Heat Advisory--Really?

This last week in Phoenix has been a little warm, like the seventh level of friggin' Hell warm. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am getting older, my hands swell, and sometimes I find myself turning my head to hear what someone is saying. But I also think its because it is actually getting warmer. It also seems like this year, unlike years past, professional groups like the news or some new governmental agency, has spent a bunch of money to put out these 'Heat Advisory' warnings you hear on the news, radio, even read them in the paper-the next day, which makes great sense.

I haven't seen rain at my house during daylight hours this year. So the two times I have seen wet sidewalks when I woke up, could be from sprinklers. Oh, sure, it threatens a lot. The clouds build to the north and east an threaten everyone, just not here. I've lived in this valley all my life. I know exactly where I was when we hit the all time back to back days of 121 and 122 degrees, shutting down the airport and finding people lighting candles in church for their air-conditioner. I was in a motor home, monitoring a wiretap of a murderer's home and the A/C in the motor home burned up. So, really, I was in a metal box with no ventilation, balancing an unbalanceable check book. Yep, good times. But here's the thing, I didn't need anyone to tell me it was hot. I knew it was hot. I live in Phoenix for Christsake! Having someone telling me "Hey, uh, well, be careful, drink water, stay inside--its hot outside," kind of seems, well--dumb.

That must mean there are people out there that wander outside and just keep wandering, I guess, kind of like someone in Buffalo, New York during a lake-effect snow storm. "Oh, look honey, its snowing! Let's take the kids, pile into the car, and go look at Christmas lights!" Okay, I get it; they deserve to be thinned from the herd, but do we have to spend tax money on it?

Look, this is Arizona. Summers in Arizona, especially central and southwestern Arizona is just a place you don't necessarily want to be without a completely filled swimming pool that you can carry on your back. As a matter of fact, you don't want to be anywhere except in a cool mall or the rank darkness of a movie theater, moving from movie to hiding in the restroom until another movie starts, to another movie to hiding in the restroom to another movie, until the sun goes down. We had a low temperature the other day of 91 degrees. 91 DEGREES FOR A LOW! Who does that?

Yeah, I know, I hear it all the time-"Well, you just don't know what cold is like. This feels so good." Okay, then take a bottle of water with you if you're out in it. If I was in New York, near Buffalo and it was snowing, I would travel-if I did travel, with a blanket, jackets, gloves, a fire place, a sleeping back, food for a month-all the things the natives travel with. I wouldn't need someone to get paid to tell me "Hey, ah, its cold outside. We have a 'Cold Advisory'. Wear your Mukluks."

Nope, don't need that.

So, if you are coming to Phoenix or have been relocated by your company to Gila Bend, halfway between Phoenix and Yuma, there are two things you need to know the answers to. 1) Who did you piss off to get re-located to Gila Bend and 2) where is the movie theater?

There, there is your heat advisory. Now, put butter on your popcorn and find a quiet row.

This is one of my favorite pictures!

This is one of my favorite pictures. I've used it before and with this blog, I think its totally appropriate to use it again.

I am sorry for the lateness of this blog. You see, here's the thing. I think my secret love is writing. It would be wonderful if I had a one room cabin up on the Olympic Peninsula, overlooking Puget Sound wearing a big sweater, a pot of chili on the stove, and this computer, cranking out stuff, the gooey stuff that makes writing my crack. I would find myself standing in the door way with a mug (not a cup) of hot coffee, watching the morning rain and the deer family in the front yard. But until then, I need to make a living, so I teach high school and actually, I'm pretty good at it. The last few weeks have been a little busy, requiring my attention and causing full fatigue with no juice for writing. Nights come and my favorite time, bedtime, which usually brings some quiet reading in cold sheets, has been ending with me opening the book and then falling asleep with it on my chest, not a word consumed.

We got kids last week.

Yep, for you fans getting this in Turkestan and the Yukon Territories, who have been keeping me afloat with your Kindle purchases, allowing me to get cheese on that occasional burger, thanks and yes, its high school-right in the middle of the peak hormone cycle for a human. They cry and laugh at stuff that usually isn't even a complete thought. They walk off without their gym bag, leaving it in the room. Don't you think you would feel you are missing something, like a forty pound gym bag, with all your dirty laundry and football helmet in it? Nope, you call the young boy back in who is walking down the hall to his next class, which of course is in the next building over in the opposite direction, once you notice the bag and have him come back and get it. "Oh yeah," he says as he sees the bag you are pointing at. You are sure he would have wandered out to practice after school in his practice gear minus the $130 helmet. You want to be there when coach asks him wear his helmet is and he shrugs his shoulders. You know he actually walked half way out to the field not realizing he didn't have it on his head until some mentioned it.

High school kids, especially these guys-sophomores, are fun to watch and mess with. They're clumsy, hormonal, testing, and unfortunately, with some-sad. Home life is anything but home life. We get a ton of kids that are refugees. Their stories make you cock your head to one side and say 'huh?' Makes you want to go out and kiss anything American.

This being Sunday, tomorrow is week two. Usually the first week students are getting settled, schedule changes, their lost, loads change, whole classes disappear then re-appear as something else so its pretty useless to actually teach anything the kids will be measured on. The worst ones in the group, however, are the teachers.

You got to understand something about teachers, we do love our job, love maybe being a little strong of a word. You would have to at least like it to do it for so long when the job is attached to so many crazy decisions made by people who have only seen a classroom thirty years prior when they were young or in a magazine. I guess that's the way it is with most jobs, we promote or hire or vote for those that seem to sound good, but who have never walked in the shoes of those they lead. Of course, that's our fault. I feel, like most teachers, any one of us could fix the problem with the American education system (still the best in the world) within four months if we were given the chance. Actually, its not a chance we need; we have the chance. We just need the energy. Yep, don't have that.

So, I think I will just keep with the pace I'm at. I've been asked every year if I would go into Administration and after watching those guys do that job, I am convinced I would rather disarm IED's in Afghanistan-at night.

So, as you send your children, grand-children, nieces and nephews out into the fray, we are ready to receive them. Oh, and at the end of the day, we'll make sure they have their bag of laundry.

Signs of our times

There are some signs out there that I am not sure we either need any more, ever needed, or that beg the question if we want them at all. Here are just a few.

'Unleaded gas'. Do we still need this one? We haven’t sold gas with lead in it for about 150 years. It has become a habit to call it that. I remember when we needed to tell the difference between leaded and un-leaded at the gas station. When cars came out with catalytic converters, if you put lead in the tank, something exploded or melted or crapped on your shoes-something. Today, every car has a catalytic converter unless you’re driving an old De Soto from Havana. Even those cars can take unleaded. Let’s quit paying the poor guy in the paint shop for those six letters and just call it ‘gas.’ And really, if you pull into a gas station, do you really need to be reminded its ‘gas’? Maybe if you were that woman who bought the ‘hot’ coffee at McDonald's and then spilled it on herself and sued them because it was, well, hot.

