Author Archive

I would imagine that in God’s eyes we’re a lot like dogs: noble and companionable, but let’s face it – cosmically speaking we’re still drinking from the toilet bowl. My particular weakness is my singular inability to look at a buffed granite countertop and simply say, “I appreciate your bright and shiny stoniness.” Instead I become verbose and overly celebratory in my praise of granite.

“Don’t take me for granite!”

I’m reasonably intelligent (I’ve never owned a pet rock), but I’m unable to feel just a simple appreciation and normal regard for granite. I fuss over, and am awed by granite. My point is, for whatever reason, I cannot take granite for granted. I’ll grant you taking granite for granted rarely impacts my everyday life and thankfully was not part of my mortgage application – “Mr. Hardiman in the essay portion of our application you seem to imply that you are unable to take granite for granted. I’m afraid your lack of normalcy in the realm of granite appreciation is both unnatural and, in this case, disqualifying. We cannot in good conscience lend money to someone as dumb as a rock.”

And the bank would be justified in my exclusion because it’s not just granite countertops I cannot take for granted, but also granite rock formations. I admit I’m so awed by granite that I’ve recently moved to New Hampshire for no other reason than to be in the Granite state.

Well so what. Maybe for you it’s Dancing with the Stars or that caramelized crusty corner of homemade macaroni & cheese that you cannot take for granted, but for me it’s granite. And I’m not alone either. As Abraham Lincoln said about his favorite Civil War general: “I’ll grant you Grant doesn’t take granite for granted even though I hear Stonewall Jackson does.”

However, this is the kind of obscure minutia that haunts me:

I worry that if I ever met Dick Cavett, he’d be able to sprinkle our conversation with more relevant Norma Desmond quotes from “Sunset Boulevard” than I ever could.

1. My new book “Ventriloquism for Dummies” just arrived. For some reason I can’t read it without moving my lips.
2. God’s majesty is ineffable…so are women wearing chastity belts.
3. It was just a prank when Debra Messing said her mother, Mrs. Messing went missing. Messing was just messing with us.
4. He exercised his Free Will. He had no choice.
5. He drank the prune juice with “aplomb.” He had no choice.
6. He was allowed only to pick between Prime Beef or Select Beef. They had no Choice.
8. There is no #7. I had no choice.
9. Try not to get into acute depression, because there’s nothing cute about depression.
10. A prisoner on Death Row had the foresight to order a 112 ft. long submarine sandwich for his last meal. The warden complied. The inmate lived for another 14 days while slowly eating the lengthy sandwich, but died of food poisoning on the 15^th day.  
    

    Submarine Sandwich Forever 

1. 

   Magnifycent!

