Browse Category: Stories

H

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

H is for “Hannah.” She’s ten years old, sharp as a tack, beautiful, and boy crazy. She wants to be an archaeologist when she grows up.

H is for “happy.” That is what I will be when Hannah arrives in just two days.

H is for “hard.” It’s hard to believe that any woman could look so bored, as Hannah does in this photo, when there is a clothing store right behind her! The issue of women and shopping came up in conversation with a friend of mine at work. She was telling me how burned out she felt. The responsibilities of motherhood have been wearing her down. It’s hard to function on just a few hours sleep after tending to a baby most of the night. I said that maybe she needed to get away from her desk at lunch each day, do something different, go for a walk, or just drive around and explore the area.

Her response was, “Yeah! Where is there a mall around here?”

I said, “Ah yes! Proof that you are a woman indeed!”

I’m telling you, when a guy is stressed out and in need of a break, the first thing that comes to his mind is not shopping! Unless, he thinks of shopping because he is in need of something specific that will facilitate some other form of recreational activity. Maybe he needs fishing lures, or film for his camera, or a new hat for the NASCAR race. But that is different. Men do not do recreational shopping. To men, shopping is a utilitary function in the process of reaching a much higher objective. The mall is a means to an end. The mall is never a destination in and of itself.

H is for “hell.” That is exactly what I am going to get now from a few women who read this website.

H is for “jalapeno peppers.” Well, not really, but by my ears it should be.

H is for “Hopi.” The Hopi are one of many Native American peoples. I am not Hopi.

H is for “Hansel and Gretel,” two German kids. I am German. Hurray for German kids!

H is almost for “Irish.” Hurray for Irish kids! I’m one of them too!

H is for “hullabaloo,” and “hornswoggle,” and “hoodwink.” Hurray for dictionaries!

H is for “Hey! That reminds me!” After writing an article about an old high school girlfriend in April, I received the nastiest email of my life! Wow! Whoever sent it (and I know who it was) was angry, angry, angry! They called me an a**hole. They said that I was “bad news to women.” They diagnosed me as suffering from “delusions of grandeur.” But I had to laugh when they used the word “hoodwink.” Somehow, hoodwink just doesn’t make it in a flaming email. It carries about the same intensity as when an adult swipes their hand over a toddler’s nose, then shows their thumb sticking between their fingers and says to the child, “I got your nose!” It’s a doting kind of word, almost affectionate.

H is for “Howdy Doody,” a freckled marionette who was the star of a TV show that first aired on December 27th,1947. What else would come to mind but freckled puppets after talking about hoodwinking?

H is for “Hurry.” And now that is what I must do because it’s time to pick up my son from work.

Hasta la vista, baby!

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter H

B IS FOR MIGRAINE

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

B as in blindspots.

B as in brain mush.

B as in BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. Three to the head.

“Ahhhhhh, Wam, Blam, Thank-you, ma’am!” (Yes, B is for Bowie.)

They sneak up on you. They pounce on you. They decapitate you.

They wreck your day.

Then…

You take drugs!

Ahhhhhh! Drugs!

My morning started off fine. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even after only four hours sleep. (I know, B is for bozo for not getting enough sleep, as usual.) The ride to work wasn’t bad. I even stopped and took a few photos along the way. I got coffee with my usual coffee peeps when I got to work. Everyone was in a good mood.

Then I went to a training class at 9:30. By 10:15 I had spots in my eyes and could hardly see the PowerPoint slides. I scrawled out a note that said, “I’m dying. I have to go take medicine,” to a friend sitting next to me. But when I started to stand up, I got a cramp in the back of my left leg. I couldn’t move. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to scream. Not wanting to interrupt the class, I sat as still as I could and attempted to use mind control to relieve the cramp. (Think of Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill.” “Wiggle your big toe.” Only substitute hamstring for toe. “Wiggle your big hamstring.”) However, my brain was in mid-collapse. I drifted from control right into, “Gee, I wish I had a banana right now. Bananas have vitamin K or phosphorous or something that helps cramps. Oh! What I’d give for a banana right now! Does anyone have a banana?” I was able to regain some composure and slip out of the class without drawing attention to myself. I returned to my desk, choked down my pills, and plopped my head on my desk for 10 minutes.

