Funeral for a Bastard

“My friends, we come together today to bid farewell to Bob, who I think we can all agree lived a long, long life. In fact, I thought this day might not come at all. It would not have surprised me in the least if the old bastard outlived every single one of us.

“Now, I can hear you gasp, out there in the audience. But let’s be honest - Bob was a bastard. He was...and I can see that more than a few of you are nodding your heads in agreement. I think we do him a disservice if we don’t talk about Bob the way he really was.

“Joe, you grew up with Bob, which means you knew him the longest. No, don’t get up...the ushers stashed your walker back in the back. I remember Joe telling the story of how, when he and Bob were six years old, they accidentally broke a neighbor’s window while they were playing baseball. Bob ran and hid, and Joe, you took the rap for it and had to pay for the window.

“Friends, that is just one early example. Bob did a lot worse over the years. Right, Mary Jo? Don’t worry, I won’t tell that story, because I’m sure you never told your husband.

“I met Bob twenty-five years ago, when I interviewed for a position at his firm. He gave me the creeps at first, but I had no viable alternative, so I took the job. Old Bob, maybe he sensed that I was naive, or maybe he thought I was stupid. I don’t think it really matters either way, though I’ve thought about that a lot over the years - especially during my unfortunate incarceration. There is a fine line between protege and fall guy....

“We’ve all heard the stories of Bob’s generosity, but we also know the stories of his cruelty, his selfishness. Those stories didn’t make the papers, but there’s no question that they were true. Anybody here from the Kiwanis Club? You guys know what I’m talking about.

“In the end, I think we all bear responsibility for Bob’s bastard-hood. After all, we were witnesses to his behavior...but we were mute witnesses. Maybe we were afraid of Bob. Maybe we thought our silence would be rewarded. I don’t know. What I do know is, Bob is dead, and I, for one, am not sad about that. I’m sad I never stood up to him, and I’m sad none of you did either.

“Now, let’s go bury Bob. Then, drinks are on me.”

###

Postscript: This was another exercise in Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog.

A Good Soaking

It was raining. For the first time in months, dark clouds rolled in and expelled fat raindrops, the kind that drench anyone standing outside in the time it takes to say, “Uh oh, where’s my umbrella.”

The heat wave, and drought, had sucked the life out of everything in town. No one, nothing, was immune from it. People walked quickly, heads down, tolerating the hellish summer only as long as it took to get from one cool place to another. Despair seemed to radiate from every surface.

All around me on the sidewalk, people stood, smiling in the deluge. Prayer worked.

###

Postscript: This was another exercise in Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog.

The Eerie Arrow

Back in my newspaper days I was always on the lookout for good subjects for photographs. As a reporter, I had a beat to cover (city hall), and there was always plenty of small town news to write. But good photos, or front-page "art" as we called it, could be hard to find (which is one reason why so many pictures of my cats made it into the paper).

I experimented with night-time photography occasionally, which was hard because other than my old Minolta, a tripod and some high-speed film, I had no special equipment.

One night as I hung out with some friends at a local tavern I heard a story that I thought might make an interesting picture. By this time I had learned to take with a grain of salt these "local legend" stories, many of them conceived by drunken teenagers years before and handed down to successive generations of drunken teenagers as fact.

Seems there was a "Devil Worshipers' Road" somewhere in central Canadian County, Oklahoma. And on this road, a monument had been erected at the scene of the devil worshipers' atrocities. Something like that.

But unlike many of these local legends, one of my friends claimed to have seen it himself, and he offered to take me there.

Good deal, I said. Let me go home and get my camera first.

We drove around for more than an hour on dusty, unpaved backroads halfway between El Reno and Yukon, looking for this thing. Evidently, the County Commissioners hadn't gotten around to erecting a "Devil Worshipers' Road" street sign.

I was ready to give up and go home, sometime after 1 a.m., when we spotted a glow on the horizon ahead. That's it, the driver shouted. As the car slowed we moved past a clump of trees, and a field revealed itself on the right side of the road.

The field was the size of two football fields laid side-by-side, bounded by the road (and a barbed wire fence) on one side and trees on the other three. In the center of the field stood an enormous arrow, pointing straight up. An old street light, mounted on a nearby utility pole, bathed the scene in a soft glow. 

I have to admit, it creeped me out a little bit.

We climbed through the fence and quietly crept around the arrow. Once we were standing in the field, we could see a gravel driveway leading to a house at the opposite end of the field. The arrow had a metal framework that was covered by fiberglass sheets. Four guy wires held the arrow in place.

