THE BOOK OF OLD

De-criminalize marijuana on a federal level and offer statehood to Mexico.


  The last thing you have to worry about is getting old.  Fact is, you should practice getting to "old" so you don't end up being too old.  I've already ascertained old begins at 70.  If you have maintained any semblance of "in shape" to the age of seventy, three-score and ten, you will have to continue the same set of exercise.  Or you can finally give in to the genes which have pushed you from birth to reproduce and since then have been trying to take you out of the picture.

     Evolution is simple to follow if you grow to old.  Once you see back a few generations, you see how we all wonder and curse at the ignorant parents who bore us. Then find out we are them, half of each. To reproduce and spread them thinner.  Genes thrive, mankind evolves, genes thrive.

     Genes have made it possible for us to carve them up and splice them by evolving our brains, which we are capable of using to control them within our individual bodies.  Mind over matter matters more within us than as an abstract mental exercise. We can think our way to anyplace or any condition with proper diet and daily exercise.

     There isn't enough emphasis on the elimination of our intake of nourishment. How we train our bowels to move is more important than what we eat. Watch any house dog and you notice the first thing after awakening from a night of sleep is stool extruding.  Before food.  Before water.  Leave a dump.  It is the single most important beginning of any carnivore's day.  Assuming, of course, it is well fed.  I have an old dog.  She still eats a lot.  Sleeps a lot.  As long as she can get off and onto the water bed, and is let out in the morning to leave substantial doo doos, she'll continue to age well.

    What human doesn't want the same for themselves?  To be able to eat, sleep and defecate in the morning.  Any of these three interrupted, you are not living to live anymore.  Losing one of these pleasures will lead to loss of the others.  Everything else you consider as necessary for happiness in your life depends on how you eat, sleep and pinch a loaf.

     The older you get, the less likely the chances of having formed feces which you can sphincter separate from your cheeks with minimum to wipe.  The older you get the sooner you forget to flex your abdominal muscles instead of bending and pushing against your navel.  The strain to attempt to strain a clog of food which lacks the required moisture and roughage past the last bastion of darkness can cause one's heart to burst first.  Factually, the more advanced in years, the more likely you will be wiping more ass than you  kiss.

       Everything I eat is calculated to be eliminated upon awakening.  I attempt to not consume anything which takes longer than twenty-four hours to work through my system.  Animal meat takes longer and exits less easily.  Alcohol dries everything up, for a day, at least, unless you are sober enough to drink lots of water prior to crashing.

      Nephew asks me when is the time I was in the best shape of my life?  Right now.  No, I mean anytime before now.  Right now, I am in the best physical condition I've ever been in.  I know.  It is no accident.  It's just that it took me seventy-four years to be in a position to work a plan thoroughly.  All I have to do is practice what I preach, all the time.

     Beans and greens and streams of tea.  Home baked whole wheat bread. Whole chicken, boiled. Tuna, salmon, mackerel.  All peanuts butter.  Raisins.  Walnuts.  Apples. Carrots.

     I have dry beans soaking and cooking in my crock pot, or sitting in the fridge afterwards. Along with the beans may be lentils, barley or split peas.  Greens may be broccoli, cabbage or fresh from the garden, like dock, chard, mustard, turnip, etc.

     This is 4Dec12 -

     After my BM, I nuked a cup of green tea and added a teaspoon or so of powdered milk to rinse down my first lungfuls.

11Dec12 -
     OK, every day begins the same way as the line above.
     My next drink is hot cocoa - powder, milk (all milk is powdered), sugar (all sugar is granulated cane or beet) (the cheapest). Water is three minutes, nuked.
     Throughout the day, I drink many cups of green tea and hot cocoa.  Also do some cups of cheap black.  Lately, on occasion I add a taste of Evan Williams bourbon.

     Today was a jogging day, so I went out the door, after the cocoa.  Been wondering about this chest pain and decided it was a muscle strain.  Of course, every unusual stuff in one's chest brings images of going down behind a heart attack.  As I hit the path, I was doing some deep chest breathing and seemed to be stretching past the little irritation. 
     At the intersection with a state highway, I had a clear view of traffic from both directions and sprinted across.  My plan of breathing past the pain was working, already, so I slowed a bit.  Another jogger appeared at my left side.  She passed, but seemed to not be that much faster to my pace.
     Blond pony tail, tall, ear buds, bicep monitor, shorts over pants, white skinny top with over shirt.  The shirt keep being pushed up by her substantial butt and she kept tugging it down.  At the risk of watching too closely too long, I kicked it up and passed her.  Now, I'm thinking to maintain the pace until well enough along that we'll have separation.
     Within 200 yards, or so, while I'm whistling at some deer crossing the path, she pulls alongside and ask if they are always here? 
     I know her name and where she's from, how long she's been using this path.  I hipped her to some kin of mine she knows.   Even intro'd her to this blog.  Then I had to admit I'd busted my pace to pass her and she made that up easily, so "..later on."

     Most of the water I drink is from the shower.  My first post-run sustenance is a sandwich of peanut butter and canned salmon between slices of home made whole wheat bread, plus tea.  Somewhere in this blog I speak to a recipe for the only bread I consume.  Whole wheat bread is available for a couple hours of yeast in warm water to loaves of hot bread.  Nothing else would work in my diet.  No commercial bread is even worthy of introduction to intelligent taste buds.
    Today, I used the end of a loaf.  Slathered some Kroger natural peanut butter on a slice, forked on a layer of fish, covered with another slice and nuked it for 25 seconds.  You can't wolf down a bite, or carry on a conversation, it has to be masticated and agitated across taste buds....  Corner-halved is two helpings. Rinsed with green tea.

   I substituted apple juice for powdered milk in my oats, apple, egg white, raisins, walnuts 5-minute nuked concoction. Eating second meal of the day.  Next is the real meal of the day, beans and greens.

     Half onion, three cloves garlic, sliced carrot, inch of cabbage, into hot 9-inch iron skillet.  Pour a little olive oil on and stir a tad, then add some veg oil and soy sauce.  Cover and cook down.  Uncover and spread a layer of the beans (today was a mixture w/lentils, barley and split peas-green and yellow).  Add salmon, tomato sauce, cheese and lower heat to simmer.

    12-12-12 -

     I use lots of powdered milk.  It's perfect, no fat, all energy.  I do not purchase sweets.  There are no cookies, candies, cakes or pies on my grocery list. I love sugar and chocolate, eat it like an addict. I still insist on fixes.  Powdered milk, cane sugar, cocoa powder. With water or dry.  Adjust each to the desired strength. I lean way to the bitter side of chocolate.  There's a little trick I do by adding egg white and peanut butter in the microwave that is purely delicately delicious. 

     I was up way early and finished my weight workout by 9:00, after the green tea and usual wake up.  Sandwich was peanut butter and mackerel.  So good, I did another half.
     Have the oats, apple, walnuts, raisins, apple juice in the 'wave.  Out of eggs and milk.

    Started a crock of beans, great northern, pinto, black-eyed peas.  I have enough from the last batch for today's b's&g's.

16Dec12 -

     Green tea with some powdered milk.  Bowl. Boiling water over tbsp. cocoa, then stir in powdered milk and sugar.

  17 Dec 12 -

    Been trying to get a day's nourishment writen down, but I've been out of bread (just got yeast and flour today) and been improvising, especially the peanut butter and fish or chicken sandwich I open with every day.
     Mixed whole wheat, egg, minute amount of baking powder, water, powdered milk, remains of a can of mackerel, then ladled onto my iron skillet and fried 'em on both sides. Hot cakes with peanut butter and butter.  In the second batch, I added nuts, raisins,and apple, then nuked half-cup portions.  All I remember is stretching my first meal into the second and eating more than I would have if there had been bread.

Today was a running day. I bagged it to get a ride to Jackson with the Paleo.  Whiskey, dog food, and Walmart..  Rare day off from either run or iron lift.
     Had my usual tea, then cocoa, and an apple to go.  Cocoa and Evan Wms. herb.  Baked bread.

18Dec12 -

     Green tea (milk), hot cocoa, run.  Two slice (buttered,  no p-butter) salmon sandwich. Cup-a-green.  Apple, egg, oats, raisins, walnuts, milk, water to wet, nuke 5-6 minutes.  Another cup-a-green.
Slice of bread and butter.  Biked to Family Dollar.  Cocoa, mackerel, salmon, all cheaper than grocery stores.

22Dec12 -

29Dec12 -

31Dec12 -

     Began this thinking I could do a day's worth of eating in one sitting, so to speak, but my larder was low and the greens and beans part has been compromised to strange mixes.  So, ideally, I slice three cloves of garlic, half an onion, and carrot into a 9-inch iron skillet with heat.  Stir it around and add a few drizzles of olive oil, then lower heat, splash in some soy sauce, put a lid on it and let it sizzle.   Slice the crown from a broccoli plant, finely, and put it into the skillet.
     The beans I use are from the crock pot and they are unseasoned.  I ladle them over the broc. then I add salt, pepper, paprika, ginger, turmeric and curry.  Then tomato sauce, chicken or fish, cheese.  Put the lid on low heat until the cheese is melted.  I usually stir it all through, first, but a pie slice with the layers intact is prettier.  And probably more civilized.
    I may devote a few lines to the concoctions I eat through when normal ingredients are scarce.
    Next year.

4Jan13 -

     The getting of that which represents happiness, to you, may stretch into your later years. If not, it is attained in earlier years.  This is when many find the "getting" is less satisfying than the goal.  The healthiest endeavor may be to change the goal, even in another line of work or venue.
     If your goal was reached into your "old" years, it may be difficult to change, so you remain, inside the goal, until you become an expert.
     At some point, my only goal was to write to publication.  I was certain I could make an income from the way I put it down on paper. Decades passed; marriages, kids, college attempts, lunch-bucket jobs (twenty-five, or more), addresses in five or six different states, arrests, little jail time...and all I really wanted to do was write a hit.
     During the last couple decades, or so, all I want to do is write, run, and lift. Full-time.  At this instant, I own a house, I have a monthly income and the only full-time female presence is my lion hound.  So, I am free to write anytime, run for an hour and a half every other day and do my weight workout on the off days. 
     I do not own a TV.  There is no time in my day for that.  I have a program on my computer which gives me ESPN and every soccer, football and basketball game in the world.
      The writing is all the time.  There are stacks of stuff to re-do and new pages being filled with my latest creative juices.

     I realize I've reached my goal.  I believe, now, that I write, primarily, because I enjoy my own scribbling.

24Jan13 -

     And I'm thinking about the need to have purpose in one's life.  The purpose becomes the life.  Any profession or endeavor which disciplines running events around the job. The more years spent in this routine of going to work every day, i.e., the getting up, the getting some nourishment, spending the eight or more hours required to receive a regular paycheck, leaving to prepare for the next day by resting, eating and sleeping.  Eventually, this going through all the motions, each day, becomes impossible to stop and lead any sort of productive existence.  After some time, it becomes clear the most unhealthy thing we do is to stop the routine and retire.  The stillness brings a permanent one.  Death.

     I was aware a long time ago, that I would never retire from a job.  Didn't intend to ever "retire."
My attitude usually prevented any long term employment.  USAF was the only job which lasted a full four years.  Obviously, it took many different jobs to get through two marriages and four children.  Count is over twenty-seven different full-time gigs. All gut jobs, except for some retail.

     My job, now, is physical conditioning.  Every day, after a cup of tea, I run or lift weights.  Then I begin my day.  But the job comes first.

27Jan13 -
29Jan13 -

     I consume lots of food.  When I think about eating, it is something I'm going to prepare.  I don't do burger-doodles or pizza palaces or restaurants.  I don't do carry-outs or deliveries of food to my house.  I totally enjoy my own cooking and baking.  Of course, I'm only nourishing myself.  It is a total myth that it is difficult to prepare meals for just one person.

     The fact is that when you are use to preparing all of your own meals, it is way easy to put something together to fill up a friend, also.

     Groceries do not take up a large portion of my monthly expenses.  Due to my poorness and oldness, I receive thirty-five pounds of foodstuffs each month, from government food bank.  There is nothing in the box which I would purchase.  But free food should never be wasted.  If it's purchased, it may be disposed of in any chosen manner. I do not store much food and never buy much canned.  So by the time each month's pickup date comes around, the thirty-five pounds is used up, except for dry beans and dry pasta.

23Feb13 -

    Keep hearing about hunger in the young.  Undernourished kids in school.  Unable to feed themselves or be feed on a regular healthy basis. In the United States of America.  With flush toilets and electric power and cheap beans and greens ingredients. Any kid can plug in a crock pot, fill it with water and dry beans and turn the dial to high.  After a day, there is edible healthy food (beans) to remove from pot and consume.  By continuing to add water and dry beans, healthy edible food will be available year-around.
     Any child can learn to bake bread. 
     Any child can learn to identify edible wild greens while acquiring a taste for all greens.
    So, excuse me, if a kid is hungry in this country it is because they won't take the time from all the other shit occupying their time to feed themselves.
   Of course, with out-of-shape adults constantly leading them to burger-doodles and ordering take-out pizza, the children of America end up with the same half-nourishment needs.  Except adult brains are already finished developing.  Children need full-nourishment to grow their brains.  The nourishment is the secret to evolution.  With less nourishment, evolution slows.  Unless we find a way to teach our children this importance, we may live to see our grands and great-grands less physically able to handle the rigors of thinking and dreaming and doing into later adulthood.

    I intend to put a week of my diet down in sequence.  It works to make eating enjoyable and constant.

Thinking about the kids stuff above, it appears my entire old people's regimen should begin with children, so I'll begin holding cooking classes for kindergartner's.  Get a trained teacher and teach three at a time, with each group following another in a five-day period of classes.  Film it and distribute.

4Mar13 -
1Apr13 -

     Neighbor kid says, "He's keeping you young," referring to my new dog, Joe. I'm near 75, and he's young enough to be a grand-son, yet he sees something in my attitude that says "young" in his eyes.  It was a special few splits of seconds that lit me up and I still feel it when I think about it.

     The only dog I ever licensed kept me young for the years I had her.  I was totally ignorant of dog ownership and vowed more than once to never have a dog, considering all the undisciplined ones I'd  experienced.  Never had one growing up in my grandfather's house, because he considered any canine other than a chained-til-hunt foxhound.  Since I came along way at the tail end of his foxhunting days, he was finished keeping hounds, boxed and chained at the far end of the property.
     
Brownie is a sad story.  He actually belonged to Satch Collins, but he followed me home from Collins' as they were newspaper customers of mine. A brindle bulldog, is the only description I ever heard, and that came from a stranger on the other side of town. Brownie was like a muscle-bound blowed up beagle with a large jaw and short snout.  He was black and tan brindled.  A stud when he started running with me and the Cundiff boys; take on any other male dog and chase a cat half-up the trunk to tree it.
     As I remember it, now, there was a real brief period of no more than three years when Brownie was with me or Gary or George whenever we were outside to play.  Their house was one block up the hill and Collins' was another two blocks, downhill.  Mrs. Collins once told my mother at Starkeys that she was going to sue me for alienation of affection.  When we weren't in school, Brownie was with us, running the streets, hiking through the woods to the lake, everywhere we went.  If we went out in the snow, Brownie would show up.  Sometimes he would shiver at the door, and if I didn't come out, he'd wander home, I guessed. 
     I was the oldest by a year and two. Brownie still followed George and Gary, and one evening he was hit by a car trying to catch up. Crippled his foreleg until he limped a callous on it.  I don't know what happened to Brownie.  I was old enough to have made it my business to find a way to have fixed that leg.  That dog was loyal to the people who allowed him to run in their pack.  We used him up like a stray.

