Cookies and Donuts

Earlier today, I posted a meme on Facebook about the "8th Sacrament" in the Episcopal Church - stating that in addition to the coffee being served, there were most certainly donuts presented.  My mother-in-law responded, citing a chapter I had written earlier this year, which I repeat here:

Cookies

            Emily Stevens had gotten to the point after lunch where she started to think about what to bring to the pot luck supper at church that evening.  It had to be something she could make in bulk.  “Everyone who shows up at the dinner would want to have something cooked by the new Pastor’s wife”, she thought, so she decided to get Gracie engaged and bake about six dozen of her special “Chocolate Chippers” cookies.

            Inventory of the “fixins” was taken and before long, they were spread out on the kitchen table along with cookie sheets, bowls, spoons and spatulas.  Gracie didn’t need to be called from her self-appointed chores in her bedroom, she and Frank the Dog came lumbering down the stairs almost as soon as the refrigerator door opened to get out the eggs.

            “It’s a good thing we went to the store this morning,” Gracie stated once she figured out what was happening.

            “Thanks for coming with me.”

            Emily said a quick little prayer of thanks for a daughter who was bright and cheerful all the time.

            It wasn’t long after Gracie came down to help that there was a huge bowl filled with cookie dough.  Gracie was so very careful in putting the dough into precise little portions, placing those portions on a cookie sheet – twelve portions per sheet, two sheets per run in the oven.

            While the first batch of cookies was cooling on the racks set up on the kitchen table to cool the cookies and the second batch was in the oven, the phone rang.

            Emily hesitated just long enough for Gracie to answer it.  Since they had just moved in the night before, she just assumed that it would be a few days before phone service would be connected. 

            “Hello?”

            Gracie’s voice was sweet music in someone’s ear.

            “Oh, yes, she’s right here.  May I tell her who’s calling?”

            She was so proper – so polite.

            “It’s Mrs. Mulligan for you, mother,” Gracie announced, handing Emily the phone.

            “Thank you, dear.”

            Gracie curtsied.

            “Hello, this is Emily Stevens, Mrs. Mulligan.”

            “Call me Millie,” the voice on the other end of the phone told her.

            Millie gushed about Gracie’s manners for a few moments before announcing the reason for the call:  “You are aware that we are having a pot luck supper tonight as a welcome gift after your husband’s first service, right?”

            “Yes, Millie, as a matter of fact –“

            “Now you don’t have to bring a thing.  It’s all taken care of.  You just get done what you have to get done and relax.  It may be the last time you’ll be able to do that for the next few weeks.”

            Emily knew exactly what Millie Mulligan had told her.  The move to Magnolia was the fourth since she and Dan were married and it would be the fifth time that the women of the church would expect her to stand “inspection”.

            She was getting to be an old hand at passing those inspections.

            The conversation with Millie Mulligan ended about thirty seconds before the second batch of two dozen cookies was due to come out of the oven.  The freshly baked cookies were quickly put on the rack before Gracie went about the task of meticulously dolling out the final batch of cookie dough onto the sheets.

            The final batch went into the oven just as Jacob, Peter and their new friend, Kevin came in the back door to immediately attack the freshly baked cookies.  Gracie was upset that the boys had started to dig into her orderly line of cooling cookies, but Emily knew what was going to happen and was already whipping up another batch of dough for two dozen more cookies.

            It was nearly four when the last of the cooled cookies had been placed in bags and were ready to go.  The service would be held at five-thirty and dinner would start serving at six-fifteen.  She reminded Jacob and Peter that they had to clean up before they went.  Their protests of having to go were met with Emily’s assurance that yes, they had to go.  Kevin was welcomed, too, if his mother would allow it.  Kevin rushed out to get permission and was back within ten minutes.

            “You’re welcome to come back to our house tomorrow, too,” Emily told Kevin when he returned.

            For the first time since he had come to their house that morning, the boy smiled.  She wondered if, perhaps, things weren’t quite right where Kevin Peel lived.  She made a mental note to ask about his situation once she got a bit more settled.

-----

            The boys were washed and presentable.  Gracie put on a dress she had chosen for the occasion (very carefully laid out ahead of time – not a thread out of place) and Emily had just stepped out of the shower when a short bark by Frank announced that Dan had come home.

            “Who’s the new kid?” Dan asked when he came into the bedroom to get himself ready for his debut.

            “If it was a dark haired boy who seems to have trouble smiling, it’s Kevin Peel.  He’ll be coming with us this evening.”        

            Emily finished dressing while Dan ducked through the shower.  She went downstairs to see Kevin with Jacob and Peter, intently watching the game they were playing.

            Emily looked at the boy.  He was still dusty and dirty from an afternoon of hard play with her two boys.  She quickly seized the initiative.

            “If you’re coming with us, you need to clean up.  Jacob, Peter, shut off that game and get Kevin to the upstairs bathroom while I see if I can find something which will fit him.”

            The boys slowly got up and turned off their game.

            “Let’s get a move on, now, we don’t have much time.”

            The boys made a game of it and had Kevin in and out of the shower in just a few minutes.  Emily in the meantime found a suitable outfit which ended up being just the right size for the young man.  After getting Frank situated, the family, along with a new friend, were out the door and walking to the Community Baptist Church.

-----

            The church was already abuzz with activity when the Stevens family arrived.  The parking lot was full, or nearly so.  Not a bad turnout for a mid-week service in the heat of the summer.  More than a few heads turned when they stepped into the building.  Dan waded into the crowd with Emily, shaking hands and making eye contact.  Gracie stayed close to Emily while the boys took the cookies back to the kitchen on the west side of the building.

            Exactly at five-thirty, the piano player started banging out the notes for a familiar hymn.  The people who were still enthusiastically greeting their new Pastor and at least part of his family seemed to take the hint and found seats.  Dan escorted Emily and Gracie to a pew reserved for them on the front row.  Jacob, Peter and Kevin Peel filtered in and sat down.

            Emily felt as if she heard a few clucks of disapproval for some reason while the boys were sitting down.

            The service was typical for a first service in Emily’s eyes.  Dan gave a short message about acceptance and forgiveness between the praise music and some general prayers, and then there was the dash to the hall where it was time to dig in and eat whatever people brought it for the pot luck.

            There were hamburgers and buns provided by the Mulligans.

            Everything else was cookies.  There were twenty seven families in attendance at the service and each family had brought at least six dozen cookies which were neatly arranged on platters at the head of a makeshift serving line.

            There was no macaroni salad; no green bean casserole; no salad; no hash browns, no nothing except approximately two thousand cookies sitting on plates and nearly fifty kids swarming those plates, gathering up as many cookies as they could possibly carry.

            At least twenty sets of parents immediately swung into action, telling their children that the cookies would wait, hoping that somehow something different with a whole lot less sugar would magically appear.  It wasn’t long before a few people stepped up and went to procure the proper complements to the existing hamburgers, so, aside from a slight delay, the pot luck went on pretty much as it had been envisioned in the first place.

            “Honestly,” Millie Mulligan confided to Emily after the meal was over, “we had quit doing pot lucks about ten years ago because of this very thing.  I thought they’d have learned by now.”

            Emily was amused, yet relieved that events happened like they did.  Certainly, there were a number of children who had belly aches because of eating too many cookies at one time, but she had also lucked out of having to pass a more rigorous inspection.

