The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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This spring I built a greenhouse with about 14 old tempered glass door panels I had salvaged long long ago. Treated lumber framing and cedar siding, but mostly glass. Even had stained glass in the front door and two next to that plus another two in the back. Put a 55 gallon black barrel and concrete pavers to radiate heat at night.

The first spring day that hit 70 degrees, the greenhouse hit 90. What, I wondered, would happen when we hit 80 or more? I’m growing tomatoes and a few exotics in there, probably loved that 90 degree heat but I was betting they wouldn’t like Saudi Arabia temperatures. So I cut two large windows in the back opposite the front door to let heat out both ends. This week we hit the mid 80’s outside and the greenhouse hit 105.

Course, I panicked and bought sunblocking screens for the glass roof and got that attached. Next day we hit 89 outside and the hothouse was 107. Not exactly sure at what temperature green tomatoes roast on the vine, I ordered a solar powered exhaust fan. If that doesn’t work, I’ll order a second one.

Inside the greenhouse my tomatoes are 5 feet tall while the ones I planted outside from the same seed are spindly still, just beginning to realize summer is definitely here, but cold at night. The difference between the two is astounding. I recommend a small greenhouse to anyone who still pooh-poohs climate change, still thinks we ought to drive large SUV’s and wants to drill baby drill for more oil and gas. Death Valley broke its all time heat record this week and cities from Las Vegas to Miami are burning hot while the summer’s just begun.

I may or may not solve my greenhouse overheating problem. Bad planning on my part. There won’t be any exhaust fans for Mother Earth when us tomatoes begin to fry on our vines. No sun blocking shrouds, no good fixes. Just bad gardeners, when all is said and done.

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I went to apply for my State Park Annual Permit yesterday, what used to be free to us citizens, but now costs us taxpayers because the State doesn’t have enough tax dollars for what it used to have enough for so the budget needs to be balanced. Now the poor can pay what the guy launching his 25 foot Bayliner pays for a permit, same way he does at the gas station for the gas tax, same as he does at the drug store, same as he does just about everywhere he buys something. This is what we call Recessive Taxation. No breaks for the indigent. You know, folks we now refer to as Takers.

Big break for the wealthy. Evens the playing field … for somebody. I’m not so poor anymore. Maybe I should harden my heart, take up polo, spend my days investing on the stock market and figure I got mine, those who don’t, well, they probably didn’t work hard or make the right decisions. Plenty of em down here on the South End living on the wrong side of the road. Probably LIKE poverty. Got what they deserved for not going to college or working at Boeing or being born white or male.

So I go online for my permit cause I can afford a computer and DSL. Good website, easy navigation, sign me right up! I notice, though, if I apply online, it costs $5 more. And I remember the same thing happened on my vehicle licenses. They want me to go through a private vendor, see? Job creation. Get rid of that state job which, apparently, isn’t as valuable a job as a private one and now we pay less taxes, right? Sure … Course, I gotta pay it privately now. Kind of like saving money on garbage pickup in the city. Turn it over to Waste Management, your taxes go down. But you gotta pay Waste Management now. Costs more since they don’t have much competition. But at least you’re not paying more in taxes. It’s a little like contract soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Better, I hear, to pay double or triple pay for Blackwater Boyz than to recruit more volunteers or God forbid, draft kids to fight our wars!

I sure don’t want to pay more taxes. Neither does Boeing. Or Amazon. Or Weyerhauser. Or Cabelas. I guess why we give em huge tax breaks. Sure glad taxes aren’t going toward helping out our State Parks. And that extra 15% to give the private sector a piece of the pie, well, at least it won’t raise my taxes. And the poor. Let em eat cake. But I don’t recommend they order their bakery online.

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Back in the early ‘70’s I lived on a Polish homestead in Northern Wisconsin, wife, dog, a few hippie friends, sort of an ersatz commune, which, of course, didn’t last long. Not as long as my short-lived marriage but that’s another story. The little mill town we lived near, Mosinee, was pretty much a redneck burg, home to the Posse Comitatus, one of those fun gun clubs advocating anti-government sentiments. Part of the reason I left, but again another story.

This story is about the Herman’s Hermits who came to Mosinee to play some sad sack of a gin joint on its outskirts. You maybe remember these guys, mid ‘60’s, Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter hit, mostly a flash in the pan but hey, big for awhile on the pop charts, part of the British Invasion. A decade later the lads are down to touring backwash America to crowds of dozens, not the thousands they once performed for.

The lead singer whose name I can’t remember, was interviewed on the Wausau station promoting the gig and the D.J. asked him what he thought of playing for really small audiences in the waning years of a once really successful career in a crummy tavern far from the madding crowds of yesteryear.

And Herman, or whatever his name was, said it was great being on top of the charts, drawing huge crowds, being famous … but the real deal was playing their music. Which was what they’d be doing this coming weekend to whoever shows up. We’re bloody musicians, he said, and that’s what we bloody do, play music.

I gotta say, some 50 years later in my own twilight career, I still remember this interview. And I think now what I thought at the time, bloody good on you lads! The money, the fame, the whole music industrial complex — not really the point in the end. Nice to have hits, nice to have a chart topper. But in the end, despite the lights going dim, the band plays on. Course, me, I might miss the groupies….

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Harry works down at the O-Zi-Ya Body Shop. He’s an artist with bondo, makes a ‘total’ look brand new after pulling the dents and replacing crushed quarter panels, has a real nice touch with an airless in the spray booth. Back about 4 years ago, Harry was a ‘he’. Six foot four, muscular in a lithe sort of way, moved car parts around like baskets of daisies. I didn’t know him real well, I guess, mostly because my beater cars never got treated to the Body Shop make-over. Dents, scratches, bullet holes —- I’m not spending money for pigs’ lipstick.

So imagine my surprise when Harry walks up my drive during our annual Mother’s Day Studio Tour … in high heels, a tasteful above-the-knee pleated skirt, grey blouse and a matching handbag. “How you doing, man?” I ask nonchalantly and Harry explains, no doubt for the 1000th time, he’s no longer a man. Course, judging by the 5 o’clock shadow of a beard, he’s not quite a woman either. Which, he tells me earnestly, will take the hormone treatments some time to kick in.

Even on the live-and-let-live South End, this was, well , this was … different. And we’re accustomed to different. Harry toured the studio and we chatted it up and when he left I gave him a manly sort of hug and said, “Good luck, man,” and immediately corrected myself. Harry gave me a wink and a laugh and sallied forth down the drive.

Harry quit the Body Shop — not because the boyz couldn’t deal with The Change — they still speak fondly of him. Her. You know what I mean. She wanted a new life to go with the new her.

A couple of years ago I ran into Harry. Harriet now. She was installing fountains. Hauled the rocks, dug the ponds, wired the pumps, plumbed the waterfalls. “I’m an artist, Skeeter” she declared. She was welding sculptural components, creating light shows, running her own business. “Life’s good, then?” I asked.

She broke into a radiant smile, one I never saw at the Body Shop. Leaning down to whisper in my ear, she fairly bubbled, “It’s a joy my boy, it’s a joy!” All I can say is the path to happiness is a whole lot harder for some, even on the salty South End, but it isn’t impossible.

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