Briefly...

Cold rain may be the most miserable weather of all. It's neither destructive nor does it have that spring-rain musk smell that makes you think of summers to come. It's not a summer storm that gives way to a cool, deck-sitting evening. It's cold rain, that soaks you to your skin, lays your hair in your face, and makes your fingers and toes numb. It's mocking misery on top of everything else.

That rain is falling here and didn't help to knock down the flames of a house fire in an old, poor neighborhood in the town where I live. It fell on firefighters, police officers, the media, and the family members of the two elderly people who died inside.

I was just getting over the familiar sound of a family member who just learned the news. It sounds like the squeal of tires, a hastily opened car door, a halting scream, then sickening silence. I was just getting over that sound when I saw a woman in a hooded sweatshirt walking up the middle of the road. She had no umbrella and she was holding herself like a three-year old might.

"He was my uncle," she said to me, unsolicited. That's usually the signal to a media guy like myself that an interview is a possibility. I waited and held my umbrella over her head. "He was old, he had diabetes. He lost his legs. My momma--his sister--doesn't know yet," she said.

Just then Momma rolled up in a car. She had on a sweatshirt with no hood. She pulled it up over her head. She looked confused and about 76. Her son was holding onto her arm. He gave me a wary look that said "fucking vulture" but said nothing. He looked at the burned house and dropped his head.

At that point I had two choices: Ask for an interview or walk away. I chose neither.

I held my umbrella over the old lady's head while she looked at the house. She didn't seem to get it. What her two adult children understood, the old lady did not. She stood there for five minutes, not saying much. I held the umbrella. Eventually she turned around and started walking back to the car. Her son looked at me, mouthed the words "thank you," and walked his mother back to where it was dry.

Life is full of choices. Sometimes it feels good to create a choice you wouldn't normally consider.

In the middle of miserable rain, no media interview will ever convey to the viewing public what a grieving family feels. You sort of have to be there to tell the tears from the raindrops.

In flux

My writing has been erratic. My behavior and phsyical well-bring have been erratic. I'm a bit in flux.

I'm not finished writing here. I'm just trying to get my head back together. No need to force ill-considered thoughts on my small but loyal reading public.

I'll be back.

Hopefull soon.

Where we've been

For just a moment, consider the number of times you've sandwiched yourself inside a club. The types of places where there's not enough room for you and your beer bottle to fit through the crowd, so you carry your brew like an unlit torch through the throng. The types of places when you get close to the stage and the pushing gets so strong you have to use your ass as an organic battering ram to move people back.

I can't count the times.

Whether The Urge was encouraging us to get on our knees and bark like a dog or Jackyl was making chainsaw noises, I've been there.

I was relieved this morning when the news managers didn't force me to do a "could it happen here" story. I was fully prepared to counter with "it could happen anywhere." It could happen to me tonight.

The irony of the entire situation in Rhode Island was that we can see exactly what happened inside that club, because some news manager thought it would be a good idea for his reporter to do a "could it happen here story." Guess what, newsie? It could and did.

When the 24 hour news stations have a hard time with the lead stories, you know the world is on a strange tilt. Club crushes, club fires, brain dead transplant patients, petro storage explosions. It's impossible to keep up.

Yes, my life is boring. (When I wrote that, I almost wrote "terminally" boring).

After all my talk of needing some action, damned if boring isn't the best of all possibilities right now.

The Great Corn Nut Conspiracy

I once knew a guy who stumbled on his way to a pretty good life. He was working as the assistant to the boss' assistant and he had heard there might be a chance he might get the assistantship if the guy above him finally choked on his ego and BBQ Corn Nuts. This guy, we'll call him Roy, spent a good amount of time figuring out what it took to be a good assistant's assistant. But he also spent a fair amount of time digging through his immediate supervisor's Corn Nuts. The idea was simple: Every day, pull out two or three of the larger kernels. At the end of the month, slip the kernels in a new bag and wait for the guy to clutch his throat, fall to the floor, and kick a few times before dying.

