Nights That MakeYou Go...Hmmm

   The night here is incredible. Millions of stars dancing in the sky, twinkling to the beat of an invisible drummer. The spotlight of a quarter moon creating shadows that play on the snowbanks as the Christmas lights that festoon the first decorated homes of the holiday add a prism of color to complement.

   My breath coalesces into curls of wispy frost as I walk along the sidewalk, alone except for the other well-wrapped fellow dog-walkers, the silence of the frigid early winter evening broken only by the cadence of our footfalls.

   Nights like these, with the temps in the mid-teens, bring forth questions...such as, why am I not living in a small beach town considerably south and to the west of this icebox?

Free As A Bird Or Down For A Pound

    Two  people, a man and a woman, pass away at the same time on the same day and find themselves standing together in front of Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.

   "I have good news and I have bad news for the both of you," St. Peter says. "The good news is both of you have made the grade. However, the bad news is our computer is down and I won't be able to let either of you in until I get confirmation."

   "That's great, but what do we do until the computer is back up?" Says the man.

   "Well," St. Peter replies, "In cases such as this we allow the waiting parties to return to Earth for the few days it takes to get things sorted, and you get to go back as anything you want, no strings attached." 

   Looking at the woman, St. Peter asks, "What would you like to return to Earth as Miss?''

   The woman ponders for a minute then says, "I have always wanted to be able to fly over the earth as free as a bird. Can I return as a beautiful eagle?"

   "It is done," St. Peter states, and the woman disappears.

   St. Peter looks at the man who seems to be mentally listing things he has wanted to be. The man looks up at St Peter and says, "No strings, eh? In that case I want to go back as a stud!"

   "It is done," St Peter states, and the man disappears.

   A few days later an IT angel approaches St Peter and tells him the computer is working and asks if he is going to be able to locate the woman and the man he had to send back to Earth.

   "Oh sure," replies St Peter, "The woman is happily soaring over the Rockies in Colorado, should be fairly easy to locate. The man might take a little while though - he's on a snow tire somewhere in Canada."

My Hiking Friend's Great Summer

    "I spent the summer in northern Italy, staying with a family of distant relatives in the town of Belluno, which is in the eastern Dolomite range, part of the Italian Alps. My host was a third or fourth cousin twice removed, and was much more Austrian than Italian - from what I could gather members of his family had fled Austria for Italy after the fall of Mussolini, hoping to make their way through Italy to Switzerland, but had found Belluno a fairly safe and pleasant place to be, so they decided to just remain there after the war had come to an end."

   He shuffled his flatware around his plate to suit his left handedness, took a bite of the broccoli, and continued.

   "Savio, that's my cousin, was unemployed the entire time I was there - he pretty much took care of his three kids while his wife worked, unless he wanted to take me on a hike or drive to some important or noteworthy place nearby, in which case he would drop the kids off with one of his sisters, whichever one wasn't currently mad at him, and then we'd spend the day playing tourist and tour guide - and Savio was a great tour guide, knew where a ton of obscure or rarely visited stuff was, and knew a lot of people. I don't think we went anywhere that he didn't know at least two or three people who were happy to see him, graciously providing us with at least a filling snack and even occasionally joined us if we were going on a hike, like the day we went to Saint Christiana to mingle with the rich and famous, or when we went to Venice so I could ride in a real Gondola."

   After wolfing down another few pieces of broccoli and taking a long sip off his pint, he picked up right where he left off.

   "Yeah, you wouldn't believe all the people I met in the little towns and villages that he'd take me to that had never left the area they were born and raised in to go visit fantastic places that were only an hour or two away. Hell, Rome was only about as far away as we are from Durango, and Savio had never been to Rome until I talked him into driving down for a weekend. Can you believe that? One of the world's capital's in his own backyard and he'd never been there. We had a pretty good time there, too, but after we got back all he could say was that it was okay. Man, that beats all, eh?'

   He dug into the last of the broccoli and started on the loaded baked potato, but didn't let that slow down his recounting of his fun-filled summer.

