WORLD TRADE CENTER

Everyone has their story to tell concerning 9/11 and so do I. I have been posting this story every year for a long time. Tomorrow I will write a different 9/11 story


In February of 1993 I had been looking for a Chef position for several months. I finally found work with a good company out of Dallas called “Culinaire’ International” . They had their fingers in a lot of pots, so to speak, including several Private Clubs and a High End Catering operation that did a lot of business with Ross Perot. The biggest part of their operation was doing foodservice for some large concerns in the Trade Area of Dallas. In addition to the Apparell Mart (Clothing), the Info Mart (Technology) and Market Hall (Housewares and Furnishings), they also did events at the Dallas Convention Center. They worked out of a huge kitchen in the World Trade Center @ Dallas.

Bear with me here...

On a “try-out” basis, I was hired to work mainly on one event coming up- the “Mary Kay” convention @ the Convention Center. It was Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner for 10,000 ladies for 3 days. We spent 2 weeks operating as a food processor, sealing foods we prepared into bags and storing them in two 18 Wheel Trailers. This was all done in and just outside the World Trade Center@ Dallas.

When it came event time, the trailers and an awful lot of equipment went to the Convention Center from the World Trade Center. Included in the Equipment were about a dozen of what we called “Boiling Oceans”. They were big water baths or “Bain Maries” as we call them in the business. I don’t know how many gallons of water they held, but they were about 12’ x3’ and 2 feet deep. We used them to heat up all the food that we had been "Seal-a-Mealing” for the last 2 weeks. The heat was generated by big propane tanks, not the backyard BBQ kind, but the one’s that look like Torpedoes.

The 3 days went smoothly, and I was impressed by the company and they seemed to like me. It took 2 days of hard work to get the Conevention Center cleaned up and everything back to the World Trade Center.

On my last day there, one of the last tasks I had was to take the leftover Propane tanks and put them in cages on the 2nd floor of the World Trade Center. On the way up I checked to make sure the valves were completely closed. Outside the cage, I again checked to make sure the valves were completely shut. And after putting them in the cages ….checked again. All 40 Propane Tanks are secure. Cage is locked.



An hour later I was on my way home. It’s a beautiful February day in 1993 and I am excited about the prospect of going to work for “Culinaire International”. At some point I turn on the radio for some tunes but what I get is a “Special Report”.

It is breaking news and what I hear is this:
““There has been an explosion at the World Trade Center. I can see smoke pouring out of the 2nd Floor window and people are being evacuated. Emergency vehicles are arriving but we have no further information. Stay tuned for further information..”“



““WHOA!““I am freakin’ out.
I says to myself ““I know none of those tanks were open. I checked them all. I double checked them all…”
“Then what caused the explosion?” the other voice in my head asks.“


Should I go back and explain that it could not be the tanks on the second floor that I had “Secured” that had caused this explosion? Sure, I’ll tell the newsguy that and the backdrop can be the smoke pouring out of the 2nd floor window.

Like I said, I’m freakin’ out.

I frantically search the radio dial all the way home. One more report confirms the explosion being at the World Trade Center and that the smoke is coming out of windows all the way up to the 5th floor now and there appear to be only a few minor injuries. Information is still sketchy as this has just occurred within the hour.
Freakin’ out.
I'm losin' it.

Pull into my driveway, run into the house to turn on the news. I am sure that not only have my chances at”Culinaire” gone up in smoke, but I am forever to be known as the guy that blew up the WTC @ Dallas.
T.V. is on.
I can stop freakin’ out.
By coincidence some fanatic had parked a Van full of fertilizer in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York City.
It was February 26, 1993 and that event that day would come to be known as the , "First World Trade Center Bombing".

That was 13 (sic) years ago and I had no idea at the time just how common* this kind of thing might become.
I had no idea I would wake up one morning to find someone had flown a plane into each of those two towers.
That’s my story.

*This was written some years ago. Fortunately the steps that have been taken to help protect us have worked well. It has not become a common occurance on our soil , but like Kissyface commented a few years ago, some folks have really made a foul use of us perceiving it that way.

PAYING ATTENTION

"No matter how careful you are, there’s going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn’t experience it all. There’s that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should’ve been paying attention."

— Chuck Palahniuk

FULLY CLOTHED WOMEN

 "I do respect her but...still love to watch her strut"

"Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world."

— Marilyn Monroe

"But first, are you experienced?"

THE BACKPACK

Labor Day marks the official end of summer down here in Texas. After ringing up 68 days of 100 degree plus temperatures, we celebrated Labor Day this year with a high of only 93. It was glorious, and I had a splendid day at a BBQ and Bluesfest where my good friend Buddy Whittington played.


Buddy is a local boy, and there are always a great group of friends at his shows. At Sundays festival my son was there, and the ex-Mrs Bulletholes was there too. My son Rip had a young lady with him, and he had a backpack too, I assume it contained Rip’s clothes and a toothbrush in for whatever he might be doing with the young lady after the show.

It was Rips backpack that became the center of much controversy, and nearly ruined my own plans.

See, the Ex Mrs Bulletholes has been keeping up with the boys backpack ever since his very first backpack.
In the first grade she would ask him if he had his backpack when he was getting ready for school.
In the second grade, she would have to take his backpack to school after he forgot it.
In the third grade, she would have to take him to look for his backpack whenever he left it out in a muddy field somewhere.
In the fourth grade, she would have to buy him a new backpack after he lost his.
All the way through 12th grade, she would task herself (often drafting me as well) with anything associated with his bloody backpack. The first question after school every day for twelve years was “Rip, where is your backpack?”

Everyday. Twelve years.

So Sunday night Rip is at the festival with his girl, and everyone is having a good time, and I'm up dancing in the crowd, and people are cheering me on,  and I have a very elaborate plan to slip away right after Buddy plays. There is someone meeting me outside the back lot, see, and the show is over now, the next act is setting up, and I’m just about to make my big break when the Ex Mrs Bulletholes grabs me and asks “Where is Rip?”.

