In 2007, the psychology department at the University Georgia, conducted a controlled experiment on eight graduate students. The students were first sedated and then placed in separately sealed rooms without clocks or windows. They each had a bathroom and kitchenette with their own food and water. For entertainment, they had music CD‘s, books and a DVD player with monitor. For the next five days they had no contact with another human nor did they any sense of what time it was or whether it was night or day. They ate, entertained themselves and slept when they were tired.

    The test was meant to observe how many hours a day a person would sleep without any reference to time. After five days, it was found that the test subjects, under these conditions, had slept off and on for almost 16 total hours out of every 24. There were also two primary side effects resulting from the extended test….three female test subjects had begun to talk to themselves and two male subjects were bed wetting.

   What I have just written, is a total fabrication! I made it all up. The reason I wrote this, was because of something I saw Sunday night on CBS’s  60 Minutes. A psychologist had written a book about lying. She said that most people will believe 70% of anything a total stranger tells them. The point being, that politicians for over 200 years have depended on this human flaw to maintain and advance their positions and power. She almost said that every campaign ad and speech we hear today is based on that very premise. The psychologist quoted  from Joseph Goebbels’ book, written in 1936, that “If you repeat a lie often enough, the people will eventually believe it to be true.”

What I just wrote about 60 Minutes….I totally made up. The Goebbels quote was correct, but everything else was BS (Blog Shit).

Think….before you vote this year! 

                                                                        Charlie

 

 

 

 

    They were known as elementary schools, grammar schools or preteen gulags. My elementary school’s name was Jerome Jones. I never really knew who Jerome Jones was or might have been, but most schools in the south, during those early years, were named after long bearded Confederate generals, politicians or recently dead members of the Board of Education.

    Lil bro and me would get rattled out of bed in the mornings and while we stood on the large floor grate of the main heating duct to get dress, Mom would whip up a batch of her famous dungeon gruel, called oatmeal. After breakfast, we brushed our teeth, combed our hair and took a leak. On the way out the door we were issued our lunch rations for the day of a boloney sandwich, apple and small thermos of cold Ovaltine.  I had my Roy Rogers lunch box and lil bro had my rusty Hopalong Cassidy one from last year. After the door was closed behind us, we could hear Mom sob, “Thank God!”  Mom talked to God a lot back then.

    We waited on the sidewalk until one of the pre-adolescent caravans came by and together we all trudged our way to school. The safety of these small groups afforded protection from the 5^th grade bullies and wolves during the winter months.  It can be said that kidnappers and pedophiles were rare back in the 50’s, as most of them were still going to elementary school. Once we got to school, we headed to the bathroom where the 7^th grade teacher, Mr. Links, stood guard outside the door.  I was never sure of what he was guarding, unless it was to come to the rescue when one of the boys got his willy caught in his zipper. But, how come Mrs. Calstead stood outside the girls restroom, cause at the age of 7, I already knew the girls didn’t have zippers.

    My classroom was gigantic! The ceilings were almost twelve feet high with a dozen huge light globes hanging from ceiling chains. The windows lined one entire wall and were about ten feet high. The teacher had to use a long pole with a hook on the end to open and close the top part of the windows as well as the glass shutter over the classroom door. The floors were made of wood and had weathered years of little scampering feet and gallons of linseed oil. Our desk were solid oak with a little hole on top for an inkwell, which they used prior to WW II. There was at lease two generations of gum and dried boogers under the seats and the Duck and Cover drills could cause a state of regurgitation while you crouched under that seat.

    Miss Lehr’s gigantic desk stood on a small platform in front of a blackboard that covered the entire wall! On her desk she had books, a flower vase, a little statue of Mary, a pencil cup and usually a few pieces of bruised fruit. I gave her a banana once, but she gave it back. She said it caused little flies…..I didn’t eat another banana until I was 20.  Miss Lehr was beautiful! She smelled good too, just like sun dried bed sheets on a clothesline. She always smiled and made you feel like you wer’t a dork. I was going to marry her when I got older, but changed my mind when I met my third grade teacher, Miss Clover.

    The cafeteria was a wonderment. Everything shined and was scrubbed clean. To this day I can still remember the smell of that big room, but have yet to identify the odor as it reminded me of tainted milk and wet cardboard. Lil bro and me had always toted our lunch to school because Mom said our lunches were made with love and not greasy cafeteria help. I had a difficult time equating love with baloney. Anyway, the food from the cafeteria was a lot different from the patronizing food they dish out to the Ritalin enhanced kids of today. There were no pizzas, tacos’, chicken nuggets or corn dogs with spaghettiO’s. They served wholesome limas, green beans, peas, corn, meatloaf, roasted chicken drum sticks, spaghetti and on Thursdays they had hamburgers and fries. Come Friday, you had a choice of fish sticks, (Pope’s orders), with macaroni and cheese, or, vegetable soup made from limas, green beans, peas, corn, meatloaf, chicken, spaghetti and chopped up hamburgers……baloney looked pretty good on Fridays.

    Recess was a lot like the Disney nature movies, where they show a volcanic beach covered with sea lions all strutting and declaring their piece of the beach. Once again kids clustered into protective groups and played games like; concussion dodge ball, seesaw races, monkey bar contusions or you just got beat up by a sea lion. When the bell rang, the collective herd rushed back inside to form lines at the porcelain water fountains that dispensed room temperature water. Back in the classroom, Miss Lehr would inspect us for any playground injuries and then we would get back to the challenge of our multiplication tables.

    After school and bidding our caravan farewell, lil bro and me would go running up to our front door, eager to show Mom our gold stars for the day, and as we stormed into the house, you could hear Mom sob from the kitchen, “Oh God!”  She talked to God a lot back then.

     THE STARLIGHT DRIVEIN

 

    It’s Friday night. Not just any night, but FRIDAY NIGHT!! Mom’s not cooking supper and we don’t care. It’s FRIDAY NIGHT!! My brother and I sit on the sofa and wait. It’s after 6:30 and we are waiting for Mom and Dad to get ready because it’s FRIDAY NIGHT!! Finally we hear the jingle of Dad’s key chain, which means we are in the final count down. Then those wonderful exhilarating words….“You boys ready?”….Yes!!, because it’s FRIDAY NIGHT and that mean we’re going to the DRIVE-IN!!!!!!!

    Me and bro already have our pajama’s on. I’m 9 and he’s 7. The reason for the pajamas is by the time we get home tonight, Mom and Dad will have to carry our comatose carcasses into the house and put us into bed. We look both ways as we run out of the house in hopes the guys won’t see us in our pajamas. I’m still wearing my Roy Rogers pj’s from last year and bro’s hand-me-down pj’s are so faded you can’t tell which cowboy they originally were.

    We jump in Dad’s 1955 Desoto and patiently wait for the folks to get on the stick. “You boy’s pee?” Mom asks. 

   “Yes ma’am,” we both lied….

    Then we pulled out into the street and begin our FRIDAY NIGHT trip to the DRIVE-IN! It takes about 25 minutes to get there….that’s 4 hours in kid time. We both scan the terrain for landmarks as we travel. Our greatest fear is that Dad might have to pull over for gas and that might cause us to miss the entire first feature! The sun is starting to set and that’s a bad sign. Bro is already beginning to whimper.

    Finally, we can see the glowing road marquee with it’s million little flashing light bulbs. The cars are lined up to get in and once again we are seized with fear. As we slowly wait our turn to pull in we study the marquee. ‘THE TEN COMMANDMENTS,’ staring Charlton Heston and “The Bad Seed,” with Nancy Kelly. The second movie is when we’re suppose to fall asleep.

    We finally pull up to the ticket place and we can smell the enchanting vapors of fresh popped popcorn. We only get one box to share, but that’s OK, cause the concession stand is waiting! Dad counts up eleven rows from the front and then drives mid way across the designated row and parks. He has figured out that this strategic location allows for the most optimum of viewing pleasure. Dad rolls down the window and ceremoniously brings in the sound icon called the ‘speaker’. He spends a few moments positioning the device and then carefully adjusts the sound mechanism. My Dad was a master of sonic perfection. Finally, it’s almost dark and Dad gets out to make a quick trip to the concession stand and bathroom. “You boys need to pee?” Mom asks.

    “No ma’am,” we lied.

    Just as the big screen begins it numeric countdown, Dad’s back with provisions. 4 hotdogs….two orders of fries….4 sodas of various sizes and a box of Tootsie Rolls. We sit on the edge of our seat with hotdog in mouth, soda in hand, fries in lap and eyes mesmerized on the gigantic screen that is now exploding to life in Technicolor with a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. After the “THE BLOB,” was over we used our empty soda cups to pee in and poured it out the window down the side of Dad’s car. We seldom ever remembered much about the second feature and as routine would have it, the next thing we knew, we were waking up in bed Saturday morning.

    The Starlite drive-in will always hold a special place in my heart for all the wonderful movies and hotdogs I enjoyed there. A few years later, while in my teens, the drive-in once again served me well, as I became a man while parked on row 30 in the back seat of my 56 Ford….during the second feature.

