But at night in that big ol’ house,
When everybody’s in bed, even a mouse,
The portmanteau will open,
As if magic words were spoken,
And out will waltz a little girl to Strauss.
#The End#
Category Archives: hero
And out will waltz a little girl to Strauss
Filed under characters, hero, humor, limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story poem, words, writing
To guess at what happened or posit
Now the portmanteau sits in a closet
Like a gift awaiting a deposit.
The once-Lady from Kent
Won’t even relent
To guess at what happened or posit.
Filed under hero, humor, limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story poem, words, writing
A portmanteau whose latch was bent
So, there was a once-Lady from Kent
Who stole the suitcase and went
Under the cover of night
On a single-engine flight
With a portmanteau whose latch was bent.
Filed under hero, humor, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story poem, words, writing
The suitcase he called a valise
The old man looked like Sleaze,
Wearing a brown coat against the breeze.
He shook his head slow
And wouldn’t let go
Of the suitcase he called “a valise.”
Filed under hero, humor, limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story poem, words, writing
For something he didn’t know
She searched the island high and low,
Finding it with an old man moving slow.
She said it was an heirloom,
That a thief tried to make room
In his life for something he didn’t know.
Filed under hero, humor, limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story, story poem, word play, words, writing
What happened after the suitcase event
There once was a Lady from Kent
Down to Haiti she went.
About her portmanteau
She did not know
What happened after the suitcase event.
Filed under hero, humor, limerick, poem, poetry, portmanteau, Random Access Thoughts, story, story poem, words, writing
So, you want to be a hero? Part III
A place to meet
Batman has his Batcave. Superman has his Fortress of Solitude. Do you and your family have a place to meet should there be a natural or man-made catastrophe and you are all in different places?
If you don’t, then you need to decide on at least one place where everybody would meet.
Assume that telephone communication is out, including cell phone. Where would you meet? Where would be your Fortress away from your home?
Unlike Batman or Superman, this will not be a place where you will stay (though I guess it could be), but a designated place you all know to go to should there be a calamity large enough to keep you from returning to your home.
You might also want to have a backup for this meeting place, in case this rendezvous point is also destroyed.
After all, the calamity might just happen when you are at work or school.
Filed under CERT, certificate, hero, Random Access Thoughts, rendezvous, training
So, you want to be a hero? Part II
Or, does this happen to Batman?
Here I was, last Thursday, March 18th, having viewed over an hour of
To fight crime and fires, a superhero needs a working belt
PowerPoint, grasping the subtleties of P.A.S.S. (Pull the pin, Aim the extinguisher at the base of the fire, Squeeze the trigger, Sweep the extinguisher from side to side). I knew the fire triangle: Oxygen, Fuel, Heat, and that if you break one side of this triangle, the fire goes out. I learned that you should never fight a fire alone, always have an escape route, make sure there is no falling debris, and make sure the fire extinguisher is rated to handle the fire and that the fire is not a large one. I even learn about overhauling a fire, that is, making sure it is out, many times by stirring the ashes.
We then took a bathroom break before assembling outside at a site where we would take turns putting out a small fire. I walked into the bathroom my head full of newly minted knowledge. I did my business, which did not involve loosening my belt, and then I exited, ready to tackle this last portion of the evening’s training, to take the next step in my CERT training. And then my pants started to sag. The more steps I took, the further it dragged down. I reached down to feel what was the matter and discovered my belt had broken. Snapped off at the buckle, the belt buckle gizmo dangled from one end of the belt and the frayed end of the belt dangled from the other.
Now, it’s definitely hard to fight a fire, even one contained in a small galvanized tub—and even with a partner, 5 firefighters, and the rest of the CERT class hanging around—when you’re trying to hold the extinguisher in one hand and a handful of the waist of your pants in the other.
I had to wonder if this happens to Batman. Does his utility belt ever break? Do his caped crusader pants ever droop?
Will there be CERT training on what to do in case of this emergency?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Filed under CERT, certificate, hero, humor, Random Access Thoughts, training
So, you want to be a hero?
If you want to be a hero, maybe the first step is to take CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training. I am.
Okay, for those of you who know me, you can stop laughing now. The idea of me being a hero is a bit laughable, and in reality, CERT training will not make you a hero, even though if you complete the seven week/one-night-a-week/2.5-hours-each-night course you do get a certificate suitable for framing. Hey, even Superman never seemed to have a certificate. Of course, in his league, a certificate might not mean much.
All humor aside, CERT training will help you be prepared in case of an emergency. It is not meant to make you part of a volunteer civilian core that will get called out in the event of a natural disaster, technological met down, terrorist attack, or even a three-car pileup on the Interstate.
It is meant to help you be prepared, and with that, help your family be prepared (if you have a family nearby), and even help out your neighbors should it be necessary. In short, the training is to help you be a little more self-reliant in the event of an emergency. That emergency could be the power going out in the middle of the coldest snap in winter. That emergency could be needing to leave your house in five minutes due to a tanker truck overturning nearby and the truck is carrying a chemical that reacts with water or air to create a poisonous gas. The emergency doesn’t have to be a tornado pulling up houses in your neighborhood as if they were petunias or flood waters rising high enough to whisk your car slip-sliding away.
I hope to post some information on what I learn in the coming weeks, but by no means take what I write as the be-all end-all of information. I would think a better place to start finding out the be-all end-all of information is a place like http://knoxtnlepc.com/getready or http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/.
The idea started in Los Angeles, CA in 1984, after people in that city government visited Japan to see how a similar program they had worked. Those officials proposed a program much like the one today to the LA city council, which turned it down, saying good idea but it costs too much. Then the 1987 earthquakes in California happened, and they decided maybe it didn’t cost too much to invest in such a program. Not as much as earthquake damage, anyway.
Since then, the idea has moved across the U.S. CERT training was adopted by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) in 1994, and was given more importance after 9/11. It has been in Knoxville/Knox County since 2004, spearheaded initially by the Knoxville Police Department. Now, almost all emergency response agencies in Knoxville/Knox County participate in some way to provide training. The most notable exception is the Knox County Sheriff’s Department.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe one of the Knox County mayoral candidates who is was sheriff at the time can answer that question.
Filed under CERT, certificate, hero, Random Access Thoughts, training
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