Thud, thud.

Patience truly is a virtue, and save for the times when I have a fishing pole clutched in my hand or a rifle at my side, it is not one I possess. I wish I could extend the the calm peaceful ability to patiently wait things out beyond the river bank or deer blind. But alas I cannot.

This ugly truth is perfectly illustrated by a recent road trip.

In mid June, my oldest son attended a Catholic youth camp down in East Texas. A place called The Pine just outside of Big Sandy, Texas. Big Sandy is nearly 500 hundred miles from my home here in Amarillo so the trip was a long one. Jennifer and another boy's mom drove several kids down, but when it was time to fetch my son I loaded up in the car along with Jennifer and our 7 year old.

We headed out and I had just pulled out of the small town of Chillicothe, Texas when I spotted every speeders worst nightmare. The black white cruiser of a Texas DPS officer crested the hell in front of me as I glanced down to see the speedometer needle dead center between 80 and 90.  As we passed him heading north, me south we made eye-contact. He threw a u-turn through the median. I pulled over to the side of the road not far from a sign reading SPEED LIMIT 70 MPH.

I was doing at least 15 miles and hour over. I wondered what the fine was gonna cost me as the trooper approached. "Where ya headed," he asked.

"Big Sandy," I said.

"That's a serious drive. What's in Big Sandy?" He asked as I handed over my drivers license and insurance card.

"Picking up my son. He's been down there all week at a Catholic youth camp." The officer was Spanish so I hoped he had recited a few Our Father's in his day.

"Oh yeah," he said. "How many kids from your parish went?"

He said parish, not congregation or church. But parish. I tried not to smile as he asked a few more questions.
"You have a clean record?"
"Far as I know," I said.
"Okay," I'm gonna run your ID if it comes back clean I'm gonna let you off with a warning."
Ten minutes later, I was scooting down the road free as a bird. And try as I might I couldn't keep my foot off the gas, but for the remainder of the drive Lady Luck smiled upon me and nary was another trooper sighted.

The three of us checked into a Best Western in Mineola, Texas for the night and all was well as I drifted off to sleep.

Then it started. Bang, bang. Not the loud echoing bang of a gunshot or even a car backfiring, but more of a thud. Thud, thud as a matter of fact. I recognized the sound. Someone in an adjacent room had flipped out the security lock to keep the door to their room from shutting all the way.

Thud. thud.

Thud, thud.

Thud, thud.

The sound surrounded me. I heard it from the room to the south, the room to the north.

Thud, thud. Thud, thud. Thud, thud.

For the love of God were these people moving in for good? how much shit did they have to carry inside?

Thud, thud. Then voices. Lots of voices. and laughter, and thud, thud.

Finally I had enough. I threw back the covers and stood. "Where you going?" Jennifer asked.
"To tell them damned people to quit slamming their doors!"
"In your boxers?" she said.
"Damn right, I ain't afraid to let them see my big hairy gut."

I stood there in the brightly lit hall of the Best Western in a classic gunfighters stance clad in only my plaid boxers. Unlike a pistolero I didn't reach for my gun when my enemy stepped into the hall. Instead I glared at the young teenage boy as the door he'd just exited flopped shut behind him.

Thud, thud.

"Is that you keeps banging your door?"

The boy eyed me suspiciously. I ... uh. I'm not sure. My buddies .. we ...

"Whoever the hell it is you need to stop. I'm trying to get some sleep."

I climbed back into my warm bed and for a time it was quiet. Then I hear it again.

Thud, thud.

Thud,thud.

Thud, thud.

I dialed the front desk. Registered my complaint and was told several baseball teams were staying on my floor, but they would take care of the problem.

The thud, thuds, slowed but did not end for several more hours.

In the morning I staggered downstairs with bloodshot eyes and revenge in my heart. I loaded the car and dialed the hotel. "Room 219 please," I said when the clerk answered.

Jennifer shot me an incredulous look. We had stayed next door in room 217.

A sleepy voice answered, "Hello," on the 3rd ring.

Doing my best drill instructor imitation I screamed. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake Up! It's time for you boys to rise and shine1 Roll out of bed! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

And then I hung up.

Jennifer shook her head. "Now YOU are the one  being childish."

I stuck my chin out proudly I said," Yep, and it damn sure felt good."

I drove down the road smiling and happy to be alive as my heart went  ... thud, thud  ... inside my chest.

Spankin' It

 Y'all seen these ads. Now they have one for men as well. That commercial is even worse than this one.




Well guess what. I ain't buying that this is an effective weight training system. Unless perhaps you are training to masturbate an elephant.

But let's say the thing does work. I've actually heard from several people that it does.Why ignore the 1000 pound smiling elephant in the room? Why act like this apparatus does not illicit more giggles to every TV viewer than the planet Uranus does to a classroom of 12-year-old boys?

Why not just come out and say ...

Look nothing in life is easy. You wanna lose that flab hanging beneath your arm? Are you willing to do anything to tone your body? Then go ahead purchase our gyrating penis thingamajig. 

Sure, it's gonna make you look like a fool.

Sure. you're husband/boyfriend is gonna say rude things like, "Hell I got something you can workout with right here. And it won't cost you three easy payments either."

Sure, you're gonna receive applications for employment from the animal husbandry division of Barnum and Bailey Circus, but at least you Jello won't be the first thing on everyone's mind every time you wave goodbye."

That kind of commercial I could respect.

Peeps

That will make a great blog post.

Used to be that was my first thought upon anything weird, strange or funny happening to me. I'm sure y'all have noticed that has not been the case in a while. And I'm not sure why that sensation faded.

I know for a while after the fire I was strangely reluctant to blog. Here I had experienced this traumatic loss, and my blog friends had rushed to my support in ways that I cannot even describe. Actually not only my blogging pals but their friends and their friends and pretty soon I had cards and letters and packages and financial donations ... and I felt stunned, gratified, and oh so not worthy. Besides that my blog had been about humor and what would people think if I pointed out the absurdity of something while dealing with the fact everything I owned was now ash? And how could I ever thank all the people that helped. I tried. I spent hours online tracking down people that I only had a name. My wife and I wrote tons of thank you notes and mailed what we could, but we never seemed to catch up as we were house hunting, dealing with banks insurances and a myriad of other thing and some of the pages with address got lost in the many moves and then I simply felt embarrassed that I had not been able to properly thank everyone.

As life started to settle down I dove back into writing The Feedstore Chronicles and I'm proud to say it is nearly complete. And then there were the Facebook and Twitter factors. Sometimes it was easier to post a quick thought to those social networks rather than blog. Blogging from my phone is cumbersome at best.

And all the while the number of visitors dropped. I know some were still out there reading on Google Reader or a phone app, but I let the declining number affect my confidence. I started to think everyone is sick of hearing how much I hate lettuce, love meat, and want a book deal. I wondered if I had said everything I have to say.

But lately I've missed the blog. I've been going back and reading some of my favorite posts and I while sometimes I think "Wow, what the hell was I drinking that day," but then others I think. "Hey, that was a pretty damned good post."

So what I'm trying to say is a feel a new wave of energy coming on. A blogging frenzy perhaps. No doubt some of the blogs will miss, but I hope that y'all will find some of them entertaining. And if you get a chance drop me a comment if only to say hi. That way I'll now how many of y'all are still out there reading. For those that already comment on  regular basis I doubly appreciate the time y'all spend first reading and then adding your take. Often, the comments are better than the actual post.

Popping the Question

"You are a writer?" Heavy on the question mark.

This is the first reaction I get, when either I personally reveal my passion or it comes out via a comment someone else makes. It happened again this weekend when in my RCIA class. Of course my long standing friends that are in the class already knew this about me, but 90% of the sponsors and fellow converts had no idea. Attempting to articulate a particular  point I said, "Help me out, I can't think of the right word."

At once those in the class who really know me said, "You're a writer. If you can't think of the right word how are we supposed to."

At that point half the class turned and looked at me. I've been attending weekly meeting with these people since November of last year but suddenly they felt the need to squint and study me. I could see it there in there eyes. Him, that big hairy dude? He's a writer.

I was not surprised when afterwords in the hall several approached me. I even knew the question they would ask.

"So what do you write?"

I could have told them I was working on a memoir, or that my last endeavor was a comedic novel. Or that I've been been getting paid to write freelance football articles. I could have but those answers would not have shocked them. Unless they were avid readers or closet writers themselves it is possible that answering with any of those would have made their eyes glaze over. But I knew from experience how to make their eyes widen.

"Romance mostly," I said, "But a bit of humor writing as well."

Again the studied scrutiny. I see them take in my 6'5 frame. My thick bushy goatee. My ample beer gut. The cowboy boots on my feet. Yeah they are surprised. Sometimes they laugh as if I've made a joke. I can tell they are skeptical at best and this is the part where I love it when a friend that has actually read my work is nearby because they will say, "And it's really good too."

That third part affirmation is all it takes truly grab their attention. To make them ask more questions and dive deeper into my thought process for shunning normalcy.

But if like Sunday there is no one around to offer that credibility nearly always the person will scoot away as if they nearly got caught up in a conversation with a crazy person.

I now realize readers do the same thing. We as writers must hook them, possible even shock our readers to make them turn the page, but we must do so in a manner that is believable. And no, not all hooks rely on the shock factor, but a character must have motivation for his or her actions whether they are shocking or not. And no you don't have to reveal the truth of that motivation but you have to hint at the possibilities. Tease the reader. Of course in the end you have to justify what you're selling. My friends that offer their support do so because they have read and have been sucked into the stories I've created. Friends are however much easier to please than agents and editors, but I am a writer so keep plugging away.

 I am a writer.

Others will continue to punctuate the statement how they see fit, but I refuse to add a question mark. I do however lust for the day when I can write ...  I am a writer!

Tasty Novels, Fatty Livers, and A Sweet Patch of Freckles ... Oh My

Today, I am pumped (you'll see why later) to turn the blog over to the talented and witty Sarah Hina.

Sarah's first novel Plum Blossoms In Paris is now available.

Before I was an author, I was a medical school dropout. And before I was a dropout, I had to survive that first-year crucible known as Gross Anatomy.

The same could not be said, of course, for the cadaver before me.

But the worst part about the class was not, in fact, the dead body I dissected, examined, and whose vast and interlacing brachial plexus fired and exhausted the muscles of my short-term memory. It was not the panic twitching my own nerves on exam days. It wasn’t even the “slop bucket” at the end of each table, whose purpose wants no elaboration.

No, the worst part was the formaldehyde.

The stuff permeated everything. I licked it from the roof of my mouth. It clung to my scrubs and infected my hamper. With every inhalation, it scoured my lungs. In my mind, the fixative quickly became Eau de Death. Glancing at the clock at the front of the classroom, I wondered how many hours I’d have to stand there before my tissue similarly petrified. Wondering such things distracted me, you see, from the 90-year-old man with the bag covering his face, whose life and dreams I knew nothing about, but whose body I knew more intimately than anyone he’d ever known, held, kissed or loved.

Still, I did wonder. Outside of the classroom, too. Formaldehyde did nothing to stiffen my resolve to become a physician or to staunch the flow of my imagination. The man’s swollen knuckles knotted large hands (a laborer, maybe?). There was a scar on his arm (a careless moment with a machine?). He had a sweet patch of freckles on his neck (summers spent outside). A fatty liver (beers wit

h the summers spent outside).

Inflatable tubes in his penis.

This was in the days before Viagra. But men still needed sex; they still deserved to feel vital and passionate. Only now, his erectile dysfunction—this tender secret he harbored (along with his wife)—was dissected and laid bare for the giggles and stares of a swarm of twentysomethings whose own arousal came as cheap and plentiful as oxygen.

Don’t get me wrong—I laughed, too, at first. It was unexpected. Slightly shocking, even. But after the jolt of that first, nervous guffaw, and as seconds melted off the clock, my mood shifted. I was bothered. Irritated. Angry at some of my classmates for only seeing a couple of punch lines at the end of some spongiform tissue, where I knew there nested a touching vulnerability.

His cause of death? A Sharpie on the body bag had scrawled, “Alzheimer’s.” It wasn’t enough. Not then, not now.

I never went so far as to name him. That was not my right. But looking back, he was the most important part of my medical school education. Not his anatomy, which I was entirely too incurious about to become a good doctor, but him. Whatever it was that cleaved body to soul, and which had flown into the ether upon his passing. Above my scalpel, beyond any fixative.

He was the first character to jumpstart my writer’s heart.

He beats there still.

And a blurb from Sarah's recently released novel ... Plum Blossoms In Paris

Post-grad neuroscience student Daisy Lockhart has never been short on brains, but after her longtime boyfriend dumps her through e-mail, she is short on dreams. Alone for the first time in six years, Daisy allows herself to finally be an individual instead of half of a couple. On a mission towards self-discovery, new adventures, and healing her wounded soul, Daisy travels to Paris. Upon her arrival, she meets Mathieu, a mysterious intellectual with a carefree spirit, and Daisy begins to experience the passion and the fulfillment she craves. Daisy's tense battle between possible love and her newly found freedom forces her to decide what she really wants.

Go buy Sarah's book. Now. You won't be sorry. Also swing by Sarah's blog. Stay awhile. Read her thoughts. Again, you won't be sorry.

Crime Doesn't Pay - A My Town Monday Post

I'm trying something a bit different for this My town Monday post. I'm going to rely on my skills as a storyteller to share a rather macabre tale.

He hailed from Childress, Texas. A town a hundred and ten miles southeast of Amarillo. He worked for a cement company, but he was damn sick of both the job and the town. Miller was his name. G.R. Miller. No one needed to know what the letters stood for.

Maybe it was spring fever. Maybe it was the wanderlust of a crazed man. Hell, maybe it was the desperate need of adventure, but when the opportunity presented itself Miller walked away from his job. But not before making off with some of the companies explosives.

