Time Was:

   On a recent return to the Homeland, I saw this old clock on the wall at my Aunt Barb's house. A CocaCola promotional item from the office of my maternal Grandmother. It has a lot of memories for the both of us, and we talked about it quite extensively during my visit. I was thinking about that conversation after I returned home and it brought to mind this story, and reminded me of the effect it had on my life.
My grandmother owned and ran a small CocaCola bottling plant in my hometown. I used to love to go there. As I was growing up  myself and my only two sisters at the time ( I got two more later) lived about 4 blocks away and during the summer we would visit quite often. And, as long as we didn't get in the way of the workers, (I'm sure we never did) we pretty much had the run of the place. In her office there was an old (but not antique) commemorative pendulum clock hanging from the wall facing her desk. We were all forbidden to touch the clock. Mostly because we all loved it, and we were a bit rambunctious. For some reason the fact that the front face of it was actually a glass door that opened, and a pendulum that actually moved fascinated us. In a world of electronic clocks this one had style.  We begged and begged but were never allowed to do more than stare at it from over the back of the chair that faced grandma's desk. Until that fateful day when we were finally old enough (or had driven her crazy enough) that she would finally allow one of us, and only once every visit, to wind the clock one turn and gently push the brass weight at the bottom of the shaft. My mother was horrified. Probably because she knew she would be held responsible for any damage done. And, frankly, we were capable of quite a bit of damage. I heard Grandma tell her that the clock was broken anyway, and there wasn't much more we could do to it. And truly, it would only run for about 3 or 5 minutes before it stopped completely again. But since our attention span was measured in microseconds this was an eternity of time to us and we were well satisfied. Mom still fussed a bit every time, certain that her mother had no real idea of the damage we were capable of, and that the only suitable playground for us lay in the more industrial areas of the warehouse portions of the plant. Where we had, it is true, once disabled the industrial elevator 3 different times in the same day. But, despite the odds against it, the clock took no further damage.
   I still (these many years later) remember how proud I was to be able to finally open the door, take out the heavy key and wind that clock, and how incredibly jealous I was when it wasn't my turn and I had to stand to the side and let one of my sisters do it. I  remember the feel of the bob as I, ever so gently, pushed it to get the motion started and I can also still hear the stately, hushed tick-tock that would vibrate out of it for the few minutes it would run until it stopped.
   I don't remember the reason (I was only about 8 or 10 at the time) but one day I was at the Coke Plant without my sisters or my mother. So, actually, I was on my own, as my grandmother had a great many admirable traits, but maternal instinct wasn't one of them (and she had 10 kids). I'd like to think that as a very independent woman herself, she liked to encourage that trait in others. But I'm almost forced to admit that, to her, children just weren't that interesting as people, conversation-wise anyway. So I was basically on my

The Coke Plant. Many MANY moons later

own and, having once again explored the dim, dark secrets of the Bottling Plant, I was quietly (for the most part) sitting across from her in her office just looking around the place. My mother's family had been bottling soda in that building for over 100 years and quite a bit of that history was just gathering dust around that office. I really was trying to be good but then, as now, when there's a question in my head it's like an itch. If I don't ask it, it just keeps growing more and more itchy until I let it out. So, even though I was potentially submitting myself for one of my grandmother's famous sarcastic tongue-lashings, I just had to ask the question, it was getting too 'itchy' to be ignored.
'Grandma.' I said cautiously.
'Yes?' she answered, sounding mildly irritated at being interrupted.
I took a quick breath, 'I thought I heard you tell Mom the clock didn't work?'
She looked up from whatever she was doing and raised her eyebrow. 'It doesn't. Hasn't worked for more than a few minutes at a time in years.You kids just love winding it, so I let you do it.' She looked at me with a bit of curiosity for a moment, and then back down to her paperwork. Even then, I knew that time to a child is more than a little fluid, and entirely subjective, but I knew it had been longer than a few minutes since I had wound the clock. I ran it through my head: I started out in the office, and wound the clock, then I had wandered all over the Plant, grubbed around in the storerooms upstairs, and generally been nosy as hell in the back office/storage room and then had been (mostly) quiet in the office for a while. But I still had no idea whether it had been more than 15 minutes. I twitched and fidgeted for a few seconds paranoid that the noise would stop before I could ask the question.
'Grandma?' I asked timidly.
'Yes?' Her voice had a bit of an edge to it now.
'If it doesn't work, why is it still ticking?' Thinking about it now, it would have been at least an hour, or at least 20 times longer than it normally ran.
She looked up. Furled her brow and cocked an ear at the clock. She could see the pendulum gently moving and we could just hear it ticking over the ambient sounds of the building. 'Huh,' She said, then looked at me and gave me a wry smile.'Guess that'll teach me.' She then (much more quickly and accurately than I) estimated the amount of time, and then said, 'What did you do to make it work?' I shrugged. 'Well, if it's going to work, it might as well show the right time!'  She said, managing to sound enthusiastic and matter-of-fact at the same time.
She then instructed me in what to do, and supervised my gentle adjustment of the hands while I was standing backwards on an armchair. Amazingly, after I'd sat back down we had a bit of a conversation, mostly centered on the clock. I tried to explain, in my limited fashion, why I liked it so much, and she may even have told me that it was a promotional item, and not quite as antique as it appeared. About the time that our conversation was starting to peter out (perhaps 15 or so minutes)  the pendulum stopped moving. We both stared at it for a few seconds, but not even a hasty push of the bob or a turn of the winding key would get it moving again. I'm not even sure if it ever worked after that until almost 40 years later when my Aunt Barb had it repaired.
   I was disappointed. But not entirely, or even mostly, because 'The Special Coke Clock' quit working. Ours is a large family, and even as the oldest grandchild, it's pretty easy to get lost in the mix. So the time I had spent talking one-on-one with my grandmother was, in my fanciful mind, kind of a small magical moment, seemingly engendered by the movement of the pendulum of that special timepiece. Its silence seemed to signal the end of that special time. My grandmother misinterpreting my despondency, said, 'It's okay. It kept time for that little while, we should just be glad that it worked for that long.' I'm certain she didn't mean to say anything profound. It was just one of those off hand comments that aren't meant to be

important, but for some reason strike a cord in someone. For some reason, probably because it had nothing to do with the reason I was sad, I actually thought about it and completely unintentionally it had a profound effect on my life. Especially 30 or so years later after I'd all but forgotten the phrase, but still tried to maintain the attitude.
    For most of my life, with varying degrees of success, I've tried to be happy that things worked or went well, and not get too wrapped up with disappointment when they didn't, just deal with it and move on. That became especially helpful when Dude came along. I definitely needed that attitude to get through raising him up. (or him raising me up. Jury's still out on that one) We are excited when things work out or work well. And when they don't, we don't focus on the fact that good things aren't happening, we just deal with the problem and move on. We try to be happy that the clock keeps time for the time it keeps it. We're very Cheeseburger-Zen about life around here.

