Have a Magical Day

These are not feel-good, happily-ever-after stories like Disney movies, nor are they dark or violent. Each story is from a different perspective (tour guide, PR staffer, detective, fantasy author, housewife, state patrolman, and businessman among others) and gives insight into life in 2024 at a huge theme park and large entertainment corporation. It is not adoring of Disney, or scornful, but the stories include a variety of characters you might meet if you spent a little free time in the park, and they offer a variety of perspectives about the role of fantasy and of Disney in modern American culture. Stories included are Have a Magical Day, Space Mountain Getaway, Stealing his Heart, Slapping a Mickey, Afternoon Snake, Detective's Tale, Garbage Duty, Downpour, Attic Bride, Just Ashes, Cocktail Party, Small World Problems, If the Shoe Fits, and It is what it is. All were written in 2023 or 2024. It is the author's eleventh volume of short stories.

$4.79 + shipping, Amazon paperback
$1.99 on kindle
free on kindle unlimited

late in the afternoon, and i've had way too much coffee already. once again i didn't sleep well, because a son living here was grievously unhappy late at night, and i was unable to do anything about it. never mind that it was his fault, and it was way past my bedtime. now i have a line-up of things i want to do and literally no energy to do it.

i have however been doing a lot of dashing. the way dashing works is that at the beginning of the week you never get enough, so you're primed to take all this work on TH/FR/SAT to make up for the work you didn't get MON/TUE/WED. if you just have faith that the late week will balance out the early week (it generally does) you have a more relaxing week, knowing you'll be ok. i have no faith. and i'm sometimes called away by circumstances, and lose FR or SAT or some other valuable time.

the schedule wears me out in another way. generally i work until done, at about 9 30 or 10 at night. it's not a bad work hour and i should be in ok shape when i get home. however there's still a lot to do, namely, getting and delivering my son's med, and walking the dog. these can be harder than appear. 11 30 i need to be done, and i'm not always. in the morning i'm literally grogging around while people pull me into daytime responsibilities. i still haven't downloaded from work yet!

if i have to do stuff mornings, i do, and then here i am in the afternoon - i have time, i have the house, i have my typewriters and puppies here, and i can't budge.

nothing is written. goosegg. dogs are barking. will check.

i went to the walmart here in galesburg, and it actually made me feel better. i know that the vast majority of the people in there are quite conservative, maybe most are trumpers. i can guess that. but among the trumpers there is more than just the usual joy of victory. it's almost like they feel they've righted a wrong, as if trump's declaration that the last election was "stolen from him," is something they bought hook line and sinker.

if anything the election shows that the system works. everyone counted their votes, and they came out in a logical pattern nationwide, i.e. he won the same amount proportionately in each state. there was no state that was out of its pattern, no place where massive fraud could be said to be clear. same as last election, it was counted fairly and accurately by very careful neutral counters.

that shows that he's total bullshit, because remember his whole claim is that he should have won. well yes he would have won if blacks and women weren't allowed to vote, but he didn't, because we have a free and legal system for every adult to vote. this time, americans voted in a total fraud, liar, rapist, pedophile, etc.

my explanation is 1) very high inflation hurt very badly in what were already bad times; 2) we're tired of endless wars that seem to be our responsibility; and 3) racism and misogyny, which i suspect is the main reason. they just don't want to elect a woman who is not only a woman, but also not quite white. let's face it, they knew about the fraud/felon/pedophile thing. the reason i say racism/misogyny is that look at the south, where biden made some ground - georgia, north carolina, missouri - even look at appalachia. it wasn't even close.

there's an unusually high level of stress around the election, but the iowa poll made me optimistic. so i'm optimistic with high stress. everyone i know is very stressed about the whole thing.

meanwhile, it's by far the most beautiful time of year. rain on orange and red leaves; people are less aggressive about actually removing them; the town therefore is carpeted with red and orange crinkly round blankets of them around each tree. it's quite a sight. and above, they turn gently brown and fall with the slightest wind. the air becomes cleaner and the soft rain settles the dusts of summer.

the iowa poll was unusual in that it was thorough and really asked a wide range of people what they were doing and why. it was older women and independents who really swung it, because both groups are going blue and both are good at voting. extrapolating we can see a large advantage for harris nationwide and the possibility of several other states going her way. iowa was a good example of how they took a rather vapid poll early on and just sort of assumed it would go red as it did for trump a few years back. but iowa had actually gone for obama, as did several other red states, and is on the cusp that could be called red-purple. now quick let's think of the red-purple states that could also go harris.

i actually think pennsylvania and georgia will be very close, and harris will not be able to count on either one, though she will probably win both. they will be tied up in lawsuits and accusations of cheating etc. which trump has planned from long ago. she will however win wisconsin, michigan, north carolina, and arizona. i'm not sure about nevada,

but if she wins new hampshire, virginia, and florida, as soon as the polls close, we'll know she's on her way. she could win florida because of a huge independent women population, women who have had their rights snatched from them, as well as a puerto rican population of over a million.

i'm hoping she wins ohio - it'll be close - and she could win tennessee. but we'll see her strength as the clock moves westward. she'll win iowa; she may win kansas, and it'll be very close in indiana and missouri. i think she'll win missouri too. and then, she'll win montana, alaska and arizona. texas will be close. idaho will be close. even wyoming and utah will be close but i wouldn't call any of those for harris. those are places where people can't imagine voting for a democrat.

the problem in appalachia is racism, that simple. that's her problem in general; she's not white, and she's not a man. most everyone dislikes trump or at least sees the danger of voting for him. the vast majority of conservatives, and this country is very conservative, vote for him because they're conservative, not because they like him. i find it incredible that a non-white woman even has a chance but it's very very good if this country can do this, if only to include a vast number of people who comprise it and do much of the work. she will make a way better president than trump, who really has no clue about economy, environment, world politics or leadership.

it's what i call the high holy days - saints' day, souls' day, sadie hawkins day, all the big ones. they are actually big because the weather is better now, in my opinion, than any other time of year. after it's turned cold, cold and a little wet, orange turning to brown, leaves blowing in wind or getting wet and preparing to rot on the ground, i love all this. time to celebrate making it another year.

an unusual color splendor this year; it kind of snuck up on us and at first i said, not so great. then it got better, and still better, until last night it seemed to be at its peak. keep in mind that broad and mary, our corner that i look down on right here from my seat, is halloween central for all the trick-or-treaters. you can include halloween in the above list but i'm rather traditional and say that halloween was there because it ushered in saints day/souls day which are the real holidays, let the kids have their fun, but it's not technically part of the high holy days. same with election day, which tends to muck everything up with television commercials and everyone getting tense about political violence and such, and some of this is inevitable in my view. things will happen here and it may not be good. but what can i do? for high holy days i celebrate life, the end of a summer, the promise to bring spring around again, the peace and clear air of a cold night out in the neighborhood.

the neighborhood was packed; cars were parked all up and down the street, which usually gets no cars parked at all. we being historic district, upper middle class and all, while still in town, have the best candy and lots of my neighbors even go so far as to make a performance, invite children in through a chuppah, put on a show, give them a whole basket of candy, the whole works. we simply drop a smarties and a lollipop in their bag and hope that by having two, it'll be less clear which two but they'll know it was two and be satisfied. it has worked pretty well. but four, five bags of candy aren't enough. we run out two thirds of the way through the night.

let me try to explain what i mean by saints' day and souls' day. i'll say right out that i don't believe in heaven and hell as separate places outside of the world we live in, that somehow some of us are going in a bad direction and some of us are going in a good direction. i believe it is true that we are divided based on the direction we are going in, but we aren't heading to some separate place where everyone's 100% one way or the other. in my observation, very few of us are 100% and that may be why we're here. why should we be going anywhere when the earth has plenty of souls and bodies for us to occupy when we're done with the vessel we are currently using. but we need time to think about what's happening here - we have a soul, the soul is in a body, it's learning or not learning, it occupies that body, then it leaves. that's what we know. it may be impossible for us to leave this particular cycle, but it's silly to imagine parts of it that we somehow hope it will turn into. it's not turning into anything. and we are getting stuck with our own karma repeatedly, both in this life and in whatever life we are moving along into.

so in a way i'm celebrating, or at least recognizing, the possibility of reincarnation, the stuck-in-the-middle nature of life here, the plight we are all here sharing. happy saints' day; happy souls' day, happy sadie hawkins day. carry on.

had a bad dash last night, by bad i mean it had some sitting, and didn't make a whole lot of money. the money wasn't a problem; it's been great all summer and i can generally easily make what i need with four or five dashes a week, and i've been doing six. so a low tuesday doesn't ruin my life at all.

but the sitting was an issue for two reasons: one, it's getting cold, and two, the guardians were losing to the yankees. nothing to do about either one. i can shut my car up, and, having worn fairly warm clothing, can be ok without turning it on, or, i can do like other dashers and simply leave it on. i don't like leaving it on. i'm not especially cramped or uncomfortable; i kind of like it out there usually. last night it felt a little odd.

i'm finally organized enough to have some idea of what i need to do when i wake up in the morning. a lot of these things are everyday things. i market my books, on twitter, facebook and elsewhere. i keep track of my numbers. i make quaker pamphlets, and organize the ink, the printer, the paper, etc. i try to do some writing and many days can't even get around to doing it. i answer my son's calls and go do his bidding - i take him meds and get him what he needs. sometimes this constant interruption prevents me from doing the rest. that is the case today. and by the way, i try to keep up on these blogs. twelve a month - this post doesn't count, since i already got this blog this month. just write, that's my idea. if you can't do the writing, that's ok, but put something here, that'll keep you going. that's the hope.

more later, off to do meds.

i tend to get caught up in my kid's dysfunction. They can't seem to get theri shower running properly; that's two round trips, one to bring a kid here, one to take him home. they live out of the casey's - that's several times a day, and way too much money in the process. it's just how they live. i end up being the driver.

i would have long ago said, you do it yourself, but for my wife's insistence that, because they are disabled, they really need a hand. and in many ways they do. they can't hang onto money for more than five minutes, so they're often hungry. my son went through years unable to walk down the street; my wife accepted his explanation and it was clear he was uncomfortable in his own skin.

now from my point of view it's a matter of limiting the damage. when can i work, when i won't be interrupted? when can i carve out a few hours to do what I want? my life isn't really all that bad. we have enough money, enough food, enough of everything; i can't complain that they are taking food out of our mouths. and in fact, most of the money, as far as i can tell, comes out of my wife's retirement income which is substantial and which i really have no interest in controlling anyway. so it's easy enough for me to say, go ahead, spoil your son if you want, it's really between you and him anyway, even though to some degree i'm aware that spoiling a kid does him no favors. it's a tragedy but one i lost years ago and which i have no interest in reviving in hopes that maybe the odds will change. they won't change. as long as i'm here claiming he should make his own way, she'll step in to make sure he doesn't have to. to her recognizing his disability is first and foremost.

that may sound bitter, but in a way i'm saying that i accept it; i don't really know from disability, and i'm not in a position to tell her how to do it really. i have my feelings, my prejudices, built up over years of raising others and watching people, but they don't necessarily apply to someone who can't do basic functions that we all take for granted. such people should end up in institutions, you might say, and you'd probably be right, but this boy will at least have a childhood, and the feeling that he had the chance to live on his own and make his own way. what will he do when we're gone? he asks himself that question too i'm sure but it doesn't make him more able to do what he needs to. and the same goes for his friend. nobody is out there making them more independent, and they can only do what they have learned to do, which in most cases is not much. they've learned to be dependent. they're good enough at it that they are still alive.

in writing i'm steadily drawn into the era around the turn of the century (1900) when i find my great grandparents doing interesting things. i study them to pull together the background and the information from their families. it's part of my quest to really learn as much about my ancestors as i can. i was doing the language book for a while, but got bogged down and i have to write what i'm inspired to write. i hate forcing things and in fact can't seem to do it. if i'm stuck on something it's better to put it down for a while.

one thing i do have to do, however, is make sure i sit down to write every day. the blogs should be part of this; in fact, they are, to some degree. but i go days sometimes neglecting the blogs and everything else. i get caught up in my hearing issues or in my son's court drama, which now thank god is resolved. i get caught up in their stuff. i'm too easy to pull out of my chair.

nervous before a big trip to pekin this morning. up early, before five, dressed and had two cups of coffee already. it's about a fifty minute drive; we'll leave here at about 7:45. my son has a court appearance but the particulars are settled; he's paid the fine (we paid the fine); he took a driver's safety course and can prove it. all that remains is to have the judge free him from warrants.

the whole experience turned him into slightly more careful, more responsible; he doesn't want to have warrants but on the other hand he's a little not ready to take full responsibility. it's a gradual process. enough about him. the daughter also wants to go to hanna city; that's almost just as far, same southwest side of peoria. she thinks we can just go there whenever we want. on demand. on her demand.

it is gorgeous out there in the countryside. the back roads to hanna city take me through three towns, maquon, yates city, and farmington, and last weekend was yard-sale weekend. i didn't know how much they coordinated, but i found out. in farmington was a lot with about forty tents. perhaps people from the countryside came, rented a tent, set up their wares, and sat out there all weekend. the best i could figure it was lots of houseware, glass, china, etc. of course that's what shines in the sun as i'm driving by. one place had an ancient car and another had some very old desks. but i already have very old desks that i can't get rid of.

in fact i'm purging all kinds of stuff; it's been around too long and causes too much hard feelings. even in cases where my wife has as much as i do, she knows what she has and wants it there, whereas mine looks like big piles of junk to her. from my point of view, stuff i save i save for everybody, like old electronics, charging cords etc., and everybody at times comes back to paw through it. there are things though that i save for myself, like stamps and old postcards. and i'm sure they look like junk. but they're not, to me. i'll purge the deco. i have no need for deco. christmas wreaths, old cloth pumpkin-men, etc. one more year and i never put any of it up. what's the point? someone at the thrift store can enjoy it. pay a quarter and take home a whole armload of it.

this was my weekend. in essence, i picked up two sons, got on the midnight train out of chicago, went east to erie pennsylvania for a family wedding celebration, and came back on the same night as we'd got there. got back in galesburg early this afternoon, somewhat bleary eyed but happy i went.

the train from galesburg to chicago was eleven hours late, so we chose to drive my little honda to chicago and one son found a place to park: relatively cheap. it was down by union station, in the loop, yet very accessible. we were at the union station maybe four hours, a long wait but with beautiful architecture and very high ceilings. the place was full of Amish: maybe they were going back to pennsylvania? they had been in iowa, or further parts west?

the train chugged along at pretty decent speed; it went through toledo, where i spent years 1955-1965, at the of 1-10, and clerveland, where i was actually born in 1954. i also lived in pittsburgh and buffalo, which meant that erie, our destination, was in the center of the four towns. an intersting combination of total familiarity in essence and lack of familiarity in detail; in other words i didn't know the city at all, but in a deep way i knew it very very well. i told my sons about somne of my experiences growing up. they were impressed by the fact that when we got to pennsylvania it was hilly and wooded. it felt different from the midwest, and was.

someone had stolen the presidential deck of cards in union station. i looked everywhere for them to no avail. all that information, about their years, etc., gone. no problem, there was plenty to do and look at on the train. it rolled through indiana, toledo, and cleveland on its way to erie. i woke up suddenly in toledo at about three. then again in cleveland at about four thirty in the morning. all i saw were sleepy industrial cities splayed along the tracks. somewhat sleepless upon arrival in erie, we went down to a local diner for breakfast. i had my sister and my two boys with me. it was the old part of town, very pennsylvania, lots of character; i told my boys i was happy to show them where i'd grown up, though i hadn't grown up in erie itself. a man turned his swivel chair toward us at the door; he was wearing a hat that said VIETNAM war veteran, quite loudly, as if he was challenging me to tell my story. i knew right then he must have been one of my older classmates, who had gone off to the war and come back damaged or didn't come back at all. his hat said to me, tell your story. but that wasn't the time to tell my story. we were hungry. we sat down and they served us breakfast. i ordered a philly steak omelet.

i laughed to myself, not knowing what they'd think of that. i know they were all watching us, they could tell that i knew the place, i felt. they wouldn't pull the story out of me but if i told it they'd listen. My sister was full of vitriol about the family we grew up in; i didn't argue with her. she needed to tell her story; i need to tell mine.

i was in pittsurgh when i became aware of the war. i was in buffalo when i was drafted, in 1972, my senior year. my guess is that this guy was in that class or the one above. some guy in the class above me lied about his age, joined, and was killed. i had a low draft number, 42, and i found out in january of my senior year. this ensured i would go. canada was only 20 miles away but i didn't want to go to canada. one could also just go to jail but i didn't want to do that either. i was a pacifist and against the war but knew nothing of quakers. i decided i'd just go. i'd make a lousy soldier but they'd be stuck with me. and if i died i died. i'd been reading up on the war and why we were fighting it. i still didn't have a good reason but if they did i would just have to die for theirs. i was worried about it.

but then, right around senior skip day, they canceled the draft. they didn't need us anymore. the camps were full and they were pulling out of vietnam, didn't even need the boys that were already in the camps. one guy in my class tried to enlist, and they turned him away.

on senior skip day i was elated, free, alive. some people told me not to go skip school on that day but i took a stand and skipped school. it was probably the only time i did. it was almost like i was free, an adult, celebrating being alive, and it was pretty close to my eighteenth birthday. i can't remember what i told my mom. there wasn't much she could do about it. besides, i went back to school the following day. in general, i was a good boy and i passed.

back in the restaurant i paid the bill and gave a substantial tip. not the time tell that story. i'm not even sure the guy wanted to hear it, though he said hello and definitely noticed i was there. in the ensuing years i became a quaker, i decided if something tells you not to kill, don't kill. thou shalt not kill. if you kill then you have to live with the memory although that can be done, and i don't blame him for what he did. we were all there, we were all faced with a choice. it could have been me that was there in vietnam doing whatever he did; i certainly did nothing to stop it. all those guys are still back there, in pennsylvania and new york, living with their choices. and here i was, stopping in to say hello.

in the end, i just told everyone. i put it right on facebook - i got a cochlear implant at the u of i hosps. i got a lot of likes. my former bandmate down in carbondale wrote and said she hoped it worked out.

well, nothing "works out" when you lose your hearing; when it's gone it's gone and it won't come back. having electrical impulses in my brain instead of hearing works in the sense that i will be able to hear people talk. but i'm not complaining; i have something, and that's better than a lot of people, and i'm still alive, and i have my family.

one of the calls i got was from my ex-father-in-law. my first wife, for whatever reason, has decided never to come back to illinois, and therefore he is up there in chicago getting very old, and not talking to her, as they don't talk anymore. he has two sons and they still talk, but one is moving to michigan and the other is already in california, has been for years. in the end it could be my son, one of his grandsons, may be the only person remotely close, and he's in saint louis.

well, he called to say that at 98 he's considering getting a cochlear implant. i told him everything i knew about the operation, the recovery, the period of adjustment, and i told him, be sure you get a doctor who's straight with you and whom you trust. i was lucky that way. my doctor was good. the whole thing was a pain but i figured i had ten to twenty years to enjoy good hearing and being back in the game, so to speak.

> well, he said, but i'm 98, and don't have that much longer. this put me in the difficult position of helping him decide how much longer he thought he would last. there's no telling, i said, and that's true even for me at seventy, i could keel over tomorrow. but it's optimistic to do the best you can, get one, and enjoy good hearing in your final days. also i said, i think you look good and healthy and you'll last a while, so i'm still for it.

the whole thing gave me an odd feeling, him knowing he's on the edge there, that he doesn't really have all that long, and making a gamble that a couple of weeks of discomfort, with anesthesia, being knocked out, etc., all of which might be very hard on him. in some ways again i'm lucky. relatively healthy outside of my ears, i was able to recover from that other stuff ok and get back on my feet. i'm here, almost unable to take his call while i adjust to the new implant, but i'm definitely coming back, i'll be healthy, i'll have a life back even if everything goes wrong with the implant. he might not have the same luxury.

so i told him in the end, you have to do what's best for you, and i can't really judge that. but i also felt, well, i'm family, and he's always been family to me, and still is, and i don't want any problems between my first wife and me to come between us. i think, whatever advice i've got, he's more than welcome to it.

that's why i told him about the train station. my son and i, we'll be there, union station, friday afternoon from two to five, we'll be on our way to erie, pennsylvania, and if he wants to come talk about it he will. it may be more trouble for him, a 98-year-old, to find his way down to union station than it woulld be for me, only 70, to find my way, with my son, up to the north side where he is. but i told him i'm not confident leaving union station at that time, and also, by the way, you never know about these trains, maybe they'll be on time maybe not. so we'll see what happens, and i'll give you a report.

a somewhat traumatic day in iowa city has left me exhausted, overwhelmed, a little not quite myself.

it was a pleasant drive up there through the fall cornfields, and i was looking forward to having my cochlear implant turned on, or activated, through a process where they would measure my hearing and make its settings appropriately. i've come to like the hospital as it has a lot of very nice art and people are very friendly and in the nature of iowa in general. i had every reason to be in a good mood.

but the first step was a cat scan, about noon, and i went into this room, took out my hearing aids and glasses, and laid down on their bed for them to scoot me back so my head was in this kind of radiation container. so far so good. i shut my eyes and let them measure my head.

but when i got out and put my hearing aids back in, nothing. absolute silence. i jiggled them a little, turned them off and on, nothing. it was dead silent.

now at that point, waiting for the activation in the left, i had almost nothing in the left anyway. the right had about 20% and that's what i was counting on. but i had nothing and it was a very scary feeling.

they told me i was about to see the audiologist (true) and they would straighten it out - they eventually did, and it wasn't bad - but in the meantime i got a cup of coffee in total silence, and the worker said a few words to me which i entirely missed. people know when you just miss what they say, and usually they just let it happen. it's too much trouble to go back and shout in your face. but that's what i would have needed.

i jiggled them again at the table, and this time, with my coffee, i got something out of the right one. had it simply been de-activated by the cat-scan room? or had i lost a filter (possible?) - or, had the cat scan melted all the wax in my ears and settled it in so nothing else could get in there?

still don't know, but i was entirely traumatized. although total deafness is not the end of the world, at this point it represents one of my deep fears and it is, after all, what i'm going all the way up there in order to avoid. it's like the exact opposite outcome of what i'd wanted. and i know lots of people live just fine with total deafness every day, day in, day out. but i couldn't take twenty minutes of it.

today, sitting around, marketing, somewhat depressed. i need life to get back to a natural rhythm.