Archive for May, 2013

Look Into My Eyes

Friday, May 31st, 2013

(Here’s part two of the free How To Take Courage system:

https://www.yousendit.com/download/WFJYRFFRT01vQUlsYzhUQw )

 

Look Into My Eyes

 My Lady Wonder Wench’s family is Polish. I was sitting in the examination chair in the eye doctor’s chair today, and he said read the third line from the bottom. I swear it spelled out the name of one of her Polish cousins. At least the letters I could see spelled out the name of one of her cousins. I missed some of the letters. Which made me stop and think about what I said in my book, Staying Happy, Healthy And Hot about the gratitude-attitude. I’m glad I could see some of the letters. Even ones that were smaller than the Goodyear Blimp or your average NFL linebacker. And something the doctor said got me started thinking about eyes, and the things we see…and the things that are sitting there in plain sight, but we don’t usually see them.

The sunlight came slanting through the skylight in our roof the other day, and  for the first time ever I saw what looked like millions of tiny sparkles of light reflecting off microscopic mites of dust. I don’t know why I never saw that before. While I was flying my little airplane last weekend, I saw a cloud formation that I recognized from the radar image…but there it was…for real. And every morning, I see something only I get to see. My Lady Wonder Wench, in the first light of dawn, sleeping on the pillow next to me. Some mornings she’s smiling in her sleep. And some mornings those pretty blue eyes pop open…and I get a, “Good morning…now get out of my way because I’ve got to go potty” kind of smile.

I wrote about her eyes in my first book…lovin touch. That was all the way back when I first met her. I said, “Do you know that you’re always looking down, like you’re hoping to find something you lost a long time ago? Why not look at me, because I’d like to get to know you. Are your eyes too naked to lay them here on mine ? How can I make you care enough, to dare enough, to tilt your head up, smile, toss back your hair, and lay your naked eyes on mine.” She did, by the way. So naturally, I married her.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-   What do Chimps and Congress-people have in common?

2-   Why will penguins reject the gift of free sweaters?

3-   Why should you never stop licking a frog?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

When you think about it, unless you’re the Lone Ranger, or Batman, or a bank robber and you’re wearing some kind of mask, your eyes are completely naked. And there’s a saying floating around that any good Louie Louie Lady or Gent has probably heard, that implies your eyes can get somebody else naked too. It says, “If you look into a woman’s eyes for two minutes this evening, she’ll be sharing your bed tonight.” That may be a little optimistic. A bit of a late night singles bar optical illusion. Optical illusion. Optimistic. Optic. As in eye. Have any of you guys ever been accused on undressing a lady with your eyes ? When I was a kid, I was a lifeguard at Coney Island. And all the guys wore mirror lens sun glasses so nobody could catch us. Give me a break. There were all those girls on the beach. And why doesn’t that optical undressing work the other way around ? Or does it? I don’t know.

The audio equivalent of undressing somebody with your eyes is the wolf whistle. There’s a story about one of those in the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD. The young lady was smart. So was the hunk. They both knew it wouldn’t work long term. But she told me it worked…very nicely…that one night.

“The Lawyer Lady And The Hunk” is from the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just check out the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.

Before he became famous, Jose Feliciano used to hang around with my Lady and me. As you know, he’s blind. Which is a pretty tough break. Talk about Gratitude-Attitude…he always said his blindness helped him express the music he had inside. I wonder if it’s the same thing for Ray Charles, and George Shearing and for lots of people who’s names don’t make headlines.

Gratitude-Attitude. Do you ever wonder what else is sitting there right in plain sight…but you’re not seeing it? Do you look up at the sky if it’s not raining or snowing? When’s the last time you saw a cloud shaped like a face…or a horse…or…fill in the blank. Bet you did that when you were a kid. Do you look carefully enough to see the secret feelings in the eyes of somebody you care about? Have you ever used a telescope to see the mountains on the rim of the full moon? Try it. Try it as if you were a little afraid you wouldn’t be able to see tomorrow.

Eyes work two ways. While your eyes are looking at me, I can look into you…through your eyes. I can see laughs getting started, or anger, or lust, or boredom. My Lady has pretty blue eyes…in fact that’s what I call her sometimes…Pretty Blue Eyes. And I remember the day her eyes gave her most secret feelings away. It was amazing. It was in a little coffee house in Cambridge Mass. There was a candle on the table between us, and I saw it …shining in her eyes. She wanted me to love her.

I’ve seen it the other way too. The eyes give it away long before the words…when a love affair is over.

