See, What Happened Was (A toast to '24 - bet it's shorter than last year's)

 

Good riddance, '24 (and yet - we'll miss you)

Here we go again. It's time to toast the passing of another year. If you're unfamiliar with how this goes, see the 2023 and 2017 and 2013 versions. Not sure why I must always wait until the New Year is just a couple hours away, but it is what it is. Hey - maybe the limited time will motivate me to be brief! We can only hope.

Here's to January, another blur of year-end gift processing heroics by yours truly, conducted in the quiet offices of Beloved Employer, in the fashionable West End of Washington, DC. It was exceptionally cold. Then it was SEVENTY, and all the Metro platforms turned to weirdly-slippery death traps, for a couple of days. You should have seen DC's subway commuters, shuffling along like Tim Conway's old man persona in a desperate attempt to remain upright. It was less fun than it sounds.

Cheers, 70-degree January evening!

There was some cooking, as well. Here, because I thought they looked pretty...

Korean veggie lettuce cups. Pretty, non?

Here's to February. Cheers. Yay, February.

My tree! Look what you've done to my tree!!

Here's a sad fact. February 19th was the last time I posted to my poor neglected bloggy space. At least it was a HOBO STORY.

No cheers for March. I lost a water heater and another of my beloved uncles. Yeah, we had the Madness, but it was a bit meh. Better luck next March...

Big cheers to April, though! [Maris] and I trekked to Lake Erie, where we photographed lighthouses for the first time in 13 years - and covered bridges after an even longer drought. We also hung out with family from all over, and oh yeah - there was a total solar eclipse...

I'm ready!

No photos will ever do justice to the experience of witnessing this with one's own eyeballs, but here's what the old Nikon saw...

See ya in a few, sun...

[gasp]

I'll have a corona, thanks.

See? It's all downhill from there. Trust me - it is. Cheers to May for baseball, a nephew's hope-filled high school graduation, and a teeny turtle...

Let's lose to the O's in 12!

What the hell, man? Put me down!

I don't remember anything about June, except that we had a little outbreak of weak Maryland and Virginia tornadoes, and they were too close for comfort. So, no toast for you, June.

Mostly cheers for July. The Olympics were fun. Helping a relative move for the third time in five years was not. Biden dropping out of the election put a bit of a charge into a lot of people. DC was kind of abuzz, really. Otherwise - hazy, hot, and humid.

Cheers, August. You too were hazy, hot, and humid. 

"It's too freakin' hot - even on the white part of the car."

September. meh. Thanks to [Maris]'s employer, we got to experience ballpark amenities to which we're hardly accustomed - and a great view of our scrappy young rebooting Nats...

...and keep 'em comin'

Still not really baseball, to me, but fun!

Predictably (unless you don't know me - hi, I'm Joe!), I can almost always raise a glass to October, because OBX gluttony and sloth vacations are the BEST...

First, fancy drinks. Food not pictured.

Don't wake me for sunrises that don't look like this.

I fell asleep again. What day is it?

Visible aurora in Kill Devil Hills, NC. WHAT??

Mostly, November can just go eff off and die. It knows what it did. Even if I was utterly ignorant of politics and democracy and autocracy and oligarchs and all that stuff - to feel the energy in DC on the 5th, versus every day since is just criminal. We'll see how it all unfolds. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." *sigh*

Finally, let's give December her due. Here's to you, final month of 2024. We got all kinds of busy with trees in convertibles (they know me at the fire station, now), and we took [Maris]'s gnomes to work, and we rocked out with our old friends the Trans-Siberian Orchestra...

Sometimes it's unseasonably warm for this. Not so, today.

First Class, all the way...

"Morale here must be through the roof!"

"Get some big donations - we wanna ring the bells!"

Trying to match Chris' energy...

A lot like the eclipse, it's hard to adequately photograph.

((devil horns for these two on the cranes))

That's all, folks. Raise a glass to 2024. Whether you're saying "good riddance," or "OMG you're gonna look like paradise, a few weeks from now," cheers to you, and you, and you - wherever you are. Enjoy yourself - it's later than you think.

And I'll leave you with these gentle reminders...

(probably)

"We're ready. Keep your hats pointy, everyone!"

Good Night, and Happy New Year!

