Vic Socotra

26 December 2010

Deuce and a Quarter

(1961 Buick 225 convertible Known as the “Deuce and a Quarter” due to it’s 225-inch wheelbase. Photo Specialty Motors 2009.)

I lost the freaking internet about ten yesterday morning, and wasted an hour trying to get it back together before I had to be at the Village. I was feeling cut-off enough as it was being in the house on the bluff above the Bay, filled with dread of the Holiday to come, and feeling the guilt about that wash over me. The house is crammed with stuff that goes back through the whole 63-year marriage, and beyond. It all needs to be tossed or filed or stored.

Not having the Internet was disconcerting. There is a huge storm happening back home, and thank God I am not in it.

But I can't find out about it since I am cut off and the house is closing in on me.

The place is a trip back to the 1960s with 2010 technology draped atop it. Nothing has been right since my brother attempted to install surveillance cameras in the house when the folks were still here. There is a hurrah's-nest of phone lines and coax cables that snake out of the wall at the point of presence for the . I don't blame him, since he spent good money in good faith trying to do something good, but the job was not complete when he left last summer, and I have no idea what he connected to what.

That is the state of the house- one-time IT projects laid atop one another that do not quite get it right, done by disparate siblings with gear that may-or may not- be incompatible.

I managed to get connectivity by unplugging modem and wireless router, but it was sporadic. I mistrusted the wireless router and the cable that connected it, since it had a little play at the plug, and who knows how hard it was tugged trying to get it to cameras on the other side of the wall.

Christmas interrupted my quest, which I finally resolved to solve by purchasing a new WiFi router at Walmart, giving more money to the Chinese. The town, nay, the entire Northland was locked up tight as a drum for the holiday. I got dressed and motored over to Potemkin Village to greet the inevitable. I was lugging the red IBM Selectric typewriter, since Mom was complaining that she could not write letters.

The computer and the mysteries of the Windows Vista- operating system were impenetrable to her, and marked a major tectonic shift in her condition.

(Fifty-pound IBM Selectric Typewriter, made in America circa 1961.)

I have to tell you about the wonder I felt hauling the typewriter. Made in America, it was heavy enough that it was difficult to get through the doors to gain entrance to the Village lobby and press the buttons on the elevator. When I arrived at the apartment I plugged it in, and Mom was thrilled at the heavy authoritative "thunk" the golf-ball shaped type head made as it impacted the test paper I inserted.

It was a thing of marvel for what was in America, real as a 1961 Buick Wildcat or a Deuce-and-a-Quarter when this country made real things at prices the people who made them could afford to buy.

I opened presents with Mom and Raven, who dozed on the couch. The Rediscovery of Fox News had thrilled Mom so much that she was unwilling to turn off the television, on the inevitable premise that she could not turn it on again.

So sad.

Anyway, they were apparently up until 0400, so understandably Raven was dozing. As she opened gifts I typed what it was and who had sent it. One nephew sent muffins and crumpets; another sent Jim Beam whiskey in tiny chocolate bottles. I have no idea why, but it was nice that he thought of them.

After the wreckage was cleaned up, I took them for a long drive.

We visited the old cabin outside of Elmira. No one was there in the nine-unit complex that once held so much laughter for so many. Forging on into Gaylord, the Alpine Village, was dead as a tomb, and so was the Hidden Valley Ski Club at Otsego. Two families were just pulling in, but the lifts were still, and Mom had forgotten that the lodge was at the top of the hill, and that is why she could not see the slopes.

Raven was animated, and the Police Cruiser seems to bring him out of the mists where he spends most of his time. The Crown Vic with the ginormous V-8 and dual exhaust harks back to his prime, when he designed these behemoths of the road, and thundered along in complete command of his world.

At one point he perked up to accuse another motorist of being an idiot; he said we might drive south to New York, at one point, was concerned about going to Wyoming, and as I made a swing off the big road on the way back at Walloon Lake, that we might get stranded in Bermuda.

We stopped at Boyne Mountain, which had two lifts running, to see the downhill skiers and snowboarders at their holiday leisure.

Dad likes the Police Car. Smooth, he observed, between dozing mouth agape. It was hard to tell when he was awake, since he has developed a way of peering out through slitted eyes under the brim of his soft cap.

I drove them through Boyne City and Horton's Bay to remind Mom about Ernie Hemingway, and his times here in the Northland. She recalled some of it, and the country store where he once hung out while at Walloon, but swore she had never been there before.

Once we were back at the Village, I was gratified to see that Dad had remained continent and the seat of the Cruiser was still fresh.

In the apartment, I set out happy hour snacks and got Mom a glass of wine in a glass packed with ice and a cranberry juice for Dad. The Medicine lady, a young Hispanic gal with merry dark eyes, appeared at 4:30 on the dot. Mom complained that they came each day at the same time to make sure they took their pills.

We listened to Bill O'Reilly complain bitterly about a bunch of stuff, and when the time came, I walked them down to the elevator to travel to the dining room on the second floor. I told Mom I could not stay for dinner. I had a steak back at the house, and I was determined to get enough vodka into me to take away the horror of this slow-motion disintegration.

I fooled around with the computer for a while, to no avail, and resolved to hit WalMart as soon as it opened and replace the wireless router and connective cords to see if that might change anything.

Which is how I found myself walking into the vast brightness of the Big Box by the Indian Casino at just after six.

Obviously I fixed the problem, though it was not what I thought. I had to trace back through the new WiFi box and beyond the cable modem and eliminate a splitter connection that shunts the solitary cable signal to the TV and modem. So, to get the Internet I have sacrificed the television, but at least it seems to be working. Perhaps an "A" and "B" switch could be the next work-around, but this house is nothing but dozens of work-arounds, installed by alternate amateurs.

So, it is 0830, I can read and write my mail, and I will be here for another two days of sitting and driving the folks around.

I am glad I am here, I think, but Lord.