Real Friends

Katherine, Annette & Elaine

“A real friend is someone who knows how totally crazy you are but is willing to be seen with you out in public,” read the travel mug advertised in a recent mail-order catalog. 

I’ve spent some time with such friends over the past few weeks. Some are fellow media colleagues, another went to high school with me. All of them put up with my quirks  and laugh at my silly jokes.

Many are members of the National Federation of Press Women, with whom I shared a tour bus, a zip line, a horse-and-buggy ride through old Charleston and some laughs over drinks and dinner. I get together with these remarkable women every year at our annual communications conference. It was in Greenville, SC, earlier this month. Next September, it will be in Alaska. Every year with these folks is like a big family reunion. But we keep our escapades to ourselves, trotting them out only to laugh about them as we recount conferences gone by.

My roommate at these events is Katherine K., of Oregon. We met at the 1995 NFPW conference in Mississippi, and we’ve roomed together every year that both of us have attended. I’ve missed a handful, but she hasn’t. Through the years, we’ve shared  stories about work, death, boyfriends and now, retirement. Like an old married couple, we’ve worked out a morning routine that includes her taking a shower first because I get ready quicker. She has always liked to turn on CNN as soon as she gets up, while I prefer silence that early. Our compromise has us waiting until I’ve had my first cup of coffee before turning on the telly. 

Katherine has visited me three or four times, usually coming home with me after a conference in the South. This year, her boyfriend, Mark, flew in after we returned from conference. She wanted him to experience my Shangri-La in the woods. I was excited that he was willing to work on my Honey-Do List. My high school chum, Annette, flew in from Chicago. This is the woman who attended Beach Boys concerts with me in the Sixties. She witnessed my humiliation over screaming when Mike Love reached down from the stage and touched my head while I was trying to snap a picture. Now that she is a widowed grandmother like me, we have even more in common.

All four of us spent a few days at Orange Beach, Alabama. We had a blast doing whatever we pleased. We collected shells on early-morning walks, took naps, ate some great seafood and tried a new drink called a Pineapple Mojito. And we never stopped talking. That’s how it is with old friends. We talk up a storm about anything and everything, and in the rare moments of silence, there is no awkwardness.  

And no matter what happens, we’re still happy to be seen in public with each other.

For Want Of A VIN

Neither Moses nor Maggie could find the VIN, either.

If I ever find the idiot who decided where to stamp the vehicle identification number (VIN) on a Honda small engine, I swear I'll strangle him.

I have an 18 horsepower Honda engine in my EZ-GO ST 4x4, which is a golf course utility vehicle. The oil fill cap disappeared a couple of months ago. Without it, oil gets slung all over the engine, causing it to smoke, sputter and die at the most inopportune moments, like when I’m pulling one of the many hills on my property. I tried stuffing a rag in the opening. That lasted about 10 minutes. 

      I tried various bottle stoppers and duct tape. The stoppers weren’t big enough and the duct tape came off when the engine got hot. In desperation, I emailed EZ-GO. The reply stated the engine wasn't in their purview, and that I should contact a Honda small engine shop. I went online and found a small engine parts house, called up and talked with a customer service rep. I was told that I needed the engine's VIN, because there are 84 different Honda engine oil fill caps in their database, each belonging to a different engine. Who would have thought?

So I contacted Honda to find out where the VIN is located.  "It's stamped near the bottom," the Honda rep said. "You've got to be kidding me!" I wailed. So my engine repair friend, Calvin, came over and crawled under the 4x4  with his flashlight. The only numbers he could find were the engine model and capacity numbers. "That should do it," Calvin said. Nope, said Honda when I called back. There are several engines with that model number. They must have the VIN, and suggested I take it to a small engine repair shop to get someone to find it. Yeah, I'll just drive it onto my non-existent rollback truck and haul it in. IF I COULD DO THAT, BUDDY, I WOULDN'T HAVE CALLED YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE, I snorted.

So back outside I went, with flashlight, cleaning rag and exercise mat in hand. I cleaned a few areas on the engine, discovering to my surprise that it has a red housing on it.  I also found a couple of metal plates with numbers. I used the mat to lie on the gravel while I peered up at the engine from beneath it, trying to read one of them. Mission Impossible, as it turned out.

A nice lady at a small engine repair shop in nearby Oneonta researched the   model number for me. She thought she had found the part I needed, but it turned out to be the oil dip stick, which is a separate entity from the fill cap. She said she would keep looking. I haven’t heard from her in three days. If she does find it, I'll dance at her wedding with a cow bell on, as my mother used to say.