Knowing he would get caught if he stuck around town, miller headed for a relatives house where he stole a .38 caliber pistol. The pistol was a hell of a lot more practical weapon on a crime spree so Miller placed the stolen explosives underneath the house where he had stolen the gun.

He caught a train out of town as a cloud of black smoke filled the air.

But he wasn't alone on the westbound freight train. Discovering two youths he shot the first in the back and then took aim on the second. the boy leapt from the train as Miller plugged him in the leg. Miller shoved the first boy's lifeless body from the train as it rumbled over the sandy bed of the Red River.

Unaware he was dealing with a murders a brakemen discovered Miller when the train stopped in the small town of Memphis Texas. The brakeman ordered Miller off the train but the criminal hopped right back aboard a different freight car when the train began to pull out of town.

Again, he wasn't the only stowaway. This time Miller shot a man in the head while he played his harmonica. But the music lover's friend managed to escape through the open door. Crawling along the tops of the cars he reached the engineer and relayed what had happened.

Miller jumped off the train between the towns of Hedley and Giles but was soon caught by Donley Counties finest.

G.R. Miller was tried for the first murder and found guilty. He was given life and sent to Huntsville. He served several months before being returned to Clarendon, Texas, 60 miles southeast of Amarillo to be tried for the second murder. Again Miller was found guilt but this time the judge sentenced him to death.

With the exception of finding so many people hopping trains this could be a story from yesterdays newspaper. However my tale is a bit older. it is from '09. Not 2009 but 1909.

G.R. Miller stole that dynamite, and gun blew up that house, and murders those folks more than a hundred years ago. In doing so he earned the infamous title of being the last man hanged in the Texas Panhandle.

Known far and wide as Saints' Roost in Old West times, Clarendon, Texas was not a town for even the mildest of outlaws. There was no saloon, no drinking at all. Per the rules of it's founder, a Methodist Clergyman.

Come execution day the town swelled ten times in population. Matter of fact the crowd around the scaffold became so large and mob-like a construction crew building a new road was forced to abandon their work for the day. (actually I'm wondering if road crews then were like those today and readily took the first excuse not to work that came along)

People flooded into town via train, buggies, on foot, on horseback and in wagons. it was said that every man and boy for miles was in town that day. Women were not allowed to attend the hanging and to make certain they did not witness the event all females were sequestered to the wagon yard until the lever was pulled.

Newspaper reports described Miller as tall, dark and handsome. They said he was led onto the platform by a Catholic priest and a protestant minister.

Allowed a few final words Miller said, "All you children be good."

At 11 Am on June 3rd 1910, G.R. Miller breathed his last breath.

The crowd then rushed forward straining to get a better look at the body. The masses pushed and shoved destroying the makeshift platform. eventually the deceased was carried away in a hearse. But the wagon was too short, so his feet stuck out for all to see.

Below I will include a list of this week's fellow My Town Mondayers once they get their posts up. Please visit their towns and feel free to leave a link and join us if you you have something interesting to say about your chunk of the world.
The official My Town Monday Blog can be found here.

Terri Moran parks it in Queens, New York.
Gabriele Goldstone has a festive time in Winnipeg, Canada.
J Winter scales castle walls in Loveland, Ohio.
Theresa Milstein takes us to Northport, New York.
Richard Levangie gives us Canada's Cape Breton Highlands.
Debra Bures celebrates Village of Peninsula, Ohio's python days.
Barbara Martin chugs through Canada's Kicking Horse Pass.
Barrie Summy talks about the glass half full vs the glass half empty in San Diego, California.

I Ain't Lion

Two of my past My Town Mondays have been about the Amarillo Zoo and The Big Texan Steak Ranch. This week I am combining the two.

The Big Texan is world famous for it's 72 ounce steak. The restaurant has been featured in movies television shows, and magazines.

The Amarillo Zoo while far from famous has made drastic improvements in recent years, including the addition of African lions.

As part of the local Independence Day celebration the zoo hosted Red , White and Zoo days this past Saturday. As part of that celebration Solomon, the zoo's resident male lion took part in a challenge ... to break the 90 second record time for consuming the 72.oz steak. A Bengal tiger set that record back in the 70's. (Competitive eater, Joey Chestnut holds the human record time of 8 minutes and 52 seconds.)

For Solomon's attempt I was there taking video with my phone.

This first video is a shot of a Big Texan employee showing everyone what a 72oz steak looks like.




Solomon was an eager participant, coming out of the gates and going right for the meat.



But ... the 90 second mark came and went and still the lion was eating.

At 2 minutes 11 seconds Solomon finished off the steak and went on the prowl for more.



For more My Town Monday posts hop on over to the official My Town Monday Blog.