A Close Shave

Fruit Loops

2012-01-27T20:30:00.005-06:00

Bananas are a bunch of yellow fellows and certainly softies on the inside.

An apple-a-day will surely keep constipation away.

What if the color of an orange was blue? Could it still be said that musicians squeeze the blues for breakfast?

The crunchy bell-shaped pear in hand has but a base appeal to the taste.

The grapes of wrath may be bitter to the taste, yet how sweet was the smack of it!

Whoever coined the saying, "Life is a bowl of cherries," must have pitted the truth against a pie.

Don't be cobblered into thinking that perfection is just out of peach.

Any jam you might find yourself helpless in, hope that you're either not stuck long or that it's plum.

All that may be berry is not blue.

The Winter of Your Discontent

2012-01-26T10:30:00.000-06:00

It's cold season bland embark
On thoughts/things that rend
Havoc days upon days unend
The mind's journey into dark

When all lies drear--dormant
Dead amid the deep winter
That discontense you enter
A cause for can, why you can't
Despite ignored pleas of please
Find neither comfort nor ease

Flowing with Milk and Sugar

2012-01-22T20:30:00.005-06:00

I've always had a drinking problem. When I finally put down the baby bottle, I reached for the glass and my mixed drink of cold milk and Nestle's Quik..."C-h-o-c-l-a-t-e!" I looked forward to popping the metal top off the can with spoon and never bothered to follow the directions on the side, just put in two heaping tablespoons for good measure. Sometimes, I'd have to fall back on the old Ovaltine or Carnation Malted Milk mix to get my fix. Of course you used plain milk on your multiple bowls of Sugar Pops and Alpha-Bits cereal.
As a kid, I had to get some sugar, and between cookies, bubble gum, and dextrose-laced candy bars, I craved Kool-Aid. The strawberry, cherry, and grape-favored packets always made 2-quarts, just add sugar...let's see, 2 cups ought to do it, right? Cold syrupy relief on those summer days when you'd run in to the refrigerator! Why, I'd even pour some into mom's metal ice trays and make us up a bunch of cubed Popsicles that made our mouths and shirtless chests the same color as we sucked the sugared water out of them!
I remember,too, strolling down to the corner store for 16-oz. Dr Peppers in a bottle. I would drink some until I could safely shake it up good with my thumb as a stopper and it not spew out on my fellow friends. This stirs up the already Pure Cane Sugar molecules, making them sweeter to the taste to me! In my child hood, it was definitely a life time flowing with milk and sugar.

Femme Chamomile

2012-01-19T23:15:00.001-06:00

Ah, femme chamomile,
Soothe my stressed soul
From days do cumber,
Sacred Daisy of the Nile;
Embrace me, Cleopatra girl
In sweetest of slumber
And arms around awhile.

stream of consciousness

2012-01-18T22:00:00.004-06:00

i was too young and didn't understand divorce...why we had to tear away from dad to houston far away from family and friends...strange rooming house and a smelly old landlord who lived in a large bedroom with a burner to warm his soup and a violin in the corner...my sister and me covering our heads up in horror those nights we hear our mother's pleas and sobs in the next room mistreated by the stranger moved in...he's not our new dad as she said...kindergarten's snacks and knaps and soon we off again to big d and another room to rent...now a mean old landlady made me eat gooey goulash dumped right out of the can into the pan as i sat alone at the table for hours in refusal...aware i'd finally lost innocence, standing on the sidewalk out front of the apartments, rubber indian spear in hand...she sure works a lot leaving us instead with others...but fridays we'd all drive down to the drive-in for beer and burgers, root beer for us kids in back...mother married again...this one is good, but he's not our dad...soon lined up at the fall-out shelter in the building basement to get a paper cup shot of sugared polio...keep us off crutches like the poster kids we see...have some fun at school, too--duck and cover from the play-like atom bomb just in case the windows blow in or blow out...raised up on t.v. and movie-reel unreality...heroes ride and fly in just in time to save the day...but shy i wanting some kind of affection or at least an introduction, as well as my father there...yet, i was too young and didn't understand divorce.

Relief

2012-01-17T22:00:00.009-06:00

God, relieve; help my inward grief!

Confidence

2012-01-16T23:45:00.032-06:00

The person who cuts your hair may be the truest friend you've got. Who else, save a bartender or preacher, would one confide so much in? Not even our mothers currently know us so well. The stylist hears the talk that neither spouses care nothing about, nor have anything more to say. There's more heart-felt, meaningful conversation takes place captive in the chair than ever occurs across a cafe table with coffee. Caressing the scalp, combing the hair relaxes the mind as well, opening up closed channels of communication. Why would one choose to Confess numerous lifelong insecurities and infidelities to another, whom you see but once a month on a regular basis and that is all? But be aware also of that other person's present personal (maybe insurmountable) situation he or she chooses to share confidentially...cautiously. Select words reveal hurt, betrayal, desperation--seeking solace in a two-way trust. Yet, it's in part for the one who grooms you, just a service dutifully performed and tipped, to listen to your story only and say something sound in return.

Remember the David Crockett School!

2012-01-13T01:45:00.066-06:00

I was again in my hometown Dallas this December. With time to kill, I decided to detour and drive through my old neighborhood--the same streets I must have pounded a thousand times by foot and bike. This was the inner-city Dallas of my youth before I moved to the suburbs in the 7th grade. If I had stayed here, I would have gone to the Spence Jr. High "stockade" and then on to high school glory at Woodrow Wilson, instead of BA, as it turned out to be.
I really, though, wanted to drive by my dear old elementary school, as we all have the inclination to do when we are home for a weekend or the holidays. That affinity for our first schools comes from feeling that's where we sort of "got our start"--our fundamentals and foundational experience for entering the teenage years. The historic David Crockett School with its almost Alamoesque building front and low walls was mine. Despite the heroic masculine name, I wanted to see how the old "girl" looked after my near 46-year absence.
I knew it had been closed as a school by DISD since 1989 when they opened a new elementary school just across the street that gobbled up half of Buckner Park, where I played a many day. My sister stopped by a number of years ago. The school's classrooms had been converted into district administration offices. She said the kind people let her walk around and down the long empty hallway, which used to be filled with the usual kid's shuffling and chatter; even peek into the darker basement floor "dungeon" area (as we kids called it), where the boys and girls bathrooms were. Also, where the ever mysterious boiler room was that you didn't dare enter for fear of your life!
I drove up busy Carroll Street in front first as slow as I could go, wearing my old cap and waving my arm out the window like a impatient Jewish taxi driver for the backup cars to come around in the upcoming traffic, but no daredevils. I finally got to the end of the long block (at the relief of the others) and turned down the side bordering the large school ground and gravel football field we used to play on, then around back of the school and behind the building where the lower cafeteria exit doors seemed barred. Above stood the large stately wooden auditorium and library windows, still as they were. High overhead, the name in old letters proclaimed proudly the original name: "Davy Crockett School." The external gym and deserted teacher parking lot remained to the building side as I continued to the end of the street.
I went around again to make sure I was believing the changes I was seeing. Large trees had grown up where the baseball fields had been and a newer sidewalk bisected the grounds with a few benches. They looked occupied by down-on-their-luck or hopeless individuals and others standing around probably playing hooky from their responsibilities. The old school building itself appeared abandoned, partly boarded up, chain-link fenced, and padlocked on the ground floor to keep any vandals out and the rats in. Gone is the side slick fire escape slide we all took a turn on. The cheap window A/C units hanging out of the converted classroom windows distracted from the original architecture. I remember the boys helping the teachers to raise the large wooden windows, which had iron anchors inside.
My heart sank to see David Crockett School in such state--so forlorn and forgotten. Was this deserving of an institution that had served the community and surrounding neighborhood for over a hundred years? Records would never reveal the number of kids educated here, who passed through her hallowed halls and on to fulfill their adult destinies. It was here I learned about the environment; stamp collecting, penmanship, map-making, an appreciation for classical and modern music, respect for country and the flag, learned to obey rules of conduct and safety, made lots of friends, started a bank savings account, played my first game of four-square in the blacktop outside, attempted tackle football and dribbled a basketball on the school team, kissed a girl on a dare, did paper drives, and first learned of President Kennedy's assassination.
All past now with the winds of time and change...and if somewhat sad, such are the sweet memories of our childhood schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIrUJD5wMs

What a Woman Might Do When She Turns 60

2012-01-10T08:00:00.006-06:00

Here's a dozen of what a woman might do (one or some) when she turns 60...

1. Go ahead and buy yourself what you've always wanted: a '57 Thunderbird convertible.

2. Treat yourself to a double hot fudge sundae piled up in a frosty aluminum dish with cumulus clouds of whipped cream sprinkled with almond chips and topped off with a maraschino cherry, instead of the same old boring birthday cake with icing and candles.

3. Go in style and buy yourself a share in a studio boxseat up high above the Mavericks game, so you'll never have to settle again for sitting behind the backboard/net.

4. Have your hairdresser cut you some cute bangs again like you had as a schoolgirl.

5. Get your bod out to a nearby Class 3 automatic firing range in the country and pay to crank out some serious rounds on a real-live machine gun or burn something up like a wrecked car frame with a flame-thrower!

6. Bring home a cuddly little puppy to have and to hold and to keep....Ahhhh!

7. Put on the record/CDplayer your complete repertoire of Billy Joel songs: all 13 studio albums, 59 singles; kick back with some complementary bubbly (even if it's 7-UP).

8. Rise early and put on a baseball cap, get out on the trail and walk the Lake. Make it one of those lively brisk ones with a pace (not a casual stroll like most times), shoulders back, show 'em you still got it, girl...grinning sarcastically at the youngsters racing by on their asinine runs and winking, too, at the old men sweating, struggling, and puffing as you pass them.

9. Go ahead and go up to the church where you worship after hours unannounced and let yourself in quietly (every member has a key to the building). Restock the Visitor's cards and offering envelopes on the back of the pews. You might spend some time sorting out the song books/hymnals to put them in their proper place; pick up the gum wrappers and scribbled pieces of paper trash on the carpet floor left from the last service.

10. Rent on Netflix and watch Andrei Tarkosky's 1966 Soviet film masterpiece, Andrei Rublev, the haunting saga loosely based on the life of the 15th-century Russia's iconic painter. I mean watch it from opening screen to credits...all 205 "wonderful" minutes in Russian with English subtitles!

11. Reserve the carousel at the amusement park for you only, so that you can merry-go-round all you want on any horse or carriage and not have to get off when it stops.

12. Plan a special dinner with a childhood/schooldays bud, spending the evening together in laughter and in talking about the days gone by. Have some pie instead of the traditional boring birthday cake with icing and candles. What's most important is hearing your dear friend say that you are as beautiful a person now as you were then, when they knew you as a young girl.

A Layman's Look at the Laws of Nature and Physics

2012-01-07T19:00:00.029-06:00

Eggs are laid on a daily basis unless disturbed, as bricks are piece by piece, except when it pours.

He who couches down to lie and flees, must be in the doghouse once again.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my self to keep
me from waking up the wife,
as I've snored, to spare my life.

Examining the concept of action=>reaction, you could say semantically the equation is true in most cases: verb lay + prep., article, suffix, etc. = noun
examples: a layout, layover, layon (except in Macbeth, "Lay on, McDuff!"), layup, layer, layoff, Eric Clapton's Layla, layaway, lay-by, laydown...

"Lay them straight" applies mainly to pick-up sticks 7-8, tile pavers, and a poker hand/face.

Laywomen, laymen.

Some Less Romantic Similes to Avoid...

2012-01-05T23:00:00.010-06:00

1. Our love baked up like a 59-cent can of buttermilk biscuits.

2. His place had the distinct flavor of musty old men sitting around drinking coffee in worn-out flannel shirts.

3. Trying to carry on a consistent conversation with my wife compares to how fond I am of folding a fitted sheet fresh from the dryer.

4. The faded pink Port-O-Jons lined up in a row squatted in the sun and seemed to be the perfect Barbie stalls.

5. Catching a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror, old Sam was appalled at how he looked now like the bad hot dog he had at the convenience store today.

6. I have to admit seeing her after all these years, she looked a lot better in her sophomore picture.

7. Online dating is like digital pictures...you hope it turns out to be a good one, can quickly find out for sure; if not, you can easily delete him and there's still room for more.

8. She makes me feel lively like a Mayfly with an extended 2-week lifespan.

9. Her last blind date reminded her of polyester because he was just a genuine and all over her like a cheap suit.*

10. Men can relate to those holiday blow-up lawn ornaments...we're all at once lighted up and all action in the night-time, then come morning we seem deflated as those unplugged plastic soldiers slain and lying about all over the battle lawn of love.

*Thanks to Kris Wyman for this.

Easy Resolutions 2

2012-01-04T17:00:00.015-06:00

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them. - Benjamin Franklin

Like my good friend Kathleen Scott said in her recent post, "Easy Resolutions," on her beautiful blog, Hill Country Mysteries, she's resolved to Make new mistakes this year. I can concur with her, as that comes easy for me. That and an even easier pledge to myself (and others) to everyday eat some bread of some kind--that would be a resolution I could easily keep!
I have three resolutions this year that I think are doable. Since I don't diet and always avoid or run away from exercise, and you'd laugh at the balance in my savings account, I have to be a bit creative here in what I choose to accomplish. Here they are in no particular order of occurrence/importance, just some things I could do more of:

Laugh with friends. -whenever and where ever I get the chance. I hear it's "good for the soul" and "the best medicine" for what ails your blues--I figure "it won't kill me," and if it does, then I'll die with (the proverbial) "a smile on my face!"
Sleep less. Much of my living is to be done awake, so why sleep it off and away...the precious moments and opportunities I may have left. There will soon enough be the Big Sleep, when we lie down with our ancestors and won't awake except at one of two Gates!
Play it again. I realize (again), as an adult now, that there should exist at least a balance of obligations with a sense of escape, maybe greater and tilted toward play, like I did as kid. I take myself and situation way too serious sometimes.

Be it Resolved: Keeping these "Three" seems easy enough to do and all noble in duty and determination.

Boots and Baton

2012-01-02T19:45:00.004-06:00

She mailed me her boots.
Shoe-polished white, still dressed with big green tassels for show
Braided silver sateen uniform
Short skirt, boots, and baton
Poised and confident and smile
Twirl, turn, and toss - the stuff head majorettes are made of.
Pride of the BA Cougar Band march
Steps out front of the home-side crowd
Leads first in line in a parade.
We hold our breath as in a circus trapeze act, when she tosses her baton up
I'm sure it's lost in the stadium lights like a high punt,
Yet falls as if magnetic back into her waiting wrist with only a slight twist.
I wonder...of long-forgotten dance routines, now,
She probably still knows how to give it a twirl--
You don't unlearn what becomes an important part of you.
She keeps her baton just in case
But, I have them boots.

The Only Thing I'd Rather Do

2011-12-31T20:41:00.009-06:00

I get to thinking at times, if I owned all this land over west of here, like about a thousand acres or so, I would set up a refuge of sorts for dogs only. I'd have one of those high game fences the same as ranchers have to keep their livestock and precious wildlife in, poachers and coyotes out, unless the latter want to become less wild and join their canine cousins. The idea is to keep everyone safe and secure inside. Any dog would be welcome--big or small, ugly or cute, or an ordinary mutt.
That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be a dog catcher is all. I'd go around collecting them off the streets: all the abandoned, unwanted, and orphan dogs before they were killed or died or something like imprisoned in city pounds. I want to rescue and round them up, take them out to the refuge west of here.
I'd have my own private place and theirs to share, too, only better and different than those concrete kennels, cold cages, and chain leashes. It could be a home for dogs, where they can live and run around everywhere all day if they want and not have to fear hunger or despair, just free food and hugs for all.
It may sound impossible and insane at the least; you can call me crazy, but that's the only thing I'd rather do--be a dog catcher.

ode for christmas come

2011-12-24T21:40:00.002-06:00

some things don't sell well for christmas...

   used books stacked along crowded shelves
   preowned cars lined up in lighted lots
   vacant homes foreclosed by fat banks
   one's old toys and brittle faded ornaments

or share the joyful celebration of the season...

   a widow or as single again all alone tonight
   soldiers standing station far away from home
   shivering homeless one sleeping on steps
   a forgotten puppy dog found in the pound

The state of USS Nevada: December 7, 1941

2011-12-07T14:25:00.007-06:00

USS NEVADA HEADED DOWN THE CHANNEL PAST THE NAVY YARD'S DOCK, UNDER JAPANESE AIR ATTACK AND AFIRE FROM SEVERAL BOMB HITS DURING HER SORTIE FROM "BATTLESHIP ROW." PHOTOGRAPHED FROM FORD ISLAND.

