Simply Pathetic

Last Wednesday night on my local PBS station they broadcasted a show telling the history of the Black Panther movement back in the 1960's. Setting aside the reasons the group formed, Panther members eventually felt the need to arm themselves for protection from the cops and overly concerned citizens. The videos the program showed them carrying small carbine rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, all kiddie stuff in this day and age when movies, television shows, and gun manufacturing advertising literally say you're not a man unless you own an assault weapon and the required accessories for that extra bit of murderous bling.

The thing that almost had me laughing though were the videos of those police officials and overly concerned citizens—all white folks that were in a total nuclear hissy fit meltdown over what they considered were armed thugs, the Black Panthers, that were roaming the public streets. The general refrain those people all repeated was that we lived in a “civilized society” and that no one should be allowed to walk the streets carrying weapons like it was the Old West. This idea went as far as legislation in the California State Assembly to prohibit individuals or groups from carrying weapons in public. Even the conservative messiah Ronald Reagan, who at the time was governor of California, makes an appearance in those old videos supporting the legislation to making it illegal for American citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights. The huge Catch-22 in that whole episode was the fact that the people openly carrying firearms in public places seeking to protect themselves were African-Americans.

While I grew up in South Carolina, I clearly remember the time when people viewed the open carry of weapons in public places by civilians like the local main street or inside business as a sign that someone was mentally deranged. In those strangely innocent and relatively calmer times—compared to the nightmarish crap we regularly have to deal with now, firearms just weren't that big a factor in the daily lives of most people. Weapons were just dangerous tools that a kid would get a serious ass whooping if they touched without a responsible adult standing right next them.

Before someone possibly loses their Second Amendment mind, I also grew up around all sorts of weapons from hunting rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. One of my few good memories of my father was him taking me out to the old Georgetown County landfill and shooting the piles of junk and a few unlucky rats that got in the way. Throwing more fuel on the fire, several years later I go and join the military and spend four years in the active army and after that a total of seventeen in the National Guard. Quite the difference when compared to countless armchair warriors who despite supporting the troops somehow never found their way to the local armed forces recruiting office.

Over those intervening years of my military service I shot so many different weapons so many damn times that going to the rifle range became long boring affair that I mostly slept through. In fact on the last occasion I went to the weapons range a few months before I finally retired, a young private thought I was insane because I didn't want my share of the ammo for the old and crappy M-60 machine gun we were shooting. So I'm not some liberal pansy that faints at the sight of a dainty .22 handgun designed for a suburban housewife. No, I'm a retired veteran who is an ardent liberal and feels most of the goddamn country has become engrossed in a psychotic delusion about the ownership of military-grade firearms.

It appears a massive chunk of the populace has come to believe their manhood, or womanhood, is founded on the ability to efficiently fire off dozens of rounds from their AR-15 or semiautomatic pistol, instead of basing their self worth a crazy thing like an education that just might expand their understanding of civilization, their fellow human beings, or the natural world. To justify this talent and the ownership of the weapons that make it possible, they engage in fevered nightmare scenarios from violent home invasions to nationwide mass insurrections, the one common element in them all being the skin color or ethnic heritage of the possible assailants.

Yes, home invasions do happen and the potential victim has every right to defend themselves. But contrary to what is commonly assumed in some circles, having a gun in the home is far more likely to be used in a crime directed at one of the people living there, either through accident, suicide, or assault. Some might be surprised to learn that I AM NOT saying civilians shouldn't be allowed to own firearms for hunting or basic home protection. I am saying that like automobiles such ownership should depend on a person's ability to be trained and then licensed. But here is where a lot of deluded people lose their paranoid minds.

Unlike the 1960's, the people showing off their personal arsenals in public places are paranoid middle class white people. Not only terrified of countless shadowy boogeymen out to take their stuff, they are utterly convinced that nefarious agents of the United States government are on the verge of declaring martial law with the expressed purpose of taking their weapons. That once the God-fearing folks are defenseless, federal stormtroopers will swoop in and force them into internment camps where they will be reeducated to become socialist-atheistic-Muslims working for Satan. The only problem with that absurd last statement is the fact that you wouldn't have to look very hard to find a group who believes something close to it.

This is where our stalwart leaders, and those seeking to become such, should step forward and diligently work to calm the outlandish fears spreading like a virus through the more suggestible segments of the American public. But no, proving that the purest form of democracy is a crazed mob many of our public leaders actually feel it is to their advantage to not only support this insanity but show that they are willing participants.

I've got to admit, that while I made the mistake of voting for George W. Bush in 2000 it was not long after that I developed a huge disdain for the entire family. The one exception to that rule was Jeb Bush, compared to his brother he seemed to be at least a semi-rational adult who appeared to be a capable governor of the state of Florida. While I would have never voted for Jeb for president in a hundred-million years as the republican presidential primaries started he at least seemed RELATIVELY saner as compared to Trump, Cruz, Carson, and the rest of that proto-fascist pack.

As the months went by, all I can say is at least he was consistent in his desire to pander to the worst and lowest aspects of his party's political base. It was all summed up nicely with his tweet of this photo showing his new semi-automatic pistol captioned with the word: “America.”

That one photo immediately struck me as the most craven act of political desperation and cowardice I had ever seen in my lifetime. I know the target audience for the picture was meant for the South Carolina Republican masses which quite frankly continue to prove the over a century old adage that while the Palmetto state is too small to be a republic it was way large to be an asylum, which it certainly meant in terms of population size.

Instead of being a true leader and tweeting a picture showing the best of the United States, like the beauty of our national parks, the space program, or any of thousands of other pictorial representations of American hopes and optimism he chooses something specifically designed to kill people. So it seems that as a nation we have lost almost all of what made being an American truly special when the one supposed sane person in the room full of psychopaths and idiots surrenders to them. I absolutely hate to write this, but it looks like George W. Bush is not only the smarter brother but a better human being than Jeb.

After all, it is a Small World

Truthfully, it's sort of embarrassing in way to think of how many times my family and I have made the trip down to Orlando, Florida to visit Walt Disney World. Yes, we are Disneyphiles and our often silly and maybe even obsessive enjoyment of Uncle Walt's creations is facilitated by the fact that we bought into its points-based timeshare for the Disney resorts that surround the various parks. The thing about making so many trips down to Disney World is that at some point you start noticing other elements and events while down there that don't necessarily have anything to do with the rides or the colorful characters.

Back in the summer of 2010 my wife, daughter, and I made the usual pilgrimage down to our “home” resort of Animal Kingdom Lodge for a five-day vacation. My daughter, Darth Wiggles, was eight at the time and still engrossed in all things to do with Disney Princesses, which would include an expensive visit to a place in Downtown Disney where she would have an elaborate makeover to look like either Belle from Beauty and the Beast or Ariel from The Little Mermaid. My wife, the lovely Dragonwife, was eager for her own visit to one of the spas where she would be pampered with expert massages, crazy facials, and whatever they do to fingernails and toenails in those places.

