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The website for Stygian Publications is now live. We will start accepting Submissions on November 1st for Novellas and Novels.

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Published on September 29, 2013 08:40

And now for something completely different

I love British bathrooms.
There, I said it and I’m glad.
Before I explain why British bathrooms are superior to those in the US, let me first do some level setting.
I’m not a rabid anglophile. I do appreciate much of the history, though only from a military perspective. I like Dr. Who but I’m not a rabid fan. I love Sherlock Holmes. That’s it, no qualification around that, I love Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s collective works and don’t care who knows it. So while I do appreciate some things British, I never had an overwhelming desire to travel there any more than anywhere else with the exception of Africa. Sorry Africa, but while you have a lot going for you, if I wanted to be hacked to death or burnt alive, I’d insource that job domestically and go to Detroit.
To be fair, as a child it never occurred to me that travel was even in the cards for me beyond the occasional trip to Wisconsin and the dream of some day seeing the Twin Cities. I dreamt of being Spiderman, knowing it was a dream. The cruel truth of economics and logistics prohibited me from dreaming of things I thought were firmly out of my reach. So England became no different than Narnia. Places I read about, but as far as I was concerned, I had a better chance of finding a portal in a wardrobe.
Then I grew up and achieved more than I thought possible. I dared to dream of cruises and foreign travel. England, Scotland and Ireland were at the tope of my list. So my company sent me to India in 2006. What I found is that except for the jetlag, I liked it. Two jobs and a bunch of travel later, I finally arrived in the UK for the first time.
This is my third trip and all have been for business. I haven’t been able to do many tourist activities, but I have seen a few sites. I did get to see the relatively new 221 B Baker street museum and gift shop. I did get to see Big Ben from a taxi window. Those were cool, I won’t lie, but they pale in comparison to my greatest UK discovery, the British bathroom.
For those of you that have never traveled between these two countries, let me explain. The entire bathroom isn’t necessarily superior, though most have a better design. The key feature that makes them superior are commode the stalls. Urinals are about the same, though the Brits do seem to space them out a bit more and have better dividers. I’ve also never seen a sink design in the UK with a flat counter top and over pressured faucets that cause water to pool so that when you lean forward to wash your hands or check something in the mirror, the water absorbs into you pants in the groin region.
While not all British bathrooms are so well equipped, I have to share this pic of a this brilliant vending machine that takes care of all of the man's and woman's needs and manages to address some of the most common excuses as well.

If only they had these a century before, though I'd rather not meet the man or woman that needs the giants 100 pack of tic tacs.

And now back to my story.

First I’ll describe the British stall. Have you ever heard the term “water closet”? Well, that is appropriate, because each stall is a small room with a solid door and no gaps or cracks. It shuts and you have true privacy. I’ve been in a few now and they don’t skimp on wall thickness either. The guy next to me could be suffering from a trip to Chipotle, but I would not hear his screams. Added bonus feature in case you’re not sure of the door is shut by accident, most have a lock on the inside that triggers an “Occupied” sign on the outer door similar but not quite like they have on airplane bathrooms.
The US stalls on the other hand are poorly crafted from sheet metal and painted horrific colors. They are designed poorly and quickly thrown up so most have larger than planned gaps and are about 18 inches off the floor and top off around six feet high, leaving plenty of gap before you reach the ceiling. Because of poor alignment, many of the flimsy slide locks do not fully seat and a large percentage open when any of the connected walls are bumped. Worse, since almost all of them shut as their default position, you have no way of knowing if they are occupied by looking at the door. There are several slick moves used by men across America so we aren’t mistaken for some pervert trying to catch a look. There’s the quick duck down to look for feet, but this move is rarely done when someone is at the sink or at a urinal. You can walk by as if uninterested and glance quickly through the ½ inch wide crack to see if there is a shape in the gloom. A more patient person can hang back by the door and listen for movement or breathing, but if detected that might only narrow it down to one of the two being occupied, not definitively identify which one.
Desperate or impatient men just grab hold of the door and pull. This only works if it is empty. If not and the lock miraculously holds, most occupants feel the need to say something like. “I’m in here” or “be done in a minute”, as if the locked door weren’t a giveaway. Sometimes the door gives and you’re face to face with someone in one of several stages of completion.
You may argue that the British method is more expensive, but I challenge that assumption. Post construction work would be, but if it were part of the plan, the increase per building would be negligible. We broke away for many reasons over two hundred years ago, but we have bonded since then and it’s high time we recognize we can still learn from our brothers and sisters across the sea. I call on all of my fellow American’s to rise up with me and demand a better bathroom experience.
Who’s with me?

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Published on September 26, 2013 09:56

