NOT the Marrying Kind

“Why aren't you married yet?”

Many of us singles, who will never cross the threshold, girl and boy alike, for whatever reasons, feel a bit miffed when asked.

It sounds like an accusation.

“Why aren't you married yet? Are you gay? Lesbian? A boozer? Mentally Ill? A misanthrope who hates everyone? A total and complete LOSER?”

We can take it like that.

I once countered that question from a girl I knew years back with this retort.

“Why aren't you divorced yet?”

It was common knowledge her marriage was in tatters and I had several beers in me. Warning: Don't ask me anything too personal because if I'm buzzed, I will answer honestly. Alcohol is a truth serum to me. I got slapped in the face once for this in my 20's. I've gotten better with spilling the truth as I have become older...sort of. When I do shove my foot in my mouth, I can really get all of it in!

**

I look back on my life now. I guess as I get older, and get a clearer picture of what happened back then due to the perspective I have now, I can't help but look back. If you don't do this in an older age, I feel sorry for you. Things come full circle and you better tie up all those loose ends or you'll end up as a ghost haunting some family ala Poltergeist. Spookily coming out of a TV set and causing all sorts of havoc because you haven't settled things when you were alive.

So why didn't I get married?

I made a silly chart to show why. I found out that most of the girls I knew were what I called, “roller coaster rides” and I don't mean anything sexual (though that did have a part in it). What I mean is that I was addicted to anything exciting. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush! In fact, I can point to a particular girl I knew who ruined it me for years. “D'arby” I never had a better ride than that. It was like shooting amphetamines, cocaine and then standing on the third rail of subway train. It was one hell of a summer I spent at Misquamicut/Matunuck. I never forgot it. Of course it never lasted, these meteors burn out fast! After her, I kept looking for that elusive ride again. I had a hard time recreating it.

I once did find a very nice, pretty stable women about 10 years back. She had a decent career, two kids who themselves were smart and not hellions and overall, their family unit was intact. The ex husband stayed the hell out of her life except for the kids and there was no animosity from what I saw between them.

I ended it eventually as I lost that spark.

Why? She was boring.

At a restaurant in North Providence one night, she was complaining about her ex and why he strayed.

“He called me DULL! That was the reason he was going with his co-worker! DULL! Of all things to call me stuffy and stodgy!”

I sat there and thought to myself, “Wow, it's not just me who thinks this....her own husband thought and said the same thing! You are a bit stuffy!”

Well, we were both right, he and I. She was a great person but...but..she lacked that fun aspect to her, a bit of unpredictability is nice once in a while. I mean manageable unpredictability, not “Let's rear-end a State cop car, drive off and see how far we can get away with it!” kind of recklessness.

**

So here's the chart. Those dots are various girls I have known and I noticed they all clustered in the “fun” or “danger” category. They were NOT the marrying kind. I guess neither was I.

Do I regret not marrying? Probably not. You can't miss what you never had and then there are all those divorces I've seen happen to people I've known over the years. Jesus H Christ does that seem fun huh? Sure, I'd like to be out of money, pissed off and have my kids treat me like an ATM machine because they are plying both my ex wife and I off one another to win the kid's affections. Or...the threat of being divorced and staying in the marriage would feel like jail.

Co-mingling assets. I was warned about that. I like my assets right here in MY pocket!

Is there a chart for you girls? There sure is! Look below!

Merry Xmas!

12 Periods of Christmas

(Ok, I can't think of any more Xmas stories and I'm too lazy to come up with one so here's a piece from a few years ago that still makes me giggle.)

1-5 years old

You're too young to understand the concept of Christmas. Toddlers enjoy the pretty lights, the gingerbread cookies and popcorn ball treats, the songs and carols and everything fun about the holiday but they don't quite yet understand the power of Xmas. To young kids, Christmas feels like a second birthday except the gifts are doubled, there is no blowing out of birthday candles or parties with ponies taking embarrassing dumps in the backyard. At this age the toy or the box it came in is just as fun to play with. Chewing on the Christmas light cords like the dog does is also fun to do.

6-8 years old

This is the Christmas sweet spot. The age when anything...any gift, magical event, or wish is possible thanks to a fat man living up north in a house full of midgets making toys strangely identical to major manufacturers (yet no one seems to mind). The holiday also includes the greatest gift of all — a week off from school and the constant torture of teachers, bullies and the inability to take a dump for eight hours a day because no one would dare use a bathroom at school...under any circumstances. This is also the age where breaking your new toys can be fun too. This was hard at one time because Tonka made their toys out of real metal. You kids have it easy today!

9-12 years old

Santa was a lie! You had an idea a few years earlier but now all signs point to your parents shoveling you bullshit for the first decade of your life. What else have they been lying about? Oh just tooth fairies, bunnies delivering chocolate and your uncle who stopped coming by the house a few Thanksgivings ago. He’s not in the Peace Corp, he’s doing 12 years at Danforth Federal Prison, but they won’t say exactly what for. Maybe lying to his kids about a jolly fat dude with a perverted sounding “naughty” list and a tooth collecting broad with more singles than a main stage stripper on a busy Saturday night to dole out. This is the age where you begin to play the same game back to your parents by ever so deftly manipulating them into getting the gifts you want. This is especially easy if your parents are divorced. You can really haul it in! Work their guilt and hateful competition of one another.

13-20 years old

It’s not about asking for toys anymore, you're a teen, it’s about getting gifts to elevate social status. Designer clothes, expensive kicks, flashy tech gear and maybe even a car if you’re old man is willing to finally give up his beater of a ride, buy something built in the 2000s, and fork over the keys. You also loathe yourself for getting so excited over a Christmas gift basket filled with stuff you need at college. You just kissed your parents for the thoughtful gift of bulk toilet paper and rolls of quarters to do laundry. You also realize that getting any clothing is a great gift because you didn't have to spend your own money to get it yourself. That sweater your GrandMom got you at a eleven years of age wasn't a sucky gift after all.

21-25 years old

You’re out of college. You’ve got a job. It’s now your responsibility to buy gifts for your entire family. Thankfully, Jesus invented gift cards (it’s in the New Testament) so gift buying is a cinch. Unfortunately, you spend the day after Christmas in return lines because your family has no idea what clothes you wear, your actual size, what music you like, and that you haven’t read a book since Lit 101. And seriously, what the fuck is a compact disc? You also discover that the Chinese are heathens and don't celebrate Christmas and mercifully keep open their restaurants on Christmas night so you can escape your family and go get drunk with your other 20-Something friends. You won't feel like a loser alcoholic because the place will be packed with others doing exactly the same thing.

25-30 years old

You’re in a long term relationship and you're already spending the Xmas money you don't even have yet (credit cards!) on engagement rings and first homes. The holidays start feeling really different, since you don’t spend them with your own family anymore, but with her family, her friends, and maybe if there is time you can swing by your parents house to visit your mom who’s pissed you’re not spending the holiday with your family and an old man who has been drunk since his work Christmas party in early December. Stopping by with the right excuses may lessen the jealousy of your parents. Remember to leave the girlfriend home at her parent's place. Realize as well that come Decmeber 26^th, Christmas never existed nor happened as you are back to your regular workaday world and have to spend most of your attention on that. A reminder? Your Chase Bank credit card bill will arrive in two weeks.

30-40 years old

This decade sucks one massive Yule Log. You’re married, you’ve got kids, and those kids demand toys considered “hot ticket items” which oddly get released the week before Christmas that Hasbro has been hyping the shit out of all season. So you're traveling in circles around the state just days before Christmas, sometimes even across a couple state borders, to find one stupid Hatchanimal. As you frantically search each store hoping for a miracle (does Home Depot carry toys?) the only thought circling your head is the kid's disappointment because the toy isn't under the tree. You've failed as a parent. You SUCK. You’ve given them a love, a home and attention but couldn’t deliver a fucking toy every other kid will get and wave in the faces of your kid. Hopefully the arresting officer will go lightly on your situation after you punch a nun buying a cart full of Hatchanimals for an orphanage. It’s a Christmas miracle you didn’t give her a concussion.

