ABOUT SIX OR EIGHT MONTHS AGO I began getting snail mail, E-mail, and text messages from my local Toyota dealer telling me it was time to bring in our car for its 25,000 mile check-up. Because the car had only about 16,000 miles on it at the time I really didn’t pay much attention to their communications.
They didn’t like that.
YESTERDAY WAS FATHER’S DAY ACCORDING TO MY CALENDAR – another one of those days heavily supported by the greeting card industry and the world’s manufacturers of neckties.
I suppose if you are going to have a Mother’s Day you are somewhat obligated to have a Father’s Day. If you didn’t there would be a hue and cry about it. Therefore, we have a Father’s Day.
A few weeks ago my wife, the lovely and holiday conscious, Dawn, asked me what I would like for Father’s Day. Apparently she did not find my reply of, “The Monday morning after Father’s Day,” to be appropriate or all that helpful.
And it still is.
For “Fiction Saturday” this is the second and concluding part of this Quasi-fictional account of some strange days.
So…
This “Fiction Saturday” posting differs a bit from the usual format – in that it is (How shall I phrase this?) – embellished truth. Just look at it the way you approach things in your local newspaper.
So…
“The 5 People I Almost Killed” – Part One
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.
THERE MAY BE AN INVESTIGATION. For the last two days we have been blessed with clear blue skies and warmer temperatures. In Ireland? Two days in a row. I think it must be Aliens.
For the first week here it was like living inside a really bad carwash. Now, all of a sudden it feels like a day at the beach might be in order.
NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO – THERE YOU ARE.
And things are different wherever you go. Not “better” or “worse,” just different. That is true wherever you are. Everything “at home” is what you are used to, and whether you go to spend the day with your next door neighbor, or cross the ocean to…let’s say, Ireland, for example.
Different.
I WAS EXPECTING A PIÑATA shaped like a shamrock. Or maybe a sheep – or even a potato, but the perfect image for Cinco de Mayo in Ireland seems to be this.
While St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated around the world, including Mexico, with parades and festivals, Cinco de Mayo doesn’t get much play in Ireland. While the Diaspora planted Irish souls in almost every country on earth, the cross pollination of Mexicans into Ireland has never reached major numbers.
I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A GYPSY AT HEART. All the clichés are true when it comes to me. “The lure of the open road,” “The grass is always greener…yada, yada, yada,” “On the Road Again.” There must be a hundred or more that call out about the sound of the train whistle in the night and the hum of the tires on the pavement. A gypsy, a nomad, and wanderer, even terms that carry a negative aura – hobo and drifter. All of them pick at the deep seated strings of my being
I KNOW THAT SPRING OFFICIALLY BEGAN a few weeks ago and I was truly grateful. Spring means that better weather is coming – unless you live in Denver or someplace like that. If you live there then Spring means that winter continues, pedal to the metal until mid-summer. That alone has kept me a “Flatlander” or close to it.
But now, it is definitely Spring, which in my book means that warm weather is on the way. However – I feel that I must define “warm weather.”
Dingle
BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS my wife, the lovely and trans-atlantically adept, Dawn, and I will be in Ireland. If we aren’t in Ireland we will be in the Twilight Zone sitting next to William Shatner.
After a short hop from Indianapolis to Chicago we took the tall hop nonstop to Dublin. We’ve been in this airport before and I think it’s one of the better airports I’ve seen. Yes, it’s busy and crowded, but it works and you can get in and out with a minimum of hassle.
We will be in Ireland for the next seven weeks.
WELL, WE CERTAINLY GOT OUR BUTTS KICKED LAST NIGHT. We got pummeled by our first real winter snowfall of the season. There was another storm back in mid-January, but we were down in Texas for that one.
We were heading home from church yesterday when this thing blew through. It was truly nasty driving on the city streets, and on the Interstate it turned into a 50 car pileup. We got home safely, even though Dawn’s windshield wipers decided that it was a good time to commit suicide.
By the time the storm had moved on to the East we were looking at a pretty snowy world. Parts of Terre Haute got 4.5 inches of the stuff. We got about 2 – 3 inches topped off with a nice glaze of freezing rain. Such fun.
EARLIER THIS MONTH OUR CAR WAS STOLEN. 
Not by Bonnie and Clyde or Don Corleone, or even Bernie Madoff, but by a couple of ##$@&^’s with the inability to decide what they actually wanted to steal.
When our car was found, about thirty minutes after I reported it to the Police, a bunch of stuff was taken from the car – and a bunch of somebody else’s stuff was left behind. It’s like our car was taken by pack rats.
Fast Forward to yesterday evening.
ANSWER: EVERYTHING.
Our car was stolen last night.
During the night some knucklehead, with a key, got into the car and took it out of our driveway. I noticed it was gone this morning at about 8:15 AM.
I called the Terre Haute Police Dept. and spent 11 minutes and 24 seconds listening to a fine man try to type my information, one finger at a time. After that I really needed my morning coffee. So, I headed to St. Arbucks for a sip and a prayer. I used the SUV that my wife, the lovely and as mystified as I, Dawn, drives.
I ordered my usual and before I could even sit down – my phone rang.
With this being Christmas eve and all, my thoughts turn to Family. Today, in particular, makes me think of my late Uncle Paul and Aunt Nellie.
It wasn’t that many years ago, on a Christmas Eve, when they seared themselves into both my memory and my gag reflex. Let me explain.
They were both in their late 90’s and living the Retirement Dream down in Florida – in St. Petersburg (AKA “God’s Waiting Room). Unfortunately, they both also had cataracts and couldn’t see a darned thing. For them those 60” plasma TVs were just really big radios.
Unfortunately, they also liked to drive and in Florida you are legally entitled to drive up until three days after death.
It was few days before Christmas when I got a call from a family member in Ohio. It seemed that Aunt Nellie and Uncle Paul had announced that they were planning to drive up North for a Holiday visit. Their plan was to get onto the Interstate System and drive 1000 miles from St. Petersburg, Florida to Cleveland, Ohio, blind as a pair of bookends.
Naturally, the family in Ohio was as frightened as a jeweler seeing Lindsay Lohan come into his store.
The family asked me to intercede. Against better judgment, I did, and soon I became truly scared.
I called Nellie and Paul and voiced the family’s concerns, what with the two of them being in their late 90s and blind as midnight in a coal mine.
Uncle Paul said that he had it “all worked out.”
When I gently said to him, “Uncle Paul, you’re blind. You can’t see and neither can Aunt Nellie. You two could play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” for a week and no one would win! Your wife hasn’t seen you in 12 years! You haven’t bought a light bulb since the Carter Administration! How can you expect to drive 1000 miles from St. Petersburg to Cleveland?
“Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie, you worry too much.”
That’s how he talked.
The man moved here from Germany in 1933. He still sounded like he just sneaked off the boat.
“Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie, you worry too much.”
Now, my friends, this sounds like a punchline, but, with Larry The Cable Guy as my witness, it is a true, verbatim quote.
“Johnnie, Johnnie, Johnnie, you worry too much. I have it all worked out.”
Here it comes. Wait for it.
“We know we can’t see very well… “So we are going to drive extra fast so we’re not on the road as long.”
Oh, sweet Jesus!
They left St. Petersburg early, before dawn. That would have made no difference to them, I suppose. All I could do was watch CNN to see if they made the news.
Late on Christmas Eve they arrived in Cleveland. How they did it I don’t know.
A couple of years later Uncle Paul was killed in a traffic accident in St. Petersburg – a 19 year old drunk driver T-boned him in an intersection.
Believe it or not, there was a happy ending to this saga.
A year after the accident, widowed Aunt Nellie remarried. She became the bride of a 93 year old neighbor. Since she was almost 100 by this time, we accused her of Robbing the Walker.
Merry Christmas to one and all.
ON MOST MORNINGS MY DAY BEGINS as I, moving like a slug, navigate the steps from the second floor. When I safely reach the ground floor I say a short prayer of “Thanks for getting me down the steps without falling,” and “Give me the strength to get the morning newspaper.”
I know that sounds a bit odd, but it is not as simple as you might think for me.
In an Ideal World I would open our front door, bend over and pick up the morning paper, and then go back inside and shuffle to the kitchen table for tea and a crossword puzzle. But I sure don’t live in a Ideal World.
I DON’T GET UPSET WHEN THEY IGNORE ME. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t surprise me at all. After all, while I’m talking to them, we are in different vehicles.
Yup, I’m one of those people who talks out loud to the drivers of other cars on the road. I give them suggestions. I offer constructive criticism on their driving. I ask them if their car is equipped with things like turn signals, brakes, headlights, etc. I’m just trying to be helpful. Honest.
IT MAY BE WEDNESDAY IN THE REAL WORLD, but in the blogosphere, where I live, it is Saturday morning
and we are having our first snow of the season. That picture is the view out of our back door. I didn’t even open it to take the picture. I’m in denial.
If you have followed this blog for a while you have probably picked up that I am not a fan of cold weather, winter, snow, and all of the associated bullcrap that goes with it.
I’M FEELING IN A MAGNANIMOUS MOOD TODAY.
I feel like reaching
out to my fellow bipeds and seeing if I can be of help. So, I have declared that today is officially:
FREE BAD ADVICE DAY!
For today – and today only – I will be dispensing free bad advice on a wide range of topics.
Let the games begin!
HOW CAN ONE TRULY DEFINE what is, “Bad Taste” and what is not. Just as “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” the same can be said about humor. What one person thinks is funny another may not. In fact, I think you can be rock solid sure that for whatever one person thinks is funny there is another person who won’t laugh.
Such is the case of the picture to the right.
THIS AFTERNOON I WAS ON MY WAY to the office and trying to come up with an idea for this blog posting.
I was stopped at the red light, so I had some time to look around, and on the other side of the intersection, by the Mobil gas station/Mini-Mart, something caught my eye.
Down the Hall on Your Left 