Come Blow Your Horn

 Come Blow Your Horn

I am not usually a person who blows my own horn, but as a writer and author, I do need to sell myself to sell my finished product. I’ve written for a long time, well over forty years, but because of a challenge to write a detective story to share in another writers group I wouldn’t have been published. A woman who was just starting a publishing company heard my story and suggested that I write some more tales about the retired homicide detective, Tommy Two Shoes. Because of her insistence, I now have four books with Thomas Minerd, retired Pittsburgh Police Department detective mystery books, each book is a compilation of short stories which makes it easy to pick up and put back down as it’s read.
My last book, The Walls Came Tumbling Down is a full length novel about Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute, how she met, fell in love with an enemy and married a devout Jewish man, Salmon. Their union is mentioned in later pages of the Bible.
Mary Kaufman, the new librarian for the Mt. Pleasant Public Library suggested to a couple of reporters that it might make a good story to interview Fred Adams and myself as local authors. Well, I did an interview on this last day of August. I was able to share some of my writing history and my nursing career. I was also able to introduce the newest novel to be out soon, Addie.
She seemed genuinely intrigued that I had no specific genre or subject that I liked to write about. I told her, “Whatever project I was working on was my favorite at that time:” poetry, Haiku, children’s books, love stories, and of course mysteries. She asked if I planned to write more Tommy Two Shoes stories. I was truthful and said I was burned out, but had several stories started. Tommy isn’t dead yet.
I explained that I haven’t made much money, but it pleases me when people read what I write. I told her most people say the mysteries are page turners. I did have one complaint about The Walls. They said it was too slow. Compared to the multiple short stories, it would be. The short stories have the entire tale shared within 20 pages or so, versus 200.
I have several readers who read the books before I have them published to look for weak areas, misspellings, or things that aren’t clear. One reader of Addie said, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.” I think it is one of my better writings. Now, all I need is an agent to promote my books so I won’t have to blow my own horn.

Have You Ever

 Have You Ever

I saw a questionnaire my niece Jennifer Potosky added to Facebook. It was a challenge of sorts. I had nothing else in mind to write about and thought answering the questions posted would make a great share in my BlogSpot. It would tie together several stories I’ve already shared earlier.

The first question was, “Have you broken a bone?” Only one, my little toe, I’d been outside shoveling snow. Coming came inside, my fogged glasses caused me to misjudge a doorway, and I caught my little toe. A bit of tape solved the problem.

Did I ever fire a gun? Yes, I hunt and I have and shot some target practice, although not as much as my brother Ken.

Have I ever done skydiving…no, nor will I ever bungee jump. Until I turned 50, heights never bothered me. I had several episodes of an off-balance feeling. Now climbing onto the roof of my house is enough.

I’ve ridden in a limo, swam in the ocean, and gotten a massage, but I’ve never gotten a tattoo, had braces, or given birth. I’ve ridden a horse, ridden a train, and got a speeding ticket. I’ve watched Star Wars, eaten sushi, and dyed my hair. Let me explain the last item. When an accident victim was spitting blood over everything and everyone, I unwittingly used peroxide to clean the clots from my hair.

I haven’t scuba dived, but as a fireman wearing masks and air tanks were uncomfortable. I’ve been camping and shared many stories about our church’s tenting trip out west.

I will admit, I’ve eaten some food that’s fallen to the floor at home. The cat wouldn’t so I had to. I’ve once zip lined and have swung on ropes jumping into a creek’s swimming hole. That’s where I’ve skinny dipped with other kids after a baseball game when hot and tired.

Have I ever traveled out of country? While in the US Navy I was stationed in Iceland. Later in life I traveled into Canada as far north as Nain, Labrador. I’ve ridden in ambulances caring for a person inside and being cared for.

This question makes me laugh. Have you ever been on television? Yes. I dressed as Col. Sanders at a Pittsburgh Pirate game. White jacket, pants, shirt, fedora, and a black bowtie, I was in full regalia. Root sports television did some shots of me and I was on the Jumbotron.

