The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The ill-fated Nettle Festival was conceived as the kick-off to Rev. Ralph Fisher’s tent revival for the Little Church of the Ravine. THE END IS NEAR, his readerboard sign announced months ahead of the scheduled event, THE SOUTH END REVIVAL IS COMING! The congregation might have known what was slouching toward us, but the rest of us down here were bemused or amused, depending on our degree of what the good reverend referred to as ‘heathenism’. The South End was in mighty need of missionary work itself, he was fond of preaching, but their puny tithing went instead to saving the natives of New Guinea and east Africa. I figure they were easier to convert than us locals who were fairly content to wallow in our puddles of iniquity.

The Nettle Festival itself wasn’t such a bad idea. In fact, the Tyee Store tried to revive it a few intervening years after what was referred to as ‘the tragedy’. But even today there are members of the congregation who break into sobs over their coffees when mention is made. And this is 35 years after ‘the tragedy.’ I speak of it now in hushed tones and never around Mildred’s family who still live down the road. Some events in this mean old world aren’t meant for sarcasm or ridicule, although you would have to admit, even the pious among you, that Rev. Ralph overdid it with the Nettle Maze, his Labyrinth of Itching Hell.

Stigmata wipe-off tattoos are one thing, but the Nettle Maze crossed the line. By the weekend of the Revival, the Little Church had erected a tent worthy of Ringling Brothers. Churches from as far away as Sedro-Wooley and Darrington had come in converted school buses and rickety vans, hauling the Believers and their children from far and wide for a day of righteous fun and old time religion. Pastor Philip of Pentecostal fame arrived the night before from his circuit riding, prayed with Rev. Ralph and his long-suffering wife Mildred and slept the peaceful sleep of the Godly before that morning’s first sermon of fire and brimstone-laden admonitions blistered the varnish off the old pulpit.

By afternoon the sun came out like a prophecy and the festival cranked up its volume. Chainsaw carvers sent cedar chips flying and the face of Jesus appeared in chiseled log sculpture. Stigmata wash-off tattoos made the teenager giggle, 666’s on foreheads being by far the favorite of the boys. Glossalalia crossword puzzles didn’t work out so well, but the Biblical action figures of Moses in combat with John the Baptist and Jesus himself down by the firepit were a huge hit with the younger kids.

And of course there was the Nettle Maze. The Labyrinth of Itching Hell itself! Half an acre of loops and turns and dead ends so intricate not even Jimmy Randall, the church caretaker who’d carved the trails over the past three weeks, starting when the plants were three feet tall and he could see over them, could navigate safely. Now, of course, they were higher than the tallest man’s head and impossible to survey beyond the impenetrable wall of stinging stalks that held each entrant locked into the maze. Dozens were wandering hopelessly lost in there when a foul wind came up like the cold breath of Beelzebub himself, the one Pastor Philip of the Pentecost had predicted only half an hour earlier in fiery prose. Hell had come to the South End or surely would arrive soon, the unsuspecting crowd had been informed and sure enough, a mighty howl rose from the ravine like the thousand laments of the Lost. The sun blotted out behind dark and treacherous clouds and that cold wind became a tempest and the circus tent became a shaking thing, alive and monstrous, tearing at its ropes, sending one and all running for the safety of the field before the cords tore loose and the canvas tent set sail like an ungodly wing, flapping into the distance before it shrouded the chapel itself and caught on the belfry where it ripped itself to pieces on the steeple. Torn asunder, Rev. Ralph would tell of it for years. Torn asunder!

But those inside the Maze had nowhere to turn. Children and adults alike wheeled and fled, down paths that went nowhere, flayed by the wind-whipped stalks of stinging death. Well, not death, literally, but who knows what went through those terrified minds besotted with brimstone stories? Their screams reached the field beyond, but what could we outsiders do except listen in horror. One by one the survivors stumbled out into the raging storm, rashes covering their faces and hands, tears streaming down their pockmarked faces. The Little Chapel opened its double doors to lead these blinded sheep inside, to calm them and offer balm, to offer shelter from the storm. Pastor Philip was in 7th Heaven, finding in the calamity further proof of the Scriptures. He was in fine form, everyone agreed later.

