I’m sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room…I was just having some laughs with my Lady Wonder Wench, and I was thinking this is the best life has ever been for me. Just laughing with my Lady. Pretty basic isn’t it. Among other things, we were discussing the possible mating rituals of Big Bird, and Oscar the grouch. And the ethics involved if you are at the ten items or less, supermarket fast checkout lane. For example, if you have 6 apples, that’s one item if they’re in a bag. And 6 bananas without a bag, is also one item, because they’re all attached to each other. But suppose you have two grapefruit, and there’s no bag big enough for both of them. I maintain that since they’re both grapefruit, that’s one item. She claims reasoning like that is due to the fact that I’m from Brooklyn, and therefore I am inclined to cheat. And I remind her that if we get in the back of the slow lines, we could be there so long, we’d be in danger of being enveloped by a glasier. And I tell her cheating is allowed when it’s self preservation. Life is good. Mostly, because she’s in it. Very basic. I like basics better than fancys.
I’m not so old that I don’t buy green bananas any more. And they don’t make me pay in advance at the doctor’s office. But I am a Louie-Louie Generation guy. That means bad knees, a rash of wrinkles, and a bald spot that’s getting noticeable on the back of my head. She calls it the solar panel for my love machine. Basic stuff for a Louie-Louie Generation guy.
She’s a Louie-Louie Generation lady. Her neck and back still hurt from her accident, she thinks her butt is too big…it’s just right by the way…and when she looked in the mirror this morning, I saw a little tear. She’s having trouble seeing how beautiful she is. So I spent a while trying to explain what I see when I look at her. I guess that’s basic stuff too.
Basic stuff sometimes makes Louie-Louie Lads and ladies do surprising things. Take the case of proud podcast participant, Capt. Chuck. Capt. Chuck used to listen to me as he was driving home from work at night while I was on WNBC in New York. And when he found www dot dick summer dot com on the website, he started listening to the podcasts…and then he decided to drop me an e-mail to say hello. We started a very pleasant conversation, back and forth. As I’ve told you, I fly a little four seat Piper airplane. Very basic. Capt. Chuck flies a 300 passenger Airbus jet for a major airline. Very fancy. He’s an airline senior four striper. I’m a weekend private pilot. But basically, pilots just like to talk to each other about flying.
So I tell him about my adventures taking my Lady Wonder Wench flying to little airports around here that have diners for lunch. I tell him about flying up to New England or down to Virginia to see family. And I’m planning on a longer trip to North Carolina soon to see my brother and sister in law who just moved there from Brooklyn. Pretty basic. Capt Chuck, on the other hand, just sent me an email from Honolulu. He was in his 28th floor hotel room, overlooking the Pacific ocean. He said, “I’ve got to turn in early tonight. I have early morning flight to Paris tomorrow.”
But basic sometimes surprises fancy. There’s a Piper Cub in the hanger next to my plane. The Cub is as basic an airplane as you’ll ever see. It doesn’t even have an electrical system, so there’s no starter. You have to spin the prop by hand to start the engine. I took a picture of my airplane to send to Capt. Chuck, and he saw the Cub behind my plane. He looked up the identification numbers on the tail, called the owner, and offered to buy the plane. It turns out that Capt. Chuck, sitting in the left front seat of a 300 passenger jet, going 600 miles an hour, 34,000 feet over the Pacific ocean, with his hands on a zillion pounds of thrust, and enough electronics to bring down the power grid of a small town, two relief pilots getting sore arms from saluting him, and a small squadron of flight attendants…can’t wait to pull that prop, and jump into the back seat of a canvas Cub cabin that’s about the size of a refrigerator, and trundle down a runway behind an 85 horsepower piston engine that was new when Truman was president, so he can drift up to around 2,000 feet…open a window, look around, and break out into your very basic grin… because…that’s the basic reasons pilots…even Capt. pilots, learned to fly.
Dick’s Details Quiz – All answers are in the current podcast.
1- What did Henry Ford claim he was going to do with his marijuana ?
2- How come birds alway bullseye your newly waxed car ?
3- What did early Egyptian girls think of their guy’s birth control device ?
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
Big Louie, his own bad self, the chief mustard cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation always says, “The biggest feelings hide in the smallest words. Love. Birth. Hate. War. Safe. Tears. Basic stuff. I almost lost my Lady Wonder Wench once…a long time ago. My fault. I was on the air one night, and I knew she was listening. And the story that’s in the current podcast, just…came out.
We couldn’t afford much back then. It was a very basic life. We’d buy an ice cream cup, and ask for two of those little flat wooden spoons so we could go sit on the grass and share it. We got strange looks, and that just made us laugh. She has such a lovely laugh. Well… look where it’s been. That story is called, I Miss You. It’s now in the Bedtime Stories personal audio CD. If you like it, you can just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.
I’m not knocking fancy. Fancy’s fine. But I just think Basic’s better. Which would you guys like better…getting dressed up like a penguin for a formal dinner party, or sitting in the sand, dressed in almost nothing, listening to someone lovely laughing, mixed in with the crackle of a beach bonfire, and the sound of some quiet waves? How about listening to “She Loves Ya, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” on a scratchy old 45rpm record that you just found, packed away with a player that has that big spindle in the middle. How about picking up a yo-yo, and finding out that you can still make it sleep.
And you Louie-Louie ladies…what’s better…really…bringing home a new pair of very expensive shoes, or finding baby shoes and old love letters in the bottom of a trunk in the attic. How about just having someone to come home to. That’s going to hit some of you who don’t have someone right now…pretty hard…but that’s the way it is with basics.
Love. Hate. Laughs. Tears. War. Birth. Basics. There was nothing fancy about sitting there in my poppa chair, laughing about the possible sex lives of Big Bird and Oscar the grouch…and the ethics of counting two grapefruits as one item at the fast check out line. It was pretty simple. It was just that I was laughing with HER…the girl I almost lost all those years ago…that makes this the best life has ever been for me.
