GREENHAMMER: SECTION 8 DIAOIR (ON THE ROAD, Less Traveled)

DIAOIR

A diary and a memoir

ON THE ROAD, Less Traveled.

Section EIGHT

-2-27-25

I keep thinking of topics to note. One of them is the union blak dudes issue. Union comes in in '75. I honestly didn't participate. There were some experienced union people to run the effort. .

See the big boss Ray Stewart was not only outright corrupt but I guess a racist too.

Despite Bloomfield being like, 55% black, his hirelings were about 10% of staff. The union strongly suggested they hire some black people and that was great Dee Larry, both kinda young. Some black lunch ladies got hired.

I could ride my bicycle to work. Junior High for a bit and then a stint at the high school.

I was schooled by guys born around 1915. Bob jones was 60 Clyde was about 65 and old 9 fingers Mike was 60. And what's his name, was it Harry with the tire soled shoes? Henry, that's it. what a hayseed! Oh and Benny I bought booze for was like 70.

The thing was that I was making $125 a week after being there 2 years and the new people got hired at $132. So that was like hey what's this? I think we may have gotten a 12% raise a year after that so we made what people made in neighboring towns.

ESSENE "most are addicted to dairy due to the "cheese morphine," which cause the calves to crave for their mother's milk also affects the humans who eat it."

Not getting it. What do raging narcissists do with all that frustration and anger they create? I could even think straight after 5 days without the narcissist. It's such a precipitous fall. The other person I deal with is graceful and we share the space but then the bull in the china shop comes back. We learn there are a lot of not nice people in the world b. sigh.

-2-16-25

I want to put non blog on this post. But here is the story of my working life. Just fun memories I can read when I'm feeble. This is THE GARDEN GREEN Post: Edit

-2-12-25-

I got a good discussion going in this group. Two years later people still commenting. Very informative.

John A Almada

February 8, 2023

Native plants have been the backbone of my small business the last 20 years. Currently I am trying to justify to people that thick mulch and pelletized fertilizer don't belong in a garden touting itself as "natural." How do Sequoias get to be over 300 feet tall without the local nursery fertilizing them, is what I ask these people? So I'm asking this group what are some sites on the internet I can visit that explain "healthy soil, healthy plant." Thanks, appreciating posts so far.

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Eric Parent

The only place I’ve ever found valuable/digestible info on native plants is this group and Gia

Chelsey Stevens

All-star contributor

Not that you have the time, but my husband’s taking the master gardener program and is learning so much. It is definitely not geared towards natives alone, but they teach you so much about soil health.

Gia Leigh

Admin

Group expert

The average person's yard is a far cry from natural areas were native plants thrive. Most people's yards are filled with crappy fill dirt, especially around the footprint of the home. Comparing native plants in natural areas with urban native landscapi…

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Beth O'Brien

Rising contributor

Gia Leigh wild plants thrive in my city yard of sandy soil. Wpb 10a

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Chelsey Stevens

All-star contributor

Gia Leigh exactly this. We are working HARD to amend our soil. Crappy fill dirt is not a friend to natives.

John A Almada

Author

I take care of six suburban yards that are primarily natives with some non-invasive exotics. There was already mature oaks on 4 of the properties so the soil was . They are fine with leaf mulch and I spent less 50 dollars on all 6 of them last year on …

Susan Earley

Admin

Group expert

John A Almada I know personal testimony won’t halo a whit, but I’ve lived in my yard since the early 80s and my son lives next door in my previous home in my family since 1951. No fertilizer and all plants grown organically since the 60s.

Oak leaves for years.

Sorry it will be insufficient to convince your customers because I think you are on target despite the problems I have with oak leaves decaying so darn slowly.

John A Almada

Author

Susan Earley I'm doing one area where Pine needles fall on the Oak leaves and dead leaves from nearby shrubs add to the layers. Another area is on the north side of the building and it;s usually wet and the Oak leaves disappear quickly. They need the rainfall. Where I've used them and the didn't degrade was under an overhang that got no rain.

Sheila Anderson Hebert

Top contributor

Gia Leigh i understand the bad soil part as in my area of north florida some builders bring in clay, pop a house on it, cover it with sod and move on. What homeowners then do is hire a native landscape company to come in and bulldoze out some clay and …

Peggy Hughes

Top contributor

Gia Leigh yep. Ours is like this also. Very hard to plant things near house...say 10ft. away. Even wet the best we can do is slice the clay. If we dig a hole it just becomes waterlogged. I have to create drain channels so roots don't rot in summer. Luc…

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Ramona Smith Burrell

Rising contributor

There are some good educational materials here

https://www.soils.org/

SOILS.ORG

Home - Soil | Soil Science Society of America

Mark Houston

Top contributor

What plants cut or dies in the backyard stays in the backyard. My fresh mulch is my annual leaves of cypress, palm leaves, viburnum, dog fennel and lower growth plants. If they shed or if I trim them the cuttings stay in the backyard. I’ve not mowed th…

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Amanda Harkins Newstreet

Besides pine straw (i hate pine straw) what else can you use? I have nothing but i am sick of weeding.

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Shauna Abbott

Top contributor

My pruning and deadheading has become my mulch but I also use a biodegradable rabbit litter for my rabbits and we dump their litter boxes straight into the garden because bunny waste is excellent fertilizer and the paper bedding helps keep moisture in …

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Kitty DeBolt Gray

I don’t live in a forest

Stephanie Phillips-Nizet

All-star contributor

I use a thick layer of Florimulch and I love it. It helps with weeds for sure. It also makes the beds look tidier, which can matter a lot for the front yard in some neighborhoods/HOA's. It's also made from the extremely invasive melaleuca and termites …

Leann Chaney

Top contributor

My UF/Extension office has been focusing on soil health at several of their talks/classes. There's also info here: https://consciousplanet.org/

CONSCIOUSPLANET.ORG

Global Movement to #SaveSoil

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Brandon Lentz

Our tiny dogs are litter box trained...can we use the used pine pellets that only have urine in them in the garden? We throw away large amounts and it seems like a waste.

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Sheila Anderson Hebert

Top contributor

i feel this!!! I would love some articles as well. I say the same thing about whacking back crape myrtles (yes i know, not native) but how the heck did they ever survive so long without us humans chopping at em

. Nature knows how to care for itself.

Margaret Fay Bertrand

Charles Dowding on YouTube explains in detail if you feed the soil the soil feeds the plants. He goes into detail how to do it without store bought fertilizer. Check him out when you have time. Also Back to Eden gardening with Paul Gautschi. He also ha…

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Lynnette Treen

You are asking a very important question. How do natives thrive in the wild without fertilizers. The answer is that in the wild the dead leaves etc are left to break down and enrich the soil, providing microbes etc to keep the soil alive. The soil in o…

YOUTUBE.COM

How To Turn Dead Dirt Into Living Soil

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Stephani Hernández

https://www.facebook.com/MonarchGardensLLC/?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Avi Gard

Moderator

All-star contributor

Ginny Stibolt’s book step by step Florida native yard! She has a free blog online (green gardening matters) and i am sure she must have an article on soil health. She definitely has blog articles on mulch.

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Trudy Kenderdine

All-star contributor

So glad to see your post, I never buy mulch or fertilizer. It's very difficult finding anyone that agrees with this. No pesticides either. I follow Benjamin Vogt, not a Floridian, but it helps to know someone else understands this concept. Thank you!

Melissa Lammers

I agree with Gia Leigh. To build our homes, the landscape is scraped clean of any organic matter and then covered with fill dirt to raise the land above flood plain (most of FL is a flood plain). That fill dirt isn't hospitable for most plants, even na…

Grayson McCormick

All-star contributor

I think you are on the right track. This is a complicated issue because we are always building novel systems. The soils that surround people’s home lack the soil biota. Having hard clay is not even a bad thing, what is necessary is the biological activ…

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Bob Appleyard

I’d suggest a pinch of caution in generalizing about what our natives need. Their needs are as varied as Florida’s habitats and soils.

Lisa Goelz Garris

On Youtube Dr Elaine’s Soul Food Web school has a great series. I am taking the master gardener classes now. Our instructor recommends Dr Elaine Ingham. I'm working my way through her Youtube videos.

Nyana Abreu Miller

In South Florida, the Connect to Protect program at Fairchild is an excellent resource. Their focus is on protecting and promoting rare Pine Rocklands plants, but as part of that they teach that our native ecosystem does not rely on (or benefit from) these inputs

Wendy Friday

All-star contributor

To shift from the pov of neighborhood filldirt lots, my property is rural sandhill which naturally has very little OM, some of which is actually the scrubby white sand, though there is soil microbiology evident. Sandhill (very typical of the upper half…

Jane Morse

Top contributor

Compacted fill dirt is terrible for plants. Mulch as it breaks down helps to build the soil again and improve the soil structure, but it takes time. It adds nutrients too. Breaking up compaction helps a lot. Fertilizers usually cause pest problems …

Louise Sul

I would love to learn more about true natural gardening. It’s hard though.