Joe can retrieve cans.  Joe chased a rabbit down, killed it and carried it back to me.  He wanted to eat some but I pulled him away and finished the run.  On returning, Joe picked up the carcass and carried it as if to take it home.  Two deer crossed ahead, headed for the strip mine area.  Joe dropped the rabbit and chased the deer.
     On the last run, he tried to hump an elderly dude on the path.  I kicked him off and he immediately took up with two other strays.  I waited and watched to see if he further bothered the walker, and after seeing the man walk through the pack, I tossed the leash aside and went on to the lake.
     Stopped long enough to warn my favorite jogger about the loose mutt and his name.  Two more ladies walking, I figured could handle the hounds
     An hour later, as I approached the place I'd last seen Joe, at some distance, I pause to speak to two huge teenage chicks.  They spoke of a dog that looked like a black coyote, or something. I inquired about whether or not it had bothered them.  Oh, no, we walked right by it and it never moved.  It was Joe and he was lying on the ground, off the path, under the leash I'd tossed onto a bush.  Got up to be hooked up and led home.
     Still a pup at 7-mos., but way ready to begin serious training in obedience.  Absolutely attacks the coal semi's when loose.  Of course, Zimba had an attraction to the sound of some diesel engines but she raced them off the road.

7Apr13 -

     Been trusting Joe off leash too much.  He chased down to joggers when I let him loose at D-street.  They were 100-yards away by the time he caught up and began harassing them as they stopped to try to chase him away.
    I watched, helplessly, but began backing away even further from him.  By the time he noticed, I was near 150-yards away.  Joe did an all-out sprint back to my feet and waited to be hooked up.
     It is way tiring to be pulled the entire run, but he can't be trusted to not chase autos, other joggers, or squirrels.  Today, I walked him prior to my lifting and he found a pile of thrown out ham.  He had the fat and skin wolfed down and carried the jointed bone along.  When he dropped it, he found 3/4 of a loaf of unsliced bread.  Joe carried it and stopped to scarf, until it was gone.  On the way back, he picked up the dropped bone ad carried it home.  One piece is buried and the other is nearly chewed away.

9Apr13 -

     Joe plans an escape whenever anyone holds both storm and inside door open.  "Don't let the dog out!"  stuns people to freeze.  Dog's gone and I'm schooling someone on how to close the door behind you as you open the second.  Joe knows Paleo and he had little trouble hooking Joe up once he'd jumped into the van.  The last cat was a stranger and claimed he was a "dog whisperer, so I tossed him the leash and resumed my skillet fixin's.  There ya go, buddy."
    He did less grabbing and missing than whispering.  Ended up on his knees, trying to snatch Joe off an attack pass.  I've been there; necessary to grab the collar and throw Joe onto his back to hook him to a leash.  It's cam-phoned.

12Apr13 -

     Did my entire run with Joe on-leash, then released him two blocks from the house because it was beginning to rain, so there was little chance to harass anyone outside.  He was gone for over an hour and came back.  Quickest way to get him inside is to prop the door open and put some fresh food in his bowl. Tomorrow I begin the can retrieving lessons outside.  He'll bring tossed cans from all over the house and put them where I ask (in my hand or in a plastic bucket).  Ka-niece sent down most  of an entire chicken carcass, so there will be treats enough for a half-a-rack of cans.

     Age should improve your assessment of females, so settling for less than you were used to, is probably because you feel you are less.  But I can't justify that, since I am quite sure that I'm as good as I've ever gotten; physically, for sure and mentally, still thinking.  I was listening to some radio music and thinking how much better I would be, today, for all my ex's.  If they were alive or available. Obviously, I'm talking myself into having another full-time female  presence in my life and she won't be old. Of course, at seventy-five on the 4th of July, they are all young holes. But it is more than a tad disconcerting when I see chicks I (supposedly) hit on, years ago, who I wouldn't take out today.  Even if they would go.  So, unless someone drops in who one time dropped out just as quickly, shows up out of the blue...I can picture a couple of those, I'll be waving plastic and smiling at all the split-tails.



315 N. New Jersey Avenue
Wellston OH 45692





                                                                  BUSTER

                                                                        by

                                                            M. Harrison Philips




     I was standing in Bob's front yard, saying goodbye for the third or forth time.  He lived on the

outside edge of a tiny Ohio village and had invited me over to see if his Doberman could work with

his beagle and run a rabbit down.  The experiment didn't go so well.  The dogs were secured and we

were finishing another "last" beer when an adult beagle wandered into the yard.  After a quick pet and

a visual check, Bob said, "I think I'll keep him."

     I'm certain I said something about the dog seeming to be a healthy pet, and maybe a mention of

"dog rustling," but Bob simply walked the beagle to a chain in the back and hooked him up.  He answered

my suggesting the dog must belong to somebody with, "That somebody is me."

     Bob is a hunter with Kentucky roots and keeps dogs on the premises.  He named the "lost" dog Buster

and spoke of using him to breed some rabbit dogs to sell.  Most of our conversations were on-break at the

 foundry where we worked 2nd shift.

     "Hey, Phil, you know that dog I chained up while you were over to the house?"

     "Buster?"

     "Man, can he ever hunt!"

     I was reminded of  the time when we were in grade school that my classmate, Terry, invited me to go
rabbit hunting with his grandfather.  The old man drove us and his beagle to some woods. As soon as the
dog jumped a rabbit, the old man stationed us in position to shoot the quarry when the dog tracked it's
circular route.  Terry and I were as green as pool tables and twice as square.  We stood silently with
shotguns ready as the rabbit ran past us.
     "What the hell are you idiots doing?  Don't you know how to shoot those guns?  Jesus Christ, the dog
brought it right past you.  Let's go, you stupid asses don't know shit about hunting."
     Terry and I just looked at each other, made some crazy faces behind the old boy's back, as we loaded
up in the '53 Chevy. We were actually ready to try again, that day, after a few minutes of lecturing  but it was
cold and wet and the old guy was too pissed to fight the elements and our ignorance.
  It was a surprise, after my own early hunting fiasco, when Bob told me about missing a rabbit that Buster
had brought around, twice! He spoke of missing another shot, but I wasn't certain it was the same rabbit.  In
any case, he decided to change shotguns.  Not soon enough for Buster, however.
     Bob came to work with a story about Buster actually catching a rabbit and holding it until Bob
approached.  "The dog rolled his left eye up to see if I was looking, then he turned loose of the rabbit."
     "You surely didn't miss that one?"
     "Ah, man, wouldn't that have been a damned shame?  No, no man, I cut that bunny down with one shot
from that new pump-action I bought.  And that land by the railroad tracks is teeming with rabbits, so I intend
to show Buster that if he keeps bringin' 'em, I'll keep downin' 'em."
     The next time I spoke to Bob, at work, he was quite upset to tell me he'd shot Buster.  He explained he
may have been over-anxious or didn't realize the dog was that close, again.  When I inquired how bad it
was, Bob said Buster had some trouble walking but he didn't think he was carrying any buckshot.
     "Do you think he'll be gun-shy now?"
     "Maybe, I don't know, I just want him better so we can start hunting again."
     Buster recovered and during  the two years Bob and I took some breaks together, he owned many
beagles.  Bought a bitch carrying a litter and kept her as well as four of her pups, and had two or three
others but none compared to Buster.
     Years after our foundry days, I had a brief visit with Bob and he told me about belonging to an Ohio
beagle club.  Buster had won ribbons at field trials against younger hounds.


15May13 -

     Joe hunts for spiders and has cleared them to a height of three or four feet, which is where they all may end up, no matter the higher webs.  I've noticed not hitting an occasional strand while doing one of the night walks to take a whizz.  He has also eliminated any wasp or fly on the inside.  Usually eats them.  But anything buzzing him may suffer his spring quick leap, and he'll take a stinging to put 'em on the ground to paw-pulverize.  Fearless Australian shepherd.
     A suit from the 1st National watched me walking Joe until I ask him what was up?  Had a female Australian shepherd that looked like Joe.  Told me she was 17-years of a great dog, "the smartest." Suggested I de-nut Joe.

   Zimba loved to go with me for a jog.  She would bounce around, getting ready while I was putting on shoes. After a while, she would stay close, off the leash and I assured everybody "She's harmless."  Joe gives not a damn about a jog, all he wants to do is chase, at top speed, with or without me.
   Finally had to fence him in, except when  leashed.  Chases the mailman, canners, squirrels, deer, etc.  He'll get plenty of exercise, but it won't be with me while I'm jogging.  Way easier for me.

Father's Day '13 -

     Jonesey, Joe,Yote, has been re-named, rebuked and reprimanded for most of his first dog year of life. But I've adapted, because he's my dog, and I want him to be well-disciplined and welcome, instead of wolfing and running wild.

     Sixty-years ago, a beautiful blond two grades behind me seduced me with simple ploys.  She snatched my blue toboggan and skated away at the local rink.  When she returned it, I was red and silent as she pulled it onto my crew-cut.
     I had a buddy who had his driver's license and access to the new family vehicle which he helped with the engine/transmission order, a sporty-fast '55 Plymouth.  I was still passing newspapers.  He was giving rides to the blond and her younger, dark-haired cousin. He pulled to the curb beside where I was preparing my papers to go on my route. He asked me to go for a ride and he'd bring me back in time to pass them.
     I got into the back seat with the blond.  She was a model body in a two piece thing made from two red bandannas.  I squeezed into a corner of the seat and she took up all the rest with tanned legs, arms and torso. My buddy was riding with the super close cousin, dressed in the identical handkerchiefs.  She wanted to drive, so they switched as soon as we were out of town. They were pinching and grabbing at each other while the car was flying along and I was a stiff as a statue.
     She was too beautiful to touch, even if I had the first idea about how to go about it, even though she was stirring around anxiously. Suddenly, the brakes were slammed as the car was stopped for a tortoise in the road.  I hurriedly exited, picked it up and returned to the back seat.
      I held the hard shell in both hands, using it as a means to ward off advances. The only thing I remember her saying was "You have a shell around you like that turtle.
       When I was returned to the curb, my buddy was still grinning a mile and the scantily clad lasses smiled and waved goodbye.
     I saw those girls many times afterwards, usually with the same buddy, and they always caused a stir.  For a short time, some peers believed I belonged to the blond and one of the first official dates was with a girl who asked the blond if it would be alright to ask me to a Sadie Hawkins dance.
     That's it.  My entire experience with that blond. Few years have passed when I didn't review that day in the back seat of that Plymouth.  It was a premature love jolt which never left me.
     I was gone from our hometown for thirty-five years, military, marriage and managing a family of four kids.  Never forgot her.  Twelve years in California with a beautiful blond second wife.  Never forgot her.  Twelve years as a vagabond.  Never forgot her.  Moved back to our hometown and bought a house fifteen years ago.  Never forgot her.
     In time, I became acquainted with her daughter, brother-in-law, cousins, nieces, nephews, son-in-law and son.  I bugged them all about re-introducing her to me but they all discouraged it.  I was too far back in her history, I guess.
     Recently, I attended the showing of her deceased son, a young dude I met late in his life, primarily at the party house of a friend of my girlfriend.  We'd be drinking and toking and I'd ask him about his mom but he always just smiled at the suggestion, since I was with somebody at the time.
      I was standing just away from the casket and his sister approached.  She smiled and I ask about her mom.  She nodded in a direction and said, "Here's my mom, doesn't she look good?"
        She walked to near my side, but was talking to another lady.  I stood closer than we've ever been together.  The conversation with the other lady seemed to be extended, but I stayed perfectly still, except with a couple glances at her daughter who was smiling and waiting, also.
      Unable to wait any longer than the sixty-years, I interrupted her and began my tale about how long I'd been back and still hadn't been able to arrange a face-to-face meeting.
      "You know who I am, right?"
      "Yes, I know who you are, I never forget a face, just names."
      All she knows about me is by the letters I write to the local editor. I talked to the other woman and had to tell her about my lifetime of infatuation.  She said it's never too late. All I can say is I want to get a new phone.

Jun 20 -

     Somewhere in this blog is my idea about home baked whole wheat bread.  Forget it all, except for the actual baking part. Sour dough as a leavening is far superior to yeast rise bread. I was hipped to it by an NPR station feature. A cup of starter for each package of yeast is the recipe substitute. Starter is simply equal parts water and flour left for a few days to sour.  I had excellent results first try.        
         
 25 Jun -

     I park my bike in front to leave the yard without my dog knowing.  Yote is in an enclosure at the other end of the house. He usually hears me and barks a high pitched cry.  Yesterday, I left to get gasoline for the mower.  By the time I'd gone to the other side of the block, my dog was already to the intersection, flying low.  He got in front of me but I saw the light change a block ahead and pedaled in 10th to get through the intersection.  Yodi was waiting and tried to block my way but I cranked on and turned left at the next intersection.
    The race was on, he was keeping up and then raced ahead to attack an automobile.  An older female driver stopped in the middle of the 4-way stop when my dog barked and bit at her front tire.  She turned her head to the right to  look at me as Yodi jumped up on to her driver's side door and looked straight through to me.  For an instant, the shocked expression inquiring about the dog was backed up by Yodi's face. She never saw the dog until he ran after me as I went behind the car.
     I pulled into the gas pump and leaned my bike against the post guard.  Yodi never slowed at the busiest intersection in town.  Chased a car and two trucks, that I saw, then dashed after me after I got a gallon and rode off.  Once home, Yodi emersed himself in the bathtub pond and has been limping around ever since.    
     I still do not know how he escaped this last time.

26 Jun -

     The father figure in my life is my maternal grandfather.  I say "is" even though he has long passed because I think often of how he would have lived my life. From birth to death, he was under the influence of one or more females.  Except for the hours he spent in manual labor jobs, a woman or women ruled his every waking minute.  The same held true for me, until I bought another house.  Since then, there has never been a full-time female presence in my home.  For nearly a decade, I claim no full-time female friend.
     Of course, no chick who has observed my strictly bachelor quarters of minimum creature comforts (queen waterbed excepted)  and non-stop party atmosphere immersed in loud music, has shown any inclination to move in.  Fact is, I'm not even seeing anyone.  However, as was the old boy's want, I attempt to be truly civilized in the presence of any lady I'm mentally checking out.
     Grandpa always planted a garden.  Everything harvested was prepared by a wife and daughters.  I prepare all my food and Grandpa never had fresh stuff from his garden which would come even close to my iron skillet beans and greens fixin's.  In his time, most all the main nutrients in food was cooked away in big steam boiling.  Corn, green beans, carrots, potatoes...overcooked but totally delicious, to our uneducated tastes, due to the meat base.
     Meat and potato fare was supposedly the way to good health.  Grandpa ate three meals every day.  He finally began preparing his own breakfast after he was taught how to cook oatmeal by a wife who had discovered late night TV and retired long after his 10 o'clock bedtime. He walked home to eat what we called "dinner."  He shared the table with kids coming home from school for the half-hour break. In the evening, we ate "supper."   Nobody consumed more than Grandpa and everyone was encouraged to fill a plate and empty it.  The wife, the daughters, the grand-kids he took in, all gained weight and tried to cut back, but Grandpa stayed horse-whip thin, even with his penchant for answering his wife's request for dessert (Grandpa insisted on a meal-ending dessert), "Pie or cake, Ernest?"
     "I believe I'll have both, Polly."
     There is no pie or cake in my house.  There is no commercially prepared confections. There's sugar, powdered milk and cocoa powder. My sugar fixes entail mixing these three, dry, and eating with a spoon. However, I heat water and mix the three for a chocolate drink many times during the day.

6Jul13 -

     Decided to keep Coyote Joe and begin serious training as a go-anywhere dog or one which can be left alone when I go alone.  This means 24/7 with me, inside or on a leash when I go. As Bill said when I complained about the Yote cutting into me social life.  He is your social life.
     The enclosure I constructed was wasted effort.

17Jul13 -

    I've given up on Yote (Joe) two or three more times during the past 10 days, but figured someone would eventually get a damned good dog, so I claim him as mine. Took awhile to figure the reason he kept running away was to go home, up the hill for a block, back to K-niece, whose name his tag is in.  Plus her neighbor who feeds the dog whenever he comes begging.
     He doesn't get loose to run, or hasn't for about four days.  When I do loose him, it is on vacant land, away from my house, so he has nowhere else to go but back to the leash.  He has a peculiar sequence he goes through.
     First he turns towards me and gets low to the ground.  Then he dashes on a fast path directly at me, before veering away at the last step, makes a pass by me to turn and come back again. Most times, he stands for the hook-up.  Other times, he bites at my shoes and cuffs, as if trying to keep me in place. He may get carried away and have to be commanded to stop.
     His favorite chase is birds in the low trees, as soon as he is freed. Mostly robins and mocking birds, which fly from tree to tree, screaming back at his barking. There's also a mud hole, nearby, which he never misses, getting in as deep as the level.  His black dust mop hair soaks debris and dirt, then dries clean as nylon thread.
   
     Been knowing this cat from my lake runs and he invites me to go kayaking with him at Lake Alma.  What about the dog?  Bring him.  Yote has only been over his head in water, twice, and that's on leash. He's a bit of a panic swimmer.  But I'd never kayaked, either.  Anj picks me up in a GMC pickup with a kayak and another board on board.  Yote needed no coaxing to get into the back seat.
     I held the dog on leash, as the gear was unloaded and I was handed a life vest.  After deciding the kayak would work better for me to begin with, I handed over the leash and tried to fit.  Legs too long for the needed adjustment.  I hung my legs over the side and paddled ahead.  Yote tried to follow and Anj let him swim, on leash, pulling the over sized surf board, as he knelt on it.  When Yote tired out, he hauled him aboard and Yote was as still as a pro, as Anj stood and followed me to the island, using the long stand up paddle.
    Since the bridge to the island has been closed for five or more years, I've often wondered if the last beaver lodge to escape the trappers was still active. Beaver and muskrat have been trapped away.
     We returned to the beach and Anj instructed me on the use of the big board.  I tried it as he and Yote lay around in the shallow water.  A forever day, for sure.

   Not unlike today, which ended with that Nazi kike friend of mine, enticing me to go see Krebs, who already said he had to work, tomorrow and wasn't staying up late. Took Joe-yote and sprang for a half-a-rack of Miller Old Milwaukee Best Ice-5.9% alcohol.  Two young holes there, and they split in a hurry after I show.  N-k has already busted the pack and offering around. Yote announces the Seth and shortly thereafter begins whining behind being tangled in his leash tied to the front porch.
....so, I'm leaving for home with my dog, finishing my second brew.  I unhooked him.  Within a block, I'd emptied the can, crushed it, picked two apples off a tree...Yote found some high weeds across from a cops house and took a late night dump.
     I went up the steps at the A Street entrance to the town founder's crib.  Sat on the porch and talked Yote into coming for a hookup.  Then I remembered I'd left my wallet behind the visor and walked back to get it. Went inside, got another beer and said goodbye.  Wasn't home a second when Joe Yote broke past the storm door and split.  Wonder if this is home, yet. I'm crashing, gotta run tomorrow.  Wherever he is, he's going to Alma.

      At this age, it becomes too obvious that active olders are scary to young world-in-the-palm-of-their -hands chicks.  Trouble is, they're all chicks; 8 to 80, blind, crippled, cross-eyed or crazy.  And the young hard-legs all come talking about how they hope they're in as good as shape when they are my age, as if I just began my regimen last week. I don't mind outliving pets, but outliving young friends is worse.  The older one gets the more obvious it becomes that one must continue on one's own. You wait for assistance, you keep waiting until you are gone. Get up, tell 'em to get off your back and allow you to move past "right around here" as Grandma Florence used to say while twirling her hand in a circular motion in front of her.

21Jul13 -

      Zimba would stalk a rabbit in the yard, get close enough to faint a leap, then run after the fleeing bunny. She could hot track and sight chase for the full circle the quarry would travel.  In high weeds, she would run on her back legs, head up to see any movement. She never caught one, to my knowledge, but was really into the stalk-and-chase.
      This morning, I watched Yote-Joe jump a rabbit and chased it down in the weeds.  I called him off, but he'd already had it in his teeth and tossed it to flip circles in the air until it was barely panting when I leashed the dog and led him away.  We were fifty yards away when I unleashed him.  He immediately ran back to the catch.  I kept walking and Yote stayed behind.  When I was some distance away, whistling and calling, he would flip, carry, chew on and soak it in a mud puddle.  Finally, I went back and hooked him up, but he never loosed the rabbit.  After carrying it for a ways, he stopped and began eating.  From back to front, "lucky" feet to eyes and ears, Yote devoured the entire carcass.  It was as wild an event as I've seen in a while.

26Jul13 -

     Deconstructed my 7-ft cube greenhouse.  Paleo said it was the perfect southeast facing construction which early man preferred in a cave opening.  Cookie said it was a work of art. It was partial walls of 2X4's and salvaged house windows in wood frames, all screwed together, sans any sunken posts.  Lots of glass has been shattered by wind and recklessness but I kept accumulating more old windows so there is enough to enlarge the next greenhouse project.  Had to work around two large wasp clusters until everything was down and on the ground.

2Aug13 -

     Lots of wood from the pine and apple I felled plus scrap from projects, so I've been burning in my open, stone half-circle fire pit at the edge of my garden.  For the most part, at night, and getting one started in damp, just rained weather is a fun challenge.  The closest neighbor to the fire cares not a tad and offered me  beer from a pickup bed cooler, one night.  Tonight, while mesmerized by the flame and coals, I felt like back on the Shoaitie, in Humboldt County; eighty-acres, California.  Same stars above, same warmth, same alone and same company, a black dog.  On Horse Mountain Road it was a male Lab/Golden Retriever that I was holding for Kevin Forrest while he was at Lake Mead with the Dept of Forestry.  Tonight it was Yote Joe, an Australian Shepherd stud's pup that I took over for a relative after the mutt began terrorizing our neighborhood.  Seamus was free to roam, in the woods or in town (Eureka, CA).  Yote is confined to a line all the time, keeps racing to go back "home" whenever he's loose.  Has snapped two chains.
      Seamus was totally trained and sociable with people and their pets.  Yote has attacked cars, trucks, mail carriers, canners, motorcycles and bikes.

6Aug13 -

     HaWK was talking to an ex-cop about the time he was driving Cactus's car and Fast Eddie asked for a ride home from Bailey's.  HaWK said sure, if Eddie would drive.  They got stopped, HaWK with pot and Eddie ends up arrested and locked on a drunk driving charge.  HaWK had to call The Sweet Baboo to come to the station and pick him up, since he was too intoxicated to walk away.  While Eddie was being booked, HaWK put the bag of reefer under the candy wrappers overflowing an ash can.
      The next morning was pouring rain and HaWK, The Sweet Baboo and Cactus were discussing the evening before.  The car was impounded and they were thinking of ways to get it released when HaWK remembered the pot.  He dressed in a jogging outfit and dashed out the door.  He ran to the police dispatcher and checked the ash can.  Still full of candy wrappers.  He talked to the dispatcher about getting the car released and when given information, he thanked him, backed away long enough for the dispatcher to turn his back, grabbed the marijuana from beneath the trash and dashed back to the apartment to the shock and surprise from the other two.  All three were friends, years younger, The Sweet Baboo, Cactus, Fast Eddie,  This story may as well be fiction because all the others who can verify it are dead. And I was old when they first met me.

11Aug13 -

     Started researching the possibility of recovering muscle mass after the loss years that begin after age 30.  The weightlifters very definitely believe the loss can be slowed or even reversed.  With volumes of high protein diet and supplements...plus iron.
     Probably have to up my workout to more than one set and egg white consumption into the dozens per week instead of two a day.  Oats will become double the amount I now use in my 2nd meal of three.  And the three will probably increase also, towards 5 or 6 a day.
     Since I've stripped myself down to a stringy 160, any mass change will be visible early.

     Many of us will devour an entire plate of food and barely be aware of masticating.  However, after coaxing a bit of leftover from teeth or gums via sucking or tonguing , we will move it about the inside of our mouth, trying to maneuver it between two biting surfaces to chew like the last bite on earth.  We'd do well to grind every mouthful so completely.

22Aug13 -

     They called it "the Dinky."  It was a small engine train which took passengers from the depot to a path along the track where the Lake Hope group disembarked.  The path led to just below the dam with access to the change rooms and down the wooden steps to the beach.
     Entire families would make a day of it, catching the train, spending the day, then walking back to load up and come home.
     Preparations began early and once the water was off, so we couldn't bathe and there was a trauma about "stinking up the train," but we were going to be in water all day, so the return trip was taken care of.  Besides, there were food baskets to prepare for a hungry bunch day at the lake and suits and towels to keep track of.

     The train and track are gone, replaced by a paved "bike path."  It's two blocks from home and I use a portion of it to walk my dog. The depot is still standing but no tracks run close enough to board directly from the brick platform entry. Recently, I watched a blond dressed in beach whites spraying Roundup on the bricks from a high pressure utility rig.  Due to lack of use, some thin grass is squeezing up around some of the bricks and she's beautifying the city.

     It  the Dinky days, there was an entire train yard and maintenance building.  There was lots of traffic, with a crossing guard and boxcars lined up for blocks in a section where there were no cross streets.  Yote chases rabbits, feral cats and deer in that area, now.  I was walking the ties and trying to balance on a rail when I remembered walking from our house to grandma's.  The street ended at the tracks and there was a long line of waiting boxcars.  Mom wanted to climb between them and offered to help me (I was about five) but I was afraid the train would start and trap me. She couldn't change my mind, so we walked ten cars away from the shortcut.

24Aug13 -

     At the "orphanage" where I lived until college, there was a field of sweet corn every year.  And when it was ready, the cauldrons of  boiling water were filled and the roasting ears served with butter and salt.  Grandpa's crop was unmatched and once a son-in-law of his topped off at 13 off -the-cobs after already consuming a large meal.
     Sweet corn is a fading taste. As soon as it's off the stalk, the "sugar" begins turning to starch.  The quicker it is cooked and consumed, the sweeter.  The sweetest is stalled quickly with a session in a 'wave for 5:55.  Then slathered with butter.  Skip the salt, enjoy all the sweet side.
     The microwave is an advantage Ernest didn't have, but dropped in boiling water, immediately after shucking still saved most of the sugar change.  However, his crop was all at once vs my three different patches planted at sequential times.  I did three off my second patch, today, and all it brought me was memories of his, but not this late in August.
     Zimba used to nibble the corn off, but this Joe Yote eats the cob and all.

29Aug13 -

     
     Yote slipped his collar on the run, today, and went after a Siberian Husky, leash harnessed by a friend of mine. These two canines were balls to balls and jaws to jaws, in a serious heart ripping fight.  The other owner was holding on with both hands but couldn't restrain his attacker.  I was trying to get close enough to  a loop around Yote's neck but it would have been sticking a finger in a blender.  I finally did get a leg and tried to pull Yote away but he continued to battle. I decided the only way to end it was to leave and hope my dog followed.
     I was fifty yards away before he answered my calls and stopped biting, then he broke away from the other dog's mounting grip and ran to be re-collared.  His mouth was full of blood, but no other signs of a skirmish. I understand the other dog has some open wounds.

8Sep13 -

     Growing old.  How does one grow an "old?"  I am growing an old.  Old me.  I have the regimen and the recipe.  And it is free.
    To begin with, growing old is like life insurance, i.e., the sooner you get in (buy), the better the odds of getting the premiums back, or a paid-up policy. The younger you begin, the better the end result.  Beginning younger certainly is one-up on growing older.
     However, you may be like me, old already (70+, it's in the blog), and wondering how difficult it is to be able at 80?  And, perhaps, beyond.
     It can not be done on professionally prepared food, unless you have a personal chef.  And a diet of meat will shorten your lifespan, so forget growing an old main-meal-is-meat eater.
     Exercise can begin as a daily requirement at any age.  For the most part, it begins way early and ends too early.  People in their prime will hone their bodies and minds to an athletic endeavor mentality, then begin to slow down after the sports seasons end. The very time they should be developing a workout to continue throughout the rest of their lives. Obviously, athletes deteriorate faster, due to the stresses and strains of their game, which inhibits the daily physical effort of staying in shape, afterwards.
    Well, as I told my high school football coach at a 50-year reunion, after watching the star athletes struggling, "I'm glad I didn't go 100% all the time."

      Exercise must not be interfered with by jobs, tv, cell phone, tiredness or whatever excuse you place ahead of exercise.  Excuse before exercise should only happen in the dictionary. I don't care what your living profession is, it isn't enough energy exertion to keep you in shape. There's an hour somewhere in your daily 24 to devote to yourself, your mind, your body. Your growing old.  You're growing an old.

     Diet must not be interfered with by what you are probably consuming on a yearly basis, grease, sugar, empty carbs, animal fat, artificial sweeteners and flavors, flour dust pastries and bread.  You don't chew and swallow, but wash bites down with an icy drink of something.  Water is the last consideration, except for plastic bottles which are tossed with most of the liquid after the chill is off.

     Must admit I forget when I fit all of the above.
      I do remember the first time I concentrated on getting 'in shape."  I'd gotten a DUI and lost my license, so I began jogging to work.  It was about 15-blocks.  I took two apples for lunch, stopped at the YMCA on the way home from work to lift weights and walked home to a meal of meat and potatoes. I was in my early-thirties and stripped to 160 lbs on a 6-ft. frame. That size has been sort of a benchmark, since then,   Not until I became a serious daily jogger who ate volumes of everything, especially sweets and ice cream, did I maintain that weight.

      I've always been concerned about being overweight.  I played ball at 190, but was never really in shape.  Most of my life, my appetite exceeded what I needed.  I wasn't aware that weight can be controlled by constant attention to details over a span of time. Your genes do not want you to designate these details and delegate the hour each day to develop them.  Your genes like you old and then older and then gone.  They do not fear death by your demise.  In fact, after your reproductive time, they hasten it with constant reminders; pains of simple strains, slips and unsteadiness.

24Sep13 -


     If you last long enough, evolution will become more evident on a personal basis, as you, yourself, evolve.  Almost to the man, or woman, old brings out the best attitudes, and conflicts about the present or near future evaporate in  "I'm sorry, I just don't care anymore, life's too short."

     My Grandfather, on my mother's side, could set a rodent trap so "dear" that none escaped with bait.
For mice he used a plain wood base Victor with a finger-numbing spring powered catcher.  I'd watch as he pulled against the spring to set the bar across to the bait holder.  The design latch was the curved end which held to the bait section.  Moving the bait would slide the bar loose, releasing the 90-degree arc with a neck-braking snap.  The more evolved mice could eat the bait and never move the locking device to trip the trap. In fact, the trap was made to set easily with about 1/16-inch of "play" so the process would not result in accidentally pinched fingers.   Grandpa taught that this should be reduced to way less than recommended, until the release bar was held by a shadow distance from the edge.
   The slightest vibration would trip the trap, so setting it down was a no-bump slide to place on a mouse path or hole. I remember listening in the dark, with the radio on, for the startling sound of metal crashing into wood.  Sometimes the trap would flip over with the mouse intact. From those days until very recently, I could rid a house of every mouse with a couple Victors.
     I still have an old trap.  And mice.

10Oct13 -

     My personal evolution allowed the mice to stay.  I knew my advantage, so I made a silent pact about where they leave their pellets.  The reason is to have a ready energy source in case this chosen nesting site runs so low on food, the babies are starving.  Rats do the same thing, which only adds to their dirtiness.
     No pellets on my stove and two counter spaces.  I was aware where most of the activity was and allowed them to feed from my compost bucket. It worked.  For awhile. Then I discovered trails in the dish towel drawer and another drawer with dog food.  I reverted back to early days and have caught three, so far. The last one almost backed out in time but was caught by both front paws.  Shock killed him as quickly as if the metal pinched his neck.

  Personal evolution stalled.  Similar to the Republican Party.  They have stalled the economic evolution of their country.  All evolution has stallers, people or animals or wildlife which misses the advantage of evolving to a higher order.  Maintaining too old vs trying the new. This assures the process of evolution is slow, deliberate and encouraging revolutionary action.  The kids will always try to prove their ancestors as relics, old-fashioned, un-hip.

23Oct13 -

     Been sans a phone since Frontier fucked up my change over from land line to strictly Internet.  They disconnected the phone but never showed up to do a wireless hookup to Internet.  I went with a cable connection and the price just went up to $46.00 per mo.  The phone will be just in time to cancel Time Warner. It's a free "lifeline" wireless.  Same income verification land line Frontier got from Verizon.  Actually, Verizon dumped the land lines on Frontier.
     7th Street Bill just dropped off some produce from his garden.  Christmas pole Lima beans, sweet potato, green peppers, apples and two potatoes.  Jug has been mushrooming because I know which to eat.  I keep telling him I can walk a half-block and gather all I need, but he brings me half a plastic grocery bags with varieties to clean up.  Chanterelle and small puffballs have been in my stir fry dishes for a month.

