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Chapter 84, Heartless

Alright, I’m back in the saddle. For those of you who care, Cotton Patch Gospel is going great with only three performances left. Friday, 11 Oct @ 7:30 and Saturday 12 Oct @ 2:00 and 7:30. If you have any questions, from the audience perspective, I’m sure Stan George will fill you in! Thanks for coming Stan!

It occurred to me the other day that there is a large percentage of the population that has little or no understanding of how bureaucracies actually work and why they’re so potentially dangerous. For the most part, you never really have to interface with them on a day to day basis until you start getting older or you work for an agency of the government. Sure, we all have to deal with the IRS, state and local tax collectors, and the DMV, but you really can’t grasp the true nature of bureaucracies until you’ve aged a bit and run into the immovable force of the barely competent that makes up the federal government. Or as Dr. McCoy said it in Star Trek, “The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe”.

As I’ve certainly mentioned before, I attended UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) at Laughlin AFB, Del Rio TX. Peg and I became engaged a year before I started UPT and we decided it would be best if we set a date for the wedding after I graduated. Her spanish skills are non-existent and we decided that I would have enough stress in my life without being a newlywed at the same time. So, for the whole year of training, my input into the wedding planning involved talking to Peg on the phone every Saturday and dutifully agreeing with all of her wedding plans or, at the very least, saying “Does Hartman care?” A rhetorical phrase I picked up from one of my instructors. However, I did have one very critical function in the planning process and that was graduating on time.

At the time I really didn’t grasp how easy it was to “wash back” a class and not graduate on time. Even a minor injury could keep you from flying for several weeks and you’d find yourself delayed a month. Bad weather, broken airplanes, busted checkrides, all of these things or combinations could wreak havoc with wedding plans but contingency planning wasn’t really part of our thought process. Luckily, other than some really bad weather in January which forced us to fly 7 days a week in February, everything stayed on track for graduating on 4 August and an 11 August wedding date. That is, until the bureaucracy stepped in.

There was a lovely woman who worked in the personnel office at Laughlin who had worked there for many years. When you were about four months from graduation she would brief the class about follow on assignments and schools. She was in charge of scheduling your life after UPT and she had figured out how to avoid all of the pitfalls of system and she had done it for decades for thousands of students. I remember clearly her asking if there was anyone in the class that needed to take some leave after graduation before their next school. I fully understood my role in the wedding plan so I rushed to the front of the room after the briefing and explained that I was getting married exactly one week after graduation and that I needed at least a total of two weeks off before my next school. She smiled, congratulated me, thanked me for letting her know, and made a note. I had fulfilled my duty, mission complete.

I think it was the first week of July when our orders came down. I actually go mine before anyone else in the class and I was anxious to see how the next three schools would flow out. I opened the manila envelope and panic set in. She had, indeed, made sure that I was available for my wedding on the 11th of August, but she had scheduled me to report to survival school at Fairchild AFB, WA on the 12th of August. A honeymoon of trudging through the woods and being smacked around in a POW camp with 30 other guys. Good times! I was, to say the least, a little perturbed. I found the office of the lovely lady from personnel and I, the lowly 2nd Lt, politely asked her what had happened. She looked up from her desk, immediately recognized me, and then proceeded to tell me that it had worked out better for her scheduling to do it that way and that I could at least get married. She said it all with a smile on her face and ended it with a curt “Sorry”. Well, I figured, it is what it is. I serve at the whim of the Air Force. So, with my head hung low, I headed back to the squadron. All the while trying to figure out how to break the news to Peg.

I guess I was a little distracted the rest of the day because my instructor, Bill (Buck) Vrastil finally asked me why I was so uncharacteristically forlorn. I told him my sad story and he leapt from his chair and stormed out of the room. Ten minutes later my flight commander and squadron commander called me into the office and asked me to tell them the story. They had a similar reaction. As the squadron commander left the office he told me he was going to see the wing commander. I tried to stop him. I didn’t want to make waves. I didn’t want to buck the system. I didn’t want the bureaucracy to get mad at me. He told me something that I have taken to heart my whole career but which flies in the face of everything I’ve seen from the federal bureaucracy since then, “We don’t treat people this way!”.

