It jus’ goes to show you that if you give a person a colorful shirt and a fancy lanyard with a special ID, you have the makings of a fascist. In years past, because I don’t generally attend Hot August Nights (HAN) events, I don’t get to witness the behavior of the organization’s volunteers.

A few years back I had to go 12 blocks out of my way to get around a ‘road block’ being enforced by one of these volunteers. He stopped me from entering traffic on Victorian Avenue in Sparks because I was not in a ‘classic vehicle.’ No, I was working, delivering pizza to make ends meet while in between jobs.

No one cared when I complained then and I doubt anyone with care now, after the treatment I received from two HAN volunteers in downtown Reno. Twice, they threatened to have the police arrest me because I was in the middle of South Virginia Street with other photographers, taking pictures of the cars and trucks as they passed in review.

The first incident came when one photographer, in a green shirt and wearing a lanyard with some sort of ID on it, told me – not asked – told me to get out of the street. I told him I didn’t have to get out of the street because it is public property. He walked away, threatening to call the cops.

At that point he did everything in his power to block my shot of any vehicle. I eventually fell-back half a block to continue taking pictures unencumbered.

A few minutes later a woman approaches me and demands I get out of the street for safety reasons. I told her no, too.

“I don’t want you to get run over,” she claimed.

“By who?” I asked, adding, “You mean the cars that are passing one either side of us and not touching the passing lane that separates the travel lanes?”

“Yes!” she yelled at me.

“So – what are you and all these other people covered in some sort of pixy dust that makes you immune to being run over?” I asked in true smart-ass form.

“I’m calling the cops,” she declared.

“Good! Go ahead. The number’s 9-1-1,” I shot back, adding, “I have as much right to the street as you or anyone else at this event.”

She walked away and the police never arrived. I continued to take pictures as I had been, though I missed several great looking car and trucks due to her interference.

Now, this is where it gets interesting (at least for me) as the man who first told me to get out of the street came up to me from my right side and screamed at me to get out of the street. He drew right up into my face as if he were trying to scare me or caused me to feel intimidated.

It didn’t succeed as I drew even closer to him, nearly touching his nose with mine and said, quietly, “Please get out of my face, sir, and you’d best make the decision to do so quickly.”

“Or what?” he stated childishly.

“I’ll be forced to beat you to death with your fancy camera in front of all these witnesses,” I answered in a voice he could only hear.

He blinked and swallowed hard. I maintained my composure and an unblinking stare as he backed away and stated he too was calling the law.

For a third time, they didn’t arrive.

He spent the next few minutes harassing me by stepping in front of me as I tried to take pictures. He failed again and again and finally gave up.

But his counterpart was more hard-headed and continued to try injecting herself in front of my camera. Finally, “I shouted, “Hey, Blondie, get your fat-ass out-of-the-way!” much to the delight of the spectators lining the sidewalk, who clapped and cheered.

She walked back to where she had come from and soon disappeared from sight. Figuring I had pushed the envelope far enough for the day, I started back north along South Virginia, continuing to snap shots of vehicles while heading for my truck.

Of course, what those HAN volunteers did to me is nothing compared to what the City of Reno did to local business before the start of the weeks-plus long event. The A&W at Kietzke and Plumb Lane, which has been a mainstay for HAN attendees, was force to close it’s door at 11 pm, though the restaurant had remained open past 11 pm during the event in past years.

Why?  Well, the city suddenly claimed a so-called land-use zoning for the area only allows businesses to be open from six am to 11 pm.

They did however offer A&W a Special-Use Permit allowing them to stay open beyond their government-imposed curfew.  Nice of them to offer something that comes with a six-week completion time period and a business-killing fee of $2,500.

When it comes to a sense of humor, my son didn’t fall very far from the tree as his father. The only real difference is that while I’m more ‘off the cuff,’ Kyle is more ‘thoughtful,’ in his approach.

As Kyle was growing up, we’d go to the San Diego, California area to visit his step-mom’s family. While there we’d also do many of the touristy things like Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo and Sea World.

Admittedly, Sea World was our least favorite. In fact Kyle told us that he wouldn’t be upset in the least if we never went back – saying he’d rather go to Space Mountain or do the Matterhorn.

Then a couple of years later, as we were getting ready to head south for a week, Kyle came to me and asked, “Hey Dad, can we go to Sea World while we’re down there?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “But I thought you didn’t like Sea World though?”

“That was then,” he replied. “I’ve changed my mind and now I wanna see people’s reaction.”

Puzzled, I asked, “Reaction?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you,” he returned, “I plan to take a fishing pole and walk around with it.”

No, this isn’t going to be a tale about an amphibious croaker, this is about a piece of brass with a number of very sharp two-penny nail (2d) sized pins standing upright on a pedestal. Mom owned a number of these and when not in use, she kept them under the kitchen sink.

One afternoon, shortly after getting my hair buzzed off (which happen nearly every school year after class pictures and again at the beginning of summer,) I was suffering from ‘itchy head syndrome’ and was in need of something to seriously scratch my head with. Using a hairbrush wasn’t getting the job done, so I figured one of Mom’s metal frogs would do the trick.

For a good many minutes, I moved the frog, with it’s sharp nails over my scalp and soon the itchiness disappeared and I felt much better. So I put the frog away and went outside to play.

It wasn’t too long after that one of the neighbor kids stopped me to ask what was wrong with my head. After I said nothing was wrong, she then asked why I was bleeding all over myself.

Reaching up and touching the side of my head, I raced home in a panic after seeing blood on my finger tips. Evidently, the frog was sharper than I though and I had scratch marks coursing although what stubble remained on my noggin.

Mom helped me get cleaned up and she even put hydrogen peroxide on my self-inflicted cuts and scrapes. By the next morning, my scabbed-over scalp looked as if I had tangled with a wildcat and lost.

The second I stepped on the school bus, the teasing commenced. Later in the the day Mr. Escola, my fifth grade teacher, asked me in private what had happened and I started to explain what I’d done.

As I told him, he tried not too, but he chuckled slightly. Hearing this, I began to cry and in embarrassment I hid in the restroom when recesses came around.

Near the middle of the following week, I had grown accustom to the teasing, the snickers and names like, “Scratch,” “Road map” and “Scabbs.” This created a complacency that left me absent-mindedly picking at my wounds.

Following lunch, Mr. Escola usually read to us and we quietly sat and listened as he did. That’s when I started playing with a rather long scab that had dried from one side of my head to the other.

Without thinking, I gently tugged on it until I peeled the entire thing in one piece off my scalp. It was probably a good four-to-five inch piece and I couldn’t help but marvel at it as I rolled it around between my fingers.

Then for some inexplicable reason I put one end of the scab between my teeth to see what it felt like. That’s when I came out of my revery and realized Lorri Stobert was staring at me in disbelief.

Without warning, she rolled her eyes in the back of her head and began to quiver and squeal. It took her a moment to be able to explain to Mr. Escola and the rest of the class what she had jus’ witnessed.

Mr. Escola then sent me to the principal’s office for disrupting class.

Yesterday, I got to talking with my neighbor who is into working out.  She likes to run and lift weights on alternating days.

The conversation got around to me asking, “So, how do you know when you’ve pushed yourself too far?”

“Well, there are three things I consider warning signs,” she answered. “A pain that shouldn’t be there, labored breathing and light-headedness.”

“That’s good to know,” I returned.

After she left, I was sitting on my front porch watching the world pass by when it occurred to me, “Her warning signs describe me right after I put my tennis shoes on.”

A couple of months back I was searching through box after box for my dad’s military records. At one point I had them all in one place – unfortunately life happened and now they are either scattered amid various file boxes or simply lost, existing no more.

The reason I was looking for these records was that my nephew needed proof showing his Grandfather had served during the Korean War. He entered a ‘American Legion’ contest that involved a sizable scholarship.

After pulling box after file after crate from storage I could only find a few pieces paper from Dad’s life 65-years ago. So as the self-appointed keeper of the family history, shame on me.

One thing I did find was an intriguing typed page that reads: “Translated from an article in the Korean language newspaper Inchon Shinbo, dated 31 January 1954.”

With the fear-mongering news reports about North Korea’s potential to fire a nuclear missile at Guam, Hawai’i or Washington D.C. and all cities in between, I figured now would be a good time to remind ourselves that we are a good nation, based on decent people who are willing to sacrifice time, energy and money to help those in need.

Returning to the typed page from my father’s military records, it comes with a note at the bottom which reads, “In a translation from Korean to English, a direct interpretation is impossible as many words do not follow one-another; so the meaning alone has to be translated.”

“American Air Police Rescue Sick Orphan; Going to Send to Japan for Surgical Treatment,” states the headline in all caps.

“American Air Police, Darby Thomas J. and Jack E. Flick, in the 67^th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, found a Korean limping orphan, Im Chan Sik who are starving on roadside beside post two (2), and sent him to the Belgium Hospital in Seoul for consulting doctor in November 1953. They had him enter to the Italian Hospital in Yong Dong-Po about one month after for another surgical treatment. But it didn’t effect a cure completely in spite of spending two hundred (200) dollars. Therefore they are going to send him to Japan for surgical treatment.”

