A Day When Everything Went Wrong - 1/24/2012

This weeks prompt for the South Strand Writing Group was: "A Day When Everything Went Wrong." I decided to change things up and write a little poem.

I awoke in the small hours
To the acrid stench of smoke
Suffocating the darkness
And making me choke

I reached for my glasses
They flew out of sight
They would've been less than useless
In the opaque, dark, night

At that very moment
I regretted I stole
The smoke alarm batteries
For my remote control

I stopped, dropped and rolled
As I slid to the floor
Still wrapped in my sheets
I crawled towards the door

I knocked off a lamp
As I took my covers with me
It shattered and scattered
Leaving glass and debris

I policed up some of the ruins
With my palms and my face
As my eiderdown cocoon
Rolled all over the place

Racked with pain and with fear
The terror increased
Still enveloped in bedclothes
An 800 count beast

I scampered towards safety
Across the sleeping room floor
When my skull came in contact
With the wall or the door

Imbedded with glass
Now a knot on my head
I spun around wildly
And stubbed my toe on the bed

Wouldn't you know
That my knee jerk reaction
Would cause yet another
Head to wall attraction

The pounding my cranium
Was giving the wall
Caused a sconce and a painting
To detach and fall

If you think that they missed me
And fell harmlessly away
You are not following closely
The events of this day

May have been the concussion
Or the blood in my eyes
But I started to panic
And did something unwise

Not wishing to die
In a blazing pyre
I thought of the best way
To get out of the fire

I could see through the window
Just barely a glow
Perhaps from the fire
I couldn't know

I launched my human burrito
With all of my might
Towards that little
Beacon of light

I crashed through the window
To the nocturnal gloom
Ejecting myself
From a second floor room

I crashed through the glass
Collecting more shards
And landed on my back
In my neighbor's back yard

The bedclothes came off
Sometime during the flight
And I landed naked
On a warm summer's night

I might have been hurt
From my two story cannon ball
But the neighbor's koi pond
Helped break my fall

Where were the firemen
Where were the flames
And why was my neighbor
Calling me names

Emergency vehicles
Soon did respond
To pull me out
Of his God Damned koi pond

The injuries sustained
And the way that I sobbed
Made the police believe
I was beaten and robbed

Though it was hard to believe
And harder to explain
But a horrible nightmare
Had driven me insane

Rejection - 1/17/2012

The prompt for this week's writing group is: "An occasion when you experienced rejection." I could have just submitted my journal but that would have been cheating. A high school memory came immediately to mind:

It is the late 1960's. The scene is a spring high school dance held at the local union hall in a small mining town in northern Idaho. I had just performed all the compulsory moves for a maladroit 16 year old boy. I had enthusiastically shaken hands with my few friends as if I hadn't seen them in years, though we were all playing baseball together just a couple of hours prior. Sometime, during the course of the evening; I would shake hands with the same guys each time we came in contact, as if one of us was a returning POW. It was all we knew to do. I think eye contact without shaking hands would have been too awkward to bear. We would sometimes attempt to talk, but the band was playing "Gloria" so loud that communication was impossible.

Those of us without dates were then required by ritual to stand in front of the stage and watch the band (composed of some of my classmates), standing as close to the speakers as possible. This activity showed any girl that may have been looking in our direction that we possessed great musical knowledge and might be called upon at any time to sit in with the band, Though I, myself, possess slightly less musical skills than the wind-up monkey with cymbals and the closest I would come to joining the band was to fetch an errant drumstick.. A casual stance and the bopping of my head, though undoubtedly totally out of sync with the beat, was the closest I could come to looking cool. And, believe me, I was the polar opposite of cool. I am not certain, but I may have invented the "air guitar".

The drunker or more confident girls would dance with each other. No teenage boy would be caught dead dancing early in the evening. Well, except one guy who was a northern Idaho LSD pioneer. He danced in the halls at school. Even guys that came with dates would hang out in front of the stage with the rest of us handshaking, speaker hugging, losers, while their dates danced.

The dance floor was huge. Though it really only needed to be the size of a jail cell. For a self-conscious teen, like myself, walking across the room to where the eligible girls were compressed against the far wall was every bit as terrifying as crossing a minefield. Everyone in the place could see you crossing the room. There may as well have been a spotlight on you.

For most of us, no floor crossing would happen until "last dance." It was important (for other than the most hopeless dork) to pair up with a girl for the last dance. It was always a slow song, such as "Something" by the Beatles. Of course, I couldn't actually dance. My idea of dancing was to put my arms around the girls waist and lurch around in no particular pattern, trying unsuccessfully not to step on her feat. Since most of the girls were several inches shorter than me, there was an uncomfortable bend necessary that increased the degree of difficulty and made me look like a staggering scoliosis victim. The sole objective of "last dance" was to find a girl that I could give a ride "home".

My lack of dancing prowess was moot if I failed to cull a consort from the bouquet of wallflowers. I had been covertly scouring the line-up all evening for a possible candidate. My strategy was to never approach "A"-listers. It was improbable that a girl who would not acknowledge my existence in the classroom would want to be seen with me, let alone experience my haphazard embrace. "A"-list girls liked good-looking, popular guys. I had the facial features of a young Gandhi. "A"-list girls liked star athletes. I played baseball. Our high school didn't even have a baseball team. Soccer hadn't been introduced yet. If it had been, my studliness factor would have been somewhere between a soccer player and the guy that played the clarinet in the pep band. "A"-list girls liked guys that drove cool cars. In the parking lot was my dad's ten year-old pick-up. The one we drove to the dump.

So I focused on the "B"-team, who were still out of my league, but it was possible that one of them may have drastically lowered her standards by that time of the night, so that an invite from me would be marginally less objectionable to slow-dancing with one of her girlfriends. There was the added barrier in that the "B"-team believed themselves to be "A"-listers due to the stampede of supplicants they could expect at "last dance". This significantly increased the probability of a rebuff.

The truth was that I would go as far down the alphabet as necessary. Bee-lining to a less desirable girl would not only increase the chances of acceptance but also the probability that I was the only guy that would be looking into her lazy eye that evening.

The band had announced that after "Satisfaction" would be the "last dance". I joined the other oddballs on the Bataan Death March to rejection.

