Being Eccentric Has Its Privileges

                                                                Click image to enlarge

What do you see in this photo? Perhaps an old abandoned car left to rot in a field with tall grass and weeds growing up around it and through it? Maybe upon first glance you immediately recognized it as a 1958 Chevrolet Impala and remembered someone you knew who had one in much better condition; and then just moved on to read what I might say about it and what it has to do with this story. 

I am betting that it was one or the other and maybe both. But there is a third possibility and it is what I saw and do see whenever I look at this photo. Oh sure, I did notice the unattended growth that engulfs the car but I quickly moved past the green areas because my mind wanted to move it all aside and see what condition the car was in overall. Some might look at it and wonder what I meant by that because all they see is a car that is in very bad shape period, and regardless of what the rest of it looks like it is just an old piece of junk.

We look at people the same way, whether it is some dirty bum walking on a sidewalk in a pretty neighborhood or someone sitting on a curb holding a cup with a few coins in it; we probably all draw the same first conclusions. When we see an elderly person, regardless of how they are dressed standing at a counter while a cashier rings up what they are intending to purchase and notice a tremor in their hands as they reach for whatever means to pay for them we immediately see just some old man or woman. We wouldn't look at them for as long as we would someone who was young and attractive and our thoughts would be nowhere near what we might imagine to ourselves if they were 25 instead of 75.

A lot of us become like that old Impala, in fact I think we all will if we live long enough. If any of my kids were to ask me for just one more piece of advice, I mean if any of them ever wonder if there is anything left of me to pass on to them that they don't already know it would be this; enjoy the moment. Whatever is happening now, find every way possible to enjoy it because nothing goes on forever. When that old Chevy was in its prime it was an extremely admired automobile. That photo doesn't begin to tell how special it was and still is. As my eyes peruse the entire picture I am remembering that of all of the cars the Chevrolet Motor Division ever built, this one was the most exciting to me. This story is not about that Impala or the condition it is in but if you look at a photo of a new one or one that has been restored to like-new you might understand.

It would be like looking at two pictures of someone who was beautiful in youth and then one when they were old and struggling in life just to still be around. But again, this story isn't about the car or even about our perspectives when we look at it; it isn't about how normal we are when we all see the same things around us that are obvious; instead it is about human nature and why I might understand someone who only noticed the missing parts, the rust and the weeds. We all saw that and I think most people who were in the market for a second car would rather have a much newer one with all of its parts and pieces intact than that old Chevy. But since I am not normal I think I would rather get this one out of the field and pull it home.That car and me could have some wonderful conversations about the years we both were in our prime. 

Well, it is about time you admitted that you are not normal Mister Minerd. But alas, I have always known that and just because few have ever heard me say it the evidence that I agree with it has been written and published in hundreds of thousands of words I have shared as a writer.

People around the world have read something I have written and some have probably agreed with everyone who thinks that about me. But it's okay; I am with you on this one because I came to terms with it a very long time ago. I really do see a very beautiful automobile in that picture because in addition to not being very normal I am also eccentric. I don't behave that way on purpose, I really cannot help it so let me try to clear all of this up before I am judged a madman.

The dictionary defines an eccentric person as someone who is an odd fellow, anomalous, uncommon, irregular, peculiar, strange, extraordinary, of free spirit, without boundaries to act or behave in a nonconventional manner. That is the better parts of what the dictionary says about eccentricity; it also says I can be described as one who is outlandish, queer, freakish, aberrant, bizarre, weird and...not normal. 

Eccentric. 

Well alrighty then! Because I just gave you what is also the description of most artists and good writers. The best painters, sculptors, song writers, musicians, singers, script-writers and story- tellers through time have been regarded as eccentric people. 

Eccentricity when practicing ones craft is almost a mandate to be able to do any of those things well and when it comes to writing, be it fiction or nonfiction the writer has to be somewhere in the story they write. Anything less and they would be writing dictation or plagiarism.

Whenever someone who isn't a writer or has never tried to write a book says "I should write a book" I am pretty sure they will never get around to doing it. Someone who isn't a little or a lot eccentric probably couldn't do it so I am okay when someone says I am. I wear it proudly. An eccentric like me would probably never say "I should write a book" before actually writing one, he would just do it. Saying something like that looks to me like someone who needs encouragement or approval from someone else to try. They say it more out of wishing they could and less about thinking they ever will because they need to be sure when they do most things that they won't fail or come off as looking foolish.

But I don't give a damn about things like that and I have never masqueraded as someone who does when it comes to doing whatever I decide to do. It isn't as important to me what others think about me as it is what they know about me. I want everyone around me to know who I am and what I am capable of because it allows me to be who I am and believe it or not it works in my favor when someone wonders if they should either interfere in my life, get in my way or attempt to change my mind about something or prevent me from doing or saying what I want to.

A person who wants to write well and impart interesting stories couldn't do it if they weren't willing to stick with a thought and write it, even if it meant not worrying how others might perceive it or foregoing sleep when they were dead-tired or skipping a meal if it were being served at a specific time when that writer is searching for the right words to make a point. I sometimes need to ignore the phone when it rings if it does it in the middle of a paragraph I am passionate about writing and sometimes when I am reminded that I am wearing the same shirt I wore yesterday I wonder if that is all someone noticed when I am seen writing for hours on end. I wonder what is on their mind when they remark that I need a haircut or haven't shaved for a few days or ask, "how long are you going to live in front of that computer?"

I wonder about it but answering their concerns isn't as important to me than plowing through a story is. When I don't look their way or respond in anyway whatsoever I wonder what they might be thinking of me but I don't care. I will show them a more normal side of me later and if they can't wait until then they will have to find a way to deal with it. However I am not so obsessed with writing a good story that I cannot be interrupted in the course of trying to; I do hear those around me and I know when they are saying something important and when I need to stop what I am doing and listen, but remarks about my hair or what I am wearing or wondering why I do it or how I do it are quickly ignored and forgotten.

That car in the picture was doing all it was able to do when that photograph was taken. To some it is an eyesore and those people might only wonder why someone doesn't haul it away and mow the field.  But if someone did, and then another picture was taken of that spot who would ever notice it and think anything at all about it? The car could be thought of as something eccentric; it doesn't care what anyone thinks about it and anyone who can look past the overgrown weeds and beyond the missing strips of chrome and hubcaps or the brown and gray areas that were once blue can see what I do.

