Over the years, the question arises: “What’s the biggest problem facing the world today?” When I was little-little, the answer was easy. “Bullies” or “There’s no food in the house and nobody’s home.”
I sort of fell into lock-step with America’s feelings of the 1950s — communism. After all. Those booger-eating morons were going to drop an atom bomb atop my curly haired head and I had yet to enjoy the joyous multiplicity of teenagedom. It seemed the world would be ending before I had time to wind my watch. Then, there was Vietnam, the endless panic attacks that the planet was, like Goldilocks’ porridge, too hot or too cold.
Here’s some cool writer’s trivia for you. In the original British fable, Goldilocks was not a lovable little girl, but a grumpy old woman, lost in the woods. She breaks into the three bears’ cottage, eats their gruel, breaks a chair and falls asleep in a bed. The original bears? All three were bachelors. The tale was rewritten to feature our lost but innocent little Disneyesque blonde and the three male bruins became Mama, Papa and Baby.
Anywho. I have somehow survived every bestselling junk science book about population explosions, running out of food, holes in the ozone layer and one of the most pressing issues in my life, a lack of polar bears. Today, my head (missing those lovely locks of the 1970s) gets to tremble over the swelling ranks of the homeless, new flu super strains, roving bands of rampaging teens, gasoline the cost of non-Costco perfume and fentanyl, with the latter possibly being a one-size-fits-all solution. Feed the opioid 100 times stronger than morphine to the homeless and teens, dilute it into a flu vaccine and miracle gasoline additive.
After yet another presidential assassination attempt last weekend, I was tempted to vote that monkey-bucket Democrats/Liberals were the No. 1 problem facing humanity. I know. I know. Ain’t they?
I am in the midst of a most interesting life and with it an amazing library of stories — Those Things You Wouldn’t Believe That Happen To Us. We all have them. They are most entertaining and involve casting measuring glances to read the room, followed by a dramatic rise in the voice and the obligatory albeit invisible velcroing of the back of one’s hand to one’s forehead.
O.
Woe.
Is.
Moi.
And I have to admit. I’ve had more than my fair share of just plain weird things cross a busy street just to bump into me, from girlfriends and wives to bosses, mechanical things and your basic, garden-variety lunatic. Years ago, I was in dire need of a regular paycheck. It was summer. I was working on the ranch and it was probably the best job I ever had. With all the sweat and dirt of the Life Agrarian, I looked like a crumb doughnut. Taking a break, I checked my answering machine (pre-cellphone days) and there was a message. This Beverly Hills mogul was giddy in love with my resume. I called. Excitedly, he explained he was leaving town for a couple of weeks and was there any way for me, on a Friday, to cross three mountain ranges and meet him that afternoon?
It WAS, already, “… that afternoon.”
“Sure!” I somehow showered, shaved, threw together an ensemble that would pass for something between Appalachian accountant and weekend beer bar guitar player. I drove in triple-digit heat (without A/C) to this posh 10-story building that guy owned. Getting off the elevator, there waited two desks the size of aircraft carriers and behind them, two of the hubba-hubba-est secretaries who were 20 minutes away from being PGA trophy wives. Eyes batting, they smiled, buzzed the boss, who sprinted from his office, arms extended. It was 3:15 and he offered me a whiskey. OK. THAT kind of place. Said how amazed and honored he was to meet me. We chatted for a half-hour before he glanced at his watch, bounced to his feet and said he had to catch a jet. His. Quickly I steered the conversation to employment and starting pay. He smiled and said that I was an amazing “free spirit” and wasn’t right at all for his company, but, again, that he just HAD TO meet me. Generously he bade, no hurry, finish my drink and in a blink, he was gone. I’m in a clown suit from the 1970s, out of fashion, with the giant lapels and both fabrics, poly and ester, holding a glass of whiskey with three ice cubes. No high-paying job and, I still had a barranca to clear out after fighting three hours of rush-hour traffic. Did I mention? Fifteen dollars for parking?
I’ve so many of these stories. For years, I pondered why I seemed to be a magnet for crazy people and circumstances. I always felt in any room, I was the sanest. One day, it hit me. Nutty prom dates to spouses. Oingo-boingo bosses. Imbecilic teachers in college. Mooncalves, more Democrats and faceless stutterers planets away on telephone help lines representing credit cards or utilities. What was the common denominator in all these run-ins?
Me.
My index finger grew to a yard long, weighed 243 pounds. It was always pointing at — someone. Some, thing. Bad luck. Dumb luck. No luck. Louts in the news. It’s both embarrassing and exhilaratingly freeing to realize that I AM the crazy one. From here, begins solution. We, in excruciating detail, weave the cloth of our own life. It’s a two-way street because we also build wonderful friendships, great adventures, fond memories. So many poets have nagged us. We are the captain of our own ship.
We can end up naming it, “The Fetching Large-Breasted Drowning-Inducing Mermaid,” or, “The Noble Voyage” …
“Naked Came the Novelist,” John Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” is on sale at JohnBoston-Books.com. (It should be a movie.) So are other fine books, including his two-part “SCV Monsters” series. A lifelong SCV resident with 119 major writing awards and nearly 12,000 columns, Boston is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.