Mad Max And The Goose And Not The Goose: A Christmas Story Sort Of

With snow and everything! Photo by [Maris]

Mad Max was in no mood. His feet were soaked and nearly frozen. Much of the rest of him was likewise damp and/or painfully cold. His sidekicks were fussing and bickering, which was not helping matters at all. "I am in no mood, you two!" he spat. "I gotta find us some shelter from this freezing rain - I'd settle for an awning, about now. I can't handle another Christmas like this. I wish I'd taken your advice and headed south a couple of months ago, The Goose."

The Goose growled out a low sequence of throaty sounds that could be approximately translated to, "Told you so." Under his breath, he added, "I'm just happy to be waterproof, tonight."

Maxwell Small hadn't always been mad. In fact, he wasn't at all fond of the "Mad Max" moniker his hobo brethren had bestowed upon him in the early 1930s - mostly because he didn't see himself as even remotely crazy (or angry, if we're going to split hairs). He'd had a normal childhood in Bedford, Indiana. He graduated high school and started work as an apprentice mechanic, repairing everything from Model A's to the newest farm equipment. He buried both his parents (double-fatal yo-yo trick accident), joined hobo nation, acquired a clingy Canadian goose, and later a German shepherd-golden retriever-half-albino Labrador mutt who thought she was a goose, and like it or not he became Mad Max.

The Goose and the dog, who came to be called Not The Goose, were best friends from the moment they met. It was often hard to tell whether The Goose thought he was a dog - or Not The Goose thought she was a goose - or both. They chased each other. They mimicked each other's speech patterns and dialects. They slept together, curled up like a pair of kittens. They stole each other's food and fought and made up and vied for Max's affection. But one of them... was a goose.

Most of the time, this fact was not a problem. It was cute. "Oh, look at that crazy hobo," they would say, "with his odd-looking dog, and his goose that thinks he's a dog. So cute." But Halloween would come, and then everything from St. Louis to Atlantic City would turn brown and dead, and just like that it was open season on critters that looked like The Goose. Getting past Thanksgiving in one piece wasn't too hard, but soon after, he'd start hearing the words "Christmas" and "goose" together, and things would take a turn.

"This is ridiculous," Mad Max groused, "We're going south, next year - if we live that long."

"Honk honk, hisssss, honk," said The Goose.

"Aroo rowrowooo," Not The Goose Agreed. And they shared a good long laugh.

The Goose had put on a pound or two since the previous December, so apparently he looked more appetizing than ever. As Mad Max had led his anserine and canine charges east from Dayton to Zanesville to Wheeling to Morgantown, they were harassed by a dozen cleaver-wielding maniacs, bent on turning The Goose into the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. Max and Not The Goose had been extra vigilant since Thanksgiving, and had fought off every threat, but they were exhausted. 

"I love you, The Goose," Mad Max groaned, "but I think if we find a fella with a campsite - or just a proper fire - I might let him have you, just so that I might warm my toes before they die and fall off. I'm sorry."

The Goose laughed it off, as if Max was obviously joking, but he shook his feathers from neck to tail, and hunkered down defensively.

They passed a shed along the B&O main into Cumberland, and found themselves bathed in a warm glow. "Say, strangers," a gravelly voice called after them, "care to share a fire?"

They turned. The Goose hissed reflexively, then relaxed a bit. Not The Goose growled reflexively, then stood tall and let her tail wag - just a little. Mad Max braced himself for another attack on his plump waterfowl, then likewise eased up. "Great day in the morning, guys - it's JACK SKUNK, working his way as far east as he can get before New Year's! Jack, ol' buddy - you're a lifesaver and a saint - a true gentleman. We can't repay your kindness, this cold and rainy Christmas Eve, but we will gladly walk the rest of our days in your debt..."

And the three wet, frozen travelers huddled around the fire of one of the smelliest hoboes ever known, and were welcomed and warmed and not eaten, and it was good.

NEXT! Or, "Encroachment - Next Thing - Five-yard Penalty, Repeat First Down."

 

'Tis TIME!!
No it's not - get out of the bows! Photo by Joe-elf

Happy Thanksgiving, readers. I hope all four or five of you had a happy, healthy, safe and thankful day. This will be quick, because we're all stuffed and exhausted, and because this post is just a little follow-up to TO ONE I WROTE IN 2012, and its central observation is the same as it was eleven years ago, only more so.

If you didn't bother to click on that link and reread the 2012 post, I can summarize really quickly: we as a short-attention span society are being force-fed the NEXT THING, often before we're even finished with the thing we're doing. Christmas-- sorry, holiday music was playing by mid-November, you say? 

