Senior Coffee

We were in Vegas waiting in line at a fast food restaurant. I won't say the name but it's the one with those lovely kiosks that every tech challenged senior hate. It was morning and we needed coffee.  The guy in front of us needed a coffee too and he needed it really bad.  There was nobody at the counter, so he asked the old lady wiping the tables, if he could get one. She was clearly having a bad day and decided this guy was enemy number one. She was waiting for the right opportunity to yell at someone. Enter, caffeine deprived old guy.  She threw her towel on the table, looked over the rim of her glasses and let the poor guy have it. You have to use to the touch screen. Sounding a bit like a blue haired wicked witch of the west. She was not happy for a couple reasons. One, she was eighty years old and two; she was still working.

 The old man looked at the screen and was just a little puzzled. He was about to lose it and yelled, Can't I just go to the counter. I don't know how to work this frigging thing.  She barked back. No! You have to use the kiosk! There he was mumbling to himself. All I want is a frigging seniors coffee! There he was, swiping page to page, up, down, left and right, like he was on a dating site for tech challenged old fart coffee drinkers. Eventually, he found the coffee screen. Everyone could hear him thinking out loud.  I know it was a cry for help. Only we couldn't help, we were just as old and just as challenged. 

Let see coffee. Click. What size? Click. The screen had more drop down boxes than an Amazon driver. Would you like cream? Yes? He answered the machine and hit the button. Click. How many? One, thank you. He punches the button. Click. Sugar? No thanks How many? I said, no thank you. To complete your order please press pay now. The next screen had two options: credit card or debit. The old man is furious, not only could he not buy a senior discount coffee, he had a fist full of cash that the machine will not take. He begins to shake a little as he looks for a slot (like vending machine) somewhere on the screen. He yells out how the frig do I pay for this? Blue hair chimes in the screen says debit or credit! I'm not paying for a coffee with my credit card, who do you think I am some stoner kid buying a bag of chips and zigzags. Then he notices the price difference. He looks up and yells where 's the frigging button for seniors discount. She yells back. There is no senior discount on the kiosk you have to come to the counter. The old man now frantic puts his wad of cash back in his pocket and leaves. 

I will conclude by giving you a coffee tip I use in Vegas all the time. I wake up every morning and head down to my favorite keno machine.  I sit down put five dollars in. On top I have a bill visible to the server. A server usually shows up soon. I order a coffee. I play one nickel at a time. When I get my coffee I give her a dollar tip. I cash out four dollars and I'm on my way. I sat on my ass and paid two dollars for coffee. The coffee is always better than fast food slop. If I win I give her more. I'm cheap but I'm not that cheap.

Gone Squirrely

 Squirrels. Cute little nut burying, squirrels. We had a pet squirrel and he used to eat right out of my sisters hand. You could always count on Charlie the squirrel. He'd scurry down that maple tree to enjoy a peanut or whatever item we deemed squirrel food. A crust of a peanut butter sandwich, popcorn or chips. Charlie was fat. I'm sure his cholesterol was through the roof. Charlie didn't care, he was getting hand-fed. It was better than Nut Grub. His grub got delivered right to his mouth. The thing we didn't count on was his kids taking over the back yard.

My mother had a beautiful back yard. I say had beautiful back yard, that is before the squirrels took it over. One day my mother had a meltdown. I'll just say that the squirrels finally made her squirrelly . The definition of squirrelly is: restless and unpredictable. Which is true, for squirrels and my mother.

My dad seeing how they were make my mother nuts, decided that for the good of the neighborhood and my mothers mental health, to trap the little buggers. Everyday he'd take a trip to Memorial park and drop off what he had caught. But just like that cat, the squirrel came back the very next day. Maybe not. I'm sure there were many dependents of Charlie raiding the neighborhood. My dad couldn't keep up so he threw in the towel.

My mother was now on a mission. Mom heard that if you put moth balls in your garden the squirrels would leave your plants alone. Our whole yard, back and front was littered with little stinky white balls. There was Charlie. My mother was peeking through the drapes incognito like. Eureka! She thought. Not Charlie. He looked down and thought look at these enormous breathe mints. Charlie had one in his mouth when my mother bolted through the screen door. Yelling something only a squirrel could understand. Those are moth balls! She shouted. Charlie not phased by her attempt to scare him looked up and said, these moth balls taste a lot like tulip bulbs. Of course the conversation between my mother and Charlie is speculative and meant for your enjoyment. But if squirrels could talk, could you imagine the conversation.

