The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Ruru the Guru — Paying Debts with Dreams?

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San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you’d find listed “Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service” at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this —

“Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, your absolutely free telepathic answering service — at no charge whatsoever!

“I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

“You know, some people just can’t believe that we’re providing free telepathic answering service. In fact the other day me and my buddy, Babba Jamas, was coming back from the little Himalaya Convenience Store up the gulch, and one of the Sherpas that was helping us hold the rope, he asked:

“Ruru, you know when you’re dreaming?

“Well, yes, not that I ever sleep personally, but yes.

“Well, (he went on), You know how you’ll be dreaming and when you wake up sometimes you can’t remember the dreams?

“Well, of course everybody’s had that experience.

“Well, Ruru, (he went on), Where do all those dreams go? I mean, do you suppose those dreams are taken as payment for all the things that are supposed to be free, like love and sex and Third Ear Answering Service?

“Well, I never! I was speechless! I was flabbergasted! Who ever heard of such a thing!

“No messages today.”

Ruru the Guru — Does he Really Like Me?

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San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you’d find listed “Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service” at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this —

“Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, the good-time telepathic answering service that can get you fixed up!

“I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

“You know, sometimes I think you humans do things the hard way.

“For example, on Saturday nights I work a lot in a bar off Union Street. When people start to run low I carry the message to Joe the Bartender. You may know the place. Joe always hands you a fresh one about the time you start to think about it.

“Anyway, there’s a woman in gold lame, slit skirt, and pearls down to here, she asks me:

“Ruru,” (she asks), “That guy across the way, been looking at me all night, I wonder if he really likes me?”

“I said I’d find out.

“After I spent a few seconds in his mind, I was kind of liking her looks myself! So I went back and said–

“He’d sure like to find out if he likes you!

“She said to ask him to come sit over here. So I did.

“And she sez ask him to buy me a drink. So I did, and he did.

“She sez ask him to put his arm around me. So I did, and he did. And then she starts to ask me …

“And right there I put my foot down.

“Hell, lady. He’s sitting right beside you. He looks friendly. Ask him yourself!”

Ruru the Guru sez “Equipment Savings Direct to You”

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San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you’d find listed “Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service” at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this —

“Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, the free telepathic answering service that doesn’t cost a thing.

“I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

“You know, sometimes I think you Americans are so suspicious. Just now when I said our service is free, several thousand of you thought What’s the catch? and How do they do it?

“Really! So suspicious! OK, OK, here’s the deal …

“Look, when we deliver your messages to your friends and neighbors we deliver them by telepathy. No telephones. And we pass on the equipment savings direct to you!

“So next time you get that impulse to say something to someone and they’re not there — like Thanks! or Thinking of You! or I Love You! — don’t reach out and thump somebody. Just think it real clear and we’ll deliver it special delivery right to their head.

“Best of all, it’s free.”

Driving Into Winter

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Mount Shasta: Adrienne and I went for a Sunday Drive. On the map there’s this little lake called “Crystal Lake”, some few miles beyond Lake Siskiyou. A week ago we had snow on the ground, but it’s long gone now, and Sunday being bright and clear, we went to find this Crystal Lake.

Just past the Lake Siskiyou turn-off we found the road, and turned up the hill. The woods were auburn and lofty above us, and the sunlight streaming down upon the winding road.

A quarter-mile up the road, and higher on the hill, we found a sprinkling of snow beneath the shady trees. As we drove the next quarter-mile, suddenly the snow covered the road, and soon after, the road was frozen with six inches of snow.

We stopped and turned around. Crystal Lake can wait.

I’ve never before had the experience of driving from Fall into Winter. But there it was.

Ruru the Guru — A message from Uncle Joe

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San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you’d find listed “Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service” at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this —

“Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, the world’s only telepathic answering service, designed to answer the question: Whatever happened to E.S.P.?

“I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

“And here are your messages for today —

“You got a message from Uncle Joe.
He just called to say hello.
And to mention Aunt Betsy’s
in the clinker again.
He sez he’s a little short on bail,
and wonders how you’re doing.

“Sometimes, I wonder, too.

“How are you doing?”

Ruru the Guru — a Ding-A-Ling in the Mind

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San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you’d find listed “Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service” at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this —

“Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, the world’s favorite telepathic answering service. All your friends and neighbors use it; and so do you!

“I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

“You know, the other day, I delivered a telepathic message to a guy in a big business meeting at the Bank of America building downtown …

“He was making a fancy presentation but I was moving at the speed of light and I knew it wouldn’t take long.

“So I just whispered in his mind:

“Your mama wants you to pick up a loaf of french bread at the Mom & Pop.

“Next thing I know, he’s yelling at me-

“Damn it, Ruru,” (he yelled), “I never know if this is a real telepathic message, or just a … faligmant of my noosination!”

“And boy! Didn’t those business bigwigs in that meeting stare!

“Let me just clarify that for a moment.

“You know when your imagination runs away from you?

“Well, that is a a run-away imagination.

“But when you hear that little ding-a-ling in the back of your mind … that’s us with your latest messages!”

The Wild Speedometer

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Dallas, Texas, 1965: I didn’t know much about negotiating back then. I knew I wanted to buy the Morgan Motor Car, and Little John had a demonstrator for $3000. I wasn’t able to talk him down, and he wasn’t much interested in my trade-in, a faded-paint Dodge Lancer with “The Spook” written on the back.

The First National Bank of Henrietta finally came through at the end of the day, a day I’d been close to tears several times, and just as night was falling, Little John handed me the keys.

I’d never driven a sportscar. Certainly not one like this.

A Morgan is very light and low to the ground. Beneath the tan leather upholstery, you’re sitting on an inflatable cushion perhaps three inches thick, and the floor is only five inches from the ground. Kind of like driving a go-cart through traffic.

Further, the hood is long and tapering, and you’re sitting right in front of the rear axel, so when you turn a corner, it appears that the distant front end of the car turns the corner, and then some short time later, you turn the corner.

As I drove through the busy nighttime Dallas traffic in the unfamiliar car, working the gears, I suddenly realized that I was sitting so low that my head was lower than many of the headlights on other cars. The speed, the new gearbox, the flashing lights, it was all quite frightening.

By the edge of town, I’d decided to take the back way through the countryside, so that there would be less cars on the highway. Or maybe I just got disoriented and found myself on that road.

This was a smaller highway, a two-laner that wound homeward through a generally deserted woods. Once free of the city, I accelerated up to 65, then the night-time speed limit.

Wow!

In the low-slung car, it seemed like I was just flying. The tachometer kept reving up, the high-pitched engine eager. And the curves! They popped into the headlights, then I was zooming around like lightning with plenty of screeching from the wide tires. I felt like I was driving a hundred miles an hour.

When the occasional other car appeared ongoing, it was as if it no sooner appeared than zoomed past, receding tail-lights behind me. And twice I came upon other cars, just dawdling they were, oddly, all of them. I passed them like they were parked on the highway.

The mystery of the speeding car was solved the next day: The speedometer was installed wrong. What I thought was 65, was actually 95, and I’d driven all the way at that speed in the unfamiliar vehicle.

Just like Parnelli Jones. Only far more ignorant.

 
 

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