I on the other hand, while totally ready for my own dose of relaxation at the resort pool sipping drinks and reading, wasn't quite feeling right because my son, Darth Spoilboy, had decided to skip the vacation and stay with his best friend. Spoilboy had long since become too cool for Disney and while the best friend's parents said they would make sure he stayed out of trouble, it just didn't feel right with him not with us.

The next day after our arrival we woke up early and caught the bus to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom. That morning was utterly gorgeous with bright sunshine complete with little fluffy clouds floating in the sky. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I'll be damned if several of those clouds didn't look like Mickey, Donald Duck, and Goofy. While watching those uniquely shaped clouds drift by, I found myself imagining a secret Disney airport with a fleet of special cloud sculpting aircraft equipped with cloaking devices. Given how Disney's “Imagineers” are famous for thinking out-of-the-box I only half-chuckled at the utter absurdity of the notion. What made the day even better was that while it was already warm, the usual heavy Florida summer humidity hadn't yet kicked in making it feel like an early spring morning.

As you can expect, my family and I were not the only one waiting for the park to open that morning. There was a sea of humanity all around us speaking scores of different languages all waiting for the Mouse and his associates to perform the opening ceremonies that while sickly sweet nonetheless sure as hell made every child, and a few adults, unbelievably happy.

As I mentioned, once you've visited the parks as many times as we have you start to notice things like the other people around you. That was when my wife saw a married couple that had the dubious distinction of standing out in that crowd.

The man looked to be in his early to mid-sixties, after my wife's pointed them out I immediately felt some envy because the guy had a head full of hair, as compared to mine which had glorified fuzz back in my mid-thirties. Not only that, given the guy's apparent age, his hair had turned a silvery gray color, which gave him the look of wisdom and dignity. Almost running counter to that look of wisdom, that guy's hair was a little longer than you might expect for someone on the other side of middle age.

It was also obvious he worked out because while his face and hair looked sixty he had the body of a forty-year old. Dressed in casual, but neatly pressed shorts, an upper-end polo shirt, and sandals the net effect was that this person looked like a wise old California surfer dude that during the course of his exciting and adventurous life had founded several high tech firms making him enough money that would allow even his twenty-third century descendants to live in idle comfort.

Accompanying that obviously happy gentleman was the reason my wife, and several other nearby women, were staring at him as if he was a leper. It was the woman he was with, she was in her late twenties to early thirties and could have been a younger clone of the actress, Sharon Stone.

Naturally, this lady was blonde with long legs and everything else you might expect someone to have who could star in the remake of the movie, “Basic Instinct.” Okay, I'll admit the second I first noticed the Sharon-clone I pretty much couldn't keep my eyes off her. Dressed in tight yoga or bicycle pants that came down to her knees and a loose, oversized blouse that hung low off one shoulder the woman was utterly gorgeous. The one distinction I have to make though is that Sharon Stone's character in that movie was a psychotic killer, this lady was open and friendly to everyone around her going as far to pay special attention to the young children near them.

Even with their outgoing behavior, I could tell from the looks several women were giving the oddly aged couple that they didn't approve of their relationship. I even heard my wife quietly utter the words “trophy wife” in disgust with the general assumption in her mind being that California Surfer Dude had probably made his money with a wife near his own age only to dump her at some point to hook up with the Sharon-clone that was young enough to be his daughter.

I didn't say anything to my wife about the thoughts I knew were swirling around in her head like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. She and many of the older, middle-aged women in the area had all judged the man and woman and found them guilty of some gross violation of a nebulous societal norm. In other words, to the accusing ladies California Surfer Dude was a semi-pervert and narcissistic old man preying on younger woman after betraying the older woman who had probably worked just as hard as he in making their assumed fortune. While to them, Sharon-clone was a sorry ass gold digger who should have been with a man far closer to her own age.

On a side note, yes, after having heard my wife and her friends once talk trash about a similar couple years before, I do believe there was a little female envy making up the backbone of their prudish disapproval. And yes, I'm sure there was also a great deal of male envy flying around as well since I, and several other guys had instinctively sucked in our stomachs after noticing Sharon-clone.

In the case of my fellow males, our envy was also directed at the guy since the vast majority of men have neither the looks, vast amounts of money, nor the gumption required to attempt a relationship with a beautiful, younger woman. The simple laws and principles governing male/female attraction would make it a cruel joke for the Average Joe to even attempt. Okay, here is my ubiquitous declaration that even if I did have the looks, money, and confidence to look for a twenty-something trophy wife that I would never do such a thing since I am dedicated to my current lovely spouse. Stop it dammit, even now I hear the belly laughs you all are having after reading those words.

The California Surfer Dude and the Sharon-clone didn't have any children with them but when the opening ceremonies began they were as enthusiastic as any of the children waiting to begin a day inside the Magic Kingdom. Once the park opened and that mass of humanity began the daily flood inside I quickly lost track of California Surfer Dude and his lovely Sharon-clone. But like an under appreciated amusement ride in that very park likes to sing, it is a small world after all.

Later that afternoon, Dragonwife, Darth Wiggles, and I are at the end of the line leading into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. By this time Magic Kingdom was getting rather crowded with the people going into Pirates of the Caribbean having been corralled into those zigzagging, roped off pathways that both keeps everyone under control and allows for the effective use of available space.

Before a fellow Disneyphile starts screaming, yes my family and I make full use of the available fast-pass tickets but the supposed total wait time for Pirates that day was around forty-minutes and our next schedules fast-pass ride was over an hour away. However, long lines at Disney have never really bothered my family despite the general complaining some like to whine about. My wife and I tend to seek out other parents like us and strike up conversations with them. In fact, when my son and daughter were much younger my wife and I always brought a small backpack to the parks fill with essentials like diaper items, a small towel, some dry clothes, and simple snacks. We quickly learned that the simple act of sharing a juice box or cookies with a grumpy and tired kid giving his or her parents hell while in line made the wait for everyone far more tolerable.

As we slowly made our way to the actual entrance to Pirates, I noticed the couple in front of us. It was an older man and woman, obviously childless but nevertheless totally enjoying their time in the Magic Kingdom. The guy looked to be in his late fifties with his most distinguishing feature being his bald head that made him look like Sir Patrick Stewart, one of my favorite actors for reasons that should be glaringly obvious. His lady companion was about the same age, a brunette who had streaks of gray running through her hair that I found wildly alluring. Still going with the idea of basing my description on famous people, that lady looked like the late Ann Bancroft to me. The Bancroft-looking lady's hair even caught the attention of my wife who jumped ahead of me to ask how her hair dresser accomplished such a stylish feat. With my wife and her discussing the cosmetological sciences I quickly lost interest and starting doing the usual guy talk with her male, Patrick Stewart-looking companion.

Funny thing about those roped off pathways, as you do the zigzag to your destination you see the same people time and time again. Eventually the Patrick Stewart-looking guy and I had nothing left to say and we just looked on as our respective female companions continued to talk about the trials and tribulations of finding, then keeping a decent hair stylist. At some point my daughter began demanding my attention forcing me to open up the trusty backpack and find her a snack. As I rummaged through looking for her gummy bears, the line we were in moved several feet. Once it stopped again and settled down that is when Bancroft-looking lady and my wife suddenly stopped talking.

I looked up to see California Surfer Dude, Sharon-clone, and the Bancroft/Stewart couple staring at each other. My wife immediately felt the area temperature drop about twenty degrees and repositioned herself behind me and our daughter.

“Hello Karen,” California Surfer said to the Bancroft-looking lady in a way that suggested sadness.

Bancroft-looking lady, or now Karen given that she had been identified looked back and said, “Well Gregg, you're looking good.” At the same time Karen began openly inspecting Sharon-clone without saying anything, strongly suggesting she hadn't ever met the younger woman before.

“Oh I'm sorry, let me introduce my wife, Lisa,” Gregg said back to Karen that while sounding mostly neutral, I did detect just the slightest hint of screw you in the man's voice.

The verbal pleasantries that passed between the two women were perfunctory and totally without any warmth. In fact, the tension that was in the air was so high I believe the eight-year old Darth Wiggles knew something weird was going on in front of her.

About that time Gregg diverted is attention to the Patrick Stewart-looking guy and said, “Well Chuck, you two make quite the handsome couple.”

Chuck just smiled back in a way that said a long and complex story had transpired between those three people. “Yes,” Chuck said, “Karen and I are quite happy, looks like have you recovered yourself.” He further said while gesturing towards Lisa.”

At that moment Lisa grabbed Gregg and gave him one of those passionate kisses best reserved for the privacy of a bedroom. “Yes, Gregg has completely recovered and in fact he and I are trying to have a baby.” Lisa said after pulling away from her surprised, much older husband.

Yes, I was totally engrossed in the events unfolding in front of me. I know, I should have looked away, but they were in a public place and while I am a crappy writer that little creative flame inside me had already written several possible past scenarios involving those three people. Whatever the case, the line leading into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride remained strangely silent for the rest of our joint time waiting.

Karen and Chuck did ride in our boat going through Pirates, but they didn't attempt to talk with anyone. Once the ride was over and we all exited through the attached gift shop, they quickly disappeared into the afternoon crowd never to be seen again.

Later that night while at dinner my wife and I discussed what must have gone between those three. I somehow came away with the impression that Karen and Chuck had a thing going while she was married to Gregg. After a messy divorce Gregg met Lisa and despite the age difference decided to give the relationship a go.

My wife's back story had Karen and Gregg divorcing with her later hooking up with Chuck, who must have been a friend or acquaintance. Her sympathies obviously leaned towards Karen who she thought probably had to deal with a prenup during divorce proceedings because Gregg in reality was egotistical dick, a fact proven by him marrying the much younger Lisa.

Just for giggles, I'm asking for any who reads this to offer their own theories as to what really happened between the three. 

To any Disney haters, I'm ready to go back now! 

Cynical Musings on the 2016 Campaign

There is enough here to make everyone mad.

Generally speaking, I had always understood that the main requirement for being a cynical curmudgeon was extreme old age and a decrepit body. These individuals, overwhelmingly men, had long since lost their sense of humor and viewed the human experience in general as a largely futile experiment being run by stupid young people suffering from grievous mental health issues. While I haven't reached the point where by body is falling apart, I must admit I beginning to hold some dark and grim views of much of what is going on in the world and this country.

Looking back on the “Good Old Days” of the 2008 presidential election campaign I must admit I now view it as a benign and slightly funny sitcom. Yes, I know George W. and Cheney were in the White House with the former bumbling around lost as the economy collapsed with the latter in his lair plotting new wars and snickering about prisoners being tortured. In the warm, golden light of hindsight the choices about the people who would replace them were glaringly simple. The Republican running for the nomination were an amazingly lackluster bunch, who while certifiably crazy and slaves to their rich benefactors didn't seem openly psychotic. Well, there was Frothy Rick Santorum who above all the others actually believed all his extreme religious rhetoric to the point he could have been a character in Margret Atwood's dystopic novel, “The Handmaid's Tale.”

Ultimately, all the 2008 clowns and fools were paired down to Senator John McCain. A genuine war hero who was tortured as a prisoner and who at one time could have been described as a “sane” republican. At times, I am tempted to think it is almost tragic the way he succumbed to the temptation for power while running for president like the creature Gollum who lost his soul and mind over that damn ring.

In a way McCain's fall could almost be excused since we're talking about about basic human nature and winning the White House, but along the way he did a really bizarre and comically destructive thing by nominating the Alaskan trailer trash queen, Sarah Palin as his vice president. Given that McCain unleashed Palin on an already frightened and neurotic population of scared white people fearful of numerous boogeymen, he'd have to save the planet from a zombie apocalypse or alien invasion before he would ever be okay in my eyes. Needless to say, with the election of Barrack Obama in 2008, the phrase that keeps popping in my head is that we dodged a seriously demented bullet.

Then came the 2012 presidential campaign with the Republicans not so metaphorically out for the president's head. That lineup sported a mix of old losers from the previous cycle and a few proto-megalomaniacs like Newt Gingrich who had a habit of abandoning wives like some toss empty soda bottles. Oh yeah, he also said during that campaign that if was elected president he see that the United States establishes a permanent colony on the moon. Now I was actually okay with such a suggestion until he also said that once it reached the required population it could apply for admission to the American Union. I can only imagine what Russia's Vlad Putin thought of that idea since he suffers from a perpetual case of penis envy when it comes to anything to do with the United States.

For reasons that that almost certainly prove the Republican party is an intellectually and morally bankrupt club dominate by semi-senile rich white men they go and nominate Mitt Romney for president. A bizarre throwback to the 1950's mentality, Mitt lacked any discernible human personality that at times made him seem more a bumbling character from a Monty Python sketch than a real person. Now he did possess a disproportionately large ego that allowed him to say with a straight face that his able body sons were serving their country by working for his campaign in the same way that soldiers and marines who were fighting in Iraq.

On election night back in 2012, I could help but to descend into a state of helpless laughter when I realized that despite the millions spent to defeat Obama a rather substantial majority of the American public clearly understood Mitt was a spoiled, flip-flopping little twit suffering from delusions of grandeur. What was curious though was just a few months after Mitt had his ass kicked, one of his sons told the media that his dad had never really wanted to be president. The first idea that came to my mind was that the guy was nursing a seriously bruised ego over the national rejection.

So, for better or worse we now stand at the beginning of the 2016 presidential race. Except this time the menagerie running for the Republican nomination is a political scientist's nightmare of Lovecraftian proportions.

Right off the bat, Donald Trump goes and proves the point that while Gingrich was a flaming asshole and Romney was born with both a sliver spoon in his mouth as well as a platinum rod up his ass, his ego almost defies measurement. It is extremely frightening to see how Trump's professed beliefs about immigrants and Muslims appeals to darkest, fascist side of far too many uneducated white people. Numerous times the media has interviewed the enthralled hordes waiting to hear him speak and they all more or less say that they are mad and that Trump says what they are feeling.

Why are they mad? Is it because they have bought into the stupid idea that multimillionaires and billionaires are “job creators” and that they should be protected and left untouched as they languish in underpaid jobs wondering if they'll get lucky and see a tiny pay raise? One night at work one of the boorish idiots I have contact with bragged about all the billionaires in this country and how that made us special because they kept the economy strong.

Normally when something is so monumentally stupid is said in my presence I just act if I hadn't heard it and continue on my way. Not that night, overwhelmed by a futile urge I told that guy that that what kept the American economy alive and strong was the ability of hundreds of millions of people to go out and buy things like televisions, cars, washing machines, and other big ticket items. Of course, that meant people had to earn enough money at their jobs so they could have something to spend after buying the basics of living like food and shelter. That the rich just park most of their wealth in banks and what they invest is often done overseas because if they can get away with paying next to nothing to their workers that is more money back to them. All through this, I hit on raising the minimum wage and how it might sacrifice a few crappy jobs but the overall increase in general wealth was sure to create more allowing those workers to think beyond their next paycheck.

As I expected, the eyes of that dolt almost immediately glazed over with deep incomprehension, I might as well have been talking to the chair he was sitting because not a second after I finished he made some remark about an upcoming football game. This same dolt has also echoed Trump's remarks about immigrants and Muslims. No I didn't say anything to him, I've willingly jumped into losing battles before just for shits and giggles but the idea of trying to explain basic humanity and compassion as well as the inherent principles we Americans say we believe is an impossible task I don't want to try.

Then we have Ted Cruz who is so religious he makes George W. Bush look like a cynical atheist. I must admit, part of me has this idea that everything Trump says is just a rehearsed shtick to fool to mindless proles and that IF he won the nomination he would move sharply to the political center, and given the views he once held, maybe even a little to the left. As sure as bears leave steamy piles of poop in the dark and lonely woods you don't have that with Ted Cruz. He clearly believes every position he has spouted and doesn't give a rip about the consequences if he gets a chance to implement them. Hate the government spending too much, just block funding legislation until it defaults causing the American economy to collapse.

Far more troubling is Cruz's apparent view that working with Democrats is a fundamental betrayal of principles of the conservative movement. Without digressing to point out that numerous other politicians and common folk both on the right an left seem to have forgotten that compromise and deals are the essence of how democracy works. Yes, it can be ugly and often wasteful but we do not live in a narrowly defined and homogeneous nation with a few oddballs sprinkled throughout. Sometimes the greater good requires accepting a thing we disagree with or even hate with the hope conditions change in the future to allow that items removal.

All of this shouldn't take away from the fact Cruz is a dangerous religious nutcase whose ideas about how our government should be run isn't far removed from the followers of the Taliban, ISIS, or our old friends in al Qaeda.

“Nothing is more important in the next 18 months than that the body of Christ rise up and that Christians stand up, that pastors stand up and lead,” Cruz said. “In this last election, 54 million evangelical Christians stayed home. If we can simply bring Christians to the polls – is it any wonder we have the government we have – we have the leaders we have if believers stay home and leave electing our leaders to unbelievers. We get exactly what we deserve and nothing is more important that having people of faith stand up and just vote our values, vote biblical values and that’s how we turn the country around.”

I suppose I could write separate paragraphs for the also rans like Hukabee, Rand Paul, Frothy Pete, the New Jersey Fat Boy, and sad little Jeb, who at this writing has so underwhelmed that he is actually considering using George W. to bolster his dying campaign. I'm sure I have forgotten a few of these insane a-holes but it's time to prove just how much of a curmudgeon I have become and take on the Democrats. 

I don't mean to be difficult but truthfully, I never really liked Hillary Clinton. Adding even more honesty, while Bill's administration did a great job running the country given the conditions he was forced to work around, his “antics” while in the White House did nothing to endear me to him. However, since George W. was the guy who followed him, I like many other Americans view Clinton's presidency as a kind of a golden age before the onset of the Bush dark age made far worse by the Iraq War.

My problem with Hillary can be summed up by the story she told during the 2008 campaign. Supposedly, she and Chelsea were sent to Bosnia on a goodwill mission during that country's bloody civil war. Hillary told the story that the plane they were on had to make a steep and fast landing to avoid enemy fire and once on the ground, the two were quickly rushed off because snipers had made the airport tarmac a killzone. The trouble was that someone dug up video of her and Chelsea calmly walking off the military plane being greeted by locals in colorful clothing carrying flowers. If I remember the video correctly, there was even a band not far from the plane playing music.

This fabrication by Hillary was bizarre in many ways because there was simply no reason for her to tell a falsehood. She was the First Lady and had in fact gone on that goodwill tour, which by itself meant she had more experience dealing with the outside world than most of the Republican bozos running for the presidency combined at that time.

This story and other apparent issues with her character have made her look untrustworthy to many people. However, Hillary has been the most admired women in the world for several years running, quite the contradiction of the evil witch the Republicans so desperately want everyone to believe.

And finally, Bernie...

In most ways, I like Bernie Sanders. He is the polar opposite of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in that he knows the middle and working class folks have been screwed over by the rich and their sycophants in government since Ronald Reagan became president. I like that he has no religious pretensions and has never claimed he had a direct communication with the Big Entity in the Sky.

Let me make this clear, while I am agnostic, I still feel that someone having religion does not automatically make them psychotic or a sociopath. For me it is far more important how a supposed religious person views the world and interacts with their fellow human beings. Quite frankly, while my spirituality comes from the idea that all life on Earth is connected by billions or years of evolution, I personally can't stand to hear someone like Richard Dawkins speak. He is as dogmatic and unbending as some of the religious people he criticizes. Long story short, I view someone like former president Jimmy Carter as damn near a saint, while I wouldn't piss on multi-millionaire preacher Joel Osteen if I found the man on fire.

Getting back on point, despite all the claims by Republican idiots about how America is the best place on Earth we have huge issues that are literally eating away at the heart of our Republic. Our education system is crap with many rural and urban schools left to rot both physically and figuratively with their white-dominated counterparts getting all the money. There are times I want to beat the hell out of some redneck or ignorant ass who thinks black kids are just lazy criminals waiting for their moment to become drug dealers. Poverty and crime feeds on itself with each new generation becoming more desperate to find a way to survive.

