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A typewriter, a teacher and a teenager . . .

21 May

During my tenth year of schooling I enrolled in a typing class. I would like to say that my interest in typing was an effort to hone my writing skills and perhaps follow in the footsteps of the great authors, giants such as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Twain, Orwell, Vonnegut and lesser lights. I would like to say that but I will not say it because it would not be true. I had a rather strong ulterior motive to learn how to type.

There were several typing classes taught by different teachers, and I chose the class taught by the one that was said to be the best teacher of the group. No, belay that. I can’t say that because it would also be untrue, and I cannot tell a lie, at least not in this instance. This is a WordPress blog and I do have my standards.

I chose a specific teacher’s class because she was quite young, unmarried and exceptionally attractive, and the rumors that swirled around the campus of the original Stephen D. Lee High School in Columbus, Mississippi in that stellar year of 1948 were that she had been known to dally with some of the students.

Well, actually, the talk in the restrooms reserved for male students was that she—well, it was not only talk but it seemed to be confirmed by some of the writings on the walls of the stalls—the talk intimated that she dallied with students, and in fact some of the images depicted such dallies, crudely of course but rather effective. Walls of the stalls has a solid resonance, don’t you think? Quite expressive, and also quite masculine!

Well, actually, the rumors and the writings and the crude images drawn indicated that she not only dallied—she was said to have actually diddled some of the students. The writings and graphics were routinely obliterated by the janitors but mysteriously re-appeared, often on the same day they were removed.

I attacked that state-of-the-art upright finger-operated non-electric Royal Standard typewriter with all the fervor a fifteen-year-old lad could muster, and after three or four weeks I was typing 65 words a minute, and that was after taking off 10 words for every error made, regardless of its nature, whether a misspelling, a wayward comma, a failure to capitalize or missing a period—hey, that last error has a double meaning!

I felt in my first week that the rumors might have a modicum of truth—judging from my observations there was definitely some meat on those bones—the rumors, that is. I know, I know, that term could apply to the typing teacher and in fact did apply to the typing teacher, and it was distributed in all the right places in the right amounts. Before the second week ended I had convinced myself that the rumors were probably true, and I had also convinced myself that the teacher was perhaps considering me a possible candidate for diddling purposes.

That quite young, unmarried and exceptionally attractive typing teacher was a hands-on instructor—literally. She would often stand behind students, both males and females and reach across a shoulder to point out errors and perhaps to demonstrate how to retrieve the carriage to start another line, with the other hand on the student’s other shoulder to help maintain her balance—the teacher’s balance, that is. I believe I made many, perhaps most, of my errors while she had her hand on my shoulder.

I was a cutie at fifteen and I can prove it. One day when I was around 10 or 11 years old I was with my mother at a grocery store, and I can vividly recall a remark made by the check-out lady. She asked my mother if I was her boy and my mother replied in the affirmative. The lady then said, “He’s a real cutie. He’ll be a heart-breaker and a home-wrecker when he grows up.” Don’t bother to ask whether that prophecy came to pass. I will stand on my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to get me into all sorts of hot water and incidentally, of course, would tend to incriminate me. Also incidentally, the image on the right is not me—that’s Michelle Pfeiffer, a gorgeous lady that realized her true calling while working as a checker at a California supermarket. I used this photo to simulate a grocery checker—Michelle probably dressed differently at work.

That heart-breaker and a home-wrecker remark had the same effect on me that I felt several years later when a young girl out in west Texas told me I looked just like Van Johnson. I blogged that incident, and that posting has a lot more than that to offer—it’s worth the read, and you can find it by clicking here.

On a fateful Friday I made my move, and in doing so I made a fatal error. I dawdled after class until I was alone with that quite young, unmarried and exceptionally attractive woman and then I made my bid—actually it was a proposition—I proposed, provided that she was amenable to my proposition, to share some time with her over the weekend. Exactly what I said and how I phrased it is enshrouded in the mists of time, but I’m sure that it was concise and to the point and could not possibly be misunderstood. Actually I blurted it out, and I could see that she was transfixed by the proposition. After a long meaningful stare, she answered thusly, each word enunciated slowly and distinctly:

I do not want you in my class. Do not return to my classroom on Monday. Find another typing class or a different subject to fill this period. Is that clear to you, or should I repeat it?

The mists of time have also shrouded my response to that measured order. I have a feeling that my only response was to vacate the premises as quickly as possible. I probably squeaked out something similar to Yes, m’am, it’s clear to me and no, you don’t need to repeat it, and immediately made my exit, out of the class and away from that ugly broad—I mean, I made my exit away from that quite young, unmarried and exceptionally attractive woman.

On Monday morning I fully expected my homeroom teacher to tell me that my presence was urgently required in the principal’s office. However, she called the roll and then released us to head out for our classes. I waited until the others left and told her that I was not doing well in my typing class and needed to replace it with something else.

Without questions or comment she scheduled me to a second hour of biology, sentencing me to two hours, back to back, under the tutelage of a well-past-middle-aged woman that dressed in multiple layers of clothing, wore heavy black stockings rolled down to midway between knee and ankle and had a face remarkably resembling a turtle—in fact that’s what the students called her—old lady turtle. Actually, I thought she was kinda cute, but of course I have a soft spot in my heart for turtles—in fact, I once had one for a pet.

That’s my story about a state-of-the-art upright finger-operated non-electric Royal Standard typewriter and a class taught by a quite young, unmarried and exceptionally attractive woman who turned out to be an ugly old unappreciative toad that I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole—not that I had anything that resembled such an item.

My only regret concerning this situation is that neither she nor I will ever know what we missed—well, I’m pretty sure I know what I missed, but I can’t speak for her. In the words of the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.

The poet had another saying that had I known it then I would have told that typing teacher this: The joy you give to others is the joy that comes back to you. With that included in my proposition my weekend might well have been remarkably more memorable.

Where ever she is now, whether she is still in this realm or has left it for another realm, I wish her well.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

 
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Posted by on May 21, 2011 in Uncategorized

 

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Revisited: Coming out of the shadows . . .

31 Dec

Coming out of the shadows . . .

During the 18 months that I have been blogging on WordPress I have largely avoided postings of a political bent, whether a bend to the right or a bend to the left. I have not been entirely successful, but I feel that I’ve kept my preferences fairly in control. This posting will, in one fell swoop, cancel every effort I have made to remain neutral. With this posting I am coming out of the shadows and into the bright light of day. I am going to share my feelings about the influx of foreigners across our southern border, and contribute a suggestion that will bring that influx to a halt.

By some estimates, an average of 10,000 illegal aliens—I refuse to call them immigrants—successfully penetrate our southern border each day—10,000 come in and stay in—they do not return home, and are added to the rolls for the greatest entitlements given by any government on earth. These penetrations include drug smugglers and people smugglers as well as ordinary folks seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

Do the math. That’s 3,650,000 per year, and in the coming 10 years that total will be 36,500,000 added to the estimated 20,000,000 already in the United States for a total of more than 56,000,000. I realize these are estimates, but they are in the ball park—perhaps fewer or perhaps more.

A frightening picture—how can our economy withstand such an onslaught? It can’t—this so-called illegal immigration will bankrupt the nation, an absolute given when combined with the current administration’s stimulus packages, entitlement programs and related actions. It can be stopped. Read on.

The solution is to build a wall, but not necessarily a fence or an opaque wall such as was built by East Berliners. Not that such a wall is ineffective—it was highly effective. It stood for some 28 years and in all those years a total of only 5,075 people successfully crossed to the West, an average of 181 people per year—181 successful illegal immigrants, so to speak. Among the unsuccessful attempts were 200 people that died in their efforts to immigrate illegally from East to West.

Mexico as a  sovereign nation is lost. That nation is lost to the drug cartels and nothing short of intervention by the United States military could return Mexico to the people, its rightful owners. That, of course, will never happen. Eventually there will be a cartel candidate for the Mexican presidency and the Mexican citizens will handily elect that candidate, if for no reason other than fear of the consequences if that candidate is repudiated.

Mexico is out of control. Its army and its state and local police are powerless to stop the cartels, no matter how many millions of dollars the US donates to their efforts. People are dying in the streets on both sides of the border, bullets are flying across the border, people have died on both sides of the border and many more will die in the future. That situation will only escalate unless we take action to prevent it now, or at least slow its momentum.

We don’t need a wall. Illegal aliens and drug smugglers will go over, around, under or through any wall we build, regardless of its height and regardless of its composition. As a law enforcement officer with the US Customs Service over a period of 26 years I have been to every official border crossing between Brownsville, Texas and San Ysidro, California and to many points in between those border crossings, and I know that a wall will not stop the infiltration of illegals, whether immigrants or drug smugglers.

Our border with Mexico is 2000 miles in length. That’s 5 280 feet per mile. With three feet to the yard, one mile has 1,760 yards. A hopelessly obsolete 30-30 caliber rifle, the efficiency and effectiveness of which is eclipsed by modern military rifles, will kill a deer at a range of 200 yards. If we divide 1,760 yards per mile by 400 yards, we arrive at a figure of 400. If in that mile we wished to kill every deer that crossed an invisible line we would need only 44 sharpshooters, spaced 400 yards apart and armed with a rusty old 30-30 caliber hunting rifle—pretty soon the deer would get the message and avoid crossing that line between hunters.

Obviously if we wanted to kill every deer along a 2000-mile line that would require a force of some 88,000 hunters. However, if we armed hunters with .50 BMG rifles, the weapons used by military sniper units, weapons with a range of more than a half-mile, one shooter could cover one mile, a half mile in each direction, and we would then need only 2,000 hunters, one for each mile of our 2,000-mile border and an additional 4,000 officers in order to cover three 8-hour shifts per day—far fewer than, just for example, the number of border patrol officers presently on the southern border. We would also need extra officers to cover for days off, sick days, days on annual leave and training requirements, but the total would still be far fewer than the current staff.

Got it? Six thousand sharpshooters from a vantage point created by towers—heated and air conditioned with porta-potties, of course, and its occupants armed with .50 BMG rifles and furnished with infra-red night-vision goggles, binoculars, radios, MREs for sustenance, plenty of water and lots of .50 BMG ammunition, and every deer that attempted to cross that invisible line between sharpshooters would not cross it, but would instead remain on that line. It’s rational to believe that all the other deer would soon wise up to the danger and not come near one of the towers.

Mind you, I have nothing against deer, but the situation on our border with Mexico reminds me of the joke about the papa alligator eating all but one or two of the million eggs or so laid by the mama alligator. The punch line of that joke is that if it were not for the papa alligator we would be up to our posteriors in alligators, just as we will eventually up to that level with those that we erroneously refer to as undocumented immigrants, of which they are neither—they are illegal aliens, and we need to deal with them now, sooner rather than later.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
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Posted by on December 31, 2010 in Uncategorized

 

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Brownsville Customs assignment . . .

11 Sep

Before I begin this dissertation, please allow me to digress with an explanation of supervisory titles in the US Custom Service. A first level supervisor is equivalent to a captain in the military, equal in pay and responsibilities, and wears the twin silver bars of a captain in the military. A second level supervisor is equivalent to a major in the military and wears gold oak leaves on the uniform. Chief inspectors and port directors are usually the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in the military and wear silver maple leaves when in uniform. Many Customs port directors have higher grades and have the option of wearing uniforms or civilian garb—most opt for civilian dress.

Program officers at Headquarters also have the pay and similar responsibilities of lieutenant colonels in the military, and unless involved in some field action requiring the uniform, normally wear civilian garb. The pay and responsibilities of program managers at headquarters are also similar to the duties and responsibilities of a full colonel in the military. The comparisons to military personnel continue up to the pay and responsibilities equal to the grade of a four-star general.

During my 26-year career in federal law enforcement I had the misfortune—oops, I meant the good fortune—of serving US Customs for several years at the Brownsville, Texas port of entry located at the tip of Texas, opposite the city of Matamoros, Mexico. I began my career at the port of Progreso and I was promoted to a first level supervisory position at the port of Roma. After two and one-half years there I was again promoted and transferred to the port of Brownsville, Texas some 125 miles down river from Roma. Click here for a posting on Progreso.

My position at Brownsville was that of a second level supervisor, one of two such officers responsible for supervising a staff of three administrative persons, six first level supervisors and a staff of sixty senior, journeyman and trainee inspectors. I performed my duties under the watchful eyes of the chief inspector and a racially and professionally biased port director, and I was the favorite target for any person that lodged a complaint against management, regardless of the source.  Those activities were dictated and urged on by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). Near the end of my tour at Brownsville, the Chief Inspector left my side and joined in the target practice.

A friendly journeyman told me that NTEU had directed the local Union Steward to have every grievance addressed to me, regardless of the supervisor involved—I was one of nine supervisors, yet all complaints came to me to be investigated and the results forwarded to upper levels including national headquarters, whether resolved or unresolved. The same friendly inspector said that every meeting of the Union members, whether locally or at District or Regional Headquarters, began with a request for input on me and on my actions.

Just as an aside, the Port Director and the Chief Inspector have since been arbitrarily transferred to that shining Port of Entry in the sky—a headquarters directed assignment, so to speak—and one may be reasonably certain that a significant number of the journeyman inspectors have joined them—some were quite advanced in age, and I left Brownsville 27 years ago. I can truthfully say that at this stage of life I hold no rancor for any of them—well, okay, perhaps a trace of rancor for the Port Director!

In spite of the onslaught of arrows (employee complaints) fired at me, none struck a vital organ. To paraphrase William Faulkner in his acceptance speech in 1950 for the Nobel Prize in literature, I did not merely endure—I prevailed. My actions and my decisions were upheld by mid-level and top-level management in every instance. The grievances filed numbered in the hundreds—none was resolved in favor of the complainant, neither by me nor by someone in the upper echelons. Most of the grievances stemmed from my efforts to reduce inspector overtime in accordance with instructions from upper level management given to me prior to assuming my duties there. Misuse of overtime was rife at that location, and my success was in inverse proportion to the number of grievances—as overtime declined, grievances increased.

The pay was good and there was no heavy lifting, so I stalwartly bided my time. I successfully withstood the onslaught for three and one-half years, from April of 1980 to October of 1983, and once again was promoted and transferred to US Customs Headquarters in Washington, DC as a program officer. Halfway through my three year tour in Washington I was assigned the title and assumed the duties of Program Manager for Customs’ National Canine Enforcement Program, and therein lies some tales to be told. Click here for an example of my duties, a tour of canine operations in California. This is just a teaser with more stories to follow, so stay tuned.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
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Posted by on September 11, 2010 in bridge, law enforcement, Military

 

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Cheap tomatoes—si, o no?

31 Jul

This posting is one of an e-mail I received recently from a family member. A quick check of http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/tomatoes.asp shows that the truth of the letter is undetermined. The Snopes article references a June 2006 e-mail, purported to be posted to the Internet by the husband of a woman that teaches at a large southern California high school.

That husband’s original e-mail has undergone various changes wrought by its sojourn over the Internet over the past four years, including the changes I have made prior to posting it on my blog. Please trust me—the changes I made dealt strictly with paragraphing, sentence construction, subject and verb agreement, spelling, punctuation and other rules of good grammar. I also deleted unnecessary capitalizations, exclamation points and other superfluous treatments that battered and bruised the message rather than helping viewers injest and digest its intended purpose.

I neither challenged nor changed anything that would either dilute or embellish the original e-mail I received. In addition to such necessary changes, the original e-mail had garnered the usual >>>s and other junk picked up by the original document on its trip through the vast regions of space and time.

This should drive everyone, not to drink but rather to think, whether Democrat, Republican or Independent, and including the multitudes not politically oriented to any particular ideology.

From a California school teacher (ostensibly):

Tomatoes and Cheap Labor:

As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things of which you should be aware:

I am responsible for the English as a second language department at a large southern California Title 1 high school. That title designates a school that peopled by students whose families that on the average are in lower levels of income and socioeconomic acceptability opportunities.

Most of the schools you are hearing about—South Gate High, Bell Gardens, Huntington Park and other Title 1 schools are schools where students are in the protest mode. Such schools are on the free breakfast and free lunch program. When I say free breakfast, I’m not talking about a glass of milk and a roll. I’m talking about a full breakfast and cereal bar with fruits and juices that would make a Marriott Inn proud. The waste of this food is monumental, with many trays being dumped in the trash uneaten. I estimate that more than 50 percent of these students are obese, or at least moderately overweight.

An estimated three of every four students have cell phones. The school provides day care centers for the unwed teenage pregnant girls—some as young as 13—so they can attend class without the inconvenience of having to arrange for babysitters or having family watch their kids.

I was ordered to spend $700,000 on my department or risk losing funding for the upcoming year, although there was little need for anything—my budget was already substantial. I ended up buying new computers for the computer learning center, half of which one month later had been decorated with graffiti by appreciative students that obviously feel humbled and grateful to have a free education in America.

I have had to intervene several times for substitute teachers whose classes consist of many illegal immigrant students, here in the country less then three months. Those students raised so much hell with the female teachers, calling them putas—whores—and throwing things that the teachers were reduced to tears.

Free medical benefits, free education, free food, free day care, ad nauseam—it’s no wonder that they feel entitled, not only to be in this country but free to demand additional rights, privileges and additional entitlements.

For those that like to point out how much these illegal immigrants contribute to our society because they like their gardener and their housekeeper—and because they like to pay less for tomatoes—let’s spend some time in the real world of illegal immigration and see the true costs of tomatoes. Higher insurance, medical facilities closing, higher medical costs, more crime, lower standards of education in our schools, overcrowding and new diseases—as for me, I’ll pay more for tomatoes.

Americans, we need to wake up!

The current flood of illegal immigrants has everything to do with culture. They constitute an American third-world culture that does not value education, that accepts children getting pregnant and dropping out of school by 15, a culture that refuses to assimilate, and our historic American culture has become so weak and worried about political correctness that we don’t have the will to do anything about it.

Cheap labor? Isn’t that what the whole immigration issue is about? Business doesn’t want to pay a decent wage, consumers don’t want expensive produce and government claims that we Americans don’t want the jobs.

The bottom line is cheap labor, but he phrase cheap labor is a myth and a farce. It’s a lie—there is no such thing as cheap labor.

Consider this: An illegal alien with a wife and five children takes a job for $5 or $6.00 an hour. With those earnings and six dependents he pays no income tax, yet at the end of the year if he files an income tax return he is entitled an earned income credit up to $3,200—free.

He qualifies for Section 8 housing and subsidized rent.

He qualifies for food stamps.

He qualifies for free—no deductible, no co-pay health care.

His children get free breakfasts and lunches at school.

He requires bilingual teachers and books.

He qualifies for relief from high energy bills.

If anyone in the family is or becomes aged, blind or disabled, they qualify for SSI. If qualified for SSI they can qualify for Medicaid. All this is paid for by legitimate American taxpayers.

He doesn’t worry about car insurance, life insurance, or homeowner’s insurance.

Taxpayers provide Spanish language signs, bulletins and printed material.

He and his family receive the equivalent of $20 to $30 per hour in benefits,entitlements provided by our benevolent government. Working Americans are lucky to have $5 or $6 per hour left after paying their bills and his.

Cheap labor?

Yeah, right!

Sure!

Not!

These are the facts and the questions we should be asking of the congressional members of both political parties, and when members of either party lie to us we should exercise our right to replace them via the ballot box. The outcome of upcoming congressional elections is critical for working Americans, for our economy and for American culture and heritage.

A special Pee Ess:

Hey, I didn’t write this article and I offer no mea culpas. Please do not excoriate or execute me—I’m just the messenger. Feel free to pass it on or trash it—it’s your choice. In fact, you don’t even need to read it, and I’ll understand.

That’s my story and my excuse, and I’m sticking to both.

 
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Posted by on July 31, 2010 in Childhood, education, Family, law enforcement, news sources, newspapers, Obama administration, politics, proper english, punctuation, taxes, Writing

 

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Coming out of the shadows . . .

02 Jul

During the 18 months that I have been blogging on Word Press I have largely avoided postings of a political bent, whether a bend to the right or a bend to the left. I have not been entirely successful, but I feel that I’ve kept my preferences fairly in control. This posting will, in one fell swoop, cancel every effort I have made to remain neutral. With this posting I am coming out of the shadows and into the bright light of day. I am going to share my feelings about the influx of foreigners across our southern border, and contribute a suggestion that will bring that influx to a halt.

By some estimates, an average of 10,000 illegal aliens—I refuse to call them immigrants—successfully penetrate our southern border each day—10,000 come in and stay in—they do not return home, and are added to the rolls for the greatest entitlements given by any government on earth. These penetrations include drug smugglers and people smugglers as well as ordinary folks seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

Do the math. That’s 3, 650,000 per year, and in the coming 10 years that total will be 36,500,000 added to the estimated 20,000,000 already in the United States for a total of more than  56,000,000. I realize these are estimates, but they are in the ball park—perhaps fewer or perhaps more.

A frightening picture—how can our economy withstand such an onslaught? It can’t—this so-called illegal immigration will bankrupt the nation, an absolute given when combined with the current administration’s stimulus packages, entitlement programs and related actions. It can be stopped. Read on.

The solution is to build a wall, but not necessarily a fence or an opaque wall such as was built by East Berliners. Not that such a wall is ineffective—it was highly effective. It stood for some 28 years and in all those years a total of only 5,075 people successfully crossed to the West, an average of 181 people per year—181 successful illegal immigrants, so to speak. Among the unsuccessful attempts were 200 people that died in their efforts to immigrate illegally from East to West.

Mexico as a  sovereign nation is lost. That nation is lost to the drug cartels and nothing short of intervention by the United States military could return Mexico to the people, its rightful owners. That, of course, will never happen. Eventually there will be a cartel candidate for the Mexican presidency and the Mexican citizens will handily elect that candidate, if for no reason other than fear of the consequences if that candidate is repudiated.

Mexico is out of control. Its army and its state and local police are powerless to stop the cartels, no matter how many millions of dollars the US donates to their efforts. People are dying in the streets on both sides of the border, bullets are flying across the border, people have died on both sides of the border and many more will die in the future. That situation will only escalate unless we take action to prevent it now, or at least slow its momentum.

We don’t need a wall. Illegal aliens and drug smugglers will go over, around, under or through any wall we build, regardless of its height and regardless of its composition. As a law enforcement officer with the US Customs Service over a period of 26 years I have been to every official border crossing between Brownsville, Texas and San Ysidro, California and to many points in between those border crossings, and I know that a wall will not stop the infiltration of illegals, whether immigrants or drug smugglers.

Our border with Mexico is 2000 miles in length. That’s 5, 280 feet per mile. With three feet to the yard, one mile has 1,760 yards. A hopelessly obsolete 30-30 caliber rifle, the efficiency and effectiveness of which is eclipsed by modern military rifles, will kill a deer at a range of 200 yards. If we divide 1,760 yards per mile by 400 yards, we arrive at a figure of 400. If in that mile we wished to kill every deer that crossed an invisible line we would need only 44 sharpshooters, spaced 400 yards apart and armed with a rusty old 30-30 caliber hunting rifle—pretty soon the deer would get the message and avoid crossing that line between hunters.

Obviously if we wanted to kill every deer along a 2000-mile line that would require a force of some 88, 000 hunters. However, if we armed hunters with .50 BMG rifles, the weapons used by military sniper units, weapons with a range of more than a half-mile, one shooter could cover one mile, a half mile in each direction, and we would then need only 2,000 hunters, one for each mile of our 2,000-mile border and an additional 4,000 officers in order to cover three 8-hour shifts per day—far fewer than, just for example, the number of border patrol officers presently on the southern border. We would also need extra officers to cover for days off, sick days, days on annual leave and training requirements, but the total would still be far fewer than the current staff.

Got it? Six thousand sharpshooters from a vantage point created by towers—heated and air conditioned with porta-potties, of course, and its occupants armed with .50 BMG rifles and furnished with infra-red night-vision goggles, binoculars, radios, MREs for sustenance, plenty of water and lots of .50 BMG ammunition, and every deer that attempted to cross that invisible line between sharpshooters would not cross it, but would instead remain on that line. It’s rational to believe that all the other deer would soon wise up to the danger and not come near one of the towers.

Mind you, I have nothing against deer, but the situation on our border with Mexico reminds me of the joke about the papa alligator eating all but one or two of the million eggs or so laid by the mama alligator. The punch line of that joke is that if it were not for the papa alligator we would be up to our posteriors in alligators, just as we will eventually up to that level with those that we erroneously refer to as undocumented immigrants, of which they are neither—they are illegal aliens, and we need to deal with them now, sooner rather than later.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 
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Posted by on July 2, 2010 in Uncategorized

 

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Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh!

14 Apr

The following posting is by a fellow blogger, a professor and gentleman in Carmel, California. In this posting he is thanking his many friends for remembering his birthday, saying that It warms the cockles of my heart. He and his musings can be found here: http://www.oldprof.com./. A visit to his blog can be very rewarding—he has many stories to tell and many thoughts to share, and you may be assured that he tells the stories well and shares them freely, spiced with heart and soul and humor. Try his blog—you’ll like it—I guarantee it.

This is a recent posting by The Old Professor at 7:52 AM on Mar 27, 2010:

Thanks to the thousands—hundreds—many—friends who wished us well on our birthday. It warms the cockles of my heart even though I have no idea what cockles actually are. (I think I’m beginning to talk like Groucho Marx.)

Who is Groucho Marx? Use Google to look it up and while you’re there, look up cockles and you’ll find that no one else seems to know what the word cockles, as it’s used in that expression, actually means either.

Thanks again, and by the way, don’t let anyone kid you. Being 87 isn’t all that bad, especially when one considers the alternatives for people born in 1923.

And now on to my posting for a definition of cockles and introductions to Sweet Molly Malone, Shell Scott, Richard S. Prather, Reverend William Archibald Spooner and something known as spoonerisms.

From Wikipedia: Warms the cockles of my heart refers to the ventricles of the heart. In medieval Latin, the ventricles of the heart were at times called cochleae cordis, where the second word is an inflected form of cor, heart. They are frequently heart-shaped (their formal zoological genus was at one time Cardium, of the heart), with ribbed shells. Those unversed in Latin could have misinterpreted cochleae as cockles, or it might have started out as a university in-joke.

In England cockle refers to an edible mollusk. An old British song says that a girl named Sweet Molly Malone wheels her wheelbarrow through streets wide and narrow, crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh! Sweet Molly Malone was probably a seller of fish as well as other marine edibles, and her song may have changed when cockles and mussels were out of season—who knows? You can find her at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-coc2.htm).

Also from Wikipedia: A spoonerism is an error in speech or a deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched. It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency.

Most of the quotations attributed to Spooner in literature were probably never uttered by William Spooner himself, but rather were made up by colleagues and students as a pastime. Here are a few examples:

Three cheers for our queer old dean.

It is kisstomary to cuss the bride.

A blushing crow.

A well-boiled icicle.

You were fighting a liar.

Is the bean dizzy?

Someone is occupewing my pie.

Please sew me to another sheet.

You have hissed all my mystery lectures.

You have tasted a whole worm.

A nosey little cook.

And now I come to the real reason for this posting: Please allow me to introduce two of my all-time favorite literary personalties—Shell Scott, a hard-boiled Hollywood private detective, and his creator, author Richard S. Prather. Read about Richard and Shell here: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/scott.html.

In one of the Shell Scott novels the protagonist (Scott) exclaims, “That really warms the cockles of my heart.” However, he deliberately voiced it as a spoonerism, one that, at least for me, was clever and very funny. I’ll leave it up to the reader to convert the sentence to a spoonerism. I must admit that I’ve used the conversion a few times over the years—it’s a great ice-breaker, whether in the rocker loom or at pocktail carties. Oh, and just a tiny hint as to how to convert Scott’s remark to a spoonerism—not that I think many readers will have trouble with the conversion, but for the one in a million that might not get it. The key words are cockles and heart, so here is a push towards the conversion: warms the harkles of my . . . .

Nuff said!

One of the best known spoonerisms is one that a marrying minister says to the groom—And now it is kisstomary to cuss the bride. I first heard that one as a little boy, told to me by my mother. She occasionally uttered spoonerisms (or sputtered unerrisms) of her own, such as Okay, kids, put on your japs and cackets. She once sent me to the store for a package of blazor rades.

During my tour of duty in wartime Korea we used a similar reversal of terms to show the difference between being there rather than back home by saying, “Back home I would come in at night and remove my jacket and jumper, but over here I come in at night and remove my jumper and jacket.”

That one is a bit naughty, perhaps, and not a true spoonerism, although reversing the terms paints a very different picture, as do most spoonerisms—and it is pretty funny—don’t ya think?

Well, anyway, it was at the time. Humor in combat zones is a scarce commodity, and we took it wherever we could find it.

Okay, I can’t resist it—I can’t help it—it’s in my nature, and I must tell a spoonerism joke—please forgive me! Here it is: How does a magician’s act differ from the Radio City Rockettes? Give up? The magician has a cunning line of stunts, and Radio City has a stunning line of  . . . .

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2010 in Humor, Uncategorized, Writing

 

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Has anyone read Cosmo lately? . . .

15 Mar

Has anyone read Cosmo lately?

I stumbled and mumbled my way through the March 2010 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, a copy donated to the Nephrology Clinic at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) by a generous (or perhaps disgusted) patient, one that is probably not among the clinic’s geriatric population—that’s not a given, of course—there are always exceptions to rules.

Listen up, everybody—Cosmo as literature is soft porn, and it may as well be called a ragazine. This issue borders on hardcore, and it is my learned opinion that hardcore looms in its future issues—the publication will, so to speak, go all the way. It already rivals Playboy and is apparently seeking equality with Hustler.

Run, do not walk, to the nearest newsstand—you may be unfortunate enough to find a copy. If you do, treasure it—it will some day be considered a classic, an apt item for hungry sellers on eBay—Half-price Books will probably display it in locked glass-front cases and purvey it at inflated prices.

Here are some peeks into the March issue (don’t let the kids read this):

Under the title of “How to touch a naked man):

Five sexiest spots to touch a man

T spot (for tip)—one hand on bottom half, other hand on top half leaving tip uncovered (yeah, right—good luck with that one!).

B spot (for base—self-explanatory)

F spot (for frenulum—Google it!)

S (for scrotum—self-explanatory, at least for me)

P (for perineum—Google it!)

Six household items to use below the belt (a must-read!):

Warm wash cloth, shoelace, mango, lace cami or bra, fine-tooth comb, cotton ball

I believe one should assume that those items are meant to be used one at a time rather than all at once, and that some, perhaps not all but some, could be used multiple times and also for their original intended uses. Perhaps, but probably not—although, on second thought . . .

Speaking strictly for myself, the above items are far outside the pale of my imaginative powers. In the absence of illustrated instructions picturing live models—a DVD would definitely help one to master, or at least to attempt to master, the techniques discussed in the article. Without such assistance, I would never attempt to use the recommended items. Well, for their original use, sure—but not for the uses suggested. I should think that irreparable harm could result, either to the one wielding the objects or to the target, or targets, of the objects wielded.

The article recommended some other things that will require the combined efforts of one or more contortionists.

Warning: This posting to the Internet may spark a rush that will equal the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California, or equal even to a Walmart half-price sale. If you act quickly you may be able to find the March issue, and if not you can perhaps contact the publisher in search of unsold copies.

Quickly, I say—time is of the essence!

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2010 in Books, Humor, news sources, Uncategorized

 

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A surgical solution to illegal immigration . . .

10 Jan

Our land border with Mexico cannot be closed.

The military could link hands from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California and the line would not slow the illegal entries. They will go under, over, through or around any barrier constructed, living or otherwise, by land, sea and air, and through tunnels.

Anyone who has lived or worked on the border for any significant length of time knows the border cannot be closed. I worked on the Texas-Mexico border for 12 years, with extended assignments at three land border ports as a Customs inspector trainee, journeyman and supervisor, and in a three-year stint at Customs Headquarters I covered every port on the Mexican border (also most international airports, seaports and land crossings on our border with Canada).

I know the border cannot be closed.

Bill O’Reilly at Fox News believes the border can be closed. He’s wrong—the border cannot be closed (he hasn’t asked me about this, but I would be glad to brief him).

I began my 26-year career with the United States Customs Service at the international border crossing in Progreso, a small town in the Rio Grande Valley a few miles south of Weslaco, Texas. The port director at Progreso had, in my opinion, a sure-fire way to dry up the flood of illegal immigrants—such persons have historically been called wet-backs, a highly descriptive term that has fallen prey to the current atmosphere of political correctness. I plan to discuss the term in a subsequent posting.

The then-port director at Progreso suggested that, regardless of nationality or country of origin, one finger be removed from the illegal immigrant the first time he (or she) is intercepted, then return him (or her) to Mexico, and remove another finger if that person is again intercepted entering our country illegally. If adopted, his suggestion would result in numerous nine-fingered illegals, significantly fewer eight-fingered, and virtually none with only seven fingers.

My only suggestion to his plan at that time was to remove the middle finger of one hand for the first offense and the middle finger of the other hand for the second offense, then another finger for the next illegal crossing, etc., etc. My rationale for that sequence was, of course, intended to prevent the offender from flipping the bird at any US federal officer in any future encounter. This led to the development of Operation FRET (Finger Removal Each Time).

I have since fleshed out my plan to control unauthorized immigration, and have also developed a plan to prevent members of Congress from growing old and rich in the “service” of their country. To that end I offer the following concepts: Operation FRET to control illegal immigration, and Operation OFFER to clear out some, perhaps most, of the deadwood in our Senate and our House of Representatives. Operation OFFER, over time, might even clear out all the deadwood and ensure that none of it reappears in Congress.

Operation FRET (Finger Removal Each Time) should not be confused with the acronym for fluorescence resonance energy transfer, a condition related to fluorescent lighting. Operation FRET is my term for a system that, if properly applied, could staunch the flow of unauthorized entries across our national borders. The system is suggested to control entries from Mexico, but to avoid any semblance of bias it should probably be instituted along our northern border as well, and for consistency the system must apply to illegal entries at any point in the nation, whether by land, sea or air.

Operation OFFER (One Finger For Each Re-election) is recommended initially for elections to our Senate and our House of Representatives, but the concept can be applied effectively to lesser elections, ranging from local school boards up to gubernatorial races. I would oppose any suggestion to make Operation OFFEE retroactive for sitting electees—now that would really be cruel!

I would also oppose any suggestion to extend Operation OFFEE to the highest elected office in the land—that worthy needs more fingers, not fewer, to accomplish his complex duties and responsibilities. Besides, any hint of such a suggestion, whether satire or otherwise, would bring down on the suggester the accumulative weight and heat of every national, state and local law enforcement agency.

A fellow blogger made these comments on my suggestion concerning digit removals for illegal immigrants, and his comments inspired me to develop Operation OFFER:

I think your immigration penalty may be a tad cruel.

Could we, however, use it for membership in Congress?

Yes, we can! (I must admit that I pilfered that slogan from the 2008 presidential campaign). If the OFFER concept (One Finger Removal Each Re-election) became law, it’s doubtful that we would ever have more than a handful (so to speak) of nine-fingered senators or representatives, even fewer with only eight fingers and probably none with three fingers missing. I assume the writer meant to remove one finger on the initial election to Congress, whether to the Senate or to the House of Representatives, and the second on the first re-election, etc. And I also assume the same sequence (middle fingers first) would apply to the members of Congress. However, I feel that the system should apply to re-elections only. Under Operation FRET, the illegal immigrant has broken federal law, while the first term electee to Congress has broken no laws. Operation OFFER would ensure that no senator or representative would serve more than one term unless, of course, they would be willing to sacrifice a digit in order to remain on the federal dole and continue feathering their nest—not likely, that.

It is doubtful that the law could be made retroactive, principally because many of the senators and representatives would be minus all fingers as well as both thumbs. And there is actually the possibility, albeit it very remote, that reelections to the Senate and the House of Representatives would be eliminated—one can only dream.

I would oppose any suggestion to make Operation OFFER retroactive for sitting electees—now that would really be cruel! I would also oppose any suggestion to extend Operation OFFER to the highest elected office in the land—that worthy needs more fingers, not fewer, to accomplish his complex duties and responsibilities. And any such suggestion, whether satire or otherwise,  would bring down on the suggester the accumulative weight and heat of every national, state and local law enforcement agency in the nation.

A special note for anyone who peruses (reads) this posting and believes it, or is repulsed by it, or considers it cruel and un-American:

Hey, lighten up!

This is satire and nothing more—no investigation by the AFRC (Anti-Finger-Removal Czar) is needed, nor do we need a BOLO for international border crossers with fingers missing from either hand, specifically middle fingers.

Our newspapers, novels, movies and television presentations are saturated with crime reports, either true or fictional, so everyone should know the meaning of BOLO. However, this explanation is provided for the edification (enlightenment) of the three persons (estimated) in our population of 330 million (estimated) that do not know:

BOLO is an acronym for Be On Look Out (for). Don’t you just abhor (hate) it when someone uses a word, whether verbal (spoken) or written, then immediately defines (explains) it in the belief that the reader lacks eruditeness (having great knowledge) and won’t know the word’s meaning?

I also hate it when someone does that, whether speaking or writing.

I completely understand, and I feel your pain.

 
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Posted by on January 10, 2010 in Humor, law enforcement, politics

 

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