the dog days of summer

[franksolich]

“How’d it go last night?” I asked the femme in the morning.

I’d come back about 10 o’clock the previous evening, and gone to sleep on the couch in the living room.  Nobody else was in the house, they all being down by the river with the guests.  It was now early morning, and she was making coffee in the kitchen while I sat at the table there.

“Oh, we had fun,” she said; “the ones from town came out here about six, and you hadn’t moved the grill down there, so they did it.  While everybody got acquainted, a few of them did up the spare-ribs, and then after we ate and it got dark, they had a raucous prayer-meeting, lots and lots of old songs and hand-clapping.

“You were right; this was the real thing, no made-for-television put-on, no sanitized play-acting, no inhibited performance for the public.  Their enthusiasm’s real, and everybody got caught up in it.”

“How many came out?” I asked; “there’s twenty-two of them from Indiana, and so did they get enough company?”

“Oh, easily twice that number,” she said, pouring the coffee. 

I hadn’t expected it anyway, but I was gratified to see she didn’t seem upset I’d left.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Curious, I straightforwardly asked, “Did anybody miss me?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said.   â€œThey hadn’t met you, other than the elderly gentleman.  And most of those from town don’t know you that well, and didn’t expect you to be there anyway. 

“He did ask where you were, and for lack of anything else to say, as I didn’t know, I said I thought you might be dispensing alms to the poor and visiting the shut-ins in town, as you’re known to do, even though you don’t want such things known.

“Of course you weren’t,“ she reminded me; “you do that, but not on Friday nights.

“’A good man,’ he said about you.

“But I think he suspects your secret,” she added, referring to the deafness.

“How could he possibly guess that?” I asked.

“Well, you’re not as good an actor as you think you are,” she replied; “and some people are better at picking up on things.

“When they had the prayers for intercession, he looked over here at the house, and mentioned ‘a troubled soul heavily burdened,’ and I knew he was talking about you.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“As soon as the bedroom’s available, you’d probably better change your clothes,” she suggested.  “You ‘re still wearing what you put on yesterday morning,” referring to the pants and shirt.

Yeah, I would, I said; “I’ll have to send the pants to the dry-cleaner’s.”

“Why don’t you ever get some new suits?” she asked.  “You’ve had these since forever.”

Uh, only since 1986, I reminded her.  I was young then, and had some money, and had spent a great deal of it at a men’s clothier in New York City, having five of them tailored for me; two pants, one jacket, one vest in each set, this light-brown pin-stripe, and a dark-brown pin-stripe, a light blue pin-stripe, a grey pin-stripe, and a black pin-stripe.

The bill was phenomenal (but not a surprise; I’d planned on it).

“And they were made to last a life-time,” I reminded her.  “They still suit me just fine.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

After the two women students with the femme woke up in the bedroom, I finally got around to changing clothes.  The jungle-like humidity seemed to have evaporated in the Sandhills over the night, and so even though the temperatures are likely to remain high, with dry air, the world seems inhabitable again.

I put on a pair of white gym-shorts and a plain white sleeveless t-shirt, and rejoined the femme for breakfast, this time out on the back porch.  The two young chicks with her came out too, but I ignored them.

Many people don’t get upset at being shunned, if they know I can’t hear.  They assume, well, he’s not being impolite or anything, he just can’t hear.  Sometimes that’s true, but not always.  Sometimes they’re being ignored because they strike me as shallow, with no depth.

But it’s nice that they think of it as merely being that I can’t hear.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Well, what are the plans for today?” I asked the femme; “I’ve got none, so you’re the boss.”

“Some people from town are bringing out their ATVs [all-terrain vehicles; they look like snowmobiles with big wheels], and we’re all taking everybody for rides through the country.”

“I’ll skip on that,” I said.  “The country bores me.”

“Apparently it didn’t bore you last week,” she reminded me, “when you had [the guest I had] here; you were all over the great outdoors with her--”

“That was different,” I said; “nobody else was around, and so I had to play the good host, doing things she wanted to do.

“Just because I did it, doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.  I did it because I had to.”

Her eyebrows arched.

“Nothing happened,” I assured her.

- - - - - - - - - -

“It’s so pretty out here,” one of the young chicks said.  “If I lived out here, I’d be outdoors all the time.”

“It’s just all nature and junk,” I said, irritated that I’d been interrupted.  “Nature all over the place--”

“You sound like you don’t like nature,” she said.

“Uh, I’m the best friend nature ever had,” I countered; “I leave nature alone, unmolested, don’t disturb it.”

“He was actually attacked by a deer once,” the femme told the other two; “caught him by surprise, knocked him over, tried to bite him.

“It was the third day he lived out here, and he wasn’t used to it yet.”

“The worst is when the bald eagles come around,” I pointed out; “I have to collect the cats and put them in the house.

“I don’t know anything about bald eagles, excepting that up close, they’re really big with malevolent eyes, and dirty and smelly too.  And I assume they’re like vultures, likely to snatch up one of the cats and carry it away for dinner.

“But because they’re ‘protected,’ all I can do is yell at them, and toss a frisbee their way, to get them out of here.

