When you thought you were only 58

When you thought you were only 58

By Dave Teifel

Now you may wonder how I determined you are 60 when you may have mistakenly thought you just turned 58. I can only conclude that you were thinking what I was thinking, when I was thinking wrong.

That you are in your 6th decade and that clearly implies you are 60... and given that the year zero never occurred, this technicality actually pushes you one year ahead of where you thought you were, making you 59. But had the year zero occurred, and had you been 60, then you would lose a year, making you 59. But since you are technically 59 and the year zero had not ever occurred, then clearly you have just turned 60.

Theory On How Many Days Remain Before Your Trip

Theory On How Many Days Remain Before Your Trip
by Dave Teifel

Well, at first I perceived that days remaining to be one of those trick questions.

When I first contemplated this question I had 28 days to go, but upon thinking further, maybe came up with only 27 days. Or maybe 29 days.

Each answer only raised more questions. Do you count the current day? How about the day you wake up to go on your vacation? Do you count part of that day if you have not left to the airport yet? Do you add this partial day to the remainder of the current day to come up with whole days?

So I thought about it off and on for another 18 days, at which time I decisively decided that there was now only 10 days left before my Maui trip. But I still thought it was only fair to say that the correct answer was 9, and loosely speaking there were really 11 more days.

Counting the current day I got 10. Counting the day you wake up to leave on vacation puts me at 11, unless, of course, I didn't count the current day in which I still come up with 10 days remaining.

Now, if I don't count the current day I only have 9 days left before I leave for Maui. But I still have to take into consideration that the day you leave for Maui counts as well as the hours remaining in the current day, which really left me with 10 days before I leave for Maui.

Exhausted, I decided to take what sounded like a very easy question, but in reality, a very difficult question to answer, and mull it over some more.

I woke up today thinking that I only had 3 days remaining but it really felt like I had about 14 days left. How could that be?

I now think that an algorithm needs to be built that takes into account days remaining relative to emotional state of mind, measurable electric energy in the air, and possibly how much coffee you have consumed. Throw into the mix the fluctuation in airline prices, the fact that your vacation will cost more than the person next to you on the plane yet they will be staying a week longer, and whether you perceive that AC will be an important must have item or not. This is an algorithm of relativity.

Days remaining = the difference of today’s Julian date and the departure Julian date summed by the relative base 10 values, not to exceed 10 or but greater than zero, of emotional state of mind, measurable electric energy in the air, amount of coffee consumed, airline price fluctuations, vacation price-point bragging rights, and AC needs -- all divided by perceived days remaining.

Graphing this shows that, relatively speaking, when you are 60 days away, your approach to your departure days shows a downward trend in the graph as you get closer and closer to that date. But something interesting starts to happen once you are about 7 days away. The graph of the days remaining starts to move back up. Each approaching day the upward slope becomes steeper and steeper. If you were to plot out to the very second the plane departed, it would look as though the days remaining had approached infinity -- that it appeared that your trip to Maui would never come... that if you had to wait one second longer, you would explode into a ball of atomic reaction. Only when the wheels of the plane starts moving does the graph plunge down in nearly a straight line and lands firmly on the number of days remaining... zero.

In Memory of Pappy

Hey Pappy...

If I asked how your doing, I'm sure you'd just give me some line about watching NASCAR while walking the treadmill and sipping Cabbage soup through a straw… that Jack in the Box is the furthest thing from your mind. However, you now have my Lovely Bride on me... watching my every move.

She's been smelling Jack in the Box on my breath for the past year... and I've been doing my best to deny there is any affair going on between Jack and me. Well, the jig is now up between Jack and I. My lovely Bride has now resorted to checking my mileage on short around town excursions… and smelling my breath for my affair with Jack.

I always wanted to SCUBA dive with you... meet up somewhere in Maui and do a day or two of dives. I’d have liked you to show me your out-of-the-way dive spots. I've hesitated because you once mentioned that you have a very hard time growing a mustache, so you let the ol' nose hair and ear hair grow, and then braided it together under your nose. Between that and your merkin… I thought for sure that we’d get eaten by a Tiger Shark or a Great White.

