Hero Jenkins's Blog, page 4

How do you want your eggs?

How do you want your eggs?by Hero Jenkins
My wife and I were having breakfast at a local restaurant when we noticed an elderly couple at a nearby table. The waitress had arrived and was trying to complete their order but they seemed to be stuck on the issue of the man’s eggs.
“How would you like your eggs,” the waitress asked patiently.“Huh?” The man replied.“How do you want your eggs cooked?”“Huh?”“Your eggs… how do you want them?”“Huh?”Before the waitress could ask again, the man’s wife had had enough and decided to get involved. “How do you want your eggs!?!?” She was screaming at the man in one of the loudest, shrillest voices I had ever heard. 
All conversation in the restaurant stopped and all eyes were upon this elderly couple as she loudly went through a list of possible options.“Do you want them scrambled, over easy or sunny side up,” she screamed.“Scrambled… soft,” he said finally. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Mercifully the egg controversy ended and everyone got back to their own breakfast.I motioned my wife to lean in because I had something that I needed only her to hear. And with an almost desperation in my voice I said, “I don’t care how bad it gets, don’t you ever scream at me like that… just order the damn eggs for me… after all these years you should know how I like them.”
She nodded and then she smiled… it was one of “those” smiles, if you’ve been married for any period of time you know what I mean. Something was going on in that brain of hers and I had missed it and she wasn’t saying.

The Devious Child

When our kids were young our battles were over simple stuff, like the merits of eating vegetables and the importance of nap time. As they grew older the battles became more complex, covering serious issues like: why they can’t hang out at Billy’s house. I already told you about Billy, he’s the kid that gets into so much trouble that he gets blamed for everything… even the stuff he didn’t do.
I am from the "old school" a product of the era when parents believed in spanking, but in this new, enlightened age, spanking was not an option. 
 So when it comes to discipline, what are the options?
I have some experience in public speaking, which means I can talk for a long time. Instead of being spanked my kids would sit through marathon lectures. They were young and sitting still drove them nuts. You see a spanking only had to be endured for a few moments and then it was over. As it turned out, if they had been given a choice, they would have opted for a spanking. I know this because they told me so... more than once. They would put their little heads in their little hands and groan: “Oh my god dad, why don’t you just beat us like the other parents and get it over with?” I knew I was on the right track.
Alas this tactic lost its effectiveness when they got older.
My boys were extremely devious and just as they were entering middle school, they became a real challenge and I was forced to get creative. Here’s an example: We divided up the chores and everyone had a job. My sons were responsible for cutting the lawn once a week. I noticed that the lawnmower seemed to breakdown whenever it was time for them to cut the grass. They swore that they didn’t do it, but the repairman confirmed that someone had been pouring water into the gas tank. I couldn't afford a new lawnmower every week, so I had to come up with something else.
My solution?
I informed my children that I was hiring a gardener. They didn’t attempt to hide their glee… they jumped for joy. Thereafter, once a month, the gardener came like clockwork and everyone was happy until they learned where the money to pay the gardener would come from.
I had a habit of setting money aside each month to buy Christmas presents, birthday gifts and random treats like pizza or outings to McDonalds. Therefore, paying the gardener meant that they would have less of one of these things and they got to decide which. Their joy turned to despair as they agonized over the tough choices.
Nevertheless, they learned a lesson, and I learned a new tactic.
My biggest battle, however, was looming just over the horizon and it would test my new method to the limit. And it would come at the hands of my greatest challenge, my middle child. My wife has always said that if our middle child had been our first child we would have only had one child. However, god obviously wanted us to have more than one so in his infinite wisdom he saved the strong willed child for later.
Our first-born had been a breeze and we marveled at our own magnificence. We smugly looked down our noses at other parents as they struggled to deal with their problem children. We were not having any problems, so obviously we were awesome parents and they were not. We couldn’t wait to have another. Little did we know, everything would change. Suddenly we were the ones having problems. Everything became a battle... what was once simple became a struggle.
I will now share with you something that took me years to understand. Our children came from us, so the solution as to how to deal with them lay with us. What I am saying is that our children’s behavior to some extent was genetic, so we had to remember what a younger version of either of us was like at his age. I had to think back to when I was a kid, what would have worked. It is entirely possible that your child will behave like one of your siblings or your spouse’s sibling, still their is no denying it, their behavior came from somewhere in your family trees.
As it turned out, my son was somewhat of a hybrid of one of my brothers and one of my wife’s brothers and just like that we knew exactly what to do. That's it for now. In future blogs I will tell you how we dealt with issues like homemade flame throwers in the garage and other stories that will curl your hair... so stay tuned. 

It sucks getting Old

I used to practice shooting at the pistol range in my younger days. Even though I always wore ear protection I believe that all of that shooting has affected my hearing. So here’s my problem… my wife likes to talk to herself, actually she mumbles to herself. With my diminished hearing, half the time I can’t tell if she is talking to herself or me.
This exchange happens at least twice times a day:
“Are you talking to me?”“No.”“Did you say something?”“No.”“I know I heard something.”“I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to myself.”“Really? You’re talking to yourself again?”“Yeah, so?”“Why can’t you do that in your head?”“Why can’t you stay out of my conversation?”“It’s not a conversation when you talk to yourself.”“Whatever.”
Aging... It sucks getting old.

The Sneak Out Club

It was “too early” AM when I was startled awake by what sounded like a stampede in my hallway. 

I stepped out of my room and heard someone speaking Japanese. Then I and found my sons with pillows stuffed into their pajamas and the TV had been tuned to sumo wrestling. 

What I had heard was the sound of them falling and laughing and banging into the walls all while loudly parroting the Japanese they were hearing on TV. 

