Symptoms: Normal start up, but then, as the blue screen and desktop icons appeared, so did the spinning beach ball of death…and a queasy stomach.

Interior sirens wailing, I rushed to my not-too-far-away Apple Store where, amid dozens of milling i-enthusiasts, the patient was taken into the back room, and I was told to go home and wait. Two hours later I got the news. “It’s a severe hard disk charley horse. Maybe even a full quadriceps tear,” the Apple Genius said with great sympathy. This made sense to me; I had noticed, over the past couple of months, a not-so-subtle limp and an intermittent tendency to be slower than normal on ground balls to the backhand.

Never this empty!

Since I was soon leaving for a weekend dalliance in Monterey, followed immediately by five days of Cheesie Mack book events in Tulsa, I raced back to the Apple Store and begged for a transplant…stat!

“Sorry,” Apple Guy explained, “We don’t have any hard drives in stock. Give us two days.”

I spun on my heel, clutched my critically ill friend to my anxious bosom, and dashed out of the mall, prepared to travel to any other Apple Store within unreasonable driving distance. But as I cranked up my hybrid, I remembered that no more than a half-mile away there was an authorized Apple reseller. I burst into his otherwise empty shop and in a few minutes had contracted for a new 300 GB kidney. Cost installed: $193.

“Come back in two hours,” Mac Chap said calmly.

Two hours later and surely not calm, I re-entered his shop and, armed with a very short set of how-to instructions, took my machine home. I set it up next to my back-up Time Machine…and here the story gets scary.

As everyone knows, whenever you change anything—be it an application upgrade, a new operating system, or heaven help you, a new computer—there will be blood.

Following Mac Chap’s instructions carefully, I pressed all the buttons leading to a Time Machine restoration of my backup…and all went as expected…until the window read: “Time remaining 19 hours 54 minutes.” I was leaving for Monterey in 18 hours. Hoping for an overnight miracle (sometimes these things inexplicably speed up), I dimmed the lights, instructed the computer not to sleep, and left it to heal itself. Almost 15 hours later, I trepidatiously looked at the Migration Assistant window: “Time remaining 7 hours 33 minutes.” My hoped-for speed-up had gone south.

Time Machine really works!

When it came time to pack up the car, I put my computer to sleep and disconnected power to the Time Machine. The Mac Chap had warned me that such an action would surely mean starting the restoration from the beginning (almost 20 more hours!), but what could I do?

I carried the various parts and cables to Monterey, set them up as before, engaged the Migration Assistant…and up popped, “Time remaining 31 minutes.”

Huh?

“Maybe the electricity is faster here in Monterey,” my wife suggested.

With little hope that this would lead to a happy ending, we left the gizmos to work amongst themselves, and went out to dinner at a sports bar to watch the Cardinals beat the Rangers in Game 7. (How can any baseball fan not love the David Freese story?)

Upon my return, rays of golden light were streaming out of my Macbook Pro, the sound of elven bells accompanied each disk seek within my Time Machine, and naught but goodness filled my small computer world.

Healed…and excepting my ye-of-little-faith anxiety, all was actually painless.

How did this happen?

I do not have the expertise to ask the proper questions…and I wouldn’t, even if I could.

Thank you, Time Machine and Mac Chap.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Both Benny and Marty were short, but that was the only characteristic they shared. Benny talked tough and fast; Marty presence was soft and almost frightened. Benny drove a green and white Nash Metropolitan; Marty had a big Chrysler. Marty was dapper and married to a woman who was invisible even when she was present. They were childless. Benny was a bachelor whose social life, if he had one, must have existed outside Oxnard. Marty was an active member of the very small and spread-out Jewish community in Ventura County and was a regular at the sole synagogue’s Friday night services. No one ever saw Benny on the weekends. I think he often went to Vegas.

Marty and Benny had one thing in common. When they ate lunch together, they lied about shoes.

Benny: So, how’s business?
Marty: Terrible. [Terrific.]
Benny: It’s terrible for me, too. [I'm having a record week.]
Marty: So how’re you doing with house shoes?
Benny: Can’t keep them in stock. [Even though business is great, slipper sales are way off.]
Marty: Good for you. I’m going to have to mark mine down. [Unlike you, I really can't keep them in stock.]

