THE CHAINS THAT YOU REFUSE

I’m surfing through the channels last night, nuthin’s on. On Channel 13 they are having their Beg-A-Thon, trying to raise money, and they always use the “Celtic Woman” program. I guess it a big draw. But I’ve been watching Celtic Woman for 20 years now, ever since the Riverdance craze. I’m about done with gorgeous Irish lasses singing beautiful weeping Irish ballads.

But while swinging through from channel to channel, here we have the lasses doing a new song.
"Bonny Portmore".
"Bonny Portmore" is an Irish traditional folk song which laments the demise of Ireland's old oak forests, specifically the Great Oak of Portmore. It’s a beautiful song, it really is, especially the Lorrena McKinnett version, so I listen and move on.

Still nothing on anywhere, and passing by Celtic Woman again and what’s this?
They are doing “Beeswing” by Richard Thompson, a very beautiful love song about a little slip of a gal that cannot be tamed.
So you know I have to listen to it. Its about time they updated their playlist. The four lasses are doing OK with it, and there is a guy playing the pipes. The chorus:

"She was a rare thing
Fine as a beeswing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child
She was running wild, she said
As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay
And you wouldn't want me any other way"

But here is the thing.
They didn’t do the last verse!
What the hell?
How can you not do the last verse?
They stopped at “like a fool I let her run with a ramblin' itch”.
No Gypsy caravan, no wolfhound, no hip pocket, no faded flower, no chains refused.
Is that horrible or what?

The missing lyrics:

"Last I hear she's sleeping out
Back on Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket
And a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once
A man named Romany Brown
But even a Gypsy caravan
Was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now
Hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay
For the chains you refuse"

ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE

Last night I turned the TV on and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was on. The old Claymation one with Burl Ives. If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this show starting when I was 6 years old I could buy the North Pole. It was the part where Rudolph meets the adorable pretty-eyed doe with the little red polka dot bow, who flutters her huge eyelashes and tells Rudolph she thinks he's cute, that got me all blubbery, and I cried and cried.


It was just so sweet, and even a funny looking red-nosed bashful reindeer with a nasally sinus voice like Rudolph deserves to have someone with huge eyelashes that thinks they are cute to flirt and prance and caper about with them.
Then Rudolph tries to join in the reindeer games, and his fake nose he tried to use to hide his own spectacular schnozola falls off, exposing the big glowing red one, and all the other little boy reindeer started to tease him about his nose, and I cried some more. Then the coach of the reindeer games, in a very Trump-like fashion, starts to bully Rudolph too, and declares Rudolph unfit to play in the reindeer games, and I cried and cried and cried. I was a sopping wet mess.
So I figured what the hell, we may as well get this over with and put on "Its A Wonderful Life" and cried pretty much from start to finish.
Because Hey, its Gosh Darn Christmas.
Mercury is in Retrograde.
Let it bleed.


Melville says everything flows to the sea.
I that is so, then everything flows FROM "Its A Wonderful Life ".
Its got everything. Hockey, High School hijinks, real estate, Uncle Billy, car crashes, bar fights, skinny dipping, foxy librarians, bank crashes, bells, wheelchairs, spiders, ice cream, drugs, war hero's, singing cops, cab drivers, Italian Americans, malfeasance, crows, angels, angel wings, and Fully Clothed Women.
And Zuzu's petals.

JUST KILL ME NOW

Phone rings. “Hello?”
“Mr Bulletholes, this is (garbled ) from Texas (garbled) and we have the results from your sleep study in. Can we schedule your follow up appointment?”
“Yes, please”
“Would you like morning or afternoon?”
“Either one. The sooner the better”
Long silence.
“How about 2:30 on January 21st?”
Long silence while Mr Bulletholes calculates that this is five weeks away, and does his best to keep from blowing his top.
Then, in his sweetest voice “Miss (garbled) do you know I started this process all the way back in July? I was really hoping in July to have this done before the end of the year.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Bulletholes.”
“Is there nothing you can do for me? I'm so tired of being tired”
“Well, let me see….” Long silence. “Did you say morning or afternoon, Mr Bulletholes?”
“Either one”
Long silence.
“How about this Friday at 11:00 am?”
“You are a miracle worker. Thank you.”

Amusing Ourselves to Death

 “What [George] Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What [Aldous] Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism … In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

FOR MR RITTENHOUSE

 

Great Movies From My Youth
James Stewart as Charlie Anderson, scouring with several sons and a daughter the Shenandoah Valley, looking for his youngest son, accidentally taken prisoner during the Civil War.

Charlie Anderson : [a young Confederate picket has just shot one of Anderson's sons] Dead. Dead! How old are you? How old?
Young Picket on Road : Sixteen.
Charlie Anderson : [In a rage, but restraining himself] "Six - Sixteen. I'm not gonna' kill you. I want you to live! I want you to live to be an old man. And I want you to have many... many, many children. And I want you to feel about your children then... the way I feel about mine now! And someday, when a man comes along and kills one of 'em, I want you to remember! I want you to remember."

To young Mr. Rittenhouse, I hope you will remember.

NEED TO KNOW

"I found out I was in love with you, winter before last," she said. "I wasn't going to say anything about it because - well, you know. If you felt anything like that for me, you'd have known I did. But it wasn't both of us. So there was no good in it. But then, when you told us you're leaving... At first I thought, all the more reason to say nothing. But then I thought, that wouldn't be fair. To me, partly. Love has a right to be spoken. And you have a right to know that somebody loves you. That somebody has loved you, could love you. We all need to know that. Maybe it's what we need most."

— A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Ursula K. Le Guin
 

"YOU BEEN PUTTING IT UP YOUR WHOLE LIFE"

Last year about this time lots of folks were pointing out that the odds of contracting Covid were about 1 in 100.
The chances of dying from it were 1 in 10,000.
As of today (9/20/2021), 40 million Americans have contracted Covid (about 12%), and the death rate according to population is 20 for every 10,000.
The reasons are pretty clear; the highly contagious DELTA variant which took hold this year, the huge increase in cases among the younger population, and the reluctance of many to vaccinate.
It took 170 years after the smallpox vax to eradicate the disease. Lets hope it doesn’t take that long for Covid.
What do you stand to win?
Everything.

Anton Chigurh: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Anton Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don't know. I couldn't say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Anton Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Anton Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
Anton Chigurh: You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Anton Chigurh: 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How's that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he's apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton Chigurh: Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.

REALITY

 “The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real. I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.”

Stephen King, Night Shift

BE LIKE ROD

 

Due to a worldwide 80% vaccination rate for smallpox back in the '60's, people don’t even need to get vaccinated anymore. Through a global effort, we wiped it out. The vaccine itself had a high rate of efficacy at 95%. You may have heard there has never been a vaccine that achieved 100%. They don’t have to. Mumps vax comes in at a measly 88%.
See Rod’s Smallpox scar? Thank you Rod.
Now go put on something decent.

I USED TO BE A RULEBREAKER

It has taken me 64 years to learn simply following the rules eliminates most of the problems in my life even if they don't make sense to me at the time.

BUT MADGE!

 

"You're soaking in it."
Waiting for the Ivermectin craze to blow over.

ANTI-VAXXERS

 

"Most importantly, we are marshaling America’s scientific genius to produce a vaccine in record time. Under Operation Warp Speed, we have three different vaccines in the final stage of trials right now, years ahead of what has been achieved before. Nobody thought it could be done this fast. Normally it would be years, and we did it in a matter of a few months. We are producing them in advance so that hundreds of millions of doses will be quickly available. We will have a safe and effective vaccine this year, and together we will crush the virus."

Donald Trump, RNC speech August 27, 2020.

Yes Donald, and 75% of your electorate will refuse to take the Trump vaccine. There will be a new spike and a new strain due to low vaccination rates that will affect a large number of children and completely stress the county's Health Care System.

It is not entirely your fault.

HOW HARD COULD IT BE?

I’ve been keeping a friends little puppy dog for about 6 weeks. Little Buster, ain’t he cute?
I called her a couple weeks ago.
“Buster needs a groomer. He’s getting a little stinky, and he pulled down my hot wax smell good thing, so he’s got a shiny blue waxy butt and matted hair”
“You can take him to PetSmart, they know him there” she says.
Well two weeks went by and I still hadn’t taken him. Then he and I were playing “Where's the Treat” a few nights ago.
That’s when I saw it. His little tear ducts were all matted up with eye boogers. I mean really bad. I felt horrible. I’d neglected poor Buster.
I called his owner but there was no answer.
I called my daughter, who knows all about these things.
“Dad, you can go online and make an appointment.”
I looked at Buster’s pitiful neglected eyes. The sooner the better.
I went online to make an appointment. But I didn’t really have access to Busters account, so I figured I’d make one of my own. How hard could it be? Its just a form you fill out. That’s what I do at work. I fill out forms. I’m pretty good too!

The form goes:
Dogs Name: Buster!
Weight: 10 lbs.
Color: Blonde
Breed: Lhaso Apso
Birthdate: 7/1/2021
An lastly a pic of Buster. I uploaded the one above and clicked CONTINUE.
(Big Beeping Sound and a warning message)
“Your dog is only 1 month old. We do not groom puppies this young”
Well, drats!
And good golly, there is not a way to edit or delete Buster, and those eye boogers are horrible so there is only one thing left to do.
Make another dog! How hard could it be?

I named this one “Mister Pete”, changed the birthdate by a year, uploaded that cute pic and clicked “CONTINUE”
(Big Beeping Sound and a warning message)
“This dog is already in the system”
Well, damn! I need a new pic for dog number three!

I named # 3 “Butterball”, uploaded the new pic and there was no warning buzzer. Success!
But now PetSmart wants me to upload Butterballs shot record, which I do not have and if I did the records would be for a dog named Buster.

And that is how I came have 3 dogs registered with PetSmart.

 

SEX SELLS....BEACH HANDBALL!

 

The European Handball Federation's disciplinary commission imposed a fine of 150 euros per player (around $175) on the 10-member Norwegian Women's squad. The squad traded the skimpy bikini for some nice athletic shorts. apparently this is against the rules. In a joint statement with the International Handball Federation, the officials said that "all efforts will be taken in order to further promote the sport. This includes the ideal presentation of the sport and, by that, includes the outfit of the players."
Shame on you International/European Handball Federation. Why not go all out and have them play topless? I'd wear that. As long as everyone in the stands is wearing that, incuding the members of the European Handball Federation.
You should see the Russian team. Who knew they even HAD beaches.

I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA

 

What a great salt map Africa would make, with her 38 mountain ranges, Kilamanjaro, and the Rift valley.

Mrs Dahl, 5th grade teacher: "Bulletholes, have you been eating Isabel's salt map of the Pacific Ocean?"
Bulletholes: "No Ma'am"
Mrs Dahl: "Then why is your tongue so blue?"
Bulletholes: "Would you believe lack of oxygen"?

IF WE WERE IN PHILLY

 

I remember down in San Antonio, and Linda and I were trying to find a place to park in the endless caravan of cars creeping along the riverwalk. It went like this:
"There's a spot, Steve!"
"Its two lanes over"
"Well, get over there"
"I'll try..."
"Theres a spot!"
"I wont fit"
"Back up and try"
"There's a car right behind me"
"Oh, you missed it then"
"I tell you what, I'm going to take a right up here and see what happens"
I take the right.
"You should have gone left"
"OK hot rod, the next turn I'll ask what we should do"
We creep along in silence, her arms across her chest.
"OK Linda, right or left here?
You look both ways a couple times...
"Ummm...Ummm..." you say.
The guy behind me honks. I take the left.
"I was about to say right!"
"Too late now!"
Then you say "If we were in Philly and I was driving we'd be parked by now. This is nothing compared to Philly!"
And we both just cracked up!
Ended up finding a good spot.
Ya know, if we can get through that we could probably get through anything!

ANY LUCK?

 

Bloodrock is legendary around here. Famous for but one early 70's hit, DOA, about a fatal car crash Back when I was 16 I heard Bloodrock lived out at Eagle Mountain Lake. So me and some buddies loaded up and went looking for them. All weekend, cruising Eagle Mountain, hit every beach, every Foosers Hut, every underage bar, looking high and low for Bloodrock.
You may wonder did we have any luck?
Hell yes!
But we never did find Bloodrock.

Apparently he got that one wrong.

 "I don't think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election"

~Kevin McCarthy

THE LATEST ADDITION TO THE RENFRO CULINARY REPETOIRE

I told my friend Nancy about my first week as lunch cook at The Crystal Cactus, the Hyatt's gourmet Restaurant back in 1982.
"My third day the chef came to me and said that the special tomorrow would be Cannelloni. I had no idea what that was, and had no intention of revealing my ignorance. There was no such thing as Google back then, so I went that evening to Barnes and Noble bookstore and found a recipe for Cannelloni's. The next morning I went in an hour early to do something I had never done before:
Make pasta from scratch and roll out the dough as thin as I could get it.
It sounded like it might be difficult, and there had been mention of a machine that would do it for you. It ended up being more difficult than it sounded, and I found out why old Italian women have big burly arms.
Never having made pasta dough I could only hope the consistency was close enough. I was rolling that dough pretty hard when the chef appeared at my side.
"What are you doing, Renfro?" he asked.
"Making cannelloni's, chef" I replied.
He reached into a cooler and pulled out a box of Eggroll wrappers. Genius!
"We usually just use these." he said "but its looks like you got it going."
The next week he showed me where they kept the pasta roller machine. There is a lesson here I think"
I told Nancy this story last weekend, and today came in the mail my new surprise Pasta Roller Noodle Making Machine.

THE MASK NAZI

 

I had an unpleasant experience at a local Will Call picking up a package.

Big sign outside saying masks required, and "Employees Only" for inside. After a few minutes a girl comes to the door, opens it a crack and mumble's something. She had to repeat it 3 times before I could figure it out.

"Where's your mask? she asks "You need a mask."

"I'm not coming in, am I? I'm not supposed to come in, right?" and I try to hand her the invoice. She won't take it.

"You have to have a mask"

"Out here?"

"Yes, its our policy"

"Oh... I do not have a mask with me"

She disappears, obviously exasperated that I would dare come to her door mask less. A minute goes by. She brings me a mask. I put it on. Now, through the crack in the door, she will take the invoice. She brings my package and slips it, wordlessly, through the crack in the door. I cannot for the life of me remember ever leaving a place of business without saying "Thank You" to someone. This was a first.

I am all for masks, I’ve got both vaccines and still wear one everywhere I go, but if you are going to ask me to wear one outside your door, you really should at least say "Good afternoon" first.

I've been trying to decide whether to call the company or not, and now that I've written it down I surely do believe I will.

THE FIRST TIME I MET CATHEY JUNE

 

Me and a buddy had an apartment at Brown Trail apartments in 1976. We did everything we could to make sure it was a 24 hour 7 day a week party there.
Somebody brought Cathey over. She was 17, and they said she was a Raiderette. She was the first Raiderette to ever come to our place.
So there she was, a gorgeous long legged blonde with a shapely figure and those blue eyes-- did I say she was blonde-- and I dont know how it came up but I managed to tell her that her ass was a little big for my taste and she slapped me and left.
Forty years later when we started going out she asked me why I had said that to her all those years before.
"Because you were so pretty, and your legs were so long and your entire body so lovely, and your bosom so firm, and you had those Cupid's bow lips, and all that blonde hair and I could barely stand there in front of you without fainting"
"Yes" she said "But what about my ass?"
I blushed and hung my head. "It was perfect too."


Cathey and I went together for about two years 3/2017 to 4/2019.

We enjoyed each others company immensely, and stayed in touch even after we were no longer a thing. Sometimes that's just how love goes. She stayed in such pain and in such poor health I sometimes didn't know how she managed to stay so happy and so pretty. Sometimes it took her a long time to get ready to go somewhere, and sometimes when she finally got ready we would both just decide to stay in and watch Game Of Thrones for the 16th time. And that was just fine. I have a lot of pics of Cathey, and some of these are from the first time we went to Oklahoma to an Art Show and Music Festival where my son was playing. She had just gotten all the bones removed from her feet and I got to push her around in a wheelchair It felt good doing that. Cathey always made me feel good, especially about other people, and that made me feel good about myself at a time in my life I really needed to try to feel good about me.

Rest In Peace Cathey, Gone Too Soon
9/11/1959 ~ 4/15/2021

AND OUR HEARTS WERE AN OPEN BOOK

 

It would have been Mom and Dads 74th Anniversary. Its hard for me, at the age of 63 and them being gone 35 years now, to believe they had ever been this young.

"In a rush this weekday morning,
I tap the horn as I speed past the cemetery
where my parents lie buried
side by side under a smooth slab of granite.

Then, all day long, I think of him rising up
to give me that look
of knowing disapproval
while my mother calmly tells him to lie back down."

- Billy Collins -

Poem gathered at "Alive On All Channels"
https://allchannels.blogspot.com/

HOME REPAIRS

I moved into my new house a few days ago. It needs a little TLC. And curtains. I woke up last night at 3am, thinking about the damn closet light that wont come on. It would be nice to have a closet light. I went in the kitchen, bare beamed and buck naked, got a butter knife, took the cover off the closet light switch, crossed the terminals with the butter knife and the light came on! Top wire was a little loose. Project complete!

Tonight I plan to tackle the doorbell. If anyone wants to stop by, or wants to learn about how a doorbell works, the show starts at Midnight.

TOMORROW

 

"People are always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there."

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

IF YOU SEE HER SAY HELLO

Back when I first got on FB, and there were all my sisters old pals; Suzi, Carol, Susan S, and Maureen O. And I’d leave a comment now and then about an old girlfriend from 1972 who had moved away. I’d say (imagine a really whiny voice) “Where is Rhonda? Why? Why is Rhonda not here on FB? Y’all have to find her for me.” They would laugh at me and say they lost track of her, maybe she was still in Phoenix, or Utah, and what was her married name?

And for a year or two, I’d ask about her every now and then, in as whiny a voice as I could without whiny voice font. Really, I’d just liked to have known that she was OK, and I wanted them to know I had not forgotten about Rhonda I.

But after two or three years of this, I changed my tack. I started pretending I was mad at her (in my mad whiny voice).
“Forget about us finding Rhonda! Why is she not LOOKING FOR US! We are all right here, just waiting for her to show up!”
And they would all laugh at me and promise they would look for her.

Then-- after six years of asking about her-- about three years ago Susan S sends me a message. She has found her, and there is a pic of her in a white sweater, waving, and she had a black beret on, and I’d have recognized her anywhere.
Susan said “She is still in Phoenix!” and I just got the feeling that was that, and really shouldn’t ask a bunch of questions. I was satisfied to see this pic, and to think that she was doing well.
It prompted me to write this story about her bracelet I gave her, the going steady bracelets all the boys gave to the girls they loved.

So another two years go by, and I’m at a bar last year and Carol is there.
I’m talking with her, and I say “Hey guess what I got?”
“What do you have Steve?”
“I’ve got a picture of Rhonda from a couple years ago! Susan found her!”
I said it like I was bragging, like I was something special.
Carol says “That’s nothing. I see her all the time on Facebook!”

 So now I’m all set for my imagination to start running wild. Why didn’t Susan tell me? How is it everybody is friends with Rhonda except for me? Maybe she's hated me for 49 years.
but no, Rhonda could never have a bitter heart. So I went looking for her on FB. It wasn’t easy. Didn’t know her last name. I can’t see Carols FB page because she blocked me years ago. I’m way too liberal. I voted for Reagan twice and Bush three times, I like less government control mostly and own 4 guns, but I’m a whacked out Liberal. And on Susan’s page, I cant find any Rhonda’s. Finally, I get a brainstorm. I’ve got my sisters log in, so I go to her page and look at Carols page.

 Jackpot!
There she is on Carols page.

So now I have to figure out what I want to do. Should I friend her, even though my overall gut feeling from Susan is that she isn't looking for new friends? Or should I just go ahead and inflict myself upon her!
I went back and forth for a long time. Part of me said, like Rick said in Casablanca “If she can stand it so can I” and another part said “Stop being so weird and overthinking this thing. If she doesn’t want to be friends, she’s a big girl and just wont accept the request. It really is just that easy!”

I tell you what. If it wasn’t for COVID, and all the isolation, it might have taken me a lot longer to contact her. But she accpted the request that same day. She seemed delighted to be found. Its been such fun chatting it up, getting reaquainted, and being able to trade gifts. And a blessing too!
And that’s the story of how I finally came to send Rhonda a friend request months after having located her, and years after whining to her friends that they must find Rhonda for me.

One big question I had for Rhonda was whether she remembered a poster she gave me in 1972. It hung on my wall long after she moved to Phoenix. There is no way she could know how much the poster had burned itself into my psyche, and how it had seemed to be the theme of my whole life, and got me through the numerous heartbreaks I’ve had, and love found and lost, and found again.
It took my breath a little when she replied "I wondered if you would remember"

Amazing. You can still buy the exact same poster after all these years.

I MISSED MY CALLING

In High School they tested me to see what career I should choose. They recommended I be a preacher. I shit you not, that is what they said. You probably should not drop acid before you do such an evaluation.

HE ALLOWS IT

 Continued from “Return To Living”…

...That is how I came to remove myself from a burned out trailer and rejoined the world of the living. Its August of 004 and now I’ve got an apartment and a job. The kids live just a mile away. I'm back in their lives for the first time in almost two years.  I can walk to work at Subway Sandwiches, two blocks. It pays 6.50 an hour, plus a sandwich a day, and all the cookies I can eat. That’s a major move up from eating dry ramen noodles right out of the pack, although they do make a nice crunchy little snack if you are so inclined. Its an end to eyeballing the chickens that run across the Chester Boyer road right up the way from the old trailer and trying to run over one when I would pass by. Dinner. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Out at the trailer I did do a little work. An occasional odd job and a couple tile jobs where I didn’t charge near enough. I had a guy’s lot I mowed from time to time. Perhaps my most steady job, that I kept for about 6 months was as a sampler at the grocery store. You’ve seen them; usually little old ladies with a booth set up, sampling little cups filled with the latest Ritz wheat cracker, and maybe she has some peanut butter or a slice of the California Happy Cow cheese to go with it.

Having been a chef for 30 years, it felt a little like being in the old chef’s graveyard, or on Lumpfish Row haha,  but for 3 days a week it let me get out of the trailer and engage with human beings and talk to strangers about food. I had fun. I’m good at being a loner and isolating myself, which I had done at the trailer. But I love people. I love talking to them. It makes me happy to see them. And I was probably the best food sampler ever. Not probably. I WAS. The lady I worked for told me so. At Thanksgiving I sold more Spiral sliced hams than anyone in the nation. I had women lined up around the block to buy a ham. I got a bonus!

Its because I’m loud. And when called upon have no problem calling attention to myself. I remember at  Kroger one day-- I don’t remember what I was selling-- a woman popped her head out from an aisle about 4 rows down.
“Steve Bulletholes?” she says.
“YES!” says I.
And she starts walking toward me. I don’t recognize her at all until she is about ten feet away. I hadn’t seen her in about 5 years.
“Well, I’ll be,  my old friend Terri! How are you Terri!” I say.
“I’m fine. How are you Steve?”
“I’m good. But I have to ask you. How did you know it was me from thirty feet away?”
She says “Steve, I knew it was you when I walked in the front door. Don’t you not have an inside voice?”
And we both just laughed. Dumb question.

Then one day the display lady brought me a chef’s hat to wear. I told her I was not going to wear a chefs hat to sell anything at a grocery store display. It was humiliating enough to be a chef reduced to this, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
“You’re my best guy” she pleaded.
“Not going to happen.”
"Then I have to let you go"
"Fine"

Funny, how you start out to write one thing and something else just falls out. This is what I was supposed to write:

I had the apartment and the Subway job for about three months. But I was still spending a good portion of my paycheck on dope. And I don’t mean pot. I mean serious adult dope that ruins lives dope. And after about 3 months I was far enough behind on the rent that on the 5^th of December I had to go to my apartment manager and tell them they may as well start the eviction process. I still owed for November and didn't have a red cent to give them. Whatever break I’d gotten getting out of that trailer, I had  blown it . And then I had to go to the Ex Mrs Bullets.

She was pretty calm. She said “C’mon, I’m going to take you down to Kelly Girls and they will find you another job.
I said “Kelly Girls? That’s like office work, right? I talk too loud and laugh too hard to work in an office”.
But like before I just did what she said.
We got down to Kelly and the manger, Liz, said “We don’t do walk ins, but I can schedule you for an interview tomorrow morning”. An interview was set for 9AM the next morning.
I worked my shift at Subway, and sometime during the night I got cold feet. I can’t work for Kelly. I don’t know anything about office work. And the next morning I called Liz at Kelly.
“Liz, I ended up having to work this morning. I’m not going to be able to make it in” I lied.
“OK Steve. Would you like to reschedule? And I want you to know if you reschedule, and cancel again, then I cant reschedule another one. Ever”
It was a cusp. I hadn’t trusted anything I’d done in years. But someone was willing to tell me what to do, and I guess I could trust that.
“Sure!  Let’s do tomorrow!”
And I made it to the interview. I could tell Liz liked me. That is always a good thing, when someone likes you. I think part of why she liked me was something I learned at Subway. That it is a good thing for people think YOU LIKE THEM. Smile, say hello, be pleased to meet them.

I told her that I needed a job within two miles of my residence because of transportation issues. This was on Friday 12/10/2004. She called that afternoon. She had a job at the airport. “Too far” I told her.
An hour went by. She called again.
“I have a job at 4510 Blue Jay Way. Its in your zip code. Can you be there Monday morning to interview?”

So duly I arrived Monday morning. Talked with the manager. He said they did communication systems for the airlines industry.
‘I wont have to talk to pilots, and talk them down when something goes wrong up there, will I?” I asked.
“No Steve, we don’t do much of that around here.”
I could tell he had a great sense of humor and he liked me. I liked him. Liz called that afternoon. I started the next morning at 8:00 making 12.50 an hour.

EPILOGUE

I started the next morning at 8:00 making 12.50 an hour. Double my wage at Subway. It was a Tuesday, the 14^th of the month. I managed to get 40 hours in by Friday. I turned in my time, and on Monday the 21^st I got my check. Apparently, Kelly is fast getting you paid. Between that and the check I’d received from Subway on Friday I paid rent in full.
Paid in full.
I’m not real good at saying it, but Someone was sure looking out for me. Through all of this, including those darker days at the trailer, Someone was looking out.  I continued to work both jobs for a few months. It was quite a learning curve between using computers and learning office etiquette. Around May of 2005 the company offered me a job as a full time regular employee. It’s a large corporation with a top-notch benefits package I was no longer the best Kelly Girl ever. (That’s what Liz called me).
And I’m still there now.
Sixteen years later, and I'm still there now. 
Believe it or not but I still talk too loud and laugh too hard. But some people in the company will call me just to hear me say "Good Morning". I give the best good morning in the business.

Its amazing what can happen if you follow some instructions. Learn to say OK, you're right. One thing I think I’ve learned about all this is that we seem to continually mess up Gods plan. God doesn’t always plan it, any more than we plan for the pooch to shit on the living room floor or chew up a new pair of shoes. But He allows it, and then goes to work when you let Him. He uses it, and we learn to use it too. It can become our ministry.

It would be a few more years before I finally quit doing dope. But that is a whole ‘nother story.

See the chef on the pizza box?
Thats the ultimate degradation right there. Being the model for a pizza box cover.
But a mans gonna do what he has to do!

RETURN TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING

I lived for 18 months in a  burned out trailer. Like my son says, I just kinda threw in the towel. Fell out of love with being a chef and got chewed up and spit out trying to be a tilesetter for a few years. It was excruciating, and by the time I got to that trailer with no electricity and no plumbing I didn’t care if I ever worked again. And somehow in Gods good plan, the trailer and Arnold blessed me with blessings that extend to the present.
(follow linky's)

But this part of the story is about how I got OUT of the trailer. Its quite simple really.
I let someone tell me what to do.
My ex wife came out there one day and said “You cant do this. You got two kids that need you. What do we have to do to get you to re-engage?”. She may not have been as pleasant about it as all that. But when she decides the heavens and earth must move, the heavens and earth shall move
I told her I had no drivers license, no social security card, no birth certificate, no prospects, a car that didn’t hardly run, and no telling how many warrants out for my arrest.
I said "Frankly, I have never heard of anyone being quite as lame as I am right now."
When I look back, that right there may have been the finest thing I have ever said.

Well, the first thing we did was go downtown. She pretended to be my sister so that we could get a copy of my birth certificate. We went to the post office and I filled out a voters registration card. With a Birth Certificate and a voters registration you can get a Texas ID Card. I could not get a drivers license. Wouldn’t you know that my license had been suspended for some time? A result of the stack of registration, inspection and no insurance tickets I had piled up.

So when she dropped me off at the trailer, she said she would be back in a few days and we could go get an ID Card. I got out of the car, and the wind was blowing about 40 miles an hour. As she pulled away, my birth certificate blew out of my hand, and I had to chase it a half mile down the railroad tracks. If I’d lost that certificate she would have skinned me alive.

So 3 days later and here she is. We go get me an ID. Then she takes me to her neighborhood, where the kids live. “Your going to find a job today” she says. We went to the grocery, where I applied. We went to an MRI Imaging place, where I applied. We went to an IHOP, where I didn’t want to, but I applied because that’s what she told me to do. I was wanting to ask how I was going to get to these jobs, my burned out trailer being 15 miles away, but figured I'd just follow instructions for now.

Then we went to Subway Sandwich shop. I walked in and found the manager. I said “I was a chef for 25 years, and I swore I would never work food service again, so…HERE I AM!”
She said “Can you close?”
“Yes ma’am, I’m the best closer in the business. You’ll walk in in the morning and wonder why your job just got easier, and your coffee suddenly started tasting sweeter.”
She hired me on the spot.
But the ex Mrs Bulletholes, she wasn’t done. We went across the street to an apartment complex. It was like the cheapest in the city.
She said “Go in there and rent an apartment”
“But I don’t have a deposit. And working at Subway isn’t enough money to rent an apartment.”
“Tell them you do tile too”
“But...” and I started to say my car doesn’t run good enough to do tile, but by the look on her face I changed my mind and just said “OK”
(As an aside here, let me say there are three thing I’ve found to be very helpful things to say in any given situation: “Youre Right”, “I’m Sorry” and “OK”. There's a fourth one too, but it takes some practice knowing when to say it, and you don’t really say it out loud. It is “SO WHAT?” and you say it to yourself.)
So I went in and schmoozzed the nice apartment lady and walked out with a lease in my hand, based on having a job I hadn’t actually, you know, started yet. 

That is how I came to remove myself from living in a burned out trailer and rejoined the world of the living. After almost two years I would be able to see the kids regular again. But that’s only half the story. Its difficult to keep an apartment on Subway Sandwich wages, especially if you are doing dope. And despite bankruptcies, foreclosures, divorces, evictions, being a deadbeat dad, the degrading of basic moral fiber, and 18 months of living in a burned out trailer, I was still doing dope.

To be continued...

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY REPEATING?

 

Deceased Pope Formosus was impeached by Pope Stephen the 6th and the Catholic Church in 897. Formosus body was exhumed; he was dressed in the papal vestments, seated on a throne and he stood trial, dead as a doornail. He was found guilty of being unworthy of the office.
The damnatio memoriae (erased history) was applied to Formosus, all his measures and acts were annulled, and the orders conferred by him were declared invalid. The papal vestments were torn from his body, the three fingers from his right hand he had used in blessings were cut off, and the corpse was thrown into the Tiber, later to be retrieved by a monk.
Following the death of Stephen VI, Formosus' body was reinterred in St Peter's Basilica and further trials of this nature against deceased persons were banned

I COULDA BEEN A CONTENDER

 Last year I was on pace to pretty much double my blogging production from the last several years. 
Sixty posts in July had me on track for over one hundred post for the year. I hadnt had a year like that in a long time. My best year production wise was when I first got clean in 2009.
340 posts in a 365 day period!

I'm not sure why I fell off last year. COVID Fatigue? Isolation? Politics? Lack of Interest? Probably all of the above. Also, after 15 years of blogging sometimes you just run out of stories to tell, especially if you stop paying attention.

Anyway, I know a lot of people that write about writing but never actually write anything. 
I'm not going to start doing that, but maybe this will help jump start me for 2021.