Golden Years

90, breathing hard on, God willing, 91.

Waking up at 5:30 from an oldster's fitful so called sleep, feeling like shit but thinking of Dean Martin's unforgettable line, ‘knowing that it was as bad as I was going to feel all day'.

My number one thing to do, after getting dressed for my day in the trenches of trying to feel optimistic is to check the obits of the NYT and SF Chronicle on line, to see if I'm still alive. 'So far so good' as the guy who jumped off of a 50 story building said as he passed the 30th floor on the way down.

Being inspired with the knowledge that I'm still alive, and touching my toes for a stretch plus doing a wall crawl for posture, gets me going into the kitchen to make a healthy, but really boring, fucking breakfast.

Fresh fruit smoothie, raisin toast, at least 3 cups of coffee plus the inevitable oldster pills. My thyroid, diuretic and sinus pills plus vitamin supplements round out the breakfast.

By then the newspapers have arrived and links that my friends might care about start going out. My friends probably cringe when my name shows up and think that 'here is that old son of a bitch again'. Every once, in a long while, a 'thank you shows' up on my screen.

Then the diuretic pill kicks in and awhizzing I must go. When you're 90 'holding it in' is not an option. 'Holding it in' means an underwear change. Drip, drip, drip or go to the head are my choices.

And if my schlong could get as stiff as the rest of me, sex would, gratefully, come back into my life. And pigs will fly.

It isn't erectile dysfunction that attacks my schlong. It's old age dysfunction. As Willie Nelson so famously said, "I'm sorry that my dick died before the rest of me". Golden years? The inventor of that line must have been 25 years old. Golden Years at 90? Yeah, my lower case bronx, jewish, fat ass.

My Golden Years started in my callow youth and ended in my late 70's. Those in between years including the ones in the service were, in retrospect, my Golden Years . I was a profligate spender my entire life.

Spent on my family, my friends and certainly myself. I was always certain that I could replace the considerable amount of money that I spent every day. And replace it I did into my late 70's. I loved every minute of giving it away and spending it.

The first sign of the end of my Golden Years came when my dick started to die. I went from hookers galore, loose and easy, to a once in awhile triumph of being able to do it. Hookers, as I have often said, were wonderful. For a few hundred dollars, I got to fall in love for a half an hour a time. I didn't have to make any conversation and the burden of proof was never on me. And when it was over she was gone. No cuddling!!

My decline during my Golden Years became really apparent when pictures of naked, beautiful young women with big boobs (aka tits) were boring. Then when people started asking me if I was retired, I knew that my Golden Years had, for the most part, ended. Living those Golden Years believing that moderation is fatal and plenty fucking boring as well was wonderful. Very little done in excess is very little done.

Trying to do good for doing's sake, not to generate a reward has, to this day, been a turn on for me. Touching people's lives has always been an important goal...

Putting myself under the gun (as in spending more than I made) provided the impetus (aka adrenaline rushes) that I needed to keep me in money making motion. Being fucking stress addicted is in my DNA.

So here I am, almost 70 years after taking one on Okinawa, as happy as a pig in shit with at least 70 Golden Years and a Purple Heart. The last five years haven't been too swift, but with 75 Golden Years out of 9o total years my life has been more than just okay. Happy as the proverbial pig in shit or a clam in mud.

I often wonder what happens to a 40 year old ex-hooker. Probably marries an old man with very little, if any, interest in sex.

Weed, Shrinks and Group Analysis

'There is nothing more boring than perfect.', said the spider to the fly.

Smoking dope wasn't my thing. Tried it once. The Princess liked it. Our next door neighbor, a shrink loved it and always had a supply of marijuana on hand. I went to several parties, after I quit drinking, that were shrink centric. Smoking dope was the life of the shrink's parties.

So, being Jewish, automatically guilty and in defiance of Einstein's law where he says that if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, each time looking for a different result, you are insane, I went, one more time after the Princess unloaded me, to a shrink.

Proving my second ex-wife correct. The first one thought me to be "bizarre" while my second ex-wife thought me "strange" or "crazy".

Group therapy is an unbelievable experience. You sit in a circle and each person talked about their problems. And, as with one on one sessions with the shrink, no one ever left any session laughing.

