by Dave Barry
I like having an alarm in our house, because it gives me the security that comes from knowing that trained security personnel will respond instantly whenever I trigger a false alarm. I do this every day at 6 A.M., when I get up to let out our large main dog, Earnest, and our small emergency backup dog, Zippy. I’m always in a big hurry, because Zippy, being about the size of a hairy lima bean (although less intelligent), has a very fast digestive cycle, and I need to get him right outside.
So I fall out of bed, barely conscious, and stagger to the back door, where both dogs are waiting, and I open the door and realize that I have failed to disarm the alarm system.
Now I have a problem. Because, within seconds, the voice of the Cheerful lady at the alarm company is going to come out of the alarm control panel, asking me to identify myself, and unless I give her the Secret Password, she’s going to cheerfully notify the police. So I stagger quickly over to the panel. But this leaves Earnest and Zippy alone out on the patio. Theoretically, they can get from the patio to our backyard all by themselves. They used to be prevented from doing this by a screen enclosure around the patio, but thanks to Hurricane Andrew, most of this enclosure is now orbiting the Earth. The hurricane did NOT blow away the screen door, however. It’s still standing there, and the dogs firmly believe that it’s the only way out. So—I swear I’m not making this up—instead of going two feet to the left or right, where there’s nothing to prevent them from simply wandering out into the yard, they trot directly to the door, stop, then turn around to look at me with a look that says “Well?”
“GO OUTSIDE!” I yell at them as I lunge toward the alarm control panel. “THERE’S NO SCREEN ANYMORE, YOU MORONS!”
“I beg your pardon?” says the Cheerful Alarm lady, because this is not the Secret Password.
“Bark,” says Earnest, who is trotting back toward the house, in case I am telling her that it’s time to eat.
“Grunt,” says Zippy, as his internal digestive timer reaches zero and he detonates on the patio.
We do this almost every morning. We’re very dependable. In fact, if some morning I DIDN’T trigger a false alarm, I think the Cheerful Alarm lady would notify the police.
“You’d better check the Barry residence,” she’d say. “Apparently something has happened to Mr. Barry. Or else he’s strangling one of his dogs.”
So the alarm people have been very nice to us, which is why we let them use our house for the video. It had a great Action Ending, wherein Ozzie runs out our front door, and an armed security man drives up, screeches to a halt, leaps out, puts his hand on his gun, and yells “FREEZE!” This is Ozzie’s cue to freeze and look concerned inside his stocking. They shot this scene several times, so there was a lot of commotion in our yard. Fortunately, in South Florida we’re used to seeing people sprint around with guns and stocking masks, so the activity in our yard did not alarm the neighbors. (“Look, Walter, the Barrys planted a new shrub.” “Where?” “Over there, next to the burglar.”)
Anyway, the point is that our house is well protected. The alarm system is there in case we ever need it, which I doubt we will, because—thanks to Zippy—only a fool would try to cross our patio on foot.
The World’s Fastest Lawn Mower
When I hear some loudmouth saying that the United States is no longer a world technology leader, I look him in the eye and say: “Hey! There’s a worm pooping on your shirt!” Then, when he looks down, I spit on the top of his head and sprint away. I’m not about to stand still while somebody knocks my country, not when we’re still capable of achievements such as the World’s Fastest Lawn Mower.
That’s right: The World’s Fastest Lawn Mower is produced right here in the U.S.A. by Americans just like yourself except that you are probably normal, whereas they put a jet-powered helicopter engine on a riding lawn mower. I know this is true because—call me a courageous journalism pioneer if you must—I drove it on my own personal lawn.
This event was arranged by Ken Thompson, a Miami-based sales representative for the Dixie Chopper brand of lawn mower. He wrote me a letter saying that the Dixie Chopper people had a special customized jet-powered model touring around the country making personal appearances, and it would be in my area, and he thought it would be a good idea if they brought it to my house in a sincere humanitarian effort to get free publicity. As a professional journalist trained to be constantly on the alert for stories that I can cover without leaving home, I said sure.
I’ve had an interest in lawn mowers since I was 10 years old, and I used to earn money attempting to mow neighbors’ lawns with our lawn mower, which was powered by the first gasoline engine ever built. I believe this was actually a stone engine. The only person who could start it consistently was my father, and he could do this only by wrapping the rope around the starter thing and yanking it for the better part of the weekend, a process that required more time and energy than he would have expended if he’d cut the entire lawn with his teeth.
By about the 1,000th yank, he’d be dripping with sweat, ready to quit, and the lawn mower, sensing this, would go, and I quote: Putt. Just once. But that was enough to goad my father into a furious yanking frenzy, transforming himself, wolf-man-like, from a mild-mannered, gentle Presbyterian minister into a violent red-faced lunatic, yanking away at this malevolent stone, which continued to go putt at exactly the right tactical moment, until finally it got what it wanted, which was for my father to emit a burst of extremely mild profanity. Then the lawn mower, knowing that it now had a funny story to tell down at the Lawn Mower Bar, would start.
Sometimes, in an effort to earn money, I’d push the stone lawn mower next door and ask Mrs. Reed if she wanted me to mow her lawn. She’d say yes, and I’d yank on the starter thing for a while, then sit down, exhausted and discouraged, and Mrs. Reed, who had been watching from her kitchen, would come out and give me a quarter. It was a living. Lawn mower technology has come a long way since then, as I discovered when the Dixie Chopper trailer pulled up at my house and the crew wheeled out the World’s Fastest Lawn Mower. It’s a normal-looking commercial riding lawn mower except that it has what looks like a large industrial coffee-maker mounted horizontally on the back. This is a 150-horsepower turbine engine from a U.S. military Chinook helicopter. According to the crew, Warren Evans and Mark Meagher, it can easily make the lawn mower go more than 60 miles per hour. God alone knows what it could do in a Cuisinart.
After briefing me on the controls, the crew started the engine, which sounded like a giant vacuum cleaner, getting louder and louder like this: whooOOOMMMM until it was shrieking and shooting flames out the back and causing all the wildlife creatures in South Florida to start fleeing north, which is fine with me because most of them sting, anyway. Then I put on some ear protectors, climbed into the driver’s seat, pushed the controls forward, and NMOOOAAAAA ...
Let me say, in all journalistic objectivity, that I have never before experienced that level of acceleration in a lawn mower, or for that matter a commercial aircraft. Rocketing around my yard, watching concerned Dixie Chopper people leap out of the way, I was thinking: This is GREAT! I want to take this baby out on the INTERSTATE! I want to ... WHUMP.
OK, so I hit a tree. But the mower was undamaged, and so was I, and the tree is expected to recover. The bottom line is, if you’re interested in extremely high-speed lawn care, this is the lawn mower for you. The Dixie Chopper people said they’ll make one for you just like it for only $29,000, which, according to my calculations, you could easily earn by simply not mowing Mrs. Reed’s lawn 1 1 6,000 times.
WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN?
Recently I had the honor of marching with the world-renowned Lawn Ranger precision power lawn-mower drill team at the famous Arcola Broom Corn Festival. Just in case you never heard of this famous event, let me explain that Arcola is a town in Illinois, just north of Mattoon. Arcola (slogan: “Amazing Arcola”) claims the proud distinction of having formerly been “one of the nation’s top producers of broom corn,
the primary ingredient in brooms.” The town is still a major power in the broom industry.
Each September Arcola holds the Broom Corn Festival, featuring, among other events, a parade. For 11 years one of the key marching units has been the lawn Rangers, who are considered by many observers who have had a couple of beers to be the finest precision lawn-mower drill team in the world.
When the Rangers invited me to march this year, I accepted eagerly, although I was concerned about being able to live up to the unit’s high standards, as explained in this excerpt from the official Ranger newsletter, written by Ranger co-founder Pat Monahan:
“As always, we will be living our motto, ‘You’re only young once, but you can always be immature.’ This is a fine motto, but it can be carried to excess. Here I am thinking of Peewee Herman.”
On the day of the parade, Monahan picked me up at the Champaign, Illinois, airport and drove me through large quantities of agriculture to Arcola. In addition to some nice grain elevators, Arcola boasts the nation’s largest collection of antique brooms and brushes, as well as an establishment called the French Embassy, which is a combination gourmet restaurant and 12-lane bowling alley. I swear I am not making any of this up.
En route, Monahan explained the philosophy of the Lawn Rangers, which is that it is possible for a group of truly dedicated men to have a lot of fun yet at the same time do absolutely nothing useful for society. The Rangers’ arch-enemy marching organization is the Shriners, who engage in worthwhile activities and are therefore regarded by the Rangers as being dangerously responsible.
Ranger Orientation took place in the garage of Ranger Ted Shields. About 50 Rangers were gathered around a keg, engaging in intensive mental preparation as well as “shanking,” which is when you sneak up behind somebody and yank down his shorts. Next we had the annual business meeting, which I can’t describe in a family newspaper except to say that at one point a Ranger, using a strategically placed ear of corn, gave a dramatic interpretation of the song “Shine On, Harvest Moon” that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Then it was time for Rookie Camp. We rookies were each given a power lawn mower and a broom and told to line up on the street, where we received intensive instruction in precision-drill maneuvers.
“LISTEN UP, YOU GRAVY-SUCKERS!” shouted our Column Leaders, who carried long-handled toilet plungers to denote their rank. “ALL MANEUVERS WILL START WITH THE BROOMS-UP POSITION! THE BROOMS WILL ALWAYS COME UP ON THE CURB SIDE!”
We learned two maneuvers: Walking the Dog, which is when you hold your broom up while turning your lawn mower in a circle; and Cross and Toss, which is when you cross paths with another Ranger, then each of you tosses his broom to the other. These maneuvers require great precision, and we rookies were forced to train in the grueling sun for nearly two full minutes before we could perform them to the Rangers’ exacting standards.
Finally it was time to march. We formed two columns, each of us wearing a cowboy hat and a Lone Ranger-style mask. We were pushing a wide variety of customized lawn mowers, one of which had a toilet mounted on it. As we neared the main parade street, we stopped, gathered together, and put our hands into a huddle, where Monahan delivered an inspirational speech that beautifully summed up the meaning of Rangerhood:
“Remember,” he said, “you guys are NOT SHRINERS.”
Thus inspired, we turned down the parade route, went to the brooms-up position, and executed the Cross and Toss with total 100 percent flawless perfection except for a couple of guys dropping their brooms. Some onlookers were so awed by this electrifying spectacle that they almost fell down.
When it was over I stood with my fellow Rangers, engaging in further mental preparation and accepting the compliments of the public (“Do you guys have jobs?”). At that moment I knew that I was part of something special, something important, something that someday, I hope, can be controlled by medication. But until then, Amazing Arcola, Illinois, will serve as a shining example of why America is what it is. Whatever that may be.
Reader Alert
This section is about music. It starts with a semiserious piece about Elvis and the mystery of why his fans feel as deeply about him as they do. It then moves to my experience in the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of authors who discovered that, even though they had very little musical training, they were nevertheless able, with a little practice and a lot of heart, to turn themselves into a profoundly mediocre band.
Speaking of bad music: This section also presents the results of my Bad Song Survey, which attracted more mail than anything else I’ve ever written. People are still writing to tell me how much they hate, for example, “Running Bear.” As you read this section, please bear in mind that the survey is over, OK We already have our winners, so there is no need to write to me. Just read the results and get the bad songs stuck inside your brain so you can quietly hum them over and over until you go insane. Thank you.
Hearts That Are True
When he was alive, they lived at the gates of Graceland. It didn’t matter whether he was there or not. They’d go, anyway, to be with each other, to talk about him, to be close to the place he loved. If he was there, they’d synchronize their lives with his: sleeping by day, when he slept, so they could be at the gates at night, in case he came out.
Sometimes he’d just drive by, on a motorcycle or in one of his spectacular cars, waving, and they’d try to follow him, and it might turn into an elaborate motorized game of hide-and-seek on the roads around Memphis. Sometimes he and his entourage, his guys, would be having one of their fireworks fights, and they’d roar down and attack the gate regulars, scaring them, thrilling them. And sometimes he’d come down to the gate and talk, sign autographs, get his picture taken, just be with them. Those were the best times, although they didn’t happen much near the end.
Some of the gate people had jobs, but only so they could afford food and a place to sleep. Their real job, their purpose, was to be at the gates. They helped the guards—who knew them well—keep an eye on the wild fans, the nonregulars, who sometimes tried to get up to the front door.
“We were really his best security,” says Linda Cullum, “because we would have killed anybody who we thought would have done anything to him.”
Cullum arrived in 1964. She was in the Navy, and she had asked to be stationed in Memphis. “I didn’t even know if they had a base here,” she says. “I just knew he was here.” She’s 44 now, and she still lives nearby, as do others who were drawn to the gates in the good times. But they rarely go there anymore. These days the gates are for tourists: standing out front, getting their pictures taken, smiling the same way they’d smile in front of any other tourist attraction. You don’t see it in their eyes, the thing that haunts the eyes of the gate people, the shining sweet sadness, the burning need that still consumes 10 years after they lost him.
“I still feel like I need to protect him,” says Cullum. “Because, you know, there’s so much you hear, so much that people say.”
Elvis fans. A species unto themselves. A large species. The ones like Linda Cullum, the gate people, are among the most dedicated, but there are a lot more, counting the ones—and, believe me, they are all around you—who don’t talk about it. Because you might laugh. Because you don’t understand.
These are not people who merely liked Elvis. A lot of us liked Elvis, especially when he was lean and sexy and strange and really bothered people. But then we moved on to the Beatles and the Stones and a lot of other (to us) hipper people, and Elvis, getting less scary and less lean all the time, faded into a ‘50s memory, and eventually he became, to many, a sad joke. But don’t laugh too soon, hip people. Think about this: Over a billion Elvis records have been sold. Nobody is in second place. And think about this: Today—10
years after he died, more than 20 years after he dominated rock—there are tens of thousands of people, from all over the world, gathered in Memphis to pay tribute to him, to visit Graceland, to walk the halls of his old high sch
ool, to take bus trips down to his Mississippi birthplace, to relive and explore and discuss and celebrate every tiny detail of his life. It isn’t a one-time thing: The fans were there last year, and they’ll be there next year. This doesn’t happen for the Beatles; it doesn’t happen for Frank Sinatra; it doesn’t happen for Franklin D. Roosevelt. It doesn’t happen for anybody, that I can think of, who is not the focal point of a major religion. Just Elvis. Bruce Springsteen comes and Michael Jackson goes, but Elvis endures. His fans, his vast, quiet flock, make damn sure of that. They have heard all the stories about him, all the exposes and the Shocking Revelations about his appetites, his kinkiness, his temper, his pills. They know all about his problems. They know more about them than you do. And it makes no difference, except maybe to make them love him more, the way you draw closer, in time of trouble, to a brother or a lover. Which is what Elvis was to them. Which he still is.
And the hell with what people say.
The fans know what their public image is, too: fat, weeping, heavily hair-sprayed, middle-aged housewives wearing polyester pantsuits festooned with “I Love Elvis” buttons. That’s all that gets on TV, the fans say. That’s all the press sees.
“Ah, the press,” sighs Karen Loper, 42, president of the Houston-based fan club. She was watching the Iran-contra hearings when I called her a couple of weeks ago. Like the other fan club presidents I talked to, she was very articulate. She does not wear polyester pantsuits.
“The media—especially the TV people—always do the obligatory story,” she says. “They pick the most unflattering person, the one with a black bouffant hairdo, and they show her at the graveside crying. It’s so superficial, and nobody ever looks beyond it. But hey, I’m used to it. I’ve been putting up with this crap since I was 12 years old. First my father, always telling me Elvis wasn’t gonna last, Elvis can’t sing. Now the media. It used to bother me. I used to try to defend him. But now I realize: He doesn’t need defending.”