Pets are a lot like children, only you don’t have to give them an allowance.  It seems like we have always had a dog.  We had been married for about a year when we got our first one.  I was in law school at the University of Missouri and we were living in University housing (10-I University Terrace).  This was 1959 and University Terrace was brand spanking new.  No pets were allowed, but I’m a little fuzzy about what we knew and when we knew it.

We found out that someone out in the country had some terriers for sale.  So we drove out to look at them.  We found the farm and there really wasn’t much to see.  They only had one puppy left and he was black and tan and gray and white.  He was a small little dirty creature.  We were sure when we got him home and washed him, he would look better.  We were wrong.  After he was washed, he was the same little dirty looking puppy.

We named him Micky because his face looked like Micky Mouse.  When he was fully grown, he weighed 12 pounds and had stumpy little legs.  His head was too big for his body and his ears were too big for his head.  His tail had disappeared before we got him.  He looked like a little piglet walking down hill.

The little apartment had only one closet and, of course, no door on the closet.  One night, while in bed, we heard something rattling around in the closet.  We flipped on the light and there stood Micky with a slipper in his mouth.  We read him the riot act and he seemed to grasp that slippers were not a good idea.

With Carole working and me going to law school, Micky was either in the apartment all day or outside all day.  On those days he was outside, he ran the campus.  Leash laws were not yet in existence.  One day while I was walking past the book store, here comes Micky from the other direction and he has someone’s lunch sack in his mouth.  I acted like I didn’t know him (he acted like he didn’t know me).  Ships passing in the night.

Micky wasn’t the most famous dog at MIZZOU.  That honor belonged to Tripod, a three legged mutt, well known on campus.  Legion had it that the Veterinary School used to practice surgery on unsuspecting dogs.  After the dog recovered from the amputation, they would put him down.  But Tripod escaped.  The stories vary as to how he got loose.  Everyone loves a conspiracy theory.

Micky also had a skin problem on his back.  He lost some of the hair and the vet would give us a salve to make him feel better.  That must have been the purpose, because it sure didn’t heal him.  His back must have itched and one of the ways he got relief was from rolling around in dog dirt.  I would come home from school and there was the smelly little creature, happy to see me.  I would pick him up very carefully and dump him in the bath tub.  Washing a 12 pound short haired terrier was no big deal (once you got past the smell).

On days when he was left in the apartment, he would climb up on the back of the front room couch and look out through the drapes.  I believe that is how we got caught.   All of our neighbors knew Micky and were “cool” with his presence in the “hood.”  Well, we received a letter from the University telling us that Micky had to go or we had to go.  One of my classmates wives came through for us.  Penny and Dick Sonnich rented a house close to campus and they agreed to take care of Micky.  Penny was so sweet to take on the task.

The Sonnichs kept Micky tethered when he was outside.  But, Micky had a masters degree in escape and evasion.  There were still Micky sitings all over campus.  About  three months before I was to graduate, I received a phone call from our vet.  He said, “I guess you know your dog is dead.”  There has to be a better notification process.  I was overcome with grief.  It appears he got into a dog fight with three big dogs and before anyone could break it up, Micky was beyond recovery.  Carole was about six months pregnant and took it worse than I did.  Her doctor fixed her up and life moved on.

Micky was the only male dog we ever owned.  The memories are all good.  He was small, muscular and feisty, but a loving pet.  We had a movie camera back then, but the only movies we have of Micky is of him scooting into the University library.  Maybe it was lunchtime.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

No, you can’t blame this one on sequestration.  It happened when there were plenty of Keystone cops running around the airport.  In fact, if there had been fewer security guards, the operation might have been more efficient.

The whole thing started last year when a good friend of mine, a retired Marine colonel, was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  I have read that one out of every six guys will eventually end up with prostate cancer.  The odds are no better than Russian Roulette.  Well the good news, if there is any, is that the ways of treating prostate cancer keep getting better

I have another close friend (I’m at the age where if you have six friends—) who when diagnosed, decided to use fiducial marker seeds to clearly identify where the radiation should be concentrated.  The seeds are about the size of grains of rice and are gold.  Well, his procedure was completely successful with practically no side effects.  He told me the other day that if he dies first, his wife wants the gold seeds!

My Marine buddy’s procedure was different.  It’s called brachytheropy.  Yes, there was implanting of seeds.  But, these seeds had radiation in them.  So the seeds could be planted close to or even in the tumor.  The only disadvantage in this procedure is that your wife doesn’t get any gold when you kick the bucket.

I have no way of comparing the two procedures.  I am clearly not qualified and I hope I don’t have to make a decision in the future.  I can say that both of my friends are doing exceedingly well.

Every year, my Marine buddy takes his wife and goes to Mexico for a couple of weeks.  They meet family and friends down there and he gets in a number of rounds of golf.  This year was no exception and a good time was had by all, until they tried to get home.

While passing in front of an immigration agent at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the agent’s radiation monitor alerted.  He was immediately arrested for trying to sneak radioactive material into our country.  I was personally pleased to find out we do have a system in place for identifying radioactive material coming into this country.  So he was thrown into the “tank” with a number of unwashed suspected illegal visitors from Central America.  That was the best part of the exercise.

The fun began when the security agents tried to locate the source of the radioactivity (clearly there was the possibility of a dirty bomb).  I was advised that at least three agents spent an hour scanning his groin with a half-a-dozen radiation meters.  Some didn’t work, some perhaps worked.  The problem was that the results needed to be inputted into a computer to get the results needed.  This required some knowledge and competence.  Shouldn’t he have had a letter from his doctor explaining all of this?  He did!  But the agents weren’t interested.  They had to follow their procedures.  And, of course, anyone devious enough to hide radioactive material in his prostate, wouldn’t have any trouble getting a bogus letter from a doctor.

My friend began to realize that if the folly continued, he was going to miss his connecting flight.  Let me politely say that he has a way of letting people know when he is unhappy.  And, he was becoming very unhappy.  The immigration agents decided to take him down to Customs.  Customs also deals with these issues.  Again he was zapped and questioned.  The Customs agent wanted to know if he had a letter from his doctor.  Duh.

The Customs agent bought the letter and gave him the green light.  Now all he had to do was get through security and find his gate.  By the time they passed through security, their flight had almost completed boarding.  He commandeered an overloaded curtesy cart and they made it to the gate with two minutes to spare.  He told me that for next years trip, he is going to purchase some lead skivvies.

Writted by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

Life is just a series of mistakes.  Some big, some small.  Some you recover from, some not so well.  How many times have you said, “I should have done this or that.  I should have said this or that.”  As you get older, you recover from mistakes better.  Sometimes you even do or say this or that, and sometimes things get better (and, sometimes worse).

When I was a kid, I had a nice smile.  There wasn’t much orthodontic work back then.  I don’t think we knew what an orthodontist was (someone who watched birds), but my teeth lined up fairly well.  I also had dimples, so I loved to smile.  When I was 11, I got into an argument with a kid at the movies on 40th and Waverly.  We went outside allegedly to fight.  One of my buddies told me that the other guy was too smart to fight me.  After we got outside and while I was waiting to see what was going to happen, he punched me right in the mouth.  I became furious and beat the hell out of him.  But my upper left front tooth was really loose and very painful.  That bit about the victors and the spoils is overrated.

The nerve of the tooth was dead.  It quit hurting, but over a period of time it started getting darker.  I ended up going to a dentist and having a root canal.  That was supposed to keep the tooth from getting darker and it probably did.  But I still had a dull tooth right in the middle of my smile.

I went through high school, undergraduate school and law school with a shaded tooth.  Under our present school system, I am sure there would have been a counselor to discuss my shaded tooth and self-esteem issues.

When I got in the military, I received free dental care.  At Fort Hood, Texas, I had a dental corps lieutenant colonel examining me.  He said, “Rice, you have a dark tooth and your eyes are too close together.  I said, “Colonel, it’s a good thing you are in the Army, because on the outside, with your bedside manner, you would go hungry.”  He said he couldn’t do anything about my eyes, but he could bleach my tooth.  And he did!  So for the next ten years, I had reasonably normal looking teeth.

Five tours later, I was teaching on the JAG School faculty on the grounds of the University of Virginia.  Mr. Jefferson called it the grounds and not the campus, so saying campus identifies you quickly as an outsider and, even worse, perhaps a Yankee.  My only concern is whether “grounds” should be capitalized?! 

One of my neighbors was a dentist at UVA and after examining my mouth, he decided that he might be able to make enough money out of my mouth to go into private practice.  I ended up with more caps than a toy six shooter.  He also decided that he should cap my troublesome front tooth.

The cap he put on my front tooth was too white.  It wasn’t as white as a Chiclet.  More like a four-day-old Chiclet.  We all knew it was way too white, me, the doc and his assistant.  I think this should be covered by the hippocratic oath.  I should have spoken up.  I should have said, “This is unacceptable.”  But, I felt like he was doing me a favor.  He had convinced someone down at Fort Lee to pay for it.  He was just getting his business started.  Blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, by not speaking up, I wore that headlight for the next twenty years.

Twenty some-odd years later, in the 1990s, I disposed of my four-day-old Chiclet once and for all and replaced it with perfectly normal, perfectly natural bridge.  They are now using my tooth at the Cape Henry Lighthouse at the mouth of the Chesapeake (from one mouth to another).

So there you have it.  Lots of little mistakes.  I shouldn’t have let that bastard sucker punch me.  I shouldn’t have let my neighbor, the dentist, stick that Chiclet in my mouth.  I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.  Here it is, 20 years later and I think I need a counselor.

Written by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com

I heard on the radio, a few days back, that Walmart would be hiring 100,000 military veterans over the next five years.  The broadcast stated that as long as the soldier wasn’t dishonorably discharged, Walmart would hire him or her.  A dim light came on in my dim brain and I thought, “That can’t be right.”

Not every bad actor in the military has a Dishonorable Discharge.  So I checked on the internet and found I was right.  Walmart is going to hire 100,000 military veterans over the next five years who have received an Honorable Discharge.  Big difference.  In between the Honorable and Dishonorable are other types of discharges and I would doubt that Walmart would want some of these characters.  The names change through the years, but the nature of the individuals stays the same.

The least offensive of the inbetweeners is the General Discharge (under honorable conditions).  This is the guy with two left feet.  He’s trying, but he just can’t hack it.  He is a disaster and it is best that he and the military go separate ways.

Back when you couldn’t be a homosexual in the military, we discharged them with General Discharges.  When we went to “don’t ask, don’t tell,” if they told, they got a General Discharge.  Now that it is OK to be gay in the military, I guess it’s Honorable.  An old sarge told me that he was in when it was illegal, then, he went through “don’t ask, don’t tell.  Now that it is OK, he has decided to retire, before Obama makes it mandatory.

The next category is the “Other Than Honorable” Discharge.  Sounds a lot like not honorable or dishonorable.  But it doesn’t mean dishonorable, it means other than honorable.  I hope you’re confused.  You should be.  The funny thing is we used to call it an “Undesirable Discharge,” but somebody decided that sounded bad (it’s supposed to be bad!).  So let me say this as succinctly as I can.  Undesirable sounds worse that “Other Than Honorable,” which is not honorable, but not dishonorable.  Well, we got that taken care of.  Anyway, Walmart is not going to take any of these turkeys.

The General and Other Than Honorable Discharges are administrative in nature.  That means someone may get one without going to trial.  A trial by courts-martial may result in a Bad Conduct Discharge or a Dishonorable Discharge.  Definitely not Walmart material.  However, they are still eligible to be Walmart customers.

I thought I went to my first Walmart in 1958, when I was a student in Columbia, Missouri.  The store was downtown, not too far from campus.  The thing that got me excited was that everything had two prices on it.  It had the retail price and the Walmart price.  I could see what a great deal I was getting.  I was young.  This whole experience is so vivid in my mind.  I figured that the store might have been one of Sam’s early ones.  So I looked up Walmart history.  The first Walmart store was in 1962 and the first store outside of Arkansas was 1968.  So, that ruins my fond memory.

There’s a lot of people out there who don’t like Walmart.  The big box store. “It killed the quaint little stores.”  I loved the little stores in the downtown area; the hardware, the office supply store and the delicatessen.  I’m sorry they went the same way of Kodak film.  But people will go where they can get the widest selection at the best price.  Home Depot will never be as romantic as that old downtown hardware store, but we need to get over it.  Walmart isn’t just a big box store; it’s a very, very successful discount and grocery store.  It’s the largest grocery store chain in the country.  If someone else were selling better bananas cheaper, people would go elsewhere.

So, I tip my hat to Walmart.  Doing something for military veterans in good.  Giving them a job is great.  Just one more reason the GI should strive to get an Honorable Discharge

Witten by PJ Rice at www.ricequips.com