Shooting Siblings

My brothers and I got our first guns when we were old enough to get hunting licenses, which really means: my brothers didn't get any guns until I was finally old enough to get my hunting license.  The three of us boys and Dad all went to the same hunter’s safety class out at the Livermore Rod and Gun Club over the course of several weeknights.  I always figured that was one more reason that Barry and Jeff didn’t like me so much.

Because by the time I was 12, Barry would have missed out on close to 3 years of potential hunting, and Jeff 18 months’ worth.

I just know they chalked it up to “baby brother’s special treatment”; my getting my license right when I turned 12, but their having had to wait.  Of course, in truth it was because Dad was Dutch.  And not only didn’t he want to have to take the class three times in three years, he wasn’t going to pay for the pleasure three times either.

Knowing that my brothers were less likely to understand the real reason, I was always careful to make sure I was the last one in line crossing the field when out quail, pheasant, or rabbit hunting.

Sure, I got fewer shots that way, but hey, my real worry was about being shot less.


I know, I know, you think I am simply being dramatic.

You all don’t believe either one of my respectable brothers would actually shoot me.  Most of you may know them as Dad, or Uncle, or Grandpa.  You grew up in their shadows and know them as safety conscious outdoorsmen; hunters and shooters who are constantly on guard for unsafe situations; situations in which someone might get hurt.

But, have you ever thought about the dozens of times they interceded and enforced rules that kept everyone safe, or stopped someone from doing something that unintentionally was dangerous?

More to the point, have you ever thought about how it is that they are so well versed in how someone can get hurt?

One word: Experience.


Oh, sure, you say.

Yea, Marty can probably tell a story or two about being shot by a BB gun.

And Pellet guns now and then.

And perhaps marbles, ball bearings, and rocks from a slingshot.

Maybe the odd blow dart or two.

But not real guns. No way, they would never have used real guns on their own sibling.


Well, pull up a chair young’un and let me bring you up to speed.

One night when our parents had wisely decided to flee from their ever-demanding parental responsibilities in an effort to retain some small measure of sanity, and had left the three of us home alone (a situation that Hollywood certainly can’t recreate), the following little scene played out.

The three of us were sitting around in the living room trying to watch some TV.  Back then it meant a choice of one of three scratchy black and white channels on a 16” (diagonal) low fidelity tube powered TV that faded from station to station anytime a plane flew between the roof mounted antenna and the broadcast tower.  Heck, birds roosting on the antenna could disrupt the picture; butterflies and house flies could effectively mute the thing.  Oh, and we had to walk 5 miles to school every day, uphill, in the snow, sorry, flashed on one of Dad‘s stories there for a moment.

But seriously, limited reception TV is what passed for home entertainment back then, so, we all just took it as par for the course and hunkered in.  Just might explain why we all wear glasses though.

A short time into the evening’s entertainment a question of opinion was called on what show to watch.  Seems to me that two of us wanted to watch “F-Troop”, while one wanted to watch “Petty-Coat Junction”.  Without even knowing the themes of the two shows, I am sure that from the titles alone you will recognize  the emotional pitch of the ensuing debate.

And enough years have passed that I can’t remember who was in favor of which.  Nor can I remember if the issue was settled by drawing straws or fisticuffs…although in the interest of full disclosure I can say that I don’t remember Mom stocking straws in the kitchen cabinets anywhere.

Being used to losing more often than winning, I wasn’t too disturbed by the outcome and settled down to watch Petty-Coat Junction.  In truth, while neither one of those shows had much in the way of shooting (or capable acting for that matter), they both had other interesting attributes for a boy like me.

My victorious brother settled into the best TV seat in the room, my vanquished brother stomped off to brood in his room.


While there, he hatched the “perfect practical joke” retribution plan.  One guaranteed to revenge himself for his lost TV watching experience.  Now, while every now and then one of us boys suffered from a seismic shift in common sense, none of us was truly stupid.  Selected evidence to the contrary.

Unknown to us two TV watchers, he took down his shotgun, carefully cut open a shotgun shell and removed all the pellets, then loaded up the gun.

Snickering delightedly to himself (you would be forgiven if having heard it you had come to the conclusion that “maniacally” was a better adverb) he charged back in to the living room yelling and screaming about how he was going to get even for the preceding altercation.

The gun barrel swung upward.
The “victor” was scrambling backward out of the best TV seat in the house and literally climbing the wall, backwards even.
The trigger was pulled.
There was an ear-shattering roar.
Smoke billowed.
The shot shell wad flew out of the barrel and bounced off of the “victor’s” chest.

There was a moment of silence.

Before the “practical joker” could so much as laugh or explain himself, he found himself in a titanic battle to keep his prize shotgun from being literally wrapped around his head.