“This stack of frisbees on the edge of the porch here isn‘t really for playing ‘fetch‘ with the cats; it‘s my stockpile of ammunition to deter undesirable birds.  I get them from garage sales and thrift stores, usually for a quarter apiece.

“And during certain times of the year, there’s hordes of pheasants and herds of wild turkeys.

“The wild turkeys are weird; they flock in big blobs while wandering over the terrain…..but then when they get to the road, they insist upon crossing single-file, meaning I have to sit in the car and wait and wait and wait until the last one’s crossed, joining the rest of the blob that’s formed on the other side.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Yes, he’s really had a few bad experiences,” the femme admitted; “for example, he’s actually acquired an immunity to insect-bites, but he got that long before he moved here--”

“Uh-huh, as a little kid on the Platte River; I was always being eaten alive by insects.”

“He’s immune to the venom of black widow and brown recluse spiders,” the femme said, “which usually sends the rest of us in hysterics to the emergency room, and for good reason.

“I’ve seen it; it’s not a pretty sight.  One bites him, he notices it, says ‘oh, fu….dge,’ swats it dead, and then carries on as if nothing’s happened.   A little bit later, some pus starts to form, but he squeezes it out, and that’s that.  No harm done.”

to be continued w…h…e…n…e…v…e…r something happens; I know it’s been boring so far, but life’s more full of boredom than excitement anyway

[franksolich]

I was out in the garage in early afternoon, tinkering around until the neighbor and his older brother came by, as promised.  There’s nothing in the garage at the moment, but it has large overhead fans--no such thing in the house itself--and faces east, the sun already passed over.

The doors were wide open, and I watched as two unexpected people drove up in a pick-up truck.

The village idiot and the town bully.

They “hallo-ing” and waving at me as if just making a social call, I resignedly told them to come on in…..

I wondered why they’d showed up, but if they were going to be a problem, I supposed I could “hold” them until the neighbor and his older brother showed up.

The femme, the young chicks, the Baptists from town, and the Baptists from Indiana, were out in the remote country somewhere, gawking at the wildlife, tearing up the terrain, and otherwise bothering nature, so the two weren‘t going to trouble anybody but franksolich.

- - - - - - - - - -

The village idiot is about 40 years old, and round as a beach-ball.  I guess he has balls the size of peas, given that I’ve been told he has a high-pitched whining squeal for a voice, and no facial hair.

The town bully is a little bit younger, sullen and hot-tempered, his mind corroded by his sporadic use of mood-altering pharmaceuticals and his daily intake of alcohol.

“We’re going over the river,” the village idiot said, “and were wondering if any of your guests would like to come along, for a little bit of fun.”

By “going over the river,” he meant of course they were going to a topless bar over in squalid, sordid, dirty, filthy, congested Iowa.  There aren’t any such establishments around here.

“Sorry,” I said; “they’re all out in the country.  I’m the only one around.”

“Well, maybe then you’d like to come along,” the town bully said.

“Uh, no way,” I said.  “Not my piece of cake, watching big jugs swinging around.

“It’s grotesque.”

“There’s something wrong with you,” the village idiot commented; “not liking women and all that--”

- - - - - - - - - -

When I first moved up to this area twelve years ago (and out to this property eight years ago), I was an unknown quality to the general population (other than to the neighbor, who’d been a friend of mine when we both lived in Lincoln years and years before), and puzzled many people about where franksolich stood, on the scale of manhood.

I was male, well into the marriageable age, and…..single.  There didn’t seem to be anything to preclude matrimony, being that I looked average and had, I guess, a pleasing personality. 

Too, I wasn’t into hunting and fishing.

And despite that there wasn’t ever any limp-wristing, fluttering eye-lashes, and mincing prance, nor the jingle-jangle of jewelry anywhere on my body, I was supposed by some to be “one of those.”

However, random good luck shortly intervened to erase that impression among most around here.

This was years ago, but one time while at the self-service gasoline pumps at a station in the big city, I suddenly found myself at the wrong end of a hand-gun.  It was caught on camera, and the guy’s now in the state penitentiary.  People of course heard about that, and some had even seen the film.

And then a few weeks later, I was a customer inside a convenience store in the big city, and abruptly found myself at the wrong end of a sawed-off shot-gun.  The two guys were never caught--it’s assumed they’re not from around here, and probably from one of the blue states--but that incident too was caught on camera.

And widely televised; I’m sure the whole of northeastern Nebraska saw it.

The impression gotten from those watching one, or both, films was that I’d stared the guy down, given how I’d kept looking at him, eye-to-eye, and how he suddenly got scared, and ran away (in both instances).

Actually, what’d happened was that I was startled, and wondering why a gun was pointed at me.

But I know when to not bother setting the record straight, and so the impression persists today, that franksolich has balls of steel, staring down a loaded firearm not once, but twice.

My credentials for machissimo are sterling, excepting among the few cretins who live around here.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

“Yeah, right,” I said, to the pea-sized balls one; “you want to see it?”

Just then, the neighbor and his older brother drove up, and the other two took off.

to be continued when something finally happens

[Skul]

You've got the wild turkeys down pat. 
That's them.

