People In Passing

I decided to cobble together all the posts I wrote while traveling last year into a single page (sorry, multi-page code is broken). The blog always lists the most recent post, so if you weren’t reading along from the beginning it can be pretty difficult to navigate through and find all the pieces-parts of the trip.

Round-The-World : Phase 1 (http://peopleinpassing.com/round-the-world-phase-1/)

I have made no edits to the posts themselves. Cleanup, elaboration, and grammatical fine-tuning still remain goals of mine. Just not today. Also, weighing in at a little over 30,000 words, I have not re-read the collected posts start to finish so I don’t know if it flows or is a herky-jerky narrative experience. Consider yourself warned.

All that said, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed experiencing and writing it.

Oh, and Happy Valentines Day too

While cleaning files off my company laptop I came across an old writing assignment and I thought it fit the theme here.

The German Overcoat.

My father was drafted into the military during the time of Vietnam. Fortunately for him, and most likely for me, he was not drafted to Vietnam. He was stationed in Baumholder, Germany to guard a line in the sand between Communism and Democracy. Other than routine training and miscellaneous military duties there wasn’t much to do. Growing up he told me stories about Germany and some of the things he did there. One of things that he talked about most often was the quality of the German workmanship. He told me of a suit maker that made beautiful custom suits by hand. The suit maker would take your measurements and send you on your way; you were given no choice of fabric or style. The suit maker would choose what was best for you and three weeks later your suit was delivered. He told me of the woman that did their laundry. That she used so much starch they actually had to use two hands to pry the clothes apart. And he told me about the camel hair overcoat he had purchased there. This was a beautiful coat that he gave to me when I moved out. Unfortunately, I have since grown out of my father’s coat but I still keep it because it meant something to him.

In October of 2003 I was told that I was being sent to a training class on yet another software product my company would soon be selling. I am always being flown to one place or another to sit in a classroom for a day and a half to become “certified.” More often than not I’m left in the end with little more knowledge than I had before and a pocketful of hotel soaps and shampoo. I went through the exercise of checking the class schedule for this trip and noticed that there was one class in Minneapolis and one class in Munich. I immediately thought that given our domestic airline situation this would cost nearly the same. The price difference ended up being about one hundred dollars. I asked my company if they cared where I went to training if I paid the difference in flight costs and they said no. So I was off to Germany.

I arrived in Munich compressed into a smaller form thanks to the gentleman that sat in front of me. I believe he was convinced that if he leaned back hard enough I might disappear and his chair would turn into a bed. I arrived in Germany speaking no German and having not done enough research. Once I found my way onto the U-bahn, the German subway, I headed in the direction of my stop. After getting off the train I began to think about how useful it would have been to remember the raincoat I bought and left in my car. It was about fifty degrees Fahrenheit and raining, not a Portland rain but a Midwest rain. The only protection I have from the elements is an undershirt, polo shirt, and a pair of jeans none of which were keeping me warm or dry. I was burdened by one large heavy backpack on my chest and another larger heavier backpack on my back.

At this point was drenched and rather pathetically wandering around the streets in search of someone that spoke English. I eventually found a security guard that understood just enough to guide me to my destination. Soggy and happy I arrived at my hotel. After a solid night’s sleep and watching The Simpson’s overdubbed in German I was ready to go get my own overcoat. Again I boarded the U-bahn and headed toward the city. The German subway is truly something to behold. The underground stations go on forever and are stories deep; they have city blocks of groceries and retail outlets. I surfaced to find myself at an eight story department store. I found my way to the men’s department and located the coats. Granted this was not the way my father bought his coat, but this would be the way I bought mine. I tried on several varieties with a salesperson standing with me and telling me how good the coats looked, speaking only in German. However, I’m not positive he was complementing me, for all I know he could have been telling me I looked fat.

The coat I settled on is a deep charcoal single breasted four button overcoat. The buttons disappear behind an extra flap of fabric so as to create a seamless appearance. It has a dull gold satin lining with a zippered inside pocket. The outside pockets are deep and wide enough to accommodate winter gloves. Just behind the right exterior pocket there is another zippered pocket, a third outside pocket that inconspicuously gives a bit of extra cargo room with a little additional security.
The coat hangs just beneath my knees and the arms are long enough that the ends of the sleeves fit perfectly into my hands as I cup them by my sides. This is a store bought German coat, not quite as nice as my father’s German coat. It is, however, my German coat. Long after this coat has begun to fray or I have again grown out of it, I will still have the story of how I came to own it and that to me is more important than the object itself.

