DementedBlogger

Contemplating the past can be a good thing, learning from our mistakes, gaining insight on what to avoid in the future and hopefully setting a direction for growth.

Looking into my past takes courage, something not for the faint hearted or easily disturbed. A quick glimpse of the final quarter of 2008 is all it takes. Having gave up on my career of the last couple decades and entered the world of the unemployed with a truck payment to be made every month, a disabled wife and a soon to be seventeen year old son still at home would be hard enough for anyone to limp through. Having to do so because your body constantly reminds you it is time and refuses to allow hard work into its menu is another headache altogether.

I gave my all to a new career, truck driving, bulling my way through the training and hanging on with a death grip to a job that broke us. I made 26 cents a mile to move 80,000 pounds of truck, trailer and freight 50,000 miles through nearly every state except Alaska, Hawaii and a few in the northeast. I forgot to mention, I did not get the 26 cents a mile for all of those miles only the last couple thousand or that I had to buy things to accomplish that feat or take on a $9,000 school loan to get started? I figured that I made about $3.00 an hour driving and saw my home twice in 5 months, yep a trucker’s life…. I quit.

Since August I have been unemployed and getting writer’s cramps from filling out an endless horde of applications to places that I have never heard back from. Not even Walmart. I took up writing in hopes of making a buck, having averaged about that daily ever since. It is possible to make far more than that, but it helps if you are not me in doing so.

2009 is coming, it will arrive like it or not, the only certainty is that the bills will arrive with it. I have hope for the new year, it always gets better and I have a wonderful family to back me in my endeavours. I may not know where my life will lead, but I will always follow where ever it leads into the vast unknown.

I have accomplished a lot in my few years on this planet, things many people never dream of or are afraid to try and I damn sure intend to continue the trend.

Thomas H. Forthe

Can you imagine the frustration of the person who invented the bow and arrow? Finding just the right string, the best wood and the right lengths for sending an arrow into space. Now there is a blooper reel I would like to see. How many Workman’s comp claims did that create?

Not only did that industrious person have to invent the thing, but also learn to use it and hit what was aimed at. William Tell was a few years off yet….

I’ll bet the first time the string hit his wrist was exiting to no end. How big was the scrap pile of broken bows? The pile of discarded arrows? The bow strings itself would have been a monumental challenge to make from all natural fibers that did not snap under pressure.

I’m sure his friends and neighbors were glad that he finally did learn to hit the target and they had an improved chance of not walking with a limp. At least not until he decided to try moving targets….

How many times did he hear his mother say, “Careful with that thing or you’ll put an eye out!” or “Don’t shoot that thing in the cave, or you’ll break something!”

Ans what about the wife? I’m sure she had a few choice words to add as well. “You wanna quit playing with your little sticks and take out the trash now?” or “You burn the ends of sticks for hours on end, but do you ever bring me flowers?”

Ah the trials and tribulations of the inventor….

Thomas H. Forthe

Since I started on the subject of stone-age humans yesterday, continuing along those same lines today made sense to me anyway.

Surviving for one day in that era would be nearly impossible for your average modern human. Take away all our modern technology and everyday conveniences and it’s highly likely were we transplanted into the distant past, that seeing day two would be more akin to a miracle than any actual skill we may posses.

There are still critters around these days looking for skewered human as a snack, but nothing on the scale of the days gone past. Gone are the Sabre-tooth, the cave bear and sleeping in a cave without a door.

Would I remain alert at three in the morning, holding a spear and a torch while the misses made an emergency bush run in the dark? What would I drink in the morning to give me an edge against the lil fur balls in the forest before I was really awake? could I carve words into a rock with a stick? Would I have the foresight to carve a wheel in hopes of out running the kitties down hill in a race to the cave? Is that how skateboards evolved? I have questions.

Questions like: would a dire wolf make a good pet? What is a suitable substitute for TP in the days before Charmin? How does one boil water on a rock? Can flavored creamer come from a goat? Do arrows come in different calibers? Can one teach a cave bear to dance? I guess I’ll never know….

Thomas H. Forthe

Have you ever wondered how modern man managed to survive the stone age? Judging by the local over the counter headache remedies I find it hard to believe that any primitive people could have survived a headache, brought on by the stress of knowing, ahead lay another day of out running and out thinking large hungry beasts intent on out living primitive man by attrition.

Sit down on a rock and cradle your head in your hands for one second and you become a sabre-tooth tummy warmer. Having trouble concentrating on the world around you, could leave you at the tender mercy of the local carnivore’s digestive tract. With a headache could you possibly hope to outrun Og the over-eater back when winning a foot race meant more than a trophy?

Of course one could always have stayed in the cave with a wet mud pack on the forehead, carefully avoiding the glare of the torches, lighting the artists/accountants talley’s of the days 100 meter dash….

And we think we have problems…

Thomas H. Forthe

It is funny how the mind works. I received a picture of cars from a forum thread, instantly taking me back in time to my grandparents home, bringing memories of a young child flooding in as in a torrent. The cars had nothing to do with it, having the house in the picture solely to blame. Old memories exploded into view, like I was standing there, awaiting my cousins to arrive….

Memory, a fickle beast, serving only itself and its own needs. Memory is seldom a conscious entity, voicing its opinion at the command of its bearer, wheeling to flight like a falcon loosed for the hunt.

A smell, one leaf just the right color, rain splashing gently on your face, a cool breeze or a picture can cause a Technicolor flood, taking the bearer deep into the field of dreams of ages past.

Memory, it can be a fleeting thing, allowing only glimpses of things once occurred. Memory can also be concrete, bringing smells and thoughts, touch and sound, adding a virtual feast of information to be assimilated in an instant.

I stood on the sidewalk, smelled the air, a living breathing eight year old for an instant. Brought on by an e-mail of all things….

Thomas H. Forthe

If I ever find the idiot that gave this crap to my wife… I would go to great lengths to give it back! Why would anyone even chance giving another human this wonderful germ? STAY HOME! I did not go Christmas shopping, I did not go to the grocery store, I did not pass go and I did not give a doctor two hundred bucks, yet.

People should come with a red flashing light, if you are even considering getting sick it would light up, and stay lit until you are well again. That way the rest of us could avoid getting within blocks of you… No offense, but keep it to yourself please!

Thomas H. Forthe

Happy holidays everyone! I’ll return tomorrow if I feel better, today I am anything but great. Oh well.

Merry Christmas!

To ere is human or so they say and personally I believe them. I ere, you ere, we all dare to ere.

Was a human erring what caused Genghis to rampage, venting his wrath on his neighbors, carrying it down and out from the steppes? Maybe someone pee’d in his porridge thinking it a chamber pot.

Could the Boston tea party have been avoided if only they had brought Earl Grey? raspberry? or green?

Would the Pharaohs have hidden their chambers half as well if they had known real immortality lay in a museum? After all who wants to lay around in a dark dusty tomb forever when you can draw a crowd into a climate controlled and well lit environment? A small miscalculation by their advisors I am sure.

Could Cleopatra have truly fell in love if she had only realized Mark Antony had said their love would end in an asp and not a last passionate gasp?

Thomas H. Forthe

Sometimes change comes easily to people, sometimes it would be easier to stop a tidal wave with a screen door…. Throw an idea out into the swarming consciousness and watch it go, it may pass ten thousand people before someone catches it, it may get lost in the process. Sometimes a gentle nudge is all that is needed to get it into a persons head and sometimes it takes a baseball bat!

People are resistant to change, especially change needed that is not directed at them. In our age of hyper everything, time is most precious, getting someone to give a small amount of it a nearly epic challenge. Everyone is busy in today’s world, not giving anything back to it is a major cause of today’s uncaring attitude. If we care nothing of another’s needs what is to make them care for us.

I’m not advocating the giving of all of ones personal time, just small pieces of it, playing with a child, loving your spouse, tending a friend….

Is ten minutes a day impossible to give, a half hour? Most of us can find it if we try, we all know someone that needs it.

Thomas H. Forthe

The writer’s forum wound up in an uproar over a members post, a question really, poorly stated but necessary to forward a cause needing attention.

I added fuel to the flames by asking for critiques, another poorly stated query, causing the forum owner grief unintentionally.

I should know better, as a writer, as a person and as a human being. If I had taken the time to formulate a plan in my writing and thought it through, edited my reply, it would have changed dramatically and for the better.

The original poster put forth the idea that certain members were being ignored, male members to be precise when it came to critiques on contest entries and possibly acceptance to the book to follow.

My response was that it wasn’t a male problem, but a problem of lack of critique on submitted entries that asked for them as some did not want critiques. My intention was to get more people to participate in said critiques and added a needed service to Beginning writers like myself.

The owner rightly read my response (poorly written) that I was blaming her for this. Michy has no time to respond to each entry, she has a life of her own, a very busy life at that.

What I meant was for more people to help out in the critique section with their opinions and I thought they would see that and respond. What I wrote was every entry should get response and pointed the finger at Michy unfairly and unjustly. I really need to learn to read what I write, instead of righting what I write after reading it.

Again my apologies to Michy and anyone else offended!

My entire intention was to create a writers environment that nourishes writers and their abilities, honing skills they possess and making us better writers in the process.

Without comments, we produce drivel, rambling on in the same state unchanged, forging ahead in our own blind revere, thinking we are doing fine, when in reality we are not and in some cases, like me, not even close.

Opinions are needed, I entered a story prematurely thinking it good enough, yet it wasn’t, it left many questions unanswered that a few people commenting on could have cured. I had to find that out from outside the forum, a forum that is in need of a small change, a change easily made by the members spending some time reading other members work. Perhaps easily is yet again a poor choice of words, in this day, time is of the Essence.

Enough rambling for today,

Thomas H. Forthe