"You want fries with that?"

Kelly, a guy I once worked for, put himself through school by working as an undertaker in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. One of his charges turned out to be a fast food junkie.

Living at the funeral home, one of the things Kelly dealt with where the middle-of-the-night calls to come pick up a new customer. People often seem to have no consideration about when they drop dead. Of course, planning ahead by scheduling the event is rather frowned upon by the three major desert religions.

The call came in, as they always do, at oh-dark-thirty. One of the folks over at the state’s home for the bewildered had just become the dearly departed. The body was already on a gurney and had been released by the attending physician when Kelly got there with the hearse. A night attendant helped load the gurney in the back of the vehicle and Kelly headed back to the funeral home. All Kelly had to do was roll the gurney into the cold storage room in the home’s basement, lock up, and he could go back to bed.

Kelly told me he still says a prayer of thanks from time to time when he thinks of it that he had been caught by a stop light. As he sat there waiting for it to turn, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and a child-like voice asked, “Could we stop for some fries?”

He whirled around and found himself eyeball to eyeball with the customer. Rather distractedly, Kelly said, “Pardon?”

The customer smiled gently and repeated, “Could we stop for some fries?”

Kelly said that by this time the world had dropped back into position and he explained to his new friend, Bill as it turned out, that it was pretty late and everything was closed. Bill seemed saddened by this so Kelly assured him that he, Kelly, would tell the folks at the institution of his request when they got back there. This seemed to satisfy Bill and he lay back down. On the drive back, Kelly discovered that Bill snored.

Kelly pulled up to the ambulance entrance and tooted the horn. The same attendant who had helped him before came out and walked up Kelly’s door. Curious, he asked, “What are you doing back here?”

Kelly replied, “I’m afraid this one ain’t done yet.”

“Huh?”

At that moment, Kelly said, he was treated to one of the finest displays of the double-take as Bill raised up from the gurney and waved to the attendant with a happy, “Hi, Tommy.”

An hour later, Kelly was perusing an ancient copy of Field & Stream in a waiting room when Tommy walked in pulling on a jacket. The attendant told him, “You can head home, the doctor looked Bill over and says he’s fine.”

Kelly asked, “The same one who said he was dead?”

Tommy half smiled. “Hmm, on second thought, maybe you better hang around a while. Anyway, the boss says for the home to send a bill for your trouble.”

As they walked out to the parking lot, Kelly remarked, “I ‘spect you’ll be happy to get home.”

“Oh, I’m not going home. I’m headed out to one of the truck stops on Route 11.”

“Oh?”

Tommy grinned, “We figure with what happened tonight, we owe Bill some French fries.”

23 April 2010: Feast of St. George. Battle of Clontarf 1014, Ottoman Empire of Sultan Mehmend VI falls 1920, King George II of Greece evacuates Athens ahead of Wehrmacht 1941, New Coke premiered to general distaste of humanity 1985.

Catholic Self-Help?

"Into all lives some rain must fall,but Dear Lord, why do I have to get monsoons?"

One of the more interesting oxymorons I've run across is "Catholic self-help." This seems to be the idea that you can solve all your problems by reading the right book.

Pelagius, back on the fifth century British Isles, taught that a person can come to total Grace through sheer will all by themselves--that one can basically lift themselves by their sandal straps (give this stunt a try sometime if you have nothing better to waste time on). St. Augustine of Hippo argued that Grace is a gift of God and a human can't attain it through his own efforts. Both the Council of Carthage (418 AD) and the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) came to the conclusion that the Brit was all wet, and that man can only come to Grace through God.

When I first heard this idea of a "Catholic" self-help book, the Bible popped into mind as an example. You got troubles, check out the the Old Testament's Book of Job. For somewhat newer works, Father Benedict J. Groeschel's Tears of God and Dr. Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning might fit the requirement. What do these three have in common? Well, aside from all three being good reads, they also provide guidance when all hell breaks loose in one's life.

The magic word here is "guidance," not all the answers. Far too many authors try to sell their book as the answer to all questions. What they end up with is a one-size-fits-nobody philosophy of how to get through life with no pain. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) it ain't gonna happen. As in the story about the New Englander, life is "just one long frazzle." What these three works offer is a path to the only Threesome Who knows what the heck is going on and why. When we go to Them, we get information not on a need-to-know basis, but rather on an ability-to-understand basis. The folder I receive tends to be pretty thin because I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack. Other, more intelligent folks get thicker folders--St. Thomas Aquinas comes to mind (he must have got bales by the forklift load).

Should we worry that somethings are beyond us? Not necessarily. This is where faith comes in--one has to have faith that when one is ready for understanding, the knowledge will come. For mere humans, this most probably will be in the next life (and boy, have I got a list of questions!). For me to try to understand the workings of the All Mighty is probably on par with my daughter's toy poodle understanding what I'm doing while tangling with filing the taxes. He settles for having faith that we love him and his food dish will be full each day. Me, I settle for pretty much the same.

Note to FTC: Bought 'em myself, guys.


18 April 2010: Feast of St. Wicterp of Augsburg. Cornerstone of present St. Peter's Basilica laid 1506, American Revolution's fighting begins and ends eight years later on the same day 1775-1783, Dolittle Raid on Japanese Home Islands 1942, Pawtucket Red Sox and Rodchester Red Wings play longest pro baseball game in history lasting 33 innings 1981.

Orders from the boss.

A lot of us are pushed around in this life. Sometimes it's someone who knows how to run our lives better than we do. Sometimes it's someone we invite into our lives. Hmm? No, not wives, husbands, or in-laws--though there have been reports of such things. I mean the ultimate boss, the Boss of bosses. Yep, that fur-covered cat food converter laying on my feet as I type this (Yeah, I know the word should be "lying," but it doesn't sound like my usually fractured syntax. Now shut up and go back to sleep, sir.).

Some of us have these predatory commandos barge in on us in that insidiously lethal form, the kitten on the doorstep. Others of us are stupid enough to actually go out and recruit these mercenaries (make no mistake, cats are mercenaries--dogs are regulars). My follies have covered both.

Dorsey, that handsome guy pictured to the left, hiring on with us was the result of one of my normal lapses in judgment (it must be true because the wife points this out quite often, usually while spoiling said creature). You don't own a cat. Either he owns you or, if you're lucky and have your act together, he hires on with you. Cats are independent cusses and only hang around if they like you, which is probably one of the things that appeals to me (the idea that they hang around only because you feed them tends to be a little doubtful--most seem to be of the opinion that they could do just as well or perhaps better elsewhere and have occasionally proved it).

Actually, our partnership has been a reasonably happy one on both sides. It's pleasant having him holding down the end of the bed and keeping my feet or the wife's head warm in the winter. And, happily, he learned early on in the relationship that bipeds are something to avoid as they stumble through the dark (after seven years, our daughter's black toy poodle is still working on that one). Like myself, he's not a picky eater for pretty much the same reason I'm not--growing up, if you didn't want what was served, you were welcome to go out and kill your own (contrary to popular belief, you generally don't see all that many cat or kid skeletons lying next to full food dishes). As long as the chow crunches and has a picture of a cat on the bag, he's happy. He will mention it occasionally when he thinks the cat pan could use some attention, but, then, I get kind of grumpy when the person before me forgets to put out a new roll of paper too.

So far, his major gripe with us is our lousy control of the weather. If it's very cold or pouring down rain. sleet, or snow, he will look out the front door sourly then stalk to the backdoor. When he sees the the same weather system appears to be also stagnating at that end of our mansion, he gives me a look loudly saying, "Klutz!" and stomps off toward the bed. When I think about it from his point of view, I can understand his opinion. We control the heat and air conditioning in the house; why can't we do the same outside? Robert A. Heinlein reported much the same behavior of his main protagonist in his novel, The Door Into Summer (1956). According to Wikipedia, the title and the book was suggested by a remark Heinlein's wife made about their cat. Now you know why writers put up with cats...or is it the other way around?


