I don’t know why I’m thinking about this today, but suddenly I’m reminded of an unpleasant moment when I was in the Boy Scouts back in Hayden, Colorado. It was one of those moments where personal initiative met personal ambition in a storm of politics. (Warning, some language below not safe for work and/or sensitive types.)

For reasons I don’t fully remember, but some kind of troop exposition was involved, our troop (Troop 193?) had to come up with an information booth based on one of the various merit badges. The idea was to put together a booth so impressive and so full of information that grown men would cry and your troop would win prizes (something like that). For reasons I also don’t remember we either were assigned or chose “Astronomy“.

On the way back home after our weekly troop meeting, my friend Bobby and I started talking about the booth and, in a sudden flash of inspiration/evil (depends on your point of view, as you’ll see later) we suddenly started rattling off ideas about how to make the booth. We’d have slideshows of celestial features–basically our own planetarium–and diagrams of various constellations. I remember us being really excited about the possibilities and wanting to volunteer to run the planning. Keep in mind, neither of us were particularly ambitious at the time, but the Boy Scouts is/was supposed to be about training young leaders and we suddenly had the leadership bug.

The next day I brought our ideas up to our Senior Patrol Leader, let’s call him EJ, while we were at school. He mumbled something about needing troop permission or something or other but he clearly wasn’t as excited about our ideas as we were.

I told Bobby what happened and we went about our school business. At the next troop meeting I had my first experience with what I would later realize is called a “shit storm of petty bullshit” (that’s a technical term). Although because I was just a teen all I could say was “it fucking sucked” (another technical term).

One of the senior adults in the troop, let’s call him DJ, also happened to be the father of EJ. Rather than simply saying “no” to our ideas, he’d actually spent the week calling other high level Boy Scout leaders in the area to all but accuse Bobby and me of beating his son to get control of the exposition. It was all part of a plot to undermine the leadership of the Senior Patrol Leader and to kill children in Asia with unwashed spoons. (Hey, I was only a teenager, that’s about how much sense it made to me at the time.)

We then spent pretty much the entire rest of the troop meeting explaining how we were excited about our ideas and thought we were helping out the troop and no offense was intended. The approximate response was “Well, you’re fucking not helping and offense was taken!” (Well that was the tone anyway and I wish it was an exaggeration.) I was right at the edge of walking out–and learned later at least three people would have gone with me–but it all got resolved by a troop vote and suddenly Bobby and I were the equivalent of a dodgy interim government after a coup when were were voted in charge.

We then got to work putting together the booth. This involved photographing celestial features and making posters of the merit badges requirements. Every time we asked DJ for advice we got “you’re in charge, you tell me” (remember, DJ was the adult, EJ was the teen.)

Somehow we got it all put together and assembled at the exposition. The job was then to occupy the booth and answer questions about the merit badge requirements. If our show was good enough, our troop would win the prize.

We did a pretty good job–we even knew most of the celestial features in the slide show–but one judge walked up and asked “What is the altitude for geosynchronous orbit?” This is roughly the equivalent of asking a kid showing horses at the county fair what the air speed velocity of a laden swallow was. Yes, it had a connection–both are animals and geosynchronous orbit is in space–but we weren’t supposed to be experts in space, just in the astronomy badge.

In the end we didn’t win, a much more politically connected booth that only handed out a few pamphlets did–once again, I wish that was a joke–and EJ and DJ both pretty much scoffed at Bobby and I for the rest of the year four our failure.

At that point, Bobby and I pretty much resolved never to take any initiative or to show any leadership or to try to implement any good ideas ever again. I still haven’t– I think Bobby enlisted in the Air Force so the jury’s still out on whether he has or not.

Some of the best friends I ever had I knew for only a few days or a few minutes. One of them didn’t technically exist.

Back in my graduate school days I had the opportunity to attend a couple graduate student conferences in Columbia, Missouri. In each case I fell in with a group of fellow travelers based simply on being at the same place at the same time. I still do not understand how  groups like these form, but at the second one I was best friends with a university Marxist, a cute basketcase from somewhere in California, a Canadian guy, a guy from California carrying a rather potent thing some people refer to as “weed” and a guy who did “meta” criticism which I didn’t actually understand but he was really cool.

We hung out for the few days of the conference and I quickly learned that when I said something was “only a couple blocks away” I had to clarify if I was using coastal or mid-Western blocks. (Mid-Western blocks are apparently larger than coastal blocks and, according the complaints I received, the difference is apparently several miles.)

We all promised to keep in touch, which means we exchanged exactly one email and then never contacted each other again. Still, they were a fun group and I’m glad I got to know them for a while. I don’t even remember their names.

The ones I knew for a few minutes I met whilst waiting in some sort of endless line, probably university related, or at a ski slope. Misery loves company, especially when you’re all in the same miserable line.

One year, though, while I was still an undergraduate, I went skiing in Colorado with my friend Steve and his friends. I quickly encouraged them to abandon me as they had skiing skills and I didn’t. While I was on my own, and oddly before any alcohol was involved, I decided to pretend I was English and started speaking in an English accent. “Do the queues, I’m sorry, the lines, do the lines always move this slowly?”

I was worried at first when the lift attendant–some random blonde ski bunny–simply mocked my accent when I asked a question. I didn’t know the proper response: “Bugger off? Go #@$% yourself? Suck it, bitch?” I’m still not sure what a proper Englishman would have said, but then, technically, I wasn’t a proper Englishman.

I quickly developed a back story for my character. He was from Bath (which I had actually visited recently and still remembered some details about)  but he had an American mother, which would explain any pronunciation slips and odd phrasing. I chatted with a father on son during the gondola ride and remember talking about how humiliating it was to be falling about on the course whilst five year old children raced past with little trouble. I skied with them for a bit, but they were heading to a smaller lift that would take them to courses with names like “Widow Maker” and “Death’s Door” or which were so terrible they only had codes like “K1” (which means Kills One Each Day. No really. Look it up.)

The main thing the English accent got my friend, er, me was beer. I was still only 20 but I went to the bartender and asked “Which of your American beers do you recommend?” I got beer with no problems.

I said goodbye to that friend by the end of the day and never met him again. I never actually gave him a name–it was safer to use my own as “Dwayne Lively” is somewhat English sounding–but I always wish I’d thought to give him a name. I’m funny that way.

I’ve written before how being around smokers doesn’t bother me. I also mentioned that, on occasion, I’ve smoked cigars and had a bad period of pipe smoking pretentiousness. Most of my early smoking, though, involved alcohol and,  not surprisingly, a woman was involved, too.

The first time I remember smoking cigarettes where I actually felt like I wanted a cigarette and not because it seemed like a cool teenage thing to do, was at university and I’d been drinking. For reasons I don’t understand, in addition to copious amounts of pizza and/or nachos, when I’ve been drinking I sometimes crave a cigarette. I only remember smoking one, but that probably meant I smoked two. I then didn’t smoke again for months until alcohol was again involved.

I also dated a smoker for a while, sort of (long story requiring a novel) and I’d smoke when she smoked (again usually after drinking which was, well, read the novel).

Somewhere in there I tried Swisher Sweets cigars which are really useful for making you really sick. Use them on your friends, not on yourself.

However, when I got to Albania, my friend Eddie introduced me to “proper” cigars and Cuban cigars. I started smoking those off and on, mostly when I could afford them, for a few years.

What I discovered was that no matter how smokey a room is, no matter how many people are smoking cigarettes, if you pull out a cigar, cigarette smokers will start going “P. U.” to which I usually respond, especially if I’ve been drinking, “F. U.” (which I think is a French abbreviation for “Silence Hypocrite!” No really. Look it up.) Even in Albania, if Eddie and I started smoking cigars in a bar with cigarette smoke so thick we could barely see each other, the bar owner would suddenly open the windows to let smoke out.

I also blame Eddie for convincing me to try pipes. (For the record: He looks cool smoking them. I look pretentious.)

Eventually I lost my grandfather and grandmother to smoking. I stopped smoking cigars soon after I got married, but I still had a few tucked away that, miraculously, didn’t get moldy, so I kept them for a special occasion.

Last year, though, I lost my dad. In fact, one year ago today. For some reason, I still kept the cigars. I threw them out today. Completely crushed them up. (Two Bolivars, a Romeo y Julieta, a Cohiba and a Punch Habana). It’s the only way I can honor him now. Also, since he was living in Louisiana when he died, I’m toasting him with a mint julep.

Legends has it that identical twins have some kind of secret connection that causes them–even if they’ve been separated at birth–to dress alike and marry the same kinds of people. With my sister the only secret connection was that for way too many years we didn’t like each other that much. That’s what makes today’s story very strange.

I don’t remember when this happened which means I don’t remember why were together–she was either still living at home and I was back from school or we were mysteriously back home at the same time. I also don’t remember what we were eating, but I think it was chili because the pan was on the table. Whatever it was and whyever it was, one of us, probably me, let loose a very light, I swear it was very light, belch. This prompted our mother to say something to the effect of “I guess I raised a couple kids without any manners.”

My sister and I looked at each other and the devils over my shoulders and both the angel and the devil over hers connected and without saying anything we both started violating every manner we could think of and it pretty much escalated.

We put our elbows on the table; gripped our spoons in our fists; shoveled in food; ate with our mouths open; talked with our mouths full; slurped; belched; ate out of the pan; put food back in the pan; ate off other plates; ate with our fingers; licked our fingers; licked our plates. In other words, we pretty much violated the 5th commandment about honouring thy mother and since she looked about ready to violate the 6th it was clear that our days might not be long upon the land. She still has not forgiven us.

In the end we proved a number of things:
1) We knew what manners to violate which meant we did in fact have a few table manners.
2) Mom had her hands full with us when we were growing up.
3) Mom should have been more specific about which manners we’d been raised without.
4) We are terrible people.
5) We stopped just in time.

Mom responded by suddenly saying something that sounded like: Spero vo et filii vestri, idem facere. (No really, she spoke Latin) which I think is a curse that means “I hope your children act the same as you.”

Our oldest and youngest have done a pretty good job holding up their part of the curse, although with their own unique spin. The oldest is good at doing what she wants until the last possible minute and if you give her a minute she’ll suddenly forget how to turn off electronics which is her excuse to continue using them until I walk up and hold the power button for five seconds or pull the batteries out (which is all to explain why she’s currently washing dishes at 11:25 p.m.). The youngest is good at delivering the right phrase right before supper that angers She Who Must Be Obeyed. (The phrase is different each time.)

The only thing we can do is move the curse on down the line.