Two Cents Revisited

By George Stewart

With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, smoking a cigar and sipping a glass of wine, George Stewart, a 25-year veteran of the news business discusses history, fantasy, politics and most of all friendship and love of life in his adopted home town of Tustin, CA, small town U.S.A.; a town with a large quirk factor. The proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Rescue Mission's Village of Hope located on the former Marine Base in Tustin, CA.

The News business is fast becoming a thing of the past. Step back into George's worldof small townAmericana with politics, parades, chili cook-offs, Easter egg hunts, flamingoes, history, valentines, Rocky T.Parrot, and most of all friendships. It will amuse and delight you and help you remember- life is fleeting - It's to laugh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 18, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467858533

George Stewart

George Stewart lived and died in a small trailer in a mobile home park in his adopted home town of Tustin, CA. With25 years in the news business he spent the last 18 writing for the Tustin News.He wrote a humor columncalled,Two Cents for the last five years of his reporting, 2001 to 2006. He had a large following in and out of Tustin. The columnsare a collection ofhis unique take aon life, politics, fantasy and his travels along the rocky road of life with its twists turns and potholes along the way. George's favorite sport was smoking cigars, discussing history, and solving the problems of life with his many friends in the courtyard of John Kelly's unique Mens Shop in old town Tustin.

Book preview

Grow(l)ing suspicions on the base 8-30-2001 

Readers are constantly asking me for my opinions on issues affecting the community I love and share with them. I don’t know why. My journalistic obligation to objectivity precludes me from offering opinions which are of no more or less value than those of others.

Employers urge me to write a column elaborating my particular point of view, which cannot possibly please everyone, since they cannot conform to anyone else’s. Again I wonder why.

All wondering aside, the time is here. So, here it is. A well of sardonic, or even sarcastic, suppositions, perspective, or even preposterous, propositions and even fondly-formed fantasies are here, from which you may drink, as you please.

The coyote situation has been quiet. Too quiet.

I smell trouble.

I think they’re planning something. Something big.

I don’t know what it is, but I plan to find out. I’ve got a friend, a half-shepherd with mange who can pass. I can’t give you his real name, but we’ll call him Bootsy. He’s willing to lay his hide on the line and infiltrate the Coyote Cartel and nose around.

I’ve heard growling suspicions that they may be shooting for nuclear capability. Think about it. Why are they hiding out on the military base? Hidden military stockpiles. It’s all there, everything they need. All they need now is a couple of human sell-outs with opposing thumbs, and they’re all set. Men willing to sell out our country for slightly-chewed small game. I know a couple of down-at-the-heels taxidermists who are prime suspects.

Once the power is in their paws, who knows what maniacal plans truly organized coyotes may have? Tired by the constant hunt in the midst of a suburban society pampered by ease and convenience, they could bend human behavior to their will, requiring the sacrifice of coddled cats and pampered poodles on a growingly massive scale

When military intervention is the only recourse to fall back upon, many hard questions will be asked of county Animal Control and state Fish and Game about why something could not have been done sooner. Coyote brinksmanship has no precedent and there’s no telling how ugly it could get.

At best, Tustin’s first appearance in Time magazine could be as a battlefield; at worst, a nuclear wasteland. In any case with the intervention of animal-rights activists, the fallout could be worse than Waco.

I shudder to think that Tustin may find itself on the map of history with a new base reuse plan, centered around a memorial to a few coyote terrorists whose martyrdom has elevated them to the status of freedom fighters.

Meanwhile Bootsy and I will be sleeplessly toiling to dig up the truth and keep you informed of the latest developments.

Having no pets of my own, my eye is simply on the Pulitzer. Bootsy, with the true and selfless nature of his canine kind, simply works for kibble. It’s to laugh

Dances with Coyotes 10-4-2001 

Tustin used to be a sleepy little county town.

Rustin’ in Tustin is what they called basking in the bucolic bliss of this decent rural town that slowly built into a more urbane community, while remaining a pleasant and honorable environment in which to raise one’s younguns to appreciate family values and getting the goods in life.

As the city grew, it swallowed its own agricultural roots and, soon, all the haves lived in the city and the only ones left in the receding countryside were the have-nots.

But all that changed some months ago, when the Coyote Gang skulked into town. There were only a few at first, but then word got out about the easy pickin’s in Tustin. As the gang grew, so did their nerve, until finally they were leaving their hideout and strutting boldly right down the main street of town, right amongst God-fearin’ folk. Practicing their murdering and thieving ways at night and sometimes even during the day.

Throughout the community, confidence was replaced by fear, happiness by anger and love by grief. Even the mayor shared their distress when the people marched on City Hall and demanded that local lawmen take care of the gang. But neither the local lawmen, nor those of the county or the state would claim jurisdiction over the remotest and bleakest part of town that the Coyotes took over for their hideout, where nobody else dared to go.

So the people sent all the way to Kern County to hire a killer, the Big Man With the Iron, the one guy whose experience has trained him to think like the Coyotes, so he can go in alone, track them down and rub them out, one by one. They call him the Agriculture Kid.

It didn’t take the Kid long. All he had to do was gun down four or five of them. Who counts? The Coyotes being basically cowards and bullies got the message and left town. I hear they’ve been spotted in Huntington Beach and San Clemente. I guess that’s where I’d go if I were run out of town.

Very humble, too, the Kid. Rode into town, did the job, and rode away without even saying howdie or adios to the locals. - Can’t even be reached on the telephone. Who was that masked man?

And in the town, folks feel safer and happier, for now. And the faceless dead, the last remnants of an old breed that used to run wild and free in these parts, lie in a nameless grave in Boot Hill, wherever that is for this ilk. It’s to laugh.

On the move 10-18-2001 

As you read this, The Tustin News is moving from the Orange County Register building in Santa Ana, where it has been since 6 years ago, when the community paper was purchased by the Register.

When I tell you that The Tustin News is being transferred to the offices of the Irvine World News, our long –time competitors, you will readily understand the true meaning of all recent seismic upheavals.

Those weren’t true earthquakes, but really Old Bill Moses – Longtime editor and publisher of the Tustin News – spinning in his grave. The same phenomenon occurred about a year ago, when The Tustin News was transformed from a broadsheet into a toy tabloid paper. That decision was made without my blessing.

But here we are, a toy paper and on the move again. I don’t know how we do it, but with your continued readership and consistent advertising support, we are thriving. When they recently put in new carpeting in our office in Santa Ana, I suppose I should have seen the handwriting on the floor.

I thought it was pretty hard, six years ago, when the SS Tustin News sank, and we swam ashore here in Santa Ana.

We were 2.5 miles away from our Old Town Tustin office, but we did have a big picture window through which we could at least see Tustin.

The Irvine World News office is further from town, in an industrial area of that planned community (2006 McGraw Ave, Irvine).

Right now, I have trouble finding their office, but with time you’ll find me there, churning out Tustin stories and my two cents.

I just hope I can have a desk over there – and a window view wouldn’t be bad either.

It is a different area code than most of Tustin and even our phone and fax numbers will have been changed by the time you read this.

At the last minute, I was able to find out what they will be. These are our lifelines to the community.

Best, I suppose, to look for the silver lining.

The ranks of journalism today are riddled with vegetarians, teetotalers, yuppies, computer geeks and survivors of Dungeons and Dragons.

Maybe it’s to my advantage that I am being exiled to a foreign colony that contains fewer of them.

Sometimes it’s hard to take my own advice and remember…it’s to laugh.

A modern affliction 11-1-2001 

I’d like to indulge the opportunity that this stage affords me by addressing one of my pet peeves about modern life. What constantly peeves me about the modern world is that incompetency seems to have become the accepted norm.

