Howling In The Night.

I have a vivid memory from my youth that I revisit from time to time, and it never fails to bring a smile to my face. I don’t recall the exact time frame in question, but I think that I was around ten or eleven My step-brother and I were left home alone, (or so we thought) to fend for ourselves for the night. But unknown to us, my mom had left instructions with my older brother that he was supposed to keep an eye on us. Information that he neglected to share with us. (No Doubt on purpose.) seems as though he and one of his friends were outside waiting to hatch a scare plot on my step-brother and I. they waited until dark and slowly moved around the outside of the house making loud thumping noises, no doubt trying to scare us. Unknown to them, we were sitting on the sofa watching an old Frankenstein movie, and we were too involved in the intricate plot works to even notice.

My step-brother didn’t like the dark much, in fact he hated it with a passion, which made us exact opposites, it didn’t bother me in the least to go out with a baseball bat and patrol the area for varmint, but you couldn’t get him past the porch light. Knowing this, I think they were counting on us to be crying little babies at the thought of something being outside the window trying to get in at us. So, it was about an hour or so into the movie when Michael first heard the thumping noises coming from outside. At first, we were a little put off, that is until we caught them in the act. We saw Isley Blackwell, (The accomplice) hiding in the bushes outside the living room window, and it didn’t take a couple of eleven years olds long to figure out what was going on. So we hatched a plan of our own, knowing that my mother was the only one that had a key to any door in the house, we locked down everything including the windows and doors and wouldn’t let them back in.

Living in the country, we had a lot of Coyotes. My older brother hated coyotes. The way they would yelp and howl, in the pitch black it sounded eerie, and when they showed up that night in the backyard it couldn’t have been more perfect. They were howling and moaning and yelping, and my brother and his buddy were banging on the back door to get us to let them in. they threatened… They screamed… They called us dirty names… They were scared shitless. And the two eleven-year-olds that they were trying to pull a school boy prank on were safely tucked away inside a warm house laughing their asses off. Mom came home around ten thirty or eleven, and they were still out there. She let them in, and I think they only thing that saved us from getting our butts kicked by my bro was that we would tell everybody that they knew who the real chicken shits were. I don’t know what made me think about that tonight… Maybe I’m just bored… Maybe I was just missing my bro tonight. (God rest his Soul.) maybe It's just because it's dark outside…

Reaching For The Brass Ring.

 

I don't always explain what I am thinking as clear as I would like, but here I go again, trying is still free. see the thing is, lately I have noticed that some of the most interesting things happen right after I wake up, and they usually happen at Walmart or some other such place where people of all walks of life seem to congregate. I have learned a lot by simply watching people, How they interact with strangers in public. And there are a lot of unhappy people around here. Wait a minute. Back up, let me pour myself a cup of morning brew and chew on this for a minute. Ok, that’s enough chewing. I have reached the conclusion that most people in the population at large wouldn’t know happiness if it walked up and bit them on the butt. Wait, let me tell you how I got there. Strictly for the sake of argument, let's leave the poor people out of this picture, for the moment at least, and concentrate on the other two types of people that I noticed. One Being, the people who seem to have everything and constantly find themselves wanting, craving and or demanding more. The other being, the people who have enough, but can never seem to have enough.

See, before anyone starts to think that I’m just spouting off, let me just say that I know, first hand, people in the very positions of which I speak. Let's take Joe Blow Jones. He has the perfect house, the fancy cars, the high paying job. Etc… Etc… Etc… so what’s his beef? Joe is so caught up in his material possessions that he’s forgotten how to just relax and enjoy life. His greed for more and more material wealth, has become all encompassing, and misery has become his life. He worries about losing what he has, so he is constantly looking for the bigger and better deal. And it doesn’t matter to Joe, who he has to step all over to get the brass ring that he believes so defines his life. Ok Now move down the food chain for a minute and right below Joe is John Blow Smith. Now, John doesn’t have quite as much as Joe does, but he still has much more than the average American who is busting their hump to scrape by every day. He has a nice house, He has a nice car and a beautiful wife but can’t seem to enjoy any of it. More. More. More. The common thread that will tie Joe and John together forever is their misery. They seem to have everything and yet have nothing. Both unknowing victims of the perception that the more you have, the more you need. Greed is good.

See now Let me get away from those guys. It could be contagious, and I don’t want to become infected. See? I never had much. I always worked hard enough to earn enough money to maybe not get Everything that I ever wanted, but I think that I have everything that I really need. Most importantly, a good perspective. Ok Joe. John. Lay off of your obsessions with material wealth for a minute and let me take you on a little trip, if you will. It won’t cost either of you a single penny, and it will only take a moment of your precious time. Close your eyes and listen to my voice. It's in the middle of July, you're baking in the summer heat, and when you open your eyes you're standing on the beach at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. And as you slowly approach the water you can almost taste its cold refreshing waves as they lap at your feet. Slowly now, wade in and let it consume you, until you are totally lost underwater. And when you finally resurface, you can feel the suns' warmth reflecting off of your skin.

Catch your breath… Ready? Close your eyes again. You hear that sound? Do you smell that? Damn. My favorite time of year. Fall. Leaves shedding from the trees. everything is golden brown. There are a bunch of kids piling up leaves on old man Nestor's front lawn, while he sits on the front porch watching them like a proud Grandpa. You can hear them all giggling and laughing, as they line up single file to take the plunge. You ever do that when you were a kid? Have You ever done Anything that didn’t involve money? Roast marshmallows or hotdogs over an open flame? Have you ever told ghost stories around a campfire and end up scaring yourself and everyone else silly? have you ever been camping or fishing in the woods and woke up in the morning in a sleeping bag covered in dew? I could go on with this forever, but I won’t, but see there is an old saying that I recall hearing as a child that stuck with me that says “one man's curse is another man's blessing” the world is full of blessings that don’t involve having that competitive edge that you think you need, it doesn’t involve material wealth or money, see, it isn’t difficult to be truly blessed in this life, all you need to do is to learn to look past what you perceive to be important, and embrace what truly is…

~Scratch~

It Rocked Me Like a Hurricane... Beetlejuice? was that you?

August 3rd, 2015...

The outside lights were all burnt out on the outside of my cozy little tomb like habitat, now under normal circumstances that wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest, but it was starting to get dark outside then, and before that I had hearing this strange moaning sound that came waffling through my open front window. So I stepped out the front door and looked both ways and-- nothing… Nothing moving and nary a sound but the haunting silence of nighttime. I walked to the edge of the balcony and peered around the corner, and again, nothing but the sounds of sparse evening traffic traveling up and down Fifth street.

Blaming the incident on an over active imagination- I came back inside, and turned on the television and returned my attention to the internet, only to moments later to hear that same haunting moaning come drifting through my window. “what in the hell WAS that?” a sick dog? And a snarling kitty cat that’s been over doing the catnip? Beetlejuice? is that you? Strange indeed, but I do so love a mystery, so once again I went outside to investigate, this time I turned my attention to the right side of the building. Nothing, not a sound, so what in the blue blazes was that? So I slowly, carefully, crept past my then neighbors, an older lady perhaps in her early 70s, kinda grumpy at times but over all not terribly so, so I went the three doors down and glanced through the open window and inside, the lights in her apartment were all on and there she was, lying on the couch, sound asleep, snoring up a hurricane force wind.

Now, I’ve been told on occasion that I snore a bit at times too. Course, I don’t sound like a 747 being cleared for take off at Reno International Airport. No, now I’m not saying that her snoring was loud mind you, and I’m not saying that the noise I heard was nasal in origin. All I’m saying is that when she got up off of her sofa, came out the door and left in her car a couple of minutes later, I didn’t hear the noise anymore. Could it have been a loud wounded animal? Well it sounded like it, could it have been the wind howling through the trees? Could have been. I’m not saying that it was her, but honestly, though, that is probably the first time I’ve ever heard someone make hurricane noises through their nose. Whatever it was, I’m glad it went away. I was getting ready to call in those guys and gals from Ghost Hunters.