Who Grabs First?

It all depends

By Clyde Edgerton

The following conversation took place at Rosehaven Assisted Living in rural North Carolina between three Papadaddys:

“What do you do when the TV news is on and your granddaughter is around?”

“Or grandson?”

“What I do is change the channel.”

“What I do is give a lecture. I tell my grandson if he’s not charming, he will lead a sad life, maybe even become greedy, and start thinking he’s got to grab, grab, grab. Greedy men grab. Charming men charm. In the South, real men charm.”

“In the North, too.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, real women charm, too.”

“Who grabs first if everybody’s standing around charming each other?”

“Who’s on first?’”

“What’s on second.’ I remember that one. Abbott and Costello.”

“No, who grabs first?”

“Grabs what?”

“I don’t know — depends.”

“I’ll slap anybody that grabs my Depends.”

“I heard they leak.”

“Powerful men know how to grab. That’s what made America great. We came over here as illegal aliens and stole all the land and went on to get even greater. Onward Christian Soldiers! Women wouldn’t have done that.”

“Aw come on.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see your granddaughter grow up to be president?”

“Of what?

“Walmart?”

“What’s on second?”

“Bobby Riggs won that tennis match.”

“That’s right. He beat Billy Bob Thornton.”

“Billie Jean King.”

“Billie won.”

“That’s what I said.”

“I’ll be glad when this match is over.”

“Me, too.”

“Me, too.”

“People would rather watch a car wreck than a pretty sunset.”

“They’ll slow down for a car wreck.”

“TV executives get real rich by knowing that.”

“People used to buy what they knew they needed, like flour and potatoes and green beans. Now they shop for stuff that some slick commercial convinces them they want.”

“Now you can stay home and buy, buy, buy.”

“Walter Cronkite was different — he was calm.”

“Wolf Blitzer talks like his name sounds.”

“I listen to PBS.”

“Why?”

“I like calmness.”

“Now PBS has commercials, too.”

“Selling is an art and a science that is the bedrock of communism.”

“Nobody teaches our kids how to detect lies.”

“We teach kids how to take tests. They learn to shut up, sit still for three hours, and then line up.”

“That’s what we do around here.”

“Don’t badmouth teachers.”

“Right. A lot them are afraid of losing their jobs because they won’t shut up, sit still, and stay in line.”

“Let’s go eat.”

“I vote for that.”

“What are we having?”

“Depends.”

“Count me out.”  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and most recently, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Same Old Game

Just new stuff

By Clyde Edgerton

I’m in the bleachers watching baseball practice. My youngest son, 11, has just started playing — this is his second practice ever — and so far, he likes it. After the first practice, we shopped for equipment, and I hear some of you already thinking: Why does Papadaddy always gripe about high prices?

The answer is this: I didn’t buy anything between 1994 and 2012, until I finally started shopping for my children’s sporting equipment.

But on the softer side — the nostalgic side — this baseball business is taking me back, in good ways, to over 60 years ago. “Yep,” I say to my son, “I started playing baseball when I was 9 years old.”

“What?” he says, “They had baseball back then?”

When I was 10 or 12, our coach worked at a local funeral home and drove a hearse to practice. I can see the hearse as it pulled onto the field near first base — long, shiny, and black. This is all true. My friends and I would open the swinging rear door and pull out a canvas bag of bats, a handbag of baseballs, and a large duffle bag with the catcher’s equipment and bases and the little plastic things held together with stretch bands that we fitted over our ears when batting. These flimsy head protectors became the norm in the late ’50s, as I recall. (Protective head gear was a consequence of mid-century political correctness.)

While we were shopping a few weeks ago, my son and I inspected batting helmets, baseball gloves — for fielding and batting — bats, baseballs and a protective cup. The protective cup comes with a pair of fancy black underwear to hold the cup in place. The reason my son is expected to buy his own equipment these days is because if, say, a funeral home bought a bag of, say, 20 baseball bats, then the funeral home could be out four grand. Easily. Check it out at your local sporting goods store.

In addition:

My son’s bat: metal. Ours: wooden.

My son’s headgear: a hard plastic helmet. Ours: (early on) a cloth cap.

My son’s cleats: plastic or rubber. Ours: steel.

My son’s batting gloves: two. Ours: none.

