A 2 Z

Like most places we are getting our fair share of attendance issues at work due to either COVID or a persistent attitude that work isn’t all that important anymore for the average worker. I came to work last Thursday and was informed that a team member, actually two team members no longer worked here.

I’ll call her Amy and she was a bright and pretty 20 something, single and coy. She never shied away from teasing the other male team members, including me though everyone knew it was all in fun. Zeke was also 20 something and had that kind of ear piercing that looked like he used an auger to drill out the holes in his ear lobes. I guess it’s a fashion statement for this new generation. At any rate he too liked to tease and enjoyed Amy’s company. They were both in the same department and were always within ear shot of each other. I talked with them whenever I was in the lobby and whenever there was a slight pause in the day.

I talked with their fellow team member Thursday and she informed me that Amy and Zeke no longer worked here. I gave her surprised and probably curious expression. “Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know what really happened but there is a time and place for certain things and this wasn’t and they got caught doing something they weren’t supposed to.”

Well, she is probably pretty close to my age and gave me a wry smile as if what they were caught doing was naughty and sinful, but she didn’t publicly state exactly what they were caught doing.

I didn’t need a boulder falling on my head to get an idea of what she was talking about. I left the issue alone as she had to assist a guest with his luggage.

I talked to Amy some weeks ago and she was upset with another team member along with her direct supervisor. She admitted then that she was looking for a way out. I guess she got that plus fringe benefits with Zeke. I don’t know if that was his plan.

So now this particular department is short staffed. We have two restaurants that are closed due to staffing shortages, and my department, which normally is barely hanging on, now is in critical mass because of people we either had to let go or chose to go somewhere else.

Of course, I thought I had made that decision over nine months ago, but then I had to return. I honestly have never experienced a situation like this. It’s as if this pandemic has released a genie from its bottle and it isn’t about to go back. For once the workers actually control the nuts and bolts of this economy. It’s both exciting and scary.

Happy New Year, Maybe?

Well, 2021 is about to become history and what a year this has been, globally, nationally and personally. What is 2022 going to conjure up? It’s hard to say, though with Putin amassing his troops at the Ukrainian border, war seems likely unless someone other than Joe Biden can come up with a last minute solution to this crisis. And what about COVID? How many more thousands are going to die this next year because it’s their god given right to choose?

I saw on the news that we lost a lot of celebrities and politicians and other public figures such as Bob Dole, Harry Reid, Hank Aaron, Charlie Watts and ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill. Most lately John Madden and just today, Betty White passed too. They will be missed and were considered legendary in what they did. Who in 2022 will go to that great beyond?

Personally, I thought I was going into early retirement and move to Southern Idaho and see just how Red that state is. I lived there nearly six months before Tom, Lillie’s husband asked me to either pay rent or leave. Work equity or sweat equity wasn’t helping pay the power bill. I returned and discovered I lost a close co-worker, who died from COVID. So yes, I too was touched by that horrible disease, and another who died from cancer, also a horrible disease that needs a cure.

Corona virus did a number on my book sales too; abysmal best described how well received A Man’s Passion was, even though I poured a dear amount into marketing and unfortunately nothing came of it. I had hoped to at least break even and reinvest what I earned into my other two projects that at this point are in a state of limbo. Not just the marketing but the bread and butter of an author, book signings. I couldn’t get any book store here or down in Idaho to hold a signing so long as there was a potential for the virus to rear its ugly head.

So, good night to 2021 and good morning to 2022. I hope this is the year that we see the end of COVID once and for all, some pieces of the Make America Better gets passed in the Senate, and we can for once coexist on this our planet without bias, hate and want muddying up the waters of next year.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!”

Cat Fishing

Rule number one, if someone wants to be your friend on Facebook, make sure you know them. I almost became a victim of a cat Fisher woman. I saw the friend request and just thought it was someone from the casino. I was wrong. It turned out to be a woman who apparently resides somewhere in Florida, though that too might be a lie.

At any rate, later that afternoon my cell phone and tablet are going off like crazy and she wants to do a video call. Number one, I don’t know her and number two I am not techno-savvy enough to figure out how to do this without some added assistance.

At first I tried declining the request by just ignoring it, but she was persistent and we ended up text chatting on Messenger instead. We talked and talked and talked for a good three hours while I was busy revising one of my manuscripts.

I then told her I had an appointment and need to leave and I figured that was the end of that nonsense. I was wrong. She is wanting to chat some more and asks me if I’m on one of those other chat things I think it was Whats App and the other, hangouts. I vaguely remember the first and knew nothing of the latter, but down loaded the apps anyway, then told her I couldn’t get through. At any rate, I’m here in Washington, presumably thinking she is three hours away in Florida, though I don’t know that for sure. We exchange pictures then she tells me her son’s birthday is coming up soon. I think to myself, so what?

But then she asks if there is something I could do for him and I remarked, “Happy Birthday and Merry Xmas.”

“No, I mean can you give him present?”
Now is when it becomes obvious that either this person isn’t the same person I talked to earlier or she has like a split personality disorder because she didn’t text me sounding like she was from some foreign country. Everything about this conversation was off and I knew it.

“I don’t know you and you definitely don’t know who am because if you did you would know I don’t even send my three nieces birthday presents, and I’m not about to start with you now. And if you think I’m going to give you money then you are truly delusional. I don’t give anyone I don’t know money.”

“Oh, but poor son is sad now.”
Not my problem I said to myself.
Then she replied okay, and that was the end of that conversation and I haven’t heard back from her since.

Pushing the Envelope

I’m told I sometimes have a temper and I push the envelope on occasion. There is usually a good reason for that and yesterday morning was no small exception. Since I’ve moved back up here wonderful wife has gone out of her way to push her own envelope when it comes to patience. My patience that is.

Friday afternoon she informed me via text messaging that she borrowed some money from my checking. I wouldn’t had been so bothered if she had asked but this time she just went ahead and did it, justifying her behavior by telling me she and her mother needed groceries and to help pay some bills. Again, all she had to do was ask.

Rather than confront her, I allowed it to stew inside my brain overnight. In reply I kindly asked her about her son, Terry because before I left, he was giving her money for rent and groceries. I got her reply that told me the opposite was true, that he was using his money to buy drugs, again, rather than be responsible and do the right thing.

I read her reply after getting out of bed and that set off a chain of events that culminated in me cussing and screaming at a box of Kleenex tissue and storming out of my house in a snowstorm, and going to work, forgetting to grab my employee badge and work keys.

Once I realized what I had done, I had to go back to the house I rented and grab those items, which meant clocking out then clocking back in upon my return. My day for all intents and purposes was shot, and I didn’t actually recover until after I got home that evening.

I sometimes wonder how some seemingly rational minded people suddenly go berserk and kill total and innocent strangers in a random fit of rage, but now I can see why such tragedies occur in our society. It comes down to respect and the Golden Rule.

Where Things Stand

As many of my loyal readers, friends and family know, I generally don’t do a lot of political blog posts unless I feel it is absolutely necessary, or I’m so frustrated by whomever opens their pie-hole that feel compelled to do just that, express myself.

I read an article in the Twin Falls newspaper recently that pretty much describes the dysfunction of the Republican party these days. In this article were two Republicans who see their party in completely opposite poles. One, is a long-time political hack in his seventies, who has served in Idaho politics in one form or another for over 40 years. The other is a relative newcomer who was a US Congressman but lost the recent gubernatorial primary to the present governor, Brad Little. His name is Raul Labrador.

The politics of Idaho pretty much mirrors the politics of most states where the Republican Party is the Party in power and the problem as this article demonstrated was that one side is pragmatic and wants to work at problem solving while the other side is ideologically driven and believes one must demonstrate fidelity to one man who at present is seemingly holding them to be absolutely loyal to him.

It’s seemingly the same problem the Democrats have as well, one faction that wants to get things done and another that has gone so far left that I don’t recognize them anymore and consider their brand as socialism not democracy.

I’m the first to admit that I am not Conservative in political ideology, rather a liberally leaning moderate, which most of my loyal friends and family generally are not. They tend to gravitate with the former. But, as I read this article it became obvious that the Republican Party has strayed too far right for even most Republican standards and there lies in a fear among many that proving your credentials just to be a Republican is not just bad for the Party, but dangerous for the country. I agree.

The last Party that I know of that required one’s complete and utter loyalty, and still do was the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler. We all know how that ended. If this certain faction so genuinely believes in this mere man, than they probably should form their own party and leave the Republican Party alone. The same goes with the far-left fringe who call themselves Democrats. They aren’t by the way. They are socialists and they too are dangerous for this country and must be stopped. Like that old Republican Party hack, I want my elected office holders to do their job, not declare themselves ideologically pure and do nothing for four years except incite fear and rage.

First Impressions

I’m off work and just get ahead of a red Honda Civic of early 2000s vintage and am behind a cargo van that has a sign stating Llamas on board when I see a bunch of cars parked along Balmer Road, including a van from the Sheriff’s Department.

Odd, I say to myself. I then had to hit my brakes because that cargo van in front slowed down suddenly. What’s going on? I see several more cars parked alongside Hayford Road. A Honda Odyssey is parked off the road its nose facing toward Hayford Road and a number of people and sheriff’s deputies are around the vehicle as if looking for something. What could they be looking for?

I saw to the right of the van and some distance back a lone gurney with a covered body laying on top apparently waiting to be taken to the County’s mortuary at Deaconess Hospital. It’s apparent this once alive person is in no hurry to get to his or hers next location. Whatever troubles or worries this person experienced before today are no longer at the forefront. It kinda reminded me of a country western song I believe George Jones sang, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

As I drove on from the scene I had to wonder how and why this person came to that place to cash in his chips, a quarter mile from Northern Quest Resort and Casino. Was it suicide? Was it murder? Was it something more medically induced?

Did he or she have a spouse? Or children. Or was this person living alone in a quiet and restless melancholy? Should I be sad for this person? Or should I revel that he or she might be in a better place away from the demons that haunted him or her?

Obviously, that wasn’t the first body I ever saw. The first one was a couple of weeks after I started working as a dietary janitor at Kadlec Hospital in Richland, Washington where I once resided. I was 18 then and I had delivered a food cart filled with delicious food and was heading down the service elevator, when a door opened and there was this charming looking older man with pleasant smile, and in front of him was a gurney where a deceased person laid. Needless to say, it gave me a queer feeling having to share an elevator ride down to the first floor with this blanket covered body with Einan’s Funeral Home embroidered as the pleasant older man and the dearly departed left the elevator and I went back to the main kitchen to fetch another food cart.

I also saw my share of dearly departed friends as they laid in repose at the same named funeral home I just mentioned. I know it is a fitting way to say goodbye, but it’s not for me. I got this empty and forlorn feeling inside and it was more sadness than just saying so long to an old friend. One wasn’t even old, but quite young. He was shot by his girlfriend.

The story as she told it, they had a bit of a fight and he broke into her apartment and she shot him in self-defense. The police apparently believed her and she was never accused of any crime.

Then of course the day I saw Mom. We had to go and see her following the meeting with her pastor. As I mentioned in previous posts, she was killed in a head on collision back in 2009. To this day it’s still hard to write this, but when I saw her laying there in a cardboard container at the crematorium where she would eventually be cremated, I had the impression that she was merely asleep as we walked up to her still form. The shock brought instant sadness and grief to me and I cried out to her. We all reacted with tears, sobs and hugs. I saw her face. Aside from a superficial cut and bruise to her cheek she looked fine. Her eyes were sewn shut because she requested her eyes be donated.

It is hard to see a dead person and maybe it is because we chose to live a superficial and sanitized environment where we don’t see dead people as readily as we used to some 80 to 100 plus years ago. With this pandemic, maybe we have turned full circle and realized our own mortality for what it is, a natural evolution of life we must someday experience just as that person did today.

The Gulley

It’s a place in my previous life in East Wenatchee I knew all too well. A cavernous gulley that for some mysterious reason happened to be on top of a hilltop. I don’t to this day know what geologic forces played a role in its development but suffice to say it was a magical and adventurous place for a young boy and his dog to explore.

From the moment I happened to discover this place was where Prince and I, later Heidi the dachshund, and Sammy her son, walked the entire length of the miniature canyon. It was what made the drudgery of walking the dogs more exciting and adventurous. It wasn’t a short walk either. By the time I came home on weekends, though I did walk it after school on occasion, a good portion of the day was gone.

This wasn’t really a time of innocence. After all, it was the end of the 60s And the beginning of the 70s with its own complexities that was a stark reminder that simpler times are more in the eyes of the beholder than in truth or fact. Vietnam and as a counter point the anti-war rallies, the hippy, free love, drugs and rock n roll movement, not to mention the Black movement that culminated in race riots and calls for equality sounded out across the television airwaves each night with Walter Cronkite.

I liked to believe that that out there was just it and I was in absolute freedom, away from all the complexities of adult life in general. I didn’t have to worry about my job, making ends meet and keeping a roof over my head. Instead, I had the adventure of taking Prince, Heidi and Sammy down the gulley where I pretended to explore strange new wonders.

One time I took my friends from Methow there. They didn’t see the fun of the adventure, especially Dori, Greg’s sister who thought we were most certainly lost. They took off on their own back to the house, which come to find out later, they had no idea where my house was. Ross, the younger brother of the two and I came home and the parents all asked the same question that we asked, “Where’s Greg and Dori?”

Dad, Pete and I found them a couple of blocks and a full neighborhood away, knocking on doors and asking complete strangers if they know where the Schellhammers live. They probably forgotten that Thanksgiving day over 50 years ago, but it’s still fresh in my mind.

There are more adventures to follow, more lessons learned as I continue along this deep wadi. It was a place that allowed me opportunities to think which I wasn’t really allowed to do with my parents, my teachers, and my friends. Thinking required creativity and imagination which I discovered early on was taboo for the most part. I could think but only within the confines of conformity and conservatism.

It was down in this wadi that I became more attuned with nature, long before I was exposed to Thoreau or Emerson. I was a romantic in the strictest sense, but I never told anyone about that, fearing that they would forbid me from ever venturing down there again.

It wasn’t a woodland or even an idyllic paradise in any stretch of the imagination. It was mostly desert grass, whose seeds stuck to my socks, sagebrush and what I thought were cattails but I’m sure there was another name for it, that to this day I’m not familiar with.

I kept it a secret until one day Cathy, my sister wanted to come with me and take Prince for a walk. It was then that I allowed her to see my secret place and tell her my own beliefs and what I wanted in my ideal world We walked and talked about stuff that a twelve-year-old and his seven-year old sister could only understand. After we left the gulley, we found a road that continued north that I had never dared take before.

Cathy gave me a careful, if not frightened expression as I led her out from the gulley and slowly up this small hill. At the top was a graveyard from the old days, whose grave stones gave out birth and death dates from the 1800s. The most recent was 1927 to 1943. It was a white head stone which I later learned was reserved for those who died in war for our country. There are others like it but long ago, going back to Civil War and World War One.

We were awed by the whole experience as we saw stones of enfant children not even a year old buried next to siblings and parents who passed much later.

There are many lessons one learns from just taking a walk on a road less traveled or down a winding trail that leads into a gulch that no one pays much attention to. I didn’t learn about myself from reading a book, I learned about myself walking my dogs with my friends and my sister away from the concerns out there that we cannot control.

Recuperating

Sunday, I threw my back out somehow. I’m going to see my doctor, Cyndi at the Kaiser Permanente clinic this afternoon. I’m in pain but semi-functional as I inform you my loyal readers that I had some not-so-great news from my publisher in regard to the royalty payment I’ve waited since August for.

They say all calamities comes in threes so I guess my back issue is number three after my unforeseen eviction from my mother’s in law and this royalty business. I had high hopes that the book would sell better than it did. The payment was chicken scratch for all intents and purposes. I’ll just have to get more marketing done so my book is out there for the masses to see, buy and read, then word of mouth usually takes care of itself after that.

I had a feeling that the back issue would be something like a foreboding since about July. It was then I started noticing my left foot turning outward whenever I walked. I blamed it on the uneven ground and the fact that Lillian insisted no shoes be worn inside the house. I thought after I bought a newer pair of shoes this would stop, and it did to a point, but every once in awhile it periodically became an issue again and I concentrated on repositioning my left foot so it wouldn’t turn.

Since I moved up here and started working at the casino again, the problem resurfaced, only this time it happened more as a result of my left foot doing this after four or five days of work. On Sunday it became so bad that it was affecting my back and I fear I might have pulled a muscle. I told the nurse who took the call this morning that I had a stroke going on 19 years and haven’t used an AFO in ten because I felt I had outgrown that orthopedic device. Now I’m thinking I may need to wear it again.

So, this afternoon I get to see her and see about getting fitted with a new AFO and hopefully the back issue will resolve itself.

11-11-11

The eleventh hours of the eleventh day of the eleventh month Private Doug Clark wasted away in an endless trench on the Western Front; a wasteland of craters, mud and tree trunks splintered by bombs and howitzer shells.  He shivered in damp and cold air.  His coat that everyone assured him would keep him warm, was wet and useless.  There was word of a truce about to begin, but the general would have none of it.  He wanted to carry the fight to the city of Berlin.

Doug didn’t immerse himself in the politics of generals and such; his concern was warmth and survival.  He heard of a flare that would signal the truce to commence, but didn’t remember what the color of that flare was.  When the platoon sergeant, a kindly looking older man with a gray mustache and fat, jovial face, told them moments ago, a mortar landed and exploded.  The blast muted whatever he said in regards to the flare’s color.

I’m too cold to care at this point, Doug the doughboy stated miserably to himself.  The color could be the colors of the rainbow for all I care.  He had a four day growth of beard on his nineteen year old face.  It made him look more manly, he thought.  At least back home in Philly I won’t be called kid anymore, when I get back.  He wasn’t a big man, but he wasn’t small either.  I’m just an average guy trying to do the right thing, he kept convincing himself.

It was quiet now, only an occasional cannon shot could be heard from behind them.  Then they could hear the low pitch whistle as the shell flew past them and then the ear-piercing explosion over there on the other side of the line.

This place was a beautiful forest, the Ardennes, before the war, seemingly an eternity ago.  Now, Doug only saw a muddy zone of absolute devastation wherever he looked.

There was no flare that shot up though, instead a whistle sounded that ordered everyone to pull themselves from the trenches and attack their trench 500 yards away.  A no-mans land of barbwire and mines, machine gun nests and pillboxes that had seen its share of conflict since America went over here back in 1917.  What is going on, Doug asked himself as he followed the orders of the platoon sergeant and platoon leader, screaming at them at the top of their lungs.   They ran through the wire, all shredded from the last cannonade that erupted moments ago.  They pushed them to their trench and Doug could see the scared faces of the German soldiers someone hastily tried to create a makeshift white flag from a towel, or something.  They all seemed more puzzled by this than anything, as if the general wanted that last 500 yards for himself.  The Kaiser’s Krieger threw down their Gewehr 98 rifles to the ground and raised their hands in the sign of surrender.

Doug reached them at the same time as the platoon sergeant and began ordering them in German who was in charge.  A corporal pointed at an officer who also dropped his personal weapon and his sword to the ground and raised his hands.  The platoon sergeant held his Browning BAR level to the Captain and asked him in German, “Are you prepared to surrender at this time?”

          “I will only talk to your commander,” he replied with contempt to the NCO.

          “LT, he will only talk to your kind,” the Sergeant pointed out with sarcasm in his voice.

          The lieutenant came up to the German captain and said, “I don’t speak German.”

          The officer looked at both men in confusion and frustration as he realized he had no choice as to whom he talked to and stated to the platoon sergeant, “Yes, my men are prepared to surrender.”

          Doug guarded a group of German privates who spoke quietly among themselves and asked him a question in German.  Doug, being from Philadelphia, recognized some of the words, but had a hard time figuring out what he asked.  “I’m sorry, my German isn’t that good,” he replied in a halting German that all laughed at.

          Finally, another German soldier in the group asked in English, “Now that you have successfully invaded our land, what do you plan to do with us?  The war is over, American.”

          “Sir, is that true?” he asked his platoon leader, a clean cut butter bar from West Point.

          “I supposed it might be true,” he stated as a green flare shot up into the sky and a loud whoop of joy erupted from everyone up and down the front.

Truth Stranger than Fiction?

True story, which is funny because I have a rough draft of a similar plot in the works awaiting editing and beta reading. A 19-year-old boyfriend sells his under aged girlfriend into a sex slavery ring in Seattle for $1,000. Daddy finds out about it, goes, and rescues his daughter and brings her safely back to Spokane.

Later that month, last November 2020, Daddy confronts this boyfriend who is visiting friends in Airway Heights, beats and stabs boyfriend to death. Daddy places dead boyfriend in a car and drives him out to North Spokane County and abandons the car.

A year later, someone sees the car and doesn’t realize a corpse is in the trunk, steals the car and abandons it in a neighborhood I once considered my home turf.

Last week, someone reported the car to the police citing an odor coming from the trunk. The police arrested 60-year-old John Eisenman for the homicide. Funny that he had to walk all the way home from North Spokane County, a good forty miles from Spokane. Or could it be that there was a female accomplice who once upon a time had feelings for this boyfriend and picked daddy up and drove him home?