Marriage Equality

<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the record, since some that read this would have no way of knowing, my disclaimer is that I am straight and married. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The title of this blog post is Marriage Equality, but it’s really just about <i><b><u>Equality</u></b></i>. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There are those that oppose marriage equality and claim that it's on the grounds of their religious beliefs, specifically referring to the Christian bible. The problem with claiming that you are against marriage equality because of your Christian faith is that it is contradictory to Christ’s teachings and it does make you a hypocrite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hypocrisy is part of the human condition. Few people that act hypocritical are aware of it at the time. It’s something I’ve tried to avoid but I’m painfully aware that I’ve been guilty of this in the past and will likely fall into this trap again. I will continue to strive to avoid it and do some reflection when it’s pointed out to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t believe that changing your mind is hypocrisy. If you have a firm opinion at 20 and through investigation or reflection or perhaps by someone presenting new information or old information in a new light and you change your opinion at 21 or even 40, I don’t believe that makes you a hypocrite. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">What makes you a hypocrite, is saying you believe one thing and then without stating a change in opinion, you do another. Hypocrisy is especially obvious when a person puts forth their opinion, acts contrary to that opinion and then states the opinion again, especially when casting judgment on the conduct of others. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With regards to the issue of homosexuality, you have two choices:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Either you believe being Gay is a choice, and since it is called out in the Old Testament as an abomination it is a sin.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You believe people are born gay in which case it is not a choice but how god made them and can’t be a sin. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s assume you fall in the first example and you use the bible to argue against marriage equality. The odd thing about this is that despite it being the Old Testament, I don’t hear people of the Jewish fail making this claim. Christians fall under the New Covenant and have since the resurrection of Christ. The Old Testament is no longer binding. And while the Old Covenant held to the letter of the law, the New Covenant holds Christians to a higher standard by requiring them to meet the Spirit of the New Testament. So before Christ, you were only in trouble if you killed someone as it would violate one of the 10 Commandments, while after the Resurrection, you are now in trouble even if you spend night and day wishing someone were dead even though never act on the impulse. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Speaking of the Ten Commandments, let’s just say you’re old school and want to cleave to that old Covenant. Thou Shalt Not Be Gay is not one of the Ten. I’ve read through them and it’s a pretty good list of things you shouldn’t do if you want to be a functioning member of society. Then there are the Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Pride, Envy and Gluttony. Nope, being gay is not one of the seven. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">While we’re on the topic of sin, if you are a claiming to be a Christian, then you know that there are two types, venial (or minor) and mortal (which are pretty serious). Most Christian scholars claim that homosexual thoughts or urges would be venial, while acting upon those urges would be mortal. Why? Two reasons. First, that it is sex that occurs outside marriage, and second, that the specific act is considered unnatural. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The first is a catch 22, since if we allow homosexuals to marry then it will no longer be a sin to have sex with your spouse. The second one is pretty straight forward, but guess who else commits unnatural sexual acts? Anyone that does anything besides Missionary Position, that’s who. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think this is the part where we quote the big guy himself:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">John 8:7 “<span class="highl">He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="highl"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or how about this oldie but goodie:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="highl"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Matthew 7:1 is the perfect segue to my next point. Even if you believe and can prove once and for all beyond a shadow of a doubt that homosexuality is a sin and those that practice it are going to hell, it is none of your (what for it) fucking business! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">A person’s relationship with whatever god they do or do not believe in is a personal one. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s not your job to stop people from sinning. If it was, you should start with the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins. When you manage to stop committing them yourself and manage to get the rest of the world to stop committing those, you can take on Homosexuality. In fact, let’s agree that it is #18 on the list. Go fix 1 through 17 and come back and talk to me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But hey, let’s pretend that you have completed that miracle and you want to tackle #18. Even if you get to that point, you have no business trying to enforce your religious beliefs on others through the law of the land. Their soul is their business, what we are talking about is public policy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The United States of America was not founded on Christian freedom. It was founded on religious freedom. Some people forget that. The constitution is there to protect people from your oppressive views just as it is there to stop others that may want to interfere with your right to worship Christ. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I know that’s a tough concept for some people, but you need to deal with it. People have the right in the USA to believe whatever they want to as long as those rights don’t infringe upon the rights of others. This could occur if some devil worshiper claimed sacrificing another person was a religious right. No, sorry but that crosses the line and impinges on the other persons freedom to live. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Our Constitution also claims that all people are created equal. We know that isn’t true. Blacks were 3/5ths for a long time and women only got the right to vote in 1920. The law is not always compassionate, but Christianity is supposed to be. It’s kind of a requisite for being a Christian unless you are a Hypocrite. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But it’s even worse than that. We aren’t just talking about some random public policy issue. Using any argument to fight against marriage equality allows an environment of intolerance to flourish. By not recognizing homosexuals as equal members of society, we allow some people to see them as inferior, just as blacks and women were seen as inferior and still are by some. I consider it counter to Christ’s teachings to allow a group of people to be treated as less than human. Whether you like it or not, you are actively contributing to the creation of the hostile environment where others, that also see homosexuals as inferior find it acceptable to take violent action against them. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You may lull yourself to sleep by convincing yourself that you are just against marriage equality for personal and religious reasons, but you are lying to yourself if you deny that you are actively contributing to a climate of hate and violence. Only through acceptance and equality, can we stop the cycle of violence. If you claim to be a Christian, you have no other choice than to stop the oppression of homosexuals. Your loud and angry voices only add fuel to the fire. They give strength to those that strike the blows in the USA and abroad. The intolerance and cruelty that translate into the culture of intolerance and hate is fueled by your words and deeds. It emboldens cowards to brutalize those they see as less than human and worse you manage to convince some people when they are young that they are less than human and unworthy to the point where they kill themselves. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Do you feel proud of these acts of violence? Do you truly believe that you are in no part responsible for these heinous acts? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">For my part, I was never homophobic. Despite that fact that I am not a good Christian, I was raised to believe that people have a right to pursue happiness as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others. In my twenties, I was ambivalent to the LGBT cause because I didn’t see how it affected me and I personally had nothing against them. If it was brought to a vote, I would vote for their equality, but it wasn’t something I gave much thought to. I felt that because I saw them as equal under the law and morally, I had the high ground and that was enough. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It took the violent actions and cruel laws passed in Russia for me to wake up to the fact that being on the side lines when it comes to equality for all people is not a justifiable position. I’m not sure why it took me until I was 47 to have this epiphany, but it isn’t good enough to simply stand idly by. Edmund Burke was right, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” We can update that quote to ‘good people’. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Does this mean that I’m going to start marching in LGBT parades? No. I hate parades, always have. What will I do? Try to change minds by posting up a blog on the subject, teach my children love and tolerance of those that are different from themselves, when given the opportunity respectfully debate the issue with someone that I think is salvageable and vote out politicians that contribute to the culture of hate and intolerance. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Is that enough? I don’t know, but it’s better than nothing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>

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Published on September 05, 2013 14:40

