The other side of On the Road

I saw some interesting sights of animals in the not-so-wild, and thought what I saw was interesting, and nice to see. But I saw some other sights that were disturbing, the number of properties for sale in the 35 mile stretch of road between my house and my destination. Mostly the houses for sale are older homes, some showing signs of chronic neglect, others suffering from more recent lack of maintenance and repair. They are the kinds of older houses that we think of as long-standing residences, which several generations of a family called home. Now, for whatever reason, the for sale signs stand on the front lawns where some owners are waiting to move away, while many have already left the houses to fend for themselves. Several big old sprawling farms are listed for sale, the livestock already sold. Something about the still working farms looks a little sad, as if they know what lies ahead. I know cows can't predict the future (except maybe approaching rain storms), but the barnyards seem for the most part eerily empty, with few landowners observing their own properties. Even the once standard-issue farm collie is rarely seen. Mid-day in the country is almost a ghost town.
In stark contrast to the solitude of all that land with no good use to put it to was ominous evidence of too many people crowded into too small a space. One main through route to the adjoining town has a police barrier closing the road. Traffic is detoured around the site where a home was leveled to the ground when it exploded. No official cause has been given pending investigation, but the talk is that at least 10 people were in the house when it exploded, taking several lives with it. Another home in the area has burnt to the ground, with three people inside, who were apparently murdered prior to the fire. Again, several generations living in hot and crowded conditions, with not much hope of lifestyle improvement can likely contribute to violence, especially with the mentally unstable.
And those in charge have an answer, right? And, remarkably, those who aspire to be in charge have an even better remedy.

On the Road

This morning I was driving north on Route 22 on my way to Rupert, Vermont. In a fairly remote area, between farmhouses, but alongside the cornfields, were two peacocks, walking casually on the side of the road. No, they weren't pheasants, or quail, or any type of domestic poultry, but authentic peacocks, or maybe peahens, because neither bird had its tail unfurled. But they weren't trying to make an impression on anybody, they were just feeding in an ordinary manner. I don't know if a farmer had raised them and they were merely touring their usual area, or if they'd escaped, or been turned loose from one of the defunct zoos in that neck of the woods. I know it was kind of pleasant to see them, even if not in their natural habitat because it was such a nice day neither they nor I was thinking of what they'll do when winter comes. I had to repeat the trip later in the day, as the paperwork I'd gone to pick up was not complete in the morning, and at about 6:00p.m. was making my second return trip home when a large animal entered the road from my left directly into the path of my car, causing me to brake. Again in the cornfield district, my first instinctive thought was that it was a deer, but it was not a deer. It was a grayish buff color and then I thought a coyote, but it seemed way too large for that. Wolf entered my mind, but maybe it wasn't that big. So I think it must have been a coydog. I've heard of them, but never seen one and come to think of it,I've never seen a coyote either. I've seen plenty of dogs, and I know it wasn't a dog. It moved really fast, in kind of a sideways lope, and in broad daylight. I kind of liked seeing it too, once I knew I wasn't going to hit it with my car. Can't wait for tomorrow.....

Fright Night

On a weekend in the early fall or, more accurately, at the end of summer, David was already at Syracuse, and Dave had driven Marilyn to Binghamton. He had borrowed a truck from Colony Liquor because Marilyn had decided that year to move off campus into her first apartment, and had taken everything she owned with her in the huge truck. (What happened to her belongings is another story.) From Dave's traveling to get the truck to packing all of Marilyn's earthly possessions, and then settling everything into the new apartment, it had been a very long day and Dave was not expected to be back in Valley Falls until after midnight or so. Since the trip was by truck, Danny and I did not go with them, but were HOME ALONE. We'd had a quiet day as I recall, and later that night around 10:30 or so, Danny was in his room watching TV, and I was in the living room reading a book when we were both startled by a loud noise, sounded like metal on metal. We both looked out the front window, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I'd thought it sounded like the time someone crashed into the back bumper of our car, and told Danny that maybe someone had smashed the metal garbage cans against our car. So I took a flashlight outside and walked around the back of the car, shining its light against the back bumper and the sides of the car. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and what's more, the garbage cans were in the back of the house, right where they belonged. I went back into the house to report no cause of the mystery sound. So Danny and I both went back to what we were doing when we heard another sound. This time I thought it sounded like a car door slamming, hard. Again we both looked out the window, and this time we saw something different. The brake lights of my car were on! Danny and I looked at each other and I remember asking, "What would make the brake lights of a car go on if nobody was in it?" I think the obvious answer occurred to us both at the same time, because Danny didn't say a word, but ran into his room and came out with a raquetbll raquet. (Lord knows where that came from,) I just looked out the window and tried to plan our escape. I just knew I didn't want to stay in the house. I figured the first sound we'd heard was somebody slamming the hood of the car closed, and the second sound WAS the slamming of the car door, so if someone had been trying to steal the car, he would have been inside the car while I was walking around it shining the flashlight. Our escape strategy was this: Danny stood by the door with the raquet while I ran to the car and started it. I think our plan was that if someone appeared, I was to lock myself in the car, and Danny was to lock himself in the house. I can't quite recall where the raquet was to come into play, as Danny probably lacked the expertise or brute strength to wield it in any effective manner anyway: fortunately we didn't have to implement that part of our strategy, as we made it safely down to the Madigan house, and waited there for Dave to get home. Of course we had to keep calling our house at intervals to find when that might be, as it was in the pre-cell phone era. Those good old days.

Don't mess with the IRS

Why some people don't have bank accounts, don't have title to a car, don't have any credit, or own any property:
Most of the time we think that government language is difficult to understand, namely IRS forms and instructions that seem ambiguous. But if the IRS is trying to collect money that is owed them, the language becomes crystal clear. "You haven't responded or paid the amounts you owe. .....If you act promptly we can resolve this matter without taking and selling your property to collect what you owe. Property includes bank accounts, wages, real estate commissions, business assets, cars, and other income and assets.....A lien is a public notice that tells your creditors that the government has a right to your current assets and any assets you acquire after we file the lien." Those words are easy to understand, right? No question either as to what is meant by "Our records indicate that the federal tax you owe has not been paid.The law allows the IRS to take up to 15% of your Social Security benefits to pay your overdue taxes." And when you choose to ignore the notices, the language gets even clearer: "Although we have told you to pay the amount you owe, it still is not paid. This is your copy of a Notice of Levy we have sent to collect this unpaid amount. We will send other levies if we don't get enough with this one. This levy requires the person who receives it to turn over to us (1) your wages and salary that have been earned but not yet paid, as well as wages and salary you earn in the future until this levy has been released and (2) your other income that the person has now or is obligated to pay you."
I'm proud of our government for its clarity of wording, and if I still owed the IRS any money, I'd be praying that I'll get all my taxes paid before they find me and confiscate my car that I worked so hard to get.

What, no DNA?

Who knew? Just think of all the past convictions based on no DNA. Now that it seems impossible to find a person guilty of a crime without a telltale trail of DNA, all who are presently imprisoned without a DNA match must be formulating their appeals. And those who died in prison because of DNA-less evidence are doomed to recount their injustices with those Catholics burning in Hell because they ate meat on Friday.

Parenting 101

The prospect of imminent fatherhood has him not only enrolled in upcoming parenting classes, but also desperate for information, so he asked his 9-year-old nephew if he had any advice for him as to how to raise the baby daughter. "Yes," came the unhesitating answer. "Give her everything she wants."

Note from Dorothy

This may have been written some years ago, early on....when the disease was still a stealthy enemy potentially capable of being vanquished. I found the note among her Elvis stamps.

TO ALL WHOM I LOVE & LOVE ME

Don't be sad---I'll see you up above.
You can't get out of this world alive,
But you can leave all of your love.