Not wanting to take anything away from modern science with us standing on the cliff of a world flu epidemic, but to share with you the great breakthroughs that we, here at Central High School, are coming up with to tackle this potential world health issue. You see, this school is looked upon as “cutting edge” “riding the cusp” of modern technology, “a leader for the common man” in world health issues and general well being. Scientists, doctors, lab techs, and people with way too much time on their hands, have come up with a few guidelines of our own to support, come along side of, share with, or generally cause smiles for all as well as those uptight and worried people at the CDC and the World Health Organization. Below, are some simple guidelines to not only protect you and your family from the “curse of the swine” but to provide for a better way of life-a different light on the proverbial rainbow of life as it were. Here are some simplistic guidelines to make your life, if not healthier, at least more interesting.

1) If you sneeze, make sure you cover your mouth and nose. Then promptly dispose of that sleeve of your shirt in the trash in a safe manner.

2) If you are at a restaurant salad bar and one hand has a plate and the other has a pair of salad tongs and you feel a sneeze coming on, don’t turn your head away and blow disease into the general populous. Someone will stand up and complain. Shelter the restaurant patrons and your loved ones by using the “sneeze screen” encircling the salad bar. After all, that’s what its there for. We might as well see if it works.

3) Scientists discovered it didn’t make sense to wash your hands and dry them then touch the same door handle the guy who just sneezed on the salad bar touched to exit the restroom. So, don’t use your hands. Reach down and open the door by pulling on the handle with your mouth. Be careful not to chip a tooth.

4) If you start to feel sick and are running a fever over a 103, go out for a run in heavy sweats and “sweat it out.” At least that’s what my former high school football coach prophesied just before he went to prison for assault. Pearls of wisdom.

5) Quick kissing pigs. Come on people! Unless you’re French or from certain parts of northern Italy or West Virginia no American should be putting their lips on a pig unless it’s smothered in barbeque or on a bun with a cold amber beverage.

6) Drink more coffee. At least once a week you need to drink half your body weight in coffee (x-50%= #cups). It would be best if you drank it black like a Turkish wares salesman or the first machinist mate in the bowels of a Peruvian tramp steamer but cream and sugar is welcome. You don’t see either of these two types with any wussy flu do you? No! Emphysema and colon cancer maybe but hey-first disease first.

The coffee clinic is open in the morning, next to the cattle pens and sty’s. Come by tomorrow morning and take your medicine. Its subsidized by the Feds via the bank stimulus package as stated on page 487 of said package marked with a little * at the bottom of the page.

Never forget--those things good

The old man and the old woman walked slowly down the sidewalk in the park along the Marina Waterfront. He, with his cane and she, holding his arm, their strides almost heal to toe; their posture with a noticeable lean forward. They were dressed for the chill the bay breeze always brought, with tweed overcoats, hats, and scarves. She wore black gloves and a green scarf to accent her blouse that couldn’t be seen and he with formal dress of slacks, a dress shirt, and tie but on his head, a Forty-niners ball cap his grandson bought for him and on his back, a small backpack. Both wore brand new white Nike’s.

They found their traditional bench and so began their sit for an hour or so as they looked out towards the water, towards Sausalito. They enjoyed the walk down from their apartment where they knew they were going to spend the last stage of their lives together. They were close to their two daughters and son, grandchildren and great grandchildren. They had a close family and received calls or visits from one of the group every day. They loved those times but cherished these, when they could lace up each others shoes-bending over that far was too hard to do themselves, and walk down from Mason Street just south of the cable car turn-around to this bench and sit with each other. Sometimes they would walk back and other times they would call a cab. They never called their family for a ride.

They would sit for the hour, watching the ships and the joggers along the sea wall, the tourists taking pictures, the foreign voices as they walked by. Often, the old man and old woman would sit and not say a word. Fifty-four years of marriage caused the old man and old woman to be able to read each others thoughts. Words were spoken-love words were spoken, but the best of those words were said with the eyes and heart. He would point with his cane at the passing ships or points of interest without speaking; she would nod and smile, while still holding his ungloved hand.

It was 1944 when the old man and old woman met. She was a twenty-year-old nurse at the Alameda Naval Air Station. He was twenty-five and in the hospital for burns and shrapnel when his Corsair was shot up over Saipan and his return to his carrier was ‘a little bouncy’ as he would sometimes recount. She became his nurse and knew him when he was at his lowest. They first became friends. As part of his therapy, a day trip was planned with several patients into the city and this park, only at that time, it was a gun emplacement. He sat in the open air of that bay, just he and his nurse, and for the first time, he felt life might be worth living. The two never left. She would later talk about his ‘chocolate drop’ eyes and he would write home about this woman of amazing grace and compassion. His warrior spirit never left. When you get old, your spirit doesn’t leave, it just makes room for other parts of your life, eventually adding the spirit of husband, father, mentor, lover, and now, in the final chapter-trusted council, wisdom, guardian of those things good.

It was time in their walk and in their sit. The old man reached in to the small backpack he had taken off just before he sat down and pulled out a thermos and two cups. He poured his bride some of the fresh brew, always leaving room so she didn’t burn her lips or spill, and then he poured himself a cup. And so they sat some more. Silent. Vigilant. The warrior and nurse.

Friday morning, tomorrow, come and sit. Share a story of your warrior days or of those times when bones weren’t brittle and the breeze was cool on your face. Coffee and sacks are free. In the Coffee Shack at about 7:15

A bright Idea!

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, Andy; you've read about him before, just lightly mentioned in prior writings. We use to work together and will occasionally have lunch or, like yesterday, simply call and see how the other is doing-if each of us were still employed. He answered the phone at work which was the first sign that he was still drawing an income.

It caused me to think, again, about how lucky I am, as well as many of the people I know, who are still drawing checks and able to provide for our families. It's a scary time. But, for a moment, lets step out of the dark house at the end of the street and into the sunlight of fiction and something with an appropriate laugh track. If we were in charge of say, General Motors, and someone was saying to us that in less than 60 days we were going to financially die unless we reinvented ourselves, what would that reinvention look like? Hmm? If you or I were in charge, what would the largest, greatest manufacturing company look like? What would it's product look like? Of course, I have an idea or two.

First, I want a car with the longest warranty possible. I want a warranty that if anything goes wrong with this car or truck, short of me taking a sedan four-wheeling in the Painted Desert, they'll fix it--for free. The Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and any other 'ese' rhyming countries, whom have only discovered the wonders of toilet seats in the last decade, are making a vehicle with a warranty of a full decade-A DECADE. American cars are still with a 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty and here's the bad part, you will have to use that warranty. If you buy a new American car, chances are, you will have to use it in the first 36 months. Bad form. One way around this is send your R and D team out to a Toyota dealership and have them buy a car, a good one, one Toyota sells a lot of, and bring it back to the garage. Then copy it. I mean build it like you stole it. Test the metal, the wiring, the fine imitation leather and copy its quality. They can complain all they want but since we all stole the idea of the "car" from some French guy in the late 1800's and no one is complaining about that, I think we're good to go.

Next, we don't need all these choices. There is no reason we need fifty-five vehicles to choose from. We're like kids going into a See's Candy Store and being told "Okay, honey, you can have one piece." Come on, we can't do that. We're Americans. We want ALL of them. The fewer choices the better. We got companies like Dodge, which is the bastard child of Chrysler, who basically change the name on the car and park it in their lot. We need one car for our first car-you know-single, going to college/work/reliable/large enough to carry one suitcase and our friend Cassidy to San Diego for a weekend on the beach. Then we need a family car. Something that you can sit three adults in the back seat comfortably or one dog, one adult, and one child in a car seat right in the middle. Then you need the post-kids car time for adults. Something with some class, a real nice radio and that imitation wood crap all around it. Oh and those back up cameras; not that you would use it but they are just soooo cool. Then, lastly, we need a truck. A good, strong, American Truck. It has four doors because, well, you want to be able to carry a few thousand pounds of crap in the back and the crew to load it and unload it. There, those are all the vehicles you need. Now, where you can play is in the color. Get some colors that you would find in a pimp's driveway.

