Thoughts of a Common Man

It’s a little weird around here, as Kathy continues to recover, and I had my little bout of whatever the hell got me yesterday. “You should try eating dry toast, or rice, something bland,” Nurse Kathy said. “Nah, I’m going pasta,” I said, “It’s never failed me.” “You’re an idiot,” she said. “Wrote a whole book about it.” And there was a knock at the door. Sam responded, and said:  “She wants to speak to the home owner.” I headed to the door, and a peppy young girl asked me if it was a good time to talk. “Depends what we’re talking about,” I said. She asked me if I’ve enjoyed paying my electric bill lately, and asked if I ever considered adding solar panels. I knew that she was wasting her time with me. I’m not adding solar panels, but I listened and spoke nicely. She finished it all up in about ten minutes, and promised to email me more information. “Great. Have a nice day,” I said. When I returned to the family area Kathy and Sam were having a conversation about I’m a nice guy bec...

Spent the entire day out in the hot sun and it was a long day. Got home and scrambled to make dinner, and play with Ollie, and help the wife. Nothing major for dinner - fresh corn and an assorted sandwich with what I thought were fresh cold cuts. By 7:00 I threw the ball for Ollie again, and then all hell broke loose! Between 7:00 and about 7:50, I threw up no less than 15 times. Absolutely wildest fifty minutes of my life…and I had a passing thought about ‘this is how it ends.’ I could hear Kathy telling people at the funeral breakfast that I was fine one minute and then gone. As it was going on, I was hoping that there would be a funeral because I wanted it to stop one way or another! So, what was it? Food poisoning? Heat stress? I know the signs of heat stress. I talk about it on every job, and I’m good about making sure that I’m hydrated. But…it doesn’t take much to throw the body out of kilter. Now, on the food poisoning angle - it was cold cuts, with lettuce and tomato. Yet, it w...

When I opened my phone on Sunday morning, the death of Lindsey Graham was the first post I saw. I felt absolutely nothing. Graham embarrassed himself at the end of his days by being a brown nose for King Pedo. Look back at what Graham said about Pedo back in 2016. He knew exactly who Don Snorleone was. He said that if he won the election we would be ruined and we would deserve it. True. Thing is, at the start of the first term, Graham was invited to golf with Shitler. Following the round, there wasn’t anything that Graham disagreed with when it came to Mr. Cognitive Test. After January 6th, Graham stood on the floor of the senate and explained that ‘it’s gone too far.’ He said that he was ‘out’. The next day, he was ‘in’. An empty suit. If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything. He was an embarrassment. I waited all day Sunday for Mitch McConnell to send his sympathies, but he hasn’t said anything in about a month. But I wasn’t gloating. Graham died at 71 years old. A sudden d...

We watched the 1999 movie, ‘Hurricane’ starring Denzel - who is in the top five of my favorite actors. It’s a well-known story about the boxer, Ruben Carter, who was jailed for a triple-murder he didn’t commit.  Bob Dylan wrote an epic song about it. Anyway, the movie was great too, and towards the end, Denzel speaks about laws and justice, and upholding truths. My heart sunk because we are currently operating outside of those principles. It’s sad. For instance, Mitch McConnell has been incapacitated for quite some time, and may in fact, be dead. Those in power are hiding the fact so that his seat in the senate remains with the GOP. The president is making statements meant to manipulate stock prices as he makes trades to enrich himself and his family. Billions of dollars. Lawless. And I don’t know if I will ever see the pendulum swing back to where honor and justice and integrity become something we strive for. I’ve spoken on the new Stones record. There’s a song called ‘Ringing Ho...

We had a half-hour to kill before the show we wanted to watch came on. “There’s Cops,” Kathy said. Enough said.  I put it on, knowing full well why I liked watching it… …because it’s an absolute nightmare! The first guy was a felon who was caught trying to break into a condemned home. He had a large knife. “I knocked on the door because my Dad used to live here, but he didn’t answer. As I was walking away I saw this knife, and I figured I would take it down to the police station and turn it in so a kid didn’t find it and hurt themselves.” I spit my drink. “Not sure they’re buying it,” Kathy said. The guy tried three or four variations of the story and then couldn’t believe it when they cuffed him. The next one was even better. “We have a domestic fight that turned physical.” I was thinking a husband and wife got into it and it turned into a mess. When they arrived on scene there was an obese, shirtless, bearded, tattooed man seated on a red couch in the center of his front lawn. “W...

Back in the 1970’s, my brother John was a Beatles fan, and my buddy Tom was a huge fan of The Who. From the moment, I first heard ‘Tumbling Dice’, I was hooked on The Rolling Stones. By the late 70’s, I had ‘Some Girls’ on repeat, and I pestered my Mom about going to see The Stones at Rich Stadium. “No!” The Stones had the reputation of being bad boys who were hooked on drugs. Mick was weird. Keith was a mess. And I was hooked.  ‘Tattoo You’ and ‘Emotional Rescue’ came out and I absolutely wore those records out, while also going back to their other records. Moonlight Mile might be my all-time favorite song. I finally saw them perform live in 1981. They opened with ‘Under My Thumb’ and when I close my eyes, 45 years later, I can see Mick singing ‘Tunbling Dice’. My college buddies, Rosie and Terry were also huge Stones fans and I had a ‘Glimmer Twin’ tee-shirt somewhere with ‘Keith’ on the back. Rosie was ‘Mick’. I saw the Stones 3 more times after that 1981 show and they were alwa...