Welcome to my first foray into the blogosphere. It is the lazy man’s way of staying in touch and the egomaniacs way of self-promotion. Since I am both lazy and egotistical, ta-da, . . . Stan’s Write.
Come on in and have a look around.
And, oh yeah, please don't take anything here too seriously (My sources say one of you took something serious the other day. Now, you stop that!), and, for heaven's sake, don't judge my writing skills on my daily log. They are whipped out at the speed of light late at night when I am half asleep. Please enjoy Your Stay.
This is me.
In this issue:
>STAN'S LOG
> JOKE OR CARTOON
>ARCHIVES ___________________
KICKING BUTT
These two men walk into a small café on the edge of town. One says, in a rather loud manner, “We are the Meany Brothers, Blood-eye Joe and Shotgun Jack and we are the toughest men you ever saw. We have come into this café to have breakfast and afterwards, we’re going to kill everyone in town. Now, don’t anybody try to leave”
They sits down in a corner booth near the rear of the café where they can see anyone coming in or trying to leave. They order big steaks, six eggs and a gallon of milk each. After they eat, they stand to their feet, begin to reel around the room, stumble and both men fall over dead.
They failed fatally with their plan and they would never have another chance. And what pray tell is my point, you ask? Well, the Meany Brothers would most likely have carried out their plan had they not told it to everyone in the café, including the cook who had some arsenic stored under the sink because of a rodent problem he had encountered last fall.
A similar, but real, illustration happened just outside Mrs. Hughes’ history class back in 1958 at West Junior High School in Waco, Texas. Gilbert Sanchez told Dennis Elkins that he was going to kick his butt for telling Mr. Briggs, the science teacher it was Gilbert who poured formaldehyde into Mr. Brigg’s coffee mug and put the pig fetus in Miss Carpenter, the librarian’s, purse.
Now, in Dennis Elkin’s defense, he was not a tattle-tale by nature but Mr. Briggs was threatening to keep the whole class after school if the offending culprit wasn’t identified and Mary Ellen McClusky had agreed to let Dennis walk her home and had promised him a kiss when they got to the 9th street bridge.
Although Gilbert was fifteen years old and only in the seventh grade, having failed the second and fifth grades once and the seventh grade twice, and Dennis was only thirteen, he wasn’t about to miss a chance with Mary Ellen. If you could have seen Mary Ellen back then you would have understood why Dennis was willing to put himself in harm’s way just for a kiss.
She used to wear ruffled petticoats and white blouses with the collars turned up in back and she was starting to have curves where most other girls didn’t. She was pretty and would even smile at you and talk to you, something most girls wouldn’t do. But back to Gilbert Sanchez.
I neglected to point out two other significant details. One was that Gilbert was a bully of gargantuan proportions and that not only was he fifteen and a big fifteen, at that, but he was also a twin. His brother, Raymond was in the eighth grade. Some said that it was because he threatened to kill Coach Grady if he failed him in PE, but whatever the case, Dennis was lucky that Raymond wasn’t around that day Dennis ratted out Gilbert. No doubt Raymond was somewhere pulling the legs off of cows and stuffing them down the toilets in the restrooms adjoining the teacher’s lounge.
On that fateful day, I heard Gilbert tell Dennis, “I’m going to kick your butt until your guts explode, you little bug-eyed worm.” To the best of my memory, those were Gilbert’s exact words exact for the “until your guts explode” part. I do remember it was either that or some other very unpleasant simile. The, “I’m gonna kick your butt, you little bug-eyed worm” part was word for word though.
Dennis’s reaction to Gilbert’s threat took everyone by surprise, most of all, Gilbert. For Dennis, weighing 100 pounds soaking wet, wheeled around toward the much larger and stronger Gilbert and kicked him as hard as he could in the chin. Now, I realize some of you readers, you more pedestrian thinkers, would have liked a kick of a somewhat higher nature. But, not only is this blog dedicated to maintaining it’s American Institute of Family Values GP rating, it is dedicated to telling the truth, or at least, the truth as I see it.
I was there in that hallway that day and saw the incident first hand. Oh sure, like Woodstock or Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter, hordes more people than the venue would ever have held now lay claim to being eye witnesses of the Elkins/Sanchez encounter, but I was there. You can ask Bill Maxey or Edward Parker, They were right beside me at the time. If you care to verify this story, I know that Bill Maxey ended up being an instructor at the Naval Academy at Annapolis so you might find him somewhere on Google and Edward probable still works at Baskin-Robins in Waco and weighs a thousand pounds or more. Boy did that kid love his Rocky Road. But I digress.
