A Blast From The Past
Last week, we got a G-mail from Marty Jourard in Kendrick, Washington, whom we haven’t seen in forty years. He somehow tracked us down to get an interview for his upcoming book on Gainesville Rock History. When we first met Marty, he was kind of a chubby wise-ass kid who, for some reason, liked to hang out at the Subterranean Circus and glean knowledge from his elders. We tried to shoo him off, but he kept coming back. Sometimes, he brought doughnuts. You know how we feel about doughnuts.
“He’s a little jerk, sometimes,” said Dick North, “but he’s pretty smart for a little kid.” So Marty got to hang around. Later, he and his brother, Jeff, joined a band called The Motels and lived the dream for awhile. We lost track of Marty after that and haven’t heard from him since. His book project is ambitious and will require a lot of time and legwork, but if there’s one thing we know about Marty it’s that he’s persistent. We’ll keep you posted on the book.
The Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie-Woogie Flu
When we last left our old friend, Stuart Bentler, he had (finally) been diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism and sent on the road to recovery. Not so fast, my friend. After a few days of feeling better, Stuart reverted to misery. He was weak. He couldn’t keep food down. He had violent diarrhea. His chewin’ gum lost its flavor on the bedpost overnight. It got so bad, he called us up and asked if it was okay to have his ashes spread in Siobhan’s garden. Gee. Maybe you should at least try the Mayo Clinic first, Stuart. We’ve got enough dying friends already.
Couple days later, Stuart called back. They weren’t sure, but they thought he had Amyloidosis. We knew this must be bad because we have heard Dr. House talk about it on his television show and he never talks about anything but rare and exotic diseases which could kill you. We found out that amyloidosis is a disease that occurs when substances called amyloid proteins build up in your organs. Amyloid is an abnormal protein usually produced by cells in your bone marrow that can be deposited in any tissue or organ. Amyloidosis can affect different organs in different people, and there are many types of amyloid. Amyloidosis frequently affects the heart, kidneys, liver, spleen and gastrointestinal tract (that’s about everything, right?). Amyloidosis is rare and the exact cause is often unknown. Symptoms include swelling of the ankles or legs, general weakness, significant weight loss, shortness of breath, numbness or tingling in your hands or feet, diarrhea or constipation, feeling full quickly, severe fatigue, irregular heartbeat, difficulty swallowing, protein in the urine and a partridge in a prune tree.
We don’t have a definite prognosis yet and we’re not sure how Stuart’s doctors will manage the disease if and when their suspicions are confirmed. Apparently, there is no real cure. In the meantime, if you happen to notice some old geezer stumbling past your house, breathing hard in soiled pants, do not be so hasty to go out and poke him with a stick. It could be our friend Stuart.
Don’t Blame Us, We Voted For The Other Guys
From a column by Carl Hiaasen in the Miami Herald:
I once referred to a past Florida Legislature as a festival of whores, which, in retrospect, was a vile insult to the world’s oldest profession.
Today’s lackluster assemblage in Tallahassee is possibly the worst in modern times, and cannot be fairly compared to anything except a rodeo of phonies and pimps. It’s impossible to remember a governor and lawmakers who were more virulently anti-consumer, and more slavishly submissive to big business.
The list of who’s getting screwed in the state budget battle is long and sadly familiar: the schools, college students, foster children, the poor, the elderly, the sick and the jobless. The happiest faces, of course, belong to lobbyists for corporations, insurance companies and utilities, who are getting almost everything they want.
It’s astounding that so many voters were suckered into thinking that this new generation of Republicans was going to fight for the common man instead of the fat cats and their special interests.
Hey, Carl—next time tell us how you really feel.
And from a column by Howard Troxler in the St. Petersburg Times:
In 1995, the operator of a Pasco County dance studio was sentenced to prison after scamming more than $1 million from lonely, confused elderly customers. When he got out….he simply went to a new dance studio. This led to an investigation by the St. Petersburg Times in 2002. Some of the cases:
In 18 days’ time, a 74-year-old widow was talked into writing checks totaling $247,295 for dance lessons, competitions and trips.
