Category: random

“Did you see the news about how Biden’s going to cancel a billion dollars in student loans?” my wife asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Whose going to pay for that?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What? Why?  This is important stuff.”

“Yup, I know.”

“Then why don’t you want to talk about it? This is in your wheel-house.”

“I know, but every time I say anything I make people mad, I make you mad and that’s because what I say is taken simply as opinion and not fact.”

She was still mad at me when she left for work.

After battling cancer, writer, artist, blogger, friend, and all-around nice person, Sue Vincent left us today. She was born on September 14, 1958.

In her own words:

“I am a Yorkshire-born painter and writer, living in the south of England. I paint the strange things that come as images in dreams and fantasies and write about life as it happens,” she wrote about herself.

“I was raised in a spiritually eclectic family in a landscape where myths and legends were woven into the stones, and have always had an intimate relationship with the inner worlds and the understanding that all paths are but spokes on a wheel, leading ultimately to the same center,” Sue added. “It is not the path that one walks that matters, but how one chooses to walk it.”

Enjoy your new path Sue. Know that we will all eventually catch up with you.

Turning from Seventh onto Sun Valley was like entering a twisted dreamscape. But now I know that this witnessed scene is but a view of the remaining year.

I expect no one to understand.

It was minutes beyond noon, as work let out early. It would forever be ‘out early’ because of COVID-19 and high taxes now, the business permanently closed.

At the side of the pock-marked asphalt, beyond the solid white stripe, lay a body on the icy Earth. I stopped to see if I could help, only to learn it was a large dog, its blood soaking into the dirt and mortal remains quickly chilling.

Holding the dog’s head was a large German woman who lived across the street. She pressed deep, the 14-month old dog to her aging breasts until animal control arrived to take away what remained.

Her neighbors, a Mexican family, stood in weeping despair near the open gate from which their puppy had escaped. Only the father’s sad eyes were dry.

Ahead sat the garbage truck, half in the travel lane and nearly in a ditch. The driver, stone-cold sober, hung on his open door, blood-shot eyes red and looking every bit as sick as a man who suffered a bender the night before.

Yes, a forboding, I tell you. This year will be filled with death, tears, isolation, separation, long waits, and misdirections.

My Cousin Elmo says, “Instead of getting rid of Dr. Suess, let’s get rid of Dr. Fauci.”

UPDATE: I have lost Mark’s card…

As a master hoarder of all things historical and not-as-of-yet-historical, there is a secret pleasure in collecting calling cards. We know them better today as business cards.

Yesterday, I received four cards, possibly five, if one should include the double-side card.

The farthest came is from San Angelo, Texas. It was handed to me by this fella and his wife, whom I invited to visit the saloon where we were gathered for a post-funeral wake.

That is what happens when one drives up, asking, “Why is everyone dressed up so in period-piece?”

(Most id the people attending the funeral procession we’re dressed in mid-to-late 19th-century western wear.)

Nice couple. Small world.

Mark and I learned we have an odd crossing of personal history…

• He was born in Sacramento, the same as my brother.
• We each had a great Uncle that worked in the aerospace industry, namely Rockwell-Rocketdyne. His in Texas, mine in Los Angeles.
• Each of our Great uncles brought us a small poster from Virginia City, Nevada when we were kids. The short poem “My Job.”
• And finally, we both have family in Oklahoma, where he and his wife live.

That is the value of a calling card, and yes, I will use the older vernacular in this case, and why still I maintain that a ‘stranger is really a friend you ain’t met yet.”

Standing on the observation platform, the Commander and a Sub-commander of the spaceship looked at the blue orb known as Earth. The craft’s sensors detected a planet devoid of human life.

Soon the scouts they had sent to investigate returned. The lead scout reported to the platform where the two officers waited.

“Did you find any sign of the Humans?” the Sub-commander asked.

“None,” answered the Scout.

“What caused their disappearance?” the Commander asked.

“I can only speculate,” the Scout began, “But they may have bought and used so much toilet paper during the pandemic that they wiped themselves out.”

The sergeant sat in his cubicle listening to the static and hiss of the shortwave. His duty was monitoring the signal being bounced from Moscow to West Germany, write down anything he heard and report it to the duty officer.

Three-years through his four-year Air Force enlistment, and with a couple of hours left in this shift, John had heard little worth reporting. It seemed to him that the so-called ‘cold war,’ was below the freezing mark, and he could hardly wait to rotate home.

He took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, then paused with a slight head jerk. He had heard something faint, but it was there nonetheless.

Dash-dot-dot, dot, dot-dash, dash-dot-dot. Dead in Morse code.

He transcribed the words that followed. Certain he had it right, John got up and went to the duty officer with the intercept.

“Are you sure?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, sir,” John answered.

Returning to his radio and headset, he would finish his shift with the knowledge that he knew something that the rest of the world, including those in the nearby cubicles, would learn later. For now, he had to remain tight-lipped and close out his day in silence.

Back at his single-room billet, the young sergeant tried to sleep, but it was impossible. His mind kept playing those four letters over and over.

Finally, he gave up and went to the corner and picked up his guitar. He sat back on his bunk and began plunking those four letters over and over until he found their rhythm.

It wouldn’t be for another two years that he’d finally find a use for that chord. By then, everybody knew what John had first learned that March day, and now it was old news, and still the Cold War continued.

Fifteen-years would pass before that chord would be considered a future county music classic. You’ve probably even heard the famous words, “But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,” a time or two.

Dash-dot-dot, dot, dot-dash, dash-dot-dot.

At one time, Johnny Cash had been the only person outside the Soviet Union to know that Joe Stalin had died. And the Man in Black would immortalize that secret in “Folsom Prison Blues,” hours before the world would learn this too.

My Cousin Elmo says, “The problem with being empathic is that you feel sorry for the assholes, too.”

Perhaps I should have known it was gonna be an “Ahh, crap!” kinda day.

My wife brought home two cream-fill donuts for me. Aside from already partaking in my “doctor recommended” two cups of coffee, the one donut turned out to be jelly-fill, the other empty.

“Ahh, crap!” I complained, eating both anyway.

Everything started out alright, then I decided to remove the fluorescent lights from the garage ceiling. All was well as I did not electrocute myself, fall off the ladder or break any of the tubes.

Then I realized that other lights were no longer on. Track and trace, trace and track to find the “short” in the powerline, and I have yet to locate the problem.

My brain growls, “Ahh, crap!”

As I was finishing up a news article, editing and locating a suitable picture to go with it when the power went out to the television, stereo, and the Internet. Did the problem in the garage earlier cause this?

Immediately I think, “Ahh crap!”

Discovered that a fuse had popped off at the junction box. Easy enough to fix, so I return to the computer where my news article…is gone…and I must start from scratch.

Now say it with me: “Ahh, crap!”

BAM! He jumped from bed at the sound, looking at the bedside alarm, 3:17 am, and as the dog suddenly stopped barking.

Before he had a chance to react, they were on him, men in black uniforms forcing him to the floor and handcuffing him. He was bleeding from the top of his head, where a rifle butt has struck him.

Quickly, he was half-carried, half-dragged from his home, and into an awaiting vehicle. An EMT doctored the gash to his head before they were on the road to where he didn’t know.

Within minutes he was sitting in a small room, painted ocean green, in an unbalanced metal chair in a corner. There he waited for nearly an hour before a man in a crisp white buttoned-down longsleeved shirt and blue and red striped tie stepped into the room.

Without a word, the man placed a photograph and a letter on the small table near the wall. Only then did he introduce himself as a Special Agent.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing at the photo.

Still cuffed, he slid forward in his seat and looked closely at the image.

“It’s a picture of the letter you have next to it. It’s from a high school friend of mine,” he answered.

“Correct,” the agent said. “The photo’s from a postal service app called, “Informed Delivery.”

“Yeah,” the prisoner said, “I remember downloading it. So what? It’s on the app store site. Is this what this is all about?”

“No,” the agent answered, “It’s about your friend who’s been linked to an underground movement of domestic terrorists.”

“No way!” the man said.

The agent looked at his wristwatch, “In fact, he should be in custody by now. You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” the man exclaimed. “And what about my right against unlawful search and seizure?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the agent said, scooping up the photograph and letter. “We didn’t have to get a warrant because you gave your permission by downloading the app. And as you know the postal service is a part of the government, so we can look at your mail anytime and flag whatever we see as a potential threat.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” the man said again as the interrogation room door closed.

**Note: there really is an app called “Informed Delivery” available from the U.S. Postal Service and from your favorite app store.