Category Archives: Inspired by Real Events

Rulers and J.D.

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What seems to be a million years ago, I was a teacher of sorts.  When Autumn comes, someone can either rise or fall.  One of the most brilliant students, sadly, was not in my classroom.  I taught English, and my next door teaching neighbor was an art instructor.  Requiring rulers was my neighbor’s first and second mistake.

One of his students enjoyed art, manual labor, and breaking things.  He also was from a broken home, and he placed his anger on rulers.

On a teaching budget, rulers can be a bit costly.  Each ruler costs a buck.  Ninety students times one buck….ninety bucks. That’s simple math.  Complicated math manifests when one student begins breaking half of the rulers.  Ninety divided by two is forty five.  He was on pace to break a record by the second week of school.  Sort of the Roger Maris of breaking rulers instead of home runs.

Our art teacher provided this student an ultimatum.  For every ruler you break, you owe me a dollar.  The student then busted out his wallet filled with at least fifty one dollar bills.  He then snapped a ruler in half and tossed his teacher a buck.

Turns out, this twelve year old was working part time at a gas station to help his alcoholic parents pay some bills.

Another teacher of his called me for assistance in her classroom one day.  The same student had a fifth of Jack Daniels on his desk during math class.  She didn’t know how to deal with it, so, as a part time drinker, I was intrigued.  Upon showing up to help this fellow employer out, I smelled the bottle, and it was filled with apple juice.  He said it was the only empty bottle he could find in the house which could contain the apple juice he made for himself that morning.  Although feeling sorrow for the student, I did inform him even bringing a bottle of Jack Daniels filled with apple juice could get him suspended.  He didn’t care, because he was making more money working at a gas station than he was at school.  I had to laugh, because he was a really affable fellow.  I then confiscated the bottle, saving him from a suspension and bought him a plastic bottle of apple juice from the school’s vending machine.  He was very thankful for the offering.  I was upset his bottle of Jack Daniels wasn’t filled with Jack Daniels.  It would have saved us both some cash.

As long as he’s only drinking apple juice, he’s probably a millionaire by now.

Sorry, Golf.

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Golf season is always over for me, but post season baseball is starting soon. The NFL and college football is also beginning, but I would like to provide a sweet conclusion to golf.

Admitting that I am a less than average golfer is a selfishly phony compliment for myself.  Most of my clubs end up in trees or water.  Some people say I’m impatient.  Others think I should’t be allowed to play publicly.

I wouldn’t say I’m abjectly terrible, but I’ve lost to groups of people over the age of eighty and younger than six who can’t keep score. That’s my excuse.

Golf has left me with one lasting memory when I knew I could never compete with AARP members or children.  It was one of my favorite memories of golf.

While attempting to golf alone, only out of embarrassment, I was, fortunately, joined with a duo I had never met.  One was probably eighty six years old, and his granddaughter was probably five.

The granddaughter was equally as bad at driving their golf cart as I was at playing the game.  The grandfather, insanely, allowing his granddaughter to drive the cart, was just as abysmal as me on the course.  So, I knew we’d enjoy ourselves as equals.

After twenty or so strokes, the grandfather would finally land his ball on the green.  At that point, he was too tired to putt, so he allowed his granddaughter to putt for him.  She was happy to accommodate him, but she also felt sorry for the ball.  After each of her thirteen putts on the green, she would, with great sincerity, say, “Sorry ball.”

It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen on a golf course.

That’s a pretty sweet conclusion.

 

Errors

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Analogies are something I appreciate.  The baseball team I’ve been rooting for the last forty years recently committed a crime.  They proceeded to commit five errors in one inning…Something which hasn’t been done since 1977.  Bravo.

The President of the United States of America (I have trouble writing that)  has delivered far more lies and errors since anyone B.C., and after.

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown: “Good Grief.”

 

 

Pious at the Plate

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Secretly, I was a pretty decent baseball player until I learned only being successful three times out of ten would get you in Baseball’s Hall of Fame.  I was hitting five hundred in my my math classes, and hitting .400 on the baseball field. My father didn’t give a damn about my batting average compared to my math scores.  Five hundred in math equals an F.  Four hundred on the diamond provides an A.

Recognizing slumps in baseball, your batting average may drop by fifty to a hundred percentage points quite drastically.  While in a slump, I resorted to prayer.

Growing up in the Catholic church, I always prayed for others, but I have to confess, while kneeling in that pew, I tossed in a little extras for me.  Those never worked.

Dealing with two strikes with runners on base is tough for anyone, but with God on your side, going to church every weekend, including standing on each Holiday, should that make a difference in my favor?  I wish you could hear my laughter.  It does not.

Stepping out of the batter’s box with two strikes on me, I did the sign of the cross in front of the umpire.  He called time out and asked me, “Did you just do the sign of the Cross?”

As though I was confessing my sins, I responded, “Yes.”

He then said, “Son, Even God can’t help you in this game.”

I laughed and ended up getting a base hit. However, he was right.  I was praying for a home run..

 

 

Laughter

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The funny thing about laughter is some people either love it or hate it.  I’ve never understood those who hated laughter unless they were absolutely miserable.

There have been times in my life when I was absolutely miserable, but if I could laugh, or find someone to make me laugh, I always felt better, and I knew there was some fun lightning at the end of the tunnel of misery.

My mother told me once laughter can burn calories.  So, I stopped working out and just listened to friends and family telling me stories providing that belly full of laughter.  I now weigh 50 pounds.  By the way, I’m six foot four.

 

Amazon.what?

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Evidently, Amazon.com is creating a spectacle these days notifying customers at grocery outlets they don’t have to pay until they receive the bill at home.  They are eliminating cashiers.

Personally, I love cashiers.  They make purchasing a tomato a little easier than the self check out which also requires proper identification.   If the CEO of Amazon wants to really shake things up, we should be allowed a mute button for the cashiers and customers because, usually, no one  gives a crap about the weather unless you live in a Mayberry barber shop with eighty year old misers.

 

 

24 Cigarettes

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Father’s day has passed.  So did my father…..many years ago.

When I was born, he was close to fifty, according to the Bible.

My father was a peculiar and fascinating man.  Smoking cigarettes kept him alive until he was almost seventy.  I miss him, but every father’s day, I think of the 24 cigarette clay mansion I was allowed to create on this wonderful day by my junior ‘high’ teacher before the celebration.

He did smoke, but I think he only used my gift as a paper weight.

 

 

 

Menopause

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One of my sisters began menopause in her mid twenties.  It’s lasted for forty more years, yet I absolutely adore her, especially without moments of civil rage.  In our family, regarding my sisters, civil rage can be manifested by someone not making a deviled egg properly on Easter.  Thank goodness it only shows up once a year, much like Jesus.

On a two week road trip with her and many other siblings, at the age of eight, I wrote a hand written letter to someone else in our family proclaiming my sister was a being her usual “bich” self.  It’s so nice and special I couldn’t properly spell the name “bitch”.  I must have had great parents. The word was introduced to me by one of my other sisters and Elton John.

Being eight years old,  I really didn’t understand infants properly.  I didn’t even understand adults.  They all simply pooped and pissed their parents, uncles and aunts off.

My sisters’s children were always fussy, hungry or, perhaps, menopausal themselves during road trips.

At that age, I didn’t officially get it.  I still don’t.

The “bich” isn’t back, but she still lives.

Thank goodness.

 

Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!!!

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Coeur d’alene, Idaho isn’t an easy geographical region to spell.  Googling it or describing its location when using a GPS system or a local phone book may drive one crazy.  One day, in this unfair city, no one required a map or GPS to locate my sister, Mary.  She made it loud and clear where she could be spotted, not only in the State of Idaho, but, additionally, the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t “Where’s Waldo?” It was, rather, “We know exactly where Mary is.”

I truly believe she made the F word almost Biblical one sunny afternoon.  (I don’t really remember, but I hope it was a Sunday after we had just completed our weekly term of duty…Catholic Mass.)

My mother made a hell of a fried chicken, and some of our family members, including me, were vacationing forty five minutes away to have a picnic in a city in Idaho I’m tired of spelling.  Seven months pregnant with her third child, my sister, Mary, was aboard the station wagon.  She was also hungry, or as I’ve learned with my urban dictionary wisdom, hangry.

With mom’s potato salad on ice, and an angry, pregnant mother (Mary) looking as if she was a shark with chum in the cab, we found a parking space ten minutes away from a picnic table.  Knowing she was settled in a proper space and spying the table, everyone, including Mary, felt at ease.  That’s a terrific feeling when you are afraid of your sister.

Upon sitting on the picnic table stools, Mary recognized Mom forgot the chicken, and all Hell broke Mary loose.  She began calmly.  “F–K!” Embarrassing our mother as the brothers decided to take a dip in the lake, we heard Mary scream,  from a little less than a mile away, and to everyones’ terror, “Where’s the F—ing Chicken?!! Even the ants scattered.

I’ve never been pregnant, and I don’t wish to be.  Men are blessed by God in certain ways. There were times when Mary should have been blessed in the same way.

The memory didn’t scar me.  It merely etched, or branded a memory I won’t forget.  When we returned from the beach at a safe time, we were blessed with some grocery store fried chicken along with mom’s potato salad.  We were additionally blessed with a sister returning from fried chicken hell to Fried Chicken bliss.

God Bless her.

 

Tools and T-Ball

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On God’s Seventh Inning Stretch, he created T-Ball.  It was one of his many mistakes. Actually, that’s not entirely true. He probably was just messing with us when he gave us the gift of the Tee, but, as usual, we abused it.

Never having played in the rough and tumble, hard knocks world of T-ball, I still know a thing or two about it.  Watching it was penance for many of the sins I’ve committed.

A tee was meant to be used as a training tool, increasing the chances that an inexperienced batter could hit a line drive.  This is when God said, “Hey, baseball ain’t that easy.  Don’t hit the tee, my son, hit the ball.”

This created controversy amongst the players’ mothers and fathers when their children weren’t successful.  Some of the mothers and fathers were logical.  “It’s sitting right on top of the tee.  Just hit it.”  Others made certain their child would never be competitive again. “Great Job.  You didn’t hit the ball or the three foot tall tee, but you did hit air, so run…..run…..run… (to a base you didn’t earn)!”

Trying to create an organized, or engaging event out of T-Ball is simply a crime for those who are in attendance and fantastically ridiculous if you think your five year old will learn something about the true form of baseball from this “S–t” show.

This is when parents began sacredly believing this gift was delivered by Him so youngsters could be humiliated in front of their mothers and fathers wishing they could actually hit a ball off of that tee.   If you know anything about baseball, or the Bible, the tee is punished along with the child, yet the ball is set free, dropping majestically into the dirt in front of the batter’s 400 dollar nike cleats.

As Tom Hanks stated in “A League of Their Own”, there is no crying in baseball, but, according to God, I guess there is crying in T-Ball.