A. U.S.

B. Germany

C. Canada

D. Japan

E. Britain

F. France

A. If you guessed U.S., you must not live in the U.S., because if you did you would understand that we don’t really know or care a whole lot about policy changes like that here. Mess with our football or shopping or HGC diets and you’ll reawaken the sleeping tiger. Screw with our retirement age? Meh. I’m not even sure what our retirement age is. I thought it was around 65 but Wikipedia is telling me it’s up to 67. Do you remember being up in arms when it went up from 65? Nope, unless you’re a member of AARP you didn’t know or care.

B. Germans are too busy being German to protest this sort of thing. Take away der creamy und vunderbar chocolates und killer techno beats und you have beeg problems. Other than that, they can’t be bothered.

C. Far too good natured and contented for this sort of trouble. The more familiar I become with Canada and Canadians, the more I like the idea. Canada is Europe without that Europey speedo and female armpit hair oddness, and America without all the gluttony and extremism. I’m beginning to think our northern friends might really have things figured out.

D. Come on.

E. The Brits aren’t built for protesting. They execute their agendas with stodgy-faced news, shark-tooth-sharp satire, and raucous parliamentary debates. But yelling and stomping in the streets? Very low brow. Quite bad form.

The correct answer, of course, is F; France. The Frogs are up in arms because President Sarkozy wants to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62.

From 60.

To 62.

Stupeed, fat, eegnorant Amereecan, you know nussing!

The maximum workweek in France is 35 hours with at least 5 weeks of vacation, but many employers give 8 weeks. A Frenchman works an average of around 300 hours less per year than his Yankee counterpart. So this is a leisurely breed. But when some meddling bureaucrat tries to stick his boney, cheese-scented fingers into the centre of their quality of life, our longtime surrendering allies become Korean in their determination and industry. After all, the French wrote the book on protests. After wine, cheese, and superiority, protesting is the top export of the region. They protest everything, and they do so beautifully.

When I read about the French of WWI, WWII, and the French of our present day, I just can’t believe these were the same people with whom Napolean conquered Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. And surely the terrifying Gaulic tribesmen who dealt out terror to all-mighty Rome aren’t the progenitors of these waifish, snearing protestors (trying to imagine current day Italians as the heirs of the former hyper-organized rulers of the classical world is another post in itself).

Hallo, Pierre, zoes filthy Germanz are attacking us again, do you have time to go fight a war weeth me? No problem, when you get back from the Riviera zen. October wheel be fine.

But good for the French, I say. I actually enjoy a good protest. Nothing I love more than stumbling across a group of protestors on campus or in a city centre. I push my way right in there and yell and hoist people on my shoulders without knowing the cause. I just love the camaraderie. Camaraderie. French word.

Keep fighting, Citizens. Take what’s rightfully yours. You work like dogs and it’s time you rise up and put a stop to the madness!

Viva La France! Viva la Revolucion!

The past has PASSED, the future is NEAR, so view today as a PRESENT (as in Christmas present), and the present will be CLEAR.

Kind of like footprints in the sand.

But there was someone who was braver even than I. Her name was Glory. And before “Mrs. Bell” came into my life, Glory was my soul mate and companion. She was beautifully built, with big moist eyes that even a hardened man could get lost in. Glory B. Bell was the best dog to ever roam the wild foothills of Farmington, Utah.

I have always loved animals, and I always wanted a dog. During my toddler years my family owned a tiny, fluffy mutt named Cuddles (you’re seeing a pattern in great dog names here aren’t you), but the Folks sent Cuddles away while my oldest brother—Cuddles main proprietor—was away on a week-long scout camp. True story.

“I’m home from that scout camp you made me go on. Great to be back. Where’s my best friend in whole wide world, Cuddles?”

“Cuddles? I have no idea who you’re talking about. No one named Cuddles lives here presently. Welcome home. Now go weed your 7 acre section.”

