MOMENTS

Joel Charles Snell

Everybody has them. Some moments and events stand out and one remembers them, the rest of their lives. That is what this little book is about.

When I was a kid I was beaten by my father for playing “doctor and nurse.” My brother was beaten as he was with me and he was screaming in the next room. I could hear it. I lay on my bed waiting. A customer of my father’s stops by and they are talking out in the front of the house. The window is open and their interaction comes into my room. Moment for moment I am shaking and totally nude. My dad finally comes to my room and the whipping is incredibly painful. Those emotions drift into the future time after time. With alcohol I usually do the right thing. That is sexual outer course or abstinence plus. When I am sober so many problems emerge.

2/ I am on a date. She acts reserved. Are you ready for this? I ask her if it is that time of the month. What a stupid question. Look I am a jerk, but not a total jerk. What I do find is that I like to be alone because I can’t screw up. By the way, the person that I was with became the homecoming queen. One time, I asked to come over to watch the Nebraska football game. She said that it would be great for me to come over. So I did. When I walk in there are already 3 males there to watch the game.

3/ when I was 7 or 8, I would go to downtown Benson which became officially part of Omaha. There was a big fire station and community center. One day, I went to the center to watch a basketball game. I sat in the balcony. As the game was being played, three much older guys, grabbed me and pushed me over the little wall that protects supporters who watch the game. I was head first over 15 to 20 feet. I was crying, begging, to live. They were laughing and I was terrified. After a few minutes, they pulled me back to safety. I was so upset that I could not recognize them. What if I had fallen one story onto the cement floor? Why didn’t I carry a pepper gas gun? I could shoot them in the face. In Serfdom, it stays there for the rest of your life. There is a fist fight. Maybe I could have stopped them. The low life beats the crap out of the serious one. The women start getting wet watching the violence. Do you remember the show BULLY BEAT DOWN? The bully then the talented one kicks the crap out of the bully. Moms should start hiring security. Rent an anti-bully.

4/. Jake would be a Neo-Nazi today. He was a barber and an expert on exploiting women. You went to see him for a crew cut or a flat top. Perhaps, you could go to get a duck tail. Then males started wearing long hair. He was overwhelmed. Also, business was down. Finally, he clobbered my long hair. That was the last of him. However I did recommend him to my psychiatrist. The medical psychotherapist indicated that he had been born too soon. He was out of sync with the times. My barber was high and he had been certified that he was not crazy. My wife started cutting my hair and the Jake described earlier here died at 55 years old.

He also liked to have extramarital affairs with his ex-wife. On Friday nights, he would get on a plane and head to somewhere or nowhere. This was his way of coping with staying in the shop. He was back to work on Mondays. I should have left him much earlier. He always talked like he was a bully and he would get his time in prison. By the way, guys would bring their girl friend to help them with the cut and style of the hair. Jake was livid with anger.

5/ I had 2 professors make a pass at me. One was fired and the other moved on to many plays and presentations. On the second, we had been to a party where the brothers got drunk and started throwing food and furniture at each other. He took me home because I was very drunk. He took me to my bedroom and the deed was done. I DON’T TRUST ANYONE. Sex is very popular among human males and it is a curse. So if you can avoid becoming intimate and think that a condom will do the job, it is only 70-75 percent effective. To stay out of serfdom, do abstinence plus or sexual outer course.

6/ Mary had 6 kids and they drove her nuts. So she went to her room and stayed there. She smoked cigarettes all day and ate candy. She finally got out of bed and went to the university to take a class. Then one night she had to go to the hospital. Three days later, she died. I watched her die. The next day, we went to the funeral home. My wife, a relative of ours, and myself talked to the mortician. He had a huge calculator. He talked softly and then ushered us into the casket room. Over in the corner was the cheapest casket. Mary indicated before she died, that she wanted the cheapest selection. So we purchased it.

The mortician indicated that he knew her and could not put her in some cheap box. We agreed. My wife was in tears, but the other relative and I knew the game. So he shows us the calculator with big numbers. He indicated how much he would lose if we chose the gray flannel box. We agreed with the funeral home director and indicated our appreciation of his sacrifice. The guy got mad. We remained quiet. Finally, he gave up. He would not make as much money on us.

At that time in the 70’s, we had a few beers and watched ALL IN THE FAMILY, MARY TYLER MOORE. and BOB NEWHART on Saturday night. However, Mary would come downstairs and join the family and friends. Not too many more years, most of us would die or move. The remaining got together when my wife’s father died. Her dad donated his body to medicine, Mary was buried in outstate Nebraska. As I write this, we think that I will be next.

All my family is gone.

7/ it is early morning on the interstate. It is the beginning of summer. I have a shirt on and a jacket. It is still chilly and I am holding a sign indicting to PLEASE SLOW DOWN. Both cars and trucks finally stop and a researcher respectfully ask them where they are coming from and where the plan to stop. It is an origin-destination study. This measure of traffic helps engineers decide how much stress the highway can hold and how much improvement is needed. The folks in the cars are very respectful and there is not a problem. However, the truckers must make time and are mad. So they say that they are going to Mabel’s brothel. For research purposes, we are at times at the edge of the highway and other times standing in the middle of the road. They are very mad and the truck heading east and the other west communicate with each other. I am standing in the middle of the road. As I am standing there both trucks going opposite of each other speed up. When the two trucks passing each other get to my position I am being sucked into the two trucks. For a second, I could see them laughing. I survive, but pray that it doesn’t happen again. However it happened again and again. I remember singing to myself the Beach Boys “Girl Don’t Tell Me.”

That summer was so wonderful. I was able to enjoy myself with a girl friend 3 or 4 times a week. We not only drank cheap beer but would spend a lot of time pleasing each other at my apartment. However at the end of the summer, we parted. We had too many differences that would keep us together. So we parted but would stop and talk with each other in the hallways at the university.

8/One summer, I would get a bed sheet from a washing machine, stretch the sheet, and place it on a huge iron. Up came the steam. We had to do this so that the sheet would be dry, pressed, and ready for a bin. My partner on the other side did the same thing that I did. When the sheets filled the bin, it was transferred to another department and then upstairs of the hospital.

I came home exhausted. My partner was tired too, but he headed for his next job which was located 6 blocks away. Then he headed home and almost instantly went to sleep. He was a little slow, but kept at the job. He had a ton of kids to feed and they were poor.

For some reason, I was promoted from the laundry to the second floor. The laundry was super hot and humid. Second floor was air conditioned and I got the reputation as a pretty good custodian who wore wing tip shoes. I ask my boss; how long it would it take to clean an elevator. He told me how much time and I put my heart and soul into making it look good and smell good.

So pretty soon, I was on another floor and did the same job. Incidentally, I was working for the feds and the taxpayer got their money’s worth and then some.

BY THE WAY, DO YOU NOTICE THAT THIS IS NON-LINEAR? IT IS MEANT TO BE THAT WAY. IT IS ALL PART OF JERKDOM.

9. So I am sitting in a bar and I am with the Alpha male of the organ-destination study. I talk about St. Thomas Aquinas, and I accidentally misquoted him. The Alpha male screamed at me. He was from a wealthy Jesuit school. So when I got into his knowledge baggage, he went berserk. The problem is that you are not going to fight, but you want to save face. I just melted in my seat and melted. What should I do? In situation like (I am told) that you look down and then to the right and left of the aggressor. You continue to do that until time passes. I hope that he losses many jobs, because he was an ass. What I learned is to pick and choose generic topics with little or no controversy.

I have not spent much time in a bar since then and it is great. However, if everyone is on dope, I don’t think that he would have been much trouble. That may be what happens in the future in some states.

Further, most bartenders are also bouncers. In one study, they found that a large black man who is heavy is the best kind of bouncer. A fight just does not happen.

10. / I am reading a SOFT pornographic magazine. In those days, there was a female lying in front of the calendar with her halter off. She has beach blonde hair and appears to squirm on the floor. What do women like? I have yet to get a straight answer.

. 11. As a jerk, I look at soft-core every so often. I do not have any source. Nowadays, the pictures help me with boredom. I just too old for anything like that. However, it is always there. It seems to me over the years that porn is an ever present phenomenon. Have you ever thought what women look at but will not be able to admit? They do not like the male genital. When they baby sit, the genital is small on the little boy and it is handy.

As they grow, the penis looks ugly. If you look at the male body, most of it is filled with a fat bald guy. Further, Syracuse University used a large random sample and found that married women 18-35, 80% don’t like sex. I don’t blame them. When males are alone they often use the F word. Most denotative and connotative words about sex are about men sexually successfully exploiting women.

