Boycotts

I have a hard time understanding some things.

For one thing, the other day a woman came into the store where I work (Lowe's) and among other things she rattled off was that her tile guy was no longer doing business at the Home Depot because they support the "Homosexual Agenda"... whatever that is. Evidently, I missed something. I know and I even work with a number of gay people and to date I have yet to discover that any of them have an agenda. Must be a big thing, because this morning I stumbled on to the tail end of a broadcast from some Christian Talk radio station and one of the items that the announcer mentioned in the credits was to remember not to shop at Home Depot.

Now, working at Lowe's I see Home Depot as a competitor. There are some things that the Depot has that we don't and vice-versa. I hold no emnity toward them. If you want to shop there or not shop there, go ahead. Yes, I would prefer it if you purchased your next appliance, flooring job, light fixture, toilet or whatever from Lowe's, but not if you're doing it to spite Home Depot or Menard's or the "Mom and Pop" down the street. Besides, the people who get hurt because of some phoney baloney boycott are not the "suits" who live in Atlanta (Home Depot's HQ), it's the little guy who is working to support his or her family.

It's like the supposed boycott of the Salvation Army. The lovely Miss Carol was telling me that we were supposed to be boycotting the Salvation Army for some silly reason or another. The Salvation Army is among the most efficient (if not THE most efficient) charities in the whole country. The lovely Miss Carol and I will continue to make donations to the Salvation Army, regardless.

Now, the Salvation Army doesn't have kettles in front of Target stores, therefore, there is a need in some people's minds that Target should be boycotted. But at the same time, Target donates a portion of their reciepts to local charities and/or local schools. At the same time, a different group of people want to boycott Target because they made political contributions to certain far-right candidates for public office (later withdrawn because of all the fooforaw). Does that make them some sort of an equal opportunity offender? I like Target. I still shop there.

There are other boycotts out there which make as little sense as those already mentioned. Name a retailer and you can probably come up with some stupid reason not to buy there. Name a product and the same thing can be said. Whatever happened to personal preference? If you don't want to shop somewhere or you don't want to buy a particular product because of a personal preference, why disguise that personal preference by masking it with a boycott or some other stupid reason. I prefer driving my Dodge over Carol's Chevrolet. It would be the height of lunacy for me to state that I don't like Chevrolet because Chevrolet was a French racing car driver and that the French are nothing but a bunch of wine-swilling, cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

Just remember, that businesses and products are collective works of people just like you and me who are attempting to make a decent living for ourselves. Boycotts, no matter the reason, do more harm to those like us than to those we think we are attempting to harm.

Happy Christmas!

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Initiative

On my first full day living in North Texas, I spent the day moving the family's personal belongings from the back of a rental truck into a storage locker in 100 degree heat. The dog was with me, happy to be in the shade with a bowl of ice water provided by the proprieter. When I was about a third of the way through, the fellow who was renting the locker next to mine appeared.

"Why don't you go downtown and hire you a couple of Mexicans to help you?" he asked.

Being new to the area, I had no idea what he was talking about, much less where I could find downtown. I politely declined.

Within about 6 months or so of my arrival, I deduced where downtown was and I had figured out how the system of day labor worked. It seems that there are several places where one could drive one's vehicle, hold up some fingers and instantly have the services of one or several anxious workers looking for a day's wage.

Putting aside the question of the legality or the illegality of the workers present at these places, I noted that these workers showed a certain amount of initiative which seems to be lacking in certain other areas. If I were wanting to expand my pool of unskilled or semi-skilled labor for my business, I would be taking a hard look at these men competing daily for the chance to work.

They show initiative and I find that admirable.

Those men know what's at stake. They most likely have families to support, mouths to feed and rent to pay. They deal with the hard realities of life on a day in and day out basis. They haven't rolled over to play dead nor have they queued up at the local social services offices to try to get a handout. They're out there every day, showing initiative despite handicaps of little or no education.

Poverty can either be opportunity or it can be a prison. Meet Juan Elenise, a strapping young lad living in southern Dallas county from a home of modest means. Juan is (as his name implies) of Hispanic descent, is part of a somewhat large and very close-knit family, and as of about a month and a half ago, became a father. Juan is fighting poverty by working. He has a regular job which doesn't pay a whole lot and has been known from time to time to find other jobs to supplement his income. That is, he works when he has the time. He is also putting himself through College in pursuit of a better life for him, for Juan Diego, and for Jacklyn... daughter of the lovely Miss Carol.

Juan is my step son-in-law. I am proud of him. I admire him. He has a sense of initiative.

I see the day in the not so distant future when life will get a bit easier for Juan, where he has a job which pays more as a result of the groundwork he is laying now. He will have more time to better enjoy his son and to teach him the most important of life's lessons... that eventually hard work and persistance will pay off. All it takes is a measure of initiative.

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Admiration

I don't think I'll be ranting and raving too long this evening. I am just a little bit spent regarding the death of Elizabeth Edwards.

Now, there was a class act. Her husband was a first-class schmuck, yet, she persisted and had her head held high until the end. She did not deserve the indignity which John Edwards had saddled her with.

Damn. There was a fine woman who should have had the support of her husband.


I admire strong women and I admire the men who stand with them (if they are able). I encounter them all of the time on Facebook... former classmates, my sisters, my mother, my cousins and my wife.

Before I go to bed here in a minute or two, I will be saying a special prayer for Elizabeth and for a number of other women I know, admire, and am proud to be friends with. I feel myself priveleged to be able to walk among some fine human beings!

Seasoned Greetings!

Majestic

Whatever happened to David Moore?

I opened Facebook on the evening of the 4th of November to find a report that the Chillicothe Fire Department had been dispatched to the Majestic Theater. From all accounts, it was a small fire - easily dispatched - and aside from a few cases of smoke inhalation, no one or nothing was harmed.

Here is where we heave a big sigh of relief.

The Majestic Theater on East Second Street in Chillicothe is one of those irreplacable landmarks which seems to need attention almost constantly. Something that I've noted (to those who would listen) from time to time is that a fully renovated Majestic could not only be self-supporting, but, worked properly, it could draw people from outside of Ross County and provide a spark for other businesses.

I'm not the only person to think so. Enter David Moore.

More than a few years back, David recognized the potential and came up with a great idea for a fund raiser. He set out to amass the largest number of pennies ever assembled and use them to help to restore the Majestic. As I recall, the campaign made quite a splash and netted the theater quite a bit of money which was used as best as it could to help to restore the historic venue.

Were it not for the campaign, chances are that the Majestic would not have been used at all over the past couple of decades. We have David Moore to thank for that.

David is one of several media personality types (he sold advertising for the Advertiser) who have made a positive difference in the Chillicothe community. Bob Neal from WFCB leaps into my mind for what he had done for the Pump House Art Gallery. The late Bill Spahr of WBEX was a faithful Lion. Marvin Jones at the Gazette, Tennant Hoey at Telcom (eulogized recently in this blog) and countless others in Chillicothe's media "family" have been champions of various and sundry causes aimed for the betterment of the community.

Being in Texas for the past dozen years, I seldom get to experience what's going on in the old home town except by way of other eyes and ears. I often get the impression that some of the old spirit of community has been lost. The Gazette is dramatically smaller and printed out of town, the radio stations are all owned by a group called Clear Channel using mostly "personalities" who couldn't even say Chillicothe, much less claim to have been here, and as far as Channel 2 is concerned, well... let's just say that the last time I was in town, I was too busy catching up on things to even consider watching television.

So when the Fire Trucks head to the Majestic, the heart skips a beat or two, hoping that the old gal is still intact - but knowing that it will be, thanks in part to the hard work and dedication of someone who thought that it might be a good idea to collect a few pennies.

Thanks, David!


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Decent People

Tomorrow, there is a prediction of a Republican takeover of Congress, fueled by what amounts to an angry mob. I've encountered that anger numerous times in the past several months and quite frankly it's alarming to think that the people coming into office are in part responsible (if that is the correct term) for whipping up that angry mob. My question at this point is, where are the decent people who used to call themselves Republicans?

I am reminded of the roundabout story told to me about my maternal grandfather, Leo Eddy. My mother recalled having guests in for Sunday dinner nearly every week for as far back as she can remember. Now, the guests weren't necessarily in the who's who of Marion County West Virginia, they were more likely the family "up the holler" who were maybe down on their luck and needed at least one decent meal to give them enough courage to try again to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. My grandfather was relatively prosperous at the time (between the onset of the Great Depression and the start of WWII) and as a result of his minor philanthropy was well regarded in his particular pocket of The Mountain State. At one point when I was a teenager, I recall exploring a closet in his home in West Virginia and finding a poster with his name on it, declaring him to be a Republican candidate for the State Legislature. This was at a time when to be a West Virginian, one had to be a Democrat. I was most impressed by the fact that here was a man who not only believed in a decent philosophy, he was living it.

It wasn't just my grandfather who believed and lived a conservative life, there have been scores of other decent people who have gained my respect and admiration for their principals. One such person was Dave Hobson, at one time a Member of Congress representing the northern part of Ross County. I met him while covering a speech he was making at the VA Medical Center of Chillicothe for the local radio station. I had come to expect to see an officious boob with a retinue a mile long make an appearance at our strategically placed 'booth' near the site of the speech. Instead, I was approached by a regular guy dressed in a suit he could have picked up "off the rack" at J.C.Penney. In both our conversation prior to his speech and in the speech itself, he stated that he considered himself to be a servant of those who elected him to office - it was a privelege for him, not a right. He wasn't a career politician, he was this guy who served, then went right back to being just another face in the crowd once he left office.

These days it's way too different. For instance, there was the incident either last week or the week before where a supporter for the Republican candidate for the Senate in Kentucky deliberately stepped on the head of a protester. There was the incident where the official Republican candidate for Senator in Alaska either threatened to handcuff or actually did handcuff members of the press corps. There are at least 2 candidates who have openly alluded to a "Second Amendment solution"... a threat, perhaps, of armed insurrection if they didn't get their way? If guns at political rallys are any indication, we may be in for some rough sledding if the threats are more than idle.

It's not just the candidates who are getting out of hand. People we know and work with are fueled by the insanity which has infiltrated the Republican Party. They listen to the Hannitys, the Limbaughs and the Becks, hanging on every word, allowing those men (and some women) to do their thinking for them and spitting back the vile and the hatred they absorb on a daily basis. These people value the rights given us by the Constitution, while at the same time trying to find ways of supressing others who do not agree with their way of thinking. These people believe in the Ten Commandments, yet make a point of not loving their neighbors, especially if their neighbor has brown skin or doesn't worship in the proper Church. They have fear put into them and are more than happy to spread that fear to anyone else in their vicinity.

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum.

I regularly listen to a segment of a radio show here in Dallas called "The Backside of American History", written and performed by Ed Wallace, as part of his Saturday morning automotive showcase. Ed had a couple of shows where he talked about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Dallas back in the 1920s. To a degree it was chilling, in terms of the parallels with today's tea party influenced version of Republican Politics. The threats, the violence, the disdain for the press - all there, then. The most chilling aspect of Ed Wallace's radio essay was his telling of two of the things each new inductee into the Klan recieved; a copy of the Ten Commandments and a copy of the Constitution.

Please understand. I have nothing against being conservative, and I am not against the Church. But I am against using violence, using fear or using misinformation to gain a political end. My only wish is that there would be more Leo Eddys and more Dave Hobsons in the Republican Party than the Glenn Becks and the Sarah Palins which seem to be running the show nowadays.

In the meantime, I guess I'll be a modern-day Diogenes, searching with my lamp for an honest Republican.

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Whip

I'm just off being on the phone with my mother... our weekly head-to-head, heart-to-heart session where I catch up with all of the news which is fit to know about, at least in Chillicothe, Ohio.

From time to time, there is depressing news from Allen Avenue, today's was one of those days when the big news was, if not depressing, at least a little sad for me personally. Tennant Hoey died. Tennant gave me my first "real" job some 39 years ago this fall. It was all because we were on the cutting edge, although we didn't know it at the time.

Tennant Hoey ran Channel 2.

For the benefit of those who read this blog who have not been to Chillicothe, Ohio, let me explain about Channel 2. Some years back it was noted that in order to get a decent television signal in Chillicothe, one had to either live on Carlisle Hill, or had to have had a decent television antenna on a fairly high part of one's house. The local telephone company (oddly enough named The Chillicothe Telephone Company) erected a tower on top of Mount Logan, captured televsion signals from Columbus, Dayton, Cincinatti and Huntington, West Virginia, and shipped the signals down to the television-starved townspeople on coaxial cable. There was one channel left over after the networks were covered, and that was Channel 2. So, instead of duplicating network coverage by importing Channel 2 from Dayton, it was decided that Chillicothe would have its own television station in the form of Channel 2 which was "broadcast" solely on cable.

Most of the day, Channel 2 consisted of a camera showing a mechanical bulletin board which changed every half minute or so. Integrated into the board was a digital clock and a thermometer showing the outside temperature. At about 5pm most weekdays, Channel 2 got busy with local programming and Tennant Hoey was in charge of that programming. There was news coverage in the form of a live newscast, there was coverage of Chillicothe High and Bishop Flaget High sports (Football and Basketball), as well as live coverage of Chillicothe City Council meetings. Yes, it was all in Black and White using cameras which weighed a ton, but at the same time, it was cutting edge television. It was only later, after cable television came into markets where a goodly number of households could just as easily content themselves with matter which was broadcast, that what was being done at Channel 2 back in the mid to late '60s was the predictor of Community Access Television.

This 17 year old went to Tennant Hoey in the fall of 1971 and pitched the idea of a television show highlighting the goings on at Chillicothe High School to be 'aired' once every two weeks. My boldness not only got me the televsion show, but it also landed me with a job as a camera operator.

I ended up with a few other jobs around Channel 2 as well, including mailman, lighting technician (okay, all I did was flip the occasional switch), booth announcer, floor director... I was a regular "Jack of All Trades". Of the other High School kids there at the time, I was perhaps the only one to have worked on both sides of the camera.

Three events became defining moments of my Senior year at CHS.

The first was having the gall to type out a letter (with a green ribbon no less) to Governor John Gilligan inviting him to appear on the TV show I was, I guess, producing. He accepted, he showed up, and a good time was had by all. 1972 Arrow, page 94, center picture. Governor Gilligan later ended up doing something for the Carter administration, Jane, Nancy and Jeff appear from time to time on my Facebook page, and I really have no idea what happened to Tim.

Second was the shilling I did as Dracula on behalf of our Senior Class Play. Somewhere on this blog I have told the story of Channel 2 newscaster Gene Minney greeting me with the phrase "Why, of corpse!" ever since, the last time being in July of 2009...

Finally, there was the telethon. "Rusty" Mundell had this idea that somehow or another an outdoor drama about an Indian named Tecumseh would be a good thing for the community. So did a few other people. So, a telethon was held to purchase seats to use as seed money to build an amphitheater on the back side of Sugarloaf Mountain... and I was there. "Rusty" was right... and it was Tennant Hoey who helped to pull the local media together to give "Tecumseh!" the boost it needed to get started.

Eventually, Channel 2 was sold, something about the FCC not wanting cross-ownership of a telephone company and a cable company in the same community, and Tennant moved over to the phone company along with a few other people who had worked at Channel 2 at the time I worked there. I like to think that some of my subtle sense of humor came from Tennant Hoey. I appreciated him. He never raised his voice, he was open to new ideas and all in all, he was, perhaps, one of the best people I have ever worked for. Some of my fellow workers called him "Whip". Other than being in charge of a neat little operation on East Water Street, there was no reason to equate him with anyone who would be a stern task master.

He was one of the nice guys. I am sorry to see him go. Rest well, Tennant.


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Catch Up Day

Today is "Catch Up" day.

It's my term and it refers to the day when my stepson, Warren, catches up with my son, Stuart chronologically.

If you care to, you can feel sorry for me now. There are two fifteen year old males in the house. It can be challenging.

There are similarities. For instance, as I write this, both of them are on computers attempting to see just what kind of finesse is required to kill as many electronic enemies in as short a time as possible. They go to the same school, they both live with their mothers, they have many of the same friends and they have been known to have lunch together once or twice a week.

My paranoid self says that they probably talk about me.

They are also quite different. For instance, Stuart is the social gadabout. Warren would just as soon not leave the house to be with people. I find a double inconsistancy with their selves because of their extracurricular activities. The social gadabout runs Cross Country, more of an individual sport, while he who shuns humanity plays in Band... and not just any band, the Allen High School Band is one of the biggest High School marching bands in Texas if not the United States (around 650 members... hell, that's more than half of the people attending Chillicothe High when I was there!).

Go figure.

"Catch Up Day" this year became a bit more special to me due to the fact that I got a Facebook friend request from the person who was my best friend when I was 15.

Greg lived just down the street from me next to the Funeral Home in another rambling old house which seemed to stretch out over half the lot. We had both moved to southern Ohio from the Cleveland area and as a result were not quite up to speed with the goings on of our various acquaintances who had grown up to that point in Chillicothe. We shared many of the same likes and dislikes and found quite a number of ways to get into trouble... not that our parents ever found out.

Come to think of it, I might be ahead to lock the boys up and throw away the keys for a few years. On the other hand, they would miss sneaking around the city at midnight on a supposed sleepover, or making home-made wine in the basement (oddly enough with Greg's dad's permission) and consuming it while running around the city at midnight.

(It's 41 years later, Greg... are we going to be sent to our rooms without supper or be grounded or something?)

Ah, to be fifteen again! I hope that Warren enjoys it.

---

Let's take a moment to remember Barbara Billingsly who passed earlier this weekend. To those of us in my generation, she was June Cleaver, Ward's wife and mother to Wally and the Beaver. Not only did she supposedly utter the unintentionally funny but dirtiest phrase on television in the 1950s (think about it...), but she was uproariously funny in AIRPLANE as the woman who volunteered to translate "Jive" for the stewardess.

Ah, that we could live forever!



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Receipt

While thumbing through the internet this morning, I came across something from NPR from a site called thirdwave.org. It was an itemized reciept for the taxes I've paid, presuming that I am an average Joe with an income of $34,140 paying $5,400 in federal income taxes and FICA. It was interesting to see what was costing us so much money that this tea party is so up in arms about.

To start off with were Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with a combined take of $2051.49... a pretty big hunk of the money I put in every year. All of that is from the FICA side of the tax equation, meaning that of the $5,400 hunk, I pay $3348.51 in actual federal income tax. For now, let's just leave the Social Security stuff on its own. Let's just say that for a couple of grand, all of us feel at least a little more social and a bit more secure. At least the people I know who are the recipients of my largesse don't have to worry as much about paying the bills or where their next tin of cat food will be coming from.

Of the $3348.51 left over, $783.64 is being used for interest on the national debt, a war in Afghaniraq (which is being fought on money we borrowed and are paying interest on), military personnel and veteran's benefits. Now, to be fair, veteran's benefits only take out 10% of that chunk of change, and it would take a real Scrooge to say that the figure is too high. It probably isn't high enough. Still, $708.99 is not a bad deal to prevent us from being invaded by people from Afghaniraq whose primary problem at this point of the game is finding enough of them to be able to drive.

Look at it another way. We are paying $708.99 to help protect assets of people who make as much in an hour as we do in a year... assets like oil and a wealth of minerals which I read were found in the mountains of Peshwar which we'll never see, despite paying to protect them. If they were MY assets, I'd be more than happy to pay a huge premium on my income tax bill in order to protect those assets. Instead, the people with the assets are content to keep holding on to their assets while stirring us up to demand that the people with the assets not pay the premium that the protection deserves. There's the tea party in a nutshell.

Moving on down the list... Federal Highways cost us $63.89. In North Texas, we pay that and more per month in tolls, the profits from which benefit investors in... Spain. Foreign Aid, $46.08, presumably used for humanitarian aid. Right? Education funding K-12, $38.17. Pell grants for the older kids in truck driving school, $29.75. The Space Program (NASA) $28.09 so that we can send men to the moon to play golf and drink Tang. Wait a minute, that was 40 years ago.

We pay $14.35 for the FBI and the DEA combined. I would think that it would be better if we were to to tap the military's chunk of the dollars we spend to deal with the drug lords once and for all and help Mexico find decent work for the people who seem to seep over our borders illegally.

For National Parks, the Smithsonian and the Arts, we spend a mere $5.63, or a little more than 1% for that which is priceless to us.

We spend $2.23 for Amtrack. Perhaps we should spend more so that we can drive less.

Amazingly enough, the last item on the list are salaries and benefits for Members of Congress. A mere $0.19. A pittance, considering the millions of dollars spent by those with assets to protect in order to get our Congressman to listen to them, not us.

There are other items I left out, like $10.91 for Head Start (a program which has paid for itself many times over), $11.67 for environmental clean-up by the EPA and $10.50 for public housing - and given the way the economy seems to be heading, we all may be there sooner than later.

All in all, the average Joe gets pretty fair value for the money he spends in taxes. Where he (and I) are having a problem is with the other stuff we have to pay for ourselves - things like housing, food and medical expenses (I pay in the area of 12% of my income just in premiums, or, $4096.80 based on the $34,140 salary stated above). Granted that the insurance company paid out more for us this year than we paid in, but that isn't what usually happens. I'm being told that they are still making money hand over fist despite us.

I don't like to pay taxes any more than the next guy, and it really does make my blood boil when I get the occasional e-mail telling me about some crack whore or pimp taking undue advantage of that which we pay in taxes each year. But on the other hand, I'm just as mad about people with means taking advantage of my good nature and stealing correspondingly more, then setting up phoney baloney political movements to try to get me to feel sorry for them. Thirdway.org has at least given me, and others like me, a good idea as to where my taxes are going by providing a reciept for my purchase from the IRS ($17.69, a bargain at half the price).

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Facing Facebook

This has been a particularly amusing morning for me on Facebook. Ah, Facebook. Where would we be without it! My remarks will be scattergun.

I noted that the Reds had clinched a spot in the playoffs. On Facebook. On Ted Strickland's Facebook page. For those of you not from Ohio, you might not know that Ted Strickland is the Governor and that he is running for re-election this November. I have a soft spot in my heart for both Governor Strickland and the Reds as both have intersected with the 'career' I had in radio many years ago. I met Ted back in 1976 when he was making one of several unsuccessful runs at unseating a tenured House representative. Nice guy, really. He finally made it in '92, served a few terms then found himself in Columbus. I'll presume he's still a nice guy.

The Reds... dang! Where did that come from? I follow sports selectively and sporadically. I didn't note how well they were doing until a couple of months ago when the media mill here in DFW was noting how well the Rangers were doing (at least at the Ballpark as opposed to the Boardroom). Many were the hours spent with Marty and Joe (Nuxhall, may he rest in peace) calling ball games which never quite went right after about... well, after the last time they won the Series.

Anyhoo, last week the Rangers clinched, this week, the Reds. One Facebook friend from Southern Ohio works for the Rangers organization and he's probably less conflicted than I am about the possibility. He knows where his paycheck is coming from. I'm just a fan.


There was also a call to arms for the Pink Ribbon showing up on my Facebook this morning. It's been nearly a year, now, since I've been intimately involved in Breast Cancer Awareness. The bottom line is that without awareness and early detection, breast cancer would kill many more of our wives, daughters, sisters, friends (and so on and so forth) than are being killed already. I prefer dealing with what I have dealt with in the past year than having to deal with another funeral. I've also had a lesson in what real courage is... and not just from Carol, either.


I've also been amused with the goings on of various nieces, nephews and second cousins. This morning I was able to feed Phil's bike habit, thanks to a site from another friend in San Antonio, and found a movie review site from David (who is about to have a movie he made shown on MTV2 early next month - a horror film called Savage County) which relies heavily on F-bombs. Other days I've been able to keep up with Annie and Michelle and their summer internships, Max and his second year at Ohio State, Renee's juggling school, home and dogs, Charles and his micro--- scratch that, nano machines at MIT, and Christina's new job in the Cleveland area.

As I think I have already mentioned, Facebook has already given me an opportunity to connect with people I have not seen or heard from for years... people I've forgotten I was fond of for some reason or another. Sure, it has its faults, but for the moment, I'm a fan. If for no other reason than it gives me pleasure while waiting for the laundry to be finished on a beautiful fall morning.

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RV

A former co-worker and contemporary of mine finally got fed up and retired earlier this year then went camping. He and his wife sold everything and consolidated their worldly goods into an RV. Last heard from they were on their way to Arizona from somewhere in Washington State.

Good for them.

I've had this same idea with another twist. I will have won a lottery and would invest my hard-won booty into an RV which will transport the lovely Miss Carol and our High School aged sons around the country in a quest to find bits and pieces of American History in a sort of mobile classroom. My only concern would be that I would have to teach the kids other subjects and there would be no extracurriculars like Cross Country or Band. With one kid having trouble with French and the other with Algebra, well, I think that the idea might not work out as well as I would like.

But the idea that one can consolidate and live in a compact home which can easily move from one place to another tomorrow has a certain appeal to me... and to the other half of us, too. Over the past several years I have read about the practicality of the lifestyle for retirees written by one of the writers for the Dallas Morning News. He pointed out the obvious that by shedding what we don't need we can live larger lives in smaller spaces.

With that in mind, we (that is to say Carol, Stuart and I), took in a large portion of an RV show in Dallas over the weekend.

Stuart was, at first, a participant with only a tepid interest in what went on. He's the Cross Country student with an aversion to French. I pointed out that my plan for yanking him and his step-brother around the country could include a trip to Quebec so that he could learn French from French-speaking people. He pointed out to me that his French teacher was a native of Quebec and was already fluent in the language. Point taken. I'm left wondering if she's teaching the class French French or Frostback French. There is a difference.

Just like French, RV has different meanings for different people. Carol, for instance, seems to like medium-sized motorhomes-her main concern in some being whether or not the two of us can hold hands while we're tooling along the Interstate at 65 miles per hour.
My preference is for a trailer that one can drop off and leave while going out and exploring whatever there is to explore locally. Part of what I have in mind is finding a resort like "Long's Retreat" up in Pike County, Ohio where I can park semi-permanently and have a place to which I can escape on a weekend.

Stuart seemed to be attracted to the huge and costly. Yes, if I were to live out my yanking the kids around the country dream, I would go for the huge and costly as well. How huge? Well, there was an RV there which required a ladder in order to get to the ladder. That's tall. The vehicle in question had a price tag north of a quarter million dollars - and that was on sale! What was more amazing to me was that there was a sign on the vehicle stating that the vehicle was sold (but we can get more!).

Vehicles costing more than $250k were in some ways not too very different than those under $100k which Carol liked. Yes, they were bigger, yes, they had real refrigerators and yes, they had more room to move around in, but, they were so wide that we just couldn't hold hands while driving at 65.

I'm also of the opinion that if I'm going to pay more for a camper than I would pay for a house, I should at least have the option of having a chandelier. No such luck.
We concluded our foray to the RV show with a couple of non-RV activities. Stuart flirted with the Canadian woman who was demonstrating electric motor scooters and a group of women selling magnetic wrist bands. Carol listened to the couple selling stainless steel waterless cookware which never wore out, et-cetera, while I poked around the Texas Parks and Wildlife booth, looking for opportunities to park my existing RV for a day or two this fall (a tent camper parked presently in my garage).

All in all, the RV show was fun... mostly. Although I'm not likely to buy any time soon, it was nice to see what is available. After all, I might just win the lottery and have need for an RV next week!

Be Seeing You!

I will gladly pay you Tuesday...

If you are of a certain age, you may know the rest of the quote started in the title to this blog and you will definitely know to whom the quote is attributable.

J. Wellington Wimpy would go batshit crazy here in Allen, Texas.

At some point in the early '70s, there was a rumor floating around that Chillicothe, Ohio had more fast-food outlets per capita than anywhere else in the world. A cruise up and down North Bridge Street would have confirmed that little nugget of information. Well, just counting places where one can get a hamburger in Allen, it would seem that Chillicothe would be relegated to a distant second place. Without thinking hard, I can think of at least 20 places within Allen city limits where one can get a hamburger in a hamburger restaraunt.

McDonald's has 3 stores, beaten only by the drive-in chain Sonic, with 4. Sonic is a southern chain and they encourage their carhops to roller-skate. We have a pair of Wendy's (a shame, because supposedly Wendy Thomas lives in nearby Plano), as well as a pair of Braum's. Braum's is a chain from Oklahoma which is primarily a dairy. I suppose that when "Old Bossy" goes dry, it's off to the abbetoire! Four year old Stuart once loudly ordered a beer to go with his kid's meal at one point... I can't say that I've taken him there many times since.

Burger King and Whataburger have only one store each. I'll usually pass on Burger King because of that creepy guy on their commercials. Whataburger is a Texas thing. Once upon a time they had Mel Tillis doing their commercials for them. They must have edited out his stuttering. And speaking of having clever commercials, there are two Jack in the Boxes here. The chain has a man with a styrofoam head as their spokesman... it works. Believe me.

Let's see. That brings up the total to 15 so far.

There's Mooyah!, a place which seems to go for the original limited hamburger menu in a rather spartan box. It's a chain, too, but I can't tell from where. Scotty P's is another chain, but is limited to just a few places here in Collin County, their location in Allen being one of their first two. J.C.'s Burger House, next to one of the barbecue places (and I can only think of three barbecue places here in Allen) is owned by an ex-telecom guy who happened to be in Lowe's the other day. I talked with him for a bit about the hamburger business, and believe it or not, he says that business is pretty good for him despite the competition.

New in town are Burger Island, and I believe that the other place is called Jim's. Our resident burgerholic at Lowe's was literally first in line for Jim's (ordering lunch to go on their first day of business... about 5 minutes before they opened their doors for the first time) and he is a big fan of Burger Island. The only thing he does not like about Burger Island is that their hamburgers are just too darn big to eat at one sitting.

There. There's 20. I'm not counting IHOP, The Allen Cafe, or at least another dozen places where a hamburger can be found on the menu along with more varied fare, nor am I counting a couple of specialty places within a short drive of here, like Culver's from Wisconsin (same dairy tie-in as Braum's), Steak and Shake out of Indianapolis, and a place called the Purple Cow which is just over the border in Fairview. I like Purple Cow for its Club Sandwiches. Never tried the burgers.

The one other burger place which is said to be coming to the metroplex, but not to Allen, yet, is a California cult called In and Out. Hardly a Saturday goes by at work when at least one soul is not seen in the store wearing an In and Out burger T-shirt. There's In and Out, the cache over by Lake Lavon and any number of apostles of the chain willing to spread the gospel about a place which, at the moment, is only as close as Arizona. In and Out is supposedly building a place in Garland (rhymes with Arlen). There's no doubt in my mind that there are fans who go by the site daily to check on the progress, perhaps even to lend a hand so it will get built faster.

Before you get the idea that Allen is exclusively dedicated to the hamburger, be assured that there are a few other cuisines available here, too. Thai, Chinese, Mexican, Barbecue, Cajun, Italian and a couple of brew pubs... all offering hamburgers for the persnickity youngster.

I don't know about you, but my cholesterol level just went up another 20 points just now.


Be Seeing You!

9/11

This blog may get a little too personal for some of you. You are now forewarned.





As we approach 9/11 there is news from Florida about this putz who wants to celebrate by buying and burning copies of the Koran. (Yeah, I know, there's a more proper spelling these days, but I also still prefer Peking to Beijing.) The logic is, as follows... the nut cases who flew the planes into the buildings were followers of Islam, therefore, all followers of Islam are evil and we need to burn their Holy Book.


Mmmmmkay. Makes sense, right? Sure, except that there are numerous sects or denominations of Islam just like there are numerous sects of Christians. Let's take the logic just a little bit further. Fred Phelps and his flock at the Westboro Baptist Church scream at us that "God Hates Fags", therefore, all Christian Churches think that "God Hates Fags" and that we should burn all Christian books and seek to defile all Christian places of worship.


Maybe we should be refine our definitions just a little bit because ALL Christians include Eastern and Western Christian traditions. Westboro is part of the Western tradition, therefore, we should leave the Eastern traditions alone. Especially the Greek Orthodox - their Food Festivals are to die for!


Let's refine a bit further. The so-called Reverend Phelps has declared himself as a Baptist, therefore, we should aim our anger at Baptists. Right? Let's put them to the torch! I think that that minister in Florida who is sponsoring that book burning is a Baptist and there's the Baptist minister here in the Dallas area who made remarks in the past couple of weeks which could have been seen as just as much a peril to our troops in Afghanistan as the Florida book burner.


Even just refining our focus just to Baptists would be painting with too broad a brush. Should I, or anyone else for that matter, hold all Baptists responsible for the sins of a relative few? Were any of us to do so, we would also be condemning the majority of decent and upright men and women who have built Hospitals (including the one which has taken care of the Lovely Miss Carol in the past year), have generously given of their time and talents to assist victims of disaster both here and abroad, and who by their words and actions live their religious convictions.


The same should be said of Moslems. We should not paint them with too broad a brush due to the actions of a fanatic few. Doing so just might make enemies of those we can call friends. Yes, there are those who profess Islam who build hospitals, assist victims of disaster and live what they believe.


While I was at work on Labor Day, I caught sight in the corner of my eye a friend who lost his brother in the collapse of the WTC on 9/11. In the nearly 9 years since, I have not heard one word from this friend concerning a desire for revenge for the wrong done him. If anyone has the right to expect revenge, he does, yet he does not. He just goes on with his life, as have we all when we are trespassed against. Painful at times, indeed, but what good would be revenge in the first place?


I seem to remember reading somewhere a piece which essentially said that revenge in any form debases the person extracting that revenge more than it debases the person responsible for the original sin. Perhaps it was a different way of positing Jesus' remark about turning the other cheek...

Perhaps that preacher in Florida should read the book he intends to burn, then pray for his 'enemy'. Kill 'em with kindness... that'll confuse 'em for sure!





Be Seeing You!

Family

If there's one thing I've learned from or gained from the internet it's that we belong to a number of different families at the same time. I've known this all along at one level or another, but lately I have become acutely aware of the extent of our familial connections.

Our families evolve during our lifetimes. We see that with our own flesh and blood. Some years ago, my mother alluded to the fact that our families evolve by opining that she felt as if she at that time occupied the roles that her parents occupied just a few years past. Certainly she had her years of being a mother with young children then all of a sudden, she was holding grandchildren. The cycle continues. Now it's our turn. We're watching our own children grow and reproduce, hoping against hope that they would quit growing up already because we know that we are stepping into roles our parents had when they were our age.

We have other families, too, aside from those who are immediately around us and the several extensions of nieces, nephews, second cousins and step-children. We have a young woman working with us at Lowe's... well, really, more than one young woman, who see their fellow employees as surrogate families who have shepherded them through the various pitfalls they have encountered. For the record, we celebrate their achievements as well. Just like family. I have noticed to some degree or another that in many of the places where I have worked there have been familial ties.

One family I have been discovering more and more lately has been the family of people with whom I had attended High School. I had really not given many of those people much thought for quite some time (for which i humbly apologize), electing to cocoon myself in my own little corner pretending not to notice. Via Facebook I have rediscovered many of those people with whom I spent some of the best days of my life... and I'm starting to appreciate just how much I really miss some of those people.

How much came into focus last weekend. There have been members of our High School class who had passed on throughout the years, but it took the death of Dr. Holly Barrows to pull into sharp focus how much I appreciate some of the people I grew up with. Quite honestly, I was shocked. She was practically the girl next door. She was accepted and loved by quite a number of us for who she was and will be mourned by many just for that reason. My regret is that I have not had the chance to know her and appreciate her better.

I hope that I don't have too many more regrets. This past summer I have been making up for lost time, reconnecting with an extended family from which I have been estranged for too many years. I appreciate couples who have been loyal to each other like Jim and Debbie or Howard and Vickie. There's Kay, who has apparently had a bad relationship, but has, like me, bounced back and landed on two feet. There's the 'Harley' contingent... Don I can understand, but Jane??? (You go, girl!). For once I find myself looking forward to the next big class reunion, an event I have shut myself out of for mfffty mmfffft years. Hope I can make it.

(Photograph of young Miss Virginia and her step-grandfather courtesy of the Lovely Miss Carol)

Be Seeing You!

Movies

I should be happier than the proverbial pig in mud. One of my favorite movies from the '70s actually predicted some of what we are going through today. Now. In 2010. That's the good news, the bad news is that the predictions made in the movie aren't particularly good.

The movie was/is 'Network' with Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, William Holden and Faye Dunaway. It centered on a mythical fourth network television newsroom which was having money and ratings problems. Aging news anchor Howard Beale (played by Finch, who won a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal) announces that he is being sacked and that he will end his career by shooting himself on live TV. Beale eventually has visions and comes into his broadcast raving "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Because of the tremendous surge in ratings after the Beale rants, the news operation is put under control of the network's entertainment division - Beale's ravings are rationalized as editorial content and the ratings soar even further.

