A Fable
About twenty years ago, responding to a slowing metabolism and a rudely expanding abdomen, I decided to enter the realm of Lifetime Fitness, a facility owned and operated by Marion County Regional Hospital in Ocala. In addition to the second-floor fitness area which I utilize, the building has a large cardiac rehab area adjacent and, on the bottom floor, a colossal swimming pool along with several rooms used for general rehabilitation purposes. About a year later, Martha Fernandez arrived.
Martha, like most of the women at Lifetime, was there as a result of her husband Marco’s cardiac issues. Men are like canaries in the mine for wives like Martha. Their collapse sounds the alarm and their women get the hint they’d better start looking out for themselves. So, while Marco went about his cardiac regeneration, Martha started showing up next door on the fitness floor three times a week.
Mrs. Fernandez, who preferred talking to exercise and split her time 70-30 between each, eventually discovered me since I was always there. I learned that she was a native of Indiana, that she despised Florida’s hot weather and had a haughty attitude toward minorities even though she was married to one of their ilk. Marco had made the trek from Cuba years ago and I don’t think he liked minorities, either. Go figure. Perhaps, Rush Limbaugh told him it was unfashionable.
Martha was ten years older than me but in pretty good shape. Her medical history was spotless with the exception of one little mastectomy, which she sloughed off as a minor inconvenience. She had the skin of a woman half her age, but the physical frame of a fireplug or one of those small refrigerators you keep in the utility room. Mrs. Fernandez was one of those people who defied good humor. She was certain the world was going to hell in a handbasket and nobody was doing anything about it. Morals were declining, the Visigoths had breached the gates and it was only a matter of time before the Empire was a shambles. Martha Fernandez was a grouch.
In the gym, there are basically two kinds of old people. There are those who wake up with smiles on their faces, grateful for another day. They greet you with the attitude of a hail-fellow-well-met, a clap on the back, an inquiry into your life and plans, a discussion of the Big Game. Maybe they even invite you over for dinner. And then there are the ones like Martha, who, when they notice all this, quizzically ask, “What the hell is wrong with HIM?”
As time passed, Martha’s skin remained radiant but her disposition worsened. Subjects of conversation once acceptable became dangerous territory. Fellow gymgoers tiptoed around her, fearful of retribution for taking the wrong side of an issue. Me, she simply regarded as irretrievably lost to the vapors, an incorrigible impossible to deal with. The last time she tried was after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, when she glared at me from across the room. I looked back with a smile and yelled “But the economy is BOOMING, Martha!” She dismissed me with a wave of her arm and marched out the door into more fertile territory.
Years went by and Martha met them with uncompromising grumpiness. To ask her how she was doing was to enter a minefield. Every part of her body was an issue. “When you’re old,” she would announce with authority, “every time you wake up, there’s another problem.” Even television shows and movies, once safe havens for conversation, were now beneath contempt. Sharon Cinnie, my best friend at Lifetime, came up to me one day and said, “I give up. There is no longer ANY subject I can speak to her about without getting a snarl.” Sharon is one of those people who could get along famously with Attila The Hun. But not Martha.
Finally, mercifully, after years of growing dissatisfaction, Martha Fernandez had enough. When the gym announced a slight increase in fees, she had the excuse she needed to fade away into the sunset, to no longer face the slings and arrows of unsympathetic audiences, to simply retire in peace and fester quietly over the ruination of this sorry world. She walked over to give me the news, still considering me a peripheral friend due to our years of service together.
“It’s not like it used to be when we started out,” she said. “All the old crowd is either dead or too old to come in any more. We’re getting more and more of THOSE people (a variety of heathens which consisted of younger folks, blacks and—worst of all—northerners with different political leanings). I hate to see everything go downhill like this. There’s nothing left for me here. Hell, nobody even wants to TALK to me any more.” I gave her a hug for old times’ sake and sent her on her way. Since that day, there have been rare reports of a Martha sighting. Sad to report, nobody really cares.
Moral: Cheer up. Use your time productively. Make sure you keep a cup of kindness in your utility belt. And always remember The Flying Pie’s unarguable motto: Nobody Loves A Grouch.
Note: Aesop, who has been overpartying lately, will be back with us from time to time to dispense wisdom and help keep us grounded. And just in the nick of time, it turns out. Look what happens in his absence. Strange political heaps start emerging from the bogs and steering impressionable citizens down errant paths. Folks forget their manners. Greed runs rampant. Previously sane people start bringing their guns to the grocery stores. Where have you gone, Aesop DiMaggio, a nation lifts its lonely eyes to you.
Is There A Doctor In The House?
When we were kids, going to the doctor was to be avoided at all costs. “I’m not really THAT sick, Ma, can’t we just wait a little longer?” And why would anyone want to visit this sadist, who thought nothing of jabbing you with a sharp object or shoving a stick down your throat while asking you—for some incomprehensible reason—to say “Ahh.” What was that all about?
One day, one of these psychopaths—his name was Dr. Leonard Bennett Ainsworth, just to keep the record straight—even came right into my house, clomped an ether-filled rag over my face and took out my tonsils on the kitchen table, for crying out loud. Is there nothing these maniacs won’t do? Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, the very same physician decided I had Rheumatic Fever when I was in the second grade, causing me to miss almost an entire year of school and the best Snow Year in a decade. I had to sit in my chair by the living room window and watch all the other kids romp around in the stuff. My big reward was for my mother to actually open the window for awhile when the temperature got above freezing. Big whoop. Then, when I got much older, another doctor told me it was possible I never had Rheumatic Fever at all. Oh, great. That doesn’t get me back my Snow Year. Can you sue?
