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Lessons drawn from gas caps, hot sandwiches and UNI Panther sweatshirts

10/25/2018

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Charles City Press, 10-25-18


When you live among the humans, sometimes the easy things are hard.

When I walked out of my favorite local convenience store at lunch today, I nearly collided with a man in a really cool-looking Northern Iowa Panther sweatshirt. He was coming in, I was walking out, and neither of us was paying close attention. We managed to miss each other, we both said “excuse me” and went on our way.

It was a non-incident, but I remembered it because of the brilliant purple and gold sweatshirt that said “Panther Marching Band” on it. I thought that maybe if I had gone to school in Cedar Falls at UNI, I would like to wear a cool sweatshirt like that. Maybe I should get one anyway.

I was in a good mood because I had just had a pleasant and funny conversation with the lady at the checkout counter as I paid her for my hot sandwich and chips. The conversation was about nothing memorable, but we each made the other laugh, and those are nice moments.

As I got back out to my car, I noticed a car parked near mine that had its gas lid wide open, its gas cap dangling. I noticed the car was still running, but no one was inside.

What to do? I felt like I just couldn’t leave that gas cap dangling like that. I don’t know enough about cars to know all the possible consequences of leaving your gas open. Maybe it allows water and dirt and junk into the gas tank and can ruin your engine or something. In the very least, you look like a dunderhead as you’re driving all over town with your gas lid wide open and the gas cap dangling freely.

In the past, I’ve just walked up and screwed on the gas cap on and closed the lid for whoever the absent-minded stranger was. But I didn’t want someone to see me do that and think I was taking some kind of liberties with a car that wasn’t mine. Maybe my best bet would be to go back into the store and find out who owned the car, and kindly tell him or her about the gas cap situation.
I checked the make and model. Equinox. And then I noticed the stickers on the car. “UNI Panthers.”

Aha! That’s it! UNI Panther Marching Band. The guy with the cool sweatshirt. He’ll be easy to find.

If only that would have been true.

I tossed my hot sandwich and chips into my car, went back inside and checked all four corners of the store, but no Panther Shirt Man. I figured he must be using the bathroom. I considered going in there, then considered the awkwardness and embarrassment of having a conversation with a stranger while he does his business. Most unpleasant. I decided to wait for him to come out, I was in no hurry. So I waited.

He seemed to have been in there an awful long time now, and for a lot of reasons, that reinforced my belief that my decision to not go in there was the right one.

“Can I help you find something, sir?” a young woman, an employee of the store, asked me.

Yes. I explained everything to her — the car and the gas cap and the missing Man in the Purple Panther Sweatshirt.

She seemed to understand and looked around for a few seconds.

“I don’t see him,” she said. “He must have already left.”

I must not have explained it as well as I thought I had.

“No, he hasn’t left. I saw him walk in, and he hasn’t walked out, and his car is still sitting out there in the parking lot, waiting for him.”

I offered as evidence the Equinox, 15 feet from where we were standing, on the other side of the big store window, smoke coming from the exhaust because it was still running, the gas lid clearly wide open.

“Are you sure he hasn’t left?” she asked me, still skeptical that the preponderance of evidence I had just presented to her had eliminated all reasonable doubt.

Of course I was sure.

“Well then, if he hasn’t left, he could be in the men’s room.”

She got it. I told her that was exactly what I thought. He’d been in there an awful long time. He’ll come out soon, and I will talk to him.

“You can’t expect me to go into the men’s room,” she said, her voice raising. “I can’t go into the men’s room.”

I didn’t know where that came from.

“Don’t be so defensive,” I said to her, probably too loudly. “I don’t expect you to go into the men’s room. I don’t expect you to do anything. I’m just trying to help this guy out and let him know about his gas cap.”

And then, to my heartbreaking astonishment, the young woman began to cry. Seriously. I am not making this up. She dashed off to a back corner of the establishment, weeping. This whole thing was weird now.

And there I stood, speechless, possibly the biggest jerk in the entire history of the world. With a not-very-hot sandwich and chips in my car.

I walked over to the checkout clerk, hoping to find an ally. Surely she would recall the joy and laughter of that wonderful conversation which we had shared six or seven minutes ago, believe that there is still good in me, and somehow magically fix it so that none of this was real.

Or maybe, at least, she could wait for Purple Panther Sweatshirt Man to come out of the bathroom — maybe sometime this week — and tell him, on my behalf, that his stupid gas cap was off and the cover was dangling. I explained the situation to her.

“And now, I made that poor girl back there cry, and I feel bad, because I didn’t mean to do that,” I said to her, in conclusion. “I’m very sorry.”

“Oh no. She’s not crying about you. It’s something else entirely,” she assured me. She seemed sincere, but I didn’t believe her.