Whatever this thing was, it lacked context. Had the owner built it and erected it here? What was its purpose? There was no evidence of "devil worship" around it - no dead goats, no pentagrams. But it was weird as hell.

I set up my tripod, screwed a cable-release into the camera's shutter button, and tried a series of shots with different f stops and apertures. We left for home without being detected, or sacrificed.

When I developed the film and printed a few of the shots, my editor was not impressed. Did I have the owner's name? No. Did I have an address? No. Did I have the story behind the arrow? Well, no. 

I tried to drive back there the next week, and could not find it in the light (and sobriety) of day. So I forgot about the pictures.

Years later, I found out that the arrow had once stood atop the Space Needle tower at the State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City. Some guy bought it when they replaced it with a newer one, and he took the arrow home and set it up in his yard.

This is the first time this photo has appeared anywhere. If you click on it and look at it full sized, the creepiness factor increases. Besides the dust particles and scratches on the print, you can see a weird light effect in the upper left corner that I like to tell  people is a UFO.

###

Rebirth of a Salesman

Pierce nodded as the telephone voice droned on and on in his right ear. It didn’t occur to him that the woman on the line could not see him nodding, and, in truth, it didn’t matter anyway. She hadn’t taken a breath for what seemed like an hour. By nodding, he knew that it would appear as if he was paying attention to the caller.

He was not. Today was the last day of Pierce’s career as a telephone salesman. Telemarketer was the term the firm preferred, he knew, but there was a powerful, negative association with the word in the minds of most decent people. He was a salesman, and it just so happened that his medium was the telephone.

Pierce could not remember when he began hating his job. It had been a gradual erosion of satisfaction, but the ruts in his psyche now were very deep. For the past month, he hadn’t made any sales, and increasingly his time was spent silently nodding as the people he had auto-dialed rambled on about...well, who knew?  

It was time, he decided, for a little dose of reality.

As he walked through the door for the last time, Pierce smiled. There was an entire world out there, and no call waiting.

###

Postscript: What the hell was that? Excellent question. The text above is an attempt at Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog.

Remembering My Dad on His Birthday

 My dad was a shutterbug. He loved cameras, he loved film, and he loved taking pictures of family activities - holidays, birthdays, vacations.

He took some great photos, and our family is very lucky that he was so diligent in recording so many great memories. But, as with any shutterbug, Dad was hardly ever in any of the photos himself.

Except at Christmas.

Every year, without fail, Dad got out his tripod, screwed on the Minolta and flash, and directed us to stand in front of the fireplace for the annual Family Photo. This was usually on Christmas Day afternoon, after we'd had a big dinner. For many years, there were grandparents there, sitting on the couch, watching the photo shoot.

It seemed, to my young mind, like taking this photo lasted for hours. We never got it in one "take." And it was tricky, because Dad would set the timer on his camera, press the shutter, then run over and get in position. It must have been funny to watch.

We always took multiple shots, because in those pre-digital days, you didn't know what you had until the pictures (or slides, in our case) came back from the Foto-Mat.

At one point we began including the family pets in the photo, which got more challenging as a cat, and then a hamster, joined the family dog. In the photo above, you can see that Tiger the cat is keeping a sharp eye on my sister Lisa's hamster (Freddy?). Sandy, the dog, had too much hair to be able to see either the cat or the hamster.

I'm glad Dad took these pictures, and I'm glad my Mom has begun scanning all the old 35mm slides my Dad took back then.

Happy Birthday, Dad. We miss you.

Postscript: My dad would have been 69 today; he died in 2006. Here are two previous remembrances:

• Remembering My Dad (2010)
• Happy Birthday Dad. Wish You Were Here (2009)

A Day in the Country!

The Adventures of Schuyler Colfax: Vice President!
Based on recently discovered diaries penned by the 17th Vice President of the United States (1869-1873). Said diaries were discovered in a storage closet at the Odd Fellows Hall in South Bend, Indiana.


Our story so far (Part 1)...

April 28, 1870: A Day in the Country!

Schuyler Colfax tilted his head back, carefully, so as to not skew his hat atop his head, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply of the warmish spring air. The vice president's carriage was drawn by two magnificent horses, their brown coats glistening as they trotted steadily down the rutted country road. Jenkins, Colfax's aide-de-camp, held the reins.

"Sir, I must again protest," Jenkins began, his voice unsteady as he bounced in the seat next to his employer.  "Amos is a much better driver than I -"

"Balderdash!" Colfax shouted. "You're doing fine, Jenkins. While Amos is most accomplished at the rein, we have matters to discuss that need not trouble his unsophisticated ears. Now, keep your eyes on the road, my boy, and deliver us into the country!"

As Jenkins dutifully complied, Colfax again breathed deeply of the untainted air of the Virginia countryside. He smiled widely. We spend so much time in the District, contemplating the business of the Union, Colfax thought, that we fall victim to that realm's natural swampiness and staleness.

"It is only here, and, of course, in my native Indiana, that I can truly clear my head and think, Jenkins," Colfax sighed. There was much to think about.

The news that President Grant fell victim to the demons of liquor took a backseat to the news that Schuyler Colfax, Vice President of the United States, had been denied invitation to the old general's birthday celebration.

"What am I to make of this, Jenkins? Has the President lost faith in me, heaven forbid? How can one so close to the ministrations of governance, such as myself, still be so far from the issuance of that power?

"Am I not an able solon? Have I not served well as Speaker? Indeed, I can boast of a powerful friendship with martyred Lincoln himself! And yet Grant would seem to deny my very existence? What am I to think, Jenkins?"

Jenkins cast a quick sideways glance at the vice president. Prudence required that he keep his own counsel. Besides, Colfax was speaking again.

"Did I not invite Grant to the most recent celebration of my own birth?" He turned in his seat to face Jenkins. "Did I not?"

Jenkins could keep silent no longer.

"You did, sir. But President Grant sent his regrets -"

"That's not the point, confound it! Jenkins, I have made every effort to reach out to the man...to be a part of his team...and this is the payment I am to receive? Oh, it is bitter indeed, Jenkins!" Colfax shook his head slowly and began wringing his hands. Jenkins, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, wisely kept his eyes focused on the road ahead.

The pair rode in silence for a long time. Colfax rode much of the way with his eyes closed, seemingly deep in thought. Jenkins brooded silently beside him, the tightness of his grip on the reins threatening to send cramps cascading down his forearms.

"I stood for him and ensured his acceptance in the Lodge, for mercy's sake!"

"I know, sir. I know."

The pair rode on, as the sun ascended the morning sky. Jenkins noticed that the terrain had flattened, and more trees lined the road. As the vice president wished, they were truly in the country now.

"Jenkins! Stop! Stop immediately!" The aide nearly jumped out of his seat; the silence had lulled Jenkins, and, he had been almost certain, Colfax had been asleep. Clearly, that was not the case. Jenkins pulled on the reins and yelled "Whoa!" at the horses, who grudgingly slowed to a halt. Colfax barely waited for the carriage to stop before he jumped to the ground.

The vice president walked quickly along the road, one hand holding onto his hat. He retraced the carriage's route for 50 yards before stopping.

"Jenkins! Come this instant!"

Colfax removed his hat and bent down to study an object lying by the side of the road.  As Jenkins approached warily, he could see that the vice president had found a leather satchel.

"Did that fall from our carriage, sir?" Jenkins did not recall the vice president carrying any baggage when their impromptu journey began. Colfax shook his head slowly.

"No, Jenkins. This did not issue from our carriage," Colfax said. He reached down, picked up the satchel by its leather strap, and ran his fingers over the bag. Brown leather...supple...cow hide, clearly. His suspicion mounting, he turned over the satchel to view the opposite side.

"Great blessings, Jenkins! I knew it!" He turned to his assistant and held the satchel so that the brand of the United States Post Office was clearly visible.

“A postman’s satchel? I don’t understand, sir,” Jenkins said.

“Aye, lad, ‘tis the sacred vessel of one of our nation’s finest - a postman! And it is heavily laden with correspondence,” Colfax said, hefting the satchel with both hands. A troubled look crossed the vice president’s brow.

“Surely a postman would not part with his civic burden, though Death himself may block his route,” Colfax said. “Foul play has made its mark on this scene, I am sure of it.”

Jenkins thought for a moment and turned on his heel to survey the treeline alongside the road. He spied nothing amiss.

“Sir, perhaps the postman left the satchel in order to lighten his load...perhaps to venture into the forest for a brief respite.”

Colfax turned his gaze upon his young aide. A look of compassionate pity came over his bearded face.

“Jenkins, my boy, I will excuse your foul utterance in deference to your relative youth and naivete,” Colfax began. “As a man of the world, and as the former chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, I consider myself something of an expert in matters such as these.

“A postman would no sooner cut off his own arm than would he abandon his dutiful burden. A postman takes an oath, Jenkins!” Colfax paused, looked back at the road they had already trod, then ahead.

“This is most definitely NOT a Postal Road. By my recollection, the nearest settlement with a post office is Fort Buffalo, which lies on the road ahead. Come, Jenkins. We shall continue on to Fort Buffalo, in search of answers.”

Jenkins reached for the satchel. “Allow me, sir, to carry this back to the carriage for you.”

Colfax recoiled as if Jenkins were a serpent.

“Heaven forbid! A civilian may NOT handle the U.S. Mail, Jenkins,” Colfax shouted. “No. This satchel shall not leave my side until its rightful carrier is found, or I’ll take it to the Postmaster General himself!”

Next week: The Plot Thickens!

Pig vs. Pig: The Standoff

It's no secret that I liked taking pictures of animals back in my newspaper days (see here and here, for starters). For one thing, they never called to complain if you spelled their names wrong in the captions....

The call came in on the police scanner next to my desk in the newsroom of the El Reno Daily Tribune: a large pig was loose on Foreman Road. I don't remember if they called it a 10-54. That would be livestock on the highway; this was more residential.

I grabbed my camera, got in my car and raced to the scene (this is the very definition of a "slow news day"). Foreman Road was on the north side of town, kind of on the edge, but dotted with small houses.

And, suddenly, there was the porcine assailant:

My city-boy analysis told me that it was, indeed, a pig. Fairly large. Covered with mud.

It must have escaped from a nearby farm, and was making its way down the road, stopping occasionally to scratch an ear on a nearby telephone pole.

I hopped out of the car and started snapping pictures, hopeful that something weird might happen. Maybe someone would come running out of their front door and chase the pig with a frying pan. Maybe a dog would chase the pig. Any of those things would be good.

What I got was (almost) pure gold.

As I followed the pig down Foreman Road, an El Reno Police cruiser rolled up and stopped just ahead of me. The officer was the one who had been called to respond to the 10-54 (or whatever). I could see that he was preparing to get out of the car, when he looked in his side mirror and saw me - and my camera.

I could see the indecision. He knew that if he got out of the car anywhere near that pig, I would take dozens of pictures. He knew there was a great chance that the caption (or headline!) in the paper might say something like "Pig vs. Pig." Maybe even a bacon reference. And you know what: he was not wrong. That's exactly what I was thinking at the time.

So the officer did the only thing he could do. He slowly drove away.

The pig was last seen headed west on Foreman Road. He remained "at-large."

Postscript: You're darn right we ran those photos...but my eminently wise editor resisted the temptation of the "Pig vs. Pig" headline.

A Most Excellent Day!

From the diary of Elihu Jenkins, aide-de-camp to Vice President Schuyler Colfax.

April 27, 1870

Today has been a most excellent day! My esteem in the eyes of my august employer grows steadily, and I dare say that as my responsibilities multiply, my presence will shortly become more pronounced throughout the District....

...still, I dasn’t presume to engage in any kind of banter with Mr. Colfax. While he is a jovial man, and most kind, the vice president has made it clear that my place, while of value, is situated considerably below his own station. I am, at present, content with this situation....

...As I continued to fumble through the scattered correspondence  that lay siege to the right side of Mr. Colfax’s desk, a feeling of great anticipation came over me. Could it be? I thought to myself. Have my ears been bewitched by my overly-active imagination? I cast a sideways glance toward Mr. Colfax, who reclined slightly in his wooden desk chair.

The vice president regarded me with some amusement as he stroked his bushy beard with his fingers.

“You heard me well, Jenkins,” Colfax said. “I mean to press the issue with President Grant on the morrow, and you will be the bearer of my message. I have waited long enough for an appointment with the old general! I would have you diligently pursue this matter with his chief assistant to a satisfactory conclusion.”

Great Jehoshaphat! I shall visit the Presidential Palace, perhaps even to meet the Great Man himself!

###

Postscript: What the hell was that? Excellent question. The text above is an attempt at Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog. It may also be read in tandem with The Adventures of Schuyler Colfax: Vice President!

The Adventures of Schuyler Colfax: Vice President!

Based on recently discovered diaries penned by the 17th Vice President of the United States (1869-1873). Said diaries were discovered in a storage closet at the Odd Fellows Hall in South Bend, Indiana.

April 28, 1870: A Troubling Discovery!

"Good morning, Mr. Vice President!"

Schuyler Colfax lowered the newspaper he was reading, folded it in his lap, and turned his head to regard his visitor.

"Jenkins! A hearty good morning to you as well," said the Vice President. Colfax smiled. His man Jenkins, he assumed, brought him good news from the Executive Mansion. But as he studied the younger man's face, he could see that the smile was fraudulent.

"What say you, Jenkins? Has President Grant acted on my request?" Colfax rose from his chair and began to pace the wooden floor of the modest house he occupied with his wife, Ellen, and Schuyler III. The Vice President was a patient man, but he had been waiting six months for an appointment with the Chief Executive to discuss important matters of state.

"I'm afraid I bear disappointing news, sir," Jenkins began. Colfax regarded him carefully. Jenkins was the best aide-de-camp he had employed during his time in the District. If he bore bad tidings, Colfax was certain that Jenkins himself was not at fault.

"Mr. Vice President, I did indeed travel to the Executive Mansion this morning, as per your instructions," Jenkins said. He paused, almost as if he had lost his train of thought. "It was a glorious sight to behold, the mansion shining white on a luxuriant lawn of green grass...a sight you, yourself, sir, have gazed upon many a time over these years of public service."

Colfax nodded, urging him to continue.

"I knocked on the front door to announce my presence, as the hour was early. Though I bided my time upon the front step, no answer was forthcoming from inside. The door, I discovered, was unlocked, so after much deliberation I let myself into the interior."

Curious, Colfax thought, as he stroked his full, luxuriant beard with the fingers of his right hand. The old general liked to have an armed guard detailed to the mansion's entrance. An unguarded door? Curious indeed.

Jenkins was perspiring, the vice president could see. The aide turned toward the open window near Colfax's reading chair, pulled a laced handkerchief from his vest pocket and mopped his brow.

"I walked inside that stately White House, Mr. Vice President, and it was the strangest thing: a great stillness befell the hallways of the great manse," Jenkins said in a low tone. "Had the day not been clearly in the ante-meridian, I would have thought myself a night-time intruder in that place.

"As I made my way slowly through the foyer, I called out: 'How now! I bear important tidings for President Grant himself!' But there was no reply. I continued on in the direction of the President's offices, as you have sent me there on business previously and I remembered the route.

"At one point, I heard a low moaning sound issuing from a place I could not identify. And, still, no one came to greet me...."

Colfax exhaled loudly, as he was wont to do in troubling situations. He hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets before speaking.

"Most unusual, Jenkins. Most unusual. But what of President Grant?"

Jenkins swallowed hard, and reached out to steady himself against a sideboard table under the window.

"When I approached the Great Man's offices, the door was ajar! Though I was most fearful of invading his privacy, or intruding on the inner workings of state, I pushed the door open. I stood in the hallway and again announced my presence, through the open doorway.

"No answer was forthcoming, so I stepped inside. The tableau that greeted me was - oh, sir! Would that I had never seen it!"

The vice president's alarm grew.

"Out with it, Jenkins! What of Grant? Am I to exercise my Constitutional duty?" Colfax exhaled loudly again, and cast an expectant gaze on his aide.

"I...I can scarcely describe what I saw, sir." Jenkins voice was barely above a whisper now, his eyes cast toward the floor. "There were bodies everywhere, and at first I thought a great murderous rampage had made its ugly mark. I saw men in uniform laying on the floor all around me...women in various stages of undress, some with their ankles clearly visible to me. Toward the back of the room, I could see President Grant, still seated in his chair, but slumped over his oak desk.

"But they were not dead! I observed that there were a great many empty glass bottles scattered among the slumbering masses, and then the olfactory evidence accosted me...."

Colfax recoiled in horror.

"Demon rum? No!"

"Whiskey, actually, sir. At least, that's what the empty bottle clutched in President Grant's hand appeared to be."

There it was. The ugly, unfortunate truth. Colfax, being a man of the world, was surprised and disheartened at the news. He knew, however, that he must put on a brave facade for the sake of young Jenkins, who must be devastated by the revelation.

"You must be strong, Jenkins," Colfax said slowly. "I am afraid that President Grant - our Commander in Chief - is a most intemperate man!"

Jenkins swooned, falling back into the vice president's reading chair.

"But sir! How can it be? The Savior of the Union? The Victor of Appomattox?" Jenkins buried his face in his hands. "What will we do?"

Colfax reared back and slapped Jenkins, hard, across the face.

"Pull yourself together, man! Tell me: how did you leave the scene? Are you known to anyone there?" Colfax knew that word of President Grant's intemperance must not be made known to the public, lest the Union suffer.

"No sir!" Jenkins rose from the chair, his employer's slap returning him to the moment. "I quickly left that grim office, and searched the rest of the mansion for signs of some consciousness. I found many more, in the same condition as before, and just as many empty bottles. As I made my way back to the front door, so as to escape this hellish scene, I found an opened letter on the floor which explained everything.

"Yesterday was President Grant's birthday, sir. The celebration of that milestone seems to have exceeded the bounds of common decency."

Great Jubilee! Colfax exclaimed to himself. How is it that I was not invited?

"Jenkins! Have the carriage brought around. I wish to ride out into the country, and let the sweet natural breezes clear my head. Only then shall I decide what to do next."

Next week: A Day in the Country

Elusion

I can hear the music but I can’t tell where it’s coming from maybe a violin but the sound is faint and the quality is not good so I’m really not sure and I don’t have an ear for music anyway it’s hot in here I feel like my skin is burning even though it’s dark when I was a kid I felt like this that time I had chicken pox but you can’t get them again can you whatever happened to that purple bicycle I had haven’t thought about that bike in years garage sale probably handlebars had glow in the dark tape on them my hair would blow in the breeze pedaling full speed around the block as if monsters were chasing me and they might have been I had a lot of hair in those days everyone wore it long my ears didn’t feel sunshine for many a summer but it never prevented me from hearing all the music if I reach as far as I can really stretching my arms maybe I can touch the sound bring it closer and identify just what it is I’m hearing did I leave the radio on when I’m alone I do that sometimes because solitude is not my favorite state of being it’s funny even if I don’t want to talk to people which I don’t sometimes I still like to have people around which makes me the world’s worst party guest at times but that’s better than being a chatterbox who rambles on and on about politics god I hate to talk politics but I can tune out the voice noise and then I hear the music again no it’s not a violin but some other stringed instrument reminds me of that processed elevator music which I hate and which is now all I can think about my ears popped in the elevator we kept going up up up I was six and it kind of freaked me out you could feel the elevator cables jiggle how long does it take to get to the top floor anyway dad I want to get out now listen to the music son we’re almost there OK that wasn’t so bad and look at that view I can see for miles and the people down there are so small I’m on top of the world do we have to go already my son plays the violin maybe he’s practicing in his room but he never practices he could be really good if he would when I played the trumpet in junior high I practiced after school but I was never very good no rhythm at all is it brighter all of a sudden like the sun rising brighter now everything is red alarm clock it’s the alarm clock.

Slowly I sat up in bed, reached over and turned off the alarm. Had I dreamed? Fleeting images dripped slowly off my consciousness in the early moments of the day, just beyond my grasp. I hummed as I headed to the shower.

###

Postscript: What the hell was that? Excellent question. The text above is an attempt at Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog.

Outstanding in My Field (of Fire)

Have you ever seen a big grass fire, up close? Waves of heat shimmer as you try to look across the burning expanse, obscuring far-off details that aren't already hidden by the smoke. The smell of charred grass gets in your nose, like someone spilled something on the charcoal in your backyard grill.

During my newspaper days there were a couple of big grass fires that I was sent out to cover. I didn't take any notes; there wasn't a lot of information available at the scene. Grass is on fire, and, maybe, other stuff. Take pictures!


I gained a lot of respect for the firefighters, of course. Fighting fires is dangerous work, and many of the men I spoke to told me that they feared grass fires more than any other kind. It was the wind, that abundant Oklahoma wind, that made fighting grass fires unpredictable. And dangerous. A crew could be in the middle of a field, pushing back the fire line, when a change in wind direction or intensity could leave them suddenly surrounded by flames.

As a novice reporter/photographer, I didn't know all that yet. My first lesson in the unpredictability of a grass fire came when I returned to my car after shooting photos for an hour. Arriving on the scene, I parked on the grass shoulder of the road. When I returned, the grass was blackened within 2 feet of my front bumper.

I'd like to say I learned my lesson right then, but a couple of years later my zeal for getting a great photo made me do something stupid.

We heard the call on the police scanner in the newsroom: a wheat field was on fire, out near the federal prison (I have a good prison story I'll save for another day). I grabbed my camera and headed to the scene, where I parked a respectful distance across the road from the blazing wheat field.

It was a large field, and all the firefighting action was out in the middle, several hundred yards from where I stood. So I hopped the fence and waded out into the shoulder high wheat, determined to get closer.

By the time I got close enough to start snapping pictures, the fire fighters in their brush pumper trucks had it under control. Suddenly, my right eye still at the camera's viewfinder, I remembered.

The wind.

I lowered the camera and looked around me. For a hundred yards all around me, I was surrounded by wheat stalks almost as tall as I was. If the wind had changed, if the fire wasn't quite under control, I could have been roasted before I could run back to the road.

Gulp.

One of the brush pumpers drove in my direction and made a slow turn. I could see it was from the prison. They let non-violent inmates serve as volunteer firefighters. I waved. One of them waved back. Then they squirted me with a hose, turned, and drove back to the prison gates. I stood there for a moment, decided I was grateful, and headed back to my car.

###

Postscript: I'm pretty sure none of the photos I shot in the wheat field came out. The photo above is from my first grass fire, the one that almost claimed my car. It ran on the front page of the El Reno Daily Tribune.

Good Time Baseball: Adam 89er, and the One Sport They Played at All Sports Stadium

 "Bee-yuh!"

"Cold Bee-yuh!"

For many years, that loud refrain was the true voice of summer baseball in Oklahoma City. If you watched the Oklahoma City 89ers in the 1970s and 1980s, you knew who Adam 89er was.

Adam was the old guy who sold beer at All Sports Stadium. Every night he would push a cart filled with ice and "bee-yuh," back and forth on the walkway between the box seats and the upper reserved seats.

I got to watch him in action close up in the summer of 1979, when I got my first job: ballpark vendor.

I was 15 (underage) when I interviewed for the job with Mike Cox, who was the son of 89ers owner Patty Cox Hampton and in charge of concessions at the ballpark.

This was, I thought, the greatest job a guy my age could possibly have. Free admission to the ballpark. Every night.

Cool!

My primary job was to fill up wire racks with cups of Pepsi, and sell them in the stands. They had rigged a handle that opened six taps at once, so you could fill up an entire row of the rack at a time. Then you had to slap lids on all the cups, and try not to spill anything. Sticky work.

As I walked up and down the steps and aisles of the ballpark, I would rather timidly say, "Pepsi. Who wants Pepsi?" I was kind of shy, and I didn't holler like I should have, but I reasoned that anyone in the stands who could see me had to know what I was selling. In spite of myself, I sold a lot. Especially when my parents came to a game early in my career. Every time I walked by, my dad would order another drink; I knew he hated Pepsi.

I was too young to sell beer, but I watched and followed the beer vendors. They knew how to belt it out - Adam 89er was, however, in a class by himself. When Adam was selling "bee-yuh" everyone in the ballpark knew it. He was good natured, always joking with his customers, and he seemed very Yoda-esque.

One of the first lessons I learned was to never buy popcorn at All Sports Stadium. My first night on the job, they put me in a dank concession kitchen and had me pop popcorn during the entire ballgame. Being a lightly-attended Thursday night game, we sold very few boxes, so the boss had me scoop all the remaining popcorn into big black trashbags and store them in a walk-in freezer. Then the team went on a week-long road trip. First game back, they had me sell that now-stale popcorn in the stands. One guy threw his popcorn at me the next time I walked by his seat.

I tried to stick with Pepsi after that.

The team's marketing slogan in those days was "Good Time Baseball!" And it was a good time. All Sports Stadium was state of the art when it opened in 1962, and it was still a decent park, though a little down in the heels, the summer I worked there.

The named it All Sports Stadium, after Oklahoma City's All Sports Association, which had been instrumental in its development. Over the years the name became a kind of running joke; some even called it One Sports Stadium.

It was nothing fancy; a concrete bowl dug down into the side of a hill at the State Fairgrounds. The general admission sections featured wooden bleachers painted blue. The reserved seats were blue metal folding chairs.
But there was an awesome hill down the third base line, and every game it would be swarmed with kids running, playing, and rolling down it. There was no upper deck, no outfield seating.

The 89ers were the Triple A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies in those days, and while the Phillies were good, the 89ers rarely were. We did have some notable players come through during that period - Keith Moreland, Bob Dernier, Ryne Sandberg, Lonnie Smith, Julio Franco come to mind. Of that group, only Moreland and Smith were on the 1979 roster - a team managed by Lee Elia, who would go on to infamously manage the Chicago Cubs and insult all their fans.

The stands were rarely full, but there were a number of colorful "regulars," including a guy who would play a bugle until he got too drunk to pucker his lips.
I only recall one sellout during my summer at All Sports - the 89ers played the Phillies in a July exhibition game. It was a weekend afternoon game, with temperatures seemingly near the boiling point. There were so many people there that the mezzanine was practically impassable from the crowds in line at the antiquated concession stands. I would emerge from the concession area with a rack of Pepsis and sell them all before I walked 10 feet. I don't remember seeing any of the game.

It was a great job, but it was only a one summer gig. Years later, when I worked as a reporter/photographer for the nearby El Reno Daily Tribune, I went back to All Sports Stadium to do a feature on Adam 89er.

Adam met me at the ballpark one evening, a couple of hours before the game, and told me his life story. He played for the St. Louis Stars in the Negro Leagues briefly, and he met Babe Ruth. He told a lot of stories, some of which I'm pretty sure he made up. And he let me follow him around and take some pictures.

Walker was actually featured in the Oct. 8, 1985 edition of the Weekly World News as the "Offspring King." The article credited him with 16 daughters, 12 sons, 98 grandchildren, 41 great-grandchildren, and four great-great-grandchildren.

Clearly he did more with his time than sell beer.

When Oklahoma City's MAPS project funded a new downtown ballpark in the mid-1990s, All Sports Stadium closed. I visited it one last time, a couple of years later, when the American Cancer Society held a Relay for Life there. Grass had overgrown the infield dirt; huge weeds sprouted from the warning track. It was a dried out husk. All Sports Stadium was dead, and Adam 89er was long gone.

Before I left for the last time, I went to the top of the third base hill, yelled "bee-yuh" and rolled down it one last time.

Good Time Baseball.

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Postscript: I took these photos to accompany a feature story I wrote for the Northwest News, a tabloid-format paper that the El Reno Tribune owned for a few years in the late 1980s in an effort to broaden their reach into northwest Oklahoma City. In the third photo, Adam 89er is accompanied by one of his many grandchildren.

The Delicate Balance of Time and Fate

Or, Never on Wednesday


Gerry Anders hated everyone on Wednesday. Indeed, he was an equal opportunity hater. Barista. Bus driver. Secretary. Boss. Friend. Those who knew him best tried to avoid Gerry on Wednesdays; even a polite “hello” was not an option halfway through the week.

No one knew why Gerry became such an abhorrent troll once a week, and, truth be told, Gerry didn’t really understand it himself. It was as if all of his frustrations, fears, and biases - his dark clouds that he kept bottled up six days a week - automatically boiled over like clockwork. Perhaps it was internal pressure control, stroke avoidance.

“Idiots!” Tucked away in his work cubicle, Gerry cut loose on a contractor whose work was behind schedule. In most offices, heads would have turned at the harshness of the raised voice, but this was “Gerry being Gerry.” He was tolerated here, because the quality of his work was high, his value to the firm outweighing a single day of Hell each week. They gave him a wide berth, going so far as to post a lookout while he was in the breakroom to warn the innocent away.

Was it Fate that decreed he would meet the woman of his dreams on Wednesday? At the very least it could be chalked up to mundane bad timing; Sarah Jones rescheduled her Tuesday visit to Wednesday to accommodate an emergency trip to the dentist.

Sarah Jones did not exactly light up a room when she entered. No one would describe Sarah as anything like vivacious, bubbly, or even beautiful. What Sarah possessed was a deep well of kindness in her soul, the kind of inner beauty often ascribed to a saint. She believed in love at first sight, though she hadn’t seen it yet. She believed that everyone on Earth had a soul mate, if only they could find each other.

Sarah’s friend Jessica told her about a man with whom she worked. He had his rough spots, she told Sarah, but he was smart, efficient, and even kind of charming if you caught him on the right day.

“Just drop by the office and I’ll introduce you to Gerry,” Jessica pleaded with her friend. “I think you’d like him; he could be the one for you, Sarah. But come on Tuesday....”

In hindsight, Jessica regretted not emphasizing the day of the week more clearly to Sarah.

Sarah stood on the carpet just outside her friend’s cubicle for almost a full minute before her presence was felt. She smiled her kind, somewhat naive smile, exuding...well, goodness.

“Hey, Jess, I got held up yesterday, but I’m here now,” Sarah said. “Where’s this guy you want me to meet?”

Jessica’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh my God! Not today! This is not a good day to be here, Sarah!”

And then, like a cold shadow, Gerry stood behind Sarah.

“What the Hell is all this noise, Jessica! My cubicle is right there, and I can’t get anything done if you’re entertaining guests all morning!”

Maybe Sarah misread the fear and panic in Jessica’s eyes. Maybe she thought Gerry was kidding. She liked guys who were good kidders.

“Don’t worry about it, Gerry. She and I were just leaving....”

“No, we’re not!” Sarah said brightly. She turned to face the source of Jessica’s fear. “So you’re Gerry? I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you.”

For a moment, Gerry was silent. Did indecision slow his reply? Was there a glimmer of his six-day-a-week humanity, struggling to self-edit?


No.


“Listen, lady. I am up to my neck here, trying to keep this crappy place afloat, and the last thing I need is an overly-cheerful moron like you distracting me!”

What a bastard, Sarah thought, her smile flattening. Casting a hurt look at Jessica, she turned and strode toward the elevators. In a moment, with a ding, Sarah was gone. Silence smothered the maze of cubicles. Wednesday played out like it always did around Gerry Anders.

On Thursday, he cried.

###

Postscript: What the hell was that? Excellent question. The text above is an attempt at Flash Fiction, directed, in particular, to the Three Word Wednesday blog.