There’s a reason I’m telling you this stuff about eyes. The eye doctor saw some things while I was finding my Polish cousin in law’s name on the eye chart. He said it’s time for an operation. Soon. Next week. So I’ll be out of commission for a while. My son David is our podcast master, and he’ll be putting some summer re-runs up for the next few weeks, till I can get back.

The doctor says it’s routine. It’s routine for him but it’s not routine for me. I loved hiding behind those mirror lens lifeguard sunglasses, watching the pretty girls all those years ago. I love looking at the sky, and babies sleeping, and walk off home runs sailing into the stands in the ball park. And most of all, I love watching my Lady Wonder Wench sleeping on the pillow next to me in the first light of dawn…especially when she opens those pretty blue eyes and smiles at me.

The truth is I’m scared. But…Gratitude-Attitude. As Big Louie always says in my book “Staying Happy Healthy And Hot”, “Being scared can be good. It means you’re alive.”

Dickie Quickie

Friday, May 31st, 2013

Stretch out. Take a deep breath. And click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTapSSoe9E

Dickie Quickie

Thursday, May 30th, 2013

Lots of folks downloaded the Courage System part one. Here’s Part 2.

 

https://www.yousendit.com/download/WFJYRFFRT01vQUlsYzhUQw

Wonder Wench Writes

Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

Oh yes, there are times when he absolutely gets lost out in the yard on a grand summer day. 

Even when he’s cursing the grass having grown too long and the mosquitoes for biting me (no, they NEVER bite him … and yes, I could very nearly hate him for that) and the weeds popping up in unusual places. 

But he is so right – our yard is alive with robins and bluebirds and rabbits and even the dog fox, who always stops by to say hi. 

So I’ll give him the day – as long as he takes me flying, one way or another …

It’s Early Summer

Friday, May 24th, 2013

I’ve got a freebie for you:

https://www.yousendit.com/download/WFJWeVduTkFGOFJWeHNUQw

I came across this recording of a seminar I did a long time ago called Taking Maximum Courage. A lot of people found it to be very helpful, and it was a lot of fun. I put it on 3 CDs. If you’d like a free download copy, copy and paste the link above to the address line of your browser for a download of CD # 1. It’ll be up from now till June 22th.  No strings. I just think you might enjoy it, it includes the “Dreaded Moose Hunter Story,” and it’ll help you feel stronger. Tell some friends about it, because if enough people are interested enough to download it, I’ll put the second CD download up…for free. And if enough people download that, I’ll put the third free download up after that. As I said no strings. I’m just feeling good on this beautiful early Summer day.

I am not sitting in my usual big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room. I am happily enthroned on the porch swing, under a big old oak tree. I have my shoes off, and I have noticed that my socks are adding a certain pungency to the fragrance of the flowers and the newly cut grass. Early Summer. My favorite time of the year.

Summer is a woman…hot, sexy, wild, hazy, soft, flashy, dangerous when wet, full of laughs, tears, stings and bites, endlessly beautiful, satin smooth, fragrant, promising, crushing…changeable. Summer has stars in her night eyes, with thunder and crickets, and little lover bugs flashing tiny lights hoping to find some little lover bug passion. I love the sand between the toes, and the surf in Summer’s song. She has flowers and newly cut grass for perfume, and sweating, flexing naked passion in her nights.

I sometimes take my Lady Wonder Wench flying in our little plane on soft summer nights. We strap on the plane, fire up the engine, run the check lists, and taxi between the blue taxiway lights…then line up with the white runway lights…turn on the flashing strobes on the wing tips…then full takeoff power, a rumbling race down the runway, and we lift gently into the summer night…from down on the ground it looks like our marker lights are flicking between the stars.

Down below in the summer night, people are loving, crying, earning each other’s trust, taking each other’s lives, laughing, writing last letters, being born… some are leaving, and some are connecting with each other for the first time. And some of those first time connections are the only times. Others out last lifetimes. There are love words in very quiet voices. Sometimes there’s only a secret kind of silence…then a quick breath, and a sudden “yes”…and the sensual sound of smooth silk sliding across warm skin.

Early Summer. It seems like just the most precious moment out of the whole year to me. That’s why instead of sitting inside at my desk working, I’m sitting out here, under a big old oak tree, watching a hawk slowly swinging around in a thermal…he’s not moving a wing…I think he’s watching me. It’s like he knows I’m a happy guy. And he’s wondering why. My life is full of funny, happy things. There’s other stuff too of course. But I have a thing going for me that I call the Gratitude Attitude. It’s in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot…We’re the brand new Louie Louie Generation.

The Louie Louie Generation’s Gratitude Attitude is pretty simple and very powerful. For example, I now have gray hair. But the Gratitude Attitude…means hey, remember, I have hair which is more than lots of guys can say. And besides I like to think gray hair makes me look like either an airline pilot, a fully tenured professor, or Jay Leno. Gratitude Attitude. You can apply it to big things too, like We have lots of problems in our country right now. But the Gratitude Attitude says…”Yeah, but the word “we” means we’ve got US. And we’re winners.” The Gratitude Attitude.  It turns stuff in your life around. Like instead of “Not tonight dear, I have a headache,” you find yourself saying “Not tonight headache, I have a dear.”

The Gratitude Attitude puts a smile on your face. Which is good. Because, As Big Louie says in Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, “You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen to you.” So you can never tell when somebody is going to fall in love with your smile.

Dick’s Details Quiz – All answers are in the current podcast.

1-   When are male kangaroos most likely to buy female kangaroos a drink?

2-   Why won’t you ever see a horse or a rat on the cover of the bathing suit edition of Sports Illusrated?

3-   What do turtles have in common with people at a singles bar on Saturday nights ?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Lots of powerful magic happens in the Summer.  There are three stories about summer in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. One’s called Lazy Crazy Hazy Days, and another is called Soft Summer Sounds. But the one I like best is called She’s Saving His Seat. I’ll never forget what happened in that one. There’s a story about some powerful summer magic in the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD. It’s called, “The Headhunter’s Woman.”

The headhunter did it. He risked it all. He took another man’s wife into his life. And she went…happily. Now…before you pass judgement on them…for what they did on that soft summer night…and many nights after…before you condemn that summer magic…think about this. It ended a lifeless marriage, and it also freed the headhunter’s wife and her boss to feel their passion together again. Magic lives. It’s strange and it’s powerful and passionate. And wasn’t this magic? It killed guilt, and it freed lust so it could grow into a new passionate love. For all of them. Summer magic.

The Headhunter’s Woman is from the Night Connections 2 Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back and check out the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.

Early Summer. Don’t let her slip away from you. She won’t be here for long. Minute by minute, she slips away. Watermelon-ing becomes apple bobbing…then September’s song, and before you know it you’re singing Jingle Bells…and hoping for another early Summer day…like this one. That’s why I’m sitting out here on my back deck instead of working.

Minute by minute, the summer slips. And the best we can do is catch her as she falls…and taste her, and touch her, and love her…minute by minute. The minutes of our lives go by so fast.

 

FREEBIE !

Friday, May 24th, 2013

This is a freebie download of a seminar I did called Taking Maximum Courage. It’s the first of three free seminar downloads. If you like it, please tell a couple of friends. This download will be available for two weeks from now.

https://www.yousendit.com/download/WFJWeVduTkFGOFJWeHNUQw

 

MEMORIAL DAY…U.S.A.

Wonder Wench Writes

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013

This is actually in answer to my Lad’s Dickie Quickie – don’t any of you ever dare to forget those pilots who flew with General Doolittle. They are not just heroes.

 They and others like them are the reason we Americans will always be able to hold up our heads with pride and say, whatever the politicians may do, WE ARE ONE. Happy Memorial Day.

B.S.p.s.

Sunday, May 19th, 2013

This, my good Louie Louie Lads and Lasses, is a B.S. (my initials) p.s.; along the lines of a Dickie Quickie only better, since it comes from the wench herself. 

The Lad keeps telling me I ought to do something about my published book (!) so I am hereby letting the world know that the manuscript is being got ready for self-publishing. 

Wish me luck.

A (Possible) Blast From The Past

Friday, May 17th, 2013

This is part two of our celebration of the beginning of our eighth year together. The podcast this week features the top five downloaded stories from the Personal Audio Cds. I was really surprised at some of the results, and you might be too. But we’re talking about Audio here, so to check out the list for yourself, please go to www.dicksummer.com/podcast

Meantime, you might be interested in a trip my Lady Wonder Wench and I took to the Wallmart up the street. It was time to replace our outdoor grill. So we looked at the picture on the boxes that were stacked up to oxygen mask levels, and picked one out.

I didn’t see the small print notice on the box until just before the checkout guy ran his magic ray gun across the bar code, and the cash register said ca-ching. The small print said, “Free assembly available.” I froze. My Lady Wonder Wench was with me, and she said, “What’s the matter?” Not wanting to stammer in public, I simply pointed to the notice. She immediately went into wise guy wife mode. She said, “Don’t worry about that, you can ask Randy next door to help you with it.” “Oh yeah?” I replied… in that incisive, confident, worldly way that is the trade mark of “Louie Louie Generation” guys everywhere.

