Column
Off The Wall #6
Jul 26th
My wife went to a conference recently and returned with all sorts of cool stories and references that she picked up from the guest speaker, who was a mortician. Don’t ask what kind of conference, because I’m not even sure. I just know my wife works with deceased people’s estates and deceased people’s relatives, so going to a conference where a mortician is the guest speaker is fairly routine for her.
So she comes home all full of explanations for things like “graveyard shift,” “wake” and even the old saying “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
I happen to work the graveyard shift at one of my many part time jobs, so I was intrigued. The mortician told my wife that back in the day (i.e. 500-plus years ago), medical science was somewhat unclear on when a person was actually dead and when they were just in a coma. They also drank from lead cups and—according to the mortician—the combination of whiskey and lead could knock someone into a coma and people didn’t know if they were dead or just dead drunk and lead poisoned, so they would lay them on the kitchen table and stand around waiting for them to wake up.
Hence the term “wake.”
However, according to the all-powerful internet, this is a mere hoax, because A) Even though it was the Middle Ages, people were not stupid. If someone was breathing, they were alive. If not, they were dead. B) Most people in the Middle Ages did not have a kitchen, much less a kitchen table to lay people on to wait and see if they were dead and C) Although lead poisoning can indeed be deadly, it doesn’t just happen all at once. It takes years of eating paint chips and/or drinking whiskey from a lead cup.
Trust me on this one: I’ve seen the effect of eating paint chips on my buddy Brad and it has been a slow but gradual decline into psychosis, idiocracy and overall poor judgment during the fantasy football season.
The graveyard shift story the mortician told was that since these Middle Ages boneheads couldn’t figure out if people were alive or dead, they would sometimes dig up coffins and find scratch marks on the inside of the coffin lids. This became such an issue that eventually everyone was buried with a string above their heads that was attached to a bell which was placed over their grave. If a person woke up in a coffin, they would pull the string, ring the bell and someone would come and dig them up. Hopefully.
Since these bell-ringing-not-dead people might wake up in the middle of the night, someone had to hang around the graveyard and listen for the bell.
Hence, the graveyard shift. Other folklore etymology associated with this legend are the words “Saved by the Bell” and “Dead Ringer.” Turns out Saved by the Bell is actually a boxing term (and a television show with Nerd Supreme Leader Samuel “Screech” Powers), while dead ringer simply means someone who looks just like someone else, although you have to wonder if the term originated with the coffin bell gizmo.
This story has more holes in it than a medieval cemetery. First off, why did they have to rig up a string if they were doing the wake thing on the kitchen table? You mean to tell me that after three days in the kitchen the Middle Agers still couldn’t figure out if people were dead and they went ahead and buried them anyway and rigged up the bell system?
I’m no Medical Examiner, but after three days I could make a fairly accurate determination about a person’s life or death status. Think about it.
There were actually some bell ringer coffins created in the 17th and 18th centuries, but they didn’t really work because decaying bodies tend to bloat and shift during the process and sometimes this would cause false alarms, which would no doubt upset both the graveyard shift workers and the immediate family of the dearly departed.
I also checked out the baby with the bathwater story, which turned out to be true. The mortician said that during the Middle Ages, people only bathed about once a year (yikes!). They would heat up a big pot of water and the eldest in the family would bathe first, followed by the rest of the clan in chronological order. The babies would go last and then they would throw out the dirty bathwater.
Hence, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I could probably argue with this one, too, since I’m having a hard time picturing a medieval baby just floating unobserved in a tub of filthy water while somebody prepares to throw it out, but I won’t because I still can’t get over the fact that they only bathed once a year. Even my paint chip-eating buddy Brad showers once a month or so.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
Cate’s Column #11
Jul 21st
Busted…?
A long, long time ago in a yard far, far away…
My summer job was watering desert plants and looking after my snowbird neighbors’ homes while they were off enjoying cooler climes. My work vehicle was a bicycle, the basket stuffed with water bottles and house keys. My uniform was portable shade — a wide-brimmed straw hat, long sleeved white shirt and slacks. It didn’t matter to me how I looked; nobody was around to point and laugh.
