A man told me once that you could get by well in life if you would talk 20 percent of the time and listen 80 percent of the time. Those who know me can attest to the fact that I am the poster-child violator of this advice.

What makes it worse is that I’ve been real lucky with friends throughout most of my life. I now pal around with some of the brightest, most well-educated, and competent people you might ever want to know, recognized experts in their fields. There even some PhDs in there, believe it or not.

So, what do I do when we have lunch, or share a libation? I run my damn yap. Can’t help it.

When I visit with my friend who’s a high-ranking Army officer, you’d think I wrote a bunch of field manuals or something.

When I’m with my contractor friend, I can build anything.

To a professor who teaches public administration, well, hell, I’m Max Weber’s third cousin.

I have my journalism friend convinced, or at least he’s polite enough to spare me rebukes, that I’m the best thing since H.L. Mencken passed. (Partially in my defense, at least I don’t say, “It’s a secret between you and I,” and I haven’t used the word “awesome” in a sentence since Barbara Jane Stubblefield quit wearing those bullet bras back in high school).

I even tried “experting” with my wife. That didn’t work out too well, so I quit.

With all that having been said and done, in the world of BS artistry, there’s only one person on earth who can hold a candle to these folks who offer advice on social media. It seems like, these days, that the basic threshold that must be passed to join the wonderful world of punditry and prediction is to know absolutely nothing about a topic other than how to find a nutcase website that can provide catchy sound-bites.

Simplify? Lord, but these folks can simplify. A nuclear war with a country full of psychopaths? No big deal. We’ll just bomb them in their strategic places.

A two-front war? As the Facebook pundit would say, “We pulled it off in World War Eleven, didn’t we?”

Financial solvency through spending more on less? As the Enron boys used to say, “The only reason it’s never worked is because we weren’t the ones doing it.”

Obviously, I’m an expert on such things and I could go on and on. Must go, though. Gonna contact my good friend for a lunch date, the one who can play a guitar like ringing a bell. Must be prepared to lecture him about Eddie Lang’s influence on Les Paul. It might enlighten him and me.

Just thinkin'

Morning Thoughts: November 29, 2017

That old black ragtop Cadillac rolled by me coming to a stop, and I looked inside. I says to myself, “I’m going to die today. It’s all over, at nineteen.” That car hadn’t seen new shocks since the Truman administration and, as it stopped, the front-end rose and dove like a colt eating grass. There wasn’t any place to run. I was standing in the Wyoming wilds with the nearest city over two hundred miles away.

I think I mentioned not long ago about meeting a couple of friends once, when I was young and taking a trip from Jackson Hole, Wyoming down the west coast to Mexico. Well, I had to get to Jackson Hole first, and that meant hitchhiking through Wyoming to get there. There were bad and good assets connected with hitchhiking in those parts.

First, it was hard as hell to get a ride. There just weren’t that many people in Wyoming back in those days. But, and this is the good part, if you got a ride, you were going somewhere. There weren’t that many places to stop, either.

The first ride, the man took me to Cheyenne and asked me why didn’t I come stay with him for a while, get to know the city and all. I told him I sure would like to, but I had two friends waiting up north and they wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t show up. He understood, or said he did.

The second ride was with a traveling salesman who took me to where he turned off about 200 miles from where I was going. He acted as a hunting guide when he wasn’t selling and showed me plenty of prime places if I ever returned to go hunting. I never did.

He let me out and I was about the most alone I think I’ve ever been. The mountains off in the distance and the vast plains didn’t take long convincing me that I had maybe made a mistake. Would the winter snows find me there?

That’s when I saw the Cadillac coming. The closer it came, the more I wanted to take my thumb down, but I was in for this adventure like Sherman was in for Atlanta, so I waited. My apprehensions gathered force as the car came to a stop.

I mentioned that what I saw scared me.  It was three of the roughest looking hombres I had seen in a long time. All had cowboy hats ragged denim jackets. They had mustaches that made them look like part of Poncho Villa’s band. They were the kind of guys who could hush an entire pool hall by just walking through the door.

The driver was a tall, lanky man who got out, opened the huge trunk and threw my travel bag in with their gear. I supposed they would divide up my belongings after they had disposed of my body. Then they made room for me in the open seat in back and inquired as to where I was headed. I told them, and they told me I was in luck, for they were going right through there. The driver, before we started off, asked if I was comfortable and I said was.

Then something odd happened. He asked the other two if they were comfortable. That seemed a bit strange for the leader of a small band of outlaw killers.

Well, you know what? Those were the nicest three men I think I ever spent time with. They were cowboys, headed for work, and shared some good stories about the profession. Of course, they asked me about myself. I wasn’t about to tell them that I was a snot-nosed college boy spending a part of his summer indulging in insanity. I offered something vague about meeting some friends and then looking for work.

“You’re in luck,” one said. “We’re headed for Cody. They’re ‘haying’ up there and looking for hands. You can just come on up with us.” That put me in a pretty pickle. I allowed as how I would find my friends and see what they were up to first.

It was a fast couple of hundred miles. We stopped once for nature’s call and they just stood around afterwards talking about how they loved the smell of clover that time of year. We stopped near Jackson Hole for gas, and I pitched in. That pleased them quite a bit, though they hadn’t asked me to.

We reached Jackson Hole in a mood of high fellowship. They invited me to come have a meal with them, but I had to find my friends. “Well,” said the driver, “if you don’t find your pards, come on over to the diner, and we’ll all head for Cody after we chow down.”

I thanked them and, with mixed emotions, found my buddies on the other side of the square, talking to some locals. One friend was talking as if he had climbed mountains all summer, but I found out later he had only done a little “bouldering,” and had not really done very well at that. The locals seemed pleased that I had arrived.

That, and other tales are for later. Let’s just say for now that we headed off on our adventures and I left the three cowboys to their meals. Still, sometimes I wonder … of course holding back due to the knowledge that I would never have met my wife … I wonder, though, how things might have turned out if my “pards” hadn’t been there.

Life is a series of choices, no doubt.

Morning Thoughts: November 28, 2017

Talked cities most of yesterday. Woke up in one of the great ones this morning. All in all, having a splendiferous time. Storm clouds threaten, though.

As elected officials in our nation’s capital and our statehouses become increasingly frivolous and irresponsible, those in our nation’s cities are buckling up for the crises ahead. They are even taking on the opioid epidemic while others quake in fear of big pharma. There may be lawsuits, and there surely will be blood. As Margo Channing said, “Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.”

I would just say that before you curse or denigrate your mayor, consider that she may be the last bulwark between you and Gotterdammerung. Consider the current problems she faces: wealth inequality, crumbling infrastructure, vacant retail buildings gone to Amazon, and mega-rich families hoping to end their public-school systems. She also sees more serious ones of the potential variety:

- A two front war that would require a draft of most entry level workers and most, if not all, of our federal budget, (Who’ll serve us Big Macs? How would we get to them or pay for them)?

- A day when practically all public resources not allocated for war will be allocated to serve the automobile and simple walking is impossible,

- A Brave New World environment in which public contentment will be determined by mind-controlling pharmaceuticals, and

- Our downtowns, once the heart and souls of our communities, laid waste and bare, save for vacant concrete slabs where we once met and knew one another, and
- Others that we cannot now imagine. After all, we've seen much in the past 11 months that we couldn't have imagined in times gone by.

It’s a bleak and possible future no doubt, one whose problems won’t be solved in Washington or, heaven knows, in our state capitals. So far, we do elect good people to our city halls. Here’s hoping we continue to do so.

A beautiful city, and may she always be.

Morning Thoughts: November 27, 2017

It took me five days, but I put all my thoughts together of the day I heard, with all other Americans, that John Kennedy died. We would find out later that a deranged worker named Lee Harvey Oswald had stayed during lunch at this worksite that overlooked the route of a presidential motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Having slipped a mail-order rifle to work in brown paper wrapping, and having learned to shoot in the United States Marine Corps, he had one of those epochal opportunities that can change world history.

If you have memories, leave them in the comments. Mine:

I shared a house on Leverett Street in Fayetteville, Arkansas with another student. We were there for lunch during noon break, listening to the local radio station KHOG. Right at 12:30, there was a break saying that sounds were heard along the presidential cavalcade in Dallas. They may have been gunshots. They may have been fireworks. They may have been a car or motorcycle backfiring. We were to stay tuned.

The sounds were gunshots. We were to stay tuned.

The presidential cavalcade was headed for a hospital. We were to stay tuned.

Minutes elapsed. A song with lyrics, “I gotta woman, way cross town, she’s good to me,” started to play. It stopped.

President Kennedy is dead. Music resumed, “I’ve gotta woman, way cross town, she’s good to me.”

I couldn’t speak. My roommate could. “Well that’s what happens when you go up against the will of the people.” He was speaking of racial integration, of course.

What to do? I had a one o’clock class in sociology under a Dr. Grant Bogue, who became somewhat famous in the field in later years. I decided I should go. It was too lonely not to.

There was, still is, a small Catholic Church a couple of blocks from campus on Leverett. As I walked toward class, I still thought the whole thing might be some horrific mistake. Then I saw cars jammed up in front of the church and women running inside, clutching rosaries.

It was true all right.

About half the class showed up. Not many were prepared to speak. One sorority girl broke the silence by asking Dr. Grant what he thought about the claim of some numerology relationship between presidents who were assassinated and the year in which they been elected. It had something to do with leap years or some such relationship.

He pondered this bit of folk-related insight for a moment. “I doubt that it is any more ridiculous than some of the other things we’ll be hearing in the future.” Little could we have imagined his prescience.  Then, after a long silence, he dismissed class.

The following week is a blur. Next day was Saturday. The University of Arkansas was one of the few colleges in the country that didn’t cancel its game. I had no stomach for it, but I did walk over to see the protesters. One sign read, “The country prays. U of A plays.” That was probably the best one.

I had no access to television, so I failed to see Jack Ruby murder Oswald, or the funeral of the president. I saw them later on reruns, and of course many, many times since.

Later, at the home of a couple I knew, both severe and radical evangelical “Christians,” I watched young John Jr. salute the coffin of his murdered father. As I tried to stop the tears, I heard a voice boom, “I just wonder how many people have been ‘swupt’ off into Hell watching that Catholic funeral.”

It was over. I learned, for then and forever, that some things never change.

How the mighty are fallen. - 2 Samuel 1:27

            

Morning Thoughts: November 26, 2017

Had an interesting experience the other day while taking my turn at caregiving. Our ward doesn’t care much for television as a rule. She says she never “got to watch it” although we both remember her calling us on Saturday nights years ago to make sure we were watching Are You Being Served? on “Channel Two.” Woe unto us if we weren’t.

Anyway, day before yesterday, I walked in and flipped on the TV to find the marvelous film adaptation of Betty Smith’s famous A Tree Grows in Brookland had just started on the classic movie station.

Apparently, my wife had told her mother what was on, so she came in briskly and let me know that, not only was A Tree Grows In Brookland on, but that she had seen it before and remembered it. Further, she was just going to sit down and watch it again with me.

And she did. Small victories make the trials of caregiving worthwhile.

Growing Up Southern: November 25, 2017

Vacations created much excitement in our family. I can practically remember every one we took. The first was a week-end jaunt to Harrison, Arkansas.  My younger brother had not become fully toilet-trained, but was sufficiently “toilet-aware” to risk such a journey. We headed north. Lawzee. Believe it or not, none of us, save my dad, had ever seen a mountain. The ones we saw weren’t the Rockies, but we didn’t care. They were sure something.

Setting a pattern that would last for years, we joined an aunt and uncle and two cousins on the trip. I can’t remember how my uncle Raymond got us to quit singing “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain.” I think it included a threat to leave my cousin JoAnn and me on the side of the road to be picked up on the way back.

It proved a memorable trip, with both simple and majestic wonders. I remember a coin-operated radio in a place called the “Log Cabin Inn.” For two-bits, you got maybe 30 minutes of music. We listened in awe until the grownups ran out of quarters. Next day we visited an attraction long-since closed: Diamond Cave, near Jasper, Arkansas. Oh, it was magnificent! I can still recall how the guide told us how to differentiate between stalagmites and stalactites. The wonder. The wonder.

We thus initiated annual vacations. Both my dad and my Uncle ran grocery stores, so we would leave on Thursdays and return by Sunday. Once a year. That was it. They knew that such short vacations, with five kids to keep corralled didn’t offer much rest, but they both agreed that it “beat the hell out of chopping cotton.”

Believing that diversity was a strong foundation-stone of life, we alternated destinations. One year we would go to Galveston, Texas, and the next to somewhere in what is now known as the “Redneck Riviera.” There are still old songs that pop up occasionally … popular at some moment in history, that bring back an instant memory, sometimes accompanied by the smell of salt air and the screeching of sea gulls.

As I say, some aspects weren’t as pleasant for my dad as they were for us. He didn’t particularly like to drive, and he certainly didn’t enjoy long periods marked by prolonged close contact with bratty children. Further there were spots along the way, like the passage through Mobile, Alabama—including its frightening and mocking tunnel—that he knew in his heart were created by the Dark One to punish him for previous sins. Not a man to be distracted from a goal, I was always certain that he would not have detoured off our stated route a half-mile to witness The Second Coming. Thus, I never saw the Vicksburg Civil War Park until I was a grown man and could take myself there if I chose.

The women let the men have a few beers on these trips. That took “some of the swelling out” for them. They actually could get pretty funny at times, especially when they had snuck around and exceeded the quota. As for the kids, nobody needed to tell us how to have fun. Even the normally demure and taciturn women donned what I’m sure were considered sexy bathing suites at the time. Oh, it was glorious.

Time passed. The older kids dropped out. My older cousin decided he liked fast cars and girls who were attracted to them. My sister stayed home next year. She blamed it on work, but we all knew she had just settled on a new boyfriend, thus making a choice that would comfort her for over 50 years. The annual trips faded away without a formal declaration of cessation.

 I can still remember them, though, whenever I wish, and I do often, very often.

Morning Thoughts: November 24, 2017

There was this man in our extended neighborhood back home. I can’t remember his name. Folks mainly called him “Good Boy.”

They called him that because he would start every greeting with, “I’m a good boy, ain’t I?” He was of indeterminate age, maybe somewhere just short of his sixties. He wandered the county in the company of two or more dogs who had an uncanny ability to determine whether one was greeting, teasing, or threatening harm to their master. They enjoyed the first, tolerated the second, and you didn’t want to fall into the third.

It’s scarcely an exaggeration to say you could smell him coming before you actually saw him, and you might see him anywhere, at anytime of day or night. You could buy a smile and harmless chatter, along with a day’s tolerance from his dogs, with no more than a cigarette and a friendly ear.

I don’t know his full history. According to my mother, he was from one of those pioneer families of the county whom a stranger would have classified as lower-middle class but whom locals knew as possessors of significant wealth. In the land where I grew up, the highest and most honored classifier of “class” was to be secretly wealthy while giving all appearances of a modest existence. A family who, particularly if it had inherited wealth, displayed opulence of any sort were so far beneath contempt as to be socially invisible.

So, it probably was true that "Good Boy" had been eligible for an education and a comfortable life, but something went wrong. My mother explained it in the common language of the day. “When he grew up, they just couldn’t do anything with him.” That was the local euphemism for “he went crazy.”

I subscribe to theory of his being educated for one reason. The man was some sort of musical savant. I know. I’ve heard him, from having worked at the swimming pool of a local country club for four summers while attending college. It wasn’t uncommon for the subject of this post and his dogs to wander onto the club grounds to watch the excitement and chat with old acquaintances.

Sometimes, when the club guardians failed to notice him, he would ease into an empty ball room, sit with his dogs beside him, and launch the club’s grand piano into sounds of breathtaking beauty. The most educated and knowledgeable person associated with the club was a head waiter who had previously taught English at our city’s African-American high school. He would identify the day’s music as Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, or the likes from the brief snatches played ere the authorities chased the performer and his dogs away.

I’ve heard that churches in the county, particularly those with powerful church-organs, locked their doors at night to keep "Good Boy" from terrifying nearby residents with midnight serenades. I can’t swear to that, but it’s too good a story to omit.

Don’t know what ever became of him. I fled Arkansas and Orval Faubus while the man, his dogs, and his music were still wandering the county. I thought of him this morning after I located a particularly exquisite rendition of a Chopin nocturne. I do an exercise I call “The YouTube Thread Predictor.” I simply count the thread of comments related to a particularly sublime piece of music and count the entries before one appears that involves either the “F-word” or an ad hominem attack on the previous commenter. It stands at about five on some pieces now, down from about ten at the end of last year. As with the so-called “Doomsday Clock,” a further rise may signal the end of civilization as we know it.

In the meantime, I’ll try to remember that one should never presume to predict from where pure beauty—or a pure lack of class—may emerge.

Growing Up Southern: November 23, 2017

Rupert and Ronnie Austin and I thought we were some pretty fine fellows, almost grown after all. Rupert was nearly 13, I was 12, and Ronnie 11. Younger brother Larry, now Mayor of Mansfield, Arkansas wasn’t old enough to go on manly-type adventures. So the three of us set out, a small band, but as unstoppable as an entire division of well-armed troops.

The Austin boys lived near my grandmother in Cleveland County, Arkansas, in a place called the “Pleasant Ridge Community,” pleasant enough as I remember, but boasting no ridge of which I am aware. I visited there often, mostly in the summer months.

They lived about a mile and a half from what was then known as “The New Warren Road,” that connected Pine Bluff and Warren, Arkansas. The community was large enough, and the road heavily traveled enough, to boast a grand grocery store owned by a man named Barnes. It figures in this adventure.

My grandmother caused it all by telling us how her brothers had taught her how to smoke grapevines when they were kids. Of course, we had outgrown grapevines by then. Besides, if you got one that was too hollow, they tended to burn your tongue. We were practically grown men, and had that strength of purpose born of the certain knowledge Southern boys possess that anything they think of should be put into action without delay, particularly potential endeavors tinged with a slight salting of sin.

“How much do you reckon they cost?”

“A quarter I think.”

“Lucky Strike or Camels?”

“I ‘spect they’s all the same.”

“No, I meant what kind do we want?”

“Daddy smokes Camels. We could say they are for Daddy.”

“Our daddy’s dead.”

“Hell, I know that. Tell you what, Boogie Shannon told me if you looked in a certain spot, you could see a nekkid woman on a pack of Camels. In the hump, I reckon.”

“I’ve looked and I never.”

“Well, we might try again.”

“All right then. Let’s say Camels. They’s just this one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve only got a dime, and that’s my ‘picture-show’ money.”

“All right then, we won’t do it.”

“I never said that. I just meant I hate to take a chance on something I never done before and spend my picture-show money at the same time.”

“Well,” I’m fixna spend money I was saving to buy a twenty-two.”

“If we ever get a television, I’m gonna buy me one of them Winky Dink kits.”

“Shut up. That’s kid stuff. Ya’ll in or out?”

“In.”

“In.”

There’s a time in the southern summer when heat settles upon a stifled world that becomes almost oily from the weight. Adults and other sane members of society avoid direct exposure to such an indignity. Thus, unsupervised and unfettered young boys use it as the time of their greatest and most nefarious adventures. A mile and half walk down a graveled country road is but a pleasant jaunt. If the walk is ennobled with the promise of a glorious moment of sin at its termination, so much the better. Lying to a kindly old man named Barnes is simply practice for adulthood.

Walking back may lack the original luster, at times anyway.

“Were you pukin’ back ‘air?”

“No, I was, uh, spittin’ out a bug that flew in my mouth.”

“Sounded to me like you was a’pukin,”

“Do they really like to do this?”

“Who?”

“Men.”

“Hell yeah I reckon. You never seen John Wayne pukin’ from one have you?”

“Not yet. Do you like it?”

“It’s okay. I don’t think I’d walk a mile and a half ever day for one.”

“Anybody want the rest of mine?”

“No, you can have it all.”

“How many’s left in there?”

“All we started with but three.”

“What we gonna do with the rest?”

“You keep them.”

“I don’t want ‘em.”

“Maybe we can trade them to Luther Wayne Rodgers for something.”

"I don't 'spect we will. He still remembers them glasses you sold him that was supposed to let you see through a girl's dress."

“I don't know about these thangs. They must use different ones in the movies. They couldn’t be this kind.”

“Probly. Oh Christ, Ronnie, go over to the ditch to do that.”

“I think I’ll just stick to grapevines from now on. I like picture-shows a lot better.”

“Yeah. Ya’ll ‘scuse me just a minute.”

We shall leave these nearly grown men now with this thought: the road to manhood is a rocky one and one filled with surprises emanating from adventures seemingly chosen at random. Some are pleasant friends. Some are harsh teachers. All offer a gift of the pedagogical if we pay attention.

Morning Thoughts: November 22, 2017

Got word of another brother's dying last week. I didn’t know him that well.  He was a good friend of a good friend, a year younger than I. He was a strapping, handsome man as a youth. He joined up, became a Green Beret, and came home with a Bronze Star, hardly a sickly specimen.

I always wonder, when men like that die before they might have, if he might have also come home with a little Agent Orange working on them as well, slowly, cruelly, and inexorably.

The obit didn’t say. Maybe so. Maybe not. But it was one more potential cost of war that my generation still faces. I know some that do, or have.

Agent Orange was a herbicide and defoliant chemical used to clear foliage in Vietnam so our forces could bomb more efficiently whomever happened to be below. It was clear and came in orange containers, hence the name.

It proved a hard substance to contain, and some say that any U.S. serviceman who served in-country from 1961 to 1971 may have been exposed. I seem to have been one of the lucky ones, as they unloaded the poison at piers that I guarded. I have walked within spitting distance of pallets of it stacked beside rows of coffins waiting to be shipped home.

Maybe 2,000 GIs have been treated for its damage. Reports seldom mention the 4 million Vietnamese who were exposed or the 3 million that reportedly suffered from its use.

One may imagine that its manufacturers, including Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock, among others, made good profits from its use.

It seems that Americans, particularly some politicians such as my state’s junior senator, increasingly see gun use, other violence, and even war as the solution to all political, and many social, issues. It is a fairly easy sell, since I think I read this week that the VA estimates that only 7.3 percent of living Americans have served, or do serve, in the military. That includes the ones who wake up each morning of their lives fearing symptoms of an ancient and invisible enemy.

Only about 0.4 percent of us currently serve, and practically none with political influence. The profiteers and war hawks will win. Everyone else will lose, and more obituaries will feature lives that might have lasted much longer than they did.

And they say the Galilean called “The Peacemakers” blessed.

Morning Thoughts: November 21, 2007

Ran into a high school chum the other day and enjoyed a flood of memories. Gosh it got me to thinking. Yes. I said, "thinking."

Particularly, I wondered about other kids my age as we passed that difficult time known as the “pre-teen” years. It’s tempting to think about those folks, and consider what must have been occupying their thoughts as that magic age of 13, bore down upon them.

Sam Shepard, recently deceased actor and playwright who was born the same day as I, might have been visualizing how to portray life through acting.

George Harrison, the Beatle, might have been visualizing how to introduce exotic instruments into Rock and Roll.

Actor Robert De Niro was probably just listening, “hearing things.”

Jimmy Johnson, future football genius, was probably dreaming of coaching for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks someday.

Bobby Fischer, future chess master, was probably thinking of how to master the “Ruy Lopez” opening.

Keith Richardson? Who knows?

Barry Manilow? Who cares?

John Kerry? How America would treat a genuine war hero in the future.

Little Eva, pop star? How to combine dancing with singing.

Joni Mitchell? How neat it was that you could see the tops of clouds from airplanes.

Joyce Myer? How the Galilean couldn’t have possibly meant what he said about being rich.

Sharon Tate? Sadness. Only sadness.

Joe Namath? What’s the best way to get girls?

Newt Gingrich? How the Galilean couldn’t have possibly meant what he said about divorce.

Randy Newman? Who could tell? The thoughts would have been flying by too fast.

Janice Joplin? How to be more popular.

Billy Jean King? What’s a man got that I don’t have?

Arthur Ashe? What’s a white man got that I don’t have?

Bob Kerrey: Bravery.

That’s enough. It was fun, but the day beckons. Maybe some readers can think of some others.

Me? Oh. Let me think. Oh yes.

I distinctly remember wondering which Mouseketeer got to take Annette Funicello to the studio ice cream shop during a break from filming.

Morning Thoughts: November 20, 2017

It’s Monday, and not a great time for monumental thoughts. Thought maybe I would just “practice my ‘nalogies” for a while. That didn’t last long. It was like making love to a mannequin.

Mondays are like foreplay to a redneck, something that has to be endured in order to get to better times. All over America at this time, at least in the eastern half of the country, sour faces are filling rooms that rang with laughter at quitting time Friday. Comparing Mondays to Fridays is like saying that castor oil is like Stella Beer, they are both liquid and supposed to make you feel better.

Reading the news made Monday worse. Calling this “thing” coming out of Washington a “Tax Reform Bill” is like calling a hot dog eating contest a nutrition class.

After pecking away rather aimlessly, I walked around to loosen up a bit. I kicked a dog who was asleep in my pathway, not a mean-spirited act, but rather a gentle restatement of a long-standing philosophical example of the hegemonic positions of the two species. Even that didn’t make me feel better.

I considered playing the Jimmy Hendrix version, at top volume, of what we used to call in the Navy the “Star-Spangled Bananer” That brought back memories. On a Navy base, the sailors on watch had to play certain tunes at certain times of the day to accompany certain actions steeped in history, protocol, and regulations. They took it fairly seriously. Failing it any way would be like spitting on the grave of John Paul Jones himself.

The playing of the tunes was accomplished by finding a miniscule band of grooves on an old vinyl record that must have had every bit of music that the United States Navy had ever considered vital. I’m sure that “Barnacle Bill the Sailor,” was on there somewhere, as was “Roll me over …, no, that was Army. Let me just assure you that finding the appropriate band for “Taps” or “Revile” wasn’t easy for a sleepy or hungover sailor whose indifferent attitude stood out like an “Irish Pendant” on the mainmast.

The punishment, however, for a mishap was offset by the jollity of hearing “Anchors Aweigh” blasted over an entire base at some ungodly hour of the morning in place of the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” or whatever. Sometimes a sleeping Officer of the Deck would jump to attention and start singing the words to beat the band. I think maybe they did that at “The Academy.”

The examples of such loose rigging (that’s what they called them in the Navy) paled in contrast with the act of misjudging the length of the country’s flag at end of day and becoming entwined within its folds to the point of twisting and turning—while it flapped in the wind—like a super patriotic Isadora Duncan. Base commanders in particular eschewed such scenes.

There, memories of sacrifice and valor have brightened my day to the point where I can cope. At least I think I can. First, did I ever tell you about the time, as coxswain of a rescue boat during a drill at sea, I ran completely over the “rescue dummy,” causing our Departmental Bo’sun to stage a mock funeral at assembly the next morning?

"Courage at Sea" and his buddy "Valiant Shipmate"

Morning Thoughts: November 19, 2017

These two friends of mine and I enjoyed an adventure once. I won’t elaborate on all our antics. Let’s just say were young and foolish. Add some emphasis to the “foolish.”

It started in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the memorable portion of it ended in Tijuana, Mexico. Actually, before it ended up in Tijuana, it involved a side trip to a small bar in Ensenada, quite a memorable addition to our excursion.

It happened this way.

I joined the two in Jackson Hole, having ridden the bus partway there and hitchhiked partway. One friend had a car, and we set out down the West Coast, hoping to find sex, drugs, and guacamole in Mexico. We headed there after a stay at Palo Alto with some college buddies. Somewhere near Salinas (no, really) we picked up a hitchhiker who looked Mexican. He was. He had been in El Norte on a work contract and was headed home. We thought he might make a good guide. He did.

First thing we knew, he had convinced us that Tijuana was just a place filled with touristas, a fact we would never have suspected. He recommended that we motor on to Ensenada instead. That’s where he lived, and he described it in such extravagant terms that we would have faced expulsion from the Ernest Hemingway Fan Club had we refused his suggestion to extend our adventure the extra 30 miles or so.

Besides, he knew this bar. It was a real Mexican bar, not a trap for unsuspecting Gringos. We crossed the border without incident and soon found ourselves sipping Dos Equis beer and taking in the local color at this bar of renown.

It was then I noticed that there were about five or six old men, really old men, maybe in their fifties or so, scattered around the place in the darkest spots. They had two things in common. Each wore one of those “yachting hats” so common among rich tourists in coastal areas. And, each hosted, at his table, una joven señorita of such breathtaking beauty as to threaten blindness from too long a stare.

Here were ancient old men with young beauties who were totally oblivious of the three stalwart specimens sitting within winking distance. Something about this scene wasn’t fair. Somehow, life never has been.

Well, we ended up at our new friend’s house later, and met a family that was gracious, not surprised, but not especially happy, to meet us. Morning found us sitting on a curb waiting for the sun to rise and our heads to clear. An entire band, members carrying a tuba, a bass fiddle, an accordion, and several guitars, wandered by, fatigued by a night’s work, no doubt. They nodded, we nodded back, and they walked on. Evidently, not much surprises Mexicans.

Other adventures awaited us. For the time being, though, I sat in front of a house in a suburb far from home vowing to dedicate my life to amassing such riches that someday I could buy me one of them little yachting hats and find that bar again.

It’s good to form worthwhile goals for life when you are young.

On the way to Mexico: 1964

Growing Up Southern: November 18, 2017

Back in my day, boys didn’t go to “style shops” for haircuts. They went to barber shops and were trimmed by old geezers 30 years old or older. It formed a rite of passage more unyielding than the initiation ceremonies of our distant ancestors. One never forgets the barber shop of his youth and waiting for the nod that bespoke his turn in the seat.

My favorite was “Shorty’s Barber Shop.” It was next to the bus station, on Fourth Street between Walnut and Main. It, of course, served whites only.

It also sat next to the railroad tracks that ran through downtown Pine Bluff. The number of people who can remember the spectacle of a steam engine rolling into town and coming to a stop dwindles daily, but there are those of us who can remember.

It was a veritable cacophony of sounds and sights: an explosion of noise, clamor, discord, dissonance, discordance, uproar, and wild commotion as steam flew from the boiler, the bell rang, the whistle shrieked, couplings clanged, and steel wheels groaned in protest.

Imagine trying to cut a ten-year-old boy’s hair with this going on some 20 feet away.

The barbers didn’t try. They simply stopped, sighed, and waited. I can only imagine the number of tykes who left with both a glaring gap and glaring mother before that lesson was learned. One novice did ask me once whether I wanted a haircut or wanted to watch the train? Even at that early age, I couldn’t imagine a grown person asking such a stupid question.

They don’t make shops like that anymore. The spittoons disappeared ages ago, as did the shoeshine technicians. They no longer shave a man after retrieving a steaming towel from a container and coiling it around his face to soften the beard. Shops aren’t full of men in no hurry for service, more there for the fellowship than for enhancement. I doubt if there is a place around anywhere that would even permit smoking.

And there are no steam locomotives to distract, and this in an age when people need all the distractions they can get. I still have to believe there are those around who would find an arriving steam locomotive more interesting than what’s on their cell phone. Maybe not.

Of course, we hearken back to a day when a calmer world beckoned and, in many ways, life’s choices were more numerous and more alluring. Shorty, the owner of my boyhood shop, told a group assembled there one day about a man who came to him during The Great Depression, claiming to be an experienced barber. Given a chance, he proved it to be so and Shorty took him on.

Things worked well until one day a steam locomotive came into town and stopped. The new barber, in the middle of cutting a man's hair, excused himself for a moment and went out the back door, presumably to use the bathroom at the bus station next door.

The train’s exiting symphony erupted and the group assembled in the shop enjoyed the spectacle of the train’s departure.

It was only after the passage of some time that they realized the new barber had been on it.

Morning Thoughts: November 17, 2017

I’m so old that I can remember when your company only let you off on Thanksgiving Day and you had to go back to work on Friday.

We never thought it cruel or heartless. Everyone else had to do it, so they said. Consistency is a great balm.

Actually, anyone paying attention would have noticed that the rule didn’t apply to upper management. They would act as if things were normal, only they just didn’t show up on Friday. Who was going to question them?

Once my fellow sufferers and I were well assured of the yearly pattern, we just quietly went about our work as if nothing was going on. After all, we each had our specific jobs to do, and we went it about it with all the ardor, professionalism, attention to detail, and reliability for which we were known and respected. Efficiency was our trademark and loyalty our brand. Friday found us adhering to our reputation for teamwork.

Jack brought the ice and a couple of buckets.

Christie brought the tomato juice.

Ron hauled in the celery.

Steve made sure the Worcestershire Sauce arrived, along with some lime juice and pepper.

Sally brought some Elton John cassettes. Someone else had Cheech and Chong.

Pat brought plastic drinking glasses.

I picked up enough vodka to outfit a small Navy destroyer.

Bill brought the duplicate key to the Boss’s liquor cabinet in case we ran out.  

We had a rare Pentecostal with a sense of humor, a teetotaler who volunteered to play receptionist with a prepared list of attention-diverting responses such as:

“Oh hi Boss. Hope you’re having fun. We’re all fine and I’ll let them you called to check. That was so thoughtful of you. I’m sure they will appreciate it.”

“Jimmie has stepped out to the men’s room just now. Pat ran over to the Blueprint Shop. Yes. I'll be sure to remind them.”

“They are all busy trimming a large mat board right now and I think it’s best not to interrupt …. We don’t want to have a cut finger, now do we?”

“She’s on the other phone with a client just now, may be a while.”

“The noise? Oh, I think one of the guys from the ad agency upstairs stopped by to share a joke with the guys in back.”

“What? Oh? Oh no, I don’t think they minded having to work today at all.”

“You just have a great day and don’t worry about us. Pat and Jimmie will take care of things just fine. Bye.”

 As Jimmy Buffett once said, “Some things never change.”

As they used to say back in the day,
what happens at the office stays in the office.

Morning Thoughts: November 15, 2017

“So, life is tough? Read the first passage of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Imagine you can’t pronounce all the works due to a learning disability. Then imagine you and dozens of others with varying types of learning disabilities have been challenged to memorize the entire speech and recite it in front of a group of peers, teachers, and parents.

Another obstacle? You’ve never spoken to a group in public before.

The reward? A coin that says you did it.

As for me, the only disability I suffer from these days is a long-standing incapability to say no when a city wants me to visit and talk about its challenges.

So yesterday I went north to help out and to earn a bit. I went way up in north Arkansas, only a few miles from the Missouri line, and back

I reached Little Rock in time that I could catch the monthly documentary at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, a gem of a Little Rock treasure that I serve as a board member. Each month the staff shows documentaries that relate to the museum’s mission in some way. I try always to go, but last night was a challenge.

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself by then, having driven nearly six hours total. I hadn’t eaten supper. I didn’t smell that great. My butt hurt, and the knee I’ve been having trouble with was killing me. I’m not even sure as to whether or not I loved the Galilean with my accustomed vigor at that point. I felt mean, ugly, dispirited, hateful, and full of the poison of human unkindness. Picture a TV evangelist.

My beloved wife, who can usually dispel this sort of world weariness, was at our farm caring for her mother.

While I sat alone in a chair resting, a fresh bottle of Four Roses Single Barrell yelled from the cupboard. “Here I am, lover boy.” Across the room Grant, by Ron Chernow, cooed, "And I'm over here, Sweetie." The Little Rock skyline had never sparkled with more allure. Temptations were mounting. Time was passing. I needed to make a decision.

So, naturally, I walked across the street to MacArthur Park, into the museum, and up a long, long flight of stairs. Have I ever mentioned that I’m not a young man?

At last aloft in the viewing room, I settled in with some free beer and popcorn. I chatted with a good friend who came in with his wife. Things began to look up.

Then the film started. It was The Address, a film by Ken Burns. It chronicles how each year, the young men who attend the tiny Greenwood school in Putney Vermont, are encouraged to memorize, practice and recite The Gettysburg Address. The boys, aged 11 to 17, suffer from a variety of learning disabilities.

Just imagine.

I won’t give away the ending. Let’s just say that a roomful of eyes enjoyed discreet dabbings as the house lights came back on, and guess what?

My knee didn’t hurt at all walking back.

Growing Up Southern: November 13, 2017

My Sainted Mother did have one disagreeable trait. At least it was to me. She was a strong believer in discipline, and punishment, a truly concomitant pairing if there ever was one, much dreaded by young boys in the rural South.

I resented it bigly, this requirement that all Southern boys labor under: that you have to “mind Mama” no matter what, and that sure and certain punishment follows failure to do so. I think it damaged my ability to concentrate. Something did. My wife, in typical “woman supports woman” mode, says that it’s the reason I’m not sleeping under a bridge today. Take your pick.

Whippings were the thing. Mother’s were without guile, nor were they fit for sociological study. It was transgression, apprehension, (often occurring with the aid of and older sister), trial, and immediate execution of sentence. There was no analysis, no appeal, no footnotes, and no dissenting opinions.

Punishment was even worse when Mother was the administrator. She even made you acquire your own tool of torture.

The place where we lived had an abundance of persimmon trees, known for their supple and indestructible limbs. Mother was nothing, if not prescient, so ofttimes she would make “pre-transgression” preparations if the upcoming event portended the appropriate level of exuberance.

“Go over yonder and cut me a switch,” she would say. “And it had better be a good one.”

Displaying a deficiency that has plagued me for a lifetime, i.e. the inability to connect dots of logic and understand the simplest elements of “cause and effect,” I invariably returned with a small, supple affair, believing in my heart that small size equated with less pain.

It was exactly what the hell she wanted. A diminutive woman, she favored the thin, limber models of her objets de torture. It’s this way, see. She had a musical bent, or at least a rhythmic propensity. The wiry, limber switch allowed her to add a verbal contrapuntal element to her beatings. I can still hear her, in my PTSD induced nightmares.

“I’m, (swish … whap) not (swish … whap) going (swish … whap) to (swish … whap) tell (swish … whap) you (swish … whap) again … ,” for as long as it took, some hour or so it seemed, fully to describe my transgressions and their repercussions. In the meantime, I would be voicing my earnest assurances that the beating thus far was fully sufficient to avert any repetition of the offense. “I’ll (swish … whap) tell (swish … whap) you (swish … whap) what’s (swish … whap) enough (swish … whap).”

Later, as I sulked and made mental plans to run away and live alone in the forest like a South Arkansas Tarzan, I would promise myself, that when I became a famous composer, following careers as a policeman and railroad engineer, that I would write a masterpiece using the “state-swish-whap” cadence as the musical motif for a work to be entitled “The Crazed Mama Sonata.”

I haven’t yet, and plans fade with each passing year.

Yesterday, I talked about the predilection for hyperbole among us Southerners. I no doubt demonstrated it today. We do believe that falsehood should be used for embellishing stories and not for self-aggrandizement. But, truth be known, Mable Josephine Harris von Tungeln was a sweet lady and beloved by family and friends alike. I worshiped the ground she walked on while she was on Earth.

It just didn’t pay to piss her off. That’s all.

The Harris sisters in the bloom of youth.
My métier de la justice is on the left.
Yeah. She looks harmless enough.

Growing Up Southern: November 12, 2017

There’s a body of water near where I grew up that is of some local interest. It’s Bayou Bartholomew, the longest one in the world. They say it is, anyway. It runs from Pine Bluff, Arkansas all the way to South Louisiana. It’s the meat of legend and song.

I say “runs” with a fair degree of hyperbole, for bayous don’t really run. They merely slug along, catching and preserving whatever flows into them, much like the South itself. But anyway, what’s a Southerner without hyperbole? We feasted on the concept long before it reached the Borough of Queens, in New York. It matches the tendency of our minds to take sharp turns.

Our hyperbole, though, tends to favor the harmless variety. For example, our mosquitoes are so big that they can stand flat-footed and [have sex with] a turkey, or keep a person awake at night as they crack “hikker-nuts” (Hickory nuts) with their beaks. We have snakes that are so mean that one can kill a tree by coiling around it and stinging it with its tail. We had a banker once who was so crooked that it took three grave plots to bury him. And I personally knew a man whose cousin’s postman told him of a fallen woman so attracted to “group sessions,” that she had to buy thank-you notes by the case.

So what if we would, as William Faulkner observed, cut down a 100-year old oak tree to get at a squirrel’s nest? It would be like Joseph and Mary clearing a spot in the manger for the little Galilean baby, wouldn’t it? Well maybe not, but what’s a little exaggeration among friends? Can’t hurt anyone, can it?

What if we are tending more and more toward electing our politicians for their entertainment value rather than potential benefit to humankind? It allows us to say, “Did you hear the one about the one senator that was so mean the other senators started noticing it?” What about funerals? Would one of the Northern Tribesmen, when asked to say something grand about the deceased, ever stand and say, “Well, I always heard his brother was worse?” The South, after all, originated what the late columnist Richard Allin called the act of “filibustering the deceased into Heaven.”

Are there people anywhere other than the American South that are so “hard-featured” that their face would “make a freight train take a dirt road?” It might even be a face that closely resembled a “mule’s ass sewed up with a logging chain.” Such people thrive here, bigly.

But back to Bayou Bartholomew. It was once what they dumped raw sewage into, but they stopped that back in the 1950s, I think it was. We might expect them to start the practice again. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The tornado of 1947 generally followed the course of Bayou Bartholomew as it ravaged a huge area south of the city of Pine Bluff. There were, if I remember correctly, 32 people killed as a result of the damage. Six young men shooting craps of a Sunday afternoon died in the storm. This happened in an abandoned house less than two city blocks distance from our little country grocery store. To the East of us, an entire family died when their house was lifted, turned upside down, and deposited into Bayou Imbeau, a black-water body near Bayou Bartholomew.

The houses on both sides of our house and store were totally destroyed. The store was undamaged. My father gave away its entire inventory to survivors, asked no money, and went bankrupt. The local newspaper suggested erecting a monument to him. They never did. The small town of Lonsdale, Arkansas did send him a check for $45.00.

In 1957, the bayou flooded. I could watch it from our front porch rise a couple of feet above the highway. They built a major “big box” development at that location a few years ago. When it floods, if there is a functioning government then, we’ll all pay for the recovery. Such is life.

I guess one lesson is that the function of a responsible government, including disaster relief, is not a matter for humor, hyperbole, or political aggrandizement. The best we can hope for is to ooze along like a bayou, hope for the best, love our fellow humans, and be thankful when we aren’t targeted for destruction in the meantime. Peace.

There's not a huge demand for "Bayou-side Mansions,"
but it is possessed of a certain charm.

Veterans Day Thoughts: November 11, 2017

I’ve known my share of veterans in my day, probably more than most people, I’d bet. I’ve never personally known a homeless one. I’m certainly not suggesting there aren’t any but, on this Veterans Day, I do pause to wonder.

It seems I can’t turn around without being confronted with the horrible claims that great hordes of “homeless vets” are filling our overpasses, alleys, and transit camps. At the same time, I wrack my brain and consider the brothers and sisters from my generation’s nasty little war. Almost without exception, they returned from military service and assumed a fruitful life as craftsmen, technicians, teachers, police officers, firefighters, physicians, attorneys, and, yes, even a few I’ve known enjoyed careers as urban planners.

I’ve known fewer veterans from other wars, but the ones I have known followed the same trajectory.

There was one person I’ve known who could be classified as a mentally disturbed vet. Less than two days spent in investigation, however, satisfied me that he was mentally disturbed long before he took our oath. And, sad to say, I’ve known a handful that gamed the system.

I find myself hoping then, that if the claimed numbers of purely homeless vets do exist, they will soon be recipients of the care we owe them. I repeat, soon. To heck with budget cuts.

On the other hand, if there are people who stand to benefit from careless documentation and lying eyes, I hope for the Christian concept of some very warm corners of Hell reserved for them. And, sometimes I do wonder.

One advocate did admit to me once that, within her substantial army of homeless vets, there were some individuals who simply “assumed the persona.” Evidently her organization also “assumed the claims,” for when I asked her if they bothered to demand a DD214 before “validating the persona,” she replied, with a blank stare, “What is a DD214?”

My response is omitted due to the fact that I try to keep this a family-oriented blog. Let’s just reveal, for the untutored, that the DD Form 214, “Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty,” generally referred to as a "DD 214", is a document of the United States Department of Defense, issued upon a military service member's retirement, separation, or discharge from active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States.

It is, therefore, I would argue, something that should be required to produce proof that some imposter is not insulting the memory of any veteran who has ever donned the uniform of a United States military person.

There are many people in our country who would violate what should be a sacred contract between our country and its vets. Unfortunately, too many of the transgressors tend to wave The Flag or The Bible, or both, in one’s face as they go about their mendacity. None are more sickening, in my opinion, that those who would steal, or abet the stealing of, honor from “the few, the happy few.”

So, on this Veterans Day, my friends, be vigilant, very vigilant. That bedraggled man in the worn field jacket standing on the corner begging money and claiming to be a vet is, with almost perfect certainty, not one. On the other hand, that business person walking by, in all likelihood may be. If he or she is from the Baby Boomer generation, the odds will rise even higher.

Remember that respect and understanding will outweigh hollow “thanks” all year long, not just today.

The man seated in middle came home from WWII
wearing a Purple Heart and the coveted
Combat Infantry Badge. He then led an exemplary
life and produced a world class daughter.
I have documentation of this.

Morning Thoughts: November 10, 2017

It’s funny how my mind works, or doesn’t as some would say. Far from a linear process, it more closely resembles a blackbird’s, that is to say that a current interest is easily abandoned when some other shiny object flies by.

Thus, it was almost by accident that, while searching for peace of mind early one morning, I came across a recording of Vladimir Horowitz playing Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. I haven’t fully re-established contact with terra firma yet.

I can’t find the exact date at which this marvelous musician began to play and study the piano. Biographers simply say that his mother started him at “an early age.” It must have been very early as, at the age of 16, he performed the Rachmaninoff work upon graduating from the Kiev Conservatory.

Flash back with me to a segment on NPR in which a top tier musician commented during an interview that they are starting children as early as age three on a musical education. This steered me to a road trip a friend and I took a while back through the Arkansas Delta. He is highly educated and studied something akin to urban economics as an undergraduate.

We talked briefly about the economic concept of “location quotient” which is a way of quantifying how concentrated a particular industry, cluster, occupation, or demographic group is in a region as compared to the nation.

Hmm. Did you just see those blackbirds flying off?

What occupation might rate a high location quotient in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta? “Music?” you say. Why I suppose that’s so. Think of Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, B.B. King, Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and many others.

Then, another shiny thought flew by. How many musical prodigies may be scattered through this largely forgotten part of our country waiting for a parent, friend, or teacher, to start them on the road to music? Is there a Horowitz, or a Scott Joplin, waiting behind one of those closed doors, waiting for someone to offer the key to greatness? Perhaps there is a Rachmaninoff. A Beethoven? There must be.

If you believe as I do, in the immortal words of Plato that “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything,” you must be distressed as I was at that moment. Distressed? Why? It’s only that some of the richest and most powerful people in America are bent not on ennobling, but on dismantling our public school system and replacing it with some ill-defined market-based affair.

And what will the new system teach the very most capable of those young minds waiting for nurture and guidance? One can only wonder, but …

You can bet your sweet ass it won’t be music.

Morning Thoughts: November 9, 2017

I’ve served Arkansas municipalities in one form or another since January 1971. I know a few juicy tidbits, enough to make a book titillating. On second thought, there wouldn’t be enough to create scandals worthy of the media’s attention. Anyway, I wouldn’t do it. I have too much love and respect for those I’ve worked with.

No, to make a living, a good living from my experiences working for municipal governments, by receiving nurture from their kindness and understanding, I couldn’t turn on them. If Wiley Coyote never turned on the Acme Corporation, I certainly couldn’t turn on the cities that kept me employed and made me a small and semi-famous fish in an even smaller pond.

I might, on the other hand, create some interest by discussing some of my more boneheaded moves, gaffs, mistakes, and shortcomings. After all, I did once participate in the design of a main street mall. And I did once agree to do a downtown revival plan for a city after I helped it get a bypass built. That’s like a surgeon being hired to repair an operation he or she botched.

But, some doozies and some caveats.

The frequency and hilarity of my many failures to include the necessary letter “L” in the word public are legion. It once disrupted a committee meeting for ten minutes.

Once, faced with an impossible solution to 18-wheelrers blasting through the middle of a college campus on a state highway, and faced with fatigue and exasperation, I said, “Hell, just narrow the street, they’ll slow down.” We put it in the plan, and, to my horror, I later found the city had done it. I rushed to assess the damage, and found it was working, sort of, after the truckers had knocked down a few light posts in protest. They tired of it after a while and life went on, albeit more slowly.

Have you ever written a letter to a mayor and mistook the name of the city? No, I haven’t either. That’s the one thing they won’t forgive a consultant for. I have gotten the name of the mayor wrong. It’s pretty bad when you refer to them by a political opponent’s name.

I did drive my boss’s Mercedes convertible to a city once. Once. The rule is: you can come to town in a $50,000 pickup, but lord help the fool that shows up in a 10-year old Mercedes bought at a distress sale. Appearances are appearances, after all.

Oh, and don’t mark the mayor’s home as “substandard non-reparable” on a housing conditions map.

Don’t bring a young wife with you to a planning commission meeting and have her sitting at the back of the room looking straight at you when a speaker at a zoning hearing starts explaining how she can converse with fairies and angels and they warned her that the city shouldn’t approve this zoning request.

Leave on time to get there, and find out beforehand where City Hall is. They move it sometimes.

Never, ever, ever, badmouth another university, even one from Texas. It’s a guarantee that the Mayor is a graduate.

So that’s how I would divulge secrets. And I didn’t share the worst transgressions. They can wait.