I was probably 4 when Cuddles was basically snuck out of the house with a bag over his head in the middle of the night. And for the next 7 years I begged my mom to let me have a dog. She hated dogs. They ruined everything and smelled bad, and she knew she would end up being the caretaker. But I never gave up. I begged and whined and petitioned and promised. She gave in. So one day a lesbian couple came to the house to show us a dog they had saved from the pound but didn’t have enough room to keep long term. The dog’s name was Casey. She was gorgeous. A brindle Boxer. You might reasonably have qualms with their utilitarian faces, but if Michealangelo was commissioned to dream up a dog’s ideal form and put it to marble, I think it would resemble the Boxer’s, with that strikingly powerful neck and chest tapering into one of the most graceful hindquarters found in the natural world.

It was love at first sight between Casey and I. We re-named her Athena (which I’m sure came from the young nerd, Ryan), but she wasn’t smart enough to remember that. So someone suggested Glory and that stuck. Glory and I were virtually inseparable. She slept on my bed, we peed together every morning and night in her usual “potty” spot outside our house, and we spent a lot of time at the river and in the mountains.

A few months after adopting Glory, my mom was fed up with her slow potty training, and told us that the next accident would get her sent back to her last owners. During this anxious time, one night we returned from grandparents visits in Ogden. Davis and I went downstairs and saw a big dump waiting for us on the carpet. Panic. We were hurriedly discussing what to do when we heard my mom’s footsteps upstairs. She was coming our way.

Davis: “There’s no time, just grab it and follow me!”

Me: “Grab it?!?”

Davis: “Just do it!”

Davis grabbed half the pile with his naked hand, and I retrieved the second half. The ultimate test of pure love. We ran it to the toilet and Mother was none the wiser. She probably smelled something but the proof was halfway to the sewage treatment plant in Roy.

But inevitably, Glory did it again and was caught. It was the last straw. Glory was being shipped off the next morning. Tears, rage, confusion. Again, Davis showed brilliant tactical facility by organizing a spiritual fast. He, Eliza, and I would fast that Mother’s heart would be softened and Glory would be spared. Guess what happened when the woman who had taught us the power of fasting all those years got wind of our fast? Glory stayed.

Glory was friend to all humanity, but scourge to all beasts. She was endlessly patient with babies crawling on and poking her, but she judged every nonhuman moving thing to be her mortal enemy, so I was always vigilant about her unleashed proximity to other animals. Once, my siblings and I found a small, hairless, dying bird chick that had fallen out of its nest in our tree. Someone fetched a water dropper and attempted to nourish it with sugar water, to no avail. We knew it was close to Bird Paradise, but until that happened we needed to keep Glory away to avoid her chomping and shaking it to death. But Glory was curious what we were all kneeling around, so we had to take turns keeping her at bay. After a few hours of this all the protectors ended up taking breaks at the same time. I came out of the house and saw Glory lying in the area the bird had been in and my stomach turned at the what must have happened. I raced up the hill and was shocked and relieved to see the dog protectively lying around the unharmed bird, gently nuzzling and licking it. She stayed in that same position until the bird died hours later. Good dog.

Before getting into the minivan that would take me to the MTC and North Carolina for two years, I gave Glory a big hug and said goodbye. She could sense something was up and ran after me and jumped into the van, which she had never done before. Six months after I left, Glory became testy with kids, snapping at a couple. She was old, after all. They had to put her down, and I wept when I read the letter telling me she was gone.

My daughter loves dogs, and when the time is right I want to get one. After that, I hope to have an unbroken sequence of dogs around me until I die. But the dog of a boy’s youth is always the one he remembers most.

This post is dedicated to Glory B. Bell.

Not daring to do something that others did without hesitation was humiliating, and besides, the water slide actually looked like fun. But every time I waited in line and got within a few feet of the slide, my legs lost their ballast and my entire body seemed to collapse in around my heart, which started beating like a hummingbird’s wings. It wasn’t a mental or emotional process. It wasn’t that I was scared of something specific. I just felt terrified, in a purely physical way. I spent days like that pretending that I had just gotten done with a ride, or acting as though I was just about to go take another ride – “No, go ahead! I just have to take my osteoporosis medicine and then I’ll catch up!”