            “The next time, I’ll make potato salad,” she swore to herself; as did every other mother who attended the pot luck that evening.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

A Change in Direction for this Blog - Part 1, maybe

Bear with me - This is an experiment.  Hopefully, below, will be part of what I am currently working on:

Unexpected Visitor

            Christopher Michaels was bothered by the insistent buzzing of the helicopter which seemed intent on interrupting the time he had allocated for relaxation before he headed to bed.   He had been home from a trip to the small grocery store for less than half an hour when the noise crept into his consciousness, destroying what little chance he had to put aside the cares of the day.  Instead of just ignoring what he considered to be a rude intrusion into his evening routine, Christopher decided to go out on what passed for his balcony to see what all of the hubbub was about.

            “Police helicopter,” he snorted.  The machine seemed to be searching for something or someone by sending down a powerful beam of light which swept the ground beneath it.  After watching the helicopter search in vain for half an hour or so, Christopher decided that he had had enough.  He went back inside his efficiency apartment, turned off most of the lights, took off his clothes and relaxed as he had intended in the first place, drifting off into a deep slumber.

            The knocking on the door started as part of some non-descript dream.  Eventually, he became aware that the knocking on the door he heard in his dream was actually someone knocking on his door in the middle of the night.  It wasn’t a demanding knock, it was more of an insistent knock proffered by someone who, while wanting an answer to their knock, wanted the knock to be quiet enough not to attract attention by the neighbors. 

            Christopher exercised caution by slipping into a pair of cotton briefs before throwing caution to the wind by opening the door to his apartment without looking outside to see who might be knocking on his door in the first place.

            The woman slipped in then without a word, pushed Christopher away, shut the door and dead bolted it.

            “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” the woman gushed.

            She was about his age, give or take a year or two by his reckoning, dressed in blue jeans and a “Western” shirt in a muted blue plaid.  “You’re a mess – what the hell is all this about?” Christopher asked.

            “I don’t want him to see me.  Look out the window.  Do you see anyone?”

            He took a quick peek past his curtains and out the window to see an empty courtyard, one of many in the apartment complex where he lived in far southwest Houston.  He also expected to be hit on the back of the head by the woman behind him – either that or she’d slip her hands in his briefs to fulfill a fantasy suddenly springing up in his mind.

            “I don’t see anything or anybody,” he told her.

            She let out a sigh of relief.  “Thanks.  I thought maybe Boudreaux had finally tracked me down.”

            “Boudreaux?” Christopher asked, turning toward his unexpected visitor.

            “He was my date.  No, he picked me up at Chuy’s on Westheimer.  If I’d known, I wouldn’t have gone with him and that guy he called Dave.”

            “A bad date, I take it.”  Christopher sat down at the table in his living/dining area partly to better gain his bearings and partly to cover the fact that he was growing an erection.

            “That’s putting it mildly,” she answered, sitting down in the chair opposite his.  “I’ve been on the run for damn near an hour and a half trying to get away from Boudreaux.  Penny and I planned on going up to Katy to do go line dancing.  Boudreaux and his buddy offered to take us.  You have anything to drink?”

            “Maybe a beer,” he offered.  “More likely you’ll find a jug of iced tea and a fresh jug of milk I picked up at the Mellow Mart.”

            “Would that be the Mellow Mart about six, seven blocks from here?”

            “I’m in there all the time.  It’s on my way back from work.”

            He watched her while she got up from the table, went into the refrigerator and extracted his only bottle of beer.  He studied her face when she came back to the table.  Maybe he had seen her on one of his many trips to the Mellow Mart.

            “You were right, that was your last one.  I’ll pay you back, promise.”

            The girl twisted the cap off of Christopher’s last bottle of beer and took a long uninterrupted drink.

            “If you’re thirsty, the beer won’t do you any good,” Christopher half scolded his guest.

            “How do you know?  Are you a doctor or something?”

            “Actually, I’m a pharmacist.”

            “Oh, so you deal drugs!”  Her face lit up in a wide smile which she quenched by taking another pull off the longneck.

            “Legal drugs.  I fill prescriptions at a dispensary over on Bissonnet.  Part of my training includes knowing about drug interactions.”

            “Beer’s not a drug,” she countered.

            “No, beer is not a drug, but the alcohol that’s in beer is.  If you’re thirsty, the alcohol will make you even thirstier.”

            “Oh, well that’s good to know,” she said before emptying the bottle.  “So what should it be next?  Tea or milk?”

            “Water would work the best.  It’s on the bottom shelf in the Brita pitcher.”

            The woman got up, went to the refrigerator, extracted the water pitcher then set it down on the empty counter next to the sink.

            “You have any glasses?”

            “Look in the cupboard on the far left.  All I have are fast food complementary cups.”

            She pulled down a cup, poured herself some water then brought it over to the table.

            “You said that you’d been running for an hour and a half from this, Boudreaux person.  Let’s see,” he said, reaching for the cell phone he had left on the table.  “That means that you – you were running from the helicopters?  Help me, I’m confused.  I heard helicopters, or a helicopter in the area at about that time.”

            “They were looking for Boudreaux and Boudreaux was looking for me.  You see, I saw him shoot the guy and he was probably going to shoot me, too, if he would have caught me.”

            “You witnessed a murder?”

            “More like an execution.  I was standing outside when I watched Boudreaux shoot this guy.  Blew his head off.  He then saw me, and I ran.  He got off one shot and blew out the window of the Mellow Mart, then all I remember after that was running.”

            “The Mellow Mart just down the street?” Christopher asked.

            “Yeah, that one.”

            “And this happened at around ten – ten-thirty?”

            “About then, uh huh.”

            “Damn.  Just missed it.  I was there just before then.  Damn!”

            Christopher got up to recover a cup so that he could have a drink himself.

            “You were there?” she asked.

            “I pulled out of the parking lot maybe five minutes earlier at most…”

            “Were you the guy in that old guy’s car, the four door that pulled out of the parking space while we were coming in?”

            “That was you and, that fellow you called Boudreaux who pulled in?”

            Christopher was shaking.  He had come to the realization that he could have been in the store at the time of the killing witnessed by his unexpected guest.

            “Shouldn’t we call the police and have them take you into protective custody or something?”

            “The police think I did it.”

            “What?”

            “I called.  I hid behind a dumpster after the copters left.  I called and the dispatcher told me to meet the investigating officer out by the bus stop in front of the complex.  I saw Boudreaux and his buddy waiting there with a guy in uniform, looking around.  I went back around the other side of the office and called again.  She said that officer Boudreaux was waiting for me and asked me when I would arrive.  I ditched the call and the phone and went looking for someone who might be up.  I saw your inside light on, so, I took a chance.”

            Christopher was in disbelief.  He also wondered about his guest’s story.  If she was telling the truth about her misadventure, she was the classic “damsel in distress”.  If she was lying, there was the distinct possibility that she was a “Judas goat” and that he would find himself at the wrong end of a pistol in a mighty big hurry.

Benghazi Care

We sure have heard a lot about Benghazi, haven't we?

Same about the Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare".

I have a little bit to say about both.  Hopefully I can make some sense out of the situation.