If you’ve been connected with this blog for awhile, you’ll remember that Randy is my next door neighbor… a very nice guy…a top flight fish whisperer, the neighborhood New Year’s Eve party giver, and a fellow plastic potato pop gun warrior. But if you are a “Louie-Louie Generation” guy, you know damn well there would be a blizzard in August before you would ask your buddy next door for help in assembling ANYTHING, let alone something as simple as an outdoor grill. “Ha,” I said to my Lady Wonder Wench with a disdain verging on panic. Then she did it. She gave that Lady Wonder Wench Witchy Smile, and purred, “Maybe I can help.” Any experienced wife will do that when she wants something done quickly and she knows exactly where her husband thinks he has his ego safely hidden.

You probably know the rest of the story. Box manufactured in Taiwan, frame from Bangladesh, bolts made in Kazakhstan that don’t quite fit the nuts imported from Nigeria, and instruction manual written in Baghdad, by a terrorist wannabe who took the job because he was seething with anger at the United States but was rejected for a suicide assignment by his neighborhood terrorist organization by reason of excess insanity.

His revenge was swift and sweet… helped by the fact that the manufacturer made several models of the grill, but only this “one size fits all” instruction book. Ooohh, you’ve been there, guys…I know you have. But I did it! And the end result bears a distinct resemblance to the picture on the box. Except for the pieces left over. And a wire hanging down. And the kind of rakish angle of the cover. And the propane tank doesn’t quite fit. But… “Oh, you’re so wonderful” said my Lady Wonder Wench…as any experienced wife will do when she wants something else done quickly. The “something” being that it was about time that I cut the lawn for the first time this season.

I have a question. Why do we cook out? We have a nice kitchen, with a microwave oven and granite counter tops on which we can put our meal. Does hamburger really taste better served with ketchup, relish, flies, bees and moths? And why do guys who never cook indoors, do all the cooking outdoors? I guess when it comes to smoke, flames and blood on an outdoor grill…it’s a guy thing.

And while I’m asking you questions, why do we buy grass seed, plant it, water it, fertilize it, grow it, then cut it, and cut it, and cut it, and cut it…and then throw away the stuff we cut ? I think something has come loose here…besides the handle that looks like it’s about to fall off the propane grill.

Gotta back up a little. If you just connected with this blog, you may be scratching your head and asking, what is the “Louie-Louie Generation?” If you remember record hops… you are a member of the “Louie-Louie Generation.” I did a lot of record hops when I was a disc jockey. And any time the kids stopped dancing, I’d haul out “Louie-Louie” and the party would start cooking again. “Louie Louie” was the perfect guy dance…no complicated dance steps, and an excuse to get very close to a girl’s ear and softly sing your version of the “dirty” lyrics. I seem to remember that some of the more popular girls liked “Louie Louie” too…and I think it was for some of the same reasons.

As I have carefully explained in my new book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot…available at Amazon dot com…it doesn’t really matter how many birthdays you’ve had…you can consider yourself a member of the “Louie-Louie Generation” if a lot of your conversation these days includes words like “prostate,” “ouch,” “vitamin E,” “cholesterol,” “stress,” “diet,” and…”whaaaatt?” It happened so fast, didn’t it? It seems like just when we started getting rid of our pimples, we began suffering from precocious ab-deflation.

“Precocious ab-deflation” is a highly technical term I made up a few years ago. It comes from the ancient Latin word “pre,” which means “before” … as in “pre-marital sex,” and the ancient Brooklyn-ese word “coaches…which in ancient Brooklyn-ese means “wise people”…as in “good sports teams have wise coaches.” So “precocious ab-deflation” means we are losing our abs before we’ve had a chance to get wise to what was going on. (It works better when you say it out loud.)_

Any way…the hamburger patties are made, there’s a big wooden spoon in the potato salad, a couple of cold brewskies with our names on them on the ice…so it is now time to turn on the propane, hit the igniter, and we’ll have a delicious start to our eigth year together. Assuming when I hit the igniter, that the back deck doesn’t blow up.

Dickie-Quickie

Thursday, May 16th, 2013

I didn’t write this. I don’t know who did. A friend sent it to me. If you are an American, you won’t be able to finish it without…such pride. 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2aYMH2ZrBVU/UW4dDPF2fII/AAAAAAAAXMw/CBEPPGGLmRM/s1600/raiders.jpg
It’s the cup of brandy that no one wants to drink.
 