[franksolich]

You've got the wild turkeys down pat. 

That's them.

You know, really, I'm such a slipshod writer, because I'm always in too big of a hurry to get things down, and leave things out.

In the last part, I omitted to remember two important details.

The town bully looks like no one more so than the Taverner primitive, with his egglant of a head.

When I made my last, smart-ass, comment, I was standing there with one of my 17" S/K adjustable wrenches in my hand, and so nothing was going to happen.

[BattleHymn]

You know, really, I'm such a slipshod writer, because I'm always in too big of a hurry to get things down, and leave things out.

You are very good at describing the things around you, though.  For me, some of the best parts in your narratives don't even have anything to do with the main theme.

[franksolich]

You are very good at describing the things around you, though.  For me, some of the best parts in your narratives don't even have anything to do with the main theme.

I have to make a confession here (I made it once to Big Dog, a couple of months ago).

On the true parts, there's oftentimes intentional omissions because I'm a nice guy.

With the femme for example, I never never never put her in a bad light.  The femme's human, and like everybody else has flaws, but I don't dare describe any of hers.

And the business partner whines about things just as much as I do, but because I don't think it's anybody else's business the nature of his whines, I describe only my whines, making it seem as if franksolich is the only one of us who whines.

<<<takes care of one's own.

As for photographs of real people, they're posted only with prior permission, which is why there's not a whole lot of photographs of people other than myself.  It gives the impression that franksolich is narcisstic, which of course is preposterous; it's the case only because I have to insert pictures once in a while to spark interest.

[franksolich]

Whoa.  A question from a fan.

<<rarely gets fan mail.

How do you decide what to impart into a story, outside of "just the facts"?  How do you figure out what words to use for those descriptive details?  How do you make your stories seem so alive?

My fan--may Allah bless him, shower him with riches, soothe him with many harems, etc., etc., etc.--offered this as an example.  It's from one of the first stories I ever wrote for conservativecave, so long ago I'd forgotten I'd written it.

It was the details of the time I hired a Greek plumber to pull out my four wisdom teeth because I thought the dentist too expensive.  I was young, and had already seen the x-rays; the roots on all four went straight down, and hence were likely to slip right out.

The first two came out quickly and easily.  But the third one was stubborn, didn't want to leave, and so the plumber, who was short and rotund, had to kneel on my lap to yank it out.  It was a very hot summer evening in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and this took place on his back porch.

.....I was not aware of human veinous anatomy at the time, but it seemed to me that there must be some sort of major nerve, running from the big toe of one foot up through the body to the top of the skull.  It felt as if the plumber was trying to pull a 6'3" rope out from inside of me, rather than just a tooth.

The plumber continued pulling.

.....and pulling.....

.....and pulling.

This time, it felt as if he were trying to yank out my right eyeball, from the inside.

Just as vomit was scrambling up the windpipe, the tooth spurted out.  The plumber fell backward on my lap, and I grabbed his waist, to keep him from falling onto the floor.

I was dragged, sore, worn out.  I do not remember extraction of the fourth tooth, the lower right wisdom tooth, other than that it seemed to pop out as easily and quickly as the first two had.

The plumber, profusely perspiring, jammed more cotton and bichloride of mercury into my mouth, and indicated he was done now, but I should sit there and "rest."

The plumber's wife brought me a glass of some sort of Greek liqeuer, which I downed instantly, and later learned it was fermented poppyseeds......

My fan's--may he have a thousand lives as a rich man--commentary on that:

I just feel tired from reading that.   

- - - - - - - - - - -

In answer to the first question, I deviate from the facts when the true stuff needs jazzing up.

Now, I don't want to mislead decent and civilized people, so I make the deviation from the truth obvious, by inserting a primitive, or some conduct of a primitive into it.

An example of this is near the beginning of this diary, where the business partner talks about franksolich being stalked by primitives.  It's true that I've been stalked, and it's true that the business partner himself saw a couple of instances of it.  This was years ago; nothing's happened recently.

But that's pretty boring, so I put Fat Che into it, to spice it up, to garner reader interest.

Now, this example's complicated, because the business partner, although never a member of our old home, knows all about poor stupid Beth's scam, and in fact besides myself is the only person in real life who knows what franksolich really did to the late red round one.  But as to the primitives, and Skins's island in general, he's never seen them, never been there.

The opposite example of this, 100% of the unalloyed truth, is the most-recent part of this journal of life out here in the Sandhills, the encounter in the garage.  That all really happened, and exactly in that order.  Notice, please, primitives are not part of it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

In answer to the second question, about which words to use in descriptions, I dunno.  And in a personal aside to the sparkling old dude, who's made a certain foul nasty unwarranted allegation about me, franksolich has never in his life owned a thesaurus; I wouldn't know how to use a thesaurus any more than I'd know how to use a gyroscope.

- - - - - - - - - - -

In answer to the third question, about making the stories seem "alive," I have no idea. 

This flattery actually shocks me; I have the impression they're pretty flat, pretty comatose.  This one's a good example; I've been slugging away at telling it for six days now, and nothing's happened yet.  In fact, as I confided in the buzzy one just hours ago, I'm thinking about giving it up, because it's not going anywhere, nothing's happening.....which of course is the exact same situation out here in real life.