Obamacare:  My step-daughter has her knickers in a knot these days about Kenny's brother.  Kenny is her husband.  Kenny's brother is an addict.  Right now, Kenny's brother is in one of the local hospitals being pumped full of antibiotics because of a heart condition brought about because of his addiction to crack cocaine.  There's even talk that Kenny's brother might have to undergo open heart surgery to correct the heart condition which is causing what is amounting to his slow death.

Now multiply this situation exponentially and you have thousands of patients in similar situations over the past thirty or so years coming into hospitals getting high-tech treatments and walking out paying only a small fraction of what that care costs because they are indigent.  Now, you can't not treat these people, partly because it's the law.  About thirty years ago when we were under the benevolent Presidency of Ronald Reagan, it was commanded that no patient can be refused treatment at a hospital because they are unable to pay.  The burden ends up on those who can pay.

So what we've seen has been spiraling health care costs due to people not having health insurance.  Doctors and hospitals charge more for their services which leads to insurance companies charging more to cover their costs, meaning fewer people can afford health insurance which means that when people who can no longer afford their insurance go in for a broken leg or something similar, the cost for their treatment is passed on up the ladder to someone else.

I don't know about you, but to me, this is not only a vicious cycle, but it's essentially a hidden tax imposed on people who can actually afford health insurance.

So when or if the politicians decide to hold the nation hostage in order to try to eliminate "Obamacare", aren't they essentially giving the green light to maintain the status-quo... extending the hidden tax imposed on us during the Reagan years?

Which leads us into Benghazi.

There's been a whole lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth because of the diplomats killed in a raid on what was an unprotected compound in a volatile state.  There's been a whole lot of "woulda, coulda, shoulda" from pundits and politicians who are essentially playing "Monday Morning Quarterback" about an event for which we were ill-prepared and unable to do much about as the event was unfolding.

"We should have had our jets on stand-by so that we could provide air support!"  Congress didn't allocate the money for constant stand-by.  Sure, the jets could have been scrambled and on their way, but it would have taken at least 8 hours to get jets on the way, at least according to credible sources (like the BBC).

"We should have sent a detachment of Marines from Tripoli!"  Same problem with logistics, and besides, a detachment would have made the Embassy in Tripoli vulnerable.

The real problem here is money.  We know that "those goofy terrorists" are out there, waiting for an opening - waiting for some way to embarrass us.  So what have we done to protect our diplomats?  Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  I seem to recall a terrorist bombing of our Embassy in Beirut back in '83 which killed quite a few more Marines then just 4.  We discovered the problem (not enough protection) and called for corrective action.

Nothing was done.  No money was allocated for the protection of our diplomatic corps through Reagan, two Bushes and Clinton - so now it's Obama's fault.  Uh-huh.  Sure.

Benghazi was unfortunate.  So was Beirut.  So were numerous other similar incidents in the past thirty years or so.  Had foresight been in place and the money spent to properly secure the compounds which underwent attacks in those years, half of them wouldn't have happened.

No politician wants to be seen as frivolously spending money on important security matters like protecting our embassies and their outposts.  No politician wants to be seen as frivolously spending money on such things as preventative health care, or treating addicts or dealing with the mentally ill.  No, sir.  We'll look for a scapegoat or make it someone else's problem.  We're good at that.  Just wait and see when and if Congress actually goes to work later this month.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Feud

Here for the past couple of months, we've been embroiled in a feud.

In one corner, we find Time-Warner cable, the people who provide me with a connection to the internet so that I can bore you with what I have to write.  They also provide our home with basic cable and would love to provide me with a land line telephone, too, if only I would let them.  T-W is a pretty darn big company which sometimes works well, and sometimes doesn't.  I fired them as my cable provider for over a year after they apparently cut my cable service three days after paying their inflated bill.

In the other corner is the Columbia Broadcasting System, or, CBS, purveyors of a fairly decent set of television programs which I enjoy from time to time.  CBS owns both television and radio stations throughout the country, including channel 11 and at least one radio station I listen to on a regular basis.  Having worked for a CBS affiliated radio station at one point, I am partial to the way CBS handles their radio news.

So, there's this feud going on between T-W and CBS having to do with rebroadcasting rights.  According to a third party (Belo, publisher of the Dallas Morning News), CBS wants a raise.  Whatever it was that they were charging T-W for rebroadcasting their television programs, CBS decided that they wanted more.

Apparently much more.

So, that means that we've got a feud going on.

For the better part of a couple of months, CBS has been telling us that "mean old Time-Warner is threatening to take our shows off the air!"  Time-Warner in the meantime has been telling us that CBS is the villain in this little drama.  Well, finally, CBS has been yanked from Time-Warner cable.  Time-Warner is telling us (in a crawl across the bottom of the screen of the replacement programming in half-hour intervals) that CBS will not allow rebroadcast of their signal.  CBS, on the CBS owned and operated radio station is advertising that it's Time-Warner's fault and that we should be flooding T-W's switchboards with continual calls of protest over the unfair treatment.

Someone or the other is bullshitting.  What we really need is for both sides to state their position so that we as consumers can make a rational decision as to what we want to do.  What we have are two large companies arguing back and forth attempting to make the other side look like Hitler.

It's kind of like politics.  Scratch that.  It's exactly like politics.

The Dallas Morning news has been covering some of the pre-2014 elections hi-jinx going on here in the Lone Star State.  Governor for Life Perry has decided that it's time for him to step down, creating a vacuum which seems to be sucking up every last Republican office holder into aspirations to move up a step on the totem pole.  The leading contender for Mr. Goodhair's slot is the current Attorney General here in Texas, whose only credits seem to be that he's adept at suing the Federal Government (27 times at last count - and he's wondering why the State can't get more Federal aid) and that he's so far to the right that there are feathers coming out of his right coat sleeve.  According to the Dallas Morning News, the current Attorney General has millions in his campaign chest and is intimidating any other potential candidate with the fear that if they run against him, he'll dig up something to use against any other contender to cast him or her in a negative light.

Uh, yeah.  I can see a really high-brow campaign coming up.  As high brow as The Three Stooges, that is.

This same crap is going on in Washington, too.  Let's see what we can do to put down the other guy instead of coming up with viable alternative solutions, or, paying attention to facts which just might get in the way of getting elected.

I'm tired of the bullshit from Time-Warner, from CBS, from Austin, from Washington, and from the local representatives right on down to (and including) the board of education.

Let's be honest, shall we?  Sure, life would be a little less interesting, perhaps, but I believe I'd appreciate the break.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Fix the Problem, not the Blame

(Saturday)
I did my thousand words for the day, so, now I get to play a little and that means a walk through Facebook.
Ah, Facebook.  For amusement, it can't be beat.  Where else can you see pictures of pies with tops looking like an octopus, re-engineered blister packs of products which had never been sold and photos of friends enjoying a beer in this awful Dallas heat?  Lots of inspiration there, too - I am hooked on Radio Free Babylon's cartoon series "Coffee With Jesus" and the occasional story about singing nurses and Marines helping kids finish up a 5k race.

There are certain aspects I love about Facebook and one I particularly despise.

It's a game I call "Let's fix the blame".

