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I must have been about 5 or 6 years old. I asked my dad what made my ceiling fan turn, and just what he meant when he spoke of electricity. He went on to explain that the fan was powered by little green men on little green bicycles, and this was the power that ran the fan on a pulley system.
His plan worked.
I spent the next several years forgoing simplicities that I had never even considered before. I turned off the fan before going to bed (if I was going to rest, it was only fair to allow the little green men to rest), I turned off lights any time I left a room (so that the light bulb sergeant at arms could take a break), and I ate cold food (so that the little green aliens that powered the microwave wouldn't have to make special trips to my home to heat my broccoli).
However, the one thing I would not give up was radio. If I could only stay up all night long by listening to the radio, then I wouldn't die in my sleep if the house caught on fire.
This idea was abandoned when my brother burned our house down in late afternoon on a Thursday.
Since it happened once, it didn't seem likely to happen again any time in the near future. I got over the fear and got over trying to stay awake at night listening to the radio.
Yet, this did not keep me from listening to the radio during daylight hours. I still did feel guilty about it, since I knew that the artist was forced to go into the recording studio to belt out my favorite song just to let me hear it on the radio. I later forced myself to leash in my selfish listening demands and cut down on my radio hours. Musicians had better things to do with their lives than to just spend the day waiting for me to turn on the radio to hear their voices.
I think I knew more when I was a kid as I do now as an adult. At least, I had better ideas then.
I can only tie two types of knot on fishing line. Yet, somehow, I still became certified as a Master Angler by Texas Parks & Wildlife. It was at that training that I met Scott #2, quite possibly the craziest human that has ever come into my life. Good crazy. He'd wake me up in the middle of the night with his unusually large, excited eyes, saying things like, "Hey, get up! We're going climbing at Reimers Ranch in our underwear. I just finished packing. It doesn't open for a few hours, so we'll stop at the 24 hour Mexican place to have jalapenos and shots of tequila for breakfast." I also recall that he would order a bowl of cut lemons after every meal, then suck on each as if they were some magical little batteries that kept his mind blazing and eyes oddly, widely open for days on end. "Scott, you know that acid is harsh on your tooth enamel." "I know, but they're so good. Want one?"
Damn, I miss that guy.
So, once I started volunteering with TPWD as an angler educator, I chose to lead the topics of ethics and habitat for fishing day clinics. Some kids would produce chaotically colored and complicated underwater worlds for the rather simple channel catfish, while others would include in their drawings domestic staples such as a cozy twin bed in a quaint room with curtains and a desk complete with a charming little lamp (which somehow did not require any sort of electricity for its illumination) for their marine creatures.
It was during the ethics sessions that I came to realize the peace and innocence we as adults all too easily forfeit in order to gain convenience and selfish gratification. These kids lived in worlds painted with hope and laughter. The few precious moments I got to go behind their eyes and see life's glowing fireflies and croaking little green frogs on water lilies was refreshing, effortlessly captivating.
So, when I went to the salon yesterday, I was struck with fear and guilt that I may have done something to disrupt this enchanting world where frogs croak. Ruckus the beta had died.
As I found myself once again being placed below the alien mind reader that my stylist Amy calls a dryer, I looked next to my cushioned vessel at the small table with stacks of hair magazines, and it seemed to cry aloud for something with more vitality to hold than glued slick pages stained with strange coloring chemicals that held hairstyles seen nowhere but a fashion show. Terrified, I looked up at Amy, "Where is Rufus?" Amy corrected me, "Ruckus. He died." It was me. I did this. "Amy, how did it happen? That is awful news." Amy looked at me with what I imagined curiousity to my questioning of a beta that I had somehow channeled the alien mind reader powers to kill. "I don't know. It was a few months ago." Which neatly placed me in the time frame of the crime scene. I wanted to ask if they kept his fishbowl, if they'd had a funeral for him or if his tormented little body was let go in the Mississippi River (or maybe the Missouri River, since Amy lives in Illinois), or if they planned to get another fish so that the table wouldn't have to go through life with nothing greater to look forward to than more collections of pages of eccentric hairstyles. But I didn't ask.
My certification to teach maritime recreation activities should be revoked.
