GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I drove over to Jean’s house to help her gather up all of the guns John had spent decades collecting.  I walked inside and saw that she had already put out more than twenty rifles, pistols and gun cases on the furniture in the living room.  The vast majority of the collection was made up of airguns and this had caught the attention of a collector in Texas who specialized in this niche.  Jean was going to have to build a catalogue of sorts before any negotiating took place so she asked Larry, an old friend and air gun aficionado, to help her sort through the arsenal and determine its value. Jean took me into the back bedroom where most of the guns were stored including forty rifles leaning up against one wall, eight in the closet and a half dozen in cases strewn about the room.  We found a dozen rifles in a cupboard in the hallway, another ten rifles on top of a dresser in another bedroom and lots more in the garage.  We wanted the guns to be easy for La...

Needing to kill an hour the other day, I wandered into the Eagle Rock Plaza for the first time in twenty five years and was transported to downtown Manila .  The term “Plaza” having been obviously drawn from the large public squares typically adjacent to a cathedral and common to Central and South American cities as well as throughout Europe .  Many of these traditional plazas are vast in size and all are spaces open to the heavens above as opposed to the Eagle Rock Plaza which is completely enclosed and can be entered only from the north side.   The City of Manila has eight major plazas, five of which are referred to as “freedom parks” where no permits are required for demonstrations and protests.  Perhaps the name “Plaza” had something to do with the Eagle Rock Plaza evolving over the years into a place where all things Filipino abound including merchants, customers, merchandise, food, stores and even the muzak. The Plaza opened in Octo...

(see January of 2015 for part I) In 1964 toward the end of my sophomore year at Occidental, Dean Culley called me into his office to inform me that my grade point average of 1.2 was nearing a milestone. Benjamin Culley, who despised me, was the Dean of Men and taught a course in statistics.  He made no effort to mask the pleasure he took in telling me that without a miraculous reversal it would soon be statistically impossible to raise my GPA to the 2.0 required to graduate.  He added that when I reached this point of no return the college would be obligated to drop me as a student.  To avoid losing my student deferment and relocating to either Canada or Viet Nam , I began a process of elimination lasting a few months and ending with me listed as an art major. The college's records in those days were mainly printed forms filled out by administrative personnel.  My transcript displayed five handwritten entries in the field labeled “Major”, with a line drawn t...

Another January and there I was,  once again queued up on the  sidewalk in front of  Aldama  Elementary, vying for a kindergarten spot for my grandson.  A year ago I arrived 19 hours prior to registration, this year it was 22 hours but I split the time with my son Michael.  As difficult as it may be to describe the set of circumstances that could bring anyone to do such a thing once, let alone twice, I’m going to take a crack at it nonetheless. Over several decades the combined efforts of the LAUSD and the UTLA have driven the parents of hundreds of thousands of kids to desperation.  Parents have turned their backs on a free but inferior public school in their own neighborhood to find an alternative that offers some hope for their children’s education.  The rush to secure a spot at a private, charter or out-of-area school, has parents participating in lotteries, camping out prior to registration, and if successful, possibly adding up to 10 ...

I drove around with my dad’s ashes under the front seat of my car for six months.   It  took me that long to drum up the courage to carry out his wish to have his ashes dumped in the  Pacific Ocean .   My parents regarded funerals as pagan rituals but at some point they evidently walked down to where Norwalk Avenue meets Eagle Rock Blvd and made arrangements for cremation.   A week or so after my dad passed away I was summoned by the mortuary to drop by and pick up his ashes.  When I walked through the front door I was engulfed by the morose and ominous environment typical of mortuaries.  All of the  windows had been rendered useless by impenetrable layers of drapery left over from  Gone With The Wind .       I presumed the somber, poorly-lit interior was intended to promote gloom and discourage conversation. Should anyone ever have the balls to actually speak, such as "I'm having a heart attack", you can be well...

At 8:14 p.m. on a rainy Thanksgiving eve in 1971, a passenger aboard a Boeing 727 flying from Seattle to Reno, parachuted from 10,000 feet into total blackness above a remote wilderness area, and disappeared.  The man the news later identified as D.B.Cooper had begun this adventure by using a fake bomb to empty the plane of passengers and one flight attendant at the Seattle airport.  He then demanded and received $200,000 and 4 parachutes, and instructed the flight crew and the remaining flight attendant to fly to Reno and refuel before proceeding to Mexico City. He wore a business suit, tie with a tie clip, dark Northwest Airlines flight #305 on Seattle tarmac awaiting money  and parachutes prior to taking off for Reno. glasses, and  was described by both flight attendants as a quiet, calm and polite gentleman in his mid-to-late forties.  While on the ground in a darkened cabin waiting to take off for Reno, he ordered a 2nd bourbon and...

photo frompinterest.com My dad took one look at the television and said, "Christ, she looks like a water buffalo."  My mother had insisted on watching the Grand Ole Opry and my dad was trying to make her regret it. The performers on the screen were a trio called the Browns comprised of  Bonnie, Maxine and Jim Ed Brown,  singing their number one single "The Three Bells " .  I had heard the song on the radio but never seen it performed in front of an audience.  I had always assumed the song was a parody of the shameless maudlin lyrics found in popular songs th at passed for music in the mid 1950s such as "The little White Cloud that Cried" by Johnny Ray and Gogi Grant's "Suddenly, There's a Valley".   It wasn't until the Browns were almost finished before I realized, "My God, they're serious." It definitely caused some confusion for me in the development of my understanding of humor.  I had begun to "get...