One of Those Weeks

Last Friday about this time I was mentally preparing myself for the rough week that I knew was coming. It started Saturday with my wife and I driving separate cars up to Clemson University to bring our daughter home. The semester was over, she had passed all her exams and came away with a GPA well over 3.80. I was/am proud of her as any dad can be.

Once we arrived at the collection of Soviet-era looking building that pass as student dormitories, the crazy shit slammed into a giant high speed fan. Just imagine the night the Titanic got much too personal with a random iceberg and you have something approaching the craziness of several hundred upper middle class parents all struggling to load up their kids' crap and go home. Throw in way too many cars, trucks, SUVs, and even a couple of mid-sized U-haul moving vans in an area never meant to have a quarter of that number and you could begin to understand the confusion and frustration.

Strangely enough, everyone seemed in a friendly and lighthearted mood. No arguments or fights, just way too many people in an area that the campus authorities had setup with multiple barriers to impend anyone getting too close to the buildings. We're talking 9/11 era safety features to prevent anyone from driving hypothetical car bombs up to the buildings front entrances.

Luckily, my wife and I had arrived a little earlier than our scheduled pickup time, so getting our daughter's stuff loaded was actually not as bad as I feared. Just when we were pulling out the next wave of parents started flowing into dorm parking lot. Still though, the drive back down to Columbia was exhausting and I pretty much gave up on all activity the minute I walked back into the house and saw the living room couch.

The next day was yard work, and even with a nifty new John Deere riding lawnmower I still had to pull out the trusty push mower and the irritating weed whacker to tame smaller, overgrown areas. Where was my rising Clemson University sophomore daughter? She had skipped out with her two college friends for an early Sunday brunch leaving me high and dry. I didn't say much to her about abandoning good old dad because she really buckled down and studied for her exams.

But wait folks, there was still a good bit of flying shit for the rest of the week as well.

Back at my work, I took a buddy's on-call for this week because he was hurt. And it was a moderately bad week involving a great deal of hospital equipment and circumstances I never had to deal with before. That was just Monday morning and early afternoon. The real fun began around five o'clock in the afternoon.

As massive squall line of storms swept through my area and as I was trying to post something that day. Somewhere around four O'clock I heard what that I'd have to describe as a combination of a thick limb breaking and outright explosion. It happened after a massive and prolonged gust of wind that had me listening for the telltale sound of the proverbial locomotive plowing through my subdivision.

 

We totally lost one tree in the backyard with it falling over into the neighbor's backyard crushing the fence. Making matters worse, where that tree fell is the usual location of that guy's super fancy bass boat. Luckily, the neighbor moved his boat sometime before so I didn't have to deal with my insurance guy. But I did talk to the neighbor about going halves on the fence repair since he had attached his small segment of fence to mine without asking permission. No he said, they're broke but will gladly give us tons of moral support for our trouble.

In the front yard the old and brittle river birch growing right at the neighborhood intersection lost a lot of decent-sized limbs. Limbs big and numerous enough to completely stop traffic from coming in and going out of the neighborhood. While it was still raining I ran out into the street and cleaned up the fallen limbs tossing them in my front yard. Looking on the bright side of things, my wife has finally agreed to have that river birch removed. After every storm over the last several years, I had informed her that if one of the big limbs or even a part of the trunk had fallen into the street there was no way I could clear it. And Heaven forbid had a big limb or part of the trunk hit a car that was stopped at the intersection. 

 The tree guys are coming in a couple of days to give us an estimate for removal. We're talking a couple of thousand dollars, at least.

Given the situation at work on Monday and my impromptu tree cleaning that day I passed out the second my head hit the bed that night. The rest of the work week was quite busy with me breaking new records in the number of total steps each day. I still have to cover for my buddy this weekend and will not be off call until Monday morning. Here's hoping nothing weird happens as this week slowly dies.

The final icing on the cake this week was the dishwasher. Last Sunday it gave up the ghost, stopping in the middle of a cleaning cycle. The tiny LED screen on the door threw up an error message saying the drain pump was the issue.

