As the Burger Turns part 10

Thursday, July 12th, 2020, and a glorious day it started out to be it did about 6:45 a.m. 

Disclaimer: The title of this post is the start of my soap opera for old people called "As the Burger Turns"  Anyway, to make this clear right from the start, everything in this post is created from my own recollections, which may be faulty because I am old, or because I choose to lie about it, take your pick. At any rate, everything I post here belongs to me, the good the bad and the ugly, and is a product of my highly developed imagination. If I use a situation that you know about and it was actually different, then shaddup! , just read it and don't ruin a good story with a correction about some trivial things called facts. It's a story, stories are based on what people think and everybody knows that people lie.


I took a few days off to recharge and to get a bunch of projects done. My grass was like 2 or 3 feet tall, lawnmower needed maintenance and a bunch of other stuff had to get done around here. It takes a lot of energy to supervise that kind of work.  

So anyway, on the previous iterations of this story, the previous 9 sections, I have attempted to layout the balance of my career and tell the story as fairly and as accurately as old people can remember to do. Sometimes the fondness of memory gets in the way and in reading it later it sounds more like a tribute or a gripe session depending upon one's point of view, however, that is not intentional. I have found it to be somewhat tough to tell your own story without being one-sided in your interpretation at some point. I suppose that reaction might be human nature or is maybe a natural defensive gesture, I'm not certain how to look at that. Anyway, my dear reader I acknowledge that yes, I am full of shit, just like everyone else. 

Not only that but I have a lot of practice at being full of shit so I am better at it than most people. 

Sometime in about late 1978 or so, about 2 or 3 years after I graduated high school at 18 years old after a couple of assignments as an assistant manager at three different stores, I was promoted to the position of General Manager and assigned to the old unit called "Little East Washington". It was by a place called the Sahara Grotto located at 4105 East Washington St in Indianapolis In. The building isn't there anymore, however, in all fairness it had already been there 30 years or so when I got there. so a lot of the life it had was already wrung out of it. I believe the location now is an auto parts store now or something like that, maybe an AutoZone store. It was still in the era of curb service and no drive-thru windows yet. We still had the curb window, the microphone that broadcasted outside, the kitchen window that you put dirty dishes through and it had a freight elevator for loading the stock from the supply truck down into the basement.

So my first day there, I get to work and meet the District Manager a guy named Jim something started with a "J", and truthfully it was sort of obvious to me that he didn't know a lot about running restaurants I mean maybe he did but he struck me as a guy who would rather look good than be good. He had gorgeous hair and nice clothes, shiny shoes and expensive glasses and I never saw him get dirty, the whole time I knew him. He introduced me all around, and keep in mind I was about 20years old, I'm not sure but I don't think I was 21 yet, I just cannot remember. I remember being worried about whether or not the crew would like me, that's how rookie I was. There were several members of the crew there and two or three people that stand out in my mind to this day. 

One person I distinctly remember was the Lead server, her name was Virginia Pittman. Now I have nothing but good things to say about Virginia because I cannot tell you how many times she kept me from screwing up and kept my young full of self out of trouble. I reckon at this point Virginia was maybe 35 or so, and she was at least double me in experience and years, had a husband who was an ex-General manager named Henry, and just knew everything you needed to know. The company put me in charge of this restaurant, but Virginia was in charge of Virginia. If any of you knew her, you know exactly what I mean. It's a good thing too because I was too wet behind the ears to manage her, I was barely able to manage myself at this point. Virginia was direct and blunt and to the point and was about as no-nonsense a person as I have ever met, before or since. These are all characteristics I later learned to appreciate about her, but on the first day in that first week, I'll admit it, I was intimidated. I was a young man, she was an experienced long term crew member. She had probably seen more managers come and go over the years than I could even imagine, I am sure that to her, I was not impressive, to say the least.

I was the sort of manager that was maybe a tiny bit headstrong and maybe a tiny bit pushy, although I really have a tough time remembering myself as either pushy or headstrong. I mean I was a sweetheart and a pushover! I just wanted things to be how I said they were to be, without regard to how they had been in the past and oh, by the way, If you could get that done right damn now, that would be great. In retrospect, I am aware that I didn't know shit about shit and I also didn't know a damn thing about human nature or managing people or getting things done. After thinking about it for a bit I knew the reason they put me in this store too. The company needed somebody who would go into this restaurant and work their complete ass off, working long days and long hours,  because it was a very low-volume restaurant, meaning it was a low sales store. 

Because it was low sales it was also a low labor budget and a low sales budget restaurant as well. Being in the so-called Low range doing less than $8,000 per week made it tough to make money if it could even be done. The PNL statement in this store was a disaster a couple of years before I took the store over, and it had lost a lot of money and was a drain on the surrounding Division's combined statement. No one wanted to be associated with a store that lost money and it showed. They didn't spend a dime on repairs and hadn't bought anything new for 5 years. Of course, I immediately ignored that history, fixed everything that was broken, bought everything I could in the first 2 months, and figured correctly that they would just tell me to knock it off after the first PnL, which they did. I had already done what I needed to do by that point and because it was my first store, the DM is who took the heat for not paying attention. 

I sorta knew that was going to happen too. Those people always underestimated me and I always took advantage of it.

I sat down with the DM and analyzed with him exactly what we thought it would take to break even in this store. It was a long time ago so I won't tell you I remember exactly what was said, however, the gist of it was we needed about a 10% sales increase and needed food and labor to fall about 2% each. It was a tough order to fill, as I could see the labor falling but had no idea how to get the food to fall 2%. I mean it was out of whack, sure, but to this point, all I had worked as a manager in were stores run by strong GM's. At this point, I had about one year of Profit and Loss analysis under my belt, and all of that was either as a rookie manager or as an assistant manager, So basically, what in the hell did I know? Not much I'll tell you. There was a side benefit being narrow-minded and not knowing everything about running a store though because, with no other distractions, I could always focus on fundamentals more effectively. As a result, my shifts as an assistant manager served excellent food, hot food was hot by god! Its what I knew how to do, so I did that to the best of ability. That was one thing I never lost sight of right up until the day I retired from the business.

Fixing the PnL was my number one job here though, but keep in mind that are not talking huge numbers. For some perspective, the reductions needed to equal about $150 per week in food costs and the same in labor costs. To achieve the sales goals, we needed about 100 more customers a week or the ones we had already needed to spend about 40 cents more per meal. If we could get more customers somehow, and get them to spend a tiny bit more, then all the better. To me, it didn't seem like these goals were that big until he told me no one else had ever been able to get it done or get anywhere close to that for the last 5 years or so. 

That scared me a tiny bit. Ohh, I think I just learned about negative motivation. I thought seriously about figuring out how to blackmail this guy somehow, as I thought I might need some ammunition to stay employed. I'm just kidding of course, but I did get a comedy bit out of it that I used for several years. 

This is when I began my management career (and I wasn't under the wings of John), the East 38th street store's biggest needs were cleanliness, store organization, and employee appearance. Labor was a little high but sales were somewhat higher than 4105 and man, sales cures a multitude of sins. In the Pendleton Pike store, the problem was high food cost, and after I discovered the auxiliary stock room in the porter's garage that problem got fixed, WHAM!. I think those two-course corrections are the reason I got promoted, but it could have easily have been that I was still standing after everyone else quit or got fired, I don't know. So anyway as my new DM talked to me about the crew it was evident that he didn't like the person who was the Production Trainer, an older woman (in her 40's)  named Jacqueline (not to be confused with the Franklin Rd Jackie, not the same person), he talked negatively about her and to her the whole time he was there. 

He didn't come out and say it but I think he wanted me to fire her the first week I was there. That made me want to do the opposite and figure out how to make her look good so he would stand down and go find something else to do when he was bored. He was very happy with Virginia who was my Lead Server and was convinced she adored him (she didn't) and that she told him everything (she didn't) and that she trusted him (no way), so he had only good things to say about her. She figured out quickly that all she had to do was fix his coffee the right way, smile and hand it to him and he shut up and went away. Jackie on the other hand had an RBF problem, you should have seen the shocked look on her face when I explained that to her, she was Flabber-Friggin-Blasted by the shallowness of him. She did have a sneering look that came over her face when something stupid was said or happened, and he contributed to that a lot. Maybe that's why he didn't like her, as she couldn't hide it. I don't know. 

If you don't know what RBF is, go ask your teenager. I don't remember Jim's last name, but he wasn't around more than a year after this so in retrospect I guess it didn't matter. 

As soon as he left Virginia and Jackie took me aside and had their own first of dozens of mini-meetings with me. They asked to talk and I agreed to listen. We had a ton of these, and you wouldn't believe how much I learned after I figured out how to shut my face and listen to my staff. Well as it turns out one of his (The dm that is), "pet employees" and he had a few of them in every store, was running a mini theft ring and both of them had told him about it. Not only did they tell him about it but they explained it to him in detail, and as Jackie said to me "That dumbass just looked at me and said I didn't know what I was talking about". 

This "pet" employee had been given a lot of autonomy by the DM purportedly to assist the GM in getting things done. He unloaded the truck, had his own key to the freight elevator, and to the doors, and was in charge of moving stock to and fro when the line needed to be stocked and basically he was the one assigned to always take the trash out during the daytime and etc. 

Right about the time they had this conversation, his attitude towards Jackie changed to the negative, he told them he didn't believe them and threatened both of them with their jobs if they kept trash-talking a great employee. Basically, they both told me to "watch my ass" with this employee, that he talked to Jim behind the managers back constantly. He had already demonstrated he couldn't be trusted and they both thought he was stealing every time the truck came in and every time the trash went out. I'll never forget their closing remarks "The little snot is a snitch and a kiss ass and is always broke until he got those keys, now he has more money than anybody, where did he get it?". It was a revelation and a stunning 30 minutes, to say the least. There was a lot more than that to it, but that was the overview. 

So here's where we stand, I'm a brand new GM a rookie, wet behind the ears, don't know shit about shit, my first restaurant, has lots of problems, first leadership role, had no idea what to do next, and 2 lead crew members telling me what was going on and I could take it or leave it. Man, I was just shocked and stunned and PISSED OFF. I actually didn't really know who to believe but I was leaning very strongly towards Virginia and Jackie. Here was the deciding factor, my brother Clyde has worked for Henry (Virginia's husband) when he was the GM at one of the stores, (I think it was 3810 W. Washington but who knows?), I was talking to Clyde and telling him the story. He asked me what my instincts were telling me, I told him and he was like "You should trust Virginia". He said she has no reason to lie and has a long history and he always trusted her. 

Man, easy stuff huh?

I was a rookie General Manager but had worked for the concept for quite a while so I knew what wrong looked like when I saw it. That was the easy part. To make a long story short I made a few quick decisions and decided that the DM had no say over who had keys in my store if he wasn't going to be here running it every day. Once I made that clear to him he sorta gruffly let it go and said do what you think is right. Here's where that whole "Do the right thing because its the right thing to do", came back into play. I knew what to do, I just had to stick to my decision, stand my ground, and do what was right. 

Seems simple but believe me, when you are 21 years old, this kind of stuff feels like you have a mountain on your back. It feels like if you don't stick to your gut then you are going to be flattened by the mountain. I remember seeing the Division Manager, a guy named Gary Reinwald in my store when this was all happening and he asked me all about it delving into specifics and asking tons of questions, some of which I had not even thought of, like what if my plan failed and then what if this wasn't why the food was out of whack what then? 

The only thing I could say was "I don't know, I will have to keep looking". It turns out that even though I didn't understand it at the time, I had just given the perfect answer when you don't know what to say. No bullcrap, no bluffing, no word fill, Just I don't know, I'll find out and no excuses. I found out years later with a tour conversation with a new CEO guy (Tom Charters maybe?), he said I was the only one he ran into who didn't try to bluff my way through when I got asked something I didn't know the answer to. Anyway, Gary listened, and said one thing and then left the store, He said "Well, we'll find out soon enough huh?". Yes sir I guess we will. 

I felt so vulnerable and alone standing there on the street corner like I was the naked cowboy, about 3 days into this grand experiment called "Let's promote the rookie 21-year-old and see what happens!",  I knew I wasn't alone, but I felt so and truthfully it scared me a little bit because what If that wasn't what I needed to do? It felt like I only had one shot at coming up with a solution. It turns out that much later more seasoned people always felt like that when they faced issues they had to correct and it was just a part of owning the problem, I didn't know it at the time, because it felt like "Fix this or die". 

Oh man, everything my whole future, my entire existence was riding on the solution. So I pulled up my jockeys, tied my boots by the straps or whatever that saying is, and got started. 

I immediately made everybody park their cars nowhere near where the truck delivered. I made everyone park nowhere near the back door and nowhere near the freight elevator, which was just about the same thing anyway. My instincts were to eliminate the easy theft travel and because he came in so early I made him and everyone who came in at around 6 a.m. park in the front lot where I could see their cars out of the front window. If he was going to steal I wanted to be able to see it. I didn't single him out however because I made everyone do it, and it sort of seemed counter-intuitive to park upfront anyway because that took up customers' precious parking spots. It had a positive effect also as it made us look busier and drew in more business. Who woulda thunk it? Sometimes it was better to be lucky than to be good.

So everyone was absolutely convinced I had lost my mind when they saw where I made early people park, as the common wisdom was to park your staff as far away from the front door as you could to leave room for customers. All of my peers, except for John had something to say, he stayed quite only speaking to me if I asked him. I remembered thinking "What is the big friggin deal?", We are maybe serving 25 people in the morning anyway so having "room" for customers was not the issue. Being open was a formality and unless we got busier I couldn't see us staying open at any rate. I changed a lot of stuff all at once, as I figured less stress to just do it and get it over with. Also, It wouldn't look like I was targeting him, even though I was if I made a bunch of changes and the things I changed about him were just buried in the middle of them. 

Imagine his surprise also when I took away his elevator freight key, his front door key (which was also the back door), and effective right now, you had to start using the inside stairs to move the stock up to the line and so forth. They were using the freight elevator to move stock to the line, in the morning and after the lunch hour. Seemed only fair anyhow as at night after 5 p.m. you had to use the stairs anyway so what was the difference? I couldn't see the difference and knew it took about 1/3 the time to use the dolly and get your 2 cases of french fries and whatever else and come up the stairs. It seemed to be a no brainer to me as I was sure that was when he was stealing every time they used the back door or the lift anyway. 

See I think every time the truck came in he was taking the things he could sell quickly like beef and fries and so forth and then when as soon as the truck was done, he went home and changed into his uniform (and unloaded his stock). So also I made everyone report to work in full uniform, without regard to their job or function, and stopped everyone from changing in the store or in the bathrooms. I also put a manager in charge of overseeing the truck operation, checking off products as it came off the truck and put a manager in charge of the back door. In essence, I put the managers back in charge. Mr. Theft ring went back to his buddy the DM and told him I was making it too hard to "do his job" and he wanted a transfer to another store. Also about one week after I made these changes he was back to borrowing money every day so he could eat lunch, go figure. 

Within about 90 days or so, we had solved the food cost problem and were under budget on labor cost, had the sales issue headed in the right direction,  The PnL almost made money in the first quarter I was there and It pretty much broke even after that. We solved the sales problem by focusing on fundamental issues, by serving hot food HOT, by fixing all the refrigerators and serving cold food COLD, by running the service times that made guests want to come back and taking every comment seriously and by making sure if it was supposed to have steam coming off the product (Like a Chili 3 way) that it did. I learned that from John but I never dumped anything back on the line, because the only way we made the draconian labor budget in that store was to work the food stations harder than the crew did. That part was a nightmare. I would have had to clean it up so dumping Chili was out of the question.

The DM obliged him and transferred his buddy down the street to Franklin Road. His name was Dave or Steve or something like that and oh boy was he going to be unhappy again pretty soon.

Ha! Curb 80 all cars!

BigMike

As the Burger turns Part 2

Sunday, June 28th, 2020 at around 4 a.m. Why ?, because I like to hallucinate that's why.

So anyway, there I was, surrounded by the VC, fighting with Charlie.....No wait, that a movie. Man, old people huh? I think Sam Kenison and Rodney Dangerfield is in it.

COVID-19 update (USA)                                 Closed cases (USA)

2,596,770  Cases of the virus                   1,208,646   Cases with an Outcome

   128,152  Deaths                                     1,081,494    Recovered or Discharged (89%)

1,081,494  Recovered                                  128,152    Deaths (11%) 

Disclaimer: The title of this post is the start of my soap opera for old people called "As the Burger Turns" or it could be titled "Tales from the Grill" or maybe even "Flipping for posterity", not sure what to call it yet. Anyway, to make this clear right from the start, everything in this post is wholly created from my own recollections, which may be faulty because I am old, or because I choose to lie about it, take your pick. At any rate, everything I post here today belongs to me, the good the bad and the ugly, and is a product of my highly developed imagination. If I use a situation that you know about and it was actually different, then SHADDUP! , just read it and don't ruin a good story with a correction about some trivial things called facts. It's a story, stories are based on what people think and everybody knows that people lie. 

So anyhow, backing up just a little bit from yesterday and talking about the changes that happen all the time just about everywhere you go. When I first went to work at Steak `n Shake in the spring of 1974, I was this 16-year-old pimple-faced, long-haired, lothario with a thing for older women (I mean I was 16, I thought 25 was an older woman), and a greedy streak about a mile wide. I loved having cash money in my pocket and not waiting for payday all the time. I had not even considered waiting on cars as a "curbie" when I applied to work there, but I remember the manager at the time, a man named Wayne Duncan, who told me if I liked money working the curb would be a terrific thing for me as you got paid by every car and the better you were at serving, the more money you made. 

It was a persuasive argument and on March 12,1974 I began my career by taking a curb tray with 6 of the 10-ounce water tumblers on them, balanced on my right hand at eye level, and walking to the other end of the parking lot. Right next to me was my trainer who told me when I got to be comfortable with the tray that I needed to swing it a little bit so it would move in step with me, it would swing as I walked and I could then start to move a tiny bit faster with each walk around the lot. That is all I did on the first day, well, I carried water and took out the trash. Curb 80, please!!

After a day or so of carrying water, my trainer told me to get my water and follow her. Then she took off running with the tray and the 6 glasses of water and I stood there going, UH, what the hell? Her name was Becky and I could already tell she didn't think much of me because I was this young stupid boy who had this goofy grin and some broken glasses. She had already told me to not even bother hitting on her before I even thought about it because she didn't dig young boys, ya dig? So as I watched her disappear into the distance, running off with the water, red hair blowing in the breeze, mysteriously somehow swinging that tray, running in full stride all the way to the end of the parking lot which was about 400 feet away or so. 

I, on the other hand, had not moved an inch. 

I was stunned.

She walked back to where I was standing and said something like "What happened?", I said "To what?", she said "To you?", and I thought, this girl is silly because she thinks I can do what she just did and run with her and a loaded tray to the end of the lot. I just said "So, you think I can do that?", and what she said stuck with me, She sorta challenged me and said, "You know this is what the girls like right?". I was hooked. Of course, I was young and stupid, and she had just given me a secret so I swallowed the hook and thought, "Well, if she can do it, I can do it" and I took off running with my tray of water tumblers.

Not the only time it ever happened, but I broke every one of those damn glasses. She had not told me how to stop, so when I stopped, the glasses didn't and they all went crashing over the edge. As I was trying to salvage them, I flipped the tray back towards me and most of the 60 ounces of ice-cold water came right back into my face. Then they hit the ground, Ice, water, tray, and now broken glass. An auspicious start if there ever was one. Becky just walked into the store, picked up the broom and dustpan she had already put by the front door in preparation for this moment. She walked out to me, handed them to me, and walked away without saying another word. I cleaned up the broken glass for about 15 minutes.

At least she didn't laugh, to my face anyhow.

My Uncle George it just so happened was the Division Curb Manager at the time, sort of like the chief Curb Captain of Car service for the Division office, which was in a lot of ways sort of like the District Manager of Curb Service. He came by the store to see how his nephew was doing on his first day on the job. I wasn't even aware he knew I had started work there, so it surprised me to see him. He asked me how it was going and I told him what happened, how I had sent the water glasses flying, and they now had me carrying paper cups with lids until I mastered the skill. He squashed that idea, got 6 more ice water glasses, and made me run with him, while he carried the tray and he demonstrated the proper techniques of bringing the tray up and down, starting, stopping, and delivering the drinks to the customer and so forth. He worked with me for about 2 hours individually and when he got done, I could do it and found out I was actually pretty good at it too.

Over the next few weeks, I learned a lot about making money, some good tricks, and some stupid habits that given time and context I saw later how dumb they were. I also found time to think about how my training had gone so far, and I thought to myself that if I was ever put in a position where I was responsible to train someone to perform a function, I would give them the same kind of personalized instruction and help that was afforded to me by My Uncle George on my second day of work. Not many people got that kind of training and I wondered if that was true then what kind of training did most people get? It was a powerful lesson that stuck with me all these years later and I never forgot it. Oh, and she was right too, Becky wouldn't give me the time of day, she laughed at me no matter what I suggested. I tried to be friendly with her, I think she just didn't like me. It turns out years later, it wasn't that she didn't like me, It was just that I didn't MATTER all that much. I was the FNG and she had seen a million of them.

Oh well. 

I was 16 at the time, all 16-year-olds are idiots by definition, so what did I know?

So back to Franklin Road, I was appointed to be a Manager Trainee and was started in training to be a manager. I was eager to learn and it seemed like I was in a self-directed Montessori open classroom sort of 26-week training program. I filled out a self-evaluation every week, but what I did during the week was pretty much ran the place while Mr. Tetrick paid his bills, ran personal errands, talked on the phone, and a BUNCH of other things having little to do with running a burger joint. It turns out that he had been a District Manager for the company immediately prior to this and had been demoted to Unit Manager (Or Store manager as we called them back then) and his heart wasn't in the game. I never did know why he was demoted and truthfully, I didn't care all that much as I didn't really know him and he was pretty hard to get to know as he held you at arm's length all the time. All I knew was that if somebody wasn't in charge of this place, then my day was going to blow so I decided to just take over and let him rest. It didn't seem to matter to him one way or the other. I was fairly happy at the time because I got a pay raise to do what I always did, which was to work my ass off, do my job, and go home.

At the time I remember thinking that it couldn't get much better than this. I was barely 18 years old, got my pay bumped into the Manager zone where if you can believe it, I was making the princely sum of $2.625 per hour for the privilege of working 50-60 hours a week, 5 or 6 days per week and now I had enough money and a good enough job to get married. Also, I was working for these bunch of clueless turds like Mr. Tetrick that didn't give 2 squirts what I did so life was good. I was basically my own boss at 18 and ran a store unofficially of course, but being the short-sighted teenager I was, I can honestly say now, that I didn't know any better. I had my own key to the door, made my own coffee, opened the store and he would stroll in around 9:30 - 10:00 to do the banking. 

It was barely more than 12K per year and I was rolling in the dough. Or so I thought. One day I came to work, found the door already unlocked coffee already made and half-drunk, and about half the line was already set up. Somebody was doing my job.

That was the day I met John Franklin Fair.

First impressions are important and as I found out much later I wasn't very impressive. I knew better, but I had not shaved that morning, my hair was longer than it should have been, my uniform was pretty rumpled, I never ironed a shirt at the time, I always wore wash and wear slacks and I am certain that my shoes had seen better days because I flat wore shoes totally out before I ever replaced them, mostly because I was a tightwad, but usually because, who thinks about shoes? So, pretty much I thought I was king of the world and I was a slob. 

The first moment I saw Mr. Fair, I just knew this was going to be no walk in the park. He was just about 5' 10" maybe, about 220 pounds, had arms like an ape and canned hams for fists. He could have been a little taller I don't know, but he also could have been the bouncer. He had on basically the same uniform I did, except his was clean and pressed. Oh, and the toes of his shoes weren't all scuffed up and worn out either. I went over to him and introduced myself and said "Excuse me, sir,  Who are you? Where is Mr. Tetrick?.", He just looked at me for about 15 seconds without saying a word then shook his head, said "I'm John, your boss. Go do whatever it is that you do around here." and I was DISMISSED. 

So confused and not knowing what in the hell was going on, I went to check the line, started changing plates in the grill box, making sure the steam wells had water in them, checked the hot fudge pump, stocked the shake base and ice cream and got a pan of hot water and cleaner and began to wipe down and check the entire line to make sure it was ready to go for lunch hour. A couple of the other crew members asked me if I knew what was going on and I just said"That's John, your new boss, go ask him." I didn't know it at the time, but two things happened that morning that I found out later had changed Mr. Fairs' opinion of me. His first impression was "Well here is another slob to get rid of", and his first impression was that he was probably going to have to replace me too because I didn't look like I cared much about my job. What saved me was I was polite, wouldn't immediately engage in gossip, and went to work checking the line and worked hard at getting the place clean and ready for lunch. I doled out assignments, got cleaning lists made, made sure the bathrooms were clean, the floors got mopped and the lot got picked up. He caught me using a 14 point program checklist, asked me what it was and what it was used for. After I answered him he asked me if I had been doing it long enough that I didn't need the checklist, I told him probably but somebody told me one time that pilots with thousands of hours of flying time still used a checklist every day to make sure they didn't forget anything so I thought it was a good idea.

After lunch hour was over that day Mr. Fair asked me if I wanted to keep my job. I was sort of stunned and said, Of course, It's a pretty good job and I like doing it. He said when I came into work tomorrow and every day after that I needed a new pair of shoes, some new shirts as my collars were severely frayed, some new slacks as mine were worn out and I had to shave every single day. Then he said do you think you can do that? I told him honestly that I could not as it was about 2 days until payday and had already paid my bills and didn't have any money set aside. I told him that I could do all of it by the day after payday, and I would be clean-shaven tomorrow. He just looked at me. Then said go back to work, come and find me and see me before you go home. 

Oh boy, aw crap, ah hell. I screwed up now, I shoulda lied, I shoulda said I could do whatever he wanted. I just know he is gonna fire my ass.

I went and found him after I clocked out and he pointed at his car, said can you be an hour late getting home? I said yes, He told me to go get in the car. I went and sat in the front seat of his car and wondered just what fresh hell I had walked into. I was so nervous I think I could not have shit a pebble because my ass was so tight at this point. He came out of the back door, deposit in hand, locked the door, got in the car, started it up, and drove it away. Me and him, him confident and large and in charge, Me with an ass puckered up so tight I am sure I sat up about three inches taller than I usually did. He drove down to the bank, dropped off the deposit, and went down to the mall. We got out of the car and he and I walked into the mall. He found the Barbershop/style salon whatever it was, pointed at a chair, said "Sit", so I sat, he went over and talked with the stylist who then called me over and put an apron neck thingie on me, and cut my hair. No direction from me at all, and when I attempted to say what I wanted she just pointed at John and said "Your dad told me what to do." 

Ok, so I am totally freaked out at this point and have no clue what in the hell is happening, but it looks like I'm getting a haircut. I needed one anyway so I just said what the hell and let it happen.

Over the course of the next whirlwind 45 minutes or so we purchased a couple of shirts, some slacks, some shoes, some socks and I got a haircut. At this point, Mr. Fair had not said 50 words to me the entire fricking day. We got back to the store, he turned to me in the car and said: "Now can you start looking like I asked you to look, starting tomorrow?", My answer was "Yes sir Mr. Fair sir." He told me "Well that's just fine", and he said he would see me at whatever time it was that I was supposed to be there the next day, told me I owed him for what we had just spent on me, told me to get out of his car and left me standing there, right near the back door of the old Franklin Road Steak `n Shake location. 

I am sure I had the biggest and goofiest grin on my face that anyone had ever had on their face and I just knew that something special had just happened to me, although to tell you the truth I had no idea what I was in for.

Stay tuned for part Three of as the burger turns.

BigMike

Yes your precious child is stupid

Friday, June the 19th, 2020 at 5:30 a.m. a glorious day that looks like Groundhog day in so many ways

Hi there, How are ya? I'm gonna catch hell for today's post glad you are here to witness my flagellation.

