When I was young, my dreams were vivid. Maybe I remember those early dreams as being vivid because I actually remembered the dreams, some of them I still hold onto. During my productive professional life, whatever it was, the dreams became memories of having them, not the specifics.What I was usually left with, were feelings of a kind of pleasure or waking unsettled and ill at ease.
Once retirement came, I had less to worry about when I was sleeping. The many problems of my day to day existence cut to a minimum, left more room in my mind to wander wherever it might while I was asleep.
I began remembering dreams again. I am not sure if remembering dreams again comes with becoming an old fart or not. I only know that having them back is one of the few perks of me being old.
Last night, I woke up laughing, the words "Self Scratching Testicles", the first words I uttered. As I floundered around looking for my glasses, I could not stop chuckling. My funny bone was off and running. As I type this, an intermittent chuckle or snort will erupt, breaking a train of thought or snap me back to the task at hand.
Seriously though, While I am not a chronic nut scratcher, I do do it. Any guy who claims they don't well, they're lying. The sac needs attention from time to time. We guys are lucky we have hands, or the occasional serious case of Jock Itch might create a sharp uptick in men doing themselves in.
Before I started this post, I considered the crassness of discussing anything related to our naughty bits. Why is today the day I even considered the notion of crassness? I had very rarely ever considered it unless it was crudely pointed out. I decided it was more important to bring attention to a problem the Genetics and Cloning folk might be interested in. By highlighting this chronic Human problem that has been around since the beginning of Humanity, it might lead to a cure if the right people were made aware of the problem. Those science geeks just love solving the unsolvable.
It might take a few generations, but I bet some genes could be manipulated, some genetic code re-written, so that eventually, guys would never have to use their hands to tend to their balls. Little fibrous growths attached directly to the nerves controlling the itch impulse in the brain, would automaticallly engage and attack the offending area. Men would no longer need to worry about being caught scratching their crotch. The Ladies would be spared the embarrassment of being seen with the ball scratching idiots who asked them out, but did not indicate their fondness for scratching in their bios they posted online.
Just another idea to help the species progress; put further distance between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.. The only thing is, could this human created change in our DNA be subverted and manipulated to design longer fibrous tentacles so that sexu .......... Uh, Nevermind.
Keep it 'tween the Ditches ..........................................................
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What tune could possibly dovetail cleanly into a post about Itching Testicles? Hmm....... I will get back to you. ...........
Well, that was easy. Googling "Tune about nuts", I scrolled down maybe 5 or 6 suggestions, when an old Roger Miller tune caught my attention. I do not remember "I'm a Nut". My guess, it was a B-side offering on a single with the hit on the A-side. There is no doubting it's Roger; his voice and tendency to include silly vocal sounds made it obvious. Most people will remember him for, "King of the Road", which I will also include today.
And here is his most famous hit, "King of the Road". I loved this song as a kid. Still do. It reminded me of being on the move all the time, which was my existence from the day I was born until I finally settled here in Acton, 30 years later.
I wrote my first memoir when I was 10 or 11. I can't remember if it was 4th or 5th grade. Regardless, the assignment was exactly that, "Write a memory from your past". Of course there was much discussion and silliness that ensued. None of the kids in the class, including me, could get our heads around the idea of "the Past". Yeah, we had heard of it, but it was something only old people talked about around the dinner table at dinner. My mom and dad often told stories of their younger days to fill in dinner conversations when the topics became too toxic or just ran out of steam.
The assignment of course was much more than telling a story from the earlier days when we were younger. It was an exercise in penmanship, thought construction and punctuation. There was no word limit to meet; It just had to be as neat as possible, with the periods, commas and spelling laid down as cleanly and correctly as possible. I cannot remember my grade, nor do I remember it being highlighted in any way by the teacher in front of the class.
I do remember the subject however. I wrote about the time I set off a fire alarm in kindergarten when I lived in Japan. The whole school emptied, I freaked and ran to the teacher outside and immediately admitted I did it. I didn't however snitch on the older kids who kinda teased me into it.
The type of fire alarms we had in that school had small thin glass windows designed to be punched inward with something thin, like a pencil or maybe even a finger. Some big kids, they must have been at least 2nd graders, spotted me looking at the fire alarm. They encouraged me to break the little glass window without setting off the alarm. They insisted that they did it all the time.
