I'm out of here I can't believe it! I'm packing my bags and will take the next flight out. I can put up with a lot, but this is the last straw. I heard rumors going around that they might install a STOP LIGHT! I mean there are already four stop signs on the island, so what do they need a stop light for? I've told the chief of police that if they put one up I’m not going to stop no matter what color it is. I'll show them. Mess with me.
Speaking of driving, the speed limit here is 20 mph, and this can be a little too hot for some of the locals who will slow it down to 15. Since it only takes about 15 minutes to get from one end on the island to the other, this is no problem. Bur sometimes you'll get behind some guy who thinks 15 is just a tad bit to fast and drives at a safe and sane 10. It’s a crack up to get behind one of those guys doing 10 and then watch him hit the brakes to slow dawn to go around a corner. You can just about drive any way you want here. Stop in the middle of the road to talk to some of your friends. Or drive down the opposite side because there's too many "pot hole" on your side. Pass on the right if the other guys not sure just where he's going, which is hard to believe because all the roads here dead end! If you get lost, just turn around. You can even speed to 40 mph coming down off the bridge, right before you hit "Dead Mans Turn." It is called that because the road coming down from the bridge is a narrow two lane causeway with water on either side with a slight dogleg to the left at the end. About once a month on payday Friday night some local gets drunk and forgets about the turn at the end and goes flying off the embankment! If he's lucky it low tide, if not, well, you get the picture.
The Palauans are very superstitious and believe that there are ghosts that hang out down there and they will not go there alone at night. For some reason I can understand, the ghosts won't "get them" if they are with someone else. Since my house is on the other side of the bridge, no one will come up to see me at night. I've told them that I drive there all by my self every night and I've never seen a ghost! To which there are quick to reply "Oh, you won't see them, but they see you." This saddens me a little, because I truly would like to meet a ghost.
Well a new year has begun and so far I can't really see too much difference from the pervious one. Some of you may not be aware that I was back in the States a couple of months ago so I'11 fill you in on the details. I went back to see if my ex-partner was ever going to pay me the money he owed me from when I sold him my half of the shop. I owned a tropical fish store by the name Tanks-A-Lot Tropical fish for the last seventeen years. When I decided to go to Palau I sold him my half and he paid me some of the money up front (no way near what it was worth) and was then supposed to deposit monthly payment for the next fifteen months for the remainder of the money.
To make a long story short, I only received one or two of the payments and nothing for over a year. When I returned I paid a visit to the store I was shocked to discover that there was hardly any inventory and that he was never around. Most of the customers I ta1ked to still can't believe he owned the place as they didn't think he even worked there. Needless to say he didn't give me any money but promised that I’d get every penny he owed me. I just found out a few weeks ago that he shut the store down! I'm trying to locate a collecting agency to go after him so at least I'll get half of my money! So if anybody out there knows of a good collecting agency please let me know. Even better, if anybody knows some ex-Mafia type guys who will "Take him for a long walk off a short pier." Well that's OK by me.
My parents were having a family reunion in Long Island, New York and requested that I go back with them, and being the perfect child that I am, I was forced into going. Actua1ly I hadn't been in New York in over twenty years so I thought it would be fun. My mother comes from a large family with twelve brothers and sisters. I must admit that I have a pretty good concept of what aunts and uncles are, but after that, there are these things she called "cousins." This is when I started having problems. So my Mom, who took great delight in this, kept introducing me to all these strange people and would say things like "Now Lenny, this is your second cousin so-and-so" and would go to great length's to point out family traits that we had in common such as, pointy ears, little toes, or bent noses.
Then we got into "second." cousins and ones that were “twice" removed or even worse, ones that bad been removed "three" times. You’d think that being removed "once" would be enough, but I guess not. And if they were "removed" what were they all doing back again? Just whose idea was it to be able to have a whole bunch of "second" cousins anyway? Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier if they just numbered them? We all could wear name tags with numbers on them, or even better, football jerseys, so when you walked in you'd be given a program that would list everybody name and extraordinary body parts. Then it would be more like. "Now Lenny, this is your cousin number twenty seven" and all you would have to do is flip through a few pages in your program and say "Hey, so-and-so, how’s it going. Love that noise."
I did however; unearth a fundamental law of nature. That is, “cousins beget cousins." I mean there were little baby "cousins" all over the place. And all the mom and dad cousins would go from one baby cousin to the next baby cousin and say "Why doesn't she look just like cousin so-and-so." Or my favorite, "Ah, look, he's got cousin so-and-so’s nose. Now wait a minute here gang, I don't care what you say, ALL babies look the same. Let's for the sake of argument say that little baby so-and-so is a real bad seed, I mean a real nasty baby cousin, and is always in trouble with the law, and things get so out of hand that he ends up on the FBI’s “Ten most wanted” baby cousin list. You'd go to the post office to buy some stamps and there on the wall is a baby cousin wanted poster.
WANTED, BABY SO-AND- SO
DESCRIPTION: 22" from head too little baby toe. Weights about 10 pounds, Bald, no teeth, cute, cuddly, stupid grin on face most of the time, cries for no apparent reason, poops his diaper 8 to 10 times a day, if given half a chance will suck his thumb, sleeps all day, cries all night, and cute little bent nose.
There would be a photo of little baby so-and-so, complete with a tiny little thumb print, or perhaps a teeny weenie little foot print, and you'd look at the photo and say "You know, I've seen that face somewhere before." The guy standing next to you would be saying the exact same thing. In fact everybody in the whole damn post office would be thinking that they've all seen that baby's face someplace before. So I rest my case. And please don't go sending me a whole bunch of baby pictures to try and prove me wrong.
The neat thing was that my mom had sent copies of the "Lenny New Letter" to all my cousins and everyone knew who I was or at least knew about me, and wanted to know how my "boil" was doing or if I had any new ones in some strange place on my body, or if I was finally able to buy stamps. They would outdo themselves in making sure that I had plenty to eat. I gained 15 pounds while I was there.
I did succeed in going into the "City" or better known as the "Big Apple" (I'd like to know just why they call it that?) with my good old buddy Tommy or I should more correctly call him The Honorable Thomas Adams as he has somehow managed to get himself elected a Supreme Court Justice of New York. I hope this friendship will come in handy someday when they want to put me away for something and I can say "Hey I know Tommy." They will probable lock me up and throw away the key.
We walked halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge, and we would have walked all the way across too. But to our astonishment we discovered that the second half was identical to the first, only in reverse.
From there we went to the World Trade Buildings and amused ourselves by trying to figure out a way to place a bomb inside one of the parking lots and blowing it up, and we were truly disappointed to discover that it had already been done by some blind guy and a bunch of camel jockeys. From there we went to the Empire State Building and rode the elevator to the top. If you don't count the other two or three hundred people, we had the whole place to ourselves. There were signs that pointed out in different directions telling you just what you were looking at and how many States you could see on a clear day. Since it wasn't a real clear day we could only gaze out and try to imagine what it must be like on a clear day. This soon became boring and we couldn't believe that we forgot to bring some water balloons with us so we could try and hit one of the little "ants" walking around down below.
I then remembered that I once read in a book somewhere that if you tossed a penny off the Empire State Building and you hit somebody on the head it would squash his brain. This might be true but I can tell you one thing, it's not easy to hit someone from that height. We must have gone through a buck and a half worth of pennies and didn't hit anyone! Granted it wouldn't have been easy from our vantage point to tell in fact if we did hit someone, but we figured that if we manage to squish someone’s brain we could tell because all the other "ants" would all gather around one of their "fallen" to help and lend assistance. Then again this was New York and we could have wiped out half the population and no one would want to get "involved'. You know, now that I think about it, a lot of New Yorkers walk around like they have already been hit by a penny!
We were prepared to continue this experiment all afternoon if necessary, but we were forced to cease when the guard became suspicious when we asked him if he could change five dollars into pennies.
A few days later Tommy and I flew to "Block Island" or at lease I think it was Block Island. Anyway it's at the end of Long Island but isn't part of New York, but is in fact part of Connecticut, or Rode Island, or some other state. I was sure that I saw Jackie Kennedy Onassis walking down the street with some of her grandchildren but a local resident informed me that she hangs out over on Martha's Vineyard, which is another island somewhere in the vicinity. I have to admit that I didn't know that Martha's Vineyard was an island as all along I had thought that good old Jackie was just hanging out with a bunch of grapes in someone’s' backyard.
My parents and I drove, or I should say I drove and my Mom tried to read the map and from the back seat, my Dad would put in an occasional "Hey, You should have tuned back there, maybe", up to Connecticut to visit my Dad's sisters. The trees were just beginning to change colors because it was Fall and were very pretty, but it was getting a little to cold for me. Thanks to my Mom's expert map reading and my Dad's photographic memory we managed to keep driving around in circles and it only took three times as long to get to were we were going, but we got to spend some "Family Time" together.
Now that I'm back in Palau, Francis asked me if I could manage the dive shop for him. He said that he didn't think Palauan could do the job. I never thought that I'd hear him say that. Anyways, I've been doing that for the last month and I'm making steady progress in organizing and cleaning up the place. I've just placed an order with U.S. Divers to become a dealer and hope to have inventory by next month. Putting in a lot of hours and only diving once or twice a week.
Wow, I've been sitting here for over an hour trying to come up with something new and witty to say, but I’ve just experienced "writers block." Take the last paragraph, it doesn't seem to flow or read just right, some how it's just a group of words that states facts but doesn't really hold your interest or make you feel involved. Not quite up to the "Lenny Standards" then again neither does this paragraph. I'm hoping that if I just keep writing that something will come into my head that I can put down into words that will make you smile or laugh or something, but so far, nothing. This is worst than I first thought. I was sure by now I would have come up with something…Oh, I know…Nah,…it wasn't that funny…How about?...No,…This is crazy,…I don't want to end this edition like this...
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