Jumping from hoop to hoop and following the big red tape.

I am about to finish a series of medical appointments. Today will be the last, I hope. The first appointment as mentioned in an earlier rant was an exercise in torture. The torture began with filling out endless questions about my general health. ‘Have you ever had the black plague.’ ‘Was your mother a chain smoker of marijuana?’ ‘Did your father ever threaten drowning your siblings?’ And on and on. Then came relief when I got my root canal.

Then the next day on to my dermatologist. Answer these questions: ‘Have you ever had the black plague.’ ‘Was your mother a chain smoker of marijuana?’ ‘Did your father ever threaten drowning your siblings?’ Then finally the doctor froze off many pre-cancerous spots. An easy task. Ouch!

Then on to my annual physical and yet again, fill out the following questions: ‘Have you ever had the black plague.’ ‘Was your mother a chain smoker of marijuana?’ ‘Did your father ever threaten drowning your siblings?’ Then I was given my Covid booster shot with all its attending aches and fevers.

Then yesterday I went to a place to have a blood test and more of the same questions. Why do they ask all the same questions but don’t share the data? I sat with the office person and answered dozens of if not hundreds of same, same questions. It took almost thirty minutes to plow the same field of weeds. Con on! At lease ask a few different Q&A’s. Then it took half a minute to take a blood test. Whew! I hate needles in my arm.

Today I am scheduled to see my orthopedic doctor and I am almost positive he will give me a paper that will ask the same questions. ‘Have you ever had the black plague?’ ‘Was your mother a chain smoker of marijuana?’ ‘Did your father ever threaten drowning your siblings?’ Then I am scheduled to receive another needle in the shoulder. Jumping Jack Daniels! When will the paper work ever end? I guess whenever that very warm subterranean chamber chills and freezes over. Or I stop going to the doctor.

Butchy the Chicken Whisperer chap 8

Let me know if you know how to hypnotize a chicken. Just raise your hand if you do. It’s not easy. It’s a combination of laying on of hands and having a strong will. The chicken needs to know you are completely in charge. A steady unwavering gaze into the chicken’s eye and steady whispering with a firm broad grimace. However wearing glasses, like I do, might help. The chicken will often see its own image times two reflected by my wire rimmed glasses and think he or she is being stocked by two chickens. Resulting in complete surrender. Therefore the chicken will flop on its side and play dead with the hope the two reflected chickens will go on to the next unassuming Rhode Island Red.

Now I think of myself as fearless and brave even if I do wear glasses. An Okie boy who all by me has experienced using a wooden outhouse. Yes, an outhouse. Summers we Okies would leave our Los Angeles home to take an annual trip back to my mom and dad’s homeland. Oklahoma. Sometimes referred to as being a bit ‘Third World.’ My older brother, once we were in southern rural Oklahoma, he kept daring me to use the outhouse by myself. He said there might be snakes down in the hole of the outhouse. However I never trusted my older brother to give me the straight scoop. But I went in and sat down and never heard snakes riggling around. No rattling’s. No hissing. What self-respecting snake would enter such a smell pot anyway? But being an Okie boy from Los Angeles, I often wondered why people in Oklahoma kept their bathrooms outside. Yes, it did smell a bit and I don’t like using pages from the Sears catalogue to finish my business. Not sure this is necessary. We got our TP from Safeway’s by the way.

But when visiting the folks back home in Oklahoma my favorite thing to do is go to the ice house in town. There we would buy a 50-pound block of pure ice. We drove that big block of ice to my Aunt Minnie’s house south of town and place it in her icebox. An icebox is a good place to put a block of ice. How cool is that? But later when oil was discovered on her property she moved her outhouse indoors. Plus bought a refrigerator once she had her house wired for electricity. Things really progress when you have lots of money. A good lesson in rural economics.

Until next time.

Appointments I hate to keep.

I’d rather sit on a sharp stick than to go to the dentist. It’s not just the pain and suffering, but it’s the many knuckleheads practicing dentistry. Two days ago I had the ultimate in dental procedures. Root canal. It was just a horrifically long painful process. First of all it took four injections of anesthesia to deaden my gum, jaw, and lip. Four! Usually it only takes one injection. An experience I hate. Just don’t like the idea of someone poking a needle in my mouth. None the less it was a long difficult process I never wish to experience again.

