Banner Columnist Archive - Knightstown, Indiana

'Dance Fever' Besets Aging Boomer

By Mike Redmond

Published May 2, 2007

You know, I thought I was getting along pretty well for a guy my age, but I’ve just realized there’s a serious gap in my learning: I can’t dance.

Oh, I can go out on the floor and do a passable White Man Wedding Reception Stumble as long as the DJ is playing “Celebrate” by Kool and The Gang, and I can Twist when I need to and do the Chicken Dance when required. But other than that, I can’t dance for diddly. And if Diddly were here, he’d probably agree. This needs to change.

I’ve been thinking about it since I emceed the Indianapolis Senior Center Senior Prom, and got to watch the local Freds and Gingers whirling around the dance floor of the Indiana Roof Ballroom in their tuxes and gowns.

It strikes me that dancing is something a man should know how to do, along with tying a bow tie (check), mixing a proper martini (got it), baking a load of bread (easy), preparing food that doesn’t involve an outdoor grill (roger wilco), changing a diaper (oh, all right) and performing brain surgery (still working on this one).

Now, I’m not talking that whirly-twirly Dancing With the Stars baloney. That’s showoff dancing. I’m talking about moving around the floor, holding on to a partner, and doing it with a little panache, or at least not making a fool of yourself.

There were no such fools on the floor at the prom. They glided though the waltzes, bounced through the fox trots, slinked through the tangos. They mamboed, they rhumbaed, they cha-cha-cha’d. I even saw a couple of Charlestons. They did it with style and ease and confidence … and made me envious because I couldn’t dance like that on the best day I ever had.

Actually, I’m not alone. It did not escape my notice that almost all the people on the dance floor were seniors, and the people watching appreciatively tended to be members of my gang, the so-called Baby Boomers. And more than one person my age or younger made some sort of remark about wanting to take dance lessons.

Memo to Fellow Boomers: Seems to me we’d better start, and the sooner the better. This used to be something everyone knew how to do. Now it’s considered special and unusual. And we Boomers are to blame. We’d better get our fandangos moving before the fox trot goes on the Endangered Entertainments list.

Remember, we Boomers were the ones who thought we were cool when we decided to do things our own way, terpsichoreally speaking. I know that while we were out there shaking our grove things, we thought we looked great, but watch some movie footage of the dances of the 1960s and 1970s. Depending on the dance, we either look like puppets with half the strings cut, or a gathering of people who all have to go to the bathroom. No wonder our teachers always stood on the perimeter of our sock hops, smirking.

Well, it’s time to take action, for me anyway. I have a lot to learn, and it’s time I started learning it. It’s time to put my feet where my mouth is. Those brain surgery lessons will have to wait a while longer while I take care of more urgent matters – two-steps, waltzes and cha-cha-chas.

I wonder if Arthur Murray has an emergency plan.

My Favorite TV Show Is A Huge Mess

By Mike Redmond

Published May 9, 2007

As further proof that I do not have enough going on in my life, I’ve recently begun rearranging my entire schedule around a television show. And it isn’t even The Simpsons or one of those Crime Scene variants.

I am hooked – hooked, I tell you – on the BBC America channel’s ‘How Clean Is Your House?”

In case you don’t know the show (or its American version on the Lifetime network) here’s the deal:

Two women – professional cleaner Kim Woodburn and former magazine editor Aggie MacKenzie – are sent to a house so filthy you’d think it ought to be shoved into a pit and covered over. They clean the house while alternately scolding the occupant for letting it get into such deplorably filthy condition, then encouraging him or her to change for the better (and tidier).

If you would have told me six months ago that I would be watching this program every night, I would have nominated you for another reality show: “You’re Out Of Your Mind.”

But no. It comes on every night at 7:30, and believe me, at 7:30 everything else in this house comes to a halt. Got work to do? Sorry, it’ll have to wait. Dog needs to go out? All right, but she’s not coming back in until the commercial. Dinner on the table? Forget it. The cleaning ladies are on.

(I know, you’re thinking, “Well, why doesn’t he just eat dinner and watch TV?” Obviously, you haven’t seen the show. And if you have, and if you can enjoy a meal while the camera dwells lovingly on a kitchen that hasn’t been cleaned since Prince Charlie was in short pants – well, your stomach is stronger than mine.)

This is what I call Must-See TV. Also, considering the condition of some of the houses Aggie and Kim go into, it’s Good-Heavens! TV, What’s-Wrong-With-Those-People TV, and There-But-For-The-Grace-Of-God-Go-I TV.

Well, that last one may be overstating the case a little. I mean, it’s highly unlikely that I will ever find myself living in a three-room apartment so full of trash, heaped and stacked as high as your head, with only pathways going from room to room. I doubt I’ll ever allow my cat to just use the entire place as her litter box while allowing the human bathroom to turn into a Toxic Waste Site. I don’t think I’ll ever let wind up with chicken poop on the kitchen floor and a solid inch of bacteria-laden black grease on the stovetop. Which are some of the milder examples from the show.

So maybe I’m really feeling good because by comparison, my house is spotless. And at the same time, I feel sorry for the occupants, and slightly guilty because I know how I’d feel if it were my house and a bunch of people were looking at it on TV and saying, “Oh my Lord, what an abomination.”

But still I watch. I can’t help it. I’m hooked. Hooked, I tell you. Which, in case my mother is reading this, is why I no longer answer the phone between 7:30 and 8. Sorry, Mom.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go mop the kitchen. Think of it as being inspired. Or, put another way, if Kim and Aggie drop in, I want to be ready.

Sometimes, All You Can Say Is 'Oh, Brother'

By Mike Redmond

Published May 16, 2007

By the time you read this, my brother will be in his new job in Iraq, a move that adds considerable weight to the idea that his initials, P.D., must mean "Permanently Deranged."

Nope. He's Patrick Dennis, and his derangement is only expected to last between four months and a year - the time he'll be getting his mail in care of General Delivery, Baghdad.

The big dope.

Maybe you can tell I wasn't 100 percent behind this particular career gambit.

But it's not my career, and so when P.D. got a chance to flee what he saw as the increasingly silly world of local TV news for a job shooting video in Iraq, he took it. It's the first step in his plan to do something different with his life. I know -- hard to believe he couldn't find fulfillment taking pictures of car crashes, pet shows and some goofy On-The- Scene-On-Your-Side-Nightbeat- Investigative-Storm-Team-News Mannequin getting excited about a two-inch snowfall.

So now my brother is ensconced in the Green Zone while he working as a videographer, although not in combat or involved in any way with the military operation, for which Mom is grateful. She has been half out of her gourd with worry that Professor Dopey is going to get himself blown up while driving to Village Pantry for a pack of Marlboros and some Ding Dongs. I tried to calm her down by pointing out that (a.) they don't have Village Pantry over there and (b.) P.D. never cared for Ding Dongs, being one himself, but in fact was more of a Hostess Snoball guy. For some reason, it didn't work. She still worries.

Me? Well, I have to admit that Iraq is not a place I would choose to go, seeing as how some of those folks don't seem to have received the memo four years ago about the end of major combat operations. And it's not a place I would choose to send anyone's sibling, much less the younger brother who followed Dad and me into the newspaper business and then broke away to make his own way as a TV guy.

I've always been proud of him for that. Although he had ability as a reporter and photographer, he wanted to find another way to use it. He went back to school and finished his degree -- something I'm still putting off -- and started on the path that has led him now to the other side of the world.

I guess this is the part where I should say that brotherly support, like brotherly love, is unconditional. If this is the decision he thinks best, that's that. I have to trust that he knows what he's doing and will be OK.

Even though it's difficult. See, there's also a big brother thing going on that wonders if maybe I shouldn't have grabbed him by the shirtfront, given him a good shake and told him to pull his head out of his hinder and find some other way to change his life. But I didn't.

Instead, I just told him when I saw him last that I loved him, that I'll miss him, and that he is not to stay over there a day longer than necessary. He said he wouldn't. I believe him. I have to.

Measuring Progress by the Yard

By Mike Redmond

Published May 23, 2007

I've just come in from an entire day of indulging my Inner Agriculturalist out in the Back 40, also known as My Yard. Now it's Sit Back and Admire time.

From my window I can see a green space, neatly mowed and trimmed, with tidy borders and not a single unruly blade of grass. I can see flowerbeds planted and mulched. I can see a vegetable garden tilled and raked, the earth dark and rich and inviting.

And I can see my neighbor, Sam, standing there with a shovel in his hand. It's his yard. I have to go to another room to look out on my yard. Be right back.

Still there? OK. Here's what I saw when I looked at my yard:

*A lawn that's mostly green, and also mostly grass. Well, about half, I guess. The other half is made up of various members of the Weed family, all of which seem to have developed resistance to every single chemical in the Scorched Earth aisle at NASCAR Sponsor Mega Home Hardware And Lumber Warehouse.

*A cut that sort of reminds me of the way my kidhood friend Ralph Bonifant looked after his dad decided to save money on haircuts and do it himself with clippers he got at a yard sale. The best way to describe it is clumpy. It's short over here, long over there, with patches of varying lengths in between. And like Ralph's hair, it's parted on the left. I wonder how I did that.

*An assortment of dog logs, despite the fact that this morning I went around and picked up a bagful (Eeuw.) My dog Cookie takes great offense when I do that ("Hey! Wait a minute! Put down that scooper! Those are mine! I had them just like I wanted them!") and has spent most of the afternoon replacing what I removed.

*What used to be a pretty good little tomato garden until I got carried away and tried to grow tomatoes in bales of hay, an experiment that worked only slightly better than trying to grow tomatoes in bags of water softener salt. I spent half a day getting the hay plowed under with the rototiller and working the soil so I can get some plants in, a month late. If you look closely, you can see where the tiller got tangled up on a piece of baling twine, went berserk and attacked the fence. I wonder if this sort of thing ever happens to the people on the Victory Garden show.

*A new layer of mulch on my flowerbeds, also known as The Place Where Oriental Lilies Go To Die. I measured the beds and went to an online site to calculate how much mulch I would need this year. The calculator said 80 bags. Good grief. Eighty bags? I want to mulch my flowerbeds, not open a gas station.

And I see:

*That I'm going to have to do the whole thing over again in a few days.

That's the thing about yard work. Once you start, you're stuck with it. And once your hard work gets your yard into showroom condition, then you've got to work twice as hard to keep it that way. Sisyphus with his rock had nothing on your average American homeowner with a Lawn-Boy and a Pooper Scooper.

Speaking of which, I've got to get back out there. Cookie's been busy. Memo to self: Feed dog less.

Living Extra Large with Big John

By Mike Redmond

Published May 30, 2007

I'm a fairly big guy - a shade over six feet tall and two-hundred-and-mumble pounds - and occasionally, I buy clothes at one of those Fashion Stores For Big And Beastly Men.

I do this for several reasons.

I like my casual shirts on the generous side - "generous" in this case meaning "able to serve as apparel for me, or temporary shelter for a family of four."

I like having a choice of colors. In some stores, if they even HAVE Big Guy sizes, you have to choose between black and black.

And it's nice to shop in a place where the sizes go up to XXXXXXXXL (pronounced WOW, HE'S BIG). Next to guys that size pawing through the racks, I become one of the skinny fellows. You have no idea how good that feels to someone who spent much of his childhood being called "Lard Butt." By his mother.

Anyway, I figure these occasional forays into the world of Men's Fashions By Omar The Tentmaker, and the subsequent mailing lists I have joined, must be the reason for the astonishing catalog that landed in my mailbox today.

It's "Living XL," subtitled "Unique and Innovative Products For Tall and Plus Sized Men and Women." And when they say Plus, they mean PLUS. Which is another way to say XXXXXXXXL.

I'm especially intrigued by the products for the Plus Sized Bathroom. We're talking scales that measure up to 1000 pounds and bath towels that measure - are you ready? - 80 inches by 40 inches.

Actually, I'd like to have a few of those 80-by-40 towels. I've always wanted to be able to wrap a towel around my waist like they do in the movies. With standard-issue towels I have more waist than terrycloth, which means I'm going to catch a breeze somewhere down there. With a towel that measures 80-by-40, however, I could wrap myself up and have material left over to make a matching jacket. The problem is, these towels weigh three pounds each - dry. Let's fast forward to laundry day, shall we? Wet, those things are going to weigh half a ton (which you could verify on the bathroom scales.) It would take two people and an overhead winch just to move them from the washer to the dryer.

This brings us to the product that really sets this catalog apart: A heavy-duty (so to speak) toilet seat with a capacity of 1,200 pounds. Yes. Twelve hundred pounds. Good grief, my grandparents' outhouse was a three-holer and I doubt it was rated to hold 1,200 pounds (although in a family of Big Eaters like ours, that probably would have been a good idea).

Now, I don't want you thinking that I am picking on big people. Heaven forbid. As I said, I hold some Big Person credentials of my own. No, what got me was the name of the toilet seat - a name so obvious and perfect, and yet so silly, that it made me laugh until I almost fell off my chair:

"Big John."

Of course.

As I said, obvious, perfect and silly. It's big and it goes on the … well, in our family we called it the Clyde, out of respect to Uncle John, but Big Clyde doesn't work. What could you call this seat EXCEPT "Big John"?

Be quiet, Mom.

Info Super Highway: No Gas Needed!

By Mike Redmond

Published June 6, 2007

I just filled the tank of my motorcycle, for about what I used to pay to fill up my truck. If gas prices go any higher, we'll soon be paying for gasoline what we pay for bottled water.

Anyway, these gas prices are putting a crimp in my summer travel plans. I was thinking of taking a cross-country trip this year. Now I'm thinking I might be able to ride my bike up to Mom's house if I don't waste money on food.

This is what we relics of the 20th Century call a "bummer." I had been hoping to visit some of those wacky museums you see advertised on the side of the road - "World's Largest Collection of Cypress Knees," "International Hairbrush Hall of Fame," "Uncle Louie's Pancake Land And Alligator Farm." You know, all the places I begged my parents to stop when we went on our infrequent vacations, and all the places my father zoomed right past, ignoring my argument that we would benefit from the educational aspect of seeing guys wrestling alligators. After which we could all get some pancakes.

Well, anyway, I was feeling kind of "bummed" when I remembered that you don't have to burn gasoline to visit museums anymore. You can do it online. And while you may not get alligator wrestling and pancakes out of the deal, it can still be entertaining.

I give you:

The Original Condiment Package Museum.

Just type www.clearfour.com/condiment/ into your browser and you'll be whisked away (sort of) to a magical land of ketchup packages. Also mustard, relish, barbeque sauce, mayonnaise, hot sauce, salad dressing, seasoning, lemon juice, salt, pepper and coffee additive packages, not to mention two, count 'em, two pages of miscellaneous. I don't know about you, but to me a burger just isn't a burger unless you top it with a big dollop of miscellany.

You'll find everything here except sugar packets. That's another website.

You know, it's funny but I just spent a good 15 minutes at this site, which I guarantee you is about 14 minutes longer than I would have spent at the Hairbrush Hall of Fame. And while I kept telling myself it was ridiculous, I couldn't help becoming interested in the idea of having all these packages of the same stuff all of them pretty much alike, and yet all of them different. And it all just goes to show that … well, I'm not sure what it shows, other than proving I am very easily entertained.

Maybe it's just one of those things we can chalk up to the wonders of the internet. Someone out there is fascinated by condiment packages (the site seems to be anonymous) and shows us online. In a sense, it's no different from a guy displaying his collection of beer cans on the rec room wall. And then inviting the entire world to come and look at it.

The cyber world is full of stuff like this, collections of everything from cereal toys to lunchboxes to matchbooks, and I suppose you could make a big speech here about the human need to collect, catalog and display, as a way to bring perspective and context to our lives.

You could, but I wouldn't. For me, this stuff is just be fun.

I doubt I'd ever say that about cypress knees.

Fix the AC, or the Pants Come Off!

By Mike Redmond

Published June 13, 2007

As I write this, the temperature outside is headed toward 90 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a cloud of air-borne particulate matter looming on the horizon. We're not supposed to fill gas tanks, mow lawns, eat broccoli or do anything else that might add to the air pollution.

This is the day my air conditioner has chosen to die.

Well, not the air conditioner, per se. The blower in the furnace. It gave up the ghost, announcing its demise by grinding, groaning and filling the house with the unmistakable odor of Something Bad Happening, like the time Grandma dropped her teeth into the woodstove.

Actually, this is the second time in four years that my heating and cooling system has assassinated its blower. The first was a few winters ago. Back then the house felt like a deep freeze. Today it feels like a self-cleaning oven. Which raises the question:

Why don't furnaces and air conditioners go kablooey on days when it won't make you miserable?

I know what you're thinking. You are thinking that the heat has fried my circuits. "Redmond, you dolt," you are saying, "furnaces and air conditioners don't go out on nice days because you don't run them on nice days."

(Or something to that effect. I was just going by what I would say, minus a few colorful words here and there, the presence of which can be blamed on the fact that I'm starting to build up a pretty impressive case of heat rash, and it isn't even lunchtime.)

Well, I was thinking about those days when you can be comfortable with just a little blast of heat now and then, or a little shot of cool air once in a while … days when you could just put on a sweater or take off your pants and manage, until the furnace guy gets here, in which the pants go back on in a hurry.

But no. Furnaces and air conditioners only die when you need them.

So now I'm sitting here in my office, which is ideally positioned to catch both morning and afternoon sun, being cooled, sort of, by two fans with the throttles turned to Turbo. It sounds like I have a couple of Cessnas in here, getting ready for takeoff. And I'm sneezing because the fans are picking up every stray cat hair that the vacuum cleaner missed, and launching them straight for my nose. (Note to self: Write nasty letter to vacuum cleaner manufacturer. Also to cat, "Baldy.")

And I'm waiting for the furnace guy. This is the part that really makes me chafe. Well, actually, I'm chafing for more than one reason, but any-way. See, this is a company that just loves to act all warm and fuzzy and tell people that if they're not on time, you don't pay for the call. The thing is, they won't tell me what time they'll be here. All I know is that it will be "sometime today." With that kind of scheduling, they're never late. What a scam.

Oh well. No sense getting angry. On a day like this, with no air conditioning, I'm already hot under the collar, as well as about anyplace else you can imagine. And if this heat rash is any indication, some you can't. That's it. The pants are history. Until the furnace guy gets here, I mean.

A Sheer Sucker for a Seersucker

By Mike Redmond

Published June 20, 2007

Impulsive, devil-may-care guy that I am, I recently bought a seersucker suit.

I've always wanted one. My dad had one when I was a kid, and he looked pretty sharp in it - crisp and cool, with a touch of Southern elegance, which was weird, seeing as how we'd never lived south of Indianapolis.

I have a vivid memory of my father getting off an airplane at what was then Weir Cook Airport (now known as the Indianapolis International Home For Wayward Airplanes), wearing his seersucker suit. With his suit, his briefcase and his Ray-Ban shades, I thought he looked like a secret agent: Redmond. Pat Redmond.

I guess a seed was planted that day, one that lay dormant until a few weeks ago, when I saw such a suit, in my size, sold online by a retailer I like, during a rare occasion when I happened to have a little disposable income.

Did I say rare occasion? I meant dangerous. That's really the only word for a situation involving me, a computer with a fast Internet connection, spare cash, and something I perceive to be a bargain.

To make matters worse, the price of the suit was marked down from Sorta Expensive to Almost Exactly What I Had To Spend. In other words, it was low. How low? Ridiculously low. Unbelievably low. This-must-be-misprint low. I-better-grab-this-before-they-correct-it low. Maybe-I-should-get-two low. There-has-to-be-a-catch low.

All right, so the suit came. I had it altered and, I must admit, thought I looked pretty dandy as I admired myself in the three-way mirror.

But of course, I saw flaws. And no, I am not talking about my big behind. The tailor actually did a pretty good job camouflaging that, actually.

I meant my shirt. Here I had this beautiful new suit but underneath it I was wearing a black T-shirt. That would never do. A suit like this deserved a snow-white shirt. Which I didn't have, seeing as how I quit wearing those about five years ago, when I left my day job and gave my "office" clothes to the Salvation Army. So I had to get a shirt. Well, a couple, actually. OK, four. One button down, one spread with barrel cuffs, one point with French cuffs and one spread with French cuffs. They were on sale.

And then I remembered I gave away a bunch of ties, too, and of those that remained, I really didn't have anything to go with this suit. I got four. They were on sale, too.

And then I also remembered that it is absolutely essential to wear bucks (white or dusty) with a seersucker suit. Well, the shoe guy said they didn't sell many white bucks anymore, but just my luck they had them in my size. And they were on sale.

And then I decided I needed a summer hat to top it off … a nice Panama, in a snap-brim style. Something cool and breezy. Oh, and some new socks and handkerchiefs, too. They weren't on sale, but what the heck.

When it was all over, I had spent on alterations and accessories about two and a half times what I paid for my suit. So much for my bargain.

It's a good-looking suit, though. I like wearing it. Even though I feel kind of like … do I have to say it? A sheer sucker in seersucker.

Duck Pin Bowling Keeps Inflated Egos in Check

By Mike Redmond

Published June 27, 2007

The next time your self-important Self needs to be taken down a notch or two - assuming, of course, that your Self isn't so self-important as to have lost all sense of self-awareness - I have a recommendation:

Go duckpin bowling.

No, I am not kidding.

Get yourself to the Fountain Square Theater Building in Indianapolis (also known as the Far Western Outpost of Duckpin Bowling).Head for either the 1950s-style Atomic Bowl lanes in the basement or the 1930s-style Action Bowl lanes on the top floor. Rent a pair of those snazzy red-and-blue shoes with the numbers on the back. Find your lane. Pick up the dinky 3-pound duckpin bowling ball. Peer down the lane at the squat little pins. Laugh to yourself about how easy this is going to be, rolling this little ball down there to knock down all those fat pins. Roll the ball. Watch as it heads down the lane and …

Be humiliated.

Based on my personal, up-close observation of newbie duckpin bowlers, the chances of someone rolling a duckpin ball for the very first time and achieving anything resembling success are … oh, nil.

Likely as not, the ball will end up in the gutter. Wait. That's not entirely accurate. I meant to say, "Likely as not, the ball will end up in the gutter after bouncing down the lane, with a series of embarrassing thumps that will cause every head to turn your direction, just in time to see the ball go wobbling out of sight without touching a single pin."

Or you might knock down one or two, but that will be about it. For the day, I mean.

It's a deceptively tough game, in other words.

Duckpins originated in Baltimore around the turn of the last century when a couple of guys got together at a bowling alley with some cut-down bowling pins and said, "Hey, let's invent a deceptively tough game." They called it duckpins, supposedly after the way the pins flew when struck. Or maybe it was the pin-setters, all young boys, flying out of the way when the balls came lobbing in toward their foreheads: "Duck! Pins!"

Marylanders took to the game like … well, like ducks to water. Before long the game had spread along the Eastern Seaboard. Then it came to Indianapolis and began leveling the karma of Hoosiers who thought their hot-stuff tenpins averages would be of some use in a duckpin game, to which seasoned duckpin bowlers say, and I quote, "Ha." If you can break 100 in duckpins, you're doing great. And forget about bowling 300. It's never been done in an officially sanctioned game.

In duckpins, you get three balls to a frame. At first, this seems like an advantage. Three balls? Woo hoo. More chances to score. Right. You go ahead and think that, right up to the moment you roll your third straight gutter ball.

But keep trying. Eventually, you'll find a groove and you may post a score as high as 26. At which time you will have learned to take pleasure in small achievements. And maybe you will have gotten over yourself a little in the bargain.

So there you have it - my take on the psychological importance of duckpin bowling. And since I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself for writing it, I suppose I had better get down to the lanes and gutterball myself a little humility.

The Banner, PO Box 116, Knightstown, IN 46148 (765) 345-2292