It was a game they played. Each knew the other was lying.

When I was 15, I got a job working for Benny. It was my first real job, and under Benny’s tutelage, I learned what it meant to work hard. When business was non-existent, I unpacked merchandise shipments and stocked shelves. When it was slow, I started at one end of the store and made certain that every box was ordered by style and size. When it was brisk, I waited on several customers at once, measuring feet or tying shoes, then moving to the next customer while the shopper paced around assessing the fit. On really busy days, like the Saturday before Easter, I might have a half-dozen customers, almost all women, that I flitted rapidly among, but with order and intent, like a honeybee working the blossoms.

I earned $1.55 per hour, with extras added for selling PMs, those shoes with colored stickers on the boxes. Each sticker gave you Pocket Money, from ten cents up to a dollar depending upon sticker color. They were affixed to out-of-style or one-of-a-kind shoes. Benny used PMs to motivate the sales force to clean out old stock.

Benny made it clear that it was unforgivable to let any customer leave the store without making a purchase. If a matron had tried on several pairs of shoes and then gave an indication that she was ready to walk out, I was to ask her to wait a moment…”Ma’am, I have another idea”…and then call out, “Benny, can you show this customer the 99s.” That was code for, “I’m losing her. Help!” Benny would then immediately add my customer to however many he was waiting on at the moment. Invariably, a few minutes later I would look up from whatever zapata I was lacing, and he’d be sliding a box of shoes into a bag and ringing the sale up. He was that good.

Someone once told me that it’s like the Bar Mitzvah’s rite of passage: every Jewish boy will sell shoes at least once in his life. I did it…and actually liked the work. Even the unwashed feet didn’t bother me.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

*     *     *     *     *

I had this memory of my father. I was very young, and he was shining shoes. I well-remembered the smell, and the mess, and how careful he was with the polish in the little tubs. Everything was kept in a shoebox, and newspapers spread on the table, and I remember my amazement as the shoes would become transformed.

Last year I brought my daughter and my favorite clogs to my father’s house. I told Rhiannon: “Watch what Pobba can do — he will make them look new again.” She was dubious, carefully watching him unload polishes and stained toothbrushes and other such stuff from his very very old shoebox. But as the scuffed leather began to gleam, she delighted. She talked about it for weeks. At her insistence we even got my father a new tackle box for his shoe shining gear for Father’s Day—big enough for him to put his very very old shoebox inside it.

Full-sized Barbie was too big. But Barbie kid doll was perfect.

This June we went on a family trip and in the hotel bathrooms were bright green complimentary shoe mitts. Rhiannon thought maybe they were little sleeping bags for her dolls and she tried to stuff her full-sized Barbie into it. Barbie didn’t fit. One eyebrow raised (yes, she can do this — sigh), she gave me a What Gives? look.

“It’s a shoe mitt,” I said. “For shining shoes.”

I will bring it to Pobba! (Note, she went into my sister’s bathroom and swiped that one, too, so we brought two!)

Over the Fourth of July we went to Pobba’s house and dutifully brought both wee green shoe mitts and my same favorite clogs, dull again for a year of wearing. My dad took out his trusty old Kinney shoebox and he started to teach Rhiannon how to shine shoes.

“Where is your tacklebox?” I asked. He came up with some cockamamie reason why the box didn’t work for the shoe polish stuff, so he was using it for tools.

I know he just didn’t want to give up the ancient shoebox. I teased: “Is this the same box from when I was a kid? I remember watching you shine shoes when I was Rhiannon’s age.”

My father stopped shining my shoes. He looked up at me. Rhiannon looked up at him. Why’d you stop, Pobba?

“That was my father who shined shoes with you,” my father said.

Your father? Rhiannon asked. He shined shoes, too? (Note: I think this blew her mind a little to realize that Pobba wasn’t the only person in the whole world who shined shoes.)