The USS Nevada (BB-36) eldest of the old battleships present that day was anchored along the southeast shore of Ford Island's seaplane base just across the main channel from the Navy Yard, She was the northern most capital ship in line on Battleship Row. And being moored singly, as were battleships Arizona, California, and Pennsylvania (in dry dock), while other old "battlewagons" were paired together like Tennessee/West Virginia and Maryland/Oklahoma.
During the first wave of the Japanese torpedo planes, the USS Nevada was hit by one torpedo to the ship's port side, but her old protective bulge armor minimized the damage and immediate counterflooding corrected her list. The senior naval officer aboard at the time, Lt. Commander Francis J. Thomas, ordered Nevada to get underway and she skillfully backed clear from her berth and maneuvered her way without the assistance of any tugs at 0840. Meanwhile, she had taken a couple of bomb hits amidships. The slowly moving battleship was the focus to the ever-present Japanese dive bombers targeting her as she lumbered down the narrow channel, suffering numerous hits and near-misses. Famed Naval historian, Samuel Eliot Morison, describes the scene best.

Down the ship channel she stood, fighting off dive-bombers and at one time surrounded by a curtain of smoke and spray so dense that spectators thought her gone; but most of the bombs were near-misses. A proud and gallant sight she made, with her tattered ensign streaming from the fantail.

She might have made it to sea, but fearing lest she be sunk and block the harbor channel, thus bottling up the rest of the fleet, it was decided to anchor her to one side off a point. Before that directive was carried out successfully, more bombs hit her superstructure and forecastle deck causing massive casualties and fires. Nevada gently went aground on the Navy Yard side of the channel, just south of Ford Island.
The crew valiantly fought the fires while tugs pulled her off the bank and towed her to the other side of the channel. Despite efforts of damage control to stem the flooding in the old leaking battleship, she settled in the shallows there by next day. It would take 2-months time before she was raised and salvaged, brought back to the U.S. to be refitted and modernized to fight again full-strength in 1943. The Nevada was "thoroughly wrecked topside," fifty officers and men of her 1500 crew had been lost.
Battleship USS Nevada--the only warship to sortie from Pearl Harbor that fateful December day.
_______________
References:
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two-Ocean War. Atlantic Little, Brown & Company, 1963.
hhtp://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/pearlhbr/ph-nv.htm

Fundamental in Business and in Forgiveness

2011-12-07T07:30:00.019-06:00

I believe everyone needs another chance and again.

Tried Piper

2011-12-06T19:45:00.003-06:00

"Oh, it was terrific. Magnificent...One felt like a god, looking down on these poor mortals below. One almost forgot to be frightened."   Gerald Livock, Royal Flying Corps (1914)

My grown-up kids and son-in-law surprise me with an hour introductory flight for my 60th Birthday. I am blindfolded and willingly carried to the local airport.
Outwardly I am afraid of heights and I love aircraft of all kinds, but inwardly-secretly, I want to fly. I want to escape the earth and soar in the sky.
The plane: vintage 1980s single-engine, two-seater Piper Tomahawk; cockpit sit up above and on top of the wing like the bubble canopy on a pursuit plane.
After a mandatory pre-flight check, the propeller winds up to a start and gives vibrant life to the little aircraft. A "run-up" of the engine to see if the little Avco Lycoming engine is hitting on all four cylinders.
Wait for a student pilot practicing landings and the tower clears us to take off.
The instructor Beth pulls onto the main runway and tells me to to go full-throttle in 3 seconds while she works the flaps and has the wheel (yoke).
We're airborne in no time and climbing. Wind turbulence concerns me. Beth says to expect it at lower altitudes and it will soon smooth out and to imagine it as if driving over railroad tracks. I'm reassured and comforted (a little).

The little world where I've lived these 37 years looks a lot grander from up here; not at all like from a limited flat prospective I have of it.
I immediately see out from each side and ahead the larger landmarks of the interstate, the scar of our quarry, the lake, and town below.
We level off at 3000 feet altitude according to the altimeter and she sets the throttle to a speed of 95 + knots. I can't convert or converse in the language of seafarers and air pilots, but found out it was about 110 mph. This is a normal cruising speed well above that which is needed to maintain flight and prevent falling out of the sky.
The instrument panel before me is overwhelming (gauges, dials, knobs, meters, switches, numbers). I try to remember where each one is located on the board, afraid I lost their location at times during the flight. I work with the main ones: altimeter, airspeed indicator, artificial horizon, turn and bank indicator, and heading indicator.
Beth lets me climb another 500 ft. I use the throttle and climb the airplane by keeping the yoke back to where I can see only sky (no haze horizon) in the windscreen, but not too steep/speed as to stall and spin us toward earth. *I learn later that the Piper is prone to spin out.
I level off again by easing forward the yoke and from now on in the flight it is a challenge to "fly" the plane level by keeping the cowling level pitch with the horizon ahead--accomplished by gently easing the yoke forward/back. I love it!

Planes bank to turn and my first one was at first unnerving, if only 30-degrees on the angle to the left. The plane wants to naturally descend on the turn and its more evident when the turn is to my side. Beth had me turn to the right and issued instructions for headings (direction) in degrees of the compass: "Turn around to a heading of 2700" or "Make a 360-degree come around." You rely on your instruments. I fly over my neighborhood as a bonus, west to U.S. 183, then south some more before it appears to be clouding up, turn east toward the farmlands of our county, back north a bit, and finally westward toward home. I'm amazed and feel a new-found freedom in flight.

The instructor throttles back and gentle turns to line up with the landing strip looming ahead.
Gliding down to the ground again, I can feel gravity grabbing at the aluminum aircraft...what goes up must come down is the basics of physics.
Small bursts of speed, the flat plane of the wings riding on wind and flaps float us to the pavement; even though the "stall" alarm buzzes briefly, all is true to landing safe and sure.
The tiny two-seater Piper Tomahawk feathered down every so effortlessly and landed lightly on the long runway.
The outboard fixed wheels first touch friction and roll, then bring the front nose wheel down to meet and make a solid three.
I try my hand at taxiing straight and ground turns using the rudder pedals and brakes, hands in lap since the yoke is only a steering wheel in appearance. I take it straight up the parallel pavement to the parking "lot" on the side of the flying school's hanger. The Piper comes to a stop.

Some Religious Items Dumped on eBay in Time for Christmas Giving

2011-12-03T10:15:00.013-06:00

Serfing on eBay as I do, I discovered some religious gifts up for auction and "Buy It Now" that gave me cause to pause and wonder...

Holy Water and Whole Wheat Combo - Just Plant, Water, and Wait. Hope for a Multitude of Harvest.

Slightly Used Prayer Hankies (Can be reused for decorative doilies, rolled as cloth napkins, or just use for spares this cold & flu season.)

St. Patrick's Lucky Me Charm - Companion Pendant to your St. Christopher (Just in case!)

Limited Printing: Da Vinci's The Last Supper with Mother Mary Dubbed in at the Table with Jesus and the Apostles and Judas Iscariot's Scowl Airbrushed to a Mona Lisa Smile!

Holy Sliver of Dogwood: The Wood of Christ's Cross - Now, Own a Piece of History!

Fasting Kit - Still Sealed in Factory Wrapper!

7-CD Series: Important Peripheral People of Faith (features stories of your favorites, including Ben Hur, Og Mandino, The Little Drummer Boy, Kenneth Copeland, Joan of Arc, Linus, President Jimmy Carter, Claymation Sensations: Davey & Goliath, and others...)

The Preacher's Bible to Interesting Topics and Anecdotes (abridged & gilded edition)

The Best Selling Christian Fiction: Sowing a Financial Seed of Faith Instead of a Mustard Seed or Else More of Your Typical Wild Oats

Two Front Row Tickets to "The Joel Osteen Christmas Show," Sunday, December 25, 2011 (Appearing in one show only at the fabulous Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas)

Get Your 8 X 10 Fully-Framed Personally Autographed Picture of Mike Murdock!

Pure Virgin of Mary Anointing Oil - Comes in convenient 1-pint or 2-liter containers! (Not available in stores!)

Always in Service and in Love

2011-12-02T21:00:00.004-06:00

Make me be most important to you, then I'm sold!

Top Ten Reasons You Are Better Off Not Being at Walmart's Black Friday Tonight

2011-11-25T11:30:00.002-06:00

10. Your camo-colored shorts are dirty and in the wash.

9. You'd rather be here hanging out at the bowling alley bar & grill.

8. Probably, the pharmacy is closed and you can't get a prescription filled.

7. Maybe this year you might decide to buy American for Christmas for a change instead of Chink.

6. You hear this year the Salvation Army has equipped their pots you have to go around on your way both in/out to accept MC or VISA, so you can conveniently swipe your credit card.

5. The thought of all those falling prices around you reminds you of that bad wallpaper job you just did in the master bathroom.

4. Your borrowed mother-in-law's handicapped parking hanger expired this time last year and you're suspicious of Walmart's version of valet parking using a local Boy Scout troop.

3. It never fails that the Self Serve Checkout machine won't scan the bag bar code of anything and the line builds embarrassingly behind you.

2. The idling AMT ambulance and fire truck out front make you a bit wary, as well as, the creepy Wall of Lame pictures at the store's entrance honoring the senior Walmart greeters lost in the line of duty.

And the No. 1 Reason: You still have 30 days to go and know you'll wind up just getting some of those wonderful impersonal reloadable blue Walmart gift cards anyway--"It's the gift that keeps on giving!"

Prologue to The Cranberry Tales

2011-11-24T16:57:00.000-06:00

Whan that Novem with its cooleth windes
Thanne longen gangs to goon on pilgramages
And sorjourners for to seeken straunge townes
To grandmum's house we goeth on ende
Of our Colonies to Cranberry they wende
The holy blisful bird for to seeke
That hem hath twiced helpen whan that they were seke...

(with apologies to Chaucer)

Sonnet

2011-11-23T07:15:00.005-06:00

I suppose we could be quite a pair, me and you
Hungering in the days apart, as well as when
We thrive side by side the many ways we do
And too, well I'd wonder if it possible then
Perfection of mind, body, soul completes your style
Come to think of it, what I really want to say
You embody everything I feel worthwhile
All that's worth the living, having, giving away
As things seem so temporal with destruction near
I reach for some certainty in your self, which makes
Heartbeat increase, pulse rise the moment you appear
Your presence to me like immortality takes
On noble sacrifice for falling stars so rare
As there are stars galore, but none like you to spare

(March 26, 2009)

No Thanks!

2011-11-18T08:30:00.079-06:00

To the following requests, suggestions, and subtle hints, I politely say: "No thanks!"

In the crammed car with two kids 5 hours (one way) to Grandma's house we go.
Watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from start to finish.
Have ham and sweet potatoes instead of turkey and dressing this year.
Want to work retail on Black Friday the first frenzied shopping day after Thanksgiving.
Stand up the whole Longhorn game like a good ol' Aggie and score a kiss with the wife.
Like to eat Thanksgiving dinner on a picnic bench in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals.
Eat a cold left-over turkey sandwich for Saturday's lunch.
Go to get that last-minute item and wade into the Wednesday wall-to-wall shoppers at the grocery store.
How about a game of croquet out on the front lawn instead of touch football.
Best taste to boil that beautiful turkey brown in peanut oil instead of baking it hours.
Help with washing the dishes after the family feast while the women watch the game on TV.
Know that the in-laws are staying through the weekend because they're retired. (add "Lord")
Rather take a walk or a nap than catch the traditional game between the Bears vs Lions.
Care to carve the turkey or to say the blessing over the dressing.
Need to walk it off this afternoon instead of taking a turkey-induced autumn's nap.
Put the small squirmy, messy kids at the same large table with all of us starving adults.
Leave work early Wednesday to drive in traffic and half the night to where the feast will be.
Want a dark-meated drumstick instead of a sumptious slice of the bird's breast.
Another piece of pumpkin pie with some whipped cream on top...(I will, thanks!)

Wonder and Joy

2011-11-15T20:30:00.003-06:00

Recently, I realized those childhood feelings beginning to return in some way or another, particularly of wonder and joy. Suddenly, at sixty-years old, I'm filled again with wondering what life is all about and how; while worry refuses to relinquish its strangle hold on happiness entirely, where once I seemed to have in abundance. I've always felt it's never too late to learn life...what is wonderful and true or regain that which is endearing and enduring. I want them all back in good measure, including my imaginative dreams I have abandoned along the way, coupled with a strong sense of play.

Sermonette

2011-11-13T22:00:00.001-06:00

Thank God I am the only one in the world.

I Only Pretended to Be

2011-11-10T20:00:00.071-06:00

Some of us must be going
   Some of us have to stay
Some of us may be showing
   Some just fade away
                     - Joe Walsh

I failed miserably in high school. I'm not talking grades and classes, just socially. I wanted to be so much more than things actually turned out. What I wanted to do and what I got, were in reality, who I was. I didn't fully realize it until older, nor at the time did I accept the truth about myself. I only pretended to be.
A lengthy lists of try-outs and maybes: the sophomore football team, a position on the yearbook staff, Key Club member, the tennis team, ROTC, singing in the choir, in the Senior Play. Either cowarding out at the last minute like I often do or not making the final cut, I settled instead for nothing. BA was a big school, lots of talent and competition for the few slots of fame.
Perhaps, I made the crucial mistake of aspiring for too much and not focusing on one or two at best; concentrating all effort into them. After all, I was just an ordinary average high school boy with dreams of some success and popularity at school, nice clothes, a good paying grocery sacking job, along with a smooth running '56 Chevy Bel Aire and a steady girl on the bench seat beside me.
For things were not the best at home and with the ol' adolescence Psyche. It wasn't easy being an insecure product of divorced parents. Although appreciative of my mother who had to work long hours on her waitress' feet to provide, she could not comfort. I needed my dad in those days of difficulty growing into a man.
And abilities don't necessarily match the mind. I wish I had believed in myself more back then. Dreams dissolved into all-too-common discouragement. I lacked the acceptance of failure and feared most rejection. It proved personally crippling, arising to confront me on a number of occasions. I craved acceptance and complexly cared what others thought of me--my mistake. I truly wanted to have happiness in fulfilment. I only pretended to be.

Love at First Slight

2011-11-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

What impressionable 10-year old guy wouldn't want that Gas-Powered P-40 Flying Tiger! All I had to sell was 12 boxes of greeting cards, my choice: Junior Sales Club of America All Occasion Cards or Christmas Cards. Boys belonging to a club in those days was a big thing and these guys made it sound like you were joining one. Join J.S.C.A. America's Leading Sales Club for Boys. The B&W ad on the slick back page of my comic book said, "For Prizes Out of this World at No Cost--or Cash Profit...Quick, Easy, and Fun...Mail this Coupon Today!" I could order 12 or 20 boxes to start--I just needed enough for the plane, but so what? Just as God is My Co-Pilot, off I went into the wild blue yonder and ordered a case of 20 boxes! My mom bought one and my aunt. My neighbors cringed when they saw me coming up the sidewalk toting the case of cards...seems like another 4 boys had been by earlier that week selling the same stuff! I disappointingly never did get to own or fly that gas plane, and when I was forced to return the cards at our expense, I left a note inside suggesting that they change their ad to read, "Sell Them to All Your Relatives!"

You'd think one lesson and I'd learn. When I first saw these cute Sea-Monkeys, I fell immediately in love and just had to have a family of them like was shown in the comic book. "Own a Bowl Full of Happiness...Instant Pets! So Eager to Please, They Can Even Be Trained" and only for $1.25, the colored ad said. The cost was for postage and processing all the way from Fifth Avenue, New York City. Actually, it listed all the things you got free and included in the kit:

A ONE-YEAR SUPPLY of GROWTH FOOD
LIVING PLASMA
WATER PURIFIER
A magnificent, fully illustrated manual of Sea-Monkey care, raising, training, and breeding
Our famous GROWTH GUARANTEE IN WRITING

The Sea-Monkeys soon came and hatched as little swimmers swimming around my fish bowl, happy to be alive and free of plasma pack! At least for a while...they didn't do too well in Texas. I gave them plenty of food? They all went dormant again before I could even train them! Funny, they didn't look like monkeys at all? Some smart (and Alec) kid at school burst my bubble one day, "Stupid! They're brine shrimp!"

