To some people, summer begins when they open their swimming pool and ends when they close it. We don’t have a pool but we do have a screened-in porch that pretty much holds the same significance. It is from there I set out to open the large windows across the Great Room so the warm summer breeze could wash through the house. The distance I traveled was about 23 paces, a short saunter, a brief mosey or a minimal meander, depending upon your unit of measure. In that short distance, somebody stole my keys. I wasn’t mugged … I remained vertical the whole time and never once even saw anyone else. Yet, when I reached into my right front pocket, the keys were gone.

I knew I had put them in there because for decades, as soon as I put my pants on in the morning, I load the pockets: Keys and change right front; comb and pen-knife left front; handkerchief right rear and wallet rear left. Besides that, my change was happily jingling away against my thigh and would not have come aboard without the keys … they’re inseparable! “Okay.” I said to myself, “Self, let’s solve this logically.” You know, the way you pick the winner of The Superbowl or the Miss America pageant.

Did you ever walk into a room and get the feeling that whatever you were looking for was jumping up and down, waving its arms, shouting “Here I am! Hey Dopey! Over here!” I turned the house topsy-turvy like a burglar, resulting only in my skinning a knuckle and unearthing a couple of rusty old skate keys. When I was a kid, if I couldn’t find something my Mom would tell me, “It’s not there.” or “That’s not where it is.” I always wondered how she knew where ‘it’ wasn’t if she didn’t know where ‘it’ was. My favorite kid retort was, “Then where is it?” She would even invoke the name of St. Joseph, who I guess must have lost a lot of stuff in his day to qualify for his own prayer.

What I didn’t know at the time is that it was all a mask for her radar! Women have it, guys don’t. Eventually, Mom would always come up with the missing item and the only thing she’d say was, “See?” Back then I was just a kid and couldn’t see much of anything … now I understand. Through the years, I’ve even submitted to her theory of divine intervention but it doesn’t work for me. It can’t!

A few years ago, some PhD wrote a book called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. It instantly confirmed my long held feelings about the differences in wiring between men and women … differences you don’t need a PhD to figure out, only a marriage license. Everyone has blind spots and, for guys, a big one is not finding lost stuff. Fortunately for Martians, one of the strengths of Venusians is the ability to find lost stuff. I used to think that maybe they had special vision and could actually see the object jumping up and down, but I’ve come to accept the more rational explanation that ‘finding’ is just as much a part of a woman’s chemistry as not asking directions is part of a man’s. All in all, these things make for a nice balance, as long as nobody suddenly gets off of the seesaw!

Anyway, like most other captives in the dark absent object abyss, my keys were not to be found anywhere between the porch and the windows … or anyplace else I had roamed. After retracing my steps two or three times, just to make sure, I even searched upstairs and several other places I hadn’t been, figuring they may have migrated! Nothing, nada, zilch, zippo.

At last my favorite Venusian arrived home from work. She listened to my tale of woe as she slipped into her comfortable clothes and morphed from mild mannered business woman and associate into the intuitive Champion Finder of Lost Souls … almost the way I used to change into my cape and flying togs with the big red letter “S” on the chest. “So, you were sitting over there?” she asked. I pointed and sheepishly muttered, “Uh-huh.” Veege paused for only a second. I could almost hear the radar switch on. Then, she confidently marched directly over to the chair, lifted the cushion and voila … the keys appeared in her hand as if by magic! Apparently they had wedged down in there next to the arm. I know I looked there … twice!

She does that all the time. Mom used to do that all the time. My buddy’s wife Barb does that all the time. They spend seconds, we spend hours. ‘XX’ chromosomes? Sometimes I guess the best move a guy can make is to man-up and ask a woman. Vive la différence!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

Male ego is the little voice inside a big head that keeps men from reading directions and prevents boys from backing down at the sound of a double-dog-dare. Don’t get me wrong, women have egos too but their expression can be a bit more harsh … something between nails on a chalkboard and a brush-back fastball headed straight for your forehead. Usually, a girl’s fur really has to be stroked against the grain before her back arches, whereas a guy can achieve a full wrestler’s bridge merely by making eye contact. In a man’s world almost anything qualifies as a challenge.

My first encounter with the voice came when I was about five, although I had no idea what it was at the time and years passed before I finally figured it out. There were three of us that usually palled around together. Cal’s family had just gotten the first television on the block, but he was allowed only one guest each afternoon to watch The Four O’clock Western. That meant he had to find some way to choose between Duggie and me. Before I describe his innovative solution I should point out that, to this day, Doug’s ego is pretty well under control … mine is not and never has been.

Cal decided that whoever could draw a circle the fastest in his driveway would be the one to watch Bob Steele, Lash LaRue or Hoot Gibson gallop his way across the American West and into the hearts of kids everywhere! Doug won any time he wanted by simply drawing a very small circle in the gravel. I, on the other hand, always drew the largest circle my little arm could manage, thus demonstrating my superior artistic ability while my friend got to go inside and watch the western. I really liked Bob Steele, too … but I couldn’t figure out why his hat never fell off.

Now, somewhat older than five and many little voices later, I was reminded of that early mindset during one of those wind-whipped, horizontal rain storms we sometimes get in the Northeast. Not that I had any business being in a shopping center parking lot during a tsunami in the first place but I told myself, “You can do this.” Raincoat? I didn’t need no stinking raincoat! You see, the strings of a guy’s ego can be plucked by any number of different fingers … including his own.

I opened the car door and, immediately, the wind took my umbrella. Oh, I still had the handle but the cloth part went away. Next, my official Indiana Jones fedora followed in Frisbee-like fashion … heading for the largest puddle in the parking lot. Before I could move, the voice said, “Now don’t be one of those old coots you see running after his hat in the cartoons.”  ”Okay,” I said, suddenly remembering the kid drawing circles in the driveway. What to do? The hat made a perfect three-point landing in the middle of the puddle, as I leaned into the tempest and began walking casually toward my wayward chapeaux. Driving rain stung my face, swirling wind stole my breath …  but I was cool.

The fedora proved to be a worthy craft and skimmed toward the puddle’s edge, as if driven by a tiny motor. But as I arrived within a few feet it suddenly stood upright, on edge, and began rolling doubletime toward the next puddle! I was cool … soaked and possessed but cool. I continued simply walking at a normal pace as my bouyant felt quarry launched itself into yet a second puddle, pausing only long enough to beckon me to run. But the vision of a soggy old man with remnants of white hair flapping on the breeze and the laughter of unseen small children helped hold me to my pace.

This pattern continued until the fourth puddle when, during a merciful lull in the gale, my saturated headgear ran aground. It could sail no more. I now took an upwind position to prevent any further attempt at escape and gracefully retrieved the soggy brown mass, as another torrent of rain lashed my naked scalp. The hat smelled like wet dog. Its weight felt more like pounds than ounces. The wind buffeted my face … and the car was now way-y-y over there! What to do?

The voice told me. I thought for a moment about Bob Steele, put the hat on my head, and turned toward the shops as if nothing had happened. I was wet but I was cool. Male ego is a beautiful thing!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

The telephone warbled [they don't ring anymore] and when I answered it, I was greeted by a voice so excited I hardly recognized it as belonging to my daughter Heidi. “It doesn’t feel any different!” she gushed nervously, “I feel exactly the same as I did before!” It was her 30th birthday and, somehow, she seemed to expect the earth to open up and swallow hard.

I assured her that she wasn’t in any danger and welcomed her to adulthood. It’s the biggest secret shared by everyone stumbling down life’s highway and Ma’ Nature’s cruelest joke. Ma’ takes a 20 year old and traps the kid inside a degenerating carcass that won’t work the way it’s supposed to anymore. The journey begins just post teen and morphs an agile youth with cat-like movements into the snap, crackle, pop of a Rice Crispy in a bowl of warm milk. The trouble is, your head doesn’t change. What a sense of humor!

You still like the same stuff, want to do and have the same stuff — but you just can’t scoop up those grounders at second base the way you used to. Actually you still can but, as I discovered around age 34 when they moved me from second to first, I couldn’t get back up as easily to throw the ball! Even at first base, I started making funny noises when I’d stretch — but I still wanted to play!

The real clue to the fact that my body was no longer in agreement with my head was the first time a cute little checker, whose name tag I’d been enjoying just below her ample cleavage, called me “sir”. At first I looked around. Maybe my father was standing behind me. Then to add insult to injury, she asked if I needed help with a large bag of dog food. Of course, true to my testosterone, I casually grunted the bag over my shoulder and said, “Na-a, I’ve got it.”

After a while, I allowed it to penetrate the granite above my neck that not only were pretty young things like that younger than my daughter but my back wasn’t. That’s when I refined the technique by asking for a strapping [male type] youth to help and began simply saying, “Yes, thank you. That would be nice.” It wasn’t easy, because I still wanted to play!

Now, here’s where women are smarter than men. They don’t even wait for the birthday blur to occur. Women avoid the middle-man in the first place and gracefully accept any help they can get right from the start, brandishing only the car keys and an all knowing smile! A guy can stand in front of the mirror for only so many years, suck in his gut and say, “Not bad.” Pretty soon a huge dose of reality reveals an ultimate truth — body and spirit are speeding in different directions.

That brings to mind another truth I tried to impart to Heidi on that birthday and it’s sometimes tough to remember but Fred’s Rule #1 is in force regardless of age, sex, race, religion or the mirror: Older is something Ma’ Nature does to you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Old happens in your head and you do it to yourself. Me? I still want to play!