Hero of North Dallas

The other night I saved a life.  I was taking my usual midnight walk when I felt a nudge on the rear of my leg.  I looked back to see a large gray dog following me.  He had a collar, so I knew he was not a feral animal.  Since  cars drive at ridiculous speeds on the street where I was walking,  I tried to catch the dog by the collar, but he thought we were playing a game and ran away.  I saw him run behind some bushes as a car came speeding from the distance.  Since I couldn’t catch him,  I held up my hand in a universal gesture of “stop” to the car.  The two people in the car did not stop, however, and the dog ran directly out in front of them as they passed.  They swerved, and missed him by about a foot.  I knew something had to be done and quick, so I got up in the yard away from the street and started running along, hoping the dog would follow.  Sure enough, he thought we were playing and chased me.  Finally I grabbed him by the collar and did not let go until we got to my house.   I called the number listed on his tag, but only got a message telling me to put in my password to proceed.  Thwarted at that turn, I decided to play host for the evening.  I made a dog bed outside, provided water and snacks, and planned to find the owner the next day.  About midnight the doorbell rang, and my next door neighbor said that his dog was in my yard.  I had never seen his dog, but had on occasion heard him (the dog) barking.  I  told the owner that  I had found the dog on the street and had put him up until I could find the owner. I gave him no details about the near death experience.  He said that he had had the dog for several years, but that it had gotten out while he was at the hospital with his wife, who had given birth that night.  I casually gave him back the dog, and decided not to tell him about the extremely close call.  I figured that would be  my unacknowledged “baby gift.”  I felt pretty proud of myself for my heroism that evening, and only regretted that CNN and/or FOX could not have been there for interviews.

P.S.  Some of you have called me asking for autographs.  I do plan an autograph session as soon as I  locate a venue that can handle the crowds.  I will invite all my female readership between ages 25-35 (no fatties, please).  Stay tuned for further information.

Farrah

In the fall of 1965, my wife happened to renew an acquaintance with a female student from her hometown, who was then an undergraduate at The University of Texas.  One day we drove this student back  to her dorm, and she told me that she wanted me to meet her suite mate from Corpus Christi.  For want of a better option, I agreed and went inside to the waiting room.   A few minutes later she came down with Farrah Fawcett.  Immediately I fantasized about whether I could annul my recent marriage, or simply run off as the South Carolina governor did recently.  To put it mildly, Farrah was a knockout!  I  knew it was important to say just the right thing,  but I was having a problem since my spine was beginning to give way,  and I feared I might double over.  When Farrah said “Hi, Jimmy,”  I looked around the room for an oxygen tank (not very common in a college dorm, but I’ve seen a lot since).   Anyway, I recovered quickly and responded coolly ” Hello there, Blondie.”  Actually I think I just made a sound, not really a word.  Farrah never did call after that,  so I decided to play it cool myself.  I hear she later found happiness for a few years with Lee Majors, but I’m sorry she died never really knowing what she missed.

A Summer at Lander

I taught English in summer school at Lander College, Greenwood, South Carolina,  in 1973.  Lander had the distinction of being the only four-year liberal arts college in the United States that was supported by a county. Greenwood Mills, the local textile mill, was the main financial contributor.  Unfortunately the support was not particularly strong, and as a result the College was not in very good shape, financially or physically.  Since few of the buildings were air conditioned,  when I showed up for the first class day,  I learned that our class was to be held in the Men’s Room in the Gym.  This was one of the few buildings that had an adequate air conditioning system.  The room we were assigned was the men’s  locker room, which connected to the showers and stalls by an opening but no door.  All the chairs faced that opening.  As I came in the room, the class was almost filled.  Suddenly we heard a flush and an opening stall door.  I still remember that student coming out to find a room full of people, male and female, sitting in chairs facing him.  I decided to move the class outside to the bleachers on the soccer field, where me met for the rest of the summer.

Police Woman

While I was on the campus at the nearby University of Texas at Dallas,  I chanced to speak with a female police officer controlling the traffic in and out of the campus.  I asked her if there was much crime around the campus, since we never heard much about goings on around the area.  “Not much happens around here,” she said. “Every once in a while we get a weenie wagger, but that’s about it. “  Unsure of what to respond,  I thanked her for the update and went on my way.

The Dead

I recently went through my high school year book, the 1959 Jacket Journal, and matched the pictures to the obituary for that year  listed on the  Arlington Heights High School web site.  I came up with some interesting observations.  First, each page has 7 rows of pictures, with 8 pictures on each row.  Immediately below the top row is a saying which stretches across the entire 2 page fold.  Among those sayings are “Juniors Prepare to Become Seniors of Tomorrow” and “Senior Rings Make Juniors’ Fairy Tale Come True.”  You DO NOT want the be pictured on the top row. There are a total of 13 deceased classmates pictured on the top row, and only 18 total on the five rows below. In other words, 1/6 of the total number of pictures on the page constitute 13/18 of the total of the deceased on the page.  Over 70% of the dead members of the class to date are pictured on the top row.  Unfortunately my picture is on the top row.  To make matters worse, 3 of the deceased are pictured on the far right of the top row.  To put it another way, roughly 4% of the deceased occupy the far right portion of the top row–my spot.  I also noted that the male-female ratio is almost 50-50, with about 2 more males than females going to “Yellow Jacket Heaven.”   I also noted that there was a slightly larger number of  male deceased wearing light, solid colors in the photographs.  The edge among the female deceased went to patterned blouses.  Only one of the deceased wore glasses. Three of the males had “flat top” haircuts.  I can not do anything about my photograph placement, but from now on I am going to wear dark colors,  glasses,  and have long hair to improve my chances of survival.

There for you

I almost forgot one of my favorite lines from an old Jerry Springer show.  Trailer park  husband and wife are arguing because he has brought home a new girlfriend.  The wife, upset at the philandering,  says that she has always “been there” for her husband.  Angry husband responds ” Oh yeah,  well where was you when I needed somebody to bail me out of jail over Christmas?”

World’s Worst Excuse

Just watched an episode of World’s Wildest Police Videos.  Cops stop a car with 2 scummy characters in it.  They search the car and remove what amounts to a complete portable meth lab, with beakers, ether bottles, and all kinds of equipment.  Cops  put it all  on the hood in front of the dash cam, and ask one of the handcuffed felons what all that equipment is for.  The guy answers that he doesn’t know, that he bought the stuff  at an “antique store.”

Celtic Woman

I just watched the Celtic Woman special on our local educational TV channel.  Something about the group bothers me.  They will never be made up more elegantly  or be younger than they were on the special,  yet something  is still not right.  It is  as if their features were put together from leftover human  parts.  As I watched them I was reminded of the alien woman in the movie Mars Attacks who was invited into the White House by Martin Short,  then proceeds to kill everyone in sight.   The six women also have strange names.  Mairead plays a violin, has a pug nose,  and looks like a pixie.  Meav has a chin like an NFL lineman,  Orla (at first I thought it was “Orca”) has such high cheekbones they almost hide her eyes.  The only one who might be called attractive in the loosest sense is Hayley, who resembles (of all people) Chelsea Clinton.  Chloe sings like she thinks everyone is looking at her.  She bends over and really gets into it.  Lisa looks…well, there’s nothing really wrong with her looks, but nothing really right either.  She just looks like she is “there.”    They all have that strange look in their eyes that says “I am not an American like you.”  Had I been at a live concert it might have frightened me a little.  They opened with a great Celtic tribute to “Bonnie Prince Charlie” called Mo Ghile Mear, but the choreography looked like it was done by a high school music teacher who graduated near the bottom of the class at a mediocre school of education.  They turned the song into a boy-girl type love song, which is not was it was intended to be.  (If you want to hear a great version of the authentic Celtic tribute sung in the original language, Google “Mo Ghile Mear “and select the YouTube version sung by Cara Dillon and IarIa Olionaird at the Ryder Cup.)   Anyway,  I decided not to buy the DVD since I was afraid that watching it late at night might give me bad dreams. 

Aiming to Please

I had hoped to avoid this subject, but the outrage has become too great.  In the men’s room at the local bridge studio there is a sign that says “We aim to please.  We hope you will do the same.”  The sign, obviously the product of the female owner,  reflects a total ignorance of reality.  First,  I know no one who claims to be a deliberately careless “pointer.”   If the woman had only polled the visitors, she would have found that most males are proud of their directional capabilities.  Those private moments, in fact, become little internal  personal contests to see if one  can “hit” a previously designated area,  such as “out of the water but within the bowl.”  This is especially true in situations where the noise might call unwanted attention to oneself.   My thesis is supported by the popularity of those little rubber bulls eyes often found in public urinals.  The fact is that any “stream” has a certain amount of unpredictability, and is not always capable of being fully controlled.   Add to this the phenomenon of the occasional “split stream, ” and  you have a perfect explanation of what might pass as “carelessness” to the untutored.   How do we solve the problem, you ask?   One way is to require that both genders “sit down.”  This would reduce “travel distance” and some splashing, but would not guarantee 100%  compliance, and the social implications would be enormous.  It is hard to imagine a pro football locker room, with a row of sit-down toilets and players chatting gaily as they “take care of business.”  Of course, a whole separate issue is the cost of retrofitting an entire nation’s public and private bathroom facilities.   Millions of discarded urinals would clog our landfills, and their manufacturers would be forced to adapt or die. I certainly would not recommend such a dramatic action in this era of economic uncertainty.  A better answer, I say, is to accept that it is not a perfect world, and that 90% “compliance” should be something to celebrate.  The comedian Rita Rudner, in one of her comedy routines, complained that her husband was “not very specific ” in his bathroom practices.  My advice to him is to require Ms. Rudner to “stand up” for two weeks.  Just be sure there are multiple mops, buckets and a raincoat nearby.   If that happened,  I think that we would see signs like the one I witnessed at the bridge studio come down in a “New York minute.”

Little Radio Joke

Heard this on NPR on Sunday.  Guy goes to doctor and says that  he planned  to commit suicide the previous day  by consuming an entire bottle of aspirin.  Doctor asks why he did not go through with it, and the guy says that after he took two of them  he felt better.