Broke Girls ’

Counting my blessings, naming them one-by-one

“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.

Ioften quote relevant song lyrics at the beginning of my columns, but usually they are ’60s or ’70s rock/pop/funk tunes and not hymns from 1897. But that second verse from “Count Your Blessings” is most apropos to today’s column and fits nicer than any of the Frank Zappa lyrics I awkwardly tried to make work.

1. I, and Fairfield, am blessed to be having a Fourth

of July parade. I love a parade and it was such a downer that Fairfield’s annual Independence Day shindig had to be canceled last year due to the pandemic. I mean, I still had a parade, but walking up and down my hallway waving Old Glory and playing John Philip Sousa marches on my kazoo was not quite the same thing.

2. I, and Fairfield, am blessed to have the worldfamous Budweiser Clydesdales march in the Fourth of July

parade. Now, for many Fairfielders, the main thrill at hearing this news will be the ability to see those magnificent beasts up close and personal. While that is part of it for me, actually – and this is gonna sound weird – I am more excited at the prospect of being a pooper scooper behind them in the parade.

Why? Well, nearly anyone can clean up behind local show horses or even the Solano County Sheriff’s Office equines, but the Clydesdales? That, my friends, is the Super Bowl of Pooper Scooping.

I first saw them live in 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 rumor was the end result of that old game of telephone as the Clydesdales somehow got transmogrified into the “Charlies Angel’s” star, who was not there.

Now, I have let the powers that be at the city of Fairfield know I want this gig and have not heard back yet, so I’m a li’l worried. I mean, I’m sure that my shovelization skills, honed over the past nine years of local parades, are second to none. Also, I’ve perfected my crowdpleasing parade skills (yelling, “Remain calm citizens!” when one of the horses does their business and then leaping into action). I even have a can’t-miss catchphrase: “Just doing our duty (doody)!”

The one thing I may be lacking is the metaphorical experience at shoveling what the horses leave. I mean, sure, I sometimes stretch the truth here in the name of comedic expediency, but if they need someone with vastly more experience than me at doing that, then I would gladly yield to the local Jedi Master in that regard, longtime DR columnist Bud Stevenson.

3. I am blessed to be out of

the hospital and on the mend. As I wrote in last week’s column, which I wrote from Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vacaville, I had to have a surgical procedure. I was discharged (honorably) the next day and have been healing nicely. My only complaint is that despite all the things that could have gone horribly wrong there, nothing did. 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 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,

Tony Wade The last laugh 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.

Courtesy graphic

The Budweiser Clydesdales will march in the Fourth of July parade in Fairfield, July 4.

Reach Fairfield humor columnist and accidental local historian Tony Wade at toekneeweighed@gmail.com.

brIghT spot

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