The Guidance Counselor's Influence

No. 6 of 30 -- Guidance Counselor series

The graphic is from recent years, when as an old man I started having colonoscopies. Now I'm an evangelist for colonoscopies, recommending them to everyone for the good they can do. It involves going in the anus with some kind of camera tube and it extends up into you and sees if there’s polyps in there. If there are they can be cancerous. Whether they are or not they usually take them out, depending on various factors that I don’t need to go into. The beauty of the whole thing from the patient’s point of view is they put you to sleep and a second later you’re in recovery.

Do I mind having them? Not really. Of course I’d rather I'd never need anything of the medical type. But eventually there we are. If you get older, things will go wrong with age, and if you want your life to progress with less complications, a little prevention or intervention is necessary. Colonoscopies are one of the procedures that are very helpful toward having positive outcomes. Get together with your doctor and see if you could benefit from one.

Now, naturally, when you’re on the table, you’re not there to quibble with the doctors about their views on things. For instance, I don’t ask them which news channels they watch. Because I’m trusting that no matter how crazy their viewpoints might be, they know their colonoscopy stuff. And I don’t seriously ask them whether they’ve been influenced at any point in the past by guidance counselors. (Yes, it always crosses my mind.) One, what can you do about it? Your past is your past. And again, they can do great colonoscopies no matter their interactions with guidance counselors.

I'm definitely suspicious of anyone who’s had interactions with guidance counselors and have liked them. Because my guidance counselor was a no-good so and so. But that doesn’t mean I’m personally a bad person. Just as it wouldn’t mean my doctors were no-good if they had these relationships. Anyway, a guidance counselor's influence may be fleeting, and the consensus almost has to be that there are guidance counselors who are good people. I’m optimistic enough to believe that, but never forget, they're more likely out to get you in a negative way.

A person could ask their physician just as quickly if they were ever influenced by wrestling coaches. Which is equally questionable as far as I’m concerned. Am I saying there’s no good wrestling coaches? Again, for legal reasons, I can’t go that far. Not every wrestling coach is a varmint. It’s hard to type that, but my lawyer said it should be there. And anything I write that seems to suggest anything to the contrary deals with individuals not cited by name and not representative of the profession as a whole (wink wink).

Which could be the actual truth, hard as it is to believe. Because think of the statistics. They say there’s good in everyone — we’ve all heard that — so despite the individuals we’ve known and loathed over the years, they do not necessarily taint entire classes of people. I know that objectively and affirm that as the truth.

I should probably also put a disclaimer about colonoscopies. I personally think they’re good, with a doctor’s recommendation, for their purpose, diagnosing problems or giving the all clear. But they may not be for everyone and I’m not claiming they are.

Why I feel I need to scrupulously hedge my legal bets here is anyone’s guess. But I do. And let me add, Nothing in this blog should be used to judge, diagnose, or derive actual useful information. It is for entertainment purposes only, and by reading it, you hold the writer absolutely harmless from all legal ramifications and/or claims. If you're not entertained, you read a long way trying to be, and I affirm that.

Anything else that you read here that might be offensive — like almost everything else I write — is strictly my personal opinion and not anyone else’s, except my loyal readers', who dwell somewhere in the known world and do not wish to be identified as such.

My Violent Fantasies

No. 5 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series

Of course in terms of actual history I never hit the guidance counselor. I sat there like a good boy. And we weren’t opposed to violence in those days. But I had some pragmatism, a self-interest to protect. And if he showed up today, I'd give him a friendly embrace. Even though he deserved a good whacking, a thrashing like he wouldn’t believe. But I had to worry about staying in school. Because to drop out would’ve meant a life of low paying jobs. Instead of the wealth I'm surrounded with now. Just bought a microwave three weeks ago.

But those days are gone, and we’re geared for fantasies, you know I’m right. I bet most of you have serious fantasies. I’m not going to sketch out any of mine, except to state what’s obvious in everyone’s experience: I’m the center of it and it involves lots of different characters all with very perverse intentions and playful schemes of behavior. Which is enough about that.

Most of my fantasies do not — let me repeat, do not — involve guidance counselors. But now that I’m old, maybe I missed out on something. It really took a lot of thinking in these latter days of my life, leading to this blog series, for me to flesh out what are likely the patterns of guidance counselors. Most of you probably had good guidance counselors, at least seemingly good. They were good enough not to jump your bones on the first session, and if you only had one session with them, you got off scot-free.

To be fair to my guidance counselor — a guy I did not like and would have no reason to say good things about if they weren’t true — he never once jumped my bones or attempted to. He was passive/aggressive, yes, but only in ways either to help me or injure me psychically, not sexually. I would never accuse anyone falsely of such a thing. As it turns out, with adults (and me as a kid) there was never ever the slightest untoward thing that anyone did to me. Which these days is no laughing matter, of course.

I didn't care for his words and attitude, though, and his behavior was not exemplary in the fullest psychological sense. But there was lots of room for deniability for him. Which my Mom could've discerned and figured it out. She got me in with the guidance counselor in the first place, so I wouldn’t have to take part in a semester of wrestling. But even she did not know the problem.

It does me some devious mental good to take him on in memory. It's funny. Like this sitting on a bench and faking a yawn and, oops, a black eye. And, yes, I know gratuitous violence is also out today -- we're so righteous -- but this is purposeful violence, indicating my desire to strike back, to smite righteously a hostile adult figure. Which is still allowed. "Oh, did my fist accidentally smite your eye?"

Protesting The Guidance Counselor

No. 4 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series

Here’s one I definitely remember. I had a hot plate thing, which is a one-burner stove you plug in. And I had the idea to print up a few fliers and hang them here and there to generate interest in my drive against the system, The Man, at Dump Overlook High School.

Yes, I was a wide eyed optimist in those days, somehow foolishly thinking that bringing light to a problem would very soon set things right. To make it short and sweet, I was concerned. I thought the guidance counselor was on some pretty shaky ground as far as his behavior.

In case you missed the basics, I was excused from the required semester of wrestling for boys because I’d recently had a series of seizures. My mom was concerned wrestling would induce more seizures. It wasn’t a universally liked idea on part of the administration. Especially, for more or less unknown reasons with the guidance counselor. He himself was a wanna-be wrestling coach, and maybe he merely wanted time off and not to sit with me. Whatever, we started out on the wrong side.

I thought it’d be good to call attention to this kind of injustice. It a time when protests were sometimes spontaneous, called by someone. But my cause didn’t rally many people. But it was spontaneous, the posters put up, the hot plate put into action, and the whole thing busted up by the lunch ladies and the principal in record time. Instead of resisting further and jeopardizing my freedom, I caved to his demands and put the soup away.

But it was a shining moment, with three other kids compelled to find out what the issue was. And definitely their consciousnesses were raised at least for a few moments, leaving them perplexed as to why they wanted to shut us down so summarily. But they were much like me, not compelled to go completely to the mat for an issue not clearly defined and with a lot of ambiguity.

The principal was nice about it, even though he probably shook his head about what kids would come up with next. I don’t think he respected us in the least. And the guidance counselor, of course he was interested, trying to get his hands on whatever dirt was being spread about him. My little sessions with him were a lot like that. He was less concerned what he could do for others, for me, and more what it meant for his reputation and day. A very suspicious guy, and who knows how much of that suspicion was the result of deeper things, truths that must not be spoken. If I knew them I’d tell you. But he kept a lot of his more deeply buried secrets — truths that couldn't be told — to himself. As to confessions, he had none. I believed he was guilty of something, yet never knowing precisely what. So just like that, we were shut down!

The soup was vegetable beef and the little bit we ate was pretty good.

Entering Guidance Counselor Swamp

 No. 3 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series

Anyway, the story of my sad decline from a normal student doing normal things to having to be with the guidance counselor weekly instead of wrestling started with a short series of seizures. Which, while I wouldn't wish them on anyone, actually were very interesting. Beyond Sunday School, they were my first taste that the surface life we take for granted is not all there is. There are experiences that go well beyond the norm -- brain or hormonal disturbances, if you could only tap into them.

Did I like the seizures? Absolutely not. But they were something of a turning point for me, and not all for good, then they went away. I haven’t had any since around 15 or 16 and quit taking the medicine when I was around 20. At times I’ve had the inkling that I could bring one on if I set my mind to it, but either I haven’t set my mind to it enough or it's a bad theory, because there haven’t been any.  Throw in great hallucinations and it'd still be interesting.

OK, the seizures happened. Then a while later there was a mandatory semester of wrestling for boys my age. I dreaded the thought of wrestling, then as it happened my mom wouldn't allow me to participate in it anyway because she was afraid it might induce more seizures. These days -- more modern times -- when a kid gets an exemption because of diet, allergies, other conditions, fear of crossing the road, it’s all highly respected. Their feelings — perhaps exceedingly delicate feelings — get tons of deference. Not then!

Back then, if you weren’t bleeding from a severed arm or leg, exemptions weren’t respected at all. You’re a slacker, you’ve put a lot of thought into it, in short, it was the same as draft dodging, which was always in the news. By the way, I signed up for the draft in a responsible way and checked the box that said I would not be a conscientious objector. Although, say I was drafted, I probably would've mentioned the seizures out of full disclosure and how I was kept out of wrestling, and it might’ve saved my life again.

But for me it wasn’t the anger of other servicemen or countrymen I had to face, but the plain unexplained disappointment of one stinking bastard guidance counselor. Why it was such a big deal to him is anyone's guess. But he made me feel very low for having the exemption, and extrapolated from that what the rest of my life would be, various handicaps, lack of values, penalties for willful shirking, etc. Did he point blank say all these things to my face? Many of the things he said I’ve forgotten, whether by actual forgetfulness since or a defense mechanism at the time.  The fact is, though, just to personalize it from his vantage point, he wanted to be the wrestling coach, and since I plainly avoided wrestling class, there was something deeper wrong with me.

