Showing posts with label childhood memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood memories. Show all posts

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Brilliant to Buffoon in 10 Seconds Flat

Recently I took my son on a three-day adventure for school to Deep Portage Learning Center.

For the most part, the trip went as well as one could expect, chaperoning a cadre of exuberant fifth graders on outdoor adventures.

The problems started the first night and it wasn’t with a student. It was with a parent. The fellow chaperone sharing our room snored so bad that I did not sleep at all the first night (making me wish I would have taken my computer because I would have had lots of time to work on things). But I didn’t because I was being the “good father” who left his work behind. Being up all night with nothing to do when I had so much to do was quite the source of frustration.

I was so bored that I did the crossword puzzle in an old newspaper that was sitting in the break room. For anyone who knows me well, you know I was in agony.

By midway through the second day I was having so much fun that I actually forgot about the misery of the first night. But it all came back to me about 10 minutes after “lights out” and the snoring erupted. Honestly! Is it possible for someone to make that much noise and not wake themselves up? That is a medical mystery that needs research!

I could not take it anymore. I got out of bed and I went on a quest to find earplugs. Surely this was not the first time something like this had happened and the staff would be prepared. But the staff were all in bed and I was to fend for myself.

Snooping around in the break room I found… mini marshmallows. Brilliant! They looked to be about the size of ear plugs. I pulled one out of the bag and depressed it between my thumb and forefinger. It was soft and pliable. I tried one in my ear for fit. It was perfect. I had found my solution. I felt like Edison must have felt after discovering the telephone.

I stuffed one in each ear and off to bed I went. They worked splendidly. I could still hear a faint sound that had snoring features, but it was dulled enough that I could sleep. And off to dreamland I went.

I awoke sometime during the night, realizing I needing to use the restroom. I got up and walked to the bathroom and while I was in there I realized my earplugs were working so well that I could hardly hear my stream hitting the water in the toilet. Again, I marveled at my brilliance.

As I walked back to bed I thought it’d be wise to check the positioning of my earplugs before I bedded down again because they were working so well I surely didn’t want one to fall out. As I reached into my right ear with the tip of my finger I realized, immediately, that I had a BIG problem. The marshmallow had melted.

The reason my earplugs were working so well is that they had formed an airtight seal of goo in my ear. What a buffoon! Why didn’t I realize they would melt? What do I do now? If I go back to bed and they continue to melt and ooze back to my eardrum I’m going to have a really big problem on my hands.

Fortunately, my survival skills kicked in as I remembered that I had brought Q-Tips along. I took one Q-Tip and gently rolled it in a circular motion at the entrance to my right ear and, even to my amazement, it worked. The marshmallow clung to the cotton and I was able to extract the entire blob out. A second Q-tip had equal success in the left ear and I was once again elevated to brilliant status.

And then… it was back to purgatory as I had to listen to the other dad snore the rest of the night. As I lay there, I contemplated the possibility of stuffing mini marshmallows up his nose. Not that I thought it would stop his snoring, but at least he'd have a big mess to clean up when he awoke refreshed. And I'd start my day off feeling vindication for my "near deaf" experience.

Fire Chief (ret.) Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, EFO, CFO, MICP
www.RichGasaway.com

Thursday, July 2, 2009

There's a deer on my street!


I was standing in my driveway in the middle of the day and I heard the clopity-clop of hooves that sounded like horses. As I turned to look, there was a whole herd of deer walking up the middle of the street. This is not uncommon to see in my neighborhood, but I am usually in the house looking out the window at them-not standing in the driveway just fifteen feet away.

I had to chuckle as I thought about those days when I used to deer hunt. I would spend weeks before the season started going through the woods looking for the best place to make my stand. I'd look for deer paths, rubs, and scrapes. I had religiously read all articles and advice in my monthly issue of North American Whitetail Deer Hunter magazine.

I recall one opening day. I enthusiastically woke up at some God forsaken hour of the morning to ensure I would be in the woods and arrive at my stand well before the first whisper of day light graced the horizon.

As I stood there, I employed all my senses... watching... listening... and smelling. I don't exactly know what I was supposed to be smelling but I figured that since I had to breath anyhow, I might as well try to smell something. Then I heard it coming... from a distance... the faint sound of rustling leaves. My heart was pounding. I became hyper vigilant as my eyes strained to see through the moonlight-illuminated brush. My mind played tricks on me as I thought I saw a deer moving. Did I? No, it was just a cluster of dead leaves on a branch blowing in the early morning breeze.

The rustling sound intensified, telling me this trophy buck was getting closer and closer. The seconds passed like minutes. The anticipation was excruciatingly painful. How big would he be? How many points would the rack have? Would I get a clear shot? Then he came clearly into view.

It was a squirrel. A squirrel!! Noooooo! I waited all this time in anticipation of a huge trophy buck... with visions of my kill gracing the cover of a magazine. I wasn't anticipating being confronted by a squirrel. I went from exceedingly excited to exceedingly disappointed-and ANGRY! I was duped by a forest rat. Now what? My adrenalin was dumped. I left my stand and just wandered through the woods for the rest of the day.

I never saw another deer that day. I don't know if it was because of my aimless wandering or if it was because I shot every squirrel I could lay my cross hairs on. Ok, that was a slight exaggeration. I didn't shoot EVERY squirrel I saw. I ran out of ammunition after 16. (I trapped and stabbed four more after that.)

I never went deer hunting again. The following spring I sold my entire collection of North American Whitetail Deer Hunter magazine (27 issues) in a garage sale for $2.00.

And that... officer... is why I shot this deer from my driveway.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

What is that word?

There must be a word in the English language for phrases you read that can have double meanings. It's kind of funny how my mind works because I often find myself amused by the signs I read in different places that can mean something completely different than what was intended. Take, for example, the sign I saw recently at a water park.

"Severe Weather Shut Off Button"

This sign made me think to myself... how ingenious is that? If the water park is full of people and severe weather approaches, all an alert employee needs to do is run over and depress this button... and off goes the severe weather. Think about how many potential applications there are for such a button in parks, sports arenas, golf courses... virtually any outdoor gathering place. I hope the person who invented that button got a patent for it and is living a comfortable retirement in a place so serene as to not require their invention.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Understanding the irrational behavior of teenage boys

Now there's a posting title that ought to get your attention! Parents of teenage boys (I have two) know that trying to get your little cherubs to look at things in rational ways and to make good decisions can be... let's say, a "______ challenge!" (and I'll let you fill in the blank with the adjective of your choice.)

Chances are you find yourself frustrated and wondering why they do certain things or don't do other things. It seems to sometimes defy logic. There's a good explanation for this.

The section of their brain known as the prefrontal cortex controls the process of rational, logical thinking. Unfortunately, research has show that the prefrontal cortex does not fully develop in teenage boys until around the age of twenty one. So when you're struggling to understand how your teenager sometimes acts like they have half a brain... in some respects... they do.

The good news is, most of them will develop a healthy, mature prefrontal cortex by their early twenties and start acting mature and making rational, logical decisions. However, as you can attest, there are some people who seem to suffer through life with an abnormally underdeveloped prefrontal cortex and suffer a long, painful existence of immaturity and poor decision making. Most of them probably carry the label "ex-husband."

Monday, June 22, 2009

We've gone over the edge

Recently I had the opportunity to attend field day at my son's school. Lots of fun and frolicking in the sun by fifty third grade kids while parents root them on from the side lines. Fifty yard dash... hurdles... tennis ball toss... kick ball... sack races... good stuff. We have been attending field days for almost ten years and every year the festivities concludes with a Tug O'War between the classes.

But not this year. The physical education teacher announced that this year the event was going to be called Tug O'Fun... "We're not using the word 'war' anymore" he explained. Oh... My... God... I thought to myself. Political correctness has gone over the edge. We are no longer allowed to use the word war? Good thing this political correctness stuff wasn't around at the turn of the century or that famous race horse Man O'War might have been renamed Man O'Fun... which would have taken on a whole new meaning and spawned countless jokes, no doubt.

There is a place for some political correctness in our lives, for sure. Replace "Firemen" with "Firefighters" but leave Tug O'War alone.
'

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Reinventing Baseball

Ok, so I'm sitting at my son's baseball game... in the rain. It's cold and windy. I suspect that most of the parents, like me, enjoy watching their sons play baseball... when the sun is shining. Even a cloudy day is ok. As I'm sitting there under my umbrella (which only keeps my upper body dry as the water runs off and drenches my pants) I'm thinking to myself... there has got to be a way to improve the efficiency of baseball. Every time a team takes the field there are warm-ups. Each warm up takes about 5 minutes. This particular game has seven innings. That's FOURTEEN warm-ups. At five minues a warm-up, they spend seventy minutes(!!!) just warming up.

Ok, time to reinvent baseball. In a seven inning game each team will have seven times at bat and each time at bat they get three outs. That's twenty-one outs. If each team only batted once, the first team batting until they amassed twenty-one outs and then their opponent batting until they amassed twenty-one outs (or outscored the opponent), then baseball games would take much less time.

Maybe this could be become a "foul weather rule." I'm ok with spending the extra hour+ enjoying good weather but when it's nasty out, the kids aren't having fun, the coaches aren't having fun, the umpires aren't having fun, and the parents aren't having fun. So why prolong the agony. It's time to reinvent baseball.

Welcome to Woppy Jawed

This posting is the official launch of Woppy Jawed, a place where I will share my musings on the lunacy of life and leadership.

I'd sound the trumpets but my wife and kids are still in bed and if I woke them up, they'd beat me like a pinata. So I'll just put on some coffee, walk the dog, get the morning paper, and contemplate how my life is going to change now that I have a blog.

Dr. Richard B. Gasaway
www.RichGasaway.com