I haven't written, let alone posted anything in a long while. I've written a couple of babbling idiocies, but nothing I'd be willing to share publicly. Not much of anything cohesive since December 30th, when my mom passed. She's screaming at me now, I know it, telling me to get off my ass and compose. She knew the therapeutic value of writing, though she apparently didn't do much of it herself. It could be that that's what drove her over the edge; an inability to excise her demons on paper. Perhaps she is warning me of the off-ramp to insanity that looms when one has no way to talk about stuff.
As much as I hate to say, I allowed my mother to stay isolated. For a long time, I would ask her about church, or going to the senior center, or just some way of getting out, every time I picked her up. After a couple of years, I'd only ask once a week; by the end it was rarely. I don't know what I could have done; she didn't want to do anything but exercise class, commissary, hair appointment. Tuesday, Wednsday, Thursday, the routine never varried, until I got the Wednsday's off when she quit going to exercise class. After that it was commissary every other Tuesday, and hair on Thursday, plus any of a hundred different appointments I'd find out about when I didn't show up to take her to an appointment she'd never told me about. OK, I'm rambling already, admittedly there are a few left-over guilt issues, but it was totally her choice.
You know there's trouble when Jackie wasn't talking. Dad used to say, "She could talk the paint off a fire plug if it would stay still long enough." Mom was a talker. That was her release. One never had a "short" phone call from her, nor can many recall a time when she wasn't yapping about something or another. I'm not "disrespecting" her, she was a talker. If you didn't know that, you never spent five minutes next to her in any number of lines, gatherings, etc. The woman talked. Until 2009, anyway. After Dad died, she chose to give into depression, and really lost her desire to live. It just took three years nine months for the darkness to swallow her.
See, that's grim. It's stuff they used to use on "Twilight Zone," or something. A tale that ends in a lonely death, made possible by the main character's choices, and we never see it coming. Never.
I've had a recent brush with "the dark side," a misunderstanding turned ugly, and I yearned for an easy way out. Fortunately, I am married to the most wonderful woman, who prayed for me, and listened when I said things that cut her deeply, but who stood by me, and helped get us together to fix a minor problem. I know when that dark-half is wrestling for control; I just have to find a thought, or a memory to grab onto, and pull myself out of the slime of self-pity. Some times it takes a while to find something, because I'm an idiot, because it always turns out to be one thing, one person. Some would like it if I said it was Jesus; others would prefer me to say Mary, but I'm here to tell you that one is the same as the other, because they both lead me to the same place.
No conversation about deity can happen with out me thinking of Mary, and vice versa. It's usually Mary that I grab onto. She's weathered enough of these storms to be a pro.
I have to write, or face losing my, oops, dang, *sound of marbles rolling off*, ummm, I'll have to, ummm, get back to you, OK?
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
A Cable Fan
I just had a weird thought, in a rambling kind of way. I was thinking about how one goes about telling a sattelite/cable provider of the death of a subscriber. For any Comcast subscriber, you know there's a phone tree, but I don't think it has a "To report the death of a subscriber" button, so you have to actually talk to an operator who can't pronounce "Vacaville," and doesn't realize it's a small city. You get "Vay-ka-vile" a lot, and it stops being amusing after the fourth time you've called with a problem or question.
"So who do we send the final billing, Mr. Martin?"
"Umm, I don't know... Can you be billed in the hereafter, or can you continue service. Come to think of it, I don't know if I'd want to be in Heaven if it didn't have cable...
OK, maybe it was funnier in my head.
"So who do we send the final billing, Mr. Martin?"
"Umm, I don't know... Can you be billed in the hereafter, or can you continue service. Come to think of it, I don't know if I'd want to be in Heaven if it didn't have cable...
OK, maybe it was funnier in my head.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Urinal Etiquette
A friend of mine was talking about a violation of "urinal etiquette," wherein a guy pulled up close when there was room for a space between the two. It reminded me of a great story about such a violation of etiquette when I was in high school, probably my senior year:
I have always been comfortable with people who enjoy putting on plays; probably because I was dressed up, and dragged to the Vallejo Symphony, and the Mira Guild Players. By dressed up, I mean a kid's suit (I was like seven when this started), white shirt, tie, and dress shoes and socks, the very image of an audience member in the late 1950's, just in miniature. As much as I tried to hate getting "dolled-up" and spending an evening of cultural enrichment, I couldn't. The music, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and so many other masterpieces captured my imagination, and took me to places I'd never been. The stage enthralled me. The actors who could portray their characters so believably, the stage hands who could change the backgrounds so quickly, the lighting folks... all of it was fascinating for me.
When I got to Vacaville, I had a chance to make new friends, and I tried to include some people who I admired for their courage to go out on a stage and entertain people. I used to be able to get up and sing for people, but I usually had a guitar between me and the audience. Something I could hang onto, and partially hide behind. My friends, though, Hazel, George, Kenny, and others, could actually go out in front of people and act. They could actually memorize a ton of lines, and go up in front of people and recite them. Not me. No way. Uh-uh. Nyet. I could see myself doing all that work, learning lines and blocking, only to go brain dead when the curtain opened. You have no idea of how much I admired them, and wished I could be them.
The Vaca High combined Music and Drama departments were presenting The Music Man. George Lehman, a friend and son of the Chief of Police got the role of Professor Harold Hill, and had to learn a whole lot of lines, as well as dance steps, songs, and rapid fire monologues like "Pool". For weeks, we ran lines with him, and listened to "We got trouble my friends/Right here in River City..." until we could damn-near do it ourselves. George became Harold Hill, and gave a great performance (for a Podunk high school presentation, anyway). He was so worried about blowing the "Pool" monologue, I told him I'd buy him a hot fudge sundae at the Coffee Tree if he got it right on opening night.
We went straight from the final curtain call to the Coffee Tree, all of the actors still in make-up, stage tricks to make them look older mostly, and in costume. It was a Friday evening, so the restaurant was pretty full, and we had to wait for a table. George looked around, hitched his pants and said, "I'm gonna take a leak."
Which I thought was a great idea.
We go into the restroom, there are four urinals, and a guy using the middle-right urinal. I go to the one at the far left, fully observing urinal etiquette, George (in greasepaint) pulls up on the guy's right. The guy looks at George, who bounces his eyebrows up-and-down a few times, and smiles. If the poor guy would have zipped up any quicker, he'd have emasculated himself, and BOOM, out the door he goes, leaving three high school boys laughing hysterically in the Men's room.
I have always been comfortable with people who enjoy putting on plays; probably because I was dressed up, and dragged to the Vallejo Symphony, and the Mira Guild Players. By dressed up, I mean a kid's suit (I was like seven when this started), white shirt, tie, and dress shoes and socks, the very image of an audience member in the late 1950's, just in miniature. As much as I tried to hate getting "dolled-up" and spending an evening of cultural enrichment, I couldn't. The music, Mozart, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, and so many other masterpieces captured my imagination, and took me to places I'd never been. The stage enthralled me. The actors who could portray their characters so believably, the stage hands who could change the backgrounds so quickly, the lighting folks... all of it was fascinating for me.
When I got to Vacaville, I had a chance to make new friends, and I tried to include some people who I admired for their courage to go out on a stage and entertain people. I used to be able to get up and sing for people, but I usually had a guitar between me and the audience. Something I could hang onto, and partially hide behind. My friends, though, Hazel, George, Kenny, and others, could actually go out in front of people and act. They could actually memorize a ton of lines, and go up in front of people and recite them. Not me. No way. Uh-uh. Nyet. I could see myself doing all that work, learning lines and blocking, only to go brain dead when the curtain opened. You have no idea of how much I admired them, and wished I could be them.
The Vaca High combined Music and Drama departments were presenting The Music Man. George Lehman, a friend and son of the Chief of Police got the role of Professor Harold Hill, and had to learn a whole lot of lines, as well as dance steps, songs, and rapid fire monologues like "Pool". For weeks, we ran lines with him, and listened to "We got trouble my friends/Right here in River City..." until we could damn-near do it ourselves. George became Harold Hill, and gave a great performance (for a Podunk high school presentation, anyway). He was so worried about blowing the "Pool" monologue, I told him I'd buy him a hot fudge sundae at the Coffee Tree if he got it right on opening night.
We went straight from the final curtain call to the Coffee Tree, all of the actors still in make-up, stage tricks to make them look older mostly, and in costume. It was a Friday evening, so the restaurant was pretty full, and we had to wait for a table. George looked around, hitched his pants and said, "I'm gonna take a leak."
Which I thought was a great idea.
We go into the restroom, there are four urinals, and a guy using the middle-right urinal. I go to the one at the far left, fully observing urinal etiquette, George (in greasepaint) pulls up on the guy's right. The guy looks at George, who bounces his eyebrows up-and-down a few times, and smiles. If the poor guy would have zipped up any quicker, he'd have emasculated himself, and BOOM, out the door he goes, leaving three high school boys laughing hysterically in the Men's room.
Monday, December 10, 2012
My Toughest Winter (So Far)
If I had to choose which of my 62 Winters were the toughest, I pick 2003/'04, and not have to give it much thought. It was my first (and only) winter in Spokane, WA, and I was one year past a stroke, still finding out about lingering after-effects of the stroke, and got rudely introduced to the one I hate the most... I can no longer tolerate real cold conditions. Not that Eastern Washington was all that cold, but it was for this California-raised boy.
My physical reaction to cold is difficult to explain, because "normal" people don't go through this. It's like muscle contractions that go through my entire right side, and then don't go away. I begin to walk funny; I could do a decent "Chester" (from "Gunsmoke," a Dennis Weaver character who had a limp. OK, it's dated, but valid.) impression. OK, in today's terms... Captain Barbosa on a peg leg? Someone with palsey? I run like Charles Barkley hits golf balls.
There, I've finally said it. I think everyone who knows the name "Charles Barkley" know that he is a terrible golfer with a herkey-jerkey golf swing. That's the way I run. It bothers me, because when I have to hurry in the cold, people start looking at me like I'm an escapee from a day program, any time it gets below freezing. I gimp-up a little at 40-degrees, but at freezing or below, I am quite a sight. That Winter, it never got above 35-degrees, was frequently in the "minus-" category, and on one memorable January morning in 2004, I left for work in 24-below.
That wasn't the only problem... I suffer from a Seasonally Affective Disorder; I get a little wierd from a lack of sunlight. For nine months of the year, Spokane was a great place; for three months it was pretty horrid. Add to the crippling nature of the cold, the fact that it was dark when I left at 5:30 in the morning, and dark when I left for home at 3:30 in the afternoon. From mid-November until April what little sunlight we got was filtered through a depressing gray overcast. We left on Winter's Day 2004, it had been cloudy for almost two months, and my solar batteries were pretty low. We came down to the Colombia River, heading into Oregon on our way back to Vacaville, and the clouds stopped at the river. On the Oregon side there was bright sunlight and scattered clouds; on the Washington side, gray, grayer, and more grayer. Perhaps an omen?
My physical reaction to cold is difficult to explain, because "normal" people don't go through this. It's like muscle contractions that go through my entire right side, and then don't go away. I begin to walk funny; I could do a decent "Chester" (from "Gunsmoke," a Dennis Weaver character who had a limp. OK, it's dated, but valid.) impression. OK, in today's terms... Captain Barbosa on a peg leg? Someone with palsey? I run like Charles Barkley hits golf balls.
There, I've finally said it. I think everyone who knows the name "Charles Barkley" know that he is a terrible golfer with a herkey-jerkey golf swing. That's the way I run. It bothers me, because when I have to hurry in the cold, people start looking at me like I'm an escapee from a day program, any time it gets below freezing. I gimp-up a little at 40-degrees, but at freezing or below, I am quite a sight. That Winter, it never got above 35-degrees, was frequently in the "minus-" category, and on one memorable January morning in 2004, I left for work in 24-below.
That wasn't the only problem... I suffer from a Seasonally Affective Disorder; I get a little wierd from a lack of sunlight. For nine months of the year, Spokane was a great place; for three months it was pretty horrid. Add to the crippling nature of the cold, the fact that it was dark when I left at 5:30 in the morning, and dark when I left for home at 3:30 in the afternoon. From mid-November until April what little sunlight we got was filtered through a depressing gray overcast. We left on Winter's Day 2004, it had been cloudy for almost two months, and my solar batteries were pretty low. We came down to the Colombia River, heading into Oregon on our way back to Vacaville, and the clouds stopped at the river. On the Oregon side there was bright sunlight and scattered clouds; on the Washington side, gray, grayer, and more grayer. Perhaps an omen?
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
An Odd Recollection
It was just one of those passing thoughts. A memory from the 1950's, when we were returing from Hawaii. We spent some time with my grandmother, my great-aunt Georgia, and my great-uncle Henry in Long Beach, CA, and we were on our way to San Diego, for my dad's new assignment. I can remember the "highway" that ran through Camp Pendleton from Capistrano to Oceanside. It wasn't the multi-lane freeway back then, parts of the old highway are used as frontage roads, so you can still see them. When we were on the road, it was two lane blacktop with very few places allowing passing, but the young Marines, emboldened by alcohol, would always take foolish risks.
I was in the "way back," the cargo area of a 1956 Ford station wagon. It was '56, or '57. so I was five or six, and my older sisters were in the back seat. Cars didn't have seat belts back then, so we were all "loose" inside the car. I was looking forward, and only just caught the headlamp of another car bouncing off the rear quarter panel of the wagon. Suddenly, the car tilted to the right, my dad was steering the car on the right two wheels, and he yelled, "Everyone lean left!"
I clamored ove some luggage, trying to wedge myself between the bags and the left rear wheel well. My sisters screamed, but tried to get as far over as they could, and just as suddenly, we were back on four wheels, my dad braking for the accident that had occurred a few cars in front of us. The car full of young Marines had hit a number of vehicles as it careened down the highway, cars traveling in both directions, mostly fender dings, but a couple of harder impacts until it launched over the trunk of a stopped vehicle, and came down on its top some 100 feet further down the beach. We were briefly detained as witnesses, and duly gave our statements to a CHP officer. The only damage to the station wagon was a paint smudge and a chip, so we were on our way pretty quickly.
I don't know why that came back, but it woke me up a couple of days ago.
I was in the "way back," the cargo area of a 1956 Ford station wagon. It was '56, or '57. so I was five or six, and my older sisters were in the back seat. Cars didn't have seat belts back then, so we were all "loose" inside the car. I was looking forward, and only just caught the headlamp of another car bouncing off the rear quarter panel of the wagon. Suddenly, the car tilted to the right, my dad was steering the car on the right two wheels, and he yelled, "Everyone lean left!"
I clamored ove some luggage, trying to wedge myself between the bags and the left rear wheel well. My sisters screamed, but tried to get as far over as they could, and just as suddenly, we were back on four wheels, my dad braking for the accident that had occurred a few cars in front of us. The car full of young Marines had hit a number of vehicles as it careened down the highway, cars traveling in both directions, mostly fender dings, but a couple of harder impacts until it launched over the trunk of a stopped vehicle, and came down on its top some 100 feet further down the beach. We were briefly detained as witnesses, and duly gave our statements to a CHP officer. The only damage to the station wagon was a paint smudge and a chip, so we were on our way pretty quickly.
I don't know why that came back, but it woke me up a couple of days ago.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Some Random Thoughts
A old friend recently asked me to "spill my guts," and offer up something that people don't really know about me. I admitted to being a classical music affectionado, although everyone who knows me thinks I am a classic rock-guy. I also admitted to attending a dozen (at least) symphony concerts before ever going to a rock show, and that is true.
My parents bought their first house in 1957 for something like $8,500. It was a "3BR/2BA, Ranch," located at the top of a small hill, on a circle in Vallejo. At the time, Vallejo had a fair symphony orchestra, and they would have a "concert season," during which they would perform at the Hogan Junior High Theater, every other week, doing Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and my favorite, Motzart. My parents bought season tickets for both the symphony seasons and the play season put on by the local players. I was too young to be left in the care of my 14 and 10 year old sisters, so I had to get dressed up; sports coat, slacks, white shirt and tie, to go with my folks to the symphony and the theater. Six years old.
That's how people appeared in public back then. Look at some of the old live-audience shows back in the late '50's and early '60's, all the men have ties, all the women have their hair done, and are wearing nice dresses. One simply did not appear in public unless properly attired. I blame my generation for the changes that followed.
Yeah, the graduates of the late 1960's and early 1970's. We are the ones who fought all the battles, and never got credit for making a change. Worse yet, by the time the changes got enacted, we were all 21, so it didn't matter to us. We fought the fights; we did the civil disobedience thing and got arrested; we took the backlash of a society that feared change worse than anything, and we got nothing. Yes, we got the voting age lowered, we got out of a war we never belonged in, we got society to go beyond conformity and the associated "-isms" that accompany that line of thinking, and to start looking at the value of "different," rather than to what harm it could bring. So what came next, logically, was all our fault.
It seemed to center around "different," and the argument that different wasn't a moral judgement... it was just... different. Pretty soon, we have casinos in California, and cities that can no longer protect the lives of its citizens. OK, neither has anything do do with each other, but that's the situation out here in the West. Just over in Dodge City... oops, I mean Stockton... there was a double homicide on Sunday, bringing the number of murders in the city to 53, 55 if the ones in critical condition fail to improve. People are not even safe in their own homes in Stockton. It's a war, and the "good guys" are losing. Losing badly.
I hope people are watching Stockton. The city's decent into Hell is a forecast of the future in California. Our governor want us to raise our own taxes. He's so convinced that we'll do it, he's put it to a vote. Spending in the Golden State is out of control. The Governor and Legislature keep writing checks for money we don't have. What happens when the one-time "fourth largest economy" goes bankrupt? The international effects will be devastating, and it will cripple any economic recovery in the US. Proposition 30, the "I want to raise my own taxes so the government can say they didn't do it" Act. I already pay the highest over-all taxes in the Nation, I don't think I'll choose to raise taxes with my vote. Of course, this is California: Land of Fruits and Nuts... I can only pray that there are enough people who tell the State "NO!"
My parents bought their first house in 1957 for something like $8,500. It was a "3BR/2BA, Ranch," located at the top of a small hill, on a circle in Vallejo. At the time, Vallejo had a fair symphony orchestra, and they would have a "concert season," during which they would perform at the Hogan Junior High Theater, every other week, doing Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and my favorite, Motzart. My parents bought season tickets for both the symphony seasons and the play season put on by the local players. I was too young to be left in the care of my 14 and 10 year old sisters, so I had to get dressed up; sports coat, slacks, white shirt and tie, to go with my folks to the symphony and the theater. Six years old.
That's how people appeared in public back then. Look at some of the old live-audience shows back in the late '50's and early '60's, all the men have ties, all the women have their hair done, and are wearing nice dresses. One simply did not appear in public unless properly attired. I blame my generation for the changes that followed.
Yeah, the graduates of the late 1960's and early 1970's. We are the ones who fought all the battles, and never got credit for making a change. Worse yet, by the time the changes got enacted, we were all 21, so it didn't matter to us. We fought the fights; we did the civil disobedience thing and got arrested; we took the backlash of a society that feared change worse than anything, and we got nothing. Yes, we got the voting age lowered, we got out of a war we never belonged in, we got society to go beyond conformity and the associated "-isms" that accompany that line of thinking, and to start looking at the value of "different," rather than to what harm it could bring. So what came next, logically, was all our fault.
It seemed to center around "different," and the argument that different wasn't a moral judgement... it was just... different. Pretty soon, we have casinos in California, and cities that can no longer protect the lives of its citizens. OK, neither has anything do do with each other, but that's the situation out here in the West. Just over in Dodge City... oops, I mean Stockton... there was a double homicide on Sunday, bringing the number of murders in the city to 53, 55 if the ones in critical condition fail to improve. People are not even safe in their own homes in Stockton. It's a war, and the "good guys" are losing. Losing badly.
I hope people are watching Stockton. The city's decent into Hell is a forecast of the future in California. Our governor want us to raise our own taxes. He's so convinced that we'll do it, he's put it to a vote. Spending in the Golden State is out of control. The Governor and Legislature keep writing checks for money we don't have. What happens when the one-time "fourth largest economy" goes bankrupt? The international effects will be devastating, and it will cripple any economic recovery in the US. Proposition 30, the "I want to raise my own taxes so the government can say they didn't do it" Act. I already pay the highest over-all taxes in the Nation, I don't think I'll choose to raise taxes with my vote. Of course, this is California: Land of Fruits and Nuts... I can only pray that there are enough people who tell the State "NO!"
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Perfection
During the TBS broadcast of the Reds vs. Giants, Game 5, or perhaps in the wrap-up show after the game, someone made this comment:
"You only have to bat 1.000 in two things; flying and brain surgery. In everything else, you can go four for five."
I liked it the moment I heard it, and asked Mary if she had heard the comment. I like it so much, I intend to steal it, like a good public school teacher, and make it my own.
"You only have to bat 1.000 in two things; flying and brain surgery. In everything else, you can go four for five."
I liked it the moment I heard it, and asked Mary if she had heard the comment. I like it so much, I intend to steal it, like a good public school teacher, and make it my own.
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