Winston Churchill, a combat veteran of World War I, once said words to the effect that there is nothing quite so thrilling to a man as the experience of being shot at in war . . . . and missed! In third place, right behind the one most obvious to healthy hummin’ beans, I add: There is almost nothing else as thrilling as hurling through a busy intersection during evening rush hour after discovering you have almost no brakes and pushing so hard on the pedal you expect it to go through the floor . . . . . and being missed!

You are reading the words of a living criminal. If I had even nicked a fender of someone as I crashed though the light just turned RED! as I drove south on Dirksen Parkway at Sangamon last night, there is no doubt I would have been arrested and carted off to frikking JAIL! The charges: driving with defective brakes and being a menace to frikking society!

My Monday visit to Brahler’s excellent maintenance shop at Fifth at Laurel had been positive: crushing but positive. The fellow who had looked at my car told me as long as I stayed in town and didn’t drive fast, I’d be okay for another few months. Good news.

S o o o o o instead of taking a short span of highway to get to work and timing my transit to avoid rush hour traffic, I would go DURING rush hour on packed city streets. WHY? Because NOBODY dirves fast during our city’s famous “10 minute rush hours.” So what if it took me 25 minutes instead of 15? I’d be safe at those speeds. Logic like that is can get a philosopher pretty badly bent on a bad day.

It had rained Monday night, but things were bell-clear (clear like a bell if you dig similie) and it was cool outside. I was relieved that the horrendous grinding sounds that unnerved me Sunday had all but disappeared. The brakes worked as they have for the past two months: predictable and reasonably effective. All was fine until 300 yards from my parking spot. I had driven through a puddle of water maybe three inches deep in the road. When I began to tap the brakes to turn into the lot, almost nothing happened! I “stood on the pedal” and by the grace of God I slowed enough to make a rather swift right lutn. I figured the lost of brake power was because of wet brakes. DUMB! I learned when I was 17 that wet brakes “grab;” and don’t go limp.

Az I sed: DUMB!

After work, I postulated the brakes would be dry and all would be back to abnormal going home. There was almost no traffic as I entered the street from my place near “the edge of the world” (as I called it in an earlier posting), I was in no rush, so I didn’t go more than 35 in a 40 zone, and the lights were timed just right until I approached Sangamon Avenue. If I had cruised at the posted speed before getting close to that intersection, I would have missed even the yellow light. On the other hand, if I had been going faster and the light were not so well-timed, I’d be eating bread and water for dinner from a jail infirmary bed.

As I approached the intersection and I realized instantly that my brakes were seriously under-achieving I began looking for a place to turn to avoid the intersection. Everywhere along the right of the road was full of parked cars. A large open parking lot like one finds at JC Penney stores would have been perfect, but I was about 12 blocks too far north for such convenience. As I saw the light turn yellow, I prayed it would stay that way for another few seconds, but my prayer was answered in another way. I was probably 30 feet from the junction when it turned REDCHEESES! I don’t think I closed my eyes as I went through, but I might have. I know I felt my body tighten up and for a fraction of a second I lowered my head . . . . . . . I don’t know why; all I can think of as why is unadulterated SHAME. A split second later, and I was through it, and expecting to hear sirens from police cars rolling in behind me. There were no police cars and no one else behind me. As I said . . . .

CHEEses!

It was a short rush hour on the outskirts of the edge of the world. I slowed to 25, stayed many yards behind whomever was in front and made the traffic that occasionally built up behind me think I was a sour old fart from the other side of 90 frikking years old. THREE TIMES I pulled off the street to let drivers pass through: once to the curb, once into a side street and once into the parking lot of Noonan’s True Value on North Grand. I would find the sleepiest streets in the heart of the city for the rest of the trip home.

Five blocks south on Seventh, approaching St. John’s Hospital I saw two Springfield Police patrol cars, one with lights on, on opposite sides of the one-way-south street, one perhaps eight parking places ahead of the other. I was blasting down the street at 25 miles an hour and worried briefly they would pull me for suspicious behavior: driving too slow. Then I saw the four-way stop sign. DANGIT!

I KNEW I had one brake light out! My pending arrest seemed inevitable, especially after I stopped, pulled away, and noticed one of the police cars had pulled out and was following in the same lane. If there was ONE TIME in my life NOT to behave like a drug-crazed evangelisto from the wrong side of the barrio, THIS was the time. Instead, I imitated a barnacle, which on some days, I am. We even stopped side-by-side at another four-way. And then he pulled ahead. Until he (could have been a female officer; there are several excellent patrolwomen on the force) was a full block ahead of me did I realize I had been lucky AGAIN.

Did I mention CHEEses!

The rest of the trip home was a cake walk. I soon dove into a tall glass of Lipton iced tea and counted my blessings. There’s no booze in the house, and I don’t want any booze in the house; not until I resolve the car business.

A local friend who says he’s a mechanic — I believe the fellow — promised to come over today and see if he can help. Everything else in my life is off the calendar.

I did renew my substitute teaching creditials over the phone and reserved a place at the refresher workshop slated for mid-August.

Count your blessings, friends, Romulans and countrypersons. And pray for more.

Live long . . . . . . . . and proper.

Bob Waldmire and I were “hailed fellows, well met” when we attended Springfield Junior College in the mid 60s. I don’t know anyone who has remained who he was then as he (orshe) is today. His dad, returned from WWII, invented what Springfieldians today call the Cozy Dog and founded The Cozy Dog Drive-In on south Sixth Street. The rest of the world calls them corndogs, but in these parts, Buster, they’re COZY DOGS, and don’t you wander far from astute cognizance of that fact.  The place is a legend, even in its new building just a few yards north of the original. So to, is Bob Waldmire to Route 66 history fans, and for a fellow who hasn’t changed all that much, he’s gone pretty far. Next spring, a Route 66 club is hosting a major gathering in San Bernardino, CA, and they’ve invited Bob to attend and sell his art for no charge; a heck of a nod when you consider others are paying $800 for the privilege.

Bob has been a Route 66 artist for decades, based on a small homestead in east New Mexico. His live-in VW Microbus behind him has been his home during most of his travels. There has probably been no surviving structure of significance on the surviving patches of original or re-paved Route 66 that he has not drawn or painted. Every “Mother Road” festival regular knows him the way you know your favorite uncle. And there’s probably not a nursing home or lecture hall between Chicago and San Bernardino that has not welcomed him to lunch or dinner and a memorable lecture about the history of that highway. Bob also owns a former school bus he called “home” for years on the road and during stopovers on his piece of desert. Besides selling a profusion of art, most of it for sale at Cozy Dog Restaurant on Sixth Street, he is VERY committed to research and implimentation of solar energy.

He has been in Springfield to have another slew of new art printed by his pal Chuck at Parkway Printers and to touch base with his family who still live at the Waldmire orchard and gift shop, a totally other story and fine people every one. He’ll be back on the road to New Mexico by Monday. Over the years he has been a regular artist-in-vending-mode at Springfield’s Route 66 Festival, but not so often recently. I always feel like I’m shaking hands with Henry David Thoreau when we encounter each other. If you’ve not encountered him in his travels, I hope you do. And have your checkbook handy.

Bob will be developing a web site in the months ahead, and when it’s up and running, I will let you know.

In the meantime, happy trails and God speed, Bob Waldmire!

Live long . . . . . and proper.

Word came late from the care repair shop. To completely fix the car will cost more than the car is worth, but it may cost less than another car that’s better. As long as I drive it in the city, it should hold together another few months without losing an axle.

On the whole, I’d rather have spent the cost of the estimate on groceries. But, I’m glad they didn’t forbid me to drive it home in its current condition.

So no cabs for me. I just won’t be cruising Insterstate 55.

Drive long . . . . . and proper.

Because of a computer problem, I didn’t get my car to Brahler (car repair enterprise; good people) and like an idiot, when they offered to drive me home, I declined, saying it was close enough I could walk. It was only eight blocks. They’d determine the problem and give me an estimate.

