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A cliche will likely prove right in two weeks

We have all heard the old cliche about how things being worse before they get better. Perhaps that is what will be soon happening to me.

By no means am I saying I want my situation worse so I suppose I should explain.

For several months now, I have been a virtual prisoner in my own abode. The pinnacle of these months have been taking a trip, mostly by Greyhound, to Houston to see a doctor at the VA Hospital. I mentioned one such trip yesterday. Fortunately, most were better than this week’s trip.

I have been on light duty, phone duty mostly, at work. I spent about six months doing that last year with a torn meniscus and surgery to repair it. Then came physical therapy for a month. Hopefully, this episode won’t going to take that long. I hope.

What has had me tied down for a short time this year has been — ta da — my left, second toe. Is that not appropriate for a blog named eightfeetdeep?

As I have mentioned before I have Type II diabetes. Some time ago I found a sore on the bottom of that toe. It, the toe, and the two adjacent ones are afflicted with hammertoe. You can read all about it in the link. As a result, the toe keeps being hammered when walking. With diabetes, such ulcerations tend to heal very slowly, if not ever.

I have been seeing a podiatrist for a couple of months now. He suggested, and I tend to agree, that hammertoe surgery is called for. This is a rather long and technical look at the operation written by a podiatrist. If you know a little of the basics of medical terminology, then it isn’t all that difficult. But basically, I will have some bones cut on in the toe and they should heal within a couple of weeks. I will probably need a week off after being “surged.” Isn’t that a better term than operated upon? No? Who cares what you think?

My podiatrist said he has done “thousands” of these surgeries and that they only take 10-to-15 minutes. Of course, there is the waiting around all morning, plus recovery, then figuring out how the hell I am getting home from Houston. I will figure that out and I better do so pretty damn quick because my surgery is in two weeks.

Oh my. Well, like I said. It will be worse before it gets better. Damned cliche!

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Bad Boys better hide, COPS is coming again

Last week the Beaumont City Council approved an agreement with Langley Productions “related to the filming of the Beaumont Police Department for the television show ‘COPS.'”

If you live on Pluto, COPS is the show on which police from various cities and counties throughout the country exhibit scads of police officers encountering mostly law-breakers. Many of those perps seem to either wear no shirt or a sport a “wife-beater.” Some of those suspects may even be wife-beaters.

This is the second time the long-running TV show has visited Beaumont. While the folks from COPS stayed for whatever period, the previous stay only resulted in a small chase in a neighborhood which resulted in one friendly perp was arrested.

I watch the show every now and then, such as now when the satellite system here is acting strangely. I have to admit they encounter the interesting, the pathetic, everyone it seems other than the innocent. Always at the end of every encounter, it seems, the police officers appear to impart a “moral of the story.” That is among the outcomes of the show that I really dislike. I also do not like the actions of a great many officers. This is specifically related to their command-giving and their telling suspects not to “resist” when sometimes it appears the police officers’ actions may lead to “resisting.” Police chases are also a subject that I could pontificate on from here to then.

When police chase a subject, he may not know who the person is that is running. Sure, the person chased might be a murderer. But in some cases, the person runs for what he or she may perceive is a large jam to avoid. Of course, once the officer starts chasing, then technically the offense increases.

I’ve said it before and I know law enforcement officers who admit that it is a personal affront for some one to run away from then. This is especially the case when officers have to chase someone on foot.

Oh and something else that drives me up a wall is what I am watching. A suspected prostitute they arrest her for DWI after failing a couple of sobriety tests by a narrow margin. I just hope I am not suspected of DUI because, even sober and I no longer drink and drive, I would definitely fail these stupid field tests. My diabetes has taken a toe-hold on me, no pun intended, but I have hammertoes on my left feet. One has an ulcer that I have tried to clear up for two months. That’s just not working and I will have surgery next month on my toes to hopefully correct them. Either way, there is no way in hell I’d pass any kind of “roadside gymnastics,” as Gary Trichter, a certified DUI/DWI attorney in Houston, calls it.

I would raise the thought that problems now faced in the country with what seems to be an explosion of police shootings could be due to the COPS factor. I can’t prove it. And it may be years before that is either proved or disproved.

Please don’t think I dislike cops or cop shows. Some of my favorite shows are police-oriented, some live, some recreated and some pure fiction.

Nevertheless, COPS will be back on our streets sometime soon for better or worse. Our police will continue you their often dangerous jobs perhaps playing for the camera, but hopefully not.

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Some thoughts on feet n’ football

Welcome back. I suppose that is a correct expression. I welcome myself back. I am trying very hard to stay off my left foot. That is where I have a toe wound and it is linked to diabetes. The wound became infected and my podiatrist was like “Holy shit!” He didn’t say that. But his expression said it for him.

