A new writer for [Geeks Are Sexy] who goes by JDO began a discussion about that one special geeky gift you remember from your childhood. When I was a kid back in the ’60s, we didn’t have all the cool gadgets that kids covet these days. A telescope, microscope, chemistry set, or walkie talkies were about as geeky as it got (all of which I received as gifts at one time or another). There was this one thing, though, that all my friends seemed to have when I was ten. It was so cool, and I really wanted one. But it was also quite expensive, and our family didn’t have much money. I didn’t dare ask for one, but I couldn’t help letting my desire for it be known.

My Dad always trained me to come when he called, without delay and without asking any questions. He drilled it into my head that if I hesitated and it turned out to be an emergency, someone could lose their life. The only legitimate response would be “Yes, sir!” uttered while complying. So one day when he said to me, “Come on, Son,” I followed him up the cinderblock steps from our house to our driveway at the top of the hill. He kept a large stack of lumber there, with which he had originally intended to fulfill my mother’s dream of a wrap-around deck for our house. But the deck never materialized. Instead, we stole pieces of this lumber for various projects over the years — a chicken coop here, rebuilding a staircase there — and I expected this day to begin with yet another such project.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw something in the driveway. Confusion and disbelief made it almost invisible — I had to blink twice to see it properly: a “Lil Indian” minibike, much like the one pictured at the bottom of this post. My face must have faithfully reproduced my shock and joy, because Dad laughed so hard that his cigarette fell out of his mouth.

I imagine that Dad got the bike for a good price. He knew everyone in our little town, and he knew how to call old favors to remembrance. But it meant a lot to me, much more than the bike itself, that Dad had gone to that trouble just to fulfill my wish.

Dad often supervised when my sister and I took turns riding the bike, especially at first. He’d take his turn, too. His 6’2″ lanky frame looked comical perched on the tiny bike, with his long legs sticking out on either side like a grasshopper. He’d reach underneath the seat and open the governor (a simple device on top of the engine that prevented the throttle from being opened past a certain point) so the little bike could exceed its usual top speed of about 40 MPH, and he taught us how to do the same. Dad seemed to enjoy this thwarting of authority. He despised all measures designed to protect people from their own behavior. Of course, we never wore a helmet or pads of any sort, and nobody got killed or even seriously maimed.

Our riding opportunities opened up when the Highway Department began building the US 29 bypass around the town of Gretna. The bypass began about a half mile before our house. They demolished the bridge and culvert over White Thorn Creek on the original highway just below our house, but they left about a quarter mile of pavement leading down to it intact for weeks before they began to lay the new grade. A couple of the neighbor kids would come over and we’d all take turns riding up and down that stretch.

The bridge demolition left so much debris that my sister and I could write things in it, and being pre-teens meant that we felt compelled to do so as impolitely as we dared. One day, I wrote something about my sister, then called her over to see. I planned to escape on the minibike as soon as her anger erupted. This seemed to work perfectly. She called out something offensive after me, and I looked over my shoulder to see her face while racing up the hill at full throttle. I hit a piece of debris in the old roadway and found myself under the bike. It wasn’t very heavy, but the muffler burned a nice patch on my thigh (I was wearing shorts), and a good chunk of meat was missing from my knee. I still have the scar on my knee, although it’s hard to make it out now forty years later. The Lil Indian sustained no damage.

After the Highway Department laid the grade and before they started paving, we could ride the minibike for miles on the grade all the way around Gretna and back. And after they built an access road for us, we could ride that for half a mile in each direction. I don’t remember in what manner we retired the Lil Indian from service. I only remember all the fun we had riding it, and that Dad enjoyed it as much as anyone.

A friend sent me one of those emails that are constantly making the rounds filled with old quotations complaining about ridiculously high prices that now seem ridiculously cheap. An example from 1955: “Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter?”

As it turns out, the 1955 postage rate was only 3 cents per ounce, and I can remember from my childhood in the sixties mailing letters for a nickel. These ruminations led to other memories of the days when pocket change counted for more than tiddlywinks.

