I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few things and to check up on how the auditions came out for Cheriee at the community theatre. They are putting on a production of West Side Story there and Bob Havershold’s daughter has her heart set for a big part. Jake came out as I parked in front of the gas pumps and asked if I needed any gas. I told him to fill ‘er up and Jake set to putting the gas in. Jake and I talked about the weather for a bit. What you do is talk about the weather when there is nothing much else to discuss. Jake was of the opinion we might get some rain off the storm that was coming ashore off the coast of Louisiana. The most recent news was this was not a major storm, just a tropical disturbance with a lot of wet to drop. Jake finished with the gas and I followed him inside the store. I paid up and glanced over at the tabloid rack while Jake was getting change.
Jake carries most of the tabloid news publications found near the check out at most supermarkets. I have never paid much attention to them, but I get some amusement from the headlines; Eighty-Five Year Old Woman Gives Birth To Two Headed Baby! Elvis Sighted Working At Wal-Mart In Minnesota! Tom Cruise Seeking Converts For Scientology! I don’t have much opinion about the tabloids. I figure it’s a free country and folks should be able to publish most anything they like. What is a little worrisome is that a lot of people apparently buy these things for the publishing houses to stay in business. I just wonder if the people who buy them actually believe what they read. “Famed Mystic Predicts World Will End July Twenty-Third At Four Thirty-Two In The Morning!”
I decided to grab a gallon of milk and some bacon. As I turned around I saw Bob Havershold sitting over by the pot belly stove along with Hermann Spencer. They were looking over one of the tabloid papers I had noticed at the check out. I wandered over to ask about Cheriee. Bob saw me and stuck out his hand. At my question he said his daughter apparently has a part of some sort in the play, but she has been so busy that he has hardly had a chance to speak two words to her. Bob’s wife, Gracie, has also become involved with props or something and has been mostly gone with Cheriee to the point Bob feels like a single man again. Hermann piped up that Bob must be enjoying the experience, but Bob said it was not so wonderful as he remembers from his younger days. With the wife out of the house, he has to do his own cooking and cleaning and washing of his own clothes. If Bob remembers correctly, the production does not come off until some time in August. That means Bob is going to be a bachelor something like a month and a half. He is not looking forward to it. Hermann suggested he might want to join his family at the theatre. Bob said he thought about that, but he is concerned if he shows up there, they might put him to work. Hermann laughed and said it looks as if Bob has a real problem.
I noticed the tabloid Bob had in his hands had something on the front cover about Ton Cruise and asked Bob if a missing family was driving him to rot his mind with tabloid news. Bob grinned that some people seek comfort in a bottle when their family abandons them, Bob finds he gets the same results as from liquor by reading the tabloids. It seems movie star Tom Cruise has made something of a stir because he said some things in public critical of shrinks and drugs. The incident made Bob curious, so he had decided to check it out. The story suggested the actor had based his criticism on his devotion to some sort of New Age religion popular with the Hollywood set called Scientology. On the one hand, Bob has some sympathy with Tom Cruise’s criticism. Bob is not a big fan of going to a head doctor for every little emotional road bump and that is what inspired Bob to get interested in the story. On the other hand, Bob knows L. Ron Hubbard, the man who more or less invented this New Age religion and Bob’s opinion is that Hubbard is a certifiable basket case. For that matter, Bob is not sure but that Tom Cruise may also be certifiable.
Which is not to say Bob is back yard buddies with L. Ron Hubbard. They don’t hang out together and have each other’s children over to pass the night. For one thing, Hubbard has passed on a few years back. The deal is that, in addition to his Scientology kick, Ron Hubbard was a sometimes science fiction writer and Bob read some of Hubbard’s sci-fi material. Bob has the opinion that a guy writing a book on some religious theory he has invented may be able to arrange words in a manner to sound wise and philosophical. But a guy writing escapist fiction falls back on his essential world view. The idealized version of reality he uses for the basis for his fiction is a world as the writer believes is right and proper, and the world Hubbard presents as right and proper is not the sort of place Bob would find agreeable.
That said, Bob has strong opinions about parents who take their children to quack doctors and ask to have prescriptions written for drugs to cure imagined problems. Some parents complain their children are hyperactive. Children are supposed to be hyperactive. Hyperactive is part of growing up, a part of developing the young body to function properly. Parents who demand their children sit quietly in their rooms and not make a nuisance of themselves are doing a grave disservice to the children. A major part of being a parent is realizing a child is going to make a major wreck of the parent’s properly organized life to the point that life after childbirth is nothing like the neatly arranged and compartmentalized life that existed before. Children are made disruptive and annoying. They are created to spill things and cause chaos. Their purpose is to become the center of your live and to push everything else into second place. Bob can think of any number of times his daughter Cheriee has made a complete shambles of his life. This community theatre comes immediately to mind. But, for the world, he would not have her any other way.
END
