CALIFORNIA GIRLS

They wanted to know:
"Do you always say "Ya'll"?"
"All the time ma'am."
They look at each other, gasping and giggling,  and Debbie says "He said Ma'am!" and they turn back to me and Linda asks "Do you always say ma'am?"
"Yes ma'am"
They are delighted. Apparently this is their first exposure to southern gentility.
Linda asks "What about when you are talking to a man?"
I go into my best Foghorn Leghorn impersonation, you know, the big Rooster from the cartoon...
"Suh! I say, I say, Suh! This heah is a chicken, Suh!"

Linda and Debbie have a very cute way of speaking as well. And they are mighty easy to look at and really were great hostesses and we all hit it off right away. They have been my sister's best friends for number of years.

SOMEDAY LIKE THE RAIN

I'LL BE BACK HOME AGAIN....
So I had a blast going to San Diego.
I sat next to a chick with dreadlocks on the flight to Denver. She was young and nice and laughed at my joke about where ants go for vacation. I hope she finds someone nice to teach her to fly fish, and then she will get a haircut and have lots of babies.
I watched in wonder the plane in front of us take off, how much exhaust it generates to get people in the air, and then it was my turn and I marveled that not long ago the idea that people could fly was fairly snickered at, but that at this very moment 300 souls would be airborne all at once on the same big bird, and all it would take from a complete standstill was about 10 seconds to get off the ground.
At the airport in Denver I saw two priests that carried their own luggage, and a stout looking fellow in jeans and a stetson with a huge rodeo belt. He was quite an anachronism in that he wore a T-Shirt, a NY Yankees T-Shirt, with "JETER" and the number 2 on the back. He was in line to get a sandwich at a Quizno's. He had a thick spanish accent, and the attendant was from the Ivory Coast. It took some time to get his order.
As I ate my sandwich a young female soldier got in line. She had cammo's on and she looked like she couldn't have been twenty yet, and I'd have liked to have done something bold and patriotic, like hug her or maybe buy her sandwich declaring that "Soldiers don't pay when I'm around" but I let it slide and minded my own business for a change.
The woman that sat next to me from Denver to San Diego wasn't friendly and pretended to read a book and nap.

Once in San Diego I found myself surrounded by Hare' Krisna's; I stopped by a record shop that could have been built by Woody Guthrie (but instead was being mismanaged by the least talkative folkie record salesman there could ever have been), found that I was in a city where you could take a dozen consecutive right hand turns and still not have made a circle; heard about a "packing Nazi", saw poor seals so surrounded by humankind it seemed just cruel, swam in the Pacific; wrestled killed cleaned and ate a Great White shark and boiled his bones to make Cippippippiono; was completely smitten by my sisters 3 friends- Linda Debbie and Nancy; and visited the Del Coronado Hotel, where Marilyn and Tony made the movie "Some Like it Hot" and the ghost of Katie Morgan walks the halls and turns doorknobs.
I saw her you know.

Here's me and Marilyn taking a soak at the Del Coronado Hotel.
More to follow...I had a great time, and my sister is doing well.

THOSE ASSHOLES

I stole a lot of white powdery susbstance once, and it turned out to be Sweet and Low.

ROAD TRIP

I got real exciting news! I am going on my first vacation in 16 years tomorrow. I am flying to San Diego to see my sister Lisa. Or more exactly, to GET my sister Lisa. Her Multiple Sclerosis has kicked in bad enough that she is having trouble taking care of herself. We have rented her an apartment close to me and she is moving home. Me and my kids will be able to take care of her every day. She and I are driving back and on the way we are going to stop at the Grand Canyon and drive through the Painted Desert. If you were here right now I'd tell you all about the grand Canyon in wild eyed amazement; how the Hidatsa Indians say man first emerged from the canyon and that it is like the belly button of the world; and how the scientists tell us that there is a river that has been patiently carving itself through solid rock for 1.6 BILLION YEARS, half the age of the planet itself; and how if you close your eyes, yes, close your eyes, and say 'Painted Desert" ...
Oh, isn't it wonderful?

So that's my exciting news.

THE GREAT ESCAPE

"The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners"

Hafiz, 14th century poet
Photo courtesy of (stolen) from my pal Tijno at Beachcombing.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK SARAH PALIN IS TECHNICALLY CORRECT

There is the truth and then there are slogans.

"You can't handle the truth"
That is a slogan.

BATESVILLE CASKETS

Some small towns are funny. The rest are just plain scary. I remember being in Batesville Arkansas once; they manufacture caskets there. As you pass by the town square, there are a dozen grizzled old men, retired casket-makers, that give you the hairy eyeball. There is a stop sign there, but its best just to roll right through it. I stopped off at the diner, where the owner needed more information about me than what I would have expected before he could serve me.

'Its not me, " He explained "its the darn Camber of Commerce. They don't want no tourists or college kids classin' up the place."
He told me that it was for that reason he couldn't get anything but frozen peas to serve with his Chicken Fried Steak.
"No fresh vegetables" they had told him "Too delicious, people might come back"
None of it made any sense, even when he asked if I would like to buy his restaurant so he could get out of Batesvlle Arkansas.

It reminded me of a movie I saw long ago, "Outback" with Donald Pleasance. He played a schoolteacher who was stranded in a funny scary small town where they drank every night and everybody played a game with dice and no one could leave until they won the stupid game. Of course Pleasance never won, the movie ends with him sitting in the scorching sun, sucking on the barrel of a rifle and a single bullet in the chamber.

I just got back from passing through a town like this, where the cashiers at the grocery look at you funny and say "From out of town aren't you?" and its not a question at all. As you pass through the town square there are grizzled old men that don't bother to look up from playing domino's, they know you are there, they knew you were there since before you left the grocery store. You wave at the one who does look up, but he just stares right through you as you pass. Later at the lake there is an eerie quiet and there are no fish, or fisherman, its just you on the lake and you feel a million eyes watching you.
It doesn't surprise you one bit when you find your car battery doesn't work, or when the local deputy shows up at dusk with a bottle of whiskey and a set of dice.

The next time you pass by a big 18 wheeler full of coffins, take a look at the tags.
I bet its from Batesville.

MY CAMPING TRIP

My son and I went camping at a friends private lake this weekend.
His wife said to me:

"We had a man come out and get all the gators out of that lake a couple years ago. He got 23. He said he thinks he got them all, but I wouldn't swim in it if I were you."
I said "Okay then. Thats good enough for me"

REMINISCING

I had Holli in the booth right beside me.
She looked especially cute, so I started humming the first bars. She looked at me, and when I could tell she could recognize the song, I slid closer to her and began singing:
 "Friday night it was late I was walking you home we got down to the gate..."
 and you know the rest of that first verse, but what you may not realize is that by the time I got to the part: "would it turn out right?" I had, just by looking into Holli's eyes, a pretty fair idea on just how the night might turn out!
And unless she is backing away in horror, if you continue, this song can turn the momentum for you at any verse!
"...and I was dreaming of the night..."
All you have to do is sing sweet as you can and flutter your eyes at the right parts and the next thing you know she has her head on your shoulder and is singing along with you and you have your hand on her leg and Glenn Millers Band blowin' that slide trombone and there's dancin' in the dark and hurry don't be late when we're alone, and the best part about it is the worst that can happen is she doesn't take you serious at all but thinks you are sweet and silly and you just had a great time being a goof and have to slide back over to your side of the booth.
Because that is what I saw looking into Holli's eyes.

ABOUT ME

I was leaving the tennis courts Saturday . I got on my old pair of shitty tennis shoes, some cut-off britches, and a dirty old T-shirt. I have the cheapest racket you can get down at Wal-Mart , and a hand me down cap that says "Eat Me" on it. . Anyway, I'm not going to tell you about me. I'm going to tell you about the guy I saw.


He was about my age, in slightly better shape (OK, lots better) and he was out for a run. He had on a running outfit, one that looked like it ought to be on the cover of a magazine. He had some kind of French running shoes on, and a hat that probably came from Spain. His sunglasses probably cost what I make in a week. He's at the corner, running in place waiting for traffic to pass. He has that weird glow where you just know everything he touches turns to gold.

