Things to Do at the DMV

by Pa Rock
Arizona Tour Guide

Tim, Erin, and Baby Olive arrived in Phoenix late yesterday afternoon - just in time for the rush hour commute across the Valley of Hell.  We had a nice dinner out, and then got up very early this morning and headed north.  Our first stop was in the beautiful tourist town of Sedona.  We walked the streets and had a nice lunch there.  We had then planned to get rooms in Flagstaff for the night and go on to the Grand  Canyon in the morning - but we were getting around so well that we decided to go on and do the Grand Canyon this afternoon instead.  The weather was cool and the Canyon was beautiful - as it always is.

Something nice happened as we were entering the park.  The standard fee is $25 for a carload - per visit.  The lady asked if we had any active duty military in the car or anyone over the age of sixty-two.  I raised my hand to the last item, and she issued me a lifetime pass to the National Park System for just ten dollars.  It covered everyone in the car and will cover the hangers-on during any future visits to a national park.  That was a great deal.  Of course, prior to George Bush launching his Forever War, admission to many of the parks was free.

So, to all of my old fart friends, the next time you visit a national park, admit your age and get the lifetime pass.  BTW, you will be carded to substantiate your advanced years.  George Washington didn't raise any fools!

Just after entering the park we came upon several cars stopped in the middle of the road.  They were looking at a herd of elk scattered among the pines.  The first one we saw must have been the boss elk, because he had a set of antlers that were at least three-feet tall!   Years ago our family spent a day driving through Yellowstone Park, and all we saw then were a few scraggly old mule deer.

As we were walking along the south rim of the Canyon, a group of three young adults, two women and a man, walked up behind me.  They were talking about unusual places to have sex.  One of the girls mentioned having sex in line at the DMV.  I couldn't tell whether she was relating a real-life adventure, offering a dare, or just fantasizing, but regardless, it struck me as a really creative use of time.

Sorry about getting back late from lunch, boss.  I was stuck in line at the DMV.

But I digress.

And now we are on the road to Phoenix, one never traveled by Hope, Crosby, and Lamour.

My First Dictionary

by Pa Rock
Wordsmith

When I was in elementary school, probably fourth grade, the teacher came up with one of those activities designed to keep certain kids busy when they had finished their work.  In this particular activity she presented the students with a fairly long word, and the person who could come up with the most words that used only letters from her word would win a prize.   Memory fades as the high tides of youth slowly recede into the sea of eternity, and I can no longer remember which teacher created this busy work, or what the word was – but I do remember that the prize was a chocolate turtle and that I won it.

I had never had a chocolate turtle before.

There weren’t many books in our house, but as it became apparent to my parents that their oldest was becoming an avid reader, they began to take a bit more interest in enhancing learning opportunities at home.  One day, not long after I won the chocolate turtle and had worn my parents out by asking them to give me long words that I could use for this word game, my mother came home with a brand new Webster’s dictionary.  I was immediately captivated by that wonderful book and spent many happy hours looking up new words and learning their meanings. 

The longest word that I found in my Webster’s dcitionary was spondylotherapeutics, a twenty-letter gem that referred to something in the medical field – though what exactly I cannot remember.  My cousin, a wonderful girl who lived far, far away in a land called Hickman Mills, told me that the longest word in the English language was antidisestablishmentarianism, a twenty-eight-letter gem, but her word was not in my humble Webster’s.  In fact, I recently saw a statement on the Internet that said her word has never been in any edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionaries because it is no longer thought to be used in the common parlance.  The definition of antidisestablishmentarianism is:  “Properly, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England."

The unabridged Webster’s Third New International Dictionary now lists pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a hefty 45-letter masterwork as the longest word in the English language.  That big word means:  “A lung disease caused by inhaling very fine irritant particles.”  The complete definition is only seven letters longer than the word it explains. 

Needless to say, Bill Gates and Microsoft do not recognize any of those big words.

I’m sad to report that spondylotherapeutics is no longer in most dictionaries, including the aforementioned Webster’s Third New International.  That is their loss, because it is a great word, one of my all-time favorites.

 I also regret that I let that old Webster’s dictionary of my youth get away at the auction that our family held after my father passed away.  It was old, and brittle, and turning yellow, but, then again, so am I.  It was also a dear friend.

The Road Back from Surgery

by Pa Rock
Recuperator

Six months ago today I underwent one of the scariest moments of my life:  open-heart surgery, just a few short weeks after I made an off-hand remark to one of my medical providers about getting winded on the treadmill.  That good man, Dr. Chet Monder, decided that a referral to a cardiologist was in order. 