   Caitlyn Jenner and the Case of the Very Mistaken Identity

3. Sherlock Holmes is hopelessly constipated in this predictably slow-moving case entitled “No Sh*t Sherlock.” The author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has our quirky genius, Sherlock Holmes, suffering heroically from constipation. And although our brave Sherlock exudes great fortitude, that’s about all he manages to exude for a week. The ordeal ends when he accidentally sees Queen Victoria naked and it scares the sh*t out of him.
5. Miss Marple’s “April Papal PayPal Caper” – Spring is in the air and the Vatican is awash in intrigue when the Pope is tricked into sending money to a needy Nigerian prince whose request for funds seemed perfectly legitimate – at least initially. The church goes to court for redress, but the case is thrown out on the grounds it’s just too damn hard to pronounce (April Papal PayPal Caper).
7. Redrum, She Wrote – Cabot Cove’s Jessica Fletcher is back, and backwards this time in “Redrum, She Wrote.” In this ass backwards episode, Jessica reverses the detective process and solves a murder before it even happens. Ironically, the perpetrator, a hilarious comedian, is found guilty of the crime even though he hasn’t killed anyone yet. It seems the prosecution got him on a technicality when they duped the arrogant comedian into bragging “I murdered’em last night” while performing onstage.
9. Perry Mason and the Case of the Shy Bladder – When his wife shows up missing, the District Attorney warns the husband, “Urine trouble.” But the husband turns the tables on the DA by asking one simple question: “Oh really Mr. District Attorney. Tell me then, how can one be ‘missing’ when they ‘show-up’?” On the basis of this single unanswerable question he’s released on his own recognizance. We still wonder how his wife was hiding her shy bladder problem. Depends…on what she was wearing. In any event, critics everywhere agreed – the case was an absolute pisser.
11. Charlie Chan and the Chocolate Factory in “The Case of No Tickee*, No Entry.” – Well, how did little Willy Lo Mein gain entrance to the fabulous chocolate factory without the Golden Tickee? I mean Willy Lo Mein was liked, but not well liked. *Note: This story was written in 1934 so using the word “tickee” was not racial stereotyping. I mean it was racial stereotyping, but no one cared.
13. “Hairdresser Hairassment?” Was it a case of non-consensual hair-sniffing in this Vidal Sassoon story of unwelcomed inhaling? Opening sentence reads: “Gee lady, your hair smells terrific, and I bet the hair on your head smells good too.”
15. From the creators of Wil & Grace comes a mystery so stupid you’ll drool. The plot involves the kidnapping of Debra Messing’s mother in a drama named: “Debra Messing’s Mom, Mrs. Michelle Messing, is Missing.” Actually this isn’t true, I’m just messing with you.
17. In a similar vein, a recently discovered short story by Yogi Berra was entitled: “Baseball Missing. Foul Play Suspected.”
19. And in another mystery that should’ve stayed undiscovered, Frank Perdue’s unpublished story: “Chicken Missing. Fowl Play Suspected.”
21. “Nancy Drew and the Case of the Smoked Salmon” – A serial murderer leaves his calling card, a smoked salmon at his murder scene. Law enforcement is perplexed because they didn’t think you could smoke a salmon, let alone get it lit.
23. Agatha Christie served-up a delicately layered mystery about a power hungry family titled “A Sinful Helping of Filial Piety” – The story has many flavors to it including Apple and Blueberry Piety.
25. “Triple Indemnity” – Identical to the classic “Double Indemnity” in every way except the indemnifications are adjusted for inflation. Ho-hum. This is an updated version only a bean counter could love.
27. A Charlie Chan Mystery: “General Tsao Chicken is Missing…from the Menu.” When Chan investigates the good general’s disappearance, he solves the case by discovering Tsao was demoted to Colonel, and that diners were only willing to eat colonels if they were corn.
29. Dashiell Hammett’s unpublished and impolitic tale of a mysterious speech impairment entitled: “Tham Thpade Tholves the Mythtery of Bogie’s Lisp.” It’s thuch a thilly thtory. Theriously.
31. A Dunkin’ Donut Who-Done-It. These kind of mysteries are referred to in literary detective parlance, not as a whodunit, but as a whodonut. This newly discovered story asks the titled question – “Who Drowned Cinnamon Cruller?” Cinnamon had always been a little twisted. After all, she descended from a long line of cinnamon twists. But surely the young and curvy Cinnamon deserved a better fate then turning up half-eaten and coffee-logged on a crumby old plate, where her once beautifully braided body was now distorted and savagely illuminated by the eerie intermittent glow of Dunkin’ Donut’s strobing neon light. She was so young, having only been fried that morning, and now here she was, bloated, bitten and cast aside like a pellet from an owl’s gizzard. Ms. Cruller held such promise. Just 20 minutes ago she sat perky, puffy and wonderfully glazed in the incubating display case, hoping some nice family would make her the pick of the litter and take her home in a little pink box like a rescue donut. But no. It was not to be as ghoulish and vulgar things would be perpetrated against her deliciously flaky body. Who would do such an obscene thing to such a delicate and promising piece of pastry? Whodonut? A nearby cup of Joe was implicated in the drowning, but he had no motive. He was just unlucky enough to be a black…cup of Joe. The real culprit, we discover, was a regular customer named Henry Givins who explained, “It’s no big deal. I do this 3-4 times a week. I like dunking my crullers. Devouring a freshly made donut is not an issue for me because I don’t personify donuts like you all do. Y’know the song ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin?’ Well the same holds true for donuts, except these donuts are made for eating. And that’s just what I’ll do. My conscience is clear on the matter although sometimes my eyes glaze over.” Clearly Henry Givins had no misgivins about his actions. Critics have called this long lost story: The apotheosis of Gut Bomb Noir cinema at its Edward Hopper Nighthawks best.
33. Colombo and the Case of “No More Things” – Astonishingly Peter Falk’s rumpled character solves a case without once having to resort to saying, “Aaaah, just one more thing sir.”
35. Breakfast on the Orient Express – Murder is out and foodies are in, in this case of the missing 3-minute egg that’s solved in 2 minutes when Detective Poirot cracks both the case and the egg.
37. Edgar Alan Poe’s “The Murders at the Rue Loony Bin”: A jealous lover kills 3 of his mistresses 6 personalities. It gets complicated when the 3 that survive admit they are still in love with the murderer and refuse to press charges. In a kangaroo court held in Australia, her defense attorney asks the charges be reduced from a single count of murder in the 1^st, to a ½ count of murder in the 3^rd since only 3 of the 6 personalities died. The judge throws out the case stating, “I was told there wouldn’t be math.”
39. “Joe Mannix and the 35^th Time He Gets Shot in the Same Spot of the Same Arm While Pursuing Washed-up Actors Whose Agents Can Only Get Them Special-Guest-Crook Appearances on TV Shows.” This long-winded title presents yet another case whereby good ole Joe brings a bad guy to justice, while being shot in the same spot, of the same arm, once again, for the 35^th time in only 66 episodes. That is one resilient arm. When Joe’s faithful secretary Peggy (played by the lovely Gail Fisher) expresses concern for her boss’s health, and her utter amazement at both the frequency and location of the wound, Mannix modestly brushes off the injury and responds, as he always did, “I’m OK Peggy. Yeah, he winged me, but he’ll do time.”  
40. Read the rest of this entry »

1. 

   Half-baked ice cream meets my half-baked idea for a divinely inspired, holier-than-heck, frozen dessert. 

   Amish Barn Raisin’ – A very sober version of Rum Raisin

2. Quakers ‘n Cream – Vastly superior to Quakers ‘n Oats
3. Chunky Catholic – Ben & Jerry say they conceived of this ice cream immaculately. It’s filled with chunks of guilt, ribbons of redemption and dollops of dogma. Made from the milk of baptized cows, this ice cream is so decadent that eating it is actually a confessable sin: “Bless me father for I have licked.” 
4. Episcopal Popsicles – A tasty treat for the Frozen Chosen
5. The Nifty Swifties – No one can resist our new Overlord. She comes plain or dipped in sequins.
6. Televangelist Dough – Oh they’re rollin’ in it.
7. Pralines ‘n Puritans – You can tell which are which by licking them
8. Amish Garcia – Get your pious Grateful Dead fix satisfied with a sober scoop of this clear-eyed version of Cherry Garcia
9. Pentecostal Pecan – So good you won’t bother speaking in tongues; you’ll start licking in them
10. Rosicrucian Crunch – Mostly Boneless Ice Cream. An acquired taste. Like most religions, it’s usually acquired from your parents.
11. Rocky Road to Heaven – ♫You’re going to find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road, if you don’t stop and smell the Rose-icrucians along the way♫
12. Heathen Heath Bar Toffee – Popular with Atheists. It’s topped with a blast of blaspheme and tastes positively sacrilicious.
13. Amish Cheesecake – I never thought the two could mix (the austere and the temptress). Comes with a racy Amish calendar in which some of the women appear bonnetless.
14. Russian Orthodox ‘n Hydrox – A smash up of the Eastern Coptic Church and proto-Oreos. A precursor to Oreos ‘n Cream. Not advised for those who are Putin-intolerant
15. Branch Davidian w/Cashews, Walnuts, Pecans etc. – As you might expect this Branch Davidian sect is absolutely filled with all kinds of nuts
16. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ice Cream – A frozen confection for disbelieving atheists
17. Double Dutch Reformed Church – This tasty little number is served in a little wooden shoe
18. Blended Mormon Clusters – Somehow manages to marry several individual flavors into one big happy family
19. Creaminess Is Next to Godliness – A heavenly ice cream from God’s lips to your cone
20. Hedonism – When the only thing you can’t resist is temptation.
21. Romulus and Remus Ripple – Rome’s founders will melt your heart and all over your hand if you don’t slurp them up lickety-split.

The following flavors are in the planning stages:

1. Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program
2. Jehovah’s Goiter
3. Jehovah Falls Down Goes Plop
4. Seventh Day Adventist
5. Third Trimester Adventist
6. Second Semester Dentist
7. Note: Sneaking this in to see who my friends really are, if you would please post on my wall a jpg of a whale with the comment, “I think Cephalopods have a swell head,” then (and only then) can we remain friends.
8. Shakers-n-Quakers-n-Bears, Oh My!
9. The Mostly Reformed Church of Generally Unrepentant Moravians…and the women who love them.
10. OMGs – filled with Emojis and acronyms
11. Vanilla Sex – Try it. A classic. It’s made with Love 

Alright, 21 full-fledged flavors and 10 flavors in the formulation stage is probably enough ice cream for one sitting. If you can find more flavors, that will be a scoop.

