Sorry Buddha, I'd Rather NOT be Awake.

One thing about getting older is that your immune system is up to snuff. After years of assaults, your immunity has file after file on all those various bacteria and viruses. When I was much younger, I was taken out time and again by every virus that came along. I was inexperienced with them all. Being older now, I have been lucky these past few years though as I haven't been really sick at all. Until, you meet up with something your immune system hasn't met before. “Hi Ron? This is 340.b1H rhinovirus..we haven't met! I'll be staying about five days! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Then your immune system has to take a few days to recognize this intruder and beat it's ass. But it takes a few days dammit.

It's been nearly four years since I've been smack-down sick with a flu or respiratory illness. Thank God! But after four years, I forgot just what it's like. I forgot how spacey, out of it and “2 seconds behind it all” I can get when my head is full of snot. Then there are the dreams. There's nothing more vivid than dreams you have when your sick. They just don't compare to the ones you have when you're feeling well. It's not necessarily nightmares at all but the subject matter of them are plain bizarre. Newer “movies” for just when you feel ill. I sleep fitfully when sick, waking up after each dream wondering, “What the fuck was that about?” Then'll I'll have a sneezing session, spraying goo all over a towel I keep by the bed just in case. A designated terry cloth towel is far better than damn Kleenex, I can tell you. Want the logistics of it? Kleenex can't hold gallons of snot, but a towel can! I roll over and beg to pass out again for a couple hours more then wake up to a dream about cutting shale rock out of a quarry in New Hampshire in the rain. I had that one last night. Why? Don't ask me, ask the virus. I haven't dreamt this particular scene but it's weird enough to qualify.

One thing about owning pets, especially cats, is that you learn from them. A cat when sick, will curl up into a ball and sleep even more so. I do the same if I can. Move little and try to remain unconscious as long as possible. Great advice. No ibuprophen can remove the misery like losing consciousness can when you fall asleep. If you can't sleep, do what I do if you have the time...sit and stare into and out past your TV set into the Great Beyond. Simply just space out. It can be a silly soap opera, as long as you have something to barely focus upon, you then can get the 1000 Yard Stare and then go numb, relieving you of any immediate knowledge of how infirm you are. With practice, you can get it to last five minutes or so. Hey, anything that works huh?

But you can't do that all the time can you? Life calls on you still. So you drag yourself through the day but with a totally different outlook because everything is filtered through your affliction. All things are balanced against how you feel at that moment. Keeping mentally sharp becomes a chore because it requires energy and effort. So you are always judging what task you can modify, just somewhat if you can, in order to make things easier on yourself. I swear it's a minute to minute thing at times. Something simple as driving is effected too.

I was driving home from work and usually I keep at a steady, quick pace. I also tend to space out as I've driven this route a billion times so I know it like the back of my hand. Not last night though. I was driving a good deal less faster because a tiny part of my brain said: “You want to break down, get into an accident on the side of 95? You want to be delayed and sick? Want to find a ride home after?” My mission became, as simple as it is, to get home safely. So I could crawl into bed and beg for a coma to arrive. I also realized that it's dangerous to shove a towel onto your face during a long sneezing fit while driving. The new order of the day becomes, “Fuck that, I need to keep my eyes on the road and if I splatter snot all over the dashboard, so be it.” Hell, I was swerving some even as I was sneezing like banshee, but at least I could see I was.

Common sense takes over fast when these smaller emergencies arise, like being under the weather. You strip away a lot of niceties and anything else that may hinder your goal of trying to feel better. Etiquette? Screw that!

It's funny how personal memories that are important to you, even if mundane, when they crop up when you repeat something from your long since past. I had the same thoughts as I drove home one late winter night, during a major snowstorm in '87, from Route 37 onto 95. I was working in Western Cranston then. All I could think about was getting this ship through the storm to the safe harbor of my driveway. The last thing I wanted was to shovel out my car from some snowbank while coughing, sneezing and feeling like shit to begin with. Cat philosophy again. Find shelter safely, so you can curl up and pass out. I couldn't do that in a snow filled ravine on Rt 37. So I drove very, very carefully.

I made it home to my driveway and sat in the car a good five minutes with it running, the heater blasting. I just have a few more yards to go but the thought of going out into that snow blasting wind made me wait a bit. Going from super hot dry air in a car to that raw cold wind will make me cough, due to the sudden change as I breathed it in. I, guy-like again, sat there to steel myself in order to plunge into those last few yards to the kitchen door. I was aching, tired and used that pissy feeling to finally motivate me to slog through that 20 inches of snow at midnight. I got that key into the door and finally, a safe harbor! I doffed all that clothing and into bed, curled up like a kitty to forget it all. Hibernation time! My last thoughts were of shoveling the driveway and sidewalk tomorrow...and how I was NOT going to do it. I banished from my mind any responsibility as the main one now was to rest.