‘He was sitting right there.“ I say, and I turn to point to his lawn chair. The chair is empty, except for his backpack.
“Well, he’s not there now and he left his backpack” she says.
“Hmmff” I say, because I could give a rats ass about where he is or what he’s doing because all I can think about is slipping out of this gig, and getting myself to the backlot.
‘You have to find him” she says “And make sure he gets his backpack.
I’m trying to stay cool. I need to split, like now.“Why don’t you call him?” I say ‘And you can see what he wants YOU to do about his backpack.”
“OK” she says and starts dialing her phone, so I say “Good, its settled” and start to leave but she grabs me and says ‘Wait, I may need you to help make sure he gets his backpack.”

Dear God in Heaven.

Well, that’s just not happening, because I couldn’t care less about Rips backpack; my business is ducking out to the backlot in the next 5 minutes… Here he is, 21 years old, 17 years experience dealing with a backpack, and the Ex Mrs Bulletholes has still got her finger on the pulse of his backpack, and is still, after all these years, recruiting me to help deny him his pain, his pain of losing his backpack. So while she was making her second call to him about his backpack at the Bluesfest, I was non-chalantly slipping further out of range until I turned and ran as fast as I could away from there.

I never even had a backpack, except the one in Scouts, and my momma never had a thing to do with it.

CREAMY CUCUMBER SOUP

Funny, here I am with all these blog posts covering 4 years and outside of a few "Shoe Based" menu's, I have never left ya'll a recipe'. At a readers request (Kim)  here is something nice and light and tres petite for the end of summer...


Creamy Cucumber Soup
Peel and seed cucumbers, half inchrough dice, into the food processor with just enough heavy cream to fill halfway up the cukes. Get it?
Pulse lightly, don't overdo it.
S&P, finish with lots of fresh dill cut with a knife, not in the processor.
Float a little dollop of sour cream and dill sprig as a garnish. Or not.
Best if you chill nicely for a few hours. Keeps well overnight.
Serve in a big red wine glass.

Clean, so very clean on the palate. Some folks put yogurt or lemon and other stuff. I prefer it unmasked and pure.
Have a nice Holiday Weekend!

The God Who Only Knows Four Words~

Every child has known God.

Not the God of names.

Not the God of don't.

Not the God who ever does anything weird.

But the God who only knows four words.

And keeps repeating them, saying:
'Come dance with me.'

Come

Dance.

~Hafiz (16th century Sufi poet)

REAL NUMBERS

My niece Jen, she writes. She is working on her dissertation for a Doctorate in Math. She wrote this last week that really threw me:
"In spite of a few bad writing days, my writing streak now numbers 31 days, exactly 15.5 times longer than my previous longest writing streak."

The question implied was obvious, I can visualize the formula, but to me the answer was not so obvous. I get stuck somewhrere.
Maybe I don't deal well with halves.
To me, a half an apple is an impossibility.
What do I mean?
What could the other half be?
Well?
Even half an apple is still an apple, yes?

ITSY-BITSY SPIDER

"In the winter, we shall travel in a little pink railway carriage
With blue cushions.
We shall be comfortable. A nest of mad kisses lies in wait
In each soft corner.

You will close your eyes, so as not to see, through the glass,
The evening shadows pulling faces.
Those snarling monsters, a population
Of black devils and black wolves.

Then you’ll feel your cheek scratched…
A little kiss, like a crazy spider,
Will run round your neck…

And you’ll say to me : “Find it !” bending your head
- And we’ll take a long time to find that creature
- Which travels a lot…"

Arthur Rimbaud: "A Dream for Winter"

A REAL CLASSY JOINT

I had my friend Susan from Mobile over for dinner last night. We always have so much fun! I made a nice Creamy Cucumber Soup w/ Dill. I had forgotten how good that stuff is.

Anyway we are cleaning up after (you wouldn’t believe how clean my apartment has been lately) and she asks if I had any ‘dishrags”.

Man, there was something about that question that caused the short hairs on my neck to go up. I didn’t even know how to answer at first. So I got to thinking about it and I remembered from my old chef days in the kitchen how it went.

Some new cook, fresh out of prison, or chefs school maybe, would come along, apron all dirty, tomato sauce on his sleeves, lard and flour on his shoetops, Guacamole finger-marks on his pant-legs and ask:
“Where do you keep the rags?”
“The what?”
“The rags.”
“Rags, excuse me? This is not a Jiffy Lube here ya know. This is the Hyatt. We call them “towels”.”

Of course I had to tell Susan I was just an old bachelor, and didn’t hardly even have any “towels”. I been using old torn shirts and socks and underwear and stuff.
I’m going to have to get me some proper kitchen towels.

ROPE

"Give a guy enough rope and he will shoot himself in the head"

PLUTONIUM YELLOW

62 Days over 100. They ought to have a name for that, like they have a name for hurricanes and stuff. While they were sitting through a little wind and rain for the weekend, what we have been dealing with for better than two months now is brutal. When you open your front door, it sizzles, you can hear the heat, like the hum that comes off of a big transformer. You open your door, and the light hits you and you feel like Spock when he entered the reactor core of the Enterprise in “The Wrath of Khan”.

You open the door, and I swear by god it blows your hair back.

I put up curtains for my sister this weekend. They were ivory colored. But when we got them on the window, they changed to a kind of plutonium yellow. My sister says “Oh no, I didn’t want yellow! Her hands are over her face, she can’t stand to look at the glowing yellow fabric. It looks like something that could  cause cancer. Even her little dog Bella has her paws over her face. “How did that happen?” she asks.
I said “It’s a big ball of Nuclear Fission Lisa, its 400,000 times the size of the earth and a mere 93 million miles away. It burns at 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. Its called the sun and we are lucky its only 109 today.”

62 Days over 100. They say we will be getting a break this weekend.

OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR

i imagine you in your mirror

in the morning 

me looking in the glass to you

you do your lips and shake your ass

and i do love you so

i adore your reflection in a million ways

in clouds and fog and smoke

you hover like a ghost in a dream

always there, in the glass
and out of your dress

you are nearer than you appear

and growing closer
and growing closer

and i do love you so

HEY, SLICK!

Here, take a look at Olivia Newton-John and the way she smokes that cigarette!

How do she smoke so good? And she is so svelte. She is like the Brothers Gibb with breasts!

"Grease" had to be the greatest Olivia Newton-John movie that I have never seen, not all the way through, because as slutty as she tries to make herself out to be, and as intriguing as a slut might be, well, Olivia Newtron-John is not slutty, even puffin' on a cigarette, wearin' those stilletos and skin tight britches and hooking up with John Travolta under the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.
Nope, to me she will never be anything much other than a sweet little girl that asked the eternal question: "Have You Never Been Mellow?"

