Author: Dick

Imagine that you were once a big rock star. Now imagine that 30 years later nothing has matched that triumph since. That appears to be the case for Gary Glitter, known for “Rock and Roll (Part 2), its chants still echoing from inside U.S. sports arenas.

Glitter’s child molestation trial has opened in Vietnam. That the trial is happening in Vietnam is surreal in itself. The fact that its glam rock guy Glitter is just plain sad if it is true. He already has been in hot water for possessing child pornography and now this.

Oh well, he never was much of a rock and roll god to me anyway.

Day 14 and Vivi the show Whippet remains missing. Meanwhile, I have my own dog problems. I’ve come close to being attacked by dogs twice in the last three days.

I was out for a walk Sunday on Harrison Avenue when this dog that looked otherwise friendly came running at me. It began barking and snarling at me perhaps a foot or so away. I don’t know what type of dog it was. It wasn’t a so-called “dangerous” breed, a term with which I have issues. It was a really pretty dog but it had a bad case of the “territorials,” I suppose. I managed to pick up not more than a twig and threatened the dog. It backed off and I got home with all of my parts intact.

This afternoon I was walking down Evalon Avenue when this momma pit bull accosted me. This dog was, like the one I saw five or six blocks away on Sunday, showing me what big teeth it had. I found a somewhat flimsy stick near by and thrashed at the dog but that only seemed to piss the dog off even more. Finally, I guess it got tired and I was allowed to leave with all of my parts intact.

In the Waco suburb where I lived prior to moving back to Beaumont, I had made a habit of carrying a broomstick with me on my daily walks. The stick had been given to me one day when a genuinely bad ass dog came after me. All I could do is swing my hat at the dog. That fortunately set off a car alarm and a guy inside the house I was walking by brought me the stick.

I would hate to have to start toting a stick around with me for my daily walks. I don’t particularly like to use a stick for walking and I like even less having to use it with which to threaten a dog, or even strike a dog if I am attacked. The favorable solution to my problem would be for those people keeping these dogs to have them in a place that is both safe for the dogs and safe for the public. Otherwise, they should call the Humane Society and put them up for adoption. I don’t want to hurt a dog and I don’t want one hurting me either. It’s a pretty simple proposition.

Happy Fat Tuesday. I spent a good portion of my time this Fat Tuesday at the Michael DeBakey VA Hospital in Houston. It’s never fun waiting to see the doctor and then waiting some more, which is kind of the accepted pastime at the VA. At least I got to see a nice Mardi Gras parade.

While in the hospital lobby this afternoon I heard noise-makers blowing and looked up to see a long procession of wheelchairs. These wheelchairs were decorated with various Mardi Gras trimmings and the wheelchair occupants were in bright, festive costumes. The many VA patients in wheelchairs rolled through the lobby handing out beads as I figure they weren’t allowed to throw them — if indeed they could throw the beads — since these were mostly older men and women. It was a pleasant 10-minute or so diversion for me and I think it seems like a fun activity for people who probably don’t have a lot of fun in their lives.

The other diversion there this afternoon was a man whom I shall call “Mr. Unstoppable.” This is, as in can’t get him to shut up. He was a friendly enough guy, a Vietnam vet, who just came up to me started talking and didn’t quit for quite sometime. His conversations went from railing against the “chickenhawks,” those who talk a good game about getting our country into needless wars but have never served in uniform, to baseball. I guess I liked the guy mostly because he ranted about someone who makes me want to rant — Sean Hannity. Although, this man called him Sean “Hannigan.” He also said he listened regularly to Rush Limbaugh on the radio “because that man is a fool. He’s up there saying all this s**t for all these years and he’s high as a kite!”

Encountering a Mr. Unstoppable can get a little tiresome. But on the other hand, you really don’t have to do a lot other than nod and say “Uh huh” so it’s not really a conversation as such that might otherwise wear you out. And when you are waiting around at the VA hospital, the last thing you want is something to wear you out.

The 2006 Winter Olympics are history and I must confess I saw very little of the games on TV. I can’t really say why I didn’t watch more of the games. I like watching some of the sports such as the skiing events and speed skating. But my attention span is a little too short these days to sit and view hours upon hours of olympic feats.

I’m sorry U.S. skier Bode Miller didn’t win any medals. I kind of liked the fact that he talked in the past about skiing “wasted.” Bigtime sports seems to have an excess of facade. Miller may have been ill-advised talking about it and perhaps somewhat reckless for skiing while intoxicated. But he seemed real. That’s got to count for something.

Just what is the fine line that separates sanity and insanity? Is it all a big judgment call? Is it socially defined? You can have an MRI picture taken of your head and can find a tumor. But you can’t necessarily take an MRI of the head and tell that someone is insane. It’s something to think about, especially in light of what I did Saturday morning.

My friend Sarah and I went on a hike in the woods up in the Big Thicket area of Southeast Texas with a group of nature lovers. To make a long story short it was raining rather steadily when we got to the trailhead and it pretty much rained the whole hour or so we were hiking. Now that in itself isn’t so bad. What was bad was the mud.

We mostly hiked around the edge of a creek with our objective a nice-sized little cliff over a pretty cool ravine with a view. But hiking around the creek subjected us to mud, lots and lots of mud. Coming back down from the hill I exited for quite a distance by way of ass — my ass. I had kind of viewed the hike up until that point as kind of a needless pain in the ass that maybe we should have avoided. But once I did the old slip-and-slide, I was convinced that this was a fun outing.

It was fun but kind of crazy for some folks. Like me. I’m not one given to extremes and I think most other times I would have said: “No thanks. I’m not going to go hiking in a downpour along a creek bottom.” It kind of got to where I wanted to make it up that hill and back just to say I did it. I mean it wasn’t all that huge a hill and in dry weather it would be a relatively easy hike.

The hike might have seemed normal to some people. And some may say about my contentions: “What a candy ass!” But like the razor-thin edge, which on one side lies sanity and the other side lunacy, so lives the figurative expressway that separates those who do from those who don’t. The truth is, one never knows on which side of the highway that they’ll find themselves. Not that it really matters. It’s only life.