Wednesday's Digressions

Yes! I don't know what we're voting for but you gotta admire the simplicity.

• Yesterday (01/09/2015) as I turned from Berry down to 35 to head North I saw a cel phone fly off a ___________ truck and land on the road. I couldn't jump out and nab it without getting myself or others killed so I caught up to him on 35 to give him a heads up. He was soooo stoned or drunk he was oblivious and I couldn't get his attention. His eyes were glowing and he had the stupidest grin on his face I have ever seen.
• Here, is what I imagined him jamming to as he floated along.

  

  Objects in the mirror...
• The good stylist at Pro Cuts left and those that remain do terrible work and are oddly surly. Wooten's on Saturday gets busy so I take Mini Me to Knockouts Haircuts For Men. Although I don't partake, they offer you a beer as soon as you sit down and treat you like a king and he gets a good haircut and gets to control the cable remote to a personal TV while hot chicks make a fuss over him.
• I remember when haircuts were $2.50. It cost me 25 bucks get out of KHFM today.
• Jimmy Wooten gave me the last haircut I'll ever get.
• Red gave me the first although for some reason Bert McClain became the barber we used most often. Red's hands always smelled clean.
  
  

  

  The sign to the reader's left is only true in certain cases. The one to our right varies from patently false to highly arguable (and situation dependent at best).

• Pop Tarts don't have enough filling. Is it like a drug- they cut it down to keep you coming back for more?
• I am drinking coffee in the evening for the first time in a while. When I was in college I had a cup of coffee and a big bowl of ice cream nearly every night after work. I weighed a 150 pounds and slept like a baby.
  
  
  
  

  

  Good, cheap tacos were to be had here at one time. It looks like it is closed now. No mas taquitos amigo.

• When a patient says, I'm going to be honest with you... I know I am about to be treated to some amazing lies. Well, OK- half truths at least.
• If you've never drunk orange juice with pizza you should give it a try sometime. All the cool kids are doing it.
• If you loved me like you say you do you would by this for me/us.

  

  I was a 17 year old lad when I signed up here at the armory in Decatur Texas. It was an artillery unit then. Was it Alpha or Bravo Battery? I think it was A Battery. It was 2/131 Field Artillery Regiment. We went off roading in a M151A2 Jeep with the recruiter the night before we signed. After we signed we watched pron on a reel to reel projector in a classroom while we ate chicken. One time the CO made a big to do about guys eating chow there instead of going out.  Coincidentally, a KP failed to wash Bippy powder out of the pans well. Consequently, 100 guys got sick and they had to shut down for the weekend. Being outlaws me and a couple other miscreants had signed the meal roster and went out to eat. We came back 30 minutes late and then hid out in the motor pool and Quonset hut. Later we were found by a Staff Sergeant who was pale and sweating. It went like this: Where the %$^&# have you #**&^%rs been? We were out cleaning the motor pool- you told us to do it this morning. No you weren't. I've been looking for you for the past hour! Uh, oh- some Sergeant came out and had us move some stuff around in the Quonset hut. Oh, well everybody is getting sick after chow- are you guys OK? The CO is thinking about shutting us down. he replied. We all feel bad. We were on our way in to tell you. we replied as we held our bellies for effect.

Various And Sundry Thoughts With Irrelevant Pics

Roswell alien. They come at night and rummage through our garbage to learn our secrets.

• In my teens I was invited to hang around to be considered for little brother status in a motorcycle gang club. I went to their family homes and outdoor meetings and rode on the back of a chopper a time or two.
• That factoid and a quarter will get you well, basically nothing but it still makes me think- all these years later. The first thing I think of is: what were those older people of every stripe thinking when they hung out with me? I mean really- from cops to teachers to yes a full on 1%R who could have been killed if he hadn't the right to wear the patches he wore- what were  they doing hanging out with a 14 year old kid and yes, doing the things we often did? Well, each in their own way were trying to help me find my way.
• I wish I could thank some of them and let them know I turned out more or less OK but one of them shares a name with a famous person so a web search is pretty useless and I cannot find anything on the other two I think of often. No, Facebook is the Debil and I try to stay away from deviltry.

  

  FG's Jack Skellington shirt

• A loosely connected thought to the first bullet point: back in the day bikers almost always rode choppers- not all but a guess I would not bet my life on would be +/- 60%. Today they're much more likely to ride a standard glide of some type.
• Mrs. Paschall has died. She was a nice lady and always treated us well when we went into the 5 and dime on the square in Decatur. One of our teachers Mr. Tindol bought the store after she and Frank left it. Mr. Tindol accused us of being there to steal stuff shortly after we walked in.  It didn't last long.
• Another legend Ms Cocanougher died recently. She was very sweet and decent. If you didn't know her name- you know her face if you're a contemporary to me in the Big D. 
• An old family friend is also gone. We called her Mud. 