Lastly, I’ve been on a cruise in Canada and have fished off Cape Canaveral in Florida. The only thing that has been pierced was my arm. As a kid, my brother tossed an ice pick off my parent’s house roof. What have you ever?

Noses

 Noses

I was watching one of the wilderness television programs from the Arctic and the captioning for the different characters would display across the television screen the locations of their homes, Kiwalik, Eagle, Huslia, Brushkana, Nenana, etc. But it also gave reference of their homes to the Arctic Circle, So many miles above or below the Circle. It caused me to think of the year that I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland as a corpsman in the Naval Hospital there.

Keflavik is located 63.9998 degrees north and 22.5583 degrees west between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Norwegian Sea. The currant of the Gulf Stream wends its way north becoming the North Atlantic Current. Because of this anomaly Iceland is much warmer than its location or name would suggest. Winter’s average temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit and summer’s average 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit in southern Iceland.

I know someone is asking by now where the “Nose” title comes into the story. No, the people of Iceland are not Eskimo and don’t rub noses, but travelers who cross the Arctic Circle above the northernmost part of the island can earn the title of “blue nose” in the Navy. I’m not sure if the same holds true to the other branches of the military.

I was blessed enough to have been friends with a doctor who wanted to log flight hours to earn his commercial pilot’s license. Several other corpsmen and I wanted to see more of Iceland and the doctor was willing to fly us for free if we paid for the plane’s rental costs. It was a small plane and if I remember correctly, it carried 4 people, 3 passengers and the pilot. We puddle jumped to many places on the island flying over huge waterfalls and glaciers. To the south we flew to the volcanic island of Surtsey. The doctor even enticed us to fly with him to Akueryi at the northern tip of Iceland so we could win a “Blue Nose” certificate. He flew over the island of Grimsey deciding not to attempt a landing because of the huge number of birds. One hit from a bird in a light plane and we’d all have been swimming in the frigid waters of the Greenland Sea.

Our return to Keflavik was a bit scary. Clouds rolled in thick and low. It limited the doctor’s ability of visual flight. The doctor was learning still the controls each time he flew. Several times we flew low enough to follow a road below us. He knew we were heading south and knew the road would eventually lead us to habitation. We made it back safely, but politely refused to fly to Scotland when he suggested that.

Rooster Tales and Other Roadway Hazards

 Rooster Tales and Other Roadway Hazards

Over my lifetime I’ve had several unusual occurrences while driving between Mill Run and Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. The last one happened over a year ago, not that a flat tire is an unusual event, but let me explain. I’d spent the day frying sausage at the Buckwheat and Sausage Festival for the Ohiopyle Volunteer Fire Department. All I wanted was to get off my feet and relax. Not long after I left the parking lot I began to feel the beginning of a flat. I was praying that I could make it through the less populated areas to Mill Run. It wasn’t to be. As I crossed the bridge below Falling Waters I felt it go completely flat. Bear Run Church and school house was next with a parking lot and a light to see what I was doing. I pulled in so the light shined on the flat. I managed to get the car jacked up, but due to a shoulder injury, I wasn’t able to loosen the wheel nuts. Just then a man in uniform (I assume he was a guard for the Conservancy) pulled in to see what I was doing. When I explained that I had a flat, he generously offered his assistance. I was so tired and so thankful.

One incident happened as I drove to the Buckwheat Festival years before. Crossing the crest of a hill there was a fawn standing in the middle of the highway. My eyes were focused on it and I missed seeing another fawn’s corpse on the road. I ran over it with a thump.

Another time I was driving to the Buckwheat festival, a rusted muffler had fallen from another car. It was in my lane. I was too close. Instead of swerving to miss it and possibly lose control of my car I straddled it. Of course it hung up on the underside of my car. The loud grating sparked brightly in the predawn darkness. I slowed planning to stop and it rolled loose as I pulled onto the berm.

