Gorilla Testes May Cause Impaired Judgment

I had something wrong with me -- a dreadful disease or condition -- so Doctor S recommended a few boxes of his own Gorilla Testes Vitality pills. He said it'd restore what I was lacking and help get my normal symptoms back in whack. The pills aren't bad. You merely swallow them, but since you need a half box every day there is some lingering gorilla testicular aftertaste. Doc says that's how you know they're working. But still, it'd be bad to go the zoo and have a lady gorilla catch a whiff of my breath...

Oh, it's terrible getting old and needing outside stimulants! But that's the ingenuity of man, able to diligently study every issue, then extract a cure from the things of nature, in this case the delicate privates of our first cousin in his non-evolved state. Which is better than having to call our actual first cousins and ask for help.

I was reading over the possible side effects, and it was all pretty straightforward. "May cause impaired judgment," which I was prepared to risk. Because when your vitality's zapped, you want help. And you think you'll stay home and get your rest. Take the pills and sleep. But it must have given me new vitality right away, because they're all saying I made a pretty big night of it.

All I know is, I went out for dinner and had a very nice time. I made a lot of new friends when I stood up and announced I was covering the tab for everyone. Then I was also very popular with the waitresses when I tipped each one 50 bucks. I think I can handle the extra charges but it'll be tight. If I make the minimum payment on the credit card every month for the next three years, I'll easily have dinner covered...

On the way home, they're also saying my foot was heavy on the gas. It seems that every cop in town was personally chasing me. What an adventure! I've always been proud of my ability to elude capture, enemies, anyone on my trail. Here in the Big City, though, it's extra easy, with a lot more roads as well as the interstate to dodge capture. But eventually they had me cornered. So I abandoned the car and made my way into a thicket of trees. Anytime I'm in any sort of altered state of consciousness, it feels like I make very fast progress when I run. So I easily stayed ahead of the fuzz till they finally caught me.

Which wasn't till I got all the way back to my place, in my yard. There a cop was waiting and jumped me. I tried to elude him in the backyard and climb a tree, but it was soon over. There was just a tiny bit of excitement left when I managed to yank the gun out of his holster and shoot the brick wall in back. So many chunks of cement were flying, I probably should've had goggles on. It wasn't long till he had me in irons.

There's a guy in my cell called Shivs. And he let me borrow his phone to write this blog. Witnesses said I dropped my own phone in the aquarium at the bar. I don't remember any of that.

Gus Grissle For Dogcatcher

Of course I'm not beholding to Gus Grissle in any way, shape, or form. That's not why I'm for him for dogcatcher. Hell, Gus isn't even from my party, the Democratic party. He's a Republican, usually the kiss of death for me. Those bastards, I wouldn't be for them if they handed out half dollars on the square. No way. But Gus ... I know Gus ... and I know Gus is more or less good with dogs. So I'm for him.

The fact of the matter is, Gus Grissle lives right up the street from me. On the other side of the Butlers' house. He drives by my place on the way to town or wherever, and he always waves. He's a good man, and if he says he can handle the dogs of our town, I basically believe him. He's more or less good with them.

This is a tough endorsement for one reason, and one reason only. I don't know how many of you have noticed yet, but thanks to some grumbling, I've sworn off politics online completely, that is, under my own name. Facebook and here on the blog. I've found that friends are very high maintenance when it comes to politics, and they're easily disturbed. And I can be very quick with the insults, the put-downs on everything in the putrid Republican universe. Leading some of these idiots -- my friends -- to dislike me. Block me, whatever. So I'm out of politics.

But ... dogcatcher? Surely even my namby pamby touchy-nerved wilting flower friends with their finger poised tremulously against the dislike/block button can't hold it too much against me for coming out for Gus Grissle for dogcatcher. Especially when they realize, this is the one Republican in the whole world I'm willing to endorse. Of course not for a job that is of any great value. It's dogcatcher. How bad could he screw it up? He's more or less good with dogs, I've seen how he is.

The job of dogcatcher came open when Merle Peaver died, and no one really wanted it, and Gus Grissle stepped forward. I'd say he deserves our respect for taking it on, and if he personally asks for my vote, being a neighbor and all, I'm not going to withhold it. People think dogcatcher's an easy job, but it isn't. You're not just chasing dogs till they disappear from sight. You've got them cornered, you're looking at snarling teeth and listening to a low growl. And this isn't your mother-in-law, they can't be tamed with chocolates.

