a tribute to the sparkling old dude. I was going through the archives of the DUmpster earlier today, trying to figure out why the sparkling old dude, the “Stinky the Clown†primitive on Skins’s island, has been making only rare and infrequent appearances there lately.
And the sparkling old dude’s known for years that right now, in late September, early October, it’s the best time for a primitive to campaign for the Top Dummies of the year. Nominations get underway a mere eight weeks hence, and the awards given the last week of the year.
The sparkling old dude’s made it into the top ten nearly every year, and one time actually got up into second place. It wouldn’t take much for him to win top spot this time around, but oddly when victory might be in his grasp, he doesn’t seem interested.
When reading his old “shout-outs†to decent and civilized people here in the DUmpster, it struck me that he seemed, uh, somewhat antagonistic towards franksolich, which is surprising. You see, the sparkling old dude really likes me. Really.
I’ve known people like the sparkling old dude all my life, God rest their souls.
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When franksolich was a little lad growing up alongside the placid, serene Platte River of Nebraska--this was before the family moved into the Sandhills--he was especially the favorite of old geezers, who used to sit just inside the opened door of the local firehouse playing dominoes.
This was in the early 1960s; these ancients were veterans of the first world war, but there were at least three of them veterans of an earlier conflict; volunteers sent from Kansas and Nebraska to suppress the terrorists in the Philippine Islands at the dawn of that century.
I never knew their names, although they knew mine. To me, they were all thin gaunt old men.
Because the parents were always working at the hospital, my younger brother were usually under the care of our much-older siblings. And being teenagers naturally resentful of the chore, while my younger brother generally behaved and stayed where he was put, I found it easy to wander far afield, exploring the great wide world before my eyes.
Which is why, I suppose, before I entered kindergarten, I’d already been in the hospital three times with significant broken bones from being struck by automobiles. The world’s a dangerous place if one can’t hear.
Anyway, when I was about 3 years old, I happened to wander into the local firehouse, and found so much there so fascinating that I kept going back every chance I had, until I was circa 8 years old.
The ancients didn’t know how to take me, but at times it was pretty obvious they didn’t appreciate my presence, trying various means to shoo me away. I dunno what I ever did to make them this way; whatever things there are a miniature deaf child does, I guess.
They were contradictory in their treatment; at times, I’d be presented with a tray full of old dominoes, one or two of them broken, the white dots on most of them worn off, and missing some pieces. I had plenty of toys as a child, but those dominoes were my prized possession. I used to store them in shoeboxes underneath my bed, and take them out every so often to build things with them, pre-Lego “bricks.â€
Other times, they’d get impatient, and send me away on “errands.†They couldn’t communicate with me very well, and so usually a note was written, and I was somehow directed to where I was supposed to go with it.
The notes were directed to someone far away from where the ancients were sitting; for example, to the editor of the twice-a-week newspaper, asking to borrow the “paper stretcher,†or to the manager of the movie theatre, begging loan of the “key to the curtain.â€
Even then stale old jokes, but me being new to life, I didn’t know.
The ancients obviously didn’t like me hanging around, sometimes even snarling at me, swatting me away, although I have no idea why.
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However, very oddly, those times I was in the hospital or ill at home, these old guys were usually among the first visitors to come and see me (if I was presentable, which sometimes I wasn’t), bearing gifts.
One of the first memories of my younger brother (he was then about 4, myself 6) was that of sitting in the kitchen while our mother--who stayed home when one of us was ill--had coffee-and-cake with one of these hoary gentlemen. I was in the sick-room, a small bedroom off to the side of the parents’ bedroom, a vaporizer spewing out steam as if a railway locomotive.
The old gentleman had brought a present for me.
“That boy, ma’am, is a handful,†he advised my mother.
My mother agreed, after which they apparently went on to chitchat about other things.
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And thus the sparkling old dude on Skins’s island; I’ve known people like him all my life, God rest their souls, and know that despite his loud protestations of anger against franksolich, on the inside, he really likes franksolich, really cares about franksolich.
