Thursday, April 30, 2015

A garden dilemma solved

The problem: Two 4x4 boxes 2 feet deep.




The problem:


Above-ground garden boxes much deeper than they need to be.

Rationalized acceptance:

Higher surface means less gardner bending

By putting soil in only halfway up sides, walls would protect plants from wind.

The solution:

For the price of two 2x4s doubled the garden surface area. (The vertical members left long to support covers if necessary. Bring on the dirt.

And by the way, all seeds planted Tuesday. Shoots of lettuce already showing Thursday.

The solution: four 4x4 boxes 1 foot deep.

Don't you dare take the word "thugs" away from me





All over the T and V today rather than report actual news, talking heads have been arguing over whether the word "thugs" is the new "N-word" after someone used that term to describe demonstrators in Baltimore this week. Years ago in a short story I described a rugged bunch of crew on a crab boat "thugs." It was meant to be humorous exaggeration. Though I never stated it, I didn't visualize any of them as African American. Years later my daughter and I went to see "The Perfect Storm." In one scene the boat crew stood together on deck and my daughter elbowed me and whispered "thugs." We both laughed and I was secretly thrilled that she remembered something I had written. I will not let Fox noise take that word away from me.

When I was a kid growing up in a bread-white suburb, if I got in trouble, the police drove me home, even after stops for some extreme driving while intoxicated where they made me follow them to my house and left me with a warning not to show up around town again that night. Even now from over here in my ivory neighborhood and my ivory segment of society where I feel no threat from police it has been difficult to comprehend the current deadly conflicts between police and African Americans in American cities.

This year as a police shooting is exposed almost weekly, the outrage has been growing. How many have killed black people just since the first of the year? At the beginning, I thought each case was an isolated incident perpetrated by a single out-of-control officer. But as the number of incidents has grown it becomes increasingly clear that the incidents are not isolated, in fact, they are very common on the streets of our cities and they have been going on for a long time.

It's easy to say there are more now than ever. More likely this has been going on for a long time and in a lot of places but the media has largely ignored the incidents and they have gone unreported. Finally someone is paying attention and not just that, publicizing these incidents letting the rest of the world know about the pattern of police violence against citizens. It doesn't hurt that publicizing effort that most people are now carrying video cameras in their pockets and finally have a way of proving the attacks they have been reporting, but getting into a he-said, he-said situation where the word of a black person is seldom believed over that of an officer.

Now a guy can walk up with video that shows an officer gunning down a man running away from him and then laying a taser next to the body as evidence the victim attacked the policeman. You can't argue with video. Now some locales are trying to make it illegal to video a police officer making an arrest. Well that should solve the police attack problems. To be fair several departments across the country are requiring officers to wear cameras in one attempt to prevent escalating incidents.

A hint about how deep this goes and how long it has been going on came a few months ago when  Attorney General Eric Holder and then President Obama, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, told how they had sat with their children and explained to those children, among the most privileged in the world, how even they need to act in an interchange with a police officer so the officer would have no cause to mistreat them in some way. As it came out this is standard procedure for mothers in African-American neighborhoods who want to see their children grow into adults.

Just ask the mother of that 12-year-old kid carrying a toy gun who was shot down by a police officer in Cleveland seconds after the officer spotted the child.

Most of us have heard of Michael Brown  who was shot to death by police officers in Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson is a tiny city of maybe 20,000 near St. Louis and has a small police force of mostly white men in an area of mostly black residents. It is kind of like a Duchy, small and autonomous. One person in the area said part of the problem with a city like that is it is easy for a cadre of racists to get entrenched with little oversight. She pointed out that there are 97 of those tiny municipalities in the St. Louis County area and what is needed is an area-wide police force that can afford adequate training and equipment instead of each of those places having a small entrenched army of poorly trained  and racist members.

Take these in point: In the past couple of months, two black women have been elected mayor in two of those St. Louis duchys. In one, almost the entire police force resigned. In the other, police actually blocked the entrance to City Hall and refused to allow the new mayor to go to her office.

Now people are rioting in Baltimore over another death, this time a suspect in custody suffered a fatal neck injury. Apparently a small number of people in a few neighborhoods have been violent and those are the ones we see on television. The media pretty much ignored more than 10,000 people in downtown Baltimore demonstrating peacefully. Some of the media fan the flames, encourage by political idiots. For example presidential candidate Rand Paul dismissed the rioters with a racist stereotype saying that's what happens when a loving father is not present in a kid's life,  this from a guy whose kid was arrested for DUI just within the past couple of weeks.

What has been becoming increasingly obvious is that this has been going on for a long time. That folks in black neighborhoods have lived in fear of a violent police force whose officers at any time can beat and or kill people they encounter and get away with at worst "a mention in their jackets." Back during the cold war we heard a lot about police states. Those were obscure third-world countries that occasionally made the news for a day or two when a coup occurred. Looking at what is happening to almost one-fifth of our population, it looks like at least those folks are living in a police state right now in the United States of America. What kind of situation can you expect when that large a segment of a population is afraid of the police rather than seeing the force as public servants, there for the general protection?

It's most likely true and easy enough to say that these incidents are caused by a few officers and that most policemen are not like that, just a few bad apples. There's an old saying that those who only stand and watch and do nothing are also to blame. The continued violence could not happen if police departments stood up, admitted it is a problem and weed out those officers causing all the problems. It is a damned shame when an officer kills someone and then it turns out he has had dozens of reprimands for violent actions in the past. Lay down the law. If an officer doesn't want to abide by the rules, get rid of him.

