Hayter’s article for May 22, 2022

“In search of a friend”

            A couple of weeks ago I ran across a website that locates people. At the moment, I didn’t feel the need to find anyone. But, I was curious. You know what curiosity did don’t you? It killed the goose. Killed something.

There was a girl or two in my past that I was curious about, but all I knew was their maiden name. No, it had to be a guy. But, who? -- Boing! – David!  My friend on Camille street! From the ages of nine to 12, David’s family lived next to the Hayters in Pasadena. I was so glad we moved next to them. David was honest as all get out, responsible, and great at rubber gun wars. From the get-go, we hit it off great.

He’s the one who introduced me to Soupy Sales. I came over

one Saturday morning to get him to come out and ride fake horses with me. He said he couldn't come out until Soupy Sales was over. Soupy what?

        I ran home and told Dennis that we needed to watch Soupy Sales. Dennis said, “Why?” I said, “Because David likes it!” There were only three TV channels at the time, so Soupy was easy to find, and we were immediately smitten. Let’s see, there was Soupy, White Fang, Black Tooth, and Pooky. Soupy was a real man, but Pooky was a hand puppet and White Fang and Black Tooth, were the arm and hand of two large off-camera dogs. It was corny as all get out, but an absolute hoot.

            If David did nothing but introduce me to Soupy Sales he would’ve been a good friend. But we did a lot of stuff together. We camped out and played cowboys and Native Americans. David was the eldest child in his family. He had three sisters and one kid brother. Dennis, Jill, and I had fun playing games with David and his siblings.

We never played with his Mom. We seldom even saw her. Occasionally, she might step outside and yell at one of the kids to go get her bottle of pop at the 7-11. David’s Dad was a bit more upbeat. I learned most about the man after a wrestling match. Sometimes, when he came home from work, he would be in a good mood and start playing King of the Mountain with the kiddos. They’d jump on him and he would eventually fall to the ground and kids would jump on top and pummel him.

It wasn’t until he invited me to join in one of the wrestling matches that I learned two things about him. One, he smelled like medicine. Also, he had an artificial leg. I never knew that before. When you play King on the Mountain with a guy, you can tell if they’re missing any appendages.

David later told me that His Dad used to work at the docks, where he had an accident that cost him his leg. That’s all the detail I got. I didn’t ask about his medicine smell. It was much later that I realized he was an alcoholic. That was likely responsible for him having only two moods. Happy or angry. 

David and I occasionally talked about our future. We both decided to be either cowboys. or army guys who fight creatures from outer space. Monsters were all over the place back then. And so were neighborhood kids. The elementary school was three blocks away so we walked the distance back and forth every school day. We never waited on one another. Dennis and I would just step out the door and start walking.  Generally, there would be a few friends who would join us.

One of the sadder moments of my youth was the night that David told me he and his family were moving to Mississippi the next day! What? Why? –He didn’t know why. What he did know was that the both of us were about to lose our best friend.  

I eventually figured that because of the immediacy of their departure, his father probably had to get out of town for financial reasons. The Hayters moved around town quite a bit when I was a kid. We never had to flee, though. Dad occasionally paid off the rent by doing carpentry work on the house we were living in at the time. Before we moved to Camille Street, most of our residences were in the sad part of town. But once we got to Camille Street things looked better. I don’t think Dad’s refinery ever went on strike after we moved to Camille.

Well, as mentioned, I lost my best buddy three years after we met. And, two weeks ago, I had a chance to find out where he was. If he was. The people finding site asked first for the name, possible location, and age of my friend. After a few minutes, I was asked to include education, religious preference, employment, and some other stuff… about myself!

I didn’t like that much. You see, while I didn’t mind finding a friend of mine, I didn’t want to leave the door open for people to find me. Hey, I don’t know who is out there. Whoever they are might not be as nice as I am.   

Finally, after about 30 minutes of waiting for a response, I closed the program down. As much as I wanted to learn about what happened to David, I thought it better not to. A couple of days later, the person-finding site popped up on my screen. They had found David. I knew because his kid brother and two of his sisters’ names were just below his. All I had to do was click on the arrow and I would learn… something. Good or bad, I’d know more than I do now. 

I left the site not knowing. Maybe another day. Till then, I’ll just stick with the happy thoughts about the great times I spent with my best friend. I hope he could say the same. Hard to tell.  – I wonder how you might handle a similar situation. Something to think about. 

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Fascinating stuff

 

MARK HAYTER                              936-537-0918                            hayter.mark@gmail.com

 

Hayter’s article for May 15, 2022

Did you already know this stuff?