So far, the operation sounds a lot like Fox. Fox is primarily an entertainment company which just happens to run a news operation... with lots of editorial content and more than a few Howard Beales given the opportunity to entertain us with... editorial content.

In the place of Howard Beale, we have the presence of someone called Glenn Beck who, like Beale, developed a following and who, unlike Beale, has no real-world experience as a journalist, serious or otherwise. Also unlike Beale, Beck has an agenda. He has something to sell. The man comes across to me like a smarmy used car salesperson trying to pawn off a rusty '67 Buick with sawdust in the transmission and at least 50,000 miles rolled off of the odometer to some 18 year old kid with a few bucks burning a hole in his pocket. (To be fair to the used car salesman, at least he would find some way to keep from burning the kid.) Both Beck and Beale take/took themselves seriously. Beale claimed to hear the voice of God - Beck, these days, seems to be in the process of positioning himself as the personification of the 'second coming'.

Toward the end of the movie, Howard Beale is called upon to face the Chairman of the Board of the network, Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty in one of very few serious roles I have seen him in). Jensen convinces Beale that Beale's mission was to push public opinion in the direction Jensen wanted to have opinion pushed. Though I'm not really certain of it, I can imagine that Glenn Beck had a similar communication with Rupert Murdoch... which does raise an eyebrow. What business does an Australian billionaire have in attempting to be involved in American politics? Perhaps it has something to do with Arthur Jensen's world view... "The world is a business, Mr. Beale..."

When Howard Beale preaches the Gospel according to Arthur Jensen, his ratings drop and depression sets in among his audience. "No one wants to hear that his life is useless..." the narrator reminds us in the film. Howard Beale is the accidental messiah up to the point of his meeting with Jensen. From that point, his life and the ratings drop like a lead-filled balloon.

Beck, on the other hand, is so adept at the art of using smoke and mirrors that the overriding reality of corporate interference in our lives disappears. He is at least in partial control of his destiny and is setting himself up as a new messiah who will deliver us from the pain and misery of having to be subservient to brown-skinned people. We're all supposed to be happy little monkeys, content that there are people who are attempting to keep the Mexicans out of our sweatshops and that billionaires are able to keep their money without paying confiscatory tax rates or even having to trickle that money down to support our disappearing middle class.

And that's part of the reason why people gathered in Washinton last weekend to hear a former drug addict tell us that we are on the edge of another "Great Awakening". In the movie, Howard Beale unknowingly tapped the fears of the unknown to unleash an army of followers. In real life, Glenn Beck is knowingly tapping the same fears and is, in the process, attempting to equate religion with a political agenda.

When I first saw 'Network' in its initial run, I was impressed by how closely the film's reality was like the reality of the time (with references to the still-fresh Patricia Hearst kidnapping and mention of the UBS affiliate in Atlanta, WTCG*). Little did I know that some of the realities of the film would be played out 30+ years later in real life. Satire is wonderful, until it's taken seriously or being played out in reality as it seems to be happening now.

I still like 'Network' for the same reasons I liked it when I first saw it. I did not think of it then as a harbinger of the future nor did I ever think that a news organization would do nothing other than report the news. While FOX is attempting to bend our political system, ABC's news seems to be becoming a shill for the pharmaceutical industry. (I don't keep up with CBS, NBC or CNN... the only reason I do ABC news is that the local channel has what I consider to be the best news in the Metroplex.) These are strange times we are living in... strange times, indeed.


* As a quick aside, billboard owner Ted Turner purchased a relatively unknown UHF television station in Atlanta some years ago and changed the call letters to WTCG - Watch This Channel Grow... and it did. Yeah. THAT channel!


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Hate

Anyone can spread hate. It takes someone special to keep it from spreading. Lord, let that someone special be me.

I've just quoted myself from Facebook. It was one of those things which just came to me suddenly in the middle of the day. The lovely Miss Carol and I had been to South Dallas to visit the new baby and recover the dog. On the way down I was listening to the local talk show host in between traffic reports in regards to the "Ground Zero Mosque" in NYC.

From what I have heard, 3,000 red-blooded Christian Americans were herded into the World Trade Center where they were brutally murdered by ordinary followers of Islam who, as we all "know" are commanded by God to eliminate the infidels. Kinda stirs you up, doesn't it? Makes your blood boil. It reaches out to the inner xenophobic in all of us.

Grrrrrr!

The 3,000 weren't all Americans. They weren't all Christian. The killers weren't necessarily representative of Islam, either. To say that the fanatics who crashed airplanes into the WTC on 9/11 were representative of all of Islam is the same as saying that the rabble known as the Westboro Baptist Church are representatives of all of Christendom. To listen to the radio, though, one would think that this "Ground Zero Mosque" is deliberately being erected on top of the rubble of the WTC to so that the entire Islamic world will be able to thumb their nose at the United States.

So what is happening is that there is an attempt being made to manipulate the greater portion of us into thinking that adherents of Islam are less than human... that they should be kept in their place... that we should take actions to spread the hate. I'm being told that my friend from Lebannon who came in to my workplace on the afternoon of 9/11, my friend who was in just as much shock as I was concerning the day's events, is sub-human and deserves to die just because of his Islamic beliefs? If we're going after the Lebanese, then, let's spread out the hate a bit... let's hate Danny Thomas, Casey Kasem and Jamie Farr. They're all Lebanese...

Then there's the woman who came to visit while we were getting acquainted with Big Myrtle and the Walden Ponderer (one of my brothers-in-law). She was dressed in a full burkah (in Texas heat, no less) and had graciously cooked a meal for her friend's out of town guests. I'm supposed to hate her, too?

We're being told that we should hate illegal immigrants, these days. Historically, we have been told to hate just about any group of people who aren't like us. Blacks, Jews, Indians (both kinds), Irish, Poles, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese... gee, I could go on for quite some time and still not be finished with the list (ah, the Finnish... let's find a reason to hate them, shall we?).

For some reason, the virulent attack has become the order of the day. We are told to hate people for their politics, the color of their skin, their haircuts or their body piercings. If you don't hate the same way that I want you to hate, then to hell with you, I'll find someone else to pal around with. On 9/11 I had the audacity to offer a prayer 'For our Enemies' (BCP page 816) at a hastily arranged church service. It was met with stoney silence. It's much easier to hate, you see.

Indeed, we have become a nation which seemingly prides itself with its ability to hate just about everyone for just about any reason we can think of. Odd, that, because if we are at the same time a Christian nation, shouldn't we follow the teachings of Jesus who admonished us to "...love your neighbor as yourself"?

While we're at it, my understanding is that it is a Community center, not a Mosque, it's adjacent to but not on "Ground Zero", and there's already Islamic worship space in the Pentagon, at just about the point where it, too was hit on 9/11.

Be Seeing You!


(BCP=Book of Common Prayer - Episcopalian, you see.)

Beards

There were just two words on a Facebook posting. "It's gone". I knew almost instantly what was gone. The summer beard grown by a long time friend of mine had found its way into the trash. Pity. I saw a picture of him and his beard and remarked to myself, "Gee, he looks quite good!" Remarks were made by others regarding the salt and pepper appearance... something quite natural for people of our age. My beard was salt and pepper when I let mine grow out eight summers ago.

My friend and I had been either cursed or blessed since High School with a surplus of facial hair. I managed to cultivate and keep a moustache through most of my Senior year, alternately growing or disposing of it in the mmmmmfttty mffffffff years since. The moustache has been gone permanently since I grew my summer beard back in 2002.

The family took a trip that summer and I decided that I would just quit shaving and see what would happen. I had deliberately attempted to grow a beard at other points in my life, only to have the attempt aborted because of the itch which developed on or about the third day or so. This time, the third day came about while we were camped at a parched campground in a South Dakota State Park, at least a two day drive from where I had left my razor in Texas.

We were on our way back to the Lone Star State when it finally dawned on she to whom I was once married what I was doing. When we got back home, I did some strategic shaving to alleviate the itch which was most bothersome around my neck. For the next two years or so, I kept the beard, trimming it from time to time to keep the people at work happy with my appearance. Yes, it was salt and pepper, just like the hair on the top of my head is to this day (more pepper than salt, by the way). I finally decided that the beard and I needed to part company due to some skin problems.

Beards seem to run in the family. One brother-in-law has had his beard ever since I've known him. I honestly would not recognize him if he were to walk up to me with a naked face. One of the new brothers-in-law sports sort of a Van Dyke which can count as a beard... it's just not a full beard. The older step-son sports a Van Dyke, too. I guess that counts. My younger brother has a beard which he's had for 15-20 years much to the chagrin of our mother. She's gotten used to it. Finally, there's Stuart, my son the High School student, who managed to cultivate a summer beard while he was at Boy Scout camp up in the wilds of Canada. His beard is gone, now, a victim of the first day of school. I had hopes that he would follow in my footsteps, but it seems that facial hair is a big no-no as far as the Allen school district is concerned.

Many of the men I know seem to wear a beard well. There are exceptions. One person of my acquintance has taken his beard to extremes, not trimming the thing for months at a time. I attribute it to the fact that he really can't seem to keep quiet long enough to apply clippers and/or a razor long enough to keep from doing himself bodily harm.

