Draft Day

I thought about this anniversary several weeks ago, reluctant to believe it could be that long ago. I'm not that old, am I? As mind-boggling as it is to me, November 30, 2006, is the 40th anniversary of the day I went into the U.S. Army, a 19-year-old draftee from Salt Lake City, Utah.

In those days getting drafted was more of a process. You almost had to work at it, because other guys were finding it so easy to stay out of the Army. Stay in college, keep your deferment. Dick Cheney did that several times. A friend of mine was deferred because at 17 he had become a married father. Other guys found legal ways to stay out, going into the National Guard or Army Reserve. I never even considered that route. I had no clout, no rich daddy like George W. Bush, who could get me into such a unit.

My process was to get kicked out of college in December 1965, then go to work in my dad's business for several months. I knew I'd be drafted and I went into a depressive funk. It kept getting worse. The more depressed I got the less capable I was of doing anything like getting back into college to help myself stay out of the Army. I got called for my pre-induction physical in July, 1966, and was scheduled to be drafted at the end of September.

But I got sick in early September with mononucleosis, which had me down in bed for 10 days. They call it the kissing disease, but my then-girlfriend never got it. I don't know what I kissed to get mono, but I hope I never kiss it again. My doctor wrote a note to my draft board asking for a deferment of six months, because he told me it would take that long to fully recuperate. He said I'd be weak and worn down. They gave me 60 days, so in late October I got my notice: Report on November 30, 1966. Say goodbye to family and friends, girls, long hair, my car, my job. There was a war to be won, boy. Get over there and win it for Uncle Sam. Oh yeah…we don't care how sick you are.

November 30, 1966 was a day we know in Salt Lake as a temperature inversion day. We live in a valley surrounded by mountains, a bowl. During the winter sometimes high pressure settles over us, and our car exhausts and industrial pollution can't go anywhere, so it all lays in the air like a big, ugly, brown cloud of fog. It makes your lungs feel like you've smoked a pack of cigarettes, all at once. It's gotten better over the years with stricter regulations, but it still occurs at times almost every winter. It creates hazards to health, but when it gets bad enough it can also keeps planes from flying. We were scheduled to go to Fort Lewis, Washington, but there was no flying out that night. The Army fed us at a local greasy spoon. I don't remember anything I ate except that it had no taste whatsoever. Some goofball sat across from me and I thought he was on drugs. His eyes were bright, and he seemed manic. He kept saying, "Boy, I'm excited to be going into the Army! Aren't you guys excited? I'm really excited." I just looked at him, hoping my eyes would tell him, "Hey, Excited, shut the fuck up." I didn't say anything, though. Maybe I was the only guy in there who wasn't excited to be going. I looked around. No, the guy across from me was the only one excited. The rest of the guys had the sick look of men condemned to hard labor in a federal penitentiary.

The army set us up in a fleabag motel, two guys to a room. They told us, "If you live locally you can call someone and go home for the night, or if you live out of town you can stay here." About half of the guys were from out of town, including a clown named Willard, who was from Park City. He called his girlfriend and they screwed all night, much to the amusement of everyone else. There was a parade of guys going through his room just to say hello, checking out his girlfriend sitting up in bed, nude. I didn't see it, but I sure heard enough about it the next day. At least Willard got a sendoff. I don't remember what I did. I think I went home and went to bed. Alone.

The next day Dad drove me to the motel in the stinking, still thick inversion. After gathering us all up we were on our way to Ft. Lewis by rail, which took about 24 hours. It wasn't Amtrak, because it was in the days before Amtrak. It was some creaking, rattley-assed train with a genuine porter who mostly sat in his cubicle, told stories and drank whiskey out of a bottle.

What I remember most about that trip was that the meal they'd served us the day before and a case of nerves was hitting me hard, so I was in the bathroom every hour or so. So if I tell you it was a shitty train ride, I'm not being facetious.

Nowadays there is no draft, so with a lot of Americans there is no real connection with the wars we're fighting. In those days every family either had a male eligible for the draft, in the service, or trying to stay out. I listened to Rep. Charles Rangel say on Face The Nation recently that we should reinstitute the draft. There's no stomach for that anywhere, so it was rhetoric on his part. I understood his point. What he wants is for the rest of the country to feel like they have a stake in this war, to make the rich and powerful feel it the same as poorer families with servicemen who are fighting.

I'll bet if I was to stop 10 students at any of the schools where I go every day and ask them about the war at least half of them wouldn't know anything about it. They'd probably know we are in a war--actually we're in two wars--but they wouldn't know any details because kids in high school don't care about things like that. They're in their own little worlds of girls, boys, cars, cell phones, who's doing what to who…war? That's someone else's business, isn't it?

On that day 40 years ago I was faced with the real possibility that this could be the last stop for me. I could end up in Vietnam, I could end up dead. I'm still around to talk about it, but those were my thoughts at the time. And my parents, friends and family were all thinking the same thing. I'm not recommending we ever start up the draft again, but we also need for Americans to shake off their apathy and know what many young men and women are facing every day in a combat zone.

Ciao for now, Private E-1 Postino

The United States Of Wal-Mart

I don't pay a lot of attention to business news. It bores me. But I keep hearing about something called Black Friday. Over 30 years ago Steely Dan had a song called "Black Friday," which was about a really bad day. The new meaning for Black Friday is that it is the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers hope to have a strong day of sales leading into the Christmas season.

I usually try to avoid stores right after Thanksgiving because of all of the wild-eyed, desperate-looking people rushing around for bargains. I also don't understand why people camp out overnight to hit the big sales at Wal-Mart or similar stores, just so they can trample each other getting in at 5:00 in the morning. It's cold around here that time of year! Sleeping outside just so you can buy a TV set for a few bucks off regular price isn't worth sleeping on the cold asphalt of a store parking lot.

I get the sense from newspapers and television, who keep repeating this stuff about Black Friday, that it's some sort of unofficial holiday. For some reason the media is keeping track of the retail losses and gains. They are really making ordinary Americans feel like they are somehow responsible for whether Sears, J. C. Penney , Wal-Mart, Kmart, Smart-Mart, Fart-Mart or Mart-Mart are making a profit. When did we become the people who are made to feel guilty if the fatcat stockholders of these big retail outlets aren't happy with their Christmas bonuses?

What did these guys ever do for me except try to sell me useless stuff I don't need and won't use, just so they could live in luxury while I live in poverty, surrounded by the junk I bought from their stores?

In my neighborhood a big Wal-Mart superstore is going up. It should be ready by February. Already nearby businesses are giving up, moving out. It isn't enough that Wal-Mart should come to town and put all of the little guys out of business, now it's putting them out of business before they even open their store.