No problem, a couple of YouTube videos later I have my head in the dishwasher cleaning the filter screen. Since that didn't solve anything the next item on the trouble shooting agenda had me giving it a mechanical colonoscopy around the impeller of the drain pump. Sure enough the impeller was frozen with me not finding anything causing the jam.

Enter the professional appliance technician who had to make three separate visits this week to fix the dishwasher each time. Third service call appears to have been the charm with the dishwasher purring along even now as I type out this less than glamours collection of verbal offal.

Yeah, washing dishes is literally one of those “First World Problems” privileged and spoiled Americans whine about but I've hated that chore all my life. So as I sit at the kitchen table reflecting on the past week I take solace in the idea that my entire family, wife, son, his girlfriend, and my daughter will be going to Disney World this December. It's still a long time away but thankfully 2021 seems to be flowing far smoother than 2020.

I just hope I get to hug Goofy. I'll probably cry if I do. It doesn't take much to make me happy at my current stage of life. 

 

 

***Just as I was preparing to post, the dishwasher shut down again and started displaying the same error code. Oh well, at least it's Friday night.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eleven Questions

 Lately my mind has been a gooey glob of unorganized sludge. Attempting anything creative has resulting in such a god-awful mess I have instead just vegetated on the couch watching Big Bang Theory whenever I can find it on television. 

When I have the desire and the creative energy to write something my daughter, wife, or the universe in general throws up some roadblock ending my pitiful efforts. 

Lime over at House of Lime responded to a meme and then created eleven questions for someone else to answer. Hoping this might jump start some sustainable mental activity I decided to give it a go. If any of my answers make any sense I would advise you to seek immediate mental health help.    


1.)I'm inventing a new yoga position inspired by you.  What does it look like and what shall I call it?

What does it look like? Two words say it all: couch potato. The ideal yoga position for the middle aged American male dead tired from both his night-shift job and trying to manage his ten-year old daughter so she keeps her mind on her homework. The couch potato is not for the yoga novice, for not only does it necessitate the practitioner to fall totally limp on said piece of furniture, it requires a total clearing of the mind reducing it to the level of your average jellyfish.

I liken it to resetting a tripped circuit breaker. The only trouble is that the length of time between exhausted and frustrated dad to functioning person seems to be increasing.     

2.)What is your quest?

My quest is a simple one. It is to escape the overly pleasant but spiritually dead suburban prison I find myself living. My destination once I break out is as equally uncomplicated; it is to find some refuge close to the ocean where I can live out my days free from yard work and obnoxious neighbors suffering from delusions of grandeur. My ideal location would be the southern island of New Zealand or the Tierra del Fuego archipelago off the southern tip of South America. Or in other words about as far away from the United States as possible to avoid the increasingly unavoidable psychotic breakdown most of the country seems Hell bent on having and still have a chance at home pizza delivery. Yes, they do have Dominos there, I have checked!

Possible alternatives include the southern coast of Australia, British Columbia, or Key West. On the last one I figure we could blow the Seven Mile Bridge and if needed ask Cuba for a few used gunboats and attack helicopters.     

3.)Ghengis Khan or Snooki?  Why?

Ghengis hands down, because I while do not blame Snooki I see her and nearly all other reality show celebrities not as people but as hideous and bizarre television viruses and how the decay of American culture mighty have reached the point where it is beyond saving. This country on a widespread level once believed in a higher form of cultural and intellectual life appreciating things like literature, art, music, and science. Hell, over the course of the last few years I have all the cable channels that once prided themselves on broadcasting thought provoking television have devolve into a gooey mass of mindless reality shows filled with strange creatures like Honey Boo Boo and her kin.

Yeah Ghengis was a bloodthirsty conquer who ravaged countless lands and people on his path to empire but I would still prefer to hang out with him than Snooki.   

 4.)What does the color turquoise smell like?

The first thing that comes to mind is a desert morning I guess, I’m not into those smelly, feel good scents. In fact, I once totaled up all the money my wife spent in a month on the semi-clever air-freshener devices corporate America has invented and then convinced the public they needed and came out with a sum that over the course of a year could have paid for a much-needed Disney cruise.

5.)I'm giving you butterscotch candies, cabbage, yak milk, and escargot.  What sort of tasty dish will you prepare for me?

That is easy, a large meat lovers pizza because I am tossing all that stuff in the trash and calling Dominos.

6.)If you wear garlic around your neck to keep vampires away, what should you wear to keep zombies away?

If anything gives me the willies it is not only the concept of undead zombies roaming the land searching to make the living a form of mammalian sushi but the amount of serious thought that seems to abound these days on how to deal with such an apocalypse. Being a fan of such discussions, not only at observing those who take it far too seriously like it might happen but as an cerebral exercise in survival. Yes, the distinction I have made between the two is very thin, almost microscopic in fact, but comes down to those who know a little on biological functions and those whose main source of science is Fox News, Glenn Beck, and their likes.  

First of all. I do not know of any substance that will ward off zombies like vampires. Almost by definition alone, zombies have no higher brain functions; see my thoughts on both Snooki. Fox News, and Honey Boo Boo above, but are unfortunate souls suffering from some sort of disease that has ended nearly all functions and processes we call carbon based life. This infection leaves them nothing but instinctive husks seeking to spread the contagion they contain in their decaying bodies.

Instead of pursuing some futile search for a substance that wards off zombies like PBS and NPR chases away my evangelical and conservative relatives the best course of action is instead to avoid the sad creatures but that requires an examination of the two main types of zombies.      

Slow zombies, those that in the movies and television shows amble about and whose chief threat to the living is their sheer numbers, seem to be drawn by sound. While survivors might want to gather together with their trusty Bushmaster and AK-47 assault weapons and carve out little fiefdoms free from the evils of a tyrannical federal government (long story but I am making fun of someone here) the noise generated by firing off numerous rifles will only draw more of the undead.

Unless some form of civilization is still functioning allowing for the creation and logistical maintenance of a real army the best way to clear the land of zombies will be simple and dangerous hand-to-hand combat with spears and swords. Never forget the basic rule of any zombie apocalypse, they only go down permanently when you destroy the brain.  

Recent movies have introduced the concept of a fast moving zombie who retains all its basis senses in some fashion. If you find yourself in that situation unless you and your fellow survivors have some secure fortress or easy access to a boat that will carry you far enough off shore to escape the deadish horde you are screwed, blued, and tattooed. One zombie website suggests that given the wear and tear on an undead body's tendons, muscles, and other parts of the fast moving zombie will wear out in about a month at most. It is a small comfort but then again this is all idle and fun speculation, right?

 7.)What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

What species? And on which world are you talking about because planetary gravity is an important factor. Said creature would almost certainly be faster on Mars but the lack of terrestrial atmosphere would require the creature to be wearing a pressure suit that would not interfere with the function of its wings. Then again a swallow wearing a pressure suit on Mars would probably use a jet pack requiring years of expensive development by the military industrial complex before the project ever blasted off for the Red Planet.

This bullshit is why we can’t have a decent space program.

  8.)Tell me a story involving a bathtub of macaroni, a red wagon, and a head of state.

This is a piece of American history few know about but George W. Bush had a strange fetish about taking baths in a tub filled with macaroni. In fact since George had always lived in the shadow of his father and suffered the indignities of being the dumber brother when compared to Jeb his one real enjoyment in life was soaking in a tub of warm pasta.

This obsession so consumed the forty-third president that when Dick Cheney withheld the delivery of ziti pasta to the White House he was able to force Bush into the invasion of Iraq. Because Bush feared that the news of his bathing habits might become known to the American public by classified executive order he had an elaborate red wagon built containing a huge bath tub and placed it on his Texas ranch.

With his presidency is long over George Bush can finally enjoy his bathroom time without fear. In fact, he has now developed an artistic side to this obsession and now paints himself semi-naked enjoying his alone time.

***Strangely, this last part is true.***

 9.) Invent a family game using a pile of lentils and a thimble.

