Okay, that's it. The holiday's over. All done. Nope, you can't count New Year's Eve as a holiday. Its just a marker for the end of the tax year and the beginning of your diet. Don't believe me? Look at the ads. Tell me where in your house you're going to put that $900 treadmill? Hmm? No, you're not going to get on it. Okay, maybe twice but that's it. Then it will be the thing that holds your clothes after your done ironing. Those new sweats you got, you will take them out and try them 'in the field' once, maybe twice, then you will wear them while you sit on the couch and watch re-runs of the Gilmore Girls, Band of Brothers, or NCIS. I don't care who you promised, it ain't gonna happen, at least not for very long, not if you shoot for the moon.

You've got to take baby steps.

Practice walking to the front walk for the paper and back. Start small. Instead of finishing those Christmas morning cinnamon rolls because you 'don't want it to go to waste,' try only eating one. If you wait another day or two, they'll be so hard, even microwaving them slathered in butter won't soften them up.

Take the dogs out and toss the ball or Frisbee for them. Make sure you stretch first. The last thing you want to do is pull a back muscle. That will interfere with you laying on the couch watching the Gilmore Girls, or Band of Brothers.

When you're ready, go for a walk in the mall. This will take some planning. You need a good pair of sneakers, good socks, and those sweats you bought. Take a bottle of water so you don't get dehydrated while you're looking at the sales in the windows or as you slow your pace down passing Victoria Secrets and give it a crisp, snappy hand-salute. Make sure you watch where you're walking. You don't want to bump into something and bruise yourself. It might lay you up for a week or so while the bruise heals.

We all know what's coming. First, we have to get back New Year's and drinking stuff that we haven't had since we were under the bleachers in high school. It all comes down to moderation. Between now and April we all need to save up enough to pay the IRS or, if we're lucky we're getting some back. So think about using that money for a new couch. Come on, you've earned it!

The Thrill of the Season

Look, I'm not proud of the picture, at least, not officially. The fact is, the season made me do it.

That's right-the season. What's worse, I was able to convince the wife and children (the grown up hairy kind) to participate in this offensive behavior in which we believe, several federal postal laws were-if not broken, severely bent.

I don't believe in all that dribble of 'the devil made me do it' or 'I don't know, I was raised by wolves,' or any of that other malarkey stuff that is laid out to justify crappy behavior. We go into stuff with our eyes wide open-except during this time of year. It seems this is the time of year that the wheels fall of, for good for bad. There are more suicides and more babies being conceived this time of year than any other. Just when you think its safe to go to your mail box and open 'safe' Christmas cards, you get something like this. It's like your driving in Iraq and an IED goes off next to your convoy as you drive, well, this is nothing like that but its the best I can do. You open this innocuous envelope and BAM! You have this exploding all over your shirt. You have to admit though, it looks good on the refrigerator. But lets look at it for a moment in its entirety.

Christmas is the second most holiest day in the Christian calendar, right behind Easter and way out in front of Columbus Day (this holiday just pisses me off but I appreciate the day off). Family and friends are fighting like aardvarks in the Spring, trying to gather in family reunions all across this country, fighting the weather and consuming gallons of coffee and cocoa to make the trips to grandma's house in time for Christmas Day football games. Trips that will be talked about for years as Herculean tribal tasks of repatriation and good times. People do two things this time of year; they get nicer or they flip you off in a parking lot vying for that parking slot right next to the store. It brings out the best and worst in people. I toyed, I must admit, with sliding into a handicapped parking slot for just a short run into the store. It was only going to be a minute-honest-I use to be with the government. But I didn't.

I like to go to the mall and just walk. I'm 51, soon to be 52. Sometimes, I still think I'm eighteen and try to do things that I shouldn't be doing, like playing football with the staff against our football team. Yep, that was a bad call. I think I tore my hamstring on the first play. Not wanting to curl up in a ball and suck my thumb on the first play, I played until the half and then claiming department chair duties, excused myself from the game. But I can still walk the mall. That now seems more my speed. Walking with my wife and watching her in her element. Joni could touch every garment in a mall and then start over. I have the knack of finding every chair and nesting until she is done. I even walk with my hands behind my back, just like the 'Old Ones' the 'Silverbacks' of our society. At 51/52 I know I'm pushing the age thing but its comfortable-really, strolling with my hands behind my back like I'm a rabbi from Oslo.

Well, there ya go. Look, there's a lot of stuff out there that causes us to leave the light on in the house so we don't see the Boogieman. The world, sometimes creeps into our lives with pain, suffering, cancer, infidelity, aging parents, lost jobs, unmet dreams. I think I have laid aside several dreams that will never take place-ever. Those are hard things to realize. But, and I truly believe this, there is a purpose to our lives. If you believe in a thing called 'god' you know what I mean. Even if you don't, there is a sense of destiny we all have in us. Just because A, B, and C happen, doesn't mean D will follow. Today, look out the window and see it for what it is, a new day. Sure, those things we have been dealing with for what seems like years, might still be there, but its our hearts that are different, if we allow them to be. Shakespeare wrote in Henry V 'All things are ready if our minds be so."

Take this day, this season, as an opportunity to have hope that whatever you are in, will be what we can have it be. Enjoy it for what it is, a fresh start-starting right now-one step at a time. Who knows, you may find yourself standing on the front porch in a diaper-and loving it.

The power of the Christmas light!

Every year it gets bad. The last few years its been the worst. We put lights up around our house. Not a lot, just the trim-easy, conservative lighting. Just enough to get us in the game and playing as part of the season. You know? Just to show up is a victory. But over the last few years, there has been peer pressure to move away from one style to another, more 'traditional' lights-the C9. Now, I admit, I caved. I bought some a couple of years back. We had them growing up as a kid. You know the ones, the alternating blue, green, red, orange\yellow, white bulbs that the power company wants you to buy because your little meter on your house starts to spin like a top.

Before the reinvestment in the C9's we had switched to the small, white lights and for a time, during their fashion, the icicle lights which takes on a whole new meaning in a city that never gets snow. But here was the thing, in all the years and during all the transitions, we never threw any of the strings of lights away. We had them all. We had those big plastic tubs from Target full of lights. We even bought the spools for them to wind them up and store them neatly. Crazy. So, last year, I put out every strand I had-all of them. I wrapped trees, bushes, walls, eaves, windows, nothing matched. We looked like a Key West margarita bar, a bad one. It was cool. then, after the season, we dumped them, keeping only the C9's and some lights for the tree. This year, during BLACK FRIDAY, I bought the lights on sale at Target. Hard to beat Target for Christmas lights, as long as you get there the first couple of days they open.

Ya see, they don't restock. Once those lavender lights with the LED bulbs are gone, they're gone. Their selection is really one of the best in the free world if your looking for that bulb that says "WHAM, NOW YOUR IN A NEIGHBORHOOD THAT LIGHTS CHRISTMAS THE WAY THE SHEPHERD'S SHOULD HAVE DONE IT 2000 YEARS AGO!!" You know the ones, the soft blues, or reds, or the lavenders. The multi-coloreds that you and I grew up with are, well, dull.

So, my friend and I stood there looking at the bulbs, comparing notes, strategies, effects-both desired and misdirected, cost, and distance. Another man, overhearing our conversation, piped in with time/distance ratios and the anomaly issues he had about being five feet short on a fix measurement, thereby requiring him to go to Plan F and add a string of crap to fill the gap. The gap was filled but he commented 'it looked like a scab on the end of a pretty girl's nose.'

I usually just leave the gap there.

At night, from the street, it gives the effect of the driveway ending a few feet short. Of course, with all the lights, you can actually see the driveway and see that it doesn't, but that's the theory we're going with.

Anyway, there you have it. Lights. Its an annual thing. All of ours are up and active. Of course, we had a storm last night and half of them are now decorating the neighbor's yard. But, still, the yard needed decorating. I'm not going to move it. They look fine there.

