Best of The Unintentional Bachelor

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THE (BEST OF) THE UNINTENTIONAL BACHELOR This is a printed version of what I consider to be the ‘Best Of’ my blog entries from June 2010 until May 2012. For this, the print edition, I’ve even corrected spelling and grammar and taken out some stuff that in retrospect I wouldn’t have included originally.

If you’re interested, you can see the online version at: www.unintentionalbachelor.blogspot.com It’s not meant to be literature, but hopefully it’s entertaining. For the most part it was fun for me and took some of my time – and that, in the end, is what I was going for.

ROSAIRE BUSHEY

A Compendium of Notes From Being Married and Living ‘Single’

CONTENTS 3 3 4 5 6 7 8 11 14 15 16 18 19 22 25 28 29 32 33 35 37 38 39 41 42 43 44 46 47

June 15, 2010 July 1, 2010 July 19, 2010 Aug. 17, 2010 Sept. 7, 2010 Oct. 14, 2010 Dec. 14, 2010 Dec. 14, 2010 Jan. 18, 2011 Jan. 29, 2011 Feb. 1, 2011 Feb. 13, 2011 Feb. 22, 2011 Feb. 25, 2011 March 5, 2011 March 14, 2011 March 30, 2011 April 6, 2011 April 9, 2011 May 4, 2011 June 8, 2011 June 12, 2011 July 3, 2011 July 7, 2011 July 30, 2011 Nov. 2, 2011 Jan. 1, 2012 March 12, 2012 May 5, 2012

The Fine Print Up Front The Stuff Society A Little Seriousness Here Today WTF MRI Machines Finding Unwanted Growths No Point But it Smells Nice The Great Road Trip of 1989 Remembered 20 Years of the Shadow How Was My Flight? You’re Kidding, Right?

Dinner Out, Bachelor Style Let’s Hope it’s Not Hereditary I’m No Longer Responsible…

How Western Civilization Almost Ended The War That Wasn’t Who Eats This?

Why Are Boys Different Than Girls and…

By Official Proclamation…

My Epiphany 25th Class Reunion – It’s All My Friends’ Fault He Who Must Not Be Named Doing What Matters Where Are The Adults?

25th Class Reunion A Success…Almost I’ll Take Weather Over Air Conditioners A New Bike, A Potential World of Gear Slutty Doctor, Paging Slutty Doctor Resolutions and Ben & Jerry’s Homemakers Earn How Much?

Kids Take After Their Parents…Sometimes

In all, the UB blog covers more than 80 posts. I’ve taken what I think are the better ones of the bunch and put them here. What was meant to be a look at bachelorhood, turned into … well, you can judge whether it turned into anything or not.

3 The Fine Print Up Front June 15, 2010 Welcome to my first-ever blog. And this from a guy who has never sent a text message or had an i-anything. It's something to behold - hopefully.

First, I should say upfront that the Unintentional Bachelor will not be a mid-life crisis event (I hope). The sad fact of the matter is that my job has taken me from New England and transplanted me here in Texas for two years and my wife and family will remain up north so as to save the stress of a short-term move followed by another in 2012.

Why bother with a blog? Several reasons...

1. Keeping in touch with my wife, 8 year old son and 4 year old daughter 2. Getting a little back in touch with my writing roots as a former military journalist 3. The psycho-babble thought that if I know enough people are reading this and I tell them one of my goals is to lose 30 pounds (it is) while doing this, perhaps I'll feel compelled to actually do it.

4. To use the same reason as 3 above, to write, in the manner of a journal and attempt to describe what happens when you take a guy who is 42 and been married for nearly 20 years and throw him out on his own and make him fend for himself - totally and utterly on his own for the purposes of food, laundry, cleaning and the general detritus of day-to-day life ... all the while ... perhaps finally getting started on a terminal degree.

So, go to school, lose weight, do the laundry, cook and clean, make myself presentable for the public - and all while using language that I have to think my kids might stand a reasonable chance of seeing - whew! Ok, forget the language thing. To my wife, whom in this Blog, I'll call "The Shadow" for that's what she is on the Internet and that's the way she would prefer to stay (and so she can publicly dis-own me if needs be) – her job is to run interference on this for the kids because I'm destined to swear or at least use improper grammar. If I figure out this blog thing and anyone actually reads/responds, then I also can't vouch for them.

If you are not The Shadow and are reading this and would like to comment, please do so in good taste keeping in mind my impressionable progeny indicated above. By all means, do leave some feedback though, as it will help - especially with the losing 30 pounds thing.

This whole effort should start in earnest on 12 July 2010 - my 42nd birthday.

Cheers

The Stuff Society July 1, 2010 This post is mainly because I feel guilty for not posting something here every now and again keep in mind I'm still in New England for the next few days.

Still, it occurred to me that I'm pulling a trailer to Texas that weighs more than 2000 pounds loaded. In most countries in the world, 2000 pounds of 'stuff' is probably as much as an extended family has - from grandpa down to Jim-Bob and Elizabeth. For an American (or many 'western' families I suppose) it doesn't really start until after the first ton.

To whit - I don't have a cheese grater, knives of any useful purpose, saucepans, bedside light (or table), not a single cooking ingredient - not even as lowly as salt or olive oil.

We are definitely a 'stuff'-based society and while my ton of 'stuff' is mostly useful (the Opus stuffed animal being the likely exception but needing to be packed lest The Shadow throw it away as she's attempted to do several times over the last 20 years), there are pounds and pounds of it, that quite frankly, are not.

And when I get down south, the first needless stuff I think I'll work to get rid of will be the extra 30 pounds sharing the driver's seat with me. I'll post again probably from a hotel in the heartland somewhere.

A Little Seriousness Here Today July 19, 2010 I'd like to be serious just this once - I'm used to being away for a while. I take a little comfort in the fact that I know The Shadow has an excellent hand in running everything and, let's face facts, things run a little more smoothly during those times when I'm away for a month or so. I get that.

But I've been gone for about 2, 2.5 weeks and when the four year old talks to me on the phone and just wants her daddy there - puts the phone in her bed and covers it up while mum reads a story, well that's just ... let's call it tough.

I'm facing the prospect of deploying next year and while the next few months will be tough, it won't be nearly as bad as it could/can/will be a year from now. At least now I have pretty unlimited internet access and phone calls. Next year will be a move not of my choice and limited interaction from a helluva distance.

To all those folks who have deployed numerous times over the past 9 years (or more) and keep sucking it up and going back - I salute each and every one of you. Think about some of military folks who in the last 9 years have been away - for deployment training and/or the deployment themselves -- some of these folks have been gone for 5 (and a few more than 5) years of the last 9. While I salute them unreservedly, you HAVE GOT to give it up for their spouses and children and extended families.

Before I left home I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with a couple old school friends, Jason and Scott. Great weather, calm water and a fun boat ride. Three dads with their kids and a big ole' lake. Jason, says to me, "I don't want this to sound corny or anything, but thanks for what you do."

At the time I kind of laughed it off with an "aww shucks..." kind of thing. But, over the last couple weeks that little scene has replayed in my head a number of times. I felt then, and still do, a little bad not responding ... better. In retrospect, I think it is quite possibly, the coolest things one of my friends has ever said to me. Not for the words, or even the sentiment so much, but just for saying it. It wasn't just a tossed-away 'thank you' that you get sometimes when in uniform. It was, to me at least, something far more meaningful.

5 I (and by 'I' I mean 'we' in the sense of military people in general) don't really think about what we do as something to be 'thanked' for - especially if we've been in the service any length of time. And I realize that he wasn't just thanking me and The Shadow. Really, he was thanking the hundreds of thousands of men and women AND their families.

It's important, and it's impossible to over-emphasize, the non-military members in these situations. When I leave, the kids were sad but it was she who was left with the pieces; she who was left with the bills, the house, the cars all that stuff. When I get back - or when anyone returns from a deployment - it's also the family that has to adapt again.

When a parent is away temporarily a new dynamic takes place in the household and when that parent returns, that whole life-dance gets distracted like a needle being pulled across a record. Eventually, the needle settles back into a comfortable groove and its own, new rhythm but it's another big change - mostly for the family.

When the Shadow and I were prepping for this move and talking to our non-military friends, the response was always the same ... "you're doing what?!" And as I think about this, I realize my civilian friends rarely are away from their families. Sometimes, you'll have the long-haul trucker or some other job that requires time away from home - but even they, usually, don't do it for months at a time.

So, to Jason, Scott and all the others out there whom I've never really replied appropriately to, I'd like to say, 'you're welcome.' And I don't want this to sound corny either, but for every military member, there are 100 people out there making America a place worth being in the military for. And having friends who can make a couple hours on a boat a far more meaningful experience than a ride around the lake - well, in the end, that's probably why we do it at all.

WTF Aug 17, 2010 I'm not on medication - really. And I don't think I need to be either. But it's been creeping up on me for a while and yesterday at a grocery store - it happened.

Let me preface this a bit first. For years Shadow has said to me how nice it must be to go to an office every day and communicate with adults. All she had at home of course were two (then) very young children who you talked 'at' more than talked 'to'. I'm not entirely sure that has changed yet, but in my present state of affairs, I think that might be preferable.

At work is fine and all - yes, I can talk to adults - about work stuff. But now when I get home, I've got ... no one to talk to. So, as I was saying, yesterday I realized that I had a friend after all. Myself. Yes, I caught myself not only talking to myself in the grocery story - using that low, lips-barely-moving sort of mumble you usually associate with alley drunks and methheads who have no teeth, but I was actually answering myself as well.

Indeed, I was carrying on a conversation to myself - looking at food labels and discussing with myself the merits of carbohydrates and such. Just to top it all off, when I did realize what I was doing, I did the following - out loud: ..."what the hell are you doing?"

"Talking to myself?"

"Great, now I'm crazy" "I've been crazy" ..finally, to myself "Hey, inside voice, you need to reassert yourself a little here bro."

Fortunately...well, no, there is no 'fortunately' to this story I guess. But maybe if I do ever need to go on medication, I'll have enough of me for a game of cards.

MRI Machines Finding Unwanted Growths Sept 7, 2010 Remember way back at the beginning of this blog I mentioned that guys are genetically predisposed to picking a mental point somewhere between 16-24 and staying there their whole life? Ok, just keep that in mind.

Last week I had one of those opportunities to be part of the fiscal devil that is medical care.

Fortunately for me, I live in a world that has socialized medicine so it doesn't actually cost me anything. And I think I know why...

The ‘why’ is because the medical establishment skimps on pretty much everything including, I'm concerned to note, the size of MRI tubes. Now, I'm a little heavier than I want to be, but I don't think I'm in any danger of showing up on "PeopleofWalmart.com" anytime soon. So it was more than a little disconcerting when they pushed me into the MRI machine they had to spray me down with PAM. Ok, that’s perhaps a touch exaggerated, but it was ... snug.

So my two questions are these: 1. In the questionnaire you get before they shove you in this thing, they ask if you're claustrophobic. What if you say. 'yes?' I want to know because if there's an option for claustrophobes, I want that option. I didn't think I was claustrophobic, and I guess I'm not as I didn't scream like a 5 year old girl or shake uncontrollably, but mostly because there wasn't room enough to do either of those things.

My 2nd question is: How do people who are really fat get in there. You know the people...those women who wear spandex the same way crushed meat wears a sausage casing. If I'm uncomfortable in that thing, they've got to feel like Play-doh in a clenched fist.

But besides all that, the real potential awkwardness from an MRI machine comes from the 16-year old male brain - and I really feel for any 15-16 year old male that has to spend any time in one of these things.

First, if you've never experienced one of these, they give you the traditional hospital gown, with the saving grace of you get to keep your underwear on. But then they drop a light towel or blanket or something over you and shove you in the tube.

For, like, 20 minutes. And you CAN'T MOVE And the machine is vibrating like an unbalanced washing machine.

If you are a guy sitting there trying ... how shall we say ... trying not to think of anything except maybe baseball, for 20 minutes and not move, the potential exists that your mind will wander.

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Science has proven that the average male thinks about sex roughly every seven seconds. For the ease of math, let's say every 6 seconds - that's 10 times per minute. 20 minutes, times 10 -- so 200 times you're thinking about sex ... but WAIT...you're in a tube and you can't move!

So you obviously can't think about anything remotely sexual (like the phrase "lubed up to fit in a tube" - you just can't and you know why.

So you have to NOT think about sex. Yeah, right. Ok, so let's call it every three seconds now, because you know once you can't think about something, that's all you can think about.

So, what to do? Sleep? Hell No! That's probably the worst thing you could do. Plus it's really loud in that thing - and that is probably a design feature - the noise gives you a distraction.

Until it becomes a kind of subtle rhythm.

Damn.

(And to those of you wondering ... I managed to think of nothing but baseball for 20 minutes.

Well, that and I was writing this blog in my head and thinking about just what it would say had I not been able to think about baseball, and the reaction I would have received when a laughing doctor would inevitably tell me that the scan picked up a growth.)

Next time you're in one of those - you'll be thinking about this blog.

Good luck with that.

No Point, but it Smells Nice Oct 14, 2010 So, I'm sitting around the 600 square foot box of boredom the other day trying to study but being constantly interrupted by the constant stream of nothing, and I notice a couple things that four months ago I would not have noticed at all.

A. I have got to do the dishes - they are not going to clean themselves. Now this is a little odd because back home I'm the dish washer and I hate, hate, hate having dirty dishes lying around. Here...not so much. No idea why that is at all but I'll probably do them tomorrow night. I can't tonight because I'm writing my blog.

B. I should probably vacuum the floor again. The little roads I made through it last time are gone so it's time.

C. The sofa is actually a good place for the laundry - if you fold a little of it you can just kind of lay it on the arms and the back and you don't really ever need to put it away.

D. The apartment doesn't smell exactly right. Now, it's not really smelly, but there's a little acridness which is kind of gross sounding but not really. At least no worse than any office you've ever been in so it's not like the plants would be wilting (if I had any).

