Thread: Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs Canceled After 8 Seasons

After eight successful seasons, Discovery Channel has canceled Dirty Jobs. The news comes just five days after the network announced that another once popular show, American Chopper, would be ending after 10 seasons.

Creator and executive producer Mike Rowe, who has been hosting the show since 2003, shared the news via a Huffington Post blog entry Nov. 21. "Whenever Dirty Jobs goes off the air for a few months, people start to wonder if the show has been canceled. Rumors begin to swirl, and questions about the show's future fill my inbox. Over the years it's been my pleasure to assure anxious fans that Dirty Jobs is coming back for another season. And indeed, we always have. Alas, this year, I'm afraid I cannot dispel the rumors," he explained. "A few weeks ago, I was officially informed that Dirty Jobs had entered into a new phase. One I like to call, 'permanent hiatus.' Or in the more popular industry vernacular, canceled."

Rowe, 50, admitted it's difficult for him to "imagine a future that does not involve exploding toilets, venomous snakes, misadventures in animal husbandry, and feces from every species."

Though Dirty Jobs was once one of Discovery Channel's highest-rated programs, its viewership has declined in recent seasons. "I can't say that Dirty Jobs never jumped the shark (since I literally leaped over one in season two), but I'm proud to say it's still the same hatchet. The last episode looked pretty much like the first. We didn't become something we weren't," Rowe wrote. "We never shared the sewer with Paris Hilton, and we never invited you to 'tune in next week for a very special Dirty Jobs.' We stuck to the mission statement. We stayed small. We worked hard. And we had a hell of a good time. It was as they say, a very good run."

Rowe, who will still narrate Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, promised fans that he has other "good things in the works. Not as dirty perhaps, but exciting nevertheless. I'm looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past."

Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainm...#ixzz2D78nXmQV

I liked it, when I caught it.

some of the stuff he did u would get me to do

See also http://www.bigbigforums.com/thats-en...-job-fans.html ... most of whom would seem to want to see Mike shirtless taking a shower...


From Mike Rowe's FB page ....

Back in Community College, I had a journalism teacher named Paula Pumphrey. We called her Mrs. P, and she was fantastic. Once, I turned in a feature story that I felt was maybe the best thing I’d ever written. In particular, I thought my first sentence really sang...

“On a misty morning in Southern Maryland, Mitchell Mycroft made a massive miscalculation - a mathematical mistake that be remembered as a marvelous misstep in modern manufacturing.”

Mrs. P circled the entire sentence with a red marker and wrote in the margin, “ALLITERATION ALMOST ALWAYS ANNOYS!!!”

She was right of course, and over that semester, her red pen was quick to chronicle a litany of assaults on her beloved tongue. Ever vigilant, she was the sworn enemy of dangling participles, split infinitives, squinting modifiers, and what she called - in spite of her distaste for alliteration - my “ever-present propensity to pontificate.”

I thought fondly of Mrs. P three years ago on this day. I remember the date - March 14 - because I was wrapped up in a minor drama with People Magazine and my various bosses at Discovery. Long story short, People wanted to do a big article on Dirty Jobs, which was a very good thing. But they also wanted to include pictures of me taking a shower. I was curious about that. Not because I’m bashful about getting naked - God knows. I just thought we should focus more on the people we feature on the show, and asked the people at Discovery if People might be open to another creative direction. (And really, who wants to show up shirtless next to Mario Lopez and Hugh Jackman?) Unfortunately, I was never allowed to speak directly with the person at People. The entire story was scrapped, and I was left to wonder if my concerns had been lost in translation.

Anyway, I had just sat down to explain myself in an open letter addressed to the People at People, when I got the call from a former classmate. Mrs. P had died in her sleep. That news inspired me to break out the Whistle Pig, which I am wont to do on such occasions, and raise a glass of rye to the passing of my pedantic professor. In fact, I may have raised a couple, as my friend and I recalled her aversion to alliteration, and reminisced on the phone for the better part of an hour.

After we hung up, I returned to my letter and began to write. Perhaps I was petulant, probably proud, or possibly partially pickled. But somehow, my sincere solicitation was morphing into a metaphorical monument to Mrs. P’s primary pet-peeve. My profundity was preternatural, and I was powerless to prevent a preponderance of P’s from piling up on the page. Happily, “prudence” was among them, so I hit “save” instead of “send,” went to bed, and forgot about the whole thing. Until this morning, when I remembered Mrs. P, and pulled this panegyric from my thick file of Whistle Pig inspired correspondence.

Below is the open letter I wrote to the People at People three years ago today. I still can’t tell if it’s clever or stupid, but if you read it out loud in a British accent, you might be mildly amused. (I was.) Either way, there’s simply not enough red in all of Paula Pumphrey’s pens to properly appraise the problems that plague this purely periphrastic petition. I’m posting it now because frankly, I have nothing else of great interest to share with you today, but feel the urge to commemorate the anniversary of my premature parting with People, and the passing of the perspicacious Mrs. P. And besides, it’s never too late to make amends - especially if you’re a person who needs People...