40-50 years old

You've got kids in their teens and early 20s. The toys turn into gadgets and the holiday morphs into an event exorbitantly more expensive than ever before. As if footing the bill for six years in college and another year “finding themselves” isn’t enough of a gift. You don't like anything about the holiday — from the songs you've heard for a full month each of the last four decades. The Classic radio stations you love now play this crap 24/7. Also the decorating, the traffic, the commercials and those Charlie Brown specials you adored in your youth but now feel like PSA cartoons about the dangers of bullying in school. Seriously, if ever there were ever a cartoon kid to shoot up a school, it's Charlie Brown. A mindful jury would exonerate him.

50-60 years old

You don't care about Christmas till a week ago. Your wife (if you're still married) does all of the shopping, you only have to buy for her, and yet you still manage to screw that up. Your kids visit for a couple hours, just to collect their gift cards and eat, and shuttle out the door to visit their future in-laws because they are “splitting time” between families this year. You’d all celebrate together but your in-laws are fucking morons with big mouths. You're also not allowed to eat half the food on the Christmas table because of high cholesterol or that just-starting heart problem you've been diagnosed with. You go to the buffet table in the other room alone where you can to shove all that salami into your mouth, as long as they don't see it, it can't hurt. You end the day in a drunken sleep.

60-70 years old

The holiday is slightly more enjoyable. You're older now, semi-retired, and living off a smaller salary so no one expects absurdly expensive gifts. There are also grandchildren. It's fun to watch them open gifts, get excited for Santa and get wrapped up in the festivities like your kid's did — and you — did so many decades ago. It's also enjoyable to witness your own children, now grown, slowly lose faith in the holiday while chasing down the newest piece of crap toy. You're laughing your ass off, chugging spiked eggnog and grinning “welcome to the club” with a warmth that’s probably thanks to the brandy spiked chocolates and double rum cakes. If there is one thing to celebrate during the holidays it’s booze-infused baked goods. What's also good is that at this age, you can complain of feeling too cold or tired and your kids will drive you home early and you get to avoid all the drama.

70-80 years old — You don't notice, or care, it's Christmas time. Many of your friends are dead, all your kids are gone during the holiday, visiting your grandkids or just refusing to spend time with a miserable old bastard like you. The good news is no one expects shit from you as far as presents because you're living off a pension or meager social security benefits. Retirement? Ha! Bigger bullshit that Old Saint Nick. Your family would rather you not buy them gifts anyway since you're terrible at buying gifts. It's because you always left it up to your wife. You'd buy gifts that had meaning to you, 50 years ago! Where is your wife? Well, it depends which wife you're talking about. Also, you spend at least five minutes on Christmas day thinking about your own death. It will kill the mood of any retirement community holiday pizza party.

80-90 years old — Christmas? You call this shit Christmas?!? When I was a kid, THAT was Christmas! You refuse to talk about the Christmas that's going on now and prefer to speak of ones that occurred right after WW2...during the German Reconstruction period. Also, each Christmas you manage to see keenly reminds you of the next one you, by probability and Social Security longevity statistics, won't see.

It's High Time...

(Disclaimer, and it's a damn shame I have to say it but there are many who are too duh duh to get it. I can write pretty dryly and the less clever can't see that. I'm being tongue in cheek here! I also claim my First Amendment rights)

Transgenders, gay, lesbian, transsexuals and anyone that identifies as a giraffe are all accepted, at least in a court of law they will be. It's fairly amazing achievement considering about 50 years ago you could be arrested for being any of the above. The State of New York used to bust your door in if they had a court order accusing you of being a homosexual. Being dragged out into the open like that could ruin your career and life.

How things have changed.

But...but...still even today, if you're an older male and you look two and half seconds a bit too long at a college girl...you're a LECH! A DIRTY OLD MAN! A DEGENERATE! A DEVIANT! For SHAME! Don't you have ANY decency?!

(By the way, I've seen older women look at college girls too, not out of any lesbian attraction, but out of pure JEALOUSY)

So when do Dirty Ol' Men achieve acceptance like everyone else has? We're tired of being oppressed! Damn! Cougars, the female versions of us, are accepted! They're cheered on! We dirty old men want Federal protection! We want our RIGHTS! It shouldn't be just for old, millionaire ex rock stars who marry 40 years younger!

You know who has the hardest times with this and most won't admit it but you can read their faces when it happens...and it does happen? Married guys with older daughters who leer that 2.5 seconds longer than they should at their daughter's female friends. I once called out a friend who eyeballed his 20 year old daughter's friend and he became wholly flustered and spouted a line of denials when I mentioned it to him. A guy looking at pretty woman has the same look as a wolf has looking at elk. Want, desire and drooling hunger. I know the look! Well, Ha! Too late! I busted him doing it! He had the look as if he was staring at an elk with a lame leg that couldn't run away. And if you're a Dad and your 20 Something daughter brings friends over, don't deny it, I've seen it too many times. All it takes is ONE glance!

When I was younger, and I mean “40” younger than the “pushing retirement age” I am now, I was sitting in my favorite Celtic Pub bar, when a 20 Something guy next to me opens up and asks a question of me.

“Why do guys your age look at younger women? I see it all the time.”

I answer him:

“Easy...they're pretty.” I could tell by the look on his face he didn't get it so I elaborated further.

(Before I go on...an apology to women in general who are my age. I, too, am looking worn, tired and threadbare. Very, very few college girls will want a future with me unless I am a millionaire and look like I will die soon, leaving it all to them)

I tell this Kid this:

“When you go into Stop and Shop and you go to the vegetable aisle, stand in front of the loose green peppers...which ones do you pick out? Which ones you choose?”

The Kid is quiet, as he doesn't know where I'm taking this so I answer it for him.

“You choose, the cutest, prettiest, tightest, smoothest and YOUNGEST pepper out of the bunch! You don't go for the soft, wrinkly or blemished peppers do you?”

“No” the kid answers.

“And that's why we older guys go for younger women, we see 'health.' You'll understand this as you get older.” I tell him. It's true. 23 year old guys cannot see what a 23 year old woman really looks like, you have to be older to see it.

**

At an old job I had, there was a guy we sort of named “John the Floor Guy” as that was his job. He was retired, very old but a nice guy who took care of the floors in the facility. He would routinely remark to me about the girls working there as many were in their early 20's.

But one day, one of the girls really tortured him., using her 21 year old charms on him.

John tells me one morning that one of the girls, a small Italian one, called him into an empty room and yanked down her pants in front of him.

“You like this John? She says. “You like my thong? Hmmmmm?” As she curled her body this way and that.

Apparently John's riveting his eyes on the girls there didn't go unnoticed by the women and one decided to really let him have it.

“Ron! She really did it about 20 mins ago! That little bitch was teasing the shit out of me! But Damn! What a body! God! I wish I was her age!”

“John” I tell him, “if you were 21 she'd NEVER do that to you, unless she was a stripper...she's just toying with you because she knows you can't do anything about it here or later...you're old and married. She knew she was safe!”

“It's wrong!” he says. “You can't blue ball a 67 year old guy! It's plain WRONG! Girls never understand just how that feels to us!”

I told him I agreed with him. That really was a low blow but at the same time, he enjoyed it as well.

So this doesn't turn into a lecher's lament, I'll quote John Keats and make noble this appreciation of beauty...

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Livin' On the Fault Line

Yeah, it's been a while since I put something up. Unfortunately, last summer there was a management change at where I work and the long term, core staff, myself included, did all we could to keep the place from sinking. I think we were dog paddling to keep our noses just above the waterline some days. We could have let the whole thing run off the rails and smack the wall but the problem is that we're on that very train as well and that's no fun. So we did what we could to stabilize it day after day to have the smoothest time of it. There weren't too many of those days as I did count them on one hand. Our work requires a team effort as we race against the clock and it doesn't take much to wreck the whole game plan because the work requires some pretty tight maneuvers and time management. Bring in someone who doesn't understand that and watch the whole thing crash.

Back last summer, I became so disgusted that I wrote up a resignation letter, undated, just in case my Mr Hyde personality came forth. There were a couple of instances where I might have marched out to my car, gotten that letter out of the glove compartment, date it, come back in and slap it down on the desk.

“Fuck YOU! I've HAD it! Have fun getting someone up and running in two weeks!

Lousy work environments sap you.

I've outright quit two jobs in my life and in one instance (and I won't say who) the facility was trying their damnedest to get sued for malpractice and I didn't want to hang around to watch that happen, or worse; testify in court! The other was with Coalition for Consumer Justice, an organization that I fully agreed with except they had me trying to beg donations from the most Republican areas in Rhode Island. It was like trying to sell porn in Tehran. Places like Little Compton viewed us as Commie Death Squads and it was no fun trying to squeeze cash out of them. I don't care how persistent you can be, you hear “No” a thousand times and you tend to get discouraged.

**

Why didn't I quit? Perhaps I should have?

I figured it out and it's two fold. I can, due to experience, put up with a TON of shit when I have too. There were times where I wore that as a badge of honor, a testament to my mental toughness to endure a shitstorm and walk out of it alive, perhaps wounded, but I managed to survive. When there are no other options, you have to walk through the fire. Do that enough times and your skin thickens, you become necessarily mean and you get used to it.

But, there will be no medals or parades for this kind of tenacity.

On the flip side of that, I was hit with an idea “Hey, I can tolerate a lot of crap...but wait...Why should I live in an earthquake zone just because I know how to? WHY NOT JUST MOVE?”

Jesus, the answer was that simple, “Why not just move? Why live on the San Andreas when you can MOVE?”

Well, things have changed once again at work and my personal jury is still out deliberating on the final verdict. I have to admit things have stabilized somewhat but for how long and what policy changes will we see in the future? We'll see...

I Know What I'm Doing..Sheesh!

Hair stylists really ought to get into landscaping. The reason this popped into my head was that my lawn needed to be mowed and I won't have the time, energy nor motivation to do it in the next four days. If ignored four days hence, it'll look grubby and disheveled. So I went out and did it. Once cut I looked back and thought, “There, just like a new haircut, all neat and trim.”

Andy LeCompte could sell grass shampoo and perhaps a stylish lawnmower that doesn't leave split ends. Ah, it's been done already, Scotts fertilizer company makes their living off of neurotic homeowners who equate a neat lawn with moral hygiene.

And in fact that's what it's all about, framing the house, keeping it's “face” neat, clean and presentable. An upstanding member of the community is a house that's well scrubbed!. My home's face is now admissible to the neighborhood for another couple of weeks. I pray it doesn't rain and the sun bakes all plant life into dormancy so I don't have to mow anything. 

**

I once said my learning curve for self training or being coached for that matter looks like hell at first. I make a zillion mistakes but fairly quickly I tend to “get it.” The problem occurs if the discipline is dangerous. Chains saws for that matter. There isn't much forgiveness early on in the learning curve for that kind of study. You screw up once and....it's 911.

Then there's the opposite. The “I Know What I'm Doing” attitude. Now here's one I've been seriously guilty of because “I know what I'm doing, I've done it a million times before...” Experience tends to work since you have worked with something a lot, but then there are those times...

Years ago in another career I worked for a group home that had a lawn. In an effort to cut costs, the agency had fired their outside landscaping teams. They then suggested that the employees of the various homes cut their own lawns. We were paid for it.

So, one late July I'm out, making nice straight passes back and forth in the front yard, with my brain going elsewhere as it does when I do a repetitive task. That's doable really, you can apply just enough attention to something that bores the f out of you and still get it done, while you make plans to get good and drunk at Misquamicut beach one day.

Mowers have that chute where it expels the clippings and from all lawn mowers I worked with, they get clogged. I had learned, since I was a teen, to quickly flick the obstruction out, either with my foot or hand. I became pretty adept at it and for years I was successful doing it without one problem.

That day however was different. The mower chute became clogged and I kneeled down in front of it and then flicked out the clog. But that's when I felt a strange sensation. I felt 10-15 weird vibrations in my hand as I did it. I then noticed my white painters pants looked like someone had flicked a paintbrush full of red paint all over them.

I was in NO pain whatsoever and was confused. What the hell just happened? What was that sensation?

Then slowly, my eyes tracked to my left hand.

Jesus H Christ. I never thought that any part of my body would look like freshly ground hamburger. I had some pretty good spills in my life, falling off a bikes, a freight train and a few car crashes where my idiot friends treated Newport Ave like a dragster strip. But none of those times did I see any part of my body opened up and twisted like that.

