Finding Jimmy Hoffa Would Be Easier

 

 

I once watched a neighbor take a utility knife to a pair of half used Timberline boots and cut them to pieces then throw them into the garbage. “Why are you doing that? They look fine!” I tell him. He says they no longer fit and he “wasn't about to let anyone else enjoy this treasure for free, should they find it.”

“You chintzy, competitive un-Christain bastard.” I thought. “Can't let anyone else possibly rise in the world ahead of you huh? Even if it's something you can't use.”

You know who else is like this? Fishermen and I mean the weekend variety.

I used to fish but not that intensely. I had a cheap rod and bail reel from Benny's when it was still open. I did most of my fishing on the Ten Mile River or the Duck pond in Slater Park and you wouldn't want to eat anything coming out of either because the mud column in both have enough heavy metals to kill a wombat. Granted, the water itself has cleared up markedly over the years but that bottom mud...doesn't move...it stays...and that's where the arsenic, mercury and copper whatevers reside. Though tell that to the Vietnamese who fish there, they'll take anything home that's not glowing yet.

I had caught the first fish of my life when I was 10 by the Country club dam. It was just a sunfish but I was surprised the little bugger didn't want give up. It wasn't like netting a gold fish out of your aquarium. When I landed the sunfish, I thought it was Jonah the Whale. “Lookit the size of him!” I declared to J McK who was fishing alongside me. Of course, I'd say that, it was my first one. It's exciting!

As kids, we never needed licenses and DEM rules did not apply (because we said so!). We used Del Monte Nibblets corn as bait which would work wonders some days. If you didn't catch one of the three million sunfish there, it was catfish or pufferfish as we called them. It was pretty much catch and release for us as it was a lazy way to spend a summer day. Though we came across some rural Seekonk kids, when it was still farmland then ,who would catch a fish, shove a firecracker in his mouth and light it. The predictable SPLAT would happen and you'd see smoking, headless fish all curled up by the bank. Oh how they laughed! I wondered what they did to the pigs, sheep and cows back in Seekonk when they were bored.

As I got older I fished less and less as it became BORING. The only respite to that was going fishing in the same spots but it was an excuse to drink beer by the river bank with some others. I might cast two or three times and never really checked to see if the bait was hooked or lost. After a while, lying on my back became more important.

Now why some fishermen are jerks.

At a bar I once frequented, I'd get into conversations with others who, as 40 somethings, were still fishing, heavily. They had the gear, the john boats, the tool kit full of lures. line and everything you could possibly need. They.were.SERIOUS.

However...when I asked what kind of lures, where they fished, what times...they'd clam up like you were trying to get them to admit they boffed their first cousin at one time. They hid those deep STATE secrets like they were the encryption keys to our spy satellites.

“Oh...c'mon! I'm not asking about that favorite stump you fish off of, I just want to know what Manchester pond in Attleboro has...Perch? Bass, what lures do you use?”

I ain't kidding, they'd stare at me like I was speaking Korean.

After knowing them for several years, these drinking cohorts...they reacted to me like I just walked off the street. Change the subject and they'd get all chatty once more like nothing happened.

I found the same true of salt water types, surf casters. I was in Touisset point, on the Warren side when we came across some guy and his son surf casting around 10PM. We hung out about 50 feet away, watching and just talking to ourselves when he yanked a blue fish onto the shore. He tells his sun to get the “baseball bat” and come back fast. When the son handed off that bat, Dad started beating the fish about the head like a serial killer. We came up to him to see what he had landed I asked him why he murdered that fish like he did.

“I want him DEAD! I'm not putting my fingers into that toothy mouth to get my tackle back unless he's dead and gone!”

Ok..I get it. I was told later blues can snap your finger off if they want to.

As he was gutting the fish, I asked when they ran, what times of year. He looked up like I asked for his credit card number. No answer.

I guess I was a competitor for the six bluefish that inhabited the entire Narragansett Bay. Best to remain closed mouthed huh? He wants those last five for himself! How will he ever feed his family if I knew when blues run?

I still fish, probably once a year, but off the side of a largish craft that has cheeseburgers, a bar and beer if you're so inclined. Not only that, the captain barks out WHERE the fish are, how to get them and for a buck, will skin them for you too. My only complaint is that each time I go, I misread the summer sun's ability to fry me red, even though I have people hand me sunblock and I put it on scantily. Maybe next year I can smarten up.