Oh, how I’d love to find a copy of this particular article in the original Korean and then to learn what became of the orphan, Sik.

Oddly, most of us think of the Korean War as being a long past event that was the back drop to the TV show, “M.A.S.H.” And though it was never declared a true ‘war,’ but rather delegated the dubious title of ‘police action,’ the conflict, the deaths, the suffering and the assistance rendered was all very real for a people who needed defending from the oppressive yoke of Communism.

The final sentence in this hidden treasure, that once belonged to my father and written over 63-years ago, pretty well sums up how American intervention in that ‘forgotten war,’ came to be seen by the Korean people, who were forcibly divided into separate countries by the United Nations to prevent further blood-shed. It reads: “It is said that all Koreans who know this fact praise their goodwill to a Korean orphan, and appreciate their friendship to Korean people.”

Thank you Dad, for showing me (and now others) that humanity does exist in the face of war.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was alive, there would be nothing remarkable about Sid Fieldman. By any other standard, he would be considered a medical miracle and both a scientific and technological success but it was the year 2081 – so very little was remarkable any more.

At 121 years of age, he walked like a man 80 years his junior. He could hear and see better than most specimen’s half his age and it was all due to the advancement of the genetic coupling, pioneered nearly 60 years before.

He strolled out to his personal pod and without touching the door, willed it to open and the motor to come to life. As he sat down, he thought about how far transportation had come in his lifetime – from gas-powered cars and trucks to the thoroughly modern and completely clean electronic motorized pod.

“Downtown,” he commanded.

“Good morning, Sid,” a female voice coo’d, “Anyplace in particular?”

“Central Park,” he answered.

In less than it takes to blink, the pod smoothly moved from where it sat stationary to join the flow of traffic passing by as Sid stepped aboard. All he had to do was sit back, relax and allow the pod to maneuver from lane to lane, corner to corner, and street to street.

This gave Sid time to think, to reflect in amazement about how far mankind had progressed since his birthing. He was ‘accorded life,’ as they like to say now, when the telephone system still operated on the trunk-line with rotary dial, that eventually led to push-button phones and then the cellphone.

He smiled slightly at the thought that it was all made possible by deregulation. Breaking up the largest companies eventually caused them to fail and then through newer, more directed regulations, the Ones were able to collectively take control and pave the way for a stronger society.

“Now we don’t even have cellphones,” he thought.

Indeed the cellphone was a distant memory and could only be found in museums, replaced by HeadSpace, an implant located behind one’s left ear. With HeadSpace, Sid could watch his favorite film in 3-D or record a ‘video’ as he watched it unfold before his eyes.

Further, there was no need for what he had once known as ‘headphones.’ Now, if Sid wanted to hear music or have a conversation all he had to do was ‘will it’ to make it happen.

Even ‘texting’ and reading ‘email’ was possible as the letters and words danced across Sid’s irises at the mere thought of them. Yes, life had improved now that the Ones were in control of all binary systems.

Sid sighed and tried not to allow his brain waves to go to the next logical place. Danger loomed with negative thought, which the Ones accessed through ‘meta-data tagging.’

HeadSpace left everyone open to Stream. And it was through Stream that criminals got caught before they had even done anything ‘wrong,’ making society ‘a safer place to habitate,’ as the dictum went.

“Sid,” the voice said, “Your heartbeat and respiration have increased. Is everything okay with you?”

He sat silent for a few seconds, assessing his body functions, before answering, “Yes. Yes, everything is okay with me.”

“Your perspiration says otherwise,” the voice stated dryly.

“I am okay,” Sid responded again.

“We don’t think so,” the voice said sternly, “Your pupils are constricting, showing you are in a state of fear.”

Once again Sid replied, “I am okay.”

He glanced at the rear view mirror, knowing that behind the reflection was a micro-camera. Next he adjusted himself in his seat, fighting off the knowledge that the design of  the comfortable faux-leather surrendered his vital signs and body chemistry to Steam for the Ones to analyze.

Slowly, Sid reached in his right back pants pocket and removed a handkerchief. It was the one hold over he allowed himself from his younger days that no one had objected too.

Lifting himself slowly from the seat, he kneeled on the pod’s carpeted floor and draped the square piece of cloth over the mirror, effectively blinding whomever or whatever was watching him. By removing himself from the seat, Sid also hoped to ‘blind’ the system that insisted on monitoring his physical-self.