Then the medicine kicked in. Ahhhhhh! It relieved most of the pain. But it doesn’t do anything for the fatigue and nausea. Another problem with the medication is that it is 500% caffeine. It’s a catch-22. My body is exhausted and wants to enjoy the comfort of a coma. But I get so wired from the caffeine that I can’t sleep. I can’t even sit still. I can’t stop talking and I get pretty goofy. (goofier) I also can get rather spacey at times while on the medication.

Today I became extremely hungry about an hour after I got the headache. I bought eggplant parmigiana with pasta and green beans from the cafeteria. I wolfed that down and was still hungry. So I went back downstairs to get a grilled cheese sandwich and rice pudding. There was no rice pudding, but I got the grilled cheese.

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On my way back to my desk, I passed a meeting room in which several people were sitting at a table, including the friend who was in the training class earlier. As I passed, she raised her eyebrows at me. I was extremely spacey at that point and wondered why she looked at me that way. Then I remembered. I was supposed to be in that meeting! Holy crap! I tossed the sandwich on my desk and rushed back to the meeting room. I was only five minutes late. Lucky for me, a few people were later than I was and the meeting had not started yet. Unlucky for me, I was extremely spacey during the meeting. It was one of the best corporate meetings I’ve ever had the privilege of participating in!

For the past few years, I recorded each time that I had a migraine. In my private journals I wrote down when I had a migraine, what the suspected causes were, etc. Of course, B is also for boring and rather than constantly recording boring migraine entries, I began drawing descriptive pictures when I had the headaches. They started out as basic stick figures/non-smiley faces, some with axes in their skulls or cracks in their foreheads. These evolved into more creative drawings. One is a scene of a Turkish executioner chopping my head off with a big blade. Another is a boot stomping on my head causing teeth to fly out of my mouth. One is two fat people squishing my head between their cellulite-ridden rear ends. My favorite is the one I drew when I had a migraine on Easter. My head looks like a broken colored Easter egg. The insides are spilling out on the ground while two Easter bunnies hop up and down on my body. It’s all part of my grand mission of turning misfortune into artful beauty. (Even though this article is devoted to the letter B, I don’t think I’ll tell you about my “blood art.” You might think it is blatantly bizarre.)

So that’s the babble for the day. Just a tale of a busted head. Now there is only one last B word in my head. (No, KarenD, it’s not ratty BRAS.) It’s BED. I think I better get to it.

Bye!

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter B

ALICE

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

IF YOU BROWSE around through my journal entries, sooner or later you are going to realize that music is a big part of my life. You will probably realize it sooner than later. My second entry mentions music, none other than The Beatles. However, as you browse, you will realize that I am a super Alice Cooper freak.

Now I realize that some of you will just say, “Well, that just makes you a FREAK period!” Hey, Alice isn’t for everybody. But he is for those of us who happen to be cool, those of us who know good tunes (at least Alice’s 70’s music) when we hear them, those of us who happen to be drawn to the freak show that is Alice Cooper.

Alice isn’t all freak though. He’s not only about dead babies, boa constrictors, guillotines, and nooses. The music of the original Alice Cooper band, especially, was basic rock-n-roll for the most part. A lot of the darker themes and theatrics were weird and humorous in their own ways. But much of the music was solid and some of it has stood the test of time.

Alice Cooper was originally the name of a band that included Dennis Dunaway, Glen Buxton, Neal Smith, Michael Bruce and Vincent Furnier. Rumor has it that the name Alice Cooper was the name of a 17th century witch that the band contacted through a ouija board. Later, Vincent Furnier took the name as his own. Once the original band split up in 1975, he was Alice Cooper.

There is no denying that Alice Cooper’s musical quality suffered after the band broke up. He became better known for his shocking theatrics and concept albums, such as “Welcome to My Nightmare,” “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell,” and “From the Inside.” His reputation for theatrics grew, but the style and caliber of his music was disappointing for most of us who loved the music.