So let’s go back to the beginning. It all began back in my grade school years with Dr. Barkley. Dr. Barkley was a kind and gentle doctor. He explained everything to me. How he numbed the gums, drilled out the cavity, filled it in, and he had very cute dental assistance. But that all went away shortly after I was married and moved out of town.

So let’s start with Dr. West. Dr. West first of all had a Dental Hygienist who must have hated her work. While performing her cleaning and scaling she often grumbled about all her patients. How they must have disliked her. How would she know that? Don’t know. Then Dr. West himself would often talk about his trophies he bought himself with client’s money. Motor homes, boats, motorcycles, and European trips. All of which I contributed to. Then a few years later while visiting Dr. West once again, he told me all about his divorce. Thus needing to sell all his motor homes, boats, motorcycles, and stop making trips abroad. Doing so to split the money with his ex-wife.

Then there was Dr. Burklacy. In between rants about coaching his son’s soccer teams and having to rush back and forth from dental office to the soccer field; he somehow practiced dentistry. I can recall a time sitting the dentist chair for over an hour while doctor and assistance were off doing something else. So I had enough of that.

Then there was Dr. Weis. Dr. Weis started out as an okay dentist until he hammered on my teeth with a rubber mallet severely enough until my tooth cracked and later fell out. So I spoke to him about this and he admitted to doing no wrong. Refused to fix the tooth. I had considered taking him to small claims but didn’t want to waste my time.

Then there was Dr. Worleck. Dr. Worleck’s dental hygienist who was a Russian nationalist named Natasha. She was no relation to Boris Badenoff. But anyway she breezed through and cursory cleaning. Zip pop zing. It was over. Then on the way out of Dr. Worleck’s office one of his clients was paying him off with about six or eight dozen grade AA eggs. All stacked on the office check in counter. Most interesting bartering.

Then I went back to the lady doctor who took Dr. Weis’s practice and she refused to clean my teeth until I had some very expensive dental procedure first. She even sent by mail a letter telling me of this policy. A policy which sounded like a threat. “Do this or else!”

Oh yes. I forgot Dr. Yamamoto in Hawaii. This gentleman was doing ‘Pay-back’ for Hiroshima. Prepping my gums for drilling Dr. Yamamoto failed to rub in the numbing compound before Novocain injections. He just stuck the needle in without any deadening. OMG! It hurt. But quickly on he went to drill and fill. I was so glad to exit that place. God forgive us for Hiroshima.

Then recently, was the multi-tasking dental hygienist. While scaling, polishing, and flossing the hygienist easily talked raising children with my wife. How she did her job while fully engaged in conversation with my wife is a complete mystery to me. Especially since she did a pretty good job of cleaning my teeth. There is more but will stop here. Enough bad news for one day. Yes, I have no love in my heart for dentists. Just smile and floss your teeth and pay your bill.

Butchy the Chicken Whisperer chap 7.

My oldest sister said I look like a miniature bookkeeper with my wire rim glasses. She said all I need is a green eye shade. I hate my glasses. I just don’t know how many pairs of glasses I broke. Broken while pushing and shoving. Wrestling and fist fights at school or at church. But you know what; Hop-along Cassidy didn’t break his glasses. Want to know why? Hoppy never wore glasses. Well maybe when he got old. Maybe at about 90-years old and then he broke his glasses. Possibly when he was jumping his horse through hoops of fire. Not really sure. But anyway, Flash Gordon didn’t wear glasses. Shirley Temple didn’t wear glasses. So, why do I have to wear glasses? Only because my mom told me so. So how does an eight year old become a movie hero while wearing glasses? Don’t know. In the mean time I shall remain as a certified and licensed Chicken Whisperer.

Mean while back on Simmons Avenue, Donnie my new friend from Milwaukee and me collected newspapers. Nearby was a place that gave us five-cents a pound for newspapers. They said they recycle them into new newspapers. How did they do that? Scrub off the print and print again on the cleaned off papers? So we went door to door asking for old or new newspapers. We were doing a pretty good business until the schools started to collect newspapers as well. Then people we got newspapers from started asking if we were collecting papers for the elementary so we told them no. Then they told us we only give papers to non-profit organizations. Well we thought. If Donnie and me aren’t non-profit I don’t know what is. We don’t have a president or a bank account. We don’t write checks or have offices downtown. For goodness sakes we surely are non-profit. We have never earned enough money collecting papers to exceed one dollar in gross revenue in one week. No! Not at all.

Then the same recycle business that collected papers said they also collect rags. Rags? We have lots of rags laying about our house. Some in my closet and sister’s closet. So, another source of revenue. Then business was going pretty good until the school started collecting rags also. Well, here we go again. How do Donnie and me stay in business when the fragging school becomes our main competitor? Good grief Charlie Brown! Guess we’ll have to go back to collecting Coke bottles. Running one’s own business surely ain’t easy. I know what. Maybe perhaps me and Donnie should learn to pan for gold. What do ya think huh?

Words that wedge.

For years I have been pointing out the fact that Talk Radio and Cable TV often serves to divide its audience. Split apart. Sever. Pull apart listeners and viewers from their own kind. Even when most have a common ground partisan blather from talk radio or cable news only serves to separate family members, neighbors, co-workers, and even spouses and lovers. Mostly done by deliberate misinformation or disinformation. Hyperbole presented as truth but NOT.

Let me explain. Media advertisers pay big bucks to sponsor “outrageousness.” The more outrageous and shocking a statement by a talk host the more advertisers will pay. That’s just a simple statement of broadcast economics. Trash someone’s reputation or totally misrepresent and organization with manufactured lies and sponsors will be calling. In other words slander pays off. The more the extreme the untruths the bigger the checks are written to your radio or TV station. Trust me. It’s true.

And I’m not just talking about one point of view. Both conservative and liberal hosts are guilty of this blatant spume of partisan fog. It comes from the left as well as from the right. Equal opportunity trash talk. Just pay the lady at the front desk and we will say whatever you wish. We are just broadcasting hoarse.

Now consider this. Most radio talk shows are on the air for about two or three hours a day; five days a week. One talk show host could be on the air for about 14 to 15 hours per week. The average person could tell you all you need to know in about fifteen minutes. Therefore there is about two to two and half hours each day for the host to fill words with. Which means a host will have to start making up verbiage on the fly to fill his or her broadcast time. Superfluous blather. Excess verbosity. Sour pie filling. Wordy words exhumed from a landfill. A guy just saying anything without much thought just to fill time. Mostly words of condescension and disparaging whomever he or she wants. Outrageous words that pay.

My suggestion here now is to read the daily newspaper. News gathering Organizations that hire professionally trained journalists. Journalist who have to filter what they write and report through fact checkers and department editors. Newspapers with reputations on the line every day. Print the truth or your paper will only be used for wrapping dead fish in. Read the daily newspaper and forget the hype and practiced emotion of an ego driven trash talking self-serving talk show host.

Okies make lousy sailors.

They spend too much time on firm ground. Never having to pitch one way or the other in order to steady themselves. . I discovered this early on growing up Okie in Los Angeles. My dad wasn’t able at all to use a sextant or read star charts or navigation map. My Okie mother never cooked up sea turtle gruel nor wore red bandana with gold ring in one ear.
Let me back up here. My parents migrated to Los Angeles from Oklahoma in the early 1940s. This was before I was born. So we lived in metropolitan L A but all the while holding on to our simple Okie culture. Certainly a conflict of two social orders. We’ll discuss this some other time however.
But anyway, we lived over 40-miles from the nearest ocean and couldn’t even afford the price of an average wooden paddle much less the cost of a paddleboat. So, my personal sailing experience was limited to just a few boating events.
Once in third grade our teacher, Mrs. Sweeny, took we third graders on a field trip to the L A harbor. There we boarded a ferryboat from San Pedro all the way over to Terminal Island. A sea cruise about two-hundred yards. A ten-minute harbor excursion. Just enough time to walk to the other end of the ferry boat and walk down the boarding ramp.
My next sailing venture was all of us cousins and my uncle boarding on an inner sound ferry ride across the inner waters to Vancouver Island. A trip of about two hours from Port Angeles Washington to Victoria, British Columbia. Certainly a longer sail than the L A harbor trip but most uneventful. However, the excitement we had on this trip was watching the ship’s lower deck-hand toss boxes of garbage off the boat’s stern. All the while flocks of seagulls swooped down, dove into the boat’s floating refuse, and then come up with a pretty tasty afternoon lunch. Most fascinating I must say.
However, the defining boat trip that set me against future sailing was a bobbling, tossing roller-coaster float from L A harbor to Catalina Island. About 26-miles across the sea. Santa Catalina was waiting for me. This event filled trip settled my mind that Okies shouldn’t ever sea cruise. At the outset but inside the seawall protected harbor, it was most uneventful and smooth sailing. But once past the “Break Water” that shields the harbor boat traffic from high ocean swells, the tiny ship started to pitch and roll. Up and down she went. Like a cork on turbulent waters.
This ancient ship was only about a hundred feet from stem to stern. . So the little white ship seemed to become even smaller as the ocean waves rose to six to eight foot swells. Swells that swamped the lower deck and totally soaked a few Catalina bound passengers. As for my sailing party, and me, most of us were turning green and draped over the rails. Hanging over the rails in anticipation of losing our recently devoured breakfast. AS a result, seagulls swarmed nearby.
Nonetheless, this woozy condition lasted about an hour or so on the high seas. We would stand by the lower deck rails and then later find a spot to lie on nearby benches. Then we would rise and hang over the rail once again. Back and forth we flipped and flopped. Like freshly caught tuna flopping uncontrollably on the deck. We just couldn’t find the position that would give us the most relief from our head spinning wooziness.
But, once we inter the Avalon harbor at Catalina, things seemed to settle. The tiny ship gently floated to the unloading dock and we quickly forgot the previous gut wrenching events. After we poured off the ship we all determined to make the best of our trip. It felt really good to be standing on solid ground once again.
However, after a day’s touring the island and eating without much thought, we suddenly realized we were facing once again the same gut wrenching sailing event. Just thinking about this boat return cruising hang over made me feel noxious and, dreading the return to the L A harbor.
Therefore if Okies were meant to be sailors, we would have been born with one wooden peg leg and an uncontrollable urge to say, “Arr yee land lubbers! Gonna swab the deck with yee.” So-o-o, being Okies prone towards Seasickness definitely confirm Okies are not very good sailors. I rest my case. Solid ground is where I want to be. Tell the captain I’ll take the train instead.

Book Reports.

Three Biographies:

Cartoonist, writers, social observers, and imagineers.

1. Walt Disney. In my early teens Walt was everybody’s dream uncle. The father of Mickey Mouse. The creator of feature length cartoons, live action adventure movies, The Mickey Mouse Club, Disneyland the TV program, and Disneyland the magic kingdom theme park known as the happiest place on Earth. And I won’t mention sitting next to Mr. Disney on the Main Street trolley at Disneyland and too scared to say anything.

The book: Walt Disney, an American original, by Bob Thomas, biography 1976 and 2017

Library of Congress annotation: Biography of the animator and entrepreneur based on interviews with family and friends and on private papers and letters. Recounts Disney’s life from his austere boyhood in Kansas City through his long-lived success.
A book about Walt and his brother Roy Disney slogging through many financial and emotional ups and downs. Seemingly almost to the brink of bankruptcy. But saved by very successful feature length cartoons like Snow White. With his obsessions with steam engine trains Walt comes up with the idea of building a theme park which included a full size steam engine train and much more. A most comprehensive book about the brothers Disney. Read it. You might like it.

2. I couldn’t wait to get home after junior high school and read the afternoon Los Angeles Mirror newspaper. Just inside and top of the second page was the comic strip Peanuts. All alone. No other comics on that page. All the others were in the comic section near the back pages. A fat headed boy named Charlie Brown wearing shorts and a zig-zag patterned sweater seemed to be the main character bantering with the dark hair snarky mouth Lucy Van Pelt. . Trailed behind with her little thumb sucking and crib blanket toting wise and philosophical brother. Drawn and scripted by Charles M Schulz.

The book: Schulz and Peanuts, a biography by David Michaelis 2007

Library of Congress annotation: Biography of Charles Schulz, the creator of the comic strip Peanuts, which he drew from 1950 until his death in 2000. Describes his childhood, the realization of his long-held desire to be a cartoonist, his family life, his two marriages, and the autobiographical aspects of his characters. Always in search for the ‘Little Red Hair girl.’ Schulz was Charlie Brown. Read it. You will never trust Lucy with the football again.

3. My junior year English teacher called me up front to her desk and asked me to read aloud a book to the class. I don’t recall the title but it was written by Dr. Seuss. Maybe Cat in the Hat or Green Eggs and Ham. Not sure. It was the first time I had ever heard of Dr. Seuss.

The book: Becoming Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel, the making of an American Imagination. By Brian J Jones 2019.

Library of Congress annotation: Biography of children’s author and illustrator (1904-1991) famed for his simple but engaging rhymes and whimsical drawing style. Discusses Geisel’s more radical side, which can be seen in the themes of The Lorax. Also covers his writing process–which could last years.

My favorite is ‘The Butter Battle’ an anti-war theme written by Geisel in 1984. Mostly about the nuclear arms race but written with humorous rhyme and fantastical weaponry. Enjoy your reading.

Butchy the Chicken Whisperer. Chap 6.

I’ll lay it straight out to you. Had I never ever had to wear glasses on my face, I would not be a Chicken Whisperer. No! Never! I would have easily chosen to be the Lone Ranger. But, as you know, the Lone Ranger never wore glasses. Contacts maybe under his black face mask. But no freaking mamby pamby glasses. Tonto didn’t wear glasses. Dick Tracy didn’t wear glasses. Neither did Porky Pig. So since Chicken handling was already on my resume I chose Chicken Whispering instead.

So one early evening Donnie my new best friend from Wisconsin and me got to thinking since its Halloween we must think of a scary costume to go trick-r-treating in. I mentioned to Donnie that the year before my older brothers took a cork, lit a match to it, and rubbed the burnt end all over his face. Creating a beard looking five-o-clock shadow. So we came to the conclusion we could look like a hobo or tramp. You know the guys who come around here after riding in a box car down at the tracks. Those guys look very much like hobos and tramps. Dark beard and ragged clothes. So we too can burn a cork, rub it on our face, and get some long sleeved shirt out of our dad’s closet. A long sleeve white shirt could do. We can roll up the sleeves and let the tails hang out over our Sears jeans with knee patches to give that frumpy Hobo look. So we burned a cork on our mom’s gas stove and rubbed the black end all over our faces. “That’s the blackest beard I’ve seen ever. Then we had two black Halloween masks, put them on, and off we went trick-R-treating. Our faces were totally covered by black beard and black masks. Just like the Lone Ranger. Well maybe the Lone Ranger if he had a black beard.

So we came to our first house to scare them out of candy. We screamed TRICK R TREAT and rang the doorbell in case they didn’t hear our scary Halloween chant. So after chanting, and ringing the doorbell twice, then came a man to the door, looked at the both of us and said…Hmm, twin Al Jolsons. Right? Can you kids sing Mammie how I love ya?

Remember, this was 1953 and me and Donnie didn’t know who Al Jolson was. “Who?”

Glad to be an Indy.

I am most glad to not be a Democrat or a Republican. I have definite issues with both political parties. I’m not a liberal and I am certainly not a “Conservative.” Although I think there is no such thing as a conservative these days of relentless trolling. None the less I am proud to be an Independent.

And the reason I’m glad is because of the recent elections in Virginia where the Democrats took a beating. Don’t want to identify with that. So, I am safe in the middle. Most proud to be an Independent and separated from the conservatives as well. Donald J. Trump, KMA!

Here are my policies: I believe women should make their own decisions about their own body. And on the other end I have no clue what to do for Transgenders. I just don’t get it. Nor do I want to. Just find a wall urinal and hold your skirt high while peeing. We don’t need to force schools to spend the money to install a third bathroom. However, I am okay with same sex marriage. Go for it. Just get out of my face when whining about LGTQ issues.

But what I stand for is good public school education. Small class size and more teachers. Teachers earning a reasonable income. Clean water and clean air is an imperative. Renewable energy with its attending jobs creations is very important. Plus less carbon monoxide wafting into the air would be helpful to cool down the earth. I would like to see health care benefits for everyone. Yes, it will cost us. However, it could be paid for by recouping the lost revenues giving away to the rich and large corporations. In other words we all, including the rich, can contribute to this. When Eisenhower built the Interstate highway system it wasn’t paid for by bake sales or selling popcorn door to door. We all paid for this highway system and surely benefited because of its convenience and expressway. America has big shoulders and can easily accomplish paying for benefits to our American citizens. We just need to shake the money trees on Wall Street and in and around Amazon and Google. Warren Buffett needs to pay more taxes on a percentage basis than his private secretary. And did I ever tell you this? I’m glad to be an Independent. Go Indies!