I AM IRONMAN!

I am sitting here wearing to my new cologne from Avon and listening to an old Black Sabbath album from 1970. Its the first of the Heavy Metal Fragrances and forever changed the smell of Rock and Roll.
From the Avon catalog::
“A victorious fusion of energizing Mercury, Lead, Plutonium 239 and exotic Isomers spiked with real Slag. Comes in 2.5 fl. oz. The essence of mind-body excellence. Ironman is the ultimate triathlon race involving three endurance events: a 2.4 mile swim in heavy boots of lead, a 112 mile bike ride through a Magnetic Field and a 26.2 mile run in order to take vengeance by filling you full of dread”

I can’t wait for them to come out with “Paranoid”


Has he lost his mind?, Can he see or is he blind
Can he walk at all? Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he live or dead? I see thoughts within his head.
We'll just pass him there. Why should we even care?

He was turned to steel in the great magnetic field!
When he traveled time for the future of Mankind.
Nobody wants him He just stares at the world.
Planning his vengeance that he will soon unfurl.
Now the time is here for ironman to spread fear.
Vengeance from the grave kills the people he once saved
Nobody wants him they just turn their heads.

Nobody helps him now he has his revenge.

Heavy boots of lead fills his victims full of dread.
running as fast as they can Ironman lives again.
from the album paranoid, balck sabbath, 1970

GOOD CHOICE PAMMY

ME AND PAMMY, PIC TAKEN LAST WEEK

" I don't want to go from being "some man's daughter" to "some man's wife"

pammy, june of 1976, on why we should cancel the wedding planned for two weeks after she graduated high school

BREAKFAST WITH TRESSA

I used to throw these big parties out at the lake. We would have a keg, and there would be folks with guitars, and we would make a big bonfire in the woods and hope that the Texas Rangers didn’t show up. Not the baseball team, but the State Troopers from the Department of Public Safety, the ones that carried big iron six-shooters on their hips.
The first lake party I threw there were only about 12 of us and we called it a "Camp out".
The Tradition grew, and our numbers increased.
We would meet at Bell High School and form up a fifty car caravan out Whites Chapel Road to “The Pit”.
"The Pit" was an earthen geological formation that was shaped like a Greek Amphitheater in the middle of the woods by the lake. It was there that we built our bonfire, smoked our funny stuff and sang ‘Sweet Home Alabama” all night long. I imagined myself a promoter of sorts, somewhere between the likes of a Willie Nelson roadie, Don Kirschner and Bob Geldoff.
I imagined that one day we could get a big name act like Kris Kristofferson or Bob Dylan or REO Speedwagon to come to our Camp-out.
Until then, we would have to settle for a semi-circle of cars, doors and trunks open and stereos on all tuned to KZEW.

I woke up one morning next to the remnants of the fire at “The Pit”. I could hear the music coming from the few cars still left, the aftermath of the party...

'I'lll never dance with another,

oooohhh

When I saw her standin' there"

I rubbed my eyes and found I had been covered in beer cans by my good friend and lover, Tressa.

Tressa was laughing and doing a seductive little dance for me, saying
“Steve, you are SOOO trashed”.
Ah, Tressa, she was so much fun. She helped me drag my tired butt to the car and we went home for breakfast.

To be continued

GAME DAY

On game day at Bedford Jr. High the Athletes would all wear ties, and the girls would collect their Tie-Tacks throughout the day, and pin or clip them to the lapels of their Cheerleader uniform.
Every time I see a Tie-tack I think about Game Day and Patty Cakepan.
She was not necessarily the best looking girl at school, but she was the most aggressive tie-tack collector on campus. Every week she collected the most tie-tacks. Her lapel was always covered in silver and gold, bejeweled with diamond and onyx and rhinestones from the boys, many on loan from their Dad's Jewelry Boxes.
I would see her in the Open-Air Atrium, palling around and flirting with half a dozen guys, all laughing and every now and then she would put her arm around one or two of them and give a big friendly hug.

For a nerdy thick-lensed fellow like myself, this seemed to insinuate that if I could get her to want my Tie-Tack, then maybe Patty Cakepan might want me as well.
You know, want me like a lover or something.
I even went so far as to imagine that the quality of the tie-tack might be directly proportionate to this end, and a cause for my desired effect.

With this in mind, I frowned and put my only tie-clip back into my drawer.
It was the last Game Day of the year, and a full moon too, and in my mind it was time to make a move for Patty Cakepan. I went into Dads room, opened his jewel case and found a winner.

Getting Patty Cakepan to take my Dads Tie-tack was easy.
Getting it back was not.
I think maybe she still has my Dad's Tigers-Eye 24 karat Arabian Gold inlaid with Diamond Deluxe Tie Clip from De-beers.

"NEVER BEEN BETTER"

Birthday Night is a celebration every month for those Narcotics Anonymous members who have stayed clean and sober for a continuous year. There was a guy Friday night that celebrated his 19th birthday.
When its your Birthday, you get to pick up a gold coin.
Someone will introduce you from the podium, usually your sponsor.
Then you go up to the podium and address the group. You can talk about how you stayed clean and sober, or what the program has done for you, or what your struggles may have been and how you got thru them..

Last Friday was my first Birthday Night, having had my first year sober.
One of my good buddies gave me a custom made T-Shirt that reads “Never Been Better” before the meeting. I have been running around the last month telling anyone who will listen that I have never been better.
Then the meeting started….and guess who got to go first?

I’m not sure why I got to go first, but I did.
My sponsor went up to the Podium and said
“When this guy came to me 6 months ago and asked me to be his sponsor I wasn’t too sure what to say. But he has stuck around, and done some stepwork and now he is a part of this group now. And if you haven’t met him, well, you are about to now, and you have to realize that he is really loud, and he laughs so hard, and he has this big heart and he has on this shirt and he will probably tell you all about it.
So come on up here Steve!”

And I went running to the podium like some kind of Heavyweight Champion of the World, hands waving and arms flying, kicked my right leg out as I took a left and went sliding up to the podium.

Quite animated, I said:
“Man , I am so excited to be here, I’m more excited than the first time I rode the Texas Twister at Six Flags, and if you aren’t excited as I am about Narcotics Anonymous like me then you just do like I did and keep coming back.
I got support groups everywhere:
I have ‘em in my Blog world, and I can’t tell you how much support I have gotten from people I have never even met, and likely never will.
And I know every cashier, busboy, buffet attendant in town, and they all know my story and when I go to Blockbuster Video and the girl behind the counter says “How you doin’, Bulletholes?” I do a little dance and say “I’ve never been better Baby, how’ bout you” and everybody in the store can hear me and knows I’m there.
And I got a couple kids….do you think they are excited their daddy don’t do any dope?
And I got an X Wife and a sister and friends and family that have finally seen me stop using drugs….Do you think they are excited?
But what I really have that’s done it for me is all you people here at NA…like the literature says, “the therapeutic value of one addict helping another is without parallel”
I get to come here and hear the things I need to hear from other addicts…
And I get to come here and meet people that I need to meet…
And sometimes I get to come here and say some things I need to hear myself say…
And I am just totally psyched on the idea that I did something I did not know I would want to do, that I COULD do, and thats stay off drugs for a whole year...
So somebody ask me…”How you doin’ Steve?”

And someone in the crowd of 150 people hollered out “How you doin’ Steve?”

And I stood away from the podium so everyone could see my shirt, I even pointed to it and shouted at the top of my lungs
“NEVER BEEN BETTER!”

And the crowd went wild!

TRAILS

Sometimes we get on a trail that seems to have no end, and we feel lost, and at some point we have to turn back. Its hard to say what point that is, but turn back we do.
Sometimes we get on a trail and we see all the signs we are on the right trail; life gets real easy for a time.
Sometimes we come to places that we have to choose between two trails, and some of those times we pick, and never get know that on the trail we did not pick there is a sign that says
"No longer an option".

Part of Learning to Hope may be finding there are few trails thusly marked.

Shrimp

This may be my finest and longest-lasting contribution to the Culinary Arts.
(click here)