| 個人檔案The Adventures of Thotma...相片部落格清單 |  工具  說明 |
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2005/9/30 #102 I have seen the Light!Imagine if you will, an old guy, well over forty five, working by himself at about 1 pm in a windowless portion of a U shaped, abandoned warehouse filled with equipment, clothing, tires, chairs, doors, tablegames, appliances, chrisitmas decorations, and just scads of books, magazines, papers, shoes, chemicals, machinery, cabinets, cases of empty one gallon bottles, carpet, beauty shop chairs, vanities, barrels, desks, tools, waterheaters, tables and chairs, prefab shed, windows, tons of miscellaneous metal, wood, and so much more that you cant even start to describe it...
Imagine the amount of dust he kicks up with the movement of every box he opens...every empty case jettisonned into the corner to be thrown away. Imagine that he drove the wrong vehicle, which didnt contain the generator, the cords, the 500 watt lamps, and that he has instead, just one flashlight which he can hold with the end of the handle in his mouth to see the contents of each box he examines before saving it or throwing it away. Imagine that because it is his birthday, he hadn't planned to do much, and so has most of the help working on another project...and what help was supposed to arrive...doesn't...
Imagine the frustration he feels as the flashlight gets slowly dimmer and dimmer until he is just about squinting to see anything at all. Imagine a large dark area filled with ten storage rooms, subdividing over eight thosand square feet, with jogging hallways...broken by rectangular cinderblock archways...Imagine the gloomy feel of breathing the invisible floating dust until it feels like a sore throat coming on. See in your mind, how much darker it looks just after returning from a trip outside to the truck with a pallet load of boxes. Imagine him thinking...Its my birthday, what am I doing here working alone? ...I dont care if there are only four days left till this place falls to the wrecking ball..Imagine him convincing himself...I KNOW, I KNOW, IT HAS TO BE DONE...and saying as an afterthot..and besides there's no one else who knows what is and what isn't a KEEPER....hmmm, I sure wish Mike had shown up with the flat bed wrecker and the crew like he said he would...no light...no help...no time...Imagine him opening the next box...
Imagine him, looking at the cell phone, which seems to ring only when his hands are full...noticing how slowly the time is passing...wondering what kind of "celebration" is being cooked up by friends and family...when he returns...at 7..or 8...or..9....well certainly by 8...thats when his daughter's vollyball game will be over... and his fam will return home... Imagine what goes thru his mind when he comes across SIX 7x2 foot mirrors leaning up against a wall in the dark...hmmm
MIRRORS!!!...It's like the realization Johnathan Livingston Seagull made while he flew back to breakfast flock in the dark!!!...SEAGULLS CANT SORT IN THE DARK...only OWLS can see in the dark(ok that wasn't EXACTLY his realization) ..So you can also imagine the excitement as that next thot FLASHES like a beam of sunlight into his mind...THATS IT!!! He races to the door in the center of the U shaped cannery....fumbles in the dark to unlock the bolt, and let daylight stream a few feet into the hallway...then taking a mirror OUTSIDE, and resting it up against the south facing inside wall of the U...he funnels the bright beam of sunlight into the entry hall, where it appears like a trapazoid on the wall...
YESSSSSS! he yells as he dashes back into the darkness to retrieve another mirror...lets put THIS ONE so it shoots the beam of light down the hallway...THERE!! the next rectangle, tho smaller, now appears on the far outside wall of the warehouse. ALRIGHT!!! he shouts, pumping his fist in the air... grabbing another mirror he props it up in the path of that beam to redirect it down the long center hallway...the fourth mirror he positions fifty feet away across the center room, ...the Fifth mirror ricochets THAT column of light directly into the room where he is working...illuminating the back wall, and consequently the entire room! The sixth mirror he keeps for a back up incase one falls and breaks, (one never knows)....and with a hand mirror, he can reach into the light's path to pull a tiny beam of light right into each and every box he is examining...WOW! this is great!..the beams of light trace a zig zag pattern clearly visible across the warehouse thru the thick floating dust particles... illuminating the bright back wall of each room to which he directs it...I can work twice as fast now! he shouts into the echo chamber around him...and listens to his joy as it bounces back a split second later...
Imagine the cell phone ringing just as he again begins to sort thru boxes in the reflected light. Hi Mom, he greets the caller, as he places the phone between his shoulder and ear so he can continue chosing which table games he will keep...operation, sorry, shoots and ladders, rock'm sock'm robots, clue....you're outside wth your friend Beth?...well, COME ON DOWN!!!...he hollers into his phone...the PRICE IS RIGHT!!!...Imagine their bewilderment as they enter to see the dusty beams of light illuminating his works space...how did you get it so bright in here? his mom asks...I AM the Enchanter, the KNIGHT of the MIRRORS he boldly proclaims...HELPING YOU SEE REALITY! ...oh forget reality, she shakes her head...its your birthday for goodness sakes, why are you here working ?...and alone, no less...I am not alone! (said in his best nixon "i am not a crook" voice) YOU and BETH are here! Imagine Beth's reaction as she realizes the complexity of the light source....Amazing! she says to his mother...look at the path of the light, I am impressed, she laughs,...I come to see a plethora of USED buried treasure, and discover a lesson in physics as well...WAIT he calls as he dashes back down the hallway to repositon the first mirror in order to accommodate the ever shifting position of the Sun...There!!! We're good for another ten to fifteen minutes!
Imagine his joy after he sees those 1960's high heeled shoes peering out of their boxes...poka dot, gold and silver broquet, hot red, gold leaf sandal heals, twenty pair in all...all just about like new...obviously once worn by the rich and famous..."these are no ordinary shoes" he grins holding one up in the beam of light... then HE BREAKS INTO SPONTANEOUS POETRY... Dr Seuss actually...Left foot, right foot, left foot, right...feet in the morning, feet at night.....continuing thru each opposite then concluding......feet feet feet ....oh how many many feet you meet...
Imagine in that momoent of discovery, the visions of sugar plums dancing in his head...Ill make a beautiful christmas tree, and use these as ornaments!!! The thots come freely and spontaneously until the rush of exploration and off the wall creativity subsides and the grim task of unburying all those waiting treasures again looms paramount...the sun had dropped far enough into the afternoon to rob him... of his pillars of sight giving light, as well as his curious visitors...Imagine him as he moves to the larger warehouse where the roll up pannels, when open, allow the complete out of doors to invade the mountains of his "birthday presents" from its western portals......Soon after that he hears Beth's daughter Susan call out...Is anyone here?...IN HERE!!! he shouts, What are you still doing here? she asks...moving these tires, he replies as he hefts another into a stack he can easily load tomorrow...wow she exlaims...whats that?...Its John Wayne's movie set chair, he tells her with a pefectly straight face...it should have "Duke" painted right here...he points at the canvas back, yep sure is...a collectable, for sure...After a short tour she leaves for her son's football game...will ya be here Saturday?....I think so! he says...while she exits the maze to find her car....
When darkness again overtakes him, he locks up and walks to his car..apparently MIKE had come, and towed off the porshe, and the 1950 two ton GMC...their parking places are now empty...lonely really...Imagine him getting in his van..then another afterthot...he gets out to check the six wheelers to make sure they are secure...pulling out, walking back to lock the gate...He calls home...ten rings...hmm, no hurry, he thinks to himself...then opening a card he finds left on his seat...two "Grants" fall out...thanks mom, he mumbles almost audibly as he stuffs the cash in his front pocket.....then it's drive drive drive...his cell rings...HEY!...When you gonna be home?...we've got something special planned, says the voice from inside the phone....fifteen minutes?..ooooookkkkkkkk... oh and Happy Birthday! Imagine his faint smile...as he breaks into bold beatle like tones...They say its your birthday..da da da da da .its my birthday too, yeah!.....oh were gonna have a party party..yes were gonna have a party party...dudududu-can I ask you to dance?..your birthday.. take a chh chh chh chance! your birthday....etc.!!!
How old is he?...well his profile says 105...but I dont IMAGINE you can trust everything you read in his profile... 2005/9/29 #101 A Stroke o' luck...I cant tell you why I chose that Taco Bell for lunch today. I didnt feel much like amerimex...or heartburn or a choice of just ONE diet drink...I dont particularly like standin' in line with six senior citizens all greeting the grandma behind the till with semi-suggestive appeals for a senior citizen discount, and I dont get a large charge out of watching them drop pennies, nickels and a dime or two into that bubbling fundraising tank with the five quarter sized platforms on a twirly thingamajig.
I have watched hundreds of Taco Bell patrons throw their money into the depths of that little square tank in the quest for a tiny order of cinnamon crisps...and in nearly five years, have NEVER seen anyone even come close, and in my case the coins have fallen somewhere near the mariana trench in the western pacific.... Today was no different...five Seniors, seven coins, not one of them even remotely challenged the odds. The sixth senior stood behind me watching his compadres gleefully donate to some obscure charity while I ordered...YOU dont look like a senior, Rosetta Stone said to me, matter of factly...I'm not, but if you want to give me the discount, I wont feel any guilt, I promise. I can't she confided, they took my authorization away 'cause I dont card for seniors...BUT I can give ya a free drink if ya tell me your dissatisfied with something. Well, I shot back, I think it sux that nobody ever wins the prize for droppin' their hard earned coin in that money pit....ok that works, she said...Here is a small.....why thank you...
If I had complained about something more serious would you have given me a bigger cup?...I donno, maybe, she said, as she started taking the next order...HI Loyd, what are ya havin' today?...He handed her a five, and she gave him back his change and a large cup. Hmmm... As he took the cup...he reached over with his other hand and dropped a nickle into the watery black hole...it fluttered downward then abruptly came to rest on one of those pink mini platforms...I about fell over dead!!!...I want to shake that man's hand, I said loud enough to make everyone in the whole Bell, hear my voice ring out. He was by that time adding some Cinnamon Crisps to his already occupied hands. You must be the luckiest man alive, I said while still shaking my head. I am! he nodded...definately!