3/14/2011
Dear People:

And by People, I don’t mean All People, or Most People, or Some People. I mean the People at People. Specifically, The Person at People who postponed the profile previously pitched around my public persona. Should this plea find a path to that particular person, I pray they’ll pity my plight, ponder my proposal, and perchance, pardon my public pandering. That would be perfect. But first, some perspective.

When The Discovery People first told me The People-People were planning a piece, I was predictably pleased. People is perfectly poised to proffer prime publicity for any program aspiring promotion, and I was predisposed to participate in whatever capacity the People-People preferred. However, I was not prepared for the pictures the People at People planned to procure. According to The Discovery People, the People-People were partial to presenting me shirtless.

Though complimentary, a pictorial of my pectorals presented a PR predicament. You see, Dirty Jobs is predicated on practical participants impartially presented without pretense or pomposity. I preferred to promote the program precisely through that paradigm, preserving in the process it’s proletarian personality, and my own pedestrian personage. In my opinion, the prospect of primping and preening in a powder room perpetuates the opposite perception, especially among persons predisposed to peruse a publication as eponymous and polyglot as People.

Anyway, I expressed my preference for a less provocative pose to The Discovery People. They passed my predilection on to the People-People, who promptly replied that preserving my pecs for posterity was in fact a priority for that particular profile. But when the Discovery People parlayed the Person at People’s preference, they implied in the process a possible perception of “prudishness” on my part. Preposterous! When it comes to probable probity, I possess no penchant for prudery, and no pretext of propriety. I simply preferred to perpetuate the premise of the program I pledged to promote by posing in a less predictable place.

But it was too late. The People People not only punted on their prior proposition, they pulled the plug on the complete profile. Worse, I was pointedly apprised by The Discovery People that the People People were probably perturbed because, “Mike and his people were too pertinacious. That was perplexing, partly because I have no people, per se, and no prior correspondence or personal proximity to any of the People at People!

Regardless, leaving a preeminent periodical with a poor impression is patently pea-brained. So I prodded the Discovery People to put me in personal touch with the People-People, so I could propitiate or perhaps pacify the person on point. However, The Discovery People preferred to protect the privacy of the People-People, preventing me from proffering a personal apology, and prompting me to post this public appeal. Which propels me to proclaim my primary point -

I’m ready to get naked for you.

Consider this a belated olive branch, (or a fig leaf, if you prefer.) I am a Person who needs People. More to the point, Dirty Jobs is a show that deserves a bigger audience, and if we had been allowed to speak directly I’m sure we could have found a way to satisfy your editorial requirements and my need for non-negative notoriety.

In other words, if you’ll pardon my prior proclivities, and reappraise the potential for a personal profile, I promise to respond promptly and present myself in whatever place you prefer, in whatever wardrobe you want. All I ask, is that you mention the foundation that’s grown out of Dirty Jobs. It’s called mikeroweWORKS, and we award “work ethic scholarships” to kids who are willing to learn a trade and work their butts off. How sexy is that?

Anyway, I’m standing by, and happy to meet in the shower stall or bathhouse of your choosing, camera-ready. (Though in the interest of full disclosure, the holidays were indulgent. If you want the Full Monty, your photographer will need a wide angle lens.)

Sincerely,
Mike Rowe

Mike Rowe 36 mins ago

This Just In...

So I’m here in New York City, making some new friends at a Network Upfront. Upfronts are annual events hosted by broadcasters. Their purpose is to formally announce new programs, and give the advertising community an “upfront” look at what’s coming down the pike. If you happen to own a network or buy advertising, upfronts are a pretty big deal. If you don’t, but happen to find yourself in the midst of one anyway, I recommend the bar. All upfronts have a bar. And the bar is always open. Always.

Anyway, I’m here because I have some news. Some breaking news, if you will. After a year of nosing around for gainful employment, I’ve finally found a home for my next television project. The official announcement will occur on the upfront stage in about an hour, but I wanted to tell you guys first, since you’re primarily responsible for interrupting my premature retirement. In fact, some of you might recall the conversation that got me to this point. It started with a question posted over a year ago by a guy called Russell:

--
Q: Russell Hande: How many of us would pay per episode if Mr. Rowe made his own independent show? Something that picked up where Dirty Jobs left off? I would happily pay to see some “real reality” back on TV.