I make this admission too, guys are babies when it comes to chronic pain. You can slice our arm with barbed wire, create a viciously bright pain that'll last all of two seconds and we can stand it, so long as we can steel ourselves against it. We excel at tolerating acute pain. But hit us with a nagging, taxing smaller pains that lasts days, and we bitch. We guys have no experience with dealing with periods every damn month..so no mental steeliness to deal with that. You girls win that battle of tolerating nagging pain w/o bitching about it. You've been doing it since you were thirteen.

Hey, this entire entry is about my whining and bitching about being sick. So what, I can!

Ran Out of Xmas Stories, So Here's This...

As a conversation starter, I have asked others what was your best Christmas gift? The responses are pretty varied and not always about something silly expensive either.

I began to think over the years what great presents I got as a kid, teen and adult and a few stick out, other years I draw a complete blank.

5 years old: Lite Brite. To me this was magic. I also have a great memory of my Mom and I sitting in the dark, with her teaching me how to shove the pegs into the patterned paper that came with the set up.

6 years old? No clue.

7 years old? No clue.

8 years old? No clue...see a pattern?

9 years old? Still no clue.

10 years old. Ah! A shitload of WW2 Revel and Monogram plastic models of aircraft I could glue together. The funny thing, my Dad took half of them w/o my say so and sat at the kitchen table putting them together himself. I think he was reliving HIS childhood a bit there. To see a 44 year old man painstakingly glue models together and then, w/o knowing his son was looking, use his hand to fly them around the kitchen table like his own son would, was fun to see. My Dad didn't make any engine or machine gun noises though.

11 years old: My dad, thinking that my love of aviation was a key, got me one of those cable controlled P51 fighter planes. It was a real fuel powered plane you could fly. I tried getting the engine started but to no avail. The thing had to be charged with a battery, filled with fuel (kerosene) and you kept cranking the propeller till it “caught” and ran. My Dad realized my skinny 11 year old arms weren't cranking it fast enough so he tried, whereby he got it running and slit the shit out his fingers when the prop blade started running. This was then when toys were made out of REAL steel.

12 year old. I was on a mission since July. I had played around with a bb gun owned by a friend a block over and realized, I had to have one. I spent the rest of the year buttering up Dad and manipulating him as well as I could to get one. I did succeed at it. I never shot my eye out but did chip my front tooth on a ricochet that I hid from my Mom successfully for two weeks...then lied through that chipped tooth about how it got chipped. God forbid I let my parents know they were RIGHT. It wasn't a bad chip, but any deformation in a child's face will be immediately noticed by a MOM, no matter how small.

13? No clue.

14-15. Still no clue.

16 year of age was a major cutoff. This is when I found out getting clothes for Xmas was a great gift. As a kid, you'd get clothing but it was no fun at all. Socks? Underwear? Big Goddamn Deal. You still had to thank your Aunt Bertha for it anyway, even though you hated the gift. At 16 I received a gray Merino wool sweater and realized this: I didn't have to buy it! I got a free killer piece of clothing that I didn't have to buy. Christmas's became adult oriented now. Free clothing? Free gas cards? Sign me up!

16 was also the first year I learned to hate snow. I found out driving in it was a major pain in the ass.

17 on up..well, more adult gifts that I don't remember either.

The best gifts I ever gave? I can say a couple that I thought were hits right out of the park because I put thought into them, even though they weren't pricey at all.

One was a four page letter to a friend of why we were friends...a tell all, a signed confession of sorts explaining why I thought she was a great friend to have in the first place. That brought tears. Slammed that one out into the parking lot!

A second gift, to another girl, was when I found out about her love for a childhood doll she had lost when she was 17. She had said it was a favorite and saddened she threw it out because she thought she was “growing up” and didn't need to have old toys around anymore.

Luckily for me at the time, the internet was born and eBay was up and running. I found the doll, bought it and made a gift of it to her. It wasn't the exact one but still, the same box, same doll she got when she was 9. That stunned her when she opened it up.

Gift I Have Given Because I was too Lazy to Put Any Thought into Them.

Of course, my Mom took the brunt of that at times. When I was going to RIC, I was also working part time, had just finished up exams and was pressed for time. I swore I'd shop for those two when I got the chance. I did shop, late in the afternoon on Xmas eve.

My brother was easy, any six pack of the right gauge guitar strings, some effects pedals would work the charm. In order to do this because I knew shit about guitars, I had to kidnap his Strat and take it to the music store. At Ray Mullin's, a music store in downtown Pawtucket, I opened the case to show the salesman just what kind of strings it needed. The guy picks it up, stares and then says, “These are Gibson Humbucker pickups! A two coil and single! Who modified this guitar? Do you want to sell it? I can offer $1,300 right now!”

“Ummm..he reworked it...can I get some strings for it?...” I felt like I walked into a pawn shop, unknowingly carrying a Stradivarius violin and was about to be flim flammed.

