Longtime readers know that this hardware gig of Merle Wayne Sneed's sort of took on a life of it's own. My objective in taking the job was to work about 20 hours week and to make some golfing and bowling money.

A career or worse yet, being part of a "team", was the farthest thing from my mind.

Twenty hours soon became 24, then 30 hours, finally cresting at 35, just under what would make me full time and entitle me to some pissant benefits.

Thirty-five hours were way too much, so after some whining my hours were dialed back to 32, where they have been the past year or so. Thirty-two hours a week is still what I call too damn many hours.

Perhaps you work a traditional work week and are screaming at your computer screen, "Stop you complaining, you old baboon." To you I say, I've done my time, I got my parole, I'm free of the man. Mostly, anyway.

I worked 38 long years for the man and few of the approximately 1976 weeks of my full-time employment career, involved as few as 40 hours. So there.

Anyway, the recession has finally found Merle Wayne in the form of a two hour per week cut in my schedule. That might not sound like much, but I love it. And that's not all.

This afternoon, a coworker was complaining to me about a cut in his hours. He mentioned that the boss said she was considering giving him my 7 hours on Saturday. He was wondering how I would feel about that?

Oh, I don't know. Ecstatic, delirious, gleeful, delighted, thrilled...pick one.

The specter of actually having a part time job that isn't simply a managerial trick to beat me out of some pissant benefits, is a dream come true.

Maybe you are asking, why I don't just quit? I'm not a full time retired person kind of guy. At least, not yet. Besides, I like the golf money.

Let me tell you my favorite part time worker story, starring me.

When I was 19 and before Mrs. Sneed and I got married, I worked for an outfit called A.J. Bayless Supermarkets. The manager of my store was a kindly old, lying, cheating skunk named Glen. The kindly old part came because he got to be the good cop, to the bad cop played by his asshole assistant, a bully named Dave M. But that's another set of stories.

Glen received quarterly bonuses based upon the cost of operating his store. The less money it took to operate the store, the more moolah made its way to Glen's pockets, come bonus time. Therefore, Glen would lie, cheat and steal to get the maximum number of bucks for himself.

Glen would sell spoiled merchandise on the theory that some people would not bother to return it.

So, on Memorial Day, 1969, I found myself working with the skeleton crew in the store, earning a sweet time and a half for holiday pay. In case you wonder, that was a tidy $2.40 per hour in those days.

Imagine my surprise when payday rolled around and my time and a half was conspicuously absent from my pay. Giving Glen the benefit of the doubt, I pointed out the error to him.

Glen's answer was short and to the point. "You're part time and part timers don't get time and a half."

"But I work 44 hours a week", I pleaded.

"I can call you whatever I want."

End of discussion.

I called in sick the following day and went looking for another job. Two weeks later, I quit.









Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Five days of not blogging and I can't explain why. Things have just gotten away from me, I guess.


I decided to order a personalized license plate. My little statement about the folly of absolute certainty.

One of the Bible-Thumpers at work asked me about the plate. His tone had a smugness that made me think he was itching for a fight about the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I didn't take the bait.

Luckily, he remembered something terribly interesting about himself and we veered off to talking about him.






Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

This is what has become of my two Sneedlets. They have turned into a couple of video game playing zombies. One guy, after his grandmother told him about ten times to turn off his game and get out of the car, observed, "I think I'm addicted."

Mrs. Sneed and I took the boys to see the latest and greatest in kid movies, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. It was hilarious if you are six and pretty funny if you are 60.



We had a birthday celebration for Daughter-in-Law Sneed, mother of Aiden and Riley yesterday. During the breakfast, Noah's tooth fell out, leaving him with the look you would expect a true Sneed to have.

Like most everyone I have been trying to make heads or tails out of the health care reform mess. My vote is to take all health care out of the hands of the for-profit outfits, but then I'm not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance companies, as is our Congress.

You may have heard that there is a move afoot to tax something called "Cadillac" plans. Cadillac plans are those that provide the very best in benefits. The reasoning is that the more free care people get, the more free care they will use. A lot of it for stupid stuff.

