Special Day, Special Mom

[Joe Kack is on assignment, constructing a giant birthday card out of macaroni. He submitted the following message via telegraph.]

Roses are red,
Old bananas turn black.
There’s no better mother,
Than my Mama Kack.

Happy Birthday Favorite Mom!

— Love, Joe Kack

Mama Kack, circa 1970

1

When I was a kid, you got new Iowa license plates every year, not just a sticker. And there weren’t any letters, it was all numbers. There was a code for the county (1 through 99) and a serial number.

It was a simpler automotive world. There were no child restraint seats or safety belt laws, so I stood in the middle of the front seat like most kids back then. If we stopped fast, Mama Kack would instinctively throw her right arm in front of me to keep me from flying through the windshield. Who needed seatbelts?

When I was about five, Mom and I were on the town square when we came up behind an old red car with the license number “1”. No letters or leading zeroes, just that big number one, nicely centered on the plate. My mom informed me that the driver was named Gunnar Olson. (At the time, I thought it was Gunner with an “e”, which made it even better.) Gunnar was an old man, and he’d been getting our county’s #1 license plate for a long time. Back then you stood in line at the courthouse, and it was first come, first served. At some point, out of respect for Gunnar, they started letting him sleep overnight in the courthouse so he was guaranteed to get the first plate. (Foreboding note: sometimes a guarantee falls short of 100%.)

Do you remember the movie Duel? It’s the one where Dennis Weaver is driving through the mountains and a semi tries to run him off the road a bunch of times. You never get a good look at the truck driver; he’s just this shadowy figure behind glass. It made him more mysterious. That’s what Gunnar Olson was like to me. I never saw him outside his car. My recollection of him is the back of his head through his rear window.

I’ll never forget the year the new plates came out and Mom and I spotted Gunnar’s car and it didn’t have the #1 plate. There was an ugly 3 where the 1 was supposed to be. “How can this be?” I asked. Mama Kack related the story she’d heard around town: Gunnar was first in line again, but two “college kids” pushed in front of him at the last minute. This story seemed credible. Back then, whenever anything bad happened in our town, my mom blamed it on college kids and I came to accept this as fact. The college kids who wore sunglasses after dusk were especially evil. (My mother’s probably not a fan of Corey Hart.)

Mom later informed me that to avoid a repeat of the controversy, they quit letting Gunnar Olson stay overnight in the courthouse. Those two college kids had ruined everything. Whenever we saw Gunnar driving around with that #3, I felt bad for him. It was demeaning, like making Evel Knievel ride a moped.

A few years later the state switched to the current license plate format, and the first person in line got some uninspiring letter-number combination like ADC001. There’s no magic in that. Must have been some college kid’s idea.

— Joe Kack

How I recall Gunnar (Source: galaxieparts.com)

Fast Times

My friend J.D. Sloan once told me that if I was rich I’d be eccentric. He added, “But you’re not, so you’re just weird.” I prefer the term “quirky”, but he may be onto something. I take you back a few years …

The date is October 26, 1985. Web Pinto and I were running Sound Unlimited DJ Service at the time. Web did the yakking and my primary responsibility was to keep track of all the money we made, an amount that never threatened to make me eccentric.

That day was important because the St. Louis Cardinals (my team) and Kansas City Royals (Web’s team) were facing off in Game Six of the World Series. The Cards were up three games to two, so a victory would make them world champs.

Web and I had a wedding reception gig in Corydon that night, so we asked Papa Kack to record the game. We didn’t want to know the outcome in advance, and were paranoid the whole night that someone would blurt out the score. By some miracle we managed to remain ignorant (of the results). After the reception we crammed all our DJ equipment into Web’s Plymouth Duster and headed back to Centerville.

If you’re a baseball fan, you may remember how that game turned out. The Cardinals appeared to be three outs away from a World Championship when the first base umpire intervened. He made a bad call, the Cardinals melted down, and the Royals won. When the losing run crossed the plate, in a fit of irrational rage I screamed, “If they lose tomorrow, I’m not gonna eat for three days!” Once the words crossed my throat, my honor as a Cardinals fan was at stake. At the time it seemed like a noble protest.

The next night I sat down to watch Game Seven. It got ugly in a hurry, and my Cardinals ended up losing 11 to 0. When the clock struck midnight, the promised fast was officially underway.