   "We even drove to a small town in Slovenia - Bovie or Bovic, something like that, which was a beautiful drive, just really amazing scenery. It's a small, touristy place surrounded by incredible mountains and a lot of war memorials from both world wars. A really beautiful place but it rained the entire time we were there."

   Pausing to take a couple more swigs of beer, he then turned to me and asked, "So, what did you do this summer" 

If You're Hungry And You're At A Major Sporting Event

 Dogs. Specifically Hot Dogs. Those German sausages that cooks in these here United States co-opted to the point where we now claim them as our own creation.

They are, for the most part, delicious - even if you've been to a hot dog factory and watched them being made, they are still delicious.  

Especially (for unknown psychosomatic reasons) if you are at a major sporting event.

I've had Sonoran Dogs (aka the Padres dog) Dodger dogs, Rockie dogs, Chicago dogs, the Giant dog (San Fran, not NY), the Arizona dog (Diamondbacks), Thurmann's stadium dog (MetLife in NJ) and the only corn dog I'll eat, the Iowa Cubs corndog (because - spicy bacon mustard).

That's just the tip of the iceberg though - the variety of hot dogs served at major (and minor) sporting events is spectacular - it's enough to almost convince a guy to drive around the country visiting arenas and stadiums just to sample them.

For example, Tampa Bay offers what they call the First Down dog, which is a big dog loaded with bar-be-que brisket, jalapenos and coleslaw, pickled onions, all covered with shredded cheese on a Hawaiian roll bun.

While attending a Rangers game in Texas you can get the  Boomstick, which is a one pound hot dog (!) that has been slathered in meaty Texas chili, cheese and onions then wrapped in a corn tamale, then drenched in more meaty Texas chili and hot melted nacho cheese...I think I felt my arteries harden a little as I typed that.

If chili is your condiment of choice, Cincinnati offers a Coney Island dog topped with cinnamon chili, mustard, cheddar cheese and onions.

Seattle has an interesting take on the hot dog - it's actually a battered fish filet served on a bun with coleslaw - they call it the Ivardog.

The Detroit Tigers can brag about a unique dog too - they have eggrolls stuffed with chopped up hot dogs and chili covered in mustard and onions. Daaannnnnggg.... 

There is a dog served up in Philadelphia that features a cured pastrami sausage topped with hickory-smoked bacon and shredded red cabbage, plus Tarragon mustard to stimulate all of your taste buds.

This list is making me hungry. Going to have to stop at Costco on the way into work for the buck fifty quarter pound beef dog and soda. My belly is rumbling with joy.

Rattling Around Inside The Nutshell

Those of us on the downhill slide

Looking back at how far we had to climb

In order to make it a memorable ride

Shout out to those making double-time

Slow down, relax, try to abide

Savor every moment of your prime

Second Careers That Eclipse A Successful (Mildly) First Career, Instance # 329876

   

  Home designed by BAT Architecture and Design partnership built on pre-fab bridge that spans Canyon Creek in Berkeley, Ca.

   A long time ago he lived a different life, almost a double-life.

   His family and close friends knew him as Bruce, most others knew him as Ted

   As Ted by night (and occasionally by day, for rehearsal's sake) he played drums in one of America's definitive early Punk Rock bands, one known for it's politically charged lyrics, the extreme (some would say violent) attitude of the lead vocalist/primary songwriter, and the difficult-to-market (for the time - it would be splashed all over Hot Topic nowadays) name of the band itself.

   A little over two and a half years behind the kit, enduring poorly attended tours (on the East Coast at least, where they were largely unknown and where their particular choice of a band name really didn't go over), and the over-reactions of a media that were either too dense to pick up on the satire of the bands song lyrics (and performances known for the use of shock value to hammer a point or two about free speech and civil rights), were enough. He decided it was time to move on from that life and start a new one.

   He returned to school (RISD and Pratt) and rekindled a passion (architecture and design) that had really never left him - it had just sat idle as he burned through his youthful rebellion energy. 