17Apr14 -

     Half-a-year since I've been here and now it's the beginning of 'shroom season again.  Been mostly cold with one or two warm nights for the fungus to grow.

18Apr14 -


    E-mailed the magic-flight people about "testing" their vaporizer.  It's a battery powered pot box and the process requires a steady draw, which seems to burn through screens.  The company provided a new one both times mine burnt a hole. It's an enclosed contraption which doesn't allow for changing screens like dry or water pipes.
     My personal take on vaporizers is that they are gimmicks.  Joints and pipes are full effect hits and nothing matches the buzz, be it breathtaking or skull hollowing.  Trash weed is less potent, no matter how you fire it.  "Toast 'em" as The Splib used to say.  Match or lighter directly to the herb and suck it in.  Simplicity satisfies.  This should be in my Pot post, but it's in The Book.

     My "old" seems to be showing up too often, lately.  I be causin' cuts and bruises like a kid who never knew better or had no experience handling blades and drivers.  All at a time when I am as physically able to handle (Looking for a better handle on life) as any time in the past. 
     Since beginning my quest to add muscle mass faster than I'm losing it, I've gained 12 pounds.  I can see it.  My shoulders and arms and chest are defined be more muscle than I've ever shown.  But even at my bulkiest, I had no measurements like now.  I am a bodybuilder.  My runs are just preparation for the next day of lifting.  I look forward to cramming high protein food that I prepare.  I do not eat out.  I couldn't afford for somebody else to fix what I feast on.  Can barely afford it myself.

     Point is, things still get out of hand because I neglect to secure my immediate surroundings, not paying strict attention to details.
     Of course, some things are cumulative, so I don't envision the result.  Like keeping my dog chained, then being upset when he barks at mail delivery, kids on bikes, neighbor kids, other dogs.  But, I chain him, come inside, then have to dash out and "correct" him by being aggressive, which he returns.  However, the long chain is the only way to keep him from dashing away and ending up in the neighborhood he came to me from, which is a mere two blocks away.
     Do not adopt a dog which has an established territory close by.
    

   24Apr14 -

     Now I realize I made decisions which were counter to what I had in mind for Joe-Yote  when I adopted him so soon after losing Zimba.  She was trained to the point of allowing her to roam freely.  She dumped her doo-doo on her home grass, but was out of sight many times.  I know, now, that she went up the street to be fed kraut food and was probably invited inside.
     Ironically, Joe-Yote began to run free in the same neighborhood as the kraut and was fed cat food.  So when I brought him to my house, he made a break for the same place to be fed and cooed to.  But he was a running male pup and soon began to draw the ire of other dog owners which brought the cops with complaints. When I met the pup, he would follow the mailman from his 'hood to mine, but as he got older, he began attacking the mailman from his old porch, as well as cars, bikes, or other loud engines like motorcycles and lawn mowers.


     26Apr14 -

     Heard these doctors and scientist discussing whether or not playing computer games could slow the old timers mental state. Even spoke of programming games especially designed to strengthen the old gray matter.

                                       T'ic, Tac, Toe...

The only game I know
Just never got into them
Not even pong or donkey kong.

X's and O's, impossible to lose
If one has a first move.
Played with a pencil

Marking on plain paper
Nine squares to fill
Or less with some skill.

Takes two to play, but not while on the way, and attention is focused by both.

     27Apr14 -

     It's been two weeks since the "perfect storm" of events which nearly got Yote iced.
     The nearest neighbors were enjoying the first day sunny and mild enough to be outside.  The couple was working on a  dyi hardwood table and their 7-yr old daughter was practicing on a 1st two-wheeler.  Knowing the dog's aggressive barks would be continuous as long as the bike or the kid was moving, I kept him inside, instead of chained outside.
     The family action was in the center of the block and the bike ride was a coast to the south of my west facing windows. Then she moved east and began the coast from just outside my south-facing back door. By then, Yote was aware she was there and was racing upstairs, then down, to try to get a closer look.  He was standing and pushing on the storm door.  I pulled him back, locked the latch and turned to hook him up.
    He hit the door head first, loosed the top hinge enough to slip the lock and charged out.  By the time I turned he had knocked her over, came around the front of the downed bike, barked and bit at her shoes.  She kicked and screamed and he nipped her ankle.  By the time I got to him, he was moving onto her body.
     I remember thinking I had to remove him without anymore harm to her.  Somebody will have to tell me how I did it.  I was on the ground, attempting to restrain him but he got loose by torquing my left ring finger.  He continued the chase until the father heaved a power stapler at him.

    2May14 -

      The mother was holding her crying, bleeding child, the father was retrieving his stapler as I walked into the scene.  My dog was walking up the driveway from the south, ahead of two neighbor men familiar with Yote.  He stopped when I ordered and I leashed him, assuring the two, "He has to be put down," and continued to the house. The four adults and and the child went inside the neighbor's house and I walked the bike to their back door.
     When I returned home, I stood outside for some time, contemplating ending the dog's days.  After awhile, the father walks up, explaining that nobody, not his wife or the girl, was blaming me.  I told him my sick feeling about it all and that I didn't have a way to kill the dog.  He said he'd do it.  When I told him I didn't want to bury Yote on my property, he offered to take care of that, also. Just let me know when you want to do it. He questioned whether the dog would go with him and I said I'd go along.

5May14 -

     A friend has returned my dog to me on many occasions during those first months when Joe Coyote bolted away to his old 'hood.  Sometimes I told him to keep him, since he lives close to where the dog runs to.   Once, he did keep him.   Even had him tied in his back yard.  But the dog went into a funk and he begged me to take the dog back.  There are times when he was as frustrated with the pup as I was.  Plus he is an old friend of the father of the child.  He showed up right on time and I told him the story.  He left and came back very soon with a shotgun and a shell.  Then he went to talk to the father.
     He explained the law pertaining to the rabies procedure after a dog bite. The dog must be quarantined for 7-10 days to monitor its life. If the animal is killed prior to the quarantine period, the head must be severed and frozen for health department investigation.  Cooler heads prevailed and my friend returned to tell me that nobody was going to shoot Yote. The next day I was visited by the dog warden, called by the health department and had a followup from a city policeman.

6May14 -

    Thus began an entirely different relationship between the dog and me.  For the ten days of quarantine, Yote was with me inside the house and on a leash outside.  It was more continuous hours together since I acquired the dog. I was on edge to prevent another incident.  I notified the health department that the dog was still alive. The I made an appointment with a vet whose office was within walking distance.  A rabies shot was another health department order. It was raining until we were almost there.
     Neutering was also requested and scheduled.  I was told I'd be called and jogged home. It seemed a short amount of time had passed when they called that Yote was ready. At the office, about fifteen minutes was required to hear all the instructions and take care of the charges.
     I heard Yote yelping and when the door opened, he was trying to be led with a Queen Elizabeth funnel fastened to his collar.  I told him to come on and took the leash.  He was groggy and confused but made a growl pass at two young  doberman pups on the way to the door.
     I was carrying an umbrella and within a couple blocks it began raining.  Fortunately, most of the way home was via a bike path.  After awhile, I removed the plastic collar and held it in the umbrella hand, while leading the miserable dog with the other hand.  It was long walk home.
     There are no doubt canines which require measures to be taken to hasten the healing of the incision to neuter. The Elizabethan collar may be required to keep a dogs teeth and tongue away from the wound.  A quiet place alone may be required of some dogs, for the first week, or so, to keep them from splitting the stitches.  Keeping a patient from jumping or running stairs may be possible for some dogs.
     I removed the collar early, put it back on but it seemed too much of a hindrance and he would only keep trying to remove it, so it was taken off.  I could keep him from licking with a "no lick" command and he didn't like the taste of the antibiotic spray

8May14 -

   Yote is not a good patient and I'm too impatient, so the stitches had to hold.  It was a week, yesterday, since his visit and we did the donut run, this morning.  I even allowed him to run and scoop in the knee-deep water at the beach.  He tries to pull me in and it's a tug to stay at the edge of the sand.  He's never been off-leash outside since the incident.
     Which reminds me of those stiff leash-collar glow-in-the-dark novelties I used to see at rock concerts.  I'm bee buzzin' like a band saw and someone would lead one through the crowd.  It was someone leading a dog and I could see it, though it was a dark dog being walked through a shadowy group. It was all in my mind.  There was no mutt.  But the initial reaction was there was
    Yote dumps about three blocks into a run.  His preferred spots are in the weeds and undergrowth along the running path.  I'm sure I appear as to be holding an empty leash stretched taut, like those outdoor concert freaks four or five decades ago.
     It's obvious, this has become a dog blog.

12May14 -

 
     Robot dogs?   While watching my dog nap, stretched out and still, I imagine him in terms of a robot.   Battery operated, covered with an artificial hairy coat, resting most of the day and night.  A dog that would jump, run, sit, bark and lie down with a soft voice command.  No feeding (just recharging), no wet, no chunks, no exercise required.  No curling up on beds or furniture.
     Sounds so good, they're probably already available.  Plus, if you already own a well-disciplined canine, you could get a robot dog, no threat companion, for your live one.
     Robot cats would be a much better pet.
But later for that...20May14 Yote pulls towards rustle off island path.  I investigate which puts him closer and he attacks.  It's a young robin, hanging upside down, tangled in a wad of fishing line.  It's a steep bank, I order the dog off and sit while I reach for the bird.  It immediately bites my index finger.  I needed reading glasses to see the loop and kept getting tension while working, then the dog bolts towards an armada of geese.  Ended up biting through the string to free the robin (with a loop of line still dangling) and then it released its beak from my finger and flew away.  Noticed blood on the grasp hand before I was aware of the thorn cut.  I have two nests of robins at the east and west side of the house.  Plus a house of Carolina wrens and cardinal nest in the hawthorn.

     A cat would upset this balance.  Any cat.  They stalk birds and they kill many.  But they rarely eat them, or anything else a cat may stalk and kill, such as rabbits, rats, mice, moles, snakes, crickets, grasshoppers and butterflies.  It's no secret, house cats, pound-for-pound are the number one killer in animals.
     So a cat robot would be perfect. A ball of fur which rests, stretches, curls up again.  The purr would vibrate with petting.  No litter box, no picky appetite, no reason to be outside killing smaller prey.

14Jun14 -

     Yote managed to extend the leash to catch and kill a baby Carolina wren in the cellar entrance.  While cutting the hole from the doughnut run, a pale gold goose appeared on the path ahead.  It was immature and flightless, so I figured it would head into the lake.  Instead, it went into the underbrush, probably attempting to get to a nest.  It stopped too soon and Yote had it in his jaws.  I short-leashed him and told him to drop it.  He did, but as soon as I reached for it, he snatched it and finished it off.  He wanted to carry it away, but I wasn't ready for one of his carnivore raw meat gorges.
     The neutering didn't lessen his aggressiveness directed towards other dogs. Might be a tad deferential towards me.  Still totally on guard at every door slam or visitors.  I usually put him on the leash when anyone comes inside.

15Jun14 -

     Couple of decades ago, Andy called and told me his new daughter had cf.  He explained cystic fibrosis to me and I could offer only sympathy, although I couldn't honestly relate, since I had four daughters and all were healthy.  I'd only heard of one other cf child and assumed the worst but wasn't close enough to the father to followup.
       A few years later, I was a vagabond (homeless, jobless and penniless) and called on Andy.  He and his wife allowed me to hang around, as they were both working full-time jobs and farming a couple hundred acres of corn and beans.  There was plenty to do to work off my r&b.
     In addition to Sarah, there was another daughter, Calista.  The workload schedule was hectic.  Added to it was the constant cf care for Sarah.  Everything she consumed had to be preceded with a huge pig enzyme pill for proper digestion of her food. She couldn't snack, so mealtimes were a cram session of pills and persuasion by parents.
    At some point, I found a way to encourage her to finish her plate.  I told her dad it was "easy beans."  I called her Easy Beans.  Calista had no restrictions and a healthy appetite.  I called her Lo Cal.
     There were strictly scheduled sessions of Sarah being prone and her mother pounding on the kid's back with enough force to loosen buildup in the lungs.
     I was told that Sarah had been made aware that her life was destined to be shortened.  She knew the enzymes were important and she suffered the "beatings" although it was a challenge to settle Sarah into the routine every morning.  There was no outward appearance of her illness.  She was active with a mischievous smile.  In deference to my age, she was told to refer to me as Mr. Maxx.  I went with her father to watch her dance class.  When Miss Vicky ask about me, Sarah told her, "That's Mr. Maxx, he lives in his car."  Everything I owned was in my 1978 Chevy Monza hatchback wagon, so even though it was true, we laughed about it.

17Jun14 -

     I sat with her on occasions.  Once she locked Lo Cal in a bedroom and I had to crawl through a window to get in to open the door.  She ran through a stake line string after a warning and I smacked her ass on the run, then went back to the fence job. Somewhere in this blog is a poem she made up.
     
     I was an every day runner, at the time, and she showed an interest.  After questioning her mother about the possibility of Sarah doing some short runs with me, I was told it was definitely a good idea for her condition. At age six, she and I were entered in a 5k race.  After we caught up with some walkers, she lost interest and slowed.  But she finished and received a special medal.
    After I left the farm, Sarah kept beating the odds.  She had a car, a cashier job and a boy friend by the time she finished high school.  She graduated from college and is getting married.
     I recall her father telling me about a county queen contest she won and her excellent ability on a horse. The last time I saw her, she'd had a back problem which required a metal rod to correct.  Everyone around her seems to be slumping.  The "beatings" are replaced by an electric vibrating vest.
     Sarah is the only cf sufferer I've been personally able to observe.  Some children are special in spite of cruel odds.  I saw parents who softened the disadvantage by always rolling the dice to win.

25Jun14  -

     The USA feels obligated to send armies to foreign lands to keep "over there" from coming "over here."
     Why does the country with the best possible geographical position (maintained borders to the north and south plus oceans at each end) on earth feel so frightened?
     This paranoia of being invaded by anybody and everybody did not begin with 911.  It only proved that a small squad of terrorist bent on a world changing attack on its Trading Center in America could alter us all.
     They did it by working under cover of a friendly country, Saudi Arabia.  They learned to fly in Florida but not the landing part of the training.  They criss-crossed the nation over and over again, planning and practicing for years.
    Yet, we were soon convinced to invade Iraq, again, and get rid of a common hoodlum with a bitter cruel army of bodyguards controlling the masses, because he had weapons of mass destruction and threatened us with them. Once he was taken from a hole and hanged, all control in Iraq was lost because we got rid of the military and the bureaucrats.
     911 was still sticking in our psyche, so we went after the engineer Osama Bin Laden.  He was in the mountains in Afghanistan or Pakistan, so troops were sent into Afghanistan and bushel of money (literally) were delivered to Pakistan's president to insure we could chase his down there if necessary.

     In my lifetime, the USA has waged and ended war against Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.  We have sent troops to kill and stop Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and the Godless to prevent them from getting us. Whenever we considered conquering to occupy and rule, the distance seemed to far to add to our land mass.

    We keep an attitude of needing to leave America and curtail enemies plotting against us.  Each generation is almost guaranteed a war to win; by spending vast amounts of citizen money and lives but never gaining anything.  No land, no natural resources, no friends, no new tax base, no end to war-torn families, no peace.

   
     Mexico would welcome an invasion and an end to the border fence bullshit.  Allow Mexico and USA to intermix.  We need more land and they need more protection.  Send some troops and build the four lanes south.  There's already another post for this - Old Mexico 51st State.

18Dec14 -

    Been in this crib for 15-yrs.  Been nursing the gas hot water heater along for past few years by setting temp low enough for showers.  The dial is past low.  Replaced two thermocouples but the third one I've purchased isn't heating to keep pilot on.  I'm replacing with an electric tankless model.  Have to make sure what I'm buying since I'll be doing the installation.

    The gas range I have was free for the hauling.  I replaced a control on it once that I believed to be defective, only to find out I'd hooked it up wrong.  Now, the thermocouple is worn out.  The cool end is different than the water heater in the four-screw cap.  I'm sure It will have to be ordered, if I can get the old one out.  Actually I've been doing without the oven by microwaving a loaf at a time for 16-minutes.  The top burners still work.

     Both these items will eventually be free (if I go electric range) since I have solar panels, inverter and control box to be installed.  That's waiting for the battery, cables and wiring.

     Buncha different shit hit at 76 and doubtless to be cleaned up by 2015.  But I feel physically able to handle it.  Doesn't effect my running, lifting or eating which are just parts of Maxx's Muscle Mass Method.  Old is just as much a buzz as young was.  I'm catching up on Playboy, jug walks in to do a bowl, but prefers to go score something better and returns to speed toke two bowls of not chicana juana.  Then splits.  I get the blog jones and sit down with a 1903 replica bottle of Miller High Life.  Bullshit Loudner drank it when we were in high school.  Said it only takes a dime more to go first class.  I drink Miller Old Milwaukee Best.  It's cheap and 5.9% alcohol.  For the taste, I drink Blue Ribbon.  


   

   


 

   
   
   
   
     

   


    
   



   



   

 

   


       
     
   




       
   


 
           
   


         


  
    



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OWDFO

   Just issue the executive order de-criminalizing marijuana on a federal level.

    Just de-criminalize marijuana on a federal level.

     The government in DC should de-criminalize marijuana.

      What the hell is the holdup, a huge majority want marijuana de-criminalized?!





  My yard signs worked in 2008 and 2012.  As confident as I was with my bar-pounding speeches at the SEB and all, I could have won some large Republican sucker bets. 

    But this old white dude will still be calling for no federal penalties on weed and statehood for Mexico, for the next four years.

    Perhaps I've found my target audience via this blog.  The post that gets the most attention is OLD DUDE STUFF.  So my next post will be THE BOOK ON OLD.







 The United States needs more dirt!  In Obama's second term, we should push for offering Mexico statehood.  Fifty-one, change the flag again. Take down the fence, build a freeway from Canada to Oaxaca, half-way from the present coastlines.  A new frontier to drive to with miles of sandy beaches closer and closer to the equator. 
     Consider all the wars we've fought in every corner of the gobe and never gained an inch of new soil for America.  We don't have to attack and occupy, just have the POTUS e-mail the head of state of Mexico and propose the possibility.  We could act like we attacked it and give the economy a boost like we have everywhere else we "conquered."  Basically, the United States of America is full.  We will increase in population, so we need more space, more land, attached to what we have now.
     I'm the old white dude for Obama.  The fact was documented, in '08, with a 7x2 ft. sign in my yard.  Soon, another will be up, with his logo. 
     Old white dudes are no block of voters which can turn a campaign.  We are usually registered and eligible to cast a ballot.  We know when a POTUS is the real thing because we've seen more than a few.  We know youth has to be served and has to stumble for it's own generation to struggle forward.  We're more likely to be patient with politicians if they stay goal oriented. 
      Once we've acquired any kind of old, we usually have extra bucks we don't spend.  For myself, Barrack Obama is the first candidate I ever kicked down to a campaign for.   Credit card, three times, I think.  I have pictures of the First Man and his family on three different walls. 
     Of course, once you are in with the bucks, the begging for more will be steadily in your emails.  I'll enjoy increasing the amount this round. 

     Many old white dudes still have wives and if they keep the upper hand enough to engage in political discussions, they can have an influence on her choice.  Of course, with Obama, it is is difficult to understand any hip woman who would choose the Republican opposition.
     The secure want to stay secure, all the way to subjugation of the not-so-secure.  The not so secure choose to follow leads to change the entire structure with revolutionary ideas.  Politics.  Social mores. Science. Capitalism.  Conservatives are secure and want to stay that way.  Liberals are not so secure and push for changes for more security.  Simplified, management and labor. Decades of no voice, Arab spring.  Republicans, Democrats.

      Old white dude for Obama may hint of racism but I have a half-white grandson and a half-white granddaughter who haven't commented.  Jump Shot has my ears, so he looks like Barack Obama.  Which brings me to a discussion I had at the SEB, in 2007.   I slammed my hand on the bar and shouted, "Well, he's half white, Danny Lad, maybe that's the part you don't like."  He said, "Maybe so."  
       A response I never expected from someone who still uses the n-word.  For any of you old white dudes who dislike the POTUS because he is half white, that's you, fool, except  you are all white.  Forget the black part and support him half-way, at least. Then vote for that part.  Be an OWDFO.


     A lot of old white dudes do not register to vote because they do not want to be called for jury duty.  So, if an elderly cat needs a jury of his peers in a court case, there won't be a pool of his peers to draw from.  Which means he comes under the scrutiny of a younger person who is registered to vote, and he loses, automatically.  Old, unregistered, no interest person, you guilty.
     If you live in America, you should register to vote so you can be chosen for jury duty. Rights to be cherished and practiced.


      This country can not continue to stay on pace with the world until we are the fittest.   Health care for everyone, cradle to grave.  No free rides because you are so rich you can demand the best care anywhere or because you are so poor you can't possibly pay for intensive hospitalization, so someone else picks up or is stuck with the tab.

     With total coverages comes some control.   People distressed about their weight will not be treated with amphetamines, anti-depression chemicals and diets in a box, with tax money funding.  When complete physical examinations are available on an annual basis, health care will request them.  At that time, the entire country will know how really bad shape we are in.  And the purpose of the system will be to improve on our conditioning.

     Of course, there will be stricter limits on how long we should be plugged in to costly apparatus in order to be "alive."  And everybody will have a better idea of how it will be when it might be time for them to make a decision ahead of their time.

     Obama has done a super job by getting a universal health care law passed and passed muster by the Supreme Court.  For anyone in this country to speak of repealing it is an attitude that is strictly racially motivated.  Most of these people do not want a black man responsible for improving their health, no more than they would go to a black doctor.  The argument about employees being covered by employers, or paying not to, has already been figured into the price of a pizza.  Seven to sixteen cents per pie. You are going to be healthier and you are going to be responsible for getting there.  The cost will not cripple anyone or any one group.

    Old dudes, who have been trying to live longer lives, will have regular physicals and check-ups, and not be concerned about the skyrockets costs since their younger days.  Health records will be accessed in seconds from any location.  Drugs will be controlled more closely, automatically, via computer records.  Prescription addicts will disappear at a huge savings to the government.

     Obama-care.  He didn't name it.  But it fits.

   Got a Republican chick I'm wishing to spend more time with and I went over the OWDFO with her and three or four other dudes, at the American Legion.  I reminded her of those years when we couldn't take a day off from work or routine to go see and doctor because of the cost, and how that will change.  She was hip to what I was saying and a dude at the end of the table said, "I'm an old white dude for Obama."  She broke into laughter and said, "Oh, no."  You may be surrounded, darling.

     There's a lot of old dudes for Obama who smoke marijuana.  Some go way back to times when pot was hot and not taught to be a mind rot.  Back before it hit the top of the cop chop pop.  Before crotches were clutched to see if a bag was in there with nut sacks and appendages.   They know it should be decriminalized on a federal level and allowed let the states vote it in or out.

     The old dudes who don't smoke the weed, are more than aware that anything and everything takes time and when a plan is being diligently pursued, they will vote to continue it, as opposed to scrapping and re-constructing in the same general direction.

    I believe politics is as much a part of the evolutionary process as the beak on a bird.  Except the beak on a bird is evolved to perform a particular job.  A politician evolves to compromise and presentation to suit those opposed, while continuing to attain larger goals.  Evolutionary politicians will draw from all opposition to further the process.  Barack Obama is an evolutionary politician and the chance to recognize it with a vote of support is a rare opportunity, thus pulling other politicians into the energy of the voters.  Evolutions have periods where major strides are made.  2012 will prove to be a continuance of one of those eras, a time when time advances swiftly and succinctly into the future. 

     A time when war is recognized as fruitless, when financial greed is recognized as bitter fruit for a few.  When the wealth of our country is counted one citizen at a time.


     Old white dudes are full of "war stories," even though most of us never were in battle.  We know most of the heroes were white, at least those who are still in the books.  We also have seen young warriors in each generation wasted on some war that didn't end until they were sacrificed.
     Old white dudes can count few presidents who said they would stop one and did.  Obama said he'd stop the slaughter in Iraq by bringing those still alive back home, and he did.  Given until 2014, he'll do the same in Afghanistan, as he's planned.
     Old white dudes for Obama know this alone is reason enough to re-elect Barack.   The rest of you registered voters know it, too.  When Barack Obama winds down this country's war machine, we can only grow richer.  A billion dollars a month kept on this side of the earth should keep us competitive with the billion souls we share it with.


     Old white dudes have seen unemployment figures up and down.  We know under 5% is "full" employment and 10% is troublesome.  For many, employment is never full.  Instead it is "between jobs,"  a matter of earning enough to stay even - no savings, no time clock - just turning time into money, lots of it under the table, cash, no deductions; couples doubling up to provide some semblance of a comfortable existence for one.
     Waging war keeps unemployment low for a few and profits high for the top 1%.  But it breaks the wealth of a nation.  Barack Obama knows this and is attempting to prove we can crank it up without killing other citizens of the world. 
     This old dude would rather not have a young soldier sacrificed on the other side of the world to protect my old ass in Wellstone. To me, this is the safest place on earth.  Any attacker gets this close, I'll borrow a gun.  I ain't afraid of any enemy.  From anywhere.
     Neither is my president.  He'll play a pickup game with any leader.  But if it gets serious, he'll go to the hoop with elbows and knees and a bad-ass team behind him.
     Barack Obama is right on time for four more with home court advantage.


     Old white dudes grew up with a Supreme Court that was old white dudes and we were comfortable with that.  Today, if we are old white dudes who are still thinking, we are just as comfortable with the fresh air President Obama has added to the Supreme Court, namely, younger, brilliant women.

     Old white dudes grew up with one dream of driving a car, then buying one.  We believed an automobile was an American privilege.  Their were cars to fit every function and cars to fit every fantasy.  Automobile ownership meant reaching adulthood; freedom from fences, to do as you please, to go where you want.
     Old white dudes watched the industry feast on our love of fins and faster engines, then go famine behind the Asian work ethic, which brought smaller and cheaper and well built into the industry.
     It took a buyout of the burdensome overloaded unions, and a bailout offer to the auto factory owners.  Ford declined the bailout and American buyers rewarded them.  GM and Chrysler are back in the hunt after the unions were absorbed into the worker/management teams.
     Barack Obama knows what the automobile and pickup truck market means to America.  He has been instrumental in providing America with a choice of  "made in this country" vehicles.


     I have this election sign in my yard.  It is a larger color version of  the one I had in 2008.  Even then, when Obama visited a city close by, I half-feared he would drive by to check it out.  The one, now, is on buried posts.  Last year's was hung on a tree-border fence.
     I have a pic on my facebook (MAXX PHILLIPS) page. 

OPWDFO could be old white dames for Obama.

     But, seriously, how can any American not appreciate a true blue sports fan who could have been good enough to play as a career.  All of us are fans to some degree and wonder about what we might have done in some sport or other...and we have a President who understands all of that on a level we could talk to him about.  President Obama is one of us, no matter what color we are.  He won't bale on his mates.  If forces beyond control push us to the brink, I want a President that is still steering the ship of state.  The closest Mitt gets to that is considering buying a ball team.  Might already own BYU.

               

    

    

Alot About Pot

De-criminalize marijuana of a federal level then offer statehood to Mexico



Have an envelope with a list of "trouble with pot"
     1)  Dream retarder
     2)  lids close to smaller view of eyes
     3)  criminality
     4)  temporary memory inhibitor
     5)  female dislike of appetite ignitor
     6)  speeds intensity to communicate the moment
     7)  perception most actions of "straights" is humorously foolish and much by peers is laughable

   July 2012
  I was planning this trip to CA with a buddy and it entailed lots of important details.  Like getting an ID, getting a driver's license, buying a ride, taking an ailing hound...Then I get an offer to be flown to my daughter's crib.  More details, like the dog, closing my crib, new threads, new attitude.
     During all this time, I'm partying hearty with my man, big alcohol whiskeys in bars I've been barred from, and grease feasts afterwards.  All bad shit for my fit.  But it took the sweat from details and I was way getting off on it.
     But, one morning, soon after my usual up bowlful, I get really bummed.  High and bummed out at the same time!  A split-second of heavy pressure which had to be relieved in the next split-second.
     I"d never been there before.  Immediately, I decided to bag the CA trip, altogether, so I wrote:

    High and bummed is a nick of time which opens a slice of intensity, screaming to change course or sit on it.  I'm going to sit this one out.

    Then I e-mailed my daughter.

       Big Kilroy Dude used to say, "You get too high, man." 
      Kasu told me, "Other people don't get high like you do."
 I concede to liking marijuana as my doc (drug of choice).  "Addicted" indicates one is unable to stop due to the physical discomfort of withdrawal.  I've stopped for various reasons, none to do with health.   Usually, lack of funds.
     Smoking grass inhibits dream recall.  Stopping intensifies recall and can be nightmarish for a few nights.  I have scored to stop the bad dreams.  At least, that's the reason I used.
     Dreams are the brain sorting out the day's events in order to store or sequence.  If pot de-emphasizes dreams and when allowed to, the brain catches up, so to speak, producing a rush of really wild, inexplicable reels which we awaken with, perhaps this should be studied.  Lots of willing subjects, I'd venture.  In my case, after the bad dreams subside, the lack of THC is no physical or psychological problem.  It is easy to stop smoking pot.
     Lots of people have gotten the marijuana high.  Few people can continuously burn the herb as their primary drug of choice. Therefore, it is not de-criminalized.  If individuals were free to grow, smoke, or share a toke, sans the threat of a badge at the door, their votes would automatically free the weed.
      Toasting one should rank right up there with giving a toast.  If you think you need that drink to sink your pressure guage arrow, you should be allowed to hit a "j" after work.
      Children don't have anything to "get high" about, like adults who often need to wind down a "bad day." Besides, kid's main attention is to see how out of it they can get in a short span of time.  Alcohol, the personality changer, the idiot oil, the stepping stone drug to no-limit craziness; that's the one they all want to experience.  However, pot's propensity to induce hilarity is more obvious with youth-users.  Cheap wine and some weed can be a civilized circle.
     Many of the large numbers of people I used party with are probably all off pot.  They were teen-agers when I knew them.  The ladies began changing to pills and powders because they couldn't handle the extra munchy-induced calories.
     If you are weight-conscious, then be prepared to work off your buzzes with some physical exercise, because you can consume food like a half-starved bear.  LuAnn said her old man came in from doing doobs with his biker buddies and ordered her to fix some spaghetti as soon as he got through the doorway.  I saw a sophisticated Becky reach into a jar of peanut bitter with three fingers and scoop gobs onto her tongue.  Firing a little ganja prior to a meal will certainly fire up the appetite.
     Many seniors say the only reason they eat, at all,  is to take their meds.  The first dose should be a toke.  Then they'd be eating to satisfy that craving hunger.  There are times when I was high and showing off at one big feed or another.  The legendary scarfers ended up just watching as I went for two more helpings past their last one.
     There are some hits that stop everything for a second that may last longer.  It's a tug-clamp on the top of your head, from the brows back to the nape, as if the rest of your body is trying to gravity pull away.  Down-side of a Ferris wheel ride, only you are in-place.
     For optimum effect, a hit (inhaling marijuana smoke) should be held in the lungs for thirty-seconds.  In general, however, hits are seldom held for anywhere near 30-seconds.  In the first place, the smoke swells in your lungs and is usually exhaled with a cough, simply because the user usually sucks in more than they can handle.  First-timers, old-tokers, both choke on good hits.
     Bong Lungs was fifteen the first time I saw her hit a free-standing pipe.  People were holding their nostrils closed and popping their ears to keep from coughing out the smoke.  She emptied that 18-inch column, held it, then slowly exhaled a cloud.  Years later, I queried her about those days and she assured me that talent ended after she began smoking cigarettes.
     Most tobacco users find it way more difficult to stop if they are also smoking pot.  A cigarette after a joint is really satisfying.  All bi-smokers I know tell me they could easily stop chokes if they could fire up a joint without criminal consequences.  I personally believe alcoholics can be allayed with rock and roll music and marijuana.  Here, again, all the drinkers who know the difference state they'd rather be able to smoke dope than fill up on suds.

