Confusion is always the most honest response (Or, Amazing Tales from the Eyebrow of the Storm)

St. Pete as viewed from the pier.

Lake Ontario shoreline.

Out in the sticks, NE of Kingston, Ontario

Same sticks, different building

The Busker Festival outside my hotel

The busker festival was, if you know what "busker" means was a celebration of street performers. Buskers perform for tips, and that was the case here. There was music, acrobatics, magic, and children's shows. The ambiance was pretty cool, but the pictures did not capture that so well. So I saved myself the server space of posting mediocre pics.

Just outside of Kingston, I stopped at a place called Boston Pizza. Mainly it was the first thing I had run across in a while. And I also knew that buying a pizza for lunch usually took care of dinner later. Cold pizza, mmmmmm.

They had pretty much just specialty pizzas and I ended up with a perogie pizza. Now, if you don't know what a perogie is you're thinking, "Ewww...what's a perogie? Why would you put it on a pizza? Sounds like some kind of building material." But if you do know what a perogie is, then you are thinking, "Ewwww! What on earth possessed them to put that on a pizza??" But actually, it was quite tasty. It did, however, raise the question of whether the city of Boston knows that weird specialty pizzas are being hawked in Canada under their name and, more importantly, do they care?

Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens

While I was at the prison working, there was a problem. The prisoners did not want to return to their cells. They were asked nicely and then asked nicely again. Still no dice. Since I did not really understand what was going on, I will give you the condensed, color coded version of what I saw.

Inmates: We will not go in.

Prison: Please?

No!

Pretty please?

No!

Send your union rep to see the warden. (No, really...the prisoners are represented)

OK

Warden: They will have to be punished

Union guy: They prefer not to be. They will not return to their cells if they will be punished for their insubordination.

But they must be punished

They don"t want to be.

How about we cut the punishment in half. Would that do it?

I will go run it past the prisoners. I think I can sell it that way

Me, Ed Abernathy: What the hell did I just witness?!!?

I have been working. That's a fact. That's my excuse. Turks. Americans. Japanese. You bring 'em and I'll teach 'em. Gearing up for 12 - 14 days in Houston. Yee-haw! Well, at least I won't get there in the summer just to find out I should have brung a jacket (are you listening Massachusetts and Ontario?). It will be sweltering, same as here.

Yeah, that is a guy with a TV on his head. He was doing techno music with a couple of other guys. Or trip hop. Or whatthehellever music. Not up on my labels. Now, he might look like a loser, but let me assure you, they were not all that good either.

Today is my anniversary. Eight years. Or nine. I have the date in my Blackberry and could do the math from there. Suffice to say, it's been a while. My first marriage lasted 10 years, but since this one does not involve a redneck redhead with a taste for crack cocaine, it might go longer. I don't know whether to shudder or smile.

We are taking some young friends out to eat to celebrate. We are going to The Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. I once took the Red Queen there on the advice of my father. See we were good friends. We wanted to date, but didn't. We'd tiptoe up to the edge of dating, smile a weak smile, and step back. I think for she, and I know for me, dating someone always led to screwing up the friendship. We didn't want that. So we didn't.

There we were, headed out on a non-date, all dressed up and nervous. Dad asked where I was going to take her and I said, "I don't know, probably for pizza."He told me to take her someplace nice instead, like the Columbia. Well, Mr. Minimum Wage (yours truly, who toiled away in a warehouse for $3.80 an hour) was shocked...shocked I tell ya. I could never afford that. Well, it seems I could. Dad reasoned, and correctly so, that if you don't order drinks and fancy appetizers, the price of the entrees themselves were on par with buying a pizza. so you could both dress up and act with all the grace and high school sophistication you desired without breaking the bank. The non-date ended with a non-kiss and a non-invitation to come in for coffee. But we were well fed.

Just as a side note, you need to be aware that dressing up in the timeframe we are talking abought would include any or all of the following: leisure suit, print rayon shirt with a wide collar, platform soles. Just so you know. I have pictures to prove it.... that you'll never see.

Work with me people, c'mon, out

Ramblin' Ed

--------------------------------------------

A long time ago, when I was young, I had to come to grips with some things. In my fashion, I chose to do it in rhyme. As with most everything I've penned, these were for me. Again, as with most things I've ever penned, I share them with you.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home/Amazing Grace

The revoulotion's timeless

your opposition spineless

your brother's in the trenches

with the luckless sons of bitches

preparing for the onslought

no matter what we once thought

God has breathed his breath

on the men awaiting death

as they sing Amazing Grace

Preparing for the bloodbath

on the resurrected warpath

yeah, the propaganda's changed

but their smiling face remains

Saying, "Fight to keep your homeland free

If not for you, then just for me"

for the children born this weary day

while in agony you pass away

They can sing amazing grace

The war machine rolls right along

drowning out our fighting song

the crucifix that gives us strength

shall never fall in grim defeat

your brother in the trench has died

but God and luck were on our side

our enemies, our godless foes

were crushed beneath our righteous blows

Let us sing Amazing Grace

The Humanity Humility

Listen, can you hear it

in your father's old fatigues

Born into fighting spirit

can you see the DMZ?

It's not like in a fantasy,

the two of us can bleed

we led our troops to battle

with humanity

Do you remember

you were only seventeen

you fought for truth

you were a hero in blue jeans

armed with youth

but we lost everything, it seems

You were half a special team

we learned humility

It was so peaceful

like the California shore

It was decietful

for we were burdened with a war

of such dimensions

it couldn't grow no more

Hand in hand we swore

to live forever

It was dark and it was raining

the troops all ran for cover

The battle was still raging

we just looked at one another

Man, there ain't no use in praying

they've already got your brother

And that altered my decision

altogether

I remember,

what it was in sixty-eight

it was December

and the snow was coming late

Yet we were hindered

by all the cobwebs of our fate

and humanity was laughing

in our faces

We surrendered

We put our youth away

and we surrendered

we can fight another day

But we'll remember

until they put us in our graves

that humanity was laughing

in our face

Chester MacHenry

Chester MacHenry came back from the ocean

with four missing teeth and a parrot named Stan

an old wooden leg that he took off for sleeping

and a hard thirst for rum that he never could kill

When Chester MacHenry came back from the sea

wearing tattoos and taboos from all over the world

He had this look in his eye like the rage of a stallion

and a soft spot inside for the girl they called Lil

Said, "Chester, oh Chester,

you old salty dog.

Got your head in the clouds,

are you lost in the fog?"

Old Chester MacHenry,

a man for all times

still longing to be

west of latitude lines

Now Chester MacHenry's confined to his shanty

his old wooden leg in a heap by his bed

Stan's on his perch, drinking beer and still cursing

Might be only a bird, but he's more than a friend

Now the cold winter wind's blowing off the Atlantic

I guess rum and a blanket will keep a man warm

Stan's screaming something 'bout freezing tailfeathers

it seems that they both feel the same in the end

Chester MacHenry came back from the ocean

with stories to tell about places he'd been

he'd share them with anyone willing to listen

for Chester MacHenry was a lonely old man

Seems all that old Chester brough back from the ocean

was four missing teeth and a parrot named Stan

an old wooden leg that he took off for sleeping

Yes, Chester MacHenry was one lonely man

I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something

I am in Kingston, Ontario in a hotel on the Lake Ontario shore. So now I have been on the shores, in this order, of the Great Lakes Erie, Michigan, and Ontario. Not sure how one finds themselves at Lake Huron or Surperior, but give me time. I am here to work at the Collins Bay Corrections Facility and once again, that's all I'm going to say about that. This is it in the picture to the right. A pretty imposing feature on the local landscape.

As I was driving here (I landed in Montreal, about 2 1/2 hours NW of here) through a whole bunch of nothing except speed traps (I passed 4 of them....that I saw), I saw what I believe was the northern end of I-81. I mean, I assume US interstates end at the border. Or else they would become interprovince highways. And that's just silly.

My internet cable is fed to me through, and I am not making this up, an official game puck of the Kingston Frontenacs. Not sure what a Frontenac is, but this guy resembles either a minuteman or a pirate. And the puck is not as heavy as I would have expected although still, it could put a tooth out.

I woke up to a storm rolling in off the lake. It was pretty, as all storms are. I was reminded of Gordon Lightfoot singing about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, "Lake Superior they said, never gives up her dead, when the storms of November come early." I wrote my own, omnious verse for Lake Ontario: Lake Ontario you'll dread, drops cold rain on your head, soaks your hair, as it dries, it goes squirrely." OK, so I'm no Canadian troubador with a cool name.

Apparently Kingston used to be the capital of Canada. It is quaint, and after you get past the plethora of nice restaurants, pretty boring. Picturesque as all get out, but boring. I drove down the Loyalist Byway (or whatever...it was Loyalist something) which wound it's way along the lakeshore. I went as far as Bath, had a pizza, and came back to the hotel to watch TV.

Canada has made life fairly simple. For starters, and I'm not calling them sissies or nothing, but they have learned to go out, drink, and have a good time without, you know, all the fighting and robbing and redneck stuff that goes on when Americans get together in cities. But mostly I would say that they have simplified store naming down to an art. There is "The Beer Store" (sells beer only), "The Water Store" (sells water), Mr. Transmission (a man who fixes transmissions, like Mr. Plow was a man [Homer Simpson] who plowed).

I was saving this up to regale you with adventures, but there is a lack of adventure right now. I did learn that our next job up here would be in a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. Sounds both remote and interesting. I am told it is kind of wild and freewheeling up there, like Alaska. I hope I think to take a jacket.

God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy, out

Ramblin' Ed