Soft Lips Obispo

As the twenty-first century wore on, life in California got stranger and stranger. A good example was the state lottery and what you could win besides money. In the summer of 2035, the prize was this: twelve changes to the official state map, any changes that the winner wished, permanent until future lottery winners made further changes. 

That was the summer that Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel had the winning ticket. Being of an eccentric bent, they were delighted with the prize and lost almost no time breaking out their Rand McNally, Thomas Guides, and AAA fold-up maps.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this” raved Mr. Patel, small bits of foam forming at the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog on the prowl. He said that to his neighbors and to the local news channel. Sometimes he said it in his sleep. Mrs. Katel’s response was somewhat more contained, although inwardly the gears of her mind were fast at work at this unprecedented opportunity to make geographic name changes.

The Patel-Katels set their minds to the task and each came up with a list of six proposed changes to the map of California.

Mrs. Katel’s list:

1. California becomes Caliphoneya (spoken with a deep southern accent).
2. Barstow becomes Barstool.
3. Santa Cruz becomes Santa Cruzcontrol.
4. San Bernardino becomes San Berniesanders.
5. Carpinteria becomes The Carpenters.
6. Ojai becomes Oh-hi-there.

Mr. Patel’s list:

1. San Luis Obispo becomes Soft Lips Obispo.
2. Bakersfield becomes Baker’s Dozen.
3. Solvang becomes Solvent.
4. Truckee becomes Truckstop.
5. Route 14 becomes Route 14.5.
6. Ojai becomes Ohio. 

They hadn’t anticipated that they would pick the same city. In a state the size of California, the largest state in the union by population, that seemed unlikely. They would have to choose one of the two names, then add a twelfth change.

For the twelfth change, they agreed to turn Soledad into Soledad O’Brien. But on the subject of Ojai, they could not agree.

“What do you mean turning Ojai into ‘Oh-hi-there’?” shouted Mr. Patel. “That’s just plain silly. Clearly the town is calling out to be renamed ‘Ohio’, giving it the solid Midwestern backbone it always secretly craved!”

To which Mrs. Katel responded, “Solid Midwestern backbone? The town craves no such thing! You clearly don’t know Ojai. The people there are way more likely to go for ‘Oh-hi-there’. They will embrace the humor, the innovation.”

“Innovation?” said Mr. Patel. “You call that innovation? Maybe a ten-year-old’s idea of innovation. Would you be willing to change it to ‘Jai Alai’?”

“Jai alai?” responded Mrs. Katel. “You mean that Basque bouncy-ball game they play in Bridgeport, Connecticut? No! That would be a terrible name for Ojai. Sorry but I’m not changing my proposal for Ojai.”

Which left them with no choice but to contact the Lottery Commissioner so as to resolve the dispute. The Lottery Commissioner invited them to his office in Sacramento.

“This is what we’re going to do” said Commissioner Schwarzenegger. “We’re going to flip a coin. Heads, ‘Ohio’, tails ‘Oh-hi-there’. May the better man win.”

The ‘better man’ turned out to be Mrs. Katel.

And that is how Ojai changed its name to ‘Oh-hi-there’.

- copyright 2019 by P.T. Gachot

The Case for Common Sense

The Patels lived in a warm climate and one had to be mindful about buying groceries and leaving them in the car. Sitting in the sun with the windows rolled up, a car quickly turned into a greenhouse, a great place to grow certain varieties of plants, but also a very effective way of spoiling all kinds of foods.

For this reason Mr. Patel always made a point of seeking out shady parking spots. Even if there was no food in the car, he preferred keeping the interior of his car cool. It was just more pleasant that way, and any clothing or cd’s or other personal items would not get compromised by the searing rays of sunshine - sunshine that seemed to get stronger every year, regardless of whether or not you believed in global warming.

Furthermore, Mr. Patel did not mind seeking out the shadiest spots even if it meant parking in the farthest, most remote areas of a parking lot. The way he looked at it, Americans - himself included - were the most overfed people on the planet, and if they had to sacrifice “convenience” for walking long distances to and from the store, it was a good thing, an opportunity for badly-needed exercise. 

Mr. Patel was happy with his parking habits, and to his way of thinking they just made sense. But the community did not see it that way. There was a strong built-in tendency to park as close to the store as possible, and to refuse to make a connection between parking in the blazing hot sun and having your perishable foods spoiled. It was just considered impolite to make that connection.

Later, when people’s banana yogurt and organic eggs and frozen Lima beans were compromised, they were quite fond of throwing a fit about how their food was ruined, and how bad their luck was. This was followed by a stream of angry curses so virulent they would make a drunken sailor blush.

To Mr. Patel’s way of thinking, this was crazy. It simply lacked common sense. With the best of intentions he wrote an editorial in the local newspaper, the title of which was “The Case for Common Sense”. In it, he proposed planting more trees in parking lots, building solar panels and other design techniques that could solve the whole problem.

The community did not take well to Mr. Patel’s editorial. He was shunned in every possible way. First he was branded as “eccentric”, and not long after that terms like “subversive” and “threat to society” were overheard. Finally the floodgates were opened and labels such as “socialist”, “communist”, “hippie” and “tree hugger” were freely directed at Mr. Patel.

None of these words really bothered Mr. Patel very much, but when word got out about an angry mob carrying baseball bats, he made the decision to live like a savage in a remote corner of the Mojave Desert.

Actually he liked the desert very much, so it was really a blessing in disguise. Before long he found a nice, shady cave hidden in the mountains and was crafting spears out of palo verde branches. He frequently hiked to the tops of the nearby mountains where he found the vistas spiritually uplifting. For food he would suck on the juices of cacti and the fruits of Joshua trees. Sometimes his wife would bring him a change of socks and underwear.

This is how Mr. Patel ended up living like a savage in a remote corner of the Mojave Desert. 

- copyright 2019 by P.T. Gachot

Land of Enchantment my Ass

Heading west after their visit to Big Bend National Park, Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel pondered where they would rest their heads that night. Looking at the map, the logical destination was Las Cruces, New Mexico.

But then Mr. Patel remembered the time they got lost in Las Cruces, and he had no desire to repeat that experience.

“Why don’t we stay in one of the smaller towns near Las Cruces?” he asked. “There may not be as many amenities, but it will likely be less stressful.”

“Okay” said Mrs. Katel. “Let’s give it a try.”

So they found themselves in Deming, New Mexico, population around 15,000. Mr. Patel and Mrs. Katel had some experience of small western towns, so they had some idea of what they were in for.

And sure enough the town more or less fit their expectations. A chain motel at one end, just off the interstate, fit their humble needs to a tee. There were even laundry facilities to wash their grungy clothes, covered with Big Bend dust.

“Is there somewhere in town where we can stock up on supplies?” Mrs. Katel asked the desk clerk. Sure enough there was a Walmart just down the road.

So after checking into their humble room in the humble town they took advantage of the daylight and made the short drive to Walmart.

To Mr. Patel it looked like any other Walmart anywhere else in the country, with all its good and bad points. But to Mrs. Katel there was something distinctly wrong with the place. To use her terminology, it was “starting to bug her.”

Mr. Patel tried to wrap his mind around his wife’s suffering, and what he came up with was this: every time they went down an aisle in the store, some people - maybe an entire family - appeared out out of thin air, thus obstructing their path. This seemed to be happening constantly.

Mr. Patel agreed that this was distressing, but that in the grand scheme of phenomena it was something he was prepared to deal with. Not so Mrs. Katel. To her, this was dealbreaker material. 

“Land of Enchantment my ass!!!” she screamed in the middle of the Walmart, so loud that it was followed by a deafening silence.

The motto of the entire state of New Mexico was on the line.

A very well dressed man appeared in front of us, and he introduced himself as Enrique Calderón, manager of that particular Walmart. He invited us into his office.

I was impressed with the Old World furnishings of Enrique’s office. Lots of dark wooden furniture, carved in the Spanish style, and red velvet drapes on either side of a picture window looking out on a fantastic panorama of mountains and desert.

“Please” said Enrique. “Have a seat.” We positioned ourselves on antique chairs worthy of Queen Isabella.

Enrique quietly poured what appeared to be a very fine old bottle of port into two snifters, which he handed to me and Mrs. Katel.

“I have a rancho on an island in the Sea of Cortez. I would very much like you two to be my guests for the coming weekend. Don’t worry about expenses, I will take care of that entirely.”

The offer seemed very generous to me, and since I’ve always had a soft spot for the Sea of Cortez, I enthusiastically took up Mister Calderón on his offer. We all clinked our snifters and drank a microscopic sip of the fine old port.

The next day a car came to pick us up at our motel. Enrique made arrangements with the motel and the rental car company - the vehicle would be kept safely at the motel and cost us nothing. 

What followed was a combination of car, airplane and boat ride that happened so quickly that before I knew it we were on Enrique’s island.

Enrique himself met us at the dock where the boat let us off. He greeted us warmly and led us to the ‘casita’ where we would be staying, which was located next to his house. A swimming pool separated the casita from the main house.

Enrique invited us into the main house. The furnishings were reminiscent of his office in the Walmart in Deming. He silently poured us small amounts of what appeared to be very fine old port.

