Rambling Josh

At around noon, Wednesday June 20th, 2007, the big laugh that always rose above the roar of our family gatherings, or any gathering for that matter, was silenced with the passing of my Grandpa Ardell.

He died as I suspect many of us would like to die, surrounded by his family in the house that they had all called home for most of their lives. He lived as I suspect many of us would like to live, surrounded by a family that knew the importance of family. It isn’t something they talk about it’s just something they do and have always done. They are there for each other, they cry with each other, and they laugh with each other….laugh a lot. Grandpa or “Big Grandpa” as my kids called him was a fine example to us all.

Grandpa was born on March 17th, 1931 in a house that was located about a mile from the house where he lived and died. Today there is a rock pile located where the old house stood. I asked Grandpa a few years back where he was born and he said, “In a rock pile about a mile north of here.” Then he paused and said, “I haven’t made it very far have I.” A country mile in 76 years… it had to have been the most enjoyable mile anybody has ever lived.

I heard it said once that a mischievous boy makes for a more interesting old man. A fine case can be made for that statement with my Grandpa, who always entertained us with story after story of the mischievous adventures of his youth. You also have to understand that “youth” for Grandpa never really came to end; he was always a kid at heart and liked to make people laugh right up to the end.

The last time I saw my Grandpa we laughed and talked like we always did, and even after 34 years he still had stories that I hadn’t heard… funny stories of course. When I was getting ready to leave he asked when I’d be back again and I said I would be home in about a month. I knew and I’m sure he knew that he might not be around that long, but if you thought about stuff like that all the time you would drive yourself insane. Usually when I or anyone would hug him goodbye he would tear up, but he wasn’t tearing up about things as much as he used to. He was ready to go, a man at peace with his time in this world.

That last time I saw him he looked me in the eyes with that little smile of his and said the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. He said, “Ya know I always thought that this world would be better off if there were more people like you in it.” Funny, I always thought the same thing about him, so coming from him that meant the world. He’s a big part of why I am who I am and I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to share in his life.

My Grandpa hasn’t been gone long but I already miss him, I miss his laugh, I miss his jokes, I miss his stories, I miss seeing him scare little kids with his false teeth, I miss seeing him scamper through the house in his underwear when company arrived unexpectedly, I miss everything about him and I imagine I always will. What I have now is 34 years of memories to rely on, memories that make me laugh and make me cry and I imagine they always will.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Have you ever responded to someone’s questioning of “why” you did something with that sentence? Have you ever asked yourself “why” you’re doing something at real inopportune moment?

An inopportune moment such as finding yourself 300 yards out in the middle of a lake without a paddle or a boat for that matter. I tried my first triathlon this weekend and half way through the swim a voice in my head asked, “What are doing out here?” This voice is different from the other voices in my head, this one isn’t crazy.

It’s not crazy but it has really poor timing. It only speaks up when I’m in the middle of something like this. I heard it when I was at mile 23 of the marathon I ran a few years back, it piped up last year when I was “attempting” to ride across South Dakota in less than 48 hours, and now when I’m in the middle of a 600 yard swim for my first triathlon.

This voice sits idly by while its half wit brothers are coxing me to sign up for these events. This voice doesn’t say a word during the endless training for these events, but the half wits are ever present with their senseless encouragement. This voice is away at mime school while the half wits are singing “Eye of the Tiger” and trumping up my feelings to make me think that I’m an athlete not a 30ish guy with thinning hair and the swimming ability of a box hammers.

No this voice just sits and waits until I’m in no position to argue with it. This weekend I decided not to argue, not to explain, not to try and justify, I politely told it to leave me alone. I heard some muffled screams from it as the half wits lined up to give it farewell wedgies. Waistband ripping wedgies by the sound of it.

With it gone I decided that as long as I was in the middle of a lake and I had just trained for 4 months I might as well keep swimming. Well the “real” triathletes called what they were doing “swimming” I called what I was doing “not drowning.”

So after not drowning for 600 yards I emerged from the lake moving like an 90 year old man wearing a half dozen soiled Depends. I trotted to my bike that was waiting patiently with the other “not drowning” type swimmers bikes. Crawled on my bike waved and smiled at my family, thanked the crazy voices for getting me to dry land, and headed out for a 15 mile bike ride.

