Eight Feet Deep

Perhaps it is all the talk about the government listening or tracking domestic phone calls, but my obsession today is songs that contain phone numbers.

The song “Jenny” by Tommy Tutone probably comes to mind for those of you out there who remember the 1980s (all six of you). If you are like me you can’t remember a phone number that you need to dial even though you looked at the number a nanosecond ago. But 867-5309? It’s stuck into my head like a toupee that’s been Super-glued.

Of course songs about phone calls or that include phone numbers have been around since Alexander Graham Bell said: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.” I still think it’s a rather unfortunate choice of words. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

The old Glenn Miller tune “Pennsylvania 6-5000” — way, way before my time — comes to mind. Then Wilson Picket probably implanted “634-5789” in people’s brains back in the ’60s just as Tutone did. As a matter of fact, I remembered the song even though I couldn’t remember the number or the title and still was able to find the song’s name:

“If you need a little lovin’
Call on me all right
If you want a little huggin’
Call on me baby, mmmmmm
Oh I’ll be right here at home

All you got to do is
Pick up your telephone
And dial 634-5789
(What’s my number)
634-5789.”

That’s right, baby. A little lovin,’ a little huggin.’ That’s all I need. Oh, and bring over a pizza and some beer, will ya?

Why no rickshaw? It is like the tongue twister “Rubber buggy baby bumper” coming to me a short while ago while out for a walk. I can’t explain it.

Actually, I just came across the sign while searching for something else. I got the picture, of all places, off the Web site of the South Africa Department of Transportation. It is one of their warning signs. I’ve never been to South Africa. But I never really thought of it as a place with rickshaws. At the very least, I’ve never thought of South Africa as a place with a need for “No Rickshaw” signs. It’s a rather quaint idea to me but it might make perfect sense to someone in South Africa.

I wonder what it would be like to be filthy rich and have your very own rickshaw driver? What would you pay him or her? How would you interview a prospective driver? “Hey take me for a spin around the block.” What would be the speed one would expect a rickshaw driver to run while pulling you somewhere? I just have a lot of questions about rickshaws. That’s all I’m saying.

I would have expected to see rickshaws in the Philippines but I never saw any there. Why would I expect to see rickshaws there? Is it because I think all Asian countries have rickshaws and a never-ending supply of laundry workers? No. It is because the Philippines had some really strange modes of transportation. Like the Jeepneys. They were originally pimped out U.S. military jeeps left over from World War II. Also among the ways to get around when I was in the Philippines were motorcycle sidecars.

Riding a sidecar, or even being around a sidecar, was taking one’s life into their own hands. But then most every taxi ride I had in the Philippines was hair-raising. Perhaps the scariest ride was one I took one afternoon from the Subic Bay Navy Base to the Cubi Point Naval Air Station. The road going to Cubi point was a winding mountain road that had no railings to separate the road from what was quite a large drop-off. As we were riding along in this Toyota Corolla taxi, a monkey ran out in front of us. The driver, being cute I suppose, steered momentarily toward the monkey as if he was going to hit it and laughed. I didn’t find it very funny.

Cubi Point has an interesting history, by the way. According to the official U.S. Navy Seabees history:

“Civilian contractors, after taking one look at the forbidding Zambales Mountains and the maze of jungle at Cubi Point, claimed it could not be done. Nevertheless, the Seabees proceeded to do it! Begun in 1951 at the height of the Korean War, it took five years and an estimated 20-million man-hours to build this new, major Navy base. At Cubi Point Seabees cut a mountain in half to make way for a nearly two-mile long runway. They blasted coral to fill a section of Subic Bay, filled swampland, moved trees as much as a hundred and fifty feet tall and six to eight feet in diameter, and even relocated a native fishing village. The result was an air station, and an adjacent pier that was capable of docking the Navy’s largest carriers.”

I bet it would have been a hell of a ride up the mountain in a rickshaw.

Will Alberto come calling this summer or fall? What about Beryl or Chris or Nadine or Tony? These are among the names for the 2006 Atlantic hurricanes. Nadine? Tony? Oh well, the names really don’t mean anything until they become real storms and make a major intrusion into your lives as Rita did in September 2005.

Here is the prediction for the 2006 hurricane season made in April by preeminent hurricane researcher, William Gray and his associate, Philip J. Klotzbach, both of Colorado State University:

“We estimate that 2006 will have about 9 hurricanes (average is 5.9), 17 named storms (average is 9.6), 85 named storm days (average is 49.1), 45 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 5 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 13 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0).”

That sounds rather dismal. I have searched high and low for a prediction for the 2006 season by NOAA, of which the National Weather Service is a division, and cannot find one. Perhaps it was because of their prediction for the 2006 season:

“NOAA’s prediction for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season is for 12 to 15 tropical storms, with seven to nine becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, at a May news conference.

As most of you know, it didn’t work out that way. There were a record 27 named storms, of which 15 were hurricanes, exceeding the 1969 record of 12 hurricanes, and 7 were major hurricanes. Of the 7 major hurricanes, an unprecedented 4 reached category 5 status, also according to NOAA.

I’m not faulting anyone. Guessing what will happen during hurricane season is a little more exact than shooting craps. I hear a lot of people around these parts — Southeast Texas — who fear we will have another bad hurricane season. I guess people have a right to worry after Rita.

On a more personal level, I suppose the question for me was the same one I asked just before Rita came blowing ashore — the old Clash question: Should I stay or should I go?

It turned out that Rita blew with about the same force here in Beaumont as it did in Newton County, to the northeast and next to the Texas-Louisiana state line. My apartment complex in Beaumont sustained very minimal damage. My brother’s home, where I rode out the storm, also did not suffer damage but he had six large trees that were blown down in his yard by Rita. And his shop, the first house I lived in as a child, had a large oak fall on it, damaging the roof.

But you know what they say about hindsight. It’s what keep horses from betting on people. No. Wait. That’s what they say about common sense, or at least what I read once in “Mad” magazine.

It is definitely not too early to be thinking about such matters as evacuating in the event another hurricane decides to strike the area. But I didn’t make a decision about evacuating because of Rita until the day I left. Should the unthinkable happen again, I can’t be sure my decision will not have similar timing.

A. Packer in the pen. Did he ever say human flesh “tastes just like chicken?”

“One sure way to gain immortality — no matter how hopeless your social and monetary strata — is to eat somebody else.” — ‘Roadside America’

That piece of wisdom has stuck with me during the 7 or 8 years since I first read ‘Roadside America.’ Now branched out to the Internet, the books and site show the bizarre side of American tourist attractions. That includes our own local mention: “The World’s Third Largest Fire Hydrant.”

After having lunch, and for whatever reason, I decided to revisit the story of what ‘Roadside America’ calls “America’s Favorite Cannibal.” That would be good old Alferd Packer. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, here is a brief synopsis:

Packer and a group of other prospectors set out in 1873 to find gold in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. In January 1874, the prospectors hung out in Chief Ouray’s Ute camp where it was suggested they stay until Spring. But Packer and five others couldn’t wait and left the camp in February with less than two week’s worth of food. The group of men were not heard from again, with the exception of Packer who emerged a couple of month’s later with some of the men’s wallets.

Soon, Packer confessed that the weather had grown fierce and the other men died either from exposure or from fending off attacks from others who had grown hungry. Only the strong survive, I guess he might say, and Packer dined upon his fellow travelers.

In April 1883, Packer was convicted of murdering one of the five men, Israel Swan. What would have been fitting at his sentencing was a pronouncement by the presiding judge that has long been legend:

“When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven dimmycrats. But you, yah et five of ’em, damn yah. I sintince yah t’ be hanged by th’ neck ontil yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin’ ag’in reducin’ th’ Dimmycratic populayshun of this county.”

Unfortunately, this tale of Packer as a GOP cannibal was only legend for the judge’s words turned out to be much tamer and bipartisan in sentencing Packer to hang. But hang, he didn’t.

An appeals court granted him a new trial a couple of years later on the basis that there was no state murder statutes when the crime(s) occurred because Colorado was a territory and not a state. Picky, picky, picky. He was retried and served 16 years before being paroled.

Quite a case was made over the years that Packer was innocent, or at least pretty hungry. Law professor James E. Starrs of George Washington University assembled a team of scientists in 1989 who exhumed the bodies of the supposed victims. Three of the bodies appeared to suffer blunt trauma to the head and some other nicks were found that were supposed evidence of skinning some of the victims. There was no total agreement but Starrs said there was sufficient evidence to prove Packer was indeed like Hall and Oates said: “a maneater.” Or so I have read.

Gee-Dubya stands by his man Gen. Michael Hayden.

“Stand by your man.
Give him two arms to cling to and
something’ warm to come to
when nights are cold and lonely.
Stand by your man.
And show the world you love him.
Keep giving all the love you can.
Stand by your man.”