Sample Stories

The Grim Reaper in one hand, CS class in the other

"I am like this with my peers because I am so tired and preoccupied, and want only to get immediately to the point of what we are to do. I work a full-time day job, and a graveyard shift job, along with my studies. I am sponsored by a government technology-improvement program that requries me to keep good grades and stay in school or I will have to go back to my native country.

I am in constant fear that my family will be murdered because of the political climate at home, and I must keep the two jobs so that I can send them money each month for them to make the graft payments that keep them safe. I have not seen my wife, or my children, in three years, nor have I taken a single day off in that time. I do what homework I can at my graveyard shift job, and sleep when I am able.

Of course it is not their fault, but when I hear my group members complain about the food in the vending machines, or the lab hours, I am annoyed and think they should be thanking God for their chance to study and to go home to their families."

"I just don't know what to do. I whupped him every day for a week for that, and he has not been allowed out of his room since that day we talked, except to go to school."

On further inquiry it turned out that the boy was spanked with a belt for a week, and then had to stay in his mostly empty room (no radio, no T.V., no books, a few toys) for punishment seven days a week, except to go to school. Being a transfer student, non of the other teachers knew much about him and this was the first news of any oddities at home.

Kevin the trombone player

After some experimentation with him, Kevin and I discovered that he could hold a trombone rigidly in his, essentially non-functional, left arm by hooking it in this odd way through the upper tubing. With his right hand, his good one, he could manage a lock-hold on the cross-support for the slide and could use large movements to move the slide up and down. His speech difficulties did not seem translate into equivalent embouchure prolems. To my delight I found that he had tremendous diaphragm strength, undoubtably from from all the work his torso and stomach muscles had to do for him to get around. (For those non-trombone players, this means that he could make big noises early and often.)

Reading music in the band just did not work out because when he got twisted up close enough to the music stand to read what was there he would either stab someone else with his slide, or knock over his music. The short attention span was also problematic. We kept at it though and Kevin was wild about being in the band: he always came early to set up music stands, and according to his parents worked hard at home every day on his trombone.

Over time, and with effort on both our parts we worked out an arrangement: Kevin would sit right in front of me (conducting), up with the flutes, and would just watch me for a series of large arm signals we developed especially for him. I gave him time to wander off mentally as he seemed to need periodically, but then relied on him to give us strong bass notes for certain chords in the music. Since he was so close, my big arm movements would get his attention, and since his hearing was fine he could then fit the notes I was cuing him for into the music. There was no question that his strong, relatively in-tune bass notes added quite a bit to the band.

Was that broken neck in the score?

I'm thinking to myself, "What on earth does this guy want?" which seemed to be what my compatriots were thinking as well because we all sat up and started playing even louder. BANG! I get whacked on the head. My skull is subsequently jammed backwards onto my shoulders and I hear these crunching sounds below as I lose the chair out from under me. I remember seeing stars and looking up from the floor thinking it is somewhat commical watching these two other guys walk around like Stan Laurel holding the tops of their heads saying "Ow!"

Someone had played a practical "joke" by pulling the emergency fire curtain lever. Unfortunately the fire curtain had a 75-foot three-ton steel bar on the bottom, used to seal off potential fires from the audience. It was this that landed on the heads of three of us, and then proceeded to flatten (and I mean FLATTEN) the steel stage chairs we were sitting on.

Hunting fish at 7,000 feet.

With strong motivation from our empty bellies we hunted streams near where we were camping until delighting upon a pool that had several nice-looking trout in it. It was late in the season and the pool was isolated from others. Since it also had no large boulders or submerged tree branches we figured, hey, piece of cake -- get the pan ready!

Freckles the nineteen-year-old traveler

HOW FRECKLES CAME TO LIVE WITH ME.