Star Trek- The Episode You Never Saw - 1/9/2012

The prompt this week for our writing group is "an account of a visit to a fictional place." The first thing that came to mind was a Star Trek episode I had seen years ago. I think it was called "Spectre of the Gun". The Enterprise was transported back to the old west. I remember really enjoying that particular circumstance. I decided to write a piece based loosely on that premise. I have taken some liberties with Roddenberry's Star Trek, so don't be too critical.

Captain's Log Stardate 3842.4: After experiencing a temporal distortion, we have been transported through a space and time portal. The Enterprise sustained minor damage but no casualties. We are orbiting a small, class M, terrestrial planet. Mr. Spock is analyzing the planets composition, atmosphere, and life forms.

Mr. Spock: "Captain, it appears we are in a geocentric orbit around the planet earth in the mid 19th century. As the current technology is primitive, we will be undetected by the population.

Capt. Kirk: "Interesting. Isn't that the time period of the fabled North American old west? Gunfighters and gold rushes?"

Mr. Spock: "Yes, Captain, it was a time of lawlessness and acquisition."

Capt. Kirk: "I have a romantic fascination with that time period. Find us a location in the American west that will provide us the opportunity to observe without violating the prime directive. Let's go down and take a look, purely for scientific purposes. Get Dr. McCoy and a some obscure red shirt and meet me in the transporter room. Mr.Sulu, you come too. Mr. Chekov, you have the console."
Mr. Chekov: "Aye, sir."

Captain's Log Stardate 3842.4: We have transported to the surface of Earth, on a ranch near Virginia City, Nevada, in the year 1859. The detail consists of myself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Sulu. The red-shirt crewmember (Ensign, I have no idea of his name) of our landing party transported directly onto a bed of serpents that Mr. Spock has since identified as Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes. Since that genus has been extinct for several hundred years, Dr. McCoy has no antidote. The crewman's body has been transported back to the Enterprise. Do you know how much Star Fleet paperwork that creates for me? Sorry, Captain's Log, that was rhetorical.

Mr. Spock: "This ranch is called the Ponderosa."

Dr. McCoy: "How the hell did you know that, Spock?"

Mr. Spock: "I am of superior intellect. And there is a sign over the gate. It seems to be some sort of breeding ground for a species of bovine creatures."

Dr. McCoy: "Like your mamma?"

Capt. Kirk (chuckling): "No, these are a food source. I had real beef as a youngster in Iowa. Wonderful. Though you would not appreciate it Spock, being vegetarian."

Mr. Spock: "Eating other creatures is illogical."

Dr. McCoy: "So is only mating every 7 years."

Mr. Spock (ignoring McCoy): "The ranch is inhabited by five men. I detect no female presence."

Dr. McCoy: "Crap, we have landed in Suluville."

Mr. Sulu: "That is a myopic view."

Mr. Spock: "The residents appear to be a man and his three adult sons."

Dr. McCoy: "Curiouser and curiouser."

Capt. Kirk: "You said FIVE men."

Mr. Spock: "They appear to also possess a slave, who performs all the traditional female functions of this time period. He has a similar racial and genetic makeup to Mr. Sulu."

Dr. McCoy: "These jokes just write themselves."

Mr. Spock (ignoring McCoy): Slavery was an accepted practice in this time period. Illogical, considering the rallying cry of that society was freedom and liberty.

Dr. McCoy: "Well that explains their lack of use for women here in Suluville."

Mr. Spock: "They travel by equine. Though the weight of one of the riders grossly exceeds the load limits of that particular beast of burden."

Capt. Kirk: "Pretty fancy ten gallon hats."

Mr. Spock: "Captain, while they are undoubtedly excessively large hats, the function of which I cannot determine, their capacity is considerably less than ten gallons."

Capt. Kirk: "That is just a figure of speech, Spock. An exaggeration of the size of the hats."

Mr. Spock: "Hyperbole seems to be an essential part of your culture. For instance, when Dr. McCoy discusses his medical qualifications.

Dr. McCoy: "Pon Farr you, Spock."

Capt. Kirk: "The older, grey-haired, one reminds me of a Star Ship captain I met years ago."

Mr. Sulu: "The young one is quite handsome."

Dr. McCoy: "Keep your phaser holstered there cowgirl. What do you want to do, build a little house on the prairie?"

Mr. Spock (ignoring McCoy): Fascinating. There exists some vigilante code that gives these particular citizens carte blanche to randomly administer the death penalty to any fellow inhabitants that infringe on them in any way.

Capt. Kirk: "That is true. I have read about that. It is called frontier justice. It applies to the theft of any possessions: livestock, gold, horses, even women.

Dr. McCoy: "Safeguarding of women does not appear to be a priority here in Suluville."

Mr. Spock: "No trial? No due process?"

Capt. Kirk: "I guess the word justice is subjective."

Mr. Spock: "Barbaric."

Dr.McCoy: "Jim. Does that frontier justice apply to trespassing?"

Capt. Kirk: "Most certainly."

Dr. McCoy: "Then I suggest a hasty exit. Four riders heading this way, primitive weapons drawn. I don't know about you, but a dead Vulcan in Nevada, though satisfying, might violate the Prime Directive."

A bullet pings off a boulder very close to Dr. McCoy's foot.

Dr. McCoy: "Damn it Jim. I'm a doctor, not a gunfighter."

Capt. Kirk: "Kirk to Enterprise. Scotty, Four to beam up. Now!"

Scotty: "Aye, Captain."

Captain's Log Supplemental: A short visit to earth's surface revealed that mankind has not evolved significantly in 400 years. We just have better weaponry now. Instead of eliminating those that violate our canons one by one, we now have the capability to eradicate entire worlds. I, personally, would be very at home on the Ponderosa. Except for the lack of females. Jimmy Kirk likes the ladies.

Success and Failure - 1/2/2012

This week's writing group prompt was "a moment of success or failure." I intended on writing an uplifting personal piece chronicling one of my personal triumphs. I could relate the time I ..............um...or the moment that I.............hmmmm.

A flurry of painful failures and disappointments filled my head. Wow, this is going to be harder than I thought. Then it came to me that failure and success are very subjective:

For someone who has attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills, waking up in the morning is an epic fail. For the rest of us, it is a victory. And in my case, often a surprise.