But, there it is. So today I had to take the plunge and I actually went and bought one of those reed diffuser things. I actually bought two so I don't have to do it again anytime soon. I know as an adult I shouldn't feel at all awkward about that, but it was kind of like buying condoms

for the first time - you know, head down, mumbling, trying to hurry the cashier along, really not wanting small talk or even change, just an escape route.

Just to make it look like it wasn't my idea and save some dignity I also bought some Kotex.

(Well, ok, no, I didn't ... but only because I didn't think of it until now.)

So, the big bachelor experiment is showing me some subtle truths...namely that I'll never be an interior decorator. But you know, it's not just a 'guy thing' and I know this because today I spoke with a friend in DC who is doing sort of the same thing - working in DC and driving to Southern Virginia on the weekends to be with her family -- she's having many of the same difficulties with laundry and dishes and such which I thought was interesting and it made me feel a little better.

I bet she doesn't have any problem buying reed diffusers though.

The Great Road trip of 1989 Remembered Dec 14, 2010 So, to help pass the days in BOB, and now without homework to keep my brain occupied, I’ve been going through some old photos and slides I’ve had lying around for a couple decades. The thought was, that here, with little else to do, I’d find the time to scan them and put them to some useful purpose. This is that time.

One of the things I found was a kind of photo diary I made in the late ‘80s chronicling my first couple years in the Air Force and of particular interest (to me at least) was a section on a trip a friend named Frank and I took from Comiso Air Station Sicily, to RAF Bentwaters, England in late September 1989.

Now, it must be said that at the time I was only 21 years old and extremely broke. Frank was about the same age and slightly less broke. When he asked to come with me I was more than happy to have him along for two reasons - he as great company and he had beer money. Whereas I had a piece of crap 1976 BMW316 which was merely adequate until it literally started falling to bits - it was a car with ‘character.’ I think we lost three passengerside windshield wipers before we had enough and just taped a sock to the wiper mechanism.

Any of you who know me even a little today know I am perhaps the world’s worst navigator if we are reincarnated, I was probably the scout for the Donner Party. In 1989 as we studied the map of Europe we would use for our journey, Frank actually said these words: “hey, did you know England was an island?” It was at that point I knew we were well and truly screwed and the map would be of only trifling use to us.

Before leaving Sicily, we decided we had to take a souvenir from base so we 'liberated' a pink flamingo from my boss’ front lawn. We named her Pasha – heaven knows why. We took photos at various points on the route and wrote postcards back to her owner letting her know she was fine and being well looked after.

Back in the day, U.S. Forces had gas coupons so we could buy gasoline at US prices (around a buck a gallon) instead of European prices (around $3-4 a gallon) Well, we didn’t have enough to even get us out of Italy, much less to England. But we made do by sleeping in the car, eating Spam and generally just driving as fast as possible.

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Border crossings were fun before the Euro-Zone - it was cold and raining at the Austrian border and a guy straight out of the SS met us and actually said, “I need to zee your payhpahs” with that stereotypical Teutonic accent that you’d think people really didn’t have and you have a hard time not laughing at when you realize it’s entirely accurate. In Switzerland we stopped at a restaurant called the Churchill because we figured they’d have an outside shot at English. Not so much. We did the whole, ‘point at the menu and eat what comes to the table.’ We got egg rolls. They were awful.

At the West German (it was East and West back then) border, Frank thought it would be funny to play the theme to Patton. The border guard was not amused. We went through 6 international borders on that trip - getting into Germany was the longest. I can't definitively say it was the music, but I can't discount the notion either.

Keep in mind we didn’t have anything like an itinerary or schedule. So while driving down the autobahn, shedding windshield wipers, we saw a sign that read, “Munchen 61 km”.

In one of those weird, slow-motion, Fred-turns-to-Barney-as-they-both-get-the-same-idea kind of moments, Frank and I looked at each other and after a two second pause where we both whirled through the calendar in our heads, we said, “OKTOBERFEST!” I'm sure it was the same kind of feeling hippies must have gotten when given Grateful Dead tickets.

Now, by way of explanation, it’s fair to point out that 12 months in Sicily had given me (and Frank) a prodigious tolerance for alcohol. The mission at Comiso Air Base was that of the Ground Launched Cruise Missile – a ‘special weapon’ variety of the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, that was rendered obsolete due to the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

To even think we were the only ones who had an increased tolerance due to our time at the base would be more than a little naïve. I once witnessed one of my roommates and our first sergeant come perilously close to physical violence with each other – both being nearly paralytic at the time. My two roommates and I even turned half our living space into a bar.

But I digress… 21 years ago, despite being only 135 pounds, I had a capacity for distilled spirits my slight build belied quite readily. Fortunately for me, however, upon arriving in Munich I was more than a little ill and more than a lot broke. Frank had no such issues.

Our map didn’t actually go to a scale useful for anything other than national highway systems, and as God is my witness, when we pulled off the autobahn we just kind of pointed the car to where we thought the middle of town might be. In less than 15 minutes we were parked in a multi-story car park literally across the street from the Oktoberfest grounds.

As an aside: I would like to think the people who laughingly refer to me as “Magellan” for my total lack of navigational skills, would overlook years of map-reading inadequacy for the one blinding flash of inspiration that allowed us to make quick and easy landfall at the biggest booze-up on the planet. You may leave your apologies in the comments section.

We settled in at the Haufbrau House (the HB) tent. Calling this thing a tent is like calling the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a painting. It was enormous and there were probably about 2000 people in it - or at least it seemed that way. We settled in with some Kiwis, Aussies and Brits and started in on the traditional “ordering of the beers.” If you’ve never been to Oktoberfest in Munich, beer is delivered by the liter in (or used to be) thick-glass steins. And the beauty of this was that they only cost about 7 Marks (about 4 bucks) each. Feeling fragile

my notes say I only made my way through about three of these and sat out the next 7 hours or so eating and reveling in a generally sober manner. Frank I believe, again according to my notes, made it through no fewer than 8 – a couple of which he left unceremoniously in the corner directly before we led him away.

Drinking songs, Ein Zwei, Drei, Vier (one, two, three, four – the extent of our German) amidst the English speaking peoples of the Commonwealth ended up in glasses being slammed together.

Interestingly, there is a direct correlation between the quantity of beer drunk, and the force at which glasses meet during these songs. Eventually there were pieces of big, thick, glass steins everywhere. And of course there was the obligatory table-top dancing – and polka music - which is almost tolerable once you get sauced up a bit.

Somehow (again a seminal act of navigational inspiration), we made it back to the car. Not being in any way inebriated (many hours, few beers, lots of food – mostly chicken, whole, with no utensils, and very greasy – incredibly fun to rip apart with your hands, eat, and generally wave around like an over-accessorized Monty Python skit.) we made it back to the highway where we slept at a rest area.

The next morning, early, was very, very cold. It was at this point we discovered my car, sock on windshield wiper, did not actually have what amounted to a fan or heat distribution system of any kind. This sucked as we had no ice scraper but plenty of frost/ice. The solution was quite simply to drive like a dog.

By putting my head out the window and driving fast, the engine eventually produced enough heat to defrost the windshield – I think it took 15-20 minutes. And despite not really having heat, it felt really good to bring my head in again – although it was then I discovered my window no longer went all the way up. This car would continue to plague me well into 1991 when I just took it out and had it shot.

Finally we ended up at an Air Force base in Germany where Frank knew some folks and we got to take showers – the first in four or five days. Then Frank’s friend took us to Frankfurt where he said we would do something they called “Walking the Steps” whatever the hell that meant.

I find it necessary to point out at this juncture, that all we did was “Walk” – there was no stopping or anything else involved. It is also hopefully unnecessary to remind you that we were, after all, very tired and very broke – even, by this point, Frank.

“Walking the steps” is what it was called to go to the red light district. These were apartment buildings – several stories tall, with steps which you would simply walk up and around the floor and carry on up the next flight of steps. The idea, I suppose, is that it’s like window shopping. I bring this up only because aside from eat, sleep and shower, we didn’t really do anything else in Frankfurt. We had long stopped taking photos.

After Frankfurt, it was on to England. We arrived at Zeebrugge, Belgium late at night and just made the last ferry for Felixstowe, England. Frank had some Monty Python lined up for our arrival but alas, the radio died as we reached English shores…it just stopped working, which really summed up the trip quite nicely. We were spent – monetarily and enthusiastically and any other way you want to describe two very tired young men.

11 The entire trip took about a week – maybe a little less and was on a budget of probably less than $200 cash, and a couple extra socks. If I had it to do all over again, I’d like to say I would have made a better plan, had a better car, and had more money. But I’m not sure I would.

In the end, I did it with a friend and I honestly don’t think a better car or plan would have made it a better trip. In fact, I think the car being such an utter piece of shit actually makes the memory better if not the actual drive. The lack of a coherent plan – or a coherent understanding of the geography of modern nation-states – was also a bonus – freeing us to just do what we wanted to do.

I’m not sure a trip like that would be a wise thing to do in 2010 and that's kind of sad. Still, I am sure somewhere, there are a couple of 21-year-old guys doing or planning something fairly stupid that in 2031, they’ll look back on and think, ‘those were pretty good times.’

If you’re still with me here, thanks for slogging your way through this. I like to think it’s a pretty good story (but I have the book version and you have the movie-trailer version). In the end, any story that’s pretty good to at least a few people deserves to get out and breathe every now and then rather than just sit unused in someone’s head. So thanks.

20 Years of the Shadow Dec 14, 2010 By the time most of you read this it will be at least Dec 15 and I will be on my way home, if I’m not actually already there (depending, of course, on when you read this). As I mentioned in yesterday’s rather long post, a story is a fine thing, but without an audience it doesn’t do much. Please humor me one more time.

This story is certainly a little more personal as it directly involves The Shadow. For you see, as I arrive home on the 15th, it is our 20th wedding anniversary – and if you know me, even if you’ve never met the Shadow, you are aware she has miles of patience and an unlikely tolerance for sophomoric behavior. Bless her.

The story I’d like to tell involves how such an unlikely couple met in the first place. I promise it won’t be as long as the Road Trip post, but I also promise it’s all true even if it sounds sort of like an '80s John Hughes movie.

On an August Friday in 1990 a friend of mine asked what I was doing on a weekend and the answer, fortunately, turned out to be, "not a damned thing." So he told me that I should go with him and some other folks to something called an English Civil War Society Re-creation Battle. It’s like a Renaissance faire but with firearms. I was hesitant, because as much as I wanted to be a 28th-Level Powder Monkey or whatever it was they had in the 1640s, I was less than enthused.

“What else you got?” I asked.

“Well, after the battle, basically there’s just a whole lot of drinking,” he said.

“What do you recommend I wear?”

So, on Saturday we went to the car (yup, same POS car plus a moderately passable heating and ventilation system, a window that went all the way to the top, windshield wipers that stayed put, and a stereo. Thanks for asking.) The deal was this – apparently, there is a lot of gear associated with battles of this timeframe, armor, gauntlets, more armor etc. So the first trip we would take down only the stuff we needed for a weekend sleeping outdoors playing dress-up.

Essentially, we loaded the car with booze.

The Brits got by on beer. We were bringing everything else. And Mountain Dew. Apparently Brits couldn’t get Mountain Dew at the time and they seemed to really like the stuff. After the 2 hour trip to the destination, we would turn around and get all the armor and nonessential crap like sleeping bags, tents etc. So, I had 6 hours driving in front of me which was fair enough as I figured I didn’t have to pay for the booze.

In the parking lot my friend, Mark, introduced me around to the other Americans and a family of Brits, one brother and two sisters. I smiled, shook hands and got in my car. When my friend got in, I looked him straight in the eye and said this: “That’s my wife.”

“What?”

“That girl, right there,” I pointed through the window, “that’s my wife.”

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t remember; it’s something really weird though.”

“Whatever.”

Two hours later, before our return trip back to base, he said the following to me.

“Roe, go ask her to come with us already, you’re driving me fucking crazy.”

I asked. She looked at me like I was Geppetto’s first attempt at a wooden boy.

Four hours later and with Mark no longer speaking to me, I did what any guy my age would do. I grabbed a bottle Honey Meade - I mean, come on, it was a civil war recreation after all and found this woman with the funny name. Turns out she would speak to me after all, which came as a pleasant surprise and we talked for some time.

Now, I’m a bit of a believer in serendipity and not believing this woman was the age she told me, I asked for an ID. When she showed me, I was hit with the serendipity hammer -- her birthday coincided with a girl I had dated in high school and who was (and still is) a very good friend of mine. This girl’s mother was British. The girl in front of me was British and from a serendipity standpoint how often is it you find someone born on Valentine’s Day? Much less two? Who like you? And aren’t related to you?

Well, we hung out that weekend together and the following weekend she came to the base.

I’d pick her up at the train station on Friday evening and bring her back Sunday night or Monday morning. I believe it was the third weekend I finally just asked her to marry me. To

13 this day I’m not exactly sure where that came from but you know how on TV and the movies, guys sit around in angst about that question for days or months? That always makes me laugh.

Well, she said yes, which meant there were things to be done. But first, I had to go back to the States for a month to go to a training class. So I was gone most of September and a bit of October and we decided to get married by a magistrate in December. Honestly, I think by the time we were actually married, we had probably spent all of 30-45 days in each other’s company. But I did get to meet her mother first.

This is a good time to point out that the Shadow has a wry bit of humor and an excellent sense of timing. Upon arriving at her mum’s house, I was ushered into the kitchen -- and already being overwhelmed at a 16th century house with brick floors and large beams, goats and cats -- I sat at the table. Polite introductions were made all around with the obligatory offer of tea and then mum looks straight at me and says, “Why do you want to marry my daughter?”

Huh? I look to the Shadow for help. She looks at me, starts to laugh and leaves the room with me staring at her mother...

I don’t remember anything else that happened that day. I’m fortunate, in an odd way, however, in that her mum had spent part of the war (WWII) in tunnels in London during the Blitz and was well disposed toward Americans.

Now, back to the wedding… The office pool had this marriage lasting for 6 months – tops.

And that was from some of my co-workers who actually liked me. And I’m sure there were people who believed we “had” to get married. You’ll note I’ve mentioned that my eldest is 8.

And we’ve been married 20 years.

By the time we had an apartment, Gulf War I was kicking off in good form and I was sent to western England where I spent just over a month. When I got back, we had about 3-4 weeks together before I was sent to Turkey for a month and a half. I got back in mid-May of 1991 and we had a church wedding in late June. I’d been married for 6 months and had spent about 3 of those months actually with my wife. I suppose as we had spent so little time together in what passed for a courtship, it wasn’t such a big deal.

Military people spend an inordinate amount of time away from their families. My time away in the last 20 years is negligible compared to a lot of people. Our civilian friends were mortified when we told them I would be coming to Texas and likely to spend upwards of a year away. We just kind of shrug our shoulders and move on – it’s just the way it’s been since day one. If you’re not from a military family, and you meet one, I’ll guarantee it’s the same way. It’s just part of the culture – and it’s why you’ll always hear people say that the spouse and family serve too. Because they certainly do, make no mistake about it.

I’d like to thank Mark, my friend who invited me on that ECW re-enactment. I’d like to thank him for putting up with me on the car journey, and threatening me with physical violence should I not go talk to the girl with odd name.

Now, it's 20 years later and I still look at her and think, "That’s my wife… Aren’t I a lucky bastard"

How was my flight? .... You're kidding, right?

Jan 18, 2011 Well, it’s been a month and relaxing at home with The Shadow and the kids was great – leaving to come back to Texas sucked, but the holidays were great – hopefully for all involved. (BOB did not seem to notice my extended absence and I'm suspicious that the three bedroom across the parking lot may have visited while I was away).

I noticed on this trip I’m starting to become one of those people who take notes of dumb stuff – because I just can’t remember it all. There weren’t many notes for this trip which is really good. Here’s why.

There are two entirely ridiculous questions people ask you when you are involved in longdistance travel. The first can ‘almost’ be excused, but not really.

“So, did you fly?” No, I took a cab and it cost me 15 thousand dollars. Of course I flew. It’s 2,000 miles and the last time I drove…well, you might remember how well that turned out.

Hell, the cab ride probably would have been cheaper.

However, “THE” most ridiculous question is...

“Did you have a good flight?”

The plane landed and I walked off. It was a good flight. Any plane trip that doesn’t end in a ball of fire at the end of the runway or require the use of dental records is a good flight. A more appropriate question would be, “did you have an annoying flight?” or in some cases, “were you annoying others on the flight?” Also perfectly acceptable when dealing with air travel are these: “Were there screaming kids on board?”

“Was the enormous muffin top of the fat guy next to you intruding in your space?”

“Was the person behind you forever kicking the back of your seat” “Did anyone sleep on your shoulder – whom you did not know?”

“Will we see TSA-nudes of you on the internet anytime soon?”

All of those are valid post-flight questions which I’m happy to answer: no; not so much; thankfully not; hell no; and I’m holding out for movie rights.

In fact, the trip bordered on pleasant. Leaving home I got on what looked like a brand-new plane, found my seat quickly and realized it was a window seat with a fantastic view of … the propeller.

Sometimes when you talk to people much older than me, you’ll hear them talk about how they feel more comfortable with a propeller – people the age of say, Bob Newhart.

Propellers, in my world, are for helicopters.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t ‘mind’ propellers and there is something soothing about the monotonous drone of them, but at least with a jet, if it stopped working you really wouldn’t

15 know (right away). Everything would “look” fine out the window. The last thing I want to be able to read while actually in flight is the warning on a propeller blade.

Still, it was new and when we landed in Jersey so I’m pretty sure it was up on blocks with the tires missing before I made it inside.

While at the Jersey airport – one of the world’s most awful ‘walking around’ airports - I was inclined to jot a note about those airport golf carts for the old, infirm or morbidly obese that have become so ubiquitous at our nation’s air facilities over the last 20 years.

In almost every airport I’ve ever been in (quite a few actually) airport employees drive those things like race cars and more importantly like they’re immigrant New York City cab drivers – using the horn as if the grating noise was the friction that kept the wheels turning.

In New Jersey, the nation’s, and perhaps world, capital of loud and/or obnoxious – you would expect these things to come with pit crews and air horns. But the drivers drove them slowly, almost courteously, and never once, in SIX HOURS, did I hear them use a horn. They would politely ask people to move out of the way, and I was only nearly hit by them twice. In neither occasion would anyone have faulted the driver of the cart.

So, from a travel perspective, that was my equivalent of a Wonder of the Modern World.

Dinner Out – Bachelor Style Jan 29, 2011 So, today, while I was sitting around BOB trying to do my taxes and getting more depressed by the nanosecond, I decided to go out for lunch. In a city the size of San Antonio though, it's always tough to decide where to go. I could get Mexican. Or fast food. Mexican, or Pizza. Or, I could get Mexican.

In the end, I did what any good, mostly broke bachelor would do -- I went to Costco.

Before you just cast your derisions consider the following: 1. You'll probably end up at Costco at some point anyway so why not go for a reason?

2. The food is free.

3. The food is in really tiny portions so there's no chance of getting that bloated, just after Thanksgiving I-need-to-stick-my-hand-in-my-waistband-to-ease-the-pressure kind of thing.

4. The food is free. Yeah, I know I already said that, but it's worth repeating.

The big difference between a Costco here and back home is the size. And in the case of giant box warehouse stores, size does matter. At the Costco at home, which I believe would neatly fit inside the one here, the free food samples don’t add up to much of a lunch and it's really hit or miss on what you'll get.

Here, however, it's all bigger. I had three different kinds of chicken -- plain chicken breast, buffalo-style in little pastry shells with ranch dressing, and another one I'm not entirely sure was chicken. There was some oriental orange beef; some mango fruit; spiral sliced ham; the new peanut butter snickers; cranberries; chocolate milk from a box; a fiber bar; and sausage.

You've got to admit, that's a pretty good spread. I'm certainly not going to hang out in BOB and make myself an 11-course lunch. Not the least reason is that I have no idea how to get

those little paper cup things, and I think those are integral to the aesthetic of the meal. It just wouldn't be the same without them.

However, Costco is not a place for bachelors to shop -- I was looking at Alaskan salmon thinking, 'yum, salmon would be good.' Then I gave it careful consideration and didn't buy it because the oven in BOB won’t accommodate a fish the size of a pillow case.

And THAT is the problem with Costco if you're a bachelor. Nothing comes in a size you need.

For instance, my grocery list included: Bar of soap - not 12 or 24, just one or two; laundry detergent – by the drum; vegetables - 4 pounds at a time; fruit - by the case; small TV for an apartment - 60” of high-def goodness; pants with a waist size under 40 - not happening; batteries for a flashlight - make it 20 flashlights. Muffins - at least a dozen at a time.

And here I had to pause because I like muffins. I like muffins a lot.. And while I really like them I'm not about to buy a dozen because I'd have to eat them all - and I would.

And if I did that, it would really defeat the purpose of having lunch at Costco in the first place.

Let’s Hope It’s Not Hereditary Feb 1, 2011 According to statistics, I am among the top 7% of educated people in the United States.

That’s ridiculous.

While driving home from work today, I was listening to the radio and the gentleman speaking was setting up a story. A very nice, tropical jungle scene. And he said the following: “Now just close your eyes and imagine….”

AND I DID. For those of you who don’t get that – let me type slowly – I… was… D-R-I-V-I-N-G! Had this been the only occasion of something like this happening it probably wouldn’t warrant me saying a word about it. But, sadly, it is not.

Not long ago (this afternoon before my drive home … I’m not kidding) as I sat in my car and gave my pre-drive sigh … knowing the hour long commute back to BOB had nothing to offer (at the time I didn’t know I’d have a radio perform mind-control on me) – I looked at the nice smelly thing I had in my car.

‘Nice smelly thing’, is, I believe, the technical term for one of those air deodorizers. In this case, it was an air ‘odor’-izer because I bought it several months ago with the car, so I never had any odor in the car to ‘de’-odorize if you follow me.

So, I’m looking at this thing, realizing that it seemed to be lasting an exceptionally long time, but not really producing much in the way of actual odor. So, being a person educated to a degree that places me in the top 7% of Americans, I pulled this thing out of the vent and twiddled with it for a bit and after a couple minutes I had an inspiration … perhaps, just perhaps, I hadn’t opened it.

17

Curiously, I was correct in this assumption. For five months I had this thing in my car wondering why it didn’t emit odor. Driving back and forth every other week to take doctoral level classes – classes that would, should I ever finish the degree, place me in the top 1-2% of educated people in the United States, mind you -- and I had not opened the thing.

This should cause you some alarm – or at the very least a modicum of concern. For I can vote – and on occasion, have done so. If I deploy later this year, the US Government will not only give me a weapon – maybe 2 – with live ammunition, but also put me in charge of other human beings. If that still doesn’t cause you concern, please note, I have procreated. And very likely passed on whatever recessive gene it is that causes me to do these things.

And before you give me the benefit of an entirely too generous doubt, let me explain today wasn’t just a bad day. Sadly, no.

When I was 15 or so I had a motorcycle – a 100cc Suzuki which I painstakingly took apart in my parents’ basement. Not being particularly inclined mechanically, I carefully put each part on a piece of paper and labeled it so I would, theoretically, know how to put it back together. While doing this, I wondered what the inside of the engine looked like – if it could be viewed from the outside – like looking through a window.

Now, I must pause here to stress to you the time frame in which this next thought passed through my head. This thought passed through me from pre-thought to “that was stupid…” in fractions of fractions of a single second. A micrometer of some sort - perhaps a flux capacitor or even an Eludium Q-36 Interplanetary Space Modulator would be needed to record just how fast this thought passed through my head. It was that fleeting.

With all due hesitation, I tell you, as I sat there looking at this engine, I noticed a spray can of “clear” paint and thought… Yes! For a blip in the time-space continuum, I was Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, thinking I could spray paint the engine clear and have a peek inside without having to even empty the oil.

I’d like to make really, super clear what a small amount of time this was…but I fear whatever prohibitively small time parcel I can come up with will be meaningless to you now.

And if that's not enough to worry you – or more specifically – worry my children who have likely inherited this predisposition. In the early ‘90s, the Shadow and I had a house in upstate New York that is now a parking lot. While working on said house I took off a light switch plate to reveal bare wires. I said to my lovely bride, “be careful not to do this (touch the wires) when you turn off the switch.”

It’s important to realize that I have some French-Canadian blood in me and the urge to use my hands while communicating is beyond my control. As I was warning Shadow what not to do, I actually did the very thing - grabbing both (very live) wires on either side of the switch.

Whatever few and small faults the Shadow may have, she heeded my advice and never did touch those wires as the resultant piece of French-Canadian bacon that was her husband twitched on the floor.

You’ll note at the beginning of this post I said I was among the top 7% of educated Americans. I did not say among the top 7% of the smartest Americans.

It's an important distinction.

I'm no longer responsible for my own decisions Feb 13, 2011 Lately, I've been scribbling down notes that I hope would be useful when writing these entries. You see, I could just write about my day and such, but let's face it, my day is oatmeal exciting and no one wants to read that - despite fiber being good for you.

So, I'm going through my notes - which are liberally distributed across three small notebooks, various receipts and the odd cereal box - whatever happened to be handy when the thought collided - and while I may one day post an entry made of entire random thoughts that I couldn't really get 600 words out of, I ran across this: "I'm no longer responsible for my own decisions" That's what my notebooks are like - if you were to find one and read it you'd start looking for the secret decoder ring or think you'd just discovered my second job as a fortune cookie writer. (In fact, that one above works because, as you know, when you read a fortune cookie, you're supposed to add the words 'in bed' to the end. Try it. It works every time.)

So, I'm staring at this note trying to remember what past me was trying to tell future me and I decided that as I couldn't do that, I'd go to Target. Now, I love Target because it's clean and nice and the people there don't smell. It's also laid out to give you some space where you can ponder as people do - you know, hold something up and stand back a couple feet like the extra distance is offering you some fresh perspective on linens that you can't get simply by holding them.

So, I'm standing in Target, holding various items at a distance from my body usually reserved for taking out used diapers, and just looking at stuff. What stuff isn't terribly important because I didn't actually buy anything and the reason I didn't is because I realized what the note meant.

I was looking at towels, considering whether or not to buy a couple more so I could push off laundry to an every-other week chore instead of once a week. And, as you know, I've taken to talking to myself (which people in Target still generally frown upon) and my conversation was pretty mundane ... which do I like better? "Well, the red one is nice and fluffy and would feel nice and probably be good for just lying on the floor like a rug. The green one is big though and could probably serve duty as a car seat cover if pressed. hmmmm...."

Well, and here it is, I decided I liked the red one. So almost without thinking I immediately put it back on the shelf and started walking toward the registers with the green one.

I took about three steps and then, BAM! What the Hell just happened there?

It's called conditioning. Pavlov's dogs could tell you all about it. I realize I am conditioned to shop with the Shadow who takes great pains to gather my input on things like which paint colors I like, and which plates I think look nice etc.

As she has never, in 20 years of marriage, actually said the words, "that's a great choice," I'm resigned to the fact she sees me as a kind of taste Geiger counter. If faced with a dilemma in which she thinks she may choose incorrectly (and therefore loose her woman card) she asks me - knowing I'll make a bad choice. Should the Shadow and I one day be cowering under a

19 table with a briefcase bomb, timer ticking, and a red wire/blue wire choice, she'll ask me which to cut - and then snip the other one. I don't even question it anymore.

In the end, I didn't buy towels at all. I put the green towel back, and to prevent my man card from spontaneously igniting in my wallet, I scrunched it all up and shoved it in the middle of a stack of pink ones, and heartened by this act, walked away.

When I got back to BOB I realized I had made the right choice .... the green definitely would have worked better with the colors in the apartment.

Damn.

How western civilization almost ended Feb 22, 2011 (This is the first part in three part historical review) 20 years ago today (Feb 22) President Bush The Elder gives Iraq 24 hours before ground troops roll in and, unbeknownst at the time, proceed to kick the collective ass of the world’s (for the next 24 hours) 4th largest army.

In the interest of history, posterity and, let’s face it, writing something so the 13 of you here might come back occasionally, I’ll tell you the true story of just how close western civilization came to utter ruin.

It has been my contention since joining the service in 1986 – indeed since signing up before graduating high school – that if the time ever came where I personally was handed a loaded weapon, we as a civilization were, in no uncertain terms, fucked. I try not to be profane in this blog, but the seriousness with which I felt this way leaves no recourse than strong, even foul, language.

It must be remembered, after all, during the Cold War you didn’t enlist in the Air Force to go shoot commies – you joined the Air Force to send officers to go shoot commies. Thus was the Cold War disparity between the services. In all other services, the lowest paid were sent off with a rifle to do their duty for God and Country. In the Air Force, we sent the highest paid in their expensive planes while we stayed back and made sure the liquor store was well stocked. At least that was how we trained.

The Cold War, as you may have picked up on from reading this for any length of time, was institutionally speaking, a good War to be in. It had everything you really wanted in a confrontation minus the hindrance of any actual violence.

The Cold War had antagonists and protagonists who knew each other very well; defined terms of what one could expect in the event of escalation of hostilities; well thought out and reasoned approaches of advance, retreat and rules of conduct. Plus the added benefit of the ever-present threat of global thermo-nuclear war which meant that nothing ever really happened.

Ah, good times indeed.

A little Cold-War sabre rattling could, with luck, mean several weeks in a passably Englishspeaking, largely American-accepting, foreign nation with an exceptional dollar to whateverthe-hell-they’re-using-for-currency-today exchange rate, drawing some much needed per diem and putting a young enlisted man on the fast track to completing the ‘beers of the world’ tour ahead of his college contemporaries.

I don’t care what anyone says. If they joined the service prior to 1990, that’s why they did it – for that and the pizza (but that’s another story).

So, it’s getting near crunch time in the desert and me and my new bride are getting settled into the apartment and I get “a phone call”. I’m to report to the security police squadron as an augmentee.

You see, they sent a lot of Air Force cops to the desert to guard Air Force bases which meant that given heightened security at home stations, someone had to step up and fill that security gap.

Enter ... your highly trained … military journalist.

“Sgt. Bushey, step forward and get your weapon.”

A Weapon? Really? With bullets? Cool.

“No, not cool. Have you ever fired one of these?”

At Basic.

Under his breath but purposefully audible, “oh, good Lord, we’re all going to die.”

For the record, this was the third time in my life someone had said that to me. The first was in high school when my buddy Eric would show up at my house with his puke-yellow Toyota Corolla and a 12 pack of beer, hand me the keys and tell me to drive him around while he drank. He didn’t wear a seatbelt because he figured what happened would happen and besides, I was there to drive while he drank, so it would be my fault. The second time was because of the POS BMW mentioned a few posts back when Will, also sans seatbelt, and oddly, also while drinking in the passenger seat, said he knew he was going to die in that car with me. And now this. It would be enough to make most people rethink their career options. Thankfully, I’m not that guy.

I am, however, this guy...

When you are handed an M-16 and 210 rounds of live ammunition, it is not, repeat NOT, the time to turn around to the 40 men and women you will be in close proximity to, tilt your hat, give a little sniff and say, with your best Barney Fife impersonation … anything.

Just don’t do it.

Ever.

Air Force cops, as a rule, are the best group of folks ever to have on your side if you’re in a jam and if they think you have two ounces of common sense. Also as a rule, they do not like to be ridiculed. Also, if they think you’re a dork, you’ll be … sitting on a fire tower watching a fence line where nothing has happened since invading Vikings realized they were in a place

21 where nothing was happening and moved on. And you’ll do this for about 10 hours before going back to the SP shack where there will be an audible exhaling when you clear your rifle without incident.

After a few days of this, a certain inevitability takes hold. The same kind of inevitability that Eric and Will had - where as a group, these SPs I was now spending 12+ hours a day with were becoming desensitized to the fact that my arrival and the Air Force's continued insistence on providing me with the means to eventually hit something important, only made their dreams of growing old less and less likely.

It was in this spirit of "oh, why the hell not" the SPs took me under their wing and showed me what they really did on a day-to-day basis. I was teamed with a guy I'll call 'Dave' because it's been 20 years and I have no bloody clue as to what his name really was. I was to be Dave's partner in Humvee patrols around the base perimeter.

I know, I know. That sounds really boring. Well, let me tell you something. It really is.

Or it really was until...another Humvee came along. The other cop pulled up driver to driver and he and Dave started talking. Dave gave a quick look toward me as if sizing me up to see if I'd squeal and whether my weapon was nearby. Then he nodded to his buddy and the other guy took off - fast.

"Ok, this is what we're going to do..."

All right, I thought… "We’re going to shoot rabbits?"

"Uh, no. We're going to have a contest with those guys in that other Humvee."

As God is my witness I'm not making this up. For the next three hours we drove through every mud hole and patch of dirt we could find and as fast as we could because the contest was to see who could get their Humvee the dirtiest. Losing team had to wash them both. We never lost.

The Shadow was curious as to why the next day I was so excited to go to work. All I could manage was: "Mud, cars, firearms...what's not to like?"

Still, there was a real shooting war set to start any day now, and after only two weeks I got another call which would take me away from the Shadow for the first time of our very new life together and would ultimately spell the end of the green POS BMW. Next Post: The war that wasn’t … thankfully.

The War That Wasn’t Feb 25, 2011 Part 2 of 3 of my 20th anniversary look back at Desert Storm After my short, but probably for the best, stint with the security police of RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, the Ground War Portion of Desert Storm was getting ready to commence, and the Air Force decided they needed my newly-honed, critical defense skills in a place further from home – Gloucestershire County, England – across the country from Suffolk – nearly a 7 hour drive in the POS BMW – probably 5 or so in almost anything else.

No matter. What could go wrong?

It’s important to note, over a lifetime, there are probably fewer questions that can be answered in a less acceptable way than “what could go wrong?”

As a public service, I offer a short list of some of the others: “She’s how old?”

“You can outrun a cop, right?”

And my personal favorite, which isn’t technically a question but serves the same purpose: “Watch this…”

On my way to RAF Little Rissington the POS Beemer decided to … just…stop.

Wonderful. Now I have to find a phone and call for a tow. So I knocked on the door of a quiet little house to ask for a phone and maybe get out of the crappy English winter weather.

Travel note for all of you who don’t travel much and might one day. First, I can’t really say enough good things about England, but they are a sneaky people. To whit: had the house I was about to enter been in America, there would have been subtle signs warning me about what might happen. There might have been cars in various states of dis-assembly; weeds everywhere; a half-broken chain-link fence; a mail box either nearly fallen down or reinforced with nuclear bunker thickness concrete – these and/or a variety of other signs would have been happily alight telling to me risk pneumonia and just keep walking.

But no, this was England. This is the same country where about a year before I got there, the public affairs officer at Bentwaters was giving a tour to a group of elderly English people (who are the sweetest people on the planet toward Americans) and a lady said to him, “If you Americans weren’t here, we’d all be speaking German.” To which, without missing a beat, the American officer replied, “Yes, and driving much better cars.” I cannot make this stuff up.

Anyway, being in England the garden was immaculate, the house incredibly tidy and there was only one car in the drive which seemed in a far better state of repair than my ironically German car gasping its last on the verge. So I knocked.

There are different accents in England if you weren’t aware. The English have their rednecks too. To us they all sound very suave and so very…European. But make no mistake, the

23 English are accent snobs like everyone else and they know a redneck Englishman when they hear one.

I had no such auditory skills.

These kind folks let me use the phone and then started talking to me in a very friendly way.

When they realized I was American (which would take the normal English person exactly 0.0005 seconds) they then quickly deduced I was in the military and decided they could tell me about --- the prophecy.

Have you ever been in a situation where, unbidden, the banjo riff from Deliverance sounds in your head?

The prophecy of course, was one of the hundreds of ‘prophecies’ that nut jobs across the world were coming up with as we sent our forces into Saudi Arabia – very ‘end of the world’ sort of stuff. I’m sure these people were on the Good Ship Coco-Puff when the year 2000 rolled around as well.

I really wanted to be friendly and pretend to be suitably alarmed and awed by their declaration of imminent doom, but that was rendered nearly impossible when the drink they had given me flushed its way out my nose and onto their deep pile carpeting. (In England deep pile carpeting is one of those signs akin to those I would have seen outside in the U.S.).

Fortunately, they thought I had sneezed and so I had to conjure a second and third ‘sneeze’ to capitalize on the ruse. No one is going to believe just one sneeze, even if they are wearing a tinfoil hat.

Eventually I made my way to RAF Fairford where I was to be billeted. With 15 other guys in a single 2-bedroom home. There were 11 of us in cots side by side in the living room of this unfurnished house. Each day, as I no longer had a working automobile, I had to take a bus 45 minutes to RAF Little Rissington where I ‘worked’.

Let me explain Rissington. Remember I said the Cold War was great because we knew the enemy and their capabilities and blah blah blah? Well, Little Rissington was the result of our plans for the seemingly inevitable push of the monstrous Soviet Machine through the Fulda Gap in Germany and straight into our shopping malls where we were sure they would take all the toilet paper, feminine hygiene products and liquor.

Because we knew an invasion by the Soviets would cause casualties on a huge scale, we thoughtfully set up a number of rear-echelon ‘contingency hospitals’. RAF Little Rissington was the largest. Now, for years and years it was the job of 43 people to hang out at Rissington and watch the boxes of medical equipment and supplies and, should the balloon go up, get all that stuff out so we could be ready for a parade of wounded.

In two weeks, Rissington went from 43 people to more than 2,000 doctors, nurses, technicians and the largest contingent of military chaplains ever assembled in one place (or at least AF chaplains – there were more than 50 I think). Within a couple days two hangars on the old airfield were converted into wards – 750 beds in each hangar -- to see it was to be awed by how incredibly grim it would be when/if filled. Just filled with empty, made-up beds - each with two canisters of oxygen and whatever - it had the capacity to make a person sad to the point of morose because it was impossible not to think of it being full.

Technicians meanwhile, were busy opening never before used equipment – everything from X-Ray machines to the machine that goes Ping! I remember a conversation I had with one sergeant in the x-ray station.

Me: So, this stuff is brand new eh?

Sgt: Well, it’s never been opened before and never been used.

Me: Is it old?

Sgt: I’ve read about this type of x-ray machine in books but I’ve never actually seen one.

Words cannot adequately describe the look on his face as he glanced at this piece of machinery. You’ll have to trust me that it was indicative of the whole experience.

I met a Catholic priest while there who looked like he had a story. We talked and he told me how he was an 18 year old private in the Army during the Korean War. He said, and I quote, “I was a young man…doing things young men do…”

He didn’t actually say “wink, wink, nudge, nudge,” but he didn’t have to. Anyway, he went home after his stint, got engaged and after lots of story that doesn’t matter, made a promise to a priest that if he got selected for seminary, he’d go. The joke of course, being on the priest because it was late August and seminary started in two weeks and they only accepted people months in advance.

The lesson here being don't play games with God. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when he told his fiancé he was leaving her to become a priest. Talk about a self-esteem body blow.

‘Darling, I’ve decided I won’t marry you but instead become a celibate priest…I’m sure you understand.’

We had the chance to have this talk while I was working. You see, my big 'job in the war’ was to put out a newsletter to let people know what was going on. Thankfully my job was made easier by this being the first war to feature CNN. My job, in essence, entailed watching CNN and taking notes. Typing those notes up into a newsletter, copying them off, and delivering them to various bulletin boards on base on my large tricycle. (my second adult-sized tricycle of my Air Force career – and my last thankfully).

I hope you can start to appreciate the lengths I’m going to have to go to when I have to lie about “what I did in the war” when I have grand-children. (“My grand-dad was in a tank that rolled over the Republican Guard and kicked their ass out of Kuwait”….Oh yeah, “My grand-dad watched CNN and copied information and… and… and I’m going to get beat up now aren’t I?”) But those 1,500 beds were never really used much – and that’s why it’s a good thing the war wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be when we started. You see, RAF Little Rissington is about a 2 hour bus ride from RAF Upper Heyford, a large USAF base where wounded people would be flown to.

25

So this is the deal. Someone gets wounded in Saudi Arabia – they get evacuated to the rear where they are put on a plane and fly to Germany (about 6 – 10 hours whatever) then they get moved to another plane where they are flown to England (2 hours ish) then they are put on a bus and punished for 2 more hours traveling down really narrow, winding, often badly paved ‘C’ roads in England, where they now need medical assistance because of the drive.

But it didn’t happen often – and the patients we did have had minor problems – broken ankles from tripping into foxholes, a 50+ year old Reservist who had had a heart operation very recently, that kind of thing. The “operating theater” was in the middle of the 750 beds in the hangar – “walled” of by sheets. Not the most sterile of environments if you consider any high-ceilinged hangar you’ve ever been in. Had things been bad I’m sure the job would have gotten done – but it’s just as well things went as they did.

In the end, the nurses, doctors and technicians left and the war, for the most part, stayed in the Gulf. While there were a few casualties who went through Rissington, the only fatality I knew personally was my POS Green BMW. It didn’t survive the war.

Next up, part 3: Even REALLY hungry people won’t eat chicken ala king MREs.

Who Eats This?

March 5, 2011 Part 3 of 3 A couple weeks after returning home from my ‘adventure’ watching TV at Little Rissington, Shadow and I were at home – it was Sunday. And the phone rang and it was my boss, Satan’s daughter.

I’m not a severely religious person but there must be a God because I worked for the Devil’s progeny. There’s no doubt in my mind. I mean, I can’t prove it, but all the signs were there – her head spun around in complete circles, Bibles spontaneously combusted near her. But that’s not the point and I don’t want to go down that particular rabbit trail, because there was work to be done in Turkey.

You see, when 500,000 coalition members made scrap metal out of most of Iraq’s army, thousands upon thousands of Kurdish-Iraqis ran into the hills of Northern Iraq. These weren’t peasants who didn’t understand – many were well-educated people. Doctors, accountants – people from all professional walks of life. And they did understand. They understood that Saddam Hussein had used poison gas on them several years previously and he was not in a terribly good mood with just one pizza delivery place left standing in Baghdad. They had to get out of town.

And this is what they did. They drove. They literally drove north until their cars ran out of gas and then they got out and walked – into some really big mountains. It was the first week of April. They didn’t have food, much in the way of clothing or anything else.

It seems kind of odd to us looking at a seething mass of humanity walking into the wilderness like that, but at some point, fear and the recognition of who the really bad people

are will drive everyone to the lowest rung of Maslow’s hierarchy. They needed to survive. A chance in the wilderness was better than fat chance in their homes and towns.

Here’s the kicker though – they were heading toward Turkey. If there is a population on this planet that dislikes the Kurds as much as Saddam Hussein, it’s the Turks.

First a little history/geography lesson. Kurdistan, historically, is made up of bits of northern Iraq and Syria and quite a good chunk of eastern/central Turkey. In fact, a little town called Diyarbakir was the capital of Kurdistan. At least this is what I was told by a British Ministry of Defence official I hung out with for a while as we were standing on the walled city of Diyarbakir overlooking a bridge built in 1065 that spans the Tigres and one of the four potential spots Biblical Scholars think the Garden of Eden may have been. It is a land of some contrast. But I digress.

So, about 2 days after this phone call, I’m in Turkey, near Ankara, watching one of my coworkers very slowly win several thousand dollars at roulette in the hotel’s basement casino.

And my boss tells me to get on a helicopter because I’m heading east.

If you ever have a chance to fly on a Chinook helicopter – go get dental surgery or something. It’s really not comfortable – especially on the floor, for two hours.

When they dropped me off, I wasn’t at the small American Air Base 15 miles away. No, they had sent me to the Turkish Air Base in Diyarbakir itself. From there, the army was launching helicopters loaded with food and other supplies brought in by aircraft from dozens of countries to the airfield at Diyarbakir. On any given day you could find Saudi, American, British, Russian, Dutch, German – any one of a number of countries’ aircraft on the ramp. I know all this because the tent I worked out of was, and I am being very literal about this – about 10 yards from the edge of the parking apron.

For entertainment we’d watch Turkish pilots flying F-104 Starfighters (aircraft we hadn’t flown since the ‘60s). Our tent was on a strip of grass about 50 meters or so wide from the parking apron to the perimeter road around the base. About another 50 meters or so on the other side of the fence near the perimeter road was the Turkish bombing/gunnery range.

We would watch the rockets detach from the airplanes and shoot toward their targets. Note, I didn’t say hit their targets. They didn’t seem to be very good shots but we enjoyed the show and dutifully held up signs to score their bombing runs.

We were lucky in that we had a Turkish fighter pilot help us out as an interpreter. In the couple months I was there I taught him to play cribbage, which he got quite good at. He was helping us because he was no longer allowed to fly.

“I got married to a Romanian girl,” he explained, taking out his wallet to show me a picture.

“In Turkish Air Force, if you marry a foreigner, you lose your security clearance and they kick you out.” He leaned in to me and whispered, “It cost me $400 (US) to get married. When I’m out of Air Force, I pay her another $400 for divorce. I’ve got a job lined up with Turkish airline which pays much better.”

What I really learned from this deployment, then, was that people really aren’t so different no matter where you go. For him, he told me Diyarbakir was the TAF’s ‘shit base’ that no one wanted to go to. Fantastic. And he also explained a little about the Turkish conscripts.

Mandatory service was part of the deal then and conscripts were essentially third class citizens. I had heard stories of conscripts being shot out of hand.

27 “Well, if they do something really bad, like sleep on guard duty, then yes, I can just shoot them,” the officer told me. “But it’s not something you want to do too often because eventually they’ll start asking questions and there’s paperwork…”

And here’s the thing … he was not joking. This was a guy I’d spent a lot of time with and I had a pretty good sense of when he was or was not joking. In this case, he wasn’t.

So as part of my job here, other than providing media credentials to more than 700 media who moved through the place in about 3 weeks, we got to go on C-130 flights to deliver food and on helicopter flights where we’d stop at various places and watch Iraqi POWs playing soccer and really behaving like they were in absolutely no hurry to go south again.

The whole process of providing for the Kurds was a logistical nightmare and while I’m not one to get into the ‘we’re number one’ nonsense that so many Americans seem fond of, I’m quite sure no other country in the world could have pulled off what we did.

The sheer amount of tents, blankets, food, water, baby food and other supplies that we airlifted over some pretty big mountains and to some pretty remote places was astounding.

The US Army was doing serious work herding all those people together.

I know ‘herding’ doesn’t sound good, but it’s true. As pallets of food and water were dropped (with parachutes obviously) some younger (and dumber) Kurds would race out to where the pallets were falling. Inevitably…well, do the math. It’s not likely you’re going to catch a two-ton pallet. Even with a parachute. The flight crews were devastated by this so they started herding people up in groups and dropping the supplies several miles away. This made for more orderly distribution and people weren’t grabbing and hoarding everything. At the same time all this is going on, we’re trying to figure out how to get these people back home – because let’s face it, the Turks don’t want them. So there were dozens of soldiers essentially being auto mechanics. Going south and fixing and refueling all these cars that had been left there on the sides of the roads.

Aside from the human drama of it all – I think what amazed me most was that despite their condition – half starving – many Kurds refused to eat Chicken A La King MREs. If you don’t know MREs are Meals Ready to Eat. (non politically-correctly referred to in Desert Storm as “Meals Rejected by Ethiopians”) They were fairly new to the US forces in 1991 and they were awful. No amount of Tobasco sauce (which they all had in them in little tiny bottles) would make them better.

The British guys in the tent next to ours would gag when we tore into them. “If you’re going to eat that at least you could heat it,” they’d say as they opened a 10 pound box of rations that had tea, good chocolate, bacon and real food that required cooking utensils and fire.

An MRE packet contained a spork.

So on the hillsides of northern Iraq, where thousands of Kurds waited to be fed there were hundreds if not thousands, of unopened Chicken ala king packages. I think there were more than a few Cherry Nut Cake as well.

It was kind of ironic that the same military force that could unleash such devastation and then just as quickly turn around and launch what amounted to an enormous rescue mission, was subsisting on food the rescued wouldn’t eat.

I often wonder if they laughed about that in their tents at night.

Why are boys different than girls & what good are breasts 14 March 2011 So, Wednesday, the 16th of this month is my son’s 9th birthday and I’m sitting here in Texas wondering what the hell I’m doing in Texas when it’s my son’s 9th birthday and thinking of how big he’s getting and how grown up he’s getting.

Then Shadow says to me, “he asked me the other day why we’re here. You know, what’s the meaning of life?”

Holy crap! Really? He skipped right over “why are boys different than girls?” and “what good are breasts?” and went straight to the meaning of life? Damn.

Now, this cuts both ways. First, I’m mighty proud to be the dad to such a smart and thoughtful young man. Second, I’m a little bothered that he skipped over “why are boys different than girls?” and “what good are breasts?” Because those are the questions I was really banking on and I’ve been practicing on those two questions thinking I’d shunt off the heavy-philosophical stuff to the Shadow.

And here’s the problem with being in Texas: So, I asked Shadow, what did you tell him when he asked?

(Laughing) I told him to ask you.

Nice. Thanks. From 2000 miles away I’m getting totally jobbed by my own wife. So, now I have to think of an answer to this highly thought-provoking and serious question. I’m lucky in the sense that he’s not asking this at that weird teen age when they start dressing all in black and taking a serious interest in anything that might remotely piss me off. So, all in all, I figure this is an opportunity to set him on a path that won’t lead to me having to learn anything about Goths or vampires or non-visible body piercings or home-made henna tattoos from some brownie-ed up hippy with a ’77 Gremlin with a sun floor.

This is my opportunity to … to…. Make some shit up, I guess.

Oh, come on! Did you really think I was going to be able to pass this particular muster?

Really? Have we met? Asking me the meaning of life is like asking Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan to be your kids’ godparents. The best you’re likely to get out of this is 20 minutes of me repeating Monty Python skits starting with Mr. Creosote in the restaurant scene followed by a couple choruses of “every sperm is sacred.”

I don’t even know why I’m in Texas much less why life has evolved on a singular planet amidst a galaxy with, as a conservative estimate, 500,000 planets that might potentially hold some life as we know it. I joined the Air Force because of free pizza for goodness sake. If you don’t believe me, ask my high school friends or my family. My recruiter’s name was Kermit.

As God is my witness that’s true. I was offered pizza by a guy named Kermit and here I am 24+ years later trying to give a reasonable answer as to the meaning of life to a child who is still young enough to think I’m smart.

I suppose I could try the pseudo-science approach and say, “water.” We are here because of water. It allows us to live and this is the only planet with liquid water. But I can’t carry that through to its logical conclusion because I suck at science … and he doesn’t.

29 I could try the religious approach but if I follow that road it could lead someone to the conclusion that we are here to impose our religious beliefs on those who don’t hold them no matter what means we use to do it. The Jews, the Christians, the Muslims - they have all done it or are doing it now. Not a great message there. Certainly, “to kill each other” while plenty ironic, isn’t an acceptable answer to ‘why are we here?’

So, I have to answer the question for myself first and I’m a little annoyed because I’ve not really given any thought to it for decades now.

The reason I’ll probably end up giving him will likely be something like this: This is a question you can’t answer thinking forward – only looking backward. Why you are here is something you’ll have to figure out for yourself as you live your life and make your choices. Will you do something that makes a difference to you or someone else? Will you do something that makes where you are a better place? If you find yourself doing something like that, then you’ll probably find the answer to your question. But it’s a different answer for each person.

The fact that we are here, however, gives us the opportunity to make a conscious choice to be here for a reason. What that reason turns out to be for each of us, will define us as individuals. What those choices are as individuals will define us as a people. How we got here doesn’t really matter. Knowing or not knowing, we’re still left with a life to live. What we choose to do with that life: the friends we make, the impressions we leave on others, the commitments we make ... In the end we’ll look back on our life and point to something and say, that is why I was here. The real question is, when you say it, will it be an answer you're proud of?

Yeah, it will probably be something like that.

But what I’ll really be thinking will be: the meaning of life is what happens when you figure out what makes boys different than girls and why breasts on women are good, but on men, not so much.

By Official Proclamation – Happy National Bunsen Burner Day 30 March 2011 So, wanting to do something meaningful in this space for once, I started to do some research on how much the federal government spends on all that “National Hot Dog Day” type of jackassery the government loves to spend your money on by signing Proclamations.

Somehow I figure there has to be a dollar figure associated with that because there are bureaucrats who approve this kind of thing. There is also probably a grant or something the government hands out to help people promote “Frog Jumping Week” or some other nonsense.

Here’s the really scary thing about this – five minutes ago I thought I just made up “Frog Jumping Week” trying to be clever. Then I thought…maybe… and I went to Google and typed in Frog Jumping. It turns out I was wrong but only in as much as frog jumping doesn’t get a whole week. May 13 is National Frog Jumping Day. (and National Leprechaun Day and National Blame Someone Else Day which is really convenient if your frog finishes last and you don’t find a Leprechaun. And why we have a day for an entirely fanciful Irish hobgoblin is beyond me.) But there it is - they all exist.

Naturally, on my way to commit journalistic acts of public service, I was thwarted by myself and started looking up all these goofy days and observances. There are too many to count.

Of all the sites I visited, however, probably the most easy to use was from, of all people, the Hallmark Channel. You can find them at: www.theultimateholidaysite.com If you’re at all interested, today is National Bunsen Burner Day. Now, according to the everpractical Wikipedia, most of the observances listed above are not, strictly speaking, observances as accorded by the President or Congress. That particular list is not nearly as much fun to read, but takes just as long.

Keep in mind, the following are observances that in some way you’ve paid for through the salaries of federal employees who have to approve these and keep the lists and etc.

Apparently, there is a ‘children’s day’ - it’s the first Monday in June.

Mothers and Fathers as you know, each have their own day, but there is also a Parent’s Day the last Sunday in July. Back in ’94 President Clinton took time out of his busy games of ‘hide the cigar’ to sign an actual Congressional Resolution (36 U.S.C. 135 if you’re interested) for “recognizing, uplifting, and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of children," which is almost ironic.

Full disclosure forces me to include that the bill was introduced by a Republican, and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court said, “Replacing Mother's Day and Father's Day with a Parents' Day should be considered, as an observance more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles."

Oh, those horrible ‘sex based differences’ like only women can conceive and bear children and breast feed and stuff like that and only men can get up at 2 a.m. during the third trimester to drive 15 miles in a snowstorm to a 24-hour Cumberland Farms to buy an $8 pint of Ben & Jerrys Chunky Monkey – to bring home to their poor wife, who upon his return is sound asleep – as all she really wanted was him out of the bed in the first place so her overheating body could throw off the covers and she could be comfortable, but because it was 6 degrees outside and he wasn’t heavy with child, he wanted the covers on. Now he’s home, she’s asleep and he’s watching Cinemax in the living room with two blankets, an afghan, and a pint of Ben and Jerrys Chunky Monkey. Ruth should just shut the hell up.

Loyalty Day is May 1. It’s “set aside for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom.” Which sounds sort of Soviet-ish to me.

Gold Star Mothers get a day of observance the last Sunday in September. If you don’t know the term, Gold Star Mother is the mother of a service member killed in action. Today driving around the country you might see small flags hanging in windows – mostly with blue stars – one for each serving son or daughter in the military. A gold star represents a son or daughter who has been killed in the line of duty. This is a non-political organization that has been around for about 83 years. If you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan, you’ll notice Pvt. Ryan’s mother had such a flag in her window when she was notified of the deaths of two of her sons. There are also Gold Star Wives and Gold Star Siblings. Oddly, there is no such group for fathers or husbands. Although husbands of Gold Star Mothers may become ‘associate members’ who can’t vote and don’t pay dues. Must be part of that ‘sex based difference’ ole’ Ruth was talking about.

31 As you’ve probably figured out, the list of observances is long in an ungainly fashion. Others include National Airborne Day (as in Army guys who jump out of perfectly good planes); Lief Erikson Day (Oct. 9); Gen Pulaski Memorial Day (Oct. 11) as every elementary school graduate knows, Gen Pulaski was a Revolutionary War hero.

You didn’t know? Now you do. See, you learned something here. Of all places.

Of course, over the span of human events, some observances stop being followed. Baltic Freedom Day which had a glorious 10 year run from 1982-1992 is no longer with us; the reasoning, I suppose, is that the Baltics having their freedom, are now free to get their own days; and National Catfish Day, which had a singular year in 1987 – the spike of interest I suppose being that stupid singing fish plaque that appeared around that time.

In the interest of equal time for those of us who fall under the ‘sex based difference’ file, I also checked out some other observances I thought particularly applicable to my jobimposed quasi-bachelorhood. You can find a complete list here: http://www.menstuff.org/calendar/workshops/awareness.html July 15 - Anti-Boredom Day. This year will mark the 15th annual one. Apparently there is an actual “Boring Institute” which I believe is in the front closet of BOB. July 31 – National Abstain from Sex Day. This will be my second consecutive year taking part in this particular festivity. I think I’m getting a T-shirt in the mail. If I can do it next year too, they said they’ll make me the National Chairman as it’s never been done three times in a row. This is a day, and I only wish I were making this up, “set aside to prove to those who think men can’t abstain from sex for even one day, to prove them wrong.”

Let me not be the first to say: They’re not wrong.

Men can do it if we have to do it. (see exhibit A: me) No man would do it by choice.

(Ibid) Those magazines at the grocery story – the women’s magazines – that say 50 Things to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed – those are the dumbest things ever. If you want to get a man into bed, just ask politely – or not – whether he’d like to have sex. You could just come in from mucking out the cow barn - it won’t matter.

I’m going to say without fear of contradiction that even those men whose doctors have told them that sexual activity may indeed cause their heart to explode in their chests, will roll the dice.

Ladies, ask your husbands or boyfriends – I dare you to prove me wrong. You won’t.

Men…you’re welcome.

May 1-7 is Cartoon Art Appreciation Week. You can’t go wrong with a week of Calvin and Hobbes.

May 8-13 is National Etiquette Week. To help you get over the previous seven days of indulging in cartoon art.

Sept. 5 - Be Late for Something Day. I’d like to be late for Abstain From Sex Day please.

July 2 - This is perhaps my favorite one of all. I Forgot Day. A day to make up for all the holidays and birthdays/anniversaries etc. you forgot throughout the year. Perfect.

July 10-16 is Nude Recreation Week. Before you get too excited about this, keep in mind that in your community it’s probably being held at the outdoor living section of WalMart.

September - Shameless Promotion month. I think this is a great idea and I’d like to get started a little early by asking that you link this blog to your FaceBook page. First follower who says they signed up because of a link you posted will be given a free pass from Abstain From Sex Day 2012. I'll be the president of the committee then. I'll sign a Proclamation.

My Epiphany 6 April 2011 Have you ever had one of those moments where something happened to make you feel much, much better about yourself? Some people call them epiphanies – a blinding flash, often of the obvious, that resets your life gyros so everything becomes, if not necessarily better, at least clearer.

About a week ago, a good friend of mine related to me the following story – in his words, approximately…

“So, the other day was my wife’s birthday and she opened her gift and stared. Now, let’s go back in time to two weeks previously. My daughter and I had a list of items my wife wanted for her birthday. This was a pre-approved list with colors, sizes, brands – in short, everything a husband of many years would need not to screw it up.

“While ordering the item, my daughter and I were like two lieutenants in a missile silo running a pre-launch checklist – item, check; color, check; size, check; size, double-check; brand, check; anything missing, check…or credit card” (his daughter has a very quick wit for a teenager, apparently) “So, we have the pre-approved list, we’ve run the checklist, it’s got two sets of eyes to verify the command sequence before the key is turned and the item purchased. Had any of these things not happened, I’m sure one of us would have had to shoot the other. But it all worked as advertised. So, now, let’s go back – she opens the gift, stares and says, “this is the wrong one.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Yes, it is. I’ll just exchange it…”

“No, you won’t. … Daughter….”

“No, it’s the right one, mom.”

“Had I not had my daughter with me to verify this, I’m sure I would be blamed for this being the wrong item. In fact, I might have begun to second guess myself.”

Now, that story, as sad and emasculating as it is, would generally lead one to think maybe this guy should give some serious consideration to gift certificates, but it isn’t an isolated case. To whit…

33 I’m walking in the base exchange at Lackland AFB, Texas today and I’m heading to the men’s room. About five paces in front of me are a couple who are also heading to their respective facilities. As the guy in front of me turns into the men’s room, he audibly mumbles, in that way that all men do, the following, “yes, mother!” I can’t prove it but I’m almost sure he was rolling his eyes.

Well, I did what anyone who had just witnessed such a scene would do – I laughed, out loud, and totally forgoing man-space rules and etiquette I took the station next to him and I was still chuckling. “Yeah, wait until you’re retired,” he said.

The man was, at most, in his early 50s so it’s not like he had 30 years on me or something. I have brothers older than this guy I’m sure.

“No, hey, it’s ok,” I said, “I’ve been married 20 years, I feel ya.” (which in retrospect is probably not the best choice of words in a men’s room, trousers down).

“You know what’s worse?” He says, “we’re living in a motor home now so I get to be with her all the time!”

I have no choice, I laugh again. As he turns to wash his hands he allows for a pause and says, “No, it’s all good. She’s really all right.”

Again, a good pause for effect.

“She lets me say that.” And he walked away.

I’ve never been so glad to be at a urinal because I would have wet myself.

Then, I realized, men are pretty much all the same and it’s not that we don’t care about what you want for your birthday or that we don’t listen to you.

We do listen. And what we hear is women changing their minds. So we don’t keep lists. Tell us what you want and that’s what you’ll get – because it’s just easier to shop for.

And there it was – my epiphany. Men aren’t whipped, we’re just lazy.

25th Class Reunion: It’s all my friends’ fault 9 April 2011 This summer is my 25th high school reunion and I believe that the people you go to high school with have a lot to do with who you are as you grow up. It will be an interesting reunion to be sure, because I think the Shadow will be interested to meet those to blame.

Some people have never attended a reunion because they think it will be a ‘glory days’-fest or a launching point for their mid-life crisis or perhaps just because they don’t want to hear Flock of Seagulls again. I’ve never attended one because I’ve never been able to. 5th year – stationed in England; 10th year – stationed in the Azores; 15th year – England again; 20th – literally days away from the Shadow giving birth to our daughter. Technically, I could have gone to that one but it really wouldn’t have been a prudent thing to do.

So, as the countdown to summer and this little shindig begins, I’m wondering what happens at these things because a lot of high school is kind of a blur. I remember a guy in my first period study hall drinking a huge blue vodka-Slurpy every morning at 8 a.m. (I think he works in law enforcement now); I remember, on really nice days, getting up in the morning and turning on the shower until I heard my mom leave for work and then going back to bed or calling some friends and going to Canada for R&R; I remember being a freshman and hating it and being a senior and loving it; I remember doing homework five minutes before class started; I remember graduating and people saying they’d keep in touch forever; and I remember never hearing from many of them again.

Largely though, I remember the parties. For my town we had a spot called, quite simply, “the pond.” I’m sure most small towns have such a place. The pond had a real name, but no one ever used it. Saying “Party at the pond” was enough to ensure someone would bring firewood and something to drink. Through our graduation, the drinking age was 18, so it wasn’t difficult to procure adult beverages. I think the vodka Slurpy guy attests to that.

But the party I remember most was probably the only one I ever hosted. My parents thoughtfully took a cruise and left me pretty much to myself for a couple weeks. Now, I’m the youngest of 7 kids and by the time your 7th kid makes it to high school, as a parent you’re pretty much shot. The feeling at this point is, ‘if he’s made it this far, he’ll be fine.’

So, I invited about 15 of my friends and no fewer than 40 showed up – I’m sure I didn’t know some of them. But I wasn’t bothered because I was under the care of a doctor at that point – Dr. McGillicuddy to be specific. Dr. M. was a magician because he made menthol-mint schnapps that got you drunk while at the same time making you feel like you’d just brushed your teeth.

One of the side effects of the good doctor’s concoction, however, is that it gave one superpowers. Or, specifically, it made me actually squeeze a highball glass to the point of it breaking in my hand. Several seconds of extreme clarity manifested themselves at that point: first, I remember saying, “huh…” and watching as my friend Eric said, “fuck…” and then pretty much lose his mind. The glass did no significant damage but it did puncture one finger and the blood was pretty thin at that point.

Now, I told you that AF cops are good folks to have around in a bind and not long after this party, Eric went on to become an Air Force cop. That night Eric went above and beyond. He tried to stop the bleeding with direct pressure; he raised my hand above the level of my heart to try to stem the flow of blood; he rinsed it out in the sink; he held my bleeding finger as I went to the bathroom – if I live to be a hundred I will never be able to say that about another human being. Ever.

Eric is also not a medic. While holding my hand under the tap he says to me, “turn your head, this may sting.” So I did. After about 20 seconds I said, “So, are you going to do anything?”

He said, “turn around.”

I looked as he was pouring rubbing alcohol over my still bleeding finger. “You don’t even feel that do you?”

“Um…nope.”

“Good grief, you’re fucked up.” (Eric swore quite liberally even then)

35

So at this point it’s determined that maybe the hospital would be a good venue, because, let’s face it, this bleeding is not going to stop. The blood is bright and red and smells a little like mouthwash. So enter another friend, D. D was everyone’s designated driver and was possibly the best sport about this ever. The money she could have made on blackmail alone would have put her through college.

Fortunately, and I can’t over-emphasize this, this was pre-cell phone, pre-digital picture and, most thankfully, pre-Facebook. If what we did then happened today, none of us would have jobs.

So, at the hospital I’m fortunate again in that I know one of the local cops who is there with some guy who’d been in a bar fight. As me and this crazy old man (who was probably about as old as I am now) talked our gutter drawl, the cop signed me in to the emergency room and gave me that laugh that simply said, “you’re such a dumb-ass.”

An hour or so later, I’m back home and… and this is the great part … my friends have chucked everyone out, cleaned the house and even went so far as to sort the bottles into returnables and recyclables. What a great group of caring, thoughtful and relatively tidy friends.

Looking back at 25 years, I like to think that perhaps I owe my friends a big thank you for not screwing me up too badly. The Shadow just wonders why more of what made them so excellent didn’t rub off on me.

He Who Must Not Be Named 4 May 2011 I suppose I’m obligated to say something about the death of He Who Must Not Be Named and what I have to say about it is only a short piece of this posting and then I’ll move on to something else.

Basically, what we witnessed earlier this week was the death of American trust and whatever the opposite of cynicism is – call it naiveté if you will – but we’ve totally lost touch with that ‘50s America (which I never knew personally by the way) where people believed in other people.

Consider that literally within minutes hundreds of thousands of people were posting messages of various descriptions on Facebook and Twitter. Most of these messages were of the “USA-USA” variety or the “I’m-so-glad-the-bastard’s-dead” variety, or the “show-me-thebody” variety. This is an astonishing thing that information can travel so far so quickly and permeate nearly every level of society. Information is available to people from all social/economic classes on a scale unheard of in human history. Still, like any weapon, information can be frightening if not in competent hands.

Did I just call information a weapon? I suppose I did. Make no mistake, it can be a weapon.

The downside is that EVERYONE has it. Even Cletus and Cooter, who are still working on carburetors when they’re not racing lawnmowers. And because everyone has it, everyone feels obligated to use it (like me, yes. I’m not a total hypocrite, I get it).

But what we end up with is a cynicism like we’ve never had before. And if you know me, you know that I know about cynicism. We’ve become a nation – possibly a world – of cynics. And Americans have a capacity to believe others and not their own government that amazes me.

Conspiracy theorists were spewing electrons before Voldemort’s body even started polluting the ocean.

Today, three days later, we’re treated to the usual suspects: He’s not dead; this is a government cover up; it’s a political ploy to get BHO elected again and the list goes on. How much? Well, I just Googled “Bin Laden Conspiracy Theories” and turned up 2,360,000 hits.

My favorite theory: Bin Laden’s been dead for years but we’ve kept his body frozen until we needed it.

Wow. Tinfoil hats for everybody.

Imagine if the connectivity we had today was around in the ‘60s when we landed on the moon or during World War II. It’s bad enough there are many people who think the moon landings were faked and that there was no holocaust, but what if these events had taken place in the Twitter age…good grief. Hitler would be alive today, or he was captured by the Russians, or the Allies took him to work in a girl’s school teaching home economics… whatever. It would all be out there and there would be people lining up to buy all of it to some degree or other.

All of this simply leads me to believe we are rapidly approaching that place where the lowest common denominator is no longer the lowest, but entirely common. Ironically, it seems all our connectivity, instead of letting us create thoughtful expressions of our own, has merely given us all the opportunity to search until we find expressions that match our own -- giving us an unrivaled capacity for groupthink – which is wholly anathema to any sort of real freedom.

And the people who want pictures … do you really want to see a picture of a guy who has been shot in the head? It’s not television. There isn’t a neat and clean little wound. Well, maybe an entry wound; but at the back there probably isn’t much left. The exit is always larger than the entrance.

So, let’s say the government posted pictures. I’m sure within hours (maybe minutes) there would be people who are very good with computers who would compile “video evidence” that the photos were faked. We’ve seen this happen in regard to 9-11 where people use the ‘evidence’ that the hole in the Pentagon wasn’t shaped like an airplane. The theory, I guess, being that we live in Toon Town where anything going through a wall leaves a perfect silhouette.