At that young age, I promised myself never to be tricked in love again. I would only order something I knew was safe and sure from the comic books. There it was one day:
204 Revolutionary War Soldiers only $1.98 "Every piece of pure molded plastic --each on its own base. Two complete armies---the British redcoats and the American blue coats. Relive again the famous battles of the American Revolution; form your own battle lines--Hours of fun for the whole family! Rush Coupon Today." This one had a Long Island address...all these toys and stuff seem to come from New York or something? I guess they had a long factory there cranking out kid items for sale.
Here's is what I got: 36 Dragoons (cavalrymen), 12 Shooting Infantrymen, 12 Marching Infantrymen, 12 Crouching Infantrymen, 12 Fifers, 12 Charging Infantrymen, 12 Sharpshooters, 12 Field Cannon, 12 Cannon Loaders, 12 Drummers, 12 Minutemen, 24 Mohawk Indians, 12 Officers, 12 "Messian" Troops. Why a dozen of each, you ask? Twelve was suppose to be a perfect number of Jehovah...must have been a Jewish business.
They appeared larger than life on the colored comic book page and I was expecting them to come in the mail the size of a suitcase...Well, as it turned out, all 204 pieces fit in a small shoe box! They weren't like the packs of green army men pegged up at the grocery store. Theses were 2-D "flat" skinny molded creations in red and blue plastic...funny looking cannons, but my friend Albert and I combined our armies and laid them out anyway and had hours of fun for the whole family!

Scorpio (Barely)

2011-11-03T16:30:00.017-05:00

I'm a Scorpio, but barely. The 8th astrological sign in the Zodiac is for anyone born between the dates of October 24 - November 22 (dates may vary). Astrology isn't exactly an exact science, you know, I think it's an art form? My birthday is November 21, so I just made it in with that bunch of stingers. But, I am so glad I'm not in the next one to follow--a Sagittarius: half archer/half four-footed creature, feral, governed by the big stupider planet Jupiter, and associated with fire. The 1970s wasn't the "Age of Sagittarius" anyway! Perhaps, I have my 'scopes (or songs) mixed up?
Modern astrologers consider Scorpio to be a "water sign," which explains my affinity toward public puddles, rain, rivers, Palm Springs, oceans, and bathtubs. It is also what they call a negative sign meaning one who is introverted, hence the sub-title to this blog...kind of "fits me to a T," wouldn't you say? The astrological arts claim that Scorpions are feminine and fixed [i.e. strong-willed] in nature, too. I can't see that at all in me. Sure, I've got some great pairs of expensive dress shoes necessary in my line of work, several sets of outdoor boots for all occasions, relaxing sandals, and a collection of nice white tennis shoes that I'm not giving up, no matter what those strange little astros say!
I don't normally get suckered in by the carnival atmosphere of this zodiac stuff, but when I look down their list of descriptors and characteristics they have for Scorpios, I'm almost convinced they are talking about me. Those of you that know me well, examine it for yourself and see it these are not this true blue Garoo. Parentheses mine=comments for clarification.

passionate (ask my parakeet)
piercing (but not ears, nose, navel, or anything else)
quiet (only in theaters, at funerals, and while eating Thanksgiving dinner)
shy (all in modesty I assure you)
somewhat secretive (especially from the IRS)
perceptive (possibly ghosts and ancient astronauts as our friends)
tries things that frighten others (like snails and calamari)
wiser (not from drinking Bud)
points out the strengths/weaknesses in others (so, sue me)
understanding (maybe my large shoe size)
reasonable (always ask "Why?" in response to "Because.")
insightful (and inciteful)
sensitive (to soaps and dyes; soft cuddly creatures)
achieving (mainly inconsistency)
creative (quite)
usually a loner (last to leave work)
intense desire to win (such a bad sport)
undertakes any occupation with the same effort (easily explains my 10 different careers choices since college)

I'm a Scorpio (barely).

A Layman's Biblical Guide to Trick-or-Treating: Revised Expanded Version (REV)

2011-10-31T09:40:00.004-05:00

Proverbs 19:6 "Many entreat the favor of the nobility and every man is a friend to one who gives gifts."

Application: Load up the cars and sack those exclusive housing editions where the rich folks live in their fancy homes. Since you don't have the code, wait (with the headlights off) in front of the exclusive gated communities until some resident exits or enters and dash in quick-like before the heavy iron gate crushes all of you in your station wagon to death. There's candy in them thar Cimarron Hills Edition!

Ecclesiastes 11:7a "Truly, the light is sweet..."

Hint, Hint: Kids, work the lighted homes only, OK? We work in the light tonight, that's why you as a traditional American trick-o-treater carry highly toxic chemical light sticks (made in China, of course) to zig-zag across darkened streets without being flattened by high-school hooligans speeding down residential streets in their cars bristling with egg cannons, and watching for trick teenage yard trip wires designed to spill the contents of your bags in the dark, the cheap twisted hard candy lost will to be harvested at dawn.
Don't go up to a dark door--Sure, they're in there, having turned all the front lights off and pulled both cars in the garage for this one night of the year, so the kids will think nobody is home. They are just party poopers because it's much too early to go to bed...we are not down on the farm! Then, too, the owners may be grown-up apes in bloody get-up, just waiting to trick you by jumping out of a side hedge and scaring the waddens out of you! We hope the Great Pumpkin will rise out of their petunia garden and get them!

Mark 6:49b "...they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out;"

Interpretation: The disciples in the boat rowing on a windy sea that dark stormy night, seeing the white-robed figure of Jesus skimming the waves as He walked toward them, were spooked! (Notice: Peter didn't volunteer to jump out of the boat this time!) Jesus immediately assured them not to fear, that it was He and not really any unholy spirit seeking to swamp them. Just like the 12 men in the overcrowded boat with no life jackets, we should realize that those creatures and characters who come to our door tonight behind their masks and make-up are really our precious neighborhood kids, however devilish they may be at times, plus a few little cute ones at that! Treat 'em that-a-way!

Acts 20:20b "...publicly and from house to house."

Exposition: That's the only way to do it thoroughly and effectively! Paul the Apostle shows by his example of evening evangelism just how to get it done door to door. Woody Allen once said, "80% of life is just showing up." Canvasing the complete neighborhood brings its bounty of Butterfingers bars and gooey Kellogg Rice Crispy balls. Hey! You already know the drill, kids, because you are conscripted by your school down the block to sell frozen cookie dough, People Magazine subscriptions, and coupon booklets for meal discounts to swanky restaurants that nobody frequents. It's the same, but now you are on the take and incognito...that should do the trick!

1 Peter 4:9 "Be hospitable to one another without grumbling."

Explanation: Adults, ever caught yourself copping out and saying: "We don't have any candy, so let's just turn out the front lights and pretend we aren't at home. or in benevolent desperation said, "Oh no, I've run out of candy! Guess I will have to break open my rolls of pennies I've been saving and put some in each kid's basket." or being angry at the last 8:30 pm doorbell of a gang wearing the horrifying things they do everyday to school and swore, "These teenagers are too old to trick-or-treat!" or yelled to your wife in the kitchen finishing up the dinner dishes, pot and pans, "Honey! Your turn to get the door," while you want to catch the next play on Monday Night Football. Get your Ghouly Game on, folks...it's Halloween!

Lanewood Lads

2011-10-27T20:15:00.010-05:00

My street Lanewood Circle is not a circle at all, it just bends a bit and dead ends. It was on this small segment that comprised our neighborhood. I didn't live out my childhood there, since I moved to the suburbs when I began junior high school, but it became my home throughout teenage wasteland and home summers from college.
I discovered a number of guys lived up and down the Circle, as we all went to school together. I'd like to refer to us as the Lanewood lads: me, sandy-haired smiling Harry Stubbs, who was one heck of a guy, calculating and aloof Gary P. Wilkerson, tough talking Steve Duncan (who actually lived on Barnes Street around the corner, but bestowed with blessings as a pal), and the marvelous Mack "Mackie" Webb, a real character study!
We also included the sons of the mysterious Quintals family, whose father was Hawaiian. I can't for my life remember their names and always suspiciously suspected their dad smuggled goods into the country for a living. I think one of the parents still lives there in that same house to this day. The only other person who is still around is Carla Hinkle's mother on Barnes up a few houses from where Steve used to live. Other than that, the lads have all moved out and on and the neighborhood has changed a lot driving down it today. The street is shadier from the trees having grown and canopied. The now 50-year old wooden houses have taken on the personality of the newer owners. At least they take pride in the homes and the yards are not down to the dirt with chained dogs and filled with car bodies up on blocks. But, I digress...
I remember summer breaks from school and fall time mostly...we rode bikes around and up to Lochwood Shopping Center in the dead heat, moved from cool house to house, and explored the wooded creeks nearby that ran as a greenbelt through the richer homes closer to the junior high school. At Harry's house, we'd listen to Beach Boy's albums on the phonograph and take turns trying on his father's war souvenir, an official gray World War II German uniform tunic. Achtung! Of course, we brought our homemade skateboards for gang competition on the Quintal's large rounded back patio porch. I kept my eye out for any contraband.
Harry and I were known to frequent the other Gary on Lanewood, Gary P. Wilkerson. His small bedroom became the canvas for wild wrestling sessions and encounters with that little weird dog of his, who was always interested in a loose leg. We would time-out and Gary would relieve us with ice-cold Coca Colas from the fridge out in their garage.
When school began again and the ember months ushered in cooler weather, we guys gathered like leaves on a windy afternoon together to play touch football, which really resembled a bad rugby game. We played on the large grassy lot aside my house and the corner one. Steve Duncan always wanted someone to give him the ball, so we obliged him and he got creamed! Harry (at the time) was smaller and a real rocket! I liked to play quarterback or end and go long for a pass. In this stadium, great gridiron games ground to a halt only at dark when we could not see the ball anymore.
This was the time before Don Meredith and Howard Cosell Monday Night Football, so we replayed the Sunday AFL/NFL professional football games, each of us becoming a team in himself. These one-on-one games, grinding smear football contests Mack Webb held on his front yard up the street. That guy would honestly laugh like he enjoyed putting a hit on you or piled in for a fumble. If I didn't know Mackie better, I'd swear him psychotic! But, I saw the real side of a lonely last child of older parents longing for attention. He was quite creative and well-versed in the music of that day. He and I played Iron Butterfly, Beatles albums, and King Crimson stuff in his room, pretending to be the new FM dj's emerging at the time; especially on New Years Night. Why, he was the first of us to get an electric guitar and learn to play. Later, Harry Stubbs took it to an all-time level to became a professional musician and still is a big Blues composer/player on the Memphis and Texas music scene.
At first meeting-impression, I was afraid of Steve Duncan. Maybe he was somewhat jealous of me with regard to school? I finally figured it was a bluff on his part--this tough talk, bragging, and intimidation he tried. The rest of us decided just to give him the ball and none of the other attention he craved and that helped to humble him! I think he wanted so much to belong and decided to accept us as we were--we, him as he was. I remember now the quality of time several of us spent under the corner street light long after curfew, talking about important teenage things. I heard Steve Duncan is back in prison, having violated his parole.
Trouble has followed the best of us, I bet, as that is part of the pains of maturing. My most formidable demons then might have been just struggling with self-esteem. Living and looking out my front room onto Lanewood all those years like I did, despite my earlier close friends and encounters, I became more alienated and alone. I wondered if anyone cared or whether I would ever "measure up" to my peers. Yet, finally she alone was able to dispel this personal withdrawal when with her appearing, she became for me every imagined idea I had of her being and more as affection realized.

Epilogue: But all of Lanewood lads had the privilege of growing up together for that part of our lives. We shared lots of laughs and some heartaches for sure. I regret, unfortunately, we kind of went our own individual ways during high school, pursuing other interests...even Mackie! Like Harry recently wrote me, when I was able to reconnect with him after all these years, about our time growing up together being without complaint and "just like it was suppose to be."

Three Thoughts Tonight...

2011-10-23T22:00:00.035-05:00

It's true, I easily forget friends and especially the ones who have done the most for me.

God may forgive cruelty of all kinds toward his Creation, not I; whereas, I can only cry.

Bitter because they abandoned me and I'm forced to find employment again at my age.

Dogs Dream

2011-10-14T08:30:00.006-05:00

Dogs dream dreams of big meaty bones (maybe some of those round ones with marrow in the middle)...freedom from fences and retractable leashes...all stretched out in a sunny spot...runnning fast through a field sensing all the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings wonderfully experienced...a mountain mound of dirt to dig all day in...being brushed till turning into mush...chasing rabbits and squirrels with wild abandon...an indestructable rubber ball to chew and chew on...curled up sleeping comfortably and cozy beside a warm fireplace in wintertime.

When Robins Remain

2011-10-13T09:30:00.002-05:00

When robins remain while others so programmed pass on oppress,
Morn and eve, voice their lives' joy in majestic rustic underdress;
Southward winging passerines come again near fall chilling time,
Still, a few thrushes stay and can but sing known songs sublime.

Sojourners risk as sure uncertainty for faith is blind obedience;
Grounding to these woods with need no more of moving, hence,
Robins bring happiness to a place and more arrive by May;
Glad when then it is in their driving genes to go, they stay.

In Defense of a "Spiritual Path"

2011-10-06T20:00:00.129-05:00

If you wonder whether or not you are on a spiritual path, you are. If you are alive, you are on a spiritual path. Just wait and see. - Dr. Denise Neal

A distinguished artist and dear friend recently shared these words that gave cause to meditate upon our aspect of immortality. Hopefully, without sounding so judgmental or overly religious, this inadequate piece will lend some support to that belief involved in the idea of anyone alive is indeed on a "spiritual path."
Life to life, spirit to spirit...this then is essentially our existence. Do we want to believe this life we live is it, or the bigger concept of are we spirit created so as to go on forever, whatever realm might be revealed? The life spirit we presently possess matters most. Examine, too, why is it true for any great civilization that has ever existed, exists an innate need for connection and worship of a Higher Source.
The being (self) embodies one spirit departing upon death. It is said scientifically that each of us is unique and different like snowflakes. Our fingerprints and individual DNA further prove it. We have but one bodily existence, being enough of an effort. Our spirit is just as unique and another thing--part of a whole. Is it much of a stretch to believe that before we were, we are? And that spirit originates from whom we will refer to as a "Greater Creator." This all-encompassing, eternal entity wise in ordering the time, the place, the role each special spirit should play upon this planet.
The body is for the spirit, the spirit for the body. We feel a spirit (soul) alive apart from the body but operating within. Physical life necessarily means the presence of spirit or soul, the body merely being the container giving spirit a form. It's often exclaimed that the "human spirit" is what separates us from other mammals, besides our higher ability to reason and act irrationally. This in no way diminishes the worth of them or any other living creature.
It's more than summoning the strength and will to survive or the courage and compassion when needed. It is an additional propensity towards cruelty, a capacity for evil doings, and pride that sets people apart. How is this possible? Like innocent babes, we are born with a pure spirit, but by gradual will and desire, our spirit changes. Another aspect concerning mind/spirit is choice and discernment.
The wondrous conscious mind (heart) confirms this almost daily! Our spirit seeks to integrate with self, often determining destiny. Unlike consciousness, our spirit requires quiet time to reflect and re-energize from the Greater Creator source. On occasion, our spirit wrestles nights with the subconscious over such matters we mortals worry so well about. Other times, the spirit works in perfect harmony with the heart (not the organ) to resolve situations and even create imaginative innovative ones! During daytime awareness and activity, the spirit's reside is to guide the moral-minded being down the spiritual pathway paved with conviction.
Yet, each of us as spiritual are aware of a constant struggle for control of our body and soul, affecting every action and decision. We have within us a clear understanding of good and evil, right and wrong, true and false--our spirit. The world we live in dilutes our spirit and resolve, until there remains little resembling the spiritual attributes once endowed. Usually we just succumb easily to enticing aspects of life's pleasures and settle for less, even if it's more of the same temporal temptations. Still, it always remains an option to ignore self (will), choosing instead, to tap into our inner spirit, where dwell the real axioms of existence.
Since spirit is realized by the mind and felt only by the heart, the fact that it is not physical means it doesn't die with the body. The way of all creation--rust and rot erode and eventually recycles self into earth's elements once again. The spirit is free from decay and now released, seeks a final destination on its journey. Who can prove or not our spirits linger in familiar haunts and scenes of the deceased for reasons unknown to us--seeking a sense of connection? Perhaps, spirits suddenly stripped of their murdered or accidentally killed counterparts exist in a state of shock much like humans do and possess some grieving devotion to their now lifeless physical forms for awhile longer...finally departing.
If we so choose to listen intently, where that spirit finally goes, the voice inside each of us assures our soul that the path ultimately leads back where all spirits are gathered collectively to the Greater Creator, who selects each soul's beginning and ending. The dead now have no need to know fully and all the living may take care or comfort in knowing their spirit lives forever.

just

2011-09-30T07:30:00.002-05:00

just - a powerful adverb of effort, degree, and of possibility

just...
imagine
keep it simple
don't say it
realize
make it in time
take a chance
hope
to see you again
have faith
think
finish what you start
act natural
one more try
know

This Really Sucks

2011-09-27T22:45:00.028-05:00

What word did they once use instead of sucks? When you wonder about it, there's some good kinds of sucking going on. Lots of good wholesome objects suck, for example: cherry flavored Popsicles, large long straws, a litter of nursing kittens, yummy Tootsie Roll Pops, vacuum cleaners, our noses, and such. Also, it seems largely a generational concept. All of us old guys/gals have no problem with sucking because we were raised with it being a natural and expected thing with infants, mammals and even hairy whales. So sucking was and still is a very good thing, I suppose.
Well then, how did the word get such a bad rap and reputation in expressions like "This really sucks!"? I think it is because suck is succinct and works well orally and visually. No one wants to be associated with the dirty work of drains and commodes, suddenly sucking short of breath, that giant sound of the greater part of our wages being siphoned off by Washington, or even in the dangerous swirling terror of a tornado! If something is said "to suck," then it clearly communicates to all senses involved that what is being experienced could be bad for both mind and body. There appears no other way to express one's present discomfort and disgust than "___ sucks!"
And I just think the young adults today are infatuated with those one-word descriptors such as sweet, bad, hot, bites...sucks. These seem to sum up the emotion in real order, better maybe than our older versions of getting bad vibes about and something being not groovy, man.