A baseball player that fails miserably seven out of ten at bats is a candidate for the hall of fame. In most endeavors a 30 percent success rate is unacceptable. If a doctor lost 70 percent of his patients, his practice would probably suffer as a result.

A four minute mile is an achievement for a jogger. Not so much for a NASCAR driver.

Many women try for years to get pregnant and bear children. Others do it with a minimum of effort and intent. The latter is a success at procreation but a dismal failure at fertilization avoidance.

I think you can see where I am going with this. For instance, a two-year old, going poop on the potty is a cause for celebration, for a seventy year old........ OK, bad example.

Recently, on a television show called the X-Factor, a contestant was praised as a hero for going seven months without smoking crack. They raved about what an inspiration and role model he was. I have been crack free for nearly 60 years. I should get a parade, complete with Shriner clowns.

Success has many levels. A child takes his/her triumphant first step and nobody outside the immediate family gives a damn, but take one step on the moon........

I was at a Christmas Show at the Alabama Theatre and it was announced that a couple in the audience were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They attempted unsuccessfully to stand up when someone told them that their name had been called, but settled for a Royal Family type wave. There was applause and people whooped and cheered. There was probably some sad bastard or bastette in the crowd who had been married multiple times. Is that success or failure? I think anyone who finds four or five different people willing to cohabitate with them deserves some recognition. But today with same-sex marriage being in vogue, the matrimonial pool has doubled for many. Maybe it is not as difficult as it once was. And I would think that losing half your worldly goods every few years might tilt toward the failure side of the ledger.

Being elected to the office of The President of the United States seems to be a big deal. At least until after the inauguration, when the chosen one finds out what the job entails and how much bipartisan fellatio he will have to perform to get elected to a second term.

As a parent, success or failure is not immediately evident. As the child grows to adulthood, our parenting skills are revealed: Honor student - yay, professional athlete -yeah baby, champion of industry - hell yeah, serial killer - oops.

I guess my life has pretty much been absent of major highs and lows. That might not be such a bad thing.

Something That Made Me Laugh Until I Cried - 12/12/2011

My response to this week's writing group prompt, "Something That Made Me Laugh Until I Cried."

Evidently, weddings are sort of a big deal. Up until couples started staging their events for YouTube, the ceremony tended to be serious and solemn. The binge drinking and antics of embarrassing friends and family were reserved for the reception. Weddings tend to be particularly stately and dignified in the south, where I live, making the episode that I am recounting here even more ridiculous.

My sons, Rick and Josh, graduated from Catawba College, near Charlotte, North Carolina. One of their dormitory suite-mates and best friends was Jamie Gillis from Fayetteville. Through them, I came to know Jamie and as a result was invited to his wedding some years after they graduated. The wedding was held in Salisbury, in the Catawba College chapel.

On the rare occasions that I have been inside a church I like to be close to the exit in case a fire and brimstone situation develops. On this day, I took my usual place in the back of the chapel, far from where Jesus hung out above the altar.

The bride (I have forgotten her name) had already shot past me heading for the alter and my son Josh had still not arrived. Somewhere between "speak now or forever hold your peace" and "sickness and in health" Josh took a seat next to me in the pew. With my eyes, I silently questioned why he was so late. He didn't say a word just opened his jacket. There was a perfect imprint of an iron seared onto the front of his shirt.

At this time it is important for the reader to be made aware that I do not possess an inside voice. For some reason I was blessed or cursed with a very powerful, monotone, speaking voice without benefit of modulation or restraint. Any attempt on my part to whisper generally results in a volume level not much different from my normal speaking voice. Sometimes, I am told, my private voice actually resonates more than my regular speech. That was a problem for me in school, as confidential communique murmured to the person in the desk next to me often reached the teacher's desk full voice. Also, on this particular day, the acoustics of a church amplified that which was already too loud. I believe that design is intended to keep parishioners conscious.

I began to laugh. It was not a chuckle or a snicker. It was a full-fledged guffaw. My amusement triggered laughs from my sons. While their laughter was somewhat courteously subdued, compared to mine, they exceeded the acceptable decibel limit for a church service. I could not stop. The more I tried to control myself, the harder I would laugh. Just when it seemed I had gotten my mirth managed, Josh would again flash his shirt at me.

Soon, everyone in the minster, including the wedding party, was looking back at us. It was not Christian charity reflected on their "shut the fuck up" faces. They take their church ceremonies seriously here in the Bible Belt and any joyful noise must be sanctioned by the congregation and approved by the church council. Just before it seemed we would be ushered out, I managed to regain some command of my emotions and display a modicum of dignity. It is a good thing, because I could not have walked on my own power. I would have had to genuflect to the parking lot.

I never actually stopped giggling, I just was able to confine the sound to my own general area by burying my face in a hymnbook. Tears, drool, and snot will probably prevent any future back pew believer from opening to hymn 234. That page is most likely sealed forever.

I am certain this was the hardest I have ever laughed in my life. At least at something appropriate to discuss in this venue.

First Time Away From Home - 12/5/2011

The prompt for this week's meeting of our writing group was: "First Time Away From Home." This was my response:

The first time Matt killed someone the degree of difficulty was high. It has gotten exponentially easier since. That he was only a child when he took his first life was certainly a factor in the effort required. The guy was one of Matt's mother's boyfriends. Everybody asked him why he had stuck a butcher knife through the drunken, sleeping, guy's throat. He remained silent. He was embarrassed to say that it was because the guy repeatedly tried to touch his wiener. Matt was exiled to juvenile detention where he remained until, at 18, he would be transferred to big boy prison. At 11, Matt was among the youngest, smallest, and whitest inmates at the Tarrant County, Texas facility. That meant that he also had to be the toughest and the smartest.

There was a plethora of wiener-touchers in juvie, both inmates and guards. After Matt had maimed several older convicts and they still would not leave him alone, he formulated ways to kill some of them. He used all of his abundant free time thinking of ways to create murders that appeared to be accidents or suicides. It became a game. The authorities could not link Matt to any of these deaths, but the streetwise thugs knew and as a result he gained mucho respect among the gen pop. Even the guards steered clear of him. "That motherfucker is crazy," was whispered in the exercise yard as he walked by.

By the time he reached his 17th birthday, he was reluctantly crowned the king of the institution. Others came to him for protection, which he gave to those most in need. He divided most of his time between the exercise yard and the library. As a result, both his body and mind were superior to most of his cohabitants.

At 18, as promised, he was transferred to the Texas State Prison at Huntsville. In his nearly 7 years at Tarrant County, Matt had caused the death of 12 wiener-touchers and other creeps. Eleven were inmates and one was a particularly sadistic guard. Some people need killing. He had not had a visitor during his entire incarceration. Evidently his mother was unforgiving about the death of her boyfriend.

Through the criminal grape-vine, Matt's reputation proceeded him to prison. He was seldom challenged and pretty much kept to himself. He only killed 2 men in Huntsville.

A byproduct of his self-absorption was that he was considered a model prisoner and since his only misdeed was committed as a juvenile, he was paroled a week before his 21st birthday. He had spent nearly half of his life incarcerated.

As he walked through the iron personnel gate to freedom, leaving the only home he had really ever known, he had no idea what he was going to do. Other prisoners had told stories of the wonders of the outside world: soft women, hard liquor, and fast cars dominated the fables. He had never experienced any of these pleasures. He had $267.00 in his pocket that he had earned from prison work projects and a duffel bag containing his scant belongings.

Since the prison was located right in Huntsville, he was able to walk the short distance to the city center in just a few minutes. Matt decided he was going to treat himself to an alcoholic beverage. He found what he assumed was a bar since it had neon signs in the windows advertising many kinds of beers. Above the door was the name, The Manhole.

He walked out of the hot, Texas, sun into the cool, stank, darkness of the tavern. He waited a minute for his eyes to adjust to the gloom and then ambled up to the bar and took a seat on a stool.

The bartender asked, "what'll it be, handsome?" Pretty friendly place, Matt thought.

"I don't know. What do you recommend?" he answered, smiling.

"You look like an appletini kind of guy."

"OK, I'll try one."

"Make that two" a voice two stools over said as he slithered onto the stool next to Matt.

As the drinks were delivered, the intoxicated man introduced himself, "I am Adam." He rubbed Matt's thigh as he spoke.

Adam leaned over and whispered something into Matt's ear as his hand moved up to his crotch. Matt experienced a Deja Vu from ten years ago. The same words, fetid breath, and wiener-touching.

Matt put his hands over Adam's ears and with minimum effort, snapped his neck. The man slumped and quietly slid off the stool to the floor. Matt drank down his appletini, savoring the tart flavor as it burnt a trail down his throat. He had no idea how much the drink cost, so he just laid all his money on the bar, told the bartender thanks, picked up his duffel bag, and walked back home. The bitter taste of his hour of freedom still on his lips.

Traffic Accident - 11/21/2011

I hadn't written anything in some time. I lacked the motivation and inspiration. A few of us formed a writing group that will meet weekly and will write from a prompt. That gives me a subject and a deadline, both of which I seem to need. Our first prompt is "Traffic Accident." The following is what that prompt brought to my mind:

Terry was on his way home from his security job on the set of CSI Sea of Tranquility in medium rush hour traffic. He was listening to some classic rock on his new ICrap device. Just as he was starting to relax to a 50 year old Coldplay song, he was disturbed by the nosecone of another vehicle entering his passenger window at a moderate rate of speed. When he had recovered from the shock of the unexpected docking, he assessed the situation:

"Oh crap", he said out loud to himself, then silently thought "Just my luck. A taxi. No doubt driven by an alien with no insurance, and no English.".

"What the hell is wrong with you?" He screamed rhetorically at the driver. "Where did you get your license, "SkyMart?"

As other unconcerned traffic zoomed past, he realized that his initial assessment was correct. It was indeed an alien hack driver. This was going to suck on so many levels.

"I am very, very sorry, it seems my automatic pirate has malfunctioned,." The cabbie spoke through the damage.

"I think you mean pilot."

"Yes, pilot, my English is not so good."

"Neither is your driving, Roswell." He immediately regretted using the racial slur that Earthlings had attached to any extraterrestrial, regardless of planet of origin. It was every bit as derogatory as back when there were white people and they called blacks, niggers and chinese, chinks. Terry was part white on his mother's side, but the white had pretty much been bred out. Terry was roughly the color of a russet potato. He did, however, have enough white DNA that he qualified for minority benefits.

The Venusian driver began to tremble uncontrollably and turned a darker shade of gray-green than his normal hue. "There is no need to get racy. I said I was sorry.

"Racial. I was being racial. Not racy."

"Yes, you were."

Terry segued, "what the hell were you doing at this altitude? You know you aren't supposed to go above 15,000 feet in those shitwagons."

"Again with the obligatory remarks," the Venusian replied.
"I think you mean derogatory."

"You really are hurtful. I know that you Earthlings call us taxi drivers, Venetian Blinds. I have excellent vision. In fact I can see Uranus." What passed for a mouth emitted a high-pitched shriek that Terry took for a laugh.

"That was pretty funny, ET. Now what are you going to do about the damage to my vehicle?" Terry pressed.

"I have excellent insulation from Geico," the driver said proudly.

"I hope you mean insurance. "Why am I not surprised", to himself. "You look just like that lizard."

"You forget that we Venusians are telegraphic. And he is a gekko, not a lizard."

"It's telepathic, Yoda. Can you just not talk to me until the police arrive?"
"Certainly, I will be very solvent."

"Oh, for Christ's sake", Terry put his head in his hands.

He decided he would amuse himself while he waited for the police.

"What is your name?" Terry asked.

He knew that the authorities assigned names to all arriving aliens as they processed through immigration, as their given names are unintelligible and sometimes just a growl or fart sound. He also knew that the INS folks had a sense of humor.

"I am Jeffrey Dahmer," the driver said proudly.

"Of course you are," Terry chuckled.

Just then, a police cruiser arrived. The officer rolled down his window identified himself as patrolman Keith Richards, and asked, "Have you had an accent?."

Terry put his phaser on stun and shot himself in the face.

Creative Writing Assignment WK 1 - 9/22/2011

I am taking a creative writing course at Coastal Carolina University's Geezer Outreach Program. My first week's writing assignment was to write something. I did that. The amazing thing is that I didn't wait until the night before it was due to begin. I wrote the following very short story based on this picture. Don't ask:

Joshua was ten when he realized that not everyone could see the future. He had known that he had that ability ever since he could remember, but didn’t think much about it until that fateful year. He could not control when it happened. It just happened. Sometimes it was just a little thing, like knowing the phone was going to ring or that his mom would break a glass in the kitchen. Other times it was a more meaningful event, like a neighbor’s dog getting run over by a garbage truck or an earthquake in India. Though he didn’t know exactly where India was.

The mistake he made was telling someone. One night, he frantically warned his dad not to drive to the grocery store because he was going to get shot by a robber. His dad laughed and said something about Joshua’s imagination, promising to be right back with some ice cream. An hour later his dad was in an ambulance with a bullet wound in his shoulder and a confused look on his face. The police were equally baffled, when they apprehended the shooter based on Joshua’s detailed description; including the license plate number of the getaway car. His dad, being in shock, could provide little information to the authorities, but could identify the culprit from a lineup.

From that moment on, everything was different. Joshua was talked about on the news. They used his soccer team picture in the broadcast. People were calling his house day and night, wanting to know who would win a ball game or what lottery numbers to pick. No one understood. It didn’t work that way. Random Images would just appear to him, as real as life. He had no control over when or where. It could happen in a dream, at the dinner table, or in the classroom. Sometimes he would go weeks without a premonition. Other times they would come so fast and frequently that it gave him a headache.

The kids at St. Marks Elementary School suddenly steered clear of him. They called him a freak and a mutant. Even the teachers, who were mostly nuns, looked at him warily and he was sure he heard whispered devotions as they passed him in the halls. But the worst part was the way his parents looked at him. It was never the same again.

Mrs. Howard, the school counselor, was not a nun and seemed more interested in his “gift” than afraid of it. She met with his parents and it was decided that he would undergo some trials to verify his ability, though she admitted being skeptical that this type of power (she called it ESP) actually existed.

Joshua was very nervous on the day he was to be tested. He didn’t know what sort of exams he was going to be given, but he hated tests of any kind. For one of the assessments, Mrs. Howard held up cards with symbols on them; stars, circles, triangles and he was supposed to guess which figure was on each card. He knew, without even seeing the look on the therapist that he was not getting them right. In fact, he failed all the tests, but he did know that Mrs. Howard’s heart was going to stop working very soon. He decided to keep that information to himself. No one would believe him anyway. Mrs. Howard concluded that Joshua was not gifted with second sight and things at school soon returned to normal. Things at home never did. The knowledge about the shooting was explained away as coincidence or happenstance. That was fine with Joshua.

Life went on, but not for Mrs. Howard. When his mom told him that Mrs. Howard had died, he acted surprised. He had learned to perfect a look of astonishment.

That was twenty years ago. Joshua was now a successful Wall Street stock broker. Though he never learned to harness his ability, he heeded his intuition enough through the years that he had made some very successful investments for both he and his clients. He was happily married and had a wonderful ten year old son, named Jacob. Joshua never discussed his talent with his wife, Sherry, or anyone else.

Tonight, Jacob awoke from a terrible dream and crawled into bed with his parents, shaking uncontrollably. As Jacob related the horror of the dream, Joshua decided to take a personal day and spend it with his family at their home in Connecticut. He circled tomorrow’s date, September 11, 2001 on the calendar on the refrigerator. He did not tell anyone else. They would not believe him anyway.

The Dave Matthews Band and Sushi Both Leave a Bad Taste In My Mouth - 9/4/2011

Sometimes it seems that I am the only one in the world that doesn’t grok certain things. There are many cases of this being true, but I think I will limit this discussion to two examples: sushi and The Dave Matthews Band. Spoiler alert: I will admit up front that I don’t care for either of them. So you can save yourself the excruciating agony of reading on if you are just trying to find out where I stand on these critical issues. Perhaps I am not sophisticated or cultured enough to appreciate the complexities and art contained in either, but I like what I like. If you like either or both, I don’t care. Write your own blog.

Sushi: It is not that I haven’t tried sushi. I have given it several chances and each time resulted in a napkin spitting convulsion. It is not that I am discriminating about what I shove down my pie hole. I weigh approximately the same as Gilbert Grape’s mom. You don’t get like this by being selective of cuisine. It is not that I dislike polarizing food. I love oysters, escargot, calamari, mountain oysters, duck pate, and liver. I have eaten unidentifiable items from a night market in China. I am adventurous. It is not the thought of eating RAW fish. I have enjoyed steak tartare and absolutely adore prosciutto crudo.

Perhaps it is partly that it tastes foul and partly because those that are devotees of the sushi are so enthusiastic and fanatical about it that it causes my rebellious nature to surface. They make a Broadway show out of “going out for sushi.” Those of us that find bacon irresistible don’t try to convince others of the joy of gammon consumption. Nor do we try to instruct others of what fetid condiments are required to garner the entire dining experience. I find Sushi aficionados to be a bit like religious zealots. They really want you to know about their sushi.

If you like Sushi, fine. Just make sure you actually like it and aren’t just trying to be trendy.

The Dave Matthews Band: I have unsuccessfully attempted several times to listen to the Dave Matthews Band. I have friends (all middle aged and white) that think the sun rises from between Dave Matthews’ legs. I can acknowledge that he and the other members of his band are accomplished musicians, just as I can concede that the French make decent films. But I don’t have to like them. There are actually a couple of his songs that are listenable to me, but not enough to make the cut on my IPOD. It is not that I am close-minded about music. I have a wide range of musical taste. The playlist you are listening to right now is about as eclectic as you can get.

Someone suggested that “you really have to hear them live.” So I went on Spotify and made a playlist of “Live at Folsom Field.” I had a choice between that and “Live at Wrigley Field,” but there hasn’t been anything worth observing at Wrigley field since Ernie Banks retired. I started it up, hoping to finally grasp what DM was all about. When the first song cued up, Skooter licked himself and left the room. But he knows even less than I do about music. So I ignored his critique.