The wisdom found in dogs

I love dogs.

They are what they are. We have two of them. One, is coming up on fifteen and the other is just over two and a half.

Dogs are what they are. What you see is what you get. They have no hidden agendas or plot or plans. They make stuff up as they go.

I came home yesterday and the two met me at the door like I was their god. "Oh, master master master, we are so happy to see you. See our tails wag? See? we are so happy. Pet us and let us know you love us too, quick, come see what we did today while you were gone." So you go and see your magazine shredded in the back yard and there is no one to blame but yourself. Why did you leave the magazine out if not for them to play with?

I woke up this morning a little later than normal. It's Saturday, after all and I wanted to sleep in. Betty, the young one, woke me with her face pressed up against mine. Her tail beating against something like a drum, only we don't own a drum. I couldn't roll over because Mindy, the fourteen year old, was laying on my feet. Yeah, I know what your saying. "Hey, what are you doing letting your dog sleep on your bed?" You're right, I shouldn't. But I did. And there is something comforting about an animal, particularly a dog, laying close to you. Mindy wants to lay between Joni and I because she feels safer there in her old age, and that, in turn, makes us feel good.

I guess as I get older I see my life between these two. The youth that I still cultivate in my mind that I think I still have, and the reality that as each day goes by, I seek the comfort that life has and of those around me. I want to be able to walk through the desert and look at life and smell the beauty that the world provides all the while thinking I can still leap walls and run like a galloping buffalo, knowing full well my galloping days are just about over.

I want Mindy's brains and Betty's young heart. I want the slow processing of the old girl and the willingness to jump into anything anytime of the youth. Somewhere, there is a happy medium.

Yep, I love my dogs.

My son said I would write about this

First, I have no idea who these people are. I was looking for Thanksgiving photos because, well, I didn't take any during our family feast. So, we have this family of strangers but at least they're waving at us.

My son, Travis, said I would write about the post-Thanksgiving day sales. He was right. Thanksgiving too. Thanksgiving takes on some meaning to the Williams footprint. We've had benchmark days that tied, at least myself, to what the holiday is suppose to be about.

When I was growing up, we never talked about the meaning of the day. I mean, we prayed over the meal, but that was about it. We went to our grandparents house and my two brothers would attempt to out eat the other. Two plates of food covered from rim to rim-impressive. Then dessert. Very impressive. We would dress up in tight clothes and eat off of good china. Grandmother was an amazing cook. I can still remember her fried chicken. Wow.

But then my parents and grandparents died off; I grew up; got married, had kids and had traditions of our own. Then, the Thanksgiving of 2000 rolled in. Two days before this Thanksgiving, we found out Joni had breast cancer.

And the prayers got real.

It was a great holiday and a terrifying holiday all at once. Conversations in the next forty-eight hours included combo platters like "Are you bringing rolls and oh, by the way, do you want to be buried or cremated if things goes south?" Weird.

Then there was the Thanksgiving of 2007 and the little boy who was ours was now a man and in the throat of the dragon that day. Travis was in Iraq, Saddam's hometown as a matter of fact. He volunteered to go out on patrol that Thanksgiving day, not necessarily so others could stay in and relax; he needed to stay busy. That was a long day for the father-"Are you bringing rolls and oh, by the way, has our son been shot today?" Again, weird.

Now, in 2009, Jessica and Matthew had Eli, a five pounder plus, on the Tuesday before, offsetting Joni's little event, but then Jessica's labs went south and sometime during the night, there was discussion of the day going really bad. But then the dawn brought a new day, and a full recovery. Weird.

Now, the Williams', some accusing Dad of starting, have a tradition of going out at pre-dawn on Friday and hitting the stores. It's funny, Dad doesn't buy anything; he just watches. The center to the American Free-Enterprise system is examined that day. All the scary people that make up the backbone to this civilization are there, buying crap that can't fit in a grocery cart, oh, and a pack of gum as well. The Williams family, working on a gift exchange program and having their gift list and dollar limit fan out and hide from each other, not wanting anyone to see what they bought. Weird.

The day is topped with breakfast at Five and Diner. A short stack, or an omelet, or some other combo platter and lots of coffee.

It's here that some of us, review the meaning of the holiday. Funny, it has nothing to do with anything advertised, purchased, traded in for, or listed. It has everything to do with those around the table and their spouses home with sleeping kids and how we survive those times when things aren't so good.

Weird? No, not really.

Smells are funny

You ever notice smells? They're funny.

We can find ourself walking down a street on a spring day and we can't stop breathing in deeply through our noses, inhaling the fresh aroma of orange blossoms. Or how about a store like Macy's or some other big retailer where they have ozone generators. That's why it smells so good; they generate electricity that lights up the air.

Or the fresh smell of a baby just after a bath.

Or how about a dog? I love dog smell. Not to be mixed with dog breath.

Or fresh baked bread, or chocolate chip cookies?

Then, as you get older, smells start to, well, change.

On the up side, you bury your nose in a tall glass of red wine, or even better-a short glass of scotch.

But then there's the not so good side. Like my tennis shoes right now. Yeah, sorry, too much information. But their comfortable tennis shoes and I like them. Although the sole is coming off-again-and they kind of flap a little when I walk. I have loyalty to clothes. If you serve me well, I will wear you until you disintegrate in the washer.

Fresh baby smell-meet fresh elderly man sitting in his ripe shoe smell. Yeah, not as cute. We even take our babies and blow raspberries on the bottom of their feet to watch them giggle and laugh. You wouldn't survive doing that to me, not today, after lawn cutting. You would pass out because whatever odor is coming off of my feet right this second is displacing oxygen and you would suffocate unless the chemicals in what ever that smell is, mixes with the moisture in your lungs and you find yourself clawing your way across the carpet towards an open window, dying slowly of some chemical reaction in your lungs.

Wet dogs don't do it for me. Nope. Not at all.

How about that funky smell when you leave chicken in the kitchen trash too long in the summer? Now, there is something to compete with the shoes! I got into my son's truck the other day and he normally keeps it pretty clean but something had crawled in there and died, maybe a free range chicken from the neighborhood. I looked down and had both of my feet so it wasn't me.

Sometimes noses smell stuff that isn't there. Example: sometimes when I'm outside, I could swear I smell cigarettes. Its actually fresh air but something causes me to smell that, weird. I remember working environmental crimes years ago and one of the safety things we learned early was that if you smelled a chemical smell, and then it went away, it wasn't that it went away and you were no longer standing in the middle of some toxic fume, it was that your nose and nasal membranes got overwhelmed and they didn't smell it anymore. They stopped working. That is never a good sign.

Now how come that doesn't happen to my feet?

Sorry, I'd just thought I'd share. Go back to whatever you were doing. I have to go glue the sole back on my shoe-again.

I Now Know Why

There is a great story I heard once. It was Pearl Harbor, December 7th. I think it was the USS Nevada; it was moored and its engines cold when it was attacked. The captain called down to engineering and told the young chief who answered he needed power yesterday. Normally, it took a battleship at least a half hour to come up to steam. The chief told the captain he would be ready to answer bells in 10 minutes. It was a cold engine start. It had never been done-until that day.

10 minutes later the chief called the bridge and told the astonished captain he had power. The chief won the Navy Cross for that.

I now know why the life expectancy of a teacher, teaching in the high school system (I am guessing it would apply to elementary school teachers as well) is only five years. The system, although not broken, is, well-bent.

Look, we have the best education system in the world. Sorry, you can pick and choose any country, ANY country, and we pound them like any opponent in an Ali fight. But its almost like those that manage our system sit down and actually try to figure out a way to make it difficult to work in that same system. We all are responsible, from parents to the head of the State Department of Education. All of us have got to look at this with common sense instead of "Who can we blame because Johnny can't read."

Actually, Johnny can read. He just isn't reading to the level we want him to read; or Johnny, believe it or not, doesn't give a crap about reading, writing, and definitely nothing to do with the slope-intercept formula. He would rather be listening to his I-Pod and 'shooting hoops' with his buddies or dealing with stuff beyond our comprehension. Now, there are a bunch, I want to say the majority of students, who do care. But if you have a bleeding artery, you don't spend a lot of time on those body parts that are working. All your focus is on the bleeder.

AIMS-Arizona Instruments to Measure Standards, came out in the late 1990's to start to hold schools accountable for educating Johnny to a certain level. They established that Johnny had to take a standardized test his 3rd, 8th and high school year. He only needed to pass the high school test to graduate. The other two he could have answered with a crayon and his toes and no one cared, just the high school test was the one where kids would be held back. The state, realizing it was a high stakes test and Johnny might need to run at it more than once, started to give him the test his 10th grade year. The idea was that Johnny didn't graduate until he passed the test. They even had practice years, where the test wasn't counted, it was just a research tool to see how students would do.

They bombed.

It took them a couple of years to figure out the math results, the worst of the three tests (reading, writing, and math), had calculus on the test. No big deal except calculus was not normally taught in high school. Students had never seen it. It was an elective class-not required-Oops. So, they adjusted and cut back to have algebra and geometry. However, now, both subjects are not completed until, at the earliest, the end of a student's 10th grade year. The same year they start taking the test in February and all schools are measured by. A lot of students take algebra their freshmen year, then geometry their sophomore year, whether they pass algebra or not. They just keep moving. Now, if Johnny doesn't pass algebra, they are fast tracking him into geometry because he has to take it on AIMS as well as having completed Algebra 3/4 by his senior year, whether he understands it or not.

Now, schools are starting to fail to make "AYP", annual yearly progress. The feds said, 'No Child left Behind', including SPED kids, that school should be moving forward, until all children-100% pass the test with the federal guidelines. Now, some of those federal people have great hearts, but they didn't bring their check book- a big checkbook.

Here's where it gets funny.

Test makers also intend students, who are new to this country and can not read or write, to take the test in the English language. Many seeing the English alphabet for the first time. This also applies to special education (SPED) kids. The legislature and Congress hold schools accountable for these groups passing the AIMS test. If these two groups of kids don't pass, the school, teachers, staff, administrators, could be replaced. Here's an even funnier part-I'll give you two real scenarios: 1) a student arrives on Monday to his new school. He is a refugee and Catholic Services, a great organization, helps him settle in his new life and enrolls him in high school. He is from a country that has actually seen the English alphabet. We get many students who have never seen the English alphabet. This particular student uses it in his native French language, anyway, he gets here on Monday, Tuesday he has to sit and take the AIMS test-wait-it gets better-the test on Tuesday is the writing component. He is given a writing 'prompt' that he has to read-in English- and answer in writing-that's right-in English. Lets just say he didn't do too well. So, he had a bad test day. The next day, Wednesday, he gets to take the Reading component-in English. Of course the math section is in, that's right, English.

No problem, he has until his senior year to pass and usually the staff do a Herculean job of getting him to that level. BUT-the school and the teachers are held accountable under AYP for that first test. He failed. That means the school failed. 2) SPED kids are accommodated throughout their school career. They should be. However, in AIMS they're not. Oh, yeah, they only have to try the test once. They are not required to ever pass it. It can be written into their education plan that they don't have to take the test ever again. BUT-the school is held accountable because SPED Johnny didn't pass the test his sophomore year. By 2014 it is required that 100% of the SPED kids have to pass the test. 100%.

You couldn't get 100% of Congress to even show up to vote on No Child Left Behind.

Teachers get asked, "Why is your D and F rate so high? What are you doing wrong-something must be wrong with your teaching?" D and F rate effects graduation rate and drop out rate, two other factors with AYP/No Child Left Behind and state measuring guidelines. Teachers were stopped being asked about D and F when it was discovered that of the, lets say 70% failure rate, 95% of those particular students had over a 40% absentee rate. In a 9 week term, they had missed anywhere between 25-50% of those days. You can't learn if your not here.

Where were they? Well, some are working 3rd shift at the CVS to make money for the family or themselves because they moved out due to their home life was so bad. Some were taking care of little brother or little sister because single mother is at work and can't afford a baby sitter. They overslept because they were on the phone with their boyfriend/girlfriend until 3am. They overslept because they were on the phone with their boyfriend/girlfriend until 3am talking about what they were going to do about the pregnancy. Or, they get to school late because mom or dad didn't want to drive them. When they're in class, they're not in class. A cold engine.

Now teachers aren't perfect, far from. They bitch more than cops, and I thought that was impossible, but they do. But maybe there's a reason. A lot of these problems would fall on deaf ears in parts of our society where ELL, Title 1, or SPED kids don't exist in any great number. There are some schools where there are virtually no Title 1 kids. These are usually the kids who fall into these categories we're talking about. Where discipline is not an issue and where STD's, pregnancies, and drug use, are handled by the family because they are embarrassed by the potential social stigma that could result if it was known publicly so they throw money at it and poof! It all goes away-back under the carpet. But for a great percentage of schools who deal with the vast majority of our kids, this is not a possibility. Its only getting worse.

I had a meeting with a parent the other day. The mother, counselor, three teachers, and the student met to discuss why 'Johnny' was circling the drain. The mother was berating the boy, who was busy dealing with what he was going to do as a senior, about trying to finish school, and whether he was going to marry or somehow financially support his 15 year-old girlfriend and their love child, created in a bathroom stall. The mother, claiming that she and her husband only had an 8th grade education, couldn't understand why Johnny was the way he was.

Johnny just hung his head. He had heard it all before. The cycle was repeating itself.

Look, I'm coming to grips with my heritage, I'm part Scottish. We love a good fight. But Geezus, Mary, and Joseph, if you ain't going to use the brain that God gave ya, and create solutions to the ills of the process, then don't get in the way of those that can. If you got no business in the engine room, then get the hell out of the way; I got a cold engine I gotta light.

Those are some tough bastards

I really didn't like to be around old people. They kind of creeped me out. I mean they were old. They had lost their cuteness when they were three, their teeth, smell, and the worst part was where they went when they got really old, to a nursing home. They'd sit on a bench and wear clothes that don't match, and again, that smell.

I had a grandfather who outlived his son. That made him a bitter, mean man in his last few years. His first wife died of the pandemic in 1917, leaving him to raise his four year old son by himself. It wasn't until WW II, the second war he fought in, when he decided to re-marry.

Old people and I just didn't mix. That was until I found myself becoming, well, older. I don't really know when it happened. I think, maybe, it was the movie Saving Private Ryan, I don't know, but something changed. I realized that old people, use to be young. They use to be young in a time in the world when youth didn't last long, there wasn't necessarily a phone, hospitals, or even the cavalry near by to help those living with the act of living. It dawned on me like a brick falling on my foot, that these people, were a lot like me, growing up, then again, they weren't like me at all.

They were tough.

A friend of mine's mother, growing up, baked us cookies whenever we went over to her house after school. We were in high school and teenagers with thoughts that didn't much pass that of a functional aardvark. She would come out with a plate of cookies in a dress with an apron around her. She was well into the shrinking time of her life, only about five feet tall if she was standing on a box. I found out she was a bomber pilot during WWII. She would shuttle the bombers over to England across the Atlantic and South Pacific. That way, men were free to fly the missions. There was no GPS in those days. They navigated by the stars. BY THE FRIGGIN' STARS!

