He's a Hero, He's a Guy!

There is always something special when the calendar clicks into May. It unofficially marks the time we can go outdoors again after a long winter and fickle spring.

I myself spent the morning mowing the acreage on my brand new lawn mower. Thankfully, it is a very modest estate, so, while I wouldn’t mind having one, a tractor is not needed. At least not very often. But what a wonderful day to be outside in the sun doing work, getting dirty and getting a sunburn. (Ha! I always wear long sleeve shirts and a chapeau.) I love a spring Sunday, any spring Sunday.

While mowing is quite a chore that requires exposure to all sorts of obstacles, such as rocks, cactus, a cement brick that sticks up just a little too much and that I can never find when I go looking for it to remove it, prairie dog holes that will throw you off a tractor if you hit it wrong, and dirt. Might as well through in some nice itchy pollen in with the dirt.

I don’t care for mowing that much, but I like being outdoors doing something. Plus, riding a mower for a couple of hours and several breaks for water, gets a mind to working. The monotony of the task allows your mind to wander because operating a riding lawn mower isn’t all that difficult. I don’t mind having a little time to myself, but there is no telling what train of thought will engage. One time, while shoveling snow, I kept thinking about the Ford Administration. I guess the fact that this is the only man to have never been elected vice president nor president was more fascinating than shoveling snow.

I guess maybe I was remembering that time about Gerald Ford and I had watched Patriot Games last night, so Ford was on my brain, I guess. My thoughts always start with a question like, “Why is Harrison Ford always so grouchy when it comes to Star Wars or Indiana Jones? And why does he keep making them?”

The obvious answer, of course, is that he is probably tired of people asking him about Solo and Jones, and that it pays really well and there’s always a helicopter to buy and maintain. I would imagine that he probably likes doing them. Whatever, I think, I have no right to demand an answer to a question that emanated from my idle thoughts. He owes me nothing. I paid money to see him in a movie and usually felt I got my money’s worth. There isn’t anything else that he and I need to concern ourselves with. He has no interest in my life, why should I have an interest in his? Besides, I wouldn’t ask him about that. If I were to have the opportunity to talk to Mr. Ford, I would ask him what he was thinking when he agreed to do Cowboy and Aliens.

I feel a little guilty when my thoughts go to popular culture, but mostly I’m fascinated with sociology of these sort of things. Like it or not, Harrison Ford just has to deal with the fact that a generation of men – many of us with gray hair and bad prostates – will always idolize Solo and Jones and the man who played them in the movies. For good measure, we had him as Rick Deckard in “Blade Runner,” (another movie he said he hated, yet made a sequel) and Jack Ryan.

I’m sure that Ford is a little embarrassed by the adulation, but he is an actor, a person who makes money off other people’s adulation. I mean, how grumpy can he possibly be? He climbed to the top of his profession, what more is there?

Anyway, my thoughts on Harrison Ford moved over to another question, “What if Indiana Jones was one of the antique experts on Antiques Roadshow on PBS?” It was time to move on and there were numerous topics that I’d read about this week.

I had read an article this week about a couple of AI researchers who are compiling the text messages and every digital footprint of people who have died and created a chatbot. It all seems very, very wrong, but I still have to process that a little more.

I suppose I could have thought about the Kentucky Derby and how six horses have died at Churchill Downs over the past week, but the coverage on television was all about celebrities in fucking hats. I guess I shouldn’t blame the coverage, I didn’t much want to think about dead horses.

That stuff is depressing, so I could think about the book I’m writing, or even the book I’m reading.

Instead, my thoughts turned to “Hogan’s Heroes.”

Yeah, that’s stupid, I know, but I could give you an amusing dissertation on the comedic genius of Hogan’s Heroes. I also have strong opinions on the Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, MASH, or about a hundred other TV shows. What can I say, I was shown too much television when I was a kid.

Maybe that’s why I think of those things while I’m mowing, a chore that I can remember having to do since I could remember being able to push a mower.

The good thing about working on Sunday morning, is taking a shower and eating a late lunch then writing or watching a movie.

I have a funny feeling that any movie I choose will probably have Harrison Ford in it.