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Getting a Christmas tree and decorating it was a family tradition for Oxnard’s Dickensonian family, the Crachits – despite all that Mr. Scrooge might do to stop them. By golly, they’d get one, but they would need the advice of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard to accomplish their festive task.

On the meager lucre Ebenezer C. Scrooge paid him, Bob Crachit was losing hope of getting a tree for Christmas. It was for Timothy’s sake. His youngest, a diminutive buck-toothed lad in dire need of a charitable orthodontist, was reduced to a limp and walked with an odd little cane. He was afflicted with Goober’s Palsy, a degenerative illness said to be nearly always fatal since the economic collapse of ’07, when the cure for it had supposedly been lost. “Tim,” an intuitive child of eight years, seemed to know he might die someday, but was constantly embarrassing the Crachits by blurting, “I got Goobers!” with the regularity of a metronome.

“Why must I work on Christmas Day this year?” asked Bob Crachit.

“Because it falls on a Friday, and that’s a weekday,” replied the irascible Scrooge.

But the next day, a neighbor, Mr. Alfred C. Nice to be precise, gave a tree to the Crachits after hearing of the family’s plight.

“It’s for you, Tiny Tim,” the generous benefactor told the usually mild-mannered youngest child in the privacy of the Crachit’s humble parlor.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” hissed the palsied boy.

Timothy was to rue those incongruously hostile words spoken on the eve of Christmas Eve. As the festive decorating of the tree advanced to its denouement, and Tim was hoisted up into the air above his father’s scrawny shoulders, the boy slipped while preparing to place the star, and was painfully, if not fatally, impaled through his tender belly. “Oh Christmas tree!” the buck-toothed boy screamed. At this point, with a trip to the nearest emergency room imminent, Bob Crachit needed reassurance and Christmas cheer in the worst way. So he called his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, to see if “Christmas tree impalings” were covered under his family plan. As the family eagerly listened, he received his answer.
“Oh yes they are!” he exclaimed upon hanging up the phone.

Later, after being stitched up, Tim Cratchit brought them all back to reality. “God bless everyone,” the palsied boy said with a cookie cutter elfish grin, followed by the inevitable, “I got Goobers.”

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Larry Kowalski had been a surfer and still enjoyed swimming in the Pacific. But when it wasn’t summer, the days were depressingly shorter, and Larry asked his California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard if his policy covered Freudian psychiatric care. As for the demise of his son’s pet turtle, that just wasn’t at the core of his sadness.

Larry loved summer. He preferred that halcyon season to last forever, an endless array of longest days spent frolicking in the California surf & sun. Every year was the same. The days grew shorter. He didn’t surf anymore now that he was approaching fifty and a friend of his had been eaten by a supposedly friendly great white shark down near San Diego. But he still swam in the Pacific, albeit cautiously. As summer waned this year, and with the death of Algernon, his son’s pet turtle, he felt especially saddened. At the turtle’s funeral in the cathedral amid a multitude of mourners, some of them prominent veterinarians and circus performers, Larry realized he needed help — a Freudian psychiatrist’s talk therapy. He knew at that moment that Algernon was the last thing on his mind, but he still cried.

That very afternoon, Larry phoned his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, who was also a friend. If anyone would understand, it was Matt. “Hi Matt, I was wondering if my policy covered my seeing a therapist for depression, preferably someone I can talk to in regular sessions, does it?”

Matt Lockard paused to ponder in his characteristic way. “You want to see a shrink?”

“Yes,” Larry admitted, “one of those Freudian guys.”

“I think so,” said Matt, “It’s under psychiatric services. Sure.”

Matt was also there to listen. “I heard about Algernon’s death,” the California Health Insurance agent consoled, “It was in the paper. Your family must be devastated.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Larry admitted.

“What is it then?” Matt queried suspiciously, suddenly a bit perplexed and truth be, maybe a trifle angered at his friend’s obvious lack of empathy. How could Larry be so callous? Didn’t everyone in California love that amazing little reptile?

“I do miss Algernon, and I realize how much he meant to my son and to everyone else apparently, but I just realized that what’s making me sad is seasonal. I love summer, those long days spent frolicking in the Pacific surf, I still swim …”

“And now suddenly it’s over. Summer’s over. I understand completely,” Matt said, starting to grow misty-eyed himself when he realized the enormity of what had been lost.

