Blog entries


Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Okay, so how do I write my blog entries? Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know. I have no rhyme or reason when I sit down at the computer to write a blog entry. In fact, when I’m at my computer, I’m usually supposed to be doing something else, “important academic work” such as grading online Spanish homework or compositions.

However, I never do what I’m supposed to do in a straight-forward fashion. For example, right now, I sat at the computer to grade online Spanish homework, send an email to my cousin in Mexico, enter student grades on my Excel spreadsheet, and then with time permitting, write a blog entry for the sake of posterity that will better the world in untold ways. Well, I hate correcting online homework online, I can’t think of anything to write my cousin, and I dread the thought of staring at a spreadsheet this early in the morning, so I think I’ll start with a blog entry!

So how do I choose my topics? I don’t know! I have many ideas percolating in my head, some for many years now, that somehow manage to ooze out through my fingertips and out into cyberspace. I can’t always contain them. And so they wind up in a blog entry.

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m rarely topical or current. I’ve reached that age where I’m very fascinated with the past, the nostalgic elements of life. I rarely invent anything that I write. I’m just not that creative. I write about just about everything that I remember because I have a good memory.

How good is my memory? Well, I remember things that most of my friends don’t remember even the slightest detail. But a good memory is like a double-edged sword: it cuts both ways. I also have some painful memories that I would like to forget but can’t. I have issues with my good memory: 1. I remember most things that ever happened to me, and 2. I remember many things that never happened to me. My imagination invents events from my past and I truly believe that they really happened to me. I try to block those out, but I don’t always manage to censor them.

Well, I will end this blog entry rather abruptly today, as I do with most blog entries. I have some things that I really have to do. But first, I’ll go out for my morning run.

DDR

Roxanne


Photo by Chris F on Pexels.com

Roxanne always reminded me of The Police song of the same name. But she never did put out her red light because she was quite different. She was the first Amish girl I met on the Internet. In fact, she has been the only one.

Somehow, I don’t picture many Amish being on the Internet. But Roxanne’s life seemed to revolve around computers and the Internet. I met her in a chatroom soon after I was divorced. She was really attracted to me. For some strange reason, I am a stud on the Internet! I just can’t figure it out. I always seem to attract these twenty-seven-year-old women–they’re always twenty-seven–who want to be with me even after I tell them I’m twenty years older than them. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, one day I’m in a chatroom and Roxanne contacts me. We start talking and we seem to have many things in common. As soon as I learn that she is from Oklahoma, I tell her that she lives too far away from me. But she insists that she truly interested in me. I just figure that I shouldn’t get involved because we’ll never meet in person anyway.

I tell her that I’m twenty years older than her, but that doesn’t phase her, either. In fact, she’s very persistent. So we continue our private chat and I get to know her a little better. She works at a Cherokee souvenir shop somewhere in Oklahoma. She found this job while she was on the Internet. She lives in a trailer with a roommate whom she met on the Internet. Her life revolved around the Internet! And now she’s serious about meeting me in person.

I asked her how come she spent so much time on the Internet if she was Amish. She said that she wasn’t Amish anymore. I didn’t understand how that worked, so she explained to me how her ex-husband had asked her to convert and she did. I was even more confused after her explanation. She wanted to talk to me on the phone, so we talked a few times, and I was truly attracted to her because of her southern drawl. I don’t know why, but I always fall for a female with a southern drawl.

She desparately wanted to me, so I asked her to come to Chicago. She said she would and even sent me the longest love letter that anyone ever wrote to me. Well, it turns out that she couldn’t come all the way to Chicago. Against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her halfway. However, something always came up and she couldn’t make it. Then she met another friend Vivian on the Internet and we all agreed to meet a mutually convenient location. As it turns out, we never agreed on a mutually convenient location. I never became emotional involved, but I did enjoy all this attention. Eventually, we both agreed that we would never actually meet in person. She seemed happy when I told her that the only reason we wouldn’t meet was purely for geographical reasons. And I never heard from her again. I consider myself lucky.