Then there's the whole modern situation with friendly dogs. I know some of the dogcatchers we had back in the good old days. They were basically bag men. If a dog got loose, it was fair game. The law was the law. But that doesn't apply these days. Those guys are out. People baby their dogs now. Dogs are their babies. You try to bag one now and you're looking at being bagged yourself. That's how crazy people are. Don't write in, please, I like dogs. I'm just saying Gus is up against some regulations the old guys never faced.

Anyway ... And have you heard of drug runner dogs? They're trained in anatomy. They're trained to go for the jugular. Drug runners use every dirty trick in the book not to be apprehended. For them, the more feral a dog is, the better. They come through on the interstate. The cops pull one over, the dog goes ballistic and tears the patrolmen apart, then they head for the hills. They literally could come up over that hill right there, just south of here, from the interstate, and take me down. Maybe Gus is thinking of that. He's my first line of defense.

Those are the dogs that are very far removed from our cuddly ones. Or the higher class dogs like at dog shows. Do I think Gus would make a good dog show judge? No. He's more or less good with dogs, like I said, but to have to run his hand over their silky fur, then reach around and feel their bottoms, I can't see him doing that. Fortunately, that's not even in the cards. That's for someone else.

I guess I've probably given enough evidence as to why Gus Grissle would make a great dogcatcher. If you feel like crossing party lines and voting for a Republican, I know he'd appreciate your vote. Your vote, like mine, will be a token of trust in a good man, more or less good with dogs, who I believe can get the job done. Find the dogs, see that they get back to their owners. Or, if they're drug dogs, at the very least run them out of the county, and hopefully catch them and do whatever you do with a feral dog. Nothing good, I'm guessing.

Vote Grissle!

Uncle Hoist and Aunt Eedee

Yesterday, I posted my '80s college psychology work, the Ladder and Scaffold of Self Images, which, just to answer a few who quickly wrote in, is indeed something I came up with myself. I did not copy it from the works of Freud or Jung. And to the guy who loudly proclaimed he saw it in a psychology textbook, that's true; I licensed it to the publishers of that particular edition. 50 bucks.

Sheesh! You think everything has to be derivative? A student can't be Super Brain and just come up with something on his own? I've been coming up with good stuff all my life. I was in the school library doing research on the history of my town's name in first grade. I knew how to spell "encyclopedia" in fifth grade, and totally grasped the distinction between "form" and "from." Along with memorizing the capitals and presidents.

But it's OK if you want to be suspicious. I know myself, and I don't copy! An old psychological saw comes to mind, something like this: If you're quick to accuse others, you've confessed your own guilt. So I'll let you think about that for a while. By the way, there's a similar blues song, "Before you 'cuse me, take a look at yo'self." I hope I got the dialect right...

It's funny, though, how we do that. We always think it's some guy faraway in Zurich or Berlin who has to be responsible for all the brainy stuff in the world. Because everyone knows that some kid on your block or anonymous guy on the internet -- a local guy with a blog -- can't know anything! Heavens forfend! That any of us may have gone to college, as I actually did. And you can't go to all the parties I went to and not learn something.

You might be interested to know, though, I come from interesting stock, where anything's possible... Meaning, I had a redheaded uncle. On that, I don't know if there's a psychological postulate, but there should be. Redheaded men go through so much, they either prosper beyond your wildest imagination or they die. Which I didn't know when I was a kid. I thought Uncle Hoist was just another hayseed uncle. And he cultivated that image, for reasons of his own, but when he revealed himself he was an entirely different guy.

Only a few people knew how smart Hoist was. Of course one of those was Aunt Eedee, who, it turns out, served as his "right hand man" for many years in his lab work and studies. It's funny, though, to the outside world Hoist was just a "good old boy," but like I said, when he revealed himself, it was a whole different thing! The man was a genius. I don't know if he applied for the certificate, but he could've.

Anyway, here's the tie-in with my "Ladder and Scaffold" chart. I had just come home from college, and I had the original copy of it with the big fat shiny "A." We were at Hoist and Eedee's for a barbecue. And Hoist (as the hayseed) was sitting there with no shirt, proud with his bright red hair and completely white hairless chest. He calls me over and goes, "You did this, boy?" He has it in his left hand and softly taps it with the back of his right. The old hayseed then turns it upside down, like he's trying to make heads or tails of it, since it does look a bit complicated. I can see he's challenged by the advanced vocabulary, deep concepts, and impressiveness of the big fat shiny "A." I said, hoping not to condescend, "That's an A, Hoist, the best grade you can get." He looked confused, but apparently reached some level of understanding as to what I was attempting to enunciate.

Anyway, Hoist takes a piece of tape -- This is a redheaded man! -- and sticks the chart right in the center of the keg, putting it on good display for the family. "Wee doggies!" he ejaculates, "This deserves a big celebration!" Eedee comes out with an apple pie and bowl of her patented chop suey, which I loved, and I knew I'd hit the big time.

Later, then, Hoist is nowhere to be found. And Eedee comes over and whispers that he wants to see me in the garage. I get there and he's taken the chart off the keg and had it laminated. I'm aghast, as it turns out Hoist isn't just a good old boy, but something else! We get in a narrow elevator, a small chamber in the corner, and descend to an underground lab, 50 feet down, under the garage, and massive like the Batcave, where Hoist has been busy doing experiments and running studies on human consciousness (and other consciousness, as much as he has time for -- dogs, cats, horses, etc.) In fact, it turned out he's the guy who painstakingly quantified the horrific psychological effects of Lawn Darts on insects.

Suddenly, he tells me that my Self Images chart -- after 40 years of agonizing twists and turns and theories he's worked on -- finally clarified everything for him, being "the one perfect road map" as to how things are! Isn't that amazing! Then he goes, "To think you had all this lying dormant in your mind all those years -- while playing basketball in my driveway -- and I, your faithful redheaded uncle, never recognized it! I'll need time to process this, my worst failure..." I felt badly, but knew he'd bounce back, like redheaded men generally do, and very soon he was his jolly self. Although serious, too, as the serious scientist he turned out to be.

I toured the lab and was amazed at the facility, his investment, and work. This was in the '80s, Hoist is now gone. At that time he had just concluded a five-year project in child psychology. If truth be told, Hoist deserves most of the credit for the drop in serious drug addiction stats among children under 5 in the '90s. And going with that, perhaps even more important, Hoist and Eedee worked with an endless procession of dogs in the testing of invisible fence technology, meaning those kids could finally play in the neighborhood without fear and needing to resort to drugs.

My Rant on Ants

Welcome to another rant on ants. Rants on ants are always the go-to essay for all great writers when they have nothing else to say. Because -- and this is where you nod -- we all have the same problem with the little buggers.

Emerson did a rant, as every yawning 8th grader can tell you, in his essay on Self-Reliance:

All men's prayers to be rid of ants are a disease of the will, making a disease of their creeds. You must do it yourself! But they say with those foolish Israelites, 'Let God smite this pestilence, lest we die trying. Heed thou, comfort any man of us, and we will receive thy help.' Everywhere I am hindered of my brother's despair for ants, because simply shutting his own door is no relief; to say otherwise is to believe fables, both against man's ability and of God's desire. Every mind may prove itself a mind of uncommon activity and power, with the innate cleverness to smite ants quite apart from Divinity!

Locke, Lavoisier, Hutton, Bentham, and Fourier, each one took up mental arms and successfully killed ants, for the most part. The system one chooses will be in proportion to the depth of the thought, and so the disposal of ants is within the reach of each pupil, if not for complacency. Exercising self-reliance, the pupil shares the delight of the learned in subordinating them to man's greater will, as a girl who has just learned botany enjoys seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby.

And yet how many will not learn, will not act! They do not yet perceive, that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own, until they're overrun with ants! Yet, if they are honest and do well, presently their problem, common to all, will die away and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning, before the first ant darkened this sod. 

And I believe it was De Quincey, in Confessions of an English Opium Eater, who observed:

If a man “whose talk is of ants” should become an opium-eater, the probability is that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) he will dream about ants.

