WHAT'S IN A NAME?

A friend – at least, I think he is a friend – told me the other day that I had a warped sense of humor.  I took that as a compliment.

First of all, to have a warped sense of humor, you have to have a sense of humor.  Something cannot be warped unless it first exists in an unwarped state, you know, smooth, even, steady.  It was nice of my friend to imply that at one time I had a smooth, even, steady sense of humor.  One that had now become warped.  (People with warped senses of humor look for compliments wherever they can get them.)

The warping of ones sense of humor could be due to disease, illness, genetic defect or, in my case, aging.  So much of what I once had that was smooth and even is now anything but.  I never thought of certain parts of my body being “warped,” but I guess if the shoe fits I will have to wear it.

I also took as a compliment my friend's intimation that I actually had some sense.  After all, with my newly bestowed sense, I reasoned: sense with humor suggests the a priori existence of sense.  (If that's too deep for you, I apologize.  We people with sense often talk over the heads of the sense-deprived.)

You have to understand that this is all new to me.  I did not grow up with the sense of having any sense, and my "sense of humor" usually failed to amuse my parent, teachers or siblings.  My brother used to call me Knucklehead and frequently reminded me that if I had a brain I would take it out and play with it.  He was a little over four years older than I and, of course, knew what he was talking about.  His other colorful way of describing my intelligence was to tell me, “If you had a brain it would roll around in your head like a pea in a boxcar.”  You can picture that, can't you?  So could I.

My family loved me.  My older sister frequently told me I was adopted, and I did not know until I started school that my last name wasn't Shut-up.  I heard Charles Allen Shut-up so often that I just assumed that was my last name.  On the first day of school (first grade – we didn't do kindergarten then), my mother printed my name on a piece of paper and that when I learned the truth: my last name was Cummins.  I would learn more about my name later in life.

I need to explain the Charles Allen part.  I was raised in Southwest Missouri (we pronounce it Missoura) and every child had three names: first, middle and last.  However, until you were 20 years old or so, you were called by both your first and middle name.  Charles Allen shut up.  Marion Denise, come here.  Speak up Philip Eugene.  Read starting on page 18 Robert Earl.  Everyone had two names. 

You knew you were in deep trouble, however, when you heard your mother, father, aunt, uncle, or teacher use all three names.  CHARLES ALLEN CUMMINS!  WHAT DID YOU SAY!?  Teachers who spent a great deal of time saying, “Charles Allen shut up,” knew my last name very well when they wanted me to visit the principal's office.  Regrettably, he knew my last name as well.  Again, my sense of humor often fell on deaf ears.

But there is more to the name story.  To her dying day, my mother insisted that my middle name was Allan, not Allen.  It was listed as Allen on my birth certificate, so on the day I joined the US Army I became Charles Allen.  All my school records and everything I had ever signed up until then has me as Charles Allan.

Imagine the stigma that follows you when you begin your army career not knowing your own name.  Naturally, the NCOs in boot camp had a few other choice names for me and the other recruits.  Knucklehead soon became the least of my concerns.  You are known more often than not by your last name in the military, but it was in the military that Charles became Chuck.  And that's the name that stuck.
See a pattern here?  Nuances of my name emerged with the start of school and the start of military service.  I needed a sense of humor.

I have a sense of humor, warped and all.  I needed it to help survive not knowing who I was.

Call me Charles, call me Chuck, call me Cummins, but, as we used to say back on the farm, just don't call me late for supper.

EAT MY DUST

Back by popular demand.  Okay, back by some demand.  All right, I confess: back because I had something to write about.  Hope you enjoy and will sign up to receive my blog regularly.

EAT MY DUST

Every once in a while we have to do the dirty job.  Yes, I am talking about cleaning out the garage.
We may reach the decision to engage in this nasty task for several reasons: we can no longer get the car in the garage; we can park the car in the garage but cannot open the driver's side door to get out; there are no more flat open areas on which to put “stuff;” the garbage can is back there somewhere but we can't get to it; or, and this is a big motivator, there is the odorous smell of something dead.  All of the above compelled me to decide that the year 2012 would be my year to again clean the garage.

I say again because I am sure I cleaned it once before.  I just can't remember when.  Yes, it was that long ago.

But ask yourself.  Have I lost any tools lately?  Any missing children?  Can I put my hands on that new pair of work gloves I bought last summer?  And, of course, who died and decided to make my garage their eternal resting place?  (I can always hope it is a neighbor's cat; like the one that got locked in the garage several years ago and almost died of starvation.  I like cats, although I am not a cat lover.  I like them the least when they use my lawn or garden for their litter box – or take up a death watch in my garage.)