It’s not that I never got to the point where I’d do things like go down water slides as a kid – it’s just that I first dared to do them around 2 – 3 years after most kids my age. This embarrassing situation was made worse by the fact that Kook, 3 years my junior, was born with only two fears: work and Ryan’s preternaturally strong hands. Thus, I was sandwiched between Ryan, who was reasonably daring for his age, and Kook, who was reckless to the point of self-endangerment. The fact that my Dad successfully concealed what I now know must have been nearly overwhelming anger, shame and disgust with my cowardice will be what narrowly saves him from being placed in the Guatemalan Working-Rest Home alongside his wife, who will be free to return home when she’s picked three weeds for every one that I did from ages 4 – 18.

As I got older I gradually learned to do my best to ignore the fear I felt when I was confronted with a rope swing/roller coaster/girl. And to be honest, I think I did a fairly good job of overcoming the fear that was hardwired into my system. I don’t think any of my friends from childhood or adolescence would tell you I was Evel Kneivel, but there wasn’t ever anything they did that I didn’t, which is no small accomplishment, given that the years from 5 to 20 were filled with almost daily opportunities to face and overcome physical fear. Unfortunately, adults don’t get too many chances to overcome fear, which is why I love longboarding.

I spent my first 3 or 4 years in New York longboarding pretty regularly. We started out by going to a parking garage downtown late at night, which is more or less where I learned how to longboard. Take the elevator up, skate down 6 winding, oily floors, hop in the elevator, and repeat. And while it definitely took me some time to figure out the skills and techniques involved, it took me much longer to learn how to ignore the physical message of fear that my body sent my mind at every turn and carve, demanding that I bail out any time I started moving faster than the speed at which a little girl can ride her bike up a very steep hill. I started out by telling myself I had to go two whole levels of the garage without bailing out. It would take me a few runs to meet that goal, but I eventually got there, at which point I’d set a goal of 4 floors. And then the whole garage. And after a little while, the garage started seeming kind of easy.

So we moved uptown, and tried a bunch of hills – The Big Easy, The Poop Chute, Slippery Summer, The Stam. I eventually developed the ability to get down some decent-sized hills without killing myself. And while I was always more or less scared when I went down The Stam – the whole time, every time – I learned to ignore that fear, that constant demand that I bail out, go home, and take up Bingo. (And in my defense, the Stam is really scary. It’s about 7 blocks at a pretty steep angle on one of the busier avenues in New York. You have to know how to time the lights, and there always exists the possibility that a garbage truck will come plowing through a perpendicular street, looking to give someone a closed casket funeral. But there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts at the bottom, and if you time it right, you can get warm donuts, so it all events out.)

After going a once a week for 3 or 4 years, we kind of stopped. It’s been three or so years since we did, and the other night after a rough day I grabbed my board out of the loft and went for a ride in the park. It only took me a few runs to remember the physical motions involved, but I was shocked by just how much my ability to ignore my fear had deteriorated. I’ve been a time or two since then, and it’s taking me longer to build that immunity than I would have liked or expected. But I’m going to build it back, and I’m not going to lose it this time. And then I’m going to put on some water wings and go down the water slide at Cherry Hill all by myself.

We went to a barbecue joint we like. We sat down, the only patrons there aside from one other guy, and our server approached. Average-looking, friendly woman in her late twenties.

“Hi guys, what can I get you to drink”

“Um, I’ll have a water”

“Hold on, I don’t have a pen.”

Me: “I think I have a pen you can use. Yep, here you go.”

When she brought the drinks back she started by giving me a Cola instead of my water. Then she gave every other person the wrong drink. A little weird, but not the end of the world.

“Are you guys ready to order?”

“Well, we really need to look at some menus first, do you have any?”

“Oh, ya, no problem.”

The menus proved enormously helpful in understanding what dishes the restaurant was offering. 15 minutes after ordering, everyone received their food except me, for some unexplained reason. Mine was another 15-20 minutes, even though it was basically the same dish as the others.

The final test for our waitress was when Jack, and Jack alone, asked for a drink refill.

“Let’s see if she can get this one refill right.” we exaggerated, knowing she could obviously get that much right.

She took his glass to the soda dispenser 20 feet away, filled it, brought it back, and looked at me with a furrowed brow.

“Is this yours, er…?”

I love when people end a question in “er.” One of my favorite ways to end a sentence. Second only to “so.” It means “I’m basically already sure about this, but I want to be CRAZY sure, but I really don’t even need to ask, it’s mostly me just being polite and deferential.”

I pointed to Jack, then put my face in my arm and giggled uncontrollably (after she left). Poor girl.

Her only problem was that she lacked the specialized skill of remembering who ordered what. And the talent of having something to write down orders. As well as the gift of remembering to bring menus. And every other facility a server needs. Kind of like a doctor who is super friendly but vomits at the sight of blood and sickness and who went to crabfishing school instead of medical school.

But none of us were upset. She was just so nice and it was the funniest lunch I’ve had since last week (when I ate lunch while listening to my daily Wanda Sykes podcast). And I can relate. I’ve done things that I was just absolutely the worst at. I hope she finds her thing someday, be it landscaping or PR or bicycle design. But it’s not waitressing. And it’s probably not professional memorizing either.

If you think about it, you’ll realize that football season elicits a much more powerful and charged emotional response than basketball and baseball seasons do. Unless you’re talking about the 12 or 13 die-hard baseball fans left in this country, you won’t find large groups of men salivating over the fact that OPENING DAY IS FINALLY HERE. Let’s face it: baseball is a national tradition shrouded in history and meaning and sentimentality that nobody happens to actually like watching. It makes for a lovely setting for a pleasant conversation with friends. I like nothing more than to go the ball park with friends or family, order a hot dog, soak in the surroundings, hang out, admire the beauty of the field, and chit chat the day away. I even like the sound of the bat hitting the ball. But the sport itself? Kind of terrible.

Although there are more everyday college hoops and NBA fans than there are MLB fans, you won’t find the basketball guys sending one another emails that say, “HANG ON, OPENING TIP-OFF IS IN ONLY 37 DAYS.” That is largely because the NBA isn’t fun until the play-offs. Indeed, I advocate scrapping the regular season in favor of a two-month tournament. Based on how regular season games are played, I’m guessing most NBA players feel the same way. And as far as college basketball is concerned, I consider anything before March to be “pre-season.”

But football, that’s an entirely different ballgame. (Nailed it.) And to be honest with you, I’m not entirely sure why. The anticipation surrounding the arrival of football season can’t be entirely – or even mostly – explained by a simple preference for football over other sports. It isn’t a simple matter of saying, “I like football more than basketball, so I’m more excited for football season.” No, football season is evocative of something that goes well beyond the idea of watching 12 – 15 games over a 4-month period.

As I try to explain this, the first idea that comes to mind is that for whatever reason, football season feels much more like a season. It feels like an event that occurs during a well-defined period of time marked by certain emotional cues. Basketball is winter and spring. But you don’t think of winter or spring and have those thoughts immediately followed by thoughts of “Basketball!” Winter and spring aren’t defined by basketball. The relationship between summer and baseball is a little closer, but it’s nothing compared to the relationship between fall and football. Fall means football, and football means fall. Which makes football season much more of a season that defines a quarter or so of the year. You say “football season” and I think of leaves turning and temperatures cooling. I think of pulling sweaters and blazers out of storage. I remember going school shopping at Mervyn’s and VF Factory outlet and considering my options for getting placed in a foster home where the parents allowed the kids to buy school clothes that weren’t going to socially ruin them.

I think another reason football seasons carries such meaning is the fact that it’s tied to two specific days – days that have very positive associations. Basketball season? Makes me think of a freezing cold Tuesday night. Doesn’t exactly warm the cockles of my heart. Baseball season? Thursday game at 1 PM. When I’m working. Football season? Saturday! Sunday!

Finally, football season feels . . .meaningful. There aren’t very many games, so each one counts and players play hard. You have 50,000 – 100,000 screaming fans. Marching bands. I don’t want to overanalyze this, but the pageantry and the hoopla lend a certain gravity to it all. Add to that the suspense of the high physical stakes involved, and its hard not to get invested even in a game where you have no direct rooting interest.

Oh, and I won’t get into fantasy football, because I don’t want to responsible for any divorces. But that really helps, too.

So, that’s why football season is the best. And it’s here. Thank heavens.

Now, I recognize that arguing that one’s performance in paintball offers hints about how one would perform in war may sound a little ridiculous, and I hesitated a little before doing so.  My hesitation in this case was very similar to the way I hesitate before comparing having kids to having a dog.  I’ve been eye-rolled right out of the room several times for making the dog/kid comparison, so I don’t make the paintball/war comparison lightly. I don’t care.  All you eye-rollers:  it’s a comparison, not an equation.  Yes, there are many, many differences between having a dog and having a kid.  But there are also enough similarities that certain comparisons can usefully be made.  I believe the same holds true for war and paintball.

Seriously, until they put one of these in your arms for the first time, you don’t know what love is.

Getting hit by a paintball hurts, so you try to reduce the amount of times you get hit.  Taking a hit also wounds the ego, since it means a buddy got the best of you (and the ineffable satisfaction that comes from shooting a friend with a high speed projectile.  Seriously.  It’s an amazing feeling.)  To say nothing of the fact that in getting hit you’re letting your team down and contributing to a victory for the other team, which is full of buddies to whom you hate to lose.

And that’s the thing:  getting shot is just so incredibly easy.  You have no way of knowing whether you’ll be able to move to the next clump of trees or be dealt a hail of bruise-inducing fire.  You peek your head above a rock and you get splattered six times by a well-concealed foe.  It quickly dawns on you how random and cruel all of this is – sometimes a paintball just has your name on it – and how little control you have over the whole affair.  The combination of your desire to avoid getting hit and the knowledge that you’re almost certainly going to get hit can lead you to, you know, just kind of hang out a little too long behind some trees, playing it a little too safe.

Kook.

And we’re talking about paintballs.  If we substitute paintballs with bullets, and  there is now a really good chance that I could get hit by a real bullet and die the minute I stick my head out?  I’m not sure I’d ever move.  I mean, I hope I would, and part of me thinks I would.  But another part of me wonders.  But all of me knows that guys who fight in wars are awesome.

I guarantee this guy has a Medal of Valor from the Paintball Congress.

You know what else paintball has taught me?  How stupid it is in movies when the good guy can make a dead run while hundreds of bad guys with huge guns continually miss him.  Sure, everyone thinks that this is unrealistic, but only serious paintballers like myself know it.  I’m tired of this in our movies.  It’s time for our movies to reflect the knowledge that paintball has given us me.  And I honestly can’t take the whole “Million bad guys can’t hit the good guy, but the good guy can drop them one by one with a pistol” dynamic anymore.  I’m done with it.

Am I being a huge wet blanket about all of this?  Probably.  But while I’m on the topic, one more thing:  Mr. Hollywood, just because computers have enabled you to make it look semi-realistic for a non-cartoon human to do three back handsprings off the wall and then slice a bad guy’s carotid artery with their sharpened pinkie nail doesn’t mean you should.  Let’s just have some realistic fighting, OK?  I’m looking at you, everyone who made “Salt.”

I tried to find a clip that provides an example of the things I’m talking about, and stumbled onto the mother lode here.  Take the time.  It’s worth it.

You know what else I realized about war?  I realized that if I had to drive a vehicle in combat – any vehicle at all – I would choose a wave runner.  I’m 100% serious about this.  Has a wave runner ever been used in actual combat?  I don’t know.  Probably.  If it hasn’t already happened then it will when our world turns into this:

Whether I’m fighting in our current world or Waterworld, I’d want a wave runner more than a tank, plane, truck, or motorcycle (which was my second pick).  I envision myself driving the wave runner while someone – I’m considering and evaluating a few different candidates, who will be notified shortly for purposes of training – mans a large mounted machine gun on the back.