We should not have to be afraid of our own policemen no matter who we are. What is incredibly obvious is that for this and several other examples those of us not directly involved have to admit racism is still very well entrenched in our national psyche and for some it is deadly and more than ever needs to be addressed and purged. When we support a society where parents have to warn their kids how to act to keep from being shot by policemen something is very very wrong.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Springtime in Alaska: cranes and cows.

The pasture on the edge of Palmer, Alaska, always has something going on. Last month it was a trampoline; Sunday (4/26) sandhill cranes showed up. Snow geese and Canada geese can't be far behind.

Years ago when I worked for Alaska Magazine, which is well-known for its wildlife pictures, we on the staff used to love herd pictures where we could carefully count all the animals and put the exact number in the caption and then defy readers to find them all. Once we even added an extra carubou just to fool people. When we did that a reader did catch us. Anyway, my friend Gail and I counted 39 cranes in this picture. Can you find them all? Hint: Count the legs and divide by two.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot


In the genesis of this blog a character called the Solitary Man appeared frequently. He seemed to live among the trees on an island between the incoming and outgoing lanes of the only highway north out of Anchorage. He often walked the bicycle path between town and his oasis, wearing a flop hat and a backpack, his long beard visible as he trudged along. The silhouette he presented was of what might have been a typical grizzled Alaska man. It was kind of fun to imagine his life. Homeless, I assumed, but he knew people. The only time I ever saw him close up he was talking with another fellow in the parking lot of the movie theater. I encountered him often during the years I commuted to a job in Anchorage.

It's been since January that I made the trip into the city. Today as I approached it the island remained but all the trees had been cut down. Pilings had already been set in the stream bed for a new bridge on the north end of the island and access ramps had been bulldozed through its soil and awaiting concrete, all part of a fancy new interchange for leaving and entering the highway to drive into a town called Eagle River. There can be no doubt the Solitary Man doesn't live there any more, not even in the fantasy I created for him. One can only wonder where he is now, his camp more than likely bulldozed and maybe his few belongings along with it. I hope he escaped with his stuff at least. There are plenty of woods in the area where he could live but there is one difficulty with those. There are grizzly bears all up and down that river and in the woods nearby. 

Living between the lanes of a busy highway he was pretty safe from the bears, but not so if he moves into the neighboring woods. That also left him somewhat safe from vandals or the kind of bullies who prey on the homeless.

Progress took another victim and the only hope is he somehow came out of it all right and has a comfortable place to pitch his tent. One of those things I will probably never know, but I will remember him every time I have to use that fancy new roadwork in order to drive onto or off of the highway that connects me with Anchorage and takes me right over his old campsite in the process

Saturday, April 25, 2015

I feel the need for seed

Finished before some leveling.



For the second day in a row the temperature went over 60 and for once I spent most of the day outdoors. All of what I had hoped to accomplish today I accomplished.

First were the boxes for the raised garden segments. They look a little deep. I never really looked up dimensions, just 4x4 and two boards deep. The store had utility 1x12s on sale and that's what I bought. Now two feet looks awfully deep? But what does one do when a mistake might have been made? Adjust? Rationalize? Two thoughts here. First is fill them to the top and the bending over won't be nearly as severe when working in them. Second is fill them halfway thus providing some protection for the plants from the wind that blows through here fairly often. Maybe one of each and see what works for next year. Whichever one I try, that work was done for the day.

I did notice the boxes got direct sunlight from about 9 in the morning until almost 6 in the evening and we are still almost two months from the Solstice.

Some flats ready for seed, more to go.
With that accomplished and some energy left, out came the growing flats and all the starter pots and now they are all filled too and ready for planting. Feels now like it has been a pretty good day.
One thing I noticed once things settled down, I am tired and sore, but it's that good kind of sore that tells you you put in a good day's work. Then I realized I had worked physically for more than eight hours today and I was not out of breath nor had I had to stop for a breather at any time during the day. That in itself is an accomplishment.

So, tomorrow there are several basketball games, so maybe I will take a rest day and watch while I do some reading and make a list of what I want to grow before a trip to the Feed & Seed Monday. Early next week would be just about right to be a week ahead of previous years, not a bad idea given the easy winter and spring, hence the need for seed. And given the new legalities in Alaska I may try to find some more exotic seeds as well. Right on!




Friday, April 24, 2015

Sometimes it only takes a sentence

Is there anything that smells as good or looks better than
freshly turned earth in the Springtime?


It's kind of amazing how one sentence and a little sunshine can change your outlook. Two days ago I went to the doctor to learn the results of the latest blood-letting, a little fearful especially considering the adventure I had on the hill going up to the cabin at the East Pole. That had scared me a little, considering a doctor a couple of years ago told me I had a mild case of COPD. I even took my iPad and had this doctor read the passage about being so worn out I almost went to sleep in the snow.

Well we talked through that and she wanted to know who told me I had COPD because my lungs are clear and I might have been hypothermic or dehydrated. Neither of those were the case but I did admit that I was about in the worst shape I have been in my life. In fact because of that I have been up on my elliptical at least two out of every three days since then and, to tell the truth I already seem to have a little more stamina. We kind of laughed as I told her you get to be my age and every little ache or sneeze and you think you are on your way to your death bed. In fact she told me I am in better shape than some people she sees who are 20 years younger than I am.  And she said she was surprised I was doing the things I am doing like that trip to the East Pole. Well now doesn't that just brighten you whole outlook?

Ever since then I have been energized and with the sun out the garden beckoned. The first day afterward, I went and rented a rototiller and tore up the garden and then a new area where I am going to put two 4x4-foot raised plots where there is good sun closer to the road. Then when I returned the tiller I drove over to the lumber yard and bought all the stuff to build the boxes.

Today I spent a couple of hours in the morning working on some chores for the quarterly newspaper I edit and then the table saw came out and the boards are now cut ready to assemble the boxes and also slathered in Thompson's water seal to protect them. Tomorrow if it's nice there will be some leveling of the ground and then assembly, leading to an order for some of that good Matanuska Valley soil to fill them. This is the most energy I can remember expending in some time and that went along with an improved attitude. There were times in the past couple of months I seriously considered not even doing the garden this year. And, unlike just a few weeks ago, four hours of work didn't leave me as exhausted as an hour did then.

So, after tomorrow if all goes according to plan, Monday or Tuesday will mean a trip to the feed and seed store and after that the indoor planting begins in earnest. And during the Monday trip for seeds, I felt so good, I actually hit the high note in "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

And then just when I was beginning to feel spry and enthusiastic again, a friend sends this along. It is hilarious, give it a listen.



It's about that trip up the hill at the East Pole

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

But that was yesterday …




… and yesterday's gone.

So we did get that snow. Tiny sprinkles on and off all day and then just about dusk it snowed heavily for maybe an hour. This was the result. There is some heavier snowfall down to about 2,000 feet on the mountain. And, like the song says, that was yesterday. Today, two days after that forecast. Sunny and 50+ degrees. Oh yes spring in Alaska.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Spring weather in Alaska continues to confuse

I shouldn't be surprised. This photo was made May 17, 2013.
Tomato plants in the window and snow on the ground outside.




The wind has been blowing here for the past two weeks, sometimes hard, sometimes gently, but always  blowing,  Yesterday I happened to look out the window in time to see a whirlwind flinging leaves in a circular pattern upward from the ground into the air. Having lived in Kansas, any hint of a tornado gives me the willies. Meanwhile a few birds still hit the feeder right outside the window but they seem to wait for lulls in the wind, then flock to it. And as the song says, that was yesterday and yesterday's gone. Tonight the wind finally died down. I can't even hear garden tools hanging on a rack outside banging against the wall. Today, meaning Monday, will be a whole new day and guess what's in the forecast? Snow.  Snow from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with accumulations up to a foot. Wet, slushy, heavy, spring snow. So glad I started getting all the materials ready to start planting seed indoors. On another note, no more recipes from Facebook. Garlic and brown sugar glazed chicken is not nearly as good as it sounds.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Sea World takes a page from Big Oil's book and other random thoughts

March heat.




A Twitter posting from April 9:

Please read this information on how our killer whale habitats are some of the largest in the world: ‪http://bit.ly/1GiI0I3 

‪@SeaWorld‪ Just how many of your habitats are the size of the Pacific Ocean?‬

Here's another exchange from April 19:
What's the most outgoing animal at SeaWorld? Click here to find out! http://bit.ly/1GxAycc 
Tim Jones‪@tjonesak
@SeaWorld‪ The PR department?‬

And what page is that? It's the one that says don't spend a lot of money fixing the problem, put the money into a strong public relations campaign and bombard the public with self-assuring lies about what you are doing or not doing.  Just about every 10 tweets on my feed these days are some positive message from Sea World about how great they are. Now commercials are showing up on television touting the great good the whale guardians are doing, even claiming whales in their care live just as long in captivity as they do in the wild. I say show me a 70-100 year old whale. I really don't care how much good they say they are doing, saving a manatee calf does not excuse keeping killer whales in tiny pools for decades.

Meanwhile on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico a number of demonstrators were arrested at BP headquarters in the area. So far nobody from BP has been arrested.

Sign at every Walmart checkout stand Monday April 13 read something like this: "Walmart starting wage now $10.23 per hour." Only12 more dollars per hour to reach the adjusted minimum wage from 1972.

At the recent NRA convention, Wayne LaPierre says President Obama has confiscated all the guns in the United States, and that Hillary Clinton will confiscate any that are still out there. I wonder if he can name one person who is not under arrest who had a single firearm confiscated.

March 2015 was the warmest March on record world wide since statistics started in 1880. And the past 12 months have been the warmest on record. Major storms also.

Carly Fiorina. Oh please, it's starting to hurt.
Meanwhile the clown car that's driving around collecting Republican candidates for president keeps rolling along.

And in Washington, President Obama continues his rope-a-dope action, landing a punch and then leaning back on the ropes while those Republicans swing wildly trying to knock him down. This time it was shaking hands with Raul Castro in the gradual process of normalizing relations with Cuba after 50 years of no contact.