Through a combination of unlimited money being funneled to politicians for their campaigns and outright old fashioned bribery our elected leaders very rarely work for the people. In many ways I consider the 2010 Citizen United decision by the Supreme Court to be the fall of the American Republic. Yes, money is a form of free speech but to paraphrase George Orwell's, Animal Farm the amount of money available to a group or individual makes them significantly freer than the rest of the public. I find it funny and disingenuous as hell that Republicans like to point out how labor unions have “a lot of money” to influence elections suggesting they are a counterpoint to business groups and rich conservative individuals all the while working desperately to undermine their very existence.

I could go on about environmental issues, our crumbling infrastructure, student debt, the rabies-like gun violence sweeping the country, and many other issues that I feel Bernie understands needs to be addressed. But instead, and this will make some extremely angry, I'll just switch over to why I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell being elected.

Bernie Sanders is a great and good man, the only problem is this is the real world and the senator from Vermont has made some choices in his life that I am sure teams of Republican strategists are working even now to exploit should he become the nominee.

First of all Bernie applied for and received conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War. Small potatoes you might say given that is essentially the ancient past. Yes, I totally agree and when you weigh in how such Republican stalwarts like Cheney, who received several deferments during those same years, I would say it's a none issue. The trouble is that most of the nebulous mass of the American public don't yet know this fact but you can bet carefully scripted political commercials have already been written portraying Bernie as a traitorous coward and unqualified to be Commander-in-chief.

The nasty truth is that the Republican party is chocked full craven little pissants that somehow never found their way into the military but yet are fully ready to send American troops off to some war. It will be blatantly hypocritical to point out Bernie's Vietnam era decision when they themselves never served, but for Democrats to ignore this point is to court disaster.

Another knee jerk reaction that is sure to cost a possible Sander's nomination dearly was his honeymoon to the old Soviet Union and his other trips to communist nations. A lot of Democrats have become numb to all the tired and false accusations that President Obama is secretly a socialist out to destroy America. But for Bernie they have is own words saying he is a “democratic socialist” and well as speeches he gave while visiting communist nations delighting in their society. For any Bernie supporter to discount this ample and politically damaging amount of ammo is to prove the point that many on the left live in another reality.

Truth of the matter is that despite the grievous economic injustices here in the United States that greater nebulous mass of Americans I mentioned earlier don't give a rip. They are all nice and cozy in their McMansion suburbs living off credit cards while getting fat and watching their two-hundred satellite channel televisions. The vast majority have never served in the military but have a skewed view that they are patriotic citizens and that anyone who rejected the military service is either a coward or unamerican. Their attitude about war is that of course America should bomb the living crap out of all those nasty people who hate our freedom but my son or daughter shouldn't serve since I don't want them to die. Fighting and dying for the United States is something other people's kids do, especially those poor folks who can't afford to send their children to college.

Like I said before, I'm sure this will piss off some people but should Bernie be nominated he would be defeated in such a landslide that it would make the beatings McGovern and Mondale got seem mild.

One thing that my fellow lefties like to parrot is that “choosing the lesser of two evils is still a choice for evil.” Yeah, but one thing these naive and yes, ignorant people fail to realize is that this is THE REAL WORLD! Good doesn't always win in the end and in fact true one-hundred percent good is a myth on par with the universe being six-thousand years old. Human civilization swims in an ocean of gray with the shades between white and black all relative. Countless times I have been called naive for stating a hope that at some point Homo sapiens pull their hairless primate heads out of their asses but if that ever occurs I will be long dead.

I wish like hell that the American public was mature enough to elect Bernie Sanders but in general they are a paranoid and scared bunch whose time at the top of the world mountain has created an idea that our shit doesn't stink. Truth always hurts but I see absolutely no evidence that a majority is ready for anything approaching the truth. Unlike the last two previous election cycles there was room for comedy when considering the Republicans running for the highest office in the United States, but not anymore. Everyone of them have the unbelievable idea of reinstating the policies of George W. Bush but strangely never mention his name.

So here comes the part where I continue to piss off my lefty friends, if I have any remaining, because I refuse to reject the possible in search of some unrealistic idea of perfection I will be voting for Hillary Clinton in both the South Carolina primary and more than likely the general election in November. If in fact Bernie gets the nomination, I will vote for him in the general election, but with no expectation he will win.

The Long Journey Home

One of the last things someone wants deal with after finishing a night working third shift is taking their car back to the dealership for required warranty work. Worse yet is when it's a repair or modification that will take several hours pretty much forcing the owner to either get a ride home or somehow hang around the dealership waiting. You might think such a shared inconvenience would have a chance to draw strangers together and build a nascent solidarity between people having to deal with typical corporate crap these days, unfortunately no, not in this lifetime.

To be fair some automobile dealership waiting areas are better than others. Back when I drove a Toyota that dealership's waiting area during my first visit had several televisions, a real snack bar/grill complete with cook that made sandwiches and burgers, and fairly comfortable chairs and couches that made waiting tolerable. The only thing it lacked that would have made it perfect would have been a dimly lit and quiet room with recliners that would allow the customers to take a nap. I actually recommended such a room on the customer survey only to return six or seven months later to see the snack bar closed, all but one of the televisions removed, and even the comfortable chairs and couches replaced with plastic seats that looked like McDonald's surplus.

My current car is a Kia Rio, and for the most part it's okay but last year about this time, I received a letter from the company saying that while there was absolutely nothing to worry about I needed to call the dealership immediately to schedule an appointment to have a few “minor” things fixed. The letter further stated that if I didn't schedule an appointment by a certain date I would be libel if anything bad happened. With those kinds of warm fuzzies coming from a huge, faceless multinational corporation I called just a few minutes later to schedule an appointment for a Friday morning, which due to the peculiarities of working third shift is the start of my weekend.

While the letter I received didn't directly say these minor repairers might take several hours the dude playing the role of the dealership's service center concierge informed me of that fact in a casual, backhanded manner.

“Okay Mr. Johnson,” he said while looking at his computer screen and typing what I was beginning to believe might be a novel he was working on given that he had been doing it for almost ten minutes. “These repairs usually take about five hours to complete,” he said in a nonchalant way suggesting I should have already known that fact.

“Excuse me,” I replied, far more upset that I should have really should considering the situation I was dealing with. In this day and age, whenever some massive corporation is forced to spend money and time fixing something they did wrong, it is a given that they will do their best to make it as uncomfortable as possible for their customers.

The concierge then informed me that I was more than welcome to take advantage of their waiting area. Which had a television permanently tuned to a channel playing nothing but infomercials, the usual plastic seats, and a pot of coffee that I had already tried and whose contents tasted like used battery acid. Truthfully, their coffee was in a weird way quite the dubious achievement since I had spent several years drinking the rancid swill served by army cooks to soldiers in the field and had come to believe I was now immune to all forms of caustic liquids including drain cleaner. When you take into consideration how tired I was, the last thing I wanted to do was spend five hours waiting for stuff to be fixed on my car that shouldn't have needed to repaired in the first place.

The obvious answer was to call my attorney wife and have her take me home. But that would have required her to stop what she was doing, drive to the distance to the dealership to pick me up, then drive across town to drop me off, only to drive back to her work. That idea was a NO-GO right from the start, so I began mentally preparing myself to stay until my car was ready.

“You know Mr. Johnson,” the dapper concierge said probably seeing the fatigue on my face, “we have a free courtesy shuttle that will take you home. It won't leave for another hour but your welcome to climb inside and catch a nap until that time.”

As soon as the words left that man's mouth I about broke into an impromptu interpretive ballet to display my utter happiness that I wouldn't have to stay in that place. The concierge then walked with me to the shuttle, which was a high-end minivan and unlocked the door. Being the first person on site I called a perfunctory dibs and claimed the front passenger seat. I believe it took less than two minutes for me to doze off.

An hour later, three other passengers seeking transportation climbed aboard, and along with the driver and we soon pulled out of the dealership's parking lot. One of my traveling companions was a nurse who worked at a private practice that was somewhat located in the direction of my house. For that reason, after the driver dropped her off, he made the call to go ahead and take me home. A decision that did not sit well with the two other people in the van.

The first was a guy who, in my opinion, from the moment the driver opened the minivan's big sliding door to let them in seemed upset that I had already claimed the front passenger seat. He was a balding, middle-aged man dressed in a decent J.C. Penney-type suit and carrying a cheap briefcase, which he clutched like it carried the codes for the United States nuclear arsenal. While I am sure he would have about busted a nut had anyone asked if he was an attorney, to me the guy had the look of a second-rate insurance salesman desperate to make his quarterly commission.

The second was a forty-something lady decked out in a patented Hillary polyester paints suit complete with matching scarf and apparent bad attitude. From the moment she climbed aboard, her cell phone never broke contact with her left ear except to dial a new number. Of course, the conversations she engaged in while we were on the road were totally one-sided to the driver, insurance dude, and myself but it was made abundantly clear she hated her ex-husband and sister and didn't really think too kindly about her kids or the poor soul she was married to now. Thinking back on it now, had I been sharing the van's middle seat with her like the insurance guy was, I'd probably have clutched my briefcase tightly taking special care to position it over my tender male areas.

The only thing that united the two disgruntled people behind me were their chorus of deep sighs as the van we all rode moved further west on Interstate-20. I must admit, after a while their joint discomfort was beginning to bother me despite the fact that I had no real power determining the route we were taking. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete insensitive ass, I fully understood that their workday was just starting while my weekend was beginning. I'm sure they had tons of issues all demanding their immediate attention while, like me, they had been forced to take their cars in for repairs.

After what to my fellow passengers probably seemed like an eternity of back country roads after leaving the interstate the courtesy shuttle pulled into my driveway. Thrilled that I could now go inside get cleaned up, eat, and rest, I thanked the driver profusely with every intention of not looking back. However, there was this little nagging voice that said the people I was sharing the van with on that painful journey needed some acknowledgment.

“Hey,” I said politely the two after turning in my seat, “ I'm sorry this took you all so far out of your way, you guys have a good day.”

I'll give myself a point for trying to me a decent human being because my effort fell on totally deaf ears. Insurance dude was in a total daze, no he wasn't asleep, but had his eyes wide open and staring off into space. It was the kind of look men have when the daily shit they have to put up with gets so weird they mentally transport themselves to their personal and secret happy place. Paint suit lady broke away from her latest cell phone conversation to give me one of those hate-filled looks that suggested if she had a knife nearby my manhood would soon have resided in a zip lock bag inside her stylish pocketbook.
With my misplaced urge for human decency either ignore or rejected, I jumped out of the van and walked towards the front door of my house. I did catch of a glimpse of paint suit lady looking back my way as the van left my neighborhood. Till the day I die I will remember the cold, dead look in her eyes that would have easily put any supernaturally-inspired, insane killers portrayed in the movies to shame. At that moment I set aside my agnostic beliefs and said a small prayer for the driver and catatonic insurance dude.

Retrieving my car from the dealership later that afternoon was a breeze. My son came home from college for the weekend and after I bribed him and his girlfriend at that time with an offer to stop at local Mexican restaurant we loaded up, picked up my daughter from school and drove off into the metaphorical sunset while munching on chips and salsa.

Summer Storm

Saw this picture on the internet the other day and it reminded of a summer day during my childhood. Painting by Robert Henri (American; American Realism, The Eight, Ashcan School; 1865-1929): Storm Tide

 The neighborhood I spent a large part of childhood was first built in the late 1950's, probably out of a response to the growing affluence of white southerners brought on by businesses building new factories and relocating many from the northern states. They were all taking advantage of the relatively cheap labor that still paid wages far better than most Southerners had ever experienced.

For reasons I don't remember the neighborhood was named Kensington although I did hear a story once that the property was named for an antebellum plantation that existed at that location. I admit, when you consider that possibility that a working class housing development was built on land where slaves once lived and died is quite unnerving. At least to those of us who possess this curiously rare thing called a conscious.

Whatever the case, this neighborhood was located just a couple of miles outside the town limits of Georgetown, South Carolina. And it had what would today be considered the unusual features of having an elementary school and a couple of old fashioned mom-and-pop stores all within its boundaries. This allowed gangs of bicycle riding children a wide area to explore and play until the street lights came on forcing us all to rush back home for dinner. Today's carefully planned subdivisions all seem especially designed to make common chores require someone to get in a car and drive a short distance like dropping off the kids at school or buy a gallon of milk. That didn't mean self-contained communities like Kensington did not have some issues.

Sometime in the early 1970's there was a summer day where my mom pretty much issued the order that I go outside, find some friends, and play until the sun started to go down late in the afternoon. During this period she would have been taking care of the house and my two younger brothers, one barely a toddler and the other an infant. The last thing she needed would have been a bored six or seven year old bumping around the house all day.

So, I did what my mom said and started riding up and down the streets looking for some kids to hang out with until I could return home. I can't really speak for kids today with their in-home gaming systems and the tendency of parents to arrange most aspects of their children's lives, but once the kids in my neighborhood were let loose there was no telling where we would end up.

Surrounding the neighborhood were large sections of forested areas that were perfect for kids wanting to explore or play. These undeveloped parcels, being so near the coast, were quite swampy and inhabited with alligators, poisonous snakes, and even bears. The fact that I don't remember any of my fellow adventurers ending up as snacks for those wild inhabitants is a small miracle. Parents at that time just assumed that the kids would either stay away from the obviously dangerous areas or that they would think of some way to save themselves if they did stumble into trouble.

I don't remember the exact details of that day but I'm sure I spent a good deal of time in those woods playing soldier with the other kids whose moms had also kicked them out of the house. In one section located outside the neighborhood, there were unusual dirt mounds and, for the lack of a better word, trenches cut between those formations and we made full use them for cover and concealment while shooting each other with broken sticks we imagined were rifles. Before long all the shoot Em up bang-bang got boring and we kids would then ride off to some other location.

A few of us ended up at school with the intention of playing kickball in the softball field. This is where a kid's ability to ignore just about everything around then comes into play. It would be impossible to say how long when our hastily organized kickball game had gone on when one of us heard an adult voice scream a name of one of the kids in our group. We all turned and looked in the direction of that voice when we saw about ten adults quickly walking towards our location. At first all of us were puzzled but not concerned, none of us had done anything weird like destruction of property but when I saw the face of my mother in the crowd I instantly knew something had gone very wrong.

Long before the adults reached us, all the kids playing kickball began walking towards them all slightly wondering just what in the hell had we done wrong. Since the softball field was situated right against an east facing treeline of rather old and tall pine trees we didn't see the enormous change in the weather about to overtake the entire area of Georgetown. It was only when us kids stepped onto the neighborhood's main avenue that ran east-west did we see the clouds.

This wasn't a simple thunderstorm, which was quite common to the coastal area, but something far more menacing. I looked up towards the east and saw a massive and midnight black formation of clouds that was something straight from a nightmare. Those clouds seemed to be consuming the world and the brief but numerous flashes of lightning underneath them only made the scene more terrifying. Adding to the ominous sight about to overtake us all, it was at that moment the first clap of god-like thunder hit sending all of us quickly scurrying back to our homes.

Luckily, for my mom, her parents lived a couple of streets over and she was able to get my grandmother to walk over and watch my siblings while she joined the search for the missing kids. My mom and I got back to the house a couple of minutes after the squall line hit the neighborhood, yeah, we were both soaked. Except for the lightning, I thought the run back home through the rain was quite the fun experience. However, my mother totally failed in every possible way to think of the sudden change in weather as anything like fun.

Turns out a tropical storm had suddenly formed off the coast and began making a beeline for South Carolina. With our more advanced weather monitoring systems, I doubt such a system could form these days but one of my clearest memories was of old and respected Charleston weather guy, Charlie Hall scratching his gray hair and worriedly explaining what had happened and how the storm would affect the coast. It mostly went unsaid but at the time the memory of the near apocalyptic 1954 hurricane named Hazel was still on everyone's mind.

This tropical storm eventually passed us by leaving little in the way of damage. The next day it was business as usual for all the other kids and myself but the storm did spawn a good number of tall tales that lasted the rest of the summer.

Doug Tompkins--One of the best who will be sorely missed

 1943-2015

All of us lucky enough to draw a breath makes a mark on this planet and the people we encounter. For better or worse the overall impact of the average person is blunted because individually we simply don't have the vision or the resources to do more. To put it nicely, there is a line from one of my favorite songs that says a person, “fills his page of history, dreams his dreams then is gone.” Don't miss understand me, there is nothing wrong living a honorable and simple life taking care of friends and family. God knows human history is almost overwhelmed with individuals who were somehow able to achieve the deadly combinations of power and money leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake.

Humanity's one saving grace are those few individuals that for whatever reason use their money and power to try and preserve or enhance the existence of people and environments not directly connected to them. Unfortunately, many of these people slip by unnoticed to the general public leaving the impression that someone representing the better angels of our nature never existence at all.

I recently learned about the passing of one of those individuals who really didn't have to use his own fortune to work to preserve an area of the planet which he was not directly connected. His name was Doug Tompkins and I first learned of him watching the 2010 documentary, 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless.

Born in Ohio in 1943, Doug Tompkins moved west in the early 60's taking part in numerous rock climbing and ski racing event before he and his his wife at the time, Susie, in 1964 founded the outdoor company,The North Face. Later they founded, under the humblest of terms, another company by the name of Esprit. By 1978 sales from Esprit were topping over 100 million a year but concerns over the environmental impact of the fashion industry caused him to sell his share to his now ex-wife, Susie, and take up conservation projects in southern South America after moving to Chile.

Tompkins' first conservation project was Pumalin Park in the Palena Province of Chile consisting of an 800,000 acre region of the Valdivian temperate rain forest. From there he and others went on to purchase more land immediately turning these new parcels in national parks. Here's the rub, after becoming the largest private landowner on earth all these lands were first rehabilitated then turned over to the countries they were located. Tompkins other projects include developing sustainable agriculture techniques and promoting biodiversity.

He passed away on December 8 in southern Chile when heavy waves caused his kayak to capsize. After rescue he was flown to a hospital but eventually died of acute hypothermia.

What I find fascinating about the late Mr. Tompkins is that he kept his public presence extremely low key, even though had he actively sought the spotlight it might have drawn more attention to his environmental causes. When you take into the consideration all the medium-level rich publicity leeches and outright megalomaniacal millionaires and billionaires out to reshape the world in their narcissistic image, Mr. Tompkins' understated and unselfish efforts provides a welcome but brief renewal of hope for our species.

Jump over to the websites below to learn about his environmental efforts.

Tompkins Conservation

Conservacion Patagonia

 Check out 180 Degrees South on Netflix. It's a fantastic documentary.

 

Chasing the Ghost

The pounding rain of the tropical storm bouncing around the Gulf of Mexico like a hazy but powerful ball in a giant pinball machine had long since lulled me into a deep and restful sleep. During that time I have vague recollections of some amazingly vivid dreams that were always interrupted with the ringtone from my cell phone. During the blaring music, which in truth was designed to be irritating enough to wake someone out of a deep sleep, everything in my wonderful pseudo-reality would be thrown totally out of whack.

When the music stopped though, the dream pieces would reassemble and I would find myself in some other place and time. Only to have the music return and disrupt whatever wild adventure or intimate interlude I was having with some beautiful lady. Eventually my tortured subconscious mind gave up and kicked me out of dreamland, just in time for the cell phone to start freaking out again.

“Yeah,” I groggily said into the phone while nursing a child-like anger for having my threesome with two former Sports Illustrated cover models interrupted. “You've reached Samuel Archer, what can I do for you?”

“Sammy my friend,” the booming voice of Hector Belmontes said, “I need you to meet me at Lost Horizons as soon as you can either shake the cobwebs out of your head or break away from the woman you picked up here last night.”

“What woman...?” I said trying to make sense of his words until my brain rebooted. I soon remembered I had spent the better part of last evening smooth talking to a newly divorced lady, only to have her cruelly shoot me down. “Oh, yeah, you know Hector you can be a real dick sometimes. This better be about a job or I'll put my foot up your ass, of course only after I gain fifty pounds and can bench your weight.”

Hector thought my words were so funny I worried the guy might be having a heart attack from laughter. Hector was a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins for a couple of seasons back in the late 80's and still looked like a guy who could easily pinch off a regular guy's head from his neck with one of his thumbs and index fingers. “Listen Sam, just get down here before the city floods. This is good, easy money and I know you need every bit of help that comes your way.”

“Yeah, I'm on the way.” I said resigning myself to my dark financial reality.

During the time I spent rummaging around my spartan apartment for things like a clean pair of pants and my wallet I discovered it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon. At least that explained Hector picking the Lost Horizon instead of something sensible like the local IHOP or even Waffle House.

After making myself presentable, to my sorry standards, I stepped out of my apartment. The clouds from the annoying tropical storm had cast a seriously dark pall on the Tampa Bay area leaving the impression of that the world was about to end.

Luckily the drive to Lost Horizon was mostly uneventful. Putting it a better way, as I left the Bay Pines area of St. Petersburg heading towards the strip mall close to the Albert Whitted Airport where Lost Horizon was located, the area hadn't flooded to the point that sharks were cruising the streets. An event whose truth is a subject of intense debate by local residents but I saw one of the damn thing swim by me as I stood on the steps leading up my apartment during a previous storm. But then again, I had endured a meeting with my ex-wife hours earlier and was probably transferring my fear and anger to something other than an evil, supernatural being.

Lost Horizon sat between a tanning salon whose claim to fame was that some reality television star stopped by for an emergency session and a frozen yogurt store that seemed to be staffed with just one person. Every time I walked into Lost Horizon the same 40-something guy would be standing in the same exact spot next the counter with a blank expression on his face. Occasionally, I think about going inside to try and talk to the guy just to make sure that he is alive but in all honest he sort of scares me.

Despite its strip mall disadvantages, Lost Horizon does have an interesting feature, an outside tiki bar complete with a grass hut-like overhang that extends out far enough to shelter several patio tables. After parking my car, I ran up to the empty bar wondering where the hell Hector had gone. I sat at the bar alone for several minutes before the beautiful Gillian Altman decided to leave the warm and dry confines of the interior to take my order.

“What the hell do you want Archer,” she said in a clearly demeaning tone that reminded me of my lovely ex-wife. Gillian is a curious creature, she looks exactly like the actress from the famous television show, so much that when she started working at Lost Horizon most guys who frequented the place developed a crazy theory that she might be the Anderson-type researching a role. An allegation she denied so strongly that three guys who stupidly made a pass at her came back sporting various broken bones. Like the actress, Gillian Altman sports a shapely feminine body, but unlike her doppelganger she also possesses a temper along with enough muscle strength and fighting skill to emasculate the vast majority of men on the planet. The standing rumor now was that she was an ex-CIA agent living with a new face and fake identity while hiding from any number of enemies.

“Just a beer, please,” I responded meekly. “Any idea where Hector might be,” I also asked quickly instinctively lowering my body to partially hide behind the bar.

“He went out to get someone, told me to tell you sit and wait for him.” She said clearly annoyed before stepping back inside.

She returned so quickly with the beer that I almost wondered if she had poisoned the thing. But I shrugged off that idea because if she wanted me dead, her biggest concern would be how to dispose of my body.

Minutes ticked by as I sipped my beer and waited, the rain and occasional clap of thunder my only companions. During this alone time I pondered my relationship with Hector. See I repossess airplanes whose owners have, for whatever reason, failed to make the required payments. People like me don't wallow in the dirty reality show glamour like the chumps who repossess cars, our deadbeats are usually high-end types who wear suits and ties and have college degrees. Which often makes them far more difficult to track down and quite a bit more dangerous. I started tracking one pilot down in Mexico only to end up on an Alaskan island so far in the Bering sea that I could hear some punkass Russian talking on the radio as I flew the newly reacquired plane back to the lower forty-eight.

Because pilots like me are few and far between once you get involved in this racket you eventually develop a relationship with someone who acts as your agent. That turned out to be Hector, who I ran into as both of us were searching for a plane in Jamaica that the owner said had been stolen. He was tired of all the crap involved with the business but wanted to stay close and I was losing assignments because I couldn't juggle the paperwork and find the planes.

Just when I had begun to think Hector might have forgotten about me, a car suddenly pulls up close to the overhang allowing Hector and another guy quickly jump out. After going through the usual motions of introductions Hector, the new guy, and myself settle down to discuss business.

“Mr. Belmontes tells me that you're quite talented at repossessing aircraft.” The new guy said who Hector introduced as Mr. John Black. Right off the bat, Mr. Black had the smell of trouble. Dressed in a suit that looked stolen from one of the Men In Black movies, the guy also possessed such average characteristics of height, face, hair color, and build that if he suddenly walked away I definitely wouldn't recognize him upon his return. While Mr. Black said he worked for a simple aviation finance agency, he reeked of government or, more than likely, corporate espionage spook looking for some fool to do his dirty work.

“Yeah, I'm qualified to fly anything up to the high-end luxury jets, ” I said walking into this situation fully aware of the possible disaster it could end up. No, I'm not a complete fool, but if they guy was willing to pay my price I'm give it a go.

Mr. Black chuckled, “No, nothing that glamorous I'm afraid. I need you to repossess a simple Cessna Caravan seaplane whose owner owes the people I represent quite a bit of money.”

“Awesome,” I said, “I known Caravans like my ex-wife's inner thighs, just where is this bird?”

“Aren't you curious as to why my people are looking for someone like you to find this plane?” Mr. Black asked in a way that almost contorted his face to the point it had the hint of an expression.

“Look Mr. Black,” I said wanting to get past all the usual bullshit, “if you pay the amount I ask, I don't give a rat's rear end about the details. Hector can tell you I've dealt with Central American drug lords, guerrilla fighters, and totally sleazy exiled mafia types who just can't give up that last perk of their former power. You want this plane, all I need to know is the serial number on the engine block, the name of the deadbeat who has it, and his or her last location. The only questions is the price, and I'll be honest, if you've come to me I know you're desperate and that means my fees will be high.”

I guess Mr. Black liked my answer because he smiled, not like a normal human being would but in the way some undead zombie might after stumbling across a group of stupid teenagers in the woods at night. Now, I did get slightly concerned when I told Mr. Black how much I was going to charge him to find this plane and he just shrugged. His one condition was that I could not attract the attention of the press in any shape or fashion. It wasn't an uncommon consideration given the notoriety of some of the deadbeats so I agreed.

After that we all shook hands with Mr. Black giving me the folder holding all the information on the person who had the plane. I had just enough time to read the name of the deadbeat then to look up and see Hector and Mr. Black drive off in his car. Just as the car disappeared in the pouring rain I saw Black looking my way with a mysterious Cheshire cat smile on his face.

The person I had to find was one Singapore John Smalls, scientist, adventurer, inventor, and billionaire who by all accounts was supposed to have died ten years before. “Oh crap,” I said out loud to myself, “this is going to be fun.” 

End of part one