So, you see, both of my brothers have experience in the potential harm that comes from careless handling of firearms.



All in all just another evening of polite discourse between my brothers and I.

And you can try to say, “but there were no pellets”, so that wasn’t really shooting a gun involved.

But I would point out that there was a gun, there was gunpowder, there was an explosion, and there was a projectile that exited the gun, flew across the room, and struck a brother.

I rest my case.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Moonstruck

There are some experiences that are difficult to share with the uninitiated.  They are less about the event, and more about the sensory reaction to the event.

Eleven-thousand feet up in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range is a most magical place.

The air up there carries an icy edge even in the full sunshine of a summer afternoon.  It has thinned out to the point that you can sense that it is easier to breathe, but at the same time it is also harder to catch your breath.  It feels almost brittle as you draw deep draughts into your lungs.    

The lakes are startlingly colored.  With emerald greens and radiant blues reflecting shimmering patterns on the Granite cliffs.

Winter blankets often continue to grip the landscape throughout the year as small glacial sheets tucked into high ridge shadows slip slowly downward until they break off into miniature ice bergs floating into oblivion in lake or stream.

Many people would call it barren; the trees having mostly given way a thousand feet lower down the mountainside.   Here and there a small patch of grass hides in the shadow of a larger rock, seeking escape from the freezing winds, lashing rains, and blowing snows.  There struggling through countless generations the grass slowly piles up a modest shallow resource of nutrition in hopes that some passing wind swirl or flying bird will drop into its clutches a pine nut, or cedar seed.

Against all reasonable odds, hope is met.  Trees whose annual growth rate is typically measured in feet, sprout and struggle to gain an inch of height each year.  Most of the trees have been left far below yet here and there stand a bent and folded gnarled tree that is perhaps 5 feet tall at most, yet has endured nearly limitless numbers of years.  Spending 8 months out of the year buried under snow, weighted down and crippled, it never-the-less remains standing when the snows melt once more.

The sky is never pale blue but routinely a rich royal color that shades into deep purple and on towards black as night falls.  But before the black can truly take over the expanse, planets and stars shimmer forth, by ones, twos, tens, hundreds, and then thousands at a time until the sky is a background of so much white that individual stars are hard to separate from the masses.  Meteors strike from horizon to horizon, chased by slower satellites and flashing airplane trails.

The night sky is so brightened by the proliferation of stars and galaxies that there is seldom need for a flashlight, whether it is early night, midnight or just before dawn.

One of the most startling events at this altitude though is the moonrise.

Should you have chanced to bundle up and gone to sleep before the moon has risen high enough to crest above one of the surrounding ridgelines, you need to protect yourself against its rise.  Be forewarned, it does not sneak cautiously or timidly into view.  Rather the brilliant silver disk leaps upward, throwing light down on sleeping form with the intensity of a locomotive charging through a mountain tunnel.

So sudden, so bright is the moon, that it will literally scare you out of a deep sleep when its reflective blast falls full onto your closed eyelids.

Many a night I have thrashed awake as the primal life within my breast jerks defensively against the moon’s onslaught.

Many a night, after my heart beat had returned to normal, and the adrenaline had drained from my blood, I have lain awake refreshing my soul in the indescribable moonlit landscape’s gripping beauty.

Many a night, but not nearly enough.
 

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Bacon Stretchers and Smoke Shifters

In the Boy Scouting organization, once a year or so, all the troops in a local area get together and take part in a camping skills competition called a “Camporee”.  Boys shoot arrows, and rifles, for scores; tie knots and light fires for time; name plants and animal tracks, and run first aid drills.

One year, along about when I was 17 my very good friend Brian and I were cooking up breakfast the second morning of the camporee when into the camp came trundling the most woeful looking boy you had ever seen.  He was about 11 years old and obviously new to scouts.  I have never seen a pair of pants that filthy, with grease stains, and charcoal smudges, and ground in dirt all the while still carrying their original leg creases.

And the boy himself; nice rich “Boy Scout Tan” all over his face and hands; a multi-shaded homogenation of dirt brown, charcoal black, and scab red obscured his hands and face in a staggering array that would have put any self-respecting sniper to shame.  His boots were untied, he trod on the laces, and following him was a healthy cloud of dust, just like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown comics.  I kid you not.


Brian and I knew what he was looking for, even before he opened his mouth.  The only question in our minds was whether the odds were in our favor.

You see, back in those dusty old days, somewhere between the dinosaurs and the horseless carriage, society still knew how to laugh, and you could tease each other without it becoming a UN mediated crisis.

