Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

A Parable

One morning, not long ago, Miss Johnson posed a question to her first grade class. “Class, why are we not having as much fun at recess as we used to have?”

Sally raised her hand. “It’s because we have bullies, and kids that don’t share, and meanies in our playground.”

“We don’t allow that kind of behavior in our classroom, why do we have it in the playground? Is it because I’m not outside with you,” asked Miss Johnson. The class all agreed that some kids acted up when Miss Johnson was not there to supervise.

“I’ve got an idea, why don’t we elect a teacher’s helper who can act in my place during recess when I can’t be with you. Do you like this idea? Okay, we’ll have our election tomorrow. Think about who you would like as my helper and be ready to vote.”

Miss Johnson was so proud of the energy the kids put into this their first taste of the democratic process. Without any controversy the class elected Tommy as their new teacher’s helper and playground supervisor.

She had Tommy come up to the front of the class where she presented him with a shinny new referee’s whistle on a black cord necklace.

“Now children when Tommy blows this whistle you must remember that he is acting for me and you must do as he says, just as if I were there. Does everybody understand and agree to have more fun at recess?”

“Yes,” the class yelled enthusiastically

Things immediately got better and the kids were all having more fun at recess. No one was bullying other kids, everyone shared the swings, and the four-square competition was conflict free. Tommy enjoyed his little bit of power and often went days without having to blow his whistle.

Miss Johnson was even prouder of the way the kids behaved and how they took to her teacher’s helper idea.

A couple of months later Billy asked to talk privately with Miss Johnson. “The playground isn’t fun any more; Tommy is pushing everybody around and is blowing his whistle just to make noise. And besides that, he is saying bad things about you,” Billy nervously whispered.

The following day Miss Johnson announced to her class. “Let’s have a discussion about this whole teacher’s helper thing this afternoon after class. Those of you that want to stay and discuss this please stay for a few minutes after the bell rings. Those of you that aren’t interested or have other commitments are free to go home at your regular time.”

About half of the class stayed late that afternoon. Miss Johnson thought it interesting that Tommy didn’t stay for the discussion. The kids all had stories about Tommy’s abuse of power and his incessant whistle blowing. The general consensus was that nobody in the room wanted to go out for recess anymore because it just wasn’t any fun. Miss Johnson realized that she had to do something fast. The situation was even worse that it was before she came up with her teacher’s helper idea.

The children thought having a teacher’s helper was a good thing but they had elected the wrong person. “Lets give someone else a chance to be the teacher’s helper and see how thing go,” said Miss Johnson. The class was enthusiastic and began shouting out names of good candidates. With a show of hands the kids all thought that Mary would make a great teacher’s helper.

“Done, tomorrow we’ll tell the rest of the class about our decision and Mary will assume her new position as the teacher’s helper.”

The next morning Miss Johnson recapped the previous night’s discussion and the election results. No one said anything but she could tell by their expressions that everyone wasn’t happy with the outcome of last night’s meeting. She would just have to wait for recess and see how things went.

The kids filed out for recess and immediately formed into two groups; one was those that stayed late last night and elected Mary and the other was those that didn’t stay and stood by Tommy. Mary demanded the whistle. Tommy refused to give it up and a big argument ensued. No actual fights broke out but a lot of angry words were spoken. It was obvious that nobody was having fun.

Tommy said, “I’m the duly elected teacher’s helper, I keep the whistle.”

Mary fires back, “We recalled you and I am Miss Johnson’s preferred helper.”

“Her vote doesn’t count and your election wasn’t legal because everyone wasn’t there to vote,” responded Tommy with a snarl.

The swings and the merry-go-round sit idle while the kids huddle in their two groups, bickering. The kids don’t plays at recess anymore, they just yell, argue, and, fight. No one is having any fun.

©2008 by Bob Rockwell

Introduction

I thought I had all of my pet peeves on paper with my first rant. Nope, the things that piss me off keep mounting up. Here is some more stuff I want to bitch about:

Chomping and Spitting

I’ve learned that scratching and adjusting are as integral to major league baseball as mitts and bats. It’s a summer sport played in jockstraps under baggy, wool suits. I have to adjust just thinking about the effects of the summer heat on their anatomies, sweating in their protective metal cups.

What I can’t take however, is all of the chomping and spitting required to play this game. What’s up with these guys? I know it’s a high pressure job where you’re expected to spend nearly half of every game sitting on a bench, not looking bored, and trying your damn-est not to fall asleep. That’s pressure. Is it more tedious than drinking Gatorade on a side-lines bench in a football game or playing with your towel on a courtside folding chair? I think not. My guess is that baseballers developed these unsightly habits back when they all chewed tobacco in their “dugouts” long before TV.

Terry Francona, the manager of the world champion Red Sox is so into chomping and spitting that he can’t even see the game because his wad-swollen jaw is hanging in a swill bucket. Try doing that for nine innings. Maybe this is why the Sox have been so successful; Terry has never seen a game. Randy Johnson can’t pitch without chomping a wad of bubblegum slightly smaller than a breadbox. Is it a coincidence that his wad is always on the side of his pitching arm?

We need to get off of this steroids and growth hormone witch-hunt and really get after the most disgusting aspects to major league baseball, masticating¹ large wads of things and constantly expectorating² during games.

¹ look it up
² look it up

Crappy Things

Things piss me off … not people, things. The pickle jar I can’t open, the cable that won’t attach to the TV, the price tag that won’t come off of my new purchase, the packaged goods that are open-proof and hundreds of other things that don’t work, break, won’t fit together, or are just poorly designed.

Why do we put up with these poor designs and shabby workmanship? Boycott every manufacturer that produces this junk. I’ve sworn off: Tupperware, things that hang on pegs incased in indestructible plastic at the hardware store, new DVDs and CDs, and everything from Wal-Mart.

Plastic Bags

I can remember when our weekly grocery purchases were stacked neatly in paper bags with the cans and heavy stuff on the bottom. The dairy and meat were usually packaged separately. It took a half of dozen bags a week to feed a family of four. Now our purchases are stuffed randomly into these wimpy plastic bags. Never mind, the impossible-to-open transparent plastic bags we’ve been fighting with for years in the produce section; I’m talking white bags with cute little cut-your-circulation-off handles. These damn things do nothing for protecting your new purchases. And, who can forget that the paper bags of old were packed by specialists, fourteen year old bagboys with zits, bad haircuts, and clip on bow ties and not by the cashier.

The only real value of these damn plastic bags is that they add handles to otherwise handle-less things. If you’ve ever wanted to buy a head of lettuce with its own handle, these bags are for you. A loaf of bread packed in its own plastic bag and shoved into a second take-home bag is less protected from your can of tomatoes than if you carried them home under your arms bag free.

The after life of these worthless plastic bags is eternity. They all seem blow in from somewhere else and hang up on everything over two inches tall. Our roadsides are covered with these indestructible bags flapping in the wind. America looks like it is downwind from a gigantic land fill.

Why do we put up with this?

Roadside Garbage Dumps

Who, in today’s world, throws their trash out of their car windows? Not you. Someone, and I’d guess a lot of someones, is. I know you’re out there because the county roads running by my house are littered with fast-food containers, beer bottles, and the ubiquitous Wal-Mart plastic shopping bags.

A new home was just built across the street and down wind from ours. I expected to find building material scraps in my yard after each wind storm. We got a bit of that, but what overwhelmed us were the food wrappers of the building crews. These guys eat their lunches and snacks within twenty feet or so of a dumpster and a construction waste pile. I know construction work is hard but do you think these guys could walk an extra six steps to properly stash the trash from their McDonald’s lunch.

And, where was I when we decided not to use the ash-trays in our cars anymore. It’s really great that we’ve designated our roadways as one big national ash-tray.

There seems to be an economic factor to littering; the poorer the neighborhood the deeper the trash. There could also be an ethnic or nationality element to this littering problem. I’m told it’s a south-of-the-border thing.

I purpose that we tack on a class in proper trash disposal to our ESL classes and add something about this to our naturalization exam.

Parking

How can something as simple as parking a car piss me off? My parking doesn’t upset me, yours does. First, the handicap slots should be labeled ‘fat and lazy’ parking. Sure, some legitimately handicapped people use these spaces, but I’ll bet if you did an analysis you’d find less than one in ten of the people parking here are really handicapped. The rest are just fat and lazy.

The second class of parker that pisses me off is the yoyo that can’t seem to get his, or more often than not her, car between the painted lines. They just angle in somehow and think nothing of taking two spaces. We ought to tow these cars away and let these inconsiderate bastards walk home.

How about the dead-beat who spends forty five minutes circling the lot to find the absolutely closest space so that they won’t have to walk an extra a block or so? Have you noticed that these folks are the ones that could use this little bit of exercise the most.

Men, (women don’t seem to do this much), who have to back into parking spaces for no other reason than to tell everyone that their dicks are too small really bug me. These “must-back-in” assholes are perverts of the worst kind.

Little things that piss me off

Talking to a Technical Support person in India

Ball point pens that skip and splotch

Telemarketers of all kinds

Endlessly looking for something at Home Depot

Public rest rooms

Know-nothing, air-head sales clerks

Taco Bell tacos that drip grease into your lap

Alarm clocks

Fat people in electric shopping carts

Warm beer

TV evangelists, preachers and anyone calling themselves a Charismatic

All other bible thumpers, just because

Pretentious college-kid waiters

Shopping at chick stores like Bed, Bath & Beyond and Hallmark

Junk mail, especially the supermarket ads

Chilled red wine

People too lazy to return their shopping carts

Stopped up toilets

Hollywood assholes with political opinions

Shredded lettuce on hamburgers

Want-a-be snobs and other pretentious pricks

Shopping for greeting cards with my wife

Empty barbecue propane tanks

Braggers, boasters and other exaggerators

Paying $6 for a mini bottle of booze on an airplane

Ketchup in pour proof bottles

Etc

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

Introduction

Like most of us, I grumble about the inconveniences, injustices, and especially the absurdities we encounter as we fumble through our hum-drum lives. Now that I’m retired and a member of the geezer generation, I don’t have a job or a business to bitch about. Geezers are big-time complainers. Geezers can piss-and-moan about every-day stuff like it is the only thing we care about or have in common.

A friend and a world-class ranter recently confessed, in a bitch-free conversation, that he has given up ranting because his give-a-shit factor has fallen below the level of caring anymore. Society has burned out another loud, outspoken critic. Well, I’m not going to take that, the flames of my discontent still roar. Here, in fine geezer fashion, are some of the things that really piss me off:

This Damn War

What the hell are we doing in Iraq? We unseated an evil dictator (yea for us) and we’re struggling to referee a civil war (woe is us) with no end in sight (boo on us).

Forget, if you can, that our only reason for being in Iraq is that George W took office with an agenda to clean up something his father left undone in the first Gulf War, defeating Sadam Hussein. We laugh now at how the Bush staffers tried to lay the blame for 9/11 on Iraq and how Iraq surely was harboring terrorists and developing WMD. Who can forget Colin Powell’s passionate speech to the UN with all of his CIA photos of Hussein’s weapons caches?

Every thinking person knew at the time that we could run right over Iraq’s Republican Guard in a week or two. But then what? Remember W’s fly-in victory speech? Everyone but George knew that being an occupying police force in a tumultuous Arab country would be a never ending, lose-lose situation.

Are we any safer now? Do you think less Arabs dislike us today than they did before we invaded Iraq? Bush tried to squelch a recent report that documents how our war has been a boon for terrorist recruiting. We’re the recruiting poster-boy for Al Qaeda. Bush just reaffirmed all of the anti-U.S. propaganda in the Arab terrorist training manuals. We’re a hell of a lot less safe now than we were back in 2001.

Instead of invading Iraq we should have really declared war on terrorism. We’re six years into Bush’s wimpy war and we still can’t find a 6’5” Arab on dialysis making tapes in a cave in Pakistan. If we were serious about stamping out terrorism in the Middle East we would have done it. We should have had the 1st Marine Division combing the nooks and crannies of the Middle East, killing terrorists, rather than riding shotgun on milk trucks in Iraq. They would have found and killed Osama, dismembered his band and stomped on any new want-a-be Al Qaeda groups regardless of where they hid. They would have chased Ben Laden into Pakistan whether Musharraf liked it or not. Fuck him, we’re at war.

Medicines

How come I can buy prescription drugs in Mexico for half the price of my local Wal-Mart? In almost every case these drugs were designed and manufactured in the U.S. by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. It seems that everyone else on the planet is getting a better deal on drugs than we are. Isn’t this the opposite of what you would expect? I think I know why this is but I don’t know is why we stand for it and why we don’t fix it.

There are at least three reasons we don’t fix this. First, most people don’t pay for their drugs, their healthcare insurance carriers or our government picks up most or all of the tab. Secondly, no one in Washington feels this pain, they have wonderful healthcare and drug-coverage benefits. And lastly, drug prices are just a part of our broken health care system and revamping this is just too big, if not an impossible, job.

If the national healthcare systems of Mexico and Canada can negotiate favorable pricing with the pharmaceutical companies why can’t we? Who should have this action item?

The Big Ugly Wall

Have you been to Mexico recently? We’re actually building a big, god-awful wall in selective areas of our two-thousand-miles-or-so southern border. Locally, the border physically separates two small, sleepy little desert towns totally un-noteworthy except for this huge, I mean huge, ugly wall. I’m really embarrassed by this. Let’s see, we had a wall in Berlin to keep the bad guys in and another in Gaza to keep the bad guys the out. Have we come to that?

This big ugly wall will only be a small irritant to the impoverished Latino in search of a job and a better life. Illegal immigrants come here because they can easily find work for higher wages than they can in Latin America. Remove the jobs and they won’t come. This wall might work; maybe potential wetbacks will see our wall and want no part of a country that would construct such a thing.

Endless Campaigning

I don’t know about you but I’ve had it with two-year long political campaigns. These folks aren’t that interesting that I need to see them or read about them every day for what seems like forever. I want Hillary completely out of my life until a week or two before the day I can vote for someone else.

I know why they do it, it works. What if we, the voting public, choose to only vote for candidates with campaigns that run for three months or less?

How Much Was That, Again?

I have an endless list of bitches about our healthcare system and I haven’t seen Michael Moore’s new movie yet. Did you know that insurance plans negotiate fees for each procedure by treatment code with individual physicians and physician groups? They drive hard bargains with their huge enrollment figures. The docs have to roll over and agree to what ever the insurance companies demand if they want a patient base. Now I get to the part of this little story that really sucks. With this complex pricing structure, the only patients that pay full or inflated prices are the uninsured. Is this the policy of the “greatest country on earth?”

200 Channels

Why do we put up with cable and satellite services that give us hundreds of channels of junk we would never, ever watch? It’s like buying every magazine on the rack just to read Field and Stream. Spend an evening watching HSN, PTL, or some other mindless cable channel and if you don’t commit suicide you’ll probably kick in your TV screen. The way we avoid this neurosis is by flicking through these channels quickly. Channel surfing/flicking is our national pastime. We’re actually entertained by endlessly scanning through channel after channel of shit shows. Our lives have become a series of fleeting glimpses of totally uninteresting stuff.

I want a cable service that offers channels ala carte. I want to select and receive the half a dozen or so channels that I might actually watch, throw away my remote control and get on with my life.

Trucks and More Trucks

Another thing that bugs me is the huge number of trucks that are clogging up our interstate highways. Traveling by car isn’t fun anymore. I’m not sure it ever was, but it definitely isn’t now. I don’t like competing for my little space of roadway with all of those behemoth semis.

As best I can tell, this is a unique U.S. problem. In most parts of the civilized world they ship their freight by rail and travel by car. Why, because their rail systems work and their fuel prices are so high that trucking is more costly. I don’t know the answer but I’m ready to give the interstates to the truckers and take the little blue highways.

What Healthcare?

My wife can’t get sick. Why, because she has a chronic skin disease that private insurance companies won’t touch for less than $2000 a month. Our government is no help either because she isn’t a veteran, makes too much money with her skimpy retirement to qualify for state aid, and is too young for Medicare.

I’ve heard that unpaid medical expenses are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. We’re living one virus, tumor, or lump away from skid row. If she were to develop some life-threatening but treatable disease we’d spend every cent it takes on her care. We’ll sell everything we own, declare bankruptcy and become homeless deadbeats.

This doesn’t seem right. Maybe we should move to Cuba?

Air Travel

Air travel sucks! Why, because we’ve proven, over and over, what we really want is the lowest possible air fare. Sure, we want frills like real food, a comfortable chair, and more leg room but we don’t want to pay for it. It’s like dining at the cheapest restaurant in town and complaining because they don’t have linen napkins or a decent wine list.

What else do you shop for totally on price? We’ll fly Air-Ubangi and change planes in Fargo if we can save a buck. We’ve all become expert air fare price shoppers because the air lines have made it a game to see if we can find their super-duper-saver fares. If you book thirty days in advance, stay over a Saturday, travel on Tuesday, use the internet, and can break their secret code your fare is only $1.37 otherwise its $1,248.64.

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

One year ago my wife and I moved into what was promoted as, and what seemed to be an active adult community. Sadly, we were to learn that the only activity in this otherwise lovely community is pissing-and-moaning with our elected Home Owners Association (HOA) officials.

Somehow our HOA got off on the wrong foot or was initially aimed in the wrong direction and has never been able to make a course correction. My guess is that the founding members simply saw our HOA as a vehicle for leveraging the builder and enforcing the bylaws.

When you meet the other owners or our elected officials in settings outside of our heated HOA meetings they seem, in most cases, like nice people. How come they turn into Mr. Hyde-like assholes when the gavel strikes the table?

The issues that have everyone astir today are: the lack of a 2007 budget this late in the year, the board’s hiring of a litigation attorney for secret reasons, and new committees being formed to make more rules. But the overriding issue, in my mind, is the lack of any discussion on how to make this a better place to live. There are no proposals to argue over. The proposed budget is the same old stuff, nothing new.

Our ignorance of or lack of interest in improving our community is the real issue; all of the other stuff is just petty bickering. Our board of directors isn’t focused on the only thing they should; making this a more enjoyable and a more valuable place to live. Instead they spend their time arguing about process, rules of order, making more laws, and rigorously enforcing their interpretation of the existing bylaws.

I propose we go back to square one and define a charter or mission statement for our HOA and therefore the job descriptions of the elected management. A suggested charter might read something like:

The charter and only goal of the CCEHA is to mange the expenditure of HOA funds to maximize the quality of our owner’s living experiences and to increase the value of our investments in our homes. Period!

Notice, the charter doesn’t say anything about making or enforcing laws. If we have an offender of the existing rules such as curb-side parking of a RV beyond the allotted time, or the yoyo that paints his house chartreuse, or leaves his Christmas decorations up all year we can deal these on a case-by-case basis with a small infractions committee, not the board. They’ll be focused on positive things.

With the board out of the rules business they will have time to focus on the only thing they should, improving our community. I propose that each discussion topic or agenda item considered by CCEHA management pass this simple test:

1. Will this proposal or discussion topic improve the quality of the lives of a majority of our owners?

2. Will this proposal or discussion topic improve the financial investments our owners have made in Country Club Estates?

I fully understand that this is not a homogenous community. We have a range of owners from young, very active retirees up to sedentary elderly folks, and from the physically fit to the terminally ill. And, the amenity that might improve the life of any of these extreme examples won’t do much for those at the other end of the spectrum.

Increasing property values will effect everyone equally, young and old, sick and well.

I also understand that the usual amenities of a fancy clubhouse, swimming pool and tennis courts may not be the wishes of the majority of our owners.

But we should take stock of what we have now. We have a card room and kitchenette with folding chairs, not a clubhouse. A clubhouse would have comfortable chairs, sitting areas, a few card tables, maybe a pool table or two, and possibly shuffleboard on the patio. Our other amenities are an unused bocce court and horseshoe pitch that lie dormant without any semblance of organized leagues, women’s groups, tournaments etc. Why? Let me tell you why. Because our HOA has been too busy arguing about process, trying to make more rules, and wandering the neighborhood trying to catch someone committing rules infractions. I’m going to shoot the next board member that cruises past my house thinking it’s his job to be a patrolling rules enforcer.

We should put our energy into making and selling proposals on how to improve this place. We should be arguing; but arguing the benefits of a jogging trail versus a shuffleboard court or some such thing. I don’t care if we do either, let’s just do something!

Bob Rockwell
Country Club Estates

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

A Parable

A friend and neighbor came to me with what she believes is an important proposal for the Country Club Estates Home Owners Association. She passionately argues that our clubhouse needs a new crock-pot. They’re only $29.95 at Wal Mart, we really need one, we can afford one, and our collective lives will all be better if we have one. What can be so hard about this?

I told her to prepare for a tough battle to sell her idea. There will only be a small number of people that will see this issue as important as she does; a small group that truly sees the benefits of crock-pot ownership. Expect an equally small group of people that will believe, almost as passionately as she does, that this is a really dumb idea and last thing we need is a community owned crock-pot.

Prepare yourself for an even larger group that will oppose your idea solely because they just oppose spending money, any money, for any reason, period. These folks can’t be sold. They live their lives frugally, are used to doing without, and will never see the benefit or the economic return of crock-pot ownership.

The good news is that the vast majority of us could care less whether we have a crock-pot or not. We won’t take the time to listen to or even consider all of the important aspects of community crock-pot ownership. We’ll vote, just for the heck of it, based upon what someone said at the last cocktail party or what we heard over the fence the day before yesterday. We really don’t care, but we can be sold.

So far this is normal: a small group for the crock-pot, a small group against the crock-pot, a third group that won’t spend any money on anything, and the majority that could care less. But here at CCE we have two other unusual groups that you’ll have to deal with.

You’ll find a hard-core group of people that believe that the Reedys owe us a crock-pot. They’ll say things like: “The Reedys promised us one in the past and they’ve welshed on the deal or somehow beat us out of one. Jim agreed to give us one once and now he wants to sell us one. He’s greedy and only in this for the money.” You can’t overcome this insanity. These people want to believe this and no sort of argument will convince them otherwise.

The other group that could make your life difficult is how the CCE board will deal with this critical crock-pot issue. They should, but don’t always, keep their personal views to themselves. In the past they have used their management positions, either out of ignorance or just plain meanness, to influence, sway, or rig the vote. Their job is to insure that all sides of this crock-pot issue get heard and that we follow the democratic process outlined in our bylaws, regardless of how they personally feel about crock-pots. As individual members, they’re free to vote secretly just like the rest of us. In the past they haven’t always understood this.

And are you really ready for this? Those opposed to your idea will be vicious, cruel and think nothing of punching below the belt. Not so much from your legitimate opponents, but the don’t-spend-any-money-on-anything folks, and the Reedys-owe-us-one group will do everything to slander you personally and shoot down your idea with a long list of cockamamie arguments.

How bad do you really want this crock-pot?

As she headed for the door, I heard her mumble, “No thanks, I think I take my own over to the clubhouse when we need one.”

Bob Rockwell
Country Club Estates

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

It is important in our society for everyone to know who they are. This identifies them as a member of a larger group; and this grouping enables society to put them into commonly understood categories so everyone can say with certainty, “Oh, they’re one of those.” My wife, Linda, has never been sure of what she really is or what to call herself when someone asks. Here’s her story. You decide.

She spent her early years on Larimer Street in Denver, Colorado. Back then Larimer Street was the run-down, older part of town populated with people similar in appearance and culture to her parents. She never wondered who she was because she was a little-girl version of everybody else; a little girl, much like all of the other girls in her large family, her neighborhood, her church, and the girls at the school around the corner.

The boom of the early 50s enabled Linda’s folks to buy a new tract house in Denver’s first large suburban development. It was a brand new town; a town where her skin was a bit darker than all of her neighbors and all of the other kids in school. People called her a Mexican but she knew that couldn’t be right because she had never been to Mexico, nor had her parents or their parents before them. In fact, there weren’t any Mexicans in her family tree at all. As far as anyone can remember her ancestors have always lived along the border between Colorado and New Mexico.

How can she be Mexican if her family didn’t come from Mexico? And if she’s not a Mexican-American what kind of -American is she? She’s obviously something different from the European-American mainstream because everyone keeps telling her so. Over the years she’s been called a Mexican, a beaner, a Mexican-American, a Hispanic, a Chicana, a Mestiza, and more recently, a Latina. Other than beaner (she was raised on frijoles) none of these other labels seem to apply.

She went searching for definitions of the things she has been called and found that a Hispanic is someone who hails from a Spanish-speaking country. Although a lot of people in the U.S. speak Spanish, no one would ever call the U.S. a Spanish speaking-country. Chicana doesn’t fit either because it means a woman born in the U.S. of Mexican decent. She’s knows she’s not a descendant of anyone from Mexico.

Maybe she could be a Mestiza like many people call themselves in New Mexico. No again. Mestizas claim to have significant amounts of Spanish and Native-American ancestry. Linda is not really sure that she has any of these ancestries let alone a significant amount. Latina is a term for a woman of a Latin-American background. Her folks definitely spoke Spanish, rolled tortillas and danced the pachanga, but they’ve never been to, or had anything to do with, any part of Latin America.

Maybe the answer to this riddle lies in her native land and not with her ancestors. As best she knows, southern Colorado and New Mexico were claimed by Spain way back when and later given to Mexico when they won their independence just a few generations ago. Mexico then ceded this land by treaty to the U.S. around the time her great grandmothers were born. Given this history, it would seem that the peoples of this land were Native American for many centuries, Spanish for a couple hundred years, Mexican for twenty years or so, and eventually ended up Americans.

These people became Americans not because they moved, immigrated, swam a river or snuck across a border. They were simply living their lives and the border moved around them. She guesses she can claim to be an American acquired as spoils of U.S.’s war with Mexico. No one would want to go through life identifying themselves as spoils.

She’ll have to come up with a more politically correct way to say all this. In the meantime, she thinks she’ll stick to being a slightly darker-skinned American from Colorado.

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

Assignment: In one paragraph describe what your life might be like if you were a coin.

Wow, its dark in here. Nobody is moving. Nobody is doing anything. We’re all scattered around in a muddled heap. I can’t see anybody but I can feel a couple of overgrown quarters and one maybe two shoddy nickels in my pile. These frigging quarters are always a problem, but simple-minded nickels just lay around looking clunky and cheap. Quarters just want to brag about their goofy celebration of the states tails, and how much more valuable they think they all are. I once saw a snooty Massachusetts twenty-five-cent piece bring a ragged-looking West Virginia slug to tears. Luckily I landed heads side up and can almost breathe if it weren’t for this damn New York two-bit-piece draped across my Franklin’s chin. New Yorkers are all so pushy and obnoxious. Why can’t I ever get dropped down a dimes-only slot?

I was a passionate conservative republican voting in my first national election in the fall of 1964. I was a Marine corporal in my fifth year of active duty by day and a community college sophomore at night. From this somewhat biased vantage point, I couldn’t imagine any intelligent American being anything other than a hard-core conservative. The conservative wing of the grand old party was tough on Communism, stood for less federal government and strong fiscal responsibility and to top it off, was very big on individual and states rights. How could you not support these values?

The Democrats of the day were role models for the things I disliked most about politicians and politics in general. They were either East Coast blue-bloods like FDR and JFK, or more commonly, chunky Southern windbags donned in straw hats and light-colored, baggy suits. Although I was raised to respect, almost worship, FDR and JFK, I couldn’t imagine these two privileged rich boys empathizing with or fighting for the rights of the common man from their mansions, limousines and yachts.

I knew that JFK had been talked into choosing LBJ as a running mate to counter his Catholicism and Northeastern-ness. The powers-at-the-time rounded out JFK’s ticket with this slow talking poster boy for the baggy-suited southern set to appeal to southerners and red necks. We knew how many southerners there were but how many true red necks could there be? Lyndon Johnson was almost a notch above the southern Democratic governors that we all admired so much, folks like Lester Maddox, Hughie Long and George Wallace. These guys with their straw hats, bad accents and light-colored baggy suits were everything that was bad about American politics.

This, my first big election, pitted the champion of the conservative cause, Barry Goldwater with the then recently succeeded incumbent (damn you to hell, Lee Harvey Oswald) and stereotypical baggy-suited Dixiecrat, LBJ. The only real campaign issue of the day was the then fledgling war in Viet Nam. Barry, a general in the Air Force reserves, talked about actually winning this war in which his Democrat predecessors had us entangled. He even proposed bombing and clearing a Korea-like DMZ to create a distinct boundary between the good guys and the bad guys. Lyndon in his baggy-suited drawl said nothing the least bit controversial about the war he had help start. Their campaign speeches left us with the impressions that Barry was for winning the war and that Lyndon would somehow, as he had in the past, keep the world safe from Communism.

I proudly cast my first ever vote with absolute certainty the rest of the country would see this choice exactly as I did. When LBJ won a landslide victory I couldn’t believe what had just happened. What was wrong with America? What the hell were we thinking?

Barry won in only six states, his home state of Arizona and five deep-south states.

What’s up with that?

©2007 by Bob Rockwell

I recently played a small part in a community theatre production of a well known play. After ten weeks of rehearsals and endlessly pacing through my living room reciting my lines I finally figured out what’s wrong with real life. The play came out perfect; my real life hasn’t. Why?

First, there’s no script in real life. We’ve got to make this stuff up as we go. No wonder I’m always in trouble for saying inappropriate things; I’ve been winging it all these years without a script. I’ve been inventing dialog as fast as I can, just to keep up.

Not only are there no scripts, there are no rehearsals either. We get no practice. Everything is happening for the first and final time. That’s why we all look like klutzes; we’re fumbling through life with no practice.

No retakes, the first take is a keeper. Our first and only effort goes into the record books and we never get a chance to craft or hone our actions. We just blurt it out, screw it up and live with it, forever.

We also don’t get a chance to go back and edit our original performances. We all need to tighten, shorten, pep up or correct our first efforts but we never get a chance. Life is difficult enough without recording history on the first take without so much as a microsecond of editing.

Absolutely the worst thing about real life is there is no sound track. Real life is dead quiet. Life really needs an off-camera orchestra to enhance our moods, alert us to coming dangers and to add action to our otherwise boring moments.

My life is one big first draft full of typos, misspellings, fragments, and the lot.

No wonder I’m depressed.

                  ©2009 by Bob Rockwell

Introduction

I didn’t realize that I had so many old Marine Corps stories to tell until I started putting them on paper. Anyway, here are a couple more tales from my years in the Corps. Semper Fi

The Coke Machine

I was temporarily stationed at the U.S. Naval Air Station, Millington, Tennessee being prepped for an aviation technical school. The Navy and the Marines fly the same model aircraft so all of the flight and maintenance crews attend the Navy’s schools. Except for the one-off Marine instructor and a hand full of Marine students the schools are run by and attended by squids, our name for sailors.

The small Marine contingent was housed in a white-washed, second-world-war-era barracks wedged between endless rows of squid barracks. Our little Marine unit wouldn’t have been noticed on this huge Navy base if it weren’t for our old Gunnery Sergeant. Gunny ran us at a double-time around air station every morning, chanting and yelling our rowdy Marine Corps marching songs, while the squids were still asleep in their bunks.

Our un-air-conditioned barracks were sweltering on the Saturday afternoon that I was stuck with Duty NCO duties. I was watching the sweat seep though my tropical uniform when two boots (a boot is anyone with less time in the Corps than you) came through the door whining about the squids, our neighbors in the next barracks over. They explained how the Petty Officer of the Deck (the squid equivalent of a Duty NCO) had kicked them out of the squid barracks. They were only trying to use the squid’s coke machine. We didn’t rate a coke machine in our barracks; someone must have thought it wasn’t Marine-like.

I went into the squad-bay and yelled for six volunteers. Every one jumped up and I chose the six biggest Marines I could find. All I said was “Follow me,” as we headed for the squid barracks. We were a shabby looking detail, me in my summer alpha, tropical uniform armed with an official duty belt and my volunteers all in shorts and skivvies.

We marched into the foyer of the squid barracks. I stood guard at the door with my arms crossed like I was actually in charge and ordered my men to unplug and pick up the coke machine. The Petty Officer of the Deck and a couple of other squids just stood there with their mouths agape afraid to say anything. My guys hoisted the machine up on their shoulders and headed out of the door while I brought up the rear.

Later, I put my feet up on the Duty NCO desk and chugged an ice cold soda from our “recently installed” coke machine.

Guard Duty Again

The Marines are really big on guard duty. Guard duty for the sake of guard duty. Since coming to Marine Corps Base, Twenty Nine Palms I’ve guarded abandoned buildings, outhouses, barrels of motor pool sludge, and a host of other important stuff like that. I’ve never once had to challenge an intruder let alone fire a round at some criminal or an enemy of the state.

This week’s guard duty is something new. I’m to guard two prisoners in our make-shift brig we call a detention barracks. We house prisoners here while they await court marshals. Once sentenced to hard time we transport them to the real brig at Camp Pendleton.

My prisoners are both recently apprehended AWOLs who desperately want a discharge out of the Corps. Who knows what these yoyos will get, hopefully a boot in the ass and a return to duty.

They are both scared to death and try hard to disguise their fear with adolescent, macho bullshit. The minute I come on duty these two assholes start ragging on me. I don’t want to hear it, not a word from these two shitbirds. I don’t know what to do short of whacking them with my nightstick when I notice that they haven’t showered in days and are still wearing their dirty civilian clothes.

I march these two assholes to the head, make them throw away all of their civvies except their underwear and shove them into the showers with a box of laundry soap. I stand at the shower door with my night stick at port arms while they scrub and scrub. I yell for them to get out when they’re “pink and shinny.”

I order my bare-ass prisoners to scrub their skivvies at the scrub rack and put them on wet. They hadn’t mouthed off for some time when one starts on about how they’re going to escape tonight. I know they’re just making macho noise but they keep at it. Saying things like “You better keep a close eye on us tonight, chaser, (the Marine name for a brig guard) we’re out a here.” I can’t shut these assholes up.

After enough of their escape bullshit I get a pair of handcuffs from the sergeant of the guard and have the shitbird in the top bunk stick his arm down inside of the bunk frame to meet the stretched arm of the shitbird in the bottom bunk. I handcuff them like that, the top guy with his arm straight down handcuffed to the bottom guy’s upward extended arm.

I say, “OK assholes, go ahead and escape. I hope dragging this rack with you won’t slow you down too much.”

I never heard a peep from them for the rest of the night.

Walker’s Boot

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, too hot to do anything. I’m lying in my bunk trying to read a book while some guys play cards on the table in the center of the barracks. Simpson drops his hand and yells, “Look at Walker.” We all turn to Walker’s bunk. Walker just looks like Walker. He’s in his skivvies asleep on top of his bunk just like any number of other Marines in our barracks. What is Simpson yelling about? It’s then that I see Walker‘s full born erection staring at me from the open fly of his skivvies.

“Damn, do we have to look at that all night,” bemoans Morgan.

“Nah, I’m going to whack it with my entrenching tool,” says Greer

I jump up and grab Greer before he can unbuckle his entrenching tool. “You can’t whack Walker’s pecker, you could ruin him for life.”

“Screw Walker, he waves his little red dick at me it’s gonna get whacked.”

I don’t know why I’m defending Walker but I respond with, “Walker didn’t wave anything. He’s sound asleep”

“Then cover it up with something so we don’t have to look at it.”

No one wants to get close enough to Walker to cover him with a towel or a tee shirt so we just sit and stare at the thing we don’t want to have to look at.

Morgan jumps up and grabs one of Walker’s boots lying next to his bunk. He stretches a boot lace out to about three feet and ties a little noose at the end. “Watch this,” he says as he slips the noose over the head of Walker’s pecker and snugs it up tight. He holds the boot as far over Walker’s chest as the lace allows and giggles as he tells us to, “Watch this,” again.

Morgan drops the boot on Walker’s belly and dashes for his seat at the card table. Walker jerks awake, unsure of what’s going on as he grabs the boot. Seeing Morgan in flight, Walker heaves the boot at Morgan with all of his might.

“Yeow!”

©2009 by Bob Rockwell