My feet have been chilly in winter for two years. This year, they’re chilly all the time. I knew the walk would do me good. After experiencing what in retrospect was a major problem with my lower back earlier this spring, I felt ever since like I was balancing my torso on a golf tee where my spine was. It gradually got better, and last week the tentativeness of feeling below that golf tee it appeared to be gone. As I started my walk home, what had returned Sunday for some reason was even more evident. It was no trouble walking, but I felt I was walking on low stilts. The moderately cool temperature I felt when I got into the car to take it for servicing (about 84) has gone up — it seemed 20 degrees, but I’m exaggerating. I felt I had an extra pound of lead in the souls of my shoes.

I wasn’t winded (tired) when I walked in the front door. Aside from the leg tentativeness, I had enjoyed the hike. Any other time of my life, I would have kept walking for another half an hour, just for the exercise, but being home for the rest of the afternoon is mandatory.

No word yet from Brahler. I dread the phone call. After it comes in, I’m going to call a cab company to see when I need to call them so I can get to work at 8. (”I can hardly wait to wake and get to work at 8. Nothin’s quite the same as the pajama game.” — from the musical The Pajama Game - the first musical show that grabbed my attention and didn’t let go.)

On the other hand, if Brahler says I can travel on the bad wheel bearing or whatever it is if I don’t exceed 35 miles an hour, I’ll drive the car.

And the printer a good friend gave me last week is kaplooey. I need a new one because I’m not going to buy fresh ink cartridges for this one on the bet that will make it better. I’m going to email my conventional mail correspondence to myself at work so I can print and mail it from there.

I’ve been saving pictures accumulating on CDs since 2001 for my Facebook albums. I can be liberal when the space is free.

Alzo on the positive side, thanks to my preparation to go to Brahler today, my fingernails are they cleanest they’ve been in weeks!

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

I’ve got nothing to say.
People don’t listen anyway.
Let the loud and lame
Play their slam-jam game,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Princes, queens and buffoons,
Snug in cozy cocoons,
Poetically inclineds
Murmer from their minds,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Poets come and they go;
Write their names in the snow;
Scribe grand sagas on sand
In a changing land,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Fate is a heartless brute
To bards who can’t elocute,
So some polish in print
What they really “mint,”
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Bubbles wafting through time,
Drinking vodka and lime
On a rambling spree –
That’s okay with me,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

– Job Conger
written 4:30 pm, January 11, 2001

As the upper case at the start of each line indicates (my little technique for indicating to readers that this is a song lyric as well as a poem - if it can be considered a poem in the first place; I never know) It’s a ditty; not John Donne, accompanied by yours truly (given the opportunity) upbeatly on an acoustic guitar. It was written as I decided to put the poetry pen down for awhile and published in my third book of poetry Bear’ sKin. Buy it when I recite for you.

As Jiminy Cricket once sang to Pinocchio, “Give a little whistle, and always let your conscience be your guide.”

As I always say on the final log of mos te mai postingz,

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

With the first issue of the State Journal-Register delivered after I renewed my subscription Friday came news that Vivian Eveloff had died. The obituary was BLINDINGLY terse in its posting in print and at the SJ-R web site. This was no doubt the design of the family, not because Vivian Eveloff gave so little to this community and far beyond, but becuase she gave so much.

She was the wife of my mom’s obstetrician and the only physician I knew before I was 30. Yes, there were decades when I saw none. As a youngster, trembling in anticipation, as I sat on the incredibly high examination table at Springfield Clinic, the good doctor’s modulated baritone and calming carriage was a case study in doing things right. Yes, I was petrified by innoculations for measles, smallpox, etc., but over the years I became unafraid thanks to Dr. Eveloff. Later when I caught the worst case of infectious “mono” he had ever seen, so bad he EARNESTLY desired to have me admitted to St. John’s because I was losing fluids alarmingly, HE responded to my determined efforts to swallow liquids no matter how much it hurt, and allowed me to stay home in bed for another two weeks to get well. I still remember the sound of Mom and Dad’s footsteps coming upstairs to take me to St. John’s. He changed his mind during a really convincing phone call. So THIS is what I carried as I met Vivian Eveloff at her Prairie Art Alliance featured gallery reception March 5, 2005.

Vivian Eveloff gallery display March 2005

Her family could have included a picture of the artist if they had desired, but they did not, and I respect their desire. This is a painting I took at her March 5, 2005 reception at Prairie Art Alliance. She was as convivial as the young lady she painted years before. The painting was also featured in her biography distributed gratis during the gallery exhibition, a publication that included several of her excellent poems as well; poems that should be read and savored today.

