To a Few of the Gentlemen on OKCupid

Dear Gentlemen:

Man with the Twitchy Mustache by 

Teece Aronin. Available on products at

redbubble.com/people/phylliswalter. 

Thank you all so very much for taking the time to "view," "like," "favorite," etcetera my profile and for all your lovely messages.

Since each of you was memorable in your own way, I am writing this letter in an effort to acknowledge the unique impression each of you made on me.

First, to God'sGift, no, Heaven isn't missing an angel, but I'm flattered that you thought it might be. Hell might be short one little devil, though, you little devil, you. ;-D

And Iamblessed451, thank you for saying that if there was anything in this world that God took His time creating, it was the perfection of my beauty. Actually, I think He spent no more than a few minutes whipping me up and if you saw me first thing in the morning, you'd think so, too.

To CarnivoreYum who wrote: "Oh yes, you are meaty where I like it," believe it or not, I wasn't thinking of you when I threw all that junk in my trunk mindlessly eating my way through last winter. But if it works for you, it works for me. 

Howfine69: I liked the way you didn't beat around the bush when all your message said was: "have sex with me?" You didn't even waste time capitalizing the H. Very swift, bold move, 69, but I'm afraid it still missed because, well, your message kind of creeped me out.  

And speaking of creeped out . . .

KittyLiquor - While it would be mice to meet you, too, I really must pass. My cat gets crazy jealous, and whenever that happens, she throws up in my shoes. But thank you.

James: While your message was charming, I was a little confused when your picture was of a beautiful young woman. I think that in your rush to scam me, you neglected to switch out the female profile photo with one of a man. But don't be embarrassed, James; that kind of thing happens to scammers all the time. It must be hard keeping track of all the little details, like if your scam target is a man or a woman. If I'm wrong, and you really are a beautiful young woman named James, please accept my apology, and know that if I were wired a little differently, I would definitely go out with you. In other words, it's not you, it's me.

I still have more of you to thank and in the meantime, I'm sure others of you will step forward with your own unique ways of sweeping a girl off her feet.

But until then, buzz off -

T

The First Thanksgiving, a Heavily Exaggerated Back-story

"Firsts" are interesting things. First, the very nature of the word makes one expect that, at minimum, a second will follow. But at the first Thanksgiving, one might surmise that after the meal, for Pilgrims at least, the focus was back on surviving the upcoming year. 

It was the winter of 1620 when the Mayflower neared the East Coast and the Pilgrims, escaping religious persecution in England, were aiming for Virginia. Foul weather forced them to land in Massachusetts. 

"Who in their right minds would choose to live in this godforsaken place?" the Pilgrims wondered, when, as if on cue, the Wampanoag walked up. 

The Wampanoag were an indigenous people who had already seen English visitors come and go. A man stood among the Wampanoag from an associated tribe. His name was Samoset and since he spoke a little English, Massasoit, a leader in the group, shoved him front and center to do the meet and greet.

"Welcome, English. I am Samoset! Do you have beer?"

As it happened, the Pilgrims had plenty of beer because beer stayed potable longer than water. In fact, upon their arrival, among the first structures the Pilgrims built was a pub because the Pilgrims prayed about it, and God spoke to them, telling them a pub was the best place to bond with the Wampanoag. 

So, with relations off to a rousing start, the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims to hunt, fish and plant. Meanwhile, the Wampanoag stayed dry and toasty in elaborate huts called wetus while the Pilgrims froze their patooties off building their houses - and the pub. 

Then of course there was Squanto, the man who taught the Pilgrims to grow corn by planting a dead fish with every seed. Squanto was fluent in English, but not because he'd invested in a Rosetta Stone online subscription; rather it was because some pre-Pilgrim Englishmen kidnapped him, taught him English, then forced him into service as an interpreter.

Thanks to the efforts of previous English visitors and the Pilgrim's hard work, by harvest time, 1621, Caucasians were well on their way to stealing a new country, and someone suggested that the village celebrate with the feast we now regard as the first Thanksgiving. 

Would you like to know what else happened? Then imagine with me if you will . . . 