 

 

 

“Eat your young….teens taste like chicken.”

   

    Okay….I know what you’re all thinking. What the crap does this geezer know about raising demonic teens? Well, first my credentials; I, along with their mother, raised four children from the cradle to the front door.

    My wife and I had decided to start a family while we were still young, so our own parents could be the main babysitters before they got too old…it’s called heredity. Anyway, none of my children were tortured, shackled, drugged or brainwashed during their development. During those nineteen or so years, we learned a lot. If I had to do it over again, I would have raised them in the basement and let them out only at night to go feed in the neighborhood….but, their Mom would be too much of a wussy and would prefer to spoil them.

    First off, we all know that there is nothing more embarrassing to a teen than their own parents. A perfect parent would be a mute zombie that lived in the kitchen and wore credit cards and car keys around their necks.  It seems like all teens have an agenda of keeping the elders confused and arguing about each other’s gene pools. Parents have only a few required duties, and that’s to keep these little people clean and fed and hopefully disease free with the exception of childhood cooties. Above that, all parents really want is peace and quiet. It don’t happen that way. You must remember that parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth and that parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore!

    Now….raising teenagers is like nailing Jell-o to a tree. Nothing ever makes sense to them as they walk around like one big pimple that’s mad at their mirror and the world. They can’t go to “R” rated movies due to the language, yet the only people I hear using that language are teenagers. Gawd!  You can’t convince them that life is like a stalking panther, just waiting for them to reach 18 before it pounces on them and drags them back to it’s real world cave. Being young and stupid comes natural to them. It is amazing how quickly these kids learn to drive a car, yet are unable to understand the simple complexities of a lawnmower, snow blower or vacuum cleaner. I tried to explain to my smartest son about the speed of light and then he asked me about the speed of dark! Then just try and tell them that they are at the last stage of their life when they will be happy to hear the phone ring every time and that the worst is yet to come, like death is hereditary, and that they will spend the rest of their lives overcoming their childhood.

    But, the day comes when they’re grown and finally on their own, (hopefully).  Your youngest asks you one day was it ever difficult raising four kids, and you ponder for a moment and finally with a smile, you say, “I wish I had saved up all the tears we cried over all of you, then we could of drown you little turds in them……just saying.”

                                                                                               Love……Mom & Dad

　

 

　

　

NEIL ARMSTRONG

August 5, 1930.….August 25, 2012

 

When heroes were common

 

 

 

 

                   Saturday Matinee

 

    The Patio theater was first built when movies found their voice around 1930. The lobby with it’s rich, lush crimson carpet was now packed and stained flat. The walls once boasted gold crown molding and rococo designs in turquoise, but now it was mostly brown from decades of water stains. Inside the theater itself, the enormous crimson curtain that hung from the ceiling to the stage in pleated folds was now patched and faded and just kept open. In the day, the theater manager would stand on the stage every Saturday night to give away door prizes from the local furniture store or bike shop. Now in the 50’s, most of the seats had lost their ability to spring back in place and half the arm rest were wobbly or missing. But to me, it was Oz!

    Most every Saturday during the Summer, lil bro and me would go to the matinee at the Patio in town. It was about a three mile walk and we must of ran every foot of it to make sure we didn’t miss a single preview or God help us, the start of the movie! We always got there early and had to wait till they opened for business. Most of the time we were an hour early, but that was OK cause we would put our noses against the little glass windows on the doors and read the movie posters on the inside walls.

    We started the countdown when we first smelled the popcorn. We knew it was just a matter of minutes now and we were gonna make it! By then, there were over 50 other kids waiting to storm the doors like drunken Frenchmen at the Bastille. Then the loud clang of the door lock would disengaged and the swoosh of the double doors opening up would nearly blast you across the street with it’s fresh popcorn air blast unless you had a little brother to hang on to. The adolescent multitude would swarm in like a tight disciplined pack of army ants, pass the ticket guy with bad acne, pass the concession stand and we would all pack into the bathroom. I failed to mention that the other guys were already there waiting when me and lil bro got there an hour early and kids bladders are regulated on an hourly basis. Deed done, we all gathered around the concession area and called out our orders as if we were at an auction bidding on a new Schwinn bike.

    Concession food is as important at a matinee as dinner is to Mom at Thanksgiving time. It must be thought out like elements of a proper plan. Candy back in the fifties was a moon landing difference from today’s shrink wrapped “samples” you shell out a couple of bucks for today. I had my standards that I always got and rarely strayed from those basics. The “large” tootsie roll was so big you could repair a tire with it. You put it in your pocket right away to give it a chance to soften from your body heat so that in an hour it would be chewy perfect. Back then, they never referred to large or giant sizes of candy or any kind of food by the prefix “JUMBO.” All candy bars were behemoth in size and Jumbo was a term related to the circus and visions of the elephant Jumbo and his jumbo piles of do-do.

