The Gathering of the Clan...............

Sunday morning, bright and early, my oldest grand-daughter, Cheyenne, and I loaded the car............(turkey salad, two giant apple pies, and an armload of toys and accessories).........and headed for Linden, Indiana.

The occasion was the annual gathering of the descendants of Cecil Boze, my grandfather and the man after whom I was named.

I set a pretty high stock in family and this is an event I look forward to attending all year long. It has always been a regret that the circumstances of my upbringing kept me at a remove from my Aunts, Uncles and cousins. I always envied them the closeness and convenience to each other that they were able to enjoy.

Some years ago (nearly 20 I would reckon), I would meet my parents at my Aunt Jenny's place in Crawfordsville, Indiana,(which was about half-way from where they had moved after retiring and my home) around the first of july, and transfer the kids to them.

My two would join their cousins Shannon and Joe at Grandma and Grandpa's wooded hideaway for about 3 weeks, after which my former spouse and I would join them for my three or four week vacation.

The second year I did this, I got the idea to spread the word that we would be there for the afternoon, so anyone who wanted to visit with us could come over to say hi.
In about the third year, we started bringing pot-luck.

I'm not sure when it got formalized into a "get-together" (note the careful avoidance of the "R" word...........calling anything a reunion seems guaranteed to condemn it to non-attendance).........but get formalized it did, and for a while it was the celebration of a burgeoning clan.

Years have meandered by, some have passed on, kids have grown up and had kids, health problems plague some of the rest, and other obligations sometimes preclude attendance, but we hang in there. Some years bring a better crowd than others, but I am still grateful for the opportunity to catch up, however briefly with people I cherish, and for the chance to introduce my grandchildren to a bit of their own personal history.

I went with every good intention of taking dozens of pics. I snapped a few, ate my way through the potluck buffet, and then got so absorbed in talking that I forgot all about my camera................doh!!!
So, I have this pitiful rookerful of pictures. I missed so many people that I would liked to have included here, but there is always next year.

This is my Dad's side of the family. There were four handsome boys, Clare, Fern, Donald, and (my dad) George, and four beautiful girls, Virginia (Jenny), Ann, Betty, and Marilyn Jo (Joey). Of the boys, my Dad is the only survivor. My Dad has been unable to attend these get-togethers for some years because of his health.

This is my Aunt Jenny...........




This is my grand-daughter Cheyenne with a member of yet another generation, whose name I didn't catch (or who she belonged to......god, I'm terrible).




This is my Aunt Jenny and my Aunt Betty.........




These are my cousins Cindy and Byron Clare.............I'm sure it must be this way in most every family, that if you have the same name as anyone older than you, you have to go by both your names forever. Thus, I am and have been and always will be Cecil Owen. Likewise, Garnal Malden and Garnal Leon. On my Mom's side of the family, there is a Paul Dewey and a Mary Lou...............I suppose it could be worse, my brother gets to be Georgie for the rest of his life..........




This is my Aunt Ann and my Aunt Marilyn...........Aunt Marilyn was the baby of the family, and is only 12 years older than I am. Her middle name is Jo, so, of course, everyone called her Joey............Which became Aunt Joey to all the assorted cousins and semi-cousins.




This is my Uncle Leo.............Aunt Betty's husband and one of the two people to whom I owe the experience of learning how to "buck hay". When you get even a small taste early in your life, of what hard work really is, it seems to cut down on the whining about small stuff significantly later on. I recommend it.




This is my cousin Mary Ann............who is enough like me in temperament and humor, that I always harbored a secret wish that she had been eligible to be a girlfriend. Guess it's not a secret anymore..........but then blogging tends to do that at times. At any rate, if she sees this, I hope she is complimented rather than shocked or offended.




This is my cousin Mike and my Uncle Byron (the other "hay bucking educator"). I think I was about 12 years old before I realized that his name was Uncle Byron and not Uncle Barn......(hey, regional accents aside, he was a farmer and had a barn, so it made sense to a kid).




So, I am dismayed that I came back with no more pics than that, and a little embarrassed at my total inability to hang on to a name not repeated to me more than a few thousand times. I missed so many people that I wanted so much to introduce here.........and the hasty snaps I did manage to get don't do much justice.
So I apologize to everyone.

It's a good family, solid and honest and hard working and accomplished and loyal. The stories are as old as America.

Nine of the surviving men are Freemasons. Six are Past-Masters and one is currently sitting in the Oriental Chair. This represents three generations of Masons.

We had to clear the hall we rented by 4:00pm, so it seemed the day didn't last nearly long enough. It seemed we had no sooner gotten there and Cheyenne and I had to hop back in the car for the 3 hour ride home.................she's a good traveler for a four year old, but she was on a world class sugar buzz and wound up like an eight day clock.

As for me...........it's karaoke time........

Thus endeth the entry..............

Woot..............I'm famous!!!

As an exercise in ennui, I googled my name and the title of this blog a bit ago.............

First page people! That's up from google's stygian nether regions just a few days ago.

