Today’s edition: To give newsletter balance to yesterday’s “Kindness” theme, it’s necessary that today we give equal time to its nasty counterparts — anger, hostility, provocation. And, boy, we didn’t have to look far for pungent examples …
Colorful Living Tip of the Day (I) …
86: Be unconventional. We live in a time when many people aren’t truly happy unless they’re truly angry. Be happy to be happy.
Random Provocations, Hostilities & Piss Offs …
• Because the angry word has the potential to be useful during this time of so much neighborly hostility, I propose today every one tries to create a situation where it makes perfect sense to shout "Notafinga!" at someone with whom you disagree.
• I’m tempted to execute a citizen's arrest every time I see some jerk exit the men's room without washing his hands but worry then the duty of fingerprinting ol' pee hands might fall to me.
• Saw angry parents running after a boy they'd named Chase and screaming for him to come back, oblivious to the irony.
• Yes, I get angry about racial injustice, inequality and rampant poverty, but nothing makes me angrier than having to eat crappy pizza.
• I’d like to see how a proctologist responds when angry patient tells him bill's too high and he knows what he can do with it.
Featured Relevant Blog Post
The day I confused another woman for Mrs. Fred Rogers
Arnold Palmer: On This Day in …
1970 -- Actor Kirk Douglas is asked, of all the famous people you’ve met and known, who possesses more personal magnetism than any other? John Wayne? Ronald Reagan? Frank Sinatra? Douglas surprises the reporter when his answer isn’t an actor, but an athlete: “Arnold Palmer.”
Zeitgust Word of the Week (a word I made up with the goal of getting it into a dictionary) …
Slimitators: Impressionable teenage boys and girls intent on looking like fashionable Hollywood anorexics.
What to do today in the Laurel Highlands …
• Visit the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Children’a Media Center at St. Vincent College. It has museum-quality displays dedicated to the life and mission of Fred.
• Book a spring stay at Nemacolin, one of America’s top all-season resorts just one hour south of Latrobe. The resort is being featured in the current season of “The Bachelor.”
• Step outside and with social distancing in mind patronize one of Westmoreland County’s many stalwart businesses that were closed in the hopes of easing the holiday pandemic surge. (Westmoreland Co. Chamber of Commerce.
Colorful Living Tip (II)…
544 Contribute to world peace: Drive a really crappy car.
Today’s (anger-related) post …
I ran into a really great guy a few weeks ago while on my way to lunch on Pittsburgh’s South Side. Let me be more specific: I ran into a really great guy’s car.
I try and maintain humility about most aspects of my life. Save one: I’m one bad mofo when it comes to parallel parking — and I mean that purely in the Samuel L. Jackson way where bad is good.
I’m very cocky about my abilities to deftly pull my 15-foot 2007 Saturn Vue into roadside spots so slim timid Volkswagen Beetle drivers would pass them up for roomier opportunities.
I pull even with the forward car, cut the wheel, goose the gas, cut the wheel back in the other direction and slide that big old Saturn into the narrow vacancy with the kind of leftover space that would cramp butterfly wings.
And that’s what I did.
But on this day in this tight spot, I miscalculated. I bumped the front fender of the Toyota behind me. Not hard, mind you. I doubt a dashboard cup of coffee would have tipped and certainly not hard enough to do any damage.
But there was a witness. And the witness was the vehicle’s owner. He looked about 30 and fit, the kind of guy who didn’t drive Beetles but could bench press them.
“Hey! You just hit my car!”
I rolled down the passenger side window and apologized. “I’m so sorry. Is there any damage?”
He gave it a quick appraisal. “No, it’s fine. It’s a piece of crap anyway.”
“Yeah, so’s mine.”
“Okay, we’re cool. You take it easy, man.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
As he pulled out and drove away, our eyes met and he gave a little wave which I returned. But the look he gave me said so much. And here’s what I think it meant: “This world is full of angry and vindictive jerks, but you and I aren’t among them. We just dealt with a potentially explosive situation — the kind that often on city streets leads to gunfire — with clear-headed reason. Conflicts would diminish if more big-picture guys like us were running the world. Farewell, my even-tempered and unmet friend!”
I was with my irascible friend John from New York. I told him to get out of the car. I was going to go after the guy whose car I just hit because I think he’d be a better friend. But John didn’t budge and now I’ll forever regret not pursuing that refined gent in the crappy Camry.
Imagine how different our days would have gone had he pointed out some minor dent. Maybe I’d have asked him to prove it hadn’t already been there. What if he’d been driving a sportier car?
Maybe we’d have gotten into a shoving match. Maybe he’d have wrestled me to the ground and begun using my ears as handles to repeatedly smash my bald spot against the Carson Street sidewalk. John, I’m sure, would have filmed the beating and uploaded it to YouTube complete with invitations to leave snide ridicule.
So I’ve spent a lot of time the last month or so considering the dynamics of the situation and here’s what I’ve concluded: The world would be better off if everyone drove a really crappy car.
My Saturn is 7 years old and is doggedly huffing its way toward 150,000 miles. My wife out of the blue remarked on it just yesterday. “You know, that car of yours is really reliable,” she said. “It’s dependable, still rides comfortable and performs well in the snow.”
I confess to feeling a flash of jealousy. Married now 18 years, she never says anything like that about me — and I like to think I perform well in the snow, too. But her point is apt.
I have many stresses in my life, as do you, I’m sure. But one of mine isn’t my vehicle. I don’t care if it gets dirty or dinged. I don’t obsessively peek out the window to ensure nobody’s parking too near. It’s just one of my life’s little utilities, something which I count on but feel no undue affections.
It bestows feelings of peace, not pressure.
And it’s great to know if I ever run into another stranger on a city street we may hit it off in ways that have nothing to do with flying fists.
This week’s featured video of me talking …
My 12-minute “Use All The Crayons!” keynote …
Colorful Living Tip (III) …
1,001-plus: The difference between a mad scientist and a merely angry one is all in the haircut.
Oddly enough …
Minnesota Metropol-ICE: Ice fishing on Mille Lacs
John Lutgen swears he’s not crazy, not like some of those maniacs who’ll ice fish when it’s really, really, really cold. “No, I’m not like that,” he says. “I usually wait until it warms up to, oh, say, around 5-below zero. I won’t be out there fishing when it’s 30-below like some of these guys.”
So, no, he’s not crazy. Just don’t try and argue the point with people unfamiliar with deep winter ice fishing customs.
“Yeah, I remember I had one guy up from Texas who wanted to ice fish,” he recalls. “We were driving along and he said, ‘So when will we get to the lake?’ I said, ‘We’ve been driving on it for 20 minutes.’ He freaked. He thought we were just on some great big field.”
Welcome to Mille Lacs, the massive 132,000-acre (20 by 15 miles) central Minnesota lake that is to rugged ice fishing what the sunny Riviera is to posh pampering. It has it all, well, at least compared to what the frozen primitives who huddle around desolate holes in other less advanced winter climes have.
Mille Lacs, about 80 miles north of the Twin Cities, has plowed roads with street signs, pizza delivery, regular trash pick-up and cheery residential communities of warm homesteaders -- all built on a seasonal and ever-shifting foundation of 36-inches of semi-solid ice.
From about Thanksgiving through the end of February, it’s a veritable Minnesota metropol-ICE.
Gratuitous Random Review for …
“In 1970 I read, in one sitting, Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Since then, I have only completed reading one other book within the first week of its purchase until Undaunted Optimist. Good-humored, irreverent, and upbeat it was an easy commitment.” George A., Verified amazon buyer
The Page 1 “Crayons!” Pledge (still applies)
The Book Is STILL Free
That’s right. Free. Anyone who wants a copy mailed to his or her home, no charge, is welcome to one. Just ask.
Author Chris Rodell, of course, encourages you to buy it and hopes you’ll support him and the people who distribute, promote and sell books. But if you’re one of those Americans who are out of work and having a tough time, or if you know a US serviceman or woman who might benefit from a book that aims to brighten daily lives, then Rodell wants you to get in touch at storyteller@chrisrodell.com.
He doesn’t believe a book that, at its heart, aims to help people be happy should be withheld from anyone over a few dollars. “It’s said the best things in life—love, friendship, laughter—are free,” Rodell says. “I don’t presume this book is among the best things in life but, by God, there’s nothing to say it can’t keep good company.”
And finally …
“Crayons Tip no. 1001” …
“Learn the fine art of knowing precisely when to quit.”
About …
Chris Rodell is the author of six books, the most recent being “Undaunted Optimist: Essays on Life, Laughter & Cheerful Perseverance.” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge says, “Rodell writes about life the way Sinatra sings about New York, unflinching about the gritty realities, but with abiding affection and relentless positivity abut the future.”
A swashbuckling freelance writer since 1992, Rodell has rassled alligators, raced Ferraris, jumped out of cloud-cruising airplanes and in one week gained 20 pounds eating like Elvis.
Besides unconventional biographies on Fred Rogers and Arnold Palmer, his other books include “Use All The Crayons! The Colorful Guide To Simple Human Happiness,” and “The Last Baby Boomer: The Story of the Ultimate Ghoul Pool,” a 2016 satiric novel about the life and death of the last baby boomer (winner of the ’17 TINARA Award for best satire).
He is a sought-after and entertaining motivational public speaker and as seen in this 2015 clip the recipient of the greatest author ovation of all-time.
Rodell lives in Latrobe with his wife Valerie, their daughters, Josie and Lucy, and a small loud dog named Snickers.
He’ll write for anyone who’ll pay him. He is a PROSEtitute.
All Chris’s books can be purchased through www.ChrisRodell.com