   His second life has been very successful, and in one of the most delicious ironies of all time, his architectural firm/partnership had a hand in the creation of the Hot Topic retail chain's image.

   Way to go Mr Slesinger, an inspiration to all of us still looking for our niche

   

Like A Finger in A Socket, Tongue Tied To A Rocket

He sat there, dejected, not sure how much more he could take

Couldn't see how he was going to get over the pain

Like riding an emotional rollercoaster in an earthquake

Heartbreak explosion like a nitroglycerin milkshake

Everybody says they care but nobody understands

Plenty of fish in the sea, you'll get over her, you'll see

Everybody has felt this way before and since

Everyone has had to deal with it, everyone has been a misfit

Sixteen, and never going to be able to make it to seventeen

Sixteen, and stuck in the dreaded in-between

Immaturity and doubt, obscurity and striking out

Falling down, falling back, can't wait until he's eighteen

Nobody wants to tell him it won't be any better then

Carving A Bar of Soap

 Soap carving used to be a thing. It still is in some place, as a quick check on the internet revealed. Not only is it still a thing, it's a competitive thing wherein talented soap carvers can win up to $50.00, and at worst there is a chance at a participating ribbon to the ever-growing collection of participation ribbons.

Lest I Forget

   The problem with having a good memory at a young age is that it can make you lazy and undisciplined, which can result in limitations on what you actually know and can do.

   Being a voracious reader just for the sake of reading doesn't help, either.

   What I am trying to say is, when you can read something and remember 70 to 80 percent of what you read, more than enough to be able to test well on the subject, it can create the delusion in yourself and those around you (schoolmates, teachers) that you are smart and know stuff, when actually you are simply a voracious reader with a good memory.

   It can be insidious. You go through school getting good enough grades to pass (or even excel in) your classes, but you don't really learn anything, you just remember stuff, the basics of how something works or the history of something, but you do not actually learn the reasons why something works, or what makes something works, or even the most rudimentary reasons for something being what it is in the first place.

   Let me give an example. When I was 7 years old I learned that plants use photosynthesis to turn light and carbon into energy, and that chlorophyll was what allowed plants to do that - and that chlorophyll was mostly green, so plants were mostly green. I had read about the photosynthesis process in one of my older sister's school textbooks.

   I wrote I 'learned" a few things about the process of photosynthesis when I was 7 years old, but what I actually had done was read a book and retained a little information. I had no actual idea how photosynthesis worked or how it developed or anything about the mechanical, chemical, or physical processes involved, I just knew the names of a few of the steps and what the very basic function of those steps were.

   But what I had retained was enough to make adults around me think I was bright, and enough to make friends and classmates to think I was nerdy.

   

   

Weekend At The Duffy Hilton*

Wake up in the county jail wonderin' how the hell you got there

Can't remember the night before or 

Holdin' cell is full of renegades, gangbangers and petty thieves

You find yourself thinking this is the worst it can get

Then a big fat biker dude asks if you want to try some of this

As he unzips his pants and pulls out his to take a piss

Three guys huddled together in a corner trying hard not to look scared

College kids from Torrey Pines or La Jolla busted buying crystal or a chippie on the street

As the warder opens the door to shove another fool into the tank

No one says a word when the door slams shut

Except the big fat biker dude who whistles and says "you got a cute butt."

A sailor paced the floor waiting for the Shore Patrol to come pick him up 

The cholo from Barrio Logan Cholo's sits opposite the one from National City

Both of them know not to get into here as

A old man sleeping on the floor curled up in a yellow puddle

A black man in a business suit sits at the end of the bench staring at the floor and muttering to himself

While another brother sits with his back to the wall and sings quietly under his breath

For most everyone there this is their first experience with jail

And each and everyone of them just want to get it over with, either be released or at least post bail.

 

*John Duffy was the Sheriff of San Diego County for a thirty year span, from 1971 until 1991

Inventions Invented By Clever (Though Little Known) Inventors

   Phillip Sharpe of Massachusetts needed a large hand-held tape dispenser that could simultaneously hold a large roll of strapping tape, allow the tape to be drawn across the box or bag being taped shut, and then cut the tape where desired. He couldn't find one so he created one. U.S. patent 3,112,051 was granted to him for that solution to a sticky problem. 