The first thing I noticed was that before every song there was at least a minute of some kind of tuning effort that seemed successfully designed to drive the fans into a screaming frenzy. EVERY FREAKING SONG. Come on Dave, just start the damn song. It is a double album, so when I woke up (oh yeah, it put me to sleep) it was still going. Fans of DM are certainly in luck. If you like one song, you will certainly like the next one, because it is exactly the same song. Without the tracks being listed and the endless tuning it would be impossible to tell when one song finished and the other began. Kind of like the Grateful Dead (who I am also a great fan of). This was some mind-numbing stuff.

On the rare occasion that I could make out some of the lyrics that he was garbling, they were totally without substance. I am a very lyrical music fan. I am not a fan of jamming just because you can. I like a 3 minute 30 second song with some meaning. Not “I'm the Monkey Man With the great, great monkey plan.” I had to turn it off when he totally butchered Dylan’s brilliant, “All Along the Watchtower.” It was actually several minutes into the song before I knew what the hell it was. That was brutal.

If you like The Dave Matthews Band, fine. Just make sure you actually like it and aren’t just trying to be one of the cool kids.

There Should Be a Telethon For Me - 8/20/2011

I am not a hoarder like the nutbags you see on television, I just have a hard time throwing things away. OK, by definition, maybe I am a hoarder. I have decided to try to do something about that so that when I get foreclosed, I can travel light and it won’t be so hard to live out of a 1999 Bravada. With that in mind, I have gradually begun to unclutter my life.

Late last night Jack Daniels and I decided to pull my stockpile of clothes out of the closets (though I live in a condo I have two walk-in closets, go figure) and cull them. I put on the play list you are listening to right now (if your sound is on) and set to work.

It has been well-documented, if you have read past posts of this blog, that though I am an intelligent, well-educated, man, I am not very task oriented. I have almost no practical skills. If you gave a set of directions and a tool box to both a chimpanzee and me, the chimp would design a lunar excursion module long before I could assemble an IKEA desk. People that know me know this to be an undisputed truth.

Right now, I have a cabinet door that’s hinges are held on by one of the four screws required. As an alternative to replacing the hinges (which I have no hope of doing), I have developed a rather inventive propping system. The fact that each time I open the door it falls off does not seem to annoy me enough to attempt a repair.

I tell you that so that you understand what a big deal it is for me to embark upon this great clothes-sorting undertaking. It involved an elaborate system of categorizing by fit and functionality for literally hundreds of garments. You notice I did not mention anything about style or fashion, as those were not criteria. My look is timeless. Khakis and polo shirts have never/always been in style. There was lots of trying on, or attempting to, in the case of older items.

Skooter was totally annoyed by this process as not only were the clothes taking up a large portion of the couch, which he considers his, but usually when I get dressed it means we are going somewhere. Every time I tried something on he went to the door. Finally he just got exasperated and laid down on his bed, sort of.

I arranged all the clothing into three groups: 1) those that I can or will never wear again, 2) those that I can (with some effort), will, or do wear, and debris. I have to tell you that only the trained eye can tell the difference. Though I am totally useless, I am a manic organizer (OCD). By the time I had finalized my categorization it was 3 AM and nearly bedtime. Skooter and I took the trash to the dumpster and I left the two huge heaps of my livery in place and headed to bed. Skooter inspected my work, chuffed, and followed me. I had a plan. I would get up in the morning, bag the cast-offs, and take them to homeless shelters.

This morning, I did just that. I filled two lawn and garden size, black, trash bags, and headed out to donate. I felt so good about myself that I stopped and picked up some barbeque to take home as a reward.

Arriving home, I decided to eat the pulled pork before concluding my mission, which involved the putting away of my downsized wardrobe. Sitting on the couch, admiring my work, I noticed a pair of chinos that I was sure should have gone to the donation stack. Closer examination revealed several such items. Frak! I had bagged the wrong heap.

So, I now have another mountain of clothes to donate and only the items that were in my ready line, and not subject to triage, to actually wear. The only winner (duh) from this situation is some really fat homeless guy who plays a lot of golf.

This is why I normally don’t do anything. If you do nothing, you can’t screw it up.

Everyone Talks About the Weather, Really They Do - 7/27/2011

I am not an unfriendly person. In fact my daughter, Carly, calls me a line talker. I like to converse and I can carry on a conversation about almost anything, if it interests me. I enjoy making smart-ass remarks and appreciate intelligent repartee. But the older I get, the less I can participate in small-talk.

The truth is that I am not a good listener. That might be why I failed miserably as a counselor and wasted my time getting that degree. As soon as I lose interest in a conversation, I tune out. I may appear to be paying attention, but I am not. I can maintain eye contact. I can even watch your lips move, but my mind has moved on without you. I had a tolerance for small talk when I was younger and if it was a woman that I was interested in. That is where I learned to maintain eye contact, although sometimes that focus wandered south.

I live in a condo where most of the residents are even older than I am. I can usually avoid these people, but sometimes the door doesn’t close fast enough and I share the elevator with one of them. I do my best to avoid eye contact and try to actually become invisible. This is difficult as I am 6’1” and weigh about the same as a side of beef. It is hard to hide in a 5X5 enclosure. I do not believe that just because two people occupy the same space that a conversation has to ensue. A simple polite nod or “hello” is sufficient for me if I have blown my cover. Even a “wassup” from a younger person, is acceptable, though not preferred. I have pretended to be engaged in a conversation on the cell phone, only to have it ring. So a verbal exchange is often inevitable.

Why do people when they reach a certain age all become meteorologists? They fixate on the weather like red neck on a bowl of grits. If I am stuck with a super senior, I can guarantee I will receive a weather report before I can get out of that confinement. “It sure is a hot one.” I nod but what I really want to say is “it is July in South Carolina, what the fuck do you expect, a blue northern?” Even if it had rained for six solid hours and the elevator is taking in water: “we sure needed that rain.” Are we now farmers here at Captain’s Harbour? Do we have crops to irrigate? I really don’t NEED any rain, ever. I have lived here for eight years and every time I turn the tap, water comes out. Even during the longest of droughts. When all I get from my sink is mud or dust, I will worry about precipitation.

