Well, I've been to Hell and back, and I have the refrigerator magnet to prove it. For those of you who are bound there (Vessel), or who are just curious, read on for an insider's look at Hell (MI)...



THE ROAD TO HELL:

...is cratered and lumpy and bumpy. Perhaps it's the intense heat radiating from the bowels of Hell itself, but more likely it's just another manifestation of the suckiness that is Michigan roads. Also, Hell freezes over with some regularity, which wreaks havoc on tar(nation).

GOOD INTENTIONS ON THE ROAD TO HELL:

I did it - - I took sidewalk chalk and wrote my good intentions on the road to Hell. Not surprisingly, the road to Hell was kinda busy, so it was a hit-and-miss exercise.

YOUR OWN PRIVATE HELL:

Based on my experience, you can expect that Hell will be personalized just for you. In my case, Hell involved a flirtatious teenager who looked and sounded and acted just like a younger, slightly less grown-up version of the most recent love of my life (whom I mentioned in the "Love Is...." post). So, my personal Hell was to encounter the unreachable love of my life, made even more untouchable due to corruption of a minor laws. Eerie!

Actually, it was a lot of fun and dead hilarious - - life just keeps the curveballs comin'!

DAMNATION UNIVERSITY, OR DAM U.:

Dam U. offered a number of degrees (mostly above boiling point) in law, personal relationships, culinary arts, etc. While staying in Hell, I achieved a degree in Commitment Avoidance.

QUALITY ROADKILL:

Not just in Hell, but everywhere - - "Name That Roadkill" is a perennial favorite on roadtrips, and this one was no exception. Scads of 'possum, a porcupine, raccoons, and a perfect little fawn, which was just sad. But now I wonder - - why is the fawn roadkill sad and a 'possum roadkill emotionally neutral? Am I a 'possumist? Shit.

THE REST OF THE ROADTRIP:

...was way too much fun. Swam in Lake Michigan, cruised the U.P., walked out to a working lighthouse, ate some rather interesting Scandinavian dishes, and spent time with some terrific old and not-so-old Norwegians in Minnesota.

Now......where to next???? How does one top a trip to Hell, I ask you?

It was inevitable - - most of you have long suspected that I was on the highway to Hell, and in a few days I'll actually arrive there. My Roadtrip to Hell (MI) starts tomorrow, and I'll be laughing all the way there......



It started as a roadtrip to see Grand Rapids - - I was born there, but the IRS transferred my dad when I was three and I don't have the vaguest memory of the place. Then, a former CSU student with whom I'd worked got hired as a VISTA near Detroit AND I heard that my Norwegian kinfolk in Minnesota were having a Midsummer festival AND I remembered all the brouhaha about Hell, MI, on June 6, 2006 (06/06/06) - - and the trip started to take shape.

Here's are some of the things that I'm taking to Hell:

* Chalk, in order to scribe my good intentions on the road to Hell

* A handbasket

There's reportedly an ice cream parlor in Hell - - the Creamatorium. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......imagine the flavors! There's also Damnation University (Dam U), where I might be able to pick up another degree - - one that would be very useful in my current job.




Wish you could meet me there - - then I could say "I'll see you in Hell!" and really mean it.

Happy Trails to all my fellow vacationers!

I just finished re-reading “The Most of P.G. Wodehouse”, a collection of short stories and one novella by the consummate British humorist. Note that it’s the MOST of P.G. Wodehouse - - not the BEST. Even the title makes you laugh….

Reading Wodehouse has some bizarre side effects - - you find yourself talking all British-y, you neglect your dental hygiene, and you start to laugh at human frailties instead of killing people. That’s how it works for me, anyway; my murder rate is WAY down.

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born in 1881 and lived to be 93 years old; his writing career began at age 19 and thus we find, using my rudimentary math skills (93 – 19 = 74), that P.G. or “Plum” was at it for about 74 years. EGAD! And was he ever prolific - - Jeeves & Wooster short stories by the fistfuls, dozens of Mr. Mulliner tales, scads of golf yarns, and about a hundred books and collections.

A sampling of quotations:

“She was feeling like a mother who, in addition to notify him that there is no candy, has been compelled to strike a loved child on the base of the skull with a stocking full of sand.”

“There are certain females who one respects, admires, reveres, but only from a distance. If they show any signs of coming closer, one is prepared to fight them off with a blackjack.”

“It has sometimes seemed to me (said Mr. Mulliner, thoughtfully sipping his scotch and lemon) that to the modern craze for dieting may be attributed all the unhappiness that is afflicting the world today.... This is what happened in the case of China and Japan. It is this that lies at the root of all the unpleasantness in the Polish corridor. And look at India. Why is there unrest in India? Because its inhabitants eat only an occasional handful of rice. The day when Mahatma Gandhi sits down to a good juicy steak and follows it up with a roly-poly pudding and a spot of stilton, you will see the end of all this nonsense of Civil Disobedience.”

“He was either a man of about a hundred and fifty who was rather young for his years or a man of about a hundred and ten who had been aged by trouble.”

“He was a long, stripy policeman, who flowed out of his uniform at odd spots, as if Nature, setting out to make a constable, had had a good deal of material left over which she had not liked to throw away but hardly seemed able to fit into the general scheme.”

“I gave Motty the swift east-to-west.”

But you really have to read an entire work - - whether short story or novel - - to get the full Wodehousian effect, to be clobbered over the head repeatedly with his blackjackesque wit and the limey slang. Good starting places include “The Most of P.G. Wodehouse,” “The Plot That Thickened,” and any collection of Jeeves & Wooster short stories. When you’re laughing your tuckus off, you’ll think “That Valkryie is a pip and a right good ‘un!” and you’ll thank me….

Cheerio!