Salmon Boy
Prepare yourself for the ballad of Salmon Boy:
I'm on the Max this morning facing the wall directly in front of me and cursing my lack of self-control with the ends of books, which caused me to race through the finish of my mystery novel last night. Consequently, I had nothing to read.
There was nothing to do, so I just closed my eyes and tried to rest a bit for the long ride. But, as usual, there is always (always) one person who can't just be quiet like the rest of us. Usually this person is listening to speed metal in his headphones so loud the rest of us can make out the "lyrics" at 10 yards or a woman blabbering into her cell phone about the stupidest shit imaginable. But, today, it was the insistent, loud voice of a young man.
It intruded into my consciousness before I was actually paying attention to the words, but, of course, once I noticed it actively, it was impossible not to follow the conversation. It quickly became apparent that the speaker was a disturbed individual. He was talking to a woman, some poor victim, about his heroic role in saving Oregon salmon. It seems that our loud hero was instrumental in getting Measure 38, which outlawed grazing near watershed ways, passed way-back-when. When the woman politely said "Really?" with as much disinterest as possible without being openly rude, our hero missed the completely bloody obvious message being sent and instead treated the entire car to a treatise, complete with scientific explanations, as to how, exactly, livestock breeding in the watershed led to too-warm springs and creeks, thereby depriving the poor salmon their spawning grounds.
At Beaverton TC he was about half-way through a loud dissertation on saline levels in fresh water when the poor woman said, interrupting him, "I have to go." I would bet my computer that Beaverton TC was not her stop.
But, was Salmon Boy dissuaded? Discouraged? No way! As soon as the car re-loaded, he selected a new victim, who, sad choice for him, was wearing what Salmon Boy said was a Army Corps of Engineers shirt. The discussion then turned to dams, reservoirs and silt content. For the fourth time, he treated us to his motto: The salmon is a work of art that is both a masterpiece and food and we should and must do everything we can to protect it.
He also peppered his decidedly one-sided speechifying with sly references designed to let us know what a ecologically-friendly bloke he is. For example, he made no less than six references to his bike and how he bikes to the Max station. And, he also personally lobbied the city government into conducting a study into how much extra fuel Portlanders use everyday carrying dealer-supplied license plate frames--which, strictly speaking are not necessary--and launched into a diatribe about how the dealers force unwitting people to pollute unnecessarily to carry "one pound of advertising" on their cars. Such people are the bane of local governments everywhere and can often be found at all public comments sessions of local bodies.
Salmon Boy then launched into the Tale of His Amusing Shirt, which dated from the Measure 38 campaign days. He claimed it was designed by a "Native American artist," while he had come up, all by himself, the pro-38 slogan: "Salmon Need To Have Sex Too." By all means, we must protect the spawning grounds.
Just as I had abandoned various vicious murder fantasies in favor of musing whether walking the rest of the way downtown from the next stop was feasible given the time, Salmon Boy switched tacks and started talking about his name.
It seems that Salmon Boy wasn't happy with his given name because it didn't convey who he really is. Then, one happy day, he ran across the word "Zephyr" which, surprisingly, he didn't know the meaning of. So, he looked it up and found to his wonder that it meant a "west-borne breeze." Naturally, he thought, "that is so me" and, so, changed his name. Then, we learned about his middle name, which is "Thoreau."
He wanted to know if the poor man knew who that was, and when the poor sod mumbled something about "Walden Pond" Salmon Boy (or should I say Zephyr?) was audibly deflated about losing a precious chance to lecture on the original American back-to-nature guru.
Having long sense had it, and in fear of my sanity, I decided to bail. Having not seen Salmon Boy yet, I was looking forward to putting a face to the voice.
And there he was, Zephyr Thoreau, talking too loud, standing next to his mountain bike on its bike rack, bike helmet securely fashioned. And, on the crown of his helmet, cresting it like the bristle-brush ornament of the centurions of old, was a curved plastic salmon, sticking proudly up over the visage of its saviour.
All hail Salmon Boy!
I'm on the Max this morning facing the wall directly in front of me and cursing my lack of self-control with the ends of books, which caused me to race through the finish of my mystery novel last night. Consequently, I had nothing to read.
There was nothing to do, so I just closed my eyes and tried to rest a bit for the long ride. But, as usual, there is always (always) one person who can't just be quiet like the rest of us. Usually this person is listening to speed metal in his headphones so loud the rest of us can make out the "lyrics" at 10 yards or a woman blabbering into her cell phone about the stupidest shit imaginable. But, today, it was the insistent, loud voice of a young man.
It intruded into my consciousness before I was actually paying attention to the words, but, of course, once I noticed it actively, it was impossible not to follow the conversation. It quickly became apparent that the speaker was a disturbed individual. He was talking to a woman, some poor victim, about his heroic role in saving Oregon salmon. It seems that our loud hero was instrumental in getting Measure 38, which outlawed grazing near watershed ways, passed way-back-when. When the woman politely said "Really?" with as much disinterest as possible without being openly rude, our hero missed the completely bloody obvious message being sent and instead treated the entire car to a treatise, complete with scientific explanations, as to how, exactly, livestock breeding in the watershed led to too-warm springs and creeks, thereby depriving the poor salmon their spawning grounds.
At Beaverton TC he was about half-way through a loud dissertation on saline levels in fresh water when the poor woman said, interrupting him, "I have to go." I would bet my computer that Beaverton TC was not her stop.
But, was Salmon Boy dissuaded? Discouraged? No way! As soon as the car re-loaded, he selected a new victim, who, sad choice for him, was wearing what Salmon Boy said was a Army Corps of Engineers shirt. The discussion then turned to dams, reservoirs and silt content. For the fourth time, he treated us to his motto: The salmon is a work of art that is both a masterpiece and food and we should and must do everything we can to protect it.
He also peppered his decidedly one-sided speechifying with sly references designed to let us know what a ecologically-friendly bloke he is. For example, he made no less than six references to his bike and how he bikes to the Max station. And, he also personally lobbied the city government into conducting a study into how much extra fuel Portlanders use everyday carrying dealer-supplied license plate frames--which, strictly speaking are not necessary--and launched into a diatribe about how the dealers force unwitting people to pollute unnecessarily to carry "one pound of advertising" on their cars. Such people are the bane of local governments everywhere and can often be found at all public comments sessions of local bodies.
Salmon Boy then launched into the Tale of His Amusing Shirt, which dated from the Measure 38 campaign days. He claimed it was designed by a "Native American artist," while he had come up, all by himself, the pro-38 slogan: "Salmon Need To Have Sex Too." By all means, we must protect the spawning grounds.
Just as I had abandoned various vicious murder fantasies in favor of musing whether walking the rest of the way downtown from the next stop was feasible given the time, Salmon Boy switched tacks and started talking about his name.
It seems that Salmon Boy wasn't happy with his given name because it didn't convey who he really is. Then, one happy day, he ran across the word "Zephyr" which, surprisingly, he didn't know the meaning of. So, he looked it up and found to his wonder that it meant a "west-borne breeze." Naturally, he thought, "that is so me" and, so, changed his name. Then, we learned about his middle name, which is "Thoreau."
He wanted to know if the poor man knew who that was, and when the poor sod mumbled something about "Walden Pond" Salmon Boy (or should I say Zephyr?) was audibly deflated about losing a precious chance to lecture on the original American back-to-nature guru.
Having long sense had it, and in fear of my sanity, I decided to bail. Having not seen Salmon Boy yet, I was looking forward to putting a face to the voice.
And there he was, Zephyr Thoreau, talking too loud, standing next to his mountain bike on its bike rack, bike helmet securely fashioned. And, on the crown of his helmet, cresting it like the bristle-brush ornament of the centurions of old, was a curved plastic salmon, sticking proudly up over the visage of its saviour.
All hail Salmon Boy!