    Anyway…….another selection might be a Payday candy bar. It was a huge caramel bar rolled and totally covered in peanuts.  If ever stranded, and you were lucky enough to have one, you could live on it for days it was so big. A third candy bar was the Baby Ruth, which could be used as a leg splint if needed. The Ruth bar was caramel, covered all over with peanuts and then dunked in chocolate. These three candy bars were the most popular and most all the guys selected from this small food group. There were others of course like Hershey Bars, Mars Bars, Snickers and so on, but they were more for girls cause boys wore most of the chocolate home on their t-shirts.

    There were also bags of Mary Jane’s, boxes of Ju Ju beads, licorice bits, Sugar Daddies, etc. The candy boxes were so big you could raise a frog in one. The small Coke and small popcorn were a given. The Patio made popcorn with enough salt to cure port and keep you dehydrated for a week. Total cost for the trio of one candy bar, popcorn and drink…75 cents. 75 cents for the ticket and your allowance was shot for the week and your family would just have to starve if Dad lost his job.

    The type of movie also dictated what you got to eat. If a Roy Rogers, Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis or war movie was playing you would get Mary Jane’s or maybe a box of candy along with the popcorn and drink……but!…….if it was Frankenstein, Wolf man, Dracula or any kind of scary movie, you always got a candy bar. Here’s why. If I’m watching and waiting for the werewolf to jump out of the bushes and I look down to unwrap a Mary Jane and then look up at the very instance the Wolf man jumps out….I’m gonna scream and all my Mary Jane’s are gonna fall on the sticky floor and I’ll have coke and ice dumped all in my lap followed by a popcorn blizzard. Of course this hysterical reaction from me would scare the shit out of my little brother and he’d dump his goodies too, then cry afterwards. But candy bars, on the other hand, were held in front of your face at all times and served as a partial blind to impending moments of horror. To make the Pay Day and Baby Ruth last, you always nibbled off all the peanuts first before you ever started on the caramel center. If the movie was really scary, all around the theater kids would be peeking over their candy bars and it would sound like a pond of beavers munching on wooden candy bars.

    All the way home after a good spooky movie, I would keep stopping to ask lil bro did he hear something in the bushes…..by the time we did get home he would be a mess…I could really be cruel. Mom would look at my knees and see all the dirt and sticky bits and say, “Dropped your Mary Jane’s again?” Mom could really be cruel.

                                                                            Little Charlie

 

 

　

 

 

 

                ORANGUTANOSITY

 

    LISTEN!! …..I‘m an elder now, so my advice should carry some weight with a lot of you younger guys. Here is my life long summation put into one sentence.  ‘Women are irreversibly complicated’! There are so many assorted categories of their complexities, which are then subdivided and cross referenced to other feminine sub-categories, which go so deep into the psyche of female awareness that in comparison, most men would be lucky to compete with the mental disposition of an adult orangutan. Women are complex and they are sneaky!

    No…..the ‘Space Station’ is complex, women are beyond that. They are the swirling ‘black holes’ of humanity. NO!….I don‘t mean it like that! I mean like the out of space black holes and no I don‘t mean spaced out black holes in the sense that women are spacey…..I’m starting to sound like an orangutan. I just mean they are quantum complicated. I’ve already got a headache and I’ve just started.

    Eve made it clear who was in charge when she made Adam run around fetching tossed apples like a dachshund. She understood the significance of controlling man; basically with food. Then when man got stupid and bit into the apple of knowledge and saw she was naked….well then, food took on a secondary priority in the control of man. Now, this would have been all well and dandy except Mr. G stepped in and foreclosed on the garden dwelling and they were out on their fig leafs. At this point, man became dumbfounded and spent the next mega thousand years doing the woman’s bidding.

    Oh sure, he thought he was in charge. “Storm the city and slay everyone, except the women!”……“Women and children first!”…..“Here come da injuns, protect the women folk!”….“Here come the Greeks, hide Helen!“ Sly….very sly. It’s automatic. We don’t know any better or even care because our brains don’t work that well and we belong swinging in treetops.

    Women can start any conversation with the word “why”, and the guy will break out in a sweat and have multiple brain infarctions while his synapses implode in an effort to recall any current violations of “woman law” he may have recently committed. This will occur in the left side of his brain, while the right side is busy composing vague and outrageous excuses. At this point a man is very vulnerable and the woman knows it. The signs are often the far away glazed look and open mouth stutter.

    “Why…..don’t you give me some money for shopping, hon,” she will say in her Shirley Temple voice.

    “……yes…..money…..take……I sorry”…..the orangutan husband will reply.

    Now, I will conclude this life long ‘deposition’ with this accurate summation. Women are vital to men for purging their hormonal ecstasy and grooming their male egos. Men are vital to women for the same reason zoos are built. Women like orangutans.

 

 

 

 

      VISA….WE HAVE A PROBLEM

 

    Have you ever been out in the woods at night and come across a rabid wolf? Well….neither have I, but I have had to deal with rabid imbeciles. It was concerning one of my credit cards. I was charged for a lawnmower at Home Depot which, of course, I never transacted. The Home Depot in question was in New Mexico and I live in Florida. My wife had not slipped out of town and my dementia is not that advanced yet.

    I followed the prescribed ritual of first trying to correct the problem on line and that fizzle in a heartbeat. Forget any attempt to write as all letters received are immediately recycled into late payment notices.

    I got a beer. Put on a pair of DEPENDS and sat down. I then put all the necessary accouterments before me. A bottle of aspirin to my right and my heart medication to my left. Then….I called.

    “Press number 2 for yada yada….press number 4 for yada yada….press number 1 to start over.” GOD!!  “Enter your forty-six digit account number….enter your birth date….enter your pin number….enter your code number found on the back of your charge card in the signature window….please wait and a customer account representative will be with you shortly.”

…….everybody, loves somebody, sometime…….

“HOLY SHITE!!”

“Hello, my name is Aishwarya Jaywant. May I have account number please?”……My God, it’s foreign intervention!

“Sure….5793465572956144777-58251478-5-2552221458221565-8811336495747-B.”

“Thank you very much. How can I assist please.”

“I have a charge for a lawnmower made on the 16th of last month in New Mexico. I live in Florida!!!”

“I am very much sorry you have problem with lawnmower.”

“Yes I have a problem, it won’t start. The reason it won’t start is cause it’s ain’t here!!! I did not purchase the lawnmower. Someone else did!”

“As gift for you? Very nice.”

“Noooo! Someone used my card number or there was a processing error,” I sobbed.

“Then you lost card? Let me transfer you please to have card cancelled.”

“Please don’t! Really! I like you, OK? I feel we have a bond. OK? It’s like this, Home Depot messed up.”

“Your home tea pot is mess? I am to understand it is not lawn equipment but tea pot? Sir I am much concerned that you are presenting wrong facts. Let me transfer you to supervisor.”

“Noooooooo!!!!”

….everybody, loves somebody, sometime….

“Hola….Mi name Angelica Cruzeta. Is problem for you?”

I hung up and took all my credit cards and fed them to the garbage deposal.

 

**The point of my friggin story can best be made by saying, today, most of us drive a financed car over bond-financed highways using credit card gas on our way to our mortgaged homes. I can still remember from many years ago when my parents had no credit…..yeah, must of been nice. 

 

 

 

 

 

　

　

 

            ADORATION

 

    I sat and stared at her from across the room. She was beautiful. Her long blond hair was what my grandmother used to call ‘sun blond’. Pure natural rays of blond from near white to mellow wheat and finally gold. She was beautiful. Her skin was clean and fresh and reminded me of the marble statues in museums. She was beautiful. Her smile attracted everybody and without realizing it, you soon found yourself smiling. She was enchanting. Then there were her wondrous eyes. Large as can be and they were pale blue like robin eggs. If she looked your way you felt captured and you could not move again until she looked away and then you would have to catch your breath.

    I watched as her walked across the room, as if a gentle breeze guided her. If she came close enough, I knew I would be intoxicated by the crisp fragrance of spring flowers. She was wonderful. She wore her clothing as if they were the veiled robes of a temple goddess. They covered her body seductively and enhanced her shape and form. The treasures her garments concealed were obvious. She was gorgeous.

    I sat and stared. A coward of my emotions and terrified of rejection. I was lost in love. She was the vision I started my day with and the specter I dwelled upon each and every night before sleep stole her away. I worshiped her. Now, I sit and embrace her with my eyes. My heart is gladly given each day I see her, but yet I can’t and may never speak to her. She exist in another world so unique that I can never hope to be part of it. She was too special for me.

So I sat….and I stared….and I hoped….and I suffered. Too soon the bell will ring and she will rise and walk out of Mrs. Cooper’s math class and I would not see her again until Mr. Dell’s science class at 2:00. Then my anguish would replenish. Being 16 was cruel.