No Point To It

Three things are essential
to survival in rural America.
Now we're not talking about
rural America 50 miles outside
Dallas, or Denver,
a burb of Chicago, those
places call themselves rural -
but in reality they are capable
of pulling all of the big city
resources they have right
into their mix.  Nope these
three things are for rural where
we're at...the sticks, as they
used to say...so here they go...

1.  Friday night football.

2.  Main Street that is
open for business.

3.  Folks who do what needs
doing in the community, and
volunteering to help.

There are other but these three
are the main ones.  No football
and Friday night becomes just
another night of the week.

Business on main street in our
town means something, we don't
have a lot of plants around us
employing a lot of folks, so
our folks either work somewhere
and live here, or, retail their
hearts out to local folks while
praying for a break on the web.

Folks who do stuff that needs doing
isn't just a rural America thing, but
it does help, and we don't have a
huge population to draw from.  This
can mean, and sometimes does mean,
we end up with folks doing a lot,
from a few.  It's what is the only
way that some things get done.

Have any favorite observations about
your rural community, we'd love to
hear them?

Story Telling For You - Chapter Three

Thinking back to those days about
the cold, the relationships that I had
today, that were formed,
some of them, back then,
seemed; solid somehow?
Jeff and I went through a frozen
sort of Hell and a hotter than hell
sort of desert, to be here.
Until I met Gene, then; oddly, her life took over
my life, it was not like anything I'd ever experienced,
but, over the years; my relationship with Jeff, who
got out of the Army after Desert Storm; where
as the Battalion Sergeant's Major, he had won
several commendations; not that they mattered to him,
Jeff was into leading men, and even today, that was
what made Jeff so important to me.  So when Gene
had blown into my life, she had completely taken
me by storm; so much so that my oldest buddy
from the Army, even, had to comment about how
much time I'd spent with her, rather than him?  But
in those days, nearly a decade ago, she had overwhelmed
me with a personality and style like nothing I'd ever
known, and her smile disarmed even my foulest moods.
Gene had appeared to be the answer to every doubt
I'd ever had about life.

We'd been thinking, together, she and I, for some time, but
her thinking and my thinking they weren't the same;
ever have that happen?  Ever think you know what
she means, and you don't?  For women, if I understand
what my friend says, it's about the same, they think
that men say one thing and mean another- is that
how men are, and women are, so there must not
be a whole lot of understanding going on?  We'd
been thinking, together, which was often not the
best of ways to handle things.

So I made a very simple statement to her; "if I
needed your help, would you give it to me."  I
didn't mean anything by it, I wasn't doing any
sexy double entendre', I only wanted to know
if we had something going down if she'd help?
"Would I give it to you?  Well of course I'd
give it to you, I've been trying to give it to you
for a while now, you act like you could care less?"

That's not true, it wasn't an act, I wasn't really
all that much into her that way; she was getting
older, the lines in her face more pronounced,
the hanging leftovers of arms which used to
be stronger and more attractive, were beginning
to sag even more.  She was still pretty, but
she'd moved from an object of desire to a
person but one with not as much desire.  I know,
it's crass; I know it sucks; I know, but it's the
truth; what do you want me to do, lie? I said;
"why do you have to turn every remark I make
into a physical deal?  Seriously, is that all
you have on your mind."
"I'm not a slut,"
"Did I say you were a slut?"
"You make it sound as if I am."
"Where you get that..."
"Because the way you say it, I'm always
bringing up physical with you and you
aren't even into that?  Which, by the way,
would make me a women who likes sex-
and sometimes, women who like sex
are called, and perceived as, sluts.  That
what you were thinking, that I must be easy?"
"You can't be serious?"  What would you
have said?  I was in a bit of a hole in this
conversation, with no easy way out, apparently?
"Yes," her eyes danced, lit up, and her smile,
oh that smile- it was like nobody else's anywhere-
"I was serious about wanting you to want me-
you used to; what happened?" She was intense.
"How about you quit caring - what was I
supposed to do?"  I could be intense too!
"How about, keep caring?"  "Yeah," I thought,
"like an idiot being fed small doses of poison?"
But I didn't dare say that did I, so I uttered;
"Look I tried, I tried to call, you told me
not to; I tried to even text you and you told
me you were too busy?  So what can I say,
when Cynthia came on to me, what was I
supposed to do; she's prettier than Laura,
you remember Laura,"
"Yes, my lord, who can forget her, the lady
who has an orgasm from a massage," Her
eyes were showing a touch of something,
was it jealousy?  I wasn't trying to make
her feel anything, so if it was, it was on her.
"Ok I was due that, but she did, and I
couldn't do a thing about that, it was
after all, just a massage, what was I
supposed to do?"
"You could give me a massage?"
See what I mean- this conversation wasn't
going the way I needed it to go.  Ever
have that happen to you?

Jeff didn't know about these conversations,
he didn't know about the feedback, but
he did know from me, where things stood.
"And somehow you figure that's going to
get her back?"  Jeff wasn't being cynical.
"Jeff you know, I'm not sure that's where
I am going, she's still someone that I'd
do anything for.  That's a huge problem
in our business."
"Do tell."
"So you think I'm being silly?"
"Would you listen if I said you were being
less than manly about this?"
"I might?"
"You ought to turn her completely and
totally loose, go with Laura, or Cynthia-
they are really turned on by you, and they
care about you, look Chuck, Gene don't
call, she don't care, apparently that hasn't
registered with you yet, you're still trying
to cut her in on a fortune, and of course,
I'd love to know why?"
"Jeff, ..., I can't stop it, this is ten years now,
and I love her- I don't want to, but there it
is, I love her."
"Figured that was it."

Story Telling For You - Chapter One

When somebody says something odd, well, sometimes it
goes right past you; ever have that happen?  You hear it,
but you don't really hear it, so you have to say:
"What was that, oh, I'm sorry, I was lost in something and
didn't catch it, what did you say?"  Because she knew
that it was something she wanted to hear, because I
was responding to her bizarre remark.  When she said
that odd thing, right then I'd wondered, "why, why
bother them with what they don't need to know?"  She'd
said that she'd had to tell her reasons for why she
wasn't feeling well and just hope that she wouldn't
be thought unkindly for what she'd done?  My thought
was, "yes but you could just keep your mouth shut?
People get sick all the time, they don't give a run down
of who's hand they shook that sneezed so they caught
the cold, do they?"  Yes I realized, that was a bit plastic,
but lately she'd been such a nuisance that it just amazed
me that she felt she had to vent her Spleen in public
and then expect folks to be accepting of the bile?

Now I can think it, just like you, think it, but that
doesn't mean we can say it, does it?  So instead my
mouth uttered, "well after all, that was the honest
thing to do."  But inside my heart was amazed at
the foolish choice she'd made.  Of course some
would say that was courageous; but in my mind,
sometimes not saying something can be a lot more
courageous that saying it...

It was cold out that night; I remembered the cold
because it was the European cold, and the European,
German, cold, is very cold; it gets down into your
bones, quick.  We'd been hassled and messed with
and called out to stand at attention in ranks, only
to be told it wasn't going to happen, until every
nerve in us was frayed.  Every person in the platoon
was fed up with the in and out, and then out again,
and then in again, hot; cold, hot and then cold,
and then hot again- it was a nuisance.  "If they're
gonna send us, why the hell don't they do it
and quit playin' with us like little tin soldiers."
Dan had his way of saying things, I just listened,
because when Dan was uptight, as he was now,
it was smarter to listen, and even sometimes grunt.
"Tell you one thing, if they think they can keep
getting the smadge (pronounced as a slurred and
shortened Sergeant's Major) in and out and
in and out and in again, they're dreaming in a
mud puddle they'll drown in by God!"  He wasn't
enjoying himself, and who could blame him,
it was three in the morning, it was cold, bone
cold, and we'd been up since dawn being told
we'd be next to go.  That was when big Dan,
because he was a ferocious fighting giant
of a man,  said that odd thing?
"Chuck you speak some Latin don't you?"

"Latin," I thought," at three in the morning?"
But what I ended up saying was, "Yes
Seargeant's Major, I do, speak; some;"
"Hey come on, Chuck, what've I told ya,
when we're by ourselves, you can knock
off the formal, O.K.?"
"It's just easier for me, Dan, to just keep it
all the same, talk wise, you know I know
that we're friends to the core."
"Well anyway, Chuck, Latin you see is this
strange language to me, language you know
has a lot to do with how well a nation does,
did you know that?"
"I'd actually heard something like that as
a theory once, yes..."
"Turns out if folks speak your language because
it's easy to use, they'll likely come around to
your way of thinking, language tends to carry
the power of thought with it, and culture..."
"Yes sergeant's major, and?"
"And Rome, well, they conquered so much of
the world, and yet, the countries they conquered
were slow to adopt their language, and in fact,
Rome wasn't respected, and their language may
have been tied to that?"
"Interesting seargeant's major but what are
you really saying?"
"I'm sayin' that they had a saying, "Tenet
Nosce" know what it means?"
"Uhm, let me see, nosce means to
get to know doesn't it?"
"That's right,"
"and tenet is occupancy, so, get to
know your occupancy, oh, that's it,
know yourself?"
"There you go, another way of saying
be true to yourself."
"And your point..."
"We aren't anymore.  You know that lady
I was seeing in the town?"
"The pretty dark haired lady?"
"None other, know what she did?"
"No but you are going to tell me, aren't you?"
"She tells me that she's so busy that she can't
talk to me.  I'm thinking, that's odd, so I am
talking with one of her friends, who says that
she gets calls from some guy who isn't my
name, all the time; and she giggles like a little
school girl with him.  Well you can imagine
how I took that?"
"You were probably pretty pissed?"
"No I wasn't pissed, I was hurt actually, here
I thought she and I really had something; that
she really cared, and then she goes and does
something like this, seems dishonest to me,
doesn't it to you?"
"Dishonesty and lying are something we
tend to do sergeant's major."
"But not to people you care about- why didn't
she just come out and tell me the truth?'

I snapped back to the present, realizing that
my former girlfriend had said the very same
words to me, and they'd had the same effect.
I realized Dan meant a lot to me, because the
experiences are precious, but it is also the
meaning of what happens when your heart
gets ripped up, when people who shouldn't
lie, and when those lies are even for so called
"good reason," how those lies still cut to the
bone when you discover the truth and they
can no longer hide behind the convenience
of the lie that they thought they could put over
on you.  Such is life, as the French have said,
"as in love, so in war"?

Do you suppose that is why Dan's
moment came into my mind as
she finished telling me that she was just too
busy to take my calls?  Then when I saw her
with her "Bo" and she had that " oh crap,"
look on her face, well, do you suppose
that what Dan said that night, made an impression
upon my heart, that came ringing into the
present to save it from breaking?  Do you suppose
that sometimes the past that we created
can burst truth into the present to save our
hearts from drying up and dying midst all
the present pain?  I'm asking because sometimes
it seems to me, we could just keep our mouths
shut, and avoid a lot of pain?  Made me wonder
how many times in the world lies are told
to cover up behavior that is not only dishonest
but, against the grander feeling of truth and
love?  Since love is a verb, doing for the other
person, and since, obviously, she no longer
felt like that was what she wanted to do,
why go through all the elaborate lies, when
a simple dose of;  "we're not what I want
and I should never have lied to you about
loving you," would have been best for all?
My theory on this may not suit you, but
have you ever wondered...

Story Telling For You

The somebody special, you have them, the ones who make you
smile, make your life worth living, make you know that there
is more; because there is, we just sometimes, don't realize it.
"Oh that's easy for you to say, you don't hurt like me..."
I'd known Dan for years, at least it seemed like that, and
his way of saying things, well, it was neat- I liked Dan.
"Oh Dan, you always have a new pain somewhere,"
"not like this one; I'm tellin' you, it hurst clean down
to the bone."  That's just how they say it, and in the
South, we know what that bone is, don't we?

But my somebody special has no idea that they are; you see, that
would wreck the fun, and because they don't know;
well, they can't hardly do much about it.  Think about
what Dan would fuss about, if he couldn't fuss on
account of, he didn't know what to fuss about?  That's
how it is with my somebody, oh, they try their very
hardest to be just as rude and crude as they can.  They
even refuse to speak to me, imagine such; not being
even spoken to?  Yet, in some odd and unspoken way,
that makes them all the more lovely; all the more special;
even though, as time passes; we no longer know one
another, you see, if Dan couldn't fuss about his pain,
because he didn't know it, eventually what would he
call it; eventually I'll call my someone special, someone
who was, and that's very, very, sad.