I thought it was funny… my sleep deprived wife did not. I needed to come up with something or we were all doomed.
The Sneak Out Club 
Early one Saturday morning my wife and I were startled awake. It sounded like a stampede or perhaps heard of wild horses had been trapped in the hallway.
I stepped from the bedroom and almost tripped on several pillows that littered the floor. I recognized the pillows; they were from the living room couch. Two more steps and I heard what sounded like Japanese. I reached the family room and noticed that the television was on and it had been tuned to sumo wrestling.
I found my sons in the living room stuffing pillows in their pajamas. They had already collected the pillows from their beds and those had already been stuffed, but apparently they were not enough.
They didn’t notice me as they waddled back to the hallway. They were in their socks so when they left the carpet in the living room and stepped onto the hallway’s wood floor neither could get traction. Still they backed up and as best they could they got a running start at one another. In their minds they were sumo wrestlers and their arena was the hallway. They immediately engaged one another… grappling and tussling and shoving each other about. What we had heard was the sound of them falling and laughing and banging into the walls all while loudly parroting the Japanese they were hearing on TV.
I thought it was funny. I may have even chuckled. Then I heard my wife come up behind me, she was not amused. My boys heard her too and they froze. One look at her face and they knew they were in trouble. They had no idea what they had done wrong. Neither did I, for that matter. Yet we all knew that mom was not happy and when mom is not happy… well you know the rest. At first I thought she was angry about the pajamas being stuffed. Perhaps she thought they were mocking her for buying them so big.
It really wasn’t their fault; their pajamas were two sizes too big. Buying them that big had seemed like the prudent thing to do. They were growing so fast that my wife figured she would get them a little large and let the little monsters grow into them. Boys being boys saw it as an opportunity. One thing led to another and we had Saturday morning sumo wrestling in the hallway.
As it turned out she was just tired. We were a young family with braces on the horizon. I was working as much overtime as I could find. She was working too and had the added responsibility of keeping up with the kids during the week. However, on Saturdays I was home and increasingly she looked forward to sleeping in on Saturdays. That was not going to happen, not with these two, not with the way they were behaving. My boys were not happy unless it involved running or jumping or banging loud things together. My daughter was the opposite. She could sit in her room for hours with all of her stuffed animals and dolls and drink invisible tea out of teacups and not make a sound.
I decided to take them out to breakfast on Saturdays, just to get them out of the house. It was a good idea but without the desired result. They made almost as much noise getting dressed as they did sumo wrestling.
I came up with a secret, boys only, club called the “sneak out club”. The idea was that each Saturday morning we would go to McDonalds for breakfast and then to the park and whoever woke up could go. From that point on they slid out of bed and eased into their clothes. What was once a thundering herd became tiptoes and shouts became a whisper.
They were still at the age where girls had cooties, especially their sister. Their mom too, after all she was a girl, but somehow her cooties didn’t seem to bother them. Because of their sister’s cootie infestation they were motivated to be extra quiet so as to not wake her. Little did they know their sister was happy for the peace and quiet… she liked to sleep late too.
While we were gone, my daughter would climb into bed and cuddle with her mom. They would sleep late and then enjoy Saturday mornings together in peace and quiet. Sometimes they would read books. I think they even sipped invisible tea together from time to time.
My sons didn’t tell my daughter about their secret club until years later, she didn't even care. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she ever missed them.
***Please post a comment and tell me what you think.

Time Travel: It's not for everyone!

Imagine a world where everyone has access to a time machine. Think about that for a minute. Do you really trust your crazy neighbor, you know, the one who talks to her dog with time travel? Don’t get me wrong it doesn’t make you crazy because you talk to your pet. But if you think the pet talks back… “Houston we have a problem!”

Will Compton a character in my book and for lack of a better description he is a time cop.  When the story opens he is on the trail of a man who has time jumped to the past because he wants to have a gunfight with movie actor John Wayne.

“A Storm in Memphis”Chapter OneIt was close to midnight and so far I had managed only a glimpse of the man I was hunting. I called out to him.
“Why in the world would you want to kill John Wayne?”
His reply was immediate.
“I don’t want to kill him, I want to challenge him to a gunfight.”
“You realize that John Wayne is an actor, right? You know he is not a real gunfighter… right?”
He didn’t reply right away and when he did his tone seemed both confused and frustrated.
“What are you talking about?”
That was when it hit me, this guy was nuts! How in the hell did he get his hands on a time machine?
I looked up and noticed a full moon. That explained a lot! The crazies are always at their worst when the moon was full.
“John Wayne is an actor,” I repeated.
“What do you mean he’s an actor? I just saw him in a documentary about the Wild West, he’s a gunfighter.”
“I don’t know what you saw, but it had to be a movie. It was fake. It wasn’t a documentary. Look around, does this look like the Wild West to you?”
Silence… except for the crickets. Then I saw his head pop up as he looked around. I guess the presence of cars, not horses, wasn’t a big enough clue.
(…) We were in the hills somewhere near Bel Air, California in the midst of multi-million dollar homes with sculpted hedges and manicured lawns. According to my computer, John Wayne had been a movie actor from about 1950 until around 1970… something like 500 years before I was born. Right now he was inside a friend’s mansion attending a “wrap party” for one of his movies. He had no idea that this nincompoop was hiding behind the cars out front, waiting for him to come out so that he could challenge him to a gunfight.
If you would like to read more, there is an excerpt posted at: 
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17...
Please leave a comment. I would love to know what you think. 

The Most Successful Homeless Kid Ever

What would you do with a strong willed child that refused to participate in school? You can force a kid to go to school, but you can't force a kid to learn. 

One father’s solution: “Well son,” I said calmly, “if you don’t do your homework you will flunk out of school and if you flunk out of school and it is likely that you will be homeless soon." 

"As your father it is my job to train you to survive. Therefore it is my duty to train you to be "The Most Successful Homeless Kid Ever.”




The Most Successful Homeless Kid Ever
Those of you who have stubborn, strong willed children my sympathies. Those of you who do not, just keep having kids… one will be along shortly. There is no feeling in the world like looking into the eyes of a miniature version of yourself (or your wife) and realizing that they are going to defy you. That you are about to do battle in the arena of determination and resolve and this current battle, like all of the other battles, will be epic. 

Shortly after his fifteenth birthday my middle child announced that he was no longer interested in learning. He made it clear without the slightest amount of hesitation that he would no longer go to school and he would no longer do his homework. This was puzzling because our son was brilliant, he had learned to read before kindergarden and had since been a straight "A" student. At first we suspected bullying or some other obvious conflict, but there was none. He had just decided, he was done and he didn't care what we thought. I never found out why he suddenly refused, perhaps he learned that Billy didn't do homework. You all know Billy... he's the kid who lives down the street. The one who just got expelled, the one with no parental supervision. We all know Billy... he's the one that your child is not allowed to hang out with (and if you don't know Billy, then perhaps Billy is your child). 

