Several ladies in Africa who used to have hubbies and fathers who were powerful men in Africa with fortunes stuck away in places the ladies can’t get to them want my help. And lawyers in the UK are trying hard to send me a lot of money if I help them prove somebody with my surname is a distant relative of mine and me being the only qualified person to claim his humongous fortune. And I won some lottery somewhere I didn’t even buy a ticket for and never heard of.
A lot of people might think these emails are con-games intended to prey on us old people who are too stupid to spot them as not being legitimate, but not me. I figure once I’ve sent my bank account number and whatnot off to each of them they’ll almost certainly dump enough riches on me to pay some guy in town to fix the Toyota and the New Truck both. And some left over to get a water heater and the roof fixed.
If I hadn’t been so busy I’d have done it already. I’ve had a string of those African ladies trying to get me to help them and UK lawyers chasing me with money from my dead relatives and lotteries I’ve won for a considerable while. The African ladies want me to help them so badly they even call me darling sometimes.
All these naysayers and skeptics are just jealous. Us elderly folks are plenty smart enough to know a scam when we see one, and these aren’t.
I was out studying this problem again yesterday and this morning.
I’ve got a starter, but I hadn’t dared start the job because of a Catch 22. At the time the 4Runner was my only transportation and even starting it by rolling it downhill was better than no transportation. But once I got it blocked and it rolled forward a bit the blocks would be wedged in front of the wheels and I’d have no way to get them out. My mind locked into this problem, so when the battery went dead and it rolled to the other side of the meadow without starting I didn’t back up in my thinking and realize it didn’t apply anymore. I already didn’t have any transportation.
Believe it or not, that took me several months to figure out. But I finally did, and studying the situation I decided if the new starter doesn’t repair the problem I can hook a cable to the back bumper and that telephone pole behind and use the 2-ton come-along to pull it back up with the battery fully charged. The downhill roll from the telephone pole should turn it over enough to get it started. Afterward I can try Plan B to decide what to do next, but with a truck that will work if I park it on a downhill grade.
As nearly as I could figure that wheel well is the only access to the starter.
I stuck the camera in there for a better look at how much of a Commie it planned to be.
Bigger than Dallas, a man can get to the heads of both bolts holding it on. The Universe is kind to a man like me.
But first I needed to jack it up from a bumper so’s the brake disc wouldn’t be pushed up squeezing what little room I’d have to work.
And I had to get that wheel off. I’d forgotten why I always carry that wheel-puller in the truck. The hubs are from an old Isuzu Trooper I used to own and they don’t make an exact fit. When I torque down the lug nuts the wheel jams against the threads and it won’t come off without a lot of persuasion.
But there it is. Hot diggedy damn!
Easy! Easy money!
Man, people pay good money to get to do a job as easy as this one’s going to be.
And there it sits after I ran spang out of altitude, airspeed and fancy ideas. My tools are up at Gale’s under the hood of my New Truck.
Sheeze. I’ll have to bring them down next time I borrow Little Red.
This is all leading up to the summation of Old Jules’ Unified Bullying Theory.
Hopefully this will be my last buildup segment before trying to summarize something I’d call a theory about bullying, supported by the interactions of animals here and childhood memories that included plenty on the subject.
My childhood friend, Keith, was reflecting on how he remembered the two of us as kids recently when we met in Fredericksburg. Fiddle-Footed Naggings and Songs of the Highway. This pretty well dated Keith’s first clear recollections of me to the sophomore year of high-school, though we’d actually been in classes together since the 4th grade. He remembered the two of us as being a couple of nerds, getting pushed around a lot.
What I’m riding there just about says anything needs saying. That kid I was at that stage of my life was no bully in the making.
The picture with my two sisters might be about the time I was getting chased home by Floren and his brothers. At that point there was nobody I was likely to bully. Anyone can see the kid needs chasing home and a few beatings on the way can’t do anything but help.
But by the time this picture was taken I was hanging out at the school cafe with the Lindsey kids, smoking, and everyone knowing who was tougher than whom else. In those days any kid who could ride bareback was probably in danger of doing some bullying, too. I’m guessing all those kids from Lindsey Grade School could ride bareback.
I was bareback because the horse was stolen, though the person taking the picture almost certainly didn’t know it.