Of course having never actually seen "Grease", I have no idea if she really is supposed what I think she is supposed be, just like in Xanadu I can only imagine she was the leader of some kind of Swingers club that operated a Pleasure Dome.. All I know, really is that:
"Grease is the word, is the word, is the word,is the word" and like a lot of songs, I really have no idea what that means. But I'll tell you a secret I've never told anyone before.
I love that song.
Slickest song ever!

LATER THAT NIGHT

""Sex is something I really don't understand too hot. You never know where the hell you are. I keep making up these sex rules for myself, and then I break them right away. Last year I made a rule that I was going to quit horsing around with girls that, deep down, gave me a pain in the ass. I broke it, though, the same week I made it - the same night, as a matter of fact."


from JD Salingers "The Catcher in the Rye"

"YOUR HOLINESS, AND YOUR KIND OF LOVE"

I had a great Doctor check-up today. My cholesterol is down to 145 from 175. Thats my best Chloesterol number since i started seeing the doctor. My Blood Sugar AC1 indicator is down to 6.3, which is the best it has been since I got the diabetes, and not very far from being normal at 5.8.
My weight remains where it has been all year, but these numbers are very encouraging.


The Doctor had prescribed some Testosterone for me two months ago. He asked how that was working for me.
“Well, doc, I’ll tell you the truth. I am waking up with a big ol’ hard on just about every morning. Standing in line at the grocery store I suddenly get a boner from out of the blue. Seems like everyday I am walking around about half hard, and my energy level is way up, and I’m extremely happy these days, and without trying to be too graphic, my sperm count seems to be WAY up. Is it the testosterone doing all this?”
‘Yes, it sounds like its working pretty good” he said.
“Well, I give it 75% anyway, if erections are any indicator; that’s about as much an erection as I seem to get anymore doc”

But as I sat there I got to thinking about how long since I really been in love, and remembered what it is like to love someone, and to want to please them so bad, and how when you find the right person and melt into them completely, to speak to them to and from those places down so deep, and touch their Holiness and submit and allow them to do the same for you, then being fully erect is really way over rated. It’s a marvelous feeling, feeling that way for someone.

DENNY CRANE

"Let me tell you something. When you got polar ice caps melting and breaking off into big chunks and you got Osama still hiding in a cave, planning his next attack, when you got other rogue nations with nuclear arsenals, and not to mention some wack-job, home-grown that can cancel you at any second and when you got mad cow, now gets high priority. And when you're still on the balcony on a clear night, sipping scotch with your best friend, now is everything."

"She's got a skull like a Seraphim" thechurch

"She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."
j.d.salinger

image couurtesy of Yimmy's Yayo

LONG LIVE FRANK ZAPPA

Me and Russell used to like to take a Raleigh cigarette, and mush it up a little, and bend it till it looked like a banana. Then we’d make a cup of hot tea, with a little lemon and Angel Dust in it, and smoke the cigarette, which somehow tasted better for being bent and mushed and we couldn’t feel our fingers, and after a little while we couldn’t feel our lips either. We’d freak out a little, wondering how many cigarettes we had lit, and whether we would be able to actually escape from a burning house if the need should arise. We’d play a little Parcheesi and listen to Apostrophe’, and discuss how they ever came up with such a genius title for an album as Overnite Sensation,  and after a bit we would gather up enough courage to stumble outside into the open air to play a little Speed Frisbee. Because Raleigh cigarettes, bent up and mushy combined with hot tea lemon and Angel Dust will make it impossible to operate heavy machinery (even a toaster seems HUGE) or move very fast, and if you stand about five feet apart from each other and throw the Frisbee back and forth as fast as you can you can rally have yourself a time.

MEETING LEONARD COHEN

I was 21 in 1979 when Mr. Cohen appeared. It was at a New Years Party at my house, and it was 12:05 and all the girls had left sometime around 11:30 because I just couldn't seem to make a commitment to any one of them, and they just all split. This was always a problem for me, so, good for them.


But at 12:05, Billie knocked on the door. I'd known her for some time, she was 8 or 9 years older than me. She told me to pack a bag, and she drove me at a breakneck speed to her house, running red lights and defying speed laws, and we ran inside and made love till the Rose Bowl parade started. It was all very intense for a 21 year old, and she read to me from a book called 'The Energy of Slaves" by Leonard Cohen. She had an album of his she played, but I didn't quite get it at the time. I was more interested in Billie, and the bare-naked sultry voiced way she read the book, and those almond eyes asking to make more love, and how easy she made it to be on her wavelength.. Later, when she took me back home she gave me the book. I saw her from time to time, always random, like the New Years Eve, but a few years later she called me one night and told me she was dying of cancer. She wouldn't see me, she said she looked too bad.

The strangeness of this life can't be measured. One day a few years later I was looking through the papers, and the obituaries fell out. I don't usually look at the obituaries, but since they landed in my lap, I had to take a glance.
Billie was in there that day, November of 1989. 
I had the book until a few years ago. The line in the book I still carry is "The truth is tiny compared to the things you will have to do".
 I always think of tea and oranges, and rags and feathers, when I think of  Billie.  A few years later I rediscovered Cohen, and his 1992 release, The Future. 
And when I think of Cohen, I think of Billie then as well.
When he died in 2016 I cried for both of them.
Ah Billie, you were the first and last verses of Suzanne for me:

"Suzanne takes you down 
To her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover"

"Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror"



Here's to Billie.

LONG LIVE YOKO ONO

Hard lesson, not trusting anybody. Even another hippy. When I was 16 I was driving down the highway down by Forest Hill at midnight, I'd never been on that stretch before, and me and my buddy were cruisin' and smokin', stereo up loud like we used to do back then, and I kinda swerved and nearly hit another car. OOPS!


It was a carload of guys that looked as stoned as we were, and they started hollerin out the window at us, and I was so high and crackin' up, and then world just seemed full of friendly hippies, and we were waving to them and they were waving back at us and so I motioned to pull over to the side of the road and maybe we could smoke a little peacepipe or somethin' and so we did pull over and I hopped out the car and met this fellow back by the trunk and I had this silly shit-eatin'grin and I stuck out my hand and prepared to hug this fellow human being like maybe we could start up a brand new Summer of Love right there at the Forest Hill exit, but instead of shaking my hand and giving me a big hug and sharing a little weed, the guy said "You stupid motherfucker" and clobbered me one and that was almost 40 years ago but I still think about it a lot.

I remember my buddy that night, who had begged me not to pull over, and who had stayed in the car.
"These guys do not want to party with you. Steve" he had said

You sure enough can't trust nobody.
Or as UF Mike says: "Some people. The only way they're going to understand peace and love is at the broad end of a baseball bat."

THE CARPET TOO IS MOVING UNDER YOU

Babalougats Dial and I found a body. We were trippin' a little I think, having left the Captains Den. It was on a dirt road off Cheek-Sparger, just before you get to Devils Backbone, before anything was out there but outhouses and jackass rabbits. We come up on it in the middle of the night, all slow like on his motorcycle. His headlight hit it and it looked to be a big ol' boy about 6 foot tall, weighed maybe 250, laying on his side, probably had a .38 to the head, or a shotgun blast to his chest. We looked at each other all wild eyed and crept up slow, shadow from the headlight casting eeerie spells over the woods behind, and I kicked it with my toe, and we skiittered back a little.


"Aw Hell Babalougats, its a just piece of rolled up carpet!"

But then both ends of the carpet started to move. like a scene out of Scooby Doo, me and Bubba clutched each other, wild eyed, shaking in mortal fear The middle of the carpet kind of gave a heave as both ends swelled and a coon ran out of one end and a possum from the other!

"The hell you say!" hollers Bubba and we got back on his motorcycle and flew the fuck as fast as we could back up to the Captains Den.

SUPERTRAMP

1979
I knew four guys lived in a big house on University Drive. It was right across the street from the college, but these were restaurant guys; bartenders and waiters. It was like a Frat house without the Fraternity. They had a hot tub, redwood deck, lots of blow, a Wet Bar they bought at a garage sale,  GOOD LOOKIN' chicks hangin’ out 24/7; they were like little junior would be Hugh Hefners with porno moustaches and smoking jackets.
It really was a great place to party.
But they kept a continuous loop going of all 4 Supertramp albums, and I just had to let them go.
The only time they stopped playing Supertramp was to put on Loverboy.
Had to let ‘em go.
1979. What a year.

SCHOOLS OUT

My advancement towards a remedial program began in the 9th grade when I stopped doing my algebra homework. Somehow I still made an A even though I had no idea what was going on with algebra. But the A I did not deserve earned me a slot in Honors Geometry in the 10th grade. Mom and dad were very proud, but I didn’t much want to do my homework in geometry either, and also found (though I didn’t realize it at the time) that without knowing what was happening with algebra, there were some things going on with geometry that I’d probably never catch on to. Mr. Barker was my teacher.
I flunked. It was my first class ever to flunk.

The next year I took Chemistry and I didn’t much want to do my homework in Chemistry either, and also found (though I didn’t realize it at the time) that without knowing what was happening with algebra, and geometry too, there were some things going on with Chemistry that I’d probably never catch on to. Mr. Barker was my teacher again.
I flunked. It was my second class ever to flunk.

So, I became a a Senior the next year without a single math credit, and I was informed that I needed to take Remedial Math in order to graduate. Remedial Math might sound easy, but that's a lot of pressure! When I walked into class that first day, who did I find to teach me Remedial Math but my old buddy MR BARKER!

I walked in and shook his hand and he said “Steve, as soon as I call roll you can go down and change classes if you like” and I said “Oh no Mr. Barker, count me in, I’m not leaving this school till I pass one of your classes!” Luckily, they didn't make us do homework (by the time you get to a class like this they understand you will not be doing any homework), or try top teach us preposterous sounding equations like "Let X=Y".
And I passed!

IT HASN'T RAINED AROUND HERE FOR A LONG LONG TIME

BUT THE DROUGHT IS OVER...


Slowly crawlin' across the floor
Comes a shadow through the window
From the house next door
And the dust specks dancing
In the last of the light
One more evening passing


She walked on tiptoes
On a gravel bar
Wet skin pale as the evening star
The North Platte winding like a silver eel
Hands like rain on August fields


Hands like rain
Falling soft
To ease the drought inside
As memory fades
Not much remains
But hands like rain


Now I stand on stiff legs
And I clutch the cane
And I search the sky for a sign of rain
As if it matters
As if it makes a damn


Just an old man's habit
Down the street
The schoolboys play
Dime novel heroes from another day
Who now are nothing more than faceless names
And a nameless face with hands like rain


We'd run by night
And we'd hide by day
So the papers used to say
On stolen horses and borrowed time
Dancing girls and brandy wine


I can hear them calling
They're calling me
I can here them calling
But I still can't see


Life and legend are an awkward pair
And there ain't much magic anywhere
Except in moments we can't often steal
Hands like rain on August fields


Hands like rain
Falling soft
To ease the drought inside
As memory fades
Not much remains
But hands like rain

HANDS LIKE RAIN
from James McMurtry's 1992 Candyland CD

HOMEOWNER

Well, it looks like the XMrsBulletholes has talked me into buying a house. She's been trying to do that for some time, and its a smart move except its cares the crap out me because of this economy and my job, you just never know when you are going to walk in and your services will no longer be required.
But I'm going to go ahead and pursue it because it just seems like when I do what women tell me to do everything works out, and I'm tired of living like a temporary person, where I am afraid to make a plan or a commitment and live everyday like its the last day that will be OK, and things can only get worse. Thats what I have faith in all right, is that sooner or later the bag over the head punch in the face is coming, probably on its way right now.
But my daughter she is excited and here is a picture or two of a house she wants me to buy. I like the way they painted a wall green, and then the blades of the fan to match. I wonder who thought of that?

Then in the backyard, it looks like a couple tweakers started doing a little add-on to the porch. Either that, or the Romans were building one of their famous roads through here.