And so as my father told my daughter about my grandfather and his shoe store while he shined shoes with a five-year-old looking on, I weightily processed that my memory of my father was really of my grandfather, and the picture of my daughter with my father was History Repeating…

And that I better learn how to shine shoes, because some day, if I am lucky, I will have a grandkid at my elbow.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

*     *     *     *     *

When I started the seventh grade all the other kids seemed to tower over me in the halls. The girls had women’s bodies, and the ninth grade boys had peach fuzz moustaches. But me?  I was just a skinny little kid with the unfortunate nickname of Hollye Smally.

I was a friendly girl, well-liked by most of the kids. I made friends with the nerds, stoners, surfers, black kids, white kids, everyone. It was my outgoing nature, and also a good survival tactic. So I kept smiling and waving, smiling and waving…But there was one girl, Liz Baker, who just hated me. I mean, hated. And the strange thing was, I didn’t even know her.

Liz was a tough, mean, athletic girl, and a ninth grader – which meant she was untouchable to a scrub like me. She also happened to be twice my size. Whenever she was hanging out with her friends from the softball team and I walked by, I was sure to get thumped on the head followed by a stream of insults. She went on relentlessly about my prissy ways, my long hair, my walk, my skinny ass, you name it. She always called me stuck up, which was almost laughable, since she didn’t have a clue about my life: my single mother worked nights in a bar, my dad was in prison, and we were on food stamps.

One day I saw her writing “BITCH” on my locker. I waited until she was done, then tried unsuccessfully to scrub it off with wet paper towels. After that I stopped using my locker and carried my books all that year even though my back ached from the weight of them. There wasn’t much I could do but endure the year, and try to avoid running into her around campus. Oh, how I rejoiced on the day she graduated, knowing I’d never have to see her again! Finally, freedom was mine!

Fast forward to thirty years later. I was at a party – a reunion of my Junior High friends. I walked in, no longer Hollye Smally, but an average sized woman with a full life. We were having a great time telling stories from the old days, when I mentioned mean-girl Liz Baker.

“Oh, you mean Larry?” said my friend Kenny, and everyone laughed, but I didn’t get it.

“Are you kidding- you didn’t know?” he howled.

“Know what?”

“Liz had a sex change operation. She’s Larry now!”

Everyone whooped and hollered as the jokes flew around the room.

This was my big moment – my chance to finally laugh at Liz and feel victorious. But I didn’t laugh. I felt sad, because in that moment I realized that Liz was just a tortured soul, trapped in the wrong body. She must have really hated herself. And there I was, the embodiment of everything she rejected in herself, with my “prissy” ways, my “long hair” and all my girly-ness. I was a walking bulls-eye. But hearing this news did give me a sense of peace, because I finally got it. It never was about me. It was always her problem.

As an adult, I’ve learned how to tolerate bullies. I never engage in conflict with them nor do I let their taunts and insults settle under my skin, because they aren’t mine to own. I simply won’t swallow the poison they dole out. That ugliness belongs to them alone.
It saddens me these days to read about girls bullying one another. When you’re young, you don’t yet know that one day you will desperately need other women to survive. Whether your relationships are falling apart, you’re raising children, you have health scares, or times of terrifying self-doubt, you’ll need the wisdom of women who’ve been there before you. My sister-friends help me to understand my own heart and mind. I need them like I need the air I breathe. Liz Baker never understood that. The sad irony is I’m a person who would have empathized with her. I have two gay brothers. I’m a huge supporter of the LGBT community. I could have been her ally, had she ever taken the time to know me, but she never did.

I later did a search for Liz-Larry but could never find him. But if I could talk to him today, I would tell him this:

I hope you realize now that there is room for each of us to stand tall, unique in who we are, in this vibrant, diverse garden of humanity. Surround yourself with others in bloom, and when bullies creep up like weeds, even the ones in your own heart, rise above, always keeping your face turned toward the sun.

And finally, I forgive you Liz-Larry Baker, and hope you’ve forgiven yourself. I wish you nothing but peaceful days in your garden.

*(name was changed to protect his identity)

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Over the years, her disappearing shades routine, unpredictable, yet certain as California earthquakes, has clashed spectacularly with a strong preference for fashion and quality. But the former dominated the latter, and she purchased inexpensive dark glasses, one after another after another.