Tim, my youngest son, came out and chauffeured me to and from the test that determined there was a serious problem with my old ticker.  The results came in while I was still lying on the exam table – arteries clogged to the extent that a triple-bypass would be necessary.

 Days later I found myself being pushed down an unfamiliar hallway on a gurney and watching as my sister and daughter walked away.  My last conscious thought as I was being wheeled into the operating room was that very likely might be the last time I would see either of them, or anyone else for that matter.

My first thought as I came to in my hospital room several hours later (although it literally seemed to be just seconds) was that I had survived after all.   My second thought was about the need to get that damned hose out of my throat and to shed some of the wires and monitors.  (I had expected all along that the hours immediately following the surgery would be the worst – and they were.)

I was in the ICU, and my sister, Gail, and daughter, Molly, were dutifully sitting by my bedside as I regained entry into the world of the living.  I spent two days in the ICU and two more days (including my 65^th birthday) in a private room.  By the time I was finally dismissed, on the 24^th of March, Gail and Molly had both returned to their homes, and my oldest son, Nick, was on duty.  He drove me home and spent most of the next week helping me get set up to manage my own recovery.  Gail replaced Nick and stayed two weeks, and then Molly came out for another week.

All in all, I was very well taken care.  I have some visiting nurses and a physical therapist, and someone was always available to drive me to doctor’s appointments.

I purchased some living room furniture, a needless luxury, prior to surgery because I did not want to appear poor or needy to all of the people who would be visiting during my recovery.  It turned out to be a very smart investment because I couldn’t get out of either of the beds in my house, and I was able to pull myself upright on the couch – so it became my bed for a few weeks.

I resumed driving and returned to work just four weeks after the surgery.  All of my doctors were pleased at the speed of my recovery.

Now, six months later, I feel great, no longer get winded on treadmills or anywhere else, sleep in my old iron bed, and eat plain oatmeal for breakfast instead of Sausage and Egg McMuffins.  My scar is slowly disappearing – to the point that I can now go and sit in the hot tub at the gym and not feel self-conscious.  I am twenty pounds lighter and my attitude has improved to the point where I almost tolerable.

The only thing keeping my attitude from fully recovering is the regularity with which medical bills keep appearing in my mail box.   I have insurance and had just signed up for Medicare Part A (the portion that pays hospital expenses) just prior to the surgery.  My insurance company paid out thousands of dollars, but the hungry doctors and their mega-staffs keep demanding more and more.  Medicare decided that the surgery must have occurred in a provider’s office and never paid out a nickel.  But I keep writing those checks and giving out my credit card number over the telephone because I am a good American.  

God bless Obamacare.  Anything has got to be better than what we have now.

And God bless Congress.  May they defund themselves and collect future salaries in food stamps and school lunches.

See, I am recovering!

Some Thoughts on Randy Wayne Leach

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Possibly as many as six bodies were found today when divers on a training exercise discovered two rusted-out vehicles at the bottom of Foss Lake in Foss, Oklahoma.   The cars are thought to have been in the deep and murky lake since 1969 and 1970.  It is unclear whether the cars entered the water all of those years ago due to foul play or misadventure.  One of the vehicles was found about fifty feet from the end of a boat ramp.

Relatives of persons thought to have been in at least one of the vehicles are breathing a sigh of relief as they anticipate closure of a family mystery that began nearly half a century ago.

All of that has set me thinking about Randy Wayne Leach, the 18-year-old high school senior who left his parents’ home in Linwood, Kansas, on the evening of April 15^th, 1988, to attend a "pre-graduation" party at a friend’s house – and never returned.  His parents, Harold and Alberta Leach, would also dearly love to have some closure.

My youngest son, Tim, and I met Harold and Alberta in 2006 when he was writing a play about Randy’s disappearance.  That play, Leaves of Words, subsequently was performed for three packed houses at the University of Kansas.

Randy disappeared from the poorly supervised party sometime after midnight.  He was, by many accounts, in bad shape either from too much alcohol or possibly drugs.    He was driving his mother’s car that fateful evening, and that vehicle has never been found.

There were numerous places in the vicinity of the party where a vehicle could have left the road and plunged into dark water.  The Kansas River runs close by, and a couple of lakes are within a short drive.  Several large farm ponds are also in the vicinity.

Randy Leach is almost certainly dead, and quite possibly resting underwater somewhere in northeastern Kansas.   There were lots of theories about what happened to the nice looking young man with the infectious smile, but, until his remains are found, what happened to him must remain conjecture.

