Vodka and Girls

 Vodka and Girls

Noel Laflin

12-31-17

I bought my under-aged sister and her two friends a bottle of vodka one New Year’s Eve, and later had to help carry one of the girls to the car.

 

My folks greeted us at the front door as we were leaving – they were just coming home from a late movie.  We hastily propped the intoxicated one up against the door frame.

“Who’s driving?” my father asked.

 

As I had anticipated trouble on the part of the girls, I had stuck to coffee all night while playing pool in the garage with my friends.

“That would be me, dad,” I proudly proclaimed.

 

“Whose booze did they drink,” he inquired.

“Theirs,” I confessed.

“OK, then,” he surmised.  “Happy New Year, kids.”

Magazines and Cheeseburgers

Magazines and Cheeseburgers

Noel Laflin

1-29-18

We grew up with dozens of magazines scattered about the house as my father delivered hundreds of copies to the local Veterans hospital every week.

I am not sure if it was totally kosher, but he had a deal with a local post office where they held undeliverable magazines for my dad, which he would pick up, bring home, sort into piles, and then distribute to the Vets in Long Beach. He must have done this for twenty years or more.

We had, at our finger tips, some amazing reading material.  From Horse Fancier to Playboy, we read them all.

Perks from dad's philanthropic endeavor, aside from the literary content, outstanding photographs, and New Yorker cartoons, were the coupons and free samples carried by some editions.

Consequently, I smelled of Gillette hair cream all throughout junior high and grew fat on Bob's Big Boy hamburgers during high school.

Life, Look, Popular Mechanics, McCall’s, Redbook, Readers Digest, Boys Life, Ebony, Saturday Evening Post, Penthouse, Esquire, National Geographic, etc. - thank you all for the eclectic education ... and some of you for the cheeseburgers.

Cookies

Cookies

Noel Laflin

1-12-17

During the latter years of my father’s life, we’d frequently feel the crunch of broken cookies when giving him a hug.

He kept them in various pockets of both shirt and trousers as he always liked to have some handy.

He was refilling those pockets daily.

Each time my sister came out to visit, she set aside an entire day or two baking up several hundred homemade varieties of cookies – molasses, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, etc. - so that they could be frozen and handed out over several months time.

The ample supply was usually gone within a month of her departure.

Dad might have been near blind, but he knew where the freezer was.

Consequently, a noted amount of the household budget went toward the old man’s seemingly unquenchable sugar addiction as any kind of store bought cookie seemed to tide him over until Susi returned once more and transformed his Leisure World kitchen into confectionery heaven.

I think a fair amount of Susi’s personal budget went into the appropriation of butter, sugar, flour, chocolate, molasses, oatmeal, peanut butter, and raisins.

It was a good investment apparently, since dad made it into his nineties.

As tomorrow will mark our father’s 102^nd birthday, I am pulling out the last of the homemade cookies my sister sent me for Christmas and crunching to his memory.

They were meant to last longer, but I know where the freezer is too.

Escape Plan

Escape Plan

Noel Laflin

1-4-18

Folks sneak in, by dead of night, to drop off pet ducks at our neighborhood pond every so often.  They get along fine with the wild mallards, coots and geese. I suppose it beats the alternative of being cooped up in a cage, or being pestered by small children and dogs.

With the closing of the old summer camp in which I used to work, some forty years back, the ranger and his wife decided that Horatio – the pet rooster - might have a better chance of surviving an otherwise brutally cold mountain winter if he were in a milder climate – specifically, Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park.

So, off they drove, with Horatio safely tucked away in the camper shell of their truck, intending to sneak him into the parking lot closest to Independence Hall, where all of the other roosters and chickens clucked and strutted about.  They were successful in their covert operation of carrying him over to his feathered brethren, coyly setting him down amongst the other foul, while they themselves slipped on over to Mrs. Knott’s Kitchen for a fine chicken dinner.