Having spent 50 minutes exploring what the hell was wrong with you, makes it plenty fucking tough to feel good about yourself. Maybe the phrase 'circle jerk' came out of group therapy.

The big plus of shrinkage is that you learn all about yourself which took me about a year. You get to know why you do a lot of stuff. But knowing why you're fucking up is a long way from stopping being fucking up. But at least you know why.

The big minus is that the shrink gets to look at you as a big fucking milk cow but the teats have money in them not milk. Squeezing those teats provide for wives, kids, mortgages and 'girlfriends'. Letting go of the ‘milk cow' is seldom prime on the agenda.

So, in my 'group' was a good looking, smart woman who was married to a shrink. She was the group 'facilitator', whatever that meant. One day she showed up wearing a Star of David. She was as Irish as Paddy's pig which stimulated a lot of curiosity.

An Irish broad wearing the Star of David just didn’t work. We later found out that the shrink who was Jewish was banging her and since she was already married a fucking engagement ring wouldn't work. So they settled on a gold Star of David hanging on a gold chain hanging around her not so golden goddamn neck.

They both got divorces and did marry, with the shrink's original wife going off the fucking wall. She in turn signed up, right away, for therapy with another shrink. As with me, she was a slow learner. She was Jewish, so she believed that the divorce was all her fault.

And is it any wonder that shrinks bang their patients and vice versa? The patient, in my view, mixes up dependence with love so 'afucking' we will go. Didn't work for me. Never had a woman shrink nor am I gay.

A memorable experience, actually a nightmare, was a 24 hour marathon group session where everyone sat around a circle, for 24 hours, slamming one another and just beating the shit out of your thinking, your personality, the way you dressed and anything else someone in the group could think of that made you unacceptable.

Spending 24 hours being told that you are a worthless piece of shit ain't fun. The only laughs were the ones you were the subject of.

I have always believed that 'interventions' used on drunks and addicts came out of group fucking therapy.

Life without premeditation is wonderful....

Marijuana, Kurt, The Vatican

Going to Rome by way of Tel Aviv and Kibbutz Mishmar David to see Kurt made perfect sense to me since acting without premeditation came naturally to me.

In 1970-1971, I helped found a venture capital group. As it turned out, the enterprise was disaster in spite of my partners being very successful making individual investments in the venture capital arena.

Not only was our basic concept terrible but the business plan really sucked. Making investments in venture deals found and vetted by others turned out to be really different than developing and vetting your own deals. Like the difference between night and day.

One of my partners knew a guy (Lloyd Hand) who had been Chief of Protocol for President Johnson, so he knew every son of a bitch and his uncle. We paid him $10,000 (About $56,000 today) plus travel expenses which added another $3,000 ($17,000 today) to introduce us to the Bishop who ran the Vatican Bank.

The Bishop, we were told, ran the bank and was Mayor of Vatican City as a result of saving the Pope's life in the Philippines when the Pope was attacked by a fucking nut with a knife.

The trip was wild, booze driven, insane trip. Travel for me back then was a way to get away from the Princess, really drink big time and walk around feeling like shit every day. A good trade off for me. Rather feel like shit than be treated like shit.

"Kurt I'm going to give you three options. You can finish high school and go to Israel. You can quit high school now and go to Israel. Or Kurt, you can go to jail. You have a week to make up your mind.”

”You are maniac.", the Princess screamed at me. We were sitting in our all white living room and for a fucking flash I thought that I'd be a victim of domestic violence with that sweet demure Princess beating the shit out of me, while I bled red in a fucking sea of white.

When we built that Jewish mansion (aka a house you can't afford) the Princess and her decorator came up with all white furnishings for the living room, which made the living room unlivable. Unfucking real.

So the living room was designed for adult groups only. The only time that the kids were allowed in that fucking room was when they were in trouble with me or the Princess. It was a come to Jesus room. It was an all white 'woodshed' without a horse whip or club. Lots of ranting words by me was the punishment of choice.

Kurt had a kidney ailment and was in and out of the Stanford Convalescent Home for Children, which literally saved his life. Being in and out of school was a great hindrance in his making lasting friends at school though he did have a few. He started shooting pool and coming home at all hours. The Princess would wake me in the middle of the night to find him, which I’d sometimes do but mostly not.

