….before we were so rudely interrupted. Oh, that’s right—we were reviewing the past year, an annum in which we experienced much and even retrieved a few people. Like Chuck Lemasters, who even paid a visit after 35 years. And Lee Shaw, 40 years gone but still manning the kiln and making a rare personal appearance at the pre-Christmas art show at the Thomas Hotel in Gainesville. Not forgetting Marcia Hansen, lost for 35 but tracking down The Flying Pie with her considerable detective skills and corresponding. We give ourselves credit for unearthing our old tenant, Dan Iannarelli, now a mortgage broker in Atlanta. Don’t let anybody tell you that an early career running a drive-in beer mart doesn’t ready you for bigger things in life. And now Marty Jourard is threatening to show up in Gainesville for a week of mayhem and overindulgence, so make sure you lock up all the farm animals. We’re ready for a lively 2013 but before we can plow ahead we must finish our retrospective, beginning where we left off, at the beginning of May.
Enter The Triple Crown
May is the best time of the year for horse people. On the First Saturday, comes the Kentucky Derby, followed two weeks later by the Preakness at Pimlico in Baltimore. The Derby was won by longshot I’ll Have Another, who was named for his owner’s jones for cookies. He never met a cookie he didn’t like. The horse came back to repeat in the Preakness, leading horse enthusiasts everywhere to go ga-ga over the possibility of another Triple Crown winner after all these years. Those hopes came crashing down just before the Belmont Stakes when I’ll Have Another was retired from racing with a dreaded tendon injury. No more cookies for you, J. Paul Reddam. The race was eventually won by Union Rags, who needed every inch of the mile-and-a-half to catch Paynter.
Our own horses, Cosmic Crown and Cosmic Flight, were both winners in 2012. If they paid a little more for seconds, however, we’d be rich as Scrooge McDuck. The former was second half-a-dozen times or so before being claimed. The latter broke his maiden, finished second in his next start and never made it back to the races, suffering a slab fracture (knee) just last week and shipping over to the retirement home in Ocala. The two Great Chestnut Hopes for this year are training famously out at Eisaman Equine and will ship to the track March 1 or thereabouts. They both look promising if we can keep the injuries at bay.
Austin, We Have A Problem….
And even if we didn’t, those guys on the Ghetto Line would find one. Fontaine Maverick hooked us up with the Ghetto Line last May and we’ve been checking in two or three times a week ever since. We’ve explained to you—once again last week—that the Ghetto Line is a collection of old sixties Austinites engaged in a non-stop internet conversation, which seemed, at first, like jolly fun. In recent days, I’ve been sending some of you certain select pieces submitted by the subscribers to give you a feel for the thing, which seems like an enterprise which could be recreated in other settings, though with a broader subscriber base and perhaps a spiffier sense of humor. Too much death and destruction from Austin. I tried to inject a little levity but nobody wants to hear it so now I mind my own business. Fontaine swears that most of these people have great senses of humor so I guess you have to be there. It helps to actually know the people rather than try to merely interpret them via the internet. Nonetheless, a great idea and one available to be duplicated by anyone willing to make the effort.
Germany Invades!
In late June, we hosted—and I rush to advise you this was not MY idea but that of mein fraulein, Siobhan, who swears she will never do it again—Hessian student Kristina Maier. And this was fine, at first. We took Kristina to swim with the dolphins, which, I must admit, was somewhat more charming than I had anticipated. And we went to Cape Canaveral, to which I had never been. But, as time went by, Kristina seemed to imagine herself a little more entitled. Culminating in a few pouty shopping trips (“There is nothing here for me!”—this in the entire gigantic Mall at Millenia, where there is, without doubt, something for absolutely everybody)—and a catastrophic meltdown at the Weirsdale Orange Blossom Opry, which, we’ll freely admit, might not be for your average international audience. Apparently, there is no German translation for stuff like, “Aw-haw, Sani-Flush!” though we’re not entirely sure why. Anyway, Kristina collapsed in pain and anguish at this esteemed venue and had to be fed weinerschnitzel for hours following the performance to bring her back to consciousness. If we DO have any more foreign guests, we’re going to get them from third-world countries like Ulan Bator, where people are more grateful.
No Longer Rapunzel
July was the month when Siobhan, after lo, these many years, had her life-long hair tresses shorn. She says she lost five pounds, but this is certainly a gross exaggeration. Almost simultaneously, Jennie Hollis adopted her beloved chicken, Higgs. After a promising couple of weeks, Higgs showed disturbing signs of….well….criminal inclinations, culminating in his own self-kidnapping and outrageous ransom demands. Higgs was quickly descended upon by federal authorities and is currently residing in inauspicious surroundings. He swears no prison can hold him so we have probably not heard the end of Higgs, who may yet fly the coop.
Montana On My Mind
In August, we travelled out to Glacier National Park in the northwest corner of Montana. This trip was probably the highlight of 2012 for us, although Siobhan will probably argue for her burgeoning Pathogenes business. The weather was great, the park was exceptionally beautiful and nobody lost Siobhan’s luggage, a first. If you just have a couple of days to spend, take a shuttle ride—or navigate yourself—up and down the spectacular Going To The Sun Road—which has few rivals in the United States for raw scenic beauty. If you like deviant bikers, hole up for a few days at the Thronson Motor Hotel in tiny Babb, not far from the Canadian border. And bring along those antibiotics for a quick spin out to the Wild Horse Hot Springs near Polson. We stayed in Kalispell and it was fine but we might opt for Whitefish if we went again.
Return To Zombieland
At the end of August, we got a visit from Siobhan’s brother, Stuart and his wife, Mary. These guys are enamoured of flea markets so the least we could do is visit one with them. While we were there, Siobhan decided that this was the place zombies went in the daytime. She made her apologies and went home. While we were there, however, we realized they had great prices on all sizes of little plastic baggies, the better to insert your EPM drugs into, so occasionally we have to go back. Last time we were there, Siobhan noticed a character who sold birds, parrots, parakeets and the like. When Jennie Hollis’ little parakeet, Bizzie, died unexpectedly in recent days (and how bad a bird year is Jennie having, what with Higgs’ imprisonment and now this?) Siobhan remembered the avian merchant and suggested that she and Jenny check out the inventory. When they got there, however, there was a great hue and cry surrounding the bird booth. Seems one of the birdmen had been engaging in some sort of extravagant Faro game or the like and had bilked some unhappy Mexican customers out of their milk money. The police were summoned and acrimony resounded throughout the tents. In the midst of it all came our heroes. “Can we just buy a bird, for crying out loud?” Siobhan asked the cop. “Okay, but be quick about it,” he instructed. “We’re clearing out the place before the bullets start flying.” You know, as much as we don’t care for the place, this almost NEVER happens at Wal Mart.
Anatomical Notes
In October, we parsed the decade of the sixties and moved on through the early seventies after a radio program discussing same with Court Lewis on American Variety radio. It seems like so long ago and it seems like just yesterday when we had these great adventures, blessed in those days with bodies which would withstand the abuse. No matter how smashed we got on which products, tomorrow was another day, recovery was swift. Tried that lately? Everybody’s heard the old senior citizen jokes about old folks equating sex with a good bowel movement and as hilariously sad as that may be, one fogey reminded me that other day that “You have to consider the frequency of sex vis-à-vis bowel movements.” He may have a point there.
I’ve made it through another year with nothing more damaging than a little face gouging by the dermatologists. Those basal cell carcinomas don’t know when to quit. Tomorrow it’s off to the gastroenterologists. They want to run a tube into my stomach to try to determine why some mornings I wake up feeling like I had yak for dinner. These doctors’ appointments never end for us oldsters, but I guess that’s okay as long as they don’t come back and say, “Mr. Killeen, it looks like we have a real problem here.” That’s the one all of us fear and none of us are really ready for. In the meantime, in between times, ain’t we got fun?
That’s all, folks. But just for today….
Enter The Triple Crown
May is the best time of the year for horse people. On the First Saturday, comes the Kentucky Derby, followed two weeks later by the Preakness at Pimlico in Baltimore. The Derby was won by longshot I’ll Have Another, who was named for his owner’s jones for cookies. He never met a cookie he didn’t like. The horse came back to repeat in the Preakness, leading horse enthusiasts everywhere to go ga-ga over the possibility of another Triple Crown winner after all these years. Those hopes came crashing down just before the Belmont Stakes when I’ll Have Another was retired from racing with a dreaded tendon injury. No more cookies for you, J. Paul Reddam. The race was eventually won by Union Rags, who needed every inch of the mile-and-a-half to catch Paynter.
Our own horses, Cosmic Crown and Cosmic Flight, were both winners in 2012. If they paid a little more for seconds, however, we’d be rich as Scrooge McDuck. The former was second half-a-dozen times or so before being claimed. The latter broke his maiden, finished second in his next start and never made it back to the races, suffering a slab fracture (knee) just last week and shipping over to the retirement home in Ocala. The two Great Chestnut Hopes for this year are training famously out at Eisaman Equine and will ship to the track March 1 or thereabouts. They both look promising if we can keep the injuries at bay.
Austin, We Have A Problem….
And even if we didn’t, those guys on the Ghetto Line would find one. Fontaine Maverick hooked us up with the Ghetto Line last May and we’ve been checking in two or three times a week ever since. We’ve explained to you—once again last week—that the Ghetto Line is a collection of old sixties Austinites engaged in a non-stop internet conversation, which seemed, at first, like jolly fun. In recent days, I’ve been sending some of you certain select pieces submitted by the subscribers to give you a feel for the thing, which seems like an enterprise which could be recreated in other settings, though with a broader subscriber base and perhaps a spiffier sense of humor. Too much death and destruction from Austin. I tried to inject a little levity but nobody wants to hear it so now I mind my own business. Fontaine swears that most of these people have great senses of humor so I guess you have to be there. It helps to actually know the people rather than try to merely interpret them via the internet. Nonetheless, a great idea and one available to be duplicated by anyone willing to make the effort.
Germany Invades!
In late June, we hosted—and I rush to advise you this was not MY idea but that of mein fraulein, Siobhan, who swears she will never do it again—Hessian student Kristina Maier. And this was fine, at first. We took Kristina to swim with the dolphins, which, I must admit, was somewhat more charming than I had anticipated. And we went to Cape Canaveral, to which I had never been. But, as time went by, Kristina seemed to imagine herself a little more entitled. Culminating in a few pouty shopping trips (“There is nothing here for me!”—this in the entire gigantic Mall at Millenia, where there is, without doubt, something for absolutely everybody)—and a catastrophic meltdown at the Weirsdale Orange Blossom Opry, which, we’ll freely admit, might not be for your average international audience. Apparently, there is no German translation for stuff like, “Aw-haw, Sani-Flush!” though we’re not entirely sure why. Anyway, Kristina collapsed in pain and anguish at this esteemed venue and had to be fed weinerschnitzel for hours following the performance to bring her back to consciousness. If we DO have any more foreign guests, we’re going to get them from third-world countries like Ulan Bator, where people are more grateful.
No Longer Rapunzel
July was the month when Siobhan, after lo, these many years, had her life-long hair tresses shorn. She says she lost five pounds, but this is certainly a gross exaggeration. Almost simultaneously, Jennie Hollis adopted her beloved chicken, Higgs. After a promising couple of weeks, Higgs showed disturbing signs of….well….criminal inclinations, culminating in his own self-kidnapping and outrageous ransom demands. Higgs was quickly descended upon by federal authorities and is currently residing in inauspicious surroundings. He swears no prison can hold him so we have probably not heard the end of Higgs, who may yet fly the coop.
Montana On My Mind
In August, we travelled out to Glacier National Park in the northwest corner of Montana. This trip was probably the highlight of 2012 for us, although Siobhan will probably argue for her burgeoning Pathogenes business. The weather was great, the park was exceptionally beautiful and nobody lost Siobhan’s luggage, a first. If you just have a couple of days to spend, take a shuttle ride—or navigate yourself—up and down the spectacular Going To The Sun Road—which has few rivals in the United States for raw scenic beauty. If you like deviant bikers, hole up for a few days at the Thronson Motor Hotel in tiny Babb, not far from the Canadian border. And bring along those antibiotics for a quick spin out to the Wild Horse Hot Springs near Polson. We stayed in Kalispell and it was fine but we might opt for Whitefish if we went again.
Return To Zombieland
At the end of August, we got a visit from Siobhan’s brother, Stuart and his wife, Mary. These guys are enamoured of flea markets so the least we could do is visit one with them. While we were there, Siobhan decided that this was the place zombies went in the daytime. She made her apologies and went home. While we were there, however, we realized they had great prices on all sizes of little plastic baggies, the better to insert your EPM drugs into, so occasionally we have to go back. Last time we were there, Siobhan noticed a character who sold birds, parrots, parakeets and the like. When Jennie Hollis’ little parakeet, Bizzie, died unexpectedly in recent days (and how bad a bird year is Jennie having, what with Higgs’ imprisonment and now this?) Siobhan remembered the avian merchant and suggested that she and Jenny check out the inventory. When they got there, however, there was a great hue and cry surrounding the bird booth. Seems one of the birdmen had been engaging in some sort of extravagant Faro game or the like and had bilked some unhappy Mexican customers out of their milk money. The police were summoned and acrimony resounded throughout the tents. In the midst of it all came our heroes. “Can we just buy a bird, for crying out loud?” Siobhan asked the cop. “Okay, but be quick about it,” he instructed. “We’re clearing out the place before the bullets start flying.” You know, as much as we don’t care for the place, this almost NEVER happens at Wal Mart.
Anatomical Notes
In October, we parsed the decade of the sixties and moved on through the early seventies after a radio program discussing same with Court Lewis on American Variety radio. It seems like so long ago and it seems like just yesterday when we had these great adventures, blessed in those days with bodies which would withstand the abuse. No matter how smashed we got on which products, tomorrow was another day, recovery was swift. Tried that lately? Everybody’s heard the old senior citizen jokes about old folks equating sex with a good bowel movement and as hilariously sad as that may be, one fogey reminded me that other day that “You have to consider the frequency of sex vis-à-vis bowel movements.” He may have a point there.
I’ve made it through another year with nothing more damaging than a little face gouging by the dermatologists. Those basal cell carcinomas don’t know when to quit. Tomorrow it’s off to the gastroenterologists. They want to run a tube into my stomach to try to determine why some mornings I wake up feeling like I had yak for dinner. These doctors’ appointments never end for us oldsters, but I guess that’s okay as long as they don’t come back and say, “Mr. Killeen, it looks like we have a real problem here.” That’s the one all of us fear and none of us are really ready for. In the meantime, in between times, ain’t we got fun?
That’s all, folks. But just for today….
