The Evocative Smell of Weight Loss

One of my classic cars was rear ended late in 2016.  I've been poking at the repair over the last few months, and finally moved it from the garage into the barn to start the actual body work.  Body work is very dusty and can involve some strong solvents.  Having that attached to the house seemed like a mistake waiting to happen.
Anybody who has used Bondo knows it has a fairly strong smell, and when I opened the can of body filler, the scent transported me back to when I first started learning body work.  I was working as a mechanic at the time and started working with a coworker who did body work at night and on weekends to make extra money.  It was a pretty magical time, being in college, working full time and seemingly always on the steep part of the learning curve - yet with good friends and somehow enough free time to have fun.

I wrote previously on the sounds of the Midwestern summer.  I think smell can be even more evocative.  Spring seems to have come early with lots of above-average temperatures this year.  June bugs are making their arrogant appearance en mass already now in April.  The early spring has screamed summer-promising smells.  Being April, cold weather is still very likely.

As a kid, I hated onion grass.  We called it leeks, but I'm quite sure they wouldn't be pleasant to eat.  Playing on rough lawns or empty fields would almost always result in somehow getting onion grass on our hands, and the pungent smell seemed impossible to wash off.  Onion-grass stains seemed even more interminable than normal grass stains.
The summer-like weather has resulted in lots of lawn mowing already.  The smell of cut onion grass mixed with the less-pronounced but equally intoxicating normal cut grass scent is a rite of spring.  Riding my motorcycle to work, it hangs in the cool damp mornings - promising winters end and shorts and T-shirts, even if the temperature is near freezing.
Last year's hay bales are looking sad, the smell of old hay with just a hint of mold also begins to foretell that green plants and summer are near.  I'm not sure why, as I grew up in the suburbs, but I feel oddly drawn to the comfort of farm smells, to barns filled with hay, to freshly turned earth, or even the cows in the field - although that can be taken to an unpleasant level in the extreme.
Flowering trees, almost a sickly sweet cousin to carrion, last only a few weeks in the spring.  Perhaps that is the scent of winters last death.

Other smells can similarly bring me back to specific times and places.  My first bear hunt in 2009 was a spring hunt over bait and the bait included mixture of old frosting and cinnamon corn flakes.  It was an odd combination, but the right mix of sweetness and cinnamon can bring me back to the cold Canadian brush.  I'll hopefully never forget the anticipation of that first hunt.  Watching bears up close makes zoos boring in comparison.  I can't ever go on my first bear hunt again, but I can be allowed a powerful reminder.
Spring isn't the only time with evocative smells, those early, still, cool fall evenings, sometimes coming even in late August bring wood smoke hanging in the air.  Wood smoke means campfires, comfort, the end of summer's oppressive humidity.  It signals yet another change.

The change to spring weather also brings with it a change in activity.  I can be quickly afflicted with cabin fever in the winter and get energized in the spring to be outdoors for any reason.  Longer dog walks.  Lots of bike rides - both motorcycle and pedaling.  Lawn mowing and any assortment of yard work, whether it is needed or not.  All this time spent outdoors means much less time vegetating in front of the TV.  The spontaneous weight loss associated with spring reduces the winter blubber.  A little over a year ago I started tracking my weight, curious how much change there actually was.  I'm not sure this cycle of weight gain and loss is healthy, but it is probably far from my biggest health risk.

While magical, the slightly depressing thing about the smells is that they really can't take me back.  And maybe that is a good thing.  I probably didn't enjoy everything in the past as much as I think I did now.  Rose-colored glasses can be toxically dangerous.
I'm not sure how well the repair of my classic car will go.  It has gotten a little rusty through the years.  My skills have gotten rusty as well.  I don't have access to the equipment I used to, to do the work as easily as before.  I'm hundreds of miles away from old friends who can do this kind of work in their sleep.
But at least for a little while, the scent can take me back ... however briefly.

As If I Needed Yet Another Reason Not To Fly

Full disclosure:  My last flight just over a year ago on American Airlines went smoothly.  All four legs of the 9000 round trip flight departed and arrived nearly on time.

I hate flying.  A decision to fly anywhere means handing over an unlimited amount of time to a soulless corporation.  I know the statistics, driving is more dangerous.  I understand the clock - planes fly fast.  But the pain is just not worth it.
My previous flight in 2008 was more typical for my flying experience.  Arriving on a morning with questionable weather, I checked in to a plane that was initially listed as on-time before its status was updated several times, leading to lots of confusion.  Eventually on the plane, departure was greatly delayed as the Captain informed us there was a minor mechanical problem with the plane.  Eventually we took off, exceedingly late and arrived in a special kind of hell - Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport.  Missing the second flight of the day, I sat in the airport for several hours.  The airline decided the first flight's delay was due to weather, not the mechanical problem the Captain knew about.  Eventually, I asked to be put on the next flight home.  This was not possible since one connecting leg of my return flight was not on the same airline, meaning I had no choice but to sit several more hours in Atlanta.  Eventually, I was put on a plane in an opposite direction from my final destination of Las Vegas, NV.  I was again blessed with several hours sitting in another airport.  While Fort Lauderdale seems like a nice place to spend some time, airports are like public restrooms - they are pretty much all the same and the goal is generally to get out as fast as possible.  Eventually I was put on a plane bound for Las Vegas.  By the time I was outside of McCarran Airport, I could have driven from my home to Nevada in less time than what the airlines were able to do.

And that gets to my biggest problem with airline travel.  Arriving a day late, stinking and feeling shitty, after being routed all over the country counts as a win for the airline, "You got there, it was only a day late."  But the Las Vegas Trip in question was only a few days.  There is nothing I value more than my vacation time and the airline stole a considerable percentage of it.  Once I bought that ticket, I was under the whim for whatever the airline wanted to do.

My 2008 flight was glorious compared to a recent situation.  Filed under current events, a doctor was recently physically dragged of a United Airlines flight from Chicago O'Hare bound for Louisville, KY.  He wasn't drunk.  He wasn't unruly.  He was a paying passenger, sitting quietly in his seat, just trying to get home.  The flight was overbooked and United found it more important to get a few employees to Louisville rather than any passenger; United Airlines found its business more important than the reason for the business.
I understand why airlines overbook, but when it doesn't work out in their favor, they need to bite the bullet.  Better options include:
Moving employee schedules since they screwed up and paying lots of overtime or whatever it took.
Putting the employees in a nice rental car to drive the five hours (yes, only five hours) to Louisville.
Chartering a plane since United screwed up.
Continuing to raise the amount paid to overbooked passengers until someone volunteered (give me lots of cash and a rental car and I'll drive myself to Las Vegas!).
Paying to move people to other airlines.
Anything ... other than dragging a bloodied elderly man off of a flight after he was allowed to sit down.

Making the situation even worse, the CEO issued a statement applauding the employees, while one of the officers involved in dragging the man off of the plane was put on leave.  A CEO should not make up words like re-accommodate to try to sugar-coat the situation.  What a wretched euphemism.  Maybe the CEO should be re-schooled in the reason for an airline.
One of the rules we all learned in kindergarten was when we screw up, admit and say sorry.  Doing otherwise makes a bad situation worse.  Perhaps Oscar Munoz didn't learn this early in life; there is also a relatively high possibility that he may be a psychopath.

In the sad state of airline travel, there is no way to win.  Paying more for a business class flight doesn't change the likelihood of getting anywhere on time (private jets probably do, but...).  The people in the front of the plane are just as unlikely to arrive on time as the proletariat.  The only way to slightly hedge the odds in the favor of the average traveler is to minimize connecting flights - a cheap 3-leg flight has at least 3x the chance of mayhem over a more expensive direct flight.

I never lived through this, but I sometimes wonder what flying was like before it was brought down to the lowest common denominator?  Before people were crammed in a seat only big enough for a prepubescent anorexic girl.  Before a short flight becomes an all-day affair.  Despite my poor personal record with airline travel, I'm always friendly with the people at the gate and on the plane; at times, they have a painfully tough job becoming the face of bad corporate policy.

I'm hoping to head south for a day of ocean fishing in a few weeks.  My travel time will be more than the time spent at the coast, but I'm looking forward to that as much as the fishing.  I'll get to see familiar sites, and look for opportunities on taking a new route.  I'll stay in cheap hotels and eat at small restaurants.  I'll probably get to talk to interesting people and see things impossible to comprehend from 30,000 feet.

Thankfully, I love driving.  I've turned "travel" from the worst part of my vacation to the best part.  I've ridden my motorcycle through 50 states (*Hawaii was a rental).  I love the areas that look like home in the Midwest; familiar, yet different.  I love crossing the Mississippi and seeing the rolling hills transition to the great American plains - so much better than the lousy United planes.  I love the big empty.  I love the mountains and how arriving at them having crossed the whole country brings with a better frame of mind compared to being dumped out of an aluminum tube.  I love the heat, the cold, the smells, the rain.  I look forward to the challenges of roadway travel, because I know I have a little more control in how to resolve them.  And I'm reasonably certain that nobody will drag me out of my vehicle because the road is overbooked.

Starting Over

A few coworkers were discussing the relatively recent trend of "Tiny Houses" and the perceived benefits versus the negatives.  This discussion evolved into one about the more generic wish to simplify.  The interpretations of this ranged from winning the lottery and buying remote land to just moving to a smaller house.  It seems like Tiny Houses keeps most of life the same but just deletes some comfort from that same reality.
My comment, "I want to sell everything and travel on the cheap for the rest of my life."

I'm assuming this exists in many cultures, but the idea of throwing off the shackles of work, of possessions, of interconnected responsibilities runs deep in America.  America was built on the idea of carving out a new life as the country slowly migrated west.  The image of the cowboy riding off into the sunset is part of many fantasies.
Elizabeth Greenwood wrote Playing Dead - about people who fake their death in order to start over.  While not addressed directly in the book, the idea of walking away from everything by faking one's death is just an attempt at simplification.  Albeit this rather drastic way to simplify is more often used to ameliorate one (or a few) specific problems.  I enjoyed the book even as it was written from a very Millennial perspective.  Her personal narrative shows the consequences of making some choices early without thinking about the long term implications.  I suspect this is something everyone does to some extent.  Faking death ultimately just appears to create lots of new complications in the end.

Cheryl Strayed tried to write about her experiences hiking the Pacific Trail.  I admire her quest and success in taking on the challenge, but her writing reeks of self-help, and the self-help genre approaches a status somewhere between a cult and a drug.  While self-help books may give short term relief, they too quickly need to be reinforced by another.  And another.  Sadly, Strayed is more Brand than honest inspiration now.

Bill Bryson hiked (most of) the Appalachian trail and wrote about it as only he could.  Mr. Bryson is a bit of an enigma, he comes across as very condescending in The Lost Continent.  Small-town America deserves better; the heartland is only as terrible as he makes it out to be if a traveler demands that it is.  I suspect his interaction with the British is far different than mine has been.  The people in small-town England could be small-town Americans if it weren't for the accent.  Having spent a few days in Dusseldorf, Germany several years ago, I found it as charming as Gary, Indiana.  A Walk in the Woods was more genuine, less snarky, more personal.  Bill Bryson didn't use the Appalachian Trail to start over, but he paints it in places as a form of contemplation.

Geraldine Largay was determined to hike the Appalachian Trail at the age of 66.  Originally with a partner, she ended the adventure on her own, and it ended tragically.  From the Donner Party on, American history is littered with the dead.  As the saying goes, "Every corpse on Everest was once a very motivated person."

It is probably impossible to talk about this without remembering Chris McCandless.  After bouncing around the country immediately after college and (literally) burning his money, he ended up in Alaska.  He hiked out on the Stampede Trail near Healy, before living in a bus bear Denali National Park for a few months.  Surging rivers prevented his return, and that bus ended up being where his life ended.  Whether thought of as idealistic or a degenerate, his story is part of the American lexicon, with Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, PBS' excellent documentary, or Sean Penn's subpar movie all telling his story.

Christopher Knight really did throw off the shackles for a long time.  A new book (I haven't read it yet) out by Michael Finkel tells the story of how he lived in the Maine woods for 27 years - living off of what he was able to steal from nearby homes and cabins.  Mr. Finkel wrote a riveting article about this in 2013 and I can't help but wonder what new information will be included in the book given that the end of that article seems to indicate the end of that relationship, "...we are not friends ... I’m not going to miss you at all."  Michael Finkel's book True Story - another book about people tragically starting over - was good, so I'll probably have to read The Stranger in the Woods.  Hopefully it gives a little insight on how Mr. Knight is fairing now.

And among these more notable cases, there are countless tales never told of people doing something, anything, to start over.

I try to be very honest with myself and the chances of selling everything and traveling on the cheap for the next few decades is very, very unlikely.  Not impossible, but the odds are terribly long.  The events recounted here suggest no shortage of situations where these things end very tragically.  But I can't help but wonder what else exists from vagabond and vagrant through beige suburbanite, and where on that continuum I am ... or could be.

Why All the Rage?

I sometimes wonder if we all become L Ron Bumquist as we get older.  Or maybe I'm just wondering if I'm becoming Dr. Bumquist.
A news teaser blurbed that a Kendall Jenner commercial for Pepsi was generating controversy.  Apparently, handing a cold refreshing beverage to a police officer in an advertisement is an act which necessitates social outrage with enough people for it to make the news.  Social media is the liquor store next door; it is the enabler of a rampant addiction to rage.  And when did nearly everything become worthy of anger?  Contempt maybe, ambivalence clearly, but anger?  Pepsi is just trying to sell more empty calories - junk food as my mom used to say.  Thank a Capitalist as without them we'd have nothing to fret about today.  Can anything happen that doesn't require someone to bitch, moan and create banal memes about.
Luckily this rage is very short lived.  Cecil the lion is still quite dead, but nobody really cares any more about Minnesota dentists or hunting big cats in Africa anymore.

I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed about this, but after hearing the news story on TV while getting ready for work, I really wan't sure who Kendall Jenner was.  I looked her up on Wikipedia and saw she is Bruce Jenner's daughter and something about the Kardashians - at which point I quickly lost interest.  Although I seem to vaguely recall that one of the Kardashians was married to Kanye West.  So Caitlyn Jenner and Kanye West could end up at the same family reunion.  Do people like that have family reunions?  I think not.
And if Kendall Jenner is Bruce Jenner's biological daughter, does that make him still her dad?  Or is she now her mom.  Maybe Family guy can sort this all out.
Again, I lose interest...

I have no interest in Pepsi as a surrogate for someone's social anxiety, the Kardashians, or pretending I'm interested in things that people who are half my age should probably not even be interested in.  How is it so easy to spot the old person uncomfortably attempting to act young?  The wedding a few years ago where they played The Macarena and the dance floor was filled with only young girls and middle-aged men.  It was terrifying.  Maybe that was another phenomenon altogether.  A former coworker recently resigned;  he's been convicted of some crimes and it apparently wasn't dancing The Macarena.  Even the limited information I heard on that one is too much.  Every time I think about it, it is quite disturbing.  Yet some kind of voyeuristic stupidity compelled me to look it up on the county court web site.

Maybe Dr. Bumquist can help afterall.