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Health & Fitness

Chapter 4: The Art of Grunting, Ball Lightning, Silent Screaming, Etc.

Well, remember when I told you that I was the only person to realize the importance of what Frank and Ike started?

Well, remember when I told you that I was the only person to realize the importance of what Frank and Ike started when they faced off across the aisle and said those fateful words “Well, why don’t you then?” That was mostly true, because everyone that paid attention to politics had pretty much given up on listening to Frank and Ike argue.  If you were paying attention to the first chapters of this book, and didn’t just open it up to this very page and start reading, you would know that when Frank and Ike were boys that no one would play with them, except me who had to be bribed by their mother.  All they did was argue about politics, and when they grew up they didn’t stop, and who knows, maybe their mother tried to bribe Frank and Ike’s fellow legislators to sit and listen to them. But anyway, if she did it didn’t work because when they started to argue most everyone just tuned them out. 

Alice could teach the Twins something about getting people to listen when they were talking.  Alice firmly believes that grunting in reply to one of her questions is not proper listening.  I’ve tried to explain to her that grunting was the acceptable form of reply for most of the time of human existence on this planet, and that only recently did people feel obligated to use real words to show that they were listening.  Besides, I’ve tried to tell her grunting is actually a higher form of communication, since the use of words is a lazy way to respond. This is because words are a poor substitute for trying to put real feeling into a reply, so as to get just the right meaning across.  Here’s an example, which will be done in the spirit of a historical fiction novel as I told you about in the last chapter. Since I didn’t take notes on any of these types of conversations between me and Alice it will be done that way.

Alice: ‘Frank, do you remember that the Wilsen’s are coming over tonight?’

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Me: ‘Huh?’

Now I have to state at this point that “huh” has no meaning by itself, as is true for most any grunt, but it is the way it is said that gives “huh” meaning.  I could have said “huh,” meaning I forgot, but I’m looking forward to seeing them, or “huh,” meaning that I didn’t forget, but I’d like to, or “huh,” meaning that Mary Wilsen never stops talking and Don Wilsen is pretty much a pain in the neck.  Now I realize that you can’t get the right feel of the way “huh” is pronounced from how I write it, but my suggestion to you is to find a seasoned grunter and have him read this paragraph for you so you will get the flavor of what I’m trying to get across to you.  Now, I’m going to finish this historical fiction type of conversation that is typical of what happens between Alice and me. This scene takes place with me in my study reading the paper, and Alice in the kitchen fixing dinner.

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Alice: ‘Frank, do you remember that the Wilsens are coming over tonight?’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘What?’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘Don’t grunt at me!’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘You’re not listening to me!  Put down that paper, and get in here!’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘Only rude people and lowlifes grunt at each other!’

Now, I’ve got to interrupt this rendition for a comment, because I can’t let Alice get by with calling all people who grunt “rude and lowlifes.” My interrupting is a little strange since for the purposes of this account, I, so to speak, put the words in her mouth, since this example is in the form of historical fiction.  Well, the reason that I take exception to what I made Alice say is because I once heard a whole conversation carried on between two men entirely composed of grunts.  It went like this.

John: ‘Huh.’

Jack: ‘Huh?’

John: ‘Huh?’

Jack: ‘Huh.’

John: ‘Huh!’

Jack: ‘Huh!’

Believe it or not, they did this without even looking at each other which goes to show you that lowlifes could never have pulled that off, let alone rude lowlifes.  If you’re having trouble with the pronunciation of “huh” have the same seasoned grunter that read the other paragraph read this one also.  Okay, back to the conversation between me and Alice which I’ll repeat in its entirety in case you’ve forgotten the first part.

Alice: ‘Frank, do you remember that the Wilsons are coming over tonight?’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘What?’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘Don’t grunt at me!’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘You’re not listening to me!  Put down that paper, and get in here!’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: ‘Only rude people and lowlifes grunt at each other!’

Me: ‘Huh?’

Alice: “I’m sure Mr. Smith next door doesn’t grunt at his wife.  Maybe he’d like to have this dinner instead of you.’

Me: ‘I’d love to have the Wilsens come tonight.’

This just goes to reinforce what I said about “cookin’ lasts” in the last chapter.  Whoever said that there’s nothing like a hanging to sharpen the mind had forgotten about the threat of having one’s dinner given to Mr. Smith.  This concludes the historical fiction example of how Alice can get me to listen.

Well, as I said, it was mostly true that no one but me really understood the significance of what might happen when Frank and Ike said “Well, why don’t you then?”  In fact I was the only one to write it down just as it was said since, as you know, it happened right when I started to take notes.  Now, in order to tell the next part just right I have to delve into the field of pure science in order to give you the proper background. I wouldn’t have tried this when I was just a house painter, but my career as a note taker has given me new confidence.

This probably will sound smarter then you think I am, and if you think that way you will be right since I’ve copied this pretty much right off of the Net.  So, here’s goes the science lesson.  Many objects have a natural resonance frequency that when applied to them will cause them to vibrate at higher and higher amplitudes.  These objects can be as simple as a piece of metal or as complex as a whole bridge.  One common example is how a child on a swing, simply by swinging his legs, can swing to higher and higher heights.  Another example comes from my home state of Washington, where the old Tacoma Narrows Bridge broke apart when the wind vibrated it at its resonance frequency.  What I want you to remember when you get to the next paragraph is that sometimes a little thing like a child pumping his feet can cause a big result like the child flinging off the swing and cracking his skull open, which I actually saw one time happen to Jimmy Green. 

It wasn’t as bad as a farm accident or some incident involving sucking grain up a pipe, but it did manage to impress me all right.  I followed behind Jimmy as he walked home, and I think that this must have been some sort of record as he actually went ten blocks with his mouth wide open like he was crying, but not a sound was coming out.  Later, when I learned to drive, I drove back over the same route that Jimmy took to go from the swing (where he learned the hard way about resonance frequency) to home.  It was exactly three quarters of a mile which, I was sad to find out, was not a record for silent crying.  The record was by some kid who smashed his finger in the door of a Cadillac, walked four miles home with his mouth wide open and didn’t let out a decent scream or close his mouth until later that night when his dad came home and asked about his finger.  That kid made Jimmy look like a picker.  Actually, Fifi probably would have set the record for silent screaming, or silent barking in her case, but her chance for a record, as you will learn in a future chapter, was cut rather short. 

So, the fateful words that I thought no one heard, which to remind you were “Well, why don’t you then?” were like Jimmy pumping the swing with his legs.  Somehow they must have vibrated Washington State at its resonance frequency. The vibrations from what the Twins said got a little help from a neighbor of the chairman of the state Republican Party who happened to be there when the Twins spoke, and in causal conversation happened to mention it to the chairman.  The part about Jimmy, the swing, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and something hitting the resonance frequency, however, still applies because the chairmen couldn’t get the words out of his head.  It started a small vibration which kept getting bigger and bigger until a whole initiative just sprung out of him one night, kind of like that little alien baby in that movie.  I’ll just give you the first several lines of the initiative so you can get the gist of what he intended.

Well, I thought I would be giving you the first several lines in this paragraph, but I’m worried that you (the reader) are somewhat skeptical about my claim that those simple words “Well, why don’t you then?” could have given off some type of scientific vibration which radiated outward to engulf the whole State of Washington.  Having you believe that this is possible, and not some science fiction made up thing, will need some heavy duty story, and not the run of the mill kind every day “science is stranger than fiction” kind.  In order to do this I have to introduce you to my paternal grandfather who, you will be relieved to know, was not a Republican or Democrat or named after anyone in either party, and he did not know the Twins or their grandparents or anyone in their families either, for that matter.  His name was Samuel Jones, and we always called him Grandpa Samuel, and not Grandpa Sam, as you might think we would, and this was because his mother, my great grandmother once removed, insisted on calling him Samuel.  Grandpa Samuel was the most skeptical man I ever knew, or woman for that matter.  He never believed anything unless he saw it himself, and he never exaggerated a story, even if it could be made better by a little creative lying.  Grandpa was also an accomplished grunter so I’m going to render a story he told to me in the style of a historical fiction conversation between me and Grandpa Samuel (on account of I wasn’t taking notes at that time in my life) and make liberal use of the single quote that I already told you about. 

Me: ‘Grandpa?’

Him: ‘Huh?’

Me: ‘In school today we learned about ball lightning.’

Him: ‘Huh?’

Me: ‘Jimmy Green said the teacher was making it all up, about ball lightning.’

Him: ‘Huh.’

Me: ‘Jimmy Green said his dad said that ball lightning was not real science, but made up science.’

Him: ‘Huh!’

Me: ‘Is Jimmy Green’s dad right?’

Him: ‘When I was a little boy, about your age, we lived on a farm in the country and we didn’t have electricity like we have now in this house.  It had been a hot, humid day, and it hadn’t cooled off much in the evening so Ma didn’t feel like starting the wood stove to cook dinner.  We were all sitting around the kitchen looking at the chicken all cut up for frying in the pan, but all of us were too hot still to move around.  As I said, we didn’t have electricity so our doorbell was a horseshoe hung on a chain by the kitchen door, not the fancy kind with a button.  Ma’s uncle had moved away to the city and done better than our side of the family that had stayed back on the farm.  For Christmas he gave Ma a nice radio, but since we didn’t have electricity it sat on the cupboard over the kitchen table just in case we ever got any.  Well, there we were sitting wishing it would cool off so Ma could fry the chicken, when dry lightning hit the big tree out back.  Like I said it was hot so both the back and front door to the kitchen were open and we had a clear view of the tree.  As soon as the lightning flash died away, a round ball of glowing light floated away from the tree about a man’s height from the ground, and just about as big as a man’s head.  It drifted towards the back door, and paused there like it was looking in the kitchen. After Pa got his voice back he said that it must have known that the proper way to enter a house was through the front door because it floated around the house to the front door and kind of stood still in the doorway.  None of us (Pa, Ma, and Sis) said anything, but just kept our mouths open.  Normally Ma would have gotten after us for sitting with our mouths open, but she was too busy holding hers open to care about us.  All of a sudden, the glowing ball rang the doorbell with one loud clang, and we all yelled out “come in” as we were trained to do since we had proper manners.  It came in the door and went right up to the radio and sort of swayed back and forth in front of it like it was studying it.  Apparently it got tired of looking at the radio, so it started to move towards us.  I guess it was looking at us instead of watching where it was going, because it tripped on the frying pan and fell in.  Now this is the God’s truth.  It fried our chicken right on the cold stove, got back up and shot out the back door.  Later that night (after we recovered from the shock) we ate the chicken.  It actually tasted kind of burnt, but by that time we were hungry enough to eat it, burnt pieces and all.  That was ball lightning.’

Me: “Huh!”

Now, as I told you Grandpa always told the truth and never added to a story just to make it better.  His rendition should convince you of that.  Any other person would have changed the story so that the radio turned on and played the latest hit tunes, but not Grandpa. He was too skeptical to make his own stories up.  So there you have it, and now that you are convinced, I’ll continue and give you the lines of the initiative I was going to earlier in the story.

“Shall the citizens of Washington State divide the state into two parts that will be run exclusively by the Republican Party of Washington State and the Democratic Party of Washington State, and (lots of words) if the citizens so vote favorably then the details of the division will be decided by a committee composed of the Governor, the presidents of all four year colleges in Washington State, and two elected representatives from each party.”  A special election was held in April.  This seemed like a good idea even to me, who hardly voted, since I was as sick as everyone else of the constant bickering between the parties.  Also, it seemed like a good solution, since both sides felt like the recent election was unfair and should be redone.  On June 1, 2010 Washington State was officially split into two pieces, one Republican and one Democrat.

In the coming chapters I’ll tell you how the state was divided up and where Alice and I lived, and who became the new governors of each half.  I didn’t get to it in this chapter because of my habit of digressing, but I invoke the “mortification clause” where I can digress to an interesting story for purposes of illustration.

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