But it was later Rev. Ralph realized Mildred was missing. He went from person to person asking if they’d seen Mildred. No one had. A boy sporting 666 on his forehead said he’d seen her go in the Maze. “Are you sure,” the congregation cried, nearly in unison. He was certain. Rev. Ralph led the search party. The wind had abated nearly as quickly as it had come up. Down at the Labyrinth the nettles had been laid down in haphazard rows as if the horn of Jericho had blown and there, in the exact center, stood Mildred, stone still, a strange statue of a woman staring into the sky, not moving, not crying out, just frozen in time and space. Between Heaven and Hell, Pastor Philip would say more than a few times in the following days. Only Rev. Ralph dared approach and he did so with the utmost trepidation as everyone watched in dread.

Mildred was never the same. Some say she wasn’t quite right to begin with, but that’s uncharitable. She spoke in tongues a day later. Unintelligible garble, strange utterances, ugly curses. But I’ve never heard that from anyone who was actually there. I do know it’s hard to be with her even now. She doesn’t actually engage and looks right through you while she perpetually scratches at her arms. It may be she’s lost forever in that maze. It may even be, as the Bible thumping Pastor Philip would say, we’re everyone of us lost in that maze.

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Lately I’ve been around folks similar in geologic age as myself who, after reviewing their litanies of medical maladies, assorted operations and multiple ailments, inevitably land on the subject of cleaning out their closets and drawers, sheds and outbuildings so the kids won’t get stuck with the hellish project disposing of their decades of accumulation. The assumption in every case is that their offspring would no more want that accretion of antique junk than they’d hop e their local thrift store would one day be theirs, lock stock and broken barrel.

With my brother I moved our folks’ treasured possessions three or four times the last years of their life. The first move we told them, after they’d become alarmed at our loads to the dump and Goodwill, if they wanted to downsize themselves, okay, but we’d be returning down to Georgia with the largest U-Haul truck we could rent and what they wanted to keep — definitely not everything — would have to fit. All right, they said. When we returned of course nothing had been weeded out or thrown away. What are you gonna do, spank em and send em to bed without supper? We managed to find a second U-Haul truck and filled both, then drove them 1500 miles to their new house that we filled with cheap furniture, rusty tools, broken appliances and a lifetime of collected crap.

The next few moves into the assisted living complex, we did the downsizing. As much as they would allow … or at least never witnessed. Whether it’s a prolonged attachment or just too much work to get rid of stuff, I couldn’t say. Our own junkpile, seldom downsized, would be a curse to our kids when we leave these mortal coils, goofy art, rotting kayaks, dead lawnmowers, useless tools — a veritable EPA superfund site. Fortunately we don’t have kids. I suspect we’ll just endow the property, the houses, the 20 plus sheds and all our worldly possessions to jumpstart the South End Historical Society. No need to call the movers or the thrift stores. Just need volunteers to be docents once the visiting hours are established.

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I’m not a meticulous guy. Not a bone in me is OCD. My engineer pals call me an 80/20 guy, only put in 80% of the work and accept the results. This week I rented a drum floor sander, weighed about what a car does and okay, you haul it up our stairs, see if you think you’re still young and strong. But okay, I did and now I feel old and plenty weak. What did I expect at 74? Although this isn’t about my geriatric condition, it’s about my inattention to details, the old ‘good enuff’ attitude I’ve had my entire life, sort of a hippie ethos. Not trying to be an expert, just, gee, get the job done and let’s move on. Plenty of other stuff needs taking care of, not really working toward a PhD in floor finishing.

But … if I’d hoped optimism and the Can-Do attitude would carry the day … I was sorely mistaken. It’s been a full day sanding down the old finish that looked like hell the last five years or more but I just kept procrastinating, putting it off year after year until finally, this week, I rented the sander and hauled it home, huffed and puffed the monstrously heavy beast up the stairs and plugged it in, figuring the last time I sanded these floors 30 years ago it was fairly easy.

Course it didn’t have epoxy finish on it when I laid it back then, tougher than nails now, tougher than my 60 grit sandpaper in a lot of hard to get at place, tougher than my own grit. By the time I threw in the towel I had plenty of deep gouges, rough corners, finish that sanded uneven — in other words, not the gleaming fresh hardwood maple floor I’d envisioned. Quite the contrary. Story of my life, really, attempting projects like housebuilding or guitar luthiery or furniture making without the proper tools, without the patience necessary, without the requisite skills and just hoping in the end that things would work out fine. The fallacy of this fantasy is obvious in the final details, a failure of craftsmanship, simple as that.

Today I’m questioning a lot of that hippie ethos of mine, licking wounds, kicking myself. Tomorrow … hopefully I won’t see all the mistakes. It is, after all, just a floor. We just put the scratches in ahead of time.

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Little Jimmy, a buddy of mine who’s almost exactly the same old age as me, was reflecting on what he’d like to do when he retired. He’s a glass artist – same as me – and so I know, even if he doesn’t, the kind of retirement he’s dreaming of is just that, a pipe dream. There’s as much likelihood of golden years in a hammock beside a South Seas Lagoon as winning American Idol with a tin ear and laryngitis, but like most folks who gamble on a lottery ticket, the fantasy trumps mathematics.

He’s the kind of guy who itemizes his day, schedules his week, plans itinerary into the coming months and can tell you, by rote, the exact steps he’ll take into the coming years. I can no more imagine him poolside with a Cuba Libre beside his sunglasses on the cabana table slathered with tanning lotion reading a novel than I can see him winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Little Jimmy’s a List Maker. An organized, tightly scheduled Planner. He knows far ahead what he needs to do not only this morning but the morning Tuesday first week, next month. He’s the guy who made an outline before he wrote the essay in 12th grade history class and got an A+ with the teacher’s comments: well organized. I don’t need to look in his dish cabinet to know the bowls and glasses are neatly arranged by size and color. Chaos, to him, is MY cabinet, one step shy of disaster, mayhem and death.

Little Jimmy pulls out a tape rule last visit and shows me 80 inches. “See that?” I shrug in incomprehension. “What’re we measuring?” I ask. “Time left,” Jimmy declares. “If I live to be 80, slightly longer than the average U.S. male … and I’m 74 (he puts his finger at 6 feet 2 inches, then this is all you and me got left, buddy, 6inches.” He shakes his head sadly. “Time’s short now.”

Unlike most of us and me in particular, Jimmy’s hit the End of his Calendar. No more days no more months no more years. Just inches. He wants to get more done, he’s got to speed up the Line, blow more glass, sell more stock, finish 2024 by 2025, squeeze into that retirement before the tape rule hits 80 inches. They say dogs don’t understand death. I think dogs are like me — they get the idea, all right, they just don’t carry a tape rule strapped to their collar. I guess we’re a little too busy scratching fleas.

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Happiness, for some, is a warm gun. I swear, the older I get the more I learn about the proclivities of my fellow citizens. But I have to admit, the term ammosexual was out of the blue in an era where everything lately seems out of the blue. You can buy a T-shirt with AMMOSEXUAL emblazoned on the front and you will fit right into the next MAGA rally where red caps and flag outfits are de rigueur. Childless Cat Lady, I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon, I Don’t Care, Black Lives MAGA (not sure what that one even means), there’s even one of Trump’s mugshot with the inscription underneath LEGEND.

I guess we live in bumper sticker times. T-shirts, ball caps, bumper stickers, all shouting out our politics, our grievances, our heroes. But there’s something about ammosexual that makes my butt cheeks clench, something beyond just partisan and creepy, way worse than weird. We already got an alphabet soup for sexual predilections, maybe we don’t need to add ammosexual if we’re not hopelessly woke. LGBTQ+A? Hard enough before. Probably should poll the National Rifle Association membership, see what percentage identify as ammosexual, find out if this is a minority desperate to step out of the closet. “Mom, Dad — I got something we need to talk about….”

Somehow I suspect the evangelicals won’t find biblical scripture or stricture to support anyone’s notion that ammosexuality was forbidden, deemed a perversion in the eyes of the Lord or otherwise pronounced taboo. Thou shalt not lie with thy neighbor’s ARE-15!! Not in the New Testament even and anyway the folks willing to cast the first stones won’t be stocking up with rocks, at least not for this particular proclivity.

Personally I guess if a person wants to engage in whatever with his/her/their guns or cannonballs, none of my business. And not the government’s either – even if, as I suspect, these ammosexuals would welcome Big Brother in your bedroom, probably not theirs. You know, until guns are outlawed and gun sex too.

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