tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17713830145824455052024-02-07T14:26:41.529-08:00Sure Happy It's Thursday or S.H.I.T. I say.Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-12003540673446827042019-10-03T17:43:00.002-07:002019-10-03T17:47:48.695-07:00 2019 Telly Award Winner<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
Feature films have the Oscar. Television has the Emmy. </div>
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Films straight to DVD have the Telly.</div>
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This is the 2019 People’s Choice Award presented to us from several thousand entries. The script was co-written by my daughter Victoria, and my other daughter Colleen was also a co-producer and received her own Telly. I’m proud of both of them. </div>
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The awards are on display at </div>
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Steampunks in Downtown Barnesville, GA. </div>
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<br />Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-10012762812565900372019-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:002019-09-14T08:08:26.513-07:00BETTER CRIMINALS AND BETTER VICTIMS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">...whut..?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><u>BETTER CRIMINALS AND BETTER VICTIMS</u><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In case you haven’t noticed or been paying attention, I live in a small town. Not just a small town but a small town in Georgia. Now that in itself probably brings up some mental images depending on where you live or the books and movies you’ve seen. To set the record straight, I haven’t always lived in small town Georgia. I’ve lived in San Francisco, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, and the Washington, DC area several times. I don’t even count the other garden spots the Army has sent me. Leesville, Louisiana, Killeen, Texas, Fayetteville, NC, Anniston, Alabama and Columbus, Georgia, also several times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This brings me to the point of this blog. It’s not a travelogue, but an observation on living in a small town. We have a weekly newspaper because we don’t have enough news to publish one every day. I really…really love the newspaper. We’ve got a great columnist and the publisher and I play poker occasionally, but the thing I enjoy most is the police reports.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The paper breaks down the crimes in the county by those handled by the city police and the sheriff’s office. This ain’t Chicago but we do have our share of crimes and criminals. For instance, this week the city police handled 376 calls. Those calls resulted in 74 major crimes. Major, you say. Everything is relative. Somebody actually had less than an ounce of marijuana. Somebody else was driving without a tag and another person changed lanes without using his signal…or his arm depending on the age of the car and the driver. Now to the serious stuff. We had 13 speeders, eight “hands free” law violations. Were they driving Teslas? Maybe they were trying to drive with their knees…”Hey, y’all hold my beer and watch this.” And my favorite that I’m still trying to figure out…”one laying drag.” Now we’re a small town and I suppose there may be one or two in the county, but where would you…never mind. Let’s move on to the Sheriff’s report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">A man was going 85 in a 55 zone. Sheriff lit him up and he took off finally turning into a driveway. Report said he was “extremely intoxicated”, claimed he was in his own driveway and if the deputy would just let him or help him into his house, he’d forget the entire episode. The deputy had no sense of humor and the man spent the night as guest of the county.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Sheriff was called to the home of two brothers who evidently had been to the same place as the above gentleman and had consumed far too many adult beverages were doing batting practice on each other with baseball bats.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Then there was the lady who threatened a deputy and told him he was a worthless piece of humanity for attempting to arrest her for destroying her boyfriend’s tractor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We get a lot of loose cattle, dogs chasing chickens and occasionally someone dispatching a dog to that great doghouse in the sky for said crime. People really take that one personal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">As a writer the report is the equivalent of a gold mine for me. I can’t make some of this up even at 3 AM when the crazies come to call. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-12656320585030193242019-09-05T17:37:00.005-07:002019-09-05T17:37:34.955-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
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<u>WHEN FUNNY AIN’T </u><o:p></o:p></div>
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I was watching television recently and after running through all 6, 427 channels available and not finding anything that I really wanted to watch, I settled on a comedy special. The last one I saw was Jeff Dunham and it was one of the funniest hours I have spent in a long time. If you haven’t seen him, you owe it to yourself to do so. He is probably the best ventriloquist ever, with all due respect to Edgar Bergan and that other guy whose name I can’t remember right now but I probably will by the time I finish writing this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But this is not about ventriloquists. It’s about comedy or what passes for comedy now. I don’t remember the name of the comedian I was watching and it’s probably a good thing. I know I’m showing my age but ten minutes into the act I felt like I was in the men’s room at a gas station on a country road. After twenty six years in the Army…in the Infantry…I thought I had heard every form of profanity every devised by man and a few women. Boy, was I wrong. I have been known to peel the wallpaper with my language on occasion. I have always tried to watch it around my wife and my daughters and especially my mother who kept a switch on top of the refrigerator and would have had no problem using it if she heard me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I did a little searching on the Internet and came up with some old comedy routines that were popular “back in the day.” If you have ever heard it, I think you may agree that the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine has stood the test of time and may still be the funniest of all times.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Back in the early day of television and radio prior to that every show had to be “G” rated because you never knew who would be watching or listening. Radio transitioned to television and the only difference was that Grandma was watching and not listening and you didn’t want to embarrass her. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As an example, and with apologies to one of the pioneers of radio and television comedy, Red Skelton I found one of his routines. Take a look and see if it works today as it did…back then.<o:p></o:p></div>
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RED SKELTON’S RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT MARRIAGE<o:p></o:p></div>
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1. Two times a week we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food and<o:p></o:p></div>
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companionship. She goes on Tuesdays, I go on Fridays.<o:p></o:p></div>
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2. We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in California and mine is in Texas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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3. I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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4. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. “Somewhere I haven’t been in a long time,” she said. So I suggested the kitchen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.<o:p></o:p></div>
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6. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. She said, “There are too many gadgets, and no place to sit down.” So I bought her an electric chair.<o:p></o:p></div>
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7. My wife told me the car wasn’t running well because there was water in the carburetor. I asked where the car was. She told me, “In the lake.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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8. She got a mud pack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.<o:p></o:p></div>
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9. She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, “Am I too late for the garbage?” The driver said, “No,<o:p></o:p></div>
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jump in!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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10. Remember: Marriage is the number one cause of divorce.<o:p></o:p></div>
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11. I married Miss Right. I just didn’t know her first name was “Always”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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12. I haven’t spoken to my wife in 18 months. I don’t like to interrupt her.<o:p></o:p></div>
