Someday I'd like to meet the person that one day sat down to decorate the public restroom in their place of business and thought "wouldn't it be really cool to hang something interesting in front of the man using the urinal so that he can be entertained while he relieves himself?"
We've all seen them. Well, we men, anyway. Anything hung in the ladies' stalls would be difficult to see since it would be hanging behind their heads. But I've been in public restrooms that have had flat screen TVs mounted in the wall at head level (watch it!) so you can get a racing sports update while you whiz. (I'm sorry, I just couldn't pass that one up). Or watch a linebacker unload on a running back (sorry again - I can't help myself). Or see Coach Knight get pi--... Okay, I'm going to stop now.
There have also been the day's newspaper mounted to the wall. That one made good sense. Leaving newspapers laying in the restroom has never been too high on the hygiene list, and it doesn't work if you're standing to - well, you know. So placing the newspaper in a glass frame was genius, in my humble opinion. "But what if you need to turn the page?" you ask. Just how long do you need to do Number One, anyway? remember, this is the stand up urinal. People are waiting behind you. Finish and move on.
And wash your hands.
Tonight's visit to the Necessary Room was a bit different, however. This was a nice restaurant, the three figure kind when you pay the bill. Hey, it was Valentine's. I go in and begin to...begin. Once it has started and you know you aren't missing the mark, you no longer need to look down. (Yes, ladies, some of us do try to keep the stream on target). It's then I notice the restaurant management has chosen some old black and white photos in keeping with the restaurant and bar theme mounted on the walls. A couple of photo prints are near the sink but not above it. They're just wall decor. But there are two nicely framed photos mounted at the two urinal stalls. The one directly in front of me is one from some restaurant at the top of a high rise building, I assume, based on the view outside the restaurant. Two men wearing 1960's thin ties and suits are sitting at a table next to a high view window and a demure Asian waitress is standing beside them, all smiles. They're smiling at her, she's smiling at them. It's obviously a posed promotional photo for whatever restaurant she worked in at the time.
Now I'm thinking to myself "I wonder when these fine people posed for this photo if they could have possibly suspected that their faces would be giving me something to occupy my wandering mind while I completed the digestive cycle of the liquids I had consumed at this particular eatery?"
So now I'm becoming interested in what the subject matter could be in the photo mounted above the stall next to me. I started to look but the stall next to me was occupied by another middle aged man trying to hit his mark so I refrained from peering over. Yes, this is something that men do NOT do in the public restroom. I speak of The Look Over.
Maybe that's why the guy cooked up the photo in the urinal idea. To help keep the pi --, I mean peace - in the restroom.
Okay, I'm done now. And yes, I always wash my hands. Like a surgeon, so I'm told.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Campfire stories
I like to hike.
Now mind you, I haven't ever completed one of those types of hikes you read about in Sierra Magazine about trekking along the complete Appalachian Trail that people with either lots of money or absolutely no bills take off six months for to test their mettle. I think the longest hike I took was at Ray Roberts State Park, which totaled about 11 miles round trip. My hamstrings hurt so bad for the last two miles of that hike that I was having true difficulty walking. It wasn't the most interesting trail I'd ever seen, either. It was a fairly warm day and it's a popular equestrian trail as well as for the two legged kind of hiker. That means there are long stretches of treeless, open areas and a little too much generosity of manure for my liking. But there have been other jaunts that were more enjoyable.
I think I attribute this love to traipsing through the woods (we Texans call it "the woods" versus "The Forest") to the fact that I grew up being exposed to the great outdoors on a relatively few but memorable occasions. I recall, when my age was in the single digits, my Dad getting the big family tent down from the open attic area of the detached, single car garage that he had built himself in our back yard after our family grew too big for the wood frame two bedroom house. The then-attached single car garage was turned into a bedroom resulting in the need for the detached version.
He'd roll out the dull bluish green canvas family size tent and check to make sure there were no tears or holes that had "developed" during storage and that he had all the necessary poles and stakes. We'd get up super early the day of the trip, after he'd already loaded up the tent and other gear in and onto the 1960 Chevy station wagon, and head out while it was still dark. I only really recall us doing this one time and I suspect it was because the trip I mention didn't go as well as one might hope.
We traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and set up camp. I think we did have one or two good days of camping before the rain set in on the Tennessee side of the ridge. It was then that I discovered why we weren't supposed to "touch" the tent when it was raining. The coating on the canvas, as anyone over the age of 40 today might recall, would lose its water repelling qualities if you touched the tent material while it was wet. The result? You and anything else or anyone else got damp that was near the affected area.
So the next night we moved to the North Carolina side of the ridge. Was there rain? No.
But at night the temperature dropped down below freezing.
When the temps drop down below freezing and some of the gear is still damp from the night before, the camping euphoria fades as quickly as the campfire flames do during a downpour. I do recall us all getting loaded into the car in the middle of the night and going to a motel.
Bed sheets never, ever felt so warm. Or dry.
While we slept in the next morning, Dad got up and drove back to the camp site, I think, and broke down the camp.
I think the fact that camping was as much, or more, work for Mom as staying at home would be was the reason we didn't break out the camping gear again.
Following this family version of camping experience, I attended a Dallas Parks and Recreation sponsored summer camp. These weren't overnight stays but were day camps in which we learned how to make a Hobo stove from a large coffee can, among a few other things which now escape my memory. (Of course I remember the things that involved cooking and fire). I also learned to not lay your new pocket knife down and expect it to still be there some minutes later. Well, it definitely wasn't church camp.
Speaking of which, my future "brushes" with Nature came at church related camps during the summer. There was R.A. camp, pre-teen camp, and youth camp, all which were held at Mount Lebanon Baptist Encampment in Cedar Hill. It seemed so far away when we were kids, and I guess it was in those days. Cedar Hill is now a bustling suburb and Mount Lebanon, while still there, is now squeezed in between the southernmost neighborhoods of Cedar Hill and the ever growing city of Midlothian.
These camps were oodles of fun. There were no tents involved, since the Baptist Association had the foresight to build cabins and some of the larger churches had their own lodges, a bit nicer version of the aforementioned cabins. There were many things learned at these church camps - things other than the Ten Commandments and Bible verses. Important things, like just how big a welt a towel can leave if someone twirls it tight enough and has a wicked whip action with it.
Hey, it wasn't me that proved that fact of physics. I just witnessed it.
I loved attending this particular camp facility so much I ended up joining the Recreation Staff after graduating high school one summer. Creatively, it was called the "Wreck Staff".
It was during this employment stint that I began drinking coffee black. I think the average hours of sleep per night were about four.
Following the church youth and church camp staff experiences were several camping outings with college fraternity brothers. Attending a university that offers a Doctorate in Forestry and being a member of a fraternity with its origins in the Boy Scouts made an easy segue into camping. (Before you wonder, no, my degree wasn't in Forestry). We'd drive an hour or so out of town to the Boy Scout Explorer camp and see just how disgusting we all could look after waking up in a sleeping bag a couple of days without a shower. Hey, there wasn't any hot water and it wasn't summer in Texas. If it was only two nights without a shower I could live with myself, so long as I hadn't fallen into a pig slop. As for anyone else, they were guys. We weren't getting THAT close to each other.
There were flash light wars that honed one's ability to camouflage themselves, or at least manage to stay quiet and even accidentally fall asleep while buried under a layer of leaves. If we'd have been the kids at the camp where Jason in the movie "Friday the 13th" hung out, it would have been a very boring movie. No one would have died. We were all hidden too well. And there were no women to scream.
We even incorporated camping into our Spring formals on occasion. Well, at least one night of it. Sure, we'd all find a place to get all gussied up for the formal event, but the rest of the time it was sleeping rolls and camp fires, complete with a chuck wagon load of brewskies. I learned that when you set up your spot to sleep, make sure it's on level ground and not on a slope. You'd think I'd have figured this little factoid out before college.
Once again, I didn't really drink much of said chuck wagon load. I just witnessed it. (I was more of a wine sipper in those days).
So now lately I have been having the urge to actually go camping. Now I know my physical limits, and want the experience to actually be pleasurable before, during and after. This means no sleeping bag or hammock. There will be use of the finest outdoor sleeping technology available, namely, the inflatable mattress. And despite the current desire to go camping sooner than later, it will be when the night temps are not in the extreme lower or upper digits.
But I do long to smell the smoke of a campfire and hear the wood crackle and hiss with the drippings of hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick. Separately, of course.
Then I'll pop my blood sugar and cholesterol meds in my mouth, wash it down with a swig from the trusty bottled water since no one uses canteens anymore, curl up on my felt lined inflated mattress with its pillow top technology and watch the stars twinkle until I doze off. Which usually only takes me about three minutes.
What kind of tent will I use? Whaddaya, nuts? I make a decent living. Minimally, I'm renting a shelter. I like listening to the occasional summer rain while sleeping, not feeling it.
Now mind you, I haven't ever completed one of those types of hikes you read about in Sierra Magazine about trekking along the complete Appalachian Trail that people with either lots of money or absolutely no bills take off six months for to test their mettle. I think the longest hike I took was at Ray Roberts State Park, which totaled about 11 miles round trip. My hamstrings hurt so bad for the last two miles of that hike that I was having true difficulty walking. It wasn't the most interesting trail I'd ever seen, either. It was a fairly warm day and it's a popular equestrian trail as well as for the two legged kind of hiker. That means there are long stretches of treeless, open areas and a little too much generosity of manure for my liking. But there have been other jaunts that were more enjoyable.
I think I attribute this love to traipsing through the woods (we Texans call it "the woods" versus "The Forest") to the fact that I grew up being exposed to the great outdoors on a relatively few but memorable occasions. I recall, when my age was in the single digits, my Dad getting the big family tent down from the open attic area of the detached, single car garage that he had built himself in our back yard after our family grew too big for the wood frame two bedroom house. The then-attached single car garage was turned into a bedroom resulting in the need for the detached version.
He'd roll out the dull bluish green canvas family size tent and check to make sure there were no tears or holes that had "developed" during storage and that he had all the necessary poles and stakes. We'd get up super early the day of the trip, after he'd already loaded up the tent and other gear in and onto the 1960 Chevy station wagon, and head out while it was still dark. I only really recall us doing this one time and I suspect it was because the trip I mention didn't go as well as one might hope.
We traveled to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and set up camp. I think we did have one or two good days of camping before the rain set in on the Tennessee side of the ridge. It was then that I discovered why we weren't supposed to "touch" the tent when it was raining. The coating on the canvas, as anyone over the age of 40 today might recall, would lose its water repelling qualities if you touched the tent material while it was wet. The result? You and anything else or anyone else got damp that was near the affected area.
So the next night we moved to the North Carolina side of the ridge. Was there rain? No.
But at night the temperature dropped down below freezing.
When the temps drop down below freezing and some of the gear is still damp from the night before, the camping euphoria fades as quickly as the campfire flames do during a downpour. I do recall us all getting loaded into the car in the middle of the night and going to a motel.
Bed sheets never, ever felt so warm. Or dry.
While we slept in the next morning, Dad got up and drove back to the camp site, I think, and broke down the camp.
I think the fact that camping was as much, or more, work for Mom as staying at home would be was the reason we didn't break out the camping gear again.
Following this family version of camping experience, I attended a Dallas Parks and Recreation sponsored summer camp. These weren't overnight stays but were day camps in which we learned how to make a Hobo stove from a large coffee can, among a few other things which now escape my memory. (Of course I remember the things that involved cooking and fire). I also learned to not lay your new pocket knife down and expect it to still be there some minutes later. Well, it definitely wasn't church camp.
Speaking of which, my future "brushes" with Nature came at church related camps during the summer. There was R.A. camp, pre-teen camp, and youth camp, all which were held at Mount Lebanon Baptist Encampment in Cedar Hill. It seemed so far away when we were kids, and I guess it was in those days. Cedar Hill is now a bustling suburb and Mount Lebanon, while still there, is now squeezed in between the southernmost neighborhoods of Cedar Hill and the ever growing city of Midlothian.
These camps were oodles of fun. There were no tents involved, since the Baptist Association had the foresight to build cabins and some of the larger churches had their own lodges, a bit nicer version of the aforementioned cabins. There were many things learned at these church camps - things other than the Ten Commandments and Bible verses. Important things, like just how big a welt a towel can leave if someone twirls it tight enough and has a wicked whip action with it.
Hey, it wasn't me that proved that fact of physics. I just witnessed it.
I loved attending this particular camp facility so much I ended up joining the Recreation Staff after graduating high school one summer. Creatively, it was called the "Wreck Staff".
It was during this employment stint that I began drinking coffee black. I think the average hours of sleep per night were about four.
Following the church youth and church camp staff experiences were several camping outings with college fraternity brothers. Attending a university that offers a Doctorate in Forestry and being a member of a fraternity with its origins in the Boy Scouts made an easy segue into camping. (Before you wonder, no, my degree wasn't in Forestry). We'd drive an hour or so out of town to the Boy Scout Explorer camp and see just how disgusting we all could look after waking up in a sleeping bag a couple of days without a shower. Hey, there wasn't any hot water and it wasn't summer in Texas. If it was only two nights without a shower I could live with myself, so long as I hadn't fallen into a pig slop. As for anyone else, they were guys. We weren't getting THAT close to each other.
There were flash light wars that honed one's ability to camouflage themselves, or at least manage to stay quiet and even accidentally fall asleep while buried under a layer of leaves. If we'd have been the kids at the camp where Jason in the movie "Friday the 13th" hung out, it would have been a very boring movie. No one would have died. We were all hidden too well. And there were no women to scream.
We even incorporated camping into our Spring formals on occasion. Well, at least one night of it. Sure, we'd all find a place to get all gussied up for the formal event, but the rest of the time it was sleeping rolls and camp fires, complete with a chuck wagon load of brewskies. I learned that when you set up your spot to sleep, make sure it's on level ground and not on a slope. You'd think I'd have figured this little factoid out before college.
Once again, I didn't really drink much of said chuck wagon load. I just witnessed it. (I was more of a wine sipper in those days).
So now lately I have been having the urge to actually go camping. Now I know my physical limits, and want the experience to actually be pleasurable before, during and after. This means no sleeping bag or hammock. There will be use of the finest outdoor sleeping technology available, namely, the inflatable mattress. And despite the current desire to go camping sooner than later, it will be when the night temps are not in the extreme lower or upper digits.
But I do long to smell the smoke of a campfire and hear the wood crackle and hiss with the drippings of hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick. Separately, of course.
Then I'll pop my blood sugar and cholesterol meds in my mouth, wash it down with a swig from the trusty bottled water since no one uses canteens anymore, curl up on my felt lined inflated mattress with its pillow top technology and watch the stars twinkle until I doze off. Which usually only takes me about three minutes.
What kind of tent will I use? Whaddaya, nuts? I make a decent living. Minimally, I'm renting a shelter. I like listening to the occasional summer rain while sleeping, not feeling it.
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