I always start by moving everything I can out to the driveway.  This alone reveals many lost treasures.  There under the basket on the workbench is that pair of gloves I bought to replace the ones I lost last year.  Aha!  There behind the workbench, on the floor, is that pair of gloves I lost.  Ah well, now I have two, albeit slightly moldy, work gloves.  What's this at the end of this tangle of electric cord?  Oh yes, my leaf blower.  I guess I don't need it anymore, especially since I haven't used it in god knows how long.  Something to sell on Craigslist.

Move things out and put other things away and voila, I can begin cleaning and sweeping.  Next comes the moment of decision.  What am I going to put back in the garage?  Hopefully, some things will be discarded.

Happily, while moving things to the driveway, I discovered the source of “the smell.”  You got it.  I found three dead, slightly petrified, mice.  Three cheers for d-CON.

We used to find abandoned mice nests and gobs of their droppings in drawers and on counter tops from their winter-time residency.  Then I started putting out d-CON in the fall.  As winter approaches the little critters like to move into the garage because it provides better protection from the elements.  I wanted to discourage that.  My hope was that most of them would take the bait back to their outdoor nests and die there, along with the rest of their family.    It must have worked since I only found three dead mice.  One or two of the less petrified must have “taken the bait” late in the winter, otherwise I would not have smelled them.  Now, however, they have gone to that big garage in the sky, and as far as I am concerned they are in a better place.

We can now get the car in the garage – and we can get the driver-side door open.  I have two pair of work gloves, one pair of which I wear to take the garbage can out to the curb for pickup.  And, fortunately, we found no lost children.

It may take a week or two to get the dust out of my sinus passages.

HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

We have a love-hate relation with hair.  Some body hair we like to grow long and then we pamper and protect it.  Other body hair we hate and do everything we can to get rid of it or, at least, make it inconspicuous.  What is going on with our ongoing war on hair?

Young teen males develop a peach fuzz mustache long before they can grow a beard, that courser facial hair they will spend the rest of their lives in a daily ritual of removal.  Teen males have been known to borrow mom’s mascara to darken their emerging upper lip hair.  At the same time, their mom is using whatever over-the-counter product she can find that will lighten (or, hopefully, remove) her emerging upper lip hair.  We are just never satisfied with our body hair.

I have hair growing in places I never anticipated, the end of my nose, in my nose and in my ears, to name a few.  At the same time, underarm hair and chest hair seem to be dying off of its own accord.  I don’t know why.  Good riddance.  Most western women would be happy to be relieved of their underarm hair once and for all.  Some women have resorted to expensive and sometimes painful procedures to remove hair from various parts of their body forever.

What is the purpose of hair?  Jennifer Viegas writing for Discover News tells us that our human “hair has the ability to enhance the detection of parasites and can even prevent pests from biting.”  Well, there you are.  All those areas we have been shaving over the years are invitations to parasites and pests, and not the human kind.

She further tells us that we have two types of hair: vellus and terminal.  “The former is the aforementioned peach fuzz, while the latter refers to heard hair as well as to pubic hair that develops in the armpits and around the genitals.”  Now I know why women want to shave their underarms.  Who --   besides men, apparently -- wants pubic hair growing under their arms?  Of course, that begs the question of why women enjoy resting their head on their man’s shoulder as they snuggle in the safety of his armpit.  They may assume they are safe there from pests and parasites, other than the human kind.

Like I said, we have this love-hate relation with hair.  We like flowing blonde hair on some people, mostly women, but are repulsed by the hairy arms of some men.  We absolutely do not like other people’s hair in our food.  Hence, food service workers have to wear hair nets and men with beards have to wear a “beard bib.”  (I made that up.  I have no idea what those beard shields are called.)  Some women I know should have to wear one also, but we never see them so dressed when preparing or serving food.  (A little gender bias there, if you ask me.)

Why do we have hair on our fingers, particularly the knuckles?  Are they there to warn us of the approach of pests and parasites?  Perhaps, but three hairs on the end of my nose?  What are they for?  They didn’t use to be there, so am I to understand that my nose is in more danger from attack by parasites and pest as I grow older?  Or, and here’s a thought, maybe that is what the elders meant when they said someone “had a nose for danger.”  Nose hairs let you sniff out danger (pests or pestilence) better than those people without them. 

Age-related experience is supposed to make me a more valuable member of society, a respected elder so to speak.  It may be that I have more value to my friends and family because of my three nose hairs.  Maybe I’ll let them grow.