My son’s “protection”: a plastic cup. Ours: underwear (most of us, I guess).

My son’s fielder’s glove: synthetic, stiff, and complicated. Ours: leather, limber, and plain.

My son’s infield surface: mostly grass. Ours: mostly dirt.

My son’s outfield surface: grass. Ours: mostly dirt.

My son’s pitching mound: raised. Ours: flat.

My son’s dugout: concrete behind a fence. Ours: a wooden bench, in the open — with splinters.

My son’s coach: loves the game. Ours: loved the game.

I’m so glad the game is the same. Three strikes, four balls, three outs. Secret signals and hidden ball tricks, balks, walks and home runs. Timing, speed and precision. It’s still best to step on the base with your inside foot, watch the third base coach as you approach second base, start with your glove on the ground to catch a grounder. And the playing field itself — it expands outward from home plate. Unlike football, basketball and other sports, boundaries exist on only two sides of a baseball field, not all four sides. Hit a home run and the ball could travel all the way around the Earth and roll up behind home plate and still be in fair territory.

After the second practice, we’re gathering up equipment to head home. My son says, “Dad, they make a backpack for gloves, helmet and all that. It has two sleeves for two bats. We could get one at Dick’s along with another bat.”

“If we get another bat, we’ll have to sell your bicycle, the trampoline and your bunk bed.”

“You mean . . . like a yard sale?”

“Sure. Good idea.”  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Party Line

Telephones have come a long way — even if our politics and sense of civility haven’t

By Clyde Edgerton

A red rotary phone recently ended up in our house. It had been used in an elementary school talent show. Some of you remember the pre-push button, dial telephone once in many homes. The phone itself, about the size of a brick, but a little taller, usually sat on a table or shelf and was plugged into the wall via a cord. My 13 -year-old son wondered if people used to walk around holding them when they talked — receiver in one hand, phone in the other. I said that early on the cord wasn’t long enough and then later very long cords became fashionable and people could walk around with them if they liked. A phone was about the weight of a laptop, but with significantly fewer functions.

For younger folks: On the front of the phone is a round disc — about the size of a CD (remember those?) with 10 holes in a circle — counting counter-clockwise. Inside each hole is a number, 1 – 9, and then the final number, 0.

A phone number is dialed, one number at a time, by sticking your finger into the correct hole on the dial and pulling around one number at a time until it reaches a little metal stop. The 1 is nearest the stop. Our number in Durham County, North Carolina, when I was a child, was 6-4558.

As I write, I realize that perhaps the 0 should have preceded the 1 rather than follow the 9. That’s off-topic, though.

But to continue off-topic: Back then when you called the operator to say the number of (and ask her to place) a long distance call, you had to dial 0 to get the operator — meaning the dial had to be cranked from the 0 spot all the way around to the stop and then released. The 0 took longer to finish dialing than any other number. An enormous amount of time was wasted over several decades while people waited for the 0 to finish dialing.

Sorry, I just did the math: Every billion long distance calls collectively wasted about 30 years.

The phone had a receiver which rested atop the phone. The receiver, about the size of a banana (actually a sender/receiver because you talked into one end and listened from the other), while resting on the phone, pressed down two buttons which did not work independently. When you pressed one button, they both went down. When you lifted the receiver from its cradle, the buttons came up together and the line was open for you to make a call. There was a dial tone that I’m sure I can’t describe to one who’s not heard it. To one who has: You are probably hearing it in your head now.

While explaining things to my son, I remembered this:

In the early 1950s, our phone was on a party line, shared with seven or eight households, not a private line; and there was a skillful way to secretly listen in on neighbors’ phone conversations. I probably learned the technique from watching my mother, though I can’t be sure.

Usually, if you were talking along and somebody on your party line lifted their receiver off their phone, you would hear a click and then you could hear breathing or whatever was going on in their house, and then they’d hang up since the line was in use. If they continued listening, you could say, “Sorry, I’m using the line.”

But if you wanted to listen in on another conversation, you lifted only one end of the receiver and pressed the exposed button (so that both buttons stayed down), and then kept holding them down as you lifted the receiver to your ear. Next, you slowly lifted the button that was depressed, stopping just before the click. Then you heard the talkers, but they couldn’t tell you were listening in. If you lifted that button too high, a click would sound and your presence would be known. Of course, you couldn’t do something like this in our day and age as you might get banned from the county park system or the courthouse or county school grounds by vigilant officials.

