GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I am a grandfather on active duty.   Late yesterday afternoon, my assignment was to pick up Michael and Maria's 2 kids from pre-school.   I had spent the day in their backyard, helping ready things for Amanda's 3 rd birthday party.   When it is time for me to leave, I see Ginger is still asleep, well on her way to meeting her 14-hour daily quota.   Ginger is an eight-year-old, 70-pound Labradoodle who is the sweetest dog I've ever known.   A cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Standard Poodle, the breed is often used as allergen-free guide dogs.   I have never taken her with me to either drop off or pick up the kids.   This strikes me as a curious oversight.   Kids and dogs go together, especially when you're out for a ride.   Noah and Amanda will be happy to see Ginger, and Ginger is always excited to see them.   I can't imagine why I hadn't done this before. Minutes later, we are down the steps and into the car...

In 2008, I was sitting on a plane next to Marino, headed to Burning Man.  Marino may not be his real name but this is what he is called by everyone in my son Michael's group of friends.  They all have names for each other.  Michael goes by "Borfo", formerly the name of his grandfather's dog.  I am sure this practice is harmless and that there is a rational explanation, but it hasn't been made clear to me as of yet.  If they were taking down armored cars and banks, or serving as mercenaries, it would make perfect sense.   I was trying to relate to Marino the details of an unusual news story I had seen in the paper.  It's a tale that deserves to be told with all of the trimmings.  I was able to get across the gist of it for him but fell way short of doing justice to the story.   Marino, who looks like one of the Pharisees, is one of those rare souls that covet the bizarre; he would be the ideal webmaster for Ripley's Believe It or Not. ...

Conversations with either Jean or John are unique.  They both like to leave little bread crumbs for you to follow into the forest of the absurd.  When the trail eventually comes to an end, you turn to make your way back out, using the crumbs that took you there, but those are gone as well.  While you work on getting re-oriented, they are fashioning together the next piece of bait.  They can each carry this off solo, or team up like the scene in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?, where George and Martha eviscerate Nick.  There's no malice intended, it's just their way of asking if Johnny wants to come out and play.  In 1996, I was working in Chicago and had a chance to spend a weekend in the town that John talked about so often.  We agreed I would join them in Avoca, Pennsylvania where they were visiting John's dad.  His dad was living in the home where John had grown up prior to serving in the Navy.  Jean was originally from...

Munson had flown to Palm Springs to look at places that offered care for dementia.  Dotty, his mother, was beginning to have difficulty with the basic routines of daily life.  He was going to stay at our condo in Rancho Mirage on Friday, and I would drive out to join him on Saturday.    Ingrid and I had bought the place when the market peaked and had watched dumfounded as real estate collapsed around the world.  Had Michael Lewis published The Big Short in 2005 instead of 2010, it would have been helpful.  The condo was in a gated development and sat right on the golf course.  It was a nice place; clean, bright and quiet, when golf balls weren't rocketing through the sliding glass doors.  Our plan was to rent it out to the flock of Canadians that migrate south every winter and have them pay the mortgage.  This strategy had paid dividends for the last fifty years until we showed up.  While the powers that be, went to work bailing out AIG and Bank of America...

Anna and my girl friend had known each other since they were toddlers.  Their parents had stayed close friends since college.  Both girls had been given the same first name as a token of the bond between the two sets of parents.  I had been included in several get togethers of the two families during my years in college.  In 1965, the start of my senior year, Anna invited my girl friend and me to have dinner with her and Eric, her husband.  We had all met many times before, but hadn't gotten to know each other.  Anna and Eric both came from money, and I feared I was headed for another of my infamous foot-in-mouth evenings.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  I felt at home with the two of them right from the start and had a great time. Some months later, my girl friend and I went our separate ways, and I was back at Anna and Eric's place.  We enjoyed each others' company and it became a regular thing.  We discussed tha...

In the late 1960s, Markland rented a place on Valentine Street which runs along the northern rim of Echo Park, and looks 350 feet down on the Los Angeles River, Glassell Park and Cypress Park.  The view from his place was expansive and unobstructed all the way to the San Gabriel Mountains.  Once or twice a year since he moved in, he would entertain himself and rattle nerves from Atwater Village to Pacoima.  He would have done it more frequently but he damn sure didn't want to get caught.  Most evenings the weather conditions were suitable with an on-shore air flow, light-to-moderate, and moving northwesterly from Dodger Stadium out to the San Fernando Valley.  When the weather and Markland's frame of mind came together, he would pull out three of the large plastic bags from the dry cleaners that he had stashed away.  The bags came with holes in the top.  One for the hanger, and the others I assume were to allow the garment to brea...

I walked along with everyone else out of the plane, down the passageway, and into the waiting area where I was supposed to meet the client.  The inside of most airports are pretty much the same.  This was San Juan, Puerto Rico, and its distinguishing features were the humidity and teenagers in military uniforms with automatic weapons.  9/11 was four years away and air travel was still fairly casual.  I hadn't even bothered to bring a passport.  I had been hired to spend five days showing an injection molding company how to prepare for an upcoming quality audit.    The Owner of the company called Yvonne who handled our sales, and she had closed the deal.  Yvonne closed lots of deals, 35 to 40 a year for me, and who knows how many for others doing similar work.  Of the hundreds of deals she had set up for me, this one had the strangest requests for schedule and accommodations.  The owner wanted to schedule the fiv...

In 2009, I was hoodwinked into riding a bicycle from Rosarito to Ensenada.  Michael signed me up for the 50 mile race with him and 10,000 other cyclists.  The event is treated as a race by the cycling clubs; and mostly just fun for the plodders and goofballs that bring up the rear.  The original course left the coast to run inland at the halfway point where it climbed a 1,000 foot mesa called El Tigre.   In the last few years, the race has sometimes bypassed El Tigre and remained along the coast the whole way.     In 2008, Michael had ridden the race and his wife, Maria and I were spectators.  The three of us were at the start of the race from directly in front of the Rosarito Beach Hotel on Highway 1.  We had arrived early and waited for all of the participants to take their position behind the starting line.  The riders were twelve abreast, across the width of the highway, and stretched back toward San Diego fur...

There is a beat up, ugly ball on display at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  If you take the time to make out the scribbling apart from the smudges and stains, you will see the name Don Grate.  Also, you will see "443 feet 3 ½ inches", which is how far Don Grate threw this particular ball.  I first learned of this while thumbing through the Guinness Book of World Records in 1958.  Prior to reading this, I had considered myself to have a strong throwing arm, second only to Kevin Boyle's mother. Don Grate had several throws that bettered his record but went unmeasured.  He started his professional baseball career with the Chattanooga Lookouts in the minor leagues, where promotional gimmicks were used to attract people to the ball park.  Cow milking contests and skill exhibitions were often held prior to the game.  One day in 1952 before a game at Pelican Park in New Orleans, the manager told Don to join...