Places I Think I Remember.

Driving around the streets of Salt Lake City, I’m constantly hit with the notion that there are places I’d been as a boy, but don’t really know for sure. The memories aren’t vivid or necessarily meaningful, but it’s interesting which details stick with a little kid.

On 700 East at around 1700 South? I think Dad had a friend named Ron Ewell who lived on one of the side streets. This particular street conjures up memories of rose bushes and rusty chain link fences. I don’t remember much other than that except Dad took us there the day our dog Yogi was killed by a car on Indiana Avenue. I thinkn Mom and Frank wanted us kids out of the house so they could perform the burial. Mark, David and I played Kick the Can in the road with Ron’s boys. I don’t think I even knew their names.

300 East and 800 South? Mom and Frank had some friends named George and Midge. They had a teeny house with gnomes and plastic turtles peeking out from the petunia beds. Their living room was mint green and there was a Jesus figurine on their black and white television. I think.

Highland Drive and Crystal (maybe Parkway) Avenue? Grandma Chase had a walkout basement apartment. I remember watching “Gentle Ben” and Disney’s “Wide World of Color” on her console TV. Her ceilings were quite low and gave me the ability to pick my brother Rusty up by the ears and knock his head on the ceiling with a gentle “bonk.” We’d also tromp around the living room—his feet on top of mine—as we stomped around like conjoined giants. Before Grandma moved there, it seems she lived in a ‘50s rambler on a winding road at about 4500 South and 900 East. It’s pretty foggy, but I remember Sesame Street babbling in the background.

At 900 South and about 300 East? Mom and Frank had some friends with the best tree house ever filled with curtains, furniture and a colony of Box Elder bugs. We spent the night there with a bunch of other kids one weekend. I think our parents had all made the trek to Wendover. I don’t know who was put in charge of us, just that there was a mass of wall-to-wall sleeping bags on the floor.

2300 East and Wasatch Drive? Somewhere around the area where the Old Mill sits, I seem to remember the house where Dad wooed (and later married Raelene). Was there a big yard and gravel driveway? And ducks? I think so. Maybe not. I was only five.

2nd Avenue and “C” Street? On the corner sits a big old house that I recall being my Great Grandma Aggie’s nursing home. She shared a room with a couple of other residents, but the entry hall was strewn with crying, drooling, forgotten old people. It’s since been turned into a single-family home. I wonder if the new owners knew its sad history.

For some people a certain smell can trigger a memory—good or bad; for others it’s a certain piece of music that does the trick. For me, a rose bush by a rusty chain link fence does it every time. 

Demolition Derby.

I bought my first real car when I was 18. It was a lemon yellow Volkswagen Rabbit.

One night while I was asleep I heard a huge crash in front of the house. “Oh, no” I thought, “Someone hit our garbage cans!” I looked out the window to see a car speed  away. “No! Someone hit my car!” There was the Rabbit, facing the wrong direction on Pueblo Street with its rear end bashed in. The side of my brother’s pickup truck was also munched.

My family got up to take a look. A clue: There were red paint chips scattered among the wreckage. Mark and I got in the car with Frank to prowl the neighborhood in search of a red car with a smashed front end. Nothing. We went home and back to bed.

The next morning we went out to take another look. There was a note on the windshield that said “Sorry. I swerved to avoid a dog and hit your cars.” His name and number were scrawled at the bottom of the note.

He was a kid who lived just around the corner. His car was blue car with a red front end. Although nothing was said specifically, it seemed like a night of underage drinking had a lot to do with it. Frank took care of the matter with a phone call to the kid’s mom and the insurance company and all was settled. I’m sure the kid got a stern talking to or a swift kick in the ass.

•••

Later that summer Mom, Frank and I were sitting on the front porch with Scamp, our little terrier. We were in the middle of watching a torrential rainstorm, when we heard a loud crash in the intersection. The same kid who had slammed into our cars had just smashed another.

He got out of the car and said something to the other driver then went door to door to use someone’s phone. No one answered at any of the homes so he was forced to come to our house and use ours. As he stood awkwardly on our front porch waiting for the police to arrive. He tried to make conversation. “That’s a cute dog. What kind is it?” Frank dryly replied, “It’s a Swerve-to-Avoid-a-Dog.”