Just a few minutes ago I was perusing a post stating that the reason we have poverty, hunger and veterans who receive less than adequate care is because we send billions of dollars overseas.  Now, it's intuitively obvious to me (I love using the term "intuitively obvious" in part because it drives the ex a little crazy) that we have a problem which needs to be solved, so, let's solve the problem instead of spending our time trying to figure out who's responsible.

I saw the same being said about the problems in Detroit earlier this week.  Someone came up with a brilliant post positing that Detroit's problems were the result of years of Democratic politics.  Great finger pointing, guys - now - how do you propose getting the people and the city out of the mess they are in?  More political jingoism?

It really doesn't matter how Detroit got into trouble, what matters is how the trouble can be fixed before the hole gets any deeper.  All that political jingoism gets us is nowhere.  The jingoists either need to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

When I worked for a well-known retailer, I saw the same thing happen over and over again.  Something would go wrong with a customer's project, then there would be an intensive hunt to pin the blame on someone for causing the problem before actually addressing the problem itself.  While it's nice to have a scapegoat it's slightly dishonest, especially if the person(s) who have access to the tools to solve the problem elect to find a scapegoat instead of solving the problem at hand.

Part of the reason people are so anxious to fix blame instead of fixing the problem has to do with a desire to be rid of the person or persons the blame fixers want to be gone.  In the case of Detroit, there are teabaggers and ardent Republicans who seem to want to pull out the stops to discredit the Democratic Party and/or Barak Obama.  My former employer used the tactic to be rid of employees that they didn't particularly care for (the same holds true with other large, well-known retailers as well).

*****

That written above was from last Saturday.  I didn't release the blog thinking that perhaps another shoe would drop in the near future.  Here it is, Tuesday night and I was right.

Earlier today, word came that former President George W. Bush had undergone some minor surgery to put a stent in a clogged artery.  I found out not from the news, but from a Facebook share of a social media site called Mr. Conservative which was claiming that the former President  was being tweeted death threats from those dreaded liberals.

Egad!

There were on display several tweets, all very uncomplimentary and/or downright rude.  I scrolled down further to see replies to the story which were just about as bad as the original tweets themselves.  It appeared as if civilization had broken down and that the bullets would be flying at almost any moment.

Now, for the most part, most of the people I know from the left side of the political spectrum disliked "W", rather, disliked "W"'s policies.  My take is that while I disliked the policies, I'm not going to wish any ill will on Mr. Bush and neither do the people I know.  Now, it doesn't mean that I'll be sending him flowers or a card any time soon, but by the same token, I'm not going to belittle the man, either, much less send him a death threat.  He was, for better or for worse, our President and I will respect that office.

That being said, I began to wonder if perhaps the initial fuss - the death threats - were generated from within the Republican party to rile up the virulent opposing commentary from people hating Democrats or the current sitting President.  There are lots of people who dislike President Obama and who don't hesitate telling people multiple times how much they hate the man.

I wouldn't put it past some of the operatives I've known about over the years to plant phony death threats just to make the opposition look like a bunch of uncouth Barbarians, but, there I go.  Fixing the blame instead of fixing the problem.

*****

There was this old joke about the fellow applying for a job:  The prospective employer asks if the applicant is responsible.  The applicant replies "Oh yes.  Whenever something bad happened at my last job, one of the supervisors would tell everyone that I was responsible!"

I threw that joke in there just for the heck of it.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Putting a Tone Across in Print

My son, Stuart, returned from being a camp counselor yesterday.  He left practically right after graduating from high school and had missed an important piece of mail which came here for him from his step-grandmother.  There was a neat little twist to the missive sent by my mother-in-law which Stuart noticed by virtue of a habit of his - a twist probably not noted by my step-son, Warren.

So I told Stuart that it would probably be a good idea if he were to send a note to Mrs./Dr. Patterson as a follow-up to the piece of mail.  He came back with the idea that he would rather call because he found it rather difficult to put across a tone in print.

Hmmmm.

Something I tend to do when I'm writing is to sound out what I'm writing so that I can better write in a tone which will convey more of a meaning than just the printed word alone.  I understand that human language depends as much on tone, timing and pauses as it does on the actual words... and that proper grammar or certain "standardizations" don't always do the trick.

My understanding drives the grammar police program and my editor mad.  "You should reconsider this" or "Sentence Fragment" have popped up so often on my word processing program that I have come to ignore the warnings.  I have problems even contracting certain words (contractin' is a no-no), which was fine for certain characters like the girl who played opposite of John Wayne in "True Grit", but when one is writin' 'bout a rough-hewn character who ain't got time fer bein' prim and proper 'bout usin' proper grammar 'n' spellin'.  Granted, one of my projects was done from the point-of-view of a journalist (yes, I suppose the character would use nothing but perfect grammar to tell his story), but even with him, not everyone adheres to the so-called "rules" one hundred percent of the time.

Now, to be fair to my editor, I'm not going to complain.  We have a symbiotic relationship wherein she likes the stories I write and I generally agree with most of the corrections she makes.  One of these days, when I actually sell more than a handful of books, she and I will actually get paid real money for our labors.

But I digress.

In one sense, writing has become a lost art - at least it has with some of the younger people.  Back in my day (assume a Walter Brennan type of voice) we didn't have quite the proliferation of telephones we do now, so, we were forced to write!  (Drop the Walter Brennan voice).  I recall a correspondence I had with a female friend when I was in high school in which I used a scatter-brained approach in the letters I wrote to her.  Mis-spellings, you bet!  Grammatical errors?  Yup...  They were printed, too, sometimes with a little bit of my cursive thrown in just for the hell of it.  She wrote back in perfect cursive, and in perfect form.  Both of us were correct in the way we wrote to each other.  My missives were not necessarily as perfectly constructed as hers, but we were at least able to see into each others' personalities in the way we wrote.  In the few times we would actually talk with each other on the phone (long distance was such a daunting thing in those days), we instinctively knew the others' voice simply by the tone we had put across in our letters.

The art is disappearing.

Sometime in the next couple of days, my mother-in-law will receive a phone call from my son thanking her for her kindness and generosity, put across in a tone which will be comfortable for him.  His inflection will exactly match his intentions, suiting his purpose.

Good for him.

For me, it's back to the grindstone and sounding out whatever I'm writing.  If it sounds good, I hit the "enter" button on my computer and keep going on.  If it doesn't, well, there's always the "backspace" key.

Be Seeing You

bdharrell

Falling Behind

I received some good news on Monday.  Amazon will soon be crediting my checking account with the second royalty check from sales of my first book - "The Legacy of Miss Annie Darden Coggins".  Actually, it was a combination of good news and bad news, depending on how $10 and change for the past three months can be interpreted.  It's better than the proverbial sharp stick in the eye, but considering the hours I put into the book, I'm netting way less than minimum wage.

Actually, I had decided to shift gears so that I can approach this whole "I'm publishing a book for sale" thing in an entirely different way.  And yes, I did it before getting my measly royalty check.

Let me reiterate something before I go any further.  I had no pretensions about having an avalanche of money falling into my lap when I put my book into circulation back in January.  I'd be happier if I had made more, but, I can't have everything.  There were some obvious flaws.  The title was way too long, the cover wasn't to even a poor professional standard and the formatting was wrong.  Very wrong.

After several conversations, I decided to withdraw the book from Amazon's Kindle Direct program, have it edited, re-title it and commission a decent cover before deciding where I will release it next.

In the meantime, being emboldened by favorable remarks from various quarters, I have moved apace on two other projects which I want to release at the same time as the re-release of my first book.

One of the projects is a follow-up book with the working title "The Magnolia Chronicles".  I am in the process of melding story elements into a single narrative.  I got lost for a while over the past couple of months, but now I'm to the point where I can actually say that I can see light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm sprinting ahead on the deal.

The other project I'm calling "Brushes with Fame".  It will consist of two novellas.  One, "Whatever Happened to Suddsy Watters?" is 95% ready for publication.  The story is locked, edited and ready to go. The other part of the novella, "Goodbye to All That" is coming along nicely.  "Suddsy" is a salute to those kiddie show hosts many of us grew up with back in the '60's and the '70's - "Goodbye" involves an over-enthusiastic fan quite accidentally meeting and dating a former television personality.  The story, so far, works.

Anyhoo, I have lots to do now that I've taken care of some personal business and can free up the time to get these projects completed.  I did notice today that I have spent waaaayyyy too much time on that internet back fence called Facebook these past couple of days and so have decided to take a short hiatus from that particular channel.  I'll wrap up the word games I have going, but that will be about it for the next couple of weeks.  I'll deal with personal messages which seep over onto my regular e-mail account, but, that'll be about it.  No insults intended - I hope none taken.

I will blog now and again.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Trip Log

Some of you may be aware that I took a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania over what could be termed as a loooonggg weekend so that I could attend a memorial for my good friend Norm Shor.  It was a hectic five and a half days, covering nearly 2700 miles and more orange construction barrels than I care to recall.

Day 1-Thursday the 11th.  Started from Allen at 5:55 in the morning, otherwise known as 0:dark thirty, reaching Effingham, Illinois 745 miles and eleven and a half hours later.  Literally flew through Texas, at least after getting on I-30 in Greenville where the speed limit was 75.  Hit the welcome centers on either end of Arkansas.  I-30 roughly parallels US 67 until I-30 disappears in Little Rock.  I stayed on US 67 from Little Rock to Popular Bluff, Missouri.  From there, I took US 60 east which evolved into I-57 which went into Effingham.

Effingham is at the intersection of I-57 and I-70.  There was a giant cross set up by one of the local Christian groups which was supposedly lit up at night.  I didn't venture out of my hotel room except to eat at a Culvers just down the street.  With the piped in Christian music and the box soliciting donations to keep the cross lit, I came away with the impression that the owners of the franchise were committed.

Day 2 - Friday the 12th.  Another early start in order to rendezvous with my sister at a restaurant in Carmel, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis.  I actually made it to the assigned place within 3 minutes of the time agreed upon and was delighted that my sister's husband came to share lunch with us as well.  After leaving Indianapolis, I pretty much headed straight to Chillicothe (after calling a friend in Dayton who could not make a rendezvous) to see my mother and my brother to stay the night.  My first hour there was spent listening to my mother rationalize not making a trip overseas the next day - her traveling companion had canceled and Mom would rather have had the company.  Dinner at Bob Evans, followed by a trip to the supermarket to get my favorite chips.  Four bags of Herr's Salt and Vinegar, or as we always called them, "juicy chips".

After dinner, a bit of relaxation.  A friend dropped by for an hour or so to catch up on things in general. After introducing her to my mother, we came to find out that they worked in different buildings at the VA hospital in Chillicothe at some of the same times.  I may have started a nice little friendship, there.

Day 3 - Saturday the 13th.  Still yet another early start, this time due to a long-standing appointment to have breakfast with a couple of friends who have met most Saturday mornings at the same place since before I left Chillicothe to live in Texas.  I then proceeded to Pittsburgh by way of Columbus, where I stopped to see more family.

I arrived in Pittsburgh early enough (so I thought) to take a ride downtown on the transit system.  The ticketing/fare system caused me to miss two connections and the first few minutes of the dinner which was part of the memorial.  The evening went well, otherwise.  I was able to recall parts of my trip as part of my presentation - one which was well received.  Afterwards, I had a word or two with my editor before calling it a night.

Day 4 - I scooted out of Pittsburgh, early again, so that I could make it to Lexington, Kentucky at a decent time.  I made a point to head to Fairview, West Virginia to spend a little bit of time in quiet contemplation at the cemetery where my maternal grandparents are buried.  It had been at least fifteen years since heading up that particular road.  It was a great setting with perfect weather.  I'm glad I took the time to stop.

Lexington was easily attained - the hotel where I had a reservation was a bit more difficult.  Construction on the road in front of the hotel meant that I couldn't get there without making a U-Turn a mile up the road. Add to that the frustration of an Innkeeper who didn't have good command of the English language and a room which wasn't ready when I arrived... well, let's just say that the best time I had there was the time spent with a long-time friend and his wife on his farm just outside of town.  I'm staying at his place the next time I'm headed in that general direction.

Day 5 - Early again.  Not much to note other than watching the crop dusters in action while coming down US 67 through Arkansas.  I planned to stop in Cairo, Illinois to spend a little bit of time on the spit of land where the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers intersect.  I was disappointed that the access road was blocked.

I stopped in Little Rock instead of making the rest of the way to the Dallas area.  The hotel was next door to a Hooters.  I ended up eating at a Chinese place, instead.

Day 6 - Today.  The last early start.  Made it to Allen just after noon.  I think I'll stay put for a while.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Too Many Decisions

I took a drive with my step son this afternoon.  He has an appointment with the driver's license examiner in little less than a month and needs more practice behind the wheel before he can solo and I get to see my car insurance rates rocket sky high.  It will be a good thing, though.  He's out of high school and ready to head to  the community college down the road.

I have a good feeling about Warren.  That's his name.  Warren.  Warren has every reason to be the angry young man.  He was close to his father, a man of declining health when I first met him.  Warren's dad died not long after Warren's mother and I got him settled into the 8th grade.  Warren was 13 - an awkward age to be certain - and he showed a certain amount belligerence to his situation which thankfully dissolved over time.  Warren is showing promise despite his young age.

Back to the drive.

While I was observing Warren driving this afternoon, I was struck by the number of decisions a person driving has to make when piloting a car at 60 miles per hour down a busy highway... and that's not even counting the various distractions on the side of the road.

Was I nervous sitting in the passenger seat, my life in the hands of a seventeen year old not related to me by blood?  Well, hell yes I was nervous.  Who wouldn't be?  On the other hand, though, we made it back in one piece with no tickets, no drama.

Just because I was nervous does not mean that Warren didn't do an excellent job.  "He done good," as we used to say in southern Ohio.  If he keeps the level head he seems to have on his shoulder, he'll do his mother and his step father proud.
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Something to note on practically the same page, Car and Driver magazine has a series of articles in their latest issue regarding advances in automotive technology in the past few years.  One of the technologies mentioned is the development of self-driving cars.  We're almost there, it seems.  C&D was telling of one system which is being worked on which almost has the capability of making the number of decisions a driver has to make to safely pilot an automobile from point A to point B without incident.

The working word here is almost.

Apparently the developers need to work on a couple of things.  For one, the system is still well short of what it would need to pilot a car for any appreciable distance.  For another, the system itself would run about $40k, and that's not counting the car it would be driving.  Still, there is that possibility that we would one day have a robotic chauffeur taking care of the task of driving for us.

