George Heath Locke Falls In Tub : Local Elder Says "I'm OK"

(I realize that tub falling is no laughing matter and I am not suggesting it was charming at the time. Griswold Home Care, a business directly connected to home injuries has reported that:

"There are nearly 200,000 bathroom accidents each year. Many of these accidents happen to older adults, all too often resulting in fall injuries.
Fall injuries can range from mild to serious, causing broken bones, head contusions and hospital visits. If you have a history of falls, the risk is even greater"

I rode the tub and made it out without a problem. A lot of folks don't, but since I survived with everything intact, I can chuckle a little bit. I hope you will to, keeping always in mind that falling for old guys and gals like us can be terrifyingly painful.)

Riding the tub

The elder spokesman for the powerful Locke clan rode the tub successfully today and reports no problem other then loss of dignify.

George Heath Locke, known as a charming, self effacing bon-vivant and man about town, said the ride occurred shortly after 9:30am when had finished cleaning the bathroom and just before he had finished a shower.

The remarkably youthful Locke (he will turn 74 next month) said that the ride happened so fast it was difficult to maneuver through the twists and turns of the course.

As he faced a plethora of reporters and photographers, eager to hear first hand how the bearded bard had fared on his first ride, Locke appeared calm and quite cool as he narrated his hair raising journey.

"I knew the course fairly well." he said, toweling his sculptured Grecian-like body." The first turn put my feet out from under me and a second later I had ripped down the curtains, yanked the shower hose off the wall and demolished the toilet seat next to me,"

With goggled eyes and hanging on every word the press pressed him for more details.

"Well, like I say, it was quite a trip. With the shower on full blast and water pooling like a small Mediterranean Sea around me and the bathroom floor, I was able to lean up and shut the shower off with my foot, not an easy task."  The handsome adventurer paused to light up a Cuban cigar, his muscles rippling under the lard.

He leaned back and closing his sultry shit-brindle brown eyes, blew a perfect smoke ring, followed by an isosceles triangle, a tetrahedron and the name "Benny" for a reason never explained.

Then he continued.

"I had visions of Mary Petri from an episode of the old "Dick Van Dyke Show". the one where she gets her toe stuck in a spigot of a bathtub while relaxing in a hot bubble bath," He smiled ruefully, pulling out the cigar and examining its tip. "But she had somebody there to help and call the plumber if needed."

He stood up to indicate the interview was over. "Thanks for coming everyone", he said. "And don't worry. I'm OK. Nothing was damaged."  With that, he strode over to the door and slammed his head several times against the frame. He turned and smiled, his eyes looking in two directions at once. "See. Everything is fine. Now if you'll excuse me I have a meeting with Trump to discuss the possibility of a Ambassadorship to Pluto." 

WTF - Bits of Brain Scatt, Odd Thoughts and Robust Musings

Why do guys "take" a leak?  Shouldn't they "give one?

The  line at the store always manages to have one person ahead of you who will cause a massive clog.  Or.....worse yet.

The person "clogging" is you.

In talking with your significant other,  you realize, perhaps even as you're saying it, that you have uttered something really, really stupid that you know will bring on a case of the furries, the hairy eyeball and hours of backtracking. But it's too late.

You find out after the fact that the friend or relative you are so fond of is, alas, a Trump  supporter and it leaves this bruise on your heart.

I have on several occasions been washing and rinsing dishes after supper and the stream of water from the faucet found the opening in my sweater sleeve and bathed my left arm.

You forgot your clean underwear after taking a shower and have to scamper half naked upstairs to get some, hoping all the way nobody (other then your wife) catches you causing them sudden and irreparable blindness at this hideous gaffe on your part.

If things had been skewed a fraction, Bernie Sanders would have been our president.

Bernie in full gear.

I've talked to Republicans who said they would have voted for Bernie.

When I wake up from a nap, for a minute or so I see everything monochromaticly. Really. Not different colors, but everything is different shades of green. And all the doctors to whom I've mentioned it say not to worry. But I do.

My end is closer then my beginning.

I'm never going to pack a full house at Carnegie Hall.

I still don't have all the guitars I need.

The War to End All Wars wasn't.

I love the engineering and pure design of small arms. But, I cannot for the life of me understand why we can't ban selling machine guns, assault rifles and Kevlar coated bullets.

A phenomenal gun sculpture

I will never have a gun in my house.

The house could be falling down around my ears but if I arrange the bath and kitchen towels neatly and without wrinkles, to me the place is immaculate.

I hate to come to the end a good, long book. I have grown fond of where it took me and all the characters I have met there. It's almost a death, except, I know I can return.

I have diabetes and I love to bake. No eight sadder words have ever been spoken.

The older I get, the more I understand Shakespeare.

I have no idea what cats are thinking.

Why doesn't a classy dish you had at a restaurant taste as good if you make it at home?

Our local tv channel WMUR is simply an extension of the NH Chamber of Commerce. And local news is suspended to give us national news from ABC. Why? And the talking heads are so disingenuous that I turn to WCSH in Maine and find real local news, more personal stories, more community involvement and more real people.

I live in fear of cantoring an entire mass with my fly open.

I never liked camping out.

I always look in the mirror and see a person that is far better looking and smarter then reality. And. I don't care.

I have many regrets. But I forgave myself a long time ago.

A man should have the right to pee of his own porch, provided its at night and you don't offend your neighbors.

And since we started with a nod to urination, we shall end it there.

FDR, Johnson, Goldwater and God I Can't Wait Till It's Over!

When I first voted in a national election (Johnson/Goldwater 1964) I was fresh out of the Army, full of piss and vinegar and knew more then anybody about everything.

Back then (I swore never to bore people with those two words...well, there you go) there were few media outlets; radio, television, newspapers and magazines were the only things to help you in making a choice.... plus your own family's political persuasion.

My old man had voted Democratic since FDR and the Great Depression and drove Chevrolets most of his life (except for one year when some car salesman convinced him to purchase a very odd 1957 Packard with a push-button transmission). I followed his footsteps, and brought my view to of life filtered through three plus years of the military and that "just dawning" age of Aquarius and it's attendant image of civil rights and social consciousness.

(l to r) Me, my grandmother on my fathers side, my father (clutching her hand)

my mother (clutching his hand), my grandmother Heath and my grandfather Heath

We did the best we could; voting for our local and national political figures with a minimum of fuss and distraction and a slower heart beat.

Now? Well, now there is an avalanche of information, a tsunami of advice screamed at us from all sides....The press twists and spins their perception of the candidates looking and sounding so profound from deep within their robes of respectability, and whimper if they are attacked as biased. Show me one network that isn't and I will call you slightly mistaken. No. I will call you a liar.

Magazines and tabloids in vivid colors that leap off the racks and beat you senseless
with what they a

nd only they know is the REAL truth of Trump or Clinton or whoever is currently on deck.... are in abundance and lurking at the checkout counters.

Television and radio commercials have become back to back vials of poison that , back in the day, would have outraged even a rock.

And then. Then we are beset with the mega information monster of them all.

The internet.

Never in the history of the human race have homo sapiens been faced with the most insidious and toxic force known to man.

Not only is every conceivable thought, jotting, observation, lie and outright falsehood funneled into our homes, but we, ourselves have the ability to vomit our own misanthropic hate into the blogosphere.

Those guys.

We hate the phone calls from masked spin doctors, survey mavens and door to door politicos, hat in hand, looking for your vote. But this is what democracy is. A little song. A little dance. A little seltzer down our pants.

And, though we complain, we all can imagine the alternative. A military coup ala Banana Republic. Thanks in the streets. The red flag of anarchy. Or.  One party. One candidate. State run media ( yes, I know they are biased, but we can openly accuse them of that and not fear that men in slouch hats and trench coats will come in the middle of the night and carry us out of homes never to be heard of again.) Big brother staring in his Orwellian way will not be the legacy of this country.

Just the dust settling after the first Tuesday in November has come and gone. And we come out of our 16 month hibernation, blinking in the sun and breathing a sigh of relief. For a few years anyway.

Ah, play Django. Play that Gypsy jazz and we will all dance.

Note To Self; Don't Get...Arrgghh!!!

How many times has the comment "Note to self; don't get old" been spoken? Either by you or by some other elderly dude/dudette?

In fact if you are over 65 (heck, over 55) you have begun to notice odd little things that never bothered you before.

Like intriguing aches and pains suddenly rear up and bite you in places you thought were safe from harm.
Liver spots once condemned by you as icky and ugly on others now bloom with ease on your skin.

Eeee-you!!!

Or when you notice for the first time that your hands look like the hands of an old person.
What the heck!

Oh yes. Lest we forget (something else we do on an hourly basis), as we age, our peers appear very old and wrinkly.
Except us, of course.

What a joke we play on ourselves. And we never see it coming.

Speaking of which. I am reminded of a Far Side cartoon. Of course that in itself is a conundrum. Many things remind me of a Far Side cartoon.

However, what I wish to discuss is the odd manifestation of thoughts and memories of our life.

Places and things we had forgotten suddenly come easily.

In the morning as I lie in bed, not fully awake and still wearing that "Darth Vader" CPAP mask. I think, only briefly, that it's sixty-five years ago in my attic room in Wilmington Vt. I sense the stairway in a place where it shouldn't and a window that drifts through the frosted distance of time.

Music wrenches at my being as I hear my mother, dead now these many years, singing "Marzey Doats".
Strange. Very strange.

If I slumber in my recliner during the day and suddenly awake, all my colors are suddenly monochromatic. Usually shades of green. But only for a few moments.

Or if the family gets together, our children  perhaps, (although I'm not certain about this) will discuss the "old folks" when my wife and I leave the room for a moment. Of course she is ten years my junior....but still.

Our children. Grandchildren. Their significant others from years ago.

Memories, names of people you thought were lost forever in that vast jumble of a lumber room we call our minds, suddenly pop up with ease and greet you with vitality.

My God.

Mrs Perkins from 20 Monroe St. where you lived in Concord NH. seventy years ago. And whose large body caused a wooden chair in our house to splinter as she sat down to a visit with my mother and I.

She fainted, and my mother, ever the nurse, asked me so calmly to fetch a glass of water while she gently helped her up.
Why would I suddenly remember a name from decades past and forget the name of someone I met only a few moments ago?

I also find myself checking over some ridiculous thing on the internet with the heading. "How To Know If You Are The First Stages Of Alzheimer's Disease"

And cancer. That disease that shows no partiality. Every time I feel a twinge or behold a lump. my concern goes into overdrive.

I also sense that computers and electronic gizmos and folks calling from Pakistan to let us know there is something wrong with our computer are playing us false.

Sharp as a tack?
You bet.

Hate getting old?
You bet. But what you gonna do?