The reason it's not ready by Christmas is that we fought building the store, and they couldn't start building until after our special election (we lost) in June. Folks around here fought against the Wal-Marting of our town, but there it is, sitting like a giant toad in the middle of our little pond. The lure of tax revenue is too great for cities. I'm sure our mayor and city councilmen walked around with erections for weeks once they knew Wal-Mart had bought into our suburban town. Did it matter to them that nearby stores have vacated their buildings, leaving whole sections of town with nothing but empty, blighted looking stores? Do they care? Probably not. Maybe they'll just bulldoze those stores and put in condos, with more consumers to fill the ever hungrier mouth of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart has done some public relations work by selling generic prescription drugs for $4.00. I may need some of those drugs someday. But it may also ruin my local pharmacy, where I've bought my Rx's since the 1980s. That would really be a shame, because the people who own it and work in it have become more than pharmacists, but friends. They all work like I do to support their families. Ah, but Wal-Mart really doesn't care about that, do they?

Someday when Wal-Mart has put all of the local pharmacists, grocers, hardware stores in the whole country out of business, then we'll change the name of our nation to the United States of Wal-Mart. Black Friday will become more than just a day after Thanksgiving, it will become a national holiday where all Americans will be forced to shop, so that the obese giants of commerce can make sure we pay their prices for their products. Where will the $4.00 prescriptions be then? Well, they won't need to charge only $4.00 anymore when there is no competition, will they?

*******

Stuff takes over your life. Sally and I spent a few hours on Sunday cleaning out my computer room. I admit, most of the junk we put in boxes and donated to a local thrift store was mine. We've lived in our house just a few months shy of 32 years and things accumulate. We have a room in the basement that is so full of things that we're afraid to open the door. If we need to put anything in there we open the door real fast and toss it in, then slam the door shut again.

There's really no reason for me to have all of this, but we have a culture that teaches us it's good to buy things, lots of things, and it only makes sense that many of them stick to us for years after their usefulness has gone. That's called The Economy. Keep people working by buying things you don't want, don't need.

But, ah…when you do need something… Ever had this happen to you? You are looking for a little box of 3/8" flathead screws. You know you have the box. You bought one a couple of years ago, used a couple of the screws and you just know you put the box in this drawer here. You look where you keep your screws. You can't find them so you figure your memory has tricked you. You look where you keep your tools. Finally, out of frustration you go to the store and buy another box of screws. Months later you're looking in a box under your workbench and you find the original screws. As a matter of fact, you have three or four boxes of screws in there with price stickers on them from stores you know have been closed for over 20 years. You get that old familiar, "So that's where those screws were!" remembering yourself tearing the house apart looking for them. That's when you've got too much stuff.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Getting The Bird

Number two of the eating holidays is over, with one more to go.* Thanksgiving is a nice day to be with family, have great food, but yesterday morning I had to back up on the belt notches. A little too much conviviality, far too many calories.

This is the first time the whole family has been together for Thanksgiving since before my father-in-law died in 2002. I realized that at one time my wife and I would go to these dinners and her brothers and sisters, their spouses, were all the young people. Her parents and their invited friends and relatives were the old people. Now we're the old people, surrounded by the young. It's fun to have a chance to catch up on how tall the kids are getting; a couple of them I hadn't seen since they were in elementary school, and now they're 6" taller and several years down the road in school.

My son, his wife and their daughters were there. My grandbabies were the youngest children there, and the cycle perpetuates itself. If we're all together again next year everyone will remark on how they've grown.

Here's a picture of my daughter-in-law, Loan, with our newest grandbaby, Gabby, who was born in June. It was a big night for the baby; lots of excitement, people milling around, lots to look at!
*******

I mentioned in my last blog the only sane way for me to buy presents for women is to let them pick them out and give them to you to give to them. It works both ways.

I have always liked Cat Stevens, so I was glad when he decided to get back into the recording biz under his Muslim name, Yusuf Islam. Here's a video from YouTube.com of his latest song.

Some of the lyrics sound a little strange to me, like "Heaven must've programmed you." I realize he's singing about a religious experience, and I don't know anything about how Muslims talk. I also picked up from some comments on the Internet that some of the new song was part of an old song of his. Still, what I appreciate is hearing his unique voice and the catchy hooks of a Cat Stevens song.

I bought the CD yesterday at Borders, and handed it to my wife. Another Christmas present to be. Oboy.

Ciao for now. El Postino

*Halloween, with its teeth-rotting candy overdosing; Thanksgiving with its orgy of eating, and finally Christmas with all of its excesses.

Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) - Heaven/Where True Love Goes

"...who steals my purse..."

Friday night Sally and I were eating dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant when we were approached by a retired secretary, someone we'd worked with for many years.

Let me tell you something about this retired secretary: She is one of the most dramatic persons I have ever met. If you were to watch a history of World War II, and then listen to her story of an encounter with a telemarketer--something I have done years ago when we were working together--it wouldn't seem anticlimactic.

On Friday night she talked with us about what she's doing now, working for her son's business. What her husband is doing, how her daughter-in-law is anorexic, how her son and daughter-in-law have no children, but she has a "granddog"…all while our waitress brought our drinks, and then brought our dinner. At that point the lady felt it was time to leave, so with relief we watched her go back to her seat.

A few minutes later she came back to us, saying, "While I was talking to you someone stole my purse!" She was off again in a hurry, after telling us the busboy had given it to a woman. When we finished our dinner and walked out the restaurant there she was, on her cellphone, with a police officer walking towards her.

While I felt sorry for her in her plight, I also thought there was a part of her that enjoyed the attention she was suddenly getting. I've had experience listening to her tell the most trivial stories from her daily life as if they had been written by Shakespeare. I visualized her telling everyone within earshot, in the most dramatic tones possible, about the theft. Kind like this lady.

Sometimes I've had to remind Sally not to turn her back on her shopping cart, where her purse rides in the child seat. A thief could have that purse and be out the door in seconds. It happens all the time.

On the other hand, some thieves are more blatant. My coworker Bob told me a story a couple of weeks ago. His 73-year-old mother-in-law drove into her driveway, got out of her car. A white van pulled up and a man got out, approached her and demanded her purse. She saw a knife in his hand and gave it up.

I'm really sorry the retired secretary and my coworker's mother-in-law lost their purses to thieves, but ladies, be careful. A bad guy looks at your bag like it's a key to the bank, and in many ways it is.

*******

Speaking of purses, my wife collects them. She's been collecting old purses for a few years and usually looks for something unusual looking, something that has a brand name or at least says Made In America. You can tell if it's made in America it's gotta be old! How many years have those things been made in other countries? Forty or more?

I helped start her on her collecting course by finding this purse at a thrift store for $1.00. It's a Joseph Magnin purse, metallic, with rhinestones.

A couple of years ago on Solano Avenue in Albany, California, we visited an antique shop and I bought her this interesting lucite-paneled purse with lucite-links handle. It's got a leather interior and is marked "Meyers, Made In U.S.A." I didn't get off as lucky on the price of this purse. I looked in it before taking its picture and saw the original receipt. I paid $48.00.

I have some other purses for her for Christmas but I can't show them to you. Actually, it probably doesn't matter, because she usually comes up to me, hands me a purse or something else she likes and says, "Here, wrap this up for me for Christmas." Over 38 years we've evolved a system. We buy our own Christmas presents, then hand them to each other to wrap. We usually forget exactly what they are by the time Christmas rolls around. It prevents any returns to a store.