[franksolich]

The neighbor’s wife came over about 5:00 in the afternoon, along with their five children, who were hoping to meet, and play with, about the same number of children among the visiting Baptists, but nobody was back yet. 

“They’re probably still out ruining nature,” I said, “disturbing the wildlife and tearing up the terrain.”

The three older kids--the twin daughters and the oldest son--went out to explore the back yard, while the two younger ones--the younger son and the six-month-old infant daughter--stayed with us.

The younger son bothers me; he became unduly attached to his mother when he was the youngest, and now that there’s a new one, he’s gotten jealous and prone to temper tantrums.

But whatever; I’m not a parent, so I don’t know anything.

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Well, I’m sure they’ll show up soon,” the neighbor’s wife said.

“You know, I went down there,” I said, “and there’s two of those wheeled Chic Sale things there; I wonder where they came from.

“I’d kind of wondered how they were managing it, because number one, nobody was coming up to the house to use the bathroom, and number two, the convenience store in town’s six miles away.

“And they’re not primitives, who unload wherever they feel like unloading.”

“Maybe the Baptists from town brought them out,” she said.

“Well, it’s a relief, though,” I said, “because they strike me as the sort of people who’d be bothered if they had to leave a mess, not being able to do anything about it..”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“I got something to do while we’re waiting,” I said, pointing to two 48-quart thermos chests I’d been given for Christmas and birthday presents the past year.

“But first, I have to ask you, because I never paid attention to chicken, other than when it’s in a sandwich.

“I won’t touch chicken soaked in grease with a ten-foot pole; never have.

“How well does fried chicken keep?  You know Swede at the bar in town has this ‘special’ this evening, fried chicken, and as these people’ll be on their way west about twenty-four hours from now, and as they don’t have a whole lot of money, I was thinking of taking these down and having Swede fill them up, keeping them in the beer cooler until my guests take off.

“And they can of course have the chests too, because I got no need for them.  And maybe this way, they can have chicken clear to Montana.

“Would that work?”

She thought it might, and so I headed to town.

- - - - - - - - - -

When I got to the bar in town, there was a ruckus going on, between Swede and a couple of customers.

“I told him that special price is for his guests,” the temperamental cook of Norwegian derivation pointed out.  “Everybody else, they got to pay the regular special price.”

The two with whom he was arguing were Baptists from town; I was taken aback, as the bar’s circa 90 years old, and there’s probably never been a Baptist darkening its doorway before.

Oh now, I intervened; “they’re in fact buying it for my guests; we’re all having chicken down on the river this evening.”

Swede looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

“How many guests do you have down there?  The whole population of Constantinople?”

No, I said, but quite obviously, they’re buying some for tomorrow and the day after too.

For my guests.

And then I parked the two thermos chests on the counter.

“They want theirs right away, but this can wait.  When you’re not busy later tonight, I’d appreciate it if you’d fill these with chicken, and in a way that it’ll keep.  Then park them in the cooler, and I’ll pick them up and pay sometime mid-afternoon tomorrow.

“And no junk pieces, no organs, no necks, no dark meat.  Or big bones.”

After which I thanked him, and drove back home.

to be continued because maybe something’ll happen now

[franksolich]

Since it was going to be chicken drenched in grease, I excused myself from attending the Saturday evening picnic, assuring the man of God that I’d show up down there in the morning, for their services.

He seemed somewhat bothered, hinting he thought maybe they might be being a nuisance for me, but I interrupted that thought telling him they were no problem at all.  I was just absent so much simply because I have so many things to do, and as I wished them to be comfortable, the femme was in charge, being more sensitive to their needs than I could possibly be.

I went to sleep on the couch, and in the morning, I re-learned something I’d forgotten a very long time ago. 

When there’s three women in one’s place, it’s going to take forever to get to the bathroom in the morning.

- - - - - - - - - - -

While waiting, and having coffee with the femme out on the back porch, she found fault with my old clothes again; the five three-piece pin-striped suits I’ve worn since 1986.

“What is it about men, that they cling to old clothes like a toddler to his baby-blanket?”

"Look," I said; “You’ve changed my life, and in so many ways, good ways.

“But I have my limits.  You’re not going to change my clothes.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

After those three were done, and gone down to the river, I took a bath and shaved (I do both at once; it saves time), perfumed myself up with Preferred Stock cologne, and put on a new pair of tan khaki shorts, a  light-brown all-cotton shirt I hadn’t worn before, and my white pith helmet.

Before going out the door, however, I thought the white one didn’t become me well, and switched to an older tan bush helmet.

It’s unusual attire for the Sandhills of Nebraska--in fact, it’s damned unique--but again, excepting in winter, the climate and terrain of the Sandhills is exactly the same as that in former British East Africa.

When I got there, in an attempt to be inobstrusive, I sat on the ground near the back, but it didn’t work; everybody saw me.  They of course were very friendly, smiling and talking, but because I can’t hear, all I could do was smile back and “uh-huh.”

The service opened up with the usual old-time-religion songs, about the walls of Jericho, the river Jordan, what a friend one has in Jesus, peace in the valley, dove’s wings, happy days, Moses going down, &c., &c., &c.

Now, such music is authentic Americana, and gets its due honor and respect from me; after all, God is multi-talented and revealed to us in so many different ways, according to our temperaments and cultures, and if something works for somebody, great; I’m all for it.

But I, personally, prefer hymns with solemnity and dignity, such as A Mighty Fortress Is Our God or Oh God, Our Help In Ages Past or Thou Art Peter or Uphold Us Lord, In Your Word (despite its second line, “…..and bring death to the Pope and the Turks…..”).

I can’t hear them, but when they’re played, they’re powerful enough that they reverberate through this skeletal structure.  They’re awesomely powerful and penetrative.

- - - - - - - - - -

The man of God, attired in thrift-store clothes, but different ones this day, gave a rousing, rip-roaring speech that inspired the audience, both the black Baptists from Indiana and the white Baptists from the Sandhills.  I dunno what he talked about, but “heard” the cheers and “hallelujahs” and “praise the Lord”s, which were boisterous and frequent.

Then a collection was taken, and I being in the back row was in a position to see how well it went.

Damn.  I wasn’t aware people still put dimes and quarter-dollars into church offerings.

As I’d planned all along, I put in two twenties and a ten, boosting it considerably.

- - - - - - - - - -

At the end, the man of God mentioned that he wished to thank the host of all this, and motioned for me to stand up.  I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t very well stay sitting down, so I got up.

Then he came over and asked if he could pray for me.

Yeah, sure, I said; the way I live, I always need prayers.

He put his right hand on my shoulder, and shutting his eyes and bowing his head, began to pray.

“Oh God, we thank you this day for he who has provided us, through You, the warmth and fruits and hospitality of this land…..”

I thought he’d stop there, but no, he went on.

“…..Oh God, before You stands a troubled soul, weighed down by the burden of sin and ignorance, a soul lost in the wilderness of hopelessness and despair, a soul tormented by his greed, sloth, avarice, lust, anger, arrogance, jealousy, a frightened soul standing on the precipice of destruction and death, a soul unworthy of Your Grace and peace…..

“But give it to him anyway, God…..”

to be continued until something happens

[franksolich]

About mid-afternoon, I went to town, to pick up the chicken at the bar, as the guests were leaving in a couple of hours. 

When I went in, Swede was nowhere to be found, but his wife, the owner of the place, was there.

She got me the two thermos chests from the beer cooler, and I examined the contents.  They were exactly as ordered, packed neatly, and the temperamental cook of Norwegian derivation had kindly padded some dry ice in with all of it.

Then I got the bill, which Swede had handwritten.

The items on the bill, and the contents of the chests, exactly coincided, and Swede had charged me the “special” rate on top of his already-special rate (fried chicken had been the special the previous night).

However, in between that and the total was another line, “spec. hdlg., incl. mlg.”

The charge for that was…..a hundred bucks, which brought the total up to his regular price.

For a second, I was about ready to protest, but bit my tongue.  I’d been rather bossy and preemptory to Swede the previous night when ordering the stuff, and naturally he’d get back at me.

Now, I could whine and bawl and rage, and they’d knock it off--but that’d give Swede another notch over me, and we couldn’t have that.

So I paid the extra hundred bucks without comment, figuring I could borrow from the femme to see me through until later in the coming week.

Swede’s wife took the money, betraying some surprise in her body-language that I didn’t yell-and-scream.

- - - - - - - - - -

“By the way,” I asked, “what’s ‘spec. hdlng., incl. mlg.’?”

“’Special handling, including mileage,” she said.

“Swede ran out of chicken to fill the order, and as it was late Saturday night and more couldn’t be gotten in [the big city], so he had to drive way out to the Johansen place, where he and Old Man Johansen spent some hours during the night beheading, defeathering, and cleaning chickens.

“That’s pretty fresh chicken there.”

I thanked her, and left.

- - - - - - - - - -

The group took off into the setting sun--I dunno if they plan to get to Montana tomorrow or not; it’s a pretty long drive--and the neighbor and I were standing around, examining the immaculately-clean campsite--one wouldn’t even know Baptists had been there--when the property caretaker came by.

The new caretaker, not the retired one.

“Well, they’re gone,” I said; “so now I’ll have a few days of solitude, to get caught up on work. 

“All play and no work makes [franksolich] a poor boy.”

Then I inquired who was on tap for the next weekend.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said; “I’m still fielding calls--this place is more popular than Mahoney State Park--and’ll decide tomorrow, and let you know.

“But also, the carnies called, and they do want to be here the middle of August--”

“Right,” I said; “I thought they would.  Camping at the county fairgrounds, they can’t have booze.  On this property, they can have booze.  It was a no-brainer.”

“They said, though,” he replied, “this past year, they added a freak show to their bill of fare, and so there’ll be some freaks camping with them, too.”

to be continued I guess, in case anything happens

[franksolich]

“You’re going to get into trouble,” the femme warned me; “you’re going to try to cause some trouble, and end up in trouble yourself.”