“Walk-in’s welcome’ in front of a palm reader’s house/business. Really? Are there that many people making appointments to have their palms read that you really need to buy a can of red paint, a four by eight sheet of plywood, write those words on it and prop it up on the sidewalk in front of your house? And frankly, how many of us drive down the street and see that sign and say ‘Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I need to stop and have my future told by some total stranger who wants to charge me $30 cash, visa or MasterCard, to tell me I am going to meet a handsome stranger who is going to make a difference in my life?

Tell ya what, I will predict your future right now and save you the $30. You will meet a handsome stranger (their momma thinks their handsome despite the scar that goes from their forehead to their jaw and their lazy eye) and they will make a difference in your life because they are the bag boy at Fry’s and they put the milk on top of the eggs you were planning on having for dinner.

'Home Cooking'. Do I really want to go to a restaurant where they say this? Does that mean they really don’t cook the food in the back but at someone’s home and then ship it to the restaurant? Of course not. It means there is a bed and a small TV on a night stand in the corner behind the walk-in freezer in the back and the cook sleeps there because he was kicked out of his house for drinking shots of rum while being ‘inappropriate’ with the cat. Do we really want that? I think not.

And like the picture at the top of this blog, do we all really live in a neighborhood that has slow children?

My favorite-the plastic cover on my new lawn mower had stenciled on it in about a dozen places ‘this bag is not a toy.’ How many parents give their child that item and say “Hear you go son/daughter, go play with this. STAY away from the hot coffee though!” Any adult who does that needs to be thinned from the herd. Wait, I forgot, there is that woman with the hot coffee from McDonald's.

I guess there are those people out there that need this.

Look, I’m just making some observations here. I guess we just need to be reminded that there are some among us who need a little help—a lot of the time.

Peace in a Small Town, Day 7, last day

Day 7-last day

I wish I could report this morning the Bad Boys were found eating some more of Mrs. Johnson’s award winning roses, but I can’t. I think they have moved on to the next cycle of deer life; having wives, kids, finding a place to stay in the woods, staying out of the cross hairs of anything with the word Remington on it. The town, early this morning, is bustling with people loading up their Range Rovers and moving on to the next town or state.

So, how does a Grand Lady clean herself up when she is overrun with people and vehicles so thick they are lined up in both directions as far out of town as one can see, double parked, overflowing her trash cans, and generally taking up too much room on the sidewalks? How? She rains on them; rains on them a lot. I mean a lot of rain, hard, pelting, sideways, in a confined space, on all of them, soaking them and making them cold.

They were running to their cars, under over-hangs, getting back on their motorcycles and Caravans and pulling their soaking wet Maltese’s in to the cars with them. There, they stayed for hours. A large supply of them gave up and left even before the fireworks.

Maggie’s Kitchen closed early yesterday. They sold out of the smoked brisket and pork shoulder along with their burgers. The boss went home to take a nap and a shower.

The fireworks in this town are probably one of the best in the country. The town fathers had shortened the show due to budget. This town lives on tourism and we all know that is down. They have to cut their school budget this year by 10% which is now into staff. When you only have 200 students in a K-12 program, that can be a whole grade level. It was obvious the show was cut back. They had large times between rockets, trying to stretch the show to match the music they synced it to via the school’s KURA radio station. Still, it was incredible. The echoes off the mountains could be felt as well as heard.

I guess that’s just part of the cycle of life; like the Bad Boys. We want that memory, that time when all things seemed right with the world; that perfect moment when we cut out a place in our brain just for that image. Then, we spend the rest of our life trying to find it again.

We never do.

This town is terrible, please don’t come. Stay away. Those pleas are from someone who has done just that, cut out a corner of the memory bank and tried to capture and keep that image as a real event. It isn’t. It was once, but now its gone. I need to let my grip go.

Time to make new images and memories. There are more to come, more Bad Boys, more Mrs. Johnson’s roses, more Bries, more walking in a small town eating some ice cream while sitting on a bench, watching the Meadow Gold truck make its delivery and counting that as the high point of my day. You just got to look. Some new images will be from here, but I have to allow the old ones to go or I will be sorely disappointed-every time.

Maybe, if we are lucky, the Bad Boys will have kids. They will teach them the ways of the world in downtown Ouray. They will show them how and when and what to do.

And the rest of us, while we sip our coffee on our breathless walk up a street at 7700 feet, will smile at the sight of the new kids on the block and store that image for a day when we need to remember; a time and a place.

Peace in a small town-July 4th

July 4^th

The town stirred awake well before sunrise. Actually, being at the bottom of a valley with cliffs 5-7000 feet above us, not seeing the sun until 8:15 is the norm here, let’s just say whenever the rest of the world was having a sunrise, many of the locals were up and prepping for their Grand Lady’s big show.

Two Ouray city trucks were out putting the final cleaning prep on Main. One, changing out all the trash can bags, tying off the bags and throwing them into the back of his pick up, the other following behind, watering all the flower pots that lined the street and the moss filled hanging baskets from each street sign and light post.

Frank, the owner of Maggie’s Kitchen and the author of one of the best burgers ever eaten in the free world, was sleeping next to his smoker, parked in the street. He stayed with it all night, tending to the fire box with pieces of hickory while the pork shoulder and brisket slowly cooked since about 5 yesterday afternoon. Hickory smoke has been wafting into our room all night. Its like we’re camping only on a sleep number bed.

At the other end of town the BPOE Lodge is prepping for the big barbecue after the 10am parade. The Elks will be serving ribs, burgers, and hot dogs. Is there really anything else anyone should be eating today? Oh, wait, Frank’s slow cooked pork.Cardiologists are all on vacation today-or here.

Early this morning, starting about now, is the Ouray Volunteer Rescue Team’s fund raising breakfast, just before the start of the 10K. The Ouray team saves people from themselves every year. The pass between Ouray and Silverton is very susceptible to death. You drive off the road, you don’t hit anything but air for about 700 to 1000 feet. Its straight up and down and the one time in your life you probably want to not wear a seat belt, hoping to jump or do something circus-like on your way down. These guys repel down and pull you out, at least enough of you so your family can have a funeral. They are all volunteers and live off the donations of everyone. Their breakfast is a mainstay for the 4^th. Most of the team are up a good portion of the night cooking-with the help of cold beer and Jack Daniels. Their blood shot eyes and slight whiff of stale whiskey breath greets you in line why you get your eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, toast, fruit, juice, and coffee you can stand a spoon up in. The food is okay but the cause is just. It’s a good time to buy another shirt that talks about bringing a GPS so you don’t have to eat your friends.

At 10 today, the parade starts. At its point is the color guard made up of four old war horses from another era. They usually give the younger of the four the American flag, he would be the stronger and can hold it for the whole length of road, about three hundred yards. The four wear their uniforms from another time. They try to march in unison but have a tendency to slide out of step every so many yards. That doesn’t bother anyone and the entire length of this small town people stand on their feet and clap. Some salute, wave flags, and cheer.

Its been so for well over 230 years.

Enjoy.

Peace in a small town-Day 6

Woke up early this morning with a craving to walk. I got up and made a pot of joe and wanted to spend time with the Grand Lady and the God who protects her before she needed to turn and take care of the needy tourists today, the eve before the celebration of her country’s birthday. The town began to fill yesterday like a bucket under a waterfall, which this town has. There was a stream of cars coming from both ends. I wanted some alone time with the two of them, before the fray started.

It was just the three of us and a cup of good coffee that I knew wasn’t going to get me around the horn before it was empty. That was okay. We just walked and talked, looking for the Bad Boys but knew they were too smart. They got out of Dodge before Mummy and Daddy and the six kids, three with runny noses THAT NO ONE IN THE FAMILY WANTS TO WIPE walk down the street and into the clothing store where they proceed to touch everything. Yep, the deer are smart.

Some of the locals were out this morning, starting their yard watering and sweeping off the stoops, putting up flags and bunting. Tomorrow, July 4^th, is huge here. The locals celebrate their country’s birthday like it’s the first one. There will be a parade here in town complete with an old fire truck, the Synchronized Dog Walking Team, clown cars, the Ouray Youth Dirt Bike Club, and a water fight. Yep, they seal off highway 550 and arm two parties with fire hoses and the first one to get knocked over loses. At the end, there is a fly over by something of the military. Two years ago you had to be looking because they were moving so quick, they were in an out of the valley before the sound reached you-very cool. I think 300 years ago, in Scotland where my ancestors are from, they had kind of the same thing, only they used axes.

I walked by the Artisan Bakery. They were working, but wouldn’t be open for another hour. The owner waived. I waived back, tipping my nearly empty coffee cup.

I continued north, back up Main. Meadow Gold was making an unusual Sunday delivery to the Backstreet Bistro. They won’t open until 7:30. The locals know that but no one told the tourists. They’re standing outside its door like a methadone clinic waiting for it to open to get their morning fix of coffee.

Last night, O’Brien’s Irish Pub was partying late into the night. Its an Irish pub so that is to be expected. Our room however, was right next door. I am guessing most of the locals hit it early and then went home and to bed before nine, leaving the place for those people. We had our balcony door open so we could clearly hear the drunk chicks. “No, I told him I don’t want him, but he just don’t listen. He said he’d get a job when he gets out of jail and that I should wait. He says he loves me-whoo hoo!” I’m sorry, but isn’t it the drunk chick that always starts the problem in the bar? Think back to all those times. It was a woman who started it. “What are you looking at? Tommy, TOMMY, put that beer down and listen to me, this guy was looking at me. What are you going to do about it?” All Tommy wanted to do was to enjoy his cold beer and maybe watch one of the three games on the flat screens around the bar. But, nooo, now he has to carry out some title fight with some guy he really has no beef with, just to please a woman he wasn’t too fond of in the first place.

Two of Ouray’s Finest sat in their patrol cars right across the street. I mean we’re here, and if any of you inside go sideways we are going to rain down on the lot of you like a Mexican sombrero on a Frenchman kind of close. You start something with two police officers the size of sycamore trees five steps away, you deserve to have stitches. About 2am, the drunk chicks finally went home. “Whaaaduyoumeanweeeregoin?idonwannaleave—wait-Igottapuke.ohiloveyoubaby-kissme.” I was just thinking-wouldn't it be funny if she woke up with her head shaved.

I'm just saying.

Justice served.

Tomorrow, the Grand Lady puts on her formals and presides over a party that is taking place in thousands of towns just like this. There are thousands of clown cars in parades across the nation, probably not too many synchronized dog teams, but maybe. One thing I can tell you, there isn’t one synchronized dog team in a parade celebrating freedom in ANY other country on the planet. Nope, not one. There isn’t a fire truck with the Grand Marshall being a 21 year old marine, sailor, airman, or soldier who just came home from the sandbox, sitting next to the 17 year old Miss True Value princess, nope, not one. There isn’t a country that will wear their nations flag or flag colors as shirts, lapel pin, hat, flag tucked into a hat, scarf, dog wear, or strapped to the back of their Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Not one. Two-hundred and thirty-five years ago, a bunch of dead guys had sealed themselves in a room on an upper floor of a building in Boston and had decided to lay it all on the line. Everything they had and known they were saying wasn’t enough unless it had freedom attached to it, including their lives.

Enjoy.

Peace in a small town-Day 4--I think

The day started, like I said yesterday, with a sunny, bright, and very blue morning. Of course morning doesn’t start here until about 8:17 when the sun finally creeps down the western slopes and hits Main.

Deer weren’t seen until sunset when on the night walk, about 6:30 on 2^nd Street, between 4^th and 5^th Avenue, tucked under a tree across from the Spanger Bed and Breakfast a young buck was eating the fresh cut grass of the front yard across the street. It was late, he was alone and wasn’t part of the Bad Boys but the deer were here, in town, and eating whatever they found.

The town is starting to fill with people. Most of them don’t belong, you can just tell. They move from store to store with no sense of purpose or care. These people need to pass a test before they come here. They really do. If the world was to look at these people, I think the world would be embarrassed for the Grand Lady. She is gracious with them, gentle in fact. The men wear black socks with dark tennis shoes and some of the funkiest hats ever-they don't fit. Picture your fathers wearing clothes that are just embarrassing and then walking in public with YOU from door to door. Some are even wearing those sunglasses that clip on to their black horned-rimmed and flip up and down. I even saw a husband and wife (I assumed they were husband and wife because, oh my gosh how bad would it be if they were dating!) with funky hats, plaid shorts, black socks, and flip up sunglasses. The great trifecta of nerdom. These are the ones where a pay box at the front of the city needs to be in place-just for them, but lucky for the people who need their money the town is more forgiving.

Kind of an odd thing to report, the Meadow Gold truck made a late delivery last night. Usually, they are early morning. I watched them from our balcony. Huh, interesting. I'm wondering if the mayor knows?

Crows are interesting here-or are they Black Birds? I am sure there is an ornithologist or a podiatrist, or some other specialist that could tell the difference, it really doesn’t matter. They’re big. That’s all I want to say-big. Like carry off your little Maltese dog with the pink collar big. If you are a circus worker, you would want to weigh yourself down with something. These guys sit on fences just waiting for you to leave your dear old frail grandmother unattended. Actually, I think they are a critical part of the circle of life. Anyone here walking a Maltese, needs to have it carried away and become part of the food chain.

Last night and this morning-Saturday I think it is, I walked the back alleys. Best part of this town is found in the alleys. You get to see into people’s homes, especially at night, and look at their stuff. Oh, come on, you would all do it if you were here. Its not like we’re peeping toms or something. You just want to see what the inside of their house looks like, especially if its from 1888.

We went in to Ridgeway yesterday and stocked up for the 4^th. Ouray’s Duckett Market will be closed on Sunday and again on Monday for the holiday so we found a nice place in the larger, more commercial, but dramatically less likable town to the north. This is where you go to actually work and earn a long term living. Its not as creepy as Silverton, you don’t mind being there after dark. We ate at the semi-famous True Grit Café named after the iconic movie filmed in Ouray and Ridgeway in 1969. Supposedly, John Wayne’s hat is still hanging in the Outlaw Restaurant and Bar in Ouray. The restaurant has posters of every movie Mr. Wayne was in and some were even signed by some of the actors, just above or below their name on the playbill.