With Dennis’s kick, big ole Gilbert bent over to grab his pain ridden shin and it was at that moment that Dennis swung his leg back as far as it would go and brought it forward with all the speed he could muster and landed his knee smack dab flush on Gilbert’s nose sending him sprawling him backwards, his nose spewing blood everywhere as he fell. As he reeled backward, he fell flat on his back with his head hitting the corner of the end locker on the south wall of the hall opening a gash in Gilbert’s scalp the size of Oklahoma, Texas and a large part of Mexico. Then, almost before Gilbert realized he was even hit, Dennis was sitting straddled Gilbert’s chest and landing blow after clinched-fist blow to Gilbert’s nose and mouth.
Me, Bill and some other kid who’s name escapes me, pulled Dennis off of the bloody screeching sputtering Gilbert fearing a manslaughter charge and extended prison time for Dennis. The one thing I remember most about Dennis was not the blood splatter on the sleeve of his yellow sweater or how different he looked without his glasses, which we later retrieved from under the radiator ten feet away. What I remember was how calm Dennis was. No more excited than had he just stopped off at the water fountain for a drink as he walked to Algebra class.
As for poor Gilbert. He was taken to Providence Memorial Hospital for treatment as a few of we friends of Dennis “Don’t mess with the Menace” Elkins, whisk him away and on into Mrs. Peek’s Algebra class.
I was concerned for Dennis’s safety after the beating he gave one of the Sanchez brothers. Rumor had it that the Sanchez’s who always wore pointed leather lace-up shoes, perfect for kicking an opponent in a fight, used to break razorblades in half and glue them in the seams between the souls and the sides for weapons. Also, we all knew that the Sanchez boys ran with some other pretty tough guys.
As it turned out, Dennis had nothing to worry about. Gilbert was so embarrassed by being beaten by a hundred-pound little bug-eyed worm that he made up some cock and bull story about being beaten up by his father and his uncle before school that day.
The janitors had to clean up the blood on the hall floor, walls and lockers so the administration had to know something was amiss but I am thinking that the principal and the teachers all disliked the Sanchez’s as much as we did that they secretly laughed and joked about it behind the closed door of their lounge.
A bunch of us friends of Dennis kept a close eye on both him and the Sanchez’s over the next five weeks until Gilbert and Raymond’s sixteenth birthday when they were of legal age to drop out of school. I liked to think there wasn’t ever any trouble because the Sanchez gang knew that me, Mickey and Wayne had Dennis’s back but I guess the real reason was that like most bullies, they didn’t want to take the chance of someone fighting back again.
The moral of this story? If you plan to attack something, don’t threaten. Don’t pre-brag or make brash predictions. If you are ever tempted, for any reason to kick somebody’s butt, remember Dennis Elkins and the café cook don’t tell them, just do it.
PREVIOUS BLOGS:
___________________________
A BRAND NEW DAY
Well, hope springs eternal in the fresh clean air of early fall. If you are so unfortunate as to live somewhere other than somewhere south of the Texas-Oklahoma border, you may not understand how early fall could come in the first week in November. The weather has been glorious and election fighting and haranguing aside, it is time for life to get back on a positive track and get the train rolling along toward the good life.
As you know, my guy did not win the presidential race. He never made it out of the primary and I will admit I ranted pretty negative about both the final candidates but now that President-Elect Obama has won a pretty scandal-free vote count, it is time to quit crucifying President George Bush. He is a man that I believe has done a far better job than most people have been led to believe. He may make more misspeaks than most and his handling of the Iraq war was wrought with mistakes. And don’t go blaming Clinton’s gutting the military hierarchy alone either. The blame is as it always has been, with the complacent and self-serving electorate. And for those in Montgomery County, “electorate” is not the ones elected but the ones who vote all these people into office and will let them get away with murder as long as it does not effect themselves too bad. Clinton’s immorality got a pass. Joe Biden’s plagiarism got a pass. Mayor Marion Barry of Washington DC got a big-time pass, Ted “Chappaquiddick” Kennedy got a pass and the list goes on and on. Get the picture? But they went after a reletively inocent Palin. Stop it. I think she is cute.
On Lynette Long’s May 18, 2008 Hillbuzz blog, she wrote:
“…most Americans vote with their hearts rather than their heads. That voters make decisions out of fear and personal interest rather than out of principle. That all politics is local politics. That when voters like a candidate they will excuse almost anything, and when they don't like a candidate they will parse every word and excuse no sins. I've also learned that the most powerful constituency is the media. And I've learned that true courage is especially hard to find - especially in a politician.”
By jove, I think she’s go it.
So what? Well, I don’t know about you but I am going to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Maybe I will take Toby, my big red dog, and go sit in the little neighborhood park about a block away, and later, maybe I will go for a drive out in the country to soak in some of that great fall air.
And how can I be so wound up one minute and so blasé the next? Because, although I am passionate about politics and government and the news-worthy happenings around me, I am always able to return to home base. Home base is where I can take stock of all the good things God has given me. My wife of 43 years, my three girls and all my other relatives and friends who care about me and who I care about.
The economy is just money and it will need to get a whole lot worse before me and my lovely bride will have to sleep in my truck and eat dry dog food. I live in very close proximity to one of the best medical centers in the world and the way my body is deteriorating, I will need it.
My church provides spiritual uplift, direction and correction when I need it and give us an opportunity to participate in some awesome ministries both local and across the world. So far, my Uncle Sam is still sending me $1800+ every month and my bride gets even more than that from Halliburton. The difference is, she is still a productive member of society and I am a bit of a parasite. In my defense, I must say that if you adjust for the consumer price index, I have to live to be 128 years old to break even so I do not see myself as being in the same category as those who receive a monthly check and never contributed more than $500 a year and didn’t worked their butts of for almost 50 years.
Thankfully, my lovely bride and I have been socking a little something away for just this sort of rainy day we are now seeing, so, as I said, we won’t be tearing into the Purina bag just yet.
As Robert Browning said in the first stanza of his poem, Pippa Passes:
The year's at the spring, (Or in this case, fall.)
And day's at the morn; (Or in this case, night.)
Morning's at seven; (Or in this case, evening is at eleven.)
The hill-side's dew-pearled; (Or in this case, the back yard.)
The lark's on the wing; (Or in this case, it’s a gackle.)
The snail's on the thorn; (Or in this case, on the patio.)
God's in his Heaven – (Or in this case, it’s Earth too.)
All's right with the world! (Or in this case, it’s a few things.)
________________________
I was at the mall the other day, something most men hate but I find interesting. Now that I am retired, I do not have as much contact with the outside world as I once did. The usual reason I go to the mall is for jewelry. I can always find a present for my wife at the mall jewelry store. If it is gold with diamonds in it, my lovely bride seems to like it.
What does a trip to the mall have to do with sex? Have yo0u been to the mall lately? It has a lot to do about sex. I am not talking about Victoria’s secret, where if the lady wears stuff from there, she no longer has any secrets. I will admit that, on rare occasion, my eyes have drifted into the store’s direction and I always see the sales ladies, and the customers too, dressed very modestly. I know someone who used to work at that store and they told me that most of there sales were to blushing brides or demure women looking to spice things up at home not slutty women looking to entice lotharios. Not that lotharios need enticing. All they really need is opportunity.
I am reminded of the old saying that if you want to have sex with some one, a man needs to woo the woman, compliment her, treat her special, do small things that shows he cares. Take a shower, shave, put on some nice colon, comb their hair and put on some romantic music. To get a man in the mood, the woman has to do is smile at a man, letting him know she does not, at that moment find him repulsive. We men are wired differently than women. Women want a man that is perfect. Men want a woman that is willing.
But back to the mall. As always, I couldn’t remember precisely where in the mall the jewelry store was. Actually, there are three or four such stores in the mall but I happen to like one particular store. It is slightly upscale, which says to the recipient, “You are more special than most and yet what I bought you is not so high priced that I had to settle for a charm-bracelet charm so small you’d need a jewelers loupe to define its shape and significance. This says, “I am trying to show you that I care so much that I only want the very best for you, but I need a new rod and reel too, so I compromised.”
But back to sex, As I walked the whole length of the mall, because, as usual, the store was on the opposite end than where I thought, I watched the people walking and shopping along the way. This is why I like to visit the mall on occasion, to people watch.
On my journey, I say a girl of 14 or so walking along with who I must presume was her mom. The girl had on a pink Tee top that stopped just below the breast and a pair of red hip-hugger short-shorts with “Juicy” printed in pink across the butt. As I passed the pair, I saw, to my horror, the girl was wearing the make-up you would expect to see on a runway model or a street hooker.
