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The Girl on the In Between

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* Now my wife Sandra is a great woman, but there is one problem with her. Sandra is a woman on the in between. In fact the straddles the very exact edge of in between.  She also happens to be my soul mate and wife. What’s “being on the in between?” You may well ask. So I will try to tell you.To start with Sandy will never land on one side or the other. In other words she is, at it were, neutral. It’s not easy for most people to be, or most particularly, to stay neutral. We all have our opinions, our wants, desires and favorites and most of us will let you know where we stand, more or less. but not Sandra. Unless we’re trying to curry favor or are just being polite. But, Sandra’s position is always predictable in its unpredictability. Straddling the in between is Sandra’s invariable favorite and default position. And, believe me, she never varies. When I say neutral, I mean she never commits herself to come down on one side of the other. For example, if you ask her if she likes hamburg
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*That Time I Slapped Hell Out of the President . . . .

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I retired some years ago, but got bored sitting around the house. I looked around for something to do with my time and inquired at a local car dealership for something part time in their sales department. I've noticed old duffers like me employed as lot salesmen by dealerships from time to time. The local Ford dealer said they'd give me as try and soon I was working the sales lot on an irregular basis, on call as it were. In a few weeks I became a regular sight around the dealership. Then, the owners decided to remodel their facility, and things got a bit chaotic around the place with workmen, dust, clutter and confusion. More for the sake of the employees than anything else the owners decided to hold a sort of open house, and outdoor event to be held alongside the local riverside. Strangely, the theme of the event was ‘Equine’ - horses! Odd for an auto dealer, wouldn't you say? The event soon grew larger than anticipated and everyone was invited including local politicians
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A Brindle Cat and a Tan Boxer

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A Brindle Cat and a Tan Boxer Way back when in the early 1950s, a yellowish grey, brindle-striped cat lay sunning herself on a low limestone wall just a few feet from me alongside our house in Coconut Grove, Florida. She lay nearly motionless, with a barely perceptible shifting of her head as she watched something in the yard behind our house. Her eyes were focused like laser beams on the subject of her interest moving around behind the property where we lived. Only the very tip of her tail slightly twitched spasmodically now and then.  

I was a kid back then and watched with interest and a faint hope for the possibility of witnessing some dramatic interaction between two classical animal enemies. I was not to be disappointed that day!

 This particular cat was an outdoor cat. She’d wandered up one day a month earlier and the young couple who lived in the apartment behind our house made the mistake of feeding her - just once. It was the husband’s mistake since his wife h
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A Cop Named Harry

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I am just taking my first bite of my second donut when the call comes in: “Unit 4B-16, can you respond?” I take another bite and wipe my lips with the paper napkin. Hell, I’m on break fer chrissakes!  Ten seconds later, and a decidedly sharper tone; “Unit 4B-16, WILL you respond?”  This time there was an imperative new hardness to the dispatcher’s voice. I better answer since this new dispatcher is the chief’s latest flavor of the month and I don’t know what kinda clout she pulls yet. The last one ended up sleeping with the entire squad before the chief got onto her. I figure I'd I better not take any chances with this one until I see the lay of the land if you’ll pardon my pun.  This new one, Viola, obviously keeps the chief’s libido dampened sufficiently. She’s twenty-five years younger than the chief if that makes any difference and he's always been a randy bastard. Viola is quick to trot out for donuts whenever he asks and jumps when he summons for anything withou
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*Is There An Undertaker In The House?

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I believe it was in March that we drove over there in the rain, my grandfather and I on that Sunday. It was the sort of rain that just pours down for hours and then suddenly stops and the sun pops out. As I remember, it was roughly thirty-five or forty miles to the little town of Hazlehurst, Georgia from the farm where we lived. In 1952, none of the roads were paved They were just sand - and Georgia red clay, which usually was found only near the tops of gentle hills. The car was a1950 Dodge 4-door sedan, big, boxy and black, and as heavy as a tank.  In those days the saying went, ‘You can order a car in any color you want so long as it’s black.’  It was rare then to see a car in any color other than black or dark grey. You could say it was mostly a monochrome world back then when it came to automobiles. The car was one of those solid feeling ones which only acknowledged bumps by remembering to bounce and sway after you passed over the bump by twenty-five yards or so. I don’
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'Our' Family

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Sometimes I tell my grandchildren stories about my childhood. They can’t quite get their heads around how different things were back when I was their ages. It sounds so strange to them when I talk about farm kids driving around cars and trucks at the age of ten or twelve - and the (lack of) technology of those days. There were so many routine things we did back then that are no longer done at all today unless you live far, far off the grid. And, many things which were routine for farm kids to do in the ‘fifties would get modern kids in very serious trouble today. To my grandchildren, my stories are fantastic and somewhat unbelievable. I get that. My lovely 14-year-old granddaughter even wrote a school paper saying how my tales seemed like science fiction to her. Since they do listen and ask reasonable and serious questions I know they really are interested. I always try to be as factual as possible and explain thing which aren’t clear to them, even when they give me those skeptical l
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Everyone Remembers Their Very Own First Car

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I suppose everyone remembers their very own first car. The first car I ever had I bought as a teenager — with my own money mind you. It was an old one, twenty years old at the time I got it. I was a sophomore in high school and had watched a senior driving this cool rig around our little town that summer. He was a cool guy with a cool car and I greatly admired both. The owner had removed the front fenders and painted gaudy red and yellow flames around the front end of the hood. And when he drove by in the rain, spectacular twin plums of water would fly high into the air behind those front tires without their fenders. Very, very cool indeed, and the wet swimming trunks hung on the radio aerial was simply the fitting final touch of perfection! To a high school kid anyway. Maybe some explanation is needed. Coastal Maine kids in Maine in those days headed out to swim in the nearby lakes as soon as we could tolerate the cold water in early summer. Most never swam in the sea because the
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