Until last week.

For months she had been badgering her style-oblivious husband to venture mallward on a clothes shopping expedition. He employed every excuse (“There’s a documentary on kiwi pruning I can’t miss”), but finally he entered the emporia on her arm. Three stores, five shirts, two sweaters, a package of underwear, and 31 minutes later, he was finished. On their way out, recalling the evaporation of her last pair, she paused, then entered a store devoted to protecting every eye.

“Go next door and look at hats,” she suggested, and her husband, prejudicially bored by sunglasses (he never wears them), went next door to look at hats. After one quick walk around the chapeau shop (99% baseball caps) and a scientific examination of embroidering machine technology, he strolled back to find her at a register, paying for her purchase.

“I bought a this,” she said, holding up a decorative string with little rubber loops at each end. “Hook it on my sunglasses, and I’ll never lose them again.”

Edwin Land

Noting his horror-struck mien, she said, “I was hoping for you to stay longer in the hat store.”

There was nothing more to say, and they spoke no more about it.

Until today.

They went out to dinner at a local restaurant not yet tried, ordered the day’s special to share, and were pleasantly surprised by the presentation, quality, and quantity of the meal. The owner/manager was courteous, almost charming, and attentive, and the atmosphere was just right. But the Monday night service was repetitively lacking.

Their ragout arrived bubbling hot, but there was no spoon with which to serve it. The husband lifted his head, raised an arm, and finally had to leave their table to locate a waitress and make a request.

The couple soon exhausted their bread and wished more, and when no employee passed by, it was she who rose to summon a refill. Even with these service gaffes, when the gracious host appeared tableside to ask if he could do anything else for them, the two carped at nothing, rather they expressed delight with the flavors. The proprietor nodded and smiled. They asked for waters. He never returned.

Finally, watered by yet another summoned waitress, they requested the check…and chuckled to each other (“We’re in no hurry.”) when it didn’t come.

At last, the tab paid, they exited the restaurant holding hands, pleasantly full and agreeing that the food warranted a repeat visit.

“But,” he began as they reached their car, “the service was…”

He was interrupted by a waitress calling out to them as she ran across the parking lot, carrying the wife’s new sunglasses aloft.

Husband and wife stood for an instant.

Then she laughed.

And he laughed harder. “…the service was terrific.”

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

One of my daughters, a medieval history scholar and expert on European royalty, recently acquired a Henry VIII mug with images of his six wives surrounding him. Appropriately, when the Queens get into hot water (e.g., tea or coffee), their heads disappear.

What she hadn’t anticipated was how fascinated her five-year-old daughter would be with the mug.

“Why do the queens disappear?” was the first question, quickly followed by, “Why did he have so many queens?”

As my daughter searched for a way to explain the pressures and consequences of primogeniture in 16th century England, she somewhat clumsily crafted an age-appropriate story to go with the old rhyme:

King Henry the Eighth had six wives he wedded:
One died, one survived, two divorced, and two beheaded.

Over the next three days, my granddaughter insisted on five more retellings, demanding additional details each time. Ultimately it became a call-and-response story.

“Once upon a time, over five hundred years ago–”

That’s WAY before Laura Ingalls was a little girl.

“Way before, yes. Before King Henry was a King he was a Prince, and he married a Spanish Princess. Her name was—”

Katherine. She was the first Katherine. There were lots of Katherines. Why were there so many Katherines?

“Princess Katherine of Aragon married Prince Henry of England and after a few years they became the King and Queen of England and all was well except for one thing: Henry and Katherine only had a daughter and he wanted a son.”

Why?

“Well, a long, long, long time ago, lots of people didn’t think that a girl would be able to be strong enough to protect the country.”

That’s silly. I am very strong.

“Remember how I told you about Dr. Martin Luther King and how there have been times in history when some people haven’t had the same opportunities as other people? Black people, Jews, Irish immigrants, and girls. Lots of people didn’t think that girls should even go to school!”

Yes, yes, Mom, I know that about Dr. Martin and the Jews. Tell me the story of the SIX QUEENS. [blogger's note-- "Dr. Martin and the Jews" is a direct quote.]

“Well, Queen Katherine and King Henry had a daughter, Princess Mary.”

And she became bloody. [Face scrunches, knowing she mixed it up.] No! They CALLED her bloody.

“They didn’t call her “Bloody” when she was only a princess. That came later.”

Yeah, later, when she was queen. Nobody liked her very much.

“No, they didn’t. But when she was just a little girl, King Henry was very upset that she didn’t have any brothers, so he decided he needed a different queen who might be able to have boy babies, so he divorced Queen Katherine.”

She didn’t like that very much.

“No, she didn’t. And a lot of people were angry about it. But the King had fallen in love with a girl named Anne Boleyn, and Anne promised the King that if they had children together that those children would be boys. Of course, no woman can promise that, and that promise got her in trouble with the King a few years later after she was Queen and she had a baby—”

ELIZABETH! But not the Elizabeth who is the queen now. She’s the second Elizabeth — and she’s old now. But not dead!

“That’s right, she’s the second Elizabeth, and she’s still very much alive. I can show you a picture of her. But the first Elizabeth was a great queen who lots of people loved and she was queen for a very long time — almost 45 years! But King Henry didn’t know how great she’d be when she was just a little baby. He was mad that Queen Anne hadn’t had a prince like she promised. So he decided he needed a new queen, but since he had just divorced Queen Katherine he couldn’t divorce another queen — even though he was king, the court wouldn’t let him do it twice in a row! So he made up stories about the queen so she would get in trouble.”

That wasn’t very nice.

“No, it wasn’t very nice. And when all the stories were told, Queen Anne got in a LOT of trouble. Even though she really didn’t do anything except have a daughter instead of a son. But a lot of people became very angry at her for being a Bad Queen and she went to prison. And a long time ago when kings and queens went to prison — which didn’t happen very often — but when it did, sometimes they had their heads cut off, which is really not nice at all! After that, King Henry married Jane Seymour.”

She died.

“Yes, she died, but not before having a baby boy, Prince Edward.”

Why did she die?

[Here is inserted an age-appropriate aside about infections and mortality a long time ago and how doctors are much smarter these days.]

“After Queen Jane died King Henry was very sad, but a king needs a queen so the King’s friends looked all around for a princess to become queen, and they all decided that Princess Anne of Cleves would be the right princess to become queen, but King Henry didn’t like her very much but he hadn’t divorced a queen in a while so he divorced Anne. And that was queen number four. Then the king fell in love with a silly young girl who wasn’t very smart. Her name was Katherine.”

Another Katherine!

“And Katherine lied to the king. Many times. [Age-appropriate euphemism for adultery.] And over 400 years ago lying to a king was a terrible crime called treason, and so Katherine also lost her head.

How do you lose your head?

[Realizing how utterly literal kids this age are, daughter corrects herself and explains that hapless Katherine Howard had her head chopped off because she got in a lot of trouble, but that kings don’t go around chopping people’s heads off anymore. Granddaughter nods approvingly.]

“By this time the king was old and very fat, and could only walk with a cane when he could walk at all. So he married a nice lady who took care of him and his children. Her name was—”

KATHERINE!

“Yes, Katherine. And the king died before she did, so she was King Henry’s last queen. And then Prince Edward became king. But he was very sickly and died only a few years later.”

What did he die from?

[Daughter suspects granddaughter is worried someone cut off his head. But since most historians believe Edward VI died of tuberculosis, she says...]

“From a coughing sickness.”

[But realizing granddaughter’s recent allergies have engendered terrible coughing, quickly adds...]

“He coughed up blood a lot. And that’s never good.”

[Granddaughter purses her lips at this, clearly considering the gruesomeness of bloody coughing.]

“Then Princess Mary became queen, but she wasn’t very nice. She didn’t like people who didn’t think the way she did. And for five years she was a terrible queen, so bad that people called her Bloody Mary. But she didn’t have any children, so the next queen was her sister.”

ELIZABETH! I love her.

[The story ends here, and if my daughter is fortunate, bedtime arrives simultaneously.]

