by Wilbur Witt
It has been one hell of a week. Not one, but two tragedies. Now the conspiracy grinders pour out their theories, and we all have to sit through that nonsense. In the midst of all this I finally managed to get a good night's sleep last night. Woke up,this morning and went to my back porch, poured a cup of coffee, lit a Cuban seed cigar, and read the news.
This time of year in Texas is nice. Temperature is about seventy-five degrees, low humidity, a lot like California. Texas only has two seasons, too damn cold and too damn hot, but for a period of about thirty days between the two it is actually very nice. The Yankees call it Spring, I think.
The cigar and a good cup,of coffee makes me think, and when I think, I write. I have this expansive back porch, like you'd see on a hotel in the old west, really like the porch Judge Roy Bean had, that I have my mornings on. Leads to the pool, and a playground area. Actually quite nice. I was just prejudiced because my condo in SoCal had a view of the desert and Mount San Jacinto, while I have a view of the main drag in beautiful downtown Killeen here, but my area is nice, and the fire trucks and police provide a lot of entertainment.
I got off cigarettes. Got on them out in Cali and let me tell you, when you quit cigarettes, and go back to premium cigars it's like you quit smoking! With cigarettes you concentrate on inhaling because there's no flavor and the damn things only last about three minutes, so it's like having sex with a girl in her twenties. You know it's not going to last that long so you make it as hot as fast as you can and hope to God she's impressed. Now a good cigar! Half the battle is keeping it lit. You might need to relight here and there, but it lasts a long time. And there is flavor. You don't lunge into inhaling, letting the aroma drift over your nose and mouth, and the cigar is never quite completely smoked. Somewhere along the band you set it down and let it die with dignity, rather than crushing it out and breaking its neck like a cigarette. All this, and you can still relight it should you refill your coffee and wish a few more minutes.
My cigars smell so good that when I was going through my last divorce and living alone at Berry Creek, my soon to be ex came by and accused me of having a woman in the house. I had this guilty look all over my face because I had been smoking in the house and what she thought was a woman's perfume was the lovely lavender smell left by a box of Cubans my son had smuggled to me.
This house belongs to my husband in law. He's married to my ex. They live in what used to be my house about two miles from here and I keep this place up for them. I also sideline as day care for five of my grandchildren, all under seven, and we grill on the porch every night. I have the alarm set on my iPhone to go off at 5:00 PM. It's that buzzer alarm sound, and when it goes off the kids think it's saying, "EAT, EAT, EAT!" They run to the porch and dance around the grill like wild Indians.
All this gives me time to concentrate on writing and selling what I've written. What's held me back for so many years is the fact that I had to work to live and the writing was always secondary. Now I can write and develop, and finally just come out of the closet and admit I am a writer. That freaks my sister out, I think. How a writer makes money is always a mystery to the uninitiated. I've made money writing. Ask the IRS.
I've got to finish my fourth novel, CenterVille, by October. Going to visit my son in SoCal for his retirement party, and while there I'm going to try to sell it. Then I'm going to write a book called, Solutions. The blogging thing has been kind to me. I didn't take it seriously at first, but so many bloggers out there have helped me, and it did a lot of good to "mix with the crowd," that I have developed more, if that were possible. When you're a songwriter you work in the dark recesses of some studio somewhere, usually alone, and there is little or no interaction with others. This new medium is social, and that's a good thing, I think.
I've decided to stay on Facebook. I've noticed that there are a lot of people that prefer that format, and they like to read what I write, so the click of one key doesn't tax me much and it keeps old friends happy. I don't worry so much about quantity anymore, opting for quality. I would rather have one person understand what I write than ten thousand hits that ultimately go nowhere.
I'm caving into pressure to see a doctor. Not a damn thing wrong with me, but my ex, and my husband in law, with all of their health issues, simply cannot imagine that anyone can be sixty-one and doing fine. They thought I was losing too much weight. No, since Cali I've just been eating right and I weigh what I SHOULD weigh. They worry about my prostate. Nope, works just fine, I have a nineteen year old girl friend. Of course they don't like my martinis and cigar, well, pardon me for being a man! That, and my people tend to live into their nineties, and I think genetics might have something to do with that. But, to pacify them I will get a check up. Then I'll just go back to living.
I don't feel as if this is the final chapter of my life. I feel that I've just graduated from the school of life and the best is yet to come. I grew up in the sixties so I'm unimpressed by all this talk about Obama being a communist Muslim. How'd anyone come up with that? Aren't communists supposed to be atheist? I'm just a simple old boy from Austin so these things are way over my head. I'll just keep writing, trying to blend in a little west Texas common sense, and make sure, "EAT, EAT, EAT" happens on time every night.
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