Tag Archives: Reminisce

Aunt Esther’s 8 words of wisdom

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I used to write letters. Letters that traveled here-and-there in envelopes with a USPS stamp.

I still write letters. But not all that many, and not all that often.
I don’t have to buy all that many “forever stamps” these days.

My Dad’s side of the family has always written lots of letters. I don’t know where this propensity to write letters falls in the nature-nurture debate.

I recently learned that Uncle Gilbert, the oldest of dad’s four siblings, wrote hundreds of letters to his oldest child…and she held on to all of them!! Good for her. And good for him.

My Dad writes letters and notes, including thank you cards, fairly often. Sometimes he sends the very same letter to me and my two younger siblings. (Those specific letters are the subject for another day….)
I have lots of those letters and cards stuck away. There are some good ones. 🙂

When my kids were pre-teens I tried to get them to write letters to my folks, in the hopes of getting some family history down in writing. There was some success, but not nearly as much as I would’ve liked. I do have electronic copies of 20+ letters between my kids and my folks. I wish that number had an extra zero in it. I haven’t read any of those letters in double-digit years, but I recently confirmed that they are on the hard-drive of this laptop, and are backed-up.
-=-=-=-=
I was an active letter writer once upon a time, including several to some senators while I was stationed at Ft. Bragg. I provided them specific examples of how army life was very different from what I was reading about in Newsweek and Look.

I wish I had kept copies of some of the letters I wrote, and of the letters I got in return, whether it was from “public servants” or from friends over the years. I’m pretty sure that there were some gems there. Especially the ones that got me summoned to a session with my company commander and later with a major general at the JFK Center for Special Warfare. (I was a PIA of a soldier. What a surprise….)
-=-=-=
I have a friend from “back in the day” who has joined me and “Tissell” at some junior college basketball games when I head to the Leadbelt to take in a MAC basketball game. (Everybody who grew up in Elvins had a nickname. Dad’s is on my folk’s headstone at the Weiss cemetery. But the story behind the nickname “Tissell” will have to wait…)

I bring this up, because Rick has a letter that I wrote him when we were in the service. Most likely I wrote it from Ft. Bragg, although it could’ve been from Ft. Leonard Wood. I don’t know where Rick was when he received the letter.

I haven’t seen the letter myself. Rick mentioned it to me when we had breakfast right after I had left Floriduh and moved back to MO. A little while later, there was an electrical fire at his house that resulted in significant smoke damage. When they were able to move back home after a lengthy smoke and water restoration effort, they came back to LOTS of boxes.

“The letter” is in one of those many boxes. Someday Rick will find it again. I look forward to reading that letter. He says it’s a doozy.
-=-=-=
My ex had a great aunt who was known for saying “don’t get old and dilapidated…it’s bad business.” I loved that!!! When we made our annual visit to Missouri, we always tried to have a meal with Aunt Esther. It’s hard to believe that she passed away over 27 years ago, in March 1990.

She was 92 the last time I saw her, but I can still see her smile as she admonished us as we headed out: “Don’t get old and dilapidated. It’s bad business”

She wrote those 8 words in every letter or card we ever got from her. When she had been dead for a little while (I don’t think it had even been a year) I asked my wife where she had put the cards and letters from her Aunt Esther.

“I threw them all away…”

I couldn’t believe it. I thought she must be kidding.
“You didn’t keep ANY of her letters? Not even one? There is nowhere to read ‘don’t get old and dilapidated…it’s bad business’ in her handwriting? You didn’t keep any of them?”

“No. They are all gone. I threw them away.”

It was obvious that my ex was very special to her Aunt Esther. I’ll never understand why she didn’t keep at least one letter. Just one.
I’d love to see that phrase again, in her own handwriting.
Just once.

I’ve taken Aunt Esther’s words of wisdom to heart. Keep moving…don’t get old.
I’ve taken this lady’s words of wisdom to heart too.
“…We can’t do it over
They say it’s now or never and all we’re ever gettin’ is older
Before we get to heaven, baby let’s give ’em hell…”

The Lone Ranger: Part Two

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This is a story from more than a quarter century ago. It happened in 1991.

It was the last time I put on a costume at Halloween, and one of the very few times that I have done so since I became too old to go door-to-door in the quest for chocolate. (Note: I still accept chocolate, and most sweet things, when offered.)