The Land of Ahhs? :

For some strange reason, or another, (it's surprising how many of my stories begin that way) I was overcome with the urge to visit my Homeland two whole months earlier than normal. Now this urge does happen occasionally. The unusual part is that normally there's no opportunity to actually indulge in the notion. But this year, due to uncooperative weather (not enough snow) Dude actually had extra days tacked onto his Easter Vacation (f-u, PC!) and I was going to have to take an extra day off work to cover one of them. I turned to my Partner in Dude-Crime (Raine), and said, in a facetious tone, 'I'm thinking about running back home over the weekend. What do you think?' She looked up from the ads she was perusing and replied in a flat voice, 'Take Dude.' and went back to her commercial flyer. The entire problem, and both of the men in her life, dismissed as casually as a passing breeze. Be that as it may, in less than 72 hours the 2 Dudes were wending their way into the Sunset
     Well... That's how they'd say it in the Novelized version of the movie. (I want Hugh Jackman to play me, complete with Wolverine claws and... ... ... Forget I said anything) But the reality was just a bit more complicated. Because, unfortunately for those breezes, Dudes can't actually just cross-fade to the next scene. Cars had to be rented, bags had to be packed, vacation time had to be begged for. And worst of all... ex-wives had to be called. (damn my courtesy, anyway!). And also, I had to prepare David for a break in schedule and to be good in school without actually telling him why he had to be a good boy. You see, according to the Book of Dude, all trips should be made through airports, giving all and sundry the chance of taking elevator and/or tram rides before getting into large aluminum tubes and flying through the air to do it again in another state. That's just the only way for people to get around. I couldn't tell him we were going to Kansas without raising his expectations of an airplane ride, and I didn't want to disappoint him. So I just told him that if he was a good boy, we would do something 'cool'. Without ever identifying what the 'cool' thing actually was. Somehow this brilliant (desperate/thrown together) scheme actually worked. Dave got good notes, talked about the 'cool' thing we were going to be doing, and absolutely didn't have a clue as to what that was. He just kept coming home every day saying, 'I've got the good notes so we can do something COOL!' And that was good enough for me.
    At long last, the car was rented and packed and the Dudes rode off into the sunset. Literally. In the late evening we drove west toward the heart of the Midwest. (I don't care what Ohio says, they are not in the Midwest) Dave was mildly disappointed that we went to the airport but didn't use the elevators. That was mitigated by getting to ride in our 'new car'. 'Nice new red car, Dad!' For those that don't know; I like to drive. I have nothing against flying, I've flown hither and yon any number of times, but I just enjoy being (in control) able to pull over whenever I like, eat whatever happens to be close to the highway, and able to see out the front of whatever vehicle I'm in. I also have very wide shoulders and don't like to elbow my neighbors, so I tend to spend the entire flight hunched over and pinched in. Not the most comfortable way to spend 2 hours. I also have the ability to drive from 12-20 hours at a time, so there aren't too many places that I want to go that are much outside of my range. Normally the trip from Pgh to KC takes about 14 hours or so driving time. I generally leave after work so I take a 2 hour nap somewhere in the latter stages and make it by the next morning. To me, this is no big deal, but it's evidently some sort of Iron Man Triathlon of driving, because people are always telling me that I'm crazy for doing it. I tell them I just get on the Interstate that goes right past my house, make one right turn and keep driving until I pass the big racetrack, then make another right turn...easy. Of course there are 950 miles between those two turns, but still.
 So our 2 intrepid explorers drive on into the night. Despite Dude's incessant talking, he's actually a fairly decent travelling companion. Other than a distressing tendency to call out loudly 'Oh No! We're out of gas!' Every time we have to stop for fuel or drinks (3 times each way) and then; 'We've got to get going to KC/Pittsburgh to get the GAMES!' Every time we got back on the highway, and kind of a siren call to read out either highway markers or billboards at random intervals he's actually pretty good in the car.
   Now David has inherited my stubbornness, but not the stamina evidently. Because about 1 am I noticed that he is starting that jello-necked head bobbing thing in the passenger seat. I tried to tell him where the lever to lay the seat back was, but he couldn't find it. So, being ever aware of highway safety and the fact that I'm driving a Focus in the midst of a pack of semis, I reached across his body, pulled the lever and shoved him with my elbow until he was lying back in the seat. Mission aclomplished, with a minimum of horn-honking and death threats. Except for one thing. He wouldn't stay down. He would lay there quietly for just long enough for me to think he was asleep and then startle the hell out of me when he'd pop up like some autistic jack-in-the-box, looking around blearily for a while, then nodding off until I told him to lay down again. I tried to tell him to go to sleep any number of times but all I got back was something I couldn't understand about 'something....blah, blah something... understand?' He wasn't very coherent, and I wasn't really paying attention, but I got the distinct idea there was some element missing, but had no clue as to what it was. Dude has slept in a car any number of times, but not this time. I was tired of playing Whack-a-Mole in the pitch-black at highway speeds, but I was also 400 miles into a 1000 mile drive and had no attention to spare to figure out what the problem was. After 20 minutes of Dave's yo-yo imitation I grabbed his coat out of the backseat for him to use as a pillow when I  caught the word 'blanket'. I awkwardly spread his coat over him with one hand at 75 mph, and 30 seconds later he was out like a light.
    Which meant that I had some peace and quiet (and complete control over the radio) for the next several hours. But it also meant that 4 hours later, when I wanted to take my nap Dude was ready to go, (Time for Breakfast?) even though he'd briefly been up a couple of times. I laid my seat back, covered up with my hoodie and said, 'Quiet you! And lay down and go to sleep!' I must have looked especially cranky, because that's exactly what he did.
    A couple of hours later we were up and off again, and several hours after that we were in the heart of Kansas City. But instead of immediately heading for the hometown, we pulled a detour in almost exactly the wrong direction to visit my Aunt Barb. Barb's only 5 years older than me and I have the distinction of being the only one of her many nephews to have whacked her in the head with a big stick. As far as I know. I was 3 and her brother, Rick gave me the stick and the instructions, and I'm pretty sure she's over it by now, because she requested a picture of mine blown up to put in her shop. The town that she lives in is set up with the classic Midwestern town square with a large brick courthouse in the middle. Her shop is on one side of that square, facing the courthouse.
    Our first day in the Homeland was Surprise Visit Day. Sometimes my surprise visits don't work out so well,(it's hard to surprise somebody when they're not there) but that day, I was in the groove. We pulled up to her shop just as she got out of her car and started walking in. I rolled down my window and said, 'Hey, do you know who owns this shop?' Strangely enough, she didn't immediately run the other way screaming for the National Guard. And even stranger, she actually invited us in. Where Dude and I spent several minutes bothering her in her salon, and puzzling the hell out of the lady whose hair she was coloring. (I also checked out my/her picture, but despite what you might think, that wasn't the primary reason for the visit)
   Dude was pretty good in her shop, for Dude. He was sticking his nose in everywhere, babbling incessantly and mostly remembering to ask for a soda... after he'd already pulled it out of the cooler and started to open it. A sharp clearing of his father's throat might have had something to do with his return to manners, who's to say? After the politely confused lady's hair was colored and Barb's husband was surprised by PA Dudes as he was walking to the building next door, (He works in the courthouse in the center of the square) David and

Dad: No that is NOT a GameStop!

I 'walked the square'. I was photographically stoked by the Victorian architecture while Dude was somehow under the impression that we'd traveled 1000+ miles to buy a copy of 'Wreck it Ralph' only to head back home so he could put it with the rest of his movies. He kept repeating, 'Got to get the Wreck it Ralph, with the Blu-Ray and DVD copy!' And when that had no effect, 'I got the good notes, so we need to get the Mario Bros., and take it home with the Games!'  I'm pretty sure the only thing that saved me was that there was no GameStop or video store on the square.
    After our tour of the center of town we went to Barb's house for a 'chat'. Now, in my mom's family that doesn't mean what it means to everyone else. In our family the word 'chat' indicates that we spent the next 4 hours hitting the highlights of just about everything that had happened over the last 40 years to just about everyone we know. Not because we hadn't talked to each other in 40 years, but because that's just what we do. Dude is the extreme that proves the family rule in the talking department. Early on, during the obligatory tour, David, with his amazing Dude-like powers, found Barb's Wii in a closed cabinet underneath her TV. Once again, only Dad's intervention prevented him from just doing his thing. (I mean, c'mon Dad! sodas are for drinking, Games are for playing. What's the problem?) But at least he had something to do while we were talking. As a matter of fact, after a couple hours he was already better at the two games they had, than they were after a couple of years. Because it was a weekday and some people still had that annoying 'work' thing going, we cut our talk short (for our family) and David and I were on our way once again.
  Every time we got into the car Dave was certain that we were headed back to the land of the GameStop. But this time we were off to my Goddaughter Jenny's house. To yet another small town in the middle of Somewhere Kansas, with not a GS in sight. Jenn had recently given birth to my Great-Goddaughter (okay, I just made that word up) Squeaker. (Brynn, actually, but she did squeak a lot) Small towns are quiet and you kind of get used to a routine of action (or lack of it), so having a large man unexpectedly pound on your door, saying that he was looking for a baby and heard you had one, is something of a startling event. But we were invited in anyway. Dave is a divining rod for gaming systems, spin him around blindfolded in the middle of the Gobi Desert and he will point like a compass to the nearest electronic device. While I was making strange baby-noises and showing off my Super-Power. The one where any baby almost instantly falls asleep while laying on me, (Ask any new mom if that isn't a super-power) David found yet another Wii system. Unfortunately for him, the controller didn't work, so he was out of luck. Jenn and I were having a nice time, catching up and talking about babies and such, but with nothing to do the lack of sleep started to catch up with Dude. After I caught him face-down on the couch for the second (or third) time, I decided it was time to go into town to my sister's house. Because, since we're family, she has to let us stay there whenever we're in town. Yes, there are many down-sides to being related to me.
   When we finally got to my sister Beth's house in my hometown (she would probably get upset if we didn't stay there. Or, at least that's what I tell myself) Dave found his third gaming system of the day. My nephew's old PlayStation II 'abandoned' in the front room while he was at college. Beth said that he was free to use it, but she wasn't sure it was hooked up. I assured her that wouldn't be a problem, and in less than 5 minutes, without either of us moving from our chairs, we heard the sounds of gaming from the other room. I cut his action short after a couple of hours, because even with the Playstation recharge he still needed to get some
sleep.