For some odd reason I've been getting a smattering of hits on my bio, originating in the Phillipines, from people who type in "Captain Gutz". I have to wonder why anyone, outside of ancient underground comix afficionados would type "Captain Gutz" into a browser..............and even with the hippie nostalgia crowd, the name of the character was Captain Guts (not Gutz..........I mispelled it in my bio)..........but, the Phillipines????

Now I have to wonder who or what Captain Gutz is or was to the residents of that archipelago.

I love the fucking internet..............

More later, I have pictures of Sunday's get-together (though only a disappointing handful, as I forwent my duties as a photo blogger in favor of eating and socializing) and an entry on Turkey and Monster Apple Pie for my cooking blog.

Ta for now.............

Thus endeth the entry.........

On the Road...............

It's 7:30 in the morning and Cheyenne and I are heading out the door...........

I managed to get up a post to Cooking With Gutz, my food blog, to tide you over 'til my return..........

In the meantime, I'll entice you with visions of My infamous 3 pound home-made apple pies..........




Laters............

Thus endeth the entry..........

Marge's Midnight International Symposium of Physics...........or the Quasi-Coherent Participant Theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything.......

I laid down early last night, thinking to get up early this morning. After about a half hour, I gave up, got up, got dressed and headed for River City........it being Karaoke night after all.

A few beers, an Abby-shot of Pinch and my signature rendition of Brown Eyed Girl later, I quit that venue for a bit of quiet quality time at Aunt Marge's downtown.

I walked in on the usual desperate few that make up the typical late week-night at Marge's, (something on the order of rounding up the usual suspects) sat myself down between Fuzzy and Lang, and called for a frosty glass of their finest Bud Light.

The sound on the Television was muted in favor of whatever twenty-five cent, mournful-ass, psuedo-country treacle was sobbing its way out of the juke box.

It just don't get no better than that!

Professor Hawking's face appeared on the CRT briefly, and that, of course, kicked off comment on his startling turn around concerning the nature of black-holes........

After a bit of a round-robin amongst ourselves to determine that we were on the same page..............i.e.; we were talking about black holes as opposed to, say, black Ho's, and if perhaps we wouldn't rather talk about black Ho's..........we entered into a lively exchange on the import and meaning of Prof. Hawking's latest speculations.

My own personal theories, heavily founded in Hawking's views on the suspension of the normal laws of quantum physics within a singularity and the possibility of the existence of alternate universes, have been knocked into a cocked hat by the Professor's announcement. Some years ago I put together what I believed to be a plausible model of alternate universe formation that correlated what was then the current thinking about the nature of black holes, and the mystery of socks gone missing in the dryer.........firmly believing it to be on the same high order of logical thought that bolstered Al Pogue's famous and time-tested mathematical proof of the equation "Pi=ice cream"...............(laid out to me while reclining on the hood of a car, staring at the stars, on one superlatively psychedelic night in late summer of 1970).

Of course my faith in the Socks Theory of Alternative Universes has been chipped away at by littles, since July of 1998, owing to the fact that I haven't had a sock go missing since my wife left and I started doing my own laundry.

So, at any rate, me and Fuzzy and Lang had a great ol' time volleying the concepts of space and time and infinite densities and the speed-o-light squared until just a bit before closing time.

I went next door to Newt's for a last call, a handful of peanuts in the shell, and an obligatory offering of suggestive innuendo and blatant leer directed at lovely, unobtainable, terminally married but eternally desirable Annette.........whose day, I'm sure, is not complete without my embarrassing attentions........God bless all long-suffering cute bartenders.

Cheyenne, my oldest grand-daughter, came for a visit today. We hopped off to TomCat's for lunch before her nap. She had taken a sort of a purse, day-book thing that her mother had abandoned and was in the back seat getting frustrated with the zippers..............

She said:

"Purse, you're crackin' me out...."

I turned around grinning and she said, rather sheepishly:

"I was talkin' to the purse."

Cheyenne and I head off to Crawfordsville,Indiana this Sunday for the annual get-together of my Dad's side of the family. Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and semi-cousins............it's a good ol' pot-luck affair to which I'll bring my usual roasted Turkey breast and two monster apple pies..............guess what Gutz is going to cook next!!

That's all the news that fits, boys and girls.........'til next time.

Thus endeth the entry...........

While I were gone........................

I've been uncharacteristically silent in this forum for a few days..............I'm not sure why I feel contrite about that, some bloggers go weeks between entries and then throw out some insipid lameness that makes a weather report seem like something you'd want to buy pop-corn for.

In my defense,I did devote an inordinate amount of time to a recent entry to Cooking With Gutz in which I probably expended most of the off-the-wall-running-off-at-the-head that would normally have found its way into this demesne.

So, whether or no you truly give a fat rat's ass about making a manly stew of dead cow parts,wholesome chewy grains and hearty vegetables, that is the place, at least for the nonce, to glean the latest brainy bits from Kindly Ol' Uncle Cecil................

I do appreciate your continued interest and attendance.

So, stay tuned darlings, you never know what's going to spark the next outpouring of insightful (or inciteful) rant, zen-like observation, inspired pronouncement, or anecdotal vomitus.

Thus endeth the entry...........

Dream on...................

I stumbled into bed around three-something this morning.

Two things happened between that time and dawn:

I had the most vivid, detailed, specific, long-lasting sex-dream that I've ever had in my life. People, I passed puberty well over 40 years ago and have been sex-obsessed to some excessive degree or another ever since........and we're not talking bits and snatches of Dali-esque surreal-ness. We're talking smell and touch and taste and a real person.............to the point that when I woke up (nearly at the point of orgasm) I was confused and disappointed not to find myself on top of someone, giving them the high hard one, waving my hat, urging her on with a buggy-whip, and hollering giddy-up.

I didn't take note of the time, but it was before dawn............so not long after I'd gone to bed.

So, I got up, threw my poncho liner around me and wandered out to the living room to regain my composure, lit a cigarette and took a peek at my web-site.

At 4:39:03 am, I recieved my 1000th official page hit since starting this on-line diary on June 10th............5 weeks ago.

I'm so proud!!!

Thanks folks........and thank you dear 1000th person.........*bisses*

I didn't stay up very long, I couldn't wait to get back to bed! *grins*

Thus endeth the entry..........

Nobility................

I've devoted a lot of time in the past (nearly) forty years to reflection on my own period of military service and its relation to the sacrifice of service rendered by those throughout history.
 
As our current military adventure in Iraq appears to be deteriorating into the predictable quagmire it was destined to become, and our involvement in Afghanistan (remember that?) disappears from the news media, it seems appropriate to offer up my own small voice.
 
Until the last of my generation lies rotting in its overpriced boxes, no military effort entered into by our country will escape comparison to Vietnam.  The effort to free Kuwait, in 1990, succeeded beyond our wildest expections. It will be duly noted that that effort was presided over almost entirely by veterans of Vietnam: Colin Powell at Joint Chiefs and Norm Schwarzkopf in the field.  George the elder was at the helm, and whatever else may be said about the self-serving, oil-soaked bastard, he ruled his ministers, gave the order and deferred to the judgements of those to whom he entrusted the execution of the operation.
 
George the small, however, excercises no such ascendancy. He is the propped up talking head for a cabal of vested interests.  Schwarzkopf is retired and Powell has been neutered by his inclusion in the administration and his own consuming ambition.
 
History is replete with examples of the citizen soldier: Cincinnatus and Glendower and Wallace,  Sgt. York and Audie Murphy.  If these names are unfamiliar to you, I'll leave it to you to conjure up the resouces of your browser.  Surrounding us, though, in our everyday lives are walking examples of those who gave the best years of their youth in service to something they believed to be as important as their lives.
 
In any sampling of men in the armed forces, you'll find the borderline psychotic who lusts for the opportunity to experience the thrill of murder without the threat of execution or prison.  Also present will be the cagey opportunist who is motivated by the lure of a free education or other economic advantage, or the man who seeks to compensate for his lack of penis or personality by donning a uniform.  Added to this is the misguided fool who sees and seeks the mantle of glory draped over the horror of war by  limp-wristed, safe-at-home poets,writers, film-makers, actors and other clueless wanna-bes of their ilk. 
 
For the most part, however,  from time immemorable, a nation's standing military has comprised, and wars have been fought by, men and women who have made a concious and considered decision to offer their lives as forfeit, if need be, to defend and preserve the integrity and ideals of  the family, or clan, or tribe, or nation to which they owe their allegiance. Motivated by the highest aspirations of honor, these individuals stand ready, in peacetime and in war, to render the ultimate sacrifice in the cause to which they are committed.
 
This, to me, defines nobility.
 
History is also replete with examples of the misuse that may be made of these men and women by unscrupulous politicians, outright criminal war-lords, opportunistic men of influence, and populations driven to hysteria by fanatic demagogues. We needn't go far back in time to cite the soldiers who were utilized to implement the policies of extermination and containment practiced on Native Americans, or those who served the government of Adolf Hitler.
 
This, to me, does not erase or negate the nobility inherent in honorably motivated service.
 
In the span of my life, the American people demanded a "hard line" against the expansion of  Soviet Communism.  This led to a war in Korea and a war in Vietnam. A war-weary public, largely ignored the warrior of Korea. A public, divided into warring camps at home, took its frustration over, and contempt and revulsion for the conflict in Vietnam, into the streets.  A generation, by some exercise of stoned logic, reasoned that if there were no one to fight the war, then there would be no war and transferred its fear driven hatred onto those who were noble enough to serve.
 
In our times, a terrorized public has demanded an answer to an attack on our shores.  In our panicked, knee-jerk reaction, we have bought, wholesale, the fabric of rationale that has led us into our adventure in Iraq. We are beginning to question, investigate, uproot and examine the truth. We are beginning the process of weighing the costs and risks and sacrifices that we will be condemned to bear for a generation. We are beginning to cast about for the villian.
 
It is likely that the  villian will  prove to be as wily and as elusive and as immune as those who gave us Vietnam.
 
We, the people, elect the politicians, we demand protection and security, we send our sons and daughters off to stand in harms way.  We are responsible..........................they simply serve, Nobly so.
 
This entry was elicited by a song..............a very old song. One that has echoed within me for a lot of years.
 
I think it expresses something timeless..................and I'll share the lyrics with you.
 

The minstrel boy to the war is gone,In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,And his wild harp slung behind him;
Land of Song!" cried the warrior bard,"Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy right shall guard,One faithful harp shall praise thee!"


The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's steel Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,For he tore its chords asunder;
And said "No chains shall sully thee,Thou soul of love and brav'ry!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free, They shall never sound in slavery.

Nobility, people. Those who serve own something that most will never aspire to.
We owe them everything.

Thus endeth the entry..............

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling...........

I'm not sure there is any way I can keep this from developing into a long story, however much I try. So grab a beer and make yourself comfortable.

It must first be clearly understood, that I love Ireland and all things Irish. Though I have no distinct Irish heritage, American mutt that I am, I've held this fascination for as long as I can remember.......and that's a long fucking time.

As I read my morning paper, a small article with the bold tag line, Belfast, Northern Ireland, caught my eye.
The headline read: "Irish Catholics attack British security forces."

The article went on to describe "an otherwise peaceful day" of parades and celebrations.

These festivities commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, which took place on July 12, 1690.

It was at this battle, that William of Orange, a dutchman and a protestant who had been asked by parliament to assume the Throne of England, defeated the forces of James II, a catholic, and the last of the line of legal claimants to the British Crown.

Led by members of the Orange Order, a militant, rabidly anti-catholic fraternity named in honor of William, huge parades snake through Catholic neighborhoods as a show of contempt for the defeated Catholic minority. This would be the equivalent of a nazi rally in Skokie............under army protection

The Orangemen wear bowler hats and orange sashes and beat on huge "Lambeg Drums". I have no factual basis on which to base this conjecture, but I suspect the Orange Order was the model and the Grand-daddy of the Ku Klux Klan...........at least in spirit.

That's sort of an opinionated nutshell summation, but it should suffice to set the backdrop for my story.

So..........

Two years ago, I took a trip to Ireland that I had dreamt about and planned for for over 20 years. My natural love for Ireland and for history in general, had prepared me pretty well for my trip, but, in the months prior to departure, I collected and immersed myself in the literature, language, music and history of Ireland...........ancient, modern and in between. I did this not to flaunt my knowledge before or to debate the issues with the Irish folk I would meet, but to be able to ask an intelligent question, to draw out the story teller.............to recognize the symbols and know when to keep my mouth shut.

My travels took me from Limerick to Dingle, to Cork and Dublin, and finally, to Belfast and Ulster. After a tour of the northern sea coast and the Bushmills Distillery, (which is another story) I came into Derry.

Derry is a tense town.........one of the few in Northern Ireland with a Catholic majority. Belfast gets all the press, but Derry is a hard and rebellious town. It is held under Protestant sway by a feat of gerry-mandering that would make american politcians look like pikers by comparison.

I rolled into town by bus. We passed a Protestant school as it was letting out for the afternoon. Soldiers in armored troop carriers mounted with 50 caliber machine guns stood guard around the school. There are no squad cars in Derry, as we know them. The police patrol in small armored cars and their headquarters is a dismal, medieval looking fortress, surrounded by a 20 ft. high stone wall topped with coiled razor wire.

I did my tour of the city, taking pictures and stopping in at the occasional Pub. I was looking for a suitable place to hold forth for the evening.

I wandered into Paedor O'Donnells.........a grungy sort of place situated just outside the city walls on Waterloo street, right on the edge of the Bogside.

Now, as I said, I'd studied my history. As I sipped my Guinness, I looked around to see what sort of place I had stumbled into. I noticed a flag of the Republic of Ireland, an American flag and other mementos and signs of a "rebel" enclave. However, over the bar, hung two giant Lambeg drums, draped with orange sashes, yellowed to a dingy patina by what could have been decades of smoke.

Needless to say, I was confused.

The clientelle was rough looking, (this was not a tourist bar, peeps)and the bartender was gruff and uncommunicative. I drank my beer and left, my head whirling..........whether from the conflicting symbols in the bar or the other half gallon of guinness and the two shots of whiskey I had consumed earlier, I'm not sure.

That night after supper, I went in search of music and company. I gravitated toward the Bogside, as my sympathies lay toward the Catholic side and I thought, as an American, that I would be more comfortable there.

As I passed by Paedor O'Donnell's, I caught the strains of music and recognized the lyrics of a rebel song.........still confused by the prominent display of the symbols of the Orange Order, I said: "What the fuck.", and marched right in.

I had a great time........swilling glass after glass after glass of foamy Guinness Stout and listening to rebel songs I'd heard no where else on the Island. (Only to be outdone in Donegal......but that is yet another story.)

I found myself in the company of a half-dozen young lads in their bare 20's, alternating between singing the lyrics to the songs being played and vying with each other for the honor of regaling me with the rich histories of their lineage and bragging about their blood ties with the O'Neills and the O'Daughertys.........bold resisters of British incursions from the earliest times. When that night of beer and song and whiskey and laughter and stories was over, these lads insisted on surrounding me like a body-guard and escorting me back to my bed and breakfast over a mile and a half away.

I left Derry next morning. I traveled to Donegal and Sligo and Galway (each of which, of course has its own story). At last, my time in Ireland drawing to a close, I made my way back to Adare, a tiny post-card village about 12 miles west of Limerick. I wandered into Bill Chawkes Bar exactly 4 weeks after I had first set sore foot in that establishment.............almost to the hour. (You guessed it, Adare is yet another story.)

Thursday night is Karaoke night at Phil Collins Bar (down the street from Bill Chawkes). Phil Collins is a charming, genial easy-to-talk-to gentleman. I arrived a bit early, and as I was only one of three patrons in the place, we had time to engage in a bit of conversation.

He remembered me from my first visit, (as did almost everyone in town...........Christ, it was like coming home) and he listened to my account of my travels. He interjected a comment or a question here and there (like any good listener would). When I came to Derry, he informed me that his brother-in-law owned a couple of Pubs there. I asked him if he was familiar with Paedor O'Donnells. He said that he was indeed.

I saw this as an opportunity to clear up my mystery.

I proceeded to broach the subject (as tactfully as I could).......I felt at ease with Phil, but I had learned that the politics and loyalties of Ireland can be a touchy and passionate subject with some people and varies widely from town to town and county to county.

I eased into my story and told him my experience with the place. I was obviously in a hard-core rebel bar, but the prominent fixture in the place were those big fucking drums.

Now, Irish humor is not the over the top, obvious, slapstick, three stooges, in your face, Robin Williams humor that we are used to. It's older........ centuries older...... more mature you might say.

It is dry, but not like dust...........more like talcum powder....silky.

It embraces a slightly bent and very subtle irony that engages your wit and makes you think. Humor that leads you to a laughter that is like the orgasms that a long term couple have learned to have together.........slow and growing, deep and lasting....and ultimately completely satisfying.

When Phil had heard my story and I had disclosed the nature of my confusion, he shook his head and chuckled. He smiled and I swear his eyes actually twinkled............in that moment I could have believed in Leprechauns.

He said, in a soft brogue: "Oh that........yeah, well, that's a pretty big joke to those lads."

He didn't go on to tell me the story. He left it to me to imagine. In that instant, I could see in my minds eye a distant 12th of July in Derry's Bogside. The proud protestants are parading by, secure in their arrogant ascendancy, beating their drums. A small group of young Catholic lads, not unlike the boys I'd partied with, exchange glances. They nod at one another. The light of high mischief sets fire to their eyes. Without a word, they move as one man into the parade. They set upon two fat, smug bastard Orangemen, strip them of their sashes and relieve them of their precious, hateful, fuck you drums.

As they retreat into the bar with their prize, a throng of burly,work hardened, pissed off, half-drunk men with nothing left to lose closes ranks behind them and dares the whole damn parade to come take the drums back.

What a night that must have been in Paedor O'Donnells. Drinking and laughing and singing, taking turns marching around with the captured drums, draped in the sashes, their bellies distended in mockery of their oppressors......enjoying to the fullest a small but satisfying victory.

The night over, the trophies are proudly mounted over the bar.

Now, old men wander in, greet each other, sit at the bar and call a pint. They take a deep draught, and in silence they look up at the drums, and look at each other............and smiling, they wink.

I don't know if that is the true story, but it works for me

So if you're ever in Derry, find your way to Waterloo street. Head into Paedor O'Donnells and name your poison. As you sip your drink, look around. Don't be shy or confused.........take it from me. Turn to one of the regulars and ask him:

"Hey, what's with the fucking drums?"

You'll be glad you did.

Thus endeth the entry.............

On creating our own hells.................

The best possible place to be is to be with someone who knows everything there is to know about you............and still loves you.

There can be nothing worse than wondering if they would love you if they knew the things you are hiding.....and what they would do if they found out.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Hell hath no fury............

When I was in High School, (a bit over 36 years ago, now) I came across a quote that I thought was worth saving. I can't remember how I happened on to it, but then, my interests and explorations in reading were (and still are) eclectic (scattered) to the point of eccentricity.

I wrote the quote down, citing the author and source, and memorized it. It has always amazed me, over the years, how often that particular quote has been appropriate. I'd lost the 3 x 5 card the quote was written on years ago, so I could no longer give the author.

This weekend, as I was rummaging about in the basement, I found that ancient keepsake of my sarcastic youth.

In those days before the internet, information was not so easy to come by. Researching odd and obscure bits of trivia meant actually getting up off your ass and visiting a major library. The effort had always to be weighed against the gain. Perhaps this is why we are more likely to argue or fight about,or even attempt to rationally discuss, a problem, in the hope (however elusive) of coming to some mutual resolution, with a friend (or with someone who has something we desperately need) than with someone we never really gave much of a fuck about to start with......but I digress.

So, I never bothered to delve any deeper into the origins of my quote than to simply note the names and the source on the card. After all, it was only some scholarly sounding bon mot to throw out at times when wit and wisdom were called for. I knew it was from a work authored by two people. I always assumed that it was from the middle to late 19th century........perhaps contemporary to the play Lincoln was watching when he was killed, "Our American Cousin". The tone of the quote seemed to put its source in that broad genre of humorous entertainments.

The authors listed on the card were Beaumont and Fletcher, and the name of the work was given as "Cupids Revenge".

So I came upstairs with my rediscovered relic, sat down at the computer and plugged the data into Mr. Browser Wizard.

The quote is from a play, written in 1611 by Francis Beaumont in collaboration with John Fletcher:


"The fool who willingly provokes a woman has made himself another evil angel and a new Hell to which all other torments are but mere past time." -Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's Revenge

Some wisdom is Timeless...........some things never change!

Thus endeth the entry.............

Son of a Gun, We'll have big fun, on the Bio....................

This is one of those nights with little to do and less to say.

I've spent most of the day creating a Bio for myself...........
for those with time to kill and tolerant of self-serving bullshit.

The link is above "recent posts" at the top of the sidebar.

Which leaves me with only one major tweak to this blog and to Cooking With Gutz...............gimme two weeks. If I can't find big Al...............I may have to break down and approach Miss P...................hmmmmmmm

of course I'm always thinking of links I can add.........
but they are not "major" anymore.............

Looks like I'm going to be up all night.

Thus endeth the entry........

Wasted days and wasted nights...........

I've got a little time on my hands before I hit River City for karaoke, so I'll piddle around in here for a bit.

The newspaper yielded up an interesting tidbit a couple of days ago, quoting a health story from CNN.com. (If this interests you, check it out for the whole story)
It seems that regular doses of aspirin may reduce a woman's chances of developing the most common form of breast cancer (about 70% of cases). Women in the study who used aspirin at least four times a week for at least three months were almost 30% less likely to develop hormone-fueled breast cancer than women who used no aspirin. The indication is that aspirin works by interfering with estrogen production.
The link was strongest in women who took seven or more tablets per week and was greater in postmenopausal ladies than in younger women.
So, take care of those titties, ladies, they aren't just for feeding babies you know!
This has been a public service announcement from Kindly Ol' Uncle Cecil........

A few months ago, a young lady I was corresponding with made the mistake of telling me that my handwriting was pretty. This swelled up my head pretty good and led me on a search for a fountain pen. I had used one years ago, and I remembered that it lent itself well to a more decorative writing style.

So, I found a cheap plastic pen with a medium nib to practice with and decided that I liked it...........but, cheap pen that it was, it started to skip on me and made my letters look like something a second grader would turn out.

I did, however, rediscover the joys of writing with a fountain pen. I wrote letters just to be writing something..........hell, at one point I considered rewriting the complete works of Shakespeare...... or copying the old testament in long-hand and sending it to the Pope, or Pat Robertson, or Rush Limbaugh or someone else who thinks he's the voice of God on earth......OK, so I get a little carried away, passion is one of my charms!

The upshot of the story is, that I went on the internet and ordered a fountain pen from A.T. Cross Company to match a Cross ball-point that I have . When I came home from Tom Cats yesterday, the UPS guy had left it on the porch........

So, here is my new fountain pen alongside the matching ball-point...........


Isn't that pretty??

You do know what this means, don't you?

If you recieve a letter from me from time to time, expect another one in the next week or so.................I can't wait to try out my new pen.

I finally posted my rib entry in Cooking with Gutz, so if you've been anticipating that with baited breath, your long wait is over.

I run into the occasional quote that I think is worth sharing, so I'm going to get into the template and start putting one on the top of the page somewhere. I've also figured out a way to incorporate a proper "bio" into my growing blog-matrix. I'm not too big on the standard "profile" for a variety of reasons................mostly, I'm 54 years old, and my life is more than two fucking paragraphs long. It took me about 3 hours to write it out yesterday, and it is getting late, so I'll work on it tomorrow. (gotta keep you coming back!)
I also want to add a different comment system to my blogs..........if I haven't figured out how to do what I want in the next two weeks, I'll just break down and add Halo-scan.
Twenty-five years ago, I was out tracking down a pot dealer.........now I'm looking for someone who knows HTML...........life moves on. *sigh*

So that is enough for now, friends and neighbors.........keep those cards and letters coming.

P.S. I opened up the comments on Cooking with Gutz, Emmy..............

Thus endeth the entry..........

Cooking With Gutz....................

My new blog Cooking With Gutz is now up and running.

I've posted a bullshit introductory first entry (it's bullshit, but you'll hurt my feelings if you don't read it *sniff*.......and then I'll have to post an entry about cooking and eating your cat.......with pictures!!).

I've got all my pictures organized and my rough draft completed, so it won't be long before we dive right into the good stuff............

As my first "real" entry will be a step by step explanation of how I cooked those ribs pictured in the Fourth of July entry.

So, check it out..............eventually I will post a little something for everyone. We'll cook for one and for two hundred.
Stock your pantry and equip your kitchen with tools that will last a lifetime.........(on a budget no less). Cook things you thought only your Mom could make taste right..........just lots of things.

Welcome to my kitchen...........

Thus endeth the entry............

The Fourth of July.................Boze style

I got up reasonably early Sunday morning, considering the excesses of the night before. I drank a couple of cups of coffee, packed the car.............




and headed for Casey and Dianne's house in Carlock, Illinois.


Casey and Dianne's house

I dove right into preparing the ribs when I got there.........




Selecting volunteers for corn shucking..........


corn shuckin'


Me too...........

Taking the time to sample the potato salad....


I finally get to taste the potato salad..........

and play with the munchkins.......







It was an absolutely beautiful day..........breezy, sunny, not too hot or humid. You couldn't have wished for better weather. After the corn was shucked, we headed outside.......


Casey heads out the door with toys.....


We hold "fourth" outside.............


Cassie and Cheyenne


Dianne and Casey


Presiding over Munchkin Land Upon a Purple Ocean...............with Dog


Awwww...............

During the course of all this, of course, there were ribs to be tended to, beans to put in the oven, and corn to boil........(I had, of course, made the salads the night before) but I managed to take several breaks to enjoy my family and an ice cold beer or several.


The Captn takes a break

Finally, the ribs were done and the feasting was under way.......


The ribs are done.........


Requiem for a pig ...........in smoked scarlet


The feast............


The mutilation of the bounty.........


The Captn's portion

Hallie had taken a short nap, but woke up in time to join us at the table......she is not quite 11 months old and has the appetite of a lumberjack. She chowed down on turkey leg at the Olde English Faire, and she dove right into the rib meat..........


Hallie the carnivore in training........I'm so proud

After supper, we adjourned to the yard again. I managed to get Cheyenne to pose for a couple of pictures that I'm really rather proud of.........


Cheyenne posing for Papa (1)



Cheyenne poses for Papa (2)

We had about three hours to kill before the fireworks started in nearby Bloomington, and everyone, or most everyone, was in a state of post-prandial (and I've been drinking beer all day) lethargy. The exception was Cheyenne. She was running around like a monkey on speed............non-stop. Over the course of the next three hours she expended enough energy to destroy a small city. Screaming, hollering, laughing, racing around the yard............I only wish I had a digital cam-corder so I could give you some idea of how wound up she was. It led Casey to remark at one point that she was like a "psychotic Shirley Temple".......


Psychotic Shirley Temple

While Dianne stayed home with Hallie, the rest of us loaded into Casey's car and went in search of fireworks. We drove by a place where locals were lining both sides of the road sitting alongside their cars on lawn chairs. We figured they knew something that we didn't know, so we parked and waited for dark.

As it turned out, we had an excellent vantage for four separate displays........three of them were off to the sides and about 3 to 4 miles distant. The main display, however, was right in front of us and only about 3/4 of a mile away. We could see most of the ground displays and more than a few of the aerial displays arced so closely toward us that it looked like they were going to fall on us..............it couldn't have worked out better.

Cheyenne went out like a light on the way back to Casey's and never batted an eyelash during the exercise of transfering her to her Mama's car. Dianne was asleep on the couch, and Hallie had been out for hours.

That left Casey and me, sitting on the porch, drinking a last beer, passing the pipe, gazing at the stars, not saying too much,.....just two men............a father and a son........savoring the fading echoes of laughter and the still warm memories of a long and happy day with the people that we love the best.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Interlude...............

I'm in "aftermath" mode at the moment. I got into bed at around 2:00 am and slept until around 10:00 am.

I don't know what woke me up, but I came wide awake at around 5:00am.............looked at the clock, spent a groggy moment or two wondering what the fuck I was doing awake at that time of the morning, and went back to sleep. Perhaps it was just a fluke.........perhaps someone was just thinking about me real hard. (laugh if you will, but that sort of thing has happened far too often with people I care about to be passed off as mere coincidence)

At any rate, I've once again thrown my "reasonably healthy sleep schedule" into a cocked hat, so I'll likely pull an all nighter tonight. If I can make myself tired enough to go to bed at a sane hour tomorrow night, I can get myself back on track. (Between a summer induced increase in the consumption of alcohol, and the ass-backwards sleep schedule, I know that I'm totally whacking out my R.E.M. sleep and therefore my brain chemistry, and feeding a tendency to depression arising out of a life situation that I currently can't do much of anything about except to weather the storm.)

All of which, will allow me the time to update my 4th of July with the family, and start my "Cooking With Gutz" blog with an inaugural step by step tutorial in cooking ribs........complete with pictures.

As I rambled about this morning, starting coffee, feeding the cat..........etc., I opened the door to fetch the paper and there stood Gina. Gina is a long term and cherished friend. (I didn't use the term "old friend" because she just turned 25 yesterday.) She finished school last fall and wound up working in Phoenix. It was wonderful to see her again, even though she is only in town for a few days and couldn't visit long. Time and distance notwithstanding, I love her and lust for her as much as I ever did...........and always will. She is yet another someone that I care for enough that I am not really selfish enough to wish to spend my life with, however much I would love to. She deserves to be with someone a little closer in age to her............but what fun and closeness we could have for a while. *sigh*

Somewhere in between the indiscriminate and insignificant one night hook-up and a "serious-as-a-heart attack" monogamy, there has to be some happy medium for people whose lives and emotional state are not quite yet conducive to long term openess and trust and full scale commitment. Something that allows time spent together to be free of the need to suppress or withhold or deny or hide who you really are......something as comfortable as old shoes and sweatpants..........something as comfortable as walking from room to room naked. Something that allows sex to be something besides an accompanied act of masturbation, allows a mutual accumulation of familiarty and a subsequent growth in intensity and allows an exploration and an evolution and a shared discovery,a true and complete and exhausted satisfaction............as opposed to something given the gravity and density and weight of the emotional equivalent of the core material of a collapsing star, the pall of obligation, that accompanies something sanctioned and given sacred status by the inclusion of either God or the desperate need for "True Love".

This is an attractive thing for me right now............I have nothing against the long term commitment, I really would like to be married again. I'd even do kids all over again. There is nothing in me that would prevent what I've described above from making a seque into a marriage.............if true communication could develope and find a way to sustain itself. If fidelty and truth and loyalty and all those other things essential to a true union could find a way to manifest themselves as trustworthy in some real way.

I'll be around.............working diligently in the quiet hours. Tomorrow I'll have updated with something besides rant, and presented a new "side-blog" dedicated not only to appetites that tend to the "big bite" but ultimately to practical advice about the kitchen and cooking in general, such as: the zen of cooking with a gourmands passion, recipes, equipping the kitchen and stocking the pantry on a budget, cooking for one or two hundred, managing left-overs, feeding yourself when you don't feel like it....all these things and more have been a part of my experience .........damn, the directions I could spin off in are unfolding in my mind exponentially and I'm excited just sitting here thinking about it.

So indulge me my sometimes too personal reflections, and rambling disconnected digressions and stay tuned..........I'm only getting warmed up.

Thus endeth the entry..........

Ground control to Major Tom....................

It's currently 12:43 am here in beautiful downtown Chillicothe and the most accurate way to describe my current state of mind would be "in the bag". In addition to which, I've been up for over 36 hours.

Tomorrow (gadzooks, today!!) is the glorious Fourth and I have spent most of the evening preparing for a cookout with my kids.
I went to the grocery, came home, prepared potato salad, took an extended alcohol break, then returned and made cole slaw. So now I have a refrigerator full of stuff to eat for tomorrow....... but I have such a case of the blind munchies right fucking now that I could eat the ass out of ten thousand holsteins.

There are 5 beautiful slabs of ribs in my fridge............just waiting to be kissed and caressed with my most tender ministrations on the morrow. I think I'll create a side blog Monday (with pictures and everything) just to teach you folks how to cook a bone that any pig would be proud to have sacrificed his life to provide.

I spent some time at Marge's tap..............a sort of old guy's elephant graveyard, where I drank a beer or two and had a shot of Crown on the rocks. There I held forth with Lang and Floyd and Super Bee and flirted with a little girl that I really wanted to fuck when she was pregnant with her last child. Christ, if you'd poured caramel on her she'd have looked like a Candy Apple. I gave her a big hug and asked her if she was planning to have any more children.

From there, I went to Tomcat's for a glass or three of ice cold Foster's and another Crown on the rocks.

While there, Ron (the bartender) brought out a bottle of vodka from the freezer that he couldn't sell because they had gotten it for free..........(something to do with the Illinois liquor codes I suppose) so he passed out some sample shots. It was called Tito's Handmade Vodka and is distilled in Austin, Texas of all places.

Now, I've never been a vodka drinker. I always figured if you wanted to drink something that tasted like lighter fluid, you could buy a whole bottle of Ronsonol for the cost of a single shot of vodka. Surprisingly, this stuff wasn't half bad........but then after 6 beers and a couple shots of Crown, he could have iced me up a shot of cat pee with a twist and it would have tasted pretty good.

So, the jury is still out on Austin vodka.............I'd eat chili in Austin and I have stated my willingness to crawl to Austin on my hands and knees for sex, but vodka..........hmmmmmmmm.

So, I managed to make it home, cut up my cabbage with a big fucking knife (no kitchen is complete without a BFK), grated it on one of those four sided, mid nineteenth century, dime store graters and, remarkably enough, I still have all my fingers and the skin on all my knuckles is intact.

Of course, I won't be able to tell you what either the potato salad or the cole slaw tastes like until morning. I think this may be a six aspirin night.

So now my darlings, "to sleep..............perchance to dream."
"The innocent sleep. Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

Thus endeth the entry...............

Brain food..............

For nearly 25 years I've worked the crypto-quote in the morning paper. This, coupled with the effects of multiple cups of strong black coffee, serves to kick start my brain.

For lack of anything else to write about, I'm offering a crypto-quote for your puzzling pleasure.

Please don't put the answer in the comments. If you feel the need to let me know that you've solved my little poser, e-mail me. (the address is in the sidebar).

For those who've never worked a cryptogram, one letter simply stands for another. Single letters, apostrophes, the length and formation of words are all hints.

(I've added a * between each word to compensate for html's annoying habit of reducing multiple spaces to a single space)

Good Luck!

.GKV * INMH * KE * KYJ * UNHUJTNIL * VIYAU * UNJBTM *


XMZK * MXPGZINJTL * VTJT * ZGTJT * NMH * UNMPTJ *


KE * ZGTXJ * DKIXMP * ZJYT?


A. * C. * LIXZG

Thus endeth the entry............