Our Town – May 3, 2012

Crazy Theories, Neighbors, Our Town, Relationships, Seasons, Small Town Stuff, Spring

“Coffee delivery,” the Soupster announced, as he approached the four men sitting and standing outside Giant Gene’s auto shop. Indeed, he carried a cardboard holder with four paper cups.

“You’re a good man,” Giant Gene told the Soupster, taking the holder and distributing the cups. Charlie, also called Red, raised his in salute. Billy, called Kid, gave an elaborate bow of thanks, almost spilling his. Miguel drank greedily. He was, understandably, sometimes called Santana, since that was his last name.

“Pretty slick,” the Soupster told Gene. “I call you to see if my alternator is ready and you rope me into catering your morning staff meeting. What are you guys doing standing out here, anyway? Don’t you have cars and trucks to shorten the lives of?”

“Shhhh,” said Gene and turned to the other guys. “I think today is definitely the day. It’s my day.”

“Today is what day?” asked the Soupster.

“The day Gene thinks Leonard will finally take his snow shovels inside,” said Red. He pointed across the street to a neatly kept home surrounded by a white picket fence, against which was balanced a silver snow shovel, a black plastic scoop and an ice breaker.

“We think Leonard is the last person in Our Town to put them away,” added Billy.

“We bet on it,” said Giant Gene. “Miguel thought it up.”

“Whoever picks the day Leonard puts the shovels away has to buy lunch for the rest of us for a week,” explained Miguel.

“That’s the first prize?” said the Soupster. “The winner buys lunch for everyone for a week?”

“No,” said Miguel. “The prize is the honor of winning.”

“We call it the Santana Ice Classic,” said Giant Gene.

“Look,” said Billy, “Leonard’s coming out!”

Leonard stepped out onto his cute front porch and took a breath of the morning air. He came down the stairs. The tension at Giant Gene’s was palpable.

When Leonard got to the shovels he paused slightly, looked up in the general direction of Giant Gene’s, walked out the gate and got into his car.

“Darn!” said Gene. “I thought I won!”

“It’s been getting pretty warm,” the Soupster said. “Do you ever worry that Leonard knows what you’re all up to and he’s leaving his shovels out there on purpose?”

“Soupster,” said Billy. “That would be crazy!”

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Our Town – March 10, 2011

Computers, Our Town, Seasons, Spring, VHS, Weather, Website

“Great Caesar’s debit card!” said the Original Soupster, pushing away the computer keyboard, frustrated. “Fireweed scramble!”

“Uncle,” said the Soupster. “Calm down. Just tell me what it is you’re trying to access.”

“Access? What do you mean access?” said the Original Soupster. “Don’t give me that Greek plaster! Speak English!”

The Soupster took a deep breath.  His uncle lived in a village even smaller than Our Town. Yet the older man insisted on buying a GPS navigation system for his car and then proceeded to get lost in the tiny burg he had inhabited for the last quarter century. As a young man, the Soupster had learned to hypnotize himself on visits by staring at the constantly flashing “12:00” on his uncle’s digital alarm clock and later on his VHS tape deck.

“By Abraham’s peapod,” said Original, ending his nephew’s reverie. “Why can’t you just put them all in a book?”

“What in a book?” asked the Soupster. “What do you want?!”

“Butterpaddle!” said Original. “I want to read your story about the married dog who drives.”

“Oh, you want to read an old Our Town column from the Soup,” said the Soupster, admittedly relieved and also complimented. “All the Our Town columns are archived on the Soup’s Internet website. You should learn to use it.”

“I know that, Soupster, you frontloader,” said the Original one. “Don’t you think I know that?”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I never push the right buttons!” said Original.

Oh, really? The Soupster thought dryly. I’d say you were a champion button pusher.

But what the Soupster said was: “All right, all right,” and dutifully retrieved a hard copy of an old Soup that contained the Our Town column with the married dog who drives. He handed it to Original, who grunted with approval.

The Soupster answered a knock at the door and found his friend Sadie on his front step, her hat, literally in her hand. “I want to take you up on the offer to lend me a space heater in case it gets cold again,” she said “And do you have an extra pair of sunglasses in case it gets sunny? Oh, and a sturdy umbrella for hail. You know how it is this time of year.”

The Soupster attempted to launch his opinion on the coming changeable weather, but was cut short by a big grunt from Original Soupster, who then came bursting onto the scene.

“Bazooka Joe, you crinkle fry,” said Original, waving the Our Town column in the air like a burning torch. “This is my favorite ‘Our Town.’ You do have a way with the words, Slugbait!”

Editor’s Note: The Our Town column with “the married dog who drives” can be found HERE.

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Our Town – February 24, 2011

Our Town, Seasons, Spring, Weather

“’This weather – ‘taint fit for man nor beast,” the Soupster said, sitting down with his friend Abigail in a cozy corner of the café. Outside, where it was 30 degrees, hail rained down at 75 degrees, bouncing a few inches off the parking lot asphalt and car roofs.

“I went through at least four weather patterns on the way here,” said Abigail, pushing a mug of geoduck chowder to the Soupster. “This is fabulous. You’ve got to try it.”

The Soupster needed no encouragement and scarfing ensued. Abigail demolished her halibut wrap. “It was amazing,” she said between bites. “Rain, then sun, then hail, then rain, then hail again.”

“That’s five,” said the Soupster.

“It’s like Spring is here,” she said, ignoring him, “This kind of weather I associate with Spring. Only that it’s way too cold for Spring.”

“Punxsutawney Phil, the Groundhog Day groundhog, didn’t see his shadow this year
and that means an early Spring,” said the Soupster.

“Well, I’ve heard Punxsutawney Phil is right less than half the time.”

The Soupster chuckled and scraped the bottom of his mug to get the very last drop. “This geoduck stuff really is good,” he said. “If I got two more mugs, could you eat one of them?”

“I’ll try,” said Abigail.

The Soupster walked to the counter. “Sue,” he said to the proprietor. “Could you re-fill this mug and ladle out another one for Abby?”

Then sun flooded through the windows, as Sue turned to her stove holding two mugs. “I heard you guys talking about the weather,” she said over her shoulder. “You know what they say about our weather?”

“What?”

“If you don’t like the weather in Our Town,” Sue said, “Just drive to the other end of the road.”

“Ah, microclimates,” said the Soupster. “I grok you.”

Outside, the wind picked up, rustling a stand of hemlock. A large raven landed on the asphalt and found a bit of pastry stuck to a paper plate. He was immediately joined by eight other ravens. The first raven pulled the pastry off the plate and flew off with the morsel, with four of the ravens leaping to pursuit. Freed of the pastry’s weight, the paper plate caught the next gust of wind and headed in the opposite direction, with the remaining ravens following.

“What were you watching?” asked Abigail as the Soupster placed two mugs on the table.

“Our Town’s Favorite Animal Tricks,” the Soupster said. “I bet the ravens are way happier here than they would be in some Back East blizzard or Tennessee ice storm. I heard it was near zero last night in Oklahoma City.”

Abby lifted a dripping spoonful of chowder. “That’s why we live in Alaska,” she said with her mouth full.

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Our Town – March 25, 2010

Alaska Natives, Dreams, Fishing, Seasons, Spring

(Originally published March 22, 2007)

“Two hundred and forty-seven eggs, wreck `em,’” the waitress called to the short-order cook in the Soupster’s dream about Spring.

In his dream about Spring, the Soupster sat at a breakfast counter that hadn’t existed in Our Town for years. Two large dark-haired men sat on either side of him. Both men wore Tlingit regalia and eagerly tore into herring eggs, mounded into a large pile on a plate before each.

“Pass the soy sauce?” asked the man on the left and the Soupster, still dreaming, did.

“Eggs for you, Soupster?” asked the waitress, her hand on her hip.

“Uh, two, over easy,”

“Two eggs?” said the waitress, her eyebrows arching with disbelief. “Just two?”

The waitress looked over at the men, who, like her, tried to keep from laughing. “You want seal oil with your two eggs?” she said, collapsing in hysterics.

Next, the Soupster dreamed he walked through a park of totem poles and old-growth trees. The Soupster peered into the forest, where he could see figures moving. They were bunnies and chicks — more specifically, children dressed as bunnies and chicks — a score of them, bent over and peering under salmonberry bushes and behind spruce and hemlock trunks.

“I’ve found one!” a cute blue rabbit called out, pulling out from under a skunk cabbage a small hemlock bough covered with herring eggs died in different colors.

“Me, too,” called another youngster, this one dressed as a duckling, holding aloft a similar prize. Cries of success came from hither and yon.

At that moment, the two men from the restaurant reappeared and grabbed the Soupster by the arms. The Soupster’s body stiffened and the men held him parallel to the ground, as they would a plank of wood. They continued down the forest path, the Soupster strangely calm for someone who was being kidnapped. The men carried the Soupster down to the beach and placed him in a small, open boat. Then they rowed for a time.

Despite the unexpected recent turns of the Soupster’s life – or should he say “dream life” – he felt a calm from believing that all this strangeness was a good sign. A sign of something good. Something like Spring?

The Soupster could hear the men placing the oars back in the boat. They grabbed the Soupster, hoisted him up, tipped him over and plunged his head into the cold water. They held him there. In his dream, the Soupster had no sense of the amount of time he hung upside down in the water. Then someone jostled him. Four arms brought the Soupster up sputtering. His hair was filled with herring eggs, which poured, as well, down over his shoulders.

“Sorry, Soupster,” said the first of the two men from the boat and restaurant. “We thought you were a hemlock bough.”

“A real `egg head’” said the second man. “That’s the Soupster!”

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Our Town – June 18, 2009

Neighbors, Our Town, Relationships, Seasons, Spring, Sunshine, Weather

For two weeks, the sun shone from early, early morn to long past when it had any right to still be up at all. Two solid weeks of sun. Our Town melted and oozed toward Solstice.

Throughout the spate of sun, general sprucing had ensued: wall colors brightened with paint, unruly lawns subdued by blades, rhubarb eradicated (or given lovingly to friends). Car hoods wore the confetti buds and seeds of whatever tree they parked under. Kids were visible in public during business hours. The Soupster, like most residents of Our Town, had been saying things like, “I can’t remember when it was sunny two weeks in a row like this.” Or “Remember, we used to get two weeks of sun like this two times every summer 10 (or 20 or 30) years ago” — depending on how long the speaker had been here.

Overdosed on light, the Soupster relished the quiet and relative dark coolness of the post office. It was Saturday morning and he had the place to himself. He fought a quick urge to stretch out on the cool floor tiles. Instead, he pulled out his key and fit it into the lock of his post office box. At the exact second the Soupster opened the box, a business-sized letter moved toward him out of it.

The Soupster grabbed onto the letter and pulled.. And the letter… pulled back! This was ridiculous! The Soupster pulled on the letter, but it refused to budge. The Soupster was actually losing ground.

He peered into the dark postal box and could see at the far end about two-fifths of the face of his old neighbor, Roberta, a long-time postal worker.

“Soupster,” Roberta said, seeing him at the same moment, “I should have known it was you!”

“Roberta,” said the Soupster. “I had forgotten that you work here. How’s your little girl?”

“My little girl? That ‘little girl’ is going to college in Fairbanks in the fall,” she said ruefully. “Why don’t you come to her graduation party? I was going to send you an invitation, but, hey — this is even faster than the mail!”

The two-week softening of the Soupster’s brain from sun rays and the general weirdness of having a conversation through a mailbox made the Soupster feel unsteady. Nonetheless, “Thanks for working on the weekend,” he managed to say.

“Oh, pshaw,” said Roberta, as the Soupster locked up his postal box.

“Soupster,” said Stuart, the Soupster’s plumber, who was just then turning the corner into the row of post office boxes. “You talking to your mail again?”

“Female,” the Soupster deadpanned. “Female.”

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Our Town – May 21, 2009

Jokes, Neighbors, Our Town, Relationships, Seasons, Spring

The Soupster rode shotgun alongside his buddy Dorothy, who drove her ancient pickup west down Sawmill Creek Road into Our Town. A satisfying lunch shared earlier at Dotty’s abode had lulled them both.

Dot’s four new summertime tires (no studs!) carried the two friends smoothly down the roadway. The Soupster glanced out at the alders lining the road, their new leaves like golden coins growing larger day by day. On a granite retaining wall some fiddleheads ferns unfurled. Birds in a mountain ash no longer fought each other for scraps, too busy celebrating their recently expanded menu.

“This is a different town when the alders get their leaves on,” said the Soupster dreamily. “Covers a thousand sins.”

“That’s my opinion, too,” Dotty said. “What’s more Alaskan than having a backhoe in your back yard?”

“Can’t say I know,” the Soupster said, taking the bait.

