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Wednesday nights. For many years in my younger life, that meant only one thing: Bowling. Mom and Dad were both on leagues and Wednesday night was a ritual. It was the only night when homework could wait. It was the only night when Mom didn't cook. It was the only night we were practically sitting by the door waiting for my Dad to come home from work, and just as soon as he got there, changed his shirt, got his shoes and ball, we were out the door. It will be hard for some of you to envision the bowling alley of the late 50's - early 60's. You walk in, and the linoleum in the foyer was pock-marked and sticky with years of scuffed shoes and sloshed liquids. The smoke left a bank of fog over the entire interior. You'd almost expect to see a condor rising out of the mist...but you never did. You move up to the front desk to check in. The attendant there was generally either the son of the owner, or someone not bright enough to get another job. It was a popular choice for ex-cons, too. The very first thing that was checked was your feet. Only special shoes could be worn, and if you didn't bring 'em with you, you had to rent them. That's right, if you didn't own your own, you shared your bowling shoes with the masses ... sort of the same way you shared roller skates at the rink [another blast from the past] Properly shod, you were now permitted to enter the inner sanctum. The lanes were always in a pit. Now that's not as bad as it sounds. Think of it more like a really sunken living room. Each lane had an area...usually a circular booth...where those using the lane would congregate. One person playing the lane...the rest sitting at the booth, rauciously commenting on the play, and keeping score. As technology advanced, score-keeping was done electronically ... but in the older alleys, it was still done by hand. "X" for a strike. "/" for a spare. And 300 was [and is] the "perfect game". The lanes were wood, polished to a gleaming pefection. Everything else in the alley might've been a little dingy, but not the lanes. The wax was applied lovingly, and every little chip and "wibble" was erased each and every day. The smell of the wax would even overpower the smoke, at least in my nose. This was where the league players played. If you weren't on a league, you could sit and watch...but you weren't allowed to make noise. You weren't allowed to join in the frivolity, the camaraderie, the drinking. Since that ultimately was no fun at all, we kids were left to our own devices. The folks usually threw a couple of bucks our way, admonished us to behave and not shame them, and then generally forgot all about us for the next 3-4 hours. Once released, we would congregate at another wonderous section of the bowling alley: The snack bar. The food served was basic. Hamburgers. Hot dogs. French fries. [with or without gravy] Boxed candy. Popcorn. Cokes, 7-ups, and Orange Crush out of frosty glass bottles. There we would forge friendships, make our plans, dream our dreams, and sometimes even find "true love"...or what passed for it when you're 8 or 9. I went bowling not too long ago, and my how things have changed. Everything is automated now. The only food served was pre-packaged everything. Even the water was bottled. Half of the lanes were equipped with things they call "bumper buddies", which are nothing more than cushions stuffed into the gutters on either side of the lane. Guess that's in keeping with today's prevelant philosophy of "everybody's a winner". The people there seemed to be pretty evently divided between old farts like me and harried mothers of very young children, supervising birthday parties of equally young children, trying to keep them from running down the lanes and kicking the pins over with their feet. Things change. I understand that. But as sorry as I feel for myself at the ending of this era for me, I feel even sorrier for those who'll never know ...
