My Ultimate Man Cave

 

Sitting here in my recliner by the fire in ease and comfort, with the house at 24° Celsius, it is a little difficult to want to return to anything from my past. And yet I still do. I'm the reminiscent, nostalgic sort for sure. Without really having to ponder the situation, I know it's the world that has changed, not me. I'm living now like I wanted to back then. I just don't want to do this living in this present world. Now there's a corundum. 

Someone else can have the world out there as it is. And I mean that in every sense of it. I prefer my world in here as it is.

During the blizzard we had a while back, while looking out the window at 3AM, I grimly remarked to Sharon, "When I was younger, I'd be setting out now to deliver newspapers in this, thinking that if I worked at McDonald's, I'd be at home in bed, and making more money". Heck, if I was a welfare bum in those days I'd be making more money. And in still bed where anyone with half a brain would be at that time of night and especially in those conditions. 

No, that is definitely not something I want to return to. If I am anxious about something, I have bad dreams that I somehow allowed myself to get suckered into taking the paper route job back and I'm out in the middle of nowhere at the wrong time of day with no instructions of where I'm supposed to go, probably almost out of papers before the route is hardly even started, and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that are going to be no better. If you see me out in a junky old car and I have more than one newspaper with me, my nightmare has indeed become my reality and you have my full permission - and even my beseeching - to just shoot me. It would be merciful for me, and you would get in some free practice for someone on your list who really needs killin'. 

So that's not something I want to revisit. My level of comfort and convenience at home then couldn't hold a candle to what I experience on a daily basis now. I am at almost a retirement level comfort now even though I'm still working, and will be for the foreseeable future. I'll never be in the upper echelon of income earners, even here in the depressed Upper Ottawa Valley. I just don't have that touch. My house is 41 years old. My car is 24 years old, my truck is 17 years old, and my wife's car is 11 years old. And I'm fine with that. I mean perfectly fine. There's nothing to impress here. No attempt whatsoever. I leave that fiercely competitive field for anyone else who wants to enter it. Almost any professional earns more than I do, but I'm ok with that too because I live such a mundanely simple lifestyle that is easy to finance. I don't have lavish desires, and I'm certainly not out to impress people. From long ago I've learned that the ones who try the most to impress are the fakest sunzaguns out there anywhere, and that's the last thing I want to be regarded as. Or remembered for when the Good Lord calls me Home.

My pride and joy is our J.A. Roby cookstove I bought at Olmstead's Home Hardware in Cobden. That's how simple my life is. It harkens back to my younger days on the Queens Line with the MacKay family in their summer kitchen with their Elmira cookstove and the incredible warmth and comfort it provided, and my crazy Aunt Katie's somewhat similar cookstove in her austere Beachburg house; the only comfort she allowed herself at all.

I recline as much and as often as I can here in my Archie chair near the coziness of the fire, imperiously above and beyond outside drama and nonsense. Sharon even brings my supper to me here while I watch something like Starsky and Hutch. It's a good thing there isn't a commode in this thing or I'd never get out of it. I wish I could think of something I could do for a living sitting in this chair, like writing, but I can never think of anything to write about that would appeal to the masses. I guess I'm just an armchair recliner philosopher. 

My life is pretty simple and I like it that way. I moulded my whole adult life into becoming as drama-free as absolutely possible. I absolutely hate drama, and I detest getting sucked into other people's self-generated drama even more. Some people seem to thrive on drama as it's the only thing that gives them any sense of self worth; drama draws attention, and dramatic people are attention seekers at heart. I despise that with a passion and strive to be the furthest thing from it. Anyone who knows me knows while I may be rather expressive (you just laughed if you know me), I'm also very much the steady-as-she-goes-type. Don't look to me for news because there almost certainly won't be any. 

The number of young men out there today sporting a full beard to make the impression of looking manly is such a joke. You know they would be entirely helpless except for their smartphone if they blew a tire. That just makes me shake my head in sad resignation. There they'd be, while the last of their Starbucks caffe latte gets cold, standing in a femininized, hip out, all-body pout, in their manbun, pale pink t-shirt, cutoff shorts and designer sandals, cradling their digital be all and end all in their soft as a 14 year old girl's hands when the tilt'n'load would show up and a real man would get out and walk up to help them out of their predicament. 

I sure didn't grow up in their world. Progressives would say the tilt'n'load driver had 'toxic masculinity'. Toxic masculinity my foot. Nearly half of the girls I grew up with could change a tire, for Pete's sake! There's nothing toxic about that. What is toxic, as in contagious, is a feminized society, which can neither fend for itself nor defend itself, and that's exactly the breakdown we are witnessing. 

They grew up pampered. I've become pampered. There's a great big, developmental and generational difference. They don't have the wisdom and understanding to be what men my age are, and we sure as heckfire don't want to be what they are.

What I long for is not the loss of comfort and leisure I live in today. No, not at all. I am indeed now a Creature of Comfort; simple comfort, and am exceedingly grateful for how I presently live. And I certainly don't take it for granted; I know it all can change in as little as a heartbeat, so I deeply, greatly value and appreciate it. 

I guess I'm like a cat: Best seat in the house, near the fire. Thankfully I don't have to lick myself clean.

All that said, if I really had my way; if The Sky Was The Limit; my leisure time would be spent in my own private, Olde English, narrow, oak paneled study with a stamped tin tile ceiling. A classic, deep red Hunter 1930's Original fan and light fixture would cool and illuminate the room. A wall to wall hunter green carpet with a Persian rug would provide comfort for the soles of the souls. Along the back, the wainscoted wall would be in matching oak with vintage green striped wallpaper above. For furnishings, along that wall, a matched pair of heavy, deeply upholstered, nailhead dark leather couch and armchair with a refreshments table between them. A round table with chairs and a swag lamp over them would dominate the far corner with a large, velvet-textured 1894 'Dogs Playing Poker' picture hung there on display. An oak doctor's rolltop desk accented with a green banker's light and a complimentary Dagwood Bumstead's Mr. Dither's office chair would take up station nearest the door. The opposing wall would be completely lined end to end with bookshelves loaded with all of my interests - and then some - with a roaring fireplace right in the center. The overall effect would be very comforting, reassuring and relaxing. And totally, completely male in nature. A sober retreat to ponder the infinite, unfathomable wonders of our Creator. A quiet and dignified space to wind down before retiring to bed. A noble niche to allow the restorative powers of healthy seclusion and detachment to accomplish what pharmaceuticals would never be able to. A Chambers befitting of a proper, distinguished, Scottish Country Gentleman: Daniel Stephen John Bowes, Esquire, and his privileged, unabashedly and unapologetically male social callers. 

In that wooden alcove, smelling deeply of lemon oil, leather conditioner, and wood smoke, I would repose in a silk smoking jacket and pajamas and slippers in timeless, tranquil, sumptuous, genteel private luxury, reading and especially writing as I felt led. Or receive company in suitable evening attire. Welcomed visitors would convene there and play late night games of cards or manly board games such as Monopoly, Clue, or Risk. To augment the aristocratic air of the smoking jacket I might even take up smoking a sweet, savoury burled pipe for refinement and that certain je ne sais quoi. And to enhance reflection and retrospect like Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. My demeanor in that wood and leather nook would assume the persona of a cross between Stephen Leacock, Sean Connery and Jack Watson. Men of Refinement. You wouldn't forget the experience of a manly retreat such as that. A celebratory and bolstering place of unadulterated masculinity. The sights, the smells, the textures, and the overall atmosphere. 

As it is, I am the cartoon equivalent and combination of Andy Capp without the booze, Mr. Dithers without the edge, Wile E. Coyote (thankfully) without the cliff and the anvil, Daffy Duck without the thirst for fame and fortune, and Sylvester the cat without the taste for live birds. I guess I have to be content with that. It's not all that bad, really. 

But I am still the Man of the House. Just as it is supposed to be.

There is no such thing as 'toxic masculinity'. That is a lie straight from the pit of Hell.

A man allowing himself MANHOOD, is the healthiest, most honourable, splendid, virtuous, noble thing there is in this unbelievably messed up world because that is what our Heavenly Father ORDAINED us to be: MEN. Nothing more, nothing less. Just as God our FATHER created us: in HIS image! Never, ever forget that. We have an Honour to uphold. We are SONS of the King of kings and Lord of lords! And He EXPECTS us to be MEN. 

MEN are natural leaders and providers and protectors. Anything less absolutely can not measure up. Do not be anything less. Do not allow anyone to deceive you into being anything less. Be what you were Created to be: a one hundred percent MAN. 

Go FORTH, you mighty MAN of valor! 

 Now you know who or what I'd really like to be. But I'm already that in character. I never apologize for being fully male. The study and the smoking jacket and the pipe would really only be my current domestic attitude augmented to a higher, more esoteric level. Maybe I'll be allowed that in Heaven, likely minus the pipe. God certainly won't have a problem allowing a man to be a man.

 

Yeah, that'd do it for me alright. I've had that room planned like that since I was about 16 and saw a 'build your own bookshelf wall' tutorial in a then-current issue of Popular Science. Of the things I truly would like to have - but don't need or have to have to be happy - this grand room and a 1977 El Camino SS would be on the top of the list. But don't ever forget this: Happiness is a choice, not a result. You can choose to be happy, but if you don't choose to be happy, nothing can make you happy. So many people get that simple concept all screwed up and end up chasing a carrot on a string, sometimes their entire lives.

What I truly miss is the simplicity of life and the world in general when things were a lot rougher for me. When I was out in a 12 inch snowstorm, muttering at the welfare bums I was driving past snug in their beds at a warmer temperature than I could afford to be at when I was home myself, I only really had things like that to get under my skin. Now it's people who get offended at the slightest little thing and make a gigantic stink about it; men who pretend they are women; women who pretend they are men; people of any one of the 57 or whatever supposed genders who pretend they are cats or platypuses; and especially incorrigibly corrupt, despicable politicians openly biting the hands that feed them and turning our formerly organized world upside down. 

If only I could live like I do now, but still live in the world I grew up in. If only, if only...  But for now I can just sit here in my comfortable chair by the fire and write about it and fondly reminisce and dream at the same time as well.