A friend of mine, at least I wish to claim him as a friend of mine, is now a frail man living with his frail wife in Montana. I think he's about 120 years old. When you talk to him he has a smile that will melt lead and cries for you because he is so sensitive to your heart. He is the kind of man you want to, even as a grown up, just crawl up in his lap and tell him about your day. I thought about it but figured I would just crush his hips. His arms are black and blue from the slightest bumping.

He was at Normandy the day Normandy became a household word. He didn't need a knife to cut your heart out, his hands would do.

My dad would be 95 this year. Mom would be 85. Had he lived past 58, he'd undoubtedly be using a cane now and need heavy care. But in his day, he would ride a horse bareback and fly night missions patrolling the Tokyo Express and dare to bomb Japanese cruisers in a plane that didn't go more than 200 knots and his crew would have to throw the one-hundred pound bombs out the waist windows by hand. AND THEY ACTUALLY HIT STUFF!

Before my grandfather fell into distant disrepair, he showed me a few things. We would go to his small ranch and we would castrate cattle and de-horn them. He would sometimes cut his hands so he would wrap the bleeder in a kerchief soaked in kerosene. He said it healed it. When he got a sore throat, he would gargle with it. He said it cured that too. I tried it. All the grand boys tried it. I think I'll stick with name brand stuff. But I found myself using alcohol and stuff that cures your cut by burning every nerve shut. Maybe I got that from him?

Yesterday, I went to Costco with my son and future daughter-in-law. At a table in the food court, were three old men with clothes that didn't seem to match but each wearing a ball cap. On the front of the cap was the the emblem for the Big Red 1. They were sipping drinks and talking. There were two canes and a walker at their table. Old warriors-silverbacks. I looked at my son who was walking ahead of me and didn't see them. He was a warrior in his own right. Ah, the contrast.

At my daughter's wedding, I talked to her husband. I told him to look around the room and see the old men. I called them 'Silverbacks' because they had crowns of silver and in a group of gorillas, it was this old wise gorilla that was the heart and strength of the troupe. I told him to trust these men and women for they were the source of great wisdom. My daughter didn't like it because, well, I was talking about gorillas at her wedding.

But in their eyes, deep in their eyes, the old ones, behind the wrinkles and the smell, behind the coarseness and the bad teeth, the walkers and the canes there still is a fire. Don Quixote was a character written long ago, but he lives in the hearts of the old today. Watch them, look into their eyes. There, right there! You see it? The old men would take your last donut but risk their life to drag you to safety. They would want to date your sister but beat up any one who was not part of your group for saying the same thing. They would be the first to stand with you when the wheels were falling off. They will bake you cookies or stand with you in the fires of hell.

They know the path, they walked it before.

Buried or Cremated and what's that on the bottom of my shoe?

At 51, some might think that age is too young to have any plans about death and what to do with the package when the contents are gone. You might think that topic is too sad, too gloomy to think about now. Frankly, I kind of like thinking about it because it won't be my money or time to figure it out. It'll be the collective 'yours.' One of the last great 'Deal With It' moments anyone could have.

I'm pretty keen on the idea that it really will not make any difference to me. I won't be there and the vessel I had been riding in for decades will need to be disposed of because, frankly, if you keep it, it will start to smell, like week old potato salad. It doesn't make any sense to bury me, although my dogs will bury their chew bones, Joni and I get them, in the couch (I get the feeling my dogs don't like the taste of dirt, especially on their food or food-like substances so, hence, the couch) so burial makes sense. But the cremation, now that's economy in a little silver dish.

Joni and I took the kids to D.C. once and watched the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns. What a peaceful place, Arlington. I liked it. I know as sure as I'm sitting here that I don't deserve to be there, although I did take the oath twice in my lifetime, those men and women earned that trip.

Then I saw Joe Louis' headstone at the bottom of the hill just down from the Unknowns. 'Wait a minute little pony. What's he doing here?'

Nope, not taking anything away from anyone. Sure, there are special people there. Someone made the decision to install some non-warrior types there because of their deeds and services in their civilian lives. Okay, I get that. I still haven't earned a spot there.

Then, it occurred to me, as we walked over a small stream that cuts through the property, I could be cremated and thrown into the stream and wind up being fertilizer for the flowers and plants giving peace to those marked there. Hey, that's not a bad idea! I didn't earn a plot, but I could fertilize the plots, kind of a servant thing, honoring all of those that my little microbes could sprout flowers for.

Why not?

Look, its not morbid. I'm not saying you throw the whole carcass in the stream. That would be gross and probably block the water flow. You got to do something with the casing when you're done living. I bet most of you throw your coffee grounds out in the trash instead of tossing them into the flower bed, huh. How many of you have a compost pit in your back yard? Yeah, I didn't think so. Now that would be gross if my kids just kicked me to the pile of yard clippings and leaves in the corner of the back yard. They would come out and turn the pile once a week and see old dad's frame out there and I think it would cause some distress, as well as some light vomiting and or dry-heaving. But this way, all they would have to do is sneak me in via a brown paper bag. They could pretend to be eating peanut butter and jelly's among the New Hampshire's 3rd Regiment of horse soldiers from Shiloh and tip the bag over and there ya go, Daddy's working again, serving the Thin Line!!

Just think about it before you go all Calypso on it. After a while, it kind of grows on ya. Maybe, the idea of your old friend here causing a flower or two to bloom at the foot of the Unknowns, among the fallen sons and daughters will bring a smile to your face.

Besides, as you walk there, moving among the markers, looking at the names and years etched in the marble, you'll smile. A little bit of me will be stuck on the bottom of your shoe.

I want to hang out with this guy

"If you were to pick someone in history and hang out with them, who would it be?" Everyone has been asked that question. I've had my students write about that as kind of one of those "filler" assignments. You get the traditional answers like MLK, Lincoln, Jesus, not too many ask for Buddha, more ask about Hitler, sports figures, politicians, even Wyatt Earp-the whole spectrum. I was writing this morning, coffee was hot and the dogs asleep on my feet when I started to think. There are a bunch of people I would want to spend a day with, Winston Churchill for example. He would be a kick. I mean, just look at this guy. He knows secrets-you can just tell.

I think it was because Trace Adkins was playing on the CD that caused me to come up with this one-the apostle Peter. Now, don't change the channel. I'm not going to proselytize you. Don't worry about that. Just ride the pony with me for a minute and see if you don't agree.

Peter, one of the Big Twelve of Jesus' 'cabinet', was a sailor. Today, sailors are still pretty rough around the edges. Sure, you get a bunch of them coming out of the Naval Academy and they are all spit and polish, but I'm talking about a true sailor, like on 'Deadliest Catch.' You know the kind, they smoke hard, drink hard, don't wash, don't shave, and when they cut themselves, they find some fishing line and sow themselves up while they bite down on a leather belt-those kind of guys. You hit them in the face with a wrench and they just smile at you. Right at that moment, you know you made a wrong move somewhere in your life to get you to that particular spot on the time line.

Now, go back 2000 years and picture yourself working the docks around the Sea of Galilee, basically, a very large lake. You're living from hand to mouth. There is no Walmart. What ever you have, you have to make out of a tree or rock. You are a very early version of a blue collar worker and when people try to take your stuff or mess with you, you don't " go get your GATT and bus ta cap", you get into a fight using big sticks, clubbing each other until one of you backs down. Then you go find some fishing line and sow yourself up-biting down on a leather strap.

Peter, I am sure, was one of the first users of the 'F Bomb' or whatever that word or phrase might have been in Judea two millenniums ago. When he relaxed, he probably went home to his family or sometimes a neighboring sports bar and had a skin of wine with some buds and talked about how bad the fishing 'sucked' or whatever the Hebrew word equivalent was for 'sucked'. Kind of sounds like the docks in Boston, the warehouse at Henley's Shipping and Receiving, ANY construction site, etc.