His friends were pool hall bums. They would come to the house to play poker, each guy looking worse than the other. When those fucking bums started showing up at the door (seldom used) looking for Kurt I got really spooked. In between all the action, the Princess and I went away for a weekend. Came home to find the un-living room a virtual shambles with Russian antiques pieces, for all practical purposes, destroyed.

So one Sunday night, without premeditation or discussion with the Ice Queen, I issued my ultimatum. Two Israel and one jail option.. with a week to decide.

The following Sunday Kurt told me that Israel absolutely now, was his choice. He was less than a month from high school graduation and the Princess, an education freak, started crying. But it was apparent to me that Kurt was up to his ass in alligators.

The next morning Kurt came with me to S.F. to go to the Passport Bureau.

Filled out the forms but we didn't have his Goddamn birth certificate. So we left the bureau and I went into action. Phoned Iowa for instructions. Sent $2.50 to Iowa, special delivery, where Kurt was born. Enclosed another $2.50 for the bureau to return the birth certificate special delivery.

Memorial Day weekend, starting that Thursday, was coming up and the Passport Bureau was to be closed Friday. I had an intuitive feeling that time was of the essence. Wednesday arrived and so did the fucking birth certificate. So down to Passport Bureau to get the passport went Helene my secretary.

Helene was beautiful, a good worker but not a Phi Beta Kappa Key candidate. She phoned from the bureau to tell me that there was an enormous line and doubted that she would get to the front before closing.

San Francisco Passport Bureau

"Get up close to a window and just stare at the clerk. Do not take your eyes off him/her. The clerk will feel the pressure, call you up to the window and ask you what you want. Get the passport." Which is exactly what happened and Helene got the passport.

Thursday evening Kurt was packing to take the Red Eye to New York when in walked the police to pick him up for selling marijuana. The Princess was hysterical while I had a few pops to sustain me and concentrated on finding an attorney.

Kurt was one of 13 kids from affluent, upscale Woodside and Portola Valley. Most of the kids had been picked up at least once before.

Turns out that the Princess and I were the only parents in attendance and Kurt was the only one with an attorney. When I asked one of Kurt's arresting officers where the other kids’ parents were with attorneys for their kids, the officer said "The fathers are probably traveling and the Mothers are in the bag. Attorneys? No way were the parents going to spend any more money on those kids."

After Kurt was gone the car he had been driving was taken in for service and a big bunch of marijuana was found stuffed behind the front dashboard. Plus shoe boxes full of grass were found in his closet.

Kurt was on the Mishmar David Kibbutz in Israel when I was going to Rome. So I thought I would "stop by" and see him before I went to Rome for my business. I thought Rome and Tel Aviv were "kissin’ cousins", close by one another. That was a major misconception.

Almost 5 hours of drinking in the air. Spent a night on the Kibbutz which was memorable. It was only a few years after the '67 war and spirits and ideals on this communal farm were high.

I went to Rome and the Vatican the following day to meet with the Bishop. The night before the meeting, we went for a horse and buggy ride to get acquainted with Rome. Expensive and a piss poor way to see Rome. Very boring.

The next day we went to see the Bishop who was from Cicero. He had been an "advance man" for Pope Paul VI. The Bishop's hands were like ham hocks and he was as tough as nails. Smoked Pall Mall cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. But, at that point, I was smoking 4 1/2 packs of Lucky Strikes (no filters) every day with yellow fingers. So the Bishop and I looked like two chimneys and that was right up my alley.

My partner who insisted on doing the major part of the presentation was a very nice, smart guy whose voice never seemed to stop "droning". Your eyes would glaze over as he droned on and on. He could put a sore ass in vinegar to sleep.

The Bishop managed to stay awake and while he was not a financial man, he knew a dumb deal when he saw one and turned us down, out of hand. But it was for me, through the booze driven, cigarette haze and yellowed fingers, a fabulous experience and the beginning of a wonderful long term personal relationship with Bishop Marcinkcus.

A great person guy, in spite of his fruitless efforts to convert me. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. My trip back to SF was out of sight with unreal booze laden memories.

The P U Club, Dale Frey, Ken Langone

Living a life of always going ‘Up The Down Stairway’ and lovin' it...

"This club, (The Pacific Union Club in S.F.) has a Circumcision Detector and a loud bell goes off when I walk in so I always come in through the back door (basically the women's entrance) which doesn't have the detector. The effect of tripping the Detector would be like hearing an earthquake alert."

The membership committee of the P U Club had never really recognized that Jesus was a Jew. This was before the goofy Jews for Jesus, non-movement had gained any traction at all.

Pacific Union Club

It was at a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation small, exclusive fund raising dinner hosted by Dale Frey and Ken Langone that I spewed those words in answer to a question.

Since both Dale and Ken knew me, but not all that well, they thought that since I was a big earner, living large, that God had taught me how to accumulate money and make it grow. As well as how to piss it away on the Princess (aka First Ex Wife), my kids, myself and various sundry strangers, who probably, like the Princess, thought that I was 'bizarre’. Profligate for sure. Bizarre? Suit yourself.

There were a few others at the dinner including a fabulously wealthy guy who had extracted some big time investment money from Dale Frey's GE Pension Trust. He too was Jewish like me but he was so fucking rich that they turned off the Circumcision Detector when he showed up.

He couldn't become a member of the fucking P U club but his rich friends covered for him when he was invited to the club...he went through the front door.

So at this small exclusive dinner the Executive Director of the Foundation was my next chair neighbor. She was from Tennessee, a really good looking woman and for some weird reason kept asking me the damnedest questions about myself.

Being powerless over my own bullshit, I was more than just happy to accommodate this Southern Beauty. We all know that a man thinks with his eyes.

Then came her question about how often I came to the P U Club. I looked at her like a bull with a bastard calf. My response was that due to the Circumcision Detector, that me and the P U Club were hardly kissin' cousins.

The dinner itself was a cross between great and pretty awful. The awful part, for me, came when the scientist doctors went through their research results and the progress of the research programs. Those descriptions were eye glazing.

The fun part was just listening to Ken and Dale. Nothing eye glazing about either one. They were apparently going to a few cities, with wives, in Ken's burner, aka airplane and enjoying each city and each other.

Naturally, in playing the game, I made a commitment which I promptly paid. I was right in predicting to Dale that it would take a few phone calls to extract the commitment that the big rich guy made.

One day, when I heard an eagle screaming and saw pigs flying, I knew that Dale had accomplished his purpose for the Foundation. Later, Ken, Dale and I had a few laughs about the whole affair, particularly the part about the Circumcision Detector.

One of the partners at the NYSE bucket shop for which I worked, Laury Ames, a Continental Air founder, invited me to lunch at Snobsville a few times. I always came in through the back. The people at the bar, serious pre-lunch drinkers, were divided into two clusters. One group was made up of retired club members with the second group still gainfully employed. There was a real class distinction at the P U Club with the working stiffs looking down on the retired people.

Two different worlds at one pompous fucking bar.

Putting in a four letter word show for the waiters at the P U Club was fun. They were snobs as well and would be properly horrified at my foul language. They apparently didn't subscribe to my idol George Carlin's philosophy that 'there are no bad words, just bad thoughts'.

Ashaking and Agroaning...Earthquake Time

There's gotta be a Willie Nelson ashaking and agroaning, earthquake song.

"I'm feeling dizzy. What the hell is going on?” It was 1954 and having just moved from flat, boring Iowa, where the big thing was to have 'corn, knee high by the fourth of July’, to Palo Alto, located in the Land of Milk and Honey and Fruits and Nuts, and where the big thing was to be laid back and enjoy the weather.

Now, the gazillionaire geeks and nouveau riche have all but destroyed that culture. The geeks dressed like slobs, making obscene amounts of money and completely powerless over their own bullshit, dominate Palo Alto. Bye, bye sweet college town.

In Iowa, 5 days in a row in January of temperatures warmer than 20 fucking above degrees was considered a heat wave. In Palo Alto any temp in January, in and around 32, is considered a 'cold blast'.

While sitting on the front lawn, in that summer of '54, of the Eichler house we lived in and visiting with a native Californian neighbor, I suddenly felt dizzy and felt like the ground was moving under my fat ass. The thought that I might be having an inadvertent bowel movement did flash on me.

I looked quizzically at the neighbor and he quickly explained, laughing, that we were having a 'fucking tremor'. He thought it funny, while I thought maybe I was better off freezing in the winter and living in an insanely buggy, humid, fucking hot Iowa weather in the summer.

The occasional California tremors through the years have made me no never mind. The papers hardly reported them.

