One Republican Shows His Ass

Joe Wilson of South Carolina called out "YOU LIE" to the President during the joint address to congress. The content of the dispute isn't the issue. Dissing the President is. No excuses for this kind of behaviour. Right wing radio is all over this defending Wilson while at the same time Palin keeps saying that there is a "DEATH PANEL" in the bill, which is a blatant lie, and the same radio hosts applaud her for truthfulness. What the hell is going on in this country. On this day when we should all remember the moment when we came together in grief and anger we are being driven apart by lies and liars, and very stupid people that believe them. I fear for our freedom. The religious zealots may someday win, and then with Taliban-style government we all lose.

Graphic courtesy: www.legaljuice.com/LIAR-thumb.gif

The Lucky Kids of Norgate

I decided that I would make a rocket. I was about 13 years old and had no idea how to do it, but that never stopped me before. I found a spent co2 cartridge that looked perfect. Shiny, metal and it had a hole in one end for the rocket fuel to push out. Fuel. Now that was a problem. What to use? Aha!! I had some fire crackers that my father gave me for the 4th of July. They had rocket powder in them didn't they? No, they didn't. They had high explosive very fast burning flash powder in them. I didn't know the difference, so without delay set about to make my rocket.
Fire crackers in those days had interesting names: Black Cat; Dixie Boy; Gorilla and many others. In the 1950's most or all were made in Macau (sic) or Canton by rolling flash powder in Chinese newspaper strips with a paper fuse. Crimp the ends and Voila! a firecracker. The instructions, as if we needed them were: "Place on ground - light fuse - retire quickly". You could set them off in strings like you see in Chinese celebrations or one at a time. You could blow things up, throw them into the air by hand or with a slingshot - or - you could take them apart and harvest the talc-fine powder for other use.
I poured fine powder into the tiny hole in the end of the cartridge and put a Jetex fuse in the hole. This fuse was available to hobbyists for use in their Jetex rocket engines

(http://jetex.org/) used to power models and things. Yes, I had one of those and it worked fine, but I wanted to build my own. I didn't bother with the stick that you usually find on a rocket. I figured it would fly just fine by itself. But it needed a launcher, didn't it? I built one from a couple of boards nailed into a "V" shape and rested it on two bricks.

The day of the big launch arrived and I decided to get an audience together for the show. Five or six neighborhood kids, none older than me, gathered closely around the launcher. By closely I mean a foot or two. Right behind it. I carefully placed the "rocket" in the vee and lit the fuse. Excitement built as the fire crept towards the shiny cylinder that would soon fly high in the air. At the moment the flame from the fuse hit the hole in the cartridge there was a loud explosion. The launcher flew apart and shrapnel flew in all directions. We heard pieces whirring past our heads as the shiny rocket cylinder ripped itself apart. Stunned by the magnitude of the failure of the rocket to fly and by the loud explosion, it never occurred to me to see if anyone had been hit by flying shards of metal or wood. No one had. Some of you reading this will say "God protects fools" and others will say "amazing good luck that nobody was blinded, killed or maimed".

Years later in a physics class I learned why the thing exploded instead of flying. Something to do with the rapid rise in pressure from the extremely fast burning powder and the tiny hole available to vent the gasses.

Live and learn. Still, a few years later I was once again making things that went boom!, but this time on purpose. (There was one glass bottle bomb with a defective fuse that I put in a tree crotch and Max lit. It blew the second he touched the fuse, glass shards whizzing everywhere but neither of us was touched. At the time I felt that God was saving me for some higher purpose. Would have been easier for God to stay my hand.)

Firecracker photo: pzrservices.typepad.com/.../vintage_firecra.html

CO2 cartridge photo: pillsburystore.com

Fog and the Moving Doorknob

Max and I went to different Universities and met up summers or holidays or sometimes he would come to Miami from North Carolina for a fishing trip. As mostly happens we saw less and less of each other as we moved into our new realms.
One Christmas holiday we decided to go into the City (NY of course) to see what we could get into. We ended up a Trader Vics sometime in the mid hours (9ish) to sample the exotic drinks. My choice was a Samoan Fog Cutter, a fruity drink with rum, gin and brandy, topped off with a little sweet sherry. We sat a the bar and ordered. I don't remember what Max had, in fact I don't remember much about the rest of the evening. I don't know how we got home, or when. I slurped my drink pretty fast and ordered another. The bartender said something like "are you sure you want another of these. They're pretty strong" to which I answered something like "I'm sure." The second Cutter came and during the next interval of time (no idea how long) I finished it and ordered another. This time the bartender was reluctant to give me one, but finally relented. I took a sip and decided I had to go to the toilet. To pee, what else?
The toilets in that particular establishment were located in the basement, down a very long flight of stairs. There was also an attendant to give you a towel or comb or whatever you needed. So anyway, I got inside the loo, found the right place and began. I couldn't understand why the wall was moving. When I finished the attendant asked me if I wanted to sit down in his chair for a little while and that sounded like a splendid idea, so I sat.
Across for the chair was a closet where supplies, I suppose, were kept. The door was closed and had an ordinary doorknob. Except for one thing. It was a magic doorknob. For as I sat and watched it, it slowly began to move upward. It got to the top of the wall and started across the ceiling then "POOF", it was back where it belonged. I observed this mystery for some time and couldn't figure out how the damn thing moved. But move it did. Later, I made my way up the stairs to find my 3rd drink gone and Max waiting for me. The bartender had a smirk and took my payment for 3 Fog Cutters with a big smile. I am sure he slipped me a mickey, the bastard. Days or weeks later I figured out that what was really happening in the men's room. My head was falling backward and my eyes were stuck on the doorknob. Ergo the sensation of me being still and the damn knob moving. The miracle: I didn't get sick. I have never had another Fog Cutter and doubt that I ever will.
Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/88992939@N00/85551340

The San Tones - A Cool Memory

Like so many other late 1950s college kids I decided that playing the guitar would be a good way to attract the opposite sex. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but by the end of my freshman year I could play and sing with the best of them, I thought.

Dick England had a solid body Fender and could really play the thing. His pal Ronnie was even better. They jammed together a lot with a few other guys and me, and finally a band coalesced around Dick as the lead singer. I never could do melody but was OK on backup cords. and sang base. Well, the band was called "The San Tones" and we were, for a time "Dick England and The San Tones". The band played local gigs and attracted some attention but never really got hot. So we decided to cut a record in the summer of 1960 to "go national".
Dick wrote a song called "Elaine" (don't bother to Google it or the band) and we rented a studio in New Jersey to record it. We did. We loved it. Nobody else did.
Dick didn't come back to school the next year. I lost track of him, Ronnie and I lost my copy of "Elaine" (45rpm) somewhere along the way to growing up (actually never really did that).
We had fun, got drunk, women lusted for us, and WE HAD A RECORD! Now that is what I call a cool memory.
Photo from: http://www.mainstreetvintageco.com/catalog/item/4798917/6516552.htm

Tobacco and Friends

By now every one of my friends knows what I think of tobacco and its use. Fifty years of research, denied by the industry, shows without any doubt that the use of any tobacco product will greatly increase your chances of getting some kind of cancer and increase the risk of cardio-vascular involvement. If you know me and smoke, dip or chew you have heard my entreaties. "Please consider quitting", "Please stop before you get cancer", "Please don't poison those around you", "Spitting in a bottle or cup is disgusting", "You smell like an ashtray", "With all the evidence at hand only stupid people use tobacco" and others.

I started out (right after I quit cigarettes) as a militant, heaping abuse on users, insulting them, battering them with all the logic and research I could find. Didn't work. I finally realized that users had to want to stop and a gentle reminder of the consequences and acknowledgement of the challenge of quitting might be a better strategy. Didn't work.

None of it works. Some of you out there will know what you do when all is dark, nothing works and there is nowhere left to turn. Turn to love.

I love you. I will miss you when you die. Please consider what you are doing to yourself and others and try. That's all any of us can ask. Try.

And go to the link below to read more about the photo at the top.

Photo:www.healthwellnc.com/TRUstories/GruenText.html

Cal's Cut

One of those stories that surfaces when other things are being mulled about. When I arrived in the dorms at the UofM in 1958 and got the room assignment I met the 3 guys that would be my cohort for the year. Tiger, Cal, me, and another guy that I can't remember.

When 4 guys meet for the first time to share an apartment a certain amount of "pissing on the post" occurs to establish pecking order. So we told lies and postured and drank too much in an attempt to sort out who was Alpha and so on. A few days into the term we were all sitting around the living room BSing and I was playing with my brand new shiny dissecting kit. Teasing needles, chain hooks, pins, forceps and a very sharp scalpel.

Cal was sitting next to me on the couch talking his usual trash about how great New Jersey was and how crappy New York was and generally being a pain in the ass. He took a look at the kit I was holding and said something about it being a "kids toy" or something to that effect. Said you couldn't cut ice cream with the scalpel and that his knife (in New Jersey at the time) was a real "cutter". So I said something like "May not be able to cut ice cream but it could cut you easy enough." His reply left no doubt that this was a challenge. So I very slowly drew the blade down his thigh, nicely exposed in a pair of shorts, and sliced open a 3 or 4 inch cut, deep enough to bleed. Because the blade was so sharp and the thigh poorly supplied with sensory nerves he didn't feel much. Then he looked at the cut and blood and screamed and ran to the bathroom. He came out several minutes later with a bunch of band aids on his leg.

We never had that conversation again, and Cal was wary of me. Didn't phase Tiger, though, and later in the term he tried to kill me with a tire iron and I tried to kill him with a machete. Another tale for another time.

Photo: www.haciendapub.com/medicalcuriosa.html

Shooting DePue

My family had a summer place out in rural Long Island in the middle of potato country a mile off the road and 120 feet up a cliff overlooking the Sound. Pretty busy in the summer around there, but the rest of the year it was pretty isolated. With so few neighbors and miles of farms it was the perfect place to hunt small game and plink.

