Rambling Josh

Many professions have internships, apprenticeships, or something similar, as part of the requirements to work in that particular profession.

Generally, it is a specific time frame you have to spend working under the supervision of someone in your chosen field. In the field of teaching an individual does several of these internships and then the last big test is the student teaching.

I think the most important reason for these internships is to give students an inside look at the profession they think they want to embark on. Some professions seem interesting, cool, and even enjoyable when viewed from the outside but become anything but when you find yourself knee deep in the stuff they didn’t teach you about in college.

There have been studies that have shown that certain college majors see an increase in enrollment when television shows about that profession become popular. Criminal justice and forensic science majors saw an increase when all the CSI type shows became popular. I’m not sure if “Welcome Back Kotter” had the same effect on the teaching profession. I know Hawkeye and the gang on M.A.S.H made emergency surgery seem like a hoot.

If television can make a profession look cool, students will come and we all know television can make just about any profession seem cool and filled with nonstop fun and adventure. Cool and filled with nonstop fun and adventure? When’s the last time you heard someone describe their job in those words? Besides your accountant.

I chaperoned a field trip for my son’s fifth grade class a few weeks ago and volunteered to help in his classroom last week while they worked on a special project. The project involved fire, so I guess the teacher wanted as many so-called adults around as possible to spritz water on any flaming students. There were a few students I would have liked to have thrown a blanket over and given a few whacks in a fire snuffing demonstration.

There was a student teacher in my son’s classroom during both of these cool, nonstop fun and adventure days in the life of an elementary school teacher. He seemed like a pretty sane guy, friendly, intelligent, and the kids loved him, but when I left after my chaperone stints I thought, “Is that guy out of his mind?” Even after months of student teaching in a room with 25 no-attention span, no off button fifth graders he still wants to be a teacher.

I would think teaching might be a profession where they would benefit from keeping prospective teachers out of the classroom until after they graduate and then springing the cool, nonstop fun and adventure on them like some cruel trap.

I chaperone and volunteer in my kids’ classrooms quite a bit and have never once left thinking, “Ya know, I think I want to be an elementary or middle school teacher…it seems so cool and full of nonstop fun and adventure.” No, I usually leave thankful I do what I do and don’t have to answer off-the-wall questions and respond to strange observations from strange little people. Like the observations expressed to me, “Boy your voice is deep.”

Maybe you learn not to respond because I’ve noticed the teachers usually only respond to pertinent questions…of which there are very few. But I felt rude not responding, so I said, “Ahh..thanks..someday yours might get deeper too..maybe.” Or “Wow you have hairy arms.”

A pertinent question deserves a pertinent response, “Yeah..ahh.. thanks, it keeps me warm. Someday your arms might be hairy too, little girl.”

The town of Kincaid came to be on the prairies of North Dakota in the summer of 1899 for the same reason many towns came to be late in the 19th century in this part of the world. The steam engines that rumbled along the tracks pushing further into the northwest needed water every ten miles or so, and the location that was to be Kincaid was in fact ten miles or so to the west and ten miles or so to the east of the next town.

As was common in those times of westward expansion, the railroad, like a proud new parent, generally named the towns it was responsible for the creation of along its iron family tree. Kincaid was named after Charles James Kincaid, an important and wealthy executive of the Northwest Railroad Company of Chicago, IL. Important, as a result of his wealth, and wealthy as a result of his father.

Charles’ father, Arthur, and his twin brothers, Leo and Lester, had the fortune; some would say dumb luck, of being part of the expansion of the Northwest Railroad Company. Their dumb luck was that each of the three brothers had bought adjacent 2,000-acre parcels of land west of Chicago with plans of filling the land with cattle and becoming great cattle barons. Actually, it was Arthur who bought the land and had the grand idea of becoming a cattle baron, Leo and Lester never really ever had any grand ideas.

Leo and Lester were born six years before Arthur, but Arthur never met either of them until he was 10 years old. Their mother, Willamina dropped Leo and Lester off at the “Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded,” shortly after her husband, Eldridge, went out for a walk and apparently forgot how to get home. Eldridge’s running off didn’t come as much of a surprise to Willamina for she knew how hard it was on Eldridge, a man of good strong German stock, to face up to the fact he had fathered two imbeciles.

What Eldridge didn’t know was that Willamina was about four months pregnant at the time of his extended walk. He also was unaware that he wasn’t the father of the son he didn’t know his wife was pregnant with, so it’s probably just as well that he kept on walking.

