Because we can, Damnit!

Because we can, damnit!

It’s funny what a man will do just because he can. I was reminded of this very peculiar phenomenon recently while viewing a documentary on the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Walter Cronkite was spouting off some nonsense about how important it was that we sent man to the moon to “explore” it. Come on, really? It wasn’t important that we “explore” the moon! We all knew, deep inside, that it was just a big rock didn’t we? I mean, nobody was still believing it was made out of cheese by then were they? Were people standing at the ordering table at McDonalds asking for a hamburger with melted “moon” before we spent billions of dollars to correct this fallacy? No, the reason we went to the moon, planted a flag on its surface, bounced around, drove a 30 million-dollar dune buggy, and smacked a golf ball into oblivion was because we could, damnit! Men know the satisfaction of accomplishing such things, let the women scrutinize, as they will. Edmund Hillary, the first man to scale Mount Everest, braved icy terrain, 70 degree ledges from 20,000 feet up, nagging frostbite, and a constant deprivation of oxygen just to climb a mountain that “was there”. His wife, behind a never-ending barrage of questions like “you’re doing what now?” and “are you absolutely insane?” I’m sure was rolling her eyes when he first proposed the climb. But he did it, and once every man grows old, the hearing deteriorates, and the nagging of the wife slowly fades into an incoherent whisper, all that remains is the pride of accomplishing something just because he could. I vividly remember one December the wife and I were struggling with money problems. Our first daughter had just been born and we were barely getting by with a roof over heads and a little milk and eggs in the fridge while I was trying to finish my schooling. Looking at our meager finances, it quickly became evident that we were not going to be able to give out lavish gifts for loved ones that Christmas. Instead we decided to send out a Christmas Card chronicling the first few months of our daughters life. Jen, sensibly, wanted to send it out in the form of a nice colored 8x11 sheet of paper, perhaps with a little bow glued to one of the corners. I envisioned something more miraculous, perhaps a DVD that we could send out full of pictures, video, music, star-sweeps, and a voice over done by Morgan Freeman. OK, the Morgan Freeman part was a little over the top I quickly decided, but never the less it was gonna be awesome! All I had to do was get the video editing software, a few blank discs, and find a cheap DVD burner for our computer. Jen wondered why, all of a sudden, we would be spending $150 on stuff when the whole idea was to save money. Us guys know the reason! It was while I was in Best Buy that I saw a DVD recorder for $100 that I could hook up to my TV. The thought came to me then, as it must have for Edmund Hillary when he first spotted that 25,000 foot piece of rock that is Mount Everest, “why not try?” Why should I be content with a DVD burner that would only work on my computer if I could get one to record TV shows and burn stuff off the computer? Yes, it would be more money, but this was something I had to do. I just had to figure out how. I bought the DVD burner and noticed it had an S-video input. So I went and bought a video card for the computer with an S-video output. But that would only transmit the video, I needed something for sound. I ran to Radioshack and bought myself a chord that would take a stereo jack and split it to two RCA jacks. But then I remembered that my TV flashes from darker to lighter whenever my DVD player is plugged into the coaxial connection so I bought myself an RF modulator as well. On the ride home, $300 into it, I slapped myself on the forehead for forgetting the video editing software and headed back to Best Buy. Yes, they had something cheap, but it didn’t have all the fancy transitions and stuff. And fart noises! It had like 30 of them! You can’t have a documentary on your kids without fart noises right? I slapped down another $80 and left the store. Once I got home, installed the soundcard and the software, connected the DVD burner to the TV, plugged in the RF modulator and such, I noticed my S-video cable was slightly too short to reach from my TV to my computer. I jumped back into the car and headed for Radioshack again to buy another cable and a coupler. In all, I had spent close to $500. Despite it being in the low teens outside, I spent the night shivering in the back seat of the car. I didn’t even get to try the stuff out! Jen had been to mad to even let me sleep on the couch. She just couldn’t see the beauty of what I had done, much like Hilary’s wife. I sat up, shivering, since I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in such cold, cramped quarters when I saw a car drive by with Christmas lights on its grill. It was Danny Wettstein. He spotted me, waved me over to the car window, and gave me a sip of the hot chocolate he had in his thermos. As I explained my predicament, he didn’t say a thing. He didn’t need to, really. I knew he understood. Afterall, here was a man who had put Christmas lights on his grill, not because they helped him drive from point A to point B, or because the alternator somehow functioned better with a flashing array of red, blue, and green lights. Not because it would cost a lot of money and hours in the barn, away from the family during the holiday season. No, it was because he could. As I took one last sip of that hot chocolate and handed the cup over to Danny, I quickly mused “Hey Danny, that hot chocolate was a bit on the cold side. Wouldn’t it be great if somebody made a way to hook up an expresso machine in their car he could fill will hot chocolate? “Yes it would”, said Danny, his eyes getting a certain gleam in them, “yes it would”. As he drove off into the night with the flashing colored lights leading the way, I once again climbed into the cold backseat of the car. Though temperatures were way below freezing, I remained warm in that sense of pride.

Because we can, damnit!

Secret Agent Man

I’m sure it’s a long way off, so please forgive me for my haste when I inform you all that I have already reserved a spot for Danny’s funeral. I hope Matt, David, Krissy, Jenny, and Kathy will forgive me if I’m not sitting with them or the rest of Danny’s friends and relative’s graveside. Please don’t think of me as any less sympathetic if I’m not in earshot of the one giving the eulogy. Lastly, please don’t take me as ungrateful when I decline the invitation back to the house for funeral potatoes and possibly a handful of Kathy’s World Famous Chex Party Mix. No, I will be lurking in the trees just in site of the whole thing, possibly for hours, sunglasses and pinstriped suit on, standing beside my rental car, a black Ford LTD with tinted windows. You may see me talking into my sleeve as well, as if I’m trying to communicate with some high-op member of the CIA. Why, you ask? Well, don’t let them know this, but I’m going to be monitoring the others who show up, dressed just like myself, who come to pay their final respects to Danny. Unless TV has led me wrong, and I can’t ever imagine a time in which it has, the cemetery will be swarming with people who come for just a split second, mysteriously, before vanishing. At the dinner afterwards, many will be left to inquire, “who was that man?” before others chime in with “I thought you knew!” Then flowers will unexpectedly arrive at the door without a note signifying the sender. Thus it is with the death of a man who leads a double life, a whole lot of questions and no answers. That is why I will be taking cover as one of them.Some have skeletons locked inside their closet while others still will keep a tight lid on Pandora’s box of secrets. Danny, however, has a tied scrapbook of pictures. I know it exists. I have seen evidence of it in the form of an old black and white delineation. It was a day just like any other. Matt and I had just finished playing a game of Basketball in his driveway when we went inside to get ourselves a drink. There, lying on the couch was a picture of a man riding a bull. If not for its age, it could have easily been disregarded as the back cover of a magazine, an ad for Marlboro cigarettes or something to that affect. Matt and I gazed upon it, trying to decipher who it was under that dusty cowboy hat. Kathy came into the room and, upon seeing our bewildered looks, exclaimed, “bet you didn’t know Dad rode bulls, did you? Neither did I!” Kathy went on to describe how Danny’s mother had just come by to drop it off. We all went inside the kitchen to have a drink. Once we came back, it was gone. Danny walked in later that night and when asked about the picture he muttered “hmmmmm, don’t know what you’re talking about”. Matt, Kathy, and I declared we all saw the picture. “Well, whatever you saw, it sounds like Snoop ate it.” That reminded me of the time on The Simpsons when Millhouse asked Bart about his missing fish; “you told me I never had a fish, but why did I have the bowl Bart, why did I have the bowl?” There was something that just didn’t add up. Perhaps it was the fact that Snoop was at the vet’s office that day, but whatever it was I knew Danny was hiding something, something that we caught a fleeting glimpse of before it vanished back into obscurity. It was then that I got the feeling that perhaps Danny wasn’t just being secretive because he felt like it, but rather because he had to be. Maybe he was part of some big government project and had taken an oath years ago to honor its secrecy. If that was the case, and once again I am relying on trusty old TV, that would mean Danny meets up occasionally with somebody on a park bench, both of them casting their eyes in the opposite direction. This was right around the time I was conjuring up my Eagle Scout project and thus I decided on painting park benches around Cache Valley. This would give me ample opportunity to survey Danny’s whereabouts were he indeed meeting up with some undercover agent. Yet, months went by and not a single sighting of the man in one of those parks. It was time for me to move on to wire-tapping. I inserted one onto the Wettsteins’ phone one day, just inside the receiver, but all I was ever to record were boxes full of cassette tapes containing the phrases “Matt’s not home, mmmmmmmm”, “David’s not here, mmmmmmmm”, “Krissy’s gone, mmmmmmmmmm” and so forth. It was time to move on to bugging his vehicle. I could never get close enough to the blue truck to even cast a shadow upon it, let alone latch a tracking device onto it. The next best thing was that truck inside the garage. I knew it would be drivable soon and once it was, BINGO! That was 15 years ago and I’m still occasionally looking at my computer monitor for any sign of movement, but alas nothing.So all else has failed. Perhaps on that sad day Danny leaves us, I’ll get my answers. And when I do I will lye the last Rose upon the gravestone of Danny Wettstein, which will read, “Danny, we hardly knew ye.”

"I Will See You On White Trash Wednesday"

General MacArthur said something perplexing to me in his farewell address; “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” What exactly did that mean? After all, we all die someday, right? And why should who we were and what we left behind ever fade away? I think what that brilliant, but now senile, old man had actually meant to say was that “Old SHIRTS never die, they just fade away.” Truer words were never spoken. Jerry Seinfeld added his two cents years later by stating “ Men hang on to their shirts until each individual shirt molecule is so strained it can barely retain the properties of a solid. It actually becomes shirt vapor. We don’t ever throw it out, we just open up a window and out it goes like dandelion spores.”Such was the case with Danny’s old shirts. It was one semester up at USU, while attending the same Institute class, that Matt and I came up with what we would term “White Trash Wednesdays.” Each Wednesday we would get up early to search the remote corners of the closet or the uncharted spaces of the dresser drawers for that perfect shirt. It’s hard to describe exactly what kind of shirt we were looking for, but once we found it we just knew it was right for “White Trash Wednesday”. Sometimes I went for sheer ugliness, like the shirt my mother had made for my Grandmother before she was to be a contestant on the Price Is Right, all decked out in large neon letters and gold glitter paint. Sometimes I went for sheer grunginess such as the Grateful Dead shirt that had so many holes in it that it was being held together by safety pins. Though Matt had produced one fairly good winner in the form of an ugly neon-green Logan Regional Hospital Parrot shirt found used as an oil rag inside the barn, his efforts had been waning for a while. Perhaps, I thought, he was too worried what the girls would think. I had long ago gotten married and was past caring about my day to day appearance. No, more than likely he just found it tough to compete with decades worth of Morrell hand-me-downs. I had pretty much given up on “White Trash Wednesday” half way through the semester, when I caught a site of something that will forever be burned into the back of my retinas; It looked like Matt was walking into the room with just jeans and a garment top on. I rubbed my eyes and there it was again. Oh no, not this dream again! At least I wasn’t the only one who had come to school without dressing, this time Matt had come as well. I looked down like I always had in such a dream, expecting to see myself only in garments before looking back up at a thousand smirking girls! But this time I was fully clothed. What was going on here? All of a sudden it dawned on me that Matt was actually wearing a shirt! I squinted my eyes to make out the letters NASA as Matt inched closer. So old and worn was the shirt, that just a faded red collar and those four letters remained visible to the naked eye. I stuttered through the congratulatory comments to Matt , still in awe of his victory, and asked him where he had found such a marvelous trophy? “Oh, I finally broke into my dad’s closet, he has tons of these old shirts!” I drooled onto my desk and sat the rest of the class period pondering the treasures that awaited us once we got back to Matt’s place. We raced home from school and threw open the closet doors. There they were! This was the Mormon kids equivalent to finding his fathers porn stash! I grabbed the Mickey Mouse shirt that was so worn it looked like it was about to slip through the hanger that held it at any second. I put it on, imagining the last time that shirt looked somewhat new. “I bet these were given out the first day Disneyland opened!” I gasped. “No, it’s gotta be older than that” Matt said. “ Maybe it was worn by Walt Disney himself to commemorate the finalization of his first cartoon, Steamboat Willie, back in 1912?” However old it was, and only carbon dating could let us know the real truth, I was in White Trash Heaven. Many semesters have passed since those wonderful Wednesdays, but I’ll never forget that one special day Matt’s dad handed him the forever-reigning trophy. You were spot-on Mr. MacArthur, some shirts will never die!

Sunday, Mystery Sunday

The newspaper editor blew another puff of blue smoke from his fake Cuban cigar as he simultaneously threw up his feet and tilted back his bowler hat. This was a proud day for The New York Times and he was trying to take it all in as best he could. As he gazed over the Manhattan skyline to peer over Central Park and the long shadow cast upon it by the Chrysler Building, he couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest man on this planet. And in a way, he was. Within the last twenty-four hours a few of his freelance reporters had “unearthed” two of the greatest mysteries ever wrought upon the planet; the body of Jimmy Hoffa had been found at last and so was Amelia Gerhard’s plane. It was only a matter of hours before each small household in America was to gather around father at the breakfast table, New York Times in hand, finally solving the mysteries that had plagued mankind for decades. The Times could sell ad space for a million dollars per square inch. The front page had been laid out already, both stories running side by side, and all that stood in the way of Joe Public and the wonderful truth was a printer machine that had earlier ran out of ink. I stepped off the elevator and onto that 23rd floor with an even bigger story. I guarded it like a bulldog with a pork chop between my upper arm and my pit. “Hey Tanner, the boss is about to break out the Champagne for our “biggest story ever” celebration, where are you going?” “Tell him to hold the Champagne,” I hollered back as I whisked my way up the top of the stairs. I caught a bewildered look from my confused colleague out of the corner of my eye. As I made my way to the top of the stairs, I held out the guarded piece of information in my right hand before declaring, “stop the presses, I know where Matt’s dad went every Sunday after sacrament meeting!” Suddenly a hoard of Champagne glasses shattered on the ground. All the typing ceased. I straightened my tie to go hand the boss the real headline of the day.“Hey, Tanner, wake up doofus!” Chase whispered as he nudged my shoulder with the sacrament tray. I reached for a piece of bread with one hand while I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with another. It had all been a dream, just a crazy dream. This was reality and I still didn’t know where Matt’s dad went after sacrament meeting. It had been killing me for the longest time.Like a small child who rats on her brother for peeping during family prayer, only to realize she herself had to have had her eyes open as well to notice, I never inquired of anybody where Danny went. After all, the first time I had seen him pulling out of the church parking lot, I had played hooky myself from church. But here I was, caught by my father who had come home to check on his supposedly “ailing” son, only to find him eating Twinkies and playing Tetris. I was ordered to put on my Sunday best and march up to that chapel faster than an atheist repenting in a foxhole. As my eyes caught a glimpse of Danny’s in that Blue truck, I could feel his sense of sadness for my predicament. Here was a man much older than myself who seemed to be saying, “Someday kid, someday you’ll be able to get out of church just like myself”. It’s not that I hated church, per say, it’s just that I found it waaaayyyyy to boring. I had heard all the talks a dozen times. If I was going to sit through one more discussion on whether tithing gets taken off the gross or the net, I was going to explode! (It’s gross people!) Matt’s’ dad had found that sanctuary away from the sanctuary and I had to experience that for myself as well. I found a Sabbath day when the family had all left on vacation. I could have gone with them to see the Grand Canyon, sure, but I yearned more deeply to find the secret hiding place of Mr. Wettstein on Sundays. I had made up a lie about how I had to work that weekend and that I couldn’t get it off. I parked the car in the lot just to the north of the church bowery and waited. Ten O’ Clock rolled around at last! As people stepped outside to gather lesson materials out of their cars and graham crackers for the nursery children, I spotted that Blue truck! I pulled out discretely and started to follow Mr. Wettstein down Center Street. He passed his house, but that was no surprise. I had known for a while that home was not where he went. I had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps it was Glausers restaurant on Center Street. I followed the old man down airport road and onto 10th west. I could barely hold the wheel as I dripped beads of anticipating sweat. Perhaps Danny was part of some secret society that met together in the basement of Glausers for ribs, pool, and a little hazing of the new guy. It was like a sort of fraternity for those who were fed up with church and I was going to get in! As we approached the bump on 2nd North, I made a costly mistake. I dropped my soda cap onto the floor and took my eyes of the prize, so to speak, for a split second. Once my eyes returned to the road ahead, he was gone. The light had changed to red and I could spot no traces of Blue Chevy anywhere. I drove by Glausers but it was closed. I sat outside in my car for a minute cursing myself for being so stupid! I finally got out of the car and stepped into a back alley to relieve myself. As I did, for just a split second, I thought I heard the sound of a cue ball colliding with a striped 3 ball and then…. it was gone. “The dream was not to be realized today”, I told myself as I bowed my head and made my way back to the car. I made it back to the church in time for Elders quorum where we were discussing what else? Tithing.

First Encounters of the Awkward Kind...

I still remember the first time I really spoke with Danny. It was one of those awkward moments that never quite leave you, lying in wait like a dormant disease ready to spring up at the next sighting of the man. Matt and his dad were fixing something inside the garage, possibly replacing a clutch on a Datsun Z or cleaning out a carburetor on an old snowmobile. Since the only thing I had ever done mechanically was busting out the robot at a school pep dance, I decided to step back and let the men do their thing. It was something strait out of Home Improvement; oil leaking, wrenches dropping, and grunts occasionally permeating the air. After a while of standing there folding my arms, I felt a tad bit out of place. I decided I’d try to strike up a conversation regarding the old truck that sat in the next bay. I had driven past the Wettsteins house many times and had caught glimpses of the old truck through an open garage door. I walked around the old truck like I was an antique Jalopy prospective buyer at some exclusive auction. I peered at the tires and took a look inside. After giving it a good, thorough inspection, I confidently straightened up, puffed out my chest, and said “yep, this things a beaut! It’s really coming along Mr. Wettstein!” Both Matt and his father dropped their wrenches in a pique of laughter. “That damn thing?” Danny quipped, “why I haven’t touched that piece of junk in ten years!” I could have just died! I made up a quick excuse why I had to leave and made my exit. I still feel of tinge of embarrassment each time I see Danny.

Mr. Wettstein...#1

"UMMMMMMMMMM." I had heard that sound so many times while trying to get a hold of Matt. That annoying dial tone and I had conversed on the phone far longer than Matt and I ever had. Usually it didn't annoy me too much, after all Matt lived just half a block down the street and I learned that if I strained my voice a bit I could usually chat with him over the rooftops of the Andersens and the Darleys. Tonight, however, was different. Matt and I had just worked a boring shift at Western Watts and afterward I had drove him home. I had literally dropped him off in his driveway, 13 steps from his door. This had happened less than 3 minutes ago, yet Matt's dad told me loud and clear when I called him up "Matt's not here"! and then........."ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm." I knew Matt was home, well, I was pretty certain. Perhaps he had gotten taken off by a ravenous pack of wolves that had somehow made their way into his yard, snatched him up in the split second I turned to look what was behind me while I pulled out, and then took off into the night. Maybe, just maybe. I had to be sure. I climbed onto the roof with my binoculars and spotted Matt in the kitchen. Thus began the long fight with Mr. Wettstein over the use of the phone. Sometimes I would call twenty times a night just to get one sentence in; "Tell Matt....Ummmmmmmmmm....that I want to go....ummmmmmmmmm...play basketball tomorrow....ummmmmmmmm...up at the church.......ummmmmmmmm. I could never be sure in the midst of all those hang ups that my message was being relayed, after all, the phone calls Danny had ignored were legendary. Matt even told me a time where some Sweepstakes Company had called with the message "Mr. Danny Wettstein, we are with the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes and we are calling to confirm that you'll be home during halftime of the Super Bowl next week so that we may award you a check in the grand total of.....ummmmmmmmmmmm". I wonder why he even bothered to answer the phone at all. Perhaps, deep inside, Mr. Wettstein appreciated that game that seemed to only get funnier with time, both of us bringing our A-game to the match.Years later I saw Matt during the Christmas holidays. Years had passed since I had dialed that infamous 563-3588 number. Matt and I had made plans to meet up for dinner, we just didn't know when due to a work meeting I had to attend. The plan was for me to call up his parents home and let Matt know the meeting was over with. When I called up,all I got was "Matt's not here.....ummmmmmmmmmm". We never did meet up. Matts' dad had won the game. And after all of this there is just one more thing I'd like to say to Danny...."ummmmmmmmmmmm".



Tanner Morrell