FRECKLES' ODDITIES

• he was somewhat arthritic, which left him very stiff in the mornings;
• he had some kind of lung/heart thing that I never completely understood (nor did the vet), which would cause him to fall over in a faint every few days (the first few times it happened I thought he had died!), but from which he would always recover, cheerful
• if he got too hot at night he would start coughing
• he was deaf in one ear, and could only hear a little from the other
• he was almost completely blind from cataracts
• he had numerous small tumorous growths (skin cancer?) on his skin which were sensitive if you touched them, but did not otherwise seem to bother him
• he could not, from time to time, completely control his bladder so I would have to clean up small puddles on the cabin floor
• he had a number of scars on his body, which I assumed were from fights.

LIFE WITH FRECKLES

On walks he could not move very fast so I would let him go without a leash, but it was true that as soon as he got a scent he would start off after it. When I whistled he would ususally at least make the attempt to return to me. This was problematic, however, because since he could only hear out of one ear he had no sense of the direction from which the sound had come. He would look around, but unless I was within a few feet, of course, he could not see me. If I was upwind from him, he could usually find me, but if I was not, he would just take off in some direction -- usually in the direction he was going anyway.

Freckles was really "into" smells, and the world around him. He had not at all retired into himself the way some old dogs do. In fact, it was almost the other way around: as though he were drifting more and more out into the world.

For the early part of our life together, my only mode of transportation was a motorcycle, and he loved to ride on the seat in front of me catching the smells. They do not make dog helmuts, so I worked out my own arrangement with pads, and tied him to me before we went for trips. Freckles and I became a familiar site to people on my usual routes, and although I did not know them, some would wave, and laugh when we passed by.

On the whole, Freckles and I had more of a partnership than a master/pet relationship. He pretty much did his own thing, would acquiesce some of the time when I really wanted him to do something (other times not), but seemed as happy of my companionship as I was of his. I took him as he was, and made allowances for him as a guest, because of his age. He did not complain, was reasonably nice to my friends, and was in his own small way, a rather interesting guy.

AMAZING ADVENTURES WITH FRECKLES

FIGHT!

Before I caught up to them, in a flash Chewy chomped down on Freckle's head, picked him up, and was worrying him left to right, legs dangling, but still growling fiercely. I grabbed Chewy's tail and started swinging the two of them around in a circle -- me swinging Chewy, Chewy still chewing on Freckles. Finally after three or four revolutions Chewy finally released Freckles (who went flying) from his jaws. Chewy's master came on the scene by then and took hold of him by the collar, but to my embarrassment Freckles got up and attacked again.

After the two of us separated them for the second time I took Freckles home for an inspection. I thought that except for a few scratches he was O.K. He was not complaining about anything --- and made it clear to me that he did not want me fooling with him just then. In fact he seemed to be rather chipper in spirit as though a good fight was just what he needed to get his blood going.

Unfortunately, an hour or so later, when he was leaning over to eat his dinner, I noticed a large patch of skin (a square inch?) that was flapping loose on the top of his head. This time I insisted on the inspection: although it was horrible to look at (the whole section was just flapping loose, exposing his ?skull? !) it did not seem to be bleeding too much. I called the vet (who had known Freckles longer than I had), whose advice was to just give it a little time to see how it went. "Look --- this dog has so many problems that if he comes in here now, he'll problaby never get out again. If it doesn't bother him, don't let it bother you." I cleaned it up as best I could and left it at that. It seemed a little sore for a while, but did in fact heal without complications.

THE TRULY AMAZING TRAVELS OF FRECKLES

I had no luck. Finally, after eight hours of searching I got hold of Indrani, who had brought him to me, for suggestions. She was very casual about it and said, "Oh he's probably at the old house -- he'll be all right, he does this all the time." I was pretty skeptical that the old guy could make it seven miles through the city even if he knew where to go, but I gave it a shot. (And remember, this was an old arthritic dog who could barely stand up in the morning!) Sure enough, there he was camped out in the front yard, ready for dinner. I had heard the stories before of how dogs can find their way using their noses, but this was really proof, since he had nothing else to use.