It; just there being all it ever was, a car born in the 1950s that found its destiny. A talented artist could look at that photo and paint an image of it that art lovers would call a beautiful piece of work. I would hang it on my wall. But if that artist could capture with a brush an image that displays exactly what is seen here than he or she would probably be someone who is passionate about their work, so passionate in fact that another may think of them as being a little eccentric for wanting to do it. So lets look at it again.

Click image to enlarge

Please help me want to continue being eccentric.

You can find examples of my eccentricities here;

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rickery+dickery+books

Like Writing In A Crockpot; This one needs to cook a while longer.

When I retired from law enforcement ten years ago at a relatively young age (52) I walked away knowing only that I wanted something else out of life. Don't get me wrong, being a cop was a good way to make a decent living and during those years I spent out on the street as a policeman I enjoyed the work and even looked forward to it most nights as I laid out my uniform and gear in anticipation of what the evening would bring, what I would see out there and the kinds of people I would encounter. I really did like my job and compared to any number of other professions I always thought I was doing something noble.

But 52 isn't young, is it? It was for me, especially when I looked around at how many other cops I knew and worked with over my own twenty-year run through law enforcement; working around ten years for the Franklin County Sheriff's office and then another 10 with the Obetz, Ohio Police Department. When I became the chief in Obetz one of my sergeants was more than ten years older than me and when I started working there the chief who hired me was 66 years old. I knew  then and still know cops still working who are older than I am now. I have sat in meetings with other police chiefs who were in their seventies and I have known some who never retired; they died while still employed because they simply could not take off that uniform and just walk away.

I didn't want that to be me. I wasn't sure what I could expect next except that if I went looking for another line of work I probably wouldn't be able to find much of anything that I would enjoy doing or even something that was worth leaving my dogs home alone for.

But I did test the waters; I went looking for something and it didn't take long for me to find out that 52 really isn't as young as I thought it was; not to the rest of the world out there. By that time I was qualified to do two things better than anything else I ever did professionally; enforcing the laws of the state of Ohio and using my voice and entertainment skills I relied on to earn a living before I first wore a deputy sheriff's star on my shirt. But since I had enough of playing cops and robbers that was off the table and because the broadcasting industry was never in a hurry to hire anyone over 40 except for sales or management positions I soon learned that I would need to refocus, either find something to do totally different than anything I had done previously or just settle for something, anything, regardless of the financial rewards or personal gratification.

The only other route available at that time was to do nothing besides downsizing my life and hope that my retirement income would be enough to see me through to the end. It really was my only option and as the months and first few years into retirement passed it was clear that I would just have to find a way to do it because everyone I knew and could count on through the years were beginning to scatter, probably in fear that I might try to call in a few markers and network through them to find meaningful work.

They needn't have worried about that because although I knew I would have to get used to having less and doing less I wasn't destitute or ready to join the welfare rolls, all it meant was that I would have give up some things, like my car hobby. I have a passion for vintage automobiles and few indulgences in life gave me more pleasure and satisfaction than finding an old Ford that needed a little TLC to bring it back to life. It wasn't an inexpensive hobby by a long shot; I bought and restored a number of them and I lost money on every car I ever tinkered with. But when you have the means to do that and still keep your bills paid the money isn't as much of a consideration as is being able to do something you enjoy besides working for someone else to be able to afford your other obligations.

Some people blow money on things like vacations because they need to get away from the everyday routines but I never felt any sense of wanderlust or need to see things far from home; I never felt like I needed to go somewhere else to be able to relax and my barometer for fun didn't have markings that might include things like fancy bars and nightclubs where I could sip concoctions of fruit and alcohol from a glass with olives floating around topped with paper umbrellas. I never thought that telling someone that I was headed for some exotic land or that I had just come from one would give me much satisfaction. And whenever someone would ask, "don't you ever feel the need to just get away" the answer was always, no.

I guess to some I am an anomaly when it comes to liking my home enough to wanting to be in it as much as I can. I bought into the adage that there really is no place like home so I have made mine as comfortable as I possibly could and I have it set up to be a place I will never be bored in. I couldn't travel ten thousand miles anywhere on this planet and find someone whose company I would prefer over my dogs. Man hasn't yet invented anything that would give more pleasure than what I have right here to feed, play with or cuddle up to. And besides, I never liked waking up in a hotel or in someone else's bed. I like my bed; I like my own coffee and I have been no more than a social drinker at best and I never needed to be a social butterfly to find my own place in life.

Amusement parks were a thrill when I was a kid but not anymore.

To sum up this part of the story I am fine with being a boring man and because I tasted enough of what is out there through 62 years of living I am content with being on no one's schedule or making any further commitments to anyone. My life is good and I don't need to plan one more thing to feel complete. Now, that is not to say that I won't do more, but there really isn't anything else left on the horizon that beckons me. I do see the mirages of things I may want to explore at sometime but I am in no hurry to go in those directions just yet. I will meander my way there at my own stride if and when I decide to and if any of of those journeys fall short of reaching them it is okay. I would gamble to say that I am more comfortable in my own skin than anyone I know; more comfortable than anyone who either still needs to be scheduled by someone else or wants to be because they just cannot stop or wouldn't know what to do next if they did.

So when I retired at what I believed was a relatively young age I did learn that I would have to substitute that lifestyle with another one. I knew that financial survival wasn't going to be my main concern, my police and fire retirement income ensures that I will be okay there, but rebuilding old Fords would have to stop, but so would things like worrying about the price of gas. If I can live with not having a need to go anywhere then the oil companies can raise the price of a gallon as much as they can get away with. I haven't spent $200.00 for gasoline in a ten year stretch! I haven't made a car payment in more than four years because when the lease ended on my last one I gave it back and bought an old clunker.