I wasn’t heading to Ohiopyle, but I was visiting my brother-in-law David Morrison. As we were leaving his driveway that sloped upward it put us at eyelevel with the roadway, we heard a grating sound and waited to see what was coming. A car whizzed past with its “muffler” dragging. A huge rooster tail of sparks shot out the back. When it passed gasoline fumes flooded our car. It was the guy’s gas tank. David said, “Do you think we should follow him and let him know.” 

I said, “He knows something’s dragging and I don’t want to be anywhere near him if it blows.”

I Remember

 I Remember…

As I grew up there was a television program I Remember Mama. I can’t remember many of the episodes, but I can recall that they all centered on their Scandinavian family; day to day problems, familial love, and their integration into the American community. Black and white images still flicker across my brain, mostly still shots of their faces.

My memories of Christmas’s past do much of the same only in color. Cousins by the dozens would gather at my grandparent Ray and Rebecca Rugg Miner’s large rambling farm house in Indian Head, Pennsylvania. The din and the laughter emerge from the cobwebs of my brain. Cookies of all kinds were toted in by my aunts for the occasion. My grandmother always made popcorn balls and would sometimes put the meats of butternuts in some of the syrup covered popcorn.

My grandfather, Ray was a short statured quiet man. A smile rarely left his face when he was surrounded by his raucous progeny. Now that I’ve aged, I understand that feeling. There are people who will not be here for Christmas again this year claimed either by distance or death. That saddens me, but there is still love that the Christmas season brings and eases those feelings.

My grandmother Rebecca Rugg Miner was always busy. If she wasn’t cooking or baking, she was directing the aunts what to do or where to place the food. If she ran out of those, she shooed kids from under her feet. She was a larger framed person who had very few gray hairs until later in life.

Christmas at my grandparents’ Beck was more subdued. We went to their home in single family groups. As strict Pentecostals there was less decorating and less laughter, but the memories are still just as tender. The hardest thing was sitting on their old excelsior filled couch and chairs. The upholstery was scratchy and the seats were hard. It was difficult to sit while the adults talked without squirming. Usually, there were gifts for us, socks, a few dollars in a card, and maybe a piece of fruit.

When I married and began celebrating Christmas in my own home. My wife Cindy Morrison Beck and I tried to create memories for our own kids.  She was “worse” than I was at Christmas. We would be up late, wrapping gifts and putting them under the tree. It didn't matter what time it was that we went to bed, she would be awake at 5 a.m. or earlier and make noise until our kids would waken.

Cindy wouldn’t snoop… until the gift was wrapped. I could have placed a bag of unwrapped gifts on her side of the bed and they would be undisturbed until they were wrapped. She would make excursions to the tree to poke and prod, trying to find what she got for Christmas. It became my mission each year to disguise her gifts and make some challenges for her. I would wrap her panties around a cheap package of combs; hide jewelry in a Pringles can, or other unusual ways of camouflage.

The panties became a traditional gift for her. Struggling as most families do when first married, she walked by me, one side of her underwear came loose from the elastic and drooped. “I said, “You need to buy some new underwear.” She replied they were still okay to wear around the house. When she walked by me again, I grabbed the droop and finished ripping the material from the waistband. She said, “Now, you have to buy panties for me,” and so it became a Christmas tradition, underwear for her.

A ring I hid in the Pringles can came in a Lucite box. With her shaking, it came loose and rattled. Because of the gifts I disguised to stump her snooping, Cindy thought it was one of the kid games with the Bee Bees to shift into the holes of a picture. She tossed it back under the tree. It remained untouched until Christmas Day. It was the last gift she opened. Her eyes brightened, a smile spread across her face, and she mouthed, “Is it real?”

I guess that because the ring was real, Christmas and our love became more than real as well.