Loyd had a yellow Navy insignia and two Pins on his black baseball styled cap, a lot like mine, which is embroideried with officer leaf clusters on the bill and "Hawaii" were a ship number and emblem would normally be. So Loyd, your navy huh?...Absolutely! he smiled with a big grin...I reached out with my index finger and touched his shoulder...I wanna get somma that luck to rub off, I laughed...I was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 he told me...NO KIDDING? ... honest truth, he said, as he drifted toward the drink machine..
I found a seat and picked up my drink to take a sip just as Loyd came past me. Our eyes met, and he stopped...I was on the motor launch that rescued sailors who were jumping from ships on battleship row...then he got this faraway look...The West Virginia, was listing to port (leaning left) and we had liberty, but a crash (rescue) boat came along and told us to start picking up soldiers in the water. Did you actually see the Arizona explode?.... You bet, we were just lucky we werent too near it, or the Oklahoma, it capsized. How many did you pick up?..a lotuv'm, those motor launches are big...and those sailors had oil all over'm, he said, indicating with his hand from head to toe, before taking another bite of his burrito,....We talked for nearly half an hour...I listened, asked questions, and tried to take it all in...This guy had been close enough to those dive bombers to have hit'm with rocks.... he said a couple of times,...yep, I am one of the luckiest men alive.
He then told me where his ships had traveled during the war...When I asked him what his favorite port was, he said Melborne Australia without so much as a breath of hesitation...and why is that? I wondered outloud...well cause I met the prettiest little thing you ever saw...her name was Dawn...then he got a sly look on his face...I married her! YOU married an Aussie? I smiled...What a beautiful woman she was! I telll ya, I am the luckiest man in the world...
So did she come back to the states with ya?...OH yeah! We settled here and raised a family...Ya know the Pearl Harbor vets are having another reunion in 06(ott six) and its going to be in Hawaii, I went to the last one in California, but ya know, were dying at the rate of 2 a day...but I am going to take my vitamins and make sure I am healthy enough to go next year, he promised... sure dont wanna miss that one. It'll be 65 years! So are ya taking your wife?...He paused,...oh...no, she passed away six years ago...tears welled up in his eyes, and his voice broke...I guess I wasnt much lucky that year...but Im eatin good, takin' care of myself, cause I wanna see how many from the USS Dobbins are still with us, it was a Tin Can(Destroyer) tender. I tell ya I'wuz lucky that morning...you never saw so much destruction...we lost 2400 in under two hours. gettin' strafed, blown up, drowned...
I hated to go, but I had to get back...so I thanked him for his company, shook his hand for luck, and headed back to work. I dont know why, but I felt luckier for some reason. Lucky to have spent some time with such a man...Lucky to have witnessed the effects of deep romantic love in the tears that fell...Lucky to have shared the perspective of an eye witness to one of the turning points in our history...Lucky to to have seen his coin fall gently upon that tiny platform...indicating as if it were a sign...that MY luck was about to change, and It did in just minutes. Loyd Liddiard had heaped it upon me with his contageous entuusiasm, magical aura, and gentle pride. I had soaked it up as best I could, and mused for the rest of the day...how I was lucky enough to have crossed his path...and understood just a little more, how fate reaches out to touch each one of us when we least expect it. Yep, it was a stroke o' luck. 2005/9/28 #100 Fame...I have received a few messages alluding to Thotman's current notoriety...the terms used most often were Famous or Fame. And tho I dont mind the open house, I just can't lose perspective here...I mean its not like real love has moved in, and taken the bedroom down the hall...most come 'cause they saw the lights and heard the music or read the police report....which calls to mind a quote I think best illustrates my feelings...It's an old Celtic blessing...it might apply...
May those who love us, love us.
If you just happened by today, thanks for coming to the BBQ...grab a plate and a cold coke and sit a spell, take your shoes off...and come back as often as it feels right...oh dont worry 'bout eatin' the food for thot...when that's gone...I'll just make more.. 2005/9/27 #99 The Passing of the CanneryWhen I was in the twelveth grade, and thot I was a pretty hot shot draftsman, my teacher called me up to his desk and asked me if I wanted to do a special project, drawing floor plans and illustrations of a cannery, so a friend of his could use the "flow chart" in company meetings to promote his new and improved, downline motivated, whizbang, cant miss, in on the ground floor, multilevel miracle. He assured me that by doing a good job, I would be one of the first to receive monitary compenstaion and that it would probably be substantial. It sounded ok, so I said...sure! what do I have to do? Here, he said, handing me his friend's card, call him and set up a meeting. I am sure you two will hit it off.
I called him and he started telling me all about the marvelous oportunites waiting just around the corner for all those whose vision and foresight propelled them into the leadership positions of his amway knockoff. I listened to the multi-level sales pitch with some interest since I had been a "Bestline distributor" at the 50% commission level since 6 months after my initial introduction to Multi level marketing at the ripe old age of 12. I had a pretty fair downline, and accounts all over Provo, selling everything from Ziff and Liquid Concentrate to stores and restaurtants, to laundry compound and other miscellaneous items to neighbors, friends and family.
Well, I know it's going to be a super screamin' salivatingly successful sincerely stompin' sales situation, I informed him, but really I just called to see if I could do some drawings for you...Mr Dennis said you need a 'flow chart"...OHHHHHH he backpedalled, I do! Could you meet me at the old cannery on the north west corner of the Provo Cemetary?
The Mormons Church had a welfare cannery there, and he wanted me to see an actual production facility so my illustrations and my flow chart would be 'authentic'. I agreed, we set the time and I went to meet him there at 5 pm on a beautiful fall day. I showed up a little early so I walked a few paces into the cemetary and found my grandparent's headstone. When Fred showed up in his big Lincoln, I strolled down and we entered the cannery through the front lobby. I sketeched and paced and drew all the kettles, canners, conveyors,and packaging machines in the two large processing areas...wow I said this place is pretty big!...would you like to see the whole facility? If its not a bother, I sure would, I told him. He showed me around the entire cannery, from the front entry through the three processing areas, the storage rooms, the shipping warehouse, the quansit hut where all the utilities, boilers and cleaning supplies were kept. In its day it was state of the art. I finished the drawings, got a tiny little check, and consoled myself with the memory of one of the most interesting tours since the bakery AND fire station field trip in the first grade.
When one of my favorite contractors called me last week, I assumed it was to collect on some work he just finished...I was pleasantly surprised when he instead asked me if I was interested in buying a lot of equipment and other odds and ends before next Saturday. His time frame inquirey, caught my interest, and when I asked where I could see it, he said, meet me at the old cannery next to the cemetary. THE CANNERY??? You know I have been working for Richard,right? Yes, I did...well he bought it from the Church years ago, and has just sold it to the city for the cemitary expansion, Its his stuff, he's been storin' cars, and restarurant equipment and little tractors, and...and...and....and...and....STOP!!!, I shouted, I'll come take a look...well, anything not outa there before the weekend will fall victim to the awsome blade of the D-9 bulldozer... he laughed.
I showed up to see if there were a few items that might fit into my restaurant project now 50% completed. But mostly I wanted to see how TIME had treated that grand ole lady...(I mean ya cant call it a grand old man, who ever heard of a man putting up fruit and jams and jellys all those other goodies that use to be on grandma's shelves?)...When I arrived I found most of the high windows broken out and the doors looked as if they had withstood an assault by a regiment of tanks and heavy artillary. I walked around the building looking for a way in, and found the roll up door open in the west shipping area, so I lifted it and ambled on in...
What had been a vital production facility just 32 years ago, was now an abandoned warehouse. Imagine thirty storage units with piles of clothing, equipment, christmas decorations, old tv's, appliances, sinks, kitchen cabinets, garden tractors, lawn furniture, cars, golf carts, desks, wood stoves, windows, prefabricated sheds, small engines, water heaters, bikes, boxes of books and news magazines, blowers, shelving, buckets of bolts, pipe, beams, boilers, old trucks, trailers and those TWO big production rooms completely STUFFED with hardly used restaurant equipment. WOW! look at this stuff I said to myself, as I discovered a morse code station, next to two old bottles and a couple of round metal gas cans.
I had just started to look through a stack of licence plates from the fifties and sixties when Stan walked in...Well? he said, do you want any of this stuff?...depends on how much they want for it...how much of it do you think you want?...ALL OF IT, whispered at about a hundred decibels......at least as much as I can tote out of here by Saturday..I laughed. He smiled and we started negotiating the price...70 seconds later, we shook hands, and I started calling anyone and everyone I knew that could help me empty out that cannery, or buy those things I have no use for, which is most of it.
Today has been an exciting day...I was like a kid on christmas morning (but with a lot more dirt on my face, arms and hands)...as people were running around loading trailers and bobtales, sorting, reassembling grills, fridges, food bars, tables, ovens, a 1950 two ton gmc flatbed, stanless steel everythings, boxes of aprons, and boxes of boxes, and serving trays, and candles and...and...and...and...STOP!!!...you would just have to see it...but understand...its not pretty...age and wear, has caused this once beautiful and thriving facility...to be totally ready to enter the cemetery...you see next Saturday, after I have removed everything of any value to a gypsy...the city will arrive to expand the area where people find their final resting place...the first thing to be layed to rest will be that once beautiful industrial complex...now just a shell of its former self, like so many others who are layed to rest there.
And I will be one of the few who remembers it when it was young and beautiful as well as on the days just before it passed away...As I locked the cannery doors tonight, I couldnt help feel kinda sentimental over its demise...but then I thot...what better final resting place can it have?...after all its just a hundred or so feet from grampa and grandma...so I'lll probably be visiting from time to time, and remembering...like any other memory, mostly the of days I spent there...and maybe I'll write about it, sorta like a "head stone"......so it won't end up just being forgotten... #98 What's The Moral of the Story?In my sixth grade class the students were asked to cite a parable or a story and then give the moral...
Susie stood up and said...I was coming home from the grocery store when I dropped the sack and the eggs my mother needed were all broken...Mr Keith then asked...Whats the moral? Well, she said, don't put all your eggs in one basket...
Then Claudia stood up and told about her uncle who had gone to Europe to live and she missed him so bad that she cried nearly every night....The teacher then asked...And whats the moral Claudia?......That absence makes the heart grow fonder, Claudia proudly stated...
Karl then stood up and told about wanting a bike for his birthday and how he went out and bought a bicyle helmet and a light and a water bottle for his new bike, but when his birthday came his parents got him new skis and a pass to the nearby resort...Again, the teacher asked, what is the moral of your story Karl?...Dont count your chickens before they hatch, said Karl...
Then it was Gordon's turn...He was a little short guy and moved up in front of the class nervously...He began by telling us all that his Uncle Pete was a pilot in Vietnam and that he had been shot down....It was near the DMZ, he said...and his plane, an F-4 took flak in the left wing causing him to have to struggle to keep her flyin', he was pulling up on the stick and looking around for some place to put her down...Then he spied a long section of rice paddys...and eased his craft back to earth nearly skipping along the water finally coming to rest about a hundred yards from a line of trees....He was wasnt hurt too bad so searched the cockpit for a weapon, but all there was there was a case of black market booze...a machine gun, some extra amo...a machette...and a short length of hose...It was nearly mid day and very hot and humid so he broke open the case of booze and drank a couple...Then he decided to figure out how to get out of enemy territory and drank a couple more bottles...He decided to wait until dark before he tried to travel but thot he had better exit the plane so he took the case and the weapons and hose with him and moved to a ditch just about 30 yards from his aircraft...as he sat in the ditch drinking his fifth sixth seventh eighth and ninth bottle, he loaded his weapon and listened for the enemy...the jungle surrounding the terrace where he had ditched was like a wall of green, by about 3:40 he had finished off the whole case...and just as he started to doze off, he heard the voices of the Viet Cong as they first saw his fighter... there was all kinds of commotion as they approached the plane, Gordon exclaimed.......Uncle Pete counted 14 of them as they moved thru the knee deep water with their guns at the ready...Waiting for just the right moment he opened fire with the machine gun and 8 of them were killed and the other six ran to put the plane between themselves and the vicious fire coming from the ditch....It was merciless as the bullets riddled the planes side and another of the Viet Cong was killed when one of the bullets went thru the aluminum and hit him in the neck...Uncle Pete was worried that they were trying to surround him he fired a wide swath of fire using up his most of ammo....He then slipped out of the ditch and into rice paddy and using the hose as a snorkle and laying still until he saw a couple of the Viet Cong sneaking along the ditch bank...Then raising up from the water he shot three of them before they even knew what hit'm...He figured there were only two or three more and he wasnt quite sure where...then he saw one of them still near the plane...so he crawled thru the mud circling around until he was out of their view...then with his machette he waited behind the tale section until they came around in the shadow....it was a vicious fight he hacked the first ones arms off, the second brought his weapon up to shoot but before he could aim uncle Pete attacked him, the one with no arms was trying to assist but uncle Pete just ran the machette clean thru him...then with his bare hands he choked the last Viet Cong but the guy got lucky and shot Uncle Pete in the foot so he would get a purple heart...but that mde it impossible for him to walk back to his base.... So since it was just before dark he crawled over near where he had left the machine gun and waited...The planes coordinates had been sent back by another pilot and a helicopter arrived and they got him out of there Well, Gordon said..thats about all I guess... Mr Keith sat amazed at Gordon's account...then He asked...But, Gordon the story has to have a moral...or some kind of lesson....well gordon said with surprise...it does!!!... And what would that moral be then...prodded our teacher..
Gordon looked at him with a look of disbelief!....well, it just lets us know that you don't mess with uncle Pete when hes been drinkin'!!!
2005/9/26 #97 It's the way we talk, ya know.During the 1980's a character named Ernest came on the scene with the expressed purpose of advertising cottage cheese. He became more or less an ICON like the vorizon man who says "can ya hear me now?"... and like Clara Peller who said "where's the beef?"...ERNEST, too had his phrase..."knowwhatImean Vern? which was repeated and repeated and repeated.....and repeated...etc
I was talking to a friend today, it was a pretty down to earth discussion with little question whether each of us understood the other, but at some point It was as though I grew blond hair, started chewing FIVE pieces of bubblegum, twirling my blond locks around my finger and expressing myself in, like ya know, a totally air head vocabulary yanno!!!...oohhhhh and like I was like always saying 'ya know' after like everyotherword...It was just mind boggling "ya know" how many times yanno I caught myself saying ya know...
I once counted how many times cheech and chong said MAN in the "Santa Claus and his ole lady" christmas record....and man, it was like more than 137 times ya know...and man thats a lot of mans, yaknowwhatImean?
Yes, I might have said "yaknowwhatImean" a couple times too, which was probably interpreted as being just a tad anxious, or hyper, or maybe totally, like uhhhh, self conscious, ya know...and I probably wouldn't have thot much of it except my friend noticed it too and started laughing, ya know... and like it was just totally funny ya know...this lady probably just wanted to chomp on SIX pieces of bublegum, twist that long blond hair around an index finger and empty out her brain(head tipped so ear is downward..striking opposite ear with butt of my hand to knock stuph out, like this, ya know...(see me showin' ya how?))
I started to ask myself when it was I first began to say, "ya know?" during my feeble attempts to explain complex matters, abstract ideas or engaging in general gossip, ya know. THEN it hit me...it started in college in that French class, the lesson that introduced the term N'EST PAS? which I translated roughly to mean...AINT THAT just about the most 'Right On' thing you ever heard? Later while studying Italian, I discovered that they didnt have such a fantastic term, so they had to get by with a substitute. They simply said...NO?...roughly meaning "aint that right?"
But just like Yankees substitue "You Guys" for the grammatically perfect term "Y'all", nothing quite has the perfection of "N'est Pas"...n'est pas? Well once you begin using an after sentence reaffirmation of worth for those tricky assertions that come from an empty head, it just becomes a glorious habit, "yaknowwhatImean"?...It also fills space in our sentences, keeps us from saying "uhhhhh" well "uhhhh" fifty thousand times while we are pretending to think about the next thing we are going to say...that is probably why women who knit never say uhhhhhh...uhhhh while they knit..their knitting already gives'm something to think about while they talk! (ok and I dont want any of you ladies (or men) who knit emailin' me with threats of violence and stuff like that!)
Aaaaannnnnyyyywwwwaaaayyy...I realized that as Americans we have been linguistically cheated by not having been given such a dynamite term as N'est pas...so I decided to come up with the closest thing possible to improve MY conversational abilities. I thot maybe something like "is that right?" might work but I got tired of people saying.. NO!...then I tried the catchy little ditty..."how 'bout that?" but they always said, how 'bout what?...my third try was DONTCHAKNOW?...but people kept askin' me to teach them to speak "redneck"...so that didn't work. Finally I was listening to some chick flick and heard "its like dreamy, ya know." and the die was cast!
I think maybe it was because it was a cheap knock off of ole Ernest's line, but rolled off the tongue a lot better. Maybe it was because I just hate putting someone on the spot by asking them to actually have comprehended what I just mumbled...but in the end I think the main reason for adopting this habit just one level above spittin' and deliberately missin' the spitoon...Is cause it brings the other person right into the middle of my scattered thots...yaknowwhatImean? 2005/9/24 #96 Through the GlassMy oldest daughter got married this year. I like the guy she loves. I especially liked the day. The wedding, the picture taking, the reception with the twenty piece orchestra...but in a day of wonderful memories, the one I liked best was that moment when the bride came up the steps and exited out into the garden on Temple Square where both families waited to join in the pictures of that special day...As she walked out onto the elevated granite steps, I looked up to see her in one of the most beautiful wedding dresses I had ever seen. She looked so very happy , and her eyes expressed her joy. She looked just like I knew she would. You see, I had seen her on this day, twenty something years earlier in my mind's eye.
She was born in a small Idaho hospital, a C-section on a fresh and windy March morning just after dawn. I was waiting near the operating room when a nurse brough out this tiny baby girl, not a minute removed from her mother. I followed them to the nursery where I watched them wash her, dress her and place upon her a tiny tiny knit cap, before wrapping her and placing her in the warm plexiglass covered crib. I was so tired that I went home to crash, but I couldn't sleep. At ten o'clock I returned to the hospital to stand at the window of the nursery and stare through the wire grid glass...just looking at her...for over an hour.
On TV, back then, there was an advertisement, For milk, I think, with a song called Julie through the glass. It showed a father watching his small daughter down a school corridor thru exactly the same kind of grid glass that was in front of me...she was tiny, two years old maybe, and when she noticed him at the end of the hallway through the glass, she extended her arms and began to run towards her father at the far end of that long hall. As she ran she twirled as little girls do, only to have aged, morphed really into a five year old. Then continuing towards him, she twirled again becoming an eight year old, closer and closer she came... in the next pirouette an eleven year old, then in the next turn she became an awkward 14 year old teen...then spinning gracefully into a beautiful 18 year old and finally as a young women she embraced her father and whispered something to him...
It was as if looking at my tiny firstborn thru that wire grid glass, I drifted beyond imagination. I could see her through the glass as she came towards me.... and found myself imagining her at various ages, spinning, turning, dancing, pirouetting gently, beautifully, coming ever closer to me...I wondered later if my views of her would prove to be accurate. She kept coming towards me... in spans of years, changing, growing, always coming closer, ever closer ...until finally in my mind I saw her in a white wedding dress, nearly exactly as she looked as she came into that garden. In that picture of the future, she reached out and touched my face, looked at me, and her lips voiced a silent "thank you."
I told only her mother of this day dream, until I shared it with her, when she was twenty one, but only up to the point where she was the beautiful young lady in college.... It was, however, in that LAST pirouette, which I have closely held, that I saw the woman she has become. The bride in white, radiaiting confidence and beauty. Upon her entrance, she stopped and looked right into my eyes. I approached her as she reached for her husbands hand...I knew I had nearly reached the end of that long ago dream. That night, as the reception progressed, a moment came when she reached out...touched my face and whispered "thank you,... I love you"...and I held her close.
I had always feared I might not live to see the end of my tiny dream, which started, through the glass, looking at a tiny knit capped infant, and ending with that hug...., but I had.
