In the world of writing ( or in the world I write in any way ) the best places can be found in dark corners, alley ways, basements, attics and in the sweet smiles of the people I thought I knew.

So my world is a bit on the off side, I would compare it to listening to a piece of music where one of the instruments is out of tune.

For the most part I love this world of mine, and then I stopped and I have no real good reason for why. It just happened.

And then I began again the thing is I began to write at a low spot in my life.

Death had visited my friends, my family and my dogs…that’s right the Grim Reaper took my dog.

So in the midst of  this I started to write again and do you know what I discovered?

No matter what has been subtracted from my life my writing has always been there. So with each loss came a story or a post or a journal entry.

I’m not sure if those words replaced voids or prevented a void from being created.

All I know is, had I not been a writer I think there would be a lot less of me right now.

 

 

 

 

When I was in the fourth grade  we used to play this math game  where you stood up with you opponent in front of the class and you  had to solve the math problem in your head and give the correct  answer out loud first.

One kid in my class who I’ll call Chuck here,  was infamous for screeching out a stream of random numbers and sometimes he got the answer right. The upshot is, it’s hard to do a math problem in your head with this stream of verbal vomit hitting you in the face.

 SO.

After suffering through being ” Chucked” a few times- I did this before the Math game started.

I cornered ” Chuck” in the hall before class and told  him if he did that to me again,  I’d beat him up everyday at second  recess ( just so he could suffer through first recess waiting for his beating ) for a solid  week.

Yes that worked.

 At least, he never did that to me again- he continued to do it to  everyone else though and I’m willing to bet he STILL does things like that.
 
So for all you guys who wish Obama ‘would have done more’ at the last debate- thank your lucky stars I”m not your POTUS or you’d be living on Planet of the Apes by now.

And I’d be calling some of you Chuck.

See what happens when somebody asks for help and somebody like Ritchey  listens?

Team Humanity you did good.

Keep It Up.

TED WILLIAMS- HOMELESS MAN WITH A GOLDEN VOICE

NOTE FROM ORIGINAL CLIP ON YOUTUBE ( CLIP BELOW NOTE) :

RITCHEY’S CHANNEL

Throwing this video from the Columbus Dispatch out there, hoping we can find this talent a place to call home.

UPDATE-1: Many thanks go out to all of you who have been tossing phone numbers and e-mails my way for Ted’s sake. I went up to Hudson/I-71 (Columbus) today, but Ted wasn’t there. He is going to be on air tomorrow morning on radio station WNCI. I’ve left my contact info w/WNCI to call/e-mail me on a way to get your enormous opportunities over to him.

I’m going to give him a Trac phone (w/ample minutes) so that he can return calls to all of you.

Hopefully, in some way I’ll get in contact w/him. Peace.

UPDATE-2: To all of those who have been writing in I have learned that the radio station interviewing him tomorrow (1-5-11) a.m. is going to make him a formal offer. Whether true or not, we’ll see.

Hope it works out well for him. That was the whole point of me posting this video. I cannot thank enough everyone who was willing to do their part in offering Ted their helping hand.

Whoever lands him is certainly getting much more than a memorable personality; they’re getting a great human being as part of their team.

My best to all.

UPDATE-FINAL: Well everyone. You can give yourselves and Ted a high-five. He’s being given offers hand-over-fist over the air. He’ll be set for life.

My request to all. Whenever you run across a story such as this, don’t assume it’ll take a life of its own, on its own. It won’t. It can’t. There are too many other stories that drown out the one before it.

You need to spend time to get that story and its word out to many. If you care, you’ll do it.

Keep the faith, pay forward and always lend a hand; even if you’re the one who needs it.

God bless Mr. Williams. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of him for sometime to come.

Ted and His Mom Reunited:

I have a skeleton named Edgar who sits in a chair by my living room window.

I’ve let people assume, over the years that I named him after Poe- but I didn’t. I named him after my favorite Seattle Mariner, Edgar Martinez.

I bought Edgar from an on-line business called the Anatomical Chart Company they provide  high-quality anatomical models, charts, books for classrooms. However, Edgar was flawed so he ended up at Anatomical’s sister company Bucky’s Boneyard.

Bucky’s is where the less then perfect skeletons and skulls and bones go on to serve a greater purpose- they are sold as Halloween decorations.

I, on he other hand keep Halloween in my heart year round so I actually bought Edgar and had him delivered to me at work during the Spring. And no, I did not take him out of his box and show him off.

However, I did pop the lid off and showed him off to my friends on the bus ride home.

 Edgar is a model- had he been in better shape he would be used in a classroom somewhere and had a nickname like ‘Slim’, but he’s not a real skeleton.

I never thought about what it would take to buy a real one, the idea had never occurred to me until I watched a show called Oddities and one of the episodes was about a musician who wanted a real human skeleton to use for a prop on stage.

After the show was over, the person who used to work with the dead won out of the person who writes about the dead and has a fake skeleton and a jar of fake eyeballs on her bookshelf and she said-

” That’s just wrong. “

I keep asking myself why I feel that way- and I’m not getting an answer.

Not a convincing one.

So if you were me, would you buy a real human skeleton and sit it on a chair next to your living room window and name it after your favorite baseball player?

Would you?

It was a dark and snowy night- no really it was- when my bus was slowly crossing the Ship Canal Bridge and all of the sudden, well, all of the sudden nothing happened.

Oh yes friends and neighbors we were stuck on a bridge 182 feet above Portage Bay and the road is turning to ice right before our eyes and cars are sliding all around us.

People went from impatient to angry and then the jokes started.

We would pick a sliding car and cheer for it as it inched it’s way slowly over the icy road. We yelled at drivers  who were texting and driving well sliding over the ice-

which makes me wonder what the hell were they texting?

OMG its icy?

Yes, we’d have guessed that had you ended up in the canal.

Anyway the jokes were flying including one about the Donner Party when we heard a horn.

It wasn’t a car horn, it was a deep bass horn that big serious trucks use.

So I look out my window and before I stop myself I yell:

” Yes. Something flammable Starboard!”

I mean all that was missing from this doomsday scenario was Mount Rainer deciding to erupt.

The truck with the flammable stickers all over its side zipped along beside us and covered the remaining 3,000 feet of the bridge with authority.

We sat there. And then we inched some more but darn it we did not slide back. However we weren’t moving. When the traffic thinned out our driver put on one of those glow in the dark vests, grabbed a bucket of sand and put the grit down around the bus’ tires and we were out of there.

When we got to the Park and Ride my husband was waiting for me. I have no idea how long he had been there, my bus was about an hour and a half late.

By then it was cold and dark and icy the snow started up and the winds started to blow.

What can I say.

It is a great night.