Wally, her son-in-law and daughter Gail were also delights. Wally later bought my books of poems, I chatted with him at a few UIS gallery receptions in the following months, and later, he stopped coming to receptions. Wally, if you’re still out there, salutations to you, my friend!

I believe Vivian Eveloff was one of the most talented, prolific artists this nutty Springfieldtown has known. The reception brought that conclusion home to me with both barrels. I am reasonably confident that prints of her work are still available at Prairie Art Alliance at the Hoogland Center for the Arts downtown. I never saw Vivian again, but I am the better man for having met her one time. Her poetry and art will continue to enrich me when I return to that publication I brought home from the gallery and cherish today.

Yes, I signed her guestbook at SJ-R com. If you knew her, I hope you will too,

Live long . . . . . and proper.

I’m sure I speak for many male hummn’ beans when I say I HEAR YOU! Okay, I’m a writer for Pete’s sake (who the heck is Pete anyway?) and I know you know I’m not hearing you. I’m writing a frikking metaphor here. The metaphor is “hear is read.” If I wanted to say it in similie, according to wordcrafters and lingo f’naticals, I would say, “I can like HEAR YOU! Suddenly naked Angelina is more popular than studlier apparati and software at incredibly low prices. Hey you guys, I am satisfied with my ‘ware, soft and hard, so stop the bleeping invitations to see Angelina Jolie naked already. I’ve not looked, and I won’t look (not that the notion hasn’t occurred to me). Instead, show me something I’d really like to see: an effigy of #43 naked, facing away from the camera,  strapped to a wall and being consumed by hungry wasps and fire ants. You could even pour honey on the effigy. That would be okay.

And if any of you HAVE a picture of an effigy of #43 facing away from the camera, naked and strapped to a wall, being consumed by hungry wasps and fire ants —— I don’t want the effigy or what it stands for to suffer beyond the limits of the Geneva Convention; I just want evidence that the effigy is BOTHERED by the treatment. —- I don’t want to see it. save your BREATH!

. . . . metaphorically speaking, of course.

Live long . . . . . . . and proper.

Friday evening I received a call from a courteous young lady who began by addressing me as Mr. Conger and then asked if I’d like to subscribe again to the Illinois State Journal-Register. Before I could hem, haw and decline, she told me it was on sale for half price — SOLD! I told her she was an incredibly good salesperson (not mentioning the HALF PRICE aspect) in a way which elicited a polite chuckle from her, and I bade her good bye. The latest edition was delivered by a district manager Saturday morning, and the Sunday edition was delivered by my regular carrier. I know this becuase he always used to place it just inside my front door, between doors, and today the fellow did it again. Why did I do it? I can’t bear the notion of missing another column from several writers I’ve mentioned here before, another fab political cartoon from Chris Britt, the superb local coverage from City Hall, letters to the editor, anything to do with aviation and the arts and more significantly than I should admit, the latest OPUS strip on Sundays. The paper is evolving well. It is giving me what radio and TV can’t. I was shocked when I heard a few days ago that college gradu-ates in the United States are in a minority! Post grads like me are even more so. No wonder some folks are predicting a close November election. Sure, John and Barack went to college. Do the non-col-grads hate the rest? I don’t think so; the smartest of that MAJORITY just hate the blithering jabberwocks, present blogmeister excepted I yope.  When I point a finger at someone else, I’m pointing three at me. Try it and see for yourself.

It’s been a nutty weekend. I have a wheel bearing that’s about to shake my car apart, and even though I am going to take it to the repair shop tomorrow for analysis and and estimate, I am keeping my brain active as possible to repress the catatonia into which I would plummet if I weren’t blessed by so much else in my life. CROSS YOUR FINGERS re the car! And if you have wheels you can sell me on the installment plan — something with good wheel bearings — e me. In the mean time (unforgiving I’m afraid) of the meantime, I am NOT going to take my car faster than 35 miles an hour until I fix that thing. For four years I’ve not taken it out on the highway for more than five minutes transiting to work each way. Now I’m not going to drive it faster than 35. It’s not that I’m afraid of becoming CRUNCHED MEAT in a crash caused by a wheel parting company with my car. It’s not about me. It’s about the stranger with a sprout in the child car seat who doesn’t know me and doesn’t DESERVE what might happen. Cross your fingers here. All I see is impasse and no way to get to work across town. I WILL TAKE A CAB if it all comes down to that.