She called me last night. She had read some of my blogs and wanted to talk about the hidden meanings in my crackerjack blog. I had to smile at her magical insights and her overwhelming curiosity. Allison, just like her precious sisters and brother so often do, reached out yet again and touched my soul, and I could picture her lips moving as she softly whispered to me, before hanging up, I love you... just as if I were seeing it... through the glass... 2005/9/23 #95 Crossing the Rivers of LIfeThere are in every family certain stories that are handed down from one genreration to the next, told and retold, sometimes slightly embellished, but always essentially the same. Thses are honest to goodness events, real tales that are recounted, ok at least mentioned, every time we pass a certain location or are otherwise reminded of it. It can be the basis of some life lesson to our kids, or a reminder of someone now passed on, but mostly in OUR case its just my kid's dad's way of letting them know that there are things worth remembering. By injecting a little humanity in this otherwise demanding existance, we can laugh a bit, or shed a tear, while reaffirming that almost forgotten premise...that life is good.
Inveriably the telling of the story expands into a discussion of something larger. So it was as we drove to Heber last week and passed the Bear Canyon train bridge which sits just three miles below Deer Creek Dam...down in the riverbottem beneath the highway, and the new freeway construction. As we passed that bridge, we could see the shallow crossing where the old 51 chevy forded the river during the deer hunt in 1971 long before the state purchased the charleston bridge and installed it with all those warning signs about weight limits and diving dangers.
Two of us in the car had been present on that fateful day. Let's see, there was Uncle Jack, who I, by that age, called John-S to honor his middle initial...Keith, my same age cousin, and Jim, Keith's younger brother and my best friend for the last twenty years. It was the last Monday of the Deer Hunt, and we had decided to hunt up in Bear Canyon which required we cross the river where there WAS NO BRIDGE. Keith was driving, being deftly instructed in the fine art of driving thru thigh deep river water by his dad, John-S. Things were going pretty well until the engine fan began to throw water up on to the distributor and the truck stalled in mid-stream. There was an immediate lesson in the complete and proper usage of the English language, as we crawled out of the truck onto the front fenders then front bumper so the water would only come up to mid calf, then opening the hood Keith and I sat and huffed and puffed into the distributor, wiped out the distributor cap, and then re-entered the cab. The next leg of our journey was about forty feet, when again the engine died. This time we got out, cussed a little more, and waded around in the river to get at the hood. Jack took over the driving responsiblities and again we dried the electrical aparatus and its six sparkplug leads.
We were just twenty feet from either of the TWO inclines used to exit the river on the south east bank, and since we were already soaked, and being that close to dry land, we all decided to just wade to the bank and let Jack bring the truck the rest of the way. We climbed out of the water upon the second roadway and sat dripping wet as we watched Jack finish the crossing. What we were about to witness from a distance of less than ten feet, has become the basis of the Bear Canyon Huntin' Saga. Jack carefully idled forward thru the water until he could see he had a straight shot up the first incline...then in order to assure he didnt stall on that muddy incline, he punched it...like a drag racer coming off the line.
Not one of us had noticed that tree stump sticking up about six inches in the middle of the slightly sunken wheel tracks, nor did we realize that the chevy's front axel's clearance was only four inches at that point. But as fate would have it when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object...something had to give...
Ever watched a movie where you can see the faces of the actors as something totally unexpected unfolds?...I can still remember the smile on his face as he accellerated out of the river into his encounter with that stump. It was like the truck had hit a cement wall, the truck bed flew up into the air, back wheels lifting completely off the ground. I saw Jack coming forward toward the windshield until he was restrained by the steering wheel, and his knees hitting the bottom of the dash board. He hit so hard that his knee drove the key switch up under the dash...the look of TOTAL surprise on his face was something the three of us, still living, have talked about again and again, 'cause it was as if it all took place in slow motion after he hit that stump. I cant remember if we waited to make sure he was ok before we all got hysterical, it may have been what he uttered that set it off, but not one of us can recall that look on his face without breaking into that same violent laughter, as is happening as I type. (and again while editing twenty minutes later) I think its the kind of release you feel after you are sure there hasn't been a death, and the instantaneous anxiety is funneled into fits of laughter. WHAT THE HELL DID I HIT? he hollered. We were on the ground unable to control our pure delight at the magnificence of the whole scene...that is until from beneath the dash, smoke started pouring into the cab.
There is NOTHING like a Chevy cab fire to dampen three hysterical fits of laughter, not to mention the crushing blow it would have delt to four pure blooded hunters whose veins were at that very moment running red with pure excitement for the deer hunt. Jack jumped back into the cab and started ripping out wires with his bare hands, burning his fingers, but breaking the short which was melting the wires. Good thing too 'cause upon careful examination we realized that not only had the insulation melted, but the copper wires to the switch, themselves, had become toast. Keith and I diagnosed the problem, and we looked around for something to repair the ignition wires, finally deciding that the band-aids in the first aid kit were probably expendible. So, Keith began the task of rewiring the hot lead and insulating his work with bandaids. I think that truck still has those band-aids left on the key switch connections, under the black tape.
After starting the truck, Jack backed it down into the river and crawled ever so slowly up the other incline. We hunted until dark, missing two clear shots with the Punkin'Slinger, mostly for lack of a scope. (that was the name of grandpa's lever action Winchester model 1894 for which he had traded a barrel of cider)... We didn't use our deer tags, but we came home with a memory which binds us closer as the years go by. We had experienced a complete range human of emotions within a ten minute period, while crossing the river. They say you never really forget images you experience. Well that's good, 'cause what I watched as that truck slammed to a dead stop, is something I NEVER want to forget...Maybe thats why we retell the story...'cause as long as we REMEMBER we are sure we have lived... No, actually I think its so we can figuratively pinch ourselves, and laugh again, and be certain we really are alive. #94 Don't mess with my kids!She bounced higher and higher on the trampoline. Triplet sisters have a way of working together on a trampoline so they can time the bounce so the last one to hit POPS higher than possible if she just bounced alone. They liked to take turns. I was watching them in the side yard when two high school kids walked by. One of them picked up a piece of loose asphalt and threw it towards the trampoline. I watched as the projectile arched perfectly until it hit Juli in the head at the top of her bounce. She hit the trampoline and went sideways head first onto the lawn. I think I surprised them when I yelled at them, apparently they were unaware that I had witnessed the cause of her "fall".
When I yelled they laughed and walked on...I got to Jules just as she was coming around. Seeing that she wasnt dead, I walked to my pickup, reached behind the seat to where I keep my FIRST ever ONE wood. It's protection when I travel. I grabbed it and started to follow my two young antagonists. They had turned the corner and did not see me following them. Luckily I did not catch them in that first block or I might be writing this blog from prison. They realized that I was behind them as I crossed the next intersection. By the time we crossed the tracks they were looking back and hurrying a bit without breaking into a run. I finally caught them near the fourth intersection. Just as I approached, The big kid decided to confront me, he turned and started walking right at me, stupid move...he was a little taller than I am but considering the golf club I was holding, he was at a definate disadvantage..
when we met I drove the rubber grip into the right side of his chest...he bounce backward and I kept poking him until he stepped off the curb...a car whizzed past nearly hitting him. LISTEN HERE YOU LITTLE B*ST*RD GET BACK ON THIS SIDEWALK...I didnt come here to KILL YOU just to torture you!!! He lunged at me and I swung the club so it just grazed his arm...In what was an immediate surrender...he dropped his hands looked me right in the eye and said...I didnt mean to hit her!...And I got scared when I saw her fall. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? I yelled loud enough to wake the dead....I donno he started to sob...I donno...
I dont need to give the details of the discussion, but I will say I am on very good terms with that young man today.
In a later incident involving the same daugher I was puttering in the back shed, when she came in from mowing the lawn... crying. Whats wrong I asked as I looked at both hands and both feet, the usual causualties in mower accidents...and from the cry I could tell it was an injury cry. SHE pointed to her head and neck...I got stung she sobbed, there were lots of bees. I took her in the house and we administered first aid...got some packs, antihystamine, and made sure the stings weren't swelling.
Some years before on the back shed there was a hornets nest...our neighbor Darwin had aroused the vicoious bees as he ran by. Someone had told him to not run and they would leave you alone, so he stood still while they stung him fifty+ times...he looked like a mass of giant goose bumps. That evening, after two calls to my good friend the Exterminator, Bugman, I was armed with Three of the most deadly Hornet and Wasp poisons available. I got out my hose applicator and doubled the necessary dose, and sprayed the under-eve nest. The next day, there was a pile of hornets nearly ten inches high below that eve.
I had over the ensuing years discovered two underground yellow jacket hives. I had gone thru all the steps necessary to minimize the risk of me being attacked, while during each evening assault, I had completely wiped out any threat to my kids and any other animal or human who would pass that way again .
That Saturday afternoon, Juli had mowed around an old tree stump near the front corner of the lawn. It was a big low stump and from my observation the number of bees coming and going meant it was a HUGE undergroud hive. There appeared to be two entrances..one on the north side and one on the south west under the stump. I was seriously shaken by the number of bees I saw, and felt soooooo lucky that she had been stung only four or five times. It was strange but a similar emotion came over me that day as when I had grabbed for that golf club.
This time I reached for the Diazanon, Sevin, and Cypermethrin and brewed up a wasp-deadly potion. I then grabbed two types of canned foam type wasp and hornet spray, the hose applicator and hauled it all out to the back of my pick up.
I am not one for a lot of fanfare when it comes to killing anything. Once an uncle told me of pouring a can of gasoline on an ANTBED near NEW DELHI then lighting it. He was in the military, 1943 I think. These two Hindus jumped up and started screaming and generally having a fit, he explained. ...Not understanding what they were screaming, he didnt realize they were upset because of their belief in reincarnation and all that that implies about their relatives. He dumped another gallon and torched it again. This time it got someones attention that spoke English who explained rather forcefully why they were screaming, It was then that he finally understood how they viewed the sanctity of ALL life. Well, even with that knowledge I had absolutely no qualms about the swift distruction, even the out right elimination of that HIVE and every single Yellow Jacket in it.