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13. The last fight was my fault though. My wife asked, “What’s on the TV??”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I said, “Dust!”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With my apologies to all the wives who read this….especially mine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It just hit me….Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-83921163959085597092019-08-30T13:16:00.001-07:002019-08-30T13:16:31.928-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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MIDNIGHT MUSINGS<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I try to go to bed around eleven at night. That means I go to sleep about an hour later. I can set my clock by the fact that I am going to wake up between three and three thirty. Four or five hours uninterrupted is the best I can hope for. There are a lot of reasons for that, but that’s not what I want to talk (write) about today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I want to discuss all those things that run rampant through my mind when I wake up. I try to wake up without my brain knowing I’m awake. If it knows, and it usually does, it goes off on some of the strangest tangents you can imagine. Or maybe you wouldn’t want to imagine some of the things that I think about at that time of the night/early morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">For the last few weeks, the topic has been things that I don’t understand or things that I question or those that generally just don’t make sense. At least to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Let me give you a few examples. Out of the blue or black as is were, one night I woke up and wondered how meat tenderizer knows when to stop working. Think about it. Put it on a tough piece of meat, it starts to tenderize it. Does cooking kill it? If not, does it tenderize your stomach?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Same thing for pre-shrunk pants, shirts and other pieces of clothing. How do they know my size? Is the shrinking stuff lying in wait for me to put the jeans on? Ah ha, the jean say. We are going to shrink some more, or oh (**&^)(&( we shrunk too much and now you can’t get in them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Ever go to a hotel or motel that costs more than $39.99 and up, double occupancy? Go in the bathroom and look at the toilet paper. The first sheet is folded into a little point. Who does that and why? Does the motel owner run an ad in the paper…help wanted. Must be adapt at folding toilet paper into little points. My theory is they do it to see if you actually use it. One of the things I always do before I leave is to refold the first sheet into the little point. It’s especially fun if you’ve been staying in the room for a few days and have wife/husband and kids with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">There are others, but I think you get the point. I don’t think I’m crazy or anything serious like that, but maybe the jury is still out on that verdict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">There is one more that I am actually hesitant to mention, but I really need some help with this one. If you know the answer, please let me know. It’s been at the top of what I call my “three a.m. creative thinking period.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Ready? Did Adam and Eve have a belly button? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-45918858240081314442019-08-23T10:16:00.002-07:002019-08-23T10:16:33.041-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
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<u>TWENTY SIX YEARS FROM THE DOOR</u><o:p></o:p></div>
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I almost forgot about a very important anniversary last week. Not a wedding or something common like that, but the day I was inducted into the US Army. August 15<sup>th</sup>back in the old days.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A friend of mine worked at the draft board and called to tell me she had pulled my name and sent me the “Greetings from your friends and neighbors” letter. I had three days to come up with an alternative. Viet Nam was raging and people were getting severely killed over there and I did not want to be one of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A friend of mine and I went to the Navy recruiting station. We walked in and there was a man sitting behind a desk reading a newspaper. We could see his hands but everything else was covered by the paper. After a minute and a ‘scuse me, he finally spoke. “Can I help you?” Newspaper still in place. “Uh, yes, we’re thinking about joining the Navy.” From behind the paper, “Got a college degree?” I stammered, “no sir, but…” Before I could finish telling him my outstanding qualifications, he simply said, “try the Marines next door. They’re taking anybody.” We left having never actually seen anything but his hands.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Being barely a high school graduate, I waited for the letter to drop and decided to join the Army the day before I got it. Better to choose an easy job than get stuck in the Infantry, the recruiter said. I don’t even remember what I selected. Probably something like sheet folding or mess kit repair or basket weaving, things that I later learned were just code words for “this idiot thinks he’s smarter than I am, so I’ll put him in the Infantry.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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After going through the physical and mental and a variety of other test at the induction center it was time to raise my right hand. Over 200 of us were herded into a large room and put in some sort of order. Those who had been in ROTC in high school (not me) knew how to stand and took great pride in doing so. Finally, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel came in, the door was closed and two VERY large Military Policemen stood in front of it. He took the podium and announced in a voice that could be heard in Moscow, said “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.” After he administered the oath, he leaned across the podium and in an equally loud voice said, “Now…if any of you sons of bitches think you ain’t in the Army because you didn’t repeat after me, just you try and walk out that door.” The man had a way with words.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It took twenty six years (in the Infantry…who knew) , two combat tours during Viet Nam, more separations, moves, schools, temporary deployments, good jobs, bad jobs, good people, bad people and memories for me, my wife and two daughters than any of us could have expected, and it was time to retire. <o:p></o:p></div>
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My boss, a two star general said he would read my retirement order and I refused to let him We had a very serious and adult, albeit, one-way conversation about how if I wasn’t retiring things would not be so good for me, etc. etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I asked a Marine Lieutenant Colonel in my office to read it. I explained why and I finally got to walk out that door.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-51103049279437690682019-08-15T14:48:00.003-07:002019-08-15T14:51:17.804-07:00I'm BAAACCCKKK....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHTmAgyaQQeJBBPvrg5oDdHOvmrMnuWttDpdEYA_u3fOdizT7f7Y0C3L3BzwDicj8tl2JWNHbKP4kmNd4z-ZknFmcrXFKXSbKliu0rHv6lR1T85mVcs0K4XpGiG95AL0BCK81U9FJSlwd/s1600/trashpanda.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="625" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHTmAgyaQQeJBBPvrg5oDdHOvmrMnuWttDpdEYA_u3fOdizT7f7Y0C3L3BzwDicj8tl2JWNHbKP4kmNd4z-ZknFmcrXFKXSbKliu0rHv6lR1T85mVcs0K4XpGiG95AL0BCK81U9FJSlwd/s320/trashpanda.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Trash Panda</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><u><b>I’M BAAACCCKKKK….</b></u></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been gone from this blog for several months. I have several excuses and even a few good reasons which I might share with you at a later date, but the important thing is that I’m back. I know you’ve missed me and if you haven’t please don’t tell me. Let me wallow in self-delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I think it was John Lennon or maybe Vladimir Lenin or somebody else who said, “Life is what happens when you have other plans.” If that’s the case, I have been living life to the fullest for the last few months. As I said, I won’t go into details but I will say that Emory Hospital in Atlanta has the worst food in their cafeteria that I have had in a long time. I think they do it for two reasons. First, if you have to eat there because you are visiting or have a loved one in the hospital, you will never visit again and take up a parking space that costs as much as a brain transplant or eating there will make you sick and they have a place for you. And did I mention the couch they have that if you are spending the night you are supposed to sleep on? I spent 26 years in the Infantry sleeping in some God-awful places, even spending one night in an open grave (another story for another time) and I slept better than I did on their couch. If the CIA got one of them they would never have to even consider waterboarding again. But that’s life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">And another thing. I have so many holes in my shoes from shooting myself in the foot that when it rains I almost drown. The latest hole you ask?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I attended a writer’s conference in Key West, Fl two years ago where I did a workshop. I couldn’t go this year, see above, but they sent me a nice email saying they were having a writing contest. The winner got a free conference, a trophy and most especially, a publishing contract. All you had to do was send in the first 750 words of a COMPLETED (there’s a reason for the caps) novel by a certain date. Like most writers, I have several versions of unpublished works, so I pulled one out, dusted off the first 750 and sent it in. Do you see where this is going yet? I didn’t hear anything by the deadline so I proceeded to forget about it…..until…email: Congratulations. You won third place etc. etc.…send us the rest of the novel so we can edit and publish it. The REST of the novel…but…but…I scrambled around for several day, cutting and pasting from the several drafts I had and sent them a publishable manuscript. My foot is just now healing from that gunshot. But I know I’ll do something like that again. It’s in my DNR. (see earlier blog).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Bottom line. I’m back and I’ll keep making mistakes, occasionally doing the right thing at the right time, dragging things up from the past, making observations and if everything else fails I’ll just make something up to keep the blog going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks for your interest and keep moving. It’s harder to hit a moving target…but not always.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">All Books Available @ </span><a href="http://amazon.com/author/paulsinor" style="border-bottom-color: rgba(0, 174, 239, 0.298039); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #00aeef; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: 3.4000000953674316px; padding-bottom: 0.05em; text-decoration: none; transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out, color 0.15s ease-out; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">amazon.com/author/paulsinor</a><br />
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Check out my Latest "That Old Black Magic" Available Now!</div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-59476325134059314132019-01-25T10:41:00.000-08:002019-01-25T10:41:05.445-08:00Not so HAPPY TRAILS<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We often hear the term, “the end of an era” used when someone dies or a television show ends or something like that happens. Recently, not only did an era end, but it passed away into private homes and museums forever. An icon for many Baby Boomers, Roy Rogers, died several years ago but his legacy lived, and lives on with movies and old black and white re-runs of his television series. Now his museum in Branson, Missouri has closed and all of the items associated with him, Dale Evans, Trigger, Bullet and even Nellie Bell have gone on the auction block.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">How popular was he? A pair of his boots sold for $11,000. A shirt with an embroidered Trigger went for $8,000. Trigger? Stuffed and sold for $266,000. Need his saddle? You could have gotten it for $386,000. Want ‘ol Bullet to run alongside Trigger? He went for $35,000. Even Nellie Bell’s tab was $116,000. Obviously, “gone but not forgotten” is true for Roy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I met him twice. Once at a reception in Los Angeles where I have a photo of me, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Tony Curtis (don’t ask) and a strange lady I never did identify. I also have a nice photo of me with Jimmy Stewart at the same reception. I happened to catch him coming back from the bar and he has a drink in both hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The best story about Roy is one I heard at the reception. All his career, Roy had worn cowboy boots and didn’t even own a pair of regular shoes. Dale wanted to surprise him for his birthday one year so she bought him a pair of custom made alligator leather shoes. They were not just ordinary ones but were designer specials with inlays of pearl and all sorts of other things to make them unique to Roy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The first time he wore them on their ranch in Victorville, CA, Roy saddled up Trigger, got Bullet and headed for a ride in the nearby mountains. Once he got to the foothills of the mountains, Trigger began to act funny and Roy sensed danger. It was soon revealed that a mountain lion was following him and his animals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When the big cat got close enough to spook Trigger, the animal reared up and threw Roy off the saddle and onto the ground. Without Roy to control him, Trigger ran away from the danger and headed back to the ranch. With a mountain lion on the hunt, no horse or dog and too far from home to make it back before dark, Roy sought refuge in an indentation in the rocks. He was able to slip almost all of his body in but his feet were exposed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">During the night, the mountain lion tried to pull Roy from his hiding place and in the process destroyed his new shoes. The next morning a rescue party found Roy, safe, but barefooted walking back to the ranch. He was picked up, checked out by a doctor and was fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">A week later, Roy came riding back into the ranch mounted on Trigger with a massive mountain lion, dead and draped across the back of the horse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When Dale saw them she said, “Pardon me, Roy. Is that the cat who chewed your new shoes?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-14969874433550871542019-01-18T07:47:00.005-08:002019-01-18T07:47:39.764-08:00Eh Braddah, Howzit?!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b style="background-position: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: “Poppins”, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Here comes Santa Clause…. again</b></div>
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There’s a great commercial on television about how we grow to be our parents. That’ll never happen to me, I said as I slipped on my Vans and into my yellow button up sweater. Unfortunately, it’s true in spite of all we can do to prevent it. We have picked up traits and habits that we didn’t realize until someone points them out. “You remind me so much of your crazy Uncle Herbert when you do that…” Or you see something and buy it because “my mother had one just like that and she loved it.” We may not use it or even need it, but we have it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One of the things my parents did…kids stop reading now….is to hide my Christmas presents all over the house. Of course, I spent a great deal of time trying to find them and sometimes I actually ran across one or two, but they were very good at it, or I didn’t get many gifts, so I never found them all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Which brings me to the point of this writing. Christmas Eve would come and no matter how old I was, I had to wait for Santa to bring the gifts and put them under the tree. The next morning after a completely sleepless night, I’d come to the tree and find that ‘ol Santa had, in fact come to my house with something other than a bag of coal and a sack of switches. (If I have to explain ask your grandparents). I once told my daughters he might do that if they weren’t good and they immediately got nicer for a few minutes and then asked me what “coal” was. It kinda lost its effect after that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Once all the gifts were unwrapped it was usually my mother who would ask if I had overlooked something. I’d check the discarded paper and boxes and assure her that there was nothing left. This is where it gets a little strange but hear me out. She was concerned because she knew she or my dad had bought something that they did not bring out. Why? They forgot where it was.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If it was something I had asked for but did not get, she came up with an ingenious idea one year. “You know ‘ol Santa has to deliver all over the world and he usually winds up in some place like Botsa Lumba where he takes a few weeks rest before heading back to the North Pole. He has a few gifts left over and for good little boys and girls, he’ll drop one off on the way back.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I believed it and it accomplished two things. It gave her time to find the thing she had lost, and she got another couple of weeks out of my being good in anticipation of Santa swinging by on his way north.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It worked for me and it worked on my girls and if you do it right, it’ll work for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go dig through my garage. There was this power drill I bought for my wife at the hardware store on Christmas Eve that I seem to have misplaced.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-37888422836069138902019-01-10T17:33:00.001-08:002019-01-10T17:33:17.785-08:00Weight…Weight…don’t tell me.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s the first of the new year and time to make changes. Make those New Year’s Resolutions that you never keep. Start getting all your income tax information together so you can file early this year in January…or March..or at midnight on April 14<sup>th</sup>. Plan the summer vacation well in advance so you can get reservations at that place you see advertised on television…free airfare…women in bikinis, men with six-pack abs, all you can drink….sorry. Sold out two years in advance.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For me, I decided to start an exercise program so I can lose a few pounds, regain the body I had when I was…was…younger…not so old…all of the above. I have been doing some research to find the best way to accomplish my goals and here’s where it gets a little hairy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I need a machine so I looked at the Bowflex. I saw an ad on television about it. Great looking women, sweaty men, none of them gasping for breath, so I checked it out. I figured if I’m going to go, I’ll go all the way. Top of the line. Get one with all the whistles and bells. It’s only $3,000 and I have to pay shipping.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Maybe I’ll do the old tried and true Nordic Track. A friend has one and swears by it. He put it in his bedroom and said he lost five pounds the first two weeks. The third week he needed a place to hang his jacket when he came home late so he temporarily placed it on the Nordic Track, which by the way, cost him $2,800.00. By the end of the first month, he found out he had a clothes rack that cost as much as a cruise to the Bahamas. Swear by it? Now he just swears at it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I had a great idea. If my excess weight was in the middle of my body, I could have it drop down by buying a Teeter Hang Up and letting gravity take over. That little idea cost me $500.00.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Enough with the machines. It stands to reason that if you burn more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Just pick the right foods and I’m not good at that or I wouldn’t be looking at things that turn me upside down, so I went for the diet plans. Found a new one called Golo. Weight loss in a bottle. Six month supply for only $60.00 a bottle for each month. I seriously considered it until I went to the website and saw five pages of instructions and warnings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Enough of this nonsense. I want to make it happen so I went to Nutrisystem. If it’s good enough for Marie, it’s gotta be good for everyone. Only $425.00 per month but I got a week’s worth of “free” shakes. If I combine that one with the South Beach Diet…I didn’t really consider the diet at $360.00 per month but I really like watching Jessi James Decker on the beach.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All of them advise checking with your doctor before you go on any diet or exercise program. For once I followed their advice and talked to my doctor. He had the best advice I have ever gotten. He said he wanted me to “watch my waistline.” I am now in complete compliance. All I have to do is look down and I can see it and watch it anytime I want to. It’s right there for me to see. I’m just glad I didn’t go to my podiatrist and he told me to watch my feet.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-23937415418259054622018-12-28T17:59:00.002-08:002018-12-28T17:59:30.767-08:00Black and White Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you’ve been paying attention since I’ve been writing this blog, you know a lot about me. You know I’m married. I’m a published novelist (available on Amazon or B&N), a produced screenwriter and I taught screenwriting at the University of West Florida when I lived in Pensacola. You also know I’m a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and did two combat tours during Viet Nam. So, what’s you point, you ask? I’m getting to that. You also may recall from other blogs that I don’t sleep a lot at night which means I look at a lot of really bad…I mean REALLY bad television between midnight and six am.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My grandson once asked me if I was born during black and white days. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about or how to answer until I realized we were watching an old cowboy movie on television and it was in black and white. I’m just happy the movie had sound, so he didn’t ask if I was born during the silent era, but I digress.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I hadn’t thought about it much until lately. I love old movies and many of them are from the black and white era. I can’t imagine Casablanca or some of the early Hitchcock films in color. We know Rick wore a white dinner jacket in the film and we know the Maltese Falcon was black but do we need to know what color hat Ilsa wore? The blood was red on the knife in Psycho, but black did the trick when it scared us to death at the time. No need for color.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I started thinking the other night/early morning. How many black and white movies or television series are still available to be seen? A not so quick scan said I could watch an episode of The Lone Ranger from 1949. No, that’s not a mistake. I didn’t even know there was television in 1949. How about an episode of Dragnet from 1951? Just the facts, Ma’am, just the facts. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Andy Griffith? More episodes than you can watch in one night. Whatever your favorite show or the one you have heard your parents, or heaven forbid, your grandparents talk about…”they don’t make ‘em like that anymore”…is on some cable channel someplace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And now the granddaddy or grandmother of them all: I Love Lucy. Every episode ever written, filmed or produced is playing someplace right now. To set the record straight. I am not a fan of Lucy. It gets even worse. I think people who commit treason or crimes against small children or ding my car door with theirs in the parking lot should be placed in a room with nothing but a straight back, wooden chair and be forced to watch reruns of old I Love Lucy programs 24/7.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I thought that was the worst punishment a person could undergo until last week. It was about 3 am and I was flipping channels in a half sleep/half wake mode when I hit stop on my remote. “This sounds interesting” I said to myself. I’ve seen a lot in my life, much of it not so good and I don’t like to talk about it, but this one trumped everything I had ever seen. Living color. Full sound. No beating around the bush. It was right out there for everyone to see and she was proud of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Doctor Pimple Popper has taken the lead over Lucy and I may never change channels again without being damn sure of what’s on the other side of the remote.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-67524062225161231712018-12-21T06:19:00.002-08:002018-12-21T06:19:30.482-08:00CHRISTMAS CARD, OH, CHRISTMAS CARD<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s that time of the year again, and I’m ready. Sorta. Kinda. My tree is up. My lights are on. My balls are hung, uh, you know what I mean…my stocking is ready to be filled, the gifts are wrapped and beneath the tree, and there is some Christmassy stuff in the front yard. All that has been ready for weeks. The only thing left was the annual mailing of Christmas cards. Therein lies the problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For years when I was growing up and we got Christmas cards at home, my mother very carefully opened them, read every word, saved the envelopes and taped the cards to the doorway leading from the living room to the dining room. She never questioned the motive behind the card. It was Christmas. A card. From a friend or family member. Deck the halls…or the door.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But now, all of that has changed. Back then she went to a store, bought a box of cards, pulled out her address book and the cards from last year to make sure she didn’t miss anyone and she mailed out cards. Not any more.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now when we pick out cards we have to be sensitive. Politically correct. Conscious of others feelings. Instead of a box of cards, we have to be aware of the message, the cover, the sentiments and what is wished. Can’t send a Christian card to a friend who is Jewish. That I understand and we have some cards that wish the recipient a Happy Holiday so they can pick the one it relates to for them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After a career in the Army and moves all over the place and more schools for my two daughters than I can remember, and a wife who is from England with relatives all over the world, for years at Christmas time our mailbox looked like a mail drop for the United Nations. The cards had stamps from countries all over the world. One friend who worked for a government agency known only by their three initials, always had a return address in Washington, DC no matter where they were in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This year when we did our Christmas cards my wife put then into a stack and told me to take them to the post office. The rest of the directions were lost on me, evidently. I went to the post office, saw a line around the block and decided to just drop them in a nearby post box and go home. On the way I called home for some unknown reason and my wife asked if I got stamps for the cards going to England, Australia and New Zealand? Oops…Have you ever gone in a post office at Christmas time, waited in line for an hour, got to the window and asked if they could go empty one of their boxes so I could get my cards and buy stamps for them? If you do, you will find that the Christmas spirit, like Elvis has left the building. While they were digging through the box, my wife called and told me I did not pick up the stack needing stamps so I didn’t have to go through the box. Christmas or not, I was told to never come back.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In case you’re in the same quandary with regard to what cards to send to whom, I have a great suggestion. Do what I do. For my friends who celebrate in ways at times I don’t understand, like my Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, Cao Dai, Hoa Hoa, and others, I address a very nice envelope, put their name on it with a non-offensive stamp and leave the envelope empty. Let them figure out what the card would have said if I had sent it.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-6426618417326142722018-12-15T06:05:00.003-08:002018-12-15T06:05:24.703-08:00Remember When…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It seems this time of year is defined by the music we hear. It’s on the radio and television commercials use Christmas songs as background music or as a way to sell the consumer everything from cars and exercise equipment to catheters and incontinence supplies delivered discretely to you home and charged to Medicare. The songs are supposed to remind us of times past, or friends, or places or something pleasant so we are in the mood to spend money.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That got me to thinking. I don’t sleep much and I’m usually awake around 3am. I may go back to sleep around the time I need to get up, but from 3 to 6 I do what I call my “creative thinking.” This is when I remodel my bathroom, tell that guy at the grocery store back in 1973 what he could have done with that cart he thought I hit his car with and important things like that…or…I watch television. Have you ever watched TV at 3am? I have every cable channel known to man and the best I can do is fifty channels selling me everything from oil-less fryers, to cosmetics guaranteed to eliminate wrinkles to a course on how to make a million dollars in the stock market. If I don’t watch those, and I’m lucky there is an NPR station showing an old rock and roll review between pitches for a fifteen CD set of all of their music, or a CW series or Celtic or Soul or some other decade of music. Now to the point of this. I knew you were waiting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Those songs immediately bring back memories for me. I didn’t realize how much of my life was tied to a song. I hear one and I go back to the memory that song evokes, and I’ll bet it happens for you as well. What song reminds you of your first love? How about the one when you realized he/she didn’t love you as much as you thought? My parents were the Great Depression and WWII generation and when they heard an old song on the radio or the Lawrence Welk Show (not me…they watched it, I just suffered through it) they would always comment about “remember when…” and it was usually a pleasant memory unless it was a popular tune during the war and was a favorite of a long lost friend.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What did you listen to in high school? College? What did you dance to at your first prom? That song you played on your record player, 8 track, cassette player or CD when you and he/she always…fill in the blank.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For me, and I’ll bet two songs that have a universal meaning for anyone who served in Viet Nam. They were almost as popular as the National Anthem. It didn’t matter if we heard it on AFVN, on somebody’s cassette player or from a band with singers who could barely pronounce the words, when WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE IF IT’S THE LAST THING WE EVER DO, or I WANNA GO HOME came on we stood, yelled, sang along and generally made fools of ourselves, but we meant every word of it. Most of us got out of that place, and got home but many didn’t and those songs will always remind me of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My good friend Lieutenant Bill….was a Charlie Pride fan and drove us nuts playing his songs all the time. Bill was captured alive one day and when the prisoners came home I looked for him. I scanned the names of those who had died in captivity. He wasn’t on either list. Someday, I hope and pray that he gets to GET OUTTA THAT PLACE…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-32063030405816444182018-12-07T10:47:00.004-08:002018-12-07T10:47:40.445-08:00A Christmas Secret<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For anyone who was ever in the military from 1941 through 1990, one of the highlights of the Christmas season was the possibility to a visit by Bob Hope and his USO troupe to your base. He started stateside in California in 1941 and from then until his last trip in 1990 he brought a little bit of home to the troops in some of the most desolate places on earth during each war or conflict where they were deployed.</div>
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<br />He did shows on aircraft carrier decks, in open fields at army bases and in rear areas. He was always accompanied by several other entertainers and most important to the thousands of men, (my apologies to any lady who reads this) a couple of beautiful female dancers, singers or perhaps those with no talent who just looked good. The shows were free, open seating, no pulling rank to get a front seat, however if he was at or near a hospital you could always find a row or two of wheelchair and other medical devices down front.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I never got to see a show in person, but I did hear two of them live on a radio during Viet Nam. In 1968 I was on a four day patrol and at the designated time, we were just setting up an ambush site when he came on the radio. I turned our PRC 25 (if you have to ask….) to the right frequency and listened for a few minutes until it got to be too dangerous to have him on the radio and not have it on the right frequency. My RTO (see above) wanted to listen through a set of headphones but since I was a Lieutenant and he wasn’t, I won.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The next time I got close to a Bob Hope Christmas show was in 1970. I was in the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam and got called in to our Corps Headquarters for a Top Secret briefing. I had no idea what it was about. We’re invading North Viet Nam? Cambodia? It’s over? The President was coming to town? Nothing as mundane as that. We were required to show our identification cards, secured in a briefing room, and waited for a 2 star general to arrive. Once he came in, his briefing officer put a slide on the overhead projector (again, see above) and the TS briefing began. We were being given Bob Hope’s itinerary and travel route. Five days later, a helicopter flew over our outpost at the end of the world in the Delta and the pilot informed me that he had Bob Hope on board. Hope had a call sign which I can’t remember now, but he did not use his name for security purposes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Years later, I had to pleasure of meeting him in Los Angeles and he was a genuine gentleman in every sense of the word. The reason for this trip down amnesia lane? Today was an incredibly powerful day as President George H.W. Bush was laid to rest. I not only met but I worked for 41 in Washington, DC. As I watched the funeral, it was hard not to get emotional and I thought of the Bob Hope show. He always ended his show with Silent Night. To this day I can’t hear that song without a tear in my eye.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No joke. No cute ending here. Just a fond memory and a fond farewell to two icons. <o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-45697090053258179642018-12-01T06:09:00.001-08:002018-12-01T06:09:32.357-08:00They’rrreee Herree<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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They’rrreee Herree<o:p></o:p></div>
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Every generation is told the one behind them is the future and in most cases that future generation has been looked on with great pride and anticipation of their taking over and doing a better job than the one they replace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No matter how old you are or what your generation is called, you and unfortunately I, are on our way out. We are going to turn things over to those behind us whether we like it or not. We see on the news how the country and the world is shifting. The direction its shifting depends on your political view. It’s happening all over the world and not just here in the US of A.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Okay, I’m off the soap box now and getting to the point of this blog. I have mentioned it in the past, but a quick review. (There will be a test at some point) I have been teaching at the college level for several years in Washington, Florida and now here in Georgia. My class has always been a writing class, either screenwriting or fiction. The students have ranged from entering freshmen, a few high schoolers who were dual enrolled and a couple of graduate students over the years. Based on this I feel I have a good handle on the upcoming generation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the University of West Florida, I taught a course called Writing for Television, Film and Radio. Notice the first word in the description? That will make sense in a minute. The name of the class was in the school catalog, on the door to the classroom and on the syllabus I handed out during the first meeting. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Wait….do I see a hand in the back of the room? Young man sitting back there on the very first day of class. “Uh, ‘scuse me but will there be any WRITING requirements in this class?” Let that sink in for a second. My smart-ass response? “You’re in analytical geometric algebraic geography. How much writing do you think you will have to do?” “But..but…it say’s right here that this is a television and film class?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two weeks later this same individual handed in his first writing assignment. I brought all the papers home to read and grade. When I got to his…well…my 12 year old granddaughter was doing her homework alongside her 7 year old brother at the kitchen table. I handed the paper to her to read. Her response? “Papa, when did Logan learn how to type?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Moving right along to the present. I went to a local supermarket last week to get a few things. When I got to the cashier, it was a young lady I recognized from a class next to mine where I now teach. We exchanged pleasantries and when she totaled the order, I said I wanted $20.00 back. “I’d like two tens’ please.” She looked in the drawer. “Sorry, but I don’t have any tens.” I’m not hard to please, so I said, “Okay, just give me a thirteen and a seven.” Wait…wait…it gets better…She looked in the drawer and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a thirteen. Do they really make them?” There is a small branch bank in the store, so I suggested she go to the bank and ask them for one. In the meantime, I said, “Just give me a sixteen and a four.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I didn’t realize the manage was standing nearby and heard the conversation. “Sir, if you need specific change, please ask for it at the bank.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I stopped by an adult beverage store on the way home, bought a bottle and paid for it with a brand new fourteen dollar bill. <o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-20940751116072736772018-11-17T09:43:00.004-08:002018-11-17T09:43:32.688-08:00Remember When We Had No Choices?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Remember When We Had No Choices?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I went to the grocery store yesterday and I was completely confused and it bothered me. I just needed a few simple, or so I thought, things. We were out of milk, eggs, soft drinks, mustard and I thought I’d reward myself with a small bag of candy and a cup of coffee from the Starbucks stand in the store.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I didn’t realize you can’t just buy a quart of milk, a dozen eggs, a carton of Cokes, a jar of mustard and a bag of M&M’s without it taking at least an hour and that doesn’t count standing in line to check out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">When I got to the milk case, I wanted a quart of milk. I didn’t want to decide between 2%, 4%, Skim, Low Fat, Non Fat, Organic in each of these varieties, whole, soy or almond. This didn’t count the choices from free range cows. Do some cows have to pay for their range? I grabbed the one with the longest expiration date, and headed for the dairy case for eggs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Eggs? Brown? White? Organic? Free range (they should get with the cow and make a deal) Dozen? Eighteen? None of them had a picture of a chicken on the carton which made me suspicious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Two hundred feet of soft drinks on one aisle. Bottles or cans? Big bottles or small ones? Glass or plastic? I just wanted a six pack of Cokes but…Coke Zero, Diet, Diet with Lime/Lemon/Splenda, how about made in Mexico. Twelve pack? Twenty pack? I ran to the mustard aisle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I felt like I was in the movie Groundhog Day. Yellow mustard. Brown mustard. Spicy mustard. Mustard with horseradish, Grey Poupon, jars, squirt bottles and best of all: Stone ground. I pictured two people with rocks grinding little mustards into a yellow paste.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">By this time my blood sugar was in the toilet, and I won’t even talk about toilet paper, so I went to the candy aisle for my M&M’s. I give up. When M&M’s added peanuts, I thought it was the first sign of the Apocalypse. Now with all the choices, who knows<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I finally got to the check-out line. Self? Less than 10? More than 25? Alcohol and cigarette in a special, over 21 line and don’t try to fool us because we make you show your ID if you look under 97. And speaking of cigarettes. My dad smoked Camels. Just plain, non-offensive, middle of the road, Camels. At my store there are twelve types of Camels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">After I got a cup of coffee…don’t even go there, I went home and dropped on the sofa and told my wife that I wanted to relax and watch some television. Gracious lady that she is, she offered to turn it on for me. Did I want to watch, local, network, cable, HBO, Showtime, Skinamax, music channel, Hispanic, Korean, or what?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I gave up and decided that it was time for me to go, so I thought I’d just shoot myself. Then I couldn’t decide if I wanted to use my .45, my 40, 38, shotgun, deer rifle, that little 22 I won in a poker game or….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-58170106501280247782018-10-28T16:53:00.002-07:002018-10-28T16:53:36.130-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
Thank You </div>
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Royal Tea Pot</div>
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For allowing us to host our book signing party today!</div>
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And Thank You All Who Came Out and Supported Us!</div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-12156776813311313742018-10-23T09:26:00.002-07:002018-10-23T09:26:39.315-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b>BOOK RELEASE PARTY </b></div>
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SUNDAY 28<sup>TH</sup>OCTOBER 2018 FROM 2-4 PM<o:p></o:p></div>
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JOIN US AT </div>
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THE ROYAL TEA POT </div>
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207 A MAIN ST BARNESVILLE GA<o:p></o:p></div>
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770-371-6548</div>
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FOR THE RELEASE OF PAUL SINOR’S LATEST MYSTERY NOVEL </div>
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<i><b>LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY</b></i><o:p></o:p></div>
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PURCHASE ANY BOOK AND RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF </div>
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<i><b>WRATH OF THE DIXIE MAFIA </b></i></div>
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WHILE SUPPLIES LAST<o:p></o:p></div>
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LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED<o:p></o:p></div>
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PLEASE RSVP IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND<o:p></o:p></div>
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The biggest secret of World War Two may be about to be revealed…totally by accident. If the truth gets out, history may have to be re-written, counties may go to war, allies may become enemies and lives will be lost. One of them is Max Maxwell and he is not happy about it. He stumbled on the secret when his uncle, a WWII veteran dies and Max and his brother go through his belongings. From that day on the fuse is lit and there is enough explosives to destroy Max and everything he holds near and dear. He finds out what the United States government will do to keep a secret and how far it will go to destroy one who can reveal it!<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-28453193120243820192018-10-18T10:44:00.001-07:002018-10-18T10:44:22.351-07:00Profound Profanity: Beware the Fireman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCf5o9rWTspjWxJ0xZcjB3zCaYBm1nQsQQBvthKYr5AUsGKaM4eMO64i1N7K1j0af2AapyOEc8wjvDbfDTM9XC4JjVJ2K2LGjCG9nkz6lmi2LlvMIRwd_oI-W0XH7fvxpVUdFvUkKphpVO/s1600/fahrenheit_451_by_zetsubouzed-d7cknox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="781" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCf5o9rWTspjWxJ0xZcjB3zCaYBm1nQsQQBvthKYr5AUsGKaM4eMO64i1N7K1j0af2AapyOEc8wjvDbfDTM9XC4JjVJ2K2LGjCG9nkz6lmi2LlvMIRwd_oI-W0XH7fvxpVUdFvUkKphpVO/s320/fahrenheit_451_by_zetsubouzed-d7cknox.jpg" width="244" /></a></div>
What Temperature do your books burn at?<br />
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I started writing this blog for several reasons. I had written a newspaper column in the past and I liked having to work against a deadline, so that was a part of my decision to gear the blog to a certain day, thus the title Sure Happy It’s Thursday, or the initials. I obviously realized there was a word in the title that some might find offensive, but certainly not my fellow writers. I was wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a writer, naturally I want as many people as possible to know about my books and I use the blog to do it. I also belong to a number of writer’s groups, some of which meet and some are only on line, at least for me. I always send a link to the latest blog to all of these sites as well as other groups like my old high schools, family and others.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This week I was told not to send my blog to a particular group of writers in Georgia because my title included profanity. If this had been a children’s book group or a religious one, I might have understood a little better, but this was not the case. This was a group (so I thought) that was open to writers of all genres. In today’s world I find it hard to believe that any writer who is true to his or her characters can do so without having some profanity, at least by this group’s standards in the manuscript.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When my first novel came out I was very proud and sent copies to several friends and family to include my mother. I was on active duty at the time and I always tried to call her every Sunday afternoon because I knew she would be at her sister’s house for a family dinner. After having my book for about a month, I broached the subject in the phone call. “So, mama, how did you like my book?” Dead silence for a looong time. “Where did you learn to talk like that?” she asked. I tried to explain that it was my character speaking and not me. Nice try, but it didn’t work. “You never talked that way around me,” was her final shot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, I never did, nor would I ever talk like that around my mother, but times have changed and today kids use language that would have caused a WWII veteran to blush. If you’re writing a scene where a man hits his thumb with a hammer, I doubt your editor is going to let you get away with him saying, “Oh, gosh, golly gee whiz that hurts!” I know the last time I slammed my finger in a door, I embarrassed everyone within hearing range.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m going to get off my soap box in a minute, but I do want to make a point since I plan to send this to several writer’s groups. Be true, not only to your characters but to yourself as well. If your character needs to say something that may offend a reader, if it is appropriate to the person and the situation, go for it. I’ll bet the reader’s eyes can skip over a word or two if they don’t like it. And if you get thrown out of a writer’s group, let me know and we’ll form our own.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Bottom line, if we can have TGIF, we can have SHIT. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-11620542188166829792018-10-12T11:53:00.004-07:002018-10-12T11:53:45.012-07:00The SKY is FALLING....FFFFAAAALLLLLIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!!<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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Go Navy..no, really…Goooo Navy<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s autumn and that means all kinds of good things depending on where you live. Some things are universal like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the most famous of all FOOTBALL SATURDAYS. No matter what city or state you live in, crowds gather at the stadium, a favorite sports bar or a living room to watch The Game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Watching the game is a ritual just as surely as preparing for any of the aforementioned holidays. Going to the game at the stadium? You have to put on a silly hat or other garment, paint your entire body the team’s colors and make a fool of yourself if the camera happens to catch you during the game. But wait. There’s more. What about the hours before the gates open for you to go to your seat? Did you drive your multi-gazillion dollar motor home to the parking lot, pull out your custom made gas grill that resembles a football, locomotive, team mascot or some other custom item that cost multi-dollars? Doesn’t matter if you went to the school or not. You are a rabid fan. The school, the vendors, the hat, tee-shirt, jersey, cap and banner salesmen love you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But what about those who can’t attend the game or can’t even watch it live on television? I’m talking about the men and women in uniform. With apologies to those in boots now, I’m mostly talking about those of us who were in Viet Nam. We could occasionally hear a game on AFVN, the Armed Forces Viet Nam radio network, but they were mostly professional games. If you wanted to know a score or anything about your college it came the next day on a news broadcast. There was one exception and that was the annual Army/Navy football game.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In some of the more civilized places where the military was stationed, not only in Viet Nam but world-wide, it was broadcast live on the radio. Officer’s clubs throughout the world filled, depending on the local time zone. A note here. Nobody in uniform wanted to start drinking before the day began and always stopped at midnight so they would be ready for the next day, but I digress as I sometimes do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I think of autumn, I remember a particular Saturday when I was in Viet Nam. I was an Advisor to a local Vietnamese unit and lived on an outpost with my five man team. We were on an operation and heard the sound of a plane approaching. We looked up and saw what was known as a Black Pony. This was a type of aircraft that was used for bombing missions in our area. We usually knew when a mission was scheduled so I did not pay much attention to the plane until it began to fly lower over us. My fear was that the pilot thought we were the bad guys and would drop a bomb on us. If it was a planned mission they usually made a pass, dropped leaflets telling the locals to hunker down and giving the bad guy time to unass the area. They would then follow up in short order with bombs, not giving either group time to comply.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As he passed over us, it looked like a snowstorm as leaflets floated to the ground. We knew what was coming, so I told my sergeant to get on the radio and let them know we were friendlies…at least until he made the bombing run then we would take it personal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While he was trying to reach the Navy who flew the Black Pony’s, I managed to grab one of the leaflets. Normally they were only printed in Vietnamese, but occasionally they also included an English translation. The one I held needed no translation. As I read it, the plane did a wing-waggle and flew away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was holding a leaflet that said GO NAVY! BEAT ARMY. The plane left before we could shoot it down.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-22479138363350536072018-10-04T14:33:00.000-07:002018-10-04T14:41:48.732-07:00Cats or Dogs?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I think when a person is born, there are certain things that come with the turf. You can’t pick your parents or where you were born for instance. I also think there should be some things written on the bottom of your birth certificate that will follow you all through your life. When my daughters were little and one, or both of them complained about something not being “fair” I always told them to go get a copy of their birth certificates and show me the word “fair” on it. It if was there, I’d make the problem go away. If not, suck it up. Take a knee and rub some dirt on it. No, I didn’t say that to them, but they got the idea.