Speaking of Silverton, we might go there today. I was saying earlier how creepy it is. If we go and survive, I will give you a report.

Well, off to watch the sun rise over the valley. Brie was out walking, carrying her leash in her mouth, waiting again for her master to hurry the hell up with his coffee at the Backstreet. She was patient but definitely wanted to run. At least she won’t get carried off by a crow.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 3 and start of 4

It rained most of the day with some pretty good winds. The Meadow Gold truck was still able to make its delivery, parking in the middle of Highway 550 and hand carting the goods in to Ducketts. UPS and Fed Ex parked next to them and made their deliveries into the Ivory’s Trading Company and a small one to the Silver Nugget Restaurant.

Speaking of Silver Nugget, they have the ‘Miner’s Breakfast’ for $7.50; pancakes, sausage, two eggs, toast, hash browns. Who the hell can eat that much food, except the guy I was with. Incredible. Also at the other end of town, for $10 you can have the all you can eat breakfast buffet at the ‘open for breakfast’ place. We didn’t see a name on or near the sign so that is now its name.

Brie, the vizsla, that is a cocoa colored version of the weimaraner, was walking with her owner this morning, carrying her own repelling leash. It was coiled and tied and she carried it like it was the newspaper. Her boss went in for coffee and a bagel at the Backstreet Deli and Brie sat outside, putting her leash down and waiting for master to return.

The Links, up on 8^th Avenue and 4^th Street have their wild squash starting to sprout behind their house, next to the flume that carries the water from Cascade Falls through town. There was a small doe munching on some of their wild daisies next to the road, just under the ash tree behind them. She checked me out, finding I was no threat since I was sucking air so badly climbing the street at over 7700 feet, then she just went back to eating.

The sun just topped the ridge line to the east at about 8:17 this morning. Sun is now starting to warm the valley, a valley you can walk and touch the east and west wall to over a cup of joe. We might head out of town to the north towards Ridgeway and see what shops are there. This is a place you can lose time in, if you don’t work here. Sometimes, I find myself counting the nights we've been here, having to start from the beginning of the trip. When we get back, the world will be spinning fast enough. It’s good just to take a time out and get off the carousel for a while. Aaaaaahhhh.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 2

The search for the Bad Boys of Ouray, the three young bucks traveling together and causing havoc to gardens throughout the town, have yet to be seen this morning or last night. However, Dr. Loundren and his two-year old lab, Becky, were out for their morning walk. I wasn’t quite sure who was walking whom. Becky seemed to want to go one way and the good doctor had another agenda. When I turned down on 4^th Avenue heading back to Main, it looked like the good doctor was losing.

Several biker groups were working their way through town yesterday, semi-big biker town, Ouray is. I’m not talking about your gang bikers, I’m talking about doctors and engineers using some of their extra bucks to buy a $40,000 Harley and leathers to give them that Bad Boy-living to ride, type appearance. They still stop at the Billy Goat Gruff Beer Garten and drink their pints of some beer no one can pronounce. That gives them away. The Rolex’s don’t help.

If they really were bikers, they’d be drinking Bud out of a can and collapsing the empty container on their foreheads-or their friend's forehead.

Maggie’s Kitchen ran out of Coke in both nozzles yesterday and the Diet Coke was broken. Anyone who bought a Coke and was standing there ready to fill up their cups was out of luck. They just needed to drink something else, no refunds. Now, some of those bikers might have asked for a refund; they didn’t get what they paid for, but in every life sometimes we come to a point where our Diet Coke or regular Coke lives take a change and we have to drink the orange Fanta-deal with it. We don’t want to drink the Fanta. Its been years since we’ve even had that Coast Guard orange drink and we thought we had matured over the years as well as we’ve taken on the battle of the waistline, high cholesterol, and just shear bulk, but now we have to deal with a curve ball of life. So, we push the bright orange button, just enough to put enough in the glass to take a sip. And there, to our surprise, is pleasure, like those orange ice cream bars we had as kids. Full of sugar and flavors of days long ago. So, we fill the glass, minimize the ice, and after lunch we go back and top it off again, just a little for the walk, you understand.

The owner of Maggies sent a runner, a young boy about fifteen, to get more soda syrup for the machine. It should be on line tomorrow; no word on the Diet Coke. That one might take longer. The quarter pound burger was every bit a half a pound. The French fries had that light sheen of oil on them, you know the kind, allowing the salt your heart needs to adhere to it when you take the lid off the salt container and pour it on.

Our travel team decided they liked the chicken sandwich there so much, we went back for dinner, finding myself arguing with my own brain about whether to get the grilled cheese or the hot dog that appeared to be the size of a small man’s femur. I went with the dog. Good choice. I asked for a Diet Coke, thinking maybe the lad made it back with the syrup or a new button and was politely directed to the table next to the dispenser where I found Coke products in twenty-four can cases. I helped myself. I never saw the boy they sent to get the syrup. That is what I call improvising.

It rained in the afternoon right after a hurricane wind storm stirred everything up. The temperature dropped at least fifteen degrees in about fifteen minutes.

We missed sushi night at the Cascade Deli last night, although I’ve never heard of sushi with roast beef. Oh, well-when in Rome.

There are things to buy here as well. T-shirts with quick, sharp sayings like a picture of a line of silhouetted backpackers and a caption Take a GPS, it is embarrassing when you have to eat your friends; tin signs you hang up somewhere in your house like the Ten Commandments for Cowboys, with a commandment which reads don't take another feller's stuff; coffee cups of every size and shape and animal. Nothing says office décor like a moose coffee cup.

We’ll see what day three brings. The day is starting with a clouds. Something guys like me from Arizona go out and light candles too. It could rain the rest of the week and I would be a happy camper. The rest of the town would cry and frankly, the grand lady we call Ouray would suffer, so no, I guess I don’t want it to rain, but maybe just threaten. You know, you don’t always have to shoot the suspect. Sometimes, just as long as he can see in your eyes that you would and could blow his head clean off, is all it takes for him to put down that 32 inch flat screen you caught him coming out of the window with.Somehow, tie that metaphor with the rain and you will get what I am trying to say.

Justice served. Now, my friends, its time for some more coffee and to see if Dr. Loundren is still being walked by Becky. I hope he gets home.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 1

It has been two years since I’ve been to this town-two years since I have walked the small town streets of Ouray, Colorado. We arrived yesterday afternoon, coming in from the traditional south end from Silverton. Silverton is scary. Don’t ask; it just is, especially after the tourist train leaves, heading back to Durango. More about that later.

Stay with me and I will walk you through a week of trivial living that can be so valuable and so precious that we can all walk away feeling a little better about this rock we live on. Today is only the first day in this town. She and I need to spend time together and get re-acquainted.

We’ve been coming here for years, usually around the 4^th of July; however, to me, the best time is in June, before the tourist come. Its quiet then. The end of June and the start of July, its picks up. That’s when the tourists arrive, crap in the street, then leave.

She likes her tourists, Ouray does. She is gentle to them and welcoming, even if they don't return the favor. She needs what they have to live and gives back what they don’t know they need, whether they want it or not. She knows what we need and she will openly give it and if we truly look, we will find what we, ourselves, didn’t know was missing-peace. I just wish there was a box at both ends of town where these people could just come, deposit their money, then move on.