One day I was dragging a hose in my silent world and heard an extremely loud BONNNNK! I dropped my hose and looked up to see a sheriff’s car. A hand appeared in the window and waved me over.
I trudged through the sand, wondering if someone needed directions.
“Sheriff, you scared me! Gee whiz, I didn’t realize anyone was watching me. I wasn’t picking my nose or anything, was I?”
“What’re you doing here?”
“Watering. I … .”
“No.” He interrupted. “What is your function here?”
“W-watering. I take care of some of my neighbors’ yards while they’re away. Why?”
“We’ve gotten some complaints about somebody going around turning off water.”
“Oh. Well, I turn ON water, so… .” I turned to go.
“What’s your name.”
“Cate Mueller.” What the heck?
“Date of birth. Got any ID, Cate Mueller?”
“ID? No. Why?”
“How do I know you’re who you say you are? You could be here to rob the place.”
“Riding a bicycle?”
The deputy radioed my information to central dispatch and had them check for wants and warrants on me. I waited patiently while the records check came back negative.
The deputy looked me up and down and said, “What’s your husband do?”
Ugh! Dang it, I forgot to reinstall my wedding ring after I slathered on sunscreen and now this guy was hitting on me. I prepared to give him a polite turn-down.
“I’m … not … .”
“Married?” He interrupted me again.
‘Interested!’ I was going to say, ‘I’m not interested’!
“Got a girlfriend?” he smirked.
“Sure.” My turn to smirk.
I let the silence hang for a while. “Look, I have a signed contract with the homeowner. I can go get it if you want.”
“Oh. Well, since you have a signed contract you just go right ahead. Go about your business.” The deputy waved me away and drove slowly off into the sunrise.
Days like that made me appreciate living in near-total isolation.
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
Cate’s Column #10
Jul 13th
A powerful monsoon storm slammed into my neighborhood three miles northwest of Bouse Sunday evening, July 11th, 2011. Wind toppled tall trees, smashed windows, blew out metal garage doors, plucked coolers from rooftops, ripped awnings from houses and tore off a roof from a stick-built home.
“The wind was blowing the rain so hard it hurt,” reported that homeowner. “I went inside the garage to watch all the lightning and I saw something fly past my window. Then something much larger went flying past – I didn’t realize at the time it was my own garage roof! I didn’t even hear it go. The wind also took the roof off the kitchen.”
The roof is now a mangled mess of metal and lumber down hill from the home.
Aluminum panels littered the neighborhood, some flying for acres before wrapping around trees. Wind flattened several carports and uprooted many Mesquite and Palo Verde trees. Storage sheds and their contents were strewn everywhere.
Power poles along Highway 72 snapped, leaving electrical transformers dangling by wires or smashed on the ground.
As is usual for monsoon storms, the electricity goes out with the first big thunder blast. This time the power went off at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon and was restored about 4 a.m. Tuesday. Kudos to the APS crew! Surveying the widespread jaw-dropping damage, I expected to be without power much longer than 36 hours.
Out here, no electricity means no running water (limited washing and no flushing – ew!), no air conditioning or telephone; much less modern delights such as television or the Internet. Taking nothing for granted!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
Off The Wall #5
Jul 13th
My World
Now that the Casey Anthony trial is over, I can comment on it without unduly influencing the jury. Like the rest of the media in this country, I’ve avoided the subject up until now.
Obviously, I’m kidding.
There were so many things wrong with this entire Casey Anthony story, the worst of which is that a little girl was murdered and nobody has to answer for it. I watched with amusement as hundreds of people lined up every day to get into the courthouse to watch the trial. People acted like complete morons as they pushed, shoved and generally ran over one another to get a seat. Don’t these people have jobs? I doubt very much if they were all independently wealthy, so how are they able to spend their mornings standing in lines and their days in a courthouse gallery?