What if we release a video from the special forces helmet cameras? Obviously, the videos would be theorized as having been staged in Hollywood. Because we all know how those right-leaning Hollywood types want to ply their trade for propaganda purposes. (I know, sarcasm and cynicism – bonus!)

Americans are the first ones to get indignant and outraged when foreign powers show pictures of captured soldiers, but can we honestly say our desire for ‘proof’ makes us any better? Is it really proof we’re after or just that Roman coliseum thrill of watching wild animals rip people apart? Is it justice or a cheap bit of titillation?

37 I’m curious as to what makes Joe 6-Pack feel he has the need to ‘know’? It’s not the government’s job to prove each and every little thing to each individual person.

Governments don’t – can’t - work like that.

The places you work do not tell you each little detail of what they do – you have to take some of it on faith. Governments work along those lines as well.

When I first heard this special ops team had killed bin Laden and nobody knew about it until after it was over, I thought to myself, “Excellent. That means we can still keep a secret when we really have to.” I had the same feeling when the existence of the F-117 stealth fighter was revealed in the late ‘80s after it had been flying for years.

I sleep better knowing the government can keep its collective mouth shut when something important is going down, the same way I sleep better knowing there are people in uniform who have the capability and the ability to do things on our behalf that, quite honestly, I’d rather not know about.

Personally, I’ll happily believe that BHO made a ballsy decision to go boots-on-the-ground into a sovereign nation without their permission and do what needed to be done.

Sometimes a win is a win and you accept it and move on. Save the speech-making; save the ridiculous campus revels; and save your breath with the “prove to me” this and the “show me” that.

I don’t need to have it proven to me he’s dead. You would, however, have to prove to me he’s alive. Good luck with that.

Doing What Matters 8 June 2011 I wrote the following for Air Force Live - a blog site. The event was the return of the body of a soldier from Texas who was killed in Afghanistan. I hope you take away from reading this post a fraction of what I took from being there and writing it.

An Airman rises to honor a fallen Soldier Today I had the privilege to be a very small part of several hundred people who gathered to honor a fallen warrior. Army Sgt. Thomas Bohall returned to Texas today from Afghanistan and he was met by a line of respect that stretched for more than half a mile.

Words, however, are a poor substitute to the sights and more specifically to a single face in which a whole world of non-verbal emotion collided.

Lining the road there were uniforms, mostly ABUs, the odd BDU, flight suits, civilian slacks, skirts, suits. They were representative of the team that makes the military work. They were worn by every skin tone you could consider and they came equipped with boots, shoes, pumps, and heels; with berets, flight caps, garrison caps and even cowboy hats, and they stood under a double line of 50 state flags – everywhere you looked you could see all of America represented.

At the end of the line, through the base gates, two ladder trucks from local fire departments formed an arch across the road, with an American flag hanging. And as the procession

approached, what little noise there was ceased. Cars stopped, contractors doing grounds maintenance stood at attention and doffed their hats, uniformed service members saluted.

As Sgt. Bohall passed I dipped my eyes and in a fraction of a second, locked eyes with a woman who I can only assume was a wife, girlfriend or sister. I’ll never know. She was no more than two feet away. She was sitting sideways in her car, facing directly into the row of us lining the road. Her face, wracked with grief and desperately straining to hold back tears that would end her connection with us, was a storm of emotion.

Barely visible beneath the grief there was also a hint of a smile on her tear-stained lips. That near-smile and her wide eyes spoke clearly of pride – the pride she had for Sgt. Bohall – Thomas — regardless of the relationship they shared. Mostly, however, I saw in her face thankfulness. She was staring at people who had never met Thomas, never met her or her family, and yet here they were. On some level I think she probably understood at that moment that Thomas had always been around family, even when he was far from home.

In a second, she was gone, replaced by the low rumble of 74 motorcycles from the Patriot Guard, providing top cover for Sgt. Bohall and his family.

Salutes were lowered, cars moved, groundskeepers went back to work, but it was all quieter now. Did it matter that we were there; that we took an insignificant portion of our lives and saluted a fallen comrade?

Had you seen this woman’s face, her eyes, her gratitude, you wouldn’t even ask.

It made a difference. It mattered … a lot.

Where are the Adults?

12 June 2011 So, I’m looking at Facebook, you know, catching up on how people with actual lives are doing, and it turns out one of the ‘kids’ I had as a cadet is going to be a dad; and right below that post was another one of the ‘kids’ I had as a cadet is saying how she will never have children because it just looks some kind of ungodly uncomfortable.

And I thought, damn! These people are going to reproduce – or are in the midst of it now.

How in the name of all that’s holy is that right? They are going to have little ‘thems’ running around and asking serious questions and needing to learn how to grow up, but the thing those unborn kids don’t know yet – their parents have no frickin’ idea.

And then…then... I thought…neither do I. How is it, exactly, that I’m qualified to be a grownup? When I was a kid there were grown-ups – you know, adult people who knew things and who you could turn to with questions and expect answers.

Now? Now, there’s me - us! We sit around writing blogs and carrying on ‘conversations’ on Facebook and some build little pretend farms and … Christ, our children are so screwed it’s almost not worth thinking about.

But then, I did. Think about it, that is. And I expended considerable energy that would otherwise go toward making peanut butter and fluff sandwiches and really tried to

39 remember what ‘adults’ were like when I was growing up. And upon careful reflection, I don’t think the young generation is quite as shafted as one would think – at least not from anything we have done as adults.

I’m lucky in that the age between me and my son is the same age as between me and my dad – so I have a nice frame of reference in which to make this comparison. And while I’ll admit our parents teach us a lot – I mean they have to if they ever want us out of the house – I don’t remember a lot specifically. I remember when I was 16 and got my own car. When I was trying it out, my dad got in the driver’s seat and was looking it over and giving approving remarks. And then he shifted his glance and looked backward through the gap in the bucket seats and said the following, “Easy access to the back seat – that’s good.”

Wha…? He didn’t give me a conspiratorial wink or anything. He just said it.

So, I had to really think and ask myself, did I ever get any really good information or has every parent since time began really just kind of winged it – making it up as they went in the hopes that they didn’t figuratively pee in the gene pool.

It turns out, and I’m no rocket surgeon, that as I sit here all middle-aged and wondering what ever happened to adults, the sad truth is – nothing. They’ve always been like this. When you’re young, you just don’t know any better because your world is so incredibly small that everybody seems smart. Hell, I thought Capt. Kangaroo was a genius when I was a kid despite the fact he kept falling for Mr. Moose’s ping pong ball trick every single time.

The naiveté of children is what makes it so wonderful to be a parent and it’s also probably what makes parents seem like ‘adults’ to the kids. So, while it’s freaking me out a little that people who were sitting in my class two years ago unable to make a decent PowerPoint slide are now making other people, I’m consoled at least by the fact that they really don’t know any less than you or I did – and you know it’s true.

25th Class Reunion A Success … Almost 3 July 2011 So, after 25 years I finally got to attend a high school reunion and put into action all those plans I’ve been making for how to redeem myself and show that I’m a reasonably together mid-lifer instead of the total dork-meister I was in high school.

For the occasion the Shadow figured I would be better off if she bought me some new clothes instead of what I was preparing to wear – black and white checked shirt with thin leather tie, ripped acid-washed jeans and a bandana ala Loverboy. (For the record and to aid the occasional reader of this blog, she didn’t really care if I made a fool of myself, but she was attending the event as well and she did not want to be on the receiving end of sympathy looks all night.)

Now, by way of a primer for those of you who have never been to a high school reunion, and as a public service, the following are some steps you should probably take to get ready for the big evening.

First, take a glance at your yearbook to see if you can remember someone – anyone. After 25 years the chances are good that you can convince at least one person you remember them from a party where you were both hammered.

Second, Grosse Point Blank is an excellent film to watch right before a reunion because of the reunion scene in the film. Odds are some of the guys at your reunion will have seen the movie. As we all know, a good portion of the male brain is dedicated to memorizing movie lines. These lines should only be used in an emergency when the conversation gets slow, or while in line for beer.

Third, and this is me being generous because really what I want is for you to learn this for yourself the hard way … girls still like to dance. And guys still do not. In many respects your high school reunion will remind you more of a 7th grade dance in the gymnasium once the music starts.

Still, prepped as I was in my new duds and armed with movie lines and a bunch of money for beer, the Shadow and I arrived and found it wasn’t so bad. Most of the guys I remembered pretty well. All of them, in fact. The women…not so much. Even with nametags and fresh short-term memory application of the yearbook – I came up blank more than once. It was terribly embarrassing but not especially surprising as women were not my major in any positive pubescent sort of way in high school.

As you prepare to talk to people at a substantive reunion, you should know that 25 years is a very long time and people change - and so do their families. Because I'm from a small town, I know many of my classmates’ parents, and some of the "catching up" stories were a little alarming – not so much because of the subject, but because these stories likely foreshadow our behavior in another 30 years. I won't relate any of these stories but suffice to say copious food storage, fear of anarchy and tinfoil hats figure prominently. On my news browser I've now got several new favorites including the hometown paper obituaries, the Darwin Awards, and News of the Weird. If these folks are going to show up again, it will be in one of those places.

A reunion also lets you be a little amazed by just how well people who were buffoons at 17 (that would be all 17 year olds) are doing at 43. Of course, anyone who might say, “I’m thinking of opening a meth lab in my bathroom…” is probably not going to be at the reunion, but the people at this event all had really respectable jobs. With big companies.

Doing grown-up things, while I’m spending most of my time wondering if I’ll make enough of a connection with my new apartment to name it. I was also impressed to the edge of fear because next year I’ll be out of work.

Fourth, bring business cards. You never know.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and it was good to say hi to folks I haven't seen in years and give life a little perspective. When we got home, the Shadow and I were discussing the possibility that maybe I had accomplished my goal of putting my past dork demons to rest. Then my lovely Shadow gave me a kiss and told me she loved me and I thought things were going to get prom-good when she grabbed my ass…and pulled back from me holding the waist measurement sticker from the back of my pants.

I guess there's always the 30th reunion in 2016.

41 I’ll Take Weather over Air Conditioners Every Time 7 July 2011 This is awesome. Two weeks with the Shadow and the children and all in the lovingly temperate climate that marks Vermont as the one place in all the world you'd gladly go to remind yourself that weather can change within minutes. Every hour. Every day.

At least that is what I was hoping for on this visit. Some 'highs in the 70s' kind of summer days that exhibit the total lack of weather that make Vermont summers so singularly refreshing. That slightly cool breeze that is almost, but not quite cool enough, to make you want a light sweater or a flannel shirt. Those days are magic.

Whereas Texas, of course, is like living on the face of the sun. You boldly stride from air conditioned building to air conditioned car. I know people in Texas who have (and proudly so) installed auto-start features on their cars so that they can cool them down. As anyone in New England will tell you, that's just foolish - auto starts are for heat - trees and shade are for cooling.

Alas, buildings in Vermont do not have air conditioning which is why I'm writing this to you now at 10:30 p.m. with every window opened to within an inch of compressing the panes of glass - desperate for a breeze that just isn't there.

For hours I've been staring at wildlife in my front yard standing in front of my open windows hoping for the millisecond of cool air that floats their way when I open the refrigerator. It's that hot. And that humid.

Still, for all that, it's merely uncomfortable, not 112 degrees of Texas insufferable. And I have to ask myself why that is so...

Perhaps it's the trees or the grass that you can walk on and lay down on without being swarmed by a million red ants that would like nothing better than to pull you into their hill one deliciously tiny piece at a time.

Perhaps it's the knowledge that after a winter that availed itself of almost all of April, a little heat isn't such a bad thing.

Perhaps it's knowing that in mid-July everyone within 100 miles of me at this moment knows exactly where their snow boots are.

Perhaps it's not insufferable because the cree-mee stands and the drive-in theaters are still open providing a tangible link to a season that is all too short and all the more glorious because of it.

Perhaps it's because we all know that in a couple months, leaf-peepers from southern Connecticut and New York City and other places that have air conditioning but lack air quality, will jam our roads driving slowly and annoying us to no end with the word "charming."

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's because when I look outside at 10:47 p.m. I can see a sky filled with more stars than I can count and by 11:12 p.m. I can hear, very softly over the humming of a, quite honestly pointless ceiling fan, a gentle rain that, even as I type these words, brings

a soft breeze scented with new mown grass and a soporific relief that the best air conditioner in Texas couldn't hope to compete with.

Most likely though, these two weeks of summer are so wonderful mainly because I'm home.

The Shadow and the kids are asleep and using the tried and true New England cooling expedient of turning over the pillow - and waiting a few more minutes for the weather to change again.

With all due respect to Texas, summers are much bigger here.

A New Bike, A Potential World of Gear 30 July 2011 My new bicycle came in a week early and when I got the phone call yesterday I was pretty stoked. I’ve never been excited by the prospect of cycling before, but I’ve never been told I shouldn’t run anymore before either, so it works out nicely.

When I went to the shop (Action Bicycles in Universal City, Texas if you’re in the area) I had a few minutes to kill looking around and I was amazed at the amount of gear you can get with a bike. Then a voice in my head went off repeating a mantra you hear often amongst the British military, usually while talking about Americans – “All the gear and no idea.”

The fact the voice in my head was the Shadow’s voice should really come as no surprise to any but the first-time reader of this blog, but it did and it was her way of telling me from thousands of miles away to step away from the credit card.

But still it was fun to look – there is just all kinds of cool stuff from bike computers to tool kits to bags and pumps, lights and shirts, tires and levers and switches and…it was just candy-store like.

Still, I didn’t buy anything and today I went for my first ride. I already had a helmet and those gloves with no fingers (which really shouldn’t be considered an option if you enjoy your skin) and so with a song in my heart I found a park with miles and miles of trails. Not serious mountain biking trails with water obstacles and hills and stuff, but single-track trails that are plenty challenging when you’re 40 pounds of belly fat from where you need to be and haven’t ridden a bicycle with any alacrity since you were 6 when your bike’s banana seat matched those dangly things that were stuck into the handlebars. (You know what I’m talking about. You’re the guy who used to turn them like they were keys to start the bike – go ahead, admit it.)