. . . a snowy, blustery day on a spit of land that will one day be Cape Cod. Everyone is hoping that the weather settles down in time for the feast. Pilgrim women's aprons ripple in the wind like flags, their dresses whipping about their legs like bat's wings. Feathers in headdresses flatten under the force of deafening gales and the occasional errant feather breaks loose to soar away like the winged creature to which it once belonged. 

A voice louder than any shrieking wind pierces the day. 

"Robert Dudley! Come here this instant!" 

Robert Dudley, a.k.a. Deadly Dudley, winces at the sound of his wife's voice. The reason for Dudley's nickname is his keen eye with a musket. Whenever Dudley takes aim, precious and few are the ducks that live to quack about it. 

"Aw for corn sake, Liz; what is it?"

"Go shoot us some ducks! You know the feast is today and we're nowhere near ready! We need at least three!"

"But I was just on my way to the pub to meet Squanto."

"Don't get me started on Squanto!" shouts Liz. "Him and his dead fish! Why I'll have you know that after you two did the planting, my sister, Mary and I were up to our hats in cats for weeks every time we dared step foot out of the house! And why? Squanto - that's why! Squanto and his rotten, stinking fish. Whoever heard of planting corn like that! Disgusting!" 

Dudley wants to tell Liz what she and Mary can do with their hats, not to mention a few feral cats and a couple of ears of corn - maybe even the fish - but he doesn't dare. He grumbles to Liz that he'll go shoot her some ducks, picks up his musket and trudges out of the house. He slams the door just to show Liz who's boss. 

Shocked by the force of the winds and holding hat to head, Dudley runs - straight to the pub. Squanto is already at the bar, sourly nursing a beer, sure that Dudley's late arrival is due to his "woman trouble." Dudley bellies up next to his friend. They chat and though Squanto can't stomach her, he asks how Liz is doing. 

Thinking how loathsome his wife truly is, Dudley lies to Squanto. He pretends to confide in Squanto, telling him that while historically Liz hasn't been big on affection, he thinks she's coming around.

Squanto, who's been on the receiving end of Liz's affection, says, "Yeah? Well, good luck with that." He downs the rest of his beer and leaves. 

Dudley sits in the afterglow of male bonding, thinking how nice it was of Squanto to wish him luck. Then it dawns on him that he still has at least three ducks to shoot. He scrambles off the bar stool, tosses a few clams on the counter and hurries out. Heading to his favorite duck blind, Dudley finds the wind still lashing. He pulls his hat down over his ears and prays it stays on; Liz would be furious if he lost his hat.

Suddenly, there comes a strange sound, a tenor-like warble Dudley can only describe as gobble. He looks to his left where the most horrific-looking beast is ambling by. It's toppled by the wind, rights itself, falls over again, then gets up again. Dudley can only describe the creature's looks as "godawful."

It has to be some kind of bird, though, because it has feathers, some of them blowing away in the storm. But it also might be some kind of diseased bird since dangling about it's throat is a red and ugly mass flapping in the wind. 

Then again, on the plus side, the bird is bigger than any three ducks combined. 

"Hmmm . . . What to do?" Dudley ponders. Then, motivated by the image of his wife's displeased face, Dudley takes aim. Just as he fires, a gust knocks Dudley to the ground and the musket fires.  

The gust lifts the bird into the air and off in the direction of the village. It is spotted some hundred feet up by an opportunistic Pilgrim with musket at the ready. He pulls the trigger, more feathers fly, and the bird is unceremoniously dumped into the ceremony. 

"Hurray!" shout the Wampanoag whose diet has included turkey for years. They wanted to suggest it for today's menu but feared the Pilgrims would be put off by its appearance. 

Hours later, the storm passes and the revelers linger over coffee. When Dudley's empty, battered hat blows onto the table, it occurs to his wife that he is missing. 

And so ends the story of the first Thanksgiving and of Robert Dudley, a.k.a. Deadly Dudley, a.k.a. Dead Duck Dudley.

Clodchunk's Revenge

Ever since Homo erectus struck his first match, mankind has sought satisfaction in the communal consumption of burned, dead things. And when some Neolithic dude or dudette searching for a good buzz discovered alcohol, we were off to the races.

These two pivotal discoveries, fire, and later, alcohol occurred roughly 136,000 years apart, yet each helped pave the way for the modern-day barbecue. Not that there has to be alcohol at barbecues, but if you saw the caliber of folk I hang out with, you'd know it could only help.

So today I started thinking: What was the first barbecue like, the first one with alcohol on hand? This was probably during the Neolithic period, so imagine with me if you will . . .

. . . a sunny day in Asia Minor, a block party is in full-swing and the blocks are granite. The event is a B.Y.O.V. (Bring Your Own Vessel) gathering. Oonka Ugga is scolding her children for bothering their father.

“Goon-Goon! Morsquat! Leave your father alone! You know it takes him forever to build ONE SIMPLE LITTLE FIRE! And you know he’s even slower when people WATCH HIM!”

“But we wanna learn how to build a fire!” whines Goon-Goon.

“Well, you certainly won't learn by watching your father! Now scoot!”

Clodchunk Ugga is a man on his knees, literally and figuratively. Sweat is beading on his brow. A tiny spark kindles amid the leaves and twigs before him. A fragile flame takes hold and Clodchunk Ugga can’t believe his good fortune. Excitedly he blows on the fire and . . . the fire goes out. Clodchunk’s thirty-third time’s a charm, however, and this time the fire leaps to life.

”Hah, Oonka!” he yells derisively, pointing at the flames. “Take that and shove it where the hot and golden ball don’t shine! And while you’re at it, stop belittling me in front of the kids!”

Oonka groans, dismissing her husband with a wave of her dainty, calloused hand. “Oh, puhleeze. People have been building fires for 136,000 years and it took you that long just to build that one! Do you have any idea how slow you are at fire-building compared to Wham-Bam Boom-Boom?”

“Now that’s just great!” yells Clodchunk. “It’s been all of five minutes since the last time you mentioned him! Congratulations, you broke your own record!”

Despite his bravado, Clodchunk feels emasculated. Soon he is pouring his first gourdful of bite-bite juice. Several gourdsful of bite-bite juice later, Clodchunk is itching for a fight and if it turns out to be with Wham-Bam Boom-Boom, why, that's even better.

It’s just a matter of time before Wham-Bam saunters over, all cocky and arrogant-like. He is tall - nearly 5'7" - and his jet black hair stylishly glistens with boars' fat. He sneers at Clodchunk then gives Oonka a long and leering once-over.

“Well, hi there, Oonka.”

“Hello, Wham-Bam,” Oonka demurs, coy and blushing.

Wham-Bam directs his attention to Clodchunk.“Who started that little flicker for ya, Cloddy old boy? Did Goon-Goon do that? Or was it Morsquat?”

Clodchunk pretends to ignore Wham-Bam, squats down near the flames and points. “Hey, wow!” he yells. “A diamond – right there by the fire! Well, will ya look at that!” He reaches toward the flames then jerks his hand back. “Ooh! Ooh! It’s way too hot for me to even touch it! I guess I’m just not man enough!”

Wham-Bam rushes over to where Clodchunk still squats. “Where? Where’s the diamond? I don’t see it!”

“Right there!” Clodchunk bellows, still pointing. “You can’t see that? Why, it’s huge!”

Wham-Bam gets down on his hands and knees, his rump in the air, his face practically in the fire. “I still don’t see it!” he yells.

"It's right - THERE!" grunts Clodchunk, shoving Wham-Bam's head into the flames which instantly singe off Wham-Bam's eyebrows. "Oh, sorry, Wham-Bam. I guess that was nothing but a big - dumb - rock . . . kind of like you."

Alarmed, Oonka hurls a gourdful of bite-bite juice at Wham-Bam’s head in an attempt to cool him down, but the alcohol, combined with the boars' fat and an errant spark, cause his hair to erupt in flames. Explosions can be heard for blocks. A second dousing of bite-bite juice only makes things worse for some reason.

Grinning, Clodchunk jerks a thumb in the direction of Wham-Bam’s smoking, bald head. “Now, that,” he boasts to Goon-Goon and Morsquat, “is how you build a fire!”

Sweet Nothings

Sometimes in marriage it’s all about timing. Take for instance, Melrose and Ed. 

This was the early sixties and Ed worked for one of Southern Michigan’s General Motors assembly plants. He was that era's quintessential “regular Joe." He went to work in clean but faded coveralls and carried a big, black, barn-shaped lunchbox. 

And like a lot of men back then, Ed just might have been a wee bit chauvinistic.

But whatever Ed’s attitudes towards women, they did not include the conviction that after work his place was with his wife. His place, Ed felt, was with his fellow assembly workers at a neighborhood drinking establishment; the cinder-block construction, neon light illumination kind of drinking establishment.

Meanwhile, Ed’s wife, Melrose was the regular wife of the regular Joe. She stayed at home even though the kids were well out of the nest, claiming she was focused on homemaking. And she maybe wasn’t quite as on top of her appearance as when she and Ed first met. 

Melrose might also have had a tendency to meet her husband at the door (on the rare occasions he came straight home) in curlers and a house dress, the bunions on her feet peeking at Ed through threadbare slippers.

So there's a chance that each of them had reason to feel a bit resentful of the other.

One night, Ed was out at the bar knocking back a few while Melrose lay in bed dreaming of Ed’s early demise, so bitter was she over his nocturnal fellowship habits. When Ed came stumbling through the back door, Melrose didn’t hear him. 

This, of course, was before the days of cell phones when a third party could pick up the phone and either join the other two parties or just listen in, provided said person's phone was in the same residence as at least one of the others. 

When the phone rang, it startled them both, Ed in the kitchen and Melrose in the bedroom. They picked up within milliseconds of one another, Melrose assuming it was Ed and Ed with no clue who it was.

They said hello in unison before Melrose yelled: “Where the hell have you been? Do you know what time it is?”

“Hell, yes, I know what time it is!” Ed yelled back. He consulted his watch but it kept swimming around in front of his face. “By the way, what time is it?”

“It’s time your drunken carcass was here where it belongs! Why the hell aren’t you home?”

“What the hell do you mean, why the hell aren’t I home? I am home and damned if it isn’t hell!”

“Well, if you’re home, get your ass in bed!”

“My ass is in bed! It’s name is Melrose!”

“Aw, go to hell!”

“No! You go to hell!”

Ed and Melrose slammed down their receivers.

A few seconds later, Ed’s boss hung up, too.   

A Most Reluctant Cougar

Online dating is downright surreal when you're middle-aged, especially when you're a little on the shy side.

One of the biggest shockers is my appeal to certain men in their upper teens and early twenties. Actually, these aren't men at all; they're unsupervised Boy Scouts with Internet access.

Occasionally the messages they write me are sweet, almost innocent and I imagine Ron Howard in Happy Days asking a girl to the prom. I send them on their way with a "Thank you and I'm very flattered but . . ."

Sometimes this is enough to redirect their attention to the flat-tummied twenty-somethings with whom they belong, or on to other women old enough to be their mothers. But often they return, more aggressive, asking if I'm afraid I can't handle them. Then I write back, "Oh, don't worry about little old me. Run along now."

Some of my friends (and I like these friends), offer a flattering theory as to why this happens; that these young men have had some experience with girls and want to know what a woman is like. Sometimes these friends even call me a cougar. I like that. Cougar.

Of course we all know I'm about as cougar-y as a house cat - a timid, spayed and lazy one. I'm more likely to crawl into a man's lap and fall asleep than to use my claws for anything other than scratching dried smutch off a kid's face. 

Other friends (the ones I don't particularly like because they're honest), shoot me this jaded look that says, "Seriously?" And then words like kept and credit card and sugar momma float by my wounded self. 

At least twice now these kids were med students at the local university (possibly on the fence about geriatrics as a specialty) and another of them was in law school. 

The law student kept writing back, obviously amused by my rejections, and trying to trip me into agreeing to "date" him. I wrote and explained that first of all, NO, and second, that I was going through a divorce and didn't want to have to explain him in court.

He came back with, "Well, don't tell them about me."

"And if they ask?" 

"Then just lie." 

"But I might be under oath." 

"So?"

I wrote, "I'm shocked to think that you, a law student, would suggest I lie under oath."

He wrote back, "Hah-hah!"

He'd obviously been in law school a while because he had a firm grasp on how our legal system works. 

Eventually he gave up, concluding that by the time he managed to talk me into anything, both of us would have teeth in a glass by the motel bed.

But what do I really do when a 22-year-old asks me out? 

I politely decline while addressing him as dude, call up all my friends (except my honest ones) and flaunt it like hell. 

Scary, But Not Very

When I was growing up, my favorite thing about television was a creepy genus of quasi-humanity known as horror movie hosts. They roamed airwaves free and untamed on Friday and Saturday nights after the eleven o’clock news and sometimes on Saturday afternoons. Their heyday was roughly the late 1950s through the eighties.

One of my own little horrors.
Image: Teece Aronin

Horror movie hosts first sprang from the earth when a package of aging Universal horror films was made available to syndicated television stations and someone had the diabolically brilliant idea that the movies be hosted. 

By the late sixties many local television markets had had at least one of these hosts. Vampira in L.A. was likely the first. Then there were Zacherley, Morgus, Ghoulardi, the Ghoul, and an endless string of others - many now lost to the annals of time. 

And most of the original programming is lost, too, because the broadcasts were often aired live but not recorded. Worse, some were recorded then recorded over by stations on a budget. So even for those of us who are "of a certain age," most of those programs are but dimly lit memories in the spook-house of the mind. 

The hosts' personalities ran the gamut from formal and stiff to bouncing-off-the-dungeon-walls-zany. Better yet, they were often sarcastic. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark was sarcastic and tantalizing, saucy, and sexy.

Among my favorite hosts was Sir Graves Ghastly who aired in Detroit, Cleveland, and D.C. He straddled the qualities of formality and sarcasm, once summing up the merits of that afternoon's movie by sneering that it had been "smuggled in in a cheese bag."

One nice thing about Sir Graves was that he was a little scary but not very scary. On that score he let me down only once when I had a nightmare about him climbing through my bedroom window. That dream scared me because mine was a second story bedroom, so it followed that if Sir Graves was climbing through my window, he wasn't just looking to come in from the rain.

Sir Graves "lived" in Detroit, in a castle off the John Lodge Freeway. Elements like that ignited my imagination. I remember riding down the John Lodge in the back seat of the family car watching for that castle. There's no better fun when you're a nerdy nine-year-old than looking for a castle beside a freeway in Detroit.   

And we "kiddies," as Sir Graves called us (he also called us, dear hearts), quickly figured out that he and all the funny peripheral characters inhabiting his world were played by one man. His name was Lawson Demming. But as crazy as I was about Sir Graves et al, I was just as interested in what I might find if I crawled through my family's black and white Zenith console television to peek behind his wingback chair. 

There are still horror movie hosts, even some from the old school. I'll just have to get savvy enough to track them down in the haunts to which time and technology have driven them - like wolves from the woods. 

One has fared very well, though. He is Svengoolie, whose alter ego, Rich Koz, replaced the show's original host almost 40 years ago. “Svengoolie” is syndicated nationally via MeTV, but I haven't quite figured out how to access the channel. I think I'll ask a kid to do it in which case I'll be hooked up in no time. 

So, that same technology that nearly ended them has also given the hosts new homes. If I look hard enough, I'll find them lurking amid the vaults of public access television and slinking around the headstones on social media sites.  

If I could watch the original shows again, I would want to watch them as they were originally presented, in ultra-brief blocks interrupted by rivers of commercials for local businesses with yammering salesmen. L.A.'s car salesman supreme, Cal Worthington was generally accompanied by his "dog, Spot”  who was usually a bear, a tiger or a chimpanzee. 

I know . . . It only made sense in L.A. 

Sam Spayed, Dog Detective - The Case of the Dead Cat Squawking

It was a sunny day in a city of hisses and growls. An October chill had me turning up the collar of my trench coat. 

Whiskers LeMieux playing dead. (Actually

the Aronin's sleeping tabby, Kitt).

Image: Sydney Aronin

And who am I, you ask? I'm Sam Spayed, Dog Detective.

Things were hopping and I don't mean the fleas. The grounds around City Hall were muzzle to muzzle with revelers celebrating Squawktoberfest.

Squawktoberfest is a three-day celebration marking a night in 1692 when a mob of angry villagers flipped their mental kibble and rounded up three ravens rumored to be witches.

"Burn them at the stake!" screamed the mob and the whole time they're yelling, they're dragging those birds into the village square. According to city lore, the birds were roped to stakes by a trouble-making bunch called the Cocker brothers while a gray tabby got busy preparing to set fire to the birds' tail feathers.

Then the ravens did something nobody expected. They hypnotized the tabby and the Cocker brothers into thinking they were the ravens. Those dogs and that cat started squawking like birds then ran around the village square setting each other's tails on fire. 

Meanwhile, the real ravens hypnotized each other into thinking they were axes and chopped through the ropes. The rest of the villagers saw what was happening, screamed and scattered.

When the fur and the feathers stopped flying, the tabby and the Cocker brothers were sporting singed stumps where their tails used to be.

Now my friends, get a load of this: that cat and those pooches are supposed to be the ancestors of the present-day Cocker Spaniel and the present-day Manx cat. Never mind that Cocker Spaniels with stub tails have undergone a procedure called "docking," people fall for that old yarn anyway and it's been the backstory on Squawktoberfest since it started more than 30 years ago.

But wait, folks; it gets better: These days people say that the ghost of that match-happy tabby haunts the town square one night every year during Squawktoberfest. They say they've seen him prowling the steps of City Hall, flapping his arms and squawking. They'll tell you that not only is he doomed to climb those steps one night each year but that he has to do it with his shroud forever hiked up over his nub of a tail. 

Something about this whole ghost tabby nonsense smelled fishy so I set up a stakeout behind a bush at the southeast corner of the City Hall building. By 10 p.m., I was all tucked in nice and warm behind the bush - and the flask of Jack Russells whiskey I'd been sipping from helped keep me toasted - I mean toasty. Since the ghost tabby wasn't due to appear till around midnight, there was plenty of time for old Jack and me to do some serious paling around. But I'd still have to keep my wits about me in case the ghost did show. 

Midnight struck, there was no ghost, Jack was gone, and I had nothing but my hiccups for company. 

Just then I heard something squawking. I looked in the direction of City Hall and there it was: a shadowy feline shape, its gauzy shroud hitched up over its stumpy tail. Its paws were tucked under its armpits as it flapped its arms up and down, more like a chicken than a raven.

I took off at a run and the cat saw me coming. Unfortunately even ghost cats are faster than a dog full of Jack Russells tripping on a trench coat. I threw the coat to the winds and closed in. The cat, in the meantime, hiked up his shroud and ran faster.

I was on that pussy in a New York minute and we fell. Down the steps of City Hall we rolled and when we finally stopped, I was on top. The cat was no ghost and it didn't take long to get the whole story once I twisted his arm, growling at him to cough up that fur-ball called the truth.

"Okay! Okay!" he yelled. "I'll tell you everything!"

Turns out the "ghost" was Whiskers LeMieux, a tough little Manx whose only claim to fame was that he was the founder of Squawktoberfest.

"Aren't you too long in the tooth to be flaunting your rump and your stump?" I asked. He wouldn't stop struggling so I muscled him a little harder.

"You idiot!" hissed LeMieux. "A thing like Squawktoberfest doesn't just run itself! It needs publicity! It needs mystique! It needs  - GHOSTS!"

I didn't appreciate being called an idiot, but Whiskers had a point. Attendance at Squawktoberfest had been lagging until the ghost made its first appearance last year.

I looked around, didn't see a soul and was glad I hadn't blown Whiskers' cover. Face it, drumming up interest in Squawktoberfest by showing folks his backside is pretty harmless in the scheme of things, and Squawktoberfest does have a certain educational merit. 

After all, a flash in the dark can be pretty enlightening.