Queens of Clean

 Queens of Clean

I have met three women in my life that could have given Mr. Kleen a real run for his money. Clean was almost an obsession with each one of them. That habit was nearly to the point that there was nothing in their lives more important than to have a spotless house. I’ve told some of these stories before. This is only a few.

The first woman I’ll mention is Jean, an LPN at Frick Hospital whose habits of home cleanliness extended to her work. I’ve shared her numerous adventures in other postings. One tale was that she washed her full length white leather coat in her clothes washer. She had to stand on the top to pry the coat from the inside. Another of her cleaning escapades was that she would kneel on her basement floor to scrub the cracks with a toothbrush. She also would clean her house before thr cleaning lady would arrive. Jean took her own linens and cleaning supplies when she would go on vacation. There were similar incidents that happened at work. She thought nothing of placing a dirty child in a sink and scrubbing them clean. Sometimes her cleaning acts caused her to be reprimanded. She haas passed away and joined my aunts to keep the streets of gold in heaven shining and bright for sure.

Other women who I will mention are my aunts: Aunt Estella Strawderman and Aunt Helen Stahl. Aunt Helen had chores for each day of the week: Laundry, ironing, baking, etc, plus she would do a thorough “spring” cleaning of a different room in her house each day of the week. She was a pleasant jolly woman with a desire to provide the best home for her husband and six children.

One peculiarity she had was with her choices of colors. Each room of her house was painted a different color: turquoise, coral, and vibrant green. Her desires for bright colors may have been influenced by Anna Nichols Beck her mother and my grandmother.

My Aunt Estella was unbelievably clean. She worried when people visited her home. I’m sure that her cost of cleaning supplies rivaled her cost for food. When she washed dishes, she’d dry then wax her countertops. She laid rag rugs on her scrubbed floors and covered the rugs with newspapers. When her children visited with their family on Friday evening and left Sunday afternoon, she would wait nervously until one minute after midnight to wash the “dirty” linens. She didn’t want dirty linens in her house, but she also didn’t dare work on Sunday. She even waxed her exterior enamel painted front steps making them even more slippery.

These are my queens of clean.

Like a Freight Train

Like a Freight Train

Time is like a freight train hurtling faster and faster. It seems that each day something causes me to reevaluate my life. Age causes me to adjust what I do or when I can do and that upsets me. I once thought that I wouldn’t let my age limit my daily chores and alter my life, but time has a way of making the most determined person eat his words. Time has a way of wearing down even the tallest of mountains, bit by bit, grain by grain. My flesh is all too quickly wearing out and I’m developing a deep and intimate relationship with arthritis and diabetes. I’ve just spent two restless nights unable to find a comfortable position to sleep. Each time I tried to eliminate one ache another part of me says’ “That won’t work either, Buddy.” But like someone else has said, “If I didn’t wake up with pain, I’d think I was dead.”

The greatest thing is that I can look ahead to is a time where I will no longer have pain and not be limited by my flesh. It is a future event in my life where time has no meaning, where pain and sorrow will have no place. Heaven awaits behind huge pearly gates. Each gate is a giant pearl. Gold is so common that the streets are paved with it, only fit to be walked on. The walls are of brilliantly colored jewels.

When I look around and see the wonders displayed on the earth, I am unable to imagine what God has created in that eternal and heavenly city. It is a place where sin, death, and sorrow cannot enter in. It is a place where the corruption of rust and decay do not exist. So even though there are days when my aches and pains override the thoughts of my new body and I turn to ointments and medication for relief, I must not lose sight of the goal. I must not let the world continue to interfere with the sharing of the Good News to others.

The cost of our passage has already been paid. Daily we need to take time to more closely review the price God paid to redeem us from the grasp of death and eternal punishment. His only Son suffered terribly as He was humiliated, spat on, beaten. Although sinless He hung on a cross like the most common of criminals. Jesus bore it all so that sinful man could be reunited with God the Father. Remember that love each day as you wake. Christ died for you and me. There is no time like the present to accept Jesus as your Savior.