It would have been hard for Willamina to explain why the baby appeared to be of slightly darker complexion, similar to that of the man who did such a nice job painting their house about four months previous, while she and Eldridge were of obvious lily white descent.

Luther came highly recommended as a dandy painter by several of Willamina’s friends she played bridge with every Wednesday afternoon. Willamina knew it must be true because Mrs. Fallon hired Luther to paint her house three times last year, and Mrs. Jeffrey’s insisted Luther paint her fence every single month, with weekly touch ups in between. That Luther could paint all day.

So, Willamina unable to handle the demands of the twins and a new baby all on her own made the heart wrenching decision to leave the upbringing of Leo and Lester to the state of Illinois. That turned out to be more than enough for one state to handle. Trying to educate Leo and Lester proved to be as futile as members of the 7th Cavalry applying lip balm during the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It just didn’t matter. They weren’t stupid, they were crazy and preferred it that way.

The employees of the Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded never celebrated the 16th birthday of any of those in their care with as much jubilation and outright joy as Leo and Lester’s. At the age of 16 they could be released with the Illinois State School for the Moronic and Feebleminded stamp of approval that they were indeed fit to enter society. Whether they were fit for society or society was fit for them remains of question, either way they were going home.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious and the result of an overactive imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

We humans do a lot of strange things for a lot of reasons. For instance, if you happened to walk into my house at around 10:00 o’clock at night, on no particular night, you might hear a noise in the basement that would prompt you to descend the stairs for a look see.

Why you would walk into my house unannounced at 10:00 o’clock at night on no particular night and creep down my basement steps is strange in itself but we’ll overlook that for the sake of this story.

Besides I have some friends and relatives who it really wouldn’t be that much of a surprise for me to find them sauntering about my house unannounced at an odd hour. However, they might find it strange (or perhaps not) that upon their investigation of the noise from the basement, they found me pedaling my bicycle and watching television with headphones on.

I am a fair weather cyclist and seeing how the weather has been a little unfair lately I am forced to ride indoors. It’s the same concept as the hamster wheel, only my cage is bigger; I have television, and am required to go to the bathroom in a specific location. Women and their rules.

I generally ride about an hour or two and if I had to do it without the distraction of television I wouldn’t do it. So, the most important part of riding indoors is finding something interesting to watch to keep your mind busy while your body works hard to go absolutely nowhere.

All this in an effort to battle the genetic gifts of heart attack and high cholesterol and maybe log a few more years above ground. If I get run over by a bus tomorrow this effort will have been a waste of time and my soul will be eternally miffed.

Since uninteresting to watch programs seem to be the most prevalent, finding something interesting to watch can be a challenge. The other night I found an interesting documentary on the internet about Max Gerson, a German physician from the early 1900s, who developed the Gerson Therapy. Gerson Therapy is an alternative dietary therapy which claims to cure cancer and many other degenerative diseases.

Gerson Therapy requires patients to drink about a dozen eight-ounce glasses of fresh organic fruit and vegetable juice every day. This is roughly 20 pounds of fruits and vegetables a day. As I pedaled I thought, “That’s a whole lotta roughage but if it cures all of these ailments why have I never heard of it and why don’t more people do it?” Yes, I actually said that to myself, and then myself heard the other major part of Gerson Therapy.

The narrator of the documentary began to talk about organic coffee and how coffee was another staple of the Gerson Therapy. “Fruits, vegetables, and coffee–I like all three of those, maybe the Gerson diet is something I should try so I can live forever.” Then the narrator matter-of-factly began to give detailed instructions on how to properly prepare the coffee to be taken into the body a little further south than I am accustomed. A calm setting was suggested. I would suggest foregoing the sugar cubes as well.

I squirmed on my bike seat. Forever will have to wait.

Some people believe the behavioral differences between boys and girls are a result of how they are raised rather than the gender they happen to have slid down the chute with. I’m not sure of the statistical split but I would have to believe the majority of those who believe nurture over nature probably have either no children or have never raised a boy and a girl in the same household.

It just so happens I have two children who were naturally born into separate genders and nurtured in the same household by the same parents. This fact has granted me a front row seat to the nature versus nurture battle and nurture appears to be taking a beating.