The early writings, I think, cleaned up Peter's response when he was recruited and merely have him follow the rabbi, but I think there was some initial response similar to 'WTF' or again, the Hebrew equivalent. From then on, what we know about this guy is he had a paradigm shift in thinking about who he was. It would chase him for the rest of his life until he was killed for it.

But along with that, there was still the Peter I would like to hang out with.

I think today, Peter would love to go to a sports bar and drink a beer-or three, and have a plate of nachos with those green jalapenos on it. I think he would be a great listener and although he doesn't tell 'blue' jokes anymore, like he did before the teacher fellow became a part of his life, he still tells jokes-clean, but really really funny. He was the inventor of the joke starting with "A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

He would love to tell stories and even make some up. You look at him, sipping your beer, and say out loud, 'you're full of crap on that.'

"No, I swear," he would say, and then spoon a slather of nacho and peppers into the salsa and shove it into his mouth, getting half of it on his chin whiskers. He might or might not use the paper napkin left by the waitress on the table."I swear, that fish was as long as the boat," raising his right hand to heaven, a sure giveaway the man was lying to you. He would comment about what ever story you told and when you described something and tried to make it sound bigger than what it was, he would, if he knew you well enough, say in a whisper, "You're full of shit," with a big smile. That was Peter, a fisherman, a working man, a guy I think much like the rest of us.

I don't know if he would like baseball, definitely not basketball unless they changed the rules and allowed a forearm shiver every once in a while. He would love football and tolerate hockey. He would be a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan because Pittsburgh is a working man's town. Boston would run a close second because of the seafaring. Unfortunately for you, if you went to a game where Pitt was playing, he would paint himself the team colors, take his shirt off, and show you during the game. He wouldn't be obnoxious, like calling the refs' names or saying things like "My dead grandmother could call a better game than you, you stupid (insert Hebrew equivalent to F Bomb here)" but he would be loud-real loud. Still, he would be fun to go with.

He'd drive a truck. It wouldn't be an extended cab but one from the seventies with those side vent window, no A/C, and an AM radio only along with a gun rack holding two fishing poles, a fly rod and a regular rod-just in case he wanted to stop at one of the canals and wet a line. Old habits are hard to break.

Yep, he would be fun to hang out with. And If I could hang out with two, it would be Sir Winston and the fisherman. Wow, the three of us out for dinner, Peter and his beer and Churchill and scotch. We'd be smoking cigars-those big fat ones and telling lies and listening to Peter and the priest jokes. After a couple of drinks, Sir Winston might have a comment or two about the men around him.

"Look at that weak chin daffer," Winston would say, just loud enough so the man could hear.

"You talking to me?" the tall skinny guy with the Polo shirt turned up would say to the old man.

"Why, no-no I am not necessarily addressing you but undoubtedly talking about you, my good man. I was just wondering, did you have the mandible removed from your face to allow your lower lip to slide into your neck like that? And if so, why?" He would finish the sentence with a draw on his cigar, his eyes squinting to slits.

"Winston, stop it," Peter would say, half laughing because, all three of us would be sitting there looking at this lodge pole of a man and in our minds wondering about the same thing at what our friend pointed out. "Please, forgive my friend," Peter would continue. "He has a working bowel obstruction that causes his Tourettes to flare. Please-" he turns to the bartender while addressing the man with no chin-"let me buy you another drink of whatever you are having there."

The lodge pole man nods as if he had won a great victory and takes the offer, then moves down the bar to recover his free drink. Churchill's eyes never leaving the man's face.

"Winston," I would start after the man moved down the bar and out of ear-shot "what are you thinking? He had friends, this is a nice spot, we're three middle-aged men and you're trying to get us into a bar fight."

"I could of taken the tanker," he would say puffing on his cigar, sipping his third neat scotch, and looking down the bar, remembering the days of his youth when he was a calvary officer in the Light Brigade.

"Yeah, fifty years and a hundred pounds ago. Geezus, Mary, and Joseph," I would say.

"Hey."

"Oh, sorry Peter."

"Now, what was I saying, oh yeah, a priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

Yep, someone would be going to jail that night!

Sprint or Marathon

As teachers go, life comes down to sprints or marathons. Our life is a compilation of days and weeks of random lengths, with the finish line being the next available holiday. For example, we are just coming off of Fall Break. Now, don't start bitching at me for having a week off and saying you didn't. Teachers all know we have a good gig. But we do earn it. This, from a guy who before he became a teacher, said those same words; until I did the job and then realized that there isn't enough time for the therapy and oh, don't forget, I am expected to go back to school and get another degree, more education, seminars, and stuff to keep me 'sharp.'

Please, I need a week sitting on a boat, moored in some harbor somewhere just pretending to sail and trying to decide where I am going for lunch. Joni, being a special education teacher, does IEP's in her 'off hours.' We sat down and figured it out, her hourly salary is right around $7 an hour. She could earn more putting fruit out at the Fry's than she does at school. So, its understandable when she has true down time, she likes to sleep in and then curl up in the corner and suck her thumb. Me, I find relaxation by reading, writing, painting, or playing 'Dodge Ball' with trucks on the freeway. So, with that, we measure our time from one break to the next either as a sprint or a marathon.

Example: It's now October so it is a marathon to summer break.

Another example: we just came off of Fall Break (Joni is just going on break so that's why I'm not writing this from some beach cottage in Fiji) and I know I have almost exactly one month to Veteran's Day. Test it. Ask any teacher and they will be able to tell you when their next holiday is. This is a good example of the individual sprints from one break to the next. We teachers don't measure grading by semesters or terms but by holidays and what goes in between them.

Now, its weird this time of year because Halloween is not a holiday but more of a marker. It feels like a holiday because Walgreens has been selling bats and witch hats since July plus it is the doorway to the winter season and halfway to Veteran's Day, which, of course, is just two weeks until Thanksgiving, the only holiday with two-TWO days, making it a four-day weekend. Then, its a down hill run to Christmas! Or, as we like to call it in the politically correct world-Winter Break. Throw in weekends and a teacher or any staff member at any school can tell you, almost to the hour, when time off is coming.

So, in the second week of October, as I crawl out of the mire and muck of what was a delightful week of working around the house and doing mind-freeing tasks, as I look down range at nine more weeks until Santa shows up to my door and offers me a forty-year old scotch, I am reminded why I went into this profession. Yeah, sure, the breaks and time and the fact that I wasn't traveling or working weird hours anymore, is part of it. I hate to admit it, there is something I miss about adolescent teens and their pines of woe. Some of them really have those-for real. Others are just dorks that make me laugh. So I'm going back with a half-assed smile and clean underwear (tell the truth men, when you're off for a while, don't you forget to change your underwear?)

Besides, who would teach them how to play dodge ball on the freeway?

Fall Break? Who's watchin'?

Some teachers and staff in this great country of ours get a break about now. In our district its called "Fall Break" because it happens-you guessed it, in the Fall; although, Fall in Phoenix just means you can try to switch over to your evap cooler.

People make comments about teachers. "Oh, you're so lucky, you get nine months off in the summer and ten weeks off at Christmas (staying politically correct and not wanting to hurt any of those Tibetan Buddhists who have converted to Judaism but still pray five times a day, we now call it 'Winter Break') and now you guys get a week off in the Fall and one in the Spring. Geez, I wish I had your job." Yeah, well, we wish you had our job too sometimes. What do teachers and support staff do with all that time? We do a lot of the same stuff you commoners do. We see our therapists wishfully, while we're at some cheap happy hour.

Some of us teach your kids that still, in high school, can't read or write beyond a fifth grade level. Whatever we do, we've got to get them to pass the state graduation test-in their tenth grade year. Yep, that didn't make any sense to us either. Oh, and if your child is SPED (receiving special education services) they have to take the same test. But don't worry, they don't have to pass the test, but the teachers and school will be taken over by the state if they don't. Teachers are accountable for the child taking and passing the test just like the rest of the regular kids. Wait, it gets better.