108 Degrees in the shade

Maybe it’s a little too hot to talk about the old High School Bonfires that they don’t have anymore. I remember going bumpity-bump down Forest Ridge with a crew of guys hanging out a 58 Cherokee Pick-up, gathering wood, and taking it up to the Boys Ranch and adding to the pile there, making ready for Thursday night. It made you feel like you were doing something important, gathering all that wood from dilapidated old horse stalls and outhouses along Glade Road, and down Cheek-Sparger when there was nothing there; and that big ol’ barn that used to be at the end of Bedford Road. And unless some joker torched the huge pile of wood into flames a day early on Wednesday (which was always prone to happen) then on Thursday night you could watch the first fall sweaters come out in the cool October air, beautiful in the light of the Homecoming Bonfire.


It probably really is too hot today to be thinking about these things.

GREAT BOOKS STOLEN FROM THE L.D. BELL LIBRARY

"Jason and The Golden Fleece".
I did not check it out, back in April of 1974, I just slipped it into my notebook and left. I loaned it to a girl named Diana Hamilton who never returned it to me.

10 years later I went to a Halloween Party with some friends at some dudes house. I started looking at his bookshelf, and I see the book "Jason and the Golden Fleece". Of course I had to look and see if it had the card holder and if it was the book I had stolen.
It was ! Wow man, how weird!
So I go running to the dude with this book and ask him 'Where did you get this book?" and he says "Aw, that's my roommates" and I say "Who is your roommate?' and he points to some chick dressed like the mystic Princess Medea and says "Diana".
OK, like wow...so here I go running in my Scarecrow costume to Diana (dressed as Princess Medea) that I haven't seen her in 9 years and pointing to the book, say:
'This is my book"
"No its not"
"Yes it is"
"No its not"
Its like we are in the fifth grade again and I sense she is about to clobber me, she isn't amused at all, so I say:
"I stole it from the LD Bell library, and loaned it to you and you never gave it back" and I show her the sleeve and the Dewey Decimal Number and the LD Bell stamp and she squints at me in my scarecrow outfit and says:
"Are you Steve Bulletholes?"
Man, we just cracked up!

So, if you have never read "Jason and the Golden Fleece", all about Jason and how he went to Colchis at the ends of the earth to get the Golden Fleece so that he could "take his country back" from the man who murdered his father; and Hercules went with him; and he had to fight off Talos, a 100 foot warrior made of bronze; and captured Harpies that were stealing a blind mans food and sail through the Clashing Rocks; and then be held prisoner by the King of Colchis but then escape with the help of the mystic Princess Medea who had fallen in love with Jason; and fight the Seven Headed Dragon known as the Hydra, then have to fight off the Skeleton warriors known as the 'Children of the Hydras Teeth" that sprang up out of the ground; well, if you want to read that book I got to tell you -
You won't be able to find it at the LD Bell Library.

"WE COME FOR THAT BOOK, MR. RENFRO"
The library police look an awful lot like the Children of the Hydra's Teeth these days.











.

RED BADGE OF COURAGE

This newspaper I been doing stories for is starting to get on my nerves. They keep changing my titles. Its been my contention that a good title should serve to mystify the reader, and even after reading the article they are compelled to read it again to see if there is any rational connection between the article and the title.
That just seems to be good journalism to me, though I have had no training at all.

They changed my title from "I Got Sasquatch Fever" to "Bigfoot prank has positive outcome".
They changed one from simply "The Gullywampus" to "Shopping for fishing lures leads to good times".
They changed "Boy Scout Eggs" to "Scouts find solace in pancakes"
Then they changed "Jelly Omelet" to "Bzzing sound wasn't the clothesline"
I mean, in addition to boring the fuck out of the reader they are practically giving the story away with the title!
Am I being too sensitive? I don't think so!
For what ever reason they changed a Mothers Day story from 'Thanks Mom" to "Thanks Mom for everything". Everything? Really?


I kind of imagine they might take a title like 'The Red Badge of Courage" and change it to "Wounded soldier wins award". I figure they have been writing newspapers too long. They have lost their soul.

Anyway, I sent my last story in a couple weeks ago and added a little note that said "I think you do a great job of editing my stories but if you would like to change my title, please let me look at it first". Seems reasonable, yes? I got a reply that said "What do you mean?". So I thought about it a bit and said "I mean you do a great job of editing the text".

I haven't heard from them since. Maybe I'll send them this.

CAN'T BE CAREFUL ON A SKATEBOARD DAWG

I CELEBRATED 3 YEARS CLEAN AND SOBER LAST MONDAY, JULY 18!


I was at the mall last week. There was this kid bangin' on a skateboard, doing all those tricks they do, you know, flying breakneck down 20 concrete steps, sliding down handrails, full tilt boogie off a 10 ft. ledge, skronking into the void of stone and light. This little old lady passed by him and says in her little old lady voice:
"You better be careful there Sonny Boy!"
He looks at her through his hoodie and says matter-of-factly "You can't be careful on a skateboard, Dawg" and *swoosh* off he dives into thin air.
This kid was completely indifferent and intolerant of the Laws of Gravity and oblivious to the Forces of Physics. It was like he was made of rubber.
But he was 100% right!
I spent many years indifferent and intolerant to the fact that it was the dope that made my life this weird series of disasters; forclosures, bankruptcy, divorce, dereliction and living beyond the pale of any priciples whatsoever outside of where can i get some shit; oblivious to my own misery and thought I was using successfully.
I thought I was being careful!
I thought I'd never get caught!
I thought I'd live forever!
That kid was way ahead of me.
"You can't be careful on a skateboard, Dawg"

THE CRAWDAD HOLE

My dad loved liver and onions and buttermilk. I'd sit there, the awful plate before me, terrified and 4 years old, and he would try to bribe me.
"Take two bites and a sip, and we'll go down to the Crawdad hole!" he would say, but I just couldn't do it. Two bites of Liver and a sip of buttermilk was way past the "daily allowance for awfulness" for a four year old.
God how I wanted to go to the Crawdad hole, with my little string and safety pin and a piece of bacon, and catch some of them crawdads.
I could almost eat the Liver, but no way could I abide the buttermilk.
What would you have done?
Thats what I want to know.

PRINCE CHARMING

The Doctor finally broke down and gave me a prescription for Testosterone last month.Its supposed to help with my energy level, and it has. It used to be when I went for a walk I would get a hundred yards away and be all wore out. Thats not happening anymore.
And on the package it says that it may increase the frequency and duration of my erections!
I can verify that as well, and would like to go ahead and add that my sperm count seems to be way, way, way up too!
I haven't seen anything like it since i was just a little boy.