A: Hi Russell. Years ago, I hosted a show in San Francisco called Somebody’s Gotta Do It. That was the most “real” show I ever worked on. We featured regular people on a mission - mad scientists, crazy collectors, bloody-do-gooders...people with passion and purpose who marched to the beat of their own drum. I miss that show, and the honest way we produced it. So yeah - if the people on this page said, "Hey, Mike, here's ten bucks to cover jet fuel and production costs," I’d start shooting "Somebody's Gotta Do It” tomorrow.
---

After that post, thousands of you encouraged me to do that very thing. Hundreds more pledged money to help pay for Somebody’s Gotta Do It. That was humbling and initially, pretty exciting. But when it came down to actually taking your money to produce a show with my name in the title, I couldn’t do it. It felt vaguely icky...like inviting friends to my wedding and then charging them for dinner. However, your enthusiasm for a real, unscripted show was duly noted, and last year, I went out to find Somebody’s Gotta Do It a proper home. Well, that little adventure could have been Episode 1.

Long story short, I spoke with dozens of producers and network executives who develop unscripted content and reality programming. They were all very nice, and made a point to tell me how much they valued the humor and spontaneity of Dirty Jobs. When I explained that Somebody’s Gotta Do It would include those same qualities, they became even more enthused. But eventually, their questions came around to “plot lines,” “recurring characters,” “stakes,” “dramatic tension,” and the “narrative arc” of each episode. Basically, they wanted to know what was going to happen before we started rolling. A few of them even asked for a script. I’m not kidding. A script, for an unscripted show. It got to the point where I could no longer hear the words “reality” or “unscripted” without hearing Mandy Patinkin’s quiet admonishment to Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride - “You keep using that word...I do not think it means what you think it means...”

When Dirty Jobs debuted ten years ago, “unscripted” meant uncertain. That’s what made it fun, and cheap. There was no real format. We Forrest-Gumped our way around the country and made up a show along the way. Scripted content on the other hand, provides a lot more certainty and a lot more control, but at a much higher price. That's always been the tradeoff. However, by combining real people in real-world settings with a more scripted approach, some very clever producers created a new format called Docu-soaps, or “scripted-reality.” Networks love this format, and obviously, so do viewers. The why the Ducks have a Dynasty. And the Amish have a Mafia. And Honey has a Boo Boo.

Don’t get me wrong - I’ve got no beef with docu-soaps. I narrate several good ones, and I’m grateful for the work. But in real life, I’m simply not equipped to appear on camera in the kind of programs currently in vogue. I have no experience hunting for ghosts, digging for gold, or fishing for crab. I’m not a survivalist or a stunt junkie. I don’t like cooking in front of judges, and I’m not qualified to dance with anyone, including The Stars. True - I have spent countless hours both Naked and Afraid, but rarely at the same time, and never for a whole season. Point is, Docu-soaps and competition shows have no need for an Erstwhile Host or a Full Time Apprentice. Today, a truly unscripted show is a very hard sell. Which is why I’m pleased, relieved, and grateful to announce that Somebody’s Gotta Do It is going to premiere on...

CNN.

Yep.

CNN.

I suspect some of you will have questions about all this, and I’ll answer as many as I can later. But for now, here’s the headline - of all the networks I spoke with, no one talked about unscripted content and point-of view programming with more passion than CNN. When I described Somebody’s Gotta Do It, they said, “Mike, we get it. We love it. We want it. And we’ll give you an hour in prime-time to make it happen.”
Who say’s “no” to that?

In a few minutes, this announcement will hit the wire, but I doubt the official press release will acknowledge your collective role in getting me back to work. But rest assured, I’m aware of your contribution, and I appreciate it. The best ideas on Dirty Jobs came from fans of the show, and I’m hoping to continue that tradition here. In fact, I’m counting on it. (I won’t take your money, but I'll take your suggestions all day long.) So consider yourselves back on the programming payroll.

Starting now, I’m looking for people on a mission. Regular people who feel compelled to do a particular thing. Dirt is not a pre-requisite, but hard work is still fair-game. So is play. And just about everything else. I’m talking about the guy who built Stonehenge in his backyard, just to prove that I could be done without aliens or modern tools. Or the man I just read about who’s on a quest to change the global reputation of British food. Or the guy who has assumed the identity of Tom Sawyer, and ferries people up and down the Mississippi River on a raft. These are the kind of people I want to meet. And somebody’s gotta help me find them. That would be you.
If you have an idea, drop me a line at [email protected]. Put SGDI in the RE:line. I appear to have made over 630,000 friends this year. If I can get one decent lead from each one of you, Somebody’s Gotta Do It should remain on the air for the next 254 years. So thanks in advance for that!

Gotta run. Anthony Bourdain’s making jello shots for the room. More later -

Mike

Mike Rowe is asked for “life advice,” and his response is the best thing you’ll read today
David Rufful May 1, 2014

Seriously, this is awesome…

LETTER TO MIKE:

Hey Mike!

I’ve spent this last year trying to figure out the right career for myself and I still can’t figure out what to do. I have always been a hands on kind of guy and a go-getter. I could never be an office worker. I need change, excitement, and adventure in my life, but where the pay is steady. I grew up in construction and my first job was a restoration project. I love everything outdoors. I play music for extra money. I like trying pretty much everything, but get bored very easily. I want a career that will always keep me happy, but can allow me to have a family and get some time to travel. I figure if anyone knows jobs its you so I was wondering your thoughts on this if you ever get the time! Thank you!

- Parker Hall

MIKE’S RESPONSE:

Hi Parker,

My first thought is that you should learn to weld and move to North Dakota. The opportunities are enormous, and as a “hands-on go-getter,” you’re qualified for the work. But after reading your post a second time, it occurs to me that your qualifications are not the reason you can’t find the career you want.

I had drinks last night with a woman I know. Let’s call her Claire. Claire just turned 42. She’s cute, smart, and successful. She’s frustrated though, because she can’t find a man. I listened all evening about how difficult her search has been. About how all the “good ones” were taken. About how her other friends had found their soul-mates, and how it wasn’t fair that she had not.

“Look at me,” she said. “I take care of myself. I’ve put myself out there. Why is this so hard?”

“How about that guy at the end of the bar,” I said. “He keeps looking at you.”

“Not my type.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Have you tried a dating site?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? I would never date someone I met online!”

“Alright. How about a change of scene? Your company has offices all over – maybe try living in another city?”

“What? Leave San Francisco? Never!”

“How about the other side of town? You know, mix it up a little. Visit different places. New museums, new bars, new theaters…?”

She looked at me like I had two heads. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Here’s the thing, Parker. Claire doesn’t really want a man. She wants the “right” man. She wants a soul-mate. Specifically, a soul-mate from her zip code. She assembled this guy in her mind years ago, and now, dammit, she’s tired of waiting!!

I didn’t tell her this, because Claire has the capacity for sudden violence. But it’s true. She complains about being alone, even though her rules have more or less guaranteed she’ll stay that way. She has built a wall between herself and her goal. A wall made of conditions and expectations. Is it possible that you’ve built a similar wall?

Consider your own words. You don’t want a career – you want the “right” career. You need “excitement” and “adventure,” but not at the expense of stability. You want lots of “change” and the “freedom to travel,” but you need the certainty of “steady pay.” You talk about being “easily bored” as though boredom is out of your control. It isn’t. Boredom is a choice. Like tardiness. Or interrupting. It’s one thing to “love the outdoors,” but you take it a step further. You vow to “never” take an office job. You talk about the needs of your family, even though that family doesn’t exist. And finally, you say the career you describe must “always” make you “happy.”

These are my thoughts. You may choose to ignore them and I wouldn’t blame you – especially after being compared to a 42 year old woman who can’t find love. But since you asked…

Stop looking for the “right” career, and start looking for a job. Any job. Forget about what you like. Focus on what’s available. Get yourself hired. Show up early. Stay late. Volunteer for the scut work. Become indispensable. You can always quit later, and be no worse off than you are today. But don’t waste another year looking for a career that doesn’t exist. And most of all, stop worrying about your happiness. Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value, and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.
Many people today resent the suggestion that they’re in charge of the way the feel. But trust me, Parker. Those people are mistaken. That was a big lesson from Dirty Jobs, and I learned it several hundred times before it stuck. What you do, who you’re with, and how you feel about the world around you, is completely up to you.

Good luck -
Mike

P.S. I’m serious about welding and North Dakota. Those guys are writing their own ticket.

P.P.S. Think I should forward this to Claire?


http://youngcons.com/mike-rowe-is-as...MUObM.facebook

‘Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe is Challenging Congress…
Did He Just Also Hilariously Insult Them?
April 30, 2014 by Benjamin Austin

Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” fame has a reputation for doing jobs that nobody else wants. Now, he’s doing what might be the most unwanted job in America: Dealing with Congress.

Recently, Rowe testified in front of a Congressional committee on the issue of skilled workers in the US. He made it pretty clear that he sees Congressmen as dirty customers. When asked if he would ever film a TV show about Congress, Mike hilariously quipped: “With respect, some jobs are just too hideous to contemplate.”

Rowe is seen by many as the face of blue collar workers, and has been trying to get Congress and others to wake up about real issues facing the country. At the hearing, he sounded quite conservative, and pushed core values such as hard work.

“In all 50 states, everybody I talked to who owned a small business said … ‘the single biggest challenge we’re facing right now is finding people who are willing to retool, retrain, reboot and learn a truly useful skill from the ground up — and work, show up early, stay late and work,’” stated Rowe.

Mike Rowe’s testimony caused Republicans and Democrats to face off over how to get America working again. Some Democrats quickly tried to push immigration reform as a solution. “Comprehensive immigration reform, are you kidding me?” interjected one Republican in response. “The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that in 2013 … that one in five American families aren’t working. Let’s focus on putting Americans to work, and let’s get them the training that might be necessary.”

Rowe also said that he didn’t think immigration was the answer, but rather that a strong work ethic begins at home.

“It’s social anthropology … we want our kids to have something better we did … and that’s perfectly normal,” he stated. “The question is, what is that? What does that even mean?” Rowe continued: “That maybe is the most subjective question there is but it informs the way we present opportunities to our kids. For all the talk around the issue, the biggest conversation that I’ve seen, the one that really gets resonance, happens around the kitchen table.”

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...de-about-them/

.


The Naked Truth

Question: If I were to form “The American Idol Scholarship Fund” and announce $15,000 of professional training for anyone who wished to become a pop star, how long do you think it would take to give away a million dollars?

A day? An hour? A minute?


What if I offered the same money to anyone who wanted to learn how to maintain and repair diesel engines? How fast would the million dollars go then?

Currently, this question has no official answer. But I can tell you this - for the last month, http://www.mikeroweWORKS.com has been offering FULL-RIDE scholarships to one of the best trade schools in the country. And as of now - a big chunk of that million dollars is still up for grabs. Why? Because mikeroweWORKS scholarships do not reward fame or celebrity. They reward work ethic, and the willingness to learn a necessary skill. In other words, they are designed to train people for jobs that actually exist.

Last month, I shot a few commercials to announce my latest partnership with Universal Technical Institute. As you may know, @UTI trains the technicians that keep America’s trucks on the road. Not as sexy perhaps as the next American Idol, but a great place to train a few American Icons. Truth is, our Trade Schools play an important role in maintaining this thing we call “civilization,” and given the preponderance of Help Wanted signs currently papering our transportation industry, I wanted to help draw some attention to another specific career that too many people simply overlook.

Anyway, this particular commercial didn’t make it past Standards and Practices, for obvious reasons. But since I’m the only censor in these parts, I’ve made it available here, for the refined taste and sophisticated worldview of my 835,000 closest friends. http://profoundlydisconnected.com/na...horized-video/ (Warning - Partial Nudity and Poor Judgment abound.)

Mike

PS. As long as you’re loafing around on the interweb, do me a favor. If you or someone you know are willing to explore a career in the transportation industry, I’d seriously like to help. The opportunities are real, and the details about this particular program - along with a more tasteful version of the above message - can be found here.https://www.facebook.com/UTI

PPS. By traditional standards, this scholarship program is working just fine. I’m just personally appalled that the money didn’t vanish in the first twenty minutes. (I’ll work on my expectations.)

PPPS I know. The diet starts tomorrow.

I am not a spokesman for General Mills. Neither is my mother. But here at Mom’s place, this morning's breakfast came in the form of a mixing bowl filled with “Oven Toasted Whole Grain Gluten Free Corn Chex,” courtesy of General Mills. (I’m not sure why all of a sudden people are taking the gluten out of everything edible, but my parents are on board with the trend, and so is General Mills. So as long as I’m here, I guess I am too.)

Anyway, I was enjoying the most important meal of the day and perusing last weeks unread email when I came across this - a photo of a check for $10,000. As you can see, the check was issued from General Mills, and made out to The mikeroweWORKS Foundation.


For the life of me, I had no idea why a giant food company would send me ten grand out of the blue, so I made some inquiries. According to Tina at mikeroweWORKS, someone called my office several months ago and asked if I would create a personalized video message for an executive within General Mills. I think the person was retiring, and his friends - knowing he loved Dirty Jobs - thought a short video from me might be just the thing to enhance the occasion. For my trouble, General Mills offered to make a generous donation to my foundation.

Naturally, Tina agreed on my behalf. Simple gestures like these are easy to do, and a great way to keep the lights on in our modest little corner of blue-collar philanthropy. But here’s where the story gets interesting, and why my memory is so fuzzy. The video never happened. For whatever reason, the event was canceled or postponed. General Mills however, in a fit of highly unusual largess, sent the money anyway. The felt they had "set an expectation," and they wanted to make good on it.

Let me be absolutely clear.

Mother and I don’t give a gluten-filled, whole-grain, fiber-packed crap about the “oven toasted advantage” or the “unique structural design that allows every single scrumptious square of Corn Chex to absorb the optimal amount of milk.” But we’re very impressed when people do what they say they’re going to do. And we’re doubly impressed when they go out of their way to be honorable when they don’t have to.

So thanks, General Mills, for confirming my steadfast belief that people of integrity still walk among us. And more importantly, thank you for weaning my parents off the forbidden pleasures of gluten. I can already see a new spring in their step.

Mike Rowe

PS. So I got my foot x-rayed. The pressure to do so was simply too much to ignore. Both here and in my parents condo. Result? Nothing broken. Just a sprain. But crutches and a stylish boot, nevertheless.

Compliance is another matter...

Mike Rowe 1 hour ago ·

I wrote this a few years ago. It's still mostly true.

A Father's Day al Fresco Fiasco

When I was eight years old, my Father bought a picnic table at a yard sale for a dollar. A whole picnic table, complete with two separate benches.

For one dollar.

He brought the thing home in the back of the old station wagon – the one with fake wood paneling on the side – and summoned his wife and sons to examine another tangible expression of true thrift.

“Gather round boys and have a look. They wanted twenty-five dollars for this down at The Sears. Can you believe it? Twenty-five dollars! Your old man just picked it up on the street for a buck. See what happens when you keep your eyes open?”

My father was always keeping his eyes open for this or that, and lately, a picnic table had been on his radar. This one was made of a suspicious pine, soft and light enough for an eight year old to carry across the front lawn. It was held together with glue and staples, but the price was right, and somehow, it was still standing two years later under the old Maple, dry-rotted, and listing badly to the left. It was also missing two planks on the surface, making it less of a table and more of a sieve.

My Mother had grown tired of watching hamburgers and hot dogs slip through the cracks, and desired a table with a solid surface. “Am I asking too much, John? I know it’s terribly unconventional, but really, couldn’t we just try eating on a table without any holes in the top?”

My father maintained the table was just fine the way it was. “What’s the big deal? It’s not like we entertain out here.” With a staple gun and three roofing shingles, the offending gaps were covered, as my mother looked sadly on. “There you go, Peg. Good as new!”
The next time my father took his usual seat next to my youngest brother, the moldy bench collapsed beneath him with a loud crunch, sending him straight to the ground, and launching Phil skyward. Phil was only three at the time, and skinny. He seemed to hover in midair for a moment, before crashing to earth. “For God’s sake John, the boy could have landed on a fork! We need a new table!”

The following day, my father shored up the broken bench with two by fours. The original wood was too rotten to hold a nail, so he wrapped everything together with duct tape. When the other bench crumbled a week later, it was Scott who plunged downward with a muffled scream and a mouthful of partially chewed chicken. He hit the ground hard, knocking air from his lungs and chicken into his windpipe.

“He’s choking, John! Do something!”

Grabbing one of Scott’s ankles in each hand, my Father held him upside down, and began to shake him over the table. When the wad finally broke free, it exploded in a spray of poultry, most of which sailed through the air and landed in my mother’s hair.

“Nice try John, but your son’s still alive. Why don’t we just eat on the interstate? It might be safer.”

Under increasing pressure, my Father grudgingly began the process of “pricing” new picnic tables. (My father does not shop. He “prices.” Rarely is anything actually purchased.) He began with flea markets and yard sales, canvassing the area for bargains. When that yielded nothing, he made another pilgrimage to Sears, Montgomery Ward, and the local hardware store, where his combined lifetime purchases added up to a grand total of nothing. “It’ll be a cold day in you-know-where when I give Monkey Wards good money for a picnic table we don’t even need. We’ll make do.”

And so the days progressed, until the contrivance in our front yard could no longer be confused with an actual table. New additions included a car jack, for supplemental support, and the front seat of a pick-up truck brought in to replace one of the original benches – perched optimistically on several cinder blocks. It was actually kind of comfortable, but had a tendency to flip backwards if you rocked on it. In this way, dining al fresco became a kind of adventure, a sort of ‘musical chairs’ in reverse. Gathered around the doomed and rickety buffet, ears cocked, my brothers and I waited for the ultimate crack! that would send us all plunging to the ground under the weight of some dubious pot roast, or unnamed casserole.

The final meal around the old table took place on a muggy Father’s Day in 1972. Interestingly, it was the day President Nixon signed into Law a proclamation declaring the third Sunday of every June to forever be celebrated as Father’s Day. My father greeted this news with complete indifference. We celebrated the occasion in true Baltimore style, with the ritualistic sacrifice of several dozen Maryland Blue Crabs. My father brought them home in a bushel basket and steamed them alive in crock-pot full of onions and Old Bay seasoning. Now, they were spread across the surface of the decomposing table. Knives and forks were replaced with ice picks and wooden mallets, and the promise of calamity loomed higher than ever.

Much has been written about the dangers of crab fishing, but in my experience, eating them is far more hazardous than catching them. They’re served at roughly a thousand degrees. They scald your fingers when you snap their backs off and start digging around in their molten guts. Their edges are razor sharp and pointed, and the Old Bay seasoning, while delicious, feels like gasoline in the inevitable cuts and puncture wounds.

For my Father, retrieving the savory meat from this nautical Rubik’s Cube is a highly personal, epicurean sacrament. He sees himself as an Indian skinning a buffalo, or an Eskimo flensing a whale. Ignoring the heat, he grabs one bare handed, flips it over, and slides a bloody thumb under the “apron,” a piece of cartilage that extends from the crabs outer shell down onto it’s belly. Once situated, he rolls his hand backward, removing the shell with a grisly “pop,” sending contrails of boiling fluid arcing in all directions. Into the shells cavity, he dumps the lungs, which he scoops out in one easy motion.

Then, he snaps the body in half, exposing a maze of honeycombs and secret chambers, each concealing tiny pockets of hidden goodness. Yellow “mustard” oozes from unseen compartments, which he licks away without hesitation. The large claws are quickly detached and set aside in a special pile, “for later.” Then he removes the back fin, a large hunk of white meat that comes loose with relative ease.

Most people eat the back fin the moment it’s freed from its nook – they simply can’t help themselves. But my father places it gently off to the side, a golf ball sized hunk of succulent temptation. Then, the work begins. With surgical precision, he maneuvers his ice pick into every hidden chamber, removing tiny pieces of unseen booty, and stacking them neatly in separate piles. Nothing is wasted. A lesser enthusiast might ignore these smaller bits, but not my father. While others eat while they pick, my father waits until the crab is cleaned and gutted completely. Only then will he enjoy the fruits of his labor.

For my brothers and me, the best part about eating these prehistoric bottom-feeders is the temporary suspension of etiquette. Spattered with random bits of flying fodder, we swing our mallets and slurp out the meat with no fear of reprisal. Even my mother, who can make Emily Post look like a drunken crack wh-re, will pick at her teeth with the tips of claws, and spit tiny bits of shell back onto the table without apology.

Aside from the normal bleeding, there was nothing remarkable about our last meal around the doomed table. No one fell on an ice pick. No one smashed his finger with a mallet. In fact, the table was still standing when the rain started, forcing us inside, and making June 18th, 1972 a rather forgettable afternoon. Far more memorable, were the events surrounding the day in question. Because fifty miles down the road, and several hours before President Nixon’s First Official Father’s Day began, five burglars were letting themselves in to the Democratic Headquarters in The Watergate Office Complex. And even more interesting was another heist that was about to occur in our own backyard - a spectacular felony that freed my mother of the old picnic table once and for all.

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It rained all afternoon, harder by the hour, and that night in bed, the sound was so loud against the roof I had difficulty eavesdropping in my usual fashion. Often, sounds and conversation from my parent’s bedroom would filter up through the laundry chute, but it was hard to make out just what I was hearing over the downpour. My father said something about a “nasty looking broad named Agnes making her way up the coast.”

I took this to mean that another mysterious relative was dropping by for a surprise visit. My Dad had one regular brother, three half-brothers, three regular sisters, a step sister, a father, one regular mother, and a step mother. Naturally, they all had wives and husbands and cousins twice removed, giving me a family tree that looked more like a wall of ivy. Agnes however, was not some long-lost Aunt. She was a tropical storm, recently upgraded to a hurricane, and apparently headed our way.

The next morning, the sun didn’t rise. Black clouds and lightening filled the sky, which seemed an odd thing to see while eating waffles. When the wind began to blow, I had questions. “Dad,” I asked, “why are hurricanes named after girls?”

“Go ask your Mother.” My father was glued to the TV, where a somber-faced weatherman was discussing the possibility that Agnes might “make the turn,” and enter the “mouth of Chesapeake Bay.” If that happens,” he intoned, it’s “Katie bar the door!”

“Dad,” I asked, “who is Katie?” Anthropomorphisms confused me, as did metaphors. Bays have mouths? Since when? Is this “Katie” friendly with “Agnes?”

My father was not taking questions, and when Agnes finally arrived, there was no time for answers. She was a most unusual June hurricane, and indeed, a very nasty broad. She made the turn as feared, sliding into the mouth of the Bay, slipping down her throat, and then, shooting over to Trumps Mill Road, across the old wooden bridge, and straight up the hill to our backyard.

For three days, the rain came down in buckets. I know this, because an actual bucket blew through our front window. The babbling brook that bordered our property no longer babbled; it bellowed. It seemed to be saying, “I’m coming to drown you all, and wash your house away.”

On the second day, the creek jumped its banks, and slowly crept up the hill, surrounding our farmhouse with brown, churning water. From the top of our hill, we could do nothing but watch the floodwater rise. When the electricity went out, our sump pump stopped working, and my father bolted into the cellar, and began to bail furiously. I suppose we should have been scared to death, but with my mother playing the piano upstairs, and my father singing, “What Will We Do With a Drunken Sailor?” as he bailed, things were more weird than frightening. Late that night, the rain let up and the water started to recede. And when dawn finally arrived, we ventured outside to see what Agnes had left behind.

Imagine a junkyard, inverted, and shaken. There were chests of drawers with clothes still inside, and an empty cash register. An Oriental rug dangled from the mulberry tree. We were entirely surrounded with flotsam and jetsam, swept up from towns and neighborhoods north of Baltimore, and dumped in our yard. Scott found a pogo stick and a naked mannequin, which freaked him out. There was a bag of golf clubs in the flowerbed, and a dead pig in the driveway. But it was my Mother who first spotted the phenomenon in the front yard. There, beneath the old Maple, was a brand new picnic table.

It was enormous – a majestic assemblage of white oak, painted a sensible forest-green, and held together with man-sized bolts and twelve-penny nails. Around one of its muscular legs was wrapped a heavy chain, which stretched out behind it like a prehensile tail, giving it an animated, renegade quality – a fugitive picnic table, on the lamb! It was quite simply, the picnic table of my mother’s dreams, squatting serenely in the surrounding detritus, inexplicably delivered to the precise spot last occupied by its dilapidated predecessor.

The reality took a moment to comprehend, and judging from the way my Mother’s mouth kept opening and closing, she was still in the moment. “Michael. Go get your father.” I found my Dad on the other side of the house, trying to explain the actual purpose of mannequins to my weeping brother.

“Hey! Dad! Come quick! There’s a giant picnic table under the tree where the old picnic table used to be and this one is really big and it’s gotta chain hanging from it and you gotta see it!”

My enthusiasm must have intrigued him, because he left Scott with the naked mannequin and followed me back to the Maple tree, where his wife continued to regard the unlikely sight in much the same way that Moses might have beheld the Burning Bush.

“John, can you believe it? It’s a miracle.”

Skeptical that a Higher Power would choose to bless him with outdoor furniture, my Father approached the table warily, kicking its legs like the tires on a used car. He appraised the attached chain, then spied the stenciled lettering burned into the wood. Property of The Department of Recreation and Parks. “Don’t get too attached, Peggy – this table is Baltimore County Property.”

“Are you kidding? It’s in our yard, John. It’s under our tree. What do you want to do, drive it back to its rightful BBQ pit?”

My mother understood the statistical improbability that such a weird coincidence could occur in her own front yard. Given her daily prayers for a new table, the sudden presence of this one suggested the work of a Higher Power. If not delivered by the hand of God, it had clearly been sent by somebody, and rejecting a heavenly favor or cosmic endowment seemed preposterous.

Alas, my father was not predisposed to consider the possibility of divine intervention. Nor was he persuaded by my mother’s fallback position, which argued that possession was nine tenths of the law. After much debate, he called State Police with “information on the missing table.” Shockingly, the officer who answered wasn’t up to speed with the specifics of this particular case. “I’m sorry sir, did you say a picnic table washed up in your yard?”

“Yes, that’s right. A large, green picnic table. It’s very nice. I think it belongs to one of state parks north of town.”

“Um-hmm.”

My father was perplexed by his lack of urgency. “Look officer, I don’t think you understand. This is an expensive item. It’s also brand new, and constructed of the very best materials. Somebody’s going to want it back.”

My mother weighed in from the other side of the kitchen. “Maybe the police are a little preoccupied John - what with all the looting going on?”

Undeterred, my father left a detailed description and added, “I just wanted you to know that your picnic table is here. And that we didn’t take it.”

The cop took our address, and told my Father he’d pass the information on to the park service, who would no doubt drop whatever they were doing and send a couple of Rangers over at the first available opportunity to retrieve the table.

“Yeah, well, you better send four,” he replied. “The thing weighs a ton.”

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The next day was clear and beautiful, the way it often is shortly after Mother Nature tries to kill you. Our house was trashed, and our yard looked like an upside down dump, but underneath the lopsided Maple, there was little to complain about. The Hurricane Agnes Miracle Table had been scrubbed clean, and it was magnificent. My father conceded that using it in the short-term was ethically acceptable, so five days after President Nixon’s first official Father’s Day was rained out, we picked up where we left off. My mother covered the smooth oak planks with paged from The News American, onto which my father dumped a bushel of steamed crabs, piping hot, and smelling of Old Bay.

For once, there was space to spare – and not just for the crabs. There was room for potato salad and ears of corn and thick slices of ripe tomatoes, fresh from my grandmother’s garden. There was also room for my grandmother, and my grandfather, as well as my brothers and me, a second-cousin whose name I don’t recall, and a mannequin named Molly that Scott had grown weirdly attached to.

And of course, there was room for my Father, who sat uneasily at the head of our new table, waiting for the park rangers to come speeding up the long driveway to reclaim their missing property. Naturally, the rangers never came, and over the years, he would come to see the table as his own. But 37 years ago, his good fortune was tempered with worry and gratitude – two qualities that continue to define my Dad.

That’s how I’ll remember the third week of June, 1972. Steamed crabs, a flooded basement, a break-in at The Watergate, and a picnic table that may or may not have been sent from above. It was a confusing time for a ten-year old, but thankfully, my father was there to explain it all as his family dined al fresco, in the style to which we had become accustomed.

This Father’s Day, another table full of steamed crabs will mark the occasion. And even though I can’t be there with him, it makes me smile to know that each one will be picked clean, and not one morsel left behind.

Father’s Day, 2010