Bliss

What others are saying about Bliss

This book is fun to read. Most chapters have a belly laugh for the reader.

--2008 North Texas Book Festival Award Winner

"I could definitely see a TV show along the lines of My Name Is Earl crossed

with The Office and a smattering of Friday Night Lights."

--Liz Atherton, owner, TAG Talent

Bliss

by

Jeff Lyon

A fictional tribute to my City Hall cohorts in Lewisville, Texas…

Smashwords Edition, October 2009

Copyright © 2005 by Jeff Lyon

All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Jeff Lyon

Jeff Lyon at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

CHAPTER 1

BLISS GROWS UP

Bliss was a sleepy little farming town located a safe but accessible distance north of the sins and iniquities associated with a big city like Dallas. Bliss was a place you drove through on your way to somewhere else. Then a steady influx of commuters began moving their families to Bliss where they could afford bigger houses on bigger lots than in cramped Dallas. Parents wanted to raise their children in the relative security of this tiny hamlet and experience its easygoing lifestyle with a rural flavor. The land started out cheap, the people were friendly and living was good.

Along with the migration of the masses came their constantly increasing needs. Building more sewer lines to carry away their flushables resulted in a bigger pookey plant to deal with them at the other end. More water lines were needed to keep all those newly sodded lawns green and a bigger water plant was needed to deliver the goods. More cars would necessitate wider roads and better lighting. More leisure time away from the stresses of the Metroplex would require more parks and recreational facilities. More of this and more of that would continue to be added until Bliss grew into the very place all the new residents were running away from.

City government blossomed right along with all the unbridled growth of public amenities and new businesses. Government feeds off its people, is ever expanding and never shrinks. City Hall in Bliss was no exception.

I entered the picture at the dawn of the building boom in the mid 80s. That building boom never really ended and managed to blur the lines between Dallas and its northern suburbs all the way to the Oklahoma border.

I began my city career in the Bliss Health Department, which was located in a historic, two-cell jailhouse in the part of the city called Old Town. There was a Chief Health Inspector, two regular Health Inspectors and a shared secretary in our tiny, red brick edifice.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays the County Health Department sent registered nurses to vaccinate children in our jail. They administered shots required for children to attend public schools for a fraction of the price being charged by family doctors.

Long lines would form out the front door and down the street as the beginning of each new school year approached. The faces of happy, smiling kids who had been playing together in front of the building would cloud over with apprehension when they entered the miniscule reception area only to be confronted with screaming, crying children who had been freshly needle stabbed being dragged down the hallway and out the rear exit. I gladly vacated my office for the duration of these bi-weekly events.

Sharing parking on the same lot with the Health Department was City Hall, The Library and a Fire Station. By the end of the 80s, a huge new Civic Center would be constructed across town on Main Street with lots and lots more tax consuming employees to staff it. In ten short years Bliss would attract big businesses and the population would swell from twenty-five to sixty thousand inhabitants. Rampant growth was a living thing that was going to happen with or without City Hall’s stamp of approval.

Ms. Beaula Irons was running the show from that old City Hall before the big move to the shiny new structure across town. She demanded complete loyalty from her city employees and they got the same in return from her. Ms. Beaula governed in the classic good ole boy style where deals were done over breakfast at the local Eggs & More eatery and reports were given orally from Department Heads and regular staff in her open-door office. Nobody crossed Ms. Beaula and got away with it. She could make or break your project or career with a whisper and smile while you and your dreams faded out of the picture.

Ms. Beaula succumbed to cancer, which was the only thing in Bliss that wasn’t afraid to disagree with her. Bliss hired a new city manager from a blossoming municipality on the eastern seaboard who came to town to promote growth and build bigger government. His name was Dick Darling and his managing style could not have been farther from Ms. Beaula’s.

Dick added upper layers to all the city departments and only chiefs were privy to his company. Reports would all be written and then rewritten until Dick was happy with them and Bliss City Council members could easily grasp their gist. There was a new boss in town and he had no time for the minutia of day-to-day routines that occupied the time of city workers at the lower end of the pay scale. Department heads were expected to take care of petty problems before they reached Dick’s ears or pay the price for failure.

The Big Belly Boys who had operated one-man departments became Department Heads with real staff numbers and were thrown into the game with out-of-town professionals to sink or swim. The new Civic Center meeting rooms filled with uncomfortable rubes in new ties, dress shirts and suits pitted against corporate expansion pros looking for cheap land and easy access to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Egos got bruised and the learning curve shot straight up as many of the old school administrators were forced to dig through parts of the codes and ordinances they’d adopted but never read to come up with answers for eager developers. City slickers faced off with small town yokels, and the subsequent song and dance was a wrestling match with a liberal dose of smoke and mirrors. It was an ostentatious display and quite entertaining.

When the day came to move into the new Civic Center the word came down the line that each department was expected to move its own files to the new building. We would do this on a Saturday and like it. A lot of feathers were ruffled and the grumbling on moving day was not eased when those of us who had occupied our own offices in older buildings found ourselves elbow-to-elbow in cubicles outside our Department Head’s spacious new offices. There was dissension among the ranks that were promptly told they could hit the bricks if they didn’t get with the new program. Nobody quit.

Those heady days of explosive expansion have provided me with the grist for many humorous tales. My accidental career in city government was a hoot. Back we go to those innocent times when heading to jail in the morning meant working for the Bliss Health Department.

CHAPTER 2

I NEVER INTENDED TO BE A HEALTH INSPECTOR

I attended college a few miles up the road from Bliss in the late 70s. My folks lived on the edge of Dallas, and Bliss was just a crossroads with a smattering of car lots and filling stations on my way home to get laundry done on weekends. Bliss certainly held no attraction for a college-age raconteur.

Few things stir pride in a father’s heart like the announcement by his freshly graduated son that he is taking his spanking new degree to Colorado to be a ski-bum for a season. That ski season turned into four years and a volume of misadventures unto itself. A visiting buddy persuaded me that it was time to get a real job and give up the mountain mischief that had become my way of life. I took a hard look at the lifer ski-bums around me and decided he was right.

My buddy worked for one of those massive package delivery companies. He was doing quite well and would see about getting me a job. A great deal of correspondence and phone conversations later I was back in the Dallas area to start a genuine career. For reasons that still elude me a youthful indiscretion that I had been forthright and open about from the very beginning with all the people involved with my prospective employment suddenly became an insurmountable problem just days before I was to start my new job. After moving 900 miles with the lack of savings you would expect a ski-bum to possess, there would be no job delivering the world’s packages door-to-door for me.

Another college chum, Bruce Manns, got wind of my plight and called to say that he was working for the City of Bliss and they had an opening in the Health Department for the summer season. The pay was not great, but it would tide me over while I continued the quest for the ever-illusive real job.

Bruce set up an interview with the Chief Health Inspector, Rex Flint, and I drove to Bliss to meet my new boss. Pam Hayes, the real head of the Health Department and Rex’s secretary, greeted me inside the miniscule jail’s door. Pam was grandmotherly at first blush, but I learned quickly that crossing her was a mistake. Pam looked up from her pile of immunization forms, smiled and said, You must be Ross. Get yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat. Mr. Flint will be with you in a minute.

I went into the first room down the hall she had pointed to and got my initial taste of Health Department sludge. Rex Flint was a chain smoking, non-stop coffee drinker and the pot was left on all day. It was now early afternoon and I was sure the foam cup I poured the viscous elixir into would disintegrate on contact with the hot muck. I was looking for a plant or sink to pour it in when Rex entered to fill his cup.

Rex looked disappointed at the meager amount of coffee left stewing in the pot, but he drained it into his stained cup and said, Pam, we need more coffee.

He turned to leave, stopped, looked back at me and asked, Are you my two-o’clock?

I replied, I’m Ross Ryan, if that’s your two-o’clock.

Rex put his cigarette in his mouth, shifted his coffee cup to his left hand and stuck out his right hand to shake mine. Through a cloud of exhaled smoke he mumbled, Glad to meet you. Let’s go in my office and talk.

Rex’s office had no windows and the walls were covered with cheap, dark wood paneling. His desk barely fit across the far wall and two plastic chairs had been squeezed in front of it. It was like walking into a large ashtray. The light fixture and ceiling above his head had yellowed from years of rising smoke. He chain-smoked throughout my brief interview and made me close the door when I entered his dungeon.

Pointing at the sturdier of the two chairs Rex said, Have a seat.

I sat down and handed him my resume. He looked it over pausing to look up at me from time to time and then tossed it into the heaping piles on his cluttered desk.

Rex took a huge drag on his cigarette and exhaled while asking me, So why do you want to work for the Bliss Health Department?

My eyes watered as I replied, Because I need a job.

Rex took another drag and said, You realize this is just a part-time job for the grass and weeds season?

