The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/audio-faceborg.mp3[/podcast]audio— faceborg

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So even way down here on the digitally derelict South End, the Big News is the 100 billion dollar sale of Facebook.  It’s hard to imagine for most of us accustomed to our own social media in the primitive form of Jolene’s Beauty Salon or the South End Marina and Bait or Gossip Mill Central  — the Diner.  Rumors fly fast down here, but usually not because we started them ourselves.  Back in the sad days of party line phones, we might glean a secret or two listening in, then pass it along at the Tyee Store so that two or three days later half the island knew Sharon So and So’s kid had been busted on drug charges or Jimmy D’s son had knocked up his girlfriend or Carl X. down at the garage had totaled his hot rod going 100 down the State Park hill.

The gravevine was primitive but effective.  Nowadays we got the hive mentality, happy Borgs one and all.  Wouldn’t want to watch a movie if our ‘friends’ didn’t watch it.  Wouldn’t dream of going to a restaurant if our ‘friends’ didn’t recommend it.  Wouldn’t buy a Ford if our ‘friends’ hadn’t bought one too.  I don’t crawl out of bed unless I’m absolutely 100% positive everybody else had already got up too.

Conformity is apparently IN.  If nothing else, it SELLS.  And in the New Religion called Capitalism, that’s all that matters.  The South End — always a tweet or twitter behind the times — just never figured out that folks would pay for gossip.  If Jolene had analyzed how her patrons would not only pony up for a perm but then zero in on their preferences, she’d be dumping the Salon on the open market for a billion or two.  And Tyee Store would still be open…..   Just not bricks and mortar, except maybe their fancy outhouse.

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GRAFFITI FOUND ON THE SOUTH END DINER:  You can tell you created God in your own image if He hates the same people you do.

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[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/audio-south-end-somalia1.mp3[/podcast]audio — south end somalia

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Down here where the island rises up from its mudflat beginnings 20 miles to the north and finally juts a chin proudly out above the smug Hat Islanders who post NO TRESPASSING signs every 50 feet warning us to steer clear, we tend to examine issues from above the ordinary fray of sea level.  Course we may also suffer, in such altitudes, from oxygen deficiency — which may explain more than we care, or need, to examine.

I been noticing lately down at the South End Marina and Bait Shop, a lot of loose talk from the lay-about skippers how the fishing industry — meaning THEM — has been pole-axed, or at least gill-netted, by these damn government regulations.  Closures one day, openings 60 miles west another, zone 8-12 one week, you can crab, but not in zone 7.  How in Blue Hell you gonna make a living motoring to Hood Canal Tuesday then up to the San Juans Wednesday and back down to Camano Friday?  It’s enough to drive a sailor to drink!  Even more….

The days of the great salmon herds are gone the way of the buffalo, that much is true, but the why of it, well, the Ahabs blame everything from the Southendomish tribe to the spotted gooeyduck.  They’d even blame the eagles if it didn’t seem positively unpatriotic.  I don’t say too much when the fleet is drydocked like this, too much land under their boots and too much rotgut under their gills.  But occasionally I’ll hazard the opinion that the salmon have gone the way of the old growth nettle forests, over harvested, ill managed and maybe we got our own selves to blame.  If I brought the rotgut, they tolerate this —- if I’m drinking on their dubloon, it gets a lot dicier….

Truth is, they’ve tried everything from charter fishing to eco-tourism, hoping the CEO’s of San Diego and Frisko, Portland and Smokey Point might be satisfied with a couple of less-than-trophy sized flounder if the flasks flowed freely and the only whoppers were the tall tales of a bygone Puget fishery.  It wasn’t long before the only reservations for once proud bottom fishers were for birthday parties for Weyerhauser exec’s kids.  Trust me, they swallowed more than their pride.

Fishing on the South End is more endangered than naked mermaids.  Their kids will be lucky to fish for perch with a pole and a bobber.  But hard times make men desperate.  We’re no stranger to desperation but desperation is no mother of invention.  The other night, sitting on the poop deck of Coho Bob’s trawler as it slowly gathers barnacles and we quickly gather liquid courage, the talk turned loose and Pete, a one-time tug captain, mentioned he’d been watching the oil tankers idling off Anacortes the other day.  Ripe for the picking, just like the Somalians, he said quietly, maybe hoping nobody would remember tomorrow.

This is what it’s come to.  Poverty, alcoholism and now….. piracy.  Hard times make desperate men and you can take that to the bank … even if the tellers won’t deposit it.  All I can say is Anacortes needs to take precaution.  And Hat Island.  Well, you’ll need more than your uppity signs….

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[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/audio-shade-tree-mechanics.mp3[/podcast]audio — shade tree mechanics

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I got a friend whose car just started making ominous tapping sounds up under the hood.  These are basically morse code messages from the soon-to-be-dead.  Course, she could pony up the money for some serious end stage life support but like most of us down here on the South End, we have living wills for our junkers.  Occasionally I find old car bodies and truck beds rusting out in the woods where they were driven one last wild ride into the interior. One guy I know drove his over a 200 foot bluff, photographed the flight and told the fire boyz when they got the 9-11 call from a concerned citizen who had seen the descent that the car’s emergency brake had let go and rolled down the drive and over the lawn and down to the waiting arms of the sea.

A lot of us keep the rigs around for ‘parts’, but the truth is, they become lawn ornaments pretty quick and then just forgotten under the tangle of blackberry vines, antiques waiting for restoration when 1990 cars become collectible.  Hopefully soon….

My friend was quoted 4500 dollars for a short block from the Subaru dealer.  A short block is a partial engine repair.  Meaning, I guess, you save ten bucks and wait for the rest to fail soon.   Used to be we would drive our rig up to the barn and haul out the bad engine and drop in a used one we’d picked up at the Tyee Wrecking yard for 100 bucks.  Tyee Wrecking yard is gone now.  Sort of.  You still see a drive train digging out of the field like a 3 speed zombie occasionally, but you wouldn’t want to stick around to see what it feeds on.  Mabana Mike still does some shade tree mechanical moonlighting, but there aren’t many itinerant auto repairers left down here.  You need a degree in computer technology these days just to figure out how to adjust the clock much less set the pollution controls.

A lot of the boyz say they miss the simplicity of auto repair, but I’m not one of them.  I busted too many knuckles and dropped in too many muddy junkyard trannies that quit working two weeks later to get all weepy and nostalgic about car repair.  We got the vintage car clubs for those who miss the wrenching more than they care about their wives’ complaints about money down a rathole.  Personally I just like my car to be reliable.  When it’s not, I’m with my buddy who pushes them off the bluff.  If you happen to be a beach walker, keep a lookout upward, is all I’m saying….

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[podcast]https://www.skeeterdaddle.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/audio-version-workaphobia1.mp3[/podcast]audio version —workaphobia

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