The old outboard motor would start sputtering when the small boat was almost halfway across the lake, and my cousin would say ‘that’s really screwy!’ That was when I was a kid in the Midwest, and you had to yank a cord, usually several times, to get the outboard motor to kick in.
I never knew exactly what the cord was called, until I discovered, recently, it’s a ‘recoil pull starter.’
‘Screwy’ is one of those words you don’t hear all that much, but years ago, when someone’s favorite show was on TV, and suddenly, something went haywire, you’d get what was called a ‘test pattern’ on the TV screen, kind of like ‘the blue screen of death’ on modern-day computers.
The TV was on the fritz, and someone could be heard saying; ‘that’s screwy!’ Or the local grocer had run out of ground chuck. The word ‘screwy’ covered a whole range of frustrating, concerning things in life.
When I was reading in Bill Hudson’s column, this past Wednesday — that tourists are living in homes in Pagosa, and neighboring communities, that have been converted into Short-Term Rentals, and that full-time residents are living in RVs — that word from my childhood came back to me.
And the word was back in my mind, as I was reading in Kristie Wayward’s letter in the Daily Post on Thursday, that land use codes, building codes and other mandates — not only in Pagosa Springs and neighboring communities, but elsewhere, as well — can make “it impossible for low-income or even middle-income families and individuals to own homes.”
That’s concerning and sad.
I started writing this column, featuring ‘screwy,’ late Wednesday, with something about reality shows in the first draft. And then, the next morning, on a network TV show, the folks on TV happened to be discussing reality shows. Maybe they were reading my mind?
This is what I had in my initial draft:
When someone in our household had one of those reality shows playing on TV, with courting couples baring their souls, as they’re romancing each other, and learning about one another, and laughing and disagreeing, and sometimes staying together, and sometimes calling it quits, I was thinking… How can all this be playing out?
With all that’s going on, as cameras are rolling, and camera crews, sound and lighting technicians, and producers and directors are hovering all around, right there with the couples? They must be almost right on top of the couples — you’d think — in their kitchen, their den, even their bedroom?
And I had this, in the first draft, about Bitcoin, Socialism, Communism and pee:
Bitcoin had topped $66,000, that was in the news, and probably was pretty exciting, if you had some inkling of what Bitcoin is all about.
And I ran across an article about the difference between Socialism and Communism. An expert who’s been studying the two political and economic ideologies for decades, and teaches college courses on the subject, said the difference between the two, can be confusing.
So, when you’re hearing various politicians pontificating about Socialism and Communism, they might not know exactly what they’re talking about.
And I found out, in an online news site, that “Puget Sound can only handle so much pee in the water.”
All in all, all week long… there’s been one screwy thing after another.
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.