13 April 2010. Feast of St. Caradoc of Haroldston. Louis IX of France (St. Louis) is captured in Egypt 1250, Fort Sumter surrenders 1861, Troops of the Raj massacre 379 and wound 1,200 at Amristar 1919, Sidney Poitier wins Best Actor Oscar for "Lilies of the Field" 1963.

Lighting up for Easter.

I've often thought Easter is best described as a party preceded by a forty-day hangover.

For my own part, the lead up to the most important day of the year tends to make me walk small. I am by nature a silent grumbler. Aside from "teaching moment" explosions, I generally keep my mouth shut. The downside is I'm often doing a slow burn (the upside is I don't bother saying, "I told you so," which drives people nuts waiting for it). I come into church totally bummed out by the weight of my problems and flop in the pew. I look up at the Crucifix and Jesus looks back at me and says, "You think you got problems?" Looking at what He puts up with from us, yeah, mine are pretty small potatoes.

Things get really dark by Holy Saturday. And, then, just after nightfall, a light appears--a single candle that spreads throughout the world.

We used to go to the Saturday evening Mass up at a retreat house run by some Franciscans. Just outside the chapel, there would be a little brazier for a small fire from which to light the first candle. One year, we had an enthusiastic new young priest celebrating. The old priest, Father Manny, was up to his hip pockets getting several new families from the Philippines squared away so he let Father Buzz arrange everything for the Mass. When we showed up at the retreat house, things looked a bit different. Rather than the usual brazier, there was a tub about the right size for burning a Viking long ship. Piled in the tub was enough wood to build said ship if it were required for a Norse funeral. At the proper hour, several Filipina mothers and grandmothers got the fire going. Considering most of these ladies had up until a few months earlier been cooking over such fires, it had all the muss and drama of flipping a light switch. It fell to Father Buzz to provide the drama. As the flames leaped up, frightening fire watchers in towers in three surrounding states, Father became carried away with the blessing and leaned farther and farther over the fire. Just before he set himself alight and reenacted our very own auto-de-fey (yeah, I know we didn't actually burn people during the auto-de-fey itself, but work with me here), two of the grandmothers shoved the tub away from him while three of the mothers laid hands on the hem of his chasuble and yanked. Father Buzz never missed a beat as he and the flaming tub broke formation and parted company at a high rate of speed. Let's see the Pentecostals top that.



7 April 2010: Feast of St. Finnian (or Finan) of Kinitty. St. Francis Xavier departs Lisbon for East Indies 1541, Metric System adopted by France 1795, Japanese battleship Yamato sunk by U.S. carrier planes 1945, Internet born with publication of RFC1 1969.

He's the last guy to let you down.

I guy I worked for, call him "Kelly," put himself through school by working as an undertaker in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Being in a vocation that allows one to meet everyone eventually, he had a number of interesting tales of various folks he had the enjoyment of dealing with.

According to Kelly, his first night at the funeral home set the tone for the years that followed. Part of his deal with the owner was that Kelly would live at the home. This had the advantage that someone would be on hand if a call came in during the night (a very common occurrence) and there would be someone to keep an eye on things, funeral homes being prime targets for burglaries (to some folks, all that class and glitz screams, "Steal me!"). After everyone else went home, Kelly made himself dinner and relaxed in front of the TV with a Washington Senators game (which puts it before 1972). After the game, he retired to the master bedroom on the second floor. Along about oh-dark-thirty a sound awakens him. He listens in the darkness and hears it again--a quiet little thump. He eases out of bed picking up the flashlight from the bedside stand and his softball bat (no, he didn't normally go around armed, he just played on a local church team).

At the head of the stairs, he hears the thump once more, this time from the darkness below. He oozes down the stairs staying as close to the side as he can to avoid causing the steps to creak. At he bottom, he stands listening. A thump comes from the rear of the funeral home. A backdoor leads into the kitchen. Somebody trying to quietly break-in?

As he reaches the door of the kitchen, there are a series of thumps apparently from the stairs leading down into the basement where the cold storage and preparation rooms for the dearly departed are located. He notes that the backdoor is still locked and turns to the open basement door. Could one of the folks downstairs be unhappy with the arrangements made so far and be coming up to complain to the management?

He raises the bat and flicks on the flashlight. The ginger cat at the bottom of the stairs blinks up at him and gives the tennis ball another whack, bouncing it off the bottom step. Kelly stuck the flashlight in his robe's pocket, flipped on the light switch, set down the bat, and went down and picked up the cat. After returning to the the master bedroom with flashlight, bat, and cat, he slept soundly until his alarm clock went off.


3 April 2010: Feast of St. Vulpian of Tyre. Edward the Confessor crowned 1043, Federal forces capture Richmond 1865, Lenin arrives at Finland Station in Petrograd 1917, Japanese begin assault on Bataan 1942.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

It's that time of the year.

Time to start putting in the garden, get the window screens fixed, clean out the air-conditioner vents and filters, figure where to store the heavy clothes with either mothballs or cedar chips (cheapest at the pet shop), and begin working on that Christmas story.

Yes, I did say, "Christmas story." And, yes, I know Christmas is more than a couple on months away. That's why the work on it gets started now.

First off, an idea has to be come up with. While I rarely know when my idea is going to show up, I can sort of track it back to where it hit me. For "Neither Fish Nor Foul" (published by Residential Aliens Magazine in their February 2010 issue), the spark was a question on Twitter from a friend from outside the U.S. about archaic laws still on the books. Two that immediately sprang to mind was one in New England that still makes it illegal to shave on Sunday, and another from the South making it a crime to "get a fish drunk" (DO NOT TRY THIS! Alcohol kills fish fast--as anyone knows who has had some moron pour their drink in his fish tank at a party). Being in close proximity, they mated and produced the story idea. Where you troll for ideas is up to you, everybody's mind works differently.

Next, you have to enter BGTS mode (Butt Glued To Seat) and write the thing. As far as plotting, you have to figure out how to get from position "A" to position "B" without teleportation. Editors get sort of cranky if they can't follow the story. Characters are up to you. Me, I use the usual suspects, the people I've met and known over the last half-century. They form a repertory company in my head. Each is different, but most fall into various "types" (you may recollect we talked about archetypes a while back?). Remember, archetypes--not stereotypes!

Okay, it's finished and it's the most adorable, beautiful piece of writing since clay tablets. Yeah...okay, whatever. Now it needs to be eyeballed by people who don't necessarily depend on you to eat regularly. Send it out to a bunch of friends (both fellow writers and just plain readers) and sit back and wait for the blood to flow. When all the critiques return (which for most of us is sometime in the next interglacial), read through all of them and look for things, other than typos, the majority remarked on. If most were nauseated by your favorite character's name, it might be wise to rethink it. Remember this, although you must be sensitive to their comments (otherwise, why waste everyone's time?), you are allowed, even encouraged, to let your "voice" sound in the writing.

Finally, everything is pre-flighted and you're ready to launch. Go for it! Send it to the first publisher on your list. When they bounce it, the next, and the next. If it's any good, eventually one of two things will happen, either someone will run it or you'll starve. Who sez writing ain't fun? Seriously, when someone does accept the story, they'll most likely want it at least four to six months before the target date (this is print media--some of the online guys play by their own rules, so check).

One thing to keep in mind, Mel Torme' and Bob Wells, when they wrote "The Christmas Song"--one of the biggest selling pieces of Christmas music in history, were working in an unair-conditioned room on a 97 degree F (36 degree C) day with the humidity about 200 percent (welcome to southern California!--or was it Florida?). So, start thinking cool thoughts.


23 March 2010: Feast of St. Ethelwald of Fame Island. Patrick Henry delivers "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech in Richmond's St. John's Church 1775, Russian Tsar Paul I trampled to death in bedroom 1801, Battle of Kernstown 1862, Reichstag passes "Enabling Act of 1933" making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany 1933, Gemini 6 carrying Gus Grissom and John Young launched 1965.

Son of a Gun: Mix and Match Ammo

"Er, I'm not sure you want to do that."

A question came up over on the Historical Mystery Writer's Yahoo list the other day asking if anyone could think of a story in which mismatched ammunition in a firearm was used as a clue. I can't think of one, but it is a good idea for a clue. One of the other writers pointed out that using the wrong ammunition could result in an explosion. I suggested Jimmy Breslin's book, The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight as an hilarious illustration of this.

The subject brought to mind some of the things dad and his brothers did back up on the Blue Ridge.

The youngest brother (there were six and I use no names for my own safety--I'm not sure of the statute of limitation with some of the things that went on) was stuck with an ancient 12 gauge single barrel shotgun for his first deer hunt with his brothers. As ammunition, he found a half box of 14 gauge shells around the house, a rare and unlamented gauge (in that part of the world, a gladius wouldn't surprise me). [Note to the firearms-challenged: As the gauge number in shotguns goes up, the bore of the shotgun and its chamber gets smaller--and I'm too lazy at the moment to go see why this came about. Maybe in a later "Son of a Gun" post] The next day, as the brothers move through the upper sinkhole field on their farm, the older ones spook a doe toward the youngest. Figuring the deer was in little danger from their brother and to watch the fun, they shout to him, "Here's one!" The youngest throws the shotgun to his shoulder, takes aim at the oncoming doe with both eyes wide (direction of target: plus or minus 90 degrees), jerks the trigger, and is rewarded with a satisfying "click." He breaks the breech of the shotgun to remove and replace the dud round and finds that the 14 gauge shell has slid down the chamber where the firing pin can't strike its primer cap and is now jammed until the good Lord calls us all home. The panicked doe now on him, he reverses the shotgun and hits her with the buttstock (as one of his admiring brothers described it, "A buttstroke my old sergeant would have envied."). The doe steps back then bolts around him and off into the mountains. Somehow, he survived his brothers regaling two counties with the story and went on to be a pretty fair hunter.

One of my uncles brought back a Japanese Arisaka Type 99 bolt-action rifle from the Pacific (on a bolt-action weapon, a lever rotates a cylindrical "bolt" unlocking the action, the bolt is pulled rearward which opens the action or chamber allowing a fired cartridge casing to fly out, the bolt is then pushed forward stripping an unfired cartridge from the magazine [remember last "Son of a Gun?"] and pushing it into the chamber, the lever rotates the bolt locking the action, and the weapon is ready to fire). The Type 99 was chambered for 7.7x58mm and, as this was a early war model, was an accurate shooter. The problem was that that type of ammunition tended to be a bit rare in the general stores in that part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 30.06 on the other hand was quite common. The problem is the 7.7mm cartridge casing is just a little wider than that of the 30.06, causing the 30.06 round not to feed correctly. To remedy this, one of the brothers took a Prince Albert pipe tobacco can, sans top and bottom, flattened it then folded it and inserted it into the rifle's internal magazine on the left side. After that, the 30.06 rounds fed just fine and the brothers took eight deer that I know of with it (while a teen, I managed to miss two deer myself with it). Interestingly, that Arisaka still had the Imperial Chrysanthemum stamp on the receiver showing that the rifle had been captured rather than surrendered (an order came down from Imperial Army and Navy headquarters toward the end of the war to grind off the chrysanthemum from rifles so that the Emperor would not be dishonored). Also the anti-aircraft calipers were missing from the rear sights (you've got to love the military mind, anti-aircraft sights on a bolt-action rifle--of course if a plane had to fly through the rifle fire from a battalion at low altitude, somebody might get lucky--but I'll bet it wasn't aimed fire).

Well, I smell the bouquet of the wife's chili wafting from the kitchen. Dismissed.


8 March 2010: Feast of St. Beoadh of Ardcarne. Ansbach and Bayreuth regiments--later captured with Cornwallis at Yorktown--initially mutiny at Ochsenfurt rather than serve British in American colonies 1777, CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack) launched at Hampton Roads 1862, Dutch forces on Java surrender to Japanese 1942, Nelson's Pillar in Dublin blown up by Irish 1966.