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August 12, 1989

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I was working in New Haven, Connecticut in 1989. In fact, I was working at the single best job I ever had. You see, back then I was trying to find a career. I had graduated college, and bounced around a few jobs. I had a book out, was teaching creative writing and writing copy for a magazine. The teaching was fun, but I hated the office job. My Dad was on the site in New Haven and he called me. “I need someone to work in the office here. The mayor wants a daily report of progress on the job.” He didn’t ask twice, but just a few months into it, things went sour for Dad and the mayor, and Dad left. The company kept me. A month after Dad left, I was offered a different position with the company that Dad up and left. They wanted me to be a fire watch on the second shift. I didn’t accept the demotion. I walked down the hall and got a job with the concrete company. Same job. Just changed hardhats and I stayed through the end of the job. Had a lot of fun as a 24-year old kid. Lived on my own....
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What if It Doesn’t Come Back

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If a Major League Baseball player sees his average dip to about .220 when he’s thirty-five years old, his fans will wonder if he’s washed up. The twenty-five year old guy doesn’t have to worry about such questions. For him, it’s just a slump that he’ll get over.  His abilities will come back. The 35-year old? There are questions. Thought of all this on Monday morning after playing golf on Sunday. My right arm was tight, and two fingers and a thumb were pins and needles. “That’s new,” I thought. I pinched the tendon at my elbow and the tingling eased a little. Feet to the floor, and my left knee buckled a little. “Fun.” Which, I know, “it’ll come back.” But I thought about it a little… …there will come a day when… …like the older player… …it won’t come back. My father-in-law loved to golf, and he was pretty good at it. He got a brand new driver at his retirement ceremony, and was really happy about it. He’s 89 years old now, and every once in a while he’ll ask me about my round. I c...
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Where We Are

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1). We still have no idea if Mitch McConnell is dead or alive. It’s fairly insane that in this day and age a man could stay hospitalized for more than a month, and still be paid as though he were still performing duties as a senator. There have been two photos put out as ‘proof of life’ but they are certainly fake photos.  It’s embarrassing. 2). We’re losing servicemen in Iran. The war that we ‘won’ more than 50 times because Iran doesn’t have a military left, is ongoing as drone attacks killed our soldiers. There appears to be no way out, and the war appears to be boring the administration. 3). The World Cup is over and Spain won it all. I didn’t watch any of it, but I was never into soccer. I did see the obese orange guy wandering around the stage like a bag lady as he tried to immerse himself into the victory celebration. After being roundly booed by the entire crowd. 4). The election garbage is absolutely disgusting. It’s pretty transparent that there is a movement afoot to eit...
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Top of the Tree

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We have a ravine behind our fenced in backyard. Every once in a while a deer or two will pop up back there, and hang out, and watch Ollie glide through the yard making leaping catches. I wonder what the deer are thinking. The trees that start in the ravine and hang out behind my fence are at least 60’ in the air. There are a half dozen of them back there, and when they start moving in the wind it’s a pretty awesome sight. Lately, I’ve been looking up at the largest tree in the pack. The very top of the tree. Started thinking about those trees and how much they’ve grown in the nearly 30 years we’ve been here. I couldn’t tell you the difference in how they look now as opposed to then, but I thought about us buying the home from an older couple, and their son, The father mentioned, ‘we raised our family here, and now you will too.’ And soon enough, someone else will live here, and gaze up in wonder to the very top of the tree. Those trees will stand up straight and proud after we are gone...
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Bad Santa

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My son was walking beside me when a young, black kid who works construction saw me and started laughing. “What’s going on?” I said to the kid. “Why are you laughing at me?” “‘Cause you’re a funny dude,” he said. “I was in your safety class, and you shocked me. I told the guy sitting next to me that you reminded me of Billy Bob as Bad Santa.” “That’s the perfect description,” another guy standing nearby said. “You’re there for a safety class, and he gives us the Bad Santa talk.” It was a high compliment, and as word got around, a lot of people seemed to agree that I have the old Billy Bob vibe when I speak. And here’s the thing: It’s a safety talk in front of a lot of grown men who have heard a review of the rules a lot of times. About 30 years ago, I was sitting in a safety class that was being taught by a highly entertaining speaker.  As that man spoke, (Bill Bord) I realized he was teaching us the same stuff but doing it in a way that I would remember for a long time. đź’ˇ time. “T...
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Bad Air & Explosive Diarrhea

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My son sent along a tale about a woman in Denver who ate the tainted produce and hit the head more than 40 times in a couple of hours as the explosive diarrhea hit her. Here in Western New York we are in a cloud of ash due to Canadian wild fires. The sun hasn’t been around much and it feels a bit like zombies are going to dance out of the cloudy skies and eat our brains. What made all of Thursday even worse was Pedo Pig was promoting the speech he scheduled for Thursday night. None of the networks felt like carrying it because it’s the same garbage. He won, Biden lost, Dumb has a ‘b’ and no one ever knew that. Of course I had zero interest in ever hearing anything he has to say unless it starts with: “It’s terminal.” I’m not a huge fan of social media as opposed to the life we used to live when you only dealt with the people in your life. Strangers were people you saw out there, hanging around, and if you didn’t make time, you never heard their opinions about anything. Now, I usually w...
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Looking in the Mirror

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I listened to Ossoff question Jay Clayton, as a job interview for a high appointment in the sham of a government that we now have. This was the question: “Who won the 2020 election?” A simple question.  Obviously, Joe Biden won by a large margin, and while the loser of that election refused to concede, promised mountains of evidence that it was ‘stolen’ and then could not provide a single instance showing that he was cheated. The failure to concede led to an insurrection that is an incredible embarrassment to the reputation of the country. Pathetic comes to mind. And Clayton couldn’t answer the question. He wouldn’t answer it, I should say, because while he knew the truth, he didn’t want to wind up on the bad side of the Pedophile Pig who is the Guiness Book of World Record holder for the most whining on every subject imaginable. This post isn’t about him. It’s about Clayton. How? Why? Are you freaking kidding me? Everyone who knows this man should be embarrassed for him. He’s a we...
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