How old am I, you ask?  Old enough to attend my 50 year high school reunion, since you seem interested.  In fact, it was exactly 50 years to this very day that I a donned my cap and gown and happily snatched my high school diploma out of the hands of my beloved principal, Fr. Francis Wehri OSB.  And I got lucky with the cap and gown.  Ordinarily, extra layers of clothing cause me to overheat.  But on this particular day in May there was an inch or two of snow on the ground, so I was generally quite comfortable.   Sometimes stuff just naturally works out for me.   Like graduating from high school.  I managed to accomplish that without a setback of any kind.  Then again, I wasn’t one of those univac guys that graduated early and entered college as a sophomore either.  Not that I don’t have a lot of great ideas bouncing around inside my skull.  I just about have my amphibious bicycle idea ready to present to the patent office.  I suppose if I had applied myself better I could have been valedictorian.  But at some point I decided to step aside and let Bob Dostal, Dick Gross, Dick Schlosser, and others battle it out for honors.  I’m nothing if not a nice guy.  In the end I was very content with my life’s progress at that point.  I was 17 and right on target- class of 65, and I was completely confident I was prepared for my college experience.  I went to high school at Assumption Abbey, a  Catholic  preparatory school for boys located in Richardton, ND.  Here is a picture of it back then (picture #1.)

Assumption Abbey Then- Picture #1

Assumption Abbey Now- Picture #2

I’m not sure my source is entirely credible, but from what I hear Picture #2 is what the Abbey looks like now.  I can’t quite figure what happened between then and now, but I can tell you some mighty fierce winds blew through the area in my day.  I plan on taking a good look around when I’m there in August for the reunion.  I’ll get the story from the Benedictine’s who run the place.  I am hoping there are a few of them that are still alive who would remember me.  I have to tell you I have unfavorable expectations of that happening though.  As a group my class really wore them down.  The calories consumed to calories expended ratio had to be completely out of whack for the men in black if you consider the effort it took for them to beat the unholy shit out of us.  We were relentless, and our creativity boundless, when it came to giving them a good work out.  I would venture to say many of them had to eat an extra meal and take a two hour nap daily just to keep from passing out from exhaustion.  All that wear and tear had to take a toll.

But let’s face it.  A reunion is mostly about reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances, at least the ones that are still alive.  I can’t wait to see them and find out what my old buddies look like now.  Some of us will probably get together and make fun of this guy or that guy, just like we did in  high school.  What a hoot!  As a reminder, if any of you guys make fun of me, Wayne LaPierre’s son is my next door neighbor.  He and I have become pretty good friends over the years.  He’s an even bigger psycho than his dad and believe me he’d be absolutely thrilled to take on the challenge of hunting you down.  Just a friendly head’s up.

I’m really excited to hear all the life’s stories that went on after we graduated.  I bet there are some doozies.  There will be guys telling me about their careers, their family, and they will probably tell me about interesting vacations they took.  Before I forget, here is a picture that my wife took of me playing Santa Clause during a little vacation we took this past Christmas.  This was on the beach at Bali.

Of course the best stories will involve our pranks and exploits during those high school days gone by.  I still reminisce about playing football at the Abbey.  Lots of times I page through my favorite photo album, and I especially like to show my grandchildren all the pictures I have of me competing in various sporting events.  I have included a few here.  Most of my classmates will recognize them.  Who can ever forget the picture of me making this diving  catch that sealed the victory against Watford City.   I think Ron Kilber took it, but it could have been Edgar Smith too.  He was always dicking around with one kind of camera or another.  Mike Cummings will try and tell you he actually scored that decisive touchdown, but come on Mike- show me the picture.  I didn’t think so.  One of the favorites of my grandchildren is this picture of me right before I launched the shot put 78ft 4in. for a new state record.  They think that facial expression is hilarious.   I believe Dick Gross took that one.  I am sure he would remember it.  Of course I have a whole bunch of other pictures.  I’ll just show you a couple more.  The one directly below is not of me. You knew that.  This is of the kid from Bismarck I wrestled for the state championship my senior year.  He  always tried to look like a big tough guy, but when I pinned him in 22 seconds of the first period, he didn’t act so tough.  Of the four state wrestling champion trophies I won, I think that one is the one I remember the most.  I wish I could remember where I put all those darn trophies.  Then there is this one of me slam-dunking on a break-away lay-up that time against St.  Mary’s.  In your face, bitches!   I have lots more pictures in my special album I could show you, but you know me.  I hate bragging on myself.  I just save that for the grandkids.  The oldest (he’s eight) thinks some of the pictures don’t look like me. He’s a very precocious kid, but now that I am older and have a beard and such, I know it has to confuse him.  Kids!  They think they know everything.  Everybody likes ass, but nobody likes a smart ass.  That’s what I keep telling him.

Well, ok then.  Like I mentioned, this reunion of mine is in August.  It will be here before you know it.  I’ll take some notes and let you know how it goes.  I will probably drive to Richardton.  It’s about a 10 hour trip I think.  I was considering flying, but I’m not sure I will be able to find my brand of scotch in North Dakota.  That’s why I’m driving.  That way I can just keep it simple and take a case along with me in the car.  I hope that’s enough to see me through.

Ever had one of these?  it’s spring and many of you are probably thinking that this is the year you are finally going to commit to some serious spring cleaning by subjecting yourself to a garage sale.  Of all the people that have had a garage sale, what percentage of those people would you guess consider their garage sale a success?  Of those people who consider their garage sale a success, what percentage of those people would you guess are bold faced liars or are otherwise full of shit?  My guess is 90%.  That’s because garage salers never take into account time spent on the project.  So if you are thinking about having one, my advice is read this article first.  My theory is you never want to just plunge into things.  Do some research.  It usually pays off.

First off, do you really need a garage sale?  Lets take a look at an example of a garage that probably doesn’t need a sale.  Example number one below would fall into this category.

Example Number One

You see how tidy this gentleman’s garage is. That’s the first clue for you.  If your garage is well organized, you probably need all of your shit in there.  When you get tired of stuff and you store it haphazardly and you couldn’t care less if  someone breaks into your garage and helps themselves to whatever is laying around, that’s a good sign it’s time for a sale.  Also, that would be one reason to just leave your garage door open all the time.  That’s a nice alternate route to take if you don’t want to bother with all the trouble of a sale.   Secondly,  I don’t see any item duplication, and outside of that hubcap in the foreground, I really don’t see much of anything that would sell anyway.  Wait a minute here!  What the hell is this guy doing?  I’m not sure, but from the looks of things it appears this misguided horn-dog failed high school biology and is engaged in some kind of futile attempt to duplicate hubcaps.  Well, at least he seems to have an eye for what’s hot in garage sale marketing.

This second example below is your tweener.  This garage is well organized, but there are lots of

Example Number Two

duplications.  Taking into account my criteria, this one’s right on the fence. Looks like the owner has trouble parting with old electronics.  And stuff is starting to migrate to the floor.  That’s usually a tip-off that its time to get rid of stuff, by sale or otherwise.  I bet you are thinking those electronics could fetch a pretty penny at a garage sale.  But you’d be surprised.  You should understand going in that people are cheap.  They tend to consider anything priced over $5.00 like it’s a locked up Rolex in a jewelry case.   Be prepared to be disappointed.  Of course after they bargain you down to $3.00, they are going to want to make sure you didn’t stick them with a mechanical turd, so be sure you have a couple of long extension cords at the ready to appease these douchenozzles.

Now if your garage looks like example three here, you might be totally beyond the point of a

Example Number Three

garage sale.  What you need to do is build yourself a second garage to store this shit in before some pesky city ordinance snaps you in the ass.

If you do decide to go through with a garage sale, keep in mind there is a lot of preparation to do.  For instance, I had an old cabin tent I desperately wanted to get rid of.  I have tents coming out of my ass, mostly dome type.  I cracked a flexible tent pole for my big dome tent one time, and emailed Coleman, explaining that I needed a replacement.  They sent me a whole new tent, free!   God I love that company.  But now I have way too many tents.  Besides two big dome tents, I have a couple of smaller ones and a couple of pup tents.  That is a result of progression and family expansion.  My wife and I are in compression mode now, and the smart thing at this point in our lives is give up on camping period. Too many joint replacements going on with us.   If you want a tent I probably have one that would work for you.  Anyway, last spring we did have a garage sale, and the cabin tent was the first thing off my premises.  I hated that thing.  The color codings needed to identify the 18 poles for proper connections had long since faded away, and the connection points between poles would never stay locked, so sections of poles that were angled twisted around in every direction.  Assembly thus required at least two people, three if there were time constraints involved.  And you have to put your tent up if you want to sell it at a garage sale.  The purchasing public will think you’re a big dick that’s trying to hide something otherwise.   I had to enlist the help of my neighbor to get the job done.  You see us both hard at work in the picture above.  Two hours and a roll of duct tape later, what we accomplished is shown at right.  I was pretty sure that tent would attract a lot of interest, and as it turned out my instincts were correct.  The first day of my sale my very first customer  was drawn immediately to it.  I took a picture of him while he was checking it out in the bargain bin. That’s him  on the left.   I am glad I started taking pictures.  Here is another one of my customers pictured below right.   As you can see, he looks like a nice guy, so I didn’t pay much attention to him while he was looking over my merchandise.  I took the picture right before he started running down the street with this shopping cart full of tires.  I couldn’t give shit about the tires.  They weren’t even mine.  That prick stole my shopping cart!  I borrowed it from Target, and sort of forgot to return it.  I mean, I suppose this dimwit got tired of lugging around those tires, but come on!  I would have lent him the shopping cart, but he out and out stole it from me.  I hope Target finds out and throws him in jail.

My Set of Keys

The two hours spent on the cabin tent was nothing compared to the frustrating afternoon I had dealing with the second most important thing I wanted to get rid of- an old car top carrier.  It had been in my attic for at least thirty years.  We used it once.  It was one I bought from Sears, a plastic shell type that was an absolute pain in the ass to mount on car-top rails but it looked like new and I was once again certain it would be primo garage sale material.  I had all the parts and accessories, knew right where they were in fact.  The problem was I had locked the thing up and did not know right where the key was.  I don’t know why it was not in its proper place with my set of keys.  I have a key for everything I have ever needed a key for, plus a duplicate of most, two for some.  I keep my set of keys well organized by throwing all of them in one desk drawer.  After wasting a half hour trying out every key that had a chance of working and an hour trying to remember all the special secret hiding places I hide stuff in, I gave up and did what I always do when all else fails- searched the web.  Hoping to run across a key word that would help me rig up a key, I learned how to pick a lock in multiple ways- with a hair-pin, two paper clips, two small allen wrenches, a small allen wrench/tiny screwdriver combo, and a few other methods I can’t recall.  There were even videos attached to some that demonstrated their effectiveness, but none effectively worked on my Sears  hard shell car top carrier.  I suppose the failure could rest on my shoulders in the way I bent my paper clips and held all the improvised lock-picking tools.  But I’m no moron.  I can follow instructions for Pete’s sake.  After all of my trial and error with the project, I gave up.  It’s just what you do when you reach the point of diminishing returns in time and effort.

Desperate to rid myself of my car top carrier lest it haunt me with more angst, I resorted to the absolute fail safe method for getting rid of stuff.  I set it curbside, with bag of accessories and a sign that read,  “Do Not Take!!”  It was gone the next morning.

Well, that’s about all you need to know about a garage sale.  Good luck.

A footnote in regard to the car top carrier.  About a week after it was removed from my property, my wife and I happened to be driving along one of the quieter streets of Omaha when we noticed what I am now positive was our car top carrier along the side of the road.  It was beat to shit, tire scuff marks adorned the sides, and there was a huge crack running down the middle of the top.  We were at a stop sign and since no one was behind me I couldn’t resist the urge to get out of the car and check it out.  Sure enough, the thing was still locked.  As I drove away, I couldn’t help but reflect on a couple of axioms that hold truth in all aspects of commercialism.  They would be “Buyer beware,” and “You get what you pay for.”

I can’t say as I have ever been terrified by flying.  Sure all the loud noises on takeoff and landing cause an uptick in heart rate occasionally.  And outside of a sudden drop in altitude, in- flight turbulence is something I have gotten used to.  But recently I had a flight that had me wondering if maybe I ought to spend a little more time getting my affairs in order.  It involved the first leg of my return trip from visiting my elderly mother who lives in St. George, Utah.  There aren’t many options for flying back and forth from Omaha and St. George.  All require a plane change in Denver.  i prefer flying into and out of Las Vegas, which is only a 1 and 1/2 hour drive from St. George.  Then I can catch a direct flight, and car rental is not exorbitant because usually my visit with my mom is only for 2 or 3 days.  But because of my mother’s failing health, moving her into assisted living, sprucing up her condo and making  realty arrangements for its sale, my trips there have taken more time,  and I have found using my mother’s car that she no longer drives saves me considerably on transportation expenses.  And so transpired my first flight out of the St. George airport.

I encountered my first hurdle right off in the TSA line.  At the check in station, my boarding pass would not scan.  I had printed it off of my mother’s PC.  I am a Mac person and find PC’s unwieldily, but after battling with all the changing of screens and clicking on the multiple tabs required by a PC that my Mac forgoes, I got the thing to print properly I assumed.  The bar code was plainly visible.  But there I was, holding up the line, albeit a line of merely 4 people  (this is the St. George airport).  After viewing me suspiciously, the TSA employee called over an associate and between the two of them they must have come to the conclusion I was no eminent threat and let me proceed.  As luck would have it, I was not allotted pre-appoved status on my boarding pass.  Actually it wouldn’t matter in any case, because the St. George airport has no PRE line, nor from all appearances does it need one.   Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a very nice little airport, architecturally very modern and clean.  And the city has grown by leaps and bounds.  But it’s a retirement community.  There just isn’t a lot of activity going on that requires an urgent movement of population.  Well, I suppose there are more funerals per capita.  There’s that.  But this is Mormon country,  It’s not like there is a huge Jewish community where sticking the dead in the ground asap is all part of the program.  I think there is like a 24 hour time limit or something for them.  Then there might be a sudden rush for travel reservations.  There are smatterings of Protestants and Catholics (of which my mother is one), but Mormons predominate here and I get the impression that particular religion gives a wide birth to any family that has to make funeral arrangements.   I mean just look at the the streets in Utah.  Talk about wide birth.  In Omaha, there’s a likely chance you’ll knock off your car’s side view mirror on a street-side mail box.  In St. George, all the two lane streets are close to six lanes worth of pavement.  A Boeing 737 could land on any  one of them.  I don’t know for sure, but I think the Mormons plan way ahead and don’t do much of rushing into anything.  So I bet they put their dead on ice.  Gives you time to snag a cheap flight.  No need for haste.

There are no exceptions to the screening procedure here.  Everyone, get your belt and shoes off and take all that shit out of your pockets.  To complicate things at this point I have an after market knee joint. Remembering to mention this fact usually saves me a lot of grief at the TSA checkpoint.  But at the St. George airport, all members of the surgically improved club get patted down, and when this happens to you be prepared for an examination of medical quality thoroughness.  A picture of the guy that performed  mine is at right.  In all honesty, considering the probability of joint replacement in the general population of St. George, I  would hazard a guess that if you unfortunately book the same flight as the St. George chapter of AARP, you should prepare  yourself for a long wait in the TSA line.

There was a twenty minute boarding delay onto my plane.  That always bothers me a bit.  A basic question usually arises- why?  It’s 7am.  The plane has been sitting around all night.  Are they waiting for the sun to come up to throw daylight on the problem?  I became aware of impending trouble as I finally started to strap myself into my seat.  It was cold as a refrigerator in an igloo in there.  To top things off I was wearing cargo shorts and T-shirt, my customary attire for St. George in March.  I like to travel light.  I knew the temperature for that morning was going to be cool by St.George standards, however my total time in an outside environment amounted to the walk from a taxi to the airport front door.  But inside the plane I was freezing.  Normally I find them stuffy and frantically twist and turn my overhead cool air nozzle to coax anything I can out of it.  At first I thought that might be the problem, so I twisted and turned it to make sure nothing was coming out of it, and nothing was.  That doesn’t happen really till the engines fire up.  I finally got some insight into the very cold facts from the stewardess.  Singular.  It’s St. George.  Your in luck if the plane you are  headed out of St George on has two pilots.  This particular stewardess was bundled up in a winter coat, was wearing ear muffs underneath the hood of that coat, and accessorized her ensemble with a colorful pair of fur-lined gloves.

I don’t recall much of  the mandatory aircraft safety instruction. That was the second thing that didn’t work on this plane- the intercom system.  I never pay attention to that stuff anyway.  What’s the point.  As far as the oxygen mask goes, my feeling is I’d just as soon not mess with it.  That way I might be totally unconscious when the plane disintegrates into an explosive inferno.     And the floatation device I’m supposedly sitting on.  Come on!   I’m flying across the Great American Desert for Pete’s sake.  The Vegas odds of this plane landing in water would be comparable to those given to a gopher winning the Kentucky Derby.  One thing I did glean from the stewardess’s teeth-chattering speech was that the plane had some sort of heating malfunction and we would be in for a rather cool flight.

I was starting to get a little nervous.  It seemed to me there was an inordinate number of electrical problems going on here.  That is never good.  Some loose wire could be shorting out.  What’s next?  An electric arch that causes the fuel to ignite?  I began to wonder about the more structurally pertinent things on this airplane.  I peered out the window, scanning the wing for missing rivets.  As we took off, I felt the aircraft was taking far to much time to become airborne, and was making way too many strange sounds.  After twenty minutes of air travel, a third problem presented itself.  It’s details were never made completely clear to me.  As I said, the intercom system was useless.  There was a lot of commotion in the rear of the plane, some grumbling and a yelp, something in the way of a scream maybe.  My take on the inaudible intercom explanation the stewardess gave was that the rest room toilet was malfunctioning as well as the lock on that door. This is never a problem for me on a flight that is less than two hours.  It is always part of my pre flight protocol to drag my luggage through the spottily hygienic airport rest room facility and use all means to prepare myself  for this  very type of adventure.  But on this plane, and I suspect all passenger planes using the St. George airport, one rest room is all you get.  So I imagine there were some people aboard who wished they were as dedicated to a pre boarding schedule as I always am.

By this point in time I don’t think I was alone in thinking this plane might fall out of the sky.  But after a touch down that had to completely blow out at least one shock absorber on the wheel struts, we all made it alive to the Denver airport.  You would think that would be the end of this story but you are wrong.  Our plane remained stationary on a side runway for 30 minutes.  First, we could not proceed to the terminal because another plane with problems of its own was blocking our gate.  Then when our pilot was given instructions to proceed to a different gate, we  could not disembark because there apparently was no jetway in working order available for us to disembark on.  So close!  By this point as you can imagine there was a lot of grumbling going on.  Passengers who previously had decided to get through the chilly ordeal by loading up on Bloody Marys were starting to become cognizant of the fact that since this plane had no available rest room, that decision might prove to be an embarrassing one.  When all gate problems were finally resolved and the hatch opened, a communal shout of relief resounded from our plane that very possible could be heard  echoing through the entire Denver International Airport.

Of course everyone was anxious to get off that plane, but I don’t care how overly extended your bladder is you’re not going to bull rush past me while I’m still getting out of my seat.  Wait your turn.  People are so impatient.  There is always some uppity strutting prick who thinks the rules don’t apply to him.  You don’t proceed until the person in front of you does.  It’s simple  courtesy.  If you fail to comprehend this rule of etiquette by attempting to slip past me, I am  going to hip-check you into the adjacent row of seats.  I will make it look accidental, but nonetheless I will also make it a point to see that the maneuver is as painful as possible for you.

I must say it was a very disgruntled group getting off that plane.  Not many thank you’s passed along to the bundled up stewardess as people paraded out the door.  One passenger in particular seemed to relay a concise and thoughtful expression of how we all felt about this airline.  I have posted a picture of her below.  The flight delays I encountered required I make a mad dash to make my flight connection to Omaha.  I was a few minutes late, but the attendants held the plane for me and another passenger.  Of course there was no time to perform my prerequisite pre-boarding ritual in a DIA rest room.  As I quick-stepped down the jetway, I said a silent prayer that this airplane had a functioning rest room.  That is another story I may some day tell you about.

As i have mentioned I am getting up there in age.  Because of that I have to tell you I have become more alert to the proliferating number of scamming operations that are swirling around my fellow saliva-droolers and blue-haired walker-pushers.  One thing I’ve personally been confronted with lately is magazine double-billing.  This sounds like a scam, but in my case I can’t say that is an accurate assumption.  My wife and I subscribe to three magazines- Time, The Week, and Consumer Reports.  For the most part, I have always considered the content of all three to be factually accurate and suitable to my needs.  No problem there.  But all three at one time or another have had some sort of accounting wire-crossing episode when it came time to send me a bill.  Recently I even had two copies of the same magazine sent to me every month for an entire year.  I’m forever getting billing notices four or five months after I have already paid for an annual subscription.  WTF!  Admittedly, one problem might fall squarely on my shoulders.  Actually I should say my wife’s shoulders.  It was her sister who talked us into purchasing some magazine subscriptions from one of her kids who needed to score a cub scout badge or something.  You know that routine.  And I’m not saying I am totally blameless.  We’ve all been there- doing groundwork for our kids when they should be the ones pounding the pavement for those sales.

You know, come to think of it, I am blameless.  I was a shitty salesman as a kid and I am pretty sure I passed that right on down to both of my kids.  I hated knocking on doors and pandering to crotchety old geezers, especially Old Man Smith who lived in the house next to us when I was growing up.  He was an asshole with all the trimmings.  Because of that I really can’t say I recall ever badgering friends and neighbors on behalf of my kids and their sales projects.  I have always tried to avoid hypocritical conduct when forced into an example setting situation with my children.  I can’t claim to be the perfect parent, of course.  I admit there were those times when I had to take the “college amendment.”  That’s the thing when you tell your kids to do as you say, not as you did.  It exempts you from those mistakes you made in college that involved massive amounts of alcohol.  But overall I tried to parent by example and did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.  I have two great kids who overall haven’t given me too much grief.  Neither of them pursued a career in sales, but they’ve certainly done all right with the career paths they have chosen.  In the end I think I probably did them a favor.   It was ok with me if they only sold a couple boxes of Thin Mints or a bag or two of microwave popcorn.  The real lesson for them I suppose was dealing with the scorn of respective scout masters and mistresses, but so what?  No pressure from old dad to overachieve.  I think that is retroactively important.

Now back to this billing thing.  Maybe, just maybe, there were those rare situations where we had one subscription going and then along came the plea to buy another from a relative or pathetic looking Camp Fire Girl.  But god damn it.  These magazine people have computers by now don’t they?  Can’t they do some cross-referencing.  I mean you match up 3 or 4 pieces of identity data and you have the same person.  Come on!  It’s not rocket science.  When I was a practicing pharmacist we looked for personal identity duplication all the time as we entered  patient information.  It’s  basic computer safety and common sense.  And don’t forget etiquette.  Don’t leave that out. For Pete’s sake you have a phone on your desk, and another one in your pants pocket you set on vibrate, not because your boss told you to, but because you hope you’ll get a long series of robo-calls that will bump your dick and keep it occupied for awhile.  Pull it out (NO NOT THAT!) and give me the courtesy of a call if you’re not sure the data your looking at is repetitive.

So maybe all this isn’t exactly a scam. but man it does piss me off.