I Need To Confess My Deepest Darkest Secret

   Mothers and fathers. Hide your children in another room of your house. Don't let them see or read my story. It could haunt them for the rest of their lives! It could haunt you for the rest of yours!

   Okay, it all started when I was a small boy.

   I know. I know what you are already thinking? How could this happen to a small boy. How could ADDICTION capture the soul of a five year old? Well I will tell you.

   I didn't notice it happening at first. I had no idea what addiction was or how someone could become an addict. But it becomes really easy when all your loved ones think they are doing the right thing by being enablers.

   I hold no grudges against anyone though. They didn't know any better at the time.

   Now you are asking, what could he have possibly been addicted to?

   The most prevalent and accessible substance on the streets to this very day!

   Ketchup. That's right. You heard me. Ketchup!

   The addiction began from a use of small amounts as most addictions do. I would get a fast-food hamburger from someplace and there would be a small amount on the meat. And I would think, "Yeah, this good. I like it. I want more."

    That is where the small packets of ketchup come into play. In my eyes they were not just for putting on top of french fries anymore. I grab as many as I could without drawing attention to myself and then make a large pile, either on a paper plate or the paper wrapper the hamburger came in. Then I would dunk!

   Dunking my fries and hamburger into a pile of ketchup! Until your could only taste the sweet watery red sauce and nothing else.

   It didn't stop there. I put ketchup on all kinds of meat after I was a full fledged addict. Chicken, pork, beef, venison, duck, and even steak.

   I remember being at a five star restaurant with my parents asking our waitress if she get me a bottle of ketchup so I could pour it on my steak. She said they might have A1 sauce but they would never have ketchup in there fine establishment.

   Inside of getting mad I just pulled out six or seven packets and smothered my sirloin with the condiment.

   When I was older and I was at a bar or someone's house I would excuse myself and say I had to go outside for a smoke. Really, I didn't want people seeing me at my lowest point of my addiction sucking on a couple of packets to get a ketchup rush.

   My shame didn't stop there. I saw the addiction hit my daughter when we were on a road trip and we forgot to ask for extra ketchup while going through the drive-thru of a fast-food joint. She was so upset I had to convince her that she had imaginary ketchup on her fries. I don't know if was from the effects of withdrawals but she started tasting it on her food. So all was well until we could get the real thing.

   That's when I knew I had to end this cycle of addiction in our family! No more going to the warehouse stores once a week and buying five gallon containers of the stuff. We became a ketchup free household! For my health and the health of my family.

   That was 17 tears ago. I have had ketchup off and on since then but I know I am no longer addicted. Because I can quit whenever I want. Cause I have, 10 or 12 times already in my life.

   And right now I just don't want to.

This is,

Some Serious Stuff

And Don't Get Me Started On That Gateway Drug Spaghetti Sauce

Jim Hauenstein

 

And,

 

“Isn't ketchup technically a fruit smoothie?”
- Arizona Tape -

 

 That is my story and I am sticking to it!

 

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Be Kind To Everyone

I'll Be Seeing You

 

Eddie - Without any commentary because Google is a pain in the @$$

What My Grandson Said This Time

The original story that I posted on my blog is called

"What My Grandson Said."

I wrote it in

April of 2015.

At the time he asked me,

"Papa, can you smell that?"

I said,
"Sorry Grandson,but I lost my sense of smell a long time ago."

So he replied,
"Papa, when I get old and you're dead......"

I interrupted him right there!

"Grandson, I don't like that kind of talk, where you say I'm dead."

He said,

"OK, OK. It's not like it's the end of the world or anything."

This is,
Saying It Would Be The End Of The World For Me!
Jim Hauenstein,

*****

Now,

seven years later he often goes with me on my morning walks when he comes over on the weekends to visit me.

After a mile into our walk this last Saturday,

he turns and says to me,

"Grandpa we need to spend as much time as we can together because you might not live much longer."

I let it slide this time around,

about him referring to my inevitable demise.

His heart is in the right place

and with him wanting to spend time with me,

it put a smile on my face.

Then he started playing around!

He kept walking in front of me so I would almost trip over him.

I said, "If you keep it up I'll give you a good shove!"

He replied, "No you won't. You're afraid of my Mom!"

I laughed, he stopped,

and I texted his Mother about our conversation.

She texted me back,

"You are!"

 

This is,

I Love My Family So Much

This photo doesn't include my son Henrico and his family,

my son Monchito and his girlfriend,

and my daughter Danielle, her son and boyfriend.

My dream is to have everyone in one photo someday.

Jim Hauenstein

 

And,

“Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”
- Roger Zelazny, -

 

 That is my story and I am sticking to it!

 

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Be Kind To Everyone

I'll Be Seeing You

 

Eddie

Recently,

my twelve year old grandson has been making short

YouTube

videos for his cousins, aunts, and his

Mom.

Being the mature adult that I am,

I cried,

"Where's mine?"

So I went into the archives

and pulled out an old song I wrote with the group

TwoBuckHowie With The Exact Change

The song is so new I can't even embed it on this

Blog

yet! ;(

You just have to follow this link

https://youtu.be/gTsKPUqFJzg

to see his wonderful artistic abilities

and hear the classic song called

"Eddie!"

 

 This is,

The Inspiration Of Horror Movies From Psycho To Leather Face

Jim Hauenstein

And,

“I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy at times.”
- Robert Bloch -

 

 That is my story and I am sticking to it!

 

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Be Kind To Everyone

I'll Be Seeing You

 

An Up Close Encounter

   Hi, I can't believe it finally happened to me. It was frightening at first but I learned a long time ago that if you don't keep your cool, things can get much worse then they already are. In a hurry too!

   Maybe I should start with a little background to my story first, while I explain what just happened to me.

   I haven't been writing on my Blog on the weekends anymore because my grandson comes over now and stays with me from Friday to Sunday evening. We decided to go for a walks together on each Saturday and Sunday morning when he is here. It has been going on for awhile now and it has been a big help to me physically because I can feel the difference. We've been walking two and a half miles per day!

   So today, Monday, I decided I was going to extend my two and a half miles to something like three or four. Depending on how I felt.

   I live in Southern California so going a mile and a half to two miles away from my home brings me up a mountainside and past the dried up riverbed, where water only flows when it rains.

   No housing can be built up there since it's sacred tribal land of the Pechanga Indians. But they don't seem to mind a hiker or two walking about.

   I walk in the early mornings, if you can call 7am early. Before seven, people with kids and jobs are bustling about to get here and there. Dropping off children and rushing off to beat the punch clock. So it gives people like me the freedom to go roundabout with a quit anonymity. To go where we like with no hassles.

   It's relaxing because there is no traffic to worry about, the neighborhood kids are all in school or daycare, and there is a sense of peace which you can only find at this time of day.

   It felt so good I planned on walking up to four miles today.

   I was at the two mile mark and was going to turn around when I saw, coming over the top ridge of the mountain, two glowing white pulsating round spheres. They were the size of those exercise balls people use to workout with at the gym.

   They immediately seemed to be intelligent because they paused as soon as they saw me. I couldn't tell the difference from the front to the sides of the spheres, but they slowly turned to one another and started pulsating rhythmically, as if communicating with each other.

   Then, before I could blink twice, the spheres came shooting towards me at lightening speed, surrounding me by going around me in circles.

   I was frozen in place.

   I was frozen, not by anything the spheres did to me, but by my own fear.

   The spheres started pulsating again as they circled me. Thankfully, there were no aggressive movements towards me, but I couldn't help wondering what they might be saying to one another.

   Once again they moved in less than a blink. This time they lined up in front of me one on top of the other with the upper sphere slightly behind the bottom sphere. It reminded me of soldiers from the American Revolution. How the front row of men would kneel down while aiming their guns at the enemy and the second row stood up behind them aiming theirs.

   Were they sizing up the situation before they fired?

   The pulsating started anew. I was so scared. Unconsciously I reached for the plug at the end of my earbuds connecting to my phone and pulled. The music started blaring as loud as a blaring cell phone can and the lower sphere came up close to me. Its light started flickering to the beat of the music. The other sphere then came closer to me and did the same. A small latch on that sphere opened up on the front of it and I saw blue, green, and red lights. I thought I was going to split a gut when it started to talk to me through those lights. It said, "I like that song. What's the name of it?"

   Stunned I replied, "Dancing Queen by Abba."

   "I love those guys," the other sphere said. "Sorry, we have to go."

   And with three blinks of an eye, they were past the clouds in the sky. Out of sight.

   I'll never forget today and I will be walking up the same side of the mountain from now on. I'll have my phone playing music as I go along. Hopefully these unidentified flying spheres will enjoy a little Ed Sheeran or Beatles and not just disco.

   Wouldn't it be weird if the whole Galaxy was into Disco and Synth Pop?

This is,

I'm Telling The Whole Truth

And Nothing But The Truth

Jim Hauenstein,

 

And,

 

“Disco sucks? You never heard that from me.”
- John Lydon -

 

 That is my story and I am sticking to it!

 

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I'll Be Seeing You