I'm A Storyteller

“I’m the youngest of three brothers; there was the one with no brains; the one with brains that couldn’t remember where he put ‘em; and the smart one of the bunch………”

My son, daughter, and their friends heard a lot of stories around campfires that started with those words.  While unfair to my brother's, as the campfire stories unfolded, most times the first two were never clearly identified, and equally unfairly, more often than not my character was drawn as the smart one of the bunch. 

You see, I am a storyteller; and as a storyteller I start with memories, generally follow the facts, blend in some color, embellish a few of the details, personalize them, and relate a piece of the experiences that made me who I am.

Not that there isn’t some danger in that.  There is a hazard in drifting away from the cold hard facts.  Danger stalks somewhere beyond the margin of embellishment, lurking in smoky lairs somewhere on the sloping edges of fabrication.  Most stories include other characters, and they will recognize themselves in the flow of the words and their own memories of the experience.

An historian protects himself by not drifting very far from the solid foundation of the exacting details; but history was seldom the most engaging of classes in anyone’s past. 

So there is a balance between fact and story; and the tipping point is very personal indeed for the teller.  But, for the good storyteller, the risk is worth the running. For when crafted well, the true character will embrace the shadow changes and the gamble can even blossom into humor; memorable lessons can be crafted; and on occasion, new memorable stories will grow from the telling.

One day when my family and I were visiting my eldest brother, that lurking danger pounced out of the shadows, enriching my storytelling when its bared fangs shattered on the stark strength of the underlying joys of shared and remembered experiences.   Experiences such as can only be shared by true brothers, not just of the same parents, but of the same values.

Several of us; my brother and his kids, myself and my son and daughter, were all swimming in the backyard pool when my 12 year old son abruptly said; “Uncle Barry, dad says that when you guys were boys, one of you had no brains; one had brains but didn‘t know where he kept them; and that he was the smart one of the bunch.  Is that right?“

I had a flashback.  Instant recall of most any day growing up, fists balled, arms swinging, flesh being bruised.  Yep, my brothers and I had been known to fight some; constantly and energetically actually; and for slights that were a whole lot less significant than what my son had just divulged. 

To be truthful, I wasn’t entirely sure Barry had put those days behind him.

My eldest brother slowly turned towards me and lowered his head a fraction to stare up just under his eyebrows at me. 

That look I had seen lots of times before, often right before things got pretty fuzzy. 

He held that stare for several seconds, eyes bright, lips in a firm line.

Then he turned back towards my son, smiled big and bold and said; “Yep, sounds about right to me.”  he said with a laugh.

Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

Comparing Scars

Recently, while at a party I happened to mention that growing up as a kid my brothers and I were constantly getting hurt at one thing or another.  And that several of those hurts left lasting scars on our hides.  Some of the other guys I was chatting with said that they had some “really gnarly” scars too. 

One of the guys, decked out in his best macho wife-beater, jeans and boots said: “I bet I got the gnarliest scars” and proceeded to point out scars he got from getting his hand caught in a door, and working his way up to a pebbley road-rash from falling off his motorcycle.  But he claimed that his worst scars had been when he was young and you couldn’t see them anymore cause they had faded.

The gauntlet had been thrown down and one by one the rest of the group broke out their meanest, scar stories, trying to top the last guy and prove how tough they were.  But they all followed “wife-beater’s” lead and said their worst ones had faded out.

After everyone else had given their run-down, they all looked at me.

I figured I had better start them off gentle like so I pointed to the bright white half-moon scar that is quite pronounced on my left forefinger; it runs from underneath the “bend” of the middle finger knuckle, arcs up around the outside and “hooks” into the inside of the knuckle next to the middle finger.  All and all the scar line is about 2 inches in length, and the scar tissue isn’t raised up; in fact might be sunken a little. 

“Can you all see this little scar here?” I asked.

They all nodded that they could, low light and all from as far away as 5 feet of so, and without any trouble to boot.  One guy said “Little?”

