CHAPTER 5 PARADE OF HUMANITY

Much of my job with the airline is watching people, a hobby I enjoy. And every day there are more and more people to watch. It made me wonder on a layover in New York about the masses of people and what will happen to our planet as they continue to procreate. This post is setting the chapter up by going over some ancient history.

I was so fortunate to know Tonya and that she allowed me to stay with her in Livermore while I was getting settled in. At the same time I met her all those years ago, I also met a girl named Sophie. I actually met her at Tonya’s apartment in Dallas. She was sitting in a large chair that had been placed prominently in the room. It was as if Sophie was holding court, which seemed appropriate, since everyone was raving about having her present at that night’s party. Sophie was the glue that held the group of people together. She was the life of the party. When Tonya moved to California, Sophie and I became best friends and the parties at Tonya’s were soon taking place at my apartment, a few blocks away. We were the king and queen of everyone’s social life.

On the show, South Park, the obese cartoon character of Cartman always rebuts the jeer of his school buddies by saying he is not fat, but big boned. But Sophie really was big boned. She towered over me by at least six inches and could probably beat the shit out of a trucker. She was a large woman, for sure, but also very sweet, until her dark and playful side came out. And I seemed to be what brought it out in her most of the time. She was fair-skinned and red-haired and had a chronically blocked nasal passage that reminded me of Lilly Tomlin’s telephone operator character, with her nasally sounding voice.

The two of us would often go out for dinner and drinks, about the extent of our social life besides the parties at my place. One evening, we were sitting in a booth at a restaurant in discussion of the things that affected our life at the time (small talk). Soon a moment of comfortable silence befell us. In that silence between two friends came a new joy in life. It sprung from the table just behind her. It was the not-so-quiet conversation of a family. We listened in and from that point forward, we delighted in sitting in booths next to people just to hear what was going on in their lives.

Sophie always found humor in the lives of so-called, white trash. She hated blue eye shadow and ‘large hair,’ so when we saw women made up like that they instantly became the topic of her scoffs. In jest, she would often place the name, “Bob,” at the end of someone’s name- Scott-Bob, John-Bob, and Sara-Bob or even Sophie-Joe-Bob. We could entertain ourselves for hours.

One summer we took a road trip to Ohio to visit her brother. It became the “cheese-tour,” as we stopped at all the cheesy tourist traps along the way, like Twitty City, Loretta Lynn’s Kitchen and Opryland. We went so far as to stay in the Memory Lane Inn near Graceland. It had a huge mural of Elvis on the outer wall and was so cheesy; we just had to stay there. They also boasted a 24-hour all Elvis channel on the television. Here, we had found the big cheese.

As we toured Graceland mansion, there was a woman in front of us with large hair and blue eye shadow who claimed to know why the tour couldn’t take us upstairs.

“I know why we can’t go up there, it’s not ‘cause his aunt still lives up there, it’s because HE still lives there!” (Said in a thick southern accent where “still” came out like “steel” and “there” had two syllables!) We made of fun of that for years.

But sitting in that booth in the Greenville Ave. restaurant, I could see right away that Sophie was going to have a field day with this family. They had a heavy “hick” accent, and were talking about what to do with the car in the front yard. I almost thought, surely, they were doing because they thought we were listening to them. Unfortunately, it was for real.

After they left, we had a good time imitating their conversation and improvising on it. As I got a little older this habit turned into more of a fascination with watching the human condition. I often sit for long periods of time at the airport watching travelers and families. I enjoy hearing their stories and when I can’t hear them, I make them up based on what I observe. It’s really quite amusing. It’s taking people watching, which everyone loves, and making it more entertaining than it already is.