The Driver

I used to love playing with big, big trucks (I called them "gee-gee-cucks," I'm told), so it was a thrill for me when I got to operate some real heavy machinery this past Saturday, up in Dennison, Ohio.

I was at a work event with Megan, and one of her foundation's donors is OhioCat, a company that makes mini-bulldozers. They'd brought some of their machines in order to publicize the partnership, and, in what had to be vigorously extra-legal, I was allowed to drive them around town and get them in place in front of the party-venue.




After my blue-collar foray, I got swanked-up in my suit, ate some chocolate-covered strawberries, spoke stutteringly to the former head of the Democratic National Committee, and generally tried to be spousal.

It was in that last guise that I was asked to be a volunteer.

The gala actually had two locations--it began at a train museum before the guests were bussed over to a local elementary school for an awards' show (the foundation was playing host to corporate partners and honoring regional students at the same time).

I was tapped to direct the bus-flow.

As I stood on the corner of the street and loaded up yellow school buses with gussied-up guys and gals, the local constable drove by in his cop-mobile. I waved, he nodded. I thought our relationship had come to a satisfactory end. I felt civic.

A half-an-hour later, a co-worker of Megan's asked if I might be willing to do a little chauffeuring. I figured I'd already taken the bulldozer for a spin; why not make it a day of driving employment?

It turned out I was to escort the V.I.P.'s of the event, former United States Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Norway, John D. Ong, and his wife, Lee. They were being honored by the foundation as Children of Appalachia who'd succeeded in an inspirational way. And, it seemed, they needed a lift.

(Note: Norway and Finland have now been organically mentioned in this forum. Take that Kingdom of Sweden!)

(John Ong)

Since I was representing Megan, I felt I should be on my best behavior, so I smoothed my suit, put on my prep-school manners, and rushed to the car. All of this seemed very urgent. Ong'd been confirmed by the Senate, after all. He needed prompt service.

The car was parked on the right side of the road pointed east, but I needed to go West: I pulled a perfectly safe three-point turn.




So, unfortunately, did that very same cop who'd passed me earlier. I was busted, and at a potentially embarrassing time. I pulled over and got out to talk to him.

"Is that little maneuver legal in Massachusetts?" he asked. Megan still has New England plates and they're sometimes viewed with suspicion here, as if we're elite intruders. (Obviously, he hadn't heard about my blue-collar background.)

I told him I was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again. I told him I was hurrying to pick up a V.I.P. (That may not have helped my down-home cred). The ambassador was waiting, I said. Essentially, I tried to use my diplomatic immunity.

"Well, I don't know if that's legal in Massachusetts," he repeated, "but try to be more careful."

I promised that I would be, went off to pick up the Ongs, and delivered them to their destination.

After the event, I shuttled the Honorable Ongs again and started to clean up, with the rest of the volunteers. Of course, the heavy machinery needed to be moved, too, back to the train-yard from which it had originally come. I was all over that duty.

Nightfall presented some new challenges, but I was ready. Still in my suit, I hopped on the Skid Steer Loader and sped off into the small-town night at 8mph. Linda, the wonderful OhioCat representative, thought this was just the greatest, so she offered me a chance at a larger machine.

At around 9:30pm, on a mostly-abandoned Dennison road, I climbed into The Beast.




Anyone who has ever seen me operate something as complicated as a pencil sharpener should know that having me drive this thing was not the best idea. But I performed admirably, guiding The Beast through stoplights and across railroad tracks.

I did get a few funny looks at four-way stops, though. In fact, before I made my last turn I found myself at an intersection with my old friend, the Dennison constable.

He looked over and saw a young man in a suit--a Massachusetts boy through and through--very slowly driving, unlicensed, through a stop sign, in a hydraulic excavator.

I waved; he nodded.

Apparently that's legal in Ohio.

Twelfth Night at Fourteen

"O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art
As glorious as the night. . ." - W. Shakespeare


David Curtiss told Mike Isler who told Julian Atkinson who told Chris Hall who told (oh no, oh no, oh nooo) Laurel Bolton--the inimitable--and, at last, my big, sentimental mouth had gotten me into middle-school trouble.

