I think in terms of committing those deadly sins I get a gentlemanly C

So, am I going to Hell, or what? Maybe, depending on how I come out here, I might just get to go to Heck.

Anyway, because of something I wrote on Facebook a while ago a friend, and one whose opinion I value, suggested a comment of mine sounded a bit like envy. She quickly pointed out that envy was one of the Seven Deadly (Mortal) Sins.

Oopsie! Sorry, God.

This only put me to thinking about that septumburate (is that a word? Well, it is now) of badness and I think I might just assess to see how I fare and what my chances are when they close that proverbial lid on me. I think I’m mainly OK, but a fellow never knows. You know, will I spend eternity smelling lilacs or brimstone?

So, running through the list we have (in no particular order):

• Gluttony: I think I’m basically OK here. I did pack on a little extra avoirdupois a few years ago, but then I dieted and knocked it off and have kept most of it off. I don’t really have much of a food fetish and I rarely overeat these days. I love desserts (which is either a sin, or should be) but otherwise I’m good. Certainly worth a B.

• Greed: Sort of like gluttony for me. I’ve never been terribly acquisitive and things remain ‘things’ and not entirely soul fulfilling. I mean, in idle moments I have wanted to date (or more) every female I’ve ever fancied, but that moves into another realm of sin. But, otherwise, I have a nice house in a good neighborhood, a nice (albeit old) vehicle) and have traveled fairly extensively, and other than wanting more travel, there isn’t anything in the way of stuff I want. A good and solid B.

• Sloth: OK, Lord, I admit I can be a slackass and not want to move when the situation warrants it. And I tend to procrastinate like mad. But, you know, eventfully I get it done. I have never missed a deadline and have always shown up on time for a job so I don’t think I’m entirely a slug. I think I get maybe a C-plus in this category. I hope God looks at an aggregate score.

• Wrath: Yeah, yeah, I get pissed at times, but I don’t think I’m wrathful. I keep my temper in check except sometimes when I’m driving or when I read of shenanigans by politicians – any politicians anywhere at any level of government. They are the scourge of humanity. But, I don’t run around yelling and fulminating for the most part. I think I’d even give myself a B here.

• Envy: That was the one my friend nailed me for. But, I protested. Some might say too much, but I don’t think anyone can ever protest too much if it covers a body’s ass. But, as I told her, I honestly believe that no matter what good stuff another might have, they also have bad things in their lives. Life being what it is, and all. My life is pretty decent and I want for little and in that I’m blessed. So, I think on the envy front I’m gonna give myself a big B-plus. I didn’t say ‘A’ because I don’t think God believes in giving As. That would indicate perfection and we mere mortals are only ‘perfectible’. I think only God’s kid gets the top grade. That’s what happens when you have connectedness.

• Pride: This is one I debate within myself because I don’t think it’s necessarily a sin. I don’t mean to be presumptuous and second-guess God, but if we didn’t take pride in what we do, why would be bother doing it? I just can’t see being proud of attainment as being a sin. Now, being a smug bastard, that’s different and God should always smite smug bastards. Otherwise, the Big Fellow gave me some talents and I rather think he expects me to use them to good avail. And I don’t go around bragging about what I do, so I think that should let me off the hook. In this category I at least get a B, I am sure.

• Lust: Oops. Here comes the tough one. Like Jimmy Carter I have indeed lusted in my heart. I’ve lusted in some other bits, too. In fact, and I lay my mortal soul bare here, like Jimmy Swaggart, I have in fact ‘sinned’. But, as that same friend who mentioned about the envy thing, said about lust: Why is lust condemned yet there is no mention of rape as a sin? Well worthy of consideration, methinks. So, if a certain female gives me unmentionable thoughts about booty calls, etc. I have sinned even if I don’t act on the urge. But if I take her violently somehow that’s OK? Doesn’t work for me. Anyway, if lust I so bad, how is the species to be propagated? I mean, let’s face it, there has to be a teeny bit of lust for a couple to want to propagate, no? I guess we maybe weren’t meant to use that lust frivolously. So, yes, I have violated this one I won’t say how many times – today. So, I maybe don’t stand in good stead here. But, as I also mentioned that I think the tally for sins is possibly an aggregate score so my F-minus score in this one just might be canceled out. Either that is the case or an awful lot of pillars of the church are hooped for eternity.