In general and not every single one, but in General, Teenaged children are stupid. They get better over time usually but just as soon as you can say that word -teen after their age and sometimes a year or two prior to that you have to start dealing with weird, borderline stupid behavior. I mean no disrespect to anyone directly and I include myself in this damning portrayal, but in my experience in raising children into adults and fostering everybody else's kids into human beings, I have found teenagers to be ridiculous people. Like I said, I mean no intended disrespect and maybe it is just as nature had intended but man oh man was getting children from the age of about 12 to about the age of 18 a major pain in the ass.

I mean, don't get me wrong however I think I learned more about myself in the period of time and what lengths I was willing to go to in order to get things accomplished and preserve the peace at the same time, however, some of the dumbest things I have ever had to do were usually associated with one of my children somewhere in these age ranges. It was a magnificent time though. I never felt more needed and never felt more tested than when I had to figure out the physics and the dynamics of a crash scene where the deer jumped into the roadway, or where the big yellow parking pole magically turned into a big yellow car, or in consoling a teen who has just blasted backward into a mailbox or when another one hit a deer. They were trying times, and they were scary times and everybody made it out the other side alive. Usually, the whole thing was stupid though.

Girls seemed to be able to get through the dumbass phase a little quicker though I think. Or in my family it seemed that way, They still did dumb shit, but it seemed to happen less frequently and seemed to be lessons learned a lot faster with a lot fewer repeats. Maybe its because that is how I remembered it, maybe it happened that way I do not remember. I am old as you know. Girls just seem to want to learn the ropes quicker. They want to learn needed skills quicker, and it wasn't just to please mom either. I mean I hated it when all of my girls discovered the attraction of boys, but watching them apply their makeup when they were just getting started was a pleasure in itself. Who hasn't wondered at the vision of a 10-year-old with a perfect blended round mask of makeup they applied all by themselves (even before they were allowed to wear it), that ended at the edge of the ears, didn't get into their hairline and never went under the chin? It was great. Waking up in the large recliner after a nap with all of your fingernails and toenails painted in several colors was one of the joys of my life. I even wore the toenails to work like that because who the hell had time to remove it. Damn it, Kelley Ann!!

Either way, boys or girls, just about everyone I have ever talked to about this subject has remarked about it in one way or another. We all have the learning to drive stories, although I don't know how many people could say they actually watched their daughter explode into a huge rose bush while driving a hot rod go-cart at 35 miles per hour. I taught 3 of 4 of my children how to drive and just didn't have the nerves to teach my son David. LaDonna had to teach him to drive, as his caution and two-footed use of the brake and gas pedal and the speed up slow down was just too much for my heart. I figured since he drove then just like his mother always has that she could have the pleasure of driving him around. I made sure to temporarily increase both of their life insurance policies and said have at it. Actually, that's a lie, I didn't say anything except don't wreck my car.

Turns out I should have said that one to my oldest son but that's another story for another day. That's the story of the submarine enabled Mitsubishi Diamante`.

Girls just seem to want to grow up faster, and I knew then and know that it sucks to watch them develop into adults. Who wants to lose their little girls? One of mine is turning 40 years old this month and she is still my little girl, It's tough to let go. You really never do I guess. Girls want to learn to do their own hair, to do their makeup to pick their own clothes, and over time your role as a parent is just to make sure they have clothes on when they go out. I really never had the problem of an immodest female child, now my oldest daughter has that problem, and its all her fault. HA! Good luck with that.

Boys do everything that is humanly possible to avoid bathing and changing into clean clothes. They will wear the same clothes for weeks if you let them because it is their "favorite shirt" or some such nonsense. Really it is because they are just lazy and are too lazy to admit it. They will take the right amount of time in the shower, will get out of the bathroom with their hair wet, will have a wet towel, and will have put a scientific amount of effort in the appearance of having taken a proper bath. The effort a child will put into making you think they took a shower is in direct proportion to the amount of effort they think you will expend into finding out if they did or not. It's amazing.

I always had dad shower kid duty, and to my recollection, it very rarely had anything to do with the female children. They bathed and used all the soap, all the hot water, and every towel in the house but they bathed.  I had to be Columbo and ask a bunch of dumbass questions that inevitably led you to believe your male child committed a crime, before sending them back to the shower to get clean this time. It usually went something like this. "So you took a proper shower huh?, "Yes sir". "So tell me then, why is your hair not squeaky clean/", "I don't know, maybe my hair doesn't squeak", "It squeaked yesterday when it was clean, do you remember", "Yes sir", "Is your hair different hair than it was yesterday?", "No sir", moving on, "Well then, we have non-squeaky hair and another problem.", "What problem is that?", "You have world-class funk rolling off of you.", " Pardon me?", "You stink", " I do?", "You do", "Did you bathe?", "Yes sir", "With soap and did you use a washcloth or a scrubber thing?", "I think so", "You think so, do you know you did or not", "I can't remember", because not remembering was a hedge and you could hedge but you absolutely could not lie because getting your wet ass beat for lying hurt, so moving on, "Ok, so we have non-squeaky hair, rolling thunder funk coming off of you, no evidence of soap and the washcloth in the bathroom you think you used?", "Yes, sir", "It's dry and so is the scrubber", "Oh", "Oh is all you have to say?", "Yes sir", "So, let's address the last point I want to make shall we?", "Ok", "If you showered and if you used soap, and if you used a washcloth, and if you washed your hair and it is just not squeaky today even though it is squeaky every other day I have one more observation", "What's that", "What is this line of black grimy sludge all the way around your neck in every wrinkle and crevice you have on your entire face, and in your hair and all over the back of your arms and etc?", "Oh, I might have missed a spot", "You think?".

Then I had to give the shower speech. "Please child, go back into the shower, turn on the hot water if there is any, and I don't actually care if there is any you can shower in totally cold water for all I care, this time use shampoo and wash your hair, scrub your filthy neck, use the (detailed instructions now because at this point I ain't leaving anything to chance) washcloth and scrubber on your other dirt-encrusted parts including your face and scalp and arms and legs and everywhere else and one more thing.",  "What's that?", "If I so much as see one tiny speck of dirt on you when you come out of that shower this time, your ass is going to be as red as fire, you got me, Einstein?. "Yes, sir".

And the child that would emerge from that shower would be so clean he would glow. That's why we began showers 2 hours before bedtime because I knew my children. The girls caught on to think really quickly, in like one day they understood. The boys? Not so much.

Like I said Boys are slower and children, in general, are stupid.

After a while, with the girls, the question was not did you bathe? Because of course, they did, they love bubble baths and showers and hair junk and makeup and all the frilly crap you could buy spending the last dollar you had in your pocket. The question for them was did you use all the hot water, did you use every towel in the house, Is there any shampoo or body soap left for anyone else to use? Right about 13 or 14 is when you figure out you better buy a separate family-sized container for the family and an equal amount and size for every girl you have. The formula is something like ( # of people in the family - girls = WHAT TO BUY ), and the formula for buying for girls was (If Girls exist in the family, THEN buy big amounts of all the SHIT). That's how it works.

Once everyone actually had a shower or bubble bath depending upon the age, in general, the boys would get their clothes but never pick up towels or wipe up the water. They usually got their clothes because they didn't want anyone to see their poop stains in their underwear. Sometimes it didn't matter but the majority of the time that's how it was. After a sloppy female child, however? Wet Towel tornadoes! Towels, clothes, washcloths, bottlers of open goop hair and skin everywhere, hair care junk laying everywhere, blow dryers, brushes, toothpaste, I mean MAN! They can make an absolute mess and then make you believe that even though they were in bed and mostly asleep, they were going to come back and clean it up. Uh-huh. With boys, they didn't even want to be in the room so with them, they would sling water everywhere. I think that was the camouflage attempt to make you think they cleaned themselves. I'm not sure. I am really surprised we never had to remodel a bathroom because the floor fell in from the water damage.

Now that everyone is grown up and there are only the three of us, everyone has their own bathrooms so to speak and mine is the dirtiest, but only because they never clean it. I never shower in there, are you kidding > It's disgusting in there! The cleanest bathroom belongs to the child, of course. Go Figure.

I would not want to be a big city Mayor right now.

1. The Mayor of Atlanta has created a situation and it is of her own making, that by attacking the integrity of the entire police department and its officers and acting outside of official review channels, she has turned the Police against her. For the 2nd day in a row, most and I mean a high majority, of the entire department has called in sick, too ill to report for duty and police their districts. They call it a "Blu-Flu" and I have to tell you, I do not blame them one bit. They are protesting the actions of a corrupt D.A. and her own actions taken by dismissing officers before any investigation was completed.
   
   They deserve what they are getting. Good Luck Atlanta and Fulton County. We hope you are happy with your shoddy and corrupt leadership.
   
   
2. Trump to Xi Ping ---> "Help me! To make sure I win." ( Effin Wow!)
   John Bolton's book. Confirmed too.
   
   
3. Cancel Culture is getting really cancelley. Speaker Pelosi has removed all the confederate leaders of the house of Representative's portraits from the official portraits room where they were on display.
   
   She's a piece of work.
   
   
4. I've yet to see a District Attorney as corrupt as this Paul Howard Jr. guy. Apparently, it is ok to charge someone without an investigation if it distracts from your own investigation of your criminal activities. The grand jury is actually necessary to charge and indict these police officers and because of the Covid-19 pandemic they don't even meet again until October, but he is going ahead anyway.
   
   What's his face going to look like if they refuse to indict? He has bypassed every normal pathway to prosecution in his rush to judgment, they say a D.A. could get a Grand Jury to indict a Ham sandwich if he so desired, but I would love to see this guy lose in every way possible. It is just so much bogus bullshit.
   
   
5. US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts appears to be the new swing vote on the Supreme Court after the court has handed Trump two losses in a row on LGBTQ and DACA.
   
   It couldn't happen at a better time.
   
   BigMike

No plan survives first contact

Sunday morning 06/07/2020 at about 8:00 a.m. in the early morning

Goot Hagen-Dazz tuba yuba my dahlings,
I'm not Groot, and neither are you. Let's have a dance-off anyway you bunch of turdballs.

First I want to make an observation about my decision to allow others to protest without me.
As I think about the events of the last week or two I was struck by a realization yesterday evening. I'm reading the events of the day and watching videos and the like, paying attention to the world around me, & I have come to realize I really don't have anything of any real substance to add to the conversation that others are not already saying with more eloquence than I. It seems to me that there are already a lot of voices in the maelstrom of noise being created by the alleged pro and anti forces,  of which all are compelling and competing for the same real estate in the public mind. As I analyzed my intent and my proposed content I realized my perceived context would be overwhelmed by the forces at play and it is a fairly pointless proposition to add to the din just and solely for the purpose of saying you have added to the content.

I am sort of thinking it would be like adding defined mass to a black hole, with the only purpose being able to say it is there and pointing out that it existed, however at the end of the day, I'm not sure it mattered all that much to have done it. I saw a very white red-haired female protester carrying a sign that said that "Silence is Violence". After thinking carefully about it, I really couldn't disagree more. Not only could I think of a couple of reason why silence is golden, I just don't see how my silence matters, If I cannot walk to participate, if I don't have the audience for my writings or videos and if the folks who know me best already understand my point of view better than I do. I really do not understand how it matters if I observe from the sidelines, which is where my capabilities lie.

Now, On with the show:

I understand why you always see these elaborate contraptions and inventions for sale that purport to be able to exclude squirrels from your bird feeders and the like. There are these youtube videos that show you these devices that are supposed to allow you to defeat the squirrels and still be able to feed the birds successfully, and they literally number in the low hundreds. These elaborate contraptions exist that look like something out of a DARPA challenge or were ones invented by Rube Goldberg because there are so many steps created in allowing you to defeat the crafty little varmints. They are everything from electrified traps, to ones that are sprung by weight to ones that use stupefying amounts of deception and grease that are all designed around keeping the birds fed and the squirrels hungry. See I don't really understand the nature of the fight.

People that go to that extreme are really just enjoying the battle and the conflict and the war of wits. I don't think they really give two rapid-fire shits whether a squirrel eats something or a bird does. I think if they knew the entire cast of characters they are supporting with a bird feeder or two then they would probably see it differently. Anyway, I did.

There is an ecosystem (Gack! did I just say that?)  in the zone where birds and squirrels feed, live, and play. If there is room to roam or is a safe highway of sorts to allow it, you could see large animals around bird feeders like deer and coyotes and the like. If yours is a backyard feeder(s), then you are probably not seeing those bigger animals, however, I'll bet if you look hard enough you will find mice, rats, rabbits, snakes, moles, ants, bats, beetles and much more. It's always about more than just squirrels and birds. I decided very early on after watching my experimental habitat (Gack! There I go again!) and noting the diversity that I was not going to fight with the little boogers. It just seemed pointless and it meant to me that I was missing the larger picture anyhow. There were a lot of mouths to feed.

So I decided to not fight with them but didn't understand at the time what that meant in terms of the amount of feed needed or the frequency. My Gawd! Those little turds eat more than my grandkids do! I have 12 suet feeders and two seed stations. 3 or 4 days and all the food is gone and the ground is cleaner than the way the table looks after a Jordan family thanksgiving. The Tasmanian devil from the old bugs bunny cartoons doesn't consume food this fast! I don't try to keep up though. I'm sure they have a route of people they clean out because I refill everything about once a week and they don't come immediately back, it takes a day or so for them to notice there is food again, and then the rodent buzzsaws come in and clean everything up. In the meantime, the birds sorta bide their time, and guess what they do? They wait until I cut my acre and a half of grass and then they descend upon my yard like it was a Golden Corral after Sunday services. I've noticed a lot fewer bugs especially ants since I started feeding the birds. I am pretty sure I set something in motion because I see bats here looking for mosquitos too. That's on the list of projects now, I'm building bat houses to house the bats so they will have a home to go to roost at after they have ate their weight in mosquitos. I like being sneaky.

So anyway, the more squirrels the better I say. If there are squirrels then they make a mess of the birdseed feeders and then there are more rabbits digging around foraging for food. More rabbits are more rabbit poop in the forest and grass which is free fertilizer for the grass and the trees. More birds are fewer ants and beetles and grasshoppers and fewer pesticides. They are the natural predators in this process and that also draws the hawks to this area and sometimes the buzzards, so I don't smell animal decomposition either. I achieve the same or better results at keeping the fire ants under control because some of these birds love them little boogers too. Ever since I started this little project of feeding birds and providing birdhouses for a few of them, I've seen a dramatic decrease in the annoying bugs. It seems like the key to all of this is to feed everything and let them sort out where the rest of their diet comes from, Also, you should hear hundreds of birds singing at once in the mornings. It's sorta amazing!

I still don't know most birds from one another, however.

1. Conor McGregor the UFC MMA fighter has said he is retiring from fighting again for about the 3rd time. Probably will last about as long as it takes for somebody to offer him a zillion dollars to fight somebody else for a pile of cash. Maybe him and Tyson. Who knows?
   
   
2. Idiots everywhere are calling for politicians to defund the police. And you know political types, they will jump right on that bandwagon as long as the mud stays off their face and they can get votes with it. What they are proposing is some sort of reassignment of traditional police functions (??), which makes very little sense to me anyway, because if you ask most cops which call can they most reliably predict will be the ones where they will not be needed and they will look at you like you are stupid if you say domestic arguments or people threatening suicide.
   
   For one, Domestic violence calls almost always result in arrests because of the actions that were taken that led to the 911 call being made in the first place. Secondly, suicide calls are about 50-50 people that want cops to kill them. so how is an EMT helping that situation? I know I am short-sighted and I'm supposed to believe that you can tell the future. These people think things exist in a vacuum and they believe that you can predefine how to deliver a situational based service by using an algorithm that will tell a dispatcher what service to send before anyone is on the scene giving an assessment of the situation.
   
   The only device that can do that with any kind of reliability is this thing called a "shot spotter" which tells the police where the shots came from and how many shots were fired. That basically tells them whether to send one car or a swat TEAM. These people are in for a rude awakening when they start singing "Kumbaya" and trying to hold hands and run sports clinics in the hood, especially if their activities run afoul of the gangs or the cartels while they are trying to sell their merchandise for money. Let me know how that goes, OK? I for one, am not living in, visiting, or passing through an area that doesn't have a police department and anyone who does is stupid.
   
   
3. Active-duty troops have been recalled from Washington DC by the Pentagon.
   
   
4. The USMC has banned the Confederate battle flag and all representations of it from all active-duty workplaces and they have banned it in every form, be it a bumper sticker, a shirt, or on a coffee cup or whatever else. They said it is a distraction and it affects unit cohesion and a bunch of other stuff.
   
   If you're a Marine, you can still possess it, you cannot display it in any form whatsoever while on duty or in any public area. Basically, you can keep it in your quarters, however it should probably stay in a closet.
   
   
5. A twitter account that repeats and tweets out exactly word for word what DJT and POTUS tweets has just been suspended for one day for "GlorifyingViolence". The DJT and POTUS twitter accounts are not suspended at this time. They do however have disclaimers on them, however. Goose and Gander have separate rules it seems.
   
   
   What a glorious world we live in. Still better than DPRK though, amiright?
   BigMike

and Now a reminder from IKEA

Tuesday, May 12, 2020 at almost 10:00 a.m. Can you believe it?

Hey there Sports fans Bob Euchre here with all the latest news that's fit to um, yeah,

Today is one of the good days to talk about. It's a rare day that only happens every so often and it only happens when you can afford it. I am of course talking about New Mattress day! Yay!! We have a King Sized bed and the mattress needed to be replaced about 5 years ago, my back hurts just thinking about it. we finally got our new mattress delivered and maybe I will be able to sleep tonight. I have to get the old one to the dump but what a problem to have amiright folks? Combine new mattress day with new sheet day and it will feel like I am in a Hotel room on a luxurious new bed!

I read where the National Guard is being sent into nursing and long term care facilities in Pennslyvania and other states to help to get COVID-19 infections under control. I think that is a good thing as they have specialized units that can teach infection control and they can afford to throw increasing amounts of manpower at the problem until the mission is achieved and they definitely need help. In some areas the infections and deaths in those areas are the majority of new cases and some facilities have just been decimated from infections leading to deaths in their older more fragile patients. Supposedly they are there to train the staff, test everybody on-site to find out who is infected and take appropriate action and help scrub the facilities clean and eliminate the virus from them. We shall see.

I met both of my wives at work, we all worked at the same restaurant in the same era, when we were all teenagers. One didn't turn out so well, but the other has seemed to be what I needed because it helped me to get my head on straight and to be a better husband. I don't know how it could have happened today with the way restaurants are run. There are about 1/3 to 1/2  of the staff that we used to be and with face masks and social distancing and contactless deliveries, when would I have found time to sexually harass either one of them in the walk-in cooler or in front of the ice machine?

One thing is for sure, with the way they have cut expenses I wouldn't have had the luxury of a clean linen towel to wrap around her wrist and say "with this towel, I thee marry", and then plant the shocker kiss on her and walk away. That's another story though.

Stuff that's making the news today. 

1. Tesla and Elon Musk is defying an Alameda County Health department order to stay closed and have opened the Tesla Freemont California car production facility in a show of defiance. Over the past few weeks he has been highly critical of the order and has even threatened to move his HQ and facility somewhere else in response to it. This morning the parking lot is packed full, and Mr. Musk has said "I will work on the production line if I have to in order to start making cars again." In effect he is daring them to shut him down and arrest him for opening the plant.
   
   Your move Alameda county.
   
   
2. In a shocker of a personal news story, the rumors are absolutely true. I have paid for and expect to start receiving twice a week deliveries from my local newspaper again. I had stopped the delivery because it was more than half full of ads and coupons and such and never really had any stories in it beyond marriages, deaths, and arrests.
   
   So I am old school and used to go and get the weekly Sunday paper that came from the Chattanooga Times Free Press out of Chattanooga TN about 55 miles away. Ever since the pandemic hit though, they have stopped supplying area stores with the paper. The same thing happened a few years ago with the Atlanta paper which is why I had to switch to the Free Press. All of my relatives and acquaintances just shake there heads at me at the wonderment at someone who still actually reads the paper.
   
   See, here's the thing. If you don't pay for journalism and you think it should all be free on the internet, pretty soon (if it isn't already there) there won't be reporters reporting on much of anything. If you think that's a good idea possibly you need a subscription to Pravda.
   
   
3. I read this morning that Steak `n Shake, my old employer has permanently closed another 51 locations, and supposedly temporarily closed another 62 more. I don't think they are long for the world as the current owner is seemingly intent on redefining the brand and reshaping it to be something it was never meant to be. Sadly it is my opinion that they will be gone from the landscape in two years or so. What a shame.
   
   
4. NOVA replayed recently the story about what has happened in Flint MI to their water supply. I am in shock that this is still a story all these years later. Hey Bill Gates!! Hey Warren Buffet!! Hey Mark Cuban!! Hey Matt Damon!! Hey all the rest of you rich bastards, you need a project to feel good about, where you help people in the third world to have safe and clean water?
   
   How about a little more directed effort in America you clueless bunch of sphincters?
   
   
5. IKEA recently has had to post gentle reminders in their stores for customers that
   It is not appropriate to "pleasure oneself on the furniture or in public in their stores even if acting in a porn production", such as one Chinese woman did and whose antics were captured not only on her cameraman's' video but on the in-store security cameras.
   
   This happened allegedly at one of their stores in China but their attorneys said they do not want the reputation as a "place where you could film these kinds of things."
   
   I knew they sold meatballs.
   I didn't know they offered popcorn too!
   Later taters,
   
   BigMike

Screw California Elon

Monday, May 11th, 2020 at about 6:00 a.m. in the morning

Howdy fellow who-mans,

One of the things I remember the strongest about being a kid was the experience we all had living as military dependents, as we were called. The military likes to classify things and there were service members and dependents. I remember a couple of times when the line got a little blurry, but it was always easy to snap back to reality.

When I was about 15 or so, after my Dad had retired from the service, I somehow had gotten some sort of infection. I also had a couple of other symptoms. I had a hard time staying upright and was wobbling when I walked as well as having a nasty bad cough that went really deep. I worked very part-time in a gas station pumping gas and they thought it had something to do with where I worked.  I was covered by my Dad's retirement dependent insurance so we got our care at military facilities and they hospitalized me in the Army hospital at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Lawrence Indiana.

It turned out it wasn't really bad. They were unsure whether I had a cold or if I had a neurological problem of some sort because of the wobbling I couldn't control. One of the diagnostic tests they ran was to do a couple of spinal taps over three days. That was actually pretty scary but I calmed myself by staring right at the nurse's boobs that were stuck right in my face while she held me in place. She was holding my head in place and had my left arm stuck between her knees for some reason. I was 15 so guess where my brain was and take a wild guess what was going on in the rest of my body at the time. They were being serious, however, I'll bet my heart rate and blood pressure were off the charts.

It turns out they found an infection of some kind in my cerebrospinal fluid. They thought I had spinal meningitis for a short time but it turned out it was due to something else, I don't actually remember what. I remember I slept for 48 straight hours and didn't know had somehow I lost an entire day. That's all I remember about that time other than a funny story about what exact same TV program was on TV as when I closed my eyes and when I opened them. I also didn't understand how my brother had magically changed the clothes he was wearing in the blink of an eye. It was weird. Your brain can do some really wild stuff when you ain't actually in control.

The line between being a service member and dependent got a little blurry one morning after I woke up. This doctor I had never seen before came in and basically started yelling at me about the condition of my room, the bed is unmade and the trash and dishes lying around and whatnot. The room was pretty much trashed and I didn't care one way or the other. I had just gotten a haircut before I went in because I wanted to join the Civil Air Patrol and one of the regulations was you had to have regulation hair. The doctor assumed I was in the military because of my hair I suppose. He was yelling at me because of their room regulations. They believed that unless you were next to dead or in a coma, you had to be up by a certain time, had to have your bed and area cleaned up, and had to be ready for a room inspection by 7 a.m. He got really pissed off and liked to had an apoplectic fit when he asked me if I thought this was a country club? and wanted to know who my company commander was so he could put me on the report (for my behavior I suppose).

He didn't like my answer.

I told him my mother was probably my company commander and she was definitely going to be pissed off at him for yelling at me. I laughed at him fairly rudely and called him "dude"  and his face got so red that he had a vein popping out on his forehead. I couldn't resist it so I dug in a little further. I told him I was curious and I asked him if he ever had his ass chewed out by a career retired Staff Seargent? I told him that much more of this yelling nonsense from him and my Dad would probably want to punch him in his Officer's nose. I said it all real calm and cool because, at the time, I loved to tweak authority as much as I could get away with. His reaction was the funniest thing I think had ever seen up to this point.  He seemed to recover a tiny bit and said something like "You're a dependent and not in the military?"

I wish I would have had a mirror and Video recorders were invented because I know I was smiling big enough to be the poster child for cheesiest kid smile ever by an Eddie Haskell imitator. It was great. I was on fire and he was some seriously pissed off Major doctor dude.

He looked stunned, spun on his heel, and left the room. I never saw that guy again, although I did see a nurse right after that and she was giggling and laughing for about 15 minutes, I remember it took about that long for her to settle down and she had to sit down for a couple of minutes in the chair in the room. The only thing she said or did was give me a high five and said "Good One", and left the room after she got her composure back. It was probably one of my better and funnier days. Even my normally taciturn Dad thought this story was funny and laughed a bit. My Mom thought I was a tad disrespectful but she laughed a little bit too.

The other memory that sticks out concerning that time in my life is that I was a clutz. While my Dad was still in the service, every so often he had to go to work in his dress blues, which was the formal uniform they were required to wear on occasion. Gleaming Dress shoes, jacket, tie, and the whole bit was required. You did not want to be the kid that scuffed the shine on Dad's dress blue shoes he was wearing on inspection day. My word, now THAT was an ass-whupping!!

Everything you always wanted to know about crap I absolutely hate

1. I have a question, to begin with. Can Oprah "her face is on everything" Winfrey just go ahead and retire and go away already? Man, I am so sick of seeing her mug every time I turn on the TV, every time I go shopping, every time I look at the menu for TV programs. There she is on the cover of every single month of her magazine named..,, you guessed it "Oprah". She has her own "OWN network", she owns enough of weight watchers that she is in every one of their commercials and it goes on and nauseatingly on. The whole schtick she does that she knows what is good for you to watch, to eat, to drive, to read gets on my last nerve. It makes me want to yell at the TV screen and tell her to STFU already. Too Much?
   
   
2. It seems like after every story I read anymore I see the same targeted ads. The one that I see first all the time is the one that says something like "Let us show you how to EMPTY your bowels", according to top doctors. Its always got the picture of the bananas floating in the water and says click here to find out more. Do we really need help with this? Does anybody click this crap?
   
   
3. I refuse to believe there is anyone on the planet who hates Phil Swift and his Flex seal brand of goopy leak fixing the leaky shit line of products more than I do. Can't be. I devote considerable energy to hating this guy. To no avail I understand, but man!
   
   
4. Nurses. They are treated like crap by everybody from administrators and their supervisors to Doctors, to Patients and their families, and everybody else. The level of disrespect they are accorded pisses me off. Every idiot who doesn't understand how vital they are has the same stupid comeback, "Well that's what they signed up for", "They knew it when they started" or another clueless comment about what role they play in our society.
   
   Doctors who think they are god yell at them, administrators lie to them and play games with their health and their pay to suit the needs of the corporations, patients and their families think they are their personal servers to order back and forth like they demeaning a server in a restaurant for fun, and their supervisors just think of them as pawns to move around at will, without regard to their personal safety or well being. It sickens me that all these same groups want to call them heroes so when they have to sacrifice them later they can call them martyrs to the great and noble cause, when these people are the same ones that cut staffing so bad they can't care for your grandmother properly.
   
   Over 10,000 nurses have tested positive for COVID-19 according to surveys done in February through April of this year. Actual cases are probably higher because only about 45% of ICU and ER nurses were surveyed. At least 79 of them have died caring for patients, usually, it is patients who didn't know had the disease because they had NOT BEEN TESTED.
   
   Let me just be clear. They are not your sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered on your altar of political expediency, they are not soldiers in the fight here because you at least give soldiers weapons not locked rooms full of face masks they have to use for a week.
   
   
5. Elon Musk says he is going to move from California because he is mad at some health official who will not let him reopen his manufacturing plant. I think he can do whatever he wants, it doesn't matter to me.
   
   Here's what I have to say about the broader subject though. I do not understand why anyone would want to start or operate a business in California in the first place. They have the most onerous business regulation environment, their laws are famously anti-business and anti-competitive. The environment to do business there is over-regulated, the 9th circuit court of appeals is one of the most liberal anti-business courts ever, Taxes there are OUTRAGEOUS and it is the hardest place in the US to make money.
   
   I saw screw California Elon, go ahead and move,
   
   BigMike 

You heard me, she said

Its Mother's day on May 10th, 2020 at 7:30 a.m. I slept in today !!

Good Morning and Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers out there in the blogosphere,

This morning I read that J.C. Penney, the retailer has filed for bankruptcy. I knew this was coming however I am a little bit surprised it came so quickly because I was sure they would have to wait to have a clearance sale first to raise cash. According to all reports I read, they did not have the cash on hand that it takes to file because (surprise of all surprises), attorneys and courts don't let you file on the promise that you will pay them later. I wonder why that is?

Little Richard died yesterday. I think they said he was 87 years old. No more tutti-fruity, unless you want to hear it with John Wayne and maybe Johnny Cash in the audience.

Yay!! No More Booger McFarland on Monday Night Football. If we ever get to see football ever again, at least we won't have to see his mangled fingers anymore ( Pics of Boogers fingers) or listen to his insane commentary.

You know how you sometimes are not sure if you learned the lessons that your mother was trying to teach you all those years ago? I have a way that works for me, maybe it will work for you too. First a tiny back story. There is a restaurant in Indiana, I think it is called (or was?)  Gray Brother cafeteria. Its been a while since I ate there so I'm a little bit shady on the facts, however I'm pretty sure it is in Mooresville IN. ( Gray Brothers Cafeteria ) Anyway, I took the kids, my wife and I, and my mother to this restaurant one time for Sunday afternoon Lunch/Dinner.

We were all sitting at a big round table, my mother was on my left-hand side (and she was right-handed), having a fabulous meal and everybody was talking and having a blast, it was one hell of a good time, just sitting around telling jokes, making everybody laugh until suddenly out of the blue my head was ringing, my eyes were unfocused and I had a concussion I think,  tweety bird was flying and man, I was seeing stars just like in the Bugs Bunny cartoon! The next thing I hear is my mother sitting next to me saying "Don't ever let me hear you call your children stupid again." Apparently while joking I had told my son Michael that he was stupid although because of the concussion, I do not remember saying it, and the next thing I know I'm mumbling "Put me in coach, I can play."

The kids and my wife had that home alone look on their faces and my son Michael Jr. was laughing so hard he was spitting soda out of his nose. If you were not me, I am sure it was quite a funny scene. However, I was me and I actually didn't remember what I had so eloquently said and I said to my mother"What was that for? I didn't do nothin", in my best-aggrieved voice. Well that set off a new round of laughter. Apparently, there was something in what I had just said that was quite the funny statement, because not only were the children and my wife laughing but so was the server and the folks at the next table were too.

She just said all serious and Samuel L. Jackson like "You heard me."

Now, whenever I either am getting ready to do something that is probably not such a good idea or I am getting ready to say something that is the wrong thing to say, I look over my shoulder to see if she is standing there because (Did I tell you she played baseball?) It would be just like her to appear long enough to whack me upside the head for doing something stupid or for what I am just getting ready to say. Not only that but to this day I can hear her voice saying "You heard what I said." So if you ever want to know if you had any teaching in you that was instilled by your Mother, just close your eyes, say something stupid in your head, and see if she isn't right there, telling you to knock off your silly shit. That's how you know. I hear her all the time. She's always trying to guide me right and kill my buzz. Damn. I hear Dad too but his stuff is completely different.

Extra Extra Read all about it !!

1. There is one big reason the economy can't really reopen fully right now. There is not enough testing going on and I don't understand why not. How can you contain and understand where this SOB is in terms of its strength or direction unless you test enough to understand the direction? How can you contain it if you don't know where it is in the first place?
   
   The state of  (I think) Idaho or maybe Nebraska has proudly proclaimed that they "Have zero cases of the virus identified" in their prison system for example. They didn't bother to also say however that they have not tested a single prisoner or staff member.
   
   Since February 2020 before this disease even had a name and before the conspiracy nuts opened the flood gates on all the (curse word redacted) theories about where it came from, why it was unleashed, whether or not it is a hoax, almost 70,000 people have died from this monster. Unemployment is more than was seen at the peak of the Great Depression and our economy is in shambles. Only about 1/2 of Adult Americans who want jobs have them. To fix the economy we have to fix the Public Health Crisis. People are just afraid to leave the house. Surveys indicate that even if your state doesn't have a shelter in place order, the reason people are not going out is FEAR of becoming infected. Without testing (a lot more), to find out where the infections are and isolate those who are transmitting the disease to have a chance at containing this mess, we have a huge problem. What problem you say?
   
   Well, there is no national policy to increase testing or to coordinate a national response at all.
   I cannot for the life of me understand why or why not. It makes no sense.
   
   
2. A polar vortex is bringing snow to the eastern US this weekend in my opinion because chaos loves the company. That's gotta be what it is.
   
   
3. I'm sorry if you like it but is there a worse piece of crap on TV right now than this 90-day fiancee junk? My God! How can you watch this drivel and why on gods earth would you want to? There has to be something more productive to do with your time.
   
   
4. A 12-year-old boy/child has invented, made, 3D printed, and is selling online his solution to touching surfaces that may be infected with the COVID-19 virus. It's reportedly got a hook on it for opening doors and some sort of jabber for keying in ATM-like keys among other things. So far he has sold about 300 of them at $14.99 a pop.
   
   I think at 12 I was looking at my male junk in a mirror and trying to count the newly formed hairs so I could tell my buddies I was a man. We had a theory you weren't a man until you had over 50 pubic hairs. That was very heady important stuff back then because you couldn't hide it in gym class, everybody had to shower.
   
   He is inventing stuff, we counted pubes. Not the same planet I don't think.
   
   
5. The White House is infected. Mike Pence's press secretary and one of President Trump's personal Valets have tested positive for the virus. Apparently Mr. T-rump thinks he can distance himself from a pathogen by saying he didn't really know the man.
   
   
   Sometimes I just cannot help myself.
   Those pesky facts just keep getting all twisted up in me.
   
   BigMike

Tales from the dark underbelly

05/09/2020 at about oh I don't know 5:00 o'clock in the a.m.

More tales from the dark underbelly of old age,

When I was a kid living on a military base several things were pretty apparent to you very quickly. One was if you wanted to stay entertained and not stay constantly in trouble, you had to get out of the house. Two was you lived on a military base, your father was in the military, there was no extra money for you to fritter away buying cokes and candy and junk with. And three if you wanted to keep whatever money you had, well, you better learn to fight and defend yourself because the other kids on the base learned the same lesson pretty quick. These lessons applied in civilian life too although to varying degrees, but they were the same lessons.

If you put the desire to get out of the house and coupled it with the desire to have money it wasn't long before I was looking for money-making schemes that would allow me to live the luxurious lifestyle that I wanted to be accustomed to. I liked candy and sodas and they both cost money. Money wasn't given away for doing nothing and the parental units tended to get pissed off if it disappeared due to a little in-home five-finger discounting. I figured out pretty quick that I was gonna get blamed because;

A) My little brother couldn't even really talk yet why the hell did he need money? and
B) My older brother was 5 years older than me with a wicked fast left hand and if I got his ass in trouble that shit was gonna hurt. He didn't screw around if you got him in trouble with your bullshit.

I knew that from experience. Some lessons you only have to tell me once. He got really pissed off at me once (I deserved it) later in life and smacked me upside the head with that sneaky assed left hand open-faced and I swear to god I never even saw it move. I just remember the pain. Killed my buzz that's for sure. That's another story but I think that was the point. He beat my ass so my Dad wouldn't kill me. Thankx Man.

Anyway I became the industrious ten-year-old tycoon earning sometimes as much as $80-$100 or so dollars a month depending upon the time of year and what reason I could come up with for smooth-talking people out of the money they had just waiting for me that was in their purses and wallets. It turned out that no one on a base had a lot of money but everybody had .50 cents or a $1 they could spare. Also the men wouldn't pay you squat, but the Moms? Well nobody could resist my cute little smile. I also noticed everyone hated to edge their lawns. It was a military requirement that all lawns had to be edged properly to allow for drainage. People were willing to pay me to edge their lawns and I had figured out that if I edged your lawn and noticed one little extra I could do and tell you when I was done that I picked up all the cigarette butts too for example, Not only would I get the $1, but usually another 10-25 cents too. In 1967 or so at ten years old, this was BIG MONEY. You only had to do four or five customers a day two or three days a week and pretty soon you had a clientele and a fairly steady income. Some months were better than others and I never saved a dime, but I went to the movies, played pinball and pool, paid for my own haircuts after a while, and fished, and bought tackle and never needed the money from Mom or Dad to do it. Kids today talk about being bored and being broke, I just laugh at them, the lazy little shits.

That went on, the earning money doing odd little jobs, the fighting to keep it out of the clutches of the neighborhood kids until we moved to Indiana. During that whole time I learned a couple of valuable lessons too. Things like Yes it hurts to get punched in the face and Yes sometimes you bled a little bit if you chose to fight. You get over the pain and I found out it's not really that bad anyway. You can put up with it even if you get kicked in you know where's or hit in the nose. Your opponent is waiting on you to give up, and when you laughed and spit blood on them and fight back usually they have already used their signature move. Nothing is more fun than punching a bully in the nose and watching him cry.