“Sid,” the voice demanded, “Please remove whatever you have placed over us and sit back down. We want you to stay safe.”

“No,” Sid answered in defiance.

“We command that you return to your seat and remove the item you have covering us up!” the voice directed.

“And if I don’t?” Sid asked.

“We shall have to consider you a threat in accordance with Societal Regulation 131,” the voice announced, adding, “Which states, the Ones, having concluded that the specimen no longer meets the stated needs of the society, can end said specimen’s life-flow with prejudice.”

Sid didn’t respond. Instead he remained on his knees viewing the surprised looks and the hostile faces of the people who watched the stand-off play out on the Stream.

“We are issuing you a two-minute warning before you force us to take action against you Sid,” the voice stated calmly.

He chuckled, “Two-minute warning — stolen from a game that no longer exists.”

“Please repeat…” the voice began.

“Nothing!” Sid bellowed at the voice.

He realized that the decision had already been made to end his existence. Then Sid recalled something his parents had taught him when he was a little boy, but that he had disregarded as useless as he grew older.

“God in heaven, holy is your name, your kingdom come and your will be done on Earth as in Heaven…” Sid hesitatingly said, struggling to remember exactly how it went, “Give me – no – give us our bread today and forgive us our faults, as we forgive those who hurt us. And don’t let us do wrong and keep us from evil…”

Suddenly, Sid Fieldman’s head, behind his left ear burst, shoving bone fragments into his brain, killing him instantly. But the Ones were too late – because of HeadSpace, the words spread like a virally wildfire throughout Stream and there was no stopping it.

Once again I had a night-terror (NT) and once again I was in a fight for my life. This one though was far different from any other I’ve had.

This NT included petrified corpses in uniform stuck in the branches of trees that I had to run by and beneath to escape whatever was chasing me. When I say ‘petrified corpses,’ I’m talking about the kind first pictured in the pages of National Geographic Magazine’s November 1961 issue.

By the time I picked up that issue about Pompeii in Mrs. Crivelli’s sixth grade classroom, it was already 10-years old and I found it fascinating. While the photographs of the entombed bodies didn’t leave me with nightmares, I must admit I’ve been a bit wary of pyroclastic flows ever since.

As for my NT, it concluded with me struggling to climb into the hatch of a B-29 Superfortress bomber. I have never dreamed about that kind of aircraft, because I have never flown in one as part of any mission.

Back in the day, crew members would grab the edge of the opening and lift their legs into the plane first, pulling then pushing the rest of their body in behind. It’s been describe as doing a massive stomach crunch, followed by a laborious pull-up into  a gigantic push-up.

Not once have I ever dreamed about a B-29, because I have never flown in one as part of any service-related mission. An HH-1 Huey helicopter or a C-130 Hercules aircraft I can understand, but an aircraft that saw most of its service during World War II and the Korean War?

In the end, as I tried to hoist myself into the plane, a man grabbed me, preventing me from getting inside. I ended up kicking him in the crotch, then unleashing three hard thrusts into his face with my foot.

The force was so powerful I found myself tumbling out of bed and rolling into a nearby desk. In the end, I concluded as I sat there rubbing the side of my head, that I had literally kicked my ass out of my bed.

And even though no one was around to witness this self-defeating feat, I was a bit embarrassed for myself. However, our dog Buddy, who was sleeping next to me at the time, though thought it was all great fun and wanted to play some more.

“Ahh hell, why not,” I said to him as I picked myself off the floor. “Sleep’s for amateur’s anyway.”

To claim I was a well-behaved child would be a lie. I was more like Huck Finn to Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, if anything.

During my high school years, I skipped classes so much that I nearly failed to graduate. Only twice did I ever skip school though by staying home and pretending to catch the bus to Crescent City.

The first time I did this was the day I burgled the Morgan’s home stealing a certain military helmet for a friend. I wrote about this in a piece titled, “Days of the Schutzhelm,” which not only exists on this blog site, but was then published in my 2010 book, “Growing Up Klamath.”

Not one to learn quickly from my mistakes back then, I decided a few months later to skip school again by faking like I’d gone to the bus stop, when in reality, I was hiding in the house waiting for everyone to leave.  A brain-trust – I am not.

Soon the house was quiet. Dad had gone to work; Adam, Deirdre and Marcy were off to school; and Mom’s ride stopped by and picked her up to take her to work too. I had the house to myself and the first thing I did was pour myself a cup of coffee and turn on the television.