True to my stupid word, I completed the three day Gandhi Fest. I drank water, one can of Mountain Dew, and chewed some gum. It didn’t change the outcome of the game, but it did, well, I don’t know what it accomplished really. Made me hungry, I suppose.

I stayed up until midnight on Day Three and celebrated the end of the fast with four bowls of S’mores Crunch cereal. To this day, it’s still one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

— Joe Kack

Best Midnight Snack Ever

Signs of the Times

The other day I saw one of those orange construction signs that read BE PREPARED TO STOP. If I’m driving a 3,000 pound automobile down the road, shouldn’t I always be ready to stop? Another road sign that perplexes me is the one that proclaims LIMITED SIGHT DISTANCE. To distinguish it from those places where you can see all the way to infinity, I suppose.

I’ve always been amused by goofy signs. One of my favorites was from my high school days. The water fountain quit working and a teacher told the janitor, Sweepy Floyd, to put up a sign. So Sweepy took a sheet of paper and scrawled “Don’t Work”. When you stop and think about it, that’s actually more descriptive than “Out of Order”.

They used to have signs by home plate at baseball stadiums that said “No Pepper”. It’s been decades since I’ve seen one of those. Either everyone learned the rule, or nobody wants to play pepper anymore.

A lot of people make the mistake of saying ATM machine which of course is redundant because the M stands for Machine. Saying it’s one thing, but if you’re going to make a sign, wouldn’t you have someone proofread it? There’s a fancy sign at the airport that says just that: “ATM Machine”. Mind you, this isn’t some Podunk airport, it’s Des Moines International Airport, presumably with flights arriving from all sorts of far away places like London, Hong Kong, and Madagascar. This is one of the first things these people see. They must think we’re a bunch of idiots.

The large sign below was posted at Taste of Chicago, where you stand in line for the Ferris wheel. Evidently it was crafted by an extreme introvert.

A Dire Warning

Finally, another one from the Windy City. What we have here is blatant disrespect for the law.

Sign? I didn't see any sign.

So, to summarize today’s entry: more signs of ignorance, intolerance, and anarchy in our society. And worst of all, the apparent extinction of pepper.

— Joe Kack

For the Birds

Pedro Cavuto and I went to the I-Cubs game Tuesday night. The Famous Chicken, formerly known as The San Diego Chicken, entertained the crowd between innings.

I was reminded of a McLaughlin Group episode from a few years back. The topic was the Georgia gubernatorial election, but somehow an argument broke out over who was history’s most influential bird.

Pat Buchanan said Senator Robert Byrd should be number one on the list. Eleanor Clift surprised me by nominating Larry Bird, the former NBA star. Mort Kondracke touted Luther Heggs, Mr. Chicken from the movie The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Fred Barnes got all riled up about that, saying Luther wasn’t actually a bird, but a cowardly character with a fowl nickname. He voted for Tennessee Tuxedo. Pat Buchanan said, well, if we’re going to allow cartoon characters I’m changing my vote from Senator Byrd to Beaky Buzzard.

As usual, McLaughlin put an emphatic end to the debate. “Wrong!” he bellowed. “The correct answer is Big Bird from Sesame Street.” This set off more yelling as they tried to decide just what kind of bird Big Bird is.

Now that I think about it (and after reading my first draft), that show wasn’t all that funny. But it provides a nice segue to a follow-up on a prior story. Remember the guy who ran the 5K in a chicken suit? Well, for those of you who think I make this stuff up, here you go …

— Joe Kack

Chicken Man near finish of Midnight Madness 5K

Superheroes

On Saturday I went with my mom and stepdad to visit a couple of superheroes. When we arrived, Superman and Wonder Woman were dealing with everyday problems, like the ones I face. Except I’d have to take mine and multiply them by a billion. On second thought, that still wouldn’t come close.

It’s been 381 days since Superman’s accident. I’ve shared parts of just a few of those days with the superheroes, so I don’t know all the facts. But I know enough to say that only a handful of those 381 days has been anything close to normal or stress-free.

Superman’s body is trying to desert him, but he and Wonder Woman won’t let it. His mind is as a sharp as ever (that’s razor sharp, for those who don’t know him). I guess when you’re up against something like this, that’s both a blessing and a curse.

Superman faces the same fight that a more famous Superman faced a few years ago. Kryptonite is a mighty tough opponent, especially when it starts mutating into different forms. Then when the antidote turns against you … well, that’s just not fighting fair.

But Superman and Wonder Woman are both tough as nails, and they fight on, along with an all-star supporting cast. They reminisce about the past, savor good days, and look forward to more good days.

Our thoughts and prayers are with you Superman and Wonder Woman.

— Joe Kack

Superman, a few years ago

100

When my grandma was in her early nineties, I promised her I’d book the Lawrence Welk Singers for her 100th birthday party. That would have been tomorrow, but she came up 4 ½ years short of the century mark. So in lieu of the party, here are a few glimpses into the past as a tribute to Grandma:

Counting Cars
One of my favorite memories is sitting on Grandma’s front porch swing, playing the car counting game. We each got to choose a color and we’d earn a point for every vehicle of that color that went past. Grandma let me choose first, and I picked some cool color, usually red or blue. After pretending to think real hard, my grandma would say, “I believe I’ll take white.” I wondered why she chose such a boring color. But her white always won. Always. I suppose she perfected her strategy playing the game with four grandkids before me.

Sleep
When my parents went out of town I stayed at Grandma’s. Following some TV and sugared popcorn I’d start to get tired but was determined to stay awake for more TV and sugared popcorn. Grandma would suggest, “Why don’t you lie down on the couch? You don’t have to go to sleep.” That always sounded like a good idea, so I’d lie down, not realizing it was a trick. The next thing I knew, Mom and Dad were waking me up.

Ukulele
My grandma used to strum the ukulele and sing. Her two favorites were Skinnamarink-a-Dinky-Dink and Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I inherited my singing talent from my grandma, which is to say I can’t sing worth crap. Sorry, Grandma, but it’s the truth.

Grandma

Hawkeyes
Grandma loved Iowa Hawkeyes basketball. Too bad ESPN didn’t discover her because she would have been a great analyst. Whenever I asked her if the Hawks were going to win the next game, she’d answer, “It’s according to how they play.” And by golly, she was always right.

Her post-game analysis was just as insightful. Every time Iowa lost it was the same thing: “They had this tall fella who kept making baskets.” It was always the tall fella that did them in.

Jokes
When I was a kid, Grandma would ask me, “Are you any relation to Heck Ross, that man who runs the clothing store up in Des Moines?” I’d shrug and say I didn’t think so. “Well, you sure look like Heck.”

Another joke she told me one time: A man was bragging about how much land he owned. He said, “I can get in my car in the morning and drive all day and never reach my property line.” The other fellow says, “I used to have a car like that.”

Slow Driver
Grandma told me about the time she was going to a church dinner, and set a glass casserole dish on the back of her car. She intended to move it inside the car, but forgot about it. When she got to the church, several blocks away, she got out of the car and discovered the dish right where she left it.

Good Driver?
When Grandma was around 90, Mom took her to renew her driver’s license. (Why, I don’t know.) Anyway, because of her age, she was required to drive with a police officer. Grandma told us later that when she stopped at a stop sign she checked traffic to her left, then asked the cop, “Anything coming that way?” Yes, she got her license. (How, I don’t know.)

Pack Rat
Grandma didn’t like to throw anything away. One time when she was about 85, she wanted to go down in her basement to clean some things up. She could barely walk, and she probably hadn’t been down there in three years, but I agreed to help her. It took probably a half hour (no exaggeration) for her to get down the dozen or so steps.

We started sorting through things, and I checked with her before I put anything in the throw-away pile. (Can you call it a pile if there’s only one thing in it?) Eventually I came across a gnarly old stick that looked like a toilet plunger handle, circa 1950. Deciding this couldn’t possibly have any value, I made an executive decision and tossed it into the junk heap. A few minutes later, Grandma spotted it.

“Don’t throw that away,” she said. “I use it when I wash rugs, to pull them out of the washer.” I looked at the broken down, old-fashioned washing machine, then back at my Grandma who at that point could barely lift the stick, let alone a water-soaked rug. Then I dutifully salvaged her rug-lifting stick.

Yard Work
I used to mow my grandma’s lawn. Even into her 80s, when she had trouble walking because of arthritis, she always wanted to help. She’d sit in her green metal chair in the back yard and watch me. At some point when I pushed the mower past, I’d see her mouth moving, so I’d stop to see what she wanted. “I’ll mow around once so you can rest,” she would say. I always objected, then she insisted, so I relinquished the mower. I can still see her, wearing her blue thin-soled Grandma-sneakers, pushing the mower ahead a few feet, then sliding her left foot forward, then her right.

I don’t think she was too concerned about me being tired. I think she just wanted to prove to herself that she could still do things at her age. She was pretty determined (or stubborn, depending on your perspective). Anyway, I was always relieved when she completed her lap. I could just imagine trying to explain to the paramedics why my 80-something grandma was mowing her yard while I watched from the shade.

Y2K
My grandpa died in 1964. They asked Grandma if she wanted them to engrave the first two digits of her year of death on the gravestone. Figuring she would never live 36 more years, she said go ahead. So it was engraved 1909-19__

Well, the year 2000 rolled around and my grandma was still, well, rolling around. The monument company said they’d fix the headstone for free and there was a write-up in the paper about it, saying how my grandma was a local Y2K problem. I think she enjoyed the media attention and the fact that she’d fooled everyone by living that long.

No Hurry, No Worry
Lots of great memories from Grandma’s house. The clock always ticked a little slower there. I’d give anything to spend one more afternoon on the porch swing with her.

Happy Birthday Grandma!
— Love, Joe “Petey” Kack

Lawrence Welk, et al.

The Adventures of Myron J. Noodlestein (Chapter 6)

[In Chapter 5, Myron and his friend Doug had just completed a letter to the woman of Myron’s dreams.]

Halfway through the letter, the two lady killers had discovered a problem. They didn’t know the intended recipient’s address, and they couldn’t look it up because they didn’t know her name, either. But Doug came to the rescue.

“I’ve got it,” he stated coolly. “We’ll buy a newspaper ad. Everyone reads the paper.”

Crisis averted, their unencumbered brains completed the poetic masterpiece.

The next evening after work Myron rushed to the newsstand to purchase a copy of the Stenchville Gazette. Hands trembling, he turned through the pages. And there it was, covering all of page eight, the letter to his dream girl.

“Now I just sit back and wait for her call,” said Myron. He grinned a toothy grin. Which brings another story to mind.

Myron J. Noodlestein was born with a rare condition called Baby Elway Syndrome (Type One). He exited the womb with a full set of teeth, and they were his permanent teeth, or so the doctors thought at the time.

The very next day the Noodlesteins took their new bundle of joy to the family dentist, who had the unfortunate name of Mengele. Dr. Mengele told Myron’s parents that they were actually pretty lucky. While Myron’s face was regular size, his mouth was adult caliber and therefore could accommodate his jumbo choppers. The doctor assured them that when Little Myron’s skull grew to maturity, he would look only moderately gruesome.

As luck would have it, Myron didn’t have Type One Baby Elway Syndrome. He had Type Two. The misdiagnosis became apparent on Myron’s first birthday when all of his giant teeth fell out. Underneath were his baby teeth, which in Type Two patients are the permanent teeth. The large mouth that had seemed like such a Type One blessing was suddenly a Type Two curse. Whenever Little Myron smiled, onlookers were confronted with a plethora of pink and a mere picket fence of ivory.

“What to do?” everyone wondered. Mr. Noodlestein favored plucking all the teeth out and utilizing wooden dentures. (Being in the toothpick business, he had a natural bias in that direction.) “If wooden teeth were good enough for the father of our country, they’re good enough for the Noodlesteins,” he proclaimed.

Not convinced, Mrs. Noodlestein did some research and found that George Washington didn’t really have wooden teeth. His dentures were made out of two materials: gold and hippopotamus ivory. Obtaining the latter was no problem since Mr. Noodlestein’s brother-in-law Brubaker DeLeon owned a hippopotamus farm. But gold, even at the relatively modest price of $35 an ounce, wasn’t in a toothpick worker’s budget. (This was before Mr. Noodlestein was promoted to Quality Control Specialist.)

Dr. Mengele recommended the next best thing, an experimental procedure that transplanted Himalayan yak teeth into humans. Fortunately for Myron (but disappointing to the narrator, because after all, what’s funnier than an infant with transplanted yak teeth?), they settled on recycled piano keys, trimmed down to size. They were fitted over the little baby teeth and just like that Myron J. Noodlestein had a winning smile.

And somewhere in the Himalayas, a yak breathed a sigh of relief.

♦♦♦

— kristofeR anthony

Bibles, Escalators, and Voices from Above

[Please note that we've moved to www.iowaYak.com. Thank you to Rick at nicesitedesign for the new banner artwork.]

