(Blog number thirteen) THE WHYS AND WAYS OF AMOEBAS

MY GIVE AND TAKE WITH THE WORLD OF CAPITALISM AND BUREAUCRACY

My son bought a tape recorder at Sears when he was about 14 and it didn't work right.  It would record, but it ran slower than the standard for tape recorders.  If you recorded on it, then it would play it back at the slow rate that it recorded at, and it would sound fine.  The only way you could tell it was bad was to play a prerecorded cassette tape.  It, being recorded at the correct speed, would sound way too slow when played on this player.  He usually recorded and played his own tapes, so he didn't notice the aberration and missed the warranty period.  My son went back to the store, told them the story and asked for a replacement but they wanted nothing to do with it so we took them to small claims court. 

The lawyer Sears sent against us lied and said that they had tried to contact my son and he wouldn't talk to them and that they spoke to his brother.  When the judge asked for the name of the brother, I forget the name he said, but it was something like, "Bob."  We never had a "Bob."  The judge asked my son something that I can no longer remember. The judge used words that my son did not understand, so my son said, "No."

Only after we left the court did my son ask me what the judge had meant and I explained that he was asking if you would be willing to bring the recorder in and let him hear it play slow.  We lost the case. 

 The guy who had lied rode down with us and another guy in the elevator and I told the guy that God heard him when he lied.  I meant that God could hear him when he lied. But I was nervous confronting people in those days.

The guy said, "Are you calling me a liar?"  I replied, "You know you lied and I know you lied and you know that I know you lied."  The guy didn't respond to that.  Later, after the other guy got off the elevator, the guy said to me, "You want to talk about this?"  I answered, "Why should I talk to a liar?"

Professional liars -- funny people.  I have noticed that a great many people are not bothered if you know they steal or lie, but they get upset when you say they steal or lie.  What's up wit dat?

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Sacramento has a lot of Dutch elm trees, and back when this story takes place, a lot of Dutch elm disease.  Every year, about July, the leaves turned brown and sticky smelly stuff dripped, dripped, off those trees, all day and all night.  The sticky leaves fell to the ground and if the leaves got wet, that smelly sticky stuff turned into slippery, snot-on-a-doorknob slick.  Walking, the leaves would stick to your feet like dragging toilet paper out of a bathroom on the bottom of your shoe. The stench was not pleasant at all.  If the leaves were not wet, there was a slight powdery smell in the air -- like fine dust, only not smelling that good.  Not good for asthmatics.  You know what that dust was?  Dutch elm disease is caused by a wee little beetle.  Like all living creatures, the beetle shits.  That dust was dried beetle shit.  Everyone in Sacramento breathed that same dried beetle shit with every breath they took..

I hated those elms.

The Parks and recreation department would occasionally cut one down of the worst infected.  To my eyes, they were all infected equally, but then I''m not an expert like some people are.

There were two huge elm trees on one side of our house, between the curb and the sidewalk.  My walks and my lawn were covered with those smelly, stinky leaves, Finally one day they were finally going to cut them down, The two trees had blue paint sprayed on them as a mark for the cutters.  They cut one down, not the other.  I called up, asked why.  Didn't get a good answer.  Asked to speak to the guy that decides which trees get cut, which don't.  He lives out of town, up north somewhere.  "'sides, we don't cut them down, company from up north (popular place) cuts themdown."  Could I have their phone number?  "Don't know it."

After many weeks of this kind of a run-around, I'm talking to the same guy.  After a few minutes of the same old run-around, I asked, "Well who is it that can make the decision?" he said, "I'm the guy."  Whyin hell didn't he tell me that the first time I asked?  So I said, "Is that tree going to be cut down?"  He says, "No."  I says, "Thank you."  Yeah - thanks for many weeks of a pointless run-around.  You dork.

About a year later, Viola! They cut the tree down.

They wanted to plant another tree where they cut down the one, promised that I would get to pick the tree, within reason.  Fine, I say.  Then one day they came and planted a self-pruning London Plane tree -- one of the ugliest trees in God's existence.  Sacramento also had a lot of these -- even more than they had elms. These trees had the horrible propensity of dropping heavy branches with absolutely no warning.  No creaking, no breaking of the limb, just, bam!  Down she comes. 

I tried to carve a stick from one of these trees once and every few inches, the stick would break straight across.  You could see good wood for a few inches, then a discolored line running right straight across the wood. This is where the limb would break.  It would just separate.  Besides that, in the fall, when the leaves turned, they would look dirty.  So in late summer, Sacramento, which is famous for its trees, would be inundated with the most disgusting garden of trees one could ever hope to encounter.  In the spring, beautiful.  Summer, fall, winter, Blah!

Every other day or so they would send a big water truck to water my new tree.  I fertilized it with a huge dose of nitrogen -- killed it of course.  I figured they really couldn't do anything to me since I could just say that I was trying to help -- just fertilizing it. Isn't fertilizer good for plants?
 
So the tree died and they planted another one.  I "fertilized" that one too, and before it died, the guy was out watering it and I was sitting on the back porch watching him and he was like, "Doodily do..dum de dum dum.."  kinda lookin' around, holding the hose in one hand, just chillin' and he happened to glance up at me, we held eyes for awhile, I could see thoughts forming in his head, he wrapped up the hose, got in his truck, drove off and never came back.  Hah!  Bastards! 

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Circuit City had a big ad in the Sacramento Bee Sunday paper for computers.  We were looking for our first one.  We went.  We waited for the store to open, went in, told the salesman we were wanting to buy the advertised computer. He said they were all out.  First time advertised, we were the first ones in there, they had sold them all.  I feel so stupid now for believing that.

We were bait and switched to another computer -- cost a little more of course.  Took it home, wouldn't work.  Took it back, got another one.  Coupla years later, needed a new hard drive.  Lo and behold, one screw missing and wrong screw installed INSIDE the computer.  We were sold a reworked computer disguised as new.  Let it be said that never again have I ever stepped foot in a Circuit City store.  It amazes me that a company -- any company that relies on customers for its continued economic health would treat customers like that.  I guess their only salvation lies in an increasing birth rate, bringing into the fold new naive customers.

I once worked in a grocery store that was part of a shopping center.  One night around Christmas time, it burned down.  The entire shopping center burned down. 

I was standing next to the owner when he was complaining to the meat cutter that the fire Marshall had told him the fire started on the wooden stairs leading down to the basement, He angrily declared, "How in hell could it have started there?"  He didn't believe the fire Marshall.

A few years after this -- could have been five or so years, I happened to be thinking of this incident and a light lit over my head.  I was the produce man and I had twenty or so four to six feet tall Christmas trees stacked right on that wooden stairway and I clearly remembered laying a lit cigarette on one of the steps.  I burned down a shopping center!

(Blog number twelve) GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

DUM DE DUM DUM

I went looking for an entry to "fix" and I couldn't find it.  Finally I poked "Archives" and it was in there.  This was the very first entry, so I guess what happens is that when the words get at a certain point, the entry is moved into the archives.

I noticed that there is a calendar in there and the dates I made an entry are colored.  Also, the month of the entries is colored.  Pretty neat, I think.

Just thought I'd let you know.  you don't owe me anything for that info.  It's part of my job. It's what they pay me for.  Glad to do it.

(Blog number eleven) PICKING UP CHICKS IS NOT FOR EVERYONE

SO WHAT IF I BURNED DOWN A SHOPPING CENTER.  IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

While working as a busboy at Manning's in LA, waiting to take my tests for the LA police academy, I met a guy who worked at the BOP (Buick Oldsmobile Pontiac) plant.  He told me how much a guy could make there -- twice as much as I was making now, plus overtime.  So I applied and was accepted.  A mistake.  I learned that being happy in a job was more important than money.  I was making more, but I hated it.  They gave you a whole half hour to walk upstairs to the cafeteria, go through the line, sit down at a table, eat, and get back to the line before it started up, because that line waited for no man!  It would start up on the dot -- even if no one was there.

The foreman took a liking to me and made me a handyman which meant I would fill in for guys that were taking breaks, etc., that meant I didn't stay on any one job very long, so it wasn't as boring.  I liked that job pretty much and I learned something that came in handy years later.  You see, one of my jobs was brazing under the chassis. 

I had never braze welded before, so I would stick the brass rod along the hole I was trying to fill, hit it with the torch, the bronze would melt and fall on the floor and the line would move on to the next chassis.  I must have let twenty chassis leave my station with no weld there before I finally learned how to do it.  Now what I learned that came in handy in later years was that anything manufactured in a factory had the very good chance of being put together by someone that had never done it before.  So one day when I had a dead battery in my car and I replaced it with a new one and that one didn't work either, instead of trusting that the new battery had to be good, since it was new, buying another one right away saved me trying a new generator and further troubleshooting the charging system.  Just because it's new doesn't guarantee that it will work.

I got notified to spend a day testing for the academy.  First test was a written test.  Next test, physical test.  I got the results back and passed both tests. 

Next test was an oral interview.  Three plainclothes officers sat at a table with me at police headquarters.  Others were being interviewed at other tables.  The only thing Ican remember is being asked why I wanted to be a policeman. I said I didn't know -- and I really didn't.  Wanting to be a policeman seemed to come to me from outer space.  I really had no idea.  They asked me was it the uniform?  No.  Wanting to serve the public?  No. Wanting to fight crime?  No.  I knew I was blowing it so when they asked me if I had anything I wanted to say, I did something that was very unusual for me.  I opened up.  I told them that I really didn't know why I wanted to be a cop, but I knew that I wanted to be one very badly.  I passed.

I was home free.  I was almost a cop.  I only had one more test to pass and this one I had no worries about passing.  The psychological test.  I was sane, ipso facto, I would pass.  I was late taking this test.  I don't remember why.  I think I had gotten notified that I had passed all the other tests when I took this one.  I know I couldn't take the test when I was supposed to. I had to take it a week or so later.  Besides the written psychological test, which included Rorschach ink blots, I was interviewed by a psychologist. 

I was notified that I was to attend the academy at their training facilities in Estes Park.  That first day we got our ID cards, which was a beautiful work of art.  I remember red in it, but nothing else.  I wondered if I could ride buses free.  They told us that we were now policemen, but that didn't mean we were to try to chase down speeders, like I guess some people had done in the past.  They also showed us a mockup of a convenience store -- that's where most robberies occurred. They used it to teach how to gather evidence, look for clues, etc.  Man, was this going to be fun!

Third day.  We were to go pick out our pistols that afternoon.  Sitting in class, I get tapped on the shoulder and told to follow the tapper outside the classroom.  Outside, he tells me I failed the psych test.  I was dumbfounded.  The only test I never worried about passing was the one I failed!  Kinda shook my world, let me tell you.  I asked the guy what was wrong and he said it wasn't his department.  Thanks a lot, buddy.

I did get a check for those three days.  Wish I had saved it to frame.  Funny thing was, it never occurred to me to try some other city's police academy.

This event caused me to enroll in Compton Junior College in a Psychology class.  I really wanted to find out what was wrong with me.  It was in ths psychology class that I learned anything about Sigmund Freud.  I probably had heard the name somewhere before, but honestly, I really might not have.  This was to be the second ripple from the stone of my desire that I threw into the pond of fate.  (Yeah, I know - pretty corny.  I couldn't help it.)  The first ripple was being pulled out of class for failing a psych test.

(Blog number ten) LINCOLN WAS A TALL MAN, YOU BETCHA

NONE OF IT WAS MY FAULT  well, some of it maybe

My first wife and I fought a lot -- separated a lot, had sex practically never.  We fought while dating.  A lot.  She told me after we were married that she started the fights because she liked making up.  But the fights after we married?  Most of that was my fault. 

In 1955, shortly before Christmas, she told me that her parents were coming over for supper that night to discuss our tempestuous marriage.  Being somewhat of a passive-aggressive type, I decided to hitchhike to LA instead, sans letting anyone know I was doing so.  Hah!  That'll show her.  She'll be sorry.

I once got angry with my mother when I was in first grade and I told my mother that I had torn up the May basket that I had just made in school and of which I was very proud.  She said, "I don't care."

My younger brother lived in LA - in Inglewood, actually.  I didn't know his address so I stayed at the YMCA.  I think it cost me $7.00 a week and I put it on the tab.  I had a bed in an open dorm-like room with about twenty other people.  There were a lot of Blacks that spoke Spanish in there, which really surprised and fascinated me.  They were Cubans.

One morning I had twenty-five cents left to my name so I had to decide whether to buy a pack of cigarettes or breakfast.  I chose the cigs.

There was a kind of donut shop in downtown LA where you could get a cup of coffee and a donut for a dime.  That was the only thing they served -- coffee and donuts.  It was a large place -- a counter that ran in a "U" shape.  Since it was a large building and was located in downtown LA, you would think that the rent for that place must have been pretty high,   How could they stay in business?    Down the street a block away was a park famous for speakers on soapboxes.  Human speakers -- not Hi-fi's.  If I ever remember the name of that park, I'll interrupt whatever I am saying at the time and tell you what it is. "Something" Park.  I went there to listen to them once in awhile.  They always got heckled. Fascinating for a young Iowan hick.

Somewhere between leaving Estherville Iowa and landing in LA, I formed this intense desire to be a cop.  I had never before ever, ever thought of being a policeman -- even as a child. I wanted to be Tarzan.  This desire was to have far reaching consequences in my life.  Actually changed my life. 

Strange thing happened. 

When I was a senior in High School in Emmetsburg, Iowa, I got into a fight with a boy from Mallard, Iowa.  With my foe was this other boy -- his friend.  I knocked the guy down with one punch, the cops came and we all ran.  Big crowd! 

That last part, about me winning the fight with one punch is neither here nor there, but I have so few things in my life to brag about that I'm sure you will forgive me.

So here I am, walking the street in downtown LA and who should come right up to me and say, "Hi, Reynolds!  What you doing here?" it was the guy I hit's friend.  Big city, I run into a guy I only saw once from a tiny town in Iowa.  What are the odds?

A couple of years later I am in Mallard visiting my folks and the same guy comes up like we are old friends.  I never knew what he looked like - I never recognized him.  Remember, in those days I couldn't look at anybody.  I still do not know what he looks like.  The night of that fight is the only connection I had with that guy.  That's weird to me.  Maybe not to you, but it is to me.

I got hungry in LA - Hey!  Good title for a song, "Hungry in LA" -- and I didn't have any money and I never thought to beg on the streets.  I went into a Manning's cafeteria downtown and asked the manager if there was any work I could do in exchange for a bowl of soup or something.  He said the union wouldn't allow that, but he would give me something to eat.  He said his mother had some pull with a company -- something to do with lumber.  I got the idea it was more of the order of lumbering that lumber-yarding.  He said he would ask his mother if some work was available there and if I came back the next day, he would tell me if his mother could lead me to a job.  I said, OK.

I went back the next day and the manager said that a busboy had just quit working at Manning's, so if I wanted the job, it was mine.  He said I would get all my meals free. He said the pay was $32 a week and I thought, Boy! Food AND money!  I would have worked just for the food.

I always had strawberry shortcake with my meals and someone said everyone always eats strawberry shortcake when they first start, but they get tired of it.  I never did.

By this time I had applied for a position as an LA policeman, was waiting for cop school to start.

Will continue later.  This is a long story

(Blog number nine) VERBALITIES AS A WEAPON

RUMORS OF ME BEING A GIGOLO ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED

We feed our cats in the garage where they stay all night and during the hottest part of the day.  Lately ants have been getting into the food, driving the cats away.  I have taken to removing the bowls after about fifteen minutes, giving the cats time to eat and giving less time for the ants to arrive.  I have noticed that when I go out to pick up the bowls, there is occasionally two or three ants moving on the floor around the bowls.  When I go to crush them with my finger, they run around frantically trying to escape.  These damn things can see me, know I am there and know I mean harm!  Flies do that too.

We used to live in the clear-cut redwood mountains on the California coast.  In pools in the streams were small trout -- about six inches long.  Whenever I would toss in a line baited with a worm, all the fish would rush toward the bait, trying to be the first to eat it.  Whether or not I caught one or he got away, from then on until a day or two later, not one fish would pay any attention to a worm.  They KNEW, you see.  Bullheads are not like this.

Walking on the road above the stream were puddles of water left by springs leaking onto the road.  At different parts of the seasons, the puddles would be filled with hundreds and hundreds of small tadpoles.  At still different parts of the seasons, there would be no tadpoles at all.  And no frogs.  Also at different parts of the season would be hundreds of water snakes and at still different parts, no snakes at all.  Where did they go? 

I have a theory as to what was happening.  Whether it is correct or not, I don't know -- but I think it is.  My theory, after all.  Why wouldn't I think it right?  I'm not stupid.

