A Sweet Dream

I’ll say right up front this is a “G-rated” story.  In ancient times, people regarded dreams as omens or as prophesy.  I tend to see dreams as a waste-product of the mind or as a coded message from the subconscious.  I very rarely remember my dreams.  I will be in the middle of a dream and when I wake up, it vanishes from my mind like a puff of smoke. If I remember a dream, usually it’s about something that has been weighing heavily on my mind. 

A very happy exception to this trend took place earlier this year while I was in Mongolia.  In the dream I saw my friend, Barbara, and she was standing in the doorway of a house (1844 Wyandot Road) that was located exactly 3 doors south at 1868 Wyandot Road.  Barbara was standing in the doorway of the house.  There was snow on the ground and Barbara was smiling as she almost always is in real life.  When I woke up, I thought to myself, “What the heck does that mean?” Barbara will probably be quite mystified and amused to hear about that dream since she grew up in Pennsylvania, grew up in California and has never been in Ohio in her entire life. After a while, an interpretation occurred to me that makes sense:  Barbara has been a friend for many years and, even though she lives 3 times zones west, when I talk to her it’s like catching up with a next door neighbor.  She lives a couple of thousand miles away, but she might as well be a few houses over. Since then, I’ve often wished I could find the reset button on my pillow so I could just have nice “G-rated” dream about my good friend Barbara.  

Who Hates on Charlize?

I imagine everyone has heard of how Lonna Lane was discovered at Schwab’s Drug Store way back when.

I wonder how many people are familiar with the story of how the South African actress, Charlize Theron, got her start. Apparently, she had relocated to Hollywood to pursue an acting career when she tried to cash an out-of-state check at a local bank which the teller refused to do.  Evidently, Miss Theron pitched quite a conniption fit and one of the other customers in the bank that day happened to be an agent who gave Ms. Theron his card and — as they say — the rest is history. Charlize Theron has attained a great deal of success as an actress.  A few years ago, she even won a best actress Oscar in the film Monster.  I imagine just about everybody thinks highly of Charlize Theron, except perhaps the tellers at that bank.  Can you imagine what it would be like if every aspiring actress went to that bank and tried to cash an out-of-state check?  I suspect the tellers in that bank are not fond of Charlize Theron.

Clean Plates

Clear back in March of 1990, the ship I was teaching on, the USS Cape Cod, pulled into San Diego after I had ridden it across the Pacific from Atsugi, Japan.  Once I got to San Diego, I got to see my friends, Mark and Barbara, their two beyond adorable daughters (Erin Nicole, then six and Seana Christine, about to turn three) and their infant brother Bryant Edward, then four months. 

If you have never had the experience of seeing a six-year-old and a three-year-old jumping around with excitement, “It’s Uncle Kent!  It’s Uncle Kent!”…trust me, I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world.  That night at dinner (which was a really delicious dish of pasta, ground beef and fried tomatoes—yes, I remember what Barbara cooked twenty-three years later),  Erin and Seana were doing their eating-like-little-kids bit.  That’s where you divide your food into nine neat piles, you stir them around and put your fork down before you give an expression that seems to say, “Sorry, I’m not hungry.”  Mark said very quietly, “Barbara, when you finish eating, if those girls haven’t cleaned up their plates, they’re going to bed.  And don’t eat slowly to give them more time.”

At that gesture, I made a point of eating a large forkful of pasta and ground beef and pronouncing it yummy.  (What I am I going to do, say, “Girls, you don’t have to eat that?”  I don’t think so.)  I am proud to report that, by the time Barbara had cleaned her plate, Erin had cleaned hers and Seana had done the same.  By the way, I had cleaned up my plate, too.  And if anyone is snickering, you can just knock it off, because if *you* were there, you would have done the same thing!

(This may look like a brand new plate, but it's actually what the dishes look like after people eat Barbara's food.)

A Story About Parenting

Clear back in mid-December of 1970, my brother Boyd drove back to Columbus from Cedar City, Utah, where he was attending the University of Southern Utah.  With the entire family gathered around the dinner table (my parents and my three brothers and me), my mother asked Boyd how long he was going to be in Columbus.  “Just long enough to get some snatch,” was his reply. 

There was silence at the table.  Even forty years later, what he said seems like a spectacularly disrespectful thing for a young man to say to his mother.  My younger brother is of the opinion that our mother didn’t understand what that word meant.  My father just said, “We’ll discuss this later.” 

