Some Tidbits

And now for something completely different. After thinking about it for some time, I am now ready to reveal my alter ego: I am Captain Obvious. My special power is the ability to point out what everyone else already knows.

"Don't touch that stove, it's hot!" I exclaim. The burner is red and heat waves are wafting from it.

"You'll catch cold going out like that!" I told my children. It was sleeting and they were lightly dressed.

"If you don't return rental movies you can turn a small fee into a huge bill."

You may say this isn't much of a power, nothing like x-ray vision, but in fact being able to point out the obvious isn't all that common a trait. Else, why would people continue to make such obvious mistakes?

My younger sister Marilyn and I went to a parochial elementary school in Tallahassee Florida for two years when we were much much younger. All the girls wore beanies with the school's initials on them. After our first year there I think someone must have clued the nuns because the initials were removed from the beanies. The school was called Blessed Sacrament.

One of the first car stops I ever made as a newly minted park ranger was of a motorist who was speeding along the Colonial Parkway near Yorktown Virginia. When you make a car stop, you must do a lot of things quickly and do them right. You have to call in the license number, keep an eye on the motorist so as not to be surprised sitting in your car, get your seatbelt off (not easy if you're right handed and wearing a gun), check your rear view mirror so you don't open your door into oncoming traffic, and check the rest of the area in case of ambush.

But I managed to do all that, verified that the car was not stolen, and made my approach. The approach must be done carefully too. Tap the trunk to make sure it's latched and any possible assailant concealed there cannot get out; look in the back seat; stand just so behind the driver so he'd have a difficult time shooting you.

I asked for the driver's license and registration and explained that my radar had clocked him above the speed limit. I asked if he had any reason for speeding. Then I told him I would be back shortly and ever so carefully turned towards my car.

Only it wasn't where I had left it. In the midst of doing everything else I had neglected to take the car out of gear. Luckily we were on a slight upward slope so my patrol car was coming along very slowly.

It hit the motorist's car of course. He got out of his car and said, "Do you mind backing up so I can see if there's any damage to my car?" It wasn't really a question at all, and there was only one thing I could do. I backed up and he took at look at his bumper. After a minute he generously said there was not.

And then I realized I was still holding his license and registration. Well, what would you do?

He didn't get a ticket.

Another early car stop was of an elderly woman who gave her license to me and when I looked at it I noticed she was born in 1899. She wasn't terribly old, it was 1978 after all, but something inside me said, "If you give this woman a ticket she'll die right in front of you." It was, I think, the last time I ever interacted with someone who was born in the 19th century.

It's a fact of life that many people think their parents were humorless stern individuals who really made them toe the line. Often they call attention to this presumed severity when they witness other parents who fall short as disciplinarians, in their view.

My mother was an easygoing loving woman who bore her children's frequent poor behavior with restraint. Rarely she would burst out at one of us. "Peter, because of you my supper is going down in lumps!" I heard her say on occasion. (She kept her Boston accent almost all her life, so my name always sounded like "Petah.")

My father also had a good sense of humor, but possessed the gravitas Mom lacked. You didn't disappoint him lightly. I can remember being over his knee and getting paddled hard but I can never recall what trivial little thing I might have done to disturb him.

My brother Larry and I were fans of a 1950's television show called Andy's Gang, hosted by Andy Devine. Andy would do little comedy bits and introduce old movies, often featuring Gunga Din the Elephant Boy. Dad, annoyed, would trumpet "Elephants trumpeting through the living room on Saturday mornings!" What I wouldn't have given for a real elephant in our living room.

Actually, I was a considerate kid, in my own way. I'd get up early on Saturday mornings as a small boy and turn on the tv to the inevitable Saturday morning western. I'd turn the sound down very low so the talking scenes would not wake my parents, but when the shooting started I just had to hear it and cranked up the volume.

They never seemed to appreciate my thoughtfulness.