"Go ahead kid, I dare you", or something along those lines caused me to step up to the alarm and use a pencil to punch the glass. Instant Chaos erupted. The big kids looked at each other with huge eyes, turned and disappeared into the depths of the school. I remember a panic I had never felt before. I probably spun a few circles and who knows, I might have peed my pants. If I did, I buried that part of the memory deep enough to not really remember if I did or didn't.
I remember writing about it because in my young life at the time, it was a memory I had still not really gotten over. Seeing all the kids in school standing in lines out on the playground, looking at me as I had been marooned and condemned to stand next to the principal; well, I never forgot that.
The magical moment came later at home where I had been cooling my heels in my room for several hours. My dad came home and immediately came into my room; in full uniform no less, his tie still tight and his cover still on. He sat down on the bed next to me. I fgured it was spanking time. I was not a stranger to spanking; seemed the natural "next step". Instead, my father talked to me, well, he sort of grilled me. I ended up snitching on the big kids. He looked at me and chastised me for allowing anyone to influence my decisions. He stood up and left. No spanking, no yelling, just a lecture on not allowing people undo influence on my actions. And even cooler, he didn't tell the school there were others involved. He allowed me to take the blame.
Of course, my short essay in 4th or 5th grade about that incident in kindergarten was nowhere near as deep of a dive as this post is. I just remembered now that the essay was the first memoir I ever wrote. It might have also been the first essay I ever attempted also.
To me, it seems logical that as an adult, I would follow up with over 200,000 words in 280 blog posts about shit I did in my Past.
I will add this one to the post count and move on.
Keep it 'tween the ditches .....................................
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This past weekend, my wife and I joined our daughter and her husband at another Rustic Overtones concert. It was held at Tuckerman Brewery in Conway, New Hampshire.A day sitting in comfortable chairs, swilling excellent craft beer and listening live to the band I have seen more than any other band ever. My first concert of their's was also my daughter's first concert of her life. It was held at the worst music venue in New England, the Portland Expo, a very, very large quonset hut tunnel. The reverberations in the hall made it impossible for me to enjoy the music. Lis loved it. She loved Rustic Overtones.
Almost 30 years later, we still go see them play. I guess I have seen them 20 times; Lis , many, many more. They are an old favorite.
The USA does not have a great track record engaging in warfare in any conflict since WWll. World War II was the last war we won completely, decidedly, and without question. Many US soldiers died, many civilians sacrificed; it was the last war that had virtually no controversey swirlling around it. If it is possible to consider any war "good" or "worth the price", it would World War II.
WWll, and the "Great War" (WWl) before it along with the Civil War are the only wars that seemed inevitable that we would participate in. They were the "Good Fights". Any other armed comflicts we moseyed into was by choice. And those efforts didn't always go our way. Most were failures, half failures, or just colossal wastes of money, men and time.
I felt that for most of my life, my country has either been setting up to be in an armed conflict, embroiled in an armed conflict, or just exiting an armed conflict. We can't seem to go for more than a few years of Peace, before we start jonesing for that next bomb cratering, rubble creating military clash with some group we have designated as assholes with hostile intent.
Here is a current reminder of the armed combat we could have chosen to not participate in and been much better off for it:
Korea - 3 Years, 1950 to 1953 - We could only save half of the country.
Bay of Pigs Invasion/ Cuba - 1961 - We Lost.
Vietnam - 1955 - 1975 (19+ years) - Cost 58,000 US lives. We lost.
Invasiion of Grenada - October, 1983 - 8 Day conflict - 24 US soldiers died.
Kidnap Daniel Noriega (president of Panama) - 5 weeks in 1989- 24 US lives - An effort to help win President Ronald Reagan and his ever faithful co-President, Namcy Reagan, their poorly concieved and poorly run War on Drugs. As it turns out, that war is still ongoing with no end in sight. It was a PR War failure for Reagan, but we did manage to bring Noriega back to the US to face charges. Meanwhile, some other loser stepped into Noriega's shoes and the drugs flowed like before.
Operation Desert Storm - 2 months in 1991 - Fought by a coalition of countries; The US was by far the largest force at 697,000 fighting strength. 298 US deaths -We spent $61 billion dollars. The goal, remove Iraqi Forces after they invaded Kuwait. We won and got the Hell out of there. The conflict was a set-up to trap Saddam Hussein being stupid. Hussein stepped into our trap. At least we finished something for a change.
Operation Gothic Serpent - 15months 1992-1993 - 19 US Soldiers dead. US Troops in Somalia were tasked with, well, I am still not sure what they were there for, really. All I remember is, it was ugly and American soldiers died for essentially no good reason. A great Anti-War Movie, "Black Hawk Down" was one result. But nothing good for the people of Somalia ever came of the 19 US lives sacrificed.
Operation Iraqi Freedom - Includes combat in Afghanistan - 20 years - Almost 7800 US lives. Results are mixed. We did replace Saddam Hussien as leader of Iraq, but we caved finally and left Afghanistan after failing like every other country has who was stupid and over confident enough to think they had the answer.
Trump's War on Iran - Feburary, 2026 to ? - Still limping along after 6 months. Still a mystery why Trump felt compelled to start a war with Iran. And not 2 weeks into this stupidity, Iran figured out they could own the Strait of Hormuz and stop much of the World's oil from reaching its destinations.The war was over at that point, yet Trump still does not get it. Too stupid too run a war in the first place; he is definitely too bullheaded stupid to admit defeat and pull out. Iran is definitely winning the war at this point. US Troop morale is in the shitter and our supplies of munitions are dangerously low. And now we have worse than nothing to show for it.
There have other miscellaneous conflicts the United States found itself in the middle of as a support asset. US Men and materiel were spent in varying degrees of ugliness.
I was born in 1952. I am 74 now. If I add up the total number of years this country has been in conflict around the globe, the total would be north of 47 years or over 60% of the time I have been alive. The results have been underwhelming, given the outrageous costs in men, money and materiel.
I know war is good business. Nothing like a good conflict to keep those war factories churning out machines of death and making piles of money on armed conflict and the destruction that results. I know casulaties are part of the deal. But why? Why do we spend so much time, effort and money attempting to murder each other on such grand scales?
It is most definitely a good time to keep an even keel. Stay sharp. Stay Tuned In. ................
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I know I have used the original rendition of Black Sabbath's, "War Pigs" with a post or two in the past. Well, that was then, this is now. But maybe this time I'll try to hustle up a good cover of it.
I tasted entirely too many versions of "War Pigs". Lost at least an hour checking out all the different renderings of this early Metal classic. I came back to my favorite Busking alternative band, The Big Push. Ren and his boys rock hard. Enjoy.
And because the song that followed War Pigs was their version of Sting's, "An Englishman in New York", it is now another two-fer post.
When I saw the video of Billy Strings, a favorite guitarist of mine, hit in the head with an object at a concert in Indiana, I was reminded of my own incident of be being hit in the head while on a stage in June, 1977
A quick replay:
Led Zeppelin's last US tour, June 3, 1977...... The gig was at Tampa Stadium (the old stadium). 70,000 plus fans had been waiting for several hours in the hot Florida sun to hear one of their favorite bands. 15 minutes into the first set, a classic Summertime Florida thunder storm blew through, dumping many many gallons of water on the venue.
The awning over the stage was holding thousands of gallons of water over the stage where many thick cables handled massive amps and voltage of electricity. The local Fire marshall called the governor of Florida. The governor officially closed the concert down.
Upon hearing that the concert had been canceled, many of the fans had been waiting for hours, became an angry crowd. They tossed aside the "full proof security fence" and rushed the stage. By that time I had been volunteered to help the security guys defend what was now a mostly empty stage except for the stacks of speakers that were to be loaded on my trailer.
The scene was madness. 3,000 to 4,000 people were still hanging out near the stage. They were not happy. I looked out at them and their risng anger. It was obvious what was going to happen. The rest of the 70,000 fans had already left. Security guys in black Tee shirts, SHOWCO roadies and drivers stood nervously waiting for the crowd to breach that "Impregnable" wall.
Over a thousand hands got busy and finally destroyed the integrity of the wall. Stoned and drunk fans climbed onto the stage. There were not many, maybe fifty or so. But, they were rabid. The loose crew of security types, myself included were expected to keep them back. Some of the crew were holding mic stands and were very enthusiastic with using them to keep the fans at bay. I carried no blunt instruments. I have thought about that day from time to time and today, I still don't know why I joined them onstage to defend an empty space. Young and still numb is all I can come up with.
Along with the breach, many glass bottles, parts of the wall , etc. ended up onstage. Something hit me in the back of the head. I got pissed I guess. I ran across the stage to help one of the drivers who had created his own fight by being too quick to use his mic stand on someone larger and obviouly out of it. The madness only lasted 5 minutes or so when suddenly it was over as Tampa cops poured into the field and took care of the out of control mob and the remaining hanger ons..
I cannot say for sure what hit me in the back of my head. It was thrown with enough force to draw blood and raise a good sized bump. I walked around the stage looking for what it might have been. I found the hash pipe you see in the image. While it may not have been what hit me in the head, it was on the stage when everything was over, so I grabbed it and have used it off and on since then. Next year will be 50 years since I picked up that pipe. I guess I should be grateful I found it. It has been a dependable go to cannabis consumption device when I was tired of rolling joints. And it was one of the few pipes I managed to not lose over the last 50 years.
Morons throwing stuff at the stage is sadly, a time honored tradition. Negative responses by the artists are often the result. At a concert at the Wheaton Youth Center in Wheaton, Maryland in the early 1970's, Snake tossed a lit joint at Dr John. Dr John swung his micrphone and hit Snake right in the head and glared at me like I was who he was aiming at. Geez, I told Snake not to throw it; we'd never get it back and it was our last joint.
As always, please keep it 'tween the ditches ...........................
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I'm feeling like a Two Fer musical choice for this post. First up is Billy Strings in cahoots with Willy Nelson on a tune about geeting too old to party like they did back in their good ole days. Here is 'Claifornia Sober". Enjoy.
This next video is "Good Times, Bad Times". It is from Led Zeppelin's first album, ironically titled "Led Zeppelin". It was another one of my infamous record store van purchases at Clark's Tank n Tummy filling station in the foothills of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. That was the summer of 1969. The record store guy pulled it out of one of his boxes in the back of his van, handed it to me and said, "Here, you are gonna love this album."..................... He was right of course.
However, the biggest plus of this album was its impact on my father. My dad was quite the audiophile. He had started constructing his own sound systems starting the late 1950s. He built ociiloscopes to track the sound waves. He built huge speakers and the huge amps to power them.
At the time everything going through those speakers was Mono (only one channel). He had read of stereo being the next big thing. He called Heathkit and latched onto one of their first stereo amp DYI kits. He put it together and was immediately disappointed in the music that amp delivered. He went back to his stupidly huge mono amp and that was that.
About 7 years later I had built up my own stereo system. It waas much smaller than what he had built, but it kicked ass. 20 amps per channel with some good quality 10 inch speakers i put in homemade barrel halves. When I pulugged in my headphones, it was just awesome. I figured out that the RocknRoll setero music world was way ahead of the curve over the more classic audio world.
After I bought this album and had run through it umpteen times, I decided I had to get my dad into some headphones. I made him come up to my attic bedroom and put those headphones on. I did not want to scare him, so I started with the volume on low. I waited for him to respond. He gave me a thumb's up, "Louder". I cranked it. He started to yank the headphones off, but suddenly stopped and just listened. I watched the his lightbulb go off. He smiled. He had seen the light. From that day forward, he was a Stereo Man.
Afterwards. his system building madness grow three or four fold. He started with those huge 20" inch woofers; added 8 or 10 smaller speakers and built a 200 watt stereo amplifier. When My mom wasn't home, he'd fired that system up and rattle every window in the house. I could hear it clear as a bell from Dunc's place about 100 yards down Sam Page Road; especially when he fired up his sound effects record; Trains, planes, whistles and artillery blasts.
Here is Led Zeppelin's, "Good Times, Bad Times"; the song that turned my father into the audiophile beast that was his destiny. Funny though, he would often play this song as a judge of how good the stereo recordings of his favorite music were.
Definitely best enjoyed with the volume turned up to WOW!
I originally wrote this post on March 11, 2011, over 15 years ago. I was obviously wound up more than usual. Maybe it was the current political scene that affected me or the trials of owning a main street bikeshop. Or maybe it was just time for one the many re-adjustments forced on me or I forced on myself over the years in order to stay grounded.
Of course, events that have unfolded since 2011 have become more intense and more grave than anything that happened in 2011. Those times are looking like the "Good Ole Days" now. When I found this post languishing in the "Back in the Day" files, I told myself I needed to come up with another bit of writing that would help me regain some perspective again. Writing has usually helped my state of mind, especially when my thoughts are scattered because I was upset.
But why think up a new twist when this old Twist still represents how I want to feel about my life and its relationship with the rest of the World. Re-reading it certainly smacked some perspective back into me that I did not appreciate was missing again.
Yeah, times are tough. Just how tough is better understood when we try to walk in another's shoes.
Moving along now. Here is the post from 2011.
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Life gets in the way of the things I want to do. I try to convince myself that what I want to do is what Life should be focusing on. But no. Life has its own damn agenda and it more often than not, only includes me as so much excess baggage. I get swept along by events unforeseen and not prepared for. And suddenly the comfortable little rut I had constructed for myself has become a minefield.
I sidestep as many mines, pitfalls, and incidents that promise ugly outcomes as I can. I cannot avoid them all...................................................... And then I notice that while I have become totally wrapped up in my own puny problems, elsewhere on the planet, folks are dealing with problems of the Life and Death kind.
Suddenly I feel foolish. Suddenly I realize that for all the little irritations I have to deal with, there are people right now whose home washed away and their family is missing, or they are on a desert road with their life's belongings on their back and hoping for food and water when they finally stop for the day. As bad as I would like to pretend my life gets from time to time, I am fairly sure a sizable portion of the planet's population would love to switch places with me.
Owing more money than is coming in is a laugher when held up and compared to say, being buried up to your neck and watching the village line up next to the rock pile. Water in my basement seems a minor league distraction when watching a tsunami take out a town of 17,000. Scowling and cussing under my breath when another ATV/Snowmobile screams by disturbing my peace seems so petty when somewhere over the desert of northern Africa, fighter jets are screaming by and strafing lines of people whose only crime is trying to get away.
Being a typical American human, focusing on my problems first rather than anyone else's is predictable if not understandable. Average dimwits such as myself tend to do this. But then we really have to focus on what's in front of us. It's all we have and for the most part all we can do. We rise to occasions as needed and fall back to normality when the fires have been doused. Dealing with the mundane is what keeps everything afloat. Dealing with disaster is what we do to try and get everyone back on the boat so the focus can again be directed to the routine problems of keeping a society cohesive and moving in a good direction.
Anyway, just some early Tuesday morning thoughts after watching our latest calamities once again visit some fellow humans. Sadness settles in with that second cup of coffee and I sit stunned. My only consolation is my gratitude for the relatively peaceful existence I have been blessed with. No matter how bad we think our lives are unfolding, there is always someone else carrying a burden we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.
Keep it 'tween the ditches..............................................
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I thought I might try a tune that dovetailed nicely with the post. Then I scrolled into a song I had not heard for over 50 years; a song from an album I bought out of the back of the record truck at Clark's Tank and Tummy, Sanbornville New Hamshire in 1969. I liked the image on the cover. The record guy said it was a Blues band from across the big pond.
I had already fallen in love with an early Fleetwood Mac album with Peter Green playing lead guitar. Blues was a new experience for me back then. I jumped on it. Sadly, all my early Fleetwood Mac albums and the ClimaxBlues Band album were among the stolen record collection I lost when someone broke into my room a week before I graduated from Charlotte Hall Military Academy in the Spring of 1970.
A two fer today. First up, "So many Roads" from the "Climax Blues Band Plays On" album. Recorded and released in 1969.
Now a cover of a Robert Johnson classic, "Dust My Broom" by Fleewood Mac with Peter green playing lead guitar. It's odd how I had to discover the Blues through the music of wankers from across the pond. The original recording was released in 1968.
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