Rambling Josh

What are you getting your Mom for Mothers Day? Don’t panic you still have plenty of time to construct a macaroni necklace. If you don’t cook the noodles she’ll get years of enjoyment out of it. While you’re pondering what gifts to bestow upon you Mommy, think back to all the grief, frustration, pain, and shear mental agony you may have caused this women in her lifetime.

Can’t think of any? Just ask your Mom, I’m sure she has a list somewhere. I mean the childbirth process itself should be enough for us to be forever in our Mother’s debt. I’ve been there, I’ve seen what goes on in that delivery room, it’s not pretty. Sweating, screaming, crying, and that was just me while my wife was squeezing my hand and glaring at me accusingly.

Here’s a little pearl of wisdom for any expecting fathers that intend on witnessing the birth of their child: Never show any sign, what so ever, that what you are witnessing in the delivery is somehow humorous or amusing to you. In short, don’t laugh. I would rather not discuss how I know this. The concussion was mild and I’m not pressing charges.

Mom’s do little things to get back at us that we aren’t aware of. Pictures of us in embarrassing or compromising situations are one sly method. As you mug for the camera in your sisters cheerleading outfit, thinking your being entertaining, your mom is behind the camera chuckling with revenge on her mind. Or possibly honoring the request of you and your brother’s miss guided thoughts that silk cowboy shirts with long tassels would be cool.

Matching clothes for siblings in general is the biggest secret revenge a mother will use. Sometimes they may ratchet the revenge up a notch and insist that the entire family match for a public event. These are things we don’t question or resist until we reach our teens. You know, the years when we are searching for self expression by dressing and acting exactly like our friends. Mom’s are behind this phenomenon also.

So I guess if you really want to make your mother happy on mother’s day, slip into that cheerleading uniform again, hand her a camera, and find a busy restaurant. Don’t worry, you won’t embarrass her, mothers lack the embarrassment gene. How else do you think they’ve been able to put up with us?

If you haven’t noticed, most of what I write in this column is based on factual experiences with a dash or two or three of fiction for entertainment purposes. Sometimes this line between fact and fiction is a little hazy. My point is that I want to point out the ‘fact’ that my wife, my mom, and my grandmas are wonderful women, deserving of all the laughter, love, and happiness life has to offer. Thank you all for who you are and all that you do.

Gotta go, macaroni’s on sale. Happy Mother’s Day.

Beings that I’m a hard working tax paying American; well a tax paying American anyway, I received my social security statement in the mail today. I know this because in big bold letters it says, “Your Social Security Statement: Prepared especially for Joshua C. Ellis” and right above that it says, “Prevent identity theft protect your Social Security number.”

I made a few quick checks to make sure that I was who this document implied I could possibly be. Scar on left cheek from flying bingo card…check. That was the last time I partied with Grandma Helen, crazy German. Several patch’s of hair missing from top of head…check. Never, I repeat, never, use banana scented shampoo before going to see the monkeys at the zoo.

I figured if anybody could tell me I was me it would be my lovely wife. To make it a little more difficult for her I put a ski mask on and a muumuu. Then as she slept I snuck into the bedroom, flipped on the light and screamed, “Who am I!” I had no idea she could kick so hard, and with such accuracy. During the ensuing scuffle the ski mask was violently removed from my head, along with some hair that my monkey friends apparently overlooked. With mild curiosity my wife gave me that strange look that I’m accustomed to, shook her head and exclaimed, “Josh, what are doing?”

There, I had my proof, I endangered my favorite muumuu to get it but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. So I limped back downstairs to continue reading this document made especially for me, Joshua C. Ellis.

As I was reading the friendly letter from the Social Security commissioner, something troubling appeared. Here’s the fun fact that Jo Anne B. Barnhart, the commissioner, had to share with me, “Without changes, by 2042 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted.” With my minimal knowledge of arithmetic I crunched some numbers and found that I would be approximately 70 years old in the year 2042. Isn’t that just a shiny ray of happy news.

Coincidence? I think not. This reeks of conspiracy. Do you know who is behind this conspiracy? Your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart. The Mecca of Materialism needs a renewable source of duffers to push carts at people and hand out smiley face stickers. I am taking a huge risk in exposing this matter, but someone has to stand up to those blue vested bullies. United we stand divided we hand out smiley face stickers.

If anything this is wonderful motivation for our children to get a good education and high paying jobs or flee the country. Because if they can’t afford to ship us to a trailer park in Florida, we’ll be living with them, and they’ll have to drive us to our smiley face sticker jobs.

In the mean time you may see me training for the year 2042 at DJ’s Food Center.

Another trip to Lignite and back, and still no Bigfoot sighting to report. Bigfoot goes by many names; Yeti, Abomible Snowman, Sasquatch, Steroid Enhanced Baseball Player, but lets not get into the genealogy of our hairy friend, its just too confusing.

Personally I would prefer Yeti, it just has a gentler lilt to it, try it a few times…Yeti, Yeti…kind of roles of the tongue doesn’t it. The other names just sound so, hairy and scary, not to mention the fact that I’m sure they are well aware that their feet are a bit on the large size. It’s really not necessary for us to point it out continuously, I mean my hair may not be as thick and luxurious as it once was, but I wouldn’t care to be referred to as Thinhair, Shinyscalp, or any such descriptive names.

Abomible Snowman seems a little harsh to me, and I’m sure Frosty and pals don’t appreciate being linked to the missing link family. Snowmen have never been shy about being photographed; we all have a picture of ourselves posing with a snowman. Now if we could just get that shy Yeti to mug for the camera on occasion.

Sasquatch, sounds like something you might do after ingesting large amounts fruitcake and eggnog. Not that there’s anything wrong with fruitcake, I have one on my desk and it makes a wonderful paper weight. In fact I once foiled a bank robbery with a loaf of fruitcake, poor guy never saw it coming.

So Yeti it is. When we travel between Rapid City and Lignite we always go through the Killdeer mountain area, which as you know is a preferred hang out for the Yeti family. So I keep the camera ready and have provided each of the kids with one also, just in case I’m being distracted by driving or something like that. I think my wife is frightened by the prospect of seeing the Yeti because she always has her eyes closed and pretends to be asleep when we drive through Yeti Land.

As for myself I’m not real sure what I would do if I were to come face to face with the hairy one. It would probably involve several high pitched screams immediately followed by a spontaneous bowel movement, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I did see a white horse along the road one night by Mandaree, and I’m convinced it was the Yeti in a horse costume. They are a sly bunch, but I distinctly saw the glimmer of what appeared to be a zipper running down the front of the ‘horse’. Also in approximately the same location on a different trip two ‘dogs’ were standing on the shoulder of the road. These I believe to be either Yeti children or Yeti midgets.

Yes, I know, all of this information is quite interesting, and I will surely keep you posted on my Yeti sightings. I have contacted the FBI and CIA and they have enthusiastically suggested I never contact them again. They’re such kidders.

I don’t know if I’m overly optimistic or just delusional, perhaps delusionally optimistic. That would be a good name for a troupe of river dancing mimes performing at the intermission of a monster truck rally. Have I ever told you that I dislike mimes, I just don’t buy into the whole invisible rope bit, that, and being stuck in an invisible box were all they learned before flunking out of Clown College.

Delusionally optimistic was me bringing my bicycle with to Lignite the first week of March. I had a week off for spring break so my son and I decided to head up to God’s country. My plans fell through for Cancun and Lignite was next on the list, so I called my travel agent and booked a week in sunny, windy, cold, snowing, muddy, rainy, cloudy, and scenic upstate ND. Security at the North Dakota / South Dakota border was tight and it took some time to convince them that despite my behavior I did not have mad cow disease.

As I got closer to Lignite I noticed more and more snow, and as I stepped out of the car in Lignite I noticed that not only was it snowy, but a bit on the breezy, chilly side also. Very conducive weather for bike riding, weather that shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but somehow was. I guess the 65 degree weather I left in Rapid City contributed to my delusional optimism. That, and when I spoke to my brother, Gabe, the day before I left, he said, and I quote, “There’s hardly any snow left, it’s almost all gone.” I guess Gabe’s idea of ‘hardly any snow’ and mine are bit different. His ‘hardly any snow’ is that there isn’t enough to snowmobile; my ‘hardly any snow’ is having to scrounge to make one last dirt covered snowball. Then hitting my brother with it.

So my bike sat in the corner of the bedroom pouting the entire week, yes the bedroom, he’s my special boy, no garage for him. Besides all I could picture was me walking into the garage to find my brothers, um, my parent’s dog, Coors, using my bike as a giant chew toy. Makes me weepy just thinking about it. So in order to pay Coors back for what he ‘might’ have done, I made him run about 5 miles with me every other day while I was home. That oughta teach him. Should’ve pulled Mr. Hardly Any Snow off the couch and made him run too.

I had a great time visiting with friends and family. My son, Jackson, said it best when he told my mom, “The days go faster when I’m in Lignite.” Despite the speedy days we found time to go on a five hour tour around Burke County with Captain Ardell at the helm, Navigator Rose riding shotgun, and myself, my mom, and Jackson doing the rosary in the back seat. I enjoy learning about my family history, and I want to thank Grandpa and Grandma for taking me to ‘our’ historic sites.

Have a good Easter, and be leery of oddly shaped chocolate eggs. Especially if your brother hands it to you.

In about 3 months another school year will be wrapping up. This means little league, swimming pools, and visiting friends and relatives is merrily rolling closer. For those of you that are seniors it means you have a few more months to endure and hopefully find an answer to the question that is more than likely being posed to you everyday…”So what are you planning on doing after graduation?” The level of difficulty of this question is going to vary greatly from student to student. Some have had it figured out for awhile now, well at least they think they have. What they don’t know is this world has monkey wrenches lurking around every corner, and you never know when one is going to be chucked in your direction. You can’t duck em’ all, nor do you need or want to. A forced change of direction might just lead you in the right direction.

“So…..what are you doing after graduation?” What do you want to be when you grow up, or I mean, grow older. Remember growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional. If you’ve ever spent any time with my family you know that we have just about all decided to ignore the option of growing up. There is a plethora of options out there, I like that word ‘plethora’, it’s hard to squeeze it into a conversation so you have to throw it out there every chance you get.

Of the options available to you about the only one that I feel qualified to preach at you about is the college option. Someone jokingly asked me when I was in my 6th year of college if I planned on making a career of it, well, yes I did, and I have. I don’t know what I would do if my life wasn’t divided into semesters, with a sprinkling of random vacations, and slathering of summers off. My face hurts from smiling.

As an instructor I have a few pointers for you potential college students, pointers on what will make the faculty happy or at least more tolerant. First off, show up for class, everyday, on time. If you miss class for some reason, real or imagined, go talk to the instructor as soon as possible. No elaborate, lame excuses just apologize for missing class and ask if there were any assignments. Secondly, when your in class, don’t fall asleep. Us instructors are well aware that some of what we’re teaching you isn’t all that entertaining, but at least fain interest. Thirdly, take ownership in your education by being an active part of the learning process. Just like most everything in life, you’ll get out of college what you put into it.

The majority of instructors are there to guide you and show you the various paths available to you, of course there are always those that really don’t care if you succeed or not. Either way you gotta be there and be awake to see those paths or you might get lost. Trust me I got myself lost more than a few times in my academic career, as a result, my GPA took a few donkey kicks, but I figured it out….eventually. I’m sure you will too.