So the day was bright, very bright; and it was already
hot- that's a sort of hot which hits you before the sun
is even good and up in the sky, know that sort of hot?
"Never seen it so hot,"  and she meant it.
"I think you're right, it seems like it is getting hotter
than it used to be?"
"You don't say," she was being coy for some reason;
"I do say, and what's more, its not just that it's hot,
it's that it is so hot, much hotter than it's been.  It's
not just that we have storms, don't you know, its
that they are so much more intense."
"Now that's what we call being scientific; want some
more coffee?"
I did, but I couldn't stay, after all, we all have things
that we have to do, don't we?  It was then that she
said this odd thing...

Bite Off More Than You Can Chew? -1-

"It matters to me, a whole lot."
If sparks could've shot out his eyes-
"How can you say that, seeing as how..."
Then my eyes would've reflected them back-
"I can say it, and I do say it, because..."
"Look you have to slow down a bit, that's all,"
"If that's all, well, shoot let's just
sit down and really slow down..."
"O.K., maybe that was a bit simple,
but you know what I'm saying,
you just haven't thought through
some of these things?" Ah my blue
eyed friend wasn't really wanting to
hear his brown eyed boy come
up with that one.
"Man," and here's where he blew my mind, "I don't
even know what things to think through?"  That's
when it occurred to me, "son you may have bitten
off more than you can chew."

The picture is really a pretty funny one, kid sittin'
there with potato, stuffed so full up in his mouth,
that if he could get the milk in there, it wouldn't
help- and he's about to gag, and tears are beginning

to break on his eyes, it's so dry it's
painful, and all he wants is a drink,
but he can't spit them out,
and he can't get the drink in?
Darned if you do,
and darned if you don't;
what a spot to be in?
So that bit about size not mattering-
don't buy it, somehow the bigger dudes,
both of us being men shorter than six foot;
big dudes, well, they have those mouths
that seem to be able to hold it all, don't they?
But our boy, he ain' all that big -
so, he's in a real tough spot.
He should have known the food
would be there after the next forkful,
but when you're really hungry?

My long time associate, who became a fairly powerful
politician; knew that the weak link in the whole idea
was that the community had no plan.
"Well, you guys have this as part of the plan, don't you?"
I was asking because it seemed important, after all,
we've all heard, haven't we, that if you don't plan,
then you plan to ...
"No," and he said it with that air that says, "I'm going
to say more..."  "We don't have a plan for the next
ten years, in fact, we don't have a plan at all, that
I know of..."
You can imagine that I was perplexed, thinking that
it just made good sense for a community to be
planned?  Thinking, like all reasonable people,
that government would have a plan, right?
"So let me get this straight - you have no strategy
for the future, for this community?"
"That's what I'm sayin'"  You can imagine my
reaction to that?  Or maybe you can't, because
you really don't know enough about me and
what I do, to make such a thought, or about my
associate, and what he is supposed to do; but one
thing you know now, they weren't ready, they
had no plan, now that creates the question,
what might that mean?  Why wouldn't they
have such a plan?  Be following some course
to the future?  Seemed odd to me?

It wasn't going to do me any good to explain to
my associate that there are two problems with
planning, one is long term and one is short
term; because if you have those two together,
the middle tends to work itself out?  Or that
the person who taught me how to do planning
was a NASA project director, a Disney project
director, for their theme parks, and had done
numerous other project plans, all of which had
been enormous, and therefore, enormously
detailed.  It also wouldn't do much good to
let him know that this far into the life of the
death of the community, it was going to be hard
to find a pulse, much less, establish a steady heartbeat?
None of that would help my associate, what
would you have told him?  Here's where I went.

"If you do nothing, what will happen?"  Seemed
like a reasonable place to put down a peg?  Gonna
put a tent up, might be nice to put that first peg
down, don't you think?  I remember when my
step-dad, who used to beat me regularly after
drinking some Whiskey, would take me and
my cousin up to the hills of California, to
"camp."  What he meant was you boys all of
seven and eight, go wander around the forest
and maybe get eaten by a bear, me I'm gonna
stay here in the tent and get hosed.  So he'd
say- "well where should we set that corner,
it's important to set the corner right, don't you
think?"  We'd seen him take about four snorts
on the way up, and while my cousin hadn't seen
him go off on me, he'd seen the year of bruises
showing up, enough to know he didn't want
any of it, his pupils expanded a bit with the
adrenalin, there was this weird understanding;
we'd better answer this one right?  "Yes sir,"
we'd done it in unison, who says, the Army
isn't one where fear creates union?  Oh yeah,
where you set the peg is important!  So there
I was suggesting to my friend that it might be
good to think about where to start, or even if
it was wise to start?  

He thought about the question, it wasn't a deep
one, necessarily, but he'd thought about it a good
bit, you could tell.  "If we do nothing, things aren't
going to be good around here in a couple of years."
He was starting to look down the road, see, it's
not hard to get folks looking there, it just takes a
few well aimed well timed and well seasoned
questions?  And maybe a step-dad who beats you
in your past, sets that up?  Something in his odd
blue eyes and set of jaw told me he didn't have
that, which I'd known anyhow, since I'd known
his dad, who was an incredible example of good
dad, a man who could outwork, out sweat and
flat out think most everybody, who went to war
instead of any other options.  So my brown haired,
blue eyed buddy was moving his mind down the
highway, a hard place to get people to move
their minds lately; seems folks are getting more and
more short sighted, less and less likely to think
about the future much, and; folks seem more scared
about the future than perhaps I'd ever known?

"So you want to bring me on board to help with
the planning you need to do?"
"No we've got that covered, I need you to do
something else."
Now he had my attention, something else's weren't
my usual.
"I need someone I can trust, someone I've known
long enough to know they won't sell me out."
"Not many of those types around you, are there?"
My observation was so cliche neither of us
really wanted to even bring it into the talk, so why
had I?
"It's not even that, this goes deeper than that?"
"In what way?"
"I'm not certain Chuck, in fact, this whole thing has
only recently become something of a front burner
issue?"
"Issue?"
"Well we've done some things with making life
in our town here, better.  Folks are starting to see
some good changes in the quality of the life we
lead."  He paused, but not for effect, it seemed he
was going through a list in his mind maybe?
"When we started on this water project, nobody
could see it, but me; and a couple of the the really
hooked in leaders; but we stuck it out, hired the
right people to do the paperwork, got the money,
and now we have a water system coming in that
is truly, remarkable."
"Do tell?"
"And after this last election, folk in the town
seem to be saying that they are looking for some
new ideas."
"Not a single returning member to the council,
you think?"
"Except me."
"Goes without sayin'"
He sat back in the chair, hooked his fingers into
a link on his chest, and nodded affirmatively.
"So when the deal about the airport came up,
I thought, "just makes good sense."  After all
we need a new airport, other towns our size,
get them, so it just seemed to make good sense
that if some folks said that they wanted to
have improvements to the existing airport, why
not?"
"Hey, you're talking job to me, remember, you
don't have to explain..."
"Naw, that's not it, you get it, but just like me, it
doesn't seem troublesome, does it?"
"Seems ...right?"  Well there it was, my brilliance
and deep analysis of Sun Tzu shining through.
"That is why the call from Justice was so," he
paused briefly, choosing the word, or words, "out
of place."

Bob Massi - legal expert on Fox News - the future of Love?

Massi says that in the U.S. agreements between parties
who are living together are becoming common, because
people are living together, making purchases together,
but don't have clear contracts about what goes to
who if the relationship fails. Isn't this an enormous

indicator of what is taking place in our land? Is it
possible that we are becoming so jaded that we have
to have a contract in order to behave reasonably? If
this is the case then perhaps it's time to redefine
a basic tenant in law itself, the reasonable man
presumption, upon which much of law is made?

Bob Massi has read a lot of material concerning this,
and his report on Fox News, brings the point out,
and it seems to make sense, and that's what is so
scary about it. Are we really now moving to a world
where people in the deepest of all relationships
have to have a legally enforced contract in order
to give the BMW to the "yuppie," who purchased it?
He's serious, this is the way folks are behaving?

You probably have some questions about this, and so
I guess, as a writer, we'll have to reach a contract
together, that if you read this, you'll sign a deal
with me that after you quit reading the material,
that you've printed off, you'll send it back to me
and then we can call the relationship - dead? Oh
my goodness, since when do we need a lawyer to
describe a dead relationship? I know when the
relationship has died, one key is, it's no longer
functional, "duh." So this break up contract
between people seems to me to be a lawyer device
to set up recurring income for them? Don't
know if you see the logic there, but would love
to hear what you have to say about it?