The Story of the Christmas Potato
Okay, December is here and so is the time to throw the holiday spud. Once again I'm on a mission to spread the custom far and wide. I guess this blog isn't the best way as nobody reads it. I'll not give up trying to let people know the joy that only comes with tossing and not hitting cars. One of the best things about moving into town is that there are lights everywhere. For me that is pretty neat. The kids are sort of bemused that we didn't spend bucks and bucks so we would have lights up to snuff and like the neighbors. Maybe next year.
I've already gotten reports from Manhattan, Riley county, Kansas where Marc Stratton and Sharlene Hunt's sister(gosh, I wish I could remember which one works with Marc) threw last Friday. As soon as our tree is decorated we will get a basket ready and keep some in the car to throw when the need arises. Down on 4th Ave there are some very nice displays and just around the corner in a window on !0th st. there for all to see is "a major award". Very nice. Read the story, throw some spuds and don't hit the cars. Remember every bit of Kinney Isaacs' story of the Christmas Potato is true. He is still the best imaginary best friend a guy ever had.
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
I've tried and tried to post the story here with all of the illustrations and I can't make it work. That's the problem with being stupid. So, I guess if you are interested you can use the link.
I will keep trying.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Hot lava and the devil's love
A thought occurs to me. While reading stuff over at the spud site, catching all the typo's and misspellings now that I can't fix them(still no word on being able to access the 100 buck a year account) I reread a thought Haidee had some time a few years back. Just how self absorbed does one have to be to think people want to make an effort to read the stuff you post on a blog? About as much as me I guess.
Honestly, I don't think about anyone reading my stuff. Part of me wants friends to read as it is a way to share stories and such w/o having to type it several times. I like typing. I find it soothing. When I type this stuff I can pretend I'm one of my idols like Cormac McCarthy and not bother with punctuation and a style manual. Art in his case just darn lazy in mine. I like getting the stories out of my head. Lots of stuff was written long ago and I never showed anybody. Whether I should or shouldn't have doesn't matter to me.
Here's the cool thing. I can. That's it. No more, no less. I have the ability to put my stuff out where anybody who wants to can look.
Before this moment in history if there was a budding writer, musician, or artist that wanted to share the work they worked so hard on, it didn't always get to happen. I look back at the energy Crager and I put into screenplays...people won' get to see the movies, not necessarily just because they weren't any good, we just didn't have the means. Technology allows this, it allowed Los Matatvacas, it allows anyone with Internet access to get their work out there. In a world were those that have want to separate themselves as much as they can from us that don't, technology gives all of us a smidgen of equality. Geez, what would Woody Guthrie have done if he'd had access to a web site. Talk about roll on buddy and this land is our land.
So, I'm going to post away. When the mood hits me I will hit the keys and see what shows up.
Still just tickles the crud out of me to see the words show up legibly in front of me.
Today's tidbit came from my driving around with expired tags and inspection stickers. The notion of a stipend or a big bag of money dropping from the sky has helped me in times of desperation to imagine how I'd prioritize things if I needed to. The obese lady is based on fact and some of the dialog as well. That's it. I'd never be able to create a phrase as great as hot lava and the devil's love no matter how hard I tried.
Hot lava and the devil's love...
I hate women, not all women, just the ones I can't stand. That isn't even really true. They make me angry. My wife, I didn't hate her until she didn't love me and decided the cool hip thing to do was run away with a history teacher. It wasn't even a hot buff coach slash history teacher that cared more about coaching than knowing that freedom riders existed before he was born and changed our society. It was a widowed history teacher about our age who had been hired during her first year as a principal. The paranoid me always thought Chet's hiring was just one aspect of a wide ranging adulterous conspiracy designed to leave me devastated and alone. The rational me never quite understood why it happened. Looking back I have been convinced that it was all my fault and that Melody was blameless only falling for the sweater wearing bald history teacher because of my lack of attention and his quick wit.
The me that is typing hates women. Again, not actually true, but as I'm typing it is a good thing Melody isn't over here filling my ears with her woes about Chet and his wandering eye. You soiled the bed so to speak, now lie in it. She does that some. Not the lie in bed, the complaining. Not a lot and not every time we see each other. Friends tell me, why do you put up with that, tell her to leave you alone. Why should you help her sort out a less than healthy relationship with the man who stole her from you, why? She's my wife, was my wife, whatever. When she was my wife she was as good a friend as you could get up until the sleeping with a subordinate which could get you fired if anyone had known about it before you switched buildings and spouses. What do you do?
Melody is why I can't really hate women. She was the one that proved to me you really can love women. She would marry me. Something I hadn't been able to convince anyone to do in 30 years. She was not my first love and hopefully won't be my last. She was easily in the top 5 more than likely top 3. Even now she's a pretty good friend. I'll help anyway I can. Not money, but everything else. Money is what got us into this mess. Melody continues to claim it was nothing I did that drove her away. She wasn't even driven away. It was just that Chet... and that's when I tell her, spare me.
