Sex in the Secret Service reminds me of Superman

I’ve been trying not to think about the big party some Secret Service boys threw with the local prostitutes in Cartagena Colombia and think about the future of American Chinchilla farming instead, or the environment but it is hard to put tropical sex out of your mind. Besides-- the environmental impact was slight, a few sheets and towels at most.

Our guys with the really dark sun glasses and black suits went to Cartagena to scout out the area before President Obama was to arrive a week later. No doubt the stress of operating in a tropical resort environment created a need to bond with some locals and swap jokes---Colombians tell the same jokes about Norwegians that Americans use to tell about Polish people—and they were all very happy about the FTA (free trade agreement) and thought they’d test the process out. But there was a misunderstanding about phasing out tariffs for goods and services and a prostitute thought it was $47 and an American agent thought it was $42 and the police were called and now the secret service man is listening to his wife’s divorce lawyer explain why the wife is getting the house and the Volvo. Free trade has it’s pitfalls.

And that is about all we know except one Secret Service man is believed to have said “My life is ruined.” Which is the type of thing a good Protestant American boy should say after he has gotten drunk, had sex with a potential spy and perhaps compromised the safety of the American president. It shows good manners. You can’t have international sex with a complete stranger on company time and then say “I have a nutrition problem”. You’re pretty much expected to squat by the fire, rock back and forth and scrape yourself with pottery shards and ashes.

Many people feel the need to go somewhere else to misbehave. I am a Baptist and therefore all forms of joy are suspect such as when my brethren tell me they are going to vacation in Cancun or the Bahamas supposedly for the gentle tropical breezes. “Gentle breezes for what?” one must ask. Ha! Wild sex, most likely.

This is one area of life American writers need to explore. You read about the secret service and their professional reputation and you think “They would never do such a reckless thing as that. No way, no how, no no no!” And so you write a story and attempt to create understanding by putting the reader into bed with the prostitute and write it as though the secret service agent was full of patriotism and sacrifice while his pants and drawers lay scattered on the floor of a five star hotel room. Remember to use plenty of verbs.

But this is what happens to a nation that has excused moral responsibility and bad behavior for so long the cancer has eaten it’s way to the top of what was once the very best. God is not mocked and the age of these men indicate they are the first products of that time when this nation first told God to get out of our schools and our laws.

Such behavior defies reasoning. I’m reminded of the time I was nine, tied a towel to my neck for a cape and jumped off the top corner of the house to fly like Superman. I landed in an old rose bush and was scratched badly and twisted an ankle. My mother heard my screams and ran outside but stopped short upon seeing I was still alive and said, “What in the world were you thinking?”

Censored Columnist caught in Saladgate

I’m eating a burrito at a local Mexican restaurant and discussing the blight of North Carolina politics when a waiter I’m not familiar with comes up to me and in broken English explains I owe him $18.76 for a taco salad.

I politely tell him he is mistaken and resume my conversation but the man does not walk away. I turn back to him and he explains that some weeks ago he served me and when he left me the ticket to sign for my credit card I picked up the customer copy, never signed the merchant copy and walked out. He was forced to pay the bill.

My face turned red with anger, I sensed a scam. Suddenly I thought about actors and politicians in newspaper headlines that had been caught stealing (Wealthy Actress arrested with $1.50 Lipstick in Purse—Whoa Momma!) and people all over America think, “Petty theft, how disgraceful. I always knew she was rich trash.” I did not want to be thought of as petty or trash or someone with lip stick. I didn’t want to be scammed either.

People nearby overheard and were staring and suddenly I remembered that particular lunch--- how I was upset about a work issue--- and decided to leave---- and grabbed my ticket---- and rushed out the----Oh. My. Goodness. He was right! I had inadvertently stiffed the guy! Where I come from they put such thieves in wooden stocks so people passing by can pull the offenders ears and twist his nose. And so I paid up. I also added an enormous tip. I saw a woman at a nearby table shake her head.

I didn’t mind paying my debt-- it was the embarrassment and the quick judgment of those looking on who did not know all the facts that hurt so bad. The waiter wasn’t just collecting a debt, he was testifying in a Congressional hearing.
Later I realized my Saladgate was probably God’s punishment for an email I had sent earlier.

I had been invited by an academic institution to submit an article about local life, politics and food--- make it humorous. After reviewing it they sent it back saying it was too conservative politically. What!? Suddenly I heard muskets firing and saw redcoats running and I was crossing the Delaware River standing in a row boat. This was censorship and tyranny boys, and we ain’t gonna take it. No sirree.

To be censored in America is a high honor for any writer because it never really happens but to imagine being censored makes you feel wonderfully righteous. So I fired off a hastily written email indignant about their “caveman mentality”, their “mushy liberal politics” and “freedom of expression being the American way”, etc. and I considered further action (Censored Columnist Occupies Public Park—Mayor cancels peace negotiations with Mooresville to monitor situation).

Later they emailed back “Sorry you are upset. Nevertheless you’re still our favorite columnist.” and my arrogant hot jets suddenly cooled and sputtered to a stop in mid air.

Now humbled I reviewed the email I had sent with it’s haughty tone. When you write a sanctimonious letter like that you lose control; you don’t argue the facts but instead your chest swells and you defend godliness, the Constitution, freedom of the press, the Alamo and the plight of Irish people everywhere. And shortly thereafter you stiff a hard working waiter of his money and a woman watches you, shakes her head and thinks “ That poor man needs serious help.” and then she glances into her compact mirror and makes sure her lipstick is on properly.

I got the Sears closed-up-and-shutdown-blues

It’s spring and life is cheerful though one must accept certain grim realities like mortality, paper cuts and the demise of our local Sears store. I will miss our Sears which had come to be like a friend to me that brought back memories of the old Sears-Roebuck & Co store I knew when I was a boy.

That store had creaky wooden floors and was filled with toys, sporting goods, sewing machines and appliances. The Sale clerks were middle class working people who knew my parents by name and everyone agreed that Eisenhower should nuke Russia into a flat piece of glass. It was there my father purchased my first bicycle and the clerk took me out back and helped me learn to stay upright on a moving two wheeled object. A wonder, like the Trinity, suddenly made clear by kindness. You don’t get that type of instruction on the internet.

Imagine America in the 1880’s. There were only 38 states and about 65 percent of the people lived in rural areas. Only a dozen or so cities had 200,000 or more residents. One day a Chicago jewelry company accidently shipped some watches to a jeweler in a Minnesota hamlet who did not want them.

Richard Sears was an agent of the Minneapolis and St. Louis railway station in North Redwood, Minnesota. When he received a shipment of watches - unwanted by the Redwood Falls jeweler--- Sears purchased them himself, sold the watches at a profit and ordered more for resale.

In 1886 Sears began the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis which expanded into other merchandise and became one of the first mail order houses in America supplying catalogues that contained about the only view of the world many people ever saw outside their own community. Old catalogues were carried to the outhouse where they doubled as reading material and a torn page crinkled and held just right was the foundation of American hygiene.

As a child I lived for the Sears & Roebuck Christmas catalogues. The catalogue’s arrival announced the holiday season and my mother would place the new catalogue on my bed so I would see it first thing when I came home from school. You were allowed to choose three items from it for Christmas but one item had to be clothing. Bummer. I would lie across the bed propped on my elbows and slowly turn each page and marvel at the new wonders of the year. The book was a holy document and each picture was a prophecy of the coming of Santa Claus. Today’s internet pictures have no holiness or wonder. They’re just pixels. And you can’t use them for hygiene.

The Sears company was founded by a romantic who dreamed of quality goods and service but in the early 1980’s it fell into the hands of rapacious bandits that tore it’s heart out, refused to update the stores, streamlined the name to “Sears” and treated employees like outhouse catalogues.

And so I mourn the loss of my childhood and with it the loss of an icon of the American economy. Closing Sears makes me sad and I want to grab an old beat up guitar, sit on the front porch while wearing dark sun glasses and strum some old blues chords and sing:

“I wanted to buy some things today.
So I went down to Sears with my pay.
But the door was locked, a sign was in my way. I heard it on the evening news.
She’s now lost to me and to you.
And that’s why I got these Sears closed-up-and-shutdown blues.”

Poetry solves man’s greatest dilemma---women

If you’re planning to throw your golf clubs in the car and head out for a round of 18 holes it may not mean much to you that April is Poetry Month. You may still be smarting from your Supreme Court Justice nomination that lost steam due to that little limerick you recited at the company New Year’s Eve party back in 1989 which has been used to make you appear to be a sexist jerk, so your interest in poetry and the word “Nantucket” has dimmed. Well, you’re not alone.

Poetry, when read aloud, has been proved over and over again to break up a gathering. Many police departments, to avoid the cost of pepper spray and water cannons, are now issuing their officers bull horns containing the recorded works of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman. Poe, that moody figure of literature, is considered by law enforcement to be a God send for Halloween crowd dispersal. SWAT teams may start carrying the entire works of Maya Angelou.

Then what is the message of poetry month? It’s not that we should read about flaxen hair or the shadow of emotions as clouds in our coffee---no, but that we should write a poem ourselves and watch it work it’s power over the hearts of women.

Back when our bare-chested hairy legged ancestors smelled of bear grease and smoke, lived in caves and slept on animal hides, men were considered unattractive by women. Fighting with spears and rocks had left unsightly blemishes and open wounds and sometimes changed good bass singers into sopranos. Guys sat around camp fires stitching themselves back together with cat gut, telling war stories that projected calloused indifference while deep down they ached to be loved for who they were.

Men wanted women to show an interest in a fellow for his inner self rather than ambush another tribe and eviscerate and hack asunder other warriors and drag the women away by their hair screaming and sobbing. There had to be a better way to date a person, especially since you, the winner with bleeding gashes, was no longer interested in sex, what with your massive loss of blood.

Then Christians appeared and sought to put aside carnal pleasure but it made them irritable and moody and they hung out in gangs of twelve, wrote a lot of epistles and went to Spain and conducted inquisitions—anything to pass the time. And they prayed for women. Literally.

Men longed to find something appealing that would make a woman throw herself into a suitor’s embrace and prevent terrorized screaming. Also, whips and thumb screws appealed to only a very small group of women with unique tastes.

And so poetry was found with it’s soothing cadence and delicate encouragement of desires. Poetry beckons us to “seize the day” and so you should write your own poem. Tell her you adore her and you long to take her in your arms, smell her hair and kiss her smooth soft throat. Be original and forget Shakespeare and roses are red violets are blue stuff and don’t steal glances at the sports channel while you try to write.

Do not send your poem by e-mail, postal delivery or text messaging. Write it down by hand on a clean piece of paper and hand it to her yourself. You want to be there, standing close, just behind her shoulder when she reads it and be ready for the quick embrace and passionate kiss.

Robert Frost said “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired” and that my friend is what usually gets the girl.