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JIm Pfiffer

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  1. JIm Pfiffer
    I’ve always been curious. That’s why I became a newspaper reporter, chasing after the five W questions of life. It’s also why I’ve been punched a lot.
    I have some feline curiosity in me. I also have a lot of stupidity in me. That’s why I’ve burned eight of my nine lives. I’m trying to temper that ignorance by learning and asking “how” and “why” about things that we don’t think twice (or even once). Here are my top ten.
    1.   Telling someone to “Bite me.” If you are angry at someone, why would you insist that they bite you? That brings you pain, and the target of your ire will not suffer, unless you taste bad. We should be saying “Bite you,” and then you bite the person, first checking to see that they’ve had all their shots. Even more confounding is “bite the big one!” I’m not sure what the “big one” is, but I have an idea, and I don’t want anyone biting it. Ouch! And I’m not sure it’s as big as you think.
    2.   Free gift and free estimate. If it isn’t free, it’s not a gift. Nuff said. Have you ever heard of any business, a contractor for example, charging a fee to tell you how much it will cost to do work on your home? Nope. The “free estimate” is advertising double talk, like the phrase “Order now and get a second one for free, just pay an extra fee.”   
     3.   Bad guys love large daylight? Why are daytime crimes always done in “broad daylight?” Every Yin has its Yang, so there must be a “narrow daylight,” and if so, why don’t criminals commit crimes when the light is skinny and there is a slimmer chance that they will be seen or caught?
     4.   Catdrops and Mud poodles. Who the hell came up with the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs”?  Was it someone who hated animals? Whatever they were on, can I get some?
     5.   Hiding in low-cal air. When someone disappears, without a trace, they do so into something called “thin air.” Yes, air is thin at 50,000 feet, but we’re talking about folks who go missing at sea level. Where is this lite air? Is there fat air? Is it easier or harder to get lost there?
     6.  Dis-what? We often hear about a “disgruntled employee,” walking off the job, calling in sick or telling his/her boss to “Bite the big one!” Again, nature’s duality, means there must also be a “gruntled” employee, as in “We have some of the best employees in the industry because they are all gruntled.”
     7.   WTF was with Franklin and his pennies? Benjamin Franklin, one of the fathers of our country (although he never paid any child support) penned many pithy idioms, like “a penny saved is a penny earned,” or is it “a penny earned is a penny saved? Doesn’t matter because no one saves pennies. Hell, they give them away by the cupful at checkout counters. I think Ben flew his kite one too many times.
     8.   Kruller to dollars? A friend once bet me “dollars to donuts” that my Boston Red Sox would lose to those damn Yankees. I didn’t take the bet for fear that I had to put up cash to win a glazed donut. Instead, I bet him his dollars to my Ring Dings. He took the bet. Need I say more about Yankee fans?
     9.  Lost in the middle again. Most of us have been lost in an unfamiliar place with no landmarks or signs of civilization. You may not know where you are, but we’ve all been there. It’s called “the middle of nowhere,” as in “My car broke down in the middle of nowhere”. Nowhere doesn’t exist. Everywhere is somewhere. And if there was a nowhere, how would you know it’s center point and why would you always be lost there? Why can’t we get lost on the edge of nowhere?
     10. It never fails. This is another bullshit phrase “failure is not an option.” Oh really? Spend time with me and you will see that I can fail and fail big.
    But not so big that you have to bite it.
     
     Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, Twin Tiers Life.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  2. JIm Pfiffer
    Raising kids is difficult for parents.
    Raising eight Pfiffer kids is hell for parents. That’s why Mom and Dad have free-first-class-no-questions-asked-front-of-the-line-all-expenses-paid passes to heaven.
    Nothing, not even a housefly, can keep their eyes on that many kids at once. Hell, it’s hard to just keep track of all of our names. That’s why Mom relied on all her natural senses as well as ESP and eyes in the back of her head to keep tabs on us.
    I was most impressed with her long-distance sense of hearing. It gave her our location in the house, who was with whom, who was crying, who was laughing and who was socking someone else?
    It was the lack of noise that put Mom on red alert. Silence meant that we were up to no good and we wanted to keep it on the down-low. When the sounds of silence reigned, Mom’s antenna popped and did speedy 360s until she locked on to the source of silence. She responded with her famous suspicion-toned “What are you kids doing in there?”
    We responded with our famous innocent-toned “Nothing!”, which increased Mon’s suspicions because it meant we were doing something we were not supposed to be doing.
    That caused Mom to race to the scene of the crime, as I was busy trying to get rid of the evidence or somehow pin it on one of my siblings.
    When I was six, Mom’s early warning systems alerted her to a background noise she had never heard. It came from me and my sister, Sherry, who was five.

    First, some background info.
    My Mom, like many moms of the 1950s and ‘60s, dreamed of owning an Electrolux vacuum. It was the Cadillac of cleaners, expensive, well-built and possessed the horsepower to clean up after eight Pfiffers. It could have used this ad slogan “Cleaning up after the Pfiffers sucks. Electrolux provides that suction.”
