Is it still roughing it if you have air conditioning, a DVD player and a fridge?

For as long as I can remember (which these days really isn’t more than a week or two) I’ve loved to camp. There’s nothing quite like propping your feet up on a log, lounging by a popping campfire contemplating the stars dotting the heavens and then drifting off in a cozy sleeping bag to the lullaby of chirping crickets and distant coyotes. At least that’s what I’ve been told. Actually none of my camping trips have ever looked anything like that.

In reality, camping over the last few years has meant toiling for hours cramming duffel bags, sleeping bags, cots, coolers, a tent, a camp stove, toys, the dog, groceries, camp chairs and the kids (if there’s room left for them) into the Midlife cruiser only to unpack it all and labor for a more hours cursing in the hot sun attempting to set  up something that resembles a campsite. After a few more hours of wrestling with those annoying elasticized tent poles, searching frantically for missing tent stakes, trying to cook dinner on a stove that refuses to light, attempting to light a campfire with soaking wet firewood, I’m usually ready to relax –  just in time for it to start raining.

It never fails. I could throw out my bedroll in the middle of the dryest point in the Sahara Desert, and I guarantee right about the time I crawl into my sleeping bag for the night, it would pour long and hard enough to make the place look like Seattle in springtime. I’ve actually received calls from the leaders of drought-stricken third-world nations begging me to come and set up my tent just long enough to get the crops growing again.

But no more. I don’t care what all you traditionalist snobs call me. I have officially hung up my little leaky nylon home away from home (actually I pitched it into a dumpster) and treated myself to a shiny new Fun Finder X travel trailer complete with heating and air conditioning, a toilet,  shower,  television, DVD player, gas stove, refrigerator and ample bed space to comfortably sleep the entire Middleman family. But most importantly it has a roof. A beautiful, solid, leakproof roof that stops every drop of rain. And  I know this for a fact. Because despite my new way of camping, my streak is still in tact.  This year’s score: Seven nights of camping, six nights of rain, but more importantly, zero drips on my head during the night.

I can still remember the weekend that sounded the death knell for my days of roughing it in a tent. It was a July weekend so miserably hot people in my town were planning weekend getaways to Death Valley for a little relief. So what did I do? I loaded up the car with camping gear and the Middleman clan, left the comfort of air conditioning far behind and headed to the lake for a weekend. There’s nothing like killing a weekend with sweat and misery.

It really didn’t start off that badly. Sure I spent the first night begging and pleading with God to send just the slightest breeze  through the mesh windows of my tent as I tossed and turned on a sweat-drenched cot. But it wasn’t all horrible… until I bumped into my boss the next morning.

He and his wife just happened to be camping nearby and cruised by my site on their bicycles looking clean, perky and way too refreshed.

“If you have time, drop by the camper tonight for a drink,” he said in a chipper tone of voice that could only come from a guy who had actually slept the night before.

Sounded good to me. So after supper (which was undercooked thanks to the aforementioned stove that refused to light) I strolled over to his camper. Actually “camper” isn’t the proper term for what he “roughs it” in. I’ve stayed in luxury hotels that didn’t have half the amenities his rolling resort offered:  icy cold air-conditioning, buttery soft leather lounge chairs, high-fidelity surround sound, a queen-sized bed, a shower, full kitchen and satellite television. Say what you want, that’s the only way to rough it.

After an evening of socializing and soaking up as much freon-chilled air as possible, I sadly moped back to my camp, laid down on my cot and immediately began to sweat. As I lay there baking all I could think about was how my boss was sound asleep just a few hundred yards away in a real bed as real air conditioning pumped soothing breezes all around him.

Now if you’ve never tent camped, you’re not aware of the amazing effect that thin layer of nylon has on the morning sun. It’s actually comparable to what tin foil does to a baked potato. Sometime usually within five minutes after sunrise the temperature inside the average nylon tent will immediately climb about 30 degrees making it impossible to sleep.

Which is precisely what caused me on that particular morning to peel my sweaty back from my cot and drag myself over the nearby public shower house to cool off and wash away the funk from the night before. What I found in the shower was the proverbial straw that shattered the camel’s vertebra. (WARNING: Those of you with delicate stomachs you may want to skip ahead a paragraph or two.)

Right there smack in the middle of the shower was a large, nasty pile of poo.