Yesterday, before I went to the grocery store and felt the deteriorating rumble of that wheel bearing for one of the last times, I began getting into Facebook. My jprofile is posted there and I’m adding pictures. Because of the cost of adding memory here at WordPress (and I LOVE this company and every minute I’ve posted here), I will drop a cue to GTFB IF you want to see more pictures. If you want to be invited to be one of my “friends” at Facebook, comment here and I’ll likely invite you.

Cost of a baked chicken at Shop ‘n’ Save Saturday was $6.97! You think fuel (I will not call it “gas” which I consider another polite euphemism for #43) is highway robb’ry? Get a load of that price for a cooked chicken! Instead, I purchased extra lunchmeat and a fresh-looking head of iceberg lettuce to accompany mon Bunny Whole Wheat and Hellman’s mayo.

I’ve not purchased peanut butter in any form for almost two months because it was too easy to enjoy it; easier than grabbing a beer a cheap narcotic for the flagrantly relaxed. I began to feel I was adding poundage. A fellow in my financial condition will appear to be in a dire strait if I appeared to be putting on weight. Last week, I even pitched three fourths of a jar of raspberry jam that had languished in the cupboard, a lonesome “yin” without the requisite “yang” of Peter Pan Crunchy. I really haven’t missed either one in my life, especially since I started my banana jag.

I’ve spent tons o’ time indexing aviation magazines today, with the office air conditioner on. As General Electric used to say in their sponsored television shows in the 50s and early 60s, “Progress is our most important product.” I have another blog to write today; maybe two. Onward and upward!

Live long . . . . . . . . and proper

. . . . more accurately into the phone line. I’ll tell you where they come to earth when the publication hits the stands. Speaking of which, do you even KNOW what a news stand is? I wager if you’re younger than 50 you don’t. News stands were shed-like structures made of wood,  placed usually on busy downtown street corners where the operator sold eight or nine newspapers fron the local daily to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to the New York Times . . . . but wait, there’s more. Also for sale were the popular magazines from Time to Look and Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Flying, True Detective and even Playboy. Those were the only days when almost the only way a fellow could experience (some one else’s) full frontal nudity was to marry her. It was absent from Playboy until 1966 or so. She was blonde, I think from Norway, and her name was Liv, I believe. Yes, I still have that issue.  But I digress.

In Springfield I frequented the news stands on the northeast corner of Sixth at Monroe (Sixth was one way north) and the one on the southwest corner of Fifth (one way south) at Monroe (one way east). In truth, I preferred Shadid’s Book Mart on Sixth just north of Capitol, across from the Leland Hotel, known to most, for reasons unknown, as the Hotel Leland. Shadid’s sold acres of newspapers, periodicals and books;  shelves and shelves of wonderful books! A cookie factory held less delight than Shadids.

Sometimes a shoe shine entrepreneur would set up next to a news stand so you could pick up the latest news and read it while getting your shoes polished. As a typical Springfieldian of the era might have said, “Them were the days.”

In place of the news stands today: Barnes & Noble about four miles southwest of downtown. I don’t know that there’s a place downtown to buy the latest Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal. Someone enlighten me if you can. A profusion of vending machines all over the city offers the local State Journal Register.

I began arranging my quiver, a/k/a serious writing for dollars,  about 10:30 Friday and finished two minutes into Washington Week with Gwenn Ifill, a/k/a 7:02 pm. First I transcribed  notes and quotes from interviews using a li’l mini-cassette recorder. I can’t write fast and read my writing ten minutes later, so I’ve been tape recording these encounters since the 70s. Many years ago I acquired a dictation transcription machine with foot controls for rewind and play; God’s gift to journalists with lousy longhand.