Heh, that's a good advertisement for opium! I'd love to see some before and after pictures of opium-eaters! I'll bet they about scratch themselves to death in their sleep! Then they wake up, eat some more, go back to sleep and finish the job. All thanks to ants.

--BEGINNING OF MY ANT RANT: "Everything's Little, Everything's Big" --

I've been killing ants. I hate killing, but sometimes I just have to do it. Like when I'm overrun with them.

Thinking of ants, I observe that they seem to be very tribal. At least that's what I imagine about them. Queen ants, drones, sort of similar to bees. One of the weird things about ants is how much weight they can carry in relation to themselves. Like me trying to carry all the groceries in at once. That's why I choose plastic, although it's a killer on the hands.

That said, ants are also the ultimate punctual being, showing up at the butt crack of midnight the first day of spring. Somehow -- planned obsolescence -- the poison from last year expired yesterday and is ineffectual! Weird, because I know when I hit obsolescence it only made me bigger and better.

So that leaves me trying to kill them one by one, a hopeless task only presenting a tiny glimmer of hope by the certain knowledge that though they're numerous, they're not infinite. Were they infinite, I'd have to step up the pace of killing to keep up. Although, strictly, anything infinite necessarily tramples itself to death.

Falling short of that, it's up to me to kill them, even if it's against my conscience. I feel sad for the Queen, back in the nest, going, "WTF's going on with the drones? Either a revolt or some guy killed them." She has other worries too. The last few drones, seeing she offers no protection, might quickly evolve a patriarchal society, arming up for mutual protection. Leaving her to submit, accept a ceremonial role, and occasionally dress as a humble nurse to console the wounded in battle.

The thing that freaks me out about killing ants is how they must look under a microscope. Because I know if I had better eyes, they'd look immense and a horror. Then I'd see the true terror of the whole thing. I'm already thinking of it and feeling sick. This also goes for any truly microscopic being, but I have to say it's not sentimentality; I just prefer living and letting live, but, you know, you hate to be overrun. Too much mercy's a thankless thing.

Still, think of how big an ant is compared to a truly microscopic being. They're like a redwood! Now imagine the downside of that. Ants have to poop. Can you picture the droppings from something the size of a redwood all over your Formica counter? Not to mention the food on your counter, bananas, etc.

But here's the killer to the whole thing. Regardless of what we do, the future is wide open for ants and other vermin. Because, friends, I hate to break it to you, but I don't see the human species making it literally millions of years. But ants no doubt will...

Something like this is happening: We're macro but live in micro time. They're micro but live in macro time. We think we're "so bad" because our country's a little over 200 years old. Big deal. The creatures in macro time don't even think about celebrating till it's been a million years. So we destroy our environment, stupidly, because of this micro time thinking. But ants -- all they need is air, water, and whatever food happens to be handy, so macro time is theirs.

Someday, though---- Someday, long after we're gone, maybe they'll be like us. Maybe the little will become big, the size of dinosaurs, and demand too much from their environment. Until a meteor, the ultimate ant poison, comes blasting from the distant reaches of outer space, and finally gives them their comeuppance. And who knows? This is a great thought, who knows if it's one of our own space probes, arranged by our smartest scientists 100 million years in the past, that is the very thing to tilt that meteor toward earth! Isn't that great? That ants become complacent, being rid of us for 100 million years, and yet we still manage to kill them in the end.

The Drug-Sniffing Dog

As the police have faced greater and greater challenges from ne'er-do-wells and their ability to commit worse and worse crimes, so they have had to come up with better ways to enforce the law. It used to be they could simply ask you if you were doing something wrong and the guilty look on your face would give you away. But as crime has gotten so much worse, so the brazenness of the criminal has increased.

The police have had to up their game in virtually every aspect of law enforcement. From the affairs of school truancy all the way up to grand theft auto. The old rules no longer apply. What was good for one generation has proven dismally ineffective for another. Jesse James was a handful, the newer breed can't be contained. I think it all started with Capone and Dillinger, very tough groundbreaking hombres.

So that's the situation. You have to fight fire with fire, you have to match what you give with what you get. Like breeds like. Yesterday's techniques are old hat. You either stay one step ahead of the criminal, or you're five steps behind. They've given themselves over to crime so completely, if you don't give yourself over to law enforcement in equal measure, they'll always be that much farther ahead. If you start out behind, you'll never catch up.

One way of catching up and even going ahead is in technology. Police scanners, private radio channels, bigger and more powerful guns, cars with overdrive, louder sirens, and spike strips. Another way is an old fashioned way, the usage of dogs, man's best friend. It's true. The dog is no longer good for nothing but to be the family pet. He can also be deployed as a member of the force, an actual officer on the force. Using dogs in police work, they call them the K9 division, a play on the word "canine," another word for dog.

What can a dog do in this K9 work? We might answer the question more easily by asking what they can't do! They can't fill in paperwork, although they can carry it desk to desk. They can't read someone their rights, although there is a push for a recorder to be hooked into the collar that reads someone's rights, triggered by the dog hitting the switch. And they can't drive the car, although, again, with an increase in technology, such as the Google cars that drive themselves, it's probably only a matter of time before dogs will do the whole thing!

In the last few years, something they've discovered dogs can do (and do very well) involves their powerful sense of smell, already legendary in the animal world. They can smell your trail, giving them the ability to do reliable "bloodhound" work, tracking you. And they can smell drugs, having been trained. If you have heroin, cocaine, or marijuana, along with any other drug, they'll find it. Presently, the human officer gives them a signal, "Smell, boy!" (in German; K9s are often trained with German commands) and off they go, alerting the officer to the presence of whatever illegal substance there may be, whether under the seat, stitched in the ceiling, or simply on the seat in plain sight.

A K9 I was personally able to witness one day, when I was given a community tour, sits in the backseat of the patrol car. At the times the K9 is there, the window is rolled down. Over the window is a plastic mesh screen. The human officer might be over yonder somewhere, looking for a perp. Then he's suddenly in danger -- the perp is after him. The officer simply pushes a remote, the screen flips down, and out bounds Officer Fido, to the rescue. It's awesome. This same officer, at the tour, had on a big heavy indestructible suit. The dog clamped his mouth on his arm and the officer waved him around in the air. The dog was flying through the air with the greatest of ease, but he would not let go of that sleeve. Let's say you're the perp. You don't want a K9 with that kind of tenacity holding you! You'll give up!

How, though, is life unfair to the K9? Let's say the human officer stops for lunch at a BBQ place. The dog is sitting in the car, the window's down, and the smell of the BBQ is filtering in like crazy. He's sitting there, salivating, wishing he could have some. This is where it'd be interesting if the dog could flip the remote somehow himself, then go into the restaurant and clamp on to a rack of ribs. The cook is waving him through the air trying to dislodge him, but he may as well give up. The ribs are ruined anyway, since the dog's already had his mouth all over them. They may as well give them to him, except, of course, for the fact that once trained in this, it's tough to break them.

In conclusion, I'm sure K9 animals eat well, although probably not that well. As far as sniffing drugs, that's just a part of their job. They sniff them and find them. They get a treat, perhaps, and the police nail their perp. It's all in a day's work ... for the drug-sniffing dog.

Sarge: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

I wrote about Sarge a couple times already. Once a little over a year ago. And a second time, toward the end of last year. He's a great guy, and in my humble opinion it's guys like this that give the military a good name and make me want to stand up and salute. Honestly, I'd rather see a one single ex-military humble handyman tinkering with broken stuff in my garage than a thousand old guys on top of green trucks rolling down the road at the July 4th parade to wild acclaim.

Another name for Sarge is Walt. But Sarge is good, since it tells something of the guy, that he was able to ascend all the ranks to sergeant. I'm not sure how high that is, but I'm thinking it's pretty far. Mostly what I know about the service is what I remember from Gomer Pyle, that one guy comes in and is a private the whole series and one guy's already there and he's a sergeant the whole time.

But what happened with my Sarge is different from Sgt. Carter, in that he had to serve overseas in a war, namely Vietnam. It's hard now to realize what kind of turmoil we were in when it came to Vietnam. I suppose it was similar to Iraq and Afghanistan, at least in length, but the big difference was that the people back home here really cared about it. To the point of going ballistic. Those were my formative years, so I pretty much stayed on the sidelines and thought about other things.

OK, here's the set-up ... Once again I needed a handyman. For something I saw on Pinterest, basically baby food jars with the lids nailed to a board, then they hang down and you put nails in them, and twist them back to the lid when you don't need them. Damn! This seemed like the kind of thing I should be able to do on my own. It's just a farking nail! But every time I tried it, the nail either went through the board at the top, being too long, or wouldn't hold the lid because it was too short. Then I was messing up too many boards and too many lids (I traded a half dozen Easter bunnies for a box of baby food jars.)

Anyway, to cut it short, I called Sarge, who hightailed it over. He took one look at my mess and said, "Screw it!" I go, "What?!" And he explained, you need to use screws; even if they're short they'll still hold, and they won't poke through the board. Then he did it for me and now I have a nice display, a bunch of jars full of nails I'll never need ... since screws are really what I needed.

Then we were sitting there and I started hinting around about the military: "Ya vol, mein Furher ... From the halls of Montezuma ... C rations ... Mess kit ... Stalag 13 ... A few good men ... The History Channel ... Hut two ... Atten-HUT ... IED ... The smell of napalm ... Enola Gay ... Beetle Bailey ... Uncle Sam Wants You ... My Lai ... Custer ... D-Day ... Dickless Wonder ... Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ... Bilko ... Foreign Legion ... " For most of this, spaced over 10 minutes of otherwise silence, he just sat there looking down at the garage floor, shaking his head, not saying NO precisely, but merely like he was in some sort of daze. When I said "Foreign Legion," he raised his head and said with authority, "Back up!" I said, "Bilko?" No. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" No. Then he said it himself and smiled, "Dickless Wonder."

OK, OK, OK, now we're on to something! Ha ha, I'm a genius! This is exactly what I wanted -- see, I was playing dumb! But God, I'm smart! Dickless Wonder, he couldn't help but pick up on that, and we were off to the races, with him telling the one story I love best. About the time ... God help me ... how he ... oh crap, let him tell it:

"I was a Sarge at a desk. It was a day very much like today, sunny and nice. We had so many dipshits in our outfit, spaced out, stoned half the time, out of their F-ing minds the rest. Me and a couple other guys were the only guys I could trust. Anyway, these dipshits had to keep coming in my office for something, paperwork, and none of them had any discipline or any sense. This is why we lost the war, drugs. Well, I had to protect myself against our own guys the best way I could. So I put a gun up under my desk, screwed it up there a lot like I just now screwed in your baby food jars." I had to smile, he hadn't lost the touch! And it's great he had that experience in the war that later had real life benefits!

"So, anyway, one day in comes this crazy guy, one of the biggest nuts, the biggest losers we had. So screwed up! An ugly guy, too. Butt ugly. And out of his F-ing gourd! Shake him, you'd hear the seeds. He comes in, I don't know what for, but he busted through the door and yanked the chair out of his way and looked at me like bloody murder -- daggers in his eyes. I was a dead man. He was coming up over the desk and I usually kept my finger on that gun but didn't shoot it too often ... mostly just to keep the action loose. This time, Jesus, I haven't thought of this in years! [I didn't contradict him here, that he'd told the story to me several times in the last one year plus.] That F-ing gun went off and blew the guy's crotch all to hell... There was dead silence. The guy's face goes from berserk to the face of a helpless baby. He backs up and smashes against the door and falls to the floor..."

Wow, that's exciting. Sarge was laughing, and I was laughing. "The face of a helpless baby ... You don't mess with me!" he says, a lot of his old strength returning to the fore. I said, "That's right, that F-ing guy got what he deserved! Chitty chitty bang bang!" What a story!

Sometimes I wonder if that crazy guy's still out there, now mellowed out, but even after these years, nothing down there... That'd be a weird feeling, just a bunch of tissue, whatever they could save, all sewn together and stitched to his legs. Would be rough.

Sarge: Of Men And Mousetraps

Here's another episode, entirely true, from the life of Sarge, a guy I also call Walt.

I hadn't seen Sarge (Walt) in some time. I was saving my money, trying to avoid handymen, if I could do it myself. But then I needed something only a specialist can handle, to have my mousetraps recalibrated. Too many are escaping, either scot-free or only minimally crippled.

Of course Sarge has the skills and tools for the job. He has a real touch with a mallet, a native intuition that puts man one with machine, a level of interaction I'm not good at at all, let alone being a master. For this particular task, you have to know exactly what to do to do it right, bringing together multiple skills, involving BBs, match-heads, and a careful awl. I stabbed my leg and managed to burn a toenail last time I tried it...

Anyway, Sarge came over, and we were out by the garage. He got out his mallet and began the meticulous work at hand. I sat there watching him with affection, making a mental note that the Old World techniques are almost a lost art. Kids today, who never escape our criticism, with their video games and parental pampering are total fools. Not like Walt. With the extra added bonus that he's able to tell a good yarn without referring to the idiocies of modern trivia. His stories go way back.

Here's something you might not believe. As man and tool worked along, and as I engaged him on the old days, Sarge seemed to become noticeably younger and more vital. And none more so than when I said something about Vietnam. I repeated the old (true) legend that I was "up for the draft" two times but my number was too high. Of course Walt had enlisted and worked his way up to being a sergeant.

Once he got going, his tongue loosened up, and the mousetraps starting to sparkle, I went for the jugular, referring to that one crazy son of a bitch he shot. (See the link above). He smiled but then played coy, "Which one?" I put my hands near my crotch and made a mock grimace, mimicking the desperation of a man signing to the world that everything that he once held dear had been blown to bits. Sarge laughed and said, "You remember that?" The gleam in my eye said yes.

We had a great time then, as Walt recounted once again the old, old story of perhaps one of his greatest moments. He was very paranoid in Nam, extremely paranoid. But it was well justified, because so many of our guys were so stoned and just full of crap by nature that you had to be afraid. So he (he had an office) arranged a gun under his desk, bolted there or affixed somehow, to get the better of any crazy guy who might try to take him.

And then it happened. This one stoned son of a bitch was pissed off about something -- these are Sarge's words -- and he was making moves that he was going to come over the desk, just totally crazy stuff. At the last possible second, to defend himself, Sarge reached under the desk and blew the guy's crotch off. It was such a horrendous mess they're probably still trying to clean it up! Or piece the guy back together! It'd be hell to come off a high like that only to realize it was friendly fire that gave your wife grounds for divorce!

But it happened, and I have to say I'm actually quite glad it did ... because Walt is a hell of a handyman, and I would've never known him if that stoned son of a bitch would've had his way. Sure, Sarge had to face a deposition, but the blood tests on the guy were such that he was cleared. So everyone's happy.

Something Put Him In An Early Grave

This is about a friend of mine, the late Q------ Wiswell, who was never married yet somehow found himself put in an early grave. He was 42, a young age to die at.

I've given it a lot of thought, and I'm wondering what it might have been that was responsible for his premature demise. It's a sad thing when people die, especially people with any degree of closeness to me.

I met Quentin in church. Of course church is where a lot of healthy people go. They're known for keeping their lives square not only with the Lord but with man. So they're not given to various excesses that so often spell tragedy for those outside the fold. And yet he died ... and I never heard an actual reason why ... Just a bunch of whispers. 

What might it have been? Why would "Q" have died so early? Maybe he was living a secret life. That happens, you know. Folks aren't always what they seem to be; sometimes they're quite a bit different.

Could it have been a secret life of gambling and debt? There's lots of people who play the ponies or bet on sports or are addicted to card games and one-armed bandits who die early. Because they're not frugal with their money. They get in deep with the wrong crowd. And before you know it, their money's gone, and so are they! But I never knew "Q" to gamble, and he always seemed to have enough money. He gave me a nickel for a parking meter one time.

Could it have been a secret life of drugs and alcohol? I despise it when people get hooked on all this crap. They think they're having a good time, which probably they are, until it's too late. You start taking that shit and you'll always be chasing the first high. Unless you only drink wine for your heart. But I never once smelled anything on "Q" or noticed any odd staggering.

Could it have been a secret life of treachery and espionage against his country? It's doubtful. You hear of double agents and spies who turn on their country for money or ideological reasons. But I was at his place several times and never saw any weird insignias, flags, microfilm, carved pumpkins, etc. Plus, I was at his funeral and saw his body. He wasn't beheaded, so he was clean in this area.

Could it have been a secret life of womanizing? It might have been! I probably shouldn't tell tales, but I did actually see him once going into a club well known as a hangout for women taking their clothes off, called strippers. The imagination runs wild. I can well imagine these cute girls taking off their clothes a bit at a time, say a piece and a half for every song on the jukebox. Or, to be more exotic, a classier lady with props -- boas, scarves, a shag rug, or a playful dog puppet, sniffing around -- taking it all off in a classier way. The first girl, she's just stripping for a quick carnal excitement. The exotic lady actually puts the tease in striptease! That's what leaves you wanting more, not someone just moving mechanically (and sometimes lethargically) toward stark nudity.

It is very well likely that "Q" died from watching too many bad strippers. That would put me in an early grave, too.

No One Knows He Was A Sergeant

No one knows he was a sergeant. Technically, of course, somebody knows he was, like his daughter, a couple guys he has coffee with, and the doctor at the veterans hospital. But most of us don't know he was. I'm maybe the one exception, and even I wasn't privy to this strange fact until I started asking him about his life.

Let me climb up on my soapbox for a bit. Indulge me that? Because I for one am sick and tired of nobody really caring about the life stories of other people. I mean it, I'm sick of it. Take my own life story. I know my own life story pretty well, but the people I run into -- church, in the community, in meetings, etc. -- don't care a thing about it. That's cool, leave me out. It's anyone! You see an old timer, like this guy -- I'm going to call him Walt, just to be on the safe side -- privacy concerns -- and basically nobody knows he was a sergeant!

He came over to do some work at my place. I had him fixing the window in the garage. Someone put a rock through it, one of the neighbor honyocks probably. So I called Walt, a handyman. OK, here's something you might not realize: Handymen like being handymen not so much for the money, but for the fact that it gets them out of the house and with others. They're always extroverts. So whenever I'm dealing with a handyman, I know there's the chance for some decent conversation. They like to talk about themselves, but hardly anyone wants to hear it. But if you open yourself, you'll find a nice guy. It's worth breaking the window yourself just to try it...

So Walt comes over. And I'm standing there chewing the fat with him, shooting the breeze, and I start probing into his life story. And he comes alive, telling me all kinds of things about his life, such as the little known fact that, indeed, he was a sergeant! I thought, Wow! An actual sergeant, just like on TV, on the old shows I used to watch, Sgt. Bilko, Sgt. Carter, and others. Walt has a background! He was a sergeant in Vietnam!

I'm like, "Where were you?" and he answered me with a bunch of places, like Vietnam vets always do, that I have no idea where they were, making my question kind of stupid in the first place. "What was it like?" Etc. When I start probing, it goes on and on. And you know what? Just like Brian Lamb on C-SPAN could tell you, people like to talk about themselves, if you're mildly interested.

Walt told me a hair-raising story no doubt true in every detail. That he was a sergeant in an office, and guys would come in stoned out of their minds; it was the '60s. Some of them were like potential mass-murderers. He feared for his life, to the extent that he taped or affixed in some way a gun to the underside of his desk. Some of these stoned guys would come in, start seeing crazy stars or whatever, and get crazy. He'd tell them with the greatest confidence in his voice, "Turn right around and march your ass out of here, or else." And they'd go.

But it all came to a head when this one "crazy sick bastard, stoned out of his gourd" (Walt's words) not only got threatening, but started to come over the desk. Walt reached down and blew the guy's crotch all to hell. Seriously! It didn't kill him, but he (the guy) wished it had! He lived, but was never the same. Really, Walt had no idea what happened to him. They flew the guy out and that was it. Walt had to give a deposition and was cleared. Presumably, though -- I don't know -- the guy might still be out there, a veteran without a crotch, who, once he got over being stoned, came back down and had to wonder what happened to it. That'd be my first concern. Walt said, "The craziest shit happens in the Army!"

We talked like that for quite a while, with Walt pausing once in a while from fixing my window. He was laughing, I was laughing, it was great. I learned lots of other stuff about his life, which I'm not going to go into.

After he left, I started thinking, that'd be very cool, to have a gun taped to the bottom of your desk. You can never be too safe.