If you ask us, and nobody ever does, a lot of things were better in the Good Old Days. Take voting, for instance. In the Good Old Days, everybody went down to their precinct, made the appropriate markings on their paper ballot and went home secure in the knowledge that one of their trusted neighbors would be counting the things by hand and posting an accurate result. There was no electronic gobbledygook involved, very little skullduggery in the counting and everyone accepted the eventual result. Easy peasy.
Then one day, somebody invented voting machines. The idea was this would simplify matters, speed things up, require less personnel and lead to a speedy result. We would know before midnight who the new president or governor or mayor was. Let the partying/moaning begin. Progress is our most important product, just like GE.
So what happened? Now there are incredible lines outside the voting areas, nobody knows who’s toting up the results and sometimes it’s weeks before anybody knows who won. It’s time to admit the whole thing is a botch and start over. Like Dirty Harry once said, a society has to know its limitations. We could experiment in one state, like Vermont, with the original ballots and see what happens. Vermonters are experts at simplicity and could be counted on to perform exceptionally. If it works in Vermont, start including other states where nobody lives, like Wyoming and North Dakota. Once the solution becomes obvious, we’ll have to overcome the resistance of the voting machine companies and corrupt politicians, but we Americans are nothing if not impatient with newfangled stuff which doesn’t work. Maybe this will be the beginning of a Renaissance which will lead to a widespread resistance to Silly New Things and a return to Yesterworld. Maybe a guy will be able to buy a Fudgsickle again.
Icebox Si, Refrigerator No!
A friend of mine bought a $1200 refrigerator a few years ago from a big box store and neglected to opt for the annual insurance, as many of us do. It’s a twelve hundred dollar refrigerator, for crying out loud, why should it go on the blink? But his did and no amount of fine tuning would alter the outcome. Joe, down at Youbreakit Ifixit, failed to live up to his name and my pal now has a giant white hulk taking up room in his garage. This NEVER happened back when we had the icebox.
The icebox was disaster-proof, a masterpiece of engineering. You put a giant chunk of ice on the top shelf and closed the door---voila!---instant refrigeration, no fuss, no muss. When the giant chunk melted down a bit, the iceman came, whipped out his massive tongs and carried a new block of ice inside. You could get the $15 icebox with the drip pan which had to be emptied daily or the $50 deluxe box with spigots for draining melted ice into a holding tank, and it could could then be used as drinking water. Oh, and the icebox worked just fine during hurricanes when the power went off for a week. You say your spiffy refrigerator makes ice? So what?
The Self-Driving Car? And You Thought Texting-While-Driving Was Bad.
Remember when your dad took you into that enormous empty parking lot, everyone got out of the car and you and he began your first driving lesson? This man, with all the genius age provides, had a single unbreakable rule at the top of his list, a credo to live by: keep your eyes on the road. Many’s the pilgrim who met his maker by defying that edict….averting his eyes to pick up something that fell between the seats, turning to quell an argument in the back seat, texting a rugby score to a friend. It’s one thing to ride to glory charging up San Juan Hill, trying to save the baby from a house fire or diverting a runaway asteroid about to destroy the planet---but nobody wants the embarrassment of offing himself picking up a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup from the floor. That’s why there’s snickering at funerals.
It was inevitable, of course, that sooner or later some lunatic would devise the alleged self-driving car, aka The Kevorkian Express. We at The Flying Pie do not consider ourselves big geniuses but we can tell you one thing for sure; there will never be a safe self-driving car. A vehicle careening down the road at 70 mph is already subject to the whims of fate even with a driver. Semi pilots coming from the opposite direction fall asleep, crash through the medians and bop you on the beezer. In town, preoccupied drivers speed through stoplights and T-bone the hell out of you. A sudden accident down the road doesn’t allow time to avoid a pileup. A fogbank descends in the middle of Payne’s Prairie and nobody can see the front of his car. You can jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in a fatsuit and have a better chance of survival than the operator of a self-driving car.
