Adventure writing ( Archived) (232)

My Cousin Craig in Louisiana taught me how to fiddle for worms and night crawlers for fishing. You take 2 sticks, bury 1 in the ground and take the other and do like a fiddle.

I decided to try this alone. I fiddled and to much my surprise, a snake came out of the ground…I don’t fiddle any more.

Traveling Wilburys - Handle With Care

Uncle Win spent a few months with us in Ohio before he got married. Leave it to Win to find a snake!

This was summer in Ohio, and Win was taking our car for a drive. There was a black thing stretched across the road and Win ran over the tail of it. It was a long black snake, not native to Ohio. He brought it home and helped it heal.

Snakes are brought to the northern States by wrapping themselves in the undercarriages of cars and trains.

Aerosmith - Livin' On The Edge



The James Gang- Woman

My Uncle Win took us on a fishing expedition in Louisiana. I was very young. There were 4 of us; me, Win, my Father and my Uncle Fred from Alabama.

To get there, we had to crawl under a Barb Wire fence.

My Father was a prankster (I inherited his sense of humor). When Uncle Fred had his turn to go under the fence, Dad was right behind. When Fred was crawling to go under, Dad took his fishing pole and rubbed Fred on the back.

I never saw so much carrying on in my life. Fred yelled Ohhhh, he thought it was a snake. LOL!

Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin (From "Live at Montreux 1997")

Part 6 : The Break-up of John and Lisa and my Adventures at Hughes Plumbing and Electrical Supplies.

I was hired as a shipper/receiver at Hughes. In the meantime, Lisa had filed for divorce from John and moved out. My shipping route was every Wednesday throughout Central Florida. This was not easy because Plumbing and Electrical supplies are heavy.

I didn’t receive much help from the customers. The only hydraulic unit that I had on my truck was the tailgate. In summer Florida, it is so hot that the sun feels like a 20 pound weight on your shoulders.

One day, a man came into Hughes and purchased pipe and electronics. No one knew what his intention was, but he made a pipe bomb and killed a few people. This was National News.

With Lisa gone, John and I had the whole house by ourselves. We always watched Monday Night Football and played Pink Floyd over and over.

Florida is one of those places where you can’t always put on your shoes in the morning without shaking them out because spiders nest in them. Sometimes they crawl over you when sleeping.

Insect pests are common in summertime Florida. We got attacked by fleas. We couldn’t sleep, so John and I took turns sleeping in the bathtub. I finally got tired of this and purchased many spray cans of Raid and sprayed the entire house. Yes, pest control products do make you infuctionally high.

The Steve Flicko Story:

My Father worked as a neon sign contractor in the 70’s and 80’s. We ran into a character named Steve. He was Italian, married and had a personality that melted you.

Steve did side work for Dad; cash under the table. He was very short and a little rotund. Dad used to call him “The Penguin” because his shoes always curled up at the toes, and he walked like that.

Steve was a gambler; owned 3 racehorses. He was not honest in business, but he knew how to get around it. He always carried a tin can with rolled money in his truck and cash in his pocket. He would never apply for a City permit to work on a sign…so when a City Inspector would come around and ask him what he was doing…he would reach into his pocket and drop a $100 bill on the sidewalk. The inspector would pick it up and leave.

Steve was hassled very much from the inner city people. They would knock him off of his ladder and steal the money out of his pockets. He told me personally that if he had 1/5 of Bourbon when this happened, he would drink it straight down.

This shows the kindness of Steve: If he found a homeless person on the street that he liked, he gave them a room at his house. Some would travel with him on his job and he would pay them.

This is funny…one day a homeless was with him. Steve found a deal on strawberries and loaded them into his truck to take home and give away. The homeless man was nick-named named Scabooch.

Where my Father’s business was at, Steve came to visit about business. There was a tavern next door and Scabooch took the strawberries and sold them for drinks. All the Steve did was yelling at him.

Steve got ill with a heart condition in 1989 and his wife had died also. He had to sell his property and horses; move into efficiency apartment in the inner city. In October of 1989, thugs broke in while Steve was sleeping and clubbed him to death.

Believe - Video Adaptation (Music by Trans-Sibe...

I will pass no comment on this, other than it is a good read for you and your family, Butdon't give up the day job

Why didn't you post a writing Tom?

In cable television, we had areas where the cable lines were underground and connections were contained in vaults. That was always a problem; they had to be serviced constantly because of water. The neighborhoods were above average income.

I got called out one afternoon to service an underground vault. I carefully pumped the water out and started working. I had to shut down the cable to a large area, which was not good because the Soap Operas were playing on TV. I had to work very quickly.

Before I was done, a large snake crawled up into the vault. He seemed interested in playing a game of tag with me. The housewives on the street were not happy and started yelling from their doorsteps. What could I do? I called on my radio and one of my co-workers saved me by bringing a pair of animal gloves to remove the snake. Cable television customers are the least understanding of any utility service.
We had to do what we called nonpaying disconnects every 2 weeks. My boss mostly chose me because I was good with the customers. It was not a pleasant task to collect an overdue bill or have to disconnect the cable when the customer can't pay. Incidences had occurred with other cable companies where guns were pointed at technicians who had to disconnect.

I explained the situation and I had a nonpaying to collect from on a nice summer day. I went to the door and the customer answered. She replied "I no speak English". I had to make the disconnect. I climbed the pole and before I could do anything she started yelling at me in perfect English (swear words included) and began spraying me with a garden hose. I couldn't see anything but I was able to find my cable cutters and cut the cable line to her house. It fell right on top of her and knocked her down! I climbed down the pole and got away. I went back with a Police Officer and finished the job.

My day job is writing Tom.

ok

Tom, I like you! You expressed your opinion and that is fine with me. I've had bad reviews as a writer and that happens.

Cable television and the mustache:

Since my co workers were young, in our 20’s, in a new service called cable television, we all had mustaches. I was called upon to service an underground vault in a richly neighborhood because of an outage to area customers. Underground cable television vaults are located in an area on a “tree lawn”, which is owned by the City (between the sidewalk and the street). Some home owners, however, consider the tree lawn as their own property because it can be unsightly if not properly cared for.

I had to dig up the vault in this particular tree lawn to repair the outage. After I started, a rude housewife approached me with vengeance and swearing at me about being “on her tree lawn”. I explained to her that the City owned the property and I would make sure that it was back to normal with new landscaping and grass seed. Apparently, that didn’t satisfy her.

The woman started swearing at me again, saying that because she didn’t have cable television, I was encroaching on her property. I didn’t comment to her and only looked her in the eyes and said nothing. I finished the job and went back to the office.

My boss was waiting for me because the woman had called the City and filed a complaint about me. My boss told me that she had said that I had given her “the evil eye”. Then he started laughing because the woman couldn’t describe me other than “he had a mustache”.

My mustachioed co workers, including my boss, who also had a mustache, laughed about this for days and kidded each other about “being the next technician who would get in trouble for having a mustache”.

Cable TV and lightning:

It was normal for us to work in lightning storms – part of the job. It made me realize the power of Mother Nature and the consequences of her raff. I‘ve walked in these storms and I’ve experienced lightning bolts strike a few feet in front of me. Yes, they are jagged and bright.

Lightning will strike the path of least resistance and go to Earthly ground…that could even be underground. I had to dig up underground damages many times and they were melted and black. Lightning will even strike in the middle of an above ground cable which was difficult for us to find.

I’ve experienced lightning strikes that came down through the middle of multi-storied houses and apartment buildings, leaving a blackened zigzag hole in the ceilings. I was lucky.

For some reason, certain individuals are more perceptible to being struck by lightning. Why? Over 80% are men. Common theory says that it is because these were mostly vagrant men. What about vagrant women? Is it because vagrant women are a minority? Or are these people like me who spent a lot of times outdoors?

Roy Cleveland Sullivan, for most of his life a forest ranger at Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. He was struck seven times:
• While in a lookout tower in 1942.
• While driving in 1969.
• While walking across his front yard in 1970.
• While standing in a ranger station in 1972.
• While on patrol in the park in 1973.
• While checking a campground in 1974.
• While fishing in 1977. Fine, the guy's job kept him outside a lot. Still, seven?

Roy suffered assorted losses during these encounters: toenails, eyebrows, hair, and eventually his nerve. After the fourth incident he started to believe some higher power was trying to kill him, according to a 1989 St. Petersburg Times article; the fifth time came after he tried unsuccessfully to outrun a cloud he thought was following him. Given that, ignoring Bayesian considerations, the chances of being struck seven times in your life are about 1 in 1.6 times 10 to the 25th power, I don't blame him for a little paranoia. Lightning didn't end up killing Roy, though - he took his own life at age 71. Can't help thinking he wanted to beat the universe to the punch.

• Men account for 83 percent of lightning victims.
• Golfers make up just fewer than 5 percent of victims.
• July is the most common month to get struck, noon to 6 PM the most common time, and Saturday and Sunday the most common days, with Wednesday a strong third. Why Wednesday? Wild guess: doctors' day off?

(Roy's suicide was over a lost Love relationship)