Females know that and yet they still partner up with a male. So I think that females will start living by themselves or with a lover or a partner. Other males will be living in the basement, smoking dope and watching porn. Further, they will have jobs around the house and work part time outside the home. In other words households will “double up. “ They will often live on less. The USA went from a middle income country to a blue collar country about the time ROSEANNE program began. By the way, both sexes could use a vibrator so that they do not tire from a number of orgasms. How about affection? Well, that is another issue.

12. Serfdom is filled with folks who vaguely know that our culture’s top values are SUCCESS, THE PRESTIGE OF A JOB, FREEDOM TO PROTEST, SUPPOSED EQUALIT Y OF OPORTUNITY, EDUCATION, and MATERIALISM. They know some of that and it hurts like hell.

13, I was just 16 and driving on a wet/slick brick road. Two friends were in the back seat, I believe that a dog ran across the street in front of me and I hit the brakes. Or, I was driving without the dog crossing the street and I ran my little English Ford into a parked car that was located on the OTHER side of the street. Now that is Serfdom. People gathered, and the police showed up had the car towed to Ernie’s Phillip’s 66. My mother was doing something and my father was out of town. The POLICE did not know what to with me. So they put me in a jail cell. I was there for 2 or 3 hours and my mother came by and picked me up.

The car could have been repaired, but my father had me fix the car. Did I tell you I got a D in shop? Yet, I graduated with National Honors. So that is another mixture of Jerkdom.

14. Most days I walked to school with two guys. One was very good looking and went to parties and had tales of his sexual adventures from the parties. The other was like me. We were shy and dumb. One day he came to my (he was shy and dumb) corner and said we had to go to a certain garage as he was going to be in a fight. I thought that he could have back down without much problem. The other guy was a low life hood. I was always amazed that the hoods had beautiful curled hair. So I took my friends books and the hood beat him up in about a minute. Then we were off to school. JERKDOM. I always wished that I could carry a weapon like a stun gun or a tear gas and shoot the hoods in the face. Why didn’t I ask my father to give me money to protect us from getting humiliated?

Generally the fights were between the low lifes and my people who could not fight. We also had to endure older hoods. The fight is so exciting to the hoods. Their girl friends are there and their vaginas get wet. They cried and yelled for their boy friend. So I wished that I had a big tear gas and could shoot all of them. Hire a couple of body guards to help me to the school.

For my own kids, one grew to be a giant and did not have problems. The other was smaller and dropped out of school. He then went to jar. Community college, on to university and had all of his course work complete by the age of 18.

I still think about not having a weapon all the time. So I got one. I live in America and we shoot bullets at each other.

15. One day, I was working in my office and going over a lecture. A young lady came in and asked me about hippies. What were they like? Well they were not the New Left. That meant Marcuse and Libertarian Socialism. It didn’t work and it was an excellent foil for the political Right. So I went through as much as I remember. That Hippies continued to move around, they begged for a living and had “free love.” In a number of ways, they did just the opposite of the hard driving Wall Streeter. At any rates, it did not last very long. I think disco came along and that was the main drive for potential hippies. Free love filtered through the society and it was another element that the Right could use. Although, I had long hair and wore bell bottoms that was the extent of it. I kept going to post high school from 1961 to 1976. My wife got even more education and the school did not have much in the way of an insurance package or pay. We lived on powered milk and I sold my guitar, microphone and amp. The cars we drove were dogs.

Then we got lucky. I got a job with beautiful surroundings and taught at a place where you got information, but importantly you learned skills. Now that did it. Retired early and kept writing academic articles and human interest stories.

What followed was Laffer, supply side economics, and from 83’ on inequality really jumped. Bush 43’ called it Voodoo Economics.

16. Monroe elementary was a rival to my school Rose hill. One older guy told me and the other jerks that there would be a war between us and them at Krug-Gallagher Park. We got our B-B guns and jackets and headed for the park. No one was there. None. Then he said the war would start in a week. We would get all pumped up and head for the park. No one showed up. This kept happening. Then it happened. It faded because the summer was over and they chickened out. The only thing about this was that it was the war was never going to happen. It made the summer scary, but the lie got worse when he sat us down for lemonade. This was to celebrate the summer. We drank the lemonade, but it was not that tasty. It was his urine. Now does that happen in Serfdom? Well it did.

17. We played them in football in October. The ground was hard and we did not wear padding. It was not very good. As you know, I am not a multi-taker. I was assigned as quarterback. They were bigger and faster. By the third set of plays I was pulled out of the game. This was tackle football and I was in shock and in shame. They won by a big score and I was glad that some other jerks would play rather than me. There were of course, but the whole thing still hurts. Jerkdom welcomes folks like me.