Now, I know that Juicy may be a brand name but still, it is a word that should not appear anywhere on a young teenaged girl and certainly not one who’s mother knows she owns such items. Appalling.
A little farther down the concourse I met a woman who I would pet to be somewhere in her early fifties or late forties, perhaps a little older but certainly no younger. She was wearing a leather-looking dress so low cut you had to wonder how she kept pushed-up self inside the legal limits of indecency. The dress was a maroon number so tight and so short…, well insert your own crude comparison here. She wasn’t a bad looking woman but it looked like she had applied her makeup with a mortar trowel and a paint roller. This woman obviously had very bad eyesight and some serious mental malady that made her think she was twenty-five or thirty years younger than was and appearing in some Las Vegas bawdy revue. Sexy? No. Pathetic? Yes.
As I passed the beauty-barber salon, I saw to teenage girls sitting on a bench, both with tops that were so low cut that an inch or more of their bras were showing. An older guy (about my age) walking just ahead of me must have been a little long in his glance in the two girl’s direction because on of the girls asked, in a rather loud tone, “What are you staring at, you perv?” The man, thoroughly embarrassed, bowed his head and hurried on, his horrified wife staring daggers into his ear.
I am truly glad it was not me who first passed the two. However, after forty-three years of marriage, I have mastered the face-forward, side-eye no gawk quick look glance. But if the girls had chided me, I am afraid I would have said something equally rude back in the same or perhaps louder tone.
Some years back, I was meeting with a customer who said he was having trouble keeping trespassers out of his property which had once been three very large sand pits. Years of excavation had left very little sand but the huge pits were now three of the clearest, most pristine lakes I have ever seen.
Trespassers tended to break in through his flimsy aluminum farm gate to go swimming and picnicking. He was afraid he would be held liable should someone drown or be injured. Also, as most folks, he just plain didn’t like people coming on his property uninvited.
As we were standing near the gate discussing his dilemma and nailing up a new futile “Posted, Keep out” sign, a pickup truck pulled off the road and up to the gate. Inside the truck was a young couple, in there early to mid twenties, both clad in swimwear. The girl was driving and when we approached, we could see she was barely wearing a too-small two-piece bikini. M gave her my patented the face-forward, side-eye no gawk quick look glance while my customer gave her full frontal eye assault.
From the passenger side of the truck came a gruff and loud, “What the **BLEEP** are you looking at?” My customer’s eyes did not leave their initial target as he said, and I swear this is true, maybe not word for word but very close, it did happen ten years ago, “I am looking at your girl’s *** (ta ta’s). It is obvious that when she left the house this morning, she looked in her closet and said, ‘I wonder what I can wear today that will make the most men lust after my body’ and this outfit was the obvious winner. I didn’t want to disappoint her.”
I instinctively backed away from my customer in case the fellow in the pickup had poor gun-aiming skills. It the pistol range down the road from my house, I have seen some really bad shots. But instead of the guy firing off five or six rounds in our general direction, he gave out with a big belly-laugh. He shed his own T-shirt and tossed it to the girl.
“Put this on, Jennie.”
My customer went on to tell the two that they were trespassing and that if they were caught on that property again, the sheriff would be called. The guy apologized and the two left with the girl never murmuring a single word.
It did get me thinking though. Why else would females dress so provocatively? What other reason could there be for the low-cut tops and low-slung bottoms? I can almost understand the desire of preteen and low-teen girls to want to look, “grown up” but where are they getting these ideas, and, where are their mothers?
The ideas come form TV, movies and music videos. I watched a TV show called “Chuck” the other day and within 30 minutes, it showed two girls moving about the room in their undies. Do people still say, “undies”? At the movies, scantly clothed and topless women are the rule rather than an occasional “artistic exception”. But, and wow, is this a big “but”. Have you seen any MTV or VH1 videos lately? Near nudity is the mildest part of this trash. Simulated sex acts of every kind are treated as everyday/everyone events and as casually as eating cereal for breakfast.
Today, girls and boys are having sex younger and younger and the girls are dressing and making up like whores and parents are shirking their parental duty to keep this trash out of their hoes and off their children. Shame on them. Shame on them for being too lazy and blasé about this issue. With the growth of child pornography and child prostitution, we ought to be less liberal in our thinking and more conservative with our kids.
I like sex. News-flash, most men do. God created sex and its associated pleasantries, feelings and desires. Sex in itself is not evil. As with most things, the evil comes with the perversion of it. The evil is in the acceptance of it’s perversion. The evil is in the exploitation of it.
bravenet.com