perhaps some comedic relief for today, I dunno

[franksolich]

Thanks.

Though I might have a word or two to say about how the Second Amendment preempted NFA34 and GCA68, except that it didn't.

Good luck to NB and VT.

By the way, sir, in all this flurry of election news, there were a lot of stories that got overlooked.

At the same time Nebraska was making hunting and fishing a constitutional right, North Dakota overwhelmingly made farming a constitutional right.

Yeah, that's right; farming's now a constitutional right in North Dakota, and I suggest other states quickly follow the two of us.

That, again, was inspired by that a couple of years ago, North Dakota's leading moonbat pooh-poohed the idea that farming would ever be restricted or outlawed in North Dakota.

Now, when a Democrat, liberal, or primitive talks like that, suggesting "oh, there's nothing to worry about; it won't ever come that," is when one should worry, and get the thing engraved in granite.

[franksolich]

There was just one hunter who dropped by today; an older gentleman.

As mentioned earlier, the Great Barack Drought of'12 apparently encouraged deer to migrate to more hospitable areas, as it appears to be a lean year for hunters around here.  This guy however had bagged one on Sunday, but as one can get two this week, he's looking for his second one.

Actually, he hadn't planned on being around to hunt this year, but because of FEMA, he is.

There's a church in the big city widely known for its humanitarian aid to people in need--anywhere in the United States to as far away as Africa and the Pacific.  It's a very "pro-active" group; it doesn't just send money or stuff; the people actually go places to distribute the aid, in conjunction with other organizations.  One of the food-and-medical missions, which lasted about six weeks four years ago, they airlifted tons of stuff to Zimbabwe, along with about twenty people from the church.

They'd made plans to go to the northeastern states affected by the recent hurricane, and had a couple of trucks loaded up with.....coffee and hot chocolate; the trailers were filled to the top, pallets of stacks of cases of coffee and hot chocolate.

Well, there's logistics involved with the distribution of hot drinks to battered civilians and relief workers, and so they sought to coordinate things with FEMA.  FEMA told them not to come; that they (FEMA) had everything well under control, and they weren't needed.

The older gentleman thinks that Christmas food-baskets for the poor of this part of Nebraska this year will inevitably include a lot of coffee and hot chocolate, each probably more than what a family can reasonably consume in a year.

He'd heard that I purchased a big stack of raffle tickets for the local Lions' Club, in which the prize awarded is a Benelli Super 90 12-gauge shotgun, and much like others around here, he operates on the impression that in a raffle, it's the person who doesn't need or want the prize, gets it.

"I think that if you win it, you probably should keep it, rather than selling or giving it away to someone else."

I reminded him I bought the tickets simply to support the fine work of the Lions' Club, and besides, I already have a weapon of choice for self-defense, that S/K adjustable wrench with a 17" handle and 1-3/8" spannage.  Best to stick with what one knows how to use.

[Ballygrl]

Not nice at all that FEMA told good people who are trying to do something, not good to tell them not to come.

[franksolich]

Not nice at all that FEMA told good people who are trying to do something, not good to tell them not to come.

This just posted in the "Mind-Numbing Stupidity" forum:

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s food police have struck again!"

 http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,80783

Just how bad is the situation there?

[franksolich]

One solitary hunter dropped by this afternoon, Tuesday afternoon.

He’s somebody from town, although I don’t know him well.

He hadn’t gotten any deer himself the past four days, but plans to keep going through Saturday, unless he bags two of them before then, that being the legal limit.

We talked about the election, and apparently are of the same mind; the Barack Milhous regime is going to collapse prematurely from its sheer weight of arrogance and incompetence, so best to just sit back, relax, watch, and wait.  The guy in the White House is not exactly high-IQ material.

He’d heard I was looking for a primitive to have Thanksgiving with, but I told him I already found one, and who it was, curious if he knew anything about the primitive.

He has, and he suspects I’ll be disappointed, without mentioning how.

[franksolich]

The neighbor and the property caretaker showed up about the same time this morning, Wednesday morning, and I mentioned the deer hunter from yesterday, who’d opined that I’d be “disappointed” upon meeting the primitive for Thanksgiving, but I didn’t think he said why, unless I didn't catch that part.