I’m not sure what possesses anyone to suddenly decide to vacate their bowels in the middle of a shower. Especially when they’re a mere  10 ft. away from a row of gleaming toilets. I realize getting back to nature brings out a bit of our inner animal, but dropping a load in a shower? My dog wouldn’t even do that.  Right there before God and that pile of poo, I swore  all camping from then on would involve air conditioning and my own personal shower.

So that was it. I’m now the proud owner of my own little towable hideaway. Now, no matter where I camp, as I lay in bed at night listening to the hum of my air conditioner and the patter of the rain on the roof, my heart goes out to all those tent campers roughing it out there.

If any of you stubborn traditionalists happen to have your tent pitched nearby me, drop by the camper, I’ll let you soak up some air conditioning  and enjoy a cold drink out of the fridge. And if someone happens to soil the showerhouse, I may even let you wash up in mine.

Just don’t wake me when the morning sun starts heating up your tent.

It’s summertime – time to slay the dragon

Every guy needs a dragon to slay. At least that’s what Christian author John Eldredge theorizes in his guide to male living “Wild at Heart.” Eldredge surmises that God hardwired guys to be slayers and conquerers of “dragons.”  Without conquests, Eldredge writes, guys get restless and start seeking out something to conquer.

The modern male’s conquests can take the form of women, work (that one makes no sense to me), cars, boats, golf (another complete mystery to me), sports, hunting, fishing, gambling, mountain climbing, the stock market or any other “dragon” we feel compelled to master

I have to admit, I’m drawn to several of the above mentioned challenges (except the one involving women. Honest, honey.).  But there is one particular scaled beast that consumes most of my time from April through September. In many ways, he’s just like the mythical dragons of yore. He’s green, belches plumes of acrid white smoke and has been known to strike terror into small animals and children. That’s right. I’m taking about… my riding lawnmower.

Ten years ago, I moved into my current home, a sprawling ranch-style house nestled on three acres. Actually, it was two acres when I moved in. I acquired the third acre about a year ago (that’s another story for another time). I love my little kingdom. In the fall, I can gather apples and pears from my orchard. In the spring, the distinctive fragrance of 300 ft. of lilac bushes in full bloom wafts in through my windows. And in the summer, I love to sit out in the evening and just listen to the wind as it rustles the leaves of the numerous other trees around my house.

But having that much land also means mowing it.  At first, the task didn’t seem so daunting. When I purchased my home, I also acquired the shiny new riding mower the previous owner had just bought a few months prior. I have to admit, I thought it was kind of cool. I actually was looking forward to summers tooling around the property on that little tractor. What I didn’t realize was,  I had just b0ught my dragon.

It was clear from the beginning –  that mower hated me.  And I soon learned to return the sentiment. From our first summer together, I could see one of us was going to kill the other – a battle royale that still rages today.  For a decade, this wretched beast has displayed its disdain for me in the strangest manner. It is actually trying to avoid its summertime duties by committing a bizarre slow suicide, one part at a time.

I can’t recall the exact order that its parts began going bad, but it started almost from day one.  Over the years I’ve replaced starters, solenoids, mandrel housings, bearings, wires, bag assemblies, motor mounts, countless belts, tires, the entire front end, batteries, blades, blade adaptors, the entire carburetor and numerous other assorted nuts, bolts and springs.

I can safely say, there isn’t a part on this mower (except maybe the seat) that I haven’t had to replace, repair or rebuild at least once. Each spring I wake the beast, drive it out of its lair and the battle begins. It’s as if it spends the winter plotting and scheming which part it’s going to sacrifice just so it can hear me curse and screech and throw tools around my garage like a crazed chimpanzee.

My wife has offered to let me buy a new mower. But that would be declaring defeat. I will not give in as long as this stubborn beast is capable of tackling its summertime duties. It just needs to learn who is the master of the kingdom.

Now I have to cut this entry short. The dragon awaits me in the arena (aka the garage). If you stop by and you hear angry war cries coming from my garage, enter at your own risk – and be prepared to duck.

The misery of Mister Mom: Escaped Chinchilla, gum in the hair and a paperclip up the nose

How did I celebrate Mother’s Day this year? By pretending that I was Mom, while Mrs. Middleman was off to Boston on business (sure it was business, but there were some seafood dinners involved, too).  I’ve done this little temporary single-parent thing for a couple of times a year for the past few years, and I have to admit, Michael Keaton does Mr. Mom far better than I do.

