The Adventures of Bloggard

January 1975. I lived in a studio apartment above 3rd Avenue in San Francisco, just north of Golden Gate Park. There I started a little bookeeping business, and charged $8 per hour, big money. I called it ‘Simple Simon Bookeeping.’

It was a nice little occupation, although annoying in that people tended to call me either ‘Simon’ or ‘Simple’.

It came about in an odd way …

I had decided to become a “freelance” bookkeeper. A library book (1937) from the San Francisco library made it seem clear enough. But how to proceed?

One night about 1 am, sanding mahogany shelving I’d made for my studio apartment on Third Avenue, I was listening to the radio. The radio DJ was talking about recipes.

I called in my Texas Chili recipe, and speaking later with him told him my plan. I don’t remember why. Maybe he asked me.

It turns out, he’s got a friend named Alan, an accountant, and he suggested I go see Alan for guidance. I made an appointment, and explained my plan. My plan was to:

1) Find a client;
2) Get the records from the client;
3) Bring the records to Alan’s office;
4) Pay Alan to show me how to do the books.

Alan said he liked the plan. So that’s what I did.

I put up one handwritten poster in the stairwell at City Lights Bookstore in North Beach. What a dumb place! How ignorant to think that one poster would work!

Then, the next week, Phil Groves called me. He’d seen my poster at City Lights Bookstore. He was starting an ice-cream shop. Could I do their books?

We met at the college cafeteria, because I wanted someplace upscale. Alan had given me a list of what records to ask for, and I’d asked Phil to bring all those things.

Phil asked, “Can you do this? Can you do that?”

I nodded, “No problem. No problem.”

Phil asked, “How much?”

“Eight dollars an hour.”

He agreed.

He gave me all the records.

I went to Alan’s office. Alan showed me how to keep the books. It was simpler than the 1937 library book made out.

Then I was in the bookkeeping business.

So Simple.

That’s me.

San Anselmo, Maggie’s house ::Almost Birthday Party::

HB2U coming up Monday 4/7, will be 59. Whoah! Today Celina’s tribe and Layla came for a party. Midmorning I found Adrienne laying out a jazzy table setting with chili-peppers-on-black party tablecloth. The colorful streamers, the baloons (falsely printed Happy RETIREDMENT!), party hats and a birthday tiara for me.

The little kids made the chocolate cake: Rhiannon mixed, and Dameon iced. I got all presents with a food theme: a kitchy gadget that’s a spatula, a tongs, a whisk, but wait there’s more. Apron, wooden salad tongs, a book of captioned animal pix from Layla, and a gift cert for snazzy lunch come monday with Adrienne.

Joe and Celina doing some sort of therapy, made some conversations odd-sounding. Jessica very proud: Picture on the front page Marin newspaper sport section, tagging an opponent at homebase, and she’s OUT! I enjoyed their visit. We had fun today.

This seems like a good spot to start my weblog.

Lots of people — some of them I knew well — have failed to achieve this milestone. So I’m grateful for the good health and long life (so far) which I have enjoyed …

I got several calls from family and a friend to wish me a happy — Folks, keep those cards and letters coming in! — So far having a pleasant day, and Adrienne cooked us lunch. The casual visitor here may not appreciate the earth-shattering significance of …

… the significance of Adrienne cooking lunch.

While I cook us many meals, and enjoy having somebody cooking for me — it seems a loving and neighborly thing to do — Adrienne, the woman, doesn’t like to ccok. She could live an eternity on yogurt and apples, I’m certain of it. Maybe a can of tuna fish. For many years, on certain years, around Christmas/Thanksgiving time, I might get a vegetable pot pie made with a cat face cut into the crust … if I was lucky.

Some years, no cat-face pie. Too bad. I was looking forward to that cat-face pie.

You know those stories your mama used to threaten you with, when you were very little. No, not the stories about the– Wait a minute. Let’s start over. You know how your mama used to threaten you around Christmastime with the claim that bad children would receive a lump of coal? (What was with this lump of coal? In Texas nobody uses coal. It’s natural gas, man. Why the hell Santa would bring coal?)

Well, a year with no cat-face pie seemed like getting the lump of coal in the stocking. Just out of luck, for now. Maybe next year …

In the meantime, I’m almost 59, and very happy to be here, thank you very much, and I’d like to thank the members of the academy, and my mother, and …

Seeking wild adventure, Adrienne and I drove in my motorized automobile. We took a prepared list, and then we …

And then we went first to the Petco, where we bought some stuff. Then we went to the Trader Joe’s, where we then bought some stuff. And then we went to the Whole Foods, where we, err, bought some stuff.

And that’s the way it was.

April 7, 1944. Visilia, California. Margaret Ellen Hurn (army nurse) and Jack French (dashing soldier) hit it off. The resulting human shows up and begins yet another chapter in the vast library of humanity.

Soon after, Margaret visited her parents farm 8 miles north of Henrietta Texas. I see pictures of each of my uncles holding me as an infant. The uncle that looks the happiest in this role is her mother lounged in lawn chairs behind, dressed in stunning, up-to-date 1940’s fashions. That is, somewhat baggy dresses of light material, tending to be covered with tiny, tiny, tiny little prints of flowers and lacy stuff at the collar.

Modern times!

It is Sunday, and it has been raining. The air is now cold, and the sky is dark in the middle of the day. Tulip, my border collie, shivers. She can hear thunder in the distance, though I cannot. This is a good day for writing a weblog.

What is new about weblogs?

What’s new here is that anyone can publish. No thought required about the format, about FTP clients. Just open a webpage, type into a box, and click. Bango! You’re published. This means that …

This makes web-publishing as easy as surfing, or operating a television. Your mama could do it. That means it’s easy.

In addition, now we get the smarty-pants, the artsy, the web designers. Suddenly they’re artistes. They can tweak and twitter, and all the world is aglow in the bask of their friends, and wine. No doubt. This is a fine feeling. I may sneer, but wouldn’t I go back to college age — just for an hour — and experience the richness of the emotions among my peers, the admiration, the fun? Of course I would. You would too. Don’t lie. You know you would.

So the point is: these young ones get all artsy, and by golly, here’s the truth: This is a new creative outlet! It’s a new outlet in three ways. You can have beautiful layouts. You can have cool pix. You can write with beauty and style.

If you got no style, you can scour for cool stuff and post that. Sort of getting your admiration by being the most clever scavenger-hunter in the group. You remember that from 5th grade, don’t you? Scavenger hunts?

This is something new. It will grow like topsy.

Marines sweep title. Scoreboard Marines 150,000, Iraq 200. Recently Saddam Hussein forgot to Beware the Ides of March, and … Whoops! At first, I was thinking …

It was an anxious, tense feeling, reminding me of a day in October of 1962, standing on the lawn of Midwestern University, looking up into the huge trees before the vast Admin Building. Listening to the radio, hearing how our navy was moving into position to block the Soviet ships approaching Cuba.

War hovered; it was scary. It was a fall day. The sky was grey, the branches of the trees were mostly bare, and a light, breeze spun across the lawn and through the trees. It was very quiet, except for the tinny sound of the radio.

Then, I went to lunch. It was fried chicken, at some place across the street. Why do we remember these things?

No matter. Saddam has fallen. And the current feeling is well expressed in this swell little ditty ‘Bomb Iraq‘, by Vince Vance and the Valiants. See and here it is now, hear, hear! — Bomb Iraq Music Video

Sounds good to me.