   The next morning my Sister and nephew were out of the house and Dude was unusually quiet at the PS2, so I took my e-reader and sat out in the backyard, soaking up that special kind of quiet you can only get on a weekday in a Kansas small town. (trust me. I've been around) Those two hours turned out to be the only time of peace for the entire weekend. Soon my sis and nephew were back and then we were all in a flurry to go our separate ways. Dude and I were off to visit my #2 mom, Mata, who unofficially 'adopted' me once I was past the age of traditional adoption, and the home-team was off to find a new truck for my nephew. After a bit of a snag where I went the way I wanted to go instead of the way she told me to go we made it to 'Lonesome Dove', Mata's hideaway. (I still ended up in the right place, it just took longer) She tries to tell me that she doesn't live in the middle of nowhere. Maybe not, but she's got a hell of a view of it from her back porch. She also has 2 dogs, about 8 alpacas, 3 horses, a donkey, 2 goats and a revolving population of wild geese. But all of that didn't mean anything to Dude. Because one thing she had was an older iPad that she had gotten out especially for him to play with. Is that cool, or what? Dude thought so. As a matter of fact she is now David's favorite Kansan, yours truly included.
   David did like the dogs, they were friendly, but once he got that iPad in his hand all of the animals (us included) could have walked off into the fields and he wouldn't have noticed a thing. I know this for a fact because that's exactly what she and I did, and I'm pretty sure Dave never knew we were gone. Also, wonder of wonders, there was a 10 minute video of an elevator ride on the pad. He played that over and over. I'm not even sure he noticed that everyone in it was speaking German. And if he did, he didn't care. #2 mom didn't get the full Dude experience because every time either of us asked him a question about all we got out of him was 'We have to go to (about 4 different places) to get to the elevators!' or some other elevator driven comment.
     After meeting her husband and talking a bit more, it was time for us to be on the move again. I drove David to KC so that he could have a day with his mother, and I turned around so that I could visit my eldest son in Lawrence and to watch the KU Jayhawks lose to Michigan in the NCAA Tournament. Which he and everyone else in the house totally blamed on me. The whole house was darkly muttering something about me bringing my PA jinx to Kansas. The next morning I retrieved the Dude from his mother and we went back to my hometown (Thank Vishnu for unlimited miles) to have lunch at the only Mexican Restaurant in town with my sisters and a couple of nieces and my nephew. We were the last ones there ('cept for Alex) and everyone tried to chat David up for a bit, but all he cared about was his tortilla chips and cheese enchiladas. After an extended family-type goodbye, Dude and I gathered up our things and loaded up the car. 'Let's go home Dude.' I said when we were finally ready to roll. 'Yes!' he said quickly (and loudly) and I was inordinately pleased that he was so enthusiastic about returning home. Until he continued, 'We have to go home to get to the GAMESTOP to get the GAMES!!' Returned to earth, by the reminder of reality of where the rest of us stood in in Dudeworld, I shook my head ruefully, put the car in gear and headed East toward the land that William Penn founded.

 Dave figured he didn't have anything to prove on the ride back, so about 11:00 or so, he kicked the seat back, covered himself with his coat and crashed out, only waking up for the interesting stuff; Gas stations, Steak and Shake, large cities, and really sudden turns of the steering wheel. We almost stopped for a nap in Ohio, except for three things. 1: It was Ohio. 2: It had gotten much colder and that woke me back up when we got out of the car, and I couldn't have slept anyway. And 3: I looked at the 'You are Here' map in the rest area and realized that I was only about an hour away from home. So back on the Highway we went. (Got to get to Pittsburgh, to get to the GameStop to get the GAMES!)
  When we pulled up in front of the house I briefly contemplated sneaking in the house to surprise Raine, cause I'm the kind of guy who thinks that kind of thing is funny. Only one thing held me back. No, not discretion, or even self-preservation. I was travelling with the least stealthy being in the known universe: Dude. That boy couldn't sneak up on a rock during a fireworks show in a stadium full of deaf people. 
At any rate, our two Drained Dudes were finally ensconced in our Island Paradise. We were so excited to get home that we immediately... went directly to bed. (do not pass Go, do NOT collect 200 games)
  David started bugging me for his 'Good Points' Game just about 30 seconds after I woke up though. I get the feeling that for him the whole trip was just a huge, long way around to get to GameStop. I mean, I know I know I take the scenic route some times, but c'mon!
   

Falling Niagara:

   The other day Rain declared a Family Outing Day, and gave me carte blanche to drag everybody (including her) somewhere, anywhere away from the Home Cave... Providing it wasn't more than 3 hours away from the house. Seems that she thought that she had to set a distance limit, mostly because she doesn't have a passport. (Honey, I don't know how we got to Ireland by car...) But where I really wanted to go was Niagara Falls, but that was 3 1/2 hours away. A mere 1/2 hour past the deadline (you know, that line that you cross and then you're dead?). Proving Dude isn't the only charmer in the family I alternately charmed and made sad, puppy eyes at Raine, wearing down her resistance (and good sense) until she agreed to a trip to the largest falls (by volume) in the world. Dude was stoked. Not because he had any clue where we were going, but because he knows that when Raine comes along on an outing, there will be a minimum amount of walking in the woods. Or mostly none.