My costume that day: white levis, white shirt, black half mask, a pair of white handled cap pistols…and the dreaded cowboy hat.
Why, you might ask, was that my costume…especially when you consider where I wore it: to the weekly management meeting at the tax software development office of the largest accounting firm in the world. {Part I detailed (with probably too much detail) how I got to the table that day.}
-=-=-=-=
It was in Sarasota, FL. The meeting would be chaired by a fellow we’ll call Frick. The bully in the room was an alcoholic hillbilly and his right-hand man, that we’ll call Frack. Three years down the road Frick would be fired and I’d get his job. Frack headed back to the hills of West Virginia and wasn’t seen again after getting axed.

I was one of two managers on tax software we’ll call “TD” that Andersen developed for corporate tax departments. Frick and Frack hated everything about TD….and did anything they could to treat our teams like redheaded stepchildren (a phrase I detest…many of my favorite people happen to be gingers!).
I had been fighting battles with Frack for a couple of years before that day 26 years ago. Neither of us woulda pissed on the other if they were on fire…
-=-=–=
So why was I dressed like the Lone Ranger? It was Ollie’s idea.

Ollie was the other TD manager. Great guy. His product was dirt simple and small. Federal tax return. Cake.
I had the states. It was huge. Complex. An air craft carrier of a software project….

But Ollie had to endure a lot of the same grief that I did, because of being outcasts in the eyes of F&F. {He had gotten ballsier recently now that we reported to “A.M.” a partner in Chicago WHQ. Frick and Frack wouldn’t write our annual reviews…but they still held most of the office admin cards. They still could, and did, fuck with us.}

One day Ollie walks into my office and shuts the door. “There is something that we really need to do at next week’s Tuesday management meeting.”
“Yeah Ollie…what you got?”
“I’ll dress as a blind man and you come as the Lone Ranger and we’ll make a grand entrance by being a minute late and….”

“Whoa? I’m coming to work in a costume? Ollie, have you lost your fucking mind!?”
“Next week Frick&Frack say that employees can dress like it’s Halloween. No wool, silk and cotton required…anything we want. Let’s have some fun!!”

Ollie went on: “They brought in Zeus Breakerson from MICD months ago promising us project management tools and data. Not a damned deliverable yet from that windbag!! I’m still managing blind. You have even a bigger need for those tools.
Plus you are always fighting a bunch of battles and raising hell. The items you put in your weekly status report…holy shit Steve! Balls…you got ’em! You hit them with a 2 by 4 right between the eyes. You ARE the lone ranger.”
I guess I was.
Too many people are afraid for all kinds of “reasons.” Fearful to speak up. Living in fear of bullies.
The conference room at the Tuesday status meeting had a lot of scaredy cats at the table.
-=-=-=
The weekly status for all 30 projects in the office of several hundred employees were submitted on Monday and assembled into a package that went to all the attendees of the weekly management meeting, plus to at least a dozen Andersen partners in Chicago, NY, Seattle, LA and Milwaukee.

One of the 5 sections of the weekly report was titled “Management Issues.” Most weeks, 29 of the reports said “None” no matter how many actual issues there might be. Mine was always the odd ball, with several well documented and indisputable mgmt issues.
The other 29 project managers were shocked that anybody would speak up.
I never met so many pussies in my life, scared of incurring the wrath of a drunken West Virginia hillbilly. Sad.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Ollie & I took a 3 hour lunch that next Monday and went on the quest for our costumes. At the first stop we got him a cane and some dark sunglasses. He was set.

Finding me a pair of white handled cap pistols was a snap. Surprisingly the black half-mask was challenging.
The hat was the real challenge. I hate wearing a cap of any sort, other than a “sock cap.” I always hated cowboy hats even 40-plus years before I met the franchisor in 2001 who I dubbed “the faux cowboy.” (NOTE: I was a rabble rouser franchisee too, getting my name on Gordo’s “hit list” for most of my 8 years in the hair-cutting business. Stories there too….)

Before our lunchtime shopping trip I told Ollie that “maybe I should dress as Don Quixote instead?” Unlike the Lone Ranger I didn’t win every battle…not even close.
-=-=-=
Here’s how that Tuesday went down:
At noon I closed my office door and got into character: all white, except for my black half mask and black shoes. Then the two of us sat in my office “prepping.” More accurately you’d call it plotting…and laughing our asses off.

At 1:01 pm…a minute after the door to the conference room had closed…Ollie entered, tapping the cane. “I can’t see where I am or where I’m going…I’m trying to manage, but I’m blind!! Without some help, how am I gonna get to where I need to be? Can the god of the sky come to my rescue? Zeus I call on you. Oh great god…help me!”

I entered midway thru his spiel and helped him to a seat.
I let the room know that the Masked Man had arrived. I said something about bad men running rough shod over others, and that it was going to stop. As I laid my two “guns” on the table I said: “These are loaded. I don’t want to hear any lies or bullshit, or I’ll be using these babies.”

Immediately Frack started to run his mouth. Ollie and I had predicted that would happen. Frack hadn’t said 5 words before I was letting him have it with both barrels. “I said no bullshit….”
Pop, pop, pop, pop.

Ollie: “Ok Frick…lets get thru this weekly mgmt reporting package quickly and spend the meeting resolving management issues. Maybe Zeus here finally has an actual deliverable for us. Steve, put those sidearms down. But remain at the ready.”

I’m not sure how many times I popped a cap during the next hour. It was several. Frack was “shot” numerous times. The bully never did have a sense of humor. And if possible, disliked me even more than he had an hour earlier.
-=-=-=-=
That was the most fun I had had in a long time. That first few years in Floriduh was some tough duty. But there were lots of good times. Lots of good people. I’m lucky to still call many of them friends, a quarter of a century later.

Ollie had a great idea. I had an absolute blast, “shooting” at a bully.
The partner in Chicago WHQ who I reported to thought it was funny too….he called within an hour after the meeting and we had some laughs. He wanted to make sure that Ollie and I had charged our costumes to our expense accounts.
A.M. was an Awesome boss.

The Pretender

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Birthday week of 2017 was a doozy. Music. Sunshine. Friends. Food. Family. Frolicking. Revelry. Reminiscing. More music…and a tad bit of introspection.

We had been in Orygun less than 3 months when Jackson Browne released “The Pretender.” If I had a “ben franklin” for every time I have played the album since I bought the first vinyl copy in 1976, it woulda paid for my new Prius.
The Pretender is still on my 5-CD changer after keeping me company all week….and providing lots of fodder for both reminiscing and introspection.

Lyrics, links and a {comment} or two follow… No singer-songwriter has written more songs that make me reflect on my way of life, my directions and where I am, where I’ve been, and what I’ve done than Jackson Browne.
-=-=-=-=

The Fuse
“….Whatever it is you might think you have
You have nothing to lose
Through every dead and living thing
Time runs like a fuse
And the fuse is burning…”
{Does a short fuse burn faster? It sure seems like it…}

Your Bright Baby Blues
“…Everybody’s going somewhere
Riding just as fast as they can ride
I guess they’ve got a lot to do
Before they can rest assured
Their lives are justified…”

The Only Child
“… take good care of your mother
And remember to be kind…
…And when you’ve found another soul
Who sees into your own
Take good care of each other…”
{“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.” Henry James}

Daddy’s Tune
“…Living your life day after day
Soon all your plans and changes
Either fail or fade away…”
{Never been much of “a planner.” Probably moreso now than ever. My plans: live life day after day; be kind; enjoy every sandwich; listen to lots of music; give lots of hugs; repeat.}

Sleeps Dark and Silent Gate
“…Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder
Where the years have gone
They have all passed under
Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate…”
{Lots of years have passed since I first had this album on repeat. I haven’t laid awake at night very often. But there has been lots of wondering…lots and lots of wondering.}

The Pretender
“…I’m gonna find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each others paint by number dreams…”

{In the fall of 1976 I had absolutely no intentions of ever struggling for the legal tender. 6 years later I was starting a 14 year career with the largest accounting firm in the world…wearing wing tips, wool, silk and cotton….and “keeping score” by looking at the last line of page 1 of my Form 1040.
Several years ago my late friend and mentor John Crudele asked me if I had “taken a vow of poverty.” I told him that I was going to live rich and die poor….and that for the second time in my life I had found the girl that Jackson Browne had sung about. I have never been richer than I am in 2017.
I am a lucky guy. What more can anyone want? Friends, music, and someone to love….who loves you.
Don’t be stingy with your hugs.
Be.
Just Be.}

This can’t be right…

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I’ve always been good with numbers…at least that’s what they tell me.
I was a CPA once upon a time. I was/am a number cruncher, but I was NEVER a bean counter.

“But this can’t be the right number….”
-=-=-=

I had just turned 17 when The Who released their first album. I cranked it up to 11 when Roger Daltry belted out:
“Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (talkin’ ’bout my generation)
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby…”

As I headed for 18 and draft eligibility, I was a fundamentalist Baptist minister’s son who was just starting to feel his oats…and who was developing a serious craving for adult beverages.
That was 52 years ago.

“But this can’t be the right number….”
-=-=-=

Before we left Missouri and moved west in the Bi-Centennial Year, I had a friend who I partied with on a regular basis. He had just finished pharmacy school. This lyric was my reality.
“…This friend of mine said
‘Close your eyes, and try a few of these’
I thought I was flying like a bird
So far above my sorrow
But when I looked down
I was standing on my knees…”

Somehow I’m still standing 45+ years later….upright even. Go figure.

“But this can’t be the right number….”
-=-=-=
I was 29 and had been living in Corvallis for a little over a year when twenty-nine-year-old Jackson Browne sang:
“In sixty-nine I was twenty-one and I called the road my own
I don’t know when that road turned, into the road I’m on
Running on, running on empty…”

I wasn’t running on empty. I was running on homemade blackberry wine, home grown weed, white crosses, black beauties and all the shrooms I could find.
That was 40 years ago…and is NOT Fake News.

“But this can’t be the right number….”
-=-=–=
I have always been early to rise and late to bed. (Is 2 am late to bed or early to bed? Just asking.)
Never lived on a farm, but this was…and still is…my perspective on sleep. (Did Warren Zevon ever live on a farm?)

“…So much to do, there’s plenty on the farm
I’ll sleep when I’m dead
Saturday night I like to raise a little harm
I’ll sleep when I’m dead…”

I closed lots of bars. I was the last one to leave lots of parties. Sometimes I even remembered what I had done the night before and how I had gotten to the place where I woke up. The vast majority of those blacked out nights happened before I was 25. But not all of them.
It is NOT sleep deprivation that has me questioning this particular #.

“But this can’t be the right number….”
-=-=-==

I can keep telling myself that “this can’t be the right number” but I know that it is.
On 9/13/2017 I start my 70th trip around the sun. Sixty-ninth birthday; 70th trip.

I’ve got more questions than answers. I don’t know much, but…

I know that I am lucky to be alive.
I know that I am in the minor leagues compared to many of the folks who graduated H.S. the same year as me.
I know that some of the folks who were in the minor leagues compared to me have bones planted or ashes sprinkled. Dead from ODs, car wrecks, cirrhosis…or just being with the wrong people, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Been there; done that. Got lucky.

I know that I am lucky that I didn’t spend time in an orange jumpsuit after being get caught doing some of the stupid things that I did….and I am NOT talking about drug possession. (Nobody should be locked up for a personal stash….U.S. drug laws are idiotic!)
I know that I am lucky to have family, friends and a partner who have my back.
I know that 69 is just a number.
So is 70.
-=-=-=
As a numbers guy, the number 86,400 means something to me. That number pops into my head at least once each and every day.

“We only got 86,400 seconds in a day
To turn it all around or to throw it all away
Gotta tell ’em that we love ’em while we got the chance to say,
Gotta live like we’re dying…”

Enjoy every bite of every sandwich.
Be.
Just Be.

JMC called it…

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I can hear John Crudele’s voice in my head like it was yesterday, but it was almost 20 years ago. Cancer took away JMC, his wisdom and his perfect answers over 3 years ago. But I’m pretty sure that if could ask him the very same question today, that there would only be a slight tweak to the answer.

My friend and mentor was my boss at the Lake Oswego, Orygun niche consulting firm where I worked from ’96 to ’00. Most of our work time together took place on the phone, since he lived in Nashville at the time.
In spring of 1998 I was getting ready to head to the project team site for a 2 day visit. The consultants were doing their magic at Hill crest Medical Center in Tulsa.

My background statement and my 4 word question: “I can’t remember the last time I was in Tulsa….if it ever was….if so, it was a long time ago. So what’s Tulsa like?”

John then: “It looks like it was hit by a neutron bomb.”
John’s 2017 answer: “It still looks like it was hit by a neutron bomb! There are lots of nice looking buildings and some beautiful churches…but all the people have been vaporized.”
-=-=-=
I landed at the Tulsa airport on the last flight into town that evening in ’98. There were very few cars on the highway as the cab took me to my downtown hotel. The cabby said it as normal traffic.

Two days later I asked the project manager what time I should have a cab pick me, and before I could finish my question he said “20 minutes.”
“But I didn’t tell you the time of my flight…”
“It doesn’t matter what time of day or what day of the week…it will take 20 minutes!”
-=-=-=-=
On any list you get via a Google search Tulsa is in the top 50 US cities based on population. Wikipedia has the city as #47. Ahead of New Orleans, Wichita, Tampa and St. Louis to name just a few.  (There is traffic in all those towns….)
I just spent three days and 2 nights in Tulsa. I enjoyed 2 great shows at Cain’s Ballroom and chatted with lots of nice folks.
But the town has the deadest streets I have ever seen in my life. Heck, the picture hanging in my hotel room even shows empty streets!

As usual, JMC described it perfectly and succinctly: Tulsa looks like it was hit by a neutron bomb.

NOTE:  these pictures were taken between 2 and 3 pm on a Wednesday.

He still calls me Willie

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I had a walk-and-talk with an Army buddy one day last week. Tim is not the only person who ever called me Willie. He was one of several guys at Ft. Bragg that laid that one on me because of a basketball player named Willie Wise.

Shelly and I spent a night in Wooster, OH with Tim and Mary on our roadtrip in 2013. That was the first time I had seen them in over 41 years.

We hung out together a lot in the 14 months or so that Tim and I were stationed together at the JFK Center for Military Intelligence. We made a number of road trips from NC to OH in a little over a year. At least 7 trips. It was 8 or 9 hours each way. Tim&Mary had just started dating, and going with him to Wooster, OH was great fun for all of us. We didn’t get a lot of sleep.

Tim and I made a number of trips to Myrtle Beach too. Didn’t sleep much then either…

There are lots of stories from those days. These are my two favorites. For very different reasons. Only the first one has cost me any time sleeping….
-=-=-=

On one of our first trips to Ohio, we went to a club in the town where Tim went to college. The James Gang had played there often 4 or 5 years earlier.
Earlier that day Tim and I walked around the campus of his alma mater. He had graduated less than a year before our visit. (Joe Walsh only lasted one semester on campus; a few years earlier.)
Tim took me to the campus radio station where he spent four years on staff. He has one helluva radio voice!!
We walked around the Commons, past Taylor Hall and then to Prentice Hall. I knelt on the spot where Mary Ann Vecchio was photographed over the body of Jeffrey Miller 12 months earlier.
No amount of booze that evening in 1971, or all the elapsed days since, can erase the memory of Tim standing 265 feet away from where I knelt on the Kent State University campus. That’s how far the bullet traveled that killed Jeffrey Miller.

It hurts to think about what happened on 5/4/70, but I’ll never forgot that walk and that spot. Years later, walking around Dealy Plaza in Dallas where JFK was shot, I had the very same reaction: “it’s such a small place!”

-=-=-=
Until we visited Tim&Mary’s in 2013 I had blotted out the key element of my other favorite story with Tim. This happened at Ft. Bragg.

I remember it being in the wee hours.
I remember Tim sitting on the floor in the hall in the barracks as we talked.
I remember telling him that if he said something one more time that I would pour my beer over his head.
I remember Tim needing a towel after I doused him.
I remember him drying off and laughing it off.
But I didn’t remember what it was that I had told him to stop saying.

That early September evening in 2013, with Shelly and Tim sitting at the table and with me pacing around the dining room and kitchen, he said “will you stop that pacing? At least you don’t have a beer to pour over my head tonight.”
Eureka!! He had asked me to stop pacing repeatedly, and had been rewarded with a cold beer shampoo…

I am a notorious pacer. I can’t sit still for very long, especially if I’ve got a buzz on. And that night at the PSYOPs barracks, I’m sure I was wired, wound up and pacing.

I’m glad Tim has a good sense of humor.
I’m glad that he’s my friend all these years later.
And I’m especially glad that Shelly tolerates my pacing…especially when we’re at a venue listening to music and I “vanish.”

They called her “Rag Woman”

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It was a spring day in 1976. A Monday. The first class after lunch. Pre-Algebra. A packed classroom, most of whom didn’t think they had any reason to ever learn or understand math. (I still feel sorry for them. I’d bet that some of them said “do you wanta supersize that” for a looooong time….)

I was finishing up my only stint as a full-time school teacher. Union (Mo) High School. We were living a bit north of there in Washington, with the Missouri River a couple of blocks north of our upstairs apartment, at the foot of the hill.

I had taken advice from a couple of UHS veteran teachers and had assigned seats before the first class, separating a couple of hyper guys from each other. Johnny was in the corner to the right of my desk…front and center. His buddy was back row, left side. Empty chairs near him in all directions.

Johnny usually arrived early so he could spar a bit….verbally that is. He liked to talk. I liked to challenge him.

On that particular Monday, Johnny and his buddy arrived together, whining about the substitute teacher from their study hall earlier that day. She had split the two of them up soon after the bell rang to start the class.
They were looking forward to the regular teacher being back the next day.
-=-=-=
On Tuesday, they were really pissed off!
“That Rag Woman is gonna be here for at least two weeks!! Mrs. Smith is in the hospital and we’re stuck with that mean old bag. Nobody that small should be that mean!!”
I just smiled.
Knowingly.

When Johnny came into the classroom on Wednesday…always one of the first kids to arrive…always chatty…I asked him about study hall that morning. He groaned.
“She gets meaner every day. The Rag Woman is gonna make me stay after school the rest of the week. She said I was causing a commotion. At least she won’t be in charge of detention.”
I just smiled.
Knowingly.
-=-=-=
That Thursday very well might have been the day that I heard Gary Wright singing “Dream Weaver” for the first time. That song is one of my “First Time Tunes.”
Every time I hear the tune I flash back to riding in a ’74 Super Beetle, listening to KSHE as my wife of 15 or 16 months drives us to Union High School.

Whether this was that particular day or not, it was the fourth day of her two week assignment…filling in for Mrs. Smith, the Home-Ec teacher.
As we pulled into the faculty parking lot I spotted Johnny getting off the school bus, and I was pretty sure that he saw me riding shotgun in Paula’s little orange bug.
-=-=-=
Johnny got to the classroom even earlier than normal that Thursday. “I saw you in the car with that Rag Woman this morning!! Why would you get in a car with that mean old bag?”
“She’s not old Johnny. She’s only 24.”
“And I think she’s pretty nice. I’m married to her. She’s my wife. ”

“No she’s not!! Don’t say that! You don’t have a ring on, and neither does she.”
“You’re right about the rings. But you can be married and not wear a ring.”

“Yeah, but she wrote her name on the blackboard…and she wrote ‘Ms. Rudloff.’ Your name is Weiss. So you’re not married to her. You’re not!”

“Johnny, the ERA has been ratified by over 30 states. Even without it there is no law that says that married people have to use the same last name. When you’re in detention this afternoon ask Coach Denton who I’m married to…but for now get in your seat and take out your home work.”

That Thursday’s Pre-Algebra class was a little more raucous than usual, but it was never all that quiet. I never bought into the old techer’s adage “don’t smile until Christmas” and sometimes I might have paid a price for that.
-=-=-=
Johnny expected her to lighten up after he told her that he knew we were married. No such luck. He got sent to detention one more time for making a racket and disrupting the Rag Woman’s study hall before Mrs. Smith returned from her two week absence.

We laughed even more on the ride home that Thursday than we had every other day that week. “Rag Woman” gave us a lot of laughs over the years.

In my mind’s eye I can still see the look on Johnny’s face on that Thursday, as I close my eyes and climb aboard the dream weaver train.

Be. Just BE.

I was a troll…

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Sgt. Joe Friday apparently never said it, but this piece will be the Jack Webb version: “Just the facts, ma’am.”
{Apparently he did often say: “All we want are the facts, ma’am”and sometimes “All we know are the facts ma’am”}

It was the years 2000 and 2001.
It was the years of the presidential election that was decided by the SCOTUS.
I had a new job.
It was my last W-2 job.
I received mail in Tampa.
I reported to two people: one in Virginia Beach; the other in Parsippany.
When I wasn’t in one of those two cities, I was sleeping in a hotel somewhere in the lower 48, unless I was lucky enough to be working from my home office.
I was racking up LOTS of frequent flyer miles and hotel points.
I had lots of “alone time” in hotel rooms.

The job required me to be on my laptop, in a meeting or on the phone…or a combination of the three…six days a week…minimum.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve written that I used to “work hard and play hard.”
This new job required a significant amount of the former.
The Yahoo message boards provided much of the latter, i.e. play.

Long before 1996 when Warren Zevon sang “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” that was my lifestyle.
Up with the sun…or before.
Seldom in bed before midnight; usually not until 1 or 2.

Lots of those nights in 2000 and 2001 I was online for work purposes until god knows when.
There is a good chance that I would also be having some evening and nighttime fun, anonymously jousting at the “fact-free droolers.”
By 9 o’clock every evening, sitting in a hotel room or on those nights when I was lucky enough to be home, I became “Wet Willie” online.

Pretty much everyone on the message boards was anonymous.
One of the most obnoxious, and fact-free, regulars went by the moniker “Labrat.”
Like many of those online today, the Labrat and many others were prone to spew “alternative facts.”

I have always had some pet peeves, with bald faced lies, hypocrisy and willful ignorance at the top of the list.
When I caught the Labrat in a blatant lie about his military service, allegedly serving in a unit that wasn’t even in existence when he claimed it was and was never assigned to the base that he claimed, I pounced.
My online moniker changed from Wet Willie to “Labrat_the_Liar.”
Many an evening I gave the cretin hell, with a link proving that he was a Liar.
He wasn’t the only one to get nailed by one of my profiles for posting lies and bullshit.

The Internet has changed a LOT in the last 17 years.
Read “Why we’re losing the Internet to the culture of hate.”
The “online disinhibition effect” has unleashed hatred.
Today’s trolls say they’re doing it for “lulz” which often goes beyond poking and jousting to threats and harassments.

I said I was living in Florida at the time, right.
It was my second time living in that flat, humid, critter infested, loony tune electing swamp land.
{Floriduh does have some great beaches…winter beaches.}
It was like living in the Northwest back in 1980, and once again people who didn’t live there made “when is it gonna blow?” part of the conversation.

2017 looks like a powder-keg to me.
Too bad there aren’t do overs.
I understood why someone would not vote for Hillary Clinton.
I will NEVER understand why anyone thought that he who shall go down in history as 45 would make a good president?!?

What is even more puzzling is why people still support him?
They’d get Pence out of the closet and into the Oval Office with both the House and Senate jettisoning the thin-skinned, incompetent G&S in Chief.
That’s “Grifter-and Snowflake in Chief.”

In 2000-2001 I was more of a pest than a troll.
Today I’m still a bit of a pest.
Sometimes I do cross the line…and I feel awful when I realize that I had spewed (and probably started a firestorm) on a friend’s thread, rather than on a news feed.
When I started this blog a friend told me (and I’m sure that other friends hoped it): “please don’t get all political!?”
Well, my friend didn’t get her wish…

Hang on.
It’s gonna be a wild ride.

Until then: Be. Just BE.

“What was your favorite thing this weekend?”

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It is right up there on my list of favorite “questions from Shelly.” There have been some doozies. The one at the top of the list has been there since our first date. (What’s said in the Corolla on 10/13/12, with The Rainmakers album “25 on” playing, stays in the Corolla….)

When she asked the latest question, at a little after 2 on Sunday afternoon 5/7/17, a bunch of things flew through my head at high speed. It had been an awesome weekend.

The subject of this piece isn’t the question she’d asked a minute earlier on Sunday: “You’re awfully quiet. What’s wrong?”
That answer was quick and easy: “Nothing is wrong. So many things are right. Everything is right….”

She smiled. Said that made her happy. She smiled that smile again…and then she asked: “What was your favorite thing this weekend?”
-=-=-=
Between the time we headed downtown for the Gillioz on Thursday and Shelly’s Sunday afternoon question, I had enjoyed lots of things. It had been a stellar 66 hours. It coulda been a tough question; it wasn’t.
In no particular order I flashed on all of these and a few more before I replied:

…the Jason Isbell concert at the Gillioz on Thursday.
Chatting with friends at Dublins Pass before heading to our seats.
A great show.
An earworm; six days later and I’m still listening to and caterwauling along with “Codeine.”
…the first ever solo visit of Shelly’s firstborn, Amber.
It has always been either Jordie and her, or lately it has been the three of them crashing at our place. (Cecily is their 3 year old.)
…Amber hung out with us on Friday evening, first at Lindberg’s then at the wine bar 3 doors east.
Then it was just the two of us, as Shelly had to get to bed.
…the rickshaw story.
…spending time with several friends at Lindbergs…starting with Ginger, who is responsible for me meeting all the others.
had a variation of “the george thorogood trio”….rather than the usual one bourbon, one scotch and one beer I had one tequila, another tequila and a PBR.
…harvested green onions and lettuce; planted two tomatoes
…a Cinco de Mayo plus one party at Ginger’s
met some new folks there and spent time with Bruce & Jeanette.
experienced an unknown number of frogs drowning out the conversation of a deck full of humans.
…spinning the “mix CDs” from the last couple of years of live music we’ve seen….good memories….good tunes….good times.
-=-=-=
Here’s how I answered Shelly.
The answer was short and sweet: “Bob.”

Friday, May 5, 2017 at Lindberg’s Tavern was the first time I’ve ever seen Bob Walkenhorst solo. I’ve written lots on here about his music. There’s the first time I saw Bob & Jeff at The Rock House. There’s our first date. There will be the 13th annual Rock Summer Festival on June 3rd….the Rainmakers are the headliners.
-=-=-=
A few things made this evening special, beginning with a song I’ve loved since the first time I heard it. It was 2011, and I was in transition. My marriage was over. The relationship with 2 kids was complicated. And I heard this:
“If I go down, I’m gonna go down swinging
If I grow old it won’t be gracefully
I’m gonna trip and fall
And pass it off as dancing
I’m gonna croak and moan
Say it‘s a new kind of singing
I’m gonna go down swinging..”

Then I heard:
“Given time I’ll get it, let me go around
Let me go around, let me go around again”

As I drove home that first night back in 2011, after hearing Bob&Jeff the first time, I played “Go down swinging”, “Given time” and “Like Dogs” a few times each.
-=-=-==
After Bob’s soundcheck last Friday, I made a request, asking him for “something by Dylan.” Bob asked if I had any song in mind. I didn’t. We’ve only managed to see Bob&Friends on a Wednesday at the Record Bar in KC three times. I’m pretty sure he snuck in a Dylan tune each time. It always made me smile.

If I had to pick only 8 Dylan songs it would be tough. The song Bob picked would be on my Dylan DIDL (desert island disk list). From the first time I heard the last verse of “Positively 4th Street” the song has been one of my favorites. Is there a better way to say “Fuck you” than this?

“I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you”

The song starts with a jab at a lot of greedheads walking around wearing flags on their lapels but not giving a shit about much more than money and power:
“You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend,
When I was down you just stood there grinnin,’
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend,
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’”

Bob’s song choice was Perfect.

Then Bob made it better by playing a song (“Small circles”) that I had requested when he and Jeff played The Rock House 10/29/16.
There was no dancing on 5/5/17. Unless you count “table dancing.”

I damned near cried in happiness.
In a room with music and friends and a singing poet.
Listening to our song.
My arms around a woman who loves me.
My arms around a woman I love.

Thanks Bob.
Thanks Ginger.
Thanks Bruce & Jeanette.
Thanks Shelly.

Thanks. Just Thanks.
Be. Just BE.

Indonesia….when will I be free?

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I have this thing about song lyrics. That is not new news.

Sometimes I love a song when it’s lyrics could’ve been mine, especially if I had any writing talent. Sometimes I love the lyrics of a song when the lyrics are 180 degrees away from where I am, or where I’ve ever been.

And then there are songs like “Indonesia” by Amos Lee. It’s a little of both.

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