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.

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

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.

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.  

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.

Microwave Madness

I love my Microwave Oven.

It does what I ask of it. It makes me feel well fed and it warms my innards. There aren’t many things in this world that can make that claim.

I use my Microwave Oven to heat up my favorite frozen burritos. I use it to make my favorite instant Oatmeal. What more can I ask?

My Microwave is a Thousand Watt device and I know just how long I need to set the timer thingy to get my yummy stuff done properly. I know just what I need to do and, PRESTO! I have a bowl of hot Oatmeal! I don’t need to think about it. If I do have to think about it…that’s where I get into trouble and my Oatmeal goes airborne.

If I am at home, in our own kitchen, with our own warm and friendly Microwave, Life is good and so is my Oatmeal. I know that I can trust that Microwave. I know that it will not trick me or try to fool me into exploding my frozen burritos.

Trust is important in a Microwave.

Earlier this year my wife, The Lovely and not a fan of frozen burritos, Dawn, and I had traveled to visit with Family in Texas. While the visiting was grand the traveling presented me with a variety of Alien Microwave Ovens.

On the road we were faced with different Microwaves in each hotel along the way. I knew that would be the case. I just knew it! This was not my first rodeo. So, to avoid crushing problems with my Oatmeal and/or frozen burritos, I didn’t use those Alien machines for anything other than heating up a pastry copped from the Hotel Lobby Breakfast and Coffee Buffet. Their Microwaves were of questionable quality and wattage. I wasn’t about trust them with anything as important as my morning Oatmeal.

Once we arrived at our destination in Texas I felt that my Microwave Angst could safely be shed. One Microwave. One new and reliable machine. One good steaming bowl of Oatmeal and/or formerly frozen burrito.

My needs are simple.

In my dreams.

I discovered, much to my dismay and the need for a fresh roll of paper towels, that the Microwave Oven in our temporary kitchen was not a 1000 Watt appliance, but a 1200 Watt Destructo-Matic Furnace. While I knew that 90 seconds in our Microwave at home produced flawless Oatmeal this 1200 Watt Hiroshima Machine worked much faster and hotter.

90 Seconds at home. 55 Seconds in Texas.

“Houston, we have a problem!”

In a sense of misplaced trust I set the timer for 90 seconds and walked away. While I was away in blissful ignorance that Steel-Making Blast Furnace heated my Oatmeal into a Quasi-Magma and erupted – sending my Oatmeal off on a 360 degree Diaspora onto the walls and rotating base of the Microwave.

I never knew that Oatmeal could fly with such force.

Later that day, as my need for a hot lunch arose, I popped a pair of frozen burritos into that same, now Untrustworthy Microwave.

My Mama didn’t raise no fools! A couple of whining neurotics perhaps, but no fools! I wasn’t going to leave my frozen burritos alone inside that Microchipped Inferno. At home I would have set the timer at a few seconds shy of three minutes. In Texas I set it for a minute less and hit the Start button. I stayed, staring at my burritos as they rode the merry-go-round in the Microwave.

At little more than one minute my lunch began to twitch on the plate. Ten seconds later they began to disassemble themselves. The tortillas opened up and the filling oozed like a Hawaiian lava flow. I hit “Stop” and rescued my now Soft Tacos. They were still quite edible, but just mutated from their original form.

Lesson Learned: Never trust an unknown Microwave.

Other Lesson Learned: Hyper-Microwaved Oatmeal is not easy to clean from the rotating base without a mild abrasive and a few curse words.

It’s not easy, but it can be done.

Let’s Eat!

Mipissssissippi, Misippiss, Mippiississ,…Texas

SOME DAYS THINGS WORK OUT FINE…and then other days – well…

Mipissssissippi, Misippiss, Mippiississ…

I do believe that we have become “Snow Bunnies” of a sort. Consider that we have made three – count ’em, Three trips since October from our home in Terre Haute down to south Texas. It is only a two and a half hour flight, but we have done these trips earthbound. In these days of Nasty Viruses we feel better avoiding both Airplanes and Airports.

Driving to and from Hoosierland to the Coastal Territory near Corpus Christi, Texas is about 1200 miles each way. I say “about” because it depends on your route. You can save a few miles by driving through Arkansas and squeezing your nervous system through Downtown Houston. We have done that a couple of times and I will do almost anything to avoid doing it again. On this last trip to see the family and to NOT see Midwest ice and snow we followed a different route. It added about 100 miles each way, but it lowered my blood pressure and my heartbeat significantly.

