Metro.
Okay, so this blog I like to read, it's called McBickle Eyes the Transom and you can find it right here on this blogspot.com that we all enjoy so much. I have to add a link to it, I have several blogs that I need to add links for but I'm just kind of stupid when it comes to all things cyberspace. So anyway, it's a good read. The writer is a reporter in N.Y.C., and this writer writes so damn well. When I read this blog sometimes it makes me sad. Sad because I miss the NY/North Jersey area so much. Like I was sayin' in the previous post, when I was bitchin' and cryin' and whining like a little kid who's pissed 'cause he can't get what he wants, economics have a lot to do with it. It's still all my fault. Had I worked harder, had I applied myself and gone to school or something, maybe we would have been able to stay. It's not that it's so bad here, it's just that it's so different.
Okay, so I was a cop, big deal. In 1997 I was injured and had to retire after ten plus years on the job. Like I've said before, nothing dramatic, just a stupid accident. Prior to that I served in the army, worked construction, tended bar and drove trucks. Not necessarily in that order. I stayed in the army reserves and was called to active duty for service in Desert Storm, 1991. Upon my return from S.W.A. and release from active duty I resumed my position as a patrolman in the suburban (just outside of Newark) police department where I had worked before. I subsequently was assigned to the Firearms Unit and was sent to the Firearms Instructor Course and M.O.I., Method Of Instruction. I became a N.J. State Police Training Commission certified Firearms Instructor and in addition to my regular duties I began to teach part time at the police academy. I met my wife in 1993, I was in love with her immediately. We were married less than six months after we met. It was and still is the best decision I ever made.
Our older daughter was four when we married, technically she's my step-daughter but I really hate that term. I asked her if it would be okay if I married her mom, I showed her the ring before I gave it to my wife and she made a card for her. We bought a house in the summer of 1995, not much money down and a VA mortgage. Our younger daughter was born in December of that year, the second best day of my life. When I say second I just mean chronologically, not that it was second best but you know what I mean. Prior to purchasing that house we lived in a carriage house in North Caldwell, that's Soprano country. The house that's used as Tony Soprano's house is in North Caldwell. In the opening credits, when he's driving, the last driving shot is through his windshield as he travels uphill through a cut in some rocks right before he pulls into the driveway. That shot is Mountain Avenue but I digress. Anyway, this carriage house was behind the garage of a rather large ranch house on a quiet dead end street. The place was owned by a well known mentalist/mind reader/magician guy who's been on TV a lot in the NY area. He bought the house for his mother. We lived there rent free and took care of her because he traveled so much. My wife cooked for her, I cut the grass. He was so nice to our older daughter, he gave her this hand crafted jewelry box that he bought for her in Europe. As far as I'm concerned, he's a good guy. His brother is a retired cop from my department, he's one of those legendary old timers that we always heard stories about. Anyway, we got pregnant and bought a house, ready to settle down for the long hall. Things didn't exactly work out that way.
Yeah, so we buy the house in August of 1995, our little one is born in December and two years later I get hurt and it all starts to come apart. So, my pension is forty percent of what I earned, they included my last fourteen months of overtime. I do receive my full benefits with my pension and that's a very good thing. I had several operations, I worked when I could as did my wife to supplement the pension. At that time we also had an ongoing legal battle regarding some custody issues and an insane grandparents rights case but that's another story. Needless to say, it was a very stressful time for our little family. We ultimately prevailed but at quite a cost. Oh yeah, I also was named in a federal lawsuit along with four other guys for an incident that never actually happened. It seems that this guy claimed we threw him down the marble stairs in the courthouse under orders from a judge who watched us do this. He also charged us with kidnapping because we picked him up on a warrant for domestic violence at another county jail when he was released on another domestic violence related charges. The whole thing went to Grand Jury and was no-billed but, the federal courthouse doors are always open. Anyway, this guy represented himself. The judge threw the whole thing out after four days of testimony due to lack of evidence. Actually, she dismissed the case with prejudice. That was fun, sitting in federal court as a defendant while I was recovering from injuries sustained.
So, after all that, with bills mounting and property taxes increasing yet again, we decided to get out of Dodge. I have an army buddy who lives in Missouri so that's where we went. We spent three years there, I wrote my book there and we met some of the nicest people we have ever met in our lives. We also met some pretty crazy people but you get that everywhere. My good friend in Missouri is a true cowboy poet, he loves Broadway show tunes. No, he's not gay. Big ol' Hoss, the kid who took our daughter to his senior prom in his granpaw's brand new F-350 dually crew cab 4x4, he wore a bolo tie and a Stetson hat. He almost got in a fight with the valet parking guy at the prom. Nobody drives his granpaw's brand new F-350 crew cab dually 4x4. The valet parking guy wisely allowed ol' Hoss to park the truck himself. Salt of the earth that boy is. They are still friends, our daughter and Hoss. He raises cattle and he's a welder. He says he might come visit us here in Pennsylvania. Our door is always open to him. Hoss is not his real name but everyone calls him that. We don't have anything against Missouri, it's just a little too far away from home. A two day drive to bring the girls back east for Christmas, I took them to see The Tree. They both really like The City too. They rode the subway with their cousin who lived on the West Side, she's in Soho now.