So I’ve finally finished the story of last year’s holiday adventure. It is too long to put in a single post so� I have created a separate page for it. It’s been a long time coming, a year in fact, and I’m sure it still has some spelling and grammatical issues. If you notice any, please let me know.

You can find the story here:

http://peopleinpassing.com/icelandic-new-years-2005/

Pictures can be found here:

http://flickr.com/photos/digiboom/sets/72057594055273720/

I hope you all enjoy it and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When I think back to the lessons I’ve learned, the things that have shaped me as a person, one thing stands out more than others. The lessons of a game.

One afternoon when I was 2 or 3 years old, my father decided to play a game with me. I remember a small table and a chess board. There was a large man on the other side pointing to the pieces and repeating the way they move, over and over.

That’s the last of what I remember in the first person, the rest is the recollection of my parents. My father tells the story that we were quietly learning the game in the basement when my mother came home and walked downstairs.

“What are you doing!” she exclaimed.

“Just playing a game” he responded.

“He’s too young for that.”

“But he’s doing ok and enjoying it.”

They went back and forth for a while. During that time I was setting the board back up, putting all the pieces where they were supposed to be. Then I grabbed a pawn from each color and put them behind my back for a moment, moved them around, and held my hands closed in front of me. This was so my father could pick which color he would be.

I’ve told this story to several friends and, while some tell me that it’s not possible, I’ll trust my parents and my foggy recollection, because, in fact, we were there.

While I’m not an expert Chess player, and never have been, I do believe that I learned some very valuable lessons from playing that game at such a young age. ? As far back as I can remember I have thought of life as being a lot like chess.

From it I learned:

Think Ahead. Try to see all the moves available for all the pieces, and try to see the move after that, and after that. You need to understand all your options and plan for possible outcomes without being too committed to one sequence of events.

Every action affects all other possible actions. Some doors are opened, some are closed.

See opportunities before they are available. In the event a door is opened, make sure you are already set up to enter it.

Never back yourself into a corner. Always have a backup plan, mistakes will be made.

Make good choices.

Sacrifices must be made in pursuit of a goal. There are trade-offs with everything, do your best to leave yourself in a stronger position if you have to give something up.

And of course:

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” – napoleon

Thanks go to my father for taking the time to play the game that day and many days after. Also for not thinking I was too young to learn it. This is just one of a thousand things I received from him. I don’t know if he thought I would learn as much from it as I did.

Here is an attempt at putting some of the charachters generated from our little excercise…

—–

I didn’t want to go the Zoo today. But it’s my weekend with Ben and that is the only thing he is interested in right now. His current fascination is with monkeys or, I should say, primates in general. Between his mother’s house and mine I would say we are nearing the one hundred mark of various stuffed animals, plastic monkeys hanging from the ceiling, ape backpacks and the like. His favorite, and I take some small amount of pride in this, is the giant stuffed gorilla chair in the corner of his room. Most nights when he is at my place I’ll tuck him into his bed with no complaints at bedtime, only to find him 30 minutes later curled up in the lap of that giant gorilla where he will sleep soundly for the rest of the night…

“Dad, they’re over here, past the Giraffes!”

His five year old hand tugging on my fingers he leans forward defying gravity dragging us both to his destination. I notice as we round the corner past the giraffes the monkey cage looms large above us. High chain-link fence serves the perimeter and a net with ropes attached at various points serves as a ceiling for the exhibit.

“Dad, be careful, you’ve gotta watch these ones” Ben said in that cute high pitched voice. I admired his ability to speak clearly at such a young age. I struggled all the way up through high school with certain parts of speech. First it was the lisp, but we conquered that one by 6th grade. Then it was the stutter in the presence of girls, so while “Thally” had become “Sally”, if I stood in front of her it became “Sa..a….a….a…, Hi there…” that was usually as far as I got before I turned the color of bad makeup and shuffled off. Defeated.

We’re past all that now, well, almost. I still have never been able to vocalize the word “and”. None of my therapists, speech or otherwise have ever been able to get me past it. I just can’t say it. I try to say it and comes out as a guttural “augh.” Over the years I’ve been able to dance around it, I just start a new sentence, use some random pause, or distract whomever I’m talking to into changing the subject to one of many pre-planned “small talk” dialogues I’ve established as a defense mechanism.

Back to the monkeys.

As Ben breaks his five year old death grip on my first two fingers he runs straight up to the monkey cage, throws his arms up to ten and two and grabs hold with all his might. “There they are!” he yelps.

“I see them!” I say, feigning the novelty of the situation.

“That one there Dad, the one with the white spot on the tail, be careful…”

“Why be careful Ben? He looks pleasant enough.”

“He does now, but last week when Mommy brought me he wasn’t happy. He threw poo at her.”

“Really?” I ask, a little disappointed in myself at how happy that thought made me.

“Yep, I think he was mad because he was feeling sick”

“What made you think that?”

“Well… cause… it was really runny and smelled really bad. Mommy’s car still smells bad. She screamed and jumped and ran to that bathroom over there.”

At this point I can’t help smiling. I’m fighting against it with everything I have. The edges of my mouth are quivering as I picture my Ex, doused in monkey poop running like she’d caught fire to take a mini-bath in the sink of the Zoo’s public restroom. This is the woman that vacuumed twice a week and wouldn’t let me have a dog because she couldn’t stand the idea of stepping in something while lounging in the backyard barefoot.

As I’m mesmerized by the film on loop in my own personal movie theater I notice an obviously distressed woman in the distance calling out the name “Lisa”. As she comes closer I see that she is actually quite attractive with mid-length platinum blonde hair and sporting a green Kangol golf cap with a button in the front.

She is hurrying along talking to everyone, asking “Have you seen a little girl? About this tall and wearing a hat like this?”

When she gets to us Ben completely ignores her as he is transfixed on the monkeys and is making small scared/excited noises every time one of the monkeys reaches back towards its tail for a scratch.

She approaches looking frazzled and just shy of hyperventilation when I stop her before she gets to her question. “Hey there, I heard you asking about your little girl. Have you lost her?” “Yes” she replies exasperated. “I was standing over by the Prairie Dogs and I turned around to buy some peanuts from the man with the cart and I turned back around and she was gone.”

“How long ago?” I ask.

“About 15 minutes but it feels like hours”

“Have you let anyone in security know?”

“No I haven’t found anyone to tell”

“Well there is a security booth over by the Hippo pond. Let’s head over together. We can see if they have heard anything or if they can make an announcement.”

“Ok, ok, good idea.”

We start to walk back past the giraffe’s pen toward the Hippo pond and I decide it’s a good idea to keep her talking.

“I’m Gavin Caldwell, This is Ben” I say.

“Ben Caldwell, five years old” Ben said. Making sure that everyone knew just how big a boy he is.

“What’s your name?” I ask

“Venus”

“Really? I’ve never met a Venus before. The name suits you.” I was trying to be complimentary and put her a little more at ease.

“Not as much as you’d think” She mumbled back.

Before I was able to ask what she meant by that, one of the Giraffes answered it for me. It brought its head down from its lofty perch to grab what I’m sure it thought was some kind of fuzzy vegetable. Unfortunately the Giraffe’s snack was Venus’s hat. It all happened very quickly. Much faster than I thought Giraffes could move. And I was left awestruck. Not by the act of the hat snatching but by the realization that that lovely platinum blonde hair stopped just above where the hat rested. Venus was bald on the top of the head. Not thinning bald, but where the hell are my sunglasses bald. Ben, never missing a beat, calmly declared “You’ve got hair like Grandpa.” Venus, visibly shaken, quickly reached into her purse for what I can only imagine was her backup plan, a bandanna. In a flurry of hand waving and knot tying something happened and it was like the sun went out to be replaced by a paisley black and white bandanna.

I kept my mouth shut.

Small talk over, we approached the security post in silence. As we came around the last corner and the booth came into view we could see a beautiful little girl sitting quietly at a picnic table with a security officer.

Venus ran the rest of the way to her daughter screaming “Oh, Thank God!”

She started her story even before she got to the table. “I turned away just for a second and she was gone. I just wanted to buy some peanuts and I hate peanuts. I never should have done it.”

After the report was filled out and we’d suffered through the guard trying to wrap his head around the fact that “Ng” is a real last name. A deep exhale was experienced by the group.

“You have a really beautiful smile” She said. “It’s like your whole face is participating in the event”

A little embarrassed I thanked her. “You said you hated peanuts, why were you buying them?”

“I like to have something to feed the monkeys. I know it says you shouldn’t but they just love them and it makes Lisa happy.”

“Oh, so you’re the lady my mom wants to kill.” Ben said nonchalantly.

“Me? Why would she want to kill me?”

“I don’t know” said Ben. “But she kept saying over and over on the ride home ‘I’m gonna kill whoever fed that monkey those peanuts.’”

I was out with some very good friends last week at a pool hall and decided to try an idea I’d had out on them. Make lists of random character traits and assign them to other character traits by means of some random mechanism. And still have fun.

Originally my idea was to do this with darts, but since darts were hard to find in a convenient-to-all part of town we ended up at the pool hall. After a few drinks I told them my idea and we put it into effect with bar napkins and a borrowed pen.

We put together 5 lists of 15 character traits each. They were:

First Name
Last Name
Physical Characteristic
Historical Component
Quirk

The reason for 15 is that there are 15 balls in a pool game. We were going to play 5 games of pool and as each ball dropped we would add that number to a character trait as it appeared in whatever list we were working on.

For example: in the first game the 6 ball dropped first, so the first name on the first names list was “Lisa”. Lisa was assigned the number 6. During the second game of pool the 6 ball dropped fourth, which corresponded with the Last name of Peterson located 4th on the list, and so on through the rest of the lists.

We came up with some crazy combinations.

After all that we used Erik’s idea to use a playoff style system to pair characters into genres for the type of story to tell. And finally there was a fierce game of paper-rock-scissors to determine who got which genre/characters combination.

The end result being:

Erik:

A Drama involving:

Francis Bean, a man with an eye patch that had a near death experience in his past. He also has a condition where making eye contact leads to a terrets like response.
And
Ahmed Pakpahan, a man with straight and thinning hair that has wanted to be an actor his entire life. He has an unfortunate facial tic when he thinks about sex.

An Action/Adventure involving:

Drake Yasinskaya, a morbidly obese man with a fear of carpet that inherited money and/or a compay.
And
Katerina Keleher, a woman with bright eyes labeled as a war coward and a fear of midgets.

A Documentary/Reality involving:

Regan Daniels, a woman that graduated first in her class at Yale Law with a distrust for banks and scarring of the hands.

�

Jake:

A Romance involving:

Raven Rooster, a woman that wet the bed until she was 25 with an unfortunate cauliflower ear. When she blinks it is as if her eyelids are connected to her eyebrows.
And
Julius Tompoco, a man with a serious 5 o’clock shadow that made millions on the tech boom and lost it on the stock marked. Julius has the curious need to run everywhere he goes instead of walk.

A Coming of Age involving:

Sergey Robertson, an introverted man with no left nostril obsessed with pop culture events on television.
And
Quincy Searock, a man with long hair that smacks his gums when he is not talking that recently came out to his parents.

Brad:

A Suspense/Thriller involving:

Nancy Tavakoli, a former Yugoslavian woman with a limp whose flatulence for some reason smells like “new car scent”
And
Natalia Jameson, a former High School sports hero with moppy hair and is a chain-smoking non-smoker.

A Mystery involving:
Binsar Al Masbi, a stickly man raised by rockstars that can’t stand women in jeans.
And
Anna Sedaris, a woman with a pronounced monobrow that witnessed a murder. She is also repulsed by toothy smiles.

A Comedy involving:

Gavin Caldwell, a man with a perfectly developed smile of the entire face that had a child while still in his teenage years and has the curious inability to say the word “and”. He must start a new sentence instead…
AND
Venus Ng, a balding woman that lost a child. Additionally she has a fear of mammals larger than herself.