It is a car now 14 years old and the air conditioner doesn't work; I will have to buy a tail-light bulb for it some day and it rattles a bit but it is my life-boat if I ever need to leave my island. The tires are fair, it starts and I still remember what to do when I get in it. It just looks like Hell compared to all of the others on the street but I am okay with that too; I no longer have to worry about making a good impression on my neighbors, they have come to expect that I will never try to. My deepest concern these days is that my bank account doesn't get hacked and no one is able to get the rest of what I still have. I more than gave just a little at the office when I had to.

* Note to would-be hackers; it wouldn't be worth your time or the risk to even try; there isn't much there anymore, I keep my currency in a sock hidden in my well guarded home. I have two strong frisky American Bulldogs and I still shoot a firearm proficiently. Keep in mind that I was a cop for a number of years and the attitude I needed then to keep me safe is still with me.

After coming to terms with knowing I no longer had anything any employer would want or be willing to meet me halfway with I decided to tinker with my computer keyboard and see if it could do more than just give me the news of the day or a place I could go to stay connected to the outside world. What I discovered was a new way of life. I was never a gamer of any kind so the games this one would allow me to play are no more than things that would clutter my thoughts if I ever decided to log onto one so I never have and never will. In the early years of retirement I became more of a reader than I ever was before and I have filled my brain almost to capacity with information that has made me a smarter man and with history because I have always placed both high on my list of what should be in it. I wouldn't qualify as a buff but I have always wanted to know as much as I possibly could about what happens now and has in the past and what brought us all to where we are now.

Some of the best history I was reading was written by common people telling common stories. And as I continued to read one biography after another I began to see similarities in the lives of others with my own. I didn't change the world when I was doing all I did when I was busier than I am now and I never thought I was among the people who could or eventually would. What I had been doing all of my life had been done by many others and all I ever wanted or strived for was to just do it better if I could. But it was in those similarities where I saw a purpose to also try my hand at documenting and sharing some of my own world and the people I knew. I didn't set out with any grand plan to become a successful writer but I became one.

Now before anyone prematurely jumps to a conclusion I am not trying to make here I only meant that what I have written and shared went exactly where I wanted it to go, in the eyes of readers who would eventually see that writing is more than a passion for me, it is my way of marking territories and leaving a trail to follow.

When I wrote and published my first book all I could hope to gain from it was evidence that I could do it and as I was writing it I remembered something I read in a book written by Bob Greene; he is an accomplished author, network television contributor and former newspaper writer who worked for the Chicago Tribune and many years ago locally in Columbus, Ohio at the now defunct Columbus Citizen Journal. It was a book about his career and in it he wrote that being a newspaper columnist affords a writer the greatest audience any writer might ever know. He pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people would read something he wrote every day whereas very few authors when compared to how many there are can hope that hundreds of thousands of people will read a book they have written. Not just in a day, but ever!

Becoming a writer wasn't about making a lot of money from it or even supplementing my income, although either or both would be awesome! I don't do this expecting those results but I hope that one day I might. Until then I will keep hammering away at the keyboard and hope to leave as few typos behind as possible and be satisfied that I have become an accomplished author; the accomplishment is that after publishing a number of books I have built up a following. It isn't a large following but if you were to define the term fans, I have some. They are people who have enjoyed my work enough to want a little more and with each release of a new book I hear from people I have never met who tell me they have read other books I have written and they have enjoyed them. That to me is accomplishing something.

If I only sold one or just a few I couldn't make this claim. Moreover; the fact that my books aren't backed by large publishers who would be willing to invest huge sums of money to promote them I think I have done very well for just being some guy who likes to do it and goes forward with  not much more than the desire to. I could not do this if a third or more of my time still belonged to someone else or if I worried much about what others expect or want from me. My  loyal readers know what they will get when they commence reading something I have written. They expect non-fiction stories written by someone who wasn't trained by someone else to write, just a dose of realism in the grand scheme of a world that doesn't slow down enough to look at life through the eyes of a regular person.

A regular person is what I became when I made the decision to retire from a working world where I was constantly under the public microscope. I was under that one for a good deal of my life, especially when I became a deputy sheriff whose job for seven years was to be the spokesman for the largest sheriff's office in the state.  My work days back then were filled with reporters and television cameras and every day that I was a cop I knew that I would catch the eye of every stranger who looked in my direction; I would know that I had to be at my very best at all times because police officers are held to a higher standard than some other professions allow.

That for me was tougher than it might sound if you don't consider the years I spent as a radio announcer; I also did that for around 20 years before I was a cop. Radio announcers weren't held to any standard beyond what the Federal Communications Commission allowed or by any a radio station station owner expected. So the standard I held myself to back then was a very loose one at best! I have documented some of that lifetime in various books I have written and I am likely to share even more in the future. Being a disc jockey in the era I was one was pretty simple; just sound good on the radio! What I did away from the confines of studios or on my own time mattered only to me. My listeners didn't care one way or the other what I was up to when I wasn't trying to entertain them.

And just as I walked away from law enforcement when I did I left broadcasting for the same reason; it was time to move on. So now I write and publish books; 18 of of them when this one is finished. I have never been a religious man and I am not comfortable in the company of anyone who regards themselves as one. Those who have read my work or know me personally know that about me and I am very close to weeding out and away from me all of those who cannot accept it. That is all I ever asked of anyone; if you don't like me or something about me then just go. With that said, I do believe in God and even though my feelings about him may differ from what someone else believes he expects from us I hope we can all allow for the possibility that when he allows one door in our lives to close he opens another one and dares us to go through it.

The DJ who became a cop who became a writer! My name is Rick Minerd, nice to meet you if we haven't already. There is another Rick Minerd out there making a name for himself now and whenever I am asked why I never refer to myself as Rick Minerd Senior I tell them because my name didn't change when my son was born. His given name is the same as mine but with a suffix after it. Junior has been a legal part of his name since I signed his birth certificate. I never legally changed mine to include a suffix even though sometimes someone will add it when talking about both of us or to clear up any confusion when mentioning one or the other.

I do believe that God has a plan for us even though I rarely speak publicly of what I think his is for me. I want to believe that what has become my latest phase in life as a writer was somewhere in it all along. I have to believe that because what I am willing to do and able to do isn't easy! For anyone who has never written a book or wondered if they could, go ahead and try it! If my work never makes anyone's best seller list it doesn't mean that it isn't good or that no one cares, it only means it hasn't found enough readers yet. That is not to say that I tout it as being good enough to, only that I believe it is good enough to catch the attention someday of someone who can come into my life and take it to another level. That won't happen if I don't keep at it.

