Busted!

On November 26, 1925, Jacksonville’s city-owned radio station broadcast its first program.

In those days, few homes had radio receivers.

My father told me that the city installed speakers on poles in city parks; in the evenings, families would walk to a park, spread blankets on the grass, and listen to the radio.

That radio station carried the call letters WJAX.

WJAX —That’s important to something that comes later my blog post this morning.

Early Monday morning I enjoyed an hour-long phone conversation with Pat, who assures me that the gun I mentioned in several earlier posts only came out of hiding because of brief, fleeting suicidal thoughts, and that Jennifer has never been threatened or abused in any way.

Jennifer and Pat split up this past weekend.

Pat told me that Jennifer’s interest in a married man triggered the break up.

I don’t know who to believe about what, and it really doesn’t matter to me. The only question for each of them is “What to do now?”

The busting up of a relationship is like the sinking of an ocean liner. The torpedo hits. The ship sinks to the bottom. It’s over and done with…

Yet, for weeks or months or even years afterward, things float to the surface. Body parts pop up out of the wreckage. Deck chairs, bottles, empty life vests, bits and pieces of wood and insulation — debris keeps coming up.

If you survive the wreck, your concern should not be about floundering in the debris field but in making it to a lifeboat. To survive.

Later in the morning Jennifer and Eve took me to breakfast. Eve took a “Mental Health Day” off work to comfort her distraught sister.

I told Eve that its insane to spend a Mental Health Day hanging around her crazy sister!

Jennifer does not know what she’s doing or where she’s going at the moment. One second she talks about moving down state, the next she plans to hunt an apartment here.

My main concern is that she not drag the rest of the family into the debris field any deeper than we already are.

The UPS man delivered the proof pages for the autobiography of Wes’s great-grandfather. The manuscript is not too shabby. Wes came over immediately to pick up a copy to proofread again. I hope to have it published on-line next week.

I made an appointment with the urologist for that prostate exam…

Remember those radio station call letters? WJAX.

I live in Jacksonville, Florida.

For some reason — I suspect it goes back to those 1925 radio call letters — most folks who live here abbreviate the name of our town to Jax.

That’s reasonable.

Jax.

JAX for Jacksonville.

Well, my physician, the one who wants me to get a more thorough prostate exam , is named, Dr. Jackson So&So, a fine doctor.

Well, the papers authorizing this other doctor, whose name is Mohamed, to probe my nether regions with a 4-foot-long, barbed steel spike came to me yesterday.

The papers were signed — Dr. Jaxson So&So !!!

This means that some illiterate clerk signed the physician’s name to the orders — or that my doctor does not know how to spell his own name.

Neither explanation inspires confidence.

But this brings me to another subject altogether:

As a writer I draw inspiration from other writers.

The works of my favorite writers fill my bookshelves.

Their faces flash on my computer as a screensaver.

And, whenever I find a bust of a great writer at a garage sale, I buy it.

Last night I snapped a photo of my bust of Shakespeare:

Here is my bust of the blind poet Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey:

So when Ginny and I visited a church yard sale last Saturday, you can see why I got excited. Across a church hall lined with row after row of tables laden with junk, I spotted the bust of a man. I immediately recognized him as Jack London, author of Call of the Wild.

I pushed and shoved and elbowed my way through gaggles of blue-haired old ladies — hardly knocked any of them to the floor — I grabbed the bust and clutched it to my chest.

Mine!

All Mine!

My very own bust of Jack London!

I paid 50 cents for this literary treasure and brought it home to place it in honor with the busts of Shakespeare and Homer…

Then I got to looking at the thing…

Did Jack London sport a mustache?

Did he smoke a pipe?

I’m sure that I once saw a photo of him wearing a cap and sea-coat like that … didn’t I?

A Google image search broke my heart.

Jack London looked nothing like the bust I bought.

Who is this guy?

Why, he’s nothing but a green-ware, generic old sea-dog.

There is no engraving on the base of the bust to identify this guy.

Well, I have an engraving tool.

I plan to inscribe the statue myself.

I think I’ll write the inscription to read:

JAX LONDON