Rather than drive through the Arkansas Pinball Machine of Route 40 where Big Rig Semis outnumber cars 25 to one and the speed limit is restricted only by Einstein’s Theory about the speed of light. Instead we cut straight south and went through the lovely State of Mississippi border to border.

Interstate 55 in Mississippi is my new favorite stretch of highway. It is well maintained, not overly busy, and goes through some beautiful countryside. They also had a Road sign that made my feeble mind drag up some old cliches and stereotypes. Hopefully, nobody will be offended, but if they are…too bad. I can’t let a joke get away from me so easily.

This is the sign that we saw posted every few miles.

What caught my jaundiced eye was the part about throwing trash on the highway. I read that and my twisted sense of tacky and tasteless humor kicked into high gear. It was a good thing that we made no stops inside Mississippi other than the obligitory rest stops to… relieve ourselves, shall we say.

As we plunged southward through the Magnolia State (As I learned from another sign) my mind concocted this short monologue.

“We were driving through Yalobusha County, heading south, when I saw a sign along side the road. Do you see that sign? The one about there being a $250 Dollar fine for throwing trash on the highway? Well, I saw it and it has brought back a sad memory that still haunts our Family to this day.

Seeing that sign made me remember about that unpleasant day when our beloved, though hard to live with, Cousin Billy Bob Beaureguard ran afoul of The Law. It was not that he hadn’t done the same thing dozens of times, but this time he got caught doing it in front of that State Trooper.

Billy Bob was caught up in a technicality when he was driving along and got into an argument with his youngest son, Jasper, and threw him out of his truck while driving down the highway just outside of Coffeeville. That boy, Jasper, was no good to begin with and everybody knew it. The Judge knew it too and instead of charging Billy Bob with any ‘Attempted This or That” he nicked him for that $250 dollar fine because everybody knew that boy, Jasper, was trash.”

You can see why I would not want to say that out loud in front of any Mississippians. They might either be offended by the cliches or upset that I was airing the Families dirty laundry in public. I thought of it and we wisely chose to continue driving until we were across the State Line.

(We are just skipping Louisiana here. I’m in enough trouble.)

 

 

 

 

 

Krakatoa Christmas

DON’T CALL ME SCROOGE, but I am glad that the Holiday Season is over. It’s not that I don’t enjoy getting together with family and friends, sharing good memories, and hopes for the future. I truly do love all of that. It is just that I find it all so very exhausting.

The “Holiday Season” starts with Halloween (Like it or not.) and doesn’t end until after the New Year’s Day festivities. For some people the end doesn’t come until the Super Bowl. Personally, I could not care less about that. I might care if the Cleveland Browns were in the game, but I‘m not holding my breath on that.

For over two months everything is in a whirl of shopping, eating WAAAAY too much, traveling, being pleasant with everybody, and wading through the tons of catalogs that overflow the mailbox. I find it all more than I can deal with calmly, maintaining a clear brain, and a digestive tract that doesn’t resemble Krakatoa West of my Liver. By the time the New Year starts I am a shambles. This year was even more difficult. I think I now know what all of those discarded Christmas trees feel like after a ride through the wood chipper.

This year we spent most of December in Texas. We drove there and back. Let me do the math for you – that was a round trip of about 2500 miles.

Ho Ho Ho

We split The Going and The Coming into three days each way. I can no longer do those marathon drives of 700 miles in a day. My butt just can’t take it anymore. Fifty years ago I could have made the Texas trip in two days, but no more. Back in 1970 I drove from Bar Harbor, Maine all the way to the Washington D.C. burbs in one day. That was about 750 miles in one day! I was young and foolish.

I’m not young anymore.

After traveling like that I need several days to recuperate. I can’t get up at 7 AM, make tea and coffee, and be a sociable breakfast companion. I need to stay in bed unconscious and eventually be a passable lunch companion.

I think what I need to start doing as the Holiday Season approaches again is to go into training as if I was going to compete in the Olympics.

I’ll start in July. I will spend hours sitting in an uncomfortable chair. I will start practicing on my Christmas present wrapping skills. This year everything I wrapped looked like it was done by an arthritic Orangutan.

Another area I’ll need to work on is Eating…Holiday Eating. That means eating too much, doing so at odd hours, and having a severely unbalanced diet. Cookies will become one of the major food groups. Did you know that there must be twenty different kinds of Oreo Cookies?

So you see…it’s not that I don’t like the Holidays. It is more like the Holidays have passed me by. I find that all of those things I took in stride in my youth now require some serious preparation. I’ll be ready when this year’s Holiday Season rolls around. I don’t want to face another year with my intestinal tract taking no prisoners.

Groundhog Day Redux…And A Few Days Early.

This is the last Friday in January. Groundhog Day is officially next Tuesday and I have no intention of doing anything on that day that might be considered work. So…

Here is a repeat of a Groundhog Day post from a few years ago. It was a tragic and bloody day. Everyone knows that Groundhog Day makes sense only in a small town in the hills of Pennsylvania – not in New York City.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

Unless you live in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania today is just another Friday. If you do live in Punxutawney, Pennsylvania then this is the one day in the year that anyone gives a hedgehog’s patoot about your town. Today is the day when the Network Morning Shows will give you a 90 second live cutaway to see the annual Groundhog ceremony…and then that’s it until next year.

How To Make A Killing In Massachusetts

I saw a little item in the Real Estate section of the news recently that had my brain come to a screeching halt.

Does the name “Lizzie Borden” mean anything to you? If it doesn’t, it should.

While the O. J. Simpson trial may have been The Trial of the 20th Century the Lizzie Borden trial has that title for the 19th Century.

Picture if you will: Fall River, Massachusetts, in August of 1892. It was a quiet day until the calm was ruptured by the horrifying screams from the Borden Home. Inside the house were the mutilated bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Borden. Both of them had been savagely attacked with an axe.

There have been Movies, TV Shows, Dramatic Stage Plays (I was in one a few years ago), and even Rock Musicals about Lizzie Borden. She was arrested and tried for the murders. There was evidence, but no one could believe that Lizzie could do such a horrible thing. She was acquitted. She walked out of that courtroom and lived in Fall River until her death in 1927.

Now the “Lizzie Borden House” in Fall River is up for sale for a cool $2 Million Dollars. In recent years the house has been a very spooky, if well appointed, Bed and Breakfast and Museum.

“You too can sit on the couch where Lizzie’s Daddy had his head sliced and diced!”

I suppose that there are people for whom this house and it’s morbid history make it a “must see” destination, but not for me. I would rather to stay in a luxurious hotel where the only meat cutting takes place in a four-star restaurant.

                 Daddy’s Last Nap

I can just imagine that there will be a string of “Looky-Loos” who will want to get a free tour of the house and snap a few pictures to show the relatives back home. 

  Don’t go into the Bedroom Momma!

If I was the Real Estate Agent trying to sell this house I would hire a few local Community Theater Performers to just wander around the house in period costumes…covered in blood. I’d have a Lizzie Look-a-Like, give her a bloody hatchet, and let her walk around singing”I’ve written a letter to Daddy.” Of course it would make no sense and be in terribly bad taste, but I don’t think that would scare away any potential buyers. They might even get a History Channel Special out of it.          

 

When I did that Theatrical Production a few years ago I learned an interesting tidbit of information about the whole bloody mess. It seems that after Lizzie’s Mother passed away Daddy remarried to a woman with a son (that was my role.). The story goes that on the day following the murders Daddy had an appointment scheduled with his attorney when he was going to be changing his will to leave the house to the new Step-Son and leaving Lizzie and her sister out in the cold. Daddy didn’t make it to that appointment.

Did Lizzie do it? You tell me, but I don’t think that the Real Estate Agent is the only one making a killing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real And Unreal…Estate That is.

SOME DAYS i WONDER IF WHAT I SEE BEFORE ME IS REAL. Some days I’m sure, but, then again…

Not long ago while we were down in Texas for the Holidays my wife, the lovely and native Texan, along with Alex our son, were on a grocery run. That involved ordering online and then going to the Supermarket to fetch our stuff like a pack of dogs.

My favorite part of these trips to the HEB Supermarket had nothing to do with groceries. A few hundred yards from the Supermarket was the only St. Arbucks in the area. I was burning through my accumulated Reward Points like a house afire, but that’s why I’d been saving them. I knew that we would be going for groceries via the Drive-Thru Lane at St. Arbucks. This one day, however, there was something different. 

I placed our order online before we even got close. When we arrived at the St. Arbucks there were at least a half dozen cars ahead of us. There was going to be a wait. We had time to just look around and gawk. Dawn noticed that the car in line ahead of us had California license plates inside a frame that proclaimed them to be L.A. Dodger fans. The fact that we were in a rental car was the only thing that kept us from ramming into him.

When we finally inched up to the ordering speaker I spotted something taped to the big Menu Board. It was a Business Card. Whoever had taped it there must have been waiting in line just like us and figured, “What the heck. Why not.” They had to have gotten out of their car, pulled out their tape dispenser, and walked over to the Menu Board.

I had to know what was up.

I didn’t get out of our car, but I did hang out of the window like an Irish Setter so I could read the card. It belonged to a local Real Estate Agent who will remain nameless here. How desperate she must have been for business that she would think to herself – “Hmmm, I’ll bet a lot of people decide to buy or sell their homes while waiting in line for a Frappuchino and a Cookie.”

After seeing her card sadly taped there we still had another ten minutes in line and I began to recall my last dealings with a Real Estate Agent.

Agent Dan sold me a house in Cleveland back in the Seventies. He also sold it for me a few years later. He was a real Pro. He was also an Ex-Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot.  After “The War” he bounced around Europe for a time and ended up in Cleveland along with thousands of other “Displaced Persons.” There were very few job openings in Cleveland for Ex-Luftwaffe pilots so he ended up selling houses. Somehow his war experience made him an Ace Real Estate Salesman. I doubt if the desperate card-taping St. Arbucks agent could match my Agent Dan’s resume. Few people could.

By the time I got my Venti Iced Coffee and Dawn and Alex got their Non-Coffee Confections I began to feel sorry for the woman who had stuck her business card in the waiting line at Starbucks. I think that maybe her career has been shot down by someone tougher.

There Has To Be A Better Way There

I MAY NOT KNOW WHERE I AM ALL THE TIME, BUT I’M NEVER LOST.

At least that is how I like to think I’m getting around in this world. One method that I use to find my way is with maps. I like maps. I love maps. I have always loved maps.

Maps are Functional Art.

Just before we started off on our latest One Conestoga Wagon pilgrimage to Texas I noticed that my Road Atlas was severely out of date. A 2015 Road Atlas ain’t gonna get me anywhere but lost. I needed an update. I toddled off to Amazon and ordered the 2021 edition of the “Rand McNally Road Atlas.” I was going to be up to date in The U.S., Canada and Mexico. All those maps would be like tossing candy bars in front of a crowd of kids. I wanted to curl up and look at them all, go over each page and imagine myself there. Did I mention that I love maps?

My Amazon order was not going to come in time for our Indiana to Texas trip so I had it sent to Texas for us to use – hopefully to get us a better routing for our way home. Driving from Terre Haute to just north of Corpus Christi is a little shy of 1150 miles and it’s not a fun drive. Our route took us from Indiana into Illinois, south into Missouri (boring), and then across Arkansas on the most crowded road I’ve ever driven on. Route 30 in Arkansas has about 25 fully loaded Semis for every car. The speed limit was…irrelevant. There were times when, just to keep from being run over, I was going close to 90 MPH. At that speed trucks with over-sized loads passed me like I was standing still. It was like being inside a Japanese Pachinko Machine.

My brand spanking new 2021 Road Atlas arrived the day after we arrived at our destination. For me it was an early Christmas Morning. My new toy had arrived!

OK…The way I look at it is that instead of driving through Houston again on the way north (Another Pachinko moment) and having to scream through Arkansas again like a .22 Caliber bullet in the middle of a Howitzer barrage we will drive East on I-10 into Louisiana and then north through Mississippi. It may add a few miles overall but it should significantly cut down on my stomach acid production and jaw clenching bad dreams.

Here’s Hoping.

Once our trip back to Indiana is complete I will report on how and if things went. I hope that there will be no “Film at 11!” links about our trip. It’s the Holiday Season and I don’t need any more Drama. I am already craving boredom.

Down at the end of today’s offering I have posted a link to a song that, to me, talks about maps and, again to me, about driving through Houston and Arkansas. It is called “Columbus” and is performed by an incredible Irish singer, Mary Black.

Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?

WE’VE BEEN WATCHING A LOT OF TV LATELY.

The movie theaters are closed and most of our favorite eateries are Drive-Through only again.

Like most people we have been grounded by this virus thingy. As a result my wife, the lovely and Queen of All Cable Channels, Dawn, and I have been living in our sedative chairs in front of the 40″ Flat Screen. I have to admit that I am not as savvy as I should be about navigating my way around all of the channels that are available. Therefore, Dawn is also wearing the Captain’s Hat. she hits a few buttons on the remote and about five million options appear. I sit in awe. The World is our Oyster Pizza.

Driving, Driving, Driving

Driving. Driving. Driving. Changing Lanes. Changing States.

It’s a long drive from Indiana to Southern Texas and back to Indiana. We just finished making that round trip and we are about to do it again.

We break each half of that Great Circle Route into a three day journey. Long gone are the days when I could spend 12 hours behind the wheel. These days after about 300 – 400 miles my brain turns to fudge and my butt turns to cheap plywood. Going on a trek of approximately 1150 miles each way is not to be taken lightly.

Driving. Driving. Driving.

Day One: On the road from near Corpus Christi heading north. After a full day of playing Dodgeball with 18-Wheelers and “Wide Load” Haulers we are still inside Texas. We drive from Corpus north through Houston on a Sunday afternoon. The roads are jammed and beyond comprehension. When I realize that I am beginning to babble we stop for the night in Lufkin, Texas. That is all I can do with my Old Geezer eyes and reflexes.

Moments later, really after a number of hours sleeping in a strange hotel bed it is time to get up, get gassed up, and coffeed up. Pulling out of the parking lot we head North again then veer to the East into Arkansas. We are entering a different world.

Yesterday I was driving North through the skyscraper forest of Houston and today it is rolling past

(c)Ken Steinhoff 561-727-9645

small town America – places like “Cooter,” Missouri. I don’t know the story behind a town named Cooter, but I cannot imagine anyone bragging about being from Cooter.

Driving. Driving. Driving.

The car thermometer says that the bright and sunny day is in the mid-80s, but for mile after mile along the side of the road it looks like there are the remnants of a wintertime blizzard clinging to the ground. It’s not snow that we are seeing but cotton. Along our route we have been seeing large trucks loaded with huge plastic wrapped bales of Cotton. For some reason the shippers have decided to leave the ends of each bale uncovered and the turbulent air along the highway plucks out a steady rain of Cotton onto the road.

Driving. Driving. Driving.

Most of our route is along the Interstate Highway System, but part of the way in Texas, Arkansas, and Illinois is on State Routes. That is where you can see the unusual and unique. Roadside attractions that are incredibly uninteresting. I’m sorry folks, but a historical marker and museum dedicated to an event or local hero I’ve never heard of just doesn’t make me want to pull over. To be truthful, the most unusual thing I saw along our trip was in Southern Illinois – a dead Armadillo belly up by the side of the road. I didn’t expect to see an Armadillo that far North. My guess is that it was hitching a ride on one of the Cotton Haulers and when he saw that he was heading toward Chicago he threw himself to the pavement in desperate attempt to avoid that.

It is a long drive from Terre Haute, Indiana all the way to Corpus Christi. I think the drive home is more difficult because of the curvature of the earth. Going from South to North is uphill. I wish that Carl Sagan was still around. I’d ask him about that.

“Billions and billions of bits of Cotton along the uphill drive through Texas, Arkansas, right past Cooter, Missouri, all the way to Indiana just made your trip seem longer.”

Shifting Gears

Sometimes changes are thrust upon us by circumstances beyond our control. Being the Wannabe control freak that I am I do not like such changes – but like everyone else I have to accept and live with them.

I’m dealing with one such change right now.

With all of the Fooferaw about this virus thing I’d been hearing about there was one change that really tossed my routine into the laundry hamper of my life.

For a number of years I was used to getting up in the morning, driving down to the nearby St. Arbucks and writing for an hour or two. Six days a week I did that – and then that Corona Sumptin or Other butted in.

St. Arbucks became a Drive-Thru only and I was left on the outside looking in. Horror of Horrors! Oh, the Humanity! My writing sanctuary was taken away from me. Why didn’t they just cut off my fingers and gouge out my eyes? I don’t care what any says – writing at the Kitchen Table just wasn’t the same. There were just too many distractions.

Circle The Wagons!

This sudden and sadistic exile didn’t completely stop me from going down the street and getting my coffee. It just changed the How and Why of it all. My trips for coffee became social outings rather than creative efforts. I would abase myself by going through the line and getting my coffee handed to me from a small window. Doing it that way ended my free refills (Sob, Sob).

After being handed my plastic cup of iced coffee I would drive around the building and into the Kroger supermarket parking lot and join four or five other exiled coffee sippers who had set up an impromptu and ad hoc Gypsy encampment. Instead of writing every morning I was now spending my time chewing the fat with other retirees. It was a pleasant diversion, but nothing was getting written.

It was during this caffeinated diaspora that I restarted this blog with a weekly rather than a daily output. Writing any longer Fiction became almost impossible. All I could produce were 500 – 700 word bursts of extended random thoughts.

This Parking Lot Coffeehenge of circled SUVs went on all through the Spring and Summer. It was in early September that things began to look up. It was then that they unlocked the doors at St. Arbucks. We could go inside to order, and we could stay inside but there were only a few randomly placed seats. Our solution was to loiter outside in what the Manager of the store called “The Patio.” The Patio was about five feet wide and thirty feet long – not a traditional design. This same crew of Geezers was happy to move from the parking lot to The Patio just because it also opened up their emergency access to the Men’s Room. There were a few available tables available I was additionally happy because I could now get my free refills! This “better than nothing” improvement was a relief but it was still not helping my writing.

In Mid-September my prayers were answered…to a degree. Actually it was a lack of degrees that made me smile. We had a cold snap that made our early morning Patio Parties unbearable. I was not going to sit out there when it was only 8 degrees above freezing! I was the first one of our Senior Citizen Play Group to move inside. They were nice fellows but I wasn’t going to freeze for them.

For the first few days I was inside all alone and, wonder of wonders, I was able to write again! After about a week of icy temperatures the guys began to join me inside. Their Senior Bones had begun to object to the chill. On most days this group would begin to arrive at about 7:30 AM. When I was inside all alone I began to be creative, but when they followed me into the warmer interior everything fell apart again. My only solution was to come in even earlier than they could handle.

The St. Arbucks had returned to their earlier business hours opening at 5:30 AM for the Insomniacs and Methheads who were still up from last Wednesday…and the odd writer or two. I altered my schedule to arrive at about 6:00 AM to give me a good 90 minutes of writing time. It works for me. I get my work done and I remain a Social Animal.

I am once again a Happy Scribbler.

Six Kolaches Over Texas – From 2017

 

SOME THINGS ARE WORTH EATING.

Other things are not.

A nicely done “medium-rare” steak – Yes. A “well-done” steak – No.

 Fried Chicken – Yes. KFC – No.

Airline Cookies, Cheap Mexican Food, and Beets – No, No, and No.

Kolaches – YES!

Kolaches? Wazzat?

Sit and learn, my child.

 

Few places in the world produce more delicious pastries than the kitchens of Eastern Europe. I grew up enjoying the wonderful delights from my Aunt Annette’s ancient cookbook. That may also be part of the reason I graduated from size Medium to Large before I could read.

Kolaches are a Czech creation I believe, although there are variations from all over Eastern Europe.

When we were down in Texas with Family for Christmas I learned that kolaches are BIG in Texas. A flock of Czech bakers must have avoided Ellis Island and came into the country through Houston.

A few days before Christmas, with all of us caught up in a severe holiday hunger, it was decided that kolaches were needed – Now – and lots of them. Somebody had the phone number of the local Tex-Czech Bakery and – Poof! Kolaches appeared on the dining room table. More like 6 dozen.

These Czech Old World pastries that are as popular as Dr. Pepper and Barbeque in South Texas are a phenomenon. Some people might say that they look like your basic Danish pastry, but I wouldn’t say that in front of any Tex-Czech baker. They take their Old Country kolaches roots very seriously. I think wars have started over less.

There were about a dozen people around that table, ready to pounce on the six dozen kolaches. Those kolaches didn’t have a chance.

Picture, if you will, a school of Great White Sharks circling six dozen wounded sea bass. Apricot, Cheese (Not Danish), Prune (Still not Danish), and Cherry sea bass kolaches were devoured at a frightening rate.

Yumilicious!

Now, in complete honesty, I am not a big sweets person all that much anymore. Advancing age and A1C have tempered my childhood appetites – but I joined in the Great Kolache Feeding Frenzy of 2016. My personal score that day remains a family secret. I held my own, but there were a couple who could easily consider turning Pro.

There were six dozen kolaches at the start. By the end of that session there were five dozen MIA. In its own way it was both soul stirring and frightening. The surviving kolaches quickly disappeared under aluminum foil and were secreted away only to be wolfed down in a midnight raid on the kitchen. There were no survivors.

Back in Terre Haute (That’s French for “I want another kolache.”) I had my mind set on visiting the one place in town I knew of where kolaches could be found. As I drove up to the front of the building I saw a sign in the window – Closed! Just shoot me now. Go ahead, get my taste buds all worked up into a dither and then close down my one and only hope.

That was no way to end 2016 or start off the New Year!

Illegal drugs can be found almost anywhere, but … but … I want my kolaches! What do I have to do to get some kolaches? It’s a long drive to both Texas or to the Czech Republic, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!