When this one is finished it will be a collection of short stories, including this one and those I have shared and will share in a public blog. What I am doing with this one is something that may never have been done, allowing others to follow along and see a book unfold page-by-page as it is being written. For anyone who might ask, "why would anyone who has already read it that way ever want to buy it"  I can only respond with saying, I don't know.

I never begin a new writing endeavor expecting only those who know in advance that I'm doing it to find it. I hope complete strangers who have never before even seen my name will. I want a bigger following than what is already shown up! That means people who don't even know about my blogs. Those who do won't need to buy the book, they can read it here and making it available this way is a small way of thanking anyone who bothered to read it or who has spent money on my other work.

Those who do follow along here are giving me what I want even if they aren't willing to spend a nickel on my work; an audience to play to. I played to many of them as a DJ and many more when I was a cop. I am doing that again in another forum, one that leaves my DNA all over the place to be identified long after I am gone. 

Some people retire and build bird-houses or play golf or travel, others retire from doing much of anything ever again  at all; some die shortly after they stop working and some spend all of their time scrambling around seeking ways to amuse themselves. For me this is as good of way as any any to spend mine. And someday I may be rewarded far beyond what I could have hoped for my efforts to do it. But what will never come from it is any feeling that I wasted my time because I never climbed up on a shelf like some figurine to wait out my time or became the stereotypical image that some may have of retired persons. I'm still working, albeit at my own pace and making up the rules as I go along.

You can read more by visiting Amazon where all of my work is on display.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rickery+dickery+books

Raise the Jolly Roger!

Click photo to enlarge

It is a tale of one of the most storied franchises in baseball history that has come back to life over the past two years; they are the buccaneers with bats, big ones that swing for the fences to conquer their foes and like the swashbucklers of old, they are back on the waters in Pittsburgh, camped near the confluences of the flows known as Three Rivers, the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio and the natives there are once again excited and restless! Not from fear as visiting teams from other towns may be, of what this one is capable of, but of anticipation that these guys have once again restored order and saved the city from another year of being knocked around and vilified as losers; something that had been happening there for several years. These Pirates came out of hiding and a two decades-long exile to once again be reckoned with when they earned a spot last year in the 2013 Major League Baseball playoffs and then came back again in the summer of 2014 to prove that was no fluke, that finally the Bucs are back!

Raise the Jolly Roger!

It is the battle cry of sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of Pirate fans around the world, echoed by their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers who know the story of Honus Wagner, "The flying Dutchman", Pittsburgh's Hall of Fame shortstop from 1900-1917 whose likeness on a baseball card is the Holy Grail for collectors, now worth nearly three million dollars for its rarity. Only 60 to 200 of those cards were printed while even fewer were ever distributed and the whereabouts of the most valuable one still in existence is now believed to be in the possession of Ken Kendrick, owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

                                           Click photo to enlarge

Production of that card ceased when Wagner insisted that The American Tobacco Company stop using his likeness on a product he didn't approve of. He didn't want young fans to have to buy cigarettes to get his baseball card. I have heard tales of some people tearing down walls and ripping up floorboards of old homes hoping to find one and indeed one man in Ohio did come across one in recent years, along with a dozen or so other cards from the early 1900s while going through his grandfather's attic; he sold the collection at auction for a little more than a half-million dollars!

In the decades to follow the Pirate legacy continued to build with names like Bill Mazeroski whose ninth inning home run against the New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series remains one of the greatest baseball stories ever told and seen in videos. His jersey sold last year for more than $633,000.00.

The greatest Pirate of them all, Roberto Clemente who was killed on New Year's Eve 1972 when a plane he was on crashed. It was delivering relief supplies to Nicaragua following a devastating earthquake there.

It remains one of the saddest stories ever to surround the drama we call baseball. The crash happened just a year after his Pirate team had won their second World Series title against the Baltimore Orioles and after making it back into the playoffs a few months earlier. 

There is a bridge named after him next to the stadium and one of baseball's most coveted awards bares his name; The Roberto Clemente Award is presented each year to the player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship and community.

And then of course there is that team-mate of his that has been my favorite ball player since I began following baseball, Willie Stargell who played on the 1971 and 1979 World Series championship squads; the man everyone called "Pops" in his later career; a bronze statue of his likeness stands guard in front of the stadium known as PNC Park as a reminder of those glory years when Pittsburgh was the home of perennial contenders for baseball's glory year-after-year.

PNC is named among the most beautiful sports facilities in America every year by publications that know about such things. Once again this year there is a home-team worthy of playing in such a palace.

Someday I hope to visit it as I did the stadium in Pittsburgh that preceded it (Three Rivers Stadium)...

and the one the Buccos played in before that, old Forbes Field.

Yes, I have been following these swashbucklers of a proud legacy for a very long time, for more than fifty of my own 62 years and the last time I saw a team like the current one was back in 1991-92, the last time the Pirates made it into post-season play in back-to-back years. Oh yes, they are back! All of those autumns us die-hard Pirate fans suffered through and whispered "maybe next year"  are behind us for now and hopefully will be for a very long time to come. They may not go all the way to the World Series this year but I am more than hopeful, I expect it! As of this writing the Pirates are the hottest team in baseball, winning 15 of their last 18 games and the echoes of Raise the Jolly Roger will be heard again and again by Greg Brown, the Pirates stadium announcer who coined that battle cry until this race to the championship is settled.

Somewhere another voice of the Pirates is smiling down at this current crop of players and fans and saying "we had 'em all the way!"  

The old Gunner kept me awake many nights through my youth as I dialed around the AM radio looking for the game and wanting to hear Bob Prince narrate and brag about what was happening on the field. For 28 years he sat in the booth looking down on some of the greatest names ever to play the game and for 28 years I wished I could sit where he was just once. Wherever he is now I am sure he would say it the loudest, he might even shake Greg Brown's hand and thank him for coming up with what is fast becoming a new lexicon to best feel the emotion being felt again in Pittsburgh and anywhere else this heritage is known and adored. 