I’d just told her that carnies are bringing freaks with them.

“No way,” I said.  â€œI have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for freaks.

“After all, I’m a freak myself, the ‘Earless Wonder.’

“However,” I went on, “that goes only for naturally-born freaks; it doesn’t apply to self-made freaks, such as the much-tattooed-and-pierced subway cat, the shaven-head Bostonian Drunkard, or  ; because they purposely uglify themselves, they deserve all the scorn and contempt other people can dish out to them.

“Look, for example, at  ; those aren’t real.  Every morning, she takes a bicycle-tire pump and pumps air into them.  It’s obvious, but why the Hell she does it escapes me.

“Self-made freaks are asking for it; naturally-born freaks aren’t.

“So keep that distinction clear, please, madam.”

- - - - - - - - - -

We drove up to her place in the big city; I was going to drop her off there and go back home, but I had something else to say, and so kept her in the car.  And besides, the inside was air-conditioned, while the outside today was an oven.

“You know, I of course saw freaks in the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, enough freaks to have a string of carnivals stretching from Moscow to Vladivostok and back, but generally, these were pretty minor-league freaks.

“The freakiest freak I ever saw in my life was in Lincoln, Nebraska; I’ll never forget it.

“It was the summer before I was a senior in college, and a couple of friends of mine and I were at Sandy’s Bar, on 10th & O Streets.  This was the old Sandy’s, as this was a long time ago; the front part was as narrow and long as a dining-car on a railway train, and there was a larger room adjacent.  

“But most customers hung around the front part, so as to see who was coming in.

“Now, this was a week-day in summer, a Tuesday or Wednesday, and it was only about two o’clock in the afternoon.  The three of us were there, a lone bartender, and some guy sitting in the dark corner on the south side.

“The two guys were yakking about something, and as I couldn’t keep up with it, I instead amused myself looking around, surveying the scene.

“The guy sitting in the dark corner attracted my attention, as there seemed something peculiar about him.  In fact, there seemed a lot of things peculiar about him.

“He was a blond, and obviously tall, but one couldn’t discern his age--it could’ve been 20, it could’ve been 60--because it looked as if his face were melting.  And he had incredibly bad manners; after taking a glug from his glass of beer, some of it would dribble out of the corners of his mouth, and some would spurt out of his nostrils.

“His eyes were really deep-set; I got the impression he might be blind.

“His hands were enormous, and grotesquely gnarled.  As far as I could see, he did have five fingers on each hand, but his knuckles looked like small violently-red cantaloupes.

“Once in a while, he seemed to look at something far away, and snorted, emitting a short laugh, which attracted the attention of the bartender, but nothing more.  The two guys I was with were so preoccupied yik-yakking away they didn’t pay attention.

Unbeknownst to me, I was looking at the famous Hunchback of Lincoln--he had a beautiful, a magnificent, hump on his back, Hollywood couldn’t have created better--who was a two- or three-day phenomenon in the city; he wasn’t from there, and he shortly thereafter evaporated.

Everybody talked about him, but few had actually seen him.  And I was one of them.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Apparently he decided he needed to take a piss, and got up.  I was right about guessing he was tall; if he’d been stretched out straight, he would’ve been damned near seven feet.  But he was bent, and so couldn’t get higher than, say, five feet, a little more than foot shorter than myself.

“The men’s room was in the back part of the bar, meaning he had to walk right by us.

“He couldn’t walk very well; in fact, he barely crept, hobbled, and sidled, holding onto the backs of chairs at the bar (there weren’t bar-stools at the bar; there were chairs).  As he made his way past us, I detected he was emitting some sort of donkey-like ‘eee-haw, eee-haw, eee-haw.’

“As he got closer, my utter fascination turned into awestruck admiration.

“It was now apparent that he was severely arthritic, and possibly even paralyzed in some limbs, and that this shuffling-along caused him a great deal of pain and agony.

“But still, he was managing to do it on his own.

“I was open-mouthed, my eyes as big as saucers.

“He was still in the men’s room, though, when the two guys I was with decided it was time to go somewhere else, as there wasn’t anything at Sandy’s, and so we left.”

to be continued, because maybe something might happen tomorrow

[Skul]

No more pictures.
I'm seriously getting home sick.
Can I bloke them from view, while reading?

[franksolich]

No more pictures.

I'm seriously getting home sick.

“You know, how long’s it been since you’ve seen a hunchback?” I asked this business partner this morning.

We were just going somewhere nearby to pick up some horses, no need to dress up or anything.  He looked like casual Wyatt Earp and I looked like casual Lord Kitchener of Khartuom, as casual as Lord Kitchener could ever look.  It’s hotter than blazes out here in the Sandhills on the roof of Nebraska.

“Oh, I dunno, maybe back when I was in the service, and in some third-world place,” he said.

The business partner had been in the U.S. Navy during the early 1990s, where he picked up his paramedic skills.  He was born and raised in the Sandhills, and I dunno why this is; Nebraska’s 1500 miles away from any substantial body of water (other than the vast subterranean Lake Ogalalla underneath most of the state), but the majority who join the military, join the seaborne branch.