   There was a time when all luggage was carried, usually by a single attached handle. Charles Leavell of Illinois wasn't too keen on toting his heavy suitcase around, so he created a suitcase with recessed wheels at one end and a handle on the other. U.S. patent 3,163,268 was issued to him for that brainstorm.    

   Standing around with a head of soaking wet hair was not for George Kazanjian. U.S. patent 994,259 was issued to him for the first portable, hand-held hair dryer, way back in 1911.

   Up until the mid-1960's bottlecaps required a bottle-opener - that annoyed California resident Don Brockhage. He invented a bottle cap that could be removed by hand which was issued U.S, patent 3,121,506.

   George Runkel and Gilbert Sheets, both of Ohio, cared about the safety of school children. They collaborated on the design of that little stop sign that the driver of the school bus swings out from the front and rear of the school bus when the bus has stopped to allow school children on or off. They share U.S. patent 3,153,398 for that. 

   At one time farmers had to manually move large irrigation sprinklers from one field of crops to another. Farmer Hadley Kern of Texas figured that was just not a pragmatic way to go about waterin', so he designed and built large, raised sprinkler systems with wheels for easy mobility. That got him U.S. patent 3,166,088.

   In 1913, Fred Wolf, then living in Illinois, was issued U.S. patent 1,126,605 for development of the first electric refrigerator for use in the home. Mr. Wolf was a refrigeration engineer and figured that if meat packing plants and other large industries could make use of refrigeration, so could the average home owner. His invention was known as the DOMELRE (Domestic Electric Refrigerator) and was the beginning of the end of the block ice delivery business.

   On the subject of refrigeration, a resident of one of the colder lower 48 states, Cecil True of South Dakota got fed up with frozen water pipes in the winter. Unlike everyone else who had to deal with the same issue, Mr. True did something about it. He developed easy to use fiberglass insulation tape that incorporated a heating element and included a thermostat. Plugged (or directly wired) into a homes electrical supply, the heating element warmed the pipes when the temperature dropped below freezing. He holds U.S. patent 3,120,600 for that invention.  

   U.S. patent 528,671 was granted to William Hooker of Illinois in 1894. It was for the first lethal spring-loaded bar mousetrap. It wasn't the first patent issued for a lethal mouse trap - that distinction belongs to New York resident James Keep, who was granted patent 221,320 in 1879 for his mousetrap, which was a spring-loaded set of jaws much like the common bear trap, only really, really small. People keep trying to build better mousetraps - glue traps, live-catch mousetraps, cage traps, etc. Rodenticide is a perpetually booming business.

The Most Excellent Vintage Advertisement For Accordions That You've Ever Seen

 

Fame May Fade, But Some Of The Benefits Never Do

 

How To Trap Yourself Into Helping Someone Move (Part 1)

   She asked if I could help her move.

   Which, while not #1 on things I never want anyone to ever ask me, is certainly in the top ten.

   I bit my tongue on the first response that tried to escape my lips and asked instead, "When are you planning on moving?"

   What I should have said was 1) "No." or 2) "Why are you moving?"

   See, the question was being asked by a woman that I had known maybe all of five months, and not all that well over the course of those five months. 

   She was a bright woman that I had met playing trivia and had initially appeared for all the world to be a nice, normal human being.

   She was also a former beauty queen - a real, live beauty queen, the type that win scholarships to good colleges.

   And she had actually used the scholarships she won to acquire a couple of advanced degrees. 

   But I digress. 

   She replied to my question of when with the coming Saturday, and then added, "I'm already out of my apartment - everything's in a storage unit, and I don't have much to move, just boxes of clothes, shoes and books, and the mattress and boxspring - I sold all the furniture already."

   That did make the proposition a little more attractive. She had been living in a three story walk-up, on the third floor, so I made the mistake of responding with, "I don't have anything going on Saturday, so I guess I can help. What time and where?"