My daughter is an unapologetic monarchist. That her daughter is fascinated with these stories tickles her endlessly. And at the end of this month, she will show her daughter photos and online videos of the royal wedding where she can see the newest Princess Catherine and the second Queen Elizabeth, and no one losing her head.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

My weekly practice is to prepare a few hands that teach specific lessons and go over them pedagogically after each is played. For the rest of the Monday afternoon, the women deal and play rubber bridge, and I kibitz. This week they dealt and played the following:

Were I South, I suspect I would have bid the hand exactly she did. After West doubled, here’s what would’ve gone through my mind:

• One loser in clubs
• One loser in diamonds
• And since my partner made a free bid of 2 spades, she has a strong five- or a six-card suit, so probably just one loser in spades. In fact, if North’s spades set up, I may be able to toss my diamond loser. Four clubs looks solid.

West had never doubled before. With great excitement, she led her diamond queen…and I needn’t go through the carnage. South went down five…smiling!

Should she have escaped to four spades? It would’ve likely gone down only two. Would East/West have countered with a doable five hearts?

*     *     *     *     *

(I’m going to categorize this under Sports…because South was such a good one!)

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

“What can you do?” I asked him.

“Anything,” he responded…and I discovered it was no lie.

He showed me his motorcycle, airplane, vintage Greyhound bus, dump truck, water hauler, golf cart, ATV, and various non-rideables…like a portable sawmill.

Over a decade ago, Bert moved from Mendocino County to Idaho, bought eight-plus acres of nearly undeveloped riverfront land and a couple of buildings, and figured that his unrelenting flood of sweat could turn a marginal campground into a living wage.

“Five years,” he told me when I visited years ago, “and I’ll be able to sell all this to some rich Californian for a half-million more than I paid for it.”

“All this” is Albert’s Place: country bar, trapper’s cabin, general store, rolling hamburger stand, and RV park about 30 miles east of Coeur d’Alene (the trendy Santa Fe of the north country) on the North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River. It’s a strange piece of property. Two county roads cut through the parcel, forming a T and separating river from park from bar and store. The speed limit is 15, laughable to the locals. All Bert’s buildings are on the dry side of the county roads, including one, the general store, which ten months previously was on the other side of the river. The store fills only the front half of the first floor. In the back is Bert and Ann’s home, a two-bedroom, two-bath affair. Built in the 50′s, the general store/home was used as the local general store in the filming of the Pierce Brosnan disaster flick Dante’s Peak (set designers added fake dormers to improve its quaintness). The building became vacant five years ago and was subsequently flooded by the river into FEMA’s uncaring hands. Shoshone County took over from the Feds in 1996 and decided to destroy it. Bert bought it last year from the county for $250 on the condition that he remove it immediately from its location on the flood plain. It took him 42 days longer than immediately to accomplish the feat of jacking the 90,000-pound dwelling onto 24 truck axles and pulling it across the low-water, summer river with a bulldozer.

“Look at these photos,” Bert crows, extracting an envelope of Kodaks from behind the bar.

“He’s even got it on video,” Shane, one of the bar’s regulars, volunteers. “You should see Bert wading across through four feet of water, pushing the bastard.” The three other Wednesday 3 p.m. denizens chuckle at Shane’s jab, but Bert’s face shows that he is reliving a crossing that required his total concentration to accomplish. Those 42 days cost him $4200 because the county fined him $100/day for not living up to the agreement he signed.

“Under duress,” Bert protests. “Either I signed right then, or they said they would burn it. And it took me a long time to find someone who could move a whole house across a gravelly bottom river.” Now it sits on a cement foundation one foot above the hundred-year high-water mark.

“We didn’t break a pane of glass or crack a single wall lifting and moving that building,” Bert brags, “but when I set it down on the foundation, every damn door went out of plumb. I guess it had never, ever been true. The ends were low, so I had to jack it back up and stick about two inches of shims in the middle.”

His exploit got written up (with photos I can no longer find) in the local paper. Now, the store/house (my wife and I have one of the upstairs bedrooms) looks like it has been here forever. Bert is proud. This morning I flipped on his large-screen TV and watched five minutes of John Wayne leading The Fighting Seabees across the South Pacific. Had Bert served in World War II, he’d have been the Duke’s main man.