I planned my attack at dusk. I had before dressed more for the dangers it represents, but didnt feel any threat due to the steath and ramboesqe tactics I had devised, honestly I would have felt comfortable in flip flops and short pants. As soon as it was dark enough and the wasps were back for the evening, I moved in like Delta force, with my foam spray in both hands, I filled their two exits completely...I could hear buzzing but as they would exit thru the foam, they would stagger out and then fall in the red beam of my flashlight. I then took that toxic coctail I had pre mixed and filled the entire cavern for over ten minutes...from both openings...filled the hose sprayer again and repeated the assault again, before going back in the house to watch Paul Newman in "Absense of Malice"...
The next morning I took a shovel and a pick to remove that stump. When I pulled it up from its rotted roots, I found a three layer hive 4 feet by 4 feet by two feet deep...and about a million dead yellow jackets in their poison soaked hive. The triplets watched from a distance just in case I hadnt killed them all.
I am recounting this because I generally do not experience the revenge syndrome. I have on two or three other occasions tho, twice involving people, and have proven to myself that not every act I make is rationally driven. In truth it kinda scares me to be subjected to such feelings. I mean if the person you think you know best can be driven to nearly an obsessive need to retaliate or eliminate something that threatened those he loves...to get even...to totally administer personal justice...and I think that is what it was...then how safe is this world? I mean, if it wasnt, why did I say as I left that dead hive...That's what you get when you mess around with my kids!!! I guess its really quite simple..and will always remain so...
You dont tug on Superman's cape, you dont spit into the wind...you dont pull the mask off the Lone Ranger and you dont mess around with Russ' kids..
Where have I heard that?...ha! 2005/9/22 #93 Fitting in the Box.Boxes come in all shapes and sizes. We use them all the time. The better they fit the contents the better the box. Yesterday, I went to pick up a train collection I bought, (see blog #86) and took with me two 25 stacks of 6-#10 can boxes, a tape gun and a mountain of newspaper. I worked for most of an afternoon boxing it up and stacking it in the van. As I finished, I looked in a closet for any remaining original boxes that might increase the value of certain trains in the collection...WOW...there beneath some knitting and some pillows, sat a small 'electric train' box that most would have just overlooked...I didn't because it was EXACTLY like the one I got from Santa Claus when I was FOUR!
I pulled out that 12"x18"x4" imitation ash grained box printed with the words...
STREAM LINE
steam type
ELECTRIC TRAIN
made in u.s.a. by
LOUIS MARX & Co., Inc.
I was overcome with vivid memories of repacking my train away after playing with it, in each comparment of that two part 'top over bottom' box. I remembered the tin cars, the small plastic engine with four driver wheels, and straight and curved track fitting exactly the same way... placing each item in just the right slot in the corregated storage container...then placing it on the first shelf in my closet, where it would rest until I pulled it out again and assembled it... hundreds of times until that "teen age" day I gave it to my my cousins kids, along with the trains their uncles had given to me when I was 9.
The trains I inherited from them were magnificent! SPEEDIE, and SLOWIE, as they were aptly named, came along with a boxcar load of track in three banana boxes. with switch tracks, crossings, animals, autos to scale, a water tank, and a bigger transformer that would run two trains without gettin' hot. The funny thing tho, was that the stuff just spilled out all over the place, stacked high above the rim of each of those boxes. It drove my Dad nuts!...He was a Marine in the mold of the white gloved drill sargent. My room had to be spotless, the drawers organized like a footlocker, with everything in its perfect place. My clothes were all on hangers in the closet, my shoes neatly lined up with matching sox tucked neatly into them. My bed made just so...and if he discovered a drawer in shambles...it was dumped out on my bed so I could re-organize it. A task I got rather good at.
When I brought those three boxes of trains and track home, it presented a serious dilemma...where to store them, how to store them...hmmm what to do...I knew that unless the cluttered piles of trains etc, were properly put in boxes in a very orderly way, that they would be the source of a lot of pain (said dad would be mad)...I tried every which way to make them fit into the closet in the garage, but no matter how I tried to stack'm, organize'm, compress'm, etc, there just wasnt enough room for all that stuff in three boxes, and four boxes woudnt fit in the closet.
I finally decided that they HAD to fit..and I knew I coudn't jump up and down on them like Alan did that time he sprung the hinges on his Samsonite, cause that would bend the track and smash the train. After I had finally assembled the train set, and discarded the parts of the system I would never use, or were broken...I very carefully stacked each piece like a puzzle...and MADE IT FIT...well, just about, the rest went into a shallow box that slipped under my bed.
It was such a contrast to my past experience with MY train set. Mine was simple but precise...engine here...cars there...caboose here...track there...
I think some people are a lot like that when they acquire friends...or maybe when they try to store away their beliefs, or when they INSIST that I have to fit into some IMAGINARY box for me to be OK. I figure it MUST BE something they learned from the time they were... four. But I have discovered that it just doesnt work when the world gets more complex and the boxes get bigger and the track were on gets longer sometimes even blown up..or washed out.
I think in my life nothing bothers me more than someone trying to stuff me into a box, and finding out my leg hangs out or my arm... and then they get upset and discard me cause I dont fit. I hate it when they try to make me fit. Insisting I have to think, feel or believe as they do...
I am sitting here with a Marx electric train box on one knee...typing... and you know, it feels like HOME to me, thinking about those magical days when everything fit so perfectly...but, that was before the arrival of the banana boxes filled with doubts...before my love for the simple train waned, only to be replaced by larger and more complex thots...with crossings and switch tracks and silly attempts to blow my train up like Gomez Adams so loved to do on the Adams Family TV show...(SLOWIE was never the same after that silver salute (a really big firecracker) blew IT up..., along with two pieces of bridge track, right into the ceiling) Neither was I the same after that first explosion of doubt...
I kinda long for those simpler days...when I didn't ask myself about life's meaning...about why I sometmes don't feel loved...why I want more... always more(deep sigh) ...I long for my train to fit in the box..and yet, instead of ONE box neatly on my closet shelf, I have my shop and home office STACKED with 43 boxes of unseen trains, planes and automobiles...lots of model city pieces, and tons of track, even empty boxes, on top of which are all those things that just dont fit in a box.
Funny how hard it is to get out a train, set up the track, and enjoy it as I once did, now that I have so many...but you know, I need to do that.... and I need to do it today!
If I dont blog for a day or so, you'll know what I am up to...Now, where are those silver salutes?
2005/9/20 #92 Don't Preach BLACK AND WHITE THINKING to me!Last night a woman in a quiet suburban neighborhood buckled her baby into its car seat, threw in the the diaper bag, and jumped in the front seat to leave, then remembering something, she dashed back into the house...leaving her keys, the car, and the baby unattended for less than two minutes...
Exiting the house she found her car was gone. At first she thot it was a neighbor playing a practical joke, then after a couple of minutes she realized it wasn't, and immediately called the police...a partial amber alert was issued...
An old man in Draper City saw the story on the 10 o'clock news, and decided to go (his words..."felt prompted to") look for the child. In the interview, He said he whispered a prayer then drove to where he sensed (his words "was inspired") he should to go look. He drove to Jordan Commons, four miles away, where he searched for and found the car mentioned, with the baby still asleep inside. Apparently some stupid kid(s) had "borrowed" a ride to the movies and gotten a sleeping baby in the deal.
I heard my least favorite radio personality (said idiot... even louder than when I speak of Dr Laura).. talk about this "miracle" before changing the station this morning... he gushed on about how there was NO OTHER Explanation for this event other than his view of God, life and religion....he then pronounced that the woman should be CITED for SOMETHING!!!!.... mentioning that leaving a baby in a car is child abuse if it gets stolen.(omg I just HATE such conditional black and white mentalities)...
Such thinking just frosts me!...First of all I am not sure if this old guy who found the baby is methodist or mormon or moslem or catholic or a hopi medicine man...or if he PRAYED to the talk show host's God or to some cosmic force. Now if the guy was a Hindu what explanation will this radio clown give us?...How will he preach that it PROVES his beliefs are truth? I donno, but he certainly will pretend it does.
His apparent need to find more proof that there is in fact a God who prompts people to find babies rather than protecting the baby in the first place, shows how insecure he is in his convictions, and besides that, it's just is not all that convincing that his peceptions of "the God he believes in" is any better than any other religious philosophy, whether yours, or mine, based on that kind of logic.
I like the story, I like the fact that a man can say he was INSPIRED, PROMPTED etc, without making apologies, and it reminds me that there are some things that are just not explainable, logical or scientific, but that still WORK just fine in affecting a solution ...I find some peace of mind that the BEST thing happened for what ever reason, and that the baby was safe when found. I Choose to see God's hand in the matter, but find no fault with those who don't, nor do I think my choice is any better than theirs, other than that it works just fine for me.
After he claimed over and over, this "miracle" was further evidence of HIS faith, the radio host proceeded to again clammer for a fine, or citation or SOMETHING...to punish this mother.... Omgosh, Isn't it he who ALSO claims to be for freedom, personal responsiblity, and less government etc., while trying to interject the government yet again into a situation that requires NO phoney lessons be taught? (I mean this isnt like locking a baby in a car in 100 degree weather while mom shops for some rutabegas, two cans of spackle, and a Fredricks of Hollywood teddy)
I am sure this Utah mother will not be any more influenced to watch her baby more closely by a 1000 dollar fine, than she will be for the experience itself! My point?...well, that there are ACCIDENTS in this world, some are certainly caused by deliberate or idiotic negligence(if a fine can cure idiocy, then there are mental institutions that need to employ such cures NOW...) Others are simply accidents...We need to be able to think enough in the gray areas, to distinguish the difference BY DEGREE. (and please dont email me telling me EVERYTHING that ever happens is for a reason...I have considered arguements for that possiblity and found them unconvincing in the real world)
When I see someone who is "fined" for some "crime based on an absolutist's INTERPRETATION of law which ends up being a public beating of a dead horse, I ask myself what people must be thinking to even consider such a thing! Why must people demand that imaginary "justice" be extracted on top of a REAL payment already extracted...what/who does it serve?...Oh yeah, it puts money in some government coffer so this office or that agency can perpetuate itself...
I had a second cousin, a professor at a university, who backed out of his driveway to go to work one morning and ran over and killed his sisters two year old daughter. I am telling you, the family was completely devistated, and in the midst of all of it, someone decided that they should be CITED for child neglect, some policeman who just HAD to enforce what he claimed was the LAW...which is pure and unadulterated panda dung at best. Why its like...like....like chopping off a mans ears for carelessness because he lost an arm, pretending that the loss of ears will teach him BETTER to be more careful than his missing hand's troublesome reminder each and every day for the rest of his life.
Again, there seems to be a HUGE need by some people to draw blood out of a nearly dead body, while the real victims (in this case the parent) are often already both physically and/or emotionally lying in a pool of it...
The more I see this kind of "protect us from ourselves" by citation and punishment, the more I want to get the hell out-a-Dodge...or any society that fosters such tripe. I get so frustrated by that blindered view of life, that I want to somehow retaliate against those who promote it by, say..., murder by stoning, over a sexual indiscression...or cutting off a hand for petty theft...or PUNISHING again a woman(the most frequent victims in any society)...for a lapse of memory, which is something she has already paid for with unspeakable anguish in her very soul...
I guess forgiveness and healing can only happen in THEIR WORLD, when they can WITNESS the punishment, Wereas in MY WORLD the God "I" believe in, has no part which isn't perfect mercy and real compassion...(even for black and white thinkers huh?).... I think too that this difference is, maybe, why I am not a talk show host...and a self appointed executioner.....forgiveness and mercy and common sense judgements by degree would, probably, just not sell... and besides, I dont know how to chop a head only part way off...anyway...
This event moved me deeply, 'cause when I heard that the baby had been found...safe...and was back in that loving mother's arms...I could not even imagine her relief.....and in envisioning that reunion, I was touched so profoundly that a tear fell, and I just had to whisper..."thank You.."
#91 The God's Must Be Crazy...In the wonderful little movie, The god's must be crazy...a pilot flying over the kalahari throws out an empty COKE bottle...which falls to the earth near a tribe of pigmys. Seeing that it came from the sky, they determine that it has come from the "gods" ...It is such a novel possesion that they are soon quarreling over it..
Finally after numerous failed attempts to return it, thro it back up to heaven, the head of the tribe, (Xixo played by N!xau... lol)...leaves his family and starts a journey to the edge of the earth to thro it off so it will no longer be there causing contention. The last scene is of his arrival at the edge of the earth...were he finally, thru it off and started home.
Today, I went to see my printer. While I was there a woman came to pick up some cases of envelopes, and I offered to carry them out for her. When I placed them in her car, I noticed that somehow, that bottle had ended up on her back seat!!!...what a shock!
Where did you get that? I asked, with a tone of amazement, while staring at the sun faded bluish sixteen ounce bottle I had seen carried across the entire piece of film that recounted Xixo's journey... Oh that?, my son found it... WOW, it's beautiful, I said.....Do you want it? she asked me...Oh no, I couldn't...(she could not possibly have realized its history)...YES she said, I insist...Oh no...no, I cant...finally she put it in my hand...I tried to give it back but she refused it...OK, but only if I can by you a Coke...no, its ok, she said, as I took a rumpled dollar bill from my shirt pocket and tossed it off the edge of my world, into her front seat...
She picked up the greenback and said.. Thanks!...I'll buy one for me and one for my son...I had finally come into possession of a 67 coke bottle, a gift from the gods...which will grace some important position in my restraurant near the poster of that movie. I decided to carry it around in my car with me for the rest of the day, kinda like a lucky horse shoe, and honestly I think it worked even better than an orange rabbit's foot, cause nothing went too wrong for the rest of the day...coulda, even came close...but it didnt..
You see I was one of those lucky few born into the Pepsi Generation...that was back when Coke and Pepsi were made with Sucrose, rather than the cheaper High fructose corn syrup...which ended soda pop addiction. I mean, who would sorta borrow coin from Dad's change tray at the risk of life and limb, for today's Coke?... All the taste tests since that ecomomic decision, have been nothing but enemy propaganda...like pretending that two stuffed animal puppies are in a dog fight, duking it out, for the affection I once awarded to Bruno, my St Bernard...
The last time I had a Coke worthy of it's name, was in 1987 at an Alpha Beta grocery store. The CocaCola plant had missed a shipment of High Fructose, and had made its fountain syrups with REAL sugar for nearly two weeks. When I took that first SIP, it ROCKED MY WORLD...the taste exploded on my tastebuds in a symphony of familiar, but nearly forgotten, pleasures.
Once in college I gave a young lady a gift to eat on her way home to Arizona on Christmas break. She didnt know I had been there visiting her parents while building her GIANT 10'x12'x9' boxed Christmas present. When I left, her mother gave me a fruitcake made from the old family recipe...When fifty miles down the road, Jan opened those munchies, and tasted that familiar delight...she made a quick exit and phoned me!...WHERE DID YOU GET THIS PERFECT FRUITCAKE? hahaha Ill never tell......Of course her response was no different than mine when I tasted that COKE...WHERE DID YOU GET THIS REAL COKE?...It truly was the REAL THING!!!
I have noticed a lot of changes as I have collected CocaCola memorabilia, like how the command on the sign has changed from DRINK CocaCola...to ENJOY CocaCola...I think that's because BEFORE, enjoyment was part and parcel to simply DRINKING IT... I have approached the Coke plant here to see if I could order some of the REAL THING if I ordered fewer than a million semi loads...not the "Classic" counterfeit...nor the "new Coke" which is the basis of Diet Coke...I do think the new Coke ZERO is a serious attempt to resurrect the phosphate based addiction...but they said "nope" its no longer possible...damn!
So how does all this help us bend spoons and other metal objects with our minds?...It probably doesnt... it does have a lot to do with how we relate to our kids tho. I mean who can blame them for ordering a Sobe when the only choice they have is nothing like what they drink in Heaven, before discarding the bottle in the Kalahari...
I mean how much luck does a man need to acquire a bottle that contained the Drink of the God's...and actually REMEMBER what it tasted like... I wish I could buy the whole world, at least all of you, the REAL THING...A Coke in a bottle that requires the flip side of a church key, (said, beer opener) to access it... a lid that once removed, makes a tinny rattle with the change in your pocket...and a taste like.....like....like well, nothing available in this world...Instead, I guess Ill just have to teach y'all to sing...uhhh ...in perfect harmony...
2005/9/19 #90 All the sweet, green icing flowing down...When I blog I play music, specific songs for the events I recall, which I believe affects the way the words fall onto the paper...onto the screen...or from the heart as I type. Sometimes things that affect me profoundly will remain hidden until some long ago song plays or a tune coaxes, feelings long buried, out in the open and into some special recipe, which I will attempt to convey... but like in the song MacArther Park....my emotions, and exposed heart strings, will eventually fade in to a morass of other simliar blogs ....and my thots, no matter how real or imagined will become like that cake...
Which is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it 'Cause it took so long to bake it And I'll never have that recipe again Oh, no! In the verses of his song, Richard Harris expressed the words...and emotions that can only be understood in their context when applied or paraphrased, to our own individual experiences, our own blogs... And just like any entry,
There will be another blog for me
For I will write it There will be another dream for me Someone, Incite it! You will drink the lines while they are warm never let-you catch me looking at my blog And after all the words bout my life After all the joys of my life It will still be but ONE... I will take my life into my heart and I will share it I will flee confusion in your eyes, but I will bear it I will say the things that I desire And my passion flow like rivers to your eyes And after all the words of my life After all the tears of my life I'll be thinking of you... And wondering why maybe because we will never meet...never touch...or see the light from within our eyes...
I saw a black and white movie once...a beautiful woman was visiting her wrongly convicted man in prison. They sat across from each other, speaking thru a microphone, completely separated by a thick sheet of bullet proof glass. When visiting hours were up...she wanted to hold him...to kiss him...feel herself in his arms..touch his hair and have him know of her deep love and tender emotion held back by the glass. Just as he did...
Then before she left him with tears in her eyes...he pressed his hand against the glass. She too put her hand out so their palms rested like a mirror image thru the pane...This was for me a deep expression of love, of desire, of regret, of longing, and was simply their attempt to TOUCH the other person...I was typing recently and like an epiphany, I understood how VITAL... REAL encounters, symbolized by that touch...and the missing embrace, ACTUALLY are. And like the Prisoner and the love of his life, WE come here and speak thru the glass, Reciting poetry, and telling stories, and including music in which our souls find resonance, Snapshots of our lives, hoping that the cake will not end up melting in the dark...and occasionally if we are lucky...someone will reach out and touch their screen and my hand will mirror it...and I will leave with tears in my eyes, longing to actually KNOW you....dispite the fact I am imprisoned in this Space. I will tho, return another day...to speak again thru the glass, while trying to find ways to touch you...knowing tho it will always be thru the screen...nearly craving a real "touch"... and yet knowing that my sad yet meaningful attempt... will be the only way I can tell you how I feel about you.
Putting my hand out...pressing my hand against the screen...hoping you too, will
Touch the Screen
2005/9/18 #89 What makes us happy...Was asking myself just how happy I am...breaking all convention...(probably don't believe in that particular one)...deciding yet again that I am extactic!!! Absolutely in love with life, when I read the quote below... and realized again that I have more than the riches of kings...I am lucky to have been born with curiosity, wonder and a mother who taught me that love is not something that we feel or have or want...but something that we DO...Having understood that...I decided to be happy...hmmm it must be a direct result of that small truth...and a touch of self talk....."cause Im good enough, Im smart enough...and gosh darn it... I like me, (hehe) and I just Love being genuinely Happy"... Maybe tho Love is something that we ARE as well..after all I read somewhere that...God is Love.....if its good enough for him...its good enough for me...no wonder he's happy
I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen. Abd Er- RahmanIII of Spain (960 CE) 2005/9/17 #88 A Trip to HeavenToday, My cousin(more like a brother for this only child) and I took a drive up to look at some cabin lots between the back side of Mt Timpanogos and the Park City ski slopes everyone saw during the 2002 Olympics. He is making offers on a couple of very great lots that overlook the small Swiss imigrant village of Midway. We also looked at some serious acreage beyond Oak Haven.