The Testosterone comes in a gel, and after I put it on I'm not supposed to touch any girls for like 5 minutes, or else they will turn in to a frog or grow a beard and stuff.

I think this may be my 999th post.

TRAINING DAY

Red Lobster, my first job.
They had an Expeditor, "Expo" for short, on the house side, and on the line we had a "Caller"....he called the ticket to you and you dropped what he called and when it was done you passed it to an assembler, who now had the ticket and would be busy putting the plates together.
For instance, if I was Fryman, the Caller might call "Fry man!"
And I'd holler back "Workin"
" I need two Neptunes, 3 Crab Cakes, 3 Dozen shrimp, 1 Scallop and we're low on Dogs"
And as I'm dropping all that I repeat:
"I got two Neptunes, 3 Crab Cakes, 3 Dozen shrimp, 1 Scallop and we're low on Dogs"
The whole process takes on a rythum, and when you get to rockin', its a blast.
I had 7 Fryers with 2 baskets in each. "Dogs" were Hush Puppies that you cranked out of a big Hopper that hung over one of the fryers. It was where you learned to laugh off a grease spatter on the forearm. I learned to ladle a little grease onto the floor in order to help slide from one fryer to the next. I could push of at one end and slalom down to the other in a split second, shakin' the fry baskets the whole way down.. I learned to smoke a cigarette in less than a minute on break.
I got there by way of my first position as dishwasher. It only took three days; the Fryman called in sick and the Manager came to me and said 'You want out of this dishpit?" It was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me up to that point, and would remain so for another week before two waitresses laid me.
I was hooked.
Hey, you know what you get if you add an S and a T to Expo?

The best part about working as a chef?
Waitresses!

HONEY SEE HOW GOOD I'M BEING

I've written before about how if I am at the grocery store, and a woman happens to glance in my general direction, that the first thought that enters my mind is that she wants me. I'm not the only man in the world to have this quirk.


My pal Mike does a post yesterday that reminds me of an incident soon after I got married. I was in a Home Depot, back in the 80's when Home Depot first got started. I used to like to go there and just walk around and look at the vast assemblage of hardwares and household projects and improvements, and dream of putting in a new fancy bathroom sink, or replacing the fence in the backyard, or organize my garage with their nifty accoutrements for the handyman.

Usually, I was tweaking, and could spend hours in there wondering how I'd look in a tool belt.

One day I was tweaking over in the gardening area by the petunias, and a woman came and stood beside me and smiled at me. I thought "Uh-oh, she wants me", and since I was newly married, I hustled my butt away from her over to the azaleas. I was looking over their selection of "Pink Ruffles" variety, when I looked up and there she was again! And she looked like she was maybe even going to say something to me! So I trucked back to the inside of the store, and went to the bathroom fixture area to check out a new medicine cabinet. I found a real nice one, wood with a beveled mirror and as I closed it shut the face of this scary lady appeared in the mirror.
I was being stalked in the Home Depot by some sexy scary home improvement diva!! Man, I was tweakin'!

So with my cart, I bolted the hell over to the light bulbs and picked up a couple 4 foot florescents I needed, then over to the tools where I grabbed a set of vise grips, and I paused to check out a drill press, when I looked to the end of the aisle and there she was again! She must have wanted me bigtime! I took off again, made the corner with two wheels of my cart all the way off the floor and headed to the paint department and grabbed a can of Kilz, a couple putty knives and some spackiling. I started for the front of the store and was going down a long lonely aisle when suddenly she appeared at the end of the aisle coming my way. I was trapped! Either I was going to have to turn around and run the other way, or be very brave and pass her head on!
As she approached, she was looking me right in the eye and I did my best not to get hypnotized by her look. She was pretty, and soft in all the right places and she had a lot of right places, and as we got closer she started to slow down and I started to speed up and now she was right there, I could almost smell her, and she stopped and said "Hello".

Oh my god! Well, I was newly married and I glanced into her sparkle eyes and mumbled "Good day to you ma'am, I'm sure" and hustled my butt straight to the front of the store where I parked my basket without bothering to check out and ran to my car in the parking lot and peeled the hell out of there.

This story has gotten to be way to long, so I'll try to wrap it up for you.
Two days later my bride and I went to a party, and we were over by the chips and dips when who should appear across the table but this Home Improvement Diva! I nearly choked on a pringle. She smiled and said hello to Mrs Bulletholes and I, and introduced us to her husband, who was a friend of my friend that hosted the party. It was then that I realized I had met her before at another party.
She said "I saw you at the Home Depot two days ago"
I said "Yes, I didn't recognize you'
She says "I kept trying to say hello but you kept running away".
I wasn't sure what to say, so I turned to Mrs Bullets and said "Honey, see how good I been being?"

CELEBRATE AND HAVE GOOD TIMES COME ON!

I have a gallon of milk and a chocolate cake. I'm celebrating the last day of my diet. After 4 months of improving my dietary choices significantly, and trying to excercise more, including walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days last week, I have GAINED 2 pounds.
I'm tired of getting beat up by my Nutritionist twice a month at $25 a visit.
I think Gods will is pretty clear here.

Fat and Happy baby!
Fat and Happy!

HOW I BROKE UP THE TARRANT COUNTY DISTRICT COURT #3 TODAY

The Lawyer presented the following hypothetical for our perusal during the selection process:
"A car runs a red light and hits another car, injuring the driver. We can probably all agree that the man driving the car that ran the red light should pay for the cost of repairing the car he hit. And we can probably all agree that he should pay his medical bills as well. But lets say that the man was injured and will not be able to perform his old job, and will have to take a different job, one that pays 10,000 dollars a year less. And he will likely be in that job for the rest of his working life, say 10 years. The question is should he be paid 100,000 dollars in damages for the difference in pay?  Is there anybody here that would have a problem awarding that amount?"

Several hands went up including my own. The Lawyer had me stand and asked why I would have a problem with that award.
"I said: "Counselor, we are talking about paying someone for a job they do in the future. Future earnings are difficult to figure.The fact is I could go to my job tomorrow and find I have no job. Or this fellow, he might take this lesser job and find three years from now he has an opportunity to double his salary. I would be reluctant to come up with a number for future pay with such a simple formula."
"Is there anything else?" he asked.
This opened the door for me....
"Hell yes. You know, for 100,000 dollars, this guy could be going to Harvard Law!"