Being a good assistant's assistant eventually became pretty simple for Roy. When the boss needed something, he asked the assistant to get it done. The assistant turned to Roy, made a few nearly-obscene gestures with his fingers, and Roy took off to get the job done. Since Roy hired on as the AA he had learned to make coffee, balance the company's books, and screw the boss' wife. Getting the promotion was going to have its disadvantages. Roy just couldn't stand the idea of someone else making his coffee.

One Wednesday in the middle of February Roy heard the assistant choking. Roy ran into the breakroom to find the assistant trying to keep two lungs full of smoke from letting go. Roy never asked what the guy was smoking. He walked out, disappointed the Corn Nuts trick hadn't worked yet. It didn't really matter, anyway. The boss' wife was waiting for him.

Roy was in full snuggle when The Wife started talking.

"Do you ever think about running away?" she asked, tossing a few Corn Nuts in her mouth.

Roy didn't answer at first. He spent a couple of minutes trying to remember the last time someone asked him a question that didn't end with the phrase, 'and get that done before five."

"Running where exactly?"

"The Keys. Mexico. Des Moines. Away."

Roy actually had thought about it. Once he thought he might quit his AA job all together an start a rental company on a faraway beach. "Pups and Tots" he was going to call it. At first the idea was to rent small dogs and small children to single men. Chick bait. Then--over time--he decided there were legal questions he couldn't answer. He still liked the name, though. He was considering the idea of a food stand that only sold hushpuppies and tater tots when The Wife talked again.

"I'm thinking about running away, AA," she said. "Would you come up with a list of places I might run? Oh yes. And bring it to me by five."

Roy went back to work and started on the list. He has listed a couple of backwater Mississippi towns and a Super Wal-Mart before he realized he still had to find a good accounting trick to justify the company's huge Corn Nut budget. He forgot all about the list and didn't get anything finished by five.

He showed up for work early the next day hoping to finish the list and Corn Nut Accounting before anyone came in. When he arrived The Boss and The Wife were both waiting. Boss needed his CNA report and Wife needed her list.

Roy was in the middle of considering what a Hushpuppy snowcone might taste like when he heard the noise. It sounded a bit like a dog with a chicken bone stuck in his throat. Actually, that's what it was. A collie that looked a little like Lassie with a chicken leg sticking out of her muzzle. Just about the time Lassie coughed the leg onto the Boss' carpet, the Assistant walked in. The simple joy of a non-choking dog pleased the Assistant so much he said, "Weee! Look at that!" just as he tossed four extraordinarily large Corn Nuts in his mouth. He choked and fell dead right next to the chicken leg.

Roy didn't miss a beat. He looked at the Boss and with all the power of a newly-promoted employee said, "Boss, we don't need to account for the Corn Nuts because we'll be buying no more. We'll use the money to send your wife to Mobile. No, Pennsylvania. Quaker country, sir."

The Boss looked briefly pleased, kissed his wife goodbye, and sat down at his desk.

"Son," he said, "would you see that the AA gets that mess cleaned up off my carpet and walks the dog?"

"Sir, we don't currently employ an AA. In fact, I was the AA until this man became the mess on your carpet."

"Hmmmmm." The Boss pondered this as he rearranged his ink pens and paperweights. "Well, then, hire the dog as the AA and see that he gets a good walk. Good show, son. Good show."

As Roy reached for the new AA's leash, he realized he may have made a mistake. He had just sent his only steady loving to live with a misunderstood religious sect. He would no longer get to make his own coffee. And Lassie didn't look like he knew his way around a ten-key calculator.

Roy and Lassie made their way onto the sidewalk and heard The Boss yelling from the window above.

"And make sure he gets that walk before five!" floated down from the 13th story window.

Roy waved. Lassie wagged his tail. They walked and talked about the legalities of making fruit smoothies with tater tots. They walked and talked about not opening "Pups and Tots" until 5:01pm. They walked and talked about whether The Wife would like the Quakers or if she might escape to the beach and if she would order hushpuppies or tater tots.

They walked, and walked, and walked.

The Poster Boy

A man who has known me a long time, a man who admirably puts bad guys in jail for a living, a man I consider one of my closest friends made me think a little.

People who know me know I don't take many stands on the most controversial issues. I don't talk about abortion. I don't talk about gun control. I don't talk about the drug war. And I rarely talk about the death penalty. My reasoning is pretty simple: I choose not to argue about subjects that don't have an absolute answer.

At the same time, I have now sat through five death penalty proceedings. My opinion hasn't changed much. Some people just deserve to die.

At the same time, in recent years I have found myself leaning a little to the left.

(A brief aside...I've always thought my autobiography should be titled "Lean to the right, hang to the left." I'll let you figure it out).

My leanings have been influenced by a sometimes flawed system of justice. In short, I would appreciate an absolute if we're going to kill somebody. I don't think it is too much to ask. Of course, we should weigh aggravating and mitigating factors. Of course, we should weigh the defendant's future danger to society. But, I'm not naive enough to think the death penalty is a deterrant.

So...I guess my point is this: There was a point in my life where if you'd asked me my feelings on the death penalty, I would've said, "Kill'em all." Now...I don't know. Maybe I've softened.

But every time I feel my self getting soft, I run into jokers like the monster you'll meet if you click here.

There are very few absolutes in this world. He happens to be one of them.

Absolute evil.

Damn it

Ever write a really good post then hit the wrong button and delete the whole damned thing? I have half a mind (no jokes, please) to write the whole thing over. But frankly, I just don't feel like it. Leave it at this: My water heater is dripping, a crazy-ass murderer is thwarting my attempts to become an enlightened death penalty opponent, and a Tampa, FL church keeps sending its minions up to my adopted home state to bilk folks out of their hard-earned coin.

In short, life is a little busy, a little dog-days-of-wintery, and a little annoying.

But, the title of the last post was this: Lest we forget.

Sometimes it takes a bunch of silliness to remind me of a simple axiom I try to carry with me everywhere I travel: Life ain't so bad.

A lot of people just don't want to hear that. But it's true.

For instance, I recently met a nice family of five. The parents are a couple years older than me. Their kids are about as polite as you could ever want a bunch of pre-teens to be. They had a good living. Five bedroom house, Dad had a good enough job that Mom could stay home and be Mom. Then they made a decision that should've been a very good one. Stick with the company that employs Dad, transfer to the South, and build a fine life. Then fate struck. Employer went broke. Dad takes a bad job and gets his foot crushed. Workman's comp won't pay for rehab. Oh yeah, and then Dad find out he has a ripped aorta. Now he can't go pick up the kids from school without feeling like his chest is going to implode. The nitro tabs work okay on the heart but give him a monster headache. Now Mom is working at a retail outlet and Dad is trying to make it back to the land of the living without ending up in the land of the dead.

Those are the stories most people just don't want to hear. Those are the stories that take all the gusto out of a good leaky water heater tale. Those are the stories that make you stop thinking about the murderer you're dealing with at work and making you starting thinking about the grandmother who recalls telling her granddaughter her mother "is in heaven and heaven is a long way away. She's living with the Lord now and wouldn't come back here if she could." She leaves out the part about Mama taking a .32 slug to the head because she couldn't open the convenience store safe fast enough.

About ten times a day someone asks me how it's going. My standard response: "I can't complain. Well, I could, but nobody would listen." That might pull a chuckle out of the two people in town who haven't heard me say it yet.

The thing is, I really, really want to complain. I want to bitch and moan about things that don't mean a diddly damn. Some shrinks would suggest a little complaining is good. Better to have a leaky water heater than one that's flooding your crawlspace (that was a bad "don't keep all your anger pent up inside" analogy for those who missed it). But, I try not to bitch. Sometimes I fail and when I do I have to remind myself...

Hey, life ain't so bad.