Frontiers and Freedoms

2011-09-20T21:00:00.007-05:00

"This then is the heritage of pioneer experience,--a passionate belief that a democracy was possible which should leave the individual a part to play in free society and not make him a cog in a machine operated from above; which trusted in the common man, in his tolerance, his ability to adjust differences with good humor, and to work an American type from the contributions of all nations--a type for which he would fight against those who challenged it in arms and for which in time of war he would make sacrifices, even the temporary sacrifice of individual freedom and his life, lest that freedom be lost forever."
- Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History

Are there any frontiers and freedoms in this land and life yet unwon? If so, do we want to go and get? Our pioneering spirit restlessly stirs within us to move off-complacency and launch off into territory unknown, other necessary pursuits and risky adventures at best. We know our need to first conquer fears of doubt and understand our abilities we each possess within--those inherent rights to achieve our very deepest dreams. Real freedom then becomes escape from any restriction or from self infliction; wanting happiness and frontiers of true living to explore.

Rear View

2011-09-17T22:00:00.005-05:00

If you want to know something about someone you will probably never meet, all you have to do is look at their rear end. I mean the rear end of their car, crossover, SUV, suburban, van, truck, trailer, etc. While you are stopped at a long light or perhaps tailgating them in traffic for hours, take a good look at their behind.
The rear door, windshield, bumper, and even license plates are ideal for displaying statements and symbols that reveal a lot about the person(s) occupying the vehicle ahead. Seems like we use our means of travel to advertise ourselves and give others a glimpse into our private busy lives on the go using stickers. See if this isn't true by the list below.

the number and sexes of family members by the stick figures pasted on the back windshield, sometimes to include dogs and cats
what their kid(s) first names are and what they play--sports or instruments, and if they are among the chosen few Principal's pets
a diaper baby on board
who they love...whether it be husband, wife, girlfriend, neighbor, or Rottweiler
an environmentalist or the guy's a real "hunter-gatherer" bringing home the venison, fish, and fowl
retired or hired (company /State parking sticker in the left-hand corner widshield)
what college their money is still going to
a Smith & Wesson...Browning (pink-white) on board
where they want to stay weird
what they would rather be doing than driving the car that's in front of you
all the places they've been...where they hang-out
a peacenik or a soldier
their passion and cause summed up in a color-coded ribbon
a wicken or a warrior
what radio stations they listen to on the way to work
professed patriotism in the form of flags and red/white/blue slogans
the college/professional team they devoutly watch weekends
viewpoints expressed on cleverly worded bumper stickers and political party they vote
either presently organic or just ran a marathon
somewhat fishy and those sporting walking fish that Christians tend to closely tailgate

The rest of us who drive vehicles with nothing unusual about our rear ends, well...you are just going to have to hope you can meet us someday in some way and get to know us the old fashion way by engaging us in conversation. You'll find that we are much the same as you folks, with similar lives, loves, and beliefs, but we don't obviously show it.

I Wanted to Be a Comic Book He Man

2011-09-02T22:45:00.004-05:00

The ad read, Brother, can YOU spare a DIME 10ct? How to Gain up to 50 lbs. of Mighty Muscles! YOU into a New Athletic Mighty-Muscled-Stretched HE MAN

I wanted to be such a He Man like the men I saw portrayed in the glossy back page of my comic book. I flexed my biceps each night before going to bed in hope that the next time they would rise an inch taller. I even surprised my mother by eating all the slimy spinach she spooned on my plate.

I so much desired to develop a vise-like grip on my slim situation and become the strong man--starting right now at age 10!

POWER-PACKED WRISTS...SLEDGE-HAMMER FOREARMS...In Just Minutes A Day!

But, there was a catch...this was going to cost me a bundle: $1 was a month's allowance! I'd have to really work hard around the house here and wash/wax my stepfather's Ford Fairlane a few times, too. Then, spotted another advertisement inside of my friend's borrowed Sgt. Rock of Easy Company comic book.

SKINNY or FAT, 15, 20, 30, 40 YEARS OF AGE...Pick the Kind of Body You Want

I want that one there! Indeed, there was hope for me! And this offer was for free, as was another I found in my sister's sissy Archie comic she kept in her underwear dresser drawer.

The ad said, Hey, Skinny!...yer ribs are showing! I definitely didn't want to be that embarrassed chum with the girl and the scenario played out on the page! Above the picture perfect photo of Charles Atlas and his notable bulges was this, his telling testimony:

I Can Make YOU a New Man, Too, In Only 15 Minutes a Day!

My 32-Page Illustrated Book is Yours - Not for $1.00 or 10 cts. - But FREE

Hey, I could spare a quarter-hour out of my busy boy day and build me a body like his!

I dreamed of being the only Charles on the beach, walking bronzed and broad by bikini-clad girls, who sat up from sunning themselves to admire my physic, as I passed by. You could see the guys envying my muscles and strength: bulging arms, thighs, chest, and washboards...Nobody was going to mess with me, except the beautiful women I met and lifted up and over my head with ease, as I would barbell weights!

Watching Too Many Old TCM Movies

2011-09-01T16:30:00.004-05:00

It's film noir and intrigue, romance and swell figured leading ladies in full silken slips that lure me to the old B&W movies...

the sound of Ingrid Bergman's Swedish accented words, her cute curve of a nose, and tears on cue

Marlene Dietrich's mouth and slight German smile

that always sultry look of Lauren Bacall's

Jean Arthur's schoolgirl voice and such a Dove-soap complexion

the way Bette Davis sensuously smokes her cigarette

Barbara Stanwyck's blonde hairdo and shapely legs...that cold deliberate delivery in Double Indemnity (1944), when she speaks these lines to Walter concerning their murder of her husband:
"We're both rotten."
"It's straight down the line for both of us."

Wet 'n' Wild

2011-08-29T20:00:00.002-05:00

What is wet? I've near forgotten what it's like to be soaked, since I haven't experienced rain in so long and I don't go swimming every day as when I was a boy. The rivers here have sunk deep again into their soft chalky beds and disappeared; the area lakes evaporated by the end of July. Why, I've aroused myself out of sound sleep several mornings just to witness the cycles of my sprinkler system. With wonder and awe, I watched their tiny spurts and spray, as I would a magnificent dancing fountain...I want to get wet!

I was only "wild" that one time I remember wandering around in the Chihuahuan Desert of Big Bend. I never knew wild until then--alone amid sotol and cacti, immersed in primeval environment and thoughts. Wildness works its effect on the emotions: transforming what's sound and sane reactions into apparent craziness...confidence becoming suddenly a sense of insecurity...attempting to connect with the true nature of one's existence now, where once things were wilder.

Downtown Dallas After 37 Years

2011-08-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

I went downtown Dallas the other day; hadn't been there since the last of July 1974, right before I got married and moved away for good. It was in short, a strange homecoming and encounter of present vs. past. Both times were under similar circumstances: traveling downtown during the busy workweek by public transport, attending a training in a tall building comprising the city's canyons there, and each prior to taking a proposed job in Central Texas. That was my first full-time employment and this was to be my last; neither job panned out.
There were noticeable differences, too. I hardly recognized the place, except for the streets. At least their names remain the same. Gone is the skyline of friendly buildings of my youthful Dallas, like the old Majestic Theater or the Magnolia (Mobil) Building with its well-known revolving red Pegasus atop her. I did find the lone rectangular structure of the former Southland Life Building and the Republic National Bank Building, whose large aluminum jet spire still supports a rotating searchlight at its pinnacle. I recall seeing it sweeping the sky once upon a time, as a beacon symbolizing Dallas of the 1960s. All now dwarfed by more modern skyscrapers that had long since boxed and buried them in shadows beneath.
The one thing I didn't miss was having to take the city bus from the suburbs. I rode the DART train down all three days. It actually became the highlight of my morning/afternoon reunion with my hometown! What used to take near an hour in traffic, became 15 minutes--tops! The rail line zipped me along a narrow strip of track between residents, businesses, beside miles of concrete conduit, housing projects, over bustling boulevards, and through underground tunnels that opened again at the other end in the old city. Trains and cars share the same street like Dallas trolley days of old. Riding it was comfortable and easy on-off; trains run in and out of downtown about every quarter-hour. All you need remember was the "color" of your ride line. Definitely, the DART train made my trip downtown a pleasure...then, just an imagined dream of a plan some 37 years ago.

What Will Be

2011-08-21T22:30:00.008-05:00

Sunday evenings seem to me like the night before battle, when alone in presence thought, I wonder what daybreak and the week reveals, and anxiously await the outcome of those aspects of my life that determine fate or outcome of the fight; reluctantly accept as destined and beyond control, what will be.

gone are gardenias

2011-08-19T23:00:00.003-05:00

evergreen even as summer wilt; gone are gardenias that grow whorls of pearl-white petals, pure parfum essence, which shame the bright white easter lily and last night's winter snowfall; await their blooming in spring, when one-year older and no more the wiser, cheer the faint heart to know that time is drawing near; grace and gardenias so adorn the grave, give beauty in death, as aroma and ascent for the fate of flesh and flower

Wanted: One Weekend in Paris

2011-08-13T21:00:00.004-05:00

"...then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." - Ernest Hemingway to a friend, 1950

When I'm able, I'm going to Paris for the weekend. Even Adolf Hitler himself came here once, looked around and left. Doesn't matter where I stay for I have no time to sleep, barely some to eat; not there for romance, nor a desire to hate the French. I just want two days in Paris--fill my soul; to soak up the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the feel that is this historical city. Arise early and stay out late in the nightlife that encompasses the old European capital.
Gone are the galleries of becoming painters and the warm, well lighted street cafes where Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and others wrote between the wars, and too, Sylvia's Beach's bookstore Shakespeare and Company at 12 rue de l'Odeon. I wish I could have been there at that time with "Lost Generation" as Gertrude Stein called all of them.
First to the Left Bank southern side of the Seine River, which slices Paris in half, to the famous Latin Quarter to stroll the rue Mouffetard, one of Paris' oldest streets; tour the majestic Pantheon mausoleum, where remains France's finest minds rest. From there I would go see the Nortre Dame Cathedral and gargantuan The Lourve museum. Across from it is Tuileries Park, playfully preserved in Mussorgsky's 3rd movement of his Pictures.
The remainder of that afternoon would be to take in some of that famous avenue central to Parisians: the Champs-Elysees, and onward to the Arc du Triumphe, Emperor Napolean's narcissistic tribute to himself, still a symbol of greatness and glory to this day. Oh, I have to climb the Eiffel Tower, too! An only an evening with a boat ride down the scenic Seine River would make this marvelous day quite complete.
I have to cram as much scenery into the second day. Maybe a quick trip into the Marais quarter into the narrow streets to visualize what was Medieval and Renaissance Paris was like. Only have time for a quick take of the Canal Saint-Martin and Montmarte, an area where the artists once congregated to compose and exchange ideas.
My side treat is a 20-km trip out to the Paris suburbs to the Palace of Versailles, Louie and Marie's last condo before they lost everything, including their heads. The bus will get me back into the heart of the city to catch the evening cabaret at the Moulin Rouge. Mother will blush and others may doubt, when I tell them of the going-ons in there, but it'll be worth it to have experienced it. That's my one weekend in Paris.

Cease and Desist

2011-08-12T11:30:00.005-05:00

I heard the old, old men say,
'Everything alters,
And one by one we drop away...
All that's beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.'
- William Butler Yeats

I am at the age where I count the years, much as would a runner the miles from the start. I realize that I don't have as many left to me as I used to, when as a boy, I knew I would live forever. And the days and months accelerate, too--it's Wednesday already again; Christmas is just around the corner.
I've been dying every day and so since birth. But I believe we perceive most keenly that we are indeed at the very point of death, unless of course, we're comatose or killed accidentally. I witnessed it that final night with my wife's father, my father-in-law, whom I loved dearly as a generous and kind-hearted man that ever lived on this earth. Alone I sat in his hospital room those early morning hours to watch and wait and when last I had opportunity to speak to him and comfort him with a cold sip of water, he nodded in acknowledgment...he knew.
The science of life and death is unknown and unpredictable, as is our weather--you have a pretty good idea, but nothing definite or for certain. Like creatures who refuse all food and water, the urge will be in me to resign not to survive and seek the right place to die. Humans have a harder go at it. Some loved one of mine will selfishly try to prolong my life with the usual drugs, transfusions, force-feeding, and oxygen tubes. I know the drill to death, apart from a kill. But why, would I request? My desire is much the same as if I issue a cease and desist order to let me in dignity.
I've decided not to waste what I have left. As the true saying goes (among us older adults), "If you have your health, well then, you have a lot!" I'm going to try to keep mine and invest the rest in others, who have years yet ahead of them, the same as me, or maybe even less: family, friends, and anyone I come in contact over these waning years; and although a bit winded, fully aware I'm nearer the end of my marathon than when I first began and want to finish strong.

Some Other Bumper/Window Stickers We'd Like to See

2011-08-11T07:45:00.018-05:00

FACEBOOK: She Who Dies With The Most Friends Wins.

In Case of Rapture - This Car Will Still Be Manned.

Will Rogers, Meet Rick Perry.

BUM ON BOARD

When Guns Are Allowed...time to break out those closet fully automatics.

Andrea
TUBA

I Gave A Gallon at CrynoDreams Sperm Bank.

Share The Road (I'm Texting Hell's Angels.)

C O P A C E T I C, Y'A L L

Save Water: Just Sing "Shower the people you love with love..."

I'd Rather Be Working.

If You're as Smart as Your Phone, You'd Trim Down Your Apps.

I Love My Strife.

Find Your Center FREE SPACE & Abundant Riches @ Bingo! For-A-Cross Resurrection Fellowship

Sonic Sparrows & Other Bird Houses

2011-08-10T10:30:00.004-05:00

I don't go to Sonic just for the half-priced drinks from 2-4 daily or an occasional foot-long chili cheese coney (with mustard and onions). I go to see their sparrows. They are ever busy bodies foraging for food, breeding new sparrowlings, and building nests up inside the overhead awnings of the drive-in. They got it made, these small sparrows, who permanently reside in their durable tin house, which provides a real "roof over their heads." Some strike it lucky, feasting on a dropped fat tatter tot. You hear the glee in their crescendo of chirping chatter and dancing hops as they gathered 'round. There's food for all!
I pulled up to the metal menu in DQ's drive-thru the other day and heard sparrows chirping inside the sign! One of the fellows was on top with head cocked to one side peering curiously down at me. These byrds like their cousins down at Sonic have figured it out to build modern homes with metal siding, tucking their stick-n-feathered nests securely inside. Characteristic of their kind and abode is high and warm, away from prowling cats. Just look at the elaborate lighted metal signs above shopping strip stores and you'll sometimes see straw nests bulging out of the tucks in the lettering. Smart chickadees!
I remember the state parking garages downtown house whole flocks of contented sparrows. You can hear them as they sing pridefully of their labor, their song echoing and filling, giving some life to the cold concrete bunkers. A few of them even came to the edge of the eaves to greet me in the morning as I walked toward my work.
One more thing...next time you are stopped at a long cycled red light, look up above to see if you can catch some effervescent speckled starlings darting in and out of the end of the steel cross pole. I think the big brawny utility guys leave it unplugged on purpose, so that their feathered English friends need a home, when all the trees have been spoken for by bigger birds. If you build it, they'll come: high rise apartment lofts in good neighborhoods near schools and other amenities...for free.