I come from a family of smokers; well, let me ammend that. I come from a family of tobacco users. Both my maternal and paternal grandfathers chewed plug tobacco, and my paternal grandfather rolled his own smokes for as long as I knew him. Every one of my aunts and uncles smoked at one time or another, everything from roll-your-own, to pipes, to brand-name cigarettes, to cigars. My Uncle Aubrey was particularly fond of Havana's and was really hurt when it became illegal to have them. My Dad smoked. He would ultimately die at age 37 of a rare form of lung cancer which he got while working as a munitions inspector for the government back when nobody even thought about wearing dosometers while wading "hip deep" in nuclear waste and byproducts. But I'm sure his pack-a-day Chesterfield habit didn't help. My mother smoked. She was a Salem gal. Loved that menthol. Now she ultimately died at age 77 of end-stage renal failure, the result of years of untreated diabetes and general poor health habits...including a sometimes 2-pack-a-day cigarette habit that didn't lessen until a few days before her death...and then only because she was in the hospital and couldn't get to them. And I smoked. I can't remember when I started exactly. Seems as kids we were always sneaking butts from our parents and by high school we had just sort of segued into it. Hell, at my high school, there was even a designated smoking area where students [with parental permission] could go out an have a few puffs between classes. Nobody so much as lifted an eyebrow. The years came and went and I thought I was doing okay. My chest x-rays always looked "good". I mean, the doctor said he knew I smoked, but my lungs were actually in pretty good shape. I didn't think anything about it. And then came the heart attack. And then came the next heart attack. And then came the bypass surgery. And then came the diabetes. And then ... and then ... Well, I quit, ladies and gentlemen, and I haven't gone back. But make no mistake about this: I have never, not even for one day, ever lost my craving for a cigarette. I choose to not act on that craving, but that's just me. I'm a grown-up. It's my life. It's my choice. And now we come to what I think is the reason for this blog: A matter of choice. Today, there are all sorts of laws to "protect" the public from smoking, and some of them I totally agree with. I don't think that children should be allowed to go in and buy cigarettes [although one of my funniest memories as a child is being sent down to the corner store to get Daddy's Chesterfields and Mom's Salems, and a 6-pack of Pepsi on my brand-new Schwinn bicycle...but that's for another blog] And I think that if you own an establishment and want to allow smoking in that establishment, then you should only be allowed to hire people over the age of adult consent [18], and the prospective employee must understand that they work at their own risk and by their own choice. However, that having been said, I think it is any merchant or restaurant owner's decision whether or not to allow smoking in their establishment. If I own a restaurant and I want to let people smoke there, then that's my business. I'll hang a sign on the front door and let people know I allow smoking. If you don't want to breathe in second-hand smoke, then by all means, haul your butt to the restaurant down the street and give them your business. It won't hurt my feelings at all. By the same token, if I own a building and I don't want any of my tenants to smoke, that's my right. Going in, I'm going to let you know, as a prospective tenant, that I don't allow smoking anywhere on any property that I own. If you don't like that, then by all means...go someplace else. But don't expect me to change my mind about what I want to do with my property just because you choose to do something that I don't agree with. I am sick to death of the "nanny-state" trying to step in right and left to tell me what I ought to do and how I ought to run my business. Yes...make sure that my stove is not going to blow up. Make sure that my water is potable and safe. Make sure that my cooler is the right temperature to keep the food I cook and serve fresh and safe. Make sure there's no cockroaches or rat turds. These are good health laws that effect everybody, smokers and nonsmokers alike. But smoking itself? Smoking tobacco is a TOTALLY LEGAL activity. Tobacco growing, in fact, is subsidized heavily by the very federal government [our taxes] that continues to try and step in and abridge our freedom. If an adult chooses to smoke, then it is none of MY business, it's certainly none of YOUR business, and it most definitely is none of the GOVERNMENT'S business ...
Tags: Adults and their sometimes stupid decisions ...
Happy Birthday to me ... I'm older, you see and there are still some things I don't know Like where do you run When you've run out of fun And you've played every game that you know Jacks, and marbles, and hide-n-go seek Run, chief, run and the lot Hearts and flowers by the hours Play 'em and what have you got Happy Birthday to me ... I'm older you see and there are still some things I don't know Like why does it take a birthday to make us wonder how little we grow ... by: Rod McKuen
 GENE AUTRY'S COWBOY CODE 
1. A cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage. 2. A cowboy must never go back on his word or a trust confided in him. 3. A cowboy must always tell the truth. 4. A cowboy must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals. 5. A cowboy must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas. 6. A cowboy must help people in distress. 7. A cowboy must be a good worker. 8. A cowboy must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits. 9. A cowboy must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws. 10. A cowboy is always a patriot. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Gene Autry was one of my childhood heroes, along with Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, and the lesser known Cisco Kid and Lash LaRue. And I loved reading the stories of the Old West ... even tho' I was to learn later on that writers lots of times don't get it "right". Tales of Dodge City, and Wyatt Earp, and Bat Masterson, and Tombstone with its notorious gunfight at the OK Corral. Maybe I liked the stories so much because everything always seemed to be so clear. The good guys were actually really good and the bad guys were really, really bad ... and they were so easy to tell apart, unlike today. So what brought this on? In the last couple of days I read somewhere that new information had surfaced that Butch Cassidy probably survived the shoot-out in Bolivia and lived to a ripe old age in Washington state. Of course, the "new" set of facts, upon closer inspection, turn out to be just another historian's opinion. And that got me to thinking ... Imagine, if you will, 4 people standing on a hill overlooking the Little Big Horn [or, as the indigenous folks called it "Greasy Grass Creek"], watching the massacre [or, battle between two forces] below. If you could interview those people after a period of time, I think you'd find you had at least 5 different "eyewitness" accounts. That's just the way "history" gets written. And "accepted history" is generally written by the ones who win the war. So, while all this new stuff about Butch Cassidy is an interesting exercise in speculation, that's all it will ever be...all it can be. And I, for one, am rather glad for that. You see, I'm not altogether sure I want all the riddles answered and all the mysteries solved. It's that nagging little voice in the back of our heads that keeps us trying to dig up the "real story"...that little bitty glimmer of hope [however small] of mountains of gold that keeps us looking for the Dutchman.
