Whale Watching

“Groupon is offering a big discount on whale watching trips. I bought two for us. Should be great fun.”

Delighted by her find, Jackie called Channel Island’s Sportfishing in Oxnard to reserve space on next Sunday’s afternoon trip on the Ranger 85, a boat that accommodates about seventy passengers.

Her enthusiasm waned a bit when she was told that Groupon discounts couldn’t be used on weekends. But never one to back away from a challenge, she ponied up the extra bucks and got us tickets. No doubt envisioning a whale jumping into her lap, she excitedly counted the days until we’d board the Ranger.

Our last boat trip, in a larger vessel, took us from San Pedro to Catalina to celebrate 2021 New Year’s Eve. It was a rough trip. The wind blew, the boat rocked, water exploded over the bow, and I kept Jackie supplied with seasick bags. Never one to shun adversity in the face of a new adventure, the Catalina experience did not deter Jackie from wanting to seek out and make friends with the largest mammals on earth.

Many whales migrate along the California coast. Some like the Gray whale move from Mexico to the Bering Sea in the summer and reverse their journey in the winter. Others like the Humpback have much longer trips that keep them moving relentlessly, losing some of their body weight by postponing snacks until reaching their destination.

A female Humpback is about fifty feet long and, despite her fasting, weighs thirty tons. Males are smaller and, like me, tend to do what they are told. Gray whales are a little shorter and some spend the winter in protected areas of the Baja peninsula where a thriving business takes you right up to them for a gentle pat on their backs.

I did not want to spend another trip watching Jackie fill up seasick bags and suggested that we both share a scopolamine patch. That’s the medication that also makes you tell the truth, like the Germans used on Anthony Quayle in the 1961 movie The Guns of Navarone. Jackie was lukewarm about the idea, wanted to keep hiding some personal stuff, and grudging acceptance eventually degenerated until the idea of any med, even one available over the counter at Rite-Aid, was rejected without compromise. I prepared several dozen plastic bags.

Having fished on party boats coming out of Channel Islands, I’ve learned that the weather offshore can be colder than inshore. Accordingly, my mother’s mantra about dressing warmly leaped at me, “You can always take off what you’ve got on, but you can’t put on what you don’t have.” And she had never fished.

Sunday morning arrived in Ojai, bright and sunny. A fooler, I thought. For sure it’s going to be cold on the ocean. The incessant wind will bring the temperature down to the vicinity of that experienced by Robert Peary when he stumbled onto the North Pole. I thought, we’ll probably see more icebergs than whales. Don’t let Jackie out of the house unless she dresses like my mother.

She emerged from the bedroom wearing an armless jacket; the one that looks like it’s made of squares filled with a quarter inch of insulation. It always reminds me of the coats that the Chinese wore in Korea when we were beating each other to death.

I stared at her sockless feet. I suggested that she wear mukluks, two wool shirts, and a warm hat with earflaps. I repeated my mother’s mantra…twice. No movement.

You’re gonna be cold, I said.

I’ll be fine, she said.

No, you’re not, I said.

I’ll be fine, she said.

I’m not sharing my clothes with you on the boat, I said.

I’ll be fine, she said.

Two “I’ll be fines” always means, “Leave me alone”.

So I did.

We arrived at the dock. People were in various stages of dress. The ones with the proper clothing had probably heard my mother’s mantra. The others, dressed like people on Easter break in Miami Beach, had either never heard my mother’s mantra or were too macho to put on anything more than flip-flops; they could be easily identified along with Jackie who sought a warm spot inside the building. I half-expected to find pictures of them frozen and hanging alongside the photos of trophy fish that anglers had caught years ago.

We boarded the Ranger with forty others and immediately noted that there were only eight sheltered seats inside the boat’s galley. But that didn’t matter much since the whales were outside the boat. They were waiting to display their spouting, breaching, and other tricks they had learned to entertain underdressed, freezing humans, and to take revenge on the people who had killed Moby Dick and his relatives.

Jackie put up a good front, shooing me away every time I said, are you cold?

I’m not sure why I did that. I certainly wasn’t going to give her one of my four layers of clothing or my wool hat. Maybe I was just getting even by pointing out her disdain for my mother’s mantra.

My pity eventually overwhelmed my taste for revenge. I held her hand, nestled up to her and blocked the wind. I stopped asking if she was cold.

We went inside. All the seats were occupied by people wearing flip-flops. They were drinking large mugs of hot chocolate laced with Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.

I was sure I was the oldest person on the boat, so I just stood there looking pathetic and sorely in need of a place to rest my bones.

A young couple who probably wished they were in Miami Beach stood and gave us their seats. I grunted, stumbled theatrically onto the seat, and thanked them for their kindness.

Every few minutes noises on deck could be heard announcing the spotting of another whale, all too far away to properly enjoy the massive creature. We decided to end our day sitting in the warmth of the cabin.

We had seen several whales, but only parts of them. Backs were plentiful and two tails. For all we knew, it could have been the same whale repeating her performance. Or a whale without a head.

I wondered how these animals could bear the cold pacific water and chilled wind. And then I thought…maybe they know my mother’s mantra.

Bottoms up

Jackie called me from the athletic club where she teaches yoga every Saturday morning. Good for me since my monthly bill reflects a hefty discount for employees and their spouses. 

We spend most of her club pay eating frozen yogurt at Bliss, a local dispensary that just recently decided to close an hour later on weekends. Keeping the lights on until nine makes Bliss the  cutting-edge place for night owls in a town where most people are asleep by 8:30.

Her call was about the Ojai Wine Festival. “It’s next Saturday, want to go? Should be fun.”

Like other activities conjured up by Jackie, it was meant to fill our dance card with enough events to keep me from dozing comfortably on the patio, wasting my life away with a book, a NY Times crossword puzzle, and Netflix.

I thought for a second. About all the things she’s arranged for us. About how any resistance is doomed to failure. About how my initial response to almost anything new is at best lukewarm. And about how much I enjoy the activity once I get there.

Having convinced myself that the wine festival was in my best interests, I said “Sure,” with as much passion as as I could muster.

The annual festival is organized by Rotary and the proceeds are used to help the community. So, while I blanched at the $100 per person price tag, I kept thinking “It’s for a worthy cause.” And maybe the wine. And maybe because Jackie paid for the tickets anyway.

The event is held at Lake Casitas. Instead of the usual entry, the one leading to the camping sites, car parking was about a quarter mile away. In an unpaved field populated by gophers, their holes dared me to break an ankle. We held hands as we dodged the holes and promised to care for whoever broke a bone first.

The festival runs from noon to 4, and we arrived at the entrance around 1. Glenda, my favorite retired Help of Ojai employee, was workingat the gate. She gave us a wine glass to sample the offerings of the wineries, beer joints and other mysterious libations. Glenda waved us in to join the hundreds of others who were already doing mega-sampling.

We spotted my doctor, Jim Halverson, standing in a booth labeled Information; we wandered over. Other festival goers were less inquisitive, so we had Jim all to ourselves. I thought that it was easier to visit him at the Festival compared to booking an appointment in his office. I thought, maybe next year he could hang out at the Festival in a booth labeled Consultations.

There were 30 wineries serving up their stuff. We rejected the idea of a systematic approach to be sure we didn’t miss one but rejected that idea in favor of just looking for the shortest lines. Our knowledge of wines ends with Sutter Home Rose with their bottles usually housed in the darkest corner of the wine rack at Westridge Market. Attractively priced (cheap), Sutter Home owns a permanent spot in our refrigerator.

Arriving at the front of the line, we are entitled to a one ounce pouring. Some of the wineries have a bottle top that precisely measures the delivery of the ounce, while others do it without the benefit of mechanical assistance. We often cheer the technically disadvantaged pourer in the hope of getting a bigger helping.

Getting that one ounce seemed like a lot of work for a small return. And sometimes you need to think big, so I calculated how much wine I could collect if I worked hard, and began my quest at the noon opening, and ended it at the 4pm closing.

I figured that it takes about seven minutes to start at the back of a line, move to the front of the line, and get my one ounce. Then get in the next winery’s line, drink the previous winery’s ounce while waiting in line, and then get the next ounce.

To get through all 30 wineries, I’d need 210 minutes or three and a half hours. That would leave 30 minutes to pee, snack on crappy kettle corn, and be wheeled out of the festival by the paramedics. I’d call that a successful day.

We fell woefully short of that goal. I doubt that we drank a full glass of wine. But we did eat crappy kettle corn and pee in the porta-potty.

We made our way to the exit a little after three. People were still arriving. If my calculations were correct, they could only get nine ounces of wine. Hardly worth the hundred buck ticket price, but maybe enough to get a buzz on and smile innocently at the Highway Patrolman when driving out.

Bottoms up

He played with his elbows

We moved to Ojai in July 2000 and began the process of inserting ourselves in the community. Our nearest neighbors were gentle with us and made us feel welcome. Some became fast friends.

The Sunday movies at the Ojai Playhouse found other friends who enjoyed foreign films, and the challenge of the closed captioning that was partially blocked by those in front of us. Because the old seats were in a straight line rather than staggered, I could only read the left or right side of the captions; the center, usually obliterated by tall, wide men with hats, was a mystery. Ila and I often turned to each other and asked with some annoyance, “What did he say?” But it was a minor price to pay to be part of the community.

We marched in the July 4^th parade, attended concerts and plays at the Art Center, and volunteered our services to organizations in need. We were willing to try almost anything to complete our metamorphosis from L.A. to Ojai.

And then we heard about the Ojai Music Festival.

In 2001 we leaped at the opportunity of this new adventure. We didn’t investigate Festival history or even the current offerings. We bought tickets to what we assumed was a typical classical music extravaganza, complete with an orchestra, singers, and lots of I know that one music. I was sure that Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach would be well represented.  Lots of people regularly attended the June event, so what could be bad.

We prepared ourselves with seat cushions that took some pain out of the Bowl’s wood benches designed by Torquemada in the 15^th century. Seat numbers had been pretty much eroded by the last glacier that came down Ojai Avenue, and the seats were sized for people on perpetual diets. With cramped quarters, we quickly became close friends with those on either side of us.

A bell chimed and silenced the crowd. A piano was center stage. A performer entered stage right to polite applause, sat at the piano, remained motionless for an eternity, lifted his hands, and began to play.

At first, I thought the piano was out of tune. And then I noticed that he occasionally removed his hands from the keyboard and substituted his elbows. His hands returned to the keyboard, and then gave way to elbows. Hands and elbows trading places over and over. A cacophony of sounds attacked my ears. I was stunned and fearful. And so it continued; a baptism under fire. Like Dorothy, I realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

The performer with the talented elbows ended his performance. A rumbling spread through the audience. At first, I assumed they were as mystified as I was by what they had just heard. The rumble grew louder and more strident. People rose from their seats. I wondered if, like in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein movie, the villagers were going to lynch the pianist.

And then, the 60ish woman seated next to me rose to her full 5-foot-two height. But rather than encouraging the idea of a lynching, she began shouting Bravo, bravo, bravo. Over and over, infused with an ardor that would not be satisfied until her vocal cords ceased to function.

Ila and I stared at each other and sent silent messages that included rolling our eyes, shrugging our shoulders, and displaying our up-turned palms. Who were these people who surrounded us? Were they victims of mass hypnosis? Did they need medical attention?

It ended. We began the trek to our car and bumped into some friends who had been at the performance. Normally a levelheaded, calm person, Sally asked “Wasn’t that a marvelous concert? Wasn’t it amazing? Didn’t you just love it?”

Still feeling raw-edged due to my overexposure to the elbow man, I threw political correctness to the winds and said No. With that bit of honesty, I had firmly labeled myself a non-believer, an agnostic, antiquated, a has-been. Maybe even a Tony Bennett fan.

In the years that followed, and despite our better judgment, we continued to attend the Festival like it was some kind of virus. Like the flu season, it returned each June and evaded our best attempts at eradication. I’d either relax on the lawn or, after the Bowl’s reincarnation, sit on a nice green, waterproof, stiff plastic chair. I’d watch and listen, using the Elbow Man’s performance as a baseline measurement for weird, annoying music.

Anna, the Festival’s happy-faced fund raiser, has become my personal concierge in picking a performance that would least offend me. Because of Jackie’s work schedule, our choices this year were limited. Anna suggested the Sunday morning program featuring a pianist. Always one to foolishly let history repeat itself, I sent them a boatload of cash and got two tickets in row E.

We arrived, located our seats, and were surprised to find no one in rows A to D. After a thorough astronomical evaluation, we realized that those rows were exposed to full sunlight while Row E only allowed a solar invasion of my ankles. The movement of the Earth around the Sun, and the possibility of cremation, became something else to worry about besides the music.

The chimes sounded. The audience quieted and our attention was drawn to the lonely Steinway grand piano in the middle of the stage. The pianist entered stage right, sat at the piano, flexed, and then fell silent. He waited. Memories of the Elbow Man flooded through me.

Close enough to see his hands and elbows, I watched. I held my breath. He played.

I loved it.

Gone fishin’

My son David is an avid fisherman who is at his happiest when wetting a line. I give myself some credit for that flaw in his character because I introduced him to the often-frustrating sport before he could think for himself.

Showing little respect for his aging father, and to punish me for this early indiscretion, David often includes me in fishing trips better designed for young men who have not yet learned the skills associated with the creature comforts of old age. I play along, smile and minimize any complaints just to keep my child happy.

In furthering his revenge, he called me a few weeks ago and announced, “Dad, I’ve booked three sessions with a fishing guide on Lake Casitas. Just you and him. You’re gonna love it.”

As his words sank in, I thought of the excuses I might employ in an effort to extricate myself from this intrusion on my otherwise comfortable existence. But my fatherly instincts warned me of the serious consequences of declining his offer, including my premature placement in any one of several undesirable Ojai nursing homes.

“All you need to do is call the Ojai Angler and set up the dates of the sessions. You’re gonna love it. Call ‘em now, before you forget.”

I expressed my lukewarm appreciation for David’s gift and silently wondered how long how I might delay that call until David’s memory matched the dwindling status of my own. Rejecting that misguided idea, I waited a respectable week and then called the Ojai Angler.

I spoke with Amy who informed me that my guide would be Marc. Teaming up with any guide is fraught with uncertainty and I silently wondered if I had a choice; the question was answered when I cruised the Angler website and saw that Marc was the owner, operator and only guide. I relaxed and accepted my fate.

The big day arrived with little fanfare and much trepidation. I was to meet Marc at the dock at 7am. At 6am my iPhone informed me that the outside temperature was a balmy 36 degrees. No problem, I thought; surely the temperature would rise to a more respectable level before embarkation.

I dressed as though I was heading to the snow laden slopes at Mammoth Lakes. A base of wool socks, thermal underwear and a sweatshirt was covered by my thickest winter jacket. My head was encased in a scruffy wool hat that came down over my ears. Gloves completed the costume. I wondered if Admiral Byrd had had it so good in 1926 when he came within 80 miles of the North Pole.

The trip to the lake brought me to the dock at 6:45 where the temperature had indeed changed; it was now 32 degrees, four degrees colder than when I was in my warm bathroom wishing I could stay there. I scanned the lake in search of an iceberg or, at the least, an ice floe with a polar bear on it. All I found was Marc.

A happy young man with a boat of his own. Fishing gear neatly arranged on top of the immaculately cared-for deck. An experienced guide with thirty years plumbing the depths of Lake Casitas. All in all, a setup that screamed fishing success.

Completed in 1959, Casitas is a reservoir that supplies drinking water to the Ojai Valley. I ingest several glasses of the lake every day and ponder what it would be like if the lake dried up; a thought that becomes more troublesome with the current drought conditions.

The lake harbors several varieties of fish with largemouth bass topping the list of most desirable. Planted when the lake was finished, bass are not regularly stocked as they are omnivorous, eating many of the lake’s other denizens including trout which, due to their inability to fight back, are regularly restocked.

Every angler is often reminded that Casitas is known for its production of trophy bass. In 1991, Robert Crupi landed a monster 22 pounder which was the third largest one caught in the U.S. One’s salivary glands work overtime just thinking about the possibilities.

Marc put the boat in overdrive, the wind blasted, and I pulled my jacket over my face as I wondered how long it would take for frostbite to dissolve my nose.

We cruised to our first stop, which looked to me like every other stop. Marc unsheathed a rod and explained the finer points of bass fishing. “You hold the rod like this. There’s a plastic worm at the end of the line. Toss the line as far from the boat as you can. Let it sink to the bottom. Then reel it in verrrry slowly. When you feel a tap-tap, give the rod a stiff yank and hook the fish. Boat it.”

Simple enough, I thought. My first cast landed ten feet from the boat in a spot the opposite of what I had intended. “Maybe there’s more to this than I thought.”  My second cast was longer but still off target. I decided to forget about targets and just assume that I was in the right place.

I reeled in slowly, attempting to mimic an earthworm crawling on the bottom. This procedure had three advantages. First, more time was spent in the water than untangling faulty casts. Second, I didn’t have to do much casting. Lastly, I could close my eyes and recover lost sleep while I waited for the tap-tap.

Twenty minutes passed without a tap-tap for either Marc or me. Certain that somewhere else was better, we took our icy seats and gunned the craft to our next stop; it looked no different than the first stop. More casting and slower reeling produced the same result, no tap-tapping.

Sensing no need to be totally vigilant, Marc offered me a bottle of water. A dangerous act when given to a man who makes frequent visits to the toilet. Marc assured me that we would stop at one of the lake’s floating toilets to relieve the pressure and, good to his word, our next move took us to one.

The floating toilet is the lake’s solution to keeping people from peeing in it. Meticulously maintained, I wondered if we could just play out the balance of our four-hour safari by sitting on the platform and gazing at the beauty of our surroundings.

Marc said this was a no-no and we headed to the next look-alike spot. More casting, worm hardly moving, and no hoped-for tap taps.

As though god had heard my prayers, Marc announced that our time was up. He apologized for the absence of the bass and extolled the views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. He slipped up a bit when he told me that yesterday’s client had actually caught one fish, a fact that made me wonder why he thought today would be any better than yesterday.

I could have bitched but thought better of it. I silently congratulated myself for never uttering a word of complaint. Instead, as though consoling Marc, I said we’d get ‘em next time.

We rocketed to the dock in much warmer conditions and I congratulated myself as I exited the boat without falling in the water. I walked back to my car and thought about the benefits of engaging a guide; no boat of my own to care for topped the list and somehow made the day much more enjoyable.

I called Amy and booked my next outing.

Thank you David…I’m gonna love it.

Snow Story

If I only knew how much fun downhill skiing could be I’d have started it years ago, long before my 81^st birthday.

But let me start at the beginning when Jackie said “Let’s go to Big Bear and play in the snow, drink hot toddies, sit in front of the fireplace, and cuddle.”

The cuddling thing was enough to sell me. Jackie took over and made reservations for three nights at a moderately priced hotel in Big Bear, about a four-hour drive to Southern California’s skiing mecca. 

Aware of the fashionably responsible thing to do, we dialed up Amazon and bought ski pants, funny hats, insulated underwear and amazingly inexpensive gloves that looked thick enough to work next to a Bessemer furnace.

Amazon delivered the next day, a feat that continues to amaze me. My ski pants were wonderfully warm and heavy. If the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had these Chinese-made pants in 1928, he would not have died in the Barents Sea after eating his sled dogs. I was confident we would survive Big Bear, a destination undoubtedly populated with multiple Starbucks and chichi pet stores offering a myriad of dog food products.

Jackie also selected a rather effeminate set of bright yellow tire chains. Living in Chicago gave me some familiarity with tire chains. They are supremely obedient when lying at ease in the dark bowels of your garage. Applying them in the midst of a snowstorm on Highway 18 is another matter best left to the local chain jockeys along the road who offer their services at a price that is non-negotiable. I decided to rely on the hired help if needed, and to practice an ancient Jewish incantation that has been known to ward off bad weather.

Things were moving along smoothly until I told Jackie about a friend who said, “Ya know, if you’re willing to drive four hours to Big Bear you might as well go to Mammoth Lakes, only another two hours away and 2,000 feet higher. A much cooler place that makes Big Bear look like a Girl Scout camp.”

Hearing this, Jackie did her own investigation and pronounced Mammoth “the place to be.” She set her sights on the Westin. Directly across the street from the gondolas that ferry skiers to the chair lifts, the Westin is considerably more expensive than other alternatives; a product of its location and the fact that there was only one room remaining. “Must be really good” she concluded and booked it.

Three days later we began the odyssey. Our plan was to devote our full attention to cross country skiing. Downhill, with its reputation for broken bones and instant paralysis brought about by head-on collisions with trees that fool you into thinking they are your friends, was out of the question.

On the first morning of our stay, we grabbed seats on a bus and headed to the Tamarack Lodge which was rumored to have all the equipment we needed. They provide groomed trails that are easy and others that are to be rigorously avoided by those who wish to survive the experience.

Cross country is what Amundsen would have done if he had more dogs to eat and a way to walk home on packed snow instead of water. You hop up on thin skis, grab a couple of ski poles and shove yourself forward on level ground until you find a downward slope. If you do it well, you look very competent and sure of yourself. If you do it poorly, you look like me.

There are no gondolas or ski lifts. You do everything under your own power. If you prolong the adventure, you breathe ever harder and become overheated. You remove most of your clothing and leave it on the trail in order to avoid a heat produced stroke. If you’re like me, you feel like you’ve been cross country…California to New York.

My second rocket-propelled fall of the morning found me flat on my back. I was sure I had cracked my skull but was strangely encouraged by the thought since it would be an acceptable excuse with which to end my misery.

Jackie had fallen only once and, while I decided to judiciously remove and carry my skis back to the lodge, she pushed on taking tiny steps that seemed to move her backwards at a glacial pace. I urged her on hoping to get our money’s worth.

We finished our sojourn about one o’clock and were able to get some very thin, taste-free lentil soup at the lodge. Eating it was a challenge as there was no indoor dining nor any outside tables or chairs. I did not complain in light of what Amundsen must have endured.

We were determined to get back on the trail and snowshoes seemed a viable option. The lodge kindly supplied them; we strapped them on and began a walk on packed snow. Looking more like a waddle than a walk, we found them of no practical use that consumed more energy than simply walking in our street shoes. We wrote off the adventure and went back to the Westin for more appropriate winter snow events, drinking hot toddies.

Having conquered cross country and snowshoe challenges, only downhill skiing remained to complete a successful trifecta. The next day we grabbed the free gondola across the street from our hotel and took the five-minute trip up the hill. It was early afternoon, and hundreds of skiers were taking the chair lifts and whooshing down the runs.

The sun was intense, and the temperature was mild. The absence of wind allowed us to bask in the warmth of mid-day. We had found the place we had been seeking.

Jackie grabbed two unoccupied chairs that we dragged to the end of a run near the common area. We bought two cans of alcoholic beverages, mine a surprisingly delicious White Russian. Sitting and sipping produced a euphoria that allowed me to feel like I was the one on those skis. Sliding effortlessly downhill, snowplowing to a stop and congratulating myself.

I should have started this sport sooner.

Careful Where You Step

I wake slowly, stare out the window, and watch the night give way to the dawn. I welcome daylight and embrace it so I can avoid the pratfalls that afflict those whose night vision might better be labeled night blindness.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have the pleasure of being in Robert’s hands at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club. My thirty minutes with him are devoted to strengthening my upper body, working on my balance, and enjoying his wit. I haven’t fooled myself into thinking that I can reverse the aging process; I merely want to take a break from it for a few more years.

Since moving to town, I have been blessed with the ability to walk to the club instead of driving to it. Takes about twenty minutes and gives my cardiovascular system a small nudge in the right direction. Before Covid, my sessions with Robert began at 8am; a respectable start time that lets me walk to the gym in the morning light.

Covid changed all that. First the club closed. Then it was open. Then it was closed. Then it was sort of open, with restrictions that seemed to change twice daily. Robert also had his own health issues that limited his ability to entertain me on a regular basis. Things changed.

I now start training at 7. My walk to the gym begins in darkness and ends in the dim morning light. The first 10 minutes are a thrilling adventure as I stare down at the ground and strain to see what is underfoot. My mind sends me the message, “Watch out, be careful.”

At those times I am reminded of my brother Irv who, like our father, suffered the genetically delivered curse of macular degeneration. I recall walking with Irv when every step brought him closer to a fall. I see him hesitate as he puts one foot in front of the other. I watch him use the toe of his shoe as though it were a cane, probing the next step as though there was a deep chasm in front of him that might send him off the cliff into oblivion. At times like that, I remember thinking, “Poor guy, how frustrating this must be for him.”

Now I’m getting a taste of it, and it makes me feel old. In addition to obstacle avoidance, labels with small print taunt me; surely no one other than Lilliputians can read them. I try to decipher them with my bifocals. Failing that, I try it without glasses. Then I repeat the options without success. Excuses for banging into furniture on my way to bed, like the absence of a full moon, no longer cut it. Thinking that cataract surgery on my left eye will improve things is a fool’s paradise. I probe with my toe, just like my brother did.

Unlike Dracula, I long for the sunrise and try to complete my foraging before dark. Starting a morning hike at 6 is no longer possible. So, like yesterday, when Jackie was already on her way to body management in Montecito, I suited up and began a solo trek just after dawn.

I told Jackie that my plan was to walk through the less challenging Arbolada; a moderate grade trip through residential neighborhoods. Predictable, safe and ambulance friendly. I promised to take my cellphone, since screaming help into the thin air at that time of the morning would only antagonize the neighbors.

Ten minutes into the hike I changed my plans. I felt strong, my aging left knee had not yet offended me, and I was ready for sterner stuff. Shelf Road beckoned and, macho-like, I took the challenge.

Reaching Shelf Road requires a quarter mile jaunt up Signal Street, a thoroughfare that looks benign. Uphill all the way, lungs expand and contract at the speed of hummingbird wings. Heartbeats are no longer separated by intervals; they are, like a firehose, streaming nonstop.

Reaching the beginning of the Shelf Road trail would normally be cause for celebration, but I’m much too busy reorganizing my body into a more coherent machine; one that bears some resemblance to what it was like when I began this death march.

The trail is wide and seems to be continuously uphill. Its composition is shale-like with bits of ankle-twisting rocks thrown in to encourage me to keep my eyes on the road. On a weekday at 7, there are a few hikers with a lot of annoying dogs who seem to enjoy adding another obstacle in my path.

At the half-way mark there are two benches that can give one respite and provide a view of the Valley. I came upon the benches, occupied by a young couple in serious conversation. I waved without panache and mumbled the obligatory, “Good morning. Nice day isn’t it?”

Without waiting for a detailed response, I cruised past them and said soundlessly, “I’m proud of myself. Didn’t die on Signal Street and made it half-way up the trail. The rest is a piece of cake. Home for coffee in thirty.”

As though god hated braggards, I was mightily smitten by the lord for my brashness. The toe of my right shoe clipped the top of a stone which, I am sure, was placed there by an elf for that very purpose. I hurtled forward without a nanosecond of hesitation and found myself laying prone on the trail.

The bench couple ran to me and, believing that I was an old guy without much sense, helped me to my feet and began exploring my body. Normally, inspection by a young woman would be welcomed; however, the blood emanating from my several cuts and bruises put me off.

The inspection concluded without discovery of broken bones, torn ligaments or bleeding that couldn’t be stopped with the application of the three pieces of Kleenex that constitute my first-aid kit.

One of the bloody tissues was nestled between my hat and my scraped skull. Looking like that fife player marching in the painting of The Spirit of 1776, I completed my trek home, washed the blood off my body, and applied several dozen band-aids. I looked a bit like the mummy in the Boris Karloff picture of the same name.

The following day I told Robert my story. He carefully studied my wounds and added shame to my physical woes. He pronounced me a lazy foot dragger. Insisting that I had to learn to lift my feet higher brought on a new series of exercises that consist largely of my stumbling over obstacles he put in my path; much like the dogs did on Shelf Road. Except I was paying for this indignity.

Think I’ll go for a walk…before it gets dark.

No Spitting Allowed

What has baseball come to when it announces that players may no longer spit on the field?

Trying to protect the players from each other, major league baseball is starting the new season about a hundred days late with a bunch of rules that, in my opinion, take the heart right out of the grand old game.

Spitting, “including but not limited to saliva, sunflower seeds, peanut shells, or tobacco,” is prohibited. One wonders, given the phrase “not limited to,” what else the players might have had in their mouths that requires nonstop spitting while they stand around scratching their balls.

Watching players and umpires chew great wads of tobacco has been a favorite part of America’s beloved sport. As a teenager I engaged in ranking the players who practiced the art of sequestering a large wad of the stuff in their right cheek. In addition to the size of the wad, my rankings included points for the distance the player could periodically spew forth that glob of viscous brown spit. In later years, sunflower seeds became the object de jure, leaving as much as a ton of shells on the dugout floor.

Hank Sauer, a by-gone home run hitter and porous left fielder for my hometown Chicago Cubs, was my tobacco chewing hero. His unique style of simultaneously swinging two ten-pound bats produced prodigious homers and endeared him to the crowd. Bleacher fans would reward Hank with dozens of packets of his favorite Beech Nut chewing tobacco when he returned to his defensive post after having just clubbed a home run ball onto Waveland Avenue. Hank would be heartbroken today to see how far the great sport has fallen. Rest in peace, Hank.

Continuing this 2020 march to cleanliness, the League will require pitchers to carry a small wet rag that substitutes for the gross habit of licking their fingers as though they had just consumed a juicy barbecued rib from the Deer Lodge. Licking is intended to improve the pitcher’s ability to grip the ball, and like all useless rules it has gone through several alterations over the years. At one time there was no rule. That was amended to allow licking if it was followed by drying the fingers. Recognizing the silliness of that amendment, the rule was changed to allow licking so long as the pitcher was not on the rubber…something that left a few players confused and their girlfriends pregnant.

Studying the latest Covid-19 data, the League realized that germs could be transmitted by fondling the ball; therefore, the offending sphere will be ejected from the game if it is touched by multiple players. Perhaps needing some further clarification, this rule may require a new ball on every pitch delivered by the pitcher to the catcher and then returned to the pitcher. The only party supporting this ball consumption rule is the Wilson Sporting Goods company. A possible solution to this problem is to eliminate the catcher all together and allow the balls to accumulate behind the plate until retrieved by the batboy; one who is too young to be seriously affected by the virus and who, in fact, is easily replaced.

One of the most engaging components of America’s pastime involves arguing with the umpire. Lou Piniella, another Cub for another time, was a master of the art. Billy Martin, the 1988 Yankee manager, won an early departure award for being thrown out of a game in the third inning; hardly enough time to deposit one’s share of seed shells in the dugout.

The goal of the manager rant was to get within six inches of the umpire’s face to show you meant business without being tossed out of the game. This wasn’t easy since the umpire was king of the hill and woefully unschooled in the art of compromise.

Alas, the virus has put an end to this traditional arguing by requiring the combatants to remain at least six feet apart during the altercation. This restriction might eventually turn the event into something like Muhammed Ali doing a rope-a-dope around Sonny Liston while flitting around home plate. To bone up on their body language skills, major league managers and umpires will undoubtedly attend choreography classes hosted by the likes of Gower Champion and Tommy Tune.

Speaking of umpires, they have adamantly refused to wear Covid-19 masks while behind home plate. They insist that the standard metal birdcage mask intended to keep foul balls from climbing up their nostrils is adequate protection from the virus. After team owners petitioned President Trump, scientific evaluation of the umpires’ claim became top priority at the Centers for Disease Control.

Recognizing that the changes may lengthen a game that annually bores more people to death than the Corona virus, the League has made several changes in the hope of concluding a nine-inning game before Yankee Stadium is overrun by the Mendenhall glacier.

Attempting to speed up extra inning games, the following head scratching rule has been adopted:

Each extra inning will begin with a runner on second base. The batter (or a substitute for the batter) who leads off an inning shall continue to be the batter who would lead off the inning in the absence of this extra-innings rule.

Or a more lucid rule:

All pitchers — both starters and relievers — must face at least three batters (or pitch until the inning is over) before they come out of a game.

This new three-batter rule will eliminate the use of multiple pitchers who only throw a single pitch and are then yanked for a new pitcher who throws only one pitch, etc. etc. consuming valuable time that could better be spent watching Gilligan’s Island reruns. The old rule often found managers running out of pitchers. They were then forced to wander through the stands looking for anyone who might have at least played Pee-Wee ball.

Live fans attending the games are now a thing of the past. Replaced by virtual electronic media, you can stay home, sit in your ratty easy chair, drink two-dollar instead of ten-dollar Budweiser, and not have to stand in line at the urinal (unless your wife makes you do some weird stuff.)

To compensate for the loss of the real thing, you can watch the game and punch computer icons that show whether you’re cheering, booing or clapping. And just like on Gilligan’s Island, technicians in the TV studio will add canned noise to match the icons of your choice.

Presumably, there will still be a seventh inning stretch. But Take me out to the ball game will have a whole new meaning.

A Bike Story

My first bicycle was a Schwinn. Black and white with shiny fenders, it gleamed in the sunshine as it stood waiting for me in the alley behind my folks’ second floor porch in Chicago’s Albany park, a mecca for transplanted Russians and other Jews.

I walked around the bike that my father had brought home the prior evening and had placed out of harm’s way in one of the darkened basement sheds allocated to tenants. I had whined for weeks about wanting a bike, so its appearance on my birthday was not a shock.

At eleven, I was not yet aware of my parents limited financial resources. Surrounded by family, friends, and other neighborhood denizens, I was primarily exposed to people living in similar circumstances. In retrospect, I’m sure that the bike took a healthy bite out of father’s paycheck.

The Cadillac of bikes, its company was established 1895 by Ignaz Schwinn, a German immigrant, and his meat packer partner Adolph Arnold. It survived the Great Depression and continued producing bikes in the U.S. under various corporate guises until it finally succumbed to the allure of Chinese productivity. The Paramount, Stingray, and Schwinn-Twinn came and went. Advertising kept Schwinn in the public eye; the company was an early sponsor of TV’s Captain Kangaroo.

I walked around the sturdily built bike with fat balloon tires and its lever-actuated bell mounted on the handlebar. In 1950, this bike would have been called snazzy, flashy, and sleek. I daydreamed about where it would take me while I built up my confidence. Finally, I lifted my left leg over the horizontal bar that announced the bicycle’s gender as a “boy’s bike.”

Swinging the kickstand up from the asphalt, I brought the left side pedal to its full vertical position and placed my foot on top of it. I pushed the pedal forward. The bike moved a few feet. I tried to hop up onto the thickly cushioned seat. And then I fell over.

The bike shivered as it came to rest on its left side, the front wheel spinning slowly for what seemed an eternity. Then it stopped and all was silent. I had scraped my knee but, in comparison to the shame I felt, it was no big deal. The bike had escaped relatively unscathed except for a scratch on the chrome plated handlebar near the bell. It was a reminder that stayed with me each time I mounted the Schwinn that took me through my college years.

I bought a ten-speed racing bike when our kids were safely in school. For not much reason other than it seemed like the thing to do. Like all bikes of its genre, it was fitted with a seat that produced pain at the same level as the Spanish Inquisition’s torture rack. The seat was a combination of metal tubing covered with some animal skin. That’s it. No padding. No springs. Not a good combination for a guy with a skinny ass and a low tolerance for pain.

When I began riding the bike with the Torquemada designed seat, I complained to whoever would listen. Some people commiserated while others said, “Keep at it. You’ll get used to it.” And I thought, “Why should I?”

My bike riding consisted largely of shifting gears that never seemed to do what I wanted, and repositioning my ass trying to share my discomfort equally with the various pressure points in my butt and my tailbone.  And so, unlike my dear Schwinn, the ten-speed ended up in our Northridge garage, gathering dust and losing air in the tires until they were flat. I finally sold it to someone with a highly cushioned ass, for a whole lot less than I paid for it. Good riddance.

Twenty years passed in Northridge while I avoided a further encounter with a bike. The next move to our Ojai home high up on the hill put an end to any thought of mounting one. The terrain was much too steep; merely walking up Sulphur Mountain Road required the skill of a gazelle and the lungs of a blue whale. People with bikes who tried it were known to stop mid-way, cry unconsolably, and admit defeat.

I moved to town almost a year ago. To a house without steps, on a flat lot, in a flat neighborhood and with a flat one-mile walk to the Ojai Post Office. Surrounded by scores of bikers, Jackie and I talked about being part of that in-crowd. We were particularly attracted to electric assisted E-bikes. Not a fully operational motor scooter, the E-bike merely compliments one’s own pedal power with an array of assisted options. Given my age, I felt no shame with the idea of sharing the load with a lithium ion battery.

A week ago, we called the MOB bike shop and found that they would be happy to have us try the E-bike that afternoon at 2. Choosing to ignore the current 99-degree temperature, we jumped at the offer. Arriving at the shop, I casually informed Jackie that my car thermometer was recording the first triple digits of the summer. Consistent with her penchant for following through with commitments, she said, “It’s an electric bike. We’ll go slow. Only for ten minutes. Don’t be a pussy. You’ll be fine.”

Tim took our temperature to rule out Covid-19; I was mildly disappointed when I passed the test. Handing us over to young Melanie, we signed the usual waivers relieving the shop of any liability including the crime of wantonly exposing octogenarians to bodily harm. She gave us general instructions that I immediately forgot, fitted us with fashionable helmets, and adjusted our seat heights to a position based on information only known to her.

Jackie was the first to fall from the bike not ten feet from the shop’s front door. Light as a feather, she landed unscathed. I figured I could do better. Mounting the bike, I depressed the left pedal. Moving forward I brushed against Jackie, lost my balance, and fell stage-right while the bike attempted a quick escape by falling stage-left. I scraped the same knee that was a victim in the Schwinn incident seventy years ago, including my embarrassment.

The shop owner, who had been watching this Marx Brothers routine, came closer to me than Covid-19 precautions allow and said, “You know, while the bike is valuable, the safety of our customers is our top priority.”

Translated, he meant, “Don’t you think you’re a little old for this? You’ll probably kill yourself. Be smart. Get your ass out of here before it’s too late.”

Rising to my full five-foot-eight and a half inches (I used to be five-ten), I thanked the owner for his concern, assured Jackie that I was in full control of my senses, and reclaimed the wayward bike.

We walked the bikes across Ojai Avenue, mounted them and rode with some trepidation to the bike path. We entered the path, dodged oncoming fearless bikers, and were successful at avoiding further mishaps.

We returned the bikes, once again walking them across the Avenue. I glanced at the owner and with some smugness said, “Thank you for your concerns but I’ve got everything under control.” Lying does not become me and I think he knew better; but, sensing a possible sale, he nodded his agreement.

My knee is nicely scabbed over. We’re going riding again tomorrow. Think I’ll wear long pants.