What’s in a name? Well, usually letters, arranged to motivate.

As the housing market continues to fragment into ever-narrower segments, the housing industry has responded with creative communities designed to address underserved markets. The following is a sample of these new communities reflecting the unique lifestyle of their target market:

1. Habitat for Profanity – A sweat-equity community built for poor people who like to swear.
2. Heaven – As you might expect, it’s a gated community. Background checks are mandatory and only those without sin are allowed to enter (entry also helped by knowing Felicity Huffman).
3. Almost Heaven – West Virginia community popular with John Denver fans
4. Uncommon Commons – An exceptionally ordinary development noted for its outrageous normality. If you’re especially mundane, have we got a home for you.
5. Birch Crossing – Although built in a serenely sylvan setting, be advised that crossing that birch too often could get you birch-slapped
6. The Necropolis at Forest Lawn – Available only to people 6 feet and under. This is a below-ground community for the permanently retired. Tagline: “Sorry I can’t come to the door right now. I’m buried.
7. Bayou Perish – Louisiana version of The Necropolis. Due to the Mississippi flooding, it’s an above-ground community for the permanently retired. Available only to people 6 feet and over. Tagline: “Y’all do realize we’re still part of the United States?”
8. Crestfallen Heights – As the contradictory name evidences, it’s very popular with the bipolar crowd
9. Infarction Junction – A heartfelt community were homeowners are called patients and, just like their vascular system, are encouraged to circulate freely. Be forewarned, speeding hearts racing down the Main Artery are not tolerated and are placed under cardiac arrest. Most homes are 4-chambered. You get the picture. Brochure promises “2 EMTs on every corner and a defibrillator in every garage.”
10. My Happy Place – Finally you can go to your happy place. If you lived here you’d be smiling already. A giddy development where all meals are happy meals and all insulation is pink cotton candy. Many homes are made of gingerbread.
11. The Barracks at Andersonville – Taking its cues from the Civil War prison, this lavish reimagining of a dismal POW camp is weirdly popular with guys who still watch Hogan’s Heroes…and the women who love them.
12. Honey Bucket Meadows – An upscale mobile home park (if such a thing is even possible) with an occasional blue splash of elegance
13. Iodine Estates at 3 Mile Island – The only development where both the homeowner and the home have a half-life. No need for a microwave. Just take your food out of the refrigerator and it will spontaneously warm. A healthy thyroid gland is a must.
14. Chair Noble – Not a housing development. I just wanted you to say “Chernobyl” without realizing it.
15. Fallen Manors – A rude development recently zoned for spitting, jaywalking and graffiti.
16. Isn’t it funny how we don’t really understand what we’re doing here and yet we carry on like we do? This is not a housing development, it’s just me making a mid-list observation as a humble acknowledgement of something much greater than our little ego selves. The doors of perception are open for business, now if we could just find the key. We now return to our analgesic entertainment already in progress…
17. English Spellings at Ye Olde Apothecary’s Shoppe – Experience thatched roofs, warm beer and bubonic plague – and that’s just on Drury Lane! Move here and you’ll learn to set your watch just by glancing at Stonehenge.
18. Bunny Hutch Corners – For the hare-raising experience of a lifetime
19. The Sands at Iwo Jima – For the flag-raising experience of a lifetime
20. Yeast of Eden – For the bread-raising experience of a lifetime
21. Lazarus Estates – For the dead-raising experience of a lifetime
22. Sugar Plantation at Chattel Village – For the cane-raising experience of a lifetime
23. Adam & Eve’s Garden of Earthly Delights – For the Cain-raising experience of a lifetime
24. Noah’s Park – For the rain-rising experience of a lifetime
25. Echo Chambers at Walla Walla – Double your pleasure in Walla Walla. The town so great they named it twice. Partial list of homeowners: Yo Yo Ma, Honey Boo Boo, Richie Rich, JJ Abrams and Chi Chi Rodriguez
26. Fresh Dressings at Wounded Knee – Not really a housing development, but I worked on this one too long to just delete it. Ummm, buy now and receive a free walker with the purchase of any teepee
27. The Cribs at Interscope Ranch – Hip hop living was never so bulletproof. Free rap or scratch classes at the Dr. Dre Community Center.
28. The Crabs at Mustang Ranch – Available in soft shell or STDs
29. The Heights at Acrophobia – Each home features a 30-story atrium with loft bedrooms accessed by ladders. Only the Navajo or steeplejacks need apply.
30. The Heights of Impropriety – OMG, voyeurs and exhibitionists living side by side. I mean it’s see and be seen in this fetishistic paradise. Weirdest VFR you’ll ever experience. Please note, during ground fog it’s IFR.
31. Fresh Kills – An actual city and landfill in NY. I’m not making this up: Fresh Kills, Worst Name Ever

Thank God these newly discovered books of the Bible weren’t included in the New Testament. Its hard enough reconciling the original ones.

In an unprecedented discovery, never-before-seen books of the Bible (scrolls actually) have been unearthed at an excavation site near Jerusalem. They were discovered by a team of archaeologists from UC Berkeley who were astonished by their outrageous fortune remarking, “Can you believe we finagled a grant to dig around the Middle East for 6 months? Unbelievable – oh yeah and stumbling upon these Bible books was pretty cool too.”

The scrolls, written in ancient Aramaic, were found in an amphora (large 2-handled clay vase) marked “Burn these when it gets cold – looks like King Solomon’s son is at it again with his heresies. What a waste of good papyrus.”

Fortunately for posterity, these written ruminations weren’t reduced to warming embers. UC Berkeley Press has collected and curated these strange and wonderful writings that give us a window onto the ancient world and has published them in a bracingly numinous compendium called “The New Testament for Dummies.”

It’s apparent from the tenor of these writings that this early version of the Bible was intended more as a Self-Help Guide Book to assist newly minted hominids in navigating the unhygienic world of ancient Babylonia without contracting typhoid. It was a time without organized religions. When spirituality was a personal experience practiced, not through intermediaries, but from direct personal interface with what today is called consciousness, but back then was called “that thing that makes me feel guilty when I covet my neighbor’s ta-tas”

But before acolytes realized what was happening, well-intentioned malefactors tricked worthy men into organizing the inexplicable cosmos into defined religions, and now religion has become this external thing you pay homage to rather than the deeply felt presence of immediate experience ~ UC Berkeley Press

Irrespective of man’s codification of the spiritual experience, the following is a list of the Bible scrolls recovered at the site, along with a brief summary of their contents. They are attributed to King Solomon’s son, Prince Kanye:

1. The One Commandment: This was simply the Golden Rule whereby you treat others as you would like to be treated. And it worked beautifully…until it was sent to committee, where they kept adding amendment after amendment.
2. Do Unto Deuteronomy as You Would Do Unto Mitt Romney: How someone from antiquity could foretell the existence of Mitt Romney is startlingly prescient.
3. 50 Shades of Truth: The less said about this book the better. Way too much focus on spanking.
4. Numbers: Not numbers but numbers. Let me explain. This long forgotten book was once a helpful list of 5-star dentists (middle eastern barbers really) in the greater Judea area who knew how to effectively use Novocain. Therefore, because of their anesthetic abilities, they were numbers (silent “b”) not numbers (audible “b”).
5. King Herod Deals with Hemorrhoids: The Great One tries to reconcile God’s Majesty with a prolapsed rectum.
6. Laminations: A precursor to Lamentations. This rather pedestrian scroll deals more with medieval flooring than the Human Condition. In Laminations, the prophet Linoleum speaks grandiloquently of scuff-resistant, non-permeable surfaces as a foundation for hygienic living. It is believed this is the first mention of cleanliness being next to Godliness.   
7. How to Avoid Getting Stoned: Not the “far out” kind of stoned. This book deals with avoiding the kind of stoning where suffocating rocks are pressed down upon one’s chest to encourage behavior modification. This method of negative reinforcement was really just a medieval reminder to not take the Lord’s name in vain, or to take narcotics in vein.  
8. Burning Taint: STDs to avoid while visiting Sodom
9. Up From Animals: We we’re barely more than livestock when this scroll was written. At that time humans were lucky to eat spelt or alfalfa sprouts. Most food was absolutely offal, or those awful falafels. Even more worrying was people’s fear that if they beheld heathens in the act of fornication, they would fall from grace and instead of being a pillar of the community, they’d become a pillar of salt.  
10. Flatulence of a Lesser God: To quote that prophet Bob Dylan “The answer my friend is-a blowin’ in the wind.” Yes, even in ancient Masada they had street food featuring taco carts. Most found it long-winded.
11. Goliath’s Kidney Stones: Why do you think he was always so ill-tempered? Spoiler Alert: It’s the stone David used to slay him.
12. Hummusphobia: Fear of Hummus afflicted many Anti-legumers who were uncomfortable with these same sex ground beans. Favored by the LGBTQ crowd – Legumes, Grapes, Beets, Turnips and Quince eaters.
13. The Book of Termination: An apposite companion piece to the book of Genesis, this apocalyptic End of Days quatrain presages the coming Social Security time bomb.
14. OMG, Guess What I Can Do?: Really a defense of God’s perfect justice. It explains how orgasm is God’s way of making up for Smallpox
15. Deuteronomy to Me One More Time: This tuneful verse somehow prefigures the Captain and Tennille’s “Do That to Me One More Time.”
16. Love Will Keep Us Together: Somehow, once again, the Captain and Tennille divined.
17. Muskrat Lust: Downright scary. This is where the Captain and Tennille divination should’ve stopped.
18. Book of Antiverbs: A response to the Book of Proverbs
19. Weights and Measures: Keeping things in Biblical Proportion. Scroll goes to great lengths in discussing cubits, stadions and reeds. I couldn’t fathom it.
20. Ob-la-di Obidiah: Jaunty little book proves that life goes on…brahhh. La la la la life goes on. So if you want some fun, sing Ob-la-di Obidiah.

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Long before Harrison Ford set out on his swashbuckling adventures my lifelong buddy and neighbor, Gary DeBaise and I had a few of our own. The year was 1974. I was 12 and Gary about 14. We were very aware of our territory (Syracuse! I’m so aware of you!) to the extent that we perceived an opening, a portal to adventurous mischief that would eventually lead to an intriguing secret never revealed. Until now.

“Are these what I think they are?”

In the cold and snowy depths of yet another Syracuse winter there wasn’t a lot to do. So Gary and I sat on bar stools in his parents’ built-in basement lamenting our lot and playing 3-penny hockey. We discussed the usual topics and wondered what else we might do this drab Tuesday evening. We strategized and schemed to formulate some kind of meaningful activity to participate in. Nothing. Then we tried to formulate some kind of meaningless activity, but we were already doing that. I wouldn’t call it an Existential Quandary. I think you have to go to college first and have read A Catcher in the Rye to experience that level of alienation. Nah. Not us. We were just energized teenagers with a whole lotta nuthin’ to do. And as we ruminated, it slowly came to us:

Once upon a winter dreary, while we pondered, bored and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious talk to avoid this bore—
While we plotted, not besotted, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of something gently rapping, rapping at our inner core.
“‘Tis some visitor,” We muttered, tapping at our inner core—
Telling us thus and nothing more – Go to the warehouse in the Mucklands.

Our winter was no longer dreary, and soon we embarked to the Mucklands, cold yet cheery

I could continue to tell the story borrowing from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, but me thinks the foreshadowing with such a dark and gloomy poem has already set the tone. Let me more commonly describe the chain of events for that evening’s adventure. This cool and clear night Gary and I had nothing to do as we sat in his basement exhausting the topics of girls, SU football and school dramas. And since we dare not steal any more Canadian Club from his parents’ bar, the idea of penetrating the old warehouses down by the swamp seemed mighty captivating. Plus it gave us something to do besides talking about penetrating Allison Belge. Penetrating the old warehouses we’d actually get to do. So we decided to heed our Muse, brave the cold to go down to the Mucklands where these buildings were located. The Mucklands was a dying swamp with random patches of reed-filled ponds and various drainage ditches leading to lagoons of standing water. It was located adjacent to an old Erie Canal route that newly built Interstate 690 and the old New York Central Railroad paralleled. Within this muddy wonderland stood a few abandoned World War II plants that were protected by a perimeter fence and stood as monuments to the newly developing “Rust Belt.” As we’ll see “protected” might not be the most accurate word to describe this fence.

Gary and I prepared for this vital mission like Seal Team 6 – warm coat, small penlight and a common screwdriver. Alright more like Seal Team ¼. Under cover of darkness we departed base camp (his house) at 1930 hours (about 7:30) and, not wanting to draw any undue attention to ourselves (even though nobody was paying any attention to us at all) we proceeded along usual routes to our target. So over the Midler Ave Bridge across 690 and down the steep embankment near the frozen pond we marched, taking great care to circumnavigate the pond just in case our collective 190 lbs. might cause us to break through the ice thereby forcing us to abort the mission. By thinking in military terms we knew we were deluding ourselves, but it made the endeavor so much more fun and purposeful – this was now meaningful activity.

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