I work but I don't have a career. I have a job that I do that I enjoy and that pays me enough to support myself. Melody was a teacher when I met her. After we'd been married three years she decided she wanted to be a principal. It would mean good things for us.It seemed like a good idea to me. The extra money would be nice. Summers would be long for a few years. There would be much late night studying but with that I could help. Melody wanted things, flashy pretty things that cost money a new job would pay for. We could have had them I guess. I could have freed up some of my stipend and put the money into circulation. I took care of the checkbook.I could have moved some money without her knowing. I was afraid. I was afraid of the questions about the origins of the money and why had I been able to live such a materialistically satisfying life with the job I had.
I get a stipend once a month for some work I do, did for the government. Pursuant to a legally binding agreement, that is just about as much as I can say about the stipend without jeopardising my receiving it. Let's just say it was a good thing not a bad thing and we really didn't need the money or honestly any money, as the stipend was guaranteed to take care of me until I no longer needed taking care of. For those and maybe other reasons I couldn't tell Melody about the stipend and she had to assume I'd make about 11 bucks an hour the rest of my life. In time, I'd planned to win a lottery or inherit money from an uncle I'd never met. The savings account containing the stipend funds could then be made public, we would have cash, and nobody need know it would still be coming in at the same ridicules rate. Sometimes legally binding agreements can be a good thing.
Melody was fast tracked through the administrator program and assigned a school much more quickly than we had expected. With the first paycheck she decided we needed a new car. When Chet had been assigned to her school he'd made a good impression. He was certified to teach history, math, and wood-shop. When his wife had passed, her estate had allowed him to just go to school for several years. He didn't need the job just as I didn't need mine. They had been a childless couple which left him with no responsibilities. Chet decided he wanted to be a teacher after watching a particularly moving, very special episode of Leave it to Beaver. Teaching was an experiment to him. He'd try it and see what developed. What developed was an affair, which caused a divorce, which the details of I don't want to talk about. It's done, it's over. I don't want to worry about it. I can live off my stipend and my alimony payment.
Yep, that's right. I think it a small price to pay for the school board not knowing just when a relationship started. Chet was reassigned his second year to another campus where his amazing skills were better suited. If I'm not mistaken he would be able to teach English, math, wood-shop, and nurse the babies of the high school mothers who used the campus daycare. After all, Chet is such an amazing man. After his transfer I found out about the two of them. Not sure if it is the easy way or the hard way. Melody just came out with it in a blurted ramble at supper one night. She'd already spoken to a lawyer and had everything figured out. I'd lose nothing but a wife. I got to keep everything else. I'm not sure if that was a bargain but it was what it was and what I got. Looking back if we'd known what rap was I could have recorded her speech and spliced it over music innumerable times and had just as healthy a career as any one of a dozen posthumous rappers.
Not two years later, I'm sitting in my basement typing this. I still do my job. I'm up to nearly 15 bucks an hour but it doesn't matter. I can quit whenever I'm bored. Maybe I'll remarry. Unlikely as in my line of work it isn't that often females see you as a good catch. Usually they tend to look the other way as if they've caught me picking at my nose. Cat Man said that was the best way to avoid the cops, picking your nose, as nobody wants to hold their vision on someone with a finger at work. Once when Melody and I were stuck in Christmas shopping traffic we both turned in a moment of cosmic synchronicity to catch the obese lady in the car next to us pull a holiday treasure from her nose, look at it, and then eat it. Our combined screams turned to laugh 'till you vomit laughter and on to become one of the most treasured and oft retold moments of our life together. Could be that says something about our marriage.
Another time at a restaurant while we outlined plans for a vacation in Oklahoma(relationship observation number 2) an unusual family was seated next to us. The parents were older with two children. One child sat quietly and read a book. The other seemed to have something wrong with him. I'm not one to judge, actually I am, but the kid just wasn't right. You could tell by the things he blurted out, his inability to sit still and the constant redirection of his parents. Also he was named Hobart. To me, branding a kid with that name damns him to a life of ridicule, taunting, and a disadvantage with peers from day one. It is rough enough to be nuts and then to be called Hobart. I can only hope it was a family name and not something two parents stewed over baby name books days to find. However, I feel certain the proud parents were overly excited when congratulating themselves on finding such a wonderfully chic name for a baby.
Hobart became progressively more agitated as his family waited on "Hi, I'm Heather" to bring the appetizer. The mother attempted to engage Hobart in conversation while waiting for his cheese sticks with blue cheese not red. Never bring me red. Red is bad. Red means bad things like bloody death and bones. Firetrucks are red because ladders go up to heaven and down to hell. I must have blue cheese not red. Red stands for the devil. I don't like the devil. The devil can get you and on and on and on and on until I found out the devil could shake you inside out into a bag of bloody skeleton bones that wants blue cheese not red.
I came very close to asking the staff to seat us at another table. I'd always liked red with my cheese sticks. Suddenly without warning Hobart slammed his fists on the table sending his jolly kids' cup flying off into space and causing the silverware to ring like a glen of fairy bells. The diners in our section turned as one even while trying to ignore the disturbance at the table next to us. When all eyes were transfixed his way in the unusual momentary restaurant silence Hobart blurted, "I hate women. Girls are just filled with hot lava and the devil's love."
That thought hung in the silence, frozen, floating long enough for the entire room to absorb the impact.
Maybe, Hobart wasn't so crazy after all.
Honestly, I don't think about anyone reading my stuff. Part of me wants friends to read as it is a way to share stories and such w/o having to type it several times. I like typing. I find it soothing. When I type this stuff I can pretend I'm one of my idols like Cormac McCarthy and not bother with punctuation and a style manual. Art in his case just darn lazy in mine. I like getting the stories out of my head. Lots of stuff was written long ago and I never showed anybody. Whether I should or shouldn't have doesn't matter to me.
Here's the cool thing. I can. That's it. No more, no less. I have the ability to put my stuff out where anybody who wants to can look.
Before this moment in history if there was a budding writer, musician, or artist that wanted to share the work they worked so hard on, it didn't always get to happen. I look back at the energy Crager and I put into screenplays...people won' get to see the movies, not necessarily just because they weren't any good, we just didn't have the means. Technology allows this, it allowed Los Matatvacas, it allows anyone with Internet access to get their work out there. In a world were those that have want to separate themselves as much as they can from us that don't, technology gives all of us a smidgen of equality. Geez, what would Woody Guthrie have done if he'd had access to a web site. Talk about roll on buddy and this land is our land.
So, I'm going to post away. When the mood hits me I will hit the keys and see what shows up.
Still just tickles the crud out of me to see the words show up legibly in front of me.
Today's tidbit came from my driving around with expired tags and inspection stickers. The notion of a stipend or a big bag of money dropping from the sky has helped me in times of desperation to imagine how I'd prioritize things if I needed to. The obese lady is based on fact and some of the dialog as well. That's it. I'd never be able to create a phrase as great as hot lava and the devil's love no matter how hard I tried.
Hot lava and the devil's love...
I hate women, not all women, just the ones I can't stand. That isn't even really true. They make me angry. My wife, I didn't hate her until she didn't love me and decided the cool hip thing to do was run away with a history teacher. It wasn't even a hot buff coach slash history teacher that cared more about coaching than knowing that freedom riders existed before he was born and changed our society. It was a widowed history teacher about our age who had been hired during her first year as a principal. The paranoid me always thought Chet's hiring was just one aspect of a wide ranging adulterous conspiracy designed to leave me devastated and alone. The rational me never quite understood why it happened. Looking back I have been convinced that it was all my fault and that Melody was blameless only falling for the sweater wearing bald history teacher because of my lack of attention and his quick wit.
The me that is typing hates women. Again, not actually true, but as I'm typing it is a good thing Melody isn't over here filling my ears with her woes about Chet and his wandering eye. You soiled the bed so to speak, now lie in it. She does that some. Not the lie in bed, the complaining. Not a lot and not every time we see each other. Friends tell me, why do you put up with that, tell her to leave you alone. Why should you help her sort out a less than healthy relationship with the man who stole her from you, why? She's my wife, was my wife, whatever. When she was my wife she was as good a friend as you could get up until the sleeping with a subordinate which could get you fired if anyone had known about it before you switched buildings and spouses. What do you do?
Melody is why I can't really hate women. She was the one that proved to me you really can love women. She would marry me. Something I hadn't been able to convince anyone to do in 30 years. She was not my first love and hopefully won't be my last. She was easily in the top 5 more than likely top 3. Even now she's a pretty good friend. I'll help anyway I can. Not money, but everything else. Money is what got us into this mess. Melody continues to claim it was nothing I did that drove her away. She wasn't even driven away. It was just that Chet... and that's when I tell her, spare me.
I work but I don't have a career. I have a job that I do that I enjoy and that pays me enough to support myself. Melody was a teacher when I met her. After we'd been married three years she decided she wanted to be a principal. It would mean good things for us.It seemed like a good idea to me. The extra money would be nice. Summers would be long for a few years. There would be much late night studying but with that I could help. Melody wanted things, flashy pretty things that cost money a new job would pay for. We could have had them I guess. I could have freed up some of my stipend and put the money into circulation. I took care of the checkbook.I could have moved some money without her knowing. I was afraid. I was afraid of the questions about the origins of the money and why had I been able to live such a materialistically satisfying life with the job I had.
I get a stipend once a month for some work I do, did for the government. Pursuant to a legally binding agreement, that is just about as much as I can say about the stipend without jeopardising my receiving it. Let's just say it was a good thing not a bad thing and we really didn't need the money or honestly any money, as the stipend was guaranteed to take care of me until I no longer needed taking care of. For those and maybe other reasons I couldn't tell Melody about the stipend and she had to assume I'd make about 11 bucks an hour the rest of my life. In time, I'd planned to win a lottery or inherit money from an uncle I'd never met. The savings account containing the stipend funds could then be made public, we would have cash, and nobody need know it would still be coming in at the same ridicules rate. Sometimes legally binding agreements can be a good thing.
Melody was fast tracked through the administrator program and assigned a school much more quickly than we had expected. With the first paycheck she decided we needed a new car. When Chet had been assigned to her school he'd made a good impression. He was certified to teach history, math, and wood-shop. When his wife had passed, her estate had allowed him to just go to school for several years. He didn't need the job just as I didn't need mine. They had been a childless couple which left him with no responsibilities. Chet decided he wanted to be a teacher after watching a particularly moving, very special episode of Leave it to Beaver. Teaching was an experiment to him. He'd try it and see what developed. What developed was an affair, which caused a divorce, which the details of I don't want to talk about. It's done, it's over. I don't want to worry about it. I can live off my stipend and my alimony payment.