It all happened during the end-of-school production of Twelfth Night my ninth-grade year.




"If music be the food of love," said a slightly post-pubescent Orsino: the play began: and its sappiness came o'er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets.

Or Laurels.

I was so ready for this particular play, so primed for romance, and starved o' it. Whence, oh whence, would come my pure-hearted Olivia?

I'd had Sex-Ed that semester, too (a seminal class, for me), so both my weeping heart and my lovey-dovey vas deferens were attuned to the opposite sex. I was in love with love and I knew the technical terms!




Since it was the end of the school year, I was particularly amorous. I always developed strong attachments with a few weeks to go before summer, and I had the over-eager yearbook signer's tendency to imagine that we'd all meant so much to each other, that our shared life was plump and bursting and worthy of some conclusive firework.

Years later, with two weeks left in college, worried that I might let my friend Megan slip away, I, melodramatic but maturing, set off my most fortunate Roman Candle.

Back in middle school, though, I flailed for the right thing to say and the right person to say it to during that end-of-year rapture.

I should mention that it was just a bit harder for me to find someone--to wink at before the final bell, to indulgently hug after graduation, to tell of my deep and abiding like--because I went to an all boys' school.

(How many of you think Eaglebrook should allow girls?)

Eaglebrook was tough for a honey-tongued lad such as myself. I didn't realize it then, because I'd barely spoken to a girl, but I missed flirting.

Luckily, there was one lady in my class, Laurel Bolton. She was the daughter of an art teacher and was allowed to attend. Pretty girl, Laurel, but at the time she was, to many of us, simply unsurpassable. She drew attention like a stray giraffe--a tall, blond, blip of evolution in our masculine biosphere.

I didn't have feelings for her, really. She was just an entity.

Naturally, she was the female lead in the play. Twelfth Night features androgynous twin siblings whose romantic misunderstandings yield hilarious results and, since Laurel had a twin brother, the casting decisions were not difficult. She would be Viola and he would be Sebastian.

There are certain feelings we know are trite--even false--that still feel good. Having a crush on the star of the school play is one of them. I didn't care that I was being manipulated by her makeup, that I was under the spell of surprisingly good production values. I was transported immediately to the shores of Illyria and idealizing.

And so, unwisely, I said to David Curtiss, "Oh, she's angelic."

Had I said, "What a babe" he would have shrugged it off; but my prim word-choice was obviously mockable and he darted off to spread the scandal that I liked--can you believe it?--the only girl in school.



The next few days were awful. I tried to walk back my compliment, claiming that I was only joking, that I was talking about her character not her, that, please, please, I was scared of her boyfriend and I didn't want him to hear what I'd said, Chris, can I pay you five dollars not to tell her?

Chris Hall, though, was playing Feste in the show and he'd internalized the idea that he was, as a Shakespearean fool, supposed to tell uncomfortable truths.

Apparently the boyfriend didn't know what the word 'angelic' meant. Apparently, she was flattered by it. I remained mortified and mapped out paths from class to class by which I would avoid them both.

Somehow, all the awkwardness was a catalyst for a real sense of affection. Humiliation can be a funny thing that way. Feeling crappy about the situation for a few weeks convinced me that I cared about her.

Laurel had gone from the only one to the one and only. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou.

A few days later, I was playing chess with my friend Dom in the library. Laurel came and sat down next to me. She leaned toward me to get a better look at the board. This was amazing. Sweet, sweet vindication. We'd moved past that angelic embarrassment and now we were clearly an item.

Play on! Give me excess of it.

"What does this piece do?" she asked.

I moved the queen around without looking at her and mumbled, "Every--uh, it goes everywhere." I leaned away.




Dom picked up the chat-slack. I was wearing a light blue striped shirt with a yellow pocket and a red collar. I started to sweat through all of it. She asked about a few more pieces, even touched a bishop. But I had no moves. She got up and exited stage left.

Enough, no more.
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

I think we dated for about 2.7 seconds. I was relieved when it was over.

A New Policy

I've had some writing published in another venue today and so I'm going to take a 24-hour break from my daily blog-essaying (blessaying).

This will be a policy here at Dr. True's Soup and Read. Today, I will spend the time I save to make my wife a nice dinner. Mild professional success for me = salmon for her.

If you're interested, link to the magazine that's seen fit to link to me, Women's Adventure.




It's especially nice that the writing they've posted online was the result of a team effort. Rob Strong offered valuable suggestions and took stunning photographs to accompany the paragraphistry, and Dave and Sarah Kaufmann were both participants in the event I wrote about and helpful editors of the writing itself.

D.T('s).S.&.R's house music critic, J. Zachary Kessler, also offered extensive, erudite notes.

And special thanks, of course, to Megan. She's just very good and cool and helpful in every way.

Life, Elsewhere

Chapter One

Last week, my dad sent me an article from our hometown newspaper about my favorite used-book store--Federal Street Books. I like the place because it's overstuffed and full of odd contrasts. It's like a good brain--Zsa Zsa Gabor's autobiography sharing space with how-to's, wherefores, and other, more lyrical volumes of mindjunk.

I've always thought a used-book store is a reflection of a strange kind of intelligence, anyway, that stores have personality. It's the only way I can describe my dislike for Athens Book Center, in my new hometown. It doesn't seem governed by a central philosophy and is somehow too discerning in what it keeps in stock and not discerning enough. There are treasures, but they're hard to find. Athens Book Center is a guarded fellow who hasn't figured out who he wants to be quite yet.

Chapter Two

I love spending time with Federal Street Books, though.

(Pictured above: In a green shirt, Federal Street Books)

He seems to know what's a classic and what's not. He's an auto-didact, so he's really smart but refreshingly uncertain. He's warm, half-kempt, softspokenly leftist, a little weird, and supremely curious. Federal Street Books is a good guy with a long memory.

Chapter Three

I started going into used-book stores early in college. The introverted part of me loved the chance to be civic while still being silent. The shopping-addict part of me (a small part) loved the quick, very inexpensive fix. I enjoyed seeing that a $14 book was $2.50, enjoyed that the price was always penciled into the top corner of the title page.

About bookstores, I like lying on their carpets best of all. I can read titles, relax, catch a nap. (Usually the other patrons are a bit askew themselves and don't judge.) I also like walking one-step a minute with my head tilted almost sideways. And bending at the waist to check on the second shelf from the bottom, P-W.

Titles and authors' names engross me and, even while my heart-rate plods, I quickly catalogue trivia; 200 hours of such scanning has helped me feel at home with literature. I know (sorta) who's who, who gets read, and who gets sold back.

Chapter Four

Once, while I was on the basement level of The Brookline Booksmith--a jewel of used-bookery--a woman in a jean jacket approached and offered to tell my fortune. Megan was upstairs perusing the new stuff (a choice which was okay, I guess, though I prefer the old. I was just glad she considered a walk to the bookstore a date).

The woman said she could read all about me by looking at the books I was holding. I had One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Life is Elsewhere.



There was something wrong with this fortune-teller--she was half-blind maybe, or otherwise off, and seemed to stare through me toward the Judaica section. She was an overgrown adolescent with dark, triangle hair, strands of calico fur on her black sweats, and Big Bacon Classic breath.

She carried a tote-ful of Dostoevsky, stood just an inch too close.

I made a ninety-one degree angle with the floor. She asked if I liked birds. I tried to be politely dismissive. The manager came over to me and said he had that book in cultural studies I'd been looking for. The woman noticed that he was trying to save me from her. She must've been a regular. I shrugged him off and kept talking with her.

She was lonely: I pitied her: I hated her: Involuntarily.

She said I should choose different books.

"I don't know, I think I'll stick with these."

"Okay, okay. I know what you'll do," she said. "You'll go upstairs and tell your woman how you were talking to a crazy bitch downstairs who could predict the future. But it won't matter. Because I'll hear you."