When the big mother came in 1989 and shook up Candlestick Park I was living large in the Big Apple enjoying my friends, hookers and making more money than I deserved. God, it was fun. No booze, no smoking, just living a wonderful, high on the hog life. Wine or not, real shakers produce real tragedies

But at around 3 and change in the morning of Aug 23, 2014 my earthquake nonchalance ended with a real, live jolt. 'My building', about 50 years old and built real cheap, was making edgy noises, like it was coming apart at the fucking seams.

Being on the top floor of a creaky old building that seemed to be moaning and groaning like an old whore on Saturday night ain't too swift. A+ for scary and Palo Alto is about 90 minutes, by car, from Napa Valley, which really paid the price for its sinful, wine soaked living.

Twenty seconds or so became a fucking lifetime with all kinds of bad scenarios going through my normally empty head. Sleeping in my tee shirt didn't make me too fucking well dressed for a hurried exit to the street. But then, how in the hell was I going to get down to the street from the fourth floor without getting killed by flying debris?

On and on. What a fucking twenty seconds it was. A Bronx Jew in an earthquake is an oxymoron.

Fortunately the twenty second shaker and baker ended with me deciding that even at 90, dying in a lousy earthquake held no fucking appeal for me.

'Money Is Like Manure...', Hello Dolly

'If you think you're crazy then you really must be sane else how would know that you’re crazy.’ Catch 22.

As Groucho Marx so famously said, “If I knew that I was going to live this long I would probably have taken better care of my money."

Ah, where did the many, many millions I earned go? Cause I don't have even a small itty, bitty, little bit of it left. Profligate spending? No respect for accumulating money? Chasing straight women and wonderful hookers? Always spent more than I made?

Guilty as charged of all of the above and more.

Being overdrawn was part of my lifestyle. Me and keeping a record of the checks written in order to know my bank balance weren't even kissin' cousins. My banker in Palo Alto both loved and hated me.

Simultaneously.

My favorite story about the banker, often told, starts with when my OD was getting close to seven figures in eighties dollars. I went to see him when my OD was literally, over $900,000.The conversation got mean when he started pounding me on that fucking overdraft. Naturally, being wrong, I indignantly stomped out of his office.

Needed some medicine, went to the pharmacy directly from the bank and noticed that they were selling lottery tickets (a new phenomena at the time) and bought three. Got back in the car, phoned the banker who was, in my view, a faux Born Again Christian who never used foul language (which I love).

Told the banker that a new development had come up and I was working on a way to cover my OD soon. He became really excited and asked what the new development was."I bought three lotto tickets."

"Fuck you" he shouted and slammed the phone down.

I was totally arrogant about my ability to make money and my arrogance was well founded. My genius, immigrant Pop always said that in America money is up to your knees. You just have to know how to bend down to pick it up. And I, sure as hell, knew how. Old age has stiffened my back. Too bad that my schlong can't get as stiff as the rest of me.

A banker in Iowa once asked me what I was going to do with the money I wanted to borrow. "Spend it", I said. Off the wall he went. He thought that I was being a smart ass and he turned me down. He didn't realize, as promoted in Hello Dolly, that I believed that money is like manure, 'You have to spread it around for it to do any good…'

Making many millions of dollars disappear, is a talent few people want. But I'm living proof that it doesn't take a fucking magician.

While mucho of my bucks were spent on myself, the bulk of the money was spent on others. My friends, my wives, before and after divorces (a half of a half doesn't leave a whole hell of a lot). My four kids and the Ice Princess plus my second ex wife were the real focus of my 'mishuga',crazy spending.

The Ice Princess complained a lot and very fucking bitterly, that I spoiled the kids. But my cry was that I was not "schitzo” and couldn't give her (#1 ex wife) everything she wanted (and she wanted plenty, starting with being a born again clothes horse) and not do the same for the kids.

How she adored and loved I Magnin. Apparently the monthly, horrendous, I Magnin bill suited me fine. The Princess was clothes and shoe horse and looked beautiful in what she bought.

A ton if money was pissed away on people I hardly knew or even cared to know. When I got sober one of my kids had a tennis shop. God only knows how many warm up suits and tennis rackets I bought for flight attendants that I saw just once and didn't care to see ever again.