I also watched with amusement as crowds of people gathered around public areas with televisions and their collective jaws dropped when the verdict was announced. It was very much like the scenes I saw when the O.J. Simpson verdict was read, except in that case, people cheered, while in this case people were none too pleased.
The only difference I can discern between these two cases is that one had racial overtones while the other had a cute girl as a defendant. But in both cases, someone got away with murder, in my opinion.
I barely had time to watch the coverage on the nightly news. But I saw enough to realize that nearly everyone connected to this case (with the possible exception of the judge), from the spectators to the witnesses to the jury to Casey Anthony, are all crazy. I realize that “crazy” is an oversimplified, overused and somewhat generic term, but what I really mean to say is that in my world, they are all crazy.
In my world, a parent doesn’t lose their child and not report it for 30 days, then weave a web of lies intended to distract, mislead and confuse the people who actually care that my child is missing and are willing to help me find her.
In my world, a grandparent spends as much time as possible with their grandchildren, and if that grandchild’s mother avoids me, I’m going to track her down and choke some answers out of her concerning the whereabouts of my grandchild. Then I’m calling the cops.
In my world, people spend their days working or doing things productive to their family, community or world. If my goal for the day is to outrun a few hundred people so I can watch a train wreck and get all the gory details, I need to reexamine my life, because it has very little meaning and I’m of very little use to my family, community or world. The same applies to anybody that proposes marriage to someone they’ve never met just because they watched them on television.
In my world, people who murder their three year-old daughter and then get a free pass from the justice system are, at the very least, doomed to oblivion and are never heard from or seen again unless it’s to re-arrest, retry or revile them. Sadly, this will not be the case with Casey Anthony. In all likelihood, she will be a rich person one day soon, whether it’s from a book publisher, a movie producer or Playboy magazine.
In my world, unattractive people who kill their children are represented by a public defender and promptly convicted while attractive people are given a free legal defense team that realizes the potential of representing an attractive client on their future earnings potential.
Oh wait, that’s your world, too. Like it or not, that’s the world we live in.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
Cate’s Column #9
Jun 7th
A Salute to All Who Protect and Serve
I listened to Saturday’s Parker tube float play-by-play on the radio — the police scanner radio.
I salute all our law enforcement, medical and other officials who work so hard protecting and serving us. Heck, maybe that should be protecting — and saving — us from ourselves. My hat is off to our drivers, divers, dispatchers, EMTs and every one of you for your consummate professionalism, patience and polite manners in the face of so much rowdy behavior.
The calls I heard! A tuber too drunk to pry ass from tube. Underage consumption. Private dock trespassing. Drunk drivers. Drunk boaters. And one inappropriately dressed tuber screaming, “I don’t wanna to go to jail! I don’t wanna go to jail!”
Hysterical, by both definitions.
Not all the fun was in Parker; many of the calls came from traffic stops miles away on Interstate 10 and Arizona Highway 95. Whatever the situation our amazing officers maintained their professional demeanor. Very admirable!
Maybe the tubers’ antics were so funny because these are all the things we got away with in the 70s. At this point in my life, however, it’s more fun listening than participating. Call me a dud, but I can do without the hangover!
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website,click here.
Off The Wall #4
May 31st
I’m not one of those macho guys that swaggers about spouting obscenities with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Nor am I overly feminine, preferring Bruce Willis movies and a quick shower to Julia Roberts movies and long bubble baths.
No, I am somewhere in the middle. A happy medium, you might say.
But I have my limits.
So a while back when a nice lady named Linda Tunstall gave my wife a certificate for a free pedicure and asked her to give it to me, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“A pedicure,” I asked her. “Isn’t that like a manicure, only with your toes?”
“Yeah, Einstein, that’s a pedicure,” my lovely wife answered in that special way of hers.
