I'm going to keep my columns coming, at least the ones that are semi-cool, until you all start grumbling. Keep in mind with this one that I am writing to a predominantly Mormon audience.

Slightly Bent

“Oh, Sweet Mysteries of Life…”

by Ben Gildehaus

I’m just dying to tell you this—I’ve decided not to worry about the inevitable anymore.

You know, dying…passing away, meeting your maker, going to your eternal reward, kicking the bucket, buying the farm, knocking on heaven’s door…or whatever euphemism you want to employ to avoid actually uttering the big “D” word. Someone actually compiled a website of 213 ways to say death or dying—and put them all in alphabetical order. Some folks just don’t have enough to do. (They should come to Driggs and work for the Teton Valley News.)

When you’re twenty-something-ish as I am, you don’t spend a lot of your spare time thinking about dying. I must admit this morbid subject, however, did cross my mind recently as I returned alone in the dark from the printer in Jackson in the company SUV with a full and unbalanced load of your weekly reading material in the back.

No, when you’re twenty-something, you still have that feeling of invincibility. You cockily possess a nothing-can-happen-to-me attitude, assured that barring some unforeseen circumstance, you won’t be cooling to room temperature anytime soon. As long as you don’t send the Grim Reaper a personally engraved invitation by engaging in stupid or risky behavior, you should have it made in the shade, at least for awhile. Pay your bills on time, don’t drink and drive, get lessons before pointing your skis downhill, avoid stress (uh-oh!). Death is for old people, and old won’t happen to me for at least 20 or 30 more years. Also, I’m genetically gifted—my family has a history of growing old people. Two of my grandparents reached their nineties and the other two weren’t far behind, so that gives me even more time.

Why worry anyhow? There’s a lot of information to be gained when the time comes. Isn’t that when we get the answer to the Big Question, why are we here? I’m not even worried about that. I’m well-informed, I’ve read Hitchhiker’s Guide… and now that it’s out on DVD, it wouldn’t be a spoiler to say that we all already know the answer is “42.” But there are other burning questions to be answered, and frankly, I can’t wait to get there to have those addressed. I have my own little list and I intend to pose it to a few who have gone on to the Great Beyond ahead of me—my own little mysteries of life.

For example, what does the word “garage” mean to dogs? Two of the dogs we’ve owned at separate times, a Newf and a Norwich, have both reacted to the word in the same way, as if it meant something really special. Say “garage” and they would cock and twist their heads like something out of The Exorcist every time. Though we never used the word in relation to them (We didn’t even have a garage when we had the Newf.), they both reacted to it like it was the best cookie they ever tasted. We don’t have a clue why.

So when I get to heaven, one of the first questions I’m going to ask them is what in the world does “garage” mean in canine-ese? It’s a mystery.

Then there’s my grandmother. She lived with us for the last five years of her life—and she was a character, all 4 feet 6 inches of her. She had more than a little dementia in her later years, but she never let that get in her way. If she couldn’t remember something, she had a tendency to make things up.

When her somewhat younger (80-ish) but more rational friend would call to talk and Grandma couldn’t remember things well enough to answer all her questions, she would create. At one point, I think I was going to Harvard and headed for the first round at Wimbledon while in actuality, I was at a little liberal arts college in Illinois playing Division III tennis. She got the gist, just not the details. But she was insistent, so you cheerfully agreed no matter how off the mark she was.

One fact Grandma was adamant about was that my grandfather got up every morning in their retirement years and “barbequed breakfast for her.” Now, Gramps loved to barbeque and he was a master at lamb chops. He took great pride in his outdoor culinary skill. But none of us could see him getting up every morning to fire up the charcoal briquettes just to throw on a pan of bacon and eggs. Nevertheless, my grandmother insisted, and no one could argue the point since no one was there. You can bet I’m going to clear this one up by consulting the lamb chop man himself as soon as I see him again.

Just think of all the personal little mysteries that will be unraveled when you cash in your chips, check out, fade away, give up the ghost, go to the happy hunting ground, kick the can, snuff it, turn up daisies, walk the plank……………..but I think I can hold out awhile before I go looking for the answers.

Hi. So that's how you're doing. How am i doing? With one less class, i can make it. I'm getting my work done, and i'm sleeping 7 hours per night... ive made that priority number one lately. I still have very little free time. Still no dining room table. Still no shower curtain. Still no couch. Etc. I never get to play the piano. A few times a day, i quietly think to myself "i want to go home," and realize i'm thinking about Knox. That will go away in time, yes... but it shouldn't. We have learned that life can be that real. There is no reason why any of us should ever pardon the world for not being that real. What we have lived at home can be lived abroad. We can take it with us. But good lord, it is hard work to raise a living thing on a concrete pad:

Michael and i have taken on a new hobby/business venture, that is, making ice cream with his ebay-purchased ice cream maker manufactured sometime around 1965. Best fucking ice cream i've ever had in my life. Raw, organic, free-range eggs are the secret. No salmonella yet.

Eli, the Barrowboy, by The Decemberists. Holy shit.

When i told her that i was Greek, my new friend Anu--an architect fresh off the boat from India--asked if that's why i had such a big nose.

"We smoke away our pipe-dreams" ---Youngblood Brass Band

I've decided to send John the entire 77-page script of "the Shawshank Redemption" in the mail, piece-by-piece: 5-10 pages with each letter.

Carle Park, Urbana = Standish park, Galesburg... only more beautiful and more appreciated.

What is an "urban presenter?"(imagine)

"The Federal Government should defend the shore, deliver the mail, and stay the hell out of my life." ---former Wisconsin governor Lee Dryfus

From the back of my duct tape book:
""Teaching""
"Teaching" a lab
bored.
Reminiscent of when i was a goalie
wishing my team wasn't so damn good
so i'd have something to
do
c'mon team! Suck!
Be dumb! Have questions!
Bored.

Our 2nd floor perch. At this desk. At this computer: Centenarian trees slowly turning. Steadfast pedestrian holdouts in still-walkable Urbana. The little black kitty. Bugs and all-hallows-eve-eve air rushing in as the warm pipes clank. 5 hot neighbors. Real.

Yesterday I saw Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg! She came to give a talk at the WVU College of Law. Her speech was dry and a little bit boring, all about the statistics of how women are increasingly coming into the law, but her Q & A sessions were great. I am going to take back some of the things I said about her on the show. I found Justice Ginsburg to be a very intelligent person with more than enough qualifications to be on the Court. She said how much she admired O'Connor and Rehnquist at the speech. Also, she had nothing but praise for the new Chief Justice. Some clod in the crowd actually asked Ginsburg if the Court was going to keep or get rid of Roe v. Wade. What a schmoe. Ginsburg just said that it was precedent and she wasn't going to go into it, rightly so. People pressed her about the eminent domain decision and she simply replied that she didn't think it was the Court's business to make the call about forcing people out of their homes to make way for condos, it was a matter for the state legislature or local city council. I thought about getting up and saying, "But see here lady, those people being pushed off their land come to you because you can't be bought off like the state legistature and especially the city council!" However, I thought better of it. Ginsburg said the only person happier about her appointment than Sandra Day O'Connor was her husband John. "The reason being?" you ask. Because now John could say that he wasn't the only husband to a Supreme Court Justice. I really enjoyed hearing her speak. I hope all is going well with you all.

I'm writing so much lately that all I feel like posting is the stuff I'm writing for the paper. So here's another column for your reading enjoyment ;) I hate writing about city council meetings and such, love writing about sports and my stupid little life...

Slightly BENt

There’s No Place Like Home-Plate
By Ben Gildehaus

Top of the ninth, two out and two strikes down, on the very brink of elimination, and POW—pure magic!

Cutting deep into the heart of Houston, Texas, my beloved hometown St. Louis Cardinals kept the cork in the Astros’ champagne bottles behind a scratch single, a hard-fought walk, and the amazing heart and power of one of this generation’s greatest hitters. Albert Pujols struck a towering 3-run blast that drop-dead silenced 43,000 in Minute Maid Stadium and sent the NLCS back to St. Louis for at least one more game.

As commercials have been shouting into households for the last two weeks, "I live for this stuff!"— but I came ever so close to missing it.

The TV in my apartment only plays DVDs at the moment, not because it’s incapable of reception but because its owner has admittedly been too cheap to hook up to local cable. Due to the virtual unknowns of living in my first apartment, i.e. utility costs and other necessary expenses, I have forgone television in favor of food in the refrigerator.

But this was the playoffs, and having swept San Diego in the first divisional contest, my National League Central Division Champ Cardinals were on track to redeem last year’s World Series debacle when they were the Red Sox sacrificial lambs.

So, I headed for the bars to watch the games, proud that I had resisted the temptation to fork out the big bucks for cable. Upon my arrival at Playoff Central, I came to the quick realization that I couldn’t just sit there and take it all in. Though I’m a charming and affable presence, I would nonetheless be taking up a space where a paying customer could be sitting, consuming beverage and vittles. And then there was the waitress. I couldn’t continually spurn her efforts to serve me

To make a long weekend short, in two game-viewing visits (during which, by the way, I had to supply my own audio commentary since the bar had the sound turned off), I managed to drop a cool $34 in charges and tips—probably comparable or at least close to what I would have paid for an entire month of cable and the privilege of watching the Cards struggle pointlessly through two gut-wrenching losses in the comfort of my own apartment. Taking in this significant monetary lesson, I returned dejectedly home.

But Game 5 might not only be the last game of the season for the Cards, it could also signal the wrecking ball for St. Louis’ 40-year-old Busch Stadium, scheduled for demolition at the end of the season. I couldn’t stay away from one final give-it-all-you’ve-got effort to hang in there and bring the series back home—so the baseball barfly was back in position Monday night.

It was a St. Louis extravaganza at the bar that evening. Both the Cards’ game and the St. Louis Rams were permeating the atmosphere from TVs overhead. Somewhat surreal to be sitting in Driggs, Idaho with everybody watching St. Louis teams—no, Ben, you’re actually not in Missouri anymore.

Apparently mesmerized by all the St. Louis action, I failed to notice that there was free food available, and ordered up tacos and a beverage, now absolutely assuring that I had spent enough in bar bills to have long ago ordered cable.

While the Rams blew a 17-point lead after quarterback Boulger went down, the Cards went up 2-1 over Houston until Lance Berkman hit a dinky 338-foot 3-run homer that plopped into the Crawford Boxes in the seventh inning and the hometown crowd went bonkers. In the 44-year history of their franchise, this was the closest they had ever been to the World Series. As they passed the eighth inning unscathed, the rally towels waved more frantically and the noise level moved up decibels. The plastic tarps were hung in the hometown locker room, the on-field ceremony was readied, and I ached with the knowledge that a great team was going to end the season with four straight losses and the only baseball stadium I had ever known would never host another game.

Then, magic! I live for this stuff!

The next morning I went into the office. "Did you see the game last night?" I queried excitedly.

"What game?" they all echoed in stereo.

I’m getting cable tomorrow.

we will be around this weekend. 309-335-2695 if you want to know if we are at the house or not or you can just stop by 167 South West Street.