Deep Dark Thoughts – Page 21 – Deep Dark Thoughts

Roughing It

It took a little longer than I thought it would, but I finally got out for my first camping trip of 2019. My wife and I had originally planned to do some camping in January and February, but due to some truly remarkable thunderstorms moving through northern California, we opted to forfeit our reservation deposits and stay home.

Of course, both times, despite the ominous weather forecasts, not a drop of rain fell during the dates we were supposed to be gone. We stayed home and complained nonstop about the sunshine and perfectly cloudless skies.

For this most recent trip, when we made our reservations, we were determined to go camping regardless of weather forecasts, wildfires, bears, or whatever natural disasters threatened.

To hedge our bets a little bit, we decided to go someplace that could only be marginally considered a campground. We ended up taking our trailer to the Jackson Rancheria Casino RV park. The “campsite” was outfitted with leveled concrete pads, manicured, real grass lawns, a nearby general store, and full power hookups. There was even a swimming pool and game room attached to the main lodge of the RV park. It wasn’t all comfort and luxury, however. We had our difficulties to content with. For instance, the first night that we were at the park we discovered that we didn’t have any direct streaming capability on our television set, and we were forced to watch basic cable like a couple of wild animals.

And, there were the regular hardships one has to endure while camping, of course: The shower in our trailer is a little cramped. The hiking path around the campgrounds needed to be repaved. Our 70-year old neighbors made quite a lot of noise, partying and carrying on until well past 8:00 PM. And, I was woken up early one morning when the lawn sprinklers turned on next to our trailer.

You know, the usual wilderness stuff.

No uncontrolled fires were allowed at the campgrounds either, but that was no problem. I just fired up our portable propane firepit, poured my wife and I a few (too many?) glasses of wine, and voila! Instant campfire. At least until the bugs came out at sunset, then we went back inside to watch tv.

For food, we brought with us a wide assortment of cookies, crackers, alcohol, chips, alcohol, sodas, water, alcohol, and two pounds of pre-cooked bacon. Why two pounds? Because we were going to be there for a whole three days and, despite our tv situation, we aren’t savages.

Whenever we got the craving for actual food, we had to head for the casino. The main building was too far away to walk, but luckily for us there was a shuttle bus that drove through the RV park every fifteen minutes to pick up people who wanted to go gamble. There aren’t too many campgrounds that offer shuttle service. Most places can’t afford to run twenty-four hour bus service to move you from one cluster of trees in the middle of nowhere to another cluster of trees slightly further away. It doesn’t make a lot of financial sense.

This was a casino, however. They don’t make a lot of money from the people that just stay in their trailers all weekend. They needed a method to relocate you and your cash into the seat of a slot machine with as little effort on your part as possible.

Honestly, I only went to the casino for the restaurants. I had no intention of doing any gambling, yet I somehow managed to come home a couple hundred dollars lighter than when I went. As I walked through the casino, I kept finding slot machines that I wanted to play and thinking to myself, “I’m just going to sit down for a couple minutes and I’m only going to spend ten dollars.” After a while, “I’m only going to spend ten dollars” became, “I have to win back all my money.”

Unfortunately, no matter how many games I played, the money only seemed to flow one way. It turned out the only machines in the casino that were consistently paying out cash were the ATM’s.

On a side note, I do find it interesting that on the base of every slot machine in the building, there was a little metal plate that said, “Have a gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.” I wonder if that little sign has ever helped anybody. I imagine it’s sort of like the Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes. By the time you’re close enough to read it, it’s already way too late to do you any good.

Fortunately, the very quiet and subdued shuttle ride back to the RV park was free, otherwise I might have been trying to hitch a ride on the highway back to my trailer. The only cash I still had in my possession was a dime and three pennies, and I only had that much because thirteen cents was insufficient to pay for one more spin of the wheels. There is very little in this world that is quite as humiliating as a slot machine spitting out a ticket worth thirteen cents, as if it is telling you, “I’m done with you, buddy. You can go now.”

