From the Mind of 1884

This Christmas my brother and I drove from Washington to Montana. During our trip we sang songs, took turns driving, argued about the effect of autotuning on the music industry and it's downfalls/benefits, drank energy drinks, sang anthems loudly, peered through a snowy windshield, yelled at passing semi-trucks, and actually used the restroom maybe twice for the whole eight hundred miles, a topic of great pride.
One of our stops was a ten minute drive back the way we came off an exit to find a rumored bookstore.
We found it.
Upon arriving at the front door that jingled merrily, we saw floor to ceiling every square foot of the place covered in books. Treasures. Invaluable and intoxicatingly joyful treasures.
We dispersed, went our separate directions, and dove headlong into the past. An hour later I emerged with one of my most prized finds. See, since dating this incredible girl who has all but renewed my fire for reading and literature as well as old books, I found a gem among the dime novels, outdated text books, and editions of past National Geographic. It was titled "the Human Body and It's Health" by "Smith." Copyright: 1884. Marked in penciled old lady handwriting was the price "7.95" on the inside cover.
She took five dollars.
I walked away with my heart light and my hand filled with a tiny little "reader" for elementary students of the past, a surprisingly well versed and detailed overall entailing of the human body.
I will share with you a short paragraph titled "Effect of Alcohol and Tobacco."

"Section V. --1. By the action of alcohol, muscle is sometimes changed, in part, to fat. It thus becomes flabby and feeble. Alcohol affects the muscles indirectly, by affecting the digestion and the blood, and so spoiling their nourishment. The athlete training for a prize, knows well, that, if he indulges freely in alcoholic drinks, he will surely fail to bring his muscles to a hard and vigorous condition. Total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco is important for his success.
2. Firm and active muscles are desirable for every one. The boy who thinks it manly to smoke, is, by doing so, lessening that muscular power which is an admirable and manly possession. The pale faces, dull eyes, and flabby limbs which this practice tends to produce, give no sign of manliness. It is true that men distinguished for strength of body are often users of intoxicating drinks or tobacco. But it is also true that such men frequently become diseased, and die before their time. They have squandered the powers which nature has given them."

I found the article surprising and concise...even if the science behind it was only speculated, not proven.
Be ye warned, young males: drinking makes for flab.
Flab just isn't sexy.
Nor is dying of disease.

At least we know Harry Truman, John McCormack and Eleanor Roosevelt weren't born from drunks in 1884 with this quality education being taught in New York and Chicago at the time.
The world needs more little green elementary reader books and less Ludacris lyrics about "gin and juice."
Well, maybe. Or maybe it's that back in the day people were tough.
Like...I would so not mess with this group of people. They could all totally outrun my flab, and I rarely, rarely touch the stuff.



Post-note. I can't be certain, but I think the subliminal messaging behind this elementary reader is that if you drink or smoke, these people in the above picture will come back from the past and point their finger at you.
Drink and smoke at your own discretion.

Kangaroos and Buffalo

My imagination has always been, and is to this day, a ravenous beast in a peaceful wood that will never be silenced.
Take a left off the highway and go along the main drive through town eventually making several turns. It is here you’ll find the “Barn House.”
We lived in a two story house with features that for some reason my older sister and I attributed to a barn. And so it was called the Barn House. I’m twenty-one now, and to this day we will refer to that particular home as the “Barn House.”
There were always next door neighbors. It wasn’t until I was in high school and learning to separate myself voluntarily in attitude and behavior from the normal world that I learned the practice of knowing and being friends with one’s neighbors was decidedly unpopular.
These neighbors had a son my age, and we did stuff together. All the time. Or not that often. I can never remember.
He wore a red shirt sometimes. I think.
His mom was a short lady and had curly hair.
Their house was blue.
And there was definitely a stone wall, about two and a half feet tall that divided our property and theirs.

Dad owned a garage door company, and it was in the early years of its becoming…whatever it is that companies become.
This meant that since we had little-to-no warehouse space for the doors, we stored them in racks in our garage. Dad had a small office located somewhere else he left for to go to work each day.
When I was six, he came home one day and wearing his signature Hawaiian shirt and khaki slacks, sat me down on our blue, felty-feeling couch with big buttons all over and said “Jimmy, I’ve got some pretty exciting news.”
This had to be important. Really important. I know ‘cause Mom was sitting across from me with the camera all ready.
My older sister put her pencil down and completely abandoned the homeschool math sheet she was working on. She could add seventeen minutes to three-thirty pm later.
Dad wasn’t mad at Jimmy, and her eight year-old mind didn’t already know what Dad was going to say, so she had to listen.

“Well Jimmy, one of my customers wanted a garage door. But this was no regular customer, this guy had a very special job. He goes to work every day and takes tourists for helicopter rides up the side of Mauna Kea and takes them right over the volcano.”
My Dad probably said more. I’m guessing what followed was he told me about how the customer traded him a helicopter ride for part of the payment for his garage door. I’m sure my Dad told me when we were going, and that it was at least several days away. There is no doubt in my mind that my sister waited until the opportune moment when she and Mom were alone in the kitchen, then she asked her how come Dad was taking me and not her, and she maybe even cried about it.
All I know is the seconds flew by and then I was dressed in my favorite Sher-kahn t-shirt from the jungle book that a Vietnamese lady who lived in an apartment building made for me, climbing into the cockpit of a helicopter.
Another second or two and I was adjusting my headphones, telling Dad and the pilot that I could hear them both.
Then we were moving smoothly over hundreds of acres of grass and cattle. Roads, tiny little cars and pretend-looking buildings passing relentlessly below.
To this day I’ll swear I saw kangaroos and buffalo. I can see them in my mind just as I did the day we flew over them on our way to the Volcano. I only wish they existed.
Then we were there. I could see the smoke rising angrily, billowing dark and other-worldly from the most deadly and dangerous thing a little boy’s mind could conceive of.
Lava was more dangerous than the ocean.
People died in lava.
We were at the edge of the volcano. I could see it bubbling and spurting orange and red liquid fire out at me. What if it burned a hole in the plane.
In a horrified, fascinated panic I gripped the arm at the edge of my seat and leaned back from the window.
The pilot was going right over the lava.
“Whoa, its getting pretty hot in here, can you feel that Jimmy?” I could feel it. I could smell certain death below. We were going to die. People died in lava. We were right over it and the pilot was steering us so that now we were totally over the lava. What if the helicopter stopped spinning and we dropped into it? Me and Dad were gonna die. And the pilot too.
“Wanna go down a little closer to the lava?”
“No Dad!”
The laughs in my headphones were no competition for the loudness of my imagination.
I didn’t want to die. Other people already died in that lava down there, and Dad wanted to go closer!
I could feel it all over my skin as I sank into it. It felt just like the jacuzzi I got into at the hotel before one time. Then a security guard came over and told Dad no kids allowed in it, so Bethany and I had to go play in the pool while Dad got to talk with the older tourist people from Canada with funny accents.

Somewhere a gasp and another dip in the rotors later, we landed at the airfield in Waimea. It was cold and rainy, fog covered the small private airstrip we drove away from. I was cold and numb from my mind out to my still crawling skin.
We had flown over the Volcano.

Dad had done what the imagination of a little boy could not have conceived in a million little boy years.
My sister graduated first, married first, and had the first grandchild.

But I flew over the Volcano.