I’m truly hoping that it was not my ownership of only one pair of underwear that kept us from meeting up. If I could manage to hold a straight face during my BBQ with Jeeper in Maui, with his red slipp'as, knee-high socks, Jammer Speedo swim suit, and his duct taped coke bottle glasses… then certainly you could hold your breath for a minute or more. Or you could just slyly push me in the pool as we walked by… hoping the quick rinse would push me back a day or two.

Most of us think of hanging out as moments in time that we spend together. You, my friend have redefined what it is to hang out. Some people travel to the moon, but only your wit and charm could bring the moon to Maui.

While it may be some time before we ever get the chance to meet, you will forever hold a place in my heart until we do.

I will always keep in touch.

Your friend always,

Venture

A Bewilderment

A Bewilderment
By Dave Teifel

He said he wanted – no, needed my help. Bob was disturbed when I talked to him on the phone. His soft, hollow, unsure tone urged me to come.

I caught the old train that would take me to Bob’s house. It was foggy out. A building in the distance became more visible as the train approached. A sign in the distance, softly lit up by a small light that produced a ring from the fog covered bulb, confirmed my destination. I stepped down from the train, opened the sweaty slip of paper I had been holding in my hand, and read the directions to Bob’s house one last time.

It was a short trip down the moon lit road; unpaved and damp – about a mile. The road darkened at times, the clouds moving randomly past the moon. Appearing in the distance was his house, the yellow light making its way through the living room window, only to slowly dissolve in the night’s fog filled air. I headed for the door.

I knocked on the old wood screen door. I heard Bob yell distantly from inside the house for me to come in. I entered, only noticing the familiar face of my friend in the corner across the badly lighted room. The rest of him was hidden, shadowed by the silhouette of the furniture. The place was a shambles. It looked as though it had not been cleaned in weeks.

Instead of a greeting, Bob just stared at me. I stared back in bewilderment. He spoke.

"Something is happening. I can’t explain it. I mean, it’s too bizarre, strange; something not easy to explain."

"Come out of the corner so I can talk to you."

"I don’t feel – that is, I – I can’t, I shouldn’t. I don’t feel comfortable out there in the… that is…"
Bob crawled toward me on his hands and knees, his body covered in a robe. He was very slow, hesitant, moving only inches at a time. His body looked wider, not really fatter, but much more wide. His movements were odd – too fluent, smooth, concise. As he neared, I saw something black and shinny beneath his robe. I reached over to a table, took a lamp from it, and held it above Bob. One glance at the light and he shot smoothly across the room, squeezing into a crevice between a table and a chair. Again, in the dark.

It was horrible, inhuman! I could hardly believe what I was seeing! I bolted toward him and the lamplight showed me what I did not want to see.

Bob’s robe, slightly lifted now, showed a hard and shinny black shell. A shell somehow attached to him. His whole body seemed to be breathing; very shallow, very fast. He was staring back at me. I took a couple of steps forward, approaching. He squeezed back further, his face timid, scared. I reached for his robe. He sprawled out flat, dodging my touch. Wondering, needing to know, I reached down further and lifted his robe. I jumped back, half in horror, half in sympathy. I just stared. A giant insect – a cockroach!

I stared bewildered with blurred eyes. A tear ran from his eyes.

A Dream Within A Dream

A Dream Within A Dream
By Dave Teifel

Walking in her room with unorthodox movements, he notices her sitting on the perimeter of the bed opening a letter.

"It has no return address", she quietly says to herself.

She puts the letter down on the Lavender material covering her lap and looks up at him. She smiles at first. The smile then changes to confusion. She reaches out to touch him but he pulls away inches before contact. She likes him – is almost fascinated by him. She has never met an individual like him before. She imagines herself with him.

When together in a room or on the streets, they giggle, tease, and think of each other as being weird, fun, enticing. He sits upside-down on a sofa; She’s doing a nonsensical jig, the music produced in her head, in a silent room. His face lit up by a smile produced by her presence, is content, happy, sad; the same as a face on a puppy. She sees this and says with a tease, "you crack me up." They talk, serious, then with no sense of normality. They laugh.