The refugee kid that happens to be old enough to be a sophomore but yet, might never have seen a school, let alone the English alphabet or shoes, guess what he has to do-yep, pass the test his tenth grade year. The kid that can say "Okay Joe, waddya know? Want tickets to the picture show," when asked to write an essay explaining what he would change about the American way of life? He's the head of his class. in the mean time, what did we do with that kid who talked to us about his family being evicted and he has to work the late shift at Fry's to buy Top Ramine to feed his little brother and cousin?

First of all, we don't get nine months in the summer, its only eight and the Winter Break is only two weeks but we get tickets to fly anywhere in the world. But the breaks at both ends, nope, don't see them.

NOW, shut up and pour. I can still feel my lips.

Simple things

Sometimes fast food is revealing and good. Sometimes, eating at a place that has thousands of restaurants across this great nation is a breath of fresh air, reminding us that life in this society, as glorious as it can be, is just one drive through after another, unless we choose to look in the kitchen.

I came home from work the other day and didn't feel like cooking dinner. I do most of the cooking between Joni and I. She could eat mac and cheese every meal, mixed with chocolate; plus, when she gets home, she's usually in a coma.

I saw one of those commercials where the hamburger joint was offering is owner's name with the word 'Big" in front of it. It just sounded good, looked even better, and since my wife eats stuff with no flavor in it, I was off to get me one of them there Big somethin's. Here was the other thing I wasn't expecting, once I got there, there was a difference in the place.

The kitchen behind the counter was huge and wide open. Of course it was a takeover from a Krispy-Kreme after Krispy-Kreme ran head-long into the South Beach Diet and Adkins. There was wide open space where baby donuts were born in a river of oil a long time ago.

The place was clean-immaculate actually. There is something about walking into a fast food place and not feeling the need to draw your arms and hands in tight to your body for fear of catching something, that improves your appetit. So I got the sandwich-combo actually. It just looked good on TV. The girl at the counter was nice and had all her teeth, "How may I serve you today sir?" You could even understand her and she looked at you and smiled when she spoke to you. For a moment, you thought she really liked her job and wanted to make a career out of it. I ordered the burger and then added the special, two deluxe hot dogs for $1. No, they weren't Costco size, but they were large enough that one would have satisfied me. Why did I order two dogs when I had a "Big?" Because they were two for a buck. Why else?

Look, there are complications to life-war, peace, cholesterol, water, global warming, what will the Cubs do this year, but if you get the chance to enjoy a moment and see the simple side where all those things, for a moment, just fall away and you find yourself admiring a clean floor where one usually isn't, a sincere smile, and a value for a dollar-if you can find that moment, you need to remember it and pass it on.

The power of the 'Word'

I want to bring some words back.

A lot of us remember the 'good old days' now as being the sixties. You see fewer Elvis impersonators and more Temptations look-a-likes at the Indian casinos. Why? Because the people remembering the fifties are dying off and the sixties generation is at bat, plain and simple. That's just the tip of the iceberg that's looming large on our bow. Wait until Michael Jackson wannabes start showing up at your kids bat-mitzvah. So if we're going to do it, lets bring back the words that galvanized a decade of love, war, leisure suits, and some guys called The Beatles.

Groovy is a term developed by long hairs to mean 'cool' and 'hip'. These are two words we need to clarify later. Groovy means to be harmonious and usually was accompanied by the person raising their index finger and whatever that finger is next to the index finger as if they're indicating two orders of fries. The two fingers was symbolic for 'peace' in those days which is not to be mixed up with Sir Winston Churchill's use of the same two fingers during WWII which were symbolic for 'Victory.' There could be a correlation between victory and peace although that combination is fleeting.

Bitchin' is one of my favorite words. Its cutting, hard-packed, and makes you seem like you live on the edge. Anyone hearing it will get the image that the user has a motorcycle, a gun, and isn't afraid to use either. The word means 'groovy' 'cool' 'neat' only with an air of someone saying "I want to see you bleed, man."

Hip associates with fashion. It marks whatever it is addressing as trendy, fashionable, stylish, so on. You are not groovy if you stand there and comment on what your friend is wearing and say "Hey, you're stylish," and then flip the peace/Churchill sign. You would then be a "drag." I like to think this came out of the fashion style of 'hip-hugger' jeans when the women wore their jeans waaaaaay down on their hips, showing their form, usually accented with a big, wide, white belt; much like high school boys do today.

Cool. I don't think this word ever went away. It's classic and versatile. Its one of those words that can apply to almost any situation from fashion, attitude, to your coffee on a winter day.

Boss rates up there with groovy. It symbolizes that something is king-be it a shirt, a band, or music. Whatever it is pointed at means that item deserves respect and a free pass back stage.

Look, there are a bunch and some of them today we could even weave in, although they haven't lived long enough in our vocabulary to warrant a seat in the Hall of Fame of Words yet, like Phat; which we all know means someone who is fat spoken by someone with a lisp. These words have been around and I think we need to try to revitalize them. Come on, weave them back into your daily vocabulary. It'll be bitchin.

I remember a morning.

I remember where I was.

It was about 6:20am and I was about four miles into my bike ride to work. It was dark with the sun just starting to color the horizon a deep blue. I was listening to the radio, country station, KNIX. I would like to call him a friend, but to be a friend we would have to hang out together or at least borrow tools from each other and our lives didn't allow that much time together so I will simply call him a close acquaintance. We went to church together and he was one of two morning DJ's on the show that morning.



Its funny, what you remember, during those times when things go terribly sideways. The images of a bad movie that seems to stick in your brain and burned itself so deeply. When Kennedy died I was at the Turkey Farm with my kindergarten class. I can still see a turkey from that day.



First, it was a terrible accident; a plane hitting one of the tallest buildings in New York. It could happen; it had happened before. Stuff was always flying into buildings in that city, especially on a foggy day. But then the pictures were of a brilliant blue sky. The two on the radio-you could tell one was broadcasting while the other worked the TV and computer, relayed what they were seeing. There was confusion. It was unclear what was happening.

The ride seemed to grow dark again. I remember the head light to my bike, it was on.

I tried to increase my speed. I wanted to get to my room and turn on the television. What a terrible accident. I had three miles to go.

Then there was a second plane.

Being a former pilot, I knew enough to know something was terribly wrong. I had never heard the name Al Qaida before-never. By the time I got to my room and flipped on the TV, it was on every station. Fire trucks were like huge red salmon swimming up stream to the smoke. Cops were trying to remove thousands of people from a city that had no real plan for removing people quickly from a nightmare like this. This WAS the plan. It worked. Two buildings holding 75,000 were evacuated except for those who were above the impact sight.

I remember standing there watching and my mouth was open. But we all know it got worse.

Yeah, I remember a morning.

Christmas is here!!?!

Okay, Costco won.

Every year, starting in early August, I go on watch.

I watch and see who is going to start with the 'seasonal' decorations and sales first. For years, Walgreens always won with Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations out during the hottest month of the year. They, again, were way out in front with ghosts and goblins, and other crap that goes bump in the night. But Costco took the new prize for distance in the fact they had CHRISTMAS trees and decorations next to the sofas.

Christmas trees, that's right.

I think the theory is that as the market circles the proverbial toilet, the earlier you can open your warehouse and pull the stuff out from last year and sell them, the less of a likelihood you will be stuck with them for another year.

Actually, I like it. there is a feeling this time of year that winter is just three months away. That life might actually survive another Arizona Summer-Spring-Fall Heat-o-Rama. When Halloween is here, I actually have on a sweatshirt. Sure, I still wear shorts but I have a sweatshirt on. Oh, and I have turned off the A/C., saving thousands of millions of dollars. Plus, there is the attitude of the season. I still worry about money but its in conjunction with stuff and not having anything to do with making my water bill payment.

I guess I have to ask myself why I think twice about businesses doing this. I guess I really don't care. It just kind of amazes me and stops me to wonder about it, kind of like the fact that I learned from my kids this week about your foot being the exact length as your forearm. It's true, kick off your shoe and stick it up there next to your arm and you'll see. Weird stuff like that. But during this season, even if it is only in my brain pan, it brings a little hope. I don't feel so bad when my eyes are scalded out of my head by the driving heat as I ride my bike home from work.

So, there it is. Costco has the trees out and soon it will be the dancing Santa and those big blow up things you put in your front yard with the blower and they inflate so people have something other than your bedroom window to aim at with their "gat."

So break out the sweaters and parkas and reach for the thermal socks. Its that time of year for ho ho ho's and ha ha ha's.

Oh, you might want to pop a salt tablet or two, just in case the heat comes back.

I want to complain.

Look, I don’t complain a lot. As a matter of fact, you’ve never heard me complain in a general forum like this. We get and do enough of that so I figured we didn’t need to hear some middle-aged guy start ramping up about a bunch of stuff, but there are things—
Like chocolate. When I was growing up, you ate chocolate anyway you could get it with the staunch knowledge that it WAS going to make you fat and your skin break out. Now, it’s suppose to be good for you and has nothing to do with your acne. That now is genetic.
Another is mayonnaise; the sixth major food group in the line of Williams men. We kept our mayo on the second shelf up, just to the right of the sink, right next to the peanut butter. We opened it, put some on our bread (we always used spoons, never a knife) and put the lid back on and then back to its nest on the shelf. Only when I got married was I told of the vast error of my ways. Now, the FDA has come out with a report that refrigeration for mayo is not needed. To this day, I count this dietary formula for the strength of my white blood cells.
Whatever happened to the “family doctor?” When I was growing up, we all went to one guy. Now, actually for decades, we go to an internist if we’re over 18, a pediatrician if we’re under 18, women go here, men go--, I don’t know. One guy. Of course, his wife eventually died of undiscovered breast cancer. Hmm
When was the last time you got CPR certified? Now, its 32 compressions and forget about putting your lips on the poor smuck. We’ll just beat on his chest until help arrives. Last week it was 15 compressions and 2 breaths. Before that it was 2 rescuers. Geez.
See what I’m saying? Look, I’m not asking a lot. Just get your tail down to the Coffee Shed just off of Route 9 near the Berinth Avenue exit and take a left. The coffee (no lattes, cappuccinos, espressos, etc) are going to be there. Consistency, that’s all I’m asking!!!

A Good Day!

I had one of those days middle-aged men have where we go to the doctor and hear words like "some discomfort" and "a small amount of pressure" both, after the doctor tells you she will send you home with a prescription, if you want one, of a mild pain relief medication; which turns out to be a synthetic morphine in an IV drip. The words and the meds linger in your mind because the two aren't making sense in the same paragraph until the procedure is over and you find yourself cowering in the corner sobbing like a French longshoreman with a stack of wet-wipes and wondering why your Aunt Millie didn't bake you a birthday cake when you were seven. All of this leads you into a mental study of the human body.

What an amazing piece of machinery. You know this thing we call a "body" was never meant to die? Sure, we do, but we weren't meant to. Forget your belief system, this body does everything it can to adapt and live in this contaminated world. Think about it. The body has a pancreas that is there just to process ice cream. Who would of thought that? After a while, your hair falls out just as your life is getting complicated and you need fewer things to maintain. How about your feet and hands, an engineering marvel. More than half the human bones are in your feet and hands. Dogs, our favorite friends in the whole world, don't have that. Or your eyes that pick up atoms of light, reverse them, send them to the brain via chemicals, where they are deciphered in a milli-second.

Even in sickness the body is amazing. If you get too fat, it tells you by making that spandex look like sausage casing while somewhere in the back of your mind, as you look at the light atoms entering your brain via your eyes reflected off the mirror, you're saying to yourself "Huh, not bad but did these things shrink?"

Since the world is the way it is, I don't mind helping it out by taking it to the doctor every once in a while an getting checked out, looking for skin cancer, getting a physical, or wondering why this thing is doing that thing. The doc looks at you attentively, takes a few notes, nods their head, then in their best pirate they wink and you and softly say "Aye laddy, stand by to be boarded."

That's fine too. It makes you think thoughts that you wouldn't otherwise think of, like Aunts and birthday cakes.

Come, sit a while and try the meat loaf.

There is a place we go, to escape, or maybe just to catch our breath. Sometimes its with friends on a boat, fishing for bluegill. Sometimes its reading a good book with a glass of wine on the front porch overlooking Puget Sound. But sometimes, the demons that occupy a space in our brain leak out and need more to suppress them and drive them back in to the box we keep them in up on a shelf in the back of the closet in the corner of our brain; waiting there until we are brave enough or just tired enough to face them. Welcome to Moreno's Bar. Just one of those places found in Holy Ground.

Originally due out this Christmas, we might linger a bit, do a bit more tweaking and sipping if you get my meaning. Oh, it will have legs and walk, the question is, what kind of legs and can we get her to run? We predict pretty strong legs at that. But while we wait, we want to give you a little taste of the story and let you linger, yourself, with our hero. He's tired-worn out, but the greatest moment of his life is yet to be. Come, pull up a stool and try the meat loaf.

Nights played one into the other and about every four months or so, as far as Moreno could figure it, Cooper would drink enough and think enough to walk over to the pay phone in the corner of the bar and ‘drunk dial.’ He never used his cell phone and in his well-oiled logic, why would he? He didn’t want Allison, his ex, to know it was him calling, although after receiving a dozen or so of his calls from Moreno’s Bar as it came up on the caller ID, she figured it was him calling—again. “You calling a cab again, amigo?” Moreno queried him.

“I don’t need a cab,” Cooper slurred.

“I wouldn’t drive if I were you,” Moreno returned without looking up.

“Lucky for me, you ain’t me. I walked here, remember?” Cooper mumbled under his breath.
The marriage crashed after five years, and it took an additional two years to put out the fire and carry away the wreckage. It had been years since the final disillusionment and eventually, Allison remarried. This one also didn’t want kids and was a federal marshal who traveled three days out of the week.

Cooper would sit and let old thoughts of Allison come to the forefront of the lubricated brain pan. Random thoughts of old times, old things, old ways. He never called her before midnight. That would be too convenient. He always knew the husband’s schedule, whatever his name was, so Cooper missed the inevitable confrontation for awhile. Allison never told him her ex-husband had been calling in the middle of the night over the past few years. Why—she never said and Cooper never asked. He dropped the coins in the phone and dialed. She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hello.” Her voice was gruff. She cleared her throat and said it again. “Hello.”

It took a second for the voice to register as hers. She sounded different, and for that second, he thought he had dialed the wrong number. “Allison? It’s me.”

“Coop?” She sighed. “Of course, it is.”

“I was just calling to see how—”

“Do you know what time it is? You’ve got to stop calling here.”

“No, I didn’t know it was late. Hey, I’m sorry okay? I thought I’d just give you a call. I, ah …” He paused for moment. “Just wondering if you still had that baseball I caught at Candlestick Park when we were on our honeymoon. I remember you had on that green paisley dress.” He had to come up with something to talk about, and this subject came up between the third and fourth scotch.

“Baseball? You called me to ask me about a baseball?” She opened her eyes to look at the time. It was 12:34 . “I don’t know. I don’t remember any baseball.”

“You don’t know?” There was a sense of frustration that his wife—his ex-wife— didn’t remember the baseball he caught on their honeymoon. “I thought it was on the bookshelf next to the pictures of—”

“That was years ago, come on. There are different people here now,” she said with a cut. “It’s late—is that why you called? To ask about a damn baseball?”