Gentlemen as your reading this the beautiful bouquet of flowers you bought your lovely wife for Valentines Day are turning into potpourri. The big heart shaped box of chocolates has been reduced to a few of the horrible pink marshmallow centered things, the kids won’t even eat those. You know this because of the little finger hole you’ll find poked in the bottom made while they were franticly looking for the last caramel or mint. Most boxes of chocolates come with the little map now so you don’t have to poke holes in the bottoms to find the filling you desire. Lastly, the $80.00 negligee that the curvaceous manikin in Victoria’s Secret convinced you to buy is stuffed in the drawer with the ones from various Valentines of yesteryear, as your wife lounges in the free t-shirt you got for guessing the age of the angus at “Dan’s Bait & Butcher Shop.”

It’s over for another year and ladies in case you haven’t noticed most of us men aren’t very good at buying you presents. It’s not that we don’t try, it’s that we just don’t know, and as we all know you sure won’t tell us. Ask us what we want, go ahead, we won’t give you a trick answer, as a matter of fact here’s what we’ll do, now this may seem crazy but hang with me on this. We will tell you exactly what we want, and whatever it is that we tell you that we want, well, it is exactly what we want. We won’t say new socks would be nice and secretly hope you surprise us with diamonds and a trip to the Bahamas. No, we will thoroughly enjoy the new socks. Do you know why? Because we asked for them!

Okay ladies do you see how this whole thing works now? We ask, you tell, you get, we happy. I know, I know, you just would like to be surprised, well you’ll continue to be surprised by fuzzy slippers and cheese graters if you don’t agree to these terms. This would help eliminate the sorry sight of a man shuffling through the mall muttering and wild eyed as time runs out on another gift search. It’s not pretty, especially when you’re the one rocking back and forth sucking your thumb in the fetal position in front of a rack of women’s clothing. “If I buy a size that’s too big she’ll think that I think she’s overweight, but If I buy a size to small she’ll think that that’s the size I wish she was….” This will continue until security escorts you to the cash register and demands that you buy a gift certificate and remove yourself from the store.

So for the remainder of this year let’s just try the “we ask, you tell, you get, we happy” approach to special occasions. My wife doesn’t have a choice, mall security requires a list of what she wants be mailed to them at least one week prior to my arrival as to assure the availability of the requested items. It’s a very nice arrangement, my wife gets what she wants and I don’t have to hold any manikins hostage to negotiate more time to find that perfect gift.

“The flowers are dead, the candies all gone, she’s got that old t-shirt on.”

Just before Christmas I bought a shiny new road bike. No not for either of my kids, for me, the big kid, and when I say road bike I don’t mean motorcycle I mean bicycle. The sit on a very small seat peddle till you sweat and slobber kind. Why you may ask, unless you’re a member of my family then you’ve tired of asking why years ago, well because it looked like fun.

The idea came to me while I was training for the marathon I ran this past year, maybe I’ll bore you with that story further down the road. While I was out running day in and day out I began to notice that the people I met on bicycles seemed to be much happier than my fellow runners. They would peddle towards me smiling and give a hardy hello, while us runners generally exchange dismal glances followed by a pained grunt. For those of you that don’t run the grunt means something different for everyone, “Hi there, I don’t like running, but I have a class reunion coming up, I just turned 40, and my bald spot and belly are having a friendly competition to see who can cover the most area.” Or maybe, “My scrawny doctor’s professional opinion is that I should run at least three days a week, maybe I’ll run my key along his Mercedes.” Still others, like myself, are training to run a race of some sort simply because, well, just because.

Anyway back to why a 32 year old man, a former paperboy I might add, would want to buy a bicycle. I had never had a remote interest in cycling until this past summer. Up until then I would point and giggle at the people pushin’ peddles in the tight shorts, now as fate would have it I am at the other end of the giggle. The tight shorts must affect your hearing though because I don’t hear a thing, other than disturbing chaffing noises.

I am into history though, and this past summer Lance Armstrong was going for a historic 6th straight Tour De France win, so I decided to tune in and see what all the hubbub was about. I was hooked. There a very few things that will get me out of bed at 6:00 in the morning, but there I was every morning, enthralled as a bunch of guys with names I couldn’t pronounce turned themselves inside out for 23 days for a yellow jersey. For those of you that have never watched much or any cycling races, I’ll tell you that you would be hard pressed to find another professional sport with as much sportsmanship among its participants.

No, I don’t have a delusional idea of becoming a professional cyclist. Just want to stay in shape, give my feet a rest from running, and possibly compete with other people in tight shorts. Besides something about going 45 mph down a hill on a bicycle makes me grin like an idiot.…the same idiot that used to deliver your paper 20 years ago.

As Doc Stevens always said, as he dropped a rutabaga in my newspaper bag, “See ya in the funny papers.”

“BE BURKE COUNTIES BIGGEST LOSER.” The headlines jumped out at me and seized my attention. My heart skipped a beat as excitement overtook me…finally…us losers are going to be recognized. All the years spent honing our loser skills were going to pay off, the world would finally know, and award us for the burden we bare. How do they intend on judging us? Is there a loser test? I think my wife already had me take that one in her last Cosmo magazine. If so nobody stands a chance against me. Or possibly an in-depth interview of the loser candidate by a panel of expert losers. As we regal them with our loser life story they could award points for various episodes in our lives that distinguish us as losers. The score card may look something like this.

February 12th, 1982: Huge snow storm. Helped Great Grandma out of her wheelchair so she could shovel the driveway: 10 loser points

Granny doing a shabby job, so I knocked on the window to point out the spots she missed: 8 loser points

Wind howling too loud, Granny can’t hear me knocking on the window. Pelt her with snowballs to get her attention: 15 loser points

Dad gives me $5.00 for shoveling the driveway. I ask Granny for $10.00. She whines about frost bitten fingers as she digs through her purse. 18 loser points

If the point system doesn’t work maybe each biggest loser candidate could be followed around and videoed for a few weeks. Then you the audience could vote for the biggest loser. Of course the cameras would have to be hidden to prevent any embellishment of loser activity on the loser’s behalf. Fellow Burke County losers, our moment of glory is upon us. May the biggest loser win.

I believe it was about 15 years ago when the ‘losers’ bracket in sports began being replaced by the ‘consolation’ round. The reason probably being, that some shrink decided that it dented the fragile psyche of America’s youth to see themselves or their team in the LOSERS bracket. So they are not losers they are consolers, and as consolers I think that the consolation round would be much more constructive if the teams were to embrace in a group hug and console one another instead of continuing to play the game that they are obviously not very good at. Who am I to say such things? I’m 5’9 and I played center for the Burke Central Panthers Basketball team, I know about the loser’s bracket. I really don’t care what they call it, and it really doesn’t matter what side of the bracket you’re on. What are important are the experiences, values, and memories that sport participation brings young athletes, win or lose.

As for the “real” Biggest Loser program, it is a wonderful program. Since I am in a health care field I am always happy to see a community promoting programs that encourage a healthy lifestyle. Take advantage of the program, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the crowning of Burke Counties Biggest Loser. For those of you that are in the program, but don’t win, stick with it, maybe you’ll be a bigger loser next time.

Alright stop sulking over the soap-on-a-rope you got from you great aunt. It’s not as bad as the doily of the month club your brother was enrolled in. No time for that, another year is on the ropes and about to go down for the count. There still time to resolve what you forgot to resolve this past year. Get out there champ; climb that mountain, lose that weight, lift that weight….wait. No, your right, it’s too late. Hang the clothes back on your treadmill and get back to your “better than spam cake.” There’s always next year.