Several hours later, after a mighty tasty supper and a tour of the shops, the couple casually strolled back to the camper, only to find Horatio sitting on the back bumper of their truck patiently awaiting their arrival.   How they finally ditched the old boy has been lost to memory.  But somehow they made it back to camp minus the bird. 

I still picture Horatio, to this day, patiently waiting for their return. 

Consequently, if I ever see one of the recently arrived domesticated ducks sitting on the back of someone’s bumper parked on the street above our neighborhood pond, I hope those folks have an escape plan of their own.

Charmed

Charmed

Noel Laflin

11-26-17

I think I fell in love with Amy upon our very first meeting. I was young and impressionable at the time, being that this was some forty-odd years ago. One never forgets a first crush.

But Amy already had a young admirer by the name of Andy, a curiously nice, quiet kid who had an extraordinary way with animals; including the young, orphaned baby raccoon he had rescued prior to our meeting. He called her Amy.

And although I have forgotten the details as to her coming into our possession, I do remember the young bandit’s sweet nature.

You see, Andy had a natural way with critters, as they seemed to find him, especially when they were in need. I recall an abandoned baby owl that he also tended to that summer. Neither the owl nor raccoon feared the boy. Consequently, the rest of us could handle them without fear of a bite or scratch as well. I suppose they surmised that any friend of Andy was a friend of theirs. Those of us working the nature area that season used to hike the camp with Amy perched on a shoulder, or sleeping soundly inside a partially unbuttoned shirt. I remember the way she sometimes purred like a feline or chirped like a strange bird when content. She slept with Andy each night, snuggled up with the boy as naturally as any puppy or kitten.

By the end of that summer, however, it was evident that the raccoon was discovering that she really was a wild creature and needed to make her way into the Ahwahnee woods, minus the rest of us. She would take off on her own, returning less frequently as the days grew shorter. She had matured and toughened up too, so we did not fear for her safety as we once did when she was so very small.

Inevitably, one day late in the season, she did not return. And with that, camp closed for the season.

I never saw either Andy or Amy again.

But our resident ranger, Gene, told us later how he was walking through camp the following spring, when a full sized raccoon, accompanied by two of her babies stopped right in front of him as if to say, “Hey, there … remember me?” It was Amy and family. Gene said she showed no fear of him and yet did not stay long. It was, Gene reminisced, as if she just wanted to show off her youngsters and get on with raccoon living.

The thought of that reunion, all these years later, still makes me smile, and even wince with longing for youthful enchantments.

Waterwheel Falls

Waterwheel Falls

Noel Laflin

My older brother and I took off in search of adventure one summer solstice.  Accompanying us was one of Bob’s roommates, a kooky Canadian by the name of Romeo Rivers.  I had decided that a back packing trek to Yosemite was just the way to celebrate my high school graduation.  While classmates danced, and no doubt drank the night away, Romeo sped us northbound on Highway 99 as I slept most of the way in the back seat of his Super Charger.  He drove like a man possessed.

After the all-night drive we finally emerged from the tunnel that gives travelers that first fantastic view of the Yosemite Valley.  The raging falls were at their peak with snow-melt from the Sierras.  The valley floor was a brilliant green of trees and meadows.  The Merced River meandered its way through this land of plenty. 

Not really having a clue as to where we start our hike, we eventually made our way to the other side of the park and stopped at Tuolumne Meadows. We located the ranger station, got a map, filled out the camping permit and took off across the vast meadow toward the mountains and the Grand Canyon of Yosemite.

            

It was not by design that we made an early camp that first day.  Had we known that Romeo had filled his bota bag with cheap white wine, instead of water, we might have talked him out of the idea of quenching his thirst in this fashion.  Well, the wine and warm sun eventually took their toll on Romeo. As it was, Bob and I soon realized we’d be pitching an early camp when Romeo suddenly stumbled to a halt about three that afternoon, toppled over, and promptly fell asleep.  He was dead drunk.  My brother and I laid him out, like the happy corpse he resembled, and decided that this wasn’t such a bad spot to make camp at after all. 