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I also think there should be some blank lines on the bottom to put things that we learn as we go through life. Like: Johnny is a dog person. Mary is a cat person. Bill supports the University of Tennessee. Charlie is a Georgia Bulldog fan. These are things we can’t escape and probably can never change. There are some unwritten rules that say you can’t like cats if you like dogs. Ever hear of a Georgia fan who also liked Georgia Tech? How about Alabama and Auburn? Ever go to a restaurant and have to decide between quiche and turnip greens? Ain’t gonna happen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just so you don’t have to ask, I’m a dog person. I never owned a cat and I don’t think I ever will. My wife and daughters love cats and I have been forced to share my home with a variety of cats over the years. Some I tolerated better than others, but I never really like a single one. My first pet was a black, non-offensive, middle of the road kind of mutt named Teddy. As an only child, (me...not Teddy) he was my best friend. We lived in the country on a dirt road and Teddy and I had more woods and creeks to play in than you can imagine, and we made the most of all of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One day my Dad said we were moving to Florida from Georgia and I couldn’t take Teddy. This was not acceptable, and we made plans to run away. I decided we could join the Foreign Legion because there was a building just down the road from us where they met. They had dances every weekend and a fish fry twice a year. I felt certain they could use a smart ten-year-old and his faithful dog. Before we could pack a bag and hit the road, my Uncle said he’d “keep Teddy for me until I came back to get him.” I knew that was the best deal I could get, so I watched as they drove off with Teddy hanging his head out of the car window looking back to our house…and his.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two years later we moved back to Georgia and I went to get Teddy, but there was a complication. He had found a new home, but he had not forgotten me. He jumped all over me the first time he saw me, but it was not the same. I think there was something written on the bottom of his birth certificate that said, “you can never go back,” and he shared that with me. Teddy lived several more years in his new home and my Uncle and his family cried when he left them. He would have liked that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As for cats, now as I tell my good friends, Pat and Ken (who is recuperating from a heart attack) I love cats. I just can’t eat a whole one by myself.<o:p></o:p><br />
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FYI!<br />
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Paul will be signing books at Wall of Books in Columbus, Ga. on Saturday October 6th from 1pm to 4pm! </div>
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Located at 4508 Armour Rd. Columbus, Ga. 31904</div>
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<a href="http://www.wallsofbooks.net/" target="_blank">http://www.wallsofbooks.net</a></div>
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Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-40662936536592433652018-09-27T09:00:00.002-07:002018-09-27T09:00:50.305-07:00War Stories and Fairy Tales<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you’ve been reading these blogs and paying attention (there will be an unannounced test one day) you know I am a retired Army officer. After I retired, or more accurately, shortly before I did, I started on my second career as a writer. By the time I retired I had written over one hundred short stories and magazine articles and one novel. To be more exact, not only had I written all of those but they had been published and most had been in paying markets, so I knew what I was getting myself into when I decided I wanted to be a writer when I grew up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a part of this career, I have taught at three different colleges and I speak at, or do workshops at several writer’s conferences every year. That brings me to the point of this piece of literary dribble.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Two weeks ago, I attended the largest convention of mystery writers, editors, agents and fans in the country, or perhaps the world since there were attendees from several foreign countries. It was held in St. Petersburg, FL over a four day week-end. Over 1500 people attended, the great majority of which seemed to be mystery fans. They came to meet and get autographs and photos with their favorite authors. Publishers were there to give away books and there were so many available that UPS had a room there with a crew that did nothing but pack and ship books. A smart attendee could get at least a year’s worth of free books for the price of a box and some tape.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There were workshops on every topic a mystery writer or fan could imagine. Want to poison someone? Need to know how to match fingerprints? Does CSI really look like it does on television? Thinking of writing a cozy? Want to work with a co-writer? Need an agent? Publisher? There were workshops on these and many other topics, but the one I want to talk about is the one I was on. Military writers. Not writing military themed books so much, but the panel was made up of writers with a military background.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We had six men on the panel. Four had seen service in Iraq or Afghanistan, one had no combat service and I was the lone Viet Nam veteran. Get a panel like that and the war stories flew like wild geese in winter. We had a former SEAL, a Combat Surgeon, a jet pilot, a Navy man who did something I never quite understood and me, the Grunt. We answered all the questions asked of us and though we did not admit it, we all were waiting for THE QUESTION. “You were in combat. Did you ever have to take a life?” Anytime that questions comes up, most people’s tap dancing answer would make Fred Astaire look like a peg-legged duck. We told war stories. Funny ones. Serious ones. A few may have been lies, but that’s the nature of a war story.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And to that point, I will leave you with the age old question. Do you know the difference between a war story and a fairy tale? A fairy tale always begins with “Once upon a time.” A war story always begins with, “Now, this ain’t no shit….”<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-26800229702567002992018-09-13T06:50:00.001-07:002018-09-13T06:50:53.446-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Wanna Know a Secret?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I’ve Got a Secret </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">was a television show that was on from sometime in the 1950’s until the mid 60’s. It was on mostly in the black and white era of television. A guest came on, whispered his or her “secret” into the ear of the host and a panel of celebrities no one had ever heard of tried to guess the secret one question at a time. Get a “yes” to your question and you got to ask another one. Get a “no” and the guest received a whopping $10.00. The most they could win was $80.00. I give you this as a frame of reference only because I’m certainly not old enough to remember this series. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, but as usual, I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">What has an old television series got to do with writing? Glad you asked. In my creative writing class or my screenwriting class we discussed how to create a believable character. All writers have their own system and if they are successful, it would appear that it works. The major thing I like to do is to determine what my character have as a secret and what they fear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Secrets and fears fuel much of our lives. The two could very well be the same or related. My youngest daughter was bitten by a black widow spider when she was five years old and we almost lost her. It’s not a secret to the people who know her, but she doesn’t talk about it in normal conversation. Is she afraid of spiders? You figure it out. That’s a real fear/secret. As a writer of fiction, I have to determine what I want my characters to have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">If you have read either of my two series, you may know what they are already, but if not, I’m about to let the Genie out of the bottle because I think I know what they are. You “THINK” you know, you say? Hard to explain unless you’ve been there, but characters tend to take over and let you, the writer, know what they want you to know. Benjamin Franklin said, “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead,” and he was right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In my Max Maxwell series, the protagonist is playing with fire and he knows it. He is having an affair with a married woman. There are a lot of extenuating circumstances, but the bottom line is she is married and he is not. Therein lies a problem. It’s not a secret to either of them, so what is there to fear? Her husband with a gun? Good answer. You get $10.00. Does he care? Next question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Johnny Morocco served in Italy during WWII. He’s now heavily involved with a woman who came to the US with her family from Italy just prior to the war. Did he meet any of her family when he was in Italy? If he did, it probably was not good for them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Is any of this spelled out on the pages of my novel? Not really, but the information is there for the reader to determine the secrets and fears of the characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Some secrets are easily shared, just ask little Johnny who came home one day and told his mother he knew that his friend Billy could keep a secret. “How do you know she asked.” His reply, “Because I pissed in his ear before I told it to him.” Horrified, she asked him to explain. “I leaned down and went ‘pssssttt’ and then I told him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-66101168555566117232018-08-30T11:36:00.002-07:002018-08-30T11:36:56.587-07:00Here...Hold My Chicken<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Dearly Beloved….</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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I lost two friends I went to high school with this week. One died as a result of a tragic accident, the other from an illness. Both were classmates and the same age as I am which got me to thinking. I’ll not be able to attend either funeral, but I wonder what family and friends will say as a eulogy? That led me to start thinking about what people will say about me at mine. I know what some of them would like to say, but I would hope that they will keep quiet. I may actually have some family and friends in attendance who don’t know about some of the things I’ve been involved in.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My youngest daughter once brought up the subject and asked what I though should be said. I mentioned what a great father and husband I had been, how I was always nice to small children, liked puppies, cooked a mean pancake and could flip it in the air and catch it in the frying pan as it came down.<o:p></o:p></div>
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She laughed and said, “Not on your life.” Which I thought rather inappropriate under the circumstances, but I digress. She said, “I’m going to talk about the 4<sup>th</sup>of July picnic!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I knew exactly what she meant. Several years ago, I was the Liaison between the White House and the Dept of Veteran’s Affairs to put on the National Veteran’s Day Ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. As such, I became friends with the Director of the Cemetery and he invited me to his 4<sup>th</sup>of July picnic. At Arlington. At Robert E. Lee’s homeplace. To watch the fireworks over Washington. THE prime location to see them. Sit on the grass. On a hill. You get the picture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My wife could not join me in DC, so I had a small apartment not far from the entrance to the cemetery. My daughter was spending the summer with me, so she and I planned to go. The morning of the 4<sup>th</sup>rolled around. It was a hot, muggy day so I decided to wear shorts. And a tee shirt. With a penguin on the front. It was a picnic. Be comfortable. And tennis shoes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since it was a picnic and I’m from the South I thought I needed to bring something. What better than a bucket of Popeyes? Bucket in hand, we walked to the entrance where I told the guard where we were going and showed him our ENGRAVED invitation. Was that a smirk on his face as he waved us in?<o:p></o:p></div>
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We got to General Lee’s house and saw a bunch of men in black pants, white shirts and <o:p></o:p></div>
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cut-away jackets moving through the crowd with silver trays. I was asked for my invitation by a man in a tuxedo. I asked him to hold my bucket of Popeye’s while I dug it out of my pocket. By that time, my daughter was ready to defect to the Russians. We were in the midst of a very formal, like with waiters, a wine bar, those little sandwiches on the silver trays and a very large pig roasting over an open pit 4<sup>th</sup>of July picnic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I found a place beneath one of the catering trucks to stash my bucket. We got in line, penguin shirt and all and had massive amounts of food. We watched the fireworks and when it was sufficiently dark, I retrieved my bucket of chicken and we walked home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It took her almost a year to speak to me again, but we had chicken for a week.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-52660335170175790362018-08-25T15:13:00.000-07:002018-08-25T15:13:31.100-07:00REpeat.. REturn…REtreat….REeunion…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ek4NOw3Fhp-dVLn6feQie5YAw6Mm5lPt4jvVe76smHZAIBDhJF3eRmBgqHCTIk3hlS6cjrspiv9zXC0L7L0uhWYXrUczBmQO0lqFJCA18qncSUoloKiJB9BCNXGeo4wFmYiJoYf-js0e/s1600/Degout-255x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ek4NOw3Fhp-dVLn6feQie5YAw6Mm5lPt4jvVe76smHZAIBDhJF3eRmBgqHCTIk3hlS6cjrspiv9zXC0L7L0uhWYXrUczBmQO0lqFJCA18qncSUoloKiJB9BCNXGeo4wFmYiJoYf-js0e/s1600/Degout-255x300.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It seems to me the prefix “re” means to do something over again. You can repeat a statement. Return something to Costco that you stood in the express lane…”700 items or less” for an hour to purchase, or in the case of the military who absolutely never use the phrase retreat, it just advancing in the other direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I recently found another “re” word that had an impact on me. I went to a high school reunion. In this case the “re” meant that we got to see people whom we had not seen in years. We got to see who was still around and talk about those who were not. We whispered about those who had gone off the deep end in some way since we terrorized the city as teenagers. Some had passed away at, for us at least, a much too early age. Some had been married to “that person…you remember what they said about him/her when we were in school.” Nobody thought it would work and they have been married fifty years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">This reunion was a lot of fun for me…not like that one several years ago when “the incident” happened. I can’t mention any names here but there was a girl in high school that I had a case of the screaming scorchies for. She never knew it. We never dated and hardly even spoke, but it didn’t matter. In my fantasies, she was the One.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">At a reunion several, well…many years ago I was sitting at a table with an old friend and my wife when he said, “There she is.” I didn’t have to ask. I knew who “she” was. “She’s over by the bar. Let’s go see her.” He knew of my case of the hots for her in high school. When I looked at the bar, my first thought was “Please dear God. Don’t let that be her.” There was only one woman at the bar. My friend grabbed my arm and led me to the bar where I found out that God, does in fact, have a sense of humor. My friend called her name and she answered. Not only that, he invited her to come sit at our table. I couldn’t speak so he did all the talking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">She took her drink (more about that later) and followed us to our table. Once we got there, he asked my wife to dance. “I’ll let you two catch up,” he said as he left me alone with my former dreamboat. We sat in silence for a few minutes while she drank and I looked at her. She had gained a LOT of weight, but most of it was muscle. She looked like a lineman/linewoman for the Green Bay Packers. She had a fresh buzz-cut and it looked like she had bleached her mustache so it hardly showed. I knew this would probably be my only chance to speak to her so I took the plunge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I poured my heart out to her. I told her of my passion for her in high school. She listened patiently as she drank from her long-neck bottle of Budweiser, occasionally flexing her arm as she did so. Was that a tattoo on her bicep that said “Death before Dishonor?” I couldn’t read it to be sure. After reliving those high school days and my broken heart, she took another drink, looked me dead in the eye and made her comment on by broken heart. Her comment to my confession of my undying teenage love for her? Two words I’ll never forget. “No shit!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Two words and she went back to the bar and out of my life forever. No REpeat here. I’ll never do that again. And I refuse to drink Budweiser .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1771383014582445505.post-16442872847532102342018-08-09T09:20:00.002-07:002018-08-09T09:20:38.076-07:00If I Ever Grow UP<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I began a new semester of teaching at a local state college this week. It’s the first time I have been associated with this college so I didn’t know what to expect when my first class filtered into the room. I was at a distinct disadvantage because I never went to college after high school but did it in the Army so my classmates were usually much older. These were children!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Before moving back to Georgia, I taught at the University of West Florida, but my students were usually juniors and seniors and some adults, so they were older and had some idea of where they were or where they were going in life. On the first day of class I always tell them what is expected of them, and ask a little about them. This time I was not prepared.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Let’s go around the room and tell me your name and what your major is or what you want to get out of college.” I thought it was a good idea. “I’m Barney Bazotz and I’m going to be an engineer.” Time for some humor, right? “Like on a train?” Met with complete and sincere stare. “Huh?” “You know. The engineer…guy that drives a train?” Blank look. Let’s move on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Hi, I’m Suzy Cutesy and I’m a fashion design major.” The fashion design major was wearing a pair of blue jeans that looked like they had been run through a hay bailer. Several times. I have more fabric on a handkerchief than she had on her body. “Uh, I didn’t know they have that as a major here.” A squeal of valley girl laughter. “They don’t. I’ll do that someplace else. I just want to get all of the bad stuff out of the way first.” Bad Stuff? My class? Stand by for a ram!<o:p></o:p></div>
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I finished going around the class and found out I have future advertising executives, nurses, biologist, captains of industry, a couple of undecideds and a weatherman. The undecided’s I can relate to. I think I have gone through life making a list of things I don’t want to be when I grow up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have no problem with my students having a goal in life, as a matter of fact, I admire and envy them for doing so especially at that age. For those of you who happen to read this and knew me at the time, know the only thing I wanted out of high school was ME. I planned to go to work and await the letter that most men of my age got saying our services were needed by Uncle Sam. With a draft hanging over our heads, unless we went to college, maintained a good average or got married and had children, long range plans were not something we made.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I hope everyone in my class is able to fulfill their life goal at some point. I don’t think they will keep the plans they made to me this week. Life has a way of getting in the way of the plans we make, especially if those plans are to take place in the future.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Someone left a brochure for a job fair in the classroom so I’m going to check it out and see if there are any openings for rodeo clowns. That’s something I always wanted to be when I grow up.<o:p></o:p></div>
Paul Sinorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04041350498528836791noreply@blogger.com1