My .38 Special Birthday

"Just hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly, you're gonna loose control!"

Well my birthday went off without a hitch and I got everything I wanted. I had the day off. I got to sleep in. I hung out with the girls. I relaxed and drank coffee while goofing around on the computer. I went to Tiki and spent time with my friends. I had more than my share of cold beer and Flannery and I had a wonderful meal out.

And boy did I eat! Most of the time I approach eating as a chore. It's just something you have to do, much like shaving or taking out the trash, but not today. It was a day of wanton gluttony. I ate a steak, fries, salad, cheese sticks, onion rings, two bowels of chili, and some fried gator meat. I washed it down with copious amounts of beer.

It was a damn good birthday!

I thank you all for your well-wishes, as it's good to be remembered on your birthday. Should you like to get me a gift, I'd love to have you as my neighbor on Facebook's Farmville as I can't seem to tear myself away from this silly game. I've been trying forever to acquire a larger farm but it takes more neighbors than the four I have. Join me and I will send you a duck every day, I promise.

I'd like to tell you more but I've got to get ready for work and still find the time to pen my Flash Fiction Friday entry.

Stay frosty my bruden,
Doc

What Do You Get A Blue Yak For Their Birthday?

Not a hippo apparently. My other option was nude photos, but I promised Flannery I wouldn't do that anymore. I considered some sheep shears so he could give himself a fancy new do to all that hair, but cold weather is upon us and that seemed inappropriate. So, by process of elimination, I arrived at writing him a post.

Dr. Zibbs, this one's for you baby.

Perhaps after our economic melt down is over, you, me, and Dr. Zaius, and Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein could open our own practice. The two of them would handle the simian cases, I could handle the drunks, and you would be left with the lonely ladies who just need the comforting touch of "a real Doctor who cares, deeply". I'm willing to chip in and have the sign painted now, but you are going to have to convince the other two to join in.

Any suggestions as to where to have our office?

Happy Birthday,
Doc

Tonight I'm Going To Party Like It's 1971!

Tonight I pull on my skin-tight maroon corduroy bell bottoms and light some incense. I'm going to fire up the lava lamp and welcome in the days of free love. My gold chains are polished and I'm about to drop the needle on some serious grooves. Me and my foxy mama are going to get down and just let the mirrored ball turn. I might even pull out the bong covered in peace signs and burn some Panamanian cat-nip and think about two years ago when we landed on the moon and Marilyn Monroe died.

Why you might ask?

No good reason really.

Thirty-seven years ago today, I showed up, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

In reality, after spending the day at the DMV, I'm going to have a couple of beers, watch some Mythbusters and head to bed early. After all, I'm gettin' old.

And since it is my birthday, let's take a look at true love in a dangerous world.
Doc

My Trick And My Treats; A Halloween Tale

Let me start by saying I am a bonehead. I am a nitwit, a numb nuts, and a boob. But in my defence, I am thoughtful, kind, and good natured, and that should count for something. Having gotten that out of the way, let me tell you what a stupid thing I've done.

I let my driver's licence expire. When we sat down to sign the papers to purchase our house two years ago, the lady asked for our driver's licences because of a new rule with Homeland Security. I guess they are concerned that terrorists might be buying a home near the Football Hall Of Fame. She noticed that mine had expired. I hadn't noticed. On my birthday last year I went to purchase tags and renew my licence. The tags were no trouble and I purchased the two year tags as I wanted to avoid the DMV as much as I could. That took ten minutes and $43, no sweat.

"Okay, I'd like to renew my licence." She looked at the date and said that it had been too long and I would have to get a learner's permit and retake the written and driving tests again. "Okay, give me the learner's packet." Could I present an Id to prove who I was? Yes, my driver's licence. "But sir, your licence is expired," she whined as only government clerks can. "But it's still me!" I pleaded, but to no avail. I needed my birth certificate and my social security card to prove who I was and I didn't have them on me.