The problem with this little axiom is that when you try to impart it to someone who is bitching and moaning (something some friends and I have sometimes called "having the red ass" or "having a case of the mumble-grumbles"), said person usually can't handle it. This is more than likely because 1) They think there is a good chance life is pretty sucky and 2) They are wondering who the hell is this smiley face telling me life ain't so bad?

I'm no Pollyanna. Some things really suck. War sucks. Death sucks. American Idol sucks (sorry about that).

But...you know...

Life ain't so bad.

Observations in brief

Time to write is quite light (not to mention time to rhyme). Nevertheless, a couple of quick observations from the land of money-grubbing churches and ink-pen fancying assassins.

So, is it any big surprise the kid from the Dell commercials got busted buying weed last night? I mean, come on. What did we think he was on? Flinstones chewables?

Dude, you're getting arrested.

Is it just me or is every news organization in the country pronouncing the name of the country Qatar differently? CNN says "cutter." NBC's Russert says "gutter." The local newsies say "kuh-TAR." Apparently I'm not the only one wondering.

Last...is it any wonder my life goes by so fast when all I do is wish for Spring?

The Man in the Green Jacket

In my line of work, you are forced to listen to a lot of hooey. A woman calls up: "DSS took my kids away. You really should put that on the TV." Upon further questioning, it is revealed DSS took the woman's kids away because she was forcing them to eat dinner in the garage with a rabid penguin and a case of weapons grade plutonium. "The penguin wasn't rabid," she explains, "we was just having Alkaseltzer for dinner. You know what that can do to a bird, don'tcha? But I thought, if it can't fly, it must not be a bird. You gotta put that on the TV." And on the plutonium? "Oh, Daddy left that to me in the will."

A lot of hooey, ladies and gents.

So, obviously I was skeptical when the man in the green jacket walked up tonight, clutching the inside of his jacket. I was breaking down equipment from my 6pm broadcast.

"You're always first on the scene, aren't ya?" he said with a half smile.

"And the last," I offered with my please-don't-talk-to-me-much-more TV-guy smile.

Mr. Green Jacket went on to explain he was looking for his 13 year-old cousin who may or may not have hitchhiked up from a nearby small town to join the Reverend Jesse Jackson in a sit-in to protest my county's lack of a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. I was, needless to say, dubious.

I explained the Reverend Jackson was long gone and the building where the sit-in had been was long closed. I told him I hoped he found his cousin and made for my SDV, Emilio.

"I've been knocked out by the river for three hours," Green Jacket said.

This is where TV-guy in need of a beer and dinner utters this little word under his breath: "Fuuuuuuck."

Fake-sympathy entered my voice. I hardly believe this joker has been unconcious for three hours. In other words, a bunch of hooey.

"Did you go to the hospital?"

"Yeah, but they didn't find anything," he said, rubbing his noggin. Big surprise, I thought.

"Well, I hope you're okay." That had to be it. Two sympathetic well-wishes from TV-guy had to be enough to send Hooey-Man on his way.

"I'm okay, but the other guy isn't doing so well. I stabbed him twice."

Um...what?

I did a quick scan of the green jacket and blue jeans. No blood. Still, the guy kept holding the inside of his jacket like he had something in there. I took a step back.

"Um...why did you do that?"

"He was trying to steal my coat. And he tried to give me a black eye, but he missed and hit my head." Jacket rubbed his noggin again.

The conversation continued for another five minutes, Green Jacket edging toward me, me stepping back, him rambling about bad sidewalks in his Grandma's neighborhood, me smelling booze on his breath.

I made for the vehicle again.

"Think you could give a guy a ride?" He smiled. Gummy, bad teeth.

I thought as quickly as I could, looking at my personal vehicle. "Can't, man. Against company policy."

Now, it all could've ended there. I could have driven off and let this guy go off with his green jacket, rubbing his noggin. But there was that little voice in the back of my head that wondered if there was some guy bleeding out on the bank of the Reedy River.

Fuck it. I called the police.

I'll shorten the end of this story up, because it is already too long. I described the guy--white, 6'1", green jacket and blue jeans--to the police. They were there in two minutes. They searched him--nothing inside the jacket after all--cuffed him and tossed him in the back of the cruiser. They talked for ten minutes or so and drove off with him.

An officer drove over to me with a big smile on her face.

"He said he made up the story because you're a news reporter," she said, giggling.

Nice. Friggin' nice.

I looked at the officer and asked the same question I've been asking for the last hour: "If you're going to make up a story to impress a TV guy, why not say you just rescued some kid from certain death instead of saying you just stabbed somebody."

"I don't know," she said, still giggling, "but that's what he said."

I felt guilty for a couple of seconds. I figured the only reason they had to arrest the guy was public intoxication. If I had been arrested every time I was drunk in public, I'd be Public Enemy #1. So, this old drunk got some other drunk tossed in the pokey.

But, after a few minutes of reflection I decided this: Many drunks lie to impress people, but not every drunk does it so badly. At the age of 22, I drunkenly told a cab driver I was an NBC News correspondent in St. Louis to report a story. Why tell such a story? I was drunk and bored. It was a stupid story and I'm embarassed to even remember it.

But never in my many years of insobriety have I told anybody I stabbed a guy twice. Especially a TV guy. That's just plain stupid.

So, as I sit here tonight, hoping Mr. Green Jacket won't remember who got him arrested, I also hope he's not been charged with public intoxication.

I hope he's sitting in the Greenville County Detention Center on felony charges of First Degree Making Up a Bad Drunk Story.

Bachelor Otis

Married Man jokes. He sits around in bars with his buddies and talks about the Marriage Reserves. One weekened a month, two weeks out of the year we'll be bachelors.

Then Bachelor Otis Weekend arrives and the boys blow it out like we're single men again. We drink, we play cards, we carouse. We stay up half the night, sleep half the day, eat dinner in our underwear, then do it all again. It's fun. We love it and feel we deserve it every once in a while.

But now there's this...Bachelor Otis Weekdays. My wife is away dealing with some rather unpleasant personal business. I'm a bachelor for the next few days. Since I work for a living, there are no drunken evenings and underdressed meals to help me forget that sleeping alone sucks. There is no morning hangover and round of frolf to gloss over life in a quiet house.

Bachelor Otis Weekends are welcome every once in a while. Even Married Man needs to remind himself what it's like to answer only to himself.

But it takes a Bachelor Otis Weekday to remind Married Man that when you answer only to yourself, you run the risk of not having all the answers.

Ringing phones

In the last few months, and especially in the last few days, we have flinched each time the phone rang. Life and our slippery grip on it has been a major topic of conversation among us and our immediate and extended families. And each time the phone rings, we look at each other, neither of us wanting to answer.

It has become a sort of unspoken rule...whoever is dealing with the most immediate crisis answers the ringing phones. This morning, it was my wife.

We both were being lazy at the time. I had only been out of bed long enough to let the dog outside. I crawled back in the warm bed and hoped life would be close to normal in the world and in our lives. January had brought plane crashes, mountain fires and winter storms to the people who live around me. The month had brought frozen pipes (on the superficial end) and a family death for the people who live in this house. Just yesterday, as January began to make it's way toward its end, I spoke out loud.

"February has to be better," I said.

My dog had been trying to call back under the blankets when I heard my wife say, "Oh, God." I thought I heard my dad's voice on the other end of the phone and thought to grab the receiver. My wife was asking questions and I heard answers. It was my dad on the other end of the line. She had hung up before I was thinking clearly enough to do anything.

It was not a family tragedy in the traditional sense. But it was a tragedy nonetheless. The Space Shuttle Columbia, streaking to earth like a comet, burning a red image across the country's radar screens.

Most of the people around me are too young to remember the Space Race of the 60's. But I know few people who don't vividly remember January 28, 1986.

Our interest in the space program has waned in the years since then.