Next, all of these cars run on hydrogen-period. We pull hydrogen out of the air, pump it into the tank, run it in our standard engine with minimum changes. The exhaust-pure water. The stuff coming out of the tailpipe is guess what-good for you, which is composed of--that's right-more hydrogen. We then, with a slight grin on our faces, turn to those countries in the Middle-East and say "Wow, that was fun. It was nice knowing you but we, ah, we have to go now. Enjoy." Each of those cars runs off of a fuel that makes more of itself as you use it, using present technology. Hmm. The demand that goes along with this is each vehicle needs to get a whole bunch of mileage. If we were head of GM, we would also meet for lunch with the heads of Exxon, Mobil, et.al along with the CEO of Seven-Eleven. Some place nice, with table cloths. The deal would be we would build the car to take the fuel, they would produce the fuel for sale for, let's say, 25 cents a gallon, and Seven-Eleven would provide the outlets. It has to be simple enough to fuel that my dead grandmother could do it.

Now the cost. I will not spend $30,000 for a car. I choke at $20,000. You got labor unions, whom I am a member of, demanding that the nineteen year old kid at the Detroit plant get $21 an hour to sweep the floor. The guy dropped out of high school when he was sixteen for Chrisssake because he couldn't pass elementary math. His cousin on his momma's side, Vinny, told him that when he got out of prison for selling drugs on campus, he could come work at the plant. Come on, the guy gets minimum wage for pushing a broom-not a dime more, oh, maybe a locker. That's it. If he doesn't like it, then go back to school, and find your brain. YOU'RE PUSHING A BROOM! Remember who is buying these cars, especially the first one. Your loving child who is working hard at going to school and working part time. She/he deserves a great, dependable car for under, oh, $5,000. It ain't fancy but it will run until you they give it to their kids-250,000 miles later. I'll pay more for the nice car after kids. It'll make me feel better.

Yep, that's what it would look like. Clean, simple, the air would start to turn blue again. We'd have more money in our pockets because it costs us just cheeseburger money to fill up. And all our children would be home from the Middle-east because, well, our beaches have enough sand thank you. We don't need to export anymore and, frankly, there is nothing else you have that we really want or need. Oh, here's a Bible. Try reading this one.

Now, we just have to decide what that crap is we're going to load into the truck first. What do you think?

Arg, me matey's!

For a six-pence, Charlie “The Pin” Gunter, would beat up anyone you wanted along the wharfs of Kingstown Bay in the Grenadines. He would peg-leg himself up to the unsuspecting, looking as though he was begging for alms and when the victim was distracted by The Pin’s odor, Charlie would drop his mahogany leg, and club them with it, turning them into a senseless ball of goo on the rolling docks.

He then would collect his pay, and wander the pubs telling stories of the days when he was young and sailed as an ensign with His Majesty’s Fleet with the “good Admiral Sir Eland Barrington.” He would flop on a chair and gather the crowd while pinting the ale and slapping backs. No one believed the Pin, called that for the pin, Charlie said, was shot through his neck during a little skirmish the fleet had while on patrol with the rough and tumble pirate, “Long Slim Jim.” The story went that as he was a young ensign assigned to the forward gun batteries on His Majesty’s Balfour, a thin and nimble frigate, when an incoming round from one of Long Jim’s deck guns filled with chain, nails, and dowel pins, one of which stuck in Charlie’s neck. Not wanting to get blood all over his uniform, Charlie stuck his finger in the small hole and continued to call correction to his gunners.

So, at the tables or at the bar, the aged man with the wooden leg led the pub in story after story of sea fare and glory, all the while, his victims-almost all, woke up some hours later with a cleaved skull and empty wallets.

For a six-pence, you too, can come down to the docks tomorrow morning and have a pint or two. Some fine Ethiopian or Colombian black, imported just for you on the tramp steamer, Valhalla, will make port at dawn. Give the swabs time to unload its gullet and prepare a sampling of exotic foods and spices for you heartless wretches.

Don’t forget to fly your ship’s colors on your doors tomorrow, colored with crayons, each have to have a name. The attire tomorrow? Piratey.