My dad was a classic example. He had three different coverages, so he paid for almost nothing. Every sniffle or ache was cause for a doctor's visit, with the attendant prescription or test. My dad's hobby was medical care and there are hundreds of thousands out there like him.

Take my pal, Some Guy Named Bob for another example.

Last Thursday we had to play golf late because Some Guy Named Bob had to get an MRI. He has a sore back and the doctor thought it best to check it out via an expensive test. And while he was at it, he popped in to see a professional dietitian, because that's covered too, so what the hell.

How sore is Some Guy Named Bob's back? So bad that he can only make it to the golf course twice a week. Not bad for a 74-year-old guy with a bad back.

At some point we have to rein in this stuff or we will broke, in addition to being sick.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.---A. Lincoln.

Some people have asked, "Merle Wayne Sneed, what is the worst part of that hardware store job?"

Alright, no one asked but I will tell you anyway. It is the noise in my ear all day.

We are required to wear earpieces that let the authorities direct us to where we are needed. So, all day long there is a torrent of voices in my ear. "Go here, do that, blah, blah, blah."

As bad as it is to hear people talking about business all day, it is made doubly worse by the nitwits making idle chitchat when they are bored. Some days I feel like Quasimodo trapped in the bell tower.

I posted a note on the bulletin board in the employee break room that said, "Just because they give you radios, it doesn't mean you have to talk." Now they are mocking me...over the radio.



This is my new dog Jack. He is 10 weeks old and is part Lab and part a bunch of other things. He was rescued by a group from the pound. I'm hoping the "bunch of other things" in his lineage don't turn out to be anything too scary. Also I hope he doesn't turn out to be a 100 pound monster.


















Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

This is Nancy Pelosi, fretting over the incivility in our country at the moment.



Nancy obviously has forgotten the drumbeat of Bush=Hitler that we heard for most of his eight years.

People who equate an American President with Hitler, be it GW or President Obama, have no understanding of the monstrosity of Hitler's crimes and do a disservice to those he murdered.

Merle Wayne Sneed has been around for awhile. I voted for Mr. Obama and I hope the best for him, but I get that many other people are becoming uneasy with where we are headed.

I was born when Harry S. Truman was the President. For those keeping score at home, that was 11 Presidents ago, 12 if you count Truman.

This is what I know for sure; Not one of those guys was beloved by one and all. In fact, substantial numbers of people hated each and every one of them and said rude and hateful things about them.

Many people really hated Bush, seeing as how he was stupid and a liar and all. Shoot, there we signs in the street saying as much.

Clinton on the other hand, was beloved. Wait, some people hated his guts because he was a serial womanizer and a really big liar. Plus, Hillary was kind of unpopular at times, too.

The first Bush was a popular guy. Unless you subscribe to the idea that he was part of a grand scheme to keep the American hostages in Iran captive to screw with Carter. Oh yeah, and there was that "Read my lips, no new taxes" business. That really, really pissed people off.

Reagan was a dunce and that made a lot of people hate him. That's widely known.

Carter nearly killed the economy. That displeased virtually everyone so much that Reagan beat him in a landslide. And you may recall that many people thought Reagan was a dunce.

Ford was an unelected incompetent, according to many. And clumsy to boot. We disliked him so much we hired Carter.

Nixon? Enough said.

Johnson made a mess of Vietnam and even the Democrats hated him.

Kennedy was a rich boy who got where he was because his old man was a rich crook. Plus he was a Catholic bent on turning America over to the Pope.

Eisenhower was a military general and certainly not the sort intellectuals wanted in the White House.

Truman was not popular, even with Roosevelt, who made him his VP. Truman was a first-class hard ass and lots of people resented that.

So when President Carter or others say that the criticism of President Obama is based upon racism for the most part, I have to doubt it. There are some people who didn't want a black President and still don't, but for the most part being President means pissing off a substantial portion of the citizens, regardless of race, creed or color.