  So I crammed them (quickly) into the car and immediately headed north. Dude had his 3DS to keep him amused, and Raine had.... well... me, I guess. I can be entertaining enough, I suppose, but I was glad we had a working radio in the car as back up. (I'm sure she was too) Also, to prove I'm not exactly a novice in these situations, I also had an MP3 player to whip out, like a magician when Dave started complaining that his batteries were getting low. Which he did just after we crossed the NY state line. I also had one more Dude-trick up my sleeve. I am a self-admitted compulsive photographer. Not the really annoying kind that drags out tons of pictures of blurry traffic scenes through car windows, strange half focused objects in the foreground of family picnics, or  endless boring pictures of even more boring family events. I mean, I still take those kind of pictures... I just don't show them to everybody. Just the people unable to move fast enough to get away.
  Anyway, I brought along enough cameras for everybody. I think I may have even had one left over. I started passing them out, I handed Dude my very first digital camera, a Kodak Easyshare, as we were going through Buffalo . Dave, now in electronic heaven (3DS, MP3, and camera) started randomly saying 'gotcha!' from the backseat, accompanied by the subtle click of the camera. Then followed by, 'Yep, that's the shot. Gotta get this one to the Bugle before noon!' I told him they would hold the presses until we got home.
     After a no doubt fascinating rendition of how I'd lost Pat Travers and his entire band in a snowstorm at the I-90/190 interchange in Buffalo during my roadie days, we rolled through Buffalo and into the town of Niagara NY. Naturally, since I normally count on my built-in homing instinct, we hadn't done any research at all about the falls, the town, the park, or even Canada for that matter. I mean, we had some vague notion that our Neighbors to the North had some pesky 'rules' about entering their hockey-driven domain, but we had no real notion of what they were. Like true old folks we knew perfectly the rules of 2 decades before, but were pretty fuzzy on the current version. So we cleverly avoided needing this knowledge by planning on staying on the Apple-pie side of the border. As for the rest, we decided (it was sort of a decision anyway) to 'wing-it'.
      For those of you who don't know, the Interior Department has a slightly psychotic attitude about our National Treasures. I'm not talking about clear-cut logging or strip mining in National Forests (both of which are allowed with permit). I mean their treatment of the cattle... uh tourists that visit our national places by the millions every year. When you first near any National Park you're bombarded at random intervals by brown signs telling you how to get to everywhere. Which is cool, but they're placed so randomly and so far apart that you never know whether or not you're lost, it also presupposes that you know where you're going in the first place. So the first thing is, you need to know where to go (ie: which signs to follow) to get to the place that has the maps... you know, the things that tell you were everything is... including the place where the maps are (catch-22 anyone?).  State Parks Departments all over the country make wonderful, concise and legible maps.  Our federal government had theirs done by the same company that does Disney's. They make it look like you've stumbled into a hitherto unknown Theme Park called Waterfall Pirate Park instead of an area including an awesome work of nature. Oh, and good luck getting any information out of the 'Information' booth people. If they have any information short of where you can spend your money, they're doing a good job of hiding it.

    But even without 'Information' an open spigot like the Falls is kinda hard to miss, even with a Disney-map for guidance. We made our way to the American Falls, following the dull roar of the humongous thing. We stepped out onto a walkway, and there it was; a 6 foot thick, 1000 foot wide, 180 feet plus high, several tens of thousands of gallons a second, largest amount of falling water I'd ever seen in my life. And I was seeing less than half of it. I was awestruck. I was mesmerized. I didn't even start taking pictures for almost 5 minutes, and for me, that's a record. For several long moments I merely stood, open-mouthed and stared at this incredible remainder of the last ice age. I was absolutely entranced by the power and majesty of this Natural Wonder. Dude? Not so much.
   Initially, he nearly refused to get anywhere near the railing. Not because he was scared, necessarily, but mostly because he wanted to go back to the car/home/games, and thought that once we were through with this 'walk' he could do that very thing, and these 'waterfall' interruptions were just getting in the way. After I finally got him over to the railing he almost looked impressed for about 2 whole seconds, then he started hamming it up, leaning over the railing above the 180 foot drop, saying, 'I could fall.'

 Even though he has a propensity for trying to scare the crap out of me by leaning over large, semi-to-completely dangerous bodies of water just to see me turn into a larger, even more spastic Don Knotts to keep him from falling into it, two things ruined his performance. Firstly his completely deadpan delivery marred the effect a bit, but the fact that he was almost 4 feet away from the railing he was 'leaning over' completely destroyed the effect. I gave my usual response to his theatrics. I rolled my eyes to the heavens. I then waved him over to the rail so he could see the sights... Or to get him in a better position to pitch over the rail. He's a lot bigger and heavier now than he used to be, so I needed him closer. After staring uselessly (to Dude) at the water for a while, and several failed attempts at interesting David with the Maid of the Mist(s) as they plied their damp trade on either bank of the violent river far below, we decided to get closer to the Falls for a better view. Well, Raine and I wanted a better view anyway. David wanted something entirely different. Dave wanted elevators.
    Elevators are Dave's thing, even more than ketchup, mac and cheese and ranch dressing combined.(Which just sounds... disgusting) And since Niagara is the template from which Branson , Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, et.al. were poured there were plenty of nice, shiny, nearly brand new, but tatty places to spend your children's inheritance on by buying useless crap that'll end up in the trash within hours of your getting home. But, occasionally, there is something fairly cool, but incredibly eyesore-ish and Niagara is no exception. They call it the 'Observation Tower', although it's really a big deck with a tower stuck through the end of it. But Dude could have cared less. Because what it had, was an elevator. Right outside, behind wrought iron fences about 8 feet high, but there it was, the handicapped access elevator for the Observation Tower. Right out there were he could see it. Suddenly the Falls meant nothing more than water spilling over a table edge. All he wanted in the world was to go to that elevator. By

crawling over my recently horizontilized body if need be. Somehow I had to distract the intractable, to out hard-head the proverbial Dutchman to beguile the un-beguile-able (yeah, I know that's not actually a word) in a Titanic struggle of Wills. And, as I've said before, he's getting a little heavy to be tossing around.
   Somehow I persuaded Dude to, if not ignore the elevator, at least entertain the possibility that there were other things to look at in Niagara and the bare chance that there might be other elevators somewhere out in the vastness of the universe. Yeah... I don't know how I did it either. But I eventually managed to get him back to the railing and take some pictures. He was so distracted by the elevator-interruptus (I'm just making up words right and left) that he didn't even ham it up for the camera. After a couple of solo-shots and one or two with Raine I started to put my camera away when I heard a brisk voice saying, 'All right, parents, we're done here. Nothing more to do. Time to be moving on.' Raine and I came to a full stop. Looked at each other, and then at my son who was briskly trying to herd us on our way. 'Let's go, let's go. Nothing to see here.' he said briskly, trying to lead us off, he knew not where. Nor did he care, as long as we were moving. I mean, here we were at one of the Wonders of Nature, a moving Glory of the Natural World, and something I've been wanting to see most of my natural life. And we were being hurried along by an autistic version of a Monty Python bobby. I was seriously waiting for him to say, 'All right, all right. What's all 'is then?'. But if he called me 'Squire' I was going to dunk him in the river. 186 feet below.
    So a strange sort of tug-of-war ensued. Raine (who hadn't been to the Falls in years) and I (who'd never been) wanted a more leisurely tourist-ish experience; Wandering through the grounds, checking a couple of souvenir shops and semi-authentic Native American (Canadian) jewelry stands that dotted the park. I mean, we weren't going to buy any of that crap. Our grandchildren already aren't getting any inheritance. We just wanted to see, you know... stuff. Dave, who's the least 'stuff' oriented guy I know, just wanted to get the whole damn thing over with. He would be striding purposely along ahead of the ambling adults, 'encouraging' us to 'move along' and no matter how vigorously I yanked the (metaphorical) leash, he was soon off again. Oh he'd stick around us old fogies for a bit... To say things like, 'We need to get to the Mall/Airport/Pittsburgh to the elevators!' or 'Yep! It's certainly time we were going.' Or even 'I'm sorry, I have to work in the morning, so I must be going.' (I hadn't heard that he'd actually become employed, but if true, I was going to start charging him rent.) Every time I'd pause to take a picture he'd say, 'Yep! that's the shot. We have to get it back to the Bugle!'  He even once, in a fit of hurry-it-up desperation said, 'Oh my! It's 8 o'clock, time for bed!' It was 2:00 on a weekend afternoon, about 9 hours before he actually went to bed. The whole time he's dragging us along the path, both metaphorically and physically. Trying, I imagined, to get us out as quickly as possible to increase his chances of being near elevators he can actually use.
 After 3 years (in Dude's mind, 20 minutes to the rest of us) we made it to the Canadian Falls. Dave was not only completely unimpressed, he was already calculating our rout back to the car, In the midst of all of that crowd, as happy as people  watching a 6 foot thick 1000+ foot wide column of wintry green water fall over a 180 foot wall bashing the hell out of the rocks below can be. Well, except the guy with 7 kids (I hope it was a tour group) and a really really bitchy woman who demanded that he do everything, while continually insisting that he did everything wrong, Dude was the unhappiest one there. I mean, the Korean newlyweds were paying more attention to the Falls than he was! And they were almost totally involved with the camera guy, the mother(s)-in-law and each other.(Raine was happy, she was waiting on top the hill for us to do the sight seeing thing and walk back up to her).

 
   On the way back up the hill to where Raine was waiting he was bounding ahead like some sort of bizarre gazelle/mountain goat genetic mutation, saying, 'We have to get to Pittsburgh, to get the elevators!' Wishing I'd actually purchased the tow harness from that horse-drawn logging guy, I followed my son (at ever increasing distances) back over the bridge, Goat Island, another bridge, and across the park in something close to record time. Then I got to feel like Stretch Armstrong (showing my age) with Dave in front straining to get back to the car and Raine behind trying to look at 'one more thing' at the Native American jewelry tables. Somehow I got everyone to the car without being stretched completely out of shape, or chucking anyone into the river. The drive back home was punctuated by a few renditions of  'The restaurant's open, remember? I wonder if it's time for dinner?' Then Dude reached waaaay back into the archives with 'Would you like butter...? Or honey with your bread, Pooh?' I also received a couple of pokes in the right shoulder from the female passenger. But after a stop at Steak and Shake the ride from then on was pretty quiet, and pain free. (soooo worth the money) Luckily for me, we didn't have to actually drive through Pittsburgh, so I didn't have to explain to any security people what we were doing in their buildings on a Saturday evening. (Really, sir, there's no need to call the police, we're just here to ride the elevators.) We eventually arrived back home with varying degrees of satisfaction. I, because I'd finally seen something I'd wanted to see for years, was completely satisfied with the trip. Raine and Dude seemed to be most satisfied with the conclusion, and retired to varying degrees of couch-potato-ness (another new word!) and shook their heads over my wandering weirdness.

Bank Robbery!!:

It's a clue!

      For Federal reasons, Dave and I need our own, separate bank account. And for reasons too complicated to go into Raine and I have a joint account at an entirely different bank. And for paranoid reasons I'm gonna make up names for these institutions of futility... uh... I mean fidelity. So when I talk about Dave an I going to the 'TD' bank(Two Dudes), that implies that we're going to 'our' bank. You know, the one were he continually asks for $10,000, ( I still say if that ever works I'm gonna buy him a bunch of games), and visits his financial minions. We also, since I don't like checks, regularly take actual cashey money out of  'our' bank and take it to the 'RD' bank (Rain Dave Bank) , and deposit it.  So his experience with 'our' bank is, that we go there, and charge up the 'Game/Cheeseburger Buying Plastic' and occasionally walk away with cash. Although so far it's always been much less than 10k.
    It's become something of a bank-fantasy of mine. Just to see the look on David's face if we ever walked into the bank and he asked for his usual amount, and I, like some sort of Duetsche Mafia Don, give the teller a solemn nod and she forks over the pile of green. But I digress.
    In the (nearly) real world, Dude, Raine, and I went to the TD Bank and Dave and I went in to deposit my check and visit his minions. He was greatly disappointed (the first of many this day). Because of a fairly major snow, most of his usual tellers were at home and we were left to the competent, but male, attentions of  Gary, the manager. Dave didn't allow this to stop him for long. as soon as Gary started processing my deposit Dude, the proud possessor of 5 (count 'em, 5) happy faces, immediately proved his gender bias by asking Gary to give him $5000, instead of the usual 10 grand. I don't know, maybe he just figures that Dudes are half as cute to men as they are to women. He really got excited when Gary handed over the cash I requested, and said, 'Thanks! Now we can go to the GameStop and get the Pokemon White Vision! Only for XBox 360!!'  Gary blinked, and said, 'Hey, no problem. You're welcome.'  Since he had the required number of Happy Faces, naturally there was only one reason to stop at our bank. Because that's the only place with enough money to fulfill his gaming addiction. So he was babbling at supersonic (?) speed about PokemonMarioBros.BatmanSpiderman (it's hard to separate them at that velocity) all the way to the car once he saw the huge (to him) wad of cash that I was carrying.

   Once we were in the car, he then informed Raine that he was getting games/movies/cheesburgers at such a volume that the echoes drowned out half of what he was saying. Raine looked at me and raised an eyebrow to ask me what the hell was going on, because I couldn't have heard her if she'd actually said something. I shrugged my answer and tried to calm David down. I had mixed results. I could either get him to lower the volume or the speed, but not both at once. And silence appeared to be completely impossible... for the last 18 1/2 years anyway.
    Dave's second (and longest lasting) disappointment of the day occurred only moments later. We drove across the parking lot to the RD bank and got into the drive-through line. To Dude, this was all good. The only thing this could mean was a stop for more money to get even more games! I made my deposit at the window, fended off the offer of a sucker for Dave (he doesn't like candy), all the while he was going on (and on) in the backseat, seemingly obliviously playing his 3DS. I gathered my receipt, thanked the rather nice teller-lady, and drove off around the corner of the building. 'HEY!!' came an indignant exclamation from the backseat, 'The bank stole all of our money!!' Raine and I looked at each other, startled. 'Someone dial IX-I-I! This is an emergency!!' He continued, as Raine and I started cracking up.
   As we were leaving the parking lot, Raine and I were hamming it up a bit, and laughing more than a bit about the whole incident. Dave was grumbling in the backseat the whole time grumbling under his breath, occasionally something loud enough to hear would come out; 'I can't believe they stole our money!' and 'We need to call the precinct and get someone on the case!' were two that stood out. And, of course this made the two evil (and broke, evidently) adults in the front seat giggle even more hysterically. Much to David's ever growing disgust.
   Since I was driving, and no one else knew quite where we were going (a common happening from all accounts) I took the extra special longest way to get to a place 2 miles away by driving 15 miles rout. (I drive GPS receivers nuts!) As we were coming up the hill to the Sam's Club/GameStop complex we drove past the parking lot of another branch of the 'RD' Bank, not thinking anything about it, when we heard a grumble from the backseat, 'Darn 'RD' bank.... I can't believe they stole all our money!' And, as the laughter started up again from those evil people in the front seat, 'We need to go to the TD bank to get the money to get the GAMES!' Evidently, we had just gone to the banks in the wrong order.
    Luckily for Dude, I was not relying on my cash reserves (0.00, according to Dave) and we did, indeed, go to the GameStop, and using my Secret Dude-Dad Powers (pat.pend) I was ready to buy him a game (or steal him one, Dave didn't care) when Raine came up with a startling plan. The game that David wanted was twice as much as we would normally spend on a 'Smiley-Game', so Raine asked him if he wanted to 'bank' his game points for another week(not in her bank, which would steal them all!) , taking the chance on losing them all in order to get the game he wanted. Dave misunderstood (maybe) at first. Thinking that he could get a game now and then a really cool game next week if he was getting a bonus for being good two whole weeks in a row. Nice try. Dad is soooo not going for that one. When he finally admitted that he understood, he decided to take the chance, and double-down on the Pokemon table.

Perhaps this is the getaway path..

    So every day that week, Dave would almost scream as he got off the bus (van) 'I've got the GOOD NOTES!!'  I would have worried about the Bus-guy's hearing, but he's about 80, and doesn't hear that well anyway. I, on the other hand, was thinking seriously about heisting some earplugs from work, or buying the kind of ear protection that you only see at rifle ranges or nuclear weapon testing facilities. I know a guy whose dad works for NASA, and if I ever find his number, I'll ask him for one of those zero-noise helmets that they wear for launches.
    I'm happy to say that my hearing (already deafened to withstand 'normal' Dude levels) is no longer under attack. I'm sure someone needs to call the Guinness Record-book people, because my son was extra good (even the stuff we don't talk about here) for two whole weeks!  I did actually bring earplugs home for Friday, just in case. Dave was disappointed (briefly) when he found out there was no way I was taking him to GameStop at 7 am on a Saturday (and get back to bed!). But it was still fairly early (for me) when he received his virtuous reward. Naturally he was busted at school on Tuesday for talking too much (My David? Never!) because of his excitement for the new game. But that pretty much is what keeps me from having to declare GameStop bankruptcy so I wasn't too hard on him. He's still not too sure why we occasionally put money in a bank we never take any out of for games, but as long as the games keep flowing he's pretty sure he doesn't care...

Moving Stairs?:

Hit the button!

     I may have mentioned at some time or another that Dude likes elevators/escalators. I was wrong... David LOVES them. We once almost missed a flight when he found out about the slideways in the Charlotte airport. We had a one hour layover. So I thought I understood the depths of his attachment to the mechanical consumer movers but recently I've had to reassess my opinion. Upwards.
   Not too many days ago, and for reasons I can't fully explain Dave and I decided to accompany the females in our lives to the Mall. It seems that Raine's daughter, Alayna, was feeling unfashionably shaggy somewhere around her cranial regions. Translation: She needed a haircut. She chose to go to the Mall for some sort of fashion reason that I'm too male to understand, and also chose to have her mother accompany her, for something along the same reason that women can't go alone to restrooms in public places.
    The first I heard of the trip was when I answered my cell phone and Raine asked me to ask 'Layne (who has her own phone. And it's cooler than mine) if they were meeting at home, or at the mall for their hirsute rendezvous. Not being a consistently fluent female go-between, I immediately handed my less-cool phone to Layne. While they were plotting their latest round of conspicuous consumerism something strange was percolating in my brain. Well... stranger than usual, anyway. I vaguely remembered some sort of near-promises of malls and elevators. And I could almost remember who I'd almost promised these things to. Who did I know that liked such things? I knew it would come to me sooner or later. I was pretty sure it was a relative. So that was somewhere to start.
      By the time they'd finalized their meeting I had an idea. During the wait my diabolical scheme began to take shape, and when Raine got home I sprung it on her. Like all male plans it was simple, direct, brilliantly conceived.... and completely doomed to failure from the beginning. It was my intention that all four of us go to the Mall and then essentially pretend like we'd never met. They would go off in one direction to do their 'girly' things and Dave and I would pursue more manly diversions in an entirely different part of the Mall. This would include each group being responsible for their own dinner. (remember that part) And when each had finished their (supposedly) timely tasks, we would meet back up at the vehicle and return to our version of domestic bliss...ish.  Our mutual exit prompted by the fact that we each had keys to the car, and no compunctions about abandoning our partner at the local Monument to Consumerism. (Not really, but we each threaten pretty good)
   It was actually a pretty good plan up to a point. And not the point you might imagine, we met up for the exit, just as I had planned. It was the some of the stuff in between that got kind of skewed. As is wont to happen in our little happy group.
   We arrived, and parted company in the parking lot, and much like a gang of retail ninjas might assault their objective, we split up right there and entered through different doors. We kind of skipped the synchronizing the watches step, but the old Mission Impossible theme was briefly hummed by someone in one of the pairs. (I'll leave it to you to guess which one)  Dave and I entered through Dick's (no joke) a sporting goods store renowned for its selection and higher than average pricing. Dude and I weren't interested in their tremendous selection of overpriced merchandise, because at this mall, Dick's had something in particular that we (?) needed. Dick's had escalators. A big part of my 'Clever Plan' (tm) was a ride up those same escalators to the second floor as access to the Food Court, as a part of our Fast Food Diet Plan. (or FFDP, also trademarked)
     I will admit that Dick's response to the much-delayed, but imminent start to the NHL hockey season did have me distracted a bit with a full, center aisle display of Penguins apparel, so it was David that first noticed their mechanical difficulty. A loud, startled cry of,  'The escalators are broke!' was my first clue that my 'Clever Plan' (tm) was slowly beginning to circle the metaphorical toilet bowl. I turned my head to see real distress on the face of my youngest child. 'You have to fix the escalators!' he cried loudly. 'We can't go up in the escalators until they get fixed!' I obviously had to respond quickly to this tragedy, lest the world stop spinning, or dogs and cats started living together, or something.

Is he leading me down the Garden Path?

   To keep myself from panicking I leaned on my secret Dad-knowledge that there were, in fact, 3 other businesses, with a possible total of 5 other sets of escalators along with a glass elevator and  3 escalators in the common area of the mall. But to Dave, none of that mattered. This was the finest example of movable staircase art in the world, and quite possibly the only specimen left alive in captivity. And it was dead! Or at least that's what it sounded like.
     I tried to calm him down by telling him we would, in the natural course of events find other escalators, and that this one would work perfectly fine as a set of stairs and then to rise from the ashes and move again when that bright day dawned and power was restored, but he was having none of it. This is a kid who, when my car ran out of gas in a parking lot blocks from home, giggled his butt off for about an hour. I mean, this was his major form of transportation. The conveyance that obtained his Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers, and the only thing keeping his skinny hysterical butt from walking 3/4 of a mile home. But does he cry? Does he moan? No. He laughs at his father for the next hour. But one measly set of escalators. One out of maybe 10 in the building, mind you. One set that we see maybe once every 6 months and it's a tragedy of epic proportions. Someone must spring into action immediately to rectify this egregious offence against God and man. Riiiiiiight.
    So, despite this obvious evidence of the downfall of modern civilization, I just said, 'C'mon Dude, let's go.'  and calmly led him up the 'stairs'. Griping the whole way, he followed me, still mumbling about the blasphemy of walking  up a set of what should be moving stairs. Sometimes when we're in a public place Dave lags behind me 5 or 8 feet, so I'm constantly turning my head to check on him, so I saw what happened next, but was too far ahead to prevent it. As we were walking away from the escalator/stairs a man in a red sweatshirt walked past me to begin his non mechanically-assisted journey to the lower level. Dude intercepted him by stepping sideways to put his body between this... random guy in a red sweatshirt, and the top of the escalator. He placed his left hand on the man's left shoulder to fully stop him and gain his full attention. Dude then leaned in slightly, as if to impart some dire secret. 'You MUST fix the escalator!!' Dave practically yelled in his face, 'It's broke!' This guy's back was turned toward me, so I couldn't see the look on his face, but I did see him flinch back rather sharply. 'Dude!' I said flatly, 'C'mon man, let's go.' The guy (who will probably never take a broken escalator for granted again) gave me one startled look, and bolted down the 'stairs', and presumably, directly out the exit to find a land where people made sense, and escalators never broke down.

   Dave and I made our way out of the store. Thankfully the escalators top out only 20 feet away from the front doors. There may have been people staring at us the whole time... It wouldn't surprise me if there were, but honestly, I don't even notice things like that any more. We then walked across the mall to the food court to comply with our FFDP requirements. I was kind of in a hurry to get our dinners going because, A: I'm a large man, and require at least one meal a day, and I tend to skip the other two. B: I figured something with sauce and ketchup on it (hopefully not at the same time) would distract Dave from the tragedy we'd just been force to witness. and C: If we ate while Raine and Alayna were en-coiffure I wouldn't have to pay for their dinner. (long story, and inside joke) Well... none of it worked. Because, Dave never stopped complaining the whole time, and before I even got to pick a place to get food I got a phone call from Raine. It seems their appointment, meaning they didn't have one before we got there, wasn't for another hour and a half. So, figuring that 'B' and 'C' were already shot, I'd go extra hard at 'A' and told her I'd take everyone to Houlihan's, even though it wasn't Fast Food.
   Dave was still complaining about his lack of escalator action, so while we were waiting for the women to arrive, and to prove to him that there wasn't actually an epidemic wiping out all the moving stairways in the land, I took him around the corner and we, for no real reason, made a complete circuit of the escalator thus presented. This had apparently given him enough of a fix to get us through dinner and slightly beyond, but while the girls were attending their appointment Dude and I hit every escalator in the common area of the mall, up and down. We even had to ride the glass elevator before his equilibrium had been restored. After we stepped off and as a woman and her two small children were getting on, Dave, holding the doors, said brightly, 'It's okay, just step on. This elevator WORKS!' (Mr Otis would be so proud of him)