As soon as notes were transcribed, I wrote the article and sent it in. Seldom do I get a feel for the logic for a good article until I have all my facts, so it all is a puzzle I arrange first with considerable ctrl X and ctrl P. Since my days in grad school, interning with a radio station, a radio news service and a regional television station, I have geared my pacing and style to quotes, what radio reporters call actualities — at least we did in the 70s. The logic is determined by the most significant parts of news I’m sharing in print, but style kicks in when I decide how to share those parts. I believe that a sense of what’s important is a learned part of good reporting. Style comes from that little angel on my left shoulder whispering phrases into my ear as I add narrative. On my right shoulder is a demon in a red suit who resembles Joseph Goebbels and Ann Coulter combined. I don’t know why so don’t blay me.

Until I read the finished story the first time, I don’t know if I have something I want to send into esteemed editorperson. It takes two or three silent once-overs to see why I really should write a transition from third paragraph to the fourth, eleminate the quote and just say it in my own words, cut back on the helper’s quotes because the story is about the main man. . . yada yada yada.

THEN I shoot the article into the air and begin anew with transcribing and writing article numero tew. I did take a half an hour for lunch (Campbell’s Fajita Chicken soup and four pieces of bread and margarine with all the iced tea I could hold) because I don’t write well when I’m hungry. The body must be nourished when the stakes matter.

I’m also beginning to become addicted to bananas. For the first time in MONTHS I am allowing myself to AFFORD fruit, and I believe Dole bananas are improving my outlook on live.

On the other hand, it could be simply that I’m wearing my journalist hat again, writing in an air conditioned office (it’s off today) and enjoying the crazee action.

Live long . . . . and proper.

I doing dessert before the main course. Since arising today and toddling into the office about 7:45, I’ve trascribed data from index cards into an aviation history file to be posted at AeroKnow when it’s done, postponed a small Saturday gathering here because of the hot weather (I have no air conditioning except for a small unit in my office.) and decided to post at H&Q NOW so my mind doesn’t wander when I hunker down to making a living. The window a/c unit went in for the first time this year about 10 minutes ago. I decided I MUST write cool to write well. This my luxury long-postponed but installed at the perfect time.

The picture above is my kitchen, and there lies the tale du jour. Almost 10 years ago, I adopted a Labrador puppy offered by a friend. At the time I was determined this would be a civilized pooch. The literature about toilet training instructed me to put newspaper down in a restricted area and to take Max out after feeding in the morning at early evening. He was not large enough to transit through the foldable fence I had placed twixt my kitchen and livingroom, but I learned he was strong enough to scratch out chunks of my linoleum floor. They were small chunks, no larger than 3 x 6 inches, but they were obvious: in front of my refrigerator, at the end of the counter cabinets. We never mastered the art of toilet training, and he soon became a backyard dog and something of a wild child. Bless you, Max, wherever you are.

This week in the throes of some really warm weather and perhaps going a little nuts, I decided what Max had done was my cue to replace the linoleum and get a nice floor back, something I could share with friends without scandalizing Maximum Labrador for being an impetuous beastie or myself for my inadequate training acumen.

What is the difference between three or four breeches of the ancient flooring and the appearance of the floor as I slowly pull off the linoleum, step one toward recovering it with something new? NOTHING I decided. A floor in a state of rampant disarray is no more imperfect as a floor in minor disrepair. So for short stretches of time — five minutes here, 10 minutes there — I’ve been removing the top layers down to the wood base. In this passing condition, it’s the ugliest floor I’ve seen, but it’s also like a random abstract painting I can walk on. I can still cook, wash dishes. I have no idea of what I’m going to cover the floor with — linoleum tile? new linoleum on a roll? granite tile? Absolutely not kitchen carpeting or rugs. I have a lot of top cover to remove before I decide. The inspiration to not dawdle will come from the horrendous appearance.

I don’t want to live with that floor as it is any longer than necessary. But I don’t see resolution before November at the earliest. I have real estate taxes to pay and a sizable gas bill which must be paid so I can have hot water again and heat for the winter. I have missed the showers. I’ve been sponge-bathing since April, and I’m pretty efficient by now. Others in this town have it worse than me. At least I have a stove to heat the water. In the meantime, I will scrape when I can and work toward a finite, attainable goal of a new kitchen floor.

In the meantime, I must start writing for dollars for this rest of this day, with a clear head undistracted by the heat or blog musing.

Thanks for dropping by.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.