Why We Work

2011-08-08T22:00:00.004-05:00

We work to provide.
Others depend on us and need us.
Hopefully, we can make a (better) difference.
Our jobs give us a sense of purpose and worth.
Occupation complements personality.
We work for reward and recognition.
Paycheck and promotion are a result of effort.Our aim is accomplishment and a compliment for a job well done.
We work for ourselves, our own satisfaction, whether or not it's others that actually pay us.
Work is our pride enjoy.Our concern is doing the best job possible and taking care of business.
We strive to make every opportunity to serve a thankful one.

Steak Cutlets and Fish on Fridays

2011-08-07T18:30:00.003-05:00

I wasn't always a brown bagger or one of those junior high school boys who brought their wedge-shaped sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, all contained in a cute comic-book tin lunch box, complete with pop-top thermos. A couple of days of the week I ate cafeteria food, especially when they served steak cutlets and fish fillets.
Usually, you could count on them serving up steak cutlets. We didn't much care that they were processed, stamped-out patties, and prefrozen; we waited in anticipation for them and the ancillary servings that went along with it. I know it was a favorite meal of mine and I really think it was a treat for the lunchroom ladies to fix us, too.
There was a huge hot homemade roll, mashed (instant) potatoes with a pat of pure butter swimming on top, together with a slice of buttermilk chess pie."My oh, my!"...just what a student body needed after a morning of modern math and English language arts. Sometimes I would get lucky and trade with lunch mates, sacrificing my bread for an extra slice of pie!
I loved the last day of school every week, not only for the the fun weekend coming up, but because you knew there would be that giant golden breaded fish stick on your plate, ketchup, french fries, along with another sumptuous prepared roll and piece of pie. We knew the lunch line usually served up the same stuff weekly except rotating the days and occasionally slipping in a surprise entree here and there for variety. Believe me, cafeteria kids like to know what's coming, what they're eating, so cuisine surprises are not too special. At least we had all the good Catholic kids that weren't enrolled in parochial school to thank for there always being fish on Fridays.

a passion more powerful

2011-08-03T21:30:00.006-05:00

love we often lack
for in its essence
becomes the stronger force humans have
a passion more powerful
able to move emotions
eliminates fears
resists hatred
displaces all doubt
reinforces relationships
supports the weak and faint-hearted
sustains even strangers

Observations of an Unemployed Husband

2011-08-02T20:30:00.004-05:00

1. There's no quiet way to put up dishes.

2. You begin to tell day/time by sounds:
     5:15 am (Tues./Thurs.) sprinklers come on outside the windows
     9:30 am (Tuesdays) trash truck's familiar air brakes at the curb
     4:00 pm Oprah's on

3. I look forward to ending my day with a trip to the mailbox.

4. What's actually important is your ready supply of clean underwear and wash cloths.

5. Vacuuming is kinda like the "abomination of desolation" mentioned in the Bible.

6. Daytime TV is full of cooks, degenerates, builders, unreality, criminals, and carousers, except during evening prime time, there are a few more crime stoppers around.

7. Daytime TV is the reason I read mostly and I need a job quick!

8. I've made peace with the deli meats and cheeses at HEB.

9. Cleaning commodes can be thought of as an art form.

10. The science of ceiling fans is that they turn counterclockwise.

In Other Words

2011-07-24T22:15:00.002-05:00

We're just ordinary average guys. - Joe Walsh

What's worse is more of us settle for less than those of us who won't settle for less.

Why would we rather choose to labor largely for the benefit and satisfaction of others, when we could with the same amount of effort earn for ourselves the more desirable rewards of worth, dignity, and honor?

The only cure for a case of complacency is a dose of doing.

Peter Pan was right--somewhere along the way, we adults turned off our dream machine. We've even went as far as to disassemble it until we know it won't work anymore; nor do our present future thoughts resemble anything of those childhood dreams when what we imagined was our hope and stay.

Apathy is a progressive paralysis of the soul that can only be brought back into feeling alive again by finding something or someone to believe in and care about.

I Like It

2011-07-22T18:30:00.001-05:00

I like it when...

the dozen donuts that I get at the shop down the street are still warm and sticky.

I know which aisle to go to in the grocery store to find packages of Korn Kits without having to ask anyone.

someone just pulls out of a parking space up close to the shopping mall and then I don't have to walk so far.

the snail mail is delivered at least by 3:30 pm to our community boxes on my street.

dogs wag their tails and lick me to death, like cats do with their motor-boat purrs, rubbing up against my legs tails high.

the air conditioning works in the restaurants where we are sitting, waiting, while they are cooking all that hot food for us hungry souls.

I can catch a cool breeze and take my cap off to capture that soothing feeling of its touch turning my perspiration to sudden comfort.

secretly dunking graham crackers in a glass of cold milk, I try to time it so that the soggy stuff, maybe barely hinging to the rest, just makes it into my mouth before it falls off.

someone smiles and says something to me I know is sincerely said and meant.

I shower off the difficult day and retreat to my study where I am finally alone with a good book to keep me company.

A Hill Top Experience

2011-07-21T21:30:00.010-05:00

I sang in The Sound of Music. Nopey dopey, I don't mean a bit part in the movie musical! Despite my adolescent (continuing) propensity towards ultimate shyness and not going it solo, I was at one time a performing member of the Robert T. Hill Junior High's select choir, The Highland Chorus. For our annual spring program, we put on in part some selections from the then popular Rodgers and Hammerstein's production in a program cleverly called: Hill is Alive With The Sound of Music. Our choir directors and choral conductors, Miss Nancy Stegall and Miss Cathryn Woodard, rehearsed us unmercifully until we could sing the songs in our sleep!
Our program consisted of a series of scenarios involving the Girls' and Boys' Choruses, the combined Chorus, some scary solos, several enduring duets, and special mixed ensembles. We boldly and confidently belted out the memorable tunes anybody living back then (and owning a shower) could at least hum: songs like the namesake, "Sound of Music," "Maria," "My Favorite Things," "Do Re Mi," "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," "Edelweiss"(a tear here), "So Long Farewell," concluding with the stirring "Climb Every Mountain. I was in the coed ensemble that scurried on stage to chime out the lines to the tricky "Do Re Mi"...it was important to keep up that tempo, as Woodard waved and pointed frantically!
It was all such sport and fun to do, boys dressed all in alpine outfits--shorts, suspenders, high socks and pointed caps; the girls in colorful white dresses with red/green ribbon trim and flowers in their hair (Hey, it was the '60s, too!) It served a crowning gift...our Last Hurrah! at Hill as 9th-grader Highlanders. We were feeding into Bryan Adams (BA) next fall, some of us to achieve even more noteriaty and further obscurity at the behemouth high school.
Sandy, Jay, Martha, Jenna, Rae, Terry, Debbie, Larry, Bruce, Marilyn, Deanna, Bill, et al. and me, we had a most magical moment on the Hill that May evening in 1967.

What Becomes of Church Bulletins

2011-07-18T19:00:00.002-05:00

Church bulletins don't die, they just get oldy moldy bound in binders arranged by volume, number, and date like all serial periodicals. - National Geolaugphic Society

I have a part-time job cleaning a church building the Monday following Sunday services, so I know first-hand the sins committed by worshippers upon their sacred church bulletins. Most are discarded as common waste paper after being read or hardly even skimmed over and passed to fidgety children to scribble on during the sermon. These newsy trifolded congregational creations: if only the members knew how much trouble it was to compile the information contained therein by the one minister who writes it all up, already undersalaried as it is from the passed plate and has to weekly deal with those annoying few that never submit their additions for the church bulletin by Thursday's deadline...it's a crying shame!
In my cleaning, I find such sheets laying about on the floor and in the seats in all kinds of condition. I felt I just had to bare my soul and tell below just what becomes of church bulletins.

wadded up in disgust like a student's notebook paper with a mistake on it
worked over and around the edge with a pocket paper punch
scratched and maimed on every page by a ball point pen
a section torn out in a rounded pattern, no doubt for a piece of teenage-chewed gum
pages used for pencil scribble (too lazy to bring a blank pad for the toddling artist to draw on and already used up the attendance/visitor cards in the rack on the back of the pew in front)
right next to "Benevolence" the phone number: 867-5309
all the letters with enclosed parts colored in real cute
graded in all in red (probably by a pharisee or a English teacher in the audience)
half-eaten
some kid thought it was one of those word-find worksheets she always gets at school and has circled across, down, and diagonally
folded into paper air forces, origami creatures, and those infamous folded four-finger guess games
penciled drawing of Christians shaking hands with lions and signed: "Kilroy was here!"
Christian love/hate notes (probably a middle schooler)
misspellings noted with an asterisk and exclamation mark...of course, corrected
the fill-in-blanks on the Sermon Notes back page filled in with non-sense words and clever phrases by some anonymous someone who obviously thinks he/she's humorous
serves as a kid's test coloring book
all scripture references within checked and verified for accuracy and appropriateness
folded tight to the 50th-time (and tucked)
one with printing at the top: MASTER COPY
torn into a thousand pieces and piled up in a pyramid
inside used as a lipstick blotter
cut into paper dolls and snowflakes by some secreted purse scissors
some computer geek guy name Luke's fancy software-made business card containing one of those clever marketing slogans: "We don't hard drive sales and service!" left conveniently inside

My trash runneth over.

some lines said this sunday

2011-07-17T19:30:00.007-05:00

ask any morning cardinal if it can't but repeat the refrains
created within to sing
or inquire of the actor partly on passion, which words at heart
and lines will play

Necessary Loves, Necessary Losses

2011-07-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

Alone of presence and void of their affections, I don’t lament the decisions I may have made or chose to give away. They are but sweet dreams at once craved; wanton desires we each conceal and never confessed fully to another, even our lover. The fantastic's not forever or for having, it is an unreal and intoxicated feeling, fleeting—merely an emotional mirage, elusive in the soul's quest for some means of fulfillment. In my life, I see them all now as necessary loves, necessary losses.

Senior English

2011-07-09T13:45:00.006-05:00

I couldn't forget her if I tried! She was everything you hoped for in a stereotypical English teacher: spinster, women's libber, modest dresser, master's degree with a thesis probably on the subject of "Forces of Nature Outside and Inside Man Combining to Shape Human Destiny Evident in Thomas Hardy's Novels," a bit snotty and snippy, but effective just the same! This was Ms. Donna Bronough.
I still hold my tattered report card with bruises of D's and mostly C's. I was a reader, I wasn't a writer (then). My wounded compositions returned from the war of words about literature, dripping red with corrections and suggestions...apparently I was unable to grasp important things like tense, topic sentences, and at the time, symbolism seemed to elude me altogether. I wish Ms. Bronough could read me now, she'd be proud that I'm quite comfortable with simile and alliteration.
And who can forget that we (still) impressionable seniors were so conscripted, as British sailors on the sea, to memorize and recite back to Ms. B at her front desk the first 18 lines of Chaucer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. I personally preferred the racy sexual innuendos in the "Nun's Tale" best, but we didn't get to read that part of the epic poem till in college! Original Old English words recited are given in italics; actual thoughts are in [ ].
Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendered is the flowr;
[Boy, I wish we were back on Beowulf where the action is...Grendel busting into the mead hall and wholesale slaughter going on! April...springtime, huh?--It's only September and graduation is in May]
Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
[Old Man Chaucey sure knew his mythology and science...]
And smale fowles maken melodye
That sleepen al the night with open ye--
So priketh hem Nature in hir courages--
[Even the birds are all excited and can't wait for spring! Ho-hum, I sure could use a nap, but study hall's not till 7th Period.
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgramages,
And palmares for to seeken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, couthe in soundry londes;
[These guys sure spoke straunge back then...hard to believe this was the beginning of English? "I see London, I see France, I see some one's underpants!"]
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martyr for to seeke
That hem holpen whan that they were seke.
[Of Englelond--"Hail Britannia!" Got to remember to say it to Bronaugh how the British pronounce it: "Caun-ter-bre"....Holy St. Christopher, I'll never learn all of this!]

The Little Cessna

2011-07-06T17:00:00.001-05:00

Make my way back home when I learn to fly. - Foo Fighters

I spied the little plane parked politely in its place at the rural airport, cockpit and cabin glass covered from prying-eyed people like me, but I bet more from the fading sun rays amplified by the clear canopy. "I could fly you," I said to myself. "You're not all large and too much power or roar like your friends asleep around you." Was this a new-found courage to venture off into the wild blue...me, older now, near-sighted, and afraid of heights? Must be easy enough to pilot the little Cessna, kind of like driving a Volkswagen through all four gears and not having to worry so much about staying in your lane; yet to keep it upright and airborne. I can learn to fly as anyone else, it's not too late for me. Been so long a prisoner of myself, earth-bound by gravity, wanting free to be. In my mind and heart, I am already flying. One only has to have first the desire and in a second, the soul soars.

The Bryan Adams High School 1970 National Honors Orchestra

2011-06-26T19:15:00.004-05:00

What could any individual accolade of mine add to the volume of what’s already been said and written about all of you who were the Bryan Adams High School 1970 National Honors Orchestra? I was not a musician among you and didn’t accompany you to Chicago, yet I feel an integral part of your performance as a listener and a mesmerized member of your audience that “magical” concert in our school auditorium. I can still hear the music of that memorable evening to this day…an enchanting and timeless program from Classical Mozart and Romantic Rossini/Kodaly to 20th-Century Stravinsky and Respighi, with a little Modern “electronic” number thrown in for kicks!

Susan Starrett, you were a gift to BA. All instrumental, inspirational leaders down through the course of history, without exception, were the right person in the right place at the right time. Not only an accomplished musician yourself, an exceptional educator and conductor, but you were that one person who made it happen! You befriended and believed in your student musicians. I know they are eternally grateful for the time you invested in them.

Congratulations again, Bryan Adams High School 1970 National Honors Orchestra, even 40 years removed! We are still ever proud of your talents and achievements! I count many of you among my personal friends then and even now—all of you as Cougar Classmates.

busy birdbath

2011-06-13T22:15:00.070-05:00

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water. - W.H. Auden

a bird of any feather deserves drink
and bath
in that life-giving liquid
and relief
from the weary summer's heat
passerines and local residents alike

insignificant sparrows
colorful chirping cardinal
dark despised grackles
miniature fussy wrens
mothering mockingbird
you mean ol' blue jay you
playful flighty finches
imported effervescent starlings
droves of pigeon-size doves
industrious red-breasted robins who decided to stay

welcome all who stop for thirst from forage
do a dance to dip and sip so cautiously
get your fill, frolic, and splash away the day
watching you outside my front window
that's my reward along with your songs of thanks
my fowl friends

sometimes

2011-06-09T07:15:00.004-05:00

sometimes feel an urge for wearing white bell bottoms and a pair of Weejuns like I once did

cruise in my coal-black '62 Dodge Dart with air-conditioned 8-track stereo red interior

stop off at Hardees on the way home from school for burgers and fries and pink lemonade

loose myself again in the lyrics and songs that spoke to me more than pretending to be

wanting just to resurrect an old crush on a fair ginger-haired girl who never knew me true

sometimes feel as lost in identity and direction that I'm going now-a-days as I once did then

Back to Bend

2011-06-03T23:00:00.001-05:00

November 21, 2002/ Spending this last evening, today my 51st birthday, appropriately here at the high Basin looking out through the The Window over the still orange-lighted ethereal Chihuahuan desert spreading out below. Today was a full day: to the ruins of J.O. Langford's Hot Springs baths, Bouquillas Canyon, some of the old Ore Terminal Trail, up the Lost Mine Trail to the top, ending here and now. I hate to leave, but I have a job tugging at me Monday morning and must return to civilization as I know it--houses lined up neatly on the street, the awful hour commute, and the deep city caverns that swallow me up each weekday. I like it here, free from city sound and polluted sign...to breathe the fresh arid air.

I'm determined to get back to Big Bend this fall! The West beckons me to return to her waiting there, immersed with wanderlust in the vastness of territory; to taste the wildness of that sacred history and lore; to help myself to the offerings of natural resources; to stand beside the turbulent waters of that ancient Grande River. I want to be there with her.