I have the inclination to ask him why he wanted to study podiatry. One immediately thinks — at least those of us with somewhat perverted minds — “foot fetish.” But feet stank. Yes I know that isn’t the right word but to get a little OG into it. I’m talking “Original Gangster” but some of you, perhaps it is just I, probably think I was recalling that dirty little short ditty sang by Dr. Hook called “Monterrey Jack.” You know:

“You mean OD/No OG/That’s when you OD and you say Oh gee … ”

I tell you what, for the acclaimed writer of children’s books and poems that Shel Silverstein was, he sure wrote some bawdy songs full of sex and drugs and rock and roll, such as this song. The guy was a f***ing genius.

Where was I any way? Oh yeah, my cousin just emailed me about a Facebook post where I explained a little of what’s going on with my left, second toe. You see, it has a wound partially started via diabetes and the adjacent hammer toes I have. Fortunately, X-rays found no infection in the bone. So if I stay off the foot for awhile in order to heal, perhaps I want have to worry about amputation. As it is, I say a better than even chances. I hate thinking about it. Best not to think about it. So keep it clean, unlike what Shelly did when he wasn’t writing enchanting literature like “I’m being swallowed by a boa constrictor, a boa constrictor, a boa constrictor … ” And even PG tunes such as “A Boy Named Sue.” Yes, yes, I know Johnny Cash sang it, or whatever he did with it, but he didn’t write it. Neither did Cash write Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Johnny made other folks’ songs breathe more feeling.

You know something, people tend to overlook the poetry with music of people like Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Willie Nelson and others of their ilk. They are all Texans, of course. Kristofferson was a Texan by virtue of Army bratdom. I’m just saying.

And also I’m just saying, what’s up with that Marshawn Lynch? These pro football players, some of them, are just trying to be cute. Of course, that wouldn’t be how they would describe it.

Some folks will chalk it up to disadvantaged youths with no father figure at home and 24/7 rap music and drugs and so forth. Do that if you will. But there are people who turn out just fine. I know a couple of former pro football players these days. Then I also was acquainted with a couple of other former pros, both Dallas Cowboys from the early 60s, but I didn’t hold that against them. One was an Episcopal priest and the other married to a Methodist minister. Both nice guys.

Really, if there is blame to go around for people like Lynch acting like buttholes then a share goes to you and me. Well, the literal me not the figurative me. We make these young men big heroes and like to watch them dance in the end zone and make fools of themselves. We buy their crap and like to see them stick it to the man. That’d be the rich ol’ white man.

Over the last few years the Super Bowl has been pretty uninteresting to me. Even the commercials I usually value more than the game itself. So it is likely to be this year. I don’t give a damn who wins. If there was some way both teams could lose, that would be a great outcome in my mind.

Cheating bastards versus arrogant a**holes. Katie Perry “Roars” in between. Come one, come all!

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This week: Little Virginia college likely to have political representation

Probably most of the remaining world didn’t notice but I missed a few days of writing EFD this week. Most of the reason was medically-related. No, I haven’t been sick. I’ve just been sick of medical appointments.

I finally finished up a month’s worth of physical therapy after having arthroscopic surgery to remove torn meniscus cartilage in my knee. Then I had to see the doctor that did the surgery. That was later followed by a little added work at my job that the doctor has allowed. No, I still am not at 100 percent. All of that with my friends telling me: “Why I was back on the job the week after my knee surgery!” Well, maybe you were and maybe you are Peyton Manning. I don’t care. Each person responds differently to various surgery, even if that surgery is simply removing a torn knee cartilage. Some folks don’t require physical therapy. Some people do. Then there are others who have little success with physical therapy. I am one who fits in that category.

My hope is that I will gradually get stronger and my knee will work better. That’s because I have a lot of other crap that is wrong with me, like diabetes and chronic neck pain and chronic lower back pain. So there!

Due to a bunch of medical appointments this week, I have fallen behind on the news. All of a sudden, John McCain is on TV saying we should bomb Iraq. I thought his thing was bombing Iran? Oh well, Iran, Iraq, they both are only separated by a letter.

Then we’ve had the whole Bergdahl affair. There always must be something to keep the politicians fired up to make life a pisser for the rest of us.

Well, at least Eric Cantor was beat. But wait! That’s bad, Or is kind of bad. Take for instance, Democratic Party head Debbie Wasserman Shultz, went to Iowa ahead of that state’s Republican convention this weekend, to rub in just how bad things are for the GOP since an unknown, under-funded college professor beat the House majority leader in a congressional election earlier this week in Virginia.