“I still swim,” Larry repeated, and both men began sobbing.

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Mabel Mobry, a hippie centenarian from San Francisco, wondered if she had the freedom to get a prescription for medical marijuana under her 2010 Medicare Advantage PPO plan, so she phoned her trusted California Health Insurance agent to find out.

Mabel Mobry, still spry after surviving for exactly a century, pined for the days when she could get high with reckless abandon before all those Draconian blue laws gummed things up. When she was younger, she’d gone to Woodstock and heard Jimmy Hendrix play the national anthem. She relished her infamous pot parties, toking up and going straight to the bong, and getting a buzz. She’d married a man named Buzz, her third husband, as a way to immortalize those halcyon days, but he’d died in the bicentennial year, 1976, and that was a while ago. But now, in 2009, the pendulum was swinging back. Downtown and in the suburbs, marijuana was alive again, quasi-legal, if you used it for medical purposes. Stores sold it openly, if you had a prescription from a doctor. But Mabel was quite healthy for a centenarian. “I don’t feel a day over 94,” Mabel said to her cat, Woodstock, a white Angora that liked to party. What could she do to get her bong out again, a relatively law abiding old lady’s simple pleasure?

Suddenly she had a brilliant idea, concerning her 2010 Medicare Advantage plan, the documents comprising it just sitting on the blue kitchen table getting dusty. Rock music started pounding in her head, Led Zeppelin playing some sort of anthem. She felt the freedom to act like Buzz’s warm caressing fingers remembered. He was her favorite husband when it came to physicality. Ring, once was all it took as her trusted California Health Insurance agent, a devout liberal thank God, picked up.

“Mrs. Mobry,” he said, sounding like a cherub although he had to be at least sixty, “What can I do you for?” A free spirit, the guy liked the freedom to juxtapose. He was humming the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem.

She came straight to the point. Woodstock was listening and nodded his approval. “Can my 2010 Medicare Advantage plan incorporate a prescription for medical marijuana? Would such treatments be covered?”

“Do you have any medical conditions that might apply?” asked the cherubic California Health Insurance agent.

Mabel thought about it, but didn’t want to lie. “I might be going blue blind,” she said, shading the truth just a mite, as she could still see well enough to watch the Freedom Bowl parade on television, with its colorful anthem playing.

“That might do,” said the cherubic agent, “That just might do you.”

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

Geronimo Jones believed that he’d been abducted by aliens, but his delusions didn’t end there. He went so far as to call a California Health Insurance agent to see if he’d be charged for their “very thorough” probes.

Thirty-four year old Geronimo Jones, hypochondriac and confirmed cheapskate, was lying in bed painfully pondering. He’d been plagued by headaches and this one was a “doozy.” Tylenol hadn’t helped. Geronimo’s split-level ranch in Modesto recently had an alarm installed; he’d gotten a deal. Drifting off to an anguished sleep, Geronimo possibly awakened; he wasn’t sure, instead of a clanging alarm he heard only silence, and was taken, by what appeared to be silver-throated aliens, at least several – one wearing a funny extraterrestrial baker’s hat. Up to the mother ship he possibly went, he wasn’t sure exactly how, it didn’t involve diesel. He lay on a metallic table unable to move anything but his pinkies, staring at what appeared to be a photograph of a cat; it probably had fur.

The probing began. One alien seemed to have a medical background, and was evidently very thorough. It felt very good; whatever he was doing. But a weird voice oozing out of an orifice that might have been the creature’s mouth suddenly blasted Geronimo out of his reverie like a Buck Rogers laser beam. “Do you have Earthling coverage?”

The next morning, Geronimo Jones for the first time in a year didn’t have a headache but was having a panic attack. “Are those aliens crazy? I didn’t ask to be admitted to their mother ship. Are they going to charge me for treatment?”

Geronimo charged. Impulsively, he put in a frantic call to his California Health Insurance agent. Ring. Ring. Pick up, pick up. “Yes,” said the agent, a woman with a pleasant feline voice, akin to a human purr.

“This is Mr. Jones.”

