kindred signals

every once and again i get nostalgic, and usually it's a zeitgeist that sets in and won't let go. it's a good one. about 20 yrs ago, during college, i got my ham radio license. as an engineer and lifetime signal junkie the technical aspects are a natural draw, but i also thought it would provide a way to be social for once.

first rig was a military surplus deal that, well, was more of a toy than an means to an end. it could pick up nearby cordless phones, the highway patrol dispatch, state prison guard HQ and once a couple of kids running around with walkie talkies. only contact was with a historic aircraft, fittingly.

but the summer after getting my license i broke down and got a handie-talkie that covers the much more popular "two-meter" (VHF) band, and before long i had an antenna up and made my first contact.

it didn't take long to figure out who's who. most of the regulars are friendly, some a bit overbearing but all well-meaning. as in real life the best conversations are off the beaten path, such as the older dudes in the next county that let me join in, or the whiz kid up north who has the top class license already.

still, the introvert in me can spend hours just listening. radio has a magic like nothing else, and sooner or later other towns drift in, especially in the warmer months, and distant civilizations are as close as the desk. and even though all the regional hubs had busy repeaters, none seemed to glow in the night like detroit.

easily the biggest metro within "drift" range, the scene was always alive, something i got to confirm about 10 yrs later when i lived up that way. one machine in particular would bleed into one of my scan channels for a nearby repeater, and more often than not i'd listen. besides, with only five watts back then i had little choice.

some nights the 147.140 frequency sounded like a professional call in show. one an off-duty police officer was fielding questions and had to push back one about a particular case that wasn't appropriate for amateur radio. then later on this gal with a smooth, heavenly voice had an "insomniacs net", and i was intrigued when she mentioned she has grandkids.

eventually i upgraded my license and explored a lower frequency band that, like CB, skips about the hemisphere every 500 miles or so when it wants to. there was still a morse code test back then and so for the first year the mic stayed in a drawer. eventually i made a few contacts and still have the cards, but again, it can be fun to just listen, especially on those nights when the band stays awake longer than i do.

so now i have full privileges and a decent radio setup, have talked to several continents over the years...

so why the nostalgia? got to thinking how in the college years we strive for something bigger than what we have and we don't know what we don't know. and for a radio geek, well, studying sometimes has to wait.

it's blissful quixotism.

and maybe...as it's often tempting to take life too seriously, i need some of that now more than ever.

suddenly and without reason

more things i needed to know 25 years ago

Pain is only temporary.

Learn what intuition means.

There's a reason why Led Zeppelin got you through the fall of your freshman year.

Everything takes practice.

Idealism is a young man's game.

Emotions matter.

There are as many things to cherish as there are things to take for granted.

There is always hope.

If you can stop and laugh at stupid shit you're doing OK.

Women enjoy sex a LOT more than they let on.

things i needed to know 25 years ago

If you can't look into someone's eyes, or vice versa, find out why.

People usually mean well even when their words don't have the intended effect.

There's
a man in every boy,
a woman in every girl,
a boy in every man,
a girl in every woman,
and everything in between,
just as sure
as love and hate
are two sides of a coin.

If you fear, you won't.

Some things you still won't understand 25 years from now.

A lady won't expect you to know everything but she'll teach you well if you get next to her. Often. And pay attention.

Basketball is cool.

Don't do stupid things.

mikeyism

Newsweek and Time herald it as "definitely something", this whatever it is, this, non-creedal boon of a tidy mind and quiet soul, available in convenient sizes, now without prescription, the very progenitor, an anti-hero most peculiar, the sheer, quivering membrane barring pseudo-intellectual from idiot savant, a Mickey's grenade with the pin pulled, hisses but never pops, all the while despised by some and disgusted by others, an equal opportunity offender, comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, to Machiavelli, some ask, could it be, suggestion, or sedition, who knows, it sure is fun while it lasts! O the thinkers, rulers, esteemed heads of state, how they all plead his audience, but yea, he will have none of it. Why? Because. Because why? Because, he finds no delight WHATSOEVER in those who entertain the musings of a Midwestern rube.

Afternoons with Doctor Dave

January 26, 1970

“We can expect snow to continue throughout the evening until way past your bedtime, but fear not, someone will be here to keep you company, in fact, we’re always here at WEXL Detroit.”

The view along Straub Boulevard is nothing spectacular but it’s easy, especially with snow trickling into soft glowing funnels beneath the street lights.

“In fact, I’ll be with you for another hour. In case we haven’t met I’m Dave, Dr. Dave Inman. The science freaks in the Channel Five weather room have advised us that snow showers will be heavy at times during the overnight hours, so you third-shifters and other nocturnals be the wiser. Overnight low is 23 and expect the flakes to back off around mid-morning tomorrow with about four inches to show for it. We may reach the freezing mark in late afternoon but 30 is a safe bet depending upon cloud cover. Winds are expected to be fairly calm until the front moves through then picking up, could cause some localized drifting in outlying areas. Well it may not be windy here yet but after a slew of important messages we’ll head to the windy city, got the brand new Chicago - that’s it, they’re just Chicago now, ready to roll, after these.”

Dave keeps both eyes out the window as he fades the mic and cues the ads, only looking away to take a hit off his chicory. Such serenity in the midst of this mad gone town. Chicory is not so warm anymore, maybe he should hire a maid, fat chance, all jocks work alone in this gig. FM is self-sustaining, so the suits say, only AM gets an engineer, besides, don’t you hippy types dig freedom wink-wink?

“Now in stores everywhere, pick yours up, tell ‘em the Doctor prescribes it exclusively on FM 98, here’s your first dose, we’re doin’ side three boys and girls, only on WEXL.”

As the organ grinds he tries to justify the dilemma, having really wanted to highlight “25 or 6 to 4” in the middle of that side but the view out the window is just too damn peaceful for making things complicated. Besides people seem to dig what we do here, ratings are usually single-digits since we went progressive, as we say, so the suits are happy and so we don’t rock the boat, just the town. Man what a trip, here it’s pretty much like college radio except with a paycheck. No more stuffing plump housewives’ feet into shoes at the mall for beer money.

The needle makes its way to the inside gutter and he pulls the mic into place, “That was the very latest from Chicago, now without the Transit Authority, they got told people, read your paper, while you’re reaching for it here’s even more news:  Mick, yes, that Mick, was levied a fine by UK authorities today for possession of cannabis.  People, take it from a Doctor, for it is written, the Eleventh Commandment, hear my words, sayeth, don’t get caught. Well since we’re already across the pond for a free lecture here’s Pink Floyd on WEXL.”

Doctor Dave does afternoons, 2-6, and gets a discretionary weekend slot which amounts to a theme show on Saturday mornings. Listeners write in (our phone doesn’t work, you illiterate slobs) suggested themes and tracks and they’re drawn on Friday afternoon by a different guest, usually an on-air personality, even from the TV station, although a couple times he got to have a performer stop by for the honor.  He tries to keep it mostly music but sharing the right kinda chutzpah with a local legend can go places you’d never dream.

He finishes out the night with Janis and then some southern group the boss asked him to do something with. It was bluesy but not elegant, not at all, but maybe we’ve been spoiled by Duane and Greg. Yeah, that’s it.

The new evening dude goes by Buzz Eldridge and it’s too hard to keep straight from that moon astronaut.

"What's the buzz, Buzz, hows them streets?"

“Uhh, don’t remember. How’d I get here?”

“I would imagine that you slid out of your mother’s hoochamawatcha.”

“And it was slippery as hell too. Be careful driving in that shit.”

“Hey man, this is the Motor City, which is precisely why I take a bus.”

“Dig.”

Tall and lurching with dark hair down to his collar and a week’s beard, Dave strolls up Straub and takes a right for a few blocks, mindlessly taking in the gentle snow amidst a surprisingly un-busy downtown grid. No use waiting for the bus, almost there, and eventually he reaches a third floor flat with an unlocked door. He watches the news and half a game show and then gets up to peek out the window for a fleeting moment, he smells supper cooking in a nearby unit, and the couple upstairs is having a heated discussion about the toothpaste. Eventually he wanders into the kitchen to fetch a Michelob and a sandwich, only to realize that this is most definitely not his apartment.

The Plight of Mann

Mann sat on a huge granite boulder near the shoreline, anxiously perplexed as he pondered his future. Sure he had built great cities, helped them find sustainable means of nourishment and even saved entire civilizations from catastrophe at times. But just as there had come a point where he was starting to need something...more...is when she first appeared.

Having been consumed with various efforts of her own nearly halfway around the world, Hella had finally made it into Mann's eyesight one day when, once her own people were at peace she became curious what was beyond the horizon and started swimming. She is simply incredible, bronzed by the sun from years of hard toiling yet fair as ten thousand virgins. He knew right away that he would never look at life the same way again, for he daughters of mortals were simply too fragile. He would hurt them.

But Hella, her presence, how it threatened to change the game. They had exchanged yet a few awkward phrases, seeming to point out the obvious, yet they could hardly look each other in the eye. Oh how she made him ache.

Time passed and he saw her not, until one day the people cried out for help, and out of nowhere she appeared and lent a hand, just when all hope was about lost, their efforts multiplied way beyond what each could do alone.

As they walked by the shoreline sharing their amazement at this she took his hand and confessed, of her longings that kept her from resting. And so Mann and Hella became one, and the people rejoiced! After a time, they had a son.

They named him: Ache.

love, beauty and sacrament

sunrise 

over misty tree-covered hills

a lone slide guitar 

played on the porch

stories and laughter

binding generations

last year’s shucked beans

taters and ham

horseshoes in the yard

home sweet home

nearer my god to thee

this land

is my land

sadder day

there’s no sadder day

than a saturday

just don’t know what

i’m gonna do with myself

‘specially when i can’t get hold of you

traffic on these city streets

pounds though my veins

never lets me rest

even as i sleep

takes me to a place inside

myself i’ve never been

from drivin way too long without the lights on

home

I've often said that I've been blessed beyond measure to be born late and still have both parents around for this long. As a newcomer into our family dynamic, with siblings in their teens, I was half a generation behind. It was the era of Nixon's Law and Order, where many Americans approaching their middle years felt out of touch with changing society. Before I started school my folks felt it best to move out into the country where it seems safer, more serene. I moved out at age 25 and then briefly again at 39 to get re-established in Ohio, but they are still there.

It's true, you can never (literally) go "back home" as it's a place that exists within. But for many years I could visit the surroundings and my folks, not perfect, just wonderful. At times I would have moments of acceptance as they age, that someday things would change, whatever that meant.

Just as I was returning from out of state things seemed to be happening rapidly. Dad seemed to be increasingly off-kilter in his decisions and behavior. Mom was understandably aggravated. For my part the anger hit first, and at one moment I actually shouted at him. We needed answers, so we took him to doctors over the winter and confirmed our suspicions. Alzheimer's.

This was a year ago, about the time I had a job offer at an office over an hour away. Mom said "you need to do this, we'll be just fine" and I knew she was right. Still, since then I don't think I've been able to spend more than 24 hours at a time in my hometown.

Last summer I finally had the means to digitize Dad's old home movies and videos. The former covered mainly the stuff I missed, the home I was born into but without really knowing first-hand. The latter began when I was in high school and continued for about ten years.

With the videos, it's easy at first to dismiss the seemingly endless footage of the yard, garden, flowers, and whatever else catches his eye, especially once he retired, since the stuff we tend to watch together are holidays and cookouts and such. But then, as I kept fumbling with the technology I noticed more of the "B" footage, and some of it, says more than I would have imagined.

