the strange journal of a strange man

                             The Strange Journal of a Strange man







December 20, 1961

I came home on Christmas vacation. The seminary was closed until after New Years. Father Mansmann called me and asked me to help serve Christmas Eve mass. I had been a choir boy in grade school but never an altar boy. When I got there I was given this red and white vestment to wear that made me feel like a peppermint candy stick. The assistant priest gave me the incense swinger and told me to use only half a stick of incense. The organ music started playing and that was my cue to light the incense. After I placed the match against the half stick, nothing seemed to happen. I blew on it trying to give it some oxygen, but it was just putting out little streams of smoke. I panicked and put on another stick and lit it. They started ringing the bells and I knew it was time. I walked behind the priests swinging the incense. On the first swing, clouds of incense rose from the floor. After two more swings we were suffocating in a fog of incense. I thought Jesus touched me but it was Father Mansmann's foot connecting with my rear end. He grabbed the incense and put it underneath the side altar which soon reminded me of an alabaster chimney.

As I mentioned, I had been a choir boy. For years they said I sang like an angel. But shortly after I turned twelve, something happened to my voice. Once we had to sing at a funeral for an extremely fat woman. They had an oversize coffin resting on an undersized undercarriage. I was trying to hit the high notes to "O Sanctissima," but nothing was coming out. The organ player was tearing his hair out and screaming at me to quit screwing around. I tried once more and it sounded like a sick frog croaking. Father Mansmann gave a start and bumped into the coffin. The brake on the undercarriage let loose and the coffin careened down the church tiles and then crashed into the wall. The fat woman's body flew out of the coffin, bounced off the wall and landed on two nuns praying in a pew in the back of the church.







July 25, 1968

During college vacation, we drove up to Geneva on the Lake and rented a little cottage. We were drinking fire-brewed Strohs beer for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also ate some food. I took a stroll down to the next batch of cottages and couldn't believe my eyes. It was a circus. They must have rented about ten cottages. The bearded lady introduced me to her husband and he showed me how to swallow fire. I told him that I would practice hard when I got home. Then the bearded lady introduced me to her daughter Linda who only had a mustache but that didn't bother me because the rest of her was definitely feminine. I asked her if she wanted to take a walk and we went down to the pond behind my cottage. We small talked and kissed and she took all her clothes off and dove into the pond. I followed with only my skivvies on. It was cold and we were holding each other shivering when that dang red and blue revolving light started shining in our face. When they saw her mustache they knew she was from the circus and she told them I was her husband, the circus clown. The police let us get dressed and I walked her back to the circus camp. I told them I played guitar and sang like Sinatra but they said they couldn't use me. Linda gave me tickets to any show in any town. I asked her to marry me. I thought it was fate that we met this way. She just kissed me and said, "Silly boy." We left the next day. I was driving and kept sneezing and almost wrecked the car. It was the best bad cold I ever had.







March 21, 1971

We were stationed in San Diego. One night we decided to walk down to Tijuana. Going through the border station was like passing through the twilight zone. We left civilization and entered the Wild Wild West. Three young hormonized sailors were looking for love in all the wrong places. Is hormone a Mexican word for prostitution? I let my three buddies explore while I dropped into a bar called "The Bar." I ordered a Cerveza and sat down at an empty table. Two young Mexican senoritas came and sat down beside me. We ordered tequila and did the salt and lime trick. I sang Sinatra songs to them and the bouncer came over and started playing his guitar and we all started singing "Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso." Then we sang "Come a little bit closer, and the guitar player said, "Manual you're in trouble plenty." Then he laughed and we all started singing again. My three buddies came into the bar bloodied, beat-up, and robbed. The owner came over and told them drinks were on the house. After the senoritas cleaned them up, the bouncer told us to get into his van and he drove us back to the border station. I tried to tip him, but he sang, "Come a little bit closer." He hugged me and I sang "you're my kind of man."







August 15, 1973

My brother and his friends decided to visit me while I was stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. They drove from Pittsburgh with a case of Iron City and a bag of marijuana cigarettes. Naturally, half way down they were pulled over by the state police. Richie was driving and they asked him for his license and registration while Bush ate all the marijuana cigarettes before they could look in the back. The case of Iron City was still unopened and so the police decided nothing was wrong and let them drive on. When they got to my apartment on State Street, Bush hurriedly went to the bathroom and threw up. I took a quick trip to Piggly Wiggly for some burgers and buns to acclimate the case of Iron City. After the cookout and two hours of the James Gang on the cassette player, we decided to smoke a little weed and head down to the local bar. I tried to warn the guys that we were in Country Land not Pittsburgh. There were two burly cowboys playing pool and my brother asked to play the winner. The winning cowboy said "$20 game." My brother shook his head yes. My brother broke, and then ran the table. I kept nudging him to miss or scratch, but he had to show his macho. Not only did this affect the cowboy playing, but every cowboy in the bar. Country pool players can't tolerate ringers. Luckily I knew some side streets and it was the closest I came to running with the bulls.







October 27, 1981

The bowling alley was closing, but I had to go to the men's room. I went through the door and walked past twenty urinals until I reached the last one. There was a small window above the middle urinal but it was a cloudy night and no moonlight shined through. I was breathing a sigh of relief as I listened to the melodious waterfall of my urine, when suddenly all the lights went out. Total blackness! The door was miles away and I was claustrophobic. I panicked and started to crawl. I heard noises I never heard before. "Bob" I screamed. "Help" My heart was pounding. Sweat poured down my face and made my hands slip on the floor." Bob, Help"! The door squeaked open and a flashlight searched for a 5 foot- ten man. So it took awhile before the light shown on a crawling petrified thing. I have never experienced complete darkness until that night. In complete darkness do we exist? If I cannot see anything, can anything see me? When I yelled out, did anyone hear me? Something happened and I am not who I am anymore. Something is missing. Some part of me has left. When I look in the mirror, I am there but there is a slight fuzziness.







July 24, 1986

We went on vacation to Rhohoba beach in Virginia. I was just treading water when a rip tide started taking me further out. I tried to swim back but for every inch I gained, I was flipped another yard out to sea. My arms became paralyzed and my mouth filled with salt water. I could see my family on the beach and I became sad. I started to sink into the bottomless black of the sea. Once again I was in total blackness and I knew I was drowning. I became calm and resigned and I felt something leaving me. I felt weightlessness. Then there was a loud thundering splashing above me and I was grabbed and pulled up by those beautiful bosomed girls from Baywatch. They told me not to touch them. Well, sex was the last thing I needed at that time. I was later told that they were afraid I might panic and drag them down with me. I staggered onto the beach and my wife wrapped a towel around me. For a week I was coughing up sand and the shower petrified me.













November 15, 2010

Sometimes they had funerals at the nursing home. When I came on duty, there was a note from the supervisor to turn off the light in the viewing room. Eighty eight year old Norma was lying in her casket and the overhead light was shining on her face. I searched for the light switch but there wasn't any. The cord was plugged into a socket directly beside Norma's head. I had to kneel down and stretch my arm past Norma's face, but in so doing, my lips crushed into her lips just as I pulled the cord out. There are no words that I can come up with. To kiss an eighty eight year old dead woman in pitch blackness is the definition of claustrophobia.

It is dark again. I can smell carnations and roses. I want to scream but my lips are sewed shut. I can't open my eyes. The pillow is soft and....................................