“Geronimo from Modesto?”

“Yes. It happened last night.”

“What?”

“I was abducted by aliens.”

“Again?”

“This time they want to charge me for the medical care. Can they do that?”

The cat-like agent was quick on her feet. She pounced. “Yes, if they call me, they actually can. But they’ll have to call me.”

Geronimo felt calm again. Thinking it over, he felt like he’d made out like a bandit. More importantly, he didn’t have a headache.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

Amelia Nosehart liked to fly through the malls to get a head start on Christmas. But a policy she’d purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard literally helped save her sight when “shopping” went horribly wrong.

Amelia Nosehart’s favorite day of the year was the day after Thanksgiving when Rancho Bernardo shoppers could get a head start on their Christmas shopping with early bird specials. Retail stores in neighboring burbs would open at two, three, four, five a.m. in efforts to woo obsessed shoppers just like Amelia. But at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe what should have been a touch exotic, as 3:37 a.m. sprees go, almost turned deadly.

The chain store’s “exotic reptile” section was selling “baby spitting cobras” for an amazing $1.99 each. As Amelia joined the crazed throng of “early birders” she knew she had to have two or three of the venomous little critters, assuming they’d been defanged of course, as pets for her nephews Josh and Andy, both notoriously difficult to buy for. As Amelia nearly “flew” through to the front of the frenzied crowd of typical Black Friday bargain hunters, a glass case accidentally cracked open in the madness and she heard a slight “hsst” and felt excruciating pain in her left eye, the one with astigmatism.

Rushed to the nearest hospital for obligatory anti-venom treatment and eye cleansing, Amelia was obliged to stay overnight as a precaution, and called Matt Lockard, her friendly California Health Insurance agent at his office in Ventura, just to let him know what had happened at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe.

“Matt. Guess who this is? It’s Amelia. I’m in the hospital,” she said.

He kind of recognized her. “Like the legend?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said, “Guess what happened to me on Black Friday.”

“What?” he asked, remembering the policy he’d sold her just a few months back, covering just about any kind of emergency.

She provided the gory details, about the crowds, the frenzy, the early morning madness, and the baby snakes for her nephews.

“You’re lucky you can still see out of that eye,” Matt opined.

“I can’t at the moment. They gave me a patch. It’s still light-sensitive.”

“Oh,” Matt said, “but you sound so happy.”

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” explained Amelia, “Ye Olde Pet Shoppe not only gave me the baby cobras for free, they threw in an EXTRA pair. They’re all in my semi-private room with me now in a convenient ‘holiday’ Plexiglas case. Josh and Andy are going to be absolutely thrilled!”

“I hope they have been defanged,” Matt offered.

Amelia squinted, feeling a twinge.

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Twelve-year-old Gifford Sullivan was asked to raise a turkey for his family’s Thanksgiving dinner and … his turkey became a pet. Because of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, the disaster that ensued was not made infinitely worse.

Gifford loved his turkey. No, literally. Gifford loved his turkey. A Sullivan family tradition was to have the eldest child raise a wild turkey that would, at the appointed time, a few days prior to Thanksgiving, be sacrificed as the family’s dinner. “Don’t get too attached to that turkey, Giff,” his mom tried to tell him, but such an admonition was useless. The animal-loving twelve-year-old had come to consider Isabelle (yes, the boy had already secretly named the hen turkey purchased to be slaughtered) a member of their family and a cherished pet. Every morning before school he’d gone into the turkey’s pen in the backyard of the Sullivan’s Oxnard home to feed, clean up after, and otherwise nurture the growing fowl; he was conniving for a way to somehow save “Isabelle’s” life.

Gifford’s siblings Wayne and Toby were relatively indifferent to Gifford’s conflict. “That turkey is going to be the best Thanksgiving meal ever,” teased ten-year-old Wayne, “it’s better than any store-bought butterball.” Nine-year-old Toby was even worse in his way, tormenting his older brother while acting innocent as a sacrificial lamb. “Which part do you like best? I go for drumsticks,” he taunted. Gifford would run off sobbing to the sanctuary of Isabelle’s backyard pen, to hug the bewildered turkey.

Finally, the execution day came. Godfrey Sullivan raised the axe beside the chopping block which was also in the Sullivan’s backyard, and just as the horrific scene with the turkey caught in the vise …
Gifford ran headlong toward his father, his only thought to rescue Isabelle as the axe was raised at the proper angle and began descending …

The axe fell and the boy screamed. Blood gushed everywhere. The family headed toward the nearest hospital’s ER, protected only cost-wise by a convenient family health plan sold to them the previous year by California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Gifford developed amnesia after the accident. “Did you get enough to eat?” his mom asked.

“Yeah, mom, but I got a question. How come I had to have veggie burgers instead of turkey like everybody else?”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

California health insurance agents pay homage to Charlie Brown’s comic strip deity.

In the legendary comic strip “Peanuts,” created by the late Charles Schultz, Shultz’s young hero Charlie Brown celebrated Halloween in a pumpkin patch where The Great Pumpkin sat. The cartoon boy with an “every boy’s” persona would ask the Great Pumpkin arcane questions about life; and in a manner of being, the inanimate orange harvest veggie assumed the stature of an odd deity – or at least a sage in the tradition of certain gods transported from Greek Mythology.

As a religion, such a pumpkin cult has its merits, and in these days of strident calls for health care reform, certain California Health Insurance agents have taken to visiting pumpkin patches in search of their own personal Great Pumpkin that may exist in the nether regions between Visalia and Fresno. For days the search for this orange quasi-deity has continued unabated, but although some giant spheroids, many with black features painted on them like human faces, have been located, none as of yet can be considered sacred or wiser than others culled from among their brethren.

“Where this Great Pumpkin resides…” proclaimed an excitable agent from the environs around San Bernardino, speaking aloud but in very muted tones, “makes him liable to be an oracle able to speak in tongues, or to offer wisdom, perhaps possessing a fluency understandable only to those who sell policies for every conceivable need, including but necessarily limited to the occasional health-related whim.” This agent soon attracted a considerable following with such talk, and the second Cult of the Great Pumpkin was born.

Finally, as All Hallows Eve approached, a sacrifice was needed, and bands of gathering California Health Insurance agents began roaming the entire state like insurance-minded dervishes. Choosing a suitable Great Pumpkin, even for pie, proved to be a dangerous undertaking once the attention of the real Great Pumpkin was attracted, and soon chunks of familiar faces began turning up everywhere, during the night and especially once the sun was up. In fact, the most introspective California Health Insurance agents, imitating Charlie Brown in a wondrous reincarnation of animated perpetual boyhood, began sitting Buddha-like in sundry patches all over California. Finally, an unfortunate California Health Insurance agent was indeed mistaken for that very orange veggie he’d been searching for. It was bound to happen.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

A lack of sleep compromises our immune systems and makes us more susceptible to colds and flu. A California Health Insurance agent is there for you so that you can sleep better.

Autumn is not only holiday season, with year-end delights beckoning, it’s also “cold and flu” season, which fewer people choose to celebrate. Instead of Thanksgiving turkey and yams, and Halloween treats, think vitamin C and Echinacea. But what about sleep – not getting enough can suppress the immune system and create a likelihood of sickness.

As any California Health Insurance agent can tell you, poor sleep habits and susceptibility to colds and influenza go hand-in-hand – much like a germ-spreading handshake. Sleep, its quantity and especially its quality, can play a role in maintaining the body’s defenses.

In a recent study conducted by the Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists tracked 153 men and women for a fortnight (two weeks), monitoring the quality and duration of sleep that these experimental subjects experienced. Next, during a five-day follow-up, the subjects were quarantined and exposed to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of less than seven hours a night, it transpired, were three times more likely to become ill as those who slept for at least eight hours.

Sleep and immunity are apparently interrelated. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce increased levels of disease-fighting white blood cells, but not red blood cells — even though both kinds of cells are produced in bone marrow and are derived from identical precursors.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have demonstrated that “good-sleeping” species resist pathogens (germs) with a special resilience.

California Health Insurance agents specialize in selling customized plans that allow their customers more sleep, as well as a better quality of REM sleep that facilitates dreams. If it’s known that you’re not sleeping enough, run; don’t walk, to the nearest office of a California Health Insurance agent before you catch a cold or flu bug. Celebrating the holidays is a lot more fun if you’re not sick – but if you do become ill, you’ll have the right coverage.