I ran into the home, wrapped a towel around the index and middle fingers of my left hand and sat down. Nick, another employee there, wanted to see “how bad it was” and I took off the towel but I  refused to look. All he said was, “Wow.”

“Wow” isn't a good word sometimes.

A few minutes later A. comes through the door and suggests I go to Kent County as it doesn't look like Band Aids will help much.

As we were driving to Kent, I was preparing a speech to tell the nurses and Dr's about what I had done.

Dr: “You stuck your hand inside a running lawn mower?”

The Fool: “Wait! There's a reason why I did! You see, for years I've been able to...”

Of course they talked about it. I'm sure one went around the corner and said, “Hey, Margaret, go to bed 4 and see the tard who shoved his hand in a lawn mower! No joke, he did it!”

You know how many times I had to tell that story? About my being able, for years, to magically clean out a running lawn mower chute with bare body parts? Nearly every nurse, Dr and hand surgeon I met.

After being X-rayed and stuck with antibiotic needles, the Dr asked: “You see anything on the lawn, I mean besides blood?”

“No..why?” I ask.

“Well, from the X ray, you no longer have any bone in the tip of your middle finger....I wondered if you saw it on the lawn..if so, we could put it back. It's pretty resilient, it can stay out of your body for quite a while and still 'be good.'

“No” I say, “I saw nothing.” The truth is, probably, that bone was turned into bone meal. It's now part of the ecosystem in western Cranston now.

After being sutured up, given an appointment for hand surgeon at a later time, I go home. For weeks I have to hear...

“You did WHAT? You put your hand inside a RUNNING mower?”

Cue the story again. “Look, I've been able to, for years, clear that chute...”

**

My Hand Surgeon.

Once my fingers healed and they healed into a knobby scar tissue oddity, I met the hand surgeon.

He had told me that he would have to cut it all up again and re-suture things so they'd grow back “normal” looking. He also said I didn't really need a bone in the top of my middle finger since scar tissue in there would be nearly hard enough to provide some structure. As for the lack of feeling in those fingers, he said the nerves will regrow but it'll take months.

Ok, great, cut away...

Once that was done, he gave a six month appointment to return to see if everything healed up as it should.

Three months later as I was reading the ProJo, I come across an interesting story. Apparently a Kent County Dr had shot his own hand with a .357 revolver while “cleaning” it. I thought for a moment...”Hmm..was it the hand surgeon? The ER Dr? Or was it no one I knew?” I let it go as life goes on.

My six month appointment is due and I return. They bring me into the room with the hand surgeon and he starts to look and manipulate my hand. He also asks if everything is OK. As he was doing this I noticed a large, star shaped scar on the palm of his hand.

“Holy Shit...it WAS him!” I think. I seen bullet holes in dead animals, usually if it's a contact shot where the muzzle of the firearm was resting against the skin. The pressure blows out a weird star shaped wound. I can't keep quiet so I blurt out...

“So....I'm NOT the only one!” I say.

“Huh?” says the Doc.

“Your hand...you're the one who shot himself!” I say.

I see the look on his face, it's the same look I had on mine when trying to explain to everyone else what I did.

He comes forth and tells the real story. He wasn't cleaning anything. He tells me he was trying a old gunslingers' gun trick called a Road Agent spin. It's where you look like your surrendering your weapon, to be taken from your hand, but at the last moment you can drop, spin it and fire into the bad ass Sheriff who's taking you for Fort Laramie to be hanged.

Here's the actual trick...

Click Pic and Watch

“It went off.” he says. “Right through my hand, through the TV set and into the next room.”

“Damn, you are lucky, had there been another person in there...” I say.

“Yep...” he says.

I felt A LOT better about my little accident after learning a hand surgeon, SHOT his own hand.

Anyways, I no longer flip anything out of the chute. I just jack the mower up and down till it falls out on it's own...and my yard is pretty enough to date once again. 

 See? All healed. You'd never know had I not told you!

RIC

Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world...and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children!

I went back to my old college, RIC, to keep an appointment with a career counselor. I'm looking into the future, short term and long term and realizing that changes will occur whether I want them to or not. I do however prefer the environment around me become a product of mine, not the other way around. We'll see how lucky I am.