Well, the courtroom pretty well cracked up, especially the lawyers and the judge had to pound his gavel and holler "Order! Order in the Court!" and I figured my chances of serving on this Jury were kaput.
But you know what?
I got selected!

AZIMUTH

AZIMUTH
Though it be night
there are still clouds at work
moving in the dark
silvery linings at play softly still
shimmering high and brightly
even as we sleep
beyond the usual horizon
hold your lense high
and keep your chin up.
And keep your chin up.

.

Found his deep in my archives. I had written it for my friend Annelisa, one of my original blog buddies.

BASTILLE DAY

She calls every year, and we have the same conversation.

"Do you know what day it is?" she asks.
"Bastille Day?"
'No,goofnut, its the day our divorce was finalized."
"Thats nice. I took no note of it. Are you calling to ask me to dinner?"
'In your dreams pal." and she hangs up.

But last year, I ran into her at the grocery. So I asked:
"Do you know what day it is?"
"No, what day is it?"
"Its Bastille Day!" I say.
Her eyes light up "Oh, I had forgotten about our divorce!"
"Yes" I say "How about if I buy you a bottle of Champagne?"
'Oh that would be delightful!"

So we go and buy each other a bottle of Champagne.
"Now why would you buy me a Champagne?"
"It was my random act of kindness today. Why would you buy one for me?"
"Same, same...random act."
" I suppose there is nothing left to say here"
"Except goodbye"

FILICIDE

I had to look it up.
I remember when dad and I used to go hunting, way out in the backroads with a carload of guns, I remember that I used to fantasize that he was going to kill me and bury my bones in the boondock swamp because deep inside I knew his life would be significantly simpler without me leaving tools out in the rain and losing all his stuff.
I knew it since before I was born.

BLAH-BLAH-BLAH

I'm having a hard time finding something I want to write about. Maybe its because I got too much stuff I don't want to write about, like my poor sister who has moved back from San Diego and she is so horribly depressed and wants to just curl up and fall asleep and hopefully never wake up. I know that's how she feels because I've felt that way before. I try to get her to hook up with old friends and she doesn't want to because she has gained a few pounds. I even say why don't you look at your Facebook and see who wants to see you  (I had all her friends post to her wall, they are all dying to see her) but she goes to pieces how she can't stand to look at herself.
No, I really don't want to write about all that.

Or my son, who is back in rehab again. I guess this makes about 4 trips this last 12 months. I never really wrote about it much, because if XMrs. Bulletholes knew I was writing about it she would crawl right up my ass. I mean, back when he was selling pot I wrote a really hilarious piece about that and they made me take it down. I'll tell you a great conversation I had with him a while back though.
I said- 'I sure do wish you had wanted to be a Doctor or Lawyer or something"
And he fired right back- "Yeah Dad, I was wishing the same thing about you."
That's really a great answer.
So I don't really know what else to say about that.

Then on my trip to San Diego I saw the Aircraft Carrier Midway, and I thought I could write about that, but when I looked it up it was all kind of dull and boring and the most interesting part was how the 1970 retrofit went way over budget. Or about these pretty trees they have all over San Diego called Jacaranda trees.
None of it seems too worthwhile right now.

Then I thought maybe I'd write about the Union General known as the "Rock of Chickamauga" and how his southern family turned his picture on the wall over backwards when he joined the Union. Southerners are very funny about that war.

I see tomorrow is the anniversary of the production of first loaf of sliced bread. I have that to look forward to. And the Newspaper I was writing for? I've lost interest in doing stories. They keep jerking off my titles and putting up really mundane banal titles that either try to explain the story, or else give away the ending.

At any rate, I haven't felt like putting my back into anything for a while now. It seems like if something is going to take me more than five minutes to do, I just don't want any part of it. I don't even feel like hitting the "Spellcheck" button.
What do you call that?

WELCOME?

For those of you arrived here by googling 'Smurf Porn"....what are you thinking?

"PUT HIS SOUL AT HAZARD"

"I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."


Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Bell from "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac Macarthy

ROMANCE

"Dagny, there are things I would like you to learn to notice. Lights, colors, flowers, music, they are not as negligible as you might think...They are the things that make life beautiful" said Mrs. Taggart. "I want this evening to be very beautiful for you, Dagny. The first ball is the most romantic event of ones life."

{But} At the end of the evening she saw Dagny in a corner of the ballroom, sitting on a balustrade as if it were a fence rail, her legs dangling under the chiffon skirt as if she were dressed in slacks. She was talking to a couple of helpless young men, her face contemptuously empty...

...When Dagny turned Mrs. Taggart saw only puzzled helplessness in her face...
..."Mother, do they think its exactly in reverse?" she asked.
"What?" asked Mrs. Taggart, bewildered.
"The things you were talking about. The lights and the flowers. Do they expect those things to make them romantic, not the other way around?"
"Darling, what do you mean?"
"There wasn't a person there who enjoyed it,"she said, her voice lifeless, "or who felt anything at all. They moved about, and they said the same dull things they say anywhere. I suppose they thought the lights would make it brilliant."
From "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand

From "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand

We missed the Worlds Record by 5,600 people!

Thats OK, we'll get 'em next year! The World's Biggest Water Balloon fight was a blast! We found out that it takes 8 people 4 hours to fill up about 800 water balloons, and that 100 people can use up 800 water balloons in about 45 seconds. But thats OK becauseit was one the most hilarious 45 seconds I ever had!
I just couldn't stop laughing!
My buddy Mike Stevens came up with the idea back in February, and after a few set backs like finding out you had to have permission to use the local College campus to gather 5,700 people, and that Fire and Police departments needed to be in on it, and that people were going to need to sign Insurance and Lawsuit waivers (what a complicated adverse world we live in), all of which led to several postponements, the big day arrived with a "SPLAT".....but it was a great splat, and there were lots of women in wet t-shirts out there!

Here's to my friends Gina and Kimmy! Aren't they cute?

