My blog - The Mechanical Pencil

My Blog - The Mechanical Pencil

The personal blog of John Harrer, better known as "The new ravings of an old man."

Mechanical pencils have always fascinated me. Yes, I am easily fascinated.

You have to agree, mechanical pencils are far superior to the old No. 2 pencil. That's one reason I named my blog after the mechanical pencil. Not because it's superior to N0. 2, because of my fascination.

I cover a number of different topics. You'll hear about my experience owning a health food store, my life with animals, and I'll post some of my speeches from being in the Toastmaster program.

It is my hope you will enjoy these writings. My life isn't terribly exciting, but with a bit of "literary license", perhaps I can make it appear to be more so. Please comment if you like.

Learning to Dance Lessons From a Former Yogi

February 13, 2016 by jjharrer 7 Comments

Learning to Dance

Just so you know, learning to dance is best done at an early age. Awkward, self-conscious, uncoordinated were my reasons for putting it off. That, and it just didn’t feel “important” at the time. If you didn’t learn to dance when you were younger, don’t worry, the good news is you can start from wherever you are in life.

My Dad would come by my business about once a week or so for a visit. Mom had passed away suddenly a few years earlier and my Dad was devastated. After about a year of mourning, he did what he had done all his life: picked himself up, and got back into the game. First it was tennis. He found a group that met Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays at the park. No one was under 50, most were over 65. They would play until about 10 am, then head over to the local fast food place for coffee.

One of the players mentioned there were “Line Dance Lessons” at the local Rasmussen Senior Center. They were five bucks on Monday nights and soon Dad was learning to dance. After a few lessons, he would go to an occasional dance. This was my Dad. He’s nearing 80, Mom had been gone 5 or 6 years at this point, and he’s playing tennis 3 times a week and dancing twice a week.

About this time my wife, Ranae, had a new co-worker who is very much the ballroom dancer. “Learning to dance is easy,” she says. Of course she’s a dance instructor too. She does convince us to go to a local event where there would be social dancing and, more importantly, and exhibition of some “must see” dancers. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times my wife and I had danced since our wedding day 25 years ago. But, the food was reported as excellent and the entertainment guaranteed, so what did we have to lose?

I know I’m zig-zagging all over the place right now, but stay with me if you can. For 30 years I ran a local health food store. THE most valuable part of that experience was my interaction with our customers. We were small and I got to follow along over 3 decades of their lives. I had customers long enough to see their kids grow up and get married. There were many who had to take care of aging parents and the parents had been customers.

Through this interaction, I had a front row seat on how lifestyle affected quality-of-life. By observation I learned what help some customers reach 90 and others were burning out in their 70’s. No, it is not scientific. Certainly there were a few customers over the years that took really good care of themselves and died young anyway. But for the most part, those that were happy and active lived the longest.

Back to the dance exhibition. I had never been to anything like this before. A room full of 200 ballroom dancers of all ages, but most were over 50, dancing it up. Everyone was smiling and having a good time. The majority of them were trim and fit. I had studied yoga for the previous five years and very few people in the yoga studio ever looked to be having as much fun as these folks. “There might be something to this dancing stuff,” I thought to myself.

The very next week my Dad stopped by the store for a visit. He had a flyer in his hand and announced the Levan Institute at Bakersfield College was going to hold ballroom dance lessons and they were open to everyone. “Great!” I say. “You’re adding ballroom dancing to your line dancing. Good for you.”

“You too,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You and Ranae have to sign up for the class. We have to make sure there are enough people enrolled or they will cancel it.”

When your 80 year old father tells you that you have to take a dance class so HE can take a dance class, you can’t turn him down. He even talked my older brother and his wife into signing up and their feet were even more left-footed than ours. On the first night there we were, the 5 Harrers, along with the 40 other people that packed the class my Dad was certain to be cancelled.

The class lasted six weeks and we had a great time learning the Foxtrot and the Waltz. We went on to join the Bakersfield Smooth Dancers and take their lessons on a weekly basis. We lost Dad in 2012 two months before his 90th birthday. Ranae and I dance every week now and I’m still awkward, self-conscious, and uncoordinated, but we have fun and laugh, and it sure beats the hell out of doing yoga.

Social Media and Writing

February 9, 2016 by jjharrer 3 Comments

Writers and Social Media

Do you use social media? Most writers are acutely aware that writing, for the most part, is a lonely endeavor. For me it begins in my small office with perhaps only a cat as company. Much comedy is made from all the wonderful little tasks writers do to postpone the actual writing process. One of the big time holes for writers can sometimes be perusing Facebook or Twitter. But for all its loneliness there is a camaraderie of sorts among writers.

As one of the managers of the Facebook page for Writers of Kern, a Bakersfield writers group, I find something quite baffling. As part of a volunteer-run organization the task falls on me to create posts, find content, and encourage writers. Facebook etiquette prevents one for asking for “Likes” or requesting “Shares”. From behind the curtain, I can see how many people actually view a post and how many people ‘Share” or “Like” a post.

The baffling part? The Writers of Kern Page gets very little action. Now normally I would take the blame for such a situation. “If you post good content they will come” is the Facebook mantra. If people don’t “Like” or “Share”, look first at the content. While the content may not be great, it certainly is at the level of good, so what else is happening?

It’s poor form to blame the audience, I know. But they’re writers for crying out loud. One would think they would have an opinion…on everything. Some of the other “non-writing” pages I manage have people, who have no idea what they are talking about, go on for paragraph after paragraph. Is it the general affliction of low self-esteem that dogs most writers from speaking up?

A few writers with an aversion to Twitter and Facebook often claim they are “technologically challenged”. The world has changed people. Publishing is open to everyone. To say you’re technologically challenged today would be the same as Hemingway saying he can’t figure out the typewriter works. One need look no farther than Andy Weir author of The Martian to understand the opportunities writers have today. Andy published The Martian online, one chapter at a time, before putting a Kindle version on Amazon. He built a league of followers on social media. From there it caught the eye of publishers, and eventually movie producers.

In the early days of Twitter I had more time to follow different threads. I came across a literary agent Tweeting regularly. Over a period of half a year I saw more than one Tweet where she was pitched a story AND several congratulatory Tweets to authors who got published. Authors she met through social media.

What about the time suck that happens on social media? You sit down to look at a few notifications and 90 minutes later you are still there. That’s not social media’s fault. You don’t have to watch the puppy video, or the cat video, or the “He was just a bear in the woods, but you’ll be amazed at what happens next” video. There is a smart way to use social media. Like anything else, have a goal. For me, I use Facebook to connect with other writers and see what they are doing. Fifteen minutes, then I close the browser window. If I see a writer friends’ writing oriented post I’ll “Like” it. (If it’s a post about his trip to Disneyland, I keep moving along.) If the post is positive and encouraging, I’ll “Share” with my friends and fellow writers. The process takes literally 5 seconds.

Twitter uses a hashtag system. In the Twitter search bar you can put some like #writing or #JustWrite and every Tweet with those hashtags come up. And, if you do Tweet, always use a hashtag of some sort so people can find your Tweets. That’s why many Writers of Kern Tweets end with the #JustWrite tag.

If you are a writer who is not on social media, maybe it’s time to take another look. And if you are please take a moment to like or share a Writers of Kern post. It makes me look good to the boss.

Writers, do you use social media to your advantage? Let’s hear how – leave a comment.

Blog Challenge Writing What You Know

February 6, 2016 by jjharrer 3 Comments

The Blog Challenge

The writing group I belong to, Writers of Kern, has a blog challenge annually and this year I decided to throw my pencil into the ring. The goal: 26 blog posts in 13 weeks.

I’ve been blogging a long time. My first blog post, I just checked, was April 24th, 2003. I owned a local health food store at the time and dealing with the public can sometimes be trying. We had many good customers, friends really, and writing the blog helped me cope with some of the more annoying aspects of running my own business. The posts consisted of customer interactions, new product launches, or personal anecdotes. Not knowing much about web traffic, search optimization, or blogging even, the site never attracted much of a following. Looking at the Blogger stat page now I see it had all of 1000 page views.

I still write there, but I’ve made it private. It’s become an experimental place, and it still holds a lot of good memories. One of my favorite story arcs was over a 4 month period. A neighbor had found two fledgling mockingbird chicks. Being the resident animal lovers on our street, my wife and I adopted them. We named them Orville and Wilbur. Twice weekly trips to Bob’s Bait Bucket for meal worms, flying lessons in the store, Ranae taking them to Chuey’s on a Saturday lunch with the girls dominated my posts. (Is it any surprise the site had so little traffic?) We played bird songs on the computer because we read that mockingbirds learn to sing by listening.

Wilbur took off one day and never came back. Half of our job was done. Orville struggled with flight and we continued to work with him. On top of additional flying lessons I bought a bell and did a little Paplov conditioning. We would ring the bell and Orville would fly to my hand a few feet away and eat a worm. We kept lengthening the distance. One day while practicing outside, Orville was strong enough to fly off on his own. That night I rang the bell and, with worm in my hand, Orville flew down, gobbled the worm and flew away. For the next month, morning and night Orville “answered the bell”. I’m sure all the neighbors (and you too for that matter) must think me crazy. I would sit in this chair in my front yard and ring the bell. Sometimes it would take a few minutes, but when I would catch a glimpse of Orville flying toward our tree, it was magical.

After about a month, the cats (we own four) figured out that every time I rang the bell we were having a bird over for a meal. Their meal. After about a month, Orville had had enough of their Sylvester looking stares. He was fully grown, did not need our meal worms anymore, and probably started looking for a Mrs. Orville. While he has not landed in my hand for some time, every mockingbird in our neighborhood is known as Orville.

Training Jessie Blog

For my next blog adventure I thought about something that might help other people. I bought a horse in 2007. New to horse ownership and training I wanted to chronicle our journey. The Training Jessie Blog featured training tips, videos, and successes and failures with the hopes of giving other horse owners ideas and inspiration that might help them with their horse. Training Jessie was far more popular than my first blog and got me interested in video. Launching a YouTube Channel was much like a video blog and, while nothing I’ve done has gone viral, I’ve still managed to rack up about three quarters of a million views.

But the real challenge of blogging is “What do you actually write about?”. Sometimes I want to write a piece of fiction. Sometimes I want to give tips on dog or horse training. Sometimes I want to rant about people who don’t use turn signals. And here lies the struggle. It’s not considered part of “best practices’ to have such diverse topics. A blog “should” focus on one thing. Readers “should” know what to expect when they visit my blog. I’m horrible at that kind of stuff. And that’s the other thing. A blog isn’t “supposed” to expose the things I’m bad at doing. It’s “supposed” to highlight the stuff I do well. So, I don’t really know what you’re going to get over the next 13 weeks. After 13 years of blogging I still struggle. But, you’ll get 26 posts is some form or another, because, as I learned from Orville, when challenged, it’s important to answer the bell.

Traffic in the Urban Jungle

January 30, 2016 by jjharrer 9 Comments

Negotiating Traffic in the Urban Jungle

I hate traffic. (Who doesn’t right?) And, my sense of direction is lousy. Growing up in the 60’s in a family of seven we owned the now extinct “station wagon”. If you’re old enough you will remember the three sets of seats. The front seat of course for Mom, Dad, and the baby. The middle seat for older sister and brother, and the rear facing back seat for my brother and I. It’s difficult to develop a good sense of direction when you spend the majority of your time looking at where you’ve been instead of where you are going.

Recently, we had the opportunity to travel south to Irvine for a media event I was covering for my Whoa Podcast. It is a circus of sorts called Odysseo by Cavalia. A show that might be described as Cirque de Soleil with horses.

The event was scheduled to start at 10:45 and, according to the Waze navigation app on my phone, traveling time was 2 1/2 hours. My wife, Ranae was joining me. After a little discussion, we added another 40 minutes for traffic just to be safe.

With the Waze app on we took off. The app will notify us of police on the road or traffic hazards and will give us turn-by-turn directions. So, we essentially sat back, pushed play on a Chris Hardwick Podcast, and enjoyed the early morning drive.

Coming off the Grapevine on the Los Angeles side the phone woke up and Waze announced there was a “major accident” on our route and gave us an alternative way to go. We weren’t familiar with the venue location of Odysseo, but we allowed Waze to change our course and steer away from the accident. About a half hour later we had no clue where we were. Waze still had us arriving on time (Oh yes, it gives you your expected arrival time), so we just blindly followed along with her instructions.

As we drove along I thought about Ranae’s uncle, Tom. I wondered what he would have thought of all this. Tom would come visit us and the first 30 minutes following his arrival was a recap of the route he took. “Well, had to take the 710 to the 170 because we left a little later than we wanted and we were smack dab in the middle of rush hour,” Tom would say. “We shot over to the 134, hit the 210, and got on the 5.” Tom new all the freeways like the back of his hand.

“On the way home, we’ll need to stay on 5 to the 2, take the 10 to the 605, then back to the 5 to get around the Dodger game at Chavez Ravine.” He knew where the major factories, ball parks, amusement parks, and bottlenecks were all located.

At exactly 10:47 we pulled up to the entrance of Odyesseo. You can’t miss their big top. Our little phone app had gotten us there pretty much as she promised. Not nearly as much fun as Tom. Tom was a genius about traffic. Come to think about it, I wonder if they fashioned the Waze app after him.

Dog Walk in the Park

January 27, 2016 by jjharrer 7 Comments

Dog Walk as in “W”

A dog walk is a great way to spend time with your best friend. Last week we had an opportunity to take the dogs out for a walk along the river. Now, my boy Buster is generally a good dog. He can be intimidating to some people. And, as much as I’ve tried to socialize him, he’s not much of a dog person. It’s not every dog mind you. I can’t tell who he’ll get along with and who he won’t. At the dog park, he is on his own to get fit in. Out here it was a different story. People may not be expecting to encounter a dog.

Buster is a Louisiana Leopard Catahoula. Yeah, I know. That’s a mouthful. The breed is used for hunting wild pigs in the southeast. I’ve never had the pleasure of running into a wild pig, but I understand they can be quite cranky. It takes a tough dog to help in the hunt. How I ended up with Buster is a story for another time. He’s mine now. While I’m not out looking for wild pigs, it’s kinda nice to know we could if that’s what the world comes to.

Back to the walk. Most of the time out in open country Buster is left of lead to roam and smell to his heart’s content. That is, after all, the point of a dog walk. If we see people or horses I just clip on his leash and we are back under control. We (my wife Ranae and I) were walking along the Kern River. Lots of open country and every once in awhile some water to play in or around. Buster is roaming about enjoying himself, perhaps checking the area for wild pigs. Who knows? Off in the distance we see a man walking his dog. We see the dog is big, somewhat Rottweiler-ish and there is no leash attached. Recalling Buster, I clip on his leash and we move off to the side of the trail.

The man approaching us yells out, “Don’t worry. My dog is fine! He’s gentle.” If you’ve ever had an eighty pound dog lumbering toward you, this comment is not very soothing.

“Yeah, my dog is NOT. Please call your dog. My dog can be aggressive!” I yell back. If the dogs get in a fight, I want him warned.

“No, don’t worry. He is just a pup. He won’t hurt you.” Well, if he is a puppy, he’s destined to be seven feet tall.

We have caught the Rottweiler’s eye and once again I go for the it’s-not-you-it’s-me routine, “Please call your dog back. My dog will start a fight.” I’ve got Buster on a very short leash now and we are trying to put as much space between us and the puppy. There really is anywhere to go. This part of the riverbank is a cliff covered by stiff brush. “PLEEEASE, leash your dog,” I plead once more.

Buster “playing” with a Weimaraner at the dog park.

Again we get, “He won’t hurt you. Tyson is a great dog. He listens to me.”

What?! Tyson? Named after the fighter? C’mon buddy, you are not instilling much confidence here at all. I change tactics. “If he listens so well, show me. Let’s see if he will come to you. I don’t believe he will.”

“Tyson, come here boy.” Tyson looks determined to tear someone’s ear off. “TYSON, COME!”

Like a fighter pilot disengaging a target, Tyson veers away and changes course. He doesn’t go to his owner, just off to the next wonderfully natural smell. The other walker has passed us now and he turns to give us his sage advice, “You should really take your dog to obedience class!”

I had no quick retort and left that comment hanging in the air. My wife and I looked at each other and smiled. As he got a little farther away he may have felt he was too hard on us. He had to pass on one more great piece of advice, “Try some natural dog food. I give my dog raw food and he loves it.” With a “Thank You” wave we turned and were off to our next adventure.

A Spring Evening

December 5, 2014 by jjharrer Leave a Comment

Editor’s Note: I found this on an old private blog where I would experiment with writing shorts. I had forgotten I had written it. It was inspired by a Clem Snide song. That’s why I used the guest author anagram.

It’s guest writer night. I’ve probably started a tradition I’m ill-equipped to carry on. I showed a friend my blog and he wanted to write something. I told him to get his own blog. You’ll get to know yourself. “I don’t want to know me better,” he said, “Just let me write once.”

Okay fine. It probably won’t be very good, which is okay because my standards here aren’t that lofty. I asked him if he was worried that people wouldn’t like what he writes. He said “Judging from the amount of comments on your blog, it couldn’t be much worse than the shit you post.”

Thanks.

“Besides”, he says, “I don’t write for anyone else. I write for myself.”

I am compelled to point out that writing is a form of communication and doesn’t that mean, by its very nature, it’s meant for someone else? “Fuck off”, he says.

So, go ahead. Type. Hit “Publish” when you’re done. I think I’ll go listen to some music….

A Spring Night

A post by Denice Mels

It was a crazy day. At work I got these little fucking paper cuts on my hands. They bled like a sonofabitch. It still stings. Not that this is so epic and true, but I’m not going to let a few paper cuts keep me from writing this post.

My wife and I went for a walk tonight. It was a lovely evening. Walking through downtown is always an interesting experience. Our town has been hit by a few large earthquakes over the last 70 years and as a consequence the buildings are of an assorted architecture. There’s an assortment of old brick, what I like to call artistic masonry. The brick patterns are mesmerizing. And, like most towns, we have our post-modern square “boxes”. Functional I suppose, but not very attractive. This time of night some shops are sill open. As we walked by one store we could hear Hall & Oates on the radio. A Cougar was parked out front. Those cars ooze fast. Do they still make Cougars?

There was a street person in the doorway of an unoccupied building. He had long shaggy hair and a skinny build. His clothes were tattered. He kinda looked like Jesus. He was playing a guitar and singing a song about some shooting star. We both put some change in his beat up guitar case.

We talked as we walked along. The sky was clear and the moon was surprisingly brilliant in its last quarter. We were having trouble getting the conversation going. Stupidly and, because I heard a news story, I brought up Michael Jackson, O.J., Robert Blake.

“Shit,” I said, “These people get it all. Money, fame, love and they just fuck it up. How does that happened?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “celebrities. They think they’re so beautiful and should never be made to suffer.”

The conversation shifted as we walked through town. The talk about hunger, war, and death was bringing us down. We could occasionally hear crickets chirping and they would go silent as we walked by. We talked about how we met so very long ago in the California desert. Did it snow that year? We didn’t remember. We talked about growing up. I made a lot of mistakes, but everybody does. I said I wanted to be a baseball player. She rolled her eyes at me slowly. There were a lot of things I wanted to be.

We were getting hungry from the walk. “What’s at for dinner?”

“Not much at home except sunflower seeds and ready whip”. Our refrigerator is always fully stocked.

“I think it’s ‘All You Can Eat’ at Sizzler tonight”.

We made our way through the sea of taillights to the restaurant. It wasn’t very busy. The waitress brought us ice water. It was refreshing. I could see from the corner of my eye there was a Chinese family and could hear their baby crying as the ice cube slowly melted in my mouth.

We ordered. The food was, well, Sizzler food. They burned my steak. It satisfied the hunger. Afterwards, we headed back to the house. I wanted to hook up so I put on some Elvis music. The cat was sleeping near the stereo and I rubbed her belly for luck. She’s such a slut – the cat, that is.

The first move is the big move. Once you make it you’re committed. Her tongue was soft in my mouth and we kissed and held each other tight. I told her a joke as I undressed her. She didn’t laugh. She loosened my belt. I untied her knots with my lips. I ran my hands softly down her long perfect legs and she held her breath as I finished. When I got up to leave, she asked me to stay. I whispered, “No one makes me more happy than you.” She smiled whispered back, “The foot’s on the other shoe.” I closed my eyes and fell asleep right away. This must be what they mean when they talk about love.

Unmechanical Pencil

November 24, 2014 by jjharrer Leave a Comment

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. To take readers on an exciting journey somewhere. Somewhere good. Somewhere fun. Somewhere insightful and clever. Something in pencil. I like the impermanence of pencil. If you make a mistake, just add an eraser. Not everything ever gets totally erased. No matter how hard you try, there is always that little remnant of the mistake left behind to remind you. You can write over it and perhaps forget what the mistake was, but the blemish reminds you to be more careful next time.

To be any good at writing, I need to write more. That’s here, The Unmechanical Pencil. Here I’ll explore some of the stuff I want to write about – life and stories. Like many writers, I write wonderfully clever in my head. It’s sharp and clear in that ethereal space between my ears. Something happens when it travels down my spine, through the neurons of my shoulders, arms, and fingers. It’s gets muddier, less clever. Obviously, there is a need for practice.

I love a good mechanical pencil. One with a fine lead that meets the paper softly without breaking. That glides so all the letters – printed only, never cursive – look neat like a draftsman. The body has to fit the hand. Too thin and I find myself gripping tightly. I’ve never come across a really fat one. That’s left to pen manufacturers. Pencil people know there’s no room for plump.

My favorite is the Parker pencil. Affordable. Reliable. 7mm lead. I don’t remember the lead rating. Could there be a more confusing system? B, HB, and I don’t remember many others. I think after buying three or four packs I’ve finally hit on the HB, but I could not tell you for sure.

Anyway, this is my spot to write. Thank you internet