I love to travel, probably because I don't do it very often.  (Come to think of it, this may also be the reason I love sex...  but I digress...)  When you fly, do you like to read on the plane?  Well, you know the guy that sits next to you and chatters away at you for the entire flight like you're a court stenographer and he's been asked to give a deposition on his entire life?  You know, the guy who was apparently raised to believe that being shown the back cover of "In Flight" magazine is an invitation to kvetch?  The one with a genetic defect that causes him to mistake a look of bored indifference with one of extreme interest?  That's me. 

I talk too much.  Seriously  I have never had an unexpressed thought.  I have no secrets.  My life isn't merely an open book, it's a book on tape.  If your life were a movie poster, mine would be an electronic sandwich-board I wear draped over my shoulders everywhere I go.  (You know... the big white poster-things you used to see in movies that read things like "Eat at Joe's."  Only mine tells you in painful detail about the last time I ate at Joe's; what I had, who was there, what I said to them while they were eating...) 

And while I'm talking too much about talking too much, let me tell you something you may not know about people who talk too much; despite all logic, all reason, and all evidence to the contrary, we actually know we talk too much.  Seriously!  We're not stupid.  (Or at least those of us who aren't sportscasters aren't stupid.)  The signs are there, and we do see them. 

When we grab a bite with a group of friends, we're always the last one to finish our meal, no matter what we ordered.  I will take longer to finish a cup of espresso than you will need to chase a dozen donuts with a no-whip Venti skim mocha latte.  And people, if you know someone like me don't let them get away with this "I've always been a slow eater" crap.  We don't "eat slow" we're just lousy at multitasking. 

Of course, the more interesting question than "why do overtalkers talk so damn much?" is "why do people let them?"  And the answer to that is simple; y'all are too damn polite.  You're like the battered wife who keeps telling herself, "maybe he'll stop now."  Sorry, the sad reality is that we can't stop.  Overtalking is a compulsion over which we have no control; much like gambling or watching Desperate Housewives.  We know we shouldn't, but we just can't help ourselves. 

We're not bad people, really.  We just need to be understood... at length.  So, the next time a friend or acquaintance is bloviating about this or that pet peeve or pet theory or just yammering on about her pets, just try to smile and think of something happy, like a flock of ravens pecking her eyes out.  (There now, isn't that better?)

"They're growing houses in the fields between the towns

And the Starlight drive-in movie's closing down

The road is gone to the way it was before

And the spaces won't be spaces anymore."
("Houses In The Fields" – John Gorka)

If you were ever a kid, and I'm guessing most of you were, you probably remember what it was like to get dirty on a fairly regular basis. And I'm not talking about adult dirty. Adults get dirty as a function of working; mowing the yard, cleaning the house, or maybe hastily digging a shallow grave. Kids, on the other hand, get dirty playing. Their dirt is play dirt, and it is the best thing a human being can wear.

I've been looking back over my metaphorical shoulder of late, tracking my footprints back through the ever-deepening dust of time, only to discover the landmarks by which my memory navigates harder to find with each passing year. And it isn't just my memory that's fading; the landscape of my past is changing with time. More and more of the places that were home to my memories exist now only in those memories; the real places are either gone, or so significantly changed as to bear no resemblance to the places I once knew.

When I was in elementary school, there was a creek that ran through an expanse of woods adjacent to the school grounds. We kids called this creek and the woods through which it ran the Mini-Brook. Too many years have come and gone since then for me to give an accurate accounting as to how much time I spent playing in and along the banks of that creek, or how many miles I logged riding my banana-seat bike (with playing cards clothes-pinned to flap against the spokes so they made engine noises as I rode) along the myriad trails carved through those woods by the kids who rode before me. Of course, to me back then those paths simply were; like the trees, the burbling waters, and the sky. They always had been and always would, and I would play forever there, because—while I was there—there was everything.

When I think back on it today, it feels as though there was a magic bubble through which only young boys on banana-seat bikes could pass, and within which the Mini-Brook ran. Time meant nothing there. I spent countless millennia digging clay from those muddy red banks in a single day. It felt as though the sun paused in the sky to watch as I raced between its green and gold rays along the paths cut through those woods, a one-eyed Jack chasing a tattered queen as I rode. Scrapes acquired there healed more quickly, soggy sneakers dried faster, as did any tears that made it across the threshold from the outside world.

I manage to get back home a couple of times a year these days, and I made time to take a walk behind my old elementary school this past summer. The Mini-Brook is still there, but where once it ran wild through vibrant woods, today it slips quietly unnoticed past the backyards of neighborhoods that grew up where once only those timeless trees stood. Fences block the breezes that once stirred the long grass along banks now overgrown with thickets and thorns. The fabled creek of my memory has been ripped out of the world and replaced by a drainage ditch.

As I stood there that day, I felt as if I'd stopped by an old friend's home after many years away, only to find that he had died. It felt wrong to be touched by sadness in that place, even when I knew that that place no longer existed. This is silly, I thought. I'm mourning the passing of a stream. I laughed at the thought, which in and of itself felt more appropriate to the memories I'd made there. Yes, the Mini-Brook would have wanted me to smile, I thought, and laughed at myself even more.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a small, blonde head appear briefly over the fence and disappear. I turned to face the spot where it had appeared, and it immediately appeared and disappeared again. And then again. And again. Each time the head broke a little higher over the horizon of dog-eared boards. By about the fifth bounce (the fifth of which I was aware) I could see the broad smile on the face of the child on the trampoline in the yard where those magic woods once stood. I recognized that smile; I knew that magic. And I realized that trees can be felled, and the land can be parceled up into tidy boxes by adults and their fences, but that magic—the magic of a child at play in the world—is forever.

In the past few weeks I've been enjoying delving into my distant past for subject matter for my ramblings. It's been fun to really think about specific times in my past and try to wring the fun out of them in the here and now, and it's been nice knowing that I can do so safely. Those days were long ago and far away from where I stand today. Part of the reason I can laugh at the mistakes of my past is that the person I was then is so different from the man I am today. The younger me paid the price for his errors; that bill was paid long ago.

Or so I thought until I tried to renew my North Carolina driver's license yesterday.

You see, Saturday was my birthday, and it happened to be on this particular birthday that my driver's license expired. So, first thing Monday afternoon, I drove over to the DMV, stood in line, took a number, and took a seat to await my turn with one of the fine, courteous, and capable* people staffing that location.

To pass the time, I amused myself by watching the other would-be drivers. I genuinely enjoy people-watching, and think everyone should spend at least a few hours a week at it. (I figure, if you've got to share the planet with other people, it's probably a good idea to have some sense of who those people are.) People-watching is easy, free, and there are only a couple of rules you need to keep in mind. First, people-watching is a lot like admiring animals at a zoo. As with the animals at the zoo, it's best if you avoid any actual contact with those whom you observe. Second, it's critical that you do your people-watching in different locations from time to time. The cross section of humanity you'll observe dining at a five-star restaurant is likely to be quite different from the sample you'll get at the farmer's market or, well... the DMV. Be careful not to draw broad-reaching conclusions based on small samples. (Based on the data I gathered while waiting for my number to be called, the average American is in his late seventies, speaks little or no English, and is roughly five months pregnant.)

The wonderful, courteous DMV staff finally called my number, and I got up, went over to the cubical to which I'd been directed, and sat back down. I handed the gentleman sitting across from me my expired driver's license, and recited my social security number for him when asked. He told me to sign my name on a small slip of paper, which I did, and then he looked at his computer screen, and asked me for my social security number again. I recited it. Again.

Houston, we have a problem...

"Have you ever been to Illinois?" I knew immediately that he wasn't asking me to go away with him for the weekend, but aside from the fleeting sense of relief that knowledge brought me, I knew this wasn't going to be good.

Houston, we have a problem in Illinois...

I paused before answering. He probably thought I had to think about whether I'd been there or when, but the only thing I needed to think about was how to ensure that the next words that came out of my mouth weren't expletives. "Yeah, like twenty-five years ago. Why?"

Of course I knew why.

Houston, we had a whole slew of problems in Illinois about twenty-five years ago...

I mean, I didn't know exactly, specifically why. I couldn't have told you right then exactly which specific stupid thing I'd done twenty-five years earlier had come back to bite me in the ass this time, but after you spend enough time being your own history's chew toy, you get a sense about these things.

The nice DMV guy explained that the state of Illinois had placed a block on my license, and gave me a phone number to call so that I could find out why, and hopefully get the issue resolved. When I called, a nice woman in Illinois explained that the block was due to my failure to pay a fee to reinstate my Illinois drivers license, after Illinois suspended it in 1982, subsequent to a DUI I got while back home in New York. I politely pointed to twenty-five years of proof that I had never needed to reinstate the license in question, and asked how I could be responsible for paying a "fee" for an activity that had never occurred. I could certainly understand if they claimed I'd failed to pay a fine for having my license suspended, but a fee for a reinstatement that never occurred?

Despite being thoroughly impressed with the flawless logic inherent in my own argument, I'm fairly pragmatic these days, and I knew my argument would never, ever win. I could rant and rave if I wanted, but in the end, I was going to have to pay whatever they demanded, because at the end of the day, Illinois can probably get by without my seventy-five bucks, but I really need that license. I did manage to get the nice woman from Illinois to acknowledge that there was no rational argument for claiming to need to reinstate a license I had not needed for twenty-five years, and that (without actually saying it, of course) this was really just a way for Illinois to get some money from me by holding my license hostage. I thanked her for her candor, and gave her my credit card information so she could charge me the "fee." She told me that I should be cleared to renew my North Carolina driver's license by next Monday, at the latest.

Of course, this means that until then I either have to stay home, or drive illegally. Driving with a suspended license for a few days is no big deal, so long as you don't get pulled over for anything. Right? Well, it should come as no surprise to anyone that it only took me until the very next morning to attract the attention of Raleigh's finest. While rushing to drop the kids off at school, I apparently rolled through a stop sign. (In my defense, I need to point out that I did not roll over it, just past it.) The cop was nice enough, as was the neatly printed citation he gave me for failing to stop and for driving with an expired license.

So, on the downside, I get to go to court at the end of the month, and pay a nice little fine. On the upside, it looks like I'm going to have another excellent opportunity for people-watching.

This is part one of a four-part blog. Please scroll as needed to read the parts in order.

I remember learning in my early teens that—in the state of New York, at least—juvenile records are "sealed" once you hit 18. (Having revealed when I learned this, I'll wait a bit before explaining how and why so as to build suspense.) I remember this little factoid for a number of reasons, most of which will become clear in due course. One thing I remember quite clearly was how emphatically I was assured that the records were "sealed," and that having been "sealed," no one, up to and including God himself, could ever "unseal" them. At the time it seemed kind of silly to me that they would even bother to keep a record that nobody was ever again allowed to view, but at the time I wasn't really in a position to question the way things worked. (I mostly just nodded and tried to look contrite.)

At 19, I decided to join the US Navy. This decision involved a couple of key factors. First, I'd just finished my freshman year of college, after which said college and I had mutually agreed that it wasn't working for either of us. The stated position of Potsdam State University of Arts and Snowdrifts was that I probably had some growing up to do. Personally, I think they had commitment issues. So, college didn't work out and I needed to try something new, but I decided to try something old instead, and moved back in with my parents for a while so I could soak up their disappointment at point blank range while I "figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

Apparently, what I wanted to do with my life was work at dead-end minimum wage jobs and stay out late drinking too much and getting far too stoned. Before long, I found that this goal was incompatible with my mother's primary goal at that time; to be able to stop crying from shame every time she saw me. Since I was pretty sure my behavior wasn't going to change any time soon, I figured I needed to at least do her the courtesy of removing myself from her sight so she could maybe get some sleep again or at least have some time to fuss over the problems her other 5 children were having with life.

Which is why I one day found myself walking into this huge black borg-cube of a government building in downtown Syracuse, where I filled out reams of forms, took a fairly easy test, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And... (you get the idea.)

Finally, some guy in a nice, crisp uniform came over and asked me to come with him. We went and sat down on opposite sides of his nice, efficient borg-cube desk, where we had a nice chat. Some time during this chat, he surprised me with a question I had not anticipated...

"You indicated on your dee-dee-one-eight-two-four-echo that you've never been convicted of a violent crime. What can you tell me about this incident?" At which point he slid a file folder to me across the desk.

(Resistance is futile.)

There, unsealed and laid bare for anyone—up to and including God—to see, were the records of certain exploits, undertaken by me, as well as the details of my apprehension, prosecution, and subsequent conviction. As it turns out, there is an authority beyond God, (at least where sealed records are concerned) and that authority had asked to have those records unsealed. What really messes with my mind to this day is that, in order to ask to unseal the records, the military first had to be aware that they existed. I suppose it's just as well that they could unseal them, because, in the final analysis, it is probably better to have the records unsealed and my sins known, than to simply have them know that I'd done something nefarious, the details of which were perhaps too horrendous to reveal.

Okay, so that's the background. As to the specific why and how of my learning about the sealing of juvenile records, I'm going to leave that for my next installment. I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this one's gone on long enough.

The other day I started to share a story about how I learned that juvenile records are sealed and can't be gone into ever. In setting up that story I got as far as revealing that, upon attempting to enlist in the military I discovered that the government telling a naïve teenager, "we promise we'll never tell anyone about this," is akin to a football team telling a naïve cheerleader the same thing. In both cases the secret is good only so long as there's no upside to sharing it.

So it was bound to happen that one day the United States Navy was going to ask the City of Oneida if it had any good dirt on me, and the City of Oneida was going to blab. Fortunately for naïve cheerleaders everywhere, football teams keep lousy records. Unfortunately for me, cities keep pretty good ones.

There I sat, across the desk from Chief Warrant Officer I-Caught-You-In-A-Lie, staring at the folder he'd just shoved across the desk. It was a bit like one of those TV interrogation room moments, only without the cool soundtrack to help you know how to feel about what's happening. Fortunately, I knew exactly how to feel about it, with or without music.

"What can you tell me about this incident?"

(Bum-dum-DA-dummmmm!)

The folder contained various legal-looking documents, including police reports, court documents, and some rather impressive looking crime scene photos. I will ruin some of the suspense at this point and disclose that they were far more impressive than the actual crime warranted. No, I didn't eat my high school track coach. No, I didn't make a patchwork quilt of the local ladies sewing circle. My brief foray into violent crime was more of a creative outlet, than a way to vent any pent up rage or a desire to do any real harm.

You know how you always hear people whining about how kids are influenced by the violence they see on TV? Well, it turns out that, according to my admittedly limited personal research at least, there's some validity to their complaint. Given the opportunity and a sufficient level of boredom, I think kids will act on just about anything you put in their brains, up to a limit set by their personal moral compass. (In my defense, I believe someone had parked a rather large magnet next to mine that day.) Had my step-brother, Jim, and I spent the evening before watching The Sound of Music, we probably would have spent the afternoon skipping around the hillsides, singing, and dodging natzis. As luck would have it, the feature presentation the night before was "Helter Skelter."

Faced with a boring afternoon alone, we somehow decided it would be cool to see what we could mix up in the kitchen. We hit upon the idea of making fake blood, and after a few false starts, came up with a nice viscous, dark red liquid which we loaded into a few sandwich baggies and an empty dish soap squirt bottle.

Well, once you've made fake blood, you can't just sit there and look at it, you know? So, we needed to find something to do with it. We headed out into the neighborhood, and made our way into the open field across the street. There we yanked up dead corn stalks and had fun swinging them around and launching them—heavy dirt and root ball first—into the air; sort of a poor man's hammer toss. At some point this too became boring, and we still needed to find something fun to do with our fake blood.

It was about then that one or both of us noticed a particularly white garage which backed up to the field. We launched a few corn stalks at it, and the dirt balls exploded against the side like dusty black fireworks. Then one went through a window. (I'm still not sure to this day whether that first window was broken by accident or intent.) We hit the ground, hearts pounding for fear of the repercussions, but no one came running to see what had been broken.

Sociologists have written at length about the "broken window effect," which states that if you go into any neighborhood, break a window, and leave it broken, crime will rise. I am at this very moment, writing at length to tell you that this effect can also be instantaneous, because for some reason the fact that nobody responded when we broke that first window suddenly made it seem like a good idea to break some more. All of them, in fact. We threw corn stalks through every window of that nice tidy white garage. And then we remembered the fake blood. We threw the baggies at the walls so they splattered like the downwind view of a shotgun blast to the head. I used the squirt bottle to scrawl the words, "Helter Skelter," across the siding, and admired my horror-show handiwork as the letters ran and dripped.

Then we ran home and had a snack. (Mayhem makes kids hungry.)

So there you have the details of what was in that sealed folder. Of course, I still haven't actually described the actual time at which I learned about sealed juvenile records. I guess that'll just have to wait for part three.

I grew up in a small town in Madison County in Upstate New York. Some people actually recognize the name, "Oneida," because of the silverware of the same name. Those taking notes will want to know that Oneida silver was never actually made in Oneida. The Oneida Community and the silversmithing operation they ran was actually located in the nearby town of Sherrill. (Go figure.) History is hazy as to the reasoning behind this, but my guess is that they thought "The Sherrill Community" sounded like a lesbian conclave. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)

So, I come from a small, obscure town in New York, whose only claim to fame is a product that isn't made there. If you searched the Internet for other trivial facts about Oneida, you might stumble across something about their youth court system. Or you might not. I don't know about today, but back when I was a kid, the only way I found out it existed was when I was ordered to appear before it. I was told at the time that Oneida was one of the first places in the country to set up a court where kids tried kids, but then small towns are always claiming to be first at this or that. Nearby Canastota, NY bills itself as "Titletown USA" on signs beside the one major road into town. I doubt most people know what "Titletown" means, and I'm sure pretty much nobody cares. They could probably win an award for the nation's most undisputed claim to fame, but then they'd need a new sign.

Oneida's Youth Court served two purposes. First, it gave kids an opportunity to learn how the criminal justice system worked by actually taking part in "real" trials. (I use scare quotes around "real," because these trials were "real" trials in much the same way that a pet rock is a "real" pet.) Second, it gave local authorities a way to handle juvenile offenders who were too young or whose crimes were too silly to warrant throwing them into the actual juvenile justice system. 

We were hauled into an actual courtroom, and seated at the little table where the guilty guy always squirms and looks evil on TV. After a few minutes, a chubby boy who was maybe sixteen squeaked, "All rise," which command his voice seemed more than happy to obey. We rose. Some kid who was probably taking time off from his hall monitor duties strode in wearing black robes safety-pinned at the hem so he wouldn't trip over them, and stood behind the judge's desk. Chubby squeaked, "Youth Court is now in session; the honorable Melvin "The Hammer" Thruffington, presiding." Somebody read the charges and asked us, "How do you plead?" One or both of us mumbled "guilty," managing to sound quite so. 

Then Judge Melvin spoke. "By your actions in this case, did you intend any harm or threat to the victims." I assumed at the time that he meant the elderly couple who owned the garage, not the garage, windows, etc.. 

"Um, no."

Judge Melvin scribbled something on the pad before him. It was a legal pad, so you know it must have been something important. Then he asked, "Were your actions—specifically painting the words, "Helter Skelter," on the garage wall—meant to praise Charles Manson or his actions?"

Seriously??? I mean, if we did want to glorify Manson or follow in his footsteps or something, wouldn't breaking a few windows and smearing some corn syrup and red dye 7 on a wall be setting the bar a bit low? Can you imagine if word actually got back to Manson? "Hey Charley... some fans of yours went on a crime spree somewhere in New York." "Really? Cool! What'd they do?" ... "You're shitting me, right? Man, my followers are lame!"

"Um, no."

(Scribble...scribble...) "I hereby sentence you to four hours each, community service, to be served at a time and place to be determined later. Bailiff Skippy, escort them from the courtroom." It was upon exiting the courtroom that Jim and I had to sign a number of documents, and were told that, if we managed to stay out of trouble until our eighteenth birthday, these files would be sealed, and remain so, into perpetuity.

As for our punishment, we didn't have to wait long to find out what it was, and it will please you to know that you won't have to wait very long either.

This is part four of a four-part blog. Please scroll down to read the parts in order.

The human brain is an amazing machine. It oversees the day to day operations of the human body like a giant supercomputer, only considerably smaller and squishier. From the moment there are two neurons present in an embryo, they begin communicating, trying to make sense of their environment and the body's place in it. "Hey, what's all this?" "I don't know." "Me neither." "Where's everybody else?" "Oh hey, here's another one. Hi." "Say guys, what's that sound? ... Is someone vacuuming?" And so on.

Inherent in this search for meaning is a need to learn what things feel good and what things hurt. Most human beings, when they realize that something feels good, want more of it. Similarly, most humans will strive to avoid anything they identify as a source of discomfort. (The few exceptions to this rule are big Marilyn Manson fans.) This desire to avoid pain is key to the effectiveness of criminal punishment; we punish criminals in the hopes that they will associate the pain of punishment with their criminal behavior, and choose not to do it again. (Or at least, that's what we ought to do with criminals. Commentary on that issue will have to wait for another blog.)

As a reasonable facsimile of an adult, I am a firm believer in the punishment part of "crime and punishment." It should be swift and should fit the crime. Given that our crime involved vandalizing a garage, the authorities couldn't exactly simply vandalize us in return. (Though my step-father thought it appropriate.) Even in the hinterlands of Upstate New York in the mid '70's, they had some standards for what you could and could not do with kids (unless you were their parents or clergy).

Jim and I were ordered to appear downtown at the courthouse that following Saturday morning, dressed in work clothes and ready to work. Mom picked the most ripped and stained jeans from amongst our supply of ripped and stained jeans, we donned t-shirts and sneakers, and Dad gave us each a pair of work gloves, which he assured us we would pay to replace should they be lost or damaged. We hopped in the family truckster and headed downtown. At the courthouse, the police took custody of us from Mom, and told her when she could reclaim us. We took it as a good sign that they assumed she'd want us  back.

The Pullman Sleeping Car was invented by cabinet-maker turned industrialist George Pullman in 1857. The Pullman Car parked on the railroad siding next to the court house, was probably one of the first to roll off the assembly line, and—if its condition that day was any indication—saw the hardest, dirtiest use during its day. Apparently the city or the county or the state had bought this hollow, crusty wreck of a thing and had plans to fix it up for use in bicentennial celebrations. The first stage in the car's rehabilitation coincided nicely with this first stage of ours; we were to clean it.

There we were, two teenagers with a fairly spotty record of cleaning something as simple and small as our own bedroom, and we're handed a train to clean. Looking back, I give them an "A" for creativity, but a "C-minus" in forethought. We were certainly likely to learn our lesson, but were they likely to get a clean train? Doubtful. Doubtful, at best.

The cops (we felt we knew them well enough by now to call them cops) gave us buckets, hoses, brushes, soap and a hose that ran all the way from the side of the court house. I imagined that they used this same hose to delouse prisoners, and so resolved not to drink directly from it. We started by filling the bucket with water, adding soap, soaking the brushes and sponges, and then picking an area to begin scrubbing. This was slow and fairly ineffectual work, so we eventually hit upon the idea of just hosing down the whole interior of the car, using the force of the water pressure to dislodge the crustier bits of the train's history.

Before long the car and Jim and I were thoroughly drenched and more than a little sudsy. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to tell you that water + soap = slippery. There we were, soaked to the bone, sliding all over the inside of the Pullman car, doing our best to scrub anything and everything that slid by. After a couple of hours we were surprised to see that the train was noticeably cleaner than before we started. The hot sun streaming through the broken windows and playing off the puddles and soap bubbles began to look more and more like a light at the end of this particular tunnel.

In the end, we served our time, and the train got clean. We were wet and exhausted, but we'd had fun. I don't think they'd bargained on that, but we did. If I sat down with a calculator and a calendar, I could compute the number of days in my childhood, and hazard a guess as to how many of those were days during which I had fun. It would be a big number, yet looking back, so few days stick in my mind. But that one did.

Did we learn our lesson? It's hard to say. We certainly never got into that specific brand of trouble again, but I'd be lying (and more so than usual) if I suggested that we were angels from them on.

Time and geography have frayed the bonds Jim and I once shared. When you grow up in the same house with someone who is the same age as you, you can't help but spend most of that childhood stumbling through the good and bad together. I like to think that the paths we each have taken since then were the right ones for each of us, that they diverged because we each needed to go where the other could not. But most of all, I like to remember that there was a time when we stood together, soaking wet, looking down a set of railroad tracks, and thinking that, like those two ribbons of rusty steel, we'd run side-by-side through the world forever.

I was thinking the other day how cool it is that my daughter has been learning a little Spanish here and there since her first days in Kindergarten. This seems to be fairly standard for elementary schools in North Carolina. I assume our children are being taught Spanish starting at such an early age so that those who drop out of school prior to graduation will be able to get work on a road crew or at the drive thru of a fast food restaurant. Speaking of fast food places, am I the only one who's noticed that the only chain not being completely staffed by Latinos these days is Taco Bell? (Yo quiero explicación!) The one place I really want to hear a Mexican accent, and I'm greeted by, "Y'all wanna try our new Scrapple Chalupa?"

I tend to assume that the nice, hard-working people taking my lunch orders and slowing my progress on local roads are here legally. I also tend to assume that I may be wrong about that, but since I can't tell just by looking at someone whether he or she came here through proper channels or by clinging to the underbelly of a tanker of pomegranate juice, I'm inclined to treat everyone I meet with at least as much respect as the next person who can't understand most of what I'm saying. (You know who you are.)

The issue of illegal immigration is a hot topic these days, and while I don't harbor any animosity for anyone who's trying to improve their lot in life, I do have a bone to pick with those trying to pretend that illegal aliens are anything else. Words mean things; that's why we don't just grunt at each other. (Unless we've got a big mouthful of chalupa, of course.) Those who have tunneled or ridden or skipped or catapulted across our borders without going through the proper channels aren't undocumented immigrants any more than a bank robber is just making an undocumented withdrawal. They're breaking the law, which makes them illegal. Noting that does not make me a bigot, it just makes me someone who recognizes the legitimate meaning of words.

And they're not immigrants at all; as much as it may (apparently) hurt some feelings for me to say it, they are aliens. Immigration is a legal process, one these people have specifically and intentionally avoided undergoing. They did not immigrate to our country, they snuck in. These people are illegal aliens. That's the proper term. (And I expect you all to use it.)

And don't give me that "we need them to do the jobs no one else will do" crap. Here's how we fill those jobs... We start deporting illegal aliens en masse, and for every individual we send back across our borders, we kick one person off of welfare. See? There's now a new hungry person in need of work to replace the one who we got rid of. Problem solved! Of course, this hungry person in need of work happens to be a U.S. citizen and so is actually able to legally work in our country.

For the record, I'm no xenophobe. (I'll wait while you look that up... okay, moving on.) Yes, it infuriates me to know that someone can take their driver's license test in Espanol, but only because these people then have to go drive on roads dotted with signs written in English. How many rusty, pale blue pickups go careening out of control off of bridges in January because we don't have signs reading, "El puente congela antes de camino"?

If private businesses think they can make a buck by advertising in Spanish or printing "El Cheetos" on my bag of cheese puffs, that's their business. I'm not sure the government should be doing business in any language other than English, but aside from things like that driving test, I don't really care. Of course, doing so creates something of a slippery slope. How many languages should Wake County print its forms in, and how much more does it cost us, the taxpayers, to do so? Perhaps we'd all be ahead in the long run if we used some of our tax dollars to fund ESL classes for new immigrants.

Oh, and I'd like to send a shout out to Mexico's president, Felipe Calderón. In his recent state of the union address, he stated that "Mexico does not end at its borders," and that. "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico." Um, I don't mean to quibble, but I feel the need to make a minor point of clarification... Mexico pretty much ends where and when we say it does. Felipe would do well to remember that. (After all, if we ever did decide to take a few battalions down to the Rio Grande and golpee algún asno con el pie, it's not like Felipe could put up much of a fight; all his able-bodied young men are over here.)

I had to fly to St. Louis recently. I say "had to" because nobody goes there by choice. Don't get me wrong... there's nothing wrong with St. Louis, it's just... well, it's not someplace else; any place else. St. Louis is that other place. The place you go when you can't be where you wanted. Or at least that's how it seems to me. I suspect people who live there will feel differently, and will have stopped reading by now, in a huff. Of course they should... I mean, who the hell am I to cast aspersions on a city I've only been to once now? Anyone reading this should know to either ignore my opinion entirely, or at least take it with a healthy dose of sodium (chloride, not pentothal).

They say that "all roads lead to Rome." Well, if that's true anywhere it must be doubly so in St. Louis. I assume that all the roads in St. Louis lead to Rome, because I can assure you that none of them led to where I wanted to go. I performed more U-turns than a female sheep rolling down a hill. (Wait for it... ba-dum-bum!) My brother, who was driving, finally resorted to the most extreme of measures and stopped to ask directions. I don't know whether our route was especially difficult, or whether the people at the Stop-N-Go were just shocked to see a grown man stop and ask "how do I get there from here, and by the way, where is here?"

Oh, we were there for a funeral. Not at the Stop-N-Go; they're full service, but there are limits. No, we were in St. Louis for a funeral. My uncle, my father's brother, died. His was one of those ends that had been coming for a long time. There was no shock, no surprise for anyone. Uncle Sam (yes, I have/had an Uncle Sam) lived for seven years with the cancer that took my father in four months.

I liked Uncle Sam a lot. In a way that's kind of strange, because I had seen so little of him in my life that I really didn't know him. I'd like to chalk it up to my having a "sense" about people, but I don't. People, to me, are closed books. Oh, and they're still wrapped in cellophane and stacked on a shelf where I need to ask for help to even get the book down, but I don't, because I'm not good about asking for help, even with the small stuff. That said, I believe I felt I knew Sam because Sam was one of those people, one of those men, who spent his life in life.

What?

I know, I know... Lemme 'splain.

With me at any given time there's the guy I'm trying to be, the guy I'm trying to show to others, and then—somewhere hidden safely from view—there's the real me. Whoopy, right? I mean, that's most of us, isn't it? Heck, most of you who like to go around believing that you're showing the world the real you have just crafted a mask out of "hey world, this is the real me." Pretending to be real is the mask you wear. And that's cool. There are plenty of worse masks out there. (How about the, "Hey world, I like the taste of human flesh" mask?)

But Sam. Recognizing that I didn't know the man well and that I'm mostly full of shit most of the time, I think that Sam was one of those rare individuals who really lived as who he really was.

I heard a lot of nice things said about him at his funeral. Now sure, funerals are not generally places where people jump up to tell you all the worst dirt they have on the deceased, but I'm inclined to believe what I heard. One of the most, no, the most memorable thing I heard said about Sam was that when he talked to you he was more interested in what you had to say than in what he himself had to say. That struck me as a wonderful trait, probably because it is so patently lacking in me. Half the time when I'm on the listening end of a conversation my attention is 100% committed to planning my next comments. The other half the time, I'm asleep.

Yes, I suck. I'd love to be like Sam in this regard, but I'm not.

The funeral was beautiful. Sam's children, my cousins, both got up and spoke about their father, and his best friend shared some comments as well. I couldn't help thinking how much I hoped that people would speak as well of me when I'm gone, but neither could I kid myself that they would. That's not false modesty; I'm not looking for disagreement here. The reality is that—by my own measure (the only one that really matters for me)—I am not living up to the potential I believe I have. I feel as though I'm sleepwalking through my life, and while it's a pretty good dream most of the time, there's a part of me that yearns to wake up, shake off the lethargy that's gripped me for far too long, and really live.

Or maybe I just need another cup of coffee.