“Salud” he said as we clinked our glasses and had a microscopic sip of the fine old port.

“Put your bathing suits on” he said. “We don’t want to miss the vaquitas.”

Vaquitas of course are the rare, endangered dolphins that inhabit the Sea of Cortez. After putting on out bathing suits, Enrique led us back to the dock where we arrived. We noticed three kayaks ready for embarking.

In no time we found ourselves in kayaks floating on the Sea of Cortez. Enrique said “Follow me around that point”. In about five minutes we rounded the point.

There in what was a fabulously configured cove, part island and part mainland, we were surrounded by frolicking vaquitas, hundreds of them, leaping in and out of the water. It was a splendid sight on a splendid sunny day, colorful and refreshing, with blasts of fresh salty sea and air.

In this way the unpleasantness of one bad experience at Walmart was resolved.

- copyright 2019 by P.T. Gachot

Family Values

Where we grew up, there was a print of a painting on the wall of our childhood bedroom that was the first thing we saw when we woke. It was a scene of an early horse-drawn fire engine racing through a nineteenth century city street. It was an overall dark painting with red brick buildings and the brown hues of early American northeastern cities. It was a strange thing to see every morning upon waking up, but as a family we never discussed it.

It was similar in spirit to the lithographs of Currier and Ives, except that it wasn't their work. Instead it was the work of Ernest Opper, who called his 1889 painting "Fire-Engine on Broad Street, Elizabeth, New Jersey". It hangs in the museum of the Rhode Island School of Design.

The facts about this painting did not come easy. It took half a century for them to surface. As a family, we never discussed it. The painting was just there, a given, as unexplained as the sun or the moon or the sky.

No one even knows how it got there.

As a child I think I took it as a message about the world I was born into. It was a world that was evidently dark, built of brick, and on fire.

                                                                            *******

As a family, we never discussed what kind of cheese we liked. There was always lots of Swiss cheese, and later Jarlsberg, which as a child I ate a tremendous amount of. I ate it partly because I liked it and partly just because it was there. 

This behavior proved unhealthy as I ended up in the hospital with some sort of clinical constipation that to this day I don't fully understand.

It wasn't until much later, when I had gotten out in the world, that I experienced a broad spectrum of cheeses. Eventually, after several decades of sampling, it emerged that I was a Gruyere man. This was an important discovery because, once I realized that I liked strong salty cheeses with a bite, I also realized I didn't need to eat as much to be satisfied. In other words, Gruyere is a highly efficient cheese, getting you faster to your cheese destination. Whereas Jarlsberg and Swiss keep me eating more and more in the hope of arriving at a destination that never materializes. Well, sometimes it materializes, but it takes longer.

All of this seems true, but as a family we never discussed it.

                                                                            *******

The house we grew up in had lots of scratchy wool socks that went up fairly high above the ankles. That meant that the covered portion of the legs felt scratchy. I think this was supposed to make the long, cold winters tolerable, but I'm not sure it worked in my case. I seem to remember that the winters were cold AND scratchy.

To be fair, some of these socks didn't fit me at all. Sometimes they were so loose that the scratchy wool was a good half inch away from my leg. This extra space was perfect for storing snow while walking outdoors. Unfortunately the snow melted upon going indoors.

It wasn't until later, when I had gotten out in the world, that I experienced a broad spectrum of socks. Eventually it emerged that my sock of choice was very different from those old woolies. 

My sock of choice stops at my ankle, is made of smooth cotton or synthetic material, and clings tightly to my feet. My legs stay warm because I spend most of my time in warm places.

Not that there is anything wrong with scratchy wool socks, but as a family, we never discussed it. We never discussed the nuances of socks, scratchy or otherwise.

                                                                             *******

There were two shards of soap in the downstairs bathroom. One was white and the other was yellow. Neither of them got very soft while showering. Neither of them was particularly effective. As a family, we never discussed how we felt about those shards of soap.

I think those shards may have dated back to when my mother passed away. In that case they were fraught with the spirit of that difficult time. Or they may have dated to when my father fell and injured his hip, forcing him to take up residence in the downstairs bedroom. In that case the shards were fraught with the spirit of that difficult time.

Since I use that shower on my visits, I was always confronted with those two shards of soap and the fact that they didn't get soft and were fraught with the spirit of those two difficult times.

Since both of those events were in the past, and I felt that my desire to get clean in the shower was legitimate and sincere, I decided to replace the two old shards with a fresh bar of Yardley. Yes, I am a Yardley man. It gets better results and makes for a better experience.

Still, we never as a family discussed any of this. To this day, we never formed a cohesive, comprehensive, family-wide philosophy of soap.

- copyright 2019 by P.T. Gachot