Loose Endings

No Longer an Okie from Muskogee

My time in Wagoner, OK has come to a close. I packed my life back into my four suitcases and me and Bandit headed down the road in search of a better tomorrow early in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Though things didn’t work out as well as I had hoped for in Oklahoma, I’m grateful for the opportunity and thankful for the companionship my host family provided me during my time there.

Adventures in Fund Raising

Friday, I finished up with my “Great Aluminum Can Adventure” by taking the cans I’d collected during my daily walks with Bandit to the local recycling center. It was a lot of fun and a bit of an adventure wandering the streets around Wagoner, snatching cans and taking photographs as we toured the area. I’d estimate we traversed a good twenty miles in the eight to ten hours we spent wandering around aimlessly. The final aluminum tally was twenty pounds collected and the payout was eight bucks (at forty cents a pound), leading to an average of a bit less than a dollar an hour payout. I wouldn’t recommend it as a career move, but I do enjoy walking with Bandit in the evenings for fun and health anyway. Getting paid for doing it is a bonus and better than paying out for a gym membership!

If you are feeling charitable you can help support me in my struggle to rebuild my life from scratch by tossing a nickel into my emergency relocation fund.

Next up? Memphis.

Enjoy.

In the Meantime

Muskogee to Memphis

While I am working on soliciting donations to continue on my path down the road of life I am not sitting idly by twiddling my thumbs and toes just because there doesn’t seem to be an employer in my local vicinity who is interested in employing me at slave wages and exploiting my superlative set of skills.  I don’t get too bummed out by that seemingly incomprehensible set of circumstances given the overall state of educational and economic depravity I’m surrounded by.  It’s just further evidence of the bad decision making skills of the people in the area.  LOL.

In the Meantime

In the meantime I’m spending my time doing what any able bodied homeless vet (or bag lady) would do given the ‘opportunities’ that present themselves in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  I’m out collecting aluminum cans.  I have no idea what they are worth as I have yet to actually sell any of them but they must have some intrinsic value greater than zero or our cities wouldn’t be overwhelmed with images of homeless folks pushing shopping carts stacked to the brim with them.

I’d mow lawns if I had a lawn mower.  I’d do some other odd job if I hadn’t lost all my tools in my moves back and forth beyond the oceanic horizon. Lacking a vehicle does nothing to improve my situation one bit as I’m sure there are some jobs right outside my limited field of travel that I might be able to bag but given my experience to date I wouldn’t call that a ‘slam dunk’ either.

I’d put on a pair of roller skates and deliver your slush and corn dog order to your car at the local Sonic for that matter,  but I guess the sight of a skinny ass old guy wheeling around in their parking lot isn’t as desirable in terms of public perception as I had otherwise hoped it would be when I wandered into the place based on their “Walk In applications welcome on Tuesdays” flashing sign, only to find that “walking in” for the application required I first do their online application (WTF?) which of course I did before returning for my walk-in application the following Tuesday!   I’m nothing if not persistent and I’m trying to put to rest the tired stereotype that folks who want to work can easily find jobs because that’s as old a trope as “both parties in this country are the same, so why bother voting at all”.  Vote for Bernie Sanders, 2016.  Before it’s too late.

Enjoy.

Winter In Dixie

Sunpocalypse down South

I’d put the overhyping of mainstream media on the ‘failed’ Snowpocalypse of 2015 on par with Geraldo Rivera’s prime time debacle on the opening of Al Capone’s vault.  Both of those pale in comparison to the granddaddy of all mainstream media fails which was burnished in both the blood and treasure of the nation (WMD’s in Iraq).

Here’s what it looked like in Dixie during the worst of the crisis up north.

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Sure Got Quiet

 

If Everyone Was Listening

On Family Matters

After a barrage of bullshit out of my nieces back in Fort Dodge yesterday, aimed directly at my supposed shortcomings, I took affirmative action to reduce the background noise.  It appears that the strategy has been successful and I may now resume my normal political, dog and life blogging.  In other words, it’s back to sex, drugs and rock n’roll, or at least as much of each as a rocker my age can muster.  Maybe my ‘family’ figured out by now that the things they think they can use to undermine my “authoritah’ and “embarrass” me are exactly those things which I have already blogged about?  I dunno? Since they complain I haven’t visited them enough over the years while totally overlooking that they have NEVER visited me it’s hard to figure. The clueless self delusion of my family is now the stuff of legend.   I’m half hoping they’ll be foolish enough to continue their idiocracy because my web stats are going through the roof!  Dawn’s mangling of English alone is comedy GOLD.

Yes certain things were shared pre Tim in America, but your dilutions in your mind make them worse than they are. I’m done doing laundry on here, I have FAMILY to attend to that’s far more important than how u feel or were treated. Enjoy the last of the money u have left, lololol  (Do you even have enough money to be able to feed and care for your recently adopted dog Molly??  Not according to your mom!  You won’t find any happiness waiting for me to go broke sweetie.  Dam, that’s gotta sting!)

Rita’s Last Letter to “Mom”

When Rita found out her chemotherapy at the Hemer Lung Clinic was not as effective as she had hoped, she walked away from the treatments (against doctors advice) and she opted  to take a more ‘natural’ approach to her death than that which the medical profession would have preferred.

Giving Up on Radiation and Chemotherapy

It was at that point that I started working on her rationalist eulogy and she started working on her last letter to her mom.  When she finished writing it, she gave it to me with the following caveat:

“If my mom treats you with dignity and respect upon my death just hand her this letter and walk away.  If she treats you like a criminal and disrespects both my wishes and your dignity, then do whatever you can to make sure that EVERYBODY sees this letter.”

The full letter is available for public viewing at the bottom of this post.  The following is some expository information I have added as ‘bonus’ material.