The thing is, I give very little attention to my feet. My feet don’t particularly stink nor do they require any specialized care. No pampering, nursing or anti-fungal ointments needed.
Like the ancient caveman that I evolved from (and occasionally revert back to), I could probably live my life barefooted and be reasonably happy, as long as society was jiggy with the idea and I avoided concrete and pavement during the Arizona summer.
So I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted one of these suspiciously girly-sounding pedicures, because my feet have survived 51 years of unspecified abuse and, I must say, they look pretty good. Not overly hairy. No yellowing nails. No hammer toes. In fact, my toes are oddly monkey-like. I can pick things up pretty easily with them and could probably be a successful coin counter if my arms were someday blown off by a kitchen explosion or a mishap with my weed whacker.
That and the fact that I just don’t have a lot of free time during the day to run about having my toes massaged and painted up like some hussy. Perish the thought.
Okay, and maybe I was a little scared. My wife kept accusing me of being scared, but I refused to admit that I was, although probably not for the reasons she may have thought.
I’ve just never been comfortable in beauty salons. All that estrogen, combined with the smell of peroxide and nail polish, is like kryptonite to men.
Plus, that is women’s territory. Like the lingerie section at Walmart and those crazy female restrooms without wall urinals, the beauty parlor is women’s territory. If we cross that threshold, we may be doomed to eternal damnation in a hell that includes curlers in our hair, blow dryers, lip stick and yes, pedicures.
Of course, there’s no man who can resist proving his wife wrong, so I finally crossed that thin, blond-dyed line. I made the appointment for the pedicure.
The thing is, it was an incredible experience. It was very relaxing, yet stimulating. My toes were singing after Linda finished with them and my feet were indeed happy.
“You want your nails painted?” Linda asked after I inquired about how long the toe pampering session would last.
“Only if you can paint the Dallas Cowboys’ logo on my toenails,” I said. Hey, I have my limits.
So thank you, Linda—and all women for that matter—for allowing me a small glimpse into your world.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
Off The Wall #3
May 18th
Meat Dress
I’m not very talented. Oh sure, I can stick my head directly into a ceiling fan without much harm (yes, I’ve tried it), I can play online computer games with the best of them and I am a published writer, assuming this gets published.
I also love music and I’m a singeralonger, especially when driving alone in my truck. The thing is, I enjoy singing but I’m not very good at it. I also enjoy astrophysics and automotive repair but NASA hasn’t consulted with me as of late and you don’t want me anywhere near your vehicle. Trust me on this one.
I’m sure that many of you fall into that same category, which brings me to my point: who is Lady Gaga? If you’ve never heard of Lady Gaga, then you are reading this from your cave in the hills north of Kingman somewhere, because Lady Gaga is in the news more than the war in Afghanistan. But who is she? I do not know. All I know is that she’s a singer and—based on her income—I’m guessing she’s very good at it.
I’m guessing because I’ve never really heard a Lady Gaga song, at least that I’m aware of. But if you Google the name Lady Gaga, you’ll get 2,080,000 hits. Google my name and you’ll get 5,860 hits. Not bad for a small town hack writer, but only the first 50 of them are actually about me. Again, not bad, but I have a long way to go to catch up with Lady Gaga.
One writer described Lady Gaga as “the biggest pop star in the world that doesn’t have fans so much as disciples.” Well, I guess I’m not one of them, because I’m still not sure who she is or why she has such rabid fans, which she calls her “Little Monsters.” Ironically, that is what I called my children, but that’s another story.
I have what I refer to as my Lady Gaga Rule. Most of the Lady Gaga stuff I see in the news just passes in one ear and out the other. Or—since I said I see it—it passes in one eye and out the other. The two exceptions to the Lady Gaga Rule is when she wore a meat dress and her political statements, particularly about Arizona.
Lady Gaga’s meat dress, made entirely from flank steak, included a stylish little flank steak hat. My first thought was we ought to just throw the whole package on a big barbecue and have a flank steak party, but the long wig she was wearing would’ve stunk up the place.
The reason I thought this—besides the fact that I enjoy a good steak—had more to do with Lady Gaga’s politics. No, she’s not a politician, but like many celebrities, she feels compelled to tell us How Things Should Be. I think Sean Penn is a great actor, but that simple fact does not make him a great thinker, a great social commentator or a great philosopher, just a guy who’s good at pretending to be some other guy.
So here’s my advice to you, Lady Gaga: stick to what you apparently do best. You’re neither the Second Coming of Christ nor Martin Luther King, Jr.; you’re just a woman who is an accomplished songwriter, singer and performer. Oh, and lose the meat dress. It might look cool for a couple of hours, but nobody is going to want to take you home in that thing.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
Cate’s Column #8
May 17th
Bizarre Bouse!
Several months after I moved to Bouse in 2007, strange things began appearing in and around my house. I found a Robert Heinlein novel one morning when I made the bed. I changed those sheets plenty of times without finding any sci-fi.
Odd. I don’t read Heinlein.
One night I let down the blinds and a tiny sombrero tumbled out. The little hat gave me the giggles. When the cat came to see why I was laughing, I put the hat on his head and laughed until I was nearly blue.
The blinds had been going up and down daily for months without a single funny hat trick.
I vacuumed the bedroom and suddenly there was an awful rattling inside the machine. I turned it off and gave it a shake – a shiny brass key fell from the sweeper. I tried the key in all the locks but it did not fit anywhere.
I turned on the oven and black smoke filled the kitchen. The broiler pan was so greasy I thought it might burst into flames. I use the oven all the time, but not the broiler. Broiler-ing is beyond my skill-set, but still I keep it clean. (Cat, what are you up to when I’m away?)
Outside I find seashells, tiny toys, glass bottles, rusty things and beads. Every time the wind blows this acre of sugar sand shifts and I find little (plastic? Bakelite?) beads.
As I write this, something just made a loud smack! on a snare drum. Dogs woke and jumped to their feet barking but there was nothing near the drum.
April 24, night — A faucet outside turned on full blast. Water gushed loud enough to hear it inside the house over the surround sound. I rushed out to turn it off — This is a desert! No wasting water! — and looked around for the culprit. Nothing.
May 16 — I found a head. It’s ceramic, or perhaps porcelain. Ay, yi, YI — what’s next?
Is it me, or is there something goofy about this area? Take a look at my photos and please! Tell me what this all means?
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Cate Mueller is a web designer, editor, reporter and photographer in Bouse, Arizona. To visit her website, click here.
Off The Wall #2
May 12th
Spam Cruise
I’m a busy guy so I don’t get a chance to vacation much. A trip to Laughlin is pretty much it for me. I’ve never been to Europe or the Caribbean. I’ve never even been on a cruise ship. A while back a cruise ship broke down off the California coast, although “broke down” may be an understatement when describing a floating city with 5,000 passengers onboard.
I was watching the drama unfold on the news when they mentioned that food was airlifted out to the ship while it was being towed back to port in San Diego. Included in the food delivery was an entire pallet of Spam.
I realize it was all an unplanned incident, but if they had a cruise ship that served only Spam, I would be the first one across the gangplank.
“Honey, we’re going on a Spam Cruise!” I would announce proudly.
My dream cruise would include several restaurants and eateries, all serving Spam. The bars would feature Spam margaritas and the ship’s nightclub would include a huge Spam dance floor with a cover band named Flaming Spam providing the music.
I’m not really sure what Spam is, and I don’t care. If you told me Spam was a mixture of squirrel eyeballs and the gunk that forms on the edge of a hockey puck after an NHL game, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t care because I love Spam. If it was socially acceptable, I would eat Spam for every meal. I would sleep on a Spam bed with Spam sheets and a Spam comforter. I would wear Spam on my feet instead of shoes. I love Spam.
Fried Spam is one of the healthiest and most delicious foods known to man. Well, the most delicious anyway.
