Forever Thankful, Comparatively Speaking

November 1999
Forever Thankful, Comparatively Speaking
By Bob Coskrey

As my wife Barbara and I sat in our car on Highway 78 in Ladson that late Tuesday afternoon in September 1999, I had the opportunity to do some serious reflecting. Fate, Hurricane Floyd, Governor Hodges, and all the other feckless, blame-foisting politicians and bureaucrats had unknowingly provided me and 849,999 other hapless Lowcountry souls many carefree, idle hours in which we could ponder, meditate, and contemplate matters both weighty and trivial.

Realizing that Thanksgiving was just a couple of months away, I decided, after several hours of conjuring up ways I could inflict extreme pain, discomfort, and humiliation upon all of the above-mentioned maladroits, that it would be mentally and perhaps even physically healthier for me to channel my psychic energy into something more positive, namely, to think of some things I could be thankful for, despite the miasma of misfortune in which I was currently engulfed.

Well, after focusing on my immediate environment, which included a dingy looking, cinderblock neighborhood bar, a flea market completely abandoned by its proprietors, with all of its indiscernible merchandise piled up on tables, and Rebel Flag-emblazoned pick-ups zooming by intermittently in the opposite direction (maybe they were going to reclaim the deserted Holy City for the confederacy), my first thing to the thankful for would be that I didn’t live in Ladson. My God, it makes Goose Creek look like Manhattan.

Very shortly after that, another visual stimulus, a two-foot spurt of urine from a young boy out of the open door of the car in front of us, made me thankful that my son was 28 years old and weathering the storm from Charleston.

When this incident made me aware of the urological as well as gastrointestinal problems that obviously many people were beginning to experience, I gave thanks that we were not behind a truck full of migrant workers who had recently had a lunch of high octane chili and chalupas.

After Governor Hodges came on his helicopter radio and told us that everything was going along just great and that we should just be patient, I was thankful, for my wife’s sake anyway, that I didn’t have one of those shoulder-mounted surface-to-air, heat-seeking missile launchers.

When the guy in another care in front of me insisted on keeping a six car length distance between him and the car in front of him, I was thankful again, for my wife’s sake mostly, that I was not driving a WWII Patton tank with flame thrower attachment.
I was lucky to have a pleasant conversationalist such as my wife to talk to, and this somehow made me think that even if the man is a comic genius, I was eternally grateful that Robin Williams was not with me and we had nothing but coffee to drink.

A passing thought about my not foreseeing this prolonged delay and, therefore, bringing along some sort of game to play made me thankful that I was not involved in a team scrabble match against Tony Randall and William F. Buckley with my partner, Dan Quayle.

Occasional sightings of Ladson denizens (Mobile Homo Napus Reddus), leering feral-eyed from the drool-smudged windows of their double-wides made me very thankful that I didn’t have to dash out into the woods to relieve myself, since my inability to imitate a pig’s squeal would most certainly irritate my accosters.

My eventual use of an overrun-with-humanity service station bathroom somewhere between Summerville and Harleyville made me thankful that my Yoga training had rendered my foot flexible enough to flush toilets as well as turn on water spigots.

After we finally crept up to an intersection where other cars were waiting to join our inchworming caravan, and I politely let one car in, only to another one force its way in directly behind the first, I was thankful, but only mildly this time, that my G. Gordon Liddy-engraved Uzi was at home, which is where it is always kept, the weapon having proved to be an efficient remedy for pesky squirrels.

When we snailed through another small town, whose name I forget (just as well, no sense in offending another one), and there were people sitting on their porches gawking at us, as if the circus had come to town, I was most thankful that this was not a Saturday, since would more than likely be disrupting the weekly Yankee Yank event, in which persons in cars with north of the Mason-Dixon line tags are yanked out of their cars and force-fed okra-stuffed chitlins if they incorrectly answer the question: “What are the nutritional ingredients of a mountain oyster?”

Now that my intravehicular contemplation is over, and I am safely within the confines of my Hurricane exempt Mt. Pleasant house, I find what I am still in a thankful mood, thankful as all writers should be for experiences, no matter how grueling, as long as they’re of a muse-evoking nature, and thankful, last nut not least, that I know the actual ingredients of a mountain oyster and would, therefore, never eat one, even if its nutritional ingredients would guarantee me eternal life.

Mother of All Lists

May 1999
Mother of All Lists
By Bob Coskrey

Yesterday in the county library, I was perusing—oh all right, skimming—through The Book of Lists, the 2nd version, by David Wallenchinisky and Amy Wallace. Their first edition in 1977 created a sort of semi-literary structure which certainly had its most famous comedy offshoot in David Letterman’s “Top Ten List.” In fact, I’ve been known to indulge in the art myself….

But I had never seen either of Wallenchinisky and Wallace’s books before.

A lot of the lists are very straight-forward and unfunny, but on the other hand, many are quite humorous, usually unintentionally. Some of the most hilarious, however, have to do with words, as follows:

Obscure and Obsolete Words

MEUPAREUNIA: A sexual act gratifying only to one participant.
Big deal, I though, every pubescent boy is familiar with this , and of course, only on participant is satisfied because there’s only one person participating. DUH!

Another that had special significance for me was RESISTENTAILISM, which is defined as “seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects.” I have witnessed this phenomena over and over again in two things in particular—paper clips and wire coat hangers. Almost every time, when I reach for a paper clip in my desk drawer at my real world job, I pull out two or more of these demonically possessed fasteners that have spent the entire night before linking themselves together during some sort of office supply orgy. I used to curse at hem while I tried for valuable minutes to extricate their wiry limbs, till finally one day I just stopped participating in this fiendish frolic, and threw the entangled irritants into the trash can, joyously envisioning their fiery fate at the local recycling center. And sometimes when I have the distinct notion that I am the only one in the office being singled out for this torturous treatment, I spitefully pass on the love-locked items to an unsuspecting co-worker.

My other inanimate terrorizer, the metal coat hanger, which is obviously related to the paperclip, manifests its disdain for me in a similar fashion, interlocking their hooked heads with one another whenever I try to rip them apart, sending 3 or 4 to the floor, sometimes with an article of clothing attached. I used to suffer this indignity with an attitude of resignation, but after discovering from friends that this was only happening to me, I began to retaliate, picking up each offending hanger and twisting and crushing it into a submissive and harmless sphere of modern art, then maliciously tossing it into the garbage.

My psychiatrist said it’s actually much healthier to project my hostility against inanimate objects, so I figure I’m probably saving myself from some serious jail time.

Another fascinating list was the “Names of Things You Didn’t Know Had Names.”

The word CHANKING means “spat-out food such as rinds or pits,” a term which I’m sure makes the Chung King food company very displeased. A good example of the word’s usage is: “Every Friday Family night, many Goose Creek restaurants have chanking contests. The first family to full up a 3-by-3-foot box wins.”

The word PEEN means the end of a hammer opposite the striking face. This was quite a revelation for me. All these years, I thought the expression was “pain in the ass.” This makes the statement much more descriptive and meaningful.

The most amusing of the word lists, without a doubt, was “Untranslatable Words.”

The Italian phrase CAVOLI RISCALDATI means “the attempt to revive a dead love affair.” Literally, it means “reheated cabbage, which is usually unworkable and messy.”

Very powerful imagery indeed. But the definition seems a bit abbreviated to me. I think it really described an attempt to revive a dead love affair between two people whose only bind was a shared gastrointestinal ailment.

There were 9 other words on the list, most all of which were very funny, but my favorite, I guess because it represents my favorite kind of humor, is the German word SHADDENFREUDE, which is defined as “the joy one feels as a result of someone else’s misfortune, like seeing a rival slip on a banana peel.” God knows how many times I have experience shaddenfreude—not as often as I would have liked to, actually—but I am glad there is a legitimate name for this very human emotion. The only thing that bothers me is that the Germans invented it. I have an unpleasant image of someone a bit more menacing than Colonel Klink yukking it up with a fellow storm-trooper: “Can you believe it, Chamberlain actually believed us when we told him our Panzer Division was a new kind of math.”

I think I’ll postpone using this word until I can verify the time and place of its origin.

I could continue giving you my picks of the various word lists, but that seems too easy and unimaginative, so let me end with my very own addition to the “Obscure and Obsolete Words List”:

ENUZIASM (en-oo-zee-as-im): That overwhelming urge one gets to ch under the car seat and pull out that special equalizer whenever another car nearly kills you by running a red light.

Fortunately, by keeping a ready supply of doomed, yet-to-be-mangled coat hangers on the seat next to me, I have been able to channel my violent musing into less felonious behavior. So far!

The Summer of 48: Operation Sandcastle

Some of my greatest childhood memories are about the terrific times I had under my grandmother's house on Sullivan's Island. My mother and I lived with my grandmother, and we would spend half the summer at her beach house every year. The house was raised about eight feet off the ground on pilings, as most old island homes are, and, to give a sense of privacy, the underhouse area was surrounded by a sort of fence, but the individual boards were spaced about 3" apart.

The underhouse was nothing but sand, except for a small pile of bricks at the west end and some intruding weeds at the edges. Of course, the sand was its most valuable attribute. Without it, I could not have built my forts, castles, bridges, and moats. There was a seemingly fathomless supply of it. I could dig to about four feet and it would still be there, but it would be damp; another foot and there would be mud. I often wondered: If I continued to dig, would the water suddenly gush up with the pressure of the Atlantic behind it and blast through the house, taking with it my grandmother and her card table full of canasta-playing cronies, not to mention a great quantity of my lead soldiers? Within a few hours the entire island, the soldiers and myself would disappear into the ocean, creating the Lowcountry's version of Atlantis and a tourist bonanza for years to come. Not willing to tempt fate, I never dug beyond the mud; there was no practical reason to, anyway, since I only had to dig about 8-10" to reach the layer that was compact enough to build with.