One of the traditions in scouting back then was to pull practical jokes on the new scouts.  There were several well-known and routine initiation stunts that were pulled on new kids, usually on their first camping trip.  Often a patrol leader would send a new scout out looking for one of three critical pieces of camp equipment that had somehow been forgotten during pack inspections before the trip.  It would always be; a Left-handed Smoke Shifter, a Bacon Stretcher, or a Sky Hook.

There were of course no such things, but with the appropriate tone of voice by the patrol leader and the rest of the patrol playing along, every new boy got his chance to hunt endlessly; passed from patrol to patrol, troop to troop.  Sometimes with an “Oh, we didn’t plan on using one and didn’t bring one”, other times with an “Oh, sorry, we just loaned ours out to the troop off that way” (pointing the opposite direction from where the boy had come).


But Brian and I had decided to turn the tables that year.  We had planned ahead.  We were determined to “Be Prepared”.

Not prepared to help the boy mind you, although help it would.

No, we had prepared to harass some unsuspecting patrol leader somewhere who thought he was playing a joke on his new guy, by providing the new guy with what the patrol leader was never going to suspect.

So a couple weeks before the Camporee, Brian and I had gotten together and invented a bacon stretcher which consisted of a couple of hand bent wire hook arrangements that could be used to pierce opposite ends of two strips of bacon, clip over a frying pan rim, and hold the bacon tight across the bottom of the pan.  In truth it was never tested, and it most likely wouldn’t have worked…but then it wasn’t ever going to have to work.  It just had to actually exist and look like it might work.

And we also dug out an old Erector Set and designed and built a nice compact left-handed operated smoke-shifter out of a flat platform that supported braces and a vertical plate of metal; with a crank on the left side that waved the vertical metal plate back and forth.  Amazingly, that one actually worked.

But try as we might, we couldn’t figure out how to create a hook that would just hang in the sky anywhere it was placed without any support.

Thus, when that poor sloped-shouldered, discouraged and bedraggled boy stumbled into our camp we smiled, knowing that we were running 67% odds of helping him get one over on his patrol leader.  Vastly better than anyone ever got in Las Vegas.


Sure enough, the poor boy opens his mouth and says: “Hey, do you guys have a left-handed smoke-shifter”.  “My Patrol Leader forgot to pack one and the fire smoke is getting in his eyes while he’s cooking breakfast, so he sent me to find one, only nobody seems to have one”.

I looked from the boy to Brian.  Brian looked from the boy to me.  Brian turned back to the boy and I saw his face light up with his characteristic grin as he said: “Yeah, I got one in my pack, let me get it for you”.

While Brian was gone getting the smoke shifter, I made the poor kid clean up a bit.  You know, knock the dust off his pants and shirt, button the pockets, tie his boots, and wash his face and hands.

And while he left his campsite at the beginning of his search filthy and bedraggled, we made sure that he was going to return squared away, with a glowing aura around him, proudly carrying the very tool his patrol leader had sent him in search of.  Rather like Monty Python’s delivery of the Holy Grail.


Brian and I followed.  Just to watch the fun.

Copyright © 2011 - Marty Vandermolen - All Rights Reserved

Mangling Off-Key Notes

In my elementary school they had a well-developed music program.  Complete with a full range of orchestral instruments, formal music teacher, and practice rooms.  In addition to the equipment and personnel, they had an active plan to migrate children into the program through increasing levels of music participation beginning in first grade and extending up to the fourth grade where a boy or girl could get involved in the musical program.

In First grade we learned and sang a number of songs during the year.  Johnson and Johnson supported that program with rolls of cotton for the teachers.

Second grade we made drums out of Quaker Oats boxes and Ovaltine containers; guitars out of cigar boxes, rulers, and string; rattles out of papier-mâché around large light bulbs (whacked after the papier-mâché set up to shatter the bulb glass inside); cymbals out of pie plates; and gourd castanets.

In third grade we all learned to play a Recorder…something I thought of then, and now, as a store-bought cheap whistle.  After all, my brothers and I had learned to make variable note whistles from a piece of bamboo, a shaped wooden plug, and a whittling knife long before I was introduced to a Recorder.


Finally the Fourth grade came around and I was assigned the Cello to master.  Okay, so “master” is a stretch for fourth grade music class and all, but at the time, it felt like it to me.

And I was tremendously excited.

I mean, the Cello; deep, melodic, moving foundation on which all great concert music is built.  And the music teacher sizing up the class immediately sensing my prodigal skills had assigned me this most critical of instruments.

Ok, so it is more likely that the music teacher simply sized the class up and realized I was the only one big enough and strong enough to haul that sucker back and forth.

But, whatever the reason, I spent the next several months toting that thing in its fabric case around the school and back and forth from home to school for nightly practice.  I suspect I wasn’t the most diligent of students.  Not that I didn’t apply myself in school, I did, but after-all when I had to be in class, and it was listen to some teacher drone on about something I had no connection to, or “fiddle” with a cello, the cello won out hands down.

Practicing at home though was a bit of a different tune.  I can recall doing some, but suspect that I spent more time trying to get out of it to go outside and ride, skate, throw rocks, eat bugs, heck, almost anything else as long as it was outside.

Two notable things happened in my cello playing career.  One of them even had something to do with improving my sound.


The first happened while carrying my cello back from individual instruction one day and stopped off to get a drink of water at the water cooler in the main hallway.  Turns out, unknown to me (they had different privacy laws back then) some news photographer was wandering around and happened to see me getting that drink of water holding a cello that was taller than I was.  He snapped the picture and the newspaper content editor decided to run it in the home town rag.  I was the only kid in school to get his picture in the paper without holding up a number plate across his chest all year.


The second , musical improvement, happened when someone apparently fell against the cello at some point during the school day.  I picked up cloth case to carry it home one Friday and immediately realized the neck was busted on the cello.  I was distraught.  Not because it meant that I wouldn’t be able to practice over the weekend, but because I knew Mom and Dad had signed a form to accept responsibility for any damage to the instrument.

I showed Dad, expecting a two-belt whoopin.  But either he believed that I had nothing to do with it, or more likely he was so busy trying to figure out how to patch it that he just plain forgot to punish me.

Over the weekend, he and I pulled the strings, carefully drilled holes in the neck and cello body, and glued that thing back together, then restrung the cello.

That Monday was the only time I remember the music teacher being impressed.  He said; “Wow, you must have really practiced this weekend, your sound has really improved since last week”.  

By the end of the school year, it was apparent that I was not going to solo at the Met, at least, not on the cello.


Summer passed blissfully amid chores and crawdad fishing, camping and biking out to the lake, dodging our babysitter and swimming.


Music class returned in September.

Since the Cello had proven to be a cantankerous critter, I changed to Trumpet.  Herb Albert, Luis Armstrong, and me.  Yep, that obviously had been the problem all along.  The Cello was obviously intended for a more refined person than I aspired to be.  But the trumpet, yea, Jazz, Marches, Ragtime.  That was the ticket.

And it was a lot easier to carry back and forth to school too.

Blowing into a small metal mouthpiece is a lot harder than you might think at first.  Sure, elephant flatulence is easy to do; Moose and Polar Bear only a little harder.  But try and get up to mouse, or mosquito level….and no matter how you look at it, that takes some crazy skill.

Oh, and thank God and good design for spit valves.

Although, there must have been a better place to put them, cause at first, it was awfully hard to miss my shoes.

Gradually over time I got the hang of sputtering into the mouthpiece in just the right manner to approximate the notes that I was being called on to create.  Although in truth, there was at the time a bit of discussion as to how well I was doing, but as any of you know who have ever dealt with a music teacher, they are unrepentant unreasoning perfectionists.

That left me with one minor failing as a trumpeter.  It turns out my typing and trumpet playing both suffer from some unknown genetic defect.  For some reason, every time I try to type certain words, they come out garbled; like instruemtn, or whatveer, or uncorodanitde.

Trust me on this one; Hello Dolly,When the Saints Go Marching In, and Tijuana Taxi just don’t benefit from dis-ordered valve keying.  

Another wonderful summer interrupted the great musician’s development.


Sixth grade was a shot at the Tuba.  I’d like to tell you I had some plan as to why pressing fat levers in case of small mother of pearl valve keys was supposed to help….but enough time has gone by that I sure have no idea what the “logic” was.

For some reason, I had to spend some time in Summer school that year.  And so, having learned that valves and their order of activation was critical, and effectively beyond my skillset, I moved on to the Trombone.

Very cool instrument.  Spit valve was placed better on those as well.  And I was the only kid in the summer band whose arms were long enough to run the full slide.

Problem with that one was that not only was there no way other than your ear to tell if you had the right note, but once or twice those long arms cleared the slide right off during a concert.

By the end of that summer session I had finally figured out;

It really wasn’t the instruments’ fault.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Hot Rocks III – Flying Rock

When I was 17 and the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster of my Troop, the troop found itself in need of a Scoutmaster.

Our father was the Committee Chairman for the troop and he sent out feelers looking for interested men who would be willing to take on the not insignificant risk of trying to control 50 odd (and I do mean  “odd”) teenage boys.

Not one of the fathers associated with the troop were foolish enough to offer themselves up for the position.  It seems that none of them were suicidal by nature.

As it turned out, the troop was sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church in town and John Finan and his wife were recently arrived members of the congregation.  John heard of the Scoutmaster opening and although he didn’t think he would qualify as Scoutmaster since he had only progressed as far as second class scout himself and didn’t have any children, he wanted to help in some way and hoped that the troop activities would allow him to spend more time outdoors.  So John contacted my father.

Little did John know that there are three characteristics that Committee Chairmen look for in adult volunteers.  Characteristics that I myself have used time and again in recruiting Scoutmasters, Committee Members, Cub Den Leaders, and other youth group adult leaders. Those three requirements have to do with vocabulary, complex sentence structure recognition, and religion.

More specifically to identify an imminently suitable youth group adult leader, one must look for those with an inability to clearly follow complex sentence structure and a vocabulary that ends somewhere shy of a Master’s degree in English combined with a rather deep seated psychosis that leads them to believe that they should be punished (what for is irrelevant).

In two words; gullibility and guilty.

After a simple interview process (one to confirm gullibility and general masochistic compulsions) John was signed on as the Scoutmaster.

The troop committee felt that an outdoor trip with John and the older boys would be a good teambuilding experience and Roman Bystroff offered to come along and act as mediator.  My father came up with a plan to use the family motorhome, pile John, Roman and the 5 boys of the senior patrol into it, drive up to Lake Tahoe, and while Dad and Mom would idle around a campground and relax, John would risk his life in the wilds with us boys.

John thought it was a good idea; confirming once more that he had the right characteristics to be an effective adult leader.



All in all most of the trip was pretty uneventful.  We boys were a pretty tight group consisting of myself, Brian McFann, Kevin Fagan, Carl Holiday, and Eric Gadd.  Roman and John didn’t push the issue of teambuilding, but allowed us to do our normal activities while they hovered around the edges in constant contact.

All went well until about noon on Sunday.  We boys had gotten up early, had breakfast and been swimming for a while.  We had all been idling around afterward and someone broke out a deck of cards.

Poker ensued.

John joined us boys, Roman wisely did not.

Now the thing you have to understand is that when backpacking every ounce counts.  So poker chips just naturally weren’t hauled along on trips.  And while we played for keeps, we didn’t play for money but only because none of us had any to lose.

So, naturally, we used rocks as chips.

Games started with all players having the same number of rocks.  You bet rocks on hands and whoever had the most rocks at the end was the winner.  Kinda brings a whole new meaning to “your losing your rocks, boy”, now don’t it.

Unlike conventional poker that you might play with friends or at the local casino, in our games along with having to concentrate on your cards and odds, you had to watch the dealer’s attempts to stack the deck and the other players attempts to hide out high cards for later use, as well as keeping an eye on the other players to make sure they weren’t “augmenting” their “winnings” by reaching around behind themselves and bringing additional chips into play.

The other players often thought that I should be forced to wear an eye patch during the games.  Not because seeing my eyes point two directions unnerved them, but because they felt it gave me a decided advantage.  Both at catching unscrupulous opponents, and at knowing when it was safe to augment my own winnings.

As the time neared that we had to hit the trail to hike out and meet my parents at the proper time and place to catch our ride back home, I called for one last hand then a quick swim and shoved all my rocks into the middle.  Everyone around the circle followed along.  As luck would have it I won.  Sort of.

On winning the hand I made some derisive comment or other directed at the rest of the players, grabbed my insulite pad had raced out into the lake for that last swim.  It almost was.

Kevin, either feeling frustrated from losing or just out of mean-spirited foolishness, picked up a rock and chucked it after me.  The second to last time he ever did something like that.
   
I held my pad up like a shield to block the rock.

The rest of the guys must have thought it was a target.

Roman later told me that he watched the rock throwing begin and watched John wrestle with whether he should or shouldn’t.  He chuckled as he described John weighting the “do the wrong thing, throw a rock and be part of the group” or “do the right thing, not throw the rock and be the ‘boring adult‘”.

Of course I saw none of that.  Because I was holding that pad up as high as I could between me and the shoreline rock throwers.  And that pad was taking an awful lot of hits from rocks.

John finally made his decision, picked up a rock and threw it.

The rocks pelting the pad stopped and I began lowering the pad.

My first impression was of the new Scoutmaster, weight on his forward leg, arm extended in my direction, fingers splayed wide, look of intense horror on his face.

My second impression was of being hit by a truck.  Follow closely by my third, the world turning red as blood from my new scalp wound flooded down across my eyes.  I don’t know what it is about scalp wounds.  But everyone of them I have had has bled like a cut throat.



John was very concerned that he had really injured me, and probably given me a concussion.

Likely doubly concerned since he had just beaned the most senior youth leader in the head with a rock.

And then triply concerned because the kid he clocked was the son of the Troop Committee Chairman.

And finally, quadruplely concerned because that same Committee Chairman was his ride home.

John didn’t know Vandermolen’s very well yet.



Cause first off, my head had been hit by things a whole lot worse than a little ol’rock by then.  Things like cliff faces, rock rakes, and cars to name the more common.  And so not only was it pre-toughened, but there was little evidence that there was anything up there to injure.

And secondly because as we approached the RV with my head in a large white wrapping looking every inch of the fife player you see on Patriotic 4th of July posters, and John tried to get far enough ahead of me to explain; Dad simply waved him off, took one look at me said “I fully expect you deserved it”.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Hot Rocks II - The Big Wet Rock

A couple decades plus after I had terrorized my eldest brother with my “Hot Rocks” stunts, I ended up getting a little of it paid back to me.  Such is the balance of Karma in the world I suppose.

As an adult leader in a scout troop, one of the programs I worked towards was week long 50 mile backpack trips.  They are tough, demanding, draining, and teach boys self-reliance and build confidence like no other activity.

And they provide the boys room to build their relationships and personalities.  One year, as our weekly trip was coming to an end we were actually running ahead of schedule.

The trip plan had called for an end at Thomas Edison Lake where a team of drivers was set to meet up with us the following day for rides homes.  The boys hit the trail head at the lake about 10 in the morning and had a head of steam up.  They wanted to hike further, not hang out at a Forest Service campground for the rest of the day.

So we all huddled over the maps and decided to continue out to Mono Hot Springs where we would be able to take long hot baths, recuperate, and clean up before being picked up in the morning.  It was a wonderful decision.  A few more miles and hours, and then the long afternoon soaking in cut-offs in naturally heated sulphur springs out on a sunny hillside.

Relaxation supreme with the song of the wind in the trees and the birds flying back and forth.

Of course, I should a known I was going to be in trouble.  When we stumped up next to the country store there at Mono Hot springs there was a Weather Rock.  For those of you who have never seen a Weather Rock, it is a locally collected rock, tied up in rope, and hung from a tree branch.

Nearby is a weather prediction guide.  It usually starts “if the rock is warm…its sunny”; “if the rock is wet, its raining“; “If the rock is white, its snowing”; and goes on from there.

That night around the campfire the boys asked me to dust off some stories and “Hot Rocks” just naturally popped up.


Early the next morning, the whole team rolled out at first light, ate a quick breakfast and packed up, moving the backpacks up to a parking area near the road.  Then four boys were sent up to the road to watch for our rides.  You see, there is only one road in to Thomas Edison Lake, and we knew the drivers had to pass Mono Hot Springs to get to where they thought we were.  And we didn’t want them to get past, it would mean hiking back up to the lake.

While the  Road-watchers were in place, the rest of the troop was busy generally screwing around as teenage boys are want to do.  Rocks were thrown, fish were caught, boys were soaked, and snacks were bought.

After a while, boredom set in and their fuzzy little minds started spinning.  At first they just slipped along a little, but then they finally lost traction all together.

I watched one of the younger boys walk over to a selected backpack and slip a couple rocks into it.  Not really big rocks mind you, but just small fist sized rocks.  The backpack he chose belonged to George, a fairly new boy who had volunteered to be one of the Road-watchers.  George’d had a tough week being younger than most and a bit homesick and since his mother was one of the drivers he wanted to be sure to see her pull up.

Now, one of the secrets of leading youth groups is knowing that young boys can’t keep a secret.  They just have to tell someone when they do something that is funny, outlandish, or wrong.  So, I settled down to watch the young rock carrier.  Sure enough, before the rocks he had carried had a chance to dry off, he was busy laughing and giggling with a couple other boys about sticking rocks in George’s pack.

The progression was predictable.

At first, a couple of the other younger boys got egged into adding rocks to George’s pack.  Then the older boys got to working it over.  Small rocks weren’t good enough for them, so they wrestled up a very large rock out of the middle of the creek and carried it, dripping, over to George’s pack.  But to fit it in, they had to empty out all the smaller rocks.  A bit of repacking of clothes and gear, and they finally got that miniature bolder secured in George’s pack.

I sat back and watched.  My first thought being “Don’t overplay your hand guys, too much weight will get you found out”.

But it wasn’t my place to teach them how to play tricks on each other, just to create a climate that allowed them to do so.  So I sat and watched what must have been a 40-50 pound rock get stuffed into George’s backpack.


The divers finally showed up and we began organizing to head home.  The SPL had all the boys grabbing their packs and hauling them over to the pickup truck.  I figured as soon as that pack was moved and handed up to the father loading the truck, the resting rock would be uncovered.  So I settled back to watch George move his pack.  But George’s Mother told him to put his backpack in her car instead.  And along with most of the boys in the troop, I watched George run over to his pack to pick it up.

Funny thing, George gets to his pack, grabs it, yanks, and it doesn’t so much as move.  He doesn’t even stop to think about it, just sets himself again and yanks harder, but that darn thing stays “glued” to the tree it is leaning against.   George wipes his hands on his pants, and I was sure now that the boys were going to get busted.  After all, George had packed that thing just a few hours earlier and carried it a quarter mile to the tree he leaned it against.

But an odd thing happened.  While George couldn’t budge it, he just kept trying.  His mother became impatient and exasperatedly headed over to help him.  I figured, “okay, now it comes“.

I mean after all, George’s mom had helped him get his gear together the previous week, and she knew George had been carrying his pack all week, and of course the pack had to weight less now since George had been eating food out of the pack all week.  Logic then dictated that George simply had to be able to pick up his pack, and if he couldn’t, then something fishy was obviously going on.

Instead I watched as George and his mom struggled together to barely lift the pack off the ground and stagger with it over to the car and tumble it, with a resounding thump and sagging compression of car springs, into the back of the SUV.

I was simply stunned.

I didn’t know how it could be, and wasn’t sure what, if anything, I should do.

Glancing at the boys who had stuffed that mini-boulder in the pack it was apparent that they were equally confused.  Their whole expectation had to be getting caught so they could joke with George and get a few laughs, and yet, they got nothing for it.  Reminded me of slipping the eggs into Mrs. Petersen‘s chicken coop that time.

We all just stood there and stared stupefied at each other.  Then everyone piled in a car and we all just simply drove home.

About 20 minutes after getting home, I got my comeuppance.

The phone ran.

I had an angry mother on the other end.

Yelling about rocks and backpacks.

Listening to her tirade, I flashed on a vision of Barry pointing at me and laughing.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Parenting Classes

Some years ago our son brought home from a note from his elementary school encouraging my wife and I to attend a series of “Parenting Classes” (for a “small” fee factored against our income of course).

The flyer promised to teach us how to raise successful, happy, well-adjusted children.  My wife thought we should go.

But then, she was also the one who read every “How to” book on being pregnant that had ever been written, twice, once each time one of our children was conceived.  Paying the most attention to any newly published book.  On the assumption I suppose that being pregnant had somehow changed recently.

At least I think that is why.  Truth be told, I wasn’t dumb enough to ask.  My momma didn’t raise no dummies; foolish and ignorant children maybe, but no dummies.

After all, that would have been a question with no upside and only three possible outcomes; I would have had to read all those books myself, I would have been forced to listen to and participate in a long discussion on the relative merits of each book’s ideas, or my reaction time would be tested; again.

Now, I do not doubt that becoming pregnant fills a woman with trepidation.  But it seems to me that once you’re pregnant, no one needs to teach you how to be pregnant.  For that matter, no one needed to teach you how to get pregnant either.  In fact, my observations through two of my own children’s gestations, and numerous friends kids’ gestations as well, is that pregnancy is quite capable of teaching a woman what to do and what not to do all by itself.

How else can you explain cracker crumbs in the sheets, pickles and ice cream at 2 o’clock in the morning, or the last minute flurry of cleaning?


Mankind has managed to survive tens of thousands of years of parenting before the first self-proclaimed “Parenting” expert sat down and wrote a book on what to do.

My personal observation is that raising a child is a hands-on experience.  Anything else would rather be like trying to teach someone how to talk, without ever saying a word to them.  Give them all the books you want, they won’t learn how to talk that way.

And as much as it defies the supposed wisdom of the experts, children have survived since the beginning of the species, despite a pronounced lack of parental education.

Now days, you could build a case that children survive despite the prevalence of parental education.

In fact, the more educated the parent, the more innate survival instincts a child better have.


As to going to classes held at the local elementary school?  I failed to see the benefit then, and I fail to see them now.

Back to the Parenting Class flyer.  The flyer proudly proclaimed that they had three “Parenting experts” who had come together to pass on their knowledge to us country bumpkin folks who apparently were destined to fail as parents without the benefit of their knowledge.  The flyer was liberally sprinkled with terms like “controlling pressures”, “sighting goals”, and “sure-fire” strategies.
Seemed to me that their marketing was focused at the local beer and firearms crowd.  Something that would of been considered racist by the liberal educators except for whom it was directed at.

Yep, all I had to do was put down my six pack of an evening , show up cash in hand, and I too could be as expert a parent as the three teachers “who are experts in the field”.  But I recognized that as a lie right off.  You see, I had my children out in the field, every day that they weren’t in school, and I hadn’t ever met any child rearing expert yet.

I have been involved in raising (to one degree or other) several hundred children by way of my efforts with youth groups, and if there is one thing I am confident of, it is that there is no such thing as an expert in the field.  I would go further and say that there is no right way to raise a child, although I can say there are a number of wrong ways.


To prove that these classes were going to be valuable, the flyer gave the resumes of the three teachers.  And it was apparent they all where up-to-date with current theory.  None of them had graduated from college more than a year earlier.  The oldest of those three was 24.

Now at the time, my wife and I had been in the real world trench warfare of the child-rearing battle lines for 10 years with my son, and 8 years with my daughter.  Cumulatively then, we had a combined 36 years of child raising experience.  And I just didn’t see what three young women were supposed to teach me.

Especially since they were all still childless.

To my considered opinion, what they were was “Non-parenting” experts.

Since I could readily assume that each one had spent the past 6-8 years investing principally in not having children.

© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen 

Apologies

In my life I’ve grown to know that I needed to apologize to my parents.  For the things I’d done to them, and the things I’d felt they had done to me.

And I have had to apologize to various others for breaking their toy, backing into their car, or popping open their last beer.


But the people who I most owe an apology is my children.

And as often as I do, I know it is not and will never be, often enough.

Not for the times I was too strict.

Nor for the times that I was too demanding.

Or even the times I didn’t listen enough.

No.


The apology I will forever owe them is because while the saying goes “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree”, it doesn’t say “the dang thing gets caught in the roots on the way to the ground”.

My children have spent, and will have to spend, far too much effort in their lives trying to shake off my more pronounced traits in their efforts to live in this ‘new world” society.

Shaking off the inbred alpha personalities, demanding expectations, and rigid standards will forever set them apart from what passes for humanity.  

And apologies aside, they have already proven themselves to be my better, in every human way.

Hinting at what they could be, if only I hadn’t…………..

For that I am eternally sorry.

 © 2016 Marty Vandermolen

Of Fish and Men

It's one of those days to just embrace who you are.

So, I have been hearing that the Striped Bass have been hitting the surf pretty hard lately.  Decided that I really should make use of my annual Fishing license so over the weekend I dug around and turned up an old plastic 5 gallon bucket.  Knew if I kept looking I would find one of those handy fabric pocket units made to fit over the rim of a bucket somewhere in my collection of garage sale acquisitions.  Yep, nice blue one.

A bit more scrounging around and I found an old cast off camo back pack strap set.  Fitted the blue pocket unit around the rim, few properly placed drill holes, handful on pop-rivets and washers, and I had a perfect fishing bucket.  Can walk the beach while casting the surf and carry everything I needed with me.  And should some fish get foolish enough to commit suicide on my line, even a place to toss the fish without it dripping down my back.

I loaded the pockets with weights, knife, pliers, swivels, leader, and tossed a small plastic container with a selection of plastic swim baits. And was set.

Monday's are never good for cutting out early, so drove the Jetta and figured I'd hit it Tuesday.  Tuesday morning came and schedule wasn't going to be any better.  But, heck, the ocean wasn't going anywhere, so Wednesday was the plan.

Tuesday night got the 12 foot surf rod and reel down from the rack and tied it in the Red VW.  Rolled up a pair of jeans and tee for after work fishing and set em on a table in the room to take out with me Wednesday morning.

Got up this morning, headed out, grabbed the wader and PFD tote out of the garage and my "new" fish bucket, dropped them in the bed of the truck, and headed to work.  Day was destined to be warm, with an off-shore evening breeze.  Looking forward to cutting out of work on time for a change.

About 10 am I realized....dang me, left the jeans and tee at home...

Decided at lunch, I could just pick up a pair of shorts and a tee shirt at the store and still make the beach tonight.  Easy done.

Five rolled around.  Pulled the tie, shirt, and slacks and changed into the new shorts and tee.  Jumped in the VW truck and fired it up.  Thought I heard an odd whistling sound, but it went away almost immediately, gauges looked good, engine sounded right, so into gear to fight the traffic northward towards the beach and homeward.

Stop and go, stop and go.

Finally broke out of the traffic and wound 'er up headed north.  5 miles later, the lane behind and beside me disappeared in a solid wall of white.  Oil pressure tanked.

Shut off the engine and coasted off the freeway.  Headed around back and the oil had blown all over the muffler.  Looked like the whistle I heard was a pin-hole leak in the hose leading from the oil pump to the external cooler.  Under full pressure, that pinhole blew wide open.

One tow truck ride later, and I am mostly pleased that fishing is a once in a while experience with me, and not a passionate hobby.  Because the fishing was so that I could have a different evening experience....and I got a tow truck ride, so that counts.  Don't it?

After sending the tow truck driver on his way, I transferred the 12 foot rod to the Jetta bike rack and the waders and fish bucket into the trunk.

You see, I've been hearing that the Stripers are hitting the surf pretty hard lately.

I think maybe I'll cut out of work on time for once tomorrow night and make use of that annual license I buy..........

© 2016 Marty Vandermolen