Dr. Harl Delos's blog

At the time, there wasn't a girl who would give me the time of day.

At least, that's what I thought at the time. Later on, I met Tina Graves, who had been Tina Bettina, Tina Graves of the five kids, and nothing good to say about Mr. Graves, who I had never known. Tina had called me because a friend of a friend of a friend had passed the word along that I'd been looking for a babysitter.

I know you don't have any money, she said. Your wife surely had a lot of medical bills. It's OK. I can watch six as easily as I can watch five. Or my oldest, Gina, she can watch Jasper. You need to get out.

Out, I said? I can't afford to go out. In that case, she said, Gina is watching Jasper, and I'm taking you out.

I Didn't Want A Pity Date

All of a sudden, I was pissed. Fuck you, I said, and I'm not a guy who uses profanity, not even to men, and not to women, sarcasm sure, but not the f-bomb. Free babysitting was a neighborly thing, but I wasn't a charity case, that I needed some babe to take me out on a date because she pitied me. You've been looking down your nose at me ever since the fifth grade, I asserted, when your folks move to town, and you sat behind me in Mrs. Samuels' class.

Hell, I said, through high school, there wasn't a single girl that would give me the time of day. Tina laughed in my face. She wasn't thinking in terms of a mercy date. You wouldn't talk to us, Tina said. There wasn't one of us that you thought smart enough to be worth talking to. We talked about you, wondered why you didn't even want to get laid.

And someday, I'll tell you the story about Tina Bettina, she of the daughter Gina, because from there, things headed up quite a bit. At a time when I was pretty low from losing my wife, Tina provided healing.

The Bulk Candy Girl

But I wanted to talk about Louise and Sarah. I was working in the dime store when I was in high school and Louise was working there as the candy girl. She must've been about 22 or so. All the other women in the dime store were 35, 40, or older. Cleaning out those bulk candy bins was hard to do, if you did it right, and if you didn't do it right, you'd end up with buggy candy.

You were going to end up with buggy candy anyway, but if you cleaned the bins properly, you got rid of all the eggs they laid, instead of throwing away ten pounds of chocolate covered peanuts only to have to do it all over again two weeks later when you had refilled the bin with fresh candy.

Taking Her Break

On her break, Louise would get a single-serving bag of chips and a bottle of Suncrest White Cream Soda and sit on the steps to the mezzanine, and talk to me. I was always working in the back room, it seemed. She'd complain to me about the nail she'd broken, or how she was mad at her boyfriend, or whatever. It was as if I was someone worth talking to even though I was pudgy, and she was slim and busty, and had a pretty face with sleek blonde hair and a million watt smile.

I caught myself staring at her once, and quickly turned away, and she caught me. "You like looking? It's OK. I like guys to look. See?" she said, and when I turned back, she was undoing a button, so that her bra was even more obvious. Before she went back onto the store floor, she had buttoned up again, but while we were talking, she left the button undone.

And Then She Disappeared

I thought that was nice of her. It was as if I wasn't abhorrent. And then, one day, she was gone, and Sarah was the candy girl. Sarah and Louise were sisters. I asked about Louise, and Sarah said that Louise had gone to Cincinnati to a business school to learn to be a secretary. Wow, I said, she never said a thing. Yeah, well, the scholarship came up suddenly.

Sarah was nice, too, but she had mousy brown hair, and smaller breasts, and she was a lot quieter. She took her breaks in the back room, too, but she didn't drink any Suncrest, and she didn't eat any chips, and she didn't talk. She just worked crossword puzzles, and mostly kept to herself. She wasn't rude or anything, and when she needed a case of Starlight Mints toted up to the candy counter, and I delivered them, she always gave me a smile and thanked me very much.

Her Sister Disappeared As Well

And then six months later, Sarah was gone as well, again without explanation or fairwells. Rae, the head cashier, minded the candy counter for the next couple of weeks, and then there was a new candy girl, but this one was probably 40. I said something to Rae, as I was emptying the trash behind the cash register, about it being odd that neither one of the girls had said a word before they left.