Hmmmm, I said.  “I just now remembered; I was still pretty young the last time I ever saw a cross-eyed kid.

“We don’t have a whole lot of deformities around here.

“It must be our healthy, rigorous life-style, because blue places sure seem to have a lot of them.”

When we were driving back, I mentioned, “You know, hunchbackery runs in my family, part of it; my mother’s mother’s mother’s side, the side I share in common with my cousin Vlada Mitty of Skins’s island; apparently it was pretty common among those of Judaic derivation in eastern Europe a long time ago.

“My mother’s mother, born of two dwarves, was very tall (as were all her other brothers and sisters excepting one); when she was a participant in Austro-Hungarian weddings in northeastern Pennsylvania a hundred years ago and so, when the picture was taken, she had to be stood with the men, because standing with the much-shorter women, it would’ve looked awkward.

“But by the time I knew her, in her very old age, she was slanted and short.”

Then I thought of something else.

“You know, one of the common consequences of this thing I have, that caused the absence of ears, is hunchbackery.  It’s in the medical textbooks.  I’ve always wondered why that is, but thus far I’m ramrod straight, long past the time I should’ve started bending, and of course I’m grateful.”

nothing’s happened yet, so to be continued until something does

[franksolich]

The neighbor’s wife, their twin daughters, and older son were here in mid-afternoon, they and I having attended a funeral in town.  The two younger children, the jealous three-year-old son and the infant daughter, had been left with their grandparents.

The funeral had been that of the husband of my host for Thanksgiving dinner last year; the woman who for Christmas gave me an 1866 Samuel Troll music-box that resides in the safe-deposit box at the bank; the woman who’d been stuck with the nephew exactly my own age, who’d turned into a primitive before she got him, and currently resides in a nuthouse up in South Dakota, all bloated and watery and out of it.

The woman who’d been born the exact same month and year as my own mother (although of course they were born 1200 miles apart).

She looked very old today, and my heart bled for her.  Since my mother had died in middle-age, and a very long time ago, I’d always used her as my “gauge” to measure what, approximately, my mother’d be like, if she were still alive.  My mother, I guess she’d look very old and tired.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The daughters and son went down to the river-side, to “fish.”

The neighbor’s wife, seeing the neat stack of photograph albums on the dining-room table--stuff from the unassorted family archives I’d gotten around to sorting, and was shipping off to storage in Omaha.  By ill random chance, rather than being other people, other things, from the past, this bunch had been of myself.

I just go to town, pick up a box and bring it out here for identification and assorting, not having the slightest idea what’s in it until I get it here.  I wished I’d grabbed a different box.

She was fascinated, and took some out on the front porch to read.  This was in the afternoon, the torrid hot blazing sun now beating down on the back yard, not the front yard.

As she was looking at the photographs--and she was looking, not merely skimming--she kept on flipping back to previous pages to look at something, and so I finally asked her what was up with that.

“It’s really odd,” she said; “two things about pictures taken of you--those when you were small, you were always barefooted or at least missing one shoe.  I haven’t yet seen a picture of you with both shoes on.

“And then those after college, I haven’t seen one without a cigarette in your hand, somewhere; not a single one, there’s always a cigarette there.”

To forestall a lecture, I interrupted. 

“Yeah, I never thought about it, but when one thinks of it, and counts all the hours of my life thus far, I’ve spend far more hours of life unshod, than shod.”

As I was then at that moment, a light blue all-cotton shirt, light blue pin-striped pants, and…..barefooted.

“I’m not sure why; it’s always just seemed as natural as strawberries-and-cream, to be barefooted, or at least no more than socks on the feet.

“Around here, and when I was growing up, it never seemed to bother anybody; it fact, it doesn’t seem to have bothered anybody excepting when I lived in Pennsylvania and then New Jersey, where people thought it was bad taste, gauche, gross.

“As you can see, there’s nothing wrong with these feet.  They’re exactly as feet are supposed to be, no distortions, no deformities, no malformations, no calluses, no warts, no blemishes, and a healthy color.

“I used to get irritated when I lived back there, thinking to myself--being a nice guy, I was too polite to actually say it--”Whoa, there.  Here all you are living in cramped quarters, in filth and grime and congestion and decrepitude, and my bare feet are offensive?

“Geezuz.”

to be continued, in hopes that something might happen

[franksolich]

“You know, even though the news wasn’t great, it was still fascinating,” I told the business partner.

“I’d never been looked at by a cardiologist before; in my state of existence, all I’ve ever been looked at, when it came to specialists, were otorhinolaryntologists.

“Scores, if not more of those, in my life-time.  I think they kind of freak when they meet me, but I’m not sure why.”

It’s another hot day out here in the Sandhills of Nebraska.

“And to think I was seeing this guy today because an osteopathic physician had sent me there.

“I’m beginning to really like osteopaths; if we had more of them, we’d have less of a prescription-drug-abuse problem in this country, because there wouldn‘t be so many doctors around willing to prescribe them.”

The business partner visibly braced himself, figuring my usual anti-drug jihad was upcoming, and he’s heard it hundreds of times before.

But I surprised him.

“Of course, you know, this cardiologist, all those otorhinolaryntologists, and that osteopath, are graduates of regular medical schools, M.D.s, but I’ve always thought there’s plenty of room for non-M.D.s in the medical profession too.

“I’d like to find a homeopath, for example, just to see what it’s like being treated by one.

“The only non-M.D.s in the medical profession I wouldn’t trust would be chiropractors; they’re quacks.”

The business partner arched his eyebrows; I was assaulting a sacred cow here.

“When I was growing up, because the parents were who they were, we went only to the run-of-the-mill M.D.s, even for vision care.  There were a couple of optometrists in town, but the parents always insisted we had to be seen by an opthamologist in the city where I was born, an hour and a half’s drive away.

“And once a week, there was a chiropractor in town.  He came from the big city south and east of us, an hour and a half away the opposite direction.  He rented a room in the hotel, set up some portable equipment there, and had lots of regular customers, keeping him busy all day long.

“My parents however distrusted him, because one time when hearing about me, he offered that chiropractric treatment would cure my deafness.

“Of course my parents’d been skeptical of back-quacks even before then, so it never happened.

“A bunch of chiropractors used to come to the county fair, and while the county fair was going on, my best friend and I hung around a lot, looking at things.

“The chiropractors offered free examinations, but I disdained it until the summer I was 18 years old, and consented to have one.

“The guy, after fiddling around with me all over, told me I had a bad back, and should seek treatment.

“Now, I hadn’t had any back problems in my life before then, but I got nervous, being aware that many others in my family had them.  Back problems are a bitch, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

“I really worried, lost a lot of sleep over it, scrupulously watched for the slightest pinch of pain, but nothing ever happened.  For years, decades.  I’m still nervously waiting for something to happen.

“I think the guy was just trying to drum up some business.”

to be continued, but not continuously, if nothing happens

[Skul]

You know I'm laughing, because you know, I've heard many stories of "the chiropractors", from my older relatives.

[franksolich]

You know I'm laughing, because you know, I've heard many stories of "the chiropractors", from my older relatives.

Well, of course they've cleaned up their act since the 1970s, and probably have gotten better-trained and more professional, and hence do some real good, at least insofar as the spinal column's concerned.

But back then, every Tuesday morning, there appeared a large plywood sign near the entrance of the local hotel--the largest and tallest building in town, announcing CHIROPRACTIC EXAMINATIONS/ADJUSTMENTS, 8 A.M.- 5 P.M., ROOM 202, APPTS. AVAILABLE IN GRAND ISLAND.

When my best friend and I were still in our bicycle-riding stage, before we graduated to motor vehicles, after school we'd go down to the hotel to look, for a while.  I dunno why the guy bothered putting out that sign, as he was always traffic-jammed with customers, who ran the whole gamut of humanity as we knew it.

In those days, and it's probably still somewhat common, because the area didn't have a population large enough to justify a full-time professional in some expertise, but as there was some demand for their services, professionals in this thing or that thing would come up once a week, and work out of a room at the hotel.

Hearing-aid dealers, Christian Science practitioners, the state job service, agencies dispensing veterans' benefits, astrologers, those sorts of things.

[Skul]

I didn't mean to derail your narrative.
The ones I recall were the "spit doctors".
There were others equally odd.

[franksolich]

I didn't mean to derail your narrative.
The ones I recall were the "spit doctors".
There were others equally odd.

You're not derailing anything; nothing's happening.

I don't even know who's camping here this weekend, because the caretaker and I haven't touched base.

But probably nothing big'll happen until the week of August 11-17, when the carnies and the freaks are here.

And then nothing again until the Labor Day weekend, when there's likely to be primitives, but I hope it's not the Packer clan from northeastern Oklahoma, as they've become stale.

But essentially, I hope to drag this thread along until September 21, after which I head for the old home-town, and as that's all very personal, poignant, bittersweet, the plans are to do a thread on that in the Sandhills forum, away from lurking primitive eyes and noses.

<<<doesn't like to give out too much information to primitives, who stalk.

[RobJohnson]

I love all the pictures. I don't see much green any more here in the desert.

[franksolich]

I love all the pictures. I don't see much green any more here in the desert.

Well, you and Skul are probably going to see a lot more.

I hadn't realized September 21 is so far away; just didn't think about it.

So until then, more greenery.

[franksolich]

Eat your heart out, dude; you shudda never left here.

Texas ain't nuthin', compared with the Sandhills of Nebraska.

[franksolich]

Where franksolich'll be in a couple, three, hours:

It's the same course as shown earlier in this thread, but a different picture, one not posted until now.

Of course, I'm just going to smack a ball around, while the rest of the party plays serious golf, but it's all good.

[franksolich]

“Are you nervous about it?” the business partner asked me when we were out on the road today.

“Sort of, but not really,” I said; “one just accepts what comes, and deals with it.”

We were talking about an “echocardiogram” I’m scheduled to take at the hospital in the big city on Friday morning. 

“Of course, it can’t possibly be good news, but life rarely has good news.  It’d hardly be the first time I’ve gotten bad news.  One just takes what comes, and deals with it.  I’ll deal with it.”

to be continued