First discovered by Jonathon Spam back in 1430 A.D., Spam is a naturally-occurring food that is mined like ore in Morocco and Southern Italy. Christopher Columbus brought cans of Spam to the New World and the Native Americans were so happy, they created a Spam holiday they called Thanksgiving, where they gave thanks to Spam.
The largest church in St. Petersburg, Russia has a dome roof made entirely from Spam, and the Spam has covered that church for over 350 years without being eaten, even during the World War II siege by the German army.
Spam is considered a delicacy in parts of Indonesia, where they also use it to treat malaria.
Spam is the most expensive and rarest element known to man. People in Southern Africa trade diamonds for Spam.
American scientists attempted to use Spam to create a chain reaction nuclear explosion while working on the atomic bomb in 1945, but they ended up eating the spam and using uranium instead.
Spam. Think about it. Spam.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist for the Arizona Independent and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
Off The Wall #1
May 4th
Hobo House
I’m a busy guy, so I don’t have a lot of free time to do yard work or even basic home maintenance that I should be doing. I live in an average-looking single family home in Parker, Arizona. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. Nothing fancy.
The other day my wife and I pulled into the driveway and my wife sighed and said, “This looks like a hobo house.”
A hobo house? I thought hobos were homeless. If a hobo lives in this house, then they should turn in their stick with the supply-filled bandana hanging on the end of it, because they have a house now.
My wife tends to exaggerate on occasion, but as I looked around, I realized she was right. It did look like a hobo house. The screen from the window was lying on the ground in front of it. The porch itself was covered with those tiny leaves from our mesquite tree. There were several pairs of mismatched shoes lying about. The garden hose was curled across the porch and stretched into the yard with no real purpose.
As I gazed upon my hobo haven I began to think maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe living the hobo life would be cool, although I wasn’t sure exactly what it entailed. I decided to research it further.
According to Wikipedia, a hobo is “a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless.” The penniless part wasn’t much of a stretch for me, but I clearly have a home, despite its hobo-like appearance, so I don’t qualify as a hobo.
I always thought a hobo was just another name for a bum or a tramp, but apparently even the lowest on the human food chain have a sort of homeless hierarchy.
According to Wikipedia, unlike tramps, who work only when they are forced to, and bums, who do not work at all, hobos are workers who wander. So basically, the guy sitting on the street corner with a sign reading, “Need Help” or “Need Gas” is a bum, because he is not working at all. But if he has a sign reading “Need Work” or “Will Work For Food,” then he is technically a tramp, unless he moves to a new street corner in a different town every day, in which case he could be classified as a hobo.
But—whatever the case—hobos seem to carry a more dignified mystique than your average homeless bum with a shopping cart full of garbage. Hobos are generally viewed as independent travelers who fend for themselves while adhering to a strict code of honor known as The Hobo Code.
While researching the subtleties of hoboness, I came across a movie trailer for a film called Hobo With A Shotgun which, ironically, is scheduled to be released this week. Hobo With A Shotgun was originally a fake trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse films, and now it has been made into a full length movie starring Rutger Hauer. In the movie, Hauer plays a hobo who cleans up a crime-ridden city with his pump action shotgun.
Being referred to as a hobo might be politically incorrect, but it may soon take on a more heroic significance if Hobo With A Shotgun becomes a hit movie. If it was called Tramp With a Shotgun (starring Angelina Jolie) or Bum With A Shotgun (starring Charlie Sheen), it just wouldn’t sound as cool.
The point is, if the movie becomes a hit and hobos are forever viewed not as shiftless miscreants, but as wandering saviors of the downtrodden, my hobo house will not only be socially acceptable, it will be looked upon with honor and admiration by hobos, bums, vagrants, gypsies, tramps and thieves.
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Randy Hartless is Executive Director of the Parker Area Chamber of Commerce, columnist for the Arizona Independent and regular contributor on KLPZ 1380am.
