White Cherries on a Hot Day

It's the kind of steamy day where cold white cherries and a glass of Paul Newman Lemonade fill the bill. I'll eat anything Paul Newman makes, except for the Fig Newmans. His spaghetti sauce is good too. Newman has been quietly giving kids a big dose of Summertime fun at his "Hole in the Wall" camps for a long time now. He could be, but he's not a horn-tooter.

Paul Newman is one very cool dude.

Summer camp can open a kid up to nature for the first time. Catching fireflies, sitting around a fire burning marshmallows, fishing in rivers and lakes. It's all good.

I was one of those kids where, when the summer came, I was sent off to Camp Greenkill, a YMCA camp near Port Jervis, New York. I say "sent off" because I did not agree to go. And once I got there, I began to wander again. A certain camp counselor kept finding me. I'd be walking down the long dirt road to the highway, and Roger would come along in his '57 Chevy that he called "The Grey Ghost." He knew what to say, and he always brought me back each time I ran away, which was about two. Finally I stayed.

Anyway, I didn't want any more "Missing Boy" stories. I think I wore out my welcome in that department a few years earlier.

It didn't help matters that this place was infested with Rattlesnakes and Copperheads. Captured vipers would be displayed on the hood of Roger's Chevy in a big glass jar, all coiled up and dead. He'd make sure their mouths were open so we could see their fangs. I'd stand five feet back from the Chevy's fender and stare wide-eyed at them.

As I stood there one day, it finally began to sink in . . . my parents were trying to assassinate me. They had sent me here to Camp Greenkill to kill me. How ironic is that name, by the way?

I could hear them plotting: "Honey, what would be the most gruesome way for our oldest son to die?" "I know!" one or the other of them would say. "Let's have him attacked by snakes!"

I could picture them clinking their cocktail glasses.

I decided to confront my mother when she arrived in her station wagon for visitor's day.

"Mom, are you and Dad trying to kill me?"

"That," she said dismissively, "is all in the past."

"No Mom, seriously, I have to know."

"Well," she said. "I'd heard it worked for a couple of the neighbors and I thought I'd try it out on you."

I immediately demanded more money on my "candy card." If they were trying to kill me, the least they could do was buy me a decent last meal. And my card was getting pretty punched

I no longer questioned their motives, until the next day, that is, when I went to the camp store to buy a Clark Bar. When the lady behind the counter returned my candy card, it had a balance of $500 on it.

Business Class Gas

I can understand something like this happening in Economy Class. (See how quickly one Business Class trip to Europe makes me to the manor born?) And the guy looked like a decent-enough chap, probably 40, had that “still playing in a mid-list rock band” look about him. And there were only ten of us in Business Class for an overnight flight to London. After the nice lady came by with the midnight snack, let’s call him “Clive,” pushed the button which fully reclined his seat into a flat position.

I’m a snorer. I don’t usually like to fall asleep in airplanes or buses or even cars because of my feral snoring. In any event, I seem to be predisposed to staying awake anyway. I’m one of those nervous travelers. I'm up all night, searching for movies and music.

So when Clive began farting in his sleep, I was amused at first, then horrified when it got worse.

For some reason, I became fixated on the fact that Clive’s farts were pressurized, like the cabin, and I actually began to worry whether this fact would render Clive‘s farts explosive? My God, he could go off at any moment!

Like I said, I'm nervous on planes, and I have a lot of time to think.

No, he’ll stop any second, I thought. I jammed the headphones on and reclined my bed too, facing into the aisle. I adjusted my air jet to blow in Clive’s direction.

But I found that the main attraction of the business class experience on this airline -- its comfortable sleeper seats which they claim will have you waking daisy-fresh in London -- was lost on me. I felt like I was in a coffin. I couldn’t sleep on my side because it wasn’t quite wide enough.

And Clive the farter was still going strong.

I couldn’t hear him now, because of the headphones. But you get the drift . . .

The worst embarrassment of the whole flight occurred when a flight attendant walked by me laying there like a patient on a gurney. She smelled it too, looked down at me, our eyes locked, and she gave me a piteous look, as though I were the farter!

I was now completely mortified and reached into my bag for a sedative. If I can just grab a couple of winks, I’ll be fine for the morning. Everything else about this trip was fine. I dozed off to Frank Sinatra singing “How High the Moon” and just as I was approaching alpha, Clive stood up and squeezed past me into the aisle. I looked up at him and he gave me a “Sorry mate” kind of look. No problem, I thought. In fact, this little trip could be the answer to both our prayers.

No matter. I promptly fell off to sleep, fart-free for the first time and eager to grab my moment. I stretched out on my stomach, my head in an unnatural right angle to the rest of my body, but I was somehow able to go to sleep. When I got up at Heathrow, there was Clive, sitting upright in his seat, sipping an orange juice, and appraising my awakened state through bloodshot eyes. I half-smiled in his direction and he put his juice down.

“You know you’re an ‘ell of a snorer mate.”

Missing Boy

I found this blog where you write down your secrets and send them in and they post them anonymously online for the whole world to see. It’s cyber-confession. You can see them at www.postsecret.blogspot.com.

Anyway, I have a confession of my own to make, although I should point out it wasn't exactly my fault.

It happened when I was seven or eight. I was given the opportunity to either sit and play in the sandbox with my six-year-old sister, or race my Dad’s brand-new DeSoto on a dragstrip. It took me one second to decide.

“Just run in and tell the babysitter,” my father told me from the idling car. I immediately did a 180 and ran into the house. She was an older woman, our soon to be ex-babysitter, and she seemed to be involved with my sister‘s playtime frivolity, trying to restrain her in some way without the use of a straitjacket. Or maybe it was baby brother, Ricky, who was only two at the time.

I should have waited until I had her full attention, but I just ran in the house, got her attention, and announced “I’m going to the racetrack with my Dad!” Then I ran back out again.

It wasn’t really her fault. I’ve felt bad all these years that I didn’t speak up and explain that she might not have heard me correctly. She did look at me and seem to comprehend what I was saying, but she must have forgotten.

My rep as a wanderer didn't help matters. It wasn’t unusual to see me, as a toddler, walking alongside the main road which led into the next village. I remember the faces of kindly neighbors trying to coax me into their Buicks with expressions similar to those one might use with an obstinate cat. To passersby, I’m sure they must have sounded like perverts, talking to a cautious four-year-old from the open door of their automobile. “You remember us, honey, we’re the Morgans. We live down the street from you. Your mother is very worried about you.” But nobody ever arrested them and I always got home safe.

So, when I didn’t show up later in the afternoon, the sitter called my mother at her job. Mom raced home.

Out at Westhampton Beach, though, all was bliss for me. Dad turned his aqua and white tail-finned beauty out onto the blacktop and revved the engine. He pulled me onto his lap, moved the seat all the way up, and we counted down from ten.

“Three, two, one!” I mashed my foot down on the gas pedal, and the back wheels made a chirping sound. I hung onto the oval-shaped steering wheel tightly and by the time we’d finished we were going about 65 miles per hour. We didn't break the sound barrier, but when you’re that age it feels much faster.

Driving home along 25a at dusk, we began to notice people walking through fields as we got closer to our house. “I wonder what's going on,” my father said. "It looks like they‘re searching for somebody.”

They were.

Me.

The closer we got to our house, more and more people were out and about. When we turned onto our street, there were police cruisers and fire engines parked right out in front of our house. As my father turned into the driveway, flashbulbs went off from people standing around who suddenly produced cameras. My father’s immortal words were printed in the paper the following morning. “What’s going on?” They told us the entire town was looking for me. Boy Scouts were combing the nearby woods calling my name.

On our front porch, a bloodhound was sitting with a handler. In a sea of confusion, I stopped to play with it. I remember the velvet texture of his ears. He became excited, probably recognizing my scent, and realizing his night was over.

Inside the house , I saw my mother with a champagne glass in her hand, talking to some people.

As soon as she saw me, she ran over to me and hugged me. She was crying.

I looked over her shoulder into the living room and saw all my neighbors. They had cocktails too. I thought maybe some adult birthday party was in progress. But then why would my mother be crying. All of a sudden, a photographer with the biggest camera I ever saw, followed me into my bedroom. I cringed against my father who sat with me on my bed.

That photograph appeared in the newspaper the next morning under the headline:

MISSING BOY FOUND SAFE
Was at Racetrack with Father

I never asked them about public apologies or having to perform community service or anything like that, but I imagine it must've taken the folks a while to live that one down.

7/7

The Killer Catfish

I don't know if Catfish have souls, but if they do I would like to apologize to the catfish gods for one my mother sacrificed on our kitchen countertop back in the 1960's.

We did not eat this catfish. It was our pet. I suppose that's what makes it all the more horrifying. Although I can't remember the exact date, I do remember the solemnity of the occasion. The feeling was very much "you and me against the fish." The execution had been planned in advance. According to my mother, it was the only thing to do. Nothing could go wrong. A catfish this vile could not simply be flushed down the toilet. It might come back, even bigger. We all agreed that it did seem to be growing at a faster pace than any of the other fish in the aquarium.

It had not been a good week. My parents' marriage was breaking up and now mother had just heard on the evening news that a species of translucent catfish, the very same species currently staring at her from our living room aquarium, was capable of growing to an enormous size and strolling around on dry land. I think the program might have included more information than just those two facts, but those were the two she focused on.

My mother was horrified. And as she sat there in her armchair -- cigarette in one hand, gin and tonic in the other -- she glared at the once benign creature in our tank. And she knew what she had to do.

Life takes a sharp turn sometimes and you have to confront your fears. Things happen that are so shocking, so much a betrayal, that they must be dealt with in the spirit of haste. You wonder why you didn't see it coming.

Mother didn't know whether to blame the fish store employee who sold it to her, or her absentee husband, who certainly would be able to save his family when the catfish from hell suddenly grew too big for its tank and began waddling down the hall devouring their children.

But there was no time for that. A saucepan of ammonia was placed on the kitchen counter. The catfish, about six inches long and awaiting his fate in a small aquarium net, was placed into the ammonia. In shock, the fish flapped violently and found himself once again gulping air on the counter, surrounded by a spreading puddle of ammonia. The stench of it burned into our noses as mother scooped the fish back into the saucepan with a spoon and got the lid on before the catfish could make one last try for freedom.

I remember being shocked at the demise of this fish, how the poor thing went.

But, in an odd way, I think my mother felt somehow reassured.

Their divorce was finalized a year later.

Tom Cruise

"You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do." (Tom Cruise to Matt Lauer on the Today Show)

Does anyone remember those old TV commercials, starring Chad Everett, pushing some product like aspirin?

"I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV."

What's more ridiculous -- the fact that this statement merely points out his illegitimacy as a spokesperson for aspirin, or the aspirin-manufacturer's arrogant belief in the gullibility of the American population?

Probably a little of both.

We consider ourselves savvy. Sure, Oprah can rocket a book up the charts, but we Americans simply will not accept any old concept these rich movie stars try to foist on us anymore.

Or will we? Tell me the truth. Ten years ago, would you ever have imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California? You were thinking the whole Jessie Ventura, Minnesota thing was a fluke, weren't ya? Me too.

By now, however, I'm jaded. For instance, I wouldn't have been overly surprised, recently, to hear that Mel Gibson had been elevated to Pope.

If you watch Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson talk about their projects on television, they both come off as . . . intense is too nice a word. Crazy. That fits. I remember watching Mel talk to Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America when he was doing publicity for "The Passion of the Christ." He had that same sort of pit bull defensiveness that Tom Cruise gets when he talks about Scientology. I was yelling "Run Diane, Run!" And Diane did look like she wanted to run at one point. She really did.

So, in perspective, Tom's humorless pontificating and monkey-bar antics aren't as unique as we may be making them out to be. It could just be his reaction to Arnie and Mel. After all, they're up there in the earning department, huge egos, though Arnie is sidelined for now. Maybe Tom feels if Mel can blab about his religion and make hundreds of millions of dollars, and Arnie gets to own California, why is Pat Kingsley telling him to keep his mouth shut about Scientology on the red carpet?

Annnnd . . . Scientologists believe we are descended from space aliens who lived inside volcanoes and Tom's new movie - The War of the Worlds - has an almost identical theme. It's a perfect example of "publissuety" -- using your clout to stump your cause.

Movie stars spend their lives reading lines off pieces of paper which tell them who they are and what they are going to say. They don't have to learn anyone else's lines but their own. In some cases, they don't even have to learn their own lines. Should they find themselves unable to memorize for anything under $15 million and ten percent of the front end, a teleprompter is wheeled in.

However, once they achieve the adoration of millions of people, which was their original goal -- oh they'll say it wasn't, but it so was -- it's incumbent on them to remember that power corrupts.

And, as Barbara Walters might say in a celebrity interview, "Abso-wute pow-ah co-wups abso-wute-wee."

You know, I really think that Brooke Shields might be wrong about Tom Cruise. I mean about him not being able to give birth. I believe he just might be able to do it. You see, that's the one thing we truly don't know about Tom Cruise yet.

Is he able to give birth?

If there's one thing I've learned in life it's that truth is stranger than fiction. In my opinion, it's entirely possible that Tom Cruise is a space alien capable of whelping his own young. Honestly, he has always struck me as alien-like. And male space aliens, in some cases, can give birth.

At least that's what I've been told.