Tags: A pretty good guide to life
Okay. So we've been downgraded, credit-wise. Well, that happened to me years ago and trust me, it can be lived with. There are now a bunch of folks coming out of the woodwork to opine on just how it was we got to this state of affairs. I figured I'd say a few words to add to the brine. But I will put this disclaimer on it: "Opinions are like armpits. We all have two and fairly often, both of them stink." [and yes, Bob, I did clean that up for the general public] People are saying that one easy way to help boost the economy is to "Buy American" and "Buy American-made"!! Well, that is far easier said than done. For example, here in San Antonio we have a massive Toyota factory. All of the Tundra pick-up trucks sold in America come out of this factory, put together on a line staffed by American workers, being paid close to $50/hr. However, all of the parts for these trucks are made elsewhere around the world and shipped in here. So most definitely, those trucks are "assembled in America", but does that make them "American-made"? You just love that brand-new cotton blouse you bought at Old Navy, or wherever and you're proud of yourself because the store says it doesn't buy stuff made in China. However, was the cotton for that blouse grown in America? Was it cultivated and harvested by American farmers and farm workers? Was the thread made, or the cloth woven in an American textile mill? Was the material cut and sewn by American workers? That brand new Dell computer you just bought might be assembled up in Austin, but are any of the components that make up that computer American-made or manufactured? I wouldn't bet the farm on it if I were you ... that is, if you happen to own a family farm and don't just grow stuff for a multi-national conglomerate. What we need in this country is to re-claim our manufacturing base. The factories need to be re-opened so that once again "Made in America" is truth in advertising. Put strong tariffs on stuff brought into this country, just like other countries do to the few American-made goods that are brought in. Give incentives to bring the work home. And yes, the unions have to do their part, too. Maybe the days are gone when we can pay $50/hour ... but $15/hour is a hell of a lot better than $0.00/hour, and I'm willing to bet you'd have more applicants than you could think up jobs for. We used to be the envy of the world because of the goods we produced. Now we're little more than just another vendor hawking our second-rate wares at the global flea market.
Tags: political discussion
Okay ... you can blame Bob for this one. In response to something I said in my status stream, he asked me to define "class". That got me to thinking, always a dangerous thing. Anyway, here are a few examples of what I think defines "class". Please feel free to add your own ideas to the list ... * * * * * * * * * * * * You know some of the best raunchy jokes on earth, but you wouldn't think of telling them at a church picnic, or when the parson's over for dinner ... You learned early on from folks around you how to cuss like a sailor, but if you were in a social setting amongst mostly people you don't know intimately, you wouldn't say "shit" if you had a mouthful. You know that you have the body and carriage to dress like a "hootchie mama", but you wouldn't think of dressing like that to go to work, or to a funeral, or to your friend's son's bar mitzvah, or places like that. You know you just got a big raise when your co-worker [who's been there two years longer than you] did not get one, but you wouldn't think of making a big deal about your good fortune in front of them. You know a nice, juicy piece of gossip that would absolutely devistate someone you know, and you keep your mouth shut about it. You know how to set a proper table for a formal sit-down dinner, but also know that eating fried chicken with your fingers is perfectly acceptable, too. You know the meal you just ate could go down in the history books as one of the worst ever, but instead of saying that, you thank your host/hostess graciously for the honor of being invited into their home. You know that the problem your friend worked on for hours could've been solved in a matter of minutes doing it your way, but instead of rubbing his/her nose in that fact, you congratulate him/her on successfully completing the job. * * * * * * * * * * * * These are just a few examples. I'm sure that you all have many, many more. I hope that you'll be willing to share them here.
The economic news just keeps getting worse and worse. This week it was announced that Border's Books will be closing all its stores, throwing some 10,000 workers out of jobs. The "guv-mint" remains deadlocked on how they can best fleece the American taxpayer, and yet still hold onto their own cushy jobs. [And I'm talking about both the republicans and the democrats here ... I'm disgusted with both sides.] Then it hit me!! There is something that could easily be done to help reduce the national debt. Oh there's no way it'll wipe it out entirely, but folks we are sitting on a gold mine and it's just there taking up space and gathering dust. All over the country, probably even where you live [or nearby] are government-owned warehouses filled to the rafters with "stuff". I'm talking about things that have been collected over the years by various entities: gifts that presidents and other officials weren't allowed to keep; things confiscated in the various wars in which we've been involved; items donated to "the American public" [usually as a tax write-off], so-called historical items. Y'know ... "stuff". And here just a couple of days ago, the government was given back 20 gold coins with an estimated value of $7.59 million PER COIN. [which, if they handle it like other "confiscated" gold, will just end up being melted down] These warehouses have to be maintained, at the expense of the American taxpayer. The facilities have to be maintained and staffed, and that costs money. And for what? Things that I'd wager 99.99% of Americans don't even know exist!! So here's my idea: Hire an auction house to catalogue all of America's "stuff", and throw it out there on the world market. I mean hell's bells ... If some yutz in the Ukraine wants to pay us $6 million for a Constable painting that's just been sitting around gathering dust for decades, why not let him? If those gold coins they confiscated are worth $7.59 million each, then why boil them down to bullion that's only going for $1800 an ouce? If some woman in South Africa thinks that set of spoons made by Paul Revere is worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars to her, then I bang my gavel and say "sold"!! Granted, when put up against a multi-trillion dollar debt, anything we get wouldn't wipe the slate clean, but let's get realistic folks. All that stuff moldering in vaults isn't doing any of us any good. And it's not like we're never going to ever get any more stuff ... We continually get stuff all the time. And that's why I say that it really is time for THE GREAT AMERICAN GARAGE SALE ...
Tags: money
Is it just me, or am I the only person in America who doesn't give a do-diddly-damn about whether the golden-cheeked warbler makes it or not? Species go extinct [and new ones are discovered] every day, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything "mankind" has done. That's just the way it works ... the way it HAS worked for millennia. And in the millennia to come, who knows? There may arise something bigger, stronger, faster and/or smarter than our kind, and we, too, may fall by the evolutionary wayside. Mother Nature has a way of fixing things like that. What I don't understand, what I've never understood, is why we are allowing concern over the fate of this one little critter, and others like it, to dictate what is best for public policy? To my knowledge, I have never personally seen a golden-cheeked warbler, and you know what: I've also never seen a blind salamander, a dodo bird, a passenger pigeon, or a dinosaur. But guess what. The sun still rose on time this morning, and I'm pretty certain it's going to set right on schedule this evening. I honestly do not think my life has been diminished one iota for never having seen any of the thousands of species that have gone extinct, any more than the thousands of species that have been discovered in that same time frame which I haven't seen either.
Now I'll bet the golden-cheeked warbler is a delightful little bird, and I understand that the dodo bird tasted a lot like chicken...but so what? I do not believe we fought out way to the top of the food chain to eat nothing but tofu and grass. While everyone [with a brain] knows that we need to develop alternative energy sources and wean ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels, the fact is that right here, right now we need oil...domestic oil. We know where it is. We know how to get it. And as for the golden-cheeked warbler, et al.? ... As far as I'm concerned, they can go hang out in that corner over there along with the T-rex and all the others.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled lives.
Tags: probably some largely unpopular thoughts
AN ODE TO PEE I think that I shall never see A thing as lovely as my pee From the tube they have inside of me To the cumbersome bag hanging at my knee Seeing it there all bright and yellow Knowing it's still there just makes me feel mellow [see...I know this is a poem...everything rhymes!!] * * * * * * * * * * * I know, it's a weird subject ... but think about it. You ask any guy who's awakened with a full bladder on the side of some hill, or on top of some unnamed vista, walked to the rim of the precipice, and taken a long, satisfying pee off the edge of the world and he'll tell you. It's better than sex. It's better than money. It's better than hitting that 8 point buck in the neck on your first shot ... well, almost. And girls, if we're honest, it's a great feeling for us, too. Having been catheterized since yesterday I had come close to forgetting, but having that "millstone" removed, I have been reminded with each ensuing "squat" since then. Going from "full" to "empty" never felt so wonderful!! Of course, the new medicines they have me on are making me pee like a Russian racehorse, but even with that I'm reminded of the old line "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone..." As I said, a bizarre subject perhaps but here lately I've begun to think that we should all revel in even the most "base" of pleasureable feelings. We don't know how long any of it will last.
Tags: Humor [I hope]
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