On Tuesday, in Fort Walton Beach , Florida , the surviving Doolittle Raiders gathered publicly for the last time.
They once were among the most universally admired and revered men in the United States . There were 80 of the Raiders in April 1942, when they carried out one of the most courageous and heart-stirring military operations in this nation’s history. The mere mention of their unit’s name, in those years, would bring tears to the eyes of grateful Americans.
 Now only four survive.
After Japan ‘s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, with the United States reeling and wounded, something dramatic was needed to turn the war effort around.
Even though there were no friendly airfields close enough to Japan for the United States to launch a retaliation, a daring plan was devised. Sixteen B-25s were modified so that they could take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This had never before been tried — sending such big, heavy bombers from a carrier.
 
The 16 five-man crews, under the command of Lt. Col. James Doolittle, who himself flew the lead plane off the USS Hornet, knew that they would not be able to return to the carrier. They would have to hit Japan and then hope to make it to China for a safe landing.
But on the day of the raid, the Japanese military caught wind of the plan. The Raiders were told that they would have to take off from much farther out in the Pacific Ocean than they had counted on. They were told that because of this they would not have enough fuel to make it to safety.
 
And those men went anyway.
They bombed Tokyo , and then flew as far as they could. Four planes crash-landed; 11 more crews bailed out, and three of the Raiders died. Eight more were captured; three were executed. Another died of starvation in a Japanese prison camp. One crew made it to Russia .
 
The Doolittle Raid sent a message from the United States to its enemies, and to the rest of the world:
We will fight.
And, no matter what it takes, we will win.
 
Of the 80 Raiders, 62 survived the war. They were celebrated as national heroes, models of bravery. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced a motion picture based on the raid; “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, was a patriotic and emotional box-office hit, and the phrase became part of the national lexicon. In the movie-theater previews for the film, MGM proclaimed that it was presenting the story “with supreme pride.”
 
Beginning in 1946, the surviving Raiders have held a reunion each April, to commemorate the mission. The reunion is in a different city each year. In 1959, the city of Tucson , Arizona , as a gesture of respect and gratitude, presented the Doolittle Raiders with a set of 80 silver goblets. Each goblet was engraved with the name of a Raider.
Every year, a wooden display case bearing all 80 goblets is transported to the reunion city. Each time a Raider passes away, his goblet is turned upside down in the case at the next reunion, as his old friends bear solemn witness.
 
Also in the wooden case is a bottle of 1896 Hennessy Very Special cognac. The year is not happenstance: 1896 was when Jimmy Doolittle was born.
There has always been a plan: When there are only two surviving Raiders, they would open the bottle, at last drink from it, and toast their comrades who preceded them in death.
 
As 2013 began, there were five living Raiders; then, in February, Tom Griffin passed away at age 96.
What a man he was. After bailing out of his plane over a mountainous Chinese forest after the Tokyo raid, he became ill with malaria, and almost died. When he recovered, he was sent to Europe to fly more combat missions. He was shot down, captured, and spent 22 months in a German prisoner of war camp.
 
The selflessness of these men, the sheer guts … there was a passage in the Cincinnati Enquirer obituary for Mr. Griffin that, on the surface, had nothing to do with the war, but that emblematizes the depth of his sense of duty and devotion:
“When his wife became ill and needed to go into a nursing home, he visited her every day. He walked from his house to the nursing home, fed his wife and at the end of the day brought home her clothes. At night, he washed and ironed her clothes. Then he walked them up to her room the next morning. He did that for three years until her death in 2005.”
 
So now, out of the original 80, only four Raiders remain: Dick Cole (Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid), Robert Hite, Edward Saylor and David Thatcher. All are in their 90s. They have decided that there are too few of them for the public reunions to continue.
 
The events in Fort Walton Beach this week will mark the end. It has come full circle; Florida ‘s nearby Eglin Field was where the Raiders trained in secrecy for the Tokyo mission.
The town is planning to do all it can to honor the men: a six-day celebration of their valor, including luncheons, a dinner and a parade.
 
Do the men ever wonder if those of us for whom they helped save the country have tended to it in a way that is worthy of their sacrifice? They don’t talk about that, at least not around other people. But if you find yourself near Fort Walton Beach this week, and if you should encounter any of the Raiders, you might want to offer them a word of thanks. I can tell you from firsthand observation that they appreciate hearing that they are remembered.
 
The men have decided that after this final public reunion they will wait until a later date — some time this year — to get together once more, informally and in absolute privacy. That is when they will open the bottle of brandy. The years are flowing by too swiftly now; they are not going to wait until there are only two of them.
 
They will fill the four remaining upturned goblets.
And raise them in a toast to those who are gone.