That my friend is a swamp! I couldn’t have the good (a wrestling deferment), my shining star, without the bad, a swamp to slog through for a semester, with the presence of an unhelpful snake, the guidance counselor, clamped on my heels and driving me slowly at first, then more quickly as the poison coursed through my veins toward a personal and academic death, possibly.

What would be my escape from this swamp, this satanic serpent coiled around me and squeezing out my life force? In the movies, a hero comes to rescue Nervous Nell from the train bearing down on her tied-up body. For me there was 1) Suffer with it, 2) Hope the guidance counselor dies. Which he never did in those days, but he’s died since. So righteousness, even delayed eventually shows up when it's too late to do any good.

The real answer would've been to tell my mother and she would've made his life hell on earth. That's what I should've done.

Please, Coach, Let's Make Love

Part 2 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series
(Fiction)

I wish I knew how the ladies ever got the idea that wrestling coaches are hot. That’s been one of the socio-psychological questions of my life, along with the question of cottage cheese being edible. When I heard it about wrestling coaches, I said in disgust, “Ewww, yuck.” But I later learned to love cottage cheese.

For about a week in the ‘70s, I lived in a town with two high schools and one university. As part of a research project I had volunteers (minimum stipend) following wrestling coaches. Note: It’s hard to do, because so often they’re behind doors where their activities are unseen. It is at these times most often, we surmised, that they’re having illicit affairs. Hence, there’s nothing to be seen except the partner arriving or departing, with nothing conclusively proving that they were there for bed sport.

I got only minimal credit until I found and used information from a wrestling almanac, briefly in print but quickly confiscated, with two pages of enlightening statistics on wrestling coaches, their affairs, how far their mates were willing to go on the mats, etc. Unfortunately, late one night a gang of wrestling coaches broke in where I worked and stole the almanac and the research. That was before we had hard drives or I would’ve had 100 copies in 100 different email accounts, at the very least.

So what we’re left with is what I can remember and hearsay. Both of which I consider admissible. In short, the wrestling coach has to have a big libido. I hesitate to give the full rationale for that. Except it has something to do with men grappling men and a certain split (awareness/denial) in the average wrestling coach's mind over that of what they're really doing. Libido action is required for admitting and excluding.

Beyond being merely interesting in wrestling terms, the study touched generally on how narrowly the mind can focus and fully function with awareness while not excluding but not fully recognizing simultaneous denial. Good stuff. As for me, I was happy I had the seizures, because I immediately saw the whole scene in its stark all together without studies.

Why the guidance counselor ever wanted to be a wrestling coach, I don’t know. I’m driven to the idea that he was looking for action, but maybe not. I'm sure there are wrestling coaches in it truly for the wrestling, not because they like to see boys in jockstraps and loose shorts roll around to pin each other, while jockeying for better vantage points. I'd hate to get the wrestling industry on me by making false insinuations, so I know there's good guys, with some bad. And with the bad, varying levels of hanky panky going on. And I’m not saying on whose part. How's that, a padded room, a den of iniquity.

In general, I was never alone with the guidance counselor beyond ordinary school offices, hallway, gym, etc. Much to my relief, and I can’t speak for him, but he was generally in a bad mood and not looking for action from me. No matter what you may think of the guidance counselor, and perhaps it was my own sense of industry, I managed to survive that semester without losing my virginity to a coach, counselor, or non-student.

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.

Thermometers Times Infinity

No. 31 of 31 - Thermometer series

That’s it, friends. It’s been a complete joyride and now I’m seeing great success! Miles and miles of happiness and wonderful contentment stretched out toward the great beyond as far as I can see, certainly farther than I could ever reach! If you laid it out end to end, the ends would be so incredibly far away that one end wouldn't know the other.

But it was slow going much of the time, a challenging slog, but highly satisfying. I was so happy I considered shock treatment. The main thermometer was tested often to make sure it was connected and registering. For a while I saw very little stirring, barely anything, and was forced to hit my head against a tree to regain my patience. Friends told me to go about my business and let the fruit be seen in its time. Well, my hopes were a lot shakier than what the final result turned out to be!

I say the “final result,” but the final result is changing all the time. All the continents of the world are reporting jumbo numbers that are enormous, with village captains, associates and advocates in the major cities awestruck. An entire global “small town brigade” is still bringing in the numbers from the hardest places to reach. We’ve used telephone for much of it, email for a larger portion of the load, and even smoke signals for some of the toughest to reach places, along with pack mules, messages in bottles thrown in random bays and rivers, you name it. The last returns might not be tallied in this lifetime.