Following an early dinner Bob and I sat around our little fire and watched Romeo sleep.  The twilight across the meadow was long indeed at this time of June and prevented those sober among us the immediate desire to give in to slumber.  But it came in time and we eventually crawled into our sleeping bags.

When the first rays of daybreak finally broke over the mountains and began to creep ever so slowly across the meadow, I spied a large bolder not far from where I lay, shivering in my cheap, thin sleeping bag. Reckoning the sunlight would find higher elevation first, I shuffled, like an ancient chief – dew drenched bag draped about me - and climbed the rock, awaiting warmth. I listened to my teeth chatter as I watched the sunlight slowly slide my way.

It was about then that I noticed a family of deer cautiously creeping from the shadows.  The buck was huge. Right behind him crept his mate and two fawns.  The small family was coming our way.

As they approached my brother’s sleeping form, the buck stopped and sniffed both air and ground - then proceeded on.  Gingerly, they all circled the giant green worm (my brother - snug and warm in his Marine Corps-issue mummy bag).  Once, twice, three times they looped him, smelling the musty bag which, had recently returned - along with my brother - from a year in Viet Nam.  Perhaps the smell of rice paddies and bamboo was something invitingly new to them and held their curiosity.  I don’t know.  After a moment more they departed across the meadow and leapt easily over shallow streams crisscrossing the land.

Eventually I climbed off my rocky perch and started the small camp stove, fixing coffee and sausages.  When my brother finally stirred and popped his head from the bag’s opening I told him not to move, but to rub the sleep from his eyes and look at the ground all about him.   Dozens and dozens of overlaid tracks, both large and small, surrounded where he lay, as I told him the story of the visitors.

After breakfast, we packed up and started up the switchbacks.  We hiked all day.  We made camp that night at Waterwheel Falls, a monster of a cataract looking more like a white water roller coaster twisting and curving through the canyon.  We all concluded that his would be an fine place to make camp. 

Upon exploring the falls we discovered a side creek, some three to four feet across (an easy hop) that divided the mainland from an island of rock that jutted out into the middle of the twisting water. The main body of water, rushing around the other side of this island suddenly plunged deep below and snaked out of sight and down the canyon. Romeo announced that he would make camp on the island.  Bob and I chose the safety of the forest.  Leaving our packs beneath the shelter of the trees, we grabbed dinner fixings, a flashlight, and easily jumped over the small narrow stream that divided us from Romeo.  He had selected a pretty cool place to sleep, I will admit.  We had our supper there, drank a little wine, watched the sky darken, and marveled as the multitude of constellations took their rightful place in the heavens.  The roar of the water all about us was incredibly loud.

By eleven that night, Bob and I decided to turn in.  It was getting cold.  We bade Romeo pleasant dreams and made our way back over the rocks to the dividing stream we had easily jumped a just few hours before.  Our lone flash light scanned a now unfamiliar bank before us, as something had changed in the course of those hours.  Our little puddle hop was suddenly a minor raging river which had expanded its width, depth and ferocity three-to-fourfold. The Tuolumne had swollen considerably.  We now faced, in the dark, a forbidding  torrent, ten to twelve feet across, and cascading into the smaller of the falls some six to eight feet to our left. The pool of water that caught here spilled back into the main waterfall itself, crashing and twisting its way down the canyon.

“Oh, man!”  I whispered.

  

Bob had some other colorful thoughts of his own.

We walked up and down the embankment.  We gingerly peered over the edge of the successive falls and tried to make out the bottom by the dim light of our only flashlight.  The noise was deafening.  We yelled our concerns to one another.

“What do we do?” I shouted. All of our gear was on the other side, including jackets.

Bob pondered but a second and said, “We jump.  Running leaps. Me first, while you shine the light on the other bank so I can see where I’m landing.  I make it, then you toss me the light and I’ll shine it for you. We’re not staying here all night.”

“Shouldn’t we get Romeo to help?” I asked.

“He’s asleep by now, probably still hung over. Besides, I don’t see what good he could do,” Bob shouted back to me. “We can do this,” he concluded.

I swallowed hard.  I really didn’t like this plan, but saw no other choice.  I deferred to my big brother’s judgment. 

With limited options, we selected an area that provided a small space by which to get some sort of a running start.  I took the light and shined it on the ground before us and then across the water to the other bank.  Bob took several deep breaths and bounded ahead.  He leapt.  He made it!  My heart danced with joy.  Piece of cake, I thought. Faintly I could hear a voice.

“Toss me the light,” Bob was shouting as he gestured with his outstretched hands.

On a count of three I tossed the flashlight with an underhanded throw. It fell short.  The light hit the fast running water, went over the first drop and lit up the pool below, growing dimmer as it sank.  Suddenly it winked out. 

Total blackness. 

I could faintly make out my brother’s voice once more.

“Jump!”

He had to be kidding.

“I’ll grab you if you don’t make it!”

  

“DAMN!” I yelled and took my own short running leap.  Sadly, I was short of my goal.

The water was freezing.  I went up to my neck and felt the current tugging me toward the first drop.  Suddenly Bob’s hand grabbed my own flailing wrist and held firm.  His other hand held tightly to a bush as he bent over the rushing water, somehow holding me in place.  Slowly I gained my footing as he pulled me up.  I was drenched.  I began to shiver uncontrollably.  I thought for sure I was to be a part of the San Francisco water supply.   But, Bob was a man of his word.  He did grab me.

Wandering around in the pitch dark, we finally located our gear. I stripped off everything and proceeded to put on every piece of dry clothing I owned, be it clean or dirty.  I could not stop shivering!  My threadbare bag did little to retain what body heat I was emitting. It was a miserable night.  

The next morning Romeo easily jumped the once-again narrow ribbon of a side stream as the river had adjusted itself overnight. 

The trip back out of the wilderness was less eventful.  I do recall that the climb down was obviously easier.  I also remember us meeting up with a guy and his mule loaded down with food supplies, tripods and cameras.  His hair and beard were wild and tangled.   He said he’d been in the backcountry shooting photos for the past month.  I still wonder, to this day, what sights he and that mule must have seen.  He told us that we were the first people he had met up with in over four weeks.  Our little adventure seemed to dim in comparison.  We bade one another ‘good luck.'

Upon arriving home very early in the morning later in the week and finding the front door locked, I climbed through my bedroom window and nearly stepped on my sister’s head. She had taken refuge in my bed while we were gone as Anaheim was in the grip of a heat wave and mine was the coolest room in the house.  We weren’t expected till much later that day.  Susi and I scared the bejesus out of one another as I stepped upon the pillow, an inch from her nose. She screamed as I tumbled from the window. I let loose with a curse of my own.

Years later, as luck would have it, Bob gave me his old Marine Corps-issued camouflage green mummy sleeping bag.

  

It smelled of musty bamboo, rice paddies, and deer - or so I like to remember.

11-3-2000
Happy Birthday, Bob

Spinning and Chiming

Spinning and Chiming

Noel Laflin

1-1-18

The old, broken down grandfather’s clock – the one shielded in black plastic bags in the garage in order to keep most of the dust off – has begun to chime ever so sweetly when the washing machine hits the spin cycle.

Either the clock is too firmly pressed up against the washer, or the spin cycle has gotten out of control and needs adjusting.

I would put the clock back into the house, where it belongs, if I had both the space as well as an extra five hundred bucks it’ll take to have it repaired. The gears are dried out most likely. It happens to old clocks of this design every twenty-five years or so. Eddy, the clock guy has repaired both the cuckoo and the grandmother’s clock over the years. He is very good, and his prices reflect it.

The chimes never used to ring out like this. I am taking it as a sign that perhaps it’s time to come up with the cash, visit Eddy, and make space in the house for grand old Mr. Westminster once more. He’s been banished long enough apparently and has now chimed in on the subject.

Then again, the garage has never sounded so nice as when the spin cycle kicks in.