Crossing the bridge

These recent tales by Uncle Ken are pretty good and I'm glad they are seeing the light of day.  Years ago, when I first read about the Catfish, I think I mentioned to Uncle Ken that he should get a literary agent and shop it around   The advice still stands; wouldn't it be swell to see his stories in The New Yorker?

-----

Ah, the Mighty Mac!  A fuzzy childhood memory of mine is crossing the strait via ferry as the bridge was under construction, maybe the summer of '57.  I've crossed the bridge a few times since and it can be spooky, especially on a motorcycle.  One lane is a steel grating and it's a very long way down to the water, as you can plainly see if you look down.  Those steel surfaces grab your front wheel and make it wander a bit, adding to the drama.  Will a gust of wind blow you into the next lane, knocking you over as you hit the deck like a piece of cheese on a box grater?

While it's true that the bridge doesn't directly connect the US to Canada, you still have to cross that bridge if you want to cross the border many miles further north.  It's worth the trip, though, and you can marvel at the Soo Locks as you cross the border for some fresh vittles at Tim Horton's.  But maybe you don't want to go to Canada, that's fine.  The Upper Peninsula is a special place in it's own right and is highly recommended for those that want to get away from it all.  A lot of history and mining towns up there, to say nothing of the savory pasties.

-----

Wait, did I type vittles?  I meant victuals.  That's a funny word, victuals, because it's pronounced vittles.  I fell down that rabbit hole years ago when I thought they were two words meaning two different things.  Silly me, I should be used to the screwball nature of the English language by now.  I wonder how well those smarty-pants kids at the Spelling Bee will do when they are asked to spell "vittles."

-----

Just when we were getting used to the threat of the Delta variant of Covid-19, here comes another one.  Let's all give a warm welcome to the Lambda variant, arriving soon from South America!  I hope the vaccines we have can keep up with all these new versions; maybe we'll get lucky.

 

 

Jenn

 So Jenn is wandering through the kitchen, looking for God knows what, just banging around the way women are wont to do, God knows why.

 And I'm sitting at the kitchen table, you know, legs crossed but not in a feminine way, elbows outthrust in a manly way, reading the paper, digesting the News Of The Day, preparing it in a way that Jenn can understand when, in my dignified, but not pompous manner, I shall share it with her.  But, you know, I'm a little bit hungry too. What the hell is she doing in there anyway?

 "Where's them vittles woman?"

 Is not what I ask, not in this modern age, what I ask is, "May I help you in the kitchen dear?"  Of course I'm betting that she will refuse my request because of a few incidents in the past where afterwards things were perhaps not tidy enough.  They looked perfectly fine to me, but you know how women are.

 So it's a win-win.  I've expended no energy, and I've booked a little credit on my account.  "I offered to help."  Maybe I can cash it in later.

  

Like that night when I've finished my ninth beer and I just know that the tenth one will put me exactly where I want to be, and as I am raising my finger to the barmaid I feel Jenn tugging at my sleeve.

 "I'd like to go home now." 

 Geez what an inopportune time, my tenth, the keystone beer, the apogee of the evening, is only a wave of the finger away. 

 Now why the hell should she want to go home?  The bar is full.  Her man is brilliantly holding forth with tales of his triumphs, bold bawdy stories with rapier like digs of wit here and there.  Everybody is clearly enthralled.  She has to be bathing in Ken's reflected glory.  Oh how swell to be Ken's girl the other girls must be thinking.

 If there were any, which strangely enough there aren't.  Just four or five guys who appear to have been doing shots for the last hour.  Well surely they will tell their girls later and those girls will then think how lucky it is to be Ken's girl.  And that will be like a reflection of a reflection which everybody knows is twice as strong.  But still she is tugging so it's time to cash in the win-win credit, to shove those big fat table-setting, sauce-stirring, chips to the center of the table.

 "I offered to help with dinner Dear," I calmly refute her request.

 "What?" she replies in a totally unwarranted sharp manner.  Maybe she doesn’t realize how big and fat those chips are.  I will have to make it clearer.

 I put my arm around her and whisper confidentially, "Earlier this evening I offered to help with dinner and you know dear I would have been glad to do it, but you refused me, and so maybe you wouldn't mind if I had one more quick one, and then we could think about going."  Reasonable request.  Reasonable people would have to agree.

 "What?"  A little sharper now.  Who would've thought that little Jenn would have the strength to slam my hand to the bar, just missing, I might add, my quarter-full pint of Mad Hatter's pale India ale?

 "Huh," I reply judiciously, playing for time and noticing that the barmaid is at the far end of the bar pulling off the caps of PBRs for some newly-arrived pool players.  She won't even be in the vicinity for another couple minutes.  So we have time to talk this out, a couple minutes to get things straight.

 "Huh?" she asks, returning the ball to my court.  The barmaid has begun collecting the money for the PBRs.

 “You know what I’m thinking Jenn, is that what we’ll do is, I’ll just have this tenth beer, it’s a nice round even number, don’t you think?  And then we can go straight home.” 

 “That’s your eleventh beer that you’re finishing right now,” she says with such intensity, that I think that maybe she could be right.  But that’s a remote possibility because I always watch my intake carefully, and I’m pretty sure it’s just been nine.

 Well anyway the important thing is that one more beer, tenth or twelfth whatever, is the beer that is necessary to reach the acme of the evening.  If you think about it I’ve already had nine pints at four bucks apiece and that comes to 36 bucks so it would really be foolish not to spend four lousy bucks more to put a shining cap on the investment.  See how well I can do the math, nothing wrong with me. 

 But this argument is a little too complex, a little too numerically oriented for Jenn in the state she’s in to understand.  So I kind of do a shorthand on the whole thing, quick so Jen can see that I have this thing under control, and just agree and go along with the program.  “I’ll just have one more,” I say with impeccable logic.

 Which seems to go right over Jenn’s head, and she even ups the ante as she replies, “Call me a cab.”

 Perhaps I could deflect this whole thing with humor, and you know I have that rapier wit thing going so I might as well use it.

 “You’re a cab.”  Okay a very corny retort, but it’s all in the delivery.  I give her that sly look that says, I know it’s corny, and so that means I’m being ironic, and could a guy who’s drunk, who has had more than the carefully calculated, and well-monitored intake that would necessitate his precipitous departure be capable of this?  Not likely. 

 And I don’t lay it on heavy, not in a mean way that says, don’t you feel foolish, having witnessed the fine display of legerdemain that your man has just displayed, that you suggested, in a rather arch way I might add, that he forego the crowning beer of the night?

 Legerdemain, such a fine word, I really should share it with Jenn, let her know what a fine command of the language her man has, work it cleverly into the conversation.

 “Some legerdemain, huh?” I say.

 Not only is it a fine word, but due to its polysyllabic nature, it would be hard for one who has had too many to pronounce without slurring, which okay, maybe I do a little bit, but if I do I am being ironic.

 But then it occurs to me that I really don’t know what the word means.  I was thinking it meant kind of like fancy footwork, like tap dancing, only with words, clearly agile and not the least bit encumbered in mind or body.  But then after that only slightly slurred pronouncement, a little sour taste hits my tongue, and it occurs to me that it could also mean bullshit.

 “I am not a cab.”  She says, pronouncing each word slowly and precisely.  Has my irony, like all of my finely carefully crafted arguments for one more beer, flown right over her pretty little head? 

 Okay this will take a little time to explain to her.  Meanwhile the barmaid has completed her transaction with the pool players and is now moving in her maddening meandering way to our end of the bar.  Decisively I down the remaining quarter of my Mad Hatter.  While I am explaining my little ironic joke to Jenn I will surely be able to unobtrusively raise my finger to the barmaid, and the whole thing will be a fait accompli.  I will have a full beer, and we couldn’t possibly leave until I finished it.

 “What I meant dear was-“ I commence my explanation, but she quickly cuts me off. 

 “I know what you meant Dear.  I get the lame joke Dear, but maybe your timing is a little off dear.  You know how you sometimes lose track of time dear,” she begins.  Dear me, all those dears, I know where this is going, the unfortunate tuna salad incident. 

home again, home again

 Well it was an excellent trip. The first time I have been out of town in almost two years.  You know there is a thing about hunkering down where it is just kind of easy.  So much easier to just stay home and do the same thing every day, no need to pack, no need to worry about when the train is going to leave and if it will get stalled Kankakee for an hour or so.  But when  you take a trip it is something you can remember when you are out puttering around in your garden whereas you never remember all those Tuesday nights watching Portlandia on Netflix.  And there is this thing about being old where you wonder if you should be gallivanting around at your advanced age.

But like I said, it was an excellent trip, the people on the train, in the bar, in other bars, at the restaurants, and at the party were all jolly, and if you talked to them they would comment on how jolly everybody was and then one of you would observe, "Well I think it is just pent up merry making after that long pandemic, which as plain as the nose on your face it certainly was.  There was the original panic, the long slog of just not going anywhere, the dull worry that maybe the idiot on the train with his mask below his neck was shedding covid and in a week you might end up at the other end of one of those awful machines dead to the world. and a fifty/fifty chance you would remain that way forever.  Hopefully we are at the end of that road, though recent delta developments are worrisome.  My covid website seems to have stopped at July 2nd, but it was just beginning to rise a bit after a long plateau.

I really didn't know where the Mackinac bridge was and I guess I assume that living there at the tippy top of Michigan I think that if you just happen to make a wrong turn on the way to the drugstore you might find yourself eating your bacon round.

For a long time the House of Chin would not accept credit cards, and George, the owner, confessed to me once that he kept two sets of books for purposes of avoiding taxes and did not want the feds to be able to trace how much he was making.  That is another reason people want to go cashless, to make people pay their taxes, also how can you bribe you congressman with a credit card?

A lot of places want the server to share their tips with the busboys and the cooks, and if the waiter gets a cash tip it is no problem to slip a few bills into his pocket and not share them.  But also I guess if the restaurant is putting all the tips in one pile and divvying them up they could shave a little bit of that off for themselves also.

I guess I forgot that I had presented that Val story previously.  I will start the next one long the next time I post because I am still catching up on things.

Oasis

 That's what it is, an oasis in the sky, an island of serenity high above a world gone mad, where the Old Man of the Mountain sits in regal splendor with his two cats, contemplating the true meaning of existence. All kidding aside, it's a fine garden Uncle Ken.

The more I think about it, Uncle Ken is right about the Mackinac Bridge, except for the part about going to Canada.  The Mackinac Bridge joins the Upper and the Lower Peninsulas of Michigan.  The bridge that goes to Canada is some 50 miles north of there.

MDOT - International Bridge (michigan.gov)

Early in the pandemic, there was some talk about businesses not accepting cash, but I don't think anything ever came of it.  In fact, it was about that time that our local Chinese restaurant started offering a one dollar discount per meal if you paid with cash.  They never had accepted personal checks, just cash and cards. 

Speaking of cards, there was a thing in our local paper the other day that said, if you put your restaurant server's tip on your card,  the boss often withholds about three percent and keeps it for himself.  Also, if your bill lists a service charge, it doesn't necessarily mean that it goes to your server.  They recommend tipping with cash if you want to know that your server is getting the full amount of your tip.

I seem to remember reading the "Val" story before, but that's okay, it's still a good story.

Val

Garden photos

 What if that guy crossing the Mackinac bridge not only had no cards and no checks (I expect they would not allow checks as they are just as filthy as money), but had no cash as well?  I expect they would send him right back, and sure he would have crossed the bridge twice, but he would not have achieved his goal of entering Canada.  I suppose they would just have to eat the wear and tear of the bridge.

At the restaurant we had to pay before getting our food.  Actually I think their no cash policy preceded the pandemic.  It discourages hold ups, and it helps curb illegal activity because there is a record of every transaction, but mostly I think it is due to those people who thing it will be so cool when we are just wisps of energy, who are blind to the joys of Italian beef and of coins jingling in one's pockets.

I do have a story for you.  There is a real Val and she had some kind of cannibis problem with the Missouri authorities and fled to Colorado which was then the only state with legal dope, but she got extradited back to Missouri and that is what the stuff at the beginning is about.

So she liked to smoke dope, was that a crime?  Apparently, since it got her kicked out of her rocky mountain high to this patch on the banks of the muddy Missouri.  So it goes, so it goes, she was not the sort of girl who got all weepy about things that were under the bridge, she would make her way, just fine.

 Her way right now was to Speedy's, she had just scored a dollop of dope from an old pal and now she needed just the right flavor of Doritos to enhance the experience.  She was thinking cool ranch, but when she approached the array, the jalapeno cheddar caught her eye, that cool ranch was kind of bland and she needed something to put a little rocket into her pocket.

 Everything had been so drab since her expulsion from the garden of legal dope.  Her old friends were fine but you know how it is when you appear on the doorstep with empty pockets, things are a little cool at the ranch.  She needed something to lift her spirits, to put a little strut in her step, so jalapeno cheddar it was.

 They sell produce at Speedy's, but it's mostly just crap, all wilted and shrunken and just plain pathetic, and she couldn't believe that that sap was picking out a head of yellowing lettuce.

 She had to step in.  "You can't do that." she told him grasping his wrist gently.

 "I was just going to, to make a salad, for the kids, you know something healthy," his voice trailed off as his look went down, She was glad she was wearing her shorty shorts.

 "Not with that you aren't," she told him, maybe a little forcefully, but it was okay, she knew she could get away with it.  She could easily have hit him up for a fiver, a tenner, maybe even an Andrew Jackson.

 But that wasn't the mood she was in.  She was frankly not all that eager to go back to her friend's place.  She would have to share the dope, and the Doritos. 

 So she steered him to Mother Nature's, walked down the aisles with him filling his grocery cart with good healthy food.  He had some sad story about his ex-wife, Jenny, who maybe she was a bitch, or maybe it was his fault for not being sensitive enough.  Either way she didn't care.  Hey we all have problems, you didn't hear her going on about Bear, that bastard.  She was just killing time before having to share her dope and Doritos.

 But when she saw his face, so downcast, so helpless, even worse than when he was telling the sad Jenny-O story, as he looked at the big sack of groceries that he would never be able to cook.  She was like Fine, Fine, I'll cook you up a meal.

 Arms crossed across her chest, she looked at him exasperated, but what was this, a shy little spark of gratitude in his humble brown eyes?  It touched her a little, she was surprised, but then you never know.  What if he got a decent haircut?

 And she wasn't crazy about moppets and there were two of them, one of each sex, and Gramps, a dirty old man if she ever saw one.

 But she did like to cook and she wasn't half bad at it, the frying pan was sizzling and a couple pots were boiling, and those moppets and Gramps had eyes like in those paintings, and here comes the sap out of the bathroom, and oh my goodness, did he comb his hair?

 And you know she just felt so great, so fucking great, bringing the food to the table and the sap and Gramps and the moppets with napkins tucked into the fronts of their shirts, like a bunch of baby birds.  Well a gal has feelings you know.

 But what about desert?  She remembered her little dollop of dope, as yet untouched.  Brownies sounded like a great idea.

 

Legal Tender

The right, in many jurisdictions, of a trader to refuse to do business with any person means that a would-be purchaser may not force a purchase merely by presenting legal tender, as legal tender only must be accepted for debts already incurred.

Under U.S. federal law, cash in U.S. dollars is a valid and legal offer of payment for antecedent debts when tendered to a creditor. By contrast, federal statutes do not require a seller to accept federal currency or coins as payment for goods or services simultaneously exchanged. Therefore, private businesses may formulate their own policies on whether to accept cash unless state law requires otherwise.^[3][4]

Legal tender - Wikipedia

I thought I knew this, but I looked it up just to be sure.  If you think about it, it says right on the paper currency, "legal tender for all debts public and private".  Now "I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys", but I would think that payment for a restaurant meal consumed on the premises would constitute a debt.  I mean, you have already eaten the meal so, unless they demanded payment in advance, you now owe them a debt.  This wouldn't hold true for a carry out meal because you have to pay for the meal before you carry it out.  

Early in the pandemic, the Mackinac Bridge Authority announced that they would not be accepting currency for payment of bridge tolls.  The thing is, the toll booths are all on the north end of the bridge.  Anybody crossing from south to north would have already crossed the bridge before reaching the toll booth, which sounds like a debt to me.  So what if a guy got there and said that he didn't have any cards or checks, so he could only pay with cash, would they make him turn around and go back where he came from?  If so, he would now have crossed the bridge twice without paying the toll.  If they tracked him down and tried to collect the toll later, that would certainly qualify as a debt which he could legally discharge with currency.  I seem to remember that the "no cash" policy was rescinded a short time after it was announced, and maybe that's why.  

Totally unrelated matter:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/boy-scouts-offer-to-compensate-sexual-abuse-victims-in-historic-850-million-bankruptcy-settlement/ar-AALG71K?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

When I was in the Scouts, I always had a feeling that there was something strange about those guys, and now I know what it was.

disturbing trends

 I never had a blueprint for Catfish.  I sat down to write it after I had had a few, and I generally didn't read the previous chapters after starting on a new one, nor did I think much ahead, so that each chapter is a little standalone, and maybe it reads best that way.

As I've been posting it I have been editing it, and when I came to the last line Catfish said "It's me."  It seemed a little flat.  "Here I am," is a little stronger and it gives the impression that he has been expected.  Like I said if I ever edit it again I will put something in those scenes where he walks by Claudette's apartment or restaurant where he thinks about coming back or thinks about her thinking about him coming back.  

One thing that surprised me when I wrote them were the violent scenes where Big Red and then Itch gets punched out.  They came out a little more vivid than I would have thought.  And that scene where Itch is being menaced by Ron in the bar, trying to defend his dignity, but not wanting to get punched out either, I was pretty tense writing it.

The cashless society, some people think it is a good thing and a leap forward to society, maybe like those folks who think as we continue to evolve we will all become beings of pure energy and won't that be great, and I am thinking how can a lightning beam eat an Italian beef sandwich and I do not like it at all.

First there was food which you could eat, and then there was gold which you can't eat, but it was hard, and you could judge how rich you were by how much it weighed, and then there was paper which was, well, just paper, but you could add up the numbers on the bills, and now there is this cashless shit, where your cash is just on and off bytes, pure energy actually, and these numbers just appear and you have to take somebody or something's word for it.  I don't like it.

Went to a trendy breakfast place with a buddy and when I pulled out my wallet at the cash register (which isn't really a cash register of course), I was told to keep my filthy bills to myself, and my card, there was no satisfying slot to slide it into, I had to hover it over this ethereal light.  I had to ask them when I was done.  My buddy got so confused he left his card behind (which will be no problem when we have chips in our fingers), and when the friendly, but condescending bright young lad returned it, he had that oh those boomers rueful look on his face.

I continue to use the same covid site I have been using and though we were doing quite well until the last couple weeks when I see where it has plateaued again, at a low level to be sure, but that does not mean that it cannot begin that slow creep up again.  And even if it continues at a low level it is evolving and it could develop a variant that is immune to the current vaccines and we could well be in the same soup again this winter.  

Those anti vaxxers, sometimes I think fine, let then die then, the evidence is right in front of their eyes and they look away,  Amongst us vaxxers walking around unmasked are the unvaxxers also unmasked and the only way to account for that is to ask for everybody to be masked again, so not only are they endangering our lives they may well force us back into masks.

Those jugs are cat litter jugs that I use to stockpile water. I will take some more photos later today. and I will be looking for some more stories also so that they may be there for you Friday, but I am leaving that afternoon for my land of milk and honey and won't be back until Monday afternoon so I may miss a couple posts early next week.