Why a wave runner?  A few different reasons.  First, they would make war dangerous AND fun.  Would you rather train with a Humvee, or a wave runner?  Second, I would rather crash while on water than in the air or on land.  (Oh, by the way, this applies only to wars fought on lakes.  If you think you’re getting me on a wave runner in an ocean war, where I could get hit, start bleeding, and then fall into the ocean, then you are absolutely mistaken.  I’ve read too many books about the U.S.S. Indianapolis.)  Finally, I just have a sense about it.  I am almost 100% sure I would be very good at wave runner-based warfare.  It’s just one of those things I know.

“Where are you from?…

‘Utah!’ I responded to two cute girls, both from New York. It took them a couple minutes to ponder this statement.

‘I couldn’t live anywhere,” said Eliana, “Where wild animals could just wander into my house.’”

…

I (Christian) thought that was so funny. Wild animals? Just coming and going as they please?

Jadrienne: Mo-ooom, Sesame Street’s about to start but there’s a cougar on the couch again.

Mom: For the last time, Jadrienne, just deal with it! You know that’s his favorite spot and if you try to move him he might injure or kill you.

Jadrienne: {whining, pre-tantrum voice} But I want to watch Sesame Street and the stupid cougar is in my way!

Mom: Then why don’t you take your fancy airs and move to London where you won’t have to deal with this sort of thing! My goodness!

Dad: Which one of you broke the arm off the big Captain Moroni?

Chazz: The one in your room?

Dad: No, the big one. The one above the fireplace!

Brigdon: Why you looking at me?

Chazz: I didn’t do it.

Brielle: Me neither. It was probably a bear or a moose. The mooses have been particularly reckless lately; chasing the rattlesnakes around the kitchen table.

Dad: {Sigh} Freaking mooses. I’m so tired of them. In fact, I’ve just about had with ALL these animals. Honey, how are the wild animals wandering into the house all the time?

Mom: Through the door frame, I imagine.

Dad: Well, why don’t we keep the doors closed then?

Mom: Because we don’t have doors, dear. You know this. No one in Utah has doors. What do you think this is, an expensive motel in New York City?

Dad: That’s true. Good point.

Chazz: Remember when wolves ate 4 of our siblings in their beds?

Brielle: That was the worst. Sometimes I wish we didn’t live here.

…

But there is something else strange going on in Utah: all the HCG and plastic surgery billboards on the Interstate. What’s going on there? It’s embarrassing. Isn’t being the world capital of multi level marketing quite enough? Dr. Heidi, we want answers! (as well as any brochures you can send my way about buttocks implants for tall males with jelly bottoms. For a friend of mine.)

Federal News Service makes its money by providing “timely verbatim English-language transcription of U.S., Russian and Middle East government press briefings, speeches, and conferences. FNS also transcribes and translates broadcast interviews on official policy covering a broad range of national and international issues.”

OK, it’s a transcription service, no big deal. Or it isn’t until you consider what transcription actually consists of, and that there are real people – human beings – who have to do it. Imagine a stuffy, windowless room with a few computers in it. Next to each computer is a set of well-worn, perpetually moist headphones. On the floor below each computer is a pedal. The transcriber puts the headphones on and activates a recording of whatever is being transcribed by pushing on the pedal. If I remember correctly, you could also rewind and fast forward by using the pedal, but I’m not entirely sure because I’ve largely repressed memories from this time of my life. Anyway, the point is you push the pedal to play the recording, you listen to the recording, you type for as long as you can, you push the pedal to pause, you finish what you were typing, and you push the pedal to start it up again.

To be honest with you, I didn’t really mind the work the first few times I went in. I think the first job I had was transcribing a press conference given by Condoleeza Rice about something having to do with Russia. Arms control maybe. Actually, as I remember that particular job, I’m reminded that I felt a minor thrill at the fact that there I was, a kid from Farmington, Utah, working in Washington, D.C. – less than a mile from the White House! – in the fields of government and diplomacy. I’m not kidding. I actually felt that.

Lesson number one for all you kids out there: The thrill of being in and around something awesome always fades. I’ve experienced this several times in my relatively short career. You get a job working at an awesome company in a cool city in a great building next to XYZ famous landmark, and in about a month you just think of it as a job at a company in a building next to a landmark you don’t even notice anymore. So, next time you take a job, make sure you do it because you like the work associated with that job, because being a mile away from the White House only gets you through so many hours of transcription.

The press conferences could occasionally be interesting – basically like watching 8 hours of C-SPAN – and it beat getting a job at Starbucks. And although a few hours of work didn’t uncover any latent passion for the process of transcription, I was hard up for cash and the CIA recruiter I met at Gallaudet University wasn’t returning my calls, so I kept showing up. One day my very sweet and incomprehensibly cheerful supervisor informed me that I had acquitted myself very well in the week or so I’d been working there and was being given a new, very important assignment.

FNS had as its client the Smithsonian, which had just finished recording an oral history with Edgar Anderson. THE Edgar Anderson. Enough said. Not enough said? For the disgusting Philistines among our readers, Edgar Anderson is perhaps the most important woodworker to ever work wood in America. Because our government insists on investing our hard-earned tax dollars in only those projects that provide critical services to our citizens, the Smithsonian had hired someone to interview Edgar over the course of many hours.

So there I was, holed up like a rat with headphones on, listening to this an insufferable woman interview Edgar. I can still call to my mind’s eye the way I visualized her as i listened to her interview Edgar, hour after hour, day after day. Sensible black shoes (for a bad back), jeans with pleats, a sweatshirt tucked into the jeans, and maybe a little vest. She sounded exactly like a minor NPR announcer – the kind with an obscure show that even people who make a big deal out of looooving Ira Glass have never heard of.

You know what? I shouldn’t describe her so harshly. She was just doing her job. Assuming her job description was, “Go and conduct a 300-hour interview with famous American woodworker Edgar Anderson, asking him literally every single question you can think of, followed by literally every single follow-up question you can think of. No matter is too minute, no happening too inconsequential, for you to ask many hundreds of questions about it.”

“Edgar, how did you meet your wife?”

“At the county fair.”

“Which county?”

“Jefferson.”

“Oh, my, how interesting! Who is that county named after?”

“Thomas Jefferson, I believe.”

“My goodness! Our third President?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Did you ever carve anything pertaining to Thomas Jefferson?”

“No, I don’t believe I did.”

“And why was that?”

“I don’t recall, just never felt the urge to, I suppose.”

“Mmmm hmmm. Is that common, as an artist? Not to get an urge to do something?”

“I imagine so.”

“Would you say woodworkers are more apt not to get an urge to do a particular thing, than, say, sculptors?”

You know, as miserable as this experience was, I have to admit I developed a soft spot for old Edgar. He was a gruff old fellow, and rather reminded me of my grandfathers. He was very, very old at the time the interviews were conducted, and you could tell he was mystified as to why anyone would care to know the answers to the questions he was being asked while at the same time being tickled that someone cared to ask and record them for posterity.

That being said, Edgar was, as we say in the transcription business, a total IN (Inaudible Nightmare). The old fellow never quite got the hang of speaking into the microphone in spite of, oh, I don’t know, 700 – 800 reminders from the interviewer. Moreover, Edgar had developed that dreaded symptom of old age that only seems to afflict men – the whistled “S.” Lots and lots of rewind-and-replays with the old foot pedal whenever Edgar was speaking.

A couple of hours with Edgar wouldn’t have been too bad; indeed, they would have given me a welcome respite from the stress of playing a vital role in formulating US policy on Russian nuclear proliferation. But after a couple of days I started to crack. I briefly considered elaborating and improving upon the recordings of the interviews with things I believe Edgar would have said had he been asked the right questions.

Things like, “And then in ‘42, I considered entering the service, but ultimately realized that I could have a much larger impact on the war effort by creating anti-Hitler woodwork,” or, “You know what, Jean? Can I be honest with you? I don’t even like wood. I always wanted to be an iceworker. Loved ice from the time I can remember. But how do you leave a legacy in icework? Would the Smithsonian be interviewing me if I had gone into icework? Would you, Jean? So I went with wood. But my heart was never in it.” That I didn’t is a testament to my high moral character.

Transcribing Smithsonian interviews with Edgar Anderson, famous American woodworker: a job that I have had.

(Ed. note:  I found this link, which leads me to believe there were only five hours of interviews.  I can’t say for sure whether this is true, but my recollection is that there were many, even hundreds, of hours of tapes.  Maybe the 5 hours mentioned here are the only ones that are available online?  Further, the link says these interviews are “untranscribed,” and I can vouch that the ones I dealt with were painfully, painfully transcribed.  Anyway, even if there are only five hours, it takes a long, long time to transcribe 5 hours.)

In honor of this special week, here’s a new installment of my advice column, Dear Sharkman, where I take your questions about anything and everything. Today is the Shark Edition. To be fair to everyone who has sent in emails, I’m printing off all of the ones with shark-related questions, putting them in a hat, and having Reba pull out 5 for me to answer. I’ll answer them in the order she pulls them out. Bring on the advice seekers!

Dear Sharkman,

Did someone else give you that nickname, or did you give it to yourself and try to pretend like someone else gave it to you? Of course we all know the answer already, we know that you’re a phony, and I know that you won’t answer my email, but I don’t care because I made my point and because you’re a moron. Stay lame, Stankbreath (I met you once and your breath was rank, so I think Stankbreath is a more fitting nickname for you).

Curious is St. George

Dear Curious,

Ok, let’s get things started off with a negative letter. I do get them occasionally and I’m firmly against censoring, so that’s fine. As far as my long-standing nickname, I don’t like to get bogged down in the technicalities surrounding exactly who came up with it and why. It’s a perfect nickname for me regardless of its origin, so don’t worry about it. Even though your email wasn’t all that nice, thanks for writing anyway.

Sharkman

…

Dear Sharkman,

What is your favorite type of shark? Keep up the good work at DDDT. Love it!

Jessica

Dear Jessica,

Great question! Makos are the fastest and smartest, Bulls are the toughest and they can survive in fresh water rivers and lakes, Tigers are the most mercenary and calculating, Great Whites are the strongest, Oceanic white tip are the most fascinating, Reef sharks are the most “sharkiest” looking, and Greenland sharks are the most mysterious. It’s hard to pick just one!

Sharkman

…

Dear Christian (I refuse to call you “Sharkman”),

You should be ashamed of yourself for sowing seeds of fear about these magnificent creatures. Do you know that sharks kill 10 or 20 humans a year while humans kill 70 million sharks a year? You read that right. 70 million. What do you have to say for yourself?

A True friend of Sharks

”

Dear “True” Friend,

Oh brother, give me a break. You should be ashamed of yourself for pretending to be anything other than a paid hack of the shark lobby. Either that, or you are just one big, huge, gigantic nerd who has time to write me about NONSENSE. 70 million sharks? Really? If there were 70 million sharks you could walk across their packed bodies from continent to continent (although you wouldn’t want to because even their skin is made of tiny teeth–denticles–which will cut your feet. Nasty beasts all around). And saying sharks are vulnerable victims is like saying Brad Pitt is being bullied by a squirrel or a baby ant.

Sharkman

…

Dear Sharkpoop,

Me and my wife are wondering what would it take for you to make a swim through the Ring of Death at Seal Island? I know plenty of people who will pitch in for your flight there and funeral expenses. I’m sure someone would miss you, although I can’t imagine who that person would be. You my friend are an awful person, exceeded only by the awfulness of your writing.

Anxious For Your Demise In Denver

Dear Anxious,

“Me and my wife.” And you call me an awful writer! No matter. I will gladly take a dip in the Ring of Death; during the summer! If you knew anything about Seal Island you would know that the Ring of Death is only populated by ferocious air born great whites during winter. And don’t worry, I won’t print your other email where you admit that you are a loser who has no job and you think whale sharks are real whales and that you eat stoat poop sandwiches for lunch. And that you’re ignorant and smell like puke. But even though we have our honest differences, I can sincerely say that I hope you are devoured by a pod of famished orcas.

Sharkman

Ok, I think we’re done. Looks like we’re just going to do 4 today.

…

On the next installment of Dear Sharkman, I will take your serious questions (serious questions only from now on, please) about relationships, so don’t hesitate to write, and stay tuned.