My Dog Safe With Buddha

(Not part of the Paranoia series)

When they came out with the latest virus, naturally I was concerned. What am I going to do, drop dead with all the other losers? I always heard it growing up, “Get your exercise. If you don’t, you’ll deserve what you get.” By which they didn’t mean all the boys, but a short life, a sudden death, maybe dangling from a rope, depending on the crime.

My concerns are like everyone’s. I came into the world a few years back, relatively speaking. My memory’s hazy on the subject, but there were apparently 15 billion years when I wasn’t here. Then at the end of that vast span, I popped into the world like clockwork and since then have hung on for dear life. Saying, “I will not willingly go back into the void. I’m here, deal with it.” I said this through times of war and peace, although I didn't serve in either. With some regret, though, because I think it would've been great to serve in the war. Maybe you remember my pitiful longing for the service in my post, “Sarge: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

My big problem with the Corona virus these days is, "What’s going to happen to my dog if it happens to me?” My dog I got on a fluke. Her mother was in the yard minding her business when a smaller dog got through a crawlspace in the fence and consummated a brief relationship. Yielding five puppies, one of which became mine. So it was someone else’s problem and we’ve been joined at the hip now all these years. Had I been a block away, had I not answered the phone that day, we would’ve never met.

But we did meet, and we’ve had a special bond ever since. I’ve seen her through many things, learning to love dog food, etc., and I get her only the best. We have to keep going. I’m all she’s got, but with my advanced years naturally I worry what could happen. Now, all of a sudden, there’s a virus going around that threatens people of my demographic, older gentlemen who breathe and touch their faces. The store’s even out of paper towels, that’s how hard up we are. Because I use paper towels to clean up my dog’s poop. And suddenly they’re more precious than gold...

Anyway, have I mentioned, I can’t die! Because what would become of her? She’d wake up and not get her expensive food, not go out to poop, etc., She’s already kind of upset about the paper towel shortage. This other thing, my demise, I don’t want to have to lay that on her too. She might stroke out and I’d be left alone, with my last roll of paper towels that I was holding on to for special times, her birthday, the day she was spayed, etc.

Beyond the frills of paper towels and things, there’s the sorrow she would feel if I were suddenly stricken by viruses and died. “Why'd he have to abandon me? Was he thinking of the time I accidentally peed on the kitchen floor?” That’s terrible, I don’t want this dog to have one ounce of troubles or sorrows. You might remember, that’s how Buddha started out. His dad kept him from troubles and sorrows. Then he discovered suffering and found out, “Shit happens.” He sat under the bodhi tree and was enlightened. If I die, my dog will have things to deal with, heavy stuff, and might even be peeing at the base of a similar tree and come to a place of inner knowledge. I hope to impart enlightenment to her, but so far my attempts have been met with resistance. She'd rather play with dog toys than meditate. So I just breathe and wait.

But so far I’m still alive, so Buddha can meditate and keep his gentle arms and hands folded until that day, if ever, when I'm not.

Tobacco Day In World War I

 

(No kidding, this was in the newspaper during WWI)

Part 31 of 31

They Found Another Body

World War I was a long time ago, and most of us probably don’t remember much about it. Even though I was briefly a history major and took coursework in college that included things about the war, I’ve forgotten most of what I didn’t really know very well at the time. Maybe if I'd heard they had a drive to get more cigarettes to the troops, I would've stuck with it.

The great thing about this public service ad is how much our fellow citizens on the home front — if you’re from America — wanted to support the troops overseas. And what better way to support them than to make sure they weren't lacking for something to smoke! That’s a little different from what our concerns for the troops would be these days. I can't think what we'd send. Bubble gum, adult magazines, what?

But take a look at the old movies, the '70s, '60s, and well before that, and you’ll see everyone was smoking. It was the national pastime. And especially dear to the south, Virginia, which was/is tobacco country, their best known crop. The boys in France were dying for a smoke, a taste of home, the old south, and it's to the south's credit that they came through.

How terrible it’d be for a bunch of them — a battalion — to have the enemy, the Huns at the very door (or on the run) and run out of smokes. What would they do? If they had guns and no smokes, of course they’d be able to do as much as they could with the guns. But how long could they just sit there with a noisy gun jumping all over the place, trying to put up a respectable fight, without smokes? They could only do what they could do and try to better their best, but the disappointment of not having smokes in a dire life or death situation might've been too much. 

Then it goes on like that for a while. They're just itching for a cigarette. "This foreign air tastes terrible without something to flavor it. And I was on edge as it was. That last volley of shots came in so close I don't need to shave for a week!" Plus, factor in they've only got a limited resolve and morale. Pretty soon, without smokes their will to live would surely dwindle to nothing. Buddies calling to each other, “Fight, man, fight!” And that rouses them for a while, until, finally, it's all in vain, like if you tried to slap mosquitoes with a limp noodle.

The Huns are coming in for the kill. And without the right tools at hand -- smokes -- that’s exactly what happens. Our guys, without smokes, go down for the final count.