I’ve thought about that exchange many times over the years.  I don’t think my father handled that at all well.  Back on New Year’s Day of 2003, I had the good fortune to be visiting some dear friends of mine in San Diego, Mark and Barbara, who have three wonderful children who sometimes call me “Uncle Kent.”  A couple days later, Barbara asked, “Who won the Air Force game?”

At that point, clear out of the blue, Mark and Barbara’s then-fourteen-year-old son Bryant Edward said, in a sarcastic voice, “Oh, look it up yourself.”  I was genuinely shocked.  First, because Bryant Edward was ordinarily a well-behaved gentleman and second, because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to say an unkind word to Barbara.  And thirdly, because that fourteen-year-old boy was mouthing off while sitting beside his Marine Sergeant father.  I briefly considered diving under the living room coffee table to avoid being decapitated by a young man in flight.  I also considered saying, “Kid, have you lost your mind?  In the first place, you don’t diss your Mama, and in the second place, you don’t do it while sitting next to your Dad.  You’re in danger of going to the Moon without a rocketship.”  I let discussion be the better part of valor and kept my mouth shut.

After what I estimated was two seconds, Bryant’s father said, “Son…you *know*…you can *not* talk *back*…to your *mother*.  Now…what…are we going to do about this?”

I was no more than twelve feet away from Bryant and I could see the wheels turning in his head.  A few seconds later, Bryant picked the sports page off of the floor, walked across the room and handed it to his mother.  He then made himself scarce.  I waited until Bryant and his two older sisters were out of earshot and I told Mark and Barbara that, in my opinion, they could make training films on how to raise well-behaved children.

P.S.  Are you curious about the score Barbara was asking for?  The Air Force Falcons played the Virginia Tech Hokies in the 2002 Diamond Walnut San Francisco Bowl.  The Falcons lost 20-13.

 

A Pizza Delivery Guy’s Story

I recently heard this story from a friend of mine who is a lawyer who does criminal defense work.  One recent night in Columbus, Ohio, a driver was about to deliver a pizza.  When he arrived at his destination, a young black man stepped out from an alley and said, “Deliver the pizza here.”  The delivery guy did not like the looks of things, so he refused to step into the alley.  At that point, the young man pulled out a gun and said, “Give me your money and the pizza.”  The delivery guy dropped his pizza and emptied his pockets, but said as he stepped away, “You know, the police are going to be down here.” 

At that point, the kid swore at him and started firing his pistol at a distance which was described to me as a little more than five feet.  The pizza man began to run until he heard a repeated CLICK-CLICK-CLICK.  Either the gun was empty or it had jammed.  The driver reversed course, tackled his assailant and beat the hell out of him.  When my friend got the case, he met with the kid, who was seventeen years old, the kid’s mother and the kid’s father showed up (now there’s a surprise).  My friend informed the family that the prosecution had made an offer of six years in prison for aggravated robbery.  (The seventeen-year-old has been bound over as an adult.) 

I like to think that it takes a lot to shock me, but when I learned of the boy’s mother’s response, I was flabbergasted.  Apparently, Mom said, “That’s bull****; I killed somebody and I only got two years.” 

Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters died a few months ago at the age of 87.  I always loved his off-the-wall sense of humor (who else could make a commercial for garbage bags hilarious?  Check out his HEFTY commercials.) 

I also admired his courage in the battles he fought with clinical depression throughout his entire adult life. 

He was institutionalized twice in the late 1950s/early 1960s and seriously considered getting electroshock treatments.  (He also had an extremely stormy relationship with his father—talk about a guy with whom I can identify.)  He even managed to make jokes about his days in the psychiatric ward a part of his act.  According to Winters, at one point, he managed to climb a tree on the hospital grounds and when an intern asked him who he thought he was, Winters reputedly replied, “I’m Robin Redbreast!” 

To which the intern replied, “That bad?”

And Winters replied, “Okay, I’m a blue jay!”

An old friend of Winters’ called him a few months before his death and asked him how he was doing.  Winters replied, “Well, I promised the kids I wouldn’t commit suicide inside the house because that would make it difficult to sell.”

Millions of people loved Jonathan Winters’s comedy and he became a spectacularly rich and famous man, but he still had demons to wrestle.  I can’t say that he beat them, but he fought them to a standstill in a battle that lasted well over half a century. 

