The Wizardry of Oz

I'm off to see the wizard.

Recently the little French Lady and I have become more health conscious.  In keeping with this theme I adjusted my 401K to reflect my expected living age to 110 years old.   Now I must do something in the health department to facilitate my expectations. 

My wife adjusted her 401K to the age of 101 so we could die at approximately the same day.

We both decided that Doctor Oz seems to have a lot of ideas on how to stay healthy. We started saving his TV show on our DVR.  This seemed like a really great plan.  I read a couple of his  "YOU" books and they seemed quite confusing so I assumed he knew what he was talking about.  

He is often quoted in Reader's Digest, The New York Times, Mad Magazine and the Daily Worker, so we had a sense that he had some credibility.

After two months of Doctor Oz,  I must confess that I feel the same as I did before I started watching his program and taking his advice.  

I do have a very healthy refrigerator heavily stocked with Shiritake noodles, baked kelp, cauliflower smoothies, a 5 gallon of some very virginal olive oil, 14 avocados, 50 pounds of walnuts, and a Swanson Fried Chicken TV dinner.  

We haven't eaten at home in 5 weeks.  I cannot even look into the refrigerator without gagging.

On top of our dining room table is our food supplements.   We have so many supplements on our table that we have to eat standing up.  We have our pills  organized by morning, noon and night.  

We spend our first hour taking the morning pills.  We spend the next half hour trying to keep them down.  Those fish oil burps are wicked.  I am sure glad we got the burp-less ones.  Same routine at noon and night.

This morning I had an eppiffery which is very much like an epiphany only much less insightful.

This Oz thing is a little weird.  

Monday he says 6 cups of coffee in the morning is good for you. So Monday I drank six cups of coffee and walked around in a highly excited stupor which is a bit of an oxymoron but that is how I felt.

  

Tuesday he says coffee is really not that good for you.  So I threw all of our coffee away and again we both walked in a state of high agitation and low stupor, bumping into each other, and at the same time going through coffee withdrawal.  A tough day.

Wednesday he says coffee in moderation is good for you.  I don't have any coffee left in the house, and I am still going through coffee withdrawal.   I swore at my neighbors, threw rocks at their dogs,  put poop on their doorstep.(mine ...not the dogs!!)  I am having another tough day.

Thursday (Today)...

I am watching Doctor Oz show this morning. Constipated and cranky.  He has someone's gizzard on a table.  He is putting on some blue gloves on, he is squeezing the gizzard.  Something is oozing. Yuk!! I am glad I did not turn up the sound.

I just took my supplements for the day.  I followed his recommendations. It takes me about 20 minutes to take my pills.

My Omega 3,  Calcium, Quercetin, Cinnamon, garlic, Xalatan, Timalol, Lumigan, Simvastatin, hydrochlorothyazide, my memory medicine (I forgot what it's called) Tricor, Damnitol (an anti anger medication), Methimozale (Chantal just told me it is for Wilson's ears. TOO LATE! ).

I just took a blue pill,  I am not sure if it is Aleve or Viagra, I will find out soon.

Lint-begone (to prevent the accumulation of lint in my navel), Scrotumizer ( to keep that buffy shine on my scrotum: recommended by Doctor Oz!!...??) and Preparation H, some round pill to make me start pooping, a square pill to make me stop pooping. It had a letter E on it.  That may have been a scrabble tile.  

I am confused.

I think I am going to give up something.

I think it will be Doctor Oz.

My Personal Rogue's Gallery.

Friends, Family and other malcontents.

We all have them, don't we?
Oh, you know who I am talking about.  It might be Uncle Percy, who collects ear wax and makes religious statues out of it.  It could be the neighbor who borrowed your riding mower and sold it on ebay.  Maybe it is Uncle Wally who has a pet duck that he walks on a leash every day.
They are colorful characters in your personal history.  Some of them are fun, a few weirdos, an equal number of crooks and psychos.

I will start with Uncle Leonard, the low talker.
Uncle Lenny is a small guy.  I am a talking "small".  He makes Barney Fife look tall and beefy.  That may be his problem.  He overcompensates.  He can drink like a man that is 7 feet tall.  Lenny is 5' 1".   He drives a huge truck.
When he drinks he acts like he is 7 feet tall.  He gets belligerent.  He picks fights with big people. Fortunately everyone knows about Lenny, and they act accordingly.  Usually they just put their hand on Lenny's head and he swings wildly until he tires.
If the big guy grows weary of Lenny's swinging, he puts his thumb and index finger together and flick him in the chest, very much in the same style that someone would flick an errant booger from their fingers ... and Uncle Leonard would go flying.

Uncle Lenny had a way of exacting his revenge.  He was a low talker. He was also an accomplished mumbler.  You had to lean very close to him, bend down and say "What"? He could say things to people and they would look at each other and ask, "Did he just insult me?"....Nah!!!  This was when he was sober.  When had a few extra samplings from the brown bottles he talked incomprehensible gibberish.

I heard rumors that he was a faux Navaho code talker during the cold war while he was in the army.  His commanding officers would give him a six pack and then they would write up bogus messages for Lenny to transmit verbally.
Apparently there are sixteen nations still trying to decipher the code, including ours.
My Uncle Lenny.

Then there was my former friend, Quisling Von Heussen.  Even back in the late 50's he was strange.  He was Swiss.  He had relatives in Zurich.  He was always saying nice things about Hitler.  He would say things like Hitler was better looking than Churchill.
He said Hitler could run faster than Roosevelt and Eva Braun was better looking than Eleanor Roosevelt.  He also stated that Hitler could dance better than Joe Stalin.  It really aggravated me because I could not disprove his argument.
I did point out that Hitler did make some major social blunders.  Quis didn't really want to talk about that.  He preferred to say how well Hitler trimmed his mustache an how shiny his boots were.
I grew tired of Quis.  That last time I saw him he was handing out brochures for the Tea party.  He had shiny boots and a little Charlie Chaplin mustache.

Then there is my friend Miguel Heraldo.  He liked cars.  I was a very good friend.  He came to me and ask to borrow $1500 so he could get a car.   I had been burned by him before, but it was a small amount. I said I couldn't do it.  His wife said, "I'll make sure he pays it back if you co-sign for him".  I finally caved in and I cosigned.  He made two payments.  The bank started calling ME!  I went to his house and asked him about the payment.  He said he had paid it late, and not to worry about it.  I should have been suspicious when I saw the U-haul truck in the driveway and the boxes in the living room.
He moved to Georgia the next day.  I was left to pay his bill. I learned a lesson.

A few years passed and he found my email address somehow and he wanted to be my buddy.  I never answered his email.  He went to a mutual friend and asked, "What's the matter with Jonathan Hemlock?  I email him and he never answers".
The mutual friend and I had a conversation and I said I would answer Miguel.  I did. I questioned his honesty and integrity.  He answered that nothing like that ever happened.  I was lying, where is my proof?  He remembers nothing of that. He verbally attacked me to my friends.  He said I was a liar.  I wasn't really surprised.  5 years go by.....I moved on.
Now, He wants to be my Facebook friend. Yikes!!!
What a World. This is the Casey Anthony Era.

Then we have my Cousin Lonnie Hemlock, the collector.
Lonnie is a bright guy.  He is good at fixing things.
A few years ago you could drive your own garbage to the landfill and drop it off.
Lonnie's problem with the landfill was that he would bring home more than he would drop off.  He was actually making more space in the landfill for people like me. While most people, referred to it as "the dump",  Lonnie called it "the Mall".

I went to his house one day to do some type of family business.  I climbed over various car parts, bike parts, old air conditioners, carcasses of various vermin and other sundry products and made my way to the front door from the porch.  I knocked on the door.  The door tilted at an angle and fell into the kitchen.
Cousin Lonnie was in the kitchen.  I think it was the kitchen.  Hard to tell.  I couldn't see a sink.  I did see a refrigerator. Three actually.
"Come in! Come in.  Hmmm! I'll have to fix that one of these days. How about a cup of coffee?"
I looked around the room.
"Thanks anyway, Lonnie, I have to be somewhere else in 10 minutes." (Anywhere else! please!!) "I'll just sit on this beanbag chair since all your other chairs have stuff on them."(Beanbag chair in the kitchen?)
"Oh..that isn't a beanbag chair, that's a bag of garbage."
"Oh?" I was impressed.  He actually had some garbage in bags. I got out of there as quick as possible.
Sadly, a couple  of years later the town burned the house to the ground.  Strangely, it is the second one of his houses they had to burn to the ground.  I am sure many little critters died a fiery death.  I believe they invited the national guard and a reserve unit to shoot the rats as they were fleeing the burning building.

Moving on....

I met my friend Agatha on the beach a few weeks ago.  She just won't give up. She had to vent or spew her opinions once again.
She is always talking about "the blacks". Obama, the black, not Obama the president.  The blacks are taking over the country.  They are ruining it. They have insufficient brain matter to run this country. We are doomed.
She listens to such intellectual heavyweights as Rush Limbaugh, Homer Simpson and Glen Beck.
These are her happiest moment in her life. She is in her element when she is criticizing a democrat, a black, a foreigner (Kenyan?).... Obama.. JACKPOT!!!.. bells and whistles, patriotic music.  Flying spittle and excitement.  I think she just had a political orgasm.
Is that possible?

Finally...one day I just looked at her kind of funny and she said, "What?"
"Your one of us, aren't you?"
Agatha was dumbstruck. "Wha..What too hell are you talking about?
"You're...a black, aren't you?...one of us."
"You're not black, fool!! You're as white as me."
"I mentioned before that I am Obama's cousin. We are black Irish. Uh..huh..look at your skin. Is that the skin of a white person?"
Agatha sits in the sun every day.  She has a deep tan.  Is that tan all from the sun?

"Don't deny it.  I will not ax you to dance or dunk a basket or spell incarcerated.  You are a black.  Just like me."
I gestured for her to give me a high five.  She ignored it.
"You're crazy!!!" she snorted as she ran off the beach.
I turned to the little French lady and said, "I think we have resolved this issue."
We did the high five.

I have a lot more weird friends.  They are interesting people. But I don't want you to think all my friends are weird, just most of them.

I made it. I survived.

A Tale of Survival

This is a heroic and epic tale of overcoming daunting circumstances and unbelievable danger.

No, it wasn't the holocaust, WWII, the McCarthy era,  hurricane Katrina, September 11th, 2001, the Obama presidency, the Bush presidency.  

None of those.

It was called "growing up in the 50's".  A time fraught with many dangers that people today can't even imagine.  I was reading an article today about the  dangers of growing up in the 50's.  It is nothing short of a miracle that there are any of us left that can reveal what really happened in that era.

Let us start with my birth.  I was not born in a hospital.  I was born in a maternity home in my hometown.  I am not even sure there was a doctor present.  I didn't ask and I didn't really care.  

I weighed 4 pounds 7 ounces which is on the smallish side.  A circumstance of birth that I never overcame in my adulthood.  I was a giant compared to my wife, the little French lady.  She weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces when she was born.   Between the two of us we weighed almost as much as a human being. Almost seven pounds.

We survived the circumstances and the weight of our birth.  One thing that may have affected my weight was the fact that my parents were smokers.  They also didn't mind tipping a few Pabst Blue Ribbons on occasion.  

When I came home from the maternity place I was put in a crib that was painted with lead paint.

Nobody died from it.  Nobody became hyper or mentally challenged because of it.  

Yes, we had some "not too clever" kids in our class, but I assure you, it was inherited.

