Gene Therapy continued

Lessons in travel

We had a home, a new one and a fresh start. Most weekends my mom would drop us off on Portsmouth NH. And my dad would find us and bring us to his house, we would spend most of the summer with him. Somehow he got the idea that what the boys needed was a good old fashioned road trip. This would be a summer of driving across the country, and a summer of lessons that would be used in later life to get me out of being asked to work on anything even slightly mechanical. The crew ion this trip consisted of Cindy, the anti-gene, ( fighting a loosing battle of sanity). My two brothers and me, (whose powers were growing exponentially), and dad, (who was about to show us that a trip is not just a trip it is an adventure). Our vehicle of choice was a 74’ VW micro-bus, oh yea, this was a moving home! Full kitchen cushy bench seats in the back, ( Note: if you plan on rolling a 74’ VW microbus with a full kitchen and cushy seats over a cliff in the Rocky Mountains containing your wife and three sons. Please make sure that pots, pans, KNIFES and other generally heavy sharp items are securely stowed away). We were in heaven, the only problem that I could see was that according to my father the bus was about to fall apart around us, but hey, there are auto stores all over the Mojave desert, right? We headed out and were on our way to god knows where, it wasn’t even ten minutes into the trip when I learned my first lesson about cars. The man who invented them must have been really pissed off; the only reason I knew this was that every part of the car, and especially the engine had a compound name. Not only that but when said it was to be yelled at the top of your lungs, Example: Jesus, this friggin piece of shit water pump! I really thought that those were real car parts, danm fuel pump, mutha @!# carburetor, and so on. By the time we got back home I was mister friggin good wrench, I knew more about piece of shit cars than any other @*!?%%@!? Idiot in the @?!! World. Brooke and Chris learned a lot too.
“ Hey Ben pack up your shit,” He learns fast. “ Holy @@@$?*%, forgot my tooth brush.
“ Shut the @@!?** up.” Chris was good as well, hey, we were mechanics and never even looked under a hood, we couldn’t wait to tell mom what we learned.

Now, I think the best way to show how these lessons have affected my life is to give you the lesson I had learned and a future example of the lesson. In this case it was about ten years later with ill results, ( the gene can make you a born leader….even when you don’t want to be). I was working for a company that was for all intense and purposes a landscaping company, I pushed lawns, happily spreading toxins to make the lawns greener and the flowers die a dusty death. We had a fleet of trucks, all in some type of disrepair, luckily most of the guys that I worked with were budding motorheads and they kept them chugging along. My extent of mechanical knowledge was that if I could remember where I put the keys, there was a certain one that you could put into a hole by the steering wheel and with a turn the truck would start. One of my last days of employment there I had worked a long day and was the last back to the garage, pulling in I saw all my motor head companions sitting on pallets looking at a truck and shaking their heads. I pulled in and turned the key the other way and the truck stopped, smiling slightly I exited and looked at my co workers. “ What’s up.” I walked over.
“ Can’t figure out what’s wrong with the truck.” The one closest to me spoke.
“ Oh,” I should have just shrugged and said, “ I can’t help you, I’m still awed by how the key works,” And walked away. This course of action would have been too logical, instead I thought of my trip across country, I walked over to the truck looked in at the engine and said in a low almost in audible voice, “ Maybe it’s the God Damn piece of shit fuel pump.”
“ What?” Everyone stopped talking and walked over.
“ You know it could be the piece of shit fuel pump.” Bob a big hairy guy looked at the engine with me. I smiled slightly, these guys speak Good Wrench, so I tried again.
“ Could be the friggin water pump.” I said it loud this time with authority, It was my turn to shine and if there was one thing I knew it was the names of all the parts of the @@@?! Engine!
“ Yea, that could be the problem.” Bob rubbed his chin.
It might be the carburetor?” Tony stood and put down a hammer he was playing with. He obviously didn’t know the first thing about cars, I jumped up on a pallet of fertilizer and looked at him.
“ Tony,” I was calm I didn’t want anyone else to see he didn’t know what he was talking about. “ Don’t you mean the @?!$$# carburetor!” I yelled it loud and strong, Everyone cheered.
“ @@#% yea.” We were laughing and swearing, yelling, I was drunk with power and knowledge.
“ We gonna fix this @@@?*& shitbox or what!! I felt like a coach rallying his team for the super bowl.
“ You know it Ben!!” Everyone was hyped up and it was the time for progress.
“ Bob! You get that @!~? wrench, Tony! Get that thing.”
“ The screwdriver?” we looked at him all silent, “ You mean the @#?! Screwdriver!!” We all cheered.
“ Yea! Now let’s rip this puppy down!” In my defense I had not touched a tool yet, and never really did. It was inspiring, six yelling guys, one broken truck and me yelling out car parts, I would name it and they would take it out.
Three hours later we were talking about how we should quit this job and open a garage when our boss walked in. “ What the hell!!” He yelled as he looked at us covered with grime and the insides of the engine spread out over two thousand square feet of floor.
“ We are fixing the truck.” Bob turned to where I had been sitting. “ Ben?” He looked around confused. Driving home I felt a little guilty but hey, they were learning, I’m sure they will mail me my last check.