The mountains are just turning RED and the yellows and oranges will soon follow in one of the most beautiful displays of color imaginable. We walked a few miles up ridges and ATV trails and access roads to see exactly where cabins for family and cabins for investment might be built. It boils down to a choice...up on the ridges where the vistas are indescribable or down in the gullies were the folage is thicker and privacy better but without the views. I think for a family of Gownups the ridge property is better, but for a growing family, the wilderness aspect of building amidst the trees creates a laboratory for young children to find their world...themselves...and maybe even God.
I donno tho, the ridges seem to just about reach up and touch heaven. To prove my point I have to pretend you would be interested in hearing about such mundane activities as finding the corner markers of a cabin lot high on the ridge line in the mountain country of Utah...The first three markers northeast, northwest, southwest were all just pegs in the ground with an orange surveyers ribbon tied to them. The fourth and highest, however, was where we chose to rest, just sitting, high above the heber valley, watching the cloud shadows move across the fields streams and people below. As I sat there I looked toward the corner marker...there sat a beautiful pearl colored URN ..and near it a black plastic box.
I walked over and picked it up...and tried to pull the gorgeously crafted lid form the body only to see it had been glued solidly on the Urn. Honesly I didnt know what it was at first...but upon opening the black box, I found in a plastic bag, some tastey canine morsels, dog food and such, apparently for the Soul of the animal whose creamated remains i held in my hands. I looked at my cousin, who was as intrigued with this find as I was, then we both talked about the loss of some of the best dogs that could have graced our lives...how its now illegal to just bury them in our area, and how the death of his last dog, an australian shepard had been handled.
As our conversation shifted from the economics and excitement of the quest for an affordable cabin, to that someone who had brought their pet so near heaven to leave its ashes, I wanted to know them...feel the love they had for this part of their existance. I wished I could have been watching as they sat near that boulder and talked to their "friend" before walking back down to the roadway and driving home alone, or with others who similarly grieved.
I recalled emotions I had felt at the loss of horses or dogs or other precious pets...and I smiled at the beauty of that small deed, only imagined from the evidence remaining.....it must have been almost as holy as the burial of ancient pharohs, kings or chiefs. I replaced the URN in its prepared resting place, then looked around that beautiful spot...For someone, and now me, it is sacred ground...
I have returned to earth this evening, having been just about within reach of heaven...Having whispered a few words just in case anyone there was nearby...and wondering if I hadnt actually been allowed to peek in. #87 Global WORMINGI read a teacher's very cool blog in which she talked of sending home earthworms with her students. I think to re-populate, aireate, and fill the soil with worms and to generally delight future fishermen. It reminded me of a story my uncle told me when I was four or five years old, when he perceived I was being too picky about what I ate.
There was this kid, a little like you, he told me, who woudnt eat anything, was unhappy no matter what his mother gave him. And since his mother took him to a doctor for orthotic shoes, and took him to a doctor for nutrition, and took him to every kind of doctor...well, she found one that could help cure this refusal to eat anything. (I think I know him... his name is Dr Blood, I told my uncle, referring to my pediatrician) Well when they arrived the good doctor Blood asked this kid why he wouldn't eat...I dont like what mom gives me to eat, he said. Then the doctor asked, what exactly would you like to eat?... a WORM announced the boy. Ok, the doctor said to his nurse, go get this fine young man a worm to eat. The nurse departed and when she came back she put this little red worm down in front of the boy.
Thats the wrong kind of worm, he said, shaking his head..I want a night crawler! The doctor very intent on pleasing this spoiled little brat told his nurse to go back and dig a night crawler out of the garden. (do you think my uncle made a froidian slip here using the words spoiled and brat?)...When she came back with this long brown night crawler, the doctor put it on a plate and handed the kid a knife and fork, and waited. WELL?...well what? it ain't cooked! So Doc Blood called his nurse again and asked her if she could heat it up over the bunson burner(I suppose if he had told the story today it would have been a in a microwave)...and brought it back steaming, and seerd just right. Again the doctor put the worm in front of his tiny patient...is this how you like it?...yep, said the boy...but still he didnt eat it...whats the matter asked the doctor...well I just Hate eating alone, YOU HAVE HALF....the Doctor, desparate to see some progress cut the worm in half, put the part with the ring around it on his plate and sat there dining with his patient...he cut the worm with a knife and with his fork put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed to show the boy by example what he was after....trying his best not to grimace as he chewed.
Ok its your turn the doctor said, NO!! shouted the little guy...Im not eating it...
Why not? the doctor asked... as the little boy put down his knife and fork,
Cause YOU ATE THE HALF I WANTED...
I giggled out loud...
I think of his tale each time I watch the movie chocolat where Johnny Depp eats the worm...
Weird tho, When he told me that story I not only laughed, I said...hey let me tell YOU a story now...the art of "shootin' the bull" must start at a very young age...ya think?
2005/9/15 #86 TRAINS Planes and AutomobilesFew men experience what David Ball discribes in his opening stanze from the Country smash-- Riding with Private Malone. I hadn't... that is... not until TODAY!...
I was just out of the service thumbing through the classifieds
when an ad that said old chevy some how caught my eye the lady didn't know the year or even if it ran but I had that thousand dollars in my hand It was way back in the corner of this old ramshackle barn thirty years of dust and dirt on that green army tarp when I pulled the cover off it took away my breath what she'd called a Chevy was a sixty six corvette I felt a little guilty as I counted out the bills but what a thrill I got when I sat behind the wheel TODAY, I got a call from my cousin who is also my very best friend. Hey, he said, are you looking for a few more Model trains? I donno, I said as I unloaded pallets of fasteners I had just picked up in a going out of business sale. What's up? Well I saw an ad last week for some Lionel Trains and knew you have been collecting, do you want the number?...Sure, lemme get a sharpie and I'll write it on a case here. He has attended memory school, so he calculated the number using an associative method. Got it?...yep...I'll give him a call I promised.
When we finished, I dialed the number and a retired voice answered. Do you have a Lionel train for sale I asked? Sure do, came the wheezy breathless reply. How much are you asking for it I asked You'll have to come look at it and make an offer. Tell me where you live...He told me,...REALLY? I have an appointment not twenty blocks from you in less than an hour, can I drop by when I finish? Sure, I'll be here.
I searched out his house in a lower middle class subdivision in west Salt Lake. When I drove up I found two boats, a camper, a trailer and a couple beautiful older Cadillacs surrounding the chain link fenced yard. As I walked up the sidewalk two little girls looked up from drawing the cutest chalk pictures on alternating checkerboard blocks that made up the driveway. Hi one of them called out as I passed, my name's Kirra, ...Nice unicorn, I smiled. The sign on the door read NO SMOKING oxygen in use. I knocked and waited.
When the door opened a very gaunt man with five o'clock shadow opened the screen and invited me into a dinngie living room with two woman watching a big screen TV that reached the ceiling, I swear I have seen movie screens that weren't that big. You here to see the train? Yes, I nodded. Follow me, he gestured. I followed him thru the living room, thru the kitchen past the dinette set around a corner down a narrow carpeted stair way which emptied directly into a bathroom. He pushed the door near the shower and we wound our way around a bed, into a narrow hall. He stopped, took out his keys, and rattled the door....
And when he opened that door, IT TOOK AWAY MY BREATH...what he called a Train set, was an entire ROOM filled with a Hundred classic Pre and Post war O and O27 Engines on two walls. A few shelves of metal airplane models and others with busses and metal and tin automobiles even model clipper ships and tons of cannon memorablia. I felt a little guilty when I made my offer for ALL OF IT. He sat scribbling on a 1990s catalogue...adding up his assets...then he turned to me and said...I can do that, cept the ships, they're gifts you know... I reached into my pocket and counted out a pile of Franklins. Can I get a receipt, and can I pick them up next Tuesday?...Sure, but if you could help me box them I would appreciate it, its a lot of work, and I have emphasyma. He then opened a closet to reveal nearly perfect original Lionel boxes..Oh My GOSH, they were probably worth nearly as much as the models they once held.
Do you have any transformers, I asked?....Sure, he coughed, they are at the storage unit. I nearly yelled...THE STORAGE UNIT? THERE'S MORE ? ...instead I asked Do you think I might see them before I leave? We went back upstairs where he wrote me a receipt, and I then followed him to the storage unit to find the transformers. He lead me to the roll up door and opened it...there were boxes, tires and clothes that I could see. I think these are the ones we want he said pointing to six boxes in one corner.
I took my pocket knife and cut the tape, and peered in...WHAT?..it was a very rare AMERICAN FLYER transformer, Its HUGE, I gasped...yep, ya think you want it? I wanted to scream WANT IT?...but I got a look of indicision on my face and said...Yeah, I guess so, uh huh...I think I do...Ill need a little more money he winced. Telling me his thinking.... How about this? I said, telling him mine. Works for me, he said as we shook hands.
I loaded up the six boxes, five of them unopened, and arranged to pick up the rest. As he drove out he waved to me, and I headed home.
It took me ten seconds to call Jim to tell him about my afternoon. I must have seemed hyper as only those who have heard me rattle can imagine. THANKS for calling me I shouted into the phone while spilling out most of the details. I could tell he was smiling as much as I was....then he asked me the most important question of the day....SO, what are you going to do now?...
Do you remember that Engineers hat I used to wear skiing sometimes in High School?...yeah...I'm digging it out of the closet! And I am going to ride the rails! I laughed....good for you! he chuckled..
I have lived near a D&RG railroad track for years and years...Hardly even hear the blaring horn at the crossing anymore, but tonight as I got out of the car, I could hear the distant crossing bells, the Engine horn, and the rumble of the five engine freight train. I cut open just one more box to find three more transformers and some old metal trucks...a couple more metal planes, and a joy that I cant even begin to tell ya.
But right now tho, I got somethin' to do....I gotta find that hat!.
