If you were paying attention to any of my other meanderings you’re aware that blue-eyes and I had a number of kids, had outgrown our first house and had moved into a somewhat rural area. The various schools that the “curtain climbers” attended were a considerable distance from where we lived. So every morning it was our, meaning blue eyes, dubious task to get the offspring packed up and ready to board the Yellow Dragon that took them to their institutions of learning. One of our dogs, Rusty – not to be confused with our cat “Rusty” – would chase after the bus. My job was to chase after Rusty!
It got to a point of routine and eventually after the third designated stop for the bus, Rusty the dog would be sitting on the curb waiting for me to pick him up. After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that Rusty was smarter than I was. When I would come home with the dog, Rusty-the-cat would come over and say “you have been out chasing dogs again, haven’t you?” I would usually retort “Yeah! True, but at least I can catch gophers!” I think the cat was getting revenge because I named him after the dog. I would also remind the cat, “You’re a damn stray, I didn’t ask you to join this crew!” Rusty-the-cat would look at me, lick his paws and I could I tell he was thinking, “Hey! I’d have thought twice if I had known you were so creative that the best you could come up with was to name me after the dumb dog, Dip!” Clearly, the cat had learned the Dip part from blue-eyes. Rusty the dog would usually stay clear of these conversations simply because he was scared spit-less of Rusty-the-cat.
The school district we lived in was in a different town, somewhat snobbish, and their obvious attitude about us “rural” folks was less than sanguine, but they didn’t refuse the revenues generated by the tax base of our little city. They had actually built one school in our little town, but much to our chagrin it was on the list of closures, which was not overly surprising. The only surprising thing is the district leased it to a private charter school which turned out to be a huge success and reduced this forward-thinking school district’s student count, and affected both state and federal money. The only bad thing was the district retained the money from the lease and raised our taxes. Our government in action!
Often our wondrous, bright eyed, crew would miss the bus, and I was usually the designated driver. For awhile we had a network of phone numbers for our neighbors whose offspring were classmates, and if necessary would divvy up the responsibilities of “missed buses” or “bus no-shows,” which I was convinced was intentional, and the district’s method of getting even with us rural folks. As an example, if there was a bus breakdown, we were the last on the priority list. At one point, I offered my services to the district as a mechanic to help with the maintenance, but they told us it was a union issue and I couldn’t do it. It’s just as well, because I knew absolutely nothing about buses, other than they are normally painted yellow.
After a while, I abdicated membership in the “network” because I began to suspect, correctly, that we had a number of members who like to sleep in and knew we would be driving, because their kids began to show up at our front door without the phone ringing. I solved that problem by writing a note, and pinning it on their jackets, stating that we had contracted Typhus fever! When I got home one night, blue-eyes said “Guess what, Dip? That was my name when I knew I was in trouble. “I got a visit from the county health department!” “You’re really weird! You know that?” “Keep that up and we’ll have to move to another state!”
Parent’s day was usually absolute chaos.The teachers all seemed to schedule this unwholesome event at the same time, and we had a lot of trouble balancing the schedule for different useless meetings about how our offspring were handling their educational experiences. There was one teacher in grade school that unfortunately three of my kids suffered through. My private name for her was BrunHilda. She had clearly graduated from the school of Wilhelm the Great, and was just a tad pedantic. My meetings with her regarding our perfect children were a little bit better than a proctological exam, but not much!
Now, don’t get me wrong! This was an excellent school district and our kids were good students, for the most part, and excelled in most activities. This was enforced by their demonstrative father, sensitized by blue-eyes, however, reinforced by her superior intellect. Facts are, this was all an inherited trait from their mother, and thank God they were not aware of my trials and tribulations. If you’ve been following my rambling antics, you know I was kicked out of kindergarten, but the only personal redeeming value here is I was 13 years old. Just joking!
By this time, blue-eyes was working full-time and we developed a method for sharing school responsibilities for the kids, which as was 80/20, with her getting the 80 and J.J. the 20. This unique division came about because of as I had suggested, my lack of “sensitivity.” I was concerned about my ability to provide the positive reinforcements necessary for our kids at that age. That’s the “clever” rationale I used, so I thought. I was somewhat dismayed when she agreed wholeheartedly, stating that “anyone who would write a note to other parents telling them our family had Typhus is good candidate to be institutionalized!” I had thought this through before hitting her with the “sensitivity” part, figuring I was really ahead of the game — only to discover that I had been outsmarted once again. As Belafonte says in one of his songs “That’s right, the woman is smart-ahh.” (If you don’t know who Belafonte is, you’re wasting your time reading this stuff!)
Actually, the kids enjoyed school and required very little oversight when it came to homework and grades. It was their friends used to scare the hell out of me! You couldn’t call them wild, just free-spirited! The law would’ve called it something else. If you’ve got kids, you know that as they get bigger, so do the problems. Blue-eyes and I handle this with our usual acumen, meaning blue-eyes handled it, and I was kept in the dark. I’m sure had I known some of the antics my sweet dear urchins were involved in, they would still be on restriction and it would probably have lasted until they were 37.
I would hear about some of the stuff they had pulled from other people, or one of their more astute buddies would let certain information surface assuming that I knew all about it. To keep myself in the loop, I had developed a network of spies, and to keep them loyal to me, I threatened devious methods of retribution or dark, bewitching spells that would stunt their growth, after attempting to convince them I was a Warlock. It did not work! I made the mistake of telling them that “Rusty-the-cat” was my medium! One of the more knowledgeable refrigerator raiders, commented “cats for that purpose have to be black.” I looked him in the eye and said “I’ll paint the damn thing Black!” Rusty-the-cat heard that comment, and took off like a bat out of hell yelling,”This guy is really bonkers.”
Facts are, the kids had a secret society which consisted of a blood oath not to let any of the parents know what the hell was really going on – especially J.J. – because they all figured he was some kind of flake!
Moral of this story is “if you can’t beat them join them.”
J.J. Addingnuttin 