What do I know after all these years?

Our Kids Do Grow Up

2011-04-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

My son's about to graduate high school, and I waited all day to see him. I called him about 2 and he was busy with friends and wouldn't be home until late, so don't worry about dinner. So off and on during the day I reminisced, about when my kids were little, how excited they were to see Daddy, and I got a lot of the running hugs. Then we'd plan a fun day and go do something and have a great time. It's been like that ever since my divorce, back in 2000, when they were 12 and 8. (that 12-year-old is now graduating college). But they grow up, and, inevitably they'd rather hang with their friends sometimes. Before you know it it's friends all the time and my place becomes a flop house. That's ok, I get that. But here I was, waiting to see my happy, engaging, funny kid. So who shows up? - someone I scarcely know. He's withdrawn. He messes with his phone for an hour, says nothing. He writes someone a letter, longhand and needs an envelope and a stamp. I ask what's wrong, and I get, "I don't want to talk about it!" in a harsh tone. I'm about to get the full force of the 'empty nest' syndrome, so I'm trying to spend as much quality time with him until he splits.

This is all nothing new, but my memories of him as a little kid who's crazy about Daddy ran headlong into reality tonight. I know he's growing up and out, and, of course I want him to have a great life. But sometimes watching your kids growing up sucks.

Why I'm Glad I'm No Longer in TV News

2011-04-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

My son, a senior at NYU, moderated a panel on blogging and the changing landscape of journalism over the weekend, and the opening sentence of the accompanying article reads: "You don't want a job in media, honestly, you don't!" The above article is quite illuminating. Anyway, it got me thinking about my time in the TV news business - how much fun it was in the beginning and how awful it was at the end of a 27-year career.

My foray into TV news was timed pretty well. I was armed with a B.S. in meteorology from Penn State a few years earlier. I thought I could give TV weather a shot since so few people had degrees in weather (most were booth announcers or had a kiddie show, and had nice voices). So I applied to a small station in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. It was 1973 and there was virtually no weather technology when I started. We used big plastic-covered maps and drew on them with magic markers. That was it. I can recall, after about three years in the business, when satellite photos were first available, only the government was using them. I had to drive to the local National Weather Service office at the airport and steal hard copies of a photo. They got one every half hour or so on a big fax machine and would give me an old one. I'd take it to the studio and they'd shoot it with a studio camera and make a still frame, which I would put on the air full-screen and just talk about it. Sometimes I'd draw a front or high or low with a pen. No chroma key (that's where the weather person appears to be standing in front of the map), and that was our only weather effect.

News was shot on film and processed in a gigantic machine, then cut and edited by hand - actually chopped up and glued together. I recall walking through the newsroom with long pieces of film from the cutting room floor (there really used to be a cutting room floor!) attached to my shoes. About once a month the entire newscast was chewed up and destroyed by the film processor. Then we really had to scramble. Talk about rip-and-read! It was great fun.

Commercials were also on film - we had like six projectors with these tiny reels, constantly changed by the 'film op.' Now and then a director would scream, "There's a hair in the gate!" meaning a big ball of fuzz was caught in the projector and was, at that moment on TV. Some guy would run like hell to remove it. National commercials arrived by mail, were aired for however long, usually a week or two, and sent back. By today's standards, the early '70s were the dark ages!

Over the years I saw the transformation of news and weather, from rip-and-read and plastic maps and film on the floor and hairy gates - to the whole complex thing TV news is today. With the burgeoning technology came more and more pressure, as the money and investment in computers and other expensive equipment exploded. As far back as the 1980s, a studio camera cost upwards of $100,000. Imagine the cost of upgrading from giant back-room tape machines to digital, and then high-definition. The fun of trying to hammer a newscast together, from bits of film and wire copy, slowly became less fun. To make matters worse, as I aged, a large part of my audience aged too. That eventually put them in a different, and not so highly regarded, demographic. The pressure to win back younger viewers grew and grew. At the end I hated the business and hated going to work every day.

TV news didn't know it at the time, but all the technology was sowing the seeds of its own demise. Satellites gave us all the toys but also gave us dozens, if not hundreds, of other channels. All that competition, of course, diluted the advertisers' available money, with everyone clamoring for the same dollar. TV news was very arrogant back in the good old days, when there were just three channels. (I've been out of the biz for several years. Imagine the pressure now!) So there's no money in it anymore. Stations have no money to hire anyone, and if they do, they pay low-ball wages. It was a great ride while it lasted, but I would never advise anyone to get involved today. I'm often asked if I miss the business. My answer: Nope - not a bit! What I do miss are my first ten years. I'm afraid my advice to young people looking at a career in journalism is : "You don't want a job in media, honestly, you don't!"

My Left Nut

2010-08-07T17:19:00.000-07:00

Overheard at a 12-step meeting today: "For years I'd say, 'I'd give my left nut for that house, I'd give my left nut for that car or I'd give my left nut for that woman. Then a few years later I was diagnosed with testicular cancer - and lost my left nut!' "

Why the Health Care Bill will be a Boondoggle

2009-09-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

I hate even typing the above words. I caught Bill Moyers the other night and it was like getting hit in the gut with a sucker punch. When he got to the physician in Nashville, who described on a flow chart the hundreds of offshoot companies that have formed from the big three there, I realized we're sunk. The Middle Tennessee area is home to more than 300 health care companies operating on a multi-state, national, or international basis, with more than 250 professional service firms (e.g., accounting, architecture, banking, legal) with expertise in the health care industry. Nashville-based health care companies accounted for $46 billion in revenue in 2008 and 310,000 jobs globally.

The profit-driven system is so entrenched in this country that I'm afraid it's unbeatable. And the main reason it's unbeatable is that Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, and the President, are all on the take. That may not be a polite way to discuss the matter, but it's a fact. It's like the 'fox in the henhouse' in extremis. Already it's been announced that the pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA will spend with its coalition at least $150 million supporting the Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care legislation.

And on August 15 Bloomberg reported that one of the two advertising companies “selected” to handle the ads for this massive campaign is the one founded by top Obama Advisor David Axelrod, AKPD, and that that firm is set to pay Axelrod $2 million, even though he works for the White House, and employs his son. According to OpenSecrets.org these groups put up $484 million in lobbying money in 2008, getting ready for this legislation. Once the health insurance industry was given a seat at the table our goose was cooked. I'm not even sure why Mr. Obama is out there trying to sell it - sell WHAT!

If you saw Michael Moore's 'Sicko,' then you got to know Congressman Billy Tauzin. He was the Republicans' point man on getting the Medicare Prescription Drug scam on the books. Everyone was on the take in that one. Then, shortly after the bill was signed, Tauzin went to work for big pharma for $2 million a year. And it is Tauzin who has now made friends with the President, and has gotten his industry a seat at the table. This is the same guy whom Candidate Obama called a creep. He said we won't deal with him. Same guy who's now shaking Obama's hand. Now it turns out that there were secret negotiations between the White House and big pharma. Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion. And one more thing: the President promised that all negotiations between the government and the health industry would be on C-SPAN. Not happening.

And probably the biggest obscenity about this mess is that medicine-for-profit has no interest in THE PATIENT. The only thing they care about, and are charged by law to try to achieve, is increasing profits and dividends for their stockholders. That's how all for-profit corporations operate. But here the poor patient often just gets in the way of that goal. That's when live-saving procedures get denied, or patients get dumped from their plans. It's all about the bottom line, nothing else. And they will spend whatever they need to spend to make sure that Congress, and the President, are in their hip pockets. The pharmaceutical industry is now so firmly in the president's camp, it's developing plans to spend up to $150 million dollars promoting it with TV ads. And that's exactly the opposite of what Candidate Obama said during the campaign. Have no doubt: if and when a bill is signed by the President, the health care industry stands to make more money than ever before. If you don't think so, then you have had your head in the sand for the last 40 years.

Oh, the public option. Remember a couple of weeks ago when some 60 Democratic House members stood up and said, "No public option, no health bill." Remember that. You never heard it again, did you? That's because Rom Emmanuel told them to sit down and shut the fuck up! And that was that. Why - because President Obama needs the healthcare industry's campaign donations to ensure his reelection.

The whole thing, and all the people involved, including the President, are revolting.

Jaycee Lee Dugard Found

2009-08-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

The more I read about the kidnapping and return of Jaycee Lee Dugard the more troubled I become. The police, parole people, sex offender authorities, virtually everyone who was supposed to be checking up on this asshole, really dropped the ball. They squandered dozens of opportunities to find this hapless girl. It's a simple matter of the people we count on to protect us from creeps like this - NOT DOING THEIR JOBS! The guy was in prison, a 50-year term for kidnapping and a life term for rape, and he was let out in 1988. Seems like a good idea to keep an eye on him after that. Two years later he and his robot wife kidnapped Jaycee, subsequently raping her too.

I've read up a bit on the Stockholm syndrome, where the victim identifies, in a positive way, with the kidnapper. It looks like she's going to be seriously messed up for many years. I'm so angry at these people I seethe. And I'm heartbroken at the terrible days, weeks, months and years that the Dugard family faces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Below are some of the comments I received for this piece at opensalon.com/blog/bill_e

Comments

Post a comment

I read that a neighbour called the sheriffs department saying that he was a deranged sexual deviate with people locked up in his backyard. A deputy went to the house and stayed on the front verandah, spoke to the kidnapper and left. That was 3 years ago.

Natalie Not Pedantic

August 30, 2009 10:01 PM

I am glad this girl survived this harrowing experience and is now free as an adult.

My sympathies are with her, her innocent children and her parents.

As a mother, this is the worst nightmare, for 18 years to have no idea whether your child is alive or dead, to be left to imagine the worst possible scenarios.

I agree with the author, this crime was made possible by the gross incompetence of our justice system and parole system. Shame on everyone

JenniferC

August 30, 2009 10:42 PM

JenniferC

August 30, 2009 10:42 PM

It is strange. he was jailed for 50 years, got out on PAROLE after just 11 years, why do the morons let him out? He is obviously a sicko deranged male human, kidnapped and raped a 25 year old casino worker who gave him a ride home one night, he broke the social contract among humans which says you shall not rape or kill another person, and he did. So of course, he is going to do more anti-social things when he gets out on parole. what stupid idea parole it. WHO invented that? Cut off his balls and and keep him away from human contact for life. but now, out he goes at age 36, ready to do more mischief. and he does.....sad story, sigh.

As for the poor woman, now 29, she was obviosuly a victim brainwashing and programming by him and his robot wife, and Jaycee really felt he was her benefactor. That's how these things work. brainwashing does work. Call is Stockhoilm syn, call it Jaycee Syndrome....but she will eventually get out of the trance, just like Patty Hearst did, she will be okay, considering,,,but it will take time. 10 years or so. She will be okay. Her kids will be okay. But it's sad sick story all around. Why does USA prison system led antisocial people out on PAROLE? what the idea behind that? Save money? Rehabilitate the sickos? never. keep in for life!

danbloom

August 30, 2009 10:45 PM

Natalie, Jennifer, Dan. You're so right, all of you. I understand that they let people out early, mostly because of overcrowding. But to NOT monitor him closely is the real crime here. Shame on the lot of them!

Bill E.

August 30, 2009 11:06 PM

She is 29 now - her eldest daughter is 15. That means she delivered a baby at age 14, alone, in a shed. 14. I ache at the thought and wonder how she'll ever be okay. Or how the 15 year old that's never gone to school will adapt.

the ranting boomer

August 31, 2009 02:49 AM

You and me both.

Her actual imprisonment is over. But by my calculation, she had her first baby by this human Piece O' Shit and pervert when she was fourteen.

Fourteen. She lived imprisoned and cut off from the world in this guy's backyard in a crude shed for years. It horrifies me to think what her life was like for the past eighteen years.

I do commend the Berkeley police officers who saw him with the children he fathered on Jaycee Dugard, and acted on their suspicions that the girls did not behave like normal children aged eleven and fifteen.

But the Antioch police dropped the ball in so many ways it's disgraceful.

Shiral

August 31, 2009 02:57 AM

@Boomer,@ Shiral: I know. It's awful, and whenever I think about this awful crime and the incompetent public officials, I keep getting this grinding feeling in the pit of my stomach. Those 18 years must have been hell.

Bill E.

August 31, 2009 03:36 AM

Nor were she and the children she was forced to have far too young ever given any proper medical care. It just boggles the mind. Aside from the obvious wrongness of her viewing this awful man as a 'benefactor' she was lucky to survive the experience of childbirth without proper help. A painful, possibly traumatic experience for women even when they give birth in a hospital with proper care. Honesly, I hope Garrido gets bludgeoned to death by angry cons for what he put that poor girl through. He's one of the few people on Earth who deserves that fate.

Shiral

September 01, 2009 02:02 AM

@shiral: Bravo!

Bill E.

September 01, 2009 05:53 AM

What a difference a day makes

2009-08-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I hit the ground running. Shower and a shave, where I got rid of four days of scraggle. Had a coffee date with a lovely lady who I'm getting to know. Got home and got on my bike and trudged uphill for four miles and turned around and coasted home when the weather threatened. I never felt better, high on life, full of energy. I had a nice dinner with my son last night, chatted about healthcare and politics with him until the wee hours and slept pretty well.

Today I woke up in a funk, no energy, hid from the world in front of the boob tube. Jesus Christ, what the hell happened? If I were a woman I could blame hormones or some damned thing, but at my age I have no more hormones. That's probably a stupid thing to say, the part about if I were a woman. Sorry ladies. Shit, who am I kidding, no one will read this dumb post anyway.

One reason I'm a little funky, I guess, is my kid left this afternoon for Boulder and an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. That leaves me home alone for the weekend. But wait! There's the aforementioned lady. Now kicks in my famous approach-avoidance tendency, which has to be just about the most self-defeating behavior I can think of.

Maybe I should pick up the phone...

Have you seen 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' Yet?

2009-07-25T02:24:00.000-07:00

Two of my sons went to see Harry Potter at midnight (early Wednesday morning) and when they got home at 4 a.m. I asked them how they liked it. They were both non-committal (and really tired) and said they were disappointed that it strayed so far from the book. So I braved the crowds along with several of a movie-going-club Wed. evening and saw it for myself. Since I had NOT read the book I was thoroughly entertained. I thought it was a delight. That, despite my seatmate, a 15-year-old kid who had read the book and who said things like, "she's supposed to have dark hair" and "it was supposed to start in his house." I, of course, was blithely ignorant of these details. So while he was distracted I was enthralled.

Rarely have I read a book and really liked the ensuing flick. The one exception I can recall was The Godfather. It's been a long time, but I can recall not particularly liking the book, but the movie was... well, we all know how THAT turned out.

I think the problem with comparing a book and its movie is most often the sheer scope of the book: all the characters, settings, sub-plots, red herrings, etc. that cannot possibly be condensed down in a satisfactory way into a motion picture. In many ways it's like comparing apples and oranges, to use a cliche.

So, go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If you've read the book, fine. Just try to see the movie for what it is - a wonderful entertainment. And if you haven't read the book, then you're really in luck. Maybe with books and movies of the quality of the Harry Potter series you'd be better off seeing the movie first.

On the Road - Again!

2009-07-25T02:17:00.000-07:00

Seeing Steve Hartmann tonight on the evening news, and his piece about Charles Kuralt's story on the Chandler Family Reunion really got my nostalgia wheels turning.

Over the years, 'On the Road' was always the highlight of any CBS news broadcast. I think I must have seen 'em all. I want to think I watched The CBS Evening News because of Walter Cronkite, but I'll bet it was just as much because of Kuralt. I'd love to have a DVD of the whole 'On the Road' series, if such a thing exists. I became addicted to CBS Sunday Morning from the getgo with Mr. Kuralt.

Once again I'm reminded just what we lost when he died, on Independence Day in 1997. He died too young, a victim of too much food, too much booze and too many cigarettes. For a while a big fuss was made over his three-decades-long extra-marital affair with Patricia Shannon, especially in his native North Carolina. In fact, many people there and in the conservative South still have not forgiven him. But for me, that just made him even more interesting.

I felt awful when the On the Road series ended, worse when he left Sunday Morning, and worst of all when he died. Something else died with him, the idea that good news can be compelling. As a matter of fact, I can remember just about every one of those Road stories, but very, very few other news stories have stuck somewhere in my memory banks.

Thinking about Charles Kuralt reminds me that the man was a national treasure.

Proud Father, at it Again

2009-07-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

I wrote a while back about my kid, a sophomore at NYU and his liveblogging exploits at a school building takeover by a band of goofs.

Those efforts helped him land a pretty good summer gig at our local newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, writing a new blog about the goings on around town. But he's gone beyond the call of duty and is hosting a pretty comprehensive 'conversation' on the state of, and possible solutions to, healthcare in our state and country. We hear from the NM State Democratic Party, a local physician, a former healthcare lobbyist and president of a large research foundation, and a noted grassroots Democratic blogger. It's telling that the state Repulican Party has declined to participate. Trust me, it's pretty comprehensive and pretty damned interesting.

In a month Charlie's off to Buenos Aires for his junior year. Jesus, to be young again!

Aging - Oh the Horror

2009-07-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm 66 and just finished a 12-mile bikeride, half of it up about a 5% grade. I'm doing about 50 miles a week these days. I also hit the gym 3-4 days a week to work the weights. I've lost 15 pounds in the last six months. I had the bow-legged thing going on. It's because the cartilage on the inside of the knees wears out, forcing the knees outward. Being overweight accelarates this unsettling horror. So 18 months ago I had both knees replaced, and the docs straightened my legs again.
Sex. I think about it all the time - not much different than I did 40 years ago. Sometimes I remind myself of myself in my late teens, when I thought about sex only about 3,000 times a day. To my kids, my interest in the opposite sex is gross. And boy, I do appreciate a well kept woman. It seems virtually all the women I date, usually only once, have given up. They've cut their hair short & donned baggy clothes, complete with large bellies. Sorry, no sexual attraction there. If you go to dating sites, you'll see an awful lot of women in their 50s and 60s with more photos of their dogs and cats than themselves. And women wonder why men my age look at younger women! It gets really discouraging.

Pot Psychology: "Can You Lose Your Virginity To A Dildo?"

2009-04-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Tracie Egan, who labors under the nom de plume Slut Machine, is now out of the closet as the spiritual leader of Jezebel.com. She's one of the latest breed of raunchy female writers who are showing up on the internet, writers like Moe Tkacik, Charlotte Roche and Miranda Purves. She also writes a hilarious blog called One D at a Time, in which she chats about her life, social, sexual and otherwise, in New York City. Back in September Tracie got engaged, and wrote: "It recently occurred to me that I might be one of the only girls whose reputation is ruined by committing to one guy for the rest of my life." And in another of her many guises she and partner Rich write an outrageous video advice column called Pot Phychology, where they offer up mostly sexual advice while stoned out of their minds. It grows on you, trust me. Well, it may not be your cup of tea, but it rang my bell, until I laughed myself silly over the sheer ridiculousness of it all. She also happens to be one terrific writer.

Goodbye Natasha

2009-03-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

Natasha Richardson was buried a week ago, and it's been a sad two weeks for me. I can't explain how devastated I feel about her death. When I first heard she had been hurt in a seemingly minor fall on a beginner slope during a private lesson my interest was picqued. Next I hear she's in critical condition and I'm thinking how the hell can that be?

I've been skiing for many years and have had many spectacular falls. A couple of guys at Taos dubbed me the 'master of the faceplant!' I've had falls at such a high speed that I couldn't find my skis, poles, hat, goggles, and one glove. Falls like that are sometimes called 'garage sales.' I fell over backwards once on a really steep slope and slammed my head into a mogul - hearing a cracking sound that I thought was the sound of my neck breaking. Later I learned it was most likely the sound of my brain slamming into the back of my skull. I was ok, and skied the rest of the day.

I mention all that because in 30 years of skiing the only injury I had was a blown knee. My head's fine. Maybe I'm just lucky. So how can such an innocuous fall result in death? It really got me thinking. The more I learned about the accident with Ms. Richardson the more compelling the story became. I was rooting for her recovery, but, of course, it was not to be. Perhaps she had a pre-existing condition, like an aneurism. When she died I felt like I lost a family member - still do. I found The Parent Trap on cable and watched it, crying all the way through it. I blubbered my way through Charlie Rose's tribute to her the other night. The more I learned about the remarkable and alluring Natasha Richardson the more her death hurt. I'm so invested in this story. My kids and friends think I'm nuts. But the fragility of life, and the obscene way it can end for someone way before her time has me flummoxed. Why do I have these strange feelings, when deaths that hit closer to home have very little, if any, effect on me?

I guess the answer is - you never know when your number's up, so get out there and live your life NOW. I guess... I just don't fucking understand it.

2009-03-11T12:18:00.000-07:00

I've been procrastinating, avoiding, refusing to do what I know I have to do. The thing is, that when my father died I was left with a terrible guilt and sense of loss that went far beyond losing my dad. I still carry the pain of all that with me, and I always will.

My dad, Ogden, Og, or Oggie, was one of the great guys. He was probably the most charming, gregarious, fun, funny and warmest people you'll ever know. His mother, my Grandma Bertha, was one of eleven children of Ulysses Samuel Grant Fashbaugh and his wife Fannie. Every one of those eleven was full of fun, charm and warmth, and I dearly loved them all. My dad carried on that tradition and enhanced those attributes. Everybody loved Oggie! As a restaurant owner he was liked and admired by all who came in contact with him, and that was one huge bunch of people.

Dad gave me my first job. At the age of 14 I was hired to peel potatoes, honest. Seventy-five cents an hour to sit on an old orange crate outside the back of our downtown Santa Rosa, California restaurant, at the end of a block long alley. On one side was the walk-in refrigerator and on the other was the walk-in freezer. I sat just outside the kitchen door on that crate with a hundred pounds of spuds in a burlap bag, a five-gallon bucket of water next to me and a hand peeler just like the one in your kitchen. It would take me hours to peel the goddamned things, and then I'd do the fun part: push them one-at-a-time through the French fry cutter (designed and built by my grandfather) and into another bucket of water with a good dose of sta-white in it. On several occasions I had a .22 rifle leaning against the wall next to me so I could shoot the occasional rat. Never even fired it.

I loved hanging around with all the kitchen staff - the fry cooks, bakers, dishwashers and waitresses. I thought they all liked me, but I was the boss's son and I suppose they tolerated me. But there was no doubt they all loved my dad. Those were great years as I was growing up and going to public school. By the time I was in Jr. high the business was in trouble, and Dad had to sell it to keep from going completely bankrupt. I guess it was changing times. People's tastes in dining out were changing, and folks stopped going downtown to Eisenhood's. Instead, new places were popping up in the outskirts of town, in the woods, in more scenic areas than our old-fashioned downtown setting. There were more trendy places too, and the old formula just stopped working. So Dad had to sell the beloved restaurant. Eisenhood's Fine Foods was no more!

But there was an exciting new thing about to hit Santa Rosa: Bowling! Until around 1955 the only bowling alley in town was a four-lane downtown place where a guy worked as a pin setter. Now, two big new bowling alleys were going to open in Santa Rosa, and Dad was able to transfer his liquor license and buy the bar and coffee shop in one of them. So that's where the family business moved. Sure, it wasn't fine dining anymore, but it was a really nice bar, and we served really good bar food with Dad's touch, and of course his marvelous personality.

He loved the San Francisco Giants. I can remember like it was yesterday, seeing Dad through the big plate-glass window in the center of our H-shaped house. There he is, sitting in the back yard in a lawn chair under the cool shade of his prized ginkgo tree, a high-ball and a pack of cigarettes on the little round, metal table next to him and the portable radio with the game on. Behind him is the huge sandstone barbecue, built from spare stone from the construction of our house. He's still wearing the short-sleeved dress shirt, slacks and his ancient wing-tips. And he's hollering, "ALL RI I I I I I I GHT! YOU CAN TELL THAT ONE -- BYE-BYE-BABY!" And he laughs victoriously.

So Eisenhood's Holiday Lounge was born, and it opened with great fanfare and a lot of hopefulness. I'm not sure if the business was ever really viable, but over the next several years Dad got more and more in trouble financially, not helped at all by his persistent love of booze and horse racing. So eventually Dad was bought out and took a job at a nearby bar as a bartender. He was soon hired back at the bowling alley bar by the man who bought him out, this time not as the boss but as a bar tender. But retirement was right around the corner and I think part of him was glad not to have the headaches of the business. But it was a bitter pill. He and Mom had already taken some great trips, to Hawaii and Italy, and were planning one to Hong Kong as soon as he retired, at the age of 62.

They never made it to Hong Kong. Dad was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his throat just months after retiring. I have no doubt the cancer was the result of a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey, often straight. Everything got put on hold as Dad underwent radiation and chemo, and all the horrors that came with those treatments. After some months the tumor disappeared, an apparent remission. Joy! Mom, my sis and I were elated. It wasn't easy though; the radiation destroyed Dad's salivary glands, which made him very uncomfortable, but otherwise all looked good. But it didn't last long. In a matter of months Mom called me in tears, informing me that the tumor had returned. One possible treatment was to remove his vocal cords, but Dad rejected that idea right away. So he kept getting sicker and sicker.

Then one night I got the call I was dreading. Dad had been admitted to the hospital and wasn't likely to be leaving. Mom, how bad is it? Really bad, she said. So the next day I was on an airplane. He looked terrible - the whites of his eyes were yellow, and his skin had a yellowish tint - the result of his liver shutting down from the spreading cancer. It spread to his brain too, and he started acting sort of loopy.

One day, while a bunch of family were visiting Dad in the hospital, I got the high sign from my uncle from the corrider just outside the door. He wanted to start making arrangements. Made sense, especially since my mom was pretty useless about then. I told Dad we had some errands to run and we'd see him later. His response, "I'll wait here for you." So we went to a funeral home and started pricing caskets. To this day, 28 years later, I still feel guilty for that deception.

Four days later Dad died. More guilt for me: I couldn't stand sitting there, listening to him moaning and moaning, so I went home and smoked a joint. Then Mom called to tell me he was gone, and I rushed over to be with Mom. I still recall the cute young woman in the elevator who smiled at me and asked if I was visiting someone. My retort: No. My father just died. She looked like she wanted to drop through the floor, poor thing.

Mom never really got over Dad's death. I lost her in 2005. But the Hong Kong trip didn't die. Five years after Dad left us Mom asked if I wanted to go with her. She had the money and the time, and we had a ball.

The City by the Bay in January

2009-03-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to San Francisco I found myself in Golden Gate Park on three separate occasions. I'm glad I had my camera along.

I love it when the bridge is partially obscured by fog.

The oldest bar in San Francisco, featured prominently in John Lescroat's novels

And then home

End over end into a telephone pole

2009-03-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

I was 18 and the alcoholism that would plague me for the rest of my life was becoming evident, though I wouldn't recognize it as a problem for 30 years. I had gotten off work at the Lucky Store where I was working as a bag boy, and attending the local junior college at night in an attempt to get reinstated after I flunked out the previous semester. I think it was a Saturday, and a couple of the other guys and I got ahold of a bunch of beer and proceeded to get totally shitfaced. I blacked out, and remember nothing until the car was on top of me, upside down. I managed to crawl out through the passenger window, but then crawled back in to turn off the radio. When I got out again I saw that the car, a 1949 Cadillac, which was built like a tank, was lying across both lanes of California State Highway 12. I was in the middle of the Valley of the Moon, not far from Jack London's Wolf House museum, about 10 miles north of Santa Rosa. Why I was in that place at that time I have no idea, unless I thought it was cool to go for a ride.

The roof had been torn off the car. What did I do? I hitchhicked back to town and went to bed. At around 4 a.m. I was awakened by two California Highway Patrol officers, one of them shining a flashlight in my face. I saw my parents standing behind them with their arms crossed. I was told they spent over an hour looking for a body in the orchard that grew right up to the road's edge, and, finding none, came to my house.

Apparently I had fallen asleep at the wheel and had driven off the road and up the embankment, causing the car to roll. Then it went end-over-end a couple of times, landed on its left side, and hit a telephone pole at hood-level, shearing off the roof. Since I had fallen on the floor I avoided being decapitated. The car then slid back onto the highway. I didn't have a scratch, though my parents chewed my ass pretty well for the next month. Why I did not die I can only chalk up to being drunk, relaxed, and lucky enough to slide under the steering column.

I've had some really sucky times in my life, and during those times I often wonder if I really was killed and this was HELL.

The Disgrace that is our Healthcare System

2009-03-02T03:39:00.000-08:00

I just caught Sicko on cable. That was the 2007 Michael Moore documentary on the state of our healthcare system. I hadn't seen it for a few years, but the outrage I felt then came screaming back to me. The way our HMOs try so very hard to either deny treatment or to refuse to allow new patients based on preexisting conditions. I watched how, during the early days of the Clinton administration, Hillary fought and lost when the drug companies and the HMOs bombarded Congress with a broadside that brought it all down. Then, years later, when she ran for the Senate SHE took almost eight hundred grand from those very interests. I watched patients getting dumped in skid row with hospital gowns and no shoes when they couldn't pay their hospital bills. I watched denials of treatment that resulted in death on two occasions - one a sweet toddler with a throat infection and a man with kidney cancer. Both of these could have been saved with timely treatment. And, in these two examples, the people HAD health insurance. A kidney transplant, even though the family had found a perfect match, was deemed 'experimental' and denied, along with many of the drug treatments recommended by their doctor. In the case of the toddler, her mother had no car and called an ambulence which took them to the nearest emergency room. But she had coverage at another hospital which refused to pay for her treatment at a different facility. The emergency room where she was waiting refused treatment without up front payment; she was told to drive the baby to her hospital, all of which was impossible. She tried desperately but could find no one to give her a ride until it was too late.

I listened to former HMO workers whose jobs required them to go over a person's health history with a fine-toothed comb, to find anything, anything at all, so they could be kicked out of the plan altogether. When a surgery was indicated, in the case of a woman with cervical cancer, her records were sent to a special unit which did the fine-toothed-comb thing, and denied the surgery because they discovered on her application that she had had a yeast infection once, years ago, that was cured easily. By now I was completely pissed, and was so engrossed that I was wondering out loud just how many more of these atrocities Moore could unearth.

Then there were the trips to Canada, the UK and France, where healthcare is free - no copays, no insurance, no proof of anything. In england the 'cashier' hands OUT money to patients who've been treated to make sure they get home safely. I listened to the right-wing in the US warning us about the horrors of socialized medicine: how you can't choose a doctor, you have to wait months to be seen, how the clinics are dingy and dirty and the care is abysmal. None of it was true. Their treatment seemed to be superior to ours in every way, including life span and infant mortality. One worker in an English emergency room laughed when Moore asked him how much they charge for treatment. No one had ever asked him that before. In France there are doctors driving all over Paris every night making housecalls forchristsakes.

In the lead-up to the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan, the story of how our Congress was bought and paid for by HMOs and the drug companies was so appalling that I can't believe there wasn't a huge public outcry resulting in trials, impeachments and convictions. The celebrations after President Bush signed the bill were enough to make you puke. In case you've forgotten, Medicare is forbidden, by the plan, to negotiate with the drug companies for lower prices. In other words, those lovely drug companies can charge patients ANYTHING THEY WISH. Wasn't that a lovely gift from the government of the United States to the drug companies and their brokers, the HMOs!

Our healthcare system in the United States is a crime. I don't know what the answer is, because our government is really in the back pockets of some 35,000 lobbyists. Just listen today to those goddamned Repulicans scream and cry about the pitfalls of socialized medicine. Our government has the most vulnerable of us too frightened, poor and demoralized to do anything but accept the status quo. No one seems capable of doing anything to change it. Why aren't there massive protests and cries for the heads of all those who profit so appallingly at the expense of the sick, old and dying? When asked if he thought something like the French system would ever exist in the U.S. a middle aged French physician's answer was a curt "no!" and he walked off, barely able to contain his disgust for the American system. I agree.

The last part of the movie went off the rails when Moore did a lot of grandstanding, especially with the Cuba trip. But there was enough truth in much of that documentary to make me feel sick to my stomach. I think I'll treat my nausea at home with a little diet Coke rather than hit an emergency room. It would cost me $250 and I'd likely have to wait seven or eight hours.

Give the Goddamn Money to the People - Part 2

2009-01-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

In my last post I blathered on about how the Feds should give the 'people' the handouts rather than unload it on the very institutions which had a large roll in getting us into this mess in the first place. This lay theory was explained to me over lunch with Jon, who makes his living in the world of real estate, and I did not hesitate to further it to my son. Charlie's a sophomore Econ student at NYU, and he's a damn sight smarter than I am, thanks to the genetic input from his mother's side of the family. He tried to explain to me how I was full of shit, but come on, he's just a sophomore. Then he sent me this article from Business Week, and now I think I'm convinced.

When I ran this past Jon he responded with the following:

Interesting article that is quoting a whole bunch of knuckleheads – er.. excuse me economists from academia (like they spend any time in the real fucking world).

I guess I just may be stupid but if people pay their debts to lenders (instead of buying a new pair of Levi’s) I don’t see how that is not capitalizing the banking industry in the same way that a big fat TARP check from treasury does – only without “bad debts?” Kind of Like a Recycling Program? Shit even if fuckers like you and me “saved” the money for a rainy day, unless we put under the mattress, it still winds up in the bank and is capital (yes with an interest cost) that can be lent to people and businesses. And as I said at lunch the other – those that choose not to pay their debt, or don’t’ have any can and most likely will just “blow it” on fun and exciting things…. and I guess that’s bad too.

I'm still as confused as ever. And when the politicians get through with it, complete with huge injections of their own political dogmatism, I'm not so sure Jon's all that far off the mark.

I guess all we can do is wait and see.

Give the Goddamn Money to the People

2009-01-25T00:20:00.000-08:00

So I'm having lunch with a friend who used to frequent my craps table and the Ultimate Texas Holdem tables. He a real estate investor, and about a year ago I was seriously considering investing a large chunk of my retirement money with him. It would have helped finance a housing development and shopping center in a town where uranium mining was making a big comeback, helped along by ever-increasing oil prices. He got hammered pretty good by the recent crash, and, though he wasn't wiped out, he's been 'treading water' for some time now.

So our conversation naturally turned to the economy. I started ranting about the Merrill Lynch chief who'd been fired the day before for, among other things, losing $15 billion, and, at the same time, handing out around $4 billion in bonuses to his top ranked lieutenants. Jon stopped me short. I'm not sure I find that much fault with that, he said. After all, he was taking care of his employees, guys who may have been guaranteed big payments for some time. Maybe not. But then Jon got all wound up: Why not give all that bailout money to the PEOPLE - you and me! Here's why.

Let's say Joe owes a bank $10,000 and you're behind in your payments and behind on your mortgage to boot. Now if you give the bailout money to the bank they may or may not feel ok about loaning it out again. Meanwhile, Joe still owes the money and he's still behind on his mortgage. If Joe gets foreclosed and/or defaults on his ten grand loan, his credit is ruined, the bank eats the paper and now owns a house they didn't want. Two years from now Joe still can't borrow any money because he's such a shitty credit risk.

But, Jon says, if you give Joe the money, let's say it's $10,000 per household, then he fends off foreclosure and keeps making payments on his note. The bank ends up getting the money anyway and Joe's credit is preserved - everybody wins. I had to hand it to Jon, his argument made a lot of sense to me, who knows little about economics. So I call my son Charlie in New York, where he's majoring in economics at NYU. He says no, experts agree (Hah!) that you get the most 'bang for your buck' if you give the bailout money to the financial institutions - the guys who fucked the whole thing up in the first place.

So who's right, Jon the speculator or my kid the student? I gotta tell you, Jon's argument makes more sense every day. I'm coming to believe that the conventional wisdom isa very large load of horseshit!

Time to write my congressman. Oh wait - he's full of shit too!

Sudden Death

2009-01-13T02:28:00.000-08:00

I'm in San Francisco. Here's why:

I'd just come out of the gym with Charlie after meeting with Kim, a personal trainer and climbed into the car, when my cell phone went off. It was my nephew David in San Francisco, in tears, blurting out that his dad was dead. Steve was my old college roommate whom I introduced to my little sister many years ago. I guess I never really forgave him when he started dating her, not until after they were married, had a couple of kids, and settled in bucolic Tiburon, California. Anyway, Joan was driving him to the doctor's office after he'd been complaining about a numb arm and indigestion and chest pain for some time. Joan dropped him at the door because he looked awful and she had to park fairly far away

When she got herself into the waiting room he was in the throes of a massive coronary, 911 was called, two doctors were doing CPR when the ambulence arrived, and all were off to a local hospital. Steve never regained conciousness and was pronounced a little while later. Everyone was in shock and that's when the call came to me.

Now we're waiting for Tuesday when we'll have a gathering of friends and family at a local restaurant to share memories and say good-bye.

It's been a very long three days for all.

Day two, begrudgingly!

2009-01-08T01:30:00.000-08:00

So I sleep late and, to assuage my guilt over not being an early riser, I plop onto my little nesting spot on the couch but don't turn on the TV, a big sacrifice. I begin reading The Tipping Point and alternately thumb through The New Yorker and Vanity Fair while trying really hard not to grab my laptop and all it entails. The day wears on, the laptop gets grabbed, and I find myself gawking at all the political and celebrity crap I can find, when my son Charlie walks in. Charlie's a good guy, a bright, engaged sophomore at NYU where he's studing economics, home for the holidays. He and I have discussed diet and exercise, and he's in my corner on the getting-into-shape thing. By now I'm feeling overwhelmed: I haven't gotten far in the book or any of the magazine articles, and I haven't even budged toward my promised workout. So I start by bitching to Charlie about how Macs suck and that PCs are much easier and more intuitive to navigate. I bitch about this and that, and Charlie patiently tries to help me, but I'm by now acting like a baby and am filled with self-loathing. I finally tell him what I'm really upset about - exercising at the fucking gym - and he nods like he understands. But I can't let it go. I complain that what good will working out do in the longrun anyway, I'll still be a pathetic 65-year-old loser with no partner in life. About then he's had enough of me. He stands up and says he's off to the gym and am I coming. I whine that I dont' want to go today but the self-hatred grows, so I finally struggle to my feet, change clothes, and off we go.

The workout was good. I worked up a sweat on a cycle again, did a little dumbbell curl stuff and a bunch of leg presses. I then spotted him for some bench presses, and then took his place on the bench and repeated what he'd just done. I was surprised I could handle the weight, and I think he was a little surprised too. Afterward I felt much better but weaker, and when I got home it wasn't long before I fell sound asleep in my nest on the couch.

Why is it SO hard to get off the dime and go do the workout when I know I'll feel so much better when I do? Charlie said the same thing - you'll feel better if you'll just force yourself to do it. You'd think, as you sit there feeling shitty, knowing that a little exercise will make you feel a whole lot better, that it would be pretty easy to go for it. Hey, maybe you have no problem getting out the door and out of your funk, but me - I need my 20-year-old kid to kick my ass. Thank God for Charlie! What will I do when he goes back to school and leaves me to my own devices? I don't even want to think about it.

A Not-So-Great Beginning

2009-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I did make it to the gym. Yeah, it went OK... until later that night!

Did a few leg presses on the big leg press machine, pain in the front of my knees, stumbled and fell on my way out of the contraption, looked about embarrassedly and found my way to the Life Cycle where I could sit down. There I was brilliant. Set on 'random hills' I kept tweaking the resistance upward until I broke an impressive sweat and was breathing pretty hard. I think my heart rate was at something like 118 and I had burned a whopping 220 calories. Then I remembered that to lose one pound one needed to expend something on the order of 1500 calories. My God, I'd have to do that every day for an entire week just to lose a single pound! It truly is easier to put it on than to take it off. Caught my breath, did a few dumbbell curls with like 7 pounds and that was that. I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Had a nice dinner with the kids and then, the rumbling began. The GI rumbling got louder and then suddenly, Oh - My - God!! And for the rest of the night I was in and out of the john every 20 minutes with a severe case of the green-apple-quick-step. Now I don't know if there's a cause and effect thing here, but neither of the boys suffered any similar indignities so I'm blaming it all on too much too soon, and I ain't talking about dinner.

I finally got to sleep at around nine this morning and decided that my next trip to the gym could wait a day. It used to be a goddamned lot easier!

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-05T00:02:00.000-08:00

Alright! It's time! Tomorrow I hit the gym and begin to seriously watch my diet. Ferchrissakes I'm 30 pounds overweight and I'm sick of it. I look like crap, feel like crap, and I can't get into most of my clothes. It's disgusting. Tonight I sent away for some berry milkshake diet suppressant stuff that's free for two weeks. If I'm not happy I send it back and pay only shipping. I know, I know, another diet scam. I'm sure it's not the answer, but if it helps, even a little, at quashing my late-night appetite for things fatty then it'll be worth it. Things like peanut butter, ice cream, cereal with half & half, fried ham sandwiches, poached eggs on toast with lots of butter. Why the hell do these cravings only hit me late at night? All day long I'm fine, but after 10 I'm a fucking disaster! There must be some scientific reason, because it's like clockwork. So anyway I'm going to chronicle my progress, or lack thereof, right here. Wish me luck.

A Winter Stroll

2008-12-19T01:32:00.000-08:00

I took a walk this evening, just a short stroll around the block. It was getting dusky and though it was overcast there was some clearing along the western horizon. Red-orange sunlight shown up from below, illuminating the underside of the clouds. The air was still, the temperature fortyish, and with the fading red light it was lovely. I got about 100 yards when a couple of mockingbirds started chattering at each other, or me, or both. Normally I find these creatures annoying, but tonight I tuned in and listened. They seemed to be imitating each other, which they like to do, and when I made some silly squeeky noises they seemed to try to imitate me too, or at least I thought they did. I understand the really noisy ones are males who haven't found mates yet, so who could blame them. They flew back and forth between three evergreens along the street, dropping the occasional bomb, which I was lucky to avoid. So I moved on and left the birds to their frustrations. Now the mountains off to the east glowed a pale pink, reflecting the western glow. I turned away and headed straight into the now vanished sun. At the end of the block was a busy street with everyone in a big hurry to get home. They were going like a bat out of hell right next to me, too close it seemed. The mood was ruined, the moment gone. I rounded the corner and headed back to my house.

So we had this snowstorm...

2008-12-17T03:36:00.000-08:00

The snow began mid-morning and it fell steadily until after eight that night. Couple of inches at my house with more in spots around town. I get a call from my ex, can I get up with Thomas and take him to school since he's such a fledging driver - he's had his license for a month. So I tell him to get me up, and we go off to bed. At nine I wake up with heavy bass coming from his room and I accurately guess that school was closed because of the storm. By ten most of the snow was gone and by two it was completely gone. I wonder how many red faces there were at Albuquerque Public Schools by mid-morning. I know that we're a sunbelt city and not supposed to handle snow well, but sheesh, we ARE a mile high here! I know that it's tough for school buses at seven a.m. when the streets are icy, but hey, how about a two-hour delay? Really, did they really have to close the schools for the whole day? What are we afraid of? One of my pet sayings about our "snow problem" here is: you've got to get out there and shovel it quick -- before it melts! There's another storm approaching for tomorrow that looks a lot like the last one. I can hardly wait to see what happens.

Wednesday Timer Day

2008-12-10T01:06:00.000-08:00

I've volunteered at Thomas' school to be a timer at his swim meets, and for the second day in a row he's not swimming. Not sure why, and I'm tempted to be a shallow twit and bail. But I did commit and they're usually short timers, so I'll probably haul ass over there this afternoon and do my duty. Besides, what the hell else do I have to do?

Pretty damned cold this morning - somewhere in the low 20s - and the last of my struggling impatiens on the front porch got murdered, along with a pretty nice geranium. I've brought in a few plants to save them from a similar fate, but they're outdoor plants and tend to be messy, so I don't know how long I can keep that up. They may have to be sacrificed.

I'm fasting since last night at 9 (big deal) and it's killing me. I usually pig out at 2 a.m. and wind up with heartburn at 5, but I have to have some blood drawn for a physical today and I can't eat until after. Probably do me good to skip a meal now and then!

The Finished Product

2008-12-09T03:19:00.001-08:00

It occurs to me that I never finished the saga of the new addition to the house. Well it's finished, and it looks great. I need to furnish it, but money now seems a much bigger issue than it did three months ago. I think I'll peruse Craigslist for some good quality used stuff. Maybe I can do it on the cheap or at least get off to a start. I suppose there's no hurry now that I think about it. The quest for furnishings will give me something to do.

Monday

2008-12-09T02:29:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly getting used to the idea that I'm really 65. I took a couple of 'before' photos of myself wearing only shorts, and the results startled the hell out of me. When I was a kid my uncle once called my dad, when we were all getting into our bathing suits, a 'knocked-up cornstalk.' That's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the pictures.

Anyway, I visited my doctor today for my annual physical exam. I'm fine, about 30 lbs. overweight but ok. I should be thrilled, especially when you think just how many people, my father included, never make it this far. I should be thankful; so why am I so discontent?

As I'm driving home I got out of my head long enough to notice the clouds gathering overhead and the low clouds hugging the Sandias off the the east. There's a snowstorm brewing, and the northern part of the state is supposed to get nailed with several inches of snow. I'm hoping that the ski areas, especially Taos, get a big load of snow. The economy is going to make the ski season a difficult one, and what they really don't need is a shitty snow year.

A question looms in my head... Will I be in decent enough shape to return to the slopes this season? It's been five or six years since I've been able to ski, my knees preventing me from doing many things. But now I have all new ones now, and the only question is, will I be strong enough? I give short-shrift to my strenghening program most days, then feel guilty about it, and go balls-to-the-wall for a day or two and then slack off again. I wonder, does everyone in my situation handle it better than I, or am I typical?

I have to go now. Knee exercises beckon.

Tuesday Morning Blues

2008-11-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday morning and I am cleaning up the messy kitchen from last night. It was a late dinner and my 15-year-old son Thomas was late arriving as he had to go 'home' to his mother's and pick up some clothes for today at school. He has a lousy cold/flu thing and has been sick for a week; he's on the downward side of it but still feels like shit. We fix dinner and catch up on a couple of TV shows I'd DVR'd while he worked on homework. He promised to clean up the kitchen a bit but he never made it. Off to bed he was...

This morning was cool and overcast as I cooked up some oatmeal and then cleaned up the kitchen. I look over the unfinished mess that is my life - receipts lying everywhere, stacks of papers to go through, pictures and plants needing to be hung in the new addition to my house, clothes to be washed. I think of Thomas and the kind of day he faces. Two midterms, a swim meet (where I'm a timer) and a jazz concert, where he's lead alto sax. He needed the clothes, a sportcoat, shirt and tie, to wear at school. They do that on the day of meets. I easily forgive him the kitchen thing.

Now I think of myself, newly retired at 65, feeling 30 inside, having gained over 20 lbs. since August when I dealt my last hand of blackjack. How am I going to lose the weight with the Holidays just days away? Is it going to come down to a bunch of New Years' resolutions? Why do I feel so lost? I hated the fucking job, hated going in each night, hated my life. Now I don't feel much better - maybe worse. At least I had a plan when I was working - retire! Now what's my plan? Don't have one, no hobbies, lot's of couch-potatoey stuff, sort of a worthless existence.

I need a plan and a direction, even if it's just to volunteer. But since I've lost a ton in the market in the last two months, my retirement seems pretty meager. I'm going to have to go to work. That seems as difficult as finding a love interest at this late stage of my life. I guess I have to pick a spot in the house and deal with it - the bills, the new room, or a new diet that doesn't include two bowls of ice cream every night. Life, such as it is, goes on.

Drywall

2008-11-10T12:15:00.000-08:00

It took a couple more days, the the drywall gents showed up. I had no idea the amount of dust that cutting and hammering into place that drywall created. Like a fool I didn't put up a barrier, so the whole house filled up with this gawdawful white powder. It settled on every surface.

I just threw up my hands (less messy than actually throwing up) and searched for acceptance. When they left it look a LOT different, and had one hell of an echo every time I said anything.

I guess I had no idea just how much was involved in the whole drywall thing. After the two guys left after sawing up dozens of pieces and nailing them up. Next day the "mud" guy shows up, and he mixes up gallons of this white goo, or mud, and proceeds to slather it all over the drywall. He filled up cracks, blended irregularities, made corners look like real corners and so on. I was amazed at all the hard work. He even had to come back the next day and finish the job. He must have slopped a hundred pounds of the stuff on the walls and ceiling. What I learned is that when the mud guy is done, all you have to do is paint and you're done.

Electrical, The Roof, Insulation

2008-11-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

The electricians came the next day and I lucked out. Seems the existing fusebox had just enough capacity to handle the new room. If I'd had to install a new one it would have been a $1500 upgrade.

It's a flat roof and the day after the electrician finished the roofers arrived with their black-spattered truck and the giant vat of tar, heated with a large propane burner. They were there all day, slopping the tar up there, followed by composite shingles. It all looks very professional.

After a couple of days the insulation guy arrived and started with the 8-inch thick fiberglass in the ceiling and 6-inches in the walls. Boy, did that warm it up in there and the rest of the house. At the same time a guy showed up with chicken wire and tar paper to prep the walls for the two coats of stucco that will finish off the outside with a color close to the existing stucco.

It's really starting to look like it belongs to the house now. I can hardly wait to get the drywall in and finally get the terrible dust problem under control.

The Concession

2008-11-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of days now since the election, and I'm thrilled that Barack Obama was elected our new president. I'm also a little scared when I look at the myriad awful problems facing the president-elect. But what's been on my mind this morning was the concession speech given by John McCain.

I recall, sitting there Tuesday night with my 15-year-old son Thomas, that I didn't really want to hear what Sen. McCain had to say, but I also did want to hear it. So we punch it up on the DVR, and I was almost immediately spellbound. I thought the speech was almost perfect. It was the most gracious speech of its kind I can recall ever hearing, and I was moved to tears on a couple of occasions. Writing in the Huffington Post this morning, Alec Baldwin, no fan of McCain's, had a similar reaction. It was as if the senator had shed the weight of the campaign and returned to the John McCain many of us admired and respected back during the 2000 election.

As Campaign 2008 wore on it became more and more difficult to hang onto my admiration of John McCain, as he moved farther and farther right in an attempt to woo the Republican base. But on election evening it was the old John McCain we all knew, and what a refreshing, almost reassuring presence he was.

Framing it up

2008-10-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

First thing Monday morning a bunch of guys descended on my little house and started sawing, hammering (nail guns these days) and in a couple of hours there were three new plywood-covered walls. From there it was time to tear out the existing window and the wall beneath, leaving a gaping hole where the back wall of my living room used to be.

Next they plugged in the old window plus two new ones and added a door, and my house will never be quite the same again. That pretty much took care of the framing, and it was ok because the weather was so nice and warm.

So there I was, waiting for the insulation. That's when the cold weather hit, and I had very little defense against it. When it started cooling off and the wind was blowing, I ran around plugging up every little hole I could find with masking tape and some of the myriad election flyers I had laying around. So I managed to seal the drafts, but when the temperature headed toward 30 that night I had no chance. All I could do was seal myself up in my bedroom and hope the cold spell wouldn't last too long.

Turns out it didn't.

Next up: tar paper, chicken wire and insulation.

Foundation

2008-10-23T12:08:00.000-07:00

The concrete guys were there Friday morning at 7:30, which nearly killed me having to get up. Christ, there were many, many nights when that's when I went to bed!

Anyway, the guys the day before did such a good job all these chaps had to do was pour the concrete. Once that was done, and it took only about an hour, they scraped, smoothed, shaped, and generally made the slab a beautiful thing. It was interesting to see what care they took, and the amount of pride they threw into their work. They were there all day fussing over it, and when they were done it really was a thing of beauty.

Everyone took the weekend off.

Next up: Framing

I Take the Plunge

2008-10-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

So last Thursday three guys showed up to dig the foundation. I was told by my contractor they'd be arriving at 7:30, and when they weren't here by 9 I went back to sleep (I'm afraid I'm still on casino time). At one o'clock I'm awakened by Andre hollering and I'm like yeah yeah what the fuck? So I haul out of bed and the guys are nearly finished - never heard a thing. They spent the rest of the day putting re-bar in the footing and laying a large screen over the whole thing. Last were the forms, and they were done by around 4. I was amazed at how precise the dig was. These guys were meticulous, and Andre said it was one of the best foundation jobs he's ever seen.

Next: Pour the concrete

Construction Thoughts

2008-10-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

For a few years I'd contemplated putting an addition to my tiny house, in the form of an extension of my living room into my huge backyard. A couple of years ago I had a guy from a sun room place come over and give me a bid on the job. I think it was something like $20,000 for a 9x12 room. Then I let it sit on the back burner until a few weeks ago when my good friend Steve brought it up again. He wondered what had become of the idea & I said I thought it was too expensive. I'd also learned that a prefab sun room was not considered part of the overall structure and thus could not be considered part of the dwelling (for sale purposes). Well fuck that!

Then along came Andre, a friend through the program and a sometimes contractor. The three of us looked it over and came up with a plan that would add a 12x17 family room to the living room for well under that 20k figure. Since I'd just retired I said ok, and once the ball got rolling it became a huge thing I couldn't stop. Kinda like when you decide to get married. Once THAT ball gets rolling it's pretty hard to stop too.

So last week we began, and I'll try to chronicle the job and bring this blog up to date in several installments. And, if I can figure out how to do it, I'll add a few photos along the way.

Getting back into the blog…

2008-09-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve taken leave of this blog for several months now, and a lot has transpired in the interim. I got myself a girlfriend, had a terrific little fling, lost a girlfriend and retired. You have to admit that’s a pretty full plate.

I met Amy at the casino one night at work and she followed me from blackjack table to table, so I wasted no time. Got her number, called her in a few days, we went out to dinner and had a blast. So the fling started, and I won’t go into any more detail about it. After about six weeks she texted me that she couldn’t see me any more in the “way we were seeing each other.” Turns out she and a former boyfriend picked up where they left off and that was that. She explained to me that our age difference (30 years) was too much, that she had to consider her teenaged kids, etc. I had to agree, though with my retirement pending I felt the full force of rejection and a feeling of “staring into the abyss.” It was painful for a few weeks, but then I made the decision to retire and turned my attention to other matters.

I set up social security, which took a couple days, then wove my way through the tangled web of Medicare, finally getting it all set up after about three days of indecision. I had given notice at work and had to honor the two weeks to make sure I could collect the four weeks of paid-time-off I had coming. My last day was Thursday, August 28th and that was that! That meant that Friday and Saturday nights, those really busy and fun nights to work, were replaced with me sitting at home feeling lost. I watched a lot of TV, did a bunch of unmentionable shit on the Internet, went to a bunch of crappy movies, and got through the first week unscathed.

The next week I finally showed up at my old AA meeting and was greeted warmly by a lot of my old sober friends. I was really beginning to feel like I made the right decision about retirement.

Next: Travel, odd jobs, acceptance.

Off to Seattle

2008-06-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport waiting for my flight to Seattle. I have just two days left on my paid time off because the casino used a week of it for my rehab for the knee surgery I had in February. So I tacked those two days onto two days off and I'm en route to Seattle to visit my son Sam. I haven't seen Sam since my mother's death three years ago when he flew down to attend the memorial service. He lives with his girlfriend Kelly and her two daughters and works in the hospitality area on a more or less part time basis.

The weather in Albuquerque is in the 90s, in Phoenix it's 96 and Seattle around 55. It seems weird to be packing long pants and leather jackets and other cool weather stuff in mid-June, but the weather's pretty topsy turvy this year. The only other times I've been to Seattle was for two weather conferences and I rarely left the hotel. So I'm really anxious to get shown around by my kid, who tells me that, despite the cool and rainy weather, there's a lot of really cool stuff to do.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(Five days later)

It was good to see Sam. He was waiting for me just outside security at SEA-TAC, about as far as one can get in today’s airports. I didn’t recognize him at first, but the wide grin was all it took. He seemed bigger than I remember, but that went away quickly, as the old familiar Sam materialized. He’s 35 now, but I can still remember vividly the day he was born, as he peed all over the doctor who was holding him up for a photo. That was in Boulder, and I was working as a cloud-seeding meteorologist. I was working in the office those days, working on proposals I think, eagerly awaiting word that we’d again have the Alaska project. That was an experimental, lightning suppression effort, and my company, Sierra Research, was under contract to the Bureau of Land Management. We eventually did get the project, and that gave me about three months to learn a little about how to be a dad and to get to know this new, tiny, noisy creature.

We drove the scenic route to the house Sam shares with his girlfriend Kelly and her two lovely 10- and 12-year-old daughters. The girls were visiting their dad and would be there the next day. Kelly is cute and charming. After a couple of hours visiting we went out to dinner. It was a snazzy fish restaurant down on the waterfront, and dinner was great. Next day the girls showed up after school and Kelly fixed a really good pork chop dinner. I made a pig of myself as usual. Sam and Kelly have been together for five years now, and there was some obvious tension at times. They have tough lives, both working two jobs, trying to raise two kids and make a decent life for themselves. If I could give them some unsolicited advice I’d tell them both to lighten up, that life’s always tough in the best of times, that they’re really lucky to have each other. Just roll with it and don’t clam up and get resentful.

Next day, with the skies cloudier and rainier than ever, Sam and I drove east into the foothills of the Cascades and visited Snoqualamie Falls. It was wet and chilly and wonderful. Of course I forgot my camera, so the only photos I got were with my cellphone. That night we all found a cool little rib joint and had a great dinner. Sam, Kelly and I had breakfast the next morning at an old Seattle flagship place and then it was off to the airport and back home.

Naturally I came down with a miserable head cold which kept me awake all that night, and I called in sick to the casino and spent the day in bed. Sleep still wouldn’t come as my kids plays “Rock Band” all day, banging on the drums until I nearly went insane.

All in all it was a great trip to Seattle. Sam has grown into a fine guy, though life for Sam and Kelly is quite a struggle. I wish I were rich and I’d find a way to help them out. I did have their old non-working computer checked out, and it turned out to have a blown mother board, so I bought them a second-hand computer. That seemed to cheer them up. I hope it makes their lives a little less hectic.

Busy Sunday

2008-06-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

A big day all around. First off I had an It's Just Lunch lunch date with a sweet little lady from Albuquerque's South Valley. She's an Hispanic schoolteacher and we had nice time. Then it was home to pick up my youngest son (middle son went to an alcohol awareness seminar so he could get a summer job as a waiter). Off we went to Lowe's for more tomatoes (the ones I planted died) and a repair kit for the swamp cooler. The goddamn cooler's copper line split and rained water all over the roof, with very little going to the cooler. We finally had to replace the copper tubing with plastic. Then it's off to the Isotopes baseball game tonight. Thank god the cooler's working because it looks like summer has finally arrived -- it has to be 95 out there right now. I feel really sorry for Thomas who had to go up in the attic where it was at least 125.

I've been having a terrible time of it at work. For the last month I've been working the 12 - 8 p.m. shift. I think it's better than the 6 - 2, but there's not much time in the morning to get much done, and I don't get home until 8:30 at the earliest and hell, there's not much time to do much of anything but hit a bar or go to a movie. No one I know likes late dinners (I do) so I'd have to eat alone, which sucks. And lately I've been pretty much stuck on blackjack only, which is really boring and tedious. I don't know why they've singled me out, but I'm on the verge of walking out. I even blew my lid Saturday night before I left, making a goddamned fool of myself in front of one supervisor and a couple of dealers. Life's too short, I keep telling myself, but when things really get to me I can blow.

I must get back on my bicycle to help rehab my knees, which I put off while I'm carrying on and wishing for a woman to enter my life. I really feel there's a huge something missing from my life. I interpret it as the lack of a love life, while my friend Steve is convinced that if I just get myself to a place where I'm happy and secure that will fix itself. One of us is full of shit, most likely me, but it's possible he doesn't know squat about anything either. I guess I'll try to do both -- if only I knew what to do. It would help if I stepped up the job hunt and worked harder on the knees. It's amazing, but when they get sore it's almost always because I haven't been doing the quads exercises I know I must do. If only I could get to bed by say 12 or 1 a.m. I'd be up and could get in a bike ride at nine and still leave for work by 11. Let's see if I can make it happen. If I can do that all those other things might not seem so overwhelming. I have to do something, because feeling like a victim is not only painful as hell, it's just not getting me anywhere.

Sunday afternoon

2008-05-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'd be delighted to write about a Sunday morning walk, with the cool air, long shadows and humming birds flitting and buzzing about, but since I didn't get out of the casino until 4 a.m. and to sleep by 6, I must write about the hot, dry afternoon instead. Afternoons lack the magic of the mornings. When I hauled myself out of bed the sun was straight overhead, and it's getting hot today. The yard is parched so I watered the few flowers I have in a couple of small flower beds in the back, and pots of impatiens hanging on the front porch. In a few minutes Thomas and I are off to a nursery to pick up a bunch more flowers and either veggie seeds or small plants. I have a huge area that's great for melons and pumpkins, and a really nice Roto-tilled area for tomatoes, beans, squash and other summer delights. I love Kentucky Wonder pole beans so I'll have probably three hills working. Tomatoes usually succumb to diseases and excessive heat, but I hope to harvest enough to munch on. Is there anything more delicious than a vine-ripened tomato, still warm from the sun?

One problem with gardening this year: it's difficult to kneel on my three-month-old new knees, so I think I'll invest in one of those kneely pad things. So we're off to Home Depot.

Mothers Day

2008-05-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

It's been almost three years since you left us, and as April gave way to May my thoughts were about you -- a lot.

God I miss you.

Frankly, I had a terrible week, feeling the old depression, always just under the surface, making itself felt in many ways. Chief among those is the sense that my life with a partner who I love and cherish is impossible. You've always been there, at times like these, for the phone call which starts with a hello from you and a hi from me, and you saying oh god what's the matter? Always my tone in that simple 'hi' gave me away, and you'd tell me how silly I was being and scolding me, and finally embracing me with your words and telling me this too will pass and that you love me. I miss you so much right now, because I've been on half a dozen dates with perfectly lovely women roughly my age and there's just no fireworks, not even a little sparkler. Then my thoughts take me the rest of the way, to the inevitable conclusion that it's not going to happen for me, that it's too late, that I'll never be attracted to any of these women my age, and that I'll be alone and lonely for the rest of my days.

But I don't have you to call any more, and I so miss your stern, then reassuring, and finally loving words. I miss those fairly frequent phone calls. In the weeks and months after you died I almost called you a thousand times, each time catching myself with the cold reminder that you were gone.

I'm now remembering my childhood, and you were the Leave it to Beaver Mom, staying home with Joan and me while Dad went to work every day. Later you took a job with Dr. Lones as his nurse, but you always doted on us kids, always were there with Band-Aids, hugs and a good deal of hollering and threatening about what Dad would do to me when he got home. I can still hear your call, "Beeeeiiiiillllll," when it was time for dinner and I was somewhere down at the end of the block. Those summer evenings are burned into my memory forever.

I still feel your pain when you'd tear-up every time you said goodbye to me as I returned to my Air Force life, or my work life. I hated to make you cry so much but couldn't help it, and those tears weren't really assuaged much by the smiles and hugs I got when I arrived.

I have no parents now. Most folks think that a 64-year-old man with no parents is normal, and it may be, but it is made no easier because I am my current age than if it were 40 years earlier. The loss of a parent is always very difficult. It puts us in a direct line toward the end zone, with no more timeouts.

So Mom, I miss you. I miss just knowing you're there and will answer the phone and love me, no matter what terrible thing I might have just done.

I miss your words, your smiles, your funny profanity, your assurances, your tears.

More putting-it-off

2008-05-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

I continue to avoid the difficult here. Looking at the It's Just Lunch thing, I finally got a few dates off the ground. I'm 0 for 4 thus far. All the ladies have been lovely, one even a well-known author in Santa Fe, but no fireworks to report yet. I'm certainly sampling lots of interesting restaurants. I'll just keep trying, and hoping.

I neglected to read the schedule at work night before last, and was therefore late 2 hours, to lots of scowls, frowns and head-shaking. Gotta check the schedule! Puttered around in the yard a little today -- watered flowers, transplanted a couple of geraniums. We've had no rain here in ABQ in months and the dry winds of spring keep hammering away relentlessly. I did get out on my bike yesterday and managed to do 10 miles, half of it uphill from Louisiana NE all the way to Tramway. And that's just 3 months to the day after major knee surgery. I look at that as a pretty big accomplishment. I'll be seeing the Dr. tomorrow and will be sure to brag and hope he tells me what a good boy I've been and pats me kindly on top of my bald head.

Time to get ready for work - early again. But that gets me home earlier (midnight) so I'll be well-rested for my lunch date Friday. I hear the wind whistling through the numerous cracks in my not-too-well-sealed house. and I can see the trees swaying in my front yard. Looks like I'll be bucking a stiff headwind on my 25-mile drive west from Albuquerque to Route 66 Casino.

That's all...

My Father

2008-05-03T02:42:00.000-07:00

I've been procrastinating, avoiding, refusing to do what I know I have to do. The thing is, that when my father died I was left with a terrible guilt and sense of loss that went far beyond losing my dad. I still carry the pain of all that with me, and I always will. I'll explain later.

My dad, Ogden Leonard Eisenhood, Og, or Oggie, was one of the great guys. He was probably the most charming, gregarious, fun, funny and warmest people you'll ever know. His mother, my Grandma Bertha, was one of eleven children of Ulysses Samuel Grant Fashbaugh and his wife Fannie. Every one of those eleven was full of fun, charm and warmth, and I dearly loved them all. My dad carried on that tradition and enhanced those attributes. Everybody loved Oggie! As a restaurant owner he was liked and admired by all who came in contact with him, and that was one huge bunch of people.

Dad gave me my first job. At the age of 14 I was hired to peel potatoes, honest. Seventy-five cents an hour to sit on an old orange crate outside the back of our downtown Santa Rosa, California restaurant, at the end of a block long alley. On one side was the walk-in refrigerator and on the other was the walk-in freezer. I sat just outside the kitchen door on that crate with a hundred pounds of spuds in a burlap bag, a five-gallon bucket of water next to me and a hand peeler just like the one in your kitchen. It would take me hours to peel the goddamned things, and then I'd do the fun part: push them one-at-a-time through the French fry cutter (designed and built by my grandfather) and into another bucket of water with a good dose of sta-white in it. On several occasions I had a .22 rifle leaning against the wall next to me so I could shoot the occasional rat. Never even fired it.

I loved hanging around with all the kitchen staff - the fry cooks, bakers, dishwashers and waitresses. I thought they all liked me, but I was the boss's son and I suppose they tolerated me. But there was no doubt they all loved my dad. Those were great years as I was growing up and going to public school. By the time I was in Jr. high the business was in trouble, and Dad had to sell it to keep from going completely bankrupt. I guess it was changing times. People's tastes in dining out were changing, and folks stopped going downtown to Eisenhood's. Instead, new places were popping up in the outskirts of town, in the woods, in more scenic areas than our old-fashioned downtown setting. There were more trendy places too, and the old formula just stopped working. So Dad had to sell the beloved restaurant. Eisenhood's Fine Foods was no more!

But there was an exciting new thing about to hit Santa Rosa: Bowling! Until around 1955 the only bowling alley in town was a four-lane downtown place where a guy worked as a pin setter. Now, two big new bowling alleys were going to open in Santa Rosa, and Dad was able to transfer his liquor license and buy the bar and coffee shop in one of them. So that's where the family business moved. Sure, it wasn't fine dining anymore, but it was a really nice bar, and we served really good bar food with Dad's touch, and of course his marvelous personality.

He loved the San Francisco Giants. I can remember like it was yesterday, seeing Dad through the big plate-glass window in the center of our H-shaped house. There he is, sitting in the back yard in a lawn chair under the cool shade of his prized ginkgo tree, a high-ball and a pack of cigarettes on the little round, metal table next to him and the portable radio with the game on. Behind him is the huge sandstone barbecue, built from spare stone from the construction of our house. He's still wearing the short-sleeved dress shirt, slacks and his ancient wing-tips. And he's hollering, "ALL RI I I I I I I GHT! YOU CAN TELL THAT ONE -- BYE-BYE-BABY!" And he laughs victoriously.

So Eisenhood's Holiday Lounge was born, and it opened with great fanfare and a lot of hopefulness. I'm not sure if the business was ever really viable, but over the next several years Dad got more and more in trouble financially, not helped at all by his persistent love of booze and horse racing. So eventually Dad was bought out and took a job at a nearby bar as a bartender. He was soon hired back at the bowling alley bar by the man who bought him out, this time not as the boss but as a bar tender. But retirement was right around the corner and I think part of him was glad not to have the headaches of the business. But it was a bitter pill. He and Mom had already taken some great trips, to Hawaii and Italy, and were planning one to Hong Kong as soon as he retired, at the age of 62.

They never made it to Hong Kong. Dad was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his throat just months after retiring. I have no doubt the cancer was the result of a lifetime of cigarettes and whiskey, often straight.

Next: My father's death

Enough with the whining already

2008-05-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm stuck in some sort of self-pity mode these days. I really need to get over it, and I'm sure you'll agree. It's like this in my mind: Here I am, 64 years old, with a job I don't like and no relationship. It's as if I had no life before this. Hell, I've had one hell of a life, a very interesting life. It's just in a bit of a slump at the moment. I have this warped idea that if Ms. Right walks into my life all will be good and light and sunny. How shallow can I be?

Seems like what I really need to do is make some serious changes in what I'm doing now. Like watch less TV, read more, read more challenging things besides crime and horror fiction. I need to get my ass out of bed before noon and get to a few AA meetings - maybe try to help a newcomer or two with the sobriety game. I've become so self-involved that it's become downright unseemly. I can only hope that my demonstrable lack of character hasn't rubbed off on my impressionable 15-year-old.

All the carrying on about my lousy job gets me nowhere. For now I need the income and the insurance, so hey, suck it up and dig around behind the scenes and look for solutions.

And that brings me to the matter of my parents' deaths. Someone whose opinion I respect told me she thought I hadn't grieved enough for my mother, who died three years ago this month. I think she's right. I will address both my parents' deaths in my next two posts. For the time being I must stop the wallowing.

I sit here at my computer at 3:30 in the morning, beating myself up in this post, wondering how I ever got here. I'm still trying to figure out who I am and what my life, up to now, has meant. If it's to be worth anything I have a lot of soul-searching to do.

Next: my father.

Transitions

2008-04-30T02:54:00.000-07:00

I'm miserable. Just got home from another night dealing blackjack, and I don't know if I can go back there, back to the boredom, the smoke, the dysfunctional gamblers, the back pain. I've completely had it with the job, but I know it would be economic suicide if I quit in a huff, with nothing to fall back on but Social Security ($13,000 a year). What a predicament. I know, I know! I promised myself I would get out there and beat the bushes for a radio job, and I haven't done it. Now I'm thinking more along the lines of security, like a job with the government (great benefits). I know a few people here and there in City and State government, and I think I'll download applications and make some phone calls tomorrow. Also need to get to an AA meeting. I've been thinking lately like I'm not a "real" alcoholic, and that's usually just one step away from a drink, and then off I go.

I will be getting around to discussing my education years, and, of course, the deaths of my parents. But I can't really go there just now because I have so much unfinished business in front of me. My god, I sound like a complete neurotic wimp, and I suppose I am. There is so much I want to do, like night school at our local vocational school. I want to go to book signings and readings, the symphony, the theater, evening dates just like normal people do. But I can't do most of those things because of my current job. So it's time to prioritize, and first priority is to find another job. I cannot at this time, and in good conscience, retire. I'm just not ready. So the job search is on.

Saturday's Bluesy Winds

2008-04-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

Woke up sick. This head cold has been threatening me for a week but a persistent nasal drip has been the only symptom. But today everything hurts, especially my knees, my new knees, that had been getting better and better. Today they hurt like it's a month ago, and my skin hurts, especially on my back. But I'm not sick enough to not show up at work, so I will dutifully shower and shave and drive the 25 miles to the casino and deal blackjack until my eyes fuzz over.

Outside the wind continues, not terribly strong today, but with that dryness that reminds us we're in a desert. The humidity is just 6% and the dew point is -1 degrees. That means that if you took a chunk of this air today, you'd have to chill it all the way to one below for it to produce fog. That's dry! The dry wind of April, the windiest month here in New Mexico, often picks up dust, which is laden with pollen and other crap. Since March and April are so windy, and the pollen from juniper and a few dozen other trees is going strong, allergy sufferers get a real dose of misery this time of year.

I sit in my house with the wind whistling through minute cracks around doors and windows, wishing I were somewhere else, maybe at the old homestead hanging out with Mom. But she died three years ago and the house was sold to a contractor who gutted it. That house I grew up in, and was my base of operations in California after I left, was now someone else's. So not only are Mom and Dad gone, but a major piece of what defined my life is just gone. There's no place to go now. Just suck it up and head for the blackjack pit.

About Me

2008-04-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

I was born in Vallejo, California in 1943, smack in the middle of WWII. My father was in the Army, stationed at Camp Roberts just outside Atascadero, California, and my mother was finishing up her registered nurses’ training at Oakland General Hospital.

They met on a blind date in the late ‘30s, and, after an initial rocky start, they fell in love and married in 1941. After only a few months the War broke out with Pearl Harbor, then Germany declaring war on us from the other side. Suddenly this country had its hands full, and my dad joined the army.

Through some stroke of luck, I suppose, Dad never was sent overseas. That meant Mom was dragging me here and there, often on troop trains, with kind soldiers giving up milk and sugars stamps so she could feed little me. It was a harrowing, tedious, fascinating time for me and my parents.

After the war ended we settled in Santa Rosa, California, then a sleepy little town of 30,000 in the prune orchards about an hour north of San Francisco. My parents and I moved into a small apartment above my dad’s parents’ garage while the house that was to be my home for the first 22 years of my life was built next door. We moved in right after my sister was born in 1946. Mom went to work for a local physician and Dad joined the family restaurant business in downtown Santa Rosa.

In many ways it was an idyllic childhood – small town, fairly affluent, seemingly happy and carefree. But below the surface, and not completely obvious to us kids, were Dad’s problems with alcohol and gambling. Oh, we saw him come home for dinner half in the bag almost every night, but Mom would often have a drink too, so we thought it was normal. But, of course, it wasn’t. Mom protected us kids from the bulk of the ugliness, and we didn’t learn just how awful it was for many years.

It was, for my sis and me, a great time. We would vacation often at Lake Tahoe for a couple of weeks in the summers, and we kids had a blast. Dad was out all night gambling and we hung out with ourselves or with Mom. As usual, we were oblivious to the pain Mom was suffering with the twin horrors afflicting my father. There were numerous family parties where my aunts and uncles, dozens of them, would show up, or we'd gather at one of their homes, for major good times. That's when the kids would congregate and raise hell. I look very fondly on those years.

Still, I worshipped my father, and emulated him in every way. When I turned 21 Dad took me out and bought me a drink – sort of a rite of passage, I suppose. I went to work in his bar as a bartender. It all seemed just normal to me. I’m not sure when I became alcoholic, but I was experiencing blackouts by the time I was 22. Some in the know feel that that’s a big symptom of alcoholism. It turns out that on my dad’s side of the family, alcoholism was rampant, and I was simply the next in line, ready to, I suppose, pass that gene/behavior on to my descendants.

Everyone loved my dad. He was gregarious, funny, charming. He had probably the best manners I've ever seen on a man. When my grandfather retired Dad took over the restaurant and, while he worked his tail off, usually not getting home in the evenings until 6:30 or 7. And by then he’d had several drinks. Sometimes he was funny and engaging, but just as often he would become belligerent with Mom or one of us kids. Again, I thought this was normal, despite what I saw on Leave it to Beaver.

Next: School and beyond

I MUST make some changes

2008-04-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

I'm at work last night endlessly dealing blackjack and thinking how I just can't stand this job any more. Problem is, it's all I have going on at the moment, and there's the matter of the great insurance package. Jesus, I wish I wasn't such a slave to all of this, but I suppose most of the other dealers are pretty much in the same boat.

So what's keeping me from getting off my ass during the day and beating the bushes for something else to do. Well, I'm lazy for one thing. And hell, it's hard to look for work. I've done it a lot in my life, and it's never been high on my list of fun and swell things to do. So what are my alternatives? I discussed retiring in another post a few days ago. That's always on the table I suppose. But if I don't get the hell off my ass and get proactive here, I'll continue with this whine-fest, self-indulgent ride I'm on ad nauseum. So I must make this pledge to myself, now, at 3:45 a.m. on a Thursday morning (just got home from work) to get the hell out of bed and start making some phone calls. I've been thinking about visiting several radio stations to see if there's a slot available. I could even work as a gofer or producer to start. The lure, of course, is the idea of normal working hours, with evenings open to catch a movie, go on a date, see my son do something at school.

There are many people out there I've worked with over the course of a career as a TV weather man, and it's high time I started making some contacts. When I was fired after 20 years with a local station (over a DUI, though I'm pretty sure they wanted me gone long before that) I was so pissed that I completely wrote off the business. After about six years another station offered me a weekend gig, which I took them up on, but that petered out when they simply stopped calling. No "Thanks, Bill, but we won't be needing you any more." They just stopped calling. That sort of sums up the sleaziness that surrounds the TV news business, and for the last several years I've wanted no part of it - still don't. But a radio thing might be fun - I do have a decent voice - so we'll see.

Now all this sounds great at 4 a.m. Let's see how resolved I am when I drag my ass out of bed at noon. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. In a previous post I spoke of being stood-up on an It's Just Lunch date last Sunday morning. Now it turns out that the lovely lady who I thought was my date but was actually supposed to meet another guy at the same restaurant, wants a date with me. Apparently, she was impressed with how I handled the awkward situation with such "deportment and good humor." So I'm a swell guy - I can't help it.

Life and The Dating Game

2008-04-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

My 15-year-old son woke up throwing up yesterday (Sunday) morning. He got the sheets, bedspread, carpet, several pairs of shoes, and other "boys' room" odds and ends before making it to the bathroom. All the noise woke me, and I should have known that performance would affect the rest of the day.

I recently joined a dating outfit called "It's Just Lunch," which is set up for "busy professionals." Because of my crazy schedule at the casino they set me up for a Sunday brunch at this cool little French place in Albuquerque's Nob Hill. So after dealing with the barf extravaganza I got all cleaned up and arrived on time at the restaurant.

My date arrived after a few minutes, a lovely lady who immediately started joking with me about her name. I said something like, "Hi. You must be Camille." To which she replied, "or Gertrude or whatever." I had jotted down a list of keywords like, cycling, museums, travel, etc. She says no to all of the above. Next she says she's supposed to meet a guy named Roy and that, by the way, she's not Camille either. So off she goes to the maitre 'd, only to return across the room to where Roy was sitting. Roy and I waved at each other, and, after waiting a half hour, I ordered some food and got the hell out of there. I'd been unceremoniously stood up!

It's not the being stood up thing that's got me. It's just the idea that -- why is it so difficult to find someone and then somehow get the relationship off the ground? The other thing is my own fault, but I seem to find women 20 or 30 years younger than I as attractive. Women my own age seem, well, old. And it's not that I'm such a great catch - I'm not. Maybe men are hard-wired that way, I'm not sure at all. It's certainly not fair and it's not helpful. On the other hand I see more and more women in their 40s and 50s looking for men in their 30s. Is it our society, advertising, that evil catch-all Television? Who the hell can figure it all out anyway?

I remain very hopeful that I'll find Miss Right soon, and to that end I will post my successes and failures here.

Well, it's a beginning anyway

2008-04-20T21:52:00.000-07:00

I found encouragement for starting a blog in April, 2008, by a wonderful lady by the name of Claire Bidwell Smith. She began her blog, Life in LA, back in 2003, and within a short time it was chosen by the Sydney Morning Herald as on of the best blogs in the world. Check that out here. You could do yourself a big favor and check her out here.

I'm well on the road to recovery from having both knees replaced back in early February. While the first month was hell, I'm walking pain-free and without a limp for the first time in 10 years, and my recovery is going very well indeed. But at this stage of my life I find myself at yet another crossroads - I'm approaching retirement very soon. I suppose I could put off actual retirement, but the fact is that I will turn 65 in just a few months and already I am being bombarded with junk mail about Medicare and Medicaid, not-junk mailings from the Social Security Administration and endless crap from AARP. I'm not too thrilled with AARP these days; they supported the Bush Medicare Drug plan, which, from my perspective, was nothing but a great big, gift-wrapped present to the major drug companies. And, over the last several years AARP seems to be shilling for every supplemental health insurance company under the sun, not to mention all the marvelous long-term-care insurance plans out there. I'd be kinder to AARP if I sensed they were working for retirees instead.

Alright! Enough of that baloney! My crossroads looks like it forks in about nine different directions. My current job, as a casino dealer, pays the bills but the hours are terrible. I work from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. five nights a week, which, since I am divorced, leaves almost no time at all for any kind of social life. But they have GREAT insurance. More about that in another posting. But the crappy social life alone is great cause for concern.

There are all sorts of options on the table for me, and if I'm to believe my acquaintances in pretty much the same boat as I, I'm far from alone. One is simply to retire, draw Social Security, and do what retired people do (what do they do? Fish? Feed the birds on a park bench?). Another idea: find another job with normal hours. Problem - if you're over 50, finding a new job is "challenging" at best, and if you're over 60, hah! Then there's the problem of health insurance. The casinos in my area (Albuquerque) have unbelievably good insurance plans. For my bi-lateral knee replacements I paid a small co-pay and insurance took care of the rest. And it was a very big bill. If I move on, the insurance goes "poof"! I could go to part time at the casino and draw Social Security. Problem: insurance goes "poof"! I'm very simply at a loss right now, but I feel the walls closing in - the unsettling feeling that I don't have my homework done and it's Sunday night.

To paraphrase Woody Allen... I haven't learned a thing from all my years and all my experiences. I'm certain that if I had it all to do over again I would make all the same mistakes again. That's me. I always thought I'd become wiser and more patient as the years wore on, but that's a big load of bull. I can vividly remember my mother's words when she was well into her 80s, "I still feel like I'm 35 inside. It's just this useless old body that betrays me." I feel the same way - no different than when I was in my 30s, and I trust most people would say the same.

I chose to get married twice, decided not to go to graduate school, chose to drink and drive two times too many, and on and on. So here I am, faced with another set of life-altering decisions and I feel the same indecision, the same sense of being lost and groping around, hoping to find something, anything, to grab onto and hang on. In short, I'm handling the situation no better than I ever did.

Over the next few weeks I'll be discussing many of the good and bad decisions I've made over the years, and with this catharsis of "writing it all down," hope to feel my way through the present maze looming in front of me.