It’s not that I don’t know how take care of the kids (a roll or two of duct tape is all it usually takes). It’s just that NOTHING seems to go as smoothly in my wife’s absence. She swears I grossly exaggerate the magnitude of all the household calamities that start 15 minutes after she leaves and end about five minutes before she returns. But let me share with you just a smattering of the events that went down over the past weeks. If anything, the following timeline will be useful at my sanity hearing:

2:oo a.m. Sunday– My blissful slumber on the couch, where I dozed off watching the Royals lose again, was pierced by a bizarre squeaky, barking noise reminiscent of an angry lap dog tormenting a startled rat beneath the couch. Somewhere in that foggy no-man’s land between sleep and reality, I began to wonder why a deranged chihuahua had so rudely invaded my dreams. Then my brain snapped to attention, and I realized I don’t own a lap dog or a rat. Nervously, I turned on the light and cautiously peered underneath the couch and was  greeted by the black beady eyes and twitching whiskers of my son’s chinchilla, Chewie, who  started the night safe and secure in his cage in the next room.

Now if  you’ve ever tried to catch a chinchilla, you know God blessed them with the  remarkable ability to instantly vaporize and reappear 10 feet away. Difficult to contend with when you’re fully alert. Impossible when you’re half asleep. After a few minutes of this little game of catch-me-if-you-can, I knew I needed to call in the reserves. So I woke my two sons, who stumbled out into the living room and stood there sleepily watching while I repeated the whole process.  My 10-year-old, who clearly has much more brain capacity than I do at 2 a.m., simply went back into his room, retrieved a bag of Chewie’s favorite treats, gave it couple shakes and when the little  fuzzball came over to investigate, he scooped him up with ease and returned him to his cage.

Monday 8 a.m. – Turned on my office computer calendar to discover my 12-year-old had a band concert at 7 p.m. that night. How did I not know about this? So I called the school and asked the boy where his saxophone was. To which he replied, quite clearly and in plain English (a detail important to this story) “It’s at HOME.”

Home is 18 miles from the office, but I told him I’d retrieve his horn over my lunch hour and bring it to him.

Monday Noon – I spent my lunch hour  frantically running through the house looking for a saxophone that was nowhere to be found. All I could think was: “It has to be in my wife’s car – 400 miles away.”  So I called my son again and asked him if he was sure his sax was at home.

“Ohhhhhhh. My saxophone. Yeah. That’s here at school.”

I could have twisted a tube into a giant brass pretzel at that point. But the wasted lunch hour wasn’t a total loss. I retrieved my son’s Sunday-best white shirt and khaki pants that he needed to wear that evening and went back to work.

5:10 P.M. Monday – I greeted both my sons at the elementary school as they exited the big yellow bus that had delivered their after school group to and from an afternoon at the bowling alley. My oldest exited last with a sheepish look on his face. Never a good sign. Then I saw it – the giant twisted tangle of atomic blue goo and hair protruding from the side of his head. Apparently the bowling game had turned a bit heated and one of his classmates had deposited a huge wad of gum up side his head in a fit of competitive rage. No problem. A quick snip of the scissors and it was gone – along with a huge chunk of hair. It was now less than 90 minutes from the time he had to be ready to go on stage and he had a gaping, shiny bald spot on the side of his head.

I frantically drove a few blocks to a friend’s beauty shop and begged her to buzz the boy’s hair so it at least was all one length. She agreed to call me in a few minutes when she finished the dye job she had in her chair, a client who by this time was almost hysterical as she observed my mounting frustration.

So I threw the kids in the car and told my oldest to change into his good clothes for the concert. That’s when we discovered it had apparently been a while since the last time he’d donned his white oxford. The sleeves were four inches too short and he couldn’t even begin to button up the bulging front. So now we’re just an hour or so from the time he was supposed to be backstage and he has a bald spot and shirt he can’t even button.

Thanks to a quick trip to Wal-Mart and a return trip to the salon and a set of electric clippers, we made it to the school auditorium with a fresh shirt, a new haircut and even a  little time to spare.

Thursday 2:30 P.M. – Caller ID can be a blessing and a curse. My high-tech desk phone always alerts me to who is placing the incoming call. So when my sons’ schools call me to let me know about their latest antics and subsequent punishment. (which usually happens at least every couple of weeks) I can ready myself mentally before I even pick up the phone. “Okay,” I told myself, “Whatever he did this time, I’m ready for it.”  And I picked up the phone.

“Mr. Middleman, this is Mrs. Braintrust, your son’s school counselor… Don’t worry, it’s really nothing serious…”

Now, let me explain something to you nonparents, school administrators never call because something “isn’t serious.”