And to those guys who still hoard their secret ponds, streams and 11PM fishing trips, would you mind if I tossed weighted M80's into the pond while you fished? It makes a really cool THUMP sound and the water sometimes gushes into a little geyser. Don't worry, I won't know where the fish really are...will I?

'78

 

 

I love it when you tell kids stories from your own youth and they doubtfully look at you. “Google it.” I tell them and still they don't really grasp it. As I have said before and it applies to us oldies too, if it happened before you were born, then it's a rumor, a fuzzy black and white photo of an event that had nothing to do with you whatsoever.

“The winds were pushing 100mph, I saw green lightning and when it was over, I saw my friends house had a drift up to it's roof.” I get the looks...”Green lightning? There's no such thing!”

“Yes there is.”

“No...there isn't!” they say.

**

We had been warned of a big snow storm would occur but it had started late and because of two blown forecasts in the weeks prior, no one believed this current one would be bad. Also, there was a big snow storm and ice storm in January and the odds didn't favor a third major one, or so we thought.

It had started to snow where I lived in Pawtucket around lunch time and it picked up it's pace pretty quickly. By 1PM, our principal at Goff, Mr. Forrest (aka “StoneFace”) was on the intercomm telling us they'd be letting us out in twenty minutes. You could hear the muffled cheering from the other classrooms all down the hall when they heard it.

Pat and I were walking home and I think we both didn't think too much of this storm. Sure, it was snowing pretty heavily but how could we outdo that one in January that dumped 20 inches on us? That one was a “every 10 year” variety storm. I had told him that we'd probably just have one day off at best, then back to school once more. We had both gotten home and then met up again with Jimmy,  by Zuba's house to fuck around. We watched it snow and after a while, we all looked at one another and admitted we were starting to freeze to death. The temperature had dropped steadily.

“You sick of this cold?” I asked

“Yep” Jimmy said and that was all I needed to wuss out and go home.

That rest of the afternoon I watched lousy soap operas and my brother had finally arrived home from Providence College and told us he had to weave in and out of stranded cars on 95. He was driving a 14 foot long Chrysler Impala that weighed as much as a tank so he could manage it home. He then took off to meet up with his friends at McManus's restaurant on Armistice for coffee and bagels. He came back in 20 minutes after the manager at McManus let his people go home too and closed the place up.

That night, I had kept going outside to get ahead of the snow piling up by shoveling and as I cleared the driveway, I'd look behind me and see a fresh inch had covered it. A friend of Zuba's, a Randy Grenier, was walking down our street and told me not to even bother. He had heard an update that we were getting over two feet. No I told him, we already had that kind of storm and the odds weren't favoring it at all. So I kept shoveling. Though I kept noticing my good work was being filled in as fast as I was clearing it.

After a while, I gave up. Why work so hard no avail? Randy was right.

Being 14 you still have a lot of kid in you. I had gone into the backyard and noticed some parts were already deep with snow from the wind piling it up. I had moved a five foot step ladder near one, climbed the ladder then hurled myself off it into the drift, knowing it would cushion my fall. It did. Yeah, dumb...but when your bored, cheap thrills work.

While I was doing that I can remember seeing some quick green flashes in the southern sky. What the hell was that? A few seconds later and the whole area around me lit up greenish again.

“Weird” I thought. I have never seen nor known of thundersnow. Let alone green lightning.

**

My Mom's story is a long one but I won't get into it here but only touch on it. It was 10:30 at night, I was passing through the kitchen when we both heard that weird swirling woosh in the sky above our house. You know that cheezy sound effect of blizzard winds you hear in some hokey Disney film, “Bounder the Wonder Dog of the Yukon Saves the Day?” Well, guess what, it does sound like that. It's very real.

To me it was exciting! “You hear THAT?” I told Mom. The look on her face wasn't of elation at all, but fear.

“I haven't heard that since I was a kid” she said. I knew what she was referring too, she had lived through the '38 hurricane. After that she just became real quiet, except to openly worry that if the power went out, so would our heating system.

After we went to bed, that wind just kept climbing and roaring. There were times when it would slam the house and you could feel it shake, like a low grade earthquake bumping into it. For some reason, I slept like a log throughout the night.

**

That next morning, I got up, tried to look out my bedroom window but it was pasted with snow. I went downstairs and tried to look out our picture window but that too was splattered. I went to the kitchen one and shouted out,”Look! The snow goes over and past our fences!” My brother had came by to look and he too was astonished. The snow was this flat blanket that went from our house, straight across and over our six foot fence into the neighbor's yard. There was no sign of the fence at all.

Being a kid, I just had to get out in it. So I suited myself up and opened the kitchen door and nope...you couldn't see out nor open it. I tried the front door and that too was buried. My brother had suggested that I climb out my mother's bedroom window.

“Why don't YOU climb out of it?” I told him.

“No, you're smaller, you'll fit!” he barks back.

So, we open the window and luckily the wind had bored out an area of less snow below it. I started to climb out, and with my brother shoving as hard as he could from behind, with some enjoyment, crammed me out till I fell into the snow below. POOF! Even though the wind had cleared a spot, it was deep enough still to soften my landing.

You can't walk through snow that deep, all I could do was fall forward, get up, and fall forward again. He kept yelling at me to find the snow shovel to dig out the kitchen door and surprisingly enough, I did find it, after digging down in the spot I knew I had left it. I made it to the kitchen door and started digging. I had that excited energy to really go at it but after a minute or two I tuckered out. Even then at 14 I was huffing and puffing.

I manage to dig out enough space so the kitchen door could be swung open and when my brother did just that. I told him, “Where are we going to go? Why shovel anymore?” From our small vantage point, all that was there was a field of static undulating snow. Acres of it from what I could see...and it started snowing again. It snowed for two days straight and a little on the third. A day later, I had shoved a yard stick into it and it sank below the grade. There was another half foot above that. Three and a half feet!

**

For two and half weeks, I was out of school and eventually so incredibly bored that I wanted it to start up again. I had my fill of daytime TV game shows, soap operas, awful British political shows on PBS that sitting in Mr. Doyles's history class seemed like a reprieve. Though I did enjoy sleeping as long as I could those days though. Finally the Army Corps of Engineers came through with one of the most massive front end loaders I had seen. It was painted Army olive drab with a big white star on the door and looked like the cab was 12 feet off the ground. It made only one pass down our street because that front bucket was wide enough. We were free to travel once again.

That was 43 years ago starting this afternoon...shit..43 years! I am sure if I told this same story to the 20 Somethings around here, I'd get....”Phfffff! Tell us another one old man!”

 

 

 

 Mr. Doyle, Great guy.  Some of you guys remember him. 70's turtle necks and greasy hair. Bit like Abraham Lincoln we all thought.

Stupid Kid Stuff and Stupid Adult As Well

Saw a cool “It Happened THEN” from NOAA's website, the great Cold Friday of 1810 that happened on this day. A cold front, a mean one, had come through and froze a bunch of people who weren't prepared for it. 

 

 

 

The coldest “cold” I've ever experienced was back woods Maine in the Carrabassett valley by Mt Sugarloaf. We all had joined up on one of those weekend bus skiing trips, my first one and it was a chance to party and try my luck on a pair of skis.

At the time then, my winter coat was a Navy Pea coat. It was 100% wool and fairly warm and cool looking...for Southern New England. Down here, you don't often get negative numbers on the thermometer and if you do, there's always a place to go inside within minutes.

So the bus makes it to the codos by Sugarloaf around 11PM, we all pile out as sitting in it for five hours was long enough. As we stretch, one of the local teens who works the ski resort starts to unload the suitcases and equipment from the side bottom of the bus into a nice pile.

As I stood there, waiting for him to grab my bag out, I noticed how different the air smelled, waaaay to antiseptic. There was that typical “clean” winter air smell but it was different to me this time. In a few more minutes more, I noticed I was shivering.

I turned to Tom, the guy I was working with at Equity Concepts, a mortgage company and said,

“Tom....I'm fucking freezin!” I was starting to shake even more now...and there was no wind at all, just perfectly still air. I was shocked at how quick it had happened.

The teen unloading the bus hears me, looks up and says, “Welcome to Maine!”

