[This is part two of my article about the last day of Faith Center Christian School. Part one can be found at this link. ] Twenty years now Where'd they go? Twenty years I don't know I sit and I wonder sometimes Where they've gone And sometimes late at night When I'm bathed in the firelight The moon comes callin' a ghostly white And I recall I recall -- Bob Seger, Like A Rock Our date would be in two parts. First, my mother would take us to Shakey's pizza place for...

"It seems like yesterday "But it was long ago..." --- Bob Seger, Against the Wind Though nobody knew it at the time, 25 years ago last week Faith Center Christian School of Glendale, California graduated its last class. One of those graduates happened to be a young fellow by the name of Gene Nash. Raymond Schoch founded the Faith Center church in 1930. I don't know when it moved to its greatly expanded present location across from the famous Forest Lawn Cemetery or when it began the s...

I spent the week in the hospital. When I tried to get up from bed last Monday, the world suddenly spun and went black and I toppled to the floor. Timber! My left hand and the left side of my face went numb. Even while laying there, the world still seemed to spin wildly. After a few minutes I tried standing up again. Same result. I'd fallen and I couldn't get up. I thought I should go to the emergency room and get checked out. Ever since Harry Reid had his little incident, I've been s...

8:02 P.M. Four loud pops, like someone slamming a mailbox opened-and-closed repeatedly, shattered the quiet. My cat started up, then looked back and forth repeatedly, trying to locate the disturbance. I went to the patio window and looked out. Three teens were passing by on the street, two walking, one on a bicycle. The one on the bicycle raised his right hand above his head and started firing a pistol into the air. Bang, bang, bang! Three more shots to add to the four he'd just fired. He...

So, last Friday I'm puttering around my living room at nearly 8 o'clock at night when I'm practically thrown to the ground by loud BUM-PA-PA-POW BUM BUM BUM-PA-PA-POW hip-hop reverberations followed by muffled but decidedly evangelic tinged exhortations being shouted through a P.A. system. It cycled through quieting down a little, then getting dramatically louder. My immediate thought was a street preacher with a truck had invaded my neighborhood. I'd seen such a display once in my hometown ...

I was about 3 years old. My grandparents were watching me at their small apartment while my parents worked. My grandfather drifted away from his booze, cigs, and TV long enough to decide I should go trick-or-treating. "He doesn't even have a costume!" my grandmother scolded. "Well, make him one!" After spending all day as a seamstress, Grandma didn't seem too inclined to toss a freebie little Genie's way. I didn't know what it was all about, but it interested me. I sat under the dining ...

It's been a week since I brought Fuzzy home. So far, so good. He's been urinating on his own. Sometimes it's only a spot assmall as a dime, but I'll take it. I never thought I would be sohappy to see cat urine. Here's the before and after: This is who I took to the hospital... ...and this is who I brought home. They shaved him, and he lost about 4 pounds. You can...

My worst fear was that I'd bring Fuzzy home and have to take him right back again, like happened earlier in the week. The doctor called today to say come get him. She said he was totally clear. There were some things I'd have to do for him, but he'd be all right. I had hoped they would keep him one more day to really be sure, but that wasn't to be. When my mother and I walked into the office to pick him up, the office manager (were those tears in her eyes?) said we needed to go i...

If it's not overly imposing to ask you all to pray for a cat, could you please pray for my cat? Fuzzy took a turn for the worse. I didn't even have him home 12 hours before the urinary blockage returned. When we walked back into the veterinary hospital today, they immediately grabbed him and rushed him into the back somewhere. I haven't seen him since. At first they weren't even really going to treat him, just give him a shot. The next suggested step was euthanasia. They have a po...

I've been very fortunate in my life. I've never had to work. Oh, I have worked. In my dilettantish flitting from profession to profession, alighting just long enough to prove I could accomplish and conquer before taking off for the next pretty flower, I've racked up quite an impressive breadth of experience. But the necessity of work is as foreign to me as "Debbie Does Dallas" is to the Ayatollah al-Sistani. I don't know what it's like to have to do something you hate just so you ca...

It hardly ever fails. Every year, sometime around my birthday, a crisis erupts that threatens life and home. Combine the crap that tends to happen to me around the end of year holidays with the annual birthday-time crises and you can see why I'm tense and watchful from December to May. This year's crisis hit last week, coming just days post-birthday. As a result, my presence around here will be greatly limited. I'm not even sure if I'll have Internet access beyond next week. (I almos...

Some things just make you feel old. Some things just walk up, slapyou in the face, scream, "You thought you were still young?!" andstart having a hearty laugh at your expense. From my conversations with people, I get the impression that mostpeople see themselves as a certain fixed age in the past. "I stillfeel 21," someone will say. Their current chronological age is aforgotten inconvenience. Then something happens and your real age comes flying up into yourconsciousness. "Hi ya, pally! You ...

Another long night of sitting here, poking around the Internet, not doing what I want to do. Do I think life will wait? How much more evidence do I need that is not true? What will it take? Do I think I'm going to live forever or something? How much do I have to lose before I get it? What is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with me?

You know I don't care to post the "3 lines and a link" variety ofblog, but I ran across this story through BlogExplosion just now and had to share it. "Mr. Viola was not your typical Spanish teacher. He had this funny way of walking, possibly caused by his pants being pulled up into his armpits. I guess you could say he walked like a duck or a penguin. He was always playing disco music in the class during a lesson. We never understood why." You have to clickhere now to read the ...