If a person that hasn’t yet reached the age of mandatory weather reporting is trapped with me for the seemingly endless ride, the discussion will center on my dog, Skooter: “Is that a Beagle?” Again a nod but inside my brain is dying to respond: “nope, he is a Great Dane. He has a potassium deficiency.” Or: “My uncle had a Beagle.” Nod, thinking: “Where the hell is he? I want to party with him. Maybe we could become blood brothers.”

I don't wish to be an unfriendly neighbor. I wave like a sonofabitch when I
drive by these people or if I am on the balcony and they see me before I can duck down. And I will talk to them if I have anything important to say. For instance, if I see flames coming from their unit or someone is stealing their car. I totally agree with Robert Frost but unfortunately condos don’t have fences.

Friendly Fire - 7/5/2011

When I was stationed at RAF Bentwaters, United Kingdom, in the early 80s, an incident occurred that I felt I should chronicle. I am certain that this event wasn’t widely publicized, and was not funny at the time, but in retrospect………….

I will give a back-story, hopefully without boring my readers to tears, but some background is necessary to relate the story. RAF Bentwaters was home to the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft, lovingly called the Warthog. It is essentially a flying tank. The A-10 is heavily armored, with incredible anti-tank weaponry. Among that hardware is a 30MM Gatling gun, mounted in the nose. I will not bore you with specifics about this amazing weapon but will provide a link here if you desire more information. Suffice to say, it is a big-ass projectile.

The event that I am recounting involves this aircraft and this particular weapon. A young airman was attempting to remove a single jammed round from the 30MM Gatling gun on an aircraft parked in a hardened shelter. He was using an unauthorized, but very popular, method of prying the round out with a screwdriver. The round fired, shooting off across the airfield. You can see where this might be a problem.

Since the firing was both highly unexpected and incredibly loud (particularly in the confined space), the young airman was not able to report what had happened. Instead, he was wandering aimlessly inside the structure, dazed and confused, probably with blood running out of his ears.

If you are still with me, you are probably wondering where the projectile ended up. That is a very important part of the story.

RAF Bentwaters maintained a stockpile of “special” weapons to support fighter aircraft that would deploy there from the United States in case the shit hit the fan. The A-10 is much too slow and short-ranged to deliver this type of bomb and not be vaporized. As you can imagine, such a storage facility is heavily secured. So where do you suppose would be the absolute worst place for this projectile to terminate its short journey? Yep, it blew the door off of the security office of the weapon’s storage area. Fortunately, no one was walking in or out of that door at the time. Even more fortunately, it was not a high explosive anti-tank round, or the building would have been reduced to rubble.

The missile shop, in which I worked, was co-located with the weapon’s storage area. This event was immediately reported as a rocket attack on the “special” weapons area. As you can imagine, that situation was taken very seriously. We went on high alert. All personnel were immediately armed (against what, I had no idea). M-16s are normally not effective against rockets.

Fortunately, before any of our crack team of pseudo-combatants had blindly opened fire on the invisible attacking forces, someone found the incoherent specialist, determined what had actually happened, and we stood down. In my 20 year Air Force career that was the one and only time I had been fired upon. I still have no idea why I did not receive a medal for that incident.

Ghost of 4th of July Past - 7/4/2011

Today, we journey back to the 4th of July of 1972. My last as a teenager and a civilian. It was also my last before becoming a father, but none of this has anything to do with this story. My then-wife and her family were celebrating Independence Day as a last hurrah before my upcoming departure to Air Force basic training. I am certain they were hoping that Ho Chi Minh would soon be wearing my ears on a necklace. This trip was a temporary detente between me and that awful family. Again, not part of this story.

We were camping at the Bumblebee Campground on Bumblebee Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River in northern Idaho. At that time, Coeur d’Alene was the only French I spoke. Come to think of it, I don’t speak much more than that now.

It is no secret that I love to fish. In those days, Bumblebee Creek, though a small stream, was a great source of brook trout and one of my favorite places to fish. Not just because of my dislike for the other males in our party, I took my fishing gear upstream, alone. I love to fish alone as it is a great opportunity to reflect and hear only the babbling of a brook and not that of people.

The brush was so thick on the creek banks that the only way to walk upstream was to actually wade. Even in July, the water was ice cold, but after a while, numbness replaces the bitter chill. The creek bed is composed entirely of rocks, slippery, often moss covered, rocks. This dicey surface combined with my maladroitness was a recipe for disaster. You only think you know where this story is going.

I had extracted several nice fish from pools along my route, upstream, when I encountered a particularly swift and deep stretch of water. As you would expect, I slipped and fell down. Valuing my catch and gear more than my health well-being, I fell pretty hard, but was able to right myself and continue on.

I came upon a culvert that was built to channel water from a gulch under a forest service road into the main creek. At the dumping point of the duct formed a large pool that I believed would be home to some nice brookies. I climbed up and sat on the edge of the corrugated pipe so I could fish down into the pond. I could see several nice fish, but before I had baited up the pool became cloudy. I soon realized that it was blood fouling the water. My first thought was that a bear or mountain lion upstream was feasting on something and the blood was washing downstream. That was not an unreasonable assumption.

Then the reality that the blood was running off of the culvert changed my thought process. The blood was coming from me. But how? I was experiencing no pain. I stood up and performed a self-exam. The source of the blood was from the area of my right, rear pocket, where I had stored a jar of salmon eggs (a favorite trout bait of mine). When I had fallen, the jar had shattered and a large piece of glass was now part of my buttocks. There had been no pain, since the ice-cold water had numbed me. Evidently there are no major arteries in the buttocks, so though I was bleeding quite heavily, I was apparently not bleeding out. That fact did not ease my panic. Does panic increase blood flow? Oh crap.

Since at this point I had lost all interest in fishing, I did not need to wade back to camp; I could walk the forest service road. Actually, I made it back to camp in record time. Someone else went back later for my gear and fish, which I had also lost interest in. They could follow the blood trail.

Then came the most embarrassing part of the ordeal, I had to ask my hated father-in-law to pull the shard of glass out of my, now not so numb, ass, with a pair of pliers. Actually shard is not an adequate word. This was more of a hunk of glass. I am sure he was less gentle than he could have been. After all, I had knocked up his daughter.