For purely malevolent reasons, my cousins once dug down about three feet in order to make a trap. The hole was wide enough for someone's leg and foot to go down in it. They then placed the thin, green slats from some old, discarded porch blinds over the top and covered this with sand, so it looked just like the rest of the underhouse. My three male cousins all knew where the trap was, as I did. Our parents never knew, but, then, they never ventured into this territory from the boring confines of their adult world anyway. I don't remember exactly who it was we planned to have topple in this perfidious puncture—thank God, we knew nothing of Punji stick then—but we all agreed not to tell their sister, Nancy, and I do recall their having lured her under the house, so perhaps she was the intended victim. Being the only girl in a family of four, eventually five, boys tends to predispose one to an uneven share of harassment.

The plan worked to perfection; unfortunately, Nancy broke her leg. I was not there when the reign of parental terror began, but I'm sure a severe punishment was meted out. However, I was innocent of any participation in this cowardly deed, though my being aware of it probably made me an accessory. Nevertheless, no one incriminated me, possibly fearing my infamous pyrotechnical talents (see "Burning Desire," Omnibus, June 1990).

Oh, there were happier experiences under the house, although this one was certainly not a complete fiasco. I mean, the trap worked just as we'd all hoped; there was just an unforeseen, disastrous complication. Did we learn a lesson from this? Of course. We learned that the traps should be dug on the beach where the chances were less that someone we were related to would fall into them. I also improved on the old model by suggesting that we build a castle on top of the hole (hidden now with sand-covered marsh sticks). This ensured that someone would fall into it, but not just some anonymous, child-hating, 60-year-old fat lady and her snapping Chihuahua. This would be one of those demented sand-geeks who came to the beach for no other apparent reason than to stomp on kids' castles. We cackled among ourselves—perhaps a bit too ghoulishly—as we envisioned the event.

But wait, this was insufficient; this fiend, this destroyer of children's art, this Nazi Beach Psycho deserved more than to just fall into a hole. We'd put a dead jellyfish and some dog dung into the hole. We even considered dropping in some broken bottles. My cousin David's supposition that someone could bleed to death and that we'd all be sent to some Dickensian prison convinced us that we should leave out the glass. My contention that all evil acts committed on Sullivan's Island would automatically be blamed on the Gerbilhead kids (see "Burning Desire," Omnibus, June 1990) was overruled.

This being August, it did not take us very long to find a dead jellyfish, since the beach was strewn with them this time of the summer. David's excited yell that he had found one occupied by maggots brought a simultaneous, "Yeah!" from all of us. We hacked it up a little bit with sticks so the victim would experience the essence of jellyfish, or as one of my older cousins, Frederick, put it, "So he'll have jellyfish guts oozin' between his toes." Once again, fortune smiled on us that day, as Frederick spotted a huge Mastiff with obvious gastrointestinal problems, who made a sizeable, though involuntary contribution to our project.

Although near slavering with anxious anticipation, we took our time in building the castle. We figured the better it looked, the greater the chance that it would attract our unwary malefactor. In fact, the castle looked so good, there was some mild protestation about seeing it destroyed, until Sandy, the oldest at 12, reminded us that it would be a noble sacrifice for a greater purpose: "Hey, it might be one of the Gerbilheads!" That thought excited all of us, even though I did wonder aloud who it would be blamed on then. "Psychotic, itinerant, Gypsy beachcombers," Sandy said.

"Who?" asked David.

"Never mind. Let's do it!" Frederick said.

We checked out the trap one last time. It was perfectly camouflaged, a three-foot deep by one-foot wide hole right in the middle of the castle. We repaired to our observation post, a well hidden spot in the dunes about thirty yards away. It was a perfect spot, an indentation well hidden by sea oats. It was actually an old WWII gun emplacement which had the added protection of sandbags, in case our victim happened to be armed. We had brought firecrackers to throw at him in the event this occurred.

We had waited about thirty minutes, visually sweeping the beach for any sign of suspicious persons, and we were getting discouraged. The only people who came by were a couple of old ladies looking for shells and a little boy and his mother, who walked around our castle admiring it for what seemed like ten minutes. He tried to get into it several times but she managed to pull him back. Frederick tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "Hey, what if the kid falls in face first?" This thought caused an epidemic of gigglitis to the point that the mother looked up towards our dune. Perhaps sensing that something was not quite right here, she dragged her complaining child away from the castle and continued down the beach.

"Look," David said. "It's Al Weissman." Sure enough, it was Al Weissman, our neighbor, who lived across the street from my grandmother's beach house. He was about 14 years old. He was a very mean guy. He once shot me in the chest with his BB gun. It had only left a little red mark, but it had stung like Hell. He also shot birds and cats and dogs with the gun. My mother had always told me to stay away from him—that he was a "very bad boy." We had forgotten about him because he had been out of town, but if anybody deserved to fall into that hole, it was Al Weissman. Al had probably committed some sort of sinister act against every kid and helpless animal on the island. In fact, he was apparently up to no good right now, since he was carrying his well-known weapon of woe, his well-oiled Daisy Pump Action.

He began walking along the gully, firing his BB gun into it repeatedly, then stopping to see if his kills—minnows and crabs—would float to the top. Would he be too preoccupied with his slaughter-waging to notice the castle? It seemed as though he might, as he continued to concentrate on the gully. Then, suddenly, the unexpected—which gradually becomes the expected, as one ventures into adulthood—happened. "It's that dog again!" David had screamed. It was the huge mastiff, who had re-arrived on the scene, as we were scrutinizing Awful Al's behavior. He was sniffing around the castle, obviously attracted by the scent emanating from the trap. Oh God, he was going to all into the trap and ruin everything. "He's not only gonna fall in the hole, he's gonna eat the contents," Frederick said, reminding us unnecessarily of our canine friends' indiscriminate eating habits. Nearly gagging on this thought, we all realized that our great scheme was to soon be an unforgettable debacle.

Suddenly, perhaps tiring of the exacting sport challenge of minnow-shooting, Al turned his attention landward in search of bigger and less mobile targets. Immediately sighting the mastiff, who was still sniffing around the castle's outer wall, he fired from the hip, stinging the dog in the left buttock and sending him yelping down the beach. Then, Al began walking toward the castle, firing as he approached. Pieces of the castellated wall were nicked off. The marsh stick-based bridge blew up. The marsh stick flagpole snapped in half.

"Wow," muttered David. Although we hated Al, we had to admit it looked pretty cool. We also figured Al would grow tired of destroying our castle bit by bit, and would eventually stomp it to smithereens. We smiled knowingly, as he carefully placed his gun down. He was prepared to deliver the big crusher, the two-footed castle smasher. The coup de stomp. We tensed, drooling concomitantly with anticipation. Al, all at once, bent down and picked up a brick. Sandy beat his head into the sand in painful frustration. How could we have been so negligent? We should have policed the area for throwable objects. Being occasional, but not chronic, castle-crushers ourselves, how could we have overlooked this possibility? Now, Al would simply stand there and pelt it with bricks and flotsam until it became an amorphous clump of sand.

"Wait!" I spoke hopefully. "Look!" Al had stopped picking up bricks and seemed to be just standing there, starting at the castle. Suddenly, he was running toward it and then jumping high over it with bare feet together, emitting an inhuman, blood-curdling yell, which sounded amazingly similar to those I had read in my volumes of war comics: "Earrg!"

It was a perfect jump. He came down squarely in the center of the main castle building, which was squarely on top of the trap. Immediately, there was another scream, but this one more spontaneous, original and wordy: "Goddamn!" What the SH--!" Al had disappeared up to his thighs in the hole. He quickly pulled himself out and looked frantically at his feet. From our vantage point, we could see that his feet were covered with our special concoction. He began to brush at them wildly with his hands, then brought one of them up close to his face. "Jesus!" he screamed, as he started rubbing his hands and feet wildly in the sand. Next, he got to his feet briefly, before falling down on all fours and barfing his venomous insides into the sand.

By this time, we, of course, had lost all control, rolling over and over in the sand and laughing to the point of severe stomach cramps. David showed his usual secondary manifestation of hearty laughter, a large wet circle around the crotch of his pants. We screamed, laughing and rejoicing at the same time. If only the mastiff could have been there to get his laugh.

Dress Down for Success

January, 2000
Dress Down For Success
By Bob Coskrey

Dress Down Day. Most progressive-minded companies observe it, from small ones to huge conglomerates. Studies have proven it’s good for morale, not to mention production. But there are those paleolithically fixated businesses who, for their own peculiar reasons, prefer not to allow this practice, the one for which I work, for example.

So instead of having groups of employees who feel relaxed, comfortable, and at ease, and who work hard, you have a disgruntled mob of surly, frustrated malcontents who sit around pouting and complaining to each other, and resultantly, getting even less work done.

Complain no longer, Workers of the World! There are ways you can satisfy your dress down desires without your atavistic employer ever knowing about it, and he’ll benefit from your increased productivity without ever knowing why. He may insist that you wear a tie and a jacket, but he won’t know that under your neatly pressed slacks or subdued Ralph Lauren skirt that you’re completely bare-assed. SURE, YOU GOT IT, JUST DON’T WEAR any underwear this Friday. How’s the going to know, unless you’re a guy, of course, under very erotically stimulating circumstances. In other words, if you’re the human resource assistant at “Hooters,” you may not want to try this, unless you take the extra precaution of wearing an athletic supporter—or maybe using duct tape. (Just be sure to remove the latter with a quick, short stroke.)

If you’re, understandably, a little timid, simply wear bikini or thong underwear first, then, perhaps, just try painting underpants on, before making the big transformation.

I have already tried it and my production—and that’s all—is up 22%.

Females, of course, have an advantage—at least, a couple of them. They can attend work bra-less, as well as pantsless, and of course, I know that some of you are already doing this. Women trampoline and pogo stick demonstrators may not want to pursue this avenue.
But let’s not stop with this idea. I have multifold others I am anxious to share with you on how we can improve the workplace simply by daring to do things a little differently.

First, from underwearless or bra-less Fridays we follow a natural progression to topless or pantless Fridays. If everyone is in agreement, what better way to bring aboyamity in employer-employee relations, though you might want to consider some weight and age restriction.

No doubt, you’re already misperceiving a lascivious theme here, so let me quickly dispel your unwarranted suspicions with my next suggestion.
Toothless Tuesdays: All our “indentured” senior employees get to leave their drinking glass encased chopper at home while they relax at work, spicing up the office with impromptu imitations of Gabby Hayes, Moms Mably, various hockey players, and a new interpretation of Gumby.

A lot of pent-up tension will be released with the introduction of Tactless Thursday, when you will be allowed to infuse the environment with all sorts of rude, impertinent, inappropriate remarks, to your spleen’s content, the one stipulation being that those who act this way normally will only be permitted to interject genteel gems of jocularity and joy.

Clueless Mondays: These are destined to become enormously popular among the lower echelon employees, as the whole idea will be to let upper and mid-level management perform the jobs of the lesser salaried peons. Since it is anticipated that many businesses will resultantly be shut down for a day due to the blatant incompetence of its “new” employees, management will probably not permit this even to happen more than once.

The possibilities are limited only by the English language. How about Witless Wednesdays, on which only those who have willingly watched a “Dukes of Hazard” rerun (and boasted about it), consider “USA Today” their newsprint Bible, but need a dictionary to decipher it, or who found the 1992 Gore-Quayle debate an extraordinary example of oratorical swordplay heightened by the challenge of trying to understand the rapier-like repartee and the hip yet esoteric literary references, get to come in.

Classless Wednesdays, on which only those who when they dine out, are so driven to use a toothpick, even before they leave the table, that they ask to borrow your ball-point pen or are constantly spitting out La Brea Tar Pit consistency wads of searing tobacco (only you find out they don’t chew tobacco) will be invited to work. These days will, by necessity, be followed by Thoroughly Sanitizing Thursdays, during wh the entire workplace is cleaned and inspected by DHEC.

Although some of my models may be slightly exaggerated, my not-to-be-overlooked point to you bosses is that the Dress Down Day is a very minute concession to your faithful employees, as in my situation, for instance, in which it simply means that I won’t wear a tie. Big deal, you might say, but to most workers, the practice is actually a symbol that the “Big Kahuna,” “The Man,” “Mr. Charlie,” “The Suits,” “The Massah,” is aware that they’re human and not some sort of policy-programmed android. And just in case an erstwhile point is forgotten, they’ll actually perform their jobs better.

So, while of course not a threat, is we the laboring, downtrodden masses don’t start getting their Dress Down Days, it’s not entirely outside the realm of reality that some of the previously referred to less sanity based days of observation may come into being.

For example, since it’s been over a year now since we’ve had a dress down day at my job, tomorrow I’m taking it upon myself to initiate, unilaterally, unfortunately, “Dress Your Private Parts As A Puppet Monday.” Drastic? Perhaps, but in order to affect change, you first have to gain someone’s attention. What’s that you say? Medical attention. Well, okay, but it’s a start.

Bad Day at Bennett School

Early September 1946. My first day of public school. I was 6 years old, a gnarled veteran of 2 years of kindergarten at Miss Mcinnes’ and Ms. Steinberg’s, however, at these Crayola-permeated edifices of lower learning, I had benefitted from the comfort and protection of my adoring Aunt Gert, who had taken on teaching jobs at both institutions solely for those somewhat misguided purposes. Little Bobby Coskrey felt anxious and estranged in those alien atmospheres, having to lie down on wafer-thin rugs for naps next to all varieties of unwashed ruffians. He would much rather stay at home, play with his vast armies of toy soldiers, or indulge in some of his secret games such as water-ballooning unsuspecting passerby from the second-floor porch, or napalming ants and roaches with his homemade Black Flag flamethrower.

But the days of unfettered coddling, pampering, and special treatment were long gone now. I was in public school, Bennett Elementary, where the College of Charleston cafeteria is now located.

On this inaugural day, my mother walked me to 2 ¼ blocks from our house, down George Street, past the old blind black man selling pencils and brooms near the corner of King: “Pleeeze help the blind,” he would spout in a basso profundo voice, whenever he heard footsteps, scaring me the first time I saw him, since I had never seen a blind person before, and I didn’t understand his dark glasses and trance-like demeanor.

As usual, my mother snatched a handful of pencils and a couple of brooms without paying and ran down the street derisively screaming, “Gotcha’ again, old man,” dragging me behind her. (Oh, calm down, I’m only kidding—just wanted to see if you’re paying attention.)

We stopped, as we occasionally did, and my mother bought a couple of pencils, and gave them to me, saying, “Here, you can use these in school today, but for God’s sake, don’t run around with them, you’ll poke out your eye, or maybe both, in this case.” The resonant, “Thank you, Ma’am, God bless you” rang in my ears, as we scurried away.

As we reached the corner of St. Philip and George, a female crossing guard, Miss Hart, blew her whistle, held up her hands in the pose of some sort of superhero ready to push back the cars, and, with a smile, motioned for us to cross. Amazingly, all the vehicles obeyed her magic whistle, as we marched confidently toward the school. At the time, I recall thinking that she had actually been put there solely for me, until, appalled, I noticed other children getting the same service.

Bennett Elementary was a grey, concrete building with a foreboding aura. We entered through an iron gateway onto a dusty playground surrounded by trees. There were mothers with children all over the place, along with groups of bigger kids without parental escorts. Some of the younger children appeared to be being dragged by their mothers, a sight which suddenly made me feel a bit anxious, but we continued to walk briskly through one of the building’s arches, then on to a quadrangle area which led to a long, semi-dark hallway, where my mother, thankfully still holding on to my hand, said to me, “We just need to find Miss Kornahren’s class, room 1-a, now, Bobby.”

Fortunately, or perhaps otherwise, depending on your perspective, we found it within 30 seconds of her declaration, and stride into Miss Kornahren’s classroom. My mother shook hands with her and introduced me. Apparently, they knew each other, as did all Charlestonians of German descent, I was eventually to learn.

All teachers in those days, for you younger readers, came in two physical forms: 1) Thin, middle-aged females, with their hair pulled back so severely, they had Elsa Lanchester “Bride of Frankenstein” expressions, or 2) older and overweight with hairnet-encased white hair. Most were spinsters, quite a few of whom, in retrospect, would have been vanguard rider for “Dykes on Bikes” in another time. And all were addressed as “Miss,” regardless of their marital status.

Miss Kornahrens was friendly and had a nice smile. She took my hand gently and led me to a desk in the middle of the room: “You sit right here, Bobby.” I was a little miffed at not being placed in the front row, where Aunt Gert had always positioned me, until I eventually learned she was, in fact, doing me a favor.

I sat down amidst the commotion of other children and mothers going through the same ritual. I looked around at all the pictures covering the walls, obviously drawn and colored by other kids. I thought to myself, “Boy, those are really bad; if that’s all ti takes to get through this, I’ll be out of here in no time.”

All at once, my burgeoning confidence was demolished by a terrifying statement from mo mother: “Well, Bobby, I’m going now. You be a good boy, and I’ll pick you up around 2:30 right here in the classroom.”

Suddenly, I realized I was being left along for the first time in my life with a bunch of complete strangers.

“Where’s Gert?” I asked her, my eyes starting to fill.

Mother, taking hold of my hand (I noticed her eyes were brimming also): “Gert’s not going to be here, Bobby.”

Me, pathetically: “You—you mean they wouldn’t let her work here? Can’t Dada (my grandmother and family matriarch, with whom we all lived) make them?”

Mother: “No, Bobby, Gert and I can’t be with you while you’re in school, but Miss Kornahrens will be here and she’s a very nice lady who will take care of you. See all those other little children? They’re here to learn things, too, and they don’t have a Gert or a Mommy with them either, but they’ve got Miss Kornahrens, and all of you are going to have a good time together learning about all kinds of interesting things.”

To me, this explanation had the same spurious sound of Dr. Deas (or family physician) telling me that my first shot “will only hurt a little bit” before he plunged his one-foot-long “needle of doom” so deep into my smallish arm, I expected to come out the other side. I didn’t like the way things were shaping up at all.

My mother slowly released my arm and walked out of the room, stopping to wave goodbye at the doorway, a performance callously repeated by all the rest of the “Stepford Moms,” as they, one by one, deserted their innocent offspring.

I somehow managed to control myself during my first Mom and Gertless state, especially after I noticed that no one else in the room was having a hissy fit except a little girl.

The rest of the day, as I recall it, was a conglomeration of “Alice and Jerry” stories (the reading textbook), coloring and drawing, and playing on the jungle gym at recess. I met another boy, Richard, who had toy soldiers like mine. I was pleased, but at the same time, totally surprised, since up till then, I thought I was the only one who had them. This proved to be the first of many shocking revelations over the next few years that would show me that I was not special after all. And I met another boy, named Paul, who along with me, was the only other knicker-wearing boy in the school, a situation that was to later case me, and perhaps him, psychological trauma.

Although I was still in a state of semi-shock, I placated my nerves with soothing thoughts of my mother or Gert appearing at the classroom door at exactly 2:30, like an omnipotent angel of deliverance, here to whisk me out of the flaming bowels of Didactic Devildom.

2:30 arrived and there was no Mom. I was worried…yet.
She probably went to Kresse to buy me some soldiers as a reward for being a good boy and was delayed by crowds or a mistake-prone clerk.
2:45: No Mom. I began to get nervous. There were only two other kids left, along with Miss Kornahrens.
3:00: I’m nearing the breaking point. It’s just me and Miss Kornahrens who consolingly says that she knows my mother must be on her way. I figure she must have been kidnapped by Barbary pirates or killed bu a bus. Otherwise, she’d be here.
3:10: Miss Kornahrens tells me she is going to the office to call my home.
3:13: No Mom and no Miss Kornahrens either. I take immediate action. I run out of the classroom, down the semi-dark hallways, through the quadrangle, and out to the dust-laden playground. I go to the corner of the fence and peer pitifully down George Street. No Mom or Gert in sight. I see the old blind man a block away and the thought runs through my feverish mind that I’ll literally “cry my eyes out” and end up like him, all alone on another corner selling my toy soldiers.

I suffer a lachrymal explosion. I’m sobbing loudly. Tears are soaking my short-sleeve shirt and dripping onto my tweeduroy knickers. This is surely the end of my brief but happy existence.

All at once, a man in a khaki outfit, like one of my soldiers coming to life, and now lifesize, gently grabs my shoulders. It turns out to be Mr. Hart, the school janitor, and unofficial athletic director, conducting activities like softball and kickball at recess. In a gruff but kindly voice, he tells me not to cry. Miss Hart, the crossing guard, who is also his wife, comes over, and for the time being, I regain some measure of composure by pretending they are both fellow soldiers there to aid me after I’ve just suffered a near-mortal wound during the Battle of Bennett School Playground.

Just as I catch the Harts exchanging “What in the Hell are we gonna do with this screamin’ brat” glances, I look up beyond Mr. Hart’s watch, with his big hand on the 25 and its little hand on the 3, to see the beatific face of my mother.

For reasons that only a psychiatrist could fathom, I do not recall to this day why my late mother did not show up on time at this most important occasion. I’m sure she must have told me, and maybe I simply blocked the answer out of my mind.

Nevertheless, as a student at the College of Charleston many years later, I would break out into a cold sweat whenever I walked or rode by what used to be the old Bennett School campus, and even now, every year, on the first day of public school, I put on a pair of knickers and take a school janitor and crossing guard out to lunch. Most of them are very understanding, once I relate the story to them, but they always seem to leave very quickly once lunch is over.

If Dada were here, I bet they would stay.

Comments Overheard Following the Holyfield/Tyson Fight

1. Take the bite out of crime: Reincarnate Mike
2. He took the easy way out. I question his courage. He should be out of boxing. Maybe he could get a job as a mascot for Tyson's Chicken Company.
3. Yeah, how about these Tyson frozen dinners: Ears Holyfield, Evander Eartouffee, Evander, the Other Dark Meat.
4. Even in prison, Tyson could never get that thing down. It was supposed to be just a nibble at the ear, not a full-fledged bite.
5. At least by spitting out the ear, he followed Dahmer Rules of Cannibalistic Etiquette: Only the lobe is considered a delicacy. Any other part of the ear can—and should—be expectorated.
6. Jordan's made millions with his Air Jordan shoes. How about Ear Holyfield caps, a baseball cap with upper ear attachments on both sides.
7. Maybe Tyson should just eat a light lunch a few hours before a fight.
8. Hey, I got an idea for Tyson's next fight: A World Championship Bite To The Finish between Mike the Mad Masticator and Marv the Munching Molester Albert?
9. Holyfield plainly brought on himself. I clearly heard him say during the clinches, "Bite me, you fat little bastard."
10. So, he bit him on the ear. At least he wasn't biting below the belt.
11. Most frightening implication from the fight: Tyson announcing he had children.
12. I wonder how may transplants Robin Givens has had?
13. It's obvious Tyson bit off more than he could chew.
14. First fan: Come on Holyfield, beat the bastard's brains out.
Second fan: Come on Mike, break the chicken-shit's ribs! Knock his guts out!
First fan: You got him Mike, go for the head, kill the asshole!
Second fan: Hey, did you see that? That animal Tyson just bit his ear. He's gotta be disqualified. What's this sport coming to?

Slip Sliding Away

As Barbara and I and another couple watched the Piccolo Spoleto-presented fashion show, "Fashion and Relieve 93," my mind began to wander despite the lithe and sultry models undulating up and down the runway. Prurient thought overload reflex? Lack of interest? Neither; it's just something that happens to me more often than it should and sometimes even when someone is talking to me, unfortunately.

It's sort of a word, thought and/or image association thing that triggers my imagination and sends me drifting off into varying degrees of surrealistic meanderings.

Tonight it was easy. The theme of this show was future fashions and it had a theatrical aspect, as well.

I began thinking about some possible fashion news of the future among the glitterati—the actors, actresses and entertainers.

First, I saw headlines of Madonna's new look of 94. "Madonna is emphasizing yet more leather, including a harness. Ascribing her inspiration to Roy Rogers' late stallion, Trigger, Madonna is quoted as saying, 'That big stud was into leather, whips, and self-bondage long before it was in vogue. And have you checked out the size of that unit?"

Cher presents her "Den Mother Delilah" look for women hoping to lure a previously untapped pool of young male companionship.

David Letterman, from his home, where he usually can be found wearing casual clothes such as sweatshirts and jeans, leaks that he will have an endorsement in '94 featuring a close-up of his famous smiling grin—for The Gap stores.

The fact that many male homosexuals seek careers in fashion caused an instant segue into the gays in the military dilemma and I envisioned these headlines:

Senator Sam Nunn, in 1994, will be modeling the US Navy uniforms under the nickname of "Bunky the Sailor Boy." He plans to recommend that all naval vessels be doubled in length in order to permit enlargement of sleeping quarters and protect the chastity of defenseless heteroswabbies. He will also strongly urge that all servicemen's boxer short flies be sewn shut.

In hair fashion, Senator Strom Thurmond will receive a special environmental recycling award from Vice President Al Gore for using hair transplants made from the remnants of defective Barbie Doll wigs.

Relatedly, the National Endowment for the Arts, Hues Appreciation Committee, will also give the legendary political leader special recognition for discovering a shade of orange found nowhere else in nature or synthetics.

President Clinton, in a continuing effort to reward those who got him elected, will appoint Raphael DeLandy and Sean Morningstar, the construction work guy and the Native American in the disco group, "The Village People," as special assistants to the Labor Secretary and the director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, respectively.

A short film documentary will debut, featuring Senator John Warner and other members of the Armed Services Committee as they solicit complaints from servicemen about their fears of being pyreed upon by marauding bands of gay military men in their showers and living quarters. It will be entitled "The Whining Game."

The Reverend Jerry Falwell will publicly admit that he has a natural flair for women's fashion design and conclude, therefore, that he must certainly be gay.

Very shortly thereafter, the Reverend Pat Robertson will make a similar revelation based on his confessed preference for Judy Garland records and obsession with track lighting.

Within hours of these stunning announcements, a worldwide phenomenon occurs, as millions of self-respecting gays begin returning to their respective closets.

Rush Limbaugh, ultra-conservative media personality, will go undercover as a flaming, overweight drag queen, "The New Divine," in an effort to learn more about the gay political agenda and suffer irreversible ego damage when he learns he is socially incompatible within both sexual orientations.

Another thought segue back to fashion:

Actor Richard Gere will leave supermodel Cindy Crawford because she "flat out refuses to get rid of that unsightly mole. It's soooo gross," he carped.

In a corollary story, Tibet will declare war on the US, as a direct result of Mr. Gere's inspired music video tribute to that beleaguered country's spiritual leader, "Dahli Lama Ding Dong."

Back to the gays in the military thought process:

Broadway actor Harvey Firestein will join the Marines, pose seductively for the "all we want is a few good men" poster and start a petition to replace "From the Halls of Montezuma" with "Feelings."

Senator Bob Dole will snap sardonically: "I told you this would happen."

An incensed Pat Buchanan will claim there is a ban on male heterosexuals in women's fashion design and demand that it be lifted immediately. He will vehemently reject any suggestions that heteros should simply not announce their sexual orientation. That would be asking them to lie. "It's a matter of morality," he would rant.
Senator Jesse Helms will boast of having secret video tapes of gay airmen painting Robert Mapplethorpe-style pictures as well as images of Liza Minelli, on the fuselages of their planes.

Over 90% of the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences admit in an anonymous poll that for the 1993 Academy Awards they had initially nominated Jaye Davidson of "The Crying Game" for best supporting ACTRESS.

My reverie was interrupted by Barbara's nudge. It was intermission. As I ordered our drinks at the concession booth, I wondered what would happen if you laced all the beverages at a political convention with sodium pentothal.

A hypnotic gaze enveloped my eyes, as Senator Bob Packwood made his opening remarks: "My fellow patriots, I love this great country of ours. (Pause.) But not nearly as much as I love doing the Big Nasty. Bring on the babes!"

Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr.: "I'd like to thank the people of the city of Charleston for allowing me to make the $250,000 loan to the Spoleto Festival. Believe me, you will be rewarded ten-fold. And I will be rewarded next year when Gian Carlo keeps his promise to rename this even the 'Joeleto Festival'."

Sis Inabinet: "I will be fighting mad if this base stays on the 'Hit List,' but you people are going to be on something that rhymes with the 'Hit List' if you don't elect me to the House next year."

Reality returned in the form of an irritated voice in my ear: "Sir, would you please move, if you've gotten your order?"

On my way back to my seat, I wondered if I had not married whether my skeletal remains would have been found in my musty Queen Street apartment by two of my friends, both arguing over whose month it had been to come by and nudge me out of my reveries.

Growing Old Gracelessly

Can it be that little Bobby Coskrey, that cute little chubby-faced kid whose multitude of photographs, the pride of a near psychotically overindulgent mother, inundate that page of a musty old album, is not a septuagenarian? No, that’s not a dirty old man, but rather a senior citizen, of impeccable credentials, a 60-year-old coot, La Grand Codger, a Royless Gabby Hayes and old timer, the Abe Vigoda of the East Cooper, someone that young whippersnappers refer to as “Pops,” an authentic old goat, a boatless Ancient Mariner?

