A farewell to John…

JOHN’S KRAFT

John Andrew Kraft, 75, wrote the last page of his incredible autobiography on Sunday, August 1, 2021. He was born to James Walsh Kraft and Blanche Rodger Kraft on July 3, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

John is survived by his wife, the Rev. Dawn Curlee Carlson, his son, Alex Carlson, nieces, nephews, and an abundance of friends, including his Starbucks early morning play group. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother Jim.

John attended St. Mary’s Elementary School and Beaver Falls High School. He graduated from Baldwin-Wallace University, with a double major in political science and theater. He felt that prepared him to stage a coup and was always proud to see Baldwin-Wallace grads in almost every Playbill. John acted in theaters in Cleveland, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Terre Haute. His sense of humor and gift for stand-up comedy had him on many late night stages in the Bay Area and LA.

John’s career encompassed many roles over the years. They all came into play as he supported the woman he loved in her career as minister. He used his humor, listening skills, gift for story-telling, and his love of life to help bring the love of God to others. John was a proud and humorous curmudgeon, a gifted writer of both fiction and non-fiction, an avid blogger, a respected actor, and a devoted San Francisco Giants fan. He was a loving and true father to Alex and a generous, unplanned, and supportive clergy spouse. John was a loving husband who made his wife laugh every day and taught her everything she knows about baseball.

A private memorial celebration of life will be held at a later date. In lieu of memorials, hug the people you love and say, “I love you,” every single day.

I Am Being Productive…Honest.

WELL, HERE WE GO AGAIN. It is 6:30 AM. I have my coffee in front of me and my pen is in my hand…and I haven’t the foggiest idea of what comes next. I know that I should have glowing prose spilling from my brain onto the page. But, as I stare at the empty paper in front of me all I can think of is, “I’d rather be back in bed.”

It took me only five minutes to turn on my phone and check my overnight mail. Most of it was junk. There was one very nice note from a new reader praising a post from last week. That’s always a nice way to start the day. It is certainly better than having some disgruntled insomniac telling me how wrong I am about everything and that my writing style sucks like a ten year old Hoover.

Take a number and get in line. Our Complaint Dept. opens at 9 AM – after my coffee and meds.

Ooh, I Can Hear Myself Thinking

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE TIMES of the year at the Chapel of St. Arbucks here in Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Why did I buy more onion dip?”).

At this time every year we have a Scholastic Solstice of a sort. For about ten days this place is quiet. The Public Schools have resumed classes while the colleges and universities don’t kick into gear for another week or so. As a result, the usually busy St. Arbucks is an oasis of relative quiet. The decibel level drops from “Karakatoa on the Wabash” loud down to “My headache has disappeared” manageable. The difference is both thrilling and humbling.

I May Be Going Bananas

I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND SOME PEOPLE. No, that’s not accurate. Closer to the nugget of Truth would be, “I just don’t understand most people. Of course, of the few people that I do think I understand I’m usually wrong.

It’s not that I think I am superior or more intelligent than the bulk of humankind it’s just that my most frequently muttered phrase is, “Why they do that?”

A prime example of my mystification with people happened yesterday.

We Can Rebuild Him…

I KNOW THAT I’VE BEEN WRITING a lot about my cataract surgery lately. Some people tell me that they have found it somewhat interesting. Others have called it all rather “yucky.”

And they are both correct.

Bad Juju

THERE MUST BE SOME BAD JUJU FLOATING IN THE AIR TODAY. Everybody seems to be complaining about something wherever I go. I’m getting my coffee and the person in front of me in line is moaning about the weather.

“It’s going to be hot all week. I don’t like hot weather. I just don’t like it.”

Well, Lady, it is summertime in the Midwest and it is supposed to be only 88° today and 93° tomorrow. I would call that warm, maybe bordering on hot, but it ain’t Death Valley.

See? Now she’s got me doing it. I’m complaining about her complaining.

Bad juju.

The Five People I Almost Killed

FOLLOWING UP ON PREVIOUS SATURDAYS I have decided to post another piece from my catalog.

This was written as a performance piece to be done in front of a live audience.

 ***** 

I think it is important to stress that in the title of this piece I say “almost killed,” and not “killed.” To the best of my knowledge I have never actually killed anyone. I just tend to come close. Sometimes very close and I’ve done so five times – so far. The five nearly “dearly departed” have all shared one characteristic: they are, or to a large degree were, famous. Let me explain.

 

QI

I like to laugh. It can lift my spirits. It can help me tolerate the stupidity and insanity I see around me. It’s fun and it just feels good.

Given the universal turmoil of the last year or so I have been desperate to find new things to make me laugh more and deeper.

I have found it.

Actually, my wife, the lovely and equal fan of a good guffaw, Dawn, found it and got me belly laughing and knee slapping in minutes.

What she found was a British Comedy Game Show called “Q I.” Not IQ, but QI. I’ve learned that the QI actually stands for “Quite Interesting.” They call it a Game Show but the scoring is unfathomable, arbitrary, and nobody gives a hoot anyway.

The Google description of QI says: “QI is a quite interesting quiz show in that correct answers are not necessarily the goal. But responding to presenter Sandi Toksvig’s mostly obscure questions in a funny or interesting way, regardless of whether the responses include a right answer is what scores points.” On QI even the audience can score points!

QI has been on the air for 18 seasons. It began in 2003 and has amassed 289 episodes. The original host was British comic actor and wit Stephen Fry who left the show in 2016. He was succeeded by the current host, Sandi Toksvig, who was a frequent “contestant” on the show.

All of QI’s contestants are comedians, mainly British, with a sprinkling of American, Irish, Aussie, Indian, and others. I even saw an old American friend on the show from my days onstage in California. They do throw in the odd celebrity on occasion who finds themselves in the middle of a whirlwind of comics turned loose. Chaos ensues.

Comedian/Actor Alan Davies has been on every show (except one which he missed to attend a championship soccer match with his favorite team.) He is often the butt of jokes while even leading the action.

I’ve included a few links to some episodes of QI that I think (hope) that you will find fun as well as strangely informative in a totally useless way.

QI has been good for me and I can prove it. I am sure that without the therapeutic and cathartic value of QI it is entirely possible that I might have degenerated into writing “How-to” books for Civil War re-enactors using aluminum foil and supermarket twist ties.

Aren’t we all glad that never happened?

I’m just assuming you know how to hit the “Skip Ads” button.

Sunday funnies

Steps Must be Taken

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER my doctors have been on my case, saying that I need to “Get more exercise.”

I’m Alive

I’m Alive.

And I don’t say that lightly. Recently there have been questions.

Today is the second day of June, 2021. On May 23^rd – just a little over a week ago I was one sick Geezer.

I had been fighting what I had taken to be the remnants of a cold and the congestion had been coming and going for a week or two. On that Sunday, the 23^rd, it was getting worse. I was having more and more difficulty breathing. My wife, the lovely, observant, and concerned for her Geezer, Dawn, could see that I was struggling. She suggested and I agreed that a trip to the ER was in order.

Ten minutes later I was sitting in a wheelchair with a stethoscope moving about on my chest. My lungs were filling with fluid. I felt like I was drowning. The ER doctors began to inject me with something called Lasik and told me to be ready to to start urinating like a Race Horse.

They weren’t kidding.

Within the next two hours I put out more than two liters of sickly looking fluid from my lungs. I could begin to breathe again. The X-Rays said that I was showing signs of Congestive Heart Failure.

Those are three scary words.

I was admitted to the Hospital – Room 3014. I felt like crap, but I was in no apparent immediate danger. Dawn finally was able to go home at about 3 AM on Monday morning.

I continued to crank out more fluid for a couple of days. I also had a lot of blood Vampired out of me. There were tests, tests, and more tests – with no conclusive finger pointing at why I was in that hospital bed. As the week progressed I was poked, prodded and punctured all day and all night. I met more people with letters after their names than I had ever encountered before.

Everyone was kind, helpful and very professional. I felt that I was in very good hands. With the weekend looming it was decided to cut me loose and, since my condition had improved and stabilized, I would now be able to be an outpatient. I was OK with that. I desperately wanted to go home. I was feeling better, Dawn was exhausted, and I had begun to seriously complain about the food.

No matter how advanced that Hospital may be and how brilliant the staff may be it is without a doubt that the place will never become known as a Culinary destination.

Hospital food, while they try to present a wider menu, still sucks. I’m sorry. I have nothing but respect for everyone there, but the person who ruins their version of Macaroni and Cheese should be forced to eat it. As a man with the last name of KRAFT I tend to take it all personally.

I’m home now and making the rounds of my various doctors still trying to discover what caused our late night adventure to the Emergency Room. I’m feeling so much better, but I still need to know what happened and why.

I’ll keep you advised, but right now I’m looking forward to a nice steaming bowl of real Mac and Cheese straight from that little blue cardboard box.

I’m Gonna Smell For A Week

IT’S TUESDAY AND I SMELL.

Due to some technical difficulties I am having with WordPress it is necessary that I post a few more things from the past. This post is from 2015.

Enjoy and bear with me.

Last Saturday I volunteered to help out at a Kiwanis Club Fish Fry fundraiser. I was there from 3:30 PM until about 7:30 PM. I helped out selling tickets at the door and greeting the several hundred people who showed up to dine until they dropped. The thing is – I don’t belong to the Kiwanis Club.

Coffee Should Not Be Difficult

I like coffee. No, that’s not true.

I love coffee. I think coffee is one of God’s greatest gifts. Coffee starts my day. It makes the rest of my day possible and an experience filled with joy.

Most mornings during the week I start my day by putting on my shoes and heading off to a local coffee house where I meet up with a collection of other retired dudes – “The Usual suspects.” We discuss our lives, our families, and the solution to all of the world’s problems. All of this before 7 AM and fueled by coffee and the occasional pastry. The pastry is optional, but the coffee is not. It is vital. Without the coffee our gathering would be nothing more than a bunch of Geezers putting on weight. That would never do.

Most days we get to the coffee house, chat up a storm and are headed out the door a little before 8 AM. We need to get home in time for breakfast. We don’t have to rush off to get to a job or anything like that – Heaven forbid! Our days are filled with any number of activities. A few of the “Suspects” love taking care of their yards and gardens. A couple have hobbies. One of the men is a volunteer golf coach at a local university. One fellow is an 83 year old athlete… Pickleball. This fellow is a National Champion and he travels all over the country playing in tournaments. I don’t do any of that stuff. I drink coffee.

That is not as easy as it sounds, my friends.

About a year ago I took a leap into the 21^st Century method of brewing coffee. I got a Keurig coffee maker – it is one of those Gizmos that uses those little pods filled with coffee. They are very neat and clean. In less than two minutes I can have a big steaming cup of the coffee of my choice. That’s faster than some of the coffee houses where I have to rely on a barista who is even less awake than I am at 6:30 in the morning. The Gizmo is nice. It is certainly convenient, but it ain’t perfect.

I like the Gizmo itself. I like that it is here in our kitchen within easy reach when the need for coffee strikes. I have no problem with the Gizmo at all.

It is those little pods that make me growl and mutter under my breath.

I have a selection of different coffees to pick from. They vary in strength and flavor. Sometimes I want a smooth and mellow brew after dinner. At other times I need a stronger coffee – something that can remove the paint off of the wall. I even have a few pods that will make a nice hot cup of cocoa for those chilly Midwestern Nights. The problem is with the pods themselves.

The process involved is that I place the pod of my choice in the little holder and then close the lid. Doing that punctures the top of the pod so the water can get to the coffee in the pod. It also punctures the bottom of the pod so that the coffee can drip down into my cup It’s the puncturing that is the rough spot in the process.

For some of the pods, most even, the hole is easily punched in the pod and I can just sit back and wait for the coffee to be ready. However, with some of the pods I have to push that lid down with enough force that I fear that I will end up breaking the Gizmo. Where would I be then? I don’t need the tension.

I’m getting caffeine in the coffee. That gives me enough of a rush. I don’t need to get stressed battling the machine.

I don’t know what the solution to this problem is. I will take any suggestions you may have – as long as it doesn’t involve firearms.  

Joey Who?

Baseball is back!

I can’t count that 60 game joke of last year.

Now that reality has returned I have reposted a blog from 2017.

IT LOOKS LIKE SPRINGTIME IS FINALLY HERE. I see robins and cardinals and they don’t look worried about frostbite. There are giant Vs overhead going north and there are new baseball stars on the horizon.

Major League Baseball teams have been heavy into Spring Training for over a month and just like the new flowers that pop up in the spring so do new young players.

I Should Buy Some Purple Spandex

I was sitting in a local coffee shop when I looked across the street and saw this view through the caffeine. It reminded me of a blog posting from a few years back.

Here it is.

I LIVE VERY CLOSE TO MY favorite gym. It is only about a five minute walk from my home, but, of course, I don’t walk there – I drive. It has all the latest equipment and a highly- trained staff that can help design for you a really healthy and vigorous workout program. You can also get top notch diet and nutritional planning advice there as well.

I don’t care about any of that crap.

It’s my favorite gym because it is right next door to a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream store. I can just imagine myself doing a really healthy cardio workout in the gym and then zipping next door for some hand-packed peanut butter and chocolate ice cream. I’m never going to do that, but I can imagine it. I’m so glad that the two places are so close. Talk about your city planning! I should send a “Thank You” card to the zoning board. They got something right for a change.

I really do love going to that gym – really, I do. I just stand outside, with my ice cream cone and watch the folks inside sweating and grunting. Every once in a while someone comes outside and joins me. I think they realize that I’m having a better time than they are.

One time some yutz came out from the gym and started to berate me for my dissipated lifestyle. That was his phrase – “dissipated lifestyle.” – And how he was a much better person than me. I licked my cone and nodded, but didn’t say anything. That really fried his Twinkies. He flexed his muscles and got right up in my face and said that when we both get to 50 years of age I’ll probably have already dropped dead and he’ll still be healthy. I told him my guess was that he’d stroke out on his Stairmaster long before reaching 50, and that, anyway, I’m already way past 50 years old and “you can lick my Rocky Road.”

I’ll Be Calling You…Ooo…Ooo…Ooo…Ooo.

SOME THINGS ARE INEVITABLE. Some things are expensive. Some things are inevitably expensive.

That was a big part of my day yesterday. I went cellphone shopping. I didn’t want to. I had to.

I have to admit that this shopping excursion was overdue…several years overdue. My phone was, literally, held together with Scotch Tape. About six months ago it had started to disassemble itself. I never knew that the two parts of the plastic shell were held together with glue. I know it now.

Over the years (about five at least) I must have dropped that phone a dozen times. There were so

many cracks in the glass screen that, in the right light, it looked like a street map of Houston – or like my eyeballs on the Monday morning of a three day weekend. People who saw my phone were asking me what it was. When I’d tell them they would LOL all over the place. Something had to be done. It should have been done a long time ago, but I don’t like cellphone shopping. Nobody does.

The coup de grace dropped on me two nights ago when I tried to order a pizza.

The speaker had been doing no more than mumbling for some time, but when I called the Pizza Hovel I could hear the young lady on the other end but she could not hear me at all.

My cellphone had become just a “Cell,” no longer able to be a real phone. That was the straw that broke Alexander Graham Bell’s back. I had to go shopping. I could no longer avoid the issue.

The second thing yesterday morning (Coffee came first) I headed off to “The Phone Store.” As soon as I walked through the door I could see that this was going to be fun …not. I was the only customer in the store and there was only one other person there and she was “The Manager.” She took one look at my pitiful piece of gear and said, “Oh, my God, what happened to it?” Rather than tell her the long story I just said, “It’s old.”

I did explain to her that I wanted to get a new gizmo and move everything from my phone to the new one. That’s really all I wanted for sure …that and the ability to order a pizza. She logged in to my phone and said something positive. “Fortunately, you’ve backed up almost everything so, even if I can’t move your files from this piece of trash you have them in the cloud.”

She showed me a couple of different phones and explained the features of the dohickey and of the packages available to me. I was actually going to save money and have unlimited data. I like that. According to The Manager I was lucky that my decrepit phone hadn’t dissolved itself into a pile of plastic and silicone. Who was I to argue?

Now I am at home trying to figure out what is what and how to make my new thingamabob do more than tell me the time. I think this is going to take me about a week and a few phone calls to 611 for help. I’ll do what I have to. I’ll beg. I’ll listen. I may even whimper if it might help.

You Gonna Eat That?

This is a throwback from a few years ago about food, health, and some other stuff.

“FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!” WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT and, all too often we can’t live with it. We eat too much. We eat the wrong stuff and there are people who eat, yet are starving.

We have TV shows featuring the lives of people who have hit 600#, making themselves into virtual prisoners in their homes. Following that show will be another about Anorexia. In between there will be ad after ad for dubious products to help us slim down or bulk up. I can’t keep it all straight in my feeble head. I need to think about food on a small scale.

No matter what I might donate to help feed the starving it would never be enough. I have to start with myself

The Cookie Monster Is My Hero

Sometimes there are just too many choices. Every day I am faced with the tasks of making choices as soon as my eyes pop open.

Get up or not get up?

Matching socks or just grab any old two?

It goes on like that until I have made the choices that will make m,e presentable to the world.

Once I get downstairs I am faced with an unending Q&A. It goes on all day. It seems like I can’t go anywhere or do anything without having to make choices. My only respite has been a those few precious minutes in the early evening when I’m able to relax, pour a cup of coffee, and nibble on a cookie or two….or three. But, now even that oasis has been overrun by a stampede of “Choose me! No! Choose me!” When I go down the Cookie Aisle a the Supermarket I am ambushed by a wall holding Twenty-Seven (Read ’em – 27) different Oreo Cookies! How am I supposed to make a choice for my evening snack when I am faced with that?

Jesus only had 12 Apostles to deal with. I have 27 Cookies staring at me. This is gonna be rough.

Ever since I was knee high to a Cookie Jar I loved the Oreo cookie. It was a simple chocolate cookie with a sweet layer of white stuff. Pulling the Oreo apart and eating the “White Stuff” side first was half the fun. I still do that. It’s Tradition! Now, with 27 different Oreos I am going to be hyper-busy pulling them all apart in the Krafty Oreo Test Kitchen. Here is a list of all the choices I am now faced with. Brace yourself.

1. Birthday Cake 2. Fudge Dipped Thin Bites 3. Mint Thins 4. Thins Bites 5. Chocolate Thins 6. Chocolate Oreo 7. Peanut Butter 8. Fudge Dipped Mint Thins 9. Red Velvet 10. White Fudge Dipped Thin Bites 11. Mint Oreo 12. Oreo Thins 13. Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie. 14. Spring Oreo 15. Dark Chocolate 16. Golden Thins 17. Fudge Covered Oreo 18. Carrot Cake 19. Mega Stuff Oreo 20. Pistachio Thins 21. Golden Oreo 22. Most Stuff Oreo 23. Oreo (The Classic!) 24. Lemon Oreo 25. Double Stuff. 26. Toasted Coconut 27. White Fudge Covered Oreo.

I had originally thought that there were just 25 varieties, but I was corrected by the nurse at my doctor’s office. I told the Doctor about my personal obligation to sample all of the Oreo varieties. He looked at me…then smiled. I think he was seeing himself behind the wheel of a brand new Ferrari.
It is going to take a while for me to sample all of these new Oreo cookies. I’m not going to try to get it all done over a weekend. I’m going to have to pace myself. Every night I’ll sample a few cookies along with my coffee. I am not a glutton, but I assure you that none of the cookies will go stale.

I have cleared a space in the kitchen where I can store all 27 packages of Oreos. We don’t use oven all that much.

Too Many Miles

THE LAST FEW MONTHS have been rather busy. Since last October my wife, the lovely and excellent Navigator, Dawn, and I have driven from Indiana to south Texas and back three times. At roughly 1250 miles each way that adds up to… (Musical Interlude while doing the math)…7500 miles. Most of it on various Interstate Highways, but we also had to deal with some State and local roads.

We saw Speed Limits vary from 50mph up to 75. Of course, the adherence to these limits was a purely mythical exercise. We did see cars pulled over by The Law now and then but only in certain states.

Mississippi: Lots of Speed Traps

Arkansas: Lots of Speed…

I don’t mind moving along at a brisk pace, but I don’t like feeling like I’m pedaling a Marx “Big Wheel” compared to the Monster 18 – Wheelers that are roaring past me at 100mph. I’m not exaggerating.

During our first trip south last October we drove I-30 across Arkansas from just outside of Memphis to Texarkana. Drivers on that road look upon the speed limits as a challenge. That night I got on Amazon and ordered a 2021 Road Atlas. I wanted to find an alternate road home. That had our return trip go along I-55 through Mississippi. That is my new favorite road. We could move along at a zippy rate without having to challenge NASA re-entry speeds.

One other thing that we noticed as we moved from State to State: The number of roadside billboards advertising “Ambulance Chaser” Attorneys. They must be keeping that branch of the advertising world alive. In Illinois alone I counted nine billboards screaming at us from some Personal Injury Lawyer who calls himself “The Hammer.”

How dignified.

Not that I’m making any snap judgments, but “The Hammer” has his picture on his billboards, and to me he looks like a refugee from any number of Gladiator movies… in a three piece suit.

Each state has its own crop of these lawyers who seem to be loitering along the road just waiting for an accident to happen. I bet that they would arrive on the scene of the crash before the ambulance.

I recall that there is one in Mississippi, a woman, who advertises herself as “Mama Justice.” How Quaint.

I don’t mean to say that there is nothing worth seeing along the roads of America. There is beautiful countryside and towns and cities. It’s just the tacky billboards that bother me – those and the surprising number of truly bad drivers that are out there cluttering up the Interstate System. Maybe it’s them who have spawned those shyster’s billboards?

We covered a lot of miles in the course of our three trips to Texas. Covering that much territory is tiring no matter how pleasant the conditions. A good meal along the way can lift your spirits and keep you going. I think we discovered the best way to achieve this traveling Nirvana.

We covered 7500 miles without once stopping at a Waffle House.

It Was What We All Needed

In this hustle-bustle world where we all find ourselves these days we don’t often get the opportunity to lift someone’s spirits and “Make their day.” I recently had that opportunity.

We were down in Texas for most of January and February – right in the middle of the winter storms that wreaked havoc in most of the state. Where we were in the Corpus Christi area did not escape the troubles. We were without power for several days and had water pipes burst that had us all seeking shelter in a local church that miraculously still had power.

As the week progressed everyone in town was feeling the stress. No power and, even if you had water, it was under a “Boil Order” to make it potable. Fortunately, there was one large supermarket in town that was open and trying to service all 5000 souls. I was sent to the supermarket several times to try to find water and food.

Not surprisingly the store was crowded. Everyone I saw looked haggard and worn down. The aisles were jammed and there were many empty shelves waiting for trucks to arrive from San Antonio to resupply the store.

At one point I was at the end of a crowded aisle in the Meat Department. Shopping carts were tied up in a gridlock as people were looking for anything they could take home. Moving in any direction was almost impossible. Caught in the middle of this traffic jam was a woman with her cart completely stuck and unable to move.

One look at her and I could see that she was on the edge of a complete breakdown. The stresses of the pandemic and lockdown and now with the power outage and freezing temperatures it all had pushed her to the brink. She was physically trapped, surrounded by other desperate people. She was on the verge of tears. Looking around she yelled out, “I want to back up. That’s all. Please let me back up.”

She was starting to panic.

People could see what I did and began to give her some leeway. She started to back up with her cart and get some room to move.

For a reason I still can’t understand, as she backed up, I began to make “Beeping” noises like a truck moving in reverse. The woman stopped and looked at me. I hadn’t meant to upset her or anything it was just a spur of the moment bit of silliness. I just shrugged and she smiled. Then she laughed out loud and began beeping as she continued to back up her cart. When she got her cart free of the gridlock she looked back at me again, laughed, and started moving down the “Bread Aisle.”

Thirty seconds earlier she had looked as if the world was crushing her and now she was laughing with a smile on her face.

I was feeling stressed myself, but our little beeping interaction lightened my heart as well as hers. Could there be something as out of place as two strangers making beeping noises in the middle of a crowded supermarket?

A moment of laughter surrounded by all that chaos.

It may have been a rough time for all of us but those few moments made our day