While pondering my next move, I’ve stuck a wine bottle cork in the opening. It worked for the short trip to my barn and back. But with my luck, it’ll either fall into the oil well or swell so large that it won’t budge. I can just picture myself using a corkscrew to get it out when I need to add oil.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for the guy who decided that the VIN should be stamped beneath the engine. I have fantasies about choking the life out of him while Calvin whomps him up side the head with an oil can.

Processing Peru

Balloons add color to a volleyball game.

“How was your trip?” asked the friend who picked me up at the airport. It’s a natural question when you’ve been out of the country for 12 days. I didn’t know how to answer her. So I told her I was too exhausted from the 28-hour return segment to think about it. “Let me process it for a few days and I’ll get back to you,” I half-heartedly promised her.

     I went to Pomabamba to work with Southern Baptist missionaries Russ & Sherri Fleetwood, church planters among the Northern Conchucos Quechua. This indigenous Indian people group lives in the state of Ancash, Peru. The couple linked me with a group from Redmond, OR, that has been working with them for six years. We helped the Fleetwoods host a youth retreat at their home.

     Getting to Pomabamba required a flight from Birmingham and an overnight stay in Houston, then another 12 hours of flying, making a connection in Panama and sitting around airports, then an overnight bus ride and eight-hour trip by truck.

The elevation in Pomabamba is more than 10,000 feet. While acetazolamide tablets fended off nausea and dizziness, they did nothing for my lung or leg capacity. I never could catch my breath, and despite walking my own hilly terrain for a couple of weeks to get into shape, my thighs never caught up, either. 

During the first day of the retreat, I stumbled around in a haze of exhaustion, wondering what I was supposed to be doing. The group played a lot of volleyball, with balloons, beach balls and a real volleyball. The youth loved it, because it was a complete departure from their daily chores of tending sheep and smaller siblings. I never have liked volleyball. No matter what position I take, my hands never touch the ball. So when I wasn’t giving my Christian testimony or telling a Bible story, I felt lost. When our team leader noticed me taking lots of pictures, he appointed me official trip documenter. At least, I had a job.

I’ve been on many mission trips over the past 14 years, four of them to other parts of Peru. Normally, I am eager to tell folks about my experiences, and normally I’m armed with the type of information they want to hear. They don’t really want a travelogue, just to know that I had a great time and, in the case of missions, to hear the statistics.  Like most North Americans, we Southern Baptists are results-oriented. Often we allow the statistics -- how many eye glasses we handed out, how many teeth we pulled, how many folks we won to Christ -- to tell our story. 

This trip wasn’t about numbers, though. It was about relationships. We wanted to strengthen those already formed by the Fleetwoods, and to foster new ones. Did we accomplish that?I don’t know. Like an old computer whose hard drive is full, I’m still processing that.

Never Say Never

Barney on his closet pallet

After my last house cat died in 2011, I vowed never to have an indoor cat again. A couple of friends and my grandsons are allergic to them, for one thing.  For another, I got tired of clipping toenails and putting tape on carpet edges to prevent them from patting out biscuits wherever they pleased.  I had several barn cats to enjoy when I felt the need for kitty company.

What I hadn’t counted on was the casualty rate of my barn cats. Through the years, I’ve had half a dozen that I spayed and neutered. All but two have disappeared. Barney, my first, took up with a former tenant a couple of years ago. They fed him, renamed him Ming because he has so much Siamese in him. When they moved, they left him behind, knowing I would care for him.

I couldn’t get him to leave their former home, however. Twice I took him to the barn, but, as the old Sonny James song said, “The cat came back.” Finally, I hit upon a bright idea to re-acclimate him to the barn. I assembled my Mastiff’s wire cage, put a blanket, water bowl and food dish inside, along with a small litter box (it IS a Mastiff’s cage, remember), then somehow wrangled Barney inside. I released him three days later.

Low and behold, he had bonded with the barn again, so he stayed. That is, as long as the other barn cat, Mittens, wasn’t around.  It got to the point that I’d only see Barney every four or five days. He was my all-time barn cat favorite, perhaps because he was the first or just because he was such an affectionate kitty. So I decided to bring him indoors next time I saw him.

Last Saturday, I spotted him in the pasture, got him into my car, took him home and enthroned him on my bed. I put water and food bowls in my bathroom, and an old litter box in my whirlpool bathtub. I have no shame.

For a cat that has been living in outside all his life, he sure has taken to the indoors. He sleeps in my closet during the day, with me at night. He comes out for petting and rubbing against me whenever I enter the room. Sometimes, I take him to the Great Room and let him watch television with me, much to the chagrin of my dogs. Otherwise, he’d never leave the room.

Eventually, I’ll unbar the cat door and train him to use it, thus eliminating the need for a smelly litter box. I’ll also move his food and water dishes to the laundry room window ledge, which the dogs can’t reach. However, before I moved to the country, my city vet told me to keep the cats indoors for a month so they would become accustomed to the house and its smells. That’s all well and good, but I’m headed to Peru. My tenant  will keep an eye on my house, but he has enough to do without cleaning a litter box. I can’t start Barney’s kitty-door training, either, because the dogs would probably chase him out and he’d never come back.

So what do I do with him? Board him at the vet, of course. It will cost $128, plus another $50 for exam and shots. He’s a bit behind, because my former tenants never took him to the vet.

The things we do for our animals.

Where Have All My Heroes Gone?

When James Garner, aka Brett Maverick and Jim Rockford, died over the weekend, something inside of me died. I think it was another chunk of my childhood.

Never mind that I haven’t been a child for more than 55 years. My past is still inside of me, and every now and then, episodes run through my mind like a Super 8 movie.

 I used to write to movie and television stars to get autographed photos. Garner was the first guy I wrote to, back in 1959. I still have all those photos in a vertical file. 

“Maverick,” his long-running western TV series about a roving gambler with a sense of humor, introduced me to the man. I swooned over him every week, and rarely missed an episode. Once I disobeyed my parents and they refused to let me watch it that week. The episode was one I had really looked forward to, entitled, “The Day They Hanged Brett Maverick.” They didn’t, of course, and I got to watch most of it with the folks next door while mom and dad were away.

The sense of humor his characters displayed must have been more than a stage persona. I recall seeing him on a late night variety show when the host asked him how his marriage had lasted so long (58 years at time of death at 86). He didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, dear,” was his quick-witted reply. 

With an increasing pace, my childhood heros are disappearing from this earthly scene. All of them are either six feet under, or have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. In 2011, James Arness, the tall, lanky sheriff on “Gunsmoke” for 20 years, died at 88. In 2010, we lost Fess Parker, 85, TV’s  “Davy Crockett” and “Daniel Boone.” Leslie Nielsen,  84, also died in 2010.  I interviewed him at a Cerebral Palsy telethon in Birmingham when his early-Sixties TV series, “The New Breed,” was popular.  When I wrote to him afterward, he replied with a hand-written note on the back of a photo card. I got the autograph of Steve McQueen (“Wanted: Dead or Alive”)  at another CP telethon.

        My photo collection includes Eric Fleming (“Rawhide”), Richard Boone (“Have Gun, Will Travel”), Michael Landon (“Bonanza”) and Guy Williams (“Zorro”). I saw Williams at the Melba Theater in Birmingham. I lived across the street from the theater manager, who got me an autographed photo.

Clockwise, from top left: Richard Boone, Leslie Nielsen,
  Eric Fleming and Steve McQueen.

Remember Duncan Renaldo, aka “The Cisco Kid?” I met him at a Birmingham shopping mall in the 1950s. For many years, whenever I’d be in a group playing, “Guess Who Said This,” I’d write down, “I was once kissed by the Cisco Kid.” I credit his series with starting my lifelong interest in the Spanish language and culture.

Can anybody besides me recall Scott Brady of “Shotgun Slade,” Don Durant and Mark Goddard on “Johnny Ringo,” Allen Case of “The Deputy,” Rory Calhoun of “The Texan,” Hugh O’Brien as “Wyatt Earp,” or Clint Walker, the hunky  “Cheyenne?”

         David Hedison from “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” George Nader of “The Man and the Challenge,” Robert Reed from “The Defenders” and “The Brady Bunch,” John Bromfield of “U.S. Marshall,”  Craig Hill of “Whirlybirds,” David Frost of “That Was The Week That Was” and movie actors Laurence Harvey and Audie Murphy also have slots in my files.
         All are dead except Goddard, 77, Hedison and Walker, 87, and O’Brien, 89.
         My childhood is slipping away, one hero at a time.

Best Friends

I spend a lot of time with my two grandsons. We’re building memories.

Ever since seven-year-old Gabe was born, I’ve spent a night and the next day at his house. Usually, it’s Tuesday night and Wednesday. Sometimes the day varies, but I always see him at least once a week, unless I’m traveling.