Gaining a perspective on reality, her dazed look returns to confusion as she’s with him once again. She reaches out again, hesitates, and again withdrawals her touch. Picking up her letter and opening it, joy glows in her eyes. She recognizes her boyfriend’s handwriting. She looks back up at him. The glow turns dim in his presence. She need only reach out and take him before he fades from her life.

Etourdi

Etourdi
By Dave Teifel

Sitting in Love Library at SDSU thinking about topics to write for my creative writing class, I noticed the disturbed and confused face of a girl whom I recognized as a classmate doing the same assignment.

At the table next to her sat a guy asleep using a copy of War and Peace as a pillow. He is my roommate. He says it’s too long to read but the thickness keeps his head and neck from getting sore.

From behind I hear the last of a drink traveling through a straw. I turn to see who is slurping, only to notice a "No Eating or Drinking" sign attached to the booth hiding the person. My cousin George slurped a lot.

I noticed a Japanese guy with short legs and a long torso, swiftly walk by taking a seat next to my roommate. Withdrawing computer readouts from his pack, he scrawled on them using a Pascal manual for reference. He is an exchange student from Japan who lives in my dorm, Toltec Hall. I’ve tried to teach him to say broom. He say boom.

A blonde male wearing Top-Siders, Bermuda shorts, and a La Coste shirt is talking to a large breasted, dark haired, 4 foot 10 inch Jewish girl between a row of shelved books. He talks, she giggles. She talks, he laughs. They continue looking. My roommate is sleeping on the book they need.

Looking at my classmate again, she is writing in a hurry keeping her train of thought. She doesn’t blink. I look at my blank notebook paper in front of me. I don’t blink. The clock shows two hours before closing time. The paper is due early the next morning and I haven’t picked a topic to write about. The girl looks up from her paper to notice a disturbed and confused face of a guy she recognized from her creative writing class. That guy is me.

A Celebration

A Celebration
By Dave Teifel

It happened annually with most of the shops in town closing the evening before, not to reopen till the day after the event. The town was small, about 800 people. Greeting after greeting, smile after smile, the whole town was more than alive. Being the loggers don’t come to town but three or four times a year, it’s one long drunken brawl for them. The 4th is a logger’s celebration.

Mark and I arrived in town about 12:00 AM on July 3rd, most of the town asleep and quiet. There were two characters leaving a saloon – Chilkoot Charlie’s it’s name. They staggered to and fro, made nonsensical remarks that only a person filled with Alaska-Yukon brew could understand, and laughed without reason. They started the celebration a little early. We laughed and headed down the road.

The backpacks we carried were heavy, our bodies tired, and minds exhausted. We walked down the dirt road through town looking for a place to settle. From behind we heard our blasted friends howling... talking... with quiet laughter developing into another howl. Mark and I stopped and looked. One man, 220 pounds solid, had a flush face with a smile large enough for two, which filled the air with steam as his warm breath met the cool evening air. The other had an average 5 foot 10 inch build. Beer cans in hand, they staggered toward us, the larger one speaking.

"You two fellows just get in?"

"Yes we did." I replied. "We’re looking for a place to stay. Maybe you could help us out."

"Sure. Looks like you’re carrying a heavy load. My brother in-law will be happy to carry a pack. Hell… I’ll carry one too!"

"Sounds good! They’re pretty heavy but they’re what we live out of. We’ve been traveling throughout Alaska and the Yukon. My name’s Dave and this is my friend Mark."

Mark was 5 foot 10 inches, 135 pounds – Not the kind of guy to be carrying a 75-pound backpack. We let these guys carry our packs and they introduced themselves.

"My name is Dan and this is my brother in-law George. Don’t mind him… he’s been drinking", he said with a grin.

The weight of our packs made our half sober friends stagger worse. The alcohol kept them from complaining about the weight. We walked and they told us of the celebration the next day. It sounded great! As we neared their homes, they gave us our packs, told us of a place to set up camp, and said, "George and I better get inside before all Hell breaks loose from our wives."