My mother was tougher. She already had a lifetime supply of Lipton's Tea and Newport cigarettes, the two things she needed to make life happy. (Shit, I just thought of something pertaining to myself!

Never mind...)

Anyways, I was scouring the aisles in the old Apex store by 95 in Pawtucket when I found this interesting glass cut lantern you filled with scented oil. It did work, nice flame an all and spewed out enough perfumed stench to cover up cat piss. The store would close in 10 minutes and I bought it on the spot. My Mom opened it on Xmas morning and said..”Oh..this is nice.” Translation: “What the FUCK is this?”

I can't say my gifts to Mom were all horrible or dull. That prize goes to my brother who bought, w/o fail, each year, for years, the same $25 Cherry and Webb gift coin for her.

Ron and LeeAnn with Her Dog after the War.

“Well, we'll never know will we? We could've had a life together. Now we're in our early 50's.” she laments.

“How do you know it would've worked? That's “supposing” a lot and if everything worked out well. God knows how things work out...the chances, the variables...you just don't know how it would've.”

“I knew it would've. Just seeing you holding the baby...I saw a family here you know. You would've made a great Dad.”

I think, “Oh girl...no, no...I wouldn't have. I have too much of my own dad, Richard, in me. I would've instilled into that kid a hardcore, mercenary mentality that would rear it's head in an instant when provoked. I could turn that kid into seething, snarling wolf hell-bent on self preservation at all costs.”

This conversation refers to an old memory from 1987, sitting by a small Merry Go Round in Slater Park. One of those old Loof carousels. An early summer evening romp in the park which I remember pretty well, carrying an infant. It's funny how certain snippets stay with you. The baby I was holding is a 25 year old man now.

25 years..shit. Long time ain't it?

“Never got married...I always thought you might.” she goes on.

“You got married twice..how did that work out?” I say. In the past 25 years, she's been through a slew of boyfriends, married two, divorced two and I almost asked, “was it worth it?,” but I didn't because I've learned to keep my damn mouth shut now. What I wanted to say, was that her life, was a line of crashed relationships, one after the other, like a twenty mile long line of sixteen large craters dug out by 757's that plowed straight into the Earth.

“Look LeAnn, the only time I was hot for marriage, a long term relationship was when I was in my twenties. But that's natural, to think that as a young man, you're programmed to do so. By the time I hit 30, that motivation petered out. I preferred to be alone. And Christ...look at the people I know today, divorce cases that have gone DEFCON 1 with strategic missiles flying, guided by lawyers. I know many cheating spouses or worse...staying together even though the marriage died years ago.”

“You don't believe in love?”

“I do, still do, but I never believed in the Disney version...you did though. You go all in with a guy, focusing on only his positive traits and none of the negatives, which we all have.” I say

“Don't you remember then? In my core, I've always was more comfortable to be alone. In fact, I was always like that, even since I was a kid. I can count my closest friends on one hand, less than 3 fingers and they've been with me for over 30 years. My relationships were always about “fun.” I don't mean using others to have fun, more of a mutual agreement to have a summer romp and that's it. I enjoy it as long as it'll last.”

“Like that girl from Colorado?” she nearly sneers.

“Yep.”

“You offered a stable family home, a safe environment...I like getting on roller coasters.” I say. And it was true. She knew it too.

“Look, girls to me were lines of cocaine, a fast ride, an adrenalin rush. I could pack a lifetime with one into less than a summer. Then I get bored and I want my alone time. When I felt like it, I'd come out again.”

She thinks and then says, “You never knew what a family was you know. I see how you acted around mine, others and you just don't 'get it.' You raised yourself because you had to and then grew up too early, experienced all of adulthood, an entire life, by the time you were 14. I swear I only know half the stuff you did at 14, the other half you'll take to your grave. You had no need of a family, or perhaps, you learned to live without.”

“Ahhhhh” I say as I shoot a knowing look at her. Good observations.

**

It's funny how after years and distance, the past romances that had any significance, still sort of have a tiny spark left in them. The years haven't washed away the dynamic that was between them. You pick up where you left off in a way. How odd is it, that after twenty some years, I still am in contact.

Sticks and Stone May Break My Bones, but Names Will Never Hurt Me

I always thought is was just our crew in the neighborhood where everyone had a nickname. I found out as my world expanded to include school, others too had them. Most nicknames were indicative of some particular trait about the person, others meaningless and others just plain mean spirited.

I'll start with my own, Barroter. You pronounce it like this “buh-RAH-tah.” I won that name when I was four years old, given to me by the only boy of the Mayor of Pawtucket, who lived next door.

For years I pestered people to explain what it meant. No one knew or if they knew, didn't tell me to infuriate me. I finally did get an explanation from the two single brothers who lived on the corner of our street, whose name we perverted from “the Dempsey's” to the sillier sounding “Dumpseys.”