“This one I did to myself when I was in the 4^th grade” I tell them.  “It’s faded out some I suppose, but then it was a pretty small wound all in all” I allowed.

“I was carving a piece of wood with one of those fancy wood carving tools; you know, the ones with long handles and curved blades they call gouges” I say. 

“Darn thing slipped” I tell them; “And dang if I didn’t bury it fair to middlin deep in this here finger”. 

“Didn’t even bleed right away, I remember my right hand slipping, feeling the tool slice in until it jarred to a stop sudden like; and looking down to see the gouge dug into my finger”. 

Several of the guys winced.

“Couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t bleeding right away”.

“Of course, that mighta been cause I had to pry the gouge back and forth several times before it was loose enough to pull out of the bone” I told them. 

I acted out clinching my forefinger between my left thumb and middle finger and prying back and forth with my right hand, adding; “All that wiggling back and forth with the gouge sure got the blood to flowing once I got the dang thing pulled free though”.

Most of the guys were lookin a bit peaked; casting eyes anywhere else but at my hand motions.

“Damn blood ruined the carving I was working on too” I added.

Looking up at them, I could tell this group really wasn’t up to the story behind the 3 inch long curved scar on the base of the left thumb the day I almost chopped it off with a hatchet, or my “Bad Week for a Big Toe” story, much less any of my real spectacular scars……

Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

Just a Tool

Back in the late seventies I was living in downtown San Jose.  Lived along the boundary line between the University neighborhoods and the East Side section of town.

Given the nature of college kids, and the nature of some of those that lived in the eastside, the neighborhood wasn’t the safest place to live.

The local convenience store got robbed regularly; we called it the “Stop-n-Rob” cause it had easy on-off freeway access.  The local parks were dangerous during the day from drug dealers, pimps, and other criminals, much less at night when beatings, muggings, and rape were regular occurrences.

I lived in a town-house style apartment right on one of the busy streets, one of the main freeway off-ramps into the downtown.  Spent several years there, moved in to get back in college, stayed through a couple years of mixed college and job, stayed long enough to get married and then moved out when we left the San Jose area for the Central Valley of California.

I grew up around guns; hunted as a kid, shot paper, clay pigeons, and bottles for fun.  To me a gun was, and is, just a tool; and just like any other tool, a gun can be used poorly, or well.

Just after midnight one very early Sunday morning I woke up when something rattled my screen door.  I could hear something bump the door itself and then kinda scratch once and then there was quiet.

I rolled out of bed, grabbed the 7 x 57 Mauser rifle that I kept loaded and slipped quietly downstairs.

I could hear some noise out the back side of the apartment that sounded like it was at the house on the other side of the fence.  I stuck my ear up to the front door and could hear some grunts out the front.

The noises out back had turned into a couple of voices yelling back and forth to each other, they were obviously looking for something; “look over there” and “nothing here” were clear and moving closer.

Unlocking the door, I yanked it open and stepped out…..

Only to trip over a body lying bleeding on my front steps.

 I was able to keep from falling, and just as I got my feet square under me and settled, I heard running feet approaching from around the corner of the apartment.  I racked the bolt, dropped the safety, and had the weapon up to my shoulder just as two guys came around the corner and skidded to a stop.  Both of them had knives in their hands. 

I stared at them.

They stared at the hole in the end of my rifle barrel.

When they glanced at each other, I told them; “You move one step forward, I’m gonna shoot one of you, and break the other one’s jaw with this rifle and I really don’t care which is which”.

Apparently they did. 

They looked at each other again and backed around the corner.  As they began backing up, I moved forward and kept them in my sights until they turned and ran down the block and around the corner.

The bleeder on my front steps appeared to be a high school aged kid of about 17 or 18.  He had been stabbed in the stomach, twice, and was bleeding pretty good.  There was a follow-able trail that came around the front, and ended where he had collapsed against my door.  His shirtfront was soaked.  I had tracked deer that left less blood behind than he did.

