Hairy Times With Hair

Doing my weekend trimming of mustache and beard, I became glaringly aware of a heinous plot of underachieving hairs to overcome the old reliable hairs that have carried the weight of responsibility of covering the ol’ noggin.  I imagine there is quite a conversation going on between them all and that some of this conspiracy has to do with a complacent attitude of the old reliables who have become weary with the times and are quite willing to release their place in the societal follicle and fall to the drain of the shower; totally happy with the knowledge that they gave it a good 47 years.

“Remember the old days when we had to wear the Bryllcream into the battles with the wind and sun?  Now those were the days when real hair stood in the breech and took on all elements.  Forget the hair gels and mousse these kid hairs talk about cause they ain’t nothing compared to a dab of Bryllcream!”  The old hair coughs, shakes, and spits out a wad of dandruff.  His compadre, an equally old hair chimes in with, “Bryllcream nothing!  What about that V-05 hair styling cream we had to deal with during the 70’s?  If you couldn’t wear enough of that to stand a 60 mph windstorm in the Panhandle then you just didn’t bother coming out of the follicle.  Those were the days when hair was hair, I tell ya!”

Unfortunately these old bastions of follicle fierceness are now tired and as they vacate the pate it is the under-achieving hairs sitting on the sidelines that jump into the fray.  You know which hairs I am speaking of, the nose hairs and the ear hairs.  They’ve spent a lifetime on the bench watching the studly head hairs carry the fashion of the day without blanching once from the battle but now that these “studs” are falling, they rush onto the field of play much to the alarm of the head coach, mainly me.

“What the helk are you doing outside of the ear?” I scream at a lobal hair that has graciously taken on the task of hair placement by growing a half an inch over night.

“I want to play coach, play me!”   How do you explain to an ear hair that his job is to sit quietly inside the ear, way down deep and out of sight, and has no place in open society?  I appreciate his enthusiasm but come on, no one wants to sit and stare at an ear hair while you are conducting business.  They steal the show in a bad way… in a “ohmygoodnessdidyouseethesizeofthatearhair” kind of way.

Nose hairs are even worse.  They wait until you are the most stressed and come out in an army as if they are there to protect you by assaulting the masses with a frontal display of follicle unity coming right out of your nose.  There is absolutely no way you will ever get them to understand their job takes place inside the nasal cavity, not on the outside.  I figure to be a nose hair you probably had to score below 400 on the SAT or 10 on the ACT.

Either way the times aren’t getting any easier and my time in the bathroom removing overachieving underachievers just keeps increasing.  Sigh.  I miss the studly hair of yesterday.  Even if it was covered up in Bryllcream.

New Year’s Resolutions

I am proud to say I kept most of my New Year’s Resolutions from last year.  Since I am thrilling at that success, I will keep this streak rolling!

1. I resolve to drink more coffee.
2. I resolve to smoke two cigars a month.
3. I resolve to eat more red meat.
4. I resolve to mock as many vegetarians that I can.
5. I resolve to enjoy people and the time spent with them.

There you have it.   I feel this is going to be a good year!

The Thought of Sacrifice

One of the great gifts I received for Christmas was several Civil War magazines which I have found wonderful reading.  One of the articles deals with Robert E. Lee’s criticism of the South for not willing to sacrifice for the war effort.  Before he left his own home he told his wife to expect a war of 10 years and for her to lose their home, their land, and all of their possessions if they truly wanted to see a sovereign southern nation.   He was off by five years but he was right about the rest, they lost every bit of it.

The article goes on to speak about the speculators, the hoarding, the selling out of farmers to gain a higher price at the expense of starving their own army.  This became even more apparent when the northern armies came through and during the rape of the cities found huge stores of grain and supplies in the homes of “good southern people committed to the cause.”  It does make me wonder if you are raping yourself first, then does it make it rape when your enemy comes in and does the same thing?  Hmm…

I think we have same scenario in any national crises.  You have to hope the citizens are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice but in our cynical minds we know they aren’t up to it and lip service will be paid while secretly they hoard their goods.  I think we have seen this in about every major crises this nation has seen.

9/11 – for a year we rallied, gave generously and did what we could to ease the pain of the people of New York.  Even gave up some of our “rights” to make sure this wouldn’t happen again.  Just like our predecessors we soon tire of sacrifice and war and move on with our own lives.

Katrina – Oh we rallied longer because this had more than disaster overtones to it, there were racial ones as well.  So we stayed a little longer but if you ever drive by Hope, Arkansas and see the thousands of FEMA trailers sitting in storage while there are still homeless folks in New Orleans, then maybe you might think we have moved on too.

So how about the current “wars” we have declared?  The war on ignorance (no child left behind) or the war on illegal immigration (oh, let’s build a wall) to name a few.  You can see the war on drugs (wait, weren’t we just to say “no” and everything would be alright?) has been a rousing success.

My point?  Hmm, I don’t know if I have one but this; national crises can only be overcome when as a nation you come to a consensus that you won’t accept the current condition and will do anything and everything to defeat it.  As long as people are too involved with themselves and are not willing to sacrifice then we can pretty well just write our history of defeat.  (and yes, I would say that apathy is a nice form of defeat in a tasty dish that we can eat with a bit of relish and a sprig of parsley)

I think the saddest part is the folks who truly believe in the cause and do lose everything in their attempt to defeat it because in the end they are without anything but the dignity of knowing they fought the good fight… which is hard to take when you are looking at the uncaring drive by in their BMW’s, sipping lattes from Starbucks, on their way to a $200 a ticket concert.

Move over Robert E. Lee, the line of dreamers wallowing in defeat forms to the right.

Merry Christmas!

A Poem… sort of.

Christmas Blessings for 2007 from some of your favorite people

 Your Veterinarian

May your tree be decorated with love

May it sparkle with the joy of family

And may you have a sense of warmth from above

And may your pets be free of fleas.

Your Proctologist

May the jolly ol’ man in the red suit

Be kind to you and those you love

And may you bring me some loot

Cause it’s time for the Vaseline and the glove.

Your Banker 

May this holiday season be great

As you purchase good tidings and joy

Cause we’re charging you an obnoxious rate

So you can provide those gifts and toys! 

Your Cardiologist

Yes he is jolly and jiggles when he laughs

And everyone thinks he’s full of good cheer

But guess who is coming in for quadruple bypass

To start off his happy New Year?

May you avoid the nog of egg

And may chocolate be far from your lips

May you limit yourself to one goose leg

And may Christmas not stay on your hips. 

Your Mailman

May your holiday season be sunny

And may it be free of any rain

Cause all this freakin’ mail, honey

Is really a royal pain.

From your Frustrated Writer

May you enjoy your egg-nogging

And may you enjoy the best of this season

And may you get back to blogging

Lest you be accused of blog treason. 

Merry Christmas to you and yours…

How to Terrify a Man

Went to the funeral of a friend who has left this world at the age of 51.  A rather young age for these days and times considering the medical breakthroughs, technology, and the knowledge of how one can stay healthy.  I’m going to miss my friend who was more than just a friend to me, but also to my son and to hundreds of boys who enjoyed scouting in the community where I once lived.  He died as he lived, laughing the whole time and trying to make this place we walk about in a good place.

I went to pay my respects and sitting there in the choir loft with my fiance’, I couldn’t help but look out over the family whenever the preacher moved to the right enough for me to take a look.  The one person I wanted to speak to and tell him how important his dad was, wasn’t there.  Or I should say, he wasn’t readily seen sitting with the other family members.  He could’ve easily been somewhere else in the crowd but I do know he wasn’t with his step mom or his sister.

It deeply saddens me to think this is even a remote possibility.  I think about my own kids and how it would hurt to know they wouldn’t show up for even your funeral.  I know, if you’re dead you won’t care about such things but still, just knowing such a thing was a possibility is enough to strike dread into a father’s heart.  Such thoughts terrify me and I’m not so sure wouldn’t terrify any father who loved a child.

It reminds me of something another good friend who also succumbed to cancer, told me during his final days upon this earth.  We were having one of our totally frank discussions when we would come at each other with both barrels loaded and our fingers on the triggers.  These conversations could be brutal from time to time but they were the epitome of honesty being communicated to a good friend.  I had just told him that one of my greatest frustrations was knowing what to say to someone who was dying to help ease their angst about death.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.  “To many sons of bitches want to tell us not to be afraid of death.  It ain’t death we’re afraid of; it’s the dying that scares the shit out of us.”  He was right of course and in any instance where I was dealing with someone in the process of dying I’ve never forgot his wisdom.  I’m sure there is something profound to be said here about wisdom gained from having been in the fire instead of just observing it but really, it escapes me at this time.

I think today as I sat through people telling stories of my friend and the impact he had made on their lives or on the lives of their children, it occurred to me that perhaps the true fears that haunt the dreams of men aren’t even about the dying but instead they are about the living because quite frankly that is much more terrifying.

My good friend Neal always says the true wealth of a man will be seen in the number of people who attend his funeral without the ulterior motive of just being there to make sure the deceased’ sorry hide is actually stretched and tanned.  The more people who show to pay their respects and leave with fond memories of you, the wealthier you were.  It makes sense to me but I think there is now a qualifier; for every child who doesn’t show, you drop ten levels of wealth and if no child shows, you ended up poorer than any homeless person found stiff in a cardboard box in an abandoned alley.

Realizing it is up to us to make sure we have true wealth in this world, I think the terror will always remain that in our vain attempts of trying to make the world a better place than what we found upon our arrival.  Even a full church would not offset the despair left by one vacant seat reserved for a child.

Oh great, now I really won’t sleep tonight.

Please, the horse is dead and isn’t getting any pleasure from this beating…

Today’s Dilbert had the pointy-hair boss introducing the dead horse he had just hired because he believed the more he beat it the better chance that the horse would get up and do something.  I’ve always thought if you beat a dead horse too much all you get is bones but what do I know?

I think some folks are better at beating dead horses than others.  Some, seeing the horse stroke out and fall to the ground will naturally assume this horse is done and move on.  Others, they find a bigger stick to whack it with.  Working with the public you find more folks are looking around for that bigger stick than are looking for another form of transportation.

Maybe there is comfort in beating the dead horse because frustrations are vented or maybe it is the only thing some folks know how to do.   My friend Jake used to tell our speech teacher to “Toss a saddle on it.  Maybe it is just waiting for motivation.”  I think that was about the time he earned his trips to the principals office, a place he tended to migrate to on a regular basis.

As for me, I tend to be the guy who says, “That horse is dead, someone call Alpo and let’s keep moving.”  While that sounds all assertive and wonderful, it puts me in a category of folks who quite frankly, would’ve had Sea Biscuit sitting on the shelf between the Wagon Train and Purina products instead of realizing the horse still had life in it and had the potential to win a national race.  Yes, sometimes moving too fast past a problem is worse than beating it to death.  Getting nowhere at a faster clip still lands you at nowhere… right?
What a quandary.  There are just days I want to scream and days I think I am the antagonist that instigates the screaming.  Sigh.

Last Call for Christmas Story Cards

I am addressing and stamping cards today.  If you would like to have one, then let me know!

Christmas Story Cards Ready

The annual Christmas Story Card is officially ready.  If you want one, just email me your address and I’ll mail one off to you ASAP.  I hope you are all having a great weekend!

Thursday Thirteen for Dec. 13

Remembering old toys that were fun…  My folks didn’t have a lot of money so many of the toys were ones that a bunch of boys could share or play with at the same time.  Some of those listed were ones we made and in truth were some of the best we had.

1. Lincoln Logs – building a log cabin is completely entertaining!
2. Tinker Toys – you could build windmills or a really neat futuristic rifle to play shoot out with your brothers.
3. Erector Sets – they came complete with an electric motor that attached to a D-cell battery so when you built a crane, you could actually lift items off the floor.  Worked great until I wired it to a lamp cord and found out AC doesn’t geehaw with DC.  Good lesson though, even if it did smoke up the entire house when the little motor blew.
4. Footballs or basketballs – we played with both for hours!
5. Walkie Talkies – the old ones you almost had to be able to see the other person to get them to work but they were still fun.
6. I’m not sure what this particular toy was called but it allowed you to build devices that had mirrors inside so you could look around corners.  Loads of fun if you are spying on your brothers.
7. Hot Wheels – watching those cars loop the loop or see how far you could make them jump.  Now that was good fun!
8. Match Box toys – the wheels weren’t as good as Hot Wheels but they were great in a just every day play.
9. Plastic soldiers – I had a Revolutionary War set which meant half the soldiers were blue and the other half red.  I wanted the red ones to be Chinese so I started to heat up their heads in the gas flame of the heater in the bathroom and with a paper clip make them little ponytails.  This practice stopped when I dropped hot wax onto my finger and burned the heck out of it.  Still have the scar.
10. Swords made from yucca sticks.
11. Sling shots made from mesquite tree limbs and innertubes.  Nothing like launching rocks at each other.
12.  Tops.  We had the ones you wrapped string around and then threw while pulling the string to get the rotation.  We had top battles, contests to see who could spin the longest, etc.  A simple toy but it could keep us busy for hours!
13. A used up water heater.  We had endless hours of log rolling contest or just seeing how far we could roll the old water heater around the yard.  We had so much fun with it that Dad didn’t take it to the dump until we had worn the thing out.

So what were some of your favorite toys?

A Little Santa Poetry

Who sneaks into our houses

Past security measures and mouses

And fingers all of our stuff

Wearing his red suit with cuffs?

Who pilfers our milk and cookies

Acting all weird and spooky

And steals kisses from our mommas

Well it sure ain’t the Dali Lama.

And who is it that parks his sleigh

On our rooftops which could give way

‘Neath the weight of all those reindeer

While he breaks into our house, dear?

He knows about our children’s lives

He even knows all about our wives.

He knows everyone’s secret desires

And has elvish friends who conspire

To what they will bring our youth

Depending on their level of couth.

Are you following my line of reason

As we enter this holiday season?

This man could be a pedophile

Passing out candy with his smiles

So I think this Christmas Eve

I’ll check to see what’s up his sleeve.

With shotgun loaded I’ll sit and wait,

Eating cookies and drinking Jack straight.

When he comes down my chimney’s chute

I’m gonna rumble with the man in the suit.

If he’s really just a good ol’ boy

Then he won’t mind leaving that bag of toys.