Ten years later, I was walking through a carnival in a small town near Cincinnati. It was rainy, so there weren't many people there, and although the merry-go-round didn't sound any different than when it was dry, the calliope's wheeze and flat tones seemed to be an especially mournful complaint. And there she was. Louise. I wasn't sure, of course, but she was walking through the carnival, alone, no destination in sight. I asked, "Louise?"

A Double-Take

She looked at me, did a double take, and said, "Nobody calls me that anymore. I changed my name to Susie when I left the dime store." There wasn't any ring on her finger. Where you secretary-ing, I asked her. Again a double-take. She thought everybody knew. She left town to have a baby, give it up for adoption. Her folks disowned her, and after her sister died, there wasn't any reason to go back home. Sarah died? They didn't tell you anything, did they? She didn't want her folks to disown her, so she had an illegal abortion, and she bled to death.

We'd been walking all this time, and we were at the end of the carnival, and in front of the bar where I'd intended to buy a meal. "Can I buy you a meal, or a drink?" I asked. She took my arm. We sat across from each other in the booth. She had a Schoenling, and I had a meatloaf sandwich and fries.

I Really Missed You

I really missed talking to you, I told her. She nodded. Remember when I unbuttoned for you, she asked? She undid one button of her plaid shirt. I smiled, but all I could think about was Sarah, and shortly after that, tears started to well up in my eyes, and then in Louise's eyes. We just sat there in silence, and the waitress had the decency to not intrude.

Eventually, the merry-go-round started up again, and the wheeze of the calliope trickled into the bar.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
abortion - bulk candy - calliope - dime store - merry-go-round - pity date - Schoenling beer - Suncrest - White Cream Soda

"Is that a good price?" Blondie picked up the frozen barbecue wings at Amelia's, looked at them, put them back, and moved on. I took a look at the price, and decided that they were an OK deal, nothing to write home about, but not a bad price either.

That was a week ago. Tonight, Blondie made the wings for supper. "They're kinda hot," she told me. Sometimes, we have differences of opinions about "hot". The package said barbecue wings, not hot wings, so I wasn't too worried.

No Water In My Glass

I bit in, and put the wing down. I reached for my glass - and it was ice, no water. "I need some water." There was a jug of water just pass her. She looked at me blankly.

I said, "Would you please pass me the water?" She responded, "You have a glass right there. There's some ice in it, even."

"Yes, I said. I need water. Would you please pass the water?"

There's Some Water In The Jug

How many states are there in the United States of America?

They made fun of Obama for referring to 57 states in the presidential primaries of 2008, but the reason he came up with that number is that there are 57 states that send delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

What's more, the US Postal Service thinks there are more than 57 states. Just check their website and you'll find the abbreviations for all 59 states.

Of course, if you subtract the four self-styled Commonwealths from the fifty so-called states, that gives us 46.

The Pennsylvania constitution refers to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but it establishes the elective office of state treasurer. Maybe Pennsylvania is a a semi-state?

I figure we need to pull in the experts on this one. Can anyone find me a phone number for the chairman of the Department of Geography at Pennsylvania Commonwealth University?

(Anyone complaining about this post is invited to send a copy of their complaint to the US Naval Observatory, official keeper of the nation's time. When you take away an hour of sleep in winter and don't let people catch up until late in the year, this is what you get.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
57 states - Commonwealth - Daylight Savings Time - Naval Observatory

I drove a dark red Pontiac Sunbird once, for about three months. It was sort've a fun car, and it was pretty inexpensive as a new car, as I remembered it, but if you got into the least bit of trouble on a curve, it would lead you further astray, and what was even worse, it was dying of terminal cancer at a very early age.

At the time, it sorta reminded me of some of the relationships I'd had. Cheap women that got me into trouble, and led me furtherous atray, and left me with gaping sores on my soul. I can't blame the women for being what they were; and they didn't pretend to be anything other than what they were. It was my own damnable fault that I ended up in those situations.

Adventures In Tater Husbandry

Later on, I raised a season of Red Pontiac potatoes. At the time, I didn't know anything about varieties of potatoes, and it being planting season, I didn't have time to stand there in the garden shop, reading descriptions and mulling over the purchase for hours on end. I has some space in the garden to fill, potatoes sounded like a useful crop, and Red Pontiac was a variety I'd heard of before, something my father had grown, or at least something that had been sold back home.

As it turns out, Red Pontiac is a highly productive cultivar, and it's rather attractive. It's mid- to late-season, though, and I'd prefer a really short-season potato for a waxy variety. It tolerates the muck pretty well, which would have been more a more valuable trait in the Black Swamp where I grew up, but it bruises awfully easy, which is problematic if you're going to be harvesting it when everything else is coming ripe as well. It's also not very resistant to potato problems, like black leg, tuber net necrosis, scabbing, and verticillium wilt. That is, it leads the gardener further astray if he gets into the slightest bit of trouble.

If I Planted Taters This Year

All in all, it's probably a variety I ought not be planting - but if I planted potatoes this year, I'd probably plant Red Pontiac. The heart loves what the heart loves, and there's no arguing with the heart. Maybe "tramp" is a term applied by jealous women (and jealous potatoes) to those with which they cannot effectively compete. I keep hearing people talk the praise of Golden Yukon, and of skinny women with no hearts, and I know they're supposed to be highly desirable, but I just can't get into them. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, the Lord God loves them all. But maybe God has a special place in her heart for the tramps I hold so dear.

Em and I lived for several years just a few feet from the woods. That's not a good idea. The house was in poor condition, and I knew that, but I didn't realize how poor until we lived there for a while. I could walk into the basement and press my thumbnail into the joists above me, the dry rot was so terrible, and I kept wondering if I was going to be sitting on the toilet some day and find myself falling through to the basement, plumbing and all.

Fighting With A Tiller

I was fighting with a borrowed tiller, trying to get it started, nothing at all like the Mantis I have now, when Bill was driving by. He stopped his Case right in the middle of the stone road, but well, there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the road anyway.

He loped over, and said, "You've been having trouble for quite a while, trying to get that thing to start." I nodded to him. I said I thought the shear-pin was half sheared through, and the timing was off, but I couldn't get the thing apart. If you can get it apart, replacing the shear pin is no biggie, a five minute job, but if the pin is half-sheared, it's almost impossible to get the thing apart. "How big did you want your garden?" I told him. He went back to the tractor, pulled into the yard, and swung down the flying wings of the disk.

He pulled forward, the length of the garden, and in 30 seconds, it was tilled. He swung around, and gave it another disking in the opposite direction, then swung around again and gave it a second pass in each direction, doing in less than five minutes what would have taken me five hours. He shut off the tractor, jumped down and asked me if that was about right. I laughed and thanked him. I helped swing up the wings of the disk, and reached for my wallet to pay him, but he wasn't having any. That's the way farm folk are. They are generous to a fault.

Remember That I Said That

Remember that I said that. There are times when I get wound up pretty tight about ignorant niggardly bigoted assholes, the kind of fundamentalist so-called Christian neo-conservatives that have hijacked the Republican Party.

And I don't mean to suggest that I'm wrong about any of that, because that is who they are. On the other hand, they are the same people who are generous to a fault when it comes to helping out a neighbor. Neo-cons are haters with broad groups, and extremely nice with individuals, while neo-liberals are extremely nice to broad groups, and hateful when it comes to individuals.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Thank God for the Red Pontiacs of the world!

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Case New Holland - dry rot - garden shop - generous to a fault - liberals - neo-cons - Pontiac Sunbird - potato diseases - Red Pontiac - rototiller - waxy potatoes