We were fed terrible food.  Dangerous foods.  Things like peanut butter, bacon and eggs and numerous danger fraught dairy products like milk, cheese, and butter.  Not one kid in my 1st grade class died of a heart attack or an allergic reaction.

I don't remember a child in our class who was autistic.  In fact I can say that about the whole school and the whole town.  NOT ONE CHILD!!! No one was autistic. Hmmm!!?

The most nerve wracking disease for my era was polio.  I knew a few people who got polio.  This was kind of scary.

Now comes the horrific stuff.  

You are familiar with child proof caps. Yeah, the ones that adults can't open. We didn't have any child?proof caps for medicine.  We just had to turn clockwise and the cap came off.  We could chugalug as many aspirins as we felt like.  Oddly, I don't remember any kids ever doing that.

We rode bicycles, played baseball without helmets.  The cars we sat in did not have seat belts, we rode in the back of trucks standing up.  None of my friends had dented heads.  In fact no one I know had a dented heads or twisted limbs. 

Wait a minute!!!! Our cars didn't have airbags either. WOW!!!!

I drank water out of a brook, out of a garden hose, from a container 4 other people had  used before me.  I should have died of amoebic dysentery or typhoid fever at an early age.

We ate huge quantities of cupcakes, refined sugar, kool aid, cake, cookies, potato chips, Pepsi, Coke, Fudge bars and nobody was fat. WHY????

Well, I was really too busy to analyze that one.  I was outdoors from about 8 AM till about 4 PM.  My mother had no idea where I was.  She did not call 911 and report me as missing. No search parties were organized.  She knew I was probably at my friend's house mooching a meal at lunch time between our baseball games.  We didn't have play dates. We had fist fights and wrestling.  We solved our own issues with reason and brutality, whichever worked best for the situation.

If I wasn't home by 4PM for supper...too bad for me.  My mother didn't operate a restaurant or cafeteria.  Either you went without or possibly she would keep it warm in the oven if she was having a really good day.

Then I would go out and play for a couple more hours, especially if I had school that day.

I would not spend a whole lot of time watching television since we didn't have one.  We knew who had televisions.  Their house would be completely dark except for the silver glow of the round television screen as seen by a 10 year old boy who happened to be walking.   Occasionally we would knock on people's door and ask we if we could watch television.  They would let us watch one program and tell us we would have to go after the program was over.  We were very grateful.

It was many years later that I realized it did not always snow during the "Buffalo Bob Show".

I thought it was always bad weather, not bad reception.

This part is going to shock a lot of people.

Our telephones were hooked to a wall.  They weighed about 11 pounds, you could throw them against a wall and they would still work.  They had a  rotary wheel on the front and the wheel had holes in it.  In each hole was a number and three letters. You would put your fingers in the whole and move the wheel in a certain direction until you hit a finger stop, then you would release your finger from the hole and it would return to its original position.  This was referred to as "dialing the phone."  

If you were a little trouble maker like me, you would just dial some numbers and get to talk to people in exotic places like, Yellow Knife in the Yukon, Capetown, South Africa and Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Before the dial phone it was very similar to what you see on "The Andy Griffith Show."

"Sarah, connect me to Emmett's garage."  You just told the operator who you wanted or you gave her a number like 842R or 93J1.

If you had a speech impediment this could become a problem.  Something like "twee, twee, teven..aw" (337R)

Operator: "Huh?"

Phone user: "Opowaito, Ju giz me da wong numba!!!"

Operator: "Huh?"

Then there was the issue with "party lines". This was a really nifty thing if you were a kid. 

A party line was a pretty weird concept.  Your family and someone else's family had the same phone line.  If the phone rang once it was for you.  If it rang twice it is for your neighbor down the road.

The nifty thing was you could listen to your neighbors gossiping if you picked up the telephone from its cradle really gently.  You could listen for a while.  It was really bad form to shout out stuff like, "THAT'S A LIE, YOU PIECE OF CRAP"  or "GET OFF THE PHONE. YOU HAVE BEEN GOSSIPING LONG ENOUGH."  I do apologize for doing it, but I was young.

Another weird thing about the phone system was that there was no call waiting or answering machine or voice mail.  If you called someone and they weren't at home, too bad for you.

School was a place you had to have survival skills.  The teachers had weapons and they were not afraid to use them. Most teachers had big wooden paddles.  They would use them on boys and girls alike.  Mostly boys.  I saw one guy beg for mercy because he had a boil on his ass.  The teacher didn't believe him. He was not spared. I know of some legendary matches among teachers and students in high school.  I only saw one.  The teacher won.  I am talking about physical confrontation.  I think our teachers had to go through some type of boot camp before teaching at our school.

Strangely there were no lawsuits.  The only time there was mention of a lawsuit was in 1951 when a bus was taking a summer outing to a place I went swimming every day. This day I decided not to go.  The bus hit some gravel on the side of the road. The driver lost control and the bus rolled down an embankment and ended upside down.  There were 54 people on the bus.  Only a couple were seriously injured.  Another miracle, really!!!

I survived all this and more.  Did I mention the fallout shelters?  The atomic fire drills?

Ummm!....Please don't tell anyone but......It was a wonderful time to grow up.

Somebody's got some splainin' to do!

Me!!! Sorting it out.

Things are getting a little fuzzy in my head and it is not my hair.  I am trying to make sense of what is going on in the world. My world. Making sense of nonsense.

For starters, so you know who these people are?

Who would you trust in these pictures?
The people on the top or the people on the bottom?

The people on the top are the infamous hippy Billy Bob Clinton and his main squeeze, Hilly Rod Clinton.

Probably basking in the after glow of some naughty thing they did.

The very family oriented couple below are obviously made of a much finer thread than the hippies above.
The man is a musician. His wife with the huge dress is a judge.
His name is John Michael.  The woman is Sharon Rachel... Levy.
They call him John Michael, Ozzie ....Ozzie Osbourne.
He is the lead musician in "Black Sabbath".  His favorite food is frog legs.  Or frog heads.
Sharon is a Judge on "America's got talent".

The next couple have a common bond.  They both have had a family member killed and now they are trying to finance a search for the killer or killers.  They would be grateful for any contributions to aid in their search.

Please make all checks payable to:The Golf Club and Night Club Fund. Make that: Jonathan Hemlock on this site.

I will now move on to new business and observations.

I will call them keen observations by a Squirrelly senior citizen. 

About nature.  

Robin's cannot fly.  They are very much like a turkey.  Turkeys just walk around bobbing their beady little heads like a skilled boxer and end up on a table  at Thanksgiving.  Why they are not extinct is beyond my understanding.

The Robin can get around ok just don't ask  them to fly too much.  I have seen squirrels in my backyard fly more than a Robin and they are usually much higher up in a tree than a Robin. You will usually see a Robin running around on the front lawn, huffing and puffing and jumping to avoid the cat that is chasing him. huff…puff…jump…huff…puff….jump.

Another myth: They do not fly south. They hardly fly anywhere.  They hitchhike on the back of busses, 18 wheelers, anything that is heading south.

Dumb as a dodo or mourning dove.

We have some Mourning Doves in our backyard.  They are not very clever.  They spend most of the day running into my windows and the side of the house.  They have big bodies and very small heads.  Obviously their brains do not take up too much space in their heads.  I believe the Mourning Dove will probably evolve into the first headless bird.

Another myth: Why are they mourning?  Usually because one of their colleagues just did something dumb and now is deceased, not because of the sound they make.

Old hat:

Old pictures:In the early 1900's men always wore hats.  They wore them properly.

Apparently it became a lost art.  Nowadays, people do not know how to wear hats. They have them on sideways , backwards, oversized, undersized, everything but right.

Additional information:Men often wore hats and ties just about all the time. Usually a wool suit, a tie, vest, white shirt,  wingtip shoes, argyle socks, Wildroot cream oil in their hair, and a dab of bay rum on their cheeks.  