Also Fountain Operator

   All of the vertical transportation devices in the commons having been properly inspected, we could now leave the building. Thankfully Raine and Co. met us on the first floor so when we exited through Dick's we didn't have to reenact our entrance dilemma in reverse order, but somehow... And I don't remember actually agreeing to any of this... I had evidently promised David that we would find more elevators and escalators on the weekend. Presumably, Dude was just taking his newly self-appointed position as Public Elevator (escalator) Inspector very seriously.
   Two days later we went to the Phipps Conservatory (where these pictures were shot) even though they only had 2 elevators. I was checking with the teller that parking was indeed free, he informed me that was because of the holiday. 'Oh, cool.' I said, 'That's the same reason he (Dave) is with me...' I looked in vain for my son, '...uh I mean, with the elevators.'  Dave was peeking at me around the corner where the elevators were, waiting rather impatiently for the only thing in the whole flowery building he cared about. Later, in the Tropical Forest room, and the only other elevator in the building, he blocked a 5-6 year old and her family from entering 'our' elevator. 'Nope! Sorry, you'll have to wait for the next car!' he said briskly, and hit the button to shut the doors in her face. There was nothing I could do at the back of the car except say, 'Dave, you don't actually own the elevator, you know.' He just looked at me like I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.
     I think I could save on video games if I just had an elevator installed in our house. Maybe I'll just go with one of those StairClimber things instead.

Ho, Ho.... Huh?:

Stockings hung by the chimney... check

   Dave and I have a long-standing tradition... Or maybe it just seems like a long time. Every school day I get  smiley/frowny notices on the notebook provided. When 5 of these occur in the same week (No hoarding of Smileys!) we go to GameStop and get a game. Although lately he has been stocking up on movies as well. One lesser known codicil of the Smiley/Game Exchange Contract is that for the 4-5 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Game points become Christmas points. This addendum to the Contract was mostly to avoid Dude-Dad succumbing to Scrooge-like outbursts from being forced into double game buying duty during the Holiday Season. Of course, in Dave's mind it's a chance to add to the game-unwrapping frenzy that is (to him) the very essence of the Holiday season. He's still not sure why we bother wrapping that 'other stuff', or why the rest of us have things to unwrap as well. But he's magnanimous and allows us our little... whatever he thinks that is.
     Anyway... The accumulation of 'Christmas Points' became the central tenet of Dude's existence, as a matter of fact, he was much like someone who's just gotten his membership card at a local department store and has an inflated opinion of what all those membership points actually mean, and no idea at all of how slowly they actually add up. We heard, endlessly, about what he was wanting for Christmas. And even though the list was quite large, financially speaking, it continued to grow, and change, morphing much like a monster in an old horror movie. Believe me, as the one who was supposed to supply all this stuff to his trusting offspring, I was horrified. Then there were the talks every afternoon about the accumulation of  said points, and once David boasted, 'I'm gonna get ALL the Christmas Points!!' To which I replied, 'Well, I'm sure you're gonna try.' 'No!' He flatly insisted, 'ALL the points. Every Christmas Points!' I had thought (logically) that the sum of Christmas Points was roughly (if not exactly) equal to the total number of possible Game Points in the five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. From his insistence and growing list of demands, it seemed as though I had only a rough idea of the true extent of the vast sum of Christmas Points to be had in the universe at large. And had also vastly underestimated my son's ability to procure these valuable items.
 

Let's just say he needed help

   Actually, he managed to be (mostly) good for one whole week before genetics and personal inclinations brought him low. He came home the second Wednesday after Thanksgiving whistling the Darth Vader/Imperial Theme from Star Wars. Okay, he didn't really, as a matter of fact, I don't think he can whistle. But he looked like that particular music was running through his head as he got out of the school-van in front of the house. And I seemed to hear the faint dirge-like sounds of Chopin's Death March (dun, dun, duhduh) as he walked up the steps, and waited silently. Holding the screen door open, like he'd just been invited to his own funeral.
    I didn't have any need to use my awesome Dude-dad powers to figure out that the chain of reckless accumulation of 'Christmas Points' had hit a major snag. Also, without using my amazing powers of precognition (if I had any) I knew what I was going to find in 'The Book' before my youngest son dragged it reluctantly out of his backpack. I was even fairly (incredibly) certain as to the reason for this hiccup on the road to Christmas Point glory.
     If Dave gets excited about gaining 5 Smileys in the same week (and he does...more than a bit) he gets 110 times as excited about Christmas Points. Every Day he would LOUDLY proclaim his incredible gain in the standings and immediately and repeatedly (and even more loudly) inform everyone in the area, and most people in Western PA, what his virtuous reward should be. The words 'Kinect', 'Super Mario Brothers' and 4 different games for his 3DS will probably be rebounding off the insides of my skull until just before his birthday in 6 months. Just in time to start the whole cycle again (which may all be part of his diabolical scheme...) So I wasn't too terribly surprised when I looked at the frowny face in the book, and even less astonished when I read the note that said: Wouldn't focus and very talkative.
   I looked at Dave, trying very hard not to chuckle at his expense, and he looked back with the look of hopeless-hope. You know, the same look that death row inmates get on their faces when the phone rings as they're walking to the chair.(you know how much a wrong number would suck at that point?) Too bad for Dude that no call from the Governor was going to save him. He was Doomed. (or at least I wanted him to think he was.) I waited, looking at him expectantly. (It's just not as much fun if you don't torture them) and he awkwardly, nervously, and repeatedly glanced at me to ascertain how imminent his demise actually was. When he's really nervous Dave hunches slightly, cups his hands and brings his fingertips together in nervous little motions. Kind of like a timid mouse in an animated movie.... or Renfield... it's a tough call.

Where's the presents?

   'Well...' said the Voice of Doom (mine), 'Looks like we've got to do better in the Christmas Points gathering, doesn't it?' Which didn't sound much like Doom at all. As a matter of fact, before I'd even stopped talking, Dude was already coming at me with, 'Sorry! Sorry! My Bad!', and patting me on the arm to appease my anger. It must have worked, because instead of cancelling the entire holiday, I promised him some dire (but unspecified) consequences if Bad Notes continued to grace the pages of The Book. It really sounded a lot like the 'Slippery Slope' speech once given to me by a Principle of my acquaintance. And I didn't have any realistic hope that it would have any more effect on my son than it had on me all those years ago. But it says right here in the Manual that you're supposed to give that particular speech in these situations, so I gave it a shot.
    With the Holiday closing in, presents started to appear under the tree, and I learned something new. Dave is a psychic (I always pronounce it with an 'o' instead of an 'ic') because even without looking at the labels he could tell me who all the presents were for. Of course he was wrong, not all the presents under the tree were for him. But, hey, what psychic gets it right every time? The thing was, he hazarded a guess, put his neck out there and stuck by his guns come hell or high water. No matter what I (or anyone else) said, those presents were for him, and the rest of us could just go and find our own. Also, he could evidently peer though the wrapping and the boxes inside to the actual contents. Mysteriously they were all games and videos. And the bigger one off to the side was, of course, a Kinect system for his Xbox. I guess I have to look into the security system, because once Christmas came someone had mysteriously switched all these presents for the ones we actually opened. (His presents weren't even under the tree when he was guessing)
  The Big Day was closing in, and Dude was very lucky... Lucky that Christmas wasn't any later in the year. A starving buzzard wouldn't hover over a dead horse as much as David circled that tree the last 2 days before Christmas. He'd oh, so casually come downstairs about 3 times as often as usual, unobtrusively (If you were blind, deaf, and in another state, you wouldn't even know he was there) peering under the tree, then saying things like, 'Ooo! More presents!' and 'Got the presents with the games and DVD's and Kinect system for the Xbox!'. A couple of times, only my personal tattered ghosts of Holidays past prevented me from strangling him with something decorative. Well, that, and the fact that I'd used all of the garland on the tree, mantle and porch swing.

In case of shopping emergency

   I have to give credit where credit is due, however. The day before Christmas, thinking I was clever, I (foolishly as it turned out) sent Raine out of the house so I could finish wrapping her presents. I know that she hates crowds of people and driving in high traffic areas, so she left as kind of a personal favor to me. Well, that and I told her that was wrapping day and she wouldn't be getting any presents that weren't wrapped. While she was gone I asked Dude to help me bring them out of the 'secret hiding place' so that I could wrap them. David ended up helping me through the whole thing. Not only handing me stuff (paper, scissors, tape), but also helped me put the paper on, fold it and held the corners while I did my Laurel and Hardy wrassle with tape, imitation. I consider his efforts a nearly heroic unselfish act, because it was quite obvious early on that none of the presents were for him. As a matter of fact, if there were a medal for such things, I'd make sure he got one. Once we were done with our wrapping and some extra stuff we were roped into by Raine, I texted Raine and told her it was okay to come home.  Being male I was completely oblivious to the fact that I'd sent an unsupervised woman out on 'Last Chance Before Christmas, Sale' day. Turns out she was enjoying herself and didn't want to come home.

     But 24 hours later, the presents were opened, the ham (mostly) consumed, and peace (of a sort) reigned in the Dude-iverse. Dave was well pleased with the half a metric ton of games and movies that he received. Even more pleased with the fact that he got almost no clothes for Christmas. Which he considers a waste of both time and good wrapping paper that could be used somewhere else (games). Not to mention, the money wasted on clothing that could be used for some other, more worthwhile pursuit ... like games. And Dude-dad had a Special Project to use up that pesky down-time in between presents and dinner.

     Now when I was a kid I was always amazed that my father looked so drawn and tired on what was to any kid, the Most Exciting, Best Day of the Year. When I was a little older I suspected my father of indulging a bit too much in Holiday Cheer the night before, combined with an overuse of the 'adults set their own bedtime' prerogative. Also, it amazed me that we couldn't get him up before 8:00 am, even though we'd been up at 6:30. Dad woke up every morning at 6:30, even on vacation. What was so different about Christmas?  It was a puzzle. One that I solved for myself when I had my own kids. My Father, like so many other fathers was playing Santa's Elf until the wee hours of the morning putting together the Christmas Crap for his 5 ungrateful offspring. It wasn't turkey that knocked him out watching the football game, it was Mad Elf Disease. With this lesson in mind I resolved to A: Not buy my children anything requiring Tab A to be anywhere near Slot B. and 2: If such things were absolutely vital to the survival of my progeny I would, then, put them together in the 'down time' sometime Christmas Day... the next weekend at the latest. Or at least sometime before the end of the school year.

To understand the full horror, click to look at this full size

    So while my son didn't get his Kinect/Wii/electronic present so expensive as to cause bankruptcy, he did receive a tube/ramp/marble/race-game thing that had 847 parts (it looked cool, and I didn't check the box) and took a team of NASA engineers 16 years to conceive and looked like it would take me twice that long to construct. Especially since Raine categorically refused to have anything to do with its construction, and even refused to read the instructions once she'd seen how huge they were. So during that 'golden time' when Dave was upstairs loading games and movies into his machine with the speed of an Uzi, I was downstairs with a table, 8 bags of parts, and a 39 page instruction manual, doing an amazingly life-like rendition of a psychotic roller coaster builder. Mumbling to myself and jamming parts together, peering at an increasingly unhelpful diagram, then cursing in the language of my choice, and ripping it all apart again. Building and checking and re-checking to make certain everything worked correctly at each stage of construction. Between this and cooking dinner, I spent an eventful 5 hours entertaining myself and amusing everyone else in the room.(yes, they were laughing at me) After dinner was over I proudly brought my son over to his new (and cool) machine so that I could receive the accolades I so justly deserved, for both the coolness of the present and the pain and effort I had gone through to provide it.
   I said something like, 'Here it is, Dude. Isn't this cool?' (man, you are so setting yourself up) Dave looked everything over, watched me send the marbles flying up the tubes, then watched the results as gravity pulled them down the ramps and through the chutes until they'd come to rest at the end. He learned the mechanism to send the marbles and sent a couple flying around the course with the same result. 'How 'bout it Dave? You want this up in your room?' Dude looked it over, one more time, and said, in a polite but unenthusiastic voice, 'Yeah, sure.' Then he walked out of the room and up the stairs to his 'real' presents. He is so getting socks and coal next year, I swear.
  PS. Raine still laughs when she remembers how I looked pulling all those parts out of that box, and how long it took me to put it all together. She's just getting coal. No socks.

Short Rant:

   I tend to write here about the bigger or funnier things in our lives. The adventures that we have, and the havoc that we (mostly him) cause. But the devil, as they say, is in the details. The day-to-day, everyday circus that is our lives. It's the constant loud quotes and babble, the imperfect potty-training, the daily struggles for understanding: Him trying to understand us, us trying to understand him, and everyone else trying to understand just what in the hell is going on.
    (Warning: Sudden segue' alert!)   One of my favorite Lucille Ball movies is 'Yours Mine and Ours' with Henry Fonda. If you want to know the plot, you'll have to look it up (1968 ver.). Basically all you need to know is; Man with 10 kids meets woman with 8 and then they have one together. As they're heading to the hospital for no. 19, Fonda explains 'Love' to Ball's eldest daughter...  Life isn't a love in, it's the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and... ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else: it isn't going to a bed with a man that proves you're in love with him; it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts.
    If you adjust the content slightly (the going to bed part, particularly) the sentiment applies to Dudes as well. Not wanting to sound harsh (but hey.. it's my blog, so what the hell...), but this is the criteria that shows me the difference in the 'love' of his mother and the love he gets every silly, loud, aggravating, crazy, wonderful day from Raine. Like dough-boys in the trenches we're ill-prepared, but every time the whistle blows we still go over the trenches in the face of the withering fire of game and movie quotes. (Drama much?)
    On a regular basis I try not to deal with 2 state agencies, 2 county agencies, 2 schools, 1 school district, and the Federal Government (Your Tax Dollars at work to confuse the hell out of Everybody). Thankfully, not all on the same day... well almost never anyway. And I have to say, in my humble, yet all knowing opinion... that working for the government, any government makes you do strange and stupid things. Mostly just so some one person can't later say that you didn't do, whatever it was, for them... And then sue your ass off.

   A case in point. (Nice way of saying, I'm having a little rant now) David is technically part of the Cornell School District. He doesn't attend classes at Cornell School, he's never met any of the students or faculty in any official capacity. He's never been in the building, or even on school grounds. He's only technically a senior in this school he's never attended, he's autistic, physically handicapped and maintains a godlike indifference to the very existence of  the place. But at least twice a week I get automatic notices on my cell-phone from Cornell telling me about the doings of all of the activities that Dude doesn't participate in, at the school he doesn't actually attend. The comings and go-ings (never far enough) of the PTA, of which I'm not now, never been, nor likely to ever be a member. And sometimes, in the heat of the moment I guess, I even get VM messages about parenting classes and football rallies and I don't know  what all. Most are cleverly designed to reach my phone as I'm riding my cycle home and can't hear them. So I can't just ignore the call, I have to go to voice mail and delete them... (Okay... breathe...the Bad People can't hurt you now) But their greatest tribute to senseless bureaucracy is that about once or twice a month (depending on the phases of the moon, I guess) I get a letter. An actual paper, sent through the US Snail, letter. With a stamp and a post-mark, and everything, advising me how to get student loans! So that David can go to college.  Let's pause here, and have a Moment of Silence for the death of Common Sense... or any Sense at all, actually. I'm eagerly waiting for the notice that it's time to sign him up for the SAT's.

   Student loans? Really? If I weren't almost certain that this was just a case of 'he's 18, so he gets this stuff' I would be really REALLY pissed off. I mean, it kinda feels like someone is sending me this stuff, just so they can laugh at me. That would suck, but it can't really be true. Because if it were, then that would mean they were making fun of Dude, and then I would become an ever-expanding, radioactive, mushroom cloud of righteous  parental fury, laying down death and destruction throughout the entire Ohio River Valley. And let's face it. Nobody really wants that, do they? I hope not, it's very tiring.