I have always striven to be the very best I could be at what I do, whatever that may be. It’s an ethos that’s been driven into me, I suppose, by my mid 20th century upbringing. But today’s standards seem to simply rely on getting by with whatever it takes to qualify for the paycheck, with no regard for the virtues of quality and excellence that, at one time, used to be the cornerstones that marked your service or product a cut above the mundane.

How does this come to be?

I’ll start with education. I remember when my niece was 11 or 12, and her history teacher assigned the class to come to school dressed as their favorite character from history. My niece, obviously having something of myself rubbed off on her, came excellently costumed as the infamous gunfighter Doc Holiday. She earned great applause and a good grade, but her American history teacher had to take her aside after class and ask, Who is Doc Holiday?

I think he was a famous dentist in the Old West," my niece replied, feeling any further explanation might be too complicated.

There are commonplace examples of incompetence in the newly-inducted members of the working class. I recently ordered fish n’ chips at a fast-food seafood restaurant and was asked by a young acne-afflicted cashier, Do you want fries with that?

The plight of college students is not much more heartening. When I was a reporter at the Grand Canyon, all the concessions were run by the Fred Harvey Corporation, manned by college students recruited for summer jobs. One day there was a power outage, and all the restaurants had to be shut down because the cashiers did not know how to make change without the electronic machine to tell them. You see, their education did not leave them with the ability to add or subtract.

Recognizing my own incompetence at certain things, in light of recent rain warnings, I decided to spend the extra money to take my car to the dealership where I bought it to get my shabby windshield wipers replaced by experts. It took two of them more than an hour to do the job, and one of them was a manager.

Imagine my alarm when I realized I actually was not on Candid Camera.

My dear mother, who is constantly concerned with my health, as any competent mother would be I suppose, repeatedly wonders why I do not keep up with my schedule for medical and dental checkups.

How can I tell her…with my luck, my insurance would probably only pay for Doc Holiday. It’s to laugh.

Embrace anxiety 11-8-2001 

We live in anxious times, I know, but I think some Americans have to buck up a bit.

As Americans, it’s unseemly to cave in to anxieties as a direct response to insane murderers whose actions are designed to create that very response.

Freedom loses its meaning if you live in fear.

I saw on the TV news that, since Sept. 11 and the subsequent anthrax scare, the increase in anti-anxiety prescriptions filled in the New York area is 23 percent. Nationwide, the use of anti-anxiety drugs increased by 8 percent. The number of new prescriptions in the New York area increased by 20 percent.

It makes me sick to think of the smug satisfaction enjoyed by some low-life terrorists who read these statistics and agree that it shows that Americans are really made up of a bunch of pill-popping hedonists who, when times are hard, just take more drugs to make it all better.

I hate to think that it’s symptomatic of Americans to handle their mail with a doggie-do bag or swarm into stores like locusts, denuding all the shelves of gas masks and Ciprin. (more pills!)

Hey, guys! Anxiety can be your friend; it keeps you sharp. Heck, I thrive on anxiety, so why would I pay good money to try something else?

It’s not enough to simply decorate everything in sight with American flags; we’ve got to walk the walk. In other words, don’t let them rob us of our lifestyle.

Learn to embrace anxiety and put it in its place and you will learn to live with it, without embarrassing your fellow Americans by letting it show. When you let it show, you’re playing their game by their rules.

Remember, it’s to laugh.

Red tape guards base 11-22-2001 

Not long ago, I reported in these pages the intentions of city officials to drape the city’s new monster-sized American flag on one of the gigantic blimp hangars on the former Tustin Marine base.

In keeping with the patriotic tempo of the times, a very forthright young Tustin High senior came up with the idea and got his neighbor to donate the flag to the city. There are few places a flag this size can be hung, so this young man thought, What better place to display it than one of the historic landmarks so closely tied to the most patriotic service to this country?

It could be a pillar of patriotic one-upmanship to all the passengers and crew of the commercial airliners that so bedevil Tustinites as they land at John Wayne Airport.