Nancy is right in saying that a more civil tone is in order. Fanning the old flames of racism doesn't help much.











Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

You probably have never heard of Dave VonTesmar, but he is my hero. It is possible that old Dave is crazy as a loon, but that doesn't disqualify him from my list of heroes.

The geniuses in our state legislature thought that they had a surefire money-making, er, I mean public safety scheme when they signed up with some outfit to place traffic cameras on the State's highway system. The official line goes that the cameras are there to slow down traffic and save lives.

Never mind that even the State's own studies show that traffic only slows down at the site of the cameras and then speeds up again.

Anyway, in Arizona, the cameras snap a photo of the speeding driver and of the plate on the car. The photos, along with a speeding ticket are sent to the registered owner of the car. The vehicle's owner has to either pay up or send in a copy of his or her license to prove he or she wasn't driving the car at the time of the ticket.

What old Dave did, was to put on a monkey mask each time he got into his car. Then, according to Dave, he drove to work on the Phoenix freeway system, traveling at the flow of traffic. Dave accumulated something like 90 tickets for speeding, almost all for going 10-15 miles per hour over the posted limit.

Each time Dave received a ticket in the mail, he sent it back with a copy of his license, which clearly showed that he was not a monkey. Many, many of Dave's tickets were dropped because the geniuses running the program apparently agreed with his "I am not a monkey" defense.

Ultimately, some eagle-eyed investigator at the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) stumbled on to the fact that Dave was messing with them and sought to put a stop to his monkey business.

So, the DPS staked out Dave's house and caught him on camera putting on the mask in his driveway. Now, they vow to drag him to court and get their $6700 in unpaid fines.

Meanwhile, about 75% of the people in Arizona who get these camera tickets are choosing to ignore them altogether. The law says that in order for the tickets to be valid, the State has to serve them in person. The State has banked on people voluntarily paying up, without having to be served in person.

God, I love civil disobedience.

Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Is this a good-looking guy, or what?

Yesterday was Noah's 6th birthday party. Noah turned 6 on Thursday.

His mom and dad put on a kid extravaganza and I would have the pictures to prove it but, someone forgot her camera. I can't be held responsible for forgetting my camera because I forget everything. Everyone knows that, so it is up to others to step up, and if they don't, I can't be held responsible.

Noah invited three of his buds from school and their parents, along with Aiden and Riley and assorted relatives.

"Hey guys, I'm trying to blow out candles here. Try to follow along!"

Noah's mom ordered a big banner to welcome all the invited "pirates". Pirates was the theme for the party. There was a lot of swashbuckling going on and if you have ever tried to buckle a swash, you know how much fun it is.

Noah's dad got a jumping castle and set it up in the back yard. Jumping castles are very popular with the buccaneers, it turns out. Aiden's dad decided to climb in the jumping castle with the kids. He is a big guy and after a couple of jumps, kids were flying everywhere. It looked like an earthquake. Kids were hanging on for dear life and laughing like hyenas.

A fun time was had by all.




Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

The government of Hooterville announced yesterday afternoon that they would not take the lady with the magic crystals to trial. They are dropping the charges against her. Surprise! No make that duh!

The spokes person for the County Attorney's office had this comment about dropping the charges.

"I believe the deputy acted appropriately at the time, but after reviewing the case, it appears that there was a misunderstanding over some of the statements that (Zatarain) made," McGinley said.

That may seem straight forward, but it requires translation. What it really says is,

"The deputy overstepped his authority and trumped up a charge because by God, he was right and innocence is no defense when the police are right. We did our best to bully this woman, but despite our best efforts, she called our bluff and demanded that we respect her rights. We hate when that happens."

Bummer for the government.











Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

You may recall this man, Troy Davis, who sits on Georgia's Death Row for a crime he might not be guilty of. I wrote about Troy Davis in this post last year.

The State of Georgia is hellbent on executing Troy Davis and the sooner the better as far as they are concerned. Exculpatory evidence be damned.

Then there is the case of Elvira Zatarain, whom I also posted about just a few weeks ago Mrs. Zatarain is accused by Hooterville's finest of being in possession of fake drugs.

The City of Hooterville is hellbent on making this woman admit something, just anything. Yesterday they offered her a plea deal, a $130 fine, if she would admit that her magic crystals were in fact fake meth. She told them to shove it.

Two different cases, one trivial, one as serious as a heart attack, but with a common theme. Both point out how difficult it is for the authorities to admit that they might be wrong.

We teach people from kindergarten on that to be convicted is to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, when provided ample doubt our law enforcers often turn a blind eye.







Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

All sorts of odd things happen when you work retail. This may shock some, but not all customers have the sense of good taste and decorum that is a hallmark of the Merle Wayne Sneed blog and its readership.

We have a customer who rain or shine, cold or hot, comes in to shop wearing only flip flops and the scantiest cutoffs imaginable. We call him the Nudist and we wish we had a no shirt-no service policy. Some speculate on how he keeps things in place with so little material.

We have drunken customers, loud customers, ones that will tell you their tales of lives gone wrong, if you will listen. One guy has every inch of his visible body tattooed, including his face. Mad people, thieves, cheapskates, folks who smell, drug addicts who want to use the bathroom to shoot up, homeless people and visitors from another reality.

You name it and if you spend enough time meeting enough people, you will see it all. And just when you think you've seen it all, you find you haven't.

Two octogenarians snuggling, holding hands and exchanging furtive kisses in the aisle of our hardware store was one of the "hadn'ts", until yesterday, that is.

Yesterday, one of our regulars, a stylish and well-dressed 80ish woman came in the store, as she often does. Already in the store, another 80-year-old, a man in coat and tie browsed leisurely. Their collective appearance alone made them notable, but as they say, we hadn't seen anything yet..

I was in the vicinity of their chance encounter. She was headed south in an aisle pushing a cart and he using a wheeled walker headed north in the same aisle. The limitations of width of the aisle brought both to a halt, cart nearly touching walker.

I didn't hear exactly what the old man said at this chance meeting, but I heard the old lady say, "Oh, I've been widowed for 15 years, no one wants an old woman like me."

I headed off, giving it not another thought.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, work brought me back into the area, on the next aisle, but across from them, out of sight, but within earshot. I heard a woman say, "Oh my, you're making me laugh." A man's voice responded, "Madam, my intention is not to make you laugh, it is to make your heart go pitter-patter." I ambled around the corner to confirm that it was the two oldsters. It was.

I halfway expected the scene to morph into black and white and to find that the couple was in fact Tracy and Hepburn.

Because the Sneed code of good taste and decorum dictates that gawking is inappropriate, I went on my way.

A moment later, the assistant manager came by to tell me that love was in the air on aisle one. Pretty soon, the two, now dubbed Romeo and Juliet, had attracted the attention of everyone in the store and reports began to be exchanged between customers and employees.

"They are holding hands."
"Now they are on aisle two hugging."
"Aw geez, they're kissing."
"Oh my, he asked her to come home with him."

This would seem like an invasion of their privacy if it were not for the fact that customers were having to squeeze by them to finish their shopping.

And on it went for nearly three hours. From time to time they would take a few steps down or into the next aisle, before stopping to continue their flirtations. I kept waiting for the old lady to become offended by the old man's brashness, but she seemed to enjoy it.

I don't know what future plans, if any, were made, but she left empty-handed and then he did the same. A moment later he shuffled back in to sheepishly explain that he had forgotten to pay for his items.

It was in the end both disconcerting and yet refreshingly sweet.

So, maybe at last, I've seen it all. But probably not.

Here's a musical tribute to those two wacky kids. I dare you to not smile.





Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

Well, Las Vegas was the same as always. It is fun to go, but two days are about enough for me. Mrs. Sneed, on the other hand, could live there permanently.

Mrs. Sneed wrenched her back somehow last week and had to wear a back brace for the entire trip. Before anyone says it, there was no chance she would stay home.

Going through security Saturday, the brace set off the alarm. This lead to a whole big deal with the cracker-jack security forces. After all, most of your top-tier terrorists are 60-year-old, hunched-over women, who are barely mobile.

I finished reading In Praise of Doubt: How to Have Convictions Without Becoming A Fanatic.

It is an interesting exploration of the area between Relativism and Fundamentalism. Or put in Merle Sneed terms, between not giving a crap and thinking you have life totally figured out. I highly recommend it.












Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

I should have mentioned this yesterday, but Miss Riley came through her procedure with flying colors. She is home and happy to be there, I'm sure.

Riley has an abnormality concerning a tear duct, so they did something to her eye area to hopefully fix it. I was hoping she got to have a cool pirate eye patch, but my son said she didn't.



I took this shot from in front of the Coronado Hotel looking toward downtown Hooterville.

The architecture of Hooterville is a horizontal rather than vertical. In this picture you can see three of the four buildings in town that are more than twenty stories tall.

The low building in the foreground with the red tile roof is the train depot, which is home to a grocery and deli, a jewelery store, the Amtrac offices and a train museum. This post from last September focused on the depot. These days there is not much railway activity there.

The crane to the left is at a residential construction site. A new apartment or condo building is under construction.

On the right side of the picture is a white medium-sized building. It is the former Pioneer International Hotel, now an office building. That building was the site of Hooterville's most famous fire in 1970. You can read about it here.

The usual suspects and I played golf this morning. It was not dreadfully hot, so the Seafood King and I walked the course.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I have plateaued as a golfer. I haven't researched the issued, but my instinct tells me that radical improvement after 60 is exceeding rare.

Oh well, it takes the pressure off.


Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

North 4th Avenue - Part Last

These are a few pictures of things that brighten up the North 4th Avenue area.





This door is next to this Guatemalan restaurant. I don't know where it leads, but I like it.
A mural done by some local artists as part of the underpass opening ceremony. It is in a plaza in mid-district.

This silkscreen was in a store window.

We Haul is a couple of guys with a moving truck.


I'm sorry for the poor quality of the picture. I didn't want to tempt death by standing in the middle of East 6th St. It is very busy and no one will stop for a codger with a camera. Click to enlarge.

There is a bus stop next to the trash container in the middle of the building. In the 1970s I used to catch the No. 3 bus at this corner to go home. The building was an auto parts store in those days. Now it is a furniture restoration shop.

Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

North 4th Avenue - Part II

At the South end of N. 4th Avenue, at E 9th St. stands the Coronado Hotel, which has been converted to housing units for the elderly. In 1982 it received designation as an historic place.

In the 1970s, even though the hotel was out of business, an older couple operated a diner on the first floor. I ate many breakfasts and lunches at the hotel's diner.

The diner was run by a former Marine and his wife. Even though they seemed ancient to me at the time, I'm sure they were only about 60. The old man was a big tough-looking guy.

The old Marine did all the cooking and his wife waited table. The one absolute rule of the joint was "No substitutions". The old man figured it was his menu and if you didn't like what he provided, too bad for you.

One day my friend Jim ordered the daily special, meatloaf, mashed potatoes and yes, peas. Jim told the waitress to ask her husband if he could get something other than peas? She said she would ask.

When Jim's lunch came, it included the peas. He mentioned it again to the waitress. She disappeared into the back and a minute later the kitchen door slammed open and the old man shouted, "Eat the goddamn peas or don't eat them. No substitutes, read the goddamn sign!"

The Old Pueblo Trolley has been a volunteer-supported and run enterprise for a couple of decades. It now runs from the University of Arizona campus to downtown. Most Hootervillians mock it as a useless money-waster. In Hooterville the car is king.



According to an online review Hippie Gypsy is a "stoners paradise." I only looked in the window and it seems like they sell a lot of tee-shirts. They have a great mural, though.



Hippies are always welcome, as the sign says.

Pop-Cycle is a gift shop offering unique items that are "upcycled" according to their website. I guess that means they take discards and make them into something new and better.

Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky