I guess the year was 1955 when my Grandfather bought me my first typewriter. I placed it on the desk that my Dad had bought for me to do my school work on and began to learn how to type with one finger at a time.
I loved that old typewriter but I wasn’t allowed to do my school homework assignments on it because my teacher had demanded that all homework assignments be done in pen (Not a ballpoint pen either because she always said, “It is impossible to write with a pen.” She was talking cursive writing of course because we weren’t allowed to print our assignments either.)
But I did find uses for my typewriter. I used it to write love notes to my girlfriend. I even thought about writing a book. But the problem was that it took me about an hour and a half to finish and entire 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of typing paper.
But within a few months of getting the typewriter, I happened to notice an old mimeograph printing machine in the basement of a local grocery store owned by a friend of mine and he told me that I could play with it.
I learned to type on stencils that the mimeograph machine used and did a mock up of a one sides, one page newspaper.
The store owner was impressed and told me, “If you will put the advertisement for my store on one side of that newspaper of yours, I will buy the paper, the ink and the stencils for the mimeograph machine and I will put one of them into each bag of groceries i sell. People will enjoy reading the little news articles.
I offered my friend a better deal. I told him, “If you will do all that and pay me a penny apiece for walking all over town putting these papers into door handles, I will distribute them for you to every house in this town once a week.”
My friend bought the deal and before you know it, i was printing the paper on Wednesday evenings after school and on Saturday myself and a few friends walked all over the town putting a newspaper into the doors of each one of the 800 houses in the town.
For the later part of this story, the local Business men’s Association picked up the idea and began to finance me and it finally led to the first newspaper in our town in a Hundred years.
So I ended up being a Teen-aged High School student with a newspaper and once the Businessmen bought me a mailing permit at the post office, I had taken on the neighboring community and we had a weekly circulation of 1,400 copies. The story expands from there into a real enterprise but that is for another story another time.
Image above generated by GEMINI artificial intelligence… no living or dead people represented in the image.
When I was a kid — a young, snotty-nosed asshole of a kid —I did a lot of foolish things and this is the story of one of them:
Mel and her husband owned a five and dime operation in our small country village when I was about 12 years old and she had a toy department in that place too.
Mel was one of the town’s best gossips.
I am telling you that if she heard something at Noon, it would be complete and totally enhanced by the grape vine and would arrive at the other end of town within the space of one telephone call, amplified and enhanced by all the other gossip mongers in town … a matter of minutes. Pony Express has never been as fast as that gossip delivery service.
But she had a good heart and her son, (Name With Held) was one of my closest play mates.
This meant that I had unrestricted access to all the best that was Mel …. including the fantastically delicious cookies and candy that she made.
But Mel had a mouth on her … she could whoop and holler and cuss like a sailor when she got mad– and she got mad at me a lot because i acted like a total asshole most of the time.
But when times were good, my friend, her son and I would spend leisurely hours laying in front of their television set watching “Superman” or “Dragnet” or stuff like that.
So one day when I was in a bastardly mood, I decided to put a very realistic-looking rubber toy rattlesnake into a cigar box and took it over to the variety store to tease Mel with it.
When I arrived at the store where her and her husband and son also had an apartment, she was in her kitchen in the middle of baking cookies.
When I arrived, her attention was immediately drawn to the closed cigar box which i held suspiciously under one arm.
“What’s in the box?” She asked.
“Ahhh, nothin'” I replied.
She kept wheedling me about what was in the box, growing more incensed with each passing moment that i refused to tell her.
Finally, red-faced and puffing wrath, she screamed, “What’s in that G*d-d**ned” box?
Handing the closed box to her gently, I said, “you had better not open it.”
Those were wasted words.
She did open the box, stood there for a split second, screamed a shrill ear-piercing scream, throwing the box across the room and calling me the foulest possible names she could think of all the time.
“You little bastard,” she raged… “If you ever do anything like that again I will kill you!”
Mel was always going to “Kill” me over something that I did or the other but she never really got around to actually doing it.
Did I mention that I went home without any cookies that day?
It is kind of difficult to try to keep a blog going right now……but I am trying….It’s just that nothing is really happening with me except I am trying to recover from a horrible illness……so I apologize if I become less than dependable……I will try to get on with something for my readers….. I am trying to figure out what to write about right now…..perhaps you all could tell me what you would like to hear from me besides health updates…… that would be of great assistance to me and would be sincerely appreciated.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK THAT I AM NOT AN AUTHENTIC POLITICAL PROPHET:
I cannot believe that after what Americans were forced to suffer under the last Conservative Administration, they might consider actually choosing a repeat performance.
The National Memory must either be very short or someone is practicing “Head-In-The-Sand” selective amnesia or Rightie propaganda is paying off for the 1% and those who would take America back to the Political Dark Ages again.
I read one report that said that Americans are divided over the economic policies of President Obama and that the split is something like 40 percent for and 39 percent against with 19 percent undecided or something like that.
Here is what I will predict and I hope that everyone who reads this blog will hit the “Save” or the “Print” button on this one and keep it around for future reference.
I predict that if America puts another Conservative Administration into the White House and that if America does not wrest control of The House of Representatives back to the Democrats, America hasn’t seen anything yet about what deprivation and suffering can actually mean.
The plans for America that I have been hearing on the evening News and everywhere I look and listen are, in my opinion, absolutely Draconian.
This “Austerity” crap just got kicked in the teeth by The People of France and by a lot of others in Europe and it is no difficulty to imagine that if America gets a real and significant taste of Conservatist Austerity, there will be exponential buyer’s remorse in no time at all.
In fact, I believe that if this tragedy were to happen, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in every corner of our blessed Republic.
I believe that within a year of a Conservative take over of our government there will be such a hornet’s nest of buyer’s remorse stirred up that it will be both incomprehensible and indescribable.
I think the middle and lower-income classes will be absolutely decimated and devastated by all the planned “Take Aways” and I think the possibility of a dark depression sweeping like a tidal wave of despair over this land is a distinct possibility–like nothing we have ever seen before.
The Political Lemmings simply have got to get their heads out of the sand and take a close look at what is happening right under their noses and spread the word that Radical Rightie is on the march again and could well have the most adverse impact on this Nation in all Her long and glorious History.
The time to worry about how Conservatism plans to take our Democratic Republic down is not after people have gone out and voted their anger and frustration.
The time to think about how to keep America on the upswing that She has begun to experience in the last 25 months or so is now…before the elections…and at the voting booths.
I am convinced that within a few months of a Conservative sweep in November, 2012, America will be in a deeper hole than ever with far less prospects of recovery than ever and I simply cannot believe that People would allow that to happen to themselves and their heirs.
Please, America…do not make me say “I told you so” sometime around this time next year.
For God’s sake, America…wake up! Check out the information by clicking between the following parenthesis: ( Dead Heat )
See what refusing to tax the rich can cause by clicking between the parenthesis: ( France Reject )
This image is AI-generated and does not portray any real people.
(December 1, 2025) —- I bought myself a slow cooker today— from Amazon —- It will be here Wednesday and I am on anticipatory pins and needles.
I will now be able to turn beef pieces into a lovely gelatinous softness —- great for my recovering gut —-and perhaps a lot of other interesting and delicious things as well. I like the fact that it has an automatic timer and shut off feature… set and forget…
I have been working to increase my daily protein intake… I fear I have been somewhat protein deficient for the last Six weeks…but I can do 90 to 110 grams each day now that I have charted it all out…..Once I am fully recovered, I can up the ante on the protein to 142 grams per day…..the 90-110 grams is the safe low limit for my body weight and for recovery purposes.
Learning to love Greek Style yogurt, Tempeh and Kefir. (Not.) Cottage cheese is a non starter for me —- can’t stand it —but fish and chicken and pork and beef—- well that is another story….. love them all when i can reduce the collagen content to a lovely managable mush….. well almost anyway ….very masticatable …..I have stopped the awful downward body weight slide and have stabilized at 218 pounds without clothing ……I always find it interesting that when I visit a doctor office, they always chart my weight complete with clothing…..an extra 4 or 5 pounds that I did not come into this world with …..strange things that doctors do sometimes.
Right now it is 8:30 PM where my friend, Jim, and I live… and having finished washing the dinner dishes, I am here on the computer and Jim is parked in his recliner in our cavernous living room, in a reclining chair that virtually swallows him, with a throw blanket pulled up to his nose — he is somewhat cold blooded —- and, of course, to save a few bucks (dollars), we keep our thermostat at 67 degrees ……keeps the pipes from freezing in the manse and gives us an excuse to wear sweaters and jackets in the house…..As for me, I recently purchased a large blanket with 100% wool fleece on one side….warm as toast —- but I need a sheet between me and the fleece……It can be a bit itchy.
I would be commenting on the national events except for the fact that all of it is so damned crazy and disjointed and sometimes, in my opinion, even somewhat demented ….so why bother stirring a pot of excreta …..only causes malodorous conditions in the psyche.
MemoriesOf School Daze
Some time during my Fifth year of life, my parents began “Preparing” me to start school. School was a mysterious place to me. It was far, far away and was described to me as a place where wonderful things were happening and from which there was no apparent escape.
I look back now and am confounded because if you look at it properly, I was undergoing my first parental brainwashing session. I guess all parents do that. I did it with my own kids.
I was torn between the emotions of wonder and dread at the prospect of getting a good start at this new thing everyone was calling, “School.” I somehow sensed, deep inside, that it would mean the loss of my endless freedom and would begin the long process of learning something my Grandfather referred to as “Responsibility.” By the time the inevitable confrontation rolled around, I guess I was more or less properly conditioned to accept the idea of “The First Grade.”
I got the point where, even though I had no earthly idea of what I was saying, I would loudly declare to any adult who would show me the slightest bit of attention, “I’m going to school next year.”
There were a lot of side wise glances and some approving looks and a few pats on the head by old ladies. Those attentions and the smiles that accompanied them made the concept ever so much more pleasant for me. There was a lot of encouragement and moral support from the adult crowd.
It was especially nice when some kindly lady would chuck me under the chin and declare, “Oh, you will do well…you are a smart kid.”
Being “Smart” seemed to be some kind of prerequisite for successful launch at school so I began to search for ways to become…”Smarter.”
Enter my accommodating Father who had completed Third Grade at a local one room school back in 1913.
It seemed that my Dad knew everything about everything and would “make Up” facts when the real facts were unclear to him. He began the process of preparing me for First Grade with a kind of “Home Schooling” of his own design and invention. His stated goal was to “Git me smarter in what was necessary in life—Readin, Writin’ and Cipherin.” (Arithmetic). To my Dad, these were the only necessary requirements for acceptable and complete education.
So, my days underwent some changes.
After supper, instead of romping with my dog and my pet pig, I was obliged to sit with Dad at the dinner table and learn to do Arithmetic….on my fingers!
As to the art of Multiplication: We never ventured beyond the Twelfth Table (12×12=) and Long Division wasn’t even in the educational loop for my Dad.
Dad would take a long draw on his ever-present filter-less cigarette and exclaim, with great satisfaction, “Now One plus One equals Two.”
When I paralyzed at that revelation, he placed two vertical hash marks on a piece of paper and demonstrated how 1 + 1 equaled 2.
All this advanced education took place after I had demonstrated my ability to count to Ten on my fingers. I often wondered why toes did not enter into the process. It dawned on me that it was probably impractical to stop and remove one’s shoes whenever it became necessary to count or to add or subtract.
After a few weeks of this intensive struggle, I got pretty proficient at adding columns of single digit numbers, but the need to “Carry” across to another column of figures was absolutely foreign to me.
Dad’s preoccupation with Addition and Subtraction was simplified for me by his explanation, “If you learn to add and to subtract, you can always tell if your paycheck is short.” (Or if there were actually a dozen oranges in the grocery bag.).
My confusion about Math deepened on the day that my Dad explained to me how One rabbit plus One rabbit ends up being Three rabbits.
So, my first days of school were not uptown at the giant red brick structure with the school buses out front and the play equipment in the side lot.
My first day of school was at home with my Dad, my dog and my pet Pig with Mom hovering in the background mumbling some indistinct phrases from time to time to which my Dad would impatiently respond, “Now hush up, Old Woman, the kid has got to learn something so he won’t be lost when he gits to school.”
I always appreciated Dad’s willingness to help me launch successfully but, as it turned out, he was behind the times somewhat and finger-counting no longer would cut it with the teachers.
I had to re-learn everything.
One thing I learned very early on was just how much a teacher loved to get a fresh red apple each morning from some student—like me. (There was an orchard next door, after all.)
I have to stop being so damned paranoid about growing this blog …..this blog has never grown and is never going to grow —you can preach all the scientific blogging nonsense to me that you want to preach but what works for some does not work for everybody and nothing seems to work for me …..I have 5 wonderfully faithful friends on this blog who never fail to look or to like or to comment and, believe it or not, those 5 precious souls are really all I need and I feel damned lucky to have them ….. I know that if i were somebody else, I wouldn’t spend the time of day to bother with a trashy assed blog like mine— so I am blessed to have my faithful friends who already know who they are so i do not have to mention their names at this time.
I just got informed that I don’t even have any control over the search engine optimization for this blog because in order to get help with seo friendly keywords that would attract the attention of those electronic little assholes that run all over the internet looking for stuff to highlight so that people can find them easily, I would have to upgrade my $95 per year personal blog to a far more expensive “Business” or “Commercial” model and there is no damned way I can ever even think about doing that. So, like most everyone else who does “Hobby” blogging, I am stuck forever in Nowhere-Land on the Internet just hoping that by some million-to-one miracle, somebody else finds me and joins in the daily nonsense.
So i guess Ukraine is not at peace yet — or so I am told —-but I have a plan that can end that war in less than a day…..Here is my plan: Give Russia everything she wants and give Ukraine nothing at all….. well, maybe a promise or two ….and let that be the end of it. I think that is a solid plan that would end the war ….for at least a year or two anyway—but then again, I am not a politician and I really have no business sounding off on international affiars but I am such an egotistic schwid that I can’t keep my mouth shut when I get a tingle in my testicles about one subject or the other.
I hate the taste of Nystatin Oral Solution that I am using on doctor’s orders to treat what the doctor thinks is “Thrush” in my oral cavity — but I am dutifully swishing and swallowing the required 5 milliliters of the shit three times a day for 10 to 14 days anyway. The problem here is that what I have might not be thrush at all but might be some residual oral shit caused as a side effect of the CDIF that I have been battling evern since October 7th, 2025—that would be something benign — but taking the oral solution is harmless according to all the medical experts so I am taking it faithfully. I am in my 5th recovery week since finishing my cdif-specific antibiotic and I am feeling better ….maybe no because I actually am better but maybe because I am tired of agonizing about the shit everyday and have gotten used to it and the affliction has become my new normal …..even though the most horrendous of the symptoms have stopped…. which is a blessing to me. My nightmare now is about a possible recurrence of the disease that 20% of those afflicted suffer from….
Whenever I see odds like that, I always assume that I am automatically going to be among the unfortunate 20% —which does not always happen — but in my paranoid mind, it is always the most probable outcome….you see, even though I am a man of faith, my faith is not yet what i wish it was…..and I get scared of shit that threatens me — call it “Being Human” if you want to …. that is the cop-out that i am using….. “I am just human.”
Believe it or not…..we have an automobile that we drive every day that came off the assembly line in the year 2005 and because the owner, my friend Jim, has fastidiously kept it maintained strictly according to manufacturer specifications, it looks like it just came out of the show room and runs like a top…..Whenever we get our annual vehicle inspection, using the diagnostic computers at the dealership, we just replace whatever needs replacing and go on our merry way. Hopefully things will continue in that fashion ….but i am not taking anything for granted.
Some of you might remember that about a month ago I told you that i purchased a bag of potato chips and have rationed myself to just one chip a day —-guess what…. that bag is still mostly full of chips and none of them have gone stale yet–i wish I knew the secret for embalming potato chips like that ….That brings me to another idea— with all the food additives and chemicals we are getting in our food these days, I believe there is a real possibility that when we die we will not need the services of an embalmer … I think most of us who eat food are already walking around in a kind of embalmed state. Of course I am being facetious.
May 10, 2012 
IT'S ME AGAIN 