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

Jimmy Malcolm, age 12, epitomized the word “brat.” He blithely ignored the lifeguard at the county pool. But when Jimmy’s mother and the repentant boy went in to thank California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, he was as pleased as the Malcolm family that they’d purchased a suitable group policy.

The lifeguard, Freddy Feldspar, was getting really annoyed. This kid epitomized the word “brat,” a 12-year-old man-child in the promised land of the Oxnard Community Pool making the lifeguard screech and bark incessantly. “No running!” yelled Feldspar at the careless boy who kept dashing to and fro, along the sides of the pool, skidding on the wet surface in his bare feet, jumping in and quickly out again in some frenetic rabid dance of pubescent energy, “Can’t you see the signs?”

But Jimmy Malcolm wasn’t paying attention to the signs or to the clearly annoyed lifeguard, a college age red-haired man who made little impression on the energized boy. Jimmy looked at him once or twice, but his expression was one of indifference, perhaps even a mild disdain. Unfortunately, the signs were there for a reason, as such behavior on the part of errant boys is an accident waiting to happen. Jimmy kept it up at breakneck speed, his soles wet and slippery, running and dashing, diving into the crowded public pool, and then climbing out and beginning his mad dashes all over again. The 12-year-old escaped a mishap for perhaps longer than he should have, his feet barely in control along the wet tiles, but then the inevitable happened.

“No running!” Freddy Feldspar cried out one last time. The words had barely emerged from his lips when the inevitable transpired. Everyone at the pool saw Jimmy slip and fall, and scrape the skin off his right ankle when he did. Five stitches and an urgent care facility visit later, a more contrite Jimmy Malcolm and his mother Madge went to see California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard in his office a few days later, “My son and I just wanted to thank you for selling us that small business policy last year,” she said, “It came in very handy a few days ago.”

“Oh?” queried Matt spying a rather obvious protective bandage around young Jimmy’s sandal-cloaked right ankle. “So what happened?”

Jimmy spoke shyly, almost as if a tabby cat had gotten his tongue. “There was this lifeguard …”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

Jack DeVries was an expert at making gates for fences, but erecting entire fences was beyond the scope of his expertise. For reasons peculiar, he felt the same way about health insurance, and California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard had a solution.

They were everywhere. Dotting the grasslands of California were vestigial gates, the beginnings of fences, thousands of such ethereal structures acting as portals to emptiness. These creations were made by one Jack DeVries, an artist hailing from Modesto. One day the quasi-celebrity strolled in to California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard’s office. “I was expecting you,” Matt said.

“I’ve heard of you,” DeVries said.

“And I of you,” countered perhaps the most celebrated California Health Insurance agent in all of Ventura.

The obvious question hung in the air. Why does DeVries do it? Leave so much to the imagination, unfenced, leave gates constructed that anyone could walk around in a few steps, and well, just enter.

The answers began pouring out of Jack DeVries’s gob, a trickle of words that grew into a torrent. DeVries spoke of a fixation, a fetish if you will, and perfection spent entirely with every detail tended to: To Jack DeVries, the Devil was indeed in the details, trapped in the gate. The artist’s only stipulation was that his gates be wooden.

It was then that Matt Lockard learned that the maker of stranded gates felt similarly about insurance. “I need a plan that is like my lovely gates,” the artist voiced in an odd creaking tenor that reminded Matt of a gate opening wide enough to let a health insurance salesman in.

Matt knew instantly what the man desired in his heart of hearts. “Oh, you must want a PPO Plan,” he said simply, a bit like Yoda in that movie.

Jack DeVries smiled a gate-like grin, and this time when he pursed his lips they made a creaking sound.

Matt Lockard had known immediately that a PPO bore a certain similitude to the gates. Although without accompanying fences, these unfinished structures were precisely perfect in every nuance, just as a PPO tailored to Jack DeVries would feature the masterpieces of physicians specializing in every aspect of a certain artist’s personal health care.

“That’s exactly what I need,” Jack DeVries croaked again, “How did you know?”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.