pick a lil' blog a lil'

or so the song goes but, in real life, that is not what happened this past week. Since Mr Tuffy's incident a week ago(read my earlier post about the Uniballer), it had been determined that I would take Mr Tuffy to the vet and have him neutered. Shockingly, pre-op testing showed up the presence of the Feline AIDS virus and well, there was nothing that could be done. Our Mr Tuffy had to be euthanized and my little family is now just a little smaller.

I've been angry. Mr Tuffs lived in this neighborhood in peace for well over four years and if this idiotic complaint had not been made by our over-wrought neighbors, well, I'd still have a pet. Of course, I've been angry with myself for not getting Mr Tuffy fixed before now. We had taken him before to a vet but when they discovered only one functioning unit, it was determined that they could not do the surgery. We never went back. That was a mistake.

Of course, we were all sad too. Tuffy and litter mate Emmy(Emily) were born to a stray cat we reluctantly adopted, Miss Charlotte.(as in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte because she made so very much noise) Two other kitties, all white, Ann and Charlotte jeunesse along with Emily(the Bronte sisters) were also part of the litter. We found homes for the two white kittens but, after much deliberation and consternation, my Dad who always insisted he "hated" cats made the ultimate determination that we would keep Tuffy and Emmy. We found momma Charlotte a home on a farm in the country where she could mouse and have babies to her hearts content.

Of course, the pets were there through everything with us when Dad got so very sick. You know pets can be very therapeutic for those who are ill and I know Dad enjoyed having them around the last week he was home before he passed away. For all the grousing he did about the animals, he sure took extra care to make sure they were well off. it was not at all unusual to see Dad with one of the cats on his lap or talking to one of them as you would a child. Of course, in the middle of the night when the kitties decided to raise a ruckus, Dad was not above hurling a TV guide in their general direction. I doubt he ever hit them, as that was not his intention, but he could manage to get them to be quiet..............for a little while and then he would get up and let them out the door. always checking to make sure they had their food and water, of course.

i think what made me feel the worst, and this is highly illogical and stupid on my part, but all the way over to the vet, I told the very unhappy Mr Tuffy in his cat carrier that I would be back to pick him up. i'll be back tuffers, i told him as i let him lick my fingers through the cage. i left the vet office but i was not ever going back to pick up my cat and take him home.

and the cat came back..........no, he didn't and that makes me very, very sad. So, forgive me Mr Tuffy, I'm only a stupid human.

The point of this whole trip was to visit my cousin Herman in Colorado Springs Colorado. Herman is eighty-four and was just moving into the nursing home the day we arrived. This was going to be a big adjustment for him to be sure, as he had lived for so many years in his beautiful home on the main street of Colorado Springs, Platte Avenue since the time Colorado Springs was "small"! Diabetes and time had taken a toll but the sparkle in his eye and the amiable spirit were still there. He clearly misses his wife Polly, who was a kindred spirit.

Herman, of course, was named after my great-grandfather and his grand-father Herman who came to America from Germany. Now, I share my birthday with Great Grandpa Herman as he was born May 27, 1864 and I was born EXACTLY(ooh and ahh now) 100 years later on May 27, 1964. Cousin Herman did not miss that date by much as his birthday is June 2nd. His grandson Greg, by the way, was born May 27, 1983. So May 27th has a significant meaning in the Stock family tree!!!

Herman is a "hale fellow well met" sort. Always good for a story or a joke, Herman and Polly were favorites even though distance kept the descendants of Martin Werner and Peter Carl apart, they were wonderful, funny, and nice people. He served his country during World War II and continued to work in his beloved field of flying all his life. It seems that now he seems to be reliving his moments at "Peterson" and why not! Herman is a Stock thru and thru because he is passionate about what he loves and wants to share it with everyone else! Herman got the exuberant German gene and not so much the "stoic" German gene that seems to dominate the family.

Herman was also a great bowler. Trophies are found throughout the house including several commemorations of a perfect 300 on several occasions. He was an unofficial tourism representative of Colorado Springs taking family and friends on tours to destinations in Colorado Springs that possibly not even the natives knew about!!