I still can’t quite believe that someone with my poor organizational skills and a terrible lack of leadership all through my life, could take on such a task and see it amount to anything. Seriously, I’ve never been able to conjure beans in the past. But now with the Men’s Division, and the Ladies Aid, and coordinated teamwork spanning every land mass and wet spot known on earth (including an ocean division), this amazing work was done. Or is still in process.

As for the thermometers, most of them literally blew up. If we ever do it again, we must invest in the thicker glass models. Mercury, this red substance, this flowing sticky nasty liquid is all over the walls! There’s a concern about the fumes, but we've heard that it won't hurt you much if you don't touch or breathe it; a safety zone of miles between you and it is recommended, but I haven't got that luxury. So we’re just avoiding getting any closer to the walls than we have to be. I've been fidgeting my zipper with a stick when I go to the bathroom. I can't see any reason to reach every living soul on earth and not live to tell it.

I’d like to recognize a guy named Kenny, a point of personal privilege. Kenny's out there. He knows who he is. He hand-delivered the first crate of thermometers as well as the last. And he never complained, not once, when no one tipped him. This is your tip, Kenny, our hats off... Even now I'm mailing you a free zipper stick.

I probably should also thank the entire globe for your willingness to be moved en masse. I know each of you is a beautiful individual, created in a spectacular way to be you and you alone. But once you’ve joined with everyone else, it looks like you’re one huge amalgam of people. I hope that’s accurate. Thank you, dear individuals. And thank you as well all you in the aggregate, as you are one beautiful slithering mass. The idea that each of you has thoughts and individuality just like me, and yet is this teeming huge thing blows my mind. Stay as sweet as you are.

I can’t possibly thank everyone by name. The men, the Ladies Aid. I mentioned Kenny. And so many others. I’m overwhelmed. I know you’re with me. And, yes, to answer your main concern, I will sleep when I get tired! Don’t worry about me, I’m about to take a long rest. Cover up and forget it for a while. Thumbs up to the folks passing my window at this very second. Just pointing at them, telling them, “No, no, you're the one that's great!” You’re all so great, and I’ll never forget it.

The Mystic Thermometer

No. 30 of 30 - Thermometer series

There was a rumor, fleeting though it was, that I was a quitter. Which I immediately denied. How could anyone think I’d quit now, going on a month into the thermometer drive? If I was going to quit, it would’ve been the first week, not now. Even if I didn’t feel it at this point, I’d at least fake it. I don’t drive somewhere just to turn around at the edge of town. Sheesh, whoever is saying that — I think I might know the guy spreading these rumors — just back off, cease, desist, quit while you’re ahead. But today's a day for happiness, not getting even.

The other reason I would never quit, even say it was a week ago, is because this thermometer thing is a real soul thing. Probably what a whale thinks when it’s swimming the world’s seas. The deepest seas to the whale are a piece of cake. It’s not easily frightened of drowning even though they’re not fish but mammals. You could have the biggest man in the world, an eight-foot giant. And if you threw him in the ocean he’d be scared to death. Not a whale.

And not me. Because something’s stirring in me that’s beyond me and yet part of me. Think of it as the highest realization, that I am the whale, I am the thermometer. It’s funny, one of my biggest fears when my mother would take my temperature was the thermometer. I be lying there in bed and thinking, "I might bite the thermometer in half and die of cuts," or "I might swallow the thermometer, gulp, or I’d be so hot the thermometer would blow its end off (like in cartoons), and it’d get in my eyes and I’d go blind." But now I’ve come full circle, being myself one with the thermometer.

There’s a possible world religion in the making here, folks! Where someday people could be going door to door with leaflets and invitations. Telling people how the inner mercury, the inner sap is always rising or falling. With the thermometer telling your temperature in that sense, You’re hot blooded, check it and see, or you’re cold as ice and someday you’ll have to pay the price.  I always heard we were warm-blooded, which again is also true of the whale. But the mystical reality speaks of not being lukewarm but hot or cold, or being spat out of its mouth...

The lesson about has to be: Be the best cold or the best hot you can be, no in between. And it’s true, we always remember the times we're absolutely cold or hot. I almost froze to death one time, with the weirdest thing happening; at the time I became extremely warm and still knew I’d die of frostbite. So I got up and I ran, I ran so far from there, till I was home, safe in my own bed, warm again. My mom came and asked me what happened. I was out of my mind, not knowing the future, but my exact words were, “Look to the Mystic Thermometer, Mother.” She was freaked out because I always said mom or momma till that day!

Now today is here. Friends. And while it is called today, that is when you must choose. Will you like this blog, subscribe, and/or comment? Will you go the full measure as I have? Will you found a men’s division in your efforts? Will you found a ladies aid group as well? Will you alternately find yourself paranoid, pulling up the blankets lest the world encroach? Or will you find in yourself absolute confidence, casting off your many blankets and shouting it to the world?