The summer is ending now, and it hasn’t been a particularly profitable one for Bert and Ann. The weather did not cooperate. Ann, a no-nonsense head-down worker, figures the cold and rain cost them half the expected revenue from RVers and inner tube floaters. But cash flow is not their biggest problem. Bert is a doer. If it can be done, he’ll make it happen…efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, Bert’s way does not always match County regulations. In addition to the $4200 fine currently on his head, he has completely alienated the Health Department. He is convinced that the addition of a store/house and a restaurant (under construction in the bar) and six cabins and so on and so on will not overtax his septic field. He is good at what he does (and he does everything), so I suspect he is correct. But the Health guy simply kiboshed everything. No explanation. Just a flat-out denial…without tests or measurements. So Bert got written up in the local paper again. Headline: “Albert’s Place Owner Not One for Technicalities”.

Sans lawyers, sans technical experts, sans the ability to read and write (he’s crunchingly dyslexic), Bert is forging onward. For almost everyone in this backwater, the Rules are in the way. It’s a cash-under-the-table economy where exceptions are granted to cronies. Bert finds it “coincidental” that the man who installs new septic systems in the area is the father of the health department official who poleaxed Bert’s.

Tomorrow morning I will spend a couple of hours reviewing a $215,000 refinancing proposal (60 densely typed, daunting pages from Countrywide Mortgage) with him. With this money, Bert thinks he can prevail. I worry that someday soon a small-town bureaucrat will find Bert’s frontier/can-do spirit just a bit too insulting to the dignity of his high office.

In the Old West, someone would’ve gotten shot.

[Bert died several years ago. The above is a memorial.]

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

This is not a good day. The Fat Guy is driving me to the vet. At least he brought treats. The Pretty Blonde brought tissues. She’s got tears in her eyes. I wonder what for?

I feel old. My hips are killing me. I can barely stand up and walk anymore. My nose is shot. I can’t smell any difference between the kitchen and the backyard. Glaucoma’s nearly blinded me, and I haven’t heard anything since the last Super Bowl. At least The Pretty Blonde came with us.  I’m glad she’s sitting on the floor petting me. Helps calm my nerves. The Fat Guy is talking to the doctor. He says I’m fourteen years old, which is almost ninety-eight in dog years. I still look better than he does.

I remember the first time I saw The Pretty Blonde. It was almost ten years ago. I was five and living with an elderly couple who couldn’t take care of me. She brought me home to meet The Skinny Kid and The Red Headed Kid, only they were a lot smaller then. So was The Fat Guy.

At least The Fat Guy is coachable. It only took me one morning to train him to let me out to pee. One week later, The Fat Guy came home early from work because some planes flew into some buildings. Seems like yesterday. When was yesterday?

The doctor is giving me a shot to calm my nerves. This feels good. Calm is my mantra. That’s why I don’t chase balls. Or squirrels. And if you’ll excuse me for saying, barking is WAY overrated. I bark twice a year, just to let you know I still can. Give me some food, a Law and Order rerun, and a soft carpet, and I’m happy. Some dogs like to play, but not me. I’m a lay dog.

Darn, these hips. Walks are cool, or at least they were. It used to be fun to run alongside The Red Headed Kid and the Skinny Kid. They both got real good at running. Guess I taught them something. The Fat Guy and The Pretty Blonde used to walk me around the neighborhood, talking about their kids, their jobs, their dreams. Life stuff. I tried to listen, but mostly I peed on a few bushes, smelled the flowers, and flirted with that sexy Husky up the street. I miss it.

I’m getting really sleepy. So what else is new? I take a dozen naps a day. Life is good at home. All I have to do is eat, sleep, and wag my tail. I love these guys.

The doctor is taking out another needle. I don’t mind, though. The Pretty Blonde and The Fat Guy are both on the floor, petting me, telling me how much they love me, and what a good family member I’ve been. I may be a dog, but you can never hear that enough. How come The Fat Guy is crying? The World Series hasn’t even started yet.

Well I’ll be doggoned. Will you look at this? Nothing but green grass, sunshine, and all the doggie biscuits I’d ever want. Booyah!

So this is what Heaven is like.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.

Satif Luwi Qatlar

Their destination was Oakland, where they would be met by their widowed 61-year old mother. She had decided to move from the East Bay to Los Angeles to be closer to her sons and had requested their packing and moving help.

They referred to themselves as screenwriters, work that had not yet brought in any significant rewards. Being a screenwriter with little income was commonplace in Los Angeles. Satif, a Harvard Business School MBA, had done a not-so-unscientific survey the previous year that indicated upwards of 30,000 screenplays were always available for purchase in the area surrounding the studios (from Hollywood west to the ocean plus the San Fernando Valley). Almost every dentist, massage therapist, and waiter had something on a shelf.

Success was elusive, but occasionally someone won, so the brothers worked hard…and constantly.

It was a full flight. The only two seats together were in the back…the last row. The brothers sat, buckled up, and watched out the window as the plane lifted up over the Pacific Ocean and turned northward. A few minutes later the stewardess (this was the era before “flight attendants”) offered orange juice and coffee in paper cups. The men accepted, drank, and drew no attention to themselves.

Refreshments consumed, Ali turned to Satif. “Okay, here’s your stay-sharp writing assignment. We’re going to come up with a scene.”

It was here that Ali unwittingly set the brotherly caravan on an unstoppable rendezvous with disaster. “Let’s say that you’re a hijacker,” he began, “and I’m your prisoner. Somehow I have to let the pilot know that the plane is in danger. How do we write the scene?”

Satif gave a weary sigh, “I’m tired. I think I’ll nap.” Sitting in the window seat, he rested his head against the fuselage wall and closed his eyes. About an hour later, he awoke to the seatbacks-and-traytables announcement. The stewardesses picked up the empty cups, and the BAe-146 Smiliner descended over San Francisco Bay, landing on time in Oakland, and taxied to the gate.

The two men were the last to reach the exit door. As Satif looked out past Ali, he noticed, but did not react to, two men in dark suits standing on the ground, each about five yards from either side of the roll-to-the-plane stairway, hand inside suit jacket. One step later, just as Satif’s foot touched the stairs’ top platform, both his arms were grasped by men identically besuited.

“Would you come with us, sir?” one of the men said. It was not really a question.

“What’s the problem?” Ali asked.

“Please come with us, too.” the other man-in-black said firmly.

Satif and Ali were led across the tarmac to a nondescript room where they were searched and interrogated. (When asked today about their ordeal, both agree that it was fortunate that their questioning took place one month before Dick Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives.)

It took an hour for Satif and Ali to convince the Federal officers that their government-issued driver licenses (same last name, same home address) demonstrated that they were brothers, and that it was unreasonable to assume that one of them was holding the other hostage.

It was then that one of the gendarmes produced the artifact that triggered the bust: a paper cup.

Ali gasped and, in a flood of explanation, revealed all.

“It was a movie scene. I mean, I asked my brother to— But he was asleep.”

After explaining the setup (hijacker and hostage), Ali continued, “The scene needed for my character to get a message to the pilot without the hijacker noticing. How do you do that? And then, while I was finishing my coffee, I figured it out.”

Ali got animated, waving his arms like a film director mapping out a take for his crew. “You film the actor draining his cup, but then, instead of setting it back on the tray, he drops his hand into his lap, and with the other hand, takes his pen and upside-down, without looking, he writes a message on the bottom of the cup. We lift the row of seats into the air and shoot straight up, right between his legs, zooming in so we can actually read the message as he writes it.”

Satif saw the main interrogator’s mouth twitch upward slightly.

“But my brother slept the whole flight, and by the time we started down, I had completely forgotten about it.” He paused. “But…since you guys are here, I guess the scene works.”

The G-men kept us for another 30 minutes, one of them pitching a “terrific idea for a movie,” while Mom watched our baggage rotate.

©2012 Steve Cotler's Irrepressibly True Tales. All Rights Reserved.