One Saturday Max, DePue and I decided to drive the 70 miles for a day of shooting our 22s. Max didn't have a rifle, but I had 2 and Depue had several, so we each had one. It was a cold morning as we walked and talked and shot at anything that either moved or didn't. That didn't leave much out of danger. We didn't shoot at birds, though, or fruit still on the trees because the powerful long rifle hollow point bullets we were shooting had a long range. Instead we shot at targets on or near the ground. Things like rocks, rabbits, pheasants, quail, stumps or anything else in range.

Towards noon we were getting pretty cold so we went to the house to warm up. As you hunters and gun fanciers will know, there is a hard and fast rule about guns and houses: always unload before you bring a gun into the house. Period. No exceptions. And we followed that rule religiously. Now the house had been closed up for the winter so there was no heat, but there was an old cook stove in the kitchen that burned coal or wood. We started a fire in that and waited while the room warmed. In the mean time we sat around BSing and eating what ever we had to eat. When we finally got ready to go out and try to kill something we bundled up, picked up the rifles and walked out on the back porch. Max first, DePue next and me last. In a moment of stupidity I aimed my rifle (from 3 feet away) squarely in the middle of DePue's back and was going to snap the trigger and yell (to startle him) BANG, YOU'RE DEAD! As I was squeezing the trigger, I swear I heard my father say "Never point a gun at anyone unless you intend to shoot them". I pulled the barrel down and we walked out. Once outside we reloaded and that was when I discovered a shell chambered and ready to shoot. Had I pulled the trigger on DePue, a high velocity lump of lead would have shattered his spine or maybe hit his heart. I was shook up pretty badly, but never told him how close he had come to being shot or how close I had come to shooting him.

You expect stupid people to do stupid things, but sometimes not-so-stupid people do stupid things unexpectedly. I did something very stupid that day and was saved only by a last minute thought. I have never pointed a gun at anyone since then, and won't unless I mean to kill them.

Photo: 22rifle.blogspot.com/

Stealing the Pontiac.

Maxes father was a lawyer and worked in NYC. He took the train to work and left his car at the station. Like my father he left around 7am and got home about 7 in the evening. He always parked on the same street and if possible in the same spot. Habit. But, enough variation so that minor discrepancies went unnoticed. When school was out for the day, a bunch of us would walk to the station, find the car and drive around for an hour or 2. Usually the parking place was still there because the street was used for train parking and no one was going into the city in the afternoon. It was easy and we never got caught. Sometimes we would have to park in a different place, and occasionally we put something in the space like a garbage can or movable sign to hold it. His father never noticed.

There was another way we stole his car. Much more labor intensive and we always, read that ALWAYS got caught.

The garage where the car lived faced the backyard with a long sloping downhill driveway to the road. We would wait until well after supper for his father to settle down to TV or a book, and then push the car out of the garage, maneuver it around the parking area in the back, down the driveway and down the street. Then we would start it and drive around the neighborhood for a while. When we came back, we reversed the action. Turned it off down the block, pushed it to the driveway, pushed it UP the driveway to the back, rolled it around to get it in the garage, and there was his father, waiting in the garage. We caught hell, Max got grounded for a few days and we did it again. Got caught every time. His father must have been clairvoyant. Or could he possibly have heard the loud crunching of the tires and our shoes on the gravel driveway as we pushed the Pontiac? Must be that because he never figured out the other theft. And we never figured out how he knew exactly when we were coming up the driveway. Not until we were much older.

Photo: jfpoe.com/51pontiac.htm

The King of Atlanta

The King of Atlanta

And it came to pass that one day a prophet told the King that Atlanta (the Kingdom Better and More Valuable than All Others) was growing too fast and was soon going to run out of water.
The King had the prophet beheaded and said “Let it Grow”.
Another prophet came and told the King: Atlanta would soon be buried by its own garbage.
The King had the prophet beheaded and said “Let it Grow”
Another prophet came and told the King that the air in Atlanta would soon be poison.
The King had the prophet beheaded and said “Let it Grow”.
Another prophet came and told the King that sewage from the millions of people would soon poison the water and land.
You guessed it. Beheaded the prophet and said “Let it Grow”.
So it came to pass that the water ran low, the garbage piled up, the air became poisoned and the land and water became poisoned with sewage, still the King said “Let it Grow”.
When another prophet came to tell the King about the unsustainable number of people in Atlanta, all were dead.
The prophet called himself “King” and said “We must begin again. Let it Grow.”
Moral: Don’t tell a King what he doesn’t want to hear. It makes no difference anyway and there will always be another King to screw things up.

Photo: Belt buckle stock # BUCKLE W262SGP for sale at http://www.redelephants.com/

Last night the lights got dim.

Last night Ted Kennedy died. Viewed by many as more powerful than presidents, respected by liberals, moderates and conservatives and missed by all. He fought the good and just fight for every American. He won many battles. He was rich by any standard but worked tirelessly for others. Not everyone agreed with his politics, but all will agree that the world lost a great man last night. We are all diminished by his passing.
Dick Holler can add another verse to his passionate song "Abraham, Martin, and John" because as sure as I can be about anything, I am sure of this: If there is a Heaven, Ted is now walking with Abraham, Martin, Bobby and John.

Photo source: hubpages.com : http://z.hubpages.com/u/628490_f496.jpg