By the next morning, it had warmed up and not as cold. I was more worried about the gashes on my forehead from falling down so much as it was the first time I skied in my life. The guy they have at the bottom of the slope, managing the chair lift, looked like Wilfred Brimley with a pair of binoculars they used on the Apollo missions around his neck. When I trudged up to the chair lift, bleeding, he gives some advice.

“I was watching you come down, when you fall, don't fall forward on your face...fall backwards”

Thanks! It's a bit late now. I didn't know you could control a fall as you slide down a mountain. I had fallen 33 times, I know, I counted.

**

Another time I played with hypothermia was when I was about 12. Since we were city kids we hung out at a strip mall not too far from our houses. That day in December, Jim and I were riding our bikes in and out of the parked cars, just being kids who were good at that sort of thing and never did get run over by the other traffic.

It was cold but nothing I couldn't handle, so I thought. I had on those old corduroy winter jackets, now looking back on it, they did very little to keep you warm anyways and I wore no gloves. It was a overcast winter afternoon and not unlike a lot of others I knew.

After a couple of hours out there, annoying the drivers in the parking lot, I felt the insides of my wrists starting to sting. Well, that's not new, I've felt that before. Just ignore it. I wasn't about to go home because “I was cold” and seem like a big pussy to the other 12 year olds there.

That sting got worse..and worse. I put my hands inside of my armpits inside the jacket but that required unzipping it to do so, so I got cold further overall. I did that back and forth as long as I could stand having my jacket open a bit.

Then a glorious moment came...the sting went away! Wow, that's cool! We probably stayed there another 30 minutes and then broke up to go home.

I get in and take off the jacket and for some reason I notice the insides of my wrists. The skin is grey...and I mean GREY. Dead skin grey. My Mom notices me looking at it and comes over and sees it too, then feels it.

“Get that under cold water! Now!” she yells

I do that and that sting came right back except it felt like molten lead. After a while, the blood found it's way back in and the pink color had returned to the skin. No lasting damage at all.

I've told others of this and they said, “That wasn't frost bite, if it had been, there be dead skin rotting off you there in thick layers...that was frost NIP you had.”

“Nip? That's all? Felt like hell I can tell you.

**

I guess we were 12 again, later on in that same winter. Think I'd learn? Noooo! There had been a decent snowstorm and Jim and I got it into our heads to go to Slater Park to see what it looked like there after. As with most big storms here, they pull in that Canadian air behind them and it's teen cold but not that single digit stuff..most times.

I think we were on some fantasy trip, we were going to be like trekkers, going across the Yukon on foot. Out in the wild woods where the storm had to have been worse! It was also a bit of a challenge, who would wuss out first and want to go home.

It was amazing to me to see it though. Huge fields layered in that snow. The trees cracking as the wind whipped them. The sap froze in them and you could hear that CRACK as they bent. We tramped around for a couple of hours, just looking at it all. I can remember seeing a huge swath of snow being blow up by the wind, rising into air before it showered us. Cool!

By the time we got onto the middle of pond, we both were getting cold. We would do that you know, go out onto the ice and then stomp it to see if it would crack. There was no danger of drowning as the depth never was more than four feet deep there. After “testing” the ice, which was thickly solid, we both looked at one another with, “You done? I am..bet you are too.”

So we trudge back and that was the worst. We had to face that north west wind that wouldn't relent and I could feel that shiver coming one. We were not miles and miles from home at all, just on the edge of that forest that begins on the Massachusetts border, but you trudge through a foot of snow and it does slow you down.

We make it to Newport Ave and I tell Jim, “I'm going into that Newport Creamery, to warm up!” He agrees and we both go in, snow dusted and looking cold and stiff.

We stand there in the reception area and a waitress asked if we wanted a table. “Noooo, we just want to stand there and warm up.”

“Where were you? How long were you out for? She asks.

“The park, out on the ice, the woods...couple of hours.”

The manager happened to be walking by and hears this.

“Out in the woods? Out on the ice? Why?” he asks

“We wanted to see what it would be like after a snowstorm, how bad it was out there.” I tell him.

He rolls his eyes like any adult or parent would then tells us to sit at the counter and gives us free hot chocolate.

Today...you wouldn't see me forty feet from my car if I was in that park after a storm. I would gladly wuss out if it's that bad and can cowardly run back to my car to warm up.

 

Covid 'n' Lepers

 

 

I first learned of turning positive after being prompted to call Mike L upstairs around 5:30 in the afternoon. “Yeah, umm..Ron, you tested positive...you can't stay here.” I work in healthcare and if you are carrying the virus, you become persona non grata very quick. I could not stick around others who are on death's door for other medical reasons. They didn't need my viruses to usher them through the door of Eternal Peace. At that moment of the phone call, I had felt fine, just great.

I didn't have any of the usual symptoms and for two days straight I began to wonder if I was a false positive or had a very mild case. On the third day things changed. I began to have those tell tale body aches that have always signaled to me something was up. “Well, if this is all it is, I'm lucky,” I thought. That night, I awoke around 3AM with a coughing fit that was startling even to me. Why even to me? Because I've smoked like a chimney for decades. Yeah, I know, I should quit and I have before. But the this cough I was having was different this time. It wouldn't stop.

I sat on the edge of the bed and coughed non stop for 60 to 90 seconds straight. That doesn't sound like a long time but most people, even when sick, cough for a few seconds, then stop. I didn't. After three cycles of coughing like that, it stopped and I sat there sucking in air as fast as I could. It was then I was hit with a memory from 17 years ago.

My brother had cystic fibrosis and I remember seeing him, with both hands on the bathroom sink, coughing as long as this to hack out the pus and blood. Once he threw that mess into the sink, he'd stand there for a good minute, sucking in air as fast as he could. I thought that peculiar as I had never seen him breathe air in so fast before. I never asked about it for months till curiosity got me one day to ask.

He told me, “When I cough like that, I'm not getting 'air' and when it all stops, I breathe like hell to get it.”

I felt that at 3AM that night. You greedily suck in air like there isn't enough on the planet to satisfy you.

There was another thing I felt as that happened. Panic. Most times I've felt panic was in my gut. I've felt it as I locked up the brakes on 95 because some sleepless truck driver decided to cut in front of me w/o looking and I tried like hell not to slide under his trailer. THAT kind of panic really emanates from your gut, and boy, do you feel it. What I felt this time, was dead center of my chest. It felt like my heart, and all those important vessels that entwine your lungs were sending out SOS messages. A ball of panic right there. “WARNING!! Where's the oxygen????!!!” I now know what my brother felt and probably what people feel when they drown, incredible panic in your chest.

I had bouts of this for about three days till my immune system figured out a way to beat covid's ass. Then all was fine. I could chuck that into my “Things I Didn't Want to Have in My Bucket List but Get to Experience Anyway.”

*****

I found out what it means to be a leper too, in a small way because of covid. Weeks later, I had stopped off at my favorite Quickie Mart run by those Jordanians when I realized I was still wearing all that PPE on my head from work. They guy behind the counter mentioned it and I said, “Oh dammit, I wear this stuff all day long and I forget it's even on my head.” I handed him my money and nonchalantly say to him, “Ah, it doesn't matter anyway, I already had covid.”

He darts a look at me after putting the cash into the register and starts pumping gobs of hand sanitizer into his hands and rubs it in. I go on telling him what it was like to have covid then quickly realize, by reading his face, that I should shut the hell up. I then start trying to explain to him what antigens are all about and how I'm pretty much marked IMMUNE from covid here on out but no matter, I was a filthy disgusting leper to him.

I went to a different Quickie Mart for a week after to avoid any embarrassment and probably to the relief of that guy too.

So, I have had covid naturally and my body has developed a defense against it. I also have had the first series of the covid vaccination and that to my body is a booster shot. My body has been in the gym working out against covid and is probably all pumped up to slam down any covid that dares to pokes it's nose around the corner at me.

You do not need to avoid me now. I'm clear. I do not have to wave a bell and yell “Unclean! Unclean!” as I walk down the street like they used to make the lepers do, by law, in Medieval Europe of old.

 

Winner's Circle

 

“You'll die at a rate of two per year.” Sister Mary Elephant told our graduating class of 1982. Not at the ceremony mind you, but in her European history class. We all just looked aghast at her at that seeming improbability. But she was one of the “with it” and friendlier nuns at Saint Rays high school and we believed her, sort of. But that kill rate wouldn't kick in for a long, long time, so why pay any mind to it now when we were all eighteen.