I used to watch these snakes and they seemed to mostly hunt along the bottom of the water, occasionally seemingly finding food, but then would continue sticking their snouts along the bottom of the creek.  Occasionally they would grab a fish, haul it out and proceed to eat it.

One day I was saw a rather large water snake searching the bottom and suddenly catch a sculpin (sic?) and drag it out. The snake came out of the water right in front of me.  He stopped there and for the longest time just looked at me.  I guess he finally decided I was not a threat and he proceed to eat the sculpin tail first.  Took him a time because sculpins have rather prickly fins.  He got about to the head, changed his mind, spit out the fish, turned it around and very quickly ate it head first.

It was fascinating to me that the snake was checking out my intentions.  He knew I was sentient, in other words -- another being. 

After watching the peculiar activity at the bottom of the water with the snakes seeming to search for something at the bottom, I realized they were looking for tadpoles -- obviously their favorite food.  When they caught one, they would eat it right there - not bringing it out on land. 

Catching a fish was only a spur of the moment thing, happening while searching for tadpoles.  In the spring the tadpoles would hatch, snakes would come eating them, breeding more snakes, coming down from higher up where the tadpoles hadn't hatched yet, and they would eat them all. Finding no more food around, the snakes would leave for yet untouched places.  No tadpoles, no snakes.  No snakes, lots of tadpoles.  The cycle of life.  Tadpoles are to watersnakes like grass is to cows or rabbits are to foxes.

One day I was coming back from a walk and I went toward the creek which was by our cabin and I saw two fairly large tadpoles as close to the shore as they could get -- their noses almost out of the water -- just this film of water touching their nose.  Usually tadpoles would quickly swim away when I drew near.  I walked right up to these and they looked at me, but didn't move.  "How strange, " I thought.  Then further out in the water I saw a hunting snake.  These tadpoles were hiding from the snake!  Mindless creatures?  I think not.

Now what I just described is anathema to many educated people -- especially teachers and professors with a background in the sciences.  You tell that story to them (Those that I have run into anyhow) and they will explain pontifically, "Oh. That is called 'anthropomorphic' ," which is a fancy way of saying that I am putting human reactions onto animals.  The irony of them doing this is that what they are saying is that all emotions, all memories, all intellectual workings are totally the bailiwick of humans.  Animals are not allowed human activity.  Saying such tales are anthropomorphic effectively dismisses the story from having any value in scientific thought.

(Blog number eight) Gang Warfare

GULLIBLE?  I DON'T THINK SO

A few days ago I wrote about strange things I had seen -- frogs lying on frozen ice, etc.  Normally I would just add more strange things, but due to the makeup of blog entries, the earlier entries always go at the end instead of at the beginning like in a regular letter.  Why am I saying this?  I really don't know.

I was stationed in Lackland AFB back in 1949 and one day while out getting firing range instruction, I saw something I had heard about but didn't believe.  A giant rabbit.  A giant Texas rabbit.  This HUGE rabbit -- the size of a large dog -- like a Doberman, was slowly loping across a field.  The class went wild.  I'm glad I got to see that.  It's the only one I ever saw and without it I would still consider the stories about giant Texas rabbits as just another myth -- like the jackalopes -- stuffed rabbits with antelope horns sticking out the front of their heads that you see in desert gas stations along the highways.

While out hunting jackrabbits near Lancaster California one day in 1955, three of us saw three Texas red wolves which I had heard were extinct.

In a book I saw pictures and read anecdotes about somewhere in northern Texas there were prints of a dinosaur chasing a human.  Some people claimed they were fakes, but as the Sufis say, false gold exists only because real gold exists.  People got to selling the real ones, then began to make fake ones to sell because the real ones were so hard to get at, being located beneath six feet of running water.

One woman said you could tell the difference between the real and the fake because the real had mud coming up on the sides of the tracks like what happens when you step in the mud while the fake ones were straight across.  One set of prints had the mud rising more on one side on both sets of tracks -- the dinosaur and the human, as if the human had taken a sudden turn and the dinosaur had quickly followed.  The real ones were also bigger because whoever dug them up didn't want to take a chance on breaking the stone, separating the dinosaur tracks from the human's.  There were several photos of this phenomenon.

I am not saying there were humans around when dinosaurs lived. I am saying there was a dinosaur around when humans lived.

(Blog number seven) USEFUL WAYS IN WHICH TO USE PEOPLE

STUFF

I was watching "The Daily Show" last night and they were on plagiarism and they showed a clip where this guy on a sports show was effusing a speech about some jockey or other and then Jon Stewart made a comment like he does and then showed a clip of a speech by the president on "The West Wing" and it was the exact same speech, word for word!  A sports show moderator/reporter was plagiarizing from a TV show!  Is nothing safe from thieves?

THE REST OF THIS ENTRY IS RESPONSES FROM COMMENTS PEOPLE HAVE ADDED TO PREVIOUS BLOGS. 

>>Holy COW! Is THAT how long it takes [for married couples to be civil to onw another]? All I needed was another nine years and it would have worked out. Hmmm.<<

Hah!  You gave up too soon.

>>While I truly state that ALL of that was interesting, ...I would encourage you to elaborate or at least add to what you have stated.  One thing in particular was of interest -- this statement:

One night at a carnival, I was by myself when I felt this warm hand in mine.  It was a girl who was with her friend.  I bought myself a ticket to watch a wrestling match -- she must have bought one too, although I don't remember this part.  I do remember holding her hand all through the match and back outside and at some point the hand was gone.  I never knew what that girl -- nor her friend, looked like.  To this day I don't know.