I'm not sure how she knew I had a woman upstairs, but I didn't do as she predicted. Instead, I double-locked the door that night. And started to think of her as a renegade character from one of the used books that stayed safely on my shelf.

She was the elsewhere life was, a deranged version of some part of me, the scuffed other side of my coin.



Chapter Five

I spent a good portion of my courtship in Boston, on loan from Ohio, waiting for Megan to finish work. Sometimes I went to mid-morning movies across from the Common. Once, a randy pair of Woody Allen fans let their baser instincts get the best of them in the back row and an usher had to yell, "C'mon, that's nasty."

To that, I preferred the two used-book stores around Megan's Boylston St. office. I became a voracious reader--of blurbs on the back of books someone else had read.

Blurbery became one of my favorite kinds of language. Sometimes, I bought ten books, got back to Megan's, and put myself to sleep reading all the back-cover reviews. It's so conclusive, blurbing, so grandiloquent: "One of the best books of the year!" "One of the best books of the decade!!" "The only true love story of our time." "[McCarthy] puts most other American writers to shame."

What if I, too, could be full of a secret wisdom, trenchant, unsurpassed, and so forth? I kept scanning the shelves. I read 86 first paragraphs. A certain book design, from Vintage publishing, started affecting me gravely. I had to own a Vintage.

I was under the sway of used books.



Chapter Six

I like the idea of making use of what's been cast aside, forgotten. When I was little I had sympathy for toys and stuffed animals on the bottom of the pile. I get the same feeling from torn covers and urine-yellow pages. I love a book that's broken in, like a good catchers mitt.

If it's got notes or inscriptions or marks of a long-ago reader, it seems to me that the story's been infused with that person's life. The book went unfinished, maybe, but there's something in that too. Maybe it was mostly-read in a bay window or a wicker chair or on a bus or by a boy waiting for his love, or a woman with triangle hair.

In my copy of Phillip Roth's Our Gang there's a letter dated 3/7/75. "Jay, we think you should pay off all your debts (including to us) before you get a car." Another book's inscribed with a Get Well note to a grandma who didn't.

And then there's the copy of All the Pretty Horses which belonged to Camille Bouquet, a middle school acquaintance of mine, as slight and pretty as her name.

After Camille died in a car crash, her parents must have sent it off to Federal Street Books, maybe to try to share a tiny part of her, maybe for no reason but to turn the page.



The book became part of the mind of the store, a little paperback memory obscured in the stacks. I bought it for five dollars because I always want to be a person who notices things.

The first sentence of the book is: "The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door."

I haven't gotten any further, but I can tell that the character will always be one who makes an impact, if only a tiny, flickering one.

I wonder if Camille thought that was hopeful or bleak, and how far she got.

Dreamsville U.S.A.

I'm headed north today to Tuscarawas County via Ohio Route 78, known as the Rim of the World. It's a beautiful drive on the way to the annual event for The Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, held at the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum. (Dennison was known as Dreamsville U.S.A. during WWII--find out why).

I like trains and I like Megan so, since this is her company's deal, I'm going to throw on a suit, have a drink, and make charming(?) train puns all night, perhaps with elected dignitaries.



Tonight, the Foundation honors John D. Ong, a former United States Ambassador. He joins John Glenn, Ted Strickland (Ohio's current governor), and Bob Evans (restaurant pioneer) as "I Am a Child of Appalachia" honorees.

This ICAN! program seeks to promote this part of Ohio, and the foundation also sponsors a writing contest for local schools so that students can explore their ideas about their region. Tonight, 96 writerly students will be awarded prizes to help them with college. I helped judge the ninth-grade poetry contest, and these kids can sure sling a rhyme. I learned some things from them about this adopted home of mine.

Megan is the ICAN! Partnership Coordinator. She's one of the liaisons between big companies and the Foundation, and both parties have the goal of raising academic achievement in the area (this year, Walmart donated $200,000!).

Megan, then, helps kids think more clearly when they're in fourth grade, and, eventually, when they get to OU, I help them think more crazily! We're trying to make their journey to Dreamsville a bit easier.

Check out the Foundation's web site to see what else they've got going for the region.

Pink Floyd and Mexican Food

I once heard the finest song possible and I needed to own it immediately.

I'm a casual music fan and, at the time, I'd only purchased a couple CDs, so I wasn't used to the quick devotion that hipster kids and pot smokers seemed to feel pretty regularly toward songs. But I couldn't get this one out of my head, and I needed my mom to take me to the mall so I could claim this wonderful sound.

It had never happened before and hasn't since.

The song was Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond." The exalted chorus. The tripped-out horns. The backup vocals, and G-majors, and Blakean lyrics. I loved it.





I was still waiting to figure out my favorite book, movie, painting, and pal--don't we always think we'll find those someday, in a stimulating fantasia of discovery, maybe in Budapest or Seattle, maybe when we have a different haircut?--but I knew that moment that I'd found my favorite song.

(Because of my interest in the tune, the music-sharing sight Pandora.com tells me I'm probably a fan of extensive vamping. Yes. It was, is, the main feature of my musical and linguistic taste, vamping. I love a crescendo. I'll try to keep this short, though.)

At the music store, the only copy of the album in stock was gold-plated, a collector's edition. It was 32 dollars. I was 16 and mostly cashless. Those protracted guitar riffs and synthesizer solos were about to be my one and only asset. I held it in my hands for five minutes, wondering what I should do. The song is 26 minutes long, I thought. And it comes with all these other songs, too. Bonus! Plus, if I don't purchase, this will've been a wasted trip, for me and my mom.

I did it. It was mine.




Buyer's remorse hit half-way through the first play. The album was good, I guess, but it went on and on. On top of that, now that I'd invested, I felt pressure to love it and that pressure didn't help matters.

Basically, I'd asked "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" to the dance before realizing that she was only a little beautiful, kinda dull, and 26 minutes long.

Over the years, I tried to get my money's worth by showing the gold-plating to Pink Floyd diehards who might've been impressed; I read the liner notes to deepen my own fanhood; I even amassed a large Floyd collection to bury the 32 dollar faux pas with a dozen bargains. Alas. I listened to the thing twice. My mistake haunted me.

I told this story at breakfast this morning and my good pal Zach, a seasoned music acquirer, teased me lightly. I'd made a classic blunder. My judgment had been deafened by the rapture of a first-listen.

But the saxophone at the end was just so cool!

He patted me on the back, with reassurances that I'd been hasty but not in an un-okay way.

I felt a little silly, and said, "Well, it wasn't the stupidest thing I've ever done."

Zach and I realized together that this was an odd argument on my part. I was trying to defend a moderately dumb decision by saying that I've committed far worse sins of idiocy. We ate some home fries. I thought. It seems that I'd rather be considered a big moron generally than a slight one specifically.

I was saying, basically, You think that's dumb? You should see some of the other stuff I've done. Which stuff I'm not going to tell you about. Boy howdy, you don't even know!

I was in the same pose the classically-unimpressed person strikes when encountering Mexican food: this is okay, but it's not like the bounty I had in Tenōchtitlan.

We all know that guy.




That guy annoys me. So you've had some good Mexican food. So what? Compare and contrast, fine, but don't diminish the present by insisting you've had a more authentic experience in every other situation than you're having currently, with me.

Zach could have said something similar in my direction:

If you've done something monumentally stupid, stop wasting my time with these Pink Floyd trifles. Out with it! Tell me the depth of your denseness. Why this shroud of secrecy? Why the stance that there's so much more to you than you'll ever reveal? Shine on!

You've never been--so stop trying to fake it--better, worse, crazier, dumber, or more fascinating than you are now.

I ate some home fries.

Brookside Olympics

A pair of ingredients contribute to the eventual dish that is this post. One, the weather in Athens is ideal for touch football--sunny and a bit cooler than cool, with a mild breeze to make a toss exciting, and a 90% chance of pretty girls around to watch my one-handed snags. Two, I just ate a substantial steak & cheese grinder--beefy, sauced, excessive of bread.



I'm in the mood, then, to romp around in some leaves, but in the physical shape merely to drool on myself. I call this emotion: 4:30pm.

4:30 in the deep fall used to be the time to rush outside, after Duck Tales, for a last game-a-catch; later, 4:30 was when middle school adjourned, after sports. I'd still be ready to let off some steam before supper. This time of day was exciting and breath-catching. The light was about to go, the chill was about to chill, and I still wanted to throw another touchdown, or eight.

I used to play mostly with my older brother who, by the time I was coordinated enough to run a route, was already mostly a man. He's five-and-change years older, and there was never really a time I could challenge him or even be an appropriate teammate.



I still loved the competition, though. And it's on a day like this that I, though steak drunk, think about the expansive, the innovative (pronounced in the British fashion, please) slate of games we used to play.

We dubbed this multi-month competition The Brookside Olympics--named after our street. The competitors were: Stephen, my brother; his friends Chris and Ryan; me; and my friend Cheese, another ten-year old.

Cheese was an essential addition. With only three fifteen-year olds and a ten-year old, there's no way to make teams. Add another ten-year old, Cheese, and you've got a classic 3-on-2. Two ten-year olds equal a fifteen-year old and the other fifteen-year olds balance each other. Everyone knows this.

Our team games were mostly typical: football, street hockey, an occasional swimming relay in summer. But before those, we had to wade through the individual events--all 106.

These were divided into 9 categories: board games, shooting sports, racket sports, throwing sports, water sports, track and field, video games (dexterity), video games (strategy), and miscellaneous.

Our board games were: chess, checkers, Axis and Allies (a World War II role-playing game that took most of a week).



For shooting sports, we had, among others: horse, a slam dunk contest, and different variations of air hockey (accuracy and one-on-one).

Tennis (grass, road, and clay) headlined racket sports month, but we invented some other games, too, including Rally Ball and Double-Bounce. Our net was a road-crack.

Throwing-sports and water sports often mixed, troublingly: there was pool football, water whiffle, and a game in which we had to catch a Frisbee while doing a cannonball and then hold our breath under water as long as possible. The IBOC (International Brookside Olympics Committee--our parents) banned some of these games after a writer, who will remain nameless, suffered torsion of the testicles during a particularly violent round of Jump 'n Catch. He won the silver.

Moving on.

Track and Field gave us the closest event in Brookside Olympics history. In the Dash--from stump to Hydrangea--Ryan and Chris both clocked in at 8.73 seconds, twice. I did a little investigative journalism on this one earlier today.

"There was a mind-blowing tie to two decimal points, if I remember correctly," my brother told me, from work. I wonder, though, if the stop watch was defective. Either way, both men-children were awarded gold medals.

After nightfall, and sometimes before, the festivities moved to my families' basement for the team Tetris competition, broadcast live by Tim Daggett and Elfie Schlegel.



Stephen usually won.

Somehow, we even gave out prizes for most populated SimCity and getting-furthest on Metroid. Cheese, with his inhumanly fast thumbs and willingness to hyperventilate in order to intimidate his adversaries, bested us all in a video game called, coincidentally, Olympic Gold Medal Challenge. I won bronze.

My brother recorded all the results on a pad of graph paper that's now a family heirloom.

I also medalled in place-kicking, tagging-up, pickle, and, perhaps my favorite game to play, cellar ball (miscellaneous).

In that game, one player bounces a Nerf football off the air hockey table and the second player has to catch it. The first runs around the wall dividing the two parts of the cellar, and the second tries to throw the Nerf football through a hole in the wall so that the first player catches it while jumping on the couch. A third player tries to defend against this with pillows and determination.

I've created a diagram.



And that's what I did today at 4:30.

Tomorrow, as the sun sets and the sluggishness rises, I'm going to head over to my friend Joe's instead and ask if he wants to ride bikes. We'll time the race. He'll win. That'll seem right.