“Mr. Middleman, it would seem your son is a bit of a bloody mess and we had to find him a different shirt to wear.”

Nope, nothing serious. My son has lost so much blood it required a change of wardrobe. What do the schools consider “serious” these days, the loss of  limb?

“It seems Mr. Middleman, another child dared your son to put a wire paperclip up his nose… and he did. But don’t worry, we got it out and we managed to get the bleeding to stop.”

Needless to say, this was not one my prouder moments as a father. The child that I’d always dreamed would grow up to be a two-term President, the doctor who finally cured cancer and the architect of world peace had just shoved a needle- sharp piece of aluminum wire up his nostril on a dare.

Sigh.

And so it went the rest of the week. The children who are  typically somewhat normal American kids as long as my wife was around continued to spiral into new depths of insanity, dragging their sighing, drooling, babbling father along for the ride.

Upon my wife’s return, we passed each other in the doorway. She was coming in and I couldn’t have been exiting quicker if the house was on fire behind me.

“Hi honey I’m home….Where are you off to?” she asked in a perky, refreshed sounding voice.

“The store to buy a Mother’s Day Gift.”

“Oh that’s sweet, you really don’t have to do that since Mother’s Day was a week ago.”

“It’s not for you,” I muttered  and hopped in the car and pointed it toward town.

Memories from the road

My kids and I were  a scant 75 miles into our 400-mile journey down Interstate 80 the first time the question came up.

“Dad?”  my son’s small voice was barely audible over the hum of the road and the drone of the satellite radio.

“Yes?”  I replied,  sensing with my heightened father’s intuition that my son was about to ask the inevitable question. It’s the question that has plagued traveling parents since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. It’s the question I’m sure my great, great-grandfather asked my great, great, great grandparents as they set out in their Conestoga wagon to cross the great American frontier.  And now it’s the question my kids inevitably ask at the start of any road trip longer than an hour.

“Are we almost there?”

Gripping the steering wheel just a little tighter, I respond through clinched teeth with the traditional answer handed down through the generations. It’s the answer that’s probably uttered thousands of times daily by exasperated parents behind the wheels of minivans, SUVs and family trucksters headed in all directions on America’s byways.

“NO! AND DON’T ASK AGAIN!”

Which they’ll do at least 75 more times before we reach our destination.

Sadly, I really can’t blame my kids for feeling the way they do anytime we travel. Because, truth be told, I loathe car travel probably even more than they do. At least they have Nintendos, books, a built-in DVD player, games, toys and their endless imagination to fill the hours of mind-numbing drudgery. As the driver, I have the radio and billboards.

I can thank my parents for my disdain for car travel. Every year,  my brother and sister and me would endure our journey from the midwest to the East Coast while crammed tightly together in the backseat of some unairconditioned 1970s behemoth. That was all well and good for the Brady Bunch. But my siblings and me were most certainly not Greg, Peter and Marcia.

Because the trip always began long before the sun was up, the initial few hours were always the most peaceful, only because we were all still sleeping. At least we were trying to sleep. Since our cramped  confines forced us to snooze sitting up, we probably looked like three, drooling bobblehead dolls. But at least we weren’t fighting. That started when we would wake up to discover the sibling next to one of us had drooped over to use the shoulder of the neighboring sibling as a pillow.  And the  territory wars would begin.

While the backseat of our 1978 Ford LTD may not have offered much in the way of “territory,” it had clear lines of demarkation conveniently sewn into its horrible blue upholstery. On a 22-hour trip, those lines became every bit as crucial to world peace as the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and the former Berlin Wall. If any part of your body crossed or even encroached on one of those stitched boundaries,  you could expect swift retaliation in the form of at the very least a warning shove. The more drastic the violation the  more swift and severe the retribution. Of course, all boundary disputes were settled by the long arm of the law. Or more specifically, my father’s long arm that could easily reach anywhere in the backseat from his position in the driver’s seat.

Once the border wars cooled to détente, boredom would set in. We’d desperately try to pass the miles with books, drawing paper and a few small toys.  (My kids are simply baffled how anyone could have traveled more than 40 miles without a Nintendo DS, DVD player, cell phone, iPod, Sirius radio and a laptop computer). But eventually one or all of us would broach the question:

“MOMMMMM, DAAAAAAAADDD! ARE WE ALMOST THERE!”

