Why Does Mickey Wear Shoes?

I was in the bookstore today, in the cartoon section, naturally, and I heard a little kid ask this question:
   'Why does Mickey wear shoes?'
   Seems straightforward enough, and it's an honest question. You could respond with 'why does he wear shorts?' or 'why isn't Minnie wearing a top?' or 'why isn't Donald wearing pants?' It's just the way it is, would be my answer. Cartoon mice wear shoes, cartoon ducks don't. Union rules. Whatever.
   But this kid's mother didn't take the easy, rhetorical way out. She came up with an answer that impressed me. 'Because mice have to match their shoes with their gloves.'
   And there you have it. Mickey wears shoes because he's wearing gloves. And why is he wearing gloves? Because he's wearing shoes, of course. Nicely circular, and eliminates all the pesky follow-ups.
   I'm guessing this wasn't her first child.

Idaho Grandpa

I learned something today. Several things, as a matter of fact.
   First I learned that public libraries are thriving and vital and relevant even in today's insane economic times. Good to know since I spent my college work study in the library. Or libary, if you wanted to drive my boss nuts.
   Second, I learned that the information age, with all its time wasting and Facebook and Twitter and self-important bloggers like me, actually produced some things of value. For instance, you can search past census records online. And that's actually pretty cool.
   Third, I learned that my grandfather - my father's father - was born in Idaho. This was, evidently, not news to my mother but I had always assumed he was born in Kansas. I also learned that his stepmother was born in Russia, and yet her native language was German. More than likely she lied to the census man about where she was born, since we were looking at the 1920 census, two years after the end of the Great War. Germans weren't real popular in America at that time.
   While I'm glad to know more about my family history, this only leads to more questions. Like what about my grandfather's biological mother, who evidently died or was out of the picture in 1920, when he was five. Where was she from? Who were her people?
   As cool as finding out more about my family history is, I am much more impressed with the fact that the census records are online. That's a lot - a LOT - of manual data entry. And there's no real value to it, at least from an MBA point of view. If you had taken the proposition to Wharton that someone start a business that involved data entry from reading 70+ year-old census entries, you'd probably be laughed out of the school.
   But there's much more than monetary value to this. In the space of five minutes I went from 'knowing' wrong information about my grandfather's childhood to having irrefutable proof of where he was born and where he was living in 1920. Can I take that knowledge and make any profit from it? Of course not. Would any self-respecting business person have funded census data entry as a private enterprise? Of course not. But does knowing the truth enrich my existence? I can tell you it does, almost immeasurably.
   Think about the library itself. They're non-profit government entities. No money to be made there at all. But even on a Saturday morning, I saw all sorts of people coming in to use the facility. I was tremendously impressed with the number and kind of community services that library makes available, and I know it's not unique. More than ever I see libaries becoming social centers for the community, despite the fact that there's not a single dime to be made from doing so.
   So screw you, MBA holders, for all your 'immediate monetization.' There are things in life that matter way more than filthy lucre. Like family and social connectedness. And libraries. Especially libaries.
   I have hope again. And all it took was twenty minutes in my local library. That's a great investment, don't you think?

Tales From My Past - Almost Shot

It was hot in the sun, I remember that much, cool in the shade one particular Friday afternoon during my second semester at the University of Texas. I was eighteen and thought I knew it all. I judge it one of the better days of my life, in that I was moments away from being shot and yet I escaped without being harmed. Or even without realizing the danger I was in until later.
   For some reason I was on campus studying on a Friday. Probably because I'm a nerd and it never occurred to me that Friday afternoons for college students are about ramping up for the weekend's binge drinking and other dangerous excesses.
   In any event, I was headed back to the dorms - Jester Center, room 54, if you must know, the ground floor – and decided to wander past the Student Union. Going down the alley between the Union and the UGL I saw a big ol' limo parked right outside the doors. While this was unusual it was not completely unheard-of, the Union hosted musicians from time to time and I'd seen various vehicles parked there before. Just not an enormous shiny black Lincoln.
   Two guys in black suits stood outside the limo, one in front, one in back. Both of them wore black sunglasses. In the shade. They saw me coming – I was alone in the alley – and they turned to each other. Since I was eighteen I didn't think anything of it and kept on walking.
   As I went around the front bumper of the limo the doors to the Union burst open and four more guys in black suits charged out, surrounding a little tiny woman. It took me no time at all to recognize Sandra Day O'Connor. Yeah, that one, the Supreme Court Justice. She was giving a talk at the Union and had evidently just finished when I ambled past. I had no idea she was so petite. I waved at her but she didn't see me.
   When I waved the four guys around her all reached into their suit coats, then at the same time they put their left hands to their ears. I saw lips moving on one of the first two guys and I thought it was neat-o that they had radios and could talk to each other. I kept on walking. The Union would be on about 23nd Street, if a street were actually there. I made it all the way down to 21st and Speedway before I realized something that made my knees go weak.
   If that was Sandra Day O'Connor, then those guys in black suits were Secret Service. Which meant they weren't reaching into their jackets for smokes, they were reaching for their machine pistols. They saw me wave and thought I was a threat. They were going to shoot me.
   Let me say that again. I was moments away from taking several bullets from Secret Service agents. The only reason I'm here right now to tell you about it is because one of the first two guys was kind enough to tell the other four that I was exactly what I looked like, an oblivious Freshman.
   I had to sit down by the gym and compose myself. It's not every day you cheat death by the skin of your teeth and only realize it ten minutes too late.
   You want to know the truly incredible thing? That was just the first time I've been very close to being shot. At least the first time I know of. The stories about the other times will have to wait.