However, there is good news for those of us who loved the music of the original Alice Cooper band! Last fall, Alice released an album called “The Eyes of Alice Cooper.” Most of it is in the vein of the old Alice sound. I was thrilled to death when I heard it! (Or should I say I “Loved it to Death?”) Finally! The return of the true Alice! “The Eyes of Alice Cooper” is classic Cooper offerings. It has the good old basic rock, a few songs that could lend themselves to theatrics, and the typical Alice Cooper humor. After hearing this album, I felt that my musical life had almost come full circle.

I say “almost full circle” because one thing is lacking. I have never seen Alice Cooper in concert. “For shame!” you say. You see, the Alice Cooper band had split up by the time I discovered them. I was only 12. Their album “School’s Out” was the very first album I ever bought. Even if the band still was together then, I was too young to go to one of their concerts. And I certainly couldn’t expect my mom to take me. She was too busy listening to her music, evil nasty stuff. I almost saw an Alice Cooper concert later in high school. But that didn’t work out. I lost interest after that for a number of years.

For some time now it has been a dream of mine to buy Alice Cooper concert tickets. My dream has been to knock on my cousin’s door, tickets in hand, and say, “Look what I got! Let’s go!” For it is I who turned my cousin on to the music. I am to blame for my cousin’s love of a man named Alice. When I was 12 and he 14, I pulled out my “School’s Out” album, which looked like an old school desk with the top that opened to reveal the record wrapped in paper panties. I disrobed the vinyl and gently laid it on the turntable. My cousin fell in love at 33 1/3 rpms.

Last week I had the opportunity to fulfill my dream. Alice Cooper is playing at Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA in August, just 20 minutes away from my home. I bought tickets. No, I bought VIP tickets in the ninth row from the center of the stage. When the tickets arrived in the mail, I wrote my cousin’s name on one of them, drove to his house, knocked on his door.

“Hey, cuz… I got something in the mail that has your name on it! Look… right there… And it also has the name ‘Alice Cooper’ over here…”

“Dude!! You bought Alice Cooper tickets?? And you want ME to go?? Rock-n-roll!!”

That’s right, cuz, rock-n-roll. I turned you on to Alice in 1975. I’m obligated to take you to one of his concerts. I’ve waited a long time for this opportunity. Seeing your eyes light up as you held that ticket was a dream come true. I doubt that even Alice himself can top that.

alphabyteslogo3 An AlphaBytes Project – The Letter A

GETTING OVER IT

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

CLICK PICS TO ENLARGE.

“Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down…”

Isn’t that what Simon and Garfunkel sang? It’s a very kind gesture for someone to be willing to lie down as a bridge. But may I make one request?

Please! Please! Please, don’t be a bridge that has grating that I can see through! Please don’t be a railroad bridge with gaps between the ties!

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous, blue sky spring day here in New Jersey. In the morning, I made plans with my son, Tim, to go with him to a local quarry to do some photography. He was told that there were eagles nesting there. We planned on going around 5 PM when I was finished working. But the day was prime for exploration and photography. I worked until noon and took the rest of the day off in order to have more time for the adventure. I picked Tim up after school, went home and changed out of my repressive suit and tie, and we headed off for the quarry. Tim’s friends said they would meet us there, in Brainards. It was only a few miles away from our house.

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Many people, even in our area, don’t know that the little town of Brainards exists. Even fewer know that the town was named after a Christian missionary, David Brainaird, who did work among the Indians in the area back in the 1740s. (Or was it named after his brother?) Brainard was sent from Connecticut to New Jersey. At times he spent weeks on horseback travelling to Indian settlements in the Pennsylvania wilderness. He established schools to teach English to the Indians. He preached in various churches. Though at first his efforts to bridge the cultural and religious gaps between the English Colonialists and the Native Americans yielded little results, eventually he had a positive influence in several areas of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. To this day, his diaries have been an inspiration to many. He was definitely a man whose name deserves to be memorialized, especially since he accomplished all these things before he died of tuberculosis at the ripe old age of 27.

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We drove over to Brainards around 3:30. We met up with Tim’s friends, prepared our cameras, and started walking. Down a few blocks through the quiet neighborhood we entered the woods and came upon railroad tracks. One of the kids said we had to follow the tracks for a little bit and then go across the bridge to the other side of the river. I didn’t think too much about it when he said it. But then I realized the direction we were headed.

“Wait a minute guys, what bridge? What river? Do you mean the Delaware? The quarry is actually in Pennsylvania? WHAT bridge?”

“Oh yeah, Dad, I forgot to mention, we have to walk across the railroad trestle to get to the quarry. I forgot you were afraid of heights.”

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That’s okay. I’m cool, right? I could walk across that bridge and not look like a sissy in front of Tim’s friends, right?

There were several people on the bridge when we got to it. I think a few were fishing. A few were jumping off. I didn’t notice much detail about that group of people. My full attention was on the fact that the bridge consisted of railroad ties and metal grating, both of which you could see through… all the way down, way down, down, down, down. It was high. No, really high. It was so high that I had to duck for orbiting satellites. Well, maybe not quite that high, but definitely more than high for a dude with a fear of heights.

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We were almost half way across the bridge when Tim turned in front of me and asked, “Are you okay??” Until he said something, I wasn’t even aware of the fact that my body was in panic mode. I was focused on the part of the tracks that I couldn’t see down through. I was walking exactly on the section where the grating overlapped the wooden ties, stepping on the large bolts that secured the walkway. Adrenaline was oozing out of my body and I was breathing in short little breathes as if I was a childbearing woman using Lamaze breathing techniques at the height of a contraction! I was at a height of contraction! My whole consciousness had contracted to the single thought of getting over that bridge!

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Tim said, “Listen to you! Remember what you said in the car about being willing to take risks for the sake of ‘art’ and photography? Well, now’s your chance!” Of course, his friends had to hear this and they started in on me. I had become the sissy and the object of their ridicule right there in the middle of the sky above the river. “Yes, guys, I know how far down it is. Yes, I can see between the ties. Yes, I understand that I will die if the train comes right now.” Ha, ha. It was all very funny… until someone actually stopped dead in front of me. “Look guys, don’t F*** with me!” Never corner a sissy in the middle of a wide-open bridge. He’ll get ugly on you real fast.

By now you have probably assumed, due to the fact that I lived to write this, that I made it across the bridge. I did. The way back wasn’t as bad either. Nobody F***ed with me. I even managed to stop and take a few photos. True to my word, I took the risk for the sake of art. And it didn’t kill me!

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As soon as we crossed the bridge, we were at the quarry area. The place was huge! There were several quarries filled with water. The place is haunted with the relics of old iron machinery and dilapidated buildings. Huge mounds of gravel still stood throughout the grounds, criss-crossed by motorcycle tracks. The place was inhabited by all kinds of birds, toads, turtles and other types of wildlife – including teenagers. There were groups of kids hanging out in several spots. There were girls in tiny bikinis sunning themselves among boys at rivalry to impress them. Kids were jumping and diving off of the cliffs into the green quarry water. Their laughter and casual cursing echoed across the quarries.

We were told that the eagles were at one of the farther quarries, about a 20-minute walk from the bridge. We made our way there, stopping a few times to take photos of old buildings and to explore this strange place. It was like a forgotten ghost down. The old machinery left behind gave the impression that the workers went on break one afternoon and never returned.

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As it turned out, the “eagles” were actually osprey. We were slightly disappointed at first. Then we saw how beautiful osprey can be when they soar overhead. We were able to get within 50 yards of their nest, which was on the top of an electrical pole that stood in the water. The birds were a little upset when we got that close and flew in large graceful circles around us. We were delighted and worked our cameras like paparazzi in Hollywood. It was exciting to see these birds in the wild. One of the kids commented how cool it was to see such a thing when we live in New Jersey. People think of New Jersey as nothing but highways and chemical plants. New Jersey actually has many, many beautiful and scenic areas. (Okay… technically the quarry is in Pennsylvania. But, after risking my life crossing that bridge, I hereby officially annex the quarry as New Jersey land.)

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The quarry is a place worthy of exploration. It is a dangerous place, no doubt about it. There are plenty of places to fall from, high places, more than just the bridge. There are several bodies of water whose mysteries are hidden beneath the murky water. The danger is part of its appeal. We will definitely be going back soon.

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As soon as I get the courage to take on that bridge again.

MEMORY MOTEL

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(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

THERE’S NOTHING like getting an album that you used to listen to when you were a kid and haven’t heard in years. Of course, most kids don’t refer to them as “albums” these days. They are just “CDs.” It’s a rediscovery of sorts when in 2004 you buy an album that was originally released in 1976. Unless, you weren’t even born yet in 1976 or were still a snotty-faced four-year-old who didn’t care about music yet.

The album of my most recent rediscovery is “Black and Blue” by the Rolling Stones, which is playing right now. It may not be one of their most popular albums. It does have the song “Fool to Cry” on it, which was a big hit at the time.

So much music defines different time periods of my life. I was 13 when I first got this Stones album. When I think back, there are several other albums that I remember listening to a lot around that time: “2112” by Rush, “Changes One” by David Bowie, “Rock and Roll Over” by Kiss, “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” by Alice Cooper (obviously). I would often sit in my bedroom with a black light on and listen to these albums. I had a red, white and blue bedspread. I can still picture the glow of the white sections of the bedspread as “Hey Negrita” plays now in 2004, transporting me back.

I was in eighth grade then, with my Speed Racer looking glasses, double knit pants, and slightly visible peach fuzz moustache. It wasn’t until the next school year that I began wearing jeans and the ever-cool silk shirts and growing my hair long. Thirteen was the last year of “cute,” soon to be followed by the arrival of “cool.” It was an awkward time in which impressing the girls was of growing importance. Yet, riding my pull start Kawasaki mini bike for hours after school was still more fun, and safer than girls turned out to be, I might add!

Ahhh! Right now the Stones are taking me back to an old house along the Muskonetcong River. It was so old that you could look between the floor boards upstairs and see down to the first floor. The basement had a dirt floor… and rats. We didn’t go down there! There was a winding staircase from the kitchen to a small room upstairs.

There was plenty of land along with this house. The property we rented ran along the river for a good stretch. There were fields to ride mini bikes, pick wild raspberries, play frisbee, and run naked if you really wanted (not that I would know anything about THAT!). There was a great hill for sleigh riding in the winter. There was an old mysterious barn. There was a spring house close to the river in which I sometimes put trout that I caught out of the river. Then I could fish in the spring house and catch them over and over.

I remember doing a few mischievous things at that age. Stupid things really. I cut the inner pages out of a book in order to hide packs of bubble gum so my mom wouldn’t know I had them. I was a big candy freak as a kid. The only problem with hiding them in a book was that I used a book that once belonged to my mom as a kid. She discovered the cut out pages in the garbage can. Ooops. I also flushed a banana peel down the toilet because I was too lazy to take it downstairs to throw it away. The only problem was the toilet clogged a while later and my stepfather discovered the banana peel when he was plunging it. Ooops again. I also remember how my sister wiped out on my mini bike in the gravel on the driveway. Ooops. And ouch. But I was more concerned with the possibility that my mini bike got all scratched up than I was with the probability that half of the stones on the driveway got jammed under my sister’s left knee cap. What can I say? I’m a brother.

Speaking of my stepfather, there were a few funny incidents in which he was involved back then. Once, in the middle of the night, some guy was pounding on our door. Then he backed into my stepfather’s truck with his car and took off. So, my stepfather chased him. Later, at the police station, a cop came in and read him his rights. When he asked what was going on, the cop said they had found marijuana growing on our property. Ooops! It turned out that the caretaker of a neighbor’s property was the one who had planted it on our land. In another incident, we all got in the car and drove up the road to the Dairy Queen for ice cream one evening. While there, somebody backed into our car in the parking lot. My stepfather had to get out of the car. And the poor guy was wearing my mom’s fuzzy pink slippers! Oooooops! Okay. He wasn’t in the habit of wearing her clothes. He wasn’t a cross dresser or anything. He only had to drive a few miles up the road to the Dairy Queen. What were the chances that he would have had to get out of the car in front of a parking lot full of people? All those staring people! Work boots! Never leave home without ’em!

As I end this brief article, the Stones are singing “Memory Motel.” How appropriate. A good note to end on, while just giving you a glimpse of that particular time of my life.