  

  Random guy in restaurant wearing a shirt that struck me as humorously creepier than he intended

• I also noted too many people around my own age while reading the WCM obits. Some I knew, some I knew of and a couple I figured by their relationship status to the decedent I simply had to know but must have oddly forgotten. 

  

  Breakfast of champions

• 3: the number of degrees of separation I have from one of the Ebola nurses (if you need another reason to stay away from me).
• A natural fact:  sooner rather than later China will be at war.
  

  

  Line at the Weatherford America Wal Marts to buy  .22 LR bullets. They were waiting there for an hour plus for the shells to be put out. The sporting goods counter even  put out coffee and doughnuts. When I was a kid everybody had a .22 because it was cheap to shoot and everybody sold  22 cal rounds. You could get them at hardware stores and it wasn't unheard of for a convenience store to sell them. If you went into the right store and your face was known you could get them as a 10-12 year old kid. Now, they are expensive when you can find them at all and everybody lines up like it is free gubmint cheese day. I don't even know you anymore America. 

Monday's Missives

At the Putt Putt on Calmont in Funkytown. Somewhere a lawn mower man's butt is still hurting from the chewing out he received. It was odd though- he had to go out of his way to mangle that thing with a mower, so he pretty much deserved at least a chewing out.

• Man, that picture is gigantic.
• Two minutes never seems like a long time at all until you're cooking something in the microwave.
• At Scarborough Fair this past season a goob using a pro consumer grade camera and sound set-up was making a nuisance of himself getting in front of the audience at the Birds Of Prey demonstration. The presenter interrupted the show to ask if he was there officially or what. The guy lied and said it was for the fair. What a putz. He was lead away a few minutes later by an employee.
• The Whole Hog Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs- what I'm reading (06/28/2014).
• Top Secret!- what I'm watching.
  
• In the days of my ute there was a miniature golf golf course on 51 North that was built by a resident of Decatur out of various scrap materials. I recall a tractor tire that was cut to form a loop that you would drive the ball through. I think you paid by dropping money in a jar. It was past the armory on the right.
• I have never heard anybody correctly pronounce the Ye as in- Ye Olde... The Y is not our Y. It is a symbol that sounds like, Th.
• Although the M1 Garand was miles away better, the British and German bolt action rifles of WWII were ridiculously good weapons.

  

  Note I left above the dishwasher

• People who like to sound well informed prattle on about how ineffective torture is to get information out of people. They'll say, The person will say anything to get the pain to stop! True they will say just about anything- even the truth.
• The US is considering signing on to a ban of the manufacture and use of landmines. Bad, dumb move.
• Your life will be worth less than a truckload of rats in a used tampon factory! Line from Top Secret! I intend to use at my earliest possible opportunity.
  
  
  

  

  Penny smashed by vendor at Ren Fair. They handed them out from the parade. Zac scored this one. 

Wednesday's Digressions

I found it! Pizarro you are vindicated my friend- rest in peace.

• Sooner Or Later by Breaking Benjamin. I hate to sound like a fan boy, but they really are way underrated.
• Sometimes I have to get away from everything and sort things out. The last time I did that I ended up in Big Spring TX after saying,"I think I need to point the car west, put the cruise on 100 mph and stop wherever the sun finds me while it's setting."

  

  This pond in KCMOs zoo is like a million other exhibits in zoos across the country- somebody with about  enough construction skills and knowledge to be dangerous slaps a structure together and its called good. What an ugly mess.

• My buddy won't answer my text messages and that worries me.
• When I was coming up everybody cruised to meet people. Denton was a big hangout, but we were just as likely to go to Bridgeport TX as kids from Bridgeport were as likely to go to Decatur. A weird coincidence that I'll have to be vague about: I thought a former in law was familiar to me when we met officially, but could not place how until the first time I went to one of her side of the families house for the first time- it was not the first time I'd been there. She did not remember me and I kept my mouth shut, but I'd been there before.
• I don't know if the preceding thought made any sense. I don't want to be rude or ugly and a couple of people who may read this will think it is them and it is not and another may think they know who I'm talking about but they may not.
• I just made it worse. 
• My air mattress popped. The flocked side will make a nice rug for Big Agnes (our tent) and the bottom will work for a footprint to save the floor. 

  

  This guy almost gave us all a chance to see what God thinks about us freaks- he pulled out in front of us like we were invisible. He had probably been drinking Keystone Light since he left Arkansas.

  
  

  

  Kansas cows. I thought they would look more wind blown and  aireborney. 

  

Jeterville

This image comes up with a search for Jeterville Texas pictures

Occasionally Barry reposts a comment somebody made about their memories of Jeterville. It involved Stevie Nicks, a tour bus and the smell of weed.  It always makes me think of that place. I dream of Jeterville often- 2 or 3 times a year I would say, although I don't know exactly why.
 When I was little Decatur was dry and drinkers made road trips to Jeterville to buy beer. For that matter a thing back then was when people were going to Colorado they would take orders and bring back a trunk full of Coors. I don't know if it was not sold here in Texas then (which I doubt) but it is true they would do that. I can remember an uncle's (who incidentally died day before yesterday) car trunk literally brimming with the stuff. There must have been 20 cases or even more in there. Other people I've spoken to recall folks bringing beer back from Colorado. Maybe it was just a thing to do since that is where it was made.
 When we went it was always a big production. It seemed like a very long drive to me. In fact, the first time I drove there as an adult to a job in Fort Worth I couldn't believe it when I passed it so soon out of  Decatur  and saw that sign Jeterville pop 6 and 1 cat- that is right isn't it?  Inside the building was ice cold. There was a sign on the walk in fridge door, "Teeth chatterin 28 degree beer". Hanging from the ceiling was a canoe emblazoned with Budweiser logos. I would beg my dad to buy it. He would say he couldn't. When I would ask why he would say, That would be free advertisement. That thing still crosses my mind and I wonder where it ended up. We were allowed to choose one snack and one drink. I would pick chocolate milk and a Mrs Baird's French Pastry.
Freedom Pastry.
 I was always curious about the associated bar behind the store having vague knowledge that dad spent time in there. He would play it off in front of mom and act like he didn't know what I was talking about. I knew he would stop there and play pool on his way home from jobs in Fort Worth. He would tell other guys about it and when they would ask, Well, did you make any money? He would say, Why hell yes I made some money- who are you talking to? But, I did nearly have to fight my way out of there! Only after I became an adult and hung around some of our leading citizens did I find out what was going on back in those days. His thing was to go in there wearing his overalls after a job looking for all the world like he just fell off of a turnip truck. He would act interested in the table and force an invite to play. Then he would predictably lose a game or two, come close to winning a game, win one- barely until everybody was pumped and ready to relieve him of more money or get the money back they lost on side bets. Then he would turn those fools upside down and shake them until he took every nickel they had. When he said he nearly had to fight his way out of there he wasn't kidding- it is a wonder he didn't end up with a bullet in his brain. He would come home with his pockets stuffed full of money. He would smell like cheap cologne, adrenalized sweat, bourbon, beer, and tobacco and it was intoxicating to me.
  I knew a guy once from Decatur who got stabbed in the doorway to the beer store. His first initial was K. There was an altercation, the offender who was walking out punched the guy from Decatur 3 times softly in the belly. K shoved the dude down in a heap near the Fort Worth Star Telegram machine. K went in and bought his refreshments. On the way home he felt something cool and wet on his belly. Looking down he saw he was covered in blood. He had been stabbed 3 times with a small pocket knife.
 When I went the first time to the bar (I was probably about 16)  there it could have followed a script. Some rough guys asked me and P. if we wanted to play. I tried to play it off and say I wasn't that good. Strictly speaking that was true- in my circle I wasn't that great but I was good enough to not embarrass myself often around the guys I played pool with but the guys I hung around were studs at pool. It will just be for fun! one assured me. OK I said caving and I picked a cue. As you can guess nothing clicked until inevitably money started being put on the table but when it clicked I literally ran the table. I can still see the look in Ps eyes when he said, Man, are you trying to get us killed? and the white knuckles of the guy whose hands were wrapped around that cue like it was a club as he stood there absolutely seething with rage.

  Zac, my baby is sleeping soundly in my Army sleeping bag on the floor as I write this. In a few minutes I'll wake him so we can go spend the weekend in a cabin at Turner Falls. It was mostly second chances that have gotten me this far. I got second chances that lots of other guys did not and I try live as though I appreciate that fact.
 I'm not a perfect person. I still wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes but I thank God it has been a long time since I woke up on the wrong side of the driveway.
                                                                    The End

Monday's Missives

• The Cure- a musical taste literally from my childhood that I haven't outgrown. As a matter of fact the more time goes by- the more I love them.


• Joe Piscopo, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, The Cure and Iron Maiden. Five acts I've determined to see live before one of us dies.


• I think there's something wrong with me.


• The above pics are from a school auction selling off the dolls that the care of is supposed to make a child think twice before getting pregnant.


• Kind of creepy.


• It's 6:30 am- the baby is screaming and just knocked my delicious, cold Dr. Pepper over on to the carpet. And, "Good grief- what did he eat last night?" I said while changing his diaper this morning.


• He's the, Baby- I wish I had a do over.


• Recently had a graphic reminder: No Good Deed Will Go Unpunished.


• People


• Literally, do not know how some people can face themselves in the mirror in the morning.


• Sen. John Edwards for such a handsome devil has a thing for ugly women.


• Once a brother in law, father in law and myself helped a female family member move away from a very bad situation. One of the trucks we used was a flatbed which we stacked literally 12-14 feet high from the bed. The joke was of course it looked like The Beverly Hillbillies- The Wise County Edition. I brought out a rocking chair and was strapping it to the top of the whole mess when she saw me and begged us to not put it up there. We threatened to quit if she didn't let us put it up there for the ride to the new place.


• So mean.


• So funny.

Mondays Movie Missives

• Professor Hobby: Tell me, what is love?
• Secretary: Love is first widening my eyes a little bit and quickening my breathing a little and warming my skin and touching...
• Professor Hobby: ...and so on. Exactly so. Thank you, Sheila.
• A.I. a movie that created a lot of buzz and spawned a lot of ethical debate is now nearly ten years old. I know a lot of younger movie loving people who haven't seen it but, I remember it as one of those movies you simply could not escape hearing about- the debate about the ethics of human esqe robotics was as pervasive as was the question whether A.I. was the best or worst movie ever made. I remember Mark Davis talking about it for his entire show one day after seeing it and speaking of it often for days later.
• The Big Fish and American Beauty: excuse me if I say these are two movies you simply cannot begin to fully appreciate unless you are at least a late 30s to early 40s male.
• The English Patient: the best most misunderstood movie ever made.
• I don't think I breathed for the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan and still get misty when I see it- OK I admit it, I bawl like a baby.
• Still impressed with how good animated movies can be today while being smart enough for grown ups to enjoy and safe for little ones. I think Lion king started that concept off with traditional type animation and Toy Story with computer animation.
• How can Lonesome Dove be one of the best westerns ever made and all the others based on books by the author using same writers etc. be among the worst?
• Tombstone- the best western ever made.
• High Noon still blows me away every time I see it- you can almost feel the knots in Gary Coopers characters stomach as he goes out to face certain death but, he faces it.
• The Wild Bunch: the good guys don't always win, the bad guys aren't always all bad, hero's can die like dogs face down in a dirty street, when people die violently it's often with blood everywhere their guts hanging out begging for mercy not spinning around, saying,"They got me Johnny tell Mary Sue I love her..." and holy smokes it was made in 1969! John Wayne hated Sam Peckinpah for this film saying publicly it, "destroyed the myth of the Old West".
• A favorite John Wayne story: "The evening before a shoot he was trying to get some sleep in a Las Vegas hotel. The suite directly below his was that of Frank Sinatra (never a good friend of Wayne), who was having a party. The noise kept Wayne awake, and each time he made a complaining phone call it quieted temporarily but each time eventually grew louder. Wayne at last appeared at Sinatra's door and told Frank to stop the noise. A Sinatra bodyguard of Wayne's size approached saying, "Nobody talks to Mr. Sinatra that way." Wayne looked at the man, turned as though to leave, then backhanded the bodyguard, who fell to the floor, where Wayne knocked him out by crashing a chair on top of him. The party noise stopped."
• Lifeboat was made in 1944 and is the story of 9 people in same after their ship is sunk by a U boat. The Uboat was also sunk during the engagement and the captain of it is picked up by them. Two hours or whatever of people in a B/W movie in a small boat in an empty ocean and it's riveting. Tallulah Bankhead practically carried the movie.
• She was known for a feud with Bette Davis leading to this cute quote, "Don't think I don't know who's been spreading gossip about me . . . After all the nice things I've said about that hag [Bette Davis]. When I get hold of her, I'll tear out every hair of her mustache." Regarding sex,"I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw." About men and booze, "My father warned me about men and booze, but he never mentioned a word about women and cocaine". Education," I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education ." On any potential husband, "No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a legend. It would be even tougher to marry."
• She died in December 1968, her last words were ,"Codeine... Bourbon"
• Supposedly Red dawn is going to be remade with the flashpoint being Eastern Europe instead of the US. I hope that won't be like when Tom Skerritt disgraced er, I mean remade High Noon.
• Zombie movies: can't get enough of them, good or bad- for that matter, the worse they are the better I enjoy them.
• Any scary movie that effectively combines humor with fright factors is always way scarier than straight up slasher movies.
• If I had the means Casablanca would play in a loop on a monitor mounted on the wall like a picture frame in my house.
• I tend to like movies and call them favorites if at first I thought it would be a stinker but, turned out to be a good movie, I'm unsure if this is psychological.
• It doesn't bother me at all to go to a movie alone.
• My nephew auditioned for a Clint Eastwood movie.
• My dad was actually in a coffee commercial with a bunch of folks from my hometown of Decatur TX. I think the premise was they would do anything for a cup of that coffee and they were shown in the country making an epic walk toward town. There were giant planters, benches and some other props I don't recall left behind that were there for years on the square afterward. I think the brand was Kava or something like that.
• I have been on television news either 3 or 4 times.
• No, none involved high speed chases.
• Once for Boy Scouts, once at a job and a couple of other times I don't recall.
• My friends know I can predict with approximately 90% accuracy whether a movie will stink or not by the trailer and/or cover summary.
• It's like a superpower that I must use for good and not evil.

Vague Childhood Flashback

When I was a boy sideshows were becoming a thing of the past because of what might be termed an evolving collective conscientiousness. They were actually made illegal in some locales in spite of protests from the performers themselves who enjoyed the work, made a good living and in fact would simply have no where else to turn for employment- in any case, the public started deeming them distasteful in the 1970s and they rapidly began disappearing.

At our annual carnival called The Wise County Old Settlers Reunion in Decatur Texas the promoters had an exhibit promising some types of freaks in a tent. There were hand painted oddities of all types outside including a fat lady eating an enormous piece of cake, beside the painting was a chair with a sign saying,"Sorry Lucille is on her break". The girl watching the tent was unusually clean and pretty for the carnies-probably the promoters daughter? The exhibit would have had someone trusted regardless, as you payed cash to get in separate from the bracelet or tickets you bought for the rides.

When I went inside instead of two headed people and three breasted women there were some old photographs of medical oddities pinned to bulletin boards and pig and human fetus's in jars (called pickled punks in carnie slang) with signs beside them saying "Possible alien baby recovered near Roswell NM" or "Deformed baby born to drug addict". I must have said something to indicate my disappointment that caused the girl to look over her shoulder at me to see what I was doing so I decided to have some fun with the situation.

Every time I came to a new part of the lame exhibit I'd exclaim something in my best shocked and horrified voice like, "Oh my God!" or "That's horrible, I think I'm going to be sick!" and made gagging sounds, she would turn around looking so puzzled and in fact when I got around to a part where she couldn't see me and there was an old medical textbook picture of a hydro cephalic baby pinned on the wall I said, "That poor baby!" and started making sobbing noises.

She got up then and looking very nervous came back to where I was at. I just smiled at her and walked out the door.
I wonder if she ever thinks of that goofy kid from Decatur Texas?

Missives

What did he have to lose?

What did they?

• It's November 11 Veterans Day and my yard just got mowed. I don't know which is crazier thinking about my wartime service or mowing the yard in what is for all intents- winter.



• Once when I was a kid in the Texas National Guard in Decatur Texas there was a Veterans Day celebration and I was the Soldier, a classmate was the Marine, a friend was the Airman and a co-worker was the Sailor for the start of the parade, music, political bluster etc.



• God, I was 17 when I enlisted- what a kid.


• Lord, I was 40 when I finally fought in a war- what an old man.



• Someone called earlier who I didn't know even knew I had served and wished me well for Veterans Day- nice. Man, that was real nice actually.



• I went because it was my time to go and my country needed me- does anyone think like that anymore?



• I've heard people say,"I'm not going to get myself killed for..." If you wouldn't die for your country, what are you living for ? Really, WHAT WOULD YOU GET KILLED FOR? In the end, it's the man to your left and right anyway and if a person can pass up the opportunity to understand that, I pity you.



• Wonder what the 300,000 plus American men who died in WWII had to live for?



• Warfighting is one of the few timeless things in our history that there is no way to get a grasp on without having been.



• I've seen men vomit from fear before going on a mission to a bad area but, they went and I know who they are and honor them nearly every day in various ways and thoughts. I'm thankful that there are men in this world who know a little of what I'm made of and probably have the same warm thoughts about me from time to time.



• There are people alive in this world because of my service who would have died and I'm proud of that.



• There are people over there whose lives were made better by some personal efforts of myself and others and that will always warm my heart.



• There are also things I think I will take to the grave with me and I doubt that feeling will change.



• You wouldn't understand if I tried.