"Fuck 'em," I swore as I slapped on the new tags and went on down the road.

A year passes and I keep thinking that I will get around to it and I don't. I was going to do it yesterday but complications arose and it didn't happen. Such is life.

Flannery spent most of last night fussing about the house putting together her costume for the company Halloween party. This morning at a few minutes until seven, she wakes me to show me the finished product. I open one frowzy eye to see her silhouette with her in my bathrobe and a floppy hat with only the naked bulb of the closet light behind her. "You look smashing Darling," was all I could mutter. She gave me a smooch and turned on her heel to go, but stopped at the bedroom door and called to me in her sternest taskmistress voice saying, "And you better get you licence today or you're in trouble mister! You won't be able to vote!" And then in a much softer tone she offered a whole weekend of sweet nothings if I would do this. "In the morning," she started, "In the evening..." And I broke in with, "Ain't we got Fun! It's a deal!" She hurried off hoping I would forget her promise and remember to get my licence.

I remembered both.

The girls didn't have school, so we slept late and at about eleven I took them to the in-laws. I went clear across town to the DMV. The place was new and clean and didn't have a faint urine smell to it that I always associate with the DMV. The place was empty and the lady at the counter was friendly, both to my surprise. A couple of forms and $6 later, I had my learner's packet and a brand new plastic card with my photo that said so. The last time I got a learner's permit it was a carbon copied pink piece of onion-skin paper. My how times have changed.

I had to go next door to the State Highway Patrol office to take my written test. Instead of the little ovals that had to be filled in with a #2 pencil like it had been eighteen years ago, it was administered by a computer with a touchscreen and headphones. I got thirty-five out of forty correct and went back to the counter. A tall, slim officer asked me when I would like to schedule the driving test as she adjusted the holster on her hip that carried a notary stamp instead of a pistol. "Well, today" I said with some exasperation. "We have an opening at 1:45," she said curtly. "I'll take it." It was noon. I had almost two hours to kill. I couldn't drive off as I'd parked right in front of the DMV and they knew I could only legally drive if I had someone twenty-one years of age with me, even though I have eighteen years of doing it under my belt.

Right next door to the State Highway Patrol office is a bar. I contemplated having lunch there, but I didn't want to be seen leaving a juke joint right before my test so I opted for a tiny pizza place in the same plaza. My $5 Italian sausage sub was both cold and rubbery, but I ate it anyway and was glad I had had the foresight to bring a good book and waited.

The driving test was dog simple and it took less time than it took them to convert my two hour old learner's permit into a bonafide licence. I picked up the kids from my mother-in-law and to congratulate me, she gifted me with a $50 gift card for an expensive Italian restaurant here in town.

So in essence, my trick was to goof off long enough for these two women to come up with treats I can enjoy this weekend, and I fully intend on cashing in on both of these. The candle in the pumpkin of it all is I have tomorrow off and it's my birthday.

Happy Halloween Y'all and I hope your treats are as good as mine.

Doc

A Song For My Mother

**Author's Note** Please feel free to skip this. It isn't funny nor is it about beer. This is just a little something I penned for a wonderful woman I knew. -Doc.

***

"Unforgettable, though near or far." Nat "King" Cole.

"That you take a beating, regardless," Roy Bentley.

My mother was born in the wild hills of West Virginia and grew up poor. Her mother was in and out of several relationships and sired four children, some in and some out of wedlock. Apparently Grandma liked to lead the "wild life". When Grandma's job at the fireworks factory wasn't enough to cover expenses, she did the only thing she could think of and appealed to the State for help. The State in it's infinite wisdom, provided help by taking her four children away and sending them to foster homes and didn't give Grandma a dime or a choice. My mother and my Uncle Joe went to live with Mama & Daddy Hibbs, an elderly couple who lived way back in the hills and ran a small pig farm to support themselves. They had no children of their own or two nickels to rub together, but they had a huge surplus of love and took care of my mother for many years. A few months after moving in with Mr. & Mrs. Hibbs, Joe lied about his age and joined the Army and headed to Korea*, leaving my mother to fend for herself in her new home.

At the time, feed sacks were often decorated with pretty flowers or pastoral country scenes. As these were tough and plentiful, from these Mama Hibbs sewed my mother's dresses. Every morning, after finishing her chores, she hiked three valleys over to the one room school house where she received her education in the three R's. Now I know that kids can be cruel and are generally not very accepting of outsiders, but those children will never know the horrible scar they gifted my mother with, and it was something she struggled with until the day she died. They all came from dirt poor farmers, but they always lorded it over her that she was a "state kid", meaning she had foster parents and that her mother was "no account" and she was a "bastard". She never got over their taunts, ever. She would spend the rest of her life trying to lose her accent and hide the fact that she never had more than a seventh grade education.

While the military was an option for her three brothers, the only way out of the poverty ridden hills for a young girl at the time was to get married. So she did. She met an Italian fellow named Tony and after a whirlwind courtship, they tied the knot and moved to Ohio where he had a job offer. Shortly after moving in, Mom found herself "in the family way". Tony went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back**.

After my oldest brother was born, she took a job as a waitress, as it was the only job that an uneducated woman could get, while a kind neighbor watched her child during the day. Every day, a tall slim Irishman would come in for lunch and have bacon and eggs while he tried to ply her for a date. After being recently burnt in a failed marriage, she wanted no truck with some slick talking Irishman, and continued to put him off. She made sure his food was hot, but she had no problem being cold to him.

But he was persistent, and every day for three months, drove clear across town to have lunch at her table. She finally gave in, if for no other reason then to get him off her back. She tried to scare him away by showing him her month old child, thinking that no man would want to step into a ready-made family. He held the child in his arms and smiled like a man who had won the lottery. He was recently divorced himself, and his ex-wife took their newborn son and ran off to live with her rich mother right before he went to Germany in the Army.

He took her to dinner in the fanciest restaurant in town, which isn't really saying much when you consider that this is Newark, Ohio in the early sixties. During dinner, he promised to take her dancing. She didn't know he meant square dancing. As much as she really didn't want to, she fell in love with the tall slim Irishman and married him in a wedding ceremony of four: herself, him, and her mother holding her only son, while the preacher said what he had to say. She felt it wasn't right of her to wear white, so she spent a weeks paycheck on a pretty yellow dress with a flowery hat to match. Their wedding photo is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Fast forward many years and three more children later, and Mom has gotten her G.E.D. The day it came in the mail, she poured herself a cup of strong black coffee and sat down at the kitchen table before she opened it. She pulled the cream-colored heavy card stock diploma from the envelope, gazed at the stamped gold foil seal and cried for half the afternoon. She wasn't just an uneducated "state kid" anymore.

But that wasn't enough for her. She took night classes and a mail-order course and got a degree as an accountant so she could keep the books for Dad's construction company. I can still see her sitting at the kitchen table, sweating, as she moved from scratch pad to ledger to ledger, and she refused to use a calculator, always preferring to use pencil and paper, as if she had something to prove.

When I was born, my mother drove herself to the hospital, but she didn't go alone. My grandma went with her and offered to drive, but because of her small stature, she could hardly see over the dash of our red VW microbus. Well that, and it was stick shift. Mom drove and kept her grunts and screams to annoying red lights that kept her from her destination.

Fast forward a little farther and she is sitting at the table again in the stone house that she helped Dad remodel in the same river valley where three of us kids were born. She broke her nose in remodeling the house when she threw a 16' 2x4 up to Dad on the roof, and it struck a rafter and slingshoted it's way back into the bridge of her nose. She would always powder the scar but it never really hid it. All of her children are married now and her youngest son is living in the upstairs with his new bride. Her only daughter has come for a visit, but has left her kids at home so she can have a little break from them. Suddenly, Mom gets very quiet and has this far away look in her eye. Her only daughter yells up the stairs to me, "Something is wrong with Mom! Come Quick!" My feet didn't touch a stair. I moved like Mercury himself.

Her eyes were glassy and her mouth moved but no words came out like a fish on a hook. I scooped her up in my arms and carried her to the car and belted her in. "You are going to be alright," was all I could say. It was the only time in my life I have ever seen my Dad afraid, and the Buick threw a rooster tail of gravel as he left the drive way at 65 mph. The twenty minute ride to the Hospital was covered in four and a half minutes.

She had had a stroke, and her right arm and leg would never return to the usefulness that they had once had, and for a few months her face would hang like curtains in a disused guest room, but her country girl spirit would never veer from being resilient and flinty.

Flannery and I still lived upstairs, and shortly after her return from the hospital, I ventured downstairs to the fridge for a glass of milk before bed. As I headed back upstairs, I heard Mom cry out in pain. My heart raced. "She is having another stroke," I worried. I did something I had never done before. I threw open the door to my parents bedroom and turned on the light. My Dad was hearing impaired and a deep sleeper and I worried for her safety. She wasn't having a stroke. She was being welcomed home by the one man in her life who loved her more than life itself. I quickly shut off the light and pulled the door closed with the image of Dad's naked butt in motion burned into my memory forever***.

What can be said of one's mother? I'm sure your mom has quite a tale to tell. Mine was a peach.

After Dad passed on, she retired from work and just kept her own house. She drove her Buick a mile or so and got her groceries once a week, went to church, and enjoyed the company of a handful of gentlemen suitors twice a week. She was much sought after, but she admitted to me that she only did it so she could have a good meal and not have to wash the dishes. I'll leave it at that.****

Her birthday is today and I want to wish her a happy one. I'm sure that she and Dad are under a shade tree somewhere and making plans on building a new house.

I love you Mom, and I miss you dearly. For you, I play this, as I know it is your favorite.

Doc

*Joe served one hitch in Korea and two in Viet Nam. He broke both of his arms at the same time and had to have his class "A" uniform slit up the sleeves to accommodated his casts. We have pictures. He retired from the Army and will only eat food coated in pepper.

**She later found him and made him sign divorce papers over a lunch he paid for in South Carolina.

*** I can't imagine a a deeper moment of scarring than seeing your parents "getting it on", but I was so relieved to know she was alright and in good hands that I can only look back and laugh.

****My mother was a prude, or at least she presented herself that way to me. Who knows?

***Author's Note*** Call your mother, 'cause she would love nothing more than to hear from you.

What Did Pope Benedict XVI Get For His Birthday?

It turns out that Pope Benedict XVI prefers beer to wine, so when Dr. John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, visited him he brought along some unique English ale.
He brought "Holy Grail" ale made in Masham England by the Black Sheep Brewery.
The brew was started in 1999 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Monty Python show. I'm guessing the Pope enjoys the naughty vicar skit, as well as a cold beer after a long day of leading all of Christendom to glory.

Doc

I Hope You Will Find A Friend Like Sammy Davis.

I learned from Bubs that Joey Bishop went to the Great Beyond recently. At 89, he passed away at home. I've got a birthday coming up and this seemed rather timely.

For my birthday wish, I hope you will find a friend like Sammy Davis. I'm not sure if Sammy or Joey were beer drinkers, but I suspicion they may have quaffed a few, and if I happen to bump into them, should I make it to the Great Beyond, I'd love to to buy them several rounds.

I have been lucky enough to have acquired a few treasured friends over the years, and I can only hope that you have been as lucky as I have. Any day you can make a new friend is a good day, and should you be fortunate enough to make a great life-long friend, you have found the secret to life, or at least as best I can figure.

Thank you my friends.

Doc