A Pacyderm Packs It In

Part 23 of 30 -- Speaking Ill of The Dead

Did you know they used to enlist elephants for military service? Quite the thing. A family would raise one from a calf, then on the day of the Big War would say, “Horray, Jumbo’s all grown up and ready for war! Put a star in the window, let the whole town know we're patriots!” Sounds unlikely these days, I know. When the price of elephant food went sky-high, plus liability insurance, etc., it suddenly wasn't common for a family to raise them. Which is a damned shame, because if we'd been raising elephants, think of all the things that wouldn't have happened. 9/11 for starters.

Of course elephants have always been big, but they were larger than life in the days of the Roman Empire, when all kinds of crazy stuff happened. Back then they didn’t have everything we take for granted, cannons, bunker busters, bazookas, and gun shows. If they wanted to conquer someone they had to unleash an elephant. Yes, they had bows and arrows, swords, and spears. But it was elephants that trampled out the vintage and made the grapes of wrath flow. One big reason, they were hepped up on firewater, hootch, and booze, and went plain loco. Which was a good thing.

Personally, I don’t know entirely how it was done. For me to depend on an elephant to distinguish the enemy from us, that’d take a lot of trust. But it was accomplished like everything else, by experts. They pointed the way for them to go, they fed them a truckload of peanuts, and before you knew it, it was V-Day over the Huns! World War I ended! Hallelujah!

Am I glad we won World War I? Of course I am, I'm always for the home team. But at that time I wasn’t even thought of, nor were my parents, so I sat it out. Later, I took coursework in history in college, but most of the stuff I learned I've forgotten now. World War I, though, was a war to end wars. And elephants' days were also numbered.

It's hard for me to speak ill of an elephant that died. But keeping to the theme, let me think of something ill for this one. Looking at the picture for de-inspiration: What's the matter, you fool, staggering and stumbling like that, breaking through the fence, the cannon tipping over! Next thing you're going to make a mess! And next thing, the enemy's going to say, "That elephant's loco! Shoot the guys on top of it! We'll capture it!" So all that stumbling was a huge mistake, because you took a bullet right through the temple, a terrible place to be shot. Killed instantly. Very bad job.

He Took The Guidance Counselor Job

Part 1 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series

Welcome, Trauma Fans. Glad you’re here, hope you stick around and see what it was that Once Upon a Time upset me terribly, and even still today makes my blood boil or at least get warm.

My traumas won’t be as bad as some of you have suffered, I’ll just put that up front. So I don’t want to hear you saying, “That’s all you got!? I suffered X, Y, Z, and even now he’s still in the bedroom with a machete!” In your case, please don’t take time to reminisce, but call the proper authorities and get help. My thing isn’t nearly that bad.

Even though it’s not as bad, in my opinion it’s still bad. Because my thought is that adults, especially in the educational field, and particularly in the guidance counseling field, ought to be respectful of the kids they serve, and do their work with only positive interactions toward them. Do I get fed up with kids and their pesky problems? Of course, but I don't have very many interactions with kids. And I’m not a teacher and definitely not a guidance counselor.

OK, here’s the situation, a long time ago... At some point, the guidance counselor had gone into the military. I’m going to say he was in Korea, the war that was going on there. Then he got out and got a college education, apparently involving an education degree, likely with a sports minor. At some point he ended up in my hometown, applying for the job of wrestling coach. I will offer some surmises about wrestling coaches, but not here. When our anti-hero missed out on the coaching job, he accepted instead the guidance counselor position.

Flash forward however many years it would be and I show up at school. Then at home, over a course of weeks, I have a series of seizures. Next, back at school, the boys of my class were required to take a semester of wrestling, in P.E. (Physical Education class.) My mother thought the stress might provoke more seizures in me, so I was excused, only to be placed for that hour weekly with the guidance counselor. Who seriously thought I should be wrestling instead of sitting with him. At this point some of the details of my interactions with him have been mercifully forgotten, but that’s roughly it. He didn’t act like he liked me and I didn’t like him. He made me feel terrible about being there.

OK, on my graphic today why do I have the guidance counselor looking so sad that the wrestling job is gone? Not only because he didn’t get the job, but because I contend that wrestling coaches are in it primarily for other benefits, involving female fans. Which would make my guidance counselor a discouraged lover boy missing out on the extra goodies. See his problem?

And maybe he should’ve been the coach. He hid his disgust of me when anyone else was around, so he was good at keeping secrets. Perhaps he could’ve just as easily hidden his secret life with the ladies as coach. If only he had the opportunity! It’s funny how that was denied him. One can only hope he got his satisfaction somewhere else over the years, and was caught at it. But I never heard anything more about him after graduation.

Except to Google him and see that sometime since me being a kid he died. But please don’t feel sorry for him for that cause. Because everyone eventually dies, the good like me someday, and the bad like him way back when. He was older and statistically that’s when it most often happens, when you’re old. But sometimes when you’re young and stupid. Or young and through no fault of your own, you name the cause.

Battle Stations!

No. 19 of 31 --Thermometer series

The clarion call goeth forth! Men, report to battle stations! Women, if you’re tough enough, battle stations, if not, the auxiliary group can always use helpful hands. You alone can judge, then do your part. And I will be around later to glance over the situation -- to survey the battlefields, direct aid to the fallen, and pass out reward points, with an emphasis on actual results not just effort --  and anyone too scrawny for a particular job will be reassigned based on talents, abilities, girth, and skinniness.

This is not a drill, friends. Battle stations! I’m getting the word that we don’t have a minute to lose. And that’s straight from the voice of my Spirit Animal, Abraham Lincoln. Hear that? He's not messing around. Remember, he's a man of few words. He wrote the Gettysburg Address on a scrap of paper he found in his coat, all the paper he had. So it was wonderfully brief, succinct, short, about a minute’s worth of jotting; he didn’t run out of ink, he ran out of paper: “Fourscore and whatever...” He dashed it off, crossed himself for mercy, and winged it from there.

That same spirit must be ours today or we are lost. When the word goes forth for every man to assume battle stations, he must report. 1) Because the battle will be great and we must protect our blog and its way of life, its future; 2) Self-interest concerns: a) If I don’t report everyone will think I chickened out; b) In the future they’ll blow their nose on pictures of me, and other shirkers will be asked to step out of the stadium. The possibilities for shame are endless. Someday you’ll have grandchildren, and they’ll blame you: “Grandpa was a coward. Why should I lift a finger to protect my anything? You can go to hell for all I care. Pass me that stash of porn.”

That’s a scary world, one I’m trying to prevent. I’ve got my courage up. Don't think of it as supine, shrinking in fear, flat on its back. It must stand tall, and it will be noticed, it will stand erect in the wind when everyone else has shrunk back and wavers. Watch us live proud and free, exposed to the elements but unafraid, solid and stolid, prepared to go the distance, alive and pulsing with life, a man (or a very tough woman) in every sense of the word.

The bugle call sounds, the horn of plenty, and it summons plenty, everything — every man and woman of valor and ability — that we serve until this blog is Number One in the world, the basis of our freedoms and way of life. Join us today. Put your own life on hold for years, decades, centuries, whatever it takes. Pretend it's Afghanistan and you are there.

Money Mule Arms Race 2000

Note: I'm off to a slow start on this. Since it's my 2000th post, all of a sudden I'm worried about quality. How to begin? Just begin, stupid...

The last few days I've been worrying myself sick about money mules. It's a big deal because, frankly, I've been putting a lot of money into them. The idea's basically sound: Send money mules (people) out with money, stay at home myself, then let them bring back their earnings. I'd share with them some pittance and keep the rest myself.

The big problem -- it's a poison pill -- is none of them returns. They apparently think, "I've got $100,000 in my hot little hands, I'm footloose and fancy free, why should I return?" Which, I guess, I might also think were I in their position. The bastards!

Now, of course I'm not focused on any of this in a vacuum. There's plenty of others out there, now alerted to the money-making possibilities (and the development rights), jumping into the fray. And as far as I know, coming up with better techniques, ones that actually work.

That being the case, it leaves me more or less high and dry. Except for what a small-time local operator might make at the edges, two-bit stuff, while flying under the radar and keeping his activities lowkey. Similar to small taco places, that once surpassed in quality by the likes of Taco Bell, et. al., just can't compete. We spit out their crap food in a second and flock to the corporate counterpart.

Still, shouldn't a little guy, say, in the money mule business, flourish? It hasn't been proven that he shouldn't. But in any arms race there's going to be winners and losers. Those with the greatest resources have the upper hand.

The time to get busy, then, is now. Find a way to make money mules more trustworthy! There's no time to waste! Time is of the essence, ready or not! To delay is to lose! He who puts his hand to the plow ... something something something.

At this point I'm thinking my go-to strategy has to be to convey to the mules the sense that I like them, appreciate them, and trust them. Do what my mom did to me, with moderate success on her part. If I only can ... But you lose a million or so, as I have, and it does something to your confidence.

One other good tactic might be something like this, give and demand back:

I have five money mules before me. I give each one $100,000, then immediately demand back $50,000. Then half of the remainder, then another half, etc., until they have almost nothing. Then repeat, and repeat time and time again. By evening they're exhausted but hopefully have learned a message.

The arms race is heating up. This much I know for a fact, the big guys have the best psychological teams at their disposal. Just like the Nazis. You have your hands around the throat of an entire nation, of course you can command resources. And what have I got? I'm one guy, no country, no Gestapo, no conglomerate, no company. I'm like the little taco guy, doing my best with diminishing resources. Peddling a little bike and throwing tacos out of the basket and hoping people pay, so to speak.

And yet I need it to work! I have no other option. The money I get from money mules today might very well fund my retirement tomorrow. Depending on how much I lose to them between now and then.... I'll either retire or keep working the system till I die.

2000: OK, that ought to hold everyone, while I express my thanks to myself for 2000 posts since this blog started. In addition to thanks, I'd like to recognize a deep inner beauty in myself that made this moment possible. Everyday, lately, I've sat in silence at the beginning of each morning, and have looked within. I've liked what I've seen, making, almost, two of me. Get that split? I should be up to 4000 by now!

Anyway, it's a measly 2000. I remember 1000 in 2010, and now 2000 in 2015. If it takes me 5 years to do 1000, that means I'll be writing my next self-congratulatory message in 2020. At which point I'll be 67. Is it normal for 62-67 year olds to write blogs like this? Seems a bit abnormal. I know my old friends -- people I know on Facebook -- are busy grilling and taking pictures of their food. Which is also a labor of love. The question is, Do they grill 2000 cuts of meat and stop to congratulate themselves? 

That's Sexy ... We're Not Moving

You really can't help it, the things that go on in swanky restaurants. But you don't have to approve of it. Which might be a good lesson for Ted to think about. On the other hand, who knows, maybe Doris was just too picky.

They were out on the town at The Fireside, a nice place, but a place where anything's liable to happen. The waiter seated them and went away. Doris had never approved of alcohol and a guy at the next table was getting a bit sloshed on whiskey. She called for the waiter, telling him, "We want to move." The new place was pretty good, until another guy pulled out a cigar and finished off his meal with a strong smoke. Doris called again for the waiter, telling him, "We want to move."

Of course Ted went along with her because he also wasn't much of a smoker. He got way too much of it when he was in the Navy, plus it's bad for you. The waiter took them around the corner and found them a better place. The next problem was an artwork of an alluring beauty just behind Doris and right in Ted's line of sight. She was a gorgeous siren of the sea, waiting, it appeared, for sailors to come in on the next ship. Ted's eye lingered approvingly on the picture, and a smile brightened his face, as though he were thinking back on happier times, his own time in the service and good memories.

Doris called for the waiter, but Ted interrupted, raising his hand, "No, Doris, that's sexy ... We're not moving." Suddenly Doris realized ... they weren't on the same page. Ted was a rebel, mulling his own thoughts in private, whatever they were. She saw him smile again, after such a stern frown when he had said, "That's sexy ... We're not moving." What's she got that I haven't got? Doris went right to the nub of the issue: Such allure! Her blouse pulled down, revealing a shoulder and a breast that refused to be hidden. A tight skirt halfway up her thigh. The look on her face that of pure seduction. Her hair pulled back like a goddess. For starters...

And there was Ted, now silent, in his own world, who could not or would not be swayed. But Doris tried, complaining in tones accusatory, "She's down by the docks like she's waiting for sailors!" Ted lit up again, keeping a silent smile. Then Doris tried another tack, "I'm not hungry here, in fact I'm nauseous here. I think we ought to move." But Ted was adamant, "No, that's sexy, we're not moving." Sexy? Is that what he's thinking of? Ted's always been so good!

All of a sudden, Ted got up and went around the corner and returned a minute later. He bought a couple cigars and was lighting up. Next, the waiter came around the corner with a shot-glass of whiskey and the rest of the bottle. Ted had Doris move to the opposite side of the table, so she wouldn't spoil his view of the beautiful woman. He put his focus on her and didn't take it off, except to refill his glass. He didn't eat, only smoked his cigars, drank whiskey, and made visual love, as it were, to the woman in the picture.

Doris, for her part, ordered the most expensive steak on the menu, then sat picking at it. She'd show him! But Ted didn't care, in fact he didn't even notice, lost as he was in overwhelming pleasure and such a wonderful feeling of lust, that feeling you get when everything comes together as nature planned ... and everything is just right.

Bait Wagon

NOTE: If you're a fan of the TruTV show "Bait Car," you'll like this. If you don't know the show, it features metro police luring people into stealing cars. The objective is to prevent car theft. It makes a certain amount of sense, if you cross your eyes and think about it really hard. You know they're going to steal it, the police are rooting for success, and finally ... "There they go! Shut it down!" ... They shut the car off by remote control and arrest the perps.

There's been a rash of wagon thefts recently in my town. It used to be you could take your kid to the park, take them to the restroom, and come back out to your wagon still there. Those days seem long gone, with the many crimes leading to parents being extremely mad, and kids upset they took so long in the bathroom.

It's been crazy. Everyone knows a kid who's lost a wagon, and everyone knows a parent who's mad at life-in-general and everyone in it. Gun sales are way up, as well as heavy artillery, mortars, bombs, and jet fighters. The biggest course at adult education is on assembling IEDs. Folks have even shown up at the police department threatening officers with death if they didn't put a stop to the thefts. And, as it turns out, they meant business.

That's where I come in. I've been working with the police, part-time, training officers in public relations, using some of the principles of group dynamics as well as other people skills. One day, I was just wrapping up a session on "You Need to Go Along to Get Along" -- on knowing when the passive side of passive-aggressiveness is indicated -- right when a parental militia burst in and took out two of our best men. When the excitement died down, I concluded, "This time aggression was indicated, but don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."

Another principle we're working on is "Digging Down to the Root of Any Dilemma." "Why treat the symptoms if the cancer's still there?" I asked rhetorically. "These senseless police killings won't stop till we address the real problem, the theft of these dam-- darned wagons." That's when I came up with the Bait Wagon program, modeled on the TV show. We would trick out normal wagons, pimp 'em up real "bad", so "bad" no self-respecting wagon thief could resist. Then put them in parks ... and wait.