TRIP TWO I am not sure how Freckles got out the second time, many months later, but I was unable to find him for days, and he never did return to the old house. I placed adds, checked all of the city dog pounds, and the Humane Society branches to no avail. I resigned myself to accepting that I would not see him again, and that his destiny was now in his own hands. However -- a week later I was visiting friends in Alameda, and when I left their house, there he was lying down next to my car waiting for me. Consider this: Alameda is not only about twelve city miles away from where my cabin was, it is also an island in the Oakland estuary, reachable only by bridges. Somehow he had happened to wander there, picked up the scent of the car (I had bought a VW by then, and he had traveled in it often), and followed it to where I was visiting.

TRIP THREE Months after that Freckles again got loose. It might seem that I was remiss in my duties, but in my defense I have to say that Freckles was really very determined to go wandering sometimes -- he just seemed to have it in his blood, and would find a way to escape to fulfill his desires.

This time, again, I did not see him for days, and he never showed up at his old house. As before, efforts to locate him at the local agencies were to no avail, although this time I had more respect for his ability to travel and greatly widened the area my calls covered.

About the fourth day I got a call from someone saying, "I think I have your dog here: he has your name and number on his collar. Unfortunately I think he might be dying, or maybe he is already dead. He is just lying on the sidewalk, and I am not sure if he is breathing." I was explicit in my instructions to the poor Good Samaritan: "Go back to where he is, immediately, and tie him up, or hold on to him. He does this all the time, but will get up in a few minutes and take off again. I am leaving as soon as we hang up and I'll come get him." The location this time happened to be in Berkely, so I got there in about ten minutes, but of course, Freckles had recovered while we were on the phone and was gone by the time I got there.

Although I kept looking, and calling, and ran adds, I did not hear anything for a week. Then I got a call on my answering machine from someone in Concord saying that my dog, Freckles, had gotten in a fight with the dog belonging to the man leaving the messsage, that Freckles was locked in the back yard, and would I please come get him. By the time I got the message and returned the call, Freckles had again escaped. Concord is about fifteen or twenty miles east from Berkeley, and you have to cross the Berkeley-Oakland hills to get there.

Some days later, on my way home from an orchestra rehearsal in San Francisco, on a lark (some odd intuition) I stopped in at the Humane Society in San Francisco just for the heck of it (by then, I suppose, I was just in the habit of looking for him). Much to my surprise the night person said they had a dog without a collar, answering to something like my description, in back. My heart leaped when the attendent said that although they had many many dogs there, what caught his attention was that every once in a while this one would just seem to pass out as though he had died. He was in the infirmary for observation, which was really the only reason he had not been put to sleep already. A few minutes later he returned with Freckles in his arms!

Those of you not up on the geography of the area might not realize that San Francisco is due WEST of Berkely, making it thirty miles or so away from Concord. On top of this, you have to cross the ten-mile (?) San Francisco Bay Bridge to get there.

There are several things unusual about this particular episode. First, Freckles must have been amazingly charmed to have survived getting run over by a car between Berkeley and Concord, where he was spotted the second time. Second, he must have gotten a ride from someone to get across the bridge, but then escaped again on the other side. Third, he survived in San Francisco, the MOST traffic-bound city in the area for who knows how long. Fourth, it was only his odd passing-out spells that landed him in the infirmary where an attendent took a temporary liking to him that kept him from being put to sleep (they had so many dogs that after two (?) days without being claimed the dogs were destroyed), and lastly, fifth, that on a clearly illogical lark I happened to stop in on my way home from rehearsal to check in a place that no one on earth would think to look for him.

TRIP FOUR Because of my expanding music-teaching schedule I rented room in a house from a friend of mine, Brian, although Freckles and I continued to live in the cabin. I had to make a trip for a conference in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and was unable to take Freckles with me so I left him with Brian for a few days. Alas -- I should have seen trouble brewing because Freckles and Brian had never gotten on that well together: Brian, who had his own dog, was of the mind that dogs should obey; Freckles, on the other hand, was of the mind that he should do what people wanted him to do only when he more or less agreed with it. Also, that Freckles could not help but pee on the floor a little every few days annoyed Brian, who I believe was of the opinion that it was intentional.

When I returned from the trip, Brian told me that he had been out walking with Freckles and that he started to take off and simply would not come back when called. It was water under the bridge at that point so I just started my searching again. Alas, alack, I am sorry to say I never did see, or hear about, my friend and compainion Freckles again.

I often thought about him though. I wonder if he made it to his twentieth birthday. A year or so later I recall lying in the tall dry grass at the top of one of the hills in Berkeley's Tilden Park. It was evening and I was dreamily watching the sun set across the bay over the Golden Gate bridge. I was drowsy, daydreaming, almost in a trance from the beauty of the warm dry wind, the scent of flowers and pine needles, the magical colors in the sky... in my mind's eye I saw Freckles driving by in a big pink Cadillac convertible, a scarf flowing out behind him in the wind, a pretty female poodle in the seat next to him, smoking a cigar, and winking at me as he passed.

He was quite a dog. Perhaps you have seen him?

Bright light explodes in the sky

In Spring, 1975, I was driving my two-seater Austin Healy from Rochester, New York to California. I took the northern route and was passing through Montana at about one in the morning. I was on a two-lane highway that was twisting through the countryside. It was cold, so I had the top on, and it was very clear. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a bright white light shining from what I though was a very tall parking-lot light pole. I assumed it was one of those huge lights you might see at lonely all-night truck stops on the interstate -- the kind that attract hundreds of moths, where one light lights up all the blacktop on which the trucks park. Although it was very bright, it seemed to be 500 feet or so away, so it did not really shed any light inside the car.

Since the road was curving around, and there were trees beside the road, it was not immediately obvious that the orientation of the light was not at all what I thought. I remember it appearing again in the upper right-hand corner of my windshield after I had driven a sixteenth of a mile or so and thinking, "What the H___ is that thing!" It was obviously more like hundreds of MILES away rather than feet. I immediately got out of the car and look up at this bright light in the sky. In fact it did appear to be far up in the atmosphere.

It was much brighter than the moon usually appears, even on very clear high-altitude nights, but much smaller. It was shaped a little like a bow-tie, or an hour glass on its side, with the center bright white circle about 100 times the diameter of a typical star:

                                             }\       /{
                                             }--- 0 ---{
                                             }/       \{

To my surprise, no one I asked about it the next day saw it, or heard of anyone who had. I had not, of course, realized just how sparsely populated that area of the country really was (and still is). Since I have had no explanation to this day I am sorry that I at least did not wake the people in the ranch house for some sort of verification of this odd sight. For quite a while I assumed that some astronomer would be able to explain this to me, but this has not been the case. It was completely unlike anything else I have ever seen, including hundreds of shooting stars over the years.

Travels with Ree: Nevada Highways

This is a story about the oddities of life with my friend Richard, whom his family and I call "Ree" as named by his two-year-old brother. Ree is, in many ways, brilliant. He is capable of fantastic flights of intellectual achievement. On the other hand he is somewhat eccentric as well, and at times it could be surprising how his unusual mind worked.

One summer in the early seventies Ree and I were driving our twin Austin-Healy Bug-eye Sprites across the country on a motoring tour. I was on my way to school back east, and Ree was traveling with me for a tour of the country. Along the way, we had a number of adventures, in many of which Ree's sometimes delightful, sometimes infuriating, always interesting, way of traveling through life played a part.

Buy-eyes are tiny convertibles: I could wrap my arm around the back wheel of the car from the driver's seat; before the trip Ree carried one end by hand and I used a wheel barrow at the other, as we carried his gutted Sprite out of his garage and flipped it over on the lawn so he could paint the bottom. Our pair of Sprites were part toys, part racing machines, part teenage companions -- almost like friends, and of course transportation.

Late in August, after a tour through British Columbia, we were traveling through a huge expanse of high Nevada desert, when at about 9:00 A.M. Ree waved me over and told me that he thought his Sprite was not running correctly. Since I had more mechanical knowledge, I drove it for 100 feet and immediately diagnosed it as running on only one of its twin SU-1 carburetors. Upon inspection we saw that this was correct, that a retaining clip had failed, and that the jet had fallen out of the bottom of his lead carburetor.

Because we were driving esoteric, 1959, British automobiles in the middle of rural America the chances were slim of finding a spare SU-1 carburetor jet at the local auto parts store. Instead we decided to look for his the lost one. There was little traffic so we drove backwards down the apron of the intersate (two lanes and a wide apron in each direction) peering at every deviation from the flat smooth blacktop in the bright Nevada sun, and also scanning the sandy desert soil just beyond the pavement.

For the record, an SU-1 jet is about half the size of a cigarette. Looking for it on a four-lane highway might seem like a hopeless task, but after talking it over it seemed to be our best option. We estimated the time that Ree's Bug-eye started to malfunction and calculated that we had six miles of interstate to search.

After four trips back and forth searching in what was becoming the hot sun, we gave up. The next option was for us to tow Ree's car back to civilization, and a telephone, and see what we could scare up. Running Ree's Bug-eye with one carburetor sucking only air risked burning up his exhaust valves which would mean rebuilding the top half of his engine, and consequently the end of our trip. I had enough lashing holding my belongings on the external rack (Bug-eye's have only a boot, no real trunk), to pull Ree's Sprite about fifteen feet behind me, and this is how we effected the fifty miles to the next decent rallying point.

There are two, possibly unclear, reasons why this posed some interesting problems. First, because of our long search, the day was rapidly progressing. Because it was Friday, we knew that even if we were able to locate a British Motors Company supplier they would likely close at five or six for the weekend. This, plus the fact that trucks on the interstate, in Nevada, passed us at about eighty MPH, meant that we had to drive reasonably fast. Fifteen feet of towing space meant that we were going fifty MPH with Ree 1/2 car length behind me at the end of the umbilical cord. This was nervewracking for both of us. Second, Sprites come with 1000cc engines -- roughly the size of a medium-sized highway motorcycle. Although I had made race modifications, and had a slightly larger 1275cc engine, this is not the ideal equipment for towing another car. On some long inclines I had to keep the engine just below 6,000 RPM (above which it might blow up), and, in the thin air, was able to keep it below the boiling point only by running the heater full blast (this puts on line an extra small radiator which coincidentally helps to cool the engine). With my precious Sprite's engine screaming away in my ear, the smell of hot oil in my nose, the heat radiating like a blast furnace on my legs, and Ree close enough in my mirror for me to see the fuzz on his chin, I initially counted the miles seemingly a twenty feet at a time.

After a while though, because of the oddness of the situation, and the sensory overload, the whole scene took on an element of humor and romance. My Sprite did not blow up. No huge trucks blew us off the road. Ree did not get wrapped around the rear of my Sprite. Hope took over from desolation: we were still headed across the country, and life was good. It was in this state of elation (which turned out to be true for Ree as well), we finally pulled into a large interstate service station.

Here we had a talk with their mechanic, who was at least clear in his absolute knowledge of the situation: if we wanted a jet for the SU-1 carburetor the closest place was the BMC dealer in Salt Lake City! Oh no -- this was terrible. Salt Lake City was hundreds of miles away, and to make matters worse BMC parts departments ALWAYS closed for the weekend. Before facing these problems we decided to call them first. In one way it would have been a relief if they had just told us that we were crazy to think the Salt Lake City BMC would have a jet for a carburetor that went out of style fifteen years earlier. It was with mixed emotions that I received the news that yes they still had one lying around the shop, and that they would be there if we arrived before five o'clock. I made clear, twice, even insisting that the parts guy repeat this critical information back to me, that we needed a jet for an SU-1 carburettor, not the later SU-2, which would be useless to us. He acted offended and assured me that he knew what he was doing. We just had time to make it, if we could work out a way to get there. Option one was to leave Ree's Sprite and drive down together to get the part. We soon vetoed this because Sprites have no locks (and in fact do not really even have door handles -- you just reach inside and release a lever). Leaving Ree's car, and belongings, behind presented unacceptable risks. The next option was for us to tow Ree's car to Salt Lake City with my Sprite. Although my car had been valiant in its efforts so far, this too was vetoed as too risky for both our health and for the health of my Sprite.

Necessity being the mother of invention, we experimented with plugging up the defective carburetor in Ree's Bug-eye, so that the two lead cylinders sucked cross-wise through the manifold, and were fed from the rear carburetor. Although his Sprite had little power, ran very rich this way, and had to travel VERY slowly up some of the inclines, it went well enough for us to limp along in tandem off to Salt Lake City.

Now the battle with the clock began. We counted the miles, and watched the minutes tick by. The agony of crawling up the inclines was replaced by the exhilaration of speeding down the other side of mountains at top speed. I had plenty of time to both curse Ree for not immediately stopping when his car had so obviously malfunctioned, and to feel pity him for the worry he must feel about being stuck in the middle of the country with his treasured Sprite missing a crucial part.

Our one stop for fuel was a race to the gas pumps, and a grab for candy.

At ten minutes to five, with bladders bursting, we arrived at the BMC dealership. Just in time! Alas elation turned to anger and disappointment as the parts guy said, "Oh sorry. I guess this is an SU-2 after all." Our disappointment became mixed with embarrassment as we realized the great amusement that the BMC staff took in our predicament. They said they could order the part for us, and that it would arrive in three weeks or so! Now real discouragement set in.

They closed up the dealership, and Ree and I went out to sit on the curb next to our Sprites. I had no clue how to proceed. All our great romantic plans for this "guy" trip across the country had come to a final, irrevocable, halt. I remember being chagrinned that we ever thought we could make such a bold statement. Maybe we were just two losers, destined to lead humdrum lives.

I still recall with great clarity the next interchange between us when I turned to Ree in the midst of my ruminations and said, "You remember how I thought it would be a lot better if you had used those SU-2 carburetors I gave you before the trip -- what a difference that would have made now, hey? Your Sprite would have run a lot better too."

After a few minutes, in no great hurry, or with any particular enthusiasm, Ree said, "Hmmm. Well I suppose we could put them on now. I brought them along. They are in the boot of my Sprite."

At first I was just blank. Then I remember thinking, "Let's see. I have my tools in the back of my car. I can put the SU-2's on in about ten minutes. If Ree had mentioned this at 9:00 A.M. this morning I could have avoided searching six miles of interstate for an SU-1 jet, towing him for thirty miles like a madman with my Sprite about to explode and my legs cooking from the heater, racing two hundred miles with a sick Sprite to try and beat a clock while my bladder is about to explode, and adding gray hairs to my young head with grief about this. On the other hand if I use the REALLY big wrench I could just kill him right now. One good blow in the forehead ought to be enough. I would be doing him a favor to put him out of his misery. Then I wouldn't even have to change the carburetors."

In fact, it took me only about eight minutes to install the SU-2's, even in a daze. And yes, Ree's Sprite did run better than it ever had before.

It did not seem to occur to Ree that it was odd he had not mentioned the spare carburetors when first we started on our misadventures. I know that I criticized him for his omission, which I am sorry for now, and I am not sure if he resented it, or felt remorse, but mostly we both just seemed puzzled about the way his mind worked. On the one hand, here was a guy with whom I could not hope to keep pace in many intellectual pursuits (few could! -- for example, later I knew him once to do zero work in a semester calculus class at a good school, crack his book three days before the final, and finish with the top grade). On the other hand, although he did not forget that he had the extra carburetors, it just did not occur to him to mention them.

Ah well, with a score more adventures like this one, we did finish our 5,000 mile trip (8,000 for Ree who drove back alone). Life is rich. People are interesting. Ree is still, and will always be, my lifelong friend.