 ”  … The Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period,” Schultz said after the Virginia GOP leader went down. “When Eric Cantor, who time and again has blocked common sense legislation to grow the middle class, can’t earn the Republican nomination, it’s clear the GOP has redefined ‘far right.’ Democrats on the other hand have nominated a mainstream candidate who will proudly represent this district and I look forward to his victory in November.”

Well, let’s just hope whomever it is, the Democrat who is running against whomever it was who beat Cantor, wins in November. One thing for sure, the winner of the congressional election will be a professor from tiny Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., unless Cantor decides to run as a write-in and is elected. Yes, it seems the little-known professor who beat the GOP House Majority Leader will face a Democrat who is also a little-known professor at Randolph-Macon College. At least it should be a great time for the local student newspaper “The Yellow Jacket.” Of course, stranger things have happened. There is nothing like a national news story to let the “big boys” in to kick the local journalists in the teeth.

Oh, Dave Brat is the Republican who beat Cantor. He will face Democrat Jack Trammell. Well if that don’t (sic) beat all.

Actually, I’ve been saying for several years now that the “big tent” is getting ready to fold. That the Republicans will eventually go away, the way of the Whigs. I suppose that would really neither be here nor there, if one takes a look back at he origins and dismantling of the Whigs or the Republican party.

It sounds like politics may have finally taken a historic turn. Or not.

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Bowe Bergdahl: Innocent, guilty? It’s enough to make one’s feet hurt.

What is good today? My feet are doing well. They hurt like hell. But they are doing well, a foot doctor told me so.

I drove to the VA Hospital today some 80-something-miles away in Houston, bad knee and all. This was my semi-annual checkup with the podiatrist. He clipped my toenails. Those on my right leg are hard to trim because I still have to wear that damn knee brace. I go back to the knee doctor next week. And to the sleep doctor. And to my primary care doctor. Were they all in one place, say the Houston VA Hospital, I could just pitch a tent in the lobby. But, of course, the appointments are in three different locations.

A good foot report is good news for a diabetic. The pain in my feet now are likely a byproduct of that diabetes. I really don’t know why they hurt so badly. Perhaps it stemmed from tight socks in shoes for a total of three hours on the road. Maybe it was the Coney Cheese Dog and Onion Rings I had at James Coney Island. Maybe, but it was a good lunch. I don’t know what made my feet hurt.  I don’t even know how I got on this subject. Perhaps it is because my aching feet overtake every other thought I have. Still, my intention of “soldiering on” through my hurting feet and knee was to pass along this column from Chicago Sun-Times writer Neil Steinberg.

Steinberg hits at the anger I feel over this entire story over the return of prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl who was held by the Taliban. The anger isn’t at Bergdahl. It isn’t at Obama. The anger comes from the nut cases, mostly Republicans, who could give a rat’s ass less that an American soldier is back in the purportedly friendly hands of his government. The anger at Bergdahl and Obama, it’s just whipped up meanness by a political party that is falling apart at the seams. The war these days is more between the so-called “mainstream” GOP and the Tea Party. The Tea Party didn’t make much hay in the primary congressional races of late so they’re pissed, and the sweat that is staining those starched white shirts of those starched white Republicans are pissing the old-line off to no end. The GOP will eventually go the way of the Whigs, Princess telephones and ashtrays on airliners.

But yes, I am pissed too! The GOP and the media and who knows who(m) else are too freaking ignorant when it comes to the armed forces because so few have served these days. Though perhaps some who have served skip the bad parts. Most of us do that. Hey, it’s more fun to remember the time we got shitfaced in Subic City and one of our shipmates, whose name I won’t mention — it wasn’t me by the way — met us at the door of a certain joint all dressed up in a Filipina’s stripping outfit of G-string and pasties. But I am willing to bet most service members remember more than one or two fellow shipmates or soldiers who went on leave or on liberty and never came back.

Going over the hill, as we used to call desertion, is not that rare. I’ve had close friends who deserted. It wasn’t during war that they left. So they weren’t shot. Of course, I don’t think anyone has been shot for desertion during combat since Eddie Slovik in WWII. Also, it isn’t just with Bergdahl, nor just with the military, but it seems that the presumption of innocence, that has long been such a great point of judicial magnificence with our system, has seemingly disappeared. Everyone knows Bergdahl is guilty, all the Republican senators say so. Everyone knows that whomever the subject of Nancy Grace’s show tonight is guilty, because she says so.

Military trials, court martials as they are called, are already stacked against defendants because of the way trials are structured. See the Manual for Courts Martial. I am too tired to try to explain it.

Bowe Bergdahl may escape punishment once, if and when, we find out all the particulars about his escapade. Or perhaps he may be punished. Whatever happens, I hope all goes well as possible for the young man. Five years with the Taliban as a guest seems like punishment enough.

The good news, of course, my diabetic feet seem in good shape. They also are feeling better, thank you.