    Mom and Dad saved for months to buy an Electrolux canister vacuum with nifty attachments and an extra-long cord. The chrome-trimmed metal vacuum resembled a scuba tank on its side, mounted on pencil-thick wire runners. Its sleek and aerodynamic curves exuded industrial sucking power. One end had the sucking hole and the other end had the blowing hole. The hose was made of thick upholstery-like material. An internal replaceable paper bag trapped the dirt.
    The Electrolux was in our home for a few days when Sherry and I decided to give it the PPDT or “Pfiffer Product Durability Test.”
    We attached the hose to the blowhole, stuck the other end in the toilet bowl water, and blew it into a bubbling boil, leaving us giggling with delight.
    Mom heard the laughter, smiled and thought “Apparently Jim hasn’t started teasing his sister,” and went on with her housework.
    Our product tests were strict. That’s why we tested both ends of the vacuum. We inserted the hose into the end that sucks and dropped the other end into the toilet water.
    We fell back and rolled on the Pine-Sol-scented linoleum floor in fits of belly-holding laughter as the Electrolux sucked up the water in swirling seconds.    
    The crazy mixed sounds of howling laughter and sucking liquid caught Mom’s attention and sent her racing to the bathroom.
    She burst into the bathroom, saw what we were doing, yanked the plug out of the wall, and instinctively hugged us in maternal relief that we had not been electrocuted by the Electrolux. Once she was sure that we were OK, her instincts gave way to irked reality when she realized we had ruined her prized vacuum.
    She yelled at us and grounded us for so long that I just got ungrounded last week. Really.
    Eight Pfiffer kids generated a lot of stupid stunts. Mom and Dad suffered way too many “scary/relieved/angry/gray hairs” incidents because of us. We’re all still here, thanks to their keen senses that sensed when we were being senseless.
    Good job, Mom and Dad.
    P.S. There was a popular TV variety show back then called, “Art Linkletter,” which featured a segment called “Kids say the darndest things.” Our home version was “Kids do the dumbest things.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
     
  3. JIm Pfiffer
    When it comes to sports, we want more of everything – speed, scoring, tackles, slam dunks and car crashes. Major league baseball has few if any of these. The game is slow, boring and loses fans every day.
    Baseball is like us Baby Boomers, the older we get the slower we get. If the game gets any slower, it will go backwards. Games will end in negative scores.
    Today’s average nine-inning Major League Baseball game takes three hours and 10 minutes, and only 18 minutes of that is actual play.
    Fans like fast-paced action at the speed of light. Baseball is played at the speed of smell. If it doesn’t change soon, it will become more boring than soccer. That’s why Major League Baseball is trying to improve and speed up the game.
    It can start by ending the big lie called the World Series. This end-of-season playoff doesn’t include teams from around the world, but only teams in North America.
    That’s one of the reasons that the sport is losing fans, interest and ratings.
    Here’s an idea, make the game affordable for fans. For a family of four to afford a trip to the ballpark, they must refinance their home, cash in their life insurance, visit a loan shark and win the lottery, and that just covers parking costs.
    It doesn’t help that greedy owners and players regularly delay the season, like the recent 99-day lockout, demanding more money because they can’t possibly live on mere multi-million-dollar salaries. The poor things are forced to own used Ferraris and Lamborghinis instead of brand-new rides. So sad.
    The sport is trying to re-brand itself, become more exciting, and stop its waning appeal with fans. 
    The sport is experimenting with pitch clocks, removing the defensive player shift and letting runners use the relief pitcher golf carts to run the bases. (I made up that last one, but wouldn’t it be an exciting game if the baserunners could use a speeding cart to mow down the second baseman and stop the double play?)
    Here are a dozen more ideas to make the game more exciting:
    1.   Batters can hit the ball off a tee or toss it in the air and hit it, or just throw it wherever the hell they want.
    2.   Every fielder has a ball and can get the runner out by throwing it at him and hitting him like kickball.
    3.   Once a team is ahead by more than 10 runs, all of the team’s batters must stand the bat upright on the ground, put their forehead on the bat knob, and spin around it ten times before batting.
    4.   If a fan catches a foul ball, the batter is out.
    5.   Narrow the outfield warning track to 5-feet-wide to make for more fun and exciting player collisions with the wall that can be shown on the “Ridiculousness” TV show.
    6.   If a pitcher purposely plunks a batter, the batter can stand a few feet away from the pitcher and throw a fastball into the pitcher’s crotch.
    7.   Each team manager controls the outfield sprinklers and can turn them on when an opposing player is running to make a catch.
    8.   When the kiss cam points to a player he must immediately run into the stands and kiss the nearest person to him, be it a man, woman, child, usher, mascot or baseball commissioner Manfred (if it is Manfred, he must be kissed on the mouth).
    9.   Batters can doctor their bats by stuffing them with Superballs, springs and plastic explosives.
    10. Baserunners caught in a rundown can use two fingers, to poke infielders in the eyes, ala the Three Stooges.
    11. Everyone loves fireworks. Each player gets one bottle rocket that he can use, any time during the game or warmups to fire at opposing players who are batting, running bases or fielding balls.
