Cal.E.'s Corner

C.: d.c. is on still on his second honeymoon with his wife, Eudora. I wonder if they invited “Butch” to come with them (hehe). ..d.c., what are you doing back? I thought you were not scheduled to be back until tomorrow. Did you and Eudora have a fight and decide to go your separate ways?

d.. NO, Cal.E., we did not. Why do you ask?

C.: Because, d.c., isn’t your wife cheating on you? All the signs are there! You just need to open your eyes!

d.: Oh, you mean “Butch.” Let me explain that to you. “Butch’s” real name is Elise. She is a travel agent. Her workmates all her “Butch” because she is what one might call a “tomboy.” She likes to hunt and fish and watch sports on television. She usually does these activities with her husband of twenty-five years, “Steve.” Steve played college football until he hurt his knee his junior year. He would have been a high NFL draft choice if he could have stayed healthy. Instead, he married his college sweetheart, Elise, who was a college cheerleader.

College (and high school) cheerleaders are incredible athletes. Since Elise was so athletic and liked to watch and participate in sports, she earned the nickname “Butch.” I believe it is partly out of jealousy that her workmates call her that, because she is still a very nice-looking woman even though she is in her mid-forties.

Eudora DOES want to retire, though. She has been working for the same company for thirty years, so she has a nice pension coming. She saw an opportunity to make more money than working fulltime. She discovered she could do this as a retiree when she took a job as an adjunct professor at the local community college. She can do that since she has a master’s degree in accounting. She took the extra part-time work to help earn money to surprise me with a cruise for our anniversary. She paid for the whole trip. With her mad math skills, Eudora figured out that she would be earning more money collecting her pension and teaching additional classes at the J.C.

She also took on tutoring students for additional cash so that she could by ME a new car. She knows how fond I am of my truck, and she did not want me to get rid of it, but it does use a lot of gas. Gas is expensive right now, so she saw a need to get me a new vehicle that was more economical to drive to work.

She asked me to clean up her car because she knew that we would be taking it to Galveston to catch our cruise ship, and she knows how much I like to ride in a clean vehicle. She reasoned that the only person who could clean the car to my satisfaction was me!

Additionally, we came back a day early so that my wife could tutor one of her students for free. He is having a hard time in her class, and he cannot afford to pay her; so she is tutoring him for free

. We decided not to spend the night in Galveston, like we originally planned. Galveston to Cozumel is a short trip that only takes less than three hours to get from one port to the other. It is just a one-day trip on a cruise ship. We were going to spend the night in Galveston and eat on “The Strand” tonight, but Eudora felt it was more important to get back and tutor this young man so that he could pass his final exam!

You see Cal.E., our opinions are often colored by the events that we experience in our own lives. It is also colored by the media. The shooter in Uvalde’s name is known by almost everyone, but the names that SHOULD be on every source of information are Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia. These are ethe names of the two brave teachers who gave their lives to save as many of their students as possible. I do not want to give the children’s names out of respect for their families. They are still grieving, and probably will be for the rest of their lives.

Apparently, there is a third teacher who saved her whole class by hiding the students and telling the shooter they were all at the gym. He first name is Victoria. I don’t know her last name, but her picture is posted on my manager’s Facebook page. (If anyone does have any other information on this brave, beautiful lady, please leave a comment on this blog or my manager’s Facebook page.)

C.: Wow! d.c., do you think that stricter gun laws are the are the way to put an end to all these senseless killings?

d.: Sadly, Cal.E., I do not. California and Colorado have some of the strictest gun laws in the country, and those two states have had as many shootings as any in the last thirty years. It would be nice to think that restricting the sale of guns or ammunition would end the violence, but it would not.

C.: What WOULD help? I am willing to do ANYTHING to stop all of the killing. I mean, killing little kids is just horrible!

d.: I agree. I believe what would help is if we made people like the three I mentioned earlier the focus of the news stories, not the shooters. Everyone knows the name of the school shooter in Colorado who claimed to want to be famous. That is why he shot up a school in Colorado, apparently. We all know who Dylan Kleibold was, but do we know the name of the brave young man who tried to witness to this school shooter as he was dying, even knowing he would lose his life to do it? Sadly, I do not. One name I DO know is the one of my first cousin. Her first name was Sylvia, and she was killed in the Chuck E. Cheese massacre in Aurora, Colorado twenty-nine years ago.

I was not close to my cousin, because there was a large age difference between us, and we lived a long way apart. It was my uncle’s second marriage and family, so I did not know her as well as her half brother and sister from his first marriage. I do know that this sweet young lady never would have hurt anyone. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to earn spending money. My uncle was a commercial airline pilot, so it was not necessary for his wife or any of his kids to work to help support the family.

My late aunt and uncle never really got over Sylvia’s death, and I am sure that the parents in Uvalde never will, either. That shooter is dead, but it did take too long to stop him, according to the authorities. My cousin’s murderer is still alive. He has been on death row for twenty-nine years, kept alive through appeals at the expense of the taxpayers in Colorado, while his victims are gone.

C.: (I have never seen d.c. so upset before. He is usually such a laid-back, easy-going guy! I guess seeing all those children killed had an affect on him, since he is very fond of children. It must have also stirred up old memories. I wish that I could do SOMETHING to make him feel better…Yes! That’s IT! I know exactly what I will do!)

To be continued tomorrow