Working
This is a list of the jobs that I’ve had in my work life: car washer, cantaloupe picker, assistant cottage cheese maker, doorman at a hotel, meditation teacher, real estate agent, financial consultant, and comedian. The things I notice about my list is that it is a short list, I do things mostly with other people, with the exception of picking cantaloupes which I hated (I still hate the taste of cantaloupes), and I have mostly worked inside. I tend to work in sales even comedy you have to “sell” your material to the audience. Being a mediation teacher I consider my free love/hippie days. Real estate sales and financial consultant are my grown up make a living days. I would love to make my living as a comedian but I’ve only made $350 at it in ten years of doing it. It seems that it’s really just a hobby Jim. Sometimes I still have an audience stare at me wondering is that guy doing comedy or was that poetry---washing cars on the other hand is something I can always do and get a real sense of satisfaction from and a clean car…

Hog Head Inspector--A Story
My Uncle Bob was a hog head inspector.
He would only inspect the hog’s ears.
He had a bad habit of pushing the ear wax deep into the hog’s head.
He made a lot of hogs go deaf.
It’s hard to call a deaf hog.
So they fired him.
He was out of work for over a year.
That’s a tough thing to put on a resume.
Former hog head inspector.
“Why did you leave your position as “head hog” inspector?”
“Um that’s “hog head” inspector. I wasn’t the top guy.”
Deaf hogs drove my Uncle Bob into alcoholism.

Dementia
When I was nine years old my family took a trip to Joplin, Missouri to visit my Great Grandma Walker and to see some of other Joplin relatives. Grandma was a very nice lady who told some interesting stories about her life. She told them over and over about every thirty minutes. She didn’t have television so I enjoyed hearing the stories and I asked my mom if Grandma thought we would forget the stories or if it was some kind of strange Joplin custom to drive your California relatives crazy. My mom said no that Grandma has dementia and she forgets that she’s told the story. Grandpa Meese on the other side of her family also had dementia. Lately I started forgetting things so I think about my great grandparents and what they went through. I also started taking Vitamin E, Ginkgo Biloba, and working crossword puzzles and it seems to help—I hope. Ellen DeGeneres says that if you can remember to take Ginkgo Biloba you probably don’t need it…