Dad somehow captured the serenity, the essence, of what I knew as home. We were fortunate, the bills were paid, the pension was coming in and after retirement he got to spend his days doing "garage" projects in the winter and gardening in the warm months, things were so green and lush back then. When the fancy struck he would pick up the camcorder and wander about the yard, narrating at times, but not always. Sometimes you see a snow storm through the windows and can hear the goings on inside the house.

In a way, maybe it's a window into the soul of a man who's hard to read. But having been away a few years and realizing his strength was fading, it's hard to know what to think of that. These scenes are something I'll need to go back to for the rest of my life. It's a window to a special place, a place to which I never can return, but alas, I get to visit at times, precious times, the places, sounds and sights that made me and shaped me.

My earliest memories include weekend afternoon drives with Dad. I still love taking drives in the winter when daylight is scarce. Sometime during my kindergarten year I had a dream of one of those drives. We saw the gas fires at the refinery, maybe sit a few minutes watching planes at the airfield, places of wonder in a world that seemed enormous at the time. I would ask what things were and he would explain in a few words. There didn't need to be many words. Sometimes we'd go to the mall and Arby's. We explored the world around us. That was just right.

But in the dream, my minds eye floated out of the car and I was somehow watching it on a home movie screen, and suddenly an evening sunset cast shadows of our heads onto a colorless floor. Something within my tiny soul ached and I tried to reach for the shadows before they disappeared. But instead, I awoke.

Home is not a memory. It really is a place, more than just a zeitgeist, it lives as a coral reef, and life-enabling to the creatures that rely upon it.

So now, my concept of home is changing, younger generations taking on new roles, but with new rewards, let's not forget. We are an amazing group, full of vitality and laughter. But when we lose someone, or maybe just part of someone, honoring their life and contribution to yours and others is not a mental exercise, but it takes some realizations. Sometimes tough love, sometimes hard decisions, but other times...just looking for the love that's always been there.

Before I came back last month for Mom's birthday I got a call from Dad. He can't drive any more so he asked if I'd pick out a card saying such and such, so I did that on the way. The strength is gone but the things that matter most still are.

Honoring Dad comes down to living by his example. Do what you love, love what you do, help those who need it, and take time to rest, and wherever you are, enjoy the scenery.

This year will be replete with cookouts, laughs and times. But I just thought, it might be good to mix in an afternoon drive here and there, even, if there are only a few words.

beans

The autumn of 2009 was warm and gradual in southtown Kansas City. I rented a small house in a nice neighbourhood and got to spend most evenings propped up with pillows with a laptop running Linux, trying to solve a problem no one asked me to. I was supporting a small online bookseller that relied upon custom-built software to generate prices, and so one day I realise it could work so much efficiently in Java. 

So, I started porting it from VB to Java, each evening, on a laptop running Linux, next to a cracked-open window with a glass or beer or bourbon sitting on it.  That was back before Facebook games became lame or addictive, depending upon who you ask, and around then it would be time for friends to work on each other's farms. Eventually that game went absolutely nowhere but it fit the moment, along with local TV showing Star Trek TNG each weeknight.

Thanks to some down-home roots there will always be soup beans and ham pumping through these veins, but for the single male, a quarter-can of boiled SPAM in some Van Kamp's Pork N Beans does just fine, no kidding. Fills a bowl and then the soul. Sometimes a dab of cottage cheese would chase it well.

I can't say how long this went on, it was more of a clonal moment, a series of evenings making strides with the code, step by step, closer to a solution, chatting with friends along the way. As it turns out my motivation for doing the Java project was never clear, it just needed to happen.

As with all moments, they are just that, and they must end. This one gave way to a confusing set of events, the company changed hands, and along came one of the harshest winters I'd ever known - literally and figuratively. The ground was covered for weeks in foot-thick frozen snow, the city's prize walking trail rendered useless and I was stuck in that house with not enough work to keep a cat alive.

A few months before, I had pitched the Java version to the company owner and he was probably interested if it could be proven superior, then I would ask for a fee.  But then, I was realising my love for code there in that geeky bliss, and so the longer I kept it up the notion of a direct payoff grew less and less important.

As it turns out, just over a year later I got a real job that's soaked in code, not Java, but close enough.

because somebody has to

Once again we relate the story of an everyday individual who strives to make a difference in this world.

He's a man not much different than you or I really, except he has a very unique function that sets him apart.   His name is Uckfay, but if that weren't bad enough, he is the one who has to review television, books, and other media to determine which content is morally acceptable for you and I to consume.  Evidently we are not capable of making those determinations for ourselves.

Uckfay wears a suit to work and reports to the Society of Blowhards, or SoB's for short.  He has his share of challenges, mainly physical, such as borderline diabetes from only consuming soda, because beer is not permitted by the SoB doctrine despite being made of all-natural ingredients.

And he also suffers from a sore neck from walking on only the right side of the street.

say it

probably
said it before
long ago
far away
chopping firewood
letting off steam

because

certain idiots
here and there
found it necessary
to take
the low road
trying my hatred

because

sometimes
insecurity
and maybe
issues
of esteem
are hard
to swallow

say it?

can't say it

because

firewood
is better
to split
than
a sack
of shit.

and so

ages pass
find myself
of all places
theology school
driven by visions
as if
ranting
at the pulpit
that i grew up
facing
only to push back
at a generation

who

despite best intentions
could not break
their mold
talking
not listening
to young people
should be seen
not heard
their own
life story
often rehearsing
failures, regrets
sometimes
confusing them with
concern

say it?

can't say it

because

you just can't
reason
with a
barking dog.

and then

certain
baby boomers
facing
too many changes
got to clamp down
one last desperate
white knuckled
choke hold
break these
commie punks

even as

some of them
fall
on the same
sword
they had
warned us
to avoid

say it?

can't say it

because

silence can be
defening

and indifference
far more
chilling
than hatred

and so

time wounds
all heels

karma's
a bitch

bastards
will pay.

Dirk and the Bubbas

Dirk looks up at the clear autumn sky as he's dragged through the leaves, thankful that they're dry and even more thankful to be facing upward. The Bubba brothers had spotted him across the street from the gas station buying a pop science magazine and with but a glance between them decided it was Dirk's turn, and so now they each hold onto an ankle as they saunter along bantering about nothing in particular.

Totaling about 580 pounds of mostly meat between them, they had grown up in various foster homes till they were found useful at Esco's service/junk lot on the edge of town.  From a shortened form of their last name that no one seemed or cared to know they were used to being called the Bubba Twins. Those old enough to remember Hee Haw might picture Junior Samples with a buzcut and in stereo.  All they had was each other, no one else mattered, except when they needed amusement.

For his part, Dirk was a senior in high school, the very same one his captors had left behind as soon as they turned legal, as far as the state was concerned, and thanks to robust builds landed jobs throwing truck parts and old girders around. No one knew where they lived per se, they just showed up every day.  But Dirk's ACT scores and advanced pursuits had gotten attention from MIT among others.  Somehow it didn't take him long to realize that this ordeal would be over soon enough, and then life would go on.

When they finally get to some old shack in a small clearing hey sit Dirk in a chair among not a small stash of just about everything one can scrounge in a backwoods county.  Bubba Alpha, we'll call him, instructed Bubba Beta, git that thar rope while ahh proceed to arrange for tha enter-tainment.  Bubba the lesser then kneels next to Dirk and starts to tie him to the chair, but Dirk doesn't resist.

Daddy Bubba eventually rigs up some kind of car battery to an old portable CD player and turns to Dirk and grins as the bass line to Madonna's Like a Virgin starts up.

Hey boy, think you gonna git laid 'fore you turn therty-fahve, he starts in with a tobacco-stained grin as his counterpart starts to chuckle.  Well that thar purdy sawwng is on ree-peat so u gots lots a tahme ta thank about thar ahh reckon, yeap. So the Bubba-squared proceeds to head out the door, each with a rickety pellet gun, and secure it with a padlock.

The thing is, Dirk had lots a tahme while being tied up to spot what he needed sitting in plain view around the shed.  That, and, it seems his congenial hosts had neglected to check his pockets for, let's say, a swiss army knife.

It was getting toward dusk when the twins had enough of pinging small furry animals and headed back to see how their prize had fared, although, the expected Material Girl Marathon was not to be heard.  Well, this situation calls for words.

Y'all don't reckon tha bat-try done run out?

The other one just stares at the door with a quizzical look.

Bubba Prime digs out his key and undoes the lock, looks at his brother in the eerie silence, and gently pulls the door handle.

Dirk is along a secluded lane just over a mile away when the explosion startles birds in the brush overhead.

The local sheriff rules it accidental, and then life goes on.

Juche

A lump of clay, a nation, a young person. A philosophy, a temperament, an environment. We all have to start out somewhere. The stage is set. Some turn to friends. Others to learning, maybe clubs and activities, becoming leaders and followers. And invariably there are those of us that turn into ourselves.

Juche ideology has been dubbed as North Korea’s middle finger to the world. Melodious chants that decry America notwithstanding, they’re in it for the haul, going it alone in Orwellian bliss. Proles starve if they can avoid the work camps and the Pyongyang privileged justify it for the cause. Outsiders cannot partially-photograph the Great Leader’s graven image as people cry out in worship before him like a tent full of holy rollers. Ahh but we all have to start out somewhere.

The green idealist, naive, intellectual yet insecure and socially unmotivated, with an appetite for apathy, is no stranger to the ol’ bunker hunker in a world that doesn’t get it, with little more to offer than sneers and grinning idiots with their lameass comments.

At church they tried, more or less, to teach us the righteous path, yet, in the end the choices are all our own.

Sometimes even those who love you don’t have the full picture.

Sometimes we bite the hand that feeds us.

Sometimes we throw out the baby with the bathwater.

After all, how would the Wizard of Oz have turned out had Toto never gotten curious about what's behind the green curtain?

Every revolution needs a leader, even an unlikely one standing at 5-foot- something. Purge the dissidents. All associations deemed a threat to her reich were hereby annulled. Funny how surrealism takes a while to sink in.

I had gone into isolation a few years before so why not now? Sure is hard to live in the moment when your head is so well furnished.

Dad took a video during a snowstorm just after Christmas, and as the eyes witness it piling up outside the ears get a conversation with my mom, oh how confused and withdrawn I had become. Later on he evidently asks me to climb atop a two-cord stack of firewood and throw some off for the garage. Ground zero in the year with two eights. It’s all over my face, wincing to aim for the pile eight feet below, within eyeshot of someone’s house that I had betrayed just a month earlier, carelessly opting instead to place my trust in someone who had simply not yet earned it.

I answer Dad's questions bluntly, with few words. Jonestown party of one. If the punch don’t kill ya it has a bitter twinge that lingers in the mouth for years if not decades.

Still, we all have to start out somewhere.

Over time her music becomes my music, her friends become my friends, her worries become my world until the second wind gradually picks up, the cold war thaws a bit, and eventually there’s no choice but to drop my assumed sense of duty and walk away with what I still have left.

Freedom can be a vacuum at times, but then, some things are worse than emptiness, such as never letting go.

fixture

Twas here i came for things various, and sundry. To learn. To labor. To laugh. To live. And if all else fails, to love. All around are furnishings and windows and bodies and ficus. Conversations ebb, tide in the sea of someones, as is written, nothing new under the sun.