Some Coca-Cola drink machines charged 10 cents for a large (12 ounce) bottle, or 6 cents for a small (6.5 ounce) bottle. I recall when most of them jumped to 15 cents for the large bottle, and I remember being shocked and appalled at having to pay 25 cents for a Coke at a summer camp I attended. It was a hot day — my thirst overcame my financial prudence and I ponied up a whole quarter, feeling completely ripped off and wondering what my mother would think of my profligacy.

In my first grade class, we were given the opportunity to buy ice cream at a specific period of each day: popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, Brown Mules, or (my favorite) Nutty Buddies for five cents each. I begged my parents to give me a nickel a day out of their budget for this frivolous expense. It was more about status and belonging than it was about sugar or calories, because during that period which was set aside for the consumption of dairy treats, those who partook not had nothing more to do than enviously observe those who did. My parents reluctantly agreed, and placed a nickel in my wallet each night for that purpose.

One day, for some reason I can no longer recall, I didn’t buy any ice cream. When my father discovered the nickel still in my wallet from the previous night, he added another nickel. The next morning he congratulated me on my self-discipline and frugality, which I accepted without revealing that fiscal virtue had played no part in my abstinence.

“Whenever I find the money still in your wallet,” Dad said, “I’ll reward you by adding the same amount to what’s there.”

Even at that tender age, my math skills were sharp enough to realize that I had struck a gold mine. Some of the other kids at school always seemed to have money, and now I would become one of those kids. I quit eating ice cream altogether.

At an interest rate of 100% per day, compounded daily, within a week my father (who only made $64 a week at that time) could no longer afford to keep his promise. I had to settle for a five dollar bill when I should have had $6.40. I kept that portrait of Mr. Lincoln in my wallet for weeks, and I walked the halls of the school feeling as if I owned the place.

I think my mother eventually convinced me to commit that five dollars to my savings account at the local bank, increasing my balance from $25 to $30. Several years later that balance had grown to around $125 through deposits of birthday gifts and compounded interest at 4.5%. I withdrew the original $25 with which my mother had opened the account, took it to the local jewelry store, and bought her a silver pitcher for Mother’s Day. She still has that pitcher.

The lady at the store had warned me. That big bunch of turnip greens I bought cooked down to only enough for two servings. But what should I do with all this wonderful pot liquor, filled with scraps of turnip greens, bacon, and onions? I know! It’s time for some No Recipe Stew.

That’s perfect for Father’s Day, because my father taught me how to make it. It’s not too difficult, you just throw everything you can think of consuming into the pot and cook it a good long while. That’s why it’s called “No recipe.”

I browned some ground beef, along with more onions, garlic, and jalapeno peppers, then I threw that into the pot, along with some diced turnips, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and romaine lettuce. I brought this to a boil then turned it down and added spices (just about every spice in the rack). I’ll let that simmer for a few hours and have it for dinner.

This is my first Father’s Day alone in many a year. I’ll sit down to my stew, crack open a beer, and commune with my father who art in heaven (if there is such a place that deserves the name). If there was a recipe for him, God tore it up after he saw what he’d made. Miss you, Dad.

I’m constantly finding my new neighborhood to be a bit nicer than I had imagined. When I signed the lease, I didn’t even realize that just around the corner I can walk to a little market that has decent prices. I’m living out in the county now instead of on Bainbridge Island, and the prices show it. Most things are about 4% higher than Walmart, which isn’t bad.

My car has been in the shop ever since I moved in, so I’ve been going everywhere on foot or by public transportation. The transfer station is about a mile from my apartment and the busses leave there every hour, so with a little planning I don’t waste too much time. The bus-riding populace has an alarmingly high percentage of missing teeth, but otherwise they’re mostly good and friendly folks. Not friendly on purpose like on Bainbridge, just genuinely friendly when the need to interact arises.