                                                         Raise it!

              Go to Amazon for a wider collection of my short stories.

 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rickery+dickery+books

                                                              Thank you!

Fall forward, Spring back

Click image to enlarge

This year I welcome the first autumn in the autumn of my life; the first fall season that I will really pay attention to as maybe the last one I will know; not that I suspect it will be but we do wonder about such possibilities as we age. This past year has been a very busy one for me as a writer and it was planned. The specific goal I had in mind was to write and publish as many short stories as I could while I still could and publish them in eBook format to document the lives of two men, a young one and an old one. Time has had its way with me and I had my way with it and now here we are; the old version of me reflecting on what some people have long suspected about me; that I have a split personality! It took all of 62 years to bring them together but once again, here we are. The old personality coming to terms with the younger version that now only exists in that part of the brain where we store our memories.

The younger me was always in a hurry but never in a hurry to see how the older me would eventually make out, and that guy didn't stick around long enough to find out. I often wonder where he got off to and how he got away so fast. What I do know is that he wasted a lot of time when he had a lot of it!

Let me explain what I meant by this possibly being my final fall season; I was warned about this year many years ago by my family doctor when he discovered something about me in a routine check-up and thought it best to refer me to a specialist. I laughed at him as I have often been prone to do when coming face to face with adversity but I agreed to go meet with his friend for a second opinion. That meeting did not go well because his friend examined me in a way much different than my regular doctor did; he went a lot further; his examination was much more painful and it left me a little skeptical about keeping an appointment that he made for me with another friend of his, so skeptical in fact that I decided to forego that one and just wait another year or so before telling my doc about it. I thought that as rigorous as this second exam was, the next one might kill me! For several minutes it felt as if he were trying to.

Two years passed before I returned to my regular guy and during the course of that examination I confided in him that his friend was not a nice man and that I skipped the third hand-off from one doctor to another. We discussed my lifestyle and he told me not to make any long range career goals if I didn't change my lifestyle and return more often for check-ups. "You are not a young man anymore and it is imperative that you take better care of your body and come to see more often than you have been, and when I tell you do something you need to do it!"  He sounded perturbed at me when he said that but I didn't take it personally because he was only doing his job.

That day was the first day he ever invited me back to his office for a chat and as we talked about things like diet and bad habits he mentioned the term autumn of our lives and he spoke of statistics and reasons he was concerned that I could or might not live long enough to qualify for Social Security if I didn't take his advice more seriously than I seemed to be showing. All of what he said made sense and in the five years that have whisked by in what seems like a blink of an eye I have read one obituary after another of people I have known for years, some younger than me and some not much older and each time I do I see reminders of that discussion. That was the last time I saw that doctor who I also regarded as friend. One day I tried to make an appointment with him and the gal who answered the phone informed me that he was no longer practicing medicine.

That sent me scrambling to find a new family doctor and for a year or so I settled with one that was the worst doctor I ever had examine me. She had a much larger office that was absolutely exquisite with all of the latest fancy touches and each time I would go there I would look around and know two things; I was the oldest person in the waiting room and the only guy. Each time I left her office I was angry and suspicious, wondering if she had a clue about treating men and each time I was convinced that she didn't. Finally I found another doctor who I liked, he was nearly half my age and he and I took an immediate liking to one another because we understood each others goals for me; those being just be here when either of us needs to be so we can work through issues. In less than a year he too was gone, he left that practice to operate a clinic somewhere else. At the moment I am without a regular family physician and I was discussing that with an old colleague recently who said "welcome to the club!"

The club he was referring to is the one we all eventually join in the autumn of our lives when finding and keeping a good doctor becomes a challenge we never saw coming. I will eventually work that one out but back to my old doctor who wondered if I might be around to qualify for Social Security: I hope he is a reader and that he finds this piece wherever he is if only so he can know that I made it. I reached that level this past July and I feel no worse for the wear than I did on the day he and I had that discussion. I also never changed my ways that he said were not conducive for anyone hoping to one day wear short pants, sunglasses and a fishing hat while riding around on golf carts in some warm retirement community. By the way, that was never a personal goal for me so once again he and I just moved on.

I was remembering some of that conversation this morning as I sat enjoying that first smoke and first cup of caffeinated coffee of the day and that part when I told him that settling down some day with people my age and older surrounding me in some place away from the one I have known as home most of my life was never part of my plan. He laughed and said "none of us look forward to that but we're all headed there eventually." I still hope he was wrong about all of that. He spoke of a time when we will be more comfortable surrounded by people like us who will need one another to discuss our health issues with and trade stories of better years when we didn't need each other. "Safety in numbers" he called it; "you won't like being the oldest person in every room you will be in, surrounded by younger people who will ignore you and not give a damn about you if you find yourself in such an environment some day. The day will come when you will want to be with your contemporaries instead of in the company of those who will push you aside because they can."

But like everything else I have approached on my way to getting where life has brought me I didn't see myself as someone who couldn't deal with that. I told him that I didn't look at my life then as a dress rehearsal for being old some day, I was already in my mid-fifties and standing in center-stage of it before a very large audience remembering every line I would need to say when it was my turn to speak. Life for me has always been like a play. I am surrounded now by as many odd characters as I always have been and although mine is no longer the best known name on the program I still have the starring role. This play seems to linger longer than the audience might have expected but it is still a very good one!

I believe it will have a very good ending even though I have no idea when that will be; but what I think I know is that even though I may need a few more stunt-men to fill in for me with each act the choreography has been spectacular. I am acting in a tailor-made role that suits me. When the winter of 2013 was closing and the spring of 2014 was approaching I wondered if it might be the last one that I could get out and still do whatever I wanted. It came and went and although I didn't get out much I did do most of the things I wanted to. 

However, in every year before this one I looked forward to relaxing in the sun from spring through summer and seeing my skin change color to a deep tan because it did seem to matter how comfortable clothes would look against it when my skin was more attractive than age eventually makes it. Some days I would spend most of the hours outdoors and by autumn I could be mistaken for another race. So when summer approached I wondered if it might be the last one that I could still do that. Remember, this all started with that consultation with a doctor who wondered how many more summers in the sun I might enjoy. 

As it turned out, the summer before it, the summer of 2012 was that one; this year I had no desire to sit outside when those temperatures were climbing into the high eighties and low nineties. I sipped cold beverages in my radio studio where I also write and now all of those days are past, I am falling forward. I spent a good deal of this year springing back by writing one story after another to put the final touches on the third act of my play. I suspect this won't be my final autumn but it might be; that is true for all of us but I don't worry about that now anymore than I ever did. I am looking forward to fall, I am enjoying the cooler temperatures and I will be leaving the house and returning to it more than I have since last winter.

I won't talk about winter yet because we probably still have a few months before it arrives but when it does I will wonder if it might be my last. These are things that I think we should all think about and talk about when we arrive at a certain point in our journeys because if we don't we may end up angry with ourselves someday that we didn't. I know I would be if left a lot of things on the table too long to matter to anyone. I wouldn't want my work to seem worth more than it is after all of my seasons are over than it did while I was scripting each one. I won't know one way or the other then, but I do want to know now and right now I am the most contented man I know with how things have gone so far and so far this long and enduring play of mine is on the course I hoped it would be.

The names and the faces around me will continue to change just as I have planned it. This blog I started last week has brought me an entirely new audience and I have no plan to let them down. You can make all of this worth the efforts I have invested by looking for my next story that should unfold any minute now, and in the meantime you can help me know that it has mattered by looking over some of my other work by following this link. There you will find about a half million other words cobbled together that I hope you will enjoy and understand.

http://www.speakcomputers.com/Computer-Books.aspx?&category=books&productsearch=rickery+dickery+books&pagenumber=1

Unconventional

Click photo to enlarge

Yesterday my daughter Kelly left a remark on my facebook page after reading something I had written that said "I wish I could write like you."  I studied it for a moment and then responded by saying she could if she just wrote what she felt. Later I revisited that exchange and thought a little more about it and decided to write this piece to find a way to embellish my response, to do it in a way that better explains what I was trying to say to her. The truth is I believe she can do anything she sets her mind to, she is a very bright girl and I believe that she can and does write well. The difference here between she and I is that I write more than she does and that doesn't make me a better writer, just someone who does it more and in a different way.

We are all writers, we all write things through the course of any given day but most people write to express a singular thought at a time whereas I write  more words to make longer sentences that make up paragraphs to tell longer stories. When she said she wished she could write like me my response back to her was in the same general terms most people write. I do believe she could write just as good as anyone but if we were having that discussion in another forum besides facebook I would have expounded on that thought by saying more than I did. What she received was the text equivalent of two people exchanging words in a brief conversation while banging their fingers on a keypad. I am not a texter and I have never sent nor read a text message because I still don't understand people's delight in doing something like that and because when my fingers hit a keypad I am very conscience of word usage and spelling, even though I don't always get it right and sometimes miss a few when I write.

I am in no hurry to learn a new language at this late stage of the game and if I were I would rather exhaust my energy studying Russian or another one that most people in America wouldn't understand. There is no challenge in the texting language to make it attractive enough to me to want to do it well. However, learning the language the Russians speak would feel like a real accomplishment! If I could do that then I could really say to most people what is either on my mind or what I think of them and still make them smile regardless of what I said to them. They wouldn't know one way or the other. It would be both exhilarating and liberating to speak freely to anyone I don't care for in a tongue that allowed me to get some things off my chest without hurting anyone's feelings or leaving them to think more lowly of me than they might already do.

To me, texting is just a lazy way to exchange thoughts and a convenient way for people with spelling disabilities to hide their ineptness. Using abbreviations, symbols and numbers instead of real words is much easier than opening a dictionary for people who can't spell and don't have the time or the zeal to learn. It works well for both parties who go back and forth like that because the other person probably suffers the same lack of abilities or because both are just too busy to concern themselves with remembering what the schools once believed was an important skill. Could you imagine trying to filter through and understand what I have written so far in this post if it were in text language? I am not sure but I think these whole words, especially if most of them are spelled right make a more pleasant reading experience than if I took the easiest route to get where I want this story to go.

Now, a skilful and experienced texter who writes most of the time using one letter or one number to make a word might prefer that I impart my thoughts as they would but I am a stubborn old soul who refuses to downgrade my ability to share thoughts through the written text simply because it is easier and takes less time. I am not that busy with my life, I have the time. After all, I was forced to learn to spell way back in grammar school and I don't want that skill to now go to waste just because the rest of the world says it is okay. To me that would be akin to telling me that all of the arithmetic I had to struggle through for all of those years was a waste of time and so was the summer I had to spend in summer school to keep from failing a grade. I want to believe that all of it mattered. I still want to use the skills I learned all through my life if only to feel that I wasn't duped when the teachers and mentors made me sit and learn what they swore I would someday need! 

Texting is like calculators. I have a calculator but I rarely need it and where I find satisfaction and joy in not needing it is in knowing that I don't. It doesn't make me a smart man, it makes me a capable one and I feel good about that. Just another small triumph in life that separates me from an ignorant man.

Back to Kelly; I know she can spell because when she does write something to me she uses real words and they all look just fine, moreover, they all come together and make sense the way they should. Writing good stories is an art that requires those things and in that regard Kelly could write like me. The difference would be the content and that is where her work and mine would be vastly different. That is the area where my writing is different from most writers period! Kelly couldn't write exactly like me because she is a very polite person and she worries more than I ever could about saying the wrong thing. She is very careful with her vocabulary and will go out of her way to not offend anyone. When I said to her that she could write like me I meant it, but in order to write like me she would have to throw caution to the wind and write as I do, how she really feels. That is precisely what I said to her; the exchange on facebook went like this; "I wish I could write like you." - "You can, just write what you feel."

I am among the ranks of anyone who regards my work as how Webster's describes it; not conventional, not bound by or in accordance with convention, being out of the ordinary, an unconventional thinker. A person like that who has chosen to become a writer who writes what he feels instead of what he wants others to see in his work is someone like me. That is the singular difference in what I write and what Kelly could write. There is not now, nor has there ever been anything conventional about my personality. Mine isn't for everyone and I couldn't live with myself if it were. I never wanted to be that guy and although it is far from mainstream it has served me well in terms of being everywhere I wanted to be and doing everything I ever wanted to do.