And while we’re at it, would somebody please begin making pretty cars again? In the fifties, automobiles were a delight, arriving in an array of spectacular shapes and colors, eye-candy for the rising class of drivers. Now if you want to see nifty cars you have to go to Cuba, where at least the exteriors are original. A collaboration of unimaginative automakers and an overly pragmatic American public have conspired to produce a collection of little rolling boxes, available only in black, white, sand, dull platinum, grey, faux silver, ash, pearl and creme brulee. If you ask nicely and gain a salesman’s sympathy, he might take you around to a hidden cave out back and show you a red one. Odds are it will still be an SUV.
Greater than the mind meltdown which wound up with the creation of the Edsel was Ford’s decision to transform the sexy original Thunderbird into a cattle car. Whose idea was it to back off the two-tone pizzazz of the fifties, where each brand of automobile was unique and could be recognized, in favor of a homogeneous gaggle of geese? Without their emblems, can anyone really tell a Kia from a BMW from the outside? Is the word aerodynamic passe? Can we introduce some lysergic acid diethylamide into the Detroit water system? No wonder old guys still ride motorcycles.
Dressing Down
Siobhan and I were having dinner one night at the Paramount Grill in Gainesville, dressed up as usual in our dining finery to celebrate some occasion, when I noticed a young lady sitting by herself at a table by the window. Her hair was newly-styled, her outfit was colorful and clever, her shoes were brilliant. She was obviously waiting for her date, probably a blind one, a fixup, maybe a computer match. He was unacceptably late, didn’t call and left her wondering. How long does one hang around waiting for Godot?
Eventually, the bum showed up with some lame excuse reserved exclusively for medical school students who feel they have a vague dispensation from polite society due to their exalted status as healers. Automobile repairmen could claim the same exemption but thankfully are more modest. The bumpkin was three days from shaving, wore hospital scrubs for pants and an off-grey t-shirt which had been through the wash sixteen times too many. We felt compassion for the poor maiden---she was probably expecting St. George and instead got the dragon.
Maybe Florida has dulled the senses of its residents with its overly permissive restaurant codes. Where it was once “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” now it’s “No shirt, no shoes, no problem.” People go to church in shorts and muumuus, to weddings in 50-year old tie-dye gear, to work in what the traffic will bear. Who thought we’d see the day when the waitress’ uniforms were the classiest outfits in the eatery?
Believe it or not, in the sixties students wore sports jackets, ties and dresses to football games, a little uncomfortable considering the weather but easy on the eyes. Now the girls wear tank tops, torn shorts and cowboy boots, not that I’m complaining. One of the worst fashion changes in history was the acceptance as fashionable of men’s above-the-knee shorts with no restrictions for hilarious legs. You’re allowed to wear them anywhere except to meet the Queen of England. Let’s have another chorus of Rule Britannia. And you wonder why the monarchy thrives.
Some Enchanted Evening….
In olden times when the Earth was new, people spotted their lovers across a crowded room, at a band concert in the park, in a bridesmaid’s dress at a wedding. She was new in town or a friend of a friend or the quietest girl in the class. It was appropriate to approach slowly, mind one’s manners, play by the ancient rules of courting. Some people hit the jackpot, others got the hook, walked off stage and tried again. Romance was the order of the day and the world was all the better for it.
Nowadays, people meet in ugly barrooms, sign up for the night and go their separate ways. Or track one another down on prying computers, where all the disqualifying characteristics of each can be listed so as the save time and trouble. But what if that girl with a wart on her chin smelled like an angel, had a voice like a siren….what if she knew Who Wrote The Book Of Love? What if that boy who delivered pizzas for Dominos had the soul of a poet? How would that computer ever know the secrets that only closeness reveals? We like to remember the kind of September when life was slow and oh, so mellow:
In nineteen-hundred eighty-two, Billy sailed the ocean blue. My marriage to the lovely and talented Harolyn was over and I was looking around. No hurry, mind you, just getting the lay of the land. Now as it so happens, 1982 was also the year when Timely Writer came along, knocking down all the pins on his alley and becoming the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. TW was trained by my Florida conditioner, Dominic Imprescia, a man of many talents but not as sophisticated as some. When I asked where he was staying during Derby Week in Louisville, he said “Probably somewhere in Indiana. That’s where I ended up last time I was there. It’s pretty busy in Louisville.”