We did have a first aid kit, but some of it had been expended earlier in the camp-out, when one of my in-laws had stepped into a frying pan containing hot grease. Obviously, this was not as successful of a camping trip as we had hoped.

The consensus was that I should be immediately taken to the hospital, as it appeared I required stitches. The only dissenting vote was the only one that mattered……mine. There was no way in hell I was going to be someone’s emergency room story. After everyone had a look at it, they bandaged it up as best they could and I had a lie-down. As a reminder of that 4th of July, I have a permanent scar that few have ever, or will ever, see.

Stupid Human Tricks - 7/2/2011

When I was in high school, my dad bought a brand new 1968 Mercury Montego MX Brougham. It was bright orange with a black vinyl top. It was very sleek and sporty, very out of character for my dad, who was a pick-up man. On rare occasions, I was allowed to drive it to school. I had a 55 Chevy, but by then, it was pretty much a rust-bucket that spewed smoke and backfired at the most inappropriate time. I ended up driving it, unsuccessfully, in the demolition derby. The Montego was way cool. With anyone else behind the wheel, it would have been a babe magnet. For me, not so much.

When I drove to school (about 3 miles), I would wait until the school bus had entered Interstate 90 and whiz by it at a high rate of speed, honking my horn like a moron (actually, exactly like a moron). This maneuver was designed to impress a girl that I had a huge crush on, but whose parents, wisely, did not allow to ride to school with a miscreant such as me. Actually, I paraphrased. I am pretty sure the word miscreant has never been uttered in Smelterville, Idaho. I should add here that this particular girl was so far out of my league that she didn’t even know my league existed. That did not stop the ever-hopeful me from the futility of trying. Her parental excuse was just to spare my feelings, she would not have ridden with me if I had duct tape and chloroform.

I usually had a couple of fellow miscreants riding with me, even though my parents had strictly forbidden me from “running up and down the road” wasting nineteen cent per gallon gas. I was supposed to drive straight to and from school. In retrospect, I am sure that my dad realized that was never going to happen. On those days when I had the Montego, lunchtime was miscreant cruise time, sans girls. It was not like the lousy schools now with their closed campuses, metal detectors, and armed security. About the only controls put on us were that the teachers took roll sometimes.

One cold Idaho winter morning I set off chasing the school bus. Just as I accelerated past it I hit a patch of black ice. Many southern readers (as if I have many readers from any region)probably have no idea what the heck that is. Let me just say that once you have experienced it, you will never forget. A few hundred yards in front of the bus, I went into a flat spin. I did several 360s and miraculously stayed on the Interstate without hitting anything or rolling over. It was totally luck, as at 16, I had zero driving skills under normal conditions, let alone careening down the highway at 80 MPH, with two caterwauling passengers. Luckily there was no traffic other than the school bus.

When I had spun to a complete stop, so did the school bus. It had to stop relatively short in order to avoid t-boning me, as I was sideways in the road. There were 55 faces staring straight at me. I don’t think the girl was impressed, nor was the bus driver, who happened to be someone that knew both me and my parents well. Needless to say, I rode the bus every day for the rest of the school year.

The race-car driver of the day was a guy named Parnelli Jones, who had just won the Indianapolis 500. This was back when the Indy 500 was a big deal and everyone knew who won it (and could pronounce their names). I know it is hard for young people to believe, but once upon a time the Indy 500 was bigger than NASCAR. Now I am not even sure if it is televised. My reason for this diversion is that calling a driver Parnelli was like calling a total moron, Einstein. It was not a compliment. That was my moniker until the event was forgotten and I earned more permanent and vile nicknames, based on other stupid things I did later in my high school career.

Acting on my own bungee accord - 6/27/2011

This will be the final installment of the practical joke/prank series. It is not that I don’t have more foolishness to relate to you; it is that I want to move on to another topic that has come to mind. Unfortunately, I have little control over what my fractured and fragmented mind will produce and when. I have to grab an idea when my memory proposes it, or it is gone, sometimes forever. Such as it is with insanity.

Most of my past antics were not the result of meanness or malice, but the consequences of boredom and world-weariness. This is totally the case with the one I am relating in this posting.

In all Air Force maintenance organizations, there is one common necessity; bungee cord. It was as essential as duct tape to a redneck and we had reels of it. Though I am not mechanically inclined, whatsoever, I have created many interesting uses for this magical material. This is the story of one of those uses. When I was working in missile maintenance I was always looking for a release from the tedium. Sometimes these releases were the result of bad judgment. This was one of those times:

One day there was a munitions squadron staff meeting and I volunteered to stay in the shop and “man the phones,” which translated to taking a nap in the break room and/or reading from our stash of magazines that objectify women. I soon tired of relaxing and searched for something to do. That is when I am most prone to mischief.

I decided that it might be fun to rig a booby trap to spring on my returning co-workers. The entrance to the missile bay from the office area was a huge blast door that slides open on rollers. I stretched a bungee cord from the inside handle of the door all the way to the back of the missile bay. I tied the cord to a wet mop head and pulled it as taut as the elasticity of the cord would allow. So essentially I had extended a 75 foot cord to about 100 feet. It was stretched to the max. I don’t recall exactly how I secured the mop head but with all the equipment available, it was not a challenge. There was a hair trigger so that any movement of the door would release the mop head.

I had barely gotten the apparatus rigged up when I got the call that the crew was at the gate. I had to buzz them in. As a result I didn’t get to function test my device, but I was confident it would work as designed.

As the door slid open, I only had a split second to realize that it was not only my co-workers entering the missile bay, but the officer in charge of the munitions storage area and another Captain that I did not know, though would soon enough.

Another instant reality was that I had totally underestimated the velocity that a bungee cord that length would generate. Suddenly, a 45 mile per hour, soaking, mop head was screaming towards my court martial. Luckily, my lack of knowledge of physics caused the mop head to slam into the door handle that it was tethered to, narrowly missing the entourage. Had it hit someone directly, it would have knocked them down like a Nolan Ryan fastball. There was a loud report (never good in an explosive environment) and a significant splash, but no actual casualties. Well, other than my humiliation as I had to explain “just what the fuck was I thinking.”