I’ll just go with old fashioned hide and seek.

 10.)You may not use paint or wallpaper.  With what will you cover your walls?

Simple, I will neatly cut out the pictures of twenty years worth of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and paste them to my walls.

11.)When?

My schedule sucks the big one on a pretty regular basis now. We’ll just go with whenever.

A meme for my friend

Utah Savage has tagged me again with a meme that I found very interesting just for the fact I’ve never really thought about most of this stuff.

Where do I buy my clothes?

The simple answer to that would be from Target or Wal-Mart. Now I understand that both of the places I just mentioned are not kind to their employees and families; buy almost all of what they stock from overseas where it is made by what is close to slave labor, and have pushed many locally owned businesses into extinction. The main reasons I have to buy stuff from them are availability, cost, and size. The clothes I wear are fairly simple: t-shirts, cargo shorts, jeans, sneakers or my hippy sandals, and if it gets cold a sweat shirt or hoody. I can be found pretty much year round in those items and if I do have to dress up in a shirt and tie someone has either died or is getting married which for me is pretty much the same thing. The availability angle in this is that I can drive three miles in just about any direction and have to deal with traffic going into or out of those stores. The cost angle is while there are other stores in my area selling this stuff they get their stock under just about the same conditions and just charge the customer more. Simply put in this blood red section of an already very red state there just isn’t any union, environment, or international worker friendly stores. The final insult in all this is that I am six foot, five inches tall. While Dragonwife and I have hit consignment shops for clothes for her and the kids they just don’t have anything that fits me.

Where did my furniture come from?

First and foremost let me state that I own nothing in the house I live in except my camera, any pictures I have taken, my exploited worker made clothes, and my ACME lonely guy blow up doll (her name is Ashley). I sort of pride myself in thinking that if I ever had to unass this place on a moment’s notice if hordes of raging zombie Republicans ever declared martial law all I would have to do would be to grab my camera, backpack with a few clothes, and wipe down and deflate Ashley so I could be out and gone real quick. So I don’t really want to be saddled with a lot of material processions. But anyway Dragonwife has bought all the furniture in the house from any number of different stores and put the salespeople and delivery guys through utter Hell on any number of occasions.

One time it was about 1997 and Dragonwife decided that the couch she had bought after we had gotten married needed to be replaced. Now I must admit that when she came to this conclusion I was laying on said couch and the way she worded her statement at first along with the look in her eyes left a great deal of room about what she actually wanted to replace. I actually liked the couch having laid on it enough that it had long since been molded to the shape of my body. In addition, it was the site of the most sexually active period of our marriage having been both a cushion to rest on and a platform for our more adventurous positions. In fact in the first house our garage had been made into a den with three rather large window panels and door segment taking the place of the garage door. Late one night after some movie we had been watching had the male, female leads begin a rather physical discussion about the birds and the bees, we ourselves were moved to do the same thing. After our discussion came to a climatic conclusion we then noticed that we had left the blinds on those window panels and the door up giving any neighbors who happen to be having a late night stroll a rather good show on and next that couch. Therefore, I was rather reluctant to get rid of the thing just for the memories.

But we did eventually go to one of the local furniture stores with Dragonwife having the salesperson pull out all the big fabric samples books so she could decide which “style” we would get. At the time Darth Spoilboy was two and he and I just wandered over to the kid’s section which had a television and VCR showing Barney the Purple Dinosaur. While being a sort of torture in itself I at least had a happy kid in a stroller watching television and a very comfortable recliner for me. At this point I began judging time by how many times I had to put a new tape in the VCR with Spoilboy calling for “dada” after Barney sang that insidious “I love you, you love me…” song. It was a good thing that we had entered the furniture store late in the afternoon since I had to rewind the two different Barney tapes twice and we were suppose to have dinner at a nearby restaurant once the new couch was ordered. Looking over at Dragonwife and the saleslady at the beginning both were deep in conversation about the various fabrics and shapes of couches that could be ordered. At the end the prim and courteous saleslady had devolved to a tired, ruffled mess who looked up at me with a clear desperate plea in her eyes for some relief. I’m sure from all the fabric sample books scattered across the showroom floor that in the two hours I had napped while Spoilboy had watched Barney every possible combination of color, shape, and texture for couches had been explored twice at least. Dragonwife, approaching something close to rapture, showed me a fabric sample close to hunter green and that would be used to cover a particular type of couch that to my plebeian style looked just like all the other ones but the differences were enough to come back and haunt me.