2023 says "Hold my beer..."

July. July 14th - and probably a week old. Photo by Joe

Yeah. If there's a limit to how much the next holiday/event can encroach on the current one, we haven't hit it yet. Halloween candy and décor in stores by mid-July. Christmas candy and décor in stores in August. August!! No wonder our supply chains can't handle a little global pandemic. We may soon start selling next year's Christmas before this year's is over - our holiday hype seasons will have lapped each other!

That's all. The next thing is encroaching closer and closer to today's thing. End of sermon. No point or lesson or anything - not even a punchline. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put away the Christmas decorations, to make way for next Halloween... What? Next Halloween is over? Fine, I'll put next year's Christmas stuff up, now...

Happy baseball All-Star Break, everyone!

Twelve Hoboes on Christmas, 1934

Hobo Wine, made from weeds

They came from three of the four corners of the country; from Bangor and Seattle and the Everglades - and from all sorts of starting points in between. They gathered in the West Virginia woods, between the Tygart Valley River and the frozen steel of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, just north of Grafton. Twelve of them, all told. To call their ragged assembly a celebration would be a stretch, but these homeless drifters had come together to eat and drink (mostly drink) and mark the occasion of Christmas, 1934. 

Sally Hoot-Hoot, who had organized the gathering, mostly by scrawling hieroglyphic invitations in mud and grease on telegraph poles and boxcars for the past year, had envisioned many rounds of toasts to the first Christmas since the end of Prohibition (which it wasn't, but as 1933 ended, booze was still scarce), and a few words from each of her hobo brethren about their respective 1934s. 

"Like what," asked Gin-Bucket Greg, so named for his insistence on carrying his belongings in an old bucket, instead of the traditional hobo stick-and-bindle. The "Gin" part of his moniker was just wishful thinking.

"A few words - nothing fancy," Sally Hoot-Hoot said, "Something good that happened in 1934 - you know, like something you're grateful for."

Microbrew Stymie scoffed. "Sounds like maybe you're thinkin' of Thanksgiving."

Sally groaned and rolled her sky-blue eyes. "It'll only take a minute. Just humor me. And somebody help me with the fire. It'll be dark soon."

"Fine - I'll start," Stymie said, "but it sure sounds like a Thanksgiving thing, to me. Let's see... 1934 should have been a swell year for me, what with Prohibition being over, and with the CWA and all that New Deal stuff. But no. Still no jobs that last more than a day or two, and when I finally did come up with my ticket home - my recipe for small-batch artisanal beer - some wicked 'bo stole it. Also, I lost two toes to frostbite last winter."

Sally looked at him expectantly for a moment, hoping there was more. There apparently was not more. "That's it?"

Microbrew Stymie shrugged. "Well, Prohibition's over. So, we got that goin' for us."

"I'll drink to that," Lonnie Pina Colada declared, holding a rusty old cup of hobo wine aloft. 

"You'll drink to anything!" Beery Clive The Eunuch sneered.

"Shut up, Eunuch!"

"I told you not to call me that! Call me Beery Clive."

"Whatever you say, Eunuch."

"Say, why are you called that, anyway?" Gin-Bucket Greg asked.

Beery Clive sighed heavily and stared at the ground. "I don't wanna talk about it. Why are any of us called anything?"

"I like Pina Coladas, that's why I'm called that," Lonnie offered.

Gin-Bucket Greg laughed loudly. "What the hell is a pina colada?"

Lonnie looked lost. "I don't know. Anyway, I'm thankful for that New Deal, too. I worked more this year than I have since '29. Still not enough to afford a new coat or shoes, but I can't complain."

"Maybe Saint Nick will bring you some shoes for Christmas," Sally said. Who's next? How 'bout you, Farley?"

Weedwine Farley, The Weed-fermenter, at forty-something years old, was the eldest of the group, and the only one to have chosen the hobo life prior to the onset of the Great Depression. He had dropped out of the real world in 1924, after several unlicensed-distillery-related encounters with the criminal justice system, and immediately found belonging. He lived happily among the wandering dreamers, dropouts, and fugitives of Hobo Nation. He was able to thrive on the road because as long as there were weeds, he had weed wine to trade for the things he needed. It was his wine - a special Christmas blend of dandelion, clover, and milkweed, aged in dogwood buckets - that they drank, tonight.

He raised his cup. "You," he said simply, looking around the group, "I'm glad to know ya, and even gladder to spend Christmas with ya."