Within an hour the wing commander and the “lovely lady” from personnel had both called me and apologized for what she had said and done. My orders were changed. Survival school was rescheduled. And Peg got a honeymoon. She was still stuck with me, but she got a honeymoon.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are caring compassionate employees in all systems but the further up in an organization you get the less personal and compassionate it gets. People become numbers. Customers become liabilities and problems. The desire to solve the problem the system was created to address becomes secondary as the bureaucracy becomes a self-perpetuating “career building” organization. History has proven it time and time again. Maybe altruism gets the ball rolling but careerism and empire building take over.

That is why socialized medicine cannot ever work. The middleman will just get bigger and bigger and absorb into the bureaucracy what should be going towards medical care. If you really think adding another layer between you and your doctor will cut costs then you might need to take advantage of some of your mental health benefits.

Chapter 83, Cotton Patch

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It’s time for an apology. I have been a very bad blogger. I haven’t posted anything for a month and I’m sorry. Now it’s time for excuses.

a) I have a friend in the hospital who needed work done on his house before he comes home.

b) Peg and I went on vacation to see my sister, and family, on Prince Edward Island.

And here’s the excuse that’s most interesting….

c) This weekend I debut in my first foray into Musical Theatre.

As most of you know I have played in the Celtic band “Carnival of Souls” for many years. Early this year we were approached by Saltworks Theatre Company and my brother Tim, who is a critically acclaimed actor with Broadway and movie experience, with the proposal that the band be part of their production of Harry Chapin’s “Cotton Patch Gospel”. For those of us old enough to remember, Harry Chapin wrote “Cat’s in the Cradle” and “Taxi”, just to name a few of his hits. Sadly, he died tragically in a car accident in 1981 after writing the music and lyrics for “Cotton Patch Gospel”. The words on his headstone are the first three lines of the last song in Cotton Patch:

“Oh if a man tried

To take his time on Earth

And prove before he died

What one man’s life could be worth

I wonder what would happen

to this world”

Those lines epitomize his life and passion and capture the essence of what “Cotton Patch Gospel” is all about. It is a retelling of the Gospel story set in rural Georgia with Gainesville standing in for Bethlehem and Atlanta for Jerusalem. It has been performed, poorly over the years, with huge casts but Saltwork’s production is centered around a single actor with the band performing on stage as both musical supporting cast and human backdrop.

“Saltworks Theatre Company is a non-profit, professional arts company which addresses the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of children, youth, and families through the creation and performance of contemporary dramatic works”

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area for either of the next two weekends I encourage you to make the trip to Oakland and:

a) Laugh like you’ve never laughed before.

b) See me potentially embarrass myself in front of hundreds of people.

The music is fantastic and, more importantly, Tim is amazing. (If you were at my retirement ceremony you’ll remember the best national anthem ever!)

That’s it for this week. Shameless self-promotion. Saltworks website is, www.saltworks.org, and here’s the press release.

Cotton Patch Gospel

Starring Pittsburgh favorite Tim Hartman

PITTSBURGH (Sept. 19, 2013) – Saltworks Theater Company will present Cotton Patch Gospel by Tom Key and Russell Treyz with music and lyrics by Harry Chapin October 4-5 and 11-12.

Actor Tim Hartman, well-known for his portrayals in several Pittsburgh favorites including C.S. Lewis in William Nicholson’s drama, Shadowlands, will tell the story of this bluegrass musical with the help of his band of disciples, Carnival of Souls. The performances will take place at Saltworks, located inside Church of the Ascension, 569 N. Neville St, Pittsburgh, 15213. Tickets can be purchased now at www.saltworks.org or by calling 412.621-6150 ext. 204.

As this Gospel begins, they sing that “Somethin’s a-brewin in Gainesville.” Herod is the mayor of Atlanta and the story follows a reverential retelling of the book of Matthew set in modern day Georgia. The figures and their stories feel familiar, but the style, setting and tone in the “Cotton Patch Gospel” take a deep, Southern-fried departure from the King James version of the gospels. The play, directed by Mark Stevenson, takes the Bible’s passionate intensity and directness for contemporary meaning without diluting the story that has moved millions.