And That's How Swine Flu Spreads

I'm back in Texas for the holidays, time for fajitas and barbeque and maybe a gun show or two. Usually airports are good places for people watching, but I was scheduled pretty tightly, no time to chit chat or dilly dally or any other slightly effeminate verbs like those two. But along the way something interesting did happen.
   I drank a Pepsi from England.
   No, I didn't buy it in a novelty British food store, a passing chimney sweep did not hand it to me, I didn't pick it off the corpse of an international spy. On the flight from Burbank to Dallas, the flight attendant served it to me right out of the drink cart. This was a Pepsi can bottled in England, with a contest paid in pounds sterling advertised along the top rim. Straight from the Empire.
   Remember, I got on the plane in Burbank, and so did the Pepsi can. And Burbank is eight time zones removed from England. So the can had to travel all that way, probably in the drink cart of an airplane taking off from Heathrow, making several stops along the way at JFK or O'Hare or Hartsfield, until finally it found its way to that one drink cart in Burbank, where it started making the trip back East. How many hands did it go through? How many flight attendants or airport catering dudes handled it? How many miles did it actually travel before I drank yet another soda I didn't need to be drinking?
   I think the risk posed by swine flu has been blown waaaaaay out of proportion, far too alarmist, but when I get a drink bottled in England on my trip from Burbank to Dallas, I can see the point of raising the issue. People travel across the globe on a whim these days - apparently so do Pepsi cans - which means their germs travel too.
   Speaking of germs, I have a bit of a cold myself, so I think it would be interesting to see who on that plane catches my cold. I'm hoping I infected the douchebag in front of me who leaned his seat all the way back, I know I tried my darndest to give it to him. Maybe, just maybe, my cold will travel all the way back to England, infecting the staff working in the bottling plant that made the Pepsi I drank. That would be cool, huh? Talk about closing the loop.

Sun's Out, Guns Out

One of my friends took me to a gun show yesterday. Not my first time, I've been to my share of questionable events, but certainly my first gun show since moving away from Texas years ago.
   I gotta say, I missed the atmosphere. Definitely not the Algonquin Round Table, but there is a certain poetry in hobbyists - gun nuts, right-wing crazies, call them what you will - indulging in their passion. I'd nearly forgotten how familiar an afternoon at the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum with the 'from my cold, dead hands' crowd can be.
   You have your cranky old coots... lots of them. And with them the intolerant bumper stickers, the grousing conversations about how the country isn't going the way Rush Limbaugh thinks it should, overheard remarks about prostates in various states of disrepair, etc. You have the rednecks looking for a good hunting rifle, you have the rednecks looking for a rocket launcher. You have the occassional black man. You have the 'not a gang member' young Hispanic guys trying to spot the undercover cops in the crowd and not realizing I can understand the bad Spanglish they're speaking. You have the for-real historical gun hobbyists, who know waaaaaaay too much about the provenance of the their WWI Browning rifles. And there's the patch guy, the ammo guy, the taxidermist, and - best of all - the candied pecan vendor.
   Along with the enormous pickup trucks in the parking lot, this was a really good welcome home. It'll make me think twice next time I decide to have tofu back in SoCal. Don't want to stray too far from my roots.

...And Horses Too, Maybe Cows

Those who are acquainted with me know that dogs, cats and babies love me. Pets flock to me, especially when I'm wearing wool dress pants and don't need the extra cat hair, and I'm a baby magnet even though I have none of my own. Yes, 'that I know of...'
   Evidently my dominion now extends over horses and cows too.
   I was recently visiting a friend in Idaho who keeps a horse or two and four steer in her pasture. The first day I was there we went to feed the animals, and I was standing at the fence rail, minding my own business as my friend rounded up one of the horses. The other horse, Cheyenne, was in the barn behind me. Before I knew it she was shoving her head under my hand, demanding that I scratch her nose, shoving up against me as if I were another 1500 pound horse instead of a puny person. Instant friend. I also made instant friends with my host's dog Buddy and the other neighborhood dogs, who roam the apple orchards in what has to be an Earthly representation of doggie heaven, where there are infinitely many trees to pee on.
   The cows, though... ah, the cows...
   I was the center of attention the moment I got out of the car. They followed my every move whenever I was in the pasture, wary and cautious and yet fixatedly curious. When I approached they'd scatter, move off a few yards and then watch me again.
   Here's a picture of all four of them, watching me as I was watching them:From left to right they are: Lester, Lucky, Rufus, and Rex.
   Lucky is the only one with horns, and, as you can tell, the one who gave me the most attitude. Rufus was the leader of the gang - sorry, it's not a gang it's a club - kind of like Pinky Tuscadero and the Pinkettes.
   The guys are yearling cattle, which means that come winter they're destined to become hamburger, which is too bad because otherwise I could see boy band in their future.