Anyway, I’ve got pretty much everything I need except music but that’s not a big deal because it’s nice just to hear whatever noise it is you’re making or that nature makes sometimes. My phone has an app that will tell me how slow I’m going and how much distance I’ll cover and I’m pretty much set.

What I didn’t have, and again, if you’ve read this with any regularity you’ll not be surprised, what I didn’t have was any type of map. I figured I’d just follow trails until I came out of the woods again. That’s a great idea – if you’re an experienced rider who happened to bring any type of food substance with him. Not so good if it’s your first ride and you know in the back of your head there is the distinct possibility there could be walking involved. And swearing.

43 About 40 minutes into the ride I heard an odd noise – that would be my phone. I have perhaps one of the nation’s least expansive phone systems and here in the middle of a very large treed space I was getting a call from the Shadow. Her timing, as ever, was impeccable because at that very spot where I stopped, not 30 feet away, were 4 deer – a mother and 3 fawns and they were just kind of standing there wanting to run away but knowing somewhere in their animal brains that I represented no threat whatsoever to anything other than perhaps myself. So we stared at each other for a while and then I carried on with my ride.

You don’t get to see that kind of thing as often when you’re running – usually because you’re too busy breathing or trying not to trip over tree routes or whatever, so it was a nice way to begin my relationship with my orange bike. It didn’t hurt that I found my way out of the woods fairly soon thereafter and didn’t have to consider which fingers I’d gnaw off first if it came to it.

When it was all done I’d ridden about 7-8 miles or so – not a huge distance by any means but it took an hour so the exercise was there and that’s really the point anyway.

Now as I write this, it’s several hours later and as I think about my visit to the bike shop yesterday, I realize one really important fact you would all do well to take note of should you embark upon a cycling as a way of getting/staying fit: as important as those gloves are, you’d do well to spend your first bit of cash on padded cycling shorts.

Slutty Doctor...Paging Slutty Doctor...

Nov. 2, 2011 I'm home with the Shadow and kids for a week and I think a little recap of Halloween is in order. Really, it is. Trust me. First, let's do a little run-down...

- Scream mask complete with a fake blood pump, check.

- Rotting corpse that lets you actually see the inside of a hacker-dissected body, check.

- Semi form-fitting skull mask with matching scythe-blade of death, check.

- Slutty doctor, uh… technically, I suppose, check.

To be fair, those few outfits were probably the worst of the lot and they wouldn’t have even done justice to a haunted house or any party with limited expectation of a good time.

However, it's also worth mentioning these costumes were seen at an elementary school Halloween parade for kindergarten and first grade students.

Yes, 5 and 6 year olds dressed up in mass slaughter gear. I think anthropologists hundreds of years from now will scratch their heads and just constantly mouth the words, ‘what the fu…?”

I’m not against Halloween or dressing up or any of the rest (I mean, free candy – what’s not to like?) but where in our society did we entirely lose sight of what it means to be appropriate?

There were 5-year-olds who were visibly frightened by a 6-year-old with red blood-like substance cascading down a pale white mask. It’s hard to rally the princesses and fairies or

even the witches or superheroes when they’re staring at costumes of death and mayhem that belong at the parties of much older people. It’s like we’re witnessing the topic of the first three sessions of their future therapy.

And while it’s bad enough there were a few kids who obviously have deep-seated psychological issues of their own – slutty doctor presented a whole other world of inexplicable decision making.

How and in what universe does a grown woman wake up and say, “I’m going to wear the studded collar, thigh-high stockings that kind of look like black latex boots with red ribbons for ties; a tight red corset; the black fuck-me pumps; and, I guess, because this event will be at an elementary school, I’ll throw on a white lab coat for decency.”

Now, you may be saying, “Roe, you got an awfully good description of slutty doctor…” and you’d be right, because it was a train-wreck of phenomenal proportions. Shadow saw her and was cross and amused at the same time. Kind of like the pissed-off sympathy you have for people on reality singing shows who are obviously at the bottom of the cerebral food chain but who believe their 8 tone-deaf friends are the ultimate arbiters of vocal talent.

You see, Slutty Doctor is merely a description of the costume. The woman herself was afflicted by a deficiency of taste rivaled only by mega-rich teenagers who buy opulent California palaces only to let them be decorated by graffiti artists. Slutty doctor has also apparently lost the ability to distinguish the difference between how something looks on a package model (a svelte sports car, 20-ish) and how something will look on her (a meth-lab sofa, 50-ish).

While witnessing this act of ocular terrorism, Shadow shared with me one of those Englishisms that I adore. She stared at this woman and just mumbled, “mutton dressed as lamb.”

For my money, that line was worth the entire spectacle and that is just going to have to suffice because I didn’t get any photos. It was just too scary.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Resolutions and Ben & Jerry's Jan. 1, 2012 I don’t know what it is about resolutions - perhaps it’s the feeling of never really having to carry them out that makes them so attractive - kind of like a campaign promise to ourselves.

You know, we’ll “try” to be better people but when that inevitably fails, none of us will be surprised. Or care. And then to make ourselves feel better, we’ll just go eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

We are so cynical as a society that even I get a little nauseated. But I have hope this year for several reasons: 1. It’s a leap year which means we have an extra day to wait before we pay our income tax.

2. It’s an even year which means there is an Olympics of some sort which gives us a break from the glacial sports-cancer that is the Major League Baseball season.

3. It’s a presidential election year which means that as individuals we can all feel pretty good about ourselves again once the campaign advertising starts in earnest and we see the baser

45 side of human nature.

Still, I suppose in the spirit of things, I should make at least an attempt at non-binding, arbitrary and inconsequential self-betterment. Therefore, during 2012: • I will no longer write 2011 on my checks. Yes, I still write checks – although not at the grocery store because that would just be begging for an ass kicking.

• I will not pay any attention to anything with the word “Mayan” in it. Seriously, the Mayans ceased to exist as a real civilization somewhere about 900AD. There are still technically, Mayans, but there are still Greeks and Romans too. To put this all in some perspective, the Mayans last gasp was about the same time Alfred the Great was beating up the Danes (who were then still a legitimate power) in England. Don’t remember that? Well, exactly. So, if the Mayans couldn’t figure out when they were doomed, I don’t put a lot of stock in them figuring out when we are going to snuff it. Perhaps they just ran out of room on the calendar. Or maybe they got bored? I know I am. Moving on…

• I will really, really, really try to lose the 15 pounds I gained in 2011 while working on my resolution to lose 30 pounds.

• I will find meaningful employment after June. (Actually, that one is legitimate) • I will probably end up writing Colin Powell’s name on a ballot (again).

• I will do another Soldier Ride somewhere in the United States and you can expect emails solicitations from me as I wish to raise at least a $1,000 this year.

• I will do a century ride on a bicycle.

• I will grow a beard. (Full disclosure, Shadow has already voted against this idea quite vociferously and my experiment in the last two weeks is showing signs that genetic weakness may also play a large part in ultimately dooming this idea.)

• After Aug. 1 I’m going to call the nearest Air Force base and ask them where they keep their nuclear vessels –but I’m going to do it like Chekov in Star Trek IV and say “Nuclear Wessels.”

• I’m going to invent a word that eventually gets included in the dictionary. In 2011 ‘bromance’ and ‘cougar’ were added as were ‘LOL’ and ‘OMG’, so how hard can it be, really?

• I will stop being surprised by anything I see in Wal-Mart.

• I’m going to try to go a month without buying anything made in China. So, as an addendum to the previous item, if I see something in Wal-Mart that was not made in China, I reserve the right to be surprised.

• Try to resist the urge to correct people’s spelling and punctuation on Facebook. I will, however, continue to point them to http://www.snopes.com/ in the sincere hope they’ll stop spreading the endlessly annoying spam emails. No one is ever going to pay you or any organization money for the amount of “likes” they receive. No one is getting a new heart or other major organ because of your email; God is not going to hate me (or like me) because I don’t pass on a message to everyone on my list; If you did not enter an online lottery in England, you did not win an online lottery in England; no one on the entire continent of

Africa wants to give you any money for any reason; 45,000 postcards will not save anyone’s life, but it will ruin the day of a shit-ton of health care workers.

• I will try to not be annoyed by the masses of simple-minded troglodytes who pass on every electron of information as if it were truth without verifying (see paragraph above)…shit…disregard.

• I vow to continue my brain cell-directed boycott of all things Kardashian. I’m happy to say if you put a Kardashian in front of me, I wouldn’t recognize it.

• I may start the “Vote For Anyone Else” campaign to encourage Americans to vote for anyone else other than the person who currently holds an elected position. Perhaps I’ll start a Facebook Page. What do you think? If 10 of you say you’ll join, I’ll create the page. If you are of the creative bent, please copyright the slogan, and start making bumper stickers, tshirts and coffee mugs – you can gift me a percentage.

And when all is said in done, I’ll probably be sitting here – like you – eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s by the summer solstice, which is when the Mayans say the giant meteor should be visible.

Happy 2012 everyone.

Homemakers Earn How Much?

March 12, 2012 Today, on Facebook, a friend of mine (whom I’ve actually met) posted a story where someone did a survey and figured out that a stay-at-home parent (homemaker) is worth about $96,000 a year.

I bring this up because I was sharing this with Shadow on Skype when the background noise (the children) markedly increased and was of the sort that starts as a playful laugh, followed by tussling and almost always ends up in a fit of tears.

So, how did Shadow handle this? Simply put, she didn’t.

You see, Shadow is a highly paid executive who ‘makes’ $96,000 a year. People who make that much money don’t worry about petty squabbling amongst the worker drones. They worry about big-issue things – like when vomit or bleeding is involved or the audible snapping of bones can be heard. Tears before bedtime, especially the type that are selfinduced, she feels, just makes the peasants go to sleep faster.

“The 96 thousand,” she said, “is a good number because we need that money to pay for the therapy we will need in the not too distant future.”

The she took a small sip from her second (half) beer and contemplated for a minute, and said, “and our alcohol rehabilitation.”

And this is why technology is wonderful. Ten years ago I would have had to deal with the odd phone call where the noise in the background just would have been annoying. Thanks to Skype – which is by nature, hands free – we as a couple, can both share in the mayhem that

47 our offspring are producing – while hanging on to a beer in such a fashion as to ensure it will not be spilled by a clumsy act of pre-pubescence.

There have been times on Skype that I have even been able to witness acts of juvenile terrorism that one will perpetrate against the other – all while thinking that no one is watching.

You’d think this would lead to children who learn rather more rapidly that cameras are everywhere. You’d be wrong. Even from 2,000 miles away I’ve had the parental privilege of this conversation, “Dad, can I do (fill in whatever word you want that would elicit and immediate ‘hells, no’)?”

“What did your mother say?”

“She said no.” ...Heavy sigh….

Despite this I wouldn’t even want to imagine living in an age when unintentional bachelors would be able to correspond only by mail with the occasional very expensive long distance phone call (remember those – when you had to use an operator and you often called collect?).

Somehow waiting two weeks to read about how child-A whacked child-B with a spoon after child-B kicked child-A in the shin while at dinner…at a neighbor’s house…during a holiday of peace and joy, just doesn’t have the same realism or, what to call it…verve, I guess, that seeing it all live does.

Being able to witness a child’s wanton jackassery is really one of the things that make live video feeds special. And if by doing so you get to see something that makes you want to use the word ‘tussle,’ well then, that’s just the bonus Shadow will get on top of the 96 grand she’s already making.

Kids take after their parents...sometimes May 5, 2012 So, in the course of about two weeks, my progeny each underwent their own medical procedures and at the end of all of it, I have to say I’m quite impressed by what these kids appear to be made of.

It started with my youngest – my baby girl who has, rather unfortunately, inherited all of those habits of mine which the Shadow has so ruthlessly tried to ferret out over the last two decades – with minimal success I hasten to add. She’s impulsive, headstrong and, if I may paraphrase Blackadder, has a pigheaded stubbornness and refusal to look facts in the face that will see her through. What she does have which will serve her in good stead, however, is her mothers’ lovely features. I genuinely feel bad for her future boyfriends.

Anyway, she took a tumble at school which required stitches just at the bottom and slightly underneath her chin – a place that if it leaves a little scar will endow her with just enough of a scar to be endearing and mysterious – easily visible, but not blatantly obvious – all in all an

excellent scar as scars go. When getting stitched she didn’t cry or whimper or anything that I would do and when having them removed she described the process and ‘prickling’ – which is not anything like I would describe it but that could just be because I know swear words.

My son at the tender age of 10 was involved in dental surgery. You see, as a British born youth of a British mother, he is culturally predisposed to needing dental surgery – it’s like Americans are predisposed toward being, for the most part, culturally ignorant of every other country on the planet except their own. We must just accept these things and move on.

When I asked him about his surgery he said the following: “It was really cool, I think they must have hypnotized me or something because when I opened my eyes the doctor was standing over me snapping his fingers in front of my face…”

Uh….yeah….hypnotized. I’m going to file this away for reference because in about 6 or 7 years I expect him to use it as a code word when he calls me at 2 in the morning from a friend’s house in an addled state of mind from Drambui or some other heinous act of beverage selection saying, “dad, sorry I can’t make it home, Bob is hypnotizing us.”

Shadow then told me that when he was coming around he was trying to say something that was pretty much unintelligible due to the four wads of gauze shoved in the spaces where his teeth used to be. Turns out what he was saying was this: “Mom, I’ve got four feet!”

I’ve only been under the influence of medical sedatives once in my life and the reaction it gave me was to make me never want to be under the influence of medical sedatives again.

That fact that he used the words, “cool,” “hypnotized,” and the phrase “I’ve got four feet” and sounded excited about the possibilities that could mean for track season, give me some cause for concern as you might imagine.

It is, however, quite comforting in many ways to know my kids, although made up of DNA from Shadow and myself are really becoming their own people – and are made of stronger stuff than the gelatinous mass either of their parents would become if confronted with the same circumstances.