Back in his hole in the tree called home, Charlie is at the table with his family. In front of him was all that possible edible stuff he had collected. The main course no surprise, is nuts. Everything else is questionable. And everything that is questionable gets buried like most questionable things do. Charlie, a resident of a predominantly Catholic yard, says grace. His wife and kids bow their heads. Dear Lord thank you for this meal. Please welcome uncle Pete to the other side even if the other side was not the other side of the road. Amen.

Meanwhile. In a laundry room not too far a way, a squirrelly woman is concocting a witches brew. I have to clarify here, I am to blame for the super-soaker, everything else was my mothers idea. She had learn listening to a gardening show on the radio, that squirrels didn't like cayenne. Aha! Her eyes gleamed with excitement. Her pulse quickened with the anticipation of vermin warfare. She began to fill the weapon of doom. Hot water and pepper, lots and lots of pepper. You could hear the sound of her high pitched laughter. He, he ,he. I'll get you my pesty and your little squirrel family too!

My mother, decked out in camouflage, hid behind a bush and waited. Her hands clutched the weapon of doom. It was cocked and ready. The hot water and infused cayenne pepper mixture would finally wipe out the vermin. She was like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, talking out of the side of her mouth. I must kill the squirrels! The squirrels must die!

It never occurred to her that maybe she should have done some target practicing first. It was too late for that now, Charlie was at twelve o'clock. She wiped her eyes, steadied her hands and let a steam fly. Charlie didn't know what hit him. Nothing hit him just the thought that this squirrelly lady had finally gone over the edge. My mother was in hot pursuit. Charlie ran up and down the fence like it was game. His family looked down from above and laughed their little squirrelly asses off. Soon the battle was over and the barrel was empty. My mother looked in disbelief. Charlie got away but the fence didn't. That brand new white fence was not as white. The battle scares could be seen from one end to the next. Like a never ending wave of cayenne graffiti. She tagged our backyard fence like it was a gang territory.

Charlie is gone and so is my mother but the memories like that once white fence lingers on. I wonder if those stains ever came out.

Hockey Cards

The best bubble gum came in a two and a half by three and a half inch pack. It was powdery goodness in a thin stick. We'd rummage through the hockey cards inside, blowing bubbles while verbalizing as we shuffled. We'd shout a players name out and someone would chime in with one of two phrases; got it or need it. Every kid had a checklist. Once you had filled your set, you'd wrap an elastic band around it and put in a shoe box. I had a box like that once. I forgot about that box. My mother found that box and decided the church bazaar needed it more than me. I'm getting ahead of myself.

If a kid had a card you wanted, you had to challenge him or her to a game called tops. You would usually use a double you didn't need that the other player needed and he would do the same. The skill involved holding the card between your index and middle finger while resting your thumb on top and giving it a simple flip of the wrist. The rules of the game were rather simple. You just need a wall. There were two prominent walls I can recall. The brick wall of my childhood home and my grade school wall. There are variations to the game but this is the easy one; If your card lands on top your opponents card you win. You would yell Topsy! If no Topsy is declared the closest card to the wall wins. Sometimes we sweetened the pot and played a few cards. One rule had to be called out just before the game started. If you didn't yell no leaners! it didn't matter how great you could top, a leaner took it all.

By the time we were done with the cards their value was pretty used up. We didn't know how important it was to have crisp corners our corners were rounded and deemed almost worthless. Our doubles suffered a fate much worse. Decapitation. We kids loved making noise and loved anything that could make noise. We found out making noise just required a clothespin and a Bobby Hull hockey card. I had so many Bobby Hull cards; I could afford to sacrifice a few in a noise making experiment. That old Swinger bike with its banana seat and chopper handle bars had a new feature; a muffler. A clothespin attached to the rear frame with a pinned down hockey card resting on a spoke. That's all we needed to fill the air with the sounds of mutilated cardboard. Sorry Bobby putting a Maple Leaf double on my bike was unethical. The quiet one lane road wasn't as quiet that day.

One Amazing Maple

A maple tree can grow anywhere, if given a chance. A crack in the cement, a rose garden or between a pile of wood. Such was our maple.

We had a wood pile on the ground in our back yard. It was pushed against the back fence and was forgotten. It consisted of bricks, timber and the discarded dreams of being a garage one day.

Time goes by and sometimes, dreams do too. But not us kids, we saw the opportunity to let our imaginations go wild. I don't know if craft paper and crayons were involved but I could just see myself designing it. It was a grand wood fort. It had a roof and inside a small dwelling that was just big enough to hide in during snowball fights and hide and seek. I don't know how that little maple penetrated the walls of our fort but right smack in the middle of it, it began to grow. We didn't even notice it at first. It was fertilized by the laughter of children. It grew happily and we did too.

The back yard changed a bit as we grew. The fort was torn down and a flower garden took its place. Now, that much bigger tree was free to grow without obstructions. It kept growing thirsting for the laughter of children playing in the yard. 

Time goes by which it often does and things had changed. We were older; us kids and that tree. No snowball fights or hide and seek. We had new games to play. Baseball, Hockey and football. Yes there was still laughter and total joy. That great maple basked in its glory. Truly a grand family tree.

Between clinging and surrender there is a life, lived to completion. Every leaf falls and a new leaf is born. Every leaf once caressed by the morning sun will be taken away with the wind. The wind is called change. Everything changes too soon. 

One day a small crack began to trickle down the trunk it was the beginnings of the heartaches to follow. It seemed as we grew up, if we suffered loss, it suffered too. The crack grew longer and tears of sap and moisture ran down its trunk but that old maple stood tall, lush and green. 

How do you mend a broken heart? Chains

My father was the kindest man I've ever known. I don't know what possessed him to do it but he wrapped a chain around the heart of that tree, used his Popeye arms and winched it securely. It was for the love of his family. It was for the love of a fond memory, looking out the window at his three boys having the time of their lives. It was with gratitude and thanksgiving, if only for a while. Sometimes you have to put a chain around a heart and hold on. Our parents were the chains around our hearts. It worked, that tree grew and so did we.

That old maple grew around the chains. The chains that kept its heart beating all these years. Now, the chain is old and rusty and it's a few layers deep. Like the chains on my own heart. Still beating, still thirsting.

When we sold the house on Buckingham it was a sad time. The tree was barely hanging on and so were we. Barely hanging on. Sometimes that's all we can do. But we must hang on. Hang on to joy. Hang on to hope. Hang on to our memories and hang on to our blessings. 

Life lessons for kids:

Find a pile of wood, build a fort and if  you happen to see a little twig coming out of the ground, let the tree grow. We did and oh what a tree it was. Thank you my old friend. Thank you.

Fritz the horse

This is a story about a groomer, a small kid and a horse named Fritz. Fritz was a gentle old standard-bred. A retired harness horse. One of many horses in residence at the Manning road farm. The barn was filled with has-beens, want-to-bes and yes, horses too. Tending to the horses were tired old men with tired old dreams, telling tired old stories, reminiscing about the good old days and the races they, or should I say, their horses won. The big white barn had massive sliding doors at each end, opened wide to reveal the splendor of the jug-heads inside and horses too. The smell of leather, straw and Absorbine Jr filled the air. That and the smell of alcohol being consumed by the horsemen. The barn floor was littered with mud, shit and straw. It was like walking through a landmine. Even if you tip toed it, there was a good chance shit was going to happen. Especially if it happened to be on the bottom of your shoe. It was a giant place and I was just a small city kid and apparently gullible.

There she was; the groomer. I don't know what attracted me to her. In fact, to this day, I can't remember what she looked like. It must have been a hat thing. I've always been attracted to girls in hats; baseball or cowboy. I had seen her many times and befriended her enough to trust her. Trusted her enough to think that she knew what she was doing.

After giving Fritz a nice brush down, she decided to let me in on a secret. I don't know why I believed her. She told me that she had broke Fritz. That Fritz a retired standard-bred, was now a converted thoroughbred. Well, not really, he was just an old horse, too old to fight the weight of a young girl on his tired old back.

Trust is a strange thing. I don't remember getting on the horse ( I think my dad gave me a boost) but I do remember when things got bad. Oh, they got bad and in a hurry. Trust. I trusted that the girl in front of me had experience. She trusted Fritz enough to ride him bareback. I trusted that the tired old horse wouldn't know the difference. What was a little more weight? Old Fritz is a gentle old horse.

Everything was fine until Old Fritz realized that there were two of us on his back. It went from a slow walk, to a gallop, to a trip to the hay field and the hell with this, someone is going down. My trusted friend was the first one to be thrown from the carousel of doom. I was left with nothing to hold on to. I was bucked off like a one second cowboy trying to stay on a bronc. Time stood still for a moment. Trust kind of hung there a millisecond before the realization that the ground was waiting for my unexpected arrival. There was three sounds. One, the air escaping my lungs. Two, the puff of dust and dirt flying through the air. And the sounds of my fathers laughter. I looked up from the ground, through a cloud of dust, I could see the shocked look on my dad's face. Hoping I was okay, so that his laughter wouldn't sound so offensive. I was okay and the laughter continued. My father, always ready to comment whenever I messed up; said the following. Did you learn something? I dusted myself off, looked up and said Why, yes I did!

Never trust a pretty girl wearing a cowboy hat or the horse she rode in on!

Older and old

Older:

We are all getting older. And getting older is no walk in the park. Wait, it sort of is.

Yes, it is a walk in the park. You're walking along, all be it much slower, slouched down which, lucky for you, is close to the ground. This make smelling the roses so much easier. You're older and that's okay. 

Old:

Old means you have arrived. Same park but this time, you walk even slower, slouched down even further, you can 't see where you are going, you fall in a hole and instead of smelling roses you push up daises. You have arrived. You're old. Congratulations

I hope this was a little bit funny. 

Denny D

Hockey Sticks

      I lived on Buckingham drive. The district known as Sandwich East; the east side of the city better known as Windsor Ontario. That one lane pothole street was our playground. The arena. The stadium. We were average kids with time on our hands. Instead of cell phones. 

Every kid grew up dreaming of playing hockey. They imagined playing for his or her favorite team. I was just one of many. I was Dave Keon and when I played net, of course, Jacques Plante. The Toronto Maple Leaf's was (okay still are) my team. Had I known the ribbing I was going to receive my whole life, I might have changed teams.

A new hockey stick was key to childhood hockey fantasy. A simple hockey stick. I didn't get one often, so when I did, I used it until it was almost used up. My younger brothers got my hand me down Sherwood's. Every kid had a hand me down Sherwood. It was what the pros used, so it was the only acceptable brand. By the time I was done with them, they were no longer hockey sticks, more like a long handled tooth pick, wrapped in black electrical tape that I found rummaging through my fathers stash again. Hockey tape! Who has money for that? Improvise. We did. We kept the sticks together, wrapped from butt end to blade. Good thing too, a high stick with that tooth pick could poke your eye out. Eventually those old Sherwood's went back to the forest (the wood pile) a bladeless lifeless shaft.   

When replacement blades first arrived on the scene it was literally a game changer. All those hand me down tooth pick sticks got a much needed upgrade. After all, you can replace a blade, an eye, a little trickier. Now the worst injury was the self inflicted butt end to the middle section or worse. Anyone who has jammed the stick into a driveway seam, knows what I mean. Putting the blade on wasn't easy. You had to Smash the butt of the stick on the ground, while pushing the blade on the shaft to make it fit. Once in place we had to find a screw (you know where) and you're almost there.

That magical blade was great. We soon found out we could bend the blade to look like Bobby Hull's stick. We just needed an absent mother, a stove top, time and muscle. After softening and shaping the blade into the desired curvature, we 'd sink it into snow to chill or run it under cold water. We didn't plan on the lingering scent of plastic in the air. Even with the widows open. The smell hung around like my Mom's liver and onions, only worse, if that's possible. Hey, we didn't burn down the house, it just smelt like it. Now we were ready to unleash a slap-shot and knock the peanut butter jar off grandma's cupboard or my head.

Now I have seen home made hockey nets. Heck, I was the master builder of home made hockey nets but home made hockey sticks, now that's another thing. The kids down the road were poor and like us improvised. They nailed together two pieces of wood. I wasn't sure if it was a hockey stick or a weapon. They didn't have the skills we had. How could they? But they were tough and just what our block needed to beat the other block when they came down the road to challenge us. We nailed them, okay the poor kids down the road nailed them because every time the shot the ball, projectiles flew everywhere. Speaking of balls..

If you want to play hockey you must first play ball. You can't play street hockey without it. There are many choices so choose wisely. The strike out ball was our street hockey ball. Red, white, blue and spongy. We did have other options. A hairless tennis ball or a rubber  hockey puck. The rubber puck had a secret; it wanted to be a sponge ball.  All it did was bounce around and piss me off. Then one day someone showed up with an orange ball. At first it was cool. Until, it got cool. When it got cool, things started hurting. A slap-shot caught in a thinly palmed baseball mitt. Ouch. A snap shot to the ankle or a wrist shot to the shins. Double ouch. We decided that the orange ball was a three season ball and chucked it into the shed where all the bad ideas lay, in one day land.

Oh the hours we played. That one lane road had it all. Laughter, pot holes, lamp post and the sounds of my dad whistling because we never noticed the lamppost. We all knew, when it lights up, it was lights out. Game over.

Thanks for stopping by. If you like my stories, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to comment and share. 

Denny D

The Street hockey net

                    A cheap hockey net. Seemed like a simple request. Not too demanding. We were sick and tired of collecting a missed shots that rolled down the entire length of the block. Tired of the using bricks for goal posts. Tired of the in and out childhood disputes. Was the shot in or was it out. We wanted a hockey net. Not the flimsy skinny aluminum tubular L shaped ball of string. We wanted a real official size skinny aluminum tubular ball of string. We tried to convince my mom and dad that for the good of the neighborhood, we needed it. My parents weren't buying it. My parents money went to more important things, like food for seven kids. And our piggy banks were always empty. The money went to more important things, like penny candy and hockey cards. We could have bugged my dad and I suppose he'd eventually give in. Well, he kind of did. He did get us some empty oat bags from his brother's barn. We got free wood from a pile that was lying next to the fence. All we needed was three or four empty oat bags, the stapler from my mothers desk, extra staples from my moms desk, scissors, a couple two by fours and whatever nails we could find rummaging through my dad's peanut butter bear jar. The famous peanut butter bear jar. My dad had a habit of using whatever make shift container he could find to house his stash.  A margarine tub, an old cashew can, a dried up paint can. He could have labelled them shit I might use, one day. Everything was a possible reservoir of future use crap. My mother's missing Tupperware wasn't missing, it was just repurposed. Leftovers. Leftover bolts from a ceiling fan. Leftover screws from entertainment unit. A washer from a rusty water nozzle. A water nozzle. Hey! It fit.

My friends grandpa smoked a pipe. He smoked for one reason and for one reason only. To fill empty tobacco tins with nuts, bolts, washers and nails. Oh my! A handy mans paradise. Every exposed beam in the basement workshop had Export “A” tins hanging from them. He had a system. Every tin had one of the contents inside glued to the bottom, so he knew what was inside. Ingenious! My dad system wasn't as elaborate but it worked. I was happy to help him with his OCD. I ate a lot of peanut butter when I was a kid. He only had a few good hiding places for his stash. The shed was one but his favorite was just above the washer and dryer. A small corner cupboard, only accessible by climbing up. We had to time the climb because the washer ran for eight hours a day. A kid could get killed falling off it, if the spin cycle kicked in. The cupboard door was made of reinforced steel. The wood exterior was a decoy. It was so hard to open. The catch inside was sticky and that's the way my dad wanted it. Only he, with his Popeye arms could pry it open. One day, out of desperation ( a hockey net project) I mustered up enough strength. It opened. A beam of light shone down to illuminate the treasure trove of priceless useless shit my dad had collected over the years. The bear jar glowed. I reached in and grabbed the holy grail and slowly twisted the bears brain and dumped its contents out. There before my eyes, the items I'm sure his mind thought I could use this someday. Someday was here. We got nails, all kinds of nails. I took what I needed carefully pour the unused shit back into the bear and closed the door making sure it was shut tight. He would never notice.

The one thing he couldn't help but notice.

A one hundred pound hockey net. It would have been easier to buy one from Canadian Tire and a hell of a lot easier to move. But we built it ourselves. And we were proud. We were taught at a young age if you can't afford it, improvise. So we did. The dimensions were a little off and I was a little short. Heck, the crossed bar was above my head but it worked and that's all that mattered. Mind you when someone yelled car! It took two of us to get it off the street.

Thanks for stopping by. If you like my stories, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to comment and share. 

Denny D