I walk to the market frequently and buy just what I can carry. Early this morning I went to buy coffee and some vegetables. As I was looking over the Romaine lettuce, I suddenly noticed that they had fresh turnip greens! I hadn’t seen fresh turnip greens since I grew them myself abouit 25 years ago in the back yard. Some stores here carry them canned, but the sodium content is too high for my blood pressure.

Turnip greens are my favorite vegetable. I couldn’t stand them when I was a small child, but between the ages of 10 and 13 my tastes shifted dramatically. Perhaps I had finally overdosed on sugar, but I acquired a taste for many foods that I had detested earlier: olives, butterbeans, squash, and turnip greens. I like them with ketchup, but when my grandmother served them with vinegar and onions that wasn’t bad either.

My father told the story of when his father was a young man, back in the early 1930s. Although my grandfather, his father, my father, me, and my first son are all named Sterling Wyatt Camden, we’ve all gone by different names at different times to keep it all straight. My grandfather went by Sterling, and his father was known as Wyatt. Wyatt had bought a WWI surplus Jenny in a crate for Sterling to go barnstorming. On one such journey around the country, Sterling had been repairing his Jenny while standing on some old crates to reach the engine. The crates slipped, Sterling fell, and slit his wrist on the cowling of the Jenny. The wound, not helped by his poor barnstorming diet, nearly bled him to death. But he survived, and made his way back home to recuperate.

On his first evening back at home, Sterling sat at the big diningroom table, while his mother prepared for dinner. She came from the kitchen with a large serving bowl full of turnip greens and set them on the table, then returned to the kitchen to get something else. Sterling had never liked turnip greens, but when she returned they were all gone. Apparently, his body cried out irresistibly for the iron and Vitamin K.

Tonight, I washed the greens and put them in a big pot full of water. I sliced up some bacon and onions and added them to the water. Just as it was beginning to smell wonderful, I remembered: I need ketchup! So, I turned the greens down low and got ready to walk back to the store.

When I opened my front door, I found that the postman had left a package outside. I took it inside and opened it, and what do you suppose it contained? Honey buns! My good friend Justin James had read my earlier post, and shipped them all the way from South Carolina. I sat down and ate one right away. It tasted just as good — maybe better — than when I was a kid. Thanks, Justin!

When I was ten years old, we moved into the house that had belonged to my great-grandparents. My father and his three brothers did most of the work building this house. They left a large part of the basement unfinished, which is where my great-grandfather had his shop and my great-grandmother did her churning.

When we moved in, we were short one bedroom. Dad decided that I should build out my own room out of part of the unfinished basement, under his supervision. We began by putting in joists over blocks on the concrete floor, and then I started nailing the tongue-and-groove pine flooring over the joists. I tried to be careful not to miss the nail and scar the flooring. Nailing at an angle just above the tongue so the nail heads wouldn’t show, I kept on glancing off the nail and sending it flying across the room, or bending the nail after it was half-way in.

Dad tried to give me helpful advice while he sat on the exposed part of the joists and sipped his beer, but occasionally he couldn’t help chuckling at my frustration. I wanted so badly to do a good job on this project, and with each wasted nail or scarred plank, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.

Finally, I lost my composure. I began blubbering uncontrollably, and at the same time in my anger I grabbed nail after nail and pounded them in as hard and fast as I could go.

They all went in perfectly.

I stopped and caught my breath and wiped my eyes. Dad was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. “You could always do it,” he said. “You just had to get mad enough!”

I don’t know that the anger was essential, but doing without over-thinking was the key in that case.

I’ve seen that at other times. For instance, when playing pool, it’s easy to over-engineer a difficult shot. Sometimes you just need to shoot, almost without looking.

In programming, too, you can easily think yourself right out of solving the problem at all. Yet, if you take the “cowboy coding” approach all the time, you end up with an unintelligible mess.

When we do well without forethought, we are following the way.
Yet never employing forethought is not following the way.

To say that there is one true way is not the way.
Yet to say there is no true way is also not the way,
Though it may be for a while.

Back when I was in high school and working part-time at the auto parts store that my Dad managed, the owners threw a big steak dinner for the employees of all the regional stores at a nice restaurant near Martinsville. We were instructed to wear a suit and tie, and encouraged to bring a date.

I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. After miserably awkward failures to entice several subjects of my fantasies to accompany me — I suppose in retrospect that an invitation to a fancy company function might scare off a high school girl, especially one whom I had never had the courage to speak to before — I finally secured an acceptance from Dixie. I picked her up at her house in my old Chrysler, and we drove the long highway to Martinsville while Chopin played on my 8-track.

Mom and Dad brought Roger along with them. Roger hadn’t been able to convince his girlfriend’s parents that allowing their daughter, who was a couple of years younger, to accompany him so far from home would be prudent. Perhaps had they known the favors which she had already bestowed upon him, they might have considered a nice dinner the least he could do in return.

The five of us sat around one of the big, round tables that bore all manner of condiments, an open bottle of wine, and a basket of bread in the center. The chef must have confused our menu with the one for an NFL team: a huge Porterhouse steak, baked potato wrapped in foil, vegetables, and of course a dessert designed to produce instant sucrose shock. By Franklin Auto Parts standards, it was downright elegant.

Unsurprisingly, Dad had already partaken of alcohol on the way there, but he reached for the wine and began pouring. Roger and I were each eighteen, and at this private function nobody would bother us so Dad filled our glasses. Dixie refused, so I did my best to moderate my consumption. Roger, being the fifth wheel, drank more freely in order to have something to do with his hands.

Dixie, who was always quiet anyway, didn’t have much to say in this venue either. I couldn’t tell whether she was enjoying or enduring this event. The rest of us laughed and joked while we ate our dinner. Jack Martin, one of the owners, got up and gave a humorous speech — the question of whether or not it was intended to be humorous being a regular feature of his communications. Dad continued to pour the wine, draining a third bottle. I had to refuse a time or two, but he and Roger worked at it as if they were being paid by the glass.

After we had all finished eating, Dad glanced over at Roger’s plate, which was completely clean — not a scrap of food, not a smear of butter, not even the foil from the baked potato.

“Damn!” said Dad, “You weren’t hungry, were you?”

Roger cast a sly glance in my direction, then he leaned back in his chair and patted his belly. “That was a pretty good meal,” he said, “but the best part of all was that chrome potato.”

To this day I’m unsure whether or not my father believed that Roger had really consumed the foil. Roger had crumpled it up and tossed it among the sundries in the middle of the table while Dad wasn’t looking.

The Spring sunshine drew my eyes away from my monitors for only a moment. Seeing her opportunity, Mother Nature blew me a warm, kissing breeze through the window. I obediently laced on my sneakers and took a walk.

I decided to try a new route, and I discovered to my delight that a bakery outlet store stands less than a mile away from my front door. I’m still discovering this neighborhood. After all, I’ve only lived here a couple of weeks. My family hasn’t moved, but I have. My move wasn’t particularly joyous, but neither was it tragic. My wife helped me to find the apartment and even to move. We’re leaving the future open-ended.

Immediately, I began walking my new neighborhood, the streets of which traverse lots of hills. Once as I reached the crest of a steep one and turned around to catch my breath, I caught my breath again at the view. Though I was miles away, I could see the point of land where we lived years ago, in much happier days. From that elevation and distance, I might have been looking back on my past life from the hereafter.

But today I discovered the bakery outlet. When I was a child, my mother and grandmother often took my sisters and me shopping in Danville, Virginia. Country bumpkins that we were, we children felt that this was a Big City Excursion. We walked in awe down Main Street flanked by department stores with more than one floor. While the womenfolk (that is, everyone but me) tried on clothes, I busied myself in fascination with the escalators or the pneumatic tubes that the clerks used to transfer payments to their back-office. And of course the big treat: we’d eat lunch at Woolworth’s — one of the few restaurants I ever visited at that age.

On the way back home, we’d often stop at the Sunbeam bakery outlet on Piney Forest Road. The adults would stock up on white bread at a discount, but my sisters and I looked forward to a treat that had been held over our heads all day, “If you behave!”: Honey-Buns. It was so hard to remain pleasant all day (especially through the endless fittings), but the Honey-Bun provided a powerful motivation to do so. This wasn’t the Little Debbie pastry in a box that currently blasphemes the name. It was a sticky-sweet monstrosity that was so large it was individually wrapped. We’d each get a whole one if we were good.

I’ve never seen Sunbeam bread in this part of the country. My newfound bakery outlet sells Franz products instead. It sports a long ramp instead of stairs at the front door, just like the bakery outlet of my youth. And as I opened the door, the scent of baked goods seemed to transport me back to that same place.

Serendipitously, I needed a loaf of Rye Bread, which I found along the back wall and carried to the counter. I noticed various persuasions of Danishes in a display cabinet, but nothing that resembled a Honey-Bun. As the portly young woman rang up my purchase, I said, “It’s nice to have this store within walking distance of my new home.”

She smiled and acknowledged my good fortune.

“Say, you wouldn’t have any ‘Honey-Buns’ would you? A large, individually-wrapped pastry that my sisters and I used to devour when we were children, which I can almost taste right now and which would, if I could but have one, seem like a kiss from Providence, a divine reassurance that despite everything that has happened in my life since those early days of innocence and especially recently, there is still love, there is still hope, there is still joy in the world?”

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”

Elizabeth Taylor died today.

I met her once, a long time ago. She visited a small group of students in Danville, Virginia, and the superintendent of our district made sure I got to go. I was a part-time actor with the local Community Players Association, and I had written a play and starred in its production at the High School I attended.

Ms. Taylor was then married to Senator John Warner of Virginia, and he accompanied her to the event. They sat on stage and took questions from the audience of about a hundred students. She was a little overweight then, and he seemed not to know what to do with himself. I think I may have asked a question, but I don’t remember what it was — probably something inane.

Afterwards, Ms. Taylor shook hands with each of us. I remember gazing into those beautiful eyes, and what I saw was… panic? She seemed to barely cover her fear of being swarmed to death. I wondered how she couldn’t have gotten used to that sort of attention by now.

That was about 33 years ago, and we haven’t spoken since. I should have gotten her number, I guess.

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My Dad, Sterling W. Camden III, always cultivated a reputation for being a bad-ass, even when he was a 125-pound nineteen-year-old Airman Third Class stationed in Germany.  He got into so many fights that his commanding officer decided to teach him a lesson by making him room with Walter Dale Goss – a hulking six-foot four-inch Cherokee who hardly spoke to anyone and spent most of his spare time lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling.

Airman Camden discovered Goss in that pose when he burst through the door, dropped his duffel bag, and took out a piece of chalk.  He drew a line across the floor between their bunks, up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall.

“All right, you big mother-fucking Indian,” says Camden.  “You cross that line and I’ll kill your ass.”

Goss turned his gaze from the point on the ceiling towards the scrawny but vehement form that stared death and destruction back in his direction.  He laughed.  “C’mon, I’ll buy you a beer,” Goss said.  And therewith began a lifelong friendship.  Camden found his new giant friend extremely useful, and Goss was happy to have a companion who believed that he possessed “potential.”  They became blood brothers, Camden making much of the fact that he, too, could claim Native American ancestry.

Goss was pretty disappointed to lose his roommate when Camden married my future mother while on leave in the States.   Not long afterwards, Goss left the Air Force to join the Hells Angels, vowing to my father that “you’ll never see me again.”

One evening a couple of years later, Dad was outside our student housing at Syracuse (where the Air Force had him taking Intermediate Russian).  My playpen had been left outside and Dad was struggling to disassemble it in the deepening darkness.  Suddenly a blinding light engulfed him, and behind the flashlight he could just make out a looming figure, from whom boomed a deep but familiar voice: “What the hell are you doing with a playpen, you idiot.”  It was Goss.  He had re-enlisted, and the Air Force had sent him to Syracuse in the Intermediate Russian class right behind Dad’s.

Ever afterwards he became the roving member of our family.  We called him Wally, though he was variously known by others as “Walt” or “Dale”.  He’d visit once a year or so, always with some new adventure under his belt.  Once he had driven to Alaska and back in his Austin-Healey convertible.  His idea of trip-planning was to draw a line across the map from his point of departure to his destination, using a ruler, and then follow it as closely as possible.  The Healey was covered with mud, and Dad asked, “Don’t you ever wash that thing?”  Wally replied, “I let God wash it.”

Dad wanted to drive the Austin-Healey.  Wally got in the passenger seat, and they took off down the Pittsville Road.  When they neared the sharp left curve at Jack Mason’s Garage, Dad glanced down at the speedometer: 80.  He cut to the inside of the turn just as a ‘57 Ford popped into view from the other direction.  Dad cut back to the outside, sliding through the gravel of Jack’s parking lot (sending Jack running for cover).  He skidded back onto the road and continued as if nothing had happened, except for the adrenalin shakes that kicked in along the next straightaway.  And for as long as Wally owned the Healey, it bore the imprint of Wally’s ten fingers in the passenger side of its padded dashboard.

When I was five, Wally visited on leave from the Viet Nam War.  He brought us gifts from Thailand.  Mine was a real Siamese sword with a blade almost two feet long.  Wally handed it to me and said, “Here, kid – go get your sister.”  So I unsheathed it and ran after Roanna, who screamed through the house while Dad and Wally lay on the ground laughing as hard as they could.  My mother finally stopped me.  I still have that sword.  I keep it in my office in case of Ninja attack.

My sister Roanna, who was four, had a crush on Wally.  She informed him that she would marry him one day.  “Forget it, kid.” he replied.  “By the time you’re grown, I’ll be old, fat, and bald.”  “But Wally,” said my sister, “you’re already old, fat, and bald” — at which point my father spewed his beer across the room.

One Thanksgiving, Wally arrived with a huge turkey.  Naturally, Dad made all the appropriate wisecracks about the Indian joining us pale-faces for Thanksgiving.  We had a huge feast, and for dessert Mom offered pie.  “Is it homemade?” asked Wally enthusiastically.  “Why, Yes!” responded Mom, as she began to cut a large slice for him.  “Oh, I don’t want any then” said Wally.  We all laughed, but Mom made sure that he didn’t get any.

I believe Wally was there the Christmas that Dad shot Santa.  Wally introduced me to Heinlein, his motorcycle, and his .357 magnum.  Dad always said there were two things about Wally that were never adequately explained: why the Air Force had always allowed him to carry that .357, and why they allowed him to fly while wearing contact lenses when he was legally blind in a number of states.

Dad and I drove to Texas to visit Wally when he became an officer.  It was a trip I’ll never forget.

Wally met his second wife in Crete – Geraldine Andrews, who is full-blooded Irish from Dublin.  She instantly became another member of our family.  She accompanied my mother and us kids to church once –Geraldine had never been to a Methodist church before (she being Catholic, of course), but she was warmly greeted by a congregation that was about 80% Andrews – many of their ancestors having emigrated from Scotland and Ireland centuries before.

I lost contact with Wally and Geraldine when I went to college, and didn’t see Wally again until my father died.  The next day, as my sister Roanna and I drove to the airport to pick up my sons for the funeral, Roanna suddenly asked me if I maybe thought that…

“.. that Wally helped Dad out?” I interrupted.

“Yes!” said Roanna.  “He didn’t tell me so, but you know that the agency trained them how to do it so you couldn’t tell.’”

“Last night Wally told me that he had come close to killing Dad back in 1972” (That was when Dad had set himself down to drink himself to death).  “I wondered at the time why he volunteered that information.  Well, if he did it, then I’m thankful.”

I never asked Wally about that.  We’ve corresponded by email over the years, but I’ve never seen him in person again since Dad’s funeral – and I never will.  I received a message this morning that Wally passed away.  He went peacefully, I heard – and for that, I’m thankful.