Category: Orphans

During however long this fight over health care reform has been going on, I have largely been quiet about the subject. Now that it seems to be headed for make or break I will say this: Yipppiiiieeee!!!

I have become so sick of the left and the right and the in between and the media obsessing over this issue that I just want everyone to shut the f**k up!

People have been getting themselves so worked up in a frenzy with their knickers all in a knot that they don’t realize just to what extent they are being manipulated — by all sides. The left, the right, the insurance companies, the medical industry, the media have all gotten people so stirred up that they don’t know what they are fighting for or against anymore.

We have a right and we should be passionate about something that so affects our lives. But we have to stop and ask ourselves just what it will do to our lives if provisions a, b or c of this legislation are passed or what happens if it isn’t enacted. So much of the rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. It’s BS that is aimed more at destroying each other’s political parties or stuffing the pockets of the lobbies whichever side is courting or already receiving their generosity.

I go back to that scene last year where the woman was at a congressional town hall meeting said: “I just want my country back.”

I have to ask: Where did your country go lady? Do you really mean what you are saying or is that just some words provided for you to use because you don’t really know what is going on but you know you aren’t for the Democratic side because of Obama, plus somebody told you you should be out raising hell and you had it reinforced by Fox News. The Democrats are just as guilty. I got an e-mail from Obama’s organization today saying I should call my congressman to tell him I support this reform and they even gave me a suggested script.

It’s  not going to happen though. The main reason is because my congressman is Ted Poe, who I consider to be on the far right fringe of the Republican Party. I am not going to waste my breath or a phone call to his office.

Look, I support the reform. I approve much or most of what has been proposed. Some of the proposals stink. I just don’t think that the world is going to end with whatever outcome happens. I don’t think we will become some new incarnation of the Soviet Union with its passage nor will we all be overcome with a virulent incurable disease if it doesn’t pass.

That isn’t to say that our health care situation won’t become worse without the passage of reform. I hardly think it will get better by itself.

I think Obama and the Democrats are right for taking on this issue and fighting for its success. There are scores of issues that need to be acted upon, but like putting off that project at work or procrastinating on that school paper, those things don’t get the attention they need until the last minute or it is too late. For an example I would look at our current financial mess.

There is so much that needs to be done in this country and I am talking big things! Among those are infrastructure, making sure water remains available in the future, I could go on and on.  So I am hoping this passes and people will just be quiet about it for a while. I also know that is the last thing that is going to happen.

A personal disaster was narrowly averted today as I stood in a long, slow line waiting to order a buffalo burger at Novrozky’s here in Beaumont. That’s not to be confused with Roznovsky’s, also a hamburger joint, some 90 miles west in Houston.

Now since I’ve mentioned two restaurants it might look as if I am about to do a review or something. I will get to my short review of the former after the averted disaster.

Several women came in with three or four little golden-haired girls and joined the already long lunch line. I must have waited 10 minutes since the restaurant, at its busiest time of the lunch crowd, had only an average of 1.5 women taking orders. It is easy to imagine that having to stand in a long line, that a bunch of little children are bound to become restless and bored. That is what apparently was going on with this one little girl behind me as I stood somewhat sideways watching a NCAA March Madness games on one of the restaurant’s TV screens.

Blondie was, of course, cute as a speckled pup with a pink ribbon tied around its neck. Or a little pit bull pup with a spiked, leather collar around its neck, if you happen to be of the gangsta variety. The little girl was about waist-high to me which meant that if she was to start doing windmill-type motions with her arms and hands she could very well hit some guy where it might have just hurt like the dickens. I wasn’t hit there but I was accidentally struck once at a location too close for comfort. Thankfully the errant slap from little windmill girl didn’t hit me there because that would have been embarrassing as hell and someone would have probably pulled out a cell phone and took a video of me being bent over in agony where it would have ended up on You Tube.

Now you are probably asking why I am telling you this? I would imagine most men would not like to talk about being racked by a 10-year-old girl in a public place. You already know my feelings. But I say this to issue a warning to some of you parents of younger children out there.

I know a parent can’t prepare for every inevitability. However, had the mother or person who was supervising this child seen what happened — and  I am not sure that she did not — she might have issued an apology or asked her child to apologize. Obviously, I could not say anything lest I be ostracized at the very least, or perhaps even accused of something unseemly. And it wasn’t even my fault!

As it was, the group of parents didn’t even notice in the five or so seconds in which it occurred that I picked up the kid by her hands and swung her around like a Tilt-o-Whirl. Boy, did she stagger around for awhile afterward. The parents just went on talking and didn’t even notice. Only kidding!

On to the food. It was about an hour before my food was ready. That’s kind of slow even for Novrozsky’s. I guess they keep low overhead by putting all the personnel back in the kitchen instead of out front. Seriously, they could have used one more person to handle the crowd. I saw one party of six-to-eight leave because of the long line. Of course, my back and feet hurting didn’t help.

After finally getting the food it was good, as it usually is. However, the bottom part of my wheat bun was kind of soggy. I am not sure the reason for it unless the lettuce was unusually wet. Nonetheless, after waiting for an hour for my food, I wasn’t about to go back and complain. They did run out of unsweetened tea, which I mentioned to the hired help just after ordering. I wasn’t keen on spending a long period of time without drinking what I had ordered, especially after almost $2 for it.

The tea was ready only minutes before my burger and onion rings. I know I shouldn’t eat onion rings on my diet and with diabetes and all. But it’s something I do once in awhile. I’ll try to do better, I promise. Hey, at least I don’t smoke anymore. The onion rings were fantastic. And the burger was good. A good buffalo burger with fat-free cheese is what it was. The burger itself is low in fat, or so I am told, and missing is supposedly some of that other stuff not good for you in beef. I still like beef, especially beef hamburgers.

Novrozky’s, with an “N,” can be found in a number of Southeast Texas towns and in Southwestern Louisiana. I recommend them including the one where I ate today on Dowlen at Folsom in the Kroger Shopping Center. I would suggest you get there ahead of the lunch crowd or just after. They do have a drive-through and have take-out orders, but you are pretty screwed either way if you go at the height of lunch time. If you have the patience and aren’t afflicted with back or any other kind of pain that might erupt from standing and waiting in line for long periods of time, then I would naturally suggest you either come back or go somewhere else.

They’ve got great burgers as long as they aren’t drowning in wet lettuce or something else. They are also a little pricey for hamburgers in this area, almost $13 for my buffalo burger, onion rings and a drink. They are among the best, non-national, of hamburger places in Southeast Texas.

Bravo Zulu. It’s a naval signal meaning “well done.” The origin of the nautical term is not as important as the sentiment in the instance I announce here.

I give a thumbs up to the Department of Veterans Affairs due to a news release I just found in my e-mail. The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Hospital in Houston has control over a number of outpatient clinics in the region. This includes clinics in Galveston and Beaumont, the latter is where my primary doc is located and where I have to go for my monthly appointment Friday.

The release announced that the VA, in collaboration with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, has expanded a Section 8 Housing voucher program for homeless veterans.

I see this as some very good news for those veterans here in Beaumont who are homeless. A reason for my seal of approval, chuckle, is because I am a veteran who spent a month or two sleeping in my pickup in some Beaumont parking lots or on McFaddin Beach until I got a job.

How many vets are on the streets of Beaumont, Galveston, or other places in either Jefferson, Galveston or other Southeast Texas counties, I have no clue. I would say one would be too many though.

I have seen, at times, some shoddy and frustrating care from the VA in the 15 years I have used that health care system. I worked for more than five years as a reporter and columnist who covered the VA nationally and locally in Central Texas and have seen some serious problems in veterans’ health care.

The VA isn’t perfect. But, like me, it’s all many of us veterans have. I have always maintained the whole system isn’t bad. It is just a very huge, the second largest cabinet department to Defense if Homeland Security hasn’t overtaken it. It’s bureaucratic. It does have some very excellent people as its employees. I include in that my primary care provider, nurses, and neurologist. I know of others far away from my little area who do incredible work the non-veteran would not imagine. People such as my old college friend, Grace, who is among those doing great research at the VA to help patients suffering bipolar disorder.

I’ve also been mistreated by a few people at the VA who feel a sense of entitlement and should be weeded out.

I give my old Navy congrats, Bravo Zulu, not lightly. I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to many. But this is a very positive step for those in my area who could use help in getting off the street.

A friend sent me a text message a bit ago wishing me a Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I sent him a text message back returning the greeting. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to whoever sees this.

St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated around the world. Well, the holiday is big in a lot of the former British Empire but I don’t know if Romania or Brazil turn their rivers green like is done along the San Antonio River Walk. Those are two countries of the 15 I see have visited EFD during the past 24 hours.

I was searching for information about St. Patrick’s Day and the Wikipedia took me to Dallas where they have a pretty large St. Patrick’s Day parade on Lower Greenville Avenue. I went one year, not long after the celebration had first been organized in the early 1980s. Exploring the ‘net today I found that one of my favorite places to go when I lived in Dallas (University Park, surrounded by SMU and Dallas, actually) had burned along with three other businesses on Lower Greenville in a four-alarm fire on March 2.

The Lower Greenville Bar and Grill was a neat place to go have a few cool ones on a hot day. One could sit by one of the big windows inside the 75-year-old bar — supposedly the oldest bar in continual existence in Dallas — and people watch in what was fast becoming a trendy area for younger folks in Dallas. Of course, I was a younger folk in those days.

But an electrical short in the attic in one of the three adjacent bars to the GBG sparked the blaze that gutted the place just two weeks before the big St. Paddy’s Day Parade.

I have long since given up going to bars but it does seem that all my old favorite watering holes are gone. The Postman’s Lounge in Gulfport burned while I was overseas in the Navy. I don’t know what happened to Jim’s just up the street but it either was torn down, became something else or was wiped out by Katrina. The Crossroads in Nacogdoches, like the Joni Mitchell song says, was paved and “they put up a parking lot.”

Maybe they’re trying to tell you something. Well, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t hang at bars and all kinds of businesses, especially bars, will eventually turn over to someone else, go out of business, become a pizza joint or a parking lot, destroyed by hurricanes or are burned down. Sometimes they burn down during a hurricane like some places in Galveston did when Ike hit two years ago. It is just a progression of time, the demise of these places. Some of the people I associate with these places, Waldo, Buddy, Buffalo Bob, Betti are all gone, way too early for me.

Certainly, though, I know from the five years I worked fighting fires that in a flash a structure is here and then it’s gone, and a memory is, who knows how long. I spent much more time at places I’ve named earlier than the GBG. But the place obviously affected me to the point that I have written some 533 words, no probably more now.

Before I forget it, if you do Facebook, there is a page for helping out those affected by the fire on Lower Greenville. If you are from Corn Cob, Iowa, or are in a barroom drinking gin with Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner in Mombasa, Kenya, and you happen to see this then maybe you can help out these good folks. I tended bar a little bit, a very little bit, too and worked for a couple of years cooking burgers so I know how those working at the GBG and the three other places must be hurting right now.

I’m up to 644 words now. Or  more. 649, 651, …