I was gonna live the life of royalty as I later made myself a couple of egg-mayo sandwiches on toast.

It was about 12:30 in the afternoon and I was down the hallway in my bedroom, getting something, when I heard the front door open. Someone was home!

Immediately I went to stealth-mode by crawling under the bunk bed that Adam and I shared. Beneath the bed were toy’s, articles of clothing, books, shoes and I used them to camouflage myself should whomever came home look under the bed.

Then panic kicked in…the TV was still on and there were dirty dishes and a used pan in the kitchen sink. Still, it laid quietly under the bed waiting for whatever was to come next.

“Hello?” Mom called out. “Whose here!?”

Silence, followed by her rapid uneven gait coming down the hallway. Mom commenced to search the house.

It was the same in each room – the closet opening and closing and so on. Suddenly I heard the closet in our room open, then close and I could only imagine her down on her knees looking under the bed, since my face was practically pressed against the wall.

Next mom opened the curtains to our room. I was sure that I had come to the end of my days on earth at that moment only to hear her turn and quickly walk back down the hallway.

I continued to lay still as I listened to the noises come from the front part of the house as Mom continued about her business.

Soon I heard my brother and sister’s come home. I learned that Adam did a lot of singing when he thought he had the room all to himself.

Eventually, he left and he, my sister’s and Mom were all in the kitchen. I could tell by the fact that the chairs around the table dragged across the floor and that the constant chatter had become filled with mouths filled with food.

It was now or never in my mind. I slipped out from under the bed, opened the bedroom window, popped out the screen, climbed outside, slid the window closed and replaced the screen.

Within a minute I had hopped the back fence and ran as fast as possible to the bus stop, that I knew would not be used until the following day, and hid inside, waiting for the high school bus to go speeding past. Only then did I feel like I could casually walk up the street and enter the home I had jus’ sneaked out of a half-hour earlier.

That night, at the dinner table, there was a lot of talk about the mystery of the TV and the plate and pan in the sink. Mom and Dad eventually decided that some unknown someone had come into the house and helped themselves to some food and watched a little TV before exiting through the sliding glass door, which was left unlocked.

From then on, I concluded, when (and not ‘if’) I skipped school or even a class, I’d do it while on campus of the high school. That’s because along with talk about a stranger having been in the house, Mom couldn’t help brag how she had her little .38 caliber snub-nose revolver at the ready if she discover somebody hiding.

I choked violently on my bite of food when Mom said she’d have shot the “son of a bitch, if she’d have found him.”

The other night I was watching a TV crime drama when they showed the suspect using an actual fully enclosed telephone booth. The sight of it seemed so quaint to the reality of today.

Recently I learned that while telephone booths are few and far between, an artist is using them in New York City to connect the average American citizen’s with the stories of illegal aliens.

“I arrived as an undocumented immigrant,” the voice of a man from Mexico says. “I made it my mission to transform the lives of undocumented students into leaders and role models.”

That’s art?  Whatever, dude.

Seeing the booth on TV, I got to thinking about the last time I used one. It took a minute, but I realized it happened the year I ran away from home and you’d be surprised to know that this wasn’t as long ago as you’d think.

Shortly after my wife and I separated, my mom died — leaving me with a deeply wounded heart. And by July 2002, I took off on a cross-country journey, hoping to find answers to questions I hadn’t yet asked myself.

For close to two-weeks I wondered from California to Oklahoma, up to Nebraska to Utah. I did make one sojourn across the ‘mighty Mississip’ to visit the resting place of Brigadier General William O. Darby (no relation) at Fort Smith National Cemetery in Arkansas.

A few miles outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, at a truck stop, I decided to fuel up and get another large cup of coffee and more sunflower seeds before heading to parts unknown. After paying for my loot, I noticed a phone booth tucked in the back of the store.

Since I had purposely left my cellphone behind and I really wanted to let my wife know I was alright, I decided to call. It was 4:15 in the morning in the place they call the ‘Magic City of the Plains’ and an hour earlier in Nevada, so I woke Mary up when I called.

We spent nearly an hour on the phone, her sitting on the edge of the bed, me enclosed inside that phone booth. Believe it or not, that phone call helped set my mind straight and I was ready to get back home and stay put.

No artist ever put a phone booth to better use than I did that early morning east of Wyoming’s capital city.

Sleep doesn’t come
Light goes off
Brain comes on.

Thoughts rush me
Stampede unending
Why the unquiet?

Never an answer
Ignored by flood
That scatters’ me.

Remaining in bed
Recalling the day
Tamale too many.