Several weeks later a delivery truck backed up to the door to bring us the new couch. I was the only one home and since it looked for all the world like the proper color I thanked the guys as they brought it in the house. Dragonwife came home a few hours later and quickly entered an unqualified state of panic bringing the fabric sample out saying the couch was the wrong color. After being thoroughly censured for accepting such a flawed product she called the store and had the couch picked back up that day. A couple of months later another couch was delivered but Dragonwife was at the house to intercept any errors and sure enough to her the color wasn’t right. Furious phone calls resulted to both store and the district office by Dragonwife as the delivery guys and I sipped cokes outside, but they brought her no sympathy. After taking the old couch they brought the new couch in and she signed for it even though she swore up and down that it was the wrong color. Needless to say to my untrained eye I saw no difference between the fabric sample and the new couch. I soon learned that the unpleasant experience she had with the whole ordering process along with small but for significant differences in the length, width, height, and bounciness of the new couch spoiled the physical fun we use to have in the den. So in a way I blame an off color fabric sample for a large part of any marital problems I have but Ashley doesn’t seem to mind.

Where do I live? You will have to deal with where I live in my mind and want to return in body.

For many people South Carolina is the butt of many jokes about the South and Southerners. Yes, with an education system that lets far too many kids leave school without the basics for life in the 21^st century we do spend a god awful lot of time fighting over stupid stuff like a Confederate flag on the state house grounds. Not that I support the people wanting to keep it there who ignore the basic history of that flag which is hopelessly tangled with the institution of slavery then the tyranny after the end of the Civil War. It’s just I'd rather solve more important problems that affect us right now.

With that I have to admit there is no place in the world that I feel more connected to than the coast of South Carolina. The smell of the marsh at low tide, listening to the surf as it competes with an evening thunderstorm in a dueling symphony, the feel and taste of the ocean as I surf or play with my kids in the waves, and watching an osprey fly in the evening as the sunsets. For all its faults that is place I take comfort in during the bad times, that magnify my joy during the good times, and the place I come back home to every time I get the chance.

Favorite Books? I’ll list just two.

My favorites range far and wide being very different from each other. “Beach Music” by Pat Conroy brought to me a fascination with the city of Rome that I hope to visit before I die. As the book progresses though the novel returns the main character back to the Lowcountry of South Carolina in a series of events that can find its roots in the horrors of the Holocaust during World War Two. Out of all the characters I have ever read about the tragic story of his wife Shyla touched me to a point that I feel an actual pain reading about her suicide every time I pick the book up.

The only novel I know of by Carl Sagan, “Contact” brought the wonder of the universe to me and shaped to a great deal my belief that the universe is far stranger than we can fathom and full of unexpected surprises for our species if only we could abandon our ridiculous preoccupations with war and domination.

Favorite Movies?

The Lord of the Rings trilogy- for the human struggle to overcome the worst aspects of ourselves and the acknowledgment that despite our flaws that we do have the capacity to move beyond them.

Favorite Music?

Are you kidding me? Jimmy Buffett. But I do also dig all beach music, John Denver, Tom T. Hall, Charlie Rich, Charlie Pride, George Jones, and just about anything that makes me completely uncool to anyone younger than thirty.

Favorite Television Show?

Good damn question since while I really don’t have one I do like several. Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, Lost, and probably a few others I can’t think of right now.

Who gets hit?

Colonel Colonel

Mike at Tongue in Check

Zombieslayer

Lime

Keshi at Viva Forever

Now for something completely different

As the good Palin from "Monty Python's Flying Circus" might say: Now for something completely different. Utah Savage has tagged me with a simple meme that I am far more than just happy to participate in since it takes my feeble mind off the ever encroaching minions of fascism that have burrowed their way into the land of the free. If I get too wordy and long winded please forgive.

Where was I ten years ago?

Well give or take a week I was actually serving my country, unlike many politicians who revel in “public service” but never do without clean sheets or ironed shirts and silk ties, in the National Guard. If I remember correctly the maintenance battalion I was serving in at the time was on a weekend field training exercise. I was inside a GP (General Purpose) medium tent that more than likely was old during the Kennedy Administration with the rest of my commo section discussing things soldiers talked about I’m sure for decades while we trouble shot and repaired radios and other communication equipment from about the same era. Thinking back now that was a curious and odd time when many ran about worrying over the possible fall of the Republic over the moral turpitude of an egotistical president. While some may claim that he engaged the armed forces in military conflict to provide cover for oral activities while the Secret Service provided concealment he at least had the good graces to not bankrupt the country or get thousands killed. Maybe if the “Current Occupant “ had engaged in such activities he would have been more laid back and not took up torture and violation of civil liberties as hobbies.

The weekend field exercise had us leaving the armory before sunrise to setup the battalion headquarters in a pasture next to the Air National Guard base across town. After several hours of running around in a more chaotic fashion than an army might want to admit the unit got down to the business of practicing it’s various missions. The day progressed to the point that after evening chow everyone was winding down and settling in for the evening knowing the reverse of what we did that day would have to be done more quickly the next morning. The pasture the battalion had setup in was close enough to the main part of the Air National Guard base to have electrical hookups so we had no cantankerous and loud army generators disturbing the peaceful night. The night was cool with a steady breeze that didn’t allow the nasty mosquitoes and gnats from getting a blood sucking foothold on anyone. No moon was out and we sat under a huge veil of stars that didn’t have to compete with city and suburban lights. The stars seemed to be enforcing a silence on the entire battalion that no sergeant or officer could ever implement. Everyone spoke in whispers seemly fearful of breaking the stillness. That still didn’t stop small groups, in this case the commo section I was in, from gathering around outside and passing time by just sharing idle conversation.

My section was a curious collection of different types of people. The acting section sergeant, Pete, was a state accountant whose wife knew my wife and hated the Guard about the same as my wife. Pete’s dilemma was that he had married far later in life and had far more invested in the Guard in the form of retirement points than I did. Retirement points are earned for each drill weekend a soldier completes which are added to other points a soldier might earn for active service, rank, and several other factors leading to the amount of money they get once they hang up the uniform. His overall plan had him staying in the Guard for at least seven more years to reach the number of points that would allow him to retire comfortably. Given how he talked about his marriage struggles it was a serious question of whether he would be married at that time. Another fellow owned a business selling and servicing pagers in a time when cell phones were finally evolving into something less than clumsy bricks. The one woman in our section was a proto-Coulter type that seemed very bothered over Disney’s overt sexuality expressed in the animated version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Another guy was an ambitious criminology major hoping to make his way to the FBI or DEA but at that moment was working as a rent-a-cop. The final guy was a Persian Gulf veteran who served with the 101^st Airborne and until a few months before that drill was sure that I was an undercover agent for the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division since he thought I was far too quiet and “clean cut”. Out of all the people in my section with their own collection of troubles and issues he was the exception. “Sam” had left the service and promptly flunked out of college and had held a series of low paying jobs. That is until he met a young lady at some college party he crashed. As crazy luck would have it that girl fell head over heels in love with Sam along with her father who owned both a construction and real estate company down around Hilton Head, needless to say the guy was filthy rich. Sam was at that time learning the ropes of his future father-in-law’s business during the week down on the coast then on the weekends Sam and his fiancée were staying in her father’s yacht. That is when Uncle Sammy wasn’t making him drive back up to Columbia to do his weekend drills. (As a side note Sam had me over to the yacht for beers one weekend when Dragonwife and I were down at Hilton Head seeing her folks.)

We talked for hours over many subjects without discussing anything of lasting value. One by one my section mates peeled off and found their cot and fartsack leaving me outside alone. Me? I was so entranced by the stars, planets and other aspects of the cosmos seemly on display for me that night I grabbed my fartsack and slept on the back of some humvee. Give or take a week that was what I was doing ten years ago.

What was on my to do list today?

Miss Wiggles and I spent the morning making pancakes and watching Spongebob Squarepants. Later we went to the zoo as is usual for us and walked around checking out all the animals. Miss Wiggles who had brought a bag of peanut M&M’s almost gave some to one of the zoo’s meerkats that honestly seemed very eager to try them out. Once I stopped her by taking the candy away the three meerkats standing upright just on the other side of the barrier that separated us seemed rather upset. We then went back to the state museum and browsed various aspects of South Carolina history. No, I will not put anyone through any more pictures from those places right now.

What would I do if I was a billionaire?

After winning the lottery, which is the only way I could ever be a billionaire, I would more than likely give my wife half of it, whether I wanted to or not, just to keep her quiet. Yes, I would quit my job and then travel down to Pawleys Island and purchase a ramshackle beach house that sits on the mainland side right on the marsh. That particular house was constructed in the late 60’s and has a huge screened-in porch facing the marsh. It has survived all the hurricanes since then even though it has required extensive repairs at various times. My brother has rented the place several times and it holds for me a sense of honest style and originality that many of the newer houses built very nearby do not. Many of the newer houses have huge plate glass windows facing the marsh, or for those on the island facing the ocean, which I find outright bizarre. Once I was settled in I can imagine myself doing a 21^st century imitation of the late and very great Mickey Spillane. There are several levels to what I just wrote that you will have to ask me what that means.

Five places I’ve lived.

Fort Smith, Arkansas: For some reason I can’t figure out my mother moved us there after one of my parent’s multiple breakups. We have no family there and she had no friends there when we arrived that could help her. One of the many mysteries of my late mother carried to the grave that will never be answered.

Fort Carson, Colorado: Great place in the summer but if I never see the place again in the winter it will be too soon.

Lawton, Oklahoma: Intense craziness and confusion being the norm in my parent's relationship they tried to reunite again for the fourth or fifth time after my dad took a job with a construction company in Wichita Falls, Texas. My mom loaded us up again in her tired Chevrolet Caprice and drove us out to Texas to meet dad. At some point just several months later, but I don't have a clue when, she had her boyfriend ride out west and met him in Lawton, Oklahoma which was about a hour drive from Wichita Falls. By the time the circuit breaker in mom's head tripped again and she loaded my siblings and me to go stay with him her boyfriend had already found a job and had an apartment. While my mom and her boyfriend were nuts I found the people in Lawton friendly and caring. So much that the sheriff literally rode him out of town on a rail after they had a drunken fit in the apartment one night. We, my mother, siblings and I, in turn made our way back to Georgetown, South Carolina and my grandparents.

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina: Back when we lived there it was a honest piece of heaven on earth. While if I don’t look too closely at the development that has come to the place I can almost still feel the spirit of that little hamlet that sheltered my young soul for a time.

Munster, Germany: While on a REFORGER in 1987 my air defense battery bivouacked in a field that some German farmer had just expelled the contents of a honey pot nearby making our lives a smelly hell. After about a week though we got use to it and didn’t think anymore of it even though he sprayed the nearby field several more times. As our month in that field drew to a close and the actually war games was about to begin the First Sergeant noticed a line of soldiers next a white BMW that was parked across the road. Noticing one of his young troops coming back after spending some time at the back door of the vehicle with a huge grin on his face alerted the senior NCO that something wasn’t right. The First Sergeant being a veteran of several tours of duty in good old Deutschland went running across the field to that car chasing away the troops lined up and the drop dead gorgeous blond that had setup her business in the backseat. If you can’t figure what I’m writing about email me and I’ll tell you. This is a semi-family friendly site.

Bad habits? Far too many to list.

Now who will I tag? Well, here goes:

Lime

Zombieslayer

Mike

Colonel and

Hillblogger