And my mind starts to drift, the way it sometimes does. I can see this guy, after his jog. He is in the driveway waxing his car, probably a BMW because BMW owners are always so well dressed. He's waxing his car, and he checks the oil and he is spotless. Then he goes in the house and sits at a big mahogany desk and pays a few bills. He has likely not paid a bill late, not since college at least. After he pays a few bills, he will go online, to that E-Trade thing and make a deal or two and pocket a cool Ten-Thousand. Then he will clean his kitchen and take some laundry to the Dry Cleaners before going to his kids soccer practice, after which he will take the entire team out for snow cones. When he gets home from that, he will marinate some steaks and start planning for the Memorial Day swim party.

This guy hasn't stopped since seven o'clock this morning, and after dinner tonight he and his wife will go dancing and when he gets home he will set the alarm after he takes out the trash, his family and castle secure.

I think all this inside of 15 seconds, the green light flashes go, the billionaire steps off the curb, and we both get on with out lives.

Now you might think I feel envious of this guy. But I don't. I almost feel sorry for him. That kind of life surely sounds like hell to me. But have come to understand that that is part of what is wrong with me. If had wanted just a little bit to have that kind of life, things would maybe be a lot different. Money was never that important to me. I'm glad for that. But maybe there were times it would have been good if it had been more important. I have regrets. I don't regret not having a big house or a fancy car.  My deepest  regrets are the recognition that I hurt people along the way, thinking only of myself.

Because this is how my Saturday morning goes:
I get up and my son and I play tennis in blown out shoes and a cheap-ass racket. Then we go to the Buttermilk Cafe for a Denver omelet with egg whites and multi-grain pancakes with sugar free syrup.. The waitresses all know us there. Then I go to a meeting and share my experience strength and hope. If I don't do anything else the rest of the day that's just fine with me. That right there is about all this addict can handle.
Everything else is gravy.
Life is good.

OVERACHIEVER

I have now surpassed, in five months, last years blogging output for the whole year.
And I did it without Perfomance Enhancing Blogging Drugs.
I plan to keep posting whether I have anything to post or not. The worst is yet to come, and knowing this is what keeps me going.

FRIDAY NIGHT BOWLING

I have taken to Bowling this last couple months. I go with my friend Robin on Sunday mornings, and then I found a group of drunks on Friday nights that I go with. They are really funny.

Theres this chick in the group that all the guys are after, but I've never seen a more lame group of guys chase a chick. And she's just dying to get caught too, but none of these clowns has a pair enough to step up and be a gentleman and just do the lady.
If this goes on much longer it could get pretty exciting because she's nuts.

THE FINDHORN COOKBOOK

A GOOD COMMUNAL KITCHEN  GROKS THAT:
""It is good to prepare vegetables with real appreciation for what you are doing, thus enabling the radiations of light to enter the food. A potato is no longer just a potato in your hands, but a thing of real beauty. You can feel it is something living, vibrating. Just stop and think what a difference this makes to the vegetables. Sometimes you feel your heart will burst with joy and appreciation"
Eileen

People that bought this book also bought The Strawberry Statement, Lord of the Flies, The Communist Manifesto, Like Water For Chocolate, In Search of the Wild Asparagus, The Zen of Motorcylcle Maintenance, The Portable Charlie Manson, The Grapes of Wrath, The Prime Rib of Miss Jean Brodie, Pick Up Ladies!, In Search of Lost Thyme, Chow Mein Kampf, and Eating Raoul.

NOT SAFE FOR FACEBOOK

"According to the textbooks, our perception of size and distance is a product of how the brain interprets different visual cues, such as the size of an object on the retina and its movement across the visual field. Some researchers have claimed that our bodies also influence our perception of the world, so that the taller you are, the shorter distances appear to be. However, there has been no way of testing this hypothesis experimentally – until now."
FROM THE NEW SHELTON WET DRY

GOIN' CLUBBIN'!

She was at least couple years older than me, in her twenties, and when we finished that first dance we sat at my table to talk.
"So what do you do?' she asked.
'Well, I'm a chef and I am going to school to be a lawyer"
"Where do you go to school? "
"North Texas State University"
"Really? Me too" she says "What classes are you taking?"

Well, I had to think a minute, because the fact of the matter was I wasn't taking any classes at North Texas.
"English" I replied.
"Who is your teacher?" she asks.

This strikes me as an awfully odd question. Why is she grilling me about my English class, a class that I am not taking at North Texas State U?

"Smith, Mr. Smith is my English teacher."
"I've never heard of him" she says.
"I think he just teaches part time" I say.
'What room?"
"One of the...um...you know... English rooms"

She was a couple years older than me, in her twenties at least, and she smiled real soft and took my hand.
"Its been nice talking to you." she said "I'm going to go back and sit with my friends now."

THE LAST 35 YEARS

I imagined somewhere in Oregon there was hill waiting for me to start my commune. It was going to take money, lots of money. I worked as a chef, and treated utensils as live beings. When I got home, there were girls, always lots of girls. Wrecked a car, racked my brain, hitched a ride. I bought a disco shirt, and disco shoes, and disco pants, but I just wasn't cut out for Disco. My girlfriend died, and I dropped acid and went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I found another girlfriend. I had the keys to the Bar, and we drank a lot in those days. I discovered Green Chartreuse, nearly died, gave it up. I lost, and found and lost another love. I showed up to parties naked. I lost a lot of weight there. I had forgot all about Oregon and took up fishing. I needed a rest. I got married and stopped showing up at parties naked. Everybody died, and my kids were born. I lost a house, a wife, a fortune. Burned a good life to the ground. I sold T-Shirts, built an airport, gave away Frozen Yogurt, won a ham, walked away from a car, showed up, showed down, shacked up and moved out. Moved in, moved over, got busted and bailed out, case dismissed.

I imagine somewhere in Oregon there is hill waiting for me to start my commune, and more love to lose and find and lose again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB!

I wrote Bob Dylan a letter one time. Told him to come on out, that I'd like to take him fishing. He never answered me, but I saw an interview with him few years later where he said he got mail all the time, people wanting to do some gardening with him, or paint, or take him out to eat, or take him fishing and stuff. Do you think he was talking about me?

WILLINGNESS

"Our recovery hinges on our willingness to grow Spiritually"
You could even leave of the grow spiritually. Just being willing is pretty good for me.
Sometimes it takes me a while to get to willing, but it always feels good when I do.

Last week my boss brought me some new-fangled fancy-ass repair tags headquarters wants me to check out. He said 'Try 'em out Steve, tell me what you think" and I said "I can tell you right now what I think. I've been to two rodeos and a Worlds Fair and these are still the stupidest things I've ever seen"
"Just give them a try Steve and let me know what you think" he says and leaves.

An hour later he passes by my desk. I tell him "They are stupid because they won't work"
An hour later I announce "They won't work because they are too complicated"
An hour after that I say "I have never heard of an 8 part repair tag with three carbons and 4 color codes"
Thirty minutes minutes go by before I ask "Do they really think this will help? I didn't even know we were having a problem."
Finally, I catch my boss trying to sneak by me so that he doesn't have to endure my tirade. But I have had time to come around.
I say "You know boss, if these idiot tags are going to help those numbskulls up at Headquarters, then I guess I'm all for it!"

Not only did this make my boss happy to hear it, It felt good for me to come around to it.
Willingness.
I love it!
But the tags are still stupid.

I'M WINNING

I lost 3 pounds at my weigh in yesterday. Its 3 of the 4 pounds I gained at my last weigh in, which was the same 4 pounds I lost the time before that, and if you take into consideration the 3 pounds I gained that first week you can see that after 3 months of diet and excercise I have nether gained nor lost a pound!


I'm no Donald Trump, but I consider this to be a major accomplishment.

WHY I HATE IT WHEN IT IS SLOW AT WORK

I see that today is the anniversary of the day that criminals dug up Charlie Chaplans body and held it for ransom. I wish I was crazy enough for work like that, it sounds exciting; good physical labor worthy of a man, where you come home tired and dirty and ready for supper. I miss that, I surely do miss that.

Then I find in my research that in Germany a human can place an ad for another human who desires to be eaten alive, and if that ad is answered, the responder can be legally cannibalized. It seems there is a consent clause to Murder in Germany.

The only possible charges that could be drawn against the perpetrator, or the diner, whichever way you see it, would be "Disturbing the Peace of the Dead". That, or possibly Torture, as there is no consent clause to Torture

OK... that's a post. I'm off to lunch.
I was going to have a Reuben, but i think a salad today will be fine.

IDENTITY THEFT

I had a buddy that used to be in the Credit Card business.
 He also dealt in missing checks.
He would call me from time to time and ask:
"What would be your best guess as to the mothers maiden name for a guy named Clifton Webb?"
At first, these quesions annoyed me, but as time went on I got pretty good at it.
“I need a mothers maiden name for Wolfgang Barnrail”
"Foxhorn" I would say 'His mothers maiden name was likely Foxhorn"
"Are you sure?" he would ask.
"Its my best guess."
"But are you sure?"
"Well, I can't guarantee anything, but it feels inspired"


Or another time I'd say “Whats in it for me if I get it right?
“A new set of tires for your truck.”
"OK then, Cooper, try Cooper, and if that doesn't work, call me back".
Ten mnutes later he would call me back. “That wasn’t it” he’d say “Do you have another one?”
“Sure, try Smith”
"Why Smith?"
“Percentages”
“Percentages!” he would cry out. “God you are so smart!”
I said “Yep. Its a good thing you came to me first”

I'm sure this dude is in prison for a long time by now.
I'm sure of it.

Two Blogs a Day?

My pal over at TYWIKIWIDBE posted an article where the author says you have to post up twice a day to be considered a blogger. If I actually had something to say twice a day I just might do that. But go check out TYWIKIWIDBE, its a great site I go to all the time.

I liked 'ol Duff the best!

Strange dream with you in it last night. I was meeting you and two of your friends somewhere, can’t recall the setting. Anyway, I saw a group of three people and as I approached I realized I didn’t have my glasses on so you guys were all blurry. I got closer and was able to rule one of the three out as not being you. He was tall, had grey hair and a white sweater and a big Hollywood scarf on. He kind of resembled George Plimpton. The other two people had long straight hair, dishwater blonde hair and big glasses on.
One of them was going to be you.
The one on the right seemed to be the more slender and feminine, so as I got closer in my mind I thought it was you, but my vision was still blurry. My plan was to give you a hello hug.



But when I got to within hugging distance from you, I realized the person I was about to hug was not you, but a very effeminate male. The “real” you was standing next to him, and you were holding a leash with Duff attached. But it was too late! I had already committed to hugging this man and hug him I did.


And this is where the dream got…dreamlike. The man I hugged was rather put out by it and wouldn’t tell me his name. Actually, he was VERY put out by it and nearly fell down putting distance between he and I.


The other man in the white sweater thought it was funny as hell and laughed and laughed and laughed; his name, he said, was “Mr. Wood” and I couldn’t help feeling that there was something sexual about the name for the sake of the dream.


And you, well, you acted like you didn’t know who I was and my repeated attempts to tell you I was “Bulletholes” were unsuccessful.
But Duff, well, he was all over me , licking my face and jumping and being a big ol friendly dog.

I liked 'ol Duff the best!

That  is from an Email back in January of 2009. Someday maybe I will clean it up and make it a better story, but for now i'd just like to mark time. You can follow this link to a post from August of 2008. I just have received word that Duff, my friend Kissygirls doggie, finally passed on to the Rainbow Bridge, and waits there with tail wagging for my friend.
I love so much my friends from this blog.

BUNS OF STEEL

We didn't become addicted in one day, nosirree, and I didn't get to be a slob overnight either. See this belly? Looks like I'm smuggling a watermelon- I know. You wouldn't know it looking at me but I used to be pretty! See this here arm muscle, or whats left of it? Yessir, I was wiry, I was tight, I was hell on wheels letmetellyouwhat.


But the doctor has been on my ass for a year to do some walking and I keep shinin' him on telling him things like I don't care to walk, or that sometimes I walk (but I don't, I haven't walked any further than the couch to the refrigerator sinceIcan'trememberwhen) but you should see me dance doc, when I dance I fly and he says whens the last time you danced Steve and I tell him infactitsbeenawhile.

But I know the doc is right, I need to walk, 30 minutes a day the man said, he even tried to con me by saying just 3 days a week, and we finally struck a bargain at 15 minutes 3 days a week. Just as we say at my group, that the true measure of our recovery is in the daily maintenance of our spiritual condition; so it may well be the same, that the true measure of how big a fat slob I am may be in the daily maintenance of my physical fitness.

I remember when I first tried to quit the dope, and I had to go to 3 meetings a week, and I had to go to counseling once a week, and I had to go to court twice a month and it all seemed such a pain in the butt. Then after a little while it got to be right pleasant, and I would walk downtown for a meeting and stop at the Art Cafe for a Ham Croissant, and I would line up the cashier and the waitress and the cook and the three customers sitting there and I would recite my 12 Steps to them. I think they looked forward to seeing me they did.

And all my knucklehead dope buddies at court, I couldn't wait to see them every other week, and always hoped that none of them were going to get violated that night and drugawayinchainslikeacommoncriminal.

And now I got like 1000 days clean and sober and I don't do that so much anymore, you know, go into restaurants and recite the 12 Steps. And dear Judge Whatsherface she doesn't even need to know who I am anymore because I am a recovering fat slob of an addict, eager to carry the message that anyone can quit using drugs, lose the desire to use and findanewwaytolive.

But I know I'm a slob and I need to walk like the ol doc says, because after 6 weeks of not walking the way I said I would, I finally walked around the block.
It liked to kill me.
Not because it was so boring (which it was) but because it was so hard, it was so hard and I could feel my buttmuscles and it was not a good feel, it was a burn. But I am going to do it one day at a time, just the way I learned to do everything else, and maybe pretty soon its going to be fun, getting healthy that is, and I'll have bunsofsteel and my buttmuscleswontburn.

WON'T THAT BE FUN?

THANKS MOM

This story is actually a collection from three stories combined for the Mothers Day issue of the Alvarado Star newspaper and carried over from Facebook. Some of you that have been coming around a while may recognize all three.

THANKS MOM

"In the second grade we were allowed to walk home from school for lunch. Its hard to believe they let us do that. I don't think that can happen these days.
I always walked with Donna. We would part at the corner and meet again after lunch to return to school. Every day my mother gave me a Baby Snickers Bar for the walk back and I would split it with Donna on the corner.
One day I asked Mom if I might have two candy bars.
She inquired as to why I would need two. I told her all about Donna and how we walked together everyday, and how I split my candy bar with her always.
I'll never forget the look on Mom's face.
"Oh yes, Stevie, you most certainly may!" as she dried her hands on her Watermelon Apron and pulled another Snickers Bar from out of the cupboard.
She was beaming.
You might think that is a story about Donna, but it is more about my mother than Donna.

Dad had an old Brownie Camera, the kind that the top unfolds and the image is reflected up as you look down through a thick piece of glass.
One day at the store, Mom asked if I might want to take pictures with the camera and bought some film. I was 5 years old. She put the film in for me and set me on my way, out the back door and into the garden. I asked her what I should take pictures of and she told me to take pictures of flowers.
When I came back, I handed her the camera and a bouquet of flowers I had collected.
“Stevie, what are the flowers for?” she asked.
“Just in case the pictures don’t come out Mom”
She just laughed and kissed my head.
Momma raised her up a sweet little boy.

So Thanks Mom....
... for waiting the six hours for me to apologize for spitting in your face. I was three.
... for playing “Tarzan” with me and keeping a straight face, staying in character as I wrestled the giant snake to protect you, even though it was just a Vacuum cleaner hose.
...for the way you looked at me when I asked for that extra candy bar to share with Donna
...for yanking me out of the street while I played "Chicken" with the Hoodlum down the street in his '55 Chevy.
...for always calling me ‘Stephen” when I was in trouble, giving me a little time to brace myself.
...for the watch you gave me after I got home from sneaking out all night, saying 'Stevie, I want you to always know what time it is".
...for taking such good care of me after I moved back home to take care of you after your stroke.
...for laughing harder than I while Shila tickled me to tears on the couch.
...for “hanging on” long enough for me to get back home before you passed.

My most indelible image of Mom is when she would ask me:
"When are you and Shila going to have a baby"
“Oh, Mom, I don’t know, sometime in a while, I guess...”
In her little girl singsong voice she would reply...
“Oh, Stevie, you just have to hurry...”
Then holding her arms as though she were cradling a baby she would say:
“...It would be so terrible if I didn’t get to hold her”

She missed it by a year and this is my greatest regret. How did she know our first child would be a girl? Well, mothers know everything!
All you youngsters out there, don’t let this happen. And always be nice to your mothers and ask them many questions. One day you won’t be able to ask them anymore.

Mom died on December 1st, 1986. Dad was in a VA hospital with Alzheimer's.
If there is someone responsible for letting Mom die first, thank you.
Very kind.

I chose to post this as a note because the line breaks in the electronic online paper are not true to what you see in print and really affect the readability of the piece. The editor tells me that my mothers picture, the one that I currentlty have as my profile picture, appears on the front page as a lead in (or whatever they call it) to my column. I don't know if mom would like that or not, but I sure do.
Miss you, momma, miss you all the time.
Here is the link to the Alvarado Paper for those of you interested.
http://www.alvaradostar.net/?Story=1903

I FINALLY CLEANED MY APARTMENT

"… I putter about the hermitage, make the bed, wash the breakfast dishes, sweep the porch; and something begins to order itself inside me as I order my external world. The ordering and puttering become a kind of prayer, a way of attending to the human which is a way of attending to the divine, charged as we are and the world is with the presence of God."
"Domestic chores also become simply something to do. One cannot pray and meditate unendingly. There is a rhythm to life lived anywhere that calms the heart if we surrender to the necessities of the world around us and the world within."
Thomas Merton

SHOOTING COLLEGE KIDS

It didn't stop May 4, 1970 at Kent State...

The show headed south to Jackson State.
Ten days later on May 14 and 15  there were two students killed and 12 wounded when 75 well armed Local and State Police opened fire during a protest/riot on campus.

I've never been to college, but I would imagine that for an 18-19 year old the first few years are among the most tumultuous years that they will experience, and a time of change; perhaps the last major convulsion of childhood.
I doubt that there were ever changes of such magnitude as those faced by the students on campuses in the late 60's.
I mean, I felt in even in the 7th Grade.
My first reaction was like that of many Americans, even parents of kids that had been at Kent State....those Students had it coming. They shouldn't have been protesting, one could reason,  but should have been supporting our efforts in Southeast Asia.

It took a few months to sink in.
It took a few months to conclude that pissing in the Pond at the Mall. or sitting on the steps in front of a College and refusing to move shouldn't be cause for someone to shoot at you or beat you with a stick
And it took a few months to establish that sticking a flower down the barrel of a rifle, or verbal taunts, or even taking a giant shit on a statue of Thomas Jeffferson shouldn't be reason for someone to kill you.
It took no great leap from there to find that throwing rocks was not a good reason for Armed and Helmeted National Guardsmen to fire a volley from Assault Rifles into a crowd of Students.
And that summer after the 7th Grade, thats when I decided I wanted to grow my hair out a little.

Of course, the Niven Law might never have been abstracted were it not for all these things, the first of which is:

1) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1a) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man

Niven's Laws #2

"Everything starts as somebody's daydream."
Larry Niven

MAN TO MAN, ITS A ROY-TAN (An Edit)

"O Father! - chiefly known to me by Thy rod - mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing; I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"

Father Marple - Moby Dick

Part 1 -1981
I pulled into the VA Hospital parking lot in Waco , Texas . It was a 100 mile drive from my home in Fort Worth . I was here to see my father, an Alzheimer's patient. Four years ago I had never heard of Alzheimer's. He had been here for two years now and this was my third visit. That’s not very many.

I should mention that for the years dad spent at the VA hospital he received outstanding care. Normally I would see him in the visitors area on the first floor. I don't recall ever seeing his room exactly.

Today Bill, the male nurse, ushered me to the second floor and the exercise area where Dad is on a treadmill.
"Jack" says Bill" "your son is here".
"Hmmm?" Dad grunts over the top of his glasses.
"Hey Pop, its me, Steve" I offer.
He is still treading away...
'What's that?" Dad asks.
Its your son , Jack" Bill talking… "You have a visitor"
'Hi, Dad"
"Its your son, Jack"
"Whose what?"
"I'm right here Dad, in front of you" and touch his hand that clutches the treadmill handlebars.
Dad laughs his fake belly laugh (it’s a coping mechanism, I have it too) and says
"Bill, there's someone here to see you from Chicago ".

I know that he can see me but you wouldn't know it by his expression. Of course Dad can hear us fine, but we are getting louder.
The problem is not his ears; that would be too easy. Its further in.
Still, you can't help but get louder.
Finally after about ten minutes of this verbal escalation, and the foggy, blank stare that the Alzheimer's patient has where they are not quite looking at you, not quite looking through you and not quite looking past you, but a sort of Brainsquinting thing where they are doing all three, Dad bursts out with amazing focus and clarity:
"THAT'S MY DAMN SON"
Damn right!
He is looking me right in the eye.
"Man to Man, its a Roy-Tan, Dad" as I hand him his cigar.

Dad smoked big Cigars - Stogies - they were not namby-pamby cigars- they were big and thick and puffed great clouds of smoke. In the 60's tobacco was advertised freely on television; you could light a smoke while doing your grocery shopping- and there was a hugely successful commercial for Roy-Tan Cigars.
The commercials all followed the same story line, but the one I remember best was a little bespectacled fellow, Pee-Wee, hitting a large truck with his car. He gets out of his vehicle to survey the damage as the Truck-Driver, Bruno , a huge hairy man gruffly removes himself from his truck to do the same. Just as it looks as though Bruno is going to snap Pee-Wee in half, Pee-Wee produces a huge Roy-Tan cigar from his pocket and Bruno, delighted, lets him off the hook. The announcer says "Man to man it’s a Roy-Tan" and all is well as Pee-Wee and Bruno light up together, huge clouds of smoke, and slapping each other on the back

So I hand dad his cigar. There won't be any matches, there haven't been any matches for a while, but dad is happy to smell it and to feel it in his mouth. I am happy to see him roll it from one side of his mouth to the other, magically, without ever even moving his lips, the way he always did from the time I was just a little boy

There was nothing here that could explain the swiftness of the degenerative process that I had seen for the last 4 years. And there was nothing here that could prepare me for the sharp moments of greater clarity that my father would summon from somewhere within in the next few years, even after the further erosion of his faculties.
But that is a whole 'nother story.

SIMPLE, ELEGANT

When I was a Chef we had a huge gala event coming up. I remember watching a pastry chef painting scrollwork onto tiny chocolate boxes with a gold filigree'. He had 1000 of them to do; it was an exercise in love and patience to apply his craft in that manner.

Some where through the process someone approached him and asked if it was hard to do what he was doing. He looked up and said "no, it is really quite simple".
The observer decided it was a good time to pull out an Einstein quote and said:
"Simplicity is elegant"
and the Pastry chef looked up and smiled
"Yes, and we spend a lot of time on simplicity".

Yes we did, and we learned about more than just food in the kitchen.

It was this quote that inspired this memory, though I'm not certain why...

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

THE DONALD

1997 INTERVIEW WITH MARK SINGER
“O.K.,” I said. “You’re basically alone. Your wife is still asleep”—he was then married, but not for much longer, to Marla Maples—“you’re in the bathroom shaving and you see yourself in the mirror. What are you thinking?”
From Trump, a look of incomprehension.
Me: “I mean, are you looking at yourself and thinking, ‘Wow. I’m Donald Trump?’”
Trump remained baffled.
Me: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”
At the time, I deemed Trump’s reply unprintable. But that was then.
Trump: “You really want to know what I consider ideal company?”
Me: “Yes.”
Trump: “A total piece of ass.”

For the rest of the story, click here...

GOIN A-WHALIN'

  I'm so tired. I been so tired a long time. I used to pop up out of bed in the morning and feel like a million bucks.These days it takes a few minutes and a soak in the shower with my eyes shut before I get my legs under me. Then I feel like a million bucks, or at least I say I do because it helps. It really does help.

  I go in to work and I have the most boring job in the world these days. I'm almost catatonic when I leave. I get through it because its a job I cannot replace.
I'm too old to go a-whalin', too dumb to go to Harvard Law, and too young to retire.
And now I flunked my Testosterone Test. My doctor says that is why I'm so tired.

  What kills me is how old I'm starting to act. I come home in the evening and back-sass the weatherman on TV and feel good about that. I look forward to it. But a minute later I'll be sitting in my rocker, my head is rolling around because I am sound asleep, mouth wide open, with drool coming off my chin and down the front of my checkered shirt. I need a bib, or an attendant to wipe my face and roll me back into my room. I just about need a button to press to call the attendant.

  I have long conversations with friends about Health Care and what medicines we take.

  Now heres the capper. They replaced the Luby's Cafeteria around the corner with a new buffet called the Texas Firepit. But make no mistake...its still a Luby's and just the way Luby's was Great-Aunt Glesnal's favorite, the 'Pit has become my favorite place. I was there at 6:00 sharp 5 days in a row last week. I know half the waitresses by name now. I can walk to the Texas Firepit from my apartment. I wear my checked Bermuda shorts, striped polo shirt, white socks and loafers because I am old and crotchety and don't give a damn. Like grandpa, I've begun "dressing for comfort" either out of sheer laziness or complete ignorance - take your pick.

 If all that still doesn't make me old, this is a sure sign:
I've made friends with a table full of widow women down there.
They smile and wave to see me come in, and let me sit with them. I've even started dressing better when I go.
I can't wait to get there tonight.

PANACHE!

Austrian Philosopher Wittgenstein to the two examiners of his Doctorate thesis at Cambridge:

“Don’t worry boys, I know you’ll never understand it.”
as he slapped them on the shoulders.
I like that.

I FLUNKED

my Testosterone test.
The good Dr. Strznik says this explains why I am tired all the time.
It may explain a lot of things!

LAST CHANCE GROUP REPORTS

H&I Subcommittee Meeting
December 20, 20XX
XXXXXX Group

Duly I arrived when I was approached by one of my fellow H&I Subcommittee Reps.. He proceeded to inform me that there were some rumors circulating concerning him and our group here at Last Chance Group. In keeping with our traditions of anonymity and placing principles before personalities, I will say only that I assured him that Last Chance still operates under the Third Tradition, that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using, and that there had been no motions before the group to bar him for being a jerk. Not yet,.
It was out of compassion that I (being a fairly crotchety loudmouthed opinionated old man with a lot of hair on my ass and thoroughly set in my ways) refrained from informing this person that my personal experience with him could possibly substantiate the first rumor, and he was lucky I didn't just go ahead and punch him in the nose..
As for the second rumor, I informed him that here at Last Chance we are still stressing the importance of the 12 Steps, that we will continue to do so until hell freezes over, and that the only reason we are out of Step Guides is that they have been on back-order since December 1st.
It is not my purpose to perpetuate the spread of these rumors, which I consider to be fairly innocuous if not irresponsible, immaterial and nothing more than idle chatter among loose mouthed people, but to give you a fairly objective and interesting report that might describe and illumonate some spiritual principles, or the lack of, as they present themselves to me in my H&I Experience.
That is all I have to say about that.

It was then presented to the committee that there are certain Chairpersons taking meetings to outside groups, from which there has been no report filed in many months. These Chairpersons have now achieved a “Renegade” Status and the Subcommittee will be contacting these folks forthwith to bring them back into the fold. This includes a Chairperson that falls under our jurisdiction here at Last Chance. This person is supposed to take a meeting to SpringXXXX every week, but without monthly reports it is impossible for the H&I committee to ascertain whether this is being done within their Guidelines, if at all.

“Who is this renegade, this scofflaw who has gone “Rogue?” you might well ask.
It is none other than our own fearless leader who manages to fill many shoes and wear many hats: President, Vice-President de facto, Treasurer tempore’, Asst. Treasurer at large, Rogue Chairperson, President of Third Tradition Motorcycle Club, Sponsor of many and inspiration to all ….
Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Petro!

In a secret meeting at an undisclosed location, I confirmed with the Petro the Rogue Chair that there is a meeting being taken into SpringXXXXevery single Monday night at 8PM, that these meetings meet or exceed H&I Guidelines, and that there are 6-8 people in attendance. Petro and I have determined that I will take his Report to the H&I Meetings, and submit them as a proxy Representative Chair.

Respectfully Submitted by:
 Bulletholes, H&I Subcommittee Group Rep.

GOOD FRIDAY

All the man did was travel and talk peace, they said he healed folks too, and performed miracles and everyone was astounded, and he walked and he talked more peace, and made wine, and then he got to arguing with experts. See, that's the problem with an expert, no one holds a jealous grudge like ol' expert; you can water-walk and talk peace, raise the dead, wash folks feet, but the minute you get up involved with some experts and moneychangers; it just don't much matter all the healin' peacekeepin' feetwashin' you might do. They want the details, and good explanations, gonna whup you, whup you good get a confession-oops-get an explanation from you. An they no like your explanation those experts set you on lumber carry up the top of the hill and yes, there will be nails, and blood because mister, this ain't theatre in the round, no, them experts mean business. But the man traveled I say, and its hard to stop a travelin' man that talks peace, and they took him down wrapped him up and set him in cave, and when they went to check on him, he back to travelin', and they beheld angels said don't look for travelin' peaceful men among the dead, and then he left the peace talkin' to be carried on by us.


So I figure you can either be an expert, or you can talk peace, but I'm not sure you can do both.

"ALMOST CUT MY HAIR"

When I was a boy, I used to spend a week with my grandparents in Grandview twice a summer. Papa had a peach orchard of about 100 trees and several of them were mine. I had planted seeds from the peaches I had eaten years before, and now those trees bore fruit.

In the house there were jars filled with homemade peach preserves. They lined a very sizable pantry on the porch and shelves that ran along the stairway that led to the second floor. Papa had a huge cereal bowl that he filled with corn flakes every morning then topped with half a jar of peach preserves and milk. Then he would take a shot of Sunshine Prune Juice that came in a really cool looking green bottle. All the while during breakfast, the farm report would play from this ancient radio that sat next to the table. It seemed like there was but one weather report all summer long:
“Clear to partly cloudy and hot.”

People came by all the time to get some peaches, and anytime we went anywhere in the car we took peaches with us to give away. I think maybe Papa knew just about everyone from Itasca to Rio Vista. You know, Papa had all those peach trees, but I do declare that he never sold peach one.

Besides the orchard, Papa had a huge garden. It wasn’t quite a farm, though it seemed that way to me when I was a boy. He and Grandma grew most of the food they ate. There was always just a little too much okra and squash on the table for my taste, but what I wouldn’t give now for some of those black-eyed peas!

For Papa, the highlight of those summer visits was at the end of the week. On Saturday, before I left for home, he would take me downtown and get my hair cut. Back then, it was called a buzz-cut and left every hair in your head about quarter-inch long. Then the barber would splash some sweet-smelling rose water or tonic or something on you and remove the cover that protected you from all the hair that had been shaved from your head. He took a brush to any remnants off your shoulders. When you ran your hand across your head, it felt funny and gave you a chill up the back of your neck. Sometimes I thought my head resembled a peach after that haircut.

The whole time, Papa would be talking with all his buddies, so proud of the young man and the haircut taking place. As you stepped from the chair, the ol’ timers would tell Papa what a good looking young man he had there. The barber shop on Saturdays was the meeting spot for Papa’s buddies — the same buddies who always had two tables of dominoes going in Papa’s barn with a cloud of tobacco smoke and gentle smell of whiskey in the air.

One year, I think it was right after seventh grade and Kent State, when it came the last day at Papa’s at the end of the summer, he asked if I was ready to go downtown for my haircut. I remember looking up at him and saying:
“You know Papa, I’ve been thinking. I might want to let my hair grow out a bit.”

I’ll never forget the look on his face. You would have thought I’d cut his heart out.
I’ve been thinking all these years that Papa had that look on his face because he didn’t like long hair. But now that I’m older, I think maybe he had that look because he was going to need a new excuse to go downtown on Saturdays.

This was first published as a post titled "PEACH FUZZ" a few years ago. It is my second story to run in the Alvarado Star Newspaper. They titled it "Summer visits meant peaches and haircuts" which I am not really wild about, but it is assumed they know what they are doing.

WORST LOVE SONGS EVER #4

"Tonights the Night” by Rod Stewart

Heres a guy that wears Seafoam Green lame’ pants, a frosted blonde hairdo, and treats jewelry the way Tammy Faye treated make-up.
Look at that androgenous look on his face; he just wants to be touched and he doesn't really care by who. If you look closely you can see he has at least been vaccinated for something.
Sometimes I let a bad song pass because maybe it helped get me laid, but I just can't do that here.
Its bad enough that Rod threatens to kidnap you and keep you hostage with these frightening opening lines:

“Stay away from my window
Stay away from my back door too
Disconnect the telephone line”

That's creepy.
Its hard to stop a man wearing a waist bracelet.
But did we really need to suffer through all the moanin’ and groanin’ going on at the close of this song?

ABDOMINAL THRUSTS

So here comes Pam Paul at the Key's Lounge "Buddy Whittington and Rusty Burns Show",  runnin' up to me, her eyes buggin' out like Roger Rabbit, cheeks bulging and clutching her throat. I figure that either she is jealous because I have brought a date and intends to strangle me, or else she might be choking. I quickly deduce that it must be the latter, as she has begun to turn a Smurfish blue.
"Pam, are you OK?"
She shakes her head no.
"Pam, are you choking?"
She shakes her head yes, vigorously.
'Pam, will you consent to me performing a Heimlich Maneuver, without the fear of lawsuit or litigation should this all end badly?"
She rolled her eyes and shook her head yes.

I hollered 'Someone dial 911" just to cover my bases because that's what they taught me  in order to get my First Aid Merit Badge way back when.
I got behind Pam Paul and grabbed her up good with my arms around her, up under her breasts, bent her over a bit and I squeezed like all get out; I think the technical term is "Abdominal Thrusts"; and I could tell that first thrust didn't do no good, so I said:
 "Are you ready for another one baby?"
and she shook her head and I give another abdominal thrust and I could tell that didn't do any good either 'cause nice soft little Pam Paul was still hard as a bicycle tube under that blouse and I was just about to give her another good abdominal thrust when I look up to see Snow White Miller standing there (she was wearing the most gorgeous arctic cream colored fuzzy fluffy sparkly deep fluffy turtle necked top that accentuated her pixie face and magnificent fluffy bust line, and ridin' pants tucked into some kinda knee boots like I never seen before, she's a real number, that Snow White Miller is) and she is looking at me all aghast like "What the hell are you doing to Pam Paul?" as though I am acting out a modern day "Rape of the Sabine Women" and I tried to get the guilty look off my face and said:
"Its not how it looks Snow, I promise"
and gave one last deep abominable thrust and *POOF* out came the Fajita Nacho Pam had swallered whole and Pam's body relaxed, began to deflate, her cute smile returned to her dimpled face, her color restored and she could breathe again.
She was back to lovely.
And that's how I came to save Pam Paul's life last night.
I was a Chef for 25 years, but this was the first time I ever did a Heimlich.
Pam came to me a little later and said "Ooooh, Steve, I'm still shaking" and I winked at her-
"Me too baby, I need a cigarette!"

OPENING DAY

I've had this picture for months. You'd think after blogging for 5 years, and reading posts by Davy and UF Mike, that I would be able to come up with some kind of crazy story to go with this picture, but I just absolutely have no talent for fiction.
You can tell it is a Maneater, a rogue, and once a squirrel gets a taste for man-flesh people will come up missing. Even thats not original; I stole it from Souby

Or there is a really bad joke about a squirrel hunter in East Texas that knocked squirrels out of trees, stone cold dead as they hit the ground, just on the virtue of his being so ugly. When asked if he knew anyone else ugly enough to kill a squirrel, he indicated his wife was, but she couldn't come squirrel hunting anymore because she was SO ugly it tore 'em up too bad, and there was nothing left of them after they seen her.

There were squirrels in our neighborhood in Detroit, and the brown ones could be tamed with a bag of nuts to the point they would eat out of your hand. The black ones, well, they never did seem to trust nobody, but in Detroit in 1967, how could you blame them.

Anyway, thats about all I know to say about this really funny picture.

FROM MY MINUTES

3) Chris B. wants to know what to do to make smoking meetings more tolerable, they are way rank. I asked if we could ban cigars, and several smokers in the group suggested the rest of us simply stop breathing.

WHO YOU KNOW

I started this blog almost five years ago to try to learn to type better, and to try to improve my writing skills to where I didn't send out as many dipshit unreadable E-mails as my co-workers. The next thing I knew, I had myself a full blown hobby. At times I may have written myself out of some dark and misty places. Along the way I picked up some pretty good friends that I will likely never meet, yet we may know each other in ways that folks that see us every day do not.

But writing, it was fun. I had a run a while back where I did like 320 posts in 340 days. Then I slowed considerably on the blog, but continued pretty heavy on Facebook.
And like anything else in this world, its who you know  as much as what you know.
I met a woman on Facebook a while back, and she became Editor of a weekly newspaper, the Alvarado Star. And she saw some of my stories, some of which take place around Alvarado and she wanted to use some of them in her paper because of that. My grandparents lived in the vicinity for 60 odd years, and I have relatives around Alvarado dating to 1850.
Yesterday, they published one of these stories. Here is the link, and a picture of me large enough that it looks like I could eat Tokyo, or at the very least a Bowling Alley.

I do not get paid. . My hope is that I will get to do more stories for the Alvarado Star. The payoff is that sometimes I can write a story that will bring fond memories back to folks that read them. That always makes me feel good, and I usually know it when I have done it, though I don't really know anything about writing
But the Grand Prize for me will be when someone that knew my grandparents, or their parents that settled and lived and farmed and died here; or my father when he was a boy; or Uncle Harry who allegedly never drove a car but preferred to ride his horse right up till 1970; the Grand Prize will be when someone reads a story of mine and says:
 "I knew your grandparents Steve, I remember them well "
and then, THEY can tell ME a story. I would like that maybe more than anything in the whole wide world, so much the thought brings a lump to my throat.
Yessir, that would be the day!

THE NUTRITIONIST PART THREE

She called me Monday to confirm our appointment on Tuesday.
'How have you been Mr. Bullets?"
"Doc, I hate to say it but I think I gained weight again"
'Thats not good"
"Nope".

The reason I told her I might have gained weight was because even though for one week I had played tennis twice, gone dancing twice and played two hours worth of softball, the last week I had done nothing but walk from the car to the couch.
But when I weighed at the scheduled appointment I was surprised to find I had lost 4 pounds!
Four pounds!
I was so excited that I gave her a high five, and they had to recheck my blood pressure.

After I consult with her for thirty minutes, the Doctor always comes in and consults with me. He was right pleased I had lost weight, and my blood pressure checked good on the re-check, and he asked about my diabetes numbers, which also looked good.
'Have you had a Testosterone Test?" he asked.
"No doc, do I need one?"
'Well, if you are low on testosterone, sometimes that can affect your blood sugar, and if we get those levels corrected we could possibly reduce your diabetes medicine."
"Well how about that doc!" says I "And maybe that would explain why Mr. Happy ain't as happy as he used to be" and I pointed down to my crotch.

I've told you about Dr. Strznik before. He has that loppy-jawed Jack Elam eye, and the one happy eye, and I always manage to crack him up. His eyes started this chameleon spin thing they do and he chuckles and leaned back in his chair and says "Are you having trouble with your erection Bulletholes?"
"Well Doc, its hard to say because I haven't really needed one in some time now, because I just seem to be better off by myself these days. But I can tell you that when I am by myself, things just aren't the same as when I was a little boy, if you know what I mean. In fact they aren't the same as about a year ago."
"Well, Bullets, would you like something to help fix that?"
"I don't know Doc. Do guys come in here and get that stuff just so they can have a better time..well...you know... a better time all by themselves?"

And ol' Doc Strznik, he just busted out laughin' and his eyes we're doing that kaleidoscope thing and he says;
"Probably so, but none of them ever do say so".

"Clear to Partly Cloudy and Hot Today"

Whenever I think of Grandview, I think of sitting in the kitchen in the morning and grandpa had this big black tube radio that took halfway through the Farm and Market report to warm up; it was ancient, this leather clad radio with a weird dial, and sometimes there would be fuzz and feedback and grandpa would give it a backhand saying "cock-eyed radio". He wasn't really angry, it was just part of the routine, the same routine we had while watching Big-Time Wrestling on Saturday nights when he would seem to verbally joust with Dan Coats, the very excitable ring announcer.

"Johnny Valentine has the referee Bronco Lubich caught in the ropes . He's going to hit him with a chair!"
"A chair" grandpa would repeat, in disbelief.
"While Fritz von Erich is knocked out cold in the center of the ring " Coats would gasp.
"No he's not" grandpa would respond, dryly.
" But here comes Wahoo McDaniel!"
the very excited Dan Coats would say, and my grandfather, much annoyed by this, would mumble back:
'Here he comes"
and then Dan would say with some surprise
"Wahoo is doing his War Dance! Wahoo hits Johnny with a huge Tomahawk chop!"
and grandpa would say, with real disgust in his voice this time
"It was HUGE alright"
And Fritz would revive himself, pin Johnny, and Coats would get closure, then they would break for a Kissinger's Discount Auto Parts commercial and grandpa would mumble "cock-eyed Kissinger's" and get up and smile at me and we would go get some more ice cream with peaches from the kitchen.

And every morning you looked out the window and saw the heat waves start coming off the shed roof, and the radio would whine, and you could almost feel the black gumbo dirt slowly cracking open underneath your feet because that's what it surely would do. You could look down into those cracks later that day and I'll swanny, you could almost see clear to China. Some folks call it Blackland soil; the Blackland Railroad operates out of Sulphur Springs. They make a beer in Iowa called Black Gumbo, named after this soil, which is a marine sediment. I remember when I was a kid you could always find cockle shells in the garden, and little clams too. They got black gumbo dirt up all the way to Montana, and Dinosaurs and other critters have been getting stuck in it for 150 Million years.
You might think you seen mud, but you have never seen anything like black gumbo. You don't dare walk across it when its wet. You will end up with feet that weigh 50 pounds each before you get too far. Cattlemen say its hard to run a lot of cattle on this soil during a wet winter, so many get stuck, and there is a concern during the summer that an animal might get swallowed up in one of those cracks, or least ways break a leg.
But it is very rich for agriculture, and grandpa used to say you could stick a crowbar in it and the next day have Mercury dimes.

But grandpa would backhand the cock-eyed radio, the Farm Report would be pork bellies down five cents, beef up about the same; it looked like it would be a real good year for sorghum, but a poor year for cotton . Somewhere probably, Johnny, Bronco, Fritz and Wahoo were all having breakfast together, and the weatherman would drawl the same thing every day:
"Clear to Partly Cloudy and Hot today".

A JELLY OMELET

They always said my Grandma was the first woman to have a drivers license in Johnson County. I don't know if its true or not, they always said a lot of things but I'll tell you what is true.

Grandma made the best scrambled eggs I ever had.
She had this little Cast Iron Skillet, it was just my size when I was 4,and she would put it on the stove next to the strangest coffee pot I ever saw. It was glass,with a top and bottom, and the water started out in the bottom and it moved up to the top as you watched, and passed through the grounds and finally ended up as coffee in the top. It was a magical thing to behold, and even though I understand the physics of it today, there is still some mystery left within the memory. I've never seen another coffee pot like it, ever.

But back to grandma and those eggs. Her trick, that is to say what she did that made them so good in my eyes, was she would cook them till they were a little brown. My momma cooked them for me like that too, but she didn't have that little black iron skillet, and they just weren't the same. Especially after Grandma reached into the icebox, past the row of six-and-a-half ounce bottles of Dr. Pepper, and pulled out a little Grape Jelly to put on my eggs. Mama never did that.

Grandma would let me help her in the garden. She showed me how to clip off old blossoms on her Roses, and how to snap the little buds off the Mums, explaining how this would make the remaining buds bloom into bigger flowers. She was a member of the Grandview Garden Club, and had a flowered bonnet and friends that came by while we were outside to talk to her, and take a good long look at me. Then we might go hang some laundry on the clothesline, or she might take me to the Crawdad pond, right there south of the house before you got to the High School.

I remember one day after hanging the laundry she went back inside the house to get a string and bacon and a safety pin so we could do just that. I got a little bored waiting for her to come back out, and started to shaking the T-Shaped Laundry pole. It made a funny buzzing sound, and the laundry bounced up and down on the pins clipped to the wire, and the whirring buzzing sound got louder and I shook shook shook the heck out of that pole and then my grandmother was there at the back door to the house and waving her arms and hollering something but I couldn't hear what she was hollering because the buzzing sound was so loud and then I saw a hornet. And another hornet and another, and I started running as fast as I could because now there was that loud buzzing and a cloud of hornets all over my head and they were stinging me as I flew towards the house where Grandma was hollerin' for me to "stop shakin' that pole".
Because there were hornets in there.

What really kills me though, what I think of most when I think back on this, is how no kid in these days of excess would be happy with one little six-and-a-half ounce bottle of Dr. Pepper.

LOOKING FOR RHONDA

"If you see her, say hello"
In the 9th grade, she sure could wear that choker.
We were the standard for a couple kids going steady back then; matching shoes, shirts and pants; rode the same bus to school; Friday Night couples skate down at Skateland; but we had the added bonus of her being my sisters 2nd best friend which meant...
Sleepovers!

REMEMBERING GAMES AND DAISY CHAINS AND LAUGHS

Tootie, she is my long lost friend from High School. She was a nice girl when I met her and she was a nice girl when I saw her last, all those years ago, except she had learned, among other things, how to smoke a little pot.
She says her first time was  with me, in my car, at the All Saints of the Resurrection Church parking lot in the rain, with "Dark Side of the Moon" playing. I had been trying to get her to have a toke for some time. I was leaning against my door, legs outstretched, and she was leaning against her door and I twisted one up and lit it. The car was a 68 Impala rag top, and I imagine the top leaked and the interior filled with smoke, and we got stoned and made out. That's what I liked to do the best, was get stoned and make out. It didn't matter much if it was "Dark Side of the Moon" or 'Ten years After". But I probably took Tootie home, still a nice girl except for having smoked a little pot and done a little smoochin'.

She told me later that the next day she had gone to the lake with her family. They had a boat out at Possum Kingdom Lake, and they all went skiing. She was in her swimsuit. Her mother started giving her the hairy eyeball.

"WHAT IS THIS?" her mother asks. She moves Tootie's hair from around her neck, revealing a deep purple bruise right at the nape of her neck, just over the collarbone.
"What?" says Tootie, covering the bruise with her hand.
Their eyes lock. In my mind I can see the guilty look on Tootie's face and the wheels spinning in her mothers mind....
"BULLETHOLES!" her mother snaps. 'THATS THAT DARN BULLETHOLES ISN'T IT?"

Tootie still smoked some pot with me after that, but she never let me make out with her anymore.
And I never did get to go skiing with them at Possum Kingdom.

ANGELINE

Angeline, Angeline
darker nights I've never seen
I don't love these East Texas pines
where I can't find my sleep
in the shadows so deep
dark as these doubts in my mind


slow train down the tressle goin East 'cross the Neches
like the one I got off of a long time ago
outside of a little town where I never meant to settle down
not knowing the seeds I would sow

barefoot in the autumn weeds, cotton dress hanging to your knees
to the eyes of a stranger you offered a smile
I went to work in your daddy's fields didn't seem like such a bad deal
least it would do for awhile


we were both young and unabashed we took what life offered
when the folks were distracted or too tired to care
with a frost on the land the fates forced our hand
your dresses fit tighter with the spring in the air


now I watch the trains rattle on from the seat of the tractor
your daddy's old harness still hangs in the barn
and your mama don't like it that our children all scattered
she swears its my blood
it was not meant to farm


and you and I don't talk alot; we don't really have to
we spent many years reading each other's mind
we used up the lightning now we don't bother fighting
such things will happen in time

Angeline, Angeline
darker nights I've never seen
I don't love these East Texas pines
where I can't find my sleep
in the shadows so deep
dark as these doubts in my mind


james mcmurtry


If ever I'd like to plagarize a song this would be it. Down in East Texas there is the Angeline National Forest, an almost inpenetrable pine thicket where the quiet can almost be deafening and the stars and moon are lost in the tall canopies, creating a darker night than you have ever seen. There is the Angelina River, and the Neches too,  that McMurtry references, with weatherbeaten barns and scattered families, broken down tractors and battered old harnesses, and the Neches just runs silently through the whispering pines.
Unlike McMurtry, I dearly do love those pines.
My mama's side is from down there, and he could be singing about them. Quiet people, capable of sitting in a room or on a porch for hours at atime without saying a word, fully content with their lot.
"Such things will happen in time."

POETRY

A long time ago I had a briefcase full of notebooks with Poetry I had written. It was all very painfull, and mostly plagarized, and the ones in red ink were the worst. You should be very glad that I lost it.
I am.
I'm glad its gone.
I wish I had it back.
Ain't that just like poetry?

THE STEVE SHOW

You know, sometimes when I chair meetings I wonder what some of the old timers think, the way I act so crazy sometimes. Well, not so much crazy as much as I'm just so good at it. I'm a good reader, and a good talker, and my years growing up in Michigan gave me that midwestern accent which I can turn on and off at will. I'm also quite animated, if you can imagine, as well as being a loudmouth. But I'm a funny, happy loudmouth, and  I can make my voice sound like a Game Show host at just the right times.
But there is more to chairing a meeting than having a good voice. As Chairperson, you pick and present a topic, and I'm good at that too. Maybe the most important thing a chair does is to sit back and shut up after the topic is presented, and let the meeting find its way, and to make sure that whoever is sharing has your undivided attention, because you set the example for everybody else.

But I wonder sometimes, what the Old Timers think. Guys that have been around for 20 years and always come off serious as a Heart Attack about everything. Not everyone is supposed to be a loudmouth, not everyone can do that, and sometimes I feel uncomfortable when my personality just takes over and I start in being carefree, laughing, foolish and wise, and I look over at Yak-Yak and Digger, two guys with about 50 years clean time between them, and they are almost scowling at me with Zero appreciation for my jollility..
So yesterday, when it became obvious that we needed a chair for the noon, and L'il Christie asked me to do it, I said "I really just wanted to listen. I really don't feel like putting on the "Steve Show" today" and of course everybody laughed and then Petro, the tough lookin' no-nonsense President of the Third Tradition Motorcycle Club who sometimes looks at me like I'm nuts, he says:
"But I LIKE the Steve Show"
So how could I refuse that?
Its not easy being me , its really not.

CLEAR TO PARTLY CLOUDY

Whenever I think of Grandview,  I think of sitting in the kitchen in the morning and grandpa had this big black tube radio that took halfway through breakfast to warm up; it was ancient, this leather clad radio, and every morning you looked out the window and saw the heat coming off the shed roof, and you could almost feel the black gumbo dirt slowly cracking open; you could look down into those cracks later that day and I'l swanny,  you could almost see clear to China; the announcer on the radio would drawl the same thing every day "Clear to Partly Cloudy and Hot today".

THE TENTH STEP (cont.)

Oh lord yes, this Tenth Step is such a pain in the butt, filling out this whole long list, not so much because I have some hard thing to put on my personal inventory, but because yesterday was a quiet, sheepish, lazy day, where I tried to recover from my softball injury (I had taken a hot shot to the shoulder) and did a physical inventory of the Stockroom at work (without incident or complaint, mind you) and then went to dinner at the Fortune Star Buffet, where I got the really scary looking Waitress, the one that looks so Communist with her hair up and Red Uniform with sandals, and that wry smile that is not a smile, but a smirk as if she knows I am not a member of the Party but a Capitalist pig, a fork-using member of the Capitalist Pig Party, but she is depending on my wallet tonight to make her living while the MUZAK plays 'Flower Drum Song". I keep imagining four big Chinese Henchmen to come out from behind the beaded curtain beyond which lay the kitchen, for the purpose of torturing me in some Oriental fashion, but instead its just her nephew, a smiling buck-toothed black eyed little guy named Ed, bringing Hot Tea for the couple next to me. They know how to use their Chopsticks, and I have to wonder if they might be Comrades to the Waitress, but finish my dinner quickly, pay my bill without incident and drive back home to settle in to watch and record Part Two of "Ken Burns 'The Civil War".
I didn't have a blank tape, so I taped over "Amistad". I guess that was the worst thing I did all day, right there.

But I got my list all filled out. Thats fifteen days in a row now.

CROSS-EYED MYRA

She looks like my old girl Cross-eyed Myra.
Same hair, Cross-eyed Myra's hair looked like that always, and it was a good look for Myra; wild, untamed and unpredictable. But thats not the only thing what reminds me of Cross-eyed Myra in this picture.
Nobody ever accused Cross-eyed Myra of being good looking, but she had great meaty beaty bouncing breasts and if you cinched 'em up in a top like that, thats how they would look except she never cinched em up, they always hung wild and free slouched in a halter. But thats not all what that reminds me of Cross-eyed Myra in this picture.

Myra was Sex-crazed and rambuctious. If you started out in bed, you wound up on the floor. Myra lived just a few houses down from me and would call me whenever her parents left.
"I'm having a party" she would call on the phone and say, and you were the party, which started right when she opened the door, and you may or may not ever make it all the way to the bedroom. that was the only thing predictable about Cross-eyed Myra.

The lights stayed on pretty much all night every night in Myra's room. She was the physical embodiment of Robert Palmers song "Addicted to Love". Her teeth would grind, her hands would sweat, she bucked like a wild mare and her eyes would cross when she reached the moment of truth.

What really reminds me of Cross-eyed Myra about this picture is the mouth. Such a pretty, naughty smile. She looks like if she were to open her mouth, two Doves and a Canary might fly out.  Cross-eyed Myra smiled and looked at you just like that right before she ate you up.
I don't think I've left much out here.
No, thats not true.
I've left a helluva lot out.

Whew! F'n Myra!
Thanks Mike, for reminding me of Myra!

"SHE RANKS ME"

Today is the birthdate of Dorothea Dix, Union Superintendent of Nurses during the Civil War. She wanted plain looking women between the ages of 35 and 50 with no make-up or jewelry in order to provide a modest environment and keep them from being exploited by the wounded men (and the Doctors) , but by the end of the war her only question was "When can you start?".
She worked the duration of the war without pay.
At the end of the war General Sherman had this to say about her:
"She ranks me"*

Part Two of the Six Part Ken Burns Masterpiece 'The Civil War" on tonight, and continuing on through the week. I advise you record it.
It could help get rid of a pesky bill collector someday.

*Uh-oh-- occasionally I try to write these things up from memory, and after doing a fact check I find it was not  Dorothea Dix that General Tecumseh Sherman said this about. It was Mary Ann "Mother" Bickersdyke.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Bickerdyke

WITHIN ME AND WITHOUT ME

I smoked a pack a day for 30 years. I started out smoking Raliegh's, they came with a coupon on the back you could save up for valuable gifts, and it was the foulest smelling cigarette ever made. They really stank up an elevator; this was back in the day you could smoke anywhere, anytime. In line in a grocery store or looking through clothes racks at JC Penny's, there were no smoking regulations, it didn't matter.
For proof of this you need only look at the picture above, taken in the "Smoking Area" at my High School. My kids are astounded that cigarette smoking was part of the curriculum at LD Bell High School.
I even had a little saying too, that went like this:
"There are times that you need a cigarette, and there are times that you need a Raleigh"
"When would that be?" you might ask. Times like these.

It seemed mandatory to smoke a pack a day, and for 30 years I never varied from the 20 cigarettes that come in a pack by more than 3 butts either way. I could be drinking, drugging, fishing, sleeping, have Double Pneumonia, it didn't matter; I still smoked just about 20 cigarettes a day.
That's why it was a strange thing a few years ago when I looked up one day and became aware that I had only smoked half a pack this last 24 hours.. And then a week later I found that instead of having smoked my mandatory pack a day, this pack in my hands was at least 48 hours old with squares to spare.
A few months later I found that a pack of cigarettes was lasting me a week, and when I lit one up it tasted, in the words of George Carlin, "like crap", and after a few drags I was done. I'd make sour face and snuff the son-of-a-bitch out. I began to sense that I was losing interest in smoking, as if my body and mind were rejecting cigarettes because I was making no effort to quit and yet it was starting to seem like I didn't smoke at all, with no cravings or nicotine fits.

I woke up one morning without cigarettes, and determined to get a pack ASAP. I got home from work later that day and still hadn't bought a pack of cigarettes. Finally at 10:00 that night  I walked across the street and dropped a five-spot on the counter and walked away with a pack, a pack that I forgot to open when I got home and did not open till sometime the next day. Later that month I realized the half pack sitting on my dresser had been there for three weeks. I threw it in the trash.

Somehow God had taken cigarettes away from me. I think maybe they were about to kill  me, those cigarettes, but not until after they made me really sick first, and some Higher Power within me or without me had intervened.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.
Its been 3 years now, and I still wheeze a little when I breathe.

Smoking. I sure don't miss it one bit, and if I figure up the dollar figure on what I've saved the last 3 years its about $4,500 give or take.
You know what cracks me up? Seeing an Executive in a 3 piece suit probably makes 6 figures standing alone outside his office building blowing smoke rings with a look of supreme concentration on his face like he's really doing something.
He ain't doin' diddly-shit, 'cept standing in freezin' drizzle or scorching heat slavin' away suckin' a butt, and the minute he gets back to his desk up on the 16th floor, he's gonna want another one. 
Either way he's missin' out.
You can't get a Raleigh anywhere anymore.

SOUBRIQUET

Some of you may have read my stories about my mom and dad and the year that I lost them. Some of you may know my buddy Souby at Grit in the Gears. He lost his mom last week, and put up what I think is a marvelous story that he will treasure always. He tells it in his usual excellent style, and I could not help but smile with a lump in my throat to read it. It may not have been appropriate while reading a Eulogy, but I actually spewed coffee to hear what an imp his mother had been.
She hid it behind the lettuce.
Good for her.
Click here to read Soubriquets post...SHE"S GONE