After the first aid; and the police and ambulance came and went, I washed up and went back to bed.

That Tuesday evening, just after I had walked in the apartment from work, there was a knock on my front door.  When I opened it, there stood a girl about 16 or 17 and an older woman.  The older woman was looking down at the blood stains in the concrete.  They got to the door so quickly after I had closed it that I have expect they had been sitting in a car somewhere watching for me to come home.

The woman didn’t speak any English.  The girl told me she was the sister of the boy who had been stabbed and asked if she and her mother could come in.  After I had them seated on the couch and had offered them something to drink, the girl proceeded to interpret her mother’s words and added some of her own.  They had come to thank me for saving the boys life.  He was still in the hospital, had been close to dead when the ambulance got him there, and the doctors had to remove some of his intestine, but he would recover.

Month or so later, a second knock on the door brought me face to face with the young man and his sister.  He too came to say thank you.

The media is full of stories about firearm crimes, the CDC can tell you how often someone dies from a firearm, the politician’s tend to be loudly against gun ownership.

What is missing from this discussion is how often is a firearm used safely as a tool, and how often is one involved in saving a life?

And while I have wondered from time to time if that boy ran straight and true from then on, I have never wondered about a gun. 

As I said at the beginning, a gun is just a tool.  No better or worse than the way in which it is used.

Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

Seasoned with Rock Salt

My brothers and I grew up rambling.  Back in the 1960’s there were no cell phones, no iPods, no computer games, no DVD’s, and parents didn’t let their kids sit in front of the TV for hours on end.  If the sun was up, we were either in school, in church, or outside.

Truth be told, you can’t blame the teachers for the way we were, they tried their best.  And if the Pastor with God as his strong right arm was ineffectual in civilizing my brothers and I, certainly the teachers hadn’t a hope of success.

So ramble we did.

We hiked the hills; gigged frogs in the creeks and arroyos when we weren’t catching crawfish; rode bikes over every road, trail, and open field in the valley; and generally lived high, wide, and handsome.

One of our favorite afternoon activities was to grab up our fishing gear and head out to Old Man Baranus’ place to go fishing in his pond.  The Baranus place was what was left of a large cattle ranch that had once spread over thousands of acres on the south side of the valley.  The original Homestead had been built right in the arroyo that edged the southeastern boundary of our town proper.

There along the edges of the water, the original Spanish land-grant holder had built among what were probably already full grown elm trees.  Sitting quiet in the shade with the cool water flowing near the house must have been a great joy back in the day before swamp-coolers and air conditioners.  Specially in our valley were summertime temperatures often saw the high side of 115 degrees.  Over the years, the trees had grown ever larger, the original adobe was replaced by a big multi-storied clapboard Victorian house, barns and sheds were built, and most attractive of all, a pond was scraped out of the arroyo banks.

Originally that pond must have filled and flushed as each heavy rain filled the creek and then would sit full the remainder of the year waiting for the flood of rains again.  Over the years the creek channel shifted and the pond was completely cut off from the arroyo, but winter rains and the lay of the land kept the pond full and healthy.

At some point, whether naturally or intentionally stocked, that pond had become home to an amazing array of critters. There were Red-winged blackbirds, ducks, pheasant, muskrat, and foxes that all called the pond home.  Many trails led out of the arroyo and under the barb wire towards the pond.  Trails that promised adventures to boys like us. 

The pond itself must have covered eight or ten acres, with thick cattail rushes bounding most of the shoreline and a few giant elm trees as well.  Here and there the cattails thinned down and you could stand right up next to the water’s edge.

Well, I think you could anyway; I never tried.  You see, although my brothers and I fished that pond regularly, we never asked permission, and so standing up bold and bright there at the edge of the water wasn’t a good idea.  Specially since Old Man Baranus didn’t allow people on his property.

Every kid in town knew that you didn’t fish that pond.  Every kid in town either tried, or claimed to have tried to sneak through the strands of Barb wire and up to the edge of the pond.  Every parent in town told their kids to stay off of that property.  And most every kid in town listened, and followed the rules. 


But, my brothers and I weren’t much like every other kid in town.  That pond just seemed to call out to us.  Sure as the sun rises in the morning, that pond seeped into our thoughts.

Walking the arroyo in the evening you could hear the fish jumping in that pond; could hear the frogs calling out; and you just knew that you had to go there.  All the town kids would talk about someday sneaking through the fence, some of them tried once or twice, but I never knew anyone other than my brothers and I that actually went to that pond several times a week and dared to pull fish and frogs from that pool of water.

The fishing was great.  You didn’t even have to bait the hook.  Just cast a golden hook out into that pond and some hungry blue-gill or bass would come nosing around and sample it.  Filling a sack of pan fish for dinner was never a problem at that pond, at least not hard when it came to the catching.  The only real difficult part about fishing that pond, was casting while lying down behind a log or from around behind a tree.

You see, Old Man Baranus didn’t just ask people not to come onto his property, he pretty much insisted.  And while we three were persistent, he was retired.  And being retired he had all day to invest in some hobby or other.

His favorite hobby seemed to be to sit up in the hay loft of the barn and shoot rock salt at us kids who fished his pond.

But there is a funny thing to that; we boys seemed to take all that flying rock salt as more of a challenge than a deterrent.

Nothing fills you quite so full of life as running from death does.

We would sneak out there day after day, ducking, crawling, and doing our best to fill a sack of fish before Old Man Baranus caught sight of us and started to unload.

With the first whistling in the air of salt on the wing, we would grab up our stuff, leap to our feet and race for the barb wire fence line.  Sometimes the fence barbs got us as we tried to clear the strands; sometimes the salt stung the last largest part headed over the top strand and on those occasions we had to pick it out of each other’s back, or rump; and once in a while we would even get clear unscathed.

Looking back on it all these years later, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten any fish that was quite so well seasoned as that we fried up after a trip out to Old Man Baranus’ pond. 

Maybe it was because of all that salt flying around. 

Copyright © 2012 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

The Bike Sale

“My” first bike was a glorious banana-seated Schwinn stingray.  I had a learner bike before that one, but that one was handed down from a brother, it wasn’t mine.  Not that my Stingray was new, we were too careful with our money for that, but it was new to the family, and it came into the family to be mine, not someone else’s.

Can’t for the life of me remember the color of the bike for sure, but orange sure seems right.

The seat though, that stands crystal clear in my memory.  Long and white, padded with “tuck and roll” stitch lines cross-wise every 3-4 inches.  Supported in the front on the seat post, in the back by a chromed loop of tubing that came up from the rear axel bolt, arched over and plunged down to the axel bolt on the other side.

Built before the “stick-shift” jobs; it was a multiple speed bike, just as many speeds as I would willingly pedal.  

That bike represented more than just style and cool.  It represented freedom.

The world opened up to larger than I could walk in the time I had; there were more fields to explore, more potholes to dodge, and more places to go, more puddles and leaves, and sand and mud to ride through.

As I aged, that bike became too weak for my needs.  I got a paper route and needed to be able to cover a full third of our town every morning, and my brothers and I started riding the 10 miles out to the lake to swim and the 10 miles back in time to do our chores before our parents came home from work.  I needed more carrying capacity, and more speed.

I bought my first truly new bike with the profits of my first few months paper route work.  A beautiful, shimmering, metallic brown Schwinn Varsity Tourister with a lifetime guarantee on the frame (a decision that Schwinn must have come to rue, but that is for a future story or two).

And so, that wonderful Stingray fell into disuse and sat forlorn in a corner of the garage.

Some years later our family had a garage sale.  I decided it was time for my Stingray to regain its freedom and mastery of the streets, and so out of the garage it came. 

The tires were flat.

The seat was dusty

The wheels had spider webs.

But I was selling it, so I didn’t care.  My dad told me that I should clean it up and fill the tires, but I thought I was just getting rid of the bike, so why bother.

During that morning several people looked at my Stingray and asked about the price, none of them bought it.  Around lunchtime, I went and got the pump and filled the tires. And I rolled it around back and hosed it off.

The next man that stopped at the garage sale bought that Stingray, and for more money than I had been asking for it before I cleaned it up.

I came away with a new understanding.  One that has served me well all of my life. 

Most people can’t see the potential in things.

Most people only see the first impression. 

I have profited greatly from that understanding, both in understanding how to sell (myself, my ideas, and my things) and how to buy.

Selling that bike was a great experience….but boy, what wouldn’t I give to have it back today as a piece of my personal history.

Copyright © 2011 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

Bad Week for a Big Toe - Part 2

In Part 1 of Bad Week for a Big Toe you heard how I left some of my hide and blood in the Pacific Ocean off the Carmel beach while trying to impress Regina on our first date.  And of the impression I left with the doctor who ultimately was called on to repair the damage I had done to my right big toe.

Unknown to me, I had also done some damage to my budding relationship on that first date.  But that was nothing compared to what lay in store at the 4^th of July Picnic at Lake Del Valle outside of Livermore that we were headed to next.

Three short days after visiting the doctor to have my butchered right big toe tended to, and while still limping rather significantly from the discomfort of that injury, I called on Regina and picked her up for my  company’s 4^th of July Picnic.

She looked delightful, with her strawberry hair up, halter top and shorts, and ready for a warm day in the sun.

She must have noticed the limp and asked me how my toe was. 

I had to come clean and tell her that the doctor had been pretty harsh with me over not coming in immediately on being injured as Regina had suggested.  She took some little joy in that I believe.

Out at the lake, sides were being chosen up for a friendly Baseball Game.  I really didn’t feel like running since I could barely walk.  So Regina and I sat in the shade of a great big old Live Oak tree and watched until the BBQ spread was done and ready to eat.

After eating our fill of burgers, chips, and sodas, Regina and I wandered away from the continuing ball game.  We found our way over to the boat rental shack and decided to rent a small motorboat and spend some time puttering around the lake.  With the paperwork done and my money down, we bought some snacks and loaded up into the boat.  We headed up lake, me in the stern running the small outboard, Regina lounging up front in the bow, sunning, and generally making it difficult for me to pay attention to where I was going.

Being an outdoor guy, I noticed trash from all of the other boaters floating in the lake water and began to steer towards the plastic bags and other stuff that I could see so as to scoop them out of the water.  Regina got the fever as well and was soon leaning forward out over the bow, with her knees on the seat making it even harder to focus on my navigation.

Regina saw a large plastic bottle floating off the starboard bow and pointed me towards it.  As the boat approached the bottle, I could see that it was a 1 gallon sized plastic jug, looking for all the world like an old bleach bottle.  Pretty big for anything we had seen up until then, and I couldn’t figure out why a bleach bottle would be floating in the lake, but since we were cleaning up, it wouldn’t be floating in the lake for much longer.

I was proud to display my control of the boat as I slowed down and brought us right past that old bottle.  Regina reached out to grab it.  She had a good hold on it and the boat was slowly motoring by when that old bottle just seemed to pull back.

Almost yanked Regina clean out of the boat it did.  In fact, I had to let go of the outboard motor handle to grab Regina to keep her from accidentally abandoning ship. 

It seemed as though that bottle had grown rather attached to floating in the lake. 

After getting Regina fully back into the boat, only a little wetter for the experience, I turned the boat around and went back after that bottle.  It was a matter of pride at this point.  After all, if that bottle had been a guy and had treated Regina that way, I would have punched his lights out…I surely couldn’t let a piece of plastic get away with man-handling her.

As I approached that bottle a second time I shifted the outboard into neutral and told Regina I would get it.  Well, I grabbed on and pulled the bottle up to see a rope tied through the handle leading back into the water.  I started pulling in the rope and after about 35 feet’s worth, found that the other end of the rope was tied to a large square lead weight with an eyebolt through it.

Regina thought we should throw the thing back, but I maintained that nope, trash was trash and didn’t belong in the lake.

We continued to putter around the lake cleaning up trash until the time was up and we had to return the boat to the rental dock.

At the dock, we cleaned all of the trash out of the boat and I decided that I would keep that lead block, figured I would have some use for it sooner or later.  Really didn’t figure to use it as soon as I did though. 

Done with that we gathered up all of our stuff and headed up to check the boat back in.  My arms were full of all left over snacks, towels, and that lead weight when the man at the rental shack asked to see my papers.  I tried to pass all that stuff to Regina.  She got it all.

All except that lead block with the eyebolt.

That single piece, slipped through either her or my arms (I really can’t tell you who’s) and it followed the laws of physics.

Very, very enthusiastically followed the laws of physics as a matter of fact.

In school I had learned that a mass accelerates at 32 feet per second per second when subjected to gravity’s pull.  I swear they are wrong about that.  I have run the math on that one several times in my life; if they are right that block of lead was only traveling at about 7 miles an hour when it hit my wounded right big toe. 

Of course ballistic calculations tell us that terminal impact energy is mass times the velocity squared.  Running the math on and factoring in the area of my toe that the weight landed on says that the lead landed on my toe with a force of over 350 pounds per square inch. 

Even that doesn’t do it justice.

When that block hit my right big toe, I could feel the ground shake.

Regina felt it too, saying; “What was that”

I was having a tough time seeing straight again.

At least this time I didn’t teach her any new words…but that was just because she had heard them all the previous Sunday.

Regina was a predictable girl if nothing else, and bless her delicate little heart, really felt that we should jump in the car and find a doctor. 

I, however, was having none of that.  I convinced her that it really wasn’t a problem, and besides, we had a movie planned and ice cream after that I had no intention of missing.  So off to the show we went.  Well, the movie was pleasant, the ice cream was good, and after that I took her shooting pool until about 2 in the morning before dropping her off at home.

When I got back to my house I set to trying to remove my right shoe.  It wasn’t particularly pleasant.  And in fact, the only way that I finally succeeded, was to take out my Folding Hunter Knife, and cut the shoe off of my foot. 

On peeling off the sock, my toe looked a bit the worse for the day’s wear.

It had started bleeding again at some point (pretty sure I knew when), and that soaked through the gauze and the sock. It had stopped bleeding again and while I wasn’t sure when that was ether, it had been long enough that the sock and gauze were an imbedded part of the scab.  Oh, it had also turned an astounding purple, and seemed flatter than it had been before.  Out of morbid curiosity, I weighted the lead block in at 14.5 pounds.

Next morning the toe didn’t look any better; seemed like Regina had been right again, so I packed myself up and drove to the doctors.

Some 45 minutes later, I had been seen by a nurse, the wound had been cleaned and x-rayed and the doctor had just finished his exam and had ordered another shot of antibiotics when I asked him: “Well doc, what do you think?”

 He looked at me over the top of his half glasses; Stared really, really hard is a better description, and said: “What I think is you should have gotten this foot in here yesterday when I could have done something about the swelling and reset the toe.  But, as it is, the best I can do is put you in a walking cast for a few weeks and see how it heals.”

“And to be quite honest about it, I really don’t think you care much about what I think, or else you wouldn’t wait so long so often before coming in to ask me”.

After the plaster cast set, I drove by Regina’s house.  We sat out on the front porch swing and she told me; “I really don’t think we should see each other anymore, you use some bad language, and seem to hurt yourself a lot, I don’t think can deal with either of those things”.

 Yep, what started out as a promising dating situation only lasted 5 days…..heck it took a lot longer than that for the toe to heal up.

  

Copyright © 2011 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved