Bagpipes

It happened again last night.  The fire glazed sunset had long past when we heard the eire melody of a bagpipe. From our eleventh story balcony we peered down at the waters edge where a darkly clad musician was playing a haunting melody.  The music faded in and out and reminded me of my youth when we laid in bed and  listened to music fading in and out on our old short wave radio. My curiosity got the best of me and I rushed to put my shoes on so that I could run down and talk to the soloist.  It seemed like the elevator descended in slow motion. 

I struggled through the sand to the area where they had been playing, but they were gone. In the twilight  distance I could see a figure escaping  into the night. Her dark skirt waving in the ocean breeze.

I Prefer People

Don't get me wrong. 
I grew up with dogs and have many fond memories of the times we played. But I grew up at a time when dogs were considered just that. Dogs. We never considered having them in the house. If we wanted to criticize someone we called them a "dirty dog". Why? Because dogs are dirty.
 Fast forward to the present time and I am perplexed as to why people are so infatuated with them. They have them in their home and some even sleep with them. They treat them like their children, maybe better than their children.

If you dare say anything derogatory about any dog, your branded a animal hater. I think its a sad commentary on our society and have struggled for a long time to explain how I feel. 

Last night we were enjoying an evening of conversation with good friends when the friends wife made a statement that I will never forget and will use often. She said "I prefer people" . Its profound!  

I prefer people!

Urban Legends

                            

   Its been around sixty years since I first heard the story, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

 I was at my cousins home in Houston. Going to Houston was always a exciting treat for me, the country boy. My cousins were "street wise" and when we got in an argument, they called me a country hick. On that particular day, a friend named Brown was visiting them. This guy was a few years older and big talker and knew everything.   At least at the time I thought he did. Over the years as I grew up I found out that most of what he had said was total crap.

On this particular day he was talking his head off to his attentive audience.  We were all ears and I marveled at his extended wisdom .  Then he said something that made all of us gasp. It went like this, "My brother works with a guy whose neighbors cousin,  just bought a Corvette with only 300 miles on it for Two-hundred dollars." . We were all flabbergasted . In the 1950's, when the Corvette came out, you would have been hard pressed to find any young man that hadn't dreamed about owning one. We all held our breaths, waiting for an explanation as to how someone had bought a $5000. car for Two-Hundred Dollars! Brown took a deep breath and continued.

  The story was that some guy had gone down to the Chevy dealer and paid cash for a new Corvette. He had taken off a day of work and he wanted to surprise his girlfriend by driving to her place and giving her a ride in his new Vett. He didn't even knock at the door ( In those days, people didn't have to lock their doors) and went right in. Searched the house till he found her in the bedroom with another man. He rushed out of the house infuriated. He didn't show up for work the next day and it was three weeks till someone found the Corvette on a dead end road in the middle of nowhere. His decomposed body with a pistol still clenched in his fist was sprawled across the seats. The buyer had got the car for $200. because (and the story teller paused and  rolled his eyes back ) "they couldn't get the smell out".  We were speechless.

The BS secession was finished for the day, as that story could not have been topped with anything.

I believed the story and over the years retold it several times. I perfected the part where I would roll my eyes and say " And they just couldn't get the smell out".  It was a story that never failed to please the audience.

I quit telling the story, however, when I got  to college. The first and last time I told it,  it got disputed with "I heard it was a T-bird" and another , " No, It was a new Cadillac!".

I became suspicious.

A year later I was working on a Merchant ship on its way to Africa, when one evening as the crew gathered around a tub of iced down beer, a similar story came out, only the guy had done it  in a new Thirty-Two foot cabin cruiser.

I couldn't count how many time I heard the story in many variations while in the Navy.  I became amused and the most interesting thing was how the story tellers would always roll their eyes as they said " and they just couldn't get the smell out".

It wasn't till many years later that I heard the term "Urban legend" and figured out that the story was only that. 

However, I remember that that day that I first heard the story, I secretly thought that I could have "gotten the smell out". If only I could have come up with another $199.

©2013

My Grandma's Figs

As I was harvesting this years abundant supply of figs, I couldn't help remembering my Grandmother.
We lived in the country and Grandma lived in town, so right off the bat it was exciting just to go to town to visit. I spent a good portion of my first ten years there. For someone growing up in the pre television days it was some kind of an exciting place.
She had a corner lot and at the time , it seemed huge. She had a large garden and allowed me to help at pulling weeds and picking what ever was ready to be eaten. She always had a lot of cucumbers that graced salads or ended up as the best pickles in the world. Mustang grapes grew on the fence that lined the alley so she always had a good supply of grape jelly that went so well on her homemade bread. There were always at least a dozen fat hens that roamed the yard and if the table scraps didn't satisfy them, they had to supplement their diet with bugs. She never had to call an exterminator.
I couldn't have had anymore fun looking for gold than the eggs that the fat hens would hide all over the place. On numerous occasions, I got chased by a hen half my size, when she caught me stealing her eggs. Next to the old wash house was a cast iron boiler that sat up on one end. My Grandfather had procured it when one of the old cotton seed oil mills had closed down. In my memory it was at least fifty feet tall. It actually was probably about fifteen. The gutter from the house drained into it and it stored Grandma's prized rain water .
My sisters used to go to town to wash their hair in the miraculous water.
The wash house held a wood fired kettle where she made her own lye soap, and boiled water for her wringer washer. I loved it when she let me run the clothes through the ringer.
Her most prized plants in her garden were her figs. Over they years, the fig trees had slowly advanced to cover a good portion of her yard. She waged a never end war against the uninvited birds and squirrels that were hell bent on plundering figs. I helped her many times tie tin can lids on the branches. It was supposed to ward off uninvited guest.
I grew up and moved away. Grandma's health deteriorated to the point that she could no longer tend to her yard. Six foot weeds took over the area that her hens had once kept clean. The birds and squirrels had their way with the figs. When she passed away, her house was sold and moved away. A bull dozer came in and cleared off the lot and removed everything that had defined her life. A new home was built on the lot. I drove by years later and Mustang grapes were still growing on the alley fence.
©2013

Green Thumb

When our Grand Daughters would come over, they would like to water the plants with the large watering can that we had.
 Seeing that, my wife went out and bought two mini, bright yellow watering cans. The next time they came over, they got really excited when then saw the little cans. I stared filling and they started going all around watering. After a few fillings the youngest lost interest. The oldest kept coming back for more fillings. Then she said. "Grand Ma Anna sure has a lots of plants to water!" I , without thinking, responded, "Your Grand Ma has a green thumb" . She gasped ! "I never saw Grand Ma Anna's green thumb!" I laughed to myself and went on to explain that her Grand Ma didn't really have a green thumb and that it was just a way saying that someone loves plants and could make anything grow.. She was silent for a while, but I could see that she was pondering what I had said. Then she said " Grand Pa Frank, when I grow up, I want to have a "green thumb" just like Grand Ma Anna." What a Joy!

Don't Tell Me We Didn't Evolve

This story goes back over 40 years ago. My foreign bride and I moved into a large apartment project. I was going to school on the GI Bill and working part time. My wife was homesick and lonely, so she put up a "baby sitter available" on the bulletin board. She got a call a few hours later. The lady had a little girl about a year old.

The next morning she dropped off the baby along with bags of diapers and baby food. She was a beautiful happy baby. Everything went well until it became obvious that the baby needed her diaper changed. My wife removed the full body suit and lay the baby on a towel. She removed the diaper and gasped with horror. The baby's bottom was exactly like the bottom of a chimpanzee. The skin was grey and wrinkled. My wife didn't know what to do. She called me at work and I drove home immediately.

I could't believe what I saw. I stayed there until the mother showed up. I expressed my displeasure that she had left the baby and not warned my wife . She acted like it was no big deal and that the defect would be corrected with plastic surgery when the baby got older. We never saw the lady or baby again. Years later someone told me that sometime babies are born with tails.

George

How could I have been so naive?

I met George the first day I arrived at my dorm at the University of Texas. His room was connected to mine by a common bathroom. He was intelligent, and although he was my age, was definitely more mature. He was the youngest of seven children. He had six sisters. His father was Syrian and his mother was half Syrian and half Italian.

His room had a refrigerator and range and he always had something tasty cooking. He mother sent “care” packages loaded with food on a regular bases. I got my first taste of Syrian food from him. The Dorm had around a hundred young men as residents. There were only about a dozen rooms with cooking facilities. The ranges didn’t have exterior venting, so whenever George would start cooking something, a never-ending number of guys would be knocking on his door to see what was cooking. Guys at this age are always hungry. A few would bring stuff for George to repay him, but most were just scrounges that never brought anything. I came up with an idea that George loved.

The next weekend I went home, I went to my Dads poultry processing plant and picked up a five-pound box of “Turkey Fries”. Turkey fries were a by-product of dressing a turkey. That brings up something I never understood. They called it a “dressing” plant, but it really was more like undressing. At any rate, I brought the “fries” back to Austin and George and I battered them with egg and flower and started to fry them. The aroma was heartbreaking and it only took about five minutes and there were a dozen hungry guys at the door. We started serving the fried “fries” and could have used ten pounds. All that could be heard was “uhhhhs” and “Ahaaas” After all the “fries” were consumed, one of the guys asked, “What exactly is a Turkey Fry”? I winked at George and he smiled back and I said. “ A Turkey fry is a turkey testicle” Everyone evacuated the room and I think a few had to vomit. During the next few weeks, no one knocked on George’s door when he was cooking. George and I hung around together a lot that year. We had a lot of the typical college room arguments that went on for hours. It’s what young men that know nothing about life like to do. I had broken up with my girlfriend and was not looking for any new relationship at the time. I wondered why George never talked much about girls. He was what any girl would have considered good looking and was always a good dresser. He particularly liked the Madres shirts that were popular at that time. I flunked out after two semesters and moved to Houston. That summer, a friend of mine and I went to Big Bend and then Ruidoso New Mexico where my father owned a vacation home. We stopped in El Paso and picked up George and we all spent a few days there.

George moved to Houston and got a job. We would get together every once and a while and go to movie or get something to eat. Later, I moved to New Orleans and lost touch with George. A year later the draft board was breathing down my neck, so I joined the Navy. While returning home from boot camp, I stopped over in El Paso and called up George. He was going to school and working nights in a slot car racing center. He was working, so he had a friend pick me up and I spent a few days with him before continuing home.

I got stationed overseas and over the next few years sent George post cards and a few letters. He never answered. After leaving the service I got married. A few years later my wife and I were on a road trip to California, so we stopped in El Paso to see George. I talked to his mother and she gave me his office number. I called there and after some hesitation, was told he was out of the office. I understood that he was probably not interested in seeing me. Ten or fifteen years passed and while going through some old photos, I came across one of George and me from my college days.

I decided to give one last try to contact George. I still had his home phone number from 20 years prior, so I called. His mother answered. I explained whom I was and was not totally convinced she remembered. She said she did but I was not sure. I asked her where George was and could I get his number. This is how she answered. “ George was Gay. He got AIDS. He killed himself.” Before I could express any condolences, she hung up. I was numb as I remembered all the times I was with George and all of the all-night dorm discussions we had had. I remembered all the verbal bashings I and others had directed towards “queers”.

George was a good guy.

How ignorant and naive I was.

'59 Chevy Rag Top

Summer 1960 My two brothers, my brothers girlfriend, my sister and I took a road trip to Mexico. We went all the way to Acapulco. On the way back from Mexico City to Monterey, it was just about dark, when driving through a mountain pass, we ran into a pile of rocks that had fallen into the road. The rocks busted up the power steering cylinders. We drove on and soon the headlights were dimming. Those cars had the generator and power steering pump on the same shaft. The damage to the power steering screwed up the generator. We started driving with the lights off, turning then on only when we met another vehicle. At about 1 AM we limped into a small town. Found a small motel and exhausted , went to bed. I awoke first and the first thing that came into my mind was that we were screwed. In the middle of nowhere, money running short, and a dead vehicle.

I dressed and walked out and looked up and down the still dark ,vacant street. As I turned around, I noticed lights going on in a building about a block down the street. Then someone threw another switch and the most beautiful neon Chevrolet Brand sign came on in all its splender.

The Way Things Work (In a small own)

The best thing about living in a small town is that you know everyone. The worst thing is that everyone knows you. The also know the car you drive. The following is an example :

Clem can't drive, so he ask Joe to give him a ride to the local clinic where he has an appointment to get his ears cleaned. Joe drives him there and parks in front of the clinic. Fred happens to be driving by and see Joe's car.

One hour later:

Fred meets George at the post office. Fred " Hey, I saw Joe's car at the clinic!" "Hope he ain' t having more trouble with his heart!"

One hour later:

George meets Bob and three other guys at the coffee shop. George " I saw Fred this morning and he said that Joe is having heart trouble"

Three hours later:

The phone rings at Joe's house. Joe's wife "Hello?" "Martha, this Is Steve, I just heard that Joe had a heart attack, Is he gonna be ok?" Martha " Heart attack!!!, Joe didn't have no heart attack! He's in the back yard digging out a stump"

Many a dead man has walked down the street in That town.

Born Chevy

Life has a funny way of throwing curves.

I grew up in a small town where there were many examples of "drawing a line in the sand". Catholic or Protestant, Republican orDemocrat ,rich or poor, white or non-white, local or non-local (if your family didn't go back at least two generations you were always referred to as "not from here".)

Another important life choice was whether you were Ford or Chevy. If your grandfather drove Fords, your father drove Fords, it was understood by all that you would always drive a Ford. It wasn't uncommon for a Chevy owner to say " I 'd sooner change religions than drive a Ford. "

I was born Chevy.. Learned to drive in my Grandpa's 57 chevy pickup. I bought a Chevy Nova when I got out of the service. Later I got a Chevy pickup and a Chevy Laguna. My brother had a used car lot and carried all brands, but I never considered anything other than a Chevy.

But, like I said before, life has a way of tricking us. Opportunity knocks and our lives take a different direction. In 1978 , after 33 years of being Chevy to the core, I moved back to my home town and bought the Ford dealership. Been driving a Ford ever since.

Joints

Joint replacements are shaping up to be like the Hysterectomies debacle during the sixties and seventies. I don’t have any way to prove or disprove what the experts are saying. I can only tell two stories that convince me that both procedures are mostly unnecessary.
  Old Man With A Bad Shoulder:
 I owned a small auto dealership and knew most of my customers on a personal base. I had one customer that was in his eighties and would come to my store once a year to get his vehicle inspected. He only drove about a thousand miles a year. One day he came into the parts department where I was working and I could see right a way that he was hurting. He was holding his right arm close to his body and his face grimaced with pain at every slight movement. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that he was going to get a total shoulder replacement in a month. I questioned why he had to wait in pain for such a long time and he replied that the surgeon was booked up that far ahead. He gave me his keys and I gave them to the mechanic that was going to inspect his vehicle. I had had problems with my knees and had found great relief after I started taking Glucosamine Chondroitin pills. I asked him if he had tried taking that for his shoulder and he said that he had never heard about it. He asked me to write it down and since his car was inspected, they left. A year passed and I was again in parts working when the same old gentleman came in and tossed an empty box on my desk. I was surprised and looked at the box and it was from Glucosamine Chondroitin pills. I did not remember our conversation from the year before, so I guess I gave him a curious look. “Don’t you remember me?” he asked. I was starting to remember what I had told him and asked, “ Did it help?” He swung his right arm around several times like a softball pitcher. “Did you get the shoulder replacement?” I asked. “NO!” he shouted. He then told me what had transpired. When he had left my shop the year before, he had stopped at Wal-Mart and purchased two bottles of the Glucosamine & Chondroitin. He started taking the supplement as suggested. After a week, he began noticing that he had some painless movement in the shoulder. It kept improving so much that after another week, he called the surgeons office to post pone the surgery. The surgeon got on the phone and became angry and told them that he could not postpone the surgery because it was too late to schedule anyone else in the time slot that he had set aside for him. When the old man heard that, he cancelled the operation. The doctor was screaming as he hung up the phone. He continued taking the supplement and was almost completely back to normal within six months. He kept thanking me for telling him about the supplement.
   Second Knee Replacement
  Another customer came in using a walker. I started to talk to her as he car was being worked on. She told me that she had had one knee replaced two years prior and was scheduled to have the other replaced. She was dreading it and had postponed the procedure several times. She had not fully recovered from the first surgery and was dreading another. Her surgeon assured her that it was necessary. Once again I asked her if she had ever used Glucosamine Chondroitin pills. She had not heard of them. I told her how they had helped me and also told her the story about the old man with the bad shoulder. She was very interested and left telling me that she was going to try. At least two years passed and one day a car pulled up in front of the showroom and the lady that had used the walker the last time I had see her, bounded out of her car and came up the steps to my office. “I need to give you a hug!” she said loudly. Once again I did not even remember who she was. I guess she noticed my curious look and said. “Don’t you remember?” I was in here a while back because of my bad knee?”. I remembered then and told her so. She then told me how she had purchased the Glucosamine Chondroitin pills after she had talked to me two years prior. It had taken about a month before she started noticing an improvement in her knee. Another month passed and she had quit using the walker. After two years she had no more pain in that knee but still had a pain in the knee that had the joint replaced. I won’t say that all joint replacements are unnecessary. I have a friend that worked for a freight company all his life and when he retired his knees were so shot and he was so bowlegged that he could have straddled a gas pipeline and touched his heals underneath. His knee replacements were needed. My experience is that he was the exception.

Dents

A few months before I gradated from the University of Houston, I started getting credit cards in the mail. That practice was later banned. I also got offers from all the auto dealers offering no-money-down deals on new cars. A friend, who I studied with, became the proud owner of a new Volvo. To prevent getting any parking lot dents on his pride and joy, he parked diagonally across three parking spaces at the far end of the stadium parking lot. While returning to his car one day, he found his car surrounded by police and wreckers. The police had been in pursuit of a bank robber that had lost control and plowed into my friends car.
    Many years later, when I was in the Auto business, I had a fellow dealer that told this story and swore it was true. He had just delivered a new truck to a customer and watched as the customer reached into the tool box that had been on his old truck and took out a hammer. He then proceeded to give the side of the new truck a good hit, leaving a good size dent. The dealer ran out and asked the customer what the hell he was doing. The old guy threw the hammer back in the tool box and said. " Now I don't have to worry about getting the first dent."
A few days ago I was walking through the parking lot at our local supermarket. There was a distressed young couple standing next to a new sports car that still had the paper tags. I stopped and asked if they needed any help. With tears in her eyes the young lady pointed at the sizable dent someone had just given them while they were shopping. I tried to console her by saying that it was not too bad and could be easily repaired. It didn't seem to help. I had been thinking of getting a new vehicle to replace our 16 year old Taurus. Maybe I will keep it. It has lots of dents.