Funny...much like going to war, the average American now has a hard time understanding why we spend the money to break the Earth's atmoshere. There isn't much of anything tangible it gives back to Joe Sixpack. When it all began, we went looking for moon rocks. Moon packs are passe now.

Somehow today feels different than 1986. We watch a tragedy, no doubt. But it is different. Don't ask me how. In fact, e-mail me...I'd like to know why it feels different.

It has been 17 years and four days since the idea of space travel has so dominated our television screens.

All I know is that my wife is now refusing to answer the telephone.

_______________________________________________________________

Editor's note: After last publishing, I found the on-line pseudo-blog of some space writers in in Florida... Click here for the whole thing, and it's updates.

This part, the part that goes from mundane to tragedy, is the most chilling...

8:29 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Discussions are ongoing in Houston and here in Florida about which runway the shuttle will land on. Columbia is targeted for Runway 33 now, but there is discussion about a possible switch. Crews on the ground here on making preparations just in case that change is made. They'll be prepared for whatever decision is made by controllers in Houston and shuttle Commander Rick Husband.

8:34 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

It's breezy with a few clouds at the Shuttle Landing Facility. The convoy of landing support vehicles is on its way but yet to arrive. Security helicopters are now making passes over the runways and the roads near the SLF.

8:36 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Columbia will cross the Florida panhandle, fly briefly over the Gulf of Mexico on a path that will take it over Orlando heading eastward toward the landing facility. This will be the 62nd landing of a shuttle at Kennedy. Winds are coming from the west at 5 knots, well within limits for a nominal landing.

8:39 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Astronaut Kent Rominger and Educator-Astronaut Barbara Morgan are doing the weather reconnaissance here at Kennedy Space Center this morning. They are flying in the shuttle landing training aircraft, making approaches to the runways to test the landing conditions and reporting back to Houston controllers. Morgan, by the way, is slated to fly on a shuttle mission scheduled to launch later this year.

8:42 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

The convoy has arrived at the landing facility to support the landing of Columbia. The orbiter will remain on the runway longer than normal today as crews unload the many science experiments on board.

The astronauts also are in for longer-than-normal physicals because they too were test subjects for many experiments on this flight. They will see family members who are in town for the landing, but the astronauts themselves will not be able to fly home to Houston until Sunday.

8:46 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Exactly 30 minutes from landing and still no decision on which runway the shuttle will use. Discussions are ongoing. The orbiter is dropping into the atmosphere, moving at 17,000 miles per hour and 68 miles above Earth.

8:51 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

A decision to switch to Runway 15 is being discussed now. The shuttle is 3,450 miles from touchdown here at KSC.

8:52 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Columbia's altitude is about 47 miles, moving at 16,400 miles per hour. Commander Husband has the shuttle in the first of a series of hard banks, which help to slow the orbiter for landing. Columbia is approaching the coast of California right now.

8:55 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

VIP guests, including crew members' loved ones, have arrived at the Shuttle Landing Facility. Several members of Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon's family are among them. The Israeli delegation, here for the mission of that country's first spacefarer, has been well guarded in all of their travels here on the Space Coast, both for launch and today's landing.

8:56 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Twenty minutes to touchdown and no announcement yet of a runway change. The orbiter is flying over Nevada near Las Vegas.

8:57 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Columbia is near the Arizona-New Mexico border moving at just over 14,000 miles per hour. Husband has taken the orbiter into the second of four banks, slowing the orbiter down.

9:06 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Ten minutes from wheels down.

9:20 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

NASA has lost communication with the orbiter and has no tracking data.

9:28 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

Mission control is silent. There was never a sign of the orbiter here. There was brief discussion of an instrumentation problem aboard the orbiter just before communications was lost but no explanation. Then, Merritt Island tracking station did not pick up the orbiter's signal. It was believed last contacted over Texas.

9:32 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2003

A search and rescue team is being dispatched to Texas, where it is believed the orbiter broke up during descent. Very, very little is being said here about what has happened in part because officials appear not to know yet.