In a word, a very cruel and hollow sounding one, now that I mention it, “Yes.” I, Bob Coskrey, the erstwhile essence of milk-breathed, talcum-powdered, fan-eyes innocence, have been, in a flash of 58 years, transmogrified into a penultimate-breathed, liniment-soaked, dead-eyed, jaded Grandee of Geezerdom.

But, where did all the damn time go? It was only last month, it seems, that my mother forgot to (yeah, right, Ma) pick me up after my first day at grammar school, only last week that I supped my first beer and judge it nasty (thought I would inexplicably drink 442,684 in the 44 years), and only yesterday that I fell out of my honeymoon bed, severely damaging my ego, while my libido, fortuitously, remained perfectly intact.

But that’s a rather stupid question, rhetorical or literal, typical, perhaps, of someone of my withering faculties—my God, I wish that were dandruff on my shoulders and not brain cells.

I remember only vaguely all my other milestone birthdays, 30, 40 and 50. Frankly, I never thought much about them, because I always felt mentally and physically younger than those ages. Even now, for that matter, I don’t feel any different than when I was 25. In fact, I’m probably better off, health-wise, than I was then, since now I exercise, then I didn’t. I probably read and write more than I did then too.

Certainly, as I look in the mirror each morning, I can see changes. Less hair, and what there is, is grayer, a few lines here and there. It’s a bit covering, and I’ve actually considered avoiding that particular regiment, the mirror, altogether. Maybe I could get along without it. I just won’t look at myself anymore. Stevie Wonder does it. Why not? It’s not necessary to see myself in order to shave, brush my teeth, trim my beard, comb my hair. I can learn to do without the mirror, and my dear wife will be more than happy to help me with the fine details, if I happen to miss a few things here and there. Besides, it will prepare her for the personal attendant duties required during my septuagenarian period.

Okay, well that takes care of that torturous part of the aging process. I will never have to look at my sagging, prunifying visage any longer. I can just check with Barbara every now and then.

Me: Tell me, dear, do I look more like Walter Matthau or Buddy Ebsen today? Bob Hope or Gregory Peck? What? Bea Arthur, you say? Well, at least I’m still masculine in appearance.

But really, that’s not it. Sure, I don’t look like I did 30 years ago, but I don’t expect to. Then again, I don’t think I look 60 either. In fact, in the right light, I could easily pass for 58. Ask Anybody. Ask Stevie Wonder.

But I repeat, that’s not it. I think what it is is when I consider the normal life span for an American male, and the numbers I get are 74 to 76, that’s when I really catch a whiff of the embalming fluid.

Damn, I don’t even have 20 years left, maybe 15 or 16, and how many of those will be of tolerable quality? With my luck, not only will I be stuck in some nursing home in less than 10 years, but it will be a nursing home located in Goose Creek, or North Charleston, or even Ladson, God’s righteous retribution for my years of excoriating those proud communities in article after article.

And, of course, the owners of the home will know exactly who I am and will delight in exacting their just revenge upon my gnarled and helpless body. And to make my Hell complete, I will possess just enough mental acumen o be aware of where I am, but not enough to offer any resistance, verbal or otherwise.

Nurse: “Enjoying your gruel this morning, Mr. Nasty-tongued, Writer Man? Here’s a copy of the June 1998 edition of the East Cooper Monthly. You really enjoyed poking fun at us then, didn’t you, when you were young, able-bodied, and safely ensconced in your lower-middle class Mt. Pleasant palace. Oh, is the coffee too hot for you? Let me put some ice in for you—oops, I spilled it right in your lap. And we just had that little old prostate surgery yesterday, didn’t we? Well, shame on me, but not quite as much as is on you though, you bad boy. Why, just look at the naughty things you said about us nice Goose Creekers back then, only 8 short years from the day we annexed your town and the City of Charleston.”

I try unsuccessfully to complain, as she wheels me out to the asphalt parking lot for my daily ultraviolet radiation sunbath.

Nurse: “Oh wow, Mr. Coskrey, it must be 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade today. I’ll leave you here to soak up some of those healthy rays, and I’ll be back for you in a few hours. Who knows, it might even dry up the skin cancer.”

But most biting of all the disadvantages attendant my ancient status is that I can no longer indulge in medium term, much less long-term planning:

1. A roof with a 20 year warranty
2. A lifetime supply of anything, except, maybe, Viagra
3. Any tree that grows less than 2 feet a year
4. A Hugo Boss suit—unless I plan to be laid out in it

I know what you’re thinking: “Get a life, you whimpering old windbag, even it it’s only for 15 years. If it’s flying by that damn fast, you’d better not waste any of your valuable minutes whining about something you can’t do anything to change anyway.”

And it should make you happy to know that I’m going to take your advice. I’m simply going to live my life to the max and not worry about getting old. Besides, there are always face-lifts, Viagra patches, and penile implants, and by the time I reach the critical stage, they’ll probably have head or even full body transplants, at the speed science is advancing these days.

And I will continue to look boldly into the mirror. I guess even seeing a reflection that one day may resemble the “Crypt Keeper” is better than no reflection at all, vampires notwithstanding.

The Name Game

There is a contest being held now to come up with a new name for the Charleston minor league baseball team, presently called the Rainbows. The team owners feel that the current name summons up the wrong kind of image for a group of rugged, young athletes whose goal it is to bad and pitch the other teams into whimpering submission, perhaps also presuming that a team of Rainbows may tend to wish for a potful of victories rather than earn them. The present sobriquet may, in addition, evoke visions of the Rainbow Coalition of the Rainbow Family, decidedly unpalatable food for many Charlestonians' conservative thoughts.

So I began to think of the innumerable possibilities for appropriate names which, at least from my viewpoint, must not only meet the team's owners' criteria, but must also be an appellation that is synonymous with some significant aspect of Charleston.

And as I began to think seriously—which is not easy for me—about this subject, a great number of possibilities come to mind, mainly because, at least in my opinion, Charleston can be seen from many perspectives.

Charleston's most obvious and certainly most advertised quality is its history. After all, it's "America's Most Historic City," and drawing on that, you might have the "Patriots," but for the existence of a professional football team by that same name; the "Rebels," a former name in the segregated 40s and 50s, but now totally inadvisable; or the "Colonists"—too bland.

And because some Charlestonians are so interested not only in the city's history, but their own family's as well, we could certainly have a team with names like the "Blue Bloods," the "Aristocrats," the "Patricians," the "Shintos" (sounds better than Shintoists), the "Preservationists," the "Artifacts," the "Heirlooms," or the "Fossils."

Because this genealogical fascination often goes awry, we could just as well have the "Snobs," the "Elitists," the "Social Climbers," the "Snubbers," the "Gentry," the "WASPS," the "Clique," the "SOBs," or the "Betters."

With the latter name, whenever a team ran out onto the field at the start of a game, a man dressed as a medieval herald would precede them, shouting, "Make way for your Betters!"

Charlestonians' preoccupation with how they dress could also elicit names such as the "Preppies," the "Yuppies," the "Blue Blazers," the "Khakis," the "Oxfords," the "Polos," or the "Weejuns," the latter also scoring political correctness points because of its Native American derivation.

Our city's teeming lawyer population may prompt nicknames such as the "Esquires," the "Litigators," the "Ambulance Chasers," the "Pettifoggers," the "Jurists," the "Ad Hocs," the "Unforgiven," the "Shysters," the "Tassel Loafers," the "Rodneys" (they get no respect), the "Points of Order" or the "Retainers."

Charleston's large outdoor sporting population might favor names like the "Duckheads," the "Anglers," the "Trawlers," the "Sailors," the "Hunters," the "Pick-ups," the "Bubbas," the "Buckshots," the "Outboards," the "Flannels" (accenting the second syllable for effect), the "Boykins," or the "Docksiders."

Homage would most definitely need to be paid to Charleston's natural phenomena, hence we could learn to tolerate names such as the "Humidity" (Miami has its "Heat"), the "Tide," the "Drought," and the "Hugos," or from another point of reference the "Hellcatchers" or the "Survivors." And speaking of survivors and the formidability of nature, one can hardly find a better example of both than the Yellow Crowned Night Herons, who, despite everything the city threw at them, remained defiant in their nests, laughing sardonically at the ludicrous plastic owls and snakes, the incriminating artifacts of man's feckless efforts. The "Charleston Night Herons"! It has a nice ring to it.

But it would, I'm afraid, be an affront to Charleston's sizeable artistic community, the heron's fiercest adversary, which could present its own exhibit of meaningful nicknames: the "Artists," the "Artistes," the "Artsies" (cuter), the "Literati," or, as Oakland has its "Athletics," we would present our "Aesthetics." Also, perhaps the "Spoletanos," or the "Menottis," the "Truth," the "Beautiful People," the "High Stylists," the "Chic," or the "Dilettantes."

Charleston, undeniably, has a long history of being a "wet" city filled with heavy boozers, so like it or not, names like the "Sippers," the "Bay City Booze-hounds," the "Imbibers," the "Swillers," the "Winos," the "Lush-heads," the "Stool Jockeys," or the "Barflies" would fit. Or, as Boston has its "Red Sox," and Cincinnati has its "Red Legs," we could have our "Red Noses."

Nothing distinguishes a Charlestonian from other Americans—at least on a superficial level—more than his or her speech. Therefore, we might have the "Accents," or the "Brogues," although they sound more like singing groups from the 50s and 60s. Then, too, we could have the "Geechees."

Obviously, I cannot neglect that large group of middle-aged Charlestonians who have attempted to resurrect their youth by memorizing Beach Music, that bragging but sagging contingent that still displays remarkable foot agility together with exceptional beer can-to-mouth coordination.

The "Charleston Shaggers." Why not? It even has the baseball double-entendre of catching fly balls.