After all, if the flag can adorn every car, truck, SUV, house, trailer, condo, townhouse and outhouse in the nation, why not a military installation, even if it is out of business?

Everybody loved the idea. The flag was marched up and down Tustin streets and its imminent place of glory was proclaimed on high.

What better way for the latest generation to make up, in part, for the shameful reception given the vets of the Vietnam War, than to show its utmost support for the vets of this war in a way that demonstrates that most American of all philosophies, bigger is better.

But everyone forgot one simple fact, that the Navy, which still owns the vacant base is run on protocol. Protocol demands a mesmerizing allegiance that supersedes all public passions, patriotic fervor and the people’s need to feel as if they are somehow helping the cause. It brooks no exception.

It seems the Navy, which has cut off the electricity at the base, requires the city to illuminate the flag at night, either that or take it down each night. Since it requires a major amount of logistics to arrange to erect this massive symbol just once, doing it twice a day was out of the question. Operating big generators to light it up each night during the current energy crisis, was equally out of the question.

So…no flag.

This is just another example of the kind of red tape that surrounds the base like barbed wire and consistently delays its integration into the civilian community.

During recent events, I was frequently reminded of the old Marine maxim, Once a Marine, always a Marine.It seems that can be extended to say, Once a Marine base, always a Marine base.

It’s to laugh.

Turkey Thoughts 11-29-2001 

As I was embarking southward on I-5 on Thanksgiving morning, headed for the annual family homage to gluttony , I had plenty, of time to reflect on this solitary celebration that is probably the oldest American tradition there is.

My personal nature being what it is, my first thoughts about Thanksgiving were of the things I hate about it.

First, there’s the traffic. My brother’s house is in San Clemente, 30 miles away. With all the Pilgrims still on the road, it took more than an hour and a half to get there, with only a small cigar and an Altoid to sustain me. Even though I live in Southern California this kind of thing strips my nerves.

Next, there is football. My friends at Kelly’s Cigar Shop joke about my being born without the football gene, and I confess televised football leaves me flat. To me, it will take a back seat to intelligent conversation every time, if such can be found. I am quite content to have that particularly All American element absent from my DNA. Unfortunately it runs riot in my brother’s.

And last, there is turkey. Is there a law that says we have to gorge ourselves on the same coma-inducing fowl year after year? And what feat of tradition could infuse a family of six with enough greed to try to devour a bird the size of a bloodhound?

Comfort can be sought, it’s true, in comparison with those who suffered the first Thanksgiving. Half a world away from home; starving and freezing in a frightening unknown land inhabited by savages they didn’t trust, they found things to be thankful for. All I have to complain about are being stuck in traffic, having to endure football and being lulled into oblivion from an OD of tryptophan on my day off. You’re right I’m ashamed.

My take on history is this: The Puritans were kicked out of Europe because they were intolerant of any form of pleasure or fun. They were appropriately displaced to a wilderness where fun was in really short supply. The Indians, not realizing what wet blankets had just moved into the neighborhood, felt sorry for their helplessness and took pity on them.

As they celebrated together, giving thanks, the Indians could not know the long-term benefits of their new-found friendship, like small pox and venereal disease, as they introduced tobacco to the new comers, passing the pipe around the fire, teaching them to inhale deeply. Irony will get us all in the end. It’s to laugh.

Politicians at play 12-6-2001 

A brief word, if you will, about politicians.

I feel it would be a supremely appropriate occasion on the curious nature of this remarkable creature, since I just attended the party the city gives once a year to celebrate the changing of the guard, the rotation of the mayoral mantel.

For about 23 years now I’ve been interviewing politicians and would-be politicians, senators and sheriffs, judges, and governors, assemblymen, county supervisors, school trustees and presidents of ladies auxiliaries, who, believe me, can be particularly nasty.

Among the most amusing are city council members and mayors. One of the things that amuses me the most are these yearly cake-cutting fests. Over the years, the cast may change, but the scene remains the same. The smiles on everyone’s faces are as much a natural part of the scene as the catered egg rolls and the pristine icing on the city cake, creating an image of community unison and prosperity. Sometimes, they even have a string quartet, magically reminiscent of the court of Louis XVI.

I suppose, in this singular setting, I derive my amusement from the privileged relationship some journalists share with politicians. Off the record, they will share with us not only their attitudes toward current events, but their attitudes toward one another, with as much confidence as someone who believes theirs are the only secrets I keep.

On every city council there are alliances and animosities. I know what they are, and I know that politicians aren’t nearly as copacetic as they appear to be when they are cutting cake together.

I do not report it in these pages because this isn’t that kind of column, and this isn’t that kind of newspaper. For that same reason, in fact, that they appear to be in such accord, for the benefit of the community.

I do not always like them, and I know they don’t all like me, but we always get along and some are among my best friends. I enjoy their confidence and never betray it. Perhaps because politicians and community reporters have something important in common; they’re both in the confidence games.

It’s to laugh.

The true meaning of another birthday - Reflections from many candles 12-20-2001 

I just recently had a birthday, another in a long line of these yearly events.

Living alone affords me the luxury of being a reflective kind of guy, and what better occasion is there for the chronically introspective to feign validation than on one’s birthday – even if he wasn’t hard up for a column?

Remember when you were so young that you reveled at your birthday presents like a pig at feed?

Remember when this special day was special because it was all about you and all the cake and candles, all the cards, presents and attention, seemed a fitting celebration of your achievement at reaching another level of life, a higher notch of respect and its commensurate pride?

Well, I can barely remember that feeling but, since I can intellectualize the experience, I imagine it must have happened, and if you can relate to this birthday memory, I suppose it to be so.

I think the birthdays at which we felt the satisfaction of achievement reached their zenith at 18 and 21 (probably for legal reasons) and began to wane noticeably around 30, 40 and 50, sudden heart-jumping drops in the descending roller coaster of life.

It seemed like the climb would take forever, but the drop is way out of hand. I have a feeling things are going to get even faster.

I passed this birthday in the pleasant company of family, as I usually do, because they are the remnants of those who were part of the old birthdays and the pioneer elements of those who make up the new tradition. It’s the people who really make the whole thing.

As I blow out the discretely reduced number of candles on this year’s cake, I try to envision the long-haired hippie, bartender in downtown Detroit that I was at 21 and what he would think of the me he would become in 30 years.

First, off, he would condemn me for living past 30, the age at which everyone agreed no one could be trusted anymore.

He never read newspapers, except to find out what was on at the movies and couldn’t imagine a job as much more than a Band-Aid for the un-healing sore of unemployment.

As an aspiring writer, the prospect of a career in journalism would have astounded him in many ways, primarily disapproval of someone who would so sell out to the distrusted establishment.

I get a little queasy when imagining what this harsh young man would think about the graying hair and widening waistline to which he was condemned.

As the father of my current self, I’m sure he would react with furious disappointment at what I have become.

Ironically I would look upon him as a father would upon a son, with the patient understanding of hindsight and the mixed excitement and dread I feel for the experiences that must lead him to become me. I feel we are intimate allies in helping each other make the most of what is to come. Hope I’m ready, guess I’m not.

It’s to laugh.

Cop log is no Yule log 12-27-2001 

As you read this you already will have enjoyed Christmas in your own way. But I am writing this on Saturday night after working at the office all day. My city editor and long time friend, Jill Leach, and I are working through the weekend in order to be able to get the Tustin News done and still have time to spend our Christmases with our families.

The annual torture of shopping has been accomplished with a minimum of agony, just under the wire, with the swift and surgical help of a few associates well-selected for their talents and their proclivity for Christmas cheer, which I so often find elusive in myself.

Preparations complete for Operation Christmas 2001, I now apply myself to the more sanguine considerations of the cop log, the nasty little reports of the police blotter that chronicles the cavalcade of crimes that lie just below the surface of our community.

Sunday morning I’ll be scribbling these juicy tidbits into my little notebook to preserve them for posterity. What better place to ponder a whole new perspective on Christmas?

Several police officers I know have told me that crime always increases just before Christmas, especially car and home burglaries, and this is sharply reflected in the police blotter. The cops call it going shopping and at one time opened yearly substations at the Tustin Market Place around Christmas to prevent a rash of car break-ins for a cache of Christmas presents, sometimes already store-wrapped. Talk about your one-stop shopping. Well, maybe they’re busy or broke or just too cheap, but at least their hearts are in the right place, right? I don’t think so.

Even I understand enough about what the true spirit of Christmas is supposed to be like to know that these people don’t get it.

Nor the guy who recently made the log, for grabbing a coat from a local furrier and running off with it. I don’t care how good looking she is, pal, you just don’t get it (even if you do).

Already this week I saw an entry in which someone called the cops to come and write somebody a parking ticket because a car was parked more than 18 inches from the curb.

They knew it was more than 18 inches because they measured it with a ruler. I suspect they don’t get it.

Jill and I both remember years past, when a local woman had her mother visiting for Christmas. Perhaps unhinged by a frenzy of shopping, one day she suddenly felled her mother with a hammer and left her dead body at the foot of the family Christmas tree.

I think she really didn’t get it, but they put her in a place where they have meds for that, so I guess it’s okay.

I find myself fortunate to look forward to a relatively normal and crime-free) Christmas with my family.

To those who don’t get it I say, good will toward Men. That includes women and (what the hey, it’s Christmas) children too.

It’s to laugh.

A bachelor’s kind of New Year Eve 1-3-2002 

New Year’s Eve and no one to kiss; some traditions seem to go on forever. Many of the buddies I hang with at Kelly’s Cigar Shop are in the same traditional boat. Except the married ones, of course, but they can’t stay up until midnight. They’re too worn out from doing chores and taking care of kids on their time off, and they’re not allowed to get out much.

I remember one guy who told me his wife was threatening to sue Kelly for alienation of affection because he would sneak out once in a while to have a cigar or two with the guys at the shop, servitude being the price of domestic tranquility.

The great journalist, and one of my personal role models, H.L. Mencken, once said Bachelors know more about women than married men do. Otherwise they’d be married, too.

Of course, even the great Mencken sold out in the end, and I understand that, although he married late in life, it was a happy and successful union. Maybe that’s because his wife didn’t force him to give up his ever-present cigars and whiskey. Perhaps, back in those days, he even got away with not having to do the dishes and laundry, a different playing field altogether from todays.

There’s an old axiom that says,Scratch a cynic and you’ll find the rankest romantic underneath.

I have found that it seems to be a sign of the times that those who still harbor even one once of romanticism within their souls are the ones who end up alone. It seems the 21st century woman, although unwilling to give up professing a longing for men to reveal a more romantic nature would really trade it in a second for obedience and financial security.

Don’t get me wrong. Nobody respects and loves women more than I do, women in general and a few in particular. In fact, I respect women too much to ever pretend that I own one or, more importantly, to want one owning me.

I spent my youth in the era of free love and, while I don’t suffer the delusion that love is ever free, it sure was a lot easier to find. Whatever happened to just having a little fun together, without paying for it under the tyranny of visiting in-laws and a mortgage?

So, you won’t find me making any New Year’s resolutions to give up my little pleasures just because someone else thinks they’re unpleasant or not good for me. I find it very difficult to live up to the standards and expectations of other people, just to get them to like me. Until some horrible miracle occurs to make me care about that, I won’t even try.

Not having someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve is a small price to pay for a whole year of freedom.

But, you never know. Look what happened to Mencken. It’s pretty scary but it’s to laugh.

The tyranny of law 1-10-2002 

It’s that time of year again when the rules of the realm get just a little bit stricter, like the caress of an anaconda, slowly crunching the last breath of freedom out of the stupefied body of the populace.

It’s the first of the year when the feeding frenzy of last