thisiswhatyoushalldo

haven’t blogged for a few weeks. On March ,my long-time blog buddy, blog reader Kevin Lang, known on these pages by my tens of readers as “Lono,” lost his hard-fought 14-month battle with Leukemia.

For decades, my Thursday evening/Friday morning began with sending this week’s Friday Fives questions to Kevin, who would then answer them and post them on his own blog.

For the last few weeks, taking on the task of gathering a few questions to post and then posting them to my blog felt like an empty task without first sending them off to his home near Elizabeth/Exuban Parker.

We all miss him terribly, and although we all knew the end was nearing when he decided to go into pain management and hospice care after an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant, many, many attempts of chemo and radiation, and unsuccessful drug trials.

A wise kid I have working for me, but Kevin’s passing in a very succinct way to handle the loss: “they may be gone, but not lost, as their story isn’t finished until those that carry the memory are/”

And that is the way I am holding on to my lost brother.

We will meet again, Kevin.

Shalom.

1. What’s a fad/trend from the early 2020s that faded so quickly you can barely remember it?
Spotify used to have this weird car gadget that would plug into your car, but that was dropped about the time that streaming music apps became ubiquitous,s and they dropped the product so fast you barely saw it coming.,

2. What’s a fad/ trend from the 1990s that faded so quickly you can barely remember it?

Nextel phones with the Direct Connect walkie-talkie. Those were pretty cool, and I’d love to have a way to bring that technology back, but they got bullied out of their bandwidth.

3. What was that thing that was such a big deal from your high school years?

Blow-dried hair and silkie disco shirts

4. What were all the cool kids doing in your middle school years?

Listening to music on the new cool tech known as cassettes.

5. What fad/trend were your parents into when you were a kid that, looking back, caused you to say, “Man, those guys are weird?

They were really into the Jaycees – like it was their entire life and social scene. They went to conferences and conventions all the time and participated in locally sponsored events – there was always something. Obsessed.

1. If you could remove one food so that no one would eat it ever again, what would you actually pick to destroy?

Beef spleen or tripe – Who got the wise idea to just cook up weird, grainy organ meats? Yuck.

2. If I just now discovered you by reading about you in the newspaper, what section would I find you in?

I would reside in the books section, making lists and lists and lists of books that I want to get around to reading.

3. You suddenly have to go on the lam. What would your new assumed identity be and your back story?

Unis Cornpone from St. Lisbeth, LA, where my family has resided peacefully in the old bayou for centuries, making our living hand-crafting whiskey bottle cork plugs.

4. What flavor of cake would you be?

Favorite cake to eat, Angel food, but favorite cake to actually be? Chocolate Red Velvet.

5. If you could actually enter the world of the last book you read, where would you end up?

I am currently reading “In Cold Blood,” so I guess Holcomb, KS, is just outside of Garden City and about 200 miles from where I am sitting.

1. What’s the oldest thing in your house?

Out in the garage there are some boxes of my grandmother’s china and among that is a set of really rare crystal forged with uranium glass. Stunningly beautiful and work a pretty penny.

2. Who was your craziest / most interesting teacher?

My high school biology teacher Mr. Peer. He was just a delightful wacko. With a fully fitted science lab full of chemicals and Bunsen burners – he would light the place up.

3. When was the last time you got to tell someone “I told you so”?

When those wack jobs elected Trump I warned that this wasn’t going to go as well as they might think.

4. What smartphone feature would you actually be excited for a company to implement?

Whenever I am asked what new technology I want I also default to the demand to bring me my Star Trek teleportation. I thinking fitting that within a sell phone would be a game changer.

5. What was cool when you were young but isn’t cool now?

Atari Pong? a lot of late 1960s and early 1970s tech has certainly gone out of fashion. I mean really, 8-track? C’mon! I’ll go with “Moon Boots” for winter wear. Growing up everybody was wearing them. They were the O.G. “Uggs.”

This or that?

1. Skydiving or SCUBA Diving?

I trained to be a paratrooper in the army, that wa terrifying. I pick Scuba.

2. Football or basketball

Football from this list, but I am starting to get obsessed with soccer. Less CTE and more finesse.

3. Horseback Riding or Cycling?

Cycling is my thing, especially since buying my e-bike about 2 and 1/2 years ago.

4. Fiction or Nonfiction?

I am kinda OCD on this. I primarily read eBooks, and on the Kindle, it is fiction, and on my tablet with the Kindle app, it is nonfiction.

5. Coffee Cup or Thermos?

I put the French press coffee in a carafe. I don’t like the taste of hot liquids from a metal Thermos, so I pour from the insulated beverage mug thingy into a proper ceramic mug. I know, that’s weird, but I am who I am.