I was a little taken aback. “Dom, you have the favorite horse for the goddam Kentucky DERBY. They’ll have a room for you, guaranteed. You want me to take care of it?” He did. I called Churchill Downs and eventually was rewarded with the erudite Claudia Starr, who lived up to her moniker. Not only did she quickly agree to take care of everything, she did it with aplomb and good humor. During our calls in subsequent days to tighten things up, Claudia never failed to impress. I had no idea what she looked like but in no time I had fallen under her spell. The discussions got a little flirtier and at the end of one of them we kiddingly agreed to go on an island vacation together when all the foofaraw was over. As the Derby grew closer, anticipation reigned. And then the ultimate disappointment. Timely Writer came down with a serious bout of colic in his stakes barn stall at Churchill Downs. He was shipped to a prominent Lexington clinic and recovered, but not in time for the Derby. Alas, no roses and no magical meeting in Kentucky for Claudia and Bill.
As it turned out, neither of us was quite ready to let this odd romance go. We sent cards back and forth, inevitably with pictures of palm trees included, clinging to our vague aspirations for a someday meeting in the sun. Shortly after the Derby, Claudia was offered heady jobs, one with the Louisville Chamber of Commerce, the other with the newly-developing Breeders Cup. The latter was very enticing but at the time the success of the Cup venture was less than guaranteed. She anguished, we mulled it over in phone conversations and she took the Cup plunge. Needless to say, it was a probably the best decision of her life as the Breeders Cup soared to great heights and became a racing institution. When her position was announced, there were photos of her everywhere and naturally she was very cute. In fairness, I mailed her a photo of myself taken at a Circus Halloween party. It was the only known picture of Bill ever taken in which he was wearing a tuxedo. I figured hey, couldn’t hurt.
Not much changed in the next two months….the notes back and forth continued and Claudia countered bouts of loneliness with the occasional very warm phone call. I think she might have continued on with this for quite some time, but I was more inclined to advance to square B. Despite no personal contact, romance was always in the air and whatever demerits we might assign to one another after we met did not yet exist. We had idealized notions of one another, at least we did in my case. It was intoxicating and odd and impossible, all at the same time. You had no restrictions in this relationship, no serious responsibilities beyond adding a little flourish to your note, a little pick-me-up to your phone calls, but you had plenty of benefits. At the end of the day, whether fair or foul, your mystery date was out there waiting. Perhaps it was better this way---comfort, solace and affection were always available and there was no sell-by date on the package. Your imagination could run wild. Maybe an actual meeting would somehow derail the train, destroy the dreamy fantasy, return you to reality, but I was ready to take the risk. Then something happened.
I was in Lexington for a horse sale while Claudia was visiting friends in Oregon. With a day to spare, i decided to make the easy drive to Louisville to see where she lived. I found a florist, bought a single rose, located her house and left the rose on a table on her front porch where she would find it when she came home two days hence. I didn’t say a word about it to her, just went about my business. Days passed and I never heard a thing. Maybe it was too bold an approach. Perhaps the fantasy world became all too real when your safe and homey abode was invaded by an actual blood-and-guts human. I was disappointed but not crestfallen. As time passed, I chalked it up in the Another One Bites The Dust column and carried on. I wondered what happened but there were no rules in this game, thus none had been broken. I kept my peace.
Eventually, a letter came in a small envelope. A dozen sentences, all starting with, “Maybe you think….” and taking the blame for the breach in communications. The ball was apparently in my court but it seemed the river had run its course and it was time to get out of the boat. No need for explanations, no apologies required and not a single regret for the time spent. It was a singular odyssey, a rare experience, a relationship on paper where words, sentences and paragraphs were used to charm one another, to create a bond, to elate and encourage. Claudia Starr was a mirage which appeared, then disappeared, as mirages are wont to do. I will never get a whiff of her perfume but I’ll never forget her largesse.
You can rummage around looking for your own definition of Romance. I’ll keep mine.
That’s all, folks….
