how to reach profitability; turning to discounts and promotions to create volume which they hope will, in turn, make their company's bottom line more attractive to stock market investors. 

 CEOs are terrified to raise the prices they charge for goods and services, choosing instead to 'save' themselves into profitability by slashing labor and overhead costs. The corporate road to success is paved with the innards of the American worker, and what remains of the American 'dream'.

 It doesn't take a professional economist to understand that large corporations like Ford Motor Company will not be able to stay in business when they reportedly lose about 8% on each vehicle they sell. 

 Anyway, all of this it was just a thought. The clothes dryer just beeped, so I've got to go downstairs and take out the bed sheets before they, too, come out looking like a wet taco.

 People

  People. All my life I've struggled to understand them, without much success. 

  Dogs. Now dogs I understand. A dog may bite you, but then he'll always bite you when you treat him in a certain way. 

Almost all dogs I know, given enough food, are predictable.

  People, on the other hand, are unpredictable. They'll bite you on the butt one day, and then kiss you behind the ear the next day; all without rhyme or reason.

  My Great Uncle Mortimer passed along this gem of adult wisdom to me when I was a young man. He said, 

  "To get along with people Jocko -- to really get along with people -- you need to tell them not what is true, or what is honest, or what is sincere. Tell them what they want to hear you say."

  Maybe this business of telling people what they want to hear works for others, but not for me.  If I live to be a hundred and four, I'll never get the hang of it. 

 When I try to flatter people, the person I'm trying to flatter always manages to see right through me -- down to my devious core.  

  For example, I went into town awhile back to buy some wood screws at the Ace Hardware Store. I thought that since I was already downtown and it was around lunchtime, I'd swing by Norm's Diner and have a sandwich.

  The waitress, a young woman of about thirty, greeted me and then asked me what I'd like to order. 

  I said, "Hey! that spaghetti stain on your blouse there matches your hair almost perfect."

  She replied, "'You still want to order something, or should I just call the cops now!"

  Do you see what I mean? Where flattery is concerned, I always manage to pick the wrong thing to say, or the wrong subject.

  O.K. If you want to learn how to do this flattery thing right, you've got to go see the salesperson I know down at Murphy Toyota here in East Vanderschlock. His name is Jake. 

  Among other things, Jake is loaded with charisma and personal charm.  After waiting for us to browse the new Celicas and a hot-looking red Spyder we knew we could never afford, Jake gets down to business, "Jocko, you're so young, and already you're retired. I wish I were you." 

  Jake then turns to my wife, "You look so nice in that new jacket, dear. Neiman-Marcus, is it? I'll tell you, it makes you look like not a day over thirty". 

  It was an old car coat she had bought on sale at Sears, and my dear is pushing sixty, but that doesn't faze old Jake. It's people like him who make me turn green with envy. 

Well, he makes me turn green anyway.

  Here's another thing I don't understand about people.  Why do most people, except for me, seem to enjoy doing the same kinds of things -- like chatting in public places on a cell telephone, or eating at an expensive restaurant when there's a perfectly good Wendy's right there in the same block.

Am I that out of touch with society?

  For example, I'm pretty sure now that I'm the only adult male person in the United States of America who does not like pizza, or football. 

  O.K. I admit I may have crossed the line of scrimmage on that last item. But if it's not true, then why does the quarterback guy always have his hands right there under the crotch of the center guy; and then the announcer yells, 

"He snaps the ball from center!" 

Will someone please explain that? 

And here's a few more things I don't understand about people.

 Why do:

  A few months ago I was in the checkout line down at the Amherst Super Wal-Mart store, when I felt a sharp pain in my upper gum. 

  As the line inched forward toward the cashier I felt another pain in the same place. This one was even worse than the first one.

  Finally, I made it all the way to the cashier and had just swiped my debit card to pay for my groceries, when the pain struck again.

 Ouch!

Out of sheer frustration and agony I yanked out my upper denture, and then held it up to my face for inspection.

  I said, "Sorry. Got a little piece of pork chop in there."

   The cashier's face went patriotic. It first turned light red, then sheet white, and finally a light pale blue. 

 The nice elderly lady who I had been chatting with in line quickly turned around the other way and pretended not to see me. 

  All this fuss because I took out my denture in public. 

  My wife now calls me the: Amherst Denture Flasher

  I wonder. Can you go to jail for that? 

  One thing's for certain, I'm not going to register with the police department.

-j

Ay yah! Click here to return to the front page