BOOM BOOM OUT GO THE LIGHTS

Having received some unsettling and very costly news last week I felt the need to vent some anger. What better way to do that then watch a building get blown to hell.
Last night I set my watch alarm for 6:30 AM thinking if I don't feel like getting up when it goes off I can just go back to sleep and watch it on TV at 8:00. Turns out there was no need for that decision, or for the alarm either. I woke up at 4:00 AM with the situation simmering in my brain and could not go back to my slumber. I headed for the Keystone Towers soon to be Keystone Rubble at 6:30 AM.

The Keystone Towers was built in 1973, the same year I barely graduated high school. The 15 story tower was apartments and the 4 story tower was office space, both constructed without the foresight of air conditioning.  

It ended up being government subsidized (we pay for it) housing. So you guessed it, the place went to hell. For the last several years the buildings were empty except for crack heads, drug dealers and squatters becoming a major eyesore and criminal cesspool in that section of Indy.
I got to the area just a couple minutes after 7:00 and the police had just blocked off the streets close to the impending explosions. Right when I got close to where I wanted to park I discovered I had left my wallet at home, what was more disconcerting was the fact that I had not forgotten to bring my concealed weapon.
So here I am with the police all around and one of their brothers just the night before had been shot, (he’s going to be ok thankfully) and I don't have my drivers license or my handgun permit with me, shit!
I decide to leave the gun in the car and walk to the best vantage point I could find which ended up being the intersection of Keystone and Binford. I had a nice guardrail sit on and a good view of the south side of the buildings. As I sat there I observed car after car being driven by idiots who couldn't follow the simplest directions being given by IMPD's finest. The dumbasses trying to go around the blockades, people on foot trying to walk into the danger zone, Lance Armstrong wannabes thinking since they were on a bike it was ok to ride on the closed streets. Listening to the cops yelling at these turds I thought I won't be the only one here who hopes this blast relieves some pent up anger.

As people gathered at my corner I noticed a guy who seemed to be setting up a serious video system, he turned out to be a cameraman for a local ABC affiliate. Seems he had set up 2 hours ago in a great location only to be booted out 1 hour before go time and now he along with his blast pass was here with the rest of us shmucks trying to keep the late comers from standing in front of his shot that probably wouldn't make air anyway.

Well here is another compatriot who along with me and the cop at the corner will no doubt try to vent our anger at the dilapidated buildings.
As time grew closer to our combined anger management therapy more and more latecomers who didn't wake up at 4:00 AM kept crowding in front of our established vistas and there was much consternation in the crowd. Then this jackass stands right in front of me, even the sound of the fake shutter click of my I Phone when I snapped this pic right behind his head didn't faze him.

I am close to asking this freak very nicely to get the f@"$ out of the way when I see right behind me the answer to all of my problems, well this problem anyway. Right behind me in a tiny wooded area was an 18-inch long log.

 I grabbed it stood up on it and braced my legs against the guardrail and poof!  I'm no longer 5' 10" I'm now 7' 4" ! I'm golden! That is unless Manute Bol shows up.
I'm am towering over the whole damn lot now, sweet and no, I was not in danger of falling over backwards Rita.

She thinks I'm accident prone for some reason.
I'm standing there on my perch watching the crowd which had become a spectacle in itself. The last to show up seemed like they might have been the last occupiers of the soon to be ruins. Maybe they came here to give homage to their former cocaine Shangri-La.  No doubt stumbling down memory lane remembering their first rock they fired up in the abandoned building or some really nice crack ho they met there, or the lucky day they found a somewhat clean syringe next to a dead rat. Ahhh, the nostalgia was palpable.
One minute to go the final warning blast wakes up the rest of that part of the city; I divert my attention from the crowd of mixed nuts and look to the center of my therapy. The pictures and video I took really don't do my vantage point justice; I really had a good look at the event.
I do an internal countdown from 60 seconds trying to allow for the speed of sound. Then the first of a series of one second volleys hits, after several of those I could see the top of the main tower start to fold in on itself like an accordion. It took some time for that sound to reach my ears and when it did I tried my best to put my latest problem at the bottom floor of Keystone Towers.

Finally both buildings lay in a heap of twisted concrete, steel and crack pipes. A huge cloud of dust rose up and drifted south. I'm not sure if the cop or the cameramans frustration level had diminished by watching this building laid to waste, but I felt some level of satisfaction.
It wasn't the sweet release I had hoped for, but it will have to do for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmGpNuJlaXY

FANCY FEAST

HE SAID: SHE SAID #4

Alley Cat: hi Puss n Boots, watcha doin?
Puss n Boots: oh, hi Alley Cat, just havin a little snack”. "Snack? We don't get snacks around here, unless we catch a damn mouse or something!" Well I must be a favorite I guess cause one of them just gave me a snack" Which one ?!!" Inquired Alley Cat. "The runt” said Puss n Boots,” the one they call Little Rita"

"So what kind of treat did she give you? A dead chipmunk"? "No it was a little slice of people toe". "No shit? Wonder where the hell she got that". "She sliced it off her own paw, she must really like me! She came running by and I was sitting here looking all cute and all and she just stepped on this funny looking squarey metally thing and just cut me off a slice of people toe. Wasn't that nice of her"? "That's called a metal drawer” said Alley Cat  “Big Daddy leaves stuff like that out after he works on a kitty-smasher". "Big Daddy"? "You know, the one who drove his kitty-smasher into the big poop ditch that the boy had dug, but never used, he called it a pool".

Narrator: Yeah I took a little poetic license to tell the "Oh Dear Toe" incident from the viewpoint of the only other witness to the event. I just remember hearing the blood-curdling scream. I ran to Rita to see the cool blood, when I looked down at her toe and realized the bottom of her big toe was missing. I had never seen such a sight and damned near passed out.

Dad had left some metal part drawers out in front of the garage and Rita was running barefoot and caught the edge of it with her big toe and cleanly sliced off the kitty treat.
Getting cuts on your feet was not unusual when we were kids because in the summer we hardly ever wore shoes. We played in the creek next to our house and there lots of broken glass there just waiting to slice a kids foot. Being barefoot kids did have it's plus though. One of the most fun things to do was to go tromping through our field after a summer rain and see how far you could sink in the mud. I still remember the feeling of the warm mud squishing between my toes.

By the end of summer the soles of our feet were tough as leather, but they were no match for glass or the sharp metal edge of a parts drawer. Rita paid the price in a big way. Going through painful skin graft surgery and walking around on a piece of her stomach for the rest of her life. Until then the worst thing you could do was stubbing your big toe, then restubbing it when it was scabbed over. I don’t know exactly why, but toe stubbing seems to be a malady of childhood. I have had many injuries from my teens up until now, but not one toe-stubbing incident since I was a kid. I guess sometime between late childhood and early teens, you stop and ask yourself,” why the hell am I running everywhere I go? Slow down, especially when I got no shoes on.”

 Even though Rita was my nemesis I still felt horrible about her being in the hospital and going through all she had to endure. There was an armistice between us that lasted at least a couple of weeks after her injury.

Alley Cat: so tell me Puss, what does people toe taste like?
Puss n Boots: do you remember the chicken holocaust?”
"Are you talking about the day when Big Daddy pulled the heads off all the chickens and the kids laughed while the headless chicks danced around then later the kids took chickens out of the boiling tub of water and pulled the feathers out and while they were busy doing that we chewed on the chicken heads"?
"Yeah, people toe tastes just like that". "No shit"? "Yeah, they taste just like chicken"

To read the She Said version go here.http://ihavearighttospeaktoo.blogspot.com/

BARRY AND THE CHICKEN FARM

One day Barry decided he wanted to become a farmer. He didn’t know anything about farming, “that shouldn’t stop me” he thought. So be walked into a big stone building in the middle of the town and talked to the man what was in charge. "Mister I want to run a big farm but I have no money, experience or talent, but what I lack in those things I make up for in fertilizer, I got lots and lots of that!"

The man sitting behind the big desk looked at Barry over the top of his reading glasses and snorted "look here young man, you tell me you want to be a farmer but you have no money or ability or experience?" Barry slowly nodded his head in the affirmative. "perfect!" exclaimed Mister Hoggsworth. "Sounds like attempted to farm to me!" and handed a big fat check to Barry. "Now go see my friends Barney Mack and Fannie Dodd, the sub-prime mortgage folks,  just tell them that you need a loan for the rest of the farm, but you have no intention to ever pay them back, you will be a shoe in".
So off runs Barry to see the mortgage folks.

"Tell us young man, what inspired you to take up this endeavor?" inquired the mortgage folks. Barry explained, "well you know my pastor the Justice Of The Peace Reverend Soshal Right, I have been going to his church for twenty years and in all that time I have never listened to one single sermon until last Sunday".

He just kept talking about chickens coming home to roost, I wondered where those chickens would come home to roost at, I just couldn't bear the thought of all those homeless chickens".
Barney and Miss Dodd looked at each other and then said to Barry "your about as sub-prime as they get, now your sure if we loan you all this money are your absolutely certain you wont try to pay it back". "No sir, I promise,” said Barry. "That's good" said Barney "me and Miss Dodd went to alot of trouble to extract this loot from the evil rich and we don't ever want it to find it's way back".
"How did you get it from them?" inquired Barry.

"Well, for years we tried the front door approach and told them we wanted to take the money from the working and successful and give it to the less fortunate non-producers; this was roundly rejected by the producers, so I was put in charge of back door operations and I found creative ways to accomplish the same thing, your Pastor, Justice Soshal was delighted with our results,
now whenever someone objects to having their pockets picked we just use the magic four letter word, 'HATE' and it works like a charm" sneered Barney.
Barry smiled and ran off with the bag of unearned loot.

I got the loot now I need a farm. Barry spies a nice big farm and says, "that's the one I want!” He went to the owner and demanded the farm. At first the old farmer refused, then Barry remembered the magic word. "You wont give me what I want just because of my big ears!
 You H-A-T-E me because I have big-assed ears!”

 The old farmers eyes grew wide and be had a look of fear from that magic word. He threw Barry the deed to the farm and ran off. “Cool!” thought Barry and got to work on a sign to hang over the gate to his magically acquired farm.

Barry went about the business of building his new farm. Everywhere he went in town gathering building materials and chicken feed he kept demanding more and more special deals and discounts due him because of his large ears. It got to the point that Barry didn't even have to say the magic word anymore. If one of the shopkeepers or townspeople balk at Barry's ever increasing demands, all he had to do was point at his big ears and wag his finger and that would do the trick. He hardly ever had to use the magic four-letter word anymore.
Finally the chicken farm was finished and ready for it's new occupants. At first no chickens moved in, so Barry got an idea, he put up a sign "Free Chicken Feed" and the chicks started flocking in. After a few weeks the chickens stopped coming until Barry hung up another sign that said "Egg Laying Not Required", after that the chicken farm filled to capacity.
The chickens were in hog heaven, it was a dream come true to get all the cracked corn they want and not have to work for it. Barry was very happy with the success of his new farm, the problem was, the money was draining out, but none was coming in.

 No matter thought Barry, he knew the most important thing was to be fair and redistribute the wealth of the town. When the money ran out Barry ran to Mister Hoggsworth and Barney and Dodd and the gang of three extorted and looted the evil successful townsfolk. This worked for a while until the looted got sick and tired of getting their pockets picked, they all just gave up and moved away.

 The debts on the farm kept piling up and Barry just kept raising his debt ceiling, Barry got an idea that would make it impossible to ever run out of money. He went out and got himself a money printing machine and after that he just kept pounding out his Barry dollars. The Barry dollars didn’t have a picture of a president, just an image of a huge ear and above the image it did not say “In God We Trust”, it just said "Don't Be Hatin".
The problem was the more Barry dollars he printed the less they were worth. Barry thought he just needed to stimulate the chickens more so he just kept the money printer running full blast.
Barry looked at the big red warning label on the printer that said " Warning do not exceed maximum limit of 14 trillion copies"
Barry fearing chicken riots ignored the warning and hot-wired a jumper around the limit switch.

 The chickens were livid about the quality and quantity of their feed lately and the deteriorating coops. At first the demonstrations were peaceful, but it soon turned ugly and became a full-fledged pecking party.
At some point the mob of chickens focused their anger at the farmhouse and declared that Barry had not lived up to his promises of hope and change and they stormed Barry's farmhouse.

When the first responders made their way into the dilapidated farmhouse, they found Barry next to the smoking money printer; he was buried up to his neck in the worthless Barry dollars and chicken shit. His finger still holding down the green “print” button.

The sign that was once proudly displayed over the gate to Barry's farm now hung at an angle held loosely by one rusted chain. The letters barely legible through all the chicken shit said it all. "WECOME TO BARRY'S UTOPIA WHERE THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST"

Narrator: wasn’t that an interesting story boys and girls?
A very wise old woman from across the big pond once said "socialism is great until you run out of other people's money"(paraphrased).

The moral to the story: he who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it. You don't have to look very far back in time to see socialism falling on its ass, as a matter of fact you can still see it happening today. So why the hell does Obama think it will work here? The sad truth is I don't think he really gives a damn if it works or not. He is determined to administer his brand of social justice even if it destroys our way of life. That's when the leftist’s chickens will truly come home to roost!

RETURN TO THE SCENE

Running my route today I came up to an intersection that looked all too familiar. It was a little over a year ago I was going through the same intersection with the green light when some Oakie from Muskogee ran the light and t-boned my service van. Today I crossed this street with much trepidation and made it though safley.
This triggered the memory of what happened last year when I was between sugeries and me and Jojo were attending her uncle's funeral in Kentucky.
I wrote the following narrative last year for Facebook, but I wasn't blogging then so this won't be a rerun. Well except baby sis used it in her blog. Hey can I sue her for plagerism? I gave her permission so I probably don't have a case

"This is how quickly it can all change. We were in Brownsville KY yesterday at the showing for my wife's uncle. I was not feeling well so JoJo was taking me back to her mom and dads place to rest. I had also just been informed that my old buddy Kenny had just lost his mother and was trying to figure out how... we can make both funerals, my mother had just lost her cousin who lives in California and I was feeling bad for his family also.

We pulled out of the parking lot and started to cross Green river bridge, which is about 1/3 mile long and 200 feet above the river. We were still in sight of the funeral home doing about 30 mph when a white truck swerved around us doing at least 80 mph. There was a Brownsville cop on the bridge heading in the opposite direction of us and the truck, he stopped and turned on his blue lights the white truck looked like he was going to hit the cop head-on when he suddenly jerked the wheel and got back in his own lane in front of us and slammed into the back of a fully loaded dump truck ahead of us without ever hitting his brakes.

He shoved the dump truck another 20 feet and kept sliding until he slid onto the other side of the bridge and I thought he was going to break thru the bridge railing and plunge to a certain death 200 feet down to Green river.

JoJo and I just looked at each other and I said “What the hell?”

We got out and went up to the truck, the cop was there talking into his radio saying “start me a lifeline”.

This guy was crumpled up in the dash; airbags deployed but did not have his seatbelt on. His head was almost scalped and his almost new truck was mangled. We check on the dump truck driver who was ok but in shock like we were.

Joetta’s family started coming to the bridge from the funeral home to check on us. I just stood there doing the math and trying to visualize what kind of shape me and my wife would have been had this guy not have swerved around us, with that speed on that bridge. I just stood there and came to the conclusion that we could not have survived the impact.

The cop took our info; he was still shook up himself. An EMT told us this was not the first time he has done this. He was a diabetic and has seizures and has had several wrecks, he was not even supposed to be driving. He hit the dump truck so hard he busted the back wheel and slammed it into the curb after driving it forward 20 feet or so. What chance would we have had in our car? 

JoJo and I just last month set up our wills and trusts thinking what are the odds of us both dying at the same time. Well the odds are better than we thought. We had to sit on that bridge over an hour waiting for a helicopter to land on the bridge and fly the guy all the way to Nashville TN.

We kissed and said “I love you” and I thought about how badly this could have been for our families and our kids and our upcoming grandbaby that would never meet us. This is the second time this year that I had to think in terms of eternity, the third if you include the heart problem. For some reason the song “ Live Like You Are Dying” keeps coming to mind.

My advice: get your affairs in order, make sure your loved ones know they are and get all the skeletons out of your closet. You never know if you are going to attend a funeral or be the guest of honor.

P.S. When I think of how differently life would have been for those left behind if that truck had not swerved around us and the things we would have missed out on since, it puts things in perspective for me. Those times in our lives where chance almost intersects with fate makes us take stock of our lives. I can't imagine missing out on the special blessings I have had in the last year.  I wouldn't have been there to give walk my little girl down the aisle.  We wouldn't have been at that hospital to meet our grandson. Those are only two events that would have left my life unfullfilled to have missed. There will be many more in the life God has seen fit to extend. But those two stand out the most to me the most right now.

PERSPECTIVE

The doctor walked into dad’s hospital room. My father was lying on the bed. He had been through several months of experimental liver cancer treatment hundreds of miles from home. He had been admitted to a local hospital close to home due to alot of internal bleeding. The doctor just happened to walk in when it was just me and dad in the room.
My relationship with my dad had been rocky throughout the years. Maybe rocky is not the most accurate word here. Suffice it to say, it wasn't exactly Andy and Opey when I was a kid. Things did get much better as time went on. He mellowed with age and I finally grew up and we reached some common ground. I don’t know what or when the exact turning point was but I actually learned to appreciate him and he was a great papaw to my two kids and we figured out that we actually cared about each other.

When I looked at the doctor’s face I knew he did not have good news to share.
He started in technical terms and then got down to the cold hard facts "basically the cancer you have been battling with has won" the doctor said, "you probably have two weeks to live, but we are going to get you released and get you back home today” Then he walked out of the room, he left us there by ourselves. What do you say to your father when he has just been handed a death sentence? I finally looked up from the floor after an eternity of silence. The look on dads face is one of those things in your life that you just can't unsee.  Up until that moment he had convinced himself that he was getting better.
Now He had the look of complete and utter defeat on his face. I have no idea what expression my face held, no one was looking at me.

I was searching for something comforting and profound to tell the man I had spent most of my childhood avoiding. Then I uttered the only words that would come out of my mouth, "that doesn't sound very good".  Not exactly Knute Rockne-ish. Dad responded in like form, "no it doesn't".  Then we both resumed staring at our favorite tiles on the floor. That was Christmas Eve 1991; the next day would be dad's 60th birthday. a month later I would give the eulogy at his funeral.

Less than ten years later, I'm was trying to finish my day running calls on broken appliances, my marriage in shambles, after over a year of trying to salvage that mess for the sake of my kids I had come to the conclusion that after spending my whole life fixing broken things, this was one thing I could not repair. Going from house to house bringing dead appliances back from the dead wondering how I was going to tell my to kids that their whole world was about to fall apart
It just happened that I had three calls in a row that were exactly the same. Old ladies whose icemakers had stopped working and they all were pissing and moaning about how terrible their lives were without the convince of the life giving ice.
After breaking down and bawling like a baby between each call I had reached my limit. On my last call of the day, I tried to comfort the old lady who had to endure 3 days of slow ice production, "maam I'm sorry about your icemaker, I can't think of anything worse in the world then to have your icemaker working too slowly"
The sarcasm was probably wasted on this dimwit, but it brought some small measure of gratification to me.

Twelve years later, I am back on the road running calls after a year and a half of being sidelined due to knee surgery, heart issues, automobile accidents, rotator cuff and spinal fusion surgeries, I was beginning to get back in the grove of things and I felt good about being back on the road again. Then Monday I knocked on her door. It seems her water heater stopped working. I could tell that she was pissed at me when walked through the door. The sound of reproach in her voice told me that she knew I had designed her over-engineered high efficiency water heater and she knew I talked her into buying this over-priced piece of Algore shit and I caused it to break down.
This unit had a defective gas valve and an off the shelf common  part won't work on this one. It takes a fancy electronic gas valve, the kind I don't have in my truck, the kind that I have to order from the factory.
So as I'm explaining to this middle-aged women that I would emergency order this part and have it here in three days I here her sniffling, then the sniffling turned to crying then blubbering then I hear her caterwauling, I looked up in disbelief and she started in.  HOW WILL I EVER DO MY LAUNDRY ( rhetorical, no question mark required). I HATE  !!!! (insert your hated retail store here) WITH A PASSION !!!"
"THIS IS THE 2nd THING THAT I BOUGHT AT YOUR STORE THAT BROKE DOWN AFTER JUST 4 YEARS AND I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH YOUR COMPANY AGAIN (thank you Jesus)!"

I couldn't get out of that house fast enough, as I enter the 140 degree service van I put the truck in reverse before the engine knew what hit it. I pulled over down the street to process my part order and give the AC a chance to start the evaporation process of my uniform and heavily sweating brow.
As I sat there in cool down mode those bad times in my life came to mind then I remembered an old saying mom used to tell us when we were kids:
"I cried because I had no shoes till I met a man that had no feet".
That lady who I left crying like her world just ended because she had to do without hot water for a couple of days during a string of mid 90 degree days should meet half of the third world that can't get any water at all.
It reminded me that I shouldn't dwell on my problems, because everyday on the news there are heartbreaking stories worse than anything that has ever happened to me.
It's all about perspective, that's a magic word that we all tend to leave out of our mental vocabulary at times. That is till we walk around the corner and see that man who has no feet. Thanks mom.

Iiiiishitphone

Iiiiishitphone
Until Monday I ha e been doing most of my bloggin on mr crachberru which I got pretty quick at  I now Jane a n iPhone which is great for taking vides and pics of the grandson but it's a little tougher to blog with. I'm hoping wwith som practice I will ged better typing on this damn thing. Hey wait a minute. I think I'm getting the hang of it!  This isn't as bad as I thought it was. Maybe I just needed to retrain my thumbs a bit. I like the bigger screen and there are a lot more apps to play with. Maybe I will learm to type as fast as mu ols cranberry .... Awwqw shity
Nabee mot. Itds a week in progress. Snit!