It had been raining for 40 days and 40 nights.
Really.

Cue the biblical jokes.

Here it is – 3 o’clock in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve 1987.
The rain is coming down in sheets.

A damn monsoon.

I’m standing in the dark in a closet with water up to my knees.
And I’m holding a vase with three dead flowers.

I’m wondering how the hell did I get into this.

9:00 AM
I wake to the rumble of thunder and the crack of lightning.
So much for the weather guy on TV saying a sunny day was ahead.

My illegal fireworks plans may be on hold.

10:00 AM
The easement down at the end of the street starts to get plugged with rocks and tree branches.
I get a beer and pull up a big pillow by the front window, thinking to myself this will be interesting.

11:00 AM
The easement is blocked, the water is lapping at the front door and I’m out of beer.
Not shaping up to be a good day.

Noon
I didn’t think it was possible but the rain is coming down harder.
I’m carrying stuff to the second floor, just in case.
The lights go out.

1:00 PM
The water in my house is now up to my ankles but everything is upstairs.
Boy, is the landlord going to be pissed.

2:00 PM
The roof on the second floor starts leaking and a 6 foot section of ceiling crashes onto the bed, followed by what seems a million gallons of water.
It’s dark as a witches heart in the house.

2:45 PM
I’m downstairs wading through the living room when the ceiling there starts coming down.
I grab what I think is the flashlight on the stairs and duck in the safest place I can find.

3:00 PM
I’m standing in the dark in a closet with water up to my knees.
And I’m holding a vase with three dead flowers.

That’s how I got into this.

How was your New Years 1988?

I think I need a new car.

I like my Jeep and it’s only two years old but there’s not enough room for the wife.

When I bought it, the first thing I did was rip out the back seat so I’d have some space to carry my stuff.

A man always needs to travel with some of his stuff.
One never knows when one might need it.

But the occasional time the wife rides with me, it’s isn’t big enough.

It needs a back seat for her backseat driving.

I went to a wedding Saturday night.

I don’t normally go to weddings and funerals.

I prefer to remember people when they are single and alive.

My preference.
What can I say.

The wife caught a ride with friends so she could get there early and socialize.

I got there when the food was ready, which is always the best time to get anywhere.

Showing extraordinary good sense, the newly wedded couple didn’t have one of those two-hour slide show presentations of their life, so we got out at a reasonable hour.

Bless them.

But then all the way home…

“How come you’re going this way?”
“Last time I came out here I used that other turn.”
“Are you sure you’re supposed to turn here?”
“You sure waited a long time to put the brakes on.”

I’m going where the expensive, answer-your-phone, check-the-weather GPS is telling me.

Unless it’s into a creek I’m happy with it picking the route.

Take if from a guy that’s been married for seems like a million years – telling the wife to put a sock in it doesn’t work.

Sweet things like her don’t like it.

It’s the fastest way to the doghouse and I won’t need an expensive, answer-your-phone, check-the-weather GPS to find it.

In a situation like this there are two choices:
Answer each comment with something sweet or something sarcastic.

Throwing up and saying you’re very sick is also an option but I don’t know any guy who would willingly barf in his own car.

Anyway, one will keep her happy but chatty all the way home.
One will bring peace and quiet in the car followed by death and destruction later.

I’ll leave it up to you to figure out the proper one for your particular situation.
Choose wisely.

Pleading deafness from old age doesn’t work either.

That just shifts the entire one-sided conversation to getting a hearing aid.

That’s why old people stop driving and why us old guys are grumpy.

The other day someone said my picture at the top had a resemblance to Les Keiter.
Now that’s interesting.

Anyone that knew “The General” loved him.
So that’s a good thing.

But Les was the first one to say he had a face “only radio would love”.
So I’m not too sure here.

For one thing I have more hair.
And I’m younger.

And I no way had the great career he did.

Sometimes I’m amazed at the difference we see when we look at a picture of ourselves and what we see in the mirror.

Delusion runs strong.

In case you have been living under a rock – Les was one of the greatest sportscasters in Hawaii history.

He worked national radio and TV for years and during the 1960s, he called some of the biggest fights in the history of boxing.

He also did play-by-play for the football Giants, Knicks and Rangers.

In 1970, Keiter and his wife moved to Hawaii.

He was hired as KHON’s sports director where he stayed for over 20 years.

I was lucky enough to be there at that time.

He was famous for walking through the newsroom and saying to people, “You’re doing great job kid. Everyone’s talking about you.”

When he said it to someone they just lit up.
Me included.

For a lot of years Keiter did baseball recreations on radio.

Back then, we didn’t get some baseball games live.

All we got came from the AP Wire were a couple of lines about each inning as the game was played.

Who was at bat, whether it was a strike or ball and if they made a hit, walked or struck out.
That’s it.

Les would sit in the studio with a wooden block and a drum stick to make the sound of a bat hitting a ball.

The engineer controlled a tape with crowd noise.

Les then filled in everything else, pulling from his many years of baseball knowledge.

You’d never know he wasn’t sitting in the press box at the game.
It was theater of the mind in the truest sense.

One time when I was at KGU radio we had a charity softball game with another team at Aloha Stadium.
It was just before a Hawaii Islanders game.

After we lost we sat in the stands with Les as he held court with a million baseball stories.
It was a magical time.

There are some good people in the media business.

The man didn’t have a grumpy bone in his body.