The lady, stroked with water colors, in the middle of the room. She's in all the rooms. Dressed to the nines in pastel wool and chiffon, nothing ever moves, save the eyes. They go as i go, about my business, with no more to offer than Mona Lisa herself sneaking a peek from the netherworld camouflage, foundation and blush.

When i finally shake her hand she offers just enough muscle to make the connection, leaving me to work the pump, and toil at her dainty heft.

That gaze. The latest fly in the sap. Janie come lately, etched into the phosphors sans haste, gateway to possibilities, as stars dot the heavens, that never shall be.

So what? Even as years pass, n'er you hardly even spoke, that charge in the air, you felt it, perhaps you both, has a substance, has a life, a name.

A story.

Sophie

Sophie plays with her dolls as her big sister’s boyfriend rings the doorbell. But Sophie doesn’t like him. He has a gruffy face and messy hair and wears white tee shirts and a red bandanna and drives a bad old car and listens to loud music. He comes over when her mom and dad aren’t home and they go in the bedroom until they get tired. Then he sits next so Sophie and gives her a candy cigarette and tells her she’s got pretty curls and makes her smile.

weekend

some gambler
lost his lucky deck
and the drunkard
just ain’t thirsty
your stoner next door
but no jones
this cagey brawler
can’t throw a punch
a backstreet drag king
running cheap gas
skirt-chasing pilot makes approach
on a drooping windsock
just some vagabond
who can’t find the horizon
but if you got
freedom
do it anyway

'40 Year-Old Virgin' blames failures on Tony Danza PSA

FAIRFIELD, CONN (Goiters) - A real-life Forty Year-Old Virgin claims that a late 1980's public service announcement triggered a pattern of "romantic dysfunctionalities" during his teens. The ad, entirely a close shot of actor Tony Danza urging young people to not rush into sex but wear a condom if they do, ran in heavy rotation on MTV and other stations during a crucial time in the life of Maynard Snerdley.

"It has taken years to come to terms with this, and it's not easy to talk about."

Despite that fact, he continues.

"We all know that adolescence is a confusing time, and there was Tony telling us to hold off on the nookie and gee willakers, when you think about it, who am I to argue? This man has obviously made some mistakes in his life. I mean, just look at where his career went after Taxi."

Snerdley cites a combination of counseling and even more counseling to help turn things around.

"My therapist led me realize that I'd been distancing myself from women after a certain point. When the relationship reached a critical stage I would become less likely to shave, even for several days. Well golly, what gal wants to have steel filings grind against her face and neck? I bet it's just awful. "

This of course refers to Danza sporting short, bristly whiskers in the ad.

"I guess a light went off in the doc's head one day, then he played me the video and I was like holy macaroni, that's it!"

This was confirmed by his psychiatrist, Dr. Gimmie Cash, who added, "Yep. Holy macaroni."

With his wall-building days now behind him, Maynard is pleased to announce his recent engagement to a lady that, if you can believe it, "looks a LOT like Judith Light," who starred opposite Danza in "Who's the Boss?" for eight horrific seasons on ABC.

wist

When I ask a question I don't want an answer. Tell me a story. Make it a long one. After a while you'll get used to it. Then maybe, just maybe, I won't have to ask.

charise

Bowling is for Thursday night. Bowling. Nay the sport of kings yet the boon of restless souls in a home town, to exercise body and mouth alike between ten white pins and and a few brown longnecks. Bowwwww-ling. Booyeah.

Her gaze became fixed, the fruit fly in resin, even though I could swear she'd never looked my way.

As an unspoken code we try to keep this a guys night, about half are married, group therapy, now available without prescription. We have a couple of leaguers but the rest of us can hold our own. My average is creeping up into the high hundreds, although in a twelve-lane venue it's getting harder to concentrate on the game lately.

Slender build, honey sun-bleached drapeage, either natural curls brushed out or maybe last spring's perm and some kind of button-up top, and there's bound to be a couple spares beneath those baggy diamond-hipped jeans the girls wear nowadays. She means business, rolls with a considerate kind of confidence and a prose from beyond her years, doesn't leave many standing. A couple of her decisive strikes have given me pause while lining up my own shots. There are always the same four gals in her group.

One night Harry, our bald-headed grandad, catches me looking and word gets around. After nailing a sweet Brooklyn strike in the third frame he gets an arm around my shoulders.

"Intelligence reports have confirmed she's been sneakin' some peeks too, champ." I just shake my head and sneer.

Next couple of frames are kinda rough so an offering is taken for another round, my turn to represent. Right before I embark someone bumps my arm and for some reason I look up just as she's headed for the restroom.

Brown eyes, that shouldn't be, by some counts at least, or maybe it's the game throwing off my gyro. After we pass I wonder if I can ever believe what I just saw. She had whispered "hi"after I smiled, as if under distress before ducking into the latrine. At the counter, awaiting the tray of fresh troops, I actually wonder if I should warn the other women not to go in there for a while.

Instead, it seems the place is kinda sparse tonight, probably the cider fest drawing most of the folks with rugrats.

On the return trip she emerges and smiles this time, nearly choking on a giggle.

All clear, I thought.

We finish the night with scorecards no better or worse than any other. I get home and things feel different, taking a moment to get my bearings as if the furniture had moved. After a shower and shave Carson seems a bit more chipper than usual. Good for him.

Next week the ladies are a no-show and things feel normal yet, I'll allow, a tad empty. Then a special league event forces a break, but finally it's all in place again, she wears a thin sky-blue cardigan, not that I notice. Lately I'd worked up to an 18 pounder and tonight I hit some kind of stride with the thing, landing on a not-too-shabby 216 once the dust settles. Didn't pay for any food or drink that night, and the resulting hubbub earned us a visit from the ladies league who had started a frame or two ahead of us.

"My name's Charise," she assures me with a dainty handshake, somehow grossly out of phase with all the cannonballs fired from that arm somewhere in the annals of my periphery. Her name is Charise. The world around us is of grins and glances, it knows what I know.

"So you're from around here?" It turns out yes and no, as the story unfolds I get the hint of a greater conspiracy from far beyond our respective teams, our poor tired mothers, the silhouette pros of the sport, double agents extraordinaire, leap from the upper walls and draw their sidearms, taking aim from behind pool tables, hold it right there Mister Bond, how kind of you to pay us a veesit. She talks fast, almost frantically, as if there's an egg timer on the bill of my ball cap. New intelligence is in, the eyes are brown, all sources confirm, dark binary stars to planetary freckles, and the (orange?) blush makes it all hard to parse. I gradually perceive her aroma, a finely-tuned ratio of powder, perspiration and AquaNet.

Conversations extend into the parking lot to be punctuated by slamming doors. I sit and take a few deep breaths over the steering wheel of my '82 Cutlass, staring into what's left of the sunset over the shopping centers. The car is just starting to produce upholstery dander, having sat outside every day of its life, the dust dances in twilight with the sweet autumn air.

Her name is Charise. It may just as well be dammit.

world where

Shed a sea of blood and the world is better, for every noble cause under the sun, all of which are right. Why dream? Deputy Fife takes aim. With a lone bullet gonna make Mayberry a place where one can break wind without some dooshjob redneck stealing headlines about his lack of wit. We bash each other over the head with a book while healing whispers proximity, old white men in suits selectively adapt a mute button, and that once proud sense of belonging shrivels into a maudlin caricature of itself, ridiculously wanton in its attempt to exhume former glory. Now Barn' done got excited and shot the floor again. Drag 'em in here and turn 'em into one of us. Compunction is a tsunami caused by an epic event no one remembers. We cannot change so they must. Go us. For God's sake we blow up fruit stands to keep the dream alive. Better put Otis back in the cell before he starts making sense. Dreams are for dreaming.