Father’s Day

Dad and I bonded by doing stuff together. Neither of us talked very much because, well frankly, we didn’t share philosophical or political opinions like most fathers and sons did. It was a civil war whenever we had an opinion on something. It’s what happens when a conservative Republican lives under the same roof as a liberal Democrat. Anymore, though, my politics has mellowed a bit and I’m thinking maybe he wasn’t as loony as I originally assumed by some of his beliefs.

So by stuff, I’m talking fishing and hunting, and before that we took trips in his Triumph that I helped him rebuild when I was but nine and ten years old. Dad was also a volunteer firefighter and I used to hang out at both the Douglas County District 2 and later, the Benton County District 4 stations and listen to the other volunteers talk of things that guys liked to talk about when not in the company of their wives.

When I was old enough I too joined the fire department, following in his footsteps because in my mind I felt it was expected that a son does things like that to show respect for their father. I realized later that joining the same groups, clubs, and the like, isn’t about that. I thought it was, but I was wrong. Later in life Dad tired of those things that once interested him, such as the fire department, the Elks and Moose Clubs, and finally life itself.

After my stroke I didn’t think I could hunt anymore, so didn’t even bother. I fished still, yet Dad was never very lucky at fishing like I was. It came to me then as now that what he really wanted from me was company; someone to hang around with and talk about things when not in the company of my mom and his wife.

Happy Father’s Day

Missing A Connection

This past week Tom’s kids and grandkids came to the house for a family reunion. Yesterday they all left for the nearby ice caves. I stayed home and did what I generally do these days, write, and job search for remote work.

While I was in the process of doing that I received a call from the local Social Security office. Did I mention the day was socked in with rain, clouds, and wind? It was and apparently that had something to do with the Social Security agent trying to communicate with me. I heard her just fine, but she had a devil of a time hearing or understanding me. She told me it was like listening to a robot voice. After three attempts, she gave up and told me she would call again today.

I then saw I received a text message from my dentist office reminding me of my dentist appointment scheduled for two weeks from the day. Well I figured the last call was a fluke and went ahead and contacted them.

Same problem: the person on the other end could not hear or understand me. It was a metallic sound that resonated like I was inside an echo chamber. After the second try and much frustration on both our ends we gave up.

I’m hoping with the weather cleared up and sunny today, the problems will correct itself, but I’m not holding my breath either. The problem with the newer technology, we are still at the whims and mercy of mother nature.

Gone Fishing

Wednesday Tom and I went fishing with his buddy Dave. He has a boat with swivel chairs and an outboard motor with lots of horsepower. Dave is sort of like Tom in that he has been around ranching back in his younger days and is so beat up physically from it he’s had to be on disability now. He looked to be in his late 50s with long gray hair tied in a ponytail. Unlike Tom, I didn’t get the impression that he was a cowboy.

We headed out to a small man-made lake a few miles from the homestead, going this way and on paved county roads that had numbers but not names. We arrived and Dave backed the boat trailer to the bank along a boat dock where I could safely climb inside. Then we were off to a portion of the lake about a hundred yards from shore where we baited up and cast our lines. I used one of Dave’s rod and reel setup and had a nice orange and copper lure that looked promising.

The lake reminded me a lot of the Potholes over near Othello because those too were man made from the irrigation the farmers needed to help keep the crops, they raised alive. This was no different. Hatchery fish, mostly trout were introduced to this pond periodically to allow sport anglers to fish and release their catches. On occasion though, a few of these fish got smart enough to get older and bigger, making them keepers for a nice fish fry once we got home.

After we were ready Dave began trolling, keeping the boat’s speed down by idling the outboard engine and moving gently over the pond’s surface. I also teased the fish by bobbing the rod up and down slightly, jigging for a bite.

Dave got the first bite which he brought in and saw it was a small rainbow. The hook snagged too deep into its gills and so he slammed its head hard against the bow’s gunnels, killing it and tossed it out onto the lake where a nearby eagle swooped down and took it back to its aerie where I’m sure a pair of eaglets waited for their meal. I hoped that Dave doing that brought us a measure of good luck.

Ten minutes later Tom got a hit and then after he brought in a slightly bigger trout than Dave’s, which he released and threw back, I got a hit. Mine was about five inches and was just big enough to keep. Had I known what I found out later, I most likely would have insisted Tom thrown that back too.

We caught four more trout between us and then I got hold of a fighting catfish which I had a devil of a time to bring into the boat. I asked Tom to finish reeling it in for me. It was just under ten inches long and weight out around three pounds.

When we finished, we drove home having to slow down for a tractor-like farming implement that took up over half of the two-lane road. I quite enjoyed the leisure of fishing and hoped to do this again when the opportunity presented itself.

Later, after my wife had cleaned the fish and I told her and Lilly our feats, both informed me they didn’t care for eating trout or cat. Tom said the same while we fished; that he preferred catching fish but not eating them. I ate them by myself.

On the Job Hunt

I’ve been looking for part time writing/blogging jobs that will help pay the bills and keep a sense of sanity here where I’m sharing living arrangements with my mother in-law, Tom and my wife. I found a couple sites that I’ve been using that hold promise, though I’m sure I will soon discover how good they actually are.

Pro Bloggers is as the site implies about finding jobs where blogging is the main curriculum. I applied through them for a couple of potential jobs but hadn’t received a reply yet.

The other is Flex Jobs which is more in line of a job search engine such as Indeed or Monster. These guys promise a lot and they seemed honest and forthcoming with their promises. This group focuses exclusively with employers hiring for remote or work from home jobs, which is what I prefer at this time.

One thing that I did discover through this site is that they offer exams that tests one’s abilities and talents in a given field or career, plus certain classes and professional mentoring with a job coach that I’ve taken advantage of. They had me fill out a resume profile too which they claim is the fastest way to land a job.

Then, I guess when I put in for a job through Monster I got an interview, via Zoom that I attended yesterday. It was through a company calling itself AO. I found out during the course of the presentation it was an insurance company selling different types of policies to “working families.” I sent them my resume though I am certain nothing will come of it.

I was hoping for a sense of retirement but have since realized we still need money to live on and provide some sense of normalcy. Not working gets very old very fast.

My other writing projects are still progressing nicely. I’ve started a new book on a new series, finished editing another book I finished writing another book from the last series. I Albert Peabody is still being proofed by the publisher and I sent more marketing ideas on A Man’s Passion to the marketing team at Austin Macauley.

More About Gooding, Idaho

This morning it is overcast and chilly. It rained earlier and the stepson has come to be part of this extended family.

As I have mentioned in numerous previous blogs to you my loyal readers, the stepson is a lazy young man living month to month on social security disability, though the money he receives lasts maybe a couple of days because he spends that siphon like it’s nothing and is broke the rest of the month. This last month was no less an example and he expected us to bail him out with loans and promises, plus he had this delusion that someone was going to come up to our former home in Spokane and hand him money. It didn’t happen of course, and he had to get someone there to buy him a Greyhound ticket here on Sunday.

It was presumably decided that he wouldn’t come here, but my wife decided differently and when Tom and Lilly found out, it was after the bus had left Spokane and he was on his way to Boise. Needless to say, the tension in the house was very apparent. I observe the exchange between Tom and Lilly and Stephanie all afternoon Sunday, climaxing with Stephanie abruptly going to her room, grabbing the car keys and announcing, “I’m moving back to Spokane. I can’t deal with Tom and his attitude. Nice was right, I should have never assumed differently.”

Later that night she called telling me her plan to pick up Terry, then drive back to Spokane the following morning. I listened to her rant but didn’t say anything. I knew she was angry at Tom for his outburst toward her, but I also suspected deep down she knew he wasn’t in the wrong and had messed up herself in this by going behind their backs and bringing him here when clearly, he wasn’t wanted. She hung up and I waited.

Around ten I called her back at Lilly’s urging and left her a message to come on home. After that she called her mother. Because Lilly is mostly hard of hearing, she can hear the phone better with the speaker on. I heard the entire conversation between the two and Lilly convinced her to come back. She and Tom had a long talk and he agreed to let Terry back, with conditions.

I went to bed and was later awoken when Stephanie came in. “I’m back but I’ll see about getting a place in Twin (Falls). I can’t be in the same place as Tom when he treats my son like this. What are you going to do?”

I already had two different conversation with both Tom and Lilly. They insisted that I stay regardless of what Stephanie hastily wanted to do that night in the heat of her anger and rage. “I’m staying here. I already burned my bridges up there (in Spokane).”

She shut off the bedroom light and crawled into bed beside me.

The next morning Terry asked Lilly if it would be okay for Tom to sell pot to him.

“No it is not,” She replied in her no-nonsense tone. “I want you to clean yourself up. You are not to drink or smoke pot in my house or on my property. You are an asshole when you do. And, if you do that away from here then you can’t live here either. Those are the rules I set down. I love you but you can’t keeping getting drunk and high all the time anymore.”

It’s been a week. As far as I know the stepson hasn’t gotten high, though he’s been texting someone here which suggests he might try and find someone who will help him out. It’s a deep hole he’s’ fallen into and I don’t know if he’ll ever climb out, or if he even really wants to.

Gooding, Idaho

My head jerked with jolt as the dream ended. She snored with the wild abandon of passed out, drunken sailor.

I searched strange surroundings, the opposite wall, white paint—latex maybe? The bedroom window showed the incoming morning light of the rising sun, its white linen drapes halfway opened and flooding in the light that did nothing to shade or conceal.

I slowly, painfully slid from the covers and off the bed. I used the toilet next to the nearby bathroom. I then dressed in shorts and t-shirt. It was a moment where my mind didn’t quite work as it should. My head felt fog-like where actions came before mental processes, as if I were on autopilot. I needed cup of coffee.

I was in a different environment though. I was in someone else’s house where I didn’t know where anything was. I searched the cupboards, the pantry, the cabinets and nothing.

My wife stirred and got up joining me in the kitchen and my mother-in-law joined us, showing us where the coffee was. It was instant Folgers Christal’s that we had to heat up water in pint sized mason jars.

I tasted it with trepidation because I’m used to my beans that I ground on a grinder and brewed on a Mr. Coffee. It wasn’t great but wasn’t bad either. I sat on a couch and listened to stories told. I thought of breakfast.

The brown-haired stepdaughter showed up. The teenaged step granddaughter followed. She looked like her mother but 23 years younger.

I’m working on my blog from my android and trying to describe this place that is an agrarian paradise. It has green pastures with sheep, horses and a cow grazing in a front fenced yard, a building that produces seedlings from which they are replanted in the larger outside garden behind this greenhouse. Lillian, the mother-in-law informed us the last time we came that she also grew tomatoes and other plants in the winter months so they could have those foods year-round. Further back is the chicken coop used cooperatively with a bunch of feral cats who on occasion has a litter of kittens. There is another corral where a colt and filly make their presence known and another building behind that that is used for storage though Tom, Lillian’s common law husband has suggested I use that for my private man-cave.

I think I’ll take him up on that. He’s a cowboy. Not by deed anymore. His riding days are pretty much behind him, but just to look at this tall and lean personage with white hair covered most of the time by a sweat-stained straw cowboy hat, handlebar mustache and weathered skin, he is every bit the stereotypical cowboy who wears worn Levy’s or Wranglers over equally worn boots that need new soles.

The day is cold. We drove most of twelve hours the day before in a foul cold, windy and rainy day and today felt raw and cold on our skin. I wore my jacket and shivered indoors. I looked north and west seeing the horizon of overcast clouds moving quickly with the wind pass the foothill and mountains like a run-away train.

After the breakfast in which the evangelical stepdaughter led us in grace and treated us to her version of eggs, sausage and toast with a side-serving of plain oatmeal, the unpacking commenced in earnest. Both of us should have been out there supervising this process, but we weren’t and then when I did go out there, I had to inform them the desk went into the house.

The desk is a pure wood, not certain what kind and large with three drawers on the right, a drawer in the middle for storing office supplies and keys and a stowage compartment on the left that holds the reams of paper for my printer/copier. Both men gave me that look of ‘I don’t want to mess with it’ expression. I didn’t notice my dresser which also needed to go into my bedroom.

I sensed this was going not in my favor but in my stepdaughter’s favor because she set herself a time limit as to when they were to leave. I could plainly see how this was going as boxes upon boxes of our precious cargo was loaded into a Conex box without any concern as to what was inside and ignoring the writing on the outside of each box that informed each participant where to take said carton so my wife and I could dig inside and pull out those items that needed to be removed and brought inside such as computer cords, copy paper, my alarm clock, my shoes and slippers, and our personal hygiene stuff that was clearly marked “BATHROOM.”

“The Desk won’t fit inside,” an exasperated Nick told us. I bet inside he was gloating over this and was happy he couldn’t get the monstrosity inside the house like I’d hoped. And where is my dresser? I saw them apparently finish, get in the van and her Honda Pilot, and leave among hugs and kisses with Grandma.

They’re gone now. It is just the four of us. We idly chit-chat as we go about our day. Stephanie and Lillian gossiping and catching up, Tom and I listening and interjecting when needed. Then Tom and Stephanie leave to go to Ridley’s the local grocery store. If I’d known that my belongings-personal items such as shaving and personal hygiene were safely stowed inside a Conex box buried beneath additional boxes, I would have told her we needed body wash, shaving crème and razors.

Lillian and I talked. Her accent seemed mildly southern as if she too transplanted from Oklahoma to California during the Depression and dust bowl era.

“I really enjoyed your last book,” She told me referring to A Man’s Passion. “But I wished I could have proofread it though. It was chalk full of punctuation errors and misspellings.”

“That’s odd, I went over it three or four times and they also went over it,” I replied wanting to be diplomatic in my mother in law’s home. “I’ll tell you what though, this next book I just finished, I’ll let you go over it.”

“I would appreciate it.”

I felt slighted by her comments but then she stated, “I always done this for others and even proofed read a union demand for a local union at an office I worked for and they asked me to retype it for them.”

I nodded at her and then she gave me a family history lesson of my wife and her sister, growing up in a single parent household, for the most part. I nodded and then started nodding off. The twelve-hour drive from yesterday took a lot out of me, more than I had anticipated. Her other daughter is Denise though everyone called her “Nice,” like the French resort city.

“They were wonderful girls; always picking up after themselves, being polite and respectful, doing what was told. We moved up here when Stephanie was a teenager and Nice was just twelve, I believe.” She looked at me but also was looking back in time catching this recollection she wished to share with me. It seemed as if she were an oracle of another time and I was there to record her vision and oral history to be passed on to another future race.

It wasn’t that her tales of the past bored me, far from it. Her telling me these stories gave me a clearer understanding to what it was about her and my wife. Like I said, the trip drained me. I felt myself slipping in and out of consciousness. Lillian drone on as if not paying attention to the heavy eyelids drooping shut then opening suddenly.

I’m sure she had an interesting story in store concerning me when she was alone Stephanie or Tom later when I wasn’t in earshot. I have plans for this story I have plans for many stories that I intended to write and edit. As of now I only plan to write it out like a short story; literary and filled with allegory and irony.

They arrived and came in bearing groceries that was enough for the next few days. Tom carried the bulk of the groceries and Stephanie brought in the gallon of whole milk. They put everything away in its proper places and the mother and daughter started dinner.

Alas I turned to my writing, to a story I wrote and am now editing for future hopes of publishing. In time, it will be ready. In time I will provide my publisher with another example of my ability. Today I began the new beginning of a continuing journey.

My New Beginning

I just  awoke in a newer house in Gooding a small farming committee in Southern Idaho. This is my new home. Spokane is a distant memory now.

We will return but less and less frequently. The move itself was arduous, frustrating and long. I wanted to leave early. Well, earlier than when everyone else were willing or ready. The moving van still wasn’t loaded by yesterday morning when my wife and woke up in a cheap motel room.

Neither one of us felt like sleeping on a bare floor, we picked a motel room adjacent to North Division, a major street with busy traffic.

But I digress.

We arrived back at the house and met   my stepdaughter, her fiancé and two children, plus Bob the driver for the U=Haul van we rented.

We spent another two hours finishing the packing on 26 foot-long moving van. Then, we were finally off to Southern Idaho.

The drive was thankfully uneventful. There were still your occasional idiots on the interstate who shouldn’t be allowed on the road. That is a given.

It was an eleven hour drive, but because of the time zone change was twelve total when we arrived.

Now we move in to my mother in law and unpack, turning her home into ours.

20 Years of Where the Fun Never Ends

Last night I was sitting at big round table surrounded by a few of my friends and former team members from Northern Quest Resort and Casino discussing my life and career there these past 20 years. Yesterday was my last day there, having decided prior to moving down to our new adventures in Southern Idaho to retire and pursue my writing ambition full time.

Tina Marie asked me about my funniest moment I had at the casino and I told her of an incident with Nick, who is no longer with us and the time a fellow team member, Carmelita played a trick on him. She is all of five foot and full of piss and vinegar but can be very sweet which is more than a little confusing for most men who had the pleasure of coming into contact with her.

She asked me to play along and I did. She placed herself inside this bath tissue box which she easily fit herself into and told me to call Nick to the supply room using our portable Motorola. He responded that he was on his way and I placed the lid shut over her.

A moment later, he shows up and I told him I needed help lifting the box there up on the shelf beside me. So here’s Nick getting ready to squat down and grab the box when Carmelita popped out from the box scaring poor Nick nearly to death. I think he jumped three feet into the air and screamed out an expletive that was certainly heard through the hallway in back of house.

We all laughed at this and of course I was on a roll and recounted another antidote involving poor Nick. Needless to say, I enjoyed the people I worked with and worked for for the most part since I took my first class at Dealers’ school in a closed-up bank building in Airway Heights while the casino was still under construction in 2000.

The friendship, the comradery and esprit de corps I experienced there was genuine among those who saw me and treated me with kindness and respect. Like I told Jerry, another former team member “I can safely count on my hand the number of people who didn’t like me and I could care less about them.”

“Five?” He asked.

“You got it,” I replied. “Those five never liked most people and perhaps because of that they no longer worked here anyway. That was five out of over a thousand that came and left or came and haven’t left just yet. So when they held the retirement party for me it was a party with over 100 team members by my reconning coming in and shaking my hands, offering me teary eyed hugs and fond farewells. Most every department was represented and then after I clocked out for the last time, went to the Epic Sports lounge without my badge for the first time in 20 years, sat down and waited for more former team members and friends to come.

There is a lot to reflect upon and I guess the remarks I made in the exit interview, which is actually a survey done on a computer, before retiring to my parties points out more than anything. I admired and respected most people who work there, especially the ones in the Housekeeping and Food and Beverage Departments who have to work extra-hard to make this place the resort it is today.

The culture this business represents I do not care for and some of the people who graced our corridors and slot machines and pits I don’t have any use for either. Most of the guests that come in are good people who want a little entertainment and are happy to spend it. The bad apples are only here to cause trouble. I’ve caught them in rest rooms doing their drugs, mostly with stolen needles from our sharpies containers. I’ve seen them yell and scream at each other or starting fights with one another, and I’ve seen them take advantage of our core value of “Everyone is Welcomed here,” by vandalizing our casino and hotel costing us thousands of dollars in repairs or replacement.

I don’t know if it is a normal trait of these people who are mostly poor, who are believing they must gamble to somehow get ahead in life, but obviously can’t because they just blew what money they had for rent on a slot machine or Black Jack table. Or is it because we are in such close proximity to Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake that these people who are mentally incapable understanding basic principles of social responsibility are thrown into this environment where they act out or react the way they do.

Another thing I noticed these past 20 years is how some people treated me personally, especially following my stroke. You see I had my stroke after being hired by Northern Quest in 2002. Those five people I mentioned earlier came out of the wood work in spades. It was eye opening to say the least. One even suggested I should go home and turn in my badge because obviously this wasn’t the right job for me anymore. He was a housekeeping supervisor named George. There were others like him who seemingly tolerated me like a horse tolerated flies. I was a nuisance and really didn’t belong here because I was doubly disabled from the cleft pallet and speech impediment and now this stroke that made me in their eyes either an invalid or an eyesore they had to be forced to look at each and every day.

It was this backdrop, this culture of arrogance and condescending attitude toward me that I experienced this entire time and I’m sure was why I wasn’t considered for any positions more suited to my knowledge, education, and other-worldly experience I had prior to coming here. One even told my wife, “His only experience is housekeeping and should be happy with that.”

Another told me as I was searching the job board for a better position, “Oh Jerry we don’t want you to do anything other than what you are doing now.”

I have a college degree; I went to a post graduate course in professional writing and have a certificate for that. I have leadership experience through the Army National Guard where I served 22 years. Yet, I wasn’t suitable for those positions I applied for other than housekeeping.

But now I am seeing the high-rise hotel in the rearview mirror its lights reflecting nicely in the ever-increasing darkness as the remain dim rays from the sun disappear in the western horizon. It was a 20-year quest. It was fun most of the time. It was what shaped me into the person I became.

To all my friends, former team members and present team members adios, au voir, auf wiedersehen, good night.

And the Winner is, Justice.

The look on his face whether it was disbelief or anger said it all for me. I was to say the least, hopeful and a little surprised by the verdict. After all Rodney King is still fresh in my mind from when he was beaten by Los Angeles Police officers back on March 3, 1991.

Did he honestly believe that he would be exonerated by a jury who saw the video of him kneeling on George Floyd’s neck even after he begged Chauvin that he couldn’t breathe? It might have been different had it been in the South or in another era when police abuse of a Black man was at least ignored.

Justice prevailed this time. Next time? Who knows because different circumstances, different people would undoubtedly lead to a different result? For the time being I am happy that justice won and evil lost.

Mommy!

“Mommy!” I screamed as he hurt her over and over with the knife he brought. I knife he used to stab her and sliced her face and arms until she couldn’t hold them up to defend herself, or me.

He was her boyfriend. He called himself Dave. I never liked him. I thought he was mean and me I’m just five and he treated me like garbage; something that was ignored until I made a fuss. Then he would yell at me to shut up.

I thought she had broken up with him. I thought she told him never to come back. I thought we were finally safe from Dave. I was wrong. We were wrong.

He stabbed me and then she tried shielding me from his knife. I don’t know why he came back but he did. I don’t understand why he looked at us the way he did. I laid in my own blood and watched Mommy get stabbed over and over again. He finally stopped. He finally stopped hurting Mommy. She laid there staring back at me but she isn’t moving.

I vaguely remember that he grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder and carried me into the garage where Mommy’s car was parked. Why? Why is he doing this? He laid me beside him and started the car. I fell asleep. Mommy’s in heaven and I’ll join her soon. I know I will.

“It’s okay honey, Daddy is here. You get better,” I vaguely heard Daddy’s voice tell me in words that choked with sadness. Daddy was crying over me. I woke up and saw where I was. I saw I was in a hospital. Did they bring Mommy too? Will I see her again?

Mommy!