Ever since I resolved to be perfect a few years back I’ve had the luxury of not having to make resolutions anymore. Laugh it up. For those of you that can’t decide on what to resolve this year I’ve gone through the trouble of providing you with a few possible options. Disclaimer: The results of the following resolutions may vary. Consult your physician before attempting to resolve anything that requires bending at the waist and/or anything else that could be construed as being of a strenuous nature.

Resolve to get the daily recommended allowance of fiber. Decreases your chances of heart disease and increase your chances of getting your own seat on the bus.

Resolve to keep your nose hairs neatly trimmed. So when you sneeze it doesn’t appear as if a crazed octopus is doing the cha-cha on your upper lip.

Resolve to banish yourself from the island of so-called reality TV. That’s right Mr. Trump, you and your beauty school drop-out hair stylist are fired.

Resolve to stop buying little kids clown dolls or clown anything for that matter. I did a little study, 9 out of 10 kids, and myself, find clowns to be terrifying and wish they would all climb in their little car and go away.

Resolve to buy a Chinese yo-yo at the shrine circus and attempt to take your little brothers eye out with it. How many kids do you see wearing eye patches? Rooster Cogburn must not have been warned of such dangers.

Resolve to sort through your underwear drawer. If it bares a striking resemblance to tainted cheesecloth, discard of it immediately.

Resolve to never go deer hunting with Laurie Chrest again. It’s the mental scars that heal the slowest.

Resolve to limit yourself to photocopying your face at work to once a week. Challenge a co-worker to try and keep their eyes open when they do it, they’ll be blinded for a few days but the memories will last forever.

Resolve to go on a quest to find the correct answer to every question your wife will ever ask you. “Your absolutely right dear” will work for now, but they’re catching on.

Well there you have it. I hope that I was able to assist you in finding something to resolve in the coming year. Enjoy the holidays, don’t take any wooden nickels, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, eat your vegetables, and help your brother find his eye patch. See you next year.

I called my mom on the 5th to wish her a happy birthday, because that’s what a good son does, and she informed me that the yearly school head lice checks had just been completed. She was pleased to report that all of the students at Burke Central were head lice free. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case when I was wee lad attending third grade there.

Ahh…the memories. Each class was taken down to the designated head lice checking area, so each student could have their hair searched by one of the friendly volunteers. Something you never want to hear when having someone in the medical profession examining any part of you is, “Oh, oh” as they turn to one of their co-workers and say, “Could you take a look at this?” Not good. That’s exactly what I heard as the rubber gloves searching my scalp suddenly stopped, and decided that whatever it was in my hair needed to be looked at under a microscope. So after the potential villain was plucked from my head along with several innocent hairs, all the nurses gathered round the microscope for a look. After a brief period of intense examination they all nodded broke huddle and called my mom to come and get her lice infested kid.

As I waited for my mom to come get me I watched them place all of the contents of my desk into a bag for delousing or something of that nature. I don’t recall being embarrassed at all, mostly amused, and somewhat happy as I thought about getting a little vacation from school. My brother Jarvis wasn’t amused at all, he was embarrassed. He was in the grade below me and was told that he had to go home too just in case he was harboring any of the little rodents.

When mom got there she was given a brochure, “Dealing With Your Filthy Head Lice Infested Kid” That might not be the exact title. So we go home and mom’s asking me where I could have gotten lice. I didn’t have a clue, but then she started reading through the brochure, which highlighted several ways of contracting lice. Using someone’s comb, a pillow, a hat…. a hat… Just then it all became very clear. It seems that someone else in my class also had head lice that they had gotten from a fox that their dad had shot. The very same person that owned the stocking cap that I swiped and put on my head and ran around with until she beat me and took it back. Ah, hah! Dad wasn’t real amused. He couldn’t understand why I would put someone else’s stocking cap on. He has since learned not to try and understand why I do anything that I do; it’s just easier that way. I think he also threatened to shave my head if I ever did anything like that again. That would have been a devastating blow to my young developing mullet, so I agreed to find other means of which to entertain myself.

My name is Josh and I have been head lice free for 23 years.