Three years in the southern plains, learned a lot about Bloody Bill and Jesse James. St. Louis is cool, good food and good music. It was over one hundred miles from where we lived in Boone County. Well, we decided to come back east, get as close as we could get so we ended up here, three hundred miles from the Jersey line. When we sold the house in Missouri my wife had an idea, she said we should try something new. She said we should find homes for the dogs and the birds, we knew plenty of good people who were willing to take them in. Our dogs and our birds are awesome. So her idea was this. She said we should try something new. She said lets sell the house and pay off all the bills. She said we should rent a nice apartment in or near Chicago. She said I could just stay at home, be Mr. Mom and write full time, really give it my best shot. She said she would work and be able to concentrate on her interests as well. I still don't know why but I turned it down. Not a day goes by that I do not regret that decision. So here we are, two hours from Pittsburgh, six hours from Philly (where my sister-in-law lives) watching the snow fall in these very pretty hills and bored to tears. Like I said before, the kids are doing well here and they like it better than Missouri but.......They are both smart, they are both creative and very talented in their own individual ways, they would do well anywhere.
It's nice here. We have met some real good people, some real down to earth hard working people but.......I have to sit and watch my wife go off to work third shift at the powdered metal plant where she runs the presses and comes home covered in grease and powder. She looks like a coal miner after her shift. I work four days a week as a part time Teamster at a wholesale grocery warehouse. I work in the warehouse and sometimes out on The Dock. You have to take what you can get, jobs are few and far between. Jobs that don't require a name tag that is. My wife has a dream too. She has always wanted to try her hand at stand-up, she's even done an open mic thing and got a lot of laughs. That's kind of hard to pursue when you live in the middle of nowhere. Let me tell you something about my wife. She is thirty-eight and she looks twenty-five. She gets carded frequently. She is six foot tall and weighs 135, she's drop dead gorgeous and that's no lie. She could very easily have been a model but her interests never took her in that direction. She fell in love with me, poor baby. She is singularly the most honest person I have ever met and I trust her with my life. Outside of my wife and kids there are three people I can say that about and one of them is dead. These are not idle words.
Yeah, so now I think I can be writer. I've been writing all my life. I was really good at the narrative portion on police reports. I even "ghosted" some for fellow cops from time to time. I wrote a book when we lived in Missouri. Out of the dozens of queries that I have promptly received rejections for, I've gotten one positive response from a small agency. I sent them the first five chapters as per their request, I have heard nothing since last August. I guess I have my answer. I thought about driving to The City and randomly leaving discs with my manuscript on board at strategic locations around town, 'til I saw that episode of Family Guy that is. Brian, he's a dog. He goes to L.A. to become a screen writer. He gets a call from someone pretending to be a famous actor and that person tells him that he read his script that was left on a coffee shop table, he loved it. Then the truth comes out, it's not a famous actor. The laughs are on Brian, and as I watched I actually felt bad for Brian, a cartoon dog. As I watched I realized what a jerk I am for considering the same thing, for thinking it was such an original idea.
Well, anyone who reads this blog has probably gotten bits and pieces of this story, "my story", over the last nine or ten months. This is the first time I put it all down at once. I'm still not sure if I'll post it. If your reading this then you will know the answer. I have to go for now, I've got eggs in the pot. My younger daughter and I are going to decorate them this afternoon. My wife and our older girl off to Jersey to visit my father-in-law in ICU because the docs just removed a football size malignant tumor from his chest cavity, along with a rib and half of his right lung. Now that is reality. Hard core, cold fact, slap you in the face reality. He's the relative I mentioned in the previous post, the guy who just retired. I'm going to shut up now, lately I talk too much.
Silence is golden and diamonds are forever. Hey Tommy, you remember that shit don't you?
Okay, so I was a cop, big deal. In 1997 I was injured and had to retire after ten plus years on the job. Like I've said before, nothing dramatic, just a stupid accident. Prior to that I served in the army, worked construction, tended bar and drove trucks. Not necessarily in that order. I stayed in the army reserves and was called to active duty for service in Desert Storm, 1991. Upon my return from S.W.A. and release from active duty I resumed my position as a patrolman in the suburban (just outside of Newark) police department where I had worked before. I subsequently was assigned to the Firearms Unit and was sent to the Firearms Instructor Course and M.O.I., Method Of Instruction. I became a N.J. State Police Training Commission certified Firearms Instructor and in addition to my regular duties I began to teach part time at the police academy. I met my wife in 1993, I was in love with her immediately. We were married less than six months after we met. It was and still is the best decision I ever made.
Our older daughter was four when we married, technically she's my step-daughter but I really hate that term. I asked her if it would be okay if I married her mom, I showed her the ring before I gave it to my wife and she made a card for her. We bought a house in the summer of 1995, not much money down and a VA mortgage. Our younger daughter was born in December of that year, the second best day of my life. When I say second I just mean chronologically, not that it was second best but you know what I mean. Prior to purchasing that house we lived in a carriage house in North Caldwell, that's Soprano country. The house that's used as Tony Soprano's house is in North Caldwell. In the opening credits, when he's driving, the last driving shot is through his windshield as he travels uphill through a cut in some rocks right before he pulls into the driveway. That shot is Mountain Avenue but I digress. Anyway, this carriage house was behind the garage of a rather large ranch house on a quiet dead end street. The place was owned by a well known mentalist/mind reader/magician guy who's been on TV a lot in the NY area. He bought the house for his mother. We lived there rent free and took care of her because he traveled so much. My wife cooked for her, I cut the grass. He was so nice to our older daughter, he gave her this hand crafted jewelry box that he bought for her in Europe. As far as I'm concerned, he's a good guy. His brother is a retired cop from my department, he's one of those legendary old timers that we always heard stories about. Anyway, we got pregnant and bought a house, ready to settle down for the long hall. Things didn't exactly work out that way.
Yeah, so we buy the house in August of 1995, our little one is born in December and two years later I get hurt and it all starts to come apart. So, my pension is forty percent of what I earned, they included my last fourteen months of overtime. I do receive my full benefits with my pension and that's a very good thing. I had several operations, I worked when I could as did my wife to supplement the pension. At that time we also had an ongoing legal battle regarding some custody issues and an insane grandparents rights case but that's another story. Needless to say, it was a very stressful time for our little family. We ultimately prevailed but at quite a cost. Oh yeah, I also was named in a federal lawsuit along with four other guys for an incident that never actually happened. It seems that this guy claimed we threw him down the marble stairs in the courthouse under orders from a judge who watched us do this. He also charged us with kidnapping because we picked him up on a warrant for domestic violence at another county jail when he was released on another domestic violence related charges. The whole thing went to Grand Jury and was no-billed but, the federal courthouse doors are always open. Anyway, this guy represented himself. The judge threw the whole thing out after four days of testimony due to lack of evidence. Actually, she dismissed the case with prejudice. That was fun, sitting in federal court as a defendant while I was recovering from injuries sustained.
So, after all that, with bills mounting and property taxes increasing yet again, we decided to get out of Dodge. I have an army buddy who lives in Missouri so that's where we went. We spent three years there, I wrote my book there and we met some of the nicest people we have ever met in our lives. We also met some pretty crazy people but you get that everywhere. My good friend in Missouri is a true cowboy poet, he loves Broadway show tunes. No, he's not gay. Big ol' Hoss, the kid who took our daughter to his senior prom in his granpaw's brand new F-350 dually crew cab 4x4, he wore a bolo tie and a Stetson hat. He almost got in a fight with the valet parking guy at the prom. Nobody drives his granpaw's brand new F-350 crew cab dually 4x4. The valet parking guy wisely allowed ol' Hoss to park the truck himself. Salt of the earth that boy is. They are still friends, our daughter and Hoss. He raises cattle and he's a welder. He says he might come visit us here in Pennsylvania. Our door is always open to him. Hoss is not his real name but everyone calls him that. We don't have anything against Missouri, it's just a little too far away from home. A two day drive to bring the girls back east for Christmas, I took them to see The Tree. They both really like The City too. They rode the subway with their cousin who lived on the West Side, she's in Soho now.
Three years in the southern plains, learned a lot about Bloody Bill and Jesse James. St. Louis is cool, good food and good music. It was over one hundred miles from where we lived in Boone County. Well, we decided to come back east, get as close as we could get so we ended up here, three hundred miles from the Jersey line. When we sold the house in Missouri my wife had an idea, she said we should try something new. She said we should find homes for the dogs and the birds, we knew plenty of good people who were willing to take them in. Our dogs and our birds are awesome. So her idea was this. She said we should try something new. She said lets sell the house and pay off all the bills. She said we should rent a nice apartment in or near Chicago. She said I could just stay at home, be Mr. Mom and write full time, really give it my best shot. She said she would work and be able to concentrate on her interests as well. I still don't know why but I turned it down. Not a day goes by that I do not regret that decision. So here we are, two hours from Pittsburgh, six hours from Philly (where my sister-in-law lives) watching the snow fall in these very pretty hills and bored to tears. Like I said before, the kids are doing well here and they like it better than Missouri but.......They are both smart, they are both creative and very talented in their own individual ways, they would do well anywhere.
It's nice here. We have met some real good people, some real down to earth hard working people but.......I have to sit and watch my wife go off to work third shift at the powdered metal plant where she runs the presses and comes home covered in grease and powder. She looks like a coal miner after her shift. I work four days a week as a part time Teamster at a wholesale grocery warehouse. I work in the warehouse and sometimes out on The Dock. You have to take what you can get, jobs are few and far between. Jobs that don't require a name tag that is. My wife has a dream too. She has always wanted to try her hand at stand-up, she's even done an open mic thing and got a lot of laughs. That's kind of hard to pursue when you live in the middle of nowhere. Let me tell you something about my wife. She is thirty-eight and she looks twenty-five. She gets carded frequently. She is six foot tall and weighs 135, she's drop dead gorgeous and that's no lie. She could very easily have been a model but her interests never took her in that direction. She fell in love with me, poor baby. She is singularly the most honest person I have ever met and I trust her with my life. Outside of my wife and kids there are three people I can say that about and one of them is dead. These are not idle words.
Yeah, so now I think I can be writer. I've been writing all my life. I was really good at the narrative portion on police reports. I even "ghosted" some for fellow cops from time to time. I wrote a book when we lived in Missouri. Out of the dozens of queries that I have promptly received rejections for, I've gotten one positive response from a small agency. I sent them the first five chapters as per their request, I have heard nothing since last August. I guess I have my answer. I thought about driving to The City and randomly leaving discs with my manuscript on board at strategic locations around town, 'til I saw that episode of Family Guy that is. Brian, he's a dog. He goes to L.A. to become a screen writer. He gets a call from someone pretending to be a famous actor and that person tells him that he read his script that was left on a coffee shop table, he loved it. Then the truth comes out, it's not a famous actor. The laughs are on Brian, and as I watched I actually felt bad for Brian, a cartoon dog. As I watched I realized what a jerk I am for considering the same thing, for thinking it was such an original idea.
Well, anyone who reads this blog has probably gotten bits and pieces of this story, "my story", over the last nine or ten months. This is the first time I put it all down at once. I'm still not sure if I'll post it. If your reading this then you will know the answer. I have to go for now, I've got eggs in the pot. My younger daughter and I are going to decorate them this afternoon. My wife and our older girl off to Jersey to visit my father-in-law in ICU because the docs just removed a football size malignant tumor from his chest cavity, along with a rib and half of his right lung. Now that is reality. Hard core, cold fact, slap you in the face reality. He's the relative I mentioned in the previous post, the guy who just retired. I'm going to shut up now, lately I talk too much.
Silence is golden and diamonds are forever. Hey Tommy, you remember that shit don't you?
posted by Squarehead at 8:22 AM
7 Comments:
Squarehead,
You certainly have a lot to draw from. Stories within stories. Slice of life stories that people like to read about. Keep going. Don't stop writing never let them see you sweat.
HAPPY EASTER TO YOU AND YOURS!
That is some story. Please be a writer!
Very nice......no matter what we go through, it always helps to make us grow, and let's us know what we are made of! ; )
Been too long and nice to read you again!
Cheers!
Thanks to all. Here I was getting mad at myself for bitching......
Enemy, I am a writer, not yet published but a writer in my heart and soul.
Coffee, good to see you bro. Cheers right back at you.
Alexys, stories within stories. I always liked that too. My first book, the one I'm trying to get read by an angent is full of that. (Or just full of it, depending on where you may coming from.) I will never stop writing, and I will not let 'em see me sweat.
My biggest problem is facing it, you know? I know there is a lot of good stuff here, but when you write you have to deal. I do love to write.
Yeah, I'm a writer. When you read the previous comment, see if you can find the mistakes. Find the missing "be", the word not the letter. Agent has one "N", I think. SPELL CHECK!! ;)
You OK?
Yes Okay, I'm okay. "I'm Okay Your'e Okay". Remember that book?..
Yeah, I guess I just needed to vent, you know how that goes. I find that it's good to spew out the frustrating stuff here on this blog, so that it doesn't show up in my writing. Thanks for asking, it means a lot to me.
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