The Alaska Legislature is nearing adjournment and has yet to put out a law governing regulation of legalized marijuana. Meanwhile police continue to target users making sure despite the legality, pot will still be illegal in the police mentality. As if it were New Year's Eve, extra patrols are being activated this weekend to catch people driving under the influence because they see the date 4/20 as a big holiday for celebration by stoners. The number has come to symbolize pot in social media; it's based on a time school let out in one California town and kids went out to smoke. There are other interpretations. Their announcement even shows people in stores stoking up on munchies. I wouldn't expect fireworks.  Celebrate 4/20 with the Anchorage police


Note the puffed cheek.
On an optimistic note, I think a couple of the Pine grosbeaks who hung out at the feeders last winter have stuck around to nest and raise a family somewhere nearby. Just about every afternoon a male and a female show up in the yard and poke through the leavings from the winter that I haven't cleaned up yet. I read that they have cheek pouches where they carry food to give to the young ones in the nest.

And that's the day. Seven p.m., there's a storm blustering outside and I haven't even had pants on yet today.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Me and Slim and the Major Leagues

It being the first day of the baseball season, I am giving in to a temptation that has bothered me for years and today posting a short story, partly based in fact, of a young boy, baseball, major leagues he never heard of and his introduction to segregation in the South.


Me and Slim and the Major Leagues
By Tim Jones
Copyright © 2015, Tim Jones
 Reflecting back on it many years later, I think Slim may have been the first African-American person I ever knew.  Of course then he wouldn't have been called African American or even black.  The polite term then was Negro with other, more disparaging words degenerating from there even in the North.
Our first conversation began with a challenge.  "Hey, boy, throw me that ball," he called across the swimming pool.  I turned to see this tall black man bending over to lay down the long handle of a skimming basket he had been using to lift debris from the guest pool.  All of 12 at the time, I had been tossing a baseball in the air and catching it, having a catch with myself since no one else seemed to want to play.  I threw the ball across that pool and it slapped into Slim's hand which  enveloped it, the white ball disappearing into a fist of black.
"Pretty good snap for a kid," he said and tossed it back, gently.  No slap in my mitt, just a gentle thud.  "Throw it again, hard," he said, holding his hand open to make a catcher's target.  I fired one at him without a windup.  For the instant the ball was in flight, I noticed the light color of the open palm target against the deep black of the man.  Again Slim let the ball slap his hand before it vanished inside his fist.  "That all you got?" he challenged, again.  "What position you play?"
At that time I had yet to specialize.  I had tried all the positions, but I wanted to pitch.
"Pitcher."
"So, you a pitcher, huh?"
I shook my head.
"Comeon ovah heyah, boy," he said.  "Don't want to shout."
So, I walked around the pool until I reached the end of the skimming handle. 
"Lemme mark off a pitcher's mound and a plate," Slim said, and stepping off the concrete apron around the pool, dragged a line in the coquina with his foot.  "You use that."  Then, in easy graceful strides he paced off the distance from a pitcher's mound to a home plate.  Again he drew in the loose fill, this time the outline of the base.  He turned, looked at me and then squatted, holding up those white palms again to make a target.  "Now give 'er a windup and let's see what you got."
I went into an exaggerated windup, lost control of where my arm went and winged a fastball over his head and into the palmetto surrounding the motel's inner courtyard. 
Slim stood up from his catcher's squat, looked at me wide-eyed.  "You might got some snap, but you ain't got no control," he said.  Then he turned and in a motion that flowed from a shamble to a walk to a run, but seemingly distended as if in slow motion, he went to the palmetto hedge, found the ball and threw it back.
"Try it again," he said, "only this time don't go flingin' your arms and legs all over the place....easy motion and make sure you know where you're lettin' the ball go."
I toned down my windup, lifted my arms over my head, stepped forward and threw at that palm again.  Slim had to reach for it but at least this time I threw it where he could catch it.
"You got to work on that windup, boy," he said.  "You got to throw from your feet, you got to let it flow, your whole body got to throw that pitch."  He tossed the ball back.
This time I tried to think feet, legs, shoulders, arm.  This time I didn't try to throw so hard either.  The ball went straight down the middle.
"Willie Mays woulda slapped that one into next year," Slim said as he tossed the ball back.
I threw him another and another and another, losing track of time.  With each pitch, Slim offered his criticism, his suggestions, his encouragement and his challenges, a constant flow of chatter in a dialect I sometimes could barely understand.  If I had thought about it then I would have realized, Slim was the only adult I had known to that time who would spend hours having a catch with me.  I found myself trying very hard to please him, to get the windup and the pitch just right, to hear him say, "Good one," or shake his bare hand as if the ball had hurt him. 
To this day I have no idea how long we played catch, that first day or in the ones that followed.  Time mattered little to me anyway on vacation and having someone to catch with made it more vacation than following my parents to historic sites and reptile farms.  After all this was before Disney World and all the other attractions began making Florida something other than a warm place with strange fish and wonderful beaches. 
"I got to do my work," Slim said finally, ending our first day.  "Might find me a mitt and look for you tomorrow though." 
"I have another one," I offered, "a catcher's mitt."   I did have it.  I had sneaked it into the car when we packed for the trip south, thinking catching was one of the positions I might like if I couldn't work up the courage to tell people I was a pitcher, and also thinking maybe somewhere along the way I would find someone who would be up for having a catch.  My father had bought the mitt and made a valiant attempt to join me in my baseball pursuits.  But, it seemed he always wanted to quit before I did and eventually we just sort of stopped doing it.  He didn't believe in the curve ball either and one day I bonked him with one.  For the most part that catcher's mitt collected dust in my bedroom closet.  But for whatever reason when I had been packing, I noticed it and took it along. 