The experts who rally on the side of nurture claim we direct our children down gender specific behavioral paths of likes and dislikes through our treatment of them. I believe I could have dressed my son in culottes and blingy Barbie tank tops when he was in his early formative years, and he would still enjoy baseball and army surplus stores. On the flip side I’m pretty sure I could have dressed my daughter in flannel shirts with a Johnny Unitas haircut, and she still would have grown up to love shopping and reading Teen Vogue.

Males and females are naturally different, which is good for many reasons, and people who debate this point should have a couple kids so they’re too busy or enlightened to debate.

You show me a boy who doesn’t love a visit to an army surplus store then I’m not so sure you’re showing me a boy. When we were kids whenever we made it to the big city of Williston, we would beg to go to the army surplus store. I remember on one particular visit my brother and I begged our mom to buy us throwing knives.

What kind of mother would buy two boys who have a history of injuring one another throwing knives? A mother that had just spent eight hours at a Cub Scout Jamboree trying to keep track of a Ford Econoline van full boys and would agree to anything if they would all just shut up and leave her alone. My mother. You hand two boys throwing knives, the pestering stops and they disappear to do things mothers wouldn’t approve of. As a parent sometimes the risk is worth the reward.

So far in fatherhood I have observed the circle has remained unbroken, so I wasn’t at all surprised when my son inquired about throwing stars a few weeks ago. Not only was I not surprised but I was a little excited about the whole matter. So on a recent business trip to Omaha I stopped into the army surplus store I always visit when I’m in Omaha to do some browsing and find my son his first throwing star.

What do throwing stars have to do with army surplus? There are certain things the government likes to keep hush hush.

The barter system can be a useful means of which to exchange your services or goods for the services or goods of another in a manner that benefits both parties. That very system is the reason my wife and I found ourselves in New York City a few weeks ago. My brother-in-law, Mike offered to fly us to NYC in exchange for watching their children for a week this summer while he and my wife’s sister, Kim, take a trip to Europe.

Mike had airline tickets and a place to stay to barter in exchange for my time, which I tend to have an abundance of during the summer months, so it was a done deal. My wife and I had never been to NYC and enjoyed roaming about for a few days taking in a small slice of the Big Apple.

The highlight of the trip for Dawn was ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza. It was enjoyable and while we skated around a bride and groom fresh from the chapel were getting a few wedding pictures taken at center ice and another guy proposed to his girlfriend. A banner evening for cupid at Rockefeller Plaza.

Number one on my list of things to do in NYC was to visit Ellis Island where my great grandfather, Joseph Gins started his life in America in 1909 at the age of 15. It was a wonderful experience and being where he had been so many years before got me a little misty eyed. I couldn’t imagine leaving my home, family, and all I had ever known and heading out alone to the unknown at the age of 15, or any age for that matter.

There was a quote hanging on the wall at Ellis Island from an immigrant who said when she was leaving Germany her mother cried and said it was like putting her child in a coffin. Like my great grandfather, she never saw her mother again. The lengths a parent will go in the hopes of providing their child a better life are extraordinary.

I felt a very strong painful stirring of emotion after reading that quote and thinking of my own children and putting myself in that position. It took some strong people living in some bad situations to make that selfless sacrifice. I’m thankful my great-great-grandparents made that sacrifice and I often wonder what it must have been like in the weeks leading up to their son’s departure.

New York City has a lot to offer, and I am looking forward to another visit someday. What I found most amazing was while you walk through the city you travel through various countries. You’ll find yourself walking through the bustling fish markets in Chinatown, cross the street and the mood, sights and sounds instantly transport you to Italy.

The sights and possibly the smell of the fish market in Chinatown may have been a deciding factor in our choice of Italian dining. My sister-in-law’s stomach, queasy from the rancid omelet I bought her on Wall Street, had to work hard to keep its contents on the down low as we strolled by the sea world armageddon of the Chinatown fish markets. Those Pollocks are tough and she soldiered on through China to Italy.

It was a good trip, and although Mike and Kim’s children may disagree, a good barter.

My son’s hamster, Rascal, went to the big squeaky wheel in the sky a few days ago or wherever it is that non-denominational rodents go.

Rascal was about three years old which is about the maximum shelf life of a hamster. Shelf life is the appropriate term for Rascal as he lived in a glass cage atop my son’s bookshelf. In three years he made two escape attempts but only made it as far as the kitchen pantry both times where he was apprehended nibbling on a bag of potato chips. Both times he gave up without a fight and returned peacefully back to his cage. Someone other than me returned him peacefully to his cage.

If I would have been home alone, I would have just moved his wheel into the pantry for him to work off the potato chips after he had eaten his fill. I don’t touch hamsters on purpose. Besides Rascal tried to attack me twice when we first got him so I was always a little on edge around him.

I remember the incident well. He was knocking off a few laps on his wheel, and I was peering through the glass wall of his cage, analyzing his gait, when he suddenly hopped off the wheel and made a viscous lunge for me. Thankfully the glass held, thwarting his attack and saving my life. I can still see the maniacal look in his beady little eyes as he bounced off the glass wall, gathered himself and made another go at it.

What should have been a highly entertaining experience was quite terrifying. I mean, it should be funny when something runs at you and smacks into a glass wall making a satisfying “thunk” and it falls to the ground and tries it again with the same “thunk.” I would have been laughing hysterically if it had been anything but a hamster. Hamsters aren’t supposed to bum rush humans.

Anyway, that incident sort of put a strain on Rascal and my relationship. So, if he wanted to sneak out of his cage and make poor nutritional choices who was I to get in his way? With his passing I’ll let bygones be bygones and forgive Rascal. I’m sure it was all a big misunderstanding.

Jackson took Rascal’s passing pretty hard and shed a few tears for his fallen roommate and I was sad for Jackson because I know what it’s like to lose a pet. The first pet I cried for was our cocker spaniel, Rufus, that Mom ran over on her way to church. I guess Rufus wasn’t Catholic. Actually, he was fine until Mom backed up to see what happened and ran over him again. Oh, I’m just kidding…he was Catholic.

I think it’s good for kids to have pets, to have something that depends on them for food, water, and shelter. To have something be a part of your life and then die is a good learning experience. An experience I would rather they have with a crazed killer hamster than let’s say, me, for instance.

Rascal was a good pet and it’s sad to see his wheel sit in silence, but I believe my son is a better person for having known him, so I guess, “Thank you, Rascal” is in order.

My daughter wanted to stroll around downtown this weekend and visit a few antique shops, so she and I headed out for some father-daughter browsing. She didn’t ask me to wait in the car or walk a block behind her, so I assumed she wanted me to tag along.

I enjoy antique shops and generally take a leisurely stroll through the shops in downtown Rapid City every month or so. I don’t really go there to buy anything, I just enjoy looking at old stuff. Apparently, I’m not a minority in the “looking not buying” as not much merchandise seems to have changed hands in any of the antique shops in the last few years. As my daughter said, “These stores are more like museums than stores.”

As much as I enjoy antiquing, I always experience a twinge or two of sadness as I stroll about surrounded by things that once belonged to and were most likely treasured by someone else a long time ago. What was the story behind those that gave form and life to these clothes, gazed into this mirror, walked in these shoes?

I enjoy holding old hand tools and feeling the smooth well-worn wood handle in my hand as I wonder about the person who owned them and what they created with them. Did some kid use this bit brace to drill holes in a bunch of car tires on his grandpa’s farm? My brother Jarvis and I can’t be the only kids that did that? I have that very bit brace in my possession and I smile every time I look at it. My grandpa was a patient man.

The children’s toys always get to me too, but in a different way. I look at those mint condition toys, many of which I had as a child, and wonder what kind of sissy kid owned them. Those poor toys never got properly played with. My toys were mint condition for as long as it took me to construct an explosive or find a hammer. My brother and I were very hard on toys and generally beat up, blew up, or burned up most any toy in our possession.

I did feel a slight pang of guilt when I spied a Johnny West action figure in a glass case complete with all his 24 accessories, horse, two dogs (Flick and Flack), and his entourage. The whole gang was there, Jane, Jay and Josie West, Sam Cobra (the villain), and Chief Cherokee and his daughter, Princess Wildflower.

Why did I feel a bit guilty as I looked over this impressive set of toys? The Johnny West action figures were manufactured from 1965 to about 1975 and Uncle Tim had this same complete set when he was a kid. The complete set, in the condition my uncle left it, would probably be worth about $500 today. The complete set, in the condition my brother and I left it, is worthless. My uncle is a patient man.

Poor Johnny, Jane, Jay, and Josie. Their cowboy days were numbered the day Jarvis and Josh were introduced to the West gang. It all started with mean ole’ Sam Cobra stealin’ Chief Cherokee’s horse, which Princess Wildflower happened to be riding at the time. Well, we thought Sam stole the horse but we came to find out later, after we had popped an arm or two off in the name of frontier justice, that he and Princess Wildflower had been seeing each other on the sly.

Jarvis and I panicked and began pursuing all those who witnessed our mishandling of the Sam Cobra case to cover our tracks. They were in the wrong toy box at the wrong time. Somehow though the mint condition Johnny West gang in the glass display case all seem a little melancholy, like they missed out on something. They’re just begging to live a little. To have an arm, leg or head snapped off. To be de-accessorized and terrorized by two destructive kids who were sent to play because they couldn’t watch Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk quietly.

Johnny West… “Pfffft you was gone.”

The Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo is in town for a few weeks which means I get the call to either work the rodeo or work whatever other sporting events are going on in town during that time. I got the “other” this time around, so Friday and Saturday I worked about 16 hours of high school basketball.

By “worked” I mean I sat and ate some popcorn and a licorice whip or two, read the paper and patiently waited for someone to get hurt. If you’re not the patient type and thrive on a constant threat of disaster and excitement in the workplace, athletic training probably isn’t the profession for you. A disaster in my workplace is getting halfway through a bag of popcorn and as you’re digging a kernel out of your teeth coming to the realization you forgot to wash your hands after evaluating a sweaty foot.

I mentioned my penchant for people watching a few weeks back and that is one of the requirements for enjoying life as an athletic trainer. Highest on my list of people to watch at sporting events has always been the coaches. Nothing better than watching a seemingly stable adult get lost in a temper tantrum when a call doesn’t go his/her way or when a player doesn’t do what he/she was coached to do. The only place you could enjoy more whining and cursing would be at a bingo palace just after someone (most likely Grandma Helen) yelps out, “Bingo!”

As an athletic trainer and a washed up athlete, I’ve spent a lot of time on the sidelines and in locker rooms privy to a front row seat to some wonderfully entertaining tirades. Entertaining but for some reason never motivational. I guess I’ve never been the type to garner motivation from a raging coach. Motivated? No. Fits of silent full body shake laughter and unwipeable smirks? Yes. Knute Rockne would have strangled me.

Throwing clip boards, kicking chairs, ripping off suit coats, cursing, stomping about…what a spectacle to behold. Some coaches are better at it than others and manage to tie everything together into an impressive seamless rant. No breaks or pauses just let it go. I understand where this outburst of emotion comes from. If you were to invest as much time and effort into a team as a head coach does you would probably find yourself in the same position a time or two. Coaches want the best out of their players for the sake of their players and the team. Someone once said, “Playing sports doesn’t build character it reveals it.” A coach works to get their players and team into a position to reveal their character.

I commend their dedication to their sport and their athletes and am thankful for the many good coaches I’ve played for and worked with. I commend you and thank you and yes, sometimes I laugh at you. You would laugh at you too if you could see that vein sticking out of your forehead as you stomp about yelling something in reference to a referee’s eyesight and insufficient intelligence.

What’s the take home message? Never accept a half-eaten bag of popcorn from an athletic trainer at a sporting event. Unless you like extra salt.

We humans come in all varieties of shapes, sizes, colors, facial features, and everything else that defines us from them and them from us. I am a people watcher, as I suspect many of us are, and enjoy sitting and observing the many comings and goings of us human types.

“Observing” or “watching” are the words that those on the observation or watching end of the people watching equation refer to the hobby. The observed or watched may refer to it in less kindly terms; staring, stalking, gawking, unnerving, unsettling. That’s a short list of the words the prosecution threw around.

As a seasoned people watcher, it is easy to identify those people who invite or enjoy the observation of others. These subjects are of less interest to me than those who obviously don’t care or are blissfully unaware there are others in their vicinity or their world who are gawking in their general direction and taking a passing interest in them.

Maybe growing up in a small town heightens one’s enjoyment or need to people watch. You generally don’t take a second glance at those who share your small town because you’ve seen them your whole life and you know most everything there is to know about them. Not much changes and not much is left to the imagination. We have the choice or option to know people as much or as little as we or they choose.

that is why I enjoy travelling. I can go to the big city and see people I’ve never seen before and most likely will never see again. Visually they are there and gone and it is unlikely a word will be passed between us. So much is left up to the imagination, and I have a vivid, strange imagination.

You can learn a lot about people by watching or at least we might think we can. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is advice we have most likely heard on more occasions than we have the capacity to remember. As a people watcher I try and maintain a bipartisan position and attempt to withhold any major judgments in character.

The character I project on to those in my gawking gaze is most likely a result of my actually knowing someone who has similar gawkable features and mannerisms. Just because two people share similar, possibly unfortunate, tastes in clothing and hair style doesn’t mean they are of similar character. If a murderer was described as wearing Zubas, a muscle shirt, and had a permed mullet should we assume all in that category are murderers?

We could assume, however, those in that category most likely never entered into the institution of marriage where a wife would have quietly turned the offending Zubas and muscle shirts into rags useful in cleaning up after pets with gastrointestinal issues. We are interesting and curious things to observe. By “we” I mean “us” which includes me as I am sure I have committed my share of gawkable offenses and been at the gawking end of a gawker a time or two (see previous reference to Zubas, muscle shirts, and permed mullets).

As interesting as it is to hang out in a heavily populated gawker’s paradise, I wouldn’t want to live there. There is a certain comfort in small towns, comfort of familiarity, comfort knowing you know them and they know you.

Being amongst the familiar allows for a break in gawking and perhaps leaves a little time to turn the gawk inward, reflect on the reflection and rethink that wardrobe. If you have ever found yourself retrieving a piece of your clothing from the rag bin you need to be made aware it did not get there by accident and you have been the subject of public gawking.

Whether or not you care is another matter? Without stars there would be no star gazers. Shine on my friend.

In case you’ve been stranded in an automobile or languishing in a food coma since Christmas (possibly both), if you were on your way to a potluck with a backseat full of casseroles and cakes when you skidded off the road trying to reach a piece of wayward krumkake, I would like to remind you that it is January.

January…the Dakotas are beautiful this time of year. The snow, the wind, and enough days of below the donut temps to dash a young man’s dreams of basketball stardom. I’ll give him credit the, “I’m quitting basketball because I can’t take another winter wearing thin dress pants on a cold bus” was as good as any. As a caring and thoughtful older brother, I will not name names.

Thin dress pants in January in the Dakotas has been the foe of many a young boy and friend of the fathers of many a young girls in the company of those young boys.

January is when we start a new chapter or a new book if you really want to shake things up, forget the past and look delusionally towards the future.

Delusion that can only be fueled by cheap champagne, huffing silly string, and watching singers you don’t recognize sing songs you don’t know until the ball drops. During the “Dick Clark New Year’s Something or Other” I consistently didn’t know any of the stars and big wigs they paraded in front of the camera and my children grew tired of me asking, “Who’s that…why are they important… where is Dick Clark…that Ryan Seacrest fellow has thick hair…”

It is not my doing, it is the natural order of things for a parent, specifically the father, to know nothing about the musicians, stars, and big wigs their children find entertaining. I find I do not find them entertaining and most of the music makes my eyes twitch and my ears feel like they’re being penetrated by ice picks. Dull annoying ice picks that don’t really do any permanent harm but make you appreciate the work of mimes and silent clowns.

There’s so much of my children’s world that I don’t understand. The music, the television shows, the pants hanging low enough to make a plumber blush, the straight billed crooked hats, the constant head twitching to keep their swirly hair properly swirled. Teenagers are not to be understood they are to be observed and photographed. Photographed often so you have proof of their ridiculousness to hand over to your grandchildren when their parents are giving them a hard time about their appearance and behavior.

Resolutions? I resolve to be more tolerant of teenagers for they know not what they do. None of us did at that age…some of us don’t at this age.

I resolve to stop shaking my head in annoyance at the 27 inches of underwear being displayed by my future doctor, lawyer, senator, or son-in-law…that last one made me cringe a little. Instead, I will ogle, wink slyly and let them know how much I enjoy looking at young men’s underpants.

If I evade arrest long enough, I will be hailed a hero for getting young men to hitch their drawers. Larry King will come out of retirement to interview me, there will be a national holiday in my honor and “Hitch Your Drawers Day” will get all of us out of work the second Wednesday of January each and every year.

My only hope is that we are able to keep the true meaning of the day thriving without “Hitch Your Drawers” mattress and car sales cheapening the day. We don’t need another excuse to get six months same as cash, we need another excuse to celebrate all that is right and good in this world.

Hitch Your Drawers and Happy New Year.