As it turned out, my son was serious and that's what he did. He stopped learning and he stopped doing his homework.
We did the usual parent stuff, we assigned him time outs, he was grounded, he lost privileges... nothing worked. The stick wasn't working so perhaps it was time to try the carrot. We were against offering rewards, but we became desperate so we tried them. That failed too. We tried reason, "think about your future son," we begged. That didn't work either and then his grades began to slip. 

His siblings were watching and I knew that I had to handle this one right. I knew one thing for sure: I would have force my son to choose between "defiance" and "comfort & convenience." 

I went to Costco and bought a case of Top Ramen, chicken flavor, and a few dozen bottles of water. I sat my son down and explained to him that the law required me to feed him, but it didn’t say how well. So for the foreseeable future, while the rest of the family enjoyed our regular dinner, he would have Top Ramen and water for dinner.He didn’t seem to care.“That’s cool,” he said, “I like Top Ramen.”He had called my bluff; he was betting that I wouldn’t follow through. I realized that I was going to be harder than I thought. I was going to have to take it up a notch.We had a rule in our house. Our kids were welcome to live at home rent-free as long as they were in school and once they stopped going to school they would have to pay rent or they would have to move out.“Well son,” I said calmly, “if you don’t do your homework you will flunk out of school and if you flunk out of school you won’t get a diploma which means college is out of the question.”He nodded complete understanding.“It is likely that you will be homeless soon and as your father it is my job to train you to survive. Therefore it is my duty to train you to be  the best homeless kid ever .”He had no idea what I had in mind, so he put on a brave face. Parents this part is important. Before you punish your child lay out a rational case, no matter how thin. Because punishment because he or she has gotten on your "last nerve", although satisfying, yields limited results. If you do stuff because you are mad at their audacity, then they have the upper hand. Give them another reason before you drop the hammer. “You may as well learn how to be homeless while you are still have a home,” I said.I told him that the law required me to keep a roof over his head but there was no requirement that he slept in a bed. 

“You won’t have furniture or a bed when you're homeless,” I explained. "Therefore, I will be taking all of your furniture out of your room."
To my surprise my son took it fairly well, if fact, again, he didn’t seem to care. He spent all day that Saturday disassembling and stacking his stuff neatly in a corner of the garage. I took everything; I even took his posters down from the wall. There was nothing left in his room but the carpet on the floor and the paint on the walls.I developed a list of the skills I thought would be necessary to survive on the streets. These would be the lessons I would teach. I made a huge poster with each lesson printed in large letters so that he would be able to track his progress and more importantly he would be able to see what was coming next.We would start with the basics. The first lesson on the list, "the art of sleeping on the ground" had already begun when I took his furniture. But as he looked at the list he could tell that the lessons would progressively get worse. He could decide when the lessons ended when he decided to do his homework.Lesson plan: The most successful Homeless Kid Ever.               The art of sleeping on the ground.               The well-organized shopping cart. (…most of the homeless carried all of their possessions in shopping carts so he would have to learn to fit everything in it.)               Efficient bedroll construction.               Living without electricity.               Dumpster-diving for Dinner, perils and pitfalls.               A gourmet’s guide to begging for food. (…occasionally the homeless would hang out at restaurants and beg for doggie bags from the patrons as they exited)               Panhandling for beginners.               Advanced panhandling, including freeway sign construction. (…we would need to work on his pitch, “will work for food” was somewhat overused so if he could come up with something inventive he could out panhandle the others.)               Out door sleeping. (…staying warm and healthy and alive)               Knife fighting. (…he would need to learn to protect himself, so a knife was his best bet)               Fleas and ticks, what you need to know.                Making a meal from garbage. (Hey… its tough out here kid, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do)               Cockroaches... many parts are edible.                Washing your clothes in a gas station bathroom's sink or toilet.               Bathing in the flood control ditch.
With his room now empty, it was time for Lesson Two. Organizing your Shopping Cart.

I got a shopping cart from the local supermarket and parked it in his room. 

I had spoken with the supermarket manager about my dilema and told him what I was planning. He gave me his blessing to borrow a shopping cart with the caveat that I would give him a full report. He had kids that were younger than mine and he was interested in my plan's effectiveness in case he was forced to do the same. He was quite helpful and he told me something that I did not know. They tossed away rotten produce at the end of each day, but they kept the dumpster locked because the homeless tended to make a mess. He said that he would be willing to unlock the dumpster if I called him ahead of time. I doubted it would get that far, but to tell the truth I wasn't sure… we were in uncharted waters here.“You can keep only the stuff that will fit in this shopping cart,” I told my son. “Because the homeless had to limit their possessions to what they could fit in their cart.”This wasn’t completely true, some homeless had multiple carts filled with junk, but they were usually crazy and since he wasn’t crazy he would have to limit himself to one. That meant that most of his clothes and toys went into the garage.Next up, bedroll construction. 

I taught him what I knew about bedrolls, which was nothing so I made it up. I had seen homeless bedrolls in the past and had some idea of their composition. I had never made one before, but my son didn’t know that.I knew that layering was the key and that one layer consisted of a couple of those 30 gallon plastic garbage bags to keep the moisture out and another layer was newspaper or cardboard for insulation between the homeless and the cold ground. He spent a couple of hours putting it together, He didn't do a bad job, like I said he was a brilliant kid.By Sunday he was all set. 

For the next three days he slept on his bedroll and dutifully packed up his shopping cart before heading off to school. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact he seemed to be treating it like one big adventure.The next lesson was living without electricity. 