I was keeping three hogs for an FFA project in one of the buildings in the background, though the place was otherwise abandoned. I kept the horse there a couple of weeks before things got too hot, then took it out to the dirt road between this place and the neighborhood I was living in and slapped it on the rump to run it off. But the owner and authorities had already decided it hadn’t just strayed. A while later that picture glued me to the missing horse.
Sometimes I still wonder how the family adults could have been so damned stupid in those days. Where the hell did they THINK I got that horse? On the other hand, a copy of the picture became a small piece of a lot more damning evidence of how I’d been spending my adolescent years. By the time I was caught it filled up a corner of the Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Office.
Somewhere between this picture and the one above it things went south. Coincidentally, I was attending Central Grade School when the picture was taken, where I considered everyone rich kids, which they weren’t. But two years in a row I had teachers famous for their bullying.
One, the fifth grade teacher, gave me a spanking in front of the class at least once every day that year. Me, and any other kids who admitted when they were asked the first day of classes whether their parents would give them a whipping at home if they were told they got one in school. I didn’t realize until a couple of decades later it was a ruse to find out which kids wouldn’t tell their parents what was happening.
I used to want to go back to the graveyard in that town and spit and puke on his grave until a lot later in life than you might guess.
That’s me on the right at the pinnacle of my hellion/bullying times. Even that snake and the baby rattlers we found got me into a peck of trouble. Within a couple of months of the time this picture was taken I was being held in the Roosevelt County Jail for a couple of weeks waiting for them to decide whether I needed to get the rest of my education at the State Boys Reformatory at Springer, New Mexico.
They decided to keep me around on juvenile probation instead. That ended the bullying completely. If I’d looked sideways at anyone, or let myself get provoked into a fight I’d have been in Springer in a heartbeat. It was open season on me for anyone who felt the urge to kick someone around, and there was no shortage of those who did.
Here’s a year later while I was working with Kurtiss and some other youngsters for Skeeter Jenkens. A Sobering View of Y2K
That fall would be the school year Keith almost certainly remembers. Just another nerd. A peaceful, inconspicuous nerd doing his best to stay out of reform school. Midway through the Junior year it was clear I had to get out of that town, and I did. Nobody at all was sorry to see me gone.
The next bullying post is going to pull all this together with the animal bullying into Old Jules Unified Bullying Theory.
“If somebody says, I love you, to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol-holder requires? I love you, too.”
–Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922), U.S. novelist. Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Address at Dedication of Wheaton College Library, 1973 (1974).
She: I still have lots of trouble accepting that it’s normal and even considerate for men to NOT say I love you. I wasn’t raised that way, and I always thought if the man wouldn’t say it, it simply meant he wasn’t thinking it either. The first guy I ever fell in love with wouldn’t say it, and it was years before I realized he had good reasons not to. Saying he loved me would have made me draw all kinds of inappropriate conclusions.
He: I think there are lots of reasons for not saying I love you besides not loving you. The trouble is, the word’s got hooks in it. You can lie, and say “I love you,” when you don’t. But when you do, and go around admitting it a lot, that’s really screwed up. I kind of put that in this category of you and me. I try my best not to say that. I feel like it puts a burden on you to try and read into that what the hell I’m meaning, and it puts an equal burden on me to somehow assume you’re understanding, “Okay, this means this, this, this, and this, but it doesn’t mean this, this, this, and this.” (Laughter) So I generally work at not saying it.
She: From my end, I work at not saying it because I know it bugs you to hear me say it. If you’re not going to say it, I don’t want to say it. It makes me feel silly, even if I really think it and feel like saying it, when you don’t need to hear it.
He: If we had a strictly platonic relationship, we could say that, and no danger. If we were just friends, no problem, say it all you want to. Until that’s the case, you got to be damn careful with it.
On the other hand, see, the moral equivalent of your ex-husband not saying it in so many ways has brought you to where you are right now. It didn’t have to happen. I may be wrong, but I think I know women. I think I know you pretty well. If your ex-husband had done anything right, you wouldn’t be where you are right now. The guy blew it. He either didn’t know anything about women, or just didn’t give a shit.
If you have something like what you and he had, and you wanted to save it, you’d have to at least do this, to keep it going. For you and most women, “this” doesn’t happen to be much. It just takes a little bit of tenderness, a lot of respect, and the pretense, if not the reality, of a willingness to listen to what you’re saying, what you’re feeling, and what you’re needing and wanting.
I’m talking about married women who have a couple of kids and are domestic. It really doesn’t take very much to keep them happy. All you have to do is be attentive, and respectful and loving, and they’ll roll over and shake your hand, or play dead, or do any damn thing you want them to. (Laughter)
She: I feel very frustrated by what you are saying, because I feel like I’m being described as a less complex person than I am, but I can’t find anything untrue about it. I guess it works pretty well with me. When I met you I was impressed by your doing those exact things. But maybe all you’re describing is a normal healthy relationship where two people care enough to be considerate and attentive, where they don’t automatically assume they know what’s happening in the other person’s life.
A lot of sudden wear and tear showing up on my clothing. I attribute a lot of it to this:
I picked it up at the tail-end of a garage sale in Kerrville, still in the box, evidently never used, for $7.00 US. I thought it would make a great addition to the old Kenmore by offering a means of rinsing one load while another was being washed. Neither of the two uses a lot of water, but this one uses a bit less than the Kenmore. I was hugging myself with joy.
But I believe this thing wears out clothes instead of washing them. At this rate I’ll be running around naked under my outer clothing before another change of underwear’s required.
My current thinking is I’m going to have to figure out something to do with this thing that doesn’t involve washing clothes.
Meanwhile maybe it’s time to test a theory I’ve been chewing on for some while that nobody would notice or care if they saw a 68 year old man in town doing business, buying groceries and chicken feed, bare-assed naked.
Maybe they’d like it better than one who has plenty of cotton and chinese poly-whatchallit covering his privates, but stinks to high heaven.
I’m going to get away from the brave new world of the 21st Century and the animal kingdom for this segment and go back a few million years to my childhood. I explained a little about that farm on the other side of the railroad tracks here: Could you choose to live on the street?, but to pursue the bullying issue I’ll elaborate a bit.
The kids who lived on the other side of those tracks were overwhelmingly tough, poor, and ‘bad’. The families were farm laborers or otherwise unskilled, lots of kids, and Hispanic or considered ‘white trash’. The kids living there went to Lindsey Grammar School, and the RR tracks defined the boundary between Lindsey and the other two grammar schools.
In 1949, when I was starting school my mother went to war with the superintendent of schools and the school board to make certain I went to East Ward, not Lindsey. She succeeded.
Meanwhile, on this side of the tracks and the highway there were a few neighborhoods of kids who belonged in Lindsey, but were doomed by geography to go to school with the regular population at East Ward. One of those was a boy named Floren Villianueva and his siblings. A tough, bad, mean as hell youngster with older brothers meaner than him. He and I entered the first grade in the same class.
Floren and I somehow got crosswise with one another almost the first day of classes during recess. He gave me a blow to the stomach that knocked the wind out of me, doubled me over and might well have been responsible for the hernia of the goozle that’s caused me trouble to this day.
After school each afternoon Floren and his brothers walked home the same route I did, and for a few days they went the extra distance to chase me home, throwing rocks at me when they couldn’t catch me, beating hell out of me when they could. Me finding safety only when I went through the door to the house.
That naturally came to the attention of my mom after a few days. One afternoon she was standing on the porch shaking a rug and saw me running across the tracks chased by Floren and his brothers. They came right into the yard, and she grabbed a broom and chased them off, yelling insults.
When they were gone she turned on me in a fit of rage, grabbed me by the ear and dragged me into the house where she kept her switch. While she was beating hell out of me she was yelling, “If I ever see or hear of you running from a fight again this is nothing compared to what you’ll get.”
When my step-dad got home she told him about it and he just shook his head. “Running from a bunch of God-damned Mexicans!”
I went about in disgrace a few days, the story circulating among the adults with me in hearing distance, all of them dumbfounded by my cowardice.
But I never ran from a fight again. I started carrying a heavy stick with me walking home and only had to whack one of those other kids upside the head with it one time. Afterward Floren and I fought a lot of times during recess and I never whipped him, but I took the beatings rather than the alternatives.
This is too lengthy for me to continue where I’m going with it, but it’s necessary background to get in place before going forward in this segment.
Bullying’s getting all out of hand here since the weather’s cooled. I’ve written about this hen before, probably under the heading, News From the Middle of Nowhere. She’s always been a Communist from earliest chickhood. But most recently she’s begun spending her nights locked up with the two younger roosters, one a Black Silky, the other a Silky/Australorp cross. Then, after everyone’s out ranging, I let her out of the young rooster pen to range with the rest of the flock and do her laying in the same nests as the other hens.
The chickens are allowed to bully the cats here because it’s the lesser of two evils – the cats all know and respect the fact chickens aren’t to be bullied, whatever their feline instincts argue otherwise. So naturally, the chickens are well aware of this and bully the hell out of every cat that gets in the way of whatever catches their eye.
Sooooo. I re-established the cat houses for the cold weather and the felines explored and tested each for personal priorities and preferences, not taking into account the Commie hen. The cats know those are THEIR shelters. The one this Communist is sitting in is the preferred sleeping place of Shiva the Cow Cat. Not a nesting box for Communist Party meetings between chicken and egg.
Unfortunately, Shiva also knows she’s not allowed to swat the bejesus out of the hen when it becomes a contest over who gets to take over the Shiva-house. So Shiva snoozes until the Commie arrives, then the chicken comes in and gives her a couple of pecks, Shiva exits out the other side, and Ms. Commie settles down to drop a bluegreen egg.
But that’s only a piece of the bullying going on here. I was going to tell a bit about an 8-9 year old kittenish cat named Tabby who’s begun testing my patience by bullying the hell out of the older felines.
But I’ll save that so’s I won’t be tempted to use language strong enough to cause the lady-readers to blush.
This place is looking every day more like a bunch of human beings trying to get along.
Someone found this blog by search engine yesterday with the question, “What kind of words does a man want to hear during sex?”
I don’t believe I’ve elaborated on the issue on the blog because I don’t have a lot of sex going on around here. The cats are all neutered, the Great Speckled Bird is getting a bit long-in-the-tooth with the crippled up wing and leg causing the hens to threaten break-ins to the pen where the younger roosters abide.
So all I can figure is the person wasn’t thinking in terms of me, or the chickens or cats. The person had to be thinking more along the lines of a generic man. A brave new world post-Y2K feller.
I don’t want anyone going away from this blog with questions unanswered and 21st Century puzzlement inhabiting his/her mind, so I’m going to answer on behalf of the generic man, the 21st Century man:
The sounds a 21st Century man wants to hear during sex are: “I saw the prettiest dress at WalMart today, honey! Are you nearly finished? Is it okay if I eat that apple if you’re going to be at this a while?” and the sound of an apple being eaten.
Old Sol’s still muttering and grumbling. The earlier theory entertained by astrophysicists that the widespread sunspot activity was being caused by the Occupy Wall Street movement’s lost a lot of following. The cold weather has evidently caused the movement to adopt a wait-and-see posture, while the solar activity continues despite the inclement weather.
But you might notice there’s growing activity south of the equator.
Meanwhile, the moon was playing footsey with Jupiter last night.
“BRIGHT CONJUNCTION: Last night, sky watchers around the world witnessed a conjunction between Jupiter and the Moon. “It was very nice sight seeing the two bright heavenly bodies so close together,” says P-M Hedén of Vallentuna, Sweden, who photographed his daughter and a friend admiring the view. The show’s not over. The Moon and Jupiter are drifting apart but still less than 10o apart tonight. Look east after sunset for a conjunction so bright it shines through thin clouds and city lights.”
Astrophysicists continue to believe this affair between the moon and Jupiter is a product positions of the two within the orbits of the two celestial bodies as they relate to the position observers on the earth surface, which might be true. Certain Mayan scientists and Renaissance theologians believe otherwise.
The affair is evidently being conducted outside the sanctity of marriage, which brought shouts of indignation from certain quarters in Washington, DC. White House spokesmen have asserted they have no interest in what the moon and Jupiter choose to do with their genitals so long as both consent.
Not much else going on here, though the cats all occupied cat houses last night and the sounds coming from the chicken fortresses lead me to believe they all survived the night.
Korean War vintage – The From Here to Eternity Version’s missing the first and last stanza, but worth the watch:
The complete version
Around 1956-’57 when Elvis was drafted
Sailor around 1957
A million men or more left their hearts in San Francisco to be reminded by this song. When we returned and the troop ships passed under the Golden Gate a million uniform hats went into the air:
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 brought this one to the top. I listened to it in basic training along with everyone else they could drag out of the sticks to wear a uniform:
The constant ‘brink of war’ cold war military also serving as armies of occupation:
Then along came Vietnam
And those who decided Canada made more sense
than the Okie from Muskogie
and politicians singing For God Country and My Baby to the tune of 1000 bottles of beer on the wall in 10 part harmony for another half-century.
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 