opinion

for the republican candidates....


   how about this for tax reform:  flat tax between 15 and 20% [ no deductions] - the experts can figure out where -  for all taxpayers - individual and corporate - onshore and offshore.  no tax on the first $35 - 40,000 for individuals  - the experts can figure out where [corporations no break].  home mortgage interest deduction for those [no matter what their filing status] making $350,000 or less [to stimulate the housing industry].  standard deductions for small businesses [35 or fewer full-time employees, part-timers excluded] - the experts to determine what qualifies as a deduction - i vote for the current rules. [small businesses are, after all, our job mills.]

debate that you meatheads.

occupy wall street

just wait until these knuckleheads - at least in the northeast - run into a cold rain or below freezing temperatures or a serious snowstorm...then we'll see who occupies whatever.  i'll bet the organizers are the first to bail.  my advice...go home or to washington where you ought to be protesting whatever the hell it is you are protesting...at least the weather will be a little warmer for a little longer.  you bloody idiots.  in the meantime i urge my readers to pray for a hard winter.

from alexandra fuller

.


..a few stereotypical british characteristics [not sure they are particularly good ones but they could go a long way towards describing my father]:  "an allergy to sentimentality, a casual ease with profanity, a horror of bad manners, a deep mistrust of humorlessness...."

tattoos

i'll bet none of you has ever tattooed a thoroughbred horse...well, i have.  more than a thousand as a matter of fact.  why would anyone do such a thing you ask?  for identification purposes, that's why.  when i, newly graduated from college with a totally useless degree in english, decided to strike out and seek my fortune i thought it best to start where [i thought] the money was...in those days that would be the race track [horses, of course].  through my teenage years i'd worked at the local track which ran, conveniently, during the summer so i had some connections.  before long i found myself a night watchman's position guarding the preakness cup at pimlico race  track in baltimore maryland - all the while  waiting for the tattoo crew to show  up so i could take on the position of tattoo technician [trainee].  i'll get to the part later why it was so easy to find the latter position - you can guess why the night watchman's job was open - boredom anyone?  after stumbling through my reversed days and nights for two weeks, to my great relief, the crew arrived and i began my new career.

thoroughbred horses - at least those which go to the track - are tattooed on the inside of their upper lips.  that's why if you watch pre-race activity closely you'll see a horse pause before a guy in the paddock who will reach up and roll its upper lip, look down at his program, then nod to the groom and look for the next suspect.  i say suspect because there are multiple reasons to believe the horse before that guy is not the one named in the program...the one being bet on by the public.  what if the groom bridled the wrong horse back at the barn?  what if the horse was shipped in and the trainer didn't bother to check its i.d., i.e. the tattoo?  you get the picture.  anyway, tattooing was fun and simple for a strong young man until i got hurled around a stall by an obstreporous 4 year old which i should have known better than to try and tattoo to start with [most animals are tattooed at 2 or before their first race - this one had escaped that indignity for obvious reasons].  aside from that minor diversion, when asked, i accepted the position of horse identifier [junior] at the chicago circuit of three race courses.

once i got over the excitement of living in cicero [al capone's old hangout], having my one room apartment partially invaded and therefore carrying a gun at all times, watching, amazed, as a small tornado threw a starting gate through a wrought iron fence, and lunching in the jock's room surrounded by big name athletes i settled in  to [junior] identification duties and the odd day of actual tattooing - at $4 a horse - all the while trying to cope with my [senior] identifier's extreme alcoholism.

then one day a groom brought to the paddock a dead horse - at least one whose owner claimed was dead - and the whole business of "horse identifier" came into focus.  before the first race i would write the jockey club registration numbers of each horse on my partner's program.  he would then, as the horses paused before him, roll their lips  and confirm they were who the program said they were.  suddenly one number didn't match...wrong horse.  great consternation...calls to the stewards...scratch...money refunded...steward's hearing...alleged nefarious activity, etc., etc.  great excitement actually.

shortly thereafter i declined an invitation to stay [over an illinois winter season] and "work the standardbreds", having realized the money wasn't where i thought it was, and returned home.

the other day i was visiting a friend's farm and an inquisitive sway-backed old nag wandered up to the fence i was leaning against.  reflexively i reached up and rolled its lip.  there was the tattoo...maybe one of mine?

a fishing story

this came to me from jim harker.  please, jim, pardon the odd deletion.

"...here is a story about the best two days of fishing i ever had.  years ago my brother ed, rest his soul, and i owned a 20' grady white cuddy cabin with a 4 cylinder i/o that on a good day could run to the 40 fathom ledge off ocean city, md. on 45 gals. of fuel.  no sat nav, radar, gps, but with a vhs radio that could just about reach the guy in the boat at the end of the dock while in port.  our life raft was a fancified inner tube.  our tuna tower was standing on top of the cuddy holding on to the bow line.  no penn internationals ever came aboard.

men have no brains when it comes to fishing, and we were no exception.  40 miles plus to blue water and the weed line was our goal, albeit the weather had to be just right.  when the seas were 3-4 feet we pounded out our fillings trying to get out with the 40' posts and rybos.  it was worse on the way in when afternoon breezes were in our face[s] and there was a 3-4 hour run to the inlet.

there was one weekend however when the weather was good and gas was still cheap.  we headed out with a box of ballyhoo, a couple of large rigged squid and some home made teasers....that weekend we caught and released 17 white marlin and one small blue.  incredible.  at one point we had three fins in spitting distance.  chaos ensued.  oh to have known  how to throw a fly.  the last one we hooked came along side and i grabbed the bill to release it.  it stared up at me with a large dark eye as if to say what the hell are you doing.  after this we agreed that this was the last time we would target marlin....that was the best weekend [of] fishing i ever had.  now i mooch off younger brother john who has a 32' offshore fishing boat with every imaginable electronic device and piece of tackle.  the fishing is great but it will never be the same as in a small boat alone on a big ocean.  it was the adventure as much as the fishing."

from w.c. fields

"i always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case i see a snake, which i also keep handy."

a parrot's view

i had a friend who had a parrot.  when asked, innocently, "polly want a cracker?" the parrot would reply,    


                 "and you can fuck off too...."


not bad for a parrot.



  

        

quail and turtles

stiles adkins and i, together with mr. bun marvel and earl "dead bird" tingle used to hunt quail west of fenwick island back in the 1960s...we were pretty good at it because one year we killed 454 - all walked up over two dogs.  now, the 2000s, there are housing developments where we hunted...needless to say, the quail are gone.  miss althea, mr. bun's wife, was a meticulous house keeper.  one day, bun's idiotic nephew reckoned he'd had a great duck shoot and arrived at the back door with a peach basket full of what he thought were carcasses.  in the kitchen he unveiled his bag...of crippled coots which skittered all over the floor.  "what d'you think bun?" asked jack.  "finest bunch of malyards i ever saw," replied bun.  "but you'd better kill 'em."  miss althea's comments are not recorded. 

later in life i graduated to hunting quail on horseback behind wide coursing pointers.  not recommended unless you have very strong thighs...getting on and off a horse twenty times a day will tax even the strongest.

finally we began hunting out of jeeps...behind wide coursing pointers.  easier on the thighs and you could cover more ground.  the shooting was good but i often hearked back to the old days with bun, dead bird, and stiles when one could walk out the back door and start hunting.

which reminds me; our newspaper ran an article the other day on the stunning event - one that had never happened in recorded history...that a turtle, what sort i don't recall, had come ashore on a local beach to lay her eggs.  bullshit.  we used to walk around them in the fall while surf fishing when we were kids - has nobody got any sense of history or the enduring pull of nature?

for all you harried housewives

"there cannot be a crisis next week.  my schedule is already full."  henry a. kissinger







[with thanks to sally pollard]

sharks

the first serious shark encounter i had was on assateague island about forty five years ago.  i was surf fishing and moved from casting off the beach to standing on a partially exposed sand bar.  the tide was low and i had only to wade through knee deep water for about thirty feet to get to my new ankle deep casting platform.  when the incoming water got to my knees i turned to wade back.  the slough was now twice as wide as before - and twice as deep.  i looked north and saw a dorsal fin - a big one - making its way towards me, coursing back and forth, hunting.  the shark went by and as soon as it got far enough - i thought - down the beach i started ashore.  in the deeper water i tried not to splash too much but before i could get far the shark turned, heading back towards me.  i retreated to the relative shallows of the bar.  i spent ten anxious minutes before the fish - eight or ten feet long, i could see it clearly as it went by - finally turned to deeper water and i splashed, half swimming, to the beach.  that shark, though sizeable, was probably a, relatively, harmless sandbar type unlike the similarly large bull shark andy smith and i saw one day in the middle bight of andros. that dark fellow was following four tarpon.  no chance for one of you, i thought, shivering slightly.  a bull shark is a serious beast.  andy had warned me when i wanted to jump overboard earlier.  "no, man.  not here.  bulls here."

the biggest shark i ever saw was a great hammerhead in the marquesas, west of key west.  he was also tarpon hunting.  that's how we spotted him -  far off splashes as he chased his prey.   when we finally caught up with  him he looked as big as the skiff - fifteen feet, maybe more - as he swept away, irritated i'm sure at our intrusion.

arno matthee and i had an encounter in the seychelles - this time with a pack of six little lemon sharks.  we were wading back to the boat and he was dragging a deceased, small blue trevally that we planned to turn into sushi.  he'd  lopped the tail off to bleed it out and the sharks had come calling.  they were all about three feet long and scattered when we false charged them.  lemons can be aggressive  but these guys were pretty laid back just like their three sleeping cousins harlan and i discovered on the edge of jewfish basin one calm lovely day several years ago.  i tossed a shark puff beyond them and it drifted down under their noses.  nobody moved but the fly disappeared.  when i struck all hell broke loose.  i'd hooked the largest and all three took off like freight trains.  at about a hundred yards my fish stopped and i thought i had a chance.  harlan ran the boat while i reeled furiously. the big fellow shook his head and popped the leader.  fortunately i got the fly line back.

the last shark tale i'll tell today involved a playboy bunny....i was coming back from key west, in transit from the miami commuter terminal to the main one on a little bus.  sitting across from me were two middle aged guys and a spectacularly beautiful young girl.  we chatted and they revealed they'd been on a photo shoot for playboy magazine.  one guy nodded at my shin which carried a long ugly wound, only half healed.  "what happened," he asked.  "shark," i replied.  to my complete surprise - it was a total lie - he turned to his companions.  "see.  i told you so."  the girl looked at me wide eyed.  i winked.

money

"when you owe the bank a dollar it's your problem...when you owe a million dollars it's the bank's."





[attributed to donald trump]

beetle

we've got this orange cat...we call him beetle.  he's a wild bastard [which i love] and a great mouser [which i love].  he started out in life as cecil because of where he came from - cecil county, maryland - but quickly became beetle - why, i don't know.  anyway, he's - in my experience and i've had some - very leopard-like.  singular, aloof and not very friendly.  his owners warned us his father was feral and he carries that trait rather well but he sits in my lap contentedly and lets me - allows me to - scratch his ears.  the other night - prowling - he got hit by a great horned owl.  the fight was loud, intense, and brief, but he managed to escape...in part because he's so big - 20 pounds or more.  god only knows what the owl was thinking.  i saw the owl the next morning, sitting on the peak of our neighbor's roof.  he seemed none the worse for wear.  to finish with beetle's adventures for the moment - we live in a small neighborhood.  there are several dogs.  they all, except for our puppy, give beetle a wide berth.  they are wise.