Manna for Mom.

When I was a kid, religion was always a confusing thing to me. My Dad was a Mormon who took us to church on weekends and Mom was some sort of Flying Spaghetti Monster worshipper who showed us her own views on life during the other days of the week.

As a teenager, I was basically a good kid but subject to the peer pressure of my schoolmates. Therefore, I would occasionally don my clip-on necktie and head over to the Edison Ward in hopes of getting invited to a dance or a maybe a sledding outing. I never believed any of the teachings. It just seemed like the popular thing to do.

One Sunday morning at breakfast, Mom asked if I would please go to church that day. I never got the impression she was that interested in my eternal salvation so I was somewhat taken aback. That Sunday was an important one. It was Mother’s Day and the church leaders were handing out free tomato plants. Those long, leggy plants were given to the kids to show their Moms their undying gratitude—their thanks for being born and being put up with. Being a dutiful, grateful son, there was no question I would go to church that Sunday—and I did.

You see, Mother’s Day was the one day a year my Mom received a blessing from above—or at least from Redwood Nursery.

Oh, Puck!

When my brother Mark and I were 12 and 14 or so, we would hit the Golden Eagles hockey games at the Salt Palace. We bought tickets but rarely sat in our assigned seats. We’d run up and down the aisles doing things like tormenting the organist on the mezzanine or marveling at the players sitting on the bench.

Every game, we’d find ourselves rinkside putting our faces against the chain link barrier shouting at the action—and wincing as the players as they came crashing into the boards. 

One game, a referee made a particularly bad call and the fans really let him have it. As he skated toward us Mark loudly taunted him with some sort of snottiness. The ref looked none-too-pleased at the two of us little brats.

The next morning as we sat at home watching TV, the doorbell rang. Mark went to the door and opened it to see the ref from the night before looming in the doorway. Mark nearly crapped his pants dreading the grisly fate that awaited him. They engaged in another stare down.

Then the ref asked if our parents were home. His side job was selling Cable TV.

Easter Parade.

It was Easter weekend and a bunch of my friends and I descended on my parent’s house in Southern Utah. The weather was perfect and the flora and fauna had appeared—mostly in the forms of Easter Bonnets. Brian’s was a hatbox filled with humping lambs. Joe had a gargantuan stuffed bunny strapped to his head, Jonathan sported a ken doll in a bridal gown, Dale wore a virtual flower garden on his head and mine was made of pinwheels and Marshmallow Peeps.

This was the first of what would be well over a dozen Easters in Ivins.

After an afternoon of gin and tonics and basking in the sun, we decorated the flatbed trailer. We adorned it with pastel-colored crepe paper, balloons, bunnies, baby ducks and a bubble blower or two.

Frank hitched it up the the pickup and we headed off of the compound and into the town, followed by a few more cars and trucks. All in all I would say there were about 20 of us—friends, family and neighbors.

As we pulled out of the driveway, Frank had forgotten there was a herd of people on the trailer. We were all sitting in unsecured lawn chairs and benches, some standing others sitting on the wheel wells. He gunned it and we took off at about 30 miles an hour. Mom yelled in no uncertain, profanity-laced terms to slow the (bleep) down but he either didn’t hear or ignored her completely. Chicken feathers and Peeps, ribbons and plastic fruit were left in the dust as we sang “Peter Cottontail” at the top of our lungs. Even Aunt Nan’s cherry-covered pillbox flew off and under the wheels of the car behind us. We were laughing our butts off—open containers in hand with an inebriated Frank at the wheel.

We made one stop after another at some of the locals’ homes, who treated us to even more cocktails. At our last stop we got a phone call from a friend that the police were waiting for us at our property gate. Frank told us all to get on the float and toss our drinks in the trash. He carefully crept out of the driveway and slowly made our way the the back of the property. The police never saw us.

We decided not to do the motorized bonnet parade anymore—opting instead for the safety of Mom and Frank’s patio from that time on.

These days, the bonnets are getting bigger and better. The cocktails are still flowing. We have a mini-bottle hunt and there are even more activities that I won’t mention in my family-friendly blog.

Lil’ Blue.

My first car was a 1970 Opel Kadett Rallye that I bought from a guy named Billy. He was one of the regulars who sat at the counter of Perkins’ Cake and Steak where I was a busboy and waiter. Billy was an nice guy and seemed on the up and up, so I scraped everything I could and paid him $500. The car was a tiny two door. It was originally orange, but Billy decided to give it a new look with a dozen cans of navy blue Krylon. A real looker, that car. 

Billy delivered it to my house and I discovered the first problem. It was a stick shift and I didn’t know how to drive one. My sister Mimi gave me a quick tutorial as we jerked, jumped and stalled through the streets of Poplar Grove. I finally got the hang of it and was tooling around the west side before you knew it. One time I turned the corner at 700 South and 900 West not realizing I should probably slow down. I turned the corner on two wheels. 

Another thing I noticed after a while was that I had been driving for weeks with my brights on. I could never find where to turn them off until I discovered a foot switch on the floor. It was next to another foot switch that squirted the windshield. The washer fluid nozzle was on the hood. I spun it around to squirt forward, much to the surprise of unsuspecting car hops and pedestrians.

Lil’ Blue was my pride and joy. I’d spend lots of time and money at Checker Auto and Gibson’s Discount buying every accessory imaginable. Eight-ball gear shift knobs, barefoot accelerator pedals. pine tree air fresheners and bottle after bottle of Armor All. The interior of my car was so slippery, I was surprised it ever passed safety inspection. I also had a booster seat cushion since bucket seats are not conducive to a 5’4” driver.

My major purchase was the 8-Track tape player. All the cool kids had one, but none of the cool kids were playing Pete Seeger or the soundtracks from “Grease” or “The Muppet Movie”.

The car was pretty gutless. One day at lunch break, my school chums and I headed to Dee’s Drive-In. There were five of us crammed in like a phone booth. Five passengers was two more than allowable, according to the car’s instruction manual. As we lurched heavily up the viaduct like the first hill of a roller coaster, the car stalled. I tried to get it going, but not being great with a clutch, we rolled into the car behind us. Its gutlessness also showed its head when I went to visit my friend Dawn. She lived on “B” Street which was a pretty steep hill. I finally discovered that the only way to get to her house was by winding my way up City Creek Canyon and driving down “B” Street instead. It added about a half hour to the trip, but at least I got there.

An Opel Kadett only weighs about twenty-five pounds. One day after pissing off a few of the football jocks, I went to the parking lot to find it moved from its previous spot into a ditch behind the school. Other abuse came from Joni and Carolyn. They came by my house late one night and spelled out “Hi Scott” on the trunk with Oreos. Oreo cream is pretty corrosive stuff and ate right through the blue Krylon leaving the message in small orange dots.

Yep, it was a pretty fun car which spent most of its life dead in the front of our house. I eventually traded it in on a yellow Volkswagen Rabbit that was smashed by a neighbor kid late one night. But that’s a story for another time.

Rust in peace, Lil’ Blue.

Can't Hurry Love.

Great.

 

I was two days from another attempt at speed dating when I got an allergic reaction to something that left my face looking something like that of the kid in “Mask.” It wouldn’t have been so bad, if it weren’t for the fact that I had made a resolution the year before to not pass up any chance to meet someone. So I had to go. I just had to.

The other part that sucked was that I had spent the last four speed dating sessions trying to convince the other guys (in five-minute increments) that I was not a troll. The coming Monday would be very tricky since my eyes were now the size of penny loafer slits and my lips were the size of the Duchess of Alba’s. But still, I had to go.

You see, speed dating was actually quite fun. For those not familiar with it, it is an evening where a dozen or so guys are paired up (clothed), for eight-minutes at a time to see if there is any spark whatsoever, if there is—you get their contact info. If not, you got free appetizers and met some nice (albeit incompatible) people. I became a self-confessed speed dating whore, but possessed the luck and sheer determination of Susan Lucci. Try as I did, I was never chosen. But I kept trying. Lord, did I try. 

Finally, after a few weeks I gave up on the whole speed-dating thing. After fifty years, I’ve pretty much given up on dating in general. The only selling of myself I do now, is trying to finagle my way into the occasional senior discount. 