I also found out that you didn't really have to go very far from home to make money. One thing I did for money was stand in front of the base exchange and sell GRIT newspapers. They would sell you 20 newspapers and you got to keep a nickel from every sale. Every paper was a quarter and I could sell 100 papers every month without really trying hard. That went on for a while until I got tired of lugging them around and by then I had a racket going everywhere I went for some reason or another. The other thing you always had to do was hide your money from your family. Those assholes always wanted to "borrow" it and then they never paid you back. I remember I paid my own entry fee for Little league every year, I paid the entry fee for being in the JRCA (Junior Rodeo Cowboys of America) where I learned to shovel horse manure, I paid for my own Civil Air Patrol stuff, paid for my own socks and added some money for the shoes so I had a tiny say in what kind I got, I always sold extra pens, pencils, and candy at school.

I tried a little bit of everything but also learned to be a master of the cost-benefit analysis before computers and before Excel, when looking at a new racket. If it carried too much potential for getting in trouble, then no way Jose`, I ain't doing that because then they want to take the stuff, the money, and the scheme. I got away with it at school by giving people pens and pencils when they needed it, usually in front of teachers so they could see me being this cute kind little kid and then all the other people I sold it too. Its how I figured out that there might be a ton of money in illegal shit, but there was way too much risk and it put everything else in jeopardy too.

It's why I never sold liquor, drugs, beer or cigarettes, or anything else like that. You only have to see one 14 or 15-year-old idiot searched and arrested for selling weed or pills and you figured out that somebody will always tell on you. There is no such thing as a secret at 14 years old. You scare me enough and I'm spilling my guts to you. So I learned the safe rackets to be in. When I got searched I never gave up anything but candy. "OK you can go Michael" they would say - hee hee I know thankx I would think in reply. It sounds sorta evil when you put it on paper doesn't it?

I just knew my parents didn't have any money or didn't have the amount of money I wanted and I was too young to get a job and I either had to figure it out or do without. I couldn't have a Reeses' cup? No way. I shoveled snow even though I detested it (I hated and still hate everything to do with snow -YUK), I edged and mowed lawns, I washed cars, I babysat, I took out the trash in several homes (but couldn't be bothered to do it for free at home), I pulled weeds, I picked up cigarettes, I sold GRIT, I sold candy door to door, I sold stuff at school and probably a bunch of other stuff I noticed at the time but have forgotten now.

I would tell the mom that the money was for whatever sounded good at the moment and wasn't too big of a lie. Usually telling the truth was a better option but maybe sometimes you had to embellish a tiny bit to get what you wanted. I have always been a good storyteller. If you needed a cute little kid to help you with your chores, I would smile and say "Yes Ma'am". Mom's big rule was if I was going to be inside somebody's house I had to be neat, clean, and nice and I had to make sure she knew where I was.

You would be surprised how many 30-35-year-old women want a nice kid around that they can pay to do stuff for them.

Later in life at 18 or so (yeah 18 that's how old I was !! and I'm sticking to it), I found out that 35-year-old women wanted a nice older kid around to do lots of other physical stuff for them if you know what I mean.

Those were the years !

No top five today, just dusty memories,

BigMike

It's not the heat its the humidity

05/08/2020 at around 05:00  a.m., Or as I like to call it, the time of the pre-rooster.

Welcome back to exploring my faulty memory with BigMike, I'm your host, BigMike,

Let us begin shall we?

During just the time I went to school, in those formative 12 years or so we lived in several different climates. We Lived in the Pacific Northwest in the State of Washington at McChord Air Force base (Now joint base Lewis-McChord), In the midwest in the state of Indiana in Indianapolis and in the wild wild west in the state of Montana in Great Falls on the airbase called Malmstrom Air Force Base, we also moved back to Indiana when my Dad got shipped off toTerrejon Spain for a couple of years but the climate is the climate even if separated by a few years in between.

As an adult, I lived in Indiana, Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia and settled in Georgia. I drove a truck for a few years in between and experienced everything from the heat of Arizona (It's not the heat, its the humidity) to the cold of the Continental Divide. I have to say, my favorite was anything above 65* on a normal basis.

In the Pacific Northwest in Washington state, it rained. A lot. I mean I think it rained every day. At least it felt like it did although realistically I know it couldn't have rained every day. The thing I remember the most is all the adults always fiddling with umbrellas and windshields and windshield wipers. It seemed like one of the most important things that people did was check their wiper fluid levels when they got gas. Nothing worse than trying to see out of a muddy window with bad blades and no fluid.

In Indiana the problems were almost always centered around how cold it was. It would snow alright and then because the weather gods would want to screw with everyone, it would thaw a little bit and the BLAM freeze solid overnight. This would create frozen streets, sidewalks, and roads. It would mean everything was so damn slippery you couldn't make it to the car without busting your ass a couple of times, and everywhere you looked all the surfaces were covered with a thin sheet of ice. Icicles on the houses waiting to stab you in the eye, the locks on the doors of your cars were frozen shut because who could afford a garage right? and more importantly, you usually had to follow behind the snowplow to get to work and guess what he was doing? That's right spraying road salt out the back of the truck destroying your car in the process. It was great, why would anyone ever want to leave that crap? I just don't know. I absolutely hated shoveling snow.

In Montana the main issues were a lot like Indiana with two notable exceptions. One (1) It was colder than crap in the winter and when it snowed and it was usually well below zero a lot of the time, so the snow wasn't this wet heavy sticky messy snow like we got in Indiana, no sir, we had our own special snow. Our Montana snow was light and fluffy most of the time and there was usually a foot or two or three of it coming down coupled with well with a lot of below zero temperatures. That was awesome because (2) The wind. When you combined the three-foot snowfall of the light fluffy friendly snow with the horror film temperatures and your friend the wind guess what you get when this is all added together? You get mountains of drifting snow. Virtual 10-15 foot high mountains of snow. Do you think we got excused from school and took a snow day off though? This is my version of the walking backward through 6 feet of snow uphill both ways story.

Oh and my name wasn't Ferris Bueller, so we had to sit on that damn school bus after standing out in the colder than humans should be able to live in the wind and grind our way to school. I remember first hearing the term wind chill during this time. It would be 20 below zero and the wind chill would make it feel like it was -99* below zero. You had to plug in your car water and battery heaters every night if you thought you were going to have a prayer of your car starting the next morning. Almost every parking lot had power outlets in the parking spaces for plugging in.

The mind can't comprehend this crap in the 6th grade and never having the first cup of coffee yet. We would go 10 miles per hour and be lined up behind a piece of Earthmoving equipment called a road grader which would plow the mountains of snow out of the way so the bus could make its way through. Some times if it was bad enough, the snowplows would fall behind the grader and finish topping off the roads so that travel was safe enough for us to make it to school. Those sonsabitches. We never got a snow day unless the snow turned to ice.

As an adult when we first moved to Georgia from Tennessee, the very first thing I did when the moving truck showed up was throw away my snow shovel and stopped using the terms blizzard, wind chill, and below zero. I am so over that crap.

Ideas that are different and mutually exclusive

1. Plenty of people are weird and depending upon your perspective, it might include you, who knows? It seems like the rich are just getting weirder by the day though. Maybe it because of their higher visibility I don't know but strange things keep popping up. I generally love all things Elon Musk however this time he gets on the weird list with help from his girlfriend "Grimes" (a singer, never heard of her?). They named their baby a word that embodies characters that you have to have special instructions on how to type them, as it is not part of the 26 letter alphabet. I don't exactly know how to describe it except to say part of it looks like scientific notation.
   
   Elon Musk is a nerd. He must know this, as he is just about the smartest person around. Did he forget what it was like to be a smart kid? Does he want his kid to get his ass beat every day just because he has a weird name? Kids are cruel and they will make fun of him just because his old man is a nerd, do they really want the burden of that name to carried with him too? I mean they better have an alternative like maybe "Gary" or this kid is gonna have a weird name and two permanent black eyes every day until 10th grade.
   
   
2. They are making a prequel Sopranos movie which is going to explore the character's lives before the TV series. It sounds cool and is supposed to be ready in March of 2021. The cool part is who they have cast to play young Tony. He is being played by none other than Michael Gandolfini, who is the late great James Gandolfini's son. I understand Ray Liotta has a role as well. I can't wait to see this, It is coming out on HBO, and that may make me want to get that channel again.
   
   
3. The CDC has been effectively sidelined from making any suggestions, briefings recommendations advice that pertains to the coronavirus outbreak in any way. I mean why would you want the Centers for Disease Control talking about diseases?
   
   How stupid is that?
   
   
4. This week and the weekend it is going to snow in New England and the NE USA. They are calling it historic not only because of it being the month of May but because some places could see as much as maybe 8-12 inches of new snow. Oh and it's going to reach record low temperatures, with maybe 40 mph wind gusts for 12 hours or more, and is going to affect about 75 million people. Tell me you are not staying at home in New York huh?
   
   
5. They have arrested a suspect in a 29-year-old serial murder cold case based on a hit from a long-ago collected DNA sample. A guy named Clark Perry Baldwin, 59 Y/O was arrested and charged with 2 counts of murder in one case because his victim was 24 weeks pregnant at the time. He has also been charged in Wyoming.
   
   
   Gotta love DNA testing. Now if they could just see the way clear to testing those 200-400 hundred thousand untested rape kits that are sitting around everywhere in police departments.
   
   End the rape kit backlog - click the link to read more
   BigMike