I was on pretty thin ice...

…and needed to remove myself post haste or get hurt because the guy in the back of my taxi suddenly grabbed me around the neck and jerked me away from the wheel as he raked a serrated knife back and forth across my throat, ‘Give it up,’ he rumbled, ‘I’ll cut your fucking head off……get it up…’ as I fumbled and said, ‘Dude I ain’t even seen you got no idea what you look like, here take the money and go…

Wheeew, he punched me in the head as he left…his second mistake…I went from standing on thin ice to standing on shaky ground which is not much of a stretch and only a miniscule improvement. Do I really want my throat slit to save two hundred bucks, 40 percent of which goes to the company? I don’t think so…I could run him over and play dumb, but a two-way radio is a quick way to get help and in a very few moments red & blue lights were flashing and two cops ran into the tavern the yegg had gone in and dragged him out and away to the jailhouse. They got him but I never got my money back; fair enough because I fingered him and he got a stretch in Comstock, an upstate dungeon out of the 1800s.

…three times I volunteered to go to Vietnam between 1963-1969 but I never made it, instead sent to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean aboard a bird farm – aircraft carrier if you don’t know - and a 2-year stay in Nea Makri, Greece…but whereas once being a Vietnam vet, or in my case a Vietnam-era vet because I was never in–country, could get you cheers and catcalls all at once, now there is a certain cachet to having served during the first war we’ve ever lost…but I made sure there were no VC in the Med and I did a good job because in all those years I never saw a one.

A READER ONCE SAID OF ME…

“You’re a great writer, so glad to hear you are just drunk and stoned and not dead…” Thank you LuAnn, you’re right of course, I totally agree with you that I am a wonderful writer and if anyone dare have the temerity to disagree, well, I offer you a challenge, we’ll have a write-off, you pick the subject, 500 words or less, give or take a hundred and NFTD readers can decide...what say you? Join in the scrum…it’s all in fun, free entry, NFTD will donate $50 to winner…if I am chosen I will donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders…

WE’VE SCARED, ARE SCARING…

…migrant workers away. The law is coming down on illegalos, and the crops are dying in the fields. New laws are scaring the immigrants off and there’s no one to pick the corn. “The government’s decision effects every farmer and every person who hires one or more employees,” says Marc Higginbotham, a commodity director for the Alabama Farmers’ Federation. “The fact is a lot of Americans aren’t willing to do temporary jobs that involve intense work in the hot sun…”

For Weeks I've Written Nothing...

…hours on end I sit here, waiting, waiting, waiting - with a bottle of Cook’s California Champagne in arm’s reach, for if you know anything about life and drinking you know no matter how good it tastes it’s cleverly-disguised poison with which I’ve had/have a 54-year long attachment…in good times and bad times it stays with you. So it accompanies me as I ponder this world, a world running amok…why were our brave Brothers and Sisters killed in Iraq, Afghanistan? What do either of those countries have we can’t live without?


…the Iraqis and Afghanis in the main are dirt poor and we’re over there putting the arm on them, what gives? Where is my beloved America the Beautiful going with this? We got zero business there. And even if we did - money makes a lot more sense than slaughtering our young and theirs and remember – they are home, like it or not they see us as invaders and Afghanistan has never backed down and sent Moscow packing tail between its legs; Afghanistan will outlive us all. And when we’ve finally firebombed all of us back into the Stone Age they’ll be right at home, in my opinion. Give ‘em money…a few suitcases worth of greenbacks are cheaper than the loss of one soldier!


“OKAY, WHAT ARE WE NOT DOING TODAY,” I ask of myself…


…as I wrestle with a broken cork and finally give up and push it in…flotsam and jetsam in my wine…it’s not easy being a lush, there are many hurdles to overcome. That aside I’m having the time of my life because from here on it’s balls to the wall, party ‘til you puke…I pour another cup of Bisceglia Vin Rose, tastes alright I guess, I don’t drink for taste, I first check the percentage of alcohol, this one’s 12% so is fairly potent and I shall be six sheets to the wind before noon…what a success story huh! I haffta laff, life is good usually but you may have a different take on it…


…I can’t quote him verbatim but John Steinbeck once wrote that the first 3rd of the wine bottle was all hail-fellow-well-met hardy har har, midway down the second phase was introspection and thirdly, bottom of the bottle with the dregs, the biggy, emotional, physical and psychological meltdown…just what I had in mind!