Summing Up and Forging On

We had gone to the SPCA to look at dogs. All of the big dogs were standing quietly and a few were even lying down. All but Rocky. He was bouncing all over the cage. When I approached he stopped and sat before me with a happy expression and his enormous tongue lolling down. I instantly told my wife I want him. The attendant was visibly anxious that I might change my mind. He was afraid of riding and cowered on the floor on the way home. He was cautious when we let him in the house, but he figured out the doggy door right away.

Rocky was not one for cuddling. He would allow a few pets but was likely to simply walk away from more. We didn't play fetch. His favorite pastime besides eating was playing with the water hose.

My love affair with music began about 1948 or 9. When I came home from school Mom would be listening to the radio while doing her tasks about the house. I took to hanging close to the radio and eventually picking out favorites. My first favorite singer was Hank Williams. I would sing some of the songs, prompting her to say, "I wish you were on the radio. That way I could turn you off."

I was given a kid's record player for Christmas, which worked a hell of a lot better than the crap they sell today for adults in the big stores like Walmart. I had a couple of cheapie records. My stepdad took Stan Freberg's St George and the Dragonet off the jukebox where he worked. It was a 78rpm. Roger dropped it and broke it.

I heard See You Later Aligator and Rock Around the Clock, but wrote them off as novelty songs. Didn't learn about rock until Roger was allowed to switch Mom's radio to Lucky Lager Dance Time. The hits of the day were Fats' Blueberry Hill, Elvis' Heartbreak Hotel, and Frakie Lymon and the Teenagers' Want You to Be My Girl.

I was hooked. After I quit school at 16 I took some of my wages and bought a Hi-Fi record player and in 1958 started my record collection. The first 45s were Whole Lot of Shakin' and Great Balls of Fire. The first two albums were Belafonte and Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean. I still have those records - sort of.

Music has been the staple of my existence. I only made it through life because of music.

One year my ex-wife loaned a stack of my albums to a person who promptly disappeared with them.

Now that I'm in my 80s and the records have been in a cabinet unplayed for some years I've started dispensing them among my children and one nephew. I want them to get situated before something happens to them.

I've already parted with a few hundred of the albums. Last week I spent half a day sorting 45s with more to go.

These days the only music I listen to is through Youtube. It's disappointing to hear old favorites minus the rich quality a record provides, but one adjusts one's expectations.

I walked into a record shop in Long Beach to browse, thinking to check on favorite artists for new releases or even old favorites. Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' caught my eye. I had never heard of him but I saw right away that he wrote the Peter Paul and Mary hit songs, Blowin in the Wind and Don't Think Twice. Those songs were on the album. Thinking somebody who could write those songs had to be good, I bought Freewheelin. It made me an instant Dylan fan

Because of the Freewheelin incident I began looking to buy albums by unknown artists. It's how I became a fan of Leonard Cohen in 1968. It's how I discovered Judy Collins and Buffy Sainte-Marie. In other cases I knew the names but never heard their music. Leadbelly fits this category.

It didn't always work out. I had no love for Aqualung - Jethro Tull.

I bought Song Cycle unheard and loved it. I've never been in contact with anyone else that does like it. Oh well.

One special record: When Positively Fourth Street hit the stands, I went in a Long Beach record store to purchase my copy. Took it home and the song it played is Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - an alternate version from the later released single. I've never known of another person who has this one. It would be a hit for collectors if I had taken care of it. But I played the **** out of it and lost the dust jacket.

gustavratzenhofer - gus - once recommended two books for me to read. You Can't Win, by Jack Black. The Tortilla Curtain, by T C Boyle. The first is an autobiographical tale of a life of crime and the conclusion at the end that crime got him nowhere. The second is what I visualize as on the line of what Steinbeck would have written had he
focussed his humanity on illegal aliens, fresh across the border. I will always be grateful to gus.

It was not only exhaustion from political turmoil that sent me to open this thread. My conclusion that nothing we do will alter the course we've set to disaster makes me quit looking on, at least temporarily. That nothing will be done for the people, while phony money floods the world in the interest of colonialism, that nothing will halt the war machine - My writing is my final answer and I will not go on about current events on a2k.

The first time I ever became dissatisfied with a book was while reading Jinks of Jayson Valley. I felt the author arbitrarily killed the dog. The remaining pages tried to make it up to us by focussing on Jinks' pup that grew up to be about the same in Jinks' place. That didn't cut it for me. Jinks was dead.

The second time a book disappointed came with the title Stranger in a Strange Land. Previously Heinlein's books had been good reading to the youngster I was. But in this one I felt that the first pages promised a tale it made no effort to deliver. I became more dissatisfied as I read, barely finding the energy to complete the read. When I see the word 'grok' I turn away, unimpressed. I know this opinion is stepping on many toes. Ignore me if you feel that way. It's not my right to interfere.

