Fifty Years and Five Miles…

 

That’s my fraternity brother from college, Jon Ayres.

I’m standing, he’s sitting, 1968 and yesterday. In the first picture, I was pinching Jon's right nipple. He agreed to the new shot if I promised to drop the nipple squeezing.

We had just finished dinner with our families at the new St Augustine Fish camp.

That restaurant is only about a ten-minute drive for each of us, but it took fifty-one years to get there.

Synchronicity and Kevin Bacon…six degrees removed all that time.

Jon was one of the guys I just couldn’t locate when working with other alumni friends to put together a college reunion in 2009.

Turns out he was right here in town.

Jon’s son, Jay, along with his beautiful wife, Stephanie, stopped by my house a month ago to pick up business supplies that I was holding for Hannah. Hannah and Stephanie are best friends, both on the same team with doTERRA, an essential oils MLM. Sometimes the company sends Hannah’s stuff to me by mistake. Hannah lives in Hawaii, so she asked Stephanie to swing by and pick the things up and use them herself.

Both are yoga girls, teachers, and advocates.

I knew Stephanie was a good friend of Hannah’s but had no clue that her handsome driver/husband, was my old buddy’s son.

The only neighbors I ever really speak with on our street, are David and Pura. It turns out that they have known and worked with both Jon and his wife, Connie, for years at Cap’s On The Water and the Kingfish Grill.

Then recently, I saw a reference to a “Jon Ayres” on David’s Facebook page.

I run into David frequently on dog walks. Me with my little black yappers dancing frantically on the end of their strings, David with his three-legged big guy, one of them always wearing a headset and carrying a mug of coffee. (David, not tripod.)

Me: “I saw on your Facebook, a reference to your friend, John Ayers. I knew a Jon Ayres back in college, But I guess it couldn't be the same guy, you and your friends are 30 years younger.”

David: “No, he’s an older guy, probably your age.”

Me: “We used to call him “Foggy”, because he was so mellow and laid back.”

David: “That’s got to be him!”

Synchronicity started kicking into overdrive. One thing led to another.

It turns out that Jon and I both got drafted right out of college. He hustled over to the National Guard, hoping to avoid being cannon fodder for the Army in Vietnam, learning how to drive tanks right here in the States. I did the same with the Air force. Computer operations in the Pentagon. We both dodged a very unpleasant bullet, neither of us wanting to go halfway round the world to shoot at people we didn’t know or have any grudge with. Especially knowing they were well-skilled at shooting back.

Same thing with our first marriages. Dodged a bullet. Married for five minutes to the wrong people the first time around, then long terms second marriages.

Two budding hippy kids from New Jersey who wound up together enrolled at a tiny Methodist college in North Alabama during the social upheaval of the late 1960’s.

That’s another long and winding road right there.

Both of us old guys recently had our first grandchild, little boys. Jon and I will be eighty when those kids are ten.

We’re introverts who seem to agree on almost everything, including a passionate distaste for zealotry in politics and religion.

His wife Connie is youthful, bright, and beautiful. So is Carla.

After all the old memories… “remember when we… that guy who…the teacher that…” Did the college cafeteria really boil the steaks on steak Wednesdays? They looked like the curled hands of drowning victims who had floated in a warm pond way too long. What was the name of that pizza place we used to go to in the middle of the night? You know, where the graveyard workers from Sweet Sue Kitchens would flood in on break from their chicken plucking duties? The college kids and the chicken puckers sat and stared at each other, assuming that the group on the opposite side of the room must have just landed in a spaceship from Mars.

But after all that nostalgia, after the meeting of the families, young and old, we had a wonderful dinner by the water, here in our mutual hometown.

That’s where we started a brand-new chapter.

No longer simply “old college friends”, but new old friends, looking forward to our next multi-generational get-together…one that spans so many layers of connection.

I’m sure Kevin Bacon is in there somewhere…

hmh

 

 

Your World

 

Selfish sorrow at seeing you go…

Quickly washed away by a tsunami of joy in watching you do so.

Being who you are, who you must be.

Out there, in a world that’s been a best friend to you,

for so long now,

Karma is real,

In your world.

 

Winner, Winner...Chicken Dinner!

  

Split in half and rubbed with a mixture of salt, brown sugar, onion powder, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper, I let this chicken languish in the refrigerator for three days, growing ever more eager for the warmth of the smoker.

Four hours over Apple wood did the trick. The flesh of a common foul, elevated to culinary greatness, food fit for a king…or maybe just for a guy having a beer on the back deck, watching a lone Osprey make futile dives at elusive shapes only inches under the surface of the lake below, while Chicca locks her radar onto that damn squirrel flicking its tail and giving her the raspberries from ten feet up the big Oak... acting like he owns the place…

Next level chicken...proof of life.

 

 

 

 

Here Comes the Sun...

 

Earlier this morning, I thought I heard singing coming from our back yard. Stepping out, there he was…up above, looking East, deep in his own musical celebration of the dawn:

“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
And I say, it’s all right…”

“Catchy” I thought, convinced that his tune could be a hit if he ever recorded it.

A Visit from Kira...

 

We spotted a small rectangle of tissue paper, lying in the garden, festively wrapped with multicolored ribbons.

No identification on the outside.

Inside, a beautifully painted stone, like a gift from an elfin world.

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About a week ago, I had posted an ode of sorts, to our special dog, Kira, on our “We Love St. Dogustine, FL.” website.

------------------------------------

This stone, along with a line from my post, had apparently been created as an awesome remembrance …by an artist who understands.

Kismet, I believe.

Kira stopping by to remind us of her loving soul, by way of a talented and generous artist.

All of our hearts beating in tandem for one of life’s special moments…

Many thanks to this generous artist… who walks the walk, leading by example…

 

WD-40

 

Use WD-40 To:

1. Lube a shovel. Spray WD-40 on a shovel, spading fork, hoe or garden trowel. The soil slides right off—especially helpful when digging in clay.

2. Clean tile. The spray removes spilled mascara, nail polish, paint and scuff marks from tile floors, and also help you wipe away grime from the grout lines. Clean up with soapy water.

3. Scrub stains from stainless steel sinks.

4. Unstick gum. A squirt makes it easier to pull gum out of carpet and even hair. It's better than cutting out the gum and leaving patchy carpet or a bad haircut.

5. Soften leather. Oil can help break in a stiff leather tool belt.

6. Free stuck LEGOs. Your kids will thank you.

7. Erase crayon. When crayon ends up on toys, flooring, furniture, painted walls, wallpaper, windows, doors, and television screens. Spray on WD-40 and wipe it off.

8. Prevent flowerpots from sticking when stacked together.

9. Get rid of rust. Spray and rub away rust from circular saw and hacksaw blades. It can also clean blades of tar and other gunk.

10. Remove goo. Unstick gooey residue from price tags, duct tape, and stickers.

11. Clean and polish the tactical knives gathered from the living room.

 

 

 

Concert High Harmony...

 

All my adult life, I’ve avoided crowds. It’s as if Covid 19 has always a thing. Large groups freaked me out. Huge gingivitis and methane scented gatherings of bodies packed way too tightly.

I don’t like to be touched by strangers or savor the air that was in their colon only moments before. If jostled too aggressively, I react in kind.

Don’t push.

Three artists drew me out though, three concerts in 50 years, Gordon Lightfoot, Eric Clapton, and Jackson Browne. They were almost three too many, but all were memorable.

The Gordon Lightfoot concert almost doesn’t count though. I needed a place to take Carla on our first date. That was at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Northern Virginia, lying on a grassy hill that sloped down to the stage. Lightfoot was drunk, his performance something of a shit show. I didn’t care. Carla and I were on a blanket. She wore white cotton slacks with an elastic waistband. Oblivious to Lightfoot’s sputtering, my greatest memory after four decades, is the smell of her long auburn hair.

I saw Clapton at the Capital Center arena in Landover, Md. He was deep in his “I Shot the Sheriff” cocaine/reggae days. Yvonne Elliman sang her balls off. Paranoia and claustrophobia had me ready to go postal in that packed crowd. The music so loud it physically hurt my ears. Fools in the balcony seats lobbing cherry bombs out over the packed bodies making lazy arcs like flying sparklers, exploding overhead like incoming mortar rounds. That shit infuriated me. Claustrophobia was replaced with rage. I wanted to hunt the perps down and kill them. A tactical knife always a close companion, I fantasized that in the din of the chaos it could be a perfect murder. Several well-placed kidney and neck thrusts and no more cherry bombs. People were focused on the stage. No problem.

Of course, that never happened, but a small level of regret for a missed opportunity, still lingers.

I love Clapton and his music but that shit was way over the top for me.

Never again.

Not, at least, until Jackson Browne came to Meriweather Post Pavilion in 1977 on his “Running on Empty” tour. That one was epic for all the right reasons. Many of the usual suspects: Craig Doerge, Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, and the amazing David Lindley.

Great music that I already knew by heart, a mellow crowd. It’s where Jackson recorded his version of the great Maurice Williams tune, “Stay”.

The funny thing about that one was the high chorus:

“Oh, won't you stay

Just a little bit longer

Please let me hear

You say that you will”

When that lone voice soared out over the crowd, cutting through the din like a laser, we all assumed it to be Jackson’s blond powerhouse singer, Rosemary Butler. But it dawned on everyone at the same time when the amazing David Lindley stepped out front and center, that he was doing the honors. This little gnome of a man with a brown river of hair as long as he was short.

Killing it.

Recognition caused me to point and yell out: “It’s David Lindley! Hooray for David!”

It reminded me of a “Little Rascals” scene where Darla got sick while playing Juliet to Alfalfa’s Romeo. Backstage, Spanky told Buckwheat that he would have to stand in for her on the balcony scene. When Alfalfa implored: “Juliet, my Juliet… wherefore art thou?”, there was a short pause of expectation, waiting for Darla to appear. When Buckwheat popped up on the balcony, grinning with a loud “Here I is!”, the silence of another pause of recognition was broken by the crowd of kids going nuts: “Look! It’s Buckwheat! Hooray for Buckwheat!”

That concert was memorable, with David Lindley’s vocal being the high point.

Literally.

I wrote a note to David a few years later, comparing his entrance and the crowd reaction to that of Buckwheat’s, many years before. E-mailed it to him and forgot about it. Days later I got a note from David’s wife. She told me that most of the band had been gathered around her big wooden kitchen table when she read my story to them. Most of the crew being my age, they too loved the Little Rascals, and Buckwheat, everyone loves Buckwheat.

And my story, they loved my story, “a lot” she said. I wish I had been there to read it to them myself. I'm always up for coffee and scrambled eggs.

Ms Lindley admitted that everyone loves the Amazing David too, a real-life version of the Adams Family “Cousin it” singing and playing incredibly beautiful high harmony to Jackson’s musical comfort food.

That concert and the entire body of work from Jackson Browne and the Amazing David lindley, always a very filling and satisfying meal.

 

No Time To Die...

 

Death is a shadow cast by all living things, from their moment of creation to their end. Where there is life, death follows. Neither one exists without the other.

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My friend Clyde…

We walked similar paths as English majors, sharing classes and a bit of a social culture clash. Young Northern boys cloistered away in a Methodist college smaller than the High School I graduated from, although still the biggest thing in that little Alabama town, just a few miles South of the Tennessee border.

It was the late 1960’s and the times were changing all around us, but it was still 1955 in downtown Athens, Alabama.

Clyde and I did four years there and then four more in a huge bachelor townhouse on the side of a lake in Reston, Virginia. Crazy fun times, creating memories, stories to tell ourselves and others for the rest of our lives.

I worked at the local newspaper, Clyde started climbing the corporate ladder. He worked the bell stand at a Marriott hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. He brought home fistfuls of cash, recharging nightly as we all did, there at party central.

Adulthood called, we resisted, but all things run their course.

Although he and I occasionally touched base over the following 35 years, it wasn’t until e-mail came along and then Facebook popped up that we truly reconnected.

Clyde had fought his way up in the hospitality business, becoming the President of the Days Inn Hotel chain, a big job that was his passion.

I went in several directions with my career, never really knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. While Clyde was married to his career, his passion, I was married to Carla, and our family.

They were my passion.

We spoke of our mutual love of good food and his appreciation of fine wine, mine of  vodka, fine or otherwise.

Like many brothers, we may not have spoken on a weekly basis, not even monthly, but we could pick it up anywhere, anytime, unbroken.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This picture of Clyde and Beth is from a college reunion we had ten years ago. They were telling a funny story about their “children”, twin Carin Terriers. 

She was a bright light, always in motion. Then one night she stayed too long in her ritual bath. Clyde found her there, gone without warning or even a quick goodbye.

Sometimes the shadow is like that. It has the last word.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Carla and I were supposed to meet Clyde in New Orleans for a three-day celebration of great food and old times. He had lived there and knew every spot that wasn’t on the tourist maps and had much better food than most that were. He was eager to show us around his favorite spots. We agreed to meet sometime in the coming weeks. The ball was in his court to free up the time.

Although I was mildly surprised when he didn’t contact me to set a specific date, I knew he stayed busy and there was plenty of time to get together when he got out from under, so I didn’t pursue it.

Obviously now, I wish I had.

When I finally did hear from Clyde a few months later, it was by way of this e-mail letter he sent out to 29 recipients:

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Dear Friends,

I wanted to give you a heads up on something very personal and ask your assistance.

Some months ago I was diagnosed with early onset of dementia. It has progressed fairly steadily since then. I have had to resign from my consulting assignments some six months ago. And lately my SCORE volunteer work.

I have tried to conceal this (my apologies), I think relatively successfully except to my clients, as long as I could, but I no longer can.

My Mother and her sister both died of dementia/ Alzheimer’s. Having witnessed all of that pain in the end of their lives... and what our families went through over months... years.. I resolved long ago that I would not go down that road; nor would I do that to my family. Lord knows, they have suffered way too much from this disease.

Unfortunately, there is also a significant incidence of depression in our family which is a contributing factor in my case, according to the docs.

And so tonight I have ended my life.

My request of you is that you please inform our mutual friends who are not on this message. I don’t have emails for everyone. I just don’t want friends to think I am ignoring them. There will be no funeral or celebrations, so no urgency.

No regrets... I was blessed with a great, great life: Wonderful family, incredible loves, great friends, exciting career, world travel, fascinating experiences..... all good.

Thank you so much for our friendship and so many wonderful times together.

And I want it ended on that note. And so it shall be.

Love to you all.

Clyde

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I have nothing but respect for my friend’s decision. He had no children. No one could accuse him of being “selfish”. Perhaps the most noble and brave act I’ve witnessed.

As was true with most of his life, Clyde chose to make the end happen on his own terms.

In the end, this isn’t just about my friend, Clyde, of course, it is about all of us.

I’ve managed to dismiss the memory of this whenever it came to me. A year even makes it more... final. It hurts... at least until I remember a few dozen funny “how about the time...” stories I begin to tell him out loud, and he chimes in with punchlines delivered like a perfect nightcap.

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RIP, my friend, hope to see you again...not today though, I'm pretty busy and just can't free up the time.

 

Sunrise Serenade...

 

Our morning walk was windblown, wet & sandy.  Intermittently muddy, we splashed through salty pools nestled in shoals of low-tide mussels, now exposed.

I thought of the black-lip bowl at Ned’s, momentarily lost in memories of chopped garlic and white wine.

The scent of salt flats stirred by new morning breezes chasing their own tails ushered in a dramatic new sunrise, a solar orchestra rising from the pit, instantly wowing an appreciative audience.

Before leaving, we rolled on our backs, squirming with delight atop a skeletal catfish tossed unceremoniously into the high grass next to the car. Our own smells masked, we were energized, rejuvenated and hungry for breakfast, as well as for the new day itself.

Bits of cheap hot dogs, cold from the fridge, torn into toss and catch treats for the girls, a toasted bagel for me. I ripped off a piece of bagel, lobbing it up over my head, just to see if I could catch it in my mouth to show solidarity to the kids. They scrambled for my failed attempt as it bounced off the oriental rug, into an empty shoe.

After bathing the girls in the laundry tub, I even took a shower myself, cognizant of my responsibility to lead by example.

Damp, now smelling of shampoo, they collapsed at the foot of the bed, coma twitching in their squirrel dreams, as I read my book.

Always thankful.

It's the Beach, Bitches!

 

 

Took the dogs to the beach yesterday. Chica’s favorite place. She frantically runs up and down the surf-line, 1,000 miles an hour, clearing out all those nasty sandpipers. Then she goes straight in and enjoys being tossed around by the waves. A happy, wet mutt.

But it was the first visit there for our new dog, Coco.

She stood in the shade of my shadow the whole time and looked at me asking: “What is this sandy, wet nightmare of a place you’ve taken me to and when are we going back home and lie on the couch like normal people?”

I think next time I’ll just take Chica and let Coco stay home.

Coco likes to sit on the couch and watch the Spanish version of “Jeopardy”. Being from Estado Libre y Soberano de Chihuahua in Mexico, she seems to know all the answers. 

The Ballad of Billy Jack...

 

It was so sad to see them like this.

Him on a stretcher, her sniveling...Kleenex dabbing in her wheelchair.

Billy Jack and Delores Taylor had once been so vibrant. You have to wonder what happened to them.

What went wrong?

Do you think the fact that she slept upside down in the basement during daylight hours could have had anything to do with it? In her case, was “deathly pale” more literal than not? Was Billy frustrated with mistaking his wife for a Kombucha scoby. floating like a gelatinous loogie in a sea of vinegar?

There’s a new book coming out. An expose on the life and mysterious demise of Billy and Delores.

The bombshell revelation is something we’ve all suspected from time to time.

It was Joan Baez music that killed them.

Apparently, they played it seven days a week for thirty years. Those oh-so-sincere dog whistle protest songs reached out and murdered, song by song.

Inoperable ear cancer.

Looking back, it’s obvious in hindsight that like a house wrapped in asbestos, pumping water from Flint and filled to the brim with radon gas…an early death was inevitable.

Personally, if I had listened to Joan Baez music that often for thirty years, I would welcome an early death.

But maybe that's just me...

Vitamix Victory...

 

 

Wilder has too many teeth coming in at the same time to remain level for more than a quick pause between dramas.

But as is true with babies, and us old men, we’re easily distracted and pleased, if we can be tricked into believing that we’re getting our way...even if it’s only for the time it takes to pause briefly and celebrate our own awesomeness to achieve such an obvious victory.

_______________________

Ruth messaged:

“He’s settled back down.

He forms attachment to odd things and right now it’s my Vitamix. It’s the first thing he goes for when he wakes up in the morning and last night we had a big battle because we wouldn’t let him take it in the bathtub and then wouldn’t let him take it into his crib with him to sleep.

But blender does get to be part of story time.”

 

Between the Troublemaker and the Recycle plant...

 

 

A Brooklyn kind of guy. Old school. He smelled of spaghetti sauce that needed refrigeration yesterday. Probably in his mid-70’s, still carrying a flame for Annette Funicello.

“Tony”

Of course it’s Tony.

“They used to call me Tony B.”  he told me, swelling a little with the memory.

“When I moved down here… it’s different. I just go by Tony, just Tony, you know?”

That’s what Momo Rose called me, just Tony. You met her once before she passed. She said that the “B” was for Tony Boy. Her boy, but we both knew it wasn’t.

A bit surprised at how slowly he had been walking, somewhat bowlegged, I asked Tony how he was doing.

“Ehh, I’m alive.” he shrugged.

“Doctor tells me I got a problem with my prostrate. They did some tests, want to do some more. Fuck them.”

Working himself up, red-faced, he sputtered out a rehearsed refusal “I ain’t letting three guys and that fat nurse get all up in my business. It’s like a stage show with lights there between the troublemaker and the recycle plant! They want to shoot a radiation bomb in me…right between the troublemaker and the recycle plant. Fuck them.”

And with that descriptive little slice of life, Tony shuffled off, never to be seen again. Not by me, anyway.

I’m sorry that I never got to know him well enough to ask why they called him Tony B.  Tony Brooklyn?  Tony the Butcher? He did seem like he may have been a tough guy. Funny that it wasn’t bullets to do Tony in though, it was a problem he couldn’t get rid of with concrete blocks and deep water.

Tony was bumped off by an unseen enemy…somewhere between the troublemaker and the recycle plant.  

 

 

 

Grackles...

 

A FB friend of mine mentioned her affinity for the color purple when she was in High school, mainly due to the purple uniforms the cheerleaders and footballers wore.

Give me a “V”, give me an “I”, give me, give me…Victory!

For me, High School, and the color purple, conjure up very different images. In my mind’s eye, I still see the splashes of purple puke running down the sides and rear windows of Mrs. Callahan's tan station wagon.

Our crew had been retching purple slime out of David Callahan's mother's station wagon, doing 95 MPH as we shot through the open toll booth between Staten Island and New Jersey sometime past 1:30 in the morning. A sick green wash added another dimension as the fluorescent lighting of the toll booth came and went in a blur.

Earlier, we had driven 45 minutes to a horrible little bar that Westfield peeps frequented back in the daze, and parked in a dark, fetid alley behind it. The whole place was alien territory for us, something right out of a black & white low budget detective flick. Exciting, dangerous, and unpredictable.

I remember seeing a used condom lying broken and bloody on the sidewalk, wondering if the girl involved had been used and discarded in the same way.

This place wasn't the pristine, neatly trimmed “colonial” Westfield I was used to. The very definition of creepy, and don’t touch anything nasty, but the bar knew that most of us were underage, and didn’t care.

We would present our fake ID's at the door, standing up straight, doing our best “of course I’m 18, you must be crazy to even ask me for my ID” pose. I looked 14, blond and pink cheeked, but since I had the bad ID, it was no problem. I have no remaining memory of why we drank slow Gin Fizzes, having never had one before or since. Nasty purple puke color drinks, even before you blow them out of your nose onto the sides of Mrs. Callahan’s tan station wagon. Like a gaggle of berry stuffed Grackles, we stained all surfaces within shooting distance on the frantic run back home, including my perception of those kinds of desperate, youthful attempts to find something, some kind of an elusive prize, that I mistakenly thought was adulthood.

Over and over, I found that adulthood was in the opposite direction, and way more than just the one step ahead we imagined.

It was still a very sobering, long way off.

Owls in the Oaks...

 

Owls in the oaks wake me with their incessant questioning.

"Who?"

Night after night.

My eyes stretched wide open, as useless in that black cave as my car keys,

Everything dead still.

Except for the Owls. Are they standing at my feet, twin bedposts? Do they expect me to answer? What is the answer, anyway? Even if I knew, and told them, they would keep after me with more of the same.

Damn them to hell. They push me to face it, now I wonder too.

Lying back on what must be a bed of dry guano, deep in the bowels of a cave, flanked by my inquisitors and their demands to know...

“Who?”

Dreams are the only source of light. Perhaps I'll find the answers there...perhaps I never woke at all, still bracing for that harrowing cry, 

the incessant questioning of the Owls in the oaks...

"Who?'

At the Edge...

 

 

In August of 2014, I looked over the edge. Apparently, not yet my time to jump or be pushed.

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Checking into the local hospital for an overhaul a few weeks ago was the best thing that I’ve done for myself in a long time. A problem identified and corrected, ready for another 20. But the pain, morphine and Dilaudid had me drifting in and out, most of it a blur. I missed this post from Hannah that I just found yesterday. I like it a lot…

----------------------------

Hannah Gypsyon Haller

We didn't have a lot of money, but I don't remember ever wanting anything I didn't have.

You liked my hair long when I was young, still do. When I started to wear bracelets on my wrists you encouraged me to get more. Said they looked cool. I made my own clothes and dreadlocked my hair, you never once said anything negative about it. You allowed me to grow up wild and free, and fostered my own creative process. You always had my back, no matter what and supported me on whatever endeavor I chose, whether it be worthy or not, I felt you in my corner. You have encouraged me to live for me, be me, and answer to no one but myself. A strong, independent woman you must have known I'd become.

You taught me to watch the birds that fly over the water, listen to the cicadas at sunset. Love animals like our friends and compliment strangers. I never felt like I couldn't tell you something.

I'm here with you now, dad. Supporting you, every step of the way. Let's go home soon okay?

— with Hugh Maverick Haller at Flagler Hospital St.

 

 

Low on Fuel...

Music was the fuel we ran on. The dreams of future past.

Each flip of an album showing us where we’d been, where we were, and where we were going.

Much more than just music, the messages clicked, brought instant recognition to things we understood in a more visceral way, that had now been given voice.

The musicians, our tribe.

Unhurried hours pressed up against waist-high wood bins at The Penguin Feather Head Shop & Record Store. Colorful albums organized A through Z, punctuated by alphabet cops, letter signs held high above the crowd, trail markers.

Patchouli marinade, quadraphonic sound… stunning album art, equally anticipated.

Looking for answers, looking for ourselves.

-------------------------------------------------

Fast forward too many years to name comfortably.

Vinyl and CD’s, little more than dust magnets.

Shouting out instructions to Siri or Alexa, play this, play that. Frustrated by her lack of depth. No memory of a time when artists reached out to us with songs we had brewing inside, eager for release.

Music now more background than fore, piped down every isle. We maneuver a cart around the heavy older woman, her scooter parked next to the pinto beans, considering her options. Struggling to reach without leaving the safety of her chair, wrapped up in ancient tie dye, fading peace signs, a mane of grey hair…and blue.

Still tangled up in blue.

On the Road Again...

Throwback: July 24, 2013

Those were the daze for her. Brutal 16 hour shifts, back to back, a marathon party awash with alcohol and cash, entertaining and serving the inmates.

No eye in the hurricane. No respite.

------------------------------------------

July 2013

Hannah has been having a hard time staying in one place for so long. Three months now, back in Venice Beach, working at the infamous Whaler Bar.

So when she booked a one way ticket to Fiji, her spirits lifted and started to soar with the anticipation of being on the road again.

She's heading off for a 25 day yoga retreat where she will pick up another certification, and then move on again. Where to? She doesn't know, and loves it to be that way.

For her, too much planning spoils the surprise.

Feet A Blur...

I'm happier than I look.

Ecstatic really.

Shellfish scented breezes dance off water, caressing skin cradled in hammock arms.

Pandora doing her best to please...

I'm coming up empty handed for something to bitch about. Not even a totally insignificant first world problem. I'm like that little black kid on PBS who boasted: “My future is so bright I need to wear shades!"

OK, maybe I'm not like that little black kid. He's young and beautiful, I generally look like I spent the last five days floating face down brackish water, but you get my point.

I'm excited. Snoopy dancing on his doghouse, feet a blur...

Why? Because I'm living in the miracle.

All of it. All of us.

The meaning of life is life itself.

That's the gift. Be present, wallow in it.

Alamo Plaza...

My Great Great Grandpa’s house in Alamo Plaza.

Samuel Maverick and my Great Great Grandma, Mary, were among the first white settlers in San Antonio, Texas.

Sam fought for Texas’ independence from Mexico, even spending time as a POW in a Mexican prison. He was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and Mayor of San Antonio 1839-1840.

An attorney, Sam was once paid a debt in cattle, but not being a cattleman, he didn’t brand them. When people spotted unbranded cattle running free, they were assumed to be “Mavericks”. That coined the term to mean “out of the box”, “Independent” or “unorthodox”.

I appreciate that spin and have always tried to do my part.

What’s for Breakfast?

 What’s for Breakfast?

(More like lunch, actually. I’ve been up since 2:30)

Sliced peaches. Drizzled & sliced avocado. A Philly Cheese Steak.

Not just any Philly Cheese Steak though, this one was Alton Brown’s contribution to the “sandwich” episode of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network.

That channel has all my favorite people on it: Geoffrey Zakarian, Anne Burell, Alton Brown, Michael Symon, Guy Fieri, and many others, including my life guru and hero, Bobby Flay.

What’s in the sandwich?

Couldn’t be much easier: Fresh crusty bread to hold good quality beef, onions, salt & pepper, all diced in a pan with 3 or 4 slices of melted American cheese.

That’s it.

Simple & delicious!

(Yes, this is two meals!)

First Class, Please...

The primary advantage of flying first class is to be afforded the opportunity to sneer at the common people as they are herded back to the cheap seats like so many unwashed sheep, clutching their laughably outdated and torn baggage and grease stained paper bags of leftover MacDonald garbage that had been jammed up under the seat of a hot rental car all morning.

You lean right to avoid brushing any of the mucus dripping gaggle, gelatinous spawn bumbling down the isle in front of sweaty parents draped in XXXL Disney T shirts. Everyone splashed with purple vomit from quart sized slushies, heads lowered and eyes averted as the children see what they are missing in their obvious misfortune of having been born into a family of loser parents, aware for the first time that they will never know the clink of chilled glass and the lavender scent of warmed hand towels that are little more than a meaningless throw away up there behind the curtain.

What’s for Breakfast

What’s for Breakfast?

How about some local flounder so fresh it was swimming for cover yesterday, but didn’t make it home.

This morning it’s kicking back, getting baked. Doing the backstroke in butter & lemon juice with minced onion and Paprika.

A large dollop of garlic Aioli to serve.

All on a bed of “Royal Blend” rice (Texmati, White, Brown, Wild & Red).

As with most restaurants out there, some dishes in my kitchen disappoint.

This isn’t one of them.

Perfectly paired with a pint of homemade Strawberry/lime Kombucha.

No Help Wanted...

July 2018

Turning 62 next month, Carla doesn’t look her age. She does look good in jeans though. Partially that’s due to the fact that she has both good jeans, and good genes. She’s fit, strong, and fast. Unlike her spouse, she never drank, smoked, used illegal substances nor ate an entire turkey and two whole hams at one sitting after smoking appetite enhancers. (He’s a disgusting man.)

These days, if she hasn’t worked at the hospital the night before, she goes to the gym with me in the mornings and runs on the stair machine like the energizer bunny. Her Fitbit reports that on work nights, she logs some 14,000 steps per shift. That’s equivalent to 3.3 miles.

Carla is all go, go, go, until she crashes and sleeps for 12 hours straight. She eats the same way, not hungry, no thanks, not now, maybe later…then it’s 24 hours of Blue Bell Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ice Cream in gallon containers, and seafood.

Some years ago, Carla was queen of her body pump class. Skinny and stronger than the average human. I had been doing my thing in the weight room upstairs, acting all manly and making pig sounds as I threw dumbbells around with disgust. I decided to humor Carla’s invitation to come to one of her “lady’s classes”. No big deal, I thought. Give the little ladies a break.

But it was a big deal, a very big deal. They broke me. Not only was I humiliated in the class itself, whimpering and crying softly in the back, I was pretty much paralyzed for a week. Too sore to move a pinkie.

She just laughed at me, no damn sympathy at all.

At 112 pounds, Carla was getting obnoxious, boasting of her physical prowess, and claiming that she could lift almost anything. I wanted to call her bluff and allowed, insisted really, that she carry anything heavy that needed carrying whenever we were together. Six grocery bags at once while I only carry the car keys. That couch needs to be moved over there? I’ll bet you can do it by yourself.

I’ll watch.

It became something of a joke between us.

I had a perfect opportunity to dare her to show her stuff when we went to Home Depot for garden supplies. Heavy bags of top soil and fertilizer, huge bales of peat moss, 40-pound landscape stones. She piled everything up on a flat steel dolly. I ambled alongside as she muscled it out to our truck. Passing people on their way in, most gave me dirty looks while Carla pushed the dolly, red faced and breathing deeply. We laughed, knowing that they probably assumed that either I had just undergone a hernia operation, or more likely, that I was a huge pile of excrement in human form.

When we got to the truck, everything had to be loaded up, manhandled (woman handled) onto the tailgate and pushed back on the flatbed. All big, awkward, heavy stuff. I sat on one side of the tailgate just whistling and looking at the birds, as she wrestled to get each huge thing up and onto the flatbed. 

It seemed like every man that was coming or going in that lot, rushed over quickly to help Carla, their wives glaring daggers at me. I’d tell them: “Oh, she’s fine. She can do it. We don’t need help, thanks.” Carla huffing and puffing, both of us hiding our laughter.

It almost came to blows with one guy, he insisted on helping until I told him that I was the husband. I guess he figured it was our business. “Poor woman” he must have thought “why would she stay with a jerk like that?”

He may have a point, Carla could do better, but it has nothing to do with her insistence on loading the truck by herself or my true pleasure in seeing her do it.

hmh