I had no idea what the grass and weeds season meant, but I needed work and the money so I replied, Yes. I’m just looking for something to tide me over until I can find more permanent employment.

Rex thought for a minute, blew out an astonishing amount of smoke and said, Well, you’re overqualified for this position, but Bruce said you were a good man and I need someone to start next week. You’re hired. See Pam about your paperwork and come in Monday.

I stood quickly, shook Rex’s hand and bolted for the closed door in hopes of finding breathable air on the other side. Pam had just lit up a cigarette of her own and the little entry room closed in on me as I filled out the stack of forms to become a Bliss city employee.

My new job was to drive around town in an unmarked cruiser that had been cast-off by the police department and send letters to people who were in violation of the city’s ordinances pertaining to grass and weeds, unsightly material and inoperative vehicles. I had become the mom for an entire city. Clean that up now and I mean it!

Both full-fledged, full-time, state certified health inspectors on our staff considered it a great degradation to have to enforce the outdoor code violations. It seemed especially beneath them to have to venture into the more unsavory parts of town and work. Traditionally, the new part-time guy is thrown headlong into the offensive locations to do battle with the riffraff and that’s where I spent most of my time.

I would naively drive my shiny, unmarked, police cruiser into some broken-down neighborhood, stop in front of a dilapidated house and begin filling out a complaint form. The card or crap game being played in the carport or garage would break up with half the players hightailing out the back and over fences while the remainder of the group would appoint someone to stroll out and see what I was up to. On more than one occasion I was approached by undercover cops who would instruct me to get the heck out of there because I was mucking up their drug sting. For this I left Colorado!

I quickly learned to vastly broaden my definition of junk and refuse. A twenty-year old car on blocks with weeds growing out of the hood in the back yard was not an inoperative vehicle; it was an antique that was lovingly being restored. A faded couch with three legs and torn upholstery on the front porch was serviceable lawn furniture. One man’s trash as treasure almost always became my personal headache.

I once had a man arrested for not mowing his lawn. That may sound severe, but not to the neighbor who called it in because he could see the grass and weeds growing above the six-foot wooden fence that divided their back yards. When I went to check it out I could see the stuff growing over the fence from the street while seated in my car.

The home didn’t seem inhabited so I decided to open the side gate to get a look at this jungle. Behind the gate stood the biggest, mangiest, meanest looking mastiff I had ever encountered or hope to again. That dog had tunneled pathways through undergrowth and seemed most unhappy with his current situation. Fortunately, his shock at confronting me was just as great as mine to see him. In a panic I slammed the gate closed and ran for the safety of my cruiser. This provided great amusement for the watching neighbors.

The owner of this back yard run amok paid no heed to my letters and phone calls urging him to cut his grass. When he signed for my third and certified letter I wrote him a citation for ignoring me, which he also disregarded. Ignoring me was one thing, but ignoring the court got him arrested, jailed, fined and he still had to cut his grass.

When September rolled around one of the full-time health inspectors quit, which left an opening. My part-time job was over, but Rex, who I referred to as The Chief, liked my work and offered me the permanent position. I had enough science credits on my BA to qualify for certification and my six months on the job would count toward the state required one-year training period. All I had to do was take six weeks of classes, pass the state exam and the next thing you know I’m a Registered Health Inspector with the State of Texas.

The Holy Grail of a real job had yet to materialize and here was an offer that would pay the bills and provide full health care benefits. I’d become accustomed to telling the citizenry of Bliss to clean up their acts, so I signed on knowing I could keep searching for a career opportunity. I stayed with the City of Bliss for ten years, seven with the Health Department and three as the only Assistant Fire Marshal they’ve ever had.

CHAPTER 3

FRIDAY NIGHT KINGS

Friday nights during the season in Texas are dedicated to high school football. This is true throughout most of the United States, but the fever burns most fervently in north Texas and Bliss was no exception. The men and boys that participate in the games are the kings of Friday nights. A good high school football coach is revered in his community and a winning record puts his prestige over the top.

Students and parents alike adore gifted football players. Failing grades can be repaired or overlooked for promising athletes, much to the dismay of the brainier bunch in the student body. Cheerleaders, booster club members, coaches, trainers and anyone else associated with the football program gain immediate status elevation.

Bliss High School was the home of The Brawling Backwoodsmen in spite of the fact that Bliss had not been a heavily wooded, uncultivated, thinly settled area since the school existed. Outside of Bliss the team was referred to as The Bumpkins. Concerted communal drives