I do not remember this but many others have confirmed it. Waaaay back then, when you could let your kids roam without harm and leave your doors unlocked, I would like to invite myself into other's homes to say “Hi” or just hang out. No knock, no doorbell, I'd just let myself in. One lady was finishing up her shower when I yelled “HI” to her, startling the hell out of her in her oversized towel.

Finally, one neighbor led me home to deposit me where I belonged, telling my Mom, jokingly, I was a “marauder.” This story made its way around the neighborhood and “Red,” the boy-son of the Mayor noticed that I had a horrible time of trying to say the word “marauder.” He kept ribbing me to say it right and when you're 4 years old, you take up the challenge.

Do you know how hard it is to speak English when half your teeth are missing? I was that kind of kid then, even my baby teeth were falling out or more generally pulled out. I said the word “three” as “free” because you can't make the “th” sound w/o your front two teeth, so you wing it as close as you can. Blame lousy Irish tooth genes, and probably candy and soda.

“Marauder” came out of my mouth with a “b” sounding first letter. I don't know what the hell I was thinking or trying to do while trying to say “m.”

“Mmm-Barauder.” I said perhaps?

Anyway, the crew of kids standing there, egged on by the Mayor's son, laughed. For days after, he would call me Barroter and then wrote it in the sand. That's how I know the spelling of my nickname!

I'm 51 now and still they call me Barroter.

“”Red” who I mentioned, lived next door was the son of Robert Burns, a one or two time mayor of Pawtucket then. Red, you can guess, had this pile of deep auburn reddish hair and one of those red freckled spotted faces. When angry, his face was the color of blood.

My brother's nickname was “May.” It had nothing to do with the month, just the first syllable of our last name. Kinda boring I think.

“Ears” was a kid down the street who had Dumbo type ears that really stuck out. In 1972, his Dad won a small lottery and paid to have some plastic surgery done to crop them back. We further tormented him by changing his nick to “Crop,” but it never did last beyond a year.

“Ricardo Mental Bomb,” (Richardo Montalban) was this kid, who I didn't realize then, but suspected a bit, who wasn't entirely wrapped too tight. The older kids on our street would comment on his weird, sadistic nature and penchant for cruelly executing bugs he captured.

I will say they might have been right to name him this. One time, I overheard his own mother chewing him out for stealing out the coin jar, to buy candy. “You're NO GOOD! We TRY with you! There's always something WRONG with you!” At nine years old, I began to suspect that this kid's Mom may have been right, this kid did have a hint of evil in him.

“Runty,” wasn't a runt at all. He was one of those boys that had pecs and that typical He Man triangular shape to his upper bodybefore he hit puberty. I suppose he could pose for a Beefcake calendar at the age of ten. He had a twin brother, Pork Chop and I can't for the life of me figure out why they named him that. I figured it was his desire to eat pork?

“Keen-Eyes” was a family on the other street where all the kids have the same shaped eyes. They weren't misshapen nor disfigured but was one of those instances where a family trait was startlingly shared by all. It would be like a family that all shared the same giant nose, blond hair or some other feature that identified them from that clan.

“Dirt Bomb” was a close friend of my brother. He came from a giant, Irish bruiser type family. He would back you up in any fight, even if it meant he'd lose. No matter, I think he enjoyed it. His particular trait was that he was dirty nearly 99% of the time. His hair was a mess, his face covered in dirt, paint, grease whatnot and the clothing he wore, was once clean when he put it on but a few hours later it too was covered in the same stuff that was on his face. The shocker for me was when he became an altar boy. He would come over to our house after service and was still clean. I guess his parents and the parish priest ordered him to remain somewhat decent for those few hours only.

“Stinky Midget.” Now that was a mean one. Stinky was the father of one of us who unfortunately was one of those men who never grew past five foot two. He perpetually wore a green Dickie uniform that made him look like a janitor. If you got close to him, he had a miasma that reminded you of mildew, foul cigars and sweat. He'd drive by in his giant Cadillac when coming home from work and of course, we brats would yell out, Stinky! Stinky Midget! God, you cannot get away with this in today's world, huh? This would be called a micro-aggression and all of us kids would be in therapy.

“Herr Himmler” was an innocent neighbor across the street. When we found out he married a German wife and his back story of helping WW2 German civilians immigrate to Rhode Island after the war, we slapped the moniker of ex-Nazi upon him. Unfair? Yes. But we couldn't help but to fantasize silly stories about him and how he harbored the last of the Nazi circle in his cellar. It didn't help that we saw him drink beer out of beer stein the size of a fire hydrant at times. Every summer, he'd be on his front steps with this beer mug that looked like it was carved in manner similar to a Bavarian cuckoo clock.

In truth, he was really a nice guy. I attended his funeral a few years back and listened to a eulogy done by Alois Adenaur, who nearly was crying when he recounted the story of how “Himmler,” after WW2, sponsored a bunch of German families to come over to the US to start their lives anew. Germany was smashed to pieces back then, life sucked. He brought some out.

I just thought of this one. My own Mom had a nickname that wasn't given to her by her own sons. The other kids in the neighborhood had done it, “Goddammit Edith”

You have to be a person of the 70's to get it. “All in the Family” was the most popular show on and one character, Edith Bunker, was this well meaning, compassionate but ignorant housewife. Archie Bunker was forever berating her for not taking things on the uptake quick enough. My brother and I would laugh to tears when some kids would mimic our Dad bitching our Mom out with the Archie Bunker voice.

It was overblown but there was a seed of truth in it.

Who other people, families did we rearrange the names? The Wompsleys, Schlutzs, The Classless-ies, Dumpsey's, the Nymphomaniacs (I'd love to tell you the derivation of that one, but they read this blog!).

I hate to say it, but by our teens, we boys, misogynistic as we were, nicknamed the girls according to their quickness with their sexual favors. That was balanced out though, by the girls naming the boys in a similar fashion too.

“End Table” was a short girl. End tables are used for placing lamps, books, beers upon. The joke was she was so short, she could give oral while you placed a beer can on her head.

“Lisa Wouldn't” This was a play on her last name of “Wood.” I can get away with this one because she's long since gone. Lisa needed a diamond ring on that finger before she gave away the store.

“Gator Mouth,” I leave that to you to figure out.

“Vise Grip.” I leave that to you to figure out as well. This girl had pelvic muscles that could crack a chestnut. There, I told you anyway.

“Crest or Colgate.” This girl had a toothbrush and tube paste at the ready. She carried it in her little purse 24/7.

“Mousetrap.” I won't name him because guys are really easily embarrassed by how quick they orgasm. He unfortunately would go off like a mousetrap if a girl touched him.

“Wet Bamboo.” Poor Bamboo...even as a teen boy he couldn't get fully hard as the girls said. I guess he'd be 80% of the way there, but like bamboo, it sways this way and that.

“Ah-ten-HUT!” That came from those old WW2 movies where an officer came into the room and someone would yell out “A ten HUT” (a mangled “attention!”) as message for all the enlisted to stand at attention. The girls sometimes feared Ah-ten-HUT, because apparently he, an Italian of course, had a dick the size of a log. I guess the girls figured they had to stand at attention and salute if he came into the room, out of respect.

I too, once had a sexual nickname. God...dare I tell it? Jesus...do I crucify my own self in this story? Do I let that cat out of the bag?

Well, when your a teen, your health is excellent. Everything works. You bleed easy and clot easy. You can race your heart up to 200 bpm w/o any fear of a heart attack. You're made of rubber and can bounce if you fall. Also, because your so young and healthy you can fill up an 8oz glass if...

8oz Glass. I'm lucky the nickname Barroter stuck with me for 50 something years, instead of the other

A Day in the Life

What can I talk of now? Memories? Syria? I run out of things..

So, here's a little diary for today.

December 1 2015:

Dearest Diary...

Today I woke up too damn early as I was planning on busily sleeping till later on. Ah well, if I'm up I'm up and might as well get the day started. First and foremost, take a piss. Add that to the other two I had to take during the night for eating salty foods the night before. After that, flip on stereo, computer; have a look out the window and by that time I was so tired I had to sit down. Har! Har!

Actually, I had to do all those boring house wifey things that weren't getting done before but now I have the free time. Laundry, buy some food as the fridge is bare, sort out the mail, etc. Living alone means I have no other to help with these things so it's up to me. If not, they sit there till I can get around to them. Also, I was planning on getting my hair cut as it was really very long now. I was starting to look like an 1850's New England School house teacher. Had I a rumpled black coat and hat, I could pull the look off. I wonder how you girls deal with hair in your eyes since you generally have longer hair? I find that it stings the hell out of your eyeballs if not trimmed up well enough. Those little hair ends poke like little knives.

I still go to a “real” barbershop. The ones you can imagine in your mind where it's all men and the walls have pictures of sports heroes, the magazines are either Guns & Ammo or the sluttiest women's fashion magazines meant to titillate the guys, who are waiting their turn. “Vogue” is a good one for that. I swear models are younger now, there was some girl, probably 14, biting on a nekclace of pearls while she showed off some summer dress, on a beach in Turks and Caicos. I guess when you hit 22 in the fashion industry, you're far “too old.”

I at times used to go to those Miss Fifi's Hair Surgeon boutiques where they charge you $$$$ to just “cut” my hair. After that I'm peppered to buy hair treatment products that cost an arm and a leg. I've only bought one, Vidal Sassoon shampoo...only because it smelt like candied coconuts. But I got tired of paying out that kind of money for a cut so I found my old barbershop, Lanni's.

My barber there is a young man and we hop from subject to subject on whatever. Alot of times about 4 wheeling, motorcycle and cars. But today for some reason, we were discussing strip clubs and his generation's lucky fact that those girls in his cohort are aggressive as hell. When I was his age, getting a girl to loosen up was like opening a live mussel, you needed an oyster knife.

He then mentioned that it was soo easy to find girls now. He started his dating scene when Facebook was coming online and he told me the boys would all hunt the girls down during the day during school and then meet up at Emerald Square mall during the night.

“Some nights, we guys could get six to seven of them to show up at the food court. The problem was that their Mom's or Dad's would pick them around 9 or 10 to go home...but some of them were sneakier than that and they were the fun ones.”

I sat there and thought all I had when I was 16 was a rotary phone...and no oyster knife.

I then mention something I had heard about, but since I'm older now and “not with it” when it comes to the latest fads in tech, that there's something called “Tinder” out there.

“Awwww DUDE! That's the BEST one! YOU GOTTA get it!” He was so enthusiastic about it too that the guy in the nest stall getting his hair cut gave his thumb's up when he overheard it.

“Hell, they're such pigs! All you do is swipe left or right on their pictures, whether you think they're cute or not and if they respond to you in kind, you can meet up!” Not only that, you can put in the parameter of just say you want to meet people in a 5 mile radius. It's soo cool!”

I then mention, ”I bet....bring a condom.”

“Wear five” the kid tells me.

He goes on rather cynically and with a knowing glance at me and further says. “You're generation opened the door....we are the ones feasting on it....the girls our age are way open and ready.”

Again I think if was born into the Tinder Age, say if I was just 18, I wouldn't need an oyster knife at all. Lucky bastards.

“There's a drawback at times.” The barber goes on. “I once met a high school teacher from Tolman on it.”

“Isn't that like trying to date your Mom?” I ask.

“No! No! She was just four years older than me but I get the point..it was weird going out with my English teacher from a few years back.”

I'd like to have Tinder-ed my own gov't studies teacher way back then...

 Lanni's. Still a Men's Club

How to Ruin Thanksgiving for Others.

Another Thanksgiving and I'm reminded of how I spent some of them in my youth, drunk as shit at 10AM watching St Ray's vs. Tolman High school battling it out at McCoy stadium. I wasn't the only inebriated teen there either, so don't point fingers. If we jailed every 15 year old boy who did stupid things, there'd be no 15 year old boys left. Do I have to drop names Mr. Cody?

I was never a big football fan due to the fact it's f'ing freezing out there in late November and I wasn't one for sitting in the stands for two hours suffering through it. Though exceptions were made for the Tday football game, plus cheap Popov vodka that we smuggled in. Funny thing about vodka, you still feel the cold but you don't care anymore.

I do remember my brother and I getting nasty looks by some of the older members in the crowd. The St Rays/Tolman football tradition, I suppose, was a family-friendly, upstanding, good clean fun event. Then came us two...or rather, we were the loudest of the drunks there that day. No, we were the funniest because of our ability to be sarcastic and ready with a riposte should someone hurl insults our way. Though I have to admit my brother was quicker and more creative a it, in the double entendre way.

“Tolman's very good at handling BALLS! My brother shouted out. The more intelligent heads whipped around to look at us, the ones who “got it.” The other dullards were just mumbling to themselves how we two were RUINING an almost religious event. Many “tsk tsks” were uttered.

“Crush them! Rip their lungs OUT! I cried out, trying to keep up with my brother.

“Rip their lungs out?” he guffawed.

The problem with those other people is that we had better seats this time around. The year before, we had the cheap seats in the upper galleries. This year, for a few bucks more, we were closer to the action and next to more respectable people instead of the pigs who inhabited the bargain basement seats.

We were, at least, supporters of the St Ray's team. We were in the Saint's side of the stadium...I think.

My brother spared NO ONE from his humor. His belief that all races, types and people were ripe for it, no matter how politically incorrect. Ah, political correctness hadn't been invented yet.

St Ray's football team in the early 80's had ONE black player. St. Ray's back then was as white as you could get but don't forget about those times too. Be that as it may, he was one of the best running backs that team had and was partly responsible for crushing Tolman time and again when those two teams met up.

Enough time as passed and I will tell this...

So, the Saints running back manages to grab the ball out of the air from a Tolman throw and return it nearly 80 yard to score a touchdown. As he was running my brother shouts out...

“Run boy! Run! RUN TO FREEDOM!”

We both laughed our asses off.

Was it racist? You bet it was. Was it funny? You bet it was. Ken eventually made a bit of a writing career out of humor for various Providence magazines. He was astute enough then to pare the harder humor back some. No moron he was. But in private his humor slashed everything and everyone. Before you go off and brand him a right wing ideologue, I can tell you he was a left wing pinko commie most of his life.

If I have to explain the joke...sigh..ok. Black guy running as fast as he could. Think of some slave running for the Yankee border as a Southern slave owner tries to catch his runaway slave.

But that comment wasn't what nearly got us into trouble.

We were close enough to the field and I noticed the Saint's cheerleaders freezing their nipples off most of the time. They would stand in a tight group, conserving their heat, with their visible breath fogging around them and barely talking. They looked sort of miserable to tell you the truth. When they mustered the energy to go out and do a routine and cheer, I watched them instead of the game. What struck me about them besides the bare legs, was how much makeup they pancaked onto themselves. It was a bit overdone. Lots of flaming red lipstick. No matter, I stared at one anorexic looking cheerleader, through my drunken haze, trying to remember which class she and I were in.

“Wow..she's adorable.” I thought.

My brother, watching me and wasting no opportunity, shouts out: “Hey Saints...if ya win..the cheerleaders will...” and he trailed off, leaving it at that.

About thirty seconds later, he mentioned to me that we better change our seats. I was too drunk to notice the rising anger of the people around us, though my brother shrewdly noticed it. Perhaps some Father of a Cheerleader was near us?

We got up and left, looking for some empty seats in the cheaper sections. Those stadium stairs are at a pretty high angle and once we reached the budget seats, I took a tumble all the way back down those stairs. I was lucky though, I was wearing so many coats that they acted as buffers to the concrete steps.

All I heard was laughing from the crowd. My brother then comes down to get me, having to tell me what had happened because I was far too gooned to put two and two together.

“Why are they laughing?” I said, probably with a drunkard's smile on my face too.

We met a Mr. McKlonden there, a friend of Ken's and member of the old band the Felbs. He was dressed in a Santa suit and kept trying to tell me who he was but I was thrown by the costume and probably seeing double as well. I think he was having his fun by f'ing with the people in the crowd. I do remember him trying to kiss the other college aged girls around there as “gifts” from Santa.

**

The next Monday, we were all back at St Rays, having finished up that four day weekend. I was sitting in Ted Duluk's Human Anatomy class as he was discussing the effects of Rx on the liver when he veered a bit off and spoke of the effects of alcohol on the liver and brain. I'm paraphrasing but this is close.

“You see, it takes the liver a while to process alcohol from your body, until then, you're brain is turned to mush and act like the biggest fool that ever was.”

As he said the “biggest fool,” he shot his head around to me and the entire class started laughing. I swear I didn't “get it,” as I thought no one of importance really saw us there at the game. I then realized Mr. Duluk was sitting two rows behind my brother and I. The memory had came back.

“Oh yeah, he was sitting behind us.” Whoops.

Though in his heart of hearts, knowing Duluk as I knew him, he probably was giggling to himself at the comments we were making at the game.

Intestate

“Congratulations! You are now part of the 18% that have a will!” said my attorney back in '96. I had just finished being an executor of an estate, my mom's, and the final thing the lawyer wanted me to do was to draw up a will. 

Until you sit down and actually think about it, you really have to grapple with just you want to leave and to whom. It's not that easy. Not only that, time passes from when you put your John Hancock on the document and you realize you have to change it up again.

Why change it? Because the people you were going to leave stuff too turn out to be pig-dogs years later. I can't see leaving eight guitars to a chick I want nothing to do with now.

I've been named executor three times now in wills and have sat in court many times too to process them. It's boring but you have to make sure you dot all your i's and cross all your t's. If you don't the judge will rip you a new one. The thing I noticed about probate judges is that they really detest stupid people. I watched on judge tear into an executrix for not having half the documents needed. They give you nine months in RI to do that. PS. Keep your mouth shut and briefly answer ONLY the questions asked you. There really is no fucking around when it comes to this stuff.

So when you walk into that courtroom, have your shit wired tight at all times.

Know what's even spookier? Signing your own execution warrant. I have a power of attorney and a living will which says to yank the plug out of the wall should I become too demented to leap off the Rt 95 bridge myself, should I become too sick to do so and want out NOW. It's feels like James T Kirk giving the final code for the self destruct of the Enterprise. I finally signed it. Yikes!

I'll tell you this. Being executor gives you immense power over someone's estate. It also pisses the fuck off anyone else who wasn't named or mentioned in the will. I have received phone calls from others trying to grease their way into my brother's assets. “Oh, he would've wanted you to have that gold plated guitar signed by Jimi Hendrix?”

That last sentence is a bit hyperbolic but it ain't too far off of a phone call I got after my brother died. I sat there, with a shit eating grin on my face and drew out the conversation a bit more. It was time for fun. “Really? Ken said he hadn't talked to you in 18 years. He said he wanted you to have that Strat? When? 1983? Well, I hate to tell you but it's gone, sold in an estate sale I had to do about seven months ago.” I could swear I felt the disappointment come through the phone line. The Strat was sitting against the wall by my stereo setup.

Bastards. God. How they try.

**

I warn you all. Keep your eyes open when the funeral is over. They're very emotional times and everyone goes bananas. The sleazier ones will try to finagle something out of the estate and then get fuming mad when you alert them you've been appointed an “officer of the court” for a while and have ALL that backing to say “NO!” to them.

Here's a telling story about keeping your shit together and what happens when you don't.

My Mom, after her husband had died, became a pile of jello for a while. My brother and I had to run the ship around here for a while but we were both too young to have been appointed executors. She was appointed. Bad choice. But what the hell are you gonna do? She was at a loss for what to do, what lawyer to hire and had not the slightest idea on how to push this whole thing through court. She then mistakenly relied upon her oldest brother to find a lawyer and “help.”

Well, the probate went thought the court but for one thing that she found out months after it was finalized. $10,000 was missing. Thinking back on it, she remembered her brother and the lawyer he hired had come to Fatima hospital where she staying for a bit for stress. She signed a document while ripped to shit on drugs and barely remembered just what it was.

This is about as illegal as Hitler running a red light. Any lawyer getting caught doing this will have his testicles handed to him in court. If caught, of course.

But, she had no evidence to make her plea and being in the emotional state she was, wasn't about to mount a fight. But she never forgot. Neither did my brother or I.

I don't have to tell you that the closest people in your lives are perhaps the ones who love to shove that knife in your back, do I? Especially when an insurance policy comes due or a guitar is known to be available.

Get mercenary. Get prickish. Use that court appointed power like a baseball bat if needed and you find yourself in some screamfest family fight over dear dead ol' Dad's assets.

Keep your eyes open.

Oh, and get a will too. If you die intestate, your scumbag sister and her alcoholic husband can mount a claim against your estate and chisel off some of those assets meant for your wife and kids. No joke. I watched it happen once.

Trick or Treat!!

Another Halloween. If I buy the candy at the last minute, I can avoid eating it all and I have done that before. If there's a bag of Snickers lying on the kitchen table, it usually calls out my name, “Ron..just one...only one...there will be enough for the kids!”

A day later the empty bag is in the basket.

One Halloween, I ran out of candy as a line of little kids were lining up at my door. The worst thing to do would be to say, “Sorry, I'm out” and close the door and crush the innocent world of a little girl dressed up as the Ice Princess. So I got my junk bowl which was full of spare change and dumped some into her bag.

She shouts out:

“THANK YOU! HEY...THIS MAN'S GIVING OUT MONEY!”

The kids at the house next door came running when they overheard that.

So, I parceled out dimes, quarters, nickles and pennies just to be sure no one was disappointed. Once that gaggle of kids had moved on, I turned off the outside light, killed the living room light and hid.

Halloween Memories...Only about three which stick with me.

My first one I remember I was dressed as Casper the Ghost. The plastic face mask was great for holding in your breath's humidity and making your face sweat. The gown was good for tripping up on. Once I got home, the police, my Dad, went through the candy to make sure there weren't any razor blades, arsenic and such. While doing so, he deftly stole all the Necco Wafers he could find. I was OK with that as Necco wafers were disgusting. He could have all he wanted. That and the black licorice too.

My last time going out for Halloween was when I was 14. That was a tough one to pull off because I was about 5 foot 6 and weighing over 100bls. Most of the people's doors we rang questioned our group about our age.

“You're kinda big for a 12 year old huh?” they'd comment.

“Yeah, I get told that all the time in school.” I'd lie.

The funny thing is, these same 14 year olds will come to MY door on Halloween looking for free sweets. I look at them as robbers as this candy is for the little ones. Ah well, can I complain since I did it myself back then? No, but I now know what all those adults thought of us then when we did it.

The last memory was a pure teen one. Halloween meant partying and that's what we did. One of us had stolen from his parent's liquor cabinet a bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey. I had my own Jaquin's Peach Flavored Brandy which was good for a decent buzz. The rest of us had a sort of Pot Luck combination of beer, pot, wine...you get it.

While we were boozing it up on the corner of Hamlet and Legris by Perry's house (a cool guy about 10 years older than us. He never called the cops on us!), Mark M. finally demanded that the Irish whiskey be opened up. He then took a very brave teenagerish, looooong slug from the bottle. It looked like he was just drinking water. He then turned around and vomited it all up on the back of Jimmy's leather coat...which he was still wearing. The puke just ran down his coat onto the street. We were a bit amazed at the volume of it all

“Wow, that'a a lot! More than that dog pukes up that lives in McNulty's house!”

That was entertaining as none of us saw that coming.

In about 15 mins, Mark could barely walk. We watched him stumble the whole 20 yards to his front door and go in.

The next day, I was in my RIC classes, regretting I got home drunk around 3 AM.

So, that's it. All the memories that stuck with me. This doesn't include the adult nightclub/bar Halloweens were people try to dress up to win that prize and then puke in the parking lot after.