To which mom would always reply: “Why don’t you just sit back and look out the window.”  I have no idea where Mom came up with the idea that watching telephone poles, trees and cows zooming by at 55 MPH (yes, that was the speed limit in those days) would somehow make time go quicker. But I can tell you, it didn’t work then, and it definitely doesn’t work with my attention-span-deficient offspring. I know, because I actually tried my Mom’s response. There really is no worse feeling as a parent than discovering you’re actually saying the same stupid things to your children that you hated to hear from your parents when you were a kid.

We would then try to pass times by playing those silly driving games that really never passed time, but definitely escalated the backseat territorial wars to full-blown mayhem. The worst was Slug Bug. What kind of twisted mind thinks of a game where you yell “Slug Bug” and punch the shoulder of the person next to you every time you see a VW Beetle? I guarantee he wasn’t a parent. And he wasn’t the poor kid who had to sit in the middle of the backseat so he could get nailed in both shoulders every time a VW came into view.

And speaking of sitting in the middle, this was not the seat any of us wanted for more than an hour at a time. Not only could you not see out a window because your brother or sister’s fat head was obstructing your view, you couldn’t rest your own head anywhere but straight back. Plus,  you had to contend with that annoying hump in the floor that forced your knees up to your chin. So all you could do was lean your head back and look at the ceiling or sit there and stare at the back of your parents’ heads until the next bathroom stop.

Stopping. Now that was something my parents definitely did NOT believe in.  While my dad’s crazy Cannonball Run approach to family travel definitely shortened the physical duration of the trip, his unwillingness to pull over for anything short of  a quick fill up and an even quicker trip to some roadside gas-station’s foul bathroom only made the journey seem at thousand miles longer.  If we needed a drink, Mom always had her trusty Coleman jug of ice water up in the front seat. If we were hungry, she always had a never-ending supply of cheap potato chips and bologna sandwiches. No fast food stops on this trip. So while I was trapped for 22-hours in a rolling prison cell chained to my sadistic siblings, actual inmates in real prisons were eating better than me. Oh yeah, those inmates also had beds.

Outside of gas and bathroom breaks the only thing that would force my dad to pull over was the need for a few hours of sleep. Even though we would pass countless hotels and motels with king-sized beds, color televisions, outdoor swimming pools and bright red neon signs flashing “VACANCY,”  we would  pull over in a rest area, where we would all resume the positions of drooling bobbleheads and try to get something that resembled sleep.

Then the next day would start exactly the same as the first, except it held the promise of actually getting to our destination. The visit to grandma and grandpa’s house would always go by far too quickly. I’ll always remember that sense of dread as I watched Dad load the car for the return trip home. Because everyone knows, going home seems to take 10 times longer than getting there.

So this summer when my kids get bored with their DVDs, video games and iPods an hour into our family getaway, I’ll just reach back with my long dad arms and hand them a bologna sandwich and a glass of ice water.  Then I’ll ease back a little in the driver’s seat and think of all the fond memories I’m making for them.

An ’80s kid stuck in the ’50s

As I sit here, I’m typing to the driving beat of classic 1950′s rockabilly. It’s a real dichotomy. The music is streaming from Motorbilly Radio, an internet radio station broadcasting from a thousand miles away.  I have more computer technology at my fingertips than the Russians had aboard Sputnik, the  satellite that launched the space race of the 1950s. I type these blogs and fiber-optic lines, satellites and array of servers and routers  instantly send them around  the world. So it seems more than a bit hypocritical when I say I just wasn’t made for these technological times.  I really wasn’t. In fact, I know precisely when I should have come of age – right in the middle of the rockin’ 1950s.

Since I was born in 1969, my notions of the ’50s are limited to history books and the movies, music and images of that great era.  When I try to imagine what those times were like, I think of an America that was still celebrating the victories of WWII while trying to resume a sense of peaceful normalcy.  I think of the rising teenage subculture driven by the controversial “heathen” beat of that new music called Rock ‘n Roll. I think of the rebels portrayed by Marlon Brando, James Dean and Elvis.  But most of all, I imagine a simpler time when the internet, computers, satellite television and cell phones were still  fantasies reserved for Dick Tracy comics and  cheesy sci-fi flicks.

I can remember clearly when my fascination for ’50s culture was born. It was on a fall morning in Mrs.Sukraw’s second-grade music class. She dropped the needle on a Bill Haley and the Comets 45 record as part of a school-wide ’50s Day celebration, and I was hooked.