Then what would teenagers have to look forward to as a rite of passage?
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Anyhoo, those are the thoughts running through my head as I look forward to a long drive over the next week to get to Pittsburgh and back.  There are billions upon billions of decisions which need to be made between now and when I get back.

Kind of astounding, isn't it?

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Where I am going from here

Something I've learned about goals over the years is that they may not necessarily be reached as they were initially stated.  Such is the case with the goals I set for myself a little over three months ago when I separated from my employer of the previous twelve years.  The goals I had then had to be adjusted to account for various roadblocks challenges which have come up in the space of those three months.

My original plan is pretty much still on track.

I have commenced my quest for a Real Estate license here in the state of Texas.  The course is on-line and for the most part (so far) a good deal of common sense is dictated as well as an ability to dance around certain legal nuances.  After getting an orientation from someone connected with a large Real Estate company and getting involved in the educational process, I have talked with several other people who have been involved in the business in one form or another who have helped me cut through the obvious hyperbole of the first someone I talked with.  Within the fortnight, I will commence working with a mentor who will help me with the course work and provide me with practice within a framework.  I'm still not certain as to where I will spend most of my time in the selling process, but I'm getting there.

Work on my writing continues apace, but at a slower pace than I have anticipated.  On the other hand, I had a marvelous chat with an entrepreneur regarding my already published book and plans for the next several rounds.  One of the topics which came up was that creativity cannot necessarily be pushed to a deadline or to a business plan.  While I was able to complete one novel, Whatever Happened to Suddsy Watters, in an extremely short period of time, I've been struggling with The Magnolia Chronicles.  After tossing out Suddsy, my initial plan was to have 'Chronicles' ready to go on Amazon no later than the middle of July with Suddsy being released some time in September.

Well, the 'Chronicles' stalled.  I was having trouble with one of the characters.  I thought I had a good handle on the woman, but she just didn't fit completely.  There were elements which fit quite nicely, she just didn't have the right motivation to make the overall story work.  I've spent parts of the last couple of weeks giving that character a make-over which seems to work out a little better than what I had originally written.

So much for making The Magnolia Chronicles available in July.  Even if I complete the story in the next fortnight, I still have to have the story edited and a decent cover to put on the book.

A step I've taken has been to pull my original book off of Amazon in order to re-title, re-format and re-cover the thing.  It should be history as far as Amazon is concerned at some point before the first of August.  My revised plan is to bundle three books for sale all at the same time at some point this autumn - hopefully in time to catch the Christmas season.

Stay tuned for further developments.

In any event, I'm still hanging in there.  I'll be out for a couple of days this week - I will be at Norm Shor's memorial service in Pittsburgh (see the blog "Who's Norm Shor?") on Saturday and using the opportunity to stop and visit a few friends and family on the way up and on the way back.  Until then...

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Something for Nothing

Everyone seems to be looking to get something for nothing these days.  If you don't believe me, try selling something - something big - which may be taking up space in the garage.

I had this silly notion to be rid of the camping trailer which has been occupying my garage for the five years I have been living on Wandering Way.  Lately, it has become little more than another piece of horizontal space on which I could store any number of objects from motor oil to Christmas ornaments.  Three weeks ago, a former co-worker dropped by unexpectedly - our conversation boiling down to my desire to find a good home to my trailer.

"Well I have this buddy who might be interested..." I was told, and about two weeks later, this former co-worker and three other people descended on my home wanting to see the camper.  They had a truck and towed it out to the side yard where I cranked it up and told them about the various shortcomings of the contraption and seeing as how someone had offered me $1000 for the rig a couple of years ago without going to the trouble of pulling the thing out of my garage, I modestly asked for $800.  Well, after pulling the thing out and after giving the device a going over, I was offered $500 under the provision that the air conditioner was in working condition.  My former co-worker was to come by the next day to confirm that the AC was working so that the deal could be complete by the following weekend.

To this writing, the co-worker has not been back.

I now have a trailer sitting in my side yard with no real means of pulling it from place to place.  Our fleet of vehicles now consists of economical four door sedans which don't have enough oomph to pull a trailer around the block, much less out to a campground or into my garage.  My best alternative seemed to be to put a sign on the thing and hope that someone would be willing to take the thing and give it a good home.  At first, I thought of putting it on sale on "Craig's List" using the following ad:

NOW OFFERING:  1995 Coleman/Fleetwood Rio Grande pop-up camper.  Could sleep up to 6 (very friendly) people.  Features ice chest, storage trunk and screened-in room.  Frame is solid, AC works.  There are a few quirks as should be expected with any 18 year old; but as something for a novice, or as something to take to the lake for "Fishin' and Drinkin'", this could be your ticket!  $525 and you can have it today!

After thinking it over, I decided to delay a foray into Craig's list, unless I could find a way to advertise the camper as some sort of "Portable Rendezvous", offering it for sale in the "Personal's" section of the List.

So I purchased and put up a sign in front of the trailer, and so far I have had three "nibbles" - again from people wanting something for nothing.

The first came from a man who lived a couple of blocks away who initially wanted to trade a Tablet for the rig.  I came to the conclusion that I already have enough computing power in my house to make several simultaneous moon landing and declined.  He then mentioned that he had a hot tub, and since the other half and I have been bantering back and forth about getting a hot tub in our back yard, the idea seemed halfway plausible... that is until I did some reading and discovered that a "free" hot tub would eventually cost considerably more than the $500 I wanted out of the trailer.  We passed.

I had a couple come with their son, driving a vehicle which would easily tow the camper almost anywhere.  If the son had his way and the cash, the deal would have been done on the spot.  His parents wanted to make a deal where they would pay $150 now and the remainder within 45 days.  I am still working on that deal, as well as a similar deal with another party who wants to do the same thing.

I'm not a bank and I have this feeling that any such deal would "go south" before a final payment was made on the rig.  I had previous problems with folks who just had to have something I owned (or had marginal ownership interest in) and have found myself in the position where the initial deal had been diluted by non-payment of the full amount agreed to when the deal was struck.  Right now, I am offering a reasonably priced item for less than I really wanted for it and I really don't want to play "Banker".  I'm not really inclined to prostitute myself any further.

The trailer will sit where it is until someone wants to pay cash.

There was a minor repair I had to make on the trailer on Friday evening after showing it for what seemed like the umteenth time.  After finishing, I sat down inside for a good ten minutes before wrapping up the show and heading into the house.  I contemplated the time I had spent with the trailer - some of the camping trips and the good times we had - and actually had half a notion to just take down the sign and see if my friend, Dave, still had the little GMC pickup truck he wasn't using sitting in his garage.

Maybe I could talk him into selling it to me for next to nothing - in installments.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

I've Got a Secret!

It was back in the late fifties/early sixties when Garry Moore hosted an interesting television show called "I've  Got a Secret".  The premise was simple, really.  People would appear in front of a panel who had to guess the secret of the guest.  If they failed, the guest won money.  If they guessed, the guest won less money.  Famous people would go on the show, too.  Before a famous guest would go on, the panel would put on blindfolds (sequined, naturally) and would usually let Garry voice the answers to the panelists' questions.  You Tube has some of the old kinescopes available 24/7 - I was delighted to watch Ted Lewis from Circleville, Ohio fail miserably.  One of the panelists nailed him in no time flat.