DDR

Hildago


I can't believe my mother let me grow my hair this long!
I can’t believe my mother let me grow my hair this long!

Everyone called him Hildago and he never corrected anyone. Years later, I discovered that his surname was actually Hidalgo, which is derived from the Spanish hijo de algo meaning someone with wealth.

I first met Hildago when I had my paper route. Later, when I was promoted to branch captain (Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?), I was his boss. He was Mexican, but he didn’t speak Spanish. Now that I think of it, he only kind of looked Mexican.

Hildago is one of those persons whom I often meet when I least expect to. I knew him as a paper boy. Then I didn’t seem him for years until I went to Tilden Technical High School. We were in an English class together where the teacher really didn’t teach anything and we talked the whole period or read comic books in class. That’s when I learned his real name. He was the one kid my mother told me to avoid. She just didn’t like him, for whatever reason I never found out. The more she tried to break up our friendship, the closer we got.

When we moved out of Back of the Yards to Marquette Park, I didn’t see Hildago for a couple of years. Once I started working and got a car, I started visiting him again. I guess he was a bad influence on me, but he made life much more fun. Because of him, I met my first wife Linda who was his cousin. When we were nineteen, Illinois lowered the drinking age to nineteen, so we used to drink wine and/or Southern Comfort together. I went to my first concert with him and two other friends. We used to go to discos together a lot. I can now see why mother was against our friendship. He really was a bad influence on me.

Hildago was quite unusual in that he made a lousy first impression, but he was very well liked by many people in the neighborhood. He was socially inept, but he always managed to impress people who needed to be impressed despite his various faux pas. When we were young men, he no longer looked Mexican. I mean, he had black hair, brown eyes, and perpetually tanned skinned, but he looked Filipino! Whenever we went out, a lot of Filipinas were attracted to him. He dated quite a few. I remember he dated one nurse whose husband was back in the Philippines. She was saving up enough money to go back to the Philippines, but she was lonely here in Chicago. So she dated my friend.

He eventually married a Filipina and when they had a daughter, they asked me to be the godfather. At first, I tried to turn down this great honor because I didn’t think I could fulfill the responsibilities of being a godfather. He told me that I would just have to show up for a few birthday parties and Christmas parties and then I could disappear. He insisted and then his wife insisted, so I agreed.

Then, they introduced me to the godmother with the hopes of starting a serious relationship between us. Well, the godmother was a Filipina named Lalin. We talked on the phone a few times before the baptism. Since she had just come from the Philippines, she didn’t speak English that well. We eventually spoke Spanish since she had studied it more than English. We seemed to get along fine. We never actually dated, though. After the baptism we never talked again. Hildago kept asking me what happened between us, but I told him that there wasn’t much chemistry between us. I was probably more interested in her than she was in me.

I lost track of Hildago again. Later, I invited him to my son’s birthday party and he came with his daughter, my god-daughter, whom I had not seen since she was very little. Then I didn’t see him again for years. But then I saw him at a K-Mart by my house. Just when I never expected to see him again. He told me it was my god-daughter’s eighteenth birthday, so he invited me to her party. I went and my god-daughter was happy to see me. Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen her since. But I warned Hildago in the first place that I wouldn’t be a good godfather.

DDR

House cleansing


My humble abode!

Imagine that you were in a relationship for a long time. Then, you break up. Somehow over the course of that relationship you accumulated many objects that represent that relationship, not to mention all that emotional baggage that you’ll always lug along.

Now, you’re in a new relationship and you want to invite her to your house. But wait! Don’t do it! Not right away.

First, you have to do a house cleansing. You know that you have to remove all traces of any previous female in your life. The most obvious of all: all the pictures that show you with your ex. No girly things are allowed to remain. So get rid of the seat cushions on the kitchen chairs and the place mats on the kitchen table. Because no real man buys seat cushions and place mats of his own free will.

The magnetic shopping list on the fridge. Gone! Because a new girlfriend won’t believe that a man actually makes a grocery list all by himself. And while you’re at it, get rid of the fuzzy toilet seat cover. That’s a girl thing. Because if your new girlfriend finds something that your ex-girlfriend gave you and you kept it… You’re in big trouble!

Jealousy is retroactive! Men, don’t you ever forget that! Remove the bra hanging from your rearview mirror. The panties from your lampshade. The empty condom wrappers in you bedroom wastebasket. Woman notice these little things.

You have been forewarned! Go now and begin anew!

DDR

Kung Fu


 

Dr. D in kung fu uniform

You’ve probably noticed the yin and yang symbol at the end of some of my blog posts. I’ve been meanig to explain why I use it, but I’ve always been hesitant to tell you. Well, now it can be told. Now that I’m feeling more comfortable with you, gentle reader, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone. Okay? Well … Okay, I believe that you won’t tell anyone. So here goes.

I didn’t want to go to Divine Heart Seminary, but my mother made me go anyway. While I was there, I kept telling her that I wanted to leave. Finally, she gave in and she said I could leave the seminary. However, she didn’t make any effort to get me into the Catholic high school of my choice, or any private school for that matter. We lived in Back of the Yards, so I had to go to a public high school. I went to Tilden Technical H.S. I was extremely unhappy there.

As bad as things were, I never regretted leaving the seminary. At that time, I was only five feet tall and weighed about eighty-seven pounds. I was the perfect target for bullies. Ever since I was little, I always fought back no matter who picked on me, regardless of the consequences. When I transferred to Gage Park High School, I was suspended quite a few times for defending myself. My mother yelled at me for having to miss work in order to get me reinstated in school. I told her that if she would have sent me to a Catholic high school, I wouldn’t be having those problems.

Oh yeah, my bedroom was in the unfinished attic of our house at 4405 S. Wood Street. That added to my overall happiness of my adolescence. My bedroom was hot and humid in the summer, and extremely cold in the winter. I spent a lot of time by myself in that room. I had a black light and fluorescent posters. I had my own black and white TV. I had a radio that I wired to every speaker that I found. I had surround sound before anyone else even invented it.

Okay, get ready. Here comes the part about kung fu. Are you ready? Well, here goes anyway. I hated getting picked on at school. And, I loved to watch TV every waking moment, especially all the comedies like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Laugh In, The Bill Cosby Show, The Flip Wilson Show, the Johnny Carson Show, among many others. If the TV show wasn’t a comedy, I didn’t watch it. With one notable exception. Kung Fu. There was something about that show that attracted me. Something that really moved me. I felt lonely, scared, defenseless, and scared. After watching Kung Fu, I learned to apply some of that philosophy to my life. Oh yeah, and I observed those martial arts techniques and learned to use them to defend myself at school and in the neighborhood. I never backed down from anyone. And everyone learned not to start trouble with me. I’m not saying I won many fights since I was smaller than most of the bullies, but I would cause enough pain and anguish to my assailant the he often thought twice before picking on me again. Once, a bully approached me to exact revenge from our previous encounter. I gave him a look that could only be interpreted as, “Bring it on!” He shook his head in disbelief and walked away.

The TV show Kung Fu actually changed my life. I started practicing kung fu religiously. I wanted to be one with the universe. I wanted to be Chinese!

My favorite TV show when I was in high school.

Well, I never became Chinese. Or even learned to speak Chinese. But I have gotten older and wiser. That last time I practiced kung fu? Oh, about forty pounds ago. But I always fondly recall David Carradine as Kwai Chang Cane or Grasshopper when he was known when he was a young boy in the Shaolin Temple back in China. But I still feel that I benefited from watching Kung Fu. So whenever I get philosophical, in my own unique way, I categorize my blog entry under Life and end it with the yin and yang symbol. Peace, love, and eternal cosmic wisdom!