Eight Feet Deep

Some odds and ends are in order before I head to the woods for the weekend —

It can only be hoped that Queen Elizabeth II will watch her back (and front)while visiting Jamestown, Va., today. I say that because Vice President Dick Cheney is escorting the monarch and her hubby, Prince Valiant, er, Philip. It would be a very ugly situation to have the vice president shoot the queen with birdshot.

Good Queen Lizzy is paying a visit to Jamestown to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

Just a personal observation: I don’t really see why a number of Americans get all enthused whenever the Queen or her sons visit. I suppose it is because we don’t have our own monarch. That is even though some of our presidents — I’m not naming names but included is one with the initials Gee Dubya — act as if they were king.

Perhaps my lack of exuberance is because the British royals were never my own kings or queens since Texas was never ruled by Jolly Old England. Then again, I don’t get all that excited when leaders of Spain or Mexico, countries which did own Texas, come calling. I certainly wasn’t much jazzed when I had to cover a Rancho Stinko (Crawford) press conference held by Shrub and the Spanish president.

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Last night I opted for watching “My Name Is Earl” and a two-hour “Grey’s Anatomy” rather than what was surely a snoozefest during the Republican presidential candidate debate. Pink Lady gives her take on this first GOP meeting of the mimes for the ’08 presidential campaign. EFD agrees with A Fine Whine. I’m grateful Eileen watched it so I, didn’t have to see this “riveting” piece of political entertainment.

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Speaking of Republicans, “Newsweek” has a story on how Karl Rove coached top Department of Justice officials prior to their congressional testimony over the firings of U.S. attorneys by Alberto “VO5” Gonzales. Maybe sooner or later that smug bastard (Rove, or Gonzales for that matter)will get busted. It can happen.

Does waiting tick you off? It does me and I wish I had some survey that said something like “99 percent of all Americans between the ages of 16 and 60 say waiting makes them go berserk.” Wait. What am I talking about? I can just make up my own survey. Okay, here we go.

A survey by the Stinkenheimer Group of Americans between the age of 16 and 60 reported that waiting makes them berserk. The study goes on to say that if that person doesn’t hurry her ass up and wait on me I am going to throw a chair in her general direction. Not really.

I had in mind writing a little screed on some topic of the day, the war in Iraq perhaps. But I am here at the Rao’s bakery on Dowlen in Beaumont, where I had to wait for — and I am not making this up — 15 minutes for a glass of iced tea. I don’t like waiting in line. It’s one of the most unattractive facets of life I can think of behind perhaps getting a Foley catheter installed or having one removed. I’ll not expound on where that catheter might go, so if you don’t know just use your imagination.

Waiting for extremely long periods for little gain zaps the strength right out of me. In this particular case it also extinguished what little creativity I had left over for the day. I know that’s not a good excuse for not trying to be creative. But it is an excuse.

This wait that took away my will to write something with a little more thought than merely blowing off steam was not all the fault of the people here at Rao’s. It was partly their fault and partly the fault of those who can’t make up their minds what they want even after standing 10 minutes in line. It’s not that I begrudge them asking a question or two. But make up your damn mind already. Lead, follow or get out of the way. We’re … I … am not getting any younger.

Oh well, how about that war in Iraq? It’s something isn’t it?

” … he, the novelist, a fourth-grade dropout and ex-logger in his late forties, looked as if life had given him an endless stream of two-timing girlfriends, five-day drunks and cars with bad transmissions.”

The above sort of captures the essence of my life at the moment with the exception that I finished college, never logged, am in my early 50s, only had a few two-timing girlfriends and (knock on wood)never had any cars with transmission problems. I also would suggest that someone define “five-day drunks.”

But Richard Brautigan, who used this wonderful description in his bizarre short story called “1/3, 1/3, 1/3,” nonetheless could feel my pain long before it appeared. That in itself is quite amazing especially because I never knew Brautigan other than to read his whimsical books as well as the fact that he killed himself more than 20 years ago.

My truck is in the shop. Fortunately, it is a not-too-serious condition that has been fixed with its surgeons awaiting payment. The fact is I am teetering on the edge of homelessness thus no one in my position (or any other to be totally fair) really needs this kind of s**t to happen. As much of a cynical ass that I probably always will be, it is rather difficult to look at the bright side. Indeed there is a bright side. Things could be worse.

But things could also be better. Yes, things could be a whole lot better thus creating what was aptly characterized by a military acronym, the word “snafu,” for “situation normal — all f**ked up.” So let me extract myself from this snafu and I shall be ready to move on to the next.

Join the Pessimists. Our motto: “We would have meetings but we’re afraid no one would show up.”

As mentioned Friday, it was sad to hear of the death of local police officer Lisa Beaulieu. She was killed Friday morning on a Beaumont, Texas, freeway after being struck by a suspected drunk driver while directing traffic at another accident. I did not know Officer Beaulieu but that type of news always hits hard in smaller cities like ours, perhaps even in large cities.

Today I learned of the death of another public servant whom I did know, I once worked with and considered a friend.

Capt. Ed Ivy of the Nacogdoches Fire Department in East Texas died of a heart attack while attending a firefighting conference out of town. He was 51.

Eddie was one of those larger-than-life creatures who crosses your path if you are lucky.

When I started fire academy in Nacogdoches some 29 years ago, I must admit I didn’t quite know what to make of Eddie. His brother, Danny and I were in the rookie school class together and the Ivy Boy’s cousin, Ricky, would rejoin the fire department a year or so later and would become a friend.

On the number of occasions I worked the same shift with Eddie, he definitely was the one who could get you to laugh with his stories told in his unabashed East Texas drawl. One of the funniest things I ever remember hearing Ed say was a quote for a story I wrote while attending journalism classes at nearby Stephen F. Austin State University.

During the period of time that John Travolta thrust the drugstore cowboy craze onto the country with “Urban Cowboy,” Eddy was one of a couple of firefighters who worked on their days off as real cowpunchers. I wrote a feature story for class about how Eddie and fellow firefighter Bob Templin moonlighted by rounding up cows for local ranchers.

Eddie told me about once having a cow fall over and having to give the bovine CPR.

“I didn’t give her mouth-to-mouth,” Eddie said, noting that he jumped up and down on the cow’s chest to get its heart going.

He was also one of those firefighters who put everything they had into battling blazes. Eddie was the type of fireman you wanted around when things got hairy.

Of course, it’s shocking to hear of a friend dying suddenly like that. Unfortunately, that is something that continues as a presence as you age. The situation reminded me of talking to a young woman tending bar awhile back. She was in her later 20s and spoke of a friend going through a divorce, something that she experienced a year or two before.

I told her that, yes, “I remember going through a period when my friends were getting divorces. Now, they are just dying.” I said that not altogether seriously but perhaps with a tinge of sincerity. I don’t know why I said it. Perhaps it was to make the young bartender aware of the fact that, although it is not fun to see your friends divorce, neither is it pleasant to hear of them dying. But that’s neither hear nor there.

It seems like life just doesn’t get any easier as we travel along this old cosmic interstate.

Adios Eduardo.

Sad news here in our city — Beaumont, Texas. A Beaumont Police Officer was killed after being hit by an alleged drunk driver while she was working a traffic mishap. Lisa Beaulieu is the first woman on the Beaumont force to be killed in the line of duty.