John Wayne's Last Films

If you want to argue about who is the best actor or actress, that is entirely subjective.  In the 1930s, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier had a rivalry as to who was the best Hamlet.  However, who is the all-time most popular movie star?  That is an entirely different manner.  It is objective and entirely quantifiable.  Who sold the most tickets or who spent the most years ranked among the ten most popular actors in Hollywood.  Any guess as to who that might be?

 

Who rated in Hollywood’s top ten most popular actors for the greatest number of years?  The winner is John Wayne.  No one else is even close.  Clint Eastwood is a very distant second. 

 

Nowadays, people tend to underestimate Wayne as an actor.  (Granted, he found a winning formula and largely stuck to it.)  He is also regarded by many liberals as a boogeyman.  (His attitudes were consistent with someone born in 1907.)  I went through a John Wayne stage in my early-to-middle teens.  Upon reviewing some of those films, I found a number of surprises.  The country changed a great deal during John Wayne’s career and so did John Wayne himself.  For example, in 1970, John Wayne made a film called Chisum, which was approximately the101st retelling of the Lincoln County War in New Mexico.  Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and all of that.  The Duke played cattle baron John Chisum.  Part of the backstory of Wayne’s character was that he fought with a Comache chief named White Buffalo over the same piece of land.  Of course, Chisum had come out on top.  However, as he mentions at one point to his young niece, he and White Buffalo had grown closer than Chisum and his brother.  Any two men who can fight over the same piece of land and develop a respect for each other knows nothing about Field Marshals Rommel and Montgomery.  Or, for that matter, Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler.

 

There’s a scene almost midway through Chisum in which the title character is meeting with the cavalry officer responsible for the territory.  White Buffalo and a number of other Comanche are present.  John Wayne was sixty-three at that point.  The actor who played White Buffalo was quite a bit older.  In that scene, Chisum has to tell the colonel that because of an attempted cattle rustling, he can’t deliver the beef contract on time.  White Buffalo starts to speak: “Chisum’s word is good.”  The colonel cuts him off, saying, “Your opinion of Chisum and his word are of no concern to me.”  Moments later, as the meeting breaks up, White Buffalo finds Chisum and says, “This changes nothing between us.”  When an overly efficient cavalry sergeant grabs White Buffalo and tells him to get in the wagon.  Chisum steps up and says to the younger man: “Sergeant, don’t you know who that man is?”  The Sergeant says, “Looks like an Injun to me.”  Chisum says, “That is the chief of the Comanche nation.”  The Sergeant replies, “I don’t care if he’s the crown prince of Montenegro, he’s getting on that wagon.” 

 

At this point, the screenwriters came up with a neat twist.  Chisum reaches into his pocket and pulls out a massive cigar and offers it to the Sergeant, who accepts.  He then offers another to White Buffalo and takes one for himself.  All three light up.  After puffing away for a few seconds, Chisum says to the Sergeant, “If you ever lay hands on White Buffalo again, I will kill you.”  The sergeant is goggle-eyed.  I thought that if a man John Wayne's size said said that to me, I would take notice. And if a man who *any* size who was wearing a pistol on his hip said that....   White Buffalo takes another long drag on his cigar and says cheerfully, “Sergeant,.... we go now.”  It’s just a little bit, but I found myself liking Chisum’s character quite a bit for standing up for his old rival.

 

In 1969, Wayne made a film called The Undefeated, which takes place in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War.  His character is named John Henry Thomas (one of my oldest friends is a gentleman named Jonathan Thomas, so I got to tease him about that movie).  Colonel John Henry Thomas was a Union Cavalry officer (dear God, that poor horse) who is getting back to the business of capturing wild horses and selling them to the federal government…until he gets a better offer from the French government of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico.

 

Rock Hudson plays a Confederate colonel who is such a bitter ender that he would rather burn his home and relocate to Mexico than live in a defeated South.  Adventures ensue.  The biggest casting surprise in The Undefeated was the role of "Blue Boy", Colonel Thomas’s adopted son.  Who did they get to play Blue Boy?  Roman Gabriel in his only film role.  Roman Gabriel was six foot four and weighted 220 and built like he could play quarterback for the Rams. (Which is what he did). He was of Irish-Filipino ancestory- so he was swarthy enough to play a Native American.  I was simply astounded that after making a career out of playing Indian fighters, John Wayne played a character who had adopted an Indian son.  I would have liked to have been in on the script development meeting before filming started.  Roman Gabriel was plenty big enough to play one of The Duke’s kids.