It was the mid-70s and all around me were the synthetic sounds of disco (I even remember learning to do the Hustle in elementary school) and the sappy light AM rock of the era. Sure, I’d seen Happy Days (the best episodes were the  really early ones that used Rock Around the Clock as the theme. Ralph Malph drove a sweet Bucket T and Richie had a big brother named Chuck), but there was something about hearing that song from a scratchy old 45 record on a cheap turntable. It was raw and unpolished and I loved it.

About the time I hit my junior-year in high school, coincidentally about the time that the Stray Cats were leading a rockabilly revival, I found a kindred spirit  who shared my love for the music. He also contributed  a wealth of knowledge regarding classic hot rods, which only fueled my passion ’50s culture. I was even dating a girl who loved to dance and she taught me how to jitterbug and jive. Well, at least she gave it her best shot.

Now my love for ’50s culture wasn’t just limited to the music of Chuck Berry, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis (the real king of rock and roll, by the way). It had grown to include a passion for chrome-covered shark-finned cars and rough and rusty, handcrafted customs built from the parts of 1920s, ’30s and ’40s autos ’50s kids rescued  scrapyards to build hot rods, gassers and dragsters. It also included an appreciation for the movies, styles and pop culture of that time.

By my freshman year in college, I had amassed a collection of  hundreds of vintage rockabilly, doo-wop, surf and blues records, a second-hand leather jacket, a closet full of Levis and tee shirts and the ability to quote Rebel Without A Cause  from memory. I never had the traditional hot rod of my dreams, but I spent enough time under the hoods of my buddy’s assorted vintage rides to develop a deep appreciation for the sound of a finely tuned hemi.

Flash forward to today. While it’s just plain weird for a 40-year-old father of three to try to pull off a James Dean teenage rebel persona, that influence is still a part of who I am. I prefer simple low-tech styles and ways of doing things. Most of my clothing is made of denim, wool, cotton and leather and leans toward a simpler look. I still wear my sideburns a little lower than the norm. While I eschew technology, I do have a satellite radio in my car that’s almost always tuned to music that predates the British Invasion (or the Death of Rock ‘n Roll, as I like to call it).  Lately, I’ve even gone farther backwards, and often tune into the 1940s channel for a taste of a little big-band swing.

Last year, my wife and I made what I consider the first and hopefully not my last pilgrimage to what just may be the mecca for ’50 connoisseurs  such as myself – the annual Viva Las Vegas Show in Las Vegas (http://www.vivalasvegas.net). This isn’t just another music fest or car show. It’s a true celebration of the ’50s hot rod/rockabilly lifestyle. With rooms filled with racks and racks of  vintage clothing, tattoo artists, hair stylists, barbers and around-the-clock stage shows sh0wcasing rockabilly bands from today and yesterday, it is like truly like taking a weekend-long step back in time. And that’s what the thousands of devotees who attend this annual celebration attempt to do. For them, it’s 1957 all over again. They show up in their vintage clothing, toting vintage luggage, driving vintage cars. They wear vintage swimwear by the pool. They compete in dance competitions showcasing their jive and the jitterbug skills and they drink substantial quantities of Pabst Blue-Ribbon.  But the weekend isn’t just for adults. I was amazed by one kid who had to be 10 years old decked out in classic clothes sporting slicked back hair  as he pulled off some truly impressive moves on the dance floor. But more importantly, he showed that a new generation of “Cats and Kittens” are still excited by  ’50s culture and style.

The soundtrack of the weekend isn’t just golden oldies  from a long-gone era. It’s primarily performed by guys younger than me, but with a sound that is straight out of the ’50s. They have names like the Chop Tops, Big Sandy and The Fly-Rite Boys, Will ‘n the High Rollers, Omar and the Stringpoppers, and Kim Lenz and her Jaguars. But there are still performances by the innovators, as well. Now in their 70s, most of them still enjoy rocking the house  just as well as they did 50 years ago. One side note, I was fortunate enough to see a spectacular performance at VLV by Dale Hawkins, the legendary singer who is best known for the rock and roll classic Susie-Q. Unfortunately, Hawkins died a couple months ago. But I guarantee there’s a whole lotta folks like me that will make sure his music lives on.

I couldn’t make it this year. Seems the show is always on Easter weekend and I just couldn’t convince my wife to spend two of the holidays in row in Las Vegas. I gotta admit, there is something highly contrary to my Christian upbringing about spending Easter in Sin City. But I’ve already received my invite for next year’s 14th annual event with Jerry Lee Lewis as the headliner. The guy’s not getting any younger, so my chances of catching him in concert are getting slimmer. Hope the pastor and God can excuse me from Easter services for another year.  I promise I’ll still celebrate the holiday. I just might have slicked back hair and a black tee shirt on when I do it.

My kind of town

One of the best things about living in the middle of nowhere is you’re completely surrounded by that alluring destination known as Anywhere Else But Here. All I have to do is load the wife and kids in the midlife cruiser and  hit the highway in any direction. In just a few short hours, we can arrive in some spectacular location that thankfully looks nothing like where I started.

For instance, a few days  ago we made the six-hour jaunt to what I believe just might be the best little town in the West, if not the entire nation – Lander, Wyoming. Sure, the “jaunt” included a few harrowing trips through blinding mountain whiteouts and a two-hour drive across Wyoming’s Red Desert (imagine the face of the moon painted a rusty red. In fact, there are actually more restrooms on the moon than there are in the Red Desert.)  But spend a few days in Lander and you’ll soon forget about even the most treacherous or monotonous parts of the drive.

Tucked up in the Wind River Mountains in west-central Wyoming, Lander is truly the town that tourists have forgotten. Even though it’s just over the mountains as the red-tailed hawks fly from the pretentious mountain millionaires up in Jackson Hole and just 150 miles from the snaking caravans of RVs  in Yellowstone,  it remains a quiet, humble hamlet unpolluted by traffic, technology and throngs of people.

With a population of about 7,000, most of whom are ranchers, small business employees and a contingent of government workers, Lander has an honest, “real” feel about it. Sure there are a few doctors and lawyers and successful businessmen there, but they all seem to blend in so seamlessly with the ordinary blue jeans and cowboy boot wearing folks that you would think that they were just earning minimum wage for their specialties.

The people here are like the ingredients of some classic Western cowboy stew. List them individually and they wouldn’t seem to go together. But blend them in just the right conditions, and they work in harmony to create a hearty meal.

First there are the cowboys. Not citified SUV-driving wannabes, but real honest-to-sweat-stained-goodness cowboys. These hardworking folks all drive 20-year-old mud splattered, flatbed pickup trucks with an Australian shepherd or blue heeler dutifully hanging out in the cab or on the bed.  Look down while you’re behind one of these guys or gals at the bank or the grocery store, and you’ll see most never bother to take off their spurs. They are truly cut from the same piece of latigo leather as their parents, grandparents and great grandparents before them. Except for the cell phones on their belts, they could have stepped right out of a John Ford movie.

Then there are the granola munchers. Lured to town by mountain adventure courses offered by  the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS),  this group is mainly made up of long-haired, goatee-wearing twenty-somethings decked out in fleece and down jackets, khaki cargo shorts, stocking caps and hiking boots. While they prefer to spend most of their time in the snow-covered peaks of the nearby Wind River range, they can be spotted when they come back to town to load up on supplies or rest up before their next big adventure.

Native Americans from the nearby Wind River reservation add a touch of the traditional to the town through their artwork, music and culture. One of my favorite things to do when driving around town and the nearby mountains is to tune my radio to the station broadcasting from the reservation. There is just something about the native chants and drums that resonates with the spectacular scenery.

Then there are just what I’d call the ordinary folks who call Lander home. These people could blend in most any small town, but they all have one thing in common: a genuine hospitality and warmth that they’re eager to extend to most anyone they meet.

Drive down main street and you’ll find the standard businesses for a town this size: a couple grocery stores, a two-screen movie house, a hardware store, plumbing shop, newspaper offices and a second-hand store. But nestled between the ordinary shops are a few that give Lander a bit of extra character. Take for instance the local sporting goods store. With a standard assortment of fishing flies, knives, rifles and camping gear, it’s pretty typical for a Wyoming town. But its name is truly reflective of Lander: The Good Place. Not the Great Place, The Awesome Place or The Magnificent Place. Just The Good Place.  Genuine humility. To add just a bit more character to the place, they have the biggest most friendly old golden retriever you’ll ever meet greet you at the door. Her back is so broad, she honestly resembles  a golden shag coffee table. But just like the friendly folks who work there, she greets everyone with a friendly smile  as they come through the door.

As a balance to the traditional sportsman’s gear at the Good Place, a second store called the Wild Iris caters to the granola munchers. Inside this more upscale outfitter, modern adventurers can browse racks of  fleece camp wear, down sleeping bags, climbing ropes, hiking boots, backpacks and microscopic camp stoves. After greeting me in typical warm Lander fashion, the manager told me he’d just let me look around “because we’re pretty hands off around here.” My kind of customer service.