Lewis came from an era when, if you had a secret - you kept that secret, secret.  For instance, in the days  leading up to WWII, the British got a hold of a cipher machine and a code book used by the Nazis and were thus able to keep up with what Hitler's war machine was up to and was able to thwart Adolph Hitler's evil plans at will.  It was code-named 'Enigma' and it was one of the most closely held secrets during the war.  Nobody felt compelled to report 'Enigma' to the press, or to complain that they felt threatened by the existence of the machine - in large part because no one knew that the thing existed.

We fooled the Japanese, too, by using Navaho 'Code Talkers'.  No one had any second thoughts about lending the Japanese one or two Navahos so that they could understand what was being said about them by those sinister round-eyed American devils.  No sir!

Well, these days, things have changed.  Television is no longer in black and white, most television game shows require no thinking whatsoever and apparently it's okay to blab vital secrets in such a way that people who wish to do us harm know that they're being listened to, forcing them to use different channels of communication.  If certain people would have kept their mouths shut about what the NSA has been doing, chances are that we could still be short-circuiting terrorist plans like we supposedly had been doing, that is, until the whistle was blown.

Now, part of the problem is that certain people in our government are inept boobs who have no business being in charge of a household, much less being in charge of a government program or of the military.  This Bradley Manning fellow is probably right in some respects.  Our military is prone to pulling boners far too often for comfort.  It's not really the fault of the little guy (the kids who volunteer to be in the armed services).  The people who know better are the worst offenders.  We have a problem which needs to be fixed - BUT - there's no sense bringing the problem to the attention of others who can do nothing about the problem.  What should have been done was for Manning to bring the situations he had reported to the attention of someone in the Pentagon who could have done something about those situations.  It may have taken a while, but, Manning would not be on trial at the moment.

At least that's what I think about it.

Imagine what sort of damage Bradley Manning would have done if he were to have pulled a similar trick during WWII and tipping the Germans off about the existence of a British 'Enigma' decoder - or giving the Japanese helpful hints on how to speak Navaho?  One set of secrets which were dropped out of that war were hints on building nuclear weapons by the Rosenbergs (sic).  Incidentally, they were executed for passing secrets to the Russians sixty years ago this week.  Manning will likely spend a few years in the brig, but that's about it.

Same thing goes for the fellow hiding out over in Hong Kong at the moment.  Perhaps the people in the fourth estate who are climbing all over themselves to get 'scoops' on these blabbermouths need to be reminded that they may be enabling the next bomb or the next terrorist invasion.

And as far as screaming bloody murder about the discovery that there are agencies monitoring phone calls and the internet, be reminded that those agencies were enabled by those same people - afraid of the next pressure cooker bomb or the next airplane flying into a building just after 9/11.

Didn't I just say something about being sick of this mess?

I'm becoming incoherent.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

Count Pointercount

I've just about had it with the bickering.

It's been three weeks since I've posted a blog, in large part because I seem to have spent a considerable amount of time listening to the bickering going on regarding the various and sundry "scandals" or "Fill in the Blank - Gates" which seem to have been taking up most of the national conversation lately.  There is a constant bitching and moaning about how this country is being run into the ground by one or the other of the political parties with charges, counter charges and rebuttals out the wazoo.

Somehow, it's got to stop.

Either that, or we should delete the word "United" from "The United States of America".

Things have gotten so bad and so annoyingly stupid that the satire site known as "The Onion" has decided that they need to shut down.

Reality has become its own satire.

I am to the point where I am about to start unfreinding certain people and organizations if they don't cease and desist.

ARRRRRRGHHHHH!

Things otherwise are working out.  I had a small glitch in the adult education class I am in the midst of taking.... I've also worked out a glitch in one of my stories.  Things are coming together.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell

What are you going to buy today?

Don't you just love the internet?

I've tied myself to this medium for a couple of reasons after losing my day job, most specifically because of the opportunities I have been able to find here.  From job interviews to how to dress for job interviews to where to buy what you need to buy to wear on job interviews - well, that could go on forever if I allowed it.

The biggest challenge is to separate hyperbole from fact.  For instance, one of my early "interviews" was for a company which wooed me into coming in, telling me that my qualifications were ideally suited for an opportunity which would only be open for a short time and that I needed to come in at my earliest convenience at a scheduled time for further consideration.  I rushed over (actually it was a few days later), arriving early enough to score a Geocache and to watch as several other people who were ideally suited for an opportunity which would only be open for a short time.  It wound up being a mass indoctrination where about 15 of us sat in a room and were given a ninety minute presentation about some insurance company I have never heard of attempting to entice me into giving up six and a half days a week cold call selling life insurance.

I obtained several 'gems' from that meeting - For one was the image of a young woman at the reception desk of the insurance company lip synching to Beatles songs which were popular when her mother wasn't even a gleam in the eye of her grandmother.  I borrowed the line and put it into a book I was writing at the time.  I also found out that the life insurance company I had never heard about before was under the corporate umbrella of a larger company which seemed to specialize in recruiting agents for other life insurance companies I had never heard of before.

The parent company actually sent me more, similarly worded letters from some of those other unheard of companies for at least a month and a half afterwards.  I would almost term it as persistence of advertising.  It seems to happen a lot on the web, especially when the web is being used as a form of recreation.

The other half and I have a teenager in the house who is about to graduate from High School.  Something the boy needs is transportation so that he can get a job and/or the Junior College less than 5 miles down the road.  I spent some time on a website (Cars.com) to see what was available at a moderate price (less than $2,000) to get him back and forth.  The day after I made my initial search, I started seeing advertisements from that website while I was on Facebook or getting roundly beaten on Words With Friends, as well as on a few other places where I would not have thought of seeing such well-placed ads.

Now, I'm not ignorant as to how those ads got there, nor am I going to begrudge Facebook or Words... or Yahoo their revenue for providing my entertainment.  In fact, I find it somewhat amusing.  We ended up retiring the other half's car, gave it a mechanical going over and passing it on to the teenager, doing so after finding a sweetheart deal from a local dealer - and I'll be darned if ads for similar cars didn't start showing up on my recreational pages almost immediately.  Same goes for a pedal-powered piece of machinery I'm contemplating purchasing to add to the fleet... and of course the manufacturer of the computer I'm using wanted me to update almost from the moment I put the thing into use more than three years ago.

Oh well... people gotta live, somehow.

On the other hand, I may just find the pervasiveness useful to my own evil plans some day.  And no, that does not include my cold calling you to sell you life insurance.  Besides, I'm getting ads from some fellow who's telling me how to avoid cold calling because cold calling sucks.

Be Seeing You!

bdharrell  

Keeping Abreast of Developments

"Americans have this obsession with bosoms..." or so stated Terry Thomas' character in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Fifty years later and it's true.

Take the announcement the other day from Angelina Jolie about her recent surgery.  Please.  (Sorry, my inner Henny Youngman is showing.)  I could almost hear a collective gasp from Tomb Raider fans who worked themselves into a frenzy over the loss of Angelina's biggest assets.  I mention Tomb Raider fans in particular because of my son's fascination with the movie which came out at about the same time he started to reach puberty.  Yes, there was lots of action with the gun play, but he was just as mesmerized by Ms. Jolie's physical attributes.... although he still won't admit it.