Now it's 2020 and from what I can tell, five to six out of our 100 graduating class size are now dead. All due to illness and not spectacular car crashes nor scandalous drug overdoses. I suspect that “two per year” average will ramp up briskly after decades of doldrums where everyone had an easy time of it staying alive.

I had met Mike Mulligan, when we were 15, on my walk home from Saints on Walcott street. We happened to pace one another one day and started talking. On one of the walks home, I had shoved my foot in my mouth about car racing. I told Mike only 'tards and rednecks would be delighted with cars going around in circles for hours.

“Have you ever seen it live? Or driven a race car.” he asks me.

“Nope”'

“I have. I sometimes help a pit team at the Seekonk Speedway.”

At first I didn't believe him but as he kept talking about it, the words he was using and such seemed to lend credibility to him.

Whoops...Shoved Foot Into Mouth for the 303^rd Time. I was good for that when I was younger.

But Mike took my dismissive ways with a grain of salt.

For some reason we hit it off on some secondary, unsaid level. We both would try to one up one another on our “experiences” or what had done by the age of 15, trying to seem more adult. I had him beat on concert attendances and he had me beat at driving 150mph in a souped up Mustang. Looking back on all that, we both knew nothing about life nor was alive long enough to really bray about any substantial accomplishments. But that's what teen boys do, boast about our hot dogging ways.

He had me beat when it came to asking out girls. He did it first, before I had the guts to try it. There was one girl, an Italian/Greek girl with chinese black hair who I didn't really know but apparently was in our class. I was there to see him do it an unfortunately for him, she said “No.”

He had ran up to her while we were walking home and in a 70 second conversation with her I couldn't hear, I could tell it was a no go. He walked back to me like someone had stomped on his kitten. I felt bad for him really...and jealous, because he had the balls to try it. I tried to shore him up but it took a good week for him to heal himself from that sting. Teen love is hotter than hell but boy, ain't it sore as hell when it goes bad!

We graduated and as life has it, we floated to different parts of the world. I had seen him briefly while I was trying cross Armistice blvd, standing on the divider at a red light, he was stopped at it in a blue hopped up GMC pick up truck. The problem with that was that our conversation lasted two minutes till the red light changed and he had to drive off. He had joined the Army and was married. “Holy Shit” I thought, you moved fast! I was just attending classes at RIC and dated emotionally damaged girls as they were easy.

That was the last time I saw him.

Many years later we became “friends” on Facebook and I suggested we meet up again, as we literally lived blocks apart but he nixed that idea, saying he was too sick to do it. I initially thought it was a lame blow off but as I kept up with his Facebook posts, I found out he really wasn't in the best of health.

I saw various pictures he posted of himself and wow...was he ill with diabetes. I guess he had a severe enough case of it where if he ate 1/10^th of a Snickers bar he'd collapse into a coma in a minute. I barely recognized his face in those pictures, but eventually remembered his eyes...he was in there still, somewhere. It was Mike, for sure. 

I am told Mike died last week after years of being unwell. I then time warped back to when we were 15 and itching to grow up when we had all that great health, thinner, less scared skins and a more unblemished life. We were full of hope then for things that may happen to us, fun things, happy events. It wasn't always perfect but in general, we were in a better spot then, before life really gets you in it's teeth. And before you understand and accept, what limitations are.

“Two per year...” Sister Mary told us...wow...it's here now.

I spent a few young years on Top of the World with Mike, I'm glad I did.

 

 15 Year old Mike, at Seekonk Speedway. How I prefer to remember him

 

 

What's On the Horizon

On 60 Minutes, an interviewer is talking to Roger Waters about his The Wall Tour that was loading in in Boston. Roger is asked, “You're turning 70 in a few months, how can you possibly do this? A world tour?” He answered that for many years, due to aging, that his muscle strength had been waning. He added that his body stiffness was worse and he was advised to hire a personal trainer to whip his ass into shape before he'd begin touring again to slow that decrepitude that happens with anyone who is “getting on in years.” He said it worked.

OK, this piece has little to do with the concert, but it reminded me of what I'll have to be doing one day.

I'm prone to charley horses or plain ol' muscle cramps for years now, though they've been occurring more frequently. At first, they'd just hit the back of my legs and I'd be out of commission for 15 minutes till they passed. If they were bad, I'd have a feeling of a bruised muscle for a couple of days. Now, I can get them in my hands, arms, ribs (front and back) thighs, calves, feet and toes...yes toes!

Everyone has advice. And I thank theme for it. “Eat more bananas!” I hate real bananas though I love that fake banana flavor. “Drink more water!” I hate water since I was a kid because Pawtucket's water tastes like Six Flags waterpark pools, half of it is chlorine. The first time I had tap water that originated from the Scituate reservoir in 1987, I was slightly amazed. “Wow! This doesn't suck!” I thought. More advice...“You need to stretch more.” Well, yes, I've done it but now it's not easy to do Yoga on the floor, once I get down there, it's kinda hard to get back up again.

Everyone's probably right, if I did all those things perhaps the cramps would at least lessen. Though an interesting thing has occurred for over a decade and may have something to do with it. Every blood panel test I've had, my phosphorus levels comes in borderline low. Guess what happens if you have too little or too much phosphorus? Your muscles get bitchy and punish you.

**

I went on a fishing trip the other day with some old friends I probably hadn't seen in nearly a year. We were overdue meeting up and it turned out to be a good time as the fish were biting and getting out of my covid rut was nice too. I hadn't done “anything big” really since we were all locked down in March. The weather was perfect except for that mid July sun that turns Irish people into ashes. That would be me. I kinda knew I had better watch it but like the 2,402 times before, I forget how little it takes to make be turn red.

Deep water (somewhat deep) fishing requires you dropping a weight, hook and bait down 150-200 feet of water till it hits bottom. That's where the haddock and cod like to feed. So, you do that and wait for those short, quick tugs on the line and pole and you try to snag that hook good into his mouth. The next part is fun.

If you get a definite bite and mostly you can tell, you have to reel that baby to the surface. Your reel, with each revolution, probably only pulls in 6 inches at a time, so you're reeling for a while when you consider 200 feet, or 2,400 inches.

On a later fish I thought I had caught, I was reeling, reeling away with my right arm. I stopped a bit because I could feel my right hand starting get stiff from doing it and because I stopped, the muscles in my right forearm relaxed and then decide to yank all at once as hard as they can.

“Fuck...here's another one.” I think

Since I've been through it before I know that in 10 minutes it'll fade and loosen up again, but boy, does it feel like hell. When your muscles contract all at once, they tend to move the appendage lower than they into a weird contorted form. My forearm muscles yanked my hand all the way up and back as far as it could go. I have no decision in this matter. Trying to move it in the opposite way will only hurt like even more hell.

What does it feel like? It's not that muscle burn you feel when pumping weights. That, is a definite pain you can't mistake at all. But this spasm pain, it's weird..hard to describe. Using your hands, grab your thigh muscle and squeeze it like a vise and don't stop. What I can describe better is the second pain you feel on top of it. Since your muscles are pulling as hard as they can, they also pull the tendons that attach them to your bone and it feels like they're going to tear off any second. They haven't yet for me but I swear someday it might happen.

It feels like that could happen though.

So, for FOUR times, four distinct occurrences, I got hit in the right forearm from reeling fish up. Know what I was thinking besides...”OWWW!?”

I'm vain...to a point. Older guys are because we do not want to seem we're losing any vitality as we age and hate it when the body betrays us. We, I...still want to hear, “Hey, he's still got it!” I knew, just knew the others were watching me and confirming small judgments...”Shit, he IS getting older!”

Yeah, I know that already, I just don't want to display it so publicly! Yeah..like I have a choice when these spasms hit. Yeah, I see 60 coming at me...Yeah, it's all true, you see it too. Every bit of it.

On the way back to Plymouth harbor, we were on the top deck, talking and enjoying the sights. For some reason, the brother of my friend opined to me, “Yeah, I'm 63 now and getting uglier, but I don't care..you get past that point where you care and accept the reality as it is...and it's liberating in a way too, you no longer have to care so deeply about 'how you look. You get free of that. Those blonde girls fishing to the right of us..that family of them...I don't have to impress them at all with $300 cologne and the latest shirt and shorts.”

“Free of that.” Advice from someone a bit older than me. I suppose I will, or more so..I have been slowly getting to that point. I've said it before, this is a different period in my life and it's definitely “new to me” so it'll take some time. I can grow my hair, beard and eyebrows out like Gandalf (I have that kind of hair) and dispense ancient advice to the young'uns. Or I can do that, hit the gym like Roger Waters did and tone things up and keep them from becoming goo. It worked for him!