    12.  Baserunner must chug a beer and eat a hot dog at each base before advancing to the next base.
    Bonus idea: Every time there is a player strike or owner lockout, all fans get free game passes, one for each day of the work stoppage.
    I’m sure you readers have ideas on how to improve the game. Share them on the comments site on this page.
    If Major League Baseball doesn’t incorporate some of my suggestions soon, it will be going, going gone.
     
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Twin Tiers Living.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
     
  4. JIm Pfiffer
    Technology is great, but I long for the days when I was smarter than my truck.
    I bought a new 4WD Toyota Tacoma pickup truck two years ago, and I’m still trying to learn the purpose of the scores of switches, buttons, knobs, levers, dials, gauges, meters, lights, vents and portals. The truck’s dashboard is called an “instrument cluster” (sounds like a candy bar, to me), and bristles with more electronics than the Space Shuttle. It overwhelms with flashing lights, buzzers, bells, multi-information displays, and enough menus to open my own restaurant.
    I don’t know what most of them do.
    It tells me when I’m due for a tune-up, tire rotation, oil change and haircut, and has more microphones and speakers than a recording studio.
    There are so many options that I have three owner’s manuals, and some of the pages are written in other languages, requiring me to hire a United Nations translator to help me find the fuse box.
    One of the manuals recommends that I learn about the truck’s functions by watching a 30-minute Tacoma video or calling my dealer for instructions. See what technology has wrought? I have to take an online course, study with a dealership tutor and spend my spare time reading manuals in order to enjoy my truck. Doesn’t make sense.
    The manuals require a lot of cross-referencing, repeated visits to the glossary, and fist-pounding frustration when I don’t know the name of the part or function, I’m trying to look up.
    I tried to find the wattage for one of the two interior lights on the overhead console. It took me 10 minutes to discover that the light is called a “front personal lamp.” By the time I found it, the bulb on the other light had burned out.

     
    The truck has radar in case I want to track incoming enemy fighters. I’m searching through the manuals to see if it also has sonar or a Tomahawk missile system.
    I discovered an automatic “garage door opener switch” on the console. I keep pushing it, but my garage doors don’t open. Maybe it’s because they are “lift-by-hand doors.
    According to the manuals, the truck also has several functions that I haven’t used because I don’t know what they do: “active traction,” “crawl control,” “slip indicator” and “jettison external solid-fuel boosters.”
    With all those buttons, I constantly fear that I might push the wrong button by mistake and my transmission will fall out or the passenger seat will eject my wife out the window.
    One time I pushed the wrong buttons and dimmed all the lights on my dashboard making it difficult to see what I was supposed to see. I spent hours going through the manual trying to discover how to rectify the problem but was unsuccessful. Truth: I had to drive the truck to the dealer, and the manager and a technician spent 20 minutes figuring out how to make the lights bright again.
    My truck has more warning lights and alarms than a nuclear reactor operations center, and they tell me when a door is ajar, a seat belt isn’t buckled, or my fly is open.
    My instruments are decorated with tiny stick-figure people and icons that are supposed to be recognizable worldwide. My cluster is decorated with lightning bolts, skid marks, sunbeams, and what appears to be a tiny stick man sitting on a toilet. I will NEVER EVER press that button. I put a piece of duct tape over it. Can’t be too careful.
    The manuals list all the functions and options available on all Tacoma models. I don’t know which ones I have and which ones I don’t. The manuals list a “brake override system,” a “BSM outside rearview mirror indicator,” and a “longitudinal and lateral inclination indicator.” I’m inclined to believe that I don’t care about my truck’s longitude or latitude, but I do care about its attitude, especially when it gets stubborn and locks the doors without permission or locks one door and not the other, depending on its mood, I guess.
    When it’s in a really foul mood, the truck makes it difficult for me to use the driver’s seat shoulder harness. I’ll try to pull the harness across my chest, but it keeps stopping short, and I have to play the “yank and tug” game until it surrenders, and it lets me pull it smoothly across my chest and buckled it. I get mad, during this tug of war, and angrily jerk at the belt, trying to show it who is boss, but to no success. By the time I’m buckled in I’m in full road rage mode before I even leave my driveway.
    Friggin’ technology.
    I expect it will take me several more years to learn about all my truck’s functions and options.
    That will give me the rest of my life to figure out how to reset the truck clock back to daylight savings time and program my Sirius radio stations.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column is posted every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page TwinTiersLife.com and TwinTiersLiving.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets and is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper.
  5. JIm Pfiffer
    When is technology going to invent an easy-to-use garden hose? I’ve tried them all: flat, round, expandable, indestructible, flexible, steel-coil, rubber, polyurethane and even pantyhose. They’re all difficult to use, heavy, stiff, cumbersome, kinky and a big pain in the grass.
    A hose full of water is heavy and stubborn. It fights me like an angry anaconda, wrapping its coils around my ankles and tripping me. I have to tug, lug and slug it around the yard to water my spring-planted grass seed. It retaliates by getting stuck under vehicle tires, knocking over flowerpots, sweeping toddlers off their feet and pinching itself around the corners of the garage.
    I respond by whipping it up and down, sending angry shock waves undulating along its length, trying to unkink the kinks and showing it who’s the boss. Instead, I knock over more flowerpots and occasionally my wife.