Those two scenarios show what your mercury, your sap, the juice in your blessed marrow is doing. Up or down. But it doesn’t go horizontal. You go horizontal, out into the world with the good news of this blog, only when the Mystic Thermometer climbs for the sky. Or you shy away from that horizontal move when instead of climbing for the sky it digs a hole, crawls in, and covers itself in the blessed soil of death, then using whatever strength it has left (and in the absence of air) to dig itself farther and farther below. In all my days I’ve never heard of it burrowing very deeply. It gets a few feet down, let’s say, then reaches around itself, huddles tightly and dies.

Don’t let that happen, unless you are completely without sense.

Am I A Quitter?

No. 29 of 31 - Thermometer series

The whole pathway you and I have taken this month, striving for and hitting so many of our goals, with the greater goal still in sight, has been marked by many up and downs. Which, if I may draw a lesson that no one else has ever thought of, is also the story of life.

But we're not focused on that today. Today we’re answering the question “Am I a Quitter?” And the answer is no. We’re not worrying about the downside, we’re merely stating it, because Victory is in sight! And even if it weren’t, our resolve remains as resolute as any resolution I’ve ever made. And the idea of quitting now -- while probably not as foolish as it sounds -- is not in my armor-clad bullet-resistant bacon-scented nature.

Remember how I’ve gone on about some of the kids in the neighborhood taunting me? They’re like a sad Greek chorus, one note gloomy gusses. Let me prophesy something about them, and this isn’t my word, it’s straight from my gut: “These kids will get theirs! And it won’t be parades and cotton candy, more like fire and brimstone, the worst of the worst, divine switches on bare hide, and the embarrassment that goes with it.” So many of you have written in that you like it when I take these kids to task. So that’s exactly what I like to give you! Curses on their heads, curses on their tails, may their parents die childless! Petless! Twitching and babbling, not even a bottle of hootch to find wet comfort in! Foaming at the mouth...

You like that? You do? I knew it! Let me reach down in my deepest bowels of disparagement and see what else I can say, give a fresh spin to old taunts, perhaps. Well, you know I’m in the Big City now, and somehow these neighbor kids know all the main blogs online. And they were in the street yesterday with their jump ropes, basketballs, and street chalk. They were taunting me, and I looked down and saw a chalk image that was supposed to look like me, and an arrow pointing at my house. Made me look like a Cyclops with one big ugly tooth and fire flaming out of my nose. Which made me sick!

It’s hard for me to believe these kids — ranging from 4 to 16 — that have this knowledge of the world’s blogs, wouldn't use it to some good, like day-trading or real estate, aspirations for their future. They’re obviously not dummies. But they use their talents only for nastiness. This is no exaggeration. They’re the same kids who just happened to find the bloated body of another blogger in the river. It said in the paper that “someone” was taunting him prior to him wading into the river, yelling, “Your blog sucks!” And, true, it really wasn’t too good. His best post was on locating your mate’s love-handles. You don’t need a blog to do that.

I wish he were still alive. For his own sake, of course. But also to take the heat off me, since these kids just naturally need someone to taunt. Maybe if we’d talked more, I could’ve taken the heat off him and he off me. He wasn’t a bad guy, but is love-handles something we have trouble finding? It’s one of the first things I see.

So am I a quitter? Has the sun quit? Is the sky still there? The moon and the rainbows, do they quit? The moon, no. Rainbows, yes, rainbows quit fast, bad example. The sun and stars, they’re still in the sky. I watch YouTube videos about the stars and experts have come to the conclusion that for the most part stars are there. Once in a while one gets destroyed.  

Premature Happy Ending

No. 28 of 31 - Thermometer series

I got ahead of myself, momentarily forgetting there are still matters to resolve before this thing ends in victory and euphoria. There’s a lot more of the challenging stuff that I don’t necessarily enjoy, like consolidating gains, establishing finely-crafted group purposes, reinforcing everyone’s place in the blog family, making sure new commitments endure, and perhaps coming up with a slogan that binds us closer for the years ahead. I want a better system of reader input too. In short, I’m looking at the boredom of bureaucracy...

And I’m in the mood for love — for num num num — not charters, group dynamics, and the division of labor. I can’t help it if it hits me like that, how with a few eye flickers everything comes into focus all around, when, when—- What’s this? I have to sign for another shipment of thermometers? Can’t we get a guy at the door? The delivery guys don’t need to be walking all the way up to my actual bedroom! Let’s take care of that bureaucratic snafu first!

“OK, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?” It’s always like this. I’m looking forward for the good stuff, whether it’s Thanksgiving and we’re digging into pumpkin pie, or drying off after a day at the beach. Which this wasn’t. Making me yearn even more for a happy time all around (“for one and all!”) Burning, yearning, intense. And these days with morality at an all time-low, you can hardly say I’m the first to go crazy and longingly dig in. So I’m expecting some forbearance.