I Call Bullshit

<div class="MsoNormal">There has been a lot of political rhetoric on the Internet in the last few weeks around Syria. The latest is this poster. Read it and let it sink in.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3c9bexlVttY..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3c9bexlVttY..." height="320" width="225" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve had enough and I have to call bullshit. First, let me make it clear I think we need to stay the hell out of Syria. I will explain why later, but let’s start with the fallacious argument laid out in this pithy poster.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Using Benghazi as a basis for a reason why Obama shouldn’t interfere in Syria, is bullshit. And this is all about Obama, not whether or not the US should get involved in Syria. Everything is partisan these days and that’s the problem. When we talk about putting US troupes in harms way, we need to drop the political party bullshit and do what’s right for the USA. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There were 12 attacks on US Consulates while Bush Jr. was President resulting in 60 deaths. Some of those deaths were even US citizens. Clearly, no one gives a shit if some foreigners working at our Consulates die, or they’d bring up the attack on the Peshawar, Pakistan Consulate in 2010 when 8 people died. But those dark faces don’t make as compelling of a poster as the 4 US white faces in the Benghazi tragedy. But to pretend that Obama doesn’t care about the deaths of the American’s in the Benghazi tragedy implies that Republicans do care. This is blatantly false since neither side raised the issue of any of the previous attacks, of which there have been plenty resulting in a lot of deaths of both American and non American people working in those Consulates. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Besides the Consulate attacks, Bush Jr. also got us into two wars that to date have resulted in the deaths of 6,756 US War Fighters. The total casualties are slightly higher than that but clearly we don’t give a shit about the deaths of our allies either. Fuck them until we need their support to go do some more killing, and then they are pussies unless they back us, right?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">By the very fact that all of these deaths are completely ignored in context of the Benghazi outrage, it is clear that the deaths of the 4 American’s isn’t the driving force behind this obviously political attack. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Try fitting 6,756 young faces on a poster if you want some outrage. The largest percentage of these deaths occurred in Iraq. Between the two wars, even some of the more liberal democrats out there have agreed that we needed to face our enemy in Pakistan. Remember our enemy? Al-Qaeda and the Taliban? The ones that attacked us on 9/11/2001? There was no Al-Qaeda, Iraq link. There were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. When that became clear, what did the Republicans fall back on? They brought up the fact that Saddam Hussein was an evil bastard because he gassed his own people. Sound Familiar?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that a democrat in the White House is trying to use military force against an evil bastard that gassed his own people, the Republicans are going batshit crazy. I guess Obama should claim there are Weapons of Mass Destruction in Syria. Guess what, there ARE. Sarin is defined as a WMD, and we now have proof that they have it and used it. Actual proof, not some bullshit lead from the CIA that didn’t pan out and was so weak not even a liberal rag like The New York Times wouldn't have run with the story until they had a more reliable second source. But so what? WMDs do exist in countries outside of the United States and we will never get rid of them all. Deal with it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Just in case you think this is some rant from some anti war liberal, the Republicans aren’t the only hypocrites. It just so happens that with Obama in the White House, their hypocrisy is just more obvious because they are on the attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Democrats and their completely unbiased news agencies (we really need a sarcasm font)<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> made every casualty during the Bush presidency a news story. Death toll stories ran monthly in print and on the air and there seemed to be constant video footage of the violence. Suddenly, Obama gets into office and no one cares about the number of US dead anymore. When was the last time you saw horrific images from Afghanistan on the nightly news?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When the Republicans were faced with the reality of no WMDs in Iraq and used the monster gassing his own people angle, the Democrats scoffed, but now the shoe is on the other foot. Not only are there WMDs in Syria, but a Democrat is using the excuse that a monster that gasses his own people should be stopped with American military might. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Which is it people? What is our stance in America? Are we justified intervening when a government gasses their own people? Is it OK if they just blow them up and shoot them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are we the world’s police? What about the WMDs? They exist, but does their existence present a Clear and Present danger to the United States? I hate to break it to you, but the UK has Nuclear weapons. Israel has Nuclear weapons. But hey, they're our allies so that’s OK. We have nukes too, but killing people with nukes is OK, just not nerve agent. We signed a treaty saying it was bad so there is no way we still have some hidden away in some bunker. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fact: Syria has not attacked our allies or us. Fact: Neither side of the civil war in Syria would be our friends or friends of our allies. Fact: Syria has WBDs and has used them on their own people in a civil war that has raged for two years with a death toll estimated at 100,000. Fact: The number of deaths from the Sarin gas attack is around 1,300, which is not even 1.3% since it brings the other number to at least 101,300 (these are all estimates but close enough and in ratio to each other). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">What is the right course of action for the US with regards to Syria? Let’s break it down from a policy perspective, especially given what we’ve learned in the Middle East in the last twelve years and slanted with my bias. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I think we were wrong to go to war with Iraq regardless of how evil Saddam was. I think we were right to fight Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. I think interfering in Syria’s civil war is not only wrong, but also at this point hypocritical. We would have stood by and let the death toll rise to double 100,000 or more and never lifted a finger, but because Bashar al-Assad used Sarin gas, we must intervene by killing a bunch more Syrians? Both political parties have changed sides and are now arguing their opponents previous positions because the fact is they don’t give a shit about Syria. This is about winning elections because both sides want to either stay in power or get back into power for as long as they can. For the last forty years it has become fashionable to use our armed forces for strictly political gain, literally greasing the wheels of politics with the blood of our War Fighters and the enemies that they in turn also kill.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We need to actually have a documented foreign policy that clearly spells out when we try diplomacy first and when we simply move toward the use of military force. We need further gradation to describe circumstances when we use remote force vs. “boots on the ground” force. This policy should not be administration specific, it should be divorced from the Executive Branch with a clause to allow a President to make their case if they feel the situation is not clearly covered by the policy that is voted on by the people and enforced by Congress. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The main requirement for this policy would be to require a clearly stated goal of the military action. What is our goal with Syria? Are we attempting to remove Assad? Punish Assad? Destroy any other chemical weapons? All I’ve heard is the President making a case for military action in Syria using remote weapons with no “boots on the ground”. What is the objective? How will we know when we are done? How many more terrorist attacks will we suffer in the future as retaliation for our action in Syria? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Will there be any collateral damage from our bomb and missile attacks? You bet your ass there will be. Will the number exceed 1,300? Hard to say, but if they do, who would rationalize justification to attack us in response, or will be OK because we killed them with conventional weapons? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To summarize because I covered a lot of ground in this rant:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>The Democrats are hypocrites.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>The Republicans are hypocrites.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Anyone that claims to care about Benghazi because of the deaths of 4 Americans are either lying or ignorant and probably the latter. </div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Iraq war bad.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Afghanistan war bad but necessary.</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Fuck Syria. </div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>We need a real foreign policy in place that is less driven by the best interests of two political parties and more focused on the interested of the citizens of the United States of America that reigns in the Executive Branch's abuse of power over the last fifty years. </div>

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Published on September 03, 2013 16:01

It's been quite a year

I started this blog thinking that I could be a blogger and that I would have something interesting to say on a regular basis. That has clearly not been the case. What I discovered about myself is that I need time to reflect on something before I share it. When I hit a creative dry spell in 2010, I gave my poor neglected blog a reboot by posting short stories of my life. I posted the stories that I easily remembered and thought that readers would find entertaining.

After several posts, I decided to capture those stories in a memoir. My fiction was not flowing so I wasn’t sacrificing yet I had no idea how much if anything there was to say. I wanted to only select memorable stories that had some impact on me, whether it was positive or negative.

I’m not sure how many of you know your parents. I mean really know them, not just as they are now but also as they were as children, young adults and early parents. My parents didn’t volunteer a lot of information beyond a few choice family stories, but I’m persistent and over the years I got what I consider about a 30% insight into who they were and perhaps 75% insight into who they are as adults. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to leave that gift for my girls. For better or worse, I wanted them to know not just who I was and who I’ve become, but perhaps why.

I ended up with 110,000 words. Twice as long as any fiction I’ve ever written. It wasn’t a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account, I assure you. I hit only the highlights and some of the stories were years apart. Years where I plugged along and little happened of note. When I was done, I thought that I should publish it. The draw back is that I’m not famous. I’ve also never used drugs or alcohol. Many of the memoirs that get published are either coming of age stories or rehabilitation stories. I’m not sure mine qualifies for either. I only submitted to one publisher, so it isn’t like I gave it a serious go, but the more I thought about it the stranger it felt.

One thing that it did do for me was to break the logjam in my mind. I was writing again and I turned my eyes back to fiction. I got my short story collection, Hunter’s Moon: Visceral Tales of Terror , published by Omnium Gatherum. Then something odd happened. I got laid off from ATK.

I knew it was possible after five consecutive years of cutbacks and in a moment of clarity in 2011, I even predicted it. Yet the reality was too unpleasant to focus on and I believed in the company and the importance of the job to the point that I kept my blinders on. Five years after leaving Xcel Energy for a new opportunity, I was out on the street with 5 weeks severance and no clue what to do next.

The next five months were unpleasant. For those that have been through it, you know. For those that haven’t, it isn’t something you can imagine and I hope you never find out. That same month the Masters program I taught at St Mary’s was redesigned and a new program manager was hired. I was not officially informed that my services were no longer required, but I was also not contacted to write up a new lesson plan.

For those of you that were fans of Necrotic Tissue, you know I had to shut the magazine down for financial reasons in 2011. In less than a year I lost my magazine, the part time job I used to help fund my magazine and my full time job that pays all my bills. Good times.

On the plus side, I did get to spend the summer with my family. Job hunting takes persistence and patients, but there was rarely more than two hours of work needed per day unless I had an interview. You’d think that I would have been able to write at least one full-length novel in those five months, but the reality is that I felt guilty doing anything besides job hunt and family time. No writing and no Xbox and not that much TV.

August 2012 started out rough. I’d been short listed for two jobs that hadn’t panned out and I’d had five interviews at Thomson Reuters. It was starting to feel like the last two short list situations, but I kept being called back for more. Then I got not one, but two very special birthday presents.

The first was a great job offer from Thomson Reuters, which I took, and the other was a blog post by AJ Brown. I’ve never met Mr. Brown, but I did publish him in Necrotic Tissue. His blog post can be found here. It was posted just two days before my 46th birthday and one week after I started my new job. Despite being incredibly relieved to have such a great new job, I was far from “whole”. Mr. Brown’s unexpected post did more for me than he will ever know and I thank him for taking the time.