I found out early in my marriage that any man who tries to buy clothes for a woman is stupid. Purses are the same way. A woman will size up a purse in an instant. She'll either say to herself: "I've got shoes to match that purse," or, "I need to go buy some shoes to match that purse." Guys just don't think like that, so it's smarter to let women buy their own Christmas and for the man to present it to them.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Who Are You?

My friend dropped me a note last night that said, "Great concert. They've still got it." She was referring to The Who, who played Salt Lake City last night. I don't doubt it. Even though The Who is now really just Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend, they have been in the business long enough--over 40 years--to know how to put on a show.

Pete was interviewed via telephone by a local reporter about past visits to my town. The reporter asked, "Do you have any specific memories of past visits to Salt Lake City?" Pete replied: "Salt Lake City was sadly somewhere that I was first called a 'long-haired queer' on American soil -- in 1967 by a very sexy and glamorous woman of about 40. I'd love to find her now I've cut my hair real short, we could pick up the conversation. She'd be nearly 80. We could compare notes and work out what might have changed."

Well, Pete, I'm sorry that happened to you, but at least you were a big rock star at the time and people were also kowtowing to your every whim. Those of us who wanted to be you, who wanted to have long hair and look like rock stars and attract grrrls and be hip, we had more of a problem. People called us "long-haired queers" all the time. There was hardly a day went by without some sort of insult or verbal assault, or even a physical assault.

Nowadays things are a lot more mellow when it comes to hair styles. Forty years ago when our hair started to sprout my parents thought we had been put under an evil spell by you Brits. They thought you were the sons of Satan. They didn't realize--because they didn't know history--that long hair on men comes into fashion every 100 years or so. Even my parents' righteously religious Mormon forebears sported long locks circa 1840-1860.

Forty years ago anything that reeked of the wicked world of rock or teenagers was looked down on with alarm and panic, and that disdain and disapproval came out of their mouths with crass and tactless remarks about hairstyles or clothes. I was actually fooled, as were some of my peers, by nagging parents and school administrators, into thinking there was something intrinsically wrong with boys wearing long hair.

These days when I walk into schools on my everyday job I see boys with hair that looks a lot like the way you wore it in 1964, Pete. Nowadays nobody calls a kid a queer just because he has long hair. The kids take it for granted they can wear their hair any way they want and no one will call them names. I, for one, am very happy about that. Yep, Pete, with m-m-my g-g-generation, when it comes to long hair we won't get fooled again.

*******

Another report just came out touting the healthy effects of dark chocolate. While in California we visited the Scharffen Berger factory in Berkeley. These folks make some of the most delicious dark chocolate ever. I'm sure if I ate a pound a day of Scharffen Berger chocolate I could live to be 150.

Those of us who always thought of chocolate as decadent…something used to seduce members of the opposite sex, heh-heh, now know we can ease our consciences and seduce away by telling our seducees the chocolate is actually good for them.

One of the coolest parts of the tour was seeing all of us in hairnets. I got to wear a beard net, too, making me feel like I was wearing a burka. When in Berkeley, visit the chocolate factory. There's no Willy Wonka, but the chocolate is definitely a golden ticket.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Dave, Karen, Sally and Postino ready to boogie on down to chocolate town.

Life Amongst The Ashes

One of our stops in San Francisco last week was the Columbarium, where ashes of the dead sit in windowed vaults. Over a century ago San Francisco disallowed cemeteries, and over a period of time disinterred those already buried. The Columbarium was the centerpiece of a cemetery, left standing, soon to be neglected. In 1980 the Neptune Society bought the building and restored it. It is a gorgeous monument to the deceased, probably unique in the world.

Emmitt Watson is the caretaker of the facility, and gives spontaneous guided tours. His enthusiasm is infectious. He tells stories about the folks who are there, gleaned from years of talking to relatives. We got lucky enough to have Emmitt guide us through, giving life to the dead he watches over.

Emmitt came to San Francisco from Louisiana during the hippie era, living with them in the Haight section until, as he put it, "the skinheads took over." Emmitt, in his job as caretaker, reminds us that as long as stories can be told of us, we are still alive.

The structure itself doesn't lend itself to morbidity. We don't think of it as a cemetery, a place where corpses are a few feet below us.

Some of the displays are very ornate and beautiful. In the Fernando display you see ornate antique tobacco jars, stored now with the ashes of husband and wife. Chet Helms, founder of The Family Dog, of hippie-era fame, has his ashes interred in the building. There are more stories than I can recount here in my limited space.

When we left Emmitt presented us each with necklaces of beads, like Mardi Gras.

We visited the Columbarium November 7, election day. The place was being used as a voting precinct. Trust San Francisco to bring out the unique in every situation, even elections. It reminded us that even though the dead are present, the living must still do the business of the living.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Digital photos are by my friend, Dave M., and are used with his permission. Click on pictures to see full-size images.

11/11

Today is Veteran's Day, also the 38th anniversary of the day I became a veteran. I was discharged on Veteran's Day, November 11, 1968. I've never considered myself what people think of when they think of veterans. I was drafted during the Vietnam era, but I was stationed for my two year hitch in Nuremburg, Germany. Not exactly a combat zone.

I consider the real veterans to be the guys who have been in combat, and specifically those who fought World War II. My dad was in the Army Air Corps, stationed in the Philippines. My father-in-law, Ray, was a Combat Engineer who went through the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944-early 1945, then was one of the first into Germany when the Americans finally crossed the Rhine.

My father died early at age 47. Ray died in December, 2002 at age 87. According to statistics, on the day Ray died a thousand or more other veterans also died. I hope they had a great party when they got to their new duty station!

My dad used to like to talk about his time in the Army, but Ray didn't have many stories. His children and I suspect he had a lot more that he had seen and done that never came out. But that was his generation, also. Some of them didn't talk about things like that. They came home from the war, they settled down, finished their educations, got jobs, fathered us baby boomers, who are now burying them.

I'm respectful of those servicemen and women who have lost their lives in other conflicts since that war, but I always thought the World War II vets were the guys who set the bar, who were the benchmark of how people should behave under extreme stress. Of course I was simplifying it in my mind. Lots of people didn't make it through World War II, either physically or mentally.

I'm sure a lot of people came home from the war changed forever, not for the better. But Ray came home, picked up his life with his wife and daughter, shown in the picture he carried with him all through his Army service. He and his wife had four more children, including my wife. Ray worked for the Post Office for 16 years, then quit and worked more skilled jobs until he retired. At his gravesite some servicemen did what they did for my dad. They blew taps; they gave my mother-in-law a flag and said the words that never fail to move me, "…with the thanks of a grateful nation." I wish they would never have to say those words to another veteran's widow, mother or family member again.

During and after the world wars, in every conflict we as a nation get involved in, men are sent to their deaths and it is usually said of them, "They died so we could be free. They died for freedom and democracy." There was that, but what Ray, what millions of other men and women in his circumstances were fighting for was a lot more simple. Ray wanted to go home. He wanted the war to be over, not only because he wanted to help us prevail over our enemies, but because he wanted to go on with his life. He wanted to be there when his children were born, he wanted to watch them grow up.

