FEBRUARY RELEASE FOR ELMO’S SOJOURN
Just a little promo for my story being released this month by Melange Books.
http://www.melange-books.com/authors/walttrizna/elmossojourn.html
I SURVIVED THE PENNSYLVANIA ICESTORM
Some of you may know that I live in West Chester, PA located in ChesterCounty. And like almost half of the county’s residents, life has been provided a speed-bump due to the weather.
It was Wednesday morning, the 5th of February, when our dog, Millie, jumped on the bed, disturbed. I looked at the bedside clock to see the time and then I knew. The clock’s black face told me we had lost power.
I got up, fed Millie, and while reading the paper the power returned. But that event would prove to be short-lived. The power departed again and would not return for nearly two days.
We have a sunroom with a wood burning stove. About a week ago my daughter, Lynn, and her friend, Tyler, visited and spent some time splitting wood and storing it in the garage. That act of kindness turned out to be a lifesaver.
I started a fire and soon Millie and our two cats migrated to the room and share the warmth. We all kept relatively warm. But we would have been warmer if I had closed the door to the rest of the house. I kept the door open for access for the cats to the litter box and food, plus to provide some heat to my ball python living in my study. He survived.
The only difficult period was nighttime, needing to wake up every three hours or so to feed the fire. Sleep was also disturbed by constant crashing of ice, and the occasional branch, on the roof. But no trees struck the house or my care. I know I fared much better than some other residents of the area.
The power returned Thursday night about 8:30.
My internet is still a victim of the ice storm so I shall post this later.
Saturday, and there are still about 50,000 county residents without power.
Think warm thoughts for them.
Stay safe and warm.
THE TEARS OF NEWARK
At times, I don’t know if my thoughts are just of an old man out of rhythm with the times or valid observations. You, my friends, must be the judge.
Over the years I’ve noticed a trend, the intent of which is either for the betterment of mankind or yet another means of making money. I’m talking about the discovery of new diseases, not life threatening ailments, to be sure. But ailments for which products have been developed, afflictions such as dry eye and restless leg syndrome. The syndrome from which I draw a great deal of humor is ‘dry eye’.
For this malady, a host of artificial tear products are on the market, and if these products do not work there are heavy duty products such as Restasis, a heavily advertized remedy. Every time I see their ads I think of my late dad. I’ll tell you why.
When I was a kid my dad had a cure for dry eye. If he were alive I could see him opening up a ‘dry eye clinic’. His remedy was really cheap. All he would do was say, “You want something to cry about? I’ll give you something to cry about.”
It worked every time.
While I was a kid living in Newark during the 50’s and 60’s there was little need for artificial tears. There was always plenty of the real thing to go around. In fact, we had a surplus of tears. We could have exported tears. Compared to today’s problems, we were pretty well off.
Then there is ‘dry mouth’ cured by hydration, something we used to call drinking.
ELMO’S SOJOURN
My eBook, Elmo’s Sojourn will be published by Melange Books on February 10th.
Here’s the cover.
FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY: BOWL GAMES
In a previous piece I wrote about how everything in a writer’s world affects his or her writing to some extent. I feel what we produce is a product of our environment.
This piece results primarily from my past experience, but more importantly from my values.
As you can see from the title I will focus on college bowl games but not from the sports aspect. I prefer to look a little deeper, focusing on the direction so many aspects of our lives take nowadays. Traditions diluted for the sake of how much money can be made. At first this trend was more insidious. Now it is becoming more and more blatant.
I can remember when there were only four bowl games. I could be wrong about the number. If I am, someone let me know. I’m talking about maybe fifty or more years ago. They were the Rose, Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls and they were all played on January 1st, a full day of football.
In a recent edition of our local paper I counted 35 bowl games now being played over the course of weeks providing a minimum of overlap for the greatest viewing audience. There are probably more.
Now we have such titles as the Little Caesar Pizza Bowl, Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl just to name a few. With at least 35 bowls that means at least 70 teams played in a bowl game. To me, the honor of participating in a bowl game is greatly diluted these days. I think the four above mentioned games still garnish the most honor. But really, do we need all these games? The avid sports fan I’m sure will say yes, but it seems to me that pride of saying your team participated in a bowl game has greatly diminished.
My cynical self tends to look at this trend as just a blatant way to make more money. Another example of one of our institutions diluted in the quest for the almighty dollar.
