lcurtis

Foxes in the hen house

2009-10-15T18:33:57Z

Some one needs to take Fox News down, they must be linked with (............) fill in the blank.

worry

2009-10-05T22:54:02Z

There is no need to worry or be concerned. There are no important decisions that need to be made at the present time and therefore there nothing to worry about. So go about your lives as normal and know that some one has made all the important decisions for you and that, at the moment, there is nothing to worry about at all, I repeat there is nothing to worry about. Nothing, at all. No thing.
" Don't worry be elated".

observations

2009-09-14T21:43:10Z

I suddenly realized that i'd never be thirty-five again.

Goodbye

2009-09-07T14:41:01Z

We recently buried my mother-in-law, Evalyn L. Ayer, she was ninety-four years old. Spirited and feisty at the start of the summer. She attended several games at the Collage World Series there in Omaha Nebraska; reigned royal at the Lyons high school alumni banquet in May, waving like the crowned queen that she was; she rode in regal style in a convertible, again waving like royalty, at the Fourth of July parade in down town Lyons, smiling and throwing candy to the kids along the three block block route down main street.

We had traveled back to Lyons a week before she died to see her in the hospital where she was dealing with pneumonia. She was restless and combative, screaming and calling for her son, her husband, her mom her dad. Her husband, Roy, had died fifteen years ago, her son, Dick, was in Omaha working and tending to family issues. Her daughters, Maggie and Junavae, held her hands as her clouded eyes darted about the hospital room, confused and lost in the unreality of death. She was not going to go 'gently into that good night'; she cried out; "Don't let me die" and "I don't want to die" several times, raging against the 'dying of the light'. She was asleep on the day we left to come back home to Indiana, not screaming that banshee scream or shouting over and over: "I want my Dick, I want my Dick, I want my Dick", oblivious to her attending daughters, crying out for her only living son, Richard Ayer. She would sometimes ask for her son Paul, and when told that Paul was dead, had been dead for almost twenty-five years, she would cry, "Oh no, oh no" and my wife and her sister and I would cry with her, pulled into her loss and pain being relived as she was dying. My wife, emotionally drained, was ready to go home.

I remember the younger Evie, the mother of my girl friend; Mrs Roy Ayer, loved and admired by her friends and a large and growing contingent known as family, feared and respected by her few and trembling enemies. Evie; maker of pies and rye bread, cinnamon buns and rolls, keeper of flowers and plants, of grand children and bunnies by the dozens, keeper of the oral history that flowed through her veins with the blood of her forefathers. She was the only other woman, other than my mother and my wife, that I truly loved; the only other woman other than my wife that I stood in awe of. I will miss her and I wish her a fond farewell.

change

2009-09-01T20:03:54Z

Computers are doing to books, what books did to the scroll, and what the scroll did to clay tablets and what clay tablets did to the human voice.

At this moment

2009-08-02T17:46:34Z

      Like Alice I have fallen into a hole, a gaping, black hole of fear and loathing for humanity. I tire of the selfish right and the liberal left, of do gooders and do-badders, of greed and apathy, of rapacious destruction and slothful indulgences. I tire of crumbling jobs and crumbling infastructure, of crumbling morals and blighted houses where old men's lawnmowers and children's bicycles are stolen to buy rocks of crack cocaine.   I have become completely disenchanted with all of mankind. We continue to befoul our planet in the most malignant of ways; the rich sucking up even greater wealth and recources and the poor shitting and pissing in our rivers and allys, passing on disease, McDonald's, Zyprexa and street drugs through their elimination systems; like Siberian Shamans passing on hallucinogens on to their supplicants through their urine.  Drink deeply of the cities water, drink deeply and wipe your chin when done.
      When my daughter was a child she wrote a one line poem that simply went: "Pain, disease and cavities": stating  the human condition, a condition that the wealthy medical and insurance executives and their wealthy investors need to maintain in order to thrive and grow. We fool ourselves when we seek health insurance for all; universal health care bought by taxing the wealthy: they will kill us before they allow that to happen, they need our hunger and pain to thrive. The wealthy thrive on our discomfort, our longings and desires just as the church thrives on our fears and guilt.
    Well, I feel better now! How about you?

The month of June

2009-06-04T12:05:29Z

I want June back: She is an empty month, cold, desolate like an Arctic winter or a Sargasso sea where the things we love are lost forever. June, the sixth month, the turn to summer, the loss of a daughter and grandson in that lifeless sea of time, the icy Artic of my heart.
I want June back: She is the most powerful goddess, wife of Jupiter, it is she who brings summer and wheat and corn and tomatoes; June is the month of bike rides and swimming holes, long walks in the quiet woods climbs to mountain meadows and clear blue sky's, to Strawberry Lakes and sun filled rain forests.
I want June back: I want to remember her laughter, hear her sing to see her thick, blond hair spread across her night time pillow as she sleeps a child's sleep, safe in the arms of my memory.
I want June back.

sin

2009-05-07T10:34:20Z

Repent now.

lcurtis @ 2009-05-03T07:40:00

2009-05-03T12:26:27Z

Pottsville, Pa. -- "An all-white jury has acquitted two teenagers of all serious charges stemming from the fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant last summer."

The foregoing is an excerpt from a story found this morning on Google News. I get the majority of my morning news from Google News: I like to browse the electronic news as I drink my morning coffee whilst waiting for my waste elimination system to go on line and download. Retirement is such a delicate balance: coffee in one hand toilet paper in the other.
I have no idea why two "white" teenagers beat a Mexican Illegal to death in Pottsville. Pa: a cultural impasse I'm sure, a misunderstanding of sorts, a miscommunication because of the language barrier? I know I often get frustrated when people don't understand what I am trying to communicate and, in frustration, beat them to death. Know what I'm saying? Musulims, sometimes, have that problem in attempting to communicate their religious beliefs and in frustration often put people to death by the sword. Which is not the same as beating someone to death, but close.
Remember: May is "National Beat Someone to Death Month". Are you ready?

planes, trains and inclosed spaces

2009-05-01T11:55:09Z

Well the travel industery is upset with Joe Biden because he advised his family to avoid public travel in enclosed spaces as the "Chili Pepper Flu" dashes about the globe. I agree with Joe, plus traveling on aeroplanes is a bit of a bitch anyway and I avoid it as much as possible and sub-ways we don't have here in Fort Wayne, we do have a few busses that are used by the poor and non Republican to get to free medical clinics to treat odd strains of TD brought in by displaced persons from Burma and Mexico. At least I think it's TB. Best way to avoid the flu is to avoid people :shop only at 3 AM, don't go to Mexican restaurants for lunch or dinner, stay off planes and small enclosed sailing ships headed to or from Mexico, Central America, Burma, and New Haven, Indiana..

Papal Shit

2009-04-29T18:27:02Z

I used to be ashamed to be an American and now because of the flap over Obama speaking at South Bend I am ashamed to be a Hoosier. Actually I really don't really consider my self a Hoosier because I was born in Missouri, grew up in Illinois and wound up in Fort Wayne because of a series of events that I won't go into here. I do, however, consider my self a Midwesterner, a Low Land -High Plains Drifter (High Plains because of my years in Nebraska). If religion is the opiate of the masses why are they all not stoned, placid and lying on the ground? Or better yet ,why isn't the DEA after em?

The 2k's

2009-04-20T11:47:20Z

The people should know. Did you ever notice that Head Shops never offer senior citizen discounts?

Ikenoto

2009-04-12T03:22:16Z

The Ikenoto of central Teneto are a nomatic subgroup of homeless people from New Haven. More later.

14 clocks

2009-03-07T21:33:31Z

Simple question: What is the opposite of Day Light Savings Time? Is it Day Light Squandering Time?

