"the schoolbus buzzed by, like an insensitive kayak disturbing a peaceful school of fish..."
throughout life, we encounter many interesting nouns and therefore we
acquire their memories into our minds and we think about them.
people, places, and things that we come across in life often surface in
our memories and serve as what i like to refer to as "our
layers". these layers are what motivates us to do what we do how
we do it - to laugh at what we laugh at, to cry at what we cry
at. these layers give us stories to tell people when we're
sitting around a dining room table telling stories late at night.
as a writer, i tend to look at life in a way that makes me think of things this way: everything i experience is an object that should be documented - written down in a notebook - saved, for later use. if someone says something extraodinarily funny, while my body is laughing my mind is secretly thinking "remember this! you can put it in your notebook later and someday you can carefully implant it in to a sitcom!" i usually write the things that serve as my layers down in journals and usually i only end up seeing them. i'll often tell my friends stories about life - like anyone would - but this time, i feel like telling you all about the humorous person i have encountered in the past week and a half at summer camp.
at camp, we go on field trips four out of the five days each week. on tuesdays and thursdays we go to the town pool, and on wednesdays and fridays we go on more interesting adventures. we always have the same five bus drivers for these trips. i don't know their names, but when camp started this year i recognized all but two of the bus drivers as being leftovers from last year. the bus drivers usually get to know us and the kids pretty well - they drive us everywhere for seven weeks. my experience last year was that the bus drivers were really nice - they were always smiling and always got us to where we needed to go. and it was always fun to see them at field trips, where they would find a place wherever we were, sit down, and chat about their lives for the duration of our trip.
since three of them were returning from last year, this means that there are two new bus drivers. this first one is a woman probably in her late thirties. she's nice - kind of nervous i think. if i saw her in the grocery store, i never would have pegged her as a bus driver. to be honest, i don't really think she pegs herself as a bus driver either. she seems to be a bit uneasy with navigating the huge yellow twinkie down the thruway. but, all in all, she's a really nice lady and i don't mind being on her bus at all. her bus is warm and friendly.
but then there's the other bus driver. he's the reason i'm writing. i'm going to do my best to describe this man to you, but i really wish that i could simply video tape him for you and send it to each of you through email. much like many of the interesting people in my life, this man is so extreme in his uniqueness that you most likely will not believe me when i write about him. for reasons that you will find out later, i will refer to him as "fishman".
fishman is probably in his late forties, though his look kind of takes away from my being able to guess his age completely. he has a long, straight, mullet. his hair is brown, but unfortunately - so are his teeth. he wears huge aviator glasses, which wouldn't be funny because it's kind of trendy, but it is funny - because he's not wearing them to be trendy or ironic in any way. he means business when he wears this glasses. they're tinted, though i don't think they 're sunglasses. no, i'm pretty sure that fishman is the kind of person that would have prescription glasses that just happen to be tinted.
so, last wednesday, we go on a field trip to a train in the adirondacks which runs next to the hudson river. the trainride itself wasn't too fun but that's a whole different story. anyway, the train brought us to this "train stop" which was really just an ice cream stand and a gift shop. we were there for about an hour and a half because for some reason the people were not anticipating a train full of people coming to their stand (even though it's all prebooked and our camp doesn't ever pretend not to carry 160 kids around with us). the bus drivers, who had rode the train with us, were sitting on benches just taking in the fresh air.
fishman, apparently, was growing restless - unlike the other fairly pleasant bus drivers. fishman looked to the river with a determined face. "i'm goin' fishin'." said the fishman - though no one believed him, because he did not have a fishing pole.
fishing pole or no fishing pole, fishman was going fishing. he removed his odd shoes and ugly socks to reveal his creepy busdriver-stuck-in-the-sixties feet and began to walk over to the river. he splashed his feet into the water and began to look down at the water intently. with his two arms, much like a bear, he scooped down in to the water and came back clasping a thrashing fish in his hand. "i got it!"
the fishman proceeded to walk around camp with this fish, smiling his half-toothed smile, allowing small children to touch its slimy, scaly, skin while it thrashed about. the fishman held it tight, boasting to the children, "i just stuck my hands right in there and pulled out a fish!" he got a kid to give him a brown paper lunch bag so that he could save his fish to cook it up for dinner. no one mentioned that the hudson is full of pcbs and dredging is happening fairly soon.
realizing his catch would probably go bad by dinner, the fishman snuck to the front of the very long ice cream line to ask for a bag of ice. on an ordinary day, the kids would have at least pretended to taunt him for having cut such a long line - but nobody was going to mess with a man with a radioactive pcb fish in his hand.
and the fishman brought his iced fish on the bus, and vowed that he would eat it for dinner that night.
as you know, children are fairly interesting people - really just shorter versions of ourselves, more than we know. though children do have one thing about them that is very different than adults - and that is a lack of the fear of being impolite that keeps most adults from asking questions that they would really like to know the answer to. if we see a woman with a huge purple mark on her face, many of us spend the entire time we are talking to that woman wondering what the purple mark is, how she got it, when or if its going to go away, and if its contagious. a child on the other hand, upon meeting such a woman, most likely would have said "what's that on your face?" she would have told them and all the worrying would have slipped away. in fact, if most of us met such a woman, we should hope that we have a child with us so that he or she may ask questions for us.
such was the case on the bus the day after the fish incident. the buzz around camp was whether or not the fishman had really eaten his fish or not. when i learned that my group had been assigned fishman's bus, i immediately became worried that his fish would still be on the bus. or, that he would do something very strange while we were on his bus. but really, what really came to my mind was, "i wish i could ask him if he ate that fish or not!"
thankfully, summer camp contains many many children. and as one might expect, the second we got on the bus, the blissfully tactless children all began to ask - in a chorus of enthusiasm - "did you eat your fish!?"
the fishman was flattered by the children's enthusiasm, and the memory of his fish seemed to make him really happy. he was glad to tell the story of his fish, so he quickly came down the aisle of the bus and stood before my children to talk. he speaks with a southern accept though i'm almost possitive that it's simply the kind of southern accent that comes from living in a hick town in new york that is so rural it actually thinks it's in the south. his eyes got wide and he spoke with his hands an awful lot - "let me tell you! i got home with that thing last night, i cut him right up. i got two nine inch steaks out of that thing. boy, i put some butter on that bad boy, filleted that up - mmmm mm that was a good fish."
the children squealed with laughter. my kids are twelve and they could see how much of caricature of himself this man was. "you actually ate it!"
"'coure i ate it. little butter on that bad boy, it was delicious." the fishman kept referring to the fish as "that bad boy". this was getting serious.
so you see, the fishman is a perfect example of an experience that, to me, becomes an object that i can keep. the fishman is someone who, when interacting with the world, i can't imagine isn't aware of his own self-cartoonness. i wonder if he is actually just playing the character of a crazy fishman who drives a bus and is forced to interact with children - or if there are really people out there that are like that.
the fishman, i think, will have a cameo in a screenplay that i write some day. of course the real fishman will not have this cameo - but the essence of his ridiculousness will... the fact that he's an exaggeration of himself, the fact that he caught a fish with his bare hands on a field trip to a train and then allowed children to touch the fish. the fact that he thinks of himself as a celebrity even though we all think he's crazy. the fact that maybe he knows we all think he's crazy - and maybe he's letting himself be crazy for our benefit.
of course that's a hopeful interpretation of the fishman's existance. in reality he probably is that weird, and isn't at all aware that he's odd enough that i could have written all this just about him. and while it's sad to think that maybe he's aware that he's the crazy guy we all call the fishman, it would kind of be nice...
anyway, that day at the pool, i saw a man that looked exactly like the fishman walking over to the baby pool with his arms extended - much like they had been when he was being a bear and catching a fish with his bare hands. "please tell me that is not the bus driver." i said to one of my campers, who proceeded to squint and confirm that it wasn't him, and i didn't have to worry that he was scooping up a baby to cook for dinner.
"slap a little butter on that bad boy... fillet it up... mmm that was good..."
as a writer, i tend to look at life in a way that makes me think of things this way: everything i experience is an object that should be documented - written down in a notebook - saved, for later use. if someone says something extraodinarily funny, while my body is laughing my mind is secretly thinking "remember this! you can put it in your notebook later and someday you can carefully implant it in to a sitcom!" i usually write the things that serve as my layers down in journals and usually i only end up seeing them. i'll often tell my friends stories about life - like anyone would - but this time, i feel like telling you all about the humorous person i have encountered in the past week and a half at summer camp.
at camp, we go on field trips four out of the five days each week. on tuesdays and thursdays we go to the town pool, and on wednesdays and fridays we go on more interesting adventures. we always have the same five bus drivers for these trips. i don't know their names, but when camp started this year i recognized all but two of the bus drivers as being leftovers from last year. the bus drivers usually get to know us and the kids pretty well - they drive us everywhere for seven weeks. my experience last year was that the bus drivers were really nice - they were always smiling and always got us to where we needed to go. and it was always fun to see them at field trips, where they would find a place wherever we were, sit down, and chat about their lives for the duration of our trip.
since three of them were returning from last year, this means that there are two new bus drivers. this first one is a woman probably in her late thirties. she's nice - kind of nervous i think. if i saw her in the grocery store, i never would have pegged her as a bus driver. to be honest, i don't really think she pegs herself as a bus driver either. she seems to be a bit uneasy with navigating the huge yellow twinkie down the thruway. but, all in all, she's a really nice lady and i don't mind being on her bus at all. her bus is warm and friendly.
but then there's the other bus driver. he's the reason i'm writing. i'm going to do my best to describe this man to you, but i really wish that i could simply video tape him for you and send it to each of you through email. much like many of the interesting people in my life, this man is so extreme in his uniqueness that you most likely will not believe me when i write about him. for reasons that you will find out later, i will refer to him as "fishman".
fishman is probably in his late forties, though his look kind of takes away from my being able to guess his age completely. he has a long, straight, mullet. his hair is brown, but unfortunately - so are his teeth. he wears huge aviator glasses, which wouldn't be funny because it's kind of trendy, but it is funny - because he's not wearing them to be trendy or ironic in any way. he means business when he wears this glasses. they're tinted, though i don't think they 're sunglasses. no, i'm pretty sure that fishman is the kind of person that would have prescription glasses that just happen to be tinted.
so, last wednesday, we go on a field trip to a train in the adirondacks which runs next to the hudson river. the trainride itself wasn't too fun but that's a whole different story. anyway, the train brought us to this "train stop" which was really just an ice cream stand and a gift shop. we were there for about an hour and a half because for some reason the people were not anticipating a train full of people coming to their stand (even though it's all prebooked and our camp doesn't ever pretend not to carry 160 kids around with us). the bus drivers, who had rode the train with us, were sitting on benches just taking in the fresh air.
fishman, apparently, was growing restless - unlike the other fairly pleasant bus drivers. fishman looked to the river with a determined face. "i'm goin' fishin'." said the fishman - though no one believed him, because he did not have a fishing pole.
fishing pole or no fishing pole, fishman was going fishing. he removed his odd shoes and ugly socks to reveal his creepy busdriver-stuck-in-the-sixties feet and began to walk over to the river. he splashed his feet into the water and began to look down at the water intently. with his two arms, much like a bear, he scooped down in to the water and came back clasping a thrashing fish in his hand. "i got it!"
the fishman proceeded to walk around camp with this fish, smiling his half-toothed smile, allowing small children to touch its slimy, scaly, skin while it thrashed about. the fishman held it tight, boasting to the children, "i just stuck my hands right in there and pulled out a fish!" he got a kid to give him a brown paper lunch bag so that he could save his fish to cook it up for dinner. no one mentioned that the hudson is full of pcbs and dredging is happening fairly soon.
realizing his catch would probably go bad by dinner, the fishman snuck to the front of the very long ice cream line to ask for a bag of ice. on an ordinary day, the kids would have at least pretended to taunt him for having cut such a long line - but nobody was going to mess with a man with a radioactive pcb fish in his hand.
and the fishman brought his iced fish on the bus, and vowed that he would eat it for dinner that night.
as you know, children are fairly interesting people - really just shorter versions of ourselves, more than we know. though children do have one thing about them that is very different than adults - and that is a lack of the fear of being impolite that keeps most adults from asking questions that they would really like to know the answer to. if we see a woman with a huge purple mark on her face, many of us spend the entire time we are talking to that woman wondering what the purple mark is, how she got it, when or if its going to go away, and if its contagious. a child on the other hand, upon meeting such a woman, most likely would have said "what's that on your face?" she would have told them and all the worrying would have slipped away. in fact, if most of us met such a woman, we should hope that we have a child with us so that he or she may ask questions for us.
such was the case on the bus the day after the fish incident. the buzz around camp was whether or not the fishman had really eaten his fish or not. when i learned that my group had been assigned fishman's bus, i immediately became worried that his fish would still be on the bus. or, that he would do something very strange while we were on his bus. but really, what really came to my mind was, "i wish i could ask him if he ate that fish or not!"
thankfully, summer camp contains many many children. and as one might expect, the second we got on the bus, the blissfully tactless children all began to ask - in a chorus of enthusiasm - "did you eat your fish!?"
the fishman was flattered by the children's enthusiasm, and the memory of his fish seemed to make him really happy. he was glad to tell the story of his fish, so he quickly came down the aisle of the bus and stood before my children to talk. he speaks with a southern accept though i'm almost possitive that it's simply the kind of southern accent that comes from living in a hick town in new york that is so rural it actually thinks it's in the south. his eyes got wide and he spoke with his hands an awful lot - "let me tell you! i got home with that thing last night, i cut him right up. i got two nine inch steaks out of that thing. boy, i put some butter on that bad boy, filleted that up - mmmm mm that was a good fish."
the children squealed with laughter. my kids are twelve and they could see how much of caricature of himself this man was. "you actually ate it!"
"'coure i ate it. little butter on that bad boy, it was delicious." the fishman kept referring to the fish as "that bad boy". this was getting serious.
so you see, the fishman is a perfect example of an experience that, to me, becomes an object that i can keep. the fishman is someone who, when interacting with the world, i can't imagine isn't aware of his own self-cartoonness. i wonder if he is actually just playing the character of a crazy fishman who drives a bus and is forced to interact with children - or if there are really people out there that are like that.
the fishman, i think, will have a cameo in a screenplay that i write some day. of course the real fishman will not have this cameo - but the essence of his ridiculousness will... the fact that he's an exaggeration of himself, the fact that he caught a fish with his bare hands on a field trip to a train and then allowed children to touch the fish. the fact that he thinks of himself as a celebrity even though we all think he's crazy. the fact that maybe he knows we all think he's crazy - and maybe he's letting himself be crazy for our benefit.
of course that's a hopeful interpretation of the fishman's existance. in reality he probably is that weird, and isn't at all aware that he's odd enough that i could have written all this just about him. and while it's sad to think that maybe he's aware that he's the crazy guy we all call the fishman, it would kind of be nice...
anyway, that day at the pool, i saw a man that looked exactly like the fishman walking over to the baby pool with his arms extended - much like they had been when he was being a bear and catching a fish with his bare hands. "please tell me that is not the bus driver." i said to one of my campers, who proceeded to squint and confirm that it wasn't him, and i didn't have to worry that he was scooping up a baby to cook for dinner.
"slap a little butter on that bad boy... fillet it up... mmm that was good..."