Perhaps the only thing more degrading than receiving a ticket for thirteen cents, is actually going to the reimbursement kiosk and cashing it out. But, there I was, with four coins in my pocket reminding me that I had sunk as low as I could go.

Despite my financial failures, our first camping trip of 2019 was not a total loss. Even though we were returning to our campsite completely broke, we still had everything we needed to salvage the vacation. We had a refrigerator full of alcohol and bacon waiting to cheer us up.

What more could anyone want?

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You only had one Job!

On the south side of our house, there is a dirt field. The field is about two acres of open space and, during most of the year, I just ignore it. It requires very little upkeep or maintenance in the summer, fall, or winter.

Every spring, however, after a few months of rain followed by several weeks of pleasant warmth and sunshine, the field is taken over by weeds. Usually by the end of April or middle of May, the weeds have grown to be as tall as I am, and I know it is at last time to fire up the tractor and cut them all down.

For 2019, that time has come.

Mowing the field is not my favorite chore. In fact, I try to avoid the task for as long as possible. This year, I successfully ignored the weeds longer than usual, but I had to admit it was time to get to work when the neighbors began to drop little hints.

First, it was just the gentleman next door, mowing his own fields and waving at me while he did it, as if to say, “See how easy it is? Now, why don’t you try it?”

It escalated a little bit with a few light-hearted comments like, “Weeds are getting a little tall, aren’t they?” “You trying to build a hedge maze for the kids?” Or, “Is your mower broken, or are you just a lazy, inconsiderate jerk?”

Finally, when I got the anonymous note hand-written in blood that said, “Cut down the f***ing weeds or you will never see your dog again,” I knew it was time to mow.

Mowing the field typically takes a little over three hours, so I figured I could do the job on a Saturday morning. Of course, projects around my house never seem to go smoothly, so I cleared my whole day, just in case. Apparently, that was the only thing I did right, all day.

I got up at about eight o’clock and went outside to fire up the tractor. Because I had not used the blue beast in a few months, the first thing I did was check the fuel gauge. Of course, the tank was empty.

I went back into the garage to grab one of the five-gallon portable tanks of diesel that I keep for just this sort of emergency. I picked up the first tank, but it was as empty as the tractor. I grabbed the second and discovered that, while not completely dry, the pint or two of fuel inside was not going to be sufficient to cut down two acres of weeds. I tossed the empty tanks into my truck and drove to the nearest gas station. The nearest gas station, by the way, is still a twenty-minute drive from my house.

When I returned, I fueled up the tractor, then noticed that the front tires were both almost flat. No problem, however. I just fired up the air compressor in the garage. After the first half hour, the compressor had not risen above 5 pounds of pressure. I finally realized that I had left the pressure valve on the bottom of the compressor open. Another half hour after closing the valve, and all tires were returned to their appropriate internal pressure.

It was now almost ten o’clock and I was at last ready to get to work. I placed the key in the ignition and turned it. There was no reaction. Just a soft clicking noise that slowed to a stop, then dead silence. After sitting unused for three months, the tractor’s battery had gone completely dead.

Still not deterred, I retrieved my battery jumper box and attached it to the tractor battery. I again jumped into the driver’s seat of the tractor, placed the key in the ignition, and….

Complete silence.

I rechecked the connections between the jumper box and the battery, but everything seemed properly arranged. A little more investigation revealed that the jumper box itself was also dead. Apparently, if you don’t recharge them every year, they stop working. Who knew?

I dragged the box into the house, plugged it into a wall socket and, a mere hour and twenty minutes later, it was fully charged and ready to be put to work. I returned to the dead tractor, attached the connectors of the jumper box to the battery and tried once more to start the engine. When I turned the key, I got some more of the weird clicking noises, but the motor still refused to start.

It seems in addition to a dead battery the tractor had developed a few other ailments during its three months of inactivity.

The dog’s chances of ever coming home were beginning to look a bit bleak.

In desperation, I began to call tractor repair stores in the area. Most were either closed, did not provide pickup or delivery (I do not own a trailer big enough to carry the tractor), or did not work on my particular model. I was quickly running out of daylight and phone numbers to try.

