AULD LANG SYNE

Back in 1998 I was lucky enough to live in a very bad part of town where Crack and Crack Whores ran rampant.
I never partook of either, but at some point we all became "neighbors"
As I would pull down the gravel alley at 5:30 in the morning on my way to work, there were two girls on the corner that always asked me if I wanted a "date"....cracked me up....and being a bit of a rube, it took me a while to figure out what was going on there.
But before long, as I would pull in at the end of the day, they would all wave at me and I would holler out the window
"Yabba-Dabba-Doo" or
"Honey, I'm home"
or somesuch.
Some times I would go to the corner and talk with them late at night, staying out of sight so as to not drive off any prospects. There were probably 4-6 girls that worked that area at any given time.
One night a guy I knew from High School pulled up.
But thats not what this story is about.

This story is about the very pretty little girl that would work the streets on occasion. She had beautiful soft looking well groomed hair that she would toss about in a very sexy way. She seemed different from the other girls…

One morning in my driveway I was checking my oil. This pretty little girl was passing by and so I said “good morning”.
She stopped and tossed her hair back and shielded her eyes from the sun and says
‘Whatcha’ doin”?
I looked at her as I slid the rag down my dipstick.
“Jus’ checkin’ my oil “I says, and added with a grin “Would you like me to check yours?”
She did’nt miss a beat and fired right back
“Would you like to check my oil?” Smiling, as she tossed that hair around again.

Well, I must have turned about 5 shades of red, because , yes I would have liked to check her oil, but really did not have the guts to go about it. Of course, she already knew all this, but decided to let me off the hook by saying
“You don’t “date” do you?”
“No ma’am I don’t…I’m probably better off all by myself”
“OK” she says, flips her hair back and starts away.

She got a few steps away and I wanted to make sure I had not hurt her feelins’ so I say
‘You are awful pretty though.”

She stopped and turned around and just laughed and said
"And you are awful sweet, and are probably better off all by yourself” as she waved bye.

A few nights later on New Years Eve, my friends Mr. and Mrs. X saw her and they pulled over to the right in their Convertible Ragtopped Corvette. They wanted to know how much she would charge to take on both of them. Just a little curious...
Before you could say “Tit-Bit and Gimme a Dollar” they were surrounded by the Vice squad.
That pretty young whore was a Cop.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!
YA'LL BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

STATIC

Yes, another great Christmas is complete.The next one will be here soon.
I've never really quite understood how to act at Christmas.
There is a lot of pressure during the most wonderful time of the year.

This was one of those years where I didn’t even do any shopping till the 23rd.
I got some really good deals, but overall the Season was very bland.
The kids are not kids any more.
The Salvation Army Bellringers don’t dress up, and I think the bells are getting smaller.
They don't even ring 'em.

I’d have to say that there has been a decrease of 50% in Suburban Christmas lights, especially evident in the more affluent neighborhoods.
Kilowats are statistical, I suppose.
The Weathermen and their “Santa updates” seemed really contrived, almost as contrived as the actual weather reports.

I kept thinking maybe I should call a far away relative or two, but nah, what the hell.
The Eggnog was bogus. I wonder how much Cholesterol is in a cup of that stuff.
I forgot to get fake snow, but no one seemed to miss it.
Sunday did not feel like a Sunday, and I seem to have lost a few days somewhere, but its better than feelinglike its aTuesday.
I saw no unseemly stars, heard of no miracle births, and there is not a Wise Man left in the world.
There is a parking lot where the Manger was last year.
Last year was ….better.
This year was….
...Way too compressed.
By the time I remembered how to act, it was over.
Maybe I’ll…

WISH LIST

When I was 7 years old I asked Santa for a Bowling Alley.
Not bloody likely.

JAWBONE OF AN ASS

Senior Year of High School, its like a dream come true...
Im sitting right in between Velvet and Lacy in Velvet's Funky Ford Gran Turino...we've been hangin' together for a coupla days and like any idiot horndog adolescent, I'm wonderin' which one of these babes to try to bust a move on.
Since Velvet is drivin' I figure it must be Lacy's lucky day.
I lean to the right a little, but my arm over her shoulder, flash her my best smile and say '"what about you and me?'"

She doesn't have to say a word...I can see that she is horrified....
Now these two girls have the sweetest voices;
Velvet is from Georgia and Lacy...
...well her voice is just as Dixie as can be....
...either of them could turn Lemonade into Pure Ribbon Cane Syrup and what Lacy tells me soooo sweetly is this...

"Oh Steve I just couldn't. I'm in love with Bluesman"
"Bluesman? The dude with the army jacket that plays guitar in his driveway and drives that Falcon?"
"Yay-yess!" she drawls "And I'll love him forever!"
'Thats Cool" I say.

After a long silent moment, I turn to inflict myself on Velvet.
"So....whats up with you??" I whisper

They let me out at the next corner.

ON A ROLL

Our Christmas Spirit is definitly on the rise, the RIP and I.
The apartment is clean, mostly.
The Pantry is full.
We have been shopping.
We even have Hot Chocolate and miniature Marshmallows.
We think it was the Mini Marshmallows that put us into sensory overload.
We were so full of sugar that we bought a tree and some twinkle lights.
Lacking any traditional Decorations, Balls or other Ornaments we were forced to adapt and improvise.
We have TP'd our tree and it is crowned by a full roll where the Angel goes.
We think Santa may leave us something special this year.

Ho-Ho-Ho.

FALALALALAHUMBUG!

I'm trying to get into the Christmas Spirit at least enough to where I will find participating in the insanity bearable.
It frightens me to know that with a little effort, I could find myself all aglow with a fever of Christmas Spirit.
The first order of business is to do a little housecleaning. The RIP has a sweet little girlfriend named Mattie that helped us with that last night.
After all, we are not going to trim the tree with dirty undewear and Chicken Bones like we did two years ago.
My place really misses a womans touch.
Now clean, we can get a tree and maybe find something appropriate to decorate it with.
Then we will go Shopping.
Now I am not much of a shopper throughout the year, but when it comes to Christmas, my shopping gene fires up and there is nothing that will put that Yuletide Spirit in me like buyuing gifts for other people.
Like most men, I tend to give some lousy, though quite practical, gifts and have gotten quite good at it.
In the Sixth Grade I gave mom a 24 Drawer Shop Organizer for her sewing stuff.
In the Seventh Grade I gave my sister a Football.
In the Eighth Grade I gave my Dad a bag of golfing Tees.
In the Ninth Grade I gave my girlfriend a Black Light.

In the 10th, 11th and 12th grades I smoked a lot of pot and did a lot of Peyote;
To try to make up for the Football, I gave my sister a Teddy Bear with a really soppy hallucinogenic note about his whole life and how glad he was to be HER Bear now, written while listening to Lucy in the Sky with Daimands.
I think my sister still has that piece of work, and I wish I had some more of whatever it was I was having that day.

When I was 19 I gave my girlfriend a pen.
When I was 22 I gave my new girlfriend a set of Weights. That’s what she wanted.
Really it is; she was a Peach.
My next girlfreind I gave a Fishing Pole.
Then I got married.
Our first Christmas my wife made quite a haul. First she got a bicycle, then a stove (we didn't have one and had been Crockpotting for 8 months) then on Christmas morning she woke up to find a Brand Spanking New Ironing Board with one of those Ironing Board covers.
Oh my!
But there was also an Opal Necklace to go with it and that bought me 12 more Christmases.
A few years later, she got a small box that was very heavy. She was very excited about it. When she opened it all she found was 24 Forks. They were not made of Gold and she was really mad at me. I now understand that the box looked and felt as thoughm there just might be an Ingot in there.
The best gift I ever gave anyone was the Cuckoo Clock I gave my cousin and her Husband.
From what I understand, their Divorce got really ugly over that Clock.

My brother, Davy's Dad, gave the best gifts.
Over the years he gave me a Pogo Stick and an Orgami set, and a thing that made huge Bubbles and a Do-It-Yourself globe.
I think the only thing I ever gave him was a Magazine subscription.
Anyway, I love to buy things for other people and wish I was better at it.
So, what do you want for Christmas this year?

WHAT YOU BUY IS WHAT YOU OWN AND WHAT YOU OWN IS WHAT YOU PAY FOR

Davy always has some kind of list going. He is really quite good at them too.
I liked his “14 Affirmations” list and decided to make my own.
I’m not sure what an Affirmation is…maybe it’s a saying, or something you wished you’d known before you just did whatever you did during your last little episode, or words that are meaningless unless in the right context- and that context is usually a little beyond you.
But maybe some of these will mean something to you.
Some of these are original, others not so much.
For me, they are very important and I have spent my son’s fortune in finding them.



I am…. therefore I’ll think.
Rub her feet.
This looks like as good a spot as any.
Its better to than not.
My best effort in exchange for your best effort...
Lift the seat-Lower the seat.
Sunday Morning=Pancakes & REAL Maple Syrup.
It won't look as bad after a little Nap.
Be nice until its time to not be nice...then still be nice a little longer.
Give more-expect less.
Stick and Stay and make it pay.
Easy does it.
The Jumbo-Large Economy size is not always the best deal.
Don't drop your load.

LETS PARTY!

You haven't had a hangover until you have OD'd on Green Chartreuse.

WATER BABY

Is posting like crazy...and she is growing up...everytime I see her or talk to her she is less a little girl and so much a Young Lady.
"Thank you" to all my blog friends that have commented to her. I don't have to tell you how much it can help get you through a day, a week or a season.

She talks about a boy, "Colorado", and he may be a Prince (really, i've met him-good looking too) but he ain't good enough for her; but its none of my business...
At the Airport a few weeks I watched her check in her bags. she told the man "Yes Sir" but it wasn't a little girl 'Yes Sir"...it was a term of respect from equal to equal.
It made me very proud.
She is fully capable of going wherever, whenever, and however she wants to.
She is tougher than Daddy thinks; she is a Marcher.
A Student Athlete Musician.
But if she ever goes to calii9n' me "FATHER" she'll get a 'pankin'.

PARALLAX VIEW

I DID A STORY LAST YEAR CONCERNING MY FATHER...THIS WAS THE CONCLUSION...I HAVE SINCE DISCOVERED THAT IT MAY NOT HAVE ENDED QUITE THE WAY I REMEMBERED IT.
MORE TO FOLLOW AFTER THIS RETROSPECTIVE.

"time is the echo of an axe within a wood"
philip larkin

Part 6
1987
The Conclusion

There were a lot of ways for this story to end, but they all really end the same, don't they?
I think, all things considered, I could not ask for a better one.

The night before Thanksgiving, 1987, I was up all night , smoking a Turkey on the Grill outside.
I thought about how Mom had died less than a year before, in the room right in there.
I thought about how we brought Grandma home, and put her in the room right in there, and how when she died, we were right there with her. We did not get a call from a nursing home 100 miles away... we were right there.

And as I watched my old friend Orion rising in small hours of the morning, I thought about the last 4 weeks, and what they had brought...

I had quit my job with a large Hotel.
I’d had enough.
While I served out my 2 weeks notice, my wife had gone to check on my father at a Nursing Home. The VA had had to move him to a Private Facility, and though they still picked up the tab, it put him another 50 miles further from home, and if we were to move him, they no longer would pay.
What my wife found on her visit set her already Red hair ablaze.
The care at the VA had been spectacular. Now she found that within 4 weeks of being at this Private facility, he had bedsores and according to her ‘smelled like an outhouse with fecal material and urine on his bed and person”.
I want you to know that when the xmrs B’Holes gets her blood up, the shit will hit the fan. I can only imagine the coals that she raked those folks at that Nursing Home over that day.
When she got back to town, we decided on this: With Mom and Grandma no longer in need of Dads money and Estate, we would move him to the Nursing Home that was 2 blocks from our house.
To hell with the expense.
We entertained the notion of bringing him all the way home, like we did with Grandma, but that had been hard on us.
So the next week, the day after my last day of work, I drove the 150 miles and removed Dad from the Nursing home from Hell, and brought him home, to the Nursing Home around the corner called the LaDora Lodge.

I have shown you how the Alzheimers Patient can have extraordinary moments of lucidity in this story so far...and we are about to have another...

I had a Van, and laid the seats out in back with him on them.
I straddled his chest, taping paper over the windows to keep the sun off him and as I looked down into those Ice blue eyes I said
“Are you ready to go home, Pop?”
His face came alive with knowing.... his eyes flashed and I knew he understood.
It had been a long time since he had spoken, and he did not speak now ...instead he gave me his big belly laugh and a tear rolled from the corner of his eye.
After all we had been through I can tell you I would not trade that moment for anything in the World.
We were going home.
We got him to his new home and we visited and had visited everyday for the last two weeks.
I also want you to know that the Xmrs B’Holes can talk the ears off a Wooden Indian and she talked to Dad like he had always been right there.
She is like a Superhero to me....

Its Thanksgiving morning.I checked the Turkey;
lookin’ good.
I checked Orion and he was where he should be at 5:00A.M.
The phone rang.
Who could that be?
Its LaDora Lodge.
‘Mr. Bulletholes, I am sorry to be calling at this hour, but I thought you would want to know your father has passed away”
I like to think that Dad stopped by for a two week visit on his way Home.