“You do realize the retirement horizon is looking at you.” C. Carsini said to me. What's weird, I know this, but when someone else says it to your face....ouch. By the way, RIC is still staffed with women from Nawt Providence, a third were chewing gum.

I had figured the campus had changed but I wasn't ready, nor aware of how much it has really transformed. Driving in from Mt Pleasant I was greeted with LED signs, external bulletin boards, telling me what's up for the day, week and month there at RIC. As I walked from my car to Robert's Hall, I was met with even more change.

“Where did that building come from? It wasn't here 10 years ago.”

“And that one...”

“No...the Fogarty building never had an annex.”

The main building I was interested in was Gaige Hall, where I spent a pleasurable part of my youth. There was one room where the History Club met daily and we commandeered it for our own hedonistic use, with the help of a professor who ran interference for us. I wanted to see it again.

After meeting the counselor, she had told me, “Well, if you go to Gaige, the only thing that remains, and what you'll remember, is the outside brick work.”

So I go Gaige and am stunned. The place has been gutted and re-designed. It's a bit sterile but the electronic kiosks, the WiFi antennas and a host of other new gadgets fill the place. The elevators talk and the water fountains have digital screens on them. Why would you possibly need a digital screen on a bubbler? I should have tried it out to see what it does...but I didn't.

I try to find that room we all hung out at and had so much fun.

Not There.

I try all floors, perhaps my memory is off.

Not There. Not There.

But I remember it being there! This place is of Legend! It looks like it was ripped out and turned into a larger classroom. It has similar, but smaller equipment Roger Waters used to project images/movies on his Wall. A youngish professor was on a lap top running it all for this summer session class, spraying images of Medieval Europe on the white board that transformed from one to another.

Damn...

Well, it was 32 years ago...Shit...I grow old.

**

Another thing about being my age, you pack on the experience. As I walked the campus I noticed the women there. Of course I did, nothing's prettier than a college girl. But as I passed them walking, sitting down reading, my brain just popped out quickie evaluations of them I could never have forged when I was that age. I wasn't mature enough yet. I had not yet learned that people wear, quite unconsciously, their innermost personality on their shoulders. From that, you get a nearly decent estimation of them. I suppose working with the deaf population taught me a few things as well. Body language for example.

I passed one girl, at a table, slightly geekish and reading. She looked up with a hint of desperation to talk to anyone. “Who are you? Are you alive? Wow..a REAL person!”

“Lonely...stuck living in her dorm all summer long” I thought.

Another I talked to in order to find a certain room...

“Professional girl working for RIC, being paid crap. Lit up when I talked to her...bored shitless she is.”

In the waiting room at CC at RIC, a 20 year old with the self esteem of a bug was reading a weight loss magazine. What drew me toward that was her long sigh after holding up a fold out showing a genetically lucky girl who was proportioned perfectly. This girl who was sighing didn't need to lose an ounce. But try to tell her that. Try to tell her that she's in her 20's and has the best look she'll ever have, before age ruins her.

There was a kid I passed, his look was of defeated confidence. God knows why. He had passed a girl his age, a nice girl, who looked up at him as they walked by each other. He never spotted her curiosity. He was lost in his mind and missed that look he received.

I passed a proverbial douchebag as well. Every college has a few of them. The thing was I could see right through that mask. Those guys I knew in my college years seemed to “with it” but now...jesus..now I see them as jokes. “All you have, my friend, is your display, you have no talent yet, you have no chops!”

Only if...only if...I had this perception when I was at RIC then, I'd have 24 bastard children out there somewhere. Maybe it's very lucky I didn't...considering child support. But still...it would've been more fun.

Nope, you don't get these powers of perception until you're ancient. It takes a long, long time to bake that cake to completion. These college kids are still jiggly, with much liquid cake batter not just set yet. But, to have that done when you're young! To have that capacity at such a young age!

I will grow my brilliant white hair and beard out. I'll get a staff, ramble around like Gandolf and offer proverbs to the young who cannot fathom what I am talking about. What I preach about doesn't exist nor has it ever existed to anyone that young. They don't get it.

There was a time when I never “got it” either.

I do now. The price for that skill is time, a lot of it too.