–

 

I guess I’ll darn well ‘lol’ until it’s running down my leg

Maybe I’m just pissy-minded.

That thought comes about because, just the other day, I almost (and entirely inadvertently, and I emphasize the ‘almost’) found myself using an ‘lol’ in response to somebody’s Facebook offering.

WTF? (OK, I do use that one mainly because, like many former English teachers, I’m a profane sonofabitch).

Back to the subject. I have never used lol and don’t plan to. That’s primarily because very few things I’ve read to which lol is attached have actually evoked lol responses. I’m a well-humored person but I reserve my ‘out-loud’ laughter for the genuinely hilarious and otherwise utilize it judiciously. Ergo, lol is rarely accurate.

In fact the only time in my recall that lol was genuinely funny and actually made me laugh out loud was when boneheaded egomaniac Michael on The Office thought it was a word and used the expression “lawl-lawl” in reference to something or other.

Carrying it further, I have very rarely if ever rolled on the floor in merriment, as in ROFL. No, I’ll make that ‘never’ as opposed to rarely. I’ve laughed until tears ran down my cheeks, but never more than that.

And I’ve never laughed until anything ran down my legs as in the case of ROFLMAOPIMP. Now, come on, how many have actually rolled on the floor laughing their asses off and peeing in your pants? You have? Do you want people to know that? I know I wouldn’t.

In similar sense I have rarely used emoticons That’s probably just me. I’d simply rather say what I meant than symbolize it. I have cherished friends who use emoticons and I love them dearly and think nothing less of them for so doing. I just don’t choose to. Just like I don’t choose to take heroin, for example.

Much of the aforementioned is Tweet-Speak and I understand that brevity is the key to getting a little tiny message in a little tiny space. But, I don’t tweet, either. I might someday and I’ll confess to being periodically tempted, but until such time I’ll just write out my stuff in full.

A fine barmaid is designed to make the world brighter

This item I will confess I have run before. It also appeared in the Vancouver Sun back in 1981.

If we were to get our priorities right, we would do away with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, group therapists and others in the ‘healing’ trades, and replace them with genuine English barmaids. At least those genuine English barmaids of my recall.

An understanding that came to me when I lived in England for a year in the early nineteen eighties was that a couple of blissful hours at the pub would do more to relieve the cumulative pressures of a day or a lifetime than any hundred psychoanalytical breast-beatings and primal screams. And the beer was only a minor part of the therapy.

Like royalty, dog-racing, stiff-upper-lips and page three girls of certain newspapers, the buxom barmaid is a traditional and distinctly English institution. Other nations, including Canada may have comely lasses purveying potations behind the beer taps, but hey are pale colonial imitations of the real thing.

The true barmaid (at least as she was, and I presume still is) is a combination Wife of Bath and Sigmund Freud, with a liberal dollop of Dolly Parton thrown in. From the good Wife we get the life-experience, from Freud, the understanding, and from Dolly the sense-of-humor and the bodacious cleavage. There is no question that the cleavage and that which makes the cleavage are both essential. All barmaids from eighteen to sixty-five have cleavages. But, the cleavage should not, and indeed must not be construed lewdly. It is merely part of a general bearing that suggests the ideal blending of the bountiful earth-mother with the subtle eroticism of that which may be admired but not touched.Sort of a vestal Pam Anderson.

Think of lovely Bet Lynch on Coronation Street if you want an archetype.

That is not to say that barmaids are never ‘touched’ in their private domains, but it would be construed as a frightful breach of form to make such an attempt while she is in the line of duty. She belongs to all patrons, friend and stranger alike, when she is working. Even barmaids’ husbands and boyfriends are cognizant that they are no more important than any other customer who is ordering a drink and hoping for a kind word.

I recall a pub I visited in Exeter in beautiful South Devon during my English sojourn, and it provided the perfect example of a barmaid who understood her role perfectly. I was a stranger to the house, having just arrived from a road trip. The few other guests on this chilly February evening appeared to be regulars. As I approached the bar I noticed that the barmaid — a pneumatically vivacious and very pretty thirty-ish lady called Mandy — was being chatted up by a patron who was devoting his time to caressing her hand as he chatted with her. He had the appearance of a traveling salesman, bad suit and surfeits of lonely drinks over the years. Mandy was smiling tolerantly, appearing to be listening to his tales, and granting him the time because nobody else was at the bar

I approached, and as I opened my mouth to give my order, Mandy smiled at me and asked, “Would you like to hold the other hand?”

You see, even though it was the first time I had ever paid a call to that particular hostelry she was not about to have me feel that I wouldn’t get the same service as anybody else. Needless to say, I graciously accepted her kind offer.

So, there you have it. Even though she will not sing for you or give you a bath — at least not in the pubs I have visited — the role of the English barmaid is not unlike that of the geisha. Her duty is to make the paying customer feel that for those few moments that it takes for her to draw his pint that he is the only person in her life, and she will see to it that he is well cared for. As she chats she will refer to the customer as “love,” or “dear,” or, in ever-to-be-savored instances as “my love” or “my darling.” Could such personalized, even possessive endearments mean that you are uniquely special to her? Was there not a hidden message that flashed from her eyes to yours at that moment? The answer is negative to both queries.

She will move on to the next customer and verbally fondle him in exactly the same way. But, such is her expertise at her trade you will finish your drink and go home firmly convinced that there indeed was a special frisson happening and that you now have a warm little secret tucked in your pounding heart.

If you avail yourself of her services often enough, you may be able to

throw away your pills and get out of group therapy, because your ego will be bolstered and your loneliness abated. You will not feel the need to go up on the roof and spray the street with an automatic rifle because everyone you’ve ever known in you life has rejected you; for just that very night a barmaid has called you “my love.”

 

Never again will we have anst like the sort we had in childhood — but then there’s Trump

Children are vulnerable creatures. This is due to their tenderness in years, small stature, wound-inducing rough play and susceptibility to all sorts of affections and woes and also due to the fact they haven’t yet built up major immune defences. It’s just not all that great being a kid, and most of us can remember time off school due to various ailments, not to mention injuries.

But, as bad as those things were, they weren’t anywhere near as ominous as the widely-held beliefs and myths that punctuated juvenile fears and produced agonizing nighttime panics. Nights were the worst, of course, because that was when monsters were under the bed (meaning you must never leave your hand dangling outside the covers), and bogeymen were in the closets.

The point was, we invariably believed the myths to be utterly true, and we agonized if we had transgressed, believing that our futures were now to be limited in duration because we had screwed up.

When I was a child, we believed the following. You, I am certain had your own myths that might have been similar to mine, or owned entirely by you and your friends.

Consider these:

– If you accidentally swallow grape seeds, or apple pits, you will get appendicitis. How those seeds might get into the appendix was never questioned. Somehow it happened, and you knew somebody’s cousin who had died of a ruptured appendix. Grape pits were the culprits, no doubt.

– If you swallow chewing gum your intestines will get all clogged up and you will die. Everybody knew of at least one kid that this happened to.

– If you stifle a sneeze your lungs will explode and you will die.

– If you burp, fart and sneeze all at the same time, you will die instantly. Again, somebody heard of a distant relative to whom this had happened.

– If you don’t wait an hour after eating (anything) and then go swimming, you will immediately be afflicted with agonizing cramps and you will drown. This was guaranteed, and happened to thousands of unfortunate kids every summer.

– If you are a boy and you get mumps it will always transfer to your testicles, which will grow to elephantiafsis size, and you will either die in agony, or you will never be able to get married because your testicles will be perpetually humongous.

– If you are a post-pubescent girl and go swimming in the sea when you are on your period you will be attacked by sharks.

Well enough. Children are young and stupid. Sorry, not allowed to say ‘stupid’ these days as ascribed to kids (though some kids are, be honest, stupid). Children are young and ‘uninformed’.

That’s fine. They have an excuse. What excuses do adults who believe tish-tosh, myths, fancifications and other bits of utter bullshit have? OK, let’s bring the word ‘stupid’ back and ascribe it to more worthy, older subjects.

But, enough about politics.

 

How I developed a love of shank’s mare

Once upon a time – 20 years ago it was – I forsook my right to drive a car. In a moment of most egregious irresponsibility I drove drunk.

I didn’t think I was drunk. Drunks never do. But, I was pissed to the gills, sozzled, snookered, and whatever other term you might have wanted to throw at me. And so I got me a DUI. And so I lost the right to drive a car. And they were tough in those days. That right was taken away for a full year.

It was the best thing to ever happen to me.

One, I got sober and have remained steadfastly so ever since, so mortified and ashamed was I. And the other good thing was I got healthier than I had ever been. No booze was part if that. The other healthful part was I had to fucking walk everywhere. I mean yeah, I rode the bus sometimes, though I hate buses with an unparalleled loathing. And sometimes I cadged rides. But otherwise I walked. I walked and I walked and I walked. And surprisingly I got to like it, and then I got to love it. And love of walking has never left me.

Of course I did have my lovely little sports car sitting in the drive. And I decided that in some moment of weakness I might be tempted to take it out in hopes I wouldn’t get caught driving sans licence (for which the penalties are really stiff). So, thought I, out of sight, out of mind and out of temptation. I had a lovely friend who had gone through a divorce and whose ex had taken the family car. So, I gave my car to her for the year. Aren’t I a nice guy? And I didn’t even have salacious designs on her. OK, I had had the odd one but wasn’t prepared to pursue the matter. I had just come out of my own bad marriage so I thwarted temptation.

Back to walking. I have walked and hiked many miles over the years, When Wendy and I go on vacation there is a lot of walking involved. We have trudged streets and avenues in Europe, have scaled hills in Hawaii and explored the lakes in Paradise Meadows,

But then something happened. About a year ago I ‘came down’ with some sort of affliction that made walking not only painful but it impacted my gait and especially my balance. I was intensely afraid i would faw down and go boom. That is a very insecure sensation. And then Max got sick. And then Max died. So I had less motivation to walk when there wasn’t to be a lovely doggy in tow.

So I went through innumerable clinical tests; inner ear scrutiny, CT Scan, MRI etc. Etc. What it was ultimately determined to be was residuals from a small stroke I had experienced in 2008. The best cure was physiotherapy. And the best thing I ever did was sign up for the brilliant balance program offered by the Comox Recreation Association. I have been doing that twice a week for two months and can only say that I now walk with a relatively normal gait, no more Frankenstein walk, and while my walking endurance is not yet back to what it was once, it is getting there. It’s all about creating new brain pathways.

And that seems to be happening, so bless you Jill Nelson (my coach) in what you have given me. I can kinda walk again. That is a good thing. Oh, and also since we got Nelson, ‘walkies’ became once again the order of the day.

 

And when stuck for a topic there’s always dogs

In the years I’ve been blogging and assuredly during the couple of decades I wrote a column I have been periodically smacked in the chops by ideas that didn’t go anywhere.

What had seemed like a good premise initially didn’t really have the substance to warrant an entire blog (or column), so it ended up being abandoned. Great (in my esteem) Canadian columnist Alan Fotheringham once told me that if a column seems to be too difficult to write, then abandon it. The column is telling you something. I’ve always tried to take his wisdom to heart.

Anyway, frugal bastard that I am, I don’t like to let germs of ideas go to waste, so here are some thoughts that I didn’t feel warranted the full treatment.

Sideburns: It was brought to my attention the other day that sideburns were staging some sort of a fashion comeback. All I could think was that I hoped not. I don’t want to see a revisitation of people who look like retro rockabilly artists or Civil War veterans. Let anything from the 1970s rest forever, especially fashion statements. Yes, I once had them. No, I do not want them again. I shaved mine off when I went to visit my parents during that decade and found that my old man had grown them. It was kind of creepy.

Children in Adult Venues: I adore children. Honestly I do and one of my regrets in life is that I had none. That said, I get persistently exasperated by parents who feel that any venue is just fine for their toddlers and that all adults present should be as charmed by their progeny as are they. Progeny that are largely ignored as they wander noisily about the premises irritating adult patrons and picking up things that they have no business touching. Leave them at home or go to Mickey-D’s which is more child-friendly than my coffee joint. Otherwise a brat is a brat is a brat and I don’t like brats.

Politics: I have some political opinions. Really I do. I by-and-large don’t share them with others, nor do I try to impose my opinions on others, or decide that those who disagree with me are by necessity less-than-worthy folk because they might see things differently. I mean, I might think “How could you have such dumbfuck ideas?” but I wouldn’t express it. This is an especially important consideration what with the US elections coming up and FB being filled with political over and undertones. And Trump. I mean, Jesus H. Christ. Have the Republicans who once boasted people like Ike, Jerry Ford and even Reagan. Does the party have a death wish to be lauding this loathesome reptile? The only truism about politics is we get the governments we deserve.

Birdpoop: Definitely not worthy of a blog, but I’ve noticed a new phenomenon over the past couple of weeks and that is that little birds have taken to pooping on our side vehicle windows and hence down the sides of the doors. This is happening with both Wendy’s and my vehicle and has never happened before. Global warming? Who can say?

Who Didn’t get big: In the realm of pop-culture why didn’t Iggy Pop or Gene Vincent ever make it to the top? Why Springsteen and not Billy Joel? Some of Joel’s stuff is just as good. Why Dylan but not Phil Ochs? I love Ochs. Fortune is a cruel mistress.

Dogs: Mainly Max, And now wee Nelson whom I have come to cherish in his own little way. And finally, all dogs.

,

People I’ve Had Crushes On: Or perhaps still do. Public figures? Well, that’s easy. Real people? No, that’s dangerous territory. Might be embarrassing – I like to think flattering – and potentially dangerous, so maybe not. How about bloggers I have or have had crushes on? No, that’s a dicey one, too. Though I don’t mind if somebody wants to declare me as a crush object. My egocentricity is big enough to take it. In fact I want to take it.

Technology: I’ve ranted on this too often and you’ve figured out by now that I, while not a luddite, do not get aroused by techno-toys.

And so it goes. Maybe by next time I’ll have a topic fully worthy of a dissertation and will explore it to the limits.

 

I could have been $25 trillion to the good if I’d played my cards right

In 1997, following the death of my father the previous year (Mother had shuffled off this mortal coil in 1992) my brothers and I sold the family manse – the house in which we had grown up. We did so without sentimentality or remorse since depressing memories had supplanted good ones years before.

If memory serves we let the place go for about a half million, which was kind of impressive in the mid to late ’90s for Lower Mainland BC. Of course nowadays we could probably put it on the market for 25 trillion dollars. Damn. Greater Vancouver and Victoria real estate has become insane and represents egregious greed of the vilest sort.

Truly, speculation has drummed the peons out of the home purchase market. Truly I weep for those whose work sends them to those hotspots. And I am here to say it’s not right. Where do such people as firefighters, cops, school teachers and the like find roofs to shelter them in the community in which I grew up.

There is lots of blame afoot. Speculation has run rampant in the real estate industry – and at one level who can blame them? It’s a boom-and-bust calling with lots of lean times. I say this because I have friends who toil in the calling. Yet – yet – somewhere it isn’t right.

Of course the easiest thing to do is blame the government. And, I mean, why not? Christy is selling out to the Chinese for the sake of trade concessions from far-off Cathay. Well, there probably are elements of that, but it’s likely not the whole sale. As goes Vancouver, so goes Toronto. And when you get to a place like London, it’s out of the question for ordinary blokes to live there. There are people who work in London who actually commute from Brussels or Paris, and sometimes even Spain. No exaggeration.

Meanwhile on BC’s Lower Mainland there are those who commute from Chilliwack and White Rock on a daily basis on some of the most congested roads in the known universe. Life’s too short for that shit, bedad.

So, I am grateful I live where I do in the Comox Valley. That is at least until we start getting Mainland and south Island spillover here, or Asian speculators see us as being ripe for rape. Then, of course (since we own our home) our house value will soar and we stand to make a few bucks.

But, should we sell, where would we find a place we could afford?

 

They thought it would knock some sense into me. Fortunately it didn’t

An educator to whom I will accord a significant amount of deserved respect, late Vanier principal Hank Schellinck, opined about the time the ed min was going to scrap corporal punishment (ie the ‘strap’) in BC schools, opined at the time: “The strap never worked on really bad kids, for them it was a mark of honor; it was fear of the strap that worked on good kids.”

He thought (and I disagree with the assertion) that the threat should remain, even if it were never used.

But think about the process. A great big fucking teacher reserved the right to pummel a little child – with a weapon yet. And I can attest to the fact those weapons really hurt.

So, have I grown soft with age? Not a bit of it. It is merely the element of a teacher being unable to control a recalcitrant brat without wielding a weapon. Something wrong with that. I knew strict teachers who never resorted to corporal punishment be never lost control. That was because they were ‘in control’ of their domain.

I was strapped three times in my school career. Once in 2^nd grade, once in 3^rd, and once in 4^th. It was the last one that still sticks in my craw. The two earlier ones, in the context of a stricter day, were kind of deserved. But the 3^rd on by an asshole named Thompson – there I named him, what is he gonna do about it? He’s no longer the boss of me – was for talking/chattering in class. That was it. He had to resort to beating me up for being affable?

The thing is, I was a good kid. A likeable kid. Most of my teachers thought I was a cupcake of a kid. But not that turd.

But I made a vow and that was if I were to get the strap I was not going to cry. I’d look the bastard straight in the eye and not even whimper. And I did. Ain’t gettin’ no satisfaction for your sadism from me, you bastard.

Some kids in those less kindly times would never tell their parents if they were strapped. “If I tell them I’ll just get a lickin’ at home.” Blessedly my parents were not of that school. If I had gotten strapped I probably deserved it. I never felt that I had but decided the point was not worth debating.

So, it’s now a kinder and gentler time, though society and schools remain rife with problems. But now at least those problems aren’t dealt with by physically beating kids up.

 

The bottle and the damage done — for me at least

As I mentioned on Facebook, yesterday was the 19^th anniversary of the day I bade adieu to booze. To cite cliché, what a long strange trip that has been.

I didn’t get sober until I was fifty-four-years-old. Prior to that time I’d made forays into, shall I say, ‘re-assessing’ my relationship with alcohol, and I did make a serious attempt to significantly reduce my intake through the second half of the 1980s, but that all went to hell in 1992 when my first marriage ended. At least that was my excuse at the time. Any old one will do if you’re not committed to really taking action.

Do I wish I had gotten sober earlier? You bet I do. You bet I do, in some respects. For I could say that possibly (just possibly) my first marriage wouldn’t have ended after so many years together. Just possibly I might have remained steadfastly faithful in that marriage. Just possibly I wouldn’t have been so pussy-tempted and afraid of being alone when I entered a probably ill-advised relationship that led to my second (very brief) marriage. Not that I didn’t love the lady. Did with all my heart, but I simply wasn’t in the right (and sober) place to assess it all sensibly. So, even if I had decided to remain with her (for many good reasons; it wasn’t all bad), if I had been sober it might have worked. I’ll never know.

If I had gotten sober earlier I might have been more ambitious and moved into more exalted and influential journalistic realms. I might have pursued my art more steadfastly. I might not have embarrassed myself and wife at social gatherings. I might not have ended up in hospital, jail, and psychiatric ward as a shell of the man I once was, had I gotten sober earlier. Also, I very likely might not be writing this book had I gotten sober earlier.

Part of my problem in carrying-on carrying-on was that it stayed fun for much too long for me. I started late as a problem drinker, as I’ve said elsewhere, and booze provided me with both balm and courage, so it was a natural that I would take to it in ever increasing amounts. I mean, alcohol made me handsome, urbane, courageous, sexually-enticing, witty, flippant, creative and almost all other positives you might be able to come up with. Oh, but what about the negatives? Surely there must have been a downside, a piper that had to be paid? Of course there was, pilgrims. There were the hangovers that grew exponentially over the years and could only be thwarted and tamed by hair-of-the-dog. There were the family rows, the shaking hands, the frightening sleep-starts, and vague generalized fears. There was the stomach distress and the vague liver pains, and the unhealthily ruddy complexion (that I can now recognize from across the room on another person). There were ultimately incidents of impotence, despite the coursing lust (realistically captured in Shakespeare’s gravedigger scene in Hamlet), nightmares, inappropriate sexual come-ons to inappropriate females (that were sometimes responded to if the female was into her cups as well), and just an absolute litany of horrors of varying potencies.

Eventually, of course, when it all went to hell in a hideous six weeks, the truth of my alcoholism had to be embraced. Not just acknowledged. That’s not strong enough. It had to be embraced with a passion and resolve that exceeded anything else I had ever attempted. I truly believe sobriety cannot happen without that colossal resolve and acceptance of reality. That was where I needed to be in the summer of 1996. I was fifty-three. It was time. Yet even with the horrifying onslaught of my six weeks of agony that year, I still was not prepared to make that complete surrender. The ignominy brought about by my increasingly bad, invariably jejune and out-of-control behavior was still not enough to slap my head completely sideways. I still wouldn’t admit and commit.

In the months that followed the horrors of the six weeks I still seethed with resentment and for reasons now inexplicable to me (and to others, no doubt) I fought against giving up completely. I still dabbled and even got drunk on a few occasions. It didn’t matter so much in terms of offending others since I was now – due to my atrocious behavior — on my own. I was also severely depressed and felt a black hole of despair embracing me almost constantly. Furthermore, and this was a compelling point that ultimately led to my surrender, alcohol was no longer a balm. Drinking sent me further into despair. I no longer got a buzz and more importantly, I no longer got the calming effect I so desperately had sought in the past. Churchill once stated that he had taken more out of drink, than drink had taken from him. Well, it didn’t work that way for me. Drink was taking it out of me. In another chapter I told of how my last drink came about in the spring of 1997, and suffice it to say that at age fifty-four I did indeed get sober and have remained so until four twenty-five this afternoon. I hope I shall be able to say the same tomorrow.

Today I have been unstintingly sober for over nineteen years (of this writing). I am neither parvenu nor dilettante about my sobriety, but take it very seriously, always. During all those years I have never wavered in my sobriety nor have I, in total honesty (because that’s what it’s all about), had the remotest craving to consume alcohol or any other intoxicant in any form.

 

Them scary things that go bump in the night

Wendy and I have become big fans of the Brit series Afterlife that has been playing on PBS of late. In essence it concerns a woman who is regularly visited by the dead and can see them and communicate with them and it’s actually a bit frightening at times.

We both like it. But, there is a difference between us. That is, Wendy believes in that stuff whereas I think it’s folderol, possibly even bunkum.

I reckon assertions of immortality are largely wishful thinking because none of us wants to die. I mean, even on our worst days we’d kinda like to keep trucking on. But mortality is something that happens to all of us. I don’t intend to be unduly morbid. But, it is a simple fact that the dead are, in a word, ‘dead’.

Elvis has left the building.

Permanently.

That is not to say I haven’t had moments that disconcerted me about that ‘permanence’. Once I was in a carpark and I saw a guy who made my heart jump. He was the spit of my father; a virtual doppelganger for the old man. But, since my dad had died a couple of years earlier, it was merely a matter of kind of uncanny resemblance. Yet, the incident has always stuck in my mind.

Some might be driven to say it was a spiritual manifestation of Dad. You know, a ‘ghost’ of some sort. Naw, it wasn’t. Just a resemblance and perhaps my father had been on my mind. That happens when you miss somebody.

I don’t believe in ghosts or spiritual visitations any more than I believe in UFOs and ETs paying a call and having their sexual ways with us. Speaking of that sort of thing, I was always enchanted by the idea of succubi coming to violate me in the middle of the night.

I don’t believe the ‘white light’ tales and people coming back from the dead.

I don’t believe out-of-body experiences. Yeah, I smoked that stuff a few times way back when but all I got was sleepy and stupid.

I don’t believe any of those things..

But, my non-belief doesn’t imply non-existence. That’s a whole other matter.

I’m not sure where I sit on the God issue, for example. I don’t know if I really can credit the idea of some spiritual overlord who gives a flying fart whether or not I take his name in vain. If there is a God I would doubt that He/She/It is quite so ego motivated.

I don’t know. I’d like any concept of a godhead to be more ‘big-picture’ oriented rather than caring what kind of an edifice we visit to pay our respects and whether or not we have genital tinglings over the neighbor-lady hanging our her wash in short-shorts and halter top. You know, stuff like war and environmental despoliation should maybe be higher on the list of concerns.

That said, I have been known to utter prayers.

Just to be on the safe side.

And to give thanks. I do believe in gratitude.

Oh, and if you have the impulse, watch Afterlife. It’s good stuff.