Back to the trip, this was to be the trip of all trips, California or bust! Another fine lesson in life I learned was that no man especially a Hidell needs a map, apparently our sense of direction is so good that a map would just confuse us. Lost hell no! your only lost if you think you are, but if you think you know where you are your exactly where you are. Don’t try to look too deep into that last statement, My brothers and I have all lost girlfriends over that logic, but they really weren’t lost they were …..never mind you get the point. So we pulled into Sydney Canada and found a camping site in a dry river bed and set up shop. I looked at all the Disney and special attraction brochures and sighed, I secretly was hoping that this was one of dad’s short cuts, I’ve been lost in many states, but dad was still a pro he lost the entire UNITED STATES! He also found that when crossing the Canadian boarder and they ask if you have anything to declare you don’t respond by saying Yes is the turnpike just ahead. The reason for this is you can fit a hell of a lot of stuff in a microbus, and trying to repack it under the watchful eyes of a garrison of boarder patrol police can put you in a really foul mood.
With slight relief we finally sat don and took a few minutes to enjoy our camp site. The microbus was still in one piece, we were in the woods, and I had realized that there was no way in hell we were going to see California. The camping area was a little crowded and there were people milling about every so often walking bye and saying things like, there is a storm coming in, looks like rain, and other weather related statements. All I could figure was that up here in Canada the weather was more than just another topic it was the only conversation. As the sun started to set we had a problem, the microbus slept three, two on the bed and one in the pop up on the roof. This meant that since Dad and Cindy got the bed, each night two boys slept in the tent and one in the pop up. I am just going to say this, thank God I was the one who got the long straw, because when it started raining, thundering, and blowing, and at one point I thought I saw the armies of darkness marching through our little riverbed compound, all hell broke loose. The once dry bed turned into a rushing brother taking river. As all, even those on high ground were running for cover we were chasing a tent down hill. From that time on we slept two in the front two on the bed and one in the popup.

The great Canadian trashcan race

There are times in your life when you watch a bunch of people doing something that defies reason and say “ look at those fools.” Then there are times in your life when you see a bunch of people doing something that defies reason and you say, “ Boys quick empty the trashcans so we can join them.” This was one of those times, I have to say this was and is one of my greatest memories. We were just driving around in circles on a bright day when out of nowhere there was a stampede of about forty people hauling trashcans bags boxes you name it. The funny thing was that they were not just jogging or bustling along this was a full out life and death something big is coming and it’s gonna gut us run. Dad hits the breaks, jumps out of the car, whips the door open and yells, “ COME ON! QUICK!” He didn’t have to say another word we were out of there in a panic. He hauled out the trashcan ripped the bag out and started running, I got a bucket and followed. Whatever wanted trashcans that bad was not going to get my bucket! “ HURRY!” Dad was gaining on the masses, Cindy was right beside him, Brooke fell I stopped and picked him up, WE GOT TO GO! IT”S COMING!” I threw him in front of me and continued. I heard Cindy yell at dad in fear.
“ Where are we going! What’s after us!” They were over taking some of the runners, they obviously didn’t have plastic trashcans but the heavy metal ones…Poor bastards…..someone’s got to be the first eaten.
“ I….DON’T…..KNOW!” Dad yelled as he shoved his way to the front. Cindy stopped, I stopped, we just stood and starred.
“ Boys that is called mob mentality,” Cindy looked at us sadly.
“ Will he be alright?”
“ Nothing is after us?”
“ Is dad crazy?” We all had our questions.
“ Let’s get the car and see where he went.” Cindy loaded us in and we followed the swath of grass flattened by the runners. We finally pulled up to see that the people were all on a dock and the workers were filling the bags and cans. Cindy walks down and sees dad. “ What was that all about?”
“ King Crab boats just came in see.” And the thirty gallon can was filled with crabs like I had never seen. So big I had to use two hands and hold them over my head so the feet wouldn’t touch the ground. “ Let’s go eat.” Mob mentality or not, that was one of the best meals I had ever had, dad said he knew nothing was after us all along. But I’m pretty sure that he was wondering.

A HIGH VOLTAGE SUMMER

We arrived home in just over two weeks, the trip to California was to be all summer but somehow it seemed to slip to the other side of the country. Mom was glad to see us and was a little thrown off by our stories of Canada but all seemed fine. She and UJ were happy to have us home to do some work on the farm, the first job was to put up the electric fence. Ever since I had been a kid I had always heard, don’t play with electricity, don’t go near it, you throw that toaster in the tub your in big trouble mister. Now contrary to all my learning, what were we about to do, surround ourselves with metal wire that has electricity running through it! Yes! Let the good times roll. It took some time but when it was done it was beautiful, UJ put the juice to it and we tested the voltage, 7,500 volts! And that was on a dry day, we figured a wet day the thing would blow your head off. I actually pictured wolves touching it and exploding, we had the deadliest jungle gym in the world.
Our first human test in the wonderful world of high voltage was UJ, I guess the thought was he put it up so he should be the first to feel it’s wrath. Scientific law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, if we had known this we probably would have scrapped the experiment, but we hadn’t learned that helpful little tid bit of knowledge. Oh, and just to let you know the law is wrong, the reaction is far worse than the action. UJ had the entire fence up except for a small part by the barn, we had just jumped off the school bus ( timing is everything). All he had to do to complete his fence was to connect the last wire to the end of the others, this is what we walked up upon. UJ was so busy grunting and pulling on the wire to stretch it to the other that we approached unnoticed, ( us being anywhere unnoticed is an oddity in itself). Without a word my younger brother and I had formed a plan, I would walk up to UJ and see if I could help. Knowing his response would be “ No, you’re mom took the car so we have no way to get to the doctors.” I would stand behind him and urge his efforts on, Brooke would quietly make his way to the switch that was hooked to the charger. As I urged for a connection Brooke placed his hand on the switch, the game was afoot. Just for a minute let’s refer to the endless television shows that we all have see where some novice electrician is wiring some light up and gets zapped. In this event we see him hang on and yell, this is what we though would happen. What we didn’t know was that the way that a electric fence works is it zaps every second or so, giving the recipient of the zap time to let go and look for a weapon, ( shovel, stick, pitchfork, thirty-thirty) you know anything handy at the time. Back to the game, UJ had worked up a pretty good sweat by this time and with my urging was inches from the connection. I held up a hand like a flag to single the right moment to come real close to ending our lives, he touched the wires I flagged and broke hit the switch. The next thing I remember was being under a mad German, looking back it must have been the initial jolt that threw his body in the air landing on top of me. Brooke on the other hand was fast and had at least ten acres of field to sprint before he got to the safety ( No at this point safety was not an option) of the house. With a lurch UJ was off me and half way across the field. I figured that the electricity had given him a little more juice and he caught up to Brooke . It was at that point our savior pulls into the driveway, With the car full of groceries and a worried look on her face. From the moment UJ said “ If your mother wasn’t here I’d tie you to that fence.” We never even thought about using him as a voltage meter again.


Setting the Trap ( Persuasion and it’s many uses)

When your in the sixth grade life can be tough, but holding the knowledge that you had harnessed electricity, made it a little easier. I smiled a little more and walked a little taller, these poor fools thought I was just a happy go lucky sixth grader. Little did they know that at any given moment I was picturing them grabbing the fence and being blown out of their fancy new top of the line Nike’s. The games we played at recess became sort of a weeding out process, here’s an example; thether ball, I was short and would be beat by the taller kids, upon being beat I would, A. accept the defeat and walk away, or B. I would smile at my defeat and ask them if they wanted to come over to my house and play. The next day I would rule the thether ball game.
The height of the electric experience was when I found out that the human body could conduct electricity!! Who said you never learned anything useful in school, especially that could be applied to friends. The theory was that if you were to grab the fence and another person close to you the electric shock would go through you and shock the other person. The hard part is doing it the first time, Inadvertently touching the fence was a part of life on the farm, but reaching out and grabbing it on purpose takes a hell of a lot of either courage or stupidity. The other side to this was if indeed I did reach out and grab it this was only half the battle, the other part was to coax my little brother to watch his idiot older brother purposefully allow seventy-five hundred volts course through his body. With a few choice words I had him stand there and watch as I did the deed, a little hint; if you are intending on grabbing someone in efforts to shock them make sure you know two words, arms length. I reached out and grabbed the wire, Brooke stood and watched me wave my hand about trying to get him as I felt the sting, I could only think that his smile was due to the fact that he was watching the fillings being blown out of my teeth. Three days later I had stopped drooling, my brain synapses were again firing and I tried again. By this time my brother had told his friends and they gathered to see the effects high voltage fence work on a low voltage human. This time I had no fear, I grabbed the fence and the closest person too me who grabbed in fear the closest person to them and so on until the last one grabbed my brother, Bam!! It worked, until the last person let go of Brooke and so on as they got zapped until it got to me again, although painful for a second time. We all learned that it was possible to alienate all your friends by grabbing the fence and them, and realize that some talk about a bubble or personal space as a small area around them, we had acres of personal space from that day on. Yes that fence gave us years of enjoyment and let us remember the special times with our friends, I wonder where they are now?

Misery Island ( Bonding between Father and sons)

It was a weekend to remember, mostly because we had just gotten ours back, after about a million volts the few days before left us in a slightly bewildered state. Dad has and always will be a great sailor, and I hope he has fun doing it ALONE in his many days to come. The basis for this is he only liked to sail when storms were raging, I believe his philosophy was; What sail on sunny day’s anyone can do that. The criteria for a “ good sailing day” were as follows; One, the wind has to be at least at a gale force. By gale force I mean trees are being ripped out of the earth by their roots, and the warning sirens can just be heard over the noise. Two, Visibility should be at an all time low, if you can see your hand in front of your face then you should just go the shelter and mingle with the other hurricane victims. And three, a great potential for death must be present in the air, fully armed National Guardsmen, armies of darkness marching over the land, blood red rain etc. If all these are met we’re off to the harbor. On this particular day the raging storm was shaping up for one of the best sails ever.
“ Boys, after you board up the windows we are taking a little sail to Misery Island.” He was exited as he tied down the car.
“ I feel sick.” It was a shot.
“ Don’t be silly it will pass as soon as we are on the boat, look out for the trees there are coming down fast.”
Maybe he was right, if we make it alive to the boat and set sail in god knows what direction with twenty foot waves breaking over the boat the sick feeling I have might go away and be replaced by sheer terror! “ Is Cindy going?”
“ No she has to stay here.” Of course she does, I mean what was I thinking who was going to identify the bodies, silly me.
As expected finding a parking place at the harbor was not as difficult as you would imagine we loaded the boat, which was a task in itself. Loading a boat in a storm takes a bit of skill, you have to time the transfer of supplies to the motion of the waves. One person stands on the boat and the other sits beside it in a flimsy half swamped plywood dingy and waits until the wave breaks over them. Then when the sailboat is about six feet below you and your riding the crest of the wave you squint so the outline of the boat is just visible and throw the bag at the pair of wide eyes below you. It sounds hard but after a few times it becomes old hat. We finished loading and boarded it ourselves. Luckily the dingy was disposable, and it biodegraded just seconds after we left its safety.
When you are standing on the deck of a twenty foot boat and suddenly get the feeling that you are alone, this is known as, in my fathers words “ High visibility.” “ Ben get the mainsail, Brooke, Brooooke!”
“ I’m right beside you.”
“ Oh, couldn’t see you, get the Jib, I’ll steer us out of here.”
“ What should I do?”
“ Who said that?”
“ Me Chris.”
“ Oh you did make it, good. Stand at the bow and look out for moored boats.” Dad took the tiller and we were off. Dad liked to sail using an age-old navigation practice called Dead Reckoning, This was to pick a point you know was there before the storm and aim for it. Another term is Sailing Blind, in this you hope that you are at least heading in the direction of said point cause if you aren’t I reckon your dead. I have to say this he was a pro and before we knew it we were out of the harbor and beyond the point of no return.
Sailing in a raging storm is really no different than sailing on a beautiful sunny day; okay, I made that up. The truth is no matter what you do you are going to be going where the storm wants you to, add hundreds of gallons of water bashing against your body at set intervals and you tend to start to feel slightly out of control. So we were pretending to steer the boat and just enjoying the time left we had as a family when I heard sloshing in the cabin of the boat. Our idle chat ceased and dad told me to take the tiller he was going to check it out, if there was ever a time in my life when I should have never even thought more the less said those words out loud this was the time. “ Things can’t get any worse…..right.”
“ Boys,” Dad emerged from the cabin and was soaked, the storm was letting up a bit which was a relief but water in the cabin was sort of evened out the playing field. “ It might just be water from the twenty foot waves breaking over the boat.” He smiled weakly, yea that made us feel better. “ I’m just gonna look around,” Chris hand me that diving mask.” Dad disappeared and we watched, a sleeping bag floated out of the cabin, and we watched, then like magic dad broke the surface and took a big breath. “ Well,” he always says that when there was bad news, like, well, let’s go sailing. “ Looks like there is a small leak in the boat.” We did not say a word we just all took a collaborative deep breath. “ The toilet is leaking.
“ The toilet!” I yelled, oh, no, I used it last, you can’t tell me that I just killed my hole family because I had gas. In those days the head released right into the ocean, this came to mind that if indeed it did then if the toilet were to over flow there was not just an eight gallon tank to empty out…….it was the ocean! “ Did you try wiggling the handle!” I was panicky and feeling a touch guilty.
“ What are you talking about?” everyone looked at me.
“ Sometimes if you wiggle the handle…Alright I was the last one to use it…I thought it flushed!
“ Ben…Ben, relax.” He put a wet hand on my trembling shoulder. “ It’s a screw that holds the toilet down it popped out.”
“ So it did flush.” I was relieved it wasn’t me, because at that point I was prepared to never go again, I didn’t want to take another life, the bathroom killer I was not. “ It was you!!! You put the screws in. ha! You killed us!”
“ Shut up!” Chris looked at me with a green face. Just then the stay that held the jib on the boat broke and it started flapping in the wind.
“ Danmit!” I guess loosing a sail was not good. “ We have to sail back before we sink. Bennett, you need to go up to the front and put this pin grab the sail and put the pin back in.
“ Me! I’m sure the screw was defective it could have happened to anyone!”
“ Forget that, We need this done, here tie this rope around your waist and I’ll hold it.” Dad was starting to look ill as well, we were in serious trouble and he was now fearing for his sons lives.
“ Don’t let go” I crawled up along the deck slowly the jib ahead of me snapping in the wind, knowing that we might sink if this was not reattached. Waves breaking over me I continued, grabbing the stay I fought the sail until I had it where it needed to be. The pin was in my mouth, I took it and with all my strength grunted to get it in. Little to my knowledge the boat had just run up the back-side of a wave and as the pin was working it’s way in I felt the boat lean bow straight down. As I looked down at the water coming fast the last words I heard were Bennnnnnnn! All I know is that about three-quarters of the boat went under, when it popped up the pin was in and I was hanging onto the mast so hard my arms hurt.
“ Good job.” Dad gave me a hug.
“ Thanks.” We made it back and tied up as the boat sank out of sight at dock. We never saw Misery Island, and I really don’t care if it dies exists, but I always make sure to wiggle the handle, just in case.