One can get only so high on pot.  One can only get so high on pot.  Smoking more marijuana will not cause an increased effect of the drug, thc.  In fact, continued lighting and toking is just a communal thing to do between sips of wine or whatever.
     Once, there was a crowded party on a snowstorm night and the doorbell rang.  It was two local cops and they wanted me.  I remember when the door was opened, a rush of smoke exhausted over their heads.  I'd parked in a neighbor's driveway and had to move my Capri.  Sure, no problem, Larry, I'll get right on it.  I don't recall anyone getting excited or acting stoned.  I can tell you I was straight, instantly.

     Been trying to find out how much President Obama knows about marijuana.  In the first place, he gets his first hits in Hawaii.  There, marijuana growing is an art form.  There are lots of artists and if a kid wants to get high, he probably already knows an artist.  Which is tons different from any similar experience in the states. 
      The artists, here, furnish little of their wares because it is illegal, so marijuana salespeople peddle Mexican marijuana, which, even though against the law, comes into this country by the bale or the boatload, breeding a criminal element with unlimited revenue, on both sides of the border.
     We are providing the jillions of dollars in cash boosting Mexico's gangland protection forces which  grow more ruthless as the profits steadily increase.
       Federally de-criminalize marijuana in this country.   Mexican border mafia loses mega-pesos.  Now, we can be serious about our borders and make Mexico a state.
     Point is, Barack Obama knows little about the marijuana consumption in this country.  He's never been to any illegal marijuana parties.  He's never been encouraged to sell pot, because he has some and his friends don't, even though the stuff is so costly, he'd rather keep it all.
      So far, he is not the President who will evolve us past the ignorant attitude our government  maintains about marijuana.
     Adult marijuana users will pay for "the best" they can afford.  Most of them have no idea about the days when Mexican could be had all over for $160 a pound.  Today, $160 buys an ounce of Mexican.  Same stuff; seeds and stems count as weight.  If they had access to "medical marijuana" or a de-criminalized marijuana retail outlet, some would still pay the $320 per ounce price for stuff grown by artists which boost the thc levels to "one-toke" stage. 
     Another fact is, it doesn't matter how good it is, people waste lots of smoke.  Talking around sip-hits, passing the joint (or holding it until it goes out), taking too much and coughing most of it out, missing the effect.

     The main problem with pot is the paranoia, the marijuana aura, wherein the user feels the eye contact with straights and imagines they know he is high.  Eventually, the looks are just mostly vacant, as if straights have to study before they speak to your elevated view.  In time, the situation evolves to something similar to Jimmie C. Rench's explanation as his reason for drinking into alcoholism.  "Pheel, everybody I associated with back then, when I was in the Marines, drank.  The only way I could stand to be around them was to be just as drunk."
      Tetrahydrocannabinolics feel more comfortable when buzzin' and we have use it when dealing with crowds.  Paranoia, after all, is seeing and feeling in a more concentrated way, so it may be we are more aware of what is really there, said or unsaid.
     The best thing to do with a buzz is to talk it off  with other freaks.  Everybody has an opinion and wants to express it in the middle of all the other raps. All while laughing and talking loudly.  Totally unlike all the stereotypical images of unkempt people nearly comotose from constant toking.  Marijuana is an up.  Nobody smokes pot to go limp.  Which, by the way, if you are sexually engaged, already, co-toking just prior to a romp will definitely enhance the ride.  A line or two on top of that is reaching for a "best ever" session, but nobody is rich enough or disciplined enough to keep a little cocaine, just for sexual trysts.

      But, we can't talk about it.  Nobody wants to hear pot stories, except t'ics. Alcoholics, or "recovering" alcoholics really get upset.  Like one of the sisters, in Crown Point, who said, "Why do you have to talk about it?  You don't hear me bragging about drinking Jack Daniels or Canadian Club, do you?  Just shut up and don't mention marijuana!"  Poor thing had been allowed to drink by her user boyfriend, but he wouldn't let her smoke pot because of her "addictive personality."  And here's me, getting high to ball her between AA meetings.  Seems unfair, now.

     I know of no female ever seduced while under the influence of marijuana.  I've seen lots of pairings while partying and many lasted into marriage.  And there have been many early experiences while high on pot.  But they were never influenced by any drug boost like one kicked by alcohol.  Inhibitions may be even more keen while stoned.

     Marijuana butter and someone completely losing it who ends up running and screaming are marijuana myths, as far as I'm concerned. Two people have told me about the butter.  One was a straight foreman at a foundry I worked in. He approaches me out of the dust and begins to tell me this recipe and that if I make any to not let my kids get hold of it.  Longest he ever talked to me.  The other was a Marine Captain relating the substance to a friend of his neighbor. The entire concept of mixing a pound of butter with a quantity of marijuana and cooking it to use later in a recipe is just playing with expensive ingredients for some way to ingest thc later.
     Any attack of marijuana paranoia which results in abberration such as frightened screaming and running away is from alcohol or other lab candy that was swallowed.
     Too bad Rudy Eugene was shot to death, leaving no explanation and marijuana as the only illegal substance in his toxology report.
     
     All of the effects of marijuana are ephemeral, i.e., short-lived.  On an empty stomach with a cup of tea, the feeling is hunger, complete with all the growling and pangs.  If the urge is followed with food, it will pass, but if you don't eat, it will still abate itself. 
     One effect is dry mouth.  Dry mouth is like desert thirst and can happen at anytime during a buzz.  Most t'ics have liquid available.   Wine and beer are nice quenchers, but soft drinks suffice.  Of course, for a more pure high, water works.  Still, sans any rinse, saliva returns within minutes and wet tongue is back.
      The vividness of the movie, the new sounds in an album heard a thousand times before, extra kick in a run or pick-up game, the flash of a TV show, the hyped-up need to express ideas popping up in conversations, it all fades back to the reel-to-real.  But reality seems better, somehow.

     Marijuana and its no-thc cousin, hemp, can grow anywhere, as weeds usually can.  Either one can be turned into many products, most famous being hemp rope, which is superior to plastic but has been phased out by the campaign against marijuana planting.  DEA uproots and forbids farming of either one.  United States made hemp rope was used by the sailors of the world.  Now everybody uses nylon and it's made everywhere, like all the other chemical products.
     There's thc in the leaves of marijuana.  Dried and smoked, there's a buzz to be caught from "shake."  In fact, a true tetrahydracannabinolic can plant a seed and within a month or so, begin trimming leaves to smoke.  If there's a large plot of marijuana plants, the harvest will end with lots of shake dope.  The act of separating the choice "buds" from the female plant, leaves shake.  This shake has some thc simply because it has come from a cultivated plant.  Today, shake is everything in a bag that isn't bud, to include seeds, stems, and leaf pieces.
     Like Willie Wagner used to say, "It's all in what you're used to."  A bowl of shake every few hours can provide a decent high, but it isn't the same as a half-bowl of bud which may stay with you for an hour or more.
      Fact is, nobody really knows how anybody else is getting off on their consumption of pot.  Most times, somebody will ask if you are high, just to be sure they aren't getting off alone.

     The more repetitive and boring the job, the better it goes with a buzz.  In general, however, a high results in planning more than one thing at a time and usually a priority gets bumped down to be remembered later. 
      A tool may be misplaced and there's paranoia that someone may have taken it. After a while, though, the job and the buzz flow together and production is the automatic part.
       Every job I've done since the age of thirty-five have been while under the influence of pot.  I was the sawyer on a log home gig and nobody else touched the saw.  I told the boss if he could tell by the work on which days I was using, I'd stop.  He told me that if he could tell, I'd have already been let go. 
       On a wire mill gig, runnning seven copper wire drawing machines, I rode to work with a dude who smoked and passed a doobie right into the parking lot and we punched in with a minute to spare.  The first day, he sidled over to my machines and said, "You lost your needle nose pliars, didn't you?"  He was right and I was stunned, then he went back to his own machines, smiling.

        In northern California, I was ripped one time and as soon as I got to the selling floor, a customer said he wanted to buy a bed.  I was in the furniture department of Ward's, surrounded by mattresses, headboards, foundations, etc., and I blanked and just said, "A bed."
     Fortunately, the man and his wife were in from the woods and cash money was no object and delivery would be in their truck.  They left with the most expensive queen set I could write up.  Commission was high, too.

      A Boogie Hall mate and I worked on a foundry machine that conveyed freshly cast brake drums, universal joints and other hot iron parts.  What wasn't removed came back around until there were times it was layers deep and the heat was skillet intense. If the casting was done with minimum shutdowns, the conveyors stayed full and by the end of the first two shifts, they were jammed full on the take-off end.  By the time John Boy and I came in for the last shift, they were still digging out from the production that had overwhelmed the guys on the previous shift.
     We went in there, buzzing like bandsaws, and started cleaning up the mess.  We always kept up with the production.  John was the first person to handle the line of hot metal.  I was next and on the end was an older dude who removed the sprue (the part of the casting which overflows the molds).  A fourth man was third in line and this was a fill-in position.  Nobody wanted it every day. Most couldn't handle the pace we set.
      There were castings the size of softballs, which came so fast, there was a coal shovel to remove them, and when mixed with Buick brake drums which had to be hooked and hung on another moving conveyor, the perspiration was boiling.  That Boy (he was 19 at the time) would stack pairs of gloves eight high, then grab and toss those hot balls off the line into a steel container.  When the gloves would begin to smoke, he'd pull them off and slip on a pair from the pile and keep working.  It was high speed ballet, as he cleared all the round castings and kept a pile of gloves cooling as he scorched each pair in blurs of  hand manipulations.  Of course, these were rare times when shovelling was hampered by other castings and sprue, so John's show was just long enough to attract spectators and clear the conveyor for the rest of us.  Didn't take long to work off a buzz, that was certain.

     When I first started taking a hit, pot was $15 an ounce and anyone using was carrying some.  If a person was going to roll a joint, someone else would match the amount of grass to twist.  Often, there would be an offer of "I'll match you."
     Today, totally different. Having pot in your possession is an arrest waiting to happen.  Which means you lose the marijuana and some definite freedoms
     The war is ongoing and the funds are there for stopping the use of street drugs.  Entire police forces are operated on government funds to eradicate street drugs.  Marijuana is high on the list of drug war targets, simply because it is easy to find some evidence for an arrest.  Seeds, dust, residue, roaches and any amount of "green vegetable matter," which can be altered to reflect "tons" confiscated, every day.
     In Ohio, it appears the "marijuana problem" has been put under jurisdiction of the state highway patrol which is directing its attention to the trafficing of pot. The days of getting into the car and "going to burn one" have been diminished.  It doesn't matter how one is driving, a cell phone citizen sees a freak taking a toke, they'll be "lit up" by flashing lights within seconds.  And any stop a cop makes may result in a search of the vehicle if any signs of use or possession of ganja is suspected.
      Fifteen states, including Ohio, have decriminalized possession of  up to 3.5 ounces of marijuana, wherein an arrest will result in no criminal record and a small fine.  So small amounts are ignored, except as a last resort arrest in a police search.  
      Whatever, the risk has run the price to such outrageous levels, nobody offers "to match" the twister.  Not at $200+ per ounce.  Street retailers are required to weigh out parcels as small as an eighth of an ounce.  Joints are too expensive, so some form of a smoking pipe is used, including the popular bong, which is a bowl connected to a large cylindrical (wood, metal or plastic) mouthpiece. The larger volume of smoke is drawn into the tube and then inhaled.

     Marijuana can be ingested via baked goods, brownies being the most common carrier.  However, the buzz comes later and the amount of pot needed to kick the mixture is cost prohibitive, today.

      No matter how marijuana is smoked, there is residue,  Joints end up as "roaches," too small to continue hitting.  These may be saved to tear open, later, remove the resin soaked weed and roll a "roach" joint.  This is in lieu of using fresh grass.   But the roaches smell bad and removing the pot from sticky paper is nasty.  In earlier days, we used to hold the roach between two match heads and light them with another lit match.  After the flash of sulfur and within a second, the smoke would be inhaled through the nostrils.  That can be a decent hit.

     Smoking pot through any pipe will eventually produced a layer of gummy tar which dries to coat the bowl, screen and stem.  Eventually, this has to be removed. Some bongs use a container of water which further filters the smoke.  In any case, cleaning back to the original finish is messy, at best.

     So aside from the need to clear the air of burnt herb, the clean up after smoking is the least desirable part of getting high.  The only thing worse is smoking from a pipe which has not been kept clean and getting a tongue-taste of moist residue.  "Is that the way you clean this pipe!"

     I never toked around my kids but I've heard stories.  PD told me about a visit from his insurance agent.  His three year old daughter carried PD's stash box to the man and told him, "Here, you roll one."  PD grabbed it and said, "No, he doesn't want to play with your little cars, right now."

     I've known marijuana smoking parents who have been held hostage by their children, threatening to "turn them in."  I've seen couples after divorce where one threatens to expose another to win custody of children or change visitation privileges.

     The problem with accepting marijuana by straights is the fear of something which has no physical format to identify users.   The biggest mystery is what the "high" is, if it doesn't change anything, like alcohol, cocaine and tobacco.  Most everyone knows the signs of someone drunk, or someone staying wide-eyed-up for hours, or the obvious "need for a cigarette."
     You may assume I'm high but I see you looking for signs while talking to me.  And I can't explain to you how it feels because it is all mental.  It is my brain's reaction to thc.  Your reaction may be different because it is all mental.

    Two of the three above mentioned drugs are strictly legal, controlled  and taxed to the hilt.  The other is strictly controlled by being strictly illegal.  Marijuana, the non-problematic herb is illegal, uncontrollable, untaxed, unpoliceable, unethical in the punishment by jail and untold numbers of test cases for further study of medicinal uses.
     Yet, you are afraid to decriminalize it on a federal level, therein allowing states to fall in step.
     You can't wait anymore, the writing is on your forehead.  Stop screaming and allowing police power to stop a scourge in your mind that has stood the test of time and you know it is nothing to dread.
     I thought I know alot about pot, but there's not alot to pontificate on.  Just an elderly t'ic trying to find a way to put it down on paper, I guess.

     Truth, of course, is the quest of an unpublished writer who likes his own shit so much, he can't stop trying to find a way to be recognized for what he knows well enough to tell.  Of course, it is all fiction.

   
Was it two years ago. I see marijuana starts in styrofoam cups on a post at the lake?  Went back on my bicycle and brought them home.  Five of seven survived, three female, miniaturized inside, decent toke.  Bought some rooting powder and tried it on basil start.  Good result.  Need a good clone to copy. May try to start a dogwood tree off neighbor's tree, first.

     State by state "legalization" or medical marijuana statutes will bring the ability to grow for personal use.  In fact, a small plot may be overlooked, or just "confiscated."  No matter where it is being cultivated, someone is looking to rip it off.
     I can stand my $150 monthly use, delivered. Would I like to reduce it by what I can grow? Absolutely.  The toking population grows in age and numbers. Every older citizen should be able to grow marijuana to smoke or sell.  Is there a full-time marijuana user who has President Obama's ear?  Not those sanctimonious ex-freaks who got high in college.  I mean someone who gets high now.

8Aug13 -

    Walking my dog and see a chick I know.  Where's your dog?  She's home, gets too tired, has to lie down on a walk..  She's holding a choke and I say "You should save your lungs for marijuana", remembering when I got high with her.  "That's what this is, you wanna hit?"
    I could not believe I'd been talking to her and actually thought a hand roll was a ready roll.  Three blocks from home and doing a number on a public path.
    Worked the dog, came home, lifted weights, ate breakfast, napped.  Woke up to Paleo wanting to load a bowl.  He wasn't out of the drive for five minutes when Dooglas drops in with some "California style" reefer.  effin excellent.  My oat, apple, egg white, raisin, pecan, milk concoction is sliding, man.  A cloudy day full of sunshine.  When living forever seems within reach.   With beans and greens on the way.


    

    

    

    
    

    

    



    
     
  





   

    

    
    
    

    
    
    
    







     In 1970, my younger brothers stayed a night on the way from Chicago and proffered my first toke.  I was thirty-five, buying a house and raising four kids.

HOW TO BECOME A TRULY CIVILIZED MAN

   Years ago, I began researching what women would consider attributes of a truly civilized man.  I asked the question, "What is the first requirement you would expect to find in a truly civilized man?"  Some answered in a word, some in more than one word, but all answered with little hesitation.
     Debbie (40)-Humble
       Carrie (25)-Respect
          Kelley (30)-Chocolate, lots of dark chocolate
             Karen (18)-Maturity
                Kathy (50)-No profanity
                   CJ (70)-Heart
                      Joy (28)-Table manners
                        Dina(25)-Manners
                           Trish(22)-Honesty
                              Elaina(25)-Honesty
                                 Marlene(30)-Respect
                                     Paulette(45)-Respect
                                        Lisa(19)-Maturity
                                           Paula(35)-Honesty
                                             Jimmy D's chick(Manners
                                               Roberta(64)-One who can get in touch with his feminine side
                                                 Wendy(28)-Honesty
                                                    Dani(26)-Humor
                                                      Joni(28)-One who has something besides sexual innuendos coming out of his mouth every other word
                                                         Janice(55)-Compassion
                                                           Cirress(30)-Intellect (Inquisitiveness)
                                                              Becky(33)-Manners
                                                                 Barb(34)-Manners
                                                                    Julie(27)-Taste
                                                                      Jeri(33)-Monogamy
                                                                        Ande(23)-Honesty
                                                                           Diana(33)-Purity
                                                                             Cristina((36)-Honor and honesty
                                                                                Tiffiny(21)-Not in jail

     Originally, I intended to write a how-to guide to becoming a truly civilized man, overcoming feelings that civilized means sissified and convincing men that manners are irreplaceable when dealing with women, and win far more support from most than manhandling will.
      While doing "research," I visited The South End Bar, an establishment that hadn't changed much, in looks, from the thirty-five years that had passed since I used to frequent the place; long and narrow with the right side taken up with an original elbow-oiled bar as you enter the front door.
     The rest of the floor space on the left, is occupied by heavy wooden card tables.  Euchre is the game of choice and the stakes are kept to a quarter per point, tallied by erasing sections of chalk marked X's on the table.
      I sat on a stool at the bar, near the front door, and drank a Blue Ribbon.  The table furthest from me had a game going. At the table nearest me, a guitar picker was playing for drinks.  When I needled him for not playing some rock and roll I could sing to, he moved to the last stools at the far end where two females were sitting.  He began feeding them lyrics to a country song, prompting them to sing to his harmony.  "Who were you thinking of when you were making love last night?"
     A card player stood, pulled down his pants, his underwear, then exposed himself, singing along while hanging out.   The rest of the players left the table and moved to the bar, but said nothing.  I laughed aloud, figuring it was an isolated incident by one way under the influence of alcohol.
     Xx-raze was tending bar, thus in charge and told the guy to pull his pants up.  He implored me not to tell  "The Cap'n" and then asked, "What could I do?  That's Will Sour, he's crazy, man!"
     I told him I wouldn't mention it to the owner.  "Hey, you did all you could, you told him to pull 'em up."
     The guitar man finished, after a few more stanzas, returned to the nearby table, put a gratis    drink down and sat on the back of the chair, with one foot in the seat and the other on the floor.  He began singing for the drink after stating it was his last song before leaving the bar. Will was walking around with a grin, mingling for approval.  I asked Xx-raze about our friend Dijerido.  A nephew of an old friend bought me a beer and I listened to his family update.
     The door opened and a young boy walk in.  He had an earring, a unisex hairdo with chopped top and length in back.  He had on a bloused shirt and was cute enough to kiss.  Xx-raze questioned his want.  The kid said he was with the people who had entered the bar from the back.  Xx-raze waved him through and I turned to see the couple standing at the euchre table nearest the end of the bar.   The chick was getting a thorough checking out by myself and every other male in the place.
     Her husband was shorter, dressed in a blue work shirt and matching trousers.  His boots had two-inch heels and he was still around five-feet tall.  He was near drunk and appeared to be a father showing off a young daughter, especially to the muscular fellow who'd just bought me the beer. The husband was trying to hang on to the huge bicep the smiling acquaintance was flexing for him.  The kid was seated nearby and the little man gave him a protective hug, then whispered into his wife's ear.
     Before sitting at the table, she checked out the rest of the patrons who would be behind her.  I smiled when she looked in my direction.  She had long brown hair and smooth tan skin.  Her black denim jacket and pants were form fitting, matched by black 3/4-style boots with unique side laces.  She presented a sort of biker chick image.  From my vantage, she looked lean and mean, tempered with natural beauty and a hint of innocence.  An Apache princess in gunfighter garb.
     While I was watching her and watching different men watching her, a dude I'd been recently introduced to, sat down beside me and began to roll a joint after showing me a crystalline coated bud about four-inches long. I alluded to the waste in joints and offered to go to my car and get my pipe.  He said no, that he liked the taste of a joint, making it clear quantity was no object since he had a substantial stash.  Xx-raze warned him about letting anyone else see him twisting a number on the bar.  He said OK, finished and invited my outside to toast it.
     My generous friend was standing where he could see inside the bar, while passing the number.  He was a tad shocked to witness another lewd denuding incident inside.  The nephew came out and I offered him a hit.  He waved it off and exclaimed, "I don't believe it!  A guy in there pulling his dick out in front of people and you guys out here smoking dope...why if Trapper knew this, he'd bring his dozer down and wipe this whole place out."  He got into his high rider 4X and roared away.
     The guitar picker and two other men cleared out, rushed by the rude behavior.  The guitar was put into the trunk of a car, a couple short tokes were taken and they drove away.  The t'ic and I went back inside.  Things had settled down to drinking, TV and a card game.  "Crazy" Will was partnered with Kight Henri against the couple.
     I took my question to the ladies who'd been singing.  They both answered that honesty would be the first requirement they would expect to find in a  truly civilized man. I wrote it down and returned to my stool, but then, for whatever stupid reason, I went back to challenge their choice.  I stated they might not recognize honesty and probably couldn't handle it.  The brunette said that an honest man couldn't be found in this town.  Since it is an attitude about all men, why limit the search to one city.  In my attempt to defend our (men's) honesty, I compared it to ruling on a woman's intelligence, which is stereotyped as less than that of men.  Between the alcohol and pot was a space which precluded courtesy, so I thanked them and returned to my beer.
    Most of the small crowd were standing near or sitting close to the table, watching the game.   Styler nodded towards the game and guaranteed there would be a fight.  I was intent upon questioning the foxy wife, and asked my freak friend if he thought I should ask for the husband's permission to approach her.  He said it wouldn't matter so I walked over, pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. She kept her eyes on the cards as I explained, "I'm doing research for this article I'm writing and I'd like to ask you what would be the first requirement you'd expect to find in a truly civilized man?"
     She glanced at me, went back to the cards and was silent.  Figuring she didn't have an immediate reply, I told her to take her time and went to get my beer.  Returning, I sat down and asked if I should repeat the question?  She turned directly to face me and said, "Respect."
     Within seconds of thanking her and getting up, it was obvious her opponent, the exhibitionist, was upset and bent on challenging her.  He argued she and her husband were passing signals.  She said it had to do with kid who had left the bar while I'd been outside. The bully questioned her worth as a mother if she didn't know where the kid had gone.  The confrontation grew louder and more insulting.
     The card game was in limbo, already, when she stood up and indicated for him to, "Come on, if you want to settle this!"
     Mr. Sour got to his feet and they stood, toe to toe. The way she had the confidence to call him out, I was expecting her to wield a weapon.  When none showed, it became obvious she probably wouldn't be able to drop him as he continued with spittle-spraying castigating.
     "You don't have the balls to take me on!"
     She made a quick swipe between spread knees and stated incredulously, "I don't have balls!"
     "You don't have a clit that can get stiff enough for you to take me on.
     She just shook her head enough to cause those long brown tresses to flutter, stepped back and said, "Well, well now," obviously as stunned as the rest of us at the depth a person could sink to insult a woman.
    The haranguing continued and at one point she countered an accusation with an allusion to his showing himself to "...all these...men."   It seemed a call for any of us to counted as a man, but none stepped forward.
     I was still seated furthest away from the argument, giving my nephew, who had just came in, a speech on the evils of alcohol.  He'd just been beaten in a short arm-wrestling match and was now getting stirred about how the opponent couldn't fare as well if they were to get into a row involving fisticuffs.  Xx-raze called the card game off and the table emptied.
     But nothing was solved and the berating continued.  Only now the aggressor was standing among the guys, reaching and pointing, visually raping the lady.  Finally, she broke, tears flowed and she retreated from the threat.  She cried, "Leave me alone!"
     "Hey!" I shouted towards her.  Everyone got quiet.
     "Hey, come here."
    I got off the stool and went to her.  I put my arm around her shoulders and led her back to the stool beside where I'd been sitting. 
      "Sit down, right here.  Wipe those tears away, you stood up well, don't blow it by crying.  You stay with me and I'll guarantee he'll leave you alone."
     Once seated, I told her she had lied because she had more balls than anybody.  There was a short confrontation when Styler brought the boy down to where I was so he could be with his mother.  I asked the kid if this was his mother and he said she was as close to a mother as he had.  I went to get the husband.
     When I put my hand on his back to direct him to his wife, he became incensed for the first time.  A man had been insulting his wife for as long and as loudly as he wanted, and the husband did nothing.  Not a word, not a move, except at one point he motioned for her to sit down and play cards. He pushed my hand away and told me not to tell him what to do.
     Before I recovered from surprise, the bully approached, raised my right arm with his left and told me not to get into this.
     "I'm already in it, motherfucker,"  I warned, then hooked him with a left and crossed him with a right.  He fell backwards against the bar, knocking over a stool.
     People will allow a fight to begin with no interference, then jump in to separate combatants.  By the time I moved to feed him more knuckles, there were two or three sets of hands trying to restrain me. This allowed my adversary to get hold of a beer bottle to try to break over my head.  After the first blow, my face went down and I blindly reached for his eyes.  The second blow split skin, so there was some blood.
     Decades ago, my father recalled the instructions of a martial arts expert in a US Navy basic training class.  He had alluded to the ease with which a person's eyes can be easily popped from sockets with a well-placed thumb or fingertip.  While being pummelled with the bottle, I tried to pluck an eye out. I had my thumb in one eye and a finger inside the orb of the other eye.  No doubt I'd have done major damage if I hadn't been stopped.
     While being held, I screamed to be allowed to finish him.  I grabbed a bottle off the bar and held it at arms length on my right side. Styler told the others to let me go.   Will was slumped at the bar, leaning against the adjoining wall. Trying to focus through gouged eyes, he asked what I intended to do with the bottle?  I told him I was going to use it on him.
     He didn't move and for a split second I visualized busting him up, but I didn't.  Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming need to end the madness and make some sense of why I allowed myself to interfere.  I put the bottle on the bar, snatched him upright against the wall and began questioning.
     He wasn't too pleased by my intensity and wondered if him showing his cock was my problem.  He tried to justify his actions with the card cheating theory and his knowledge of the girl and her family.  But he accepted my right to interfere when the odds were tipped and declared I was a "real man."
     Then he bought me a beer.  We talked for some time, and I became aware of why he was called Crazy Will.  In fact, I told him, I figured I'd have to half-kill him in a fight because I supposed he  really was insane.  He assured me he wasn't, even though he'd done eight years of prison for trying to torch a house with his in-laws inside.
     After another beer, we began to view our altercation in the base terms of maleness.  I alluded to the fact the bitch split as soon as the first blow was thrown, and how if anyone should have access to that leg, now, it should be me.  Accusing him of  having thoughts about screwing her, he straightened and bragged he had a fifty-year old woman taking care of him.  Pressing, I challenged that the girl he had been so antagonistic towards was a turn-on for him.  He smiled as he walked away and said, "Yeah."
     I remember feeling a very earned path to her body, as if I'd fought my way to the right to have her.  Which may prove that no matter how civilized a man may think his reaction to a situation involving a woman, it is really a rude visceral feeling connected to his desire to sire.
     For a long period of time, I was convinced there is no God; man is here because of the millions of years of evolution, and the genes are in charge. Those microscopic blocks  which have constructed us by increments throughout millenniums.  One has to believe in genes.  Especially now that we can see them, count them, figure them out and manipulate them.
     Genes are heartless little bastards and they will be the last bottom line when we write ourselves off.  When they have boiled us down to the last finished brew, we'll be through.  We may never get nearer to that than now.  We can control our genes.  They can be spliced to serve us.  We can physically alter and redirect our genes.  We can do in the laboratory what was only possible via the individual mind     The natural evolutionary method is the most fair and equal.
     We follow it constantly while developing after birth.  Then more slowly once the genes are content with traits we can pass to the next generation.  It ends in senility when the mind no longer can push an aged body to pursue new ideas.  The genes do not care.  They are as anxious to shut us down as they were to peak us out.
     The next generation may be the one which hand carries the future to the world.  It is too fragile to be passed - or dropped - onto the coming generations.  Can the USA change enough to to lead the rest and preserve the planet?  It may be up to us.
     I used to pray to me.  I am the only one that ever did anything to make my prayers more answerable.  You can pray to God.  You can pray to Jesus.  Or Buddha.  Or Allah.  Or Anybody else.  But you are the one who will or will not initiate the necessary effort to change your situation to one requiring less prayer.  You have to make the commitment, sign on the line or resign.  Nobody else can change, charge or control your life like you can.  Pray to yourself to make the move in the direction of your happiness.  Then answer your prayers.
     When Jesus said man can not live by bread alone, he didn't mean man can live without bread. He didn't believe himself to be God.  He asked no one to pray to him.  His Father was the same one he alluded to sharing with us.  His power was the same one we are capable of using.  His message was peace and devotion to God.  It still is.  Yet, people are still being crucified without the ritual for reasons just as benign. 
     All the ways men consider other men too different are dealt with fast. Faster than we can think, we can kill. And the faster we arm ourselves by continent, country, county and city, the faster we speed to the end of the future.  Without devotion to God's peace, we are incapable of containing our predisposition to destroy others.
     For this country, the words of Jesus are the final instruction for salvation and they were meant for the USA.  Nobody has added a Third Testament.  The first two have come to represent cultures which typify a defense posture based on armed aggression, Jews and Christians.  Israel and America.  The Old Testament and the New Testament. The old guard and the new warriors.  Both have sacrificed devotion to God for sectarian acceptance.  Devotion to God is separated from the pursuit of peace.  We avoid the effort required for devotion to God and prefer panoply to pacification.
     God is the glue that binds the genes of all humans.  This combination sacred and scientific has all the time to perfect us, either in our present form or in those to follow.  If this present race of man annihilates itself completely, the genes will begin anew, even if they have to evolve from nuclear waste mud.  And once again, after the brains have been developed to the point of intellectually asking the eternal question, God will appear to those who seek the path of the never-ending.
     To be enlightened, we must be truly civilized.  We must control our lives, thus our future.  The present time-frame is limited.  We must get into the best physical condition and begin to change the direction of the universe.  We must live to seek harmony with God.  We must live to be as good as we can to the most number of people, starting with ourselves.
     Sadly, there are those who we can't reach to teach as they continue to live to die. They are the result of civilizations slow, tortuous development.  Their intelligence is limited by ours.  We have to teach them to live to live.    
       
      
        
   
       
    
    
    
    

    
    
    
    
    

 

              
          

SuperGimp

     Slouched behind high handlebars and mirrored sunglasses, Leonard (Pineknot) Gehring effortlessly maneuvered his black Harley-Davidson.  He power glided over grades and leaned to slice curves from the weathered asphalt.  His moustache and beard flattened to his face and neck.Lengths of brown hair blew back into wispy streamers, held fast by a red bandanna headband.
     A canopy of broad-leafed madrone and oak trees seemed to open and expose the roadway just as the motorcycle approached.  The dense, green foliage muted some of the blast of an un-baffled exhaust. Pineknot was thinking of Cherie Luveling. 
    Earlier, he had left her cedar and glass house in the foothills, east of Eureka.  For three days and three nights, they had renewed their physical attraction for one another.  Using tools of raw lust to mine fine diamonds of ecstasy. The facets from all former sexual explorations paled in comparison.
     He thought about the first time he'd ever seen her.  She was standing with her back to him and his attention was drawn to the open-back, high-heeled shoes which stretched the backs of her calves as she bent over the top drawer of a filing cabinet.  Her rump seemed to push a short dress away from her thighs like an invitation.  She shook her head to clear sun-bleached blond hair away from her face, and turned to catch him staring.  She smiled when he caught his breath. 
     Her classic features were slightly enhanced by makeup and her breasts were more substantial than most lithe ladies can support without appearing top-heavy.  Pineknot could still smell the sweet steam which had lingered as he'd carried her from the hot tub to the pedestal water bed.   His groin stirred, even now, as he relived the past weekend of intense intimacy.
     Just as they had many times before, each agreed they had hit peaks of pleasure unmatched by previous "bests."   Yet, he knew as surely as he'd cranked the starter to leave, he would probably never get the opportunity to spend those sort of passionate moments with Cherie, again.  She was attempting to dam a flood of tears when she'd kissed him goodbye, then told him to call before his next visit.  He knew this meant another man was likely in the picture.   She wanted to be married, and there was a line of anxious, solvent suitors.
     Ever since Pineknot Gehring first became aware of the furtive glances and grim looks from people expressing fear or revulsion when certain riders of large two-wheelers are present,  he'd accepted the fact that women of Cherie's social ranking would eventually be unavailable as close friends. 
     He realized, early on, this is part of the attraction for these highly visible travelers in the high velocity spaces astride powerful machines that growl when idling and roar when accelerated.   Even though Leonard is one of those inflexible lio who feel lines of freedom beneath them, as they blend with massive motorcycles, he ahs never nurtured the attitude which categorize the breed as outside the law and a bit too savage for many in civil communities.   Pineknot rides alone and smiles often.
     He wasn't smiling, though, when he first understood Cherie wanted him to give up the unkempt mien and uncertain means, to stay around all of the time or to not come around at all.  It wasn't the first time he'd initiated the loss of some close friend or relative, by his continued adherence to the lifestyle he'd chosen.  But he loved her and would miss her.  The memory of the crushed expression on her face, blurred his concentration and he passed the turnoff to Big Hazel and Custer's property.
     Deftly slowing, Pineknot pivoted the huge chopper around an outstretched leg, then throttled to complete a U-turn. The still mountain air was shattered by the sound of a honking horn, racing engine and squealing tires.
     Pineknot turned his head to see the driver of a lemon-yellow pickup battling to prevent a plunge over the high shoulder, after cutting sharply to the right.  The driver's white Stetson had tipped to cover one eye, during the panic stop.  Pineknot cussed himself for having turned in front of oncoming traffic, but continued on.
     He'd heard mention of the outrageous four-by-four.  It had dual sets of knobby tires on the rear and a matching pair up front.  The small bed and cab raised above those monster mud slingers suggested a Tonka toy/Massey Ferguson hybrid.  He remembered a guy at the SPOKES N' SPURS alluding to the vehicles ability to "climb a redwood."  Another figured the owner put tranquilizers in the gas tank to keep it from leap-frogging over semis.
      The big bike was slowed to nearly stop, then eased onto the dirt road with a sign, Horse Mountain Road.  After a quarter-mile of steep downhill, avoiding deep ruts, and braking through tight switchbacks, the biker switched off the ignition and began coasting thelast dozen yards to a resting spot.  It had been a logger's landing, thirty-years before.
     As soon as the motor was silenced, the sound of crunching deep treads tracking over baked clay and stones was behind the biker. He glanced to see the yellow truck, about ten-yards back.  As soon as eye contact was made, the driver pop-clutched the voracious V-8 to life.
     Chin-high six-plies ground the way towards their next grist, and Pinknot frantically switched the key on.  His attempt to start the engine failed, so he steered off the road.  The truck's right front tire was already crushing the rear fender, pinching the motorcycle into a wheelie.  It flipped in the air, dumping it's rider to crash within inches of the speeding truck.   Pineknot watched his ride as it seemed to gain speed in flight, twisting and spinning. 
     Stuggling to one knee, he watched the truck.  Thick billows of dust and smoke surrounded it, as it was jammed into a tight 180-degrees turn.  High rev whines emanated from under the hood as the truck reared, for an instant, then lurched uphill.
     Six-feet, two inches of American machismo was just a gasp away from becoming two-hundred-forty pounds of compressed burger on the cowcatcher grill of the searing six-wheeler.  Greasy denims shredded at the knee and seams ripped, as the mountainside matador scrambled to avoid the charging bull-machine.
    

  

NO HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

     Morning sunshine had begun to warm the cool air drafting across a damp area where four men lay sleeping on sheets of cardboard.  In the dim light, their outlines blended with the silhouette of their belongings, stacked loosely in boxes and plastic bags.
     The site is a narrow space beneath the arch of a cement bridge and the edge of an erosion-proof steep creek bank, fortified with large stones set in mortar.  Twenty-five feet below, water trickles to a monotonous cadence.  The whir of tires treading pavement can be heard overhead.  This secluded piece of city real estate is known as "threebridge" to those who use it as shelter.  The Third Street bridge is a favored proximity to the Catholic Worker's Charity kitchen and the Mission House Church in the Railroad Square section of town.  Both places attract the homeless or jobless.
     Casey is the youngest of the current squatters.  He is twenty-three, high school graduate, 6', 160 lbs.   His father owns an electrical contracting business and his mother operates two nursing homes.  He has refused offers to work for either one.  Instead, he eats at "the kitchen" and sleeps in a sleeping bag.  Most of his time is free to get high.  His drug of choice is marijuana and if he has none, he's looking.  When he's holding more than he feels safe with, he deals.
     Benny, the newest resident is an Indiana native.  For ten years, he has lived up and down the length of  California, working in retail sales. He had expected each new start would lead to the kind of steady employment which might put him on closer financial footing with his wife.  Her business and legal background usually assured she contributed most to the household earnings.
     Recently, while Benny was visiting friends in Montana, his wife left town with a man whose feet were knee-deep in green.  When Benny returned to the apartment, it was empty and locked.  His stuff was boxed and stacked inside a shed. 
     He wandered across the freeway overpass.  Pausing, he gripped the chain-link and stared down into the six lanes of  traffic.  Closing his eyes, he imagined drifting slowly into the roar below him.  Tilting his head back and opening his eyes, he was briefly thankful for the "squirrel cage" enclosure. Benny shook the fence, cussed and continued on, down the spiral ramp.  A block later, he met Casey who got him high and sympathized.  Casey helped Benny sell or give away possessions too numerous or cumbersome to carry.   For the past two weeks, Benny had been residing under the bridge.
     Preacher claims he once had a church, in Kentucky, as well as a wife and children and friends.  Says God told him to leave it all and seek solitude and suffering to prove his thankfulness for all the blessings he experienced.
     Willie Jump had walked away from a home for wayward boys, in Georgia.  He told of having travelled all over the United States as a freight train hobo.  He could barely read or write, but he could draw a railroad track map to and from any state.  His favorite memories, though, were about childhood pets, a raccoon and deer that ate dry dog food.
     The four men began to stir awake, stretching and crawling from makeshift beds.  Once upright, they shivered, then stiffly took positions along the bumpy slope.  As their directed streams splashed towards the tinkling water, steam foamed, then faded. They shivered, again, then hurried to huddle in a small circle, beneath layers of clothes and blankets, trying to warm up after the brief exposure.
     "Only ten more shopping days 'til Christmas," Casey announced.
     "I hate Christmas,"  Benny responded, "especially this year."
     He immediately thought of all the times he'd heard his mother say the same thing.  It was always a puzzling remark since there were no signs of displeasure, and she never said why.  The family always seemed to have good Christmases.  Presents, even when the number of kids grew to six.  Huge turkey and ham dinners with plenty of pie, cake and Christmas candy.
     "Hey, don't be hatin' Jesus' birthday, man,"  Preacher admonished.  "Besides, he was born homeless, like us.  He was sent to teach us how to love, even our enemies.  So we should love to celebrate his birth.  We should love Christmas."
     Casey rolled a cigarette from a flattened pack of Bugler and lit it, thus ending his coughing, which had increased in intensity until it was a choking gag.  He wheezed and said he was glad for Christmas because the food would be piled high at the kitchen and people would be more generous to panhandlers.  
     "And the cops won't be poking around down here, so much.   I like Christmas, dude, and I got no money to buy gifts with, so I don't have to go shopping, trying to figure out what to buy for people who are never satisfied anyway."
     "I agree with Benny," Willie Jump interjected.  "Yeah, you right, brother, I always have hated Christmas, right from the git-go.  I always got less than my brothers and we always got less than our friends.  Our old boy made us poorer than we already was, drinking up any money mom didn't manage to beg or hide from him.   Maybe I didn't hate Christmas so much when I was living with my real mom, but after she died, I did."
     The four moved close enough together to reach the cigarette they shared.  Benny looked at Preacher and apologized for his comment.
     "It's just that I want to be home for Christmas, instead of  'no home' for Christmas."
     His eyes showed the sparkle of tears and he swiped them away with the heel of each hand.
     "Wish this was a joint,"  he said, holding the puff in his lungs as if it was marijuana smoke.
     "Hey, I'm getting some, later,"  Casey added, excitedly.  "An old dude over on Barnett Street grew some up in Mendocino.  It ain't bud, but it's good shake and he'll front me a bag for only two
dollars a gram.  He's cool, though, probably twist up a couple if we put our change together.  Dig it?"
      Casey took the pooled cash to score the pot and they split up, deciding to return to the spot in an hour.  This lifted their spirits and they were laughing and joking as they moved from beneath the concrete.   They wandered around the immediate two or three blocks, trying to keep in the sun, absorbing warmth for chilled muscles.
     Willie Jump's eyes were sensitive to bright light.  He kept his eyes downcast, but even concrete glare caused the burning feeling of eyelid grit.  It appeared he was crying, and he was, but not from sadness.
     He walked into the mid-town mall, through the Macy's entrance.  The first thing he saw was a display of expensive sunglasses.  Without pause, Willie removed a pair, bit off the plastic price tag, circled the counter, slipped on the glasses, and walked back towards the way he'd come in.
     An off-duty city patrolman was lock step with Willie and arrested him before the outside sunlight could be reflected off the polarized lenses of the aviator-style shades. Willie Jump's home for Christmas would be warm, clean and nourishing.
     Preacher strolled across the railroad tracks which divide the city.  He stood in front of a small church, remembering sermons he'd delivered.  He wondered how long he could keep lying about the real reason he had to give up his pulpit.  He was aware that few people believed his story about being directed by God to become destitute and live on the street.  His downfall was alcohol.  Ruined his marriage, alienated friends and family, weakened his worth and caused the necessary removal from church duties. He stood there daydreaming, and visions of Christmases past flooded back.
    "Good morning, brother."
     Preacher remained entranced, so the greeting was repeated.  He turned to face the man who had spoken to him.
     "I'm sorry, good morning to you.  Guess I spaced out for a minute.  I was thinking about a church in Kentucky.
     "Kentucky, huh?  I come from there, myself."
     It was the pastor of the church.  He shook Preacher's hand and they began talking.  The conversation lasted well past noon, but Preacher didn't need to be concerned about getting to the free kitchen.   Preacher was invited to lunch with the pastor.
     After nearly a full day of discussions about the Bible, Kentucky, church membership, Christmas, the homeless, alcohol, and many other subjects, Preacher was invited to join the congregation and assist with some of the charitable projects.
     When Benny and Casey met at threebridge, the word was already out about Willie Jump's boost bust.  They figured Preacher had gotten some sauce, and may not return until sober enough to navigate. Benny took a deep toke from the small pipe Casey had filled from the bag of pot he'd scored. 
     The pipe was hand-made from threaded brass sections.  Occasionally, in dry times, Casey would disassemble the sections and scrape the residue from inside  Then, he would screw it all back together and smoke the little pile of black tar.
     Within seconds, Benny was high.  Marijuana acted as a speed, for him, and his intensity levels rose.   He couldn't express himself fast enough and his speech was coming in such spurts, it appeared his tongue was loose at both ends.
     "Casey, man, I'm tellin' ya, I've been thinking about going back to Indiana.  Ever since you mentioned there are ten days 'til Christmas...back to my mother's place...I haven't seen her in six years.  I'm broke and broken down...don't know how she might react...might not want me any kinda back...but I've a mind to try to get there by...Christmas.  If I don't make it, at least I'll be closer to a home I know."
     "Yeah, dude, I hear you, dude.  I talked to my brother, this morning, just before I went to see about this dope, and he convinced me I should move back home and start working for my old boy.  He has more business than he has help.  If you want my sleeping bag, it's warmer than yours.  You can use it.  How you gonna go all that way back to Indiana?"
     "Thumb, I guess,"  Benny answered, smiling. "I think I could leave, right now, with the clothes on my back - no baggage, no bucks - and hitchhike it in five days."
     Casey reloaded the bowl, after tapping out the ashes, lit it, hit it and passed it to Benny.
      "Where would you sleep?"
      "I wouldn't.  I'm talking non-stop hitchin', brother.  No sleeping, no eating, just staying on the road 'til it ends.  At mom's.  I know I can do it.  I'm physically able to handle it, Casey lad."
      "Man, you might end up freezing to death along the way, too.   I think you better stick around until the almighty hawk is through screaming icicles out on them plains, buddy."
       Casey's attempt to delay Benny's marijuana induced travel plans, made Benny all the more determined to go for it. He bent over and began pulling articles of clothing from his garbage bag, and began dressing for the trip.   When finished, he straightened to his full height and smiled. 
     He was wearing two pairs of socks inside a pair of insulated boots.  Under his loosest fitting pair of jeans, he wore a pair of stretch nylon, skintight athletic pants.  His upper body was layered with a
t-shirt, turtleneck sweater, hooded sweatshirt and a cotton-lined nylon jacket with a cotton knit cap in the pocket.
     "Three or four joints for the road, and I'd leave, right now.  What do you say, Case?"
     "I'll tell you what, Benny, I think you are too high and I think you are crazy.  But if you have papers, I'll twist up four fat numbers to help you keep a buzz on your way."
      While Casey rolled, he and Benny continued to smoke.  Once finished, he handed over the four joints, after wrapping them in a used sandwich bag.
     "Thank you, Casey, I really appreciate it.  And I'd like to go on record, at this time, by promising you that after these are gone and I'm back home in Indiana, my tetrahydrocannabinolic days are finished.  I won't smoke the herb again."
     "Sure, Benny, come on, I'll walk you down to one-oh-one."
     The entry ramp was only a block from threebridge.  Minutes after the two men arrived and began putting up thumbs, a van pulled over.  They shook hands, embraced briefly, then waved goodbye.  Benny climbed aboard and his first ride took him all the way to the edge of Sacramento.
     He was immediately chased off I-80 by a CHP, and walked the breadth of the city before resuming his hitchhiking.  In Nevada, he was cold and built a fire in a gully, just off the highway, but a state patrolman ordered him to extinguish it.  In Utah, he was stopped and frisked. then ordered off the freeway.  Forced to walk the back streets of  Salt Lake City in the early morning darkness, he was east of the city by daybreak.   He fashioned a sign from cardboard and a discarded roll of electrical tape, slowing an 18-wheeler to stop and take him all the way to Kansas City.
     After a long, cold wait, he hitched a ride to St. Louis.  From there, he was driven to Indianapolis.  After a series of short lifts, he arrived in Jacksonburg.  The sky was as bright as the one he'd left in California, but the temperature was forty-degrees lower.
     Benny's only food had been a sack of sunflower seeds, and four candy bars given to him by two kids in the back seat of one of the rides.  His face and hands were chapped and dingy.  He could smell his own staleness.  His skin were tired and his feet were numb.  He hesitated, for a long moment, before knocking on his mother's door.
     "Benny, what on earth...?"
     "Hi, Mom, may I call this home, for Christmas?"