Then, just as I was starting to wonder what kind of dog I should get to replace the old one, I finally caught my first break of the day. I found a repair shop that I knew had gone out of business the year before, however their website was still up and active. The website advertised that although the business had closed, the owners were still doing mobile servicing and repairs. When I called, I spoke with a man who stated he would be happy to take a look at my tractor.

I asked when he might be available, and he said, “Are you home right now?”

Tim (as I discovered he was named) was at my house thirty minutes later. He looked at my tractor, shook his head, and told me, “Nope. I’m not going to be able to fix it today. I need some parts and I won’t be able to get them until next week.”

Just when I thought I was saved, more bad news. I shook Tim’s hand and thanked him for coming out. He said he would give me a call when the parts were in, and we could schedule a time to service the tractor. Then he asked me, “Do you need the tractor running today?”

I thought that was an odd question. Hadn’t he just told me he couldn’t fix it?

“Um, yeah,” I said. “That’s kinda what I was hoping for, but I understand you can’t do anything until next week.”

He smiled and told me, “I can’t fix it until next week, but I can get it running for you today. Once I get it started, though, you have to leave it running. If you turn it off, I can’t guarantee it will start again.”

I don’t know what he did, but five seconds later, the tractor’s engine roared to life.

It took most of the day, but I finally had a functioning tractor. What had started out as a three-hour project had become a saga of ridiculously epic proportions but, in the end, the damned field did get mowed.

And, oh yeah, the dog came home, too.

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Picnic Day

I graduated from the University of California at Davis in … well, let’s not worry about the actual date. Let’s just say it was a while ago.

UC Davis has a tradition of opening up the campus every spring for one Saturday afternoon. They call the event ‘Picnic Day.’ Originally, Picnic Day was created as an opportunity for parents to come to Davis, visit with their children, and try to figure out why they were paying thousands of dollars every year to let their kids attend the school. There were opportunities to meet administrators, there was often a school baseball game scheduled for the day, and information booths were set up by all the major fields of study at the university to hand out flyers and answer questions.

Over the years, this folksy, family-oriented event has morphed into something much bigger. It is more of a carnival atmosphere these days, with food trucks, games, stage performances, parades, and souvenir garbage for purchase. There is also an assortment of individuals wandering around the campus that on any other day would have been sent on their way by the local police. I count myself among that particular group.

I have not been to Picnic Day since I was a student at the school. This year, however, I decided to go.

Two of my college roommates contacted me and said they wanted us to all get together for a reunion and Picnic Day was the perfect excuse to do it.

One of my roommates, Chris, I see every couple of years. Whenever my family is in southern California, we get together with her and her family and visit for a day. The other roommate, Steve, I have not seen in over twenty-five years.

I don’t know much about Steve or what he has been up to during the last two dozen years. I only see pictures of him when he posts on social media. His life is clearly much better than mine, since I occasionally scroll through snapshots of him hiking and bicycling through foreign countries, while I am sitting on the couch brushing corn chip crumbs off of my chest.

But despite the differences in our lives, I agreed to go.

My wife and I showed up in Davis at ten o’clock in the morning. Chris was with us, since she had flown in from San Diego the night before and was staying at our place. Steve was running late, so the three of us that were already there decided to go to the college bookstore and buy some UC Davis clothing as a reminder that at one time we were young and had things in our lives to look forward to. Chris and I bought hoodies with UC Davis on the front. At $50 apiece, how could we pass them up? Such a bargain!

My wife offered to take pictures of us with our new gear so, in 90-plus-degree weather, we donned sweatshirts and posed for photographs. This was probably the dumbest thing we did all day, and this is on a day that we attended a cockroach race, ate bacon-chili-cheese fries for breakfast, and spent twenty minutes staring at six differently-colored garbage cans trying to figure out where to throw away a plastic fork. By the time we were done taking pictures, my brand-new sweatshirt had fully lived up to its name. (I’m referring to the ‘sweat’ part, since I assume it was always a shirt.)

Steve showed up as I was drinking a 4-dollar bottle of water and trying to overcome my mild case of heatstroke. I recognized him the second I saw him. I must admit that I was a little put out by the fact that he looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him, twenty-five years ago. I kinda wanted to punch him. I restrained myself, though. Mostly because he’s bigger than I am and in much better shape, and I didn’t feel like taking a beating in front of a thousand strangers.

I got over my hard feelings pretty quickly. Later that evening, Steve bought us all dinner at a very nice restaurant in town, and it is extremely difficult to remain mad at someone who is providing you with free food.

Besides, spending time with Chris and Steve reminded me of how much I enjoyed hanging out with them when we were kids. For a little while, it felt like we had never been apart, and we were still the same twenty-somethings hanging out over a couple of beers and talking about what classes we were taking that semester.

It was an absolutely perfect day. It was the kind of reunion everyone hopes for when getting together with old friends, but that so rarely actually happens.

At the end of the day, Steve and I hugged, said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways. We promised each other that we were going to do a better job of keeping in touch and that we would make some plans to get together again soon. We were sincere when we said it, but I am aware that life and reality often get in the way of good intentions.

I’m sure I will see Steve again. I feel fairly certain about that. It could be in a few months, or it could be in a few years. It might even be another couple decades before we cross paths again. I hope not, but it’s possible.

And, I bet when I see him, that son of a bitch will still look like he’s twenty-five years old.

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Glory Daze

Were the good old days really any good? Are the memories of past accomplishments reliable, or are they slightly skewed by thirty years of ensuing failure?

As I get older, I frequently catch myself thinking about things I used to do when I was younger. I wonder why I stopped hiking through the wilderness for days with nothing but the items I could cram into a backpack. I think about playing high school football and little league baseball. I remember jumping into a car on the weekends with my buddies and driving to Santa Cruz to hit the boardwalk and lounge on the beach. And I ask myself, why don’t I do those things anymore?

Then I injure my back carrying the garbage out to the curb and the answers all come rushing back to me.

I’m not a kid anymore.

In college, I used to be able to drink and party all night, and still make it to class at 7 AM the next morning. Now, if I have two glasses of wine in the same evening, I pass out on the couch and wake up the next morning feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck.

When I was first working as a police officer many years ago, I loved to work the night shift. I worked all night, slept for a few hours in the morning and was back up by noon to go to the gym. These days, if I’m awake past ten o’clock at night I congratulate myself for managing to stay awake so late and promise to reward myself with a three-hour nap the next afternoon.

Times have changed and so have I. But it’s more than just realizing all the things I used to be able to accomplish that I don’t anymore. I also find myself wondering how many of my memories are just over-exaggerated recollections of what truly happened. Or maybe even recollections of things that never actually occurred.

We have all listened to other people inflate the truth a bit. We’ve listened to stories over the years that get bigger and more exciting with every telling. That diving catch for a three-yard gain on the high school football field becomes the winning touchdown for the State Championship. A two-pound bass you caught as a teenager, over time and multiple tellings, grows to the mighty leviathan that dragged you and the boat around a lake for five hours before you were able to finally land it.

I have begun to wonder how many of my remembered accomplishments were slightly less spectacular than I recall them to be.

I used to be a pretty good dancer. At least, that’s what I tell myself these days when I’m out on the dance floor with my feet rooted in place and I’m swinging my arms at something roughly resembling the tempo of the music. However, I have a growing suspicion that my go-to move these days is probably the exact same epileptic flailing I was busting out in the clubs when I was in my twenties. The only difference is, the haze of my memories is telling me I was John Travolta, when I should be remembering Daffy Duck.

I also used to study and teach martial arts. I remember being pretty good at that, too. But lately, as I break into a sweat just trying to bend over and tie my shoes, I began to doubt my own recollections of what I used to be able to accomplish.

I remember being in my forties and still being able to spar and hold my own with black belts in their twenties. Of course, I also remember one of those twenty-something year old kids cracking a couple of my ribs when he landed a punch I wasn’t prepared for. So, that’s kind of a mixed message for me.

Was I any good, or was I just a punching bag?

Maybe the truth is a little of both.

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a picture he took while we were practicing in our Dojo fifteen years ago. It shows me three feet off the ground about to kick a focus pad. (Believe it or not, that’s me in the photo above.) This picture was taken back when I could still get myself in the air without a ladder and three friends preventing me from falling off. But, more importantly, it actually shows me doing something that I tell people I used to be able to do.

So, if this was true, if I used to be able to jump in the air and kick something over my head, what else am I remembering correctly? Maybe my memory isn’t so foggy after all.

Maybe I actually am John Travolta, and perhaps I did catch the winning touchdown at a State championship game.

Maybe.

I mean, probably not.

But, maybe.

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Moving Day

My good friend, Wes Blalock, gave me a call recently. He told me that he and his family were leaving their current home and moving into a bigger place. During the past nineteen years that they had been in the current house they had accumulated quite a bit of stuff and he wanted to know if I would be available to drive down to San Jose and help him move.

There is an old adage that says: A friend will help you. A good friend will help you move.

Wes and I have known each other since we were kids, so when he asked if I could help I, of course, immediately told him, “I can’t. I’m busy that day.”

After Wes pointed out that he hadn’t told me what day he needed help, I realized I had inadvertently wasted the only excuse I had. With no other plausible reasons to say no, I agreed to participate. I really need to learn to be more patient and time my responses better. If I could simply learn to wait a few seconds before answering a question, I would have more friends and my back would hurt a great deal less.

When my wife got home from work, I told her that we had agreed to go to San Jose and help Wes and his family move into a new house. She put down her car keys, forced a smile, and asked when we were going.

“Next weekend,” I told her.

“Oh shoot. I’m busy next weekend. But you boys go ahead and have fun.”

Have I mentioned that my wife has much better timing than I do?

I don’t know exactly what my wife was “busy” doing during the weekend. Maybe she had plans to hand out clothing and food to the homeless. Perhaps she was volunteering her time at an orphanage. Or, it’s possible she was working her way through a couple bottles of wine in celebration of having the house to herself for a couple days. Regardless of her actual plans, the end result was that I had allowed myself to get sucked into helping someone move, and I would be doing it by myself.

When I got to San Jose, I received my first bit of good news. Wes told me that we were not going to be moving any furniture that weekend. He had hired a moving truck and a couple workers who would show up the following week and take all the furniture, appliances, and items too large to squeeze into a car. He said, “Today, we are going to be moving mostly dishes, books, and some potted plants.”

I figured I had lucked out, at least until he pointed me to the backyard where all the “potted plants” were arranged. There were about two dozen pots, each about the size of a garbage can, and a collection of flora that would be more correctly classified as trees rather than plants. Weighing in at about a hundred pounds apiece, they required two people and the assistance of an industrial-sized hand truck to get them into our vehicles.

As we relocated Wes’ portable forest into the backs of our pickup trucks, I made several suggestions regarding how to load them more efficiently into the vehicles so we could minimize the number of trips we needed to make to the new house. Wes then made a suggestion of his own that was decidedly less polite and may not even be physically possible. I took the hint and stopped talking.

Because I did not know the location of his new place, Wes had me follow him there. To get to the new house, we had to use the freeway. I must admit that this part of the move was by far my favorite part. At sixty-five miles per hour, the plants in the back of Wes’ truck reminded me of watching natural disaster shows on television. It was like observing a hurricane as it moved through a tiny tropical forest. The only thing missing was a troupe of monkeys fleeing for their lives.

Unfortunately, the show only lasted about fifteen minutes. Then we were back to the back-breaking chore of removing everything out of the truck and relocating it to its new home in the backyard. At least unloading the vehicles was a quicker process than loading them had been. Mostly, because by that point I had stopped caring whether or not I broke something.

When the trucks were empty, Wes felt there was still enough time in the day to go back to his house and move one more load. I told him that sounded like a great idea and I would meet him there. As soon as Wes’ truck was out of sight, I jumped onto the freeway and headed back for Sacramento. I will have to come up with some kind of an excuse for disappearing the next time I talk to him, but for now, I am just glad to be back home.