The biking portion was enjoyable; I was able to catch a few of the people that went by me in the water. Some of which had been kind enough to ask if I was all right as they swam by. Hard to talk when your gurgling lake water.

With the biking portion done I parked my trusty stead, strapped on my running shoes and headed out for a 3.2 mile run. The first 2 miles didn’t go so well. I think the lake water and whatever the nearby cows had deposited in it was beginning to upset my stomach. I gave myself a little pep talk and begged the “crazies” for some senseless encouragement.

With the “other” voice at the bottom of the lake I was free to listen to the half wits tell me that if I ran faster I would get done sooner. They’ve gotten me a long way in life so with the end in sight I was like a horse heading for the barn. Except for horses breath quieter and probably don’t smell as bad as I did at that point and time.

To make a long story short; I finished and me and the half wits are enjoying life without the other voice and it’s annoying questions. “Why are you doing this?” Because I can, besides age can’t catch me if I keep moving…..right?

Happy Fathers Day to the men that have made me the man I am, voices and all.

Let the games begin or at least increase in frequency and duration. It’s summer. The kids are milling around the house like misplaced guests that don’t know when to go home and have somehow mistaken you as their summer entertainment director.

After nine months of hard time and schedule following in elementary school they are like parolee’s that aren’t sure what to do with their new found freedom. I tell them, “Go outside and play it’s nice out.” To which they respond (whine), “But what can I do outside, there’s nothing to do.” To which I respond, “I don’t care as long as it’s semi-legal and doesn’t permanently maim anyone.” This exchange takes place roughly 94 times an hour the first few days of parole.

Eventually they’ll give in to the realization that I am not their teacher, there are no playground monitors, no schedules, eat when your hungry, sleep when your tired, and shower when you haven’t been to the pool in over two weeks. Once this sinks in and the mental and physical restraints of the structured learning environment begin to fade they start enjoying their summer.

The kids have a long school year and I think they deserve as much free kid time as they can cram in over the course of the next three months. Run wild, have fun, be a kid, because someday you might grow up and, God forbid, get a job that treats summer just like any other time of year. I cringe at the very thought of such a predicament.

As a college instructor I’m on the same schedule as the kids. Unlike the kids though I have the foresight to plan for these beloved three months during the other nine so I am never at a lose for things to do. When I close my office door in May, forgive me my face hurts from smiling, I know I won’t have to open it again until September.

All those summer plans do steal some of the summerness away so I try and leave time for general doings of nothingness also. The summer that kids enjoy is in its most pure sense. They don’t have a clue what they’re doing from one minute to the next let alone next weekend so they are free to just be.

They wander in for popsicle on occasion or to fill a water balloon when the mood strikes them but mostly they just play. Play whatever, whenever, with whoever, all day long. At the end of the day when you ask them what they did all day they’ll say, “Nothing, just played.” And they don’t say it with any regret or boredom in their voice they say it with the satisfaction and weariness that can only come from a successful summer day of “just play.”

Not a bad gig if you can get it or keep it. A friend of mine that has one of those jobs that ignores summer once told me, “Josh when you get up in the morning you have nothing to do and when you go to bad at night you only have half of it done.” A good point is hard to argue.

Here’s wishing you all a great summer. I hope when someone asks you what you did all day you can respond with “Nothing, just played” a few times anyway.

Enjoy the time you have with the people you have because neither lasts forever.

You may remember, or not, or not care, that a few years ago my brother Jarvis and me were extra’s in the movie “Hidalgo.” Recently another movie shot a few scenes here in the Black Hills, and I signed up to be an extra again.

The movie was “National Treasure II” staring Nicolas Cage and they were shooting the final scene of the movie at Mt. Rushmore.

When you sign up to be an extra in a movie you are basically signing up to be a piece of furniture. You are just “stuff” they can put here and there to make everything look as though it is actually happening at a busy public place. I don’t think some people realize or are willing to accept the fact that they are a prop, nothing more, just a blurry figure passing through a shot to give it some life.

You can always pick out those extra’s that have it in their head that they are going to be discovered on the movie set. They’re the overly eager ones, dressed to the nines, and trying everything possible to get noticed.

If I learned anything in being an extra for Hidalgo it was don’t be an eager in your face “Pick Me, Pick Me” volunteer for anything. Those people generally end up far away from the action where they sulk and pout and believe there must be some misunderstanding. Do they realize what they’ve done? Do they know who I am?

We were to report to Mt. Rushmore at 5:00 p.m. to check in and let the wardrobe people give us the once over to make sure we weren’t wearing anything inappropriate. Rhinestone clad spandex, velvet muumuu’s, sombrero’s, logos, and anything else that may be a distraction. Thankfully those weren’t the only clothes I brought with.

Once you checked in and got checked out you were given a box lunch. Star treatment; salty ham on stale bread, a bruised mushy apple, and crushed bag of chips. Then we waited…and waited…and finally waited some more.

To be an extra you have to be a very patient, laid back person, which fits me perfectly. You want me to be a piece of furniture, well stand back and be amazed at the skills of this “Lazy-Boy.”

Every once in awhile they would come and grab about 30 people to take to the movie set. Myself and a few others were enjoying the evening chatting and watching the “Pick Me, Pick Me” extra’s bum rush the people in charge of sending them up to the set every time they appeared.

We “loitered” until about 11:30 p.m. when a guy came down and asked if we had been on the set yet. “Nope we’ve just been sitting here chatting.” He sent four of us up to earn our money as furniture. Why did he pick me and the other three? Possibly because one of us four had been in Playboy three times, not “read” it, but was in it. So the beauty and the three beasts sauntered to the set to be a part of a little movie magic.

To our surprise we were ushered up to the front and were told to walk behind Nicolas Cage and his female co-star and “act” like we were chatting. The only instructions; don’t speak, don’t look at the camera, don’t look at the actors, don’t talk to the actors, and remember what you did the first time because your going to have to do it over and over and over and over. By the time they got what they wanted I had memorized Nicolas Cage’s lines and could have easily stepped in if something “unfortunate” would have happened to him.

Unfortunate? Let’s just say I was “acting” close enough to Mr. Cage that I could have gave him a little punch in the back of the head if I so chose.

Twelve hours after my arrival, at around 5:00 a.m. as the sun was poking up over the hills, they shut the cameras off and told the furniture to go home.

What’s the going rate for the use of “Lazy-Boy” for 12 hours? Seventy-five bucks. Not much less than my co-star Nicolas.

This week was “Turn of the TV Week” for Sierra and Jackson’s school. No TV, no video games, and no internet. Each day the kid’s that participate bring a note from home stating that they survived another day without the mind numbing world of television, video games, and internet cluttering their tiny little heads.

They are then awarded some small reward for the accomplishment, nothing major but if there’s one thing kids hate more than anything is to see another kid get something they didn’t get. No matter how useless the item in question is if their classmate got one they want one. This phenomenon is ratcheted up another notch when it’s a sibling that is the receiver of, well anything. Anything except punishment or chores of course.

When my dad would tire of me and my brother Jarvis’s constant bickering, which was often, he would make an exaggerated claim that we would fight about who had the biggest well…restroom deposit. Dad may have thought it to be an exaggerated claim, but truth be told we argued about that too.

Nowadays I find myself uttering the same thing to my kids when they won’t stop arguing. I find myself saying a lot of the things my dad used to say to us, and it always makes me lose my train of thought. I’ll say it with the intention of continuing with my futile attempt to stop the arguing but when it comes out I stop and think to myself, “Did I just say that?”

Then the memory of Jarvis and I, runty, slack jawed, dirty, and vacantly staring at my strapping young dad saying the same exact thing comes to mind. It makes me laugh and the argument between my kids over who ate the most Cheese Nips doesn’t seem to bother me as much.

When one is bothering the other I always tell the botheree to simply ignore the botherer and they will stop. Good sound advice that is completely impractical in the sibling battlefield. Advice that even as I say it I chuckle to myself at the stupidity and impossibility of it.

It’s possible to ignore a bothersome sibling for a short period of time but eventually they’ll get to you, they know your buttons, and eventually you snap. Sometimes when you do snap it’ll startle the botherer into knocking it off. Sometimes we all need to be drug around by the throat for a little corrective “advice” to encourage us to “knock it off.”

As far as ignoring things or people that bother you, when it comes to TV, radio, and internet it’s easy, you just turn the channel or shut it off. So this week was peaceful without any multimedia telling us what to think, what to do, or who we should be. We successfully ignored them all week, and nobody got hurt.

We don’t watch much TV the way it is. We don’t have cable or internet so maybe my kids had an advantage over their classmates who had to fight off the beckoning call of 24/7 cartoons. I know my kids like to watch TV, they asked Santa for cable this past Christmas, but they always find something else to do.

Like argue.

On my travels to and from Lignite I pass by the Van Hook area and it always makes me think of my Grandpa Fritz. Grandpa has been gone now for over 20 years but it seems like it was just yesterday that I was enjoying one of my rides with him around Van Hook and New Town with him as my tour guide to the past, his past. He would point out various islands and sections of Lake Sakakawea and tell me what was there before they flooded it, and now I do the same with my children as we drive through.

My Grandpa Fritz was born into a farming family that planted, harvested, and lived on the fertile banks of the Missouri River where it meandered through northern North Dakota.

They and many like them farmed the land and raised their families along the river that had brought Lewis and Clark and many others through this country. Many more generations of Ellis’s more than likely would have been born into a life of farming enjoying the bounty of this ancient highway but in the 1950’s the Core of Engineers had a different idea. The kind of idea the Core of Engineers and many like them refer to as progress.

Progress for some always means changes for others. Progress has a way of setting people back sometimes. Not everyone, but some. You generally don’t notice or care unless those “some” are some people you know. I knew my Grandpa and I can’t help but feel that progress set him back or at least set him on a different path. It is quite possible that had they not been put on that path my mother and father never would have met, and I would be breaking stuff on a farm other than my Grandpa Ardell’s.

With the land you loved and labored over at the bottom of Lake Sakakawea you are forced to find a new way to make it in this world of progress. Progress meant trading the stability and security of a family farm with the uncertainty and constant movement of the oil field. Like the crops that grew so thick and lush on the land now at the bottom of a lake shifting in the sand, they too shifted, shifted about, working and living. I guess sometimes that’s all you can hope to do.

From what I’ve gathered much of my father’s early childhood was spent living wherever his father was working and his work was always moving. They lived in a trailer house and my Dad said that he new they weren’t going to be staying long if his Dad didn’t bother unhitching or putting blocks under the trailer.

A lot of saying goodbye to new old friends can’t be easy for a young boy. He had plenty of brothers and sisters to play with, but that’s never the same. Getting tired of them doesn’t do you much good, there not going anywhere, but you can always tell a friend to get lost until you’re ready to enjoy their company again.

They moved and moved until the town of Lignite North Dakota caused them to unhitch and block up the trailer. They may not have known it at the time but they were finally home. Lignite is where my dad met and married my mom. Lignite is where I was raised along with my sister and two brothers. Lignite is where my children love to be. Lignite is where my Grandpa Fritz lived and died.

Lignite is home, a good home.

This past week I had the pleasure of attending a band concert in which my daughter, Sierra, and her trumpet, B Sharp, took part. The concert was held in the theater of Rapid City’s civic center, where a packed house of about 2,000 friends and family listened to 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders honk, bang, squeak, and toot for about two hours.

Starting with the 5th graders each grade performed four songs, and then shuffled off the stage while the next grade shuffled on. The shuffling took longer than the actual concert, but was equally entertaining.

The grades that weren’t performing on stage were seated in the front few rows either awaiting their chance to shuffle and play or recovering from the effort of sitting up straight and paying attention for four songs while on stage.

It was a constant sea of movement in those first few rows. From where I was seated it looked like a bunch of bobble heads hoped up on double espressos. Heads bobbling to the music, heads bobbling to the left and right chatting with bobbling head friends. Very few heads weren’t taking part in this bobblapalooza.

Those heads not partaking were probably attached to the kids whose parents had given strict orders against bobbling of any nature. “If I see so much as one bobble out of you mister you’ll be grounded for a week.” “But mom all the other kids will be bobbling.” “Just because all the other kids get to enjoy themselves you think you have to too?”

When I wasn’t being distracted by the bobblefest I noticed how entertaining the drum section was for each grade. If you have spent any time around kids of this age group you know that the girls and boys are not on the same schedule for physical maturity. We males eventually catch up in the physical department but we are doggedly resilient in maintaining our mental immaturity.

Mental status aside, within these age groups you have quite a mix of characters and characteristics. You have a lot of girls that are physically nearing womanhood and a lot of boys that are physically runts. Clumsy runts….clumsy runts with moppy hair, big teeth, baggy pants, and the manners of a drunken sailor.

All of this physical and mental mayhem is beautifully displayed and choreographed within the drum section. The drum sections were all composed of a 5'8'' young lady making an attempt at elegance surrounded by several of the above mentioned runts. After each song the runts would bounce around like the seven stooges while the 5'8'' princess would point and bark orders.

It was a grand showing by Snow White and the seven runts. “Sneezy where’s the cymbals? Get them from Doc you need the cymbals for this song. Happy get the xylophone out of your pants Sleepy needs it. Where’s the triangle? Dopey that’s not a triangle that’s a tuba. Bashful help Dopey find the triangle. Which one of you runts took my drum stick? Grumpy I’ll break one of your arms off and use that if you don’t give it back.”

The bobble heads, stooges, runts, and princesses all put on a fine concert. The music wasn’t bad either.

My daughter is trying to kill me. Not with knives, explosives, poisoning, or a sleazy hit-man, but with a single question. Not just any question like, “Why did you have long hair and tight pants in high school?” or “Why does math make you cry?” or “Why do farts stink and why are they always funny?”

No this was a question that I had figured was a few years off yet. Something that I knew would eventually come up, but secretly hoped it wouldn’t, at least until my wife moves back home.

Sierra was sitting on the couch watching one of our favorite shows, “The Simpson’s”, and when a commercial came on she asked me a question. Most of the time “commercial time” questions are pretty basic, painless, and easy to answer. This one was different. This one made me wince inside, made my insides panic and jump around like, well like Homer. Not the philosopher, the other Homer, Homer J. Simpson.

She said, “Dad how old do I have to be before I can have a boyfriend?” As the number 35 floated though my panic stricken brain I said pleadingly, “I thought you didn’t like boys?” Oh, please say you still don’t like boys; its okay not to like boys, there really is nothing about boys to like. “Well” she says, “There is this one boy that I kind of like.”

This might be a good time to inform her that we are moving in the next hour to someplace far away from this boy that she “kind of likes” and we will be back when she’s 35 to continue this conversation. Until then we’ll find a nice “boyless” town and live in peace with no more of this nonsense about kind of liking boys.

The only answer I could come up with under these duress circumstances was, “Not for awhile.” Is that vague enough? Could be in a few minutes could be in a few decades. I just wasn’t comfortable setting a reachable number for her, a number that would give her hope that it would be okay to like boys someday soon and have, of all things, a boyfriend. If hope ever need to be dashed this was an opportune time and place.

So dash I did. I dashed to the phone to call my wife for some help, some insight, some hope for me to cling to, and above all a number. My wife thought my first impulse of 35 might be a bit excessive so I bid and bargained for a compromise of 32. My wife’s number was painfully lower, half of my second bid actually. Sixteen.

Sixteen! Good Lord that’s only about four years eight months and sixteen days away. That’s all the time I have to terrify every boy in town to the point that they tremble and wet themselves in my presents. Trembling and wetting can’t be an attractive sight for a girl. Hopefully it’s enough to keep the “kind of like’s” in the “don’t like” group for a few more years.

Let’s see what do I need to get started… a big mean dog, a beard, no more showers, a weapons permit, a knife collection, a lengthy arrest record, Chuck Norris as my faithful sidekick, and the ability to never, ever sleep.

Let the trembling and wetting begin.

A few nights ago Sierra and I were lounging around the living room reading, while Jackson, not being much of a lounger, was busy shooting hoops on his indoor basket. The rhythmic thump of his basketball came to a stop and he came over to me and said, “Dad I don’t want you to get old.”

I thought for a moment about letting him know that the alternative to me getting old was to discontinue living, but I spared him the scary sarcasm and simply asked, “Why?” He explained that if I got old I wouldn’t be able to play with him anymore.

It was comforting to know that my son has intentions of “playing” with his Dad for many years to come, because I like to play. He looked genuinely concerned about the prospect of me being “benched” with the advancement of old age. So I did my best to put him at ease.

I told him that the reason I workout all the time is to stay in shape so I will always be able to play with him. He mulled this over for a few seconds, poked at my belly to test its firmness, and said, “Well you stay in shape then.” Apparently convinced that he would have his “old man” to play with for quite some time he went back to shooting baskets.

My children are motivation for me to do a lot of things better in life. Stay in shape, eat healthy, watch my mouth, and just generally try to be a good example. I was brought up around adults that were and still are good examples of how to live and enjoy life so it is my responsibility to pass that along to my children.

I workout at the YMCA several times a week and every time I look around the locker room before or after a workout I am blinded by more motivation to stay in shape.

There is always the same group of elderly men in the locker room and I suspect that some of them don’t workout at all, I think they just come to do what their wives forbid them to do at home…be naked. Their wives have a strong argument.

They just mill around in the suit God gave them, and by the looks of it he’s not going to want it back.

There’s a little lounge area in the locker room with a big screen TV and a couple of recliners. Every morning you can find naked old men lounging in EZ chairs watching CNN and discussing politics with other naked old men. I’ve reasoned that maybe they are all former nudist that are on a rehabilitation program to slowly reintroduce them to a clothed society.

Maybe it’s just me but I find it hard to discuss current events with no pockets to leisurely put my hands in. I also like to feel that I have the freedom to randomly glance about while chatting with someone, but an inadvertent southward glance when both of you are “feeling the breeze” could be taken the wrong way.

Many things in life take discipline and focus, naked conversation is one such thing. Keeping my “play” promise to my son is another.

Gentleman it’s been a week since Valentines Day which should be plenty of time for you to be back on speaking terms with your significant other. My wife was at her apartment in Vermillion, 385 miles away, when she received my Valentines gifts in the mail. Not having to see her disappointment in person helped ease this special day by for another year.

Maybe a buffer zone of 300 miles or more should be a regulation for any gift giving or receiving. Another stipulation I would encourage would be that after the gift is opened no phone calls in regards to the gift shall take place for at least 24 hours. This would give the gift receiver time to contact other potential gift receivers and compare gift complaints, questions, or comments.

My hope is that after 24 hours worth of contrast and comparison the recipient of the gift (my wife) will have discovered that others received something much worse. This would turn her initial feelings into a milder form of disappointment. So mild in fact that the gift giver (myself) may not even pick up on it from a bad phone connection 385 miles away 24 hours later.

This new gift giving format is still in the developmental stages and awaiting approval from congress, the FDA, and the Teamsters Union. These three organizations have a large number of male members so the “Gift Giving Treaty of 2007” shouldn’t encounter much opposition.

Call your congressman, voice your support, and never again have to stare desperately into the eyes of a disappointed woman as she opens yet another failed attempt at gift giving. I’m not saying you’ll never disappoint her again in other areas of your blissful life, I mean come on, we are men, and they are women.

Our ability to disappoint them is part of our genetic code, an unbreakable code, that has been around since the first caveman drug a saber tooth tiger home for dinner and she had a craving for wooly mammoth.

As he strolls triumphantly through the door of their cave she looks up and disappointedly grunts, “Oh…saber tooth tiger.” To which he grunts, “You don’t like it do you?” She grunts, “Oh, no it’s all right…I just…I like it.” He grunts, “You don’t look like you like it.” She grunts, “Well it’s just that I was hoping for a wooly mammoth, but this is fine.” He grunts, “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted a wooly mammoth?” She grunts, “I thought you would just know.” He grunts, “I lost three fingers and my left ear trying to kill this saber tooth tiger.” She grunts, “I appreciate that I really do but Oogta two caves down got a wooly mammoth and I just thought it would be kind of nice to have one too.”

He grunts and trudges off to find a wooly mammoth. Having lost his left ear he doesn’t hear a herd of them coming and dies in a stampede. She grunts, disappointed again, and moves in with Oogta.

If you were one of the few that didn’t disappoint your lovely lady this year, well there’s always next year, or tomorrow, or today, or five minutes from now, or …..