At certain times over the years my morale has suddenly taken a nosedive because of what I heard just before I started on what I thought was going to be an enjoyable new experience.

At a Pocono resort I’d just mounted a friendly-looking horse and began to introduce myself to Violet as we trotted off when the wrangler called out, “Mister, that there horse ain’t called ‘Violet’. It’s ‘Violent'”. I was rescued three miles away later from a tangle of poison ivy where I’d been tossed.

Arriving for my new driver’s license test, I felt confident, remembering the rules of the road Dad had recited during my practice drives. “Good morning!” the Motor Vehicle Inspector said. “I just got out of the hospital. Some kid made a too-sharp left turn last week and we crashed into an approaching car.” I was turned own that day for making a too-wide left turn.

As a USAF private, hitch-hiking to get home on an Air Force bomber, I enjoyed crawling through a narrow tunnel into the empty rear gunner’s compartment for great views of America’s East Coast cities. I hoped to repeat the visit later but was confronted by a flight officer who shouted, “Never, ever, take off your parachute in a B-25!”

Years later, waiting for my buddies in a crowded New Jersey singles bar, I ordered a beer. As the bartender poured, he called to the back room, “Joe, we’re running out of glasses!”
“I’m washing them as fast as I can!” Joe called back.

“We don’t wash glasses on Saturday night!” the bartender reminded him.

What the hell! It was a hot night. I chug-a-lugged anyway and passed the word, letting the next thirsty guy decide for himself.

What would the world be like without soap? It would be a very filthy, smelly place. We’d have to wear disposable clothes, eat off paper plates and use sandpaper when taking baths or showering. Just plain water wouldn’t work. Somebody had to find a way to make insoluble grime soluble. The Babylonians did that almost 5,000 years ago and left the recipe on a clay tablet.

That’s rather surprising since the recipe for basic soap is so simple It could be ranked “as easy as apple pie”. There are only three basic ingredients: Water, lye and lard. Some have added additional ingredients like perfumes and vegetable oils to soften the skin and make us smell like salad bars.

Pumice is added to specialty soaps used by greasy mechanics and splattered house painters. It does the job and removes only a few top layers of skin.

One of the uses of strong brown soap is to curtail the vocabularies of little boys. I can still taste Fels-Naptha after commenting loudly when the Mets lose a close game.

Lye is also called “caustic soda”. It’s strong stuff and unfriendly to our skin and eyes. Vinegar isn’t an ingredient but should be kept handy to help neutralize the accidental splashes that get past your heavy gloves, impervious apron and safety goggles. The only other safety requirement I remember is to make soap while your kids are in school and the pets are in the backyard. This also applies to your husband if he’s the clumsy type.

I have always been a born follower. Once, as a third grader, I was told by the teacher to lead the boys into the schoolyard for the recess period. I lost most of them before I got out the back door. Three rascals were discovered later trying to outsmart the candy machine in the teachers’ break room.

I managed, in the Air Force, to get a job in communications where I never had more than two or three subordinates. One of them, at least, eventually learned enough to outrank me by one or two stripes.

There was the time I was with a group of airmen undergoing our annual physicals on a west coast air base. As we emerged from the base hospital one day, an officer came by. “Corporal,” he shouted, “march these men over to the mess hall.”

(March these men?? ) I hadn’t marched anybody since that third grade debacle. “Yes Sir,” I said and he returned my salute as I turned to my troops and shouted, “Fall in!” As they began to line up or whatever you call that, I remembered the mess hall was a half mile away to my right.

I also remembered how James Whitmore got his outfit’s immediate and obedient attention in that “Battle Ground” movie. I shouted as gruffly as I could manage, “Right face!” but my to-my-right mess hall was to-their-left and they’d be marching off in the wrong direction.

“Are all you guys deaf?” I growled, “About face!” and then “Forward march!” I had them moving in the right direction, but some of them were murmuring and shaking their heads. None of James Whitmore’s outfit shook their heads or murmured, not even Van Johnson.

I began shouting Whitmore’s cadence piece. “You had a good home and you LEFT. Jodie was there when you Left.” Apparently they’d all seen the movie and they joined in. I was also getting into it when one of the boys up front shouted, “Corp! You’re marching us into an excavation!”

“Stop!” I shouted. “I mean, halt!” I had to improvise. “Let’s fall out here and fall in at the mess hall. In between, if you spot the Lieutenant, shout, “Company scatter!”

