Steve and His Axe

My next-door neighbor is a rancher.  His family has been out here for generations and he raises cattle. We live on the Osage Indian reservation and most of the folks who own large amounts of land out here are Osage and they. either do Oklahoma Crude or cattle. 

Steve’s granddaddy, being an Osage, was given a whole passel of land by the federal government in return for refraining from shooting arrows at the boys and girls who were stealing the land from them back in the nineteenth century. Well he just sat on it for all his life.  Steve’s dad and mom took it over after he died and formed a real estate company.  They sold parcels of the land to support them all their lives.  Steve’s not happy about that.  He’s watched his holdings dwindle all the time he was growing up.  My land used to belong to him.  He used to own all this land but now he lives on eight acres.  He uses that to keep horses or steers/bulls from his herds who need special attention.  The rest of his herds are spread out on parcels of land that he owns over by the lake and by Barnsdahl and Hominy.

So, Steve’s a cowboy and an Indian.

He was out on the range the other day.  It was cold.  A pond had frozen and the steers needed to drink.  Steve got into his truck and got an axe and went down to the pond to bust some holes so the cows could get to the water.  He busted open a few places and, as people do, edged a little too far out into the danger zone.  He crunched through the ice.  He went down into the ice-cold water about three feet and then kept on going another couple of feet into the mud.  He got stuck. It was around zero degrees.  The water was even colder than zero degrees.  And Steve was all by himself out on the range, stuck in the mud in the frozen water. 

It isn’t easy to get yourself out of the ice and mud water.  It’s slick.  You’re stuck.  Most people would panic but Steve is a cowboy.  He just looked around and thought about it and then took the axe and slammed it into the ice about two or three feet away.  Then he used the axe handle to pull himself out of the mud and up onto the ice.  Then he did it again.  And in a very chilly short time, he got himself out of the mud and off the ice and out of the pond. 

A normal person – a non-cowboy – a non-Osage Indian would have been in the newspaper next day.  “Local man found dead in frozen pond”.

He got home and left his jeans and things out in the garage at the entryway to the backdoor of the house.  He bundled up in a blanket and sat in front of the fire thawing.  Janet, his wife, came home from work and saw his boots with goop on them.  Saw his jeans with strange goop on them and came in to say, “What the hell did you do.  Shit yourself?”

Thank you dear, for your concern.

 

 

 

                               

Sore throat

I have a sore throat today. 

We were at the Mexican place last night with friends.  They’re younger than we are and I have no idea why they want to hang with us but I’ll drink with them.  Ok, I’ll drink with anyone, I’m old Navy.

Their kids were there and we love them.  Ms. Donna will get into talking with the kids and totally ignore everyone else.  I think the boy is 8 or 9.  The girl is 11.  Caleb is a football player and baseball player and he loves girls.  Girls are scared  of him because he loves them so much.  He’s not negative, just totally in love with them.  Trinity is a super soccer player and straight A student and just as cute as a little girl can get.

We’re the old couple with no kids, who have sort of taken on the grandparent role.

So OK, there we were being grandparenty.  Me and Louis were talking about his school.  He’s a construction guy trying to ensure that he can still make money after construction destroys his body. 

I had some enchiladas and rice and beans.

I swallowed something.  A truck I think.  It was sideways in my throat.  Not bad enough for the Heimlich, but serious enough to shut me up and make me notice.  I tried swallowing some more.  And more.  Gee whiz.  This thing was commanding the entire passageway of my throat and it wasn’t moving very much at all.  I drank some water.  I drank some water.  I drank some water.  Then went to the beer.  And then I drank some water.  It wasn’t hardly moving at all. 

“What’s wrong with Bob?”, said Tasha.  She’s a cutie with a totally great view of the world.  She’s the mom.

Everybody looked at me.  “Swallered a rock,” I said.  And I attempted once again, for the fifteenth time, to swallow.  The obstruction moved another thousandth of a millimeter. 