I worked nights, so on Wednesday before I went to work, I stopped by the circuit breaker box and turned off all of the breakers, except the ones to our bedroom, (why should my wife suffer). I left the power on in the kitchen… so that the kids who weren’t in rebellion could do their homework, and so that we could cook. I didn’t turn off power to the bathrooms because we didn’t want them trying to find the toilet in the dark. They were having a difficult enough time finding it with the lights on. We provided our other children with extension cords so that they could have lights and charge their electronics. It was somewhat of a pain for them but it couldn’t be avoided and a little bit of inconvenience would be good for them lest they consider their own rebellion in the future. After living without electricity came dumpster diving. I informed my son that as of Friday I would be cutting off his supply of Top Ramen and he would have to begin foraging for his food. I explained that the local supermarket tossed out their vegetables each night. Most of it was rotten and not edible. We would be competing with the other homeless, so we would have to get there early for the best selection.I don’t know if it was the idea of dumpster diving for dinner or the prospect of the long weekend without his electronics that did it, but by Friday he had had enough. He relented and announced that he did not want to be a homeless dude and that he would indeed do his homework.The standoff was over. On Saturday morning he got up early and happily moved his furniture from the garage back into his bedroom. I went to the circuit breaker box and restored electricity. I returned the shopping cart to the nearby supermarket along with a full report to the manager.  

There were other battles, but none this severe. Now our children laugh about it when they get together. It always starts the same... "Remember that time when you..."
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The Best Bum Ever

Hero Jenkins --- 5/8/13


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The Best Homeless Dude Ever Those of you who have stubborn, strong willed children my sympathies. Those of you who do not, just keep having kids… one will be along shortly. There is no feeling in the world like looking into the eyes of a miniature version of yourself (or your wife) and realizing that they are going to defy you. That you are about to do battle in the arena of determination and resolve and this current battle, like all of the other battles, will be epic. 

When they are young the battles were over simple stuff, like the merits of eating vegetables. As they grow older the battles become more complex, covering serious issues like why they can’t hang out at Billy’s house… you know Billy, he’s the kid that just got expelled and has absolutely no adult supervision.I am from the "old school" a product of the era when parents believed in spanking, but in this new, enlightened age, spanking was not an option. 

 So when it comes to discipline, what are the options?I have some experience in public speaking, which means I can talk for a long time. Instead of being spanked my kids would sit through marathon lectures. They were young and sitting still drove them nuts. They would put their little heads in their little hands and groan: “Oh my god dad, why don’t you just beat us like the other parents and get it over with?” Alas this tactic lost its effectiveness when they got older. I was forced to get creative. My first test came years later when I noticed that the lawnmower seemed to breakdown whenever it was time for my kids to cut the grass. They swore that they didn’t do it, but the repairman confirmed that someone had been pouring water into the gas tank. I couldn't afford a new lawnmower every week, so I had to come up with something else.My solution?I informed my children that I was hiring a gardener. They didn’t attempt to hide their glee… they jumped for joy. Thereafter, once a month, the gardener came like clockwork and everyone was happy until they learned where the money to pay the gardener would come from. I had a habit of setting money aside each month to buy Christmas presents, birthday gifts and random treats like pizza or outings to McDonalds. Therefore, paying the gardener meant that they would have less of one of these things and they got to decide which. Their joy turned to despair as they agonized over the tough choices. Nevertheless, they learned a lesson, and I learned a new tactic.You see a spanking only had to be endured for a few moments and then it was over. As it turned out, if they had been given a choice, they would have opted for a spanking. I know this because they told me so... more than once. I knew I was on the right track. My biggest battle, however, was looming just over the horizon and it would test my new method to the limit. And it would come at the hands of my greatest challenge, my middle child. My wife has always said that if our middle child had been our first child we would have only had one child. However, god obviously wanted us to have more than one so in his infinite wisdom he saved the strong willed child for later.Our first born had been a breeze and we marveled at our own magnificence. We smugly looked down our noses at other parents as they struggled to deal with their problem children. We were not having any problems, so obviously we were awesome parents and they were not. We couldn’t wait to have another. Little did we know, everything would change. Suddenly we were the ones having problems. Everything became a battle... what was once simple became a struggle, but these battles were all just a warm-up for the greater battle that lay ahead.Shortly after his fifteenth birthday my middle child announced that he was no longer interested in learning. He would no longer go to school, he would no longer do his homework. This was puzzling because our son was brilliant, he had learned to read before kindergarden and had since been a straight "A" student. At first we suspected bullying or some other obvious conflict, but there was none. He had just decided. I never found out why he suddenly refused, perhaps he learned that Billy didn't do homework. Yet, he was serious and that's what he did... he stopped learning, he stopped doing his homework.

What would you do with a strong willed child that refused to participate in school or refused to do his homework? You can force a kid to go to school, but you can't force him to learn. 

We did the usual parent stuff, time outs, he was grounded, he lost privileges... nothing worked, he refused to budge. We were against offering rewards, but we became desperate so we tried them. The stick wasn't working so perhaps it was time to try the carrot. That failed too. We tried reason, "think about your future son," we begged. That didn't work either. His grades began to slip and no amount of convincing would change his mind. 

His siblings were watching and I knew that I had to handle this one right. 

I will now share with you something that took me years to understand. My child came from me, so the solution lied with me (or my wife). His behavior to some extent was genetic, so I had to remember what a younger me or even a sibling was like at his age. I had to think back to when I was a kid, what would have worked. As it turned out, my son was just like my brother and when I realized this, I knew what to do. I decided to go extreme; as extreme as the law allowed. Desperate times called for desperate measures and all that. My response would have to be so substantial that he would decide that future defiance of this type would be fruitless.I went to Costco and bought a case of Top Ramen, chicken flavor, and a few dozen bottles of water. I sat my son down and explained to him that the law required me to feed him, but it didn’t say how well. So for the foreseeable future, while the rest of the family enjoyed our regular dinner, he would have Top Ramen and water for dinner. He didn’t seem to care. “That’s cool,” he said, “I like Top Ramen.”He had called my bluff; he was betting that I wouldn’t follow through. I realized that I was going to have to take it up a notch.We had a rule in our house. Our kids were welcome to live at home rent-free as long as they were in school and once they stopped going to school they would have to pay rent or they would have to move out. “Well son,” I said calmly, “if you don’t do your homework you will flunk out of school and if you flunk out of school you won’t get a diploma which means college is out of the question.” He nodded complete understanding. “It is likely that you will be homeless soon and as your father it is my job to train you to survive. Therefore it is my duty to train you to be the best homeless dude ever .”He had no idea what I had in mind, so he put on a brave face.  “So you may as well learn how to be homeless while you are still have a home,” I said.I told him that the law required me to keep a roof over his head but there was no requirement that he slept in a bed. 