She Who Shall Not Be Named

During my stint at the magazine, we were dying to get She Who Shall Not Be Named (SWSNBN) on the cover. Her show was in full swing and she was the local darling. We had been in negotiations with her manager, for quite some time and finally nabbed our chance. We booked a photo shoot with her and flew to Hollywood to do it. The crew consisted of me, Mike the editor, the photographer Brett and two assistants whom we had hired in L.A.

The morning of the shoot, we arrived at the front gate of her home. I girded my loins and rang the intercom buzzer. I was a nervous wreck. A voice from the speaker basically told us to go away. Well, that was not possible without having all of us lose our jobs. I rang the buzzer again. Her husband/security guard, Sluggo, answered. I repeated who we were and why we were there. The gate opened and I stepped onto her property. The other guys stayed in the car. 

The wall around her huge yard contained a big white house surrounded with petunia gardens. In those gardens was a flock of pink-plastic flamingoes. I thought I spied a bullet hole or two in them. By the garage was a tall stack of brand new tires. White trash with cash. She was also the owner of a rottweiler who snarled hungrily at me from behind his chain link fence.

Sluggo came out to ask again what we were doing there. I told him who we were and that we had arranged a photo shoot with “SWSNBN’s” manager to include her in our Interior Design Guide and put her on the cover. He harrumphed and said he’d be right back.

He came back a couple of minutes later and told me to follow him when he led me to a back entrance into her security monitor room. There she was—chowing down on her breakfast muffin. “What are you guys doing here?” she asked in her infamous nasal snarl. I told her what I had told Sluggo, adding that she could do anything she wanted with the story, write it, edit it, just add her name to it, whatever. We were just happy to have her be a part of it. “I just think you’re trying to take advantage of me,” she whined. “That’s not the case at all, I said, standing my ground. By now, the ground was a puddle of pee. “Go back outside,” she said, “I need to think about it. I went back out to face the rottweiler.

She finally agreed to do the shoot but we had to do it outside. We weren’t allowed in the house. I told the guys in the car that it was a go and we started to set up a backdrop by the tires in the driveway. Her assistant came out asking about wardrobe. I told her that we wanted her to wear one of her flannel shirts from the show and that her manager would have one at the house. Well she didn’t. “So you didn’t bring anything?” she asked with a look of dread in her eyes. “No,” I said, “but there a plenty of shops around here. We can buy her whatever she wants.” “No. Just a minute,” she said nervously and closed the door behind her.

“I’m not going to go through my fucking closet!!!” Her bellowing shook the walls of Los Angeles county. The guys and I shook in mortal fear. Luckily, she found something—then the makeup artist came out. “She will only let me use these,” she said showing us a little zipper bag with some blush, mascara and a lipstick. “Do your best,” I told her and she went off to face the beast.

When she was damned good and ready, “SWSNBN” came out into the driveway. She asked what we wanted to do and I showed her some kitschy hand-crafted Utah props for her to pose with.  I cracked a couple of Utah mormon jokes in hopes of lightening her up. She cracked a smile and said “Let’s do this.” She scowled for the better part of the shoot and finally managed a smile or two near the finish. We didn’t get a lot but we got something. She said “Thanks guys, I gotta get back to my baby.” Then she turned and walked away.

We headed to the airport in hopes of catching an earlier flight home. We were wound tighter than clock springs. We boarded the plane, desperately in need of cocktails but, as luck would have it, we didn’t have enough cash. Perhaps sensing our desperation, the flight attendant gave us a dollar and our G&Ts.

So that was my day in the lion’s den. Not something I would ever want to do again. The only saving grace of the shoot was that “SWSNBN” had a poppyseed in her teeth the whole time. Those sharp, nasty, gnashy teeth.

Disappearing Act 1985

First you need to understand the layout of my basement apartment. The front door had a window in it. Through that window, you could see my living room and on through to my bedroom. In the bedroom was my bed—also in full view.

Anyway, I had been dating a guy named Jon. He was a very sweet guy and handsome as the dickens, but after a while, true to form, I grew weary of him and stopped returning his calls. 