“Don’t worry,” the experts say, “memory loss is a normal part of the aging process.” I’m supposed to find that comforting? Isn’t dying also a normal part of the aging process?

It’s getting to the point where I forget the meanings of ordinary words and I have to look them up in the watchimacallit. And it’s even making it difficult to communicate socially.

Recently a friend asked if I had a favorite movie. “Yes, I do,” I replied. “I don’t remember the title but it was a detective movie with my favorite actor in the lead. You know, he was in a lot of other movies with what’s-her-name, the blond actress who married the Oscar-winning director of the World War I film, or was it the World War II film? Why are you shaking your head like that? I answered your question.”

“Transience” is what they call the process of old memories being jettisoned to make room for new ones. Like our computers, our brains have limited memory banks and every little item has to be given a priority number. We probably remember the Mets’ first World Series win in 1969, but “What the heck is that spice my wife told me to buy at the supermarket today?”

There has been a possible breakthrough in this area of cognitive psychology called “Doorway Amnesia”. Notre Dame scientists have given it a more exact definition. We used to think when we left the living room to get something in the kitchen and forgot what it was when we got there, it was merely a matter of short term absentmindedness.

Notre Dame researchers think the doorway itself might be the culprit since it’s the entrance to another venue which tends to delete older information in our brains to make room for what happens in this new place. Subjects in their experiments tended to remember missions after walking the measured distance unless they passed through a doorway on the way.

Should we start eliminating doorways in our homes? And what about in the Pentagon, the Capitol, the Whitehouse ?

(I wrote about my sorely missed Molly before, but I’ve become more upset with the way Big Business is frequently changing their confusing rules as if we were a bunch of serfs subjected to their whims.)

A long time ago I dropped in at the ATM with my faithful dog Molly. I thought she would enjoy the experience. She liked most people, especially kids, but we came upon a confused crowd of adults in the bank’s lobby. They were arguing about the new ATM instructions. There were pros and cons. Molly had no opinion, but she looked upset and was getting fidgety.

I was finally able to reach the machine and make a withdrawal, but by then, Molly had made a deposit. I won’t be able to use that ATM for awhile. The crowd raised quite a stink and Molly and I scurried out.

Another list of bank rule revisions had managed to upset that crowd. If you find our rapidly changing technology with its new rules, unsettling, imagine the effect it’s having on our dogs. When they first joined our families, our lives were simpler and calmer. They had no trouble as welcome additions to our packs, becoming protectors of our young children and challengers of suspicious strangers. All that came naturally.

Molly would have liked to help out with the ATM problem, but she was still trying to figure out television and didn’t understand how the family could sit there calmly while all that shouting and shooting was taking place outside the window across the room.

Cars were a different matter. Molly loved to rove, especially at higher speeds. Sightseeing and sightsmelling with her head out the window and ears flapping in the wind, were just her thing. A big plus was being able to bark insults and challenges to large dogs and haughty cats along the way while sitting in a speeding ironbound car.

She had the twice daily task of taking me for my walks. I’m sure when I whistled and she saw me with leash in hand standing by the door, she thought, “The old guy has to go out again and be led around the neighborhood. But that’s a fair price I have to pay for the kibbles, treats and belly scratches.”

I think they got it all wrong. “Planet of the Apes” was a failure. They chose the wrong animals.

Belief in life after death has been widespread throughout the world over the centuries, although the details vary greatly among the believers and many others refute the concept of an afterlife completely.

Some maintain the Highway of Life eventually comes to a dead end and oblivion. Others expect to stop at an important toll booth before a fork in the Highway that leads to two very different destinations for eternity-bound travelers. A third group hopes for an eventual U-turn opportunity and another chance to live more worthy lives on earth.

Mark Twain’s last book, “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” was an imaginative celestial travelogue with humorous jabs at the prevailing ideas of after-life in the early 20th century. For instance, the Captain reported Earthlings were a minority group in heaven compared to the billions of afterlife travelers from other planets in the enormous universe.

According to the Twain book, new Earthling arrivals soon became bored sitting on clouds plunking harps and began to search for more interesting experiences. They were not disappointed. There was a great hoopla at the entrance gate one day, attended by many famous saints. It turned out they were awaiting the arrival of a recently redeemed man, a bartender from New Jersey who’d regretted and confessed his sins at the very last minute to earn his halo.

Mark Twain died three years after his encouraging book came out. I wish he’d be allowed to write another one now with actual exciting details and descriptions.

There have been many so-called afterlife experience accounts. One is about the widow who’d just been granted admittance past the Pearly Gate. Saint Peter asked for her first wish. “I want to join my late husband, William,” she said. “His last words were he’d turn over in his grave if he knew I was kissing another man.”

“Oh!” said Saint Peter, “You must be talking about ‘Whirlwind Willie’!”

As I sit here at the picnic table which I built with my own ten thumbs, overlooking the pale remains of what was once a promising lawn, I remember when I recently became desperate enough to seek help from the government.

That was our worst spring when even the peat moss died and I reached out to the Rutgers Department of Agriculture for advice and I somehow ended up being accused of purposely disrupting the morale of its staff .

Since my backyard is sloped, I sent separate soil samples of the upper and lower areas in case they required different treatments . In a fit of frustration I destroyed the testy reply letter, but it went something like this: “Dear Sir: While we are happy to assist New Jersey residents in their agricultural endeavors, we must remind you that this department is working with a limited budget and does not have the funds to provide this service for residents of other states or countries.

“We have therefore made only a cursory analysis of the two samples which you submitted but it is quite clear to our staff that neither sample is from this state. Regarding the sample labeled ‘Upper’, the analysts are divided in their opinions. The majority feel certain that it was recently removed from the northeastern area of the Death Valley basin in California as there are suspected minute traces of borax. Others suggest you may have submitted an earth sample from the Gobi Desert.

“While we by no means wish to indulge you in your hoax, we would appreciate your immediate reply identifying the actual source of this ‘Upper’ sample to put an end to the debates and bickering which are interfering with this department’s work schedule.

“The staff is unanimous in its opinion of the origin of your sample labeled ‘Lower’. If your friend in the Okefenokee Swamp does not already know it, you can advise him he has extremely fertile soil, but is limited in crop selection to those plants which can survive frequent inundation and intermittent alligator visitation.”

I eventually replied to this accusatory letter but could not convince the department that I had submitted valid samples from Morris County, New Jersey. The last I heard, one of the Gobi Desert faction was claiming evidence of camel droppings in my ‘Upper’ sample.

The Rutgers team may have misjudged my motives, but their analyses were very good if one ignores their geographic guesses.

On my lower patch I’ll be experimenting with rice this year and planting cactus uphill. It will still be a backyard where, on a windy day, one can be standing in mud while getting hit in the face with dust.

Many years ago while at a cocktail party I noticed a strikingly beautiful girl across the room couldn’t keep her eyes off me. Finally, she walked over and said, “I know you’ll think I’m presumptuous and impulsive, but I just have to have a word with you.”

“I understand perfectly, my dear,” I replied with all the modesty I could dredge up at the moment. ” What can I do for you?”

“You’re a darling,” she cooed. “It’s your jacket collar. It’s all twisted and it’s driving me crazy. Would you mind fixing it?”

She left a few minutes later with the bongo player and I never saw her again. I use the incident as an example of one of my many humiliating experiences as an incurable unkempt, undapper, scruffy individual. The entire world population seems to have taken on the responsibility of keeping me neat. I admit I can’t handle the job alone, but there’s such a thing as too much help.

Perfect strangers stop me on the street to tell me my coat is buttoned up wrong or socks don’t match. I had to talk one old lady out of tying one of my shoes. “You could trip on that loose lace!” she warned me.

It has begun to affect my psyche and brought on a recurring dream which involves a scene at my wake with my loved ones bemoaning my passing. “Look at him!” one of them says. “He was in the prime of his life!”….”We’ll never get over this,” another says , “Yes, he does look wonderful, but let me straighten that crooked tie.”

As a married man and father I could never slip past the reviewing line before leaving the house for work. “Your cowlick is standing up. Dad!”…..”If you’re not going by bicycle, you’d better pull your pants legs out of your socks, Dad.”

Having made the adjustments and almost out the door, I face the Chief Inspector with increased confidence. “How do I look, Sweetheart?”

“Just about perfect, but…..”

“But what?”

“Did you know your left ear is a little higher than your right, Darling?”

Even Mother Nature is against me. My beard begins to grow vigorously right after lunch and my lower abdomen has begun to protrude just enough to catch falling gravy and block my view of my scuffed up shoes.

I have another disturbing dream where I’ve won the Nobel Prize for literature. (Blog division) and as the King of Sweden presents my medal and reaches out to shake my hand, he notices the price tag dangling from my sleeve.

“Forty-nine, ninety-nine! His Majesty exclaims. ” Where did you get such a nice jacket like that for such a bargain?”

I wake up sobbing.

The epidemic breaks out every spring. The experts speak of a probable connection with the vernal equinox which infects the victims with an uncontrollable urge to dig up their back yards. The condition is sometimes referred to as “Delusions of Verdure”.

It is mostly confined to the northern states where Nature wipes out the remains of our old horticultural failures in late autumn and gives us six months to forget them and to plan and plant new ones.

In our weakened condition we tend to take the glowing descriptions of the seed catalogs literally during the preplanting weeks. When they say “Easily grown”, “Early blooming” and “High-Yielding” we like to believe them. We forget that last year we buried (not planted) many dollars’ worth of seeds and never caught sight of them again. We are also drawn to the colorful ads in the Sunday supplements with bargain prices for Lombardy poplar seedlings that can grow to a maximum height of 20 feet. The minimum height is never mentioned. I’ve found it can be very close to zero feet.

If all the evergreens, mimosas, magnolias and “living fences of roses” that I’ve planted and prayed over in the last decade had reached maturity I would now be living in an impenetrable quarter acre of jungle. I would have to post a sign on the front gate for visitors. “Please return the machete to this hook when leaving.”

With very few of my plants emerging far enough to identify, my horticultural knowledge is severely limited. This is sometimes a handicap during my assignments as a reporter which requires some basic botanical know-how. I once had to interview an important horticulturist working in a very large city park about his plans for the thousand-acre oasis.

“I’m very busy right now,” he said. “Please take that path next to the mulberry bush and meet me down by the eucalyptus tree.” The park ranger who rescued me later said the horticulturist had left in a huff.

Nevertheless when spring arrives, the sap must rise. in spite of past crop failures and present lack of horticultural talent. As the days grow longer, so do one’s delusions. By mid-June I’ll be thinking about renting a plow and on weekends I’ll be calling out over my shoulder, “I’m going out to the south forty, Ma!” and she’ll be thinkin’ “Land sakes! In a few weeks we’ll be enjoying crabgrass salad again!”

Many years ago I was on a Teenybopper Taxi Team, expected to provide transportation, at a moment’s notice, for as many high school kids that would fit in my car. There were no seat belts then, so the passenger lists could be quite long, and so could the mileage and the waiting time.

There was no set of rules then. If it was your turn, that was “it”. A turn could be as simple as driving a couple of Teenyboppers across town to the library. There’d be a 20-minute round trip plus a half hour wait.

Or it could involve an hour-long round trip to a girls’ basketball game in another county and another boring hour waiting for one of the teams to break the 29-point tie.

There was no rule then about passengers whispering in the back seat and keeping the driver out of the loop while a joke was recited and giggled at. I would get a warning like “Dad, please don’t lean back like that. It isn’t safe and besides, we’re talking about something very private, (giggling increases).

Under the new rules, passengers will have to provide navigational assistance to insure the shortest ETA’s. Way back then: “Nancy, is this your neighborhood?”

“Yes, Mr. Newman.”……..”Is your house far from here? Do I have to make any turns?”……..”Just one, Mr. Newman. You passed my house about five minutes ago. I didn’t want to interrupt your daughter’s joke then.”

Minor maintenance assistance will be obligatory. Way back then on a rainy night: “Can any of you kids fix a flat?”…….”What’s a flat, Mr. Newman?” was the first reply and then: “We don’t know much about flats, but if your flat is broken, we’ll help you fix it.”

Every trip will be well organized with passenger names and address lists. One dark night back then I made several pickups before reaching the movie theater. I checked for the next pickup time, but something was bothering me. I asked the last girl who was getting out, “Wanda, did my daughter Carolyn just go into the theater with the others?”

“Oh no, she couldn’t make it, Mr. Newman. She’s babysitting tonight.”

The whole business needs a Teamster-like set of rules to avoid misunderstandings and confusion. “Thanks for the ride, Mr. Newman,” disembarking teeners will say. “You’re very welcome, ladies. That’ll be $5.25 each.”