“Yeah, I guess it is a little late … no, no. Look, I’m sorry all right? Jeezus, why does everything have to be a battle with you? I don’t care who I’m waking up … Hello? Hello?” He thought for a minute about calling her back. He always thought about calling her back. After all, it was just a simple question about a baseball, his baseball. It wasn’t hers. She didn’t catch it. She didn’t care about it. She didn’t need to be rude about him calling, he thought. Yeah, he was sorry it was so late, but it’s not like she couldn’t go back to sleep. He went back to his stool.

“You call her?” Moreno asked.

“She doesn’t care how my day went.”

“She cares about you, my friend.”

Cooper nodded while he held his glass with two hands. “Nah, I stomped on her heart too many times while we were married for that. The only thing she wants to know is when I’m dead.”

“You underestimate that woman.”

“You underestimate this man. Now shut up and pour. I can still feel my lips.”

AN EPIPHANY!!

Why do we not change our work hours to early morning? It's 5:45am here in the frying pan of the southwest. I got up this morning to take my daughter, her husband, and my granddaughter to the airport. It was cool enough to roll down the windows and open the sun roof.

I got up and took the dogs for our traditional morning walk at about 4:30. Sure it was dark but the sun was starting to paint the sky and besides, we had street lights, frankly, the less light for what the girls have to do, the better. It was beautiful. The bats were out and ducks were flying. That's right, you heard me-bats. Those cool dudes make no noise when they fly, none. And ducks, flying in formation anywhere, are just flat out bitchin' because they talk to each other while they fly.

"Quack?"

"Quack, quack, quack."

"Quack."

I was thinking while driving home from the airport that if we switched to, oh, I don't know, 2:00am to 8:00am we would actually improve our disposition. I was happy this morning. George Strait came on with "River of Dreams" and I turned it up, a happy, jaunty tune. I actually wanted to live here. I came home and turned off the A/C and flipped over to evap for at least a little while.

We just have to be open-minded about it. We'd have to go buy some aluminum foil to cover our windows so we could sleep during the day and get use to watching Oprah instead of Two and a Half Men on TV. That, alone, might be a deal breaker.

Anyways, it was just a thought. When I was a kid, I remember the summer rains would cause me to build my aircraft carriers out of a 2x4's, some smaller pieces for the island, and nails for the RADAR. I would go out front and float it down the street in the gutter tracking behind it in my bare feet. Yep, that was a lot of rain and frankly, there was probably lightening involved that I wasn't fully cognisant of the full ramifications of standing in water during a lightening storm. But who cared. It was great. I can remember those happy times.

So, as I finish, the sun is coming up. The shadows are still filling the back yard and the doves are sitting on the phone lines behind the house. The ducks are, hopefully, at the lake in Steele Park or in the canal to our north and the bats are where ever bats go. It's Sunday morning and the music on the radio is gentle and soothing. The coffee is some of the best I've ever made. Yep, we need to really think about this. Sure, we make fun of old people who get up early, eat dinner at 4:30 and bed by 8. We scoff at them. Problem is, there is a real draw to that at my age of 51. And you have to ask yourself, part of living longer and having a lighter step in our strides might actually have something to do with beautiful dawns.

Running for freedom!!!

School rolled up this week for the first five days with a gaggle of high school kids/men/women/mothers/fathers and the ever present-missing school desks.

Every summer our staff, probably much like the staff of hundreds of schools across the state and country, spend their summers working to prepare the buildings and individual classrooms for the upcoming school year. They usually strip all the contents out of the rooms that touch the floor, take it into the hall, then go back in and re-wax floors or clean carpet. The rooms look good when their done. Then, they put the stuff back in the exact location it was in when they took it out, or close to it. Every year, when the teachers return, someone is missing something. Sometimes its personal gear like a radio or their favorite sweater. But most of the time its school furniture.

It is hard for me to imagine, and I have a vivid imagination, that anyone is stealing school desks to decorated their home.

I think this falls under the same category as the missing sock. You know the story. You do your laundry and throw a bunch of socks in the wash, then the dryer, then pull them out and start to match them; there is always one of them that has escaped --always. Where the hell did it go? Did it crack the door open when you were in the other room balancing your checkbook and jump out, running outside through the doggy door to freedom? Okay, so it did that, where did it go when it got to the yard? Florida? You want to disappear, everyone knows you go to Florida.

The theory is these desks, chairs, tables- all commercial grade education equipment, are finding their way to someones living room. You have an art table as a dining room table and a couple of student desks as end tables? Really?

I know our staff. Although they are way underpaid for what they do, they have pride. None of them, NONE, would want Mrs. Turk's table in their house. Nor would they want a desk, covered with years worth of gum stuck to the bottom. Nope, I think there is something even more sinister working here.

These things are possessed. Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. But was it crazy when the Italians won at Gettysburg, or any crazier than Nero playing the tuba while Rome burned? I think not. These things have been slaves to man for a long time. I think they've just had enough. Somewhere in the Florida Keys, a table and a couple of desks have found new life as patio furniture at a margarita bar, slurping up all that spilled margarita mix and overhearing all those drunken conversations. It makes them laugh.

Yep, a margarita bar in the Keys.

Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

So, once again, Monday brings school and the return of students to the track of knowledge. It was funny, last Monday, in the morning, I had an appointment with a doctor and a procedure that I will just say, after I got home, caused me to curl up in a corner, sucking my thumb, and whimpering like a French girl. But later that day, I sent out an e-mail to my department trying to encourage them about the start of school the next day. I didn't have the words, phrases, pictures, nothing. I had no heart to step back into the job that I had been at for almost ten years. But it was funny, by the late afternoon, the heart began to change. Motivation started to come back. Now, I have to admit, it wasn't fast, nor was it a lot, trickling like a leaky faucet. But it was definitely changing.

By Tuesday morning, when all the teachers and staff were to report back, I was ready to go. It was getting exciting, things were coming together, things were moving, shaking, we were in the groove, and for the week, 187 teachers and another 75 staff were 'fuelin' the rocket.'

This Monday, we take possession of your teenagers. Yep, we get their baggy-pants, gum-chewin', cell-phone textin', rap-crap listenin', little hearts. Somewhere over the next 190 days, we get to try to teach them how to read, write, and cipher so when they're forty-seven, a job that pays a dollar over minimum wage is not considered by them as a good job. The world wants their young educated; hopefully, so they live and work enough to contribute to the social security pot so the rest of us can afford canned soup in our old age. The powers measure our success with high stakes tests two years before they graduate and hope that in four years they're wearing a robe and walking down the aisle of the ASU sports arena waving to their family, many being the first high school graduate in the history of their family.

Yep, we're geared to go for Monday. Of course, in order to get to the wood ring (brass is for college, silver is for your masters, and gold for your doctorate) of a high school graduation, we get to deal with literally, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Oh, I forgot, parent abandonment, not enough food at home, working third shift before coming to school, no shoes, water turned off at home, crap for clothes, not to mention pencils, paper, notebooks, pens, or lunch money.

Somewhere in the magic, a kid gets a scholarship to an ivy-league school, then another, and then another, then someone will go to a military academy, jobs, more education. Somewhere in the magic, they become productive citizens and wake up to the fact that the door to life just doesn't open to them, they have to push on it after they turn the knob.

I ran into a kid at a restaurant a couple of years ago. I can't remember my own name let alone a kid I had for a couple of months. He remembered me and we talked for a minute while I waited for my sandwich. Almost as an after thought, I asked him 'so, what do you want to do after you finish college?' He looked at me like I should have been able to read his mind. "I want to be just like you, a teacher." I couldn't remember that kid's name and barely remembered his face. But apparently, at least once, I did something right.

Tomorrow is game day. The biggest game of young lives. Ready? Hell yes I'm ready.