Yep, that's right. I think it a small price to pay for the school board not knowing just when a relationship started. Chet was reassigned his second year to another campus where his amazing skills were better suited. If I'm not mistaken he would be able to teach English, math, wood-shop, and nurse the babies of the high school mothers who used the campus daycare. After all, Chet is such an amazing man. After his transfer I found out about the two of them. Not sure if it is the easy way or the hard way. Melody just came out with it in a blurted ramble at supper one night. She'd already spoken to a lawyer and had everything figured out. I'd lose nothing but a wife. I got to keep everything else. I'm not sure if that was a bargain but it was what it was and what I got. Looking back if we'd known what rap was I could have recorded her speech and spliced it over music innumerable times and had just as healthy a career as any one of a dozen posthumous rappers.
Not two years later, I'm sitting in my basement typing this. I still do my job. I'm up to nearly 15 bucks an hour but it doesn't matter. I can quit whenever I'm bored. Maybe I'll remarry. Unlikely as in my line of work it isn't that often females see you as a good catch. Usually they tend to look the other way as if they've caught me picking at my nose. Cat Man said that was the best way to avoid the cops, picking your nose, as nobody wants to hold their vision on someone with a finger at work. Once when Melody and I were stuck in Christmas shopping traffic we both turned in a moment of cosmic synchronicity to catch the obese lady in the car next to us pull a holiday treasure from her nose, look at it, and then eat it. Our combined screams turned to laugh 'till you vomit laughter and on to become one of the most treasured and oft retold moments of our life together. Could be that says something about our marriage.
Another time at a restaurant while we outlined plans for a vacation in Oklahoma(relationship observation number 2) an unusual family was seated next to us. The parents were older with two children. One child sat quietly and read a book. The other seemed to have something wrong with him. I'm not one to judge, actually I am, but the kid just wasn't right. You could tell by the things he blurted out, his inability to sit still and the constant redirection of his parents. Also he was named Hobart. To me, branding a kid with that name damns him to a life of ridicule, taunting, and a disadvantage with peers from day one. It is rough enough to be nuts and then to be called Hobart. I can only hope it was a family name and not something two parents stewed over baby name books days to find. However, I feel certain the proud parents were overly excited when congratulating themselves on finding such a wonderfully chic name for a baby.
Hobart became progressively more agitated as his family waited on "Hi, I'm Heather" to bring the appetizer. The mother attempted to engage Hobart in conversation while waiting for his cheese sticks with blue cheese not red. Never bring me red. Red is bad. Red means bad things like bloody death and bones. Firetrucks are red because ladders go up to heaven and down to hell. I must have blue cheese not red. Red stands for the devil. I don't like the devil. The devil can get you and on and on and on and on until I found out the devil could shake you inside out into a bag of bloody skeleton bones that wants blue cheese not red.
I came very close to asking the staff to seat us at another table. I'd always liked red with my cheese sticks. Suddenly without warning Hobart slammed his fists on the table sending his jolly kids' cup flying off into space and causing the silverware to ring like a glen of fairy bells. The diners in our section turned as one even while trying to ignore the disturbance at the table next to us. When all eyes were transfixed his way in the unusual momentary restaurant silence Hobart blurted, "I hate women. Girls are just filled with hot lava and the devil's love."
That thought hung in the silence, frozen, floating long enough for the entire room to absorb the impact.
Maybe, Hobart wasn't so crazy after all.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Important announcement
This just in.....
Here is the address of the Christmas Potato site. Nothing has changed or been corrected in ages because I can't log in and nobody seems to be able to help me or respond to my letters. So...
here's the address:
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
Consider the typos and mistakes as little where's waldo's you are trying to find.
There's some good stuff there and it explains all about holiday potato tossing.
Also here is a link to a great page about Truman Capote and his story, "A Christmas Memory."
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/12/truman-capote-a.html
More than anything else this story and the Frank Perry filmed based on it made me want to write and create movies. I related to Buddy I guess. Elements of his life fit into my head as part of how I rightly or wrongly perceived mine. My family made fudge instead of fruitcakes although one year dad made some that lasted until we moved from Topeka in '73. As an employee of the federal government he wasn't allowed to to throw them out without filing an environmental impact statement. Okay, that's a lie, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea. Every time I go to Topeka I visit the spot where I disposed of them illegally to see if they have started breaking down and decomposing. Two years ago I could have sworn there was a small spot missing, maybe a loose pecan or piece of candied fruit had been torn away by one of the dead squirrels littering the ground near the spot. The ground is cursed and no successful development has taken place in that area.
Capote's books lend themselves to being read aloud. Not all books do that. Check out the audio file of the book at that link. Got to run. The library just called and they got a Bud Shrake book I've been looking for.
Here is the address of the Christmas Potato site. Nothing has changed or been corrected in ages because I can't log in and nobody seems to be able to help me or respond to my letters. So...
here's the address:
http://web.mac.com/rkoogar/the_life_of_riley/Welcome.html
Consider the typos and mistakes as little where's waldo's you are trying to find.
There's some good stuff there and it explains all about holiday potato tossing.
Also here is a link to a great page about Truman Capote and his story, "A Christmas Memory."
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/12/truman-capote-a.html
More than anything else this story and the Frank Perry filmed based on it made me want to write and create movies. I related to Buddy I guess. Elements of his life fit into my head as part of how I rightly or wrongly perceived mine. My family made fudge instead of fruitcakes although one year dad made some that lasted until we moved from Topeka in '73. As an employee of the federal government he wasn't allowed to to throw them out without filing an environmental impact statement. Okay, that's a lie, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea. Every time I go to Topeka I visit the spot where I disposed of them illegally to see if they have started breaking down and decomposing. Two years ago I could have sworn there was a small spot missing, maybe a loose pecan or piece of candied fruit had been torn away by one of the dead squirrels littering the ground near the spot. The ground is cursed and no successful development has taken place in that area.
Capote's books lend themselves to being read aloud. Not all books do that. Check out the audio file of the book at that link. Got to run. The library just called and they got a Bud Shrake book I've been looking for.
Friday, November 27, 2009
State Hospital Crazy
When my mother was still alive she wanted to write a book about her time at the Topeka State Hospital. She had taken notes during her stays and kept most of them. Mom thought it would be good to have her view of it and also my thoughts on what it was like having a parent in the hospital. Good idea...I still have her notes. They are painful to read. She was far braver than I'll ever be. She lived a life filled with more trials and tribulations than any one human should have to face. My life is nothing compared to hers. Her example of facing whatever junk is thrown at you is remarkable and one I'll never live up to.
Mom also gave me permission to write a screenplay based on a weekend overnight stay when she brought her roommates home with her while dad was out of town. Sometime I will get "My Four Things" completed. The other thing will probably never happen. What follows is a glimpse that has been in a notebook for years. None of what I post is meant to be anything other than me just putting thoughts out there. I make no claim of quality but I can vouch for the honesty of almost anything I've posted.
State Hospital Crazy
My mom is crazy. I don't mean like, "Hey, Fryll, your mom is nuts!" I mean all the way mentally ill, insane, nervous breakdown, state hospital crazy. Right now she is on Ward 3, room B. She has roommates. Three other ladies that don't seem very crazy to me. Not like some of her roommates in other times. Wanda rubbed her head so much she had little bald spots. Mom told us not to stare but that can be hard when you are looking at a red headed woman mother age with curly hair and bald spots. She tried to cover the spots with flowers on hair bands or church hats and sometimes what looked like pre -tied Christmas bows from a sack. Trying not to stare was hard. If Court could get my attention sometimes he would scratch his head and I had to fight to keep from laughing. I would pound him later in the car.
We have been meeting new roommates since the summer after kindergarten. Not all the time, but it seems like most of the time. Mom being sick(that's what we call it. I think of it as crazy because that is basically what she was even if we weren't supposed to say it. You can call it whatever you want but if you act like she did when she was "sick", crazy is the word that explains it best, in my opinion) lasted off and on all of first grade. Mom missed my birthday that year, but got to come home for a few days at Christmas.
She got out of the hospital in March and just drove over there during the day. She was an out patient. That lasted up until right before school started when her psychiatrist, Dr. Rosenblatt , shot himself in the head. I know that's what happened. It was printed in the newspaper. The police found him near the monkey island at the zoo. I hope Mom wasn't what caused it.
Second grade she missed my birthday again, but was out for good before Thanksgiving. We all got to drive to Sprockett for the holiday. The day President Kennedy was killed she didn't even know about it until we got home from school. She hadn't had the TV on all day. It was the first time I saw Dad cry. When we got to Texas my cousin, Miranda, said it was against the law to sing that big D, little a, double l, a, s song. Miranda knew lots of stuff. She was the same age as Caitlin but not as mean. I didn't know much about government. I knew they made laws. They must have passed the law against the song in a hurry.
Mom was an out patient again for most of third grade. I wished she would get well. I was happy she was home for my birthday. I got a German chocolate cake. We lived in a new house and I was afraid I was going to get a dog because Courtland and Caitlen wanted one so bad and now we had a big yard that owned not rented. I didn't want one at all. I dreamed I could hear a puppy barking. I don't like dogs ever since the two German shepherds backed me up against a church. I was walking home from school. It was cold and cloudy. I was scared. They kept growling and snapping their teeth. I was in second grade and I tried not to cry. The dog's owner stood across the street and laughed. I'm not kidding. She stood there smoking a cigarette and laughing. Finally, her phone rang and she stamped out her cigarette and clapped twice. The dogs ran across the street and into the house. I was mad and scared and missed my mom. It was right before Halloween so Mom still wasn't out. When I got home it would be our helper, Helen, there. She was nice, but it wasn't the same. I waited until Dad got home and I only told him I'd had a little accident, not about the dogs. I was afraid he'd get mad. I will always remember that he didn't say anything. He just helped me clean up and it was our secret.
As nutty as this sounds when mom gets sick it starts off with her being happy and lots of fun. She has lots of energy and wants to try new fun things. She gets all the housework done and so we barely have to do chores. We don't have to do any of the laundry. Because she already did the day time dishes there is hardly any after supper. When you come home from school you get to play outside. Our rooms and the basement are already picked up. Mom and Dad barely fight and they sleep with the door shut more often. Weekends we get to do fun stuff. Dad mostly doesn't like to go to movies. but once he went with us to Sound of Music. He wouldn't go to South Pacific when we did, but I think that is because some World War II stuff makes him get up and leave the room when it is on TV. He won't let us watch Combat unless it is on the downstairs TV. We even went to the big art museum in Kansas City that has a giant statue of the Buddha. When you stare at a Buddha statue they seem quiet and happy. Dad took lots of pictures of Buddhas in Japan after the war. They looked peaceful even after a war. When Mom is all pepped up she tries out new recipes and the house is still clean. My favorite hyper dish was the spaghetti with a cheesy cream sauce over baked fish with chunks of avocados. It was like eating at a restaurant.
Everything seems nice and if you aren't careful you begin to think that maybe she is well this time. After a week or so she starts staying up late watching Johnny Carson. She reads. That keeps her up even later. There will be a stack of library books by her chair. It gets later and later. It ends up with her not sleeping. That's when you know it is going to happen.
She will go to bed and just not get up. As we get ready for school she might get up. You can bet that as soon as we clear out she lies back down. When we come home from school she gets up and acts like she's been doing stuff all day. You know she hasn't. She gets slower and slower. She gets all draggy and goes back to bed. You can tell she hasn't been picking up as much. Newspaper are left unfolded on the coffee table. Magazines aren't arranged neatly like at a doctor's office. Mom won't remember stuff. At first it isn't anything important. Later after you stay late at school to help put up tether balls she forgets to pick you up. That can lead to a fight.
Dad comes home and there's shouting and cuss words and we get sent to the basement or our rooms so they can "talk." From the basement we can hear the crying and the wailing. Sometimes it can be scary.We turn up the television. The speaker vibrates, but you still can hear. When we finally get to come upstairs for a supper that Dad fixes Mom sits quietly at her place. Her eyes are red and pile of used kleenex grows at her place. Moist wadded up tissues on the table when you are eating supper is unsanitary. It makes me mad that Mom would do that. While we try to eat she sniffles and fights back tears. She looks at you and mouths that she's sorry. I know she means it and that she really is but part of me wants to know...if she really is sorry why can't she work harder to get well? How can she put us through all of this? Is this what growing up is supposed to be like? It doesn't feel like normal to me. When she gets sick I'm the one that has to clean up the kleenex . I want to ask other kids what they do when their moms get sick and go to the state hospital, but I don't have anybody to ask. I figure, well, just one more thing. All part of some program I don't understand or get to vote on. Just one more deal. Before long Mom is back at the hospital and it is almost time for my birthday. Give it a few weeks and we get to start visiting again and meeting the roommates.
I don't understand it. I want to. I don't want to. I don't want to think about it. I don't want it to be. I want normal. I want to go to sleep and wake up and have all of it not the way it is. I'm not bad if I want normal. When mom goes to the hospital I only know one thing for certain. It feels just like when those dogs had me up against the church. I am as alone as it gets except I can't see who is laughing at me. Nobody will help me clean up later. I hate my mother for causing all of this. Now I feel bad. Mom never asked to be crazy.
Mom also gave me permission to write a screenplay based on a weekend overnight stay when she brought her roommates home with her while dad was out of town. Sometime I will get "My Four Things" completed. The other thing will probably never happen. What follows is a glimpse that has been in a notebook for years. None of what I post is meant to be anything other than me just putting thoughts out there. I make no claim of quality but I can vouch for the honesty of almost anything I've posted.
State Hospital Crazy
My mom is crazy. I don't mean like, "Hey, Fryll, your mom is nuts!" I mean all the way mentally ill, insane, nervous breakdown, state hospital crazy. Right now she is on Ward 3, room B. She has roommates. Three other ladies that don't seem very crazy to me. Not like some of her roommates in other times. Wanda rubbed her head so much she had little bald spots. Mom told us not to stare but that can be hard when you are looking at a red headed woman mother age with curly hair and bald spots. She tried to cover the spots with flowers on hair bands or church hats and sometimes what looked like pre -tied Christmas bows from a sack. Trying not to stare was hard. If Court could get my attention sometimes he would scratch his head and I had to fight to keep from laughing. I would pound him later in the car.
We have been meeting new roommates since the summer after kindergarten. Not all the time, but it seems like most of the time. Mom being sick(that's what we call it. I think of it as crazy because that is basically what she was even if we weren't supposed to say it. You can call it whatever you want but if you act like she did when she was "sick", crazy is the word that explains it best, in my opinion) lasted off and on all of first grade. Mom missed my birthday that year, but got to come home for a few days at Christmas.
She got out of the hospital in March and just drove over there during the day. She was an out patient. That lasted up until right before school started when her psychiatrist, Dr. Rosenblatt , shot himself in the head. I know that's what happened. It was printed in the newspaper. The police found him near the monkey island at the zoo. I hope Mom wasn't what caused it.
Second grade she missed my birthday again, but was out for good before Thanksgiving. We all got to drive to Sprockett for the holiday. The day President Kennedy was killed she didn't even know about it until we got home from school. She hadn't had the TV on all day. It was the first time I saw Dad cry. When we got to Texas my cousin, Miranda, said it was against the law to sing that big D, little a, double l, a, s song. Miranda knew lots of stuff. She was the same age as Caitlin but not as mean. I didn't know much about government. I knew they made laws. They must have passed the law against the song in a hurry.
Mom was an out patient again for most of third grade. I wished she would get well. I was happy she was home for my birthday. I got a German chocolate cake. We lived in a new house and I was afraid I was going to get a dog because Courtland and Caitlen wanted one so bad and now we had a big yard that owned not rented. I didn't want one at all. I dreamed I could hear a puppy barking. I don't like dogs ever since the two German shepherds backed me up against a church. I was walking home from school. It was cold and cloudy. I was scared. They kept growling and snapping their teeth. I was in second grade and I tried not to cry. The dog's owner stood across the street and laughed. I'm not kidding. She stood there smoking a cigarette and laughing. Finally, her phone rang and she stamped out her cigarette and clapped twice. The dogs ran across the street and into the house. I was mad and scared and missed my mom. It was right before Halloween so Mom still wasn't out. When I got home it would be our helper, Helen, there. She was nice, but it wasn't the same. I waited until Dad got home and I only told him I'd had a little accident, not about the dogs. I was afraid he'd get mad. I will always remember that he didn't say anything. He just helped me clean up and it was our secret.
As nutty as this sounds when mom gets sick it starts off with her being happy and lots of fun. She has lots of energy and wants to try new fun things. She gets all the housework done and so we barely have to do chores. We don't have to do any of the laundry. Because she already did the day time dishes there is hardly any after supper. When you come home from school you get to play outside. Our rooms and the basement are already picked up. Mom and Dad barely fight and they sleep with the door shut more often. Weekends we get to do fun stuff. Dad mostly doesn't like to go to movies. but once he went with us to Sound of Music. He wouldn't go to South Pacific when we did, but I think that is because some World War II stuff makes him get up and leave the room when it is on TV. He won't let us watch Combat unless it is on the downstairs TV. We even went to the big art museum in Kansas City that has a giant statue of the Buddha. When you stare at a Buddha statue they seem quiet and happy. Dad took lots of pictures of Buddhas in Japan after the war. They looked peaceful even after a war. When Mom is all pepped up she tries out new recipes and the house is still clean. My favorite hyper dish was the spaghetti with a cheesy cream sauce over baked fish with chunks of avocados. It was like eating at a restaurant.
Everything seems nice and if you aren't careful you begin to think that maybe she is well this time. After a week or so she starts staying up late watching Johnny Carson. She reads. That keeps her up even later. There will be a stack of library books by her chair. It gets later and later. It ends up with her not sleeping. That's when you know it is going to happen.
She will go to bed and just not get up. As we get ready for school she might get up. You can bet that as soon as we clear out she lies back down. When we come home from school she gets up and acts like she's been doing stuff all day. You know she hasn't. She gets slower and slower. She gets all draggy and goes back to bed. You can tell she hasn't been picking up as much. Newspaper are left unfolded on the coffee table. Magazines aren't arranged neatly like at a doctor's office. Mom won't remember stuff. At first it isn't anything important. Later after you stay late at school to help put up tether balls she forgets to pick you up. That can lead to a fight.
Dad comes home and there's shouting and cuss words and we get sent to the basement or our rooms so they can "talk." From the basement we can hear the crying and the wailing. Sometimes it can be scary.We turn up the television. The speaker vibrates, but you still can hear. When we finally get to come upstairs for a supper that Dad fixes Mom sits quietly at her place. Her eyes are red and pile of used kleenex grows at her place. Moist wadded up tissues on the table when you are eating supper is unsanitary. It makes me mad that Mom would do that. While we try to eat she sniffles and fights back tears. She looks at you and mouths that she's sorry. I know she means it and that she really is but part of me wants to know...if she really is sorry why can't she work harder to get well? How can she put us through all of this? Is this what growing up is supposed to be like? It doesn't feel like normal to me. When she gets sick I'm the one that has to clean up the kleenex . I want to ask other kids what they do when their moms get sick and go to the state hospital, but I don't have anybody to ask. I figure, well, just one more thing. All part of some program I don't understand or get to vote on. Just one more deal. Before long Mom is back at the hospital and it is almost time for my birthday. Give it a few weeks and we get to start visiting again and meeting the roommates.
I don't understand it. I want to. I don't want to. I don't want to think about it. I don't want it to be. I want normal. I want to go to sleep and wake up and have all of it not the way it is. I'm not bad if I want normal. When mom goes to the hospital I only know one thing for certain. It feels just like when those dogs had me up against the church. I am as alone as it gets except I can't see who is laughing at me. Nobody will help me clean up later. I hate my mother for causing all of this. Now I feel bad. Mom never asked to be crazy.
Friday, November 13, 2009
One from the past...
Sharing things can be touchy. I started this with the intention of now and again posting stuff that I wanted to share. Mostly my writings but sometime I'll share books and movies and records, things folks need to know about, in my opinion, as my late mother always wanted me to add. She wanted it known for certain that it was my opinion not fact. Why do we call dead people late? Is it because they just can't seem to make their appointments because they're buried in the ground? Maybe somebody knows. My mother has been gone 15 years. A week doesn't go by that she and my father don't come see me in my dreams. After all these years she still wants to correct me and remind me how much smarter my brother and sister are.
To the point: I have a bag of writing. When we moved I found it again. I am going to start posting some of it. I want it understood that these short little pieces are like poems to me. Faulkner claimed a good poet could say it in as few words as possible. I just say it and hope I don't make anybody mad. This story is a combination of several and helps to explain some things. I'm posting it because just recently I'd thought of the girl in the green and orange
striped dress and when I got email about a class reunion she was on the committee. Here goes...
Cart monkeys and the wisdom of Oz
They call us the cart monkeys. I can't remember who put it on their name tag first. It must have been Clooney. Everybody thinks he looks like that actor. I don't see it, but most all of the others on the crew do so Clooney it is. He became using the term officially on a Saturday during the Christmas season, not holiday season, no war on Christmas here. Actually if you think about it that business, is just that, business, so that someone can get outraged, shout, get on the news and in the paper. Sometimes it isn't follow the money but follow the ego. The period of time from Thanksgiving until January 6th or so is the holiday season, the holidays. I grew up in a church that didn't celebrate Christmas. No mention what so ever yet we still thought we knew more of what God wanted us to know. If he didn't mention Christmas then we didn't. We didn't dance either so to this day I can't. I still look to the sky for lightning when I start tapping my feet. If it is cloudy I can't honestly enjoy music no matter how great the beat is. Happy holidays and back to my point. Why we are called cart monkeys.
On Friday we all got together at Moochie's. Most of the crew made it. Me, Mooch, Clooney, Richard not Rick, Dick, or Rich, Connie and Dusty. The only person that didn't make it was the professor. He had some play or concert to go to downtown. Dusty had read in a magazine how to sync up a video tape of Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon so that the music matched. It was going to be so cool. After a half dozen tries we got it to start working. We tried it with a record but it was scratchy and Moochie's apartment bounced when you walked across the room and made Pink Floyd skip.
Moochie lived in what we called the Pleasant Quarters. Mr. Pleasant owned the house and Moochie lived upstairs in an apartment that resembled a miniature hobbit hole. It was a regular apartment but two thirds the size. Being in the quarters was like making a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary. The light fixtures were smaller than normal and only took 40 watt bulbs. You could reach them to change bulbs with your out stretched arms. The kitchen was complete but the size of a closet. One bedroom actually was in a closet. It was furnished with couches and chairs that seemed normal but were actually scaled down. Mr. Pleasant was a warehouse manager for the school system and he knew how to do everything, even make little furniture that looked store bought. It was just about our favorite place to hang out. The only normal sized room was the bathroom. It was as roomy as a stateroom on the Titanic. Commode wise it was as comfortable as any I've ever seen or sat. The tub was an old deep claw footed model that you could swim in. It would hold two people easily. Clooney made Moochie work late weekends just so he could sneak in and prove it. The only bad thing was that the Pleasants' downstairs controlled the heat and the AC. If Dusty and friends got too noisy the climate would adjust accordingly and you either got quiet or called it a night.
Once we switched to an old Floyd 8-track that would just go round and round repeating, the movie was magical. I'm not sure how it works. My mind can't even understand little things how could it explain a magical relationship between a stoner album and the most famous movie of all time. Masons, that's what it was, Masons! That night it fit perfectly and Dorothy and the witch and the flying monkeys made more sense to me than ever before. Watching the movie with the record was more fun than the first time I saw it in black and white hiding behind my dad on the floor. The black and white part made me cry. I felt the lion's inner pain and for the first time I felt and understood the tin man's loneliness at a primal level that left me depressed and contemplating why no one loved me for days. I didn't have a wizard to give me a watch so what shot did I have.
It made me think about a little girl I met when I was a kid. I was in fifth grade and for a day I was a page at the state house of representatives. Fifth graders aren't mature enough to be obsessed about what other people think or if they will embarrass themselves. At that age you are a kid living in the moment, being here, and focusing on right now. Buddha would be proud. There were other kids there from all over the state. Because I lived in the state capital I could only be a page for a day. I wanted to make the most of it. We got paid two dollars a day, excused from school, and if you were lucky the reps might tip you a nickel or a dime. The job consisted of sitting in a chair waiting for the call light to come on. Whoever was in the first chair went and ran the errand. It might be getting coffee, copies of a bill, or putting change in a parking meter. All day long I had my eye on the girl in a green and orange striped dress. I can still the dress and how it looked on the girl. We were only in fifth grade, but she looked like a model to me. I was smitten, but at the age of 11 I'm not sure I understood what it was I was feeling. To that point in my life I'd never seen a cuter girl.
Who can explain why anyone is attracted to someone else. You could spend a month in a library studying and still you wouldn't have the answer. In my life I have never been involved with any woman for any length of time that didn't start with that spark, that irrational instant judgement without contemplation that makes us stop and go, "wow." Wow-worthiness is subjective and unexplainable. All true romantics are hit by it multiple times in their lives. I wasn't always just a cart monkey. There was a time in my life when I had nearly everything that I wanted. Even then if I wasn't in a steady deal( Why can't men call a relationship a relationship? Why is there that need to live behind a secret code of colloquialisms? Could it be that we want to deny the truth of our emotions? ) at that time I couldn't help but travel backward through my life's record and think of those moments when I was hit by the blinding explosions of awareness. I think we choose to remember those moments because the positive nature of the event causes a surge of a chemical deep in the brain that if