"OK, you look for me about the same time tomorrow," Slim said, "and you bring that mitt along."
We had moved closer together and spoke in lower tones.  "Where you from, boy?"
"Buffalo," I said,  "Buffalo, New York."
"Up north," he said, only when he said it, the sound was "up nawth" and slow.  "I been up north a couple of times. What you gonna do now?
"I guess I'll go swimming."
"Oh, man, don't do no swimming," he said. 
I didn't say anything, trying to absorb that, figure out why this man would tell me not to go swimming of all things.
"That swimming, see, it stretches your muscles out, makes them long and stringy.  You gonna play baseball, you gotta have them bunched up muscles, hard and strong.   Lemme see your muscle."
I flexed my right arm and made as big a biceps as I could. 
"OOO  eeee," Slim exclaimed.  "Now there's a muscle."  He stretched a hand toward me to feel my biceps, but that hand never quite reached me.  It stopped in mid stretch.  Slim looked at me, then he looked around the courtyard.   Then he pulled the hand away and let it fall to his side.  "Gotta finish this pool, I guess," he said and turned toward his skimming basket.
I went back to our bungalow, pulled on swimming trunks and headed for the beach to find my family.  Despite Slim's admonition, I went into the water, too.  The clear green Gulf was so different from the cold water of Lake Erie where we swam back home.  But every time I went out to deeper water to swim, I noticed how conscious I was of stretching out my muscles as I stroked across the waves.  I could feel that growing bunched muscle in my throwing arm, turning stringy and useless in the warm water.
The next day I awoke with the sun and found myself peeking through the slats of the jalousie door to see if my catcher was around yet.  We all drove down the road a way for breakfast and when we returned, I saw Slim working the palmettos, pulling out weeds around the tourist plants.  He saw me and waved when we walked from the car into the bungalow and I waved back.  We exchanged no words.
My parents wanted to know who he was and I told them I thought he worked there and that he had played catch with me the day before and he seemed to know an awful lot about baseball and particularly pitching.  I wished I could have understood the glance they gave each other as they listened to my story.  I asked my dad if he would unlock the car trunk for me and I rummaged through it until I found the catcher's mitt behind the spare tire where I had stuffed it.  He asked what that was for and I told him Slim wanted me to bring it so we could have a catch.  This may have disappointed him, I don't know.  He may have felt replaced but at 12 I had no mind for the subtle nuances of father-son relationships.  All I knew was there was a guy over there who wanted to have a catch and I took both mitts and the ball and went across the courtyard to find Slim.
"Hardly looks like anybody used this mitt," Slim said examining the catcher's glove.
 I recalled the history of the glove, but just said,  "It's pretty new."
Slim pounded his fist in my father's catcher's mitt.  "Ball probbly bounce outta here half the time," he said, "but I'll try her out.  Git down there and throw me a couple.  Let's see what you got today."
On that first pitch I forgot everything from the day before and winged a fastball over his head.  He reached for it and it bounced off the padding of the new glove and into the palmetto again.  Slim went after it shaking his head.
"Boy, didn't you learn nothin' yesterday?"
That shamed me and I settled down.  I threw ball after ball into the strike zone after that, each one bringing a comment from Slim about how some hitter would have knocked that out to Ashland Avenue or on to the moon or clear up to Yonkers.  He always had a name for the guy who would have knocked the pitch out of the world, too, guys like Willie Mays and Monte Irvine and Luke Easter.  But, he also had some guys I had never heard of, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell and more.  The ones I knew already were playing in the major leagues, the others I had no idea about at all.
"How come you know so much about baseball," I asked him at one point.
"I played, boy, I played with the best," he said.
I winged him a fastball.  "Where did you play?"
"All over," he started even before the ball reached him.  He nipped it one handed in that fat glove and tossed it back.  "Played up to Kansas City once, the Monarchs."
The Kansas City Monarchs, now to my mind Kansas City was a farm club for the New York Yankees.  "Monarchs" didn't seem right, either.
"You were in the Yankee farm system?" I asked, eyes probably wide.
I tried a curve ball.
"Wasn't no Yankee bush team then." he said reaching as the curve ball flew straight to his right.  "It was major league then."
He snapped the ball back to me, stinging my gloved hand.  I knew that message:  It was a way catchers had of letting the pitcher know they didn't like the pitch.
"What do you mean, major league.  There's no Kansas City team in the majors," I said reasonably sure of my facts.  I tried another curve ball.
"Was too," he said reaching again.  "What you tryin' to throw anyway.  You ain't tryin' no curve balls are you?"
Every Little League coach I'd ever had admonished us not to throw curve balls, something about injuring our arms while they were still growing.  I expected that lecture.  Slim stood up from his catcher's crouch and walked toward me. 
"You goin' to throw a curve ball, you better learn how," he said.  He held the ball in his big black hand and demonstrated the grip for a curve ball.  "You got to line your fingers along the laces," he said.  Then in an exaggerated motion he swung his arm imitating the pitching arc.  "When you git to here, you gotta snap that wrist.  What makes it curve is the spin on the ball.  The more spin, the more curve.  You want that ball to break down, too, down and away from a right hander if you throwin' right handed like you do.  You try it.....slow."
I took the ball and aligned my fingers with the laces.  This was exciting.  For all my  years of baseball, no one had ever taken the time to show me how to throw the curve.  I had tried to figure it out on my own and apparently hadn't done too well, except maybe for the time I bonked my father.  That ball had curved.  Here was someone who really knew how to throw one, teaching me.  Two fingers along the thinnest point of laces and ready, I noticed my fingers didn't go nearly as far around the ball as his.  They looked pale and small against the smudged, dirty white of the ball and its red laces.
"Don't know how you ever gonna throw no curve ball with them tiny fingers," he said.  I knew I would grow, just show me how to do it.
"OK, slow now, take your windup, bring your arm around and then, right there, snap your wrist.  You let the ball go right there."
Even in slow motion, when I snapped my wrist I couldn't hold onto the ball and it slammed into the dirt at our feet.
Slim shook his head.  "Whooo eeee.  Batter was in China he mighta took a swing at it.  Try it again, slow."
"When was Kansas City ever in the majors?" I asked him again.
Slim acted surprised.  "Boy you got a lot to learn about baseball. Kansas City Monarchs was a major league team maybe 20, 30 years.  I got there just to the end of it.  Played with some of the best of them."
"What did you play?
"I was like you, I was a pitcher.  What you think, a outfielder could show you pitchin'?"
"So who was on the Kansas City Monarchs?  Did they ever play in the World Series?"  I felt I was on pretty solid ground here. 
"Played in 'em.  Won 'em too."
"Against who?"  Now I had him.
"Last time was the Baltimore Elite Giants."
"Who?  The Giants are in New York and they aren't called 'elite' either."
"They was then and they played in Baltimore.  Sounds to me like you're missin' something in your education."
Now he had me confused. 
"You ever wonder where Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays and Monte Irvine and Luke Easter come from?"
No, I hadn't.  In silence I thought about how just a few years before, I knew, Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier. By the time I became aware of baseball almost every team had black players, that was the norm.  Breaking the color barrier didn't mean all that much to me.  Apparently it did to Slim.
"They come from the Negro Leagues, boy," he said, "the Negro Leagues where they played the best baseball in America, bar none."
There was another major league.  Wow.  But, how?
"Back then they didn't let no Nigra folk play in the white leagues so we had our own.  We was good, too.  Most of those guys coulda played in the white leagues but they wasn't allowed to."
For some reason I picked up a mental image of Willie Mays making one of those over-the-shoulder catches in center field at the Polo Grounds and firing all the way to home plate, shouting "say, hey" as he did.  What if we never had gotten to see Willie Mays do that?
"Was Willie Mays in the Negro Leagues?" 
"They all was.  Heck, I pitched against Willie Mays. Knocked me clean out of the park, too."
"You pitched to Willie Mays?"  I was incredulous.
"Yup!  When he was a kid, too, when he still had it.  He was almost old when he got to the white majors.  Didn't have that many years left."
All of this overwhelmed me, almost too much to absorb.  "So, all these guys were playing in another league, a major league, until Jackie Robinson went to the Dodgers?"
"That's just the size of it," Slim said.   "I pitched against Satchel Paige once. Greatest pitcher ever was."
Satchel Paige.  Now there was a name I knew.  I had actually seen him pitch once, way late in his career when most people said he was in his 50s and pitching for the Cleveland Indians.  They played the Buffalo Bisons one year in old Offerman Stadium and Satchel Paige had pitched.  He didn't seem all that great then.  Of course, by some counts he could have been 60 years old.
"Come on let's see you learned nothin' about that curve ball," Slim challenged as he turned and walked back to his home plate.
I threw curve balls over his head.  I threw curve balls in the dirt.  I threw curve balls way off to his left and then way off to his right.  Maybe a couple actually went through the strike zone.  I was playing with a major leaguer, though I wasn't absolutely sure how major his league had been.  After all how could it be that great if I'd never heard of it before that day.  Still, I believed him.  He had known, had played with my heroes.  He actually pitched to Willie Mays.
In time, my mother interrupted this reverie to retrieve me.  I introduced her to Slim, proudly, the polite way she had taught me.  She came across a little distant but accepted the introduction.  She said she was nervous.  It turned out on a drive while I was playing baseball she had hit and killed an opossum in the road.
"Did you pick it up?" Slim asked.
My mother's eyebrows raised.
"Man, I'd jump off a freight train for a possum," he said.  And, with that he handed me the catcher's mitt, allowed that he had to get back to work and with a "nice to meetcha" walked away.
Over the next few days I learned more about the Negro Leagues and more about the curve ball.  We tried sliders, too, but my fingers were just too short.  Slim taught me how to throw the slow junk, too, the pitches no righteous, fast-ball 12-year-old would consider throwing: the change up and the slow curve.  He even showed me the screwball, that curve that cuts away from a left hander when thrown by a right hander.  He told me not to throw that one because it really would hurt my arm.  Of course, I threw it anyway and was severely chastised every time.  Secretly I was proud that he recognized it as a screwball at his end of the catch.  Those days I pitched to every player who had ever hit a ball in the Negro Leagues.  Slim knew all their names and how good they were and they would come to the plate where he squatted to catch another of my wild pitches.  He knew the book on the ones he'd pitched against.  "You pitch Monte Irvine around the knees," he'd say and I would try, most often hitting the dirt in front of the plate with those low pitches.  In those few days Slim and I beat the great teams, struck out the greatest hitters, won seven or eight world series and played in every all-star game, lost in our world of baseball oblivious for those couple of hours every day to what might have been going on in the rest of the world.
In time, of course, the shadow grew, that shadow that meant packing the car and beginning the long trip north.  Probably three or four days before our departure, I went with my family on our morning ritual excursion for breakfast, all the while anticipating my catch with Slim.  After breakfast, my father stopped at a service station for gas.  I had spotted a water fountain on the side of the building and told them I was going to get a drink.  Against the white tiled wall of the garage, I leaned over the fountain.
Instead of the shot of cold I expected, the water came out tepid, warmed my mouth.  Obviously, the fountain had been standing there in the Florida sun for hours.  What I'd hoped would be cooling and refreshing instead added to my discomfort with its warmth and then with its unfamiliar, maybe rusty flavor as well.  I pulled away from the stream of water.
When I looked up, water dripping from my chin, and saw the sign, it did not horrify me.  It read "Negroes Only."  What horrified me was the strength of the grip on my biceps, my skinny pitching arm with the muscles stretched out from swimming.  When I turned to face my assailant I looked straight into the face of my mother, my own Mother, free state Mother, one generation removed from immigration herself, and into those accusing, yet, fearful and vulnerable eyes.
She glared at me and then nervously looked around.  No one watched us.  "You aren't supposed to drink out of that fountain," she said, "Didn't you read the sign?"
I admitted that I hadn't seen the sign until afterward. 
"You have to be more careful," she said, still looking around.
That was when I saw the other fountain, the one below a similar sign that read "Whites only."  I stared at it and then at the one I had just used.  The idea of the two fountains confused me for a moment until I realized just why there were two and what two fountains meant and the weight of all that led to those two insignificant water fountains and their racist signs.  This was all new to me, the reality of it.  Previous to this the only distinction I had known was the separation of men's and women's restrooms.  All my little northern sensibilities blew up inside me.  Outraged, I turned, leaned over and took another sip from that tepid fountain, all the while expecting that the cleaner one for "Whites Only" probably also produced better tasting, colder water.
This time my mother did not release her grip.  She dragged me half running, half skipping back toward the car, dragged me by that pitching arm that should be protected from such things.  This time we noticed that two men standing near the sidewalk watching her drag me along to the car and most likely had seen me drink from the wrong fountain.
In the car she told my father what I had done.  He, too began to look around nervously.  I still wasn't sure I had done anything all that wrong.  After all, I was just a kid wanting a drink of water.  What actual harm could there be in that?
We pulled away and as we passed them I noticed the two men staring after us.  Not much had ever been said in any school I attended about this sort of thing.  I knew about slavery of course, but beyond that, beyond the Civil War, I had this idea that things were all right. 
"They make water fountains for white people," my father said.  "You have to use those.  Bathrooms, too."
"All I did was get a drink of water."
"It doesn't matter.  It is different here.  I hope no one saw you.  They can get nasty about that sort of thing here."
I wondered who "they" were.   The two men standing by the sidewalk?
"It's stupid."  There in two words at the tender age of 12 without realizing it, I had summarized all of Faulkner's work.
"Stupid or not, you watch out for those signs from now on.  And, don't call it stupid, it is just the way things are."
By the time we returned to the motel, my mind had reduced the incident to insignificance. Youth forgets quickly and in the forgetting, forgives.  After all, I was about to pitch in the World Series.
I found Slim and the game resumed.  I pitched to Josh Gibson that day.  I pitched to him all day because it took that long for Slim to tell me everything about a man I learned later may have been the greatest hitter ever to swing a bat.  Of course there was no doubt in Slim's mind, but I had been brought up with Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.  After Gibson had hit every pitch I threw anywhere near the strike zone, Slim let me know it was time to quit.  We vowed to meet the next day.  "You gonna pitch against Papa Bell, tomorrow, or maybe you pitch to Judy Johnson with Papa on base....that's where he was the most dangerous."
"Judy?"
"Never you mind," he said and walked away.  This time I stood and watched him leave.  I recall wondering at the time how a man who had played in the major leagues, at least his major leagues, ended up pulling weeds and skimming trash out of swimming pools for a living.  That thought lingered through the rest of the afternoon while my father and I fished from a row boat in a calm lagoon.
Our trip to breakfast seemed to take so much longer than usual the next day .  I couldn't wait to get back and pitch to Judy Johnson with Papa Bell on base.  For one thing we hadn't gone into the stretch yet, the motion pitchers use with men on base so they can see the base runners and pick them off, particularly at first.  As quickly as the car stopped, I raced to gather the mitts and the ball and go look for Slim.  When I emerged from the bungalow I scanned the courtyard and pool area but he wasn't in sight.  I set the catcher's mitt on the trunk lid of our car and walked off tossing the ball in the air and catching it.  I walked all the way around the grounds, behind all the bungalows through all the passageways, I looked everywhere but I couldn't find him.  I went down the path to the beach and looked across it to the water and in both directions.  Sometimes he went down there to pick up trash from the sand, but he wasn't there either.  Finally I returned to our bungalow and for a while leaned against the car, tossing the ball into the air and catching it, figuring he would show up sooner or later.  After some period of time, it might have been ten minutes or it might have been an hour, I made the rounds again but Slim was nowhere to be found.  Neither were Judy Johnson or Papa Bell.  How could I find someone I'd never heard about before?  I wondered if Slim knew the book on Judy Johnson.
I didn't find Slim on my second tour, and I couldn't find anyone to ask about him either.  By the time I returned, my family was packing the car for an afternoon jaunt.  If I remember correctly, we went to a water show at some garden sort of place.  It blurs in my mind.  I do remember by the time we left the show, stopped for dinner and then returned to the motel, it had turned to evening, a beautiful sunset on the west coast of Florida and baseball had passed from possibility.
The next morning instead of returning after breakfast, we went on to some other attraction.  It seems to me we were near the winter headquarters of a circus and we went there and then spent the day in a city, Tampa possibly.  All I recall of that day was a thunder storm and so much rain fell that streets filled up to the tops of the curbs.  When the storm ended, the water disappeared just as quickly and we returned to the motel.  With still a little daylight left when we arrived, I grabbed my glove and went looking for Slim, but again he was nowhere around. 
When I came back to the bungalow, my parents must have noticed my disappointment.  They asked what was wrong and I told them I couldn't find Slim and I wanted to have a catch. 
"Even handymen get a day off once in a while," my father said.  And that was all they said.  "Even handymen get a day off once in a while."
But you don't take a day off from baseball.
That evening we packed our bags for the trip home.  We left fairly early in the morning.  I always wanted to sit in the front seat, but this day I sat in the back, watching out the back window, searching that courtyard for some sign of Slim.  For the third day, no Slim.  If only he could have been there just to say good bye, even just to wave, mostly to say something like, "Hey boy, you work on that curve," or "hey, boy, see you in the majors."  I watched out the back window of that 1955 Chevrolet  as it crunched the courtyard coquina to the highway and turned north, leaving the the motel to fade into the palm.

But Slim never showed up to wave.   For reasons I’m not sure I will ever understand totally, the first African American and the only major leaguer I ever met had disappeared.

Here's a bit of a sidebar: During the 2018 World Series, announcer Jon Smoltz, a Hall-of-Fame pitcher with the Atlanta Braves described the pitching motion as starting with the feet.

Here's another insight into the segregation among athletes in the 1950s:
Bob Cousy wishes he had sent more assists to Bill Russell

Kings of the Hill: Baseball's Forgotten Men


Video at the Negro League Hall of Fame mentions Judy Johnson and Josh Gibson

Friday, April 3, 2015

The case of the disappearing moose and other mysteries of spring


Mysterious tree scrapings.



Given what appears to be a very early spring for this part of the country – warmest March ever, buds popping, no snow, there were bound to be other early signs and mysteries involved with the unusual weather around here.

This morning the tappitty-tappity-tat of a woodpecker on the house shattered the misty waking reveries. The noise drew attention to the window where a moose trundled by, close enough to touch if the window had been open. Staggering around the computer and over the elliptical took too long to catch more than that glance and by the time I reached the window, the critter had disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

Moose have been pretty rare in this distinct for the past few years and this was the first one actually observed, rather than tracks in the snow or a pile of nuggets here and there, in a couple of years.  It's spring calving time so just in case this was a cow looking for a place safe enough to drop a calf or two, I didn’t venture out into the back yard for the rest of the day. The following day a close look revealed tracks in the mud of the side yard in the direction the moose had come from. Trouble was the tracks appeared to be headed in the opposite direction. Then farther back in the yard there was one, just one, nugget on top of a pile of leaves.

Also observed through the window, another mystery besides the disappearing moose had appeared. A sizeable portion of the bark on a small tree had been rubbed or chewed off.  I have no idea when it happened, but I look through that window often enough that I would have noticed it so the guess is it's fairly recent. Given the moose sighting, the first thought was a bull rubbing his velveted antlers, but that's an autumn activity when the rut is in full blossom.

A closer observation revealed parallel grooved striations at about a 45 degree angle to the ground. That more indicated a gnawing action by a buck-toothed animal. And, because the marks were four to five feet above the ground, it had to be a climbing animal, unless moose gnaw on tree bark. About the only thing it could have been is a porcupine. They are fairly plentiful around here and this is the time of year they are moving around. Back when I was commuting every day, a sure sign of spring was when the number of porkies splattered in the road suddenly increased.
Angled striations indicate some toothieness.

All this barely visible wildlife activity reminds me of a rhyme we put in the book More Wild Critters:

When I go walking in the woods.
I never see a thing.
I never see an animal
on hoof or paw or wing,

There are some big ones out there:
that I know for fact.
So how can something big as deer,
 even hide its rack?

I guess I'll just keep walking,
ever on my guard.
Someday I hope I'll see

some kind of critter in my yard.

More Wild Critters


A comment from Facebook: Sharon Wright We love that time in Spring when the snow finally melts enough to walk around & see who's shared the woods around the house. The distinctive porcupine gnawings on poplar, the scrapings left on poplar by moose shedding velvet or trying to dump those clumsy antlers, little piles of worm-casting poops from grouse. The thaw is coming, but slowly here north of 64. Still can't wade through our woods; maybe 2 weeks from now.

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel