The Shorts & Longs of It

My dog Frida and me on a balmy winter day in Manhattan Beach

My late good friend John Gilchrist would not be caught without his shorts on.

I'm talking about outer shorts, not under shorts.

Through rain or sleet or hail or snow, John wore his shorts as a statement. Although he never explained that statement, I knew him well enough to understand that it was his way of expressing independence and lifting a middle finger toward convention.

I don't believe he owned a pair of long pants. He lived most of his life bare-legged, with a wry smile on his face.

Today, it seems that a good percentage of the male population are wearing shorts, and will continue to do so through the coming winter. Come hell or high water.

Google "men in shorts" and you will see a gallery of male adults, many in GQ-style jackets and shirts, exposing an array of hairy knees and calves.

Is it a "chick magnet?" 

Or "just men being men."

"My legs don't get cold," says one proud shorts-wearing guy from New Jersey.

Some say it's macho. Full-length slacks and jeans are for babies.

When I hear that, I think to myself: Wild Bill Hickock didn't wear shorts. Superman wore tights not shorts. I never saw Paul Newman in short pants. James Bond doesn't prance around in Bermudas. 

Bare-legged macho stride

Some men retire and don shorts for the rest of their lives, but who wants to brag about being retired? Why not just wear pajamas.

"Shorts are more comfortable," is the most oft-heard explanation from men who wear shorts.

Granted, when I'm in Hawaii, I wear board shorts, ever ready to dive into the ocean for a refreshing cool-off. 

If you dive into the frigid Pacific in Santa Cruz you had better be wearing more than board shorts, dude, or prepare for a case of hyper hypothermia. 

Still, the question of whether to go long or short has been a minor conundrum for me. 

That hasn't stopped me from pulling on a pair of cargo shorts, currently on the "very bad choice" fashion list. 

But who's into fashion? If I'm going to be puttering around in the yard on a hot day, I like a place to put my things. Like in a cargo pocket. 

I always seem to have a lot of things: cell phone, tape measure, clippers, keys, pocket knife, screwdriver, pair of gloves, sunglasses, reading glasses, a glass of water (scratch that last one). I put my canister of water on the table next to the lounge chair and always forget where it is.

Hey, I'm not perfect. And I like shorts. But year-round?

It works in Florida

Actually, I've never tried it for the entire year. Maybe I'll start on December 1. I'm sheltering anyway. It's not like I'll be going to any galas or anything. My social calendar is, as Larry David would say, prittay, prittay spare. Come to think of it: I've never seen him in short pants.

If I get really cold I can always pull on a pair of long socks. But that would be cheating, wouldn't it? The whole idea is to show off your bony legs. 

And what about those guys who wear shorts over tights! Lame. As cousin Jimmy says: "You can't have it both ways."

Why not slip into a pair of comfortable long trousers. A pair of Levis. 501's. Red color for hipness. What am I trying to prove?

I know what John Gilchrist would say. He was very good at throwing out playful insults, while walking around in shorts.

"Lose the long pants, Samson. They make you look older than you are."

Easy for him to say. He lived in Santa Barbara.

Accepting Loss

More than a quarter of a million people in the U.S. have died from Covid since March. They say that most every citizen knows of someone who has perished from the disease. We learned of two such deaths last week.

These weren't people that we know, but they were family members of someone we met, a furnace installer from nearby Watsonville. 

"People say it's no big thing," he told us. "But I tell them it's real. I tell them my story."

As soon as he vacated our premises, Barbara and I looked at each other, our eyes as large as saucers.

She immediately went to work sanitizing everything he had touched. We aired out the detached room where he had been working. Of course we had been wearing masks and only momentarily within six-feet of him.

Covid cases are rising by the hundreds almost every day in Santa Cruz County as we draw near Thanksgiving, a favorite holiday of our spread-out family. It's a time when we try to get together. Not this year. Not in person.

I am thankful that our family are all healthy, but it is a loss and sacrifice not to be able to touch them and feel their physical presence. I want to joke around with my grandchildren, watch their eyes light up and their expressions turn to smiles.

As an old guy who has been sheltering for months, I can't think of anything I'd like more. I never had grandparents, three of them had died before I was born, the other not too long afterward. I fear my grandkids will lose out, too. By the time we can get together they won't be kids any more. 

Times are very strange and I'm old enough to have already lost a few good friends and a spouse, and I'm cruising through the "at risk" demographic of septuagenarian. I accept the pandemic. I've made peace with my losses.

Which brings me to this curious election situation. Our two, and only, choices for President of the United States in the confounding year of 2020 were both seventy-something old white men. The two oldest dudes ever to run for president. It's crazy.

The guy who won, at least, is able to talk about his losses -- three children and a spouse. And how many attempts at running for president did he lose? Yet here he is, the president-elect. He accepted loss and moved forward. 

The other guy, who's lost a brother and a few casinos and now an election, cannot accept loss. He refuses to acknowledge that he is not the winner. His pathology is very clear.

Thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington this past week to protest the election, claiming that he won, that the election was stolen, blah blah blah. The reason they believe this is because the old guy tells them so. It makes them feel better. They take whatever he says at face value. It makes the old guy feel better to see them applaud him, and that's really all he wants.

At the expense of the truth, at the expense of his country and the expense of a pandemic.

Grow up, old man. It’s a good day to lose.

How Do We Spell Relief?

Joe Biden has been elected President of the United States with 290 Electoral Votes. President Donald Trump has not conceded and will likely contest the results.

The sound of spontaneous hurrahs spread through the open air at the Santa Cruz Farmers Market on Saturday morning. Dozens of masked shoppers turned to each other, their shining eyes telling the story that Joe Biden had reached the magic number of electoral votes to defeat the current President.

No four more years!

The man who, in his own words, had done more for black people in the United States than anyone except for maybe Abraham Lincoln, will not be doing a Trump Show State of the Union next year.  Steven Bannon will not be receiving the National Medal of Freedom.

Pristine National Wildlife areas will not be handed over to the oil industry.

Vladimir Putin will not be more trusted than the United States Intelligence Agencies.

Toadies like Mike Pence, Bill Barr and Mike Pompeo will not be licking the King's boots.

Criminals like Roger Stone will not be pardoned for trading secrets with foreign countries and lying to Congress.

White Supremacists will not be called "very good people" by the Chief Executive of the U.S.

Dark-colored people from countries to our south will not be separated from their children at our border.

Young people in the U.S. who were born here will not be deported because they are not official citizens.

All citizens of the U.S. will not be kept in the dark about the real dangers of an imminent pandemic.

Our military men and women will not be called losers when they are wounded, killed or tortured.

Cities with impoverished ghettos created by racial bigotry will not be dissed nor will their mayors because they belong to the opposing political party.

Our national leader will not hide his personal tax returns from the American people.

Our national leader will not leverage his executive office for the profit of his own personal business interests.

Our national leader will not hold back Congressionally approved funds to a foreign country until that country agrees to investigate his political opponent.

Environmental protections will not be deregulated for the sole sake of capital investment.

The language of the Chief Executive will not be arrested at the level of sixth grade.

Our national interests, international standing, constitutional liberties and protections will not depend on partisan interests of the Chief Executive.

We will not suffer the lies and cons of an adult who acts like a petulant child.

Because the current President will behave badly until his term ends, it will be necessary to hold ourselves together for a little more than a month, during which time many unseemly shenanigans will be attempted. Republican Sen. Lyndsey Graham, South Carolina, has reportedly pledged $500,000 to help Trump overturn the election. Just sayin.

Keep the thought: he will soon not be our President anymore.

Post Election Blues

I believe I've gotta a case of post election blues. Four days after the General Election without a declared winner has left me in a weird bubble of nada.

My left ear itches and the right side of my jaw hurts. The second toe on my left foot feels like I kicked a steel post and my right knee is numb.

I have no feeling in my upper cranium.

My sense of smell is very bad. Everything seems to stink.

My iPhone erupts every five minutes with an alert that does not tell me anything I don't already know.

Although I thought Biden had won Arizona. That was Election night. I swear I saw that on my screen. The next morning Arizona was grey not blue, waiting for more votes. As of today, Arizona remains unknown.

The President, in his usual unhinged way, declared he had won the Election, said there are some very bad people. He said "fraud." He tweeted "STOP THE COUNT". He's got a thing for all caps. And lawyers. He loves to sue. There would be no fraud if he were winning.

Quote of the week, from one of his handlers: "No one wants to tell King Lear that he he's losing."

I scrambled a couple of eggs. Not my usual breakfast. 

I have done more yard work in the past three days than I did all last year. I have been tediously clipping leaves by hand. My right hand has been nipped and clipped by branches, drawing blood that flows in bright red streams over my knuckles. The back of my hand is full of those purple marks I get on my arms when anything touches me.

I have not been able to write anything. I simply look for results. Election results. It's been the same for three days: Biden 253, Trump 214.

I want to keep moving not writing.

I watched hours of news, Netflix, even the 49er football game, while performing jumping jacks and tai chi moves in my living room. I practiced yoga on the floor.

I hit a bucket of golf balls. I drank a bunch of beers.

I stayed up all night reading and couldn't remember what I had read. I think I was dreaming. The strangest people from my past have been making cameos in my subconscious. I'm afraid to find out what that means.

The earth-rumbling sound of the bulldozer shoveling rocks next door and pouring them into dump trucks for three days has given me an eye twitch.

The shower in the bathroom continues to drip. I changed the shower head but that didn't help. I checked YouTube for repairing a single-lever shower faucet and discovered I would need about 33 tools. I have about four tools but I don't know where they are: probably under all those boxes in the garage that we had to move due to construction in our studio.

My body is sore from all the bending, digging, hedge-trimming, sweeping. lifting, crawling into the attic, chasing possums in my back yard.

Still, the Election results are not in.

Just a few more days. Joe says have patience. The emperor has filed more lawsuits. The lavender plant needs to be trimmed. I would love to see Georgia turn blue.