Dotty reeled him in. “Having a broken backhoe in the front yard.” Dotty said something else, but her words were drowned out as her old truck rattled on the suddenly uneven pavement. They had reached the old Four-Way Stop, being torn up to re-make the intersection into a modern Roundabout.

Some people the Soupster talked to considered it about time, others thought continuous traffic flow would frighten bikers and pedestrians. The jury was still out. Right now the road crews were just laying underground utilities.

Dorothy suddenly burst into song “Won’t you take me to… Funkytown?” she crooned. “Won’t you take me to…. Funkytown?”

“Funkytown?” asked the Soupster.

“You know, the song — Lipps, Inc.? Back into the early 80′s?” Dot said. “Gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me,” she sang. “Town to keep me movin’ — keep me groovin’ with some energy. Won’t you take me to …Funkytown?”

“It’s a stress reliever,” she went on. “When I approach the old Four-Way-Stop and start to freak out about how much time I’m losing, I sing `Funkytown.’”

“Why don’t you just drive around the Four-Way, er… Funkytown?” asked the Soupster. “Our Town doesn’t have much road, but there’s always another way to get where you are going.”

“I know that it’s kind of a public service to avoid the intersection, but it’s really interesting, the work that’s going on,” Dot said. “Plus, I get to sing.”

“You’re a nut,” said the Soupster, but Dotty was already belching out: “Talk about it, talk about it, talk about it…. Won’t you take me to… Funkytown?”

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Our Town – May 7, 2009

Environment, Nicknames, Our Town, Recycling, Seasons, Spring, Sunshine, Weather

Drunk on sunshine and happily munching a donut, the Soupster staggered down to a rocky beach near the end of the road. For the first time this year — in homage to the growing warmth and light — the Soupster had tossed his winter coat to the back of the closet and donned a fleece vest instead. This day was so warm the Soupster considered yanking off his boots and socks, setting on a rock and soaking his toes in Sitka Sound until they wrinkled.

But that dream bubble popped when the Soupster nearly stepped on Gavin “Frenchy” Leboyer, who crouched by the water’s edge. The Soupster stopped chewing.

“What gives you ze right to bare arms?” quipped Leboyer, in the fake French accent that earned him his nickname.

The Soupster extended his arms and savored the sun on his skin. “You look like a scuttling crab down there, Frenchy,” he said, laughing. “Le Crabe!” He took stock of his crouching friend. “Whatever are you doing?”

Frenchy was pulling plastic containers out of his backpack, popping the lids and sprinkling the contents – various leftovers – onto the rocks by the water’s edge. “It’s my last two weeks of cooked food scraps,” he said. “Just repaying the ocean’s bounty.”

“That’s got to be illegal,” said the Soupster. “Littering, maybe?”

“I’m a good boy,” said Frenchy. “I’ve been composting my uncooked table scraps for years. But I’ve always thrown the cooked leftovers into the trash and one day I said to myself — `This is excellent food, I eat it myself. I bet something in the ocean will eat this, too.’”

“I don’t know,” said the Soupster. “This brings to mind the bad old days when cities like New York would just load all their garbage into ships and dump the trash in at sea.”

“Not the same,” said Frenchy. “That was all kinds of stuff, a lot of which was poisonous or not food, like metal and concrete. This is the good stuff. I guarantee you there’s some critters who won’t turn up their noses. Or whatever they have on their face that they turn up. If they have a face, that is.”

Frenchy sprinkled the food in a small circle as the Soupster watched. Frenchy reached down and picked up what looked like the last gasp of a partially eaten Big Mac. “I just keep thinking about this hamburger taking the long trip by barge and train to the Eastern Washington landfill where all Our Town’s trash goes. And then it gets buried and rots and belches methane.”

“Except the stuff we recycle,” said the Soupster. “And that’s more and more every month.”

“Look at this,” Frenchy said, indicating the leftovers that the rising tide was already starting to digest. “Think of how disgusting this stuff would be by the time it got to the landfill.”

“You may be on to something, Frenchy,” the Soupster said. “Nature doesn’t waste anything, One creature’s offal is another’s dinner.”

“Just don’t turn me in.” Frenchy pleaded.

“Mum’s the word,” said the Soupster, zipping his lip. Then he looked at the sea. “Le Mer,” he called as he tossed the last of his donut over Frenchy’s head. “Bon appetite!”

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