As time went by, of course, we realized there might be some reason to keep doctors around, after all. Like when you got hit smack between the eyes by a batted baseball. Or when your asthma flared up and you couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die one day and a doctor gave me a shot of adrenaline. Whoa! Instant breathing. Then, later on, everybody needed birth-control pills, available only with a prescription from your friendly medic. And if you didn’t get your birth-control pills, well, you might need a doctor for what happened after that, too. If you got a little too frisky in your adolescent years or were not particularly discriminating in your choice of partners, scary problems arose which only doctors could deal with. And almost nobody has a baby in a cave in the woods anymore.
These days, our doctors are practically members of the family. Not much time goes by before we’re visiting one or another of them. Urologists, cardiac docs, prostate surgeons, internal medicine gurus, not to mention your go-to guy, the “primary care” doc, who used to be called a GP. We’re practically on a first-name basis with most of them. Siobhan, feeling my cardiologist, Dr. Daniel Van Roy, has been letting himself go a bit, feels free to recommend exercise therapy to him (he’s looking better). Dr. Christina Mitchell, my dermatology surgeon, swaps tales with me of our visits to the national parks. Dr. Jack Paulk, a cattle-rancher/urologist, advises me of the benefits of raising beef in case I ever want to switch from horses. If you’re in either one of these businesses, of course, you need another kind of doctor called a veterinarian. There’s no end to it. You might as well go ahead and concede defeat. That doesn’t necessarily mean forgive and forget, however. I’m still looking for that low-life criminal, Dr. Leonard Bennett Ainsworth. I hear he’s enrolled somewhere in the government’s Tonsil Thief Protection Program.
The illustration above is merely that—an illustration. The book does not contain the story below.
The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
If you live in the country and have a little acreage, you might want to get a tractor. Never thought much about tractors until I bought a 40-acre horse farm in Orange Lake about 40 years ago. Planted a mess of Bahia Grass. Grass came up. Grew like crazy. Had to hire a high-school kid to mow it. Seemed like the little bastard was there every day. Cost a ton of money. What’s a man to do? The wife said get a tractor. Got one. Nice one, too. Bright, shiny green one made by John Deere, himself. Got a bushhog on the back. Mowed the shit out of that grass, morning, noon and night. Loved my tractor. Couldn’t live without it. Later on, got a bucket on the front. Dug stuff up. Moved dirt around. Picked up feed sacks, hay bales, dead animals, whatever. Couldn’t beat that tractor. You live in the country, got a lot of land? Need to get yourself one. Highly recommend it. Best friend you’ll ever have. Tractor.
The sentiments above are shared by most devotees of rural living. The tractor goes right up there on the indispensability altar with pickup trucks, shotguns and mean guard dogs. We like them a lot. Some of us even love them. But not as much as Ralph Bishop of Suffolk, England. Ralph loved them enough to get arrested. It’s not a pretty story.
The whole thing started when Mr. Bishop got his laptop. A lot of fun, that laptop, no end to things a man could look at. Soccer reports. Pretty girls. The Firth of Forth. Or even tractors. Ralph particularly liked the John Deeres and Massey Fergusons, especially green ones. He even kept a scrap book. A BIG scrap book, with 5000 pictures.
A piece of advice here. If you ever find yourself gazing longingly into a scrapbook with 5000 images of enticing tractors, get help immediately. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200. Unfortunately, Ralph Bishop was never the beneficiary of this advice. He carried his tractor-worship to the….ahem….next level. A police spokesman said, “When we found him in the field, we couldn’t believe it. He was wearing a white t-shirt, Wellington boots and very little else. He was clearly in a high state of excitement at the rear of the machine. He told us he was particularly fond of axle grease and the presence of this around the back of the tractors was too much for him.” Ralph later admitted to abusing 450 of the critters, which could earn him a spot in the Guinness Book of Naughty Records.
Bishop, twice divorced (perhaps because the wives never developed a taste for green paint and axle grease), was released without charge on condition he seek psychological help. He was, however, placed on the sex-offenders register.
The police announced that Ralph was also banned from the countryside and is now not allowed to go within one mile of a farm. “He has to live and remain in the middle of Ipswich. We’ll still be watching him, however, because we are worried about the safety of several street-cleaning machines.”
And make sure to hide those lawnmowers. God only knows what could happen if Ralph gets into one of those. He could lose more than just his liberty.
Political Update
Well, in the blink of an eye, Sarah Palin has disappeared. This is very disappointing because the Tina Fey skits on Saturday Night Live more than justify her existence. We hope it’s not too catty of us to mention, however, that while Tina has maintained her svelte figure, Sarah seems to be letting herself go a little and nobody wants a fat Secretary of Energy.
Peevish Donald Trump has renewed his mini-war with Fox News, which insisted on using his nemesis, Megyn Kelly, on tonight’s national debate. “If she shows up,” Donald threatened, “I’m gone.” Fox, defending what little journalistic integrity it has, refused to dump Trump’s antagonist. Trump offered to appear if he could “build a wall around Megyn.” Negotiations faltered when the Mexican government refused to pay for it.
Nobody could figure out whether or not all this foofaraw benefited Trump’s main rival, Ted “Wackadoo” Cruz. The latter offered a one-on-one debate between himself and Trump. The Donald said it should be in Canada, although this seemingly gave Cruz the home-court advantage. The Canadian government agreed to allow the debate on condition the two principals shook hands, spoke in moderate tones and sang two choruses together of either “The Banks of Newfoundland,” or “Farewell to Nova Scotia.” They’re mulling it over.
That’s all, folks…