They chuckled as they headed off.

We woke up early, cooked breakfast, and headed into town. Children were running around with helium balloons and were blowing off firecrackers in the street. The smell of fresh pastries caught our hearts. It was coming from the Fire-House. A bake sale! We headed inside. An older lady, plump but sweet, noticed our delighted but unsure faces.

"You’re new in this town. My name is Martha Bentley. Please call me Martha. I head the Women’s Club bake sale. You two are too skinny. You look half starved! Try some of our fresh fry bread with some home made blue berry jam."

How could we refuse such an offer. We introduced ourselves and bought a second helping, the first disappearing quickly. We chatted a while then headed to see the logging contests.

Mark and I talked to many people, all of them cheery, alive. One fellow, Jeff, a lanky but agile person, paid particular interest in us. We told him of our travels and then asked him about himself.
He had been logging for the past eight years. Worked on the water to keep the logs from stacking up. He was entered in the Log Rolling contest, a game of balance and wit. We watched and waited as he pulled on his spiked logging boots in preparation for the contest.

We watched the Log Rolling contest with interest. Many people tried. Some drunk, others unskilled. The log would be fiercely rolled and stopped abruptly by the opponents, throwing each other off balance. One by one, each contestant slipped, fell, or was tossed from the log, splashing out of control into the harbor’s ice cold water. A roar of laughter and cheers proceeded the fall every time. Jeff controlled his opponents without so much as a wet boot. Jeff was announced the champion, second year in a row.

The excitement moved to the log chopping contests. They were a bit slow but the free flowing beer kept the spirits high. Viewing the harbor from this site, I saw the greased pole climb beginning. The pole was positioned in a steep slant over the Harbor’s water with a $100 bill in a bag attached at the top. Everyone who attempted to the top slipped into the cold water below. Finally, one determined young lad had struggled to the top after slipping back a few times, grabbed the bag, and slipped off stripping the bag from the nail as he too plunged in.

As the contests were ending, everyone shifted their attention. The adults, laughing in their alcohol, the children as wiry as ever, all gathered at the school grounds, the Hoe Down ready to begin. Hands clapping, feet stomping, Bluegrass music filled the air. The rhythm made everyone wild.

Night was nearing. The band played one last song, finishing with everyone exhausted. They rested and talked. One by one the crowd diminished, moving to the next event, the band packed up their gear, the school grounds were vacant. Only darkness and stars remained.

Across the way on the jetty, new action was taking place. Mark and I headed over. People covered the rocks as they looked out over the Inside Passage. The water was calm, the night very tranquil. I asked a young lady why everyone was here. She smiled, told me to have another beer and I would see. We continued talking. Barbara was her name. She wore a lavender shirt that accented her soft brown eyes. My attention was quickly distracted as the whole sky lit up. Pinks… blues… silvers... orange and reds. Small and large, of different shapes. The 4th of July celebration! The night was quiet except for the ooh’s and ah’s after each explosion. The hour long show ended, chatter about it arose, then it roared, eventually thundering as everyone rushed across town.

The young ones were put to bed while the celebration continued in Chilkoot Charlies. The saloon was rustic, a band playing inside. All seats were taken… hardly a place to stand. The Country music was loud, everyone’s voices in competition; they all had beer and drinks. I decided to dance.

The dance floor was small, the amount of people large. Barely enough room to bob your shoulders back and forth to the music. One drunk young man thought he would solve this situation. He pushed aside another – Ah! Enough room to dance! The guy he pushed immediately thought of an idea too. One… Two… Three fists in the drunk guy’s face and he was out. No one blinked… just dragged him from the dance floor. One less person on the dance floor, the dancing continued.

It was late now, about 12:00 AM. Mark and I, now filled with Alaska-Yukon brew, staggered out of the saloon into the quiet streets. We laughed and talked, barely keeping balance. We noticed two guys carrying backpacks down the road.

Beer cans in hand, we staggered toward them...

"You two fellows just get in?"