In the end, though, while many who can wear beards and look darn good in them, there are those who, for one reason or another, shave them just after proving that they look darn good in a beard. I was a tad disappointed to see my friend's post "It's gone" this morning. Not that my vote would account for anything... from the picture I saw, it looked darn good. Mine didn't look half shabby, either. Maybe I should reconsider...


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The Boys

Tis the weekend before school starts and I have the boys in the house.


The phenonemon does not happen too very often due to scheduling conflicts and activities which keep the both of them busy. Stuart has immersed himself in Scouting and in Cross Country. Warren is a band maniac. Warren lives with us, Stuart is the part-time (and not often enough I may add) visitor. The lovely Miss Carol and I have one each. In age, they are less than six months apart. At times they are quite alike, at others, as similar as chalk and cheese. It is during those times when they are quite alike when we have the most fun around here.


For instance, on Friday evening the boys and I took a trip to the grocery store to get some oranges for Warren's march-a-thon Saturday morning. While I was choosing, they were going back and forth with each other about who they knew and to what degree and whether or not they liked the person being discussed at the moment. The conversation was centered mostly around girls. What made the conversation interesting is that Stuart is the social gadabout while Warren mostly keeps to himself, yet at the time, Warren was talking about the girls in his section of the band - girls that Stuart knows, too, and Warren was generally speaking kindly about them. I could have been knocked over with a feather. Warren had been shy about the subject of girls until rather recently. When we went camping last month, I noted a moment when a girl actually noticed Warren and sat down next to him without his bolting off to the other side of the county. I wrote a story about it, too... but don't tell him.



Warren went on his March-A-Thon on Saturday morning, covering around 10 miles total in a 6 hour period, quite an undertaking for a kid who isn't so athletic. On the way back from picking Warren up, he and Stuart got into a further discussion about girls... this time centering on a girl who knows Stuart and incidentally plays Bass Clarinet in the Marching Band just like Warren. The particular conversation about the particular girl had continued more or less, ending only when Stuart had to be taken back to his mother's.

Other than that, most of the weekend was spent killing monsters or whatever else they kill on those video games that they play as it was too darn hot to go outside and camp... and fish... and talk about the girls they know.

So here I am on Sunday evening, winding down my weekend with Stuart, listening to Warren gargle to a tune he made up. First day of school tomorrow. Hope that someone else appreciates when the two boys are together.

(Insert appropriate object of humor here)

I've always kept a large number of jokes in my head covering a wide variety of subjects. Many of them are repeats of previous jokes which are customized to the persons of ridicule in a given geographical area. What I was told as a Polish joke by a Jewish acquaintance 45 years ago became a Kentuckian joke, became a Hillbilly joke, became an Aggie joke and so on. (For the benefit of my friends not familiar with Texas, and Aggie is someone from Texas A&M University, a fine school indeed... unless you are a "Longhorn".)



When the one-liner "Redneck" jokes came around by way of Jeff Foxworthy, I became a fan.



What makes many jokes work are stereotypes... "the stingy scotsman" or "the dumb ----" or "the empty-headed---" or... well, you get the idea. Racial stereotypes can be funny, too, but there are lines which should not be crossed. On the whole, most racial jokes are not appropriate (ask Dr. Laura) as they are generally mean-spirited or really degrading.


This morning, I was witness to a family of stereotypes which occupied a portion of the day surgery waiting room at Baylor Hospital in Plano. The patient was accompanied by 8 adults and three children under the age of 8 - every one of them talking in a drawl so deep that the Grand Canyon would have had a hard time keeping up. I kept myself in a corner observing this crew from what I considered to be a safe distance. Among the group were the fat woman who couldn't keep her hands off the snacks (Hostess Miniature Donuts, followed by a large bag of Doritos), the Preacher (the only one of the males in the group with at least a sport coat and a decent shirt) and the thirty-something... I guess he was a mechanic... with the ball cap (complete with a tail coming out of the back), accidental beard, a dirty T-Shirt (at least it identified him or someone he knows as a blood donor) and Hawaiian shorts! To top it all off, one of the kids was named 'Bubba'.


Jeff Foxworthy would have been on the floor with this bunch.


Other than being a bit noisy and in seeming constant motion, they were relatively benign. The woman with the snacks (she was fat... not obese, but clearly more overweight than I am) spent the time she wasn't eating scolding the kids who had managed to bring in a miniature football and were throwing it in and around the area the group had staked out for themselves. The fellow with the ball cap was in and out on a regular basis. I suspect that he was stepping outside to smoke cigarettes on a regular basis. One of the group had a cell phone with a distinct ring tone. The name of that tune is "The Fishing Hole", written by the late Earl Hagen. You know it as the theme song for The Andy Griffith Show. I'm sure that the Hagen estate gets a cut every time someone purchases the song to use as a ring tone.


The group left the waiting room en-mass just twice. The first time was when it was announced that the patient was just about to be put under and wheeled into the operating room. Everyone had to say goodbye, don't you know. The second time came after some confusion... it was decided that the patient needed some overnight observation before undergoing the knife due to an irregular heartbeat. Everyone left and the room became almost deadly quiet. All that were left were two admissions reps, a waiting room volunteer, and three people (myself included) still in there waiting for news. I noted to one of the admissions persons that there seemed to be this giant sucking sound. Turns out it was the ventilation system.


It's not very often that I encounter the stereotypical. When I do, I end up cringing at the thoughts of the various jokes which seem to be playing out right in front of my eyes. A good part of the cringing has to do with the fact that I dare not laugh at what's going on. As I get older, the job gets harder.


By the way, the Lovely Miss Carol breezed through her surgery. We were home before 3:00.



Be Seeing You!

Fuzzies

I walked into a grocery store just after work to pick up a gallon of milk this evening and found myself developing a lump in my throat. The music was to blame. The overhead speakers were playing Bruce Springsteen's 'My Hometown', a story of typical decay in the northeast and a family's surrender to the inevitable and preparing to leave for warmer climates. 'My Hometown' is one of several Springsteen songs which I like to listen to over and over again because of the warm fuzzies I get when listening to them.

Warm fuzzies from the Boss of Rock and Roll. It seems almost ironic.

I get warm fuzzies about other things, too. For instance, I am in the middle of my umpteenth reading of 'The Lord of the Rings', a book I know all too well since discovering the tome during my Senior year in High School. For a while, I made a point of reading the book cover to cover on a yearly basis whether I wanted to or not. I know how it ends and some would argue "What's the point?" Maybe I do it just to get the warm fuzzies.

I've been reading the book during breaks at work and I know darn good and well that I had best quit reading it at work fairly much between the time Frodo actually dumps the ring and the Host in front of the teeth of Mordor are assisted by the Gwahir the Windlord. I'll be to a saturation point with the warm fuzzies. I'm male. I'm expected to keep a stiff upper lip, you know.

My encounters with the warm fuzzies even extend into what I write. I have a novel of sorts in the works and there are certain passages which give me the goosebumps. It's not particularly a good piece of literature nor do I anticipate what I've written to shoot to the top of the New York Times Bestseller lists. To me, it's entertainment - something I am doing just for the sake of saying that I am doing it. The story does have its moments, though. I've killed a character and a couple of other characters have had moments of revelation which, to me at least, are quite profound. At least I'm having fun with the exercise.

A couple of weeks ago the warm fuzzies were almost overwhelming. I took Stuart to see Toy Story 3 (not 3 D) and just about left the theater bawling like a baby. The story, while familiar, was well done and provided a satisfactory ending to the the Toy Story saga. I was totally happy to the point of tears at the resolution... a fact that I finally did tell Stuart despite the damage I envisioned happening to my ego. Sometimes ya just gotta let it loose.

Other warm fuzzies have invaded my life from time to time. I have gotten to the point in life where those fuzzies are no longer as threatening as they used to be. A good thing, perhaps. Good warm fuzzies are invaluable to keeping this pilgrim on an even keel.

May you have many warm fuzzies yourself.

Be Seeing You!

Riddles

So who is that person and where do I know him or her from?

I have become somewhat addicted to Facebook, you know, that all-encompassing half a billion person web site with someone in there for everyone... and I'm beginning to wonder who some of these people are who have become 'friends' over the past year or so. Part of me doesn't much care. "What the hell, it's free" I tell myself. That's rationalization enough, I reckon, and so on I go, collecting more 'friends' and sometimes wondering if I really know the people who shoot their friend requests in my direction.

For instance, there's a young woman on my 'friends' list who made a request after commenting on a photo of me published by another 'friend' and former co-worker. I have this very dim idea that I met this person some time ago in passing, but I'm never really sure that I did. Her posts have been interesting. She is a young mother, attends comic book conventions and is generally quite cheerful about life in general and her life in particular. I'll keep her around. She's like some of the young women I work with. Proud, determined and perhaps a bit stubborn.

Then, there's this person who has this familiar-sounding name who seemingly does little else but collect new 'friends' all of the time, occasionally thanking God for the many blessings he has in his life - reminding us to do likewise. I'm already there but I still only have an inkling of an idea as to who he is. Perhaps it's time to drag out the High School Yearbook again.

Not all of the people who appear on my friends list are unfamiliar to me. All three of my second cousins are on the list as are four of my five siblings, a brother-in-law, my children, the lovely Miss Carol, my mother and several people I've remembered from High School. Many of the people I work with are on that list as are a few of the folks from Church.

