The Adventures of Bloggard

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

The Christmas Present

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Newport Beach, California, December 1985: Taking the Startel job was a colossal blunder. It’s very clear now, but not then. All women wish to be loved, cherished, and protected. I was married to Lori, but I failed miserably to show that I cherished her, and I failed to protect her.

And that brought me the most painful days in my life.

Do you believe that all events are foretold? I do. Lori and I had written our marriage ceremony, and when I gave it to Father Bob Cromey, he read it and said, “There’s nothing in here about commitment. That’s a mistake.”

He was referring to the lines where it said, “I will remain with you as long as it shall please you.” Father Cromey was correct, and so were my written words. I was with her as long as it pleased her.

This was back in the time of books like Open Marriage and such tripe, but I was turned on by these ideas. And although I never became involved with other women, when I began to ignore her, concentrating on work, building the Line Seizer device, working on computers … when I ceased being fun, when I ceased paying enough attention, when I ceased demonstrating cherishing … she started going out, I’m sure of it.

It started innocently enough, with Oz Koosed’s jitterbug class at the Avenue Ballroom. Lori, as tall as I, kept trying to lead. Either I wasn’t strong enough or focused enough. And when it came to a move called ‘The Drop’, I didn’t have the physical strength. This is a movie-move, where the woman, with body rigid, tips over and almost hits the floor. By strength of arms you hold her just inches above the floor. I couldn’t hold her. Big mistake.

She started going out to dance with the brother of a friend. I’m pretty sure it became the horizontal mambo. And idiot that I was, because I’d thought this openness was good, I put no stop to it. That was the beginning of the end.

One thing led to another. When Lori asked me to move out, I yielded to anger rather than handling the danger. Soon after, around my 40th birthday, I was offered and took a job working with Startel in southern California, and moved far away.

Oh, the business reasons made sense. We needed some equipment to advance the answering service we ran together. She already ran operations, and my marketing department already had a manager. I would bring in a lot of money. Blah blah blah.

I loaded our Volkswagen, which blew up in the desert heat along the way, continued in a rented car, and stayed with her folks in Covina while I began selling answering service equipment for Startel Corporation. Then I bought a Pugeot, rented the house in Newport Beach, and really shouldn’t have been so surprised, that first Christmas here in Southern California.

Because late at night on Christmas Eve, lying in the dark together in a bedroom at her parents home, she had something to tell me. I can still hear her voice in the darkness. She said that she’d fallen in love with another man.

I saw my errors crashing around me, shattering like glass, like mirrors, timeless and cruel as stone.

The Altar Boys

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Eddie Frank Scheer, later, when he was the School Principal in Henrietta, Texas

Henrietta, Texas, 1957: Since we were Methodists, I don’t see why it was so important.

In our town, being a Methodist was considered kind of easy. The story goes that a fellow had died, and was being shown around Heaven. In one room folks were dancing because, being Catholics, they couldn’t dance on Earth. In another room folks were drinking, because they’d been Baptists. And in one room, folks just sat around; being Methodists, they’d already done everything. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I suspect it was some jealousy of the Catholic rituals that caused the trouble.

Well, of course, it was only trouble for me and Eddie Frank.

Our church had decided to have altar boys. They already had choir robes, so they just had to get a couple of short metal poles so two of us could walk down the aisle and light some candles. This particular Sunday, it was me and Eddy Frank.

We Got All Holy

We did our holy duty, walking real slow and looking solemn, lit the candles, then retreated back out the same way. In the cloakroom we shucked our gowns, and he suggested we go sit in his parents new car — a blue 1958 Chevrolet, very classy — to hear the radio for a few minutes before joining the service.

Gosh, I don’t know what happened. I guess we were just yakking, and suddenly we realized a long time had passed. Eddy Frank looked plenty worried.

“If we go in there now, everybody’ll stare,” he said.

I agreed. But what to do?

Oh Holy Holy Holy

We cudgeled our brains, but were unable to think of anything workable. So we gave up and walked home. When church had let out, my mother came home, screeching the tires, real mad.

“I was so proud of you!” she said. “And then we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting!”

There was no explaining. I got spanked. So did Eddy Frank.

The Best Kind of Friend, where Parents Wouldn’t Let You Sit Together at Church

Back then, Eddy Frank was probably my best friend. We started stamp companies at the same time. Or, rather, he started one and I copied him. I never sold any stamps, though, and finally sold my stock to him. I don’t think he sold any stamps either.

Later, we took Latin together. We drank some terrible wine together. We were in egg fights. We hung a dummy from my Uncle Doc’s radio tower, unseen with the town cop cruising on the street below. We painted Class of 61 on the water tower. But in the dark I got the spray can backwards and sprayed my chin day-glow orange. Then, figuring this might be a clue revealing me as one of the perpetrators, I had to remove this evidence. This required a lot of scrubbing with Ajax cleanser, and not a little pain.

Oddly enough, not long after, I asked Eddy Frank to come over to my house to make rockets, and he declined. “My mamma says I can’t play with you any more,” he explained. “She says you’re a bad iffluous on me.”

A bad iffluous indeed.

Sleeping On the Job

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Shady Shores community, near Dallas, Texas, 1964: In college, my roommates and I lived on a lake, in a concrete-block house made from a garage, just behind the grand house of Mr. J. D. Lingo, who operated a Dallas heavy-equipment business. I don’t know what that means, except that surely it involves large equipment.

Because my roommates found jobs as banquet waiters, I also applied at the Holiday Inn, and found myself a bellboy, and I also carried breakfast orders to the rooms. I became very proud of my skill in balancing the huge tray loaded with dishes and cups.

It was also fun to call in from the pool phone, on the busy summer days, and request Mrs. Heflin at the switchboard to page Mr. T. S. Elliot. She paged him again and again, but he never answered the page.

My life changed due to James, the cajun.

He’d come from the bayou and it lived still in his speech. Outside a bar in Lake Charles, he’d saved his friend from a drunk driver, but lost a leg in the act. Once living in Nashville, he knew the young Elvis. A fine boy, Elvis, and sober. Or, as James said, “I’ve got my first time to see him take a drink.”

That Fall, as we returned to classes, James decided to return to Lake Charles. He told Mr. Kahler the manager. He told Ron Johnson, the assistant manager. Mr. Kahler did nothing, and Ron did nothing. Ron told James that if he left, Mr. Kahler would have a fit.

But James said he was going to Lake Charles on that date, regardless.

Balancing the Books

James was the night auditor; he worked from 11 at night till 7 in the morning, and balanced out the bookkeeping machine at the front desk. The difficulty was in finding a replacement.

They did nothing. He left.

I showed up at the office, and said I could do it.

Having no better plan, they let me try. I knew nothing, but there was a single form on which this balancing was done. It all added up in plusses and minuses, and a big arrow showed which two totals had to agree. I was able to figure it out.

So I became the night auditor.

In a way, this was a student’s dream job, because — the way I did it — they paid me for sleeping. I came to work, balanced the books by 1 am, then retrieved the pillow stolen from housekeeping (which I hid daytimes inside the back panel of the switchboard), and then slept on the floor behind the front desk. Paid hourly; for sleeping on the job. Neat!

I admit it startled a few late-arriving guests. Walking up to the front desk, they’d tap the bell, and then I appeared, rising like Dracula from beneath the desk.

Once, very early, Ron the assistant manager unexpectedly came through the back door. He said that if Mr. Kahler saw me sleeping, that Mr. Kahler would have a fit.

But Ron often threatened that Mr. Kahler would have a fit. I was uncertain whether to worry, or not.

As it happened, a few days later, my roommate Pat was drinking iced tea behind the front desk. Pat was a nice-looking guy who resembled Jules, or perhaps it was Jim, from the French film Jules et Jim. Pat was also the desk clerk.

Ron told Pat that if Mr. Kahler saw those empty iced-tea glasses, that Mr. Kahler would have a fit. Oddly enough, just then Mr. Kahler walked through the front door.

Behind the desk, Pat stood up, and held up an empty iced-tea glass, so that Mr. Kahler could see it. Pat said to Mr. Kahler, “Have a fit?”

Mr. Kahler gave Pat a puzzled look, and disappeared into the restaurant. Mr. Kahler had said nothing; and Mr. Kahler didn’t have a fit.

It was Ron who had the fit.

Neat!

The Wonder of Acupuncture

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White Crane Kung-Fu Studio, Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, 1974: In my Kung-Fu phase, I was crazy about everything Chinese … except the interior decorating. I know that may sound just too, too gay, but aside from mysteriously grand Chinese interiors in old movies, have you ever been in a Chinese restaurant that wasn’t garish as hell?

I’ve come to learn that it’s because Red is Lucky, and no sensible Chinese person on the planet wants to be unlucky. Of course, when you think about it, that makes perfect sense. I wouldn’t either.

Back to the Kung-Fu and acupuncture. This is a story about needles and eyeballs, but it turns out OK. Just warning you …

Being temporarily Chinese myself, I ate Chinese food, learned to use chopsticks, went to the fighting movies every weekend — A tip: the movies made by Mr. Run Run Shaw are better than movies made by his brother Run Me Shaw — and of course I joined a Kung-Fu studio, where we wore the most uncomfortable shoes ever invented.

We learned weird movements named after the White Crane, and there were huge bags hanging from the ceiling, and they were filled with rocks. One bag was little, bitty gravel. Another bag was marble-sized stones. And the third filled with great whumping big rocks.

It was kind of like the three kinds of porridge in the Three Bears house, except that none of the bags was just right. The idea was that you would hit these bags with your hands.

I did it once.

But getting back to the acupuncture … The deal is that, because my Kung-Fu master was also a master acupuncturist, I had acupuncture a couple of times. And then one time he wanted to send a needle to hit a point behind my eyeball.

This was to cure me of wearing glasses.

With some misgivings, I said OK. (The needles are very fine; I figured I couldn’t bleed to death through a hole that small.)

So he sent this long and thin needle twirling into the skin, and beyond, and further and further, and …

As it turned out, I got a real good discount on my seeing-eye dog, and we’ve been very happy ever-

Just kidding. It worked fine; I didn’t go blind, and in fact I could see without my glasses for the rest of the day. Go figure.

However, I’m a big chicken. I didn’t want to do it again.

Glasses seemed safer.

Now, I’m not so sure.

But that’s life in the kung-fu movie, right? You pays your money, and you takes your chances.

 
 

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