I know this makes me sound like a terrible friend, but I am at peace with that, because frankly, I am a terrible friend. And, Wes would be the first to tell you that.

Wes, if you are reading this, I just want you to know that I love you dearly. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, but from the bottom of my heart, I promise you that I am never going to do this again.

If you ever decide to move someplace else, don’t bother to ask. I’m going to be busy that day.

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Toiling in Obscurity

G. Allen Wilbanks, somewhere in the mountains (of Disney’s California Adventure Land)

As we enter the month of April, Deep Dark Thoughts reaches a new milestone. It has been eighteen months since I started writing down my personal observations, thoughts, and irrational musings and posting them in a public forum. For seventy-eight weeks I have complained, whined, and attacked my family on a weekly basis, all for the sole purpose of allowing people to come to this website and wonder, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

If Deep Dark Thoughts was a baby, this thing would be walking and banging its head into the furniture by now.

After a year and a half, I still find the weekly rant to be cathartic, as well as much cheaper than actual therapy. For those reading it, it may be simply a waste of five minutes of your life that you can never have back, but I hope not. On occasion, I even try to add little bits of helpful information, such as: if you put lettuce on top of a plate of nachos, it becomes a salad and is therefore healthy. (At least, that’s what I told myself at breakfast, today.)

You’re welcome.

I suppose it’s a good thing I get personal satisfaction out of the act of writing down the jumbled mass of misinformation that is my thoughts. There is no other real reason to keep going. Fame and notoriety have thus far escaped me, but that’s fine. I’m getting used to the idea that I am the most famous person no one has ever heard of. When I ask, “Have you read my blog this week?” I know the answer will be, “You have a blog? Since when?” That’s why I no longer ask my wife and kids that particular question.

On the bright side, if I ever stop writing, I never have to worry about explaining to people why I quit. I doubt the question would ever come up.

Because April first was last week, I briefly debated if I should do an April Fool’s prank and post an old blog from a last year. Or maybe even put up a blank page for the week. I decided not to do that because, frankly, I was concerned that no one would actually notice.

Or worse, somebody might see the blank page and think to themselves, “Yup. I figured this thing was going to fall apart sooner or later.”

So, no blank page. Just more of the same stream-of-consciousness drivel we’ve all come to expect and love. (Okay, maybe ‘love’ is too strong a word. ‘Tolerate’ maybe?)

Besides, there is still so much to write about. For example, last weekend I was going to mow the lawn. The task normally takes about an hour. My lovely wife wanted to help out and said she could take care of the lawn and I could use the time to work on some other, more enjoyable, task. She jumped on the riding mower and proceeded to run over and destroy a sprinkler head.

Digging up and replacing the damaged sprinkler took about three days to accomplish. So much for saving time.

I also recently got a call from a police officer asking if I knew that my car was sitting in a neighborhood in Sonoma. Apparently, my oldest daughter was carpooling to classes with friends to save gas, which I guess is a good thing. However, she had not moved her car in over three days and a neighbor called the police to report it had been abandoned. The officer was calling me to let me know me that they were going to tow it away.

A family of Killdeer built a nest and laid eggs in our driveway. The whole family thought it was really cool that we had birds building a home right in front of the house. Then UPS pulled in to deliver a box of squeaky dog toys and crushed the nest. Somehow that became my fault because I didn’t get outside fast enough to stop the truck.

I went to Costco this week, and while I was there, I couldn’t find some of the items I specifically drove for half an hour to buy. In frustration, I broke down and purchased the industrial-sized box of Twinkies. I don’t even like Twinkies that much, but by God, I’m going to eat every one of them.

What I’m saying is that I have plenty of material and even more pent-up useless rage. My life abounds with stupidity, minor tragedies and crap that pisses me off. You may as well buckle up tight, because I think we are on this trip for the long haul.

So, after all that, if you’re still curious enough to keep reading, tune in next week for another episode of, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”

Enjoying Deep Dark Thoughts? Follow me on Facebook so you don’t miss a post. Just go to my page and click the “Like” button to receive updates on my blog and other projects.

And you can follow me on Twitter @gallenwilbanks.