Harold and Alberta Leach deserve to know what became of their son, and Randy deserves the opportunity to rest in peace.  It has been over a quarter of a century since he left home for the party.  If someone has knowledge of the fate of Randy Wayne Leach, it is time to step forward.

(More information regarding this mystery is available on this blog in the entry dated April 16^th, 2008.)

Just Another Day in America

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

It was February of 1973, a little more than forty years ago, when my wife at the time and I spent a week in Tokyo and Hiroshima, Japan.  She was pregnant, and we were both from rural backgrounds, yet neither of us thought anything about roaming the streets of Tokyo in the evenings.  Tokyo at that time was a bigger city than New York City.  We felt perfectly safe because crime was almost non-existent in Japan – something that the Big Apple definitely could not claim.  Police were rare in Tokyo, and the ones who were out patrolling the streets did not carry guns.  It was a different world than the one we had left behind in America.

Today Japan is still relatively crime free, at least when compared to the United States, and guns are still a rarity in Japan.  The focus there is on family honor and personal responsibility.  The focus here is on amassing insane amounts of weaponry for “self-protection” – often described in a paranoid manner as protection from government.

Since returning from my second stint in Japan in the summer of 2012, barely a year ago, there have been thirteen mass shootings in our country.  Within a week of my return, James Holmes opened fire in a crowded movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado, killing twelve and wounding fifty-eight.  James Holmes stood on the stage in front of the movie screen and sprayed the audience relentlessly with automatic weapon fire.

Two weeks later, on the fifth day of August, a white supremacist opened fire in a Sikh Mosque in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and managed to kill six people before taking his own life.  Nine days after that a shooter killed three individuals including a police officer at Texas A&M University.

In September of 2012, there was a workplace shooting in Minneapolis in which five people were killed and three wounded before the shooter killed himself.   Less than a month after that, there was a domestic incident at a spa in Wisconsin in which the shooter killed three including his wife.  He then turned his gun on himself.

There was shooting at a shopping mall in Portland, Oregon, on December 11^th, 2012, where a man shot two strangers and then killed himself.  That occurred during the Christmas shopping season.

On December 14^th, 2012, one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the United States occurred when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother while she was sleeping, and then took her guns to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where he killed twenty young children and six school personnel in cold blood before taking his own life.  His monstrous crime brought angry calls for restrictions on gun ownership and the ready availability of automatic weapons with large clips, but the public furor soon dissipated.

A gunman in Herkimer County, New York, killed four individuals and wounded two before killing himself on March 13^th, 2013.    On April 21^st, a shooter in Federal Way, Washington, killed his girlfriend and three neighbors before police shot and killed him.  Three days later a shooter in Manchester, Illinois, killed five people in a public housing complex before being killed by police.

There was a family shooting that spread beyond the family in Santa Monica, California, on June 7^th, 2013.  Six people died in that tragedy including the shooter.  On July 6^th a man in Hialeah, Florida, killed six of his neighbors before setting fire to his apartment house.  He was shot and killed by the police.

And then yesterday thirteen people, including the shooter, were shot and killed at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, a government facility thought to be relatively safe.    The NRA will bray on about Constitutional rights, the need to own guns for self-protection, and boys will be boys – but when all is said and done, yesterday was just another day in America.

The fact that we, as a nation, continue to tolerate this lunacy defies belief.  With every gun that makes its way into society, we become a little less free.  We are being held hostage to the delusions of the truly paranoid – and it’s well past time for the madness to end!

There is much we can learn from Japan and the rest of the world.

Monday's Poetry: "Fall, Leaves, Fall"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

The Phoenix Valley is a land of two temperatures:  warm and hot - and a land of one basic color:  brown.  Seasons are subtle here with warm slipping quietly into hot and then, six or eight months later, slipping back into warm again.   Major dust storms are more common in Phoenix than rain showers.  There is no frost, or snow, and certainly very little in the way of seasonal change.

And oh how I miss those seasons!

Next Sunday is the official start of fall, an event of colorful import in other places.   In recognition of that annual tilting of the Earth's axis and attendant change of seasons, I have selected the following poem by Emily Bronte to mark the occasion.   Her poem reminds us that winter, another wonderful season, will soon follow on the heels of fall - just not in Phoenix.

This time next year I shall be sitting under a maple tree waiting for the leaves to change color and drift down upon my head.


Fall, Leaves, Fall
by Emily Jane Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

McCain's Good Idea

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

John Sidney McCain, Arizona's 77-year-old senior United States Senator, implied this week that he may retire when his current term ends in January of 2017.  McCain, who is currently serving his fifth term in the Senate, will have served thirty years when this term ends.  I applaud his decision to even talk about retirement - and hope that he follows through.

John McCain has had his moments as a senator.  He was still in his first year in the Senate when he got caught up in the Keating Five scandal, an event that could have easily capsized his political canoe.  But Arizonans, being Arizonans, didn't let a national political scandal influence their votes.   McCain went on to buck his Republican Party on enough occasions that he was able to begin self-promoting himself as a "maverick."

In my estimation, the high point of John McCain's political career was in 2000 when he challenged George W. Bush for the Republican Presidential nomination.  McCain came across as a principled outsider who was chewed up politically by the Bush dirty tricks machine and sleazy campaign that rivaled anything from the Nixon era.

If McCain had maintained the integrity that he showed during the 2000 primary campaign, he might be President today.  Instead he decided that it would be smart politics to tack right.  He wound up becoming a robotic ideologue in the same mold as Bush and Cheney.  McCain burned his maverick credentials in 2006 when he traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia, to kiss the ring of fundamentalist huckster Jerry Falwell.  Then in 2008, when he was finally successful in gaining the Presidential nomination, one of his first acts as nominee-apparent was to name Sarah Palin as his running mate.  For a man who desired to be known for his foreign relations heft, that decision was dumbfounding.

For the past several years since he lost the presidential election of 2008 to Barack Obama, John McCain has made himself a nuisance regular fixture on the Sunday morning talk shows, a national forum where he is able to criticize the President almost nonstop.  It appears as though McCain can't comprehend that he lost that election back in 2008.

But all of that aside, thirty years is a full career - a total of eight years longer than he served in the military.  There comes a time to hang it up, and for the 77-year-old senator from the Scorpion State, that time has almost arrived.

Pack it in, John - and start spending Sundays with your family.

Edgar Allan Poe Spends an Evening at Luke AFB

by Pa Rock
Theatre Fan

Last night I had the pleasure of watching the latest production of our local little theatre company, The Luke Experience.  The show, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe, featured readings and dramatizations of six of Poe's works, two poems and four stories.

Unfortunately, I have become spoiled by the professionalism of this theatre group, and was disappointed to find that last night, for the first time since I have been attending their shows, there was no printed program.  That omission left me with an incomplete knowledge of the names of the players, and I even missed the director's name.

The program was very entertaining and brought back memories of things I had read in high school and college.  All of the actors knew their lines and presented them in a dramatic and believable manner.  The sets were clever and did much to enhance the six presentations.

Two of the actors whom I recognized from numerous past appearances with the troupe proved to be standout performers.  Chris Ceroni owned the house with his performance as the narrator in The Telltale Heart, and Ron Fantasia was great in his portrayal as the man plagued by a bird as he recited and performed The Raven.

When it comes to classic American horror, my tastes run to Lovecraft - but if Poe is the only dish on the menu, it is served up nicely by The Luke Experience.

Good job, guys!

Hate Group Attacks Betty Crocker

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Tony Perkins, president of a Christian hate group called the Family Research Council, has recently been railing against domestic icon Betty Crocker because the sweet old babe in pearls has offered free wedding cakes to some gay and lesbian newlyweds in Minnesota.   The fictional baking queen's parent company, General Mills (headquartered in Minnesota) has declared that "Betty celebrates all families . . . We don't want to be old-fashioned."

The Family Research Council was declared to be a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010.

Perkins is apparently encouraging his radio listeners to support a "dump General Mills" boycott sponsored by another right-wing extremist organization, the National Organization for Marriage.

Memo to Tony Perkins:  The war against gay marriage is rapidly drawing to a close - and your side lost.   Maybe you should move on to greener pastures - like denying health care to the poor by repealing Obamacare.  Oh, wait.  You lost that one, too!

Something tells me that if Jesus walked into a gay wedding, he would perform the ceremony and supply the wine.   Jesus was not about hate, no matter how much some people would like to believe otherwise.

Eat more cake!

Please Pass the Evidence

by Pa Rock
History Snoop

While doing some research on a dark era of American history called "Prohibition," I came across an amusing anecdote and thought it worth sharing.

According to a New York Times article on January 7th, 1928, a jury had been empaneled in Los Angeles to hear a bootlegging case.  That case soon evolved into a second one after the jurors were charged with drinking the evidence in the original case.  According to those fine citizens serving on the jury, they had been doing their job by sampling the evidence in order to determine whether it contained alcohol or not.  The careful jurors eventually determined that the evidence did indeed contain alcohol, but by the time they reached that decision, all of the booze had been consumed - leaving the defendant to be acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

Jury duty has never paid well, but it's comforting to know that occasionally it comes with a benefit package!