Chapter 82 – “At the Core”

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First of all, I apologize for not posting last week. I ended up catching a nasty cold from little Charlotte which I have now passed on to Peg. So much for excuses, let’s move on.

One of the advantages of being retired is that you have a lot more time to reflect. Of course you get to think about the future and the past but more importantly you have the time to reflect on a more philosophic level. When you’re working that 40-60 hour work week, just trying to keep all of the balls in the air, you rarely have time to ask the hard questions of yourself and the organizations of which you’re a part. Here’s an example.

I was thinking about the Air Force core values last week. Those of you who have served, or are still serving, can rattle them off without thinking but for those who aren’t familiar, here they are. Integrity first, Service before self, and Excellence in all we do. For those not familiar with the concept of core values it’s pretty straight forward. Members of the Air Force are expected to apply these precepts to everything they do. They’re not difficult to understand concepts. They’re intentionally short and to the point. But, like most things, it’s the execution that can be difficult.

In my experience an organization, whether large or small, begins to crumble not when it’s members lose sight of its values and vision but when the leadership does. As leaders we can say that we have a set of values that we expect everyone to follow but when it becomes obvious that we aren’t willing to follow them ourselves the organization will fail. The best place to be, or maybe the worst, to see the results of that kind of failure is middle management. There is the pressure from above to solve the problems and the demands from below asking for direction so if you want to get a real sense of an organization you need to ask the leaders in the middle. That’s where I get most of my feedback and, sadly, I’m not very confident about the future of our Air Force. Let’s apply those values.

Integrity first. The military, of course, serves the executive branch. And as much as you think the military should reflect higher values than its civilian leadership, the “style” of the executive branch does trickle down to the military. If the executive branch has little regard for the rule of law, that attitude will eventually be reflected. Since the force structure announcement of 2012 the Air Force has continually violated multiple laws by ignoring scores of FOIA requests and attempting to violate 10 USC 2687 just to name a few. And, like most people, if an organization gets away with something once it makes it all too easy to try it again. It’s a slippery slope of lost morality and integrity and sliding always starts at the top.

Service before self. The Air Force has created a system that is diametrically opposed to the concept as a whole. The officer corps, and increasingly the NCO corps, is organized under the structure of filling squares to position oneself for the next promotion, not to meet the increasing demands of the nation. A system that encourages change for change sake. Not to improve, but to make a name for oneself, to chase the rank, to move up or be moved out. The Air Force can’t afford to drive out the brightest and best and keep the bloviators and bootlickers but it has created a system that does exactly that.

Excellence in all we do. I’m not sure where to begin. The Air Force has an amazing number of hard working individuals who have made it their sole purpose in life to be excellent and cost effective. People are creative and resourceful and they truly are our best asset but they get frustrated when decisions at the top don’t take full advantage of their efforts or make decisions that are counter-productive. I’ll use the 911th Airlift Wing as an example. Without a doubt, the 911th is the most cost effective facility in the entire Air Force. We’ve all seen the numbers. It’s strategically placed upwind of the entire eastern seaboard, it is located on the largest airport (land owned by the airport authority) in the US, it enjoys enormous community support, it has no encroachment issues, it has the best manning in AFRC, it has massive expansion potential, it has no airspace issues, it has a major port and rail yard within 5 miles, it enjoys a low cost of living for its members, there are huge medical facilities in the local area, both strategically and tactically it is the perfect location for an Air Force base yet it is perpetually being targeted for closure. Is that “excellence” from our Air Force leadership?

Sadly, Air Force leadership has been co-opted by the pervasive, corrupting, inside the beltway politics. They have proven time and again that they will do the politically expedient thing before they will do the right thing. But what we expect of our military leadership is for them to do the thing that best honors their oath to protect and defend the constitution. To follow the laws of the land regardless of the lawlessness of the administration. For them to simply follow the core values that they claim to cherish.

Chapter 81, Del Rio Part 2

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First of all I’d like to welcome some new members to my little community of “Hoverers”. As a quick recap to catch everyone up, I started this blog over a year and a half ago to pass on thoughts and experiences of my 34+ year career in the USAF. It has, however, evolved into a somewhat wider format. The name “Hovering over Send” comes from the experience we’ve all had when we write an email in a moment of passion and then hover that little pointer over the “send” button on the screen before we make the final decision whether or not to click. More often than not, I click. That’s it, the whole history. I thought I would do this once a month or so but, as you can see by the title, I’m up to 81 and I’ve only missed 2 or 3 weeks since January 2012. If you would like to be removed from the list, just let me know. My feelings won’t be hurt. All past chapters are available at hoveringoversend.com and I’m on Twitter at hovringoversend. It’s no typo, there’s is no “e”. I had to remove one letter to keep it short enough for Twitter. And one more thing, you can’t access the website from an Air Force computer, The computer Nazis have it blocked!

Last week I wrote about my trip to beautiful Del Rio, TX to begin my Air Force career in Undergraduate Pilot Training or UPT. After my first night of cockroach horror I set off to find a furnished apartment since there really wasn’t any furniture in the trunk of my Studebaker. I wasn’t going to be too picky, I just wanted something I could afford on the pay of a new 2nd Lt, and that wasn’t much. After a few frightening drive-by assessments I found a very clean and quiet apartment complex, with a pool, that obviously, judging by the license plates of the cars in the parking lot, catered to UPT students. I parked the car and headed for the manager’s office to see if there were an vacancies. I knocked on the door and heard footsteps. The door knob turned, and then it got a little weird. A short, elderly woman opened the door, looked up at me, began to smile, opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her face went blank, her jaw fell open and she just stared.

Now, I’m not what you would call a handsome guy. I knew she wasn’t stunned by my manly visage. I’m tall, but not freakishly tall so I’m sure that wasn’t it. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I said “hello” 2 or 3 times. I waived my hand in front of her face. And, just as I was about to call for help thinking she was having some kind of seizure, she snapped out of it. She just kind of shook it off and said hello. I introduced myself and asked if she had an apartment. And she did it again. Only this time it was a little different. She obviously heard the question but it was like she was thinking real hard about how to answer it. After an uncomfortable pause she said, “Yes I do, let me show it to you”. It was a second story, furnished, neat as a pin, one bedroom unit with monthly exterminator visits to keep out the pervasive Texas roaches. Perfect! I moved in immediately.

Nearly a year later I had my last flight at UPT. I graduated second in my class but got my last choice of aircraft to my last choice of geographical area, but that’s another story. The night of my last flight two of my classmates invited me over for dinner. John and Todd were best friends at the Academy and shared an apartment in the same complex. After dinner we sat down in their living room and they got very serious which, for them, was radically out of character. “We invited you to dinner tonight because there’s something we need to tell you. Something we promised we wouldn’t tell you until you flew your last flight. Do you remember your first day here, when you came looking for an apartment?” I had to think for a moment but then I recalled my first encounter with the landlord. “Oh yeah”, I said “She was a bit odd that day”. “Well”, Todd said, “There was a reason for that and she’s the one that made us promise not to tell you this until today”. I was getting, more than a little, creeped out. “Several months before you got here there was a T-38 crash in which the student pilot was killed. He lived in this apartment complex. In fact, he lived in the apartment you’re living in. And, you could have been his twin brother. When the landlady opened the door that day she was terrified and when you asked to see the apartment, his apartment, she almost told you she wouldn’t rent it to you but couldn’t think of a reason to send you away.”

I thanked the guys for telling me and waiting to tell me. I’m not superstitious but I didn’t sleep much that night.

The year of UPT is tough one. Lots of studying. Highs and lows. But it flies by (pun intended). At the time, you’re glad when it finally ends and you pin on those silver wings. But, in hind sight, it was one of the best years of my life. The camaraderie, the challenges, the pure joy of flying, there’s almost no better experience.

Chapter 80, Del Rio

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The loneliest drive I’ve ever made was the 152 miles from San Antonio Intl Airport to Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, TX. It’s a lovely drive through Castroville, Hondo, Sabinal, Uvalde, and Bracketville. I think D’Hanis is in there somewhere! Miles of dirt and rocks and cactus and the occasional speed trap to keep you on your toes. It was August 1978 I had dropped my brother Tim off at the airport so he could fly back to Pittsburgh and I could make the final leg of the trip on my own. I was driving my trustworthy old ’66 Studebaker with all of my earthly possessions in the trunk and embarking on the great adventure of an Air Force career. Alone, unafraid, but a little apprehensive.

ROTC had taught me the big picture of how the Air Force worked but when it came to the details, things were still a bit sketchy. I knew the first step was going to “billeting” and figuring out where I was going to live for the next year and, if you’ve ever been to an Air Force base, there are always signs to get you there. It was an ATC base so the staff was well trained in dealing with new guys and the lady behind the desk went through her inprocessing checklist and eventually asked me where I was going to stay. I told her that it seemed to me that staying in the “Q” on base would be convenient since my entire life would revolve around pilot training but she frowned and said, “You really don’t want to do that”. I was a little surprised but I insisted that it seemed like the most logical choice. She said, “How about you stay here for tonight. Sleep on it and in the morning you can decide”. I was tired, it had been a long day of desert and no air-conditioning, so I agreed. I dragged my bags to my room, which was in a 1950’s era converted barracks, and settled in for the night. I think it was about 1:00 in the morning when someone speaking Farsi slammed a door down the hall, we still had Iranian students in 1978, and I decided to take a leak. I reached over to the night stand, flicked on the light, and the horror began. There was movement, lots of movement!

Now, you have to remember, I’m from Pittsburgh. I had never been to the south or the west, just the northeast. I was used to green trees, rolling hills, four seasons, and bugs that stayed outside. I had never even seen a cockroach and now I was surrounded. I leapt out of bed and started swatting and stomping. I turned on the bathroom light and the floor was moving. I opened the dresser drawers and things scurried for the dark corners. After 30 minutes of carnage the movement finally stopped and I tried to go back to sleep. But I wasn’t about to turn any lights off and all I could envision was tiny eyes watching me from dark corners just waiting for me to fade off so they could come and crawl under the sheets. It was a long night.

The next morning I staggered down the hall to the office and asked the woman at the desk for a list of apartments in town. She gave me a knowing smile and a list with my name at the top. A list she had made the day before. One of the best lessons in life is to take the advice of someone who is obviously more knowledgeable than you.

Next week “My first apartment”.

Chapter 79, Mabel Part 2

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My grandmother was, shall we say, a bit quirky. Last week I told ya’ll about the last time I saw her and her love of horror movies but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Some of you know that my brother Bob is an author. He’s written scores of children’s books but one of his earlier works was titled “Aunt Mabel’s Table” (It’s available on Amazon along with 31 others). Although the book is fictional it is roughly based on one of my grandmother’s interesting quirks.

She was a child of the depression and it was her generation that made the sacrifices, suffered through the poverty, and made the mistakes (like the FDR ponzi schemes) that have brought us to where we are today. Great sacrifices that saved the world but great mistakes for the “perception of financial security” that will eventually enslave us. But I digress. Grandma would never pass up a bargain. And it had to be a REALLY good bargain. Just up the street was a grocery store called Thorofare. It was a chain that eventually was absorbed by another, larger company but, if I close my eyes, I can still see the aisles and smell the smells.

Every Saturday we would walk up the street and go shopping with grandma at Thorofare. We would walk the aisles looking for deals but at the end of the last aisle there was always the best deal of all, a cart full of very odd canned goods. They weren’t dented or damaged in any way, they were just all missing labels. I’m assuming that either somewhere in the back room during the process of unpacking, or while the shelves were being stocked, or during the manufacturing process, the cans lost their paper labels. This left the store with very few options. They could throw them away, or they could put them in a cart and sell them for a dime. Of course, a dime is better than nothing so there they would sit waiting for someone to take a chance.

We would stand there picking up the cans one at a time. We would smell it, hoping that there was some remaining odor from the factory. We would shake it, hoping that we could get a clue by the sloshing sounds. Assuming there was a sloshing sound. We would size it up. A tuna can is different than a soup can is different than a vegetable can. But in the end, it always came down to rolling the dice. You might think it feels like a can of corn, smells like a can of corn, and you can visualize it as a can of corn, but ALPO isn’t a can of corn.

We’d load paper bags (there were no such thing as plastic bags) with the days treasures and wheel them home in a cart. And with excitement, and a little fear, we knew that dinner that night would be “interesting”. Grandma would randomly select several cans and whatever slid out after the top was removed was what we had for dinner. It made for some odd combinations like mushroom soup and peas, or tomato paste and lima beans and, yes, there was the occasional can of dog food but, to my knowledge, she never actually served it to us! When it comes to food preparation you might not like surprises but when you’re 7 everything’s an adventure.

Most folks like to think they’re in control of their lives. That it’s all in a neat comfortable package. But sometimes, life is like an unlabeled can, “you never know what you’re going to get”. My apologies to Forrest Gump!

Chapter 78, Mabel

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I’m usually not one to remember anniversaries of specific events. There are dates which, out of necessity, I do remember. Peg’s birthday, our wedding anniversary, the kids birthdays they’re all pretty much burned into my brain. But they’re ingrained into my psyche because, well, Peg would kill me if I forgot. (Although she did forget that the 31st was Erin and Tom’s wedding anniversary!). All of that being said, this week is the 35th anniversary of my departure for pilot training.

My brother Tim and I loaded all of my worldly possessions into the trunk of my 1966 Studebaker and started the long drive to Del Rio, TX. Three days in July in an un-air-conditioned car through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas. Good times! But more on that next week. My grandmothers name was Mabel.

Mabel is one of those names that fell out of popularity about 2 days after someone thought of it. I haven’t checked the “popularity of names” website but I’m pretty sure you won’t find Mabel in the top 100, or even 250 most common names. None of us have even considered giving it to our children or grandchildren as a middle name. Maybe it’s because it rhymes with so many words and we don’t want our kids to be taunted by bullies or maybe it’s just one of those names that are just too old-timey, like Henrietta. (I had an aunt Henrietta, we called her aunt Hank). I think I’m totally off track so let’s get back to it.

My grandmother lived in the little house next door to my parents. She suffered from a heart condition brought on by childhood rheumatic fever so, as I was growing up, she suffered a series of heart attacks and would move in with us after each one while she regained her strength. She still wanted to be independent, so once she was well enough, she would move back to her house. But eventually she needed to be closer, so my parents moved her in next door. Close, but not too close.

She was the kind of person to take the opposite side of any discussion. We never knew if she really disagreed based on reason and facts or if she just didn’t liked to agree. She was also a great fan of horror movies. Frankenstein, Dracula, the creature from the black lagoon, the scarier the better. When we were little we would all take turns going to grandma’s house for the weekend. She always had the breakfast cereals our mother wouldn’t buy and she would let us do anything. The quintessential grandparent. But the price we had to pay was taking part in her horror film addiction. She would drag us down to the old Garden theater on the Northside to see all of the old horror classics. (It later became the kind of theater you wouldn’t ever take your kids!) We would stay up with her late into the night watching “Chiller Theater” on TV. Probably not the best activity for a seven year old. It might explain why the only dreams I remember are nightmares and why none of my siblings are great fans of horror films.

The night before we left for Texas, grandma called us over to say goodbye and give us a box of brownies for the trip. Brownies were sort of a tradition for her and we could certainly use the sugar to get us through the first day. As we climbed into the car early the next morning, we saw the window blind go up in her bedroom and she waved goodbye. That was the last time I saw her. Two months later she passed away. I had just started T-37 training and, after being warned that any interruption in training might result in being washed out, I was afraid to go home for her funeral. A decision I regret to this day.

We don’t really know when we’ll see someone for the last time. I think it’s human nature to assume things will stay the same, that family and friends will always be there. But there are no guarantees. Life is too short. Treasure every moment with those you love. Make sure your last word is a kind word. Savor the brownies. But don’t name your kid Mabel.

Chapter 77, Heebie Jeebies

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I like words. Not just the words themselves but the origins of words. I don’t have a huge vocabulary but when I come across a word, or expression, that really says what I want to say I’m not shy about using it. So when I decided to tell this story, I remembered the perfect expression to capture the essence of the event and that’s “Heebie Jeebies”.

It was actually coined by a famous cartoonist of the 1920s and 30’s by the name of Billy DeBeck who created the cartoon “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” and, coincidentally, worked for newspapers in both Youngstown and Pittsburgh at some point in his career. I don’t think many of us have actually seen his work, but Heebie Jeebies has endured and become part of American slang. If you’ve never heard the expression, here’s how I would define it.

Earlier this month Peg was sitting at the dining room table with her IPad. Yes, I did drink the Koolaid of the Apple Nazis and purchase an Apple product but only because they’re simple-minded, inflexible products and I figured Peg, who is not tech savvy, would be less likely to click on something damaging. And I’m certainly not saying Peg is simple-minded or inflexible. It’s just that, when it comes to electronics, the KISS principle is sometimes more practical. So, as Peg was sitting there web surfing or playing Angry Birds, she heard a strange sound. She described it as a vibration or humming that would come and go and she asked the rest of us if we had heard it. Our friends Scott and Cindy Schade were up from Atlanta visiting but none of us had heard a thing. This went on for several hours and we decided that maybe Peg needed to have her hearing checked. This, of course, irritated her to no end but she finally managed to get us in the her corner of the room while it was happening and, sure enough, there was some kind of mysterious humming coming from the far corner of the room. We quickly ruled out all electronic sources and when we walked out on to the back porch and looked around the corner of the post by the wall of the house we discovered the source. There was a continuous flow of yellow jackets flying in and out of the hole at the bottom of a piece of vinyl siding inside-corner molding.

The siding has been there for over 20 years and bugs have never shown any interest in the molding but this year, for some unknown reason, some ambitious critter decided that the gap looked interesting. I am not a fan of yellow jackets. I fight an ongoing battle with the things. Every year I have to wipe out at least one nest somewhere in the compound but they’re always in a hole in the ground. This was different. They were invading my turf and they had to be destroyed. With extreme prejudice!

Over the next three days I sprayed them with every deadly chemical I could find. I squirted the “sprays from 20 feet” stuff. I injected the “foaming action” stuff into the hole from every angle possible and eventually their activity slowed to a trickle. At that point I sprayed a little expanding foam into the gap, to keep them from building another nest, and declared the mission complete. Fast forward three weeks.

I was on the phone with my brother-in-law Ben when, from the corner of my eye, I caught something flying by. Thinking it was a fly, I glanced towards the lamp next to me, and realized it was a yellow jacket. Panic ensued and, after quickly ending my conversation with Ben, Peg and I ineffectively swatted at the thing with anything we could get our hands on. I headed for the kitchen to retrieve the flyswatter and as I ran through the dining room the heebie Jeebies hit. The french doors that lead from the dining room to the back porch were covered with angry yellow jackets, on the inside! I got to the kitchen and the kitchen window was covered with angry yellow jackets, on the inside! It occurred to me that the flyswatter in my hand was, to say the least, inadequate so I grabbed a can of “sprays from 20 feet” stuff and started hosing down the dining room with products labeled “not for indoor use” and “use in a well ventilated area only”. Yellow jackets were dropping like “flies?” and after the chemical fog of organo-phosphates settled we began a search for the source of our horrific infestation. I looked up to the corner of the dining room, where the ceiling meets the walls, and there was a tiny hole with yellow jackets crawling out into the room. More heebie jeebies as I jammed the nozzle of the bug spray into the hole and opened fire until the deadly liquid was running down the wall and no more yellow jackets heads were peaking from the hole.

Peg covered the hole with some packing tape, lots of packing tape, and I got on line and googled “bee infestations Pittsburgh”. Up popped a company called “the Bee Hunter” and after a quick phone call and explanation of what had happened the “Bee Hunter”, Jim, used a phrase that I have never heard and don’t ever want to hear again. He said that we had a “chew through”. Just typing it makes my skin crawl! I thought I had killed the nest earlier in the month but in reality I had simply sealed them in and pissed them off. More had hatched and they had chewed through the joint compound in the corner of the room looking for a way out.

Jim came the next day, sprayed some really good stuff in the hole, cut out a section of the ceiling, removed the nest, taped up the hole, and told me to wait two weeks before I remove the temporary patch and plaster it over to make sure all of the stragglers were dead. I’m actually not in any hurry to look under the cardboard and, rest assured, I will have a can of spray in my hand two weeks from now when I peel it back and I will have a monumental case of the heebie Jeebies.

Chapter 76, Where does Your Poop Go?

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It’s time for more excuses. I know I’m late but I really do have a good reason which you’ll figure out shortly.

If you’re like me you have a checklist, of sorts, in the back of your head. To explain it in the common vernacular, it’s a brain app, kind of like the calendar app in most phones. There are certain events or concerns that are always floating around in there that I don’t consciously think about but, when the time is right, just pop up. Things like birthdays, and anniversaries, and when the car registration is due to be renewed, and when state inspection is due on which car, and when it’s time to apply for my antlerless deer tag. I don’t write these things down, they just make their way to the top of the “need to do list” at the appropriate time. The most pesky on is the one I call; “Where does your poop go?”

Most people fall into one of three categories when it comes to poo. Either: A) I don’t care. I flush and it goes away. B) I flush, it goes away, I’m glad someone, somewhere is taking care of it. Or C) I hope my septic system doesn’t back up into my basement because I don’t really want to see this again and when was the last time I had it sucked out. I, of course, am answer C. It’s not that I continually think about poop (that would be weird) but when three of the four properties you own have septic systems you tend to worry about the potential liabilities associated with a system that has gone bad. To that end, we regularly have ours pumped and I’m a stickler about what goes down the drain. No matter how much I try not to worry about it though, there’s always a little voice somewhere in the back of my brain whispering “It’s only a matter of time. Beware the poop!” Several weeks ago the little voice became much louder and actually sounded a lot like my mother.

After some epic nephew flushes her system began gurgling up from the basement floor. After a snaking and scoping by my plumber Jim (It’s like a colonoscopy for your house. Who knew that there where little albino flies living in the poop in the pipes under your house!) we discovered that the old terra cotta pipes under the garage floor had cracked and partially collapsed. The only solution was to dig them up and replace them. I, of course, am retired. So, since I have nothing better to do during the hottest week of the decade, I got to cut concrete, break up concrete, dig a ditch, shovel poop laced dirt, lay pipe, shovel gravel, mix concrete, pour concrete, finish concrete, reconnect sewer lines and take lots of showers. Retirement is great! So there’s my excuse. I usually write in the morning but, because of the heat, I was digging every morning and had very little motivation to do much else in the afternoon but rehydrate. But I do still want to know, “Where do you put your poop?” Not your real poop, but another kind of poop.

Life is never simple. None of us go through life never having to deal with problems. We’ve all lost loved ones, maybe parents or children or spouses. We have financial difficulties, marital problems, work issues, obnoxious neighbors, the list goes on. And what do you do with that “poop” in your life? Do you hope it just goes away? Do you ignore it and assume someone else will handle it? Or do you just let it bounce around in the back of your head waiting to explode at an inopportune time? I know I’ve been guilty of “all of the above” at one time or another and I don’t recommend any of them. We need to face difficult issues head on. Get professional help if you need to. Talk to someone who has been through the same crisis. Find someone to trust or just someone who will listen. Believe me, it’s always worse if you wait for the poop to come bubbling up. Be proactive. Head things off before they become a bigger issue. Confront the problem and don’t wait for the little voice to become a screaming banshee! And no, my mother is not a screaming banshee! I’m just glad I now know where her poop goes and how it gets there.