Okay, enough with the mysticism, back to the town-Day 1. Do you have your coffee? Breakfast bar or cereal? Sit back and feel, just a little, of this place that is accurately called the Switzerland of America.

The town hadn’t changed since the last time we drove in. This place is the county seat and yet doesn’t have one traffic light. The town fathers mean for that to be, although they did put up little plastic signs in the middle of the streets where there are painted crosswalks. Modern control devices which resemble those little plastic guys you can buy at Home Depot and put out in front of your house to warn drivers to slow down, you have kids.

After we unpacked, we walked Main Street which is also state highway 550 connecting Durango to Silverton, Ouray, Ridgeway, Montrose and I don’t care beyond that to the north. Many of the businesses last year were for sale, causing us to fear that the recession was going to run over this town like a freight train. Many of the old Silverbacks who had worked those stores were tired and wanted to retire to Boca Raton, moving to someplace that didn’t get 275 inches of snow each year.

But new blood picked up the slack, people that can handle a few winters and maybe bring in some 21^st Century technology to help with business. When you are using a cash register that you inherited from your grand-pappy, its time to upgrade. I was happy to see most of the stores, either moved to different store fronts or were sold and changed all together. A True Value moved into the Mercantile location. The sharp smell of paint and potting soil, along with a new NCR 4500 highlighted the place. They got rid of camera film that had expired in 2008 and replaced its spot with a paint mixer.

After dinner, it was time.

Every day, I walk the town, early in the morning, and at night. You can cover this town from tip to tip, all four corners, on two cups of coffee. You start with one from your apartment, and restock at the Artisan Bakery on the south end before you head to the east side. They painted the Antler Motel, a key location for the next book and where our hero will meet Bucket Head, the motel owner's mastiff. But the painting was a long time coming. On these walks you look for these things but also, you look for deer.

They live here, in town. The last few years, I have found three brothers, or maybe they are deer’s version of homies. They were seen together, young, small racks, eating flowers from Mrs. Johnson’s prized roses. The Bad Boys of Ouray I called them. I didn’t see them on the night walk and will advise you daily of their appearance. I am assuming one of these years, maybe this one; they will no longer be a part of the story, having moved on to doing deer life somewhere else in the Rockies. However, I did find, up on 6^th Street, the farthest street to the east (streets run north and south and from 2^nd Street to the west of town to 6^th Street on the east and avenues run east and west starting on the south and moving to 10^th Avenue on the north) two young deer, does.

They were eating the wild daisies and grass and stopped and looked at me in the twilight. There was no fear in their face. They had seen this image before. Actually, they took three steps towards me but were distracted by a passing car. Maybe they wanted to say ‘hi’ up close, see what I had in my pockets to eat, or let me scratch that itch behind their ears. I would have done it. Or, maybe they wanted to kick my ass-not sure. I will withhold a label until I know more.

This is a town that we all wish we lived in, if we were true to ourselves. It is a place where a guy tosses you his keys to his car and lets you borrow it for a day-based only on your word. Windows are left open and doors, for the most part, unlocked. Not that there isn’t crime here; there is. According to the Police Blotter, a section of the bi-weekly Plains Dealer newspaper, Mr. Donaldson’s car was caught running a stop sign at the corner of 7^th and Main where he was pulled over and given a warning. Especially at this time of year, with all these tourists, one must be careful and frankly, with the little plastic things in the street warning drivers to slow for crosswalks, you would have to think that driving and flagrantly running a municipal traffic control device should be at the top of everyone’s caution list.

Justice served.

This morning’s walk was wonderful. The air is cool and the sun we will not see for a couple of hours due to the fact there is a 13000 foot mountain in the way. The cool breeze and the shadows again make me feel welcome. I will leave you now, the Artisan is open and they were making fresh crescent breakfast sandwiches. That is a priority. Until tomorrow.

Homecoming

Tomorrow is a Sunday. Our son is set to arrive home from war tomorrow. Iraq is still a war zone, deadly, dangerous-dark. He went there-twice. Tomorrow, he gets off a plane and the first human he is going to be allowed to touch is his wife, Tara.

I will hurt anyone that gets in the way of that moment. Only those two know the true cost of their separation after only a month of marriage. They spent their first anniversary on almost the exact opposite sides of the world. If you went any farther, in any direction, you started to head back home.

The world is filled with drum beats and chest beating when it comes to justice around the world. Men-and now, unfortunately, women too, experience this. I say unfortunately only because the contamination of war now touches both sexes when it comes to the fight, at least for Americans. We need to beat our chest and sing the songs because on game day, we need to shelter our fear and put on our game face. It's the game face that sees us through the times when fear is right there, just below the surface. The idea of old men and women in nice suits sending the best and brightest in to the throats of the Dragon doesn't calm the nerves.

But many times, we need to step out and into the wake of war. That is just Man being, well, man. But no one knows the value of peace, like those that stand or have stood the watch while we sleep-no one.

Sgt. Williams voluntarily escorted his virgin team into the throat of the Dragon and brought them home again-to their children and families. He will say goodbye to them today or tomorrow and probably never see them again.

They're alive. That's his gift to them, and he being alive is their gift to him--and Tara--and us.

The drum beats on.

It always will. That is Man being man. Until God comes to us and qiets, with the palm of His hand resting on the drum head, we will forever send our children into harm's way. People around the world, who have never been free, thirst for what we have. My little boy was willing to risk it all to make sure his team got there and back to accomplish this goal.

Not bad.

When he is old and grey, his grandchildren on his lap and they talk to him about whatever young grand kids talk about, he will look into their eyes and smile, stroke their face with the back of his wrinkled hand. It is this moment, this time, he bought for them and millions of others. Only he and his love know this price. Funny thing, it is men and women like this who, in their ancient years, would, without hesitation, do it again.

Oh, what a place we live.

Father's Day

The picture is of myself and my two older brothers, Silverbacks all. We were at my nephew's wedding, holding, of course, the appropriate dram of the sainted martyrs who have crossed the bar before us. Ahhhh fatherhood. You get the three brothers together and there is no greater team on planet Earth, nor are any three funnier to be around. We laugh until we cry over stuff that no one sees humor in.

I only heard from two of my three children yesterday, Father's Day. And that was wonderful. More about that later. There is also an old fighter pilot saying when they would cross from water to land. They would report their position by radioing their feet are dry or vise-versa if they were leaving land back to their carriers-their feet are wet. Again, later on this as well.

Unfortunately, this day, for a lot of people, is a reminder of what wasn't. Dads who weren't there, chose not to be there, or who were there and were abusive in ways that would make Saddam blush. For those individuals who suffer from this form of victimization, I can only say, it doesn't ever have to be the same with you. It can change-with you.

How do I know? Because I have seen the other side as well. I have seen men who have come from such upbringings and have become fathers themselves, good fathers; caring, loving, devoted dads. I have seen men who have adopted children and raised them as if they were there own. My own father did such a thing. I have seen men stand in as fathers, with no obligation or requirement to do so, stand in place of the empty role of father.

"Well, that's great, Mark. That's fine for you. What about the rest of us who don't know how, when, what thing this or that we should be doing? What about my anger? Hmm? I have anger issues and, well, I just can't."

Bull.

You know what is right and wrong. You know what is good and evil. You know. The tough part for men is owning their screw ups. But, this could be the greatest thing you ever show or teach your children, daddy's ownership of self. Because if the kid sees you own and confess and ask for forgiveness of them, they are then able to learn how to give forgiveness and eventually-needfully, own and forgive themselves later in life. And we all need to know how to do that.

Being a dad is hard, especially if you do it well. You're tired all the time. You are sore in places that shouldn't be sore. Your focus on seemingly mundane issues rather than those things that give you status and position. And we won't even talk about our bowels-my dad's #1 question whenever any of us were sick-How are your bowels? "Uh, dad, I was hit with a baseball. What does that--"

You get my meaning.

Nope, I only heard from two of my children on Father's Day. My two daughters made me a FATHERS breakfast! All the fatty good foods and sweet waffles a father could want. My son, however, didn't call. That was wonderful too. You see, I know my little boy. I know he would have called if he could. He couldn't call me and that was the best news all day.

There are no phones on the transport plane I was sure he was on, coming home from Iraq. He left Iraq and went to Kuwait and then they pointed their plane west and followed the sun.

At 1:30 in this morning, the day after Father's Day, he called from Maine to wish me a happy-if not belated, Father's Day. I went back to sleep three hours later knowing he could walk home if he had to.

His feet were dry.

Happy Father's Day to those who are standing as fathers. You have a noble, Biblical, Herculean task. Aye, ti's a good day.

Beauty

The word 'beauty' is a funny and sometimes misleading word. Sometimes, we are entrapped by it with ads on TV, billboards, sides of buses, fliers on our doors. Almost all of it has some sexual edge to it to attract us to it, get us to pick it up, and at least touch it with our eyes.

Sometimes beauty is a mountain or a climate, even a culture. As I sit and write this piece, I am on the island of St. Lucia. It sits towards the southern end of the Lesser Antilles island chain way down towards South America. It is a British Commonwealth, formerly owned by Spain, France, Britain, the Ameri-Indians, the Carib cannibal Indians (who still have relatives in the heart of the rain forest on the island) and now, for the most part, they own themselves.

This is the second time we have been deep into the Caribbean. I think the farther you are away from the U.S., the better taste you get for the life these people truly live, how they look at life, what it is that makes them go about their day-their beauty.

I think its hard to see beauty when you plan for it. I guess you have to ask 'why is that beautiful to me?' You can watch the Miss USA contest and see physical beauty although the contestants do sing and tap dance and occasionally they twirl a baton but all anyone is interested in is hoping beyond hope that she drops the baton or trips on the dance floor, kinda like NASCAR. We really don't care about that kind of beauty-its just a show.

I think beauty, true beauty, changes people when it shows itself when you least expect it-like during a funeral when the lights streak in the windows and land on the casket at just the right time, or during a storm when the power and largeness of the event is awesomely incredible, or in a poverty soaked country where the environment is striking but its people, even living in the squallier they do, somehow have the ability to put a crease in the white uniform shirts of their children in order to send them to school. I mean a crease you can cut a loaf of bread with.

I have only been among these people for a few days and only have a few days more. But there is a beauty walking here among them, a quiet, dignified beauty that I want to learn from. No matter what you ask them, tell them, talk to them about, they almost always finish the sentence with no problem. To them it is, whatever it is, not a problem.

At this resort we are staying, there was a shift change about five in the afternoon. The women were leaving. They took their purses and their bags and began the long walk up the hill to the bus stop, about a mile away. there, the buses (vans really) would pick them up and take them home, maybe about an hour away. They smiled and laughed and some did a little dance as they walked up the hill. They had good jobs, making about the national average of $350---a month.

They would do this six days a week. There is no minimum wage here, no overtime, no social security, no food stamps. If you didn't make it or grow it, you don't eat. Yet, these people, as you drive along, waive to you-

-and then they smile.

I think as I get older, I learn about stuff that has value, real value. I want to hang on to that stuff and dump the other stuff. The stuff that takes too much energy and work and try to melt things down to what really counts. I am closer to the end than to the beginning and I want to finish well, although the finish line is decades away-maybe. I don't want to finish and have some say-'who died?' Not that I need some icon or statue of my image somewhere so pigeons can crap on it.

Nope, I just want my life to count, even if it is just for one person. Here is a group of people who live on a month's salary what we can spend on a meal at home and yet they have found beauty in their lives. Their lives impact and change people who come in contact with them. I want to take what these people are showing me and bring it back and pour it on others I come in contact with. Sure, there is always a need to be able to do well in a gun fight, but those moments are rare. It is much more important to do well in every day living; to share your life and give hope among the hopeless.

These people are experts at finding beauty in life when life itself is not beautiful.

I want to be an expert too.

Day and Night

I have had an incredible experience this last week.

I got to watch a man die.

It was a very sad and terrible thing, don't get me wrong, but if you have to do something like this, to get the opportunity to be a part of this was nothing short of inspiring.

Randy was my brother-in-law. He had lived in a group home for almost forty of his fifty-one years. He was diagnosed as a mosaic Downes, a unique chromosome pattern that turns normally docile Downes patients into a different, unpredictable individual.

By many beliefs, it was a tragic life. People would look at his situation and just shake their heads and then avert their eyes. But they didn't know. They didn't have an opportunity to look at this life close up.

Randy had a great life. He lived in a group home and had a room he shared with another resident for decades. He had a big screen TV, his own special recliner, bongos. He went to work making something with his hands that I am sure, somewhere in our house, we have at least one of. On days when his sister would come and see him, he would wear a tie, not necessarily a tie that matched the shirt, except maybe in Italy or parts of Uzbekistan, and it wasn't necessarily tied, but he got dressed up for her. She was never disappointed.

With all his health issues, he wasn't suppose to live this long, but he did.

He choked on a peanut butter sandwich.

Really? A peanut butter sandwich?

The staff worked so hard trying to save their friend, but the sandwich was so far down that only the paramedics could extract it. He had gone too long without air.

But then the magic began to show. The world doesn't expect to see people like Randy making a difference in the world. That's why the world created the group home. Make them comfortable is the official version and we do. We try to give them a life that is normal whatever that means. Then God steps in and makes it perfect.

This guy, impacted lives like I wish I did. In my life, I hope I have people who love me so unconditionally like this man had standing by his bed. The rules in cases like this are to wait 72 hours to see if his condition changed, righted itself, or ended. At the end of that time, the doctors gathered us together and the decision was made to let nature take its course.

He lasted another twenty four hours.

In that entire time, this man had a standing vigil by his bed. The group home workers took turns with Randy round the clock, sitting by his bed, talking to him, touching his arm, rubbing his legs, washing his hair, shaving him, trimming his toe nails. I could have done all of those things-if I had too. Here's the thing, they didn't have to-they wanted to. It shamed me.

They loved him. He changed their lives. He loved them back-purely; in a way that took away all the crap the rest of us deal with and use. This was his family. Even the residents, who had some knowledge of a change in things, wanted to come to the hospital and were granted and escorted by the care workers. I met them all, shook their hands, received their hugs. Yep, I was shamed.

I want to love like that.

I can-I have, but it is never consistent. I want to be like these people. I want to love so purely that conditions or issues are never even questioned, there is just love.

There is a letter, written a long time ago, that talks about faith and revealing things. It talks about the revelation of love, not to the wise, but to the children. Randy couldn't drive, have a family, do his own taxes, or fly a plane, well, maybe he could, but you definitely wouldn't want to be around him when he was doing it. He couldn't do the vast majority of things we all take for granted.

Frankly, none of those things are important. ANYONE can do those things. Randy, was a lover. He gave it and, in the end, he received everything he sowed. He changed lives, healed hearts, motivated the lives around him to be better and to continue to love like they had for so long.

If we find comfort in a spiritual life involving God, then we need to know something about that. Randy doesn't want to come back from where he is now. He has the wisdom of the Universe and as I write these words and as, I am sure he sees them form on the page, he is nodding his head. "You tell them for me they don't understand where I am. Tell them they don't understand-they will, but no way do I want to leave this place! No pain, no suffering, laughter all the time, fresh pie, and purple ponies. Tell them there is pure joy, pure happiness, pure love."

"...and the greatest of these is love."

Now its over-or so we think. I guess that's up to each of us.

Yep, I got to watch a man die-or did he?

Pish-Posh and a Well Done Wedding

I, like apparently two-billion other people around the world, watched part of the Royal Wedding. Actually, I saw it on the news the next day. I wasn't about to get up at one in the morning and watch it like some colleagues I know. Yep, they got up to specifically watch the Prince marry the common girl he had been living with for years. There are some observations I have noticed about myself in this process.

I like the English-all of them.

Just about any country that is or was part of the British Empire, I smile at. I think I like them because they like us. Sure, we have opinions about each other, but families do that. Still, we truly like each other and like to spend time together.

I like the Canadians. When the crazies in Iran invaded our embassy and took our people hostage for 444 days, they had several dozen Americans that were caught outside the embassy when it was taken over and they sheltered them in their own embassy, made them fake passports, citizens, and got them out with the rest of their own people, right out from under the Iranians noses. That was just good form.

The Aussies are the British version of American NASCAR lovers. They play hard, work hard, and were just a bunch of bandits cutting a life out of a area of the world that was just like ours, only sixty times bigger. They have common sense, dress comfortably, and frankly don't care what people think. If anyone doesn't like what the Australians do or say, they can get the hell out, thank you.

Then of course, there are those in the Motherland and its extension-Ireland. I am sure I am missing other territories and for that, I apologize. It is the Motherland that I really have discovered a true affection for. After all, Scotland's there and so is the birthplace of the single malt. I also like some of their words and phrases. 'Pish-posh' I heard one Brit say on TV.

Pish-posh-hmm.

I have a poster in my classroom taken from when the Brits were being bombed by those pesky Huns during WWII. It simply says, Say Calm, and Carry On. Well said-oh-there's another one-well said. Some how, I need to weave into my vocabulary pish-posh, The key is to not sound like Mary Poppins Italian towel boy.

Frankly, any place you can have a calm Welshmen, a sly Scot, and a crazy-eyed Irishman-or lady, together under the same cause, you got something no one wants to mess with but many want to be around.

Pish-posh? No, not yet.

Sure, they spent a lot of money on this thing. A lot of money in a country that is struggling economically. But you watch the people and there was a celebratory pride. It was part of their identity. It was their heritage.

It was part of ours.

Family.

There is something about this country and its people. They do put on a party really well. They drink hard, cheat at fighting, love their country and each other. The fact is, they can track their heritage back thousands of years. I noticed the prince doesn't even have a last name. Did you know that? No last name. Sure, he's from the house of Windsor. What does that mean? What name did he use on his driver's license application? I think the work 'prince' is in there somewhere. He rattled off five names when he was putting the ring on his brides hand. They were all first names. Good form.

Heritage. Sometimes it isn't so nice to look at. You look hard enough, you'll find that dark, ugly side. But then there's the colorful, hat wearing, flag-waving, singing out of tune, side of family.

Yep, good form.

A Sunday Morning in April

For many today, they wake up on this Sunday morning and in some form, celebrate Easter. They mix traditions of such things as wearing their best clothes to church, often being the only day of the year some members of the family even go to church. I remember my father, on this day, would go with the rest of us, all in our suits and mother and sister in dresses with those little cap/hat things with the pretend veil that covered the forehead. They would even wear gloves.

Celebrating the rise from the dead of the Son of Man was almost always preempted, at least for a few years, by me sitting up in our Mulberry tree in the front yard with my fully automatic Thompson, that I got from the toy aisle of Skaggs Drug Store, waiting for the Easter Bunny to show up so I could machine gun his fluffy little butt back to Arkansas, or where ever Pez candies are from.

We use to hunt real eggs, not those plastic containers which, I'm sure, originated in France in some neighborhood where it is totally acceptable to have pasty skin, no chin, and a weak handshake all under that now well-worn label of just be yourself. You know the containers, shaped like eggs of different colors, where you put candy or coupons to a movie in. People have gotten so afraid of a little food poisoning. We use to hunt the eggs until their shells were so cracked they made a noise when you simply held them in your hand. Then we would bring them inside and make egg salad; the color from the mono-sodium gelatin phosphate #3 dye turning the salad a pale blue. Just eggs and real mayo, no celery or any other crap.

We kept the mayo on the shelf next to the sink, next to the peanut butter. We never kept it in the refrigerator until I got married and I was asked why I was putting the open jar back on the shelf. "That's where we've always kept it," was my answer.

I can't keep it there any more.

Not once did we get sick. At least I don't remember getting sick. Tying gastric-distress with egg/mayonnaise consumption in the Williams household in the late sixties was never on the radar. We were the family that use to dip our potato chips in a side of mayo. So, eggs that were hidden in bushes, under trees, and sometimes buried with a shovel never held a health concern. This age-old tradition has simply fallen by the side of the road, never to come back, I'm sure, because of those guys in France.

This Easter, we have a lot on our plates. We have things that distract us, push us down, cause to feel wounded and pained. We sometimes stop and realize things are not only not fair, but often it feels like bad guys and Evil is winning. I don't have all the answers. Most of the time, I don't know the question, but I know where to start.

Evil, never----ever wins, ever.

It starts with a basic question-If there is a god and if this god IS the God of the Universe-the inventor of the the Big Bang, Enya's music, the Banzai pipeline on the North Shore, and the cinnamon roll, then is it possible he could chose us to be his kids?

Sunday is about a lot of things, but most of all it is a love story, pure and simple, probably the best and greatest love story of all time. It is a story about a father running towards his lost child, scooping them up and holding them so tight they gurgle the words "Daddy, I can't breathe." Then the two fall to the ground and laugh and cry together, the father still holding the child close. Nothing that kid could ever do, would separate that father's love from them again---------------------------nothing-------------------ever.

Now, saddle up. Grab your Thompson's, a canteen of water, and some warm egg salad. We got some rabbits to hunt!!

Happy Easter.

"Git out of my way-I'm going to sneeze!"

This will be, should be, the last of the series on preparing for, and living through, an Arizona summer. I hope you have been taking notes, putting them into a three-ringed binder you went to Target to specifically buy for this review and study, and tabbed the sections accordingly. If you did, I'm afraid you have more to worry about than the six months of suffocating heat you are about to enter.

Allergies in Arizona, especially the lowlands like Phoenix and Tuscon are terrible. According to some study somewhere, we are the third worse climate for allergy and allergy related symptoms. The Third!! People use to come from all over the world to recover from disease's like tuberculosis. Problem was, they brought their plants with them, you know, to remind them of the old country they would never want to see again. An Arizona Spring is the worse time of year for allergies.

I never remember having allergies growing up. Maybe I did and never knew it. You feel like you have a cold or flu all the time. You cough and hack and feel achy, and your face just leaks-constantly. You take one of those generic allergy relief meds, a case of those breathing strips you wear on your nose at night, and a bottle of Southern Comfort just to get you to the next day. I went to the doctor a couple of years ago with these symptoms that had lingered for two or three weeks. I was sure I needed something cut or lanced or something. She asked me three questions-"What trees do you have in your yard?" Mulberry and Olive. "Ah huh," she said and made a note. "What kind of grass do you have?" Bermuda was my answer. "Ah huh?" She made another note. "Any pets?" Two. She took a deep breath.

Come to find out we were lucky enough to have the first three plants on the Mother of All Allergy Lists with regard to plants not even mentioning the dogs. And everything was in bloom now-right now, in my front yard.

What does this have to do with summer? You see, once it starts to warm, I mean really warm, things in the desert begin to die-quickly. I guess we could be living somewhere like those sites depicted in Sunset Magazine. You know the images, those people who have back yards where you spit a seed out and it grows. Their yards are jungles of vegetation and neat places to hide when you and your kids are playing Army Rangers with broom sticks for guns (maybe that was a different generation?). Anyway, I think those people have faces that leak too.

At least I hope so. I want to share the good times. So, we gird our loins, and pop the salt tablets, and wear hats that frankly we make fun of people who don such attire any other time of year, just to survive. We shop at malls and see movies-all indoors with the thermostat set at 68. We switch to living more at night although temperatures posted at the 10:00 o'clock news is often well over 100 degrees. So we hunker down and take smaller steps and dream of Halloween.

We're always in a sweatshirt by Halloween.

Dress for Survival-not for Success

Okay, continuing our series on prepping for the days to come called an Arizona summer, we need to establish a few rules. Last week, we set our baseline of maybe getting ahead of the game and even toying with such ideas as using a tanning salon so our bodies would not wind up in a burn unit after a day on the beach in San Diego, the favorite refugee camp for Arizonans escaping the heat. Today, its clothing.

With attire comes a level of self pride. There is a distinction, obviously, between the young; lets say those in their real early twenties and teens; with everyone else. As the young get older, I have observed, they discover that comfort surpasses style.

Women are so much better at this then men at the younger age, but then border line later in life with style and trying to retain that sexy/stylish/beautiful look they think they might have lost but in fact, didn’t. It is this change that brings them to the discussion table. Men, young men, on the other hand, have a tendency to embrace stuff that makes no sense at all.

Example 1-Young men wear ball caps sideways, making them look like a modern day Lenny from Mice and Men (for those whom have never heard of it—it’s a book). In order to do this, they need to consciously ignore the feeling of the hat as it pinches theirs heads because in all the dream world of the hat manufacture, they never thought anyone would wear their product contrary to the way it was suppose to be worn. I’m waiting for someone to start another look where they wear it upside down. Now that will look good! Summers in Arizona require hats. If you truly wear them sideways, people just think you’re slow and will start talking to you in a loud voice—thinking you’re deaf as well.

Example 2-Young men have also forgotten to pull up their pants. This was a style some years ago when Mark Walberg was known as Marky Mark and did underwear commercials. It was a style that two years ago began to fade. Someone forgot to tell the Arizona connection. Nothing funnier than watching a young man with a pair a shorts hanging almost to his ankles, having to hold them up with one hand as he walks down the street. Pictures should be taken of these men, stored in a photo album, and secured until that man is thirty; then on his birthday, presented to him as what he use to wear. We older men have our leisure suit photos, the young—shorts dragging on the ground. Shorts in an Arizona summer is a required dress. It kills the functionality if you wear them long enough to cut off any fresh air circulation while both hands are filled, one with your pants and the other with your bag of pork rinds.

You combine these two examples on a young man walking down the street and one can not help but think that poor fellow has to write letters to his grandmother with a crayon and will spend the rest of his natural life working an assembly line sorting colored glass at the city’s recycling facility.

Now ladies, frankly, you’re perfect with some minor suggestions. Frankly, men have really no say in what you look like when we dress like that described above. But can we make some minor suggestion(s)?

Ever since we have accepted you and your shoe choices, which is a major realization of style and its importance in your self-esteem, we are left with only two minor things.

Spandex and moo-moo’s.

There are some things you need to be aware of. Young men (those wearing the crap above) will always be surface people. Your looks are what they are attracted to. Whether you can survive after your plane crashes on a deserted island never crosses their minds. What you looked like after you crawled from the wreckage—that’s the important part to them. The application of spandex is only good for one thing-the gym.

Women should never wear spandex past the age of twenty; in a climate where the daily temperature is over 100 degrees by eight o’clock in the morning; or the woman’s body mass would test the tinsel strength of the fabric weave.

Look ladies, here’s the thing, we are all in this life for the long haul. Those in the Donner party survived because they had something to survive on. Those skinny women who were so attractive to the others were the main course come supper time because their body mass index was so low they couldn't survive the blistering cold. They had no staying power. Embrace the fact that the average woman’s size in the United States is a size 12 and move on. Those women are survivors! You don’t need to wear moo-moo’s or whatever the Hawaiian name is for those one-piece dresses large women and some men wear unless comfort is your middle name. Those can be equally unsettling.

We had a neighbor once who lived behind us. She was from Greece or some place from the Ukraine, I think. She would climb up on a ladder leaning against our back wall and call to us holding her cigarette in one of those extended filter things that Natasha used in the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (it was a cartoon). We all laid bets she was a former Russian tower guard in the Gulag at some time and used her ‘get away from the electric fence’ voice in callilng us. She wore those moo-moo things. She passed before spandex made a showing. Just the idea of her in eight yards of black Spandex is enough to cause a seizure. Bottom line is this-dress this summer with loose fitting, breathable clothes, comfortable shoes, hats facing front, carrying a bottle of water.

We can get all wrapped up in the hype of needing to wear this or that just to say we have this or that when we really need to dress to survive. When the first skinny person became the pot roast for the Donner group, I bet, if you could of asked them, they wished they would have bulked up a little bit before they got to that pass in the dead of winter. Yep, just a little bit of me thinks they were a size 12-or even a 14.