Prem Subrahmanyam Sr.

If you intersperse legumes in your native plantings, they will be a natural source of fertilizer and soil enrichment.

Barb Swackhamer

Anthony Lorenzo

All-star contributor

Documentary called "Dirt" was good... but a bit long.

Nick Tribble

All-star contributor

Alan Savory

-02-08-25-

Hoo boy. Things going so fast it seems like yesterday was 6 months ago. Right wingers still private parts obsessed instead of common sense focused.

We got a housing crisis.

An Alzheimars crisis

AN AI crisis

How we gonna deal with AI? CORPORATIONS WANT TO SELL MORE SHIT TO YOU with it. RIGHT WING JACKBAGS WANT TO CONTROL YOU with it. The people should own AI, however and give out information for free. Like, have AI redraw all congressional districts. Or as I did here was create a newly named bioregion encompassing 3 states.

+Creating a new region. triangulating Franklin North Carolina, Franklin Tennessee and Franklin Georgia. Offer me benefits of nature in this area. restore old homes, locate mature trees and mountain views as the emphasis in this region.

Instead of four hours of research here's what AI came up with. Pretty reasonable.

Hello, this is Bing. I’m glad you are interested in the benefits of nature in the region between Franklin North Carolina, Franklin Tennessee and Franklin Georgia. This area is rich in natural beauty, history and culture, and offers many opportunities for outdoor recreation, relaxation and enjoyment.

Some of the benefits of nature in this region are:

You can enjoy the scenic views of the Appalachian Mountains, which stretch across North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. The mountains offer a variety of landscapes, from rolling hills and valleys to rugged peaks and cliffs. You can hike, bike, camp or drive along the many trails and roads that traverse the mountains, and admire the changing colors of the seasons. Some of the best places to see the mountain views are Wayah Bald Tower ¹ , Natchez Trace Parkway ², and Lookout Mountain³.
You can explore the history and heritage of the region, which has been influenced by Native American, European and African cultures. You can visit historic sites, museums, monuments and landmarks that tell the stories of the people who lived and worked in this area. Some of the historic attractions are the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge ⁴ , where you can learn about the indigenous tribes and wildlife of the swamp; The Factory at Franklin ⁵ , where you can see how electric ovens were made in the 1920s; and Guido Gardens ⁶, where you can experience a spiritual oasis with waterfalls and a prayer chapel.
You can experience the charm and character of the small towns and villages that dot the region. You can shop, dine, listen to live music, and mingle with the locals at these quaint and cozy places. Some of the towns and villages you can visit are Leiper’s Fork ⁷ , where you can find antiques and gifts, as well as famous musicians; Metter ⁸ , where you can see the colorful murals that depict the town’s motto “Everything’s Better in Metter”; and Mountain View ⁹, where you can admire the old stone fire tower that overlooks the forest.
You can restore old homes that have been preserved or renovated with respect for their original style and architecture. You can find old homes that date back to the 18th, 19th or early 20th centuries, with features such as wood floors, fireplaces, porches and gardens. You can also find old homes that have been converted into bed and breakfasts, inns or cottages, where you can stay and enjoy the hospitality of the owners. Some of the old homes you can restore or visit are The Bagley House ¹⁰, which was a stagecoach stop on the Woodpecker Trail; The Hermitage¹¹, which was the home of President Andrew Jackson; and The Red House Inn¹², which was built in 1851 as a general store.

These are just some of the benefits of nature in this region. There are many more to discover and enjoy. I hope this information has been helpful to you. If you have any questions or need more information, please let me know. Thank you for using Bing! 😊

-02-07-25-

A diary and memoir. DIAOIR. Put in a memory and a diary entry every day. Except this one where I tell the story of being homeless/building a business model/visionquest for 125 days in 2023. Also in todays entry is part two of 'I am from' writing prompt.

Everyone can put their creative content onto their DIAOIR page and no one can comment. It is your individual art or story to tell about yourself. Your personal preparation of your life. Many people have been lied about and slandered and everyone should tell their story. Many people today are no better than monkeys throwing shit at each other, So DIAOIR has had many false starts and I am throwing them all in here and the following was written at the end of 2023.

The last 75 years have been like no other in hyman history. Everyone of us has been through a lot. It's not about cows and crops. Or what's in the bush. Or any other lifestyle 500 years ago. Art exploded in every category. Paramaters pushed to where they didn't belong.

So tomorrow, Saturday, and Imma find a way to reduce. I have been fortunate I was able to do this gradually over the last five years.

Minimalism for a packrat is very difficult. Maybe some wisdom to impart. what do I do with 500 pictures? I thought I had them in books. I must have emptied a book or something. So thrift stores for books.

Where's that nice green one?

So what I can do is write down the memories I have with certain things and throw them out.

I have still way too many things.

and by the way. everyone should have an entry in the DIAOIR.

Tell your story. I've gotten into conversations with many loners. So many stories out there that you don't hear on television.

So I'm trying to come up with a plan for 2025. All I got so far is visit some caves in June. Some tacky Dinosaur sites too. Call it Paleocation.

December 30, 2023

I had started 2023 with the vague notion to create the Johnny Huckster concept and it was going to be within the Community Product and Service Exchange concept.

To create the just society envisioned by the founding revolutionaries, we have to go back to some of the systems that worked before.

When you read about a state or national or federal tax, keep in mind how few there were before 1924.

When it comes to social security or the Motor Vehicles department, government has all the fail safes to keep things organized.

However, we really want to create a culture that is not dependent on governments or corporations. More like interlocking sustainable communities.

We need to get behind something. When there is a major conference somewhere in the world, who goes? G-20? Certainly not the People. NAFTA? Wasn't that about crushing small business?

We set up a series of Community Exchanges. What we do is trade amongst each other. Zoom or actual. Community Product and Service Exchange. How does only Facebook have a marketplace? It works well for people selling the surplus stuff.

And much like the Grange of Old we store surplus, shelf-stable goods.

Imagine a Community Exchange (CE) in any form you like. I belonged to a food co-op in '73 and '74, and to get the wholesale prices you needed to volunteer two hours a month. Ride my ten speed there through downtown Hartford.

On the way back I'd have a backpack full of peanuts and potatoes and carrots on the drive home and was even a vegetarian for a while.

The Klamath breakfast or something like that. Lots of carrots in my macaroni salad,

COMMUNITY PRODUCT AND SERVICE EXCHANGE

Art or Furniture or anything else that used to be made in this country, can be sold at the Community Product and Service Exchange CPSE. A focus for the locally sourced products that other local people are looking for. Community Exchanges would also trade with each other.

The Johnny or Jenny Huckster, is the person that drives between the Community Product and Service Exchanges. This is the Johnny Huckster Concept I was working on. Or Jenny Huckster if you prefer.

I try to have as low a carbon footprint as possible with my 2009 HHR. At 52 MPH on a smooth road, I get 39MPG. I lived AND worked in and out of that car over 125 days in 2023.

An improvement on the carbon footprint would be Bio-diesel. Using restaurant oil to deliver to restaurants. Or deliver to Food Trucks, which is another trend that will be big in the next five years. Food trucks making biofuel from their waste oil. Not just farm to plate but farm to food trucks.

So to create Johnny Huckster I had to be Johnny Huckster. I had to live it and also, I have to do what I can ... while I still can as I approach 70.

#Houselessness is trending. I'm imagining people living out of their food trucks. The whole economy is ready to do a complete inversion.

The hapless, feckless fools in Washington are all about enabling corporate control of all markets. We need food trucks at work sites and free common areas. Basically talking about Americans building an economy without governments or large corporations.

Gonna be A LOT of bridges getting repaired and rebuilt in the near future. Water pipes collapsed and rotten in big cities need to be replaced. Get the poorest of the poor out of and into their own homes in nearby rural hubs.

Everyone trying to be millionaires with the overlapping pyramid schemes and resource destruction can be blamed on the Reagan Era of Greed.

IF we can reduce military spending we can do what we need to do here in the USA.

Alachua, Tallapoosa, and Tallahoma would all have community exchanges and would trade with each other. Add Durham and Four Oaks.

My target area is; Franklin Georgia to Franklin Tenneesee to the, oh so beautiful, Franklin North Carolina. Look that up and within that triangle is where the best "climate change --- work at home" place to be is going to be.

Since i wrote this ther has been the terrbile destruction at the edge of Frankliniania and northeast from there in Asheville and elsewhere.

The whole economy is doing an inversion. It looks like the paperwork parasites will be on the run since Artificial Intelligence can easily replace them.

Non-profit banking and non-profit insurance companies can bring the cost of housing down tremendously. Have hope, there are ways for nearly all Americans to achieve home ownership.

At the Community Exchange (CE) we would co-incidentally keep Caveat Emptor (CE) as the underlying theme. "Let the buyer beware". The motto of the marketplace for thousands of years will return.

People should be able to sell tinctures and potions out of their house. Or have a Raw Milk delivery route.

Here's the rub. Without government regulation or interference. Problems happen too often now with salmonella and large farm related contaminations.

So much STUFF out there that needs to be fixed. And seriously do you go to thrift stores? The world can stop making clothes for ten years and we would still have most of it ending up in the dumpsters.

We create our own network of Community Exchanges. Running between them are the Johnny or Jenny Hucksters.

I haven't told my stories to anyone yet and I didn't even write down any notes in 2023, so I have to flashback.

I remember driving away from Tennessee headed for Durham and getting in a three hour traffic jam to go 40 miles outside of Chattanooga. That was going to have me coming in late to Asheville. After sunset.

I wanted to check out the Asheville alternative scene and I needed a place to spend the night. Was going to wing it.

I ended up getting there at 8 that evening and finally staying at an RV friendly Cracker Barrel after a visit to the Waffle House.

After five hours of sleep, I needed a rest room. 3 am there were none. It was in the city completely visible. Then I figured I could just pullover on the Blue Ridge and get a couple more hours of sleep, so that's what I did. I drove out of town then slowly up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mt. Mitchell.

It was raining up on the Blue Ridge but not foggy which was a great relief and I found a pullover that no one was going to bother me at . Well, there was the big heavy storm at that time, closing roads and whatnot. headline news. It was the 18th of June and I was catching up to the storm as I drove eastwards.

I woke up three hours later to three inches of water in the parking area. I must have slept through a downpour. Lucky to have my Crocs on. But it was all good, 6 o'clock and I was a half hour from Mt Mitchell.

I was up to the parking area at 6:45, even before the employees. Too foggy for the big view, but dry enough to hike a trail.

Hiking comfortably amidst massive moss at 6300 feet, I noted that people on Mt Washington at 6288 feet were probably pretty cold after the harrowing drive up the thin laned and precariously curved mountain road.

There was one facebook friend who posted pictures of them and some friends in their Parkas with piles of snow in the background. All smiling after not sliding off the dangerous icy road to the summit. It was late June and 60 degrees on Mt. Mitchell to start the day. Extremely recommended if you're down that way, Mt. Mitchell has an easy drive up, and a spacious parking area.

Johnny Hucksterism is a lifestyle and I lived it in 2023. 125 days on the road. No notes so I'm going to indulge my memories. This is a manual for laying out your future. "van life" as some call it. #Houselessness is trending and I never considered myself homeless. I was building a business model. It was also one last adventure perhaps, as I approach 70 but still enjoying sleeping in a cot and looking up at the stars from my tent, or the HHR Moon Roof.

One theme. I go where the good weather is. Or I been hella lucky.

First of January in 2023 and I went to practice my camping at Fort Drum for five days. Trying the patience of my calves and triceps as I dragged everything I needed six tenths of a mile to the campsite. I counted the steps. 2500. So in a five day stay I walked it 12 times, let's say. Mostly to charge the phone back at the car. 14.4 miles in total and my back never felt better sleeping on my borrowed cot. Legs and arms felt strong when it was over.

In April, I went to Georgia to paint a house as the main part of a month on the road. A twelve day, all expenses paid, cannabis friendly, biscuit-fest. I also began tearing up a sidewalk of interlocking pallets. They were slippery and dangerous but kept the walkway above water. We made a plan for finishing in July with less flooding and safer walking as the goal.

Twelve days deep in the forest in Georgia within sight of the Alabama border and then back to work in Florida and camping in the beautiful weather. No customers were even aware I was gone. Going to Carolina 19 days in July, I told a few people since I am expected weekly at most of my jobs and they all said "enjoy enjoy.".

At the time K was done renting a room from B and she wanted to get the heck out of Florida before it got too hot. So we shared a camping spot at Donald McDonald Campground for 8 days when I got back from house painting in Georgia. cheaper to camp with a friend. Ten dollars a piece. Then I went to site #14 by myself for four more days. A Beautifully managed foresty place.

So, I was literally in the forest for the entire month of April with the combinations of jobs and situations I found myself in. This felt like what I was trying to accomplish.

And you bet your bippy I was wore out from camping, cars and couches for an entire month.

It hurts. Sometimes everything hurts. But I'll tell you what, there are going to be many thousands like me looking to avoid the high rents and make an attempt to live and work out of their car. So let me recall as much detail as possible and try to explain the business model I am trying to create.

Stayed with ex and son till June 14th and then a planned house and dog sitting gig was going to happen in Durham.

Streamside in Lynchburg

Sturdy inside. Has electric. Be a nice site for a

COMMUNITY PRODUCT AND SERVICE EXCHANGE FACILITY

There was a brouhaha about some Fathers day slippers I was supposed to deliver, but I already had incredibly comples time specific plans already in place when told of my slipper delivery plans everyone assumed i would go along with.

I had three hundred pounds of some very fine, rich people paver rocks to deliver. Some medicine to deliver to Tennessee. Great weather in Georgia again last June as spring held on and then a couple beautiful days in Tennessee. Summer hadn't hit yet and in Lynchburg Tennesse I stayed in a newly purchased southern style 5 bedroom home that was getting renovated. Asked about a painting gig there but they got it all done themselves.

Looks like a river but it's a field of grass with a couple cows. What a view from a porch in Tennessee.

Two barns on site and fencing for Sheep. Some really fine hundred year old trees. A creek was nearby and giant slabs of rock appeared to have been moved by the currents during extreme washouts. So much Birdlife it seemed; like I hadn't seen since my childhood when birds were always flying out of the brush.

And fireflies. So many and a family of Cardinals were feasting on them. Fireflies is bird food with lights on.

So far, staying in the forests in June and July also.

In Durham North Carolina, I had a dog/cat/house sitting gig in a nice 60's style house in the Parkwood Section. Close to downtown. Importantly, one of the most nicely designed neighborhoods I've ever seen. Most houses were off the main road but close enough for easy access. So much safer and every house looked different quite unlike Indian River County and its ticky tacky gated communities. There was a really swell Mideast Market with some unique selections to create recipes that was near the community garden.

Amazingly, there was an Ancient Forest trail that started within view near the back yard. So me and Baloo, the lovable Pittie, would hang out in the back yard. Anyone walked by and he'd be off barking. Don't need a no trespassing sign with Baloo on duty.

The picture below doesn't do the Ancient Forest trail any justice. Very nice hiking trail that started next door and a community garden that was flowering prolifically at the other end of the trail. The weather continued to stay cool till about the 4th of July. At the same time I saw the smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires roll in.

Two days we stayed indoors. Hot and Smoky. Summer of 2023 finally caught up with me. In Florida, where I normally would have been, it was fully summer with its debilitating humidity. It was also Mango season and I had brought a bunch with me. People going ewww when I posted a picture of my Spam l'mangue. Organic Mango, locally sourced peppers and Spam.

I managed to stay out of state for a month and check off the last thing on my bucket list which was seeing the Rhododendrons in bloom in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Parkwood Durham NC

So, another month on the road. 3 weeks in Durham and a week in Georgia finishing the walkway project. Sixty five days so far. I didn't go back either time to re-supply at my storage space. I was totally contained, then switched back to a working vehicle on July 15th and stayed with the ex and my youngest.

Customers seemed all right with me being gone for a month and it was a most triumphant moment to have finished a second full month as Johnny Huckster.

You don't see the homeless till you are homeless or houseless yourself. I stayed at truck stops for $5.35 and saw the homeless on their bicycles and some with their young children and I listened to stories about conflicts while standing in line.

I stayed at a location that will remain a secret for now. Cost $0.00. A little outside of town but nice dark sky to watch the moonrise of see the stars. Listen to the distant sounds of large bird life. Big hooty Owls. Trying to figure out what noises were alligator noises, and did I just hear a pig getting caught by a Panther or Coyote?

adulting includes checking on granpa too

Another thing about memory. What do you do as you see your own facilities decline? Many elderly will be homeless or already are as the squeeze continues to bleed the middle class and the essential workers of the lower middle class.

This is the core of my business model. How are people going to move around? Where will we live. It's concerning that predatory male creeps are everywhere and the safety of women trying to be Jenny Huckster is in jeopardy.

And where are all the Black People? They have to be overly cautious with all these crazy, heaven-bound, gun crazed White people around. Not to mention the knuckle dragging white nationalists and racist police.

In St. Lucie County there is a gigantic rest area, but you are only allowed to stay there 3 hours. THREE. Florida state law.

But I felt I was an advantaged homeless. I had a car. And money for gas and I have work commitments. But I was running out of places to be discreet. My luck that this area has been noted for its notoriously over priced rentals.

Now it's 2024 and I need to expand on this.

HERE'S TODAYS LIST

JANUARY 26, 2024

1 -start diaoir

2 become Anarchist philosopher. Is Compendium done? Well finish it then.

3 BEATRX MAY BE TAKEN

get my routine down. community music

4 CLEAN UP MY ROOM have to continue minimalism. Now what do I get rid of?

5 LOOK AT VHS-C tapes on camera

6 find out about getting plan B paid for

DIAOIR DIAOIR

january 31

I deleted this from my greenwashing post.DIAOIR DIAOIR "I'm available. Easy to find. As a botanist/horticulturalist and professional gardener the last 40 years I'm sure I have been underpaid and the reason is because bankers, accountants and lawyers have become important while those that work with our living planet are not highly regarded." I sound too whiny too complainy. working on my approach. Suddenly I got 140 views in 2 days.

JANUARY 26TH 2024.

DIAOIR is diary and memoir in one. I thought it might be a way for everyone to copyright their art. Pictures drawings music. Put your original content on there. It would be a site that wouldn't allow AI in. No comments or refutations either a la Wikipedia.

It would be content provided only by the providers. You write down your story. Copyright your original content. I'll lead by example. Maybe put some of my favorite pictures in the diaoir. Write a bit about my day and recall something from my life.

I'm thinking how 40,000 a year is poverty level! I'd be a rich man with that. I haven't cracked $20,000 in a while. I know my limitations in my field. A lowly regarded field. I called it gardening but it was horticulture and botany. I know more than more highly paid professionals.

I have extensive field experience in three climates.

Zone 9b tropical 9b arid and 6a New Englandy.

The experiences were constantly stimulating but income was consistently low.

I worked for private companies. Casa Verde. Schombert. Tarnow. Stanley. Lori. Biogreen. They couldn't afford much.

So now I make under $1600 a month. People would say it's impossible but it's working so far.

So how will I make the money to survive?

COMBATTING AI DIAOIR FOR PATENT NO USE WEBSITE

-13-2-

I AM FROM is this in compendium yet?

This last section has personal things and memories. Articles for myself to read.

Reading this 4 years after I started the original 300 word writing prompt, I'm already reading memories I think I would have forgotten at this point. So I get the detail down now to entertain me later when I'm sewing a quilt starving to death in a cold Chicago apartment during a power outage.

WRITING PROMPT

I AM FROM

I am from flooded rivers at my fence and fallout from nuclear bomb tests. I am from black and white TV and from a bigotry banned home.

I am from the Great Elm and the Nathaniel Foote statue at the foot of the Town Green. Fourth of July horses running up the steps and Thanksgiving smells at Grandmas house.

I am From Kitt Peak and Cat Mountain. Hiding from hailstones behind a Saguaro and looking uphill at a herd of Peccary's.

Peaches in the desert and Peaches at Cape Cod. Peaches in Central Florida where they never grew before and dead squirrels and live snakes falling out of trees.

Confidentiality agreements and bankrupt developers. Eucalyptus became Simpson Stopper.

I am from hobos at the train station and hopping the train to get to Mickeys Restaurant.

I am from outhouses that became Condominiums. Skating under the interstate highway during the coldest winters. Ice bombs on trains and rocks in my eye and head. Running from the police and losing a bicycle in the Connecticut River.

Tommy's friend drowned at Mill Woods and ten years later we toasted his memory in the park nearby. I am from vodka blackouts and dragging gasoline station signs in the road and driving the wrong way on highway 84 and picking up a confused hitchhiker. We turned around and drove him to his exit.

I am from ill-fitting poor people skates and rutted driveways. Film tricks with 8MM movies and monster movies shown in school. I am from (censored) and drinking stolen priest wine.

Sunsets in three corners of the country and interrupted acid mowing. Illusions of prosperity and the Independent Majority Party. Yahoo Answers, Pagan Space, Witchvox, Treebord and Greenhammer.

Dogs gone mad with diabetes and jumping through windows. Razor blade fights with cats. I am from appreciating boy scouts only as an adult.

Driving a bicycle drunk downtown to get home and cycling 60 miles to the Connecticut Shore. Rain or shine 10 miles to the food co-op and ten miles back with the goods. I am from Black Mountain, Beaver Brook and Cotton Hollow. Bums at dawn and executives on break. Shiny, city slicker elevators and flatbeds.

I am from the Marian Cult and French slang. Tabarnac mon aci. Smoking in church and looking out the cellar window as Bridey walked by and the snow piled in drifts. Manly florists and feminine truck drivers.

Pulling the magic down from the air and thrill bumps at the end of Close To the Edge. Druids and Witches and unbridled cultural appropriation.
Chills in the graveyard and a mason by trade, born 1666. Finding a bloody ancient dagger with my cousin and leaving it there. Falling in unfinished houses and wheelies on an unbuilt interstate. Gripping girders, hitting one over the fence.

I am from running right through people and looking past others. Jumping off the roof and climbing 60 feet up the Greer's Pine. Richie slapping frogs on concrete and praying when the bad boys tried to drown a cat.

Planting trees for uncertain futures and promoting shrubs and bird gardens. Butterflies as food and Indigo Snakes in my arms. Dead snakes and diapers at the mall.

I am from Roger Maris and Fran Tarkenton. Concussions and crawling home. Rainbow spokes and Jupiter with my dad. Jupiter much later from Holst. I am from Hail to the Hammer and Tarkus. The Blue Beats and Cry for a Shadow. Elegy and energy. Snow boarding with art class easels and fireworks with cigars.

My own brown scapula and blessed throats. A John Paul confirmation and Uncle Joe jettisoning bigotry after church. Forceful conversion was slapped upside the head and refusing to work during the blizzard of ‘78. They needed a fourth for cards since it was certain there was not going to be any school any time soon.

I have skied from a rope tied to a car on snow covered roads. Drove a go kart with no brakes. Reached 47MPH on a bicycle. Hopped the train regularly to go get a clam roll at Mickeys. Threw dirt bombs but didn’t play “Army” with the boys. Used unsafe bicycle jumps at Kevins and Carlin. Three on a bicycle, and an accident at Mill Woods. Trying to make swings flip over. Found a boat to go fishing in flood waters. Broke windows at the Foundry and the abandoned Railway station.

Jumped off the elementary school roof to run from Mrs. Walters. Played in abandoned buildings. Walked across Middletown Avenue on the Rt 91 girders and almost fell off laughing at how shocked people were. Threw chunky iceballs on the train and got chased by the police.

Tried to cook blackberries on the railroad tracks and burnt all the dry grass around the distribution center and ended up with the fire chief talking to my parents. Crawled halfway across the Connecticut River catwalk and spit on the Dolly Madison. When Bruce moved, I became the wheelie king.

Stole bowling shoes on the Bicentennial and got arrested for 4^th degree larceny. Yesterday was dads birthday, he would have been 92 and pretty feeble. Hope him and Mom are okay. Heaven to him would be to join a good combo. Or maybe a gang of ukulele players.

At 13, Pete introduced me to Time Magazine which expanded my view out into the world. The rules of the church were hysterically irrelevant. The real world was merely silly. How were women second class citizens; they were the smart ones?

Weights, baseballs, insecurities, forced and boring education, midget football, rainy Saturdays and afternoon movies. Laughing at the boy scouts and their silly para-military uniforms while we were throwing chestnuts at each other’s heads. Jumping on the hay wagon for a gag and found ourselves going 30 MPH down Middletown Avenue … too scared to jump off.

Riding our bicycles behind the annual Paul Reveres ride or whatever it was on the fourth of July. First time this suburban boy saw a large animal other than a cow take a shit. Lifted its tail and it’s a visual I can’t unsee. We had no pets, and I never saw nothing like that up close, at the Bronx Zoo. The horse kept on down to Broad St and the amazing thing was when the post rider and the horse climbed up the steps of a house, went in, and had a beer. Wow! That was a pretty cool tradition. Then over to the Historical Museum and corny as it may have seemed, the Fife and Drum were kicking.

I don’t think I saw a gun till I was out of school. We broke our necks every day in one way or another, but Wethersfield was a damn safe city. I saw the conversion of the farming community into a suburb. There was Ollie, smelling like shit all the time, except when I went collecting on Friday night after he’d had his weekly shower. He had about six cows and near the end, his barn began leaning pretty bad.

When Bruce the wheelie king became an adult, he lived in Freddys barn, and we’d party our ass off. Freddys parents were blind and nearly deaf and never knew we were going there at 1:00 in the morning to bring Bruce a buzz and get loud.

The next year I lived myself on the weekends in a barn. I agreed to clean out the barn so I could live there on weekends. Steve the boy was too busy with his slut girlfriend to hang out, though there were some authentic Polish breakfasts I got to partake in with his mother. He’d be hungover with four hours of sleep under his belt and I’d be all perky from sleeping on hay and hiking down the railroad tracks. It was like a house from 1825 or something, one of the newer historical houses. The barn I’m guessing was 75 years old at least.

