How I Met Bob and Joe and Lived to Tell About it

In a recent blog, I promised to tell about the Navajos that I worked with on the farm the summer I was 16. To recap, my Mother had banished me 500 miles away from home to Idaho for the summer, ostensibly so I could get a job, earn some money, learn to become more self-sufficient, and all that. The reality was that she was deathly afraid I was going to get my girl friend pregnant, or worse, marry her. Which I might very well have done if my girl friend hadn’t broken up with me the week before Mom decided to get me the hell out of Dodge, though Mom didn’t know it. All my friends were going to be gone for the summer, so I went without a fuss.

The farm was some 10-15 miles south of Nampa as the crow flies, maybe 25 miles by car, and in the middle of nowhere. I lived on the farm itself in the labor camp. The labor camp was a cinder block building made up of 6 apartments, as I remember, though it could have been 8; I’m a little fuzzy on some details. It was clean, and just like a regular apartment, and included a provisioned kitchen with appliances and all the dishes, pots and pans that we needed. My college kid would kill for something as nice. The best part was it was free.

I should mention that this particular location had 5000 acres under cultivation. I believe I heard that there was another 5000 at another location, but we never went to that farm or met anyone who worked there. Where I worked was its own mini-community, with entire families living in the labor camp and something going on all the time. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Work primarily consisted of irrigating very large fields with 40 foot long, 4-inch diameter aluminum pipe with a 3 to 4 foot riser and Rainbird type sprinkler head on top. This was in a time before motorized self-propelling irrigation lines. We moved the pipe by hand, one length at a time. Typically, one line was roughly 32 pipes, give or take a few according to the width of the field, and extended about ¼ miles in length. I had a wheat field that was mine and only mine to work. The field was about a mile long and a quarter mile wide. It usually had five lines set at any time. The lines were laid out about 1000 feet apart, and each morning I would move each one from east to west about 120 feet and then do it again in the evening. In this way, I watered every part of the field about once a week or maybe a little more often. When a line came to the west end of the field, my crew boss and I would take a tractor and pipe trailer out, put all the pipe on the trailer and take them back to the east side to start over.

I could move a line in about 30 minutes. I won’t go into all the gory details of moving and setting lines. My typical morning started at 6 am and I moved all my lines in about 3 hours. In the evening, I moved all the lines again, starting at 5 pm. We worked 6 days a week and had Sunday off. I got paid $1.50 per line, which was great money, working out to about $3 an hour. Minimum wage was $1.25, which is what they paid me to do other non-irrigating work during the day. I usually picked up two or three hours of in between work on weekdays. This extra work most often involved moving lines that had hit the end of their field to the other side to restart, but also included hauling in baled hay, maintenance on irrigation ditches, and other odd jobs. Not many of the other boys volunteered to do this extra work but I always did. There was not enough extra work for all of us and my boss preferred me to most everyone else, so it worked out well.

Just to put it in perspective, I made a little less than $20 a day most days. This was 1971 when gas was $0.32 a gallon, smokes were $0.30 a pack, and I could take a girl on date, feed us both a burger, fries and a shake, see a double feature drive in movie with popcorn and a coke, and the gas to go to and from and still spend $5 or less.

Now to the Navajos. These two men, probably in their mid 30s, were from deep in the Navajo Nation. Really deep, at least that was my impression. I have never been to Navajo country, so I’m only going on my impressions and some things I’ve heard here and there. I could be all wet about what I think. I know they did not speak English very well, though we did work it so we could communicate adequately. I tried to learn their names, but I couldn’t pronounce them, couldn’t even begin to think how to spell them, and so could not remember them to save my life. My crew boss had given up years before and simply called them Bob and Joe. That’s what everybody called them. They were perfectly fine with this and answered to those names as if they were their true names. They could almost have been twins, though they were not, and I kept confusing Bob with Joe and vice versa until I didn't know which was which. Worse, they each readily answered to either name and never seemed to take the slightest offense. They smiled a lot and had perfectly straight and gleaming white teeth.

They had been coming to work on this farm for years, according to my crew boss. They would show up each spring about when the irrigating was to begin, and leave to go back to the reservation when it ended in late summer. They had wives, children, in-laws, parents, cousins and others that they supported on the reservation. They made enough money in the summer moving irrigation pipe to support their families for a year. The farmer loved those two guys. They were his best workers. My crew boss said the farmer fretted about whether they would show each year. There was never any communication from them whether they were coming or not. That would have required using a telephone or writing a letter, neither of which were up there on Bob and Joe’s list of things to do, if they could do them. Each year when they showed up the farmer reportedly danced a jig when he saw them, which often as not was the sight of them hiking down the long gravel road to the farm.

How good were they? I moved five lines a day, which wasn’t bad; most of the other boys were moving three or four. The Mexicans were better than I, each moving 8 to 10 lines. They stayed out longer in the morning and evening to do it though. But, even their efforts were puny compared to Bob and Joe. Bob and Joe moved 20 lines each! In other words, where I was responsible for one wheat field one mile long and a quarter mile wide, they were each responsible for four such fields. They would go to their fields at 6 am just like me and come back around 8 pm, just like me. The difference was I would come back for breakfast around 9am and would head back to my field at 5pm. They didn’t come back at all. In fact, they did not stop moving pipe all day, except for lunch and a couple of breaks in the morning and afternoon for a drink of water and some shade. The farmer made sure that someone took them lunch and water every day. (He did not provide me lunch)

Consider that if they worked at my pace it would take them 10 hours to move their morning set and 10 hours to move their afternoon set. Yet, they were moving their lines in about 10 and half-hours all told, not 20. How could they do this? The answer is they ran everywhere. When they picked up a pipe, they did a fast walk with it to the next set. You can’t imagine how incredibly hard and tough that is. That 40 foot aluminum pipe is heavy and awkward to hold, and the ends bounce up and down in time with each step. The faster you go, and they went as fast as anyone could, the bigger the bounce and the more brutal the harmonics. Once they attached the pipe to the next in line, they ran back to get the next one, not jogged, ran.

I mentioned that one of the in between jobs I did with my crew boss was to move lines that had reached the end of the field back to the other side to start over. We did this for Bob and Joe's fields, too. When we were at their fields, I would get to watch them working and it always left me speechless. The only time they stopped running was to turn on the water and watch a few minutes to see if they had a blow out. Then they would take off again. Just consider that once they had laid the last pipe in a line, they ran the ¼ mile from the end of the line to the valve. They were doing a 400 meter run 40 times a day! It is not an exaggeration to say that every day they ran a marathon.

The Energizer Bunny had nothing on these guys.

They had a weakness. They liked beer. Like most Native Americans, they could not tolerate alcohol well. It only took two or three beers to get them drunk as skunks. Usually on Saturday night but sometimes on Sunday morning they would come around knocking to see if someone going into town would give them a ride. In town, you see, there were bars and taverns, and for about 2 bucks each Bob and Joe could get loop-de-looped. If they couldn’t get a ride, they just set off walking and hitchhiked as they went. In those days hitchhiking was a respectable form of transportation. My friends and I got to all sorts of places that way.

I made good friends with Manuel, a Chicano whose family lived locally. He was the other boy that the crew boss could count on to help during midday odd jobs and was a good worker. He had two older brothers who had a house in Nampa. We were welcome to come over and join the party whenever we were in town, but, of course, we were more welcome if we brought along some beer. I am a bit embarrassed to say it, but Manuel and I quickly figured out that we had a ready source of beer right next door. Manuel had an old Chevy pickup that ran about half the time. It took two quarts of oil to get to Nampa and two quarts to get back, and Manuel could have hired on as a navy smoke screen if the truck could float. We soon struck a deal with Bob and Joe. We would take them to town, and we would even bring them back if they were ready to go when we were, and they agreed to buy us beer, with our money, of course. They were very happy with the deal. It simplified their weekend beer drinking considerably.

On at least two occasions we left them at the tavern and then later had to go into the tavern and physically half carry them out to the truck. Nobody in the tavern minded; Bob and Joe paid good money, kept quiet, never caused any trouble and didn’t puke on the floor. They just went incoherent after the third beer or so.

I can remember that after one of those tavern incidents we went to the store for them to buy our beer, but Bob and Joe were so bombed they barely understood what was going on. Finally, in frustration, I led Bob, or Joe, to the beer cooler, grabbed a case, and carried it to the cashier, while helping guide him along. The cashier was a girl not much older than I was. I put the beer on the counter. I took the money out of my pocket and gave it to Bob, or Joe, and then helped him hand it to her. She gave me a “you’ve got to be kidding look” and I just looked at her all dumb and stupid. She shook her head, but rang up the beer, made change and gave it to Bob. I picked up the case and helped him out the door. I let him keep the change. After that, we insisted that Bob and Joe buy the beer first before we took them to the tavern.

I sometimes think I should feel guilty or bad about “taking advantage” of my Native American friends. But, I don’t.

Remember, these guys spent 6 days a week running non-stop 10 to 11 hours a day. It was hot, heavy, tiring work and they did it hour after hour, day after day, so they could make enough money to support themselves and their loved ones during the other 7 or 8 months of the year. So what if they got drunk one day a week? As far as I was concerned they earned every drink. So what if I helped them do it? So what if the arrangement was for them to provide me, a minor, with illegal beer that might get them thrown in jail? Okay, maybe this last question is sort of a big deal. I still don’t feel bad about it, though.

I suppose if I were a liberal pansy ass I would be sitting around now thinking about all the things that could have gone wrong and fretting about the might haves and what ifs. Like how I might have facilitated their alcoholism. I might have helped keep them repressed and stuck on the reservation by taking advantage of their naive innocence. What if they had been thrown in jail for buying me beer? Blah, blah, blah. The fact is, the only thing I facilitated was what they were already doing and were going to do any way, and they did not go to jail for buying me beer. Besides, I really liked those guys and they liked me, so shove it if you don’t like it.

However, there was one time when it did all go wrong and they did go to jail. In this particular case, Manuel and I had nothing to do with it. We were completely innocent, mostly.

In a rare occurrence, the farmer decided that Bob and Joe’s fields needed to take a day off from irrigation. I don’t remember why, but I think he wanted to do some maintenance on the main pump that serviced their section (they were on a different pumping system than me) He gave them Saturday off as well as Sunday.

I had to work on Saturday as usual, as did Manuel. There was this girl at the Dairy Queen in town that I wanted to get to know better, and Manuel had something he wanted to do in town as well. Once we moved our morning line, we hit the showers and then caught a ride to town with one of the farm mechanics. The farm had two mechanics employed full time with their own triple bay shop and a complete inventory of spare parts for everything from the pickups to the combines—like I said, a big farm. We had to be back by 5 pm to move our evening sets, but we figured we could get a ride somehow. Manuel’s truck was busted at this point and non-functioning.

One thing led to another, and before we knew it, we had no ride and an hour and half to go 20 miles or so to get back to the farm. We panicked and started hoofing it down the road, throwing our thumbs out at every car that came along. No luck. We started to despair we weren’t going to make it and wondered aloud if we would be fired or something else even more terrible.

Just about when we had given up all hope, here came a metal flake purple 68 Chevelle SS, with big slicks on the back and loud pipes, weaving down the highway at high speed. It blew past us, and then locked up the brakes and went into a skid. Oh boy! We had a ride! We sprinted up to the passenger side and the door opened up to let us in. Who should we see in the front seats grinning at us from ear to ear? You guessed it, Bob and Joe. They were drunk as skunks and supremely happy with themselves.

Now I have to tell you, as I mentioned in the previous blog, that I really did spend two hours one Sunday trying to teach them both how to drive a tractor. It was both funny and sad. When I would holler that they had to “Steer, for Chrissakes!” as they were going off the track, they would usually panic and turn the wheel in the wrong direction. Let’s not even talk about brakes. They simply could not grasp the concepts of driving. The whole idea of turning the steering wheel to make the tractor go left or right simply seemed to be beyond them. It’s as if they forgot they had to be actively engaged in steering.

I don’t know that forgot is the right word. I think it more likely that they had absolutely no contact with vehicles for most of their lives, and only encountered them later as adults when they left the reservation to work on the farm. They never really internalized that vehicles were machines and not living entities. I’m not sure they even understood the concept of machines. Probably intellectually they did understand about vehicles and machines, but I think their worldview, their whole take on reality, never quite caught hold of the idea. In that worldview, vehicles should know how to do the turning for themselves, just like cows or birds do.

Now, here were Manuel and I staring into the interior of a certifiable muscle car that could go well over 100 mph, operated by two guys who couldn’t figure out how to steer or stop a tractor going 3 miles an hour. Were we seriously contemplating getting into that car? It seemed we either got in and probably went to our doom, or passed and were fired.

We got in. God Help Us!

It was the scariest ride of my life. Period. Manuel and I in the back seat were like so much laundry tossed around in the dryer as the car swerved from lane to lane down the highway. Bob, or Joe, I don’t which was driving, only knew that if you pushed on the right pedal you went forward and if you pushed on the one next to it you stopped. Bob, or Joe, had no concept that it was possible to go forward at a constant speed. It was either full speed ahead or “all stop, full reverse thrusters!” Then there was the problem of steering. Bob, or Joe, knew that the idea was to go in the direction that the yellow stripey lines pointed, but he wasn’t at all aware that if he got going in the right direction, he only had to make very minute turns on the wheel to go in a straight line. Rather, he apparently had figured out that moving the wheel left and right steered the car, so that is what he did, he actively steered the whole time by moving the wheel right and left that resulted in continuous sharp zigs and zags. Imagine a 3 year old behind the wheel and you get the idea.

Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, the car had an automatic transmission. I say fortunately because we did not have the added distraction of clutching and shifting to add to the opportunity for disaster. I say unfortunately because it is likely they could not have driven the car at all if it was a manual transmission and, thus, Manuel and I would not be about to die a horrible, fiery, bodies smeared all over the highway death.

It may have been the longest 20 minutes of my life, mostly because I was trying to imprint each second on my brain, knowing it was my last.

Suddenly Bob, or Joe, slammed on the brakes and the car was skidding sideways to a stop in a huge cloud of dust. I looked out and as the dust cleared saw we were home, the farm, the labor camp, salvation. Against all the odds, we made it and still lived.

Bob, or Joe, opened the passenger door and got out so we could push the seat forward and get out of the car. My legs were shaking, and Manuel, normally a brown sort of fellow, was as white as a sheet. Bob, or Joe, was all smiles and seemed as happy as I had ever seen him. So did the driver, Joe, or Bob. I can remember standing beside the car and suddenly realizing that Bob and Joe were grateful to Manuel and me. Giving us a ride had made them very happy, I guess because they thought they were repaying us in some way for all the transporting to town and back we did for them.

Bob, or Joe, pounded me on the back while smiling hugely with his brilliant white teeth that made the sun look pale. He was clearly nearly overjoyed. I tell you, I really liked those guys.

Then he jumped back in the car and slammed the door. Bob, or Joe, hit the gas and sprayed gravel all over us as they fishtailed down the road, disappearing in a cloud of dust. Hi-Ho Silver, away!

I came back from my field on Monday morning after moving my lines and found the farmer waiting for me. Had I seen Bob and Joe he asked? He had a worried expression on his face.

Oh, oh, I thought. I told him I had seen them on Saturday afternoon.

Really, he asked with interest, where?

Well, here and sort of in town, I replied. He didn’t say anything and just stared at me. Now that I am an old fart and have a teenage son of my own, I realize how it was he knew there was more to the story. His look got to me. I broke down and explained the circumstances.

“Where they hell did they get a car?” he demanded, then apparently realizing that I wouldn’t know had another thought. “Oh, crap! We’re they drunk?”

I could only nod.

The farmer didn’t say another word. He just spun on his heel and the last I saw him he was high stepping double time for the main house.

On Tuesday, there was no word of Bob and Joe.

On Wednesday, still no word.

On Thursday about 3pm the farmer’s big Chrysler pulled up in front of the labor camp. The two back doors opened and out stepped Bob and Joe on either side. They looked worse for wear, with cuts and bruises all over their faces, heads and arms, and Bob, or Joe, had a heavy limp. They both shot me an impish grin, but went straight to their apartment and didn’t come out for the rest of the day.

As it turns out, once the farmer talked to me, he realized what must have happened. While drunk in town somebody offered them the opportunity to buy the Chevelle. It being pretty purple, with dice hanging from the rear view mirror and dingle balls all across the visor, and as soused as they were, how could they refuse? The farmer knew too well they could not drive. He started calling every hospital, sheriff, and city and small town police department he could think of. It took him two days, but he found them in jail in Vale, Oregon, about 75 miles away.

In Vale, their luck ran out. Bob, or Joe, ran the car straight into a big oak tree, totaling it. Frankly, I am surprised they got so far before crashing. The Vale police arrested Bob, or Joe, for drunken driving and probably a host of other charges. The other one, Joe, or Bob, they also arrested, probably for public drunkenness or aiding and abetting, or something like that. That was in truth probably a kindness by the police since he clearly had nowhere to go, no money (they both having spent most of it on the car and beer) and was unable to communicate to the police who they might call to come get him.

The farmer drove to Vale first thing on Thursday morning. He had already arranged to see the DA with whom he was able to make a quick deal. The farmer would tow the car away and take care of it, pay for damages to the fence and tree, and promised that Bob and Joe would never show up in Vale again, driving or otherwise. There was a quick impromptu hearing with the local judge with some fines involved that the farmer also paid. The police release Bob and Joe to his custody, and he brought them home.

Apparently, Bob and Joe also had to promise the farmer that they would not go to town anymore or drink. For the rest of the time I was there, they did not. Manuel and I lost our source of easy beer, which probably wasn’t a bad thing considering. The truth was we only used them to buy us beer 3 or 4 times the whole summer. It's not like we got to town every weekend, and even when we did we usually did not have beer. We never had it on the farm, ever.

The episode with the Chevelle happened in early August. Three weeks later, I left to go back home. My senior year in high school started a week after that.

The day I left, a Sunday, Bob and Joe made a point to come around to shake my hand, give me a big hug, and flash their brilliant smiles at me. I never saw them again. I really liked those guys.

Once in a Blue Moon.

I sent some of my corresponders an email on this, but thought I would share it here for any who didn't get the email.

Tonight, on Nov. 21, a Blue Moon will occur. Most of you will dispute that, thinking that a Blue Moon is one in which a full moon occurs for the second time within a calendar month and tonight's will be the only full moon of November. You would, in fact, be incorrect. Not wrong that there is only one full moon in November, that is true. You would be wrong because that is not the true test of what a Blue Moon is.

To understand why tonight's moon is a Blue Moon we have to step back in time a bit. In most years there are 12 full moons a year, and 3 for each season. Way back when, Monks and the Catholic church often kept tract of their important dates by the cycle of the moon. Each season had a name for its 3 full moons, such as the early summer moon, the midsummer moon and the late summer moon, and keeping track of these three moons was important for keeping track of other stuff. Occasionally, however, a season had a fourth moon and the old guys who kept the reckoning would be thrown off track. They didn't want to call the third moon the late season moon, since there was still one moon to go which really would be late in the season, so they called the third one a Blue Moon; the second moon remained the midseason moon and the fourth moon became the late season moon. Tonight's full moon is followed by one on, coincidentally, Dec.21, so it is the third of four moons in the fall season. It is, therefore, a Blue Moon.

But wait, some you who are paying attention to the calendar will say. December 21 is the first day of winter, so its full moon is not the last moon of fall, but the first moon of winter. Again, so saying you would be incorrect. Technically, winter starts with the winter solstice, not at 12:01 a.m. of the day of the solstice. The winter solstice occurs this year at 6:38 p.m. EST on December 21. However, the moon turns full at 3:13 a.m. EST, more than 15 hours before the solstice. Indeed, the moon will rise and set before the solstice occurs and thus appears entirely during the last hours of the fall season.

Can I Get an Aye, Men?

In my youth when I was sixteen, in less than a year apart in two different occurrences, I ran into two prominent politicians, one of them literally. One was a recent Senator and the other a sitting Senator at that time. Their reaction and behavior to me made a big impression. Let me tell you about them.

During my junior year in high school in the fall of 1970, my friend Phil was attending some sort of wrestling clinic or conference or something at a neighboring high school on a Saturday morning. The truth is I don’t remember what he was doing there. What I do remember is that my other friend Mike and I were supposed to meet him there at a certain time and the three of us were going to do something. Again, I don’t remember what “something” was, but it’s a good bet it involved girls in some way, most things did then.

Mike had an old green Chevy that we called the Green Bomb. It was anything but “the bomb” but might have turned into a bomb. Still it got us around. We pulled into the parking lot and waited for Phil to come out. There seemed to be a lot of cars there for a Saturday. We waited, and then waited some more, and no Phil. Finally, we decided that I would go in to see if I could find him.

I hopped out of the car and jogged up to a side door, pulled it open and dashed through the doorway just in time to run squarely into Wayne Morse, recently and now ex-senior Senator for the Great State of Oregon, who was coming the other way. I knocked him right down onto his keester, pin stripe suit and all. He was 70 years old at the time. He was not a big man, quite a bit shorter than I am, but he was spry and energetic. He popped right back to his feet, ran a hand through his disheveled hair, straightened his jacket and tie, and shot me a huge smile.

“That was a pretty good hit you put me on me there, son.” He reached out his hand, grabbed mine and shook it. “I’m Wayne Morse, and I’m glad to meet you."

I mumbled something about being sorry and I didn't see him and....

"No, no," he said, patting me on the forearm. "No damage done. You got me fair and square. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m late for my next meeting. You take care.”

He was out the door and hurrying down the sidewalk just like that. No drama, no “do you know who I am”, no cursing, no fanfare, and, I noticed, no aides and swarming sycophants. He was just a nice man in a hurry to get to a meeting, but taking a moment to greet a teenager in a warm way even if the kid had just used him for a tackling dummy.

I remember being greatly impressed with that. Senator Morse lost his Senate re-election bid in 1968. Looking back, when I had my run in with him it must have been just days or weeks before the 1970 election and he apparently was at the school doing some campaigning. I remember I felt badly that he lost that one, too.

My other encounter with a Senator was in the following summer. I was working for the summer on a large farm in western Idaho, my Mother having banished me there 500 miles from home because she was afraid I was getting too serious with a girl from another town. I certainly would have gotten into some sort of trouble with the girl if she hadn‘t broken up with me the week before my Mother banished me, though my Mother didn’t know that. That was why I didn’t protest when Mom told me that I was going to stay with my Grandmother in Idaho and get a summer job. Two days after that, my Dad dropped me off at the bus station, and 15 hours later, I got off the bus in Caldwell, Idaho where my Uncle and Grandmother were waiting for me.

I went to work for the summer on a large farm outside Nampa. They had a “labor camp” on the farm, which was really a cinder block building made up of six apartments. They were clean and had all the conveniences. The workers lived in the apartments free. I lived in the end apartment with my crew boss, and I was lucky enough to have my own room. Next to us was an apartment with bunk beds and five or six boys near my age lived there.

I remember two or three families of Mexicans lived in the apartments as well. They were almost certainly illegal immigrants, though nobody worried about that much back then. They were nice folks, and some of the kids could speak passable English.

At the end of the building lived two Indians. These guys were so deep from within the Navajo Reservation they didn’t speak English very well. They couldn’t drive, either. I spent two hours one Sunday trying to teach them to drive a tractor and it was simply useless. But, they could work. Those guys could really go. In my next blog, I will write about them and perhaps some other adventures from that summer.

That was in 1970, and the 4th of July fell on Saturday. Normally we worked six days a week with just Sunday off. However, on Thursday evening I remember the owner of the farm coming to our apartment to speak with the crew boss. Senator Frank Church had invited the farmer and his family to an Independence Day picnic at the Senator’s farm. The Senator asked the farmer to bring some of the “boys” along. The farmer told the crew boss to pick three or four of us and get us cleaned up to attend.

I should explain if you don’t remember that Senator Frank Church by 1970 was one of the most powerful men in Washington, in the country, in fact. He was a senior Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with service in other powerful committees. He played a key role in the Watergate hearings. Later in the 70s, he would be a leading critic of the FBI and CIA and the chief sponsor of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which still has far-reaching implications today.

Around noon on Saturday, three other boys and I loaded into one of the farm pickups and headed off. I was driving, the only one with a valid driver’s license. My crew boss could not attend because of a conflict with his family. I cannot now tell you where Church’s farm was, I simply followed some written directions. At one point one of the other boys asked me to pull over in a little town we were passing through. He and the others went into a store and came out with bottle rockets, firecrackers, and bottles of Coke. They proceeded to drink the Cokes, and then, as I drove, the three of them stood in the back of the pickup and fired bottle rockets from the empty Cokes, aiming them like guns at anything that caught their interest: dogs, cats, kids on bikes, other cars. I was especially frustrated that I had to drive and they were having all the fun.

Why and how we escaped being arrested is a mystery. However, we did eventually make it to the picnic. Our farmer sized us up, decided we looked presentable enough, and told us to go eat and stay out of trouble. I saw him head off to chat with Church, whom I recognized from TV news. Apparently, my farmer was a big contributor or supporter.

Of course, just how long a hormone charged 16 year-old boy is going to stay focused when surrounded by stuffy adults who wanted to talk about politics, business, and this year’s price of spuds is problematical. I had already scoped out the girls, to find most too young, or too old, or too unappealing; the parents of those with possibility carefully guarded their daughters. To their credit, those girls looked even more bored than I was.

Still, it was a situation just crying out for something terrible to happen, and I was just the person to make it so.

From somewhere my teenage brain conjured the brilliant idea to set off some fireworks. I have always been fascinated with blowing things up, a trait inherited from my father, so it’s not entirely my fault. In addition, I was still frustrated that my workmates had been able to have so much fun while I had to drive.

I found a pack of bottle rockets and an empty bottle in the truck. I went out into the cornfield, on the other side of a barn that hid me from the picnickers. At first, I aimed the rockets out over the corn. However, after the first four or five, the excitement wore off. Brilliant idea number two took hold. Next thing you know, I am arcing the rockets over the barn to go off directly above the picnic. This was much more exciting!

After I successfully launched a half dozen or so, I was hunching over the bottle, with a new rocket ready to go, adjusting my aim. At this point, I heard:

“I want you to stop doing that.”

I did one of those slow turns of the head, the kind where you just know you aren’t going to like what you are about to see. Standing over me was none other than Senator Frank—one of the most…oh my God…powerful men in America—Church.

Gulp.

He gave me a patient smile. “Son, you’re frightening the ladies. If you could point those things that way,” and he waved vaguely out to the cornfield, “I would be obliged.”

“Uh, sure thing, sir.”

“That’s just great,” he said. “Thanks for coming to our picnic.”

He smiled a big smile at me again, and then walked away back to his guests.

Today I am frankly a political conservative who has little use for liberal and progressive philosophy or Democrats in general. As I researched while putting together this blog, it occurred to me that I have a hard time agreeing with either Morse or Church. I don’t care for their politics, positions, or what they stood for. They were both liberals and Democrats, and, in many ways, I think they are partly responsible for the mess that liberals have gotten us into now.

Yet, both men were kind and patient with a snot nosed kid when they didn’t have to be. Both treated me with warmth, respect, and I think honest sincerity. Back then, I didn’t know about their politics and didn’t care. All I knew was that they made a huge impression on me, all positive, and I hope I may have learned some their lessons.

I like to think both Senators Morse and Church would be appalled if they could see how many of our politicians and our society are conducting themselves today. I mean those on both sides, Democrat and Republican. We demonize the fellow on the other side and allow that he has no redeemable qualities or worth whatsoever. There is a complete lack of grace, congeniality, tolerance and respect today, qualities that I am convinced that both Church and Morse had. I would like to think the way they dealt with me was emblematic of how they dealt with everyone. I wonder how much better off we all would be if we all were to imitate that.

At least, that’s how I prefer to remember my two Senators. It may be completely delusional, of course, but it’s worth wishing for, right?

Me and Maggie McGee

In my high school sophomore year, I took a typing class. My typing teacher was an elderly woman named Maggie McGee. She had been teaching in that same small school in Riddle Oregon for about a hundred years, so it seemed. Which was impossible, because she was only in her 60’s at that time. She was a big boned battle-ax of a woman, not fat, but solid and tall, and prone to wearing a hair net and big-heeled and big-toed black shoes that clomped as she walked.

We were all afraid of her. She was a stern taskmaster and put up with no silliness, idleness, tardiness, student conversations unless it was with her, gum chewing, other bad behavior or disrespect. We believed if we displeased her too greatly she was capable and willing to gut us with her large needle pointed scissors that seemed always near to her hand.

In those days, we had no computers or keyboards, and just four electric typewriters in the classroom. The other 20 or so were the manual type. For my younger readers let me describe how a manual typewriter worked. You had to load paper into the carriage by aligning it behind the paten, a rolling pin like cylinder, and then turn the paten so as to pinch the paper in the carriage and roll it up to be behind an ink laden ribbon. You typed a letter by depressing the key sharply enough to cause the arm with the letter engraved on it to swing up to strike the ink ribbon and transfer ink to the paper in the shape of the engraved letter. Making a successful keystroke required that the key be depressed at least an inch and a half. With each keystroke the carriage would shift one letter’s width to the left while at the same time the ribbon would unwind the same distance on one side of the roll and wind that same amount on its other roll. As the carriage reached the right margin, which you set manually with a locking slider on the carriage, it would cause a striker to hit a little bell. Hearing the bell was your cue to reach up with your left hand to pull the return lever to the right, thus sliding the carriage back to the right, also causing the paten to turn one line width and advance the paper by that much. It was possible to type past the margin setting, so the idea was to set it wide enough that you could type a few more characters after hearing the bell ding if you were not at a good place to break the word with a hyphen. Typing in those days was physical effort and you had to get your hands and fingers in shape to do very much of it. Believe it or not, some of my fellow students, boy and girls, could type 100 words or more in a minute on these old manual machines.

Here’s a bit of trivia. Did you know the most common keyboard we use today is called the QWERTY keyboard? It gets its name from the fact that QWERTY are the first six left most letters on the upper letters row of the keyboard. You probably also have wondered why the keyboard uses its odd arrangement of letters; why not arrange them alphabetically? The answer is that the inventors of the keyboard, like the electric typewriter inventors before them, were simply copying the arrangement of letters of the old manual typewriter. All those who learned the touch-typing method, which is what I learned is Mrs. McGee’s class, spent untold hours practicing and developing muscle memories with the original typewriters’ letter arrangements. The electric typewriter vendors, and after them the keyboard makers, didn’t want to make buyers angry by making them learn a new key placement arrangement. You probably are now asking why there was such an odd arrangement to begin with. The answer is, in the original manual typewriters the keys were arranged briefly in an alphabetical order, but the typists got so fast that the keys would collide and bind up, sometimes rather spectacularly. The typewriter folks solved this problem by putting keys for letters that tend in many words to appear next to or near each other into positions that made it hard for the typist to press them at the same time. In other cases, they put them far enough away from each other to slow the typist down just enough to allow the keys to clear in their travel to the paper. Look at the position of the E and the D on a keyboard, for example. These two letters are often next to each other in words. In the touch typing method you use the same finger to type them, this insuring that they can’t collide at the ribbon.

Back to Maggie and football. They are related.

We were practicing for the last game of the year, in late October. The practice field was muddy, as it often is in Oregon in late fall. In those days, we wore one-inch spikes on our shoes to help grip the soft ground. I was on defense against our varsity offense. The coach called a stunt and I shot the gap into the backfield just as they handed off to the halfback. I messed up the tackle, however, and ended up on my back with my arms wrapped around his ankles. He pulled a foot loose and stepped back, with his cleats planting firmly into the helmet bars in front of my face. He pushed off, using my face as a starting block. The bars broke off and his cleats gained purchase and traction on my face.

As soon as he was gone, I rolled over and got to my hands and knees. I knew I was in trouble. I couldn’t see out of my left eye, and frankly the pain was severe. In my right eye I could see the blood as it ran off my nose onto the ground.

Lesson number one: if you are a coach, don’t do what one of our assistant coaches did on that day.

“I see we have our bloody nose for the day,” he announced, somewhat cheerfully.

I know he wasn’t happy that I was hurt, and, even though he didn’t know how badly hurt I was, he was just trying to make light of it in that manly sort of way that men affect.

He came up to me and squatted next to me. “Let me see,” he said. I turned my head to look at him.

“Oh my god,” he gagged, staggered off a dozen feet and vomited.

You can imagine how that filled me with confidence.

Yet, I was calm and not in shock. Which is weird, I know. One of the other assistant coaches gathered me up and took me to the locker room to arrange for medical treatment. On the way, I asked him if he would ask the team to move where they were practicing. As I explained, I had just read in my dad’s science magazine how they were now able to do eyeball replacements, and maybe they could find my left eyeball in the grass and the doctors could put it back in. He gave me a funny look, which I saw out of my right eye, but didn’t say anything.

Arranging for medical treatment consisted of him dumping me on a bench in the locker room and going to the school office to telephone my mom and dad to come get me and take me to the hospital.

As it happened, Maggie McGee was in the office when he came in. She asked him what he was doing there; didn’t he have practice? He told her that I was hurt and he needed to call my parents. She asked where I was, and he replied that I was in the boys’ locker room. Was anyone looking out for me, she inquired. Not at the moment, he responded.

The locker rooms were at the end of building next to the gym. You could get into them by entering doors from the rear parking lot or by going through the gym. I heard her shoes clomping through the gym the minute she entered it. I knew precisely who was coming. We all knew that sound. I heard the first door to the outer room open and more clomping. The inner door to the locker slammed open, and here was Maggie McGee clomping down the four steps in the locker room proper. Naked wrestlers, just off practice, scrambled for cover. A few lightweights dove into lockers, others made it to the two toilet stalls, and the rest slid into the showers. Maggie cared not at all.

She took one look at me, and walked over to the towel stack on the table next to the showers, grabbed two clean towels from it and walked right into the showers. Naked wrestlers cowered and tried to cover up. She simply walked up to the first shower that was running hot water and soaked one of the towels.

She came back to where I was sitting. There she firmly grabbed my jaw to make me hold still, and proceeded to wash the mud and blood from my face. Amazingly, she scrubbed aggressively at my left eye socket. It hurt like hell. I soon realized that the reason I could not see out of it was that the entire area was packed with mud. As soon as I realized my eyeball was still where it should be, I exclaimed in delight, “Hey, I can see!”

“Of course, you silly boy.” Maggie said. “Now hold still.”

Once she had me mostly cleaned up, and had fetched another couple of towels to hold to my still bleeding face, she announced I had to get out of the football gear and into my street clothes. Once we found my locker, she proceeded to help me remove my pads, and uniform, even kneeling down to untie my cleats and pull them off. I sat finally in nothing but my jock strap while she handed me my underwear and then discreetly turned back to my locker to get my other clothes while I slipped the jock off and the underwear on. Normally, I would rather have died than be in that position. Oddly, I didn’t care, and was so grateful for the help that I might as well have been 3 years old again and Maggie my mother.

She helped pull on the t-shirt over my head, get my feet into the legs of my jeans and knelt to help me put on my shoes, much as she had helped take off my cleats. After I was dressed, she led me out the back door to sit on the bench next to the parking lot and wait for my parents. She waited the whole time with me, not saying anything, but just sitting there next to me.

Next stop for me was the hospital, which was located 30 miles away. The doctor had always wanted to be a plastic surgeon, and he was good, so he took his time and made many small sutures to minimize the scars. One laceration ran from the inside corner of my left eye along the lower bone socket for almost two inches. That took about 20 stitches. Another laceration was in my left upper lip. It went clear through and into the gum of my teeth. That took about eight stitches on the outside, another four or five on the inside and another two in my gum. The third laceration was in my right upper lip, almost in my cheek. Again, it went completely though and into the gum. All told, I think it required another 14 or 15 stitches inside and out and in the gum. Two of my upper front teeth were bent back into my mouth. The next day I saw my dentist who pulled them back into position and we hoped like crazy they would heal into place. They did.

One little complication was very uncomfortable. Once I got home around 11 o’clock at night, I wanted nothing more than a shower. I still had dried mud and blood all over me. I could not breathe through my nose because there was so much stuff crammed up my nostrils. I took that shower, and in the course of it, blew my nose strongly. I immediately felt something wrong in my face. I jumped out of the shower and looked in the mirror. I watched my left cheek start to blow up like a balloon. I could feel the pressure that was causing it to inflate.

It turns out that the spike that had gouged down my left eye socket had actually pierced through the bone and cartilage of my nose. In effect it punched a hole into my sinus. The surgeon had missed it, and in sewing such tight and small sutures, had effectively sealed my skin like the seam on an inner tube. When I blew my nose, I created a huge amount of pressure in my sinuses, which reacted by pumping all the fluids in my sinuses out into the layers of my cheek.

I had so much pressure that the next day when we went back to the doctor, he was reluctant to put a needle into my check to drain the fluid for fear that it would explode like a balloon would if you poked it with a pin. You know, rip the cheek in several directions when the pressure released. The remedy was for me to sleep sitting up for almost a week and let the body reabsorb the fluid naturally.

Lesson number two: do not tell the patient that if he lays down the germ ridden snot in his cheek will rush to his brain and he will die a terrible agonizing death. Who could sleep in a chair thinking that once he was out he might lay down without knowing it?

The accident happened on a Thursday. I missed school on Friday. I went back on Monday. I looked like something out of a horror movie, all black sutures and bruises and swollen face. I was a gruesome sight. It looked impressive to me and the other guys, but I discovered that girls were no more disposed to me as a result. It didn’t help me out one little bit in that department if you know what I mean.

Mrs. McGee smiled at me once we were assembled in her class that first Monday. She said to me, “Michael, dear, if typing causes you pain or discomfort, just say so and you can be excused from the exercises, but do try to follow along with the lessons.”

“Yes, Mrs. McGee. I have noticed that even the smallest movements are quite painful.”

“Of course, dear,” she replied. “You just sit quietly and heal.”

I was golden!

How sweet was this deal? I noticed my classmates giving me dirty looks, albeit envious ones, as they typed N, V, P, Q over and over, then did speed exercises.

The other thing about Maggie McGee was she loved Don Ho and his only hit song: Tiny Bubbles. She had a portable record player in the classroom and would play the record over and over and over. It seemed the better her mood, the more she played the song.

Tiny bubbles in the wine
Make me feel happy
Make me feel fine

On Friday of the second week from my accident, Mrs. McGee asked me at the beginning of class how I was feeling. Having gotten my stitches out that week, the bruises being mostly gone and the swelling all but relieved, I realized my good run was probably over. I didn’t want to push it, so I gamely advised that I thought I was back to being able to type and resume my normal activities.

“That’s just wonderful, dear!” she exclaimed. “Because, you know you are two weeks behind, and need to catch up. So, starting next Monday, please present yourself in this classroom at 7 am and we will review and go through all the classes you have missed since your unfortunate accident.” She smiled at me like the Cheshire Cat and then went on with the lesson.

Every morning for the next two weeks, I sat at one of Maggie’s typewriters and did all the lessons I had missed. She was right there with me, smiling and encouraging and threatening to gut me with her scissors if I acted up.

Did I mention that I hate Don Ho?

Amazing But True

I was at a managers meeting last week and one asked me to tell him the Midget Story. He’s heard it a half dozen times, but for some reason it tickles him no end. That story led to another and another, and there might have been some drinking going on. But the drinking really had nothing to do with the stories, just my desire to tell them. That got me thinking that perhaps I should relate a few of them here.

All but one of the stories is a bit risqué, so you might want exit now if you don’t want to hear about parts of the anatomy and certain particulars related to sex and stuff like that.

To set the stage let me first clarify that I have worked in the personal lines insurance industry for 29 years, 20 years of which have been in the claims side of the business. In claims, you are dealing with people who have had accidents and misfortune, and, inevitably, some of those misfortunes arise from their own peculiar behavior. While their injuries and damages are not funny, especially not to them, how they came to have them can be. On the other hand, their behavior after making the claim can be hilarious and just bizarre.

I shall save the Midget Story for last. To begin, where better than in a hot tub.

Turn The *&%$&# Thing Off!
My company flirted at one time with insuring motels. These were not the Holiday Inn or Best Western sorts of hotels, but more the Norman Bates (Psycho) type motel. One of our illustrious agents managed to write a policy for one fine establishment that rented its rooms by the hour, with closed circuit 24 hour porno movies on the TV and a hot tub in each room. I’m quite sure the agent failed to disclose these particular details to the underwriters.

One evening a guest is in the hot tub with a young woman. He was married, but the young woman was not his wife. As they were messing around in the hot tub, he gets this brilliant idea. He stuck his pecker into the out flow tube that circulated the water back to the pump. One supposes he was showing his girlfriend just how he wanted the thing done.

Well, he learned rather quickly that he did not want his girl friend to emulate the hot tub plumbing. The fit was apparently quite good and the pump powerfully sucked his member into the tube right up to his scrotum and then promptly formed such a vacuum in the pipe that it locked him in.

The pain must have been intense and he could not free himself for the pipe. He screamed at his girlfriend to turn the hot tub off. Unfortunately, the management of the motel had gotten tired of people messing with the controls and screwing them all up (pun intended), so they had put the controls under lock and key. The woman could not turn the thing off. It was hard wired so there was no plug to pull from the outlet. She had to put her clothes on and rush down to the office to get the night manager who had the keys to the controls. This she did, as excruciating minutes went by for our poor hero battling the sucky-sucky thing.

More bad news. Even turned off, the vacuum in the pipe did not abate and continued to hold our fellow fast. A hasty discussion occurred and they decided to call the fire department. After more long minutes, the fire department arrived. One can only imagine the scene as they all trooped in wearing their fire suits, boots and hard hats to perform the rescue. Oh and how they must have fought with all their strength not to bust a gut laughing at the poor fellow. It was rumored that some angry words were exchanged when one fireman innocently suggested that in order to rescue our wounded friend that they should use the Jaws of Life.

The fire department, however, was not equipped or knowledgeable enough to extricate the man. Simply trying to pull him off was likely to rip his poor appendage from his body. They quickly realized this and so put out the call for a plumber. Oh, how bad the pain must have been and seemed destined to continue for an unbearably long time. Plumbers, you see, are not quite as fast in response as the fire department, especially when you are waking them up in the middle of the night.

Eventually the plumber arrived and proceeded to dismantle the plumbing in the hot tub that allowed the vacuum to be broken and the member freed, quite a bit worse for wear. Our comrade was whisked away to the hospital where no doubt he spent a few anxious moments before the doctors announced they would not have to amputate. And then spent a few more when he realized that he was going to have to explain all this to his wife.

When the lawsuit came in, I was able to see it briefly before we sent it off to our commercial division; it made for interesting reading. I was especially taken with the theory of liability. The motel had wronged our friend in that they knew they were renting rooms to people who were there for purposes of having sex. In this knowledge, the motel should have realized that randy young men in the presence of naked women would be inclined to stick their members into anything that might provide them with prurient stimulation, including the outlet pipe of a hot tub, and therefore had a duty to such men to prevent them from hurting themselves in the process. The hotel failed in its duty to protect the poor defendant by not installing a screen over the pipe to physically prevent him from inserting himself into the suction filled tube, and for locking up the controls so they could not quickly be turned off once he had performed said insertion.

One wonders how any self-respecting man could bring himself to proceed with such a suit, but then again, his wife, the fire department, the motel and the plumber all knew and he was already a laughingstock, so he probably figured why not try to make a little cash out of his misfortune. I do not know if he was succesfull in that regard or not.

Lorena Who?
While we are on the subject, sort of, regarding male members and that whole suction thing, another story comes to mind. This one is not humorous, unless you’re somewhat twisted in your sense of humor.

In Oregon, during the time I was working there, and probably still today, every auto policy carried at least $10,000 of no-fault medical coverage that was dictated by statute. The statute provided the terms of coverage, which were generous. Among other things, the auto policy would pay for the medical bills and lost wages for injuries suffered while occupying a vehicle. Note that it did not require that the vehicle be in an accident, only that the injuries arose while the person was occupying the vehicle.

This allowed the courts, in abetting their tort bar brethren, to come up with some interesting definitions of “occupying,” as you might imagine. It got so bad that slipping and falling on an icy street while gripping the door handle of the car was considered occupying the vehicle. In any event, if you got hurt while in a car, the auto policy would pay for the doctor bills and your wage loss.

Going west out of Portland towards Beaverton (yes, that is the real name) is a freeway known as the Sunset Highway. It gets its name from the fact that in the afternoon and evening, you are driving directly into the setting sun. At the right time of day, it can make seeing in front of you very difficult.

One such day, our insured was driving in rush hour traffic westbound into the blinding sun. This is very busy traffic and there were accidents on this road almost daily. So our super intelligent gentleman is paying close attention to the road, right? Well, not exactly. It seems he couldn’t wait to get to Beaverton for his girlfriend was head down in his lap doing that suction thing.

If you watched the movie The World According To Garp, you know what happens next. Our fellow got excited, stopped paying attention to his driving, and at high speed, rear-ended the stopped car in front of him. The girlfriend’s jaw snapped shut, and…she bit it clean off.

The medical payments staff in my office got the pleasure of paying the bills and reading the reports of the injury and subsequent treatment and surgeries. It was a covered loss, both in the insurance and organ sense, and we were on the hook to pay for it because he was occupying the vehicle at the time of the…er…accidental amputation.

It turned out okay in the end. The doctors were able to reattach his member and, as I recall, he regained full use of it with no complications or other loss of, you know, length, function, stamina, etc. The interesting thing was that this happened at least six years before Lorena Bobbit took the carving knife to her abusive hubby. While the rest of the world was surprised to hear how Johnny Bobbit’s pee-pee was saved, we had already paid for the same miracle years before and were not the least bit surprised.

Feminine Wiles
Here are three stories, or rather just the highpoints of the stories about women and their attempts to use their charms to their claim’s advantage.

I was for a couple of years an auto physical damage adjuster, meaning I would write estimates and work with body shops to get cars repaired. One day I was given an assignment to inspect and estimate the damage to a mustang that our insured had backed into in a parking lot. The owner of the car said she could not bring it to our office, and could I inspect it at her house? We did that often so it was no big deal. When I showed up at the house, this attractive, blond, maybe 21 year old woman met me at the door. She flounced out in loose short shorts and a man’s t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and about four sizes too big for her. Did I mention she was not wearing a bra, and that the shorts were really short and really loose and she apparently wasn’t wearing any panties either? She proceeded to lead me all around the car showing me every scratch, ding and blemish. It was a rolling wreck of a car. There were many stops as she showed me everything, not only on the car’s body but her own as well. Believe me; a stripper couldn’t have put on a better show. I had no doubts about what this girl looked like in her birthday suit. So I followed patiently along until she judged the moment right and asked very sweetly how much I was going to pay her. I pointed out that since our insured had backed into her right front fender, I was not going to be able to pay for all the other damages to the hood, front bumper, left side, top, deck lid, rear bumper, torn seats, cracked dash, right door and right quarter panel. Once she realized that her ploy had not enticed me to pay anything more, she immediately crossed her arms over her chest, the show now being most definitely over, and announced that I was a pig and I could just speak to her husband about it. The last I saw of her was her cute butt in those short shorts going through her front door, which she slammed hard behind her.
******************
A fellow I knew in the business, whose name I will not divulge, though I’m sure he is long since retired, had a curious dilemma on one of his claims. He was trying to settle this soft tissue neck injury claim (incorrectly often referred to as a whiplash) with a mid-40’s aged woman. He would call her every couple of weeks to see if she wanted to settle, and she would say she wanted to wait to make sure she was completely healed, and then she would engage him in conversation for 20 minutes or more about topics completely unrelated to the claim. He complained about it to me one day after golf. I commiserated. It was often that people, especially older women and widows, would drag out their claim process because they were lonely and the adjuster was a captive audience. My friend said, however, that his claimant was married, seemed well off and lived in an upscale neighborhood and no doubt belonged to the local club, so she didn’t seem to fit the profile. Later, when we met up at an attorney firm’s Christmas party, he told me about his most recent run-in with his problem claimant. He called as usual and finally she said she was willing to settle. They agreed on a dollar amount, and my friend was going to mail her the check and release. She insisted instead that they do it in person and asked him to come to her house at a certain time the next day. He showed up on time and found a note on the front door saying she was in the back yard and to come around through the side gate. He did so and found her in the hot tub, naked, with a bottle of champagne on ice and two glasses. He immediately apologized, thinking he had gotten the time wrong and excused himself saying he would call her later to reschedule. She interrupted him and said she had been expecting him and he ought to get in the tub right away. He protested that he could not do that. She replied that if he wanted her to sign the release, he would get in the tub, or else she would retain one of her husband’s lawyer friends and sue his insured.

“My goodness,” I said. “What did you do?”

He replied, with a rueful grin, “What do you think I did? I got the damned release.”
******************
There was a time when I was a bodily injury claim adjuster and had reached the level of experience and expertise that they asked me to help train new adjusters. We had one young trainee, fresh out of college, who I was helping to train. I think she was a Mennonite. She always wore very tasteful suits, with the blouse buttoned up to her throat, the skirt down to mid calf and practical shoes with low heels. She was quite prim and proper, but smart and personable. I liked her. I believe she went on to be a very good adjuster and even a supervisor.

One day I got a new claim for a woman who had been a passenger on a motorcycle that our insured bumped from behind. The report said the bike did not go down; the woman hadn’t been struck and didn’t fall off, and didn’t complain about being hurt at the scene. The insured was strongly questioning how she could be hurt. Nevertheless, it was my job to investigate and take it seriously. I called the allegedly injured woman and she said she could meet me at her house that afternoon. I asked the trainee if she wanted to go with me on the appointment and she did.

We showed up at the house and knocked on the door. The trainee stood behind me and to the side, probably out of sight of the windows and from inside the door. That is the only way I can explain what happened next. The door flew open and the woman I was to meet turned out to be in her mid 20’s or so. She was attractive and had a nice figure. I know that because she was wearing a skimpy little leather vest that was not buttoned and therefore provided hardly any cover for her bare chest. She also had on leather chaps, you know the kind of leggings that cover the front of the legs but not the crotch or backs, and a black leather g-string. That was it, oh, except for the honest to goodness leather dog collar around her throat. She gave me a big smile and stepped back to invite me in, and then turned her back to lead me into the house, thereby letting me see most of the way to China. The expression that came over her face when she got to the living room and turned back around only to see our prim and proper trainee standing beside me was priceless. It turned out to be a considerably uncomfortable interview for the woman, especially as it became clear that being mostly naked wasn’t working on getting her money for her bogus claim and she was having to do it with the church lady sitting right there watching the whole thing.

On the way back to the office, the trainee couldn’t stop giggling. At one point she asked, “Was that really a dog collar?” and then giggled uncontrollably some more. I mentioned that I liked her, right?

Do You Have These in Black?
When I was doing auto physical damage claims in 1983 and 1984 we had a drive in set up. We had two bays with motorized garage doors on either end. An adjuster could inspect and estimate damages on a car every half hour, which made it much more efficient than driving to people’s homes or the body shop to see the car. I was working the drive in one day, when a woman came in without an appointment. She was in her mid-40s or so, attractive and well appointed with expensive looking jewelry, hair carefully styled, wearing an expensive looking wool suit with skirt and jacket, and patent leather high heels. She said she had just been driving up the street when a dog ran out in front of her and, in swerving to avoid it, she ran over a cement island. She said she had heard terrible noises and just knew she had damaged her car. Being insured with us and knowing our office was just a block or so down the street she decided to come right to see if we could help.

We were slow that day so I told her I would be happy to look at her car and had her pull it into the first bay. It was a big brand new Lincoln Town Car. One of our clerks asked her some questions while I prepared to look at her car.

I got out the creeper and put it on the floor by the front bumper. I pulled the inspection light down to the end of its cord and turned it on. Then I lay down on the creeper on my back and pulled myself under the car. I looked carefully for any damage. As I was under the car, I heard the door to the bay open and then the sound of high heels clicking on the cement floor. People often want to be in the bay while we were inspecting their cars, so I thought nothing of it. I could see no damage whatsoever under the front of the car, which seemed odd to me. I grabbed the front of the bumper and pulled myself on the creeper out from under the car.

And found myself looking directly up the woman’s skirt. She was standing in such a way with her legs slightly parted that the view went all the way to Christmas. The light I was holding illuminated the scene clearly, revealing a lovely pink garter and very sheer matching panties. She was a natural brunette.

I mumbled something like an apology and quickly pulled the creeper around the front of the car and to one side and slid back under the car. I could find nothing wrong here either, and, when I slid out from under the car, there she was again and I was looking right up her dress. I quickly pulled the creeper further down the side and slid back under. And, guess what? Well, you get the picture. She followed me all around that damn car and every time I would come out from under it, I got to admire her lingerie.

There wasn’t anything wrong with her car, and she was just so happy to hear it and thanked me profusely. As she drove off, the three clerks burst out laughing. They had watched the show through the bay's windows and realized what was going on. One of them told me that her husband sold shoes for years. He often came home with a new story of some woman in a dress or skirt, often not wearing underwear, who would try on pair after of pair of shoes, the whole time managing with each new pair of shoes to expose everything up her skirt for the salesman to see. My lady had just found a new twist on an old exhibitionist game.

The Midget Story
All of the stories so far have related to sex in some way. This one does not, but it does involve a Lincoln Town Car.

We insured a Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Portland. A new mall opened up across the river in Vancouver. The dealership worked a deal with the mall and placed new cars strategically though out the mall. They went a step further and put salesman on duty to talk to potential customers. The salesman on duty with the Lincoln Town Car was quite surprised to be approached by identical twin adult midgets who wanted to talk to him about the car.

They wanted to see inside it. He opened the driver’s door. Immediately, one of the midgets climbed up into the driver’s seat. He was so short that even sitting on the front edge of seat, his feet did not reach the floor let alone the pedals. The midget stood up on the seat, and grasped the steering wheel in both hands. He proceeded to make vroom-vroom sounds and move the steering wheel back and forth, as he pretended to be driving.

After several minutes of this, his brother wanted to have a turn at pretending to drive the car. The first midget refused to move. The second got angry. Next thing you know, the two midgets are in a fight. The salesman described them as rolling around on the ground, grabbing each other by the hair, throwing punches, kicking, biting, and generally looking like they were trying to kill each other. Finally one of them get loose and managed to climb into the Lincoln and fend off his brother long enough to close and lock the door. The salesman didn’t know if this was the original driving midget or the other one, he had completely lost track of who was who during the fight, they being identical and all.

The one locked out was standing in front of the car screaming bloody and nasty epithets at his brother. The one in the car suddenly discovered that the keys were on the driver’s side visor. He promptly inserted them into the ignition and started the car. He put the gearshift in Drive. Even though he couldn’t reach the pedals, he could drive at idle speed while standing on the seat to see over the dash to steer. This he proceeded to do, chasing his brother through the mall, the brother being unable to run faster than the car was idling.

Even at idle speed, a Lincoln Town Car can do a lot of damage to kiosks, storefronts, sidewalk cafes and more when being driven by a midget who has never driven a car before and is intent only on running his brother down. I have an image of that mall car chase scene from the movie the Blues Brothers, only being done in slow motion. The police finally caught up to the midget in the runaway Lincoln. They had to break the driver’s window to physically remove the rampaging midget from behind the wheel. He had managed to get the car stuck in the corner between two stores, and was trying unsuccessfully to get the car into reverse so he could run over his brother again, having done so once already and leaving him lying with a broken foot behind the car where it was stuck.

Of course, all the stores, restaurants and kiosk owners who had damage sued the car dealership. Everyone knows fratricidal midgets who are in jail have no money. I was able to read the Summons and Complaint briefly before we had to send it off to our commercial division to handle. The theory of liability was that the dealership had been negligent in leaving the keys in such a place that a deranged midget could find them during his attempt to kill his identical twin.

It seems likely that the midget driving the car was the Evil Twin out to kill the Good Twin. Or, maybe the Good Twin was the driver and just snapped because he couldn’t take the Evil Twin’s evilness any more. Or, maybe they were that rare combination of Evil Twin and his brother the Evil Twin. Or, maybe…