Recently in Personal Essays Category

I’ve only been in Phoenix for a few days and I already feel like a fish out of water. Living in such a conservative place is going to take a lot of getting used to — nevermind the hellish weather.  

I have to face up to the fact that I’m living in a place that likes John McCain and lives off the oppression of immigrants. I paid the guys who unloaded my uHaul $100 and was told by a local that I shouldn’t have paid them more than $35. There were four men and it took them two hours. I think $100 was a bargain. If I’d paid them $35, that would have been about $4.38 an hour!

Also, I found out that Phoenix doesn’t have a Public Safety Department. If you see that a 30-foot wall is about to collapse or if children are playing on dangerous playground equipment, there isn’t anyone here who will take responsibility for it. The police and fire departments won’t come if you call. 

What kind of insane hellhole is this? This is the world that Republicans want all of us to live in, folks.  

Related articles:

• Ingraham ‘forgets’ attacking Meghan McCain’s weight (dailykos.com)
• John McCain To Host AMC Memorial Day Movie Marathon (cinemablend.com)
• The Evolution Of John McCain (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Limbaugh Blows Off GOP Rebranding Effort: We Don’t Need A “Listening Tour” (huffingtonpost.com)

I’m on the road to Phoenix with a uHaul packed with all my worldly goods. The trip got off to a horrible start this afternoon. A tour bus full of French tourists turned over on the overpass outside of Soledad and Cliff and I got stuck in a four-hour traffic jam.

The bus was a twisted mess. According to the news reports, several people were ejected from the bus when it hit the guardrail.

Later, an idiot pulled in front of me and STOPPED on the freeeway. I had to break hard and the uHaul is so loaded with furniture and stuff that it didn’t want to slow down. That was a close call!

For those of you who may be wondering, I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth. I’ve been busy working on a new project, Pride of Monterey County Blog.

I have been checking out my favorite blogs. In fact, here’s something that cracked me up at Aberrant Clone.

I could write an entire short story based on this photo. Creepy, huh?

I live in a forested hillside area in Monterey. It is a lovely place and I often take hikes through an area called Skyline Forest, which is about 1/4 mile from my house.

Here’s the view from my front door:

The entire area is lush with trees and full of deer and other wildlife. It is almost like living out in the woods. Well, imagine my surprise when I read the following “police brief” in my local newspaper this morning.

Body found in woods near abandoned car

The body of an adult man was found in the Skyline Forest area Sunday afternoon by Monterey police investigating an abandoned vehicle.

No cause of death has been determined, but Monterey police Lt. Leslie Sonne said the death was not being treated as a homicide.

She said the man’s body was found about 100 yards from Mar Vista and Skyline drives. An autopsy was scheduled today. Police were looking in the area because a vehicle had been left there for several days, she said.

What puzzles me is that I drive on Skyline Drive every day — I have an obsession to take that route. I can’t recall seeing an abandoned car over the last few days. I think I would have noticed. The road is very picturesque and a car sitting at the side of the road would stand out.

I wonder if this was a suicide. The news article doesn’t give any details. I suppose it is likely that someone would choose this location to end his life. It is a beautiful spot and once you walk into the forest, it is very secluded.

I just came home from what I call a “photo hike” in Santa Cruz, California. I set out with my camera and get a few hours of exercise three times a week. My friend Glen knows that I love to explore old cemeteries with my camera and he suggested a spot near the Mission called Evergreen Cemetery.

Evergreen Cemetery is quite old and very neglected. Many of the headstones have toppled and it is overgrown with shrubs and patches of poison oak.

As we were photographing the headstones, we came across this one:

Click for larger, grosser view.

There’s nothing I hate more than opening the shower door to find a hideous bug crawling aroung in the tub. Tonight, I found this thing. I’m not really sure what it is. It kind of looks like a grasshopper crossed with a cockroach. It is 1 1/4 inches long from the top of the head to the end of the back legs. It took five or six shots of Raid to kill it.

Are there any bug experts out there who can tell me what it is? Do they travel in packs?

Related articles:

• Roachzilla menaces Florida
• Troops carry fast-breeding cockroaches into US

I’ve been going through my old family photographs lately and I ran across the one below in a shoebox. I remember that I didn’t put it in a photo album because I didn’t like my appearance. I thought that I looked too young.

My, my, my. Just look at that glowing complexion. There’s not a flaw nor a blemish.

You may be wondering how old I was when the picture was taken. Believe it or not, I was 27 years old. I know, I know. I looked like I was about 17. My twin brother and I have always looked very young for our age.

Back then, I couldn’t appreciate my good fortune. I was blessed with youth that lasted far longer than it does for most people and saw it as a curse. I simply hated not looking like a grown up when I was close to 30. I was insecure about my appearance and felt that people didn’t take me seriously.

I know that several young people read my blog (Jasper, I do mean you). I suppose I’m writing this to let you know that there is enormous power in being young. Your youthful face charms those of us who are older. Your smile makes us feel 20 years younger. We envy your strength and vitality. We long to make your lives better than the ones we experienced.

So, try to make the most of your younger years. Appreciate what you have. Realize that being treated like a youngster is a good thing. Human beings are driven by a natural instinct to assist the next generation and ensure their survival.

You’ll thank me for this advice when you’re my age — oh, who am I kidding? You’ll ignore me. You won’t realize I’m telling the truth until you’re pushing 50, too.  

My friend Tom is going though a divorce and I went with him to divorce court today for moral support. I had to sit on a hard wooden bench for several hours as he waited for his case to be heard.

In the meantime, I got to hear a few divorce cases. The first one involved a Mexican couple who were splitting after 11 years. They didn’t have attorneys. The judge heard them present their cases and then divided up their marital property. They didn’t have much: a 2000 Silverado, a 1995 van, and a corn cart worth $2,000.

You’re probably asking, “What’s a corn cart?”

At first, I thought they were talking about a “corn card” or something that sounded like that. The wife said that the corn card cost $4,000 new. Now, it has depreciated to about half that value.

Then, the husband described how he was the one who sold corn using the corn card. He fills it up with corn and fruit and sells the items on the street. He’s a street vendor. Ah, ha! A corn cart!

I Googled it. They do call them corn carts. Who knew?

Anyway, the judge did a little rough justice. The Silverado was worth $3,000. The van was sold by the wife as junk for $100. The corn cart was worth $2,000. The husband got the Silverado and the corn cart and was ordered to pay the wife $2,450 ($5,000 minus $50 for his half of the junked van).

After several of these cases involving marital assets of $5,000 or less, my friend was finally called to settle his divorce. Unfortunately, his case involves assets in excess of $3 million. So, it wasn’t concluded quite as easily. He’s got to go back to court in November.

Today is my twin brother’s birthday — which means that it is my birthday, too. It has become almost a tradition for me to post an embarrassing birthday photo on my blog. Here’s one of Frank and me when we turned nine.

Notice how happy my 100% hetero brother is with that brand new baseball glove. Me, uh, not so much.

I would have preferred something like a Big Jim action figure.

Remember Big Jim? He came shirtless in the box, wearing  a pair of red swim trunks. He was covered in bulging muscles and had cool sideburns.

There was a button on his back and when you pushed it, his arm moved in a Karate chop — or something similar if you were a very dirty little boy (which I was). I think at one point they added fuzzy chest hair to this toy. What were they thinking?! 

Big Jim didn’t debut until a couple of years later. I think I talked Mom into getting me one for Christmas in 1972. Poor ol’ Dad.  

The year was 1972. It was an election year — and the Democratic primary was heating up with names like George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey, Sam Yorty, Eugene McCarthy, Shirley Chisholm, and Edwin Muskie vying to run against Richard Nixon. There was also another name being presented as a possible presidential candidate. Archie Bunker, a character on a new and controversial TV sitcom, was being promoted for the office through t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, and other merchandise.

That summer, our family went on a typical roadtrip vacation. We started out in Anaheim, California driving east to visit family in Kansas and Nebraska. One of the first things our family did to prepare for a roadtrip was to go shopping for new outfits. My mom liked to see the entire family dressed up in matching costumes. That election year, Mom decided that patriotic red, white and blue was the way to go. She was quite a character.

At the department store, my twin brother Frank and I spotted red, white and blue Archie Bunker for President t-shirts. We had to have them! Mom chose a red, white and blue tank top and matching hot pants for herself. Dad got saddled with a stars and stripes shortsleeve collared shirt and jeans.  

Mom, me and my twin brother Frank (left to right) in our patriotic-
themed vacation outfits in 1972. Inset: A detail of the Archie
Bunker for President t-shirts we were wearing.

A couple of days into our trip, Dad stopped in Ogden, Utah for lunch. We all sat down to eat at a cosy little diner and waited for the waitress to come and take our order. We waited and waited.

Finally, a man appraoched our table and identified himself as the manager. He told Dad that the t-shirts my brother and I were wearing were unpatriotic and offensive. We’d have to take them off or we would not be served.