#85 Cracker Jacks and Einsteins law of RelativityWHAT.. NO BOX?...just this l'il bag that says Cracker Jacks. Sheesh!!! That box along with the three things hidden inside have made it one of my favorite snacks since I was three. The lightly coated popcorn, ahhhhh they're ok...the bestest coated peanuts ever, but not enough of'm and YES, the PRIZE, that magical portion of any Cracker Jack treat that actaully makes kids of any age drool.
I spent a BUCK today to acquire that little tri-part treat. I used to buy them for the munchies at football games and in those ten packs to hand out to my friends when they had done some really "crackerjack" job like the time we toilet papered Winterton's house with THREE(count'em 1, 2, 3... 72 pack) CASES of toilet paper while they were on vacation...the day before it RAINED...
Sometimes I just bought a box of Cracker Jacks for the team, sometimes MOM gottem for ME so she could have just a taste, ...but most of the time, dispite any claims to the contrary, the PRIZE was part and parcel of the decision to plop down that DIME, and later a QUARTER (and now a whole Washington) for what has to be one of the greatest evidences of human curiosity and american enginutity (trying to figure out how to open that box as instructed) ever devised. These days I only buy them for the PRIZE, metabolism being what it is.
Its not that I want the prize so much,(yeah right) its cause I am curious, I want to see if today's prizes are still following that seemingly unstoppable curve to worthlessness, or if by chance, with the raising price of the new POUCHES of these taste goodies,( I knew that inevitably that special hard to open box would be replaced by something cheaper) the powers that be, in Cracker Jack land, would realize that a better quality prize like I got as a kid, is as important as the price increases....this question needs to be revisited and given a serious answer.
It used to be that when you finally got that box open, you would find a veritable treasure. I loved the mini-manifying glasses we used to fry ants with as they crossed the garbage can lid, or the pirate or biker tatoos( ok, the wash off skin decals), or the tiny flying propellers, or even the snap together fighter jet like the one I tried to launch from the car window only to have it land at a secret base somewhere in Fergesons cherry orchard. I searched for days for that CIA bastion of spy planes, but to no avail...That prize was for its size one of the most sought after things on the continent. But there are some things that just cannot be explained. Like why the prizes have not kept up with the adjustments for inflation or just in the name of simple progress, new technology etc, like the peanuts, popcorn and new foil pouchs have, is a mystery to me...
Today the prize was a minature FOLD-IN like the ones we used to find on the back page of MAD magazine. I would have enjoyed it more if they had included one of those magnifying glasses to see it with. A few weeks back I got a little smilie sticker...what kind of prize is that?...I mean for girls it might be ok...to put in their locker or on their foods folder or something, but for wannabe linebackers and ski bums ....well they just needed like a mini football helmet key chain or somethin' like that.
I have noticed that hardly any of the prizes I have retrieved in the last few years have been worth the paper they wrap them in...which due to the thinness of each prize must mean less wrapping paper(an economic decision?) than when they used to have real toys inside of them. Not only that I dont think they have a joke or riddle on'm(who really knows? we rip that prize open so fast we dont even read it anymore) So here is my ponderance..what will be the future of the Quality of one of America's greatest pieces of nastalgia, which if were arent careful, will soon go the way of Burma Shave signs, and train travel (said Pulman, not boxcar) and Soda fountains, if something isnt done to change that ugly curve.
THIS has really put my mind to work, resolving some of the greatest challenges of all time. I eventually ended up thinking about relativity...and asking myself if Einstein was really right when he proposed his famous theory.
I think I was driving by Brock's house when that particular question crossed my mind, I saw him outside with some bondo, patching up some dents in his new teen-mobile (not as good as a gremlin or a pacer I thot, but the lime green hatch back Civic, does call out to be mocked)... seeing such an inquisitive mind, and having an extra pouch of Cracker Jacks, I slammed on those DRUM BRAKES and the old 51 chevy pick-up skidded to a stop...HEY whats up?...oh nuthin; he assured me as he wiped the bondo from his applicator. Want some Cracker Jacks I asked? Is the prize any good? he retorted...Now HOW do I know?...I guess you dont he nodded as he reached out for the "Cracker Jacks", knowing full well from experience that it would turn out to be something like a miniture Mona Lisa, or a peel and stick kissy lips or such...
HEY Brock, do you ever wonder if Einstein was right about the Theory of Relativity?...or why these prizes keep getting worse every year...I have been wondering myself...When he said YES, I wondered which he was referring to...you know they say if you travel at the speed of light, that time stops...
Just like when friends visit...eat some Cracker Jacks, and discuss matters of consequence...time had stopped.
The visit had just begun. 2005/9/14 #84 Snidely Whiplash or Dudley Do-Right and NELI have reposessed a few cars in my day...Picked up a few pieces of equipment that werent paid for. Taken back a few marbles that were stolen, and worked out a deal to reaquire my army jacket that was taken off my back by some older bigger and scarier kids, yah, I borrowed their new ski jackets and hid them in a locked church locker, then worked out a much sought after trade. I guess in those times I was kind of a Snidley Whiplash sort...and nearly did his work again tonight after Oscar bounced the umpteenth check and then called me to tell me all the equipment I had sold him was locked in the location he had forfieted, and needed to be picked up.
When I arrived at 2 pm, there Oscar was clearly interested in me talking to the landlord so access would be granted. The landlord had at one time worked for me as a kid so our report is wonderful. He asked me to meet him with my truck at 7 pm and he would open the building. Sooooo when I arrived to repo the stuff..there sat an attractive young woman in a midget SUV. When I apprached her to see why she had the doorway blocked with her car, she informed me that I could not take my stuff. My first reaction was, Hey where is Kevin, and what have you done with him. I think she had missed my attempt at humor. You cant take anything from inside she again anounced in a slightly higher voice. Apparently not, I agreed seeing that SHE had the key. And why not, I asked her. Because I am the owner of everything in there! Sorry ma'am but you aren't. OH YES I AM she asserted. I bought it from Oscar, and paid a lot of money for it. I seeeeeeeeee.
Well, apparently Oscar has sold you stolen property then, shall we call the police and resolve this? I have the papers she informed me. I dont care if you have a gun I told her, that doesnt make that stolen equipment yours. My driver with the truck pulled up and waited patiently while I tried to resolve the situation.
As background, this woman had subleased some space from Oscar. She had taken over the space when he had failed in his business. I had seen her there operating her business, while trying to get an air conditioner going so everyone in that space didnt die of the heat during July. My friend Kevin had told her to meet me and resolve the problem. She had come to protect her Investment, and saw me a lot like the evil villan, who had come to take away her dream.
Do you have papers that show Oscar has not paid for these things? Yes ma'am I do...at that point this single mother of two young children got rather testy. After a while her anger shifted from me to Oscar, and all sorts of idle threats were made on his life etc, I could sympathize with that. It turns out that he not only owed me about 4 grand, but that he had taken her for nearly as much.
Somewhere in the conversation the anger shifted to pure distress, and this tiny 30 somthing woman's eyes welled with tears and she started to sob...I cant even sleep she confessed...AH HELL,...what to do... Mike, I said to the driver, take the truck back to the yard, we wont be hauling any equipment tonite. I gave him some cash for some gas, and he drove off.
With that done I approached her car and asked her to tell me what she had planned for her new business...she wearily told me of her plans to use everything in the building that was mine. OOOOOk then I guess we need to get together and get OUR money from Oscar, huh? Oh, she said, Ive talked to my attorney and it will cost more than the equipment she informed me. Well then Ill hafta figure out a way to get him to cooperate I suggested, thinking of my neighbor the Chief of police. You would do that? she asked with surprise. But of course, he needs to just work something out to get your money back so you can buy it and neither of us will lose a dime.
Her face changed from a look of stress overdose, to one of relief. We talked for about an hour, I listened to her dreams for that business, and understood that she doenst have even half what she needs to make it work, and offered to loan her the necessary used equipment until she sees if it will fly, thinking of clearing out half of one storage unit. You woud do that? she again asked me?...but of course, I told her. It was getting late, and even tho I am a nite person, I was sure she would function better on her first good nite's sleep in the past few days. Lets talk about it tomorrow, ok?
I made a few suggestions and offered to help her lay it out and set up the operation without charge, after all, there isnt anyone who will take good care of her equipment like I will, vested interest and all...As I drove a way, she stopped me. Yes?...She tried to thank me...for what?...oh, no no dont worry about it...go get some sleep, things will be fine, no you will be fine, no really, I dont plan on taking the equipment anytime soon...dont worry, everyone isnt a crook like Oscar...it'll be fine, yes I really am planning on you using it. Finally she turned towards her car, and I left chuckling to myself at how gun shy we become after being fired upon...
I had gone there in a Snideley Whiplash mode, to repo my stuff even if it meant tying the fair maden to the railroad tracks, and left in a Dudley Do-Right mode, no money or equipment, but richer for it just the same...and Nel?...well she will sleep better tonight knowing that things will work out, and all will be just like she dreamed it.
When Oscar called to see If I had picked up the equpiment, I told him not yet, that dear Nell had called the Mounties...errrr the police...SHE DID?...OH NO... I think he promised me everything but his kids. Not that I would want them really, but if the truck he proposed giving me is worth anything, and it may be worth about what he owes me...if it is...HEY does anybody want a 4 wheel drive pick-up? I think I will have one later today, and it'll be for sale...VERY CHEAP! ...you would do that?...but of course... 2005/9/13 #83 Tagged...Here we go...
1) Seven Things I Hate Doing or That Scare Me
2)Seven Things I Like
(3) Seven Important Things in My Room
(4) Seven Random Facts about Me
(5) Seven Things I plan on Doing Before I Die
(6) Seven Things I Can Do or Have Done
(7) Seven Things I Cannot or Will Not Do
(8) Seven Things I Say the Most
(9) Seven Celebs on Whom I Have A Crush
(10) And Finally, Seven Souls I Have surprised by Tagging Them
Andy 8th grade football, Carla company party, Byron in a fight, Kathy sixth grade races--she was fast!, Stan at the father and sons outing, Arian leaving the three dog night concert, Cole church softball game, Jimba day he gave me the St Bernard, Diane third grade love while biking to lovers lane, and Susie when I introduced her to Brent....just some of the YOUR ITs of my life!
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