Just a couple doors down is my favorite spot in town, a used book stored called the Book Basket. Neat, tidy, organized and staffed by friendly well-read folks – this place is everything most used book stores aren’t.  I could spend hours perusing their rows of titles, and I often do when I have nothing else better to do on one of my several visits to the town each year.

Then there’s Tony’s Pizza, home of the best pizza in the Rocky Mountains and the only pizzeria I know of with rooftop dining, complete with a breathtaking view of the mountains. Time it just right and you might get to dine to some great live music as well.

While I enjoy every visit to Lander, there’s no better time to visit than the Fourth of July. The trout are rising to elk hair caddis in the Popo Agie river and the town is decked out in true Americana. The Independence Day fete starts with a half marathon race. I have one adventurous and very fit friend who ran it last year while pushing twins in a double stroller.  Then there is a  true American parade, a buffalo barbecue in the town’s scenic park, an evening rodeo and a first-rate fireworks show to cap off the celebration.

So this summer, if you’re looking to get away, and I mean really get away from  everything, take a look at Lander. Just don’t let too many people know. Let’s keep this little gem undiscovered.

Of Sidd Finch and Walter K. Allen

On April 1, 1985, Sports Illustrated published a piece about Sidd Finch, a pitching prodigy who could hurl a fastball at 168 mph. This amazing unknown wore one shoe and was trying to decide whether to pitch for the  New York Mets or pursue a career playing the French horn. Sports fans were first amazed that such an athlete existed under their radar. Then a few days later they were aghast when they learned he actually didn’t. He was a figment of author George Plimpton’s imagination, brought to life with the support of the Mets and few other insiders for a little April Fool’s Day fun.

So why am I dredging up this piece of ancient journalism history? Because I have a confession to make, I too have pulled a bit of literary wool over the eyes of my dear five readers. But unlike the good folks at SI, my little white lie was meant to have a little bigger purpose than an April Fool’s Day  prank.

A few days back, I published a letter from a grumpy Iowa codger by the name of Walter K. Allen along with  my response to his tirade addressing the Middleman’s insistence on writing only about seemingly insignificant personal issues.

Dear readers, I am Walter K. Allen.  Or more accurately Walter is a part of me.

Sometime in my mid 30s, I started displaying a random curmudgeon-like attitude regarding certain subjects. Whenever this alter-ego would rear his figurative ugly, gray-haired, age-spotted head, my wife would jokingly call me Walter.

Comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham further fueled this running joke with his scowling old dummy named Walter. If you haven’t seen this routine, look up Jeff and Walter on Youtube and you’ll understand. They’re also hilarious.

Now every time I go off on a rant about kids today or how annoying rap music is or how technology is getting too darned complicated, or how I’ve discovered some new ache or pain,  my wife will simply look at me in mock sympathy and say something like “Now, now Walter…”

While this clarifies who Walter is, it doesn’t explain why I carried out this little bit of written deception at your expense. Here’s the truth: The joke was supposed to be on me.

My fictional exchange of letters was merely meant to show how the grumpy old man who inhabits half my head (actually he’s gaining ground as I get older) often spars with the middle-aged guy in the other hemisphere that is often so wrapped up in his own little world of seemingly little issues that he loses sight of the big world issues. To Mr. Middleage Brain, the real big issues are the ones he is immediately faced with on a daily basis. He simply doesn’t have the time or the mental fortitude to think too hard about the really big issues that Walter  prefers to focus on.

Now that the truth is out, some of you might argue I should probably check myself into the nearest mental health facility for a long overdue dose of electroshock therapy. You might be right. But if you’re somewhere around my age and dealing the daily workplace insanity while attempting to raise children and make ends meet in the craziness of today’s society, I’d venture a guess you just might have a Walter and a Mr. Midlife armwrestling in  your head, too.

Your Walter may not be a crusty old curmudgeon like mine. He might just be more of a kindly little voice of reason that keeps reminding you there really are bigger issues in the world than the grape Kool-Aid stain on the living room carpet.  Or he might sound like a salty football coach or a drill sergeant yelling in your ear to get up off your sorry butt and stop sulking that the Joneses have a nicer house and better behaved children than you do.

So when you get done reading my confession, all I ask is that you take a minute or two to listen carefully for a little dissension going on in your own head. That’s all I was trying to show you with my innocent deception.

As for me, I have to go feed Walter and help him into his recliner. He gets really cranky if he doesn’t get his Jell-O while watching C-Span.