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Showing posts from January, 2017

The Impatient Stone Cutter

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Many, many years ago I met a salesman that could sell a bowl of sawdust to a Dog on a meat wagon. He was selling Tombstones, prepaid granite, stand alone marble facade tombstones for a very cheap price. How did I know the price was cheap, because I could afford it and I was cheap. Since my military service was behind me and I was a level headed Irish/American, I qualified for a special discount which I took. I declined the prepaid plot in Happy Valley Bone Orchard because I didn't have a clue where I'd be and who I wished to reside next to in the 100 years between purchase and use. So the salesman drew up the contract, took the payment and gave me the gold embossed certificate declaring I had one prepaid tombstone coming. He then took his hefty commission, passed on the contract and remaining funds to the stone cutter who took half of the funds and put it in his pocket and bought an annuity to cover the tombstone with the remaining funds. Forty five years pa

The Trouble with Tribles

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The Trouble with Tribles An episode of the television show 'Star Trek' warned us, humanity, to be wary of things that seem to be innocuous. In this episode, the Enterprise is ferrying an immensely valuable load of grain to a starving Galaxy, so the people could replant these crops and survive. Really? Sending a Star Cruiser, the most powerful ship in the known Universe to deliver grain? I think I remember this plot in the Greek Tragedies. Probably written by Homer or Aristotle or them kinda guys. But in the fashion of watching Television is Time Immemorial I will sit down and suspend all logical thinking. Anyway, maybe the Warp drives were broken but the trip was taking so long that they needed R&R on a space station/way-point. A pain-in-the-ass official of the Federation High Counsel was aboard to make sure they didn't screw up the job and to be a nemesis for Kirk. Klingons lurked around every corner and an unscrupulous trader had smuggled aboard the

The “Dead End Canal Yacht Club” New Year

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The “Dead End Canal Yacht Club” hasn't celebrated New Years Eve as a club in several years. Still the Board of Commodores met to discuss the possibility of reviving the tradition. This year is especially difficult because of the College Football Playoffs but we tried. We, the Board of Commodores met at the Pukin' Pelican on Thursday during Happy Hour and occupied an outside picnic table. A cool front was moving down and the wind blew our Hors d’Oeuvres around and the pitchers of beer went flat quickly because of the falling Barometer. I wasn't concerned because I was drinking 16 oz Pabst Blue Ribbon tall boys. We sat quietly through 3 impassioned pleas, one by Texarkana Hanna, another by Cap'n Crunch and the last from Pensacola Slim. Hanna wanted to do dinner and drinks and dancing at some fancy spot. Cap'n Crunch just wanted to get out of his house and tie one on, anywhere! Pensacola Slim was duty bound by the Woman's Auxiliary to speak on b