You gotta admit, Florence was looking at me with those daydreamy eyes she packs and I at her. It’s a settled fact if not case law that she had something in mind. And it might’ve been more than romance for its own sake. Because I’m old and she’s young. And she has to know there’s issues with inheritance rights on the blog that will be settled soon. But I’m not holding it against her, because I’ve faced my options and they’re limited. You should know, I bathe once a week whether I need it or not.

OK, my whole team was involved in canvassing for the blog at the county level, capitalizing on the local pride angle. Although the county wouldn’t recognize me in a one-man lineup, but the more popular I get, of course the more they’re looking at the bottom line, how with a real popular blog, and thermometer manufacturers moving here, it would really help with taxation and funding.

With these sexy issues in mind, Florence and I allowed our eyes to meet. We went two rooms over. And locked ourselves body to body, groping made more complicated with us so akimbo, but with satisfied noises strongly shared, “Num num num,” as we kissed with genuine intimacy in a mutually shared fever pitch that went on like that, on and on. I reached up to forage for more more more when my hand was quickly and painfully clamped in a muskrat-type trap she had surreptitiously concealed under her sweater. “I’ll take that as a no,” I deadpanned, dangling a nasty little trap and counting fingers.

The Valor In Excelsis Club

No. 27 of 31 - Thermometer series

This week has found me offline quite a bit, as I was pressed with a public speaking tour throughout the Big City on behalf of the blog. Our drive for new readers has taken on a life of its own, with a bunch of folks receiving me graciously, asking me to address their organizations, and even presenting me flowers.

And of course I never play favorites, never have, never will. But the red roses from the Valor in Excelsis Club — a solid dozen of the prettiest red roses — touched my heart most of all. Which is not to say the others were bad, not by any means, but the pretty red roses were miles away my favorite and no doubt the ones I will remember the longest and with the most fondness. They're in a quart of water by my bed.

The Valor in Excelsis Club also gave me the biggest reception, shaking hands with me, seriously shaking and introducing me around, and in such a way that I truly knew I was among friends. I don’t know exactly what it is about the Valor in Excelsis Club that makes them unique in the club-speaking business, but they truly go all out to make a guy know he’s the center of their meeting. I haven’t got a big head by any means, but the way the Valor in Excelsis folks made me feel so special, it started to make me think, I must be better than I knew!

Anyway, it was a heart-touching time. Please join me in a big hand for the Valor in Excelsis Club for their superior reception and closeness of attention to detail — far surpassing all other clubs in that regard as well. I can say without the fear of contradiction, when they formed the Valor in Excelsis Club they broke the mold, because these guy are the absolute peak, the best of any club I’ve ever had an acquaintance with. And, yes, I’ve seen plenty of clubs -- from the Bee Club to the Spy Club we had as kids till today.

My sales job to them on getting people to read my blog was heartfelt. I’ve got a certain technique — OK, I’m going to give you the inside track on my speech technique — I picture myself climbing a mountain with the rhetoric. Then when I’m at the absolute peak, where it seems like I will soar into the stratosphere, I break down as though I can’t go on. The analogy here is a roller coaster that stops at the peak of its highest drop; it takes your breath away. People are popping oxygen pills. Then right at that moment I segued into a riff about the Valor in Excelsis Club, how well known they are for rescuing people. Then in hushed tones, I fought back tears. The place was incredibly still as I regained enough composure to thank them for “how you rescued me...” Significant trail-off, touching heart, we were all sobbing. Fifty dollar check.

I’ve used the same story with other clubs, and of course it’s always someone from their club (a different chapter out of town) that rescued me. But all the Valor in Excelsis Club does is rescue people so what can you say... They see someone in danger, they'll trample each other to death to be the guy who gets the credit. So that’s the way I told it:

“I was with my mother at the Ridiculous Day sales one year when a madman came careening down the alley, right toward me. With the weirdest part being he was found innocent that very day of an unrelated crime. I was frozen in my tracks. I didn’t know what to do. At 12 years old I was mentally a babe in arms, literally a basket case.

"But I knew the guy was crazed, and the shame of being accused of an unrelated crime was too much for him. He would go out every bit the criminal they said he was. Tragic. Anyway, here he comes, with enough hate to burn the village to the ground! But his hatred was for me alone, a random kid he'd never met. I personally saw him scouring the rest of the town for other victims. There was no stopping him, nothing anyone could do.

"When some quick thinking members of the Valor in Excelsis Club, the most alert people on earth, saw the hazard and swung into action. Each Valorian had a large hook and rope and flung them toward every fire escape in town, God is my witness. Then just as that hazardous motorist could run me over — and we later learned he had the worst of intentions, having put a cement brick on the gas to make his evil deeds even more irreversible — the Valor in Excelsis Club rescued me. Unfortunately they couldn’t rescue everyone, but I was spared, saints be praised.”

The other downer is that several Valor in Excelsis Club members themselves were impaled on the hooks and killed. And every year I recite their names and toll a memorial bell purchased for that purpose. That day and New Year's Eve.

I concluded with a personal request: "Thank you very much for this lovely plaque. I’d like to request as well, if you ever have any honorariums up for grabs, I’d be honored to get my mitts on as many of those as is humanly possible.”

Who Are These People?

No. 26 of 31 - Thermometer series

The thermometer drive’s still going, great guns, wonderful progress. It's been nuts! I’m making friends all over the world. By the time I get done I'll need a bigger planet... Still, as many friends as there are, and no matter how tenaciously they glom on, I keep reminding myself to keep a little distance. You don’t want drop-ins especially here in the Big City where your very best friend could be the one that offs you.

But I’ve always had tremendous luck in my life. Barely anyone’s ever done anything even remotely threatening to me. I think I can fend off the world’s hordes as subscribers, commenters, and readers of my blog. I’ve done OK so far. But of course I’ve had only a handful of the world’s people. And statistically, yes, there’s been a few duds in the mix. Nothing to worry about. And if you're reading this, it's not you.

Anyway, no worries... I’ve heard of plenty of blogs with huge numbers, and I’m sure they’re not awake all night living in fear. Why live in fear? There actually are good reasons. We have this one body, we’re vulnerable, and when you’re one guy against a crazy mob, there’s no telling what can happen. Like Jesus, merely trying to get people to go to church and be nice and all it got him was crucified. I think it had to do with money. A lot of tightwads out there would just as soon crucify you as look at you..

But I'm looking on the bright side. This is no day for paranoia! Seems like I was happy yesterday. I think I was. But I’m hazy, really. One day’s different than the next. I just peeked through the blinds and another guy was walking up the street. How many times has it been? I’ve seen guys walking up the street every single day for the last month. And that’s no exaggeration. Now, figuring I’m not always looking out the window, but only once in a while, and nearly every time I do there’s someone walking up the street. Multiply that times all the times I’m not looking... I have a multitude of guys walking up the street. I should either be out there with a sign-up sheet for my blog or forgetting it all together.  Do it online, keep it anonymous.

Ah yes, the faceless, nameless hordes of people, the miserable, the lonely, the riffraff and refuse of the teeming shores. That’s why the Statue of Liberty holds that sword [Kafka], to cut the head of any lowlife who dares look up her dress. She doesn’t mind welcoming you in, she just wants you to keep moving. Through the turnstiles at Ellis Island where they misspell your name every time. Your name is Dobbs and you have a son, your family name’s suddenly Dobson.

Yes, folks, we’re still charging ahead with the thermometer drive, and it’s awesome. I've heard reports from as far away as Mars that thermometers are blowing up like crazy. Part of it's the weird gravity strain that thermometer glass is prone to, the rest are people -- bushels and acres of people! -- going nuts over the quality of this blog, and doing what they can to get relief. Watch your eyes, though, people, because I cannot be held responsible if you're hit in the eye by glass. Keep at least one eye good enough to read with, an important note to remember.

Meet The Parents

No. 25 of 31 - Thermometer series

I'm looking forward to the day they make a movie about this blog series: Local Boy Starts With Nothing, claws his way up through the ranks (a lot easier than I thought) until he’s the Benevolent Blogger who see here today, trusting that with his stash of thermometers we will at long last see another moonshot! They will register massive popularity.

If prologue indeed is epilogue, the rest has to be good. And I’ve long been noted for absolute quality, not mincing words but putting it out there, laying it smack dab on the line, no retreats, no backpedaling, giving no quarter but expecting many, leaving my all on the altar. Then carrying home more bounty than I left with. There’s so many plaudits flowing my way, folks, I’m nearly sick of the attention. I must have refuge away somewhere. I must have peace. Give me a world of my own and I’ll do something with it, even if it’s just sleep in a tent and gaze at the moon.

The mist starts to settle, the night haze rests over a humble abode, my little tent. The moon makes its way wherever it goes, across the sky, all unpredictable except to those given to the study of moon manuals and star charts. But I’m content to be surprised: “Put it wherever it goes and if it moves I’ll find it when I can. Just let me sleep, perhaps to dream, to yearn, to long for a better world.”

As I doze, a blessed vision of my parents meeting each other for the first time floods my senses. Pretty much as I expected, the details must not be divulged. As for the rest, it’s interesting only to myself. No one wants to know about a guy’s parents' small talk in visionary form. They looked at each other, were enchanted by what they saw and went from there. Young and very much in love, so now what? “Let’s get married and start a family. We’ll get him a midline computer and see what he does with a blog.” At that time I cooed and cried, ate and slept by night, then in the day stocked my room -- little more than tiny infant quarters -- with boxes and crates of mostly-unopened thermometers. But I was extremely young and didn't have the experience one needs to follow through on his higher desires. I loved Popeye.