Thinking back on all this led me to what may be a naive realization:

Let’s assume we are in the 1950s and that today’s political climate exists: many people despising fellow citizens because of “political beliefs.”

Let’s assume further that because of your new neighbor’s bumper sticker, you’ve never spoken to her/him. But, you happen to overhear a phone conversation that neighbor is having with a friend on a neighborhood party line.

You hear no political talk, but you learn that your neighbor likes dark roast coffee like you do. I mean, really likes it. His mother has dementia, like your mother. He likes Dr. John’s music, like you do.

When you next see that neighbor in person, the chance for friendship is greater than before. The possibility of being civil, of seeing beyond the spirit of bumper-sticker-like cable news, of showing some Southern hospitality — is not so far-flung.  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of 10 novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

How to Clean a Rug

(And go slightly mad)

By Clyde Edgerton

While I was visiting Hillsborough a while back, my wife, Kristina, called me from our home in Wilmington and asked me to stop by her sister’s house in Pittsboro and pick up a rug cleaning machine. Kristina had moved our couch and rolled up our big rug that needed cleaning.

I’d never seen a rug cleaning machine that I knew of.

I thought things through for about a second and asked, “How much does it cost to just get a rug cleaned?”

I was thinking to myself: I’ll have to drive to get the cleaning machine, take it home, figure out how to use it, maybe get one of the kids to help me, take that big rug out on the back deck, clean it, let it dry, put it back, take the cleaner back to Pittsboro.

Kristina answered my question — told me how much it costs to get a rug cleaned.

Holy Moley. I picked up the cleaning machine — it looks like a very large vacuum cleaner — and brought it home. A YouTube video would explain how to operate it.

My job the next day was to write the first draft of a Salt magazine essay about the Frontier Cultures Museum in Staunton, Virginia. I was hoping to have a first draft done by noon but my new job — before starting the essay — was to clean two rugs (was one, now two) with the help of my 9-year-old daughter, Truma. Rug No. 1 — very large, maybe 8-by-12 — had been peed on several times by dog No. 1. Rug No. 2 — about 4-by-8 — had been thrown up on at least several times by dog No. 2. I picture this conversation happening very early on several mornings within the last month:

Dog No. 1 says: “Are they up yet?”

Dog No. 2 says: “Nope.”

No. 1: “I have to pee.”

No. 2: “Pee in the corner of the living room. In the corner by the table. It’ll be days before they figure it out.”

No. 1: “OK. Would you throw up on that other rug in the play room — kind of keep them distracted?”

No. 2: “Sure.”

Truma and I find the YouTube video telling us how to use the machine. The video is 15 minutes long. The person giving instructions seems to be used to talking in a foreign language and I have problems understanding him, but we finally get through the explanation, including how to clean the machine after cleaning the rug. Some assembly and disassembly are involved. Truma takes notes.

Our first task is to go buy some liquid cleaner. About 6 ounces is to be combined with 2 gallons of warm water in a soft plastic container inside a hard plastic container that will keep dirty water separate from the cleaning solution.

We go to Lowe’s and they don’t have our brand — I’d yet to learn that most any concentrated rug cleaner would work. Duh.

Sitting in the parking lot, I call Home Depot. They don’t have our brand, either. I call a rug cleaning service. They are rude. I call another rug cleaning service, explain that I’m sitting in a hot parking lot in a bit of a jam and this person patiently tells me to go to Food Lion.

At Food Lion, the manager walks with me to the rug cleaning stand and finds a substitute concentrate for me. Truma and I buy it and we start home.

At home, we take the machine apart, load it with warm water and cleaner, then put the machine back together. We spread the smaller of the two rugs on our back deck and Truma starts cleaning. Generally speaking, you go over a portion of the rug while holding a trigger beneath the hand grip. The trigger sprays the rug with cleaning solution and then you go over the same portion of the rug and the machine sucks up dirty liquid.

Truma gets tired. I take over and she goes inside, out of the sun.

I finish the cleaning about time it stops being fun. I hang the rugs over the deck railings, disassemble the machine and, in the driveway beside my automobile, start spraying the plastic parts with water from a hose.