One morning,  I was in lying bed after an late (early) morning at the clubs and Denny’s. I was trying to shake the cobwebs from my head when there came a knock at my door. It was Jon. He wanted to talk to me. I sat there, frozen like a rabbit hoping that he wouldn’t see me. He knocked again. I drew the covers up to my chest. “Open the door. I want to talk to you!” I drew the covers further up to my chin. “Come here!” Still frozen. “Come here! I can see you!” I didn’t make a move or even breathe. I was invisible. Stymied, Jon threw up his hands and walked away. My ruse worked. He didn’t see me. I never saw him again, either. 

And you ask why I’m still single.

Disappearing Act 2014

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Ivins. I was a bit stressed out so Mom suggested we visit the art show over in Kayenta. It would do us both good to get out of the house and Frida is always up for a walk.

Once we arrived, we headed toward the festival with Frida stopping to sniff every sagebrush and pile of rabbit poop along the way. We entered the plaza and were blessed with the aroma of handmade tamales and oven-fired pizza. Mom said that it was good we had lunch already. I thought to myself that a tamale would be a good way to get the taste of that Wendy’s chicken sandwich out of my mouth.

We stopped at our friend George’s gallery to say hello and he greeted us at the entry. He’d been a good friend to mom over the years and, as a therapist, took a stab at fixing a multitude of my crazies while I lived down there.

We chatted for a while as Frida tugged at her leash, talked a bit more and said our goodbyes.

Mom said that an artist had been looking at us the whole time we were visiting with George. She wanted to see what she was up to. We went up and said hello and took a peek at what was on her easel. Mom said, “That’s us!” and surely enough she had been painting us the whole time.

By “us” she meant Mom, Frida and George. I was conspicuously absent from the painting. I guess I really have turned invisible after all.

As we walked away to see the rest of the festival, Mom, as any good mother would say, said “It wasn’t a very good painting anyway.”

Dine and Dash.

I went to San Juan del Cabo for a few days with Michael, Christian and Josh. It was one of those time share trial deals that we couldn’t pass up since we were all acutely broke. The trip was pretty much fraught with disaster so we decided on the last night to treat ourselves to a nice dinner on the beach. We found a map of Cabo San Lucas that showed two dining locations. The map looked like it had been designed by the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce and was pretty hard to decipher but we would navigate it somehow.

The map took our crowded Nissan Sentra down a rock-studded dirt road to a place where a lot of cars were jockeying for position. According to our map we weren’t far away. The road got rockier and dustier, but the map continued to reassure us. The neighborhood got seedier and seedier. Finally, we came to a chained off street where the car in front of us was ushered in. Assuming we had arrived at our destination, we followed the car and found a parking spot. In doing so, we pissed off the local “parking attendants”. A fellow tourist told us that we would be okay if we just apologized profusely and gave them a good tip on our way out. 

I freaked all through dinner hoping our car would be safe. My traveling companions didn't seem too worried and kept ordering more coffee and wine. It was getting dark and I began to freak even more. I pictured the car perched on blocks, windows smashed and “No Parking” spray painted on the doors. I convinced the guys we should go. Michael wanted to stroll along the beach but my pleas prevailed. We walked up to the parking lot. I was relieved to find the car untouched. Untouched, yes, but Michael had left the lights on and we had a dead battery. We each set out in different directions to find some help. An English-speaking person would have been a plus, too. Finally, some good news—I found a tequila salesman who tracked down some jumper cables for us. The bad news is they belonged to the pissed off parking attendants who wanted to have a little word with us. Clearly, that was not an option. 

After pounding our battery with a giant rock, Tequila Man found a carload of locals who were friendlier and gave us a jump. We gave every last bill we had to them and Tequila Man as a thank you. We drove away forgetting we needed money to tip the pissed off parking attendants. Luckily, they were nowhere to be seen and we sped though the gate. 

The warning light of the Nissan came on signaling we were about out of gas. None of the gas stations took credit cards so we gathered all of our Mexican coinage and got enough gas to get us to the rental agency in the morning and off to the airport.

We bid Cabo adios. As the plane took off from the runway, I glanced out of the window and swear I saw an angry group of parking attendants hot on our tail.