For Whom The Toll Begs

Another most excellent post from our regular contributor, The YB of the SC.

When my lovely wife came to work with me almost seven years ago one of her conditions was that I could no longer eat lunch every day at the same coffee shop, at least not if I ever expected her to join me for lunch. She didn’t care that this wasn’t just any old coffee shop. This was one of a chain of coffee shops that had its beginnings back in the late 60’s. This was the coffee shop that gave me my first real job back in 1973. I baked rolls from scratch for the restaurant as well as made their tuna fish salad. Is it any wonder that I became addicted to their menu? Can you blame me for lusting after their lemon meringue pie?

For seven years I have willingly cooperated with the lovely wife. She has introduced me to wonderful fare offered by Nordstrom's Café, Mexican fast food, Olive Garden, and California Pizza Kitchen to name just a few. She doesn’t work on Fridays. Every Friday it’s back to the coffee shop for the “usual.”

For several months now we have run into a small annoyance in the person of a beggar. A beggar in a wheelchair. This gentleman has taken up residence across the street from our building on the corner where he can command the attention of a very busy street loaded with traffic as well as a wonderful sidewalk loaded with foot traffic. He has a fishnet on a long pole which he uses to collect cash from the windows of passing cars. We don’t have to pass by this beggar when we go to the coffee shop but he does sit on the superior route to our other food choices.

When we have walked past his wheelchair I have often reached into my wallet and handed him a dollar. Other times we have simply walked by and said hello and he has offered up a, “God bless you,” which in the world of begging I have come to interpret as, “You miserly piece of something really horrible.”

We have developed a habit of no longer crossing the street toward the man in the chair, but rather using the sidewalk opposite this beggar person and then crossing over to our version of restaurant row at the next signal some 100 yards down the road. His fishnet on a pole is not capable of reaching across 8 lanes of traffic. What prompted me to write this story is the fact that we are now electing to walk past a major construction site which is slowly but surely choking off our alternate sidewalk route with the likes of sandbags, hoses, temporary fences and many other hazards which on occasion cause me to protect the lovely wife from certain death by my taking a few steps into the street hoping that the traffic notices me more than they notice the man in the wheel chair across the street.

Now that I have written this story and realized how stupid the whole matter is I will go back to the better, safer side of the street and simply pay the darn $1.00 toll. It will be worth it as the bulldozers are starting to get too close to the sandbags.

A Poem for the Postman

(In which I visit the post office to mail a package.)

Fly, fly, fly away,
Gerald, Monday make it so!
Seven and seven,
Fourteen rounds, banded to go.

Exies,
X & Y-sies.
Let there be no Letdown,
Beautiful or otherwise.

Fly, I must be off,
On journeys of my own.
So Monday is the day,
Pinehurst you say, “That’ll be $2.49.”

When It Falls,
There Will Be Light.
So Move Along,
Fourteen rounds move along.

Fly, fly rain or shine,
Monday, you said.
A garage awaits,
And I’ve paid my dime.

Hooba,
Hooba’s tanked.
I don’t care,
Get it there!

Fly, fly like you promised,
Or there’ll be no Cuties.
There’ll be no Cuties in Cabs,
Or Inertia anywhere.

Gerald, don’t disappoint,
Tuesday won’t do.
You can do it I know,
My Soul’s Core says you can.

Fly, fly, fly, fly,
On And On.
Twenty times The Reason,
Fly, fly, fly, fly.

Mrs. Yak’s Road Crew

Mrs. Yak is familiar to almost every City or County department head responsible for roads and streets. She knows them. They know her, and greet her warmly when she calls. When she calls they listen. How this came to pass is a long and tortured tale. Here is the short version.

When you live on unimproved county roads as long as we have you learn who to call to get things done. Snow removal, grading and dust abatement are important items in their season and we stay on top of them. Every spring when the dust gets intolerable we expect the county road crews to come deliver us. When the snow falls we expect the crews to plow our hills before the roads turn to ice. Sometimes they need reminding.

One spring the county was a little short of funds. They put off their road maintenance schedule. We waited. We choked on the dust. We waited some more. Mrs. Yak called County Public Works. She was told that the farm roads had priority. Mrs. Yak made a call to the commissioner’s office to get on the docket for their next meeting.

At the appointed time Mrs. Yak was there to testify. She invited the Director of the Yakima County Clean Air Authority to testify as well. He did. Together they explained to the commissioners that the clean air regulations were explicit as to the county’s responsibilities. Ever since that day, many years ago now, the county has made gravel roads in residential neighborhoods the first priority. Every spring without fail “Mrs. Yak’s Road Crew” has been on the job, on schedule and on time. The name came from an annual conversation between Mrs. Yak and her boss who just couldn't seem to get any cooperation on the roads in his neck of the woods.

So what’s the reason for this post? This morning Mrs. Yak’s (City) Road Crew was out in front of the neighbor's house addressing a concern Mrs. Yak had called about last week. You see we are now annexed into the city. At the annexation hearings last summer we were there to testify before the City Council. For my part, I told them that we had been waiting 20 years to get our roads paved and by the way, “let me introduce you to my wife.”

The road crew is busy at work prepping the road for paving and Mrs. Yak, triumphant, is readying herself for work where she will have yet another annual conversation with her boss.

Immigrants I Have Known

Munir A.

One Saturday as I was working in my yard I noticed a man in a truck down at the corner dumping black plastic garbage bags down off the road embankment. In a huff of righteous indignation I half-ran, half-walked to confront him. As I closed the distance I could see that the bags were full of lawn clippings. I could also see this wasn’t his first offense.

I said, (something to this effect) "Hey! You can’t dump here. This is my neighborhood and you can’t dump here!"
He made a feeble defense.
"How would you like it if I came and dumped my trash in your neighborhood? The County has a no dumping law and you can’t dump here!"
More feeble attempts.
He was a small man with an anxious look. A kind of swarthy Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
“You can’t dump here!”
And so it continued until he had picked up his bags and left.

A week later Mrs. Yak answered the doorbell and encountered a small swarthy man with an eager smile and bright dark eyes.
"I am Munir. You called for my ad? I come to give estimate for cutting your grass"
"Yes I saw your ad. Would you like to take a look at the yard?"
"Yes. Can I ask question?"
"Sure."
"Do you have husband? He very tall?"
"Yeah, he’s pretty tall..."
"He have, how you say, salt and pepper hair?"
"Yes."
"Oh he’s a hard man. A very, very hard man!"
"Why would you say that?"
"I was down there in my truck..."

Mrs. Yak got the full story.
Munir got the job and as he left was heard muttering, "A very hard man..."

When I got home Mrs. Yak told me she had hired this very nice Israeli—with a puzzling story—to mow our lawn. We had a good laugh and dubbed him the "Abu Nidal Lawn Service" after the infamous terrorist and founder of Fatah to whom is attributed numerous atrocities during the 80’s, one of which triggered the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

It turned out that Munir was a Christian and at the encouraging of some Arab-Americans in our church, I invited him to a men’s bible study. Alas, his grasp of English would not allow him to continue.

Munir mowed our lawn faithfully every week for several years. (And he hauled off the clippings.) Except one day, November 1st to be exact, he missed his appointment. He came the next day to apologize and explain that he couldn’t mow this day either because it had started to snow. Mrs. Yak informed him that she had planned on the lawn being cut one last time before winter and that he had better hurry before the snow piled up. Mowing in the first snowfall of the season Munir was heard to say, "A hard woman. A very, very hard woman!"

We lost track of Munir after we had to trim our household expenses one year. I’m sure he moved on to bigger and better opportunities. As most immigrants do.