But on our way with the very first wagon, we found ourselves fighting an entirely different parental militia, these ones coming in from the air. One officer -- Sgt. Smith -- said, "I've heard of helicopter parents, but this is ridiculous!" Those were his last words, as a mortar sped through the car window and impaled him. I helped the others drag the Bait Wagon to safety just as the car blew into a million pieces.

Fortunately, the park was near. With a wary eye, we quickly set up the Bait Wagon, leaving the handle right in plain sight, then hid in the bushes. It didn't take long till we had lots of browsers, lots of interest, little kids, parents, and a few juvies -- kids with tattoos. By now we were silently praying, moving our lips, "Somebody, please, take it for a spin!" At last a couple of good-time "bruthas" milled around it a bit too much, dicking with the handle and looking around. I checked the laminated profile guide Sgt. Smith bequeathed to Lt. Rutger and found them ... looking pretty close to these actual guys!

Almost immediately, true to form, the "bruthas" attached the handle to the mainframe and took off running down the hill, predictably picking up speed as they went. Likewise, we sped out from the bush. But our timing was unfortunate, as a parental militia just then came into sight on our rear flank and took position. We took incoming, with their first lucky shot taking off Rutger's leg, and the second the rest of him. I wasn't completely spared; shrapnel nicked the leather on one of my shoes, but it was on the back where it's not as noticeable.

But first things first! The "bruthas" were getting away with the Bait Wagon! I gave the order to the others: "Pull out!" (I actually didn't have any authority, but this is an old group dynamics trick I teach at my seminars: Anyone who "takes charge" is at least temporarily respected till folks have time to think it over. Most assume you know what you're doing.)

Now, each Bait Wagon is equipped with a remote-controlled brake to lock both back wheels tight. I ran back to Lt. Rutger and snatched the controls from his holster. Then we approached the befuddled "bruthas" -- now on the sidewalk, almost to the grocery store, struggling to make the wagon go. I gave the order and we rushed in from three directions, which would've been four had we avoided that last casualty.

Anyway, it turned out these were the guys behind all the recent wagon thefts. We think. We never actually found all the wagons, and they didn't have time to confess. But, you know, the laminated profile sheet and all ... it stands to reason. "Bruthas." It's a human tragedy.

But the real tragedy in this whole stinking affair was our failure to get this news out to the parents in time. All of a sudden, three jets came over the horizon in formation, strafing the whole scene for miles around, killing not only the remaining officers, but the "bruthas," and quite a number of innocent bystanders, including a white guy unrelated to this case running by with a different hot wagon. As for me, I barely managed to survive, not being hit but halfway scared out of my everlovin' wits.

Having nothing more to do -- my job was done -- I continued on to the grocery store, filled the wagon with a few essentials and went home. Saved a little gas -- did my best to save the planet -- and got in some exercise.

Shell-Shocked -- The Easter Craft Sale

It's ironic that, after the Army couldn't save from destruction the shopping center, where we've always had the Easter craft sale, this year we had it at the VFW hall. Of course if you lose the battle you shouldn't reap the spoils, but I'm only one voice.

Right away, I saw this one local character, Terry, a shell-shocked Vietnam vet, handling everyone's stuff roughly. He left some of the ears on my bunnies bent, then was oblivious to it. I was using psych tactics on him, busying myself with unnecessary rearranging when he was around, trying to get him to leave. So he didn't do too much actual damage.

The place was a terrible place for a sale. They have their bar right there in the next room with an open door between us. You get the secondhand smell of drinks and smoke, pretty intense. Terrible. I saw the pool table, untouched, with the casual light above bearing down on it. There was a quarter in one of the corners, like someone called next game, but was then was so shell-shocked he forgot.

In our room, the sale area, there was a similar bad vibe. The walls were lined with huge black and white portraits of past commanders, trim looking old guys, mostly from the Greatest Generation. Then there's a number of more modern pictures, some in fading color from the '60s. The '70s pictures are more casual, showing the breakdown that started after Nam. And I believe Ronald Reagan allowed much more breakdown, then, in the '80s. You see it in the '80s pix, hair over ears, bushier mustaches, and darker glasses, in what might be called the military's Mr. Potato Head years.

None of this was good. Because the whole point of a craft sale is to get women in. And women don't want to come to a revolting man-cave like this. You'd be afraid to bring your kids. They'd catch one glimpse of Terry and swear off war altogether. So the sale sucked.

I had plenty of time to look around. I and some of the other crafters -- we're usually complaining about something -- could do nothing but shake our heads and laugh. Once you see you're not going to make money no matter what, that's when you laugh. It was different at the shopping center; you didn't always make a lot of money, but the potential was there. That's why we were always bitching.

This place, though, with the beer/smoke/old carpet odor, the odd stacks of chairs against the walls, the old nicked-up wooden coat racks, the dim lighting, and those godawful leering pictures, killed us. And the flickering fluorescent lights! They made my bunnies look frail and sickly. And their purple ears don't need help! And the Styrofoam, my God! I was afraid it was softening up, maybe even subtly melting from the alcohol (actual and from guys' breath) in the air. They say Styrofoam lasts forever in the landfill. Maybe all they need is the VFW to go and break it down!

On the positive side -- just to be fair -- the tables were definitely cheaper. Although, to be negative again, if you're not making money, what's the use? I felt like a crafts sadist sitting there. You have to have some traffic, besides these shell-shocked guys bending things and breathing on  you. As I was hauling my unsold bunnies out, I saw Terry one more time: hat on backwards, food on his mustache, saluting the jukebox, in a word, shell-shocked.

So, unfortunately, I ended up with bad results today, no big surprise, I know. At this rate -- money being what it is -- I might be able to afford a medium Easter ham. But that'll be it. No sides, no bread, no glaze on the ham. Just one dry naked bare ham. But, I'm happy ... Keep repeating, I'm happy; better than an empty table.

Never again! Seriously, this is my vow before God and man, and please, someone, mark it down! We will never again have the craft sale at the V-freaking-FW, or I'll know why!

------------------------------------------

Previous Easter Bunny Craft Sales:

2010:
Local Man Makes and Sells Easter Bunnies
Selling Easter Bunnies at the Shopping Center
Last Call for Easter Bunnies
Boxing Up My Bunnies

2011:
The Easter Craft Sale

2012:
I'm Selling Easter Bunnies at the Craft Sale

2013:
Easter Bunnies -- Is This The End of Crafts?
The Easter Craft Sale -- Post-Mortem

The Army Couldn't Save the Shopping Center

*BASED ON A TRUE STORY

The Army had a new man on duty, newly in charge of recruiting at the shopping center. He figured he could do it well, having the trust of the entire United States government.

The old man was retiring. He walked with a leg that had a limp in it, which would likely only get worse. The old man limped in after the welcome party and charged the new man with keeping the office safe. Such vows aren't necessary in the military, but the new man vowed it anyway.

Years passed, and recruitment activities were extremely successful, to the point it was ridiculous. The new man recruited just fine, helped by keen macho advertising, various psychological techniques of persuasion, and a bad economy. Every time the new man -- who was aging all the time -- saw his success he'd feel a warm glow. He'd do celebratory things, as we all do, like throwing a dart at the dartboard or polishing an apple. He was the cream of the crop.

Time continued to pass, until the shopping center was showing its age, wear and tear. Plus, demographics took their toll, the bad economy he depended on cutting both ways. Shoppers took their meager dollars elsewhere, Walmart. Stores closed, traffic slowed. Rentals hit rock bottom and the shopping center management had no choice but to throw up their hands and throw in the towel.

But until the bitter end, the Army office was open. The officer was faithful, still hoping to make a go of it, even making deals with dope-heads in the vacant parking lot. "If we give them something to knock 'em out, we can shanghai them and they won't wake up till they find themselves in basic." That was a great idea, but there was still the matter of the shopping center's sad owners tearing their hair out. The place had to close.

The officer, of course, had no choice then but to order the flag lowered and vacate the post. A couple days later and the place was rubble. The officer stood looking at it. When who should show up but the old man, his limp totally gone as now he was in a wheelchair. The two met, and immediately the younger man was overcome with terrific shame as the old man surveyed the area. Who, without so much as a handshake, rolled away, tears in his eyes, shaking his head.

The new man got the message. He had been charged with only one thing, to guard that shopping center at all costs ... a charge he had neglected and failed at. His 30-year career -- try to take this in -- which normally would've been considered stellar, was ... What would you call it? ... Botched, ruined, total crap ...

The new man, now the old man, put his hand to his heart: "A few weeks and I'll be in a new office. Then soon afterward I'll retire and a new man will take my place. The first thing I must do is have him make a similar vow."

-------------------------
*There was an Army office in a shopping center that was eventually torn down.

Major Spill -- When Walter Comes Marching Home

The life of Walter Spill had elements of the ordinary and the extraordinary. He was a military man, a family man, and a big wheel in the community. He wheeled and dealed himself into a dizzying life as an entrepreneur, making a lot of money and friends along the way. Then, like anyone who lives long enough, he died, with his bones gathered up and laid to rest with honors in Memorial Cemetery.

Was he summa cum laude or magnum cum laude in school? No, he was just an average guy, with, as it turned out, a potential far exceeding average. His nation called and he answered, working his way up, about as far as a man can go, to the office of Major. Major Spill was a leader of men and a friend to all. He was the kind of guy you could count on to not desert you when the going got rough ... as it always does.

I spoke with one of the old-timers of town about Walter Spill, Dr. James Molar. One day they had a newspaper article about Walter in the Daily News, otherwise I probably would have never heard about him. (For copyright purposes, I will not quote from the newspaper account, but will simply do my best to paraphrase the key points of his life story as they come to mind, as well as my poor memory allows.)

The old-timer was a man who served with Major Spill, going back to his war service. The old veterans hate to talk about their military service, like pulling teeth, but if you pry diligently enough, going for all the angles, getting leverage, etc., finally you can loosen up the toughest molar. Anyway, this old boy, now frail and walking with a cane, bent with age, granted me a sit-down. We were at a particular cafe, a neutral site.

"So you served with Major Spill?" "Yes, that's right," his old friend, Dr. Molar, struggled to say, rasping, with each word a struggle. "You were together those years?" "Yes," he said with slight impatience, "That would appear to be what I carefully delineated a moment ago, with no excess verbiage added to the mix that might confuse you." I thought, "OK, I've got it..."

"What kind of leader was Walter Spill?" "A good leader," Dr. Molar managed to say, simply. But I dug deeper. "He was good, you say?" "Yes, good. By that I mean he excelled as a leader of men, prompted by some powerful inner source of fortitude and determination that is rare by any measure. The odds were against us, and as these things go, of course you have no guarantee of tomorrow. But the Major was fearless, prompting all of us to call forth our own bravery, till then an unknown presence."

"The newspaper said there was one battle where next-to-no one came out alive." "Yes, it was bad." "On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad was it?" With that, Dr. Molar struggled to his feet and left the room, and that's the last I saw of him. Leaving me to surmise that Major Spill and the others went together into battle with heavy odds against them, no doubt attributable to a larger or stronger contingency arrayed against them, with only one man of this side's force able to reemerge, that man being Major Spill himself.

The newspaper, just summarizing here, also told of Walter's poker-playing skills, Dr. Molar being their likely source. Just briefly, he had one hell of a poker face. Beyond that, quoting, "Of course all the other aspects of poker as a game, and the Major's keen gamesmanship at it, had to factor in, including his ability to read other players, his ability to compute the odds at any particular moment, along with that intangible thing we simply have to call luck."

After the war, Major Spill -- Walter -- came home and settled right here, back in his hometown. It was the post-war years, when new neighborhoods had to be developed. Walter settled into a career combination of city-planning, real estate, and cheap architecture. By now, of course, he was simply Mr. Walter Spill. There was a large profit to be made, with men coming home throughout those boom years.

Again, from the newspaper: "Socially, we were going from a more centralized arrangement of tight traditional neighborhoods toward the city's outskirts and beyond. It wasn't exactly sprawl, with the negative connotations of that word, but a natural widening of the local parameters, a thing of pride at the time. You annex, you pave, you make winding roads through the neighborhoods, you plant the same tree. At first the cheapness of the houses was a virtue, but naturally they quickly go to pot, after many years of hard use." As above, I take it Dr. Molar was the source of this quote as well.

This Is The Signal

The world waited. There was a kind of hush all over the world. A million men in uniform did all the things a million men in uniform do. The officers were at their mess. They exchanged many indecipherable whispers. Those at the higher echelons polished their medals with trepidation. One man paced his humble quarters alone.

This one man was the great man, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, answerable only to the president of the United States, which he himself, unknown at the time of D-Day, would one day be. If we could mash time, you could say he was ultimately answerable only to himself. But that wasn't his concern. He wasn't thinking of future political attainments, although it could've been in the back of his mind.

Ike, alone out of all men, knew the signal that would launch the massive D-Day operation. Although let me back up a bit, someone else needed to know, or it wouldn't make sense ... a guy in a lonely communications shack, just him and Ike. The world's hope over the tyranny of Nazism hung on a shared signal between those two men, the great man and the humble man, who might've had a heart attack and all would've been lost. (That's why we suffer the tyranny of the Republican Party today: Bad hearts from too much junk food and not enough exercise; no one's getting the signal to destroy these SOBs.)

Well, OK, what was the signal? Ike picked up the phone and said simply, "Dead dog." Just like that. I almost hated to say it, it sounds so trivial. But that's the way it is with signals -- they're not always what you'd expect. You keep them secret, like your password for online banking -- mine is "abc123" -- so no one can steal your money. In the case of Ike and the other guy, that was all it took -- "Dead Dog" -- and our soldiers went floating in and wading in, attacking the Nazis like rabid banshees; it was not a pretty sight.

The signal can be a nod, a handshake, or just a glance. I've given a few glance signals, and the other party knows exactly what I'm saying, "Let's get out of here. This party is dead." Or, "The service here is terrible." Or, "Hit the mute, these UPS commercials suck!" Not to pick on them, most commercials suck. But how do you like that one where the guy from Seinfeld is saying, "I'm happy." And everyone else says, "I'm happy," individually and repeatedly. That is so vastly sucky I've only heard it once. The other times have been muted.

Had I been in the meeting for planning that piece of crap, I would have said, "You're either kidding or you're trying to sink the whole company, in which case, congratulations!" Finally, had they taken me to task despite my impeccable wisdom, the signal that I was resigning would have been my extended right middle finger while my left hand would be making the "crazy" twirl at the side of my head and my legs would be advancing toward the elevator, after I had pissed in their coffee and all the plants. "Are you happy, now?! God knows I'm happy!" Happy, happy, happy.

A signal has meaning. We've communicated. There are inner realities, vast and minute at the same time, where these operations and their signals come together in concrete reality. At least concrete subjective reality, which, as has to be obvious, is actually the same thing. But it's worth making a distinction for the sake of clarity and perhaps discovery on the part of some, like me. If I were to look within -- wherever that is -- I could very well flash the signal and end up turned inside out. Break through to the other side. A regular retrojerk moment, although, unlike Jimi Hendrix, I would still be around.

I'm convinced -- convinced, I say -- that nothing is really apart from anything else. Which means even when we're in the gutter we're still in the fullness of the divine. But to experience it positively in this daily grind, there's a signal (or trigger) somewhere, not necessarily known to the ego but still 100% encoded in the consciousness, the consciousness being understood as described in Sri Aurobindo's "The Life Divine." Hear it, notice it.

Now, in case you don't know how it worked out for Eisenhower: The guy in the communications shack did not have a heart attack. D-Day came off as he and Ike planned it. The Allies stormed the beach, a bunch of them got killed, but enough of them made it through to retake Europe, finally leaving Hitler like the steaming pile of shit he was in a lonely bunker.

Adolf got the signal that the jignal was up, enjoyed a quickie wedding with Eva Braun so in the end he wouldn't be living in sin, ate some cyanide and died a terrible death, his 1000 year reign truncated, from his point of view prematurely.

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.

Peacetime Has Ruined Our Restaurants

Here's the good news, the war's over, the sailors are all home. The merchant marine fleet also has docked and the crew debarked! They battled the South Americans to a standstill and now it's over! Hallelujah! But there's also bad news. First, their unfaithful wives came clean to their many sins and dumped them. And, second, they've all gotten jobs as waiters at the restaurants I go to.

What a war it really must have been! I can't remember what it was all about, but half of it took place in jungles, and that really ages a man, makes him gnarly, gruesome, and tough. And tattoos have to be the national past time in those forsaken ports whenever there's leave. Because the sorry sacks have been through the mill. I'm sure they'll regret it, especially the prominent tattoos of their wives' names.

Really, their wives are better off with whatever trash they've found stateside. They've kept warm at nights -- I'm guessing warmth had something to do with it. Because these guys are in bad shape, the war did a number on them. They're all messed up. War is the human grinder, unfortunate for them, and certainly making a mess out of my restaurants. They're always looking for waiters, it seems.

But it's also tough for us, thinking of me in particular. It's tough to go in, paper under my arm, with my dignified look and an appetite to die for, and have to see sailors and drifters trying to memorize my order. Of course they're going to get it wrong. As for your tattoos, try to find a blank space and just jot my order on your arm somewhere. Then if I want to know what I ate today, five years from now, I'll come and read it.

You don't know what's going to happen if they do happen to get it right. The plate's going to come back with human fur in your food, grease from the ship dripping off the edge, and whatever other begrizzled bits of offal one of these specimens might drop, or shed. Basic hygiene, more about that later, doesn't prevail. But since we're all into recycling, there's a little good news: That greasy apron, a dishtowel tucked in the pants lengthwise, is the same one he was wearing last week. Same stains and everything.

I think I remember a Popeye cartoon sort of like that. The war was over even back then, and Popeye was a waiter, waiting on Bluto. Popeye has a big dirty dishtowel around his normal sailor outfit, waiting on Bluto, and of course still smoking his pipe, squinting at the big man's food, and getting ready for a fistfight.

Here's what I want, restauranteurs: No mustaches. And mandatory tattoo removal. And short hair on men, clean, not a shaved head. Anything longer than an inch or so -- I'd rather their hair look cheerful, like the hair of an average five year old kid -- must be trimmed before returning to work. Their hands must be washed according to the Lord's standards, which is, scrubbing your hands with soap as long as it takes a person to recite the Lord's Prayer at a normal speed. This isn't the old days when we ate around campfires, with any old thing someone could shoot or trap unaware in the corner.

And I want decent coffee. Some of these old war boys don't know how to make decent coffee. Seriously, they'll be telling people 70 years from now how they learned to make coffee on ships, a big boiling pot set on the fire all day, with grounds continually dumped in. Think of a spaghetti pan about five times the size, with 8 inches of old grounds settled in the bottom. Coffee with that old bottom-of-the-pot wang, probably made like this one old boy said, just keep adding fresh grounds and stir.

The waiter needs to be someone who got up on the right side of the bed, and looks it. He needs to be perky, intelligent, with a good memory, and a pleasant personality. These hardened sea hands -- think of "The Deadliest Catch" for the type I'm thinking of -- would make anyone lose their appetite, which isn't good for the bottom line of the restaurant either. Disinfecting once in a while is good!

Preferably, we'll get the women wait staff back, nice ones, so if their germs fall in the food they'll be harmless. Honestly, it's too bad the damned war had to end, wherever it was, South America, I guess I said. As should be abundantly clear, it hasn't been good for my restaurants.

Note: I may be wrong about these rare human specimens being wasted-away sailors. It could be they're just other weird guys who haven't taken care of themselves.

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.