Cliff Kurt’s Weblog

I’ve been invited to an “event,” something I would never have dreamed of doing. Me, a PB&J eating, England Dan & John Ford Coley listening, wing-tip wearing, preferred motorist insurance rate paying, 46 year old white man. I’ve been invited to don a hoodie, open a bottle of wine, and run around downtown Martinsburg – at night! – and dodge the cops.

Being an outlaw has never been my style. I’ve never really been in much trouble with the law. Oh, there were a few close calls: the “aggravated menacing” charge leveled against me. (I stupidly pointed a real shotgun at a mall security guard while making a film for St. John’s Jesuit Com-Arts class.) Or the couple of times 20 or so years ago when I got sloppy with my accounting and stupidly ended up with a bad check charge or two. But that’s it – I swear! Why, I BOUGHT Abbie Hoffman’s book titled “Steal This Book.” I’m no outlaw!!

But now my friend wants to flout the law, for no other purpose than to simply flout the law. Heck, I’m such a non-flouter of the law, I had to go to the dictionary to see if the word flout was even spelled right.

On my way into work this morning, as I listened to a podcast of Tales From Lake Wobegon, I saw a sign on a low brick wall which read, “No loitering.” I think this might be the best approach. People loiter on this wall all the time, but I’ve never seen a police officer take issue.

I think I’ll spend a lunch hour this week “loitering,” – getting a taste of the outlaw lifestyle, sorta take it for a test drive. I’ll sit on that wall and flout society’s strictures. Here’s a thought – instead of eating my usual turkey with mayo and provolone, I’ll eat turkey with horseradish. And swiss cheese. Wait. Corned beef – yes, corned beef with horseradish and swiss cheese. Now THAT’S the diet of a flouter.

And then, with my budding outlaw lifestyle firmly in place, I believe I WILL don that hoodie, crack open that bottle of wine and dodge Martinsburg’s finest. But for now, it’s time for breakfast. An egg-white omelet and a reasonably small glass of pulp-free orange juice. Can’t get too wild too fast, you know.

We don’t know his real name, but I and dozens of my fellow MARC riders are entertained on a near daily basis by the man we simply call “Goldilocks.”

Goldilocks, so-nicknamed for his drool-worthy mane of thick blonde curls, rides the MARC train almost every night of the week – his destination Brunswick, MD. He takes a seat that guarantees him the privilege of exiting the train first. Upon debarking, he breaks into a cold sprint, running to his car (which he somehow always manages to park in the best spot in the lot). He quickly starts the engine and lurches to the exit gate, intent on being the first person to leave the parking lot.

What our hero Goldilocks doesn’t know is that scores of his fellow passengers traveling further down the line are staring out at him through our train windows, some even taking bets on whether he or another motorist will win the day’s race. One group has a coveted “trophy,” a quarter painted red to be held by each day’s winner. Amidst a chorus of cheers and moans, the daily race adds some pick-me-up halfway along the otherwise miserable ride home to Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. (Wild and Wonderful is a registered trademark of West Virginia. All rights reserved.)

Some of the more bold train passengers have manufactured home-grown fun at Goldilocks’ expense. One afternoon following a nasty ice storm, a passenger took an earlier train home and scraped the ice off of a dozen or so cars in the lot – except his. When Goldilocks got to his car, he was forced to waste precious minutes scraping his windshield; while meanwhile, the other commuters filled up the exit lanes and foiled his quick departure.

Then there was the time a couple of daring souls staged a mechanical breakdown of two cars directly in front of his, locking him in his parking spot. We wondered whether it was a genuine breakdown until one of the “victims” looked over to us with a wink and a knowing smile.

And we still don’t know whether Goldilocks got the joke when my friend Chuck donned a jogger’s uniform, complete with sponsor signs and a runner’s number, and raced alongside him to the parking lot.

This 50-year-old-ish enigma we call Goldilocks doesn’t talk much, so nobody really knows much about him. But we love him. We speculate about his need for urgency. Some of us fantasize his back story, imagining that he has pressing secret CIA business back home. Or maybe he’s simply a Wheel of Fortune fanatic and is racing against the clock. So unknown and mysterious is he, that it’s a rare treat worthy of accolade when one of us spots Goldilocks at the local hardware store or the post office.

We love Goldilocks for the joy he brings us, joy that can only be there because the rest of our lives are anything but Wild and Wonderful. (Wild and Wonderful is still a registered trademark of West Virginia. All rights reserved.)

Yes, foolish though it seemed, I ventured out onto the ice rink again.  This marks my third trip, following the two disastrous attempts as discussed earlier.

This time, I had no choice. A friend from Utah was in town and invited me to join her at the rink. It seems she and her husband had much fun reading out my earlier ice-capades, and took up ice skating in their town. She thought it would be perfect that we would spend some time during lunch hour on the ice. I agreed to join her.

When I arrived at work that morning, I first stopped by the boss’ office to explain why I was wearing blue jeans. She said it was fine, she knew Janey and I were going ice skating. Word had travelled faster than a fat man falling face down, ass up on the Washington Capitals practice ice rink facility. Would this mean a set of curious onlookers, more co-workers seeking to quench their blood thirst?

The hour arrived. As Jane and I laced up our skates, I confessed that I hadn’t been back on the ice since my second attempt. Jane said, “That’s okay, Jeff and I only went out once.” So here we were, two novice skaters, the proverbial crippled leading the crippled.

Out to the ice we went, and surprisingly, it was quite easy. I quickly got into the groove, rarely skating too far from the wall, but sure-footed and confident. I did find myself getting a bit too confident at times, and quickly reeled back my thinking. Confidence on the ice begets bruises and breakages on the ice.

Save for a couple of breaks (the rest kind, not the humilating, compound through the skin kind), we skated six laps all told, neither of us falling.

I’ll be going back to the ice rink, sooner rather than later. Oh, I’m sure I’ll fall again, a time or two. But what won’t kill me will only make me stronger. Stupider, maybe, but stronger.