Why would I ever tinker with something like that? Something that has worked so well for as long as it has for me and try to change it now? I regard the ability to always be the real me, regardless of someone else's opinion as a gift! One that I hope to keep and protect for as long as I live. I don't need anyone's approval to do anything anymore and I don't seek it; that is why when Kelly or someone else reads my work might say, "I wish I could write like you." 

I couldn't write like me if I were any different. To write like I do one would have to have the means and the desire. My desire should be evident to anyone by now and I have the means. It has become much easier since I retired because something that comes with retirement is something far more important than being liked by a lot of people and needed to do what a lot of people need me to do; time and an attitude that can be all mine! No more answering another person's bell or come when they whistle, no longer being required to do something that makes someone else look good or make more money for us both. Nobody needs anything I have and everything I would be willing to give to someone else now comes with strings attached.

They aren't long or complicate strings, just strings that make doing something or going somewhere as beneficial for me as it is for them. Simple strings that cannot be tied around me as tightly as they once were and the understanding that when one of us is ready to cut them we can with no hard feelings. I became able to write in the method I do when I cut a lot of strings that held me back from doing it. The desire and the ability was always there but retirement gave me the means. All I needed was to gather up all of the rule books and instruction manuals someone else handed me and use them for fuel in a virtual bonfire.

Kelly can write like me, it will take awhile before she can do it but someday she will be able to take out her scissors as I did and cut the strings she is bound by now. But do it with the words and expressions I use may be the real challenge for her because I don't see her being as rough around the edges as I am. It takes that too.

To date I have written and published 17 books of short stories. 

Please visit Amazon at the link below to see more examples of my work. Thank you.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rickery+dickery+books

Teach your children, well?

Click photo to enlarge

My dad was a meat-packer by trade and the best man I ever knew. 

When I was growing up and then all through my adult life, and even now at the age of 62 I have wanted to be like him. I never had aspirations of becoming a meat-packer although I did work for a meat-packing company for a few months when I was in high school and when I did that I know he was proud of me; he may even have hoped I would like it enough to follow in his footsteps but I didn't; instead I went in another direction, actually in two different directions. I became a radio announcer and then later a cop.

I believe a good son pays homage to his dad in a good way if he hopes to be like him, even if he never tells him that. I never told mine that I wanted to be a meat-packer or even that I wanted to be like him and then one day it was too late; he passed away in 1998, but I hope he knew from watching me make my own way through life that all he ever taught me didn't go to waste; that I used the respect I had for him and my desire to be a man like he was to keep reaching for the best things in life. Not the most things but the best things such as respect from those around me that I was doing the best I could and that I too was leaving a trail for my sons to follow that would shape them into good men.

My middle son Kevin followed me into the broadcasting world and my youngest son Todd wants nothing more from life than to be a cop. I want nothing more than to see him achieve his goal. I already saw my oldest son Ricky achieve his; he followed me into the Franklin County Sheriff's office and has since worked his way up to chief deputy. My own broadcasting career is behind me now but I hold fast to what I learned and loved from the radio business by programming and producing an internet station that is broadcasted around the world now. That and writing blogs and publishing books is how I spend my retirement years. My law enforcement legacy will live on a while longer through my sons. Todd will make it in some day, I am sure of that because he is the most determined young man I know, and although Kevin has moved on from the life of a broadcaster I know that he too will always use for the good all he learned from it. That knowledge will serve him well for the rest of his life and continue to make him a better and more competitive man all his life. It did for me so I am sure of it.

All of this was what I hoped for when I first became a dad and looked into the bassinet and watched Ricky sleeping in it when he was a baby. I was just 19 years old then and just a rookie dad who had no idea of what I could do to put down some footprints for him to follow and I was far too young then to have much going for me for him to even admire. But I did hope that he could find reasons as I did to admire my own dad as he grew. I didn't become a disc jockey nor a cop with any of that in mind just as I am sure my dad never became a meat-packer for that reason. I only went through life as he did, doing what I wanted to do and hoping I was getting it right. My dad never asked me what I thought of him as a man but I want to believe he knew by the things I did say to him and about him whenever I spoke of him. 

Today, September 21 is Ricky's 43rd birthday and although I won't call him and he won't call me to discuss it I hope the triangle between him, me and my dad is a solid one. Now before anyone wonders, "what do you mean you won't call him, that's your son and it is his birthday for crying out loud"  I can clear it all up by again by re-entering my dad into this story. Like I said at the beginning, my dad was the best man I ever knew. He was my dad for 40 of my own birthdays and although he never called me to say say Happy Birthday I always knew that he wanted me to have one. 

It wasn't his style to feel he needed to say everything he felt. He was always there when anyone ever needed him to be and he probably believed as I do that-that should suffice for proving that he loved all of us. I mean after all, he worked and sacrificed enough to become the man he was, a man that I still hope I can resemble, 

and just as I know Ricky won't call me today I never called my dad on my own birthday hoping that he would wish me well on that day. I didn't have to because on all of those birthdays that I could, I went to see him and my mother. Even then he rarely said Happy Birthday to me because he knew that he needn't do that to convey what he hoped for me. He was my dad, he taught us all well.

However, I have something now that he didn't; it is called the internet and there is a social networking site there called Facebook. I may go there later today and wish my son a happy birthday but even if I do there is a chance he won't see it. It won't matter to either of us if he doesn't because that is the kind of men we are and since he is too old for toys now I won't feel guilty about not buying him one for his birthday. He found himself in a place in life where he is able to buy all the toys he might want. He has found himself in a place I did a long time ago.

Flexing your muscle

Click the photo to enlarge

Several years ago an organization called Partnership for a Drug Free America launched a nationwide television campaign that showed a quick and simple video of a man holding a skillet that he identified as drugs. He then held up an egg and said "this is your brain." Next he cracked the egg and dropped it into the skillet he had paced on a gas burner of a stove and as it began to pop and sizzle in the pan he said "This is your brain on drugs."  Then he looked into the camera and asked "any questions?" 

The message was so clear that I needn't go any further to explain it, but this post isn't about what has happened to a lot of people's brains because of what they have put theirs through by abusing or merely using drugs for recreational purposes. I believe that alcohol has a similar effect on millions of people every day but I won't go beyond where I have so far about that either except to say that any malfunctions my brain may experience cannot be attributed to too much stimulation caused by drugs or alcohol. Drugs never was an issue for me except during my years as a street cop when my job mandated that I deal with people who did dabble with them outside of what the Ohio Revised Code allowed.

As for alcohol, if you were to pour all I have drank over the past thirty years you couldn't fill a gallon jug so I can say with confidence that the muscle in my head isn't pickled and that if you and I ever have a conversation with one another you can be assured it isn't the alcohol talking and that none of what I say to you comes from a mind that has been altered or slowed by anything I have done in my past. I happen to believe that my mind is very sharp most of the time, except for those few minutes when I first awake from sleep or when I am trying to maneuver through a day with a splitting headache. Those headaches are more frequent than I wish they were but I have grown used to expecting to have one several times a week. It isn't something new, in fact I cannot remember a time in my life when it wasn't a problem; I grew up with this plague, but aside from that I have always been a pretty healthy guy; I rarely get sick and I usually feel pretty good, the usual muscle aches and pains of growing older notwithstanding.

At 62 years of age my body isn't as strong as it was at 32 but the upside of being this age is that life has a way of compensating us for what we lose physically if we have paid attention all of our lives to everyone we ever encountered and if we at least tried to learn from our experiences. My compensation for having a slower body is having a quicker mind than I ever had in my life. My brain is my most dangerous weapon now and little by little those who have been around me for a good long time as well as anyone I meet for the first time are finding that out. I am in a pretty good place in life and believe me when I tell you I take none of that for granted.

I am well aware that losing one's mind may be the most crippling disease of all and I am saddened when I learn of anyone  who either suffers from or are in the early stages of Alzheimer Disease; I can think of nothing worse, not even dying. As a scholar said to me recently as he was describing the pain of watching his wife as she goes through this stage; "it is like a very long goodbye."  To live with someone he has known and has relied on to be his partner and best friend for more than two-thirds of their lives and watch her struggle with remembering people and simple tasks, and knowing there is no cure would be like that.

I have heard something like that is likely to catch up with all of us if we live long enough; that as we age we begin to forget a lot of things or just give up trying to make sense of the people and the world around us. Maybe it happens because the world around us gives up on us when we get so old that we no longer matter as much as we did. But whatever lies down the road for me hasn't yet shown itself and before it does I intend to keep learning new things and apply what I do learn to what I already know. The best defense against allowing our brain to falter is to keep it as active as we are able and I intend to that. When it comes to competing for my rightful place in the scheme of my surroundings I have an advantage that some don't; I don't take instructions from anyone anymore because I don't have to, everything I do and say comes from what my brain believes is right for me, not from anyone elses.

When I write, the topics are what I choose them to be and how I impart my thoughts comes simply from how I would talk to anyone, either one-on-one or in a group setting. My words can be as impolite as I deem necessary to make my point or as gentle as I think they should be to soothe the reader or the listener if I choose to do that. I am no literary scholar nor do I consider myself an expert at anything besides living a life that is best for me. I only know enough to qualify for that one, not enough about everything else, so I know when or when not to weigh-in on most subjects.

That too makes me a dangerous man to anyone hoping to outsmart me or take something from me that I want to keep. I have joked that I have been wandering through herds of sheep most of my life; sheep who seemingly need someone to follow to get where they either want to be, think they need to be or where someone tells them to go. I wander through the herd to find the man or woman who believes they are the shepherd and then I ask them to either pick up their pace or get out of my way. I always expect that person to take offense and ask me who I think I am and then I tell them. It hasn't always worked in my favor but I am here now doing whatever I want to do every day of my life; I am happy with how I lived it and I have never been more mentally relaxed. Some of those shepherd's are still out there walking about, either still leading a herd or looking for another one that will follow them.

So do I think I am a pretty smart guy? Well, here is where I explain the photo I posted on this page. That car is a 1969 Mercury Cyclone-Cale Yarborough Special that is powered by a 428 cubic inch motor that develops more than 400 horsepower. The Ford Motor Company built only a few of them. Most of the Cyclone's from that year reside in climate-controlled garages and museums now and for a lot of us Ford guys it is the ultimate muscle car. If challenged by anything else that was around in 1969 when it was on the streets of America it would certainly go beyond merely holding its own. I believe it still could. And like that Mercury I was on the streets in 1969 and I felt as cocky then as that car looks. 

Today I feel even cockier. So if I were to try to show an image of what I think my brain looks like now compared to what it looked like in 1969 I have done it here. Because like that muscle car, the muscle in my head only got better with time. That one is pristine, it is completely original, no one tried to change it in any way, it looked like it does here when it left the factory. I don't look as good as I did in 1969 and I am not as fast as I was then but that motor in my my head has never been tinkered with and it remains as strong as that 428 under that long sleek hood. 

But unlike that one mine will continue to rev up everyday it is able to and it will keep moving the body it is in as fast as it is able to through my work as a writer and as a broadcaster in internet radio. I invite you to follow my progress here and on the Live 365 Worldwide Internet Radio Network, I am there most nights after 9:00. You can find the documentation that what I have said here is still true in my work as an author because I don't merely write stories from the heart, I collect the words and phrases I share with others from a life I regard as one well lived by someone who has held onto a lot of it. My brain is like a warehouse full of it all and you can judge for yourself by clicking on this link;

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rickery+dickery+books

Or you can join me nightly on a radio station called "Heartlites" by going here;

http://www.live365.com/stations/heartlites

Is this blog project another effort to sell my work? Come on, could there be any doubt? But it really is that other thing I just described also; another way to make that brain of mine keep working. While some people my age may find a television the best and easiest way to relax or make it through their idle time I have my own method; I don't want someone else clouding my thoughts with what they want me to think, I go this route and hope someone else can be inspired to never lose what they had and to take a look at themselves and consider what they can do to stay competitive in a world that may find a way to leave them behind. I hope me and that Mercury will always have something in common.