Gabe started school two years ago, but I continue the practice. I play with his two-year-old brother, Matias, during the day and pick G. up from school. 

Amanda & Daniel, and the boys live about an hour’s drive from Ashville.  I have thought about moving closer to them. I know my daughter would love that. But I couldn’t live in a suburb again, and both boys love to visit my farm and my critters.  They enjoy helping me trim tree branches from my trails and playing with their riding toys in the driveway that circles my house. I’m 920 feet and hundreds of trees from any road, so I don’t worry about them accidentally playing in traffic.

First week of this month, Gabe finally got his wish to spend a whole week with me. We never stopped moving, often flopping into bed at midnight. I took him and his pony to Calera for his first riding lesson, took him to Chattanooga for three days of sightseeing, and came back through the lovely north Alabama town of Mentone on July 5th.

I had planned to pick up Mati that Sunday evening, but no sooner had we arrived home than his mom called saying he was driving her crazy wanting to see Gabe and Nana (pronounced NahNah). So we picked him up Saturday at our central meeting place, about a half hour drive for each of us. We headed to the Ashville square for my and Gabe's third fireworks display in two days. I had to watch from my car with windows rolled up and my hands over Mati's ears. He loves the bursts of color but he’s frightened by the loud bangs. We went to church Sunday morning, then Gabe’s Ashville friend came over Sunday evening and spent the night with us. We went to Spring Valley Water Park Monday, and all of us came home exhausted. Chalk up two more days of burning the midnight oil.

By the time their dad picked up the boys Monday night, I was worn slap-dab out. It took me two days to recover. But it was worth all the time and energy, especially when I think about something Amanda said a couple of months ago.

“I loved my grandmother, and enjoyed being with her,” she told me, referring to my own mother. “But I didn’t have the kind of relationship with her that you and Gabe share. Mom, you’re his best friend.”

I think my tractor's sexy!

     I spent several hours on my Kubota tractor last week, mowing grass in my pasture and down by my pond. I loved every sweaty minute of it.

My tractor is about 12 years old. It’s beginning to show its age, having sustained several scrapes and dents due to my driving. Sometimes I’m hell on wheels when I get on that thing. The first couple of times I tried to mow the weeds on my trails, I got off the trails trying to maneuver the cutter and became trapped in a tight space. I had to have someone come get me out. I’ve knocked the pier loose from its moorings at the pond, scraped trees, pulled up fence posts, torn fences and put a hole in the back wall of the shed where I park the tractor. 

Matias likes my tractor, too.

My most recent escapade was last week. I had the tractor down by the pond when the mail carrier came by. So I put my mail in my bucket and drove back up the hill, intending to put the mail on my porch. I’m easily distracted, though. So along the way I decided to push some dead tree branches off the trail through my front “yard,” the latter being  a euphemism for the scruffy area in front of my house. I noticed something whitish in the pile. 

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. “Maybe I’ve discovered where Maggie buried my butter dish.” It wasn’t until I got off the tractor and reached into the bucket to retrieve my mail that I realized I had dumped it out and pushed it into the pile of dead branches.      The “whitish” item was the box containing two copies of the photo book of my trip to Spain. I spent 26 hours and $40 each (plus shipping) making those darned books.  Now the back of each one is broken.

When I was shopping for a tractor, the late Charles Fouts of Fouts Tractor here in Ashville came out and looked at my property. He recommended a package that included a 32-hp tractor with hydrostatic transmission, rotary cutter, box blade and front-end loader or bucket, as I call it. I told him I didn’t think I needed the bucket. He replied, “Elaine, you’ll use that more than any other implement.” And he was so right. 

It comes in handy for mucking horse stalls, unloading heavy stuff from my pickup and cleaning out gutters, if the person helping me clean doesn’t mind being hoisted eight feet into the air. I sold the box blade last week, and we used the bucket to lift it out of the barn and onto the buyer’s flatbed trailer. It’s great for pushing dead limbs into a pile or carrying them to another part of the woods. Ditto for rocks I pick up in the pasture.

But the best use so far was getting my left front wheel out of a hole I encountered in my pasture a couple of years ago. I simply pushed down with the bucket, which lifted the tractor enough for me to roll out of the hole. When I got off the tractor and examined the spot that had trapped me, I discovered it was a sink hole several feet and two levels deep. I  filled it with rocks, an old tire, bent wire that was lying around, and a bucket full of loose gravel leftover from a previous project.

“Sexy” may not be the best word to describe my tractor, but it sure gives me lots of cheap thrills.