   "The storage unit is right down the street - probably two miles from your house. I have a U-Haul rented and if you can meet me at the rental place around 8:00, we can get the truck and drive over there, load up, and get everything to my new place before noon or one."

   This commitment was made on a Tuesday so I had plenty of time during the week to back out with a real or imaginary excuse, but I did not.

   I'm an idiot like that.

   Saturday morning I was at the address she had given me for the rental place just before 8:00. She arrived ten minutes after. All the paperwork was in order so all we had to do was get the keys and go. The clerk did require a copy of my driver's license though, which I obliged, but after that we made our way to her storage unit.

   The storage unit was medium size, maybe 8 X 10, and it was filled with pretty much what she described - though there were a whole helluva lot more boxes of books than I expected. The books (and binders, lots and lots of filled binders) were her doctoral thesis and proofs - she had earned a Ph.D. at a fairly prestigious West Coast university almost 20 years ago, and had kept every word she had written, as well as every source she had cited, as if she was going to be challenged to provide evidence for it sometime.

   Still, even with all the heavy boxes of books, we had the truck loaded within an hour. In my head the thoughts went along the lines of, "Great, now that we're loaded up we'll go someplace for breakfast, then head over to her new place, unload quickly, get lunch, then take the truck back and be done."

   See, she had explained almost everything about the move to me back on Tuesday when she first asked for my help - we would meet up at the truck rental place and pick up the truck, leaving both of our cars at the truck rental place. We would  drive to the storage unit together, then get some breakfast somewhere, then go to her new apartment where we would unload everything. After getting some lunch somewhere we would return the truck to the truck rental place, give them back the keys and pick up our cars, then go our separate merry ways.

   Except I had failed to ask an extremely important question, which was, "Where is your new place?" I had just assumed it was somewhere in the area, at worst maybe 20 or 25 miles to the north or south of the storage unit, in one of the new large apartment complexes that seemed to be sprouting up everywhere, but primarily to the north and south of Denver proper.

   The unexpected answer was served up like a greased slider. I had just pulled down and locked the roll-up door of the small box truck when she said, "With any luck we'll get to Rocky Ford before noon."

   "Rocky Ford? You're moving to Rocky Ford? Why are you moving to Rocky Ford?' Those words spilled out of my mouth like a plate of tater tots falling off a table.

   "New job - couldn't stay at my old job, not with him still working there. Plus it's closer to my parents place in Los Animas, but not too close."

   Once again I choked back my desired first response and simply answered, "Okay, but let's go somewhere for breakfast first - I'm starved."

   She agreed to that and off we went to the Breakfast King, a nice little greasy spoon that wasn't too far away and right off I-25.

   Yep, I'm an idiot like that.

   As most people know driving a long distance with someone can be a challenge at times, especially if that person is someone you don't know particularly well. There is always the risk that the person will be uncomfortably quiet or worse, an incessant talker. There is also the risk that the person will have horrible taste in music.

   Breakfast was quick and pleasant, and we were southbound before 10:00. Rocky Ford is a two and a half hour drive from Denver at best so her prediction of a noon arrival was probably not going to hold up.

   For the first few minutes we drove along in a comfortable silence, but then she started talking about how she was excited to be starting a new job and how great it was going to be living once again in the area she had been raised.

   Not all that bad as far as conversational subject matter goes, but then she started to get a little melodramatic about how much she would miss the friends and coworkers that she had gotten to know over the past few years that she had lived in Denver. 

   Then the conversation took an even more melodramatic turn and for the next couple of hours I politely endured the entire history of her life with the man who had been the impetus for the move, how he had seduced her with his charm, manipulated her with false promises, took advantage of her naivete, etc., etc.

   I just nodded my head and uttered occasional uncommitted agreement to various points she stressed about how bad a person he eventually revealed himself to be as the minutes and miles dragged on under the governor regulated accelerator of the rental truck.

   Because I'm an idiot like that.

   I probably will never again drive that agonizingly slow from Denver to Rocky Ford, or at least I hope I will never again have reason to drive that agonizingly slow from Denver to Rocky Ford.

   When we arrived at her new apartment (second floor, stairs only) I insisted we unload the truck before getting lunch, and even with the challenge of a switchback exterior staircase, was able to get every box and the mattress and boxspring out of the truck and into her apartment in half the time it took to load it all.

   Both of us were a bit exhausted so we both sat down on the floor of her new unfurnished apartment and rested while finishing off bottles of cold water. After a few minutes she stood up and said she knew of a great little restaurant close by where we could have lunch, but she wanted to take a shower and change clothes before we went there.

   She looked at me sitting on the floor and said, "You can join me in the shower if you want " and turned and made her way down the short hallway, pulling off her shirt as she walked.

   I sat on the floor and watched her until she disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. I listened to her shoes falling to the floor as she removed them, I listened to the zipper of her pants as she unzipped them, and I listened to her pull them off. I heard the shower curtain pulled aside and the water bursting forth from the showerhead.

   Then I got up and walked over to the small kitchen area and set the empty water bottle down on the counter. I pondered the possibilities, eventually deciding my best course of action was to stop digging the hole any deeper and to just stay in the kitchen and wait for her to finish and get dressed. It was going to be a long drive back to Denver the way things stood already, no need to complicate it further.

   Because I'm and idiot like that.

    

The Unapproachable

    In his youth he imagined that the residents of such a large house must be extremely wealthy, and being wealthy must also be extremely powerful.

   They were, no doubt, the type of people his mother would refer to as "unapproachable".

   He was not sure what "unapproachable" meant, but from the manner in which his mother stated the word he was certain it had a negative connotation.

   It was while he was employed at Max's service station, in the summer of his 16th year, that he first had contact with a resident of the house. She was young, a teenager such as himself, and she pulled in next to the full-serve pumps behind the wheel of a small convertible sports car. 

   He had seen the car around town before, but he had never seen the driver. Now she was sitting less than five feet from where he stood asking him to please fill up the tank with premium and to check the windshield wiper fluid.

   Without hesitation and in spite of the fact that he had been told that windshield wiper fluid was only given if the fill-up was $30 or more, after filling the tank he lifted the hood of her car and topped off the windshield wiper fluid.

   The smile she flashed as she handed over the $17.35 for the fill up nearly knocked him over. Like every boy and most of the men in the small town, he was now smitten with one of the "unapproachable." 

After All, There's No Need To Be Rude About It

 

Why Do Women Gain Weight After Marriage?

   The question was posed by a young man at a round table discussion concerning health and fitness;

   "Why do women gain so much weight after they are married?"

  A young woman piped up the reply,  "Simple. A single women comes home late from a long day at work, see what's in the refrigerator, and then just goes to bed. A married woman comes home late from a long day at work, sees what's in the bed, and then just goes to the refrigerator."

The Great Left-Handed Cheese Shortage

    Brendan William Swartzendruber had a few choice idiosyncrasies

His taste, however, were particular, as was his expertise

   He lived to eat the finest caramel syrup dipped chicken Portuguese

And he savored every bite of refried butter-basted sweetpeas  

   But what really made his tummy hum was a wheel of left-handed cheese

    

Tuesday afternoons he would pay a visit to his local cheese jamboree

   In order to replenish his supply of that delectable epicurean munchie

He stood patiently in line with the other enthusiastic cheese devotees

   Daydreaming of how he would prepare his next meal of left-handed cheese

This Tuesday, like every other, found him mentally listing his favorite recipes

   And as each order before him was filled he nervously knocked his knees

The anticipation he relished could also put him at unease

   Finally he was in front of the clerk and requested his usual quantity

But horrors! For today he heard the words, "we are all out of left-handed cheese."

   "This won't do he cried, this won't do at all you see

I must have my order if I have to strike a bargain with Mephistopheles!"