Trying to support the tennis shop with purchases for flight attendants got boring. Even inherently bright flight attendants became brain dead while on that job. My real interest was in the success my kid and the tennis shop. The seventeen years between marriages were also terrific for spending money.

Would I do it all over again? For sure!! My disrespect for accumulating money spilled over into a ton of good for others and me.

Sadly, as the Italian adage goes 'If you can't stand ingratitude, never do, anything for anybody.'

A Bronx Jew Slopping Hogs

'You're not fit to sleep with the pigs', the ultimate farm country insult. Been there, heard that. My reaction?

'Fuck you and the horse you rode in on and the army behind it.' Slopping and castrating hogs in Iowa was not for a Bronx Jew. Farming is an art and I was no farming artist.

Throw in a big city guy with a fuck you, in your face attitude, and you have one unhappy guy pissing off almost everyone. Yeah, the Princess and my first father-in-law tried to tone me down. No chance.

Me and most of the other people in Mason Fucking City, Iowa (aka River City) had one thing in common: a mutual disrespect and dislike of one another. Actually, I enjoyed wiring everyone for sound, which I did on a daily basis. Got my heart rate up. Great aerobic workout.

Sitting on a fucking tractor going up and down rows, plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), vaccinating hogs, driving a dying bull to Ames, going to livestock auctions where everyone smelled like shit, including me, was both boring and annoying. A far, fucking cry from going to the theatre, Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden. I even missed schlepping around to art galleries with the Princess.

Losing my financial ass was also really boring. The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the white hot bond of anger between the Princess and me. Why I stayed married to that broad for another 20 years really escapes me.

So, I bought a set of 25 White Face Herefords to breed, out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Table top backs: wonderful looking animals. I needed a bull to breed them so I bought a purebred Hereford bull from a neighbor. Turns out that the bull had a 'broken tool '.

(Lesson #1- Beware of farm neighbors/friends offering you "good deals").

I put the bull with the cows in a pasture of a farm I was managing (A Bronx Jew as a farm manager is stuff comedies are made of.) Charlie Pippert was the farmer's name. Strong as an ox, he was. Every week I would drive my pickup truck forty miles on those gravel, country roads to Charlie's place with the radio blaring.

Charley, who I blamed for that purebred bull staying alive while its schlong died, was in my stream of consciousness on a daily basis. Naturally, blaming Charley for the bull's impotence was nonsense but being pissed off at Charley became a soul satisfying project.

Fantasizing about telling Charlie off and beating the shit out of him really turned me on. I was 28 years old.

One day, after the bull was long gone, I had to go to see Charley. While driving in my pickup truck those forty unbelievably awful fucking miles, I rehearsed what I was going to say to Charley and what his response to me would be. Almost an hour, on gravel, of this fantasy conversation wired me for sound. I imagined my part of the conversation and then conjured up his responses. I became increasingly angry with Charley. In fact I became absolutely wild with his fantasy irresponsibility.

As I pulled into the farm yard, Charley and his wife came down the farm house steps. I got out of the truck, strode around the front of it and shouted "Charley, you dirty son of a bitch!" and hit him. His wife screamed and threatened to call the sheriff but I felt that no one was going to "talk" to me that way, and Charley had it coming.

Getting back in back into the pickup, with my blood boiling I drove home and had a few pops to calm down. Booze always calmed me down until it got me wired. Was it any wonder that the Princess thought me, 'bizarre' (Her word describing me to others and me.)

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out.

(Lesson #2 - You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.)

And then there was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing and I insisted on a vaccination certificate from the farmer for a deadly virus.

I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a phony certificate, which he did. The pigs grew to 100 plus pounds, became hogs, became sick and started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs and we had to vaccinate the remainder.

Grabbing and holding on to a 100 pound hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. The hogs eventually stopping dying, but I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. Put those filthy, fucking animals in a small feed lot which restricted exercise. They started dying on me. The vet came out and promptly told me that they were dying of heart attacks. Getting fat with no exercise is as bad for hogs as it is for people.

Another hard earned lesson.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be bought, I was the mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. And the friendly Iowa farmers fucked me at every opportunity, which I deserved. Once a mullet always a mullet.

When my four year sentence was up, I happily left Iowa. Those unfortunates who got to know me and grew to dislike me were as happy as pigs in shit with my leaving town. Me too!