Time is catching up with one of our family "greats"!! Still, Herman's warmth and overall jovial demeanor are still there. Herman Stock is not a great man Herman Stock is a good man, something much harder to be and more important to his family and his community something which most "great" men ever know. My Dad was the same.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner with Herman's daughter, Kaye, and her family at Giuseppes in downtown Colorado Springs. We then went to beautiful seven falls and watched the changing colored waterfall at night. I was so proud of Mom for braving the heights, which she hates, to enjoy the sights with us!

It may very well be the last time that the Marin Werner family branch and the Peter Carl family branch get together but I think it is safe to say that it was a very good thing that we did! I think the original Herman would be proud!

Abilene is not a big town but it has some pretty amazing sites! Kinda like my hometown of Arthur Illinois except we don't have a presidential library.....yet! Now old Abilene, the historic cattle trail district, was, um a tourist trap. However, it looked liked plans were under way to spruce up the massive historical value of the place versus the tawdry, we'll take your money and give you nuttin' version which exists today.

However, in between the fake cowtown and the grain elevators was the Eisenhower Center, Presidential Library, home, Museum and final resting place of General Dwight David Eisenhower and wife, Mamie. Here in little small town, rural Kansas was the place where one of the most significant and influential historical personas of the last millenium, not just the last century, grew up, lived, died and was buried. Take that NYC, Chicago, and LA!

Corporal Sleep Walking Bear and his fellow soldiers were amazed!! What a great, great museum not just dedicated to the fascinating Eisenhowers but to American history as a whole. It made us all proud to be Americans!!! It also made us proud to be Republicans! It may be the only time that I applaud Kansas(DDE) kicking Illinois' behind(Adlai Stevenson)!!!! The museum was just excellent and the grounds were nothing short of inspirational! Flat, simple, and Midwestern who could ask for anything more! Of course, the Sleep Walking Bear travel agency needs to be applauded for this Memorial Day excursion(how aptly "planned")

Our "invasion" of Kansas continued across the state through Salinas(Sa-lee-nus?, Sa-li-nus? hasenpepher corporated we're gonna do it) and on to Hays. The dinosaur museum "may" have been interesting if it had not been closed. And, as for "old" Fort Hays, in the words of Bette Davis, what a dump! This though, is where we saw our first buffalo. Ironically at Old Fort Hays there was a gigantic statue of a buffalo overlooking the real deal! I wonder what they think!!

The Comfort Inn in Goodland Kansas in the far western part of the state was tremendous! Nice staff, damn Kansans are sooooo nice!! Ate catfish at Hanks, a local restraunt and it was great!! However, evidently word at got out from either the Mormons, the outlaws or the Germans about the presence of the Sleep Walking Bear Gang because we were nearly arrested at the local WalMart. On the way out, we set off the bells and buzzers. Now mind you, I'm not quite sure what danger a senior citizen, her upstanding Republican daughter, and a fat Sleep Walking Bear may have posed, but they evidently needed to peer into our purchases of Pepsi, ladies unmentionables, and garden figurines to make sure we were not, say, stealing, the Goodland family jewels! WARDEN WANDA, at WALMART, in the WILDS of Kansas WAS not gonna have that happen on her WATCH! Yikes!

Today was our last day in Kansas, Memorial Day, which we spent learning fascinating facts about one of our great historical figures and America too! We travelled through countryside which is quintessential Americana. It was fascinating, good, bad, exciting, boring, and fun. We didn't need a passport to travel here and we were generally met with open arms(excepting Walmart!). At the end of the day, we all thought GOD BLESS AMERICA!

ATCHISON BY ACCIDENT
Sleep Walking Bear and friends changed course a little but with a much different result than the most famous resident of Atchison Kansas. Evidently, all the nice folk moved across the river to build this beautiful little city on the banks of the Missouri River in Kansas. There, we FINALLY found a waterfront park that was well used and idyllic spot for picnicing, setting your paddle boat into the river, or just strolling along the well-maintained riverfront.

Of course, much of this improvement seemed likely to have come from the recent Lewis/Clark commemorations as this was a stop in the beginning of the expedition's journey to the Pacific. Now, I assume Merriweather Lewis became an explorer to butch up his image. Otherwise, he was destined to become the owner of a florist shop in San Francisco. As for Clark, that of course would be Dick Clark, explorer and founder of American Bandstand who has been ringing in the New Year since the 19th century! Let's not forget Sacajewa(Indian for this way white boys) who was always posing along the way so they could capture her image for the future gold coin that would bear her likeness. Sacajewa was an early supermodel you see.

Of course, for actual and true historical facts you could visit the Atchison visitor's center and museum. Manned by Auntie Em from the Wizard of Oz, it was another "find" by our intrepid group of explorers. They had lots of information on favorite daughter Amelia Earhart who, before her famed disappearance, set all kinds of "firsts" for flight not just for a woman but for everyone as a whole. She was born and grew up in her grandparents home on the bluffs in a beautiful home overlooking the river. I remember a storyboard in the museum which she was quoted basically as saying, anyone in Atchison that knew me when I was growing up never, ever would have expected much of anything to become of me, I was quite the little terror! HA! She also credited her small town upbringing for keeping her from having a big city ego! HOW TRUE!! All in all, Atchison is a must see!! Sacajewa and Amelia will leave the light on for ya!

TOPEKA(oh, by the by we are the capitol of Kansas.....right?)
We travelled across Kansas and found Topeka so we could see the capitol building. Not that Topekans wanted to make that an easy thing! I guess they figure that big, officious looking building spoke for itself once you bumped into it so who would need a sign pointing you in that direction, right? The Sleep Walking Bear Expedition found it of course!! It was very pretty and grand much like a seat of government should be. There was a homeless person, just like the US Capitol in my former home of Washington DC and, just to show your tax dollars are hard at work, there was a big construction project going on outside. No wonder they don't want to let us manage our own money, they have "home" improvements continually going on!!

We ended up in the Best Western in Abilene, which may have been where Lewis and Clark stayed during their journey too! It was an old time Motor Lodge with a big courtyard with the bouncy, rusty, tetanus plagued, injury inducing kind of playground equipment that would certainly toughen up the namby-pamby young uns of today! It was not the nicest place we stayed, but it was clean and the people who ran the place were about the nicest folks you could ever meet. Real Midwestern hospitality, which you can find here in Illinois, but is evidently a requirement you must have to live in Kansas.

Finally, I love to watch the local news broadcasts and read the local papers while on vacation. For example, every teenager in Abilene(home of the Cowboys of course) must have been particpating in the State Track Meet. Everyone with a bedsheet had the names of their local heros and heroines planted out in the front yard of their homes. On TV, I was mesmerized and perhaps a little frightened, of the KAKE news team in Wichita. Evidently, nearly 2/3 of local residents own video cameras because with every single news story, including the ones occurring DURING the news, they had highlights! I got to see, live mind you, the arrest of a man who assaulted another with an ax. Obviously, the assaulted was right there on the stretcher who was much the worse for the wear. Later, unbeliveably, they had the mug shot of, I am not making this up, the blood spattered, Lizzy Borden wannabe! KAKE was on EVERYONE'S case let me tell ya! How in the hell did BTK get away with anything there????

So, here we were in Oz and, truly, life was good! People from the coasts can poke fun at Kansas all they want but Sleep Walking Bear, Marty, Pibby, Sacajewa, Amelia Earhart, Lewis and Clark et al are finding it quite, quite pleasant. Hell, even the ax attacker smiled in his mug shot. Welcome to Kansas indeed!

THE SLEEP WALKING BEAR GANG
Sleep Walking Bear, Marty the Kid, and Ma Stock were now headed across northern Missouri with the Mormon missionaries hot on their trail. We were on our way to St Joseph, MO the rootinest, tootinest, cowboyingest, varmint ridden............well, it was the home of Jesse James until he done got shot in the back. Also, it was the starting point for the Pony Express and the beginning of the Wild Western frontier.

St Joe certainly seemed like a city that might indeed be quite proud of it's outlaw past. I'm not quite sure, if the city was on the upswing or on the downslide? Huge mansions in various states of repair or disrepair, if you will, were found throughout what seemed to be a much, much larger place than the 60,000 population sign would indicate. Although, much of the waterfront district was probably more of a relic from the city's rust belt past than a sign of current bustling commerce and prosperity.

Still, one could not be sure. The architecture was amazing! Although even the Sleep Walking Bear gang could not find the damn riverfront park. We ended up driving on a road that I was quite certain the type of place modern day ruffians would dispose of their victims. Of course, the road lead to what every God-fearin' frontier town needs today...........a casino! It cracks me up how if you put a casino on a river then all of a sudden it ain't gamblin' no more. True to it's waterfront past, the cards and gamin and hookers(well i doubt many of what clearly seemed to be a "senior" crowd were employed in that profession) were all down by the river.

Also, in this same general vicinity was something called Robideaux Row. Once again, Sleep Walking Bear has picture of New Orleans grandeur. Once again, the "gang" had a hard as hell time finding what exactly it was. We think we found it Sunday morning and, well, it was what appeared to be the first flop houses of the old west. Rub-a-dub row was not impressive.

The Pony Express stables and the statue memorializing what has to be a fascinating piece of American history were kinda neat. Jesse James home was pretty cheesy and I faked being shot in the front which I'm sure made any locals going by roll their eyes. I am ever so original at times.

Overall, St Joe was an interesting stop. It seemed like a place that was proud of it's rowdy and ribald history. It was also home to what clearly was possibly the biggest mental health hospital aka nuthouse in all of North America. Now, I have always figured you had to be crazy to live in Missouri and so they would of course need an extra large loony bin to handle everyone. Of course, a newer facility had been built and the old one had been turned into a prison, very charming, and a large chunk was a museum dedicated to the history and treatment of mental illness. Stick with what you now, Missourans!

On that note, we ditched the Mormons at the casino with the octogenarian hookers, loaded up the rifles, drank some whiskey, set fire to the town, robbed the bank and then spent the next hour driving thru the hills and hollers south of St Joseph across the damn river to Atchison, Kansas which was probably only about five miles away. If anyone was following the "gang" at that point, it was probably the folks runnin' the booby hatch. This is how the Donner party got started out on the wrong foot(which would later be an appetizer hahahaha) too I'm sure. But we made it to Atchison(finally), home of Amelia Earhart. Sleep Walking Bear told everyone that he got "lost" in her honor........

Alleged neighborhood feline terrorist, Mr Tuffy, aka Tuffers aka Monsieur Tuffee, was "caught" and blamed for a chemical attack on a neighbor's van today. Despite the fact that Mr Tuffy has lead a "fairly" exemplary life in his four years, the one-testicled kitty cat has been accused of "spraying" the interior of a neighbor's vehicle with his DNA. It is not clear at this time that anyone witnessed the atrocity however an on-going multi-lateral investigation is taking place.

Despite the presence of numerous shady and suspect caticatures in the area. Mr Tuffy has been singled out as the number one suspect. Owner, "me", was quoted as saying "...since our single testicle cat has never done anything like this in four years of his life, it is highly surprising that a cat, generally shy of others would crawl into someone else's vehicle and spread his joy, so to speak...."

Still, hysterical neighborhood residents insist that Mr Tuffy is a threat to the well-being of their grass and carpets. Suggestions of what would amount to a half-neutering are being made. Threats of police action have been tossed about freely in the instance that Mr Tuffy's singular masculine attribute is not nipped in the bud.

Although Mr Tuffy's owners are seriously considering the charges against their kitty cat, the owners suspect that Mr Tuffy's accusers are guilty of species profiling and, in general, special prejudice. "All cats, especially males, look the same and are all sexually charged up. I personally think their kit n kaboodle is laced with viagra"....states the owner of Mr Tuff Tuff.

Until it has been determined the perpetrator of the crime, Mr Tuffyshmoo, has been under house arrest. Vistors, Miss Madison, adoptive mother and Ms Emmy, aka Emms aka Emily Latella aka Emmyshmoo aka Emsmerelda aka Emma aka Emily Bronte aka shut the hell up, along with Wardens Pibby and Kent Alan are keeping a close eye on the heretofore law-abidng Mr Tuffs.

Also, an all-points bulletin is being issued with for the Barks-Alot gang and the Dogs for Dinner family who reside in the area.

Peace! OUT! WOOF!