All aboard. People I very much appreciate:

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Halloween Treat Enigma Solved!

My Halloween treat was sent to me this year by Daughter in Chicago. It was a very unusual-looking cupcake. Of course I knew I shouldn't eat it before the 31st. Don't know where this photo came from:
On closer inspection, I realize there was an unsuccessful attempt at ingestion which prudence disallowed. Hopefully, that will serve as my confection, I mean confession. The cupcake looked back at me:

Immediately reminded of a collection of favorite cartoons of the 1960s and 70s, I made a long arm at the kitchen reference shelf and retrieved an old number of Jayzey Lynch's "Nard 'n' Pat" --a favorite of the kids when they were little. It was about "the hope of th' world!"
One squeeze, and the enigma was made clear!
Happy Halloween Everybody, and may the hope of th' world strengthen with every poot.

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Autumn In Earnest

"Earnest?"


"Gah Wahnut imah mouf!"
"So I see, a walnut as big as your head. Need a break?" 
"Lemme pitidout down dere."
"Sure, but don't forget where it lands"
"'K, pitooie!"

 "Now, what do you want to talk about, Geo.?"
"Fear, I guess."
"What do you fear, Geo.?"
"Mortality, like most humans, penury, the clink."
"What is 'clink', Geo.?"
"A cage, a disgrace, the hoosecow, the pokey."
"Explain."
"When I gardened in high schools, there were obstacle courses essential to law and equity classes that had to be kept in order. Students were made to scale a 6-foot wall and drag a rag-dummy down decomposed granite tracks to a place where they practiced throwing it into the pokey." 
"I don't know "pokey", Geo."
"Happily, I don't either, E(a)rnest. But I've heard if you're under 7 feet tall you become somebody's 'bitch'."
"I thought you humans were far more humane."
"I wish we were, E(a)rnest, as do many humans, but despite copious literature advocating rehabilitation and general smartening-up, our greatest minds can suggest nothing more than..."
"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis?"
"Precisely, don't abandon your squirrel-ish scolding, your chattering welcome, your openmindedness and trust in instinct."
"Geo., you embolden me, but I can't do all that and remember where my nut is."
"Base of the stump."
"Oh yes, humans are good at remembering."
"Heaven help us, E(a)rnest, we are excruciatingly good at that."



Thursday, October 11, 2018

Why I Love Buddy Guy

I was out beside the busy road this morning, hauling the trash can and green waste bin back through our gate and up our little lane, when I saw a familiar face doing the same next house over,  then a familiar smile. D.W. doesn't live there, but his mother does --I help her when her pump goes flooey. D.W. does everything else. We waved and walked toward each other, met there in the gravel between highway and ditch and asked how each other was.

Hope you enjoy this compassionate song as much as I, down the years:Buddy Guy, "Done Got  Old"

He was the first kid I met when my family moved to the Vineyard area in 1959. He was 11 and I was 10. The little country school we attended had three grades to a classroom, so we saw each other all the time. 

Now we are somewhat older. He takes turns with other relatives to help his mom, so I glimpse him from time to time and had to ask how he was doing. 

He said, "Well, I had cancer two years back and open-heart surgery a few months ago."

I replied, "I had heart surgery 12 years ago and cancer over the summer."

"Well Geo.,"he said."We always did things backways around from each other."

"There was always some common ground, D.W. What've you  got now?"

"COPD."

"Hey, me too! Got an inhaler? A nebulizer?" 

"Yep and yep." 

"D.W., I've been repairing a bench out back and have to sit down every ten minutes."

"I been clearing mom's garage and doing the same thing. That's why I have a sit-down desk job now, Geo."

"That's why I retired...couldn't get a desk job."

We looked earnestly and happily at each other, then collided in a hug. Cars whizzed by, busy-busy-busy, while two old men embraced on a country road. All those frantic commuters --I hope such happy hugs are in their futures.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Looking Backward

In every small town, there's a town beneath the surface...and another town beneath that, etc. I was told that in a small town, by somebody yelling in a hole. I went to high school in that town a very very long time ago. Here is a photo of the class president giving the valedictorian address at commencement.
Excerpt: "Get out there and eat stuff!
                  Eat it RAW!"

"Rah, rah, rah!" We chorused, and the cheerleaders cheered, "Sis boom bah, eat stuff Rawwww!"

Although I am not accustomed to, or adept in the form of personal essay, this exercise in reminiscing has been helpful --having been troubled with something lately but forget what...oh yes, my memory.

I'll close with an admission. Memory and imagination are facets of the same living jewel. Whether I pulled my Jurassic  classmate up from the past or he pulled me down, is a subject still under discussion. To find out which or both of us small-town students were displaced, like principals in a fairytale --forgotten by the world-- consult the American Field Service records under "Temporal Exchange Students (prehistoric file)".