He was able to do all that. He was a veteran of the most awful war in the history of humankind, and he came out of it and went home. He lived long enough for us to appreciate what a tremendous job he did, but he never told us what it might have really cost him.

On this Veterans Day, for Ray and all of those like him, peace be with you.

Albany Bulb Part 2

There are several artworks on the Albany Bulb constructed from landfill materials left behind. It's all striking in its originality, but painters have also left their works.

The anonymous surrealistic artwork is good but not meant to be permanent. No one can expect artwork left out in the open to last indefinitely. It's this impermanence that makes it necessary to photograph. I've done some of that, but what I'm showing you here are just vignettes from the larger panels.

Click on the pictures for larger images.

The video is by a group of students.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Albany Bulb

We just got back from our California trip, visiting friends near Berkeley, at their home in Albany.

Dave and Karen took us for a walking tour of one part of the Albany Bulb, which was once a landfill, a place where homeless people lived, and a home for bizarre artworks made from old construction debris. I had a couple of favorite artworks, but my absolute favorite was Jesus, made of various wood, metal and even tree branches for his hair.I hardly ever use the word "awesome" in my speech, but this sculpture by an artist who didn't sign his/her work, is really awesome! Sally is standing next to Bulb Jesus. She's 5'1", so he's pretty big. Dave took the picture.

Click on pictures for full-size images.

According to Dave there is a whole section I missed. I'm hoping it's still there when I go back. I'll be back here shortly to talk about some other stuff we did, including a visit to a chocolatier, and the Columbarian in San Francisco.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Goblins Go Home

Did you get through Halloween all right? We did. The trick or treating didn't start until 7:00 p.m., which is late for our local kids. We like the ones who come with their parents, the real little kids whose parents stand on the sidewalk while the kids come to the door. We don't like hearing "Trick or treat!" yelled out in voices deeper than mine. Older kids, stay home, willya? You come late, you come without costumes, you're smartasses just bugging us for candy. When I see you coming I will break out the cough drops and you'll have your choice: Halls, Luden's or Smith Bros. Grow up.

We drove from work to visit Mom in the nursing home. Mom was in the dining room in what looked like the tail end of a Halloween party. Some visits to the nursing home are better than others, and this wasn't one of the better ones. Maybe everyone was in the throes of a sugar rush after all of the sweets, cakes and ice cream they'd been served. One woman was wailing that she wanted to get out of there; not the dining room, the whole place. Another was telling us my mother was a liar, that this was her home and "her attorneys were working on it, so get the hell out." That poor woman was apparently off her meds.

Another one was having hallucinations about something she called "scrunches" on a tabletop. We didn't see anything on the tabletop, much less scrunches--whatever scrunches are--but she said, "There are lots of scrunches on there. You can see them."

While those women appeared to be off their meds, my mother seemed to be on a full course. She was nibbling away at cake but was also completely docile. There wasn't any recognition in her eyes or on her face. We could have been scrunches.

*******

My friend, Dave, whom I'll be visiting in a couple of days at his home in California, had an interesting couple of days before Halloween. Dave works in the banquet department of a large hotel. I asked him for permission to share his e-mail.

"I have had a weird couple of days. It seems Halloween goblins are doing their work. I'll keep it brief. Friday I saw an old man in a motorized wheel chair at the grocery store, in the parking lot. He was stuck behind 3 shopping carts and kept backing up and slamming into them to free himself. I was across the street in my car and kept hoping someone would come to his aid, but no one was around or pretended not to see. I finally felt guilty enough and ran to his rescue, but felt bad that I had sat and watched him for about a minute before helping.

Later that same day I was driving along the water front coming home from work and saw a body sprawled out on the ground. Drunk, dead or just passed out? I never found out and just kept driving. I don't have a cell phone and figured someone else would see him and make the call. I added to my guilt.

When I went back to work a couple hours later for my dinner shift, the chef told me that an old lady in the restaurant had "taken a shit in the dining room" just after I left! Turns out this old lady got up and made a fast walk to the bathroom, which is very far away from the dining room. As she did this, she would stop every few feet and shake a turd out of her pants leg, all the way to the bathroom. Then she took a dump in the sink.

The next day some customer went ballistic on the staff and me. Everyone was very nice to him, but he couldn't have a breakfast buffet at 1pm. It is removed at 10:30 and it is menu only. He was livid and complaining to everyone he saw. One manager told him he could eat off the buffet I had set up for a private party. I had been told not to let anyone in the restaurant use the buffet as it was private. I told this to the manager and guy stormed out and claimed that I had thrown him out of the restaurant. Turned out he is a Diamond customer and supposed to be treated as a VIP.

Later that day my co-worker had a customer go ballistic on her and criticized her over and over for no good reason. That same night my manager went ballistic on my co-worker.

It all was making me think something really bad was going to happen before the day ended. I drove home and actually feared something would happen. It is a short drive and sure enough, I passed a head on collision on the way, my car stalled in the street when I tried to park and a car almost hit me in the dark.

I just wonder why so many things happened in a two days? Weird. That will serve as my Halloween story this year and it is all true!"

I'm sure the story of the woman shaking turds out of her pants leg will enter into urban legend, but you read it here first.

*******
Lately I've been reading the book, Things That Go Bump In The Night, by Louis C. Jones, published in 1959. This is a collection of ghost stories, most of which we'd now call urban legends. The book is fun and entertaining.

The book reminded me a story from 1970, when we stayed with my friend Tom and his family in an old mansion in Vermont. The first night when we finished our visiting and went to bed I asked Tom, "Anything I should be aware of?"

He said, "Just watch out for the lady with her head in a basket."

Ciao for now, El Postino

Batty For Weird Tales

For some people Halloween is all year long. For people who like scary stories every issue of Weird Tales was the best of the best nearly every month.

Weird Tales was a pulp magazine published between 1923 and 1954. It never had a big circulation. It's subject matter was too specialized, but it had its fans then and now.

The magazine has such a reputation even now that you can hardly find an anthology of horror stories, fantasy or the bizarre, that doesn't include a story from the 31 year run of Weird Tales. Of the seven authors listed on the cover of the May, 1932 issue, the first six have been heavily anthologized for decades.

I'm showing you some covers that have bats on them. A bat is a horror symbol that doesn't really fit that creature's gentle nature. But for centuries people have made a connection to vampires, and that lore is still strong.

Click on the pictures for full-size images.

Two of the covers are by Margaret Brundage, who painted some of the sexiest covers ever for pulp magazines. The girl with the bat-mask is very chic. I'd like to meet her at a Halloween party, if I didn't think she'd bite my neck.
The earlier cover from May, 1932 is by an artist I'm not familiar with, and not nearly as accomplished as Brundage. But I like the bat.

Happy Halloween! El Postino

Now That's Scary!

Halloween is coming up in a couple of days. What scares you?

My friend Sherry told me once that what scared her more than anything was Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People, specifically the ghostly carriage taking away the dead. I told her that Walt Disney had scared the crap out of me a few years earlier, when I saw The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow on the old Disneyland television program in the 1950s. That Headless Horseman…brrrrrrr….I couldn't sleep for weeks.

Anyway, those things are behind us now. It's hard to get scared by a movie when there's stuff on TV that's more scary, like news reports from Iraq. No, really, as a prior blog of mine stated, the gore level has gone up considerably on the home box, so it's competing with movies for big scares and total gross-outs.

What's scary to me now are simple things, like getting haircuts. This morning I was in the chair, having my head worked over by a young Asian woman. An hour earlier I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror with a pair of tweezers, pulling hairs out of my ears. Still, she ran her buzzers down my ears, because she'd seen more that I'd missed because of failing eyesight. That scares me: beautiful young women seeing how old I look. I'm just glad she didn't have to buzz my nose, because I pulled a white hair out of the bulb of my nose earlier, and you talk about gross-outs. Yow.

What also scares me is the talk of long waits in the Social Security office, because I'll be there in a few short years. Horrors of horrors: colonoscopies, cholesterol tests, diabetes screening; my feet starting to break down, my knees getting sore and weak, my back…shall I go on? I think not.

Anyway, keep your Halloween witches, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. Scare small children with them. The real scares are yet to come, kiddies.

Bobbing for apples with dentures. That's scary.

Finding the Inner Werewolf

When I was a kid in the late '50s-early '60s I was just the right age for Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine. It came out at a time when Saturday latenight TV was made up of local horror hosts showing corny old monster movies. The hosts made bad jokes, the sets were bad, the makeup was bad, but to the kids who watched it was all good.

Our local horror host was Roderick, played by Jack Whittaker, who doubled in an afternoon kids' show as Kimbo the Clown. Jack died some years ago and when I saw his obituary I got a pang of nostalgia. When I was 12-years-old he was the guy all of my friends wanted to see. We even went to a theater to see him live and I was in the bathroom when he and his assistant were taking off their makeup. I stood at the urinal while they talked about lugging equipment out to the van. Wow. That was one to tell in gym class the next day.

Jim Warren was the publisher who brought out Famous Monsters, and made a bunch of money selling it to the baby boomers, all of us at just the right age for such nonsense as a magazine devoted to old movie monsters.

Forrest J. Ackerman was the editor. 4SJ, as he sometimes called himself, was full of puns and jokes, using stills and publicity photos from old movies, mostly from his own collection. Ackerman owned a house in Los Angeles he called the Ackermansion, where every room was stuffed floor to ceiling with his collection of science fiction and horror memorabilia, going back decades.

At one point Ackerman announced he'd be driving cross-country. He invited his fans to send him their addresses, and instructions on how to get to their homes, and he'd drop in! I got a feeling…wow! Wouldn't that be great to sit and talk to the Great Man himself? Reality quickly set in. I knew I wouldn't be able to sell Mom on the idea. Mom was barely tolerant of the literature I chose for myself. She probably gave me a bye on the monster magazines (something she wouldn't do with Mad and Cracked magazines) because she grew up going to the same monster movies that were covered in the magazines.

I also knew that people weren't welcome at our house. Mom was someone you didn't visit. She didn't encourage visits, and Lord help me if I ever invited a friend over. She pitched a fit. I thought of inviting Forry Ackerman to my house and knew instantly Mom would put the kibosh on that plan. So I forgot about it.

Recently I was visiting a website and came across a picture of Forrest J. Ackerman with a young man, and according to the guy standing next to Forry it was from that cross-country trip. I'm posting the picture here.After all these years I finally realized that for Forrest J. Ackerman, the real purpose wouldn't be to meet his fans, it was a way to get free meals, and maybe even lodging, on his way back east. Good idea. Better than a Motel 6 every night and finding a Denny's three times a day.

Also, 4E (another of his puns on his own name) has his own website. If my calculations are correct the guy is 90-freakin'-years-old and still making jokes that are damn near as old as he is.

I don't think he ever grew up, or maybe Bela Lugosi bit him years ago and he's one of the undead.

********

When I wrote the story I posted in my previous blog, I used a character called Prince Harold The Werewolf. The character was based on something I read years ago, two writers discussing what they'd rather be: a werewolf or a vampire. One writer said he'd prefer to be a vampire because he could live in a castle. I guess you could, if you were Dracula. He didn't think he wanted to be a werewolf, out schlepping around in the woods, hanging around with gypsies.

I don't remember what the other writer said. For me the choice would be clear: Werewolf! If I was a vampire I'd have to sleep during the day, get up at night and go do some necking, suck some blood. If I was a werewolf I'd have just those days of the month with the full moon where I could roam around in the woods, biting anyone I didn't like. The other days of the month I could live my normal life with no one the wiser that at times I grew fangs, was covered in fur, and loped about the countryside scaring everyone. Sounds pretty good to me.

Personally, I'd make a list of people who need to be torn apart by wolves and go after them first.

If I was a vampire I'd be worried about things like sunlight, crosses, garlic and wooden stakes. If I was a werewolf I'd know the only thing that would kill me would be a silver bullet, and I haven't seen The Lone Ranger around here lately.

Yep, for me it's werewolf all the way.

*******

My wife and I like the kitschy stuff from the 1950s and '60s. The kind of junk we grew up with, ignored, and then wondered where it went when it was gone. We found this light-up molded plastic ghost in an antique store last year and bought it for about $18.00.Our ghost is nearly three feet tall and occupies a place of honor in our living room. Until Halloween is over, of course, when he'll go downstairs and haunt our basement storage room.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Blood-Red Riding Hood, A Halloween Story

Hey there, Halloweenies...this is a special story I wrote some time ago. Hope you like it. El P.

BROTHER GRIM’S BLOOD-RED RIDING HOOD
A Halloween Story
By El Postino
©2006 El Postino

Good evening and welcome! I see that you travelers have successfully made it through Psycho Swamp, over Mount Misery, negotiated the land mines and the barbed wire on the Plain of Pain, and found the shortcut through the Field of Screams.

You have made it past the Gruesome Gargoyle guarding the entry to Our Lady of Perpetual Hysteria Monastery, through the razor wire and flamethrower-lined Hell’s Hallway, and down the Collapsing Stone Stairwell to find me, Brother Grim. As always, I am tending to my toadstools and deadly nightshade plants. You will notice that this was once the torture chamber of the Monastery, where some years ago folks were brought here innocent, then tormented and abused until found guilty. Jolly fun, I’d say. I miss those good old days.

Perhaps you would like to pull up a rack and stretch out.

You ask what I do now that I am no longer breaking bodies? Nowadays I just tend to my little garden. Perhaps you would like some of the special tea that I am brewing. It’s made from these very toadstools. We find much use for everything in Our Lady of Perpetual Hysteria, even the snakes which are right now slithering over your feet and up your legs. We use them to keep the rats away.

Please excuse me for not removing my cowl. I’ve been in this dank dungeon for so long that a mold has permanently attached itself to my face.

But you have come to hear a story! Of course, it is Halloween. What a wonderful time of year it is, too. If there is anything more soul-stirring than the shrieks of the damned as their ghosts haunt the earth, the whoosh of a witch’s broomstick, or the rattle of a skeletal hand beckoning you to your grave then I don’t know what is!

I forget my manners. Here is your tea, still hot. Please sit and listen...

Once upon a time...yes, my story begins once upon a time. Actually, once upon a time and place and a person! The time was a few hundred years ago, the place was the Kingdom of Lycanthropia, and the person was Prince Harold, who was also a very happy werewolf.

From time beyond memory there was a family curse on the royal family of Lycanthropia, and as the oldest prince in a family reached the age of 21, he would automatically, upon the nights of the full moon, become a werewolf. There were princes who dreaded this, who even went so far as to kill themselves before the curse descended on them, but Prince Harold was different. He loved being a werewolf. To him there was nothing like being in the dark woods on an autumn evening when the fur came over him, and the lust to kill was in him. Prince Harold was a bit of a lazy prince, though. He didn’t like to chase after deer or bunnies. They were too fast for him. What he liked the most was to run down slow-moving peasants, attacking them with claws and teeth. He loved the taste of their hot, jetting blood.

And that reminds me, have another sip of your tea.

It got so that the hardworking serfs of Lycanthropia learned to avoid being outdoors or in the woods on nights of the full moon, and Prince Harold was having a bit of a problem finding good peasants to murder.

One particular night--a Halloween night, just like this--Prince Harold the werewolf padded on all four paws through the woods until he came upon a small cabin with a light in the window. He crept to the window and listened. He heard the voice of an old woman moaning and speaking to herself, “Red Riding Hood! Red Riding Hood! Where are you? You should have been here hours ago. Your grandmother is so afraid of you being out in the woods on the nights of the full moon!”

He went to the front door and using the claws of his front paw made a rapping sound. It’s a well-known fact--well, not so well-known, but I’m telling you now--that werewolves are good at imitation. After all, they are an imitation wolf, as it were. Prince Harold the werewolf said in his best little girl voice, “It’s me, Grandmother! Little Red Riding Hood! Let me in, let me in!” There was a momentary silence and then he heard the bolt being pulled back and the door creaked open. The old woman screamed when she saw the wolf, his red eyes glowing like coals, his white teeth bared and gleaming in the moonlight. The wolf sprang and within seconds the old woman had disappeared down his gullet.

Grandmother was a bit scrawny and stringy for his taste, but due to the shortage of peasants he couldn’t afford to be picky. He also thought, “If it is true that her little granddaughter is coming to visit, then I will have some dessert tonight!” He curled up on the floor in front of the old woman’s fireplace and closed his eyes. Some time later he heard footsteps coming through the woods. “Grandmother, Grandmother, it is me, Red Riding Hood. Let me in! Let me in! It is dark and I am afraid of Prince Harold the werewolf.” The werewolf immediately jumped up, put the old woman’s shawl over his head and leapt into the old woman’s bed, pulling the covers over himself.

“Come in, Little Red Riding Hood! The door is open.”

Expecting to see a child, he was surprised to see a beautiful woman of twenty. Her hair, or what he could see from under the red hood on her head, was a brilliant gold like the sun. Her skin was an alabaster white. She was tall, lithesome, buxom and beautifulsome. He swallowed hard.

Red Riding Hood was carrying a basket, in which was a bottle. He glanced and saw that it had a label that said, “Lycanthropia Blood Bank.” Red spoke: “I’m here to get my blood supply, Grandmother. Be a good old lady and stick your arm out so I can poke you with this needle and get a couple of pints.”

Prince Harold, not wishing to expose his hairy arm and paw, tried to change the subject. Once again he used his talent for imitation by using the old woman’s voice. “What a lovely hood and cape, my dear, make it yourself?”

The girl stared at him. “Of course not, you silly old woman! You made it for me years ago, don’t you remember?”

“Oh yes, indeed, how foolish of me to forget.”

The werewolf licked his chops. My, but this girl would make more than a mouthful. Some very un-werewolflike carnal thoughts crossed his mind.

The girl said, “You know that I’m blind as a bat, but I could swear that you look different to me tonight. Is it your eyes? What big eyes you have, Grandmother!”

“Well,” said Prince Harold, “All the better to see you with, my dear.” Ho-ho, thought Prince Harold. Wouldn’t I like to see you without that hood and cape, and he licked his chops again. The young woman got closer. “And your nose...” She put out her hand and tweaked his muzzle. “You must have a cold, your nose is so cool and...ugh...wet,” she said, wiping her hand on her cape. Prince Harold thought, “This charade can’t last much longer,” and he bared his teeth.
“And those teeth! My goodness, whoever sold you those false teeth sold you quite a set of choppers! What big teeth you have, Grandmother!”

“All the better to eat you with, my dear,” cried the werewolf. He whipped the shawl off his head and jumped out of bed.

Red Riding Hood stepped back. “Are your teeth as big as MY teeth?” She said, baring her own. The werewolf stopped in amazement. Her canine teeth had suddenly grown to a length of two inches, and were needle sharp.

“I knew you weren’t my grandmother. Do I have the non-pleasure of addressing Prince Harold the werewolf?” In all of his years Prince Harold had never been addressed so casually by a commoner--a peasant girl, yet--but he shook off his shock. “Yes, I am Prince Harold,” he growled, “I ate your grandmother. And you’re about to become my dessert.”

“I don’t think so," said Red Riding Hood, waving her hand. At that the werewolf became frozen to the spot, unable to move. “I’m a vampire, and I have the power to hypnotize. You and your strength are no match for my brains,” she said.

“Werewolves!” she continued.. “Always looking for a piece of...of meat. You’ll find out that I’m not THAT kind of vampire girl.”

To his further surprise Prince Harold found himself whimpering. “But...but...getting strange stuff is always so much fun,” he said. Her lip curled and her face darkened.

“You say you ate my grandmother, eh? All right, open your mouth. Wide...wider, you idiot prince!” Her hypnotic power over him gave him no choice, and to his great astonishment the scrawny grandmother suddenly came up his esophagus and through his mouth, landing on the floor on her scrawny behind.

“Whew. ‘Bout time you got here, Red,” said Grandmother. “I’m not sure that I could have lasted much longer inside him. I’m glad I was able to come out that end and not the other.”

The grandmother went to the corner of her tiny cottage and picked up a broom standing there. She shook it at the werewolf, muttered an incantation in Latin, and to his utter horror he felt the werewolf slipping away and he then stood, naked, as the hairless, balding, flabby Prince Harold of Lycanthropia. He realized then that Grandmother was more than just an old lady. She was a witch.

“No wonder you like being a werewolf,” said Red. You make a fine looking wolf, but a terrible looking man.” She whispered in her grandmother’s ear and the two women consulted for several minutes out of earshot, occasionally pointing at various parts of his anatomy and snickering. He self-consciously but unsuccessfully attempted to cover these parts of himself with his small, smooth white hands. Then Red came back to him.

“Prince,” she said. “I need a husband. A prince seems like a good choice for me. My grandmother and I have decided that you will marry me and (a) I won’t drink your blood, or (b) she won’t turn you into a horned were-toad. What do you say?”

Considering his options he thought, “Might not be too bad.” She was a looker even if she was a blood-sucking vampire, and most wives’ grandmothers were one kind of witch or another. He knew that these two women had plotted to do this. They had set him up, but so what? He shrugged and said, “Consider yourself my new princess!” At that the old witch changed him back into his wolf form, much to his--and Red’s--relief.

The three of them, the witch, the vampire, and the werewolf, left the cabin in the darkness and headed for the castle. Along the way they ran into a hunter. In the original Red Riding Hood story the hunter killed the wolf, but in Brother Grim’s version--much superior, I might add, to that pansy Grimm Brother’s fairy tale--the three killed the hunter. After all, Prince Harold had been robbed of his peasant when the witch was vomited out of him, Red didn’t get her pints of blood from the old lady, and the old lady could use the hunter’s organs for some spell or another. What matter was it? The hunter was a peasant, and Red and her grandmother were soon to enter a more royal and exalted world than they could have ever dreamed of.

I’d say that as this tale ended, that the young couple went off and lived happily ever after, as the original sissy Grimm Brothers tale of Red-Riding Hood did, but it wasn’t exactly happily ever after. Oh, Princess Red and Prince Harold were happy enough, but just not delirious. She couldn’t stand him when he was a man, only when he was a wolf--now isn’t that just like a fickle woman?--and he couldn’t stand it when she put the bite on him for more money out of the kingdom’s treasury.

Actually, she brought out the beast in him, and he drove her batty...

Ho-ho-ho. Brother Grim must have his little joke, and the story is over, your tea is gone, and you must go. But what is this? I have been so busy enjoying my own tale that I haven’t noticed. None of you have moved for the last fifteen minutes, your eyes are glazed over and you are getting cold. Oh dear me! I guess the toadstool tea had either too much toad or too much stool. No matter. I will put you against the wall with the others who have come to visit me on past Halloween nights. You will make a good audience. You will never scoff at my stories, nor will you have to get up just as I am getting to the good part, and say you need to visit the bathroom.

Until next Halloween, then, I remain your faithful morbidly mirthful monk, Brother Grim.

The End

Drug Of Choice

I haven't laughed at a Dilbert strip in a long time, but I got a real big laugh out of this one.

Click on the picture for full-size image.

I'm an addicted coffeehead. Caffeine is my drug of choice. A few years ago Dilbert's coworker Wally was cut back to 40 cups of coffee a day, which he screamed was "inhuman!"

I like all of the types of coffee, robusta, arabica, or blends of the two. I like milder breakfast blends, I like more robust blends like Starbucks, but I also like Folgers. I like coffee bitter, I like it smooth. I like it flavored, I like it unflavored, with cream and without, with sugar or just plain black. I like it in the morning, in the afternoon or evening. I like it on Sunday morning with my newspaper, or first thing on a weekday morning when I'm shaving, getting dressed, or with my morning Quaker Oats.

I like it grown in Hawaii, Colombia or Vietnam. If they can grow coffee beans, I'll probably drink it.

I'm prone to depression, but coffee can give me a lift, make me feel better. I drink a cup before taking my shower to get my eyes open. I start to drift about halfway through the morning, attention span starts to shorten, eyelids start to droop. A cup about 10:00 keeps me going for a couple of hours.

I will always appreciate Muslims for introducing coffee to us during the Crusades. At one point several centuries ago, despite its origins, the Pope put his imprimatur on coffee, saying, "Hey, this is good stuff!" as he tipped back a cup and got ready for another day of Poping.

The cup of coffee that lifted my scalp two inches was from Peet's on Solano Avenue in Albany, California, many years ago. I strongly recommend Peet's, which is now available in some grocery stores, but it's not for beginning coffee drinkers.

I may skimp on a lot of personal things, but I need the best kind of coffeemaker. I find the Cuisinart does a great job for me.

I didn't drink coffee until I was 25-years-old, and in those days I was an addicted smoker, too, so I had two habits going simultaneously. I gave up smoking when I was 29, but give up coffee? All I can say is, if there's an afterlife, there better be coffee.

Body Parts

The ad says it, and quotes a reviewer: "There's hardly a body part that isn't mangled or lopped off, ground up or sliced through." I'm not sure whether the reviewer liked the movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Beginning, from the quote. It might have been written from disgust. It probably tells you all you need to know about this flick.

I saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre years ago, and even though it was made 33 years ago, you'd really have to amp up the violence to beat the original's mix of sadism and horror. Once strictly reserved for movies, the kind of graphic violence in movies like Texas Chainsaw has moved to the home screen.

The other night I watched an episode of CSI:NY, a series I don’t normally watch. The story was about the discovery of a headless female corpse. She was not only headless, she was hanging upside down from a light fixture. As the story progressed we found out she'd been decapitated by an acetylene torch. Several shots showed her neck, with emphasis on the scorched flesh.

Later in the story her head was found in the park under a rock. More gore shown.

This is all real Grand Guignol. Stories designed to shock and disgust. During the program, forensic scientists do their business with detachment. After a while, even the audience becomes detached.

My friend told me once, "I couldn't watch the stuff you do." In this blog I have talked about shows I like. I once couldn't watch the stuff I do now. I got desensitized. There are still subjects I'll run a mile to avoid: I don't like programs that show danger to children, for instance. But like most everyone else, including fans of the CSI franchise, I've almost gotten used to the gore and violence that is getting to be routine on those shows. I say "almost," because my stomach can still be turned. I wonder when someone will step in and say that enough is enough.

We're in a couple of wars, so we get pictures on the news of bodies strewn around from car bombs and suicide bombers. After the news we get primetime programs where gruesome murder is presented as a scientific puzzle, or police procedural.

You get a whiff of sex in one of these programs and the religious right is all over it with indignation, but headless corpses hanging upside down? No problem.

The FCC gets involved when a bare breast with a pasty covering the nipple is shown during the Super Bowl, but doesn't have any sort of penalty for showing dead bodies, mutilations, murder, and all of the violence that goes along with them.

One of my coworkers said to me once, about an R-rated movie he saw: "I couldn't figure out why it was rated R. It didn't have any sex in it, just guys getting shot." It is a really big double standard.

*****

It seems this is a week for thinking about mortality. In the past five days I've seen obituaries for a former high school teacher of mine, a friend's 36-year-old son, and another friend's wife.

The teacher's obit surprised me, because she was only seven years older than me, which meant she taught me during what was probably her first year of teaching. She looked older than that to me, but when you're 17 everyone over 21 looks pretty old.

The 36-year-old son of a friend died of what started out as cancer of the mouth. This is the basic unfairness of life: He never smoked, never used tobacco in any form.

Any death seems unfair to us, though. Except when it's on TV as entertainment.

Which Witch Bewitch?

Yesterday I showed you babies, today I show you babes. It's amazing what happens when you google "Halloween costumes." The things you see! Like these outstanding looking witch outfits. I don't miss the witches of my childhood, which were old crones with green faces. These witches can sure fly on my broomstick. We've come a long way since Margaret Hamilton mounted her broom and scared the crap out of Dorothy.
This is the year of the pirate. Johnny Depp, what hast thou wrought? Pirates were a scurvy lot, and now they're a curvy lot. Or at least these lovely pirate lasses are. They can buckle a swash! They can walk my plank, scuttle my scuppers, guzzle my grog, yank my yardarm, hoist my mainsail or even swab my poopdeck.

These are the finest little pirate gals since Captain Kidd was a kid.

I've got to admit I love a little pussycat. And Catgrrrl is quite the pretty kitty!

A girl like this could drive a guy batty in no time. When she necks she really sinks her teeth into a guy.





There seems to be no shortage of imagination when it comes to sexy Halloween costumes. But I probably don't need to tell you these aren't the costumed cuties who show up at my door looking for my candy.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Teacher Conference

Today is the first day of annual teacher conferences, so all schools are closed. That means I get two days off.* Yippee.

I spent part of the day today with Sally babysitting the young'uns, Bella and Gabby. In my other identity as Grandpa Flashbulb I took a few pictures, and you, you lucky devils, you get to see a couple of them.







Bella shared a corndog with Sally.


Gabby did two or three things she does best: sleep, then wake up and look cute. Eat, sleep, poop. The life of a baby. Then you get old and it happens again. Sigh.

*******

Teachers are very special people, but you know that already. If you're reading this, then you had a teacher. I wonder how many of them actually go to their conferences, though? Since I'm not a teacher I don't have to do anything but stay home or leave town. No meetings for me. I'm sure some of the teachers, especially from the more rural school districts, travel to the capitol city for meetings, get-togethers and ideas.

I heard years ago that sometimes rural teachers like to come to Salt Lake and check into motels with their lovers, but that wouldn't really happen, would it? Years ago I ran into this cartoon from a Mad Magazine calendar and it made me laugh.

Click on pictures for larger images.

When she saw it, one of my teacher friends told me it was true: She said when she's in meetings she looks around at how the other teachers are dressed and thinks, "We'll never get anywhere until we start looking more professional."

And speaking of teachers looking professional, who knows what that is anymore? Dress codes kind of went out the window when the baby boomers took over as teachers and administrators in schools. The former president of our school district's teacher union was a very sexy woman who taught upper grades in elementary school. I saw her once in a grocery store, shopping with her husband. She had on a tight top, shorts that barely covered her butt, and platform high-heeled sandals. I saw her wear a similar outfit in school, and once when I saw her at the teacher union offices. But, that was a few years ago, and she's toned down her outfits quite a bit. Maybe she got some flak about her former manner of dress. Nowadays she tends to wear ankle-length skirts, loose sweaters, and low-heeled boots or Mary Janes to work. Maybe when she was teaching in the sexy outfits the kids in her class were getting the kind of education she hadn't planned on.

Ciao for now, El Postino

*That means that in 30 years of working for the school district I've gotten 60 days--or two months--off, just for these conferences. I should also count the 24 days I got when I went through 12 years of the public school system. In 42 years I've gotten damn near three months off! Thanks, teachers!

Nothin' In The World Like A Big-Eyed Girl...

It's good to be Grandpa. A couple of years ago I wouldn't have said that, but now I think that way. It helps that I have a pair of good granddaughters to make me feel that being Grandpa is good.

Friday night and Saturday morning Sally and I took care of both Bella, our 21-month-old, and Gabby, our 3-month-old. I quickly found out that I had forgotten a lot about how much work babies are. I mean, a lot, but for all of the work I enjoyed the visit. Why shouldn't I enjoy it? I let Sally do most of the work while I watched.

Saturday afternoon when our son came to pick up his girls we invited the girl next door and her baby for a visit. Elizabeth and David had played together as children. Her daughter, Alexana, was born almost exactly one hour after Gabby, on June 30. So we had a chance to introduce the two.

What I have noticed about Gabby is that she is a wide-eyed child. Everything is a wonder to her and her eyes go large when she's delighted or looking at something she likes. I'm guessing she'll be this way for the rest of her life. Bella is a lot more reserved; even though she's a happy child, she just doesn't smile a lot. On the other hand, Gabby smiles all the time. It'll be fascinating watching these two grow up, how they interact with each other, and with the world at large.

In the meantime, they are little so short a time, so I'm keeping my digital camera busy. In the top shot Gabby is reacting to Sally, and in the bottom Bella is checking out Alexana while Gabby wonders why that light is going off in her face. Hey, they'll thank me for these pictures when they're older. Yes, it's good to be Grandpa. Click on the pictures for larger images.

Ciao for now, El Postino

Chest Pains

Every year a lot of people go to the emergency room of the nearest hospital complaining of pain in the chest. After some tests (expensive ones, it goes without saying), nothing shows up on the EKG. It's an anxiety attack, which to those of us who haven't had a heart attack, feels a lot like what we expect a real heart attack to feel like.

I did the emergency room thing 15 years ago, but the doctors then just said, "It's a mystery. See your family doc," which I did. My family doc told me, "That's not a heart attack. Don't worry about it."

Don't worry about it? Jeeee-zus, Doc. I have an elephant standing on my chest and I'm not supposed to worry about it? It wasn't until a couple of years later I found out my symptoms were classic for a garden variety anxiety attack. Eventually my doctor caught up to her literature and gave me a prescription for Valium. I went home and with a little pill cutter I bought at a local dollar store, I cut the Valiums in half. When I feel an anxiety attack coming on I usually take one of the half-Valiums and the symptoms go away.

Of course they come right back when the pill wears off, so next is to find the source of my anxiety. It usually comes from some sort of disruption to my life. I am best when I am a sailor on a calm sea. I don't like waves, don't like to feel the boat rocking. The usual culprit is my boss, a Captain Queeg who sails through choppier waters than I like. Before I met this paranoid bozo I'd never had an anxiety attack.

Like a lot of other people who work, I don't have the luxury of quitting. I take some small comfort in knowing that my boss does this to his other employees, too. Some days we have a bunch of guys walking around clutching their chests. Guys being what and who they are, no one says anything, just toughing it out. Who wants to admit that they are having a physical reaction to a psychological problem? Well, me, but then I've always been told I'm "different."

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It doesn't help when local and national news add to the generalized feelings of anxiety. News of the latest school shooting, the killings in the Amish school in Pennsylvania, raise everyone's personal anxiety level. Almost everyone has something to do with a school, whether it's kids or grandkids going to school, or especially those of us who work in them.

Because of the news media, though, it makes the risk look a lot worse than it is. We're all worried about e coli, school shootings and terrorists, when the highest risks we run every day are driving out of the driveway in our cars. Any time you're on the road you have about a one-in-25 chance of an accident, or even death. So remember that next time you're on the freeway doing 75 mph, cellphone in one hand, Starbucks in the other, steering with your elbow.

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I was in the thrift store last Saturday, looking for the usual books to resell, when I was lucky enough to find an old school reader from 1947, with this picture.

Looks like the kids have built a bomb on their Radio Flyer. A suicide little red wagon!


Click on picture for larger image.

Ciao for now, El Postino