DIE HARD

One of the opening scenes in "DIE HARD", the Bruce Willis action drama, came to mind while I was in San Diego. Willis plays a New Jersey cop who just landed at the LA Airport to see a tanned blonde busty woman run to greet her lover, and she jumps onto his waist, grappling her legs about him and giving him a passionate kiss.

Willis shakes his head and mutters under his breath "F'n California", because everyone knows anything goes in California, the land of promiscuity.

My new friend named Twilight, out in San Diego, she's a good Christian girl. Unlike everyone else in California, she is no fornicator. She was telling me about a man she met that wanted her to help him coach a soccer team.
"But I don't know anything about soccer" she had told him
"You don't have to...I'll show you everything you need to know" he replied.
I laughed and said "Yeah, I bet he would!"
She looked at me and said "You don't think he was hitting on me do you?"
"Well, yeah, maybe he was" I say.
"But he is married" she says.
"I don't think that makes much difference to some guys" I laughed back.
'But his wife was standing right there" she says.

And thats when I thought of that scene in "DIE HARD".
"F'n California" I muttered, shaking my head.

THREE A.M.

There is something about the deep night that releases a different you. Its more your own street, your own city, your own world, and you are both more and less in charge of it than in the daylight.

FAST CARS- EASY WOMEN

An article in the Huffington Post says that you should not have sex until you are ready, and that there is a connection between sex-to-soon and divorce.

I was ready in the 9th grade. The urge to mate and drive a car was overwhelming. Finally, I snuck out the parents car one night and went to a window I knew where if you knocked on it a girl would crawl out.
Kind of a "Two birds-One stone" thing.
I thought it would be my lucky night!
But when I got back home, I was still a virgin and every light in the house was on.
I've only been divorced once.

WIKI NO GOOD FOR HOMEWORK?

If the kids can't reference Wikipedia, then they ought to be able to look at my Facebook page where my idiot friends and I  shamelessly flaunt any opinion, make up facts and figures as we go along; misquote, misrepresent and outright lie about the issues we hold dearest to our own true hearts, and will do or say anything as long as it cannot be entirely disproved on the outside chance that someone will see the genius in our arguements and change their mind or confess to knowing nothing about the subject at hand (like thats going to happen); where rhetoric and erudition are bendable and indistinguishable indisputable rights of anyone with a keyboard.

THE PACKING NAZI

She had a roll of strapping tape she wore like a bracelet on her left wrist. She was there to help my sister Lisa pack for the move from San Diego to Fort Worth.

You know, its always tense when there is a move coming and packing to be done and some people just aren't built for it. Probably one of the most desirable traits for someone helping you move would be the ability to acquiesce to your wishes concerning your belongings, and to be able to say "OK, Lisa, we won't box up your Goldfish until the last minute even though they really don't need much food or air.".

The Packing Nazi severely lacked in this department. Apparently she had moved herself a considerable number of times, which made sense that maybe she never felt welcome anywhere for any length of time. Inside of a year she had been run out of Baltimore, spent a friendless month in Oregon, and decided that Pleasanton Iowa just wasn't her cup of tea. The people, she said, were too plain.
Along the way she had become a pro-mover and what she lacked in tact she made up for with Gestapo enthusiasm.

For reasons indiscernible to us plain folk, she boxed up the end tables.
She boxed the sugar bowl with the television remote; the computer power cord went with every pair of underwear my sister owned save the ones she was wearing.
We are still looking for toothbrush and make up.

After the battery went down on the computer we lost all the travel information that we would be getting from the computer for a 1300 mile 3 day journey. Its amazing how we rely on these nowadays.

The amazing thing is the way The Packing Nazi just took over. It was a packing Blitzkreig. Lisa pleaded with her not to box little Bella's dog food, the few special breakable items she would personally carry to Fort Worth, and the suitcase Lisa planned to travel with to Fort Worth.

But the Packing Nazi just said:
"Don't you worry. I'll have everything you own packed proper by the end of the day. You look fine without make-up. Your dog is too fat. You can buy new silk roses, you can get a new goldfish.  This stuff is insured right? Who needs panties anyway? I go commando most of the time, its healthier. You just relax and sit back and after I have you packed I'm going to invade Poland!"

SELF-ACCEPTANCE

I've never posted one of the Narcotics Anonymous daily meditations from "Just For Today" before, but I feel like posting one today.

Accepting life as it is:
 “In our recovery, we find it essential to accept reality. Once we can do this, we do not find it necessary to use drugs in an attempt to change our perceptions.”

Drugs used to buffer us from the full force of life. When we stop using drugs and enter recovery, we find ourselves confronted directly with life. We may experience disappointment, frustration, or anger. Events may not happen the way we want them to. The self-centeredness we cultivated in our addiction has distorted our perceptions of life; it is difficult to let go of our expectations and accept life as it is.

We learn to accept our lives by working the Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous. We discover how to change our attitudes and let go of character defects. We no longer need to distort the truth or to run from situations. The more we practice the spiritual principles contained in the steps, the easier it becomes to accept life exactly as it comes to us.

                              ––––=––––
Just for today: I will practice self-acceptance by practicing the Twelve Steps.


There are a lot of things I may never be, there are a lot of thing I may never have, and plenty of mistakes for me to make out there.

But heres the thing...
What I never have to do again is to be deceptive or distort the truth to try to keep myself from guilt and shame, or make myself out to be something I am not..
I can accept myself, the good and bad, and what is always available to me is the opportunity to do whatever the next right thing might be, and to be willing to ask Him to remove from  me my defects of character . I'm really thankful for being able to view the world this way.

THE PACIFIC

I have a lot more to say about my vacation, but I found this today and I want you to know that having now swam in the Pacific, having been on the edge of land and compared the straight line of the sea to the Arizona badlands, and that the false sense of having somehow been a hero, or that my presence deserves someting other than just another day, that a poem like this has a whole new side to it for me.

The Sun

Have you ever seen

anything

in your life

more wonderful than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills,

or the rumpled sea,

and is gone—

and how it slides again out of the blackness,

every morning,

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

say, on a morning in early summer,

at its perfect imperial distance—

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love—

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a word billowing enough

for the pleasure that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out,

as it warms you as you stand there,

empty-handed—

or have you too

turned from this world—
or have you too

gone crazy

for power,

for things?

~ Mary Oliver

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.