**

Special Goofy Story Time!

On that same trip, we were fishing off the back of the boat where you tend to get more hits. As L. and I were fishing, the captain of the ship gets between us and dumps something out of a mason jar. These dried twigs, leaves and tiny wooden bundles hit the water and start to drift. After a bit, we all kinda figured out what it was, marijuana.

We all sort of wondered, “Why would he toss about nearly an ounce of weed into the sea?”

A few minutes later the same captain comes back, checking on everyone and we get the story out of him. In the bow of the ship, these twenty-somethings decide to roll a fat joint and start smoking it. Well....we aren't in intentional waters and this captain has federal and state licenses he'll LOSE if he allows this to happen on his ship. Apparently being told ONCE to knock the shit off wasn't enough as they did it again and the captain just grabbed the mason jar when and dumped the contraband over board.

When we docked, I guess some one radioed home and let the Plymouth Police know. We were just behind these 20 Somethings and the cops let them pass one by one and then grabbed ONE of them. We then knew WHO it was! We didn't stick around to watch but when I glanced back, the kid was turning out his pockets and whatnot to the cops.

Moral of the Story. Wait till you're in international waters or if not, bring a damn vape pen! If they did that, know one would've cared.

So Don't Show Up Around Here till Your Social Worker's Helped

This Song is About One of the Stories...Right Click!

Some of the better stories I could tell you would probably get me sued because they involve people currently living and at times, still in my life...and they don't want any of those stories publicized. Also, it would be rude as shit to tell the WHOLE TRUTH as it would cause some personal pain.

But...they would be sooo good to tell! So here's some first lines to subjects I can't really write fully about..

“Ron..she LIKES you! She keep asking questions about you! She asked me if you had a girlfriend. She's been by your house in Pawtucket and all that! C. tells me

“Didn't she just get out of a rehab unit kicking a heroin addiction...and why is she stalking me?”

“She's all about you when you're here! She really lights up!” he says further.

End of that story!

**

“YOU live in that house all alone! You have TWO full floors and you can easily have a second person there!” K moans to me.

“No...the dog doesn't like others around.” I say.

“THAT monster loves girls! I know this! How many times have I been here and he loves me because I'm a girl...he hates men instead!”

“What are you getting at?” (I know where this was leading, I wanted her to come out and say it)

“Well, if not that...YOU have money...you know my car is a piece of shit....”

I get up to leave the couch as reaction to that request and I hear a faint “Fuck you,” as I walk away. I then turn around and feel something slam my lip. I raise my hang to my lip and there's blood. On the floor is a TV remote.

“You THREW a remote at me because I won't buy you a car?!”

End of that one due to ugliness...

**

“Hey, I need a ride to Central Falls...just a quick 30 mins...” M asks me.

“Ok, I got nothing to do..c'mon.”

We get to some three decker and M goes in, spends about 89 seconds in there and comes back carrying a full Almacs paper bag and hops in.

“Ok, we're all done.”

So we drive back home.

I park in front of his house and M takes the paper back and shakes it onto the floor of my car and out falls three compressed, giant bricks of marijuana.

“YOU MUTHA FUCKER! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE DONIG THIS???!!!”

“Shit, what's the problem? He asks.

“IF I got pulled over..anything...ANYTHING in my car is legally MINE!”

“But we didn't get pulled over.” he complains.

“THAT'S NOT THE POINT!”

End that one with a louder argument with all sorts of past shit brought up...

**

Mike, Dave and a few others are hanging out around the corner when JR shows up carrying a notebook, college-ruled mind you!

“Hey, listen to this..(giggle)..it's so funny!”

He reads an excerpt.

“It was so wonderful! I know he's the one..and he's my FIRST boyfriend! It sort of hurt at first but I kept quiet because I didn't want to mess things up. It was romantic too because it was raining a bit by the side of the garage.”

“What are you reading?” we all ask JR.

He giggles more, then busts out laughing and finally....when he can control it he bellows out:

“It's my sister's DIARY!” AH HA HA HA HA HA!”

We all instinctively knew which sister too...

End of that one! There are others...