“Are you OK, honey?”  asked Ms. Donna.  “I’m off duty.  You’re on your own if you have a problem there.”

Tasha’s eyes lit up.  “I can do Heimlich.”  She said, entirely too excited.

The kids were looking at me with even wider eyes than kids normally have.  I think I was changing color.

I tried swallowing again.  Drank again.  Gee whiz, this dang thing was so big and so sideways!  I don’t think I’ve ever before put something so WRONG into my throat. 

I pointed my chin straight up and stretched my neck out like a crane at dinner.  The waitress stopped next to me.  “Another Dos Equis?”

“He’s not going to answer, he’s choking,” said Ms. Donna.  “Yes, I’ll take one,” she said.

“And me,” said Louis. 

I swallowed.  Drank some more water.  This thing wasn’t going anywhere.  What if it got bad.  Could this thing actually kill me?  Why isn’t it going down?  A Heimlich wouldn’t help.  Shoot, it’s too far down in my throat.  What would they do if it cut off my air?  It feels like you would need to jam a broomstick down my throat.  Maybe a hanger.  I wonder if they have a hanger here. 

How do you say “choking” in Mexican?  Oh my god, how do you say “hanger”? Nobody that works here knows the English word for choking.  Nobody that works here knows the English word for anything really.  Matter of fact, if we had to call emergency people, half the workers in this place would run and hide.  They don’t want to be deported.  Again. 

Everyone but me went back to eating.  Tasha was the only one at the table really interested in my plight.  Seems that she recently had CPR training which included the Heimlich maneuver.  She seemed to be really excited about this possible opportunity.  Ms. Donna, true to being off duty, just continued eating her shrimp salad.  I continued to try to swallow.

I swear it was MINUTES that I struggled with the mass in my throat.  An eternity passed before I felt the thing barely start moving.  I ordered more water.  I drank more water.  Finally, it worked its way down.  I didn’t die last night. 

I have a sore throat today.

 

 

Butty and my Butt

We have this storage house in the backyard.  Ms. Donna calls it her dollhouse.  It looks just like the big house and has windows and an overhead door.  Kind of a baby big house.  There's a sidewalk going to it and the area it sits in has a wooden picket fence about four feet tall.  We store yard tools in it and Ms. Donna uses it as a staging area for her gardening.  She leaves the door open year ‘round because we usually keep dogs in that yard and she wants them to be able to get inside if the weather goes bad. 



Since the door is open it gets junk in it.  Junk like leaves and spiders and mice and raccoons, birds, etc.  So a couple of times a year or so I have to go in there and clean up. 



Butty was helping me.  I'd sweep the leaves into a pile and then pick them up and stuff them into a large plastic bag, which I would then dump in my vegetable garden when it got full.  I swept and scooped and Butty snorted and sniffed.  Three other dogs were out there with us but they were just wandering around the yard. 



Butty is a chow-mix.  He’s one of those dogs that just showed up and decided to stay.  We saw him in the neighborhood for a couple of weeks.  He’d be at the place down the road where a guy lives in a trailer.  He’d be at a house around the corner with the kids.  He’d come by our place a lot and just sit out front looking in at all the dogs.  Then one day Steve, the cowboy from next door asked me to do something about that dog.  Steve was afraid the dog would mess with his cows.  Steve has some pretty expensive cows.  So I brought Butty in and he’s been part of the family ever since.



I was scooping leaves and suddenly a reddish brown blur flashed past me.  It was a swirl of Butty and Butty bared teeth.  It flew into the leaves and and landed with both feet in front.  It shook and shook like some kind of movie demon.  Pieces of skin and bodily liquid flew around in the air while I stepped back gasping and wondering what little pieces of what were splipping on my face.  I realized that Butty had caught a snake.  The piece I saw looked like a bull snake.  Bull snakes are pretty snakes.  We have a lot of them hanging around.  I try not to kill them because they do police the area by eating bulls.  No.  Not bulls.  Good grief, what are you talking about.  No, they eat mice and rats and stuff like that.  They don’t eat squirrels.  Wish they did.



Then the other dogs came into the doll house.  They too wanted a piece of snake.  Me and all the dogs wandered around looking for pieces of snake and watching Butty have his fun.  Then I saw the head.  I reached for it.  It snapped and then opened up again.  Even when a critter is dead, it often will move because of nerves.  This dead snake head was biting because of nerves.  This diamond shaped snake head was biting because of nerves.  Oh, crap.  This FANGED diamond shaped snake head was biting because of nerves.  I grabbed what dogs I could and yelled at the rest to get everyone out of the doll house.  Then I carefully reached down and oh, so carefully picked up the copperhead head and carried it outside the fence line and buried it.



We find lots of copperheads around the house.  They look kinda like bull snakes.  We have a lot of leaves and copperheads love dead leaves.  We grow plants and water them a lot.  Copperheads like wet leaves. 



It’s interesting.  Steve the cowboy lives just next door, about a quarter mile away.  He gets a lot of rattlers.  He gets what we call Velvet Tails.  They’re timber rattlers.  We never see rattlers and he never sees copperheads.  Wonder why that is.



So anyway, I stopped working and went inside the house with the dogs.  Looked very closely at Butty and didn’t see where he had been bitten.  I texted Ms. Donna who was in Philadelphia.  Told her about the incident and told her he was O.K.  I drank some juice and watched Butty.  He was just fine.  After a while I got up to go back outside.  I looked down at Butty and saw a little bit of a lump on his cheek.  I looked more closely.  Opened his lips and noticed that he was bleeding from his gums and his gums were swelling. 



Crap.



I texted Ms. Donna and said I’m going to town with Butty.  It was late Saturday afternoon and the vet in Skiatook, only about 10 miles away, was closed.  As I got onto the highway I called the vet in Owasso, about 20 miles from Skiatook.  They said they were closing and they didn’t keep antivenin anyway.  So I headed for the Tulsa animal emergency center, about 40 minutes away.



Butty sat in the seat next to me and he had his mouth open as he sat there smiling.  He was drooling and dripping blood.  The farther we drove the more profusely he bled.  Only halfway to Tulsa the car seat was a real mess of drool and blood.  He was really swelling now in his neck and jaw and mouth.  I thought, crap, what do I do if he quits breathing.



Well we got there.

He kept tilting his head in a strange way.  The first intake person said that tilting his head like that could mean a problem.  With copperheads there’s a reaction in the body that can make you bleed out inside.  Strangely tilting the head is one symptom. 



So ok.  Sure, give him blood work.  I knew Ms. Donna would want that for sure even though it did cost $300.  I tell people that if they say our dog needs a heart transplant Ms. Donna will whip out the checkbook.  Do I want shots for pain?  Well, yea I guess so.  He must be in pain.  Probably another hundred.  Now do I want antihistamine?  Well I gave him two Benadryls at home.  Oh no, we need EXPENSIVE antihistamine.  Ok.  Another hundred.



So he’s O.K.

Some dogs – especially small ones – will bleed out.  Some dogs get sick.  Some dogs aren’t really bothered at all.

After they gave him a pain shot he quit the strange tilting of his head.  He must have been doing that because it hurt.  He swelled up rudely for a few days but that was all.  If that copperhead would have hit me I’d be in the hospital for days. 



Old Butty saved my butt.

Excuses

Once again, I've been reprimanded by my reader.  You might think, why does he even care about writing if his blog only has one reader.  I don't think that.  I like to think that one day, millions of years from now, some young archeologist might just unearth this blog out in the middle of nowhere and carefully dust it off and find the rich and powerful words of an ancient senior citizen from the land of Usa.  That young archeologist might be touched by these words, might even write a book about it.  And finally I would get my writing published.


I've been told that I haven't written in here for four months.  Really?  Shoot.  Well I have an excuse.  Actually I have dozens of excuses.  I'm a college teacher.  The class I teach is one of the first ones you're required to take as you begin your college career.  It's supposed to make you prepared to tackle future classes and with some students it does just that.  With other students it serves as the exercise that helps them decide that maybe welding would be a good profession.  Or maybe they could be a hair dresser. 


Anyway, I get a lot of excuses.  I tell people that my class is particularly dangerous because every semester someone dies.  Every term I get at least one student who comes to me to explain that the reason they haven't done a damned thing the entire four months is because their * (replace star with grandfather, grandmother, cousin, uncle, etc.)  died.  And what can they do to pass the class. 


I get excuses often.  I tell them -  it's actually printed in the syllabus - I do not grade excuses.  I may rate them, but they do not get grades for them.  In some classes of the past I've given glue-on stars for good excuses.  Red stars for decent excuses and gold stars for stellar ones.  I give a black star for lame excuses.  I explain to them that their future boss does not pay for excuses, just results.


So as you can see, I have many excuses to offer as to why I haven't been writing in here.  If you really need one, I'll ask a student to send you a good one.


Oh wait, here's one now:
I'm old.  Sitting here in this chair typing words hurts.  I've had my back rebuilt and that doesn't take away the pain.  It just makes the pain less satanic.  I can tolerate the pain now when I really couldn't before the surgery.  But that surgery didn't stop me from getting older.  Getting old is wonderful, it's very cool, but don't take that old body with you.  When it starts falling apart it gets irritating.  Lately I've had knee problems.  I cleaned the bathtub about three weeks ago and when I stood up I suddenly hurt like the dickens in my back and knee.  It didn't go away next day.  Or the next day either.  So I tried soaking and salves and stretches and all that rot.  Nothing.  My knee got extremely bad and swollen and numb and my back was screaming in pain.  When I couldn't sleep from the pain I decided to return to the surgeon because me and Ms. Donna started thinking that maybe I screwed up a screw.  See they put screws in my back a couple of years ago so maybe I messed one of them up.  Then I thought, well do we want to go to a surgeon?  I mean, if I had knocked a screw loose, shouldn't I see a psychiatrist?


Well anyway, we went there and they x-rayed.  Back is fine.  I have "end stage osteo-arthritis" in my knee.  Bone on bone.
I didn't know that.  It hurt sometimes but what the heck we are human and we hurt.
So anyway.  Now I have to go back to the land of knives and drugs and get a new knee.  They say I can put it off for as long as I can stand it and that's what I'm doing now.  But I sure don't want to have it done in the summer because that means no boating.  So I may do it soon.  We'll see.


So anyway, how's that for an excuse. 
I'd say it deserves at least a red star.

Ticks this year

I have an 'innie'. 
It's a lot sexier than an outie.  I've always thought it had a lot to do with the doctor's experience or expertise.  People with outties or people with odd looking belly buttons must have had a new, inexperienced doctor.  Or maybe they had a drunk doctor.  Or maybe a very old doctor.  I think my doctor was pretty good.  His name was Kenneth and I've been told that that's where my middle name came from.


This year has been especially bad for ticks.  We've got them crawling all over.  Until we spent a small fortune on that stuff you put on the dog's shoulder blades, we had ticks crawling on the furniture and on the dogs and on us.  They've subsided for now. 


The chickens normally take care of ticks before they become a problem but they haven't been able to keep up this year.  First, I keep the chickens inside their compound most of the day because a very sneaky fox has discovered our neck of the woods.  If the chickens are out long enough to decide to wander down the hill, they can vanish with the quick brown fox.  So I keep them in until a couple of hours before dark.  At that time of day the chickens don't wander far from home because they don't like being out at dark.  They're so scared of the dark that they'll just stop and roost right where they are - wherever they are when it gets dark.  So if it's near dark they'll not wander far. 


We also have a lot of ticks this year because of a mild winter.  Well, Oklahoma always has a lot of ticks but this year we have even more.  I've seen all kinds.  The ones with the spot on their backs that cause spotted fever are here.  The ones with the star on their back (or something like that) that cause Lyme disease are here.  The ones that are so tiny that they look like dirt when they land on you (and they travel in packs) are here.  They're called seed ticks.  They are really hard to get rid of.  If you attempt to brush them off they don't go.  You can't grab them because they're too small but you sure will notice them two or three days later after they've bit you.


Oklahoma has so many ticks that there's a beautiful lake down near the Red River,  the lake is very close to Texas;  If you're travelling from Texas up north to Oklahoma and to the lake there's a sign that someone painted.  The sign says "TAKE A TICK BACK TO TEXAS".  I think that's funny but Ms. Donna doesn't.  She used to think I'm funny but that was a very long time ago.


Well anyway, I found another tick on me yesterday.  I looked down and thought "What the fuck is that?"  It was something dirty looking in my innie.  I have such an innie that sometimes I have to take extra care to clean it out.  I sure don't want to carry around a lot of festering belly button lint.  I tried to wash it out but it didn't wash.  And boy did it suddenly itch.  I investigated more closely, I put the light on it.  I grabbed some excess stomach and pinched it around and took a good close look.  Well crap.  It was one of them dang damnit ticks.  In my belly button.
A tick in my belly button.
Shoot.
I wasn't about to pull it.  What if I popped something open and everything inside me came leaking out.  How do you stop a belly button leak.  I didn't want to mess with it too much because it might come apart and become infected and then I might have to go to the doctor and have them mess around down there with tools and the like.  That wouldn't be good.


I poured some peroxide on it.  And then fretted for most of the day, pouring more peroxide on it every time I thought about it.  At the end of the day I took some tweezers and pulled out a dead tick.  Now today I have a serious belly button ITCH.  Don't touch it.
Just let it go away.


But then you don't want to hear about a tick in someone's belly button do you.

Things cars need

I just read an inspiring email from Jay (Jay Yurth, Amazon.com).  It was inspiring because it talked about something he would like to invent for cars and I too, have thought about things that need to be invented for cars.  Jay's invention, one that I would happily vote for in the real world, deals very nicely with the problem when people roll through red lights.  Specifically, in Jay's case, the rolling red light turn.  Some people don't understand what it means to stop at a red light.  Think of it this way; a stop is like a period at the end of this sentence.  See?  The sentence stopped.  What too many people do is more like a comma.  They come to the light and look around and zoom on, never enforcing the period.


I agree with Jay about idiots at intersections.  Non-stopping is a problem but sometimes stopping is also a problem.  Do you have any Yield signs?  Invented in Tulsa Oklahoma, where I grew up.  'Yield' does not mean stop.  My wife can't seem to understand this.  She argues with me that 'Yield' is different from 'Yield Right of Way'.  She says when you yield right of way you stop and when you yield you look around while rolling and then continue.  I want to say 'Bullshit'.  But why would I want to ruin my life?


I also hate those idiots who, when sitting at a four-way stop, wave their hands to 'allow' you to move on.  What they're really saying is, "I'm too stupid to know what to do here so I'll just create a dangerous situation and let you get out of here before I go."  I make nasty faces at them and say dirty things as I very carefully edge forward to move on.


Well the reason I'm writing this here is that I have thought of things that cars need too.  I still plan to invent the AutoApron.  Don't you hate it when you are rushing around trying to get 'there' on time and you drop breakfast burrito goo right on your favorite shirt?  Now you've gotta go the rest of the day with smear upon your person.  Well the AutoApron can prevent that.  I'll make it so that it has cushioned hooks that you safely hang over any car seat-back.  The hooks will be U shaped and flexible so that they'll fit anywhere.  On those hooks will be a small material roll that you just grab and pull across your chest creating a protective apron over your nice clean clothes.  Then attach it with Velcro.  There you are.  Protected from makeup, baby vomit, cheese, seed burns and all other invasions inherent with the driving experience.  But then I think, well hell, you could just take a towel.


So the other thing I want to invent is a thingy like taxi cabs have.  It fits on the top of the car and inside the car is a selection mechanism where you can choose from a menu of insults to be directed at idiot drivers.  If someone cuts you off you can just select "Hey Idiot - Learn to drive".  And it will flash with lights and colors of course.  If someone is travelling too close you can simply select "Get off my Ass you Prick".  See a hot girl?  "Go home with me baby".  See her boyfriend?  Just select "Please dial 911".  So many applications for this one.


Another invention that will certainly pop up soon.  'Text the Territory' is what I'll call it.  An app that allows you to text the occupants of certain cars on the road around you and insult them.  Or ask them out.  Whatever is your mood at the time.


Some people feel that James Bond type cannons and blades extruding from you car would be useful but I think things like that should be left for terrorist organizations or Donald Trump devotees.


Now that I'm retired I can start working on all these fine ideas.  Just as soon as I wake up from the next nap.

Prison communique

I'm looking out now, at the beautiful morning outside.  Bright sunlight and newly blossomed leaves on our trees are visible out the tiny section of window that I can see from my table here in the dining room.  I'm trapped here.  And there's nothing I can do.


Ms. Donna works nights and I work - well I don't work at all.  I love mornings so I'm always up very early.  Just recently Jake The Dog was senile and he would wake up at 3 A.M. and bark incessantly for breakfast.  By the time I took all dogs outside to pee and then fed them all and then took care of the chickens and the garden, well I was no longer sleepy and so I had breakfast and started my day.  Jake's gone now and so I get to sleep late.  Don't get up till 7 anymore. 


Normally I would love to go outside and work in the yard or mess with something old and sagging on the house or fish.  But I can't do that.  We have this damnit dog that has some kind of separation anxiety.  She barks shrilly when I go out the door for anything She can't allow me to go to the bathroom alone.  And when she starts barking so do all the others inside bark too.  When they start barking the dogs out front begin barking and we have a situation on our hands. 


So I have to stay inside and be quiet.  I'm trapped.  Imprisoned in my own home.


I have breakfast.  I read the news on the laptop.  I play chess.  I try to write.  I'm working now on a 'based on a true story' novel about my mom.  I'm using the backdrop of history to tell the story of her life.  It's disappointing because I used to have a briefcase of writings from Mom and from my grandma that told about their lives.  I don't have that anymore because I gave it to my sister who promised to scan it all and make it available to the rest of us in the family.  Well now that insane sister is estranged from all of us and I don't have that background anymore.  So I'm using stuff from my journals and from a little book my mom wrote.


So.  I sit and be quiet.  Usually.
I do the dishes and straighten up the house.  I want Ms. Donna to come in to a clean and dusted house as often as possible so that she won't get the idea that maybe I should go back to work.  She has suggested before that I go back.  She thinks I need to fill up more of my time.  She thinks I miss work.  Huh.  She thinks I miss work.  Huh. Har, har, har.  Hooooeeee.   That's pretty funny.


I'm scared to pretend to look for a job.  I might find one.  I cannot believe these people who pretend they can't get work.  Bullshit.  I have never had trouble finding work in my life.  I have worked fulltime for over 49 years.  I was out of work once for two weeks when I got out of the Navy and that's it. 


Any time I needed work in the past I would get up early and go out to where they were building whatever they were building and show up at dawn at the donut shops dressed for work with gloves in my pocket.  If I didn't get a job there I would go out to the construction sites.  Always found work.  People who think they can't find work are just not liking the work they can find.  You need to show up.  Get ready to work and go where people work and tell them that you are ready and willing to work.  Take the job that they'll give you and do it as well as you can and move up.  That's all you need to do.  You might make minimum wage but don't bitch about it.  Learn to make more.  That's all.


Ms. Donna will wake up about 2pm.  Then I'll have to rush around to try to do all the noisy stuff I need to do before it gets dark. 


I'll be glad when she gets old enough to stop working.