My 'friends' come from all over, most of them are concentrated here in Texas and up in Ohio. There are at least two living in Florida, same for California. Pennsylvania and Missouri are represented as well. Georgia, North Carolina, Washington (both the State and D.C.) and West by God Virginia are in there too. There are the successful and the not quite as successful represented. Those who believe in God and those who don't. There are those who are happy with the political climate, those who hate it and those who don't much care.

There are at least two published authors and a movie director, along with several musicians and at least one promoter. A wide range of people.

I have, from time to time, thought of suggesting one friend to another on my list. For instance, I have two contacts who say almost the same things regarding the events of the day. I'm sure that they would get along famously. There are a couple of incessant game players, one of which loves Farmville, the other, Mafia Wars. Perhaps the Farmville person can grow marijuana for the Mafia Wars person, or set up a 'still' or something. That'd be neat.

Then there are the people who I am missing that maybe, just maybe, I'd like to have on my list by way of a mutual friend. One person who I think is on there is someone I've never met, but with whom I share a birthday and a profession. People I've heard about, folks who I have admired for one reason or another, women who I have had a crush on since, well, since I've been aware of such things... the list could go on for a while.

In the end, though, I have come to the conclusion that the people I have as friends on Facebook are pretty much the people I need to remain connected with for some reason or another. Most of them keep me on an even keel; most of them are interesting in their own special way.

Even those who I can't for the life of me figure out who they are!

Guess I'll have to re-read some of the profiles again.

Be Seeing You!

Cradle

When one is born into the Episcopal Church, one is known as a "Cradle Episcopalian", a tag which I have borne since being born. While I have 'experimented' by attending other churches, I have always come back 'home'. The why is hard to explain... perhaps it has to do with the ways of the Church.

In some ways, we Episcopalians are a funny lot. We are seen as being oh, so proper (Episcopalians in Heaven weeping, wailing and gnashing their teeth for the sin of using a dinner fork for eating their salad), way too traditional (One to call the Sexton and another to state that the old light worked well enough, thank-you), and perhaps a bit too eager to have a drink (Whenever four Episcopalians are gathered, there is always a Fifth).

Some of the charges are true. Painfully. I've been to Episcopalian gatherings where booze has been a relative Niagra, I've heard the complaints from within about why this or that have changed and I have known of people in the Church who see the Church as being nothing more than an extension of the local Country Club. But I've also seen some very committed Christians in the Church who have displayed the sort of fervor I've seen in some of the Baptist Churches I have attended from time to time.

Last Sunday, I attended Christ Episcopal in San Antonio on the suggestion of a friend. This friend is one of several who, in earlier days, had been part of Tabernacle Baptist in Chillicothe, a relatively benign Church with very deep roots. Anyhoo, this friend is now living in San Antonio and is part of the music ministry of Christ Episcopal. We met for a short time after the service and discussed (briefly) the trials and tribulations which Christ Episcopal is experiencing at the moment.

For the past several years, the Episcopal Church has been in a bit of turmoil about the ordination of gays into the priesthood. As a result, splinter groups have popped up here and there, seperating from the Episcopal Church to re-form and call themselves Anglican. Christ Episcopal in San Antonio had had a splinter group break off within the past month, leaving them without a Rector and less roughly 10% of their membership. The same thing has been happening to a fair number of Episcopal Churches - some even leaving as a whole Parish as had happened at Christ Episcopal in Plano.

It seems to be epidemic, but for the Episcopal Church, it's business as usual. There always seems to have been some sort of splinter group objecting to something and drawing people away from the Church. Since the early '70s when I 'gravitated' from High School, there have been protests about 'changes in the prayer book' and huge differences concerning whether or not to ordain women. Other sinterings have concerned allowing persons of African descent into the Church (the arguement being that they have no souls) back in the 1800s and there have been others, doubtless, of the same importance.

As far as this pilgrim is concerned, the current situation is just on the edge of being silly. We as Episcopalians seem to forget that much of the pomp and circuimstance connected to the Episcopal Church is theatrical in nature and will tend to attract people with a theatrical bent. If they happen to join the Church and "get" the message, a few of them may be inclined to become Deacons, Priests and Bishops... and it would seem (at least in my mind) to be better that one would be open about one's sexuality before entering the Priesthood than to hide it until being discovered by way of a lawsuit.

Too, part of the deal of "getting" the overriding message has to do with a Rabbi named Jesus who had broken tradition by ministering to Samaritans and Lepers. There are those who have cast gays into a "Social Leprosy"... where it's okay to have them around as waiters, entertainers and objects of ridicule, but "By God, keep them out of my Church"!!! Jesus would be turning over in his grave (if he had one) because of that attitude. He would be first in line to minister to those who had been tainted with that "Social Leprosy". Guaranteed.

To the people who have decided to stick with Christ Church in San Antonio (and with Saint Paul's in Chillicothe for much the same reason), know that there are those who stand with you... not necessarily because we are Cradle Episcopalians, but because we "Get it", too. We've seen the turmoil before and will undoubtably be seeing the turmoil again.

There are better times coming.

Be Seeing You!

Cars

I've always been fascinated by cars. Always.

Perhaps it's something in the blood. My Grandfather on my mother's side ran a "Garage" which for at least a part of my childhood was a big deal to me when we went to visit him in West Virginia. He almost always drove a Mercury, with the exception of the time that he had the 1953 Buick which was alright because during much of the time he had the Buick, my grandmother on the other side drove a 1954 Mercury.

Needless to say, I've wanted to have a Mercury for quite some time, even to the point of looking at perhaps getting into a Mercury Milan at some point in the future (as opposed to driving a Ford Fusion, same car, different badge). I may not get the chance, though, as the Ford Motor Company has decided to discontinue the Mercury after, what, 71 years of existance.

Darn shame.

Guess I'll have to find another make to fall in love with as many of the cars I've had are no longer available.

Austin? Part of the collapse of British Leyland.

Renault? Not here. In Mexico and perhaps in Canada, but not here.

Eagle? Good idea, sort of, wrong timing.

Plymouth? Loved (and still love) the minivans, but Plymouth is no longer.

At one point I thought that owning, or even driving a car would mark the car's maker for certain death. Owned an Oldsmobile nearly 30 years ago - mine a particularly miserable example. Try to find an Oldsmobile dealer today. You can't.
Go down the alphabet from there... Pontiac? Gone. Rambler? Gone. Studebaker? Gone. I've driven at least one example of each of the aforementioned makes which no longer appear in metal here in the land of E Pluribus Unum.

Which leads me to my next question. What make of car should I doom next?

At this point in life, I'm happily driving a Dodge Caravan... and if rumours are correct, the Caravan will disappear at some point in the near future in favor of the Chrysler version of the same vehicle.

I test drove a Land Rover about a year and a half ago... and just by taking that test drive, I doomed the company to be sold the Indian maker Tata.

Don't really want to push the hex onto Honda... I've known a few people connected with the Honda plants in Ohio and don't want to push any of my fellow Buckeyes out of work.

I understand that Kia may be pushed out of the business due to the fact that Hyundai owns them. Kias appear (at least to me) to be bland, inoffensive, and not particularly able to stand much longer except as a loss leader for something more expensive. Should I help to push it "over the edge", so to speak? Nahhh, too bland and inoffensive for my tastes.

Toyota? They already have enough problems these days without adding me as one of them. Besides, my brother-in-law and another Face Book friend drive little blue Toyota Yarisis (or would that be Yari?) and neither of them should have to endure the pain of their company being put out of business just because I had a notion to own one.

The best choice to date has come from my dear wife (The lovely Miss Carol) who has become increasingly exhasperated with owners of Lexuses (or Lexi). Her contention is that Lexus has somehow left out turn signals on their cars... or at least that the cars' owners have never learned how to use the things. What better way to extinct a brand with such an obvious defect than to have me own one of my own.

That'll learn 'em for sure.

If I indeed ever decide to go into a dealer to actually purchase a car, I will definitely find a way to alert the people I know of what I intend to be driving next.

After all, I have proven a kiss of death...

Be Seeing You!

Caching In

It's been that long already?

Sorry for being tardy. May is here and I have found lots of things to be done, so, I've done 'em.

Warm weather is a catalyst for a number of activities on my end. Mowing the lawn, pulling the grill out of hibernation, attempting to pull all the junk from the garage, you know, the usual sort of thing which comes around at this time of year.

It also means that I'm in the great outdoors doing some geocaching again.

A few days ago I celebrated eight years of practicing the hobby by going out and attempting to grab a series of caches placed by the Texas State Parks - a geocaching challenge. What is going on is that cachers such as myself will go out and find caches placed in each of thirteen local state parks, collect information, then turn it in for a prize to be awarded to the first 25 people who find all of the caches.

"What fun!" I thought... and I took the Lovely Miss Carol out with me to a place called Cedar Hill to find the cache placed by the Park Service at Cedar Hill. We got to the general area of the cache just before sunset and took the easy walk to the location shown on our GPS device... no problem.

Just as we had opened the box and were sorting through the goodies, we heard another couple coming down the same trail carrying their own GPS device. When they arrived, they were revealed as our friendly, neighborhood Texas State Parks people checking out the progress of their cache. We had a nice little conversation, had our pictures taken, finished the job at hand, then proceeded on to bigger and better things.

This morning, I left the house shortly after 9am to see about adding to the number of caches in the Texas Geochallenge. An hour and a little over 45 miles of battling Suburban Dallas traffic, I arrived at the DuBois unit of Lake Ray Roberts State Park and took out after what I thought would be an easy cache as a warm-up to finding the "Official" State-provided geocache. I spent a good half an hour at the indicated hiding spot before giving it up as a lost cause.

Then I went after the big prize. I re-parked the car, then hiked up the trail a good three quarters of a mile to find the box I had been looking for. In, out and that was it. No problem... that is until I decided to find another cache which was only three tenths of a mile, or 1500 feet away.

I chose to do it in a straight line, instead of taking the obvious trail in and out.

I donate blood to a blood bank which operates here in Dallas partly because of the free t-shirts. (Everyone knows that people will do anything for a free t-shirt!) Well, I was wearing one of those t-shirts when I decided to take off cross country... and wouldn't you know it, I gave blood on the way. Silly me.

The other cache was easily found and I left that particular unit of that State Park and proceeded to another section of the same park to recover yet another of the particular cache series I was hunting.

Forty minutes of driving, another 20 of hiking in, grabbing, logging and hiking out. Whew!

One more stop to make, and it was just about forty minutes away on a good day. Today, I took what turned out to be a road going in the wrong direction... then, roughly 10 minutes from the final stop... road construction. I was an hour out of home and headed into a construction zone. The better part of me decided to turn back south and hit the showers.

When I finally got back home and logged my meager finds, I came to the realization that I was probably too late to claim one of the 25 prizes being offered for the first 25 cachers to find all 13 caches in an area which from end to end represented 6 hours of travel time east to west and a good 4 hours north to south.

Needless to say, I'm hanging up that particular challenge. I'll leave it to #1 son, Stuart, who turns 15 this week.

Be Seeing You!

Story

For the few who tune into this blogspot from time to time, an apology for not being as faithful in writing these epistles as I should have been. I've been diverted by a story.

A couple of months ago, I had inspiration on a story line which holds some promise. So far I am about 51,000 words into it. I know where the story starts, where it ends, and quite a bit about the middle. For the most part, though, I have put off several other activities I usually indulge myself in on the internet in favor of something I do for myself. This blog is one such casualty as is my geocaching.

For instance, I've effectively started deleting e-mails from people who send me e-mails telling me of the evils of the current administration. If they want to support nut-jobs who go waving guns and/or threats at protest rallys, it's their right. If they think that I'm a "Moran" (actual spelling on an actual protest sign) for not agreeing with them or Fox News, so be it.

Actually, the main character in this story I am writing takes a pragmatic view of the world, billing himself as "The last bastion of freedom in an otherwise bleak and hopeless land." Yes, I have cast part of myself as the main character in this little melodrama I am writing. I really don't put too much faith in the radical right or the radical left who are rattling their cages looking for radical change. Both sides have some valid arguements about their positions, but neither side is completely sinless.

The heroine in this story I'm writing is based a lot on the Lovely Miss Carol... a red-headed nurse who has been on a parallel path with the hero in the story... it just took her a while to figure it out. In her defense, the hero of the story was also on a parallel path and it took him a while to figure it out. Fair is fair, don't you see?

I have incorporated elements of my prior life in the broadcasting industry into the story, as well as some of the people/personalities who had been involved. There are a couple of incidents which I would like to incorporate into the story which have not found a place in the narrative. There was the time that the owner of a radio station I worked for came in from Chicago and left his hat, a Homborg (sp?), in the studio where I was working. He called me directly when he got to the airport in Columbus asking if I had seen the hat and requesting that I mail it back to him in Chicago. There was also the "Who's Norm Shor?" episode which was played out a couple of times... Norm is a dear friend who is now in the clutches of the dreaded Alzheimer's disease. I do plan to pay homage to him somehow in the story (as I have with a couple of other friends who are now on the other side of the grass).

I am having fun with this story, really, I am. I hope to be able to complete it at some point in the next couple of months. During the meanwhilst, I hope that you will not be put off by the lack of verbiage in this particular little corner.

Be Seeing You!

Jackpot

The lovely Miss Carol and I have a secret vice. We like to play the lottery.



We don't invest our life savings into the State Lottery, nor do we play it consistantly. We will spend $2, sometimes as much as $3 a week playing the Super Lotto or some such creation if we remember to buy the ticket. The stepson tells me that we'll never win because of the odds and he's probably right.



I stand a better chance of being hit by lightning in a thunderstorm than I do winning the lottery. My brother who is practically a CPA and has dabbled in Law told me at one time the best time to spend a dollar on the lottery was when the prize was over something like $15million... statistically, at that point you can get your dollar back.

As if I'll live that long.



One of the reasons I keep buying the tickets, though, is that it's a cheap way to dream for a day or two before the drawing. I have this vision of going and purchasing a motor home and a something to tow behind it, then taking the teenagers out of school to take a lap of the country. There are lots of places I'd like to visit, like forts and historical sites which would educate me and my charges, presuming of course that they will take advantage of the opportunity. I could delay that trip, on the other hand, and wait until the kids are out of the house so that Carol and I can take that trip by ourselves.



When we finally finish that trip, there would be others.



In between trips, we'd be living in a much bigger house with our own private windmill to keep us off the grid, and I'd build a really private swimming pool... one so private that I don't have to wear a swim suit if I don't want to.



Nice dreams, to be certain, but we won't win due to the fact that we lack a certain something in our personalities which prevents us from winning.



We have good sense and humility.



For instance, our plan starts with what we will give away and to whom before we even think of choosing an RV dealer. The Church, the Salvation Army, the local food bank... we would arrange to give some gifts to the worthy before jumping naked into our swimming pool.



I have seen too many times when someone wins the lottery and goes on a bender or comes to some sort of grief after their winning moment. It's not just the lottery, but there are other games, or moments of luck which seem to fall on the wrong people. For instance, there's this fellow I know of who just won a truck at the place where he works. He's already squawking that it's the wrong make of truck and that it's way too small for him.



Fer cryin' out loud, it's a free truck! I'd drive it even if I didn't like it!



This same fellow has been known to have more than his share of his beverage of choice... I wonder what will happen when this fellow damages his free truck after having imbibed. A guy I went to High School with parked his car into a tree at his parents' house at some point before he was 21 (drinking was legal in Ohio at the time for those between 18 and 21) and his father left the car right where it was for a number of years as a reminder of the son's carelessness.

Anyhoo, we are beyond that sort of nonsense at this point in our lives. We have good sense and a set of scruples which prevent us from most of our foiables - and are therefore ineligible to win the lottery.

How much is the jackpot the next time around?

Be Seeing You!

Relativity

Almost everything is relative to how one thinks.

That's not too hard a concept to grasp... it's a lot like the self-fulfilling prophecy we hear about time and again. If you think it, it will happen. The mind, you see, is a powerful force.

A few years back, I was asked to leave my home and my family against my will. I had some choices to make and I had to make them relatively quickly. My first thought was that I was not going to sit around on my arse and feel too sorry for myself. She who has yet to be named in these chronicles had seemingly set herself the task of making me feel miserable.

It didn't work.

The day I moved out of the house, I had arranged a "date" with a young woman who I had met while looking for a suitable place to live. I took her to lunch at a nice little Thai place and we had an awesome conversation. She, too, had been seperated from her spouse and she had a way of coping with her situation which I thought quite novel and decided to copy. She made a list of things she should do and posted that list on her refrigerator. Among the items on her list was to try some new foods. She got to try Thai, I got a good suggestion.

For the most part, I made the most of what I had thought was a bad situation. I thrived and eventually found happiness and all that other stuff just by being the person I knew I could be. I didn't even have to find Jesus... for that matter, I wasn't aware that he was lost.

(Sorry, that joke was rattling around in my head too long not to have used it.)

After about a year of the nonsense of being 'seperated', then finally divorced, I got a letter from a former co-worker and good friend of mine who related the story of another acquaintance who had been on the same road as I was but with very different results. To make a long story short, he too found someone who had introduced him to the world of some happy white powder - at last report, he was broke, out of a job, and headed quite far north to become a ward of his parents.

Darn shame.

After getting back from the service for the Lovely Miss Carol's grandmother, we spent the week fretting about her father. Dave McGee was in San Angelo, Texas in poor health and by most reports was quite depressed about himself and his position. Carol and the Lovely Miss Shelly (Sister-in-law extrodinaire) were working on a plan to move Dave McGee from San Angelo to College Station where he would be closer to what little family he had. A great plan it was.

Unfortunately, it will never come about. David McGee was found dead in his apartment in San Angelo on Friday.

Somewhere in his mind, he had ceased to have the will to live. I was quite saddened because he was on the brink of something better for his sunset years, the brink of being closer to family which, for any faults he may have had, loved him for what he was. The mind is a powerful thing, you see, and eventually it will win if put to the test.

From what I had been led to understand, he had been the victim of the demons which posess the minds of some of us willing or unwilling. What may have transpired will remain between those who loved him and those of us who have not had a chance to even know him.

Carol, her brothers and I will be spending the next couple of days attempting to disburse what little Dave McGee had in this world. He had already given of himself by requesting his body be donated to Texas Tech University for research. Good for him.

I'm sorry that I never got to meet him as he had some of the same background that I had in radio. I'm sure that he had some great stories left in him.

The mind is a powerful force. Harnessed correctly, it can accomplish great things. Sometimes, it can lead to self-destruction... even to one's demise.

Rest in Peace, David McGee.


Be Seeing You.