    The water-stopping kinks are always at the far opposite end of the hose, where I can’t see them. So, I have to backtrack along the hose until I find the kink, unkink it and help my wife to her feet.
    Meanwhile, because I forgot to turn off the nozzle, the unkinked water flow resumes, sending the nozzle bouncing around, careening off vinyl siding, a picnic table and spraying water through an open window, and all over my wife, who by now, is angrily marching to the garage to get a shovel to smack me in the head.
    Nozzles aren’t much better. They break easily and leak after a few uses, because their cheap washers are obviously made of sugar or some other water-soluble material.
    Nozzles have many settings, from “mist” to “biblical flood.” I mostly use the powerful “jet” setting that produces a laser-like stream that can blow grass clippings from sidewalks, destroy sandy ant nests in the cracks of my driveway and shoo away neighborhood dogs that are pooping in my yard.
    That’s why I own a Yardman 44-caliber, heavy-duty, orbit 10-pattern nozzle that’s so powerful it comes complete with a 10x power scope, holster and silencer. I could use it to dig a Panama Canal in my backyard.
    Worse than unruly hoses are cheap hose caddies. I must hold mine down with a bent knee, turn the spool crank with my right hand while struggling to neatly guide the hose onto the spool with my left hand, but it ends up being a mess of knots, crossovers and crossunders that will take me until next spring to unravel. 
    Meanwhile, at the other end of the hose, the nozzle is being dragged across the lawn and driveway, bouncing and popping along, as pieces of it snap off and fall in its wake.
    When I try to unroll the hose, I get one-third of it off, before the lightweight caddy falls over and plays dead. I let out a streak of cuss words that causes flowers to wilt and leaves to fall from the trees. 
    By the time I get the hose unrolled, unkinked, lugged around and the leaking nozzle screwed on tightly, the birds have eaten the grass seed.
    Several years ago, I bought one of those “magic hoses” advertised on TV, which shriveled up like an accordion when not in use, and guaranteed to never kink, bend or pinch. If I left the water on while not using it, it ruptured with a loud pop and sent water shooting into the air. I tried several others and they all ruptured. Magic hose my butt.
    Technology has given us cordless phones and computers. It needs to invent a hoseless nozzle that provides water flow without a hose.
    In the meantime, I have to go water the lawn and do it quietly, cuz my wife has that damn shovel again. 
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  6. JIm Pfiffer
    I’ve had pet dogs all my life. They are loyal, playful and great companions. I’ve learned a lot from my canine friends and discovered that they have their own set of social rules and norms. Below are some of those rules:
    Toilet bowl cocktails should never be served before 4 p.m. and always remember to put the seat up. Never wear those silly dog sweaters. If your owner insists that you do, run away. Run Spot, run! If you unexpectedly pass gas, blame the cat. When walking on a leash and you see a squirrel, always wait until there is no traffic before violently yanking your master’s shoulder out of the socket and pulling him into the street while giving chase.  During social gatherings, refrain from talking about your “bad case of worms.” Bad dog! It’s never acceptable to say, “It’s a dog-eat-dog-world,” even in jest.  When riding in a car, bring paper towels to wipe your nose prints off the window. If you stick your head out the front passenger window to enjoy the rushing air, make sure no one sits in the rear passenger seat with the window down because your slobber will splatter all over their face. Remember, all breeds of dogs are created equal – except those annoying yapping poodles. If your wagging tail accidentally knocks over someone’s drink, it’s acceptable to use a cat or poodle to wipe up the spill. Good boy! Pointing is acceptable when hunting pheasants or grouse, but not in social settings. Never lick yourself and then lick your master’s face. After your master bathes you and brushes and trims your fur, it is acceptable to find some stinking garbage or dead animal to roll in. When on a date, the male dog should always let the female dog select the rotting and festering dead animal carcass. It’s okay to run away if you hear your owner spell any of these words: “b-a-t-h, v-e-t and n-e-u-t-e-r.” To not embarrass your master, when on a walk and you have to poop, wait until your master is looking the other way and pretending that he has no idea what you are doing. Good girl! When out on the town with friends, don’t act like a pack of wild dogs. Remember, we’re domesticated. Sit! Stay! If you accidentally soil the carpet, blame the cat. Blame the cat for everything. When a human scratches your belly, be sure to respond with that cute and allegedly uncontrollable “rapid leg thumping.” It will likely get you a few biscuits. Rollover! When your master tries to hide pills in your food, it is acceptable to spit them out, but be sure to cover your mouth to avoid spreading germs and bad dog breath. No matter how mean your master may be, seeing eye dogs should never ever walk them into utility poles, not even on a double-dog-dare.  Don’t race to the door barking every time the doorbell rings, because it’s hardly ever for you. Stay! When in doubt, sniff it, pee on it and walk away. When your master comes in the house, even if he has been away for a few minutes, excitedly wag your tail, bark, jump around and lick his face like you haven’t seen him for seven dog years (It may get you a belly rub and a biscuit). Your bark may be worse than your bite, but your farts are lethal. Go lay down!  If you are in obedience school, never use the excuse “I ate my homework.” When on a dinner date, and you’re not sure which fork is your salad fork, don’t worry. Real dogs don’t eat salad. Never ever attend a flea market. Duh!  Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  7. JIm Pfiffer
    Memorial Day weekend kicks off the summer grilling season, so I decided to grill the old-fashioned way – with charcoal briquettes. It’s one of the few times that I can play with fire and accelerants and not get yelled at.
    I normally use my cheap Wal-Mart gas grill. It’s fast, convenient and relatively easy to use. But it doesn’t give my steaks that tasty, smoky flavor that comes from cooking over charcoal. The gas grill makes my strip steaks taste like, well, Wal- Mart. Ick.
    That’s why I used my old Weber kettle-style grill with the rounded top and a half- bag of Kingsford Briquettes that I found in the garage. I followed the standard backyard three-phase/four-step-phase process for trying to light.
     
    Phase I
    1. Shake my head and say some bad words at the billowing cloud of charcoal dust that enveloped me, blackened my face, hands and clothes, and incited a
    coughing and choking fit.
    2. Pile the briquettes into a pyramid shape that kept collapsing and falling apart until the third try.
    3. Douse the pile with lighter fluid.
    4. Hold a lighter flame to the briquettes going from one to another trying to get one to ignite, for Christ’s sake!
    After several tries a corner of one of the briquettes took a flame and began to burn, making me smile and giving me hope. After a few seconds, it fizzled out in a mocking wisp of smoke, making me swear and giving me grief.
    Phase II
    1.Angrily squeeze the lighter fluid bottle emptying it all on the pile. The pile is now primed with accelerants and ready to explode when lit.
    2. I stand back several feet, as the strong smell of petrol permeates the air. I use wooden kitchen matches to light the fire. The first few matches don’t light or snap in two. When one finally flames to life, I use the recommended “light it and throw it” by tossing the lit match into the pile, but the match goes out as it arcs toward the petrol pyre. After several tries, a match stays intact and stays lit as it lands on the pile. The backyard explodes in a mushroom cloud of blinding yellow and orange light and intense heat that fries a nearby plate of hot dogs waiting to go on the grill.
    3. I go in the house and have a beer while waiting 10-15 minutes for the briquettes to turn into that perfect cooking heat of glowing orange-red embers with white and gray ash trim.
    4. Return to the grill to discover that the briquettes are still black and as cold as the beer I go get while telling myself to “stay calm” and “be an adult.”
    Phase III
    1.Pour copious amounts of lawnmower gasoline, paint thinner and tiki torch fluid on the smoldering pile. It sends a thick column of white chemical-laced smoke into the air that causes passing birds to fall from the sky.
    2. Do the light it and toss kitchen match routine until I get so frustrated, that I throw the whole damn box into the grill. Still no flames. I crouch down to blow on the smoking briquettes hoping to raise a flame. My wife shouts from inside the house “When are you going to learn? I’m calling the fire department!”
    3. The pile explodes into a conflagration that burns my face, singes my eyebrows, and sends me falling backward on my butt.
    4. I hold the top half of the grill by the handle and use it as a heat shield while I use the extra-long-handle spatula, in my other hand, to push around the flaming briquettes to reduce the flames to a forest fire and show the now- arriving firefighters that I have everything under control, and they can return to the station.
    I stay by the grill tending to the steaks until they have a nice charred crust and are a pink medium-rare inside. I remove the steaks and let them rest for several minutes to trap the tasty juices and maximize their full flavor potential.
    I plate the steaks cut off a tender piece and place it in my mouth-watering maw in anticipation of the first taste of summer.
    “Damn it! Tastes like a can of gasoline!” I shout.
    From inside the house, my wife shouts “When are you going to learn. I’m calling for a pizza.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com.
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  8. JIm Pfiffer
    “These rock! I can’t believe how great they sound.”
    I said that after trying on my Bose audio sunglasses that played music from my smartphone. The glasses were a birthday gift from my thoughtful little sister, Pat. The microscopic speakers in the frames produce a clear and deep sound that rivals any full-size stereo system, and they don’t need an extension cord.
    How we listen to music has changed drastically since my high school and college years in the ‘70s. Back then, stereo systems were large, cumbersome, expensive and needed a U-Haul truck to move them.
    Today, that same system fits in the frames of my glasses. Love technology.
    When I was trying to grow up, my generation’s sound systems reflected our status and coolness. If you wanted to make the sweet stereo scene you did so with speakers like JBL, KLH and SOL if you couldn’t afford a top brand. 
    We rocked the Casbah with stereo components by Marantz, Kenwood, Sansui, Sherwood, Sanyo, Phillips, Technics and Pioneer. These electronics had more knobs, dials and switches than a nuclear power facility.
    They had something called “Dolby noise reduction,” which didn’t make sense because we wanted more noise. It was supposed to improve the listening experience. I don’t know if it did or what it did. Neither did most of my friends, but that didn’t stop us from pretending that we did know and were forever asking “Does it have Dolby?” “I want Dolby!” “I need Dolby.” “Do me with Dolby!”

    Big was better. Gigantic was best. We engaged in speaker wars, as they were the most important music system component. We were forever asking, “Who made them?” “How much did they cost?” and “Can they make the neighbors call the cops?” 
    We rocked on to the pulsating pressure waves of speakers that were so tall they had penthouse apartments. The more speakers the better. We had woofers out the wazoos, tweeters ‘tween ten and twenty, and mid-ranges loud enough to be heard in the mid-Atlantic. I had more decibels than common sense. That’s why today I often say, “Could you repeat that? I didn’t hear you.”
    If you were really cool, you removed the foam fronts of your speakers to expose the beat-throbbing black paper diaphragms pulsing out the tunes with sound waves you could actually see compressing the surrounding air molecules at Mach 1 (Of course, you had to do several bongs to be able to see those compressions).
    Big was better and more was mandatory. We went from one speaker mono Hi-Fi to two-speaker stereo, four-speaker Quadra-sound, mucho-speakers surround sound and anything more than that was a live arena concert.
    My stereo system in college took up an entire wall in my apartment and had to be wired into the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide enough juice to pump up the volume. It put the “BOOM!” in Baby Boomers, baby.
    One time, I played a George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers album so loud that the spare light bulbs in the hall closet glowed to the beat. If I stood directly in front of the speakers, it would cause me temporary sterility. (My girlfriend, at the time, loved George Thorogood.)
    Back then, there was a popular magazine ad for high-end speakers (I don’t remember the brand) that showed a dude sitting in front of his speakers and the sound waves were knocking over his drink, blowing back his hair and pushing back his chair. That was my sound system goal – using acoustics to move solid objects. 
    We equated loudness with good times, good parties and good chances that our ears would bleed. The more we drank, the louder the tunes. Give me more Budweiser’s, more watts, more amps, more channels, more decibels, more mega-hits and more bleeding eardrums. The louder the tunes, the more we drank. The more we drank the louder the tunes. Today, my liver quivers thanks to listening to Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One beer” with the volume turned up to “rattling windows.” 
    My sound system featured a: turntable, receiver, amplifier, tuner, cassette deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, two speakers, mixers, boosters, pre-amps, post-amps, amplified amps and an extensive collection of albums, 45s and tapes.
    Today, all that is packed into my sunglasses frame, featuring the “revolutionary Bose open ear audio design” that lets me listen to George and his Delaware Destroyers without destroying my eardrums, and still “hear the world around me at the same time.” An online tutorial explains how they work, how to use them and how to control the volume. But it doesn’t answer my one pressing question.
    Does it have Dolby? 
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  9. JIm Pfiffer
    Summertime means fishing time on the Chemung River. Mark Twain spent many summers in Elmira writing about Huck and Tom, and most likely fishing the river when he needed to clear his mind of writer’s block. If Huck and Tom were here today, I bet we would witness something like this:
    The scene: Huck and Tom are sitting on a grassy bank on the Chemung River, the sun warming their backs, long stems of grass dangling from their mouths, straw hats on their heads and cane poles in their hands.
    Huck: “I sure am glad we played hooky today and went fishin’.”
    Tom: “Me too. Fishin’ is powerful and more enjoyable when you’re not supposed to be doin’ it, but supposed to be doin’ somethin’ that ain’t a lick of fun, like readin’ and ‘rithmatic.”
    Huck: “You speak the truth, mostly, Tom, but dang my luck, the catfish ain’t bitin’ today. I ain’t had so much as a nibble. Do you reckon my worm is done drowned by now?
    Tom: Best way to find out is to lift your hook out of the water and take a look see.
    Huck (doing just that): “Well, blame it all! Ain’t nothin’ but a speck a worm left on my hook. Them sneaky fish done stole it bit by bit without so much as a tug on my line.”
    Tom: “It sure ain’t fun bein’ a worm. Have you ever wondered how worms came to be fishin’ bait? They are ugly and squirmy and you can’t tell the head from the tail nor what’s in between. But the fish sure like em. I wonder what a worm tastes like.”
    Huck: “My pap ate a worm once. Claims he was sufferin’ from the fantads and in need of a drink to settle his shivers and quivers. Said he ate a worm on a dare for two fingers worth of whiskey. Said a worm tasted like a worm and was easy to swallow, being all slick and slimy. Said he’d eat a pickle barrel full of em for a bottle of whiskey. Then he cuffed my ears a few times for askin’ bout such nonsense.’”
    Tom: “Why would a soul think a fish would be attracted to a worm, all drowned and droppy and hangin’ off a hook like a wet stocking draped over Aunt Polly’s clothesline. What must that man been a-thinking?”
    Huck: “Never mind what he was thinkin’. I wonder what the worm thought, gettin’ yanked out of his home, impaled mid-body with a hook and then throwed in the river for the fish to have at it, piece by piece.”
    Tom: “I never seen it that way, but you’re right as rain. The worm just mindin’ his business and he got evicted in a most violent manner, then thrown into a coffee can in a tangled wriggling ball of neighbors, in-laws, strangers and probably some worms he ain’t never got along with.”
    Huck: “Yeah, and we make the messy hookin’ ordeal easy on our minds by tellin’ ourselves that ‘worms can’t feel a tinge of pain, but we know better, cuz when that hook goes in, they writhe, squirm, wriggle about like water on a hot skillet.”
    Tom: “Then we toss them in the river, where they try with all their worm worthiness to tread water for as long as possible, but even the most ignorant being known that’s worms can’t tread water for long. It’s a good thing worms can’t talk cuz if they could I dare say they would let out a fiery string of cuss words that could stop a river in its bed.”

     
    Huck: “Jim told me that, one time, he found a bewitched worm that could talk. The worm had once been a man, a man who was the grandest and most celebrated fisherman on the Chemung River. Fished it day and night, sun and rain and ice and snow. Said he knew every fishin’ hole, beaver dam and hidden snag. Said a water witch turned him into a worm cuz he trespassed on her island without her say so. Jim was about to hook that worm when it started begging and pleading with him to spare him. Promised he would tell Jim about the best fishing spot on the whole darned river, a place where the fish are so hungry and plentiful, you have to hide behind a tree just to bait your hook.”
    Tom: “So did Jim let that worm go free and discover the secret fishin’ hole?”
    Huck: “Nope. Before he could answer the worm, a big old catfish jumped clean out of the river and swallowed the worm, hook, line and cane pole in one big gulp, and dove back into the water faster than a lightnin’ bolt on the fourth of July.”
    Tom: “I sure would like to know the whereabouts of that secret fishin’ hole cuz the fish here are especially stubborn and ornery and won’t cooperate. I say we put away this fishin’ foolishness and go exploring on Clinton Island.”
    Huck: “That sounds like a right good adventure, and maybe we find some buried pirate treasure. What we gonna do with the rest of the worms, toss them in the river, like we usually do?”
    Tom: “No, I reckon that today we let those worms go free. Find them some good rich river silt where they can start a whole new worm village. You never know, there might be a talkin’ worm in there.”
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and ElmiraTelegram.com Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  10. JIm Pfiffer
    As you probably know by now, this year is the 50th anniversary of the devastating flood of ’72. You know this because the media loves over-reporting on the anniversaries of historically terrible events, like natural disasters, wars and the Jerry Springer show.
    Not everything flood-related was bad. It helped me get a job as a bartender and
    bouncer.
    The bar was the Pub, located at the site of today’s Southport Town Hall in Bulkhead. It was owned by a sweetheart of a woman, the late Ann Savino, and was one of a few taverns in the region that didn’t get flooded, making it one of the hottest bars in town.
    Every night, the place was packed with people drinking 25-cent Miller drafts, grooving to Sly and the Family Stone on the jukebox, eating cheeseburgers and French fries from the grill, and sharing flood stories.
    Back then, the legal drinking age was 18. The place became so popular and so crowded with young people that Ann turned to me for some help.
    “Pfif, we’re having a problem with a lot of underage kids coming in here,” she told me. “You seem to know everyone. How would you like a job checking proof at the door for $2 an hour and free drinks?”
    I accepted the offer and hugged her with “I can’t believe it” thanks before she finished her sentences.
    There was one small problem.
    I was only 17 and about to start my senior year at Southside High School.
    Ann thought I was 18, because I had shown her a fake ID my first time in the bar. Yes, I know it was wrong for me to use a fake ID, but you have to remember, it was the summer of the flood I was only 17 and I had no moral compass.
    I wasn’t going to let that minor detail get in the way of my responsibility to see that no underage guests got through the door.
    So, there I was, all skinny 140 pounds of me, sitting on a bar stool, next to the open door, a rum and coke with lime in my hand and ready to proof anyone who looked as young as me.
    I was on top of the world, controlling who got in and who didn’t at one of the most popular night spots in town — I let in the pretty girls and threw out their boyfriends—while enjoying free drinks and getting paid for it.
    This resulted in some interesting encounters, like this:
    Me: “Hold it there, buddy. I need to see ID.”
    Customer: “You’re kidding, right? Hell, you’re not 18. Let ME see YOUR ID!”
    Me: “That’s the wrong thing to say to a bouncer. You’re outta here, pal. And don’t come back until you’re of age.”
    Most of the time, the underage wannabes left without issue. Sometimes they wouldn’t leave without a fight. A good bouncer prevents fights.
    I wasn’t a good bouncer. When challenged, I stood my ground. I had three things
    going for me regarding my self-defense abilities.
    I was crazy.
    I knew how to wrestle and box.
    I was crazy.
    Back then, we settled our differences with fists, not guns, knives or drive-bys. The fights were short and rarely resulted in serious injuries, except for one’s ego. For me, the summer of the flood made my life like that of a razor, always in hot water or a scrape. 
    When I wasn’t checking ID and dodging punches, I was behind the bar, learning how to pour a good draft and mix a tasty cocktail. Back then, mixed drinks were popular and they had crazy names like “Grasshopper,” “Harvey Wallbanger,” “Singapore Sling,” and “Rudy Giuliani.” 
    Thankfully, I had an “Old Mr. Boston” bar book that listed the ingredients for almost every cocktail.
    During one really busy night, an impatient guy was pounding his fist on the bar for me to get his order. I told him to take a nerve pill and that I would be with him as soon as I could.
    When that time came, I asked him what he wanted, and replied “I want an American Quarter.”
    I didn’t know how to make an American Quarter, so I got out the bar book and turned to the “A” section, scanning it for the recipe.
    “What the hell are you doing now?” he asked with impatient scorn.
    “I’ve only been bartending for a few weeks. I don’t know all the drinks so I’m looking yours up to see how to make it. So, cut me a break, okay?”
    “What are you talking about?” he said as he held up a quarter in his fingers. “This Canadian quarter doesn’t work in the cigarette machine. I need an American quarter.”
    The flood not only got me a cool job but it taught me three important skills:
    How to make a perfect martini.
    2. How to duck a punch.
    3. How to do a foreign currency exchange.
    Jim Pfiffer’s humor column posts every Sunday on the Jim Pfiffer Facebook page, Hidden Landmarks TV Facebook page, West Elmira Neighborhood, SouthernTierLife.com and Elmira Telegram.com. Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
  11. JIm Pfiffer
    I love trees. They are pillars of strength, patience and longevity. They help clean the air and water and build our homes. When I need to ponder problems or recharge my batteries I do so beneath the peaceful shade and comfort of trees. They do so much for us. The health of Earth and our lives depend on them. That’s why I share the following letter from a tree regarding climate change.
    Dear Humans,
    Hot enough for you? It’s going to get worse. You’re shattering record high temperatures around the world leading to droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels like never before.
    Why? Because of global warming. You’re doing little to nothing to stop it. Worse, many of you insist that it doesn’t exist. Wake up and smell the pine needles.
    We can help you. We’re taking in and storing the global-warming carbon that you exhale and produce by burning fossil fuels. Get this. When we die, we release much of that stored carbon back into the ever-warming atmosphere.
    We’re your ticket (made of foil, of course) to helping reduce global warming.
    We grow most everywhere and thrive in some of the harshest conditions on Earth. There are 60,000 species of our kind, but 30,000 of them are endangered. More than 440 of our species have fewer than 50 individuals left in the world. Yikes! That scares the leaves off of me.

    You think you run the show here on Earth. You don’t. Your legacy is laughably short compared with the more than 370 million years that we’ve been around.
    Life isn’t easy for us. We’re stuck where we take root. We can’t run from fires, escape gypsy moths or move to a new neighborhood when you send in the bulldozers.
    We do so much for you. We produce the oxygen you breathe. Your civilizations were built with our wood for homes, businesses, furniture, boardwalks and pine coffins. We give you fruit, nuts, maple syrup, turpentine, medicines and even pine tar for your ash baseball bats. Want to hang a tire swing, build a treehouse for your kids or make a bark canoe? You need a tree.
    Our roots clean your water, slow erosion and reduce flooding. We provide free windbreaks and snow fences. Our leaves filter air pollutants, provide shade and release water vapor into the air to cool hot streets and cities. We filter the air, pump nutrients into the soil and reduce noise pollution. Birds, animals and insects need us for homes, food and protection.
    We helped Newton discover gravity, tested Eve’s devotion to God and gave you a diagramed framework for your family tree. Our natural beauty calms your emotions, soothes your mental health and empowers your spirit. We inspire poetry and music and happily sit still for landscape paintings. Done so for thousands of years. 
    If not for the “spreading chestnut tree,” where would the “village smithy” stand. We do all this, and you repay us by polluting the Earth and doing dumb things, like cutting us down to make paper and then writing “Save the trees” on that paper. WTF?
    Who the hell came up with the brilliant idea to carve your initials in our bark? And why do you guys pee on us? Do you think we like that? How would you like it, if the next time you stood next to us, we squirted sticky sap all down your pant legs? Why the hell are you so puzzled about a tree falling in the woods and making a noise? Do you know what noise I fear the most? A chainsaw. Shakes me to my root hairs. 
    And don’t get me going about Christmas trees.
    We’ve dealt with Dutch Elm Disease, Gypsy Moths, blight, root rot, wilt, Spotted Lantern Flies, Emerald Ash Borers and more invasive insects than you can shake a stick at.
    Did you know that every 24 hours, 27,000 of my brethren are cut down to make toilet paper? That’s a real pain in my ash. (Yes, we have a sense of humor. How else, do you think we deal with you? 
    We’re not asking you to completely stop cutting us down. Just use common sense when doing so. Repay us by replanting us. We’re renewable. We have a saying among us: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is right now.
    We can’t force you to take real actions to reduce global warming. Our only defense is paper cuts? That ain’t going to work.
    We provide you with so much, improve the environment and assure the Earth’s future. Never mind hugging us. You should be taking us out to dinner. Instead, you pollute us, mow us down and slash and burn us into oblivion, when we can do so much to help reduce climate change.
    It doesn’t make sense.
    You got me stumped.
    Bewildering yours,
    A 250-year-old old oak tree
    Jim lives in Elmira with his wife, Shelley, and many pets. He is a retired humor columnist with the Elmira Star-Gazette newspaper and a regular swell guy. Contact him at pfifman@gmail.com.
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