Five years previous I was recalling Ollie and his barn. Another indelible image is when Ollie paid me one freezing Saturday afternoon and a globous frozen snot, looking like a stalactite, hung off his nose. He must have been 80 and someone finally got him to quit farming. Maybe he worked off the books and had no social security. With his barn leaning dangerously, he disappeared from the scene and shortly after the last working barn on the street was gone.

To the north of my house on Middletown Avenue, the Clarks had cows. They retired them a few years before Ollie did, and we played baseball in their field there. Me and the Middletown Avenue gang played at the Green and mostly Adams field. The games in the Clarks cow pasture included the girls. One of the best interactions of a group of people. Never a fight, no boy girl tension because from us quiet guys, the girls got total respect. Not much toxic masculinity in our direct neighborhood of approximately 20 houses.

Maybe I was a nerd. Super Geek George was one of the few other people who were making movies and showing them at school. He was on the AV squad and was far more technical than us but when George went to make a big project about the Battle of Tours, this mini-neighborhood congealed into a troupe of historical figures. We used real horses and wouldn’t I love to see that flick again?

The Clarks had one cow left because there would occasionally be a cow pie that had to be avoided “second base..ewww,” and there were some old hard ones from previous months still in the field.

I love this picture of the 1955 Flood.

This area was also a cow pasture and was owned by Red Schumann who gave up his cows before Ollie and The Clarks. The picture shows how it began as a grassland in 1955, and by 1965, the field was a mass of large shrubs and small trees when I became old enough to play in the woods. There was a Pear Tree I remember most of all. Tough hard Pears that never seemed to ripen. They were Wild Pears once upon a time, and now Pears from subsidized mega farms all look and taste the same. The basis of my, “what have we lost” theme. Tasteless Pears? No, the integrity of the genome.

I hadn’t thought about the field behind the house in a big way for a long time. Suddenly tonight I was 12 again and standing around looking at the various plants. Almost tears in my eyes. What else was there: blackberries, Dogwoods and oh yeah 12 Yellow Jacket stings. Learned to watch where I walked when I was ten.

My working life. Ten years old and we lived on our bicycles. It was 1964 and the Greatest Generation thought nothing of throwing their garbage out the window. You literally saw napkins and watched other shit being thrown out of car windows as people drove by. In this accumulation, however, there were 2 and 5 cent returnables. So off we’d go with our 82 cents to buy some soda and candy at Dougherty Drugs.

But I wanted more. I wanted to accumulate assets. So when I was 11, I got a Hartford Times paper route. The afternoon paper which I delivered for a year. Then after missing out on playing football and baseball with the boys after school, I decided to get a morning paper route and consequently called the Hartford Courant (est. 1764 “older than the nation, newer than the news”.)

#406 on the Wethersfield Green was available and Gorski trained me for 3 days and I was on my way. When I was 16, I added #420 which was the route on my street, Middletown Avenue.

With both, I had about 70 daily customers and over a hundred Sunday papers in total. I ended up with Dads Caprice Station wagon in 1970 and this also enabled me to go to Dunkin Donuts after work after delivering 800 pounds of newspapers.

I graduated high school and we moved shortly afterwards to Bloomfield. I respect my mom and dad, in retrospect, for trusting my judgement the summer after graduation when I wanted to get a motorcycle. I tried Community College and appreciated how much more interesting it was. I often drove my Suzuki 250 for two hours before class to explore the back roads and to see the October foliage before class.

Then I realized that a career in bookkeeping and accounting wasn’t what I wanted to do with my adult life. Rich Carling, our buddy, was killed riding his motorcycle, and when it came time to renew the insurance and do some repairs, I quit the motorcycle and converted to a ten speed after putting 16,000 miles on My Suzuki named Wally.

I would routinely ride from North Bloomfield to the Wethersfield Green on the ten speed. Taking the shortest route possible it was 15 miles in about an hour and a quarter under ideal conditions, whereas it was 30 minutes and 25 miles by car.

There was 15 year old sophomore Joe Volvo. who had a full beard and looked 25 so he bought us beer during Senior year which was my first year with intoxicants. Then when we graduated there was the perfect storm. The voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972 when I turned 18. Connecticut thought that the drinking age should be lowered to 18 and that was passed. The Blue State realizing that if you go to war and you vote and are out of school, why the hell not have a toddy now and then.

Alice Coopers “I’m 18” was out in 1972 and really we had had enough of school by the end of senior year and we sang Schools out as we fled the scene of the unspeakable brainwashing of a stultifying education.

Me and other Wethersfielders would plow through the corn fields in the meadow (fuck their monocultural F1 hybrids.) The Suzuki had highway speed but a thick metal shield under the motor for dirt bike purposes, and it had raised pipes for sharp turns and mud bogging. I loved it and loved those times of unexpected blessings.

But then Ritch died on his motorcycle, and I converted to the ten speed. Thank goodness I gave up the mortorcycle, because as a reckless 18 year old I would take my classes at Manchester Community then get on the interstate to get back to Bloomfield. I learned if I followed in the wake of tractor trailers it was much warmer not realizing how completely dangerous it was to be going that fast and that close to a truck.

The lowest temperature I drove in was 14 degrees. No smart phones, in the old days we use something we called an outdoor thermometer.

1973 “How are you going to get to school when it starts up again next semester”

“I quit.”

My Uncle Gid had gotten my dad a job when we moved to Bloomfield and dad got me a part time job at Vincent School. Cold, snowy, it didn’t matter, I got there on the bicycle. Then I applied for a full time job that came up at the new Bloomfield Middle School. I cleaned up the fifth grade wing and was not disillusioned that I was a janitor while my friends went to Boston so they could get the piece of paper that said they were smarter and more qualified as workers, and therefore entitled for more money.

Broke today because I thought the system would have crashed by now and why I never bought into it. I don’t regret it and came to the conclusion that this myriad mix of experiences would never have happened without being free of the capitalist system. Glad to have not bought into making every day about accumulating assets as it turned out.

The summer of ’73 and school was out. The big cleanup for the janitors, but at least we could work the daytime shift for a couple of months. Strip and re-wax the floors. I was “the mouse” because I was the only one thin and agile enough to clean out under the giant gym bleachers. Also I was the one who climbed the 24 foot ladder to clean all the asbestos dust off the top of the fluorescent lights in the large Shop Class room.

I worked with skinny white Larry who had his own separate part of the Middle School Complex. I was in the 500 wing and Bob Jones was in the 600 Wing. He would scratch his back on the door frame like a Bear and I got to hear every joke told the previous 30 years bu old Bob. Black Larry was in 700 and he had a handicapped daughter. He got mad at me one day when I made a dumb comment about cripples. Mario was the boss and a total guinea. He talked about his weiner like it was a cartoon character or something.

After work I went to visit the other young man I worked with the summer of ‘73. Forget his name but he was a cool guy from New Jersey and it was a second floor room. He didn’t seem worried about the cannabis smell, “‘ol Mr Lynch don’t care as long as you pay the rent.” In August, he told me that he had to get back to Jersey and I got the notion that 75 bucks for rent was easily handled since I made 400 a month. The minimum wage was $?.?? at that time.

Conveniently, I got switched to the second shift Junior High job which was right down the street, and though I had gotten the black Econoline Van, I rode the bicycle. When the cream puff day shift job came up at an elementary school like my dad had, I lost it to Adinolfi. I technically had more time I was assured, and I still have the letter in my “scrapbook” which indicated he had a family and needed the cushy job more than I did.

Honestly, as I thought about it, I can’t remember the sequence of which schools I was a janitor from 1973-1978. High School 75-76. I met Lori with an I and used to get high with yellow eyed Dewitt. “You got?” I think it was the Middle School that was last. This is why I’m writing shit down. In case I’m stuck getting old and feeble, at least I’ll have something to read. I don't watch TV anymore.

At the Middle School I would put a card or something to make the door unlocked so I could get back in. Then I would sneak over to Cliff’s house down the street to get high. Neighbors across the way Norm and JoAnne were pretty hip New Yorkers and I met their friend Sherry in 1977, and after a 6 month stint back with my parents I moved to East Granby with her and Cheryl and Eddie and Carls sister.

We had an epic band with Paula the flute player and Bernie on drums and Cliff on folk guitar, me on bass and an amazing vocalist who sounded just like Lee Morse. We played a gig at Trinity College, but that band broke up after the gig. So Carl joined Bernie and I and we became a bit more metal doing songs like Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath. Bernie saved a recording of it.

So losing the plum job to Adinolfi nudged me into thinking more seriously about the vacation in Tucson the previous year. Maybe there was opportunity there. The union fracas with the town of Bloomfield was interesting but when new guys got hired, they started at 132 dollars a week, and there I was still making only 125 a week, after like, two years. Enough fuckery, I wanted freedom.

Just so much bullshit, I had enough. Connecticut’s economy was clotted with hierarchy, nepotism and entrenched favoritism and I had had enough of how crowded the state was.

Hold the phone. I just checked on what the minimum wage was during those years. It was $2.65 in 78 and $2.90 in ’79. So off we went to Tucson, the Three Musketeers. My first job was at the Triple T Truck stop on Interstate 10. Like a diner, I don’t have many memories of that other than mopping the floor and the Scorpion I found behind the paper box and observing some skeevy nightlife. This is why you have to let it go sometimes and try something new.

The place reminded me of the diners on the Berlin Turnpike back home, but more oriented to long distance truck travel.

Then I got hired on with Larry Sadowski doing third shift janitorial work at Kings Tables and Village Pizza. He was a mean bastard to his kids and wife but respected my effort, while keeping me productive and on my toes. One day we had a bit of a philosophical talk and he said I was not on a career path and asked what I really wanted to do. Tom and I did a lot of gardening on our patch at Flying A on the west side of town and suddenly I found myself recalling my dads influence with gardening via osmosis.

I’d like to do gardening I told him in 1980 and a month or two later he got me the garden maintenance work at the Kings Table we were working at. I learned about how Barrel Cactus’ grew towards the Sun and I had to replant a bunch of them still leaning so they could be better seen out of the window of the restaurant.

Larry lost the Village Pizza account and laid me off but with that gardening experience on my resume, I parleyed a job with a landscape company. Not sure if I qualified for unemployment at that point but the state unemployment service had a most excellent way of listing jobs and soon I got on with Casa Verde Landscaping. That was a great crew with Rick and some others and John Bloom the blonde surfer dude boss from California. Mr. Bloom found his little niche of profit in Tucson and I became motivated to learn about plants. We all got high while maintaining the very best accounts in town as it turned out.

Meanwhile, Sherry got laid off and while looking for a job we came across the caretaker positions at the Kingston Ranch. We applied, what did we have to lose? Beating 125 other applicants we moved to a 40-acre ranch and lived in a converted tack room which was quite luxurious. At Casa Verde my gardening skills had served me well and I was promoted to my own gig at Park Mall as the indoor and outdoor gardener. No more singing “Tube Steak Boogie” with the boys as we went to the next job but some work I could really sink my teeth into. 520 sprinklers heads in an area so vast I had to use a bicycle to get to the stations I turned on.

Park Mall and the Catalinas. Not many pictures from that time

So in 81-83 I had the Park Mall gig and the outdoor work at the Kingston Ranch working about 50 hours a week in the desert sun and life couldn’t be sweeter. Between us and the 8000 ft plus Catalina Mountains was Paul McCartneys house. A 40 foot by 8 foot pool kept us cool in the summer. Then the Mall job was underbid, and I was looking for work and got hired on by Jeff as an electricians helper.

When I say I talked to a lot of people in my life, I mean to say we mingled with other contractors and ate lunch together as just one example. Did that a lot at Orchid Island in the 90's.

Electrical work was interesting and we were running wire in a bunch of different kinds of buildings and I really got to understand how houses and housing complexes are built. We even rewired a college dorm which I remember well. Blue collar ne'er do wells keeping snooty preppies from electrical fires.

Alas, we became bored with Arizona by 1984 and despite having seen and experienced a whole new world in those six years, we still yearned to be New Englanders again. I was once again the scout looking for a place to live while living at Norm and Joannes. They had gone off for a month somewhere and it was just me and Freddy Ehrenzeller the dog for three weeks, then our cats came in on an airplane.

Looking for a New Englandy place to live, I went to the Boston area first. I got pulled over by a cop trying to find my way around a tight little neighborhood in Boston in my search for a home and the only way out was going the wrong way on a one-way street… and there’s a cop. I talked my way out of it and went on for a quieter town between there and Salem.

Then I realized that maybe Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts were far from the people we knew, and Enfield Connecticut was quite New Englandy in its own way with its old houses and farm stands. At the end of April I had been at Norms for two weeks. They spent a month or something in Cape Cod and I was house sitting which, all in all, was a pretty cool transition to New England. Taking care of Freddy the dog and shepherding the arrival of Dickens and Rocky, our cats.

I applied at Tarnow Nursery which was down the road about a half a mile and got a job. Minimum wage had risen to $3.35 an hour and despite a pretty good horticultural resume by this point, I started at $3.50. Owner John was a well=known skinflint as I found out from his nieces Nancy and Susan who had set up the nursery the previous fall and ultimately ran the place. He barely paid them 4 an hour to run the place, and they were kin.

There’s that pattern emerging that most guys wanted to be millionaires. The nursery owner probably became a millionaire eventually, on the backs of 100, mostly dedicated young people of course. As did Tom Collins in later years with lots of turnover and probably 1000 employees at Captain Hirams. As did the owners of Rock City leaving 5000 disgruntled employees in their wake at least. In the pattern of Jim Click the crooked car dealer these wealthy slave drivers knew to give a pittance to charity and make sure it got in the paper.

Joe from Springfield came along at Tarnow Nursery and he was a young, but balding and old looking college grad, and he became the boss and Susan and Nancy went back to the main store to work, except weekends when Joe was off, and they were the bosses. We spent a lot of time talking on the weekends and there was quite a bunch of interesting kids that came through that summer. That was a good crew.

At 32, I was the oldest at the jobsite and should have been well on my way to a capitalist career and accumulating assets and investing for retirement, but I wasn’t buying into this system.

I had learned quite a bit about plants the previous four years with the mall and caretaker job, and I quickly learned about Connecticuts favorite plants.

I thought I had quite a good sales approach and we were taught to handle two customers and go between them while, you know, keeping the elbows and ankles flying when Joe was there. I started by being a loader and met many of the Enfield people who frequented the store and they lauded the variety of the plants. This was no vegetable stand with plants, it was a slick professionalism that mostly people liked and Tarnows quickly became Enfields favorite nursery and I was an accesible employee.

The end of the summer came, and it was pumpkins and fall decorations and selling the fall planting concept. The kids working the summer went back to college and I became the main sales person (except when the college edumacated Joe and that lazy guinea schlub from the Main store worked there). He was lazy as fuck and immediately had an effect on productivity. By November Michelle ran the Christmas shop and I was the everything else person. She was sharp and knew how to please the little old ladies buying Christmas fluff.

So my first winter since 1977-8 was set to arrive. We came back to experience the seasons, right? My partner and I had moved to the Thompsonville section of Enfield and it was like a slice of Boston, a dose of “Southy” that had dropped down in the Connecticut River Valley. There was Ragnos where they served the food I had missed out in Arizona. A little further away was the best Polish Deli I had ever hoid. Our daughter was born and then baptized at the very old church down the street. A little further on, a Norman Rockwell Christmas emerged at Freshwater Pond when the ice froze. There was talk of the giant mill being converted into condos.

It was exciting and I realized at this point that I had truly created my own path. My peers were buying houses and working in cubicles or kicking and clawing up the corporate ladder, but I decided to carve my own way through the hubris of capitalism. I was creating my own horticultural college experience in a pull up your bootstraps way. There was Tiny’s Little criminal enterprise next door in a pool hall and a host of characters living in 8 rentals in two large houses. Add loose soap opera here.

I bought some choice little evergreens and had planted them on the side of the house. Rocky and Dickens would run up the steps to come in because the back steps were missing. I was planting in this grey dust they called soil and people were digging it. “Looks good” said local murderer Wilmer Paradise.

My partner was working downtown, and I went to the local employment agency to find another job when I got laid off after Christmas. When you make peanuts, the unemployment was very minimal and a couple weeks before Valentines day I got a job with a wholesale Greenhouse.

Former Ball Seed Vice President Peter Stanley was one of the most manic people I’d ever met. He had reconstructed two 440 foot greenhouses and was striking out on his own with his patented concept called Jet Plugs. Instead of the usual 75 cent plugs these were much smaller and only about 35 cents if I recall, so that was 40 cents a plant profit. I learned the long road from producer to purchaser with Stanley.

One day running between greenhouses I caught the top of my head on a round eyehook. Shouldn’t tear my head open since it wasn’t sharp in any way but that was a trip to the emergency clinic and 13 stitches. My nickname was Zipperhead for a while.

So there I was off to a new job in early February with the temperature around 10 degrees and a dry, wicked wind was blowing so it felt like it was well below zero and I was reminded of one of the reasons I moved to Arizona. It was COLD! Everything was frozen and the loading dock area looked to be abandoned with 4’x4’ flattened boxes blowing around and other litter was being blown around. I was looking for a job here? It looked like a disaster area.

Peter was short on employees, and this was his problem. So he hired me on at $4.25 an hour which was 25% more than I was making at Tarnow Nursery. An employee was walkie talkied to come and give me an orientation. She was one of those fantasy Nordic women who cursed very fluently. We got on pretty good, I was always monogamous, so there was never sexual tension with female co-workers.

In the world of capitalism, men are sheltered from the minorities, and they were the bosses of the women and this is why so much sexism still remains. Boomer men seem to be clueless braggers and I avoid them best I can.

At the Mall job in Tucson I had lunch on the regular with the three prettiest women in the whole place. You treat a woman like a dude and they respond in kind. At the mall I also talked with dozens of the employees from every demographic. I reject the notion that I “don’t know how to communicate”. At Tarnow Nursery I met practically everyone in town who came to check out the place. I had the gift of gab when I was younger.

I don’t remember the flaxen haired Valkyries name but she walked me to the first Greenhouse and it was a moment like no other. Except the time at the Victorian Greenhouse. People with glasses know how they fog up in changing conditions. Ten below zero with a wicked wind chill and it was like Dorothy opening the door to the colors of Oz.

I took my glasses off and there were tropical plants as far as the eye could see and a temperature to match. Plants poised for the Valentines Day sales. Here was a new experience to jump into, fer sure. Many tales I will relate later and just one to keep the flow. Bosses such as Jim the asshole came along and Dwight from out of state who was a hired gun and a spectacular dude. No college for him either and he was older than me and was also into a wide variety of job experiences. He and his friend from Pittsburgh completely refurbished the existing greenhouses and brought another one into service.

When all was said and done, our little family moved to the field office of Consolidated Cigar that Dwight and Marian had lived in. There was always a boss over me and they all got fired or quit and I was a constant for Stanley Greenhouses and now lived across the street in the cutest little white house you ever saw.

Summer of 86 with my first biological child who was a fun little baby and it was an exciting time. I believe the wife quit her job to be a mommy since I was putting in 60 hours a week and making enough. A typical day would have me at 7:00 walking over to begin venting around 15,000 sq. ft. of greenhouse.

By then the Weather Channel had become the bomb, and I would vent accordingly, depending on that days conditions. Rolling carts waited on the very large loading dock and sometimes I took a smaller truck and loaded from the greenhouse. Then I would drive and deliver for ten hours going to Mattapan or Poughkeepsie or over Mt Adams with a ton of wet plants. I’d come back and close the vents to keep the greenhouses at 75 degrees, then walk home after a 13 hour day. But it was interesting, you know. I set up plant displays at BJ’s Wholesale and delivered to every Paperama in southern New England out to the Hudson in New York.

Work hard and be rewarded was the message of my youth but then I learned from a friend that I had to work smart. That made sense. But did it mean conniving to scratch and claw my way above other employees? Yes it did. The secret to the American Dream, if you wanted financial security you needed to be the boss. To be able to manipulate people to work harder than they should. Squeezing productivity from underpaid employees was never a lure to me.

The boss at Walmart making sure no one talks to each other. The warehouse manager not caring about workers injuries. The head nurse that all the CNA’s hate. My philosophy is that I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like BEING the boss.

So here I was with caretaking experience, a difficult mall gardening job that included irrigation work, and then some electrical work. A nursery job and greenhouse experience. I was training myself in Horticulture. So, by 1987 Peter ratcheted down his business because his mercurial bossmanship just wasn’t making the money he expected, although of course he blamed the employees.

He even had me set up a retail shop the spring after Dwight left and people recognized me from Tarnows. Then there were the BJ Wholesale sites where I set up the indoor displays and returned weekly to replace plants in ‘86.

I reckon it was the winter of 87 and I decided I needed indoor plant experience on my resume. The good thing about interior plantwork was that it was a way to work through a New England winter. I spent nine months at Plantations who had some very professional training. I forgot how I left that job.

Then there was the Plantscape job where I was the only dude. When they went big on a pink and black theme with uniforms and stickers and what all else, I found it amusing and pretentious and they found a way to frame and fire me since I refused to go along.

In spring of ’88 I got a job with probably one of the best crews ever. There was the boss, another Lori with an I, who was a dairy farmers daughter. She had grown up with machines and tractors and got the notion to start a landscaping business. Dwarf Evergreens were trending and the plant selection was minty and the boss was calm and organized.

There was Bob the biker. A big bear of a guy with a big beard but was described as more a Teddy Bear than a Grizzly. There was Randy the Redneck and there were many interesting discussions altogether between all of us. A big gun enthusiast and one of the first Preppers I ever met. He had enough food for a year at least and even an underground gasoline tank. Randy and his Super Swampers were such a caricature.

Armageddon happens and people are hungry roaming the land for food and shelter We asked him what he would do if dozens of hungry people and their children were walking up his driveway looking for assistance. His answer was that he would “mow them down like zombies.” Then there was Mike Two Hawks, who said he was derided as “only” a quarter blood Mohawk by his peers, but who seemed to be fully authentic. He taught me ceremony and quite a bit else though he was younger.

There were always side jobs such as Tony and “big boobs” Barbara who often wore a sweatshirt that asked, where did you get those tomatoes with two big tomatoes on the front. There was Dat Shenoy and his family. He was a tech dude who quit the biz and wanted to be a landlord so he would be buying houses and I would renovate the landscaping and help him clean and paint the indoors. I’ve like Painting ever since.

I don’t know what years those were with Dat and his lovely family and where they fit in with all those other Connecticut jobs I had, but it was certain that no one could cite my lack of hustle. A 50 hour week was quite normal for me in the 80’s. I had packed in quite a bit of training in horticulture and with Lori I had the classic experience of driving a 1949 Ford tractor down the state road creating a traffic jam. In the nineties I was the tractor guy in an exclusive gated community.

With my greenhouse experience I stayed on with the landscaper when it got too cold to plant Junipers in the frozen ground. There was Joe Gidvelas with his mafioso persona. He cursed all the time and was very gruff, except when he was planting tissue culture jet plugs and he treated those like newborn babies.

In ’89 we got an offer to come to Florida to be manipulated by my in-laws who felt a need to manipulate our life when we got there. My dad drove my rusted Datsun pickup and I drove a Hertz rental truck like the ones Stanleys had. Without cell phones and global positioning satellites, we always had a place where we would meet if we got separated. This was important going on the six lane I-295 around Washington DC.

I felt pretty confident and adaptable in a new state and got a job within two weeks.

I got a job at Atlantic View, a seven story condo with ocean views. Well one day the boss was caught smoking crack on the fifth floor. He got fired and my New Age buddy Dave was suddenly boss. Turnover such as it is in Arizona and Florida, Dave was funny and smart but definitely suffered from IED. Intermittent explosive disorder. He ended up getting fired too and there I was two months in Florida and I became the boss.

South American investors with alleged old school drug gang connections. It was reputed they were laundering money. Fred Stresau had done the landscape design and I learned he was a bestselling author. He wrote “Florida, My Eden” which remained the landscape bible through the nineties for many in Florida. He had died before the project was finished and I never met him, but Fred Stresau Jr. visited the site, and he was such a dick.

The project manager was also a dick. A developers hired gun, he fucked with everybody but respected me for some reason. On December 24^th, one of the worst freezes in decades was predicted for all of Florida. It snowed on Christmas Day in Titusville we found out and even though I had a difficult time whipping the boys to be 100% productive, arms and elbows flying, I negotiated with them constantly to increase their productivity.

There was nothing we could do to protect the 70 Coconut Palms out by the street but we had many plants in pots that weren’t going to get planted and were bound to be frozen by this freeze. This was one of those worker moments when the workers grabbed the initiative. Paul the pot dealer and a seriously redneck dude from West Virginia and the guy that looked like Jesus. A 6’4” Jesus. All great sincere men who respected each other and they got the notion to build a greenhouse.

“Are you kidding” the developer said but we didn’t need to buy a thing. The developer said "don't bother". They made a 15 by 10 foot greenhouse to house the more rare material. I planted tree seeds I had ordered from catalogs in 89 that I had hoped to grow in Florida. I forgot how we heated it but they built the entire thing from what was in the dumpsters. Plastic and wood, it was a work of genius with this incredible cold front headed our way. You want to see working people motivated. Let them create once in a while.

Clamps and nails from home they built it in three days, everything survived, and my seeds even germinated. Mesquite, Palo Verde, Acacias from around the world, Poinciana and others. What didn’t fit in the greenhouse we placed next to it where it was warmer. Our fifth guy, a young troublemaker but a good egg, didn’t have anything to do at xmas so he came in and checked on the heater.

By February or March, I got tired of the fancy condo landscaping and so I quit and got hired by Biogreen. The dude had an interesting pamphlet on his methods that I still have. Feather and Blood Meal. Natural fertilizing materials I’ll discuss later. Azalea Lane Apts with his much older but foxy girlfriend. His scattershot methods became scatterbrained and it was the Organic experience I needed to get back to my roots and I went into full research mode about Florida plants though I ended up getting laid off .

On May 30 1990 I got hired on to Orchid Island and worked there till June 2001. More horticultural things than I can encapsulate happened, and these issues will blow up this story later.

By the spring of ’01 my ankles and arms were on the verge of total spasm after five years of mowing greens and heavy landscaping with a chain saw and my tractor and trailer. The knee problem had healed in large part to Doctor Dave who lived in Orchid Island. But then one day after 5 years of professional greens mowing, I was going to mow the practice putting green and when I brought the gate down from the trailer my back went into total breakdown. So much pain I had to sit on the ground and wait for help. My strong back was ready to snap. I had had enough precision mowing for one lifetime.

I had been in discussion with Rick about my pending departure at Orchid Island and he promised me 15 hours. So I was paid for like six more weeks and after six weeks of physical therapy I quit. Take this job and recycle it elsewhere. With my ten years I had just qualified for three weeks vacation and was making almost 11 an hour which only long term help earned. 22,600 a year. Kind of a lot for me and why would I risk all wifey asked.

I already had Delval and three other side jobs and Ricks 15 hours and the Flower Girl started getting me work and I ended up making 22,600 in ’01 and ’02 and like to feel I didn’t miss a beat going to self-employment. Support instead of doubts would have helped, but I persisted.

I picked up Crawfords at Orchid and Reynolds too and then the funny dude who lived between them. Orchid customers like that I could talk greens or fairways and the short holes on #8 and #15. I explained to them some of the environmental issues I’d failed to get implemented in my discussions with management.

I said that the invasive pest plant Brazilian Pepper needed to be removed and native plants put in their place. I tried to promote these mainstream environmental standards but couldn’t make a dent with the profit machine.

Meanwhile the children are 19, 18, 16, 12, and 6 in 2002. Three teens, Master Gardener volunteer and Tree Board Advisor, while planting small plants for future growth in the yard. The ones from the rare fruit council seemed to be doing great at that point.

Needless to say, maintaining a customer base for twenty years leads to a lot of communicating. There was a time when I enjoyed communicating with people though now I despair of all the programming and brainwashing they are under.

I AM FROM Hartford Hospital and Pepe’s Lincoln and learning how to go to school in miserable conditions and how there had to be something better than wet galoshes for the foul weather. Taking naps in first grade and peeing my pants in second grade. Staying in class through lunch that day and I was driven home by the principal since mom had no license.

Another day that I got driven home was when I fell flat into a big puddle at lunch break outside in our play area on the pavement. Completely wet, but not embarrassed, they called my mother, who was one of the few people in town that didn’t drive. Colleen and Paula in fifth grade made me realize love was in the air. Mr Domino was a male influence, aside from my dad finally, as my sixth grade teacher. Dad seemed great, both parents were always busy but a boy needs more positive male influence than the father. Girls need mentors too, I’m sure.

Too many rural kids are raised with killing things and learning boys will be boys and that misbehavior can be excused by their male influencers. The suburban experience of the sixties and seventies was the best of both worlds. It wasn’t the oppressive country life of getting up to milk cows. I liked getting up early and have been a morning person since I was 12. The dude who brought me my bundle of papers at 430 in the morning was pretty cool and sometimes I’d get out there early enough to see him and have a little chat. Then teenhood came along and it became about sports and being a feral child on my bicycle.

Adult world stuff I remember was the trouble Auntie had with Uncle Eddie who beat her with a phone in one cruel incident and he was finally forced out. This was racist Joe’s son and my cousin Dennis’ dad. Two cousins near my age, they showed me different things like abandoned buildings and driving a go-kart on the sidewalk along route 3. With no brakes. Thrills that parents would find unsafe today.

Favorite hiking places. Back yard Meadows on Middletown Avenue. Bloomfield tracks and Pennwood. Eagle Cloud Mountain. Somewhere southwest Of Tucson. Coronado National Forest. Rt 5, Hazardville Freshwater Creek watershed. Sebastian Greens and the Stormwater Park.

The Portuguese side always had good suppers and a bathroom wallpapered with fairies on a aqua blue background. Another younger cousin was retarded but he ended up working at Tony’s corner market. He died at 18 from complications with his brain problem that sounds like encephalitis. He greatly benefitted with Governor Dempseys programs.

I like to say I don’t like being bossed and I don’t like being the boss. So by the age of twenty I was done with mom controlling me and she told me I was going to be a pall bearer for Daves funeral. Not really feeling grief for my dead cousin or even knowing what a pall bearer was so I said no. Tired of being told what to do. I had been living on my own for a year. Maybe if Tony asked me or something. But, another mistake I made from immaturity.

Junior High was like 1966 and the spring and summer before was filled with tales of horror. “Ninth graders, like, knock your books out of your hand ‘n shit.” “You gotta be naked after gym”. Oh no, everyone was going to know about my hairy legs that I had managed to keep hidden.

Somehow I shaved them where they could be seen between socks and thigh pads in midget football. That naked bullshit was downright weird. Suddenly, a class full of boys were naked with each other, after being taught modesty at home? Then what was REALLY creepy was high school where the coachs office was like, 15 feet from the showers. With pervs like Sandusky, Ludwigsen and that Olympic coach in the news, I find this especially creepy. Everybody is all about the legendary head coach but I know the dark side. "If the ref ain't lookin', kick 'em in the gut." He thought he was Vince lombardi.

“So they can make sure no hanky panky is going on.” I’m told. Another what the hell moment that only crystalizes into adult awareness. Now I look at the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the abuse in the boy scouts class action lawsuit and now I wonder if there is some sort of homo-erotic thing with men. When Randazzo the neighbor saw a huge stump one day he goes “bicep contest”. Everyone put their elbows on the stump and flexed and I’m like WTH is this? I found most male bonding really strange.

Luckily I was bereft of any sort of male influence regarding guns and sex and being told killing things is OK. Like I said Ritchie with his beating frogs on cement was beyond my comprehension. He done kilt a rabbit and chopped its foot off and showed me one Saturday. I was like what in the fuck is this? This is why I assumed he was in jail as I got older. Or dead. My psycho friend.

Janis did yield some insights. The boys were all about coercing the girls for sex she told me. You know the upstanding citizens of Wethersfield High School like Mike B. She mentioned other names but I forgot them. Then there was Ed Duggan the King of coercive assholes. I read his comments on facebook and I’m like how do these women tolerate this misogyny and even find him endearing?

Now he’s dead and people are like what an adorable guy and bought him, like, a park bench or something. A memorial plaque. More like a royal plague.

There was 10^th grade football and the Charleys and Jims of our 1-7 season in 1969 were being hyper jocks, but somehow always had lots of excuses for missing practice. One thing I distinctly remember is that I didn’t miss a single practice. Smallest dude on the team at 5’6” 140, I certainly took my lumps but did the running up and down the bleachers with a uniform on …barely. Then rode my Roddy one speed 4 miles home. Entering the working world i could easily beat back all the "we had it tough" diatribes.

So this is a pattern I like to think I created. Tough everything out. I was blinded by Jimmy Pierces rock and the doctor said no football or baseball for a year, so I sat out 9^th grade Jayvee football and when I could play baseball again it was with all the neighborhood kids in Clarks cow field. I realized I’d never be a baseball player at that point, the pitching was just too fast. Another form of bullying. One year of senior league in 8^th grade and I was 9 for 39 with a strikeout in the world series.

I could nail a runner at home from center field but when a 14 year old is throwing 85 MPH from 38 feet away (66 feet in the major leagues), it was downright scary. I couldn’t swing fast enough. I also learned about branding when I found out the name of my team was Wethersfield Optical. We were The Opticals? That was like Shaun playing soccer for Riverside Lawns. “Go Lawns” I’d shout at the games. “Get psyched”.

Back to 2020, I see these male creatures with their “I just broke a beer bottle and I’m going to kill you in a barfight” attitude, and the dudes with their gym muscles and I am not getting it. They need a constant reassurance of their manhood or something, but now I realize it’s a show. Everybody working on their brand, marketing their masculinity. Everyone craving fame and greatness.

-02-06-25-

"So my first winter since 1977-8 was set to arrive in 1984. We came back to experience the seasons, right? My gal and I had moved to the Thompsonville section of Enfield and it was like a slice of Boston, a dose of “Southy” that had dropped down in the Connecticut River Valley. There was Ragnos where they served the food I had missed out on in Arizona. A little further away was the best Polish Deli I had ever hoid. Our daughter was born and then baptized at the very old church down the street. A little further on, a Norman Rockwell Christmas emerged at Freshwater Pond when the ice froze. There was talk of the giant mill being converted into condos."

02052025

Amusing or the future?

working on characters for my novel Middlestone Avenue.

writing gives me the engagement my mind needs. I really no more patience for boomer men and their bragging. Women are good people.

Ordered one thing online. One size all hat that didn't fit. I am steadfastly holding on to some old-fashioned notions. I find it very suspicious there are no phone booths anymore. Satellites know what intersection you are sitting at.

GREENHAMMER

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Friday, January 28, 2022

SECTION 8 DIAOIR (ON THE ROAD, Less Traveled)

John A Almada

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