You’re
STILL Wrong
or
Mykel's
Mykel's
November
2019 Blog/Column
Life
With Nothing But A Groundhog
by
Mykel Board
Pennsylvania
is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.
--James
Carville
I
sit at the Midway, a rundown bar in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. On one
side of the sign outside it says: OPEN E ERY DAY, on the other side
is WED. NITE WINGS. They haven’t had food of any kind for over a
year.
Yeungling
on tap is usually $1.75 a pint. Today it’s $2.25.
“What’s
up with that?” I ask Marcy, the bartendress. [NOTE: I’ve been
here a couple of weeks now, and have yet to see a MALE bartender…
at any bar.]
“It’s
an Octoberfest beer, Mykel,” she says, “costs
more.”
$2.25
a beer is EXPENSIVE around here. [NOTE TO READERS WHO DO NOT LIVE IN
MASSIVE GENTRIFIED CITIES: average cost of a beer in a Manhattan bar?
$8]
I
sit next to my pal Vincent. He has a doctorate in economics… used
to teach business before the local college decided to become
exclusively a culinary school.
Behind
the bar, there are two huge TV screens. Bigger than you’d see at
any sports bar in New York. On one screen is a hunting show. The
bearded millennial compares rifles and crossbows… showing this and
that dead deer… picking them up by the antlers and making their
dead heads look right, then left.
Before
we get to the meat of my bar visit, let’s zoom out… helicopter
view…
Punxsutawney
PA...
famous
one day a year, it sinks into depression for the other 364
days. The
entire spirit of the town
is
the groundhog. There are groundhog statues everywhere… in all
sizes. There’s groundhog beer, groundhog pizza, and the Weather
Museum. The city motto is Weather
Capital of The World.
Maybe,
but
surely
for only
one day a year.
I’m
here learning about small town America. What it’s like… what the
people are like… how they think… how they live.
I
thought I knew. I thought I grew up in a small town. Hicksville...
yeah, that’s really the name of my hometown... has a population of
36,000. One Catholic high school, and one high school for normal
people. It’s changed since I lived there… but when I did it was
all white. For foreign food, we had Frank’s Alibi (Italian)
and Long’s Chinese (later
closed down for serving cat meat).
It
took 45 minutes to take the train into THE CITY and another 45
minutes to take it back. My father did it every day… I did it on
weekends. Some of my friends had cars and girlfriends and rarely left
the county. We had a house with three bedrooms, an attic, and a
basement.
I
used to tell people I grew up in a small town on Long Island. A month
in Punxsutawny has taught me there is a difference between a small
town on Long Island and A SMALL TOWN IN AMERICA.
Take
Jews. (I won’t say it.) In
Hicksville,
about ten percent of the population was Jewish. There was one
synagogue in town… and half a dozen within
ten miles. Hicksville High had the track system. Smart kids in Track
One. Normal kids in Track Two. Dumb kids in Track Three. Most of the
Jews were in Track One. The Poles and Italians in Track Two. The
Irish in Track Three.
Up
until Punxy, Hicksville was the SMALL
TOWN I grew up in. Now I know
I didn’t know jack shit about what that
is. Hicksville is not
a small town. It’s a suburb.
A NEW YORK CITY suburb. It’s about as small town as East and West
Egg… though much less opulent.
In
Punxsutawney in 2019, there is one Jewish family. The nearest
synagogue is 20 miles away… and on Yom Kippur there are fewer than 20 people in attendance.
“Punxsutawney
is all bars and churches,” my landlady tells me.
I
haven’t
visited
any churches, although some are
beautiful… but the bars…
that’s where I go to find out about the locals in any non-Muslim
location. And believe me, Punxsutawney Pennsylvania
is as
non-Muslim
as The Vatican.
What
else can I tell you?
Well,
people
here are fat. I don’t mean overweight. I don’t mean obese
by government standards. I mean HUUUUGE… MONSTER-SIZE… Three
airplane seats width… asses from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia…
especially the women. There
are almost as many motorized wheelchairs as there are cars. It’s
hard to know if people need them because
A.
They’re
too fat for their legs to support.
or
B.
They’re so fat because they
use the wheelchairs and never walk.
It
doesn’t matter. People here are also kind… amazingly kind. My landlady drives me from one end of town to the other… and to several towns nearby... so I can explore the nooks and crannies of the local culture. Her husband walks with me through the back roads that lead to the train tracks that lead to trails that lead to grown over coke ovens… reclaimed by the woods after decades of non-use… overgrown remnants of richer coal-mining days.
Guys
at the bars buy me a drink just to start a conversation. A woman at
the historical society drives me to the nearest T-mobile facility…
at least 90 miles away… so I can replace my recently deceased
cellphone. Why did she drive me? BECAUSE SHE’S NICE… and people
here are nice.
They
smile and say hi to strangers on the street. Waitresses ask how I am.
At the local beer, blues, and BBQ fest, a matronly woman warns me
against the sour beer making a sour face. A writers’ group at the
library asks me to join them for their monthly meeting. (Note: The
quality of the writing among the group members is spectacular.)
FLASH
BACK TO THE MIDWAY:
“Mykel,”
says Vincent, “I got my bank statement in the mail yesterday. I
have ten dollars in the bank. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I’ll
buy you a beer,” I tell him.
“That’s
not it,” he says. “Marcy knows me… I have credit here...”
“One
of the things you need,” I answer, “credit at the bar and a
friend in the police force.”
“There
are maybe half a dozen cops in Punxsutawney,” he says,. “They
pick up drunks. Who needs ‘em as friends? I need a job.”
“You’re
a PhD!” I say. “You can’t find a job? Why don’t you tutor?”
“The
school here is a small school,” he answers. “The department heads
don’t like me. And there’s nowhere else to go.”
The
door to the bar opens and a man in his mid-forties comes in. Ruffled
blond hair, an unintentional beard, dirty t-shirt, jeans and work
boots. People say “Hi Ernest,” as he passes them to sit at the
bar.
“Hi
Ernest,” I say as he passes me.
He
looks at me… squints… “Do I know you?”
“I’m
in town for a month… doing some research… I’m going to be
writing about the town… or at least using the town as a setting for
something I’m writing.”
“Oh,”
he says, shaking my hand. “You’re that guy.”
I
smile.
“You
have an unfair advantage,” I say. “Tell me about yourself.
He
sits down on a barstool on the other side of me from Vincent. Marcy
brings him a Bud Lite.
“I
used to work in the coal mines,” he says. “I had an accident…
cracked my spine… was in the hospital for a month… then almost a
year in a wheelchair. After I got through with physical therapy, I
got a new job.”
“What
do you do now?” I ask.
“I’m
a roofer,” he answers.
“You
like danger, huh?”
He
laughs.
“I
like working with my hands… being outside now… looking up at the
beautiful blue sky… ”
“I
know,” I tell him, “I LOVE the blue sky here. Any direction, as
long as it’s up… blue… blue… blue. In New York, we’re lucky
if we get ten minutes of blue sky a week.”
He
shakes his head.
“I
just like standing on the roof, looking up… the sun, the sky,
nothing between me and them.”
“I
get it,” I say, “and I love it. New Yorkers would never notice a
blue sky. They all walk with their heads down, nose to their iPhones…
blocking anyone who really has a place to go… If, by some miracle
of awareness, they realized the sky was blue, they wouldn’t look at
it. They’d just hold their iPhones up to take a picture.”
He
laughs again.
“Watcha
been doing in town?” he asks me.
“Taking
in the sights,” I tell him. “I walked along the back trails and
saw the coke ovens… or what’s left of them”
“Obama
did that,” says Ernest. “He just shut ‘em all down.”
“That’s
not fair,” answers Vincent. “That started a long time before
Obama… he was just the latest in the move.”
“Let
me tell you, Mykel,” says Ernest. “Before Trump I didn’t have a
job. After Trump I do have a job. That’s what you’ve got to know.
We all thank him for that.”
Yes,
this is Trump country. And it’s white… Fox TV-watching…
gun-owning America. And the people here are great. Here, like in bars
everywhere, they gossip and talk politics. And boy, do I have a fuck
of a lot to learn from them.
BANG!
Can
you tell me what the fuck a constitutional
crisis
means if you have ten dollars in the bank? Can you explain what
collusion
is if the coal mines… where you and your father and his father
worked for years… have gone out of business?
Can
you clarify obstruction
of justice when
the stores on Mahoning St. (the main drag) are empty, and jobs
(low-paying,
long hours) have
started to come back to the city just after the last presidential
election?
It
should be a requirement… every city slicker should be forced to sit
down with the locals in a small town in Pennsylvania… or Wisconsin…
or Indiana. And they should be forced to SHUT UP AND LISTEN!
The
locals are not interested in conspiracy theories... on how some
Russian Putin agent is hiding under every bed… remote controlling
every voting machine… beaming secret signals directly into a
receiver embedded in Donald Trump’s hair. They don’t care if
Trump paid off a whore… or if his skin looks orange under LED
lights. They have closer --more important-- things to worry about.
Back
in New York:
Ah,
looks like we’re finally going to get rid of that orange guy…
impeach… he’s trampling on the Constitution… of course he does…
Putin told him to… all roads lead to Putin.
I
sigh and shake my head. “You’ll never get it,” I don’t say.
ENDNOTES:
[You can contact me on facebook
or by email at god@mykelboard.com.
Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music
or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137,
New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified
when anything new is available. Back blogs and columns are at
https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com.
Subscribe to the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo group
readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]
-→A
shit solution is a good solution dept: Springfield, Missouri
authorities have come up with an effective shame campaign to reduce
dogshit in the downtown area. Turd piles are being tagged with
recycled paper flags saying Is this your turd? 'Cuz that's absurd,
and This is a nudge to pick up the fudge. The city says it
spends $7,500 a year to pick up 25 pounds of shit per week from
downtown parks and parking lots. My question: who weighs that shit?
-->Open
your wallet for
God dept:
CBS
news reports
that if
you have enough bucks,
you can buy a pair of Nike
Air Max 97s Jesus Shoes
from a Brooklyn company called MSCHF. Introduced Oct. 8, the shoes
have 60ccs of holy water from the Jordan River injected into the
soles so you can literally walk on water.” The
shoes also have
a crucifix in the laces, red insoles related
to “Vatican
traditions,” and a Matthew 14:25 inscription. They are also scented
with frankincense and are
a god-like
white and light blue color. The
Jesus Shoes originally
sold for $1,425, but are now fetching anywhere from $2,000 to upwards
of $11,000. No
need to buy me a pair. I’m waiting for the Satan
Shoes with
blood from a virgin in the soles.
LINK
TRADE DEPARTMENT:
I
read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice
to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook
me or email
me
if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add
you. You add me.
Here's
a start:
- David Goldberg's Busy Microbes Blog
- And another Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com
- Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency
- And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.
-
-
- Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.
- Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.
- George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.
- Carol Bergman has a blog about writing that features one of my favorite people: Me.
Let
me know if you have a blog… or a PRINT zine and want to be added to
the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine.
god@mykelboard.com