Since then, it’s been a very busy year. I didn’t get to spend as much time with my family this summer, but we also didn’t lose the house. I began a project with a good friend of mine, Jimmy Pudge. We just completed the first draft of a novel, a first collaboration for us both. We plan to have it ready to submit to unsuspecting publishers in September. Regardless what happens it was a great experience. I may even dust off the memoir and get serious about submitting it to unfamiliar memoir markets.

After all, it hasn’t just been quite a year, it’s been quite a life and I hope there is plenty of track left on this roller coaster.

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Published on August 27, 2013 13:14

Sledding, Innocent Beginnings

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In my memory, my childhood is broken down into three sections. In many ways, these are three different people that seem almost strangers to each other, yet all of their memories are mine. The first are the early years that ended when we moved to Bemidji. These memories are spotty and disjointed, but the ones I still recall are very strong. The next phase is when we moved to Bemidji the summer I turned five until the divorce when I was eleven. The final stage starts after the divorce in the final months of the 6th grade, until I joined the Army 25 days after I graduated High School. While the months leading up to the divorce were the worst of my young life, most of my time at the house on Lake Plantagenet was wonderful. We were only about eight miles outside of town, but in the 1970's for a kid under eleven, we might as well have been in the middle of nowhere. We were surrounded by more acres of woods than we could explore and had a lake and river within walking distance. What made that time even more special, were my friends. Tom Wilson was a year older and his brother Dan was a year younger. They had two younger sisters, Becky and Sally that we would harass from time to time. The three of us were inseparable and this is a story about one of our favorite pastimes, sledding. The Wilsons lived right across the road from us. Their house was on a steep hill that overlooked the lake. That hill was perfect for sledding and every winter we spent the majority of our time doing just that. The bank of the lake was between three and four feet above the water, which made for a cool jump onto the ice at the end of our run. When the snow was thick on the lake, it was like hitting a pillow. When it was wind swept, it felt like our vertebra was being compressing. Of course, that didn't stop us. But as we got older, the hill lost some of it's power to thrill, and the three of us came up with more elaborate death defying games to feed our need for adrenalin. One such attempt was on their long wooden toboggan. It was large enough for all three of us, but it wasn't a sled you could steer. You had to aim it and hope for the best. Under normal circumstances, that would be fine, but of course, that was too boring for us. We took it about one hundred yards into the woods parallel to their house and aimed it downhill. Then we climbed in, said our feeble prayers and pretended we weren't scared so the other two wouldn't think less of us. I read years later about phenomenon called Groupthink. This was a classic example. We pulled our legs in and pushed off. The sled was slow at first because of the deep untouched snow. My fear turned into disappointment as it seemed we wouldn't even get started let alone get up to dangerous speed. We rocked back and forth, digging our hands into the snow trying to get down to solid ground for purchase. Without warning, gravity overcame the surface tension, and we went from grunting incremental frustration to an express freight train headed straight for hell via large trees that sprung in front of us so suddenly, we didn't have time to scream. Tom yelled out instructions from the front and we tried to comply, shifting our weight right or left to avoid a head on collision. We bounced off the side of a couple of larger trees and went straight over the top of some brush all the while picking up speed. I was sure we were dead meat when finally we were through the trees and shooting up the ramp shaped bank. There was a feeling of weightlessness and we all had time to look around as we sailed through the air above the snow free ice. Tom tensed. He seemed to have figured out what I hadn't. The bank on that section of the hill was a couple feet higher than where we normally sledded, and the solid wood toboggan had no shock absorption. We hit flat and hard on the ice. Pain shot up my spine and I saw stars. Momentum carried us a good twenty feet and then we came to a stop. I fell to my right trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of me. Still, we were all smiling like idiots as we stood up and looked back at the path we'd taken. Groupthink or not, we all decided that once was definitely enough. The rest of the year, we stuck to our normal hill that lead down to where their dock was located in the summer. It was a well-worn path and plenty fast, especially in the early spring when the snow would melt a little during the day and freeze into a nice ice coating as the sun headed for the western horizon. Of course, once the ice started melting on the lake, we were supposed to stop sledding down the hill. After all, shooting down a hill directly toward a receding sheet of ice in March was not safe or particular wise. Yeah you guessed it. We didn't just try it, but we soon created a sled version of chicken. We wanted to see which one of us could get the closest to the end of the ramp shaped bank without bailing off. To make it more interesting, we were using their metal discs because they were faster on ice and supposedly easier to bail off. It was getting dark and we'd all gone down twice. As you might expect, we ditched very early at first, but then we got gutsier, not wanting to bail inside the last person's mark. I was wearing a pair of knitted mittens my grandmother had made me. We were all a little soaked from the melting snow, and it was getting cold as the sun sunk deeper. The sky looked like it was on fire as the sun eased behind the lazy clouds that dotted the sky like rows of white puffy tombstones. I gripped the two handles tight and swore I would beat Tom's mark. He'd bailed at the bottom of the hill, right before it started to go up again, barely three feet from open air. I gritted my teeth and shoved off. Each run, the surface became more ice than slush and my run was fast. I figured if I bailed right when I reached the bottom of the hill, my momentum would carry me past Tom's mark. Halfway down, my disc hit a bump and spun me around so I was going down the hill backwards. I couldn't see when to jump off and chickened out. I opened both of the hands and dove to my right.Nothing happened. I was still sliding backwards and Tom was yelling something. My mittens, so caringly knitted with Grandma love, had frozen together, locking me to the handles. I was going to scream, but then I shot passed Tom's mark and was flying through the air as I had done countless times before. This time however, I didn't land on snow or ice, but skipped across the open water like a rock. One, two, three, then I was submerged as I fell back and the disc filled with water. I had just enough awareness to take a deep breath and I was under the surface and heading for the bottom. The water freed my frozen mittens, but my momentum and weight dropped me like an anchor. I looked up as I sank and saw I had continued out as I went down and was now well under the shelf of ice. When I hit the silty bottom, I pushed away from the disc and tried to swim up to the surface. My water logged boots and coat held me down. I'd become disoriented and started heading the wrong way but I noticed it was black as death and I remembered the sun. I looked around and saw it was lighter to my left. I started to walk in that direction. I leaned forward and pushed with my legs as hard as I could, digging into the muck with my hands. After an eternity, I was out from under the ice and there was light and open water above me. It was hard to think, but I knew I had to keep moving. A few more steps and my head broke the surface and I blew out hard and then sucked in the fresh sweet air. Tom and Dan were there to help me up the bank. I sat down to catch my breath."I'm sorry I lost your disc."They weren't worried about the disc but we were all worried about getting caught. How in the hell were we going to hide this? I told them I would just head home and chances were good I could get past my mom and dad and into my room without being seen. Most times, I could do it. Dad would be watching TV and Mom would be making dinner. Half the time they never turned around when I came in. I thought my odds were pretty good. Tom and Dan looked dubious, but I was determined, so I started up the hill. From the edge of the lake to my front door, was about four hundred yards, mostly uphill. By the time I got to the end of the Wilson's driveway, I wasn't cold any more. I was sleepy, but not cold. It was full dark and my clothes had frozen hard. I couldn't bend my knees anymore and was forced to just shuffle ahead. When I got close to my house, our front door opened and both my mom and my dad ran out toward me. I'd been in trouble before, but my dad had never run at me in order to give me a whipping. Instead of swatting my ass, he scooped me up like a sack of potatoes and took me inside. They were both chewing my ass but they also seemed scared. I'd never seen them like this and I thought I should be scared too, but I just didn't care. They finished stripping me naked and then they shoved me into a bathtub of what I thought was boiling hot water. I screamed and thrashed, begging them to let me out. My dad held me down. There were tears in my mom's eyes. After another eternity of agony as all my nerves felt like they were on fire, they finally let me out and wrapped me in towels and rubbed me hard until I was completely dry. They explained that the water was room temperature. My dad had learned about frostbite and hypothermia in Kodiak Alaska when he was in the Coast Guard. Then they put me in bed with an electric heating pad and extra blankets. It was strange, but with all of those blankets and the pad, I felt cold for the first time since I'd left the lake. I shivered so hard I was sure I would shatter my teeth. It felt as if I would never be warm again. Sometime later, my dad said it was ok to let me sleep. I didn't think it would come, I still shook, but eventually it did. Before I drifted off, I heard them talking. Dad didn't think I would lose any of my fingers or toes, but he would know for sure the next day if any of them turned black. I dreamt of black, dead fingers.

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Published on September 23, 2011 05:20

Billy and the AC, an EOD Adventure

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Billy was his name. Come to think of it, Billy is still his name. A couple of years ago we reconnected on Facebook and I was shocked that he was still alive. He was a few years older than me and made partying a lifestyle. In an Army full of people one bubble off center, he was bat shit crazy. He was a musician, an orthodontic technician and several other things that I can't discuss due to statute of limitations. I'd hoped he was still alive, but considered it a low probability with prison being a strong second to organ failure. Billy Hays started sometime around 1986 at the 6oth EOD at Ft. Dix, NJ. We were told he was our clerk. He was a bit more, but that is a much longer and different story. He was also one of the most unique individuals I have ever met in all my days. I haven't seen him except in photos since 1988, so my description may be a bit off. That's okay, because this blog is about memories, not exact facts. I remember Billy as being about 5'6", thin and wiry. He chain smoked as if he needed them to survive and drank beer like it was water. Billy was and still is from Mobile, Alabama. Before I reconnected with him, my strongest memory was his laugh. It was infectious. He truly loved life and wanted to share the joy as often as possible. We hit it right off.The 60th EOD had a maximum number of 14 members, and I think we often had only 12. There were only 3-4 of us single guys and we were all on the first floor of the same building. Army barracks are Spartan. These were brick cinder block, painted some baby puke yellow and had no light fixtures. The only light in those rooms came from lamps plugged into outlets. There were bunk beds and two lockers per room, though over time, I ended up being the only one with a roommate, despite the fact that I was a sergeant. Of course Specialist Billy fucking Hayes had a private room across the hall. The Army is a strange place. They have rules that defy logic and in some cases seem to be created intentionally to contradict logic. One such rule dealt with heating. There was no air conditioning in the barracks, but there were heaters. Regardless of what the weather conditions were, the Army in its infinite wisdom decided they would set dates for when the heat came on in the winter and when it turned off in the summer. It didn't matter to the officers in charge that it often got extremely cold before the start date, any more than it mattered that often times in the spring, it would get too hot outside for boiler operated heaters to continue to run. The dates were the dates, period. The lack of air conditioning was especially cruel in the months of July and August. One of Billy's favorite stories of me was when he found me one day, sitting in front of a computer in my underwear, dripping sweat into an increasingly large pool on the floor. I was playing one of the first PC computer games and I was hooked. I had the window wide open and a fan going full tilt, but 95 degrees with 90% humidity is going to just plain suck. One day that first summer, I heard from another soldier that he'd been to a place about an hour away that sold used air conditioners for less than fifty bucks. I asked Billy if he wanted to come along. He said sure and off we went. About ten minutes into our trip and I heard the very distinct sounds of a bottle being opened. My head spun hard to my right and there was Billy, drinking an ice cold bottle of beer. He looked at me and smiled. "What the fuck are you doing?""Drinking a beer, Gus, want one.""No, I don't fucking want one. I don't drink and even if I did, I wouldn't do it in a moving vehicle in the state of New Jersey."We then got into a debate over the legalities and I informed him that not only would I lose my license, but I would then get busted down to slick sleeve private. He considered the people that made such laws "savages". At that time, drivers in Alabama and Texas could have beer in their hand as they drove, with a rifle on the rack behind them. He finished it fast and chucked the empty out the window. "What am I supposed to do with the rest of them?" He asked, displaying three more bottles, the amount he estimated needed for the one hour round trip. I told him to hold on to them and we would put them in the trunk when we got to our destination. He then proceeded to take out a cigarette and a lighter."Nope. Not in my car you don't.""Jesus Christ, Scott. First I can't drink, now I can't smoke? What the FUCK?!"He only called me Scott when he was pissed, all other times, I was "Gus". I gave him the stink eye, and he rolled down the window. I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but I wasn't prepared for him to lean out at over 60 miles per hour and smoke. Sure, it took him awhile to light it, but he managed. I wasn't sure if he was really that angry, or if it was just the wind disporting his features, but either way, he didn't look happy. From that day on, if we went somewhere we took his car. We got to the place just as a column of vehicles was leaving. All the drivers had Ft. Dix stickers on their windshields and they had picked over the less expensive inventory. Only two larger and more expensive units remained. I looked them over and asked the man how much they were. $65 bucks for either unit was the answer. I had exactly $50 dollars left until payday, which was only a two days away. "Billy, do you suppose I could borrow $15 dollars from you.""Sorry Gus, no can do."I told the man I'd have to pass and without skipping a beat, Billy said, "I'll take one!"He broke out a wad of cash and paid the man. The window unit was almost as big as Billy."Do me a favor, Gus and help me load this big mother into your trunk."I was too stunned to react, so I picked up the other end and loaded up the unit. We couldn't close the trunk and had to tie it down. We got back to the barracks and he needed help getting in the room and into HIS window. I went back to my room that was even hotter than when I left and stripped back down to my undies, sweat dripping into an ever growing pool.About two hours later, there was a knock on my door. "Jesus Christ, Gus, it's cold in there. Can I borrow some long johns from you? You could hang beef in there. I don't even need to ice my beer."It was times like that that allowed me to live with the guilt of duct taping him a foot off the ground to a pole in the boiler room that was situated facing the street out from of the 60th EOD. What are friends for?

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Published on September 16, 2011 16:58

Lemon Bars, A Tale of Misspent Youth

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My wife asked me a while ago how I was doing. It was a beautiful summer day and I was at the grill flipping burger and cooking brats. I didn't put a lot of thought into my answer but I meant what I said."Baby, as long as there aren't wheels on my house or crackers in my burger, I'm good."That sums up my view of success. I want to make sure my children are never hungry and they have a stable home with stairs on the inside and no wheels on the outside. After my parents divorced, my dad moved to the south side of town and we moved to a trailer court on the north end of the lake. My mom knew that she would be trapped working crap jobs the rest of her life unless she got a degree, so she went back to school. She also worked a crappy job. I was a latchkey kid at 12 before I'd ever heard the term. Money was very tight. Paydays happened, as they often do, every two weeks. By the end of those two weeks, there were times when the cupboards were bare and the fridge was empty. We were around $5,000 under the poverty line and one day my mom sat me down and asked me if I thought we should take welfare. We could get money and food stamps. I could tell that she hated the idea and even though I was not quite a teenager, I had been raised by a man that didn't believe in asking for help to do things you could do for yourself. I told her no. I told her I could work and she seemed relieved. She also told me it would be hard. She was right.There were two exceptions to our decision not to take a hand out. The first was free lunches at school. I got a pink meal card instead of the blue ones other families bought with cash. During the school year, that one meal made a huge difference and I would often stay late and take advantage of the seconds that were offered at the end of mealtime. Most often these seconds were burgers or pizza, and on rare magical days, there were pizza burgers. The other exception was butter and cheese. This was a program started by Reagan. The cheese came in five-pound blocks, and the butter in one-pound squares. Each family that qualified got one of each per month. I would like to believe that their choice of distribution locations was unconscious. I would like to but I just can't. They handed out the free cheese and butter at a building right next to Paul and Babe. We waited in a long line that stretched into the parking lot next to the main road that ran north and south through the town. People that didn't need the free dairy handout would stare and sometimes honk, pointing. I hated that line, but I loved the cheese. I still have occasional cravings. For those of you that are too young to remember, the recession back in the late 70's and early 80's was a real ball buster. We also had gas shortages and a long line of cars at the gas station was a common site, even in Bemidji. Those were scary times in America and the first major wake up call we'd had since before WWII. That summer, I got my first job. It was at a restaurant washing dishes. I started off working mostly weekends, but got up to forty hours a week by the time I was fifteen. They didn't have a machine, and all dishes had to go through three large stainless steal sinks, the first with a harsh cleanser, then a rinse and finally plain water. My hands peeled down to the meat from the cleanser and I always smelled like a combination of detergent and grease. I would get a meal and minimum wage, which wasn't too shabby. Still, there were times, especially during the week in the summers, were food got a bit scarce. Those were the days when I would visit Bill's house around lunchtime. Bill's was a regular hang out regardless of the time of day and I don't remember ever making a conscious choice to go to Bill's in hopes of being fed. It wasn't a plan or a strategy. Or perhaps, I just wouldn't admit it even to myself at the time. There were no wheels on their house. It even had stairs, both up and down. That vision of "home", has stayed with me for the rest of my life and it is what I have tried to replicate for my family. We fall short of course, we aren't like Bill's mom, but even close is good enough. Bill's mother is one of the kindness, most generous women I have ever met. Her house was always meticulous and the overall sensation of her home was like being wrapped in a warm blanket of love. In retrospect, it's obvious that she knew about my situation. There are no secrets in a town like Bemidji, but she never let on that she knew and I'm pretty sure she never said anything to Bill. It seemed that she was always baking or had just finished baking. There were always leftovers in the fridge along with fruit, snacks, cold cuts and Cranapple drink. The pantry was stuffed full of pasta, soups, crackers, cookies and chips. Bill's mom was always smiling, always welcoming and always offering me something to eat, especially her world famous lemon bars. There was one small problem. Bill was not exactly appreciative of his friends coming over and eating his food. You see I wasn't the only one. Jason would also show up at opportune times. We seemed to be able to sense or perhaps we could smell the lemon bars from miles away. Bill loved those bars more than life itself, as did we all. Resentment began to build, though it was never malevolent. Bill's mom insisted that he be a generous host even if she wasn't around, but she never said he couldn't play dirty. We all loved games, war games especially, and at some point, Bill invented his own game. The goal was simple. Find something that Jason and I didn't like to eat. This wasn't a fast game, oh no. This was a strategy game that spanned years. While he mounted his campaign to find food we would refuse, he tried to achieve smaller victories, some that succeeded and some that failed. It was common for him, to hide the tray of lemon bars. Like bloodhounds though, Jason and I could track the scent and find the tray. His love for Cranapple drink was legendary, and there was always a gallon jug in the refrigerator and a back up in the pantry. His mom made it clear that he couldn't refuse our requests to share the tasty beverage, but she wasn't always in the room with us, and on those occasions, he would pull out a juice glass so small, that it was just the next size up from a shot glass. Then he would fill it just over halfway. In the larger campaign, Jason was the first to fall. His Achilles heal was Raman noodles. Bill was not put off by his earlier failures. Instead, he evolved his tactics. He read the ingredients to Jason. They included pig intestine. Jason said "No thanks." And Bill smiled. Every time Jason came over near a mealtime after that, Bill made Raman noodles. He'd won his first round and I could tell by the look on his face the next time I showed up that he was sure he had the magic bullet to take me down too. I hadn't heard about Bill's victory and came over while he was preparing the noodles. He asked if I would like some. "Sure."He smiled and read the ingredients. "Sounds yummy, serve em up."It was a small loss, but he took it well, sure he was only one or two food choices away from finding my weakness. Two years later, and it was the summer after our senior year. I'd forgotten about the game and my mom and I were doing better financially. We still qualified for welfare, but we had figured out how to make ends meet and how to stretch the food budget. Our meals were basic, with cod and rice being a staple. When we splurged on burger, it was what is now called 80/20 with a higher fat count and even then only when it was on special. Those were also the days of cheaper generic brands and our house was filled with them, which is one of the reasons I love the 1984 movie Repo Man. A half-pound of burger, mixed with a lot of generic brand crackers, stretches into a pounds worth in size if not actually by weight or substance. The point was, that I had made a tactical mistake in a strategy game that had lasted more than five years. I literally wasn't as hungry for victory and I'd gotten lazy to the point where I believed I'd already won the game and it was over. But it was never over for Bill. It was a day much like other days, except that I had about a month before I went off to basic training. It was lunchtime and with a resigned sigh, Bill offered to share his tomato soup with me. "No thanks, I can't stand tomato soup."He smiled, and there was a look in his eyes that I didn't recognize. That is until I came over two days later. He offered me some lunch as a gracious host does, as his mother insisted that he always did. He offered to share, his tomato soup. The look was there and this time I recognized it. It was victory. He'd bested me at last, and just in time. He savored his victory as much as he savored his soup that he ate with brand name crackers. Right then, in that kitchen a month before basic training, I knew . Most times we don't appreciate what we have when we have it, especially in our youth. I was as guilty as everyone else for most of my youth, but at that moment in time I knew I would miss that kitchen. I would miss the love and the smells and the comfort. I would miss watching Bill practice the piano while I waited impatiently to hang out. I would miss listening to Garrison Keillor and The Doctor Demento show on the radio. I would miss his basement and the games of chess, miss making his normally reserved father laugh out loud and miss his mother's beautiful smile. I would miss feeling like I had a brother and was part of a family where the mom and dad were still married. And I would miss the lemon bars.

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Published on September 10, 2011 09:07

The Way Home, a DLI adventure

I'm not sure exactly what is wrong with me, but after the most monumental life achievements, have always been followed by a hallow feeling. This was never truer than when I finally graduated from the Russian basic course at the Defense Language Institute. The battle was won, honor regained, but now the question loomed. What next? This was especially true because the outcome had been so unsure. I didn't expect to graduate any more than I expected to fail. I knew I had to try and I hoped I would succeed, but I was realistic enough to know that the odds were against me. I knew going in that it would be hard, though even then, I underestimated the difficulty.

Just to be clear, I didn't dominate at Russian language school. I scrapped by in the lower third of my class, my fate in question every one of the 52 weeks including the last. I am not a gifted linguist. In fact, my learning disability inhibits my language abilities, specifically in the case of rules. Grammar rules as well as mathematic rules that are required to solve equations starting in algebra. My specific disability is that the neural pathways that people build up over time through rote memorization in the area of mathematics and language simply don't hold for me. If I manage to keep at something like language, where it's an immersion course as the one at the Defense Language Institute, I have a chance. I can maintain the pathways with daily work. Once abandoned, even for a short length of time, and they degrade.
I knew this going in, though I didn't fully understand it the first time I went to DLI in 1984. Even with this obstacle, I managed to survive for 5 months. The second time, in 1991-92, I crossed the finish line just before they took down the tape. Was it vanity that drove me to try again? I've asked myself why many times, before, during and after. The answer that I came up with was this. I felt as if I needed to correct a mistake. I wasn't prepared the first time to meet the challenge. This was my fault alone. I screwed off in high school and failed to learn English grammar because it was hard for me. Before I returned in 1991, I'd finished two years of college and learned what I needed to know. I went back, prepared. I needed to right a wrong I had done to myself. I'd damaged my confidence in myself and needed to get it back. Not to feel as if I had gained or accomplished something great, not to boost my ego, but simply to get back to a state of even. To be able to start fresh without the shame I felt for the initial failure.
After walking across the stage in Monterey in the spring of 1992, I drove back home to finish my Bachelors degree in Russian Area Studies and hopefully move on to a rewarding career. Two things about my trip home were very different than my trip out a year earlier. First, I decided to take the safer southern route as to not temp fate in the mountains again, and second, I wasn't alone. A good friend of mine had been to DLI a few years before and a friend of his had road tripped back to Minnesota with him. He wanted to pay that favor forward by traveling with me. He had friends and family in California so he got a one way ticket and after his visit, I picked him up and we headed home via the southern states.
This trip was going to be different. No blown tires, no deadly mountain passes, no 1,000 mile days, just a leisurely cruise home with a stop off to see the Grand Canyon. The Camaro of Death had a sweet sound system to entertain us on our journey. I had an Alpine tape deck/radio with one of the first 6 disc CD changers in the trunk, 6x9's in the back and an amp under the passenger seat. The sucker would shake the whole car and couldn't be played at full volume without ear protection. Mark had come prepared. He brought a lot of great tunes that I'd never heard before, my favorite being "Jesus Built my Hotrod" by Ministry. We stopped when we wanted to and did take a side trip to see the Grand Canyon. It was a canyon and I guess it was grand, but without the time to really explore, it only added to the anticlimactic funk I was in. Only seeing home again would buoy my spirits, so even though I had the time, I picked up my pace and focused on eating away the miles.
We followed a simple path, staying on I40 until we hit Oklahoma City, then we swung north on I35 all the way home. After our side trip to the Canyon, we spent the night in a cheap motel in Flagstaff, under the names Harry Canyon and Peter Schlen. Schlen being Russian slang for penis and Harry Canyon was a character with a funny sounding name from the movie Heavy Metal. We left the following morning after a greasy truck stop breakfast, and it wasn't until that night when I popped out my contacts that I realized I'd left my glasses at that motel.
Somewhere between Flagstaff and Albuquerque, I got caught behind a convoy of truckers. After watching Burt Reynolds movies, I thought truckers pushed the speed limit, but these boys seemed hell bent on going about five miles under the limit in multiple lanes. When I got an opening, I moved to pass the flat bed. Just as I got close, a large chunk of 2x4 came loose and landed right in front of me, too close to avoid. I could see the nails that decorated the wood and prayed my tires would miss them.
No such luck. I guess I should be grateful that it wasn't a blow out like my trip to California the year before. My rear tire was punctured, but managed to stay inflated as long as I was moving. We pulled off at the next exit. Luck was with us, since not all exits are equal. We pulled into the first store, one of the many variations of Gas and Go's that peppered the landscape. I could just make out the sign of a real garage a few blocks away and went to work jacking up the car to remove the tire. Mark went in for some pop, or soda as it's known in other parts of the country. He came back and it was my turn to use the restroom and clean up a little.
Halfway to the door, I was blocked by a group of five Native Americans. They seemed friendly enough and asked if I had any spare cash. They said they needed some gas money to get back to the reservation. I didn't hesitate or even give it much though, I just reached in my pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill that was left over from my last purchase and handed it to man that spoke for the group. I went inside, cleaned up, grabbed some road food and went back to the car. I caught the last part of the conversation where Mark was informing them that he was sorry, but he didn't have any cash. It was true and for that matter, I had just barely enough to make it home and cover gas and cheap motels. The group voiced their disbelief and unhappiness with Mark for not donating. The mood was getting ugly until I came up to stand next to him. I hoped the fact I had given them some cash and Mark and I were riding together would be enough to take away their steam. It didn't. They started to get very aggressive and began to threaten us with bodily harm. The trunk was still open and I reached in and pulled out my S&W model 645 and handed the .454 casull revolver to Mark. That was enough to make them leave, but we were pretty sure they would be back.
I got the flat off, tucked my auto in my waistband and rolled the tire down to the garage. It was a sidewall leak and the mechanic didn't want to patch it, but I begged him. He told me it wouldn't last for the life of the tire and there was a danger of a blow out. I assured him it would be fine and he did the job in about ten minutes. I could just make out Mark keeping watch at the car. He was still alone when I rolled the repaired tire back as fast as I could and pulled pit crew record time getting that sucker back on the Camaro. I started her it up and aimed for the highway entrance ramp.
Just as we left the quickie mart parking lot, we spotted two pickups approaching fast on a dirt back road that ran behind the main drag of the exit. Each truck was loaded with at least five shooters in the back, all carrying rifles. Our welcome had expired and I leaned on the small block 350 and launched onto the highway. I exceeded posted speed limits and didn't let off until a hundred miles later when I was sure the two trucks were no longer in pursuit.
The rest of the trip was uneventful with the exception of some negative physical reactions to truck stop chili. A week later I got a small package in the mail. It was addressed to Peter Schlen and contained my lost glasses from the motel we'd stayed at in Flagstaff. I was home, and I was whole again.

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Published on September 04, 2011 08:10

Fork You, My Beef with Mr. Hammer

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This is a tale of my misspent youth.
I had a beef with my former teacher, Mr. Hammer. I say had because I think I'm finally over it.
Mr. Hammer was my social studies teacher in the 9th grade. He's been dead now for almost twenty years. I think it's time to forgive and forget.
There was no particular incident that caused the rift. It was more of an understanding. We took an instant dislike to each other and we both did things to reinforce that dislike as time went on. Up until now, only one other person knew the whole story, my best friend, Dan Barter. But it's time I lanced this wound and moved on.
I want to make it clear that I was a horrible student. There are a lot of reasons, but it was no ones fault but my own. I wasn't a victim. Sure, some of the reasons are good ones, but I could have decided to over come those set backs and become a good student. Instead, I used them as excuses and coasted through school. I never studied and never took a book home. But despite my status as a slacker, I hated bad teachers. They offended me. I was forced to be in school, a political prisoner, but they were getting paid to be there. I considered Mr. Hammer one of the worst. He wasn't stupid like a few others; he just didn't seem to care.
He would fill the blackboard with notes and then leave for up to 30 minutes while we were supposed to transcribe them for later study. My handwriting was and still is horrible, so even if I had been willing to study, my notes would have been of little use. He was also the first teacher to use a brand new technology to grade his tests. The computer (pause for ooo's and ahhh's). We used a #2 pencil to fill in A through D. We'd never seen this before and he was the only teacher I had in Bemidji that used it. I thought it was lazy and impersonal.
His last crime was just plain creepy. He would arrange the seats of the most attractive and well-endowed girls so they were in the second and third row and in the middle of the room. When he did grace us with his presence, he would always leave a seat in the middle of the front row open so he could sit on the desk and look down at us, but mostly down the shirts of the large breasted girls. For those of you that remember him, think hard before you dismiss this claim. I had occasion to discuss this with other classes, both ahead of us and after us, and it occurred to consistently to have been accidental.
These crimes may seem fairly benign, especially for the 80's, but as I said, we didn't like each other from the start. I had beef, and I did something about it. Actually, I did several things about it that I will list here for the record.
It wasn't my idea, but I won't rat out who thought of this. I will say I crossed the line. We would take a few blank computer cards and make up fake names and fill out fake tests. We were sure we would get busted, but the first test went by unnoticed. The names were goofy, but not obscene. When Mr. Hammer failed to notice there were 2 more tests results than he had students, my loathing for him grew. The following week we took it up a notch by choosing more risky names and making cool looking patterns with the answers. This went on for over a month until the other students started laughing out loud at the answer key with the foul names we had come up with. Finally, he noticed. He stared at me with undisguised hatred. I returned the look.
Over the next year I: Switched a cassette tape for a filmstrip (really old school tech, look it up), with a Van Halen tape and cranked the volume, turned a film upside down and backwards, shot spitballs into his coffee cup (which he drank), took a months worth of nail clippings and put them in his desk (this is where he kept his, so I doubt he noticed), and stole all of his caulk. That is all I can remember, I'm sure I did more. It was the chalk that set him off. He couldn't spend the first 15 minutes of class writing notes and then leaving for the next 30 without chalk. He came up and asked if I had any chalk on me. He loomed over, trying to intimidate me. I told him I had a lot of other school supplies, but I was fresh out of chalk. It was stuffed in my pants and even my socks. The man had a LOT of chalk. If he'd searched me, I would have been done. He didn't.
The year ended and grades were sent out. I got an F in his class. He had the last laugh. Or so he thought. I was ashamed, but I never paid attention to how I did throughout the year and even though I didn't think much of him as a teacher, it never occurred to me he would lie. Those were different times and I was naïve. I was sent to summer school to make up the credit so I could move on to my sophomore year. My mom was angry and possibly more ashamed than I was.
Bemidji is a big town as far as northern Minnesota towns go. Still, I thought I knew all of the students by sight even if I didn't know their names. I was wrong. I didn't know one other student in summer school, and all of them were hard cases. I always had a lot of respect for kids like Brian Lofgren. He was tough. A teacher once slapped him in 5th grade and he just glared at her. I would have busted out crying, but he just wanted to get even. These kids were like Brian. I was out of place so I kept to myself and hoped none of them would decide I would be fun to pick on.
Summer school was set up self-paced. We were all at different levels and grades all in one class, so we all had a set number of assignments we were supposed to complete in the 8 weeks. I didn't know the teacher, but it was clear he was thrilled to be there. We had no homework, just the assignments. I focused on them and not my surroundings. After two weeks, I was done with eight weeks of work. The teacher was confused and suspicious. He questioned me about why I was there. The next Monday, I was sent home as soon as I showed up. My mom was home waiting for me. She'd got a call from the school apologizing. Apparently, my real grade had been a B, but Hammer had given me an F for "attitude".
I wasn't the only kid that disliked Mr. Hammer. I wanted to get even, and a friend who will remain nameless, came up with a brilliant idea. Now there have been recent articles about similar events occurring in the Twin Cities, but I am positive, that my nameless friend, back in 1981, was the originator of the idea to fork someone's lawn. His reasoning was that you couldn't rake up plastic forms, but you had to pick them up individually. We rushed to the grocery store and bought around 500 plastic forks. We picked a night, snuck over to his house, and covered his lawn.
This went on for years after. We once tried spoons, and then started spelling things with all three plastic utensils. Mr. Hammer moved, but I followed. Long after my friends had grown tired of the game, and after I got out of the Army, I forked his lawn at least once every couple of years. Judge me harshly if you want, but the last time I forked him was on his grave. Just to remind him I hadn't forgotten.
Do you think that crossed the line? So do I in retrospect, but allow me to give you some missing back-story on why being sent to summer school hit me as hard as it did. It's all about self-confidence, or in this case, my lack of. In elementary school, I needed tubes in my ears. My canals were small and clogged and it went on for a couple of years unnoticed until I had only 10% hearing capacity. In that time, I had slowly withdrawn from class and into myself. I also failed to learn how to pronounce hard consonants, especially R. It was the "baby" talk that finally tipped the adults off. Once I got tubes, I was put in a class for two hours a day for speech therapy and to relearn how write and try to catch up on what I had missed. I was behind at least a full year of class and missing two hours a day in fifth grade set me back farther.
In 8th grade, they noticed my grades were barely passing. They put me through a battery of tests. It was determined I was in the 98th percentile for intelligence. They also discovered my learning disability. It's in the area of language, which also covers math. They explained that the mylar sheath in most people builds up over time. Repetition increases the thickness of the sheath allowing people to retain what they've memorized. For me, the area of my brain dealing with math and other languages didn't build up regardless of repetition. I was left confused. Was I really smart or was I stupid? They answered the question by putting me in a special ed class in 9th grade. That's right, the same year I had Hammer. If you knew me then and I seemed stressed out and sometimes avoided telling you what my next class was, now you know why.
The class was one size fits all, not specialized to meet the needs of each student. No class could help me since the learning disability I had was physical. There was nothing to over come, but it took me years to understand that. I learned near the end of my freshman year, that they had needed one more student, or the program would have lost funding. Those teachers would have lost their jobs and the kids that did need help wouldn't have received it. I was furious at the time and felt betrayed. Whatever chance I had to my academic life back on track was mortally wounded then and the coup de grace was summer school. Now, with years of life experience and perspective, I think it was worth the shame and damage to my self-confidence to keep that course in place.
So you see, receiving an F and being sent to summer school when I didn't deserve it was something I couldn't forgive. Later in life, I discovered that 98th percentile is the minimum level to become a member of Mensa. I took their entrance test when I was 32 and have been a member every since. Being in Mensa doesn't make me feel smarter or better than anyone else. I will always have to struggle with English grammar and I will always make stupid mistakes with contractions, synonyms, homonyms and all the other dirty little nym bastards. It's just the way I am.
A lot of writers take pride in their command of the English language, and they should. Many rail against those who transgress. I'm guilty of many such transgressions and I do feel bad for some of the editors that have had to struggle with my mistakes. Please understand that I do care and I do try. I go though at least 10 drafts before I send a story off, but some of the mistakes are simply invisible to me.
As for Mr. Hammer, I did have a beef with him, but finally, I've put those feelings to rest. I'm happy and content with who I am. It's time I forgave Mr. Hammer and let go of my beef.
R.I.P. Mr. Hammer, we're good.

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Published on August 28, 2011 17:10