3Hotdogs
3Hotdogs's JournalThis one is for real. I post crazy shit here from time to time. Stuff to get a laugh. Stuff
off the top of my head. But this one is real.
My cousin lives in Southern California and has come on hard times. She is close to being on the street.
Her father died in '87. She paid for his cemetery plot, on a hill that overlooks the ocean.
Today, we spoke for Christmas greetings and she asked my thoughts about excavating her father and selling the plot. She asked me because she knew I was close to him. He was my favorite of 7 uncles.
I told her that I have no feelings of sentimentality about anyone's body (except that I hope to live long enough to piss on Trump's grave).
But there are questions... Who owns the plot? What might its market value be? How much would excavation cost? What would she then do with his body? What would that cost? Can a body that has been preserved in formaldehyde be cremated?
Your thoughts?
Need help. Steam heat. a couple of the radiators are knocking loudly..
Been going on since the freeze. I know that hot water, circulating can have banging radiators whee they get filled with water that has to be drained.
Any ideas?
This morning, post referenced a song, "There's a guy Works down At The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis.
I thought about that. Chuckled on it and then I figured, I'll go ask him.
So I drove to the taco wagon.... It's cold here in Montana or I would'a walked but instead, I drove. It was 11:45 and he was packing up for the day so I was lucky to still get to him before he went home for the day to his cabin.
So I asked him, "El. Did you ever live in England?" He's still kind'a private so he didn't answer right away. But he trusts me and told me about the 14 years between 1978 -92. He hopped a freighter in Newport News and arrived in Plymouth in August '78. He's getting a little sketchy on dates and stuff so he doesn't remember exact days.
--- sorry. I got a bit out of sequence here. I'm getting old myself so I need to remember that not everybody on D.U. knows that Elvis is running a taco truck in a small town, here in Montana. Two or three of us have recognized him and the rest of the town sees the taco truck open up for a couple of hours, see the owner heat up the fixin's, eat most of it himself, sells a couple and then goes back to the cabin.
"Crazy old coot." but for the most part, they leave him alone.
Anyway, he arrived in Plymouth, broke. He couldn't get hold of his money 'cause people would know he was not dead. After a couple of days, he got himself a job as a porter in a primary school. He tried to get back to being a truck driver but couldn't pass the British license requirements. The job at the school lasted a couple of years but then they let him go.... complaints were about him always humming loudly to himself in the halls and disturbing the lessons. Also something about the girls saying he looked a bit - dodgy was the word I think he used.
So he took a bus to Leeds and yes, he did work at the chip shop about a 15 months. Life was depressing and he does recall using his work breaks to go to the pub, two doors down, and pounding down John Courage or Caffrey's ale and then coming back to work, a bit loose with his words.
He got fired from that job, around '82. He doesn't remember too much about the jobs, here and there.. working at a farm, housing construction and stuff and being depressed about it all.
So he had saved enough for a plane ticket back to Bangor, Maine.
So. I guess the last laugh is on whoever wrote the song.
I hope this helps.
My friend's friend took a photo of her holding her cat.... 2014. Taken on iPhone - probably 6 or 7.
Friend found it last week and emailed it to Joan. It "disappeared" and neither can find it.
Searched google photos,
"sent" mail
google drive.
Thoughts?
I sat outside, roasting coffee beans. Temperature was in the mid 30's.
The suet cakes were installed and I walked away to watch,
He is a big guy, a Mocking Bird, and he sits at the top of the Oak,
Watching his domain,
He is bigger than the cast of characters below him,
Nuthatches, Sparrows and a couple of Finches,
Most of the time, he chases them away,
He owns the yard,
It is his,
I wonder how long he will let them stay.
Does anyone give enough of a shit to watch the Harry and Meghan film on Netflix.
An opinion pole on Sirius/XM, Smirconish got the lowest response in months regarding his daily pole questions.
Side issue.. Your kid gets kidnapped by terrorists, doesn't matter what country. You ain't allowed
to negotiate or pay ransom.
BUT
The U.S. government negotiates a deal for Britany.
How is that different?
Glad she's out. BUT -- Biden should announce, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China....
They are shithole countries. From now on, you get arrested in one of those,
You're on your own.
I drove by the old movie house this afternoon. They're making it into shops.... glass open front,
new windows on the second floor. I was an usher there for about two years. Easy job. Low pay but all the popcorn you could eat and get to take your girl to see the double feature, free.
The movie house was a building that brought the community together. Saturday afternoon was for the kids. .When I was in elementary school, .25 got you in the door.... 10 cartoons, a serial with a punch card that if you got all the holes punched, the last episode was free admission.... News reels narrated by Ed Herlihy. Maybe a Lowell Thomas travelog about some place you were never going to be able to afford to go to. Egypt, Great Wall, Sao Palo, Montreal ( I did finally get to Montreal three years ago, summer before covid.)
And the features... could be Tarzan with Buster Crabbe or Gene or Roy or Tex or others that I can't recall. The serials-- Superman, with George Reeves. I remember a Flash Gordon serial where the space ships were pie plates, jiggled on strings with sparklers attached to the bottom. But Dale Arden, she was hot.
The movies were where you tried to get to hold hands with Doris, the prettiest girl in the 5th grade. You could also trade baseball cards before the lights went out. I traded a Duke Snyder for a Yogi once. But all my cards became victim to my mother's urge for a clean house.
Once or twice, the movie house would be where scores would be settled. "...see ya in the alleyway after the movie."
Friday nights were date nights for the older kids. I wasn't much good looking so I didn't get too many dates in the balcony. The same way Doris wouldn't hold hands with me. But that's water under that old bridge. The bridge in town that can't hold the water back much any more. The downtown flooded twice in the last 25 years.
Saturday night was for adults but my father took me to see any John Wayne movie that came out. Funny thing -- he looked a lot like John Wayne. People said he did and looking at the pictures of him, yeah, he did. We saw Shane and The African Queen. It was about 15 years ago that I learned the African Queen was based on a real event in the Boer War. Still, even today I figure, Kathrine Hepburn or not, if I was Charlie and Rose emptied my gin in the river, Rose would'a been in the water, right behind the gin bottles.
It seems funny. There are a few vacant stores in town that nobody wants to rent. And here the owners of the movie house are trying to turn the building into more stores that some probably won't be rented.
There are other parts of being a kid that I recall, wishing they were still as they were: ice skating in the park. There used to be a hundred people or so skating on the pond. Now, no more than 10 or 15 show up with their skates.
The town parades were important. There was a drug store that had two entrances. When the football team won, (the football field was dirt. Not grass) the marching band would march to the drug store, enter single file, in one door and out the other, then march through the rest of the town. And people would be on the sidewalk to stop and watch the parade.
It's these things that I remember but it is the movie house that is on my mind today.
Cousin, 62. Diagnosed with degenerating spinal disks. Receives some public assistance.
Does she need a lawyer to apply for S.S.?
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Member since: Sun Feb 18, 2018, 12:32 PMNumber of posts: 12,460