The only exception to this custom is when  you had diarrhea. Then it would be acceptable to wear only a hat and tie.

Seniors: 

Many seniors are at the initial part of their life, like AARP, RIP, DOA,  SSI.

Bad Candy: 

I returned some  M&M's to the company that makes them.  They had mixed in some E's and W's.  They sent me a free bag.

Signs of aging disgracefully:

• My mind is making contracts my body can't keep.
• My little black book contains names ending only in M.D.
• My knees buckle but my belt won't.
• My back goes out more than I do.
• I sink my teeth into a steak and they stay there.
• I know all the answers but nobody is asking the questions.

But there is some good news, people.

• Kidnappers are not really interested in me.
• No one expects me to run into a burning building.
• People no longer view me as a hypochondriac.
• I constantly talk about the price of gasoline in 1962.
• I enjoy hearing about other people's surgery.
• I had a party and the neighbors didn't even realize it.
• Now when I talk about good grass, I am referring to my lawn.

I can remember 1957 like it was yesterday.  

Hmm!.....Why can't I remember yesterday?

And finally.... my neighbor, Elmo, who is single, responded to this ad  on the internet:

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I'm a very good-looking girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. Rub me the right way and watch me respond. I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Kiss me and I'm yours. Call (843) 8xx-xxxx and ask for Daisy.

Who says you can't find someone to love on the internet. 

In fact, that is how I met "The little French lady."

Elmo has found the love of his life. Daisy!!  
She is the sweetest black lab you would ever want to meet.

swimming with Sharks

good size jellyfish.  kinda flattened out.

Our Neighbor Wendy caught this good size sting ray.  Wendy is holding the fish pole.

pretty girl, ugly porcupine puffer fish

Swimming in Myrtle Beach.

Why would anyone swim in the ocean?

Oh! now I remember.

or not!!!

Aggravating Agatha

"Run, Agatha, Run!

"THE PROBLEM:"

I have this talkative neighbor, Agatha, who seems to be the world foremost authority. You name the subject, she has the truth....not an opinion, The TRUTH!!!
Oh, there is one exception.  She does not own a computer.  She refuses to own one.  Google is not in her vocabulary.  The only windows operating system she is aware of is made by Anderson. Apple Macintosh is only a tasty fruit to her.  To Agatha, IBM means impending bowel movement.

If I was forced to give her a political affiliation, I would label her somewhat to the right of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck.
She yearns for days of the past. The twentieth century?....No!  Perhaps somewhere between the eleventh and nineteenth century would suit her fine. That is our Agatha.

We used to see her on the beach everyday.  We would try to engage her in normal conversation.  She will talk like a normal person for a while.  At some point in our dialogue her eyes would start twitching, her lips would start trembling, her pupils begin dilating then glaze over and perhaps roll into the back of her head. She groaned, shook her head.
My wife, (the little French Lady) and I were wondering if she as going to faint or she was having some kind of mystical sexual experience.  We were hoping for the latter.

Then she looked at us with total clarity and said, "Did you watch Rush Limbaugh today? He says congress should impeach Obama.  I think he is right.  Glen Beck thinks so too.
Everything that has happen since 1988 is Obama fault.  Our country is being run by a black foreigner.  He is letting "the blacks" take over the country.  The blacks...blah..blah. blah..blah Obama blah blah blah blah "the blacks"....blah..blah..blah?"
Spittle and drool roll down her face.

"Agatha, I have to go take a dump now, if you will excuse me." We walk way very fast.

"Whew,  I thought we would never get away.  Did you see that? She went into an altered state of consciousness. It was like she was transported to Limbaughland." the little french lady mused.
"Maybe she is one of those Tea peer's." the wife said thoughtfully. "One of those folks who drink Tea and pees a lot and complains about it?" I queried.
"Yeah...those."

After that we tried to avoid her.  If we saw her wandering on the beach and she was heading towards us, I would ask my wife, "How far can you swim underwater?" The usual answer was, "not far enough."
We had a problem. We needed a solution.

THE SOLUTION: Sometimes the solution just in front of you don't realize it immediately.
I was watching the news recently and President Obama was visiting Ireland.  It seems that his mother had Irish ancestry.  Interesting information.  I could be related to him since I am also since 3 out of 4 of my grandparents were Irish.  It is a small country.

Hmmm...wait a minute.  
I could tell Agatha that he is related to me.  I will have to make a history, a cover, just like a CIA agent....
I am his cousin..twice removed, whatever that means.  This could work.  Let's see what going to happen.

THE EXECUTION:  
I prepare my documentation (a photoshopped picture of Obama and me talking in the oval office) and  commence to strolling and trolling the beach.  I know it is a matter of time. This is like fishing.
On the third day of trolling strolling the beach Agatha spots us. She waves at us and we casually feign disinterest.  I flick my wrist casually towards her.  She is waving. I look at the little French lady and she shrugs and we keep walking away from her.

Now Ag is waving frantically with both hands and running towards us.  We are walking away from her but not very fast.  She finally catches up with us.
She is winded, but she runs pretty well for a 79 year old person with a heart condition.

"Oh...Hi Agatha.  When did you start jogging?  You have to be careful at your age. but I think it is wonderful that you are concerned about your health and have started jogging."
"I didn't think it was very healthy for you to fall asleep on the beach like you did yesterday."
"Carry on, don't let us stop you."

"Wait!!!...(gasp...huff) I not jogging.  I am trying (heavy breathing) to catch up with you and I wasn't sleeping on the beach yesterday.  I fainted while trying to catch up to you."

"Oh!...? So what's up?"
Agatha's lips started quivering, her right eye started twitching, the eyes..they dilated, her face became flush. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, apparently retrieving some bit of arcane Rush Limbaugh data from her memory bank.  She gasped, moaned, shook her head, then smiled.

"Did you hear what Obama did?"
She broke into a giggle now.
"Cousin Barry? what has he done now?" was my snappy rejoinder.

"Barry? who's Barry? I'm talking about Obama."
"Barry O'Bama.  That's what family calls him." I stated casually.
"No, No! I am talking about Barack Obama, that bad black president."
"Yeah, we're talking about the same guy.  My cousin Barry O'Bama, the President. The white Republicans are giving him a hard time. That guy."
"Some of you "whites" don't seem to like him."

I pause for effect.  It is time to set the hook.

"power to people. now let's have a stout and a potato."

"He's Irish, You know."

Now, I can see Agatha's mind spinning.
"He's black..."
"...Yeahhhh!...What's your point? Haven't you heard of Black Irish? Google it.
Oh, I'm sorry you can't, can you?"

I feigned pent up anger.
"Are you one of those colonialist who exploited our homeland? You white people!!! (said with righteous indignation)
"You whites are always doing that kinda crap. You made life hell for us black Irish during the potato famine, Agatha, Do you ever aks yourself if this is right?"
"You do?....You lie!!!!"

Agatha is slowly backing up.  she is nervous. I am jabbering incoherently. Spittle is flying from my lips. I am extolling the virtues of being Irish and black and how this knowledge has improved my basketball dribbling skills and the drinking of the beer afterwards.  she now is running.
"She's pretty fast for a 79 year old white woman with a folding chair and a backpack on her back."
I think I had her at "aks". The little french lady nodded. "Oui!"

"Have a lovely jog, Agatha!!!!"

Stuart Woods to the rescue....not!!!!

Writer's block?

Prologue: Stuart Woods is a world famous writer of mystery novels.  He wrote the book "Chiefs" which was made into a television miniseries.  He has written over 40 books.

He is a nifty guy.

I am a blogger.  I had writers block, of a sort.  I figured Stuart could help me.  I emailed him.  My email is below.

Greetings Stuart,

Help me!

I am a blogger.  I have created a character named Colt Brandisher.  I have developed a life for him.  He has a car. (1957 Citroen)  a girl friend, (Candida Goldblatt), a job, (city defective....detective.) and friends.  I have blogged my writing process.

After much introspection and thoughtI have modeled Colt after your character, Stone Barrington.

I had considered John Sandford’s character Lucas Davenport, however Colt was not too keen on spending time in Minneapolis, eating at Subway, and reassembling frozen corpses that went through a stump shredder.  He did like the idea of the Porsche but I told him Stone had a Mercedes Benz.  I also mentioned that Lucas had serious mental problems.  He suffers from depression and is afraid of flying, whereas Stone Barrington doesn’t seem to have a care in the world and lives in nice places like New York, Washington, Connecticut and frequents Palm Beach and Key West.

I believe you have enough background information.  Here is my problem.

I started writing a story on one of my blogs. I seem to have painted myself into a proverbial corner.

It seems that Colt will die in the first paragraph.

:

“Colt heard the cacophonous sounds of tree frogs croaking their maudlin symphony as the leaden projectile zoomed towards his head. Ironic, he thought. he would be croaking very shortly also. The high functioning brain that currently had the appearance of freshly cooked cauliflower would soon resemble half cooked turnip, perhaps mash potatoes, but certainly not cauliflower.

Colt thought of frogs. He liked frog legs. He would not have a chance to eat them again.

In fact, they would probably be feasting on his legs very soon.

"What!!!!...why am I thinking about food? I am milliseconds from death."

They say your life passes in front of you when death is imminent. Colt's life did pass in front of him. It was a boring life. He had some time left so he started thinking about food.”

Stuart, Do you see my problem? Help me!!

Now I want to talk a bit about Stone Barrington.  

He seems to take way too many naps. perhaps he should consider sleeping at night, if you catch my drift.

It seems no woman can get close to him without dropping her knickers, which makes me wonder, “What kind of aftershave is this guy using?”

Stuart,......This guy is a slut.  

Does he use protection?  He already has one unplanned love child. It is miraculous this guy doesn’t have herpes.  Stone better step up.  Right now he is acting like a democrat politician.  The difference is: a democratic politician can’t keep their pants zipped up and the Republicans can’t keep their mouth zipped up.

Well, I hope you can help me save Colt.  He is such a nice guy.  I don’t want him cut down in his prime.  

If we can get this issue resolved we will meet in Delano, Georgia at your place.  We will invite Lucas Davenport.   we will have one of Stone’s female friend can cook us up some steaks, served with a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. (Colt will bring it with him) and then we will repair to the study and drink brandy and smoke cigars. 

Colt will pass on the cigars. He doesn’t smoke. However if your cook will bake some cannibas brownies Colt would be glad to partake of the brownies.  He has glaucoma.

This would be considered medicine in many states.

Perhaps It would be wise to serve some peperoni with that.  A few hundred slices, a couple boxes of ritz crackers (fat free)  and a few pounds of Cabot cheese.  Maybe a few litres of Pepsi or Coke. 

We will celebrates Colts resurrection.

Thanks Stuart.

PS: I live in SC.  I was going to Georgia for a photo layout of “The Girls of Delano” for Playboy magazine.  I have read about their beauty in your books.  I couldn’t find the girls.  I couldn’t find Delano.

I think we should meet somewhere and discuss this.  How about Elaine’s? Late?

Epilogue: Stuart answered me within an hour on his iphone. His reply was, "You got yourself into this; get yourself out."

At first I was crushed that he didn't help me.  I thought about this for a few minutes and realized That was the answer.  He really did give me the answer.  I will get myself out of this. Thanks,Stuart!!!

Ironically, nobody will be going to Elaine's in New York City.  Elaine Kaufman died in December 2010 and it closed in late May 2011. One of Stuart Woods favorite spots. It is an end of an era.