Yes, I recall being that age and yes, I was just as guilty about wanting to know more about what was behind those bits of clothing women wore around the upper parts of their bodies.  Considerable time was spent in Junior High speculating about whether the girls we saw budding out at the time were doing so naturally or if they were augmented with products from Kimberly-Clark.

Then I grew up and matured (Bonds mature, men don't.  ed) came to the realization that many women see their breasts as symbolic of their womanhood, even to the point where some would rather keep their breasts and risk being killed from a cancer they could contract because they are genetically predisposed to contract than to take the lifesaving step of having them removed.  I applaud Ms. Jolie for her foresight and her willingness to publicly reveal the step she took.

I personally know a few women who have done the same thing.  My friend Barbara in Maryland did it nearly 20 years ago.  My former mother-in-law did the same.  So did my wife.  It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to do something that can possibly allow you to live longer - with a certain amount of Lara Croft bravery mixed in there to boot.
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So, shifting to this morning, I had a meeting with a woman about a business matter and came away with a certain amount of amusement with what I will term as a social 'tic' she displayed.  She was wearing a modestly low-cut shirt which she occasionally tugged at while we were talking.  She is not the only woman I noted tugging on her low-cut shirt/blouse/dress in the past few years/months/weeks.  I am sensing a contradiction.  On one hand, fashion dictates low cut shirts/blouses/dresses - on another, I sense that the tugging is an unconscious effort on the part of the women who do it to prevent exposure.

I mentioned the tic to my better half and she pointed out that back in the day, she would constantly tug down on the short skirts she was compelled to wear in school.  I had almost forgotten about the dress codes we once had and the protest which finally led to the schools allowing girls to wear pants of some sort in lieu of dresses and skirts.

During the conversation with my dear wife, it suddenly hit me that I was wearing a kilt when we ventured down to the local Renaissance Festival last weekend and that I came to the realization while I was out there that if I sat down in the wrong way, I would be exposing myself in a manner not appropriate to the situation.  (Note that a kilt worn with underwear is actually a skirt.)  So yes, I found myself tugging down, protecting my hangy down parts when I was out and about.

Vanity, or should I say modesty is not merely a trait limited to the female of the species.

Be Seeing You!
(Properly attired; unless you're a naturist, I suppose)

bdharrell

Now a big hit in Russia!

God bless Blogspot.  Not only do they allow me the opportunity to vent my spleen and make occasional plugs for my writing efforts, but they also provide me with statistics regarding who takes the time to read my ramblings.

Maybe you're here by mistake - I have no idea.

Regardless, I peeked at my statistics this morning and found that I've gotten just as many hits from Russia as I have from the United States.

So what's the deal?

Back in the days when I was on the radio, some of the places where I worked made a big deal out of their "ratings" - how much audience did they pull over a given period of time.  It was important to the stations because they would be able to charge more money for the advertisements they would sell if they were getting a larger portion of the audience.  Well, I'm not in radio any longer and despite the fact that Blogspot offers me an opportunity to add advertising to my little personal space, I'm not really concerned about how big my numbers are.

Honestly, it's really a source of amusement.

So far this year, I've also gotten hits from Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and a few other countries.  Oh - and China, too!  Missing from my collection: Canada.  I thought for sure that my rant about the Canadianization of America would draw at least one hit from an overly polite frostback.  Anyone from Central America or South America (Mexico, you're more than welcome at my blog - Uruguay, just a few keystrokes is all I ask!  No one from Africa, either.  South Africa?  C'mon... I have a friend with South African ancestry!  When will Australia step up to the plate?  I'm still waiting for Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.  When will some of the smaller countries step to the plate?  Andorra?  Grenada?  Grand Fenwick?

All in all, I am flattered.  Okay, maybe the larger portion of those hits from other countries (or for that matter from this country) are hits from people who have passed by accidentally.  I do it, too - I'll read a random blog now and then after hitting a "NEXT" button.  An innocent diversion?  Maybe I've gone and flattered some other blogger.  Ain't this fun?
*****
Two Facebook items caught my attention last night - one was an advertisement for Audi featuring "The two Spocks" as I'll call them.  I got into a brief conversation about Star Trek fans with a woman who is married to one.  I am starting to develop a story about a die-hard fan who meets someone remotely connected to the franchise.  It's starting to be a lot of fun.
The other item was an obituary which appeared in a major newspaper for a woman from Mississippi.  I have not had so much fun reading an obituary in quite some time and am now wondering if there would be a market for that type of obituary.  I might start working on my own on a similar vein and instruct my survivors to insert some vital data and publish it just as written when I finally get shot by that jealous lover.  I'll give it a month or two to rattle around in my head, and then maybe offer it on my commercial web site:  bdharrell.com

be seeing you!

bdharrell

The Canadianization of America!

Maybe you hadn't noticed it yet, but there's a growing problem in this country.

We are being invaded.

From Canada.

Oh, sure, you say... those polite people from the cold north are as harmless as a kitten.  There is no threat - HAH!

I used to think that way, too, until I started to read some of the labels on the food products I eat.  I'll have you know that I've avoided "Canadian Bacon" for years - for years, mind you, preferring instead to eat American bacon grown on American farms.

I thought I was safe, until the other day when I chanced a glance at the box of frozen waffles I was eating.  PRODUCT OF CANADA read the fine print, almost indistinguishable on the package.

*****

That's how the rant would start.

The premise is ridiculous.  That's all there is to it.  It's no more ridiculous than other rants I have seen recently on Facebook and otherwise.  I read a forwarded post the other day from someone telling me to boycott Pepsi products because they left out the words "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance printed on a Pepsi can.  There was a fair amount of self-righteous indignation in the post - a post I had seen previously - attacking Coca Cola for the exact same crime!

I went snooping at Snopes.com and found that the words "under God" were omitted from a can of Dr. Pepper at one time.  But the good people at Dr. Pepper omitted 26 other words from the Pledge, as well.  The can read "One Nation... Indivisible".

That's it.  Just three words.  There are (by my count) 31 word in the Pledge of Allegiance.  Let me offer three more words:  Makes No Sense.

Years ago - before Facebook and before the internet, I recall people passing around information defaming Proctor and Gamble because of their moon and stars trademark.  The people passing this information were up in arms because it "proved" that P&G was in league with Satan or similar nonsense.  I don't know if they still do, but at one time Proctor and Gamble was spending a considerable sum of money refuting the rumors and legally going after people and organizations which insisted on continuing those rumors.

The problem these days is that misinformation now spreads at the speed of light.

It spreads a bit faster when there's a note of indignation connected with that misinformation.  "How Dare Coke or Pepsi leave off the words 'Under God' from appearing on their soda cans!"

Know what I mean, Vern?

*****

For the record, if you re-arrange the letters of PEPSI COLA, it makes the word EPISCOPAL - as in the EPISCOPAL CONFERENCE CENTER at the William Cooper PROCTOR farm south of London, Ohio on Ohio Route 37.  Yep... same Proctor as with Gamble.  My understanding is that the farm was donated to the Episcopal Church on Mr. Proctor's passing.  A neat little tie-in, eh?


Be Seeing You!

bdharrell