“i should be writing,” i keep telling myself. instead i sit here at my computer listening to the washing machine beat the crap out of the bed linen. stumped for a subject, something not political, i surrender to my baser needs and wander down my hallway to make myself a sandwich; bologna and pepper jack cheese on sourdough. while i’m at it, i reheat my coffee for a third time. it’s mornings like this that make me wonder if i should ask God once again what His plan is for me, but it’ll have to wait – the sheets –they’re done.

It was an early Monday morning, around three or so, when a man came into the air base’s emergency room, doubled over in pain. I was working the intake desk as well as assisting in medical situations when needed.

“I am so badly constipated, I can’t stand up,” he complained.

As I scribbled down his name, rank and other particulars, I asked, “How long’s this been going on?”

“Since early Saturday morning,” he grunted.

Immediately, I moved him into bay number one. There was no else in the ER admission area other than me, so I had to leave him and go back to the desk to call for the other on-duty medical technician and the lead nurse.

Within a couple of minutes, the pair arrived and proceeded to check the patient. Then one of them asked me, “Will you run him down to x-ray and set him up with some film?”

Swiftly, I rolled him down the hall to x-ray and handed him off to a technician with instructions and returned to my desk. A while later, the x-ray tech returned with the patient and handed me a large envelope that held the patient’s films.

“Weird,” is all he said as he turned down the hallway.

By this time I could tell there was something strange going on as the doctor, the nurse and the med-tech were talking in hushed tones while looking at the patient’s butt, which they’d positioned in the air, pillows tucked under his hips and stomach.

“Hey,” the doctor asked, “Bring me those x-rays, would’ya?”

In a matter of seconds he was looking at them. That’s when he exclaimed lowly, “What the fuck is that?”

Both the med-tech and nurse shrugged. However, I instantly knew what it was and without saying anything, sprinted down the hallway to x-ray to quickly check the machines. Neither the x-ray tech nor myself found anything out-of-order and I raced back to the ER.

“Uh, Doc, I checked both the x-ray machines and they’re clear,” I said before adding, “That’s a Michelob bottle.”

By this time, they knew it was bottle and that it was dangerously lodged deep inside his rectum. I realized that knowing the type of bottle was of no help to him or the patient, so I headed back to my desk.

About four minutes later, the patient screamed in agony. The doctor was trying to remove the bottle but the thing refused to budge.

“It must’ve sucked in a part of his bowel,” the doctor said, “But I’ll be damned if I know how we’ll get it loose without surgery.”

The doctor looked at me and directed, “Call the OR and see how fast they can get a suite prepped.”

Without saying anything, I picked up the phone and dialed. After arranging an operating room, I let the doctor know.

“Good,” he said.

Then, as if it were an after-thought, he turned back to me and asked, “You got any ideas about how we can extract that thing without major surgery?”

Shaking my head ‘yes,’ I answered with a question, “How about drilling a couple of holes in the bottle?”

It was as if a beam of sunlight struck the doctor as his face lit up, exclaiming, “A dentist’s drill!”

Within minutes, there was a mobile drilling unit being set up in the bay. Shortly afterwards came the irritating squeal of the drill bit being pressed into the brown glass.

There was an audible sound of air being released as the doctor drilled a second hole into the bottle, followed by a horrendously awful smell. Then, without much warning, the bottle became a missile, launching across the room, blasting a hole into the drywall.

A minute or so later, the patient was on his way to the operating ward. As he disappeared around the corner and because this wasn’t an ordinary situation and required some investigating, the doctor ordered me to call the Air Police.

The following week, after reporting for duty, with the same doctor, nurse and medical technician, I asked, “So what became of the guy with the bottle up his ass?”

The doctor looked around and then motioned us to move closer as he explained, “I’m told he admitted to doping two women and having sex with them. The two women in turn, doped him and in revenge for what he did to them, they shoved the bottle up his ass.”

We all quietly chuckled, but it was no laughing matter; the Air Force eventually kicked all three out of the service.

We had only recently moved to Klamath, California in 1964, coming from Mather Air Force Base, in Sacramento. My family arrived following the devastating tsunami that slammed into the North Coast, but before the massive flooding caused by endless days of rain along the coast and foot-after-foot of snowfall in the mountains.

It was either late November or very early December when my folks got permission to cross the Klamath River, via ferry to go see family in Humboldt County.  One had to get permission for personal travel then because of all the damage to the roadways throughout the area.

During this visit, I recall stopping at my grandparent’s home on Rohnerville Road in Fortuna, before heading further south to my cousin’s home in the Compton Heights area. We ended up spending the night at my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Adam’s house, sleeping in the back bedroom with our male cousins.

At some point during the weekend we all packed up – I say ‘all’ to include my aunt and uncle, my cousins Dan, Pam, Steve and Kathy, my folks, my brother Adam and me – and headed for the snowy hills of Mad River.  Uncle Luke, Aunt Daisy and their kids, also my cousins, followed along behind us.

Somewhere along the way, my dad must’ve bragged about how he grew up in the snows of Iowa as a boy and Uncle Adam got tired of it and challenged him. This ‘challenge’ involved Uncle Adam dragging Dad behind Adam’s jeep while my dad laid atop a vehicle’s hood, turned make-shift sled.

As the story goes – and I heard it a few times while sitting at my aunt and uncle’s dinner table – Uncle Adam gunned the Jeep around one corner to the next, trying his best to knock his brother-in-law off the hood. I do recall seeing Dad slide up an embankment and as he came down to the roadway, flipping over under the sled, only to disappear off the road on the other side, which was a downhill slope, to finally coming back onto the snow-covered roadway in the upright position.

Gladly, the situation didn’t last too long as Uncle Adam lost control of the Jeep and ended up crashing it off the side of the road. We kids, crammed in the back, scrambled out and up the embankment, while my Aunt Barbara gave Adam hell for being such an ‘ass.’

Soon afterwards, Uncle Luke and his posse arrived, and together, my dad and both uncle’s set about hauling the Jeep back up onto the roadway. Once done, my dad got into Luke’s vehicle because it had a heater as Dad was ‘soaking wet and half-frozen to the bone.’

We continued on with our enjoyable family outing, save for the hell Aunt Barbara continued to give Uncle Adam, while we kid’s sat there, listening as the snow disappeared beneath the Jeep. Later, we concluded, and Uncle Adam had to concede, that Dad was the ‘undisputed sledding King,’ as he never came off the hood.

hard times create strong men
should they stand beside you
respect them —
strong men make good seasons

good seasons bring on softness
softness develops weak men
protect them —
when they stand behind you

weak men beget hard times
should they stand against you
defeat them —
hard times make strong men

A large number of Black candidates claimed victory in yesterday’s state and local elections across the country. The media portends these results are a reaction to President Trump and Republican policies in general.

But this isn’t true…

Prior to 1964 there were very few Black people in the Democratic party. After 1964, the Democratic party became flooded with Black people.

Today, they think that the party that brought us the KKK and Jim Crow laws is winning because offices normally won by White men, are now  being won by Black candidates. But this is a myth that been perpetuated by a dishonest media for several years now.

Common sense dictates that Black Democrats will win offices because Blacks are greater in numbers within the Democratic party now than they have ever been – it is simply a matter of percentages. But don’t be fooled; the Democratic party is still the foundation for racism and unconstitutional activities in this nation.

This is the historic truth – a fact.

It was in November 2011 when I first read a comment about a connection between Harvey Weinstein and the 2010 murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen. I went back and sought that thread out.

From DataLounge.com, dated November 28, 2011: “I found this posted in a comment on a deadline.com article.

We have reason to believe that Ms. Chasen had a celebrity client who had a person that was (and is) very angry with them regarding a mutually known woman, partly over money, but more over obsession. Ms. Chasen was insulating the client from the angry party, and taking the heat on both sides.

The contract against Ms. Chasen was a message to the celebrity that the game was over. The celebrity is now in hiding with full surveilance (sic.)

The woman has now fled the country. The suicide gunman was a decoy, and the real gunman — working for the hire (sic,) got paid well by his boss and is also now out of the country, and now being hired to find the woman.

The celebrity is also now in great danger. Thank goodness you readers, public here were smart enough to know BS when you heard it.

After reading this for some reason my brain went to Harvey Weinstein. Don’t know why but he popped into my head. — Anonymous”

Don’t you find such connections revealing? I do.

Well, this is no good…

Watching a story from Destination Travel about a family whose cabin is besieged by a pack of (were) wolves. So into it, I didn’t know one of our dogs was outside.

As l got up to get some ice cream, the dog charged in through the dog door. Scared the crap out of me.

Jumped off the floor and landed wrong on my left foot. I sprained my ankle.

For more than an hour I sat at the computer, screen blank. Not a word, not a letter, nothing. And I was beyond frustrated.

“Writer’s block,” I concluded as I got up and headed for a place I knew would help me get my ‘creative juices’ flowing again – the bathroom. No, not to take a dump – rather to shower and soak in the warmth of the water as it cascaded from my head to my feet and out the drain between them.

It’s been like this since I was a little kid – water and words. It didn’t matter whether it was the creek below my childhood home or a bathtub/shower stall — water and words.

Once toweled off, dressed and ready for action at the keyboard, I sat down and pounded out my first few lines, including a bit of dialog:

‘Sam sauntered down ‘C’ street from his office to his favorite watering-hole, the Sazerac Saloon. Finished for the day, is was time to commence with the personal frivolities of drinking whiskey, smoking fat, smelly stogies and telling lies.

“Well, okay,” Sam would later admit, “the Sazerac was one of many favorite establishments in this mining town.”‘

There I paused, taking a sip of what was now a cup of cold coffee, feeling a surge of renewed energy coming to me. I believed my patience was about to pay-off.

However, after a few more minutes, I moaned, “Shit! I got nothing.”

Feeling deflated for the time being, I set about reading from some of my favorite blogs, hoping to capture a spark of inspiration. Seven or eight postings later — and nyet.

So I concluded that I should pack it in for a while, find something else to do, return to my writing project later. I was out in the backyard on poop-patrol, cleaning up doggie-dookie, when I felt the need to jot down some words.

After finishing dookie-patrol, note in hand, I raced to the computer, turned it on and set about typing and editing my next paragraph.

‘It so happened that his day, his friend and drinking buddy, Tom from San Francisco was due in town on what passed for a stage in the newly minted state of Nevada. Sam had met Tom while stringing for his current employer, sending hefty telegrams daily over the Sierra mountain range for nearly three-years.’

As I worked to perfect the language, I was overcome with another case of ‘where-the-hell-do-I-go-from-here.’ By now I was doubly frustrated because I’d also forgotten how I had planned to wrap my story up as I’ve always ascribed to ‘knowing where you’re going, before getting there,’ when pen is in hand.

Later that night, after the lights were out and all were in bed, most of us asleep, I thought about my story. I ended up getting out of bed, returning to the computer and tapped out my third paragraph containing two sentences.

‘Sam was glad to be back where he believed he belonged, the raucous, noisy and sometimes dangerous hillside burg of Virginia City. He enjoyed the open surroundings to the confined streets and alleyways of San Francisco, to visiting the bigger city was always a ‘hoot’ in 29-year-old Sam’s opinion.’

Again, I smashed up against my writer’s block, threatening to erase the couple of hundred overworked  words I’d hashed out over the day. Then my Jedi voice warned, ‘Save your work, return to bed, you should.’

Happily, I listened because this morning as I was standing in the shower, allowing the hot water to soak in and cascade, a bright flash of ‘genius’ slammed into me.

Blam-O! Writer’s block, my Ass. Take that, Brain. Water wins again.

It was our dog, Buddy, who alerted first. He sprang to his feet and emitted a low growl of warning, which caused me to wake up immediately.

“What is it, boy?” I asked stupidly, sleepily.

Then I heard it – a small sound, a plunking of an acoustic guitar’s string. “But how?” I thought, knowing that the only guitar I own sat in it’s stand in the other room.

