Sometimes it is entirely necessary to acknowledge the fool and the helpless, hopeless clown that lives inside us all. Okay, I hear what you are thinking. Not you. There is no clown inside of you… only me. That is one of a myriad of mistakes that makes me acknowledge that I am far short of perfection. I am not a know-it-all. I am a know-it-sometimes who too often tries to bluster his way through like he isn’t completely unsure of himself and terrified that other people will see what he truly is and laugh him out of business. I am a pratfall, butt-of-the-joke, snicker-at-snidely sort of buffoon who never gets it right and deserves every guffaw thrown at him. Clowns are often all blue, squishy, and sad on the inside. That is often the only thing that makes us funny. Do you know what brought on this wave of self pity? Of course you do. No man ever went through a day of stumble-muffs and misquotes, goof-ups and stubbed toes like I did without feeling at least a little bit that way. Oh? Not you, again? I hear you. It must be nice to never make mistakes. 
I have my car registered with the wrong registration sticker. When I tried to get the State inspection done, I found out my car is now supposed to be the old van my wife destroyed in a car accident last spring. My bank’s bill-pay service has twice sent money to the electric company which somehow lost the electronic check. I can’t even handle idiot-proof details any more. My son who was home on leave went back to the Marine Corps early this morning. I took him to the airport and had to bring all his deodorant spray, shampoo, and toothpaste back home with me because soap on an airplane equals terrorist. Apparently that should’ve all gone into the bags we checked, because that stuff only explodes in the carry-on bags, never the baggage compartment. I am called out for my many writing mistakes, even the ones I made on purpose trying to be funny, and my self-editor let me down on several occasions in the past week. So I am depressed. At life I am, at best, a .125 hitter, barely making more than one hit in every ten at-bats. I am a rodeo clown trying to play in a basketball game, and the bulls are all Michael Jordan. (How’s that for a mangled metaphor?) 
But it isn’t all the blues that I am singing. Good things have happened too. Life continues in my unlikely body afflicted with six incurable diseases, and I am a cancer survivor since 1983. The golf-ball sized growth the surgeon removed from the back of my head last week was benign, no sign of cancer. My son was home on leave. Every day is it’s own miracle. And I have gotten some writing done. So what if every editor and every reader doesn’t fall in love with every single word? The story goes on for at least another day.
Tag Archives: photos
The Inner Clown
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My Latest Novel
I sent this novel to the publisher during the October submission window last night. I am hoping it will get published and add to my published catalog. Superchicken was my nickname in high school, so this one is a little autobiographical. This is also the one where a boy is tricked into going camping with a girl who has a crush on him at a nudist camp. So it should be noted that some things in this story really happened. Still this young adult novel is mostly funny, a little serious, and a lot of fantasy.
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Graduation Excuses
For more than three weeks now I have posted a blog entry every day. It was becoming a bad habit. But this weekend, the weekend that I ended my teaching career, was too busy to blog. Dorin, the oldest son, (his fictional name, not his real one) graduated from high school. It is the payoff for a long, hard four years of failing progress reports, absence make-ups, unpaid band fees, and intermittent girl trouble. It almost didn’t happen, but he made it. We spent Saturday at the UNT (University of North Texas) basketball are
na. The senior class of Newman Smith High School, 2014, graduated.
We done did it! He is graduated! Here he is below with goofy ol’ dad, Mom, younger brother Henry, and little sister, the Princess.
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Beautiful Barbie Dolls
This is only a small part of the collection that sits on bedroom shelves.
Star Wars 12″ Action Figures are a large part of my collection.
Star Wars is not my only obsession. Captain Action caught my heart in the 1960’s.
Vintage Captain Action (circa 1967-68) (I always wanted to use “circa” somewhere in my writing.)
My newest Captain Action and Dr. Evil.
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Beautiful Barbie Dolls Believe it or not, I like to play with dolls. It all started in 1965 with a Navy G.I. Joe doll. I had a black rubber scuba suit for him and it was the neatest toy I owned. My sister had a Barbie’s friend Midge doll. The comic-book adventures of the romantic heroes, Midge and Joe began that year. I added a Captain Action with an Aquaman suit along with a German G.I. Joe and an Astronaut Joe with a Mercury Capsule. My sister added a dark-skinned Christie doll and little sister had a Tammy doll. I built a submarine/spaceship with my Constructor Set, and then the adventures were really off into the blue. Today I collect Barbie-dolls, G.I. Joe action figures, Captain Action figures and suits, and a hodgepodge of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Planet of the Apes 12″ figures. I am not ashamed to call them my doll collection. I use my wife and daughter as an excuse for buying Barbies and my two sons as an excuse for buying the rest, but it is entirely me who is obsessed with dolls and doll clothes. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I will always be ten years old when I have a doll or action figure in my silly old hands. There is something really absorbing about dolls. My mother made them in a kiln we bought one summer. She fired beautiful works of porcelain, painted, stuffed, and dressed them, an expensive obsession, but cheaper than buying them. I know a fellow through e-Bay who molds his own reproduced Captain Action masks, and I’ve seriously thought that toy-making might be my next business. Who knows? Obsessions are often the best sort of inspiration. Did you know Barbie started life as a German prostitute doll named Lily? Mattel copied one brought back from Europe after World War Two. G.I. Joe wouldn’t have existed if some bright boy hadn’t decided that little boys would accept the same doll-and-changeable-uniform toy if it was marketed as a fighting man action figure! Captain Action was Ideal Toy Company’s plan to use superheroes to make an action figure to compete with Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. The current market in dolls as collectibles is now driven by doll-playing old men like me, Baby-Boomers who long to recapture youth by recapturing the toys of their childhoods. At least I am not the only Peter-Pan-Syndrome, sad old obsessed guy out there! Take my advice. If you have to develop a vice, ignore booze, drugs, and sex. Stay away from identity theft and computer porn. Go buy a doll, and see if it doesn’t bring back the child in you! |
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Ice Storm 2013
It began last Thursday evening. My wife and younger two children were making a trip to Florida to a religious convention, so they weren’t in Texas. I had picked up my oldest son from high school and we went to get emergency supplies in case the coming ice storm caused us to have a snow day. We got the essentials; gingerbread cookies, milk, hot chocolate mix, and crackers. You know, stuff you can’t live without during a winter storm. I really didn’t think we would miss school. I thought I would just be forced to drive through nasty weather on my commute the next day. How foolish can I be?
That night the icy rain covered everything in a quarter inch case of ice. Branches, leaves, and even one whole neighborhood tree came down, brought down by the weight of the ice. My car was plastered and rendered inoperable, a fact I didn’t discover until I tried to get out the next day. Before 8:00 both my school and my son’s school had canceled classes the next day. It was good that we had no school since I left my winter sense back in Iowa long ago and have no shovel to clear the sidewalk. Heck, I’m too weak nowadays to break through the ice coat anyway.
Our poor dog was unable to get out to go poo, and when I did take her out, not only did I slip and fall on my arthritic old knees, she found it too cold outside to actually go. Great! Swollen knees… more aches and pains… and doggy doo hidden somewhere around the house.
Saturday, I could take the cabin fever no longer. Driven by a need for caffeine (I forgot to buy any Diet Coke and I don’t drink coffee) we got out of the house and walked several blocks to Jack in the Box. Yes, we let that creepy clown do our cooking. I got a lot of writing and some drawing done. I slept poorly because of aching arthritic bones.
Sunday brought more falls while walking the danged dog, who still didn’t poo (at least not outside the house where she was supposed to do her duty). By noon the temperature had climbed to 32.9 degrees Fahrenheit. I tried the car, and no longer frozen solid, it started. We celebrated by going to Walmart and buying groceries, and we ate McDonald’s food, not because we like it, but because nothing else was close by and open.
So, I hilariously believe I have survived another Texas weather event that seriously tried to hurt sick old me. Of course, my son’s school is already canceled for tomorrow. Will I get another break too? Or do I have another 45-stoplight commute in the morning over ice, and laced with idiot white people driving GM death machines too fast in bad weather? We’ll have to see who laughs last.
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Call Them Action Figures, Not Dolls
Yes, I am an addict. I have a mania for buying dolls… er, I mean, action figures. It began when I was nine back in 1965. Yes, G.I. Joe got me hooked. Specifically, the G.I. Joe sailor. I still have that sorry pusher. He has detached arms held on by strings and the shirt that he wears. He is play-worn and so far from mint that he’s only valuable to me. I still have the Marine dress uniform hat on him, the sole surviving piece of the second costume set I ever got for him. The first costume, given to me for the same birthday, big number nine, was the frogman uniform, long since disintegrated into black rubber pulp.
Of course, it wasn’t exactly like my sister’s Barbie. Yes, the idea was to buy costume after costume, the drive for fashion being the primary source of income for Hasbro and Mattel. I did a bit of that. But in 1966 I wanted the German G.I. Joe from the Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog for my birthday. Mom and Dad bought me my first Captain Action instead. After many tears and bitter disappointment, I actually started to play with it. Christmas brought the Aquaman suit for Captain Action, along with the German G.I. Joe. After that, Spiderman… Captain America… more Joes, and a 1969 G.I. Joe Mercury capsule complete with astronaut. Man! What you could get back then for less than twenty dollars!
So this is the foundation of my obsession. Of course, as a child I did not have my own money to spend. I always wanted more than birthdays and Christmases could account for. Once I became an adult and had my own money… look out! I could’ve impoverished myself had I not established the rules for my personal collection. Twelve inch action figures are rule number one. Rule number two is twenty dollars or less. I try hard not to break those rules. The collection has grown all out of proportion.
I got married, and that had an effect on my addiction too. I began to buy Barbie action figures too. (Heck, she’s a twelve inch figure too.) I had kids too, but never even thought of using that as an excuse. I bought Barbies for my beautiful wife, but if I bought action figures for my kids, then they wouldn’t be mine, and how do you explain to a six year old that you can’t actually play with that cool Batman figure?
I am showing off a few of my figures here and now. Maybe more will come later. But for now, it’s enough to get this terrible secret off my conscience.
Gandalf is a 12 inch action figure bought from a sale table at Kaybee Toys. He was $8.99 because someone had pilfered the sword from his scabbard.
Wolverine is a pose-able PVC action figure, and 12 inches tall. He cost $9.99 at Toys-R-Us.
Batgirl came from the Warner Brothers Store for $9.99.
Daredevil from Walmart. $7.99
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From My Stuffed Animal Collection; Mama Clown and Baby Clown
Baby Clown was once my oldest son’s favorite woobie. He doesn’t remember that time when he was two and three, but he did say that these clowns now creep him out.
Catch a Falling Star 