The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Richard Day's picture

    IT WAS 1980

    By Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 5:46pm |

    I was 29 years of age.

    I had a wife and a tiny baby boy and a girl of three years of age.

    I was fat and I drank a lot of beer.

    Beer, because whiskey made me crazy.

    So, one day, I made a promise to myself. 

    I shall not end up as my dear old dad.

    I quit all alcoholic beverages.

    I was fat; 238 pounds as I recall.

    But I began to jog.

    I would jog half a mile and then walk and then jog home. A total of two miles.

    And then, following a month of this exercise, I found a pond about a mile away from my home.

    So i would walk to the pond and then jog around it and walk back.

    I kept gathering strength; and soon I would jog to the pond and then jog around it and jog home.

    Then there was a pond connected to this first pond by way of a path and I could jog a total of nine miles.

    And in the winter, this jog would be so very very beautious!

    I had a walkman, and I recall when it was 0 degrees, finding my way to 'the end' of the course and there was this icy mist in the foreground along with this huge huge moon:

     

     

    And I knew that I had found GOD!

    Hey, I could jog 9 miles in the midst of winter! hA

    Within five months, I had lost 70 pounds and I felt terrific.

    My wife, at the time, made me attend some garden party?

    Now recall, there is no fat food and there is no boooze and there is no dessert. hahahahah

    At this garden party, a friend of my wife's came to me.

    And she said:

    You know, a bunch of folks here just think you are dying of cancer.

    hahahahahahah

    ​Yeah, I had found God, and some folks figured I could only have found this new 'figure' by disease. hahahahah

    But she was serious. People could only believe that I could change my life through cancer. hahahahah

    Later on this wondrous woman would send me clients. hahahahah

    ​I performed this change of body experience twice but I must perform this experience again, if I could survive another decade or so. hahahah

    MORAL

    If you see somebody doing well.

    Do not always come up with some terrible cause for this doing well.

    hahahahah

    Anyway my kids were freed from alcoholism  and the sickness of their father.

    Things are not always as they seem. 

    hahahah

    ​

     

    I recall this nice lady.

    Just hit me today.

    MORAL?

    Give a guy or gal the benefit of the doubt;

    Once in awhile.

    the end

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Comments

    Great story as always, DDay.  A doctor friend of mine, who is bald as a JayBird was on the elevator at UVA Medical Center.  Someone on the elevator looked at him sympathetically and said, "My hair came back 3 months after my chemo."  He just thanked her and went on.

    This reminds me of a very small thing that happened to me.  I happen to be a very good cook, and I take a lot of pride in it.  I studied cooking in France, and I was making a complicated dish for some friends.  One of them was a French guy.  Very sweet, and in no way negative.  He came up behind me and asked, "What are you trying to make?"  I went off the rails!  WHAT AM I TRYING TO MAKE?  I am making ....(frankly I don't even remember), but this reminds me that I definitely should have given the poor guy a break for his innocent question.


    by CVille Dem on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 6:13pm

    Oh Cville, let us all give the poor guy a break. hahahaha

    Just once in a while. hahahahah

    Thank you for this!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 6:48pm

    Dick. You're the man. 

    More importantly, you have great stories. And understand the value of a good story. Both the real-life ones, and the magic made-up Arthurian ones.

    *


    And to hell with politics anyway. I say from here on out, let's give Hillary and Bernie the benefit of the doubt shall we? 

    And their followers.

    (Even when HRC's fan are patently idiots.)

    ;-)

    Cheers. 


    by quinn esq on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 8:14pm

    (Even when HRC's fan are patently idiots.)

    That is so untrue. I tried to patent "Hillary Fan Idiot" and was told that which is manifestly true and endemically part of the culture cannot be patented.


    by ocean-kat on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 10:15pm

    Oh Ocean.

    We are all patently idiots. hahahahah

    I get so sick of politics and the lies and the....

    Oh who cares?

    .....and endemically part of the culture cannot be patented.

    I hereby render unto Ocean the Dayly Line of the Day Award for this here Dagblog site, given to all of Ocean from all of me.

    Except for Ten Years After....hahahahah

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/13/2016 - 10:54pm

    Ooooh Q, I was listening to the Stones on my Walkman when I saw that huge, huge moon. ha

    Probably February of 1981?

    Following my great weight loss that I kept for years after,

    Now if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear the boom boom; did the falling tree make a noise?

    You always were there to hear the sounds I made. hahahahah

    Thank you.

    You are a nice man!

    You have a good night!


    by Richard Day on Thu, 04/14/2016 - 1:05am

    Ha, I had a clunky old mono cassette deck and some Radio Shack headphones, didn't need me no fancy Japanese walkman, I'd put the deck in my backpack, hop on my 10-speed, and click on Montrose, "get on your bad motorscooter and ride". The cows looked at me awful funny with these ears almost as big as theirs.

    No, wasnt recovering from cancer either, just recovering from school.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 04/14/2016 - 12:40am

    It was marvelous.

    The Walkman was marvelous.

    It was beautious. ahahahahahha

    And I taped my favorite songs.

    I mean, nowadays, what the hell? You tape fifteen thousand songs? How many can you really hear in a 9 mile jog. hahahahah

    Remember when my friend died and he had sent me this wonderful computer thingy?

    And my PC went out and I just played this flash?

    Oh well, I can get just about any song I wish now Peracles.

    And it is wonderful.

    I am still alive which is strange. hahahaha

    Considering all my sins. hahahha

    I have no idea what this song has to with anything, but

     


    by Richard Day on Thu, 04/14/2016 - 12:57am

    I enjoyed the peace and quiet when I went for a run. Now I am just happy to be walking.  


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 04/14/2016 - 9:08am


    Richard, keep working it out!

    (You guys are such youngsters, wait till you get old.)

    Yesterday after dealing with assholes in the business world all day I had to push myself to get the hell out and get some exercise. So I went down to my barn loft---a friend calls it the "barnominium", cool area,and got my Sirius working, and climbed the stairs a dozen times. Then the song "Goody Goody" came on and I couldn't help, started dancing which could be dangerous from a number of angles (think Burl Ives trying to do a pirouette).

    Anyway, Richard, Goody Goody to you, buddy. Keep pushing it. Push it way back!


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 04/14/2016 - 12:00pm

    I think of these quotes often.

    G. B. Shaw:

    Oh to be a young man at 55!

    Oliver Wendall Holmes,Jr

    Oh to be a young man of 75!

    hahahaah

    Everything is relative.

    And oh how we hate some relatives, hhahahahaha

    ​Yogi Berra

    It aint over till its over!

    The end

     


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/20/2016 - 2:56pm

    Some timez it goes into sudden death - quite exciting - if you're the winner.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 04/20/2016 - 3:06pm

    You have me laughing sooooo very hard.

    You know Q is a hockey nut. hahahahah

    The most brutal sport I could ever think of.

    All death, or most of death, is sudden! hahahah

    hahahahahha

    No winner escapes death!

    Oh, I almost forgot, Peracles is hereby awarded the Dayly Line of the Day for this here Dagblog Site, given to him from all of me

    hahahahah I cannot stop laughing. hahahah

    .

    Some of us, shall survive. hahahahah

    Peracles made my day!


    by Richard Day on Wed, 04/20/2016 - 3:14pm