You Have One Job

It’s football season. I care about the Patriots, and of course the BSU Bears, but neither of those teams are in particular need of my mojo. Marshfield, on the other hand, is developing a track record, and it’s not a good one. I’m not talking about their season ending stats or record. I’m talking about the only game that matters. And I’m fed up with losing to Duxbury.

Your coaches, your teachers, your parents, the cheerleaders, the guy at the counter at Jackanson’s—they are all going to be telling you to win games. Ignore them. Win them if you can, but you only have ONE JOB. You are to focus on ONE JOB.  Your entire life is to become a tunnel, and the only light you ever have hope of feeling on your face again is waiting for you on the gridiron, THANKSGIVING DAY. You are to care about nothing—not college, homework, girls, boys, world peace, childhood hunger, or Sara MacLachlan’s dying puppies—YOU ARE A BEATING THE DAMNED DRAGONS MACHINE AND YOU ARE STUCK IN FOURTH GEAR UNTIL THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING.

DON’T. SCREW. UP.

Green Freakin' Habah, 30 Years Latah

30years ago there was a little storm, not forecasted to do too much, here in New England. Of the communities hit hard by the Blizzard of 78, my own was among the most devastated. Green Harbor and Brant Rock flooded. My own home, right by the harbor river and marshes, sits high enough on a knoll of sorts among the antique apple trees to be spared the floods, winds, hurled boulders, and ocean damage that wiped out many of our friends.

My Labrador retriever, Charcoal, was kind enough to deliver 11 puppies at the zenith of the thing. The horse, my chestnut mare Becky, was spared any trauma. We broke through the ice on her drinking bucket every morning for a while. We all put coolers on our back porches and let mother nature keep our perishables safe. We offered our gas stove to cook for anyone who lost theirs to electricity. We checked on, and delivered to, friends, neighbors, loved ones, and even strangers stranded among the powdery drifts as we waited-- some for weeks-- to dig out and have power restored.

Things have changed, but not much, in Green Harbor. There are more houses. Many were rebuilt after that very storm. But a significant chunk of this old Yankee neighborhood-- working class people with homes worth more than their retirement, many passed down through generations-- are the same faces. We are a quiet, tough little neighborhood. Townies, most of us-- Marshfield born and bred, but prouder of GREEN HAHBAH than of anything else. Many of us will never leave, not even for the more affluent northern borders. We'd rather eat dirt than cross the borders to Duxbury. We're not budging. We didn't evacuate when the world came down upon us in '78, and we're not leaving now, either. We're in a class by ourselves. You are welcome to visit, but please take your crap with you when you leave-- it spoils the beach. We'll see you this summer.

For it takes a particular brand of stick-beat mean to survive in Green Harbor year round. The same people who will load a sleigh or fire up the snowmobile to make a grocery run for a dozen snowed-in neighbors will give you wrong directions come June if you have the nerve to pull up as we walk OUR sidewalks with the obnoxious question "whayah is tha beach?" Feel free. We send those people to Duxbury, where they can pay to park and visit the snack stand. The beach sucks, though. It has been eroding for ages. Guess where all that delightful powder ends up?

Yup. We dredge the harbor every season to scrape Duxbury's overpriced sand out of our gullet. Have to keep it nice and tidy, you know. And guess where all the sewage passing through Brant Rock University ends up?

Enjoy those hot-dogs, tourists! I hear they boil them in very special water.

Anyway, it's 30 years later. The tide, this morning, was ridiculously high as it generally is this time of year when the moon starts pushing full. That was the special ingredient for that perfect storm long ago. It hit just as the moon was full, and followed the various harbor rivers to sit waiting for the tide to turn... then rather than blow out to sea it came right back with the tide again.

But it didn't beat us and nothing ever will. This is Green Freakin' Habah, not Mahshfield Hills, baby. We can take anything you got!

Strange Things Afoot at the CVS

Lemme tell you something, peeps. Y'all done wanna mess wid ME, aight? I'm da shizzle!

Or, well... something of that nature, anyway.

So I'm at the local all night CVS. (Where else am I, if not there, Starbucks, or Barnes and Noble? Nowhere, that's where. Stop laughing.) And as some of you know, I am only barely speaking to CVS. (See post below RE: Hershey bars.) But it's open 24 hours, it's only 5 minutes away, and they have cool stuff. Plus they have my drugs, my mom's drugs, my dad's drugs... it's a pharmacy and we're the walking wounded. Give us a break, k? We have to learn to play nice, so I'm making an effort.

It's that time of year when kids and parents are crowding into pharmacies, dollar stores, department stores... they're getting school supplies and clothes and whatnot for the return to academia in a few weeks. Hurrah. I love the sales they have, too... writer's paradise. Anyway, I'm trying to walk into my local CVS, but there's a large man dressed like a Shaggy video threw up blocking me. Coming out, on the other side of him, are two little tweeners (I'm guessing they were 12-ish) with bags loaded down with book covers, markers, cute erasers with fur on them, and other vital educational supplies. One of them is speaking into a furry pink phone with sparkles, telling her mum they are "coming right now."

Only they aren't coming right now, because the 20-something gangsta in front of me thinks it's adorable to block them every time they try to go around. They step to the side; he steps to the side. They step to the other side; he steps to the other side. They giggle; he snickers. He's a grown man; they're children.

This. Pisses. Me. Off.

I don't mind people being cute. I mind a 20-something Tupac-knockoff flirting with prepubescent tweeners in MY candyass little town. I mind his ridiculous pants dragging like a pair of cheap-assed swag curtains under his saggy damned butt cheeks in front of me, and the crappy-assed P-Diddy Eau de Hood wafting backward and assaulting my nose. I even mind that his gangsta fashions are four years out of date, and that he's flaunting his look like a badge of badness. This is freaking MARSHFIELD. We steal street signs; we shaving-cream cars. We are not, absolutely NOT the "hood." I don't care if the Fair is in town. Take that crap somewhere else.

I have absolute respect for the genuine culture. Wannabes of all stripes Piss. Me. Off.

So I threw down. Cuz I got mad skillz, yo. Plus there was a guy with a black belt and 6 feet, 3 inches of protective insanity sitting pretty close by, waiting in his Escalade truck. So... you know... I'm good. Got ma peeps.

"Listen, Grand Master Rupert, or whatever the hell your name is," said I, "if you don't stop flirting with those children and move your ass you're going to need that dew rag for a tourniquet."

And the gansta sort of turned around and did that peacock approach where he's gonna bump my chest... then he stopped. Backed off. Spread his arms in a gull-winged sign of surrender and backed away, allowing the girls and myself to pass.

TAKE THAT! Yeah, baby, I'm KRAZY, beeyotch! That's right, Mary! Keep walkin'! Don't be MESSIN' and show some PROPS! Green Harbor is REPREZENTIN!

Then I heard a flurry of chuckles behind me.

Oh. Yeah, well, my mad skillz not withstanding, the two very large State Troopers may have had something to do with it. It's possible. I mean, I was pretty scary. But you never know. They had the impressive uniforms and guns and stuff. If you're intimidated by that sort of thing. Plus the badges. The badges were a nice touch.

Could have been me, though. I mean, I was throwin' some heat. I was bringin' it, yo! So step off... sort of thingy.

Wurd to yer mum. Erm.