"Hear, hear!" they chorused.

"Back at you, Farley - and thanks a million for the wine," Chiptooth Berman, The Bottle Biter said.

Microbrew Stymie snorted. "I bet you'd prefer a nice bottle of beer, though. You know - something you can really break your teeth on..."

Berman shook his head and laughed. "Nope, nope, nope. I told y'all I was gonna quit biting bottles, once every tooth was chipped, and I did. Haven't bitten a bottle all year - so I guess that's what I'm thankful for. I finally kicked the habit."

"What? When did this happen?" Sally asked excitedly, moving closer to Berman and trying to look into his mouth. He opened wide and pulled the corner of his mouth back to the left, revealing nothing but damaged teeth, including the back lower molar that had been the last holdout. "Oh, I see it! Gosh, you finally did it - congratulations!"

"Thank you. It was last Christmas, and it was a whiskey bottle."

There was a round of congratulations from everyone in the group except Stunned Silent Hopkins, who naturally was stunned silent - although not at the news of the end of Berman's bottle-biting days. He had been struck dumb on October 29th, 1929, when during a lunchtime walk with his fiancée on Exchange Street in New York, he watched in horror as she was crushed by a stock trader falling from the sky.

"I got one," offered Acid-Saliva Curly Stokes. "I'm grateful for the so-called god who made my own spit so acidic that it can accelerate the fermentation of grain into alcohol tenfold, and also dissolve metal, because the alcohol part is good. But mostly, I'm grateful for my freedom. I steal rides on trains, sure - who doesn't? But I also walk from town to town, and if I mind my P's and Q's, nobody says nuthin' to me. In the summer, I sleep with the stars as my night-light. I know I only joined this hobo world on account of there being no jobs and all, but I ain't lyin' when I tell you, if it was all fixed tomorrow, and jobs was suddenly a dime a dozen, I'd tip my cap--"

"You ain't got no cap!" Stymie heckled, to no effect. 

"...I'd tip my cap and say 'no thanks - I'm a hobo now, and I ain't goin' back."

"Damn straight!!" Jan, The Jager-Meister declared with a stomp of his ratty boot. He was called the Jager-Meister because he possessed some innate ability to keep seabirds away from his food, though unbeknownst to his friends, the birds were in fact repelled by the smell (which only they and some dog breeds could detect) of Jan's hyper-aggressive multi-system cancer. "I have a toast. Here's to good health, and a life without seagulls trying to steal your food."

"Cheers to that," Sally agreed. "Anyone else wanna share, before I retire to my gals-only, no-boys-allowed tent, where almost NO boys will be allowed, wink wink?"

"I'll wink to THAT," Curly enthused, winking at Sally.

She gave him a sympathetic smile and shook her head. "Not you, Curly. Sorry."

"On account of my acid saliva?"

"Yep."

"Pooh."

Doctor Hall, A Slang Term For "Alcohol" cleared his throat and lifted himself from the log on which he'd been sitting.

"Everybody hush," Lonnie Pina Colada said. "Doc's got something to say."

"This should be good," Sally said.

Doctor Hall, A Slang Term For "Alcohol" was a man of few words. In fact, only Stunned Silent Hopkins said less. So, when the doctor (who wasn't really a doctor, but had gotten through a year of medical school, before the economy collapsed and he was forced to drop out) spoke, his friends listened. "I'm glad my parents are not around to see what's happened to this country," he said. Then, he sat down on his log and took a sip of his hobo wine.

"Well, that wasn't very good," Gin-Bucket Greg and Weedwine Farley chorused.

"That's what I'm thankful for," the doctor said with a shrug.

"Yikes," Sally said. "What a sad thing that is. How did your parents die, by the way? Were they very old?"

"Blizzard," he said. "They were both still in their fifties."

"That's terrible," Barrel-Aged Milton Oakbreath said. They died in a blizzard?"

"Murdered," Doctor Hall said flatly. "They were murdered during a blizzard. And when did you get here, Milton?"

"What do you mean? I've been here the whole time!"

"Huh."

"And I'm grateful for this life," Milton Oakbreath added. "And everyone in it. You gents - and lady - are the nicest hoboes and just about the best people I've had the pleasure of knowing. Here's to you - even you, Hopkins. Cheers - and Merry Christmas!"

Stunned Silent Hopkins laughed, and finally spoke. "God bless us - everyone."