“Are you sure? I can apologize to her.”

Absolutely not necessary, she told me.

So I left the store, vowing under my breath to never ever ever again decide to try to help anyone, unless it was a life-or-death kind of thing.

As I walked to my car, I realized that there was now someone in the driver’s side of the Equinox, not Panther Man, but a woman chatting on the phone. I saw that the gas cap was still off. I figured it must be Panther Man’s wife, back in the car waiting for him. He was still in the bathroom, perhaps signing a lease to move in, writing checks for a security deposit and the first month’s rent.

I stood near the car and waved at her to get her attention. She looked up at me as if she were a sorority girl from Haddonfield, I was Michael Myers holding a machete, and today was Halloween.

I had scared the heck out of her.

I smiled and opened my hands and arms to put her at ease, then motioned for her to roll down the window so I could tell her something. She wouldn’t. She wasn’t scared anymore, but she wasn’t going to roll down her window for me.

So I nodded and began to talk very loudly and slowly, so she could hear.

“Your gas cap is off,” I said, pointing at the side of her car. “You might want to put it back on.”

Now she was visibly annoyed. Who was this silly old man, and why did he care about my gas cap? My gas cap is none of his business.

She gave me a very sarcastic “OK” sign with her fingers, then dismissed me, waving me off.

“Go away, silly man,” she seemed to be saying. “I am talking on the phone and it’s much more important than your little fake emergency.”

This is why good people stop trying to help others, I thought to myself, munching on my cold sandwich and chips as I drove off.

Sometimes the others just aren’t worth the trouble.

Sometimes they are though, I thought.  Maybe not today, but sometimes they certainly are.

I decided that if had to do it all over again, I would do it the same way, except I’d be really careful and try not to make that young woman cry.

Sometimes the easy things are hard, when you live among the humans.

I went home, finished my lunch, and spent a half-hour online shopping for Northern Iowa Panther apparel.
​

It really was a cool looking sweatshirt.
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Maybe money can’t buy happiness, but I’d like to give it a shot

10/18/2018

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Charles City Press, 10-18-18

Have you ever won the lottery?

I don’t play all that often, but occasionally I’ll buy a handful of tickets when I see that the jackpot has shot way up there. I have friends who play all the time, and I have other friends who refuse to play — once a friend told me that playing the lottery is akin to gambling, and gambling is wrong.

It’s customary for my parents to give all of their kids and grandkids a bunch of scratch-off tickets on Christmas morning. It’s fun to take a nickel and scratch them all off, and most years a couple of us will win a few bucks, maybe enough to get a hot sandwich and some chips for lunch.

Many years ago I bought a Powerball ticket and won $100, which was nice. At the time, my family needed a television set, and someone was selling a very good used one for exactly $100, so essentially I won a free color TV.

As I write this, the Mega Millions jackpot this week is above $900 million. That’s a lot of television sets.

Occasionally, I’ll see someone who won millions of dollars in the lottery getting interviewed on television, and they’ll always say something like, “I’m gonna pay off some bills, maybe get a new car.”

Inevitably, whoever is interviewing them will ask them something about quitting their job.

“Oh no, I’m not going to quit my job,” will be the answer. “I won’t change my life all that much. All the money’s nice, but money can’t buy happiness.”

I’m not so sure about that.

It seems to me that that people who most often say that are people with a lot of money. People who don’t have a lot of money seem to believe that money can buy a certain amount of happiness, or at least money can make unhappiness slightly less unhappy.

Also, people who have a lot of money seem to do everything they can to hold on to it. Sure, many of them give large sums of cash to charities, and that’s a good thing. Many of them also invest their money into things that create opportunities for wealth for others, and I’m glad they do.

But a lot of them hide as much of that money as they can, to avoid paying taxes on it. They’ll also try to influence politicians, to get them to change the laws so they don’t pay as much money in taxes.

If having a lot of money really made them unhappy, then they wouldn’t be doing all that.

Old-time rock star David Lee Roth is quoted as saying, “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull right up alongside happiness.”

In other words, when you suddenly have a lot of money, happiness seems a lot closer than it did before.

According to a study I recently read by the American Psychological Association, this isn’t necessarily so. The APA, in summation, said their research shows “extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns: anxiety about their children, uncertainty over their relationships and fears of isolation.”

Another study I read, published at heartcenteredcounselors.com, concluded that the things money can buy will only make you happy for so long. A new watch or expensive item of clothing may bring you momentary happiness, but it won’t bring you lasting joy.

Things like family, community, connectedness, a sense of purpose and meaning, and self-actualization are what make people truly happy.

That sounds about right to me. I’ve known a lot of poor people who seem to be chronically happy, and a few rich people who always seem to be unhappy about something.

But still, the Mega Millions lottery jackpot is around $900 million this week. Everyone tells me that having $900 million won’t automatically make me happy, but I think I might buy a ticket anyway.
​

I’d like to find out for myself.

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Youth may be king, but old fogies rule

10/4/2018

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Charles City Press, 10-4-18

Peggy Sue died this week. She was 78.

Sixty years ago, her name was the title of what would become one of the most memorable songs in rock music history.

It almost didn’t happen. According to several news reports, music icon Buddy Holly initially called the song “Cindy Lou.”

Sing it: Pretty-pretty-pretty-pretty Cindy Lou.

Doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely, does it?

Peggy Sue was the girlfriend of Buddy Holly’s drummer, Jerry Allison. The two were later married, then divorced.

When the members of Buddy Holly’s band, The Crickets, were working on the song, Jerry wanted to impress his girlfriend, so he asked Buddy to change the name from “Cindy Lou” to “Peggy Sue.”

It may have been because Buddy was a good friend and loyal bandmate, or maybe it was because he was a great songwriter and knew that “Peggy Sue” sounded a lot smoother, but for whatever reason, Buddy made the change.

So the course of history may have been altered because of the hormones of two teenagers.

That’s nothing new. Young people — and their hormones — have always ruled the world.

Buddy Holly, of course, died in a Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash in Iowa that also killed Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. It was “The Day The Music Died,” and it is memorialized at the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake, which was the site of the last performance of those great musicians.

I haven’t been over there yet. I’ve seen the photos of the big Buddy Holly glasses out front. My wife has penciled in a visit on our to-do list.

Holly wrote several other popular songs, including “That’ll Be The Day” and “Maybe Baby.” He also penned the song-sequel “Peggy Sue Got Married.” His songs and his life inspired many other songs, several books and a handful of movies.

That young man was just 23 when he died, and by that time, he had already charted more than 20 hit songs — all of which had been written by him. It’s amazing to me how someone could have tuned his craft so finely at such a young age.

I caught a movie on cable some time ago about Hank Williams. No, not Hank Williams Jr., but his daddy, who died on New Year’s Day in 1953. I never did catch the title of the film, but it was about the last two days of his life. It was a sad and interesting story.

I was struck by the fact that Hank Williams wasn’t even 30 years old when he died. At 29, he had already recorded 35 singles that had reached the top 10 of the country music chart — and 11 of those had reached No. 1.

That’s something. By the time I was 29, my biggest accomplishment was being able to make an excellent sandwich.

So I’m pretty impressed with guys like Hank Williams and Buddy Holly, and this is accentuated by the fact that I actually like most of their songs.

Thinking about it also makes me feel really old.

I am well over twice Holly’s age when he died, and by comparison, I’ve accomplished next to nothing. And, I’m guessing, you’ve accomplished next to nothing as well, when compared to the likes of Hank Williams and Buddy Holly.

Tech gurus like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, the late Steve Jobs at Apple and Bill Gates at Microsoft all come to mind when you talk about people becoming hugely successful at a young age.

If you look back at history, Alexander the Great conquered the world by the time he was 20. Another Alexander — Hamilton — was George Washington’s chief of staff when he was 22. Author Mary Shelly published “Frankenstein” when she was 20. Investigative journalist Nellie Bly began her illustrious career at the age of 16. And Mozart composed his first symphony when he was an 8-year-old.

What a bunch of show-offs. They make the rest of us look like slackers.

But I’m here to tell you old fogies like me to take heart — there are plenty of people who never found success until later in life.

Colonel Sanders, for instance, was 65 years old before he perfected his original recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken and became the biggest name in food this side of McDonald’s.

Speaking of McDonald’s, co-founder Ray Croc was still selling milkshakes at 52. Six years later, he had 200 restaurants.

Edmund Hoyle was nearly 70 when he first began recording the rules to several various card games — rules we have followed for about 250 years now.

Laura Ingalls Wilder was 75 before she started cranking out the “Little House” books. And Julia Child was 50 when her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was published (and she was 40 before she even knew how to cook.) Elizabeth Jolley had her first novel published at 56. Author Mary Wesley was 71.

Henry Ford introduced the Model T when he was 45. He created the assembly line when he was 60.

Spider-Man creator Stan Lee was 43 before he started creating his famous comic book characters. Rodney Dangerfield didn’t become a stand-up comic until he was 42. Even then, he got no respect.

At the age of 96, Harry Bernstein published his memoir “The Invisible Wall.”

So, you see? It’s never too late. There is hope for the late bloomers among us.
Whiz kids like Mark Zuckerberg might think they rule the world, but some of us old fogies still have a trick or two up our sleeves.

I’ll be coming after Zuck and the rest of them soon.

Right after I take my medicine.
​

And a nap.

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