“You won’t have furniture or a bed when you're homeless,” I explained. "Therefore, I will be taking all of your furniture out of your room."
To my surprise my son took it fairly well, if fact, again, he didn’t seem to care. He spent all day that Saturday disassembling and stacking his stuff neatly in a corner of the garage. I took everything; I even took his posters down from the wall. There was nothing left in his room but the carpet on the floor and the paint on the walls.I developed a list of the skills I thought would be necessary to survive on the streets. These would be the lessons I would teach. I made a huge poster with each lesson printed in large letters so that he would be able to track his progress and more importantly he would be able to see what was coming next.We would start with the basics. The first lesson on the list, "the art of sleeping on the ground" had already begun when I took his furniture. But as he looked at the list he could tell that the lessons would progressively get worse. He could decide when the lessons ended when he decided to do his homework.Lesson plan: The Best Homeless Dude Ever.
               The art of sleeping on the ground.               The well-organized shopping cart. (…most of the homeless carried all of their possessions in shopping carts so he would have to learn to fit everything in it.)               Efficient bedroll construction.               Living without electricity.               Dumpster-diving for Dinner, perils and pitfalls.               A gourmet’s guide to begging for food. (…occasionally the homeless would hang out at restaurants and beg for doggie bags from the patrons as they exited)               Panhandling for beginners.               Advanced panhandling, including freeway sign construction. (…we would need to work on his pitch, “will work for food” was somewhat overused so if he could come up with something inventive he could out panhandle the others.)               Out door sleeping. (…staying warm and healthy and alive)               Knife fighting. (…he would need to learn to protect himself, so a knife was his best bet)               Fleas and ticks, what you need to know.        Making a meal from garbage. (…sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do)               Washing your clothes in a gas station bathroom's sink or toilet.               Bathing in the flood control ditch.
With his room now empty, it was time for Lesson Two. Organizing your Shopping Cart.

I got a shopping cart from the local supermarket and parked it in his room. 

I had spoken with the supermarket manager about my dilema and told him what I was planning. He gave me his blessing to borrow a shopping cart with the caveat that I would give him a full report. He had kids that were younger than mine and he was interested in my plan's effectiveness in case he was forced to do the same. He was quite helpful and he told me something that I did not know. They tossed away rotten produce at the end of each day, but they kept the dumpster locked because the homeless tended to make a mess. He said that he would be willing to unlock the dumpster if I called him ahead of time. I doubted it would get that far, but to tell the truth I wasn't sure… we were in uncharted waters here.“You can keep only the stuff that will fit in this shopping cart,” I told my son. “Because the homeless had to limit their possessions to what they could fit in their cart.”This wasn’t completely true, some homeless had multiple carts filled with junk, but they were usually crazy and since he wasn’t crazy he would have to limit himself to one. That meant that most of his clothes and toys went into the garage.Next up, bedroll construction. 

I taught him what I knew about bedrolls, which was nothing so I made it up. I had seen homeless bedrolls in the past and had some idea of their composition. I had never made one before, but my son didn’t know that. I knew that layering was the key and that one layer consisted of a couple of those 30 gallon plastic garbage bags to keep the moisture out and another layer was newspaper or cardboard for insulation between the homeless and the cold ground. He spent a couple of hours putting it together, He didn't do a bad job, like I said he was a brilliant kid.By Sunday he was all set. 

For the next three days he slept on his bedroll and dutifully packed up his shopping cart before heading off to school. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact he seemed to be treating it like one big adventure.The next lesson was living without electricity. 

I worked nights, so on Wednesday before I went to work, I stopped by the circuit breaker box and turned off all of the breakers, except the ones to our bedroom, (why should my wife suffer). I left the power on in the kitchen… so that the kids who weren’t in rebellion could do their homework, and so that we could cook. I didn’t turn off power to the bathrooms because we didn’t want them trying to find the toilet in the dark. They were having a difficult enough time finding it with the lights on. We provided our other children with extension cords so that they could have lights and charge their electronics. It was somewhat of a pain for them but it couldn’t be avoided and a little bit of inconvenience would be good for them lest they consider their own rebellion in the future. After living without electricity came dumpster diving. I informed my son that as of Friday I would be cutting off his supply of Top Ramen and he would have to begin foraging for his food. I explained that the local supermarket tossed out their vegetables each night. Most of it was rotten and not edible. We would be competing with the other homeless, so we would have to get there early for the best selection. I don’t know if it was the idea of dumpster diving for dinner or the prospect of the long weekend without his electronics that did it, but by Friday he had had enough. He relented and announced that he did not want to be a homeless dude and that he would indeed do his homework.The standoff was over. On Saturday morning he got up early and happily moved his furniture from the garage back into his bedroom. I went to the circuit breaker box and restored electricity. I returned the shopping cart to the nearby supermarket along with a full report to the manager.  

There were other battles, but none this severe. Now our children laugh about it when they get together. It always starts the same... "Remember that time when you..."