By this time, Buddy is off the bed and standing in the bedroom doorway. And while I cannot see him, I’m certain his hackles are up and the short hairs between his shoulders are standing bristle straight.

I fumble for the light and again I hear the plunking of guitar strings.

This time though, I’m certain it’s coming from the room next and I’m ready to investigate. Turning on that bedroom’s light, I find our dog, Roxy, laying on the bed looking in the direction of the guitar.

I swear her facial expression screams: “So, you heard it, too? Please tell me you heard that, too.”

A cursory look at the guitar finds nothing out of the ordinary. I stand there, watching, listening, spending at least ten minutes, waiting, hoping, wishing I could see or hear an explanation for this puzzlement.

Nada, so I calm the dog’s down and invite Roxy to come sleep with Buddy and me – and we return to bed. Not another sound is heard for the rest of the morning.

As usual, I get up to feed the dogs and help my wife, Mary get off to work. I stop in to have a look at the guitar after she leaves and again, I find nothing singular about the thing.

After the sun rises, I decide to go in a really investigate the musical instrument. I pick it up and strum the strings – “Ooo, it’s really outta tune,” I tell myself.

Then I hear it – a faint scratching noise followed by a slight scurrying from inside the hollow cavity. I try to look into it through the soundport, the hole on the face of the guitar, but it’s too dark to see into.

I hear more scurrying, more scratching and then it comes to me.

Quickly, I race outside with the guitar and lay it face down in the grass. With in seconds, a gray ball of energy darts from under the wood and strings, making that mysterious sound in the night one more time before disappearing into the grass.

A mouse. It had climbed the guitar and using the strings, was investigating the soundport when it must have fallen in.

Mystery solved. Now it’s time to set a few mouse traps around the house as winter is coming.

As I told a friend of mine, “’Adulting’ seems to be getting more and more difficult as we get older.” That’s because another fixture from my childhood has taken up residency in Heaven, as Alice Morgan passed away on October 17, 2017 in Crescent City, California.

On September 16, 1931, she was born in the Moses Creek area of Jackson County, North Carolina to Mary Jane and Jefferson Buchanan. Alice married Earl Morgan on July 1, 1948.

The Morgan’s moved to Klamath, California, in 1952 and later to Crescent City in 2014. They were blessed with son Jeff on their 15th wedding anniversary in 1963.

My first memories of Alice are through her husband, Earl. He was the Post Master in Klamath, for many years.

In fact, after the 1964 Christmas Flood that wiped out the town of Klamath for a second-time that year, the post office moved to the old Brizard’s building at the end of Redwood Drive. The Morgan’s lived across the parking lot and the street from there in the ‘big, white house,’ as it was known to us kids.

Having retired several years ago, she did not slow down. When Alice saw a need in the church and the community she took care of it.

She was an active member of the First Baptist Church of Crescent City, serving as Women’s Missions president, a Sunday School teacher an outreach leader, along with volunteering and ministering at the Crescent City Nursing and Rehab Center. She was also a senior Pen Pal to school children for many years, rang the bell for the Salvation Army, a member of the Redwood Cruiser Car Club, PTA, and RSVP program.

Alice worked at Trees of Mystery for many years where she worked with my mother. Alice also was a teacher’s assistant for 25 years, a number of those years spent at Margaret Keating School where Jeff and my brother Adam attended the same classes together.

Being raised in a Democrat home, she joined the Republican party, serving as Vice President, President and Chaplain of the Del Norte Republican Women. Alice also was a chairman of her district of the Republican Central Committee and held many open houses for candidates.

The final time I saw Alice was in July 2017, where we sat and talked and even prayed together. Even then, in the face of her illness she smiled and told me not to “worry about her. Worry about Earl and Jeff, if you must worry.”

Jus’ reflecting back on those too few hours, I feel tears slipping down my face. What an example to follow.

She’s survived by her husband Earl, son Jefferson and wife Sharae, foster son Mike Brown, sister-in-law Dot Buchanan, many nephews and nieces and a host of friends. Alice was preceded in death by her parents, brothers Huey Fremont, Claude Buchanan, sister Barbara and her Uncle and Aunt John and Lyda Wood.