SWE 08

2008-11-25T20:23:38Z

This posting on the SWE 08 was initially written in Word, as was the previous posting, and I have attempted several times to copy it into lj but for some reason all I get is garbage when I try. So I am now typing it out for a second time and am very disgruntled with the process at this time and am considering writing the rest of the "trip notes" out by hand and placing them in the snail mail system to all but no one would be able to read them (which might be preferred). After leaving Eastern Nebraska we headed up to the Nebraska National Forest near Halsey NE. The National Forest is located right off of State Rt. 2 and besides being a "place to camp" it is a tree nursery and, at times, training ground for the local "Storm Troopers". At least I think they may be "Storm Troopers" disguised as an ATV club dedicated to ATV rescue. We arrived on Friday morning and set up the camper on a hill surrounded by ponderosa and jack pine trees, young trees not more that twenty to thirty years old. Through out the day there was constant ATV activities: going up the hill, going down the hill, waving at the campers from Indiana; going up the hill, going down the hill, ignoring the campers from Indiana. The ATV's were driven by middle aged fat, white men and women and by middle aged fat, white children. Apparently all of the weeks activities were over and now it was just time to relax and drive aimlessly about the camp grounds running off any and all local wild life.

As soon as we finished setting up the sky became overcast and dark with rain clouds, the temperature dropped and as I was cooking supper over the camp fire it started to rain. It rained for the rest of the night along with thirty to fifty mile an hour winds and hail, followed by trains.

No it did not rain trains they just rolled by the camp ground every half hour throughout the night. One hundred car long coal trains coming out of Wyoming passing within about an eighth of a mile from where we were set up. DOT regs call for a train to sound it's horn at every crossing, there are two at the entrance of the Halsey National Forest; four blasts, one long two shorts and one long, all night long punctuated by thunder and towards morning coyotes yapping, obviously upset by the passing trains.

In the morning it cleared up, the wind dropped and the "Storm Troopers" started their morning rounds just as I was starting to fall asleep. They would greet each other by sounding their horns, one long two short and one long. As soon as the camper died out we made a run for it followed by several ATV's looking for someone to rescue. With blood shot eyes we were looking forward to camping along the Niobrara river up near Valentine..

SWE08

2008-11-14T18:53:52Z

Tomorrow (11/12) we head for home. It is Tuesday and we are at a Comfort Inn in Collinsville Illinois, the home town of my youth. This Comfort Inn is located on highway 157near the confluences of Interstate 55 and I 70 at the base of the glacial terminal moraine of the last Ice Age, sixteen thousand years ago. Where once roamed woolly mammoths and giant sloth’s now rumbles Kensworth and Peaterbuilt’s pulling forty foot trailers full of the commodities of the day. We have spent the last 64 days running with the eighteen wheeled monsters traveling eight thousand three hundred and fifty miles on what we decided to call the South West Expedition 08 or the SWE 08. The original plan was for seventy three days and since it was to be an extended length of time we felt that to call it a vacation was a lot like calling a Clydesdale a pony, the Queen Mary a skiff, the Mississippi a stream. It is interesting to note that the ground on which the motel is built was once a horseradish farm owned by one of the Eckman brothers; a chunk of dark, rich Mississippi river bottom soil where as a young teenager I toiled for Seventy five cents an hour: suckering, lifting, planting and digging the big white roots. (Collinsville was once the horseradish capitol of the world). Ain the morning we will meet my cousin Ray and his wife for breakfast. He is much older than I, by a month or so, so I really feel sorry for him. I still make about seventy-five cents an hour on SS and I really don’t care for horseradish that much.

The SWE 08 departure date was September the 9th, 2008 ACE. After securing the camper to the back of the Ford Focus we pulled out heading West on the first leg of the expedition. Our first encampment was in Iowa City at the Country Inn where we frolicked with other travelers in the heated pool and hot tub. We parked the camper just out side of out window so we could keep an eye on it (can’t trust the natives, so I’m told) however other than McCain-Palin signs we had no problems with the indigenous peoples of the area (the Ioway or Baxoji, a Siouan tribe now taking revenge on the white man by taking his wampum away at various casinos across the state). We found no traces of the Louis and Clark Expedition of 1804. I don’t think that came through this part of Iowa.

The next morning after a continental breakfast, provided by the Country Inn staff, we headed on to Nebraska City and the home of our nephew, Don Ayer, who owns several acres back in the hinterlands of South East Nebraska. He and his wife Sandy live in an immense two story home/hunting lodge on 60 acres of woods, a lake and trails in the low rolling hills. They of course offered a bed, but we, being the intrepid explores that we are elected to set up the camper (known as The Good Karma) next to their lake under to a big weeping willow tree. Don’s brother Ron was also staying with them and he helped us set up. I wanted to see if Maggie could do it her self but Ron insisted on helping her. Don and Sandy of course fed us royally the two days and nights we were there. It rained the first night we camped fortunately it was a short walk to the house for breakfast: bacon, eggs, steak, toast and coffee. Boy camping is rough. The day that we left to head north to Omaha (another Siouan tribe) we parked The Good Karma in their massive Butler building with the tent up to dry out while we were up north with family in Elkhorn and Lyons, camping in guest rooms and eating lunches at the Happy Days Senior Center (the land of the whistling ears). We would return in one week’s time to hook up the camper and proceed west.

When next I post I will tell of hail storms, rain, gusting winds, and 100 car coal trains passing in the night, every half hour, 1/8 of a mile from the camp site, passing two crossings where it is a DOT law that they sound their air horns four times at each crossing, one long two shorts and another long.

SWE 08

2008-10-06T15:08:34Z

Not much time for an entry. We are in Lovelnd CO at the base of Rocky Mountains National Park, at camp Mark and Amy. We will ascend shortly. The elk are in rut and bugling their harems together. I am also in rut but have misplaced my bugle. Thus far we have avoided rattle snakes, bison and aggressive praire dogs. The Bad Lands weren't and the Black Hills were filled with light.

SWE 08

2008-09-17T19:56:07Z

Lyons Nebraska, the Land of the Whistling Ears. We survived the encounter with the hostiles of south east Nebraska; though I feared the worst, cannibalism; for all they did was force food upon us, fattening us up like the cattle they tend and slaughter: Friendly folk, more or less, but they place a great emphasis on food and football.

We have been following the trail set by Lewis and Clark in 1804 and re-blazed by Bennie and Cecil in 1957. We are drying out our equipment, which was soaked by the remnants of Ike (never did like Ike). Next stop the Bad Lands and Black Hills (sounds bleak, what).

SWE 08

2008-09-12T20:18:03Z

In Nebraska, being held by the hostiles. More later, if we survive the night..

SWE 08

2008-09-10T13:18:26Z

First day across Indiana and Illinois on to the central part of Iowa. Good traveling, did not encounter any hostiles there were signs: trail markers, camp fires, broken pottery, buffalo hides, casinos and gift shops selling rubber tomahawks. Had a lite lunch at Starved Rock. We are on schedule, thus far.

SWE 08

2008-09-09T03:29:45Z

We are about to depart on the 72 day SWE 08. After several days of sorting and packing the “things” that we will need for the expedition we have discovered that we need a list of the lists of the things that we have packed in order to keep it all straight. All lists needed to be kept with the packed items for inventory purposes, and, therefore, I needed a list of the places where all items are kept. For example: medications are kept in a canvas carry bag and placed in a larger canvas bag called the “zip around bag” or the “Park Center bag” or the “big bag” depending on who is talking; the fire starting kit also contains the level for leveling the camper and a file for sharpening the axe. But I’ve no idea where the axe is kept (forgot to add it to the list). As we depart I notice that the camper is “listing” to the left just a bit.

Will keep in touch,

Larry and Maggie

Looking for Jack

2008-08-24T12:24:23Z

We continue our preparations for the pending trip which we have formally named "South West Expedition 08". We continue to seek funding from the French and Spanish but feel we are more likely to receive support from Togo. Getting financial support from other countries for exploration of the "New World", in the twenty-first century, is becoming more and more difficult. Something about return on investment and the fact theat there are no natural resources left to pillage, rape or plunder in the "New World" which some now refer to as the "Feted World" .
We set the Ambassador (the is the model of the camper we bought for the Expedition back in the fall of 07) for a show and tell at Maggies retirement/birthday party last night. Two people walking down the alley stopped and asked if they could camp in the back yard too. We said no, try a State Park, and be sure to camp next to Bubba's family .
EDD is 9/8/08 for the "SWE 08". Gotta go, getting a call from Togo, collect. Is that a bad sign?
Merryweather Larry,
Expedition Commander

SWE 08

2008-08-20T15:23:20Z

We are preparing for SWE 08 which is, the South West Expedition 08, our epic 4, 500 mile camping trip, a two and a half month jaunt into the wilds of the American Southwest; the arid Heart of Darkness as opposed to Conrad's sweltering Congo. Unlike our presidential hopefuls I have chosen a running mate and it's not Al Gore, no it's Maggie Curtis.
We camped at a local State Park over the past week end just to practice our set up skills, we are trying to reach the advertised set up time of five minutes. We are getting close, down to one and one half hours now. I wanted to take it down and do another set up right away. The stitches will come out next week and the ringing in my head is starting to subside. Maggie is very accurate with an iron skillet.
The weather was beautiful so the camp ground was full of families attempting to enjoy the last week end before school starts. What we need is state camp grounds for adults only, children under the age of thirty must be accompanied by their parole officer.

Looking for Jack

2008-07-23T10:54:30Z

I was poking around in the belly of our Ambassador camper looking for a pair of new blue jeans that I seem to have misplaced. While doing so I decided to measure the camper to determine the exact square footage of the practical, palatial pop-up. It is 6.5 feet long and when opened ,9 feet wide; so we are talking about a living area of around 59.5 square feet. Divide that space by two people and it is roughly 30 square feet per person., divided by three, 20 square feet. So when the three of us are in the camper, down Big Bend way, I plan to sleep on the ground with the rattle snakes and scorpions on second thought I may have my daughter do that, after all she is from California.
I must have left the blue jeans in the shower room at the camp ground down at Big South Fork in Kentucky, that's OK I wasn't in them anyway.

Looking for Jack

2008-07-18T17:38:44Z

This is July 17, 2008 and we are preparing for a fourth-thousand mile journey through the stomach, lower intestines and colon of the USA's, southwest then back up through the esophagus to Fort Wayne . We are working on a budget and have determined to base it on a daily allocation of our retirement pay, and that paltry amount will need to cover all road trip expenses: camping fees, gas, food, motels, restaurants, entertainment, fire wood and ice-cream, medicine and birth control. We are to leave in early September. Maggie wants to go to a wedding in Minnesota, some people I don’t even know, children of someone else that I don’t know either.

Of course we will have to be in Lyons, NE. by early September to pick up Evie,(my favorite mother-in-law) to go to the wedding in Minnesota and of course Evie, now being ninety-three, doesn’t know who they are either, but Maggie does, so we are going. She, my favorite mother-in-law, always wants to ride in the front seat of the car. I’m not sure why she has shrunken so small that she cannot see out the front or side windows. She can see up and finds interesting things in the clouds: cows, sheep, dogs and farmers; and once she reported seeing a 2008 Maserati Gran Turismo. So Minnesota, here we come. I look forward to the wedding.

I think we will leave early on the eight of September and plan to return to the Fort of Wayne by mid November. That’s one thousand seven hundred and four hours living on the road in a 2002 Ford Focus pulling our two wheeled home behind us. I intend to keep a road log of the undertaking a sort of On the Road look at the more exposed expanses of our country, red rock and granite, sand stone, cap stone and lime; more naked pictures of your mother.