   The clerk tried to explain that there was a shortage of the delicacy

Caused, it was believed, by rising demand from the Nepalese

   Not matter what the clerk said, no words could appease

Brendan William Schartzendruber's need to acquire his desired adoree

   "I do not think you heard me clearly," He stated with a wheeze

"So clean out both of your ears and allow me to reprise

  I am here today for only one item, and that is left-handed cheese"

That's all I got. 

Hmmm...this is one of those "the idea was much better in my head than the actual execution" dealios.

Welcome To Denver International Airport, Enjoy Your Layover

 

The Sudden Dissipation Of Charles Vunth's Memory

    Something was wrong. The day seemed to be happening out of sequence.     

   This morning when he looked in the mirror preparing to shave he discovered that his face was already shaved. He stared at his reflection in disbelief, unable to grasp how he could have already shaved and forget he had done so.

   Picking up his toothbrush he ran his thumb over the bristles and discovered they were wet. He tongued his teeth and they felt freshly brushed.

   He could not recollect brushing his teeth and yet they had indeed been brushed.

   Walking downstairs he mulled to himself the possibility that age was beginning to have it's way with his mind, that something in his brain was degrading at a fast clip.

   "Can't be possible," He muttered under his breath. "I'm only 38. This is insane."

   Opening the kitchen cupboard he discovered his coffee mug was missing. With slight trepidation he turned toward the area of the counter where the coffee pot was. A foot or so away from the coffee pot was his cup, half-full of coffee. 

   He looked about the small kitchen. Everything else seemed to be exactly as it should be. Then he noticed the dish rack. The small plate he used to place his usual breakfast sandwich on before placing it in the microwave was standing up between two of the rubber-coated dish separators in the rack, as if he had already used the dish and washed it.

   Tonguing his teeth it occurred to him that must be why he had brushed his teeth, because he had already eaten.

   Why the hell could he not recall any of that?

   Grabbing his coat off the back of the chair he made for the front door. "Did I get the coat out of the closet and put it on the back of the chair? Maybe I just left it there when I got home last night."

   He walked out of his house and down the short walkway towards the driveway. His car was there as it should be. He breathed a sigh of relief, but then noticed last night's snowfall had been cleaned off and the ice had been scrapped off the windshield. He walked around the car slowly, as if expecting to find...something, something that might explain how the snow and ice had been cleaned off his car.

   Sitting in the car he went to start it up, but before he could put the key in the ignition he realized the car was running - and he had his seatbelt on. 

   With both hands gripping the wheel he sat back and looked into the rearview mirror. He saw the upper half of his face as he did every morning just before he pulled out of his driveway, but before he could put the car in reverse a car horn was honked behind him. Looking through the windshield he saw that he was stopped at an intersection, and the car behind him was alerting him to the fact that the light was green.

   He shot through the intersection and pulled over into the first driveway he saw - no way should he be behind the wheel of a car in this condition - what condition?

   Putting the car into park he looked again into the rearview mirror expecting to see something...different. Something that might indicate he was not himself. But what he saw was what he saw every morning.

   He looked around inside his car. Nothing was different in the car. In the passenger seat sat his laptop bag, and in the back seat was the rolled-up blueprints for the HVAC job he had been working on.

   Someone suddenly tapped on his driver's side window. Recovering quickly from the jarring noise he turned and looked out the window at one of his coworkers, Lewis, the kid who had joined the company two months ago. Then he turned his head forward and looked out the windshield. He was parked in his assigned parking spot in the company parking lot. 

   He gripped the steering wheel tightly and began to tremble.

Interesting Little Known Facts About A Few Cartoonists

 Bud Grace, the now retired creator of the comic strip The Piranha Club (originally known as Ernie, extremely funny, insanely popular worldwide, especially in Scandinavian and Baltic countries)  earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Florida State University and worked as a nuclear physicist before pursing a career in Cartooning.

Before creating the first successful daily comic strip published in the United States, Bud Fisher of Mutt and Jeff fame was a prizefighter. However, he wasn't very good at it so that career path was quickly abandoned. The Mutt and Jeff strip soon made him very wealthy as he had been smart enough to secure the copyright to the characters. He invested in Thoroughbred Racehorses, and in 1924 one of his horses (Nellie Morse) won the Preakness.

Barbara Brandon-Croft got her start as a cartoonist assisting her father, Brumsic Brandon Jr., the creator of Luther. She created the comic strip Where I'm Coming From in 1989 and it ran until 2005. She and her father are so far the only father-daughter duo to be featured in both the collection of the Library of Congress and the Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year. 

At the age of 20 Gladys Parker landed the job of illustrating the single panel cartoon Gay and Her Gang, which feature the antics of a young Flapper and her friends. Two years later she took over the hugely popular Flapper Fanny Says and became quite famous, especially for the clothes she designed for the women featured in the cartoon. Eventually she created her own line of clothing, Gladys Parker Designs, which were not only sold in stores but also featured in several Films made in the 1930's and '40's.

Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey, is a descendant of a crewmember who sailed with the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock in 1620. Walker himself was drafted into the U.S. Army during WWII and served in Italy, where he eventually came to be in charge of an Allied prisoner of war camp with 10,000 German POWs.

Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, wrote the graphic novel Fun Home, A Family Tragicomic, which achieved not only unexpected attention from the mainstream press, but was named one of 2006's ten best books of the year by Time magazine. Eight years later Fun Home the musical premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater. After an award winning and wildly popular off-Broadway initial run that closed in January 2014, the show made it's premiere in 2015 at the Broadway theater Circle in the Square, and went on to win five Tony awards. The list of cartoonist whose work has won a Tony award is extremely short.

Unknown to fans for the first ten years of his tenure as artist on the Buck Rodgers comic strip, Rick Yager was finally able to shed the ghost artist guise and begin signing his name on the strips he produced as he began his second decade as both artist and writer of Buck Rodgers. After he left the strip in late 1958 due to a contract dispute, he quickly developed an original strip, Little Orvy, which he worked on for nearly four years until early 1963 when he was made a generous offer to take over the artistic duties for the popular single panel cartoon Grin and Bear it. The creator (and original artist) of Grin and Bear it, George Lichty, had a vastly different style of cartooning than the commercial illustration style that Yager had perfected while working on Buck Rodgers - but Yager was able to emulate Lichty's cartoon style so well that most fans had no idea someone other than George Lichty was drawing the strip for the 25 years Yager worked incognito, until finally being allowed to sign his work in 1988.

More Hostility In The Air, Or Just More Of The Same?

   "The world has become a much more hostile place over the past two years, ever since the CoVid-19 quarantine."

   P.T. made that statement to all of us sitting at the table, and T.M. promptly retorted, "No it hasn't, you just think it has because more people are refusing to put up with your crap these days."

   Of course, that provoked P.T. to reply, "Shut up T, you're the one full of crap. I'm serious, hasn't anyone else felt an increase in hostility from people?"

   J.J. looked up from his magazine and said, "Nope, can't say I have, unless you count the wife's constant whining for me to finish the downstairs bathroom."

   P.T. stirred his coffee with a fork as he spoke again. "Well, I definitely have. It's incredible how many people I run into everyday that are seriously impatient, or rude, or just acting crappy to everyone - not just me - to everyone. It's crazy."

   C.M., who didn't seem to be paying attention, chirped in. "Yeah, I kinda agree with P - it's really bad on the freeway, people recklessly crossing three lanes to get to an offramp, driving like they own the road - kerist, I almost got sideswiped just this morning."

   "Dude, you're a horrible driver - if anyone's a hazard on the freeway, it's you." Everybody at the table nodded their heads in agreement after T.M. said that.

   P.T. sipped his coffee and looked up at the big screen on the wall across the room. "Look at what's going on in Russia, that's hostility right there, and look all the outright vulgar mudslinging going on in the elections this year - crazy hostility right there!"

   J.J. spoke up again. "Bad examples to use P, the Russians are always invading someone, and political races that involve hostile, even vulgar, mudslinging, is par for the course."

   Everyone at the table again nodded their heads in agreement,