Category: Orphans

Here I am, drinking my third cup of, coffee today. That is something I rarely do. The reason for consumption of another cup is my hope that it might assist me, to put it delicately, take a dump. I drank a 5-ounce cup of Prepopkit around three hours ago. Coffee stimulates the colon, or so I read.

This disappointment is not because I like defecating. I am supposed to have a colonoscopy as well as some kind of upper gastrointestinal tests early in the morning.

The test is nothing I look forward to although the procedure itself isn’t usually as bad, at least the colonoscopy. It isn’ one of those — you turned 50 so you need a colonoscopy.  In my case, I am 62. My last test was at 49 years of age. I’ve not had one since.

That previous procedure wasn’t fun. Not only was the preparation, with the twisted name GoLightly, god-awful but the test wasn’t so hot either.

I was living in Waco at the time and was a VA patient so I had to drive to Temple, where the Olin Teague VA Medical Center and part of the Texas A & M medical school awaited me.

My tests are due to possible internal blood loss. I have known I had anemia for several years.  My neurologist prescribed B-12 shots once a month that I must give myself. My primary care doctor, where I now live, in Southeast Texas, ordered the tests due to lab work showing low values relating to my blood. The doctor wanted to determine whether I had some blood loss in my digestive system.

So here I am, almost four hours and movement. I am supposed to drink another six ounces of laxative at 8:00 p.m. Maybe that will, as they say here, “get my bowels in an uproar.” I don’t want to have my test canceled. I’d have to go through all this again.

Crap.

I was thinking the other day about Boykin Springs campground in the Angelina National Forest.  There is nothing I want to expound upon. This scene kind of does it for me for the time being.

Back am I at the old keyboard after more than a month. And in looking back over the past year — soon will 2018 come, next week to be  exact — likely the largest story where I live and one that was prominent nationally was Hurricane Harvey.  Harvey made three landfalls, the last being some 40 miles southeast of where I live as Tropical Storm Harvey. The most extensive damage from Harvey was from a continual rain and flooding, also in my area.

Some 15 or so miles down the road from where I live is Nederland, Texas, which set a new rainfall record of more than 64 inches of rain over five days. The area closest to where I live in Beaumont had a bit more that 54 inches.  Permit me to add that the average annual rainfall for the Beaumont metropolitan statistical area is more than 50 inches a year.

Harvey plowed into the central Texas Gulf Coast area near Rockport on Aug. 25. Not much in the way of forecasts came forth to indicate the upper Texas Coast would be hardest hit, though not from hurricane winds, from Harvey. It is also not, I should add, correct to imply Southern Texas was not walloped by the hurricane. It was.

When the storm moved out of the Coastal Bend area some weird natural trickery took place that would make Houston and the Beaumont areas familiar to those who keep up with national news. I present the trickery, as described by the Weather Prediction Center of the weather service’s parent agency NOAA, for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

 “Harvey weakened as it moved north-northwest toward central Texas. Regaining tropical storm status on the 26^th, Harvey slowed significantly east of San Antonio. Remaining within Texas borders for 60 hours, Harvey wrapped dry air around its southern and southeast portions of its circulation showing up as a dry slot on satellite imagery and forcing convection with heavy rainfall into its northeast quadrant near Houston near a thermal boundary, appearing extratropical. As Harvey moved east offshore Texas, thunderstorm activity began to focus within its northern and northwestern quadrants which prolonged the heavy rainfall across southeast Texas between the Sabine River and Houston.

 “Harvey moved back ashore across southwesternmost Louisiana on the morning of August 29. Harvey weakened to a tropical  depression during the evening of August 30 and continued tracking north-northeast, becoming fully extratropical on September 1. “

As I have noted here before, I have long enjoyed the rain. Coming from Southeast Texas, one doesn’t have much of a choice. I suppose one might consider me a “pluviophile,” that being one who finds joy and peace of mind during rainy days. It has since snowed here and a cold rain is falling outside now. I am now reexamining my pluviophilia. As it stands, only rainy days that ARE Mondays bring me down.

A whole lot of folks felt a whole lot of hurt this year. Some continue to feel it. They may be spending their days fixing up their waterlogged homes while sleeping in a camping trailer or even a tent.

One of the several people who stirred my interest in storytelling and journalism is the late Charles Kuralt. The bald and comfortably-appearing newsman traveled from town-to-town in search of “real American people” in his “On The Road” segment of the CBS Evening News. That segment celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Kuralt died 20 years ago. Steve Hartman was given the On The Road segment starting in 2011. I bring up Hartman in this missive because of a recent segment that, as sometimes his spots do, tugged at heart strings. But this time, it was in a post-Harvey environment. It happened in Beaumont.

Secret Santa is generic name for one who provides gifts for those who may be unknown to the recipient and the giver.  Sometimes, those gifts may be larger than others. I remember of hearing of one Secret Santa in particular who comes out of nowhere and usually gives no less than $100 and sometimes more. This guy may have been featured by CBS in past years, I don’t know. I just know that Hartman of CBS gave this year’s report that Santa is alive and well.

I leave you a link for that piece of story-telling where I live. Hartman visited here in Beaumont a week or so ago when the real Santa was here to spread cheer. Among those involved in helping spread the cheer were a number of Beaumont police officers — a department where my late brother Robert spent more than 30 years — with many of those officers who didn’t have to work due to their homes having been flooded but still came out to do their jobs.

By the way, over the past, I do not know how many years, I have been told there is this war on Christmas. Supposedly we are to believe that saying “Merry Christmas” has been banned among the general public. These right-wing fools like 45 (who lives now in the White House) try to sell  such division to a mostly ill-informed base. What an ass. I asked Santa if he would bring me a new president. Perhaps by sometime in 2018. That would really make for a happy new year.

Trump is talking about what “we” will do in Afghanistan and issue yet again a “Trump” doctrine. Is there a mouse in his pocket? Crap o’mighty.

He speaks in his hyperbolic narcissism.  It is just too ridiculous to repeat.

Trump’s Secret Squirrel attitude once again promised he will not tell the public — who provides “blood and treasure” in the manner of bullet catchers and unlimited money — what  our troops will do. That danger is a government that willingly spends those lives and those dollars with no oversight. Oh, well there is “congressional oversight,” if you don’t find those words oxymoronic.  Perhaps in Trump’s mind, this might be viewed more toward the moronic.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on a “town hall” with CNN’s Jake Tapper, the former whom I have long felt bears a scary resemblance with the 60s sitcom “The Munsters” character Eddie Munster, is back ready to suck up to Trump after the president’s bright shining insanity last week.

This is all for right now. Such clarity. I wish I could say this all is a big joke. Well, at least Trump is a joke, but his mouthing off and his stupidity is out for all to see.

It’s been so long. No, I haven’t gone on a long trip. Although, if my Power Play ticket hits all six numbers tonight, I might just take a trip.

I once would daydream about hitting the big lottery pots. That was mostly when I was able to walk an hour a day for exercise. But I am lucky if I can stand for 60 minutes within a day.

If I were to fantasize about winning the lottery, it would include thoughts of seeing whatever doctor was possible to help my lower back which pains me so standing or walking today. Then I would hire a personal trainer to help whip my overweight ass into shape. All of that would be little to accomplish if I won the $154, 800,000 cash value of Power Ball.

Oh hell, I would buy my dream home somewhere — likely in the East Texas piney woods — and maybe a townhouse on some coast somewhere. And a vehicle? Oh yeah. I would buy an SUV, trading in my  newly purchased 2004 Chrysler Pacifica; I’d buy some kind of full-size pickup; and I think I’d probably buy some cool little BMW. I had a Beemer once.

I bought, kind of, a 1972 BMW 2002. I became its driver in 1990 from my friend Bruce. It was a rather odd-looking vehicle with three colors. I drove it during my first months in a small East Texas sawmill town where my first newspaper job resided. I edited  a weekly paper, all with no experience except a degree in journalism. I must have done something right. I was told the paper turned a profit for the first time in years during my tenure.

Here is my take on winning the big money:

• Being an old sailor man, I find it hard to fathom someone who wins a jackpot who previously hadn’t thought for what reason or reasons, he or she might use a lot of money.
• No one will feel that you are s**t if you buy an expensive car. If you can afford it and want to kiss it all over, who cares?
• I don’t care one way or another what you do with you money. If you want to fund a kangaroo path in Melbourne, just do it!

There is so much silliness one might think of should one hit the jackpot. Besides my material world items — not to mention I would fly off or ride a ship to wherever —  I would  likewise try my best to help people.

I think I would do whatever possible to help, relatives first, then friends or acquaintances or family to attend college. Check back with me when or if I win the Power Ball.

I once worked as a firefighter. I have and have had relatives and friends who became firemen/firefighters. Two nieces are officers in my hometown volunteer fire department. They also work as police officers in a nearby town. I would like to help out fire departments or other public safety services in my hometown or other groups whose existences mean quite a lot to me.

Will I win? I never won more than $10 playing Lotto. I won $50 once or twice and $100 doing scratch off on my 40th birthday in Massachusetts. I had to split it with my friend who bought the ticket. Oh well! If I win the almost $155 million. I will not let you know, at least not immediately. But if you know me, you might some day see the green. Or not.