Bruce A. Borders: September 2012

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Collector

Being a guy who rarely throws anything away, it’s quite natural that I’d be a collector. That has a much better ring to it than hoarder, I think. My career as a collector began early in life, when like a lot of young boys I decided that I needed to collect things – anything and lots of things. Like what, you ask? Priceless works of art and antiques? Not hardly. I’m more of an average guy. My collections were not exactly junk though; I saved things like stamps, coins, candles, and fish eyes. Really! I kept them in a plastic bag on my windowsill. At least until my mother found them. I came home from school one day and no longer had my fish eye collection.

As I grew older, the types of things I collected changed. Belt buckles, hats, Johnny Cash albums, and books. I still have most of my collections, except for the fish eyes, I’ve hauled them all over the country as I’ve moved, boxes and boxes of stuff. These days, I don’t really collect that much anymore. I have enough junk, I think – at least that’s what my wife tells me.

At some point, I’ll have to go through and sort all my treasures, I suppose. Maybe see if any of my stamps or coins are worth anything. Because, there is one thing I do still collect – dollars!

Bruce A. Borders, author and songwriter has over 500 songs and more than a dozen books. Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, his latest books, are available on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. For more information, visit www.bruceaborders.com. See Bruce’s Amazon Author Page at www.amazon.com/author/bruceaborders or view his Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders

Monday, September 24, 2012

High Crime Area

I may have to move. The town where I live is trying its best to become a big city, and not just through a population growth. It seems the crime rate is also rising.

About a month ago, I arrived home from work one morning at my usual time, approximately five a.m. Turning onto my street, I was greeted by a scene of flashing lights from no less than a half dozen police cars. Crime scene tape was stretched across the road just on the other side of my house.

My first thought was, “They better let me into my drive!” After working all night, driving 715 miles, the last thing I wanted to do was argue with the cops about whether I’m allowed to go home or not.

Weaving my way through the cop cars, which were parked haphazardly on the street, I was able to maneuver my pickup into the driveway. No officers said anything, although I did get quite a few long stares.

Waking my wife, I asked what had happened, but she didn’t know. Whatever it was, she had slept through it. It took a couple of hours to find out exactly what she’d slept through. Apparently, our neighbor lady, two houses up, had shot her husband and then herself. He lived. She didn’t. My wife must be a fairly sound sleeper. Crime scene investigators were on the scene until late that afternoon.

Since that day, there has been a wave of violent crimes including, another domestic shooting death, two men beaten to death on the street – on separate occasions, and most recently, local police officers shot and killed a man who tried to attack them with a knife.

That’s an awful lot of crime fatalities for a relatively small community in one month. We’ve had more than our share it would seem. But hopefully, things will settle down for a while now. I never intended to live in a high crime area!

Okay, I’m not really thinking of moving. I know there are nut jobs committing violent crime everywhere. Moving wouldn’t change that. Besides, if I even considered the possibility of moving, my grandkids would probably kill me!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Pick Up The Tools

“Put the tools away when you’re done using them,” – one of my dad’s favorite sayings when I was younger. Apparently, my brother and I had a little difficulty with that concept. We’d use his tools to fix our bikes, to work on toys, or to build things, and then we’d forget to finish the job, leaving screwdrivers, sockets, wrenches, hammers (and anything else we dug out of his toolbox) laying wherever we’d been working – usually in the yard. He’d find them the next day, or the next week, or later. Sometimes, they were still usable!

Bigger tools like rakes, shovels, and picks were not immune from our absent-minded approach to tool placement. We’d drop them, and then leave them, moving on to other things.

One day, we decided to use my dad’s tools to dig a tunnel under the street, from one side to the other. The street went up a fairly steep hill and the place we set up our operation, the top of the road measured about fifteen or twenty feet off the ground level. We worked more than a single day on our project, weeks in fact. Eventually, we had a sizeable tunnel, big enough for both of us to fit inside and work, standing up. Digging the dirt loose with a pick and then loading it with shovels into a wheelbarrow, we hauled it out.

To help keep our work hidden, the entrance to our tunnel was obscured by some bushes and a large pile of dirt from the excavation of a building site for a new church. The pile of dirt outside grew daily, but apparently, no one seems to notice the exact size of a pile of dirt.

We managed to dig the tunnel, maybe a quarter of the way across the street – and then we moved, leaving everything as it was under the street. Everything included my dad’s pick and maybe a shovel or two. A driveway for the new church building is now where the opening of our tunnel was, and after more than thirty years, I think it’s safe to assume the street is not going to collapse – at least I hope not. On the other hand, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I might find my dad’s pick! Or, not.

After this incident, (and several others) you’d think I would have learned to put tools away when I was finished with them. But no, I still haven’t. I don’t generally leave them in the yard though.

This past weekend, I stopped at my parents’ house. My dad is building a retaining wall behind his house and while I was there, I went around to take a look at his progress. The wall is coming along nicely, but that’s not what captured my attention. There, with a couple of shovels, was a pick. I guess at some point in the last thirty-some years, he replaced it. Although, he might not have it long. Now, I know he wasn’t actually done using it when I was there, however, when I saw it, the pick was laying in the yard!

Monday, September 10, 2012

Strangely Normal

People sometimes think I’m a little strange and – well, I’ll neither confirm nor deny it. But, if I am, I think I have a pretty good idea why. My teachers. Not all of them, but enough. It’s a wonder I’m sane at all considering the odd behavior of some of them.

I’ll describe a few – without names of course. See? I can a be nice guy.

Grade school. One of my teachers was a particularly grouchy lady, who made a habit of not paying attention to much of anything. She continually gave us erroneous facts and information and “corrected” our supposed mistakes. Then, she’d get really cranky when anyone (me) pointed it out. A quick example: I had to write a report on a family summer activity, and I chose our vacation to Missouri. In my report, I mentioned several towns we’d visited, including Flat River and Zalma. When my graded report was returned, both of those towns were circled in red with a note that said Zalma was spelled with an ‘e’ on the end and it was the Platte River, not Flat River. However, had she actually read the report, she would have noticed that Flat River was indeed a town and not a river. As for the spelling of Zalma, a quick check of a map would have told her it was correct. (My parents helped set her straight). This scenario was repeated throughout the year, with me, as well as other students.

Then, there was the teacher who had severe anger issues. The slightest little thing would set him off. His face would turn beet-red, he’d yell and cuss at us, and throw things. A couple of years after I was in his class, he finally lost it and threw a javelin through a kid’s neck. For some reason, they didn’t let him teach after that.

Another of my teachers used to spend more time in the Kindergarten class and the teacher’s lounge than in his own classroom. It seems he was rather fond of the Kindergarten teacher and his wife wouldn’t let him bring her home. To be fair, that only lasted a couple of years – until the divorce.

While these may seem a bit odd, they weren’t the worst. That distinction belongs to another grade school teacher, a woman we called Mrs. Wacky Wafer. Now, before you start thinking we were being disrespectful or rude, let me just say we had a good reason for giving her that name. The very old lady, who should have retired long before I reached her class, was – well, eccentric. (That does sound better than saying she was crazy, doesn’t it?) She routinely forgot our names, and her name, assigned us the same homework two or more days in a row, and sometimes even forgot which classroom was ours after recess. One day, shortly after lunch, she announced that she had to go talk with the principal for a few minutes – and never came back!

The great part was it usually was easy to convince her that we hadn’t had recess yet. In fact, it was pretty simple to convince her of just about anything. And those times when she’d re-assign us the previous day’s homework - I just turned in the same paper again! Once, my grade even improved!

After writing this, I’m wondering how I managed to get any education in grade school. And, now that I think about it, I’ve decided that I’m not the least bit strange after all. Just a normal guy. And, in light of some of the teachers I had, that is definitely strange.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Electrical Education

I had a strong fascination with electricity when I was a kid – still do; only now, I also have a healthy respect for it. After I learned the hard way its not really something to play with.

I was six years old. My parents had gone away on a trip, leaving my brother and I with some of their friends to watch us at our house. As anyone knows, it’s much easier to get away with things you normally wouldn’t be able to do when your parents aren’t around. I should have been content with that but no; I chose to take the opportunity to attempt to electrocute myself. That wasn’t my intention - that’s just the way it turned out.

In my dad’s toolbox, I found a short piece of bare wire, about eight inches long, with an alligator clip attached to one end. I took the wire to my room, not really knowing what for at that point. But, I figured there had to be something exciting I could do with it. There was.

In my room, I had a small metal wall heater located about four inches from a plugin. For some reason, I thought it’d be a good idea to attach the alligator clip to the heater and then insert the other end into the plug. I guess I wanted to see what would happen. What happened was, the instant the wire made contact, I got a severe jolt, as blue and orange sparks flew. But that wasn’t the worst of it. My little miniature arc welder welded the alligator clip to the heater and the other end to the plug. And then it melted the skin on my forefinger and thumb together around the wire.

Of course, the burning feeling and continuous surging of electricity caused me to jerk my hand back. The only result of that was my fingers slid smoothly down the wire; I couldn’t let go. At some point, I started yelling – probably the very second I felt the first volt enter my fingers. Everyone in the house rushed into my room where my plight was quite obvious. The guy who rescued me said later, he knew that if he’d touched me or the wire he’d have wound up in the same predicament as I. Lucky for me, he also knew what to do.

He quickly removed his thick leather belt, and I thought I was getting a spanking. Instead, he looped the belt around the wire and gave it a quick pull. The relief was instant! No more shocking and burning feeling! Still, one small problem remained; my fingers were still melded together. A little persuasion from a pocketknife and I again had the use of all five digits on that hand.

I still have the scars on my finger and thumb but I don’t think I need them to remember the experience. The incident left a rather searing impression on my brain as well and I never attempted a repeat performance. But, I have a son who a lot of people say is a lot like me – right down to his early and unhealthy interest in electricity.

He was three at the time. We were at my parent’s house and like his father; he decided plugins were meant to have things, other than a plug, inserted into them – keys in this instance. Unlike his father, he was able to let go but not before creating his own artistic display of fireworks and making a unique set of black marks on the wall. He suffered no long-term ill effects (we think) but never seemed to want to discuss the incident much. However, his interest in electricity wasn’t totally dispelled. In fact, this past week, he started Lineman College. Apparently, he too, decided electricity isn’t something to play with – he’s going to make a career of it.