 

          This week, I did as much as I could to add to the wealth of information stored inside my noggin. My brain is a poor storehouse for knowledge because most of what I put in there is not retrievable when needed. It will only appear shortly in dreams.

          I can’t be sure of the half-life of the information I’m about to share, but I think it will stay with you longer than with me. At the moment I’ve written it all down. As soon as I find the tablet, I’ll begin. You might have time to grab a snack. – “O’ Sole Mio, and So are You…” —Ah, here it is.

          I think I’ll start with the clown fish. You know, Nemo? If you’ve yet to see the movie, I’ll wait for you. – Are they gone. Okay, what I didn’t know

about clown fish is that each of them is born male. That’s why none of them are pink. Each Nemo lives with a large group that has only one female. Where did she come from? -- Hold onto your socks. -- When the one female of a group of clown fish dies or swims away, one of the males starts thinking like a female. And, in a very short time, he develops the physical attributes of a clown fish mommy, complete with the ability to lay fish eggs. Hey, I’m was as shocked as you are.

          How does one of many male clown fish realize that it needs to turn into a mommy? You tell me, and I’ll share it with others. The folks at Disney didn’t know this or else the voice of Neo’s Dad would’ve been that of Gweneth Paltrow instead of Albert Brooks.

 

          Speaking of species! There are 160,000 species of moths! Look, I wrote it down right here. See? “Moth species --160,000”. There are 10 times more species of moths than butterflies. That’s crazy. I know some butterflies. Even helped Kay raise some. But moths? The only moth I can think of at the moment is the Rosy Maple Moth. I couldn’t find the person who came up with that name. With 160,000 species of moths, any one of you may have named one or two. 

The reason there are so many different moth species is a bit of a mystery to me. And I can live with that. I know that if all moths vanished tomorrow we’d probably be dead by Wednesday. But, I’ve got too much on my plate to worry about that.

          Speaking of things that fly, there would be fewer bats in our neighborhood, had not the first bat trained the others to scare off owls. When an owl comes near some hanging bats, the bats start making a “buzzing” noise. To me and an owl, the sound is that of a nest of wasps.  Owls aren’t fond of wasps. Hippos seem to be okay with ‘em? 

          You may have read recently about the history of the 9/10 of a cent tax on gasoline. If so, it bears repeating. States started taxing gasoline as early as 1919. Oregon was the first. Gasoline was around 10 cents a gallon at the time, so the Beaver State placed a penny tax on each gallon. By 1932, each state was taxing gas at various rates. This was during the Great Depression, so a state might come up with a three-and-a-half-cent tax. You’re living in hard times when you’re calculating in tenths of a cent. 

          In 1932 the Federal Government collected its first gasoline tax of one cent per gallon. It wasn’t much, but money was needed to pay for the material and jobs that went to constructing highways, parks, dams, and the San Jacinto Monument. As time moved along, each state ended the amount of the tax in fractions of a cent. One state might levy a 2.4 cents tax per gallon.

Today, in each state, the last digit in the price of a gallon of gasoline is “.9” cents. As of this writing, the price of gasoline around my location is $3.99.9. The few times I’m asked the price of gasoline, I include the nine-tenths of a cent. If you do the math, you realize that the cost is closer to $4 than to $3.99. That extra penny is lost in the minds of most consumers. I continue to add to the price so big oil will know that they’re not tricking me. That’ll bring them to knees when nothing else can. The state tax in Texas is 20 cents and the Federal tax is 18.4 cents.

          And while on the subject, it would be near impossible for me to find a gasoline station anywhere in the vicinity? I mentioned that a while back. “Service Stations” pretty much died out over the years because there was little profit in selling gasoline. The cost of stockpiling tires, and keeping a mechanic and parts on hand, was a huge undertaking. Now there are places all around town where you can get your oil changed, your tires replaced, your auto repaired.  Service Stations are no longer able to keep up with the competition. So now gasoline is sold at McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Chevron, Shell… each teamed up with a convenience store that sells warmed burritos, spicy nuts, coffee, beer, and cherry Icees. The coffee is generally good, too.

I never saw that coming, and I’m as pleased as I can be that I was alive to appreciate it. A vast improvement from the good ol’ days. 

          That’s it, students. Before leaving, do any of you remember the type of moth mentioned in today’s lesson? I’m shocked that I do. Maybe my brain is doing some synapse swapping. That can only help. – More on that another time. Perhaps. 

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hayter.mark@gmail.com

 

           

 

 

 

Raccoon in garbage

 Hayter’s article for May 8, 20“How a fox goes”

   Raccoon 7     Hayter 0

            BACK PORCH --  Late evening birds don’t seem nearly as chipper as the early-morning birds. Have you noticed that? When I was here this morning it sounded as if the backyard was the venue for a bird concert. Not The Byrds. They sound somewhat different.

            Tonight we’re hearing frog croaking and very little bird singing. I like frogs. Seems like they’ve been hiding out for the last couple of years. Probably frog-COVID. Now they’re hanging on the side of the house or on the leaf of a perennial plant.

This morning when I went out for the paper, I saw a tree frog on the driveway. I thought it out of place until I noticed it was flatter than flitter. It was apparently trying to go from the flower garden to the tree on the other side of the driveway when Kay drove up. I didn’t tell her about it for fear it would break her heart. More likely, she’d claim I did it. No way am I going to intentionally kill a frog. I take that back. There are a couple of species of frogs in Australia that I might kill… before they killed me.

            At the moment, a bat keeps getting closer and closer to me. I only kill bats that try to nest in my hair. They’ll do that,  you know. When I was a kid, two of my friends on Camille Street said they had bats land on their head. They came up with that story right after I told them that I stepped on a cobra in my backyard. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but kids are really into one-upmanship.

            For the last couple of months, my major nemesis has been a raccoon. The only place I find its tracks is on top of my garbage receptical in the backyard. We’ve got city garbage pickup so we place our plastic bags inside a big plastic buckets on wheels that has a lid that flaps down on top of it.

            My racoon is somewhat fastidious, in that all of the ripped-up, smelly garbage doesn’t make it into the yard. So, I’ve tried a couple of tricks to make a garbage visit unpleasant for trash eaters. Have you heard about Irish Spring being a repellent for mosquitoes, flies, and some animals? I shared that info with you once. Ivory soap, Dove, Dial, Zest, Neutrogena? Bugs and animals will eat that stuff. But they’re not fond of the Irish. My armpits aren’t that happy with it, either. – That’s an attempt at humor.

I shredded some Irish Spring and tossed it into the garbage bag. That didn’t do the trick, so I tossed Irish Spring inside the garbage bucket and outside around its base. This racoon has possibly lost its sense of smell. Perhaps it would choke on Lava Soap, but that stuff is too expensive to feed to a raccoon. 

My raccoon always manages to shut the lid after every meal. If it had thumbs, it could probably rip the lid right off. – Hold on a second. – Ah, here it is. “Raccoons do not have opposable thumbs.” – I thought so. That’s the only thing keeping them from stealing go-carts.    

I’ve read of only two things that will ward off raccoons. Ammonia and Fig Newtons. And I made up the Newtons. I have tried ammonia. It apparently requires an entire half-gallon jug of the stuff. I emptied one of Kay’s spray-on on glass cleaner bottles and filled it with ammonia. I sprayed the stuff inside and outside of the garbage bucket, and on the ground around it. I might as well have left the window cleaner in the bottle. It had no noticeable effect on the critter. I’m beginning to think that instead of a raccoon, I’ve got a Sasquatch problem.

            But forget the raccoons. Today I read about an animal that we definitely don’t want anywhere near us. Have you heard the song “How does a fox go?” Last week I read that a wild fox managed to gnaw a hole through a wired fence at the Smithsonian National Zoo in DC, and killed 25 of the 74 flamingos. There no way a fox could eat even one Flamingo, yet it killed 25 of ‘em. It also killed a duck that had the misfortune of sharing the same pond. And get this, a few weeks earlier a rabid fox bit nine people near Capitol Hill. One of the bitten was a Congressman.

            I had trouble believing that possible, until I read where a fox entered a zoo in Frankfort, Germany back in 2014 and bit the heads off of 15 flamingos. I’m assuming that’s how the DC flamingos fared. I can’t imagine how else a fox could bring down a flamingo.

            I did not enjoy telling you that story, but if I can save even one of your chickens, turkeys, or emus from a fox, it would’ve been worth it. By the way, if you’ve got ostriches, you won’t have much trouble. Ostriches are smarter than you think. When a fox is around those things, they know enough to stick their heads in the ground.

            I have to tell you, that tonight’s outing has been quite off-putting for me. I’m beginning to get sick at my stomach. I’m also getting just the least bit skittish. I’m not afraid of the fox. It’s the Sasquatch that’s got me worried  --  Let’s call it night. Till next time…

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