Just writing down what is bloviated.

For what reason do politicians hammer news reporters for printing or voicing the political news. So a group of reporters now are at a news conference writing down on pads or recording voice or video what exactly is being said. Then repeat word for word in print or on radio or TV what that politician says. Placing in quotes the ill-conceived phraseology that the politician used. His or her quoted words. Quote, end quote. Politician’s words. Not the reporter’s. Later the politician realizes that what was said might not play well with the average voter. And having watched many a presidential news conferences even the most well prepared politician is most uncomfortable and sweating this obligatory exercise.

Then the politician blasts the reported story as bias or “liberal.” Forgetting it is the politician’s own response to reporter’s questions. And reinforced with the politician’s Own revealing facial expressions and body language. Not the journalist. The politician’s self-accusing diatribe and his or her witness to their own bad choice of words. Not thinking what should be said. Sometimes just blathering thoughtless monologue. Monologue that can easily self-condemn the postulating pretense of the bloviating politician. Thus this is the reason why we need the so-called ‘Press.’ Being witness for the average news reader or TV viewer. The fourth estate of society practicing the first amendment and protecting freedom of the press. And may God lead them always to the truth. Amen.

Little House on the Avenue.

We six lived in a smallish two bedroom house in East L A.

There were a Ma and a Pa and we four kids. Living in a house of about 740-square feet. Teeny tiny for sure. How did we do that back then? I was born shortly after my folks bought this post Spanish colonial white stucco adobe hacienda. Yes born to Okie parents in cosmopolitan Los Angeles. According to our Okie relatives up in Bakersfield we lived in the wrong place. Most conscientious Okies lived in Bakersfield. Merle Haggard and Buck Owens lived up there. My mom’s cousins lived up there. Hundreds and even thousands of transplanted Okies lived in Bakersfield. But, not us. We didn’t know any better.

We lived just downwind from the B. F. Goodrich tire factory and Willard battery plant in quaint East L A. There the glossy orange evening sunset would colorfully frame the silhouette of the tall Willard Battery water tower and Pillsbury grain elevators. A pictorial postcard for sure.

But back to this miniature Okie mansion on south Simmons Avenue in East L A. From the time I was born and up to four-years old, I slept in a tiny bed in my parent’s room next to the side window and two feet from my mom and dad’s bed. My older brother, youngest and oldest sister slept in the second bedroom. Each bedroom was about eight-foot by ten. Not a lot of wiggle room. Just enough room for the older siblings to become most territorial. “Stay on your side of the room!” The bathroom was so small it would make a lavatory on a commercial jet look palatial. Then when my older sister needed her privacy my folks converted a six-foot by six breakfast nook in to a teen girl’s lair. Separated by a heavy curtain from the kitchen. Just two steps from where my mom disemboweled and processed our Sunday fried chicken. And just a teen girl’s freckled arm’s reach through the curtain to our only telephone in the house. Oh so handy late at night.

My parents bought this white washed adobe ‘Tiny flat roofed house’ back in 1944 for a mere six-thousand dollars. However it did have a large back yard where chickens roosted and peach trees produced peaches the size of a softball. Their eggs were laid and Rhode Island Reds were often dispatched and processed.

But here is what I suggest to do: Google

1318 So. Simmons ave, L A 90022 and notice the current appraised value. Backing up the house was built in the mid-1920s and as mentioned my folks bought in 1944 for 6K bucks. We sold it for 8000-dollars. Back in 1970 it sold once again for 20K dollars. But currently after considerable remodeling of the exterior with an added courtyard in front and remodeled interior it is valued by Zillo for over 700K huge bucks. Yes. No wonder there is so much homelessness in L A. Who could afford such a thing?

Counting on count results.

Majority rules basic rule.

When will we understand when the bigger number of votes represents the majority and the smaller number of votes indicates the minority, the majority wins. So the majority rules. The minority acquiesces to the majority wishes. Basic democracy 101. Therefore how many times do you want to recount and audit votes. Always getting the same results. Take your Cyber Ninjas and shove it. Stop jackingg around with Democracy. Good grief Milo Dimwoddle!

Facebooking out of necessity.

I can easily and unabashedly say I hate Facebook

I am here on this so-called social media in order to follow my close friends and relatives on FB. I need to keep an eye on them. I need to know what they are talking about. I need to know what trends they follow and why.

So here I am. Snooping and pretending to enjoy myself with silly quips and stories. But with very little random photography. Only a few selfies. Just enough to get by without overexposing myself.

Therefore I have a low FRIEND count. Not sure how others with thousands of friends do this thing. Do they really know these people? Are they really friends? Or just counted off like hamburgers sold at McDonalds. “See how many I have.”

None the less and again, here I am watching and observing. By the way I had opened another account under an assumed mane and got scores of friend request from millennial Nuns and Priests. All using social media as their outreach. Explain that. So I cancelled that account. But, here I am anyway. Have a nice media day.

Your FB Friend, Chuck.

I am a longtime sepratist.

I absolutely believe Church and State should be separate. Never the twain shall meet. Church should take care of its own business. And the same for the state. Stay out of church business.

Church business should never present itself before the Supreme Court. The state business should never be settled in church by church people. The state should not do the church’s bidding. Therefore there should be a ‘Blue line’ or a foul line where either never ever crosses to the other. Biblical morals should never be legislated by the state. Secular laws should never ever be pontificated by the church. If there are morals and precepts to be considered then let the church decide. It’s no business of the state. Likewise the church should stay out of the business of making laws and ordinances traditionally overseen by the government. Government has enough to do just funding national emergencies, building roads, keeping the air and water clean, and outfitting and equipping a military. Churches should focus on taking care of its parishioner’s physical and spiritual needs. Weddings, funerals, baptisms, admonishing, and feeding the poor should be the work of the church. Not law making or adjudicating the state’s business.

They never spoke of it.

My dad told me he would often visit the local grocery and visit with the produce manager who happened to be Japanese. The time frame was early World War II. My parents had recently moved from Oklahoma to southern California and was living in an area of Los Angeles known as Boyle Heights. On one of his shopping trips to the grocer my dad walked in to notice the Japanese gentleman was missing. My dad asked the store owner where the produce manager was and the owner said the produce manager has disappeared. Hasn’t been to work for a week or two.

My mom would sometimes walk to the store for eggs and milk and kept noticing a house she often passed by where a Japanese family lived. After several trips down the same walking route she noticed lights were always on, nothing seemed to be out of place, and surmised the family had suddenly left with no notice to the nearby neighbors. Little did they know the Japanese individuals were suddenly taken away and sent to internment camps. Done so by the federal government as a precaution and viewed as potential enemies of the state. Even though they were second and third generation Americans. Japanese families and individuals taken from their homes and businesses. Taken to camps all over the western United States. Then when finally released most lost their homes and businesses.

The interesting thing or sad thing was very few Japanese people would ever talk of this. I had a college professor, who was Japanese, almost always affable and smiling, later I had discovered was taken with his family early during WWII and first sent to Santa Anita race track and temporarily lived in the horse paddocks with his parents and later sent to various internment camps. Never once did he speak of this horrific experience.

Japanese kids and teachers at my middle school and high school never ever mentioned this fact. Kenny Takahashi and his brother never spoke of it. Coach Kobiashi never mentioned this experience. My across the street neighbor, who seemed to be the model American citizen, never uttered a word.

When briefly living in Sacramento, California, It was mentioned by co-workers an internment camp had been located on the fringes of the town. When I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an older lady mentioned she knew of an abandon camp there in Santa Fe.

Here is some reading:

The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II Paperback – January 5, 2016.

They Called Us Enemy– July 16, 2019 They-Called-Enemy-George-Takei A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II.

What a dark period in America’s history. God forgive us for we sometimes know not what we do. Amen.

Butchy the chicken whisperer, chap 2

I didn’t become a chicken whisperer just by ordinary means. No sir! It first starts by knowing how to hypnotize a chicken. Not an easy thing to do while wearing wire rim glasses. It takes practice and a willingness to get one’s hands dirty. Try holding a 12-pound Rhode Island Red by its feet. I tell ya it ain’t easy.

But when I’m not chicken whispering, Donnie my new friend from Milwaukee and me are digging trenches over in the big vacant lot between the Willard Battery factory and the Union Pacific station. Trenches to hide from enemies and girls. And when not digging trenches we fly kites in the big vacant lot. I always buy the 10-cent diamond shaped paper kite with the face of a moon painted on it along with buying a 10-cent role of kite string from Joe Miller’s market. My friend Donnie always buys the paper Box Kite. Not sure why. It looks a lot like flying a box of Nabisco crackers. But anyway, Lot of running room for kite flying and tries not to trip over the railroad tracks when running backwards. Tracks that curve over to the Goodrich tire factory. But anyway this big vacant lot is primarily Donnie and me’s private kingdom. Girls and enemies keep out. But when hobos and tramps come down the tracks we go home.

More to come.

A Promenade to Perdition.

There was religiosity doctrinaire that silently prevailed in and around my church, albeit not written on stone tablet or in Old English print, which forbade boys from dancing with girls. Dogma spoken by some pulpit pontificators and well meaning but stern faced fundamentalist parents. “Thou shall nots” a fundamental catechism meant to save adolescence from a sudden tumbling into smoldering pit of fire and ash. All because they might have danced and touched each other’s hands. With music playing loud while shuffling feet. “For goodness sakes Arthur Murray!

This was the cloud of darkness that followed me each day I was in school. “Don’t dance with girls.” Stay out of the gym when loud music was playing from the portable record player. But I did go and watch. My friends were giggling and shuffling with their shoes off and dancing on the wooden gym floor. All the while Mr. Russell, who looked like the cartoon Dennis the Menace’s father, stood about with a 12-inch ruler in case he needed to place the stick between dancing couples. “Please stay one foot apart from each other, he admonished each dancing pair.” Never mind most were just holding at a distance one hand or not at all while twisting and bopping.

So after school I would go home and watch Dick Clark and American Bandstand on TV. A live dance program broadcast from Philadelphia. Mostly high school kids in a gymnasium-looking room with Clark as the host and disk jockey. Kids fast and slow dancing while current rock singing artist came and ‘lip-synced’ their own hit records. I hate to speculate where these dancing couples are today. What fait might have fallen on them?

Never the less, I never asked a girl to dance. I was very much afraid what smoke and ash might suck me into the ground. However, several girls asked me to dance. Then I was faced with the dilemma of what to say. What excuse could I use? What could I fane as a reason to not dance. I was too young to suffer such a sudden doom.

I was asked by Terri at our graduation party to dance. It was obvious she liked me. So I told her I didn’t know how to dance and it’s too late to learn. I was asked by a very cute and petite Jewish girl to go with her to her schools Christmas dance. I told her I was working two jobs and trying to finish my first semester at a community college and didn’t have the time. I was asked by a drunken lady at a roadhouse where my friend and his band were playing. I told her I have never danced and wouldn’t make a very good dance partner. Especially since her husband was at her arm. I was asked by the new bride at her wedding party to dance with her and I once again said I don’t know how to dance. While at a training session I was in a side room listening to some jazz on the radio and a lady about my age came and wanted to dance. ME? Me dance? I don’t know how. Go ask someone else.

I went with a couple of friends to a dance club on the other side of town and so I just watched and listened. Then a girl I knew from high school came over to me and asked to dance. And you know the rest of the story.

None the less, the queries came and came. Could we please dance. And each time disappointment covered their faces. Why did they keep asking me? Why was I to give them the bad news? I just figured someone had to do this. Bad news is what I do. It’s what I learned from church.

While talking to a friend while riding the bus to downtown I mentioned all of this “don’t dance” blather to him and the bus driver listening to our conversation almost lost control of the bus. Laughing in total hysteria at the fact I don’t dance in fear of the floor opening up and swallowing me alive in to a fiery pit.

So let me leave you with this from the singing duo Loggins and Messina. A song made popular in the 1970s.

“Yo mama don’t dance and yo daddy don’t rock and roll. So there!

Attention Progeny.

Memo from the office of Papa.

It’s nice outside. This is my favorite season of the year. Late summer/early fall. Autumn. It’s outside time without any doubt. Neighborhood parks and playgrounds should be filled with runners, jumpers, and walkers. Walk your dog. Chase your cat. Graze your goat. Or spruce your goose.

What it’s NOT is couch potatoing inside watching and wasting time with video games time. No such season exists. You know what I mean? It’s outside and running. Rolling in the grass time. Are you following me?

Why would you want to be stuck to a gaming joystick inside when you could be kicking a ball or climbing a tree? Or possibly batting a homerun over the fence. I’m I going over your head here? Eyes should be on the ball and not on the flat screen. Is this too hard to understand? Bodies should be in motion, not the cursor. Legs stretching, arms pumping, and bodies jogging across the landscape. Swim, bike, hike, jump, sprint, or just undulate. Have I lost you?

Please rise from your beanbag chair, turn off the brain evaporating game and dash outside before your eyes fall out. Video games and mindless DVD watching is almost brain draining. So, get your feet on the ground outside and make your anatomy strong and healthy. Should I show you a diagram here? Move move move! You know what I mean? Of course you do you inert spongy sofa spud. Rocket, roll, and rejoice. Show us all you are alive. Rove, romp, and rejuvenate your recumbent rack of bones.

Butchy the Chicken Whisperer, chap 1.

If you remember the last time we got together I mentioned to you I was a chicken whisperer. I chose this vocation because wearing cheap wire rim glasses disqualifies me to be what I really wanted to be. Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers does not wear glasses. I wear glasses. And yes, broke them three or four times. Mostly in a tussle with another second grader. My folks were furious. Not with the other tussler but with me. Me someone who THINKS he should be Roy Rogers but a skilled chicken whisperer. So my tussling capabilities are limited. So off to Dr. Downs’s optic office for another pair. But the bottom line was I never wanted glasses in the first place. MY dad didn’t wear glasses. Tarzan didn’t wear glasses. Only Mrs. Block, my second grade teacher wore glasses. But she was over sixty-years old. Just a granny person needing glasses.

But when I wasn’t chicken whispering, me and my neighborhood friend Donnie were collection agents. A quick and dirty way to make easy money. Back then we collected glass soda bottles and traded them for hard cash. The twelve ounce glass bottle fetched and easy 2-cents. The quart size glass bottle gained us a nickel per bottle. This process would start early on Saturday mornings going house to house asking for empty soda bottles. At first we rang doorbells starting about 7-AM and quickly discovered people didn’t like coming to the door at seven Saturday morning. SLAM! The doors went. Some asked to go around the back in the alley and look in the trash bins. So Donnie and me did. Usually with some success. So we would collect enough bottles to make about 30-cents apiece. Then it was off to our personal banker. Joe Miller ran Miller’s Market on Olympic Boulevard and there we made our financial transactions. We would roll in a red wagon full of empty pop bottles and he would immediately pull out the correct change and place it firmly in our hands. Then We quickly went to the comic book section of Miller’s and chose one comic, two Double Bubble gums, a Snickers bar, and would hand back the hard earned cash to Joe Miller. He must have thought we were just financial wizards. “Firm but even handed”. No one would ever take advantage of me and Donnie for sure.

More about Butchy the Chicken Whisperer next time.