Charleston, in addition, has gained national renown for its excellent cuisine and restaurants, notably seafood, over the years. So there could be a team named the "Gourmets," the "Chefs," the "Shuckers," the "Crab Crackers," the "Benne Seeds" or the "Grits."

We could honor a couple of prominent members of the "In Defense of Charleston" team by calling the team the "Charleston Joe Sox," or the "Inabinators," or the "Sis Boom Bahs" or, as a tribute to the navy yard workers themselves, the "Shipfitters" or the "Coffee Breakers" (the place has its detractors—don't send mail bombs!).

How about saluting our world famous police chief with the "Charleston Reubens" (a sandwich logo) or the "Charleston Greenbergs" (a green iceberg logo).

There are a myriad other probable names that would not necessarily be pushed by any special interest group that run a long gamut from pejorative to complimentary. Hence, I respectfully submit for your approval the "Potholes," the "Palmetto Bugs," the "Doodlebugs," the "Mosquitoes," the "Charlies," the "Chews," and the "Fiddlers."

Lastly, I'm wagering on the future in making my final suggestion, a dimension of time with which Charleston is seldom associated. "America's Most Futuristic City"? Blasphemy!

But based on local news media reports over the past two weeks, each year, increasing numbers of a certain endangered species are migrating to our city. If this keeps up, one day we will not only be a haven for these noble, but beleaguered creatures, but could boast the world's largest population.

I give you the "Charleston Manatees."

Lipinski – Lewinsky

May 1999
Lipinski – Lewinsky
By Bob Coskrey

I can’t believe I’m the only one who has noticed this, but do you not foresee the possibility that a few years from now when people are looking back on the significant events and people of 1998, that there will inevitably be some inadvertent mental transpositions when the somewhat similar sounding names, Tara Lipinski and Monica Lewinsky, are mentioned. Tara Lipinski will be mislabeled as wild intern in the Clinton sex scandal and Monica Lewinsky as the effervescent little gold medal skater. Who knows, maybe even the movie, “The Big Lebowski,” might get tossed in, to make for even more mind-adding predicaments.

Well, you needn’t worry because I have taken the impressively altruistic measure of creating a list of differences as well as similarities between Ms. Lipinski and Ms. Lewinsky, so that when that time comes, no one will be confused, and more importantly, no one will be insulted or possibly sued.

So, here it is. Cut it out of the magazine and keep it with you just in case:

Difference: Tara weighed a total of 85 pounds; Monica’s behind weighed 85 pounds.

Similarity: At one point in their careers, each was hurt by a nasty trip(p).

Difference: Tara performs a fantastic sit-spin, Monica performs a fantastic lap-sin.

Similarity: Both lived with the anxiety of having their careers possibly sidetracked by a knee injury.

Difference: In her leisure time, Tara was spotted with her skating coach viewing “The Big Lebowski.” In her leisure time, Monica was spotted with her former high school drama coach doing “The Big Lebangski.”

Similarity: Both excel at a popular American indoor sport.

Difference: Tara’s body fat: 8%, Monica’s body fat: 80%.

Similarity: In a spelling bee, both would lose. Tara would not be able to spell the word “Peyronie” and Monica would go down, so to speak, on the word, “Zambonie.”

Difference: Tara was hit on by a big lugier, Monica was hit on by a big loser.

Similarity: As a child, Tara skated on thin ice on a big creek. As a young adult, Monica was “skating on thin ice” with a big creep.

So there you have it. Whenever the differences between these two media celebrities gets a bit fuzzy, just refer to my list.

And please don’t overwhelm me or East Cooper Monthly with phone calls, faxes or letters of appreciation. Performing a civic duty through the use of my modest writing skills is its own reward.

Cafeteria Man

My wife and I eat at a cafeteria sometimes. There, I've said it. It's all out in the open now and I feel the relief of an alcoholic stating he isne at his frist AA meeting. If this is the first article you have read of mine, you will forever have made an association between me and cafeterias. And I will have, in effect, become Cafeteria Man. No matter how hip, hilarious and scintillating my future articles may be, you will still envision me as this semi-comical figure, the typical person who eats in one of those establishments. To be specific, an old person, a geezer, senior citizen, gramps, pops, a wrinkle wrangler, a private in the Incontinental Army, a denture, the Viscount of Viagra, a staff sergeant in the Early Bird Special Forces.

This never bothered me 15 or 20 years ago, when I saw those old people eating at the next table. But now, now that I've shuffled across the threashhold of 60, now when I see an old person, then realize, with shock, that's it's a fellow high school alumnus, now that I've developed a phobia of mirros, now, I must accept the arthritic hand that fate has dealt me. I am a nearly-62-year-old man who eats in a cafeteria, and it doesn't matter if I do it three times a week or twice a year, I have become an archetypal symbol of that demographic, Cafeteria Man. I am no longer a disinterested or a sympathetic observer of their odd behavior, I am one of them now. I am the observed. Now, there are people in their 30s and 40s watching me, with the passing thought, "There goes me in 30 or 20 years, poor old codger." Or worse yet, unsympathetic guys in their teens or 20s, totally goofing on me:

"Get out of my way, you old goat!"

"Eat up, gramps, you're gonna miss your charter bus!"

"Who, everybody get back, it's a prune-loader."

"Hey, Methuselah, why don't you comb that ear hair over your head and cover your bald spot."

"Can I have your autograph, Mr. Vigoda?"

"Good thing you got varicose veins, Pops, or you wouldn't have any legs at all!"

"Good evening, Mr. Dent, this must be your wife Polly."

"Would you like me to pre-chew your food for you?"

"Move it, old man, I could make you disappear with a dust cloth."

"Do you really like wearing your pants that high or did your old lady give you a wedgie?"

Well, thank God, none of these remarks have been made so far, or maybe they have, and I'm just so out of it, I haven't noticed. I guess the best way to handle reality, though novel for me, is to accept it and deal with it the best I can. I'll be proactive and simply embrace what I've become, Cafeteria Man.

Tomorrow, I'm getting a whole new wardrobe: A pair of plaid pants, and checkered shirt to blend in, some Hush Puppies and white socks, and one of those tan all-weather hats. Then I'm goin to start going to the cafeteria 5 times a week, each visit preceded by an Early Bird breakfast at an IHOP. I'll drive there with my right blinker on and back home with the left one on. And when I get to the line, I'll go into a hacking cough fit, and I won't bathe for weeks at a time till I can get that good old person musty coffin smell going. And I'll slap young whippersnappers on the back and "accidentally" goose the young girls.

Just like Vince Lombardi, Guy Lombardo, or Gay Lumbago (arthritic female impersonator of the '50s), or some old guy said: "The best offense is a good defense", or is it the other way area? Who cares? I'm Cafeteria Man, hear me wheeze!

Yo-Yo Man

"Yo-Yo Man!" The cry rang out across the school yard. No, he wasn't a rapper, but "yo mama" probably remembers him. Yo Yo Ma's's less musically talented cousin? No, but he was a fantastic stringed instrument artist. The Wizard of Wind (rhymes with rind), the Ultra Cool of Unwind, the Spinoza of Spin. The Duke of Duncan, more accurately. The Duncan Yo-Yo Man, a frequent visitor to grammar school campuses in the 40s and 50s. A young guy in his 20s, usually with a suitcase and a fold-up stand—a suitcase filled with the very latest in yo-yo technology (I deliberately avoided the adjective, "state-of-the-art"—up until "family values" American's most overused catch phrase): Solid reds, and blues and yellows, and many with fuzzy diagonal single stripes across the center, golds and silvers, blacks and whites, and then there were the expensive, highly lacquered, rhinestone studded beauties that you wouldn't dare buy unless you were worthy of one—unless you knew what to do with it. Awe-struck kids would gawk as the Yo-Yo Man pulled out a heavily lacquered black job with concentric rhinestones and began his demonstration: "Walking the Dog," "Rocking the Baby," "Around the World," "Looping the Loop," "Making it Sleep," "Shooting the Moon," "Skinning the Cat," and probably a lot more that are irretrievably mired in the eroding crevasses of my memory bank. He could make the yo-yo emit a low hum—like the noise a two-pound mosquito might make, while the best that the most proficient of us could hope for was a sort of unimpressive whizzing sound.

The Yo-Yo Man's coming was never a surprise, as there were always posters around announcing his scheduled arrival, which of course, was always at recess and inevitably during the first month of school.

After his "ooo"-inspiring performance, kids would line up to spend their lunch money on the multi-colored discs. I never saw any girls buying them or even playing with them for that matter. Some sort of cultural gender bias, I guess, and one that Gloria Steinem et al somehow have overlooked. The yo-yo, one of the last all male bastions, torn down figuratively at least, by latent feminist Marilyn Quayle upon her marriage to one.

Unfortunately, I never mastered the art of yo-yo-ing, a liability which, no doubt, reveals a large chink in my masculinity, a chink that only widened with the realization of a similar deficiency in playing marbles. I compensated for the later handicap by avoiding public marble games and simply buying vast quantities of the inexpensive agates. I fired if the measure of marbularity success was how many you could accumulate, buying them was certainly the easier route (not to mention the only one for me), and I would avoid all this stress and humiliation of losing.

But of course, because of the relative expensiveness of yo-yos, I was unable to pursue this same game(less) plan. My friend, Jerry, was one of the best yo-yoists I knew. He, in fact, would win all the Duncan yo-yo contests. He could do every single trick and with more dexterity than anyone else. But the most amazing thing was that he developed this extraordinary skill within a year, at the same time he was mastering the English language and trying to assimilate himself into a strange culture, and an even stranger sub-culture—Charleston. Jerry was a Greek immigrant. He couldn't speak a word of English when he entered our 3rd grade class and had never even seen a yo-yo before, but here it was two years later and he had just claimed his second championship, winning an impressive medal and a wild looking, white yo-yo with a single lavender stripe across the center, and multiple rings of rhinestones that 20 years later Elvis would have probably worn as a pendant.

In vivid contrast to this, I, despite my yo-yo centered environment, was still many fathoms beneath mediocrity. I had purchased a medium priced yo-yo; this year it was a plain yellow job—no stripe and definitely no rhinestones. I was not worthy of those extravagances. I would practice a lot at home, but to no avail, and eventually I even accepted Jerry's offers of tutoring. He was extremely patient, but there was only negligible improvement. I was eventually able to perform the most rudimentary movement of causing the yo-yo to roll back up the string to my hand after flinging it toward the floor, a feat commonly accomplished by 4 year olds, sometimes even accidentally.

Naturally, I never carried a yo-yo with me—then I might be pressured into playing with it—"oh the humanity!" Jerry, on the other hand, always kept his in his pocket during yo-yo season, which was anytime the weather wasn't cold, and he would whip it out at the slightest encouragement. Often, there would be a group of boys standing around in the schoolyard doing their yo-yo posturing. You could hear the whizzing sounds from 20 yards away. Jerry would be among them and I would be in the no yo-yoing audience, who gaped at them unashamedly. Some girls, some geeks and myself. Geek by association? Perhaps. A cute title for a future short story: "The Geek and the Greek"? Maybe.

Jerry and I remained good friend through high school, despite our yo-yo and marbles gap. He went on to excel at yet another male bastion, The Citadel, and later joined the Air Frice, so that he, no doubt, would be able to exponentially expand upon his "Loop the Loop," and "Shooting the Moon."

Occasionally, over the years, I have found myself in the vicinity of a yo-yo and, astonishingly enough, I have found that I am now able to do a few of those once unattainable tricks—oh, only the simple ones like "Around the World" and "Loop the Loop." Well, I guess, comparatively speaking, it's not that much of an accomplishment, and I think I only included it in the "special skills" section of one job application, but it did make me feel a little proud, and maybe the chick got filled in a little—so what if it's with clay—or maybe silly putty.

To be realistic, I guess there's not much peer pressure among middle-aged men for good yo-yo performances. Perhaps, I should be more concerned with more stereotypical areas.

I feel sure there are no more Duncan yo-yo men holding court in school yards. It's too bad, really. Look how much they helped Jerry. And certainly without them, I would never have gotten such an early start in the development of self-deprecating humor.

Running Myths Debunked

Running, as other sports, certainly has its allotment of myths and hyperbole, most of which can be easily discerned from fact. But runners, unfortunately, just as some lower forms of athletes such as bowlers, golfers and professional wrestlers, seem to have an unrelenting compulsion to believe—even exult in—these exaggerations and untruth, in spite of themselves. Therefore, in order that running might be able to maintain its image as a fountainhead of verisimilitude and integrity, there is need from time to time, for someone to play the Dreaded Debunker, the Redoubtable Refuter, the Nasty Nihilist. A person who is willing to risk scorn and even physical abuse in order to reenlighten his fellow athletes and uphold the probity of running. And for a brief time, the onerous role has fallen upon me (it might be helpful at this juncture for the reader to imagine himself or herself at the XXIII Olympics closing ceremonies in the LA Coliseum, my voice thundering out in a God-like baritone refined by a British accent):

1) The myth that a see-through shirt with large oblong holes and low-cut back will increase a runner's speed and stamina in a marathon. Alberto Salazar finally but unwittingly destroyed this myth in LA recently, togging himself out in a bizarrely alluring outfit obviously designed for Kappa by Fredrick's of Hollywood, and finishing 15th in the marathon.

2) The myth that underarm hair will slow down women runners was shattered, in this year's Olympics by the performances of Maricia Puica (gold medal, 3000 meters), Valerie Brisco-Hooks (gold medal, 200 and 500 meters and 4x400 relay), Rosa Mota (bronze medal, marathon), and a herd of others, much to the horror of prospective Lady Gillette sponsors.

3) The myth that Cheese Whiz makes a cheap but effective substitute for Shoe Goo was exploded by Italian marathoner Guido Latrino, who not only came up with a strained hamstring, but was attacked violently by a mob of marauding field mice inside the coliseum tunnel.

4) A marathoner from Three Mile Island, Sebastian Cobalt, narrowly missed becoming a human decal for a tractor trailer, while unintentionally exposing the myth that runners from his community have no need to wear reflective clothing during night training, when he attempted to run the Santa Monica Freeway a week before the big race.

5) The myth that an athletic supporter filled with dry ice will not only keep a runner cool but will increase his speed was partially debunked last spring, when a Chinese Citable Cadet, Ring Hop, attempted it during a 10,000 meter race. The myth, stated Hop, was apparently started by a Clemson student as a rumor designed to be passed on to the Univerity of South Carolina track team for malevent reasons. "I intercepted it," said the ill-fated Hop, when I interviewed him in his Medical University of South Carolina Burn Trauma Unit room. "I really thought I had something hot—and of course, I did."

6) Finally, the last and most topical myth is that of the infamous "Australian Wonder Wand" or "Goose Staff," a twelve-inch pencil thin, battery operated devide that world class runners are supposed to use to keep inconsiderate (or inexperienced) runners from passing in front of them within a stride's lenth. Actually, this instrument is only rumored to have existed about thirty years ago when it was said to have been used, somewhat successfully, by Australian runners. However, its unfortunate side effect of occasionally creating life-long, but unwanted friendships, when used indiscriminately, led to its demise.

There are also apocryphal reports of its reappearance among gay runners in the San Francisco Marathon (or the "Great Fruit Loop" as some of the more insensitive staights put it), but no one has ever actually produced a wand as evidence. Despite the non-existence of the Wonder Wand, the time may not be ripe for its invention.
Of course, there are myriad running myths to be recounted and refuted, many of which are unfit for exposure to the public in general, much less to the pristine eyes of Charleston Running Club members. For example, the one about the Russian female sprinter and the lonely yak. Editorial guidance will certainly be needed in some instances.

In the meantime, if any readers have running myths that they would like to have investigated, debunked or bunked (?), let me know.

Beetlemania

June 1998

Although I am surely no expert on buggery—actually, I think that’s entomology—I have had a lot of experience with June Bugs, no matter that they were all crammed into those carefree years between four and twelve.

Annually appearing in—yes, you guessed it—June, they glutted the Charleston air, buzzing like emasculated bees around our heads, occasionally knocking themselves goofy in the process.

June Bugs, of the family Melolonthidae, or June Beetles, or fin gators, as my mother used to call them, were everywhere in those days.

Just in case you may not know, or even care, what I’m talking about, June Bugs are inch-long beetle-like bugs with hard greenish shells, iridescent, horizontally strated stomachs, one set of wings and six legs. They, in fact, look a great deal like dung beetles who have shed their campy horns and cleaned up their acts—literally. They are totally harmless, though of course, in those days girls were terrified of them (or at least pretended to be for traditional purposes), and if you were quick enough to pick one up while it was recovering from its immovable object-induct stupor, all it would do was just crawl up your arm. They, for that matter, never seemed in a hurry to resume their airborne status, perhaps eventually associating it with pain, discomfort, and disorientation, or making a common sense decision that is obviously a lot safer to simply walk.

Although in human retrospect, I realize that these minute entities undoubtedly have a divinely programmed purpose, the general consensus in those days was that they were here for the personal enjoyment of us humans. And that enjoyment, as the tradition was passed down from one sadistic generation to the next, came from tying a string around one of the helpless bug’s legs and letting him try to fly away, giving the triumphant holder a sort of one inch living dive bomber. This somewhat macabre pastime, no doubt similar to those played by Hitler and Ted Bundy in their youths, could go on for hours, or until one or the other tired, the June Bug smashed into something, or in the most gruesome case scenario, the bug broke free of its fiendish mooring, leaving its tied leg still attached to the string, which floated grotesquely back to earth, while its erstwhile captor planned for a five point landing in a less hostile environment.

I, myself, never indulged in this barbaric recreation; I only observed from a (gutless) viewpoint, as my young friends and relatives reveled in this appalling air show.

I did like to sort of collect them (June Bugs, not relatives and friends) for other ostensibly more humane purposes. But perhaps more importantly, I did always release them once they had done my bidding.

At times, I just kept them in a jar with holes punched in the lid and observed them for a few hours through a pseudo-scientific stare, before letting them fly away, but mostly, since I also collected miniature toy soldiers. (My God, that’s why my brain has been deteriorating faster than Robert Downey Jr.’s—I got lead poisoning from those damned things.) I used the June Bugs in semi-live animated military dioramas.

I would set up my soldiers in a formidable defensive posture and then dump about 40-50 June Bugs on them. It would be “The Invasion of the Giant Killer June Bugs.” The soldiers would be knocked down into the dirt, (I was only allowed to perform my reenactments alfresco) accompanied by self-provided sound effects:

1. “Arrgghh, look out!”
2. “It’s got my head, Sarge!”
3. “Run for your lives, men!”
4. “Oh, my God, it’s eating my liver!”
5. “Brat-a-tat-tat! Look out, Joe! I’ll get him!”
6. “Oh, God have mercy!”
7. “My arm, my arm!”
8. “What arm?”
9. “Call in the artillery!”
10. “Baroom!”

All this ended tragically one day, when I, infused with a sudden rush of creativity, decided to re-enact a naval battle scenario, using my June Bugs as able but oddly shaped seamen. I placed them on some of my wooden battleships and destroyers, floating in a large metal tub, then began my devastating air bombardment of dropping pebbles into the water to effect bomb geysers.

“Eeeyow! Eeeyow!” (propeller-driven aircraft, of course) the battle raged on, with the pebble bombs sending up four inch geysers near the defenseless vessels. The June Bug sailors withstood the withering attack until a pebble inadvertently made a direct hit. No one was crushed by the errant missile, but most regrettably, some were either knocked overboard by the concussion or just decided to abandon ship.
“Man overboard! Man overboard!”

I quickly gathered up the luckily buoyant victims and placed them all on the ground. All but one, the captain, who was distinguished by his superior size and quickly vanishing water-colored-on white sash, began crawling away as fast as their little legs could move.

Realizing that I may have even transcended the inhumanity of ripping off a Melolonthidaeic leg, I made a redeeming attempt by trying something I had seen in the movies: artificial resuscitation.

No, I didn’t try mouth to mandible, but wrongly surmising that June Bugs had lungs just as humans do, I used light finger pressure in hope of discharging some of the life-strangling liquid. Not being aware that this was essentially impossible with an exoskeletal, lungless animal, and seeing no apparent re-effect, I applied a bit more force, with calamitous results.

I will spare a description of the grisly scene, but needless to say, I had not saved my captain’s life. I had, though, ended his suffering, while, of course, simultaneously initiating mine.

Who was I to meddle with Mother Nature? June Bugs, like butterflies, were meant to fly free, not risk their already ephemeral existence in my Little Theatre of the Obtuse. Perhaps, I could justify the involuntary introduction of a cockroach into such a macabre production, but not so harmless a harbinger of springtime as a June Bug. At least, if I had left him a pentapod with a jerk of my sting, he could have escaped, but no, I had to impose my puerile but Demienesque will upon God’s delicate balance.

I never captured any more June Bugs after that life-altering event. In fact, for a few summers, I was a one-man Save-the-June-Bug movement, cutting the strings of unsuspecting fliers (as long as the flier was smaller than I was), flipping stunned bugs right-side-up, pulling them out of perilous puddles, even extricating them from the web-draped parlors of spiders.

With the gradual lifting of the onerous boulder of contribution from my weary soul, I eventually returned to my normal pre-adolescent life, such as it was.

Sometimes I reminisce about my days as a producer-director of June Bugs Productions and torment myself not only with vestige of guilt, but with the searing question, “Had it not been for the tragic backyard naval disaster, would I have been called up on the stage last March at the Academy Awards Ceremony?”

“And the winner for directing in the category of short subject films with an all bug/insect cast is Bob Coskrey for ‘Beetlemania’!”

Politicopathology – A Cure in Our Lifetime?

June 1992-

Suddenly, the horror struck me! I had been reading the exasperated quotations of some of the present and former US Congressmen, and various other courtiers, vampires and land remoras of the Washington environment published recently in the Post & Courier:

“I gave up a good job as s county executive with good pay to come up here in the middle of all this. I could be playing golf this afternoon, if I was home.”

“If you can’t have a private elevator and be able to cash checks, I really don’t see any reason to go through this rigmarole.”

“You might as well be in Des Moines.”

“It might as well be Albany.”

No more interest-free loans, unlimited restaurant tabs, free parking, post office services, medical care or tropical plants from the national botanical gardens, no more discount vacations and haircuts, no more endless boozing and womanizing. The party’s over, the good times are no longer rolling, and our capital offenders want to come home. They many not even wait for us to vote them out of office.

Sure, they’re a worthless bunch of overstuffed, over-staffed, smug, arrogant, conscience-less, bombastic, narcissistic, megalomaniacal blowhards, who last year had the temerity to vote themselves a 40 percent raise on the backs of their under-employed constituents. As one of their enraged constituents, I’d like to bring back the 18th Century practice of tarring and feathering and ride the whole pack of them out of Washington on a 500-foot, barbed-wire entwined rail.

But the question we must ask ourselves is: Do we want these people back in our home towns? Do we want these debauched and morally-retarded individuals, these Charles Mansons in Brooks Brothers suits, these pontificating percolators lurking and loping through our communities again?

Do we want these marauding miscreants turned loose upon us? Are we willing to endure dramatic local crime rate increases just to get them out of Washington? Will we gain an ironic but valuable insight into why Washington’s crime rate is so high? And, perhaps the most critical question of all, do we want to increase our population of practicing attorneys?

If they do come home—whether they’re defeated at the polls or return voluntarily—I feel that citizens must take steps to protect themselves. If these individuals meted out evil during their reign of tenure in our capital, surely they will behave just as atrociously at home. We must have some method of identifying them. Perhaps we could start with their license tags on which they are so fond of displaying single-digit numbers. So we’ll oblige them with the assignment of a number one, but prefixed by the words “Public Enemy.” Forehead branding, maybe, is a bit too cruel, but possibly a small hand tattoo of “MR,” standing for “misrepresentative” would be appropriate.

Of course, we can’t be too telescopic in directing our disapprobation toward the US House of Representatives members and their multifarious collaborators and enablers. Republicans, salivating in puddles of self-righteousness, are pointing damning fingers at the scrambling Democrats. But the only reason there are more Democratic malefactors is because there are more Democrats than Republicans in Congress, and the Democrats have had 77 years of majority rule to finely hone their iniquitous skills.

The problem, I’m afraid, runs much deeper than party affiliation or political philosophy and the national electorate will gradually witness the gruesome machinations of all aspects of government—national, state and local—as the seismic faults of revelation spread.

I think the problem can be traced to similar personality traits in persons who enter politics.

Politicos may espouse different agendas, be pro or con on various issues, or have contrasting deep-seated feelings and thoughts about the means to effect their respective ends, but they all seem to have certain common personality traits:

1. An indestructible, messianic ego. No matter how much they are vilified by the press and their opponents, no matter how easily they become joke fodder for comedians and the general public, no matter what stupid things they say, lies they are caught in, or handshakes they are refused, they keep coming at us like the relentless zombies in “The Night of the Living Dead” tirelessly repeating the same phrase, “I am the best man for the job.” This egoism is often manifested in blatantly arrogant behavior. (See John Sununu under definition of “arrogance” in 1992, Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)
2. A superhuman ability to avoid giving a “yes” or “no” response to any question, even when threatened by bodily harm or even death, though the latter inducement has not actually been tried often enough.
3. An inexplorable willingness to do or say anything in order to get elected (or reelected) to office. For example, visit a chicken processing plant, wear stupid looking hats, ride in a tank, shake hands with people one normally ignores or avoids, or feign a sincere interest in various kinds of snack foods, music or lifestyle behavior that makes one look just like “plain folk.” Does President Bush really believe we think he loves country music and eats pork rinds?
4. An extraordinary ability to fool most of the people all of the time and all of the people most of the time, while smiling.
5. The God-like gift of rendering to the truth a degree of malleability or even making it obsolete (e.g., renaming taxes “revenue enhancements,” making statements “no longer operative,” explaining that the only bounced checks you ever wrote at the House Bank were to charities or to buy stones to put around the Virgin Mary shrine in your backyard).
6. An inability to feel remorse or accept responsibility for ones actions. (e.g., “I never received a single overdraft notice.” “I stand on my record.” “Everybody did it.” “I never inhaled.”).
7. Chameleonic acting ability. Able to adapt themselves to specific environments and to convince the audience that they are share their ideas and concerns. “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
8. Disarming, meretricious, charm. (e.g., “I am mighty proud to be here in (fill in the blank), the greatest state in the US of A.” “I’m just a humble country boy.” “I just wanna help you.”)
9. Almost terminal scruple deficiency. (e.g., “So what if my check to the Girl Scouts bounced, their cookies aren’t that good anyway.”)
10. An incredible knack for attracting unscrupulous, mean-spirited, viperfish and weasel-like creatures as campaign managers and aides. (e.g., any presidential campaign manager.)

It’s my feeling that all politicians have these characteristics, and in fact, I will go so far as to say these attitudes and behaviors make up what should be classified in the DSM (Diagnostic and Dtatistical Manual, used by mental health professionals) as a Politicopathic Personality Disorder.

To assure ourselves and our progeny protection from these people, it should be a law that anyone seeking public office must first undergo a psychological evaluation. Anyone diagnosed with this disorder will not be allowed to run for office.

Just as we would not want a paranoid schizophrenic as a policeman, we don’t want a politicopath as a public office holder. Of course, there will be an option for treatment, and after having conferred with a local psychiatrist, whom I occasionally run into on a weekly basis, together with what valuable information I have gleaned from Doctors “Ruth,” Brothers and Joy Brown over the years, I have developed what I believe to be an appropriate mode of treatment—“Humility Therapy.” This treatment would simply require the aspiring office holder to live as a normal, law-abiding, perkless human being for a year. He or she would have to get a real job, drive his own car or use public transportation, balance a checkbook, use the post office to mail or receive letters only, pay for parking, pay interest on loans, and fork out market prices on medical care, haircuts, meals and vacations. Those completing the therapy would be permitted to run for office.

Election winners could be required to maintain this mundane lifestyle during their entire term of office, since they would always be considered “recovering,” not “recovered” politicopaths.

And while we’re purging and normalizing the behavior of the current incumbents, there is one penultimate, incongruent, insulting and craw-constricting amenity I’d like to eradicate: No longer will they be routinely referred to by their constituents as “The honorable,” or allowed to refer to one another as “my distinguished” or “my estemmed” colleague.

In the future we’ll not tolerate listening to some windbag introduce, via C-Span, one of his check-kiting perk-masters as “my distinguished colleague, good friend and eminent statesman from the great state of (fill in the blank).”

In addition to the ongoing Humility Therapy, it will be incumbent upon all incumbents to receive daily doses of Value Inculcation Therapy:
1. He/she must be able to recite, verbatim, Jimmy Stewart’s speech from “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
2. He/she must watch “Mr. Rogers” each afternoon and write a report at week’s end explaining how Mr. Rogers helped him/her to be a better public servant.

Though some of what I am suggesting may seem a little drastic, the actions and attitudes of these politicopaths warrant drastic measures. I wonder: should I start with the county council and work up, or with the presidency and work down?