A2 Monday, June 21, 2021 — DAILY REPUBLIC
Counting my blessings, naming them one-by-one 1977 when I, like half of Fairfield, cut class and headed to Kmart because there was a rumor spreading like wildfire that Farrah Fawcett-Majors was visiting Solano County’s seat. Evidently the Tony Wade rumor was the end The last laugh result of that old game of telephone as the often quote relevant song Clydesdales somehow got lyrics at the beginning of my transmogrified into the “Charcolumns, but usually they are lies Angel’s” star, who ’60s or ’70s rock/pop/funk tunes was not there. and not hymns from 1897. But Now, I have let the powers that second verse from “Count that be at the city of Fairfield Your Blessings” is most apropos know I want this gig and have to today’s column and fits nicer not heard back yet, so I’m a li’l than any of the Frank Zappa worried. I mean, I’m sure that lyrics I awkwardly tried my shovelization skills, honed to make work. over the past nine years of local 1. I, and Fairfield, am parades, are second to none. blessed to be having a Fourth Also, I’ve perfected my crowdof July parade. I love a parade pleasing parade skills (yelling, and it was such a downer that Fairfield’s annual Independence “Remain calm citizens!” when one of the horses does their Day shindig had to be canceled last year due to the pandemic. I business and then leaping into action). I even have a can’t-miss mean, I still had a parade, but catchphrase: “Just doing our walking up and down my duty (doody)!” hallway waving Old Glory and The one thing I may be playing John Philip Sousa lacking is the metaphorical marches on my kazoo was not experience at shoveling what quite the same thing. the horses leave. I mean, sure, I 2. I, and Fairfield, am sometimes stretch the truth blessed to have the worldfamous Budweiser Clydesdales here in the name of comedic expediency, but if they need march in the Fourth of July someone with vastly more parade. Now, for many Fairexperience than me at doing fielders, the main thrill at that, then I would gladly yield to hearing this news will be the the local Jedi Master in that ability to see those magnificent regard, longtime DR columnist beasts up close and personal. Bud Stevenson. While that is part of it for me, 3. I am blessed to be out of actually – and this is gonna the hospital and on the mend. sound weird – I am more As I wrote in last week’s excited at the prospect of being column, which I wrote from a pooper scooper behind them Kaiser Permanente Medical in the parade. Center in Vacaville, I had to Why? Well, nearly anyone have a surgical procedure. I can clean up behind local show was discharged (honorably) the horses or even the Solano County Sheriff’s Office equines, next day and have been healing nicely. My only complaint is but the Clydesdales? That, my that despite all the things that friends, is the Super Bowl of could have gone horribly wrong Pooper Scooping. there, nothing did. I first saw them live in “Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, ev’ry doubt will fly. And you will be singing as the days go by.” — from “Count Your Blessings” by Johnson Oatman Jr.
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The Budweiser Clydesdales will march in the Fourth of July parade in Fairfield, July 4. Let me explain. In Marvel comic books when something goes horribly wrong, you don’t get complications or die, they turn you into a superhero. So a radioactive spider bite doesn’t result in a slow, painful death; instead you become Spider-Man. Gamma bomb explosion? Boom, you become the Hulk. I came out of the hospital and was so disappointed that I was neither bionic nor a Borg. Thankfully, I still have the one superpower I entered with, but super flatulence isn’t as in demand as one might think. 4. I am blessed to have lived in Fairfield 45 years this month. We moved here from Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato in June 1976. I spent the first 11 years of life in Virginia and I remember experiencing my first California summer, which felt like living on Mercury. In honor of my 45th anniversary I listened to 1976 albums like “Frampton Comes Alive!” and Heatwave’s debut “Too Hot to Handle.” The latter got me bonus irony points for listening
bright spot
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when it was a 100 and freakin’ 10 degrees last week. 5. I am blessed to have no problems with self-promotion. That’s why I can – with no sense of shame – pass along to y’all the news that the publication date for my upcoming book by The History Press titled “Growing Up in Fairfield, California” is Sept. 6! 6. I am blessed to be a bada** whole-food, plant-based hunter. I enjoy the reality show “Alone” where 10 survival experts try to outlast each other for a cash prize by living in wilderness areas and filming themselves doing it. I recently watched one where a contestant shot a musk ox with a bow and arrow and then, as the huge animal was slowly dying, he rushed it several times with a knife and finished it off. I no longer eat meat, but I recently had an eerily similar experience at the Fairfield farmers market downtown. I stealthily crept up on a particularly vicious-looking wild broccoflower, wrestled it to the ground with my bare hands,
bagged it, weighed it, paid for it and took it back to my campsite (home) and ate it. Raw. That hard-to-describe feeling that is washing over you right now is called “awevy” – a mixture of awe and envy. 7. I am blessed to be a transporter for my pooch when it’s hot. I have long known that when temperatures soar my dog ain’t wearing Skechers and scalding asphalt can fry his paws. So I carry him over the burning street to the safety of the grass where he can do his business. I pass this along to pet owners so they, too, can be a blessing to their pets. I also want to mention to the several dogs that are longtime readers that you in turn can be a blessing to your owners by adhering to the custom of generously tipping for this service. My li’l ingrate never does. Reach Fairfield humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade at toekneeweighed@gmail.com.
