There’s a lot to do this time of year preparing for winter. Much of what needs doing is routine without a lot of thought requirement. I’m good at that. Call me a natural. But some acts of winter prep spur vagrant notions, no doubt from idleness of mind. In any case I never escape the ritual of scattering moth balls as mouse deterrent without wondering where on earth such large moths are found. All things proportional, I’d guess a wingspan of three feet. Those are big bugs. With moths that size a person would stand a chance hitting one with a moth ball, which I tried (unsuccessfully) to do for years. I’d usually fall asleep or miss hitting the moth as it fluttered by. It was a happy day when I was told to throw my slingshot away for another tactic.

I’m always interested in how connections and ideas are formed. When I was young I thought my full name was “Harry, Get In Here!” I heard that and the shorter “Get In Here” often enough to recognize them as belonging to me. I responded to several nicknames as well as “Leave That Alone” and “Don’t Touch That,” aimed exclusively at me. Mother never said that to Dad. For him she had other expressions.

It was a fascinating discovery to realize our neighbor’s dog had an ability to predict the future with perfectly placed surprises on exactly the route I’d hurriedly take cutting between houses. Dad used to complain why my shoes wore so funny. How could they not? I spent an awful lot of time doing the scrape walk for dog dirt removal. Everyone knows the walk; largely unsuccessful no matter how long done or far carried. The only sure fix is the garden hose which ensures wet pants and a spray to the face where you hope to goodness your mouth was closed.

If you were an odd kid like me you learned by grade five that it was much better to make big kids laugh than to get punched by them, which they might do anyway but not as much or as badly if they thought you were funny. Observance of the general rule “Don’t hurt the funny kid” saved me many times over. Public school proved easier to predict than Catholic. I guess it was just that public school kids didn’t have as much formal training and were that much looser in their dealings with funny kids than I found true in my second Catholic school. One year I went from one to the other and so have solid evidence of behavioral differences. The public school lot were happy with a tease-punch combo that made the funny kid seem funnier to them. I got darn good at hopping around doing hammed up shows of shoulder rubbing after taking a hit. It made them so happy to think they hit really hard. For some reason the Catholic school kids were interested in funny boy pants. There were too many to outrun, so it was just a matter of time. Soon as we were out of sight of the saintly halls the stalkers pounced to perform funny boy pants removal which led to the post removal chase after the pants and probably one shoe usually lost in the struggle. I was tempted to start disrobing (Catholic lingo) before reaching the pants removal zone but it occurred to me that to do so might take too much of their fun away and run the risk of the pants removers moving up to higher forms of entertainment. The thought of chasing after my underwear was too adventurous. I played it safe; acting as if briefs seen in public gave supreme humiliation.

The other day it hit me that by all rights orthodontist should refer to an extinct form of giant reptile. How the word ever escaped annihilation with the rest of the dinosaurs is mystery to me. I know the two main parts of the word make sense in an orthodontic way of today, but I can’t help seeing a dino shaped roughly like Beaker (the standard orthodontist shape) and flashing a snappy set of pearly whites enough to scare any kid clear of  the candy counter for life.

I recently watched the old Disney version of Treasure Island with Bobby Driscoll as chief insipidness himself. Disney, never one for sentiment unless it sold, tossed Bobby soon as his teenage angst involved a drug/alcohol problem. From young star in Hollywood he went to a homeless bum found dead in a vacant NYC tenement. From one to the other did not take long. However, my reflection on Treasure Island includes Bobby as a mere aside to my main them of recalling how much I wished some pirate would haul me away someplace where I might learn a set of wicked ways and move up the ladder of success to leave funny boy well and far behind. I was sure being a slave lackey for a pack o’ pirates would be of a lot more interest and excitement than keeping a neat room and taking regular baths. Except for the comfy sensuality of warm (while it lasted) bath water there was no bath time charm for me. “Hurry up in there.” Skip the baths. I wanted a cutlass and a pile of ill-gotten gain to spend on a life of dissolution once I found out what that was. A pirate life had to be better than Cheerios every morning along with clean socks lectures.

I’ll be in Duluth next week for a colonoscopy. There’s a though for the ponderous. With age comes a growing familiarity with waiting rooms. I’ve developed a critique covering seating comfort, reading material, overall color scheme, and readiness of the receptionist to grasp the meaning of “I’m there for my gorilla liniment.” Some are better than others at reading “ape ointment” into that. I’ll ask if the Dr. doing running the scope has had any tickets lately. I want an excessively safe driver running the tunnel tour, don’t you?