The problem with cleaning the plastic parts is that there is a great amount of dog lint inside one of the see-through plastic parts and — though I don’t remember the video telling me to unscrew anything — I notice that if I unscrew four screws, I can pull that section apart. Seeing that lint is like feeling a little popcorn shell-like thing between your teeth when you can’t free it.

I unscrew the screws and nothing happens — nothing comes apart. Oh. I see four more screws. I unscrew them and the thing falls apart, but the lint is still not exposed in any way.

The screws are lined up on the hood of our car. I start putting the screws back in. A screw rolls off the hood of the car and I hear it plink dully onto the cement driveway. I look. It’s nowhere to be seen. I get down on my hands and knees. One of the dogs comes up and sniffs me. It’s dog No. 1. She will go back inside the house and say, “Clyde is out in the driveway. He thinks he’s a dog. It won’t be long before he’s peeing on the rug.”

I didn’t get started on that essay and I cleaned two more rugs the morning after that.

This could go on a long time.

I now better understand the cost of cleaning a rug.”  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of ten novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.

Small Town Talk

There’s meaning beneath and beyond the words we speak. And something in the silence between them

By Clyde Edgerton

When I was growing up, most of the men in my family — a dozen or so uncles and older cousins — didn’t talk much. A conversation on the porch on a Sunday afternoon among, say, a couple of older cousin men, my daddy, Big Clyde (my namesake uncle) and Uncle Clem would go something like this:

“I’ll tell you one thing . . . that was a big tree they cut down over there.”

Silence. Maybe four, five seconds. “Yeah . . . sure was.”

More silence. A full minute.

“Did Benny buy that sitting lawnmower?”

“Don’t think so.”

Three minutes of silence. A car comes by.

Uncle Clyde sucks on one end of a toothpick while holding the other end, making a little noise between his teeth. Then he lowers the toothpick. “I don’t think I’d want one.”

“One what — big tree?”

“Sitting lawnmower.”

Somebody yawns.

“Me neither.”

More silence.  A car comes by.

That’s pretty much it, folks.

It was different with my mother and a couple of her sisters at the grocery store or during lunch at the Golden Corral. But here’s the deal: Not only did they talk to each other, it seemed like they talked to everybody else — mostly about family, people known in common, maybe what was on the news, but also about cooking, flowers, furniture refinishing, family history, family stories, gardening, misbehavior and more family stories. I think they automatically saw strangers as interesting.

That talk from the women in my family gave me a grounding I didn’t recognize, a grounding I didn’t feel in full until adulthood. Recently, I have realized that this talk was, in a sense, important and precious.

With them, I’d walk up to a young man tending the vegetable section at the grocery store. “Oh, my goodness,” my mother or an aunt would say to the young man, “these tomatoes look almost good enough to buy. What’s your name?”

“Robert.”

“Robert what?”

“Robert Wright.”

“The Lowe’s Grove Wrights or the Oak Grove Wrights?”

“Oak Grove.”

“I’ll bet you know Harvey, Dudley’s son.”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s my uncle.”

“No! Really? I haven’t seen him in six or eight years. Did his eyes ever get OK?”

“Oh, yes ma’am. They’re all healed up now.”

“[To another aunt] Didn’t Mildred used to date him?”

“No. She dated Simon. Robert, you have an Uncle Simon?”

“Yes, ma’am. He was in here yesterday.”

And so on.

I’d be standing there. “Clyde,” my mother would say, “this nice man takes care of the vegetables.”

I grew up believing that it was OK to approach people and ask them questions, to have faith that people would more likely answer than turn back to the tomatoes.

I’m glad that as a child I spent a lot of time with these women in my family and that I wasn’t raised mainly by men who didn’t talk much. Because as in so many things, how you start out eventually comes back to either comfort or haunt you. And more and more I see the advantages of looking into another person’s face, say, sitting or standing across from me, and surfing the channels of info behind their eyes, info that’s likely to come to me in words. It’s great research for writing novels, for learning about how things work — whatever the topic might be. There is meaning in such talk. Meaning found beneath and beyond the words. Such talk is somehow connected to the way we ought to be — approaching each other, without fear, just to talk a little bit.  PS

Clyde Edgerton is the author of ten novels, a memoir and a new work, Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers. He is the Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at UNCW.