Remembering Rocky.
My neighbor wanted me to come out to talk. She stood by the gate and told Rocky to go and get me. He dutifully went in through the doggy door and looked at me while wheeling about and going out again. I should have known to follow him but didn't. The next time he thought me and the neighbor could connect he tried a new tactic. He stayed on the porch and gave me his "Open the door" bark. When I looked out to see what was up, he backed off enough to look at my neighbor in her yard. He went "Wf. Wf." I praised him and tossed him a treat.

Context: Rocky is playing with his squeaky chicken here.

During the Covid lockdown I had some hearing aids that had a loose grip on the rubber tips. One tip came loose inside the ear and I succeeded in only pushing it deeper in. Because of the lockdown I left the tip in my ear and didn't mention it to anybody. Didn't want to go in the doctor's office. So I continued to use hearing aids - a different set after a while. The ear eventually quit working for me. By this time the lockdown was over, but I still didn't go to a doctor.

I keep an envelope full of tiny tools, mostly improvised from wires, safety pins and anything with a potential use on the smallest projects. One day I realized that a strand of stiff wire had just the turn at the end that could fish out that tip. Careful to keep the wire in the center of the hole I probed until it touched the tip. Through repeated pushing the wire against the tip I managed to make the tip turn sideways. Then the wire rolled it all the way out.

The ear still could not hear, even with a hearing aid. I did some ear exercises by following a Youtube video. With no apparent result, although I quit the program before the recommended three weeks was half over. Two days later the ear sort of popped and today it's working again.

Whew.

Rocky had a happy face.

I still catch myself looking for him some mornings.

For maybe five years - hell, I don't know. The retired old don't keep up with time - rats continually invaded my house. Same with roaches. I handled the roaches easily with those black roach baits. Put enough of them out and the house gets exterminated. I tried to handle the rats without poison, but eventually had to kill them off with Victor poison.

Across the water company property was a house that was always full. There were so many living there that they had tents and canopies over the front yard. They put up a wooden fence. In the last several months the house was occupied the numbers dwindled. The women and kids were among first to go. Eventually the dog and the rest were gone, except for one lone young man.

One day I went outside because I heard an explosion from there. I saw a huge black smoke pouring out above the fence. After waiting to see if the fire department come and nothing, I worried the young man could be hurt. I walked to the fence and peered in. I didn't see the young man, just a fire in the yard. Then my gaze roved all around the inner fence walls. On all sides was garbage and trash, much of it waist high. I decided the young man was not hurt and went home.

About a week later it seemed the house had been abandoned. Another week passed and the people who had resided there came and released the fence from the posts, all sides simultaneously. I felt the impact all the way in my house. The piles of trash were exposed for the whole neighborhood to see.

Finally I looked up the health dept website and clued them in. The same day a man examined the property and eventually the trash and the mobile home also was cleared away.

Since then not a rat or roach has tried to invade my home. You don't suppose those people were training them and sending them out to colonize the neighborhood -- ...?

....or, maybe even, the world.........?

Their evilness was thwarted. The people in the new home over there are perfect. Except for their dog's incessant barking. But I don't mind noise, really. The dog's in a small space in the back yard with nothing to occupy his time except barking at everything he detects. I feel sympathy rather than annoyance.

These are the reason I prefer my house in the country. Lucky for me, no suburb or housing community has built up next to me over the last 35 years. Nor are there Industrial developments - still a lot of farming and horse breeding. The homes that are over taking the old country homes are large to mansion size - Toby Keith's home is about 3 miles away. I am doing just fine in my 1935 home on 7-8 acres, heavily wooded and 600ft from the main road. Coyotes use to howl a lot, but they have become few and far inbetween!

Just outside of my neighborhood was like being in the country. I could drive to Tomball doing 70 or 80. The main road was single lane with residences and pastures. Suddenly they put in shopping centers and gas stations everywhere. They widened the road and put a freeway across it. They cut down all the trees. I could well be in downtown Houston. We've decided to dump the house even though it's paid for and rent someplace we like better.

Growing big, fast has been a big fear of mine. Over the next five to eight years or so they will be building a east/west toll road about 3 miles north of me and it will intersect with another one that will run north/south/southwest about 1 1/2 mile east of me. This makes the potential of a fast buildup in this area for feeding the probable high traffic volume. It's purpose is rerouting traffic around OKC, which has become impossible. It will have the possibility of a large amount of truck traffic. It will also "block" me in because new toll roads have very limited access across/over them in rural, previously under developed areas.

It has been my experience the more roads they build, especially the bigger ones, the more traffic comes to overfill them. It doesn't improve the situation one bit.