Take me all the way back
To the wild frontier
Well I'm counting the miles
Seeing her smile in the wild frontier
- Bruce Hornsby

Men Without Women

2011-06-02T13:00:00.003-05:00

Some would postulate that we men do not fare well without our womenfolk. Why, my son and I had a marvelous dinner last evening. We've been "batching" it these few days while the wife/Mom's been on duty in San Antonio with the Grand Kids! I fixed chopped steak (actually warmed-up hamburger patties from Memorial Monday), chopped up a quick salad from assorted veggies in the bin, macaroni and cheese, and ice tea. We really lucked out on the Kraft Mac & Cheese, left over from when our San Diego granddaughter was here last. You know the kind that's not too "instant" as the ones you buy today, comes in a tall upright rectangular box, and you just add butter and milk to the cheese powder and stirred into the drained boiled-up macaroni still in the pan. Never mind that the macaroni was in the shape of Sponge Bob Square Pants and Friends. My son and I both agreed it made the meal. We only made the mistake of not waiting and knifed into the box before dumping the noodles out! (On the back of the box was a picture of Bob on a cut-out Trivia Card #3 and says, "You can collect all 3 trivia cards! Spongy trivia on the back of each card!")
Well, gotta go...the woman is expected home today shortly and I still have to wash the sink full of dishes, make the beds, sanitize the bathroom some, wash a load of towels, and vacuum up the escaped potato chips in the den. Glad she's coming home!

from "The Best Years of Our Lives"

2011-05-30T19:07:00.005-05:00

Scene: a "bone yard" of junked WW II planes and parts adjacent to the town's airport; Fred Derry is strolling through the aluminum aircraft cemetery while waiting his flight out and away from Boone City forever. He suddenly finds himself beside an all-too familiar aircraft, hauls himself up and into the Plexiglas nose of a B-17, where ex-bombardier Capt. Derry flew a many mission. Immersed again in the setting, he is taken along once more to that time and place, the horrors and ghosts of war that haunt him, until a voice below startles him back down to the present...

Foreman: Hey you, what are you doing in that airplane?
[Fred lets himself down through the open hatch facing the stranger.]
Fred: I used to work in one of those.
Foreman: Reviving old memories, huh?
Fred: Yeah, or maybe getting some of 'em out of my system.
Foreman: Well, you can take your last look at these crates. We're breakin' them up.
Fred: Yeah, I know. You're the junkman. You get everything sooner of later.
Foreman: This is no junk. We're using this material for building pre-fabricated houses.
Fred: You don't need any help, do ya?
Foreman: Out of a job?
Fred: That's it.
Foreman: I see. One of the fallen angels of the Air Force. Well, pardon me if I show no sympathy. While you glamour boys were up in the wild blue yonder, I was down in a tank.
Fred: Listen, chum. Sometime I'd be glad to hear the story of your war experiences. What I ask you for is a job? You got one?
Foreman: Do you know anything about building?
Fred: No, but there's one thing I do know. I know how to learn, same as I learned that job up there.

We who are unemployed feel like Fred Derry in some regard. It's that abandoned, unappreciated aspect of knowing deep inside that we are worthwhile, would be contributing to a career, and without appearing desperate, sincerely want to work for a living, but can't seem to find our place. He speaks for some of us in our present reality of situation.

We Only Wish to Love

2011-05-28T22:30:00.001-05:00

Out of our half-hearted attempt at love, we just reject. We only wish to love and not; never rightly so, nor know quite how. Seems easy enough succeeding in neglect, caring to select which way we want to feel at any given moment and as our emotions allow.

Not That Type of Guy

2011-05-27T09:00:00.002-05:00

It's personal.
Here was the serious scenario: Second semester, senior year high school; lacking 1/2-hour credit necessary to graduate; what's left to take? nothing, just this one elective titled "Personal Typing"
I had been avoiding taking the regular typing class (or any speech class for that matter) because of the dreaded timed exercises I had heard horror stories about! I just didn't operate very well under pressure and when put on the spot. I knew early on that I wasn't build for speed, that my motor skills puttered, and I could never keep up. Besides, I was one of those peck-it-out kind of persons, who'd never be able to keep my fingers on home keys and reach from memory.
I needed this elective.
Fortunate for me, as it all turned out in the end, the course was taught by Mrs. Evelyn Campbell [B.A.-Baylor], the mother of a school bud of mine, William "Wild Bill" Campbell. Well, not really. Bill was what I would call an early "techie," a real science and mathematical genius, too! I felt somewhat assured by his mom as my teacher of the course. Mrs. Campbell taught this course and one other, Business Law. I liked her and she worked with me, despite my lack of skills. We didn't have so many of the timed exercises and tests, as the regular full-year course. And we didn't type out long manuscripts or any of those legal documents. It was personal: stuff like lists, charts, business letters, and common correspondence. Whew! I could have never made a secretary, although I was pretty good looking.
I struggled that last semester.
Six-weeks grades: D-F-C Final exam: C Grade average: D
I made it barely! I have Mrs. Campbell to thank. I believe she perceived my desperation immediately and noticed that I tried my best. Effort must have counted for something. I saved that last report card and covet it as much as my diploma.

Personified in You

2011-05-24T22:00:00.003-05:00

I'd gladly lose me to find you
I'd gladly give up all I had
To find you I'd suffer anything and be glad...
I'd call that a bargain
The best I ever had
- The Who

I'm tired of settling for seconds (or thirds). This time I'm going for the best in me that's there waiting for release; wanting the best in you there is to have. I'm focusing on attaining that one goal of getting the prize. You hold about my final mark of achievement, of ever being sure of it. I know I got what it takes to reach you there, as older and wiser in ways, prepared for the fight. Never before sensed this realization, that in this life of mine, I'm made for you, as you are made for me. Always been denying, trying other useless pursuits and purposes; yet, the meaning finally comes clear and path has circled back to here and now: needing you...you needing me.

True

2011-05-21T20:45:00.005-05:00

It takes but a single spark for fire,
As one word's power so to inspire;
Thought into action is the first move
And sure, kept promises always prove.

Ice Cream Dreams

2011-05-19T22:00:00.006-05:00

Strains of the ice cream truck's tune "London Bridge" or was it "Mary Had a Little Lamb," I'm confused? They seemed one and the same to me coming through the warped and metallic sensation of the loud speaker. Must have been that mesmerizing, monotonous repetition that tranced us kids, together with the euphoric effect of the cold creamy creations we all knew were awaiting deliciously inside his van. The ice cream man purposely drove ever so slowly down our street, giving time for us to beg for dimes, until he had at least a dozen kids in tow like a modern Pied Piper!
It was a wonder we weren't all asphyxiated while we stood in line waiting our turn at his open window for treats. The big man (he must have been eating some himself into his profits) left the engine in idle to serve us, the the tailpipe at our feet emitting the tell-tale blue puffs of the lead gasoline's lethal mix of carbon monoxide, but it was a momentary unpleasantness, and we held our breath like we did in the Duck-N-Cover drills at school...
You had to be cool and have something on a stick: a cherry or grape Popsicle that turned your tongue the same color, so you could stick it way out afterwards in the fashion of an pre-dated Gene Simmons and gross your friends! My favorite, though, was a Dreamsicle, a creamy concoction of just the right amount of vanilla ice cream blended with orange sherbet swirls. Or maybe I'd choose on a different day, a Fudgesicle, the same but only pure chocolate. It would come out of the depths of the dry-ice dungeon ice cream box so frozen stiff, that as soon as you peeled off the wrapper, your anxious tongue would stick to the stuff! You were considered a "veteran" if you could show scars of former taste buds.
After Saturday morning skating at the rink or swimming hours in the park pool until we were wrinkled as prunes and fluoridated, we would buy those 10-cent ice cream sandwiches, equally satisfying and hard as bricks to bite into, but cookies-and-ice cream in a bar.
These were summertime ice cream dreams.

A Shaver, and So I Am

2011-05-18T17:00:00.006-05:00

"He said in this one part, that a woman's body is like a violin and all, and that it takes a terrific musician to play it right. It was a very corny book--I realize that--but I couldn't get that violin stuff out of my mind anyway."
-Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye

I'm so darn predictable. Boy, you can bet come Christmas time, I'm going to have a glass or four of Borden's Egg Nog in my hand and down the hatch. Also, I always pass on the creepy Peeps at Easter tide in favor of Robin Eggs, those confectionery creations with crunchy malted-milk balled centers. I'm such a hopeless known.

Maybe, I'm a bit too ordinary in my ways...You can be sure that I'm still wearing some of the same dress shirts and shoes I did ten years ago. I left my coveted Bass Weejuns, which had been re-heeled and resoled so many times, on a trip. I cried at the loss.

And count on me to keep clean the cats' box, feed, snack, and play with the pupones out back, fill the bird feeder out front on our bay wall window, check the concrete bird bath level evenings, and never mow the yard without Weed Eating last of all.

Keep everything that's necessary and everything in its place has been my guiding force forever. Perhaps, I am overly organized and orderly to the point of ad-nauseam? Why, I even shave the same way every day it seems...down one side and the other, then across and up. A sure shaver, and so I am.

I carry a clean white hanky in my right rear pants pocket, not for my own use (like my dad and father-in-law did), but just in case. Although, twice it's come in handy and caught tears and twice unexpected sneezes, I recall, from near ladies in distress. I suppose I'm not a lost cause despite my being too shy for my own good.

I need another way--something new and exciting--challenging for a change. Any ideas?

refrain

2011-05-15T22:00:00.010-05:00

i've fallen in love with a flute player;
i only care to be the sacred embouchure,
where she softly places her lips and breathes.

I Never Knew You

2011-05-12T23:15:00.020-05:00

And it makes me wonder...
- Stairway to Heaven

I never knew you until today. I mean I knew of you and who you were there--probably still much the same, as are the rest of us. I know we change spiritually and either from brown to gray or blonde to brown, etc., but that's the pure physical nature of things. Change's always in appearance for sure and perhaps in manner of act, but hardly in speech or thought far from that we own. If anything, we're wiser by our life skills and pile of experience.
Today took me back to then, when I used to wonder what you were really like and would ever care to know me, too? What it would feel for us to be good friends...no more than that is all I hoped for and just to see you smile at me.
Souls long to intersect at least once in this short lifetime, yet ours chose to do so twice. I remember you as an honor student, quite confident in your abilities, talented, and involved. Me, just the opposite: just an honor to be in high school, a whole lot reserve, sensitive, and insecure. Opposite attraction usually doesn't operate except in the relm of physicality. It has little to do with affection. We had no chance of connection or involvement in that time and space, except through mutual friends and classes.
It seems we've both evolved, though, I of late, and you progressing all these years. We are much alike in meaning. I find refuge within my words, which I choose carefully to say to my readers, as one would select the right wine for the company/occasion. You express yourself to your audience through your music with bow delicately dansing legato or determined staccato upon taut-tuned strings, fingers fretting furiously...an equal movement to mine.
Today you wrote me out of 40 years of blue to say you "loved" my piece on the BA Honors Orchestra's magical performance that included Respighi's Pines. I admit your praise caught me completely off recognition (emotionally unprepared, as always). Those few chosen words from you moved me. And later this evening, you shared something of yourself: a soulful violin solo of the haunting piece Chausson Poeme. What words to describe your music more than magnificent and moving? I can only know it to be revealing of you, yet you made it all real to me, as I listened to each and every stroke from your heart. I can fully appreciate the moment and feel I know you a little better because of this encounter. You made me smile and that's something I haven't had cause to do in quite awhile.

With Smiles

2011-02-11T07:15:00.013-06:00

I don't remember what I gave you that last night we were together--some kind of pendant or another--what you even gave me in the way of a Christmas gift? It didn't really matter then, as it still doesn't. I just know you always gave me a sense of hope and worth and belonging, where I had little or none. That I have always kept to myself until now.
Frustrated by my futile attempts at wanting to see/be with you some that holiday season and you just saying over the phone you can't because of so-called "company." I was beginning to have my doubts about us; ever the the insecure type and easily discouraged. I was getting the dumps inside and out.
At last, I was grateful for your agreement to finally meet me on that cold December evening. We suspiciously parked our cars back-to-back on the sloping street running beside Lochwood Park, in the dark, except for one glowing street light overhead dimmed by the thick winter mist. With the car running and heater on, we were comfy and exchanged gifts, talking excitedly like long-away friends reunited again. It always evolved into holding each other and kisses, as only young high schoolers can tenderly share. And still, when the time passed all too briefly, but emotionally enough it seemed, we parted with smiles for what feelings we knew were true.

We're Cryin' Now

2011-02-09T22:00:00.003-06:00

In Memoriam: Gerry Rafferty, Apr. 16, 1947 - Jan. 4, 2011

Gerry, we knew of you in 1972 on the scene with Stealers Wheel, when out came that famous hit "Stuck in the Middle of You." A few years down the road and then came your first solo stuff on an album City to City (1978), which established you once and for all as a singer-songwriter in your own right. We will always remember you for your "Right Down the Line" and this infamous song having been played over 5 million times on the airwaves around the world,

Winding your way down on Baker Street

Light in your head, and dead on your feet

Well another crazy day

You drink the night away

And forget about everything

This city desert makes you feel so cold

It's got so many people but it's got no soul

And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong

When you thought it held everything

You used to think that it was so easy

You used to say that it was so easy

But you're tryin', you're tryin' now

Another year and then you'd be happy

Just one more year and then you'd be happy

But you're cryin', you're cryin' now

Way down the street there's a light in his place

He opens the door

He's got that look on his face

And he asks you where you've been

You tell him who you've seen

And you talk about anything

He's got this dream about buyin' some land

He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands

And then he'll settle down

It's a quiet little town

And forget about everything

But you know he'll always keep movin'

You know he's never gonna stop movin'

'Cause he's rollin'

He's the rolling stone

And when you wake up, it's a new mornin'

The sun is shining, it's a new mornin'

And you're going, you're going home

Wintering Garden

2011-02-02T08:00:00.005-06:00

I don't profess to understand many ways of the world, much less the cultivating arts. When most things have turned brown and appear lifeless, and naturally have hunkered down and dormant this winter, not so your wintering garden. It vegetates and grows green with leavery.
You say they (the plants) are snug warm and safe, bedded under their blankets of mulch. There're rooted underground, while their verdure tops pop up to greet the scarce winter's sun and drinks of dew.
You told me collards over here; there: kale, bok choy, and Swiss chard, each in its place; a row of radishes along the edge, while some garlic stems sprout out boldly like spring flowers. May be a late carrot or three in the mix, whose tops wave in green plumes from the fresh orange flesh below; tempting to roaming rabbits who haven't gone quite to full-time hibernating yet.
I see you as one who casts your care on what seems an improbable task of tending garden year-round. Like ageless efforts, sowing and toiling the ground with no guarantee of return or reward--the earth's harvest, a salad of offerings shared.

In Need of Rescue

2011-01-28T07:15:00.004-06:00

Everyone's in need of rescue. Often it's needing to save ourselves from ourselves. Other times it involves situations of their own accord, which act upon us uninvited. Some so extreme seem to push us off the scale of endurance. Both physical and psychological storms wreck destruction to our bodies, minds, and souls as sure as the weather, whether or not we admit that we are in peril. Could be our fault--could be that by nature, life tends to lean toward defeat and danger.
Everyone wants an escape from the things that continually assault their defences: those of self-doubt, fatigue, worry and weariness, a feeling of desperation; especially those that have health in need of healing, abuse, endless joblessness, struggling single and alone in this world, or equally, in bad marriages not of their making. In like instances, where we find ourselves hopeless and helpless, only the intervention of others will enable us any chance of survival.
Everyone encounters a need of rescue around them every day and either way, involved. The concern of conscience is: we can't be content to stand by in such emergencies, but choose to do whatever it takes to provide for our welfare...giving true meaning and action to idle words of encouragement and support; fully realizing that we are all participants in personal despair--always moved by an immediate need of rescue, not out of pity, but compassion.

Of Choice

2011-01-27T10:00:00.001-06:00

If it were by nature we were only built to obey, would that really be our choice?
If we could but love and not hate, can we claim to have chosen such to convey?
If we had to speak out instead of remaining silent at opportune times, is that always and ever a wise or prudent choice?
If ever it were our lot in life to win with no chance to lose, even chose, what measure success?
If we were always right in doing and choosing good, as opposed to bad, wouldn't that negate the reason at all for a fall from grace?
Our free will and reasoning of choice sets us far above the rest--makes our mortality close to gods!

Some Solitude Said

2011-01-24T07:15:00.038-06:00

1

I sneaked away early from the mundane office and drove out west of town one afternoon for a long lunch. A page of the classified ads lay in the seat beside me with one box circled in red that read,

For Lease: Mobile Home, 3/2, located on remote wooded lot; fenced backyard; Dripping Springs Schools...