A 67-year-old Clearwater woman spent $88,000 over eight months for lesson packages, trips and competitions.
An 85-year-old widow signed up for $29,000 worth of lessons.
An 81-year-old spent $271,000 over a few months.
Investigators found 30 customers who had been talked into signing 328 separate, deliberately confusing contracts worth $3.5 million.
A studio operator defended all this by saying customers had voluntarily made an “adult decision.”
As for any complaints, he said: “Maybe some of the students went on these trips and didn’t get laid.”
He got 30 years in prison.
Why am I dredging up this ancient history? Because dance studios are one of the 20 professions about to be deregulated entirely by the Florida Legislature.
Thanks for the warning, Carl. We’re actually quite happy that many of the imbeciles who elected this crew of misfits will suffer the punishment. Unfortunately, the rest of us will, too.
The Tea Party Eats Possum Guts
Maureen Dowd, in her New York Times column, tells us: “This pulls the mask back a little bit on the Tea Party movement,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland. “Adding riders against Planned Parenthood and gutting the environmental laws indicate that the Tea Party is focused on imposing a right-wing agenda on the country and using the budget as a vehicle.”
Thanks, Maureen. Did any sane person ever believe this collection of selfish loons would restrict their demands to financial overhaul? Just another Trojan Horse. And that brings us to this:
Long Live The King!
It’s obvious that Democracy is no longer a viable alternative in this country. The voters are too stupid to consistently elect leaders who can accomplish the great projects necessary to save the planet, restore social justice and move us successfully into the new century. Meanwhile, China—a true dictatorship, not a real Communist country—is moving ahead with great energy on several fronts, determined to leave us in their rear-view mirror. If the guys running the show in China want to do something, they just do it—while all our plans get mired in the legislative morass of Washington, where it’s every lobby for itself.
Many people are ready to throw up their hands in despair, but not me. There is an obvious solution to this vexing problem and I’ll tell you what it is. We need a king. And not like the kind of kings they have in Denmark or England or Northumberland, either. We need a king with power. A king who can say to the know-nothings in Kansas—Hey, Dipwads! Evolution is a goddam FACT! Get with the program or it’s the dungeon for you! Or maybe, Sarah—if I hear one more hateful morsel out of your Alaskan-redneck mouth, I’m putting you on a Bridge to Nowhere!
A king like that. If nobody else wants the job, I volunteer. You know where to reach me.
Foaling Season
It’s that time of year again—foaling season, as can be attested to by anybody driving around Ocala and noticing all the thoroughbred babies gamboling in the fields. This goes on through May, with a slight trickle continuing into June. All over the county (and all over Kentucky to an even greater degree), farm help is up nights watching bad television and prowling the foaling barns, waiting for signs of imminent birth. The old timers cut down on their nightwatching by waiting for the mare’s milk to whiten or wax to form on the teats, an indication that a birth is less than 48 hours away. But mares, especially some mares, are notorious for foaling unexpectedly, so you can’t take much for granted, especially when the gestation period approaches 325 days and the mares’ bags begin to fill.
In an earlier column, I mentioned a mare optimistically named Stakes Producer, who didn’t want anyone around while she foaled. She tricked me two years in a row, indicating nothing was amiss and lulling me into a false sense of security. As soon as I went off to get something else done—even if her window of opportunity was limited to 15 minutes—she’d sneak the foal in. The third year, I was not to be so easily duped. One night, Stakes Producer looked close to foaling and I suspected she was just waiting for an opportunity, so I loaded the back of my tractor with buckets of grain at the usual feeding time and drove off the down the road to the pastures. Then, I parked, left the engine on (as I usually did) and furtively made my way back to the barn, where—voila!—Stakes Producer had started to foal. When she saw me, she was extremely pissed, but had reached the point of no return. Stakes Producer—2; Bill—1.
Problems
The reason we stay up with the mares is to help if there is a problem or to make it easier on the mare by getting the foal out more expeditiously. The great majority of the time, foaling will proceed without incident, whether any humans are there or not. Many farm people believe in leaving them alone unless there is a crisis, but we’d just as soon help a little with the birth to spare the mare the extra effort. Problems arise mostly when the foal is premature, weak, too large, or improperly positioned. In the latter case, the best alternative is to try to keep the foal inside the mare until it self-adjusts or can be rotated to the correct position.
Maiden mares (having their first foal) often present problems. They are more likely than the average mare to present a premature foal or to have difficulty ejecting the baby. Of all foaling problems, getting a large baby out of the mare is probably the most common. The usual procedure is to get as much lubrication as possible around the baby and alternate manpower pulling on the front legs. Many people, even experienced hands, want to pull straight back but I realized after a few foalings that you also have to pull down a little. Time is of the essence. You like to get the baby out within 20 minutes of the mare’s water breaking, but this is sometimes not possible and it is important not to panic. Occasionally, the mare will be thrashing dangerously and unrelentingly and may have to be medically tranquilized to allow the farm hands an opportunity to assist in the birth without having their heads, or other useful parts, taken off.
One mare tranquilizing incident stands out. It occurred at the tiny farm of an older lady named Ruth Reid, one of Siobhan’s more interesting clients from years past. Ruth had run away from an unhappy family life to join the circus at an early age. She thought just anybody could run away and join the circus. “Well, what can you actually do?” asked the man in charge of circus employment. I mean there’s not many grade-school runaways who can swing from a trapeze, walk a high wire or tame a lion. “Can you ride a horse?” he asked, hopefully. “Sure,” said Ruth, lying, a falsehood she paid for time and again while she was bounced from pillar to post as she learned to ride a horse. Nonetheless, once this was accomplished, Ruth earned a gypsy life with the circus and established a lifetime bond with the horse.
Eventually, she moved to Anthony, which, if you didn’t know it, is a little town just north of Ocala on the east side of Rte. 441. There, she set up shop with her little horse operation and earned a reputation as a sort of Ma Barker, as all of her sons wound up in prison at one time or another. One of them, Robbie, made the colossal blunder of robbing his own neighborhood bank in which he and Ruth had accounts.
“I’ll take all your cash!” demanded the bankrobber.
“Why, Robbie Reid,” scolded the teller, “whatever are you doing?”
Another one bites the dust.
Anyway, after a very hard day, Siobhan was summoned by Ruth Reed at 3 a.m. one morning. Her best mare was having difficulty foaling. I went along for the ride. And to help pull. When we got there, Ruth was in hysterics. They couldn’t get the foal out, and neither could we, at first. Siobhan decided to tranquilize the mare to give us a better opportunity, and, eventually, it worked, the foal was born. But it was an extremely weak foal and Ruth was weeping and moaning in the background as we hovered around ascertaining the probabilities. Everybody was weary and exhausted, including Siobhan, but after a couple of minutes she turned to me with a wry smile.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” she asked. “If I did, I’d fix it,” I told her.
With that, she went over to the mare and clamped the line which was delivering the tranquilizer to the mare and, eventually, the baby, keeping him in his puny state. Shortly thereafter, rid of his onerous encumbrance, the baby jumped up to the acclaim of all, especially Ruth, who told Siobhan she was the greatest veterinarian known to man.
“Right,” said Siobhan, amused by her foible. “I’m sure we can get that baby to agree with you.”
Puck Arrives
All the past experiences, happy and morbid, better prepare you for the duties at hand. And so, on April 1st at 4 a.m. Siobhan was ready to assist Dot with any difficulties occurring during the upcoming delivery of her foal by Hear No Evil. Happily, no problems presented and a bright, strong chestnut colt with a large swath of white on his face showed up in the early hours of a warm morning. We named him Puck, it being April Fools Day and all. Puck never missed a beat, rising to nurse quickly, abstaining from the usual enema, following his mother like a good foal should. Puck has no idea what awaits him. His only job now is to run giant circles around his mom or speed lickety-split across the field and suddenly stop, wondering where she went. A year from now, he’ll be on his own, he and his as-yet-unborn pal out of Wanda, due around April 15. Around the end of next year, it will be time to go into training, the better to be ready to race in June of his 2-year-old season. So, have fun while you can, Puck. Run as far as you want as fast as you can, for, even now, adolescence is not that far away.
That’s all, folks….