Chapter Six: Subject Number Five

Hero Jenkins 3/6/13

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Chapter SixThree Days Later It was a beautiful warm summer day that greeted Brandiss when he stepped out of the Police Administrative Building for the last time. His lawyer, Bryan, all four foot nine of nothing but blood, bone and tenacious lawyer nastiness exited the building and stood beside him.“I thought there were rules for days as depressing as this,” Brandiss said. “Shouldn’t it be raining or at least overcast or something?” Bryan chuckled. The press was gone and the world had moved on. Brandiss stood on the steps and watched the world go by while he decided what he should do next. Getting plastered was the leading option; in fact it was the only option that seemed viable at the moment.“Well, look on the bright side bro… we kept you out of jail,” Bryan said. Brandiss laughed.“Yeah and there’s that,” Brandiss said with a chuckle. Brandiss had been divorced a couple of years ago and his ex-wife had the house, so at least that had been safe. But he had had to sell his car and condo to settle the civil suit with his “victim”. On the bright side he did have a room at a near-by motel and oh yeah, at least he was not going to jail.“It’s the times bro,” Bryan said without looking at him. “Everybody and their momma has got a cell phone camera. You have got to be real careful these days.”Bryan was an ex-cop who himself had been fired years ago for an offence that was far worse. He had taken Brandiss’ case for next to nothing and grown to like Brandiss or at least appreciate why he had done what he did. Brandiss’ temper had gotten the best of him, it happens. But his offence had been caught on tape and after that no one cared.“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” Bryan asked. “No, but thanks… I think I want to walk a bit,” Brandiss said and then he shook his lawyers hand walked away.It was still early, way to early for a drink, but Brandiss didn’t care. His plan was to find a bar and be drunk by mid afternoon. The only thing left to decide was which bar. Brandiss wasn’t an alcoholic, in fact he rarely drank, but when he did, he typically drank too much. The good news was it wouldn’t take long for him to get blissfully falling down drunk, or was that the bad news. He settled on a dive bar in the worst part of the bad part of town called Mulligan’s. It was a favorite of all the disreputables in the area. Misery loves company and it was the only place that he could think of where people would be more depressed than he was. The walls inside of Mulligan’s were an interesting combination of sheetrock and exposed wooden studs. The floors were threadbare carpet in most places except where it had been ripped up. Mulligan’s had been going through a renovation of sorts until the owner Vijay’s wife figured out that in America, unlike India, she didn’t have to put up with Vijay’s crap. After one beating too many she got a lawyer and then cleaned him out in the divorce. Vijay now slept on a cot in the storage room. He kept the bar open and made just enough to pay the bills, pay alimony and eat. So whatever renovations he had in mind had been put on hold.Vijay would open the doors as soon as he awoke each day so that he could take in the occasional lost soul who needed a place to sit and sulk. Vijay was behind the bar just staring out the window when Brandiss walked in. He nodded to Brandiss, but that was pretty much the extent of their interaction, he wasn’t much for conversation. He had enough problems of his own to spend his day listening to someone else’s.Brandiss positioned himself in the corner on a barstool and settled in for a long afternoon of drinking and drowning his sorrows. Unfortunately he hadn’t eaten anything all day and as noted before he was pretty much a lightweight when it came to alcohol. After only three drinks he was so intoxicated that he fell off the barstool. As he lay on the floor drooling he looked up and saw the last thing he expected or wanted to see. There was Kade standing over him looking down at him with that pitying, condescending look of hers. Kade picked up his empty glass and made a show of sniffing it.“Cosmopolitan? Really? That’s Carrie Bradshaw’s drink!”“Carrie who? What? W-What are you talking about?”“Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character on SEX AND THE CITY… Cosmopolitan’s are her drink.” “W-What… Whatever? Where’s your syringe you psycho!”“You’re not good at this getting drunk thing are you?”“I’m drunk... I think I did pretty good!”“You’ve only been here for an hour.”“Whatever,” he said again with a disgusted shake of his head. He thought about sitting up but changed his mind when the room resumed spinning. He belched and all of that vodka and cranberry juice mixed with stomach acid found its way back to his throat… the pain was excruciating. He felt dizzy, if it hadn’t been for acid reflux he would have passed out by now.“What are you doing here?” He groaned.“I followed you from the headquarters, I heard you got fired.”“Go away and leave me alone,” he snarled. “Now we both know that you really don’t mean that, especially since I am here to offer you a job.”Brandiss wanted to say something awful but instead he did the next best thing. He rolled over and threw up on her feet.***Sandwiched somewhere between the city of Playa Del Rey and Inglewood, in the county of Los Angeles, was the small town of Madrona. The citizens of Madrona, who were mainly upper middle class executives from the near by aerospace industry, had become dissatisfied with the level of service provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. They had the finances and clout to extract themselves from Los Angeles and incorporate their own city. Shortly thereafter, they formed their own police department. Brandiss was a LAPD cop who left the department to become one of Madrona’s finest. He was looking forward to finishing his career quietly in a small department that most people had never heard of and never would. After 911 the Federal Government was into forming task forces as a outreach to Local and state Law enforcement. As a result they were adamant that every department, large and small, be represented. Before he knew it Brandiss had been assigned to a special Federal Task Force attached to Homeland Security. In his half conscious state, Brandiss was remembering the night of the “incident” that had cost him his job. He remembered that he was cold and tired and despite the fact that he rarely drank, because his friends all told him that he was a mean drunk, he had decided that he owed it to himself to have a drink. His plan was to stop and pick up a little something and have himself a little drink to warm himself up inside… besides, it would help him sleep.Looking back, the day hadn’t started out great, but it hadn’t started bad either. It was his first day back after a six-month absence. He had been run over by a drunk driver in the parking lot while he was attempting to run down some guy who was plotting to explode a bomb in a near-by Mall’s food court. Brandiss had spent two months in the hospital, which was where he had met Kade. After he was released from the hospital he had spent four months in rehab. He had stayed in contact with Kade and though he had not spoken with her for a couple of days. They had been playing phone tag, but as far as he knew, the relationship was going well. Cubicle intrigue and office political drama was present in any and every organization, even law enforcement task forces. Brandiss would be the first to admit that his tolerance for it was way down. His day had taken several annoying turns and he was already in a foul mood by lunchtime. He should have known to get out before something bad happened, but he didn’t. He didn’t know it until it was too late but he had ignored all of the warning signs and he was well along the path towards personal disaster. ***

Chapter Five: Subject Number Five

Hero Jenkins 3/6/13

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Chapter SixThree Days Later It was a beautiful warm summer day that greeted Brandiss when he stepped out of the Police Administrative Building for the last time. His lawyer, Bryan, all four foot nine of nothing but blood, bone and tenacious lawyer nastiness exited the building and stood beside him.“I thought there were rules for days as depressing as this,” Brandiss said. “Shouldn’t it be raining or at least overcast or something?” Bryan chuckled. The press was gone and the world had moved on. Brandiss stood on the steps and watched the world go by while he decided what he should do next. Getting plastered was the leading option; in fact it was the only option that seemed viable at the moment.“Well, look on the bright side bro… we kept you out of jail,” Bryan said. Brandiss laughed.“Yeah and there’s that,” Brandiss said with a chuckle. Brandiss had been divorced a couple of years ago and his ex-wife had the house, so at least that had been safe. But he had had to sell his car and condo to settle the civil suit with his “victim”. On the bright side he did have a room at a near-by motel and oh yeah, at least he was not going to jail.“It’s the times bro,” Bryan said without looking at him. “Everybody and their momma has got a cell phone camera. You have got to be real careful these days.”Bryan was an ex-cop who himself had been fired years ago for an offence that was far worse. He had taken Brandiss’ case for next to nothing and grown to like Brandiss or at least appreciate why he had done what he did. Brandiss’ temper had gotten the best of him, it happens. But his offence had been caught on tape and after that no one cared.“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” Bryan asked. “No, but thanks… I think I want to walk a bit,” Brandiss said and then he shook his lawyers hand walked away.It was still early, way to early for a drink, but Brandiss didn’t care. His plan was to find a bar and be drunk by mid afternoon. The only thing left to decide was which bar. Brandiss wasn’t an alcoholic, in fact he rarely drank, but when he did, he typically drank too much. The good news was it wouldn’t take long for him to get blissfully falling down drunk, or was that the bad news. He settled on a dive bar in the worst part of the bad part of town called Mulligan’s. It was a favorite of all the disreputables in the area. Misery loves company and it was the only place that he could think of where people would be more depressed than he was. The walls inside of Mulligan’s were an interesting combination of sheetrock and exposed wooden studs. The floors were threadbare carpet in most places except where it had been ripped up. Mulligan’s had been going through a renovation of sorts until the owner Vijay’s wife figured out that in America, unlike India, she didn’t have to put up with Vijay’s crap. After one beating too many she got a lawyer and then cleaned him out in the divorce. Vijay now slept on a cot in the storage room. He kept the bar open and made just enough to pay the bills, pay alimony and eat. So whatever renovations he had in mind had been put on hold.Vijay would open the doors as soon as he awoke each day so that he could take in the occasional lost soul who needed a place to sit and sulk. Vijay was behind the bar just staring out the window when Brandiss walked in. He nodded to Brandiss, but that was pretty much the extent of their interaction, he wasn’t much for conversation. He had enough problems of his own to spend his day listening to someone else’s.Brandiss positioned himself in the corner on a barstool and settled in for a long afternoon of drinking and drowning his sorrows. Unfortunately he hadn’t eaten anything all day and as noted before he was pretty much a lightweight when it came to alcohol. After only three drinks he was so intoxicated that he fell off the barstool. As he lay on the floor drooling he looked up and saw the last thing he expected or wanted to see. There was Kade standing over him looking down at him with that pitying, condescending look of hers. Kade picked up his empty glass and made a show of sniffing it.“Cosmopolitan? Really? That’s Carrie Bradshaw’s drink!”“Carrie who? What? W-What are you talking about?”“Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character on SEX AND THE CITY… Cosmopolitan’s are her drink.” “W-What… Whatever? Where’s your syringe you psycho!”“You’re not good at this getting drunk thing are you?”“I’m drunk... I think I did pretty good!”“You’ve only been here for an hour.”“Whatever,” he said again with a disgusted shake of his head. He thought about sitting up but changed his mind when the room resumed spinning. He belched and all of that vodka and cranberry juice mixed with stomach acid found its way back to his throat… the pain was excruciating. He felt dizzy, if it hadn’t been for acid reflux he would have passed out by now.“What are you doing here?” He groaned.“I followed you from the headquarters, I heard you got fired.”“Go away and leave me alone,” he snarled. “Now we both know that you really don’t mean that, especially since I am here to offer you a job.”Brandiss wanted to say something awful but instead he did the next best thing. He rolled over and threw up on her feet.***Sandwiched somewhere between the city of Playa Del Rey and Inglewood, in the county of Los Angeles, was the small town of Madrona. The citizens of Madrona, who were mainly upper middle class executives from the near by aerospace industry, had become dissatisfied with the level of service provided by the Los Angeles Police Department. They had the finances and clout to extract themselves from Los Angeles and incorporate their own city. Shortly thereafter, they formed their own police department. Brandiss was a LAPD cop who left the department to become one of Madrona’s finest. He was looking forward to finishing his career quietly in a small department that most people had never heard of and never would. After 911 the Federal Government was into forming task forces as a outreach to Local and state Law enforcement. As a result they were adamant that every department, large and small, be represented. Before he knew it Brandiss had been assigned to a special Federal Task Force attached to Homeland Security. In his half conscious state, Brandiss was remembering the night of the “incident” that had cost him his job. He remembered that he was cold and tired and despite the fact that he rarely drank, because his friends all told him that he was a mean drunk, he had decided that he owed it to himself to have a drink. His plan was to stop and pick up a little something and have himself a little drink to warm himself up inside… besides, it would help him sleep.Looking back, the day hadn’t started out great, but it hadn’t started bad either. It was his first day back after a six-month absence. He had been run over by a drunk driver in the parking lot while he was attempting to run down some guy who was plotting to explode a bomb in a near-by Mall’s food court. Brandiss had spent two months in the hospital, which was where he had met Kade. After he was released from the hospital he had spent four months in rehab. He had stayed in contact with Kade and though he had not spoken with her for a couple of days. They had been playing phone tag, but as far as he knew, the relationship was going well. Cubicle intrigue and office political drama was present in any and every organization, even law enforcement task forces. Brandiss would be the first to admit that his tolerance for it was way down. His day had taken several annoying turns and he was already in a foul mood by lunchtime. He should have known to get out before something bad happened, but he didn’t. He didn’t know it until it was too late but he had ignored all of the warning signs and he was well along the path towards personal disaster. ***

The Prowler

Hero Jenkins -- 5/2/13

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Today’s post is a story that no rookie police officer should ever tell an aspiring author (no matter how many margaritas he’s had). It’s about the night he met the most unusual peeping Tom ever.The Prowler If I remember the story right, the night in question was a warm summer night. And according to Eddie, the first warm summer nights always signaled the start of “Peeping Tom Season”. Peeping Tom season was as predictable as the swallows’ arrival at San Juan Capistrano. When the days were hot, the nights were warm. People left their windows and curtains open at night because they were desperate to cool off. Peeping Toms, also known as prowlers, love to sneak around and peek into windows. So when the temperatures went up, the Prowlers came out.Prowlers are sneaky little turds and a big problem for Law Enforcement and therefore they were a big problem for Eddie. The warm weather brought another problem for Eddie. It was harder for our sleep-deprived hero to stay awake… because the heat made the sleepy even sleepier. "Some of these cops must be part vampire or something!" Eddie once lamented.According to Eddie there were some cops, not many, who actually enjoyed graveyard shift. Being up all night didn’t bother them a bit. A lot of the older guys, the veterans, all had secret places where they could hide unobserved. Those guys were usually holed up somewhere fast asleep. Others were at 24 hr. coffee shops pouring coffee down their throats, or standing inside of a 7-Eleven, reading magazines… trying their best not to fall down. Then there were the rookies, like Eddie, who hadn’t quite figured out how to handle this “being awake all night” stuff. 3 o'clock in the morning found Eddie struggling to keep his eyelids up so he parked his patrol car and got out because it was a lot harder (but not impossible) to fall asleep while walking. Predictably prowler calls were on the rise and those creeps could hear his police car coming from a mile away, so it was a no brainer... he would patrol the neighborhoods on foot. Eddie picked a large apartment complex to patrol because he knew there was a good chance he would run into a prowler. There had been a lot of calls in this particular complex; Eddie suspected it was someone who lived there. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, Eddie spotted a Peeping Tom. He was wearing a dirty knit cap and hiding behind a hedge. It looked like he was peeping into a window of a downstairs apartment.I am amazed at the things TV cops do. They see some guy they’re looking for on the other side of the street. So what do they do? They yell “freeze”! They always seem surprised when the bad guy spins around and runs away. Real cops don’t stand 50 feet away and yell freeze. They sneak up on the bad guy to get close enough to grab him and then they yell freeze. Most of the time, they don’t bother to yell, they just pounce. So that’s what Eddie did. Eddie crouched behind a car and moved towards the prowler. The prowler was partially hidden in the shadows now, but Eddie could clearly see that someone was there. Eddie darted to a dumpster and then ducked behind a gigantic bush. There was a four foot wall that he was able to hide behind and get within feet of the prowler without being seen. When he got closer he noticed that the prowler was surrounded on three sides by that thick four-foot hedge. If he decided to run he would have to run past the wall where Eddie was hiding.The prowler must have heard something because he suddenly ducked down. When he disappeared something tightened in Eddie’s stomach. What if that the prowler realized that he was cornered? Would he do something drastic like rip the screen off the open window and take the apartment occupant hostage? To his relief as he inched closer the prowler’s head popped back up. Before long Eddie was in a good spot, but he was alone so it wasn't safe to grab him and risk getting into a wrestling match. So the plan was to order the prowler to lay down and then Eddie would call for back-up. Then he would handcuff the prowler when his back-up arrived. If the prowler decided to run Eddie was close enough and confident that he would be able to grab the prowler no matter which way he ran. It was time to take this creep down.Eddie moved behind a tree and used it for cover. He drew his gun from it's holster and pointed it at the prowler. Then he unleashed a stream of foul language to let the prowler know he meant business. And somewhere in that stream he must have ordered the prowler to “freeze” because that’s exactly what the prowler did... he froze.“Get down on the ground!” Eddie ordered, the prowler didn’t move. Eddie took out his radio and called for back-up. Then he addressed the prowler again. “Get down on the ground or I will blow your F@#!% brains out!” He shouted.The prowler didn’t budge.That was when Eddie noticed that the prowler was thin and as pale as a ghost and oh yeah, he only had one arm.Oh wow! How in the hell am I going to handcuff this guy? He remembered thinking.Eddie moved to another tree and noticed something he had missed before. As if things needed to get creepier, he noticed that his prowler was naked as a jaybird! The only thing he was wearing was that dirty knit cap.Now that's just nasty, who hides butt naked in the bushes at 3 AM?Eddie could hear the sirens approaching from the distance; help would be there soon.“I’m not going to say this again, get on the ground… put your arms… errr arm on the ground in front of you.” The prowler ignored his commands and just stood there.Eddie was starting to get irritated. It was as though this knucklehead figured that if he stood perfectly still, nobody could see him. Eddie moved a step closer and that was close enough for Eddie to finally get a good look at his prowler. A prowler who, until now, had been mostly hidden in the shadows. It was not until that moment he realized that his prowler was not a prowler after all… he was a statue. Eddie had been sneaking up on a statue. What the hell is going on? Eddie's head was spinning... what about all the suspicious things he had witnessed? Belatedly he realized that it must have been his old friend… sleep deprivation. But as his adrenaline started pumping, the fog had lifted and he realized that he had just spent the last fifteen minutes sneaking up on a statue. And with that realization came real fear. Because it was not until that moment that Eddie understood that he had a big problem. The guys were already giving him a hard time in the locker room over what they were calling “the great zombie caper” and there was no way he was giving those guys anymore ammunition. The sirens were closer; they would be there any second. He couldn’t just say never mind… they would ask too many questions. Some smart-ass would no doubt notice the statue. Sooner or later one of them would figure it out. Eddie realized that he had to get away from that statue, but he couldn’t just leave. He was desperate, but he didn’t panic and then he got an idea. “I’m in foot pursuit, the suspect is running south through the apartment complex,” Eddie yelled into his radio as he started running south. “The suspect is a white male wearing uhhhh… all white!”The radio came alive as the responding officers scrambled to catch up to Eddie and his fleeing suspect. The dispatcher began calling out streets directing some of the responding units so that they could get out ahead of the suspect. Somebody asked about the helicopter. Fortunately for Eddie, the helicopter had just landed and shut down and could not get airborne in time.After running a sufficient distance, Eddie stopped and advised all of the excited officers that the suspect had gotten away. The canines arrived minutes later, but were unable to pick up the prowler’s scent (big surprise). After a short but fruitless search everything was called off and everyone went back to being bored to death.Eddie later found out that the statue was a reproduction of the famous King David statue by the sculptor Michelangelo. At least he now knew why he was naked, but he never found out why King David had only one arm or why he was wearing a knit cap. Eddie swore to himself that he would take this secret to the grave and he probably would have except he had one too many margaritas at a friends house one night.


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