A few snippets from my weekend in St. Louis with Randy, Patty, and Papa Kack:

Gideons Still Perfect
We stayed in two hotels and once again the Gideons had managed to place a Bible in both. But now they have competition. One of the hotels also provided The Book of Mormon.

Elevators
Have you ever witnessed this all too common scene? A man is waiting for the hotel elevator to return to the ground floor. The bell rings, the light comes on, the door opens. The guy tries to step onto the elevator and bumps into the people getting off. He appears shocked that someone is exiting this contraption. Yes buddy, it goes up and down.

Escalators
Isn’t the term “down escalator” an oxymoron? Or am I the moron? This reminds me of a line from the Gilligan’s Island theme song: “It’s an uphill climb.” What other kind of climb is there?

Not Quite Three Hours, But at Least We Didn’t Get Shipwrecked on an Uncharted Desert Isle
During our tour of Busch Stadium I borrowed some gravel from the warning track right in front of the Cardinals dugout. It’s destined for my sports museum. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The sample also included a sunflower seed fragment that might have been spat by future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols!

Voice From the Sky
As we walked to the game, there was some nut standing up on a platform bellowing down at passersby. I’ve seen these characters before, but this guy was the loudest one ever. He informed us over and over again that we’re all goners. The statistic he quoted was that ten out of ten people will eventually die. I didn’t have any way to verify his figure, but it seemed a little high to me. Anyway, thanks for the cheery message, fella.

Beer
Speaking of things seeming kind of high, a bottle of Busch Stadium beer costs $7.75.

I’d Have to be in a Lot of Pain
We passed an interesting billboard on I-70 in rural Missouri: “Got Pain? See Dr. Joe D.C. Next Exit.” Does somebody actually drive down the interstate, see that sign and think, “Ya know, I have been having chest pains, I think I’ll pull off here and see what Dr. Joe can do for me”? I know billboards work for things like burgers and wax museums, but what kind of person impulse shops for medical care? I guess it’s the guy who just drank twelve $7.75 beers.

— Joe Kack

Warning Track Sample

Weenie Roast

Randy Kack is probably reading this right now and thinking, “Wow, Joe must want to add to the good things he said about me in Friday’s post.” Note to brother: your birthday is over.

One of Randy’s nicknames is M.D. That stands for Marketer’s Dream. He is very susceptible to schemes and scams, ruses and rip-offs.

A while back my brother was all excited about his new springy running shoes. He was telling me how great these things were and how he could now run like the wind and I should buy some and blah blah blah blah. Then a week later I call him and suddenly he doesn’t want to talk about his new springy running shoes. They’ve apparently been relegated to the closet with all the rest of the crap he’s fallen for over the years. (It’s a big closet and it’s crowded.)

Springy Running Shoes

And this has been going on a while. When he was in college and I was about twelve, he took me with him to search for a new fast-pitch softball bat. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why he needed a new bat, because his old one was in near mint condition, having only made contact with the ball a handful of times. But that’s another story.

The salesman explained the virtues of the latest in softball technology. It was called the Hot Dog bat. It was made out of wood, so it weighed a ton, and it was painted red so it looked like a wiener. The salesman showed Randy how the bat was tapered: skinny in the middle and fatter on both ends of the hitting surface. He claimed this would take balls that were destined for foul territory and redirect them back onto the field of play.

I was amused by this lame attempt to sell the bat, and I turned to my big brother to see how successfully he was managing to keep a straight face. To my amazement, he was being reeled in! If this were a cartoon, there’d be a big fish hook stuck in his gullible cheek. I stood there thinking, here I am a kid and even I know this is bogus. But Randy Kack, M.D. walked out of the store with that over-priced hitting stick. I imagine the salesman was thinking, “Hot dog! I finally sold that stupid bat.”

I would like to report that Randy’s batting average climbed from microscopic to mediocre, but that new bat didn’t help him one bit. It was still fun watching him play softball, knowing the implement he was striking out with was not just an ordinary bat, but a genuine Hot Dog.

Sadly, I don’t know what ever happened to that wiener-like war club. It’s number two on my list of things I’d like to add to my sports hall of fame (Underdog is number one). I did an Internet search but didn’t find a single Hot Dog bat on the whole world wide web. I’m convinced my brother was the only sucker who bought one.

[Thank you favorite sister-in-law Patty Kack for sending the springy shoe photos. And once again, sorry you got mixed up with my brother.]

— Joe Kack

R.K., M.D.