My parents were compatible, physiologically and emotionally, each with the same essential interests and flair. Dad was more a man of the priestly robes, given to the expression of soaring words on the nature of existence and the species' on-and-off relationship with the Divine. Mom was more into expressing her flair with the beautiful things of life, beautiful fashion for one thing, and fun. But enough about them. I hesitate to summon them from the beyond. They hate making a fuss.

I know they'd be happy with the blog, though, and the worldwide acclaim it has gotten, being only bested in recent polling by Pastun and Iraqi tribesmen with their tribesmen blogs. What makes those blogs so good? I can’t read their writings, frankly, but I think they chart the sorts of practical things the average person of their lands needs for travel in the mountains, along with weather and headline news. What I know most about it is, I can’t wait to surpass even them!

One of the happiest memories of my dear parents was the joyful help they gave me one weekend in the '90s. I had the great idea of getting rich quick by selling prayer cloths to religious people around the world. All I have left now are some black and white graphics, and the whole enterprise was shut down by so called religious do-gooders questioning my sincerity and blaming me for harboring profit motives. The idea! As for their help, Mom bought the various colors of cloth -- seven or eight truckloads to get started -- and Dad helped with the slick flyer explaining the mountaintop experience you were guaranteed. All backed up by angel power.

Now, though, friends, today, as strange as it may sound, those same parents are with me — from the eternal realms! — to ask you to help me blow these sonsabitchin' thermometers as high as the sky! Huh? Can you do it? You can? You can! Let us achieve it together, let us attain those selfsame eternal realms, this time without prayer cloths, but merely from our sincere devotion to duty and blogging, which is our common cause and legacy to pass on. For tomorrow's parents and their broods.

Hypno-Coin

No. 24 of 31 - Thermometer series

Note: I do not fully endorse the use of hypnosis to bend people to your will. Not fully. But what practical good is it if you can’t bend them a little, if it’s something harmless, something beneficial to yourself, and something they would likely do in their normal consciousness if you wasted the time and effort to convince them with wheedling and reason?

Do I have a Hypno-Coin? Did I ever have a Hypno-Coin. I do not have a Hypno-Coin now, not at the present moment. It’s gone, being held for evidence. My only hope is that the little plastic overlay, which doesn’t have a flat surface but grooves that gives it its distinctive hypno flavor and look, will not yield good prints. Meaning that if the ladies follow through on their threats to sue the pants off me, it’ll be their word against mine. And who would anyone believe, a guy smart enough to hypnotize people with a cheap toy “coin” (It’s not a coin, just a circle) or two dizzy girls up all night after a slumber party and a bender at that. Under those conditions I could’ve yelled at them from the spire of the courthouse and they’d have been hypnotized.

Full disclosure on what I did: They were going to run away with nasty boys. I flipped out a Hypno-Coin and persuaded them -- only reinforcing their deeply-held sense of right and wrong -- to go back home and live happily ever after.

But I can see how people might be suspicious, an old man on top of the courthouse with a Hypno-Coin. We hear of nasty stuff all the time. Pictures in your yearbook, being drunk and out of control, wild and crazy guys. Sure, I have secrets, but nothing too bad. But I have a reputation to keep. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, tell my secrets, you know I must ... not. Ha ha, the funny part is ME with SECRETS. What could I possibly have done? Make the list. I’ve been a church mouse, and what happens in church stays in church. In the secure confines of the confessional: “Father, I have sinned ... Seriously, it's all quite benign."

I’d never want relationships or subscribers from some weird hypnosis, drawn away from their own clear and respected will. There’d be no point, because it'd be all me. The result is bad. “I waved a coin in front of this person and got a subscriber for life.” That’d be meaningless. The only ones I want are those who willingly choose, then cut thickets away with machetes, then crawl over broken glass, then raise their hand and without force, say those tender words: “I swear on my life to read your blog everyday, to meld my mind with it and follow its benevolent dictates, to distribute its teachings, and to insinuate myself, without force or coercion, into the lives of others, that someday of their own free will, they too would be in your thrall.” Then we bandage their knees and I'm suddenly out 40 bucks for a new pair of pants. Hit those thermometers!

But their eagerness is flattering. Still, though, I’m waving my hand like “That all?” ... “And furthermore, to pass on the same imperative to them, that their minds might also be guided by your superior knowledge, not limited to the trivia you know about chickens, roosters, Hypno-Coins and Abraham Lincoln, but encompassing your deep and rich knowledge on all other subjects under the sun, the sun we see in our common sky, and the suns of other worlds too.”

OK, we’re getting there, but there’s one more vow I think you'll want to make: “And lastly, I will forbear reading the blogs of Pastun and Iraqi bloggers, knowing that their opinions, while valid in their surroundings and for their people, do not make fun reading for people around here with a totally different upbringing.”

Very nice. Our minds ... now ... slowly ... and with your own will remaining ... do part.