“You know, maybe he’s reformed now, turned a over a new leaf,” I said, “and that’d be all good and everything, but I was hoping to see a raw unrefined primitive.”

Neither could guess what the guy’d meant; as far as the neighbor knew, the primitive lives half the time in a half-way house up in Sioux Falls, and the other half the time in a straitjacket in the nuthouse there.

“That doesn’t sound like to me he’s reformed,” the neighbor assured me.

The caretaker, having the same information, agreed, but then added, “I’ll have the wife ask around.”

Good, I thought; the caretaker’s wife is the biggest gossip in the whole county, and if she wants to find something out, she does.

- - - - - - - - - -

There were three hunters who dropped by this morning.  I knew one of them, and the other two were apparently friends of his.  The one I knew, is the husband of the woman who owns one of the bars in town.

Formally and outwardly, the two of us get along fine, but his body language has always betrayed a contempt for me, although I have no idea why.

He’s about 65 years old, born and raised in this area.  He’s a long-distance truck-driver who cooks some nights at the bar when he’s home in town.  Apparently he used to cook full-time, but getting tired of his wife every so often, he hauls loads down to Texas or out to California.

I dunno his background, other than that he’s of Norwegian derivation.

However, oddly, his culinary specialty is Italianate dishes, and he is famous for them.

Maybe he learned it in the army or something, 45 years ago.

This was long before my time, but back when he’d been a full-time cook at the bar, there were six Italianate exchange students attending a college about two hours’ drive away from here, who made it a point to come whatever nights he was working, because they alleged he fixed dishes Calabrians and Piedmontese would find exquisite.

About the same time, and back when Omaha, Lincoln, Sioux City, and Minneapolis were more “ethnic” than they are now, proprietors of Italianate restaurants in those cities would come here to dine, and discuss dishes with him.  And usually they took back some of his recipes, to use in their own establishments.

I like his stuff too, but franksolich is a man of simple tastes.

He glares at me every time I got to the bar to place a “take-out” order.

The usual-and-standard hamburger, extremely well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and French fries cooked on the grill, not in the fryer.

I’m perplexed that he doesn’t seem to appreciate me, because I make his job a snap; something very simple and quick to make, and I’m an easy person to please.  He doesn’t have to do anything fancy, he doesn’t have to worry about getting it “just right” to please a fussy customer, he doesn’t have to sweat and toil over something fancy.

Here franksolich is, always being a nice guy taking up a minimum of his time and effort, and he doesn’t seem to appreciate it.

[Skul]

The gentleman sees himself as a Michaelangelo in the kitchen, and you ask him to put a stick of dynamite under a gallon of paint.
I wonder if his wife knows how to prepare lutefisk?

[franksolich]

The gentleman sees himself as a Michaelangelo in the kitchen, and you ask him to put a stick of dynamite under a gallon of paint.

That's been pointed out, but I reject it.

The guy sweats and labors fixing food for other people, trying to get it just right, trying to please their critical palates and tongues.

And here once in a whille comes franksolich, who causes him no worry at all, making a simple order.

I think he should rather like me, because I don't demand as much from him as other people do.

[franksolich]

“He was in the army about the same time I was over in Vietnam,” the property caretaker told me this morning, when I inquired about the glum husband of the owner of the bar in town.

“He was stationed on some special project in Italy, and like with you over in Russia, he didn’t waste any time hanging around the fancy places or the tourist places or bigwigs or other Americans; he went right to country, to hang around with the peasants.

“Just like you did, boss, when you went to Russia, excepting unlike you, he learned a lot about the food there, while you wouldn’t eat any of local stuff, wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.

“He never learned the language, though; he said knowing English and Norwegian was enough to get him around most parts of the world anyway.

“This used to perplex big-shot Italian restauranteurs from Chicago or Milwaukee or Kansas City, when they came up here to try out his cooking.  They already knew before coming that he wasn’t Italian, but thought he’d at least know the language.

“So they had to resort to watching him cook in the kitchen.

“As you know boss, that kitchen isn’t very big, like a small narrow kitchen in a railroad dining car or a closet or something, and when he and six or seven Italians were standing in it, there wasn’t even room for air.

“He taught them things about their native cuisine their great-great-grandparents had known, but they didn’t know.

“He didn’t make any secret of his recipes, lots of which were adopted for use in these big-city Italian eateries, during the late ‘60s and all through the ‘70s.

“Sometimes people wondered if he’s sneaked some Norwegian elements into his Italian cookery--he can be sneaky, remember--but apparently no.  His Italian cooking’s the real thing, pure and unadulterated.

“When cooking, he’s an honest man.”

[franksolich]

“Well, boss, I still think you’re going to get what you wanted, a real primitive for Thanksgiving,” the property caretaker assured me at noon when he came over to get some tools for another job.

“The wife asked around, and he’s still nuts, still out of it, from all those drugs he took when he was younger.

“He just may make Auntie look a paragon of sentience.

“He’ll be here not because his people are old and looking at the cemetery, and want to have one last look-see at him, but because they’re finally going to cede complete guardianship of him to the taxpayers of South Dakota, washing their hands of him.

“They figure they’ve dealt with him for more than thirty years now, and can’t do him any good, so they might as well fold their cards.

“But being decent and civilized people, they’re not going to just have a lawyer up in South Dakota take care of it; they want to have one last final look to assure themselves that no, there’s nothing they can do for him.

“I think you’re going to get just what you wanted,” the caretaker repeated; “a real live primitive paying the consequences of his behavior.”

[franksolich]

When I went to the post office in town this afternoon, I encountered my hostess for the Thanksgiving fete, who seemed delighted to see me.

“You know, we’re all really excited you’re coming, to be a diversion for all we old folks.”

She paused.  “Well, there’s the nephew, who’s not geriatric, but--

“It’s going to be great, having a young man join us.”

I arched my eyebrows.  “But you know, madam, I don’t look at other people the same way other people do.  I look at their insides, their souls, their spirits, and when I see you, I see someone in her first bloom of youthful beauty and vivacity, probably as you were when you were 21.”

“Oh bosh,” she answered; “I was 21 back in 1948, and there’s none of that left in me.”

No, really, I insisted; there was still a lot of that in her.  One just has to look for it.

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s wife came over later in the afternoon, to remind me that she’s bringing a turkey over sometime late Sunday, and gave me instructions as to its care; the same instructions she’s given me twice a year the past seven years.

The neighbor and his wife live in a big house, built in 2002, with a large state-of-the-art kitchen, stainless steel all over the place, but when cooking something big, she prefers to cook it here.

This is a very large kitchen--larger than her large kitchen--with acres of empty counter-space, and a stove and refrigerator that were probably meant for a hospital kitchen, as they’re both rather large and capacious.

I assured her yeah, sure, I remember what I have to do.

Then she told me she’d found out that the primitive coming for Thanksgiving is my own exact age, actually six weeks older than franksolich.

Ah, great, I mentioned; an excellent opportunity for observation and analysis.

“Okay, so he’s my same age, and there’s some other parallels between us--we’re both male, we were both born to parents later in their lives, we were born and raised in small uncrowded areas, we both had happy childhoods, we were both orphaned as teenagers.

“Two peas in a pod.

“The only significant difference being the presence, or absence, of pharmaceuticals.

“This is going to be an excellent opportunity to see if it’s true, ‘better living through chemistry.’”

[franksolich]

“I think you’ll be disappointed because there’s nothing in or about him to see,” a hunter advised me this morning.  This was the same hunter who’d the other day told me that.

“I went through country school with him, and then after we went to our own high schools in town, I saw him every so often, competed with him, in football games and track meets.

“He was the top of his class in school, until he was about 15, 16, when he started running around with the kids of middle-aged peaceniks living off the charity of the county, and got into doing marijuana with them.

“He get very apathetic; didn’t care about anything but smoking dope and staring at the ceiling.

“It was sad, because his parents, who were pretty old, lived just long enough to see it start.

“They were scared for him, and set up the farm as a trust, with the sister of his mother, his aunt, as the guardian, so somebody could take care of him.

“Well, they died, and he came to town here, to live with your Thanksgiving hostess.

“He didn’t care for the school here, and dropped out.

“He was on hard drugs by then, and even though his aunt gave him an allowance, it wasn’t enough, and he got into stealing. It got so bad that even pawn-shops in the big city refused to do business with him, because all that he was turning in ended up going back to their rightful owners.

“He was always causing ruckuses in town, doing weird things like looking at the moon and baying like a dog, or running around in a dress, getting all sorts of tattoos and piercing, shoplifting, wearing black costumes, and generally scaring little children and old ladies.

“The sheriff wanted him put away, but his aunt wouldn’t let it happen.  She insisted she could cure him; she just hadn’t found the right way yet, but was confident she eventually would.

“When he started becoming a public hazard, the sheriff kicked him out of the county.

“He ended up over in Sioux City, where over a few years he had ‘relationships’ with sick women that resulted in progeny and desertion.  Somewhere along the line, he got the idea that if he could feign insanity, he could avoid child support, but that was superfluous because he was nuts anyway; he didn’t have to fake anything.

“He wandered as far afield as Minneapolis, but eventually turned back, ending up in Sioux Falls.

“He got into some really big trouble with the law there about 10, 12, years ago, and ended up being slapped into the nuthouse, where much money was spent on ‘drug therapy’ to ‘correct’ ‘chemical imbalances’ in his brain.

“He became docile about 5, 6, years ago, and was released to a half-way house up there.  But he’s still bad enough that he sometimes has to be shut up again, until he’s all calmed down again, and not a hazard to himself or to others.

“The aunt finally sold his parents’ farm and converted it to cash for the trust fund, and as it was a lot of money, and given her careful stewardship, it lasted quite a while.

“But now it’s pretty much all gone--just barely enough left to buy a casket and a plot at the cemetery any more--and his aunt and uncle are pretty old.  Since they have their own expenses to worry about, they really can’t afford to carry him.

“And so before the end of the year, he’s going to be signed over to the taxpayers of South Dakota, to take care of the rest of his life.

“He knows, and understands, nothing of this.  He’d always wanted to live life to the limit, to go to the furthest extreme, to surpass all boundaries, and I guess he did, to where he’s not even really alive anymore.

“You’re going to be disappointed; I think you should’ve looked around more, when looking for a primitive.  As God knows, we’ve got plenty of them, some of them even running the country now.”

[franksolich]

“That is sick,” the femme protested, when she was here in mid-morning; “wanting to spend Thanksgiving gawking at a pathetic human freak.

“That is disgusting; I’m surprised at you.”

She was, obviously, not in a good mood.

Uh, I reminded her of something.  She, like most everybody else, watches television.  I don’t, because it’s too much of a hassle for a deaf person to figure out, and so best just to not bother with it.

However, just like hearing people, franksolich has the “need” to look at things, to examine them, to study them, to marvel at them.  And since television won’t fill that need, one seeks other means of satisfying the curiosity.

In this case, watching certain phenomenons in real life rather than on a screen.

Just because I don’t do television, does that mean I must sit around, my eyes tightly closed?

And actually, I suspect examining people in real life is healthier, mentally, than examining fictitious characters on a screen.

“Well, I still think it’d be better if you spent Thanksgiving with the neighbors,” she insisted, “in that aura of family values and love you want so much.”

Nope, not in a good mood, she.  This is something that seems to happen about, oh, maybe a dozen times a year.

The femme is spending Thanksgiving with her sister and her sister’s family in Omaha.

The femme’s sister in Omaha doesn’t care much for franksolich, which is why that’s always out, when one considers options for holidays.  She thinks I’m a prude, somebody who doesn’t know how to “have fun,” and nothing will change her mind, so I pass.

There’s always been problems about holidays, between the femme and myself.  I’m a live-and-let-live sort of person, willing to accept anyone coming my way, and she’s not.  She’s very selective about who she chooses to like, and to dislike.

I must say she exercises pretty good judgement about people, but still--

The biggest problem is that the femme is one of the two most important people in my life, at least at the moment.  And the other one is the business partner.

The femme gives me all those things a man wants from a woman, fulfilling my emotional needs.  The business partner provides most of my bread-and-butter, fulfilling my practical needs.

And they loathe and detest each other with a passion.

It’s been a very confusing and conflicted life so far, and it doesn’t look as if it’s ever going to change.

I have no idea why, but ever since franksolich was a little lad, I’ve been a subject of tug-of-war competition between people.  In my younger days on the grade-school playground, “I want him,” “No, I want him,” “You can’t have him because I want him more,” “You don’t need to have him,” “You don’t deserve to have him,” “If you take him, I’m going to beat you up,” “He’s mine,” “No, he‘s mine,” &c., &c., &c.

I have no idea why this is, as I‘m sure I have no special characteristics or qualities that would appeal to others--in fact, I‘m a rather ordinary, boring person-- but there it is, there you have it.

It actually became physical, when I was wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, and oftentimes found one arm grabbed by a peasant, and the other arm grabbed by a worker, and nearly torn asunder between the two of them.  “I met him first, so he’s mine,” “He was in my house before he was in yours, so he’s mine,” “I speak better English, so he’s mine,” &c., &c., &c.

The only way I’ve learned to deal with it successfully is by withholding myself from everybody, and just going a third way, by myself.

[franksolich]

“You know, that pisses me off that she said that,” I said to the neighbor’s wife, who was by later in the afternoon, after I’d failed in my attempts to buy a Hostess Ho-Ho at the convenience store in town, and gotten a haircut.

“She accused me of getting some sort of merriment out of looking at human monsters.”

I was of course referring to the femme, who hadn’t been too thrilled about my spending Thanksgiving dinner with a primitive, and undoubtedly a grotesque one at that.

The neighbor’s wife was sympathetic to “listening,” so I went on.

“What she doesn’t understand is that I’m not looking at the flaccid flab or the crossed eyes or the carbuncles or the dead eyes or the bad teeth or hursite neck or a big bump on the chin or whatever, that betray primitivity in the physical, visually observable, senses.

“Those outward characteristics exist, but in the case of primitives, they’re merely outward manifestations of a twisted, depraved, barbaric, monstrous, decadent mind and soul.

“That’s what attracts me, the fascination with the monster that’s inside of them.

“And you know as well as I do, that I’ve oftentimes been attracted to people who are utterly normal-looking on the outside, but disgusting creatures on the inside.”

I repeated my story of visiting a “special school” for retarded Native American children up in North Dakota some years ago.

“These kids were superintended by utterly normal-looking ‘social workers,’ whose primitivity was the most monstrous, the most depraved, I’ve ever observed, especially after I noticed the ABORTION NOW and KERRY-EDWARDS bumper-stickers on their cars.

“They were all women, younger versions of the Die alte Sau, wire-rimmed eyeglasses, frowning, scowling, grimacing, sourasses angry and bitter at the world and everyone in it.  They weren’t pleasant-looking, but they were pretty normal-looking.

“However, despite the outward appearance of normalcy, these were some of the most hideous monsters one could ever hope to see.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.  I wasn’t looking at their bodies, but glimpsing into their dark Hate-filled souls.

“Believe it or not, even decorated-like-a-Christmas-tree Auntie was comely when compared with these fetid monstrosities.”

[franksolich]

“No, I think it’s interesting, looking at interesting people,” a hunter advised me this morning; “and if you want to look at primitives, well, you got ‘Exhibit A’ for Thanksgiving.”

This hunter’s in his late 40s, early 50s, and recalls the upcoming primitive from school.

“I haven’t seen him for almost thirty years now, but even back then, you could tell where he was heading.”

Changing the subject, I bitched about the femme.

“You know, she gets cranky about, oh, probably twelve times a year, and she obviously has advance warning the crankiness is coming.  She can’t do anything about it…..but…..she can make adjustments for it, so as to soften its impact on other people.

“Sometimes I know I myself am about to descend into a funk, a short spell of melancholia or grouchiness, and nothing can stop it; it’s going to come, and I have to ride it out.

“Since I’m aware this is what’s going on, and it’s bad manners to take such feelings out on other people, I adjust what I do and say accordingly, so it doesn’t show to, and trouble, other people.

“’Grin and bear it’ is an utterly appropriate way to be, and I wish she’d be that way too.”

[franksolich]

The wife of the retired banker came over about supper-time this evening, dragging grumpy with her.  Her husband is one of these old guys who wears his pants hiked clear up to his midriff, and who doesn’t say much, other than an unintelligible “harump” now and then.

She’d brought along with her a history of the Harvey House restaurants of the old Santa Fe railway, which I knew she had, and I wished to read, in preparation for Thanksgiving with this new primitive.

“We’re so excited you’ll be joining us,” she told me.  “It’s gotten very boring with only old people at the table.”

She also mentioned she was bringing food to the dinner too; pickled herring and lutefisk specially prepared by the husband of the owner of the bar in town.

I was gracious about it, but inwardly grateful I still have four days to tell her “no, please.”

[franksolich]

The neighbor's wife stopped off here at noon, bringing two frozen turkey carcasses.

One is 24 pounds, the other is 14 pounds.

They'll be cooking in this oven very early Thanksgiving morning, and about noon the larger one will go to the neighbor's house, while franksolich heads to town to have Thanksgiving dinner with a primitive.

It'll just be the neighbor, his wife, and their four children for dinner at their place, until the business partner and I show up circa 6:00 p.m. that same day to chow down on what's left over.

And then we'll show up again there for lunch on Friday, to deal with the left over leftovers.

She told me the "why" of the smaller one, but I didn't catch it.  I suppose I'll find out sooner or later.

[franksolich]

"Don't worry about it, boss; I'll have the wife take care of it," the property caretaker assured me this afternoon.

The caretaker's wife is the biggest gossip in town, and in this case it's good.

I'd expressed concern because the wife of the retired banker, who comes here to collect tub-loads of the William Rivers Pitt to use in her award-winning gardens, had told me she was bringing Danish-style pickled herring and lutefisk to the Thanksgiving dinner.

I have a good stomach, but it tends to, uh, upchuck at the odor of dead fish.

"She [the caretaker's wife] already found out that the house to the west of them is having the usual turkey, and the house to the east of them's having steaks, nobody having any fish, so the coast should be clear.

"But boss, you got the queerest stomach I've ever seen, getting queasy at the strangest things."

I can't help it, I said; I was born that way.

"Now, I'll be over on Wednesday afternoon," he also told me; "because I got to talk to you about the situation you're walking into on Thanksgiving.  It's not all what it seems to be."

[franksolich]

Three hunters stopped by this evening; they’d been out duck hunting, as the deer season’s now over.

Actually, the deer season in Nebraska goes on into January, but one just can’t use a firearm, unless a musket or blunderbuss or flintlock, I guess.

These hunters are from another county, but they’d been here before, in prior years.  One got five, the limit, another got four, and the third got two.  They’d of course hunted early in the day, and then went off to do other stuff.  They came back here because two of their motor vehicles had been parked here, when I was gone.

The recent elections are still news, and the hunter I know best expressed surprised that I don’t seem quite as upset as most are.

“What’s going to happen, what’s going to happen?

“We’re going down the drain.”

At which I expressed equanimity; it’s going to be rough, very rough, at least until the mid-term elections of 2014, when the Republicans get their second shot at gaining the Senate and improving their margin in the House--but one we’d better not blow--in fact, it’s going to be damned hard on tens of millions.

And one hopes the hardest blows fall upon that 50.5% or whatever who voted for the incumbent.

My idea of utopia, a perfect world, is a world in which each of us, rather than other people, pay for the consequences of our individual actions.

For example, if the primitives want welfare, they should be the ones paying for it, not other people.

But the problem is, decent and civilized people are going to get hit too, by hard times coming as a consequence of the actions of those 50.5%.

I confessed I’m sort of nonchalant about it--we’ll get by, and brighter days are coming--simply because franksolich is way out of the mainstream of socio-economic trends (I’m walking along the bank, my feet not even getting wet) that affect most other people.

When times are good for most everybody else--such as during the Great Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush Prosperity--they’re not quite as good for franksolich. 

And when times are bad for most everybody else--such as during the Hard Times of Jimmy Carter and the first two years of William Clinton--they’re not quite as bad for franksolich.

I get by.

And so I’m looking at the whole thing as if watching something on television, detached from it.

[franksolich]

The property caretaker came over this afternoon, while the neighbor’s wife was also here, preparing the two turkeys for franksolich to cook for her early in the morning.  She told me again why two turkeys, but as I was preoccupied, I didn’t catch it.

The caretaker and I sat in the dining room and talked; I dunno if the neighbor’s wife caught all, or much, of it, but probably she did.  It wasn’t confidential anyway.

“Well, boss,” the caretaker started, “ I have more information about the primitive for you, stuff everybody but you seems to know.

“You already know his parents died when he was still a teenager, leaving the farm to his mother’s sister in trust for him, because he was still a minor, 15, 16, years old, and had already been into drugs for a couple of years by then.  His mother was afraid he’d waste it.

“So he went to live with his aunt in town, but drugs--he was w-a-a-a-a-y past marijuana by then--retarded his social and intellectual development, and he didn’t like it here.  He was always trying to get away--to where, nobody knows--but at the same time he was shackled here, as the money was here with his aunt, and he couldn’t have any of it without her okay.

“He dropped out of high school, and by the early 1980s, when he was in his early 20s, he was a full-time professional-level drug addict.  In fact, he was one of the first known cases of methamphetimine use in the county.  He was way beyond cocaine and crack and Qaaludes and all that stuff then in vogue.

“There wasn’t any hope for him; the best that could’ve happened would’ve been that he’d wander out onto the highway and get pancaked by a semi-truck.

“It’s too bad that didn’t happen, because it would’ve spared a lot of people a lot of grief.

“His aunt, your hostess tomorrow, has the same sort of conscience you do, boss; never give up on somebody until you’re spent and wasted to nothing yourself.  It must be a Catholic thing, I dunno.

“For years and years and years, the sheriff advised her to have him put away, but she felt she’d be reneging on her promise to her sister, that she’d take care of him.  She took this vow seriously, and wouldn’t give up.

“Well, a farm’s a lot of money--it could’ve sent him all the way through college, given him the means to start a business or something debt-free, and afforded him a life among the Jet Set.

“But over the years, it had to be squandered on medical and psychiatric treatment, bail bond, fines and other monetary penalties, keeping women quiet, because he couldn’t stay out of trouble.  But mostly on psychiatric treatment.

“Well, he’s well into middle-age now, and the money’s nearly all gone.  There’s about enough to buy a piano case for his carcass, and a double lot in the cemetery, and that’s it.

“And his aunt’s now 86 years old, hardly a spring chicken.

“About two years ago, [the local priest] started talking to her about it, trying to convince her it was time to cut ties; he was beyond redemption, his money nearly all gone, and she needed her own money to keep herself and her husband in their old age.

“It took a very long time, and it eventually also involved the sheriff and her attorney and her two younger sisters, but then a couple of months ago, she agreed to relinquish guardianship over him--he’s been certifiably incompetent since 1977 or something--to the state of South Dakota, where he currently resides, in a nuthouse.

“Those papers are to be signed on December 5th, up there, her attorney representing her.

“However, because of her troubled conscience, she wanted to see him one last final time, and decided she’d have him down here for Thanksgiving.  She hadn’t seen him since the early 1990s, and wanted to be absolutely sure he was beyond saving, before abandoning him.

“She’s ancient, and doesn’t travel well, so she couldn’t go up there; he had to be brought down here.

“She was making arrangements for his transport, but she was fooling only herself--and you.

“Everybody else knew he wasn’t coming down here; he couldn’t come down here.

“[The local priest] told her last night the doctors up there had vetoed the trip, and she seemed to take it okay.  Not great, but okay.

“So no primitive for Thanksgiving.  I’m sorry.”

Damn, I was disappointed, let down.

“And here, the primitive’s my exact age--just six weeks older than I am--and it would’ve been interesting to see what I’d be like, if I’d been a primitive,” I said.

“Well, boss, the sheriff saw him about ten years ago, in a wheelchair in the nuthouse up there, when he had to take somebody else there.  He just passed him by, and didn’t recognize him at first.

“Back then, the guy was about 400 pounds, his jowls spilling over his shoulders, his beady little eyes unseeing, his opened mouth drooling, hardly any hair left, and reeking of dirty diapers.

“I don’t imagine he’s improved in looks or body odor any since then.”

The caretaker shifted in his chair, uneasily.

“I hope this doesn’t mean you won’t go now, because there are some people going to be there, who are looking forward to seeing you.

“You’ve been around here for more than ten years, and while everybody knows who you are, you’re as slippery as an eel, elusive, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, acknowledging their presence, and then just as quickly evaporating again when they blink their eyes.

“I dunno why you’re that way, but you’re that way.

These are old people who are going to be there, half of them from the nursing home, and most likely in two or three years, they’ll be gone.  They really want to meet you.”

I took a deep breath.  “I didn’t have any intention of not going, no matter what, as I’d said I’d go, but the primitive not being there really makes it all pointless.  I’ll go, but it might be uncomfortable, me being the youngest person there.   These people are decades older than I am.”

[franksolich]

“I’m so happy you’re still going,” the neighbor’s wife said to me after the caretaker left.

She was just then finishing up whatever she was doing to the turkeys, which I’m to put into the oven beginning circa 4:00 in the morning.  And then about the time I’m heading to town to the primitiveless Thanksgiving dinner, her husband will be here picking it up for their own dinner.

“But I have a problem with it,” I admitted.  “All these people old enough to be my parents, give or take a few years either way.  They’re almost exact contemporaries of my parents, and seeing them as they are now, it gets discombobulating.”

“How so?” she asked.

I can’t explain it, I said; there’s no way I can articulate what really bothers me about it, only that it bothers me greatly, causing enormous internal convulsions.

“As you know, my father died when I was 17, and he was 59.  And then the next year, my mother died when I was 18, and she was 54.  When a person dies, one’s image, one’s perception, of them is frozen, petrified, in the mind, as they aren’t going to get any older.

“Now, 59 and 54 isn’t young, but it isn’t old either.

“All my adult life, I’ve seen my parents as they were then.

“I can’t possibly imagine them as being ancient; no way. 

“It used to freak me, when meeting the parents of college classmates and roommates--of course, years after college--who were about my parents’ age, and how old they were. 

“My parents using a cane or a walker or sitting in a wheelchair; my parents absent-minded and forgetful; my parents in old age?  No way.  Despite all the mental gymnastics, I can’t see it, I can’t imagine it.  There’s a ’block’ somewhere.

“Oddly, it’s the same at the other end of the spectrum, when running into a high-school classmate of my younger brother.  My younger brother died when he was 17, and I was 19, and there’s that ’picture’ of how he was then; it’s never changed, because I never saw him grow any older.

“And then I run into one of his classmates, now middle-aged, maybe pot-bellied, maybe balding, and in some cases a recent grandparent.

“No way; this can’t be somebody who was once a child with, a playmate with, a classmate with, my younger brother.  No way in Hell can I imagine my younger brother being like them, if he’d lived. 

“It’s dispiriting, it’s melancholy, how that happens.  I can’t explain what it is or why it is, only that it makes me feel very disheartened, that such happens to people.  On the outside, I handle it okay, but I’m always in a funk for several days afterwards.”

Then deciding I’d probably become even more incoherent about the issue, I quickly changed the subject, asking the neighbor’s wife why I was going to be cooking two turkeys.

But barely had I begun to ask the question when her cellular telephone rang, and she had to take off. 

- - - - - - - - - -
--okay, this is the end of this narrative, in which things aren't turning out the way I'd hoped they would; a new one starts after the primitiveless Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow