Lost , and found if you are lucky

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Billfolds. I could write a book…I have found a few…one was stuffed with big cash . A friend had just been paid for his side-job as a cabinet maker. He only took cash for that work. It literally was several thousand dollars, but I didn’t count it…I just pulled the I.D., I knew him. He bought me a jug of bourbon and 2 cases of beer.
I found one while cycling in rural Ohio. It was a purse, no cash, just a billfold in it, full of all kinds of credit cards and I.D.s.
I called the lady…she lived in Royal Oak MI. She was so happy…until she asked me about the cash. She said “I had three hundred dollars in there!” She had lost it or had it stolen while at an I-75 rest stop by Findlay. Whoever stole it or found it kept the dough and chucked the rest into a ditch, many miles away. I took the time and expense to mail it to her, but she was an ungrateful human being.
The last one was a ragged , worn leather billfold, found on the floor at a Wal*Mart. It was stuffed with what was most likely a cashed paycheck. Easy solution: don’t even look at the I.D.—take to store security, like I did last summer when I found a pitiful billfold with a guy’s state I.D. and a couple cards in it. It was in the street a block from my house—straight to cop station—they wanted me to fill out forms and all that, which I refused to do. I just said if they don’t want to take it to the person I would do it, and walked out.
My personal nightmare was in 1986. I had exited Comiskey Park after Opening Day. I was boarding the 35th St. train to the Loop and as I stepped in I felt a brush …even though I had my wallet in my front pocket,I had been pickpocketed.I stepped backwards and started screaming at a kid who was scurrying away. It’s an art form. The thieves pass the stolen wallet back and forth so it’s 3 card monty figuring it out.

I caught up with the kid and he acted innocent and pointed at a young man as the thief, and I screamed at him, and felt bad as he was innocent. Then a lady was waving my wallet around saying “Did someone drop this?” I thanked her…the little bastards had taken my cash ($118), my Amtrak ticket ($37) and my library card, but I got my drivers license and credit cards back. I was actually very lucky. I had to buy a new Amtrak ticket to get home.
But it ruined me for a long time. For years, I kept essentials in a lock-box and only carried what I needed for that day…if I didn’t need gasoline, I would not carry my card…if I was walking or cycling, no driver’s license…if I wasn’t shopping, no credit cards left the lock-box. If I wasn’t shopping, no cash except a little coinage. I was paranoid to the max. I am still very careful and always have all essential information about my cards and all I.D. on a server-file so if I lose stuff, I can get right to replacing it.

In the Air tonight LIVE- phil collins

One of the greatest songs in history Do you know what it's about?
Let me know...post a comment.

Who are you?

It's going to be a tough race, but 4 more years of Bush-like foreign policy cannot come to fruition. McCain must be defeated.
Obama is perceived as a weakling by a lot of working class repugs , because he spouts off about "bringing the troops home."
However, his promises look like Swiss cheese, containing all kinds of "but-ifs..."
He also is on record from as far back as 2003 as being extremely iron-fisted in regards to Iran.(Even though that speech has mysteriously disappeared from the internet.)
Everyone with an inkling of awareness knows Obama is a fierce supporter of the war in Iraq, voting straight-Bush ever since he came to Washington.
Clinton is about the same...damn nearly exactly the same.
McCain thins all Americans are NOT concerned we have become the goddamned policeman of the world, with armed bases the globe over.
He vows to keep US forces in Iraq forever.
But...no sense worrying, because, after all, the voters wanted Bush over Kerry, and they have him.
They ridicule and force great candidates like Kucinich and Richardson out ...men who had a clear vision as to the ills and needed reforms to this land.
For many, Hillary and Obama are giving us promises in which the differences won't affect us, so it is a popularity contest.
Do you want a crazy old bastard like MccCain, a woman, or an Afro-American?
The last two are OK with me, but the old Arizona lunatic can't be elected ... please! PLEASE?

Love Day

I am a native Hoosier…DeKalb County. I was visiting an army buddy in St. Louis a year after we had been sprung…he was going to Missouri, Columbia campus and I was taking courses at “The Stench”, in those damn trailers they used as classrooms. IPFW was a fun place.
Anyway, we hit some bars by the river … Muddy Waters was one place, and everyone drank Busch beer. Not Budweiser…Busch.
As the rowdiness kicked in, one called another a “hoosier.” This was an attention grabber..”I ain’t no goddam hoosier, you blankety-blank!!”
So I piped up, “I’m a Hoosier!”
All eyes turned towards me and smirks and tiny little head shakes unnerved me.
My buddy, Bill, said “you’re no hoosier…a hoosier is a greaser-dumb ass who can’t do anything right.” As in, “damn! You damn-straight hoosiered THAT up!”
It was later on I discovered the history of “Hoosier”…I am sure you folks know all the stories…but not a lot of Indiana residents know that in St. Louis a hoosier is the WORST thing one can call another.
As a kid I grew up around KY-TN refugees who left the hills for northern Indiana factory dollars.
We were taught to shun them and call them hillbillies. And to be called a hillbilly was the ultimate insult we fired at our comrades.
Mom would have none of it…we had some KY natives living in a rental house a mile away as neighbors…they had about six kids and the old man kept getting fired and the kids were hungry about half the time, I suspected.
One older boy worked baling hay one day and was lugging a large can of baked beans home.
I remember Mom asking what he had in the bag as he trudged the road…
‘a can of beans! I love beans…we can’t afford them but we’re havin’ ‘em for supper tonight!’
Ok…I know…sounds like bullshit…but I am fairly ancient…we had an outside privy and our SCHOOL had an outhouse too!
I went to a 2-room school, eight grades, two rooms.
One day Mom had a weiner-roast…chips…oh yeah, BEANS!…buns, relish, ketchup, mustard…Pepsi Cola.
Big deal, right? She invited the “hillbillies”.
The joy in those kids’ eyes and the “thank yous” from that bunch of sweet children…well, I’m tearing up now…it was such a tender moment, I had the pastor tell the story at Mom’s funeral a few years ago. “I wish you was MY mother.” And that is a direct quote from one of those little boys.
Happy Valentine’s Day.

A Long Time Ago...

My first apartment when I got back from the army was the upstairs of an old brick house on West Washington Street in Fort Wayne. I was living on the GI bill which was inadequate, of course, so I had a part time job, too…still, very frugal I was. I ran into this kid who was selling Kirby sweepers for a living and we were inquiring about the same place…it was a different time…we just decided to share the rent so we wouldn’t have to live under a bridge…then I talked an old high school buddy into moving in, too…ah! My rent then was a manageable $41.66 a month!
This salesman was an 18 year old kid who had friends who were some kind of weed dealers. I came home one day and he had his friends there, and they were cleaning a big duffel bag of weed! I told him later, calmly, I didn’t care if he smoked it …whatever…but he just couldn’t use the apartment as a clearing house for enough weed to send us all to the pen !
Anyway, when they left that day this kid must have swept the floor and got some seeds. We had a live flower growing in a flower pot. He must have planted the seeds there.
When they grew a little , he told us about it…I just let it go…what harm ?
One day I came home and the old lady landlord was in there snooping through our stuff!!
She had a feather dust-mop in her hand and told me she was “cleaning”. Right!
The kid’s little marijuana plants were maybe 8 inches high and I knew she had seen them.
That was it. No more of that stuff. No trouble, just paranoia for a long while. I got mono and had to move back with my folks for a month to recuperate, and I lost the apartment. The kid went into the US Air Force and hopefully away from drugs.
My buddy got married and lives in a farm house now.
And I had two marriages, a daughter, a career, and now I walk dogs and blog all day.

McCain on the Rise

Huckabee is becoming the big story now...old mo' is on his side.
To me, and I have never cast a repugg vote, I find this much more intriguing.
For one thing, McCain commands attention when he delivers a TV speech, but I usually think it's Dr. Evil on the tube.
Then to further confuse me, Dr. Evil WAS on the tube earlier on a cable channel...one of those Mike Myers movies.
I watched both HRC and later Obama last night giving their speeches...just pure boilerplate re-hashing...not worth watching anymore.
The McCain / Huckabee partial love-fest is more entertaining...Dr. Evil Strangelove vs. The Second Coming Incarnate. Fascinating.
I highly suspect that McInsane was watching Austin Powers opponent, Dr. Evil, for pointers...while Huckabee was watching Fat Bastard and cheering when Fat Bastard went all-Jared and lost all that weight on the Subway diet.
But...I gotsta know...does Huckabee's skin sag like that?

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It's a Sad and Beautiful World