no time for blogging....

I read the news today, oh boy....

Whoa.....I guess I missed this....Pope Benedict resigns!  And, ... I didn't even know we had one!

I mean, I knew there was a Pope and all that, but I dina know he was German or that his Name was Benedict.....gees, I thought Pope Benedict was that thingee, ya know, poached eggs on a muffin topped with HolyDaz sauce. & anywayz...'poached' eggs?  Was de stolen or something? Stuff!
 Heard he was gonna open up a day camp for Wayward Choir Boys.






Next Pope should be a nice Italian boy.... I think Pope Vito the Skinny would be a good name.  Offer you a sin you can't refuse.








Ohohoh....then I heard that some Carnival cruise  ship caught fire

and everything went wrong and it is awash with urine &shit, and the house band could only play hip-hop and the only thing they have to eat is onion sandwichs.......boy, that will teach those folks to accept a free trip from Fox News, huh!

boy...I gotz some catching up to do!!

what a long short trip it was....

shall we gather at the river,

where bright angel feet have trod, 

with its crystal tide forever

flowing by the throne of God? 

 Yes, we'll gather at the river, 
 the beautiful, the beautiful river; 
 gather with the saints at the river
 that flows by the throne of God. 

I think it was last Sunday night that I heard that old hymn ....through the morphine haze and the sounds of the hospital corridor.  I sang it once...wayz back in college when I was in a play called 'The Rimers of Eldritch" by Lanford Wislon.  Hadn't thought of it for years.  The gist of the play was ethical morality, which, thinking back was funny...cause in the middle of the play the leading actor, Chuck, took off with the leading actress, Sarah, and I started a bit of an affair with Chuck's wife, Sharon.  Hadn't thought of it all in years....but through the pain and the drugs and the strange hummmmmmm of the hospital heating system.....I thought of it again....how it became a sad drama within a sad drama.

OK...the short version of what it was, and how I got to that strange hazy time trippy drug induced memory hallucination was.... a slip on the ice.  And not one of those 'gees I fell on my bum and it hurtz' thingee ...npe.  It was a 9/11 crash smack dab down on the street... felt like Jesus ran me over on his way to a sale at Walmart.  Goddam Jesus!  Anywayz.....landed right on my ribs and the gist of it was a lung collapsed and I couldn't breathe....and phone calls were made....and the Ex ended up taking me to the Mergeny Door and they took an extra-Ray thingee and shaved my chest (damn near took my right nipple off doing it, too) and the Doctor what was in charge&stuff cut this small whole in my chest and stuck some big honking tube into me with great forge and vigor...like I was a vampire or somethingand then hooked me up to something or something that soounded like a Hoover rug cleaner and then they shot me up full of of morphine and shipped me off to a room to suffer.


On the margin of the river
washing up its silver spray,
we will walk and worship ever,
all the happy golden day. 

OK...had to take a break writing this...hey, gotz news ...pain hurts.  Sometimes a lot.  But, like Billa Lang says...write write write.

well, here;s the story.  Spent some time up in that there hospital....and some of the folks that took great of me were beyond great.  Maybe except for the woman who woke me at 3 am , after I finally fell asleep, to ask me if I was having trouble sleeping and did I want a pill.
The Student nurses that looked in on me were also very nice....wish I could remember their names.  They were both about 4'11" and were as funny as all get out.  When I told them that I,ah, was having trouble with,ah, bowel movements....they were absolutely delighted in the opportunity of giving me a suppositry. "Thank you very much," I replied,"but I have had a lotta experience getting things stuck up my ass.  I can mange.  Just leave it on the sink."  I swear, they were rather crest fallen.

The deal is, though, that pain is a lonely thing.  Doesn't matter what you broke, a leg, an arm, your heart, your lung, your toe, your hopes, dreams....it just plain hurts and it is all yours and no one else can truly understand or even come close to it.  You own it, whether you like it or not  One of the worst things you can do is say something like, "I know how you feel" or " it will get better".  Nasyt things to say, cause you know they don't understand and that after you have been truly hurt, you never quite get better.
Pain does make you think.
Made me think of all the hateful rhetoric pounding around the airwaves....hurtful stuff..."Guns don'kill, people do" is one of them.  Thought of those kids in CT and how the response from the far right wing was..." well, we gotz too many guns so there is nothing to do about it.  That hurtz.  I thought of how Karl Rove and his ilk offer nothing to fix America...only suggestions that THE NIGGER PRESIDENT ( oh trust me...that is all they are saying...they just disguise it badly in other ways) has gotta go.  I think of how Grover Norquist and the Koch Bros spread the great UNTRUTH that greed is good and 'US GREEDY Folks' will get you a job...pushing brooms and emptying out the trash right after we steal you last flat nickel.  Yessirree, Bob.....I reach for another vicodin to ease the pain...and close my eyes to drift beyond what hurts and I hear that old hymn again....and how long Sharon's fingers were and how peaceful and healing it would feel as she would run them down my cheek.
But healing is not what the radical right Republican's want....they want power and money.... When the President passed the Affordable Care Act....the rich and greedly were quick to change the name to "Obama Care"....only because it would be impolitic to call it what they really wanted to call it.."Nigger Care".... oh oh oh... they would if they could....but they can't and all they are interested in is the insurance companies and how much they make and how much they spend to lobby for.....more money.

....and golly gee, when they make more money they can build more insurance company buildings and fill them with people who write bills and for every bill those folks in those buildings...well....the money just keeps buiilding and building and then the rich and greedy can build more buildings and fill them with more folks that write bills......BUT...not a single person in any of those buildings make anyone WELL.
It really does hurt to think about it.  And when I think to much, I hear that song again.
Maybe we can get America Well Again...and maybe not.....but come spring, I will go down to the river and hope there is a God.....and that some day he will show up and share a beer with me.

 lay we every burden down; 

 grace our spirits will deliver, 
 and provide a robe and crown. 
 (Refrain) 

 Soon we'll reach the shining river, 
 soon our pilgrimage will cease;
 soon our happy hearts will quiver 
 with the melody of peace.

thanks to, and best wishes, Billa Lang 

wowzers.....four days in the hospital...not fun, but the drugs were good

Saturday last I slipped...and went...boom....to the tune of a punctured lung.  Five days, four nights.  Not funl  I guess it was bad enough when the nurse asks you in the morning... "Coffee" Jueice"  Morphine?


gonna be off the pages for awhile...... y'all have fun.

Johnson Shrugs....

Well golly gees&Stuff..... our Senator from Wisconsin....is trying to make political gain from the Benghazi thingee, which, truth be told, was very tragic and must be addressed, but good old Ron Johnson was more intent on attacking Hilary Clinton and, through inference, the Obama administration.

OK....so after Hilary rather told him his questions were shallow, that he didn't understand what he was asking and really didn't have a grasp of foreign affairs (my take on it, see), Johnson gives an interview with USA Today in which he says,

"To answer Secretary Clinton, it does make a difference. It matters enormously for the American public to know whether or not their president and members of his administration are on top of a crisis and telling them the truth."

TELLING  THEM THE TRUTH ?   Now, that is what Ron Johnson has carefully avoided.  Not that there is scandal, or evil doings or any such....there isn't, but the real deal is Ron Johnson has, for the last three years let others pass HIM OFF as
someone he isn't.

He has let others, at introductions at political rallies and speeches describe him as an entrepreneur, a successful businessman who built a business from scratch and all sorts of similar blather.  He never corrected them.  The truth is .... Ron Johnson married into money and his father-in-law gave him a cuchy job in a business his father-in-law started.  None of that is a big deal.  Nothing illegal, but it is all common knowledge.  Ron is from my home town.  Everyone knows this stuff.  Ain't no deal.

Ron's Father-in-law, Harold Curler, started a company called Curwood in about 1958.  Plastics and packaging.  It would evolve into what is now Bemis Corporation, a Fortune 500 company.  Ron was fortunate to marry his daughter.  In 1979 Ron, at age 24, had failed to complete his MBA at the University of MN, so he moved with his bride to Oshkosh Wis to work for a company the Curler family had founded in 1977 in New London, Wi and moved to Oshkosh in 1979.  The company was renamed, PACUR, named for Harold's son, Pat Curler.  Ron was put on board to be an accountant.



"The company, formerly known as Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supply, was founded by the Curler family in 1977 in New London to produce shipping pallets. A Feb. 16, 1986, (Oshkosh Daily)Northwestern company profile indicates the city of Oshkosh and its industrial-development arm, Chamco Inc., lured the company to Oshkosh in 1979 by securing a $75,000 federal grant to build a rail spur and by providing assistance with construction of a 20,000-square-foot factory in the North Industrial Park."

 Now, Ron was 24 at the time....had washed out of grad school and, as other bio info likes to state, moved to Wisconsin with about $7,000 dollars.  Not much to put into a 20,000 foot facility, even by 1979 standards.  Now, there is nothing wrong, or smarmy about working for your father-in-laws company.  Harold also took care of his other sons and son-in-laws the same way.  There is truly nothing wrong with that.  And Johnson may have worked hard and diligently to make that company succeed, but there is something a little discomforting in allowing, as what happened during his Senatorial campaign to allow GOP State Rep. Mike Huebsch introduced Johnson as someone that “built a successful manufacturing company from scratch.”, or to allow others to hail him as some grass roots industrialist.  That he doesn't acknowledge is start in business, is well, just a little less than honest.,
To imply that a woman with a law degree, who has served as well as any. and better than some, as Secretary of State of the United States as less than honest because of a choice of words smacks of a sense of dishonesty when he has allowed his own background to be enhanced by others without making correction. Rather rude, as well.

A week after engaging Hilary in the Senate Johnson gave a speech at the Atlas Shrugged Society where he said,
"It's a real concern," Johnson said, when asked if he saw examples of the private sector "shrugging"—that is, wilting under the pressure of government regulations. "As I talk to business owners that maybe started their businesses in the '70s and '80s, they tell me, with today's level of taxation and regulation, there's no way I can start my business today."

Now that rather smacks of some kind of dishonest as well.  Especially, origins excepted, for a company that took Federal and City funding  to get launched.

Johnson is noted in Oshkosh for purchasing a statue of Atlas....now installed at one of his buddies' properties, Shrugging.

I tried to read that book a few times, in High School and College....and I concur with Dorothy Parker's review of the book....

”This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
oh well.

For another view of RON JOHNSON  please visit the link for a nice piece written by another Oshkosh Blogger, THE CHIEF

Things Considered and the Dirf-Mobile

Now I forget exactly when my son bought that car.  Five years sounds about right.  Someone had parked it at the Bistro where he was a Chef.....not a 'short order cook' he told me many times...."I am a short order CHEF", he explained. " I have a magic spatula...and no one, NO ONE", he would explain while grinning and shaking a finger in my face, "can flip a gourmet pancake like I can !"
And frankly....no one else would buy a 1990 Volvo that looked like that one either.  The headliner was ripped and sagging, one hubcap was missing and another was pretty dented.  The trunk interior was a sprouting mushroom farm.  But...the tires were good, it ran well, the brakes were ok.....and it was under a thousand dollars.  Done deal.  His friends liked it...liked it so much they would come by while he was working and decorate it for him.  Due to his proclivity to mispronounce certain words-"Waldorf Salad was always said "Waldirf"....the car had a name.

When he decided to ove west and pursue a career that coincided with his college degree, the Dirf-mobile became his sister's.  I due believe the deal included some CD's, DVD's and a special hooded sweatshirt that she had coveted.  Whatever. The first thing that occured under the new ownership was a name change.  It became simply, "The Volvo".  She put another two years into it...as well as some new tires.  Alas and Alack....it succumbed to terminal transmission disease in late December.  Daughter is a college graduate and it took her no time at all to realize that a car that has no reverse gear is not a suitable vehicle for someone who delivers gourmet pizza.  No spatula for that kid.
Jumping ahead...a week ago this last friday....she made a deal on a 2003 low mileage Chevy.  The ;headliner was intact, but her cigarette lighter thingee didn't work..."so what..you don't smoke'  "but that is where I plug in the GPS and my IPod"  Some things are important.  She immediately inaugurated the new used vehicle witha 'girl's trip' to Milwaukee from which, on the return trip, whe discovered that through some evil connivance, the trunk would open, but then, not close.  Funny thing, huh?  The following monday I accompanied her back to the dealership from whence the thing came from and that was rectified post haste.  Then.....on thursday night what every parent dreads, fears more than anything else happened.

.........while delivering pizza at 1:30am, on slightly icy roads, at about 45 mph, a SUV with a extremely inattentive driver turned right into the rear right side of the Chevy.  Her car did a complete spin and the SUV then hit her again on the right front.  She was wearing her seat belt.  All the air bags deployed.
She's ok.  A bruised shoulder, a slightly sprained wrist and as she puts it...." I have a really sore left but cheek."  The other dirver was cited....twice.....no insurance.  Miriam's car is a total loss.  But she is not.  Her mother and I talked.....without her present...and a few tears of gaditude were shed....Our daughter was still alive and OK....scared the Bejeesus out of us.

I need to jump ahead.  The Kid had all the appropriate insurance, including Uninsured Motorist and a supplemental she was wise enough to buy that will totally pay off the loan she has yet to make a payment on and the deductible in this case, plus pay for a rental and additional money to help pay for the next vehicle.

I just can;t put into words how I felt.  I don't want to.  They do not exist.  I just get this gut feeling, this heart feeling, everytime I think of it all.  I have not slept well the last few nights...that will change I'm sure.  The moon will come out again.  The sun will rise...I will lose money and then make more.  My back will ache from shoveling snow.....my sore knee will hurt some more.  Dirf-mobiles will come and go.  Some things you can count on.
........they both know I love them...with no reservations, no qualifying..... and I know, because of them......................................................I am truly the luckiest man in the world.

John Boehner: President Obama wants to 'annihilate' GOP - Katie Glueck - POLITICO.com

John Boehner: President Obama wants to 'annihilate' GOP - Katie Glueck - POLITICO.com


Boy&Howdy...... did he ever grab the ball, bounce it off the wall a few times....and said it hit a three-point shot to *Win THE Game."

Course...what he didn't say was...
"And we must make sure that every Republican is fully armed for the insurrection.  Buy your assault rifle now! "

Now... he might be right.  Why just the other day, out of the blue, I had a visit from Colonel F. Scott Pickwick who reported to me following conversation from the White House.

Michele woke up and asked Barack..."well,, the election is over, the inaugural is over...what do you have planned today?"
and Obama replied,
"Why gosh, I think I will fix the environment by reversing climate change...I will ensure equal rights for all ciizens, whether they are black, white, brown, or gay.  THEN...I will stop gun violence in America, safeguard voting rights for all.....make women's health care a WOMAN'S decision...guarantee health care for all citizens, and gees, reform the tax code.  THEN...I think you and I should knock off a quickie!  I can spare a couple of hours."
"Oh, Barry," Michele said.  "And what do you plan to do after lunch?"
"Well, Michele," the astutely intelligent and smilingly good looking President replied," I think I will annihilate the Republican Party."

Colonel Pickwick never lies.