That Would Be Me (dot net)

Many years ago Toyota had an ad campaign with the catchy slogan, “What Will You Do with All the Money You Save?” The thinking was, I assume, the consumer had $20,000 in their checking account allotted especially for the purpose of buying a car. When they bought the Toyota and it only cost $18,000, they had $2,000 worth of FREE MONEY! Woo Hoo! I’m going to Disneyland and have dinner at one of the real restaurants!

Of course, how many people actually have the cash already set aside to purchase a car? (Or even a pack of gum these days, even that’s put on a credit card more often than not.) We usually don’t even have the down payment ready at hand. So, when a car costs less than originally expected, you don’t actually “save” money, you just don’t spend as much potential (read “imaginary”) money as you would have on the more expensive item. You can’t do anything with the money you saved, because in actuality it never really existed. Except in your mind. Which, now I think about it, is how most of my money exists.

Why do I bring this up so many years after the fact? Well, there is a new ad campaign now running from Hyundai, called Dollars & Sense, where the wide-eyed consumers, having fallen in love with the car, are admonished by either Larry Winget, Ray Lucia or Adam Smith (all presumed to be best selling authors of books about money) that they should “put the money they saved into an insured CD” or some such drivel. These renowned economists should be ashamed of themselves! What could it possibly do to an economist’s reputation to advise people to put money that never existed into savings? Isn’t that illegal? Would there eventually be a margin call? Would you have to give the car back when that happened? What if you’ve already spilled ice cream on the upholstery during your trip to Disneyland?

I don’t really begrudge these authors getting their truck load of money for giving this fictional advice in a commercial, it is good economics. For them - lead by example, I always say. Are Hyundai cars relatively inexpensive? Yes. (I didn’t say “cheap”!) Will you spend less money on one than if you buy a comparable car from another maker? Probably. Does that mean you’ve saved money? Theoretically. What are you going to do with that money? I’m going to invest mine in an imaginary gold mine in Argentina. Hey, I don’t even have to buy the car to do that. How much more money can I save, then?

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

Yes, I’m verbose.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

As a young boy in the remote New Jersey town called Flatbrookville, I hated peas, those grey-green orbs piled on my dinner plate threatening to roll over into the mashed potatoes (a favorite) and pollute Grandma’s wonderful pot roast.  They smushed on my tongue into a slimy mess that tasted unnatural with an undercurrent of vaguely chemical sweetness.  And heaven defend us when they appeared surreptitiously in an otherwise wonderful beef stew, nestling among the carrots.

I was not a picky eater.  Both my mother and grandmother were wonderful cooks and I liked almost everything they made, except fish (more to do with small bones than flavor), Brussel sprouts (everything wrong with a cabbage, condensed) and, of course, peas.  I ate everything put before me, I was, generally, a well behaved child.  I have fond memories of most meals: pasta with summer sauce, home-made ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese or luscious Italian sausage filling, corned beef, venison, al olio, pasta con pesto.  The simple mention of these staples make me salivate.

But occasionally my dinner plate was offended by peas.

One morning when I was, perhaps, eight or nine, I “lost” my breakfast and had to stay home from school.  My mother had planed at day trip to visit our Aunt Lou, a two hour drive in each direction.  The other kids were in school and Grandma had the business to run, so I went along for the visit.  Shortly after we got there, it became obvious that I didn’t have a typical flu and Aunt Lou insisted we visit her doctor.

It was acute, gangrenous appendicitis.  I was rushed to the hospital and prepped for emergency surgery.  I was told that my appendix actually burst in the doctor’s hand as he removed it.  I’d been twenty minutes away from major complications or even death.  But I was kid from a large Italian family and all I knew was that I was getting individual attention from doctors, nurses, and even my mother and Aunt Lou.  It all seemed a fair trade.  

A day or so later I was lying in bed, one vestigial organ lighter, when the doctors started me back up on solid food.  The vegetable in my first dinner was peas.  But they were unlike any pea I had ever encountered.  They were bright green, almost shiny, a pat of butter was melting on top of the small pile, its edges taking on the contours of these tiny marvels.  I tasted one.  No smush!  No slime.  It actually popped when I bit down on it.  And the sweetness.  The wonderful sweetness.  I pondered this for some time, then finally asked my mother.

“Well, they were probably frozen,” she said.

Frozen.  We didn’t get frozen vegetables at home.  We either got fresh (corn or green beans from a neighbor’s garden) or canned.  It was a different time.  Even my Italian grandmother used canned vegetables.

I haven’t allowed canned vegetables in my house since I moved out on my own.  And peas are still my favorite meal-time treat.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend

And what the hell is a continental breakfast? Where did it come from? Which continent? It sounds vaguely European, but somehow I doubt that they only serve Cherios, cornflakes, waffles, orange juice and coffee for breakfast in Brussels.

Yesterday at a rest stop, I climbed a steep hill (a triumph in itself) to look over into the rough cut valley of a Utah canyon. On the way up, I passed a small mound of sand in the rocky path that was swarming with red ants. Almost at the top of the hill there was a hole in the path that was swarming with large black ants. I predict a war in the near future.

Las night I actually sat in the Jacuzzi and swam in the indoor pool at the motel I was staying at. It was run by a handsome young Indian man (from India, not a Native American, who should be called Native Amercanian or something to avoid all the confusion. Or, perhaps, they should just be called “The People.” They were, after all, here first) and the pool area looked neat and clean. Shortly after I got there, a nice Morman family joined me. They may not really have been Morman, but when I asked the father where they were traveling to, he said, “We’re from Salt Lake City. We’re going to Moab,” so I assumed they were. The youngest son was the first into the Jacuzzi. I chatted with him for a moment, then went into the pool. He seemed to want to show off for me, diving and jumping and splashing and always looking sort of slyly my way to make sure I saw. Starved for attention? A budding actor? His older brother was much more reticent. Teenager, you see, and much too cool to care what some long haired stranger thought.

This morning, when I left my room to pack the car, there was a family of small lizards skittering around on the hot sidewalk outside my room. They were tan with a subtle striping and their tails were blue! Some just a dull blue-gray, some quite a bright, almost teal. They ran and jumped ahead of me, staying on the sidewalk, but seeming to want to get away from the large human with the suitcase pursuing them. When they ran by the door to the motel lobby, they jumped up against the door jam as if they knew somehow that it was sometimes open and they were able to get out of the heat that way. They did this to the door to my room, also. In fact twice, when I opened the door, one would get in. It wasn’t hard to get him out again, I simply stood by the corner he ran to (under the air conditioner both times) and he would run the other way and out. It was a different one each time, the first one was a little bigger and darker brown. I didn’t really mind them being in there, but thought if I left them there, they’d either stave to death or the next tenant in the room might be a skittish little girl and I didn’t want to be the indirect cause of any hysterical shrieking. I want my shrieking to be direct, by golly.

So far, besides the two heavy storms during the seminar, it has rained three times on this trip. Once going up the Rockies on the way east, once going up the Rockies on the way west and once in the middle of nowhere in the Utah desert. (Everywhere in the Utah desert, of course, is in the middle of nowhere, but this short, heavy storm was in the middle of that.) When the rain started in earnest in Utah, I took in the smell. For some reason I love the smell when rain first hits hot ground, an earthy smell, like dust. It seems both dry and wet.

Shortly after that last storm, I pulled into a View Area to put the top back down on the car and had a lovely conversation with a nice couple from somewhere back east who traveled around the country converting Thrifty Drug stores into CVS Drug stores. They were headed for a short stay in San Diego, then an extended one in Los Angeles. We chatted a while, I told them about the La Brea Tar Pits, which was near where they were staying, and told them about our book, Weeping Willow, and gave them a card. (I tell almost everyone I meet about our book, Weeping Willow, and give them a card. Have I told you about Weeping Willow? Would you like a card?) The woman seemed impressed and promised to look the site up. The husband seemed kindly aloof and smiled. I suspect he won’t be looking up our site.

This time through, Eastern Utah doesn’t seem quite so foreboding. It still feels alien, mind you, and empty of life, but I can more see how someone might actually like it. Someone weird. An antisocial loner. You’re not from Eastern Utah, are you?

Okay, I’ve been sitting at this rest stop long enough for one black leather clad motorcycle lad to come and go (how the hell can he wear black leather in this heat?) and another two motorcycles both doing double duty carrying quintessential biker dudes and their biker chicks to stop to stretch their legs. I should wrap this up, now, and finish it when I settle in tonight. I could slog through all the way to LA tonight, but I’d probably get in after midnight and what’s the point of that? One more day on the road should be a nice capper. And now I go. The road beckons. The land pulls me. The wild calls.

It’s seven o’clock, or there about. I’m at a Best Western somewhere off the highway near Lake Mead. Not sure how I got here, I pulled off to find a place to go pee and the road kept going and going. The sign had said “Gas, Food, Lodging” but hadn’t mentioned how far off the road said amenities were. The town I went through (once there was a town) was actually kind of nice. Green lawns and quaint houses. Horses. Cows. Trees. Didn’t seem like Nevada at all. I didn’t realize how hot I was until I got into the motel room and turned on the air. My skin instantly became soaked. I must have been perspiring the whole day, but it was so hot and dry, and windy with the top down, I didn’t notice it. I should have; I’ve been drinking a ton of water and barely needed to relieve myself.

I stopped in St. George, Utah, a fair sized town on the far western end of Utah’s stretch of Highway 70. I was sitting in my car writing down the milage in my little notebook, but the door was open. A thin older fellow in worn jeans and a dim white tee shirt looked over my way and said, “What the hell is that?” “A Mini Cooper,” I informed him. He shook his head and said, “I’d rather be shot dead than be seen in something like that.” He was smiling, but I didn’t believe it.

What an extreme reaction, I thought, and considered asking if he wanted a test drive. “It’s a cool car,” I said, completely unruffled, returning his smile. He looked in and studied the dash board. He seemed fascinated and slightly repulsed, like just looking might somehow make his feminine side bubble to the surface. “Does it really go 150 miles an hour?” he asked after seeing the speedometer. I let him know that it did indeed, that they raced them in England where they were made. He shook his head and said, “It’s just wrong, somehow,” and walked away. He had the same crooked smile the whole time, as if to say, “I really don’t like your kind, but this is a bright, public place and I can’t get away with stomping you.”

What a hoot. If I didn’t already love my little car I would now. It makes small minded people uncomfortable. It would really be poetic if I then sang for the next twenty miles. I didn’t, of course, but my heart cockles were warm.

I go, now, to wipe the sweat off my brow. And nose. And neck. And arms. And legs. Sheesh, I’m sweaty.

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Geoff Hoff is co-owner of Joseph Coaler Productions and, with Steve Mancini, co-wrote the best selling satirical novel “Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend“.