18. John grew up just down the street. He had three sisters and he acted like them. That was bad. So like many folks like that, they gave him money and he was told to find a place to live far away. There was shame. John was not a real boy and he could perhaps make a living in a gay ghetto. That was all. I remember the family as nice folks who took my mother in when her mother died of cancer. She spent an extra year in high school, because she had to keep her mother out of pain and clean.

I always wondered about John, but nothing was said. It was a sad chapter in the life of the family. They lived catty corner to Rose Hill and the father called “Papa” did the books after he retired. He was quite good and with his retirement money they made a “go” of it. Then he died. I would go down to see the remaining family. “Mama” one time saw a ghost of “Papa.” So they put her on downers and she slept for another week. The ghost was gone and soon so was “Mama.”

They lived on 56^th.com/ that was the street that I had my accident. It was also the beginning of a golf course and country club. Then the country club moved west. Benson was still in fairly good shape. Country club was made in a subdivision. It went from 56^th and Corby to 56^th and Blonde. There were really leafy trees, brick streets, and brick homes. If you want you can take Zillow and drive all the way to Blondo. If you continue on, you are in the Memorial area which also beautiful and had Georges Lake and the University of Nebraska-Omaha which is blossoming today.

19. Chuck died within the last couple of years. Therefore, I made some calls and discovered that he died in his bed in a condo in the Denver area. He was cremated and the ashes were thrown off a prominent cliff. What I got from some phone calls is that he was not close to his family. His first wife was wonderful to me. She was telling me that she made overtures to a certain sorority. She did not want membership rather wanted friendship. It did not happen. They trashed her and she told me all about it. I think that Chuck had two wives and a couple of girl friends.

He went to a prestigious law school and stayed in the Colorado area. I liked Chuck because we had gotten to know each other in junior high. The school was the first of its kind in the USA. LOOK magazine came out and took our picture. He once gave a speech in junior high Speech class. He gave it without notes. His job was to fill 3 minutes. Looking back, it was probably filled with platitudes. I had some 3 by 5 cards that I went over them about 500 times. He got good grades but not honors.

My guess is that he had already skipped one grade and looked much younger than other class mates. Further, he was handsome. I don’t think the teachers liked neither it nor some of his classmates. However, he was shorter than others so he had to send out some non-verbal that he was just fine.

By this time, we were both short. HOWEVER, he handled it very well. In the fall of 1961 at UN-O, he won a popularity election. He and Susan Krogh were the two winners. Chuck went on to get a law degree and Susan got a PhD.

Chuck got me in a prestigious fraternity. There were about 3 that fought for most of the honors. Actually, I had some friends in all three organizazations…

The biggest issue for me was social skills and trying to put on some weight. He taught me everything. Here is an example. We doubled with two very nice young women. Both had the same dress on. It is slightly less today, but women carry the burden of looking perfect. So what do you do? Chuck casually said, why don’t his partner and himself sit in another part of the ballroom? It worked. The women decided that we (actually Chuck) had made a nice gesture and that we should all sit together.

2O. I was living in a dorm in a college in the middle of the state of Nebraska. I was placed with a number of jocks in the second floor. My roommate was tough and played tackle in high school. He did not study and I think that he flunked out, but I do not know as I was only there for one semester. Outstate Nebraska is one long piece of ground that is super flat. The exception is in the “Sand Hills.” Which is located in the northwest part of the state? I grew up in Omaha. There was about ten to fifteen feet between the houses. I loved the house and the neighbors, but I did not like the location. I wanted to live in the brick houses which were about 4 houses to the east of my parents. At any rate, I went to classes and slept in the afternoon at the dorm. Then I went to library and studied. Therefore, I avoided my roommate. He was a bully and weighed at least 50 pounds more than I did. Toward the end of the semester we had words. He picked me up and threw me about 10 feet. I landed on cement. I was okay, but I was so glad that the semester was almost over.

I then went to the university that most Omaha’s attended that was about 18 blocks from my parents house. I joined a fraternity. It was a good one like a number of others there. I should have stayed in the group for about 2 years and then go “silent.” I could then try to help them from a distance. Then I could go hide in the library and study. I liked the “boot strippers.” They were folks who were serious about school. If they graduated they would be promoted to an officer. When they saw that I was serious, I was allowed in their subculture. My grades went up and I liked them. Once in awhile, I would make a non-conservative remark and I soon learned to keep my mouth shut. However, part of Jerkdom meant wandering off the ranch of ideology.. I stayed in the fraternity. I was a worker. The “face men” were up front trying to get a new member to pledge. I liked the arrangement. I was honored for my work and didn’t have to hustle. Most of the time, I hid in the stacks of the library or in the basement. I got a lot done. I graduated with honors.

21. An older couple came out to our winterized cottage. It was the middle of the afternoon. The name of the cottages was called Cottonwood Marina. Area. When you mowed the lawn, you also mowed the cotton. After you were finished, you had to wash down the cottage. Years later, we moved to a place about 250 miles from our cottage. Our last night, I had a dream where everyone living and dead that I knew said good bye.

One year a big flood hit all the cottages. The place was made into an RV park. The marina and boats were replaced with even newer and better equiputment.At any rate, a faculty member and his wife came out to see us. They were not invited so I was surprise to see them and offered them a drink and the four of us sat on the front porch.

They wanted to have sex. It was subtle, but I got it. My wife did not understand. So I said that I was real busy and my wife and I were really busy and we were soon going to town. The talk went on and on. Soon, we had to leave. So they left too. It was the 70’s and Americans had decided that sex was good for anyone and anytime except for little kids. My wife and I were not kids. In this instance, I got one foot out of JERKDOM.

22. It was a sunny Saturday morning and I wanted to go up to school. This was a little school and there was some room between our apartment and the building that had my office. Although it was mid March, all the snow was gone and the grass along with the cement was dry. As I looked out, it appeared to me that it would be a good day to walk. My wife had the car and it was sunny. I chose a light overcoat.

Although it was sunny, it appeared to be of a moderate temperature. Although there was some wind, I thought that I could easily walk it. The distance between the origin and destination was without buildings or wind breakers. It was a green field and once I started walking, I could see that it would be a bit windier than I thought. People who live in Jerkdom should not give a second thought. There is a thing called “wind chill” and it can make an area colder, if the wind is not interrupted. As I was walking, I began to put my coat up above my body and cover my face. The bottom part of me was cold and then became numb. I was just far enough away from everything and yet very close if one drive’s the distance. Some survival thoughts began to emerge and the numb becomes warm. Death begins.

23. Steve sat in my social problems class near the side of the room. My school has a policy that the faculty does not interact with any students at any time. Steve told me that he got AIDS from drugs. He was dying. Well he was a male and he lived in Iowa City. He was early middle age. So I broke the rule of fraternization. I met him in a cafe there. We ordered and I paid. I was going to help him die.

As conversations continued for 20 times or more, he let it slip that he been in prison and that he was a low level mobster. My eyes opened. You don’t mess with the mob. He could see that I was fearful. At any rate, I did his errands, and everything else that he wanted. Part of his scam was the he lied. I knew that, but what if he wasn’t?

I was fortunate to learn in the local newspaper that he held up the café that often we attended. He wanted back in prison. It was the lifestyle. Where did I go wrong? In Jerkdom, a good person should be punished. No more.

25. I was working on some exams and a new student came into my office. He introduced himself and rapidly told me what a jerk Richard Nixon was. This has never happened before or since. I said that I had read two of his books and thought that they were important. His real interest was in international relations. The guy disagreed but continued on. Surely, there was something wrong with him. I recall after his big election in the 70’s I congratulated him on the election in my political sociology class. At any rate, this time I did not enter JERKDOM that day. I told him to come again, but that I had a lot to do.

A few weeks later, he was caught going through the mail in the mail room and was removed from campus. Someone was spying on us. This guy was a third stringer coming out to our campus in rural, church related Nebraska. We were as conservative as most.

25. On the morning of July 15, 1973, I was in tears. I had turned 30. The good times were over. I was no longer young. My wife indicated that she wanted me out of her life for the entire day. So what does a Jerk do? I drove from cemetery to cemetery looking for friends who had passed into forever. I bet that I was able to see 10 or 15 graves. I believed that they knew a lot more about the universe. I was just a jerk and I made my way in an imperfect way. We put words and numbers to reality. Aristotle indicated there was the dot, line, box, and time.

I hope that each of them, especially my father’s mother could tell me more. Maybe she has. The shiny head stones have faded. I have everything completed on my stone. It still shines.

JOEL CHARLES SNELL