I had called ahead for directions. I discovered the place was about 5 miles out of town, down a winding gravel road. There was another mobile home nearby, but this one was on down the drive further among the scrub oaks.
Next to it was a homemade-built garage with high rafters and open in the front that could hold two cars easily. The home was on well water, its own septic system, and fueled by an old propane tank that stood to the side of the structure like a beached mini-submarine. A covered deck extended out the back door into the shaded yard. Out beyond the chain-link fence stood a dry limestone wash lined by trees and undergrowth.
I met the owner there, a pleasant older man with a laid-back demeanor. I knew he would make a good landlord. We walked the musty insides and talked terms. I found out that I could lease by the month with no deposit down and a reasonable $600 rent, plus utilities. I would also have to pay a propane fill before winter, but since it was June, that was still a long ways off. I took his offer!
The place was perfect and everything I imagined I could acquire at this time and point in my situation. It was as if the ad had just appeared to me--a Godsend to rescue me from myself. I knew I was leaving her. I needed to be alone and as far away from where I was before completely. Finding this mobile home way out here in the Hill Country with its surrounding serenity was my immediate salvation.

2

I moved myself out to the mobile home the next weekend when she went her usual away. I mean my books, assorted personal stuff, an old stereo + speakers, and the majority of clothes piled into the little black hatchback of a Ford Focus with the seats folded down; it all fit in two trips. I bought a bed, an unfinished dresser of drawers, and some cheap bookcases at Wal-Mart; also, a used futon from a colleague to fill out the empty front room. A friend of mine loaned me a lamp and an end table, where I put my Radio Shack short-wave radio on that featured the time and an alarm clock, too. I already had a drafting desk in storage. I stored my belongings in one small bedroom and made a study out of the other, putting up my posters and displaying my precious possessions. I was set.
I remember it was difficult that evening in the living room where we were all gathered as a family again. She insisted the kids hear it straight from me that I was leaving and rightly so. My daughter's worried look touched me; my son's threatening attitude alarmed me. I had only her to hug and had to leave without further words. That was the loneliest, longest night of my life.
Yet, the Hill Country retreat embraced me as never I could believe it would. I was alone and at peace for now. Communication had never been our strongest link, having finally broken our bonds. I wanted to be by myself in thought and commune in company with rural living outside the city--too caught up in the too-close association of society. I suppose it was my Walden of sorts while it lasted. I could work and then come home to the mobile home for relief and reassurance.
I even dragged my VW out there and it occupied its place underneath the other half of the garage. I continued my restoration weekends in my spare time, driving it into town on one occasion to the local Sonic for a thrill! A lot of times, I would come home and explore the woods around. A nearby neighbor had a neat little "junkyard" filled with interesting things he had accumulated and kept concealed from the public.
Sometimes I'd just sit on the concrete steps or on the back porch and enjoy the evening as it turned first to dusk and then to dark amid birdsong. I lit a pipe, had some wine, and silently anticipated the flock of wild turkeys that sauntered down the dry draw just barely out of sight, but not earshot. Their talking turkey made me smile inside. Later, I would sleep with the bedroom window wide open long into summer, feeling the cool night breeze and listening to the courtship of the crickets over the noisy blowing of the A/C unit.
My daughter and her boyfriend drove out to see me one Saturday and another friend came unannounced once the whole three months I lived there. I was glad to have them. My mobile phone didn't even work at that spot, and I would have to go up the road a bit to get any reception. But, for once in my life, I craved this silence along with some solitude and was abundantly satisfied.

3

if i ever drive you mild - the verve pipe

I was driving out to Blanco to buy more books when I detoured and drove out to the trailer. I had to go out there once more. Surprisingly, I went right to it without thinking, but it brought back other thoughts that I hadn't mentioned before. Passing by a few cars on the way, I found that I missed the familiar waves of the local folks, who resided here in the Hills. It felt like a homecoming of sorts like it did every evening then, after the 20-mile commute back from Austin. Waves of remembrance washed over me as a deep dive into a cool pool.
I often realized then that I was living in a manufactured house: assembled in a factory on a framed over-sized chassis complete with wheels and rolled out the door and eventually parked out here. Actually, they call them "mobile homes." Essentially, I lived in a trailer, i.e. a prefabricated rectangular structure built for affordable convenience and utility more than comfort, style, and a sense of beauty. The whole thing then was set squarely on top of an elongated boat trailer. The sides and roof were shielded with aluminum siding down to the skirts that go around the length of the abode and hide the wheels and ugly underworks. This particular model came before the popular double-wides, so if you liked it long, this was your guy!
I recall the first day out there, I found an abandoned bowl at the one end where the trailer had its now old rusty hitch. I set out some cat food evenings/mornings to catch its former feeder, yet with no luck; not even a raccoon or possum raid! I guess the hairy hobo went on down the road, when the previous occupants moved away.
Being on my own again and single in state, if not mind, I began to experience life again in a way that I had almost forgot. I realized all at once what was important and that all those insignificant things took on meaning...upon seeing a fuzzy steering wheel in the adjacent car could relieve the tension of traffic...the wonderful feeling I get (inside) eating at a restaurant I haven't eaten at in years...the most sensual feeling I can get petting a so-soft rabbit the neighbor's kid was raising...the hypnotic sound of rain on a metal roof relieving me awhile of the other annoying noise running interference in my life at the time...and the overwhelming, transforming belief that in the midst of anything gone wrong comes an eventual and rightful outcome, if we'll let it.
Lying in the trailer there at night in solitude, alone in thought, I lamented the lost years and decisions made. It did not depress me, but instead, strengthened my resolve to correct the present and guard the future. Maybe, I went back to my marriage for no other reason than to preserve the family at the sacrifice of some pleasurable contentment and to work on that "communication" the counselor kept referring to in our sessions. I did. Still, I had to start somewhere to finish well at the end.
Thus, closes the last segment in this trailer trilogy. I know I will forever be associated to that idyllic place and treasure the time I spent there recuperating...regrouping. Living out there in that trailer taught me to draw a deep breath, hold inward (on) its life-giving qualities, and finally, to exhale assuredly those used up elements that really need release. It truly is a mobile home in name and spirit that I can take with me wherever I may go.

The Solar Express

2010-12-28T20:00:00.000-06:00

Christmastime in Texas means short-sleeves and shorts. Our golf courses are still green, even though we choose to put up brown wreaths of barbed wire tied with a bow. Although, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here were somewhat chilly this year, the week warmed up real fast. Almost immediately, the front stalled and tropical breezes from the gulf pushed the cold air mass on eastward for our Dixie friends to enjoy. I rushed to protect the outside plants, only to have to uncover them just as quickly, so they didn't go sun starved! With the unusual autumn drought we've been having in Central Texas, watering them on a regular basis is pretty much the routine around these parts.
Why, I found myself out working in the garage and yard the other day, rather than curled up in my Lazy Boy next to the fire with a good book, like you think one would be doing this time of year. Talking to my friend, we even considered the idea of going fishing...unheard of in December here in Texas! In the Sun Belt while peeling off the jackets and sweaters, we turn down the A/C for fear the poinsettias will wilt. With requests like "I'll have some ice tea," instead of hot cocoa, we celebrate the Season and toast the New Year to come!

sonnet 2

2010-12-21T07:15:00.006-06:00

Cautious is she and cooler as she's loved;

Her fore brow frowns, else her eyes flash bright,

With words warming despite emotions moved

And indifference cuts, though it feels right.

Though to most women, her world's a wonder,

A classy style, showing just enough grace;

Worthy of worship and of wanting her,

Adored, elusive, pursued at a pace.

Temptation--Discipline, conflicting throes

Dwell delicate about her to inspire;

Her dammed-up passions and as feeling goes,

Serve to stoke these pleas issued of desire.

Had she not been for sure and so impart,

Remain no reason to reveal my heart.

2009/2010

Better Off (Not) Dead

2010-12-20T07:30:00.008-06:00

Nobody wants to be dead, especially on Fridays, their birthday, the start of vacation, or Christmas morning and New Year's Eve. Without sounding so nihilistic, man's mortality is a sad play with a predictable ending. Pushing 60-years in part, I'm appearing in the 3rd Act. My immediate reaction and revolt in thought is "I'd rather be Red than dead." Actually, I'd had rather be a rock. The elements and minerals have the edge on us humans, it seems. The mountains melt down into boulders...rocks...pebbles...grains of sand that dissolve to minerals enduring forever. Like the earth, the wind and water remain. No one really knows where they go or flow; when they start or end. Theirs is a world of no worry or cares; no effort or achievement. Elements are not alive in the sense of flesh and blood and chloroplasts, yet they have a life of their own. And like sunlight, are essential to our living, energizing our existence, otherwise, all would be dark, cold, and calm--a dead void. I would want to be one of them.

All our times have come
Here, but now there, gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
(We can be like they are)
Come on baby
(Don't fear the reaper)
- Blue Oyster Cult

A Difference

2010-12-16T07:15:00.003-06:00

Iron sharpens iron. -an old Hebrew proverb

The feeling's mutual. So is the whole of our relationships with others, especially our closest friends and loved ones. I may complement you, but you equally complement me. My making a difference in your life means that you have the same effect on mine alike. If we can compare our emotional investments to money, it is a better return than any bank can give. View it as a sort of "self-control." We maintain some semblance of order, sanity, and purpose in our own lives, when we witness it first-hand working effectively in others--a discipline to do what's right and true and a desire to be the best at what you are, that which you love most. I need this motivation in its strongest sense. You're good for me.

Ghosts of Christmases Past

2010-12-14T08:00:00.003-06:00

Last night about 12:30 pm, I was suddenly awakened! It wasn't our dog Kiya outside howling with the nearby coyotes, nor indigestion from the spicy soup we had for supper. I was visited by thoughts of Christmases past...

"Use Christmas Seals this Season and breathe easier." was the American Lung Association's annual fundraiser.

The riveting adventures of "Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer" and "Frosty, the Snowman" brought to us in living Claymation!

Breaking open that 600-ct. pack of foil icicles

"Get a Chia Pet!" advertised all over TV.

That lighted big fat plastic smiling Santa Claus always on the end table by the ash tray

White spun (Fiberglas) Angel Hair we kids helped stretch out with no fear!

Bubble lights plugged in, awaiting their wonderful magic!

Dolls that wet and cowboy holsters holding cap pistolsMother's recycled nylons lying under the tree Christmas mornings filled with nuts, fruits, and swirls of red-green-white hard candy

Boxes of a dozen glass ball ornaments like Christmas eggs

Play kitchen appliances and erector sets

Strings of big bulb red, green, blue, yellow, and orange Christmas lights

Homemade sugar cookies and Nestle Quick's hot chocolate

Artificial snow out of a aerosol can full of fluorocarbons that we kids got carried away and sprayed on our windows to give us an appearance of a Texas White Christmas. Dad would spend the next month or two scraping it all off!

Mother's unforgettable Christmas albums featuring Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Burl Ives, that she played on the living room phonograph over and over and over.

Stonewalled

2010-12-13T07:30:00.018-06:00

I have this private place to which I often come. I like it here, it's where I long to be. Some reason, I can't capture Christmas this year--I'm trying. I suppose it's sad about son...feel this year's been a failure...imagining me in another place and time...know it's not love like I could.

Can't think of any reason
Don't know exactly why
Must be it's out of season
Give it another try...

Faith internal carries one only so far. I can always count on what's natural for comfort when others things let me down--disappoint. It is in ourselves an urgent urge to create, to be remembered on paper or cemetery stone. Our life works must mean more than the usual gain and regret.

Some things are left unspoken
Some things are handed down
The circle stands unbroken
Sending it back around...

If these grey stones could speak, what would they say? All these ages long they've lain here, now mostly in repose. We're built-up so to serve, intending to last, but become an abandoned obscurity over a span, until mostly forgotten in purpose and again left for good after great.

I'm out here in the meadow
Part of an old stone wall
Stand here because you said so
Waitin' around to fall
- Joe Walsh

I Should Have Said

2010-12-10T08:00:00.007-06:00

I regret that I am so reserved. I've missed many opportunities to say the things I needed to say, instead of suppressing those feelings I actually possess at the moment. Although, I always run the risk of responding too spontaneous, or appearing forward and foolish, it's best that others know just how you are with regard to reactions. Relationships are best based on honesty and trust in every way. Say what you mean and mean what you say holds a great amount of truth. I should have said how the beautiful necklace you wore that time seemed so appropriate on you and special; and on another occasion, the way your words made me feel comfortable and encouraged; now, I long that we alone share something more than is already ours to have, but won't say it to you true.

Pickin' Up Pecans

2010-12-07T08:15:00.002-06:00

Like a lone penny, I'm in the habit of picking up a single pecan when I see one on the ground. I've been doing this since I was a kid. Dad would drive us out of Dallas late autumn to a place he knew of off the roadway where stood a groove of majestic pecan trees about stripped of their leaves and branches left full of ripen pecans (meaning the now blackened hulls had peeled back to reveal brown hulls). He'd throw a 2-ft 2X4 board up into their arms to thrash the nuts free fall to the ground. Us kids and my stepmother eagerly went about with our paper sacks to collect the large paper hull pecans, knowing we would be cracking and shelling them later in the warm kitchen, along with hot chocolate. The crop we harvested today would go for nutmeats to feed our pies and fruitcakes for the Christmas Season.
Around the workplace here, I pause and let the pecans lie, reminded on the city squirrels who depend on them for forage and year-round storage. Back at home and over at the elementary school surrounding the playground, I've picked up a bag at-a-time of the native pecans that are left lying there on the ground. No one seems to want to take the trouble to shell for so little reward of fruit inside. I take them home and bust them gently for a snack and dump the rest in the elevated backyard feeder for the few squirrels who dare to venture into the forest there and endure the barks and yaps of my two dogs! I've observed that they eat some right on the spot, but mostly carry the small pecans off to stash when winter's here good. I'd like to think they will have pecans, too, come Christmas morning, as I remember a family tradition of finding my stocking full of nuts and fruits under the tree.

Beginnings, Endings

2010-11-30T08:00:00.010-06:00

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all--I'm not saying that--but they're also touchy as hell.

Beginnings will boost a book, while endings almost always make a movie. Books become movies and a movie makes the pages of a book come alive on the screen. I can't remember any story I might have ever enjoyed reading through to the finish that didn't grab my attention from the start. Likewise, immersed in a really great movie, I can't wait until the last scene to see the entire plot with its cast of various characters come together usually in a most unexpected way.
Everyone alive has their own experience and tale to tell. Most are never known, much less played out in a book or movie, yet all are unique and important just the same. And then, too, there's our story: I can't imagine any beginning or ending without you.

Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.

Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I...I...

Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You haven't any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here. Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?

Captain Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.

Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.

Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong to Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Ilsa: But what about us?

Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have. We, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.

Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now...Here's looking at you kid.

It Was Love Field

2010-11-19T07:15:00.120-06:00

I lived on Worth Street right in line with the flight path to Love Field. Those jet airliners flew just over our school down and my house on their landing patterns. I used to get excited to see the Dallas-based big Braniff jets settling down for an approach, throttling back, and dumping excess fuel all over us along the way! This was the early Sixties and the huge Boeing 707s and BAC 1-11s were flying then. Braniff International was the first to paint the fuselages of their jet fleet "Flying Colors" jelly bean blue, green, red, orange, and yellow. You weren't a seasoned aircraft watcher until you had witness all of the above. I never went to Love Field as a boy, but I knew it was the town's main airport at the time. D-FW International was still a 10-year dream away.
When I was in high school, I went to see Love Field, first with a friend of mine, who he and I were nuts about jets. We'd drive out there weekends and park at the end of the runway and let them roar over us on landings and take-offs! We'd look at the vertical stabilizer (tail piece) to see the identify the particular carrier: American Airlines, Delta, TWA, Mexicali Airlines, Continental, some of which have "crashed" corporately now and vanished from the skies forever. These were the days before Southwest Airlines and peanuts. We'd even go into the Love Field airport terminal to catch a glimpse of the Mod stewardesses dressed in boots, mini skirts, and caps--we dig it, Man!
I recall even taking my steady girl to Love Field one night on a date. We had gone to eat at Kips and managing together to finish off that sumptuous hot fudge sundae of theirs, I think we both decided to go over to the airport on an impulse. It turned out to be a real treat and a right special ending to the evening. In those days, passengers embarked/debarked planes from the tarmac level and rode escalator ramps up to the planes' hatches. At Love Field, they allowed onlookers to walk out on the long Observation Deck to view the aircraft arriving and departing.
The spring evening was filled with the sounds and smells of jet engines and fuel. Multi-colored lights outlined dark runways. We held hands and talked about the fast world we were immersed in, both delicate, dangerous, and beautiful. And she was the latter! An airport on a Saturday night may not seem so romantic, but it was; you just had to be there. I'm sure in the night time of the moment on top of the platform there, I slipped my arm around her and pulled her close. It just felt right and I knew by her smile, she didn't mind.
Hey! After all, it was Love Field!

Pathfinder

2010-11-18T07:30:00.005-06:00

working on the back trail down to the spring branch bridge; several glimpses of cat squirrels scampering across the path - same one? sure that deer and other creatures likewise are hidden from sight and keeping their distance for fear; they are not used to having anyone here weekdays and frequently on weekends at camp -disturbing their solace and homestead - we're intruders; unseasonably warm and humid for a mid-november; clouding up and light rain during the day; can't work in long sleeves like i want and soon cast that off, sweating through 2 tee shirts and at one time, had it off down to the bare skin like a lumberjack! stopping every half-hour or so for large gulps of bottle water and pausing to soak up the serenity and solitude of the woods where i'm working; the leaves are just beginning to turn their crimson/golden hues;
started off early this morning at the trailhead up by the cabin, making good progress; cutting sassafras, american beautyberry, and hickory sprouts mostly that are crowding the trail, trying to trim and save the small junipers and american holly for the squirrels' christmas!
it's really not their fault for this slaughter of innocent foliage and for it being overgrown - ours only for the 3-years neglect and not clearing; what were they to think or decide to move in naturally, if we didn't want it anymore?
a slight breeze stirs the upper canopy of trees some 100ft high it seems - tall skinny pines shooting straight up to the sun and old stately hardwoods (hickory, post oak and black walnut making acorns/nut food for our furry friends);
a moment of thought: often wonder if somewhere concealed on this forest floor is some hallowed piece of the shattered shuttle columbia that fell from the skies that bright morning and strewn across the east texas skies its millions of meteorites?
a trusty machete is the tool for hacking thru this bramble & briar, brush; "cloppers" are best for small growth; and brought out the chain saw to cut out in short work the numerous tree-felled pines across the pathway; laborious to carry all this cutting out into the forest surround for its rotting and regeneration to soil again;
reach the bridge by noontime the next day down the long slope approach of the trail; the small creek cuts through high red clay embankments here and appears a bit stagnant and not running so clear (might be damned up somewhere up stream?); the bridge timbers are holding up well despite their age and the platform has a thick coat of pine needles and leaves from seasons past; i cross and walk on the "primitive" side/part of our land that's largely in the same state as when we bought it many years ago;
finish up at the small clearing back up the trail by the abandoned (still standing) deer blind that jan's dad built but never meant to use for gun - know for a fact that it was his delight to climb up in it cold frosty mornings before daylight just to observe the deer gathering at his homemade feeders at the clearing's end, breakfast of oats and alfalfa hay; would have liked to have been there to share that moment...maybe i will still, since the old wooden feeders are there;
finished the two-day's work and done with what i came to to accomplish: reclaim the trail; a pathfinder? wonder, too, what is it in our way and trails we walk like the wooded winding one i'm presently on, and why it's quite impossible to realize what's next, until we arrive closer to the point where the pathway bends; but we go forth in faith, knowing that it'll lead us eventually to our destination.

Conversations

2010-11-16T07:45:00.004-06:00

Along some point in the malaise of adolescence, I began talking to myself. I thought I was the only friend I had at times; turned out I was my own worst enemy. Usually what I said to myself was not very uplifting...never much of a "Way to go, Gary! or "Shaver, you know you're a pretty sharp guy!" Now, I wish I had. Instead, I criticized every aspect of my physical features, personality, and lack of abilities. Nothing went untouched by this form of destructive self-talk. Such wrongful thoughts contained the carrageenan of negative conversations, which eventually lead to the belief (and rightly so) that no one is listening nor cares.

Later on when I was first-time away from home at college, I realized there and then, that I was on my own and independent and alone. I was lost without love. Guilt and doubt began to creep into my emotions concerning her. I had nothing to hang onto; nothing to hope for...little reason to believe, I thought. Somehow, I received a resolve that I wouldn't be consumed by such tricks played by my conscience anymore and to make up for all the years that had gone by the other way, decided to carry on constructive conversations for a change.

All I had left to me was an imagined sense of her presence in the evenings. That served as a catalyst for when and where we'd talk. In the dark of my dorm room, I began to honestly tell her how I'd always felt, not pausing to carefully craft my words as if it were a composition, but a natural outflowing of my inward self in response to what we once had.
And like when I was a kid conversing with God, I also asked her bunches of questions, including some favors thrown in, all expressing the depths and desires of the heart. I wanted to know how she was doing...where she might be...what she might be thinking this night. Each time, I was thankful for her lasting affection and would think about how right she made me feel then and even still in present conversations.

A Gentleman

2010-11-15T07:15:00.010-06:00

I'd rather have one be true and kind as to another, and prefer to appear gentle than the other. What is saved by actions, words kindly spared or compared to the cost of selfishness and cruelty so conceived? Kindness can be seen in treating someone better than they deserve (deemed mercy); helping them out in their present state of need when it is they can't help themselves or possibly reciprocate in kind (called compassion). Kindliness can be also be demonstrated in dealing with others less grateful and perhaps unworthy (shown tenderness) and in reacting to an individual who has wronged us in some way (given forgiveness).
It's best to be a gentle man.

Had It Been Anyone But You

2010-11-12T07:15:00.002-06:00

After checking into my room at the Marriott Hotel off Park Street, I came downstairs and first looked in the lobby where a large television set was flickering blue. A few poor souls lay around on the cheap sofas pretending to enjoy the program. I didn't much want to watch TV with strangers, so I went into the late night lounge next door to the closed restaurant.
It was dark but open for business for the few lingering lonely patrons that occupied the round cocktail tables. The lone waitress leaning up against the counter talking to the bartender, seemed disinterested in any more tips and more interested in going home. Even the piano player had already covered his keyboard, pushed in his stool in, and called it quits. Only the large lighted bubbling jukebox in one corner still spilled out some tunes this Sunday evening. A couple danced slowly in the low light of the room close and kissing some. It was obvious they had met there for a tryst, she being old enough to be his aunt. The others at surrounding tables were business people like myself, who had just drove into town for a meetings tomorrow and the next day. It was a lonely life but a living.
A couple of giggly girls who just came in and sat down across the way aroused my interest. They either had to be local working girls or else travelers as myself. I picked up my watered-down drink and bravely walked over to their table. I always prided myself with being outgoing, witty, and some pushy; you had to be, especially in my line of work. What had I to lose by gaining some company and conversation this evening alone in another town.
"Buy you ladies a drink?" I realized the way that must have sounded like a typical pick-up line from some 40s flick. I was bit surprised when they both looked up at me and smiled.
I was expecting a no-thank-you-are-too-old-for-us response or maybe even a not so polite reply to get lost.
"Mind if I?" gesturing toward a empty chair.
I scraped out the metal chair and took a seat by the tall long-haired brunette, Kelly something or another, is all I caught of her name. I later learned she played a mean game of girl's lacrosse for St. Mary's. Andrea, the shorter of the two, I like immediately. She had short bottled-blonde hair, a good build, and a smile a mile wide. They both ordered cute drinks like young girls do and showed their i.d. That was a relief to know I wasn't dealing with two delinquent under aged high school teenagers on a field trip. I ask the lethargic waitress to refresh my gin and tonic, with emphasis on the gin.
"You're one of those executive types, right?" the athlete asked. I nodded and shrugged my shoulders.
"I suppose, sans coat and tie this evening, as you can see." I surmised she was going to be the chief interrogator, since she sat next to me.
I excused myself to go to the register and purchase a pack of cigarettes. When I got back, each had pulled out an unlighted cigarette and were either fumbling with it with their fingers or tapping it on the table, waiting for my return. That cued me to whip out my reliable light-'em-every-time BIC and do the gentlemanly action of affirming their coolness and igniting their pleasures--smokes that is. Our drinks came.
At first it was small talk and investigation--they were indeed local Catholic college coeds and sorority sisters who had just been driving by and decided to stop in on a whim this Sunday night for a drink, choosing to avoid the usual noisy trendy hangouts. Their chat mixed with glances toward me and other parts of the bar and in turning toward each other and laughing.
I order more drinks that loosened up their tongues more and gave them courage to be bold. They must have asked me a million questions, wanting to know all about me...first and foremost, was I married and second, was I a bum and out of work!
"Would I be able to hang out here evenings friend to womankind, buying them endless rounds of drinks if I didn't have a day job?" I asked. (Giggles again.)
Of course, I may have embellished the truth some like being engaged two different times, but in both cases, she's the one that decided to break it off. I said I currently worked as a regional sales rep. (true). They were most impressed that I peddled saws, probes, and assorted stainless instruments to leading surgeons in San Antonio.
I could see that the cautious dreamboat Andrea kept looking a lot at my premature grey hair. Finally, with a big gulp of the daiquiri she was sipping, she said,
"Say--Just how old are you anyway?"
"I'm really 21. Jeez, I just look old for my age." My sarcasm was showing.
"I can't quite figure you out--you being so nice to us and all?" the always skeptical Tall One again inquired.
"Yeah?" Andie chimed in.
"If you are trying to get us..."
"Oh, no, no. Not that at all!" I quickly replied, and I wasn't.
"Good, 'cause I was beginning to think something wonky was going on. There's two of us, you know. We outnumber you and have an advantage over you!"
I heartily agreed and managed to calm the two back down and assured them of my honorable attentions of just having a happy hour for awhile is all.
Soon Andrea begged me for some change like she probably did her daddy and luckily, I came up with three quarters. She strolled over to the multi-colored retro-looking jukebox, studied the play list, and finally fed the machine. She rushed back to us at the table.
"Do Kelly, too, but first, me." (More giggles from the crazy duo.) She wanted to dance, so we did, joining the kissing couple still going round on the floor in their endless dance-a-thon and leaving Kelly alone temporarily at the table, no doubt pondering a strategy for scoring fast on a draw after "sticking the ball," as they say in lacrosse. I realized that I would have to dance with her in turn and I smiled, wondering if I could quite measure up.
Strains of vintage Paul McCartney gone solo suddenly filled the smoky bar.

I can't tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel

Andrea next to me, with her head and hair soft on my shoulder, surrendered to my lead and responded tenderly in kind to every move. I was at once envious of her youth and sprite, lost in the freshness of her smell and warmth of her body close to me. I wanted only for this dance to last forever, as the song played on...

Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

Riding the Comet!

2010-11-09T08:30:00.216-06:00

Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC... - The Beatles

The year was 1960, I was sporting 9 years and bashful as I would ever be. My dad was a tool designer for Ling-Temco-Vought, a major aeronautics company in Dallas. He was assigned to go to England in conjunction with a lucrative contract pending to the British for their carrier version of the F8 Crusader he was working on. He told me the Royal Air Force had bought a lot of F4U Corsairs from his company for their own use during the War and liked the Vought aircraft. Well, I was asked to accompany he and Mom for the expense-paid business trip, and we were off to jolly Old England!
We first flew American Airlines DC-7 to New York City, where we would get our connecting flight out of the large LaGuardia Airport there to land at London's Heathrow. My dad said the flight would take a total of about 9 hours due to the fact that the trans-Atlantic flight stopped in Gander, Newfoundland to top off the tanks before flying the long "Lindbergh Stretch" of water to the British Isles. Little did I know that I was about to enter the Jet Age.
From the terminal, we walked out a short way on the tarmac to our awaiting plane. I loved airplanes and approaching the aircraft, I could see it was nothing like I had ever witnessed before--I thought it was a space craft loading up humans on its stairway! It was actually a jet airliner, with swept-back wings and twin jet engine intakes to either side of the large wings, snug up against the body. Before my young eyes was a huge, long sleek tube of an aircraft, painted white with blue stripes above a silvery fuslelage with these large blue capital letters: BOAC. Dad said it was short for British Overseas Airways Corporation.
After we walked up the loading ramp and seated ourselves, you could hear a distinctive hum of the idling jet engines, although the pilot hadn't "lighted" them yet. I positioned myself beside a window next to Mom. Dad sat across the aisle with another businessman. In my wild imagination, this spaceship was all about comfort with plush seats and oval windows to look out! I immediately took out the information card in the vinyl pocket on back of the seat in front of me and read the facts about this fascinating aircraft.
This was a de Havilland DH 106 Comet 4C, the world's first commercial jet airliner and source of British national pride; seats 81 passengers, plus a crew of 6; powered by four Avon M502 jet engines and extra fuel tanks for a longer range; pressurized cabin for higher cruising altitude (6 miles) in the frigid calm air up there and speed of 500+ mph. My dad  seemed particularly interested in the jet's engineering because it was constructed of newer aluminum alloys and advanced adhesives and welds rather than rivets.
It wasn't long before the cabin was closed and the jet engines started. The whine crescendos into a unique engine sound. The taxi out to the main runway was fast, with the pilot giving several timed bursts of power to speed us on our way. The take-off was incredible! I had no idea of what to expect as the Comet's engines exploded into combined energy and rockets us forward and up, pressing me back into the plush seat as we accelerate.
"Wow!" was all I could say. I sat there mesmerized the whole trip by what I was experiencing so young and impressionable still, gazing out on the continents and the vast Atlantic Ocean below. Not even the luxurious meal they served later on flight could lure me long away from the windows and the wonderful feeling that I was riding the Comet!

imprisoned passions

2010-11-08T23:30:00.017-06:00

Breathing is the hardest thing to do. -Stone Temple Pilots, Interstate Love

looking out slats into the sunshine from inside darken by doubt the shadows cast bars upon my ever leaving keep me captive promise of those lies made not willing to move or forget all the things mean(t) to say

serpent smiles

2010-11-05T08:30:00.041-05:00

days do despair where hopelessness slithers in-out the hours here so much so they steal away valued time render actions impolitely personal with cruel kindness that men can be as mean to believe

Trucks, Trains, Boats, & Planes

2010-11-04T09:00:00.005-05:00

My dad once worked for Central Freight Lines in Dallas. One of my first "big" toys was a large metal toy truck he brought home from work. The tractor-trailer truck set looked just like the rigs he drove. The tractor was green with the Central logo on the cab doors and the large logo on the aluminum trailer. I remember the two doors on back of the trailer opened and you could put rocks, small toys, and other interesting stuff inside and haul them cross sand pile. I must have logged a many-a-mile outside playing with that treasured truck. Down through the years, I've looked in antique stores and online to find another like it but to no avail.
He also made sure I had a toy train early on. One Christmas, an O Scale Marx train appeared under the tree. The set consisted of a locomotive, coal car, gondola, boxcar, and caboose. The locomotive had a headlight and small tablets that you placed in the smokestack and added water; the chemical reaction simulated steam. The only thing missing was the train whistle! It had a large Figure-8 track with 3 rails, one of which conducted electricity from the Bakelite transformer box hooked up with two wires to the tracks and driving the electric motor inside the locomotive. A large lever on top dialed up the train's speed.
When I was a teenager, my fancy turned to motor models. The first time I saw these radio remote-controlled boats was at an event being held in a small park pond. The sleek cabin cruisers, teak-wood motorboats, ocean liners, tankers, and destroyers cut about the still water so real-like! The men and boys who controlled them from shore held strange devices, boxes with a tall antenna sticking out of them. I wanted one, but even if it were they cost only a hundred dollars or so then, it might as well be a million! I could never afford one, yet, I was able to enjoy flying model planes.
Of course, I started where all young guys begin and that was flying the 10-cent Guillow's balsa wood gliders in the shape of super Sabres and Thunderjets with a weighted nose you got at the store. I quickly progressed to the more expensive rubber band powered models with real propellers and wheels!
Eventually in junior high, I was ready for a gas powered U-control models. These planes looked like the real thing: mine was a P-40 Warhawk "Flying Tiger." The plane was equipped with a small gas engine and tank that you had to feather the wooden prop to start. You controlled it on a long tether wire attached to one wing, unlike the sophisticated RC models today. The prop would propel the lightweight plane forward to lift off and into flight. Basically, you flew it until it ran out of fuel and around in a large circle, but you soon learned how to do loops, dips, dives, and other aerobatics.
Boys toys!

Night After You

2010-11-02T07:15:00.049-05:00

I fall back into my room following an evening spent with you, lying awake in the dark long after...replaying the preceding hours. My mind is consumed with everything about you. I can still sense your presence here alone with me, even though I know you are there--the smell of your perfume on my shirt where you lay your head, a tender moment when we both were still in silent reflection.
My head on the pillow and eyes close, the room seems to revolve and ceiling swirl in full intoxicated affection for you. Your lips are the liqueur I crave and soft shoulders caressing, pure electric, and arms around me in an euphoric embrace. I still feel our parting kiss to last me till I'm with you once more. I smile to myself as these various waves of emotion wash over me in such a way as to lull me serenely, securely into realizing that it all must be a dream and soon, sweet slumber.