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Listicles for itchy feets

Spring on the Gulf Coast is a time that is hard to beat. When I say Gulf Coast, I mean the area that extends from the “ArkLaTex” to the Florida Panhandle. It is a grand time of the year although it always leaves me with a case of “itchy feet.”

My feet, figuratively speaking, have developed that old get-up-and-go-somewhere feeling even more this year since, literally speaking, my feet have held me back from doing much of anything.

At last report, my podiatrist said I should go through about two more weeks of taking it easy on my tootsies, or should I say tootsie. My hammertoe surgery was performed about three weeks ago and yesterday was the first time I could even remove my foot from bandaging and take a shower. It, the shower, was “mahhvelous,” as Billy Crystal would say while performing as Fernando Lamas on “Saturday Night Live.” The toe doesn’t look very well, but that is only because stitches were only removed from both top and bottom of the toe.

I have been pretty much cooped up recently, that is hopefully ending in another week. One might observe that by reading my previous blather. My Union’s steward training at the end of July is in Albuquerque. It will be nice to get out and get away, despite that our training tends to get rather lengthy. And after reading about the Albuquerque police and its brutal ways, I might just stay to myself in my hotel room after training.

All this said, I have some places I have wanted to visit for R & R but couldn’t for one reason or the other, mostly a lack of funds. With that in mind I began thinking of the various places I have been after listening to sports talk radio hosts who were making a listicle of their favorite “Sports Towns.” With that in mind I shall make my own listicles of favorite places I have been to help prod my sad and itchy feet into happy and (non-itchy?) feet. Some of these places I visited 35-to- 40 years ago so for sure they will have undergone change. But as with gifts, it — supposedly — is the thought that counts.

TOP FIVE FOREIGN CITIES

1. Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

2. Perth, Western Australia

3. Auckland, New Zealand

4. Taipei, Taiwan

5. Devonport, Tasmania, Australia

TOP FIVE MAJOR UNITED STATES CITIES (More than 1 million people)

1. San Antonio, Texas

2. San Diego, California

3. Los Angeles, California

4. Dallas, Texas

5. Houston, Texas

TOP FIVE LARGE U.S. CITIES (From 500,000 to 1,000,000 people)

1. Denver, Colorado

2. Austin, Texas

3. Washington, D.C.

4. El Paso, Texas

5. Fort Worth, Texas

TOP FIVE MEDIUM-LARGE U.S. CITIES (100,000 to 500,000 people)

1. New Orleans,  La.

2. Gulfport- Biloxi, Miss.

3. St. Louis, Mo.

4. Little Rock, Ark.

5. Las Cruces, N.M.

THE REST OF THE BEST (Less than 100,000 people, for various reasons. U.S. and Territories.)

1. Nacogdoches, Texas

2. San Marcos, Texas

3. Hattiesburg, Miss.

4. Santa Barbara, Calif.

5. Estes Park, Colo.

6. Ruidoso N.M.

7. Lake Charles, La.

8. Mobile, Ala.

9. Stockbridge, Mass.

10. Albany, N.Y.

11. Milwaukee, Wisc.

12. Big Sur, Calif.

13. Agana, Guam

14. Surfside, Texas

15. Sabine Pass, Texas

16. Newton, Texas

17. Maydelle, Texas

18. Llano, Texas

19. Wimberley, Texas

20. Lajitas, Texas

*Just as larger cities are ranked more as sentimental favorites, places that I just like, and cool spots on the map, the 20 listed above are not ranked and are merely listed and enumerated.

 

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Thoughts on the “t-word”

UPDATE: Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake backtracks on her earlier comments using the word “thug.” Will President Obama do the same? Apparently not!

 

The riots in Baltimore may have solidified yet another word for which we must be careful with its use.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was widely criticized by activists and pundits in using the word “thug” during a press update in wake of the unrest. Activists decry “thug” to address black men who commit crimes.

The association between black criminals and the now-t-word is nothing new. Liberal pundits have for some time now — back to the Bush White House at least — noted that the right-wing was using certain “buzzwords” when it came to the identity of criminal black people. The word thug has certainly been such a buzzword. However, the main definition for the word thug is “a violent person, especially a criminal.” Nothing about that person being black. However, most detrimental terms for blacks, or African-Americans, do not mention that certain words are a slur. For instance, the word “coon” is defined as short for a racoon.

Some black friends of mine whom I haven’t seen in awhile but I mostly keep up with online seemed to find funny the mid-20th century descriptive “Negro.” Some laughed but others chafed at the term “colored” for black. As black friends asked to people who mentioned something involving a black person as colored: “Oh, what color was he/she?” I even knew some black people who, like me, simmered upon a white (or even black) using the offensive word “Nigger.” I also felt bad, and perhaps many blacks may have felt sadness, when little old white ladies of Southern upbringing using what they believed as a “genteel” word: “Nigra.”

Of course, there were other blacks and some whites who might just open up a king-sized can of whoop ass on some who used anything related to the N-word.

During the short time I covered secondary and higher education was when I first discovered the language of the disabled.

Activists who spoke for the disabled came to me with a whole big list of politically correct terms that they wanted me and the newspaper to use in coverage. I can’t remember most of them as this was 20 years ago. But these were the language from which “special needs” and “learning challenged” emerged.

But the fact is one cannot change all words for every group, every person in a group. I do not want to seem cynical here, but perhaps the only way to develop less hurtful words for usage is to develop their own language.

Think of this. If we change every single word that is offensive to one group, then what if these words have a special meaning to another group? Then what? What then? What does it all mean?

What questions for our times with answers to these questions way beyond my pay grade. And I’m not kidding.

 

 

 

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They say it’s our birthday. Well, just missed it.

Our fair blog quietly celebrated 10 years of existence on Tuesday, April 21. Happy B-day!

All this, meaning eightfeetdeep, started as something to entertain myself as well as a daily writing exercise. This was while I was on unemployment from my last full-time job. I had worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor for the previous 15 years at five different Texas newspapers (One doesn’t count.) I had kind of tentatively planned to try my hand at freelancing by the time I was 50 years old. As it turned out I was about six months ahead of schedule.

I have kept up with turning out a daily blog for most of the past 10 years. However, I also have worked a decent-paying part-time job for about seven of those years. During the last year or so as I was given a steady dose of 32-hours a week, as well as serving free now for a few years as a regional vice president of my union local. Consequently, my output slowed down. The same can be said of my paying freelance jobs.

For a couple of years I made money as a freelance journalist. When I say “I made” money, I don’t mean I came out ahead. Neither did I “make” money, as in printing up my own $20-bills. Now what made me think of that? Uh, nothing Secret Service Special Agent Whatshisname.

All of the previous happened as I have become older and developed a few health problems, diabetes the most serious one. I really have improved my health as for Type II diabetes, my A1C falling on a downward trend to 7.1. I also had surgery on my toe Tuesday that was spurred by my diabetes. I developed a ulcer on my left second toe and it never healed completely. So my podiatrist suggested about a month ago that he do hammertoe surgery on that toe in order to keep from striking the injured toe and in doing so allowing my toe to “all hang out” so to speak.

I have a bandage on my foot that I was told to stay off of except for going to the bathroom or kitchen. I have had to do a bit more than that, though carefully, because I am a (confirmed or unconfirmed, I’m not quite sure which one) bachelor.

So, I don’t know what my toe is doing, if anything, and will not know until Doc unwraps it on Monday.

I have tried mostly through using my blog name as my identity to, not shield it, but to not necessarily expose it. I certainly am fooling nobody because so many of my stories have been spread among folks I know, who at the very least, can put two plus two together gets something between three and five.

This past decade has exposed me to some very interesting experiences. Some — like Hurricanes Rita and Ike — were exciting. Others, like living in my truck for about a month at one time, and losing two brothers last year were sad. Those hurricanes were a source of income for awhile, as I freelanced for a major metropolitan newspaper. I freelanced in suburbia for about six months as well while staying in the Dallas area with a friend.

I am in the beginning stages of gathering then culling some of my favorite posts over the last 10 years and, most likely, adding to them for a book. Whether it will be hardcover, e-book, or body art, I don’t know. I need a publisher. If you are a publisher and are not trying to scam me — I will check you out scrupulously — send me an e-mail to the address on the blog.

Looking at my Statcounter stats, I am pleased to see I still get an average of 20 page views per day. Only one or two are return visits, but that is understandable due to my recent lack of output. Most recently, those page views came from the United States and 20 other countries including Iran, Russia, Mexico, Vietnam and, oh, Canada.

By the way, the name, “eightfeetdeep,” yes, it did come in part from the HBO series “Six Feet Under.” I decided not to go along with convention by saying why six feet when you can go eightfeetdeep?

I have thought at times trying to make money through a blog, not especially this one. I do still take donations. But I don’t know what’s to come in the future. I certainly never planned on blogging for 10 years.

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Were you off today for, uh, umm … ?

Q: What day is it?

A: Monday.

Q: No jackass, I mean you are off work today. What holiday is it?

A: Uh, it is Happy Monday Off?

Q: C’mon now.

A: It is Presidents Day.

The first president is honored today with a holiday that includes apostrophes, dashes, another president and a civil rights leader.
The first president is honored today with a holiday that includes apostrophes, dashes, another president and a civil rights leader.

And things just go downhill from there. This pretended conversation ends in an answer, that is partially correct. It all just depends where you are and what you call this Federal and bank holiday.

If you work for the federal government then today is officially known as George Washington’s Birthday. Or as we used to joke as a kid, George Birthington’s Washday. If, however, you are a state employee you may have a different answer and perhaps even use varied punctuation of the holiday name.

Take Texas, for example. Okay, I am a Texan and damned proud of it. Who isn’t? Those who don’t like Texas, perhaps. Those folks might add to take Texas, “Please!” The name of today’s holiday, according to the State of Texas, is Presidents’ Day. Ditto for Presidents’ Day in Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, Vermont, and Washington.

If you are in Alaska, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming, you would be celebrating “President’s Day.” That it is a single president’s day — the apostrophe “s” day. Hmm, I wonder who that president would be?

To further confuse the populace of this great nation, some states figure folks already know whose damned birthday it is. In Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, and Oregon, the state fathers got rid of that pesky apostrophe altogether — it being “Presidents Day.”

Virginia, the state of the first president’s birth and death, gives him “George Washington Day.”

Like the federal government, the state of Massachusetts celebrates “George Washington’s Birthday.”

The other states share the day with Abraham Lincoln, who was born February 12 and had never been honored with a holiday. That is despite that some states honor Lincoln’s counterpart in the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. Utah skips the apostrophe-s and call the holiday Washington and Lincoln Day. Colorado and Ohio likewise omits the apostrophe and instead uses a dash — Washington-Lincoln Day. Alabama, unsurprisingly holding a grudge, leaves Lincoln out and substitutes Thomas Jefferson for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson Day. Arkansas chooses to link the first president with someone probably not know out of the state who is not a president but, probably surprising to some, was a civil rights activist. George Washington’s Birthday and Daisy Gatson Bates Day honors the “Father of Our Country” with a publisher of a black newspaper who played an important part in the 1957 integration crisis involving efforts to enroll black students in Little Rock’s all white Central High School.

Most of the confusion over the whole Washington and President Day “thing,” notice I use no apostrophe or s with the latter, stems from the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971. That federal law established 3-day-weekend holidays and moved Washington’s real birthday of February 22 to the third Monday in February. A push to create a holiday honoring presidents dates back to the early 1950s. Some congressional members actually wanted the day to honor all presidents but others believed the day often falling between Washington’s and Lincoln’s actual birthdays would cause problems. Compounding matters President Nixon referred to the holiday as Presidents Day.

Today, the day is mostly a holiday for government employees and those in the financial industry. It likewise is a day of traditional sales, especially in department sales. The average Joe, or Jane or George, doesn’t take the day off. It is just one more facet of government where many of the “Big-R Republicanism” persuasion fail in the argument that the federal government is a bogeyman of free-market captialism or is of a socialistic bent.

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Imaginations

Who was it that dreamed of this modern life?

Years ago we laid back in the pasture looking at the clouds and we would imagine them as something we knew about whether vaguely or not.

It was so quiet that when the wind blew, the rustling pine needles shocked us for some period that could only be described as “nano-momentarily.” But the quiet itself wasn’t alarming, rather it was expected. You might hear an airplane fly over but it was seldom.

The sounds of a chainsaw felling timber somewhere nearby in the Pineywoods of East Texas, as well as the blast from a shotgun that some hunter fired in some different direction, were not so much marvels as they were expressions of work.

This “computer” contraption I had heard of for many years but it would be way past my “wonder years” when I would finally see one, and into a new decade when I might much less use one.

We would wait patiently, or perhaps not so much, for the three old ladies on our “party line” to get off the phone so that we could make a call. We made fun of those ladies after listening quietly in on their conversations about grape jam and the use of fresh okra.

Perhaps the minds who created modern technology: the Internet and Facebooks of the world had much more imagination than most of us. Those who enlarged the boundaries of medicine that help so many could not have all thought only of the amount of money their inventions would produce.

Likewise, those who made the manned and unmanned weapons of, well, some size of destruction, surely did not do so strictly because they hate their fellow man and woman.

Or so we hope, anyhow.

What does that big cloud in the middle of the sky resemble? A peace symbol? A jet fighter? Or perhaps it reminds us of home and what we did at a different time in life.

You got me there, Bubba!