Riding In The Car With Dad: Episode 4: Which Hazel?

2018.MAR.05 - Monday

Wednesday has been our usual town day - primarily based upon the fact that my social security check is deposited on the second one in the month.

We recently decided that if we could shop every ten days, instead of once a week, that would save us a whole day every month, plus $20 in gas. We haven't quite got the system perfected, since we don't like going to Ely on weekends - which include Fridays.

Sunday is Dad's and my day off from each other. Since there is no mail delivery, there's generally no necessity for contact, unless some unexpected need arises. I have a phone, now - which is really nice.

At one point, we tried using 2-way radios as a sort of intercom system, but that didn't last long, once we realized they only work if BOTH parties have their units ON - and if both parties are within earshot of the radio.

On the other six days of the week, we check in with one another - usually when he comes 'downtown' to get his mail but some Sundays we don't talk at all.

Last week, we agreed that Monday was the day for our next shopping junket, but since we hadn't discussed it yesterday, I thought I'd better give the old man a jingle ahead of time, in case he had forgotten, or plans had changed. I called about 7 am.

The phone rang and rang .... and rang and rang .... finally, he picks up. "Hello?"

"Hello! Can you hear me now?"

I hear muffled breathing and then it sounded like he dropped the phone. "Hello? Dad?". Silence. Dial tone.

I press redial. Nothing happens. Press redial again. Nothing.
Press send on the handset. Dialing ... ringing ... my neighbor says, "Hello?"
(Now, what would that guy be doing over at Dad's this early in the morning? Oh. He's not. Auto-dial buzzed him.)

Dial Dad again - the old fashioned way: one digit at a time. Ring .......... ring ....... ring ....... six times it rang. Finally, "Hello?"

"Hello! Can you hear me now?"

"What?"

"Hello! Can you you hear me?"

"Oh. Yeah!"

"Did you still want to go to town today?"

"I don't really need to, but yeah. Today would be fine."

"OK. I'll be up later. Usual time" (9:00)

"OK. I was just getting in the shower when the phone rang. Then I waited and nothing happened, so I went to get in the shower again, and I was just getting in when it rang again ... "

"Oh. Sorry. Well, I'll be up around the usual time."
"I'll be ready - If I can ever get my shower, now."

He's Johnny-on-the-spot, almost ready to go when I arrive about a quarter to nine. Weekend storms have passed and the world has gone into thaw mode.

As soon as we hit pavement, Dad tells me, "I tried calling Nate but they said he isn't there anymore. Maybe he went back over with the Indians.

"Who's Nate?" then it clicks: "Oh. That guy at Gold Hill?"

"Yeah. He was a really good worker. He just had to have somebody there to tell him what to do all the time."

"He had brain damage, huh?"

"Yeah. He was driving home late one night and he missed the turn and he laid out there in the snow all night ..... He'd say, 'I used to be smart, but not anymore.' Dad continues: "But he was a really good worker. And he learned to operate the cat pretty well, and he learned to weld OK. -- PAUSE-- "He wasn't a very GOOD welder, but he could weld."

Then he asks, "Did you know Rhonda that worked over there? ("There" being Gold Hill, Utah, and the last mine he worked at, as a consultant.) She was from Gandy, I think. She and her sister both worked there." (At the mine at Gold Hill)

"I think she was from Callaeio." I didn't know Rhonda well, but had been acquainted with her as a customer, when I worked at the Border Inn, in Baker. (I think she might have been my replacement when I quit that job, October 2002.

What I remember most about Rhonda besides her amazingly beautiful long hair, is that when the Border hosted a drag queen show, Rhonda's husband had been very angry about it, and after getting pretty well inebriated, started threatening to harm some of the performers. I was bartending that night, and I was trying to calm the guy down before things got ugly. He bellowed at me to shut up, "You're not from here!"
Rhonda took him by the arm and told him, "Honey, she is from Cherry Creek." I don't know precisely why, but that made a difference, and she was able to whisper something else in his ear and steered him quietly out the door).

Another friend that had been watching the interaction quipped, "I'd like to know what she said to him. It must have been really gooood ... "

"Do you know her last name?"

"Hm. No. I don't remember it."

We're at the junction where CR21 meets I-93. "Have you seen those commercials for a little tool that cuts thin metal?" he wonders.

"Oh, yeah! I have been looking at those. In fact I was going to order one when my check came in, but when I went back to buy it, the price had gone up to almost double."

He thinks my brother and his wife would have a lot of uses for that. I agree, saying that maybe I'll wait to order one, and see what review they might give the product. Double Head Sheet Nibbler Metal Cutter

The sky is an absolutely blank expanse of bright powder blue, only faintly marred by a couple of jet trails above the High Schells to the southeast. The mountains are so stark against that solid background, they look like painted scenery from a high school play. Slowly melting snow lies in smooth clumps that weigh heavily on the tall sagebrush, giving the high desert landscape the appearance of cauliflower in cream sauce, for as far as the eye can see.

"This would be a good day for calling coyotes." he observes.

Shooting coyotes is NOT my idea of good, clean fun. I bite my cheek.

"In that Jew book, the kids in Poland would go hunting for Jews, and when they caught one, they would get a reward."

I see the parallel: Bounty on coyotes - bounty on Jews.

"I don't know why the Ukrainians took that over." He pauses "Oh yeah. The Ukrainians took it over after the Russians left. That country was always occupied by somebody else." He lists the countries that have occupied Poland, since ancient Roman times ....

Conversation lags, as I have nothing germane to add. As we're coming up to "reduced speed" on the north end of McGill, I turn on the radio. Good tunes, but again, I turn it down to a volume level that only I can hear.

First stop in Ely: His bank, to cash his quarterly dividend check. The teller knows him well enough to not require ID, and sweetly offers to insert his cash in the specified denominations, into an envelope.

Dad is not very enthused about Washington Federal, but not dissatisfied enough to switch to another bank. Whenever we pass by he comments about how few cars there are in the parking lot. I remind him that many people do their banking online, these days. (As he does.)

At Ridley's, Dad makes a beeline for the medications department.

"What're we lookin' for?"

"Witch hazel."

"You have used that up, already?" (we bought some last week). "It must work pretty well, then," I comment as I reach for the last bottle on the bottom shelf of the long display rack.

"That's not the kind I got last time."

"I know, but it's the only kind there is, now."

"No. The one I got before is in a fancy bottle."

"Fancy?" I don't remember it being fancy; it was a different style of bottle, not this square medicinal-looking one. "Well, this is the only witch hazel they have right now."

"Well, that isn't the same one I got before." He strolls down the aisle squinting at shampoos and lotions ... "Maybe it was with the make-up or something."

"No. It was here." I show him the empty space where once had been a few bottles of witch hazel in a container different from the one I placed in his cart.

"No. It was a tall bottle with a big long neck." I'm envisioning a vase-shaped vessel with long slender neck. There had been nothing like that here last week, and there definitely is not, now.

He finally defers to my insistence that there is only one witch hazel option available, but I know that he is definitely NOT satisfied with the situation.

In the midst of our witch hazel discussion, an acquaintance of mine approaches looking amused, "You don't recognize me, do you?"

I recognize her as somebody very familiar, narrowing it down to one of two possibilities. "Oh! Yeah! Hi!"

"I'm Emily."

Of course! "How are you?" I'm trying to focus on my friend, while also watching Dad browse around, oblivious to the notion that I am engaged with another person, too.

Emily informs me that the store's manager has been replaced by the manager who replaced him, when Ridley's acquired the store from the previous owners. The new/old guy's name is Ramos. I couldn't tell whether she thought this would be an improvement, or not.

"Is this a good thing? Well, how much worse could he be?" (Ridley's is most unpopular with the locals, but since there is no competition, we endure the agony.) We both chuckle in that instant of recognition that we share the same opinion about something in the MUCH bigger picture. A fellow liberal in deep red Republican territory is always a welcome encounter!

It's awkward. I would like to spend more time kibitzing, but I can't tell if she feels the same, or is anxious to break contact ... meanwhile, Dad is wandering around the aisle picking up items that (I surmise) might resemble the profile of the brand of witch hazel he is still determined to find.... if for no other reason than to say, "See? THIS is the one I was telling you about. NOT the one YOU were trying to palm off on me." But in the end, I sort of won out by moving with determination and purpose, down toward the meat case and around the end of the rack, into the detergent and floor cleaner aisle.

This is where our routine went haywire, as instead of following our usual pattern and starting in the produce section (with detour to the restroom), we ventured next into the soap department, which apparently threw our whole strategy into disarray.

The only saving grace was that Dad had a list this time, so at least we were able to get most of the items on it. (MY list - which doesn't vary much - is a different story, and a few items didn't make it into my cart.)

I learned later that the kind of chocolate pudding I picked up for Dad was not the right type. Plus, "it cost $1.45, and that is a ridiculous price to pay for a little package of pudding mix".)

At the bottom of his list: AAA battries, Land Fill.

I am amazed by the amount of batteries he goes through. I suspect that he buys them and puts them away somewhere, then can't find them so he buys more. Somewhere in Dad's house is probably a great stockpile of AAA batteries.

Landfill? "Oh. Did you want to go and pay your landfill fee?"

"No. I don't!"

We both have a grudging resentment against the landfill bill, but mine is old: more than 20 years old, because the previous owner of my house was forced to pay that bill for DECADES, even though the house was vacant the whole time, and now I have been paying it ever since I bought the place -- even though we do not have disposal pickup service here. I pay mine a year in advance, just to spare myself the aggravation of seeing the bill in my mailbox.
Dad's resentment is fresh. His house is outside the village boundary, and that made him exempt -- until the first of this year, when the County began going after everyone; whether they utilize the service, or not.

"I forgot to bring the bill. I'll pay it next time."

That's alright with me. I have also decided not to stop by my bank and try to sort out the problem with my online log-in. I'll just give them a call next week. Maybe.

A quick stop at the Texaco: "Twenty-three dollars. $2.60"

Last order of business: Stop at Bath Lumber to pay Dad's charge account bill, use the facilities and on the way out I pick up a packet of sugar snap peas to plant.

I'm looking forward to gardening again, this year. Last year I didn't bother, as I had intended to do more traveling. (A certain four-legged creature with sharp teeth and a bad temper pretty much put the kibosh to that.)

Ordinarily, I buy a pound of screws if nothing else - whether I need them, or not. Usually, I find plenty of other things that I 'might need'. Today, we're just done, and ready to get down the road.... We sure save a lot of money when we don't spend any extra time dawdling around in that hardware store!

"Do you want to stop at Bradley's?"
"No. You?"

When we get back to Dad's house, I make it my mission to investigate the Witch Hazel situation. Sure enough, the "fancy bottle with long neck" (which strongly resembled baby oil packaging) was sitting on the stand by the door. This, in my perception does not rise to the description of "fancy".

Reading the label, I am assured that the contents and quantity are exactly the same as the squatty square container. No point mentioning that.

"Bye, Dad. I'm gonna grab a little firewood on the way out. See you tomorrow!"

"OK. Thanks for the ride."

"You're welcome."

I don't know how many more times Dad and I will be taking the long, long ride to Ely and back. I guess we'll just keep getting on down the road for as long as he will let me drive.