>>It demands any details you have.  The date of time when it occurred, what you were doing before, or after.  Anything in between that you left out because you felt it not important to the over-all story.  Why is this increased detail important to me?  What business is that of yours?  Just cough over the information, buddy!
I find thisexceedingly, EXCEEDINGLY, interesting.  I really, REALLY, wish you would expand on this.  If you are modifying your very own blog to accommodate others reading it (by not expanding on what you want to talk about) then you are missing the very point of the blog.  This is not for us, it is for you.  Also, who are you to judge what we are interested in reading?  I say, tell all you have to tell.  Let the chips land where they may.  I, for one, would like to hear more.  Unfortunately, I cannot, because you are editing this for your readership.  Shame on you!<<

I live in shame.  More does not affect me.  This incident occurred on Labor Day, the one time a year when the small town of Graettinger Iowa hosts a carnival, shutting down the main street.  Lordy, Lordy, how this brings back memories that I hope I can someday incorporate into my blog.

It was about 2000 (8 in the evening to civilians.)  Before it occurred I was just wandering around looking at things, taking rides, doing carnival things.  There was always at least one fight.  The wrestling match I went to was a setup, although I didn't realize it at the time.  What happened was that the barker had this guy that everyone knew up on a stage claiming that anyone that could stay three rounds with him would win a hundred dollars.  The guy was not a boxer -- he was a farmhand I think.  He wasn't particularly well built.  I remember thinking that he was going to get the excrement kicked out of him. 

I don't quite remember how this next came about, but a stranger in the crowd started harassing the barker and a wrestler that was also on the stage, claiming that he would beat this big, big wrestler.  They got the crowd worked up, ticket counter opened and everyone went in to see the stranger and the wrestler, wrestler.  I realize now that the home-boy had not been in any danger at all. He was like a shill.  He was never going to fight anybody.

Looking back, it seems strange that I accepted a stranger as legit.  A sign naming the town stood on the highway -- "The Choice of a Thousand."  Everybody knew everybody -- where their farm was, who married who, who farmed what.  Strangers were very rare.

A few years later my friends and I were in a pool hall watching a farmer and a stranger play euchre for $5.00 a hand.  Now in those days -- 1947, 48 somewhere around that, $5.00 was a lot of money, and for a farmer to be losing every game, each game taking about three minutes, this poor guy was losing his shirt.  The farmer laughed a lot, but it was more a cry for help, and embarrassed laugh.  He was not enjoying himself.  It was like he didn't want people feeling sorry for him -- he could "take it."

Women never went into these pool halls. Never - but suddenly this woman came in, started berating the loser -- he was her husband, evidently, then she picked up a full beer bottle and busted it over his head.  The farmer just said, "Who's deal?"

I don't remember what happened after that -- sorry.  I think his kids were out in the car too -- waiting for him.

But what is amazing to me is that to none of us kids did it occur that the stranger was a card shark, although it now seems so obvious that he was.  He never lost one single hand.  And what was he doing in that small town that night?  The town was not on the highway -- you had to turn off and drive a ways to reach the main drag.

>>I have seen that book, "found" and it is interesting.  I don't remember the part about the bus trip in Honduras, but that is a wild story.  I wonder if EVERY story in that book is true.  It would be easy to make something up, submit it, and see it published.<<

This come from the latest book.  Just out.  You probably haven't seen it yet.  I take the stories as true.  Can't see much impetus for making up a story, since no money is paid for them.  But I could be wrong.

>>Your insanity in your text was demonstrative of your insanity.  Where's my check?<<

You're right.  you won fair and square.  The check is in the mail.

>>WELL IF EVERYONE SITS DOWN THE GERM FACTOR IS LOWERED QUITE A BIT AS THE PEE GOES INTO THE TOILET AND NOT ALL OVER THE BATHROOM<<

Pee does not contain any germs.  That's what makes it such an excellent substitute for contaminated water.  Enjoy.

(Blog number six) A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON MY WAY TO A LIFE

I met my wife in Denver.  I was in the Air Force.  My buddy and I were coming out of a bar and my to-be wife and her friend, Jill, were coming back from confession.  We picked them up.  Actually, my buddy picked up Jill and the rest of us just went along.  "The rest" being my wife-to-be and me.  Let's call my wife-to-be, "Teresa" and save a little time.  That WAS her real name, but everyone knew her as Terry. 

So the four of us go down the street, chatting like pickups do.  I seemed to be with Teresa's friend "Jill," my friend, "Tommy" seemed to be with Terry.  Shortly into the pickup courtship, Teresa and Jill went on ahead and had a little conference.  When they came back, I was with Terry and Tommy was with Jill.  For years after, Terry would tell me that Jill didn't want to be with me, she wanted to trade, so we did.  In those days females always did the picking of who went with who.  About twenty-five years into our marriage when we were starting to be civil to each other, Terry told me that SHE was the one who wanted to trade because Tommy was kinda of a dork.  He was fun, but strange -- naive, excitable, dorky.  I spent twenty-five years thinking I was a reject.  Is that fair?

A coupla months into our courtship, after only one bad fight -- which should have been an omen of things to come, I was getting ready to ship out.  Terry said to me, "How am I going to live without you?  So, not knowing that she said that to all her boyfriends, I took it seriously.  Poor girl.  Trying to help her out, I asked her to marry me.

She said, "No."

Whew.

Coupla nights later, same thing happened.  She can't live without me, I got a soft heart, I again asked her to marry me.

She said, "No."

Few nights later we run through the same scenario, only this time she says, "Yes."

Well, sacrifices are there to be made.  What a great humanitarian I am.  We set a date.

At the wedding -- Justice of the Peace, me, Teresa, Tommy and Jill.  Tommy and Jill best man and maid of honor.  The wedding never made the papers.

That afternoon -- my wedding day remember, I went to the base to eat at the mess hall, leaving Terry in the car.  After that, we went into town where Terry ate in a restaurant while Tommy and I sat at the bar and drank.  It never occurred to me that anything was out of the ordinary.  I treated my new bride like that and thought nary a thing about it.

Six or seven months before this day, I was sitting with a friend at a table with two girls and he was being very charming and pleasant while I just sat there.  After the girls left, my friend asked me why I didn't play up the girls -- ask them questions about their lives.  He said, "Aren't you interested in people?" 

"What for?"  I wondered.  "What good are they?"  I was honestly puzzled by the question. 

A few years into our marriage, we moved outside Sacramento, into the country.  This was in the sixties.  Across the road from us moved in some exotic hippies.  At that time the Vietnam war was going strong and one of their friends who was stationed there had sent back some strong marijuana.  I tried some.  All that night I would often say to myself, "Here I am again!"  I had the distinct impression that I was going back in time and every once in a while I would "come back" to the present.  Pot makes you concentrate on the here and now.  This was what was making me "return." 

It was many years later, after analysis and meditation, that I realized what was happening was that I was always in my head -- never "here."  I spent the first forty years of my life almost completely in my head -- sleepwalking through life.  Today I often wish that I knew what was going on at different occurrences in my life.  But those days have been erased.

Teresa and I fought a lot.  One day while driving home from work, in my head I was going, "I'll say this and then she'll say that and then I'll reply this and she'll come back with..."  By the time I got home, I was so angry with her...  This must have been happening a lot, but that was the first time I saw that I had actually had an argument with me being the only person involved.  This was the guy that didn't think anything was wrong with him -- that only wanted analysis in order to "learn."

I used to often cross the street if I saw someone that I knew coming toward me.  I didn't want that person to reject me, so I wouldn't know whether or not to greet them.  So to avoid the problem, I would avoid the guy -- pretend I didn't see them.

One night at a carnival, I was by myself when I felt this warm hand in mine.  It was a girl who was with her friend.  I bought myself a ticket to watch a wrestling match -- she must have bought one too, although I don't remember this part.  I do remember holding her hand all through the match and back outside and at some point the hand was gone.  I never knew what that girl -- nor her friend, looked like.  To this day I don't know.

Twice I was sitting in a booth at a drugstore when a girl asked if she could sit with me.  I said, "Yes" without looking up.  I never looked at people's eyes -- or even at their feet, as I remember.  Both times, I never knew who the girl was.  Once the girl that asked was with her mother, the other time she was alone.

Years later, married, I was standing in line at the bank and I looked down at a small boy and got a look I had never seen before.  I turned away before it registered - I wasn't even able to hold a contact with a four year old if he was a stranger.  For years after that I would think of that incident and wonder what it was that I had seen.  Eventually I found out that it was a friendly look.  I looked at someone who looked at me in a friendly manner and I didn't know what it was because I had never seen it before!  Man, was I a mess.  And I didn't even know it -- had not an inkling.

I used to go to parties with Terry when she was in college and I would sit in a corner pretending to be engrossed in a book or a magazine that I picked up.  I thought that that way nobody would know that I was shy.  Hah!  Silly boy.  I thought that everyone knew how to "party" except me.  Without ever consciously realizing it, I always hoped I would meet someone who would tell me how to live.  It seemed like everyone else knew something that was going on except me.

Stopping now.

(Blog number five) Psychoanalysis

Now this one is going to be a hard one to write.  This stuff is interesting to me, since it is about me, but will it interest readers or potential readers?  I dunno.  It's like rolling dice.  You just don't know what's going to come of your toss.

By the way, do you realize that present tense is more interesting than past tense?  For instance, I might say, "My throat was dry so I went to the store to get some bottle water, leaving the guy lying in the gutter, the ligature still around his neck."  Now I try, "My dry throat is the reason I give in an account of why I am going to the store for bottle water instead of taking care of my strangled handiwork."

Aw hell, I don't think I did that right.  I just read somewhere that you should write in the present tense instead of any other, but I ain't no expert, God knows.  Just ignore the above, OK?  Back to the hard stuff.

I was analyzed by a classical Freudian Jewish Psychoanalyst for about a year -- maybe more, I don't remember.  Six days a week, fifty minutes a day.  I loved it. 

My analyst's name was Dr. Burke.  Dr. Burke was a small elderly legally blind English physician who always wore a brown suit and tie.  Very classy guy.  I lay on a couch and in my line of sight was a bronze bust of Dr. Freud sitting on a table.  The first day of analysis I asked him if I should lie on the couch and he replied that my mother always told me where I was to shit.

One day I happened to mention that I hated it when one of my wife's friends told her I seemed, "nice."  Dr. Burke asked me what being nice meant.  I said, "Oh, you know..."  He said, "No, I don't know.  Tell me." 

I immediately got very tired.  Exhausted.  I just did not want to talk about that anymore.  He kept digging at me and finally he said, "You mean gullible.  When someone says you are nice, you think they are saying you are gullible."  "Right!"  I absolutely recognized the truth of that as my energy returned in full force.  I think that was the first time I got to see the mind's ability and power. The loss of energy and the wish to drop the subject was a defense mechanism of my mind wanting things to stay like they are.

Now normally I would go into a long lecture right here about the mind's ability and workings, but I figure you would hate that,so I won't do it.  But know that I sacrifice my pleasure for yours.  Sometime I may ask you to return the favor.

One thing I find humorous now was that I often told Dr. Burke that I didn't need therapy - there was nothing wrong with me. (Hah!)  I wanted to learn from him how to psychoanalyze someone.  He would reply that he couldn't teach me to psychoanalyze, but that in the process of being psychoanalyzed, I would know how to do it.  I never believed that, thinking that he didn't really understand what I meant.  He had to be wrong because that didn't make any sense to me.

What I find humorous about that attitude of mine is that the person who didn't know how to psychoanalyze (me) was in effect telling the person who DID know how (Dr. Burke) how to psychoanalyze.  I absolutely did not think he knew what he was talking about on this topic, although I trusted him implicitly as my analyst.  Ain't that weird?

I originally was hesitant to tell him that I was only coming because I wanted a teacher, thinking he might toss me out on my ear.  He must have thought, "Aw, isn't that cute?  Baby wants to run and can't even crawl yet."  I can see now that he knew exactly how I felt about the whole thing. He knew his words were falling on deaf ears.

That's all for now.

(Blog number four) FOUND

There's a book called, "Found" that I was reading this morn at Barnes and Nobles.  It's a collection of fotoed notes people have found in different places -- in library books, on the street, in trunks of bought cars -- things like that.  The description of where the note was found, the circumstances surrounding the find are sometimes described.

I ran across this one that had only a picture of a swarthy man with a Saddam mustache and a rendition of how the picture came to be in the finder's possession.  As follows:

"I was on a city bus on the outskirts of town when the guy in this picture climbed on board.  I was sitting near the front, but my Spanish wasn't too good, so I couldn't totally follow the conversation between this guy and the driver.  They started arguing, maybe about the amount for bus fare or something.  Things got really heated really fast, and suddenly the guy in this picture pulled a two-foot machete out of his belt and started waving it around menacingly in the air.  In a flash, the driver produced an enormous bullwhip, turned halfway toward the machete guy, and whipped the whip with a sizzling crack, snapping the machete right out of the guy's hand, and all of this while still steering the bus!

Finally he pulled the bus over; there was a brief scuffle and both guys crashed to the floor, and then the machete guy picked up his machete and dashed off the bus.  The driver dusted himself off and got back behind the wheel with surprisingly little fanfare from the rest of the passengers, which made me wonder if this was a commonplace occurrence.  I noticed that a few papers and pictures from the machete guy's breast pocket had scattered into the aisle -- I kept this little passport picture of the guy himself, a souvenir of the coolest thing I ever saw."

FOUND by Maurice Reeder in San Pedro Sula, Honduras

In another portion of the book, there are descriptions of found animals -- two of which are female babies found in China.  The describer says she heard that the word we translate for "abandoned" in regard to such kids is more precisely translated as "placed in order to be found."


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( Blog number three) Errata (kinda)

There was a confusing paragraph in the last entry that was brought to my attention by my editor.  It has been corrected.  If you read that entry before the correction, try now to find what paragraph has been improved.  You may have a chance to win

$10, 487 (Ten thousand four hundred eightyseven and no/100 dollars) $10,487

(Blog number two) George, Ali and me

I gotta tell you, dear Bloggy - I don't feel much like writing today, but I feel as if I don't write something, people will stop reading this and if that happens, what would be the use of writing in here?  Huh?  I can't take the pressure.  I still gotta finish mowing the lawn, the wind is blowing like hell, the house needs cleaning, I got books to read, TV to watch, naps to take.  I need lots more hours in order to get this all done.  And every day I gotta go through this.  Work, work, work.  Ever since I retired I have not had the time to get things done.

I figured out one day that it is like when you were a kid and you would wake up on a Saturday and race out to play.  You never wanted to stop.  "Aw, Mom.  I don't wanna come in."  It's like that.  Never enough time.

You know, one time I was talking to our mailman about my retirement - how much I liked being retired and all that, and he started sending my retirement checks to other places - District attorney's office, welfare office, etc. I didn't find this out until I had spent a couple of days going from one place to another.  I can't even remember where I started in the track-down.

My wife, who takes care of me 'cause I can't,  called his supervisor for me and reamed him out.  That got it taken care of.  What's the matter with people anyhow?  Huh?

I always enjoyed when someone was happy.  I got happy too, vicariously I guess.  But I have slowly learned that there are many people that don't wanna hear that you are having a good run of fortune.  Not at all.

What got me thinking about this was that I was debating deleting describing (alliteration - neat, huh?) how bad I got it since I retired.  But I don't want to start censoring myself just so people will like me.  I got this "words to live by" and it goes like this;  "No matter what you do, some people will love you for it and some people will hate you for it, so you might as well do what you want."

I got a lot of those Words To Live By - my philosophy in cliches, I guess you might say.  They save me time sometimes.  I thought I might list them someday along with my list of potential book and movie titles.

GEORGE THE GIANT KILLER

Years ago I saw a documentary on Muhammad Ali and it was all about that famous fight of his with George Foreman in Zaire.  In that also famous knockout, what I saw was George getting up on one knee, looking at the referee, and at the count of eight, the ref signaled that it was all over.  "What?" I go.  I thought maybe George's eyes were glazed or something - the ref could see it, but I couldn't.  After all, nobody said anything about it over the years - not the sportscasters, not the columnists, not the talking heads of TV, nobody.  Must been glassy eyes that did it.

George wrote an autobiography called, "By George," and in it he describes that fight.  Lots of funny things went on with his manager and his cornerman and not funny HaHa things either.  George says he wasn't hurt by the punch, could have got up immediately and was in fact glad it had happened because it would make Ali tend to "go in for the kill," and do George's kind of fight, him being the much heavier puncher.

George says that he wanted to get up, but his cornerman kept telling him to stay down.  If I remember what I read right, George was puzzled by these instructions, but obeyed anyhow.

I think George got robbed by trickery and unethical actions.  I find it hard to believe that Ali was a party to this, and I hope he wasn't, but I don't think he won that fight on the fair.

This is all for now.

(Blog number one) STUFF ABOUT THINGS

          BE LIKE DAD AND NOT LIKE SIS

I read an autobiography by Judge Judy and in it she mentioned that she went to the toilet in the middle of the night and her husband forgot to put the lid down and she fell in, so she went in to where he was sleeping, straddled him and banged pots together over his head.  

Not putting the lid down seems to be a common complain among women.  My niece told me that she once asked her dad (my brother) to always put the lid back down when he was done urinating and he told her, "Sure - if you promise to always make sure it is up after you finish."  She thought that very insightful.

I myself urinate sitting down, because no matter how careful a man is at urinating while standing, urine often goes elsewhere than in the toilet.  AND ALL MEN KNOW THIS!

I always check the position of the seat before I sit down.  It was automatic from the start.  Do women sit without looking where they are sitting?  Very curious.

OLD IS FUN

Strange thing about getting old is that all the things people said would happen, happen.  For instance, they say your eyesight will get worse, as will hearing, energy and a non-hurting body.  Short term memory goes too.  Fortunately, the logic circuits seem to improve with age.  Say you are looking for the cream in the refrigerator and you can't find it.  This will happen.  While you are looking you notice that the sack up there on the top shelf seems to contain garbage.  "Aha!" you think, "If a sack of garbage is in the refrigerator, then that must mean that the container of cream is..."  You look, and sure enough.  There's the little bugger lying there in the garbage can, right where you put it.  Brilliant man!

You will many times lose your glasses simply by going from one room to another.  Your wallet will disappear, your favorite pair of pants will be nowhere to be found.  This part of loss of memory is a real drag.  But due to good thinking of the part of the Creator, those things that are most important to remember will not be a problem.  I have never forgotten to breathe or to eat or to drink.  I remember to eliminate and urinate whenever necessary.  I may forget where I left my car, but at least I'll be comfortable while looking.

STRANGE THINGS

When I was fourteen years old, walking on creek ice in northern Iowa in the middle of a cold winter, I chanced upon about a dozen leopard frogs lying on top of the ice of the creek.  I was walking on the ice because deep snow lay on the banks and in the field of the pasture.  The creek had been frozen enough to walk on for at least a coupla months.  I remember kicking one of the frogs but I can't remember whether it moved or not, but I assumed it didn't because if it had, I would probably have kicked the others. And I didn't.  Lying stuck to the ice, I assume they must have been warm when they landed there.

Frogs winter under the water, in the mud at the bottom.  No part of the creek had been open to water since November and this was February.

I never told anyone about this, not my family nor my buddies until I told it in a Biology class.  I wanted the teacher to tell me how this could be, this that I saw.  Of course he couldn't.  I told another thing at the same time which resulted in another strange incident involving my mind that I will describe a bit later.

Since that day, I have told this numerous times, always with the caveat that I have no explanations.  Until one day I heard coming from my lips, "The only way this could have happened is if they were dropped from a flying saucer."  I said this in jest, but as I thought about it I realized it was the ONLY explanation I could think of.  I go further now - in jest (partly) as follows;  The saucer people picked up the frogs in summer, examined them, and then released them several months later, back where they found them, not knowing that water becomes solid below 32 degrees F.

Now, the thing I was going to describe about my mind is this: In that Biology class, after I told about the frogs, I told about dowsing for water. The whole class laughed at me, ridiculed me and I completely forgot that I had ever dowsed until about twenty-five years later.  My mind took that incident and negated it as if it had never happened.

We (me and my siblings) had a favorite uncle we called "Uncle Auggie."  One day he came to the farm and showed us how todowse.  We cut a switch from the cottonwood that grew over the water pump, held it before us and dowsed.  I spent all the rest of that day dowsing.  After I realized late in life that I had once been able to dowse, I tried it, but it didn't work.  But I still remember the pull of that switch in my hand.

Augie wasn't his Christian name, but that's all that we knew him as.  We also had an "Aunt Aunie," whose real name was "Wilma." One day someone asked her why we called her that and she said she didn't know - that we had always called her that. 

Uncle Augie would take out his false teeth (I thought they were real), he would take a five inch spike from his pocket and stick it up his nose to the hilt.  I always thought this was real and tried to imagine where it went in his head.  It was only when I was in my thirties and thinking about him that I realized he always had it in his pocket and it was always shiny.  Obviously a trick.

He would squeeze his nipples and milk would come out - just a drop, but it was there.  He was the only adult that ever talked to me.  Good uncle for a kid to have.

Uncle Augie was a handyman - a carpenter.  He learned in a CCC camp - camps developed by President Roosevelt during the depression to help get people back to work and help the environment planting trees, building earthen dams, etc.  He was in New Guinea in the Engineers during WW2.  I always pictured him away from the fighting, nailing boards and such.  It was only later that I learned the Engineers were usually ahead of the infantry front lines, building bridges and such so the infantry could cross.  Also, I learned that New Guinea was a tough fight, nasty jungle and mountain terrain.  He never talked about his experiences there.

I digressed, didn't I?  I can do that.  It's my blog.  Don't forget that.

My wife and I fought a lot in our early married life.  Always her fault.  One day we were sitting at a table in downtown Sacramento, arguing, and she looked intently into my eyes and very deliberately stated, "Don, I am NOT Shirley (my first wife).  Now she had said this to me before, but I had always sloughed it off.  This time I heard it.  As soon as it penetrated my thick skull, I saw a hazy face leave hers and go up and to my left and disappear.  Teresa's (my wife) face looked different - like a stranger's. 

I was "scientific" at that time, so I knew that such a thing couldn't happen, so I dismissed it - not even consciously, just "that's the way things are."  Only years later when my mind had loosened up a bit to allow for strange things did I remember that incident.  I even have an explanation for what happened that fits in perfectly with my belief systems, but it doesn't belong in a blog.  The explanation doesn't belong.  It's my blog.  You forgot, didn't you?