Ravenland

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Molestation preview 02 - Helmut and Ernst Schweich

2 - Helmut and Ernst Schweich -- 1912-1933

In 1910, daughters of certain immigrant families, known as ‘chippies,’ were known to be ‘easy.' Before the advent of refrigeration, many lonely housewives asserted their sexuality when the iceman came.

In 1918, H. L. Mencken railed in ‘In Defense of Women’ against the sexual ‘double standard’--“What these virtuous beldames actually desire, is not that the male be reduced to chemical purity, but that the franchise of dalliance be extended to themselves.”

☼

Dietrich Schweich was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Marge was born in Munich, Germany. They met in Hamburg, while attending an engineering convention. In 1912, after a whirlwind romance, Marge steamed to America and they were married in the Lutheran church.

With the outbreak of World War I, the family could sense suspicious eyes trained upon them when they traveled to more Anglican districts. Suspicions turned to public ridicule, when the body bags returned from the frontline trenches. Dietrich was not allowed to travel overseas.

☼

At 1:24 pm, on October 29 of 1920, Marge Schweich almost choked to death suppressing her orgasmic scream as Al the iceman exploded into her, almost cracking the entry door that he pressed her against.

Marge, “Oh Got! I vish Dietrich should explode like zat. Not since Herman, my lifeguard lover in Antwerp--ten years! Where do use find such power?”

Al, “It’s secret. I love my job. I sit on blocks of ice all day. When my balls sense the heat of a needy woman, I go mad with lusty drive.”

Marge, “You come so forcefully, I fear I get baby.”

“Not to worry. We always do it stand up. Gravity protects us.”

☼

In Germantown, Pennsylvania, on July 31, 1921, Marge gave Dietrich a son, Ernst.

Al had been relocated to Erie.

Dietrich had no idea that he was sterile. He adored his son. He said he could see that his son engendered German superiority, from his large cranium to his square shoulders. Marge never told Dietrich the truth.

☼

At the conclusion of World War I, the family moved to Philadelphia, where Dietrich had landed a profitable position with the large engineering firm of Pennwerks, International. Dietrich continued to make frequent voyages to European industrial centers--often returning to Germany, where he found a mistress, Fraulein Eva Benz.

☼

Meanwhile, Ernst was now exposed to a more diverse education. While Marge and the German school indoctrinated him into the German high culture, they could not escape the fact that they were living in the birthplace of the democracy of the United States. Even the German school offered field trips to see the Liberty Bell, Congress in session, and the Lincoln Memorial.

Ernst developed strong identification with both the United States and Germany.

☼

When Post-World War I resentments had cooled, Uncle Helmut emigrated from Berlin. Helmut had recently been asked to step down as dean of the university department of philosophy. The family never talked about why Helmut had lost his post.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Helmut instructed Ernst on his wrathful and vengeful God. Tuesdays and Thursdays the lectures were on such Greek philosophers as Aristotle and Plato.

☼

Dietrich spent more and more time in Germany and Helmut assumed the role of father figure to Ernst.

☼

When the stock market crashed, Marge sold whatever she could. Helmut, who owned a large amount of gold bullion, in an effort to ‘make amends’ for his mysterious former life in Germany, vowed to look after his younger brother’s family. He moved the family to Chicago.

Dietrich elected to remain in Berlin: he had worked summers, in Norway, to raise the money for his tuition.

☼

Helmut spun yarns about copper mining near Bodö, and yarns about sardine fishing for several days at a time in the Norwegian Sea. It was easy for him to capture the young boy’s attention. Ernst was always asking Helmut about northern native handicrafts and oil paintings of Norway that decorated Helmut’s room.

☼

The Crash polarized the nation. Democratic capitalism lay prone on the altar of history. Various Fascist, Communist, and Christian movements vied for the honor of dealing the deathblow.

☼

On October 20 of 1931, Hitler addressed a Nazi Party rally in Bad Harzburg, Germany. He demanded the resignation of the government.

☼

Helmut joined the local German American Bund--a propaganda machine for the Nazis.

☼

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the oath of office, March 4, 1933, the stock market had begun gradual recovery destined to last until 1937. Although the masses were still broke, the Schweich family had reason to rejoice. Marge had become accustomed to living with Helmut, who never made an improper advance to her. Helmut dominated Ernst’s paternal life. Helmut began to invest--ELECTRIC BOND AND SHARE, RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA, REMINGTON RAND, and UNITED STATES STEEL. He also speculated in wheat and corn futures.

Helmut’s spirits rose with his profits.

☼

Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps as a device to keep unemployed men from turning to subversive organizations.

☼

On January 31 of 1933, Hitler was installed as chancellor of Germany.

Helmut listened to the news on his RCA radio.

Helmut’s mood became unexplainably giddy.

☼

March 3, while chinning himself on the galvanized shower curtain rod, Ernstdie experienced his first ejaculation. One minute he was rising to the bar--his entire body quivering. The next he was shooting a white stream through the air.

Marge was downtown, but Helmut was home reading his favorite zeitung.

It was a mess to clean--all sticky and smelly. Ernstdie had to take a shower and change his shorts.

Helmut heard the noise. When Ernst finally came out of the bathroom with a sheepish look, Helmut went in to inspect and detected his favorite scent.

☼

The next time Marge went downtown, Helmut took Ernst aside. “I know vat you deed in zee bat room. Eat’s alright. Eat’s normal. Eat’s part of growing up. Vee had dat problem a lot on zee fishing boats and at zee copper mines.”

Ernst, “How can I deal with it?”

“I vill help.”

At that, Helmut unzipped Ernstdie’s pants and mouthed the boy to an erection. Ernstdie could not stop him because it felt so good and he did not know it was wrong.

“Now you do me!”

Ernst reciprocated.

Helmut smiled, “Any time Momma goes away vee can do it again, but vee must not tell her!”

☼

That evening at dinner, Marge asked about Ernstdie’s mood change.

Helmut dismissed her. “Ach! He ease yust growing up fraulein.”

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Molestation preview 01 - Allen Baxter

BEGINNINGS

But Jesus said:

“Suffer Little Children, and forbid them not, to come to me:

for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence

King James Bible, Mathew 18:14-15

1 - Allen Baxter -- 1873-1940

In Greek mythology the god Hermes was considered a subtle schemer. Called Mercurius (Mercury) by the Romans, he was the son of Zeus and Maia, daughter of Atlas. When he was only a few hours old he escaped from his cradle and went out in search of adventures. He stretched cords across a tortoise shell, inventing the lyre.

. . . That evening he stole the oxen of Apollo, god of the sun, hid them in a cave, and killed two of the oxen. When Apollo discovered what had happened, Hermes charmed him by playing on the lyre, and Apollo allowed him to go unpunished. Hermes gave his lyre to Apollo. In return Apollo gave Hermes a magic wand, called the caduceus, which bestowed wealth and prosperity and turned everything it touched into gold. (See also Apollo.)

. . . Hermes was the messenger of the gods, and one of his duties was to conduct the ghosts of the dead to the lower world. Among men he became the patron of merchants and the god of eloquence, good fortune, and prudence, as well as cunning, fraud, and theft. He was also the god of the roads and the protector of travelers. Pillars topped with his image were used as guideposts along roadways. Hermes was often represented as a slender youth, wearing winged sandals, a broad-brimmed hat adorned with two small wings, and holding the caduceus. [1]

☼

In a Canadian political scandal of 1873, Prime Minister J. Macdonald was charged with awarding the construction contract for the Canadian Pacific Railway to a syndicate headed by Sir Adolf Krautz in return for campaign contributions by Krautz. The scandal caused the downfall of Macdonald s Conservative administration.

Adolf lost a vast fortune in the fallout, but retained ownership of his lumber company in British Columbia. Eventually, even the lumber company went bankrupt. This was too much for Adolf, who hung himself from a crane hook.

☼

The company was purchased by Sir Hugh Baxter. Hugh also adopted Adolf’s son, Angus. Angus took the Baxter family name.

Angus married a French-Canadian, from Nova Scotia, who bore him a son, named Tom.

Angus moved to San Diego, telling his son, Tom, that he could follow and rejoin the family, if he could pay his own way south. No one else in the family had been given such instruction.

☼

Angus founded the Ku Klux Klan in San Diego. In those days, the Ku Klux Klan in San Diego was not so violent towards blacks. Tom said his grandfather quit when they became more militant.

☼

Tom eventually moved down to San Diego as a baseball player. The Baxter family has maintained a presence in San Diego ever since.

Angus, who was determined to have his son come up through the ranks, gave Tom a job as a lumberjack.

Tom fought his way to the top of the heap, sometimes unscrupulously. Challenges to his authority were nipped in the bud with draconian measures. When Tom became a crew chief, he was challenged by a large black who felt he had unjustly passed over. Tom promptly struck the black man with a pickaxe in the head and killed him.

☼

Tom married his doctor’s troubled daughter, Jane.

Jane bore Tom a son, Allen, February 26, 1926.

☼

Jane came from English proper stock and did not fit in well with the Scottish folks. Tom’s mother was cold and his wife was too hot.

☼

Tom became real estate developer in San Diego. Wherever Tom went, a cortege of businessmen followed him. The only time he was not in real estate was after the crash of the market in 1929. He lost his fortune and his business in the great depression of 1929. He moved to Witch Creek, where he bought acreage with trees.

He was a resilient man and would not remain a failure. He was determined to start all over. He cut down the trees on the land and trucked them to the San Diego sawmills for sale. Thusly, he arose from his ashes. Soon he acquired enough money to return to real estate, specializing in land speculation.

☼

Allen lived in San Diego until the age of four, raised by black nannies.

Jane, who liked to flit around from man to man, took up with Michael, an officer of a San Diego bank. They were married and that man became Allen’s stepfather. The family owned a great deal of land including a country house in Witch Creek. When Michael died, he left the summer home to Allen. It had the best view of any in Witch Creek with a commanding view of the valley.

Allen’s father and mother had been together until he was fourteen years old, which would have been around 1940.

Allen’s parents placed him in a boy’s school in San Francisco, until his parents were divorced and then he was passed back and forth between the homes of the two parents on a time-sharing basis.

☼

In later years, Tom’s son Allen would often wonder why his father had had to pay his way from British Columbia to San Diego and other family members had had their way paid.

☼

Allen had once remarked that his mother was a tramp who had gone after any man who would give her a good time. His inability to accept women as worthy human beings stemmed from his low regard for his mother.

For her part, Jane suffered from multiple personalities.

☼

Allen came from a family of capitalists--mostly agnostic. What religion he started with, came from his grandparents in Tennessee. No! They were not Pentecostal, Baptist, or Nazarene. It may have been his maternal grandmother, who had passed on the Anglican faith.

☼

Allen’s sexuality was an enigma to most people who met him, because he seemed to have been obviously sexual and asexual at the same time.

He said his mother was a tramp and it is easy to understand how a boy with a loose mother would grow up with little regard for women. Do not read the words. Picture the lifestyle instead. If you have ever known a situation like that, you will understand.

That he was very sexual, cannot be denied. That he was very much into maleness, cannot be denied. The obvious options were that he was heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.

The real problem is not only to portray his sexuality, but to illustrate the degree of his sexuality.

Let us use a globe and say moving left and down is homosexual, right and down is bisexual, and up is heterosexual. Let us make these three curved rays of travel 120° apart, for simplicity.

Let us suppose, that by moving around to the far side of the globe, a heterosexual becomes so confident in his sexuality that he feels free to picture the world as a homosexual or bisexual. The only easy distinction between the three on the other side of the globe is the roots from which they originated.

Let us add one level of complication, distance from the center of the globe. Let’s say that persons near the center, regardless of their sexual preference, are so shallowly committed to it that it represents a small influence in their life. Let us say that a person far away from the center of the globe has intense feelings of his sexuality and needs to assert his or her sexuality.

With this scheme, assuming that it reflects reality, it could be demonstrated that a more extreme homosexual with only a mild interest in his sexuality could appear to be more normal than a very moderate heterosexual whose life was consumed by his heterosexuality.

It appears that Allen was an extreme heterosexual--so extreme that his views seemed to be in keeping with those of both homosexuals and bisexuals. However, the dominance of his sexuality over his life appeared to be extreme. Everything he did exuded how he felt about his penile superior sexuality.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Paradise preview 01 - Gila Bend

A large Bounder motor home sped east on I-10. The Cruise Control kept it at a steady 55. Edgar knew he was running old tires and figured he could handle a blowout below 60. He did not want to buy tires because their money was running out. The stock market had been lousy since George W. gained the presidency--something about M2 or M3 money. Then came 911 and the market did not even open for days.

Kermit curled sleeping on Edgar’s lap. Edgar had just enough space left to turn the wheel and operate the pedals.

The cassette player played a tape of the Crusaders, just loud enough to override the hissing air conditioner. Edgar welcomed the cool Texas jazz. He had waited for Natasha to fall asleep to swap it for her favorite Bruce Springsteen tape.

A dirty smudge grew on the horizon indicating a large concentration of humanity congregated into a desert metropolis up ahead.

Natasha had drunk too much Vodka to swing out the sun visor side-flap to block the sun.

☼

Two nights ago, they had slept in Hope, Arizona--a good place for aging desert rats.

The night before that, they had laid over in a Yermo trailer park run by a spiky-haired lesbian. Actually, she had moved on, but Edgar felt like kissing the ground she had walked on. After 911 they had elected to layover an extra month in snow country rather than travel through paranoid country. The sultry Mojave air had been a breath of heaven. That morning they had pulled up stakes in Minden, Nevada, sniffling in 18-degree weather. Snow had fallen and still covered the surrounding hills. Coyotes had howled all night long. Edgar had been sick with the flu for a few days and had known he had to reach the desert quickly. One long day’s haul, down 395 to Spike’s, had brought relief.

This morning, they had dropped down to Parker to cross the Colorado. Edgar wanted space between their crossing and Boulder Dam. Who knew what Al Qaeda would blow up next? The feds had even banned motor homes from crossing over Boulder Dam.

☼

A sign came into view--Palo Verde Exit ½ Mile. Edgar peered off to the south, out Natasha’s window. He could not see the largest nuclear reactor in the U.S. Still he knew it was there. Boulder Dam and Palo Verde Power Plant--two prime targets for terrorists--stood out like milestones on their trek.

A sign came into view--85 South Exit to Gila Bend ½ Mile. Edgar pumped off Cruise Control and allowed the behemoth to slow to exit speed. Last year he had gotten lost, pulling through Phoenix out of Wickenburg. He hated Phoenix and had vowed to give it a wide berth by traveling south on paved state highway 85 to I-8.

Less traveled and more remote, State 85 followed a lonely route. Midway across 85, they passed through the Maricopa Mountains. A midday breeze picked up and rocked the vehicle. Something felt strange.

Edgar pulled to the side of the road. The motor home leaned too much for the slope of the dirt.

Natasha woke up. “What’s wrong Daddy?”

Edgar, “Shit! I don’t know! The tires feel funny. I wanta take a look.”

Natasha, “Shit!”

Edgar stepped down off the automatic steps. His driving moccasins scrunched the desert soil. He slammed the door and walked around. Everything looked okay. He hunkered down on his hands and knees between the left rear lights and the left Honda headlight and sighted through the left double tires. Okay! He walked around to the right side.

Natasha slid a bedroom window open. “It’s getting hot in here can we go?”

“I’m almost done! Hold your britches. Better, why don’t you go pee before you wet yourself?”

When Edgar sighted through the right rear tires, he saw the problem. It was the inside tire. “Damn!”

He pulled out on the road. The air conditioner kicked in.

Natasha took a swig of straight vodka. “You look depressed.”

Edgar took a hit of cool Coors. “It’s a tire.”

“Now what are we going to do?”

“It’s the inside right tire--right behind where I loaded the safe. It’s going flat fast. It’s bulging against the outside tire. It has to be fixed.”

“We don’t have any money for a tire.”

“I know! I know! I’m 60 years old. My eyes are failing. Nobody will give me a job. I couldn’t work at MacDonald’s, ‘cause I couldn’t find the key on the cash register with the French fry picture. And besides, my sinuses would drip into their colas. I tried to get a job at the Nevada Department of Transportation.”

“You shoulda kissed more ass at your old job!”

“I got tired of those CIA creeps and they didn’t want me around after I told them about my Mao Tse Tung dream.”

“That was stupid!”

“They had hosed me for seven years.” He crushed the Coors can. “Maybe the stock market will go back up. I think I’ll see if I can find a job when we get settled.”

“Where you gonna find a tire that size out here?”

“I don’t know. What’s worse is we have to slow down so the outer tire doesn’t go too!”

“We’re screwed! I should have married a Republican!”

“Maybe we can find a tire shop before the other one goes.”

☼

The last seven months in Minden had given them little solace. They had made friends with a Mexican family who worked as servants in Incline Village. Several people in the campground had worked in Incline Village. Next thing they knew, one of their major credit cards had an Incline Village address and new charges at Harvey’s in Lake Tahoe.

One of the neighbors had tried to recruit Edgar to be responsible for the computer support of a secret redneck invasion of China. “We’ll get our cargo planes landed in China with heavy armaments by bribing the Chinese radar operators.”

The bump on Natasha’s arm had grown as big as a cherry while their health insurance had almost run out. Only seven months earlier she had had surgery to remove a growth on her eyelid.

One morning, as Edgar had watched MSNBC, the market had begun to tumble. Then the television had shown one of World Trade Center towers on fire. Natasha and Edgar had looked on mesmerized, as the second plane had hit. The market had closed before Edgar could find his slippers. He had sent an e-mail to a friend about the symmetry of the buildings collapse, comparing it to a banana being peeled. At the time, his friend had thought the remark to be traitorous. More recently, callers have expressed the same feelings on Coast to Coast radio; using the symmetry as a basis for their conspiracy plot that the government had set off pre-positioned charges in the buildings.

Edgar had predicted such an event, but had hoped it would not happen in his lifetime. Now, he was looking for signs that his second dire prediction might be in the offing--a major epidemic of gargantuan proportions.

They had acquired Blue Cross health insurance at $700 per month.

Things had gone crazy in the camp with pickups carrying banners about killing the frigging rag heads.

☼

The first thing Natasha saw as they approached I-8 was a giant ‘TIRES’ sign.

The mechanic had to call out to have the tire delivered. He jacked up the rear end and removed the outer tire. Grease streaked the inside tire in a radial pattern. “You’re losing your bearings.”

Edgar, “You can say that again. Can you fix it?”

“$65 for one Michelin radial! Nothing fancy! $85 and leave it overnight for bearings on this end of this axle!”

“We can’t leave it! We can’t afford the bearing.”

“You ain’t gonna go far.”

“Quail Canyon Trailer Trails! Between Phoenix and Casa Grande! Over by Gila Bend Indian Reservation.”

“You got enough bearing for there and back for the bearings. You’re lucky they deliver propane to your motor home in Arizona. Drive Slowly.”

Friday, February 24, 2012

TOC formatting secrets for Word 2007

Anyone who's tried to read one of my four books, has probably been put off by my tables of contents. Last night I experienced a Eureka moment.
CHANGE THE MAN
Choose to manually insert a TOC. Word presents a form with a TOC header and two sets of blank TOC1, TOC2, and TOC3. Select the target of your changes and edit (make changes to TOC header, or first set of blanks). save all changes as you go by changing the TOCx style to reflect your changes.
FONTS
Apparently, only the ugly Courier TOC header font can be changed--I chose Times New Roman 12, not to be a rebel nor a conforms, but for its practicality--it's a good font. 12 is a bit larger than the standard 10, but some of us geriatrics need 12 if we don't want t wear glasses for the TOC. I use this font for almost everything, except the title page, the copyright, H1 and H2. Word selects the fonts for level 1, 2, and 3 entries. Try not to use one of these for the TOC header. Word seems to replicate the font size you choose for your TOC header in its TOC 1, 2, and 3 entry typefaces. You should not need to use TOC3 in a work of fiction. DO NOT FILL IN THE TOC FORM!
PARAGRAPHS
Select the text area of TOC1, 2, or 3. change from first line indent to hanging. Choose justified text alignment. Choose widow and orphan control. Select no spaces between lines and maybe 6 points after paragraph.
Now select insert one of the automatic TOCs. You may get a message like "a TOC already exists (or does not exist). Continue?"
The main confusion about TOC styles is that there really is only one set of TOC styles per document:
TOC TOC title "(Table of) Contents" could be "Ducks in the Water;"
TOC1 H1 Header Level 1 Chapter;
TOC2 H2 Header Level 2 Sub-Chapter;
TOC3 H3 Header Level 3 Sub-Sub-Chapter.

I hope this helps. Comments and corrections are welcome.