At the End of the Bar

 

Dan asked that I wear my Buddhist garb to writing group on Monday night. He says he has a bet with the guy at the end of the bar where we meet. Two months ago I told the guy at the end of the bar a little limerick. (Perhaps you know it? It’s the one that begins “There was an old hermit named Dave….”) Dan was hoping I’d show up at 7 p.m. in full wah-wah Buddhist trappings: sandals, orange robes and all. I believe the guy at the end of the bar couldn’t fathom how a nice little Buddhist would know by memory such filthy drivel much less recite it willingly in public. However I confessed to Dan that I am only a lowly initiate to Buddhism and I wear a navy blue rakusu like a bib around my neck. It is only the great teachers who take advanced vows who wear the saffron robes that Dan was imagining.

            People tend to forget that great vows or no, there is nothing too exotic about homosapiens the world over. Seven years ago I lived for some weeks in an ashram in northern India. Sadhaka Grama nestles in the Himalayan foothills near the Ganges and though it’s hot in the summer it has severely cold winters. Ashramites live in little bungalows and take their meals in a large dining hall. While I was there I kept silence and learned advanced yoga teaching techniques. I rose at 4 a.m. to meditate for an hour in a small hut where camphor and ghee were sprinkled on a wood fire as a symbol of progress toward purity of mind, and I attended lectures in the evening, but I still had time to myself each day. One morning in the beginning of March, after meditation and yoga and breakfast, the sun warmed the air and the sky stayed clear blue. I decided it was time to wash my clothes. This was done via a bucket placed in my bungalow’s shower stall. After a good sloshing wash and a rinse, I rung out my yoga outfits and my blue silk long johns and my fleece jacket and pants and took a wooden drying rack outside to the small cement patio near my front door.

            Outside I was greeted by the raucous mating-cry of a fat, green parrot on the electric lines strung across the ravine to the northeast and the fine site of drying rack, after drying rack placed on verandas throughout the ashram on the west. Nearly every resident had decided it was a good day for doing laundry.  Then I noticed that the racks outside the cottages where the swamis lived were filled with saffron robes, saffron shawls and t-shirts. As I looked longer I saw saffron-dyed socks and yes, underwear, too, dyed bright orange, like the sun. I smiled, silently thinking that it was a glorious spring day in northern India, saffron through and through.

            The next time I see Dan and the guy at the end of the bar I’m going to tell them this story.  And maybe the limerick about the young singer named June who arrived at rehearsal too soon.

                                                        

A Snake in the Grass

     I was walking in one of my favorite nature preserves a few days ago enjoying the late autumn view of oak trees turned a ruddy red and tall, green Norway pines that rose above a steep ravine of tall-grass prairie. Because of the incline, I looked down as I climbed and saw a funny, dark brown stick lying completely straight in the tangle of dead grasses. Its color was different from anything close by. It was very thin -- thinner than a pencil -- and about that long. Instinctively, I stepped over it, then turned back to see if it was a snake or in fact just a stick. I don't like snakes, creepy silent things, but it was so small and lay so still I couldn't resist investigating. What I took to be the front tip was rounded and slightly bigger, as a head would be, and the back end narrowed to a point. But it wasn't a baby garter snake -- weren't they green?

     'Nudge it; make sure,' I said to myself. 'Oh no,' I thought, 'I am being as brave as I can be right now. No sense in overdoing it.' But why was it so motionless? Was something so tiny capable of enough instinct to even sense my presence? It was probably a baby -- a day, or hour or two old. 'Maybe,' I thought, 'it is just a stick after all.'
I stepped back a pace and in turn stayed perfectly still. The sun shone on the little object. I waited. And waited. It moved; it was alive. I stepped forward and it froze, a slight curl now in its slender body. I froze. And waited. It raised its head eyeing the tall grass on the opposite side of the path to which it had now come, then slithered into it. Noiselessly. A little proud of my naturalist's instincts and very proud of my courage against such scary creature I turned to continue my trek up the hill and jumped involuntarily at the sight of a thick black form in the grass.

     Oh my, it was a branch in the path, nothing like a snake. But so much for bravery; I had snakes on my mind and my instincts, like the little brown slider's, were in perfectly good condition.

Lunch With Kids

    When I worked at Carlson Companies, I spent eight hours a day in a tiny cubicle. I used the lunch hour as a chance to get outside. On most days, I would eat lunch in my car in a shaded part of the parking lot while doing the crossword puzzle from the Star Tribune newspaper.

    On this particular day, the parking lot was being resurfaced. My shaded area was closed off to me. I drove around the nearby streets to find another spot. About three blocks away, I found the empty parking lot of St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church. A tall oak shaded the far corner. It seemed a perfect spot to enjoy my lunch.

    About half way through my crossword puzzle, as I was penciling E-S-A-U into 23 down, two Plymouth Police squad cars screeched to a halt, red lights flashing, in front of my car. Four officers emerged with their hands resting on their guns. One approached the window on the drivers’ side. I rolled down the window.

    “Let me see some ID,” he commanded.

    I put down my sandwich and crossword puzzle, dug out my wallet, fished out my driver’s license and handed it to him. He handed it to another officer who took it to one of the squad cars.

     “What’s going on?,” I asked.

     “I’ll ask the questions. What are you doing here?”

     “Eating a sandwich and doing the crossword puzzle.”

     “Don’t get smart with me, young man.”

     This coming from a man who looked at least five years younger than me.

     “'Why are you in this parking lot?' was the question I asked.”

     That wasn’t the question I had heard.

     “They’re resurfacing the parking at Carlson Companies, where I work. So I parked here today. Here’s my Carlson ID.”

     “We got a call about a suspicious character lurking around the Day Care Center.”

     Lurking?

     “What day cay center?”

     He pointed toward the rear of the car. I turned and looked. I saw a row of pines, behind that a barely visible eight foot high chain link fence. Beyond that, I saw what could have been the top of roof of a building.

     “What day care center?” I asked.

     “Don’t get smart with me, young man.”

     He put his hand on his gun, turned on his heels and walked to one of the two squad cars. About ten minutes later he appeared at my window. I put down my sandwich and crossword puzzle and looked up at him.

     “It appears everything checks out. But we are making a report of this and keeping it on file.”

     I sincerely hoped no children in the seven county area would be abducted in the next year or so. I was sure my name would appear first on the list of likely suspects.

      “From now on I would suggest you eat lunch in the park," he said as he looked down his nose at me.

      “But there are more kids there, than here!” I answered.

      “Don’t get smart with me young man!”

Get Off Your Mobile Phone

     Here is a video from my musical comedy -- GOT IT MADE.  Let me know if you can relate:

Get Off Your Mobile Phone http://vimeo.com/35470361 "Another audience favorite from GOT IT MADE. What could be more annoying than someone driving while on their cell phone? Until YOU need to make a call, that is." Involves Maureen Kane Berg.

The Right Baseball

Coco Crisp, after dropping an easy fly ball, was once quoted as saying, "The ball didn't do its job. I did my job. The ball didn't do its job."

Here I thought it was the first baseman making game saving plays or the pitcher making all the right pitches. But it was really just the ball doing its job.

I don't know if Coco was serious or not but he might have a point. Maybe it was the baseball. Perhaps there are a few baseballs that are flawed, that are not wound as tight as others or where the seams are slightly higher than the others. These variances could be the difference between a baseball clearing the fence by a few feet or finishing at the warning track, or a curve ball breaking more.

Should baseballs be expected to be the same? All bats are not the same. All gloves are not same. Baseball parks vary from city to city. The Metrodome was criticized for affecting the outcome of games with baseballs getting lost in the roof. But nothing is said when a baseball gets lost in the sun or the wind converts a routine fly ball into a homerun in an outdoor stadium.     

Baseballs should be, and are, rewarded for their accomplishments. Record setting baseballs sit in trophy cases and bring huge sums at auctions and on eBay. Some have even earned a spot in Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame.

This all makes me feel better about my failed dream of becoming a major league baseball player. It wasn't that I didn't have the skills or the talent to play in the big leagues.

It's just that I didn't have the balls. 

Dan Shepard's Annual Top 10 TV Shows

2012 2011

1        1 Amazing Race—Notice their formula every year?  A team of gays…a father and son…two cheerleaders…a minority couple…a dating couple…newlyweds…best friends…a handicapped player…a couple in their 60’s…a couple of midgets…  

2        2 Survivor---We are only into episode four and one guy has been injured five times already.

3        NEW: Vegas—I had Sheriff Ralph Lamb in my cab in the late 90’s.  Dennis Quaid portrays him perfectly.

4        3 The Biggest Loser—The fatter they are the more interesting the show.

5        NEW: Longmire—I guess I like sheriffs in modern day westerns.

6        4 Hell’s Kitchen---If you are a poor cook with an emotional problem, you can be on this show.

7        5 Celebrity Apprentice—If you are famous and have an emotional problem you can be on this show.  

8        NEW: World Series of Poker—Player Rob Salaburu has stolen my act at the poker table.

9        7 Blue Bloods—Tom Selleck is great in everything I’ve ever seen him in.

10      8 Bill O’Reilly—If I didn’t watch this show I wouldn’t know what’s REALLY happening in the country.

Honorable mention: John Stossel, American Idol

        That is all,
          Dan Shepard
            dandarla23@comcast.net

Stuff On The Side Of The Road

       I have been doing a lot of walking lately. It always irritates me to see all the trash on the side of the roads.

       Besides the usual cigarette packages, plastic bottles, McDonald’s bags and beer cans, I find some things that one might not expect. I have to wonder how they got there.

       Condoms, new - it ain’t happening tonight, so you can just throw those out the window right now – and used – I guess we don’t need those anymore – litter my path.

       Old cell phones – at least they won’t be talking or texting while driving.

       Men’s underwear and women’s panties just two blocks before the used condoms – wow, that didn’t take long.

       Today I found an old address book. I opened it up. Listed inside were women’s phone numbers.  Only women’s phone numbers. It was a black book. This guy really knew a LOT of women.

       He couldn’t have just lost this. Maybe his girlfriend found it and tossed it out. But I would like to think he had met the woman of his dreams and had no further use for the book and left this gold mine of numbers for someone else.

      Someone like me maybe!

       No, I am well past the age for this book to be of any use to me. It probably never would have been.

       I decided to put it back on the ground where I found it. He just might change his mind and come back for it.