When Black Friday Comes

Benson, Arizona

On Friday, I'll turn 70. I've never felt better and I'm down 53 pounds and packing my old wardrobe for donation to the homeless center in Sarasota.

When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
When Black Friday comes
I'll collect everything I'm owed
And before my friends find out
I'll be on the road
-Steely Dan

We drove though the desert for days to get back to Benson and pick up the RV. It has a new windshield and the damaged rear end is bright and shiny. It was a good vacation with the typical suitcases and motels....

On my birthday I plan to have some "top shelf" margaritas, Brie with pecans and apples  and Chateaubriand  for two at the Double Eagle in Messilla, New Mexico. It's my favorite restaurant in the world. Billy the Kid ate there. At least he was tried there and sentenced to hang in Lincoln County for killing Sheriff Brady....where he made the escape that sealed his fame...

In the grocery store today i was looking (not buying) in the ice cream row when a bearded fat man with a Navy Seal baseball hat barked at me to move to one side of the isle or the other.

I told him what to do to himself and he pointed to his hat and yelled that he had spent eight years saving my ass. I told him that at least he had the hat, and that I was flying missions in Viet Nam when he was still crapping in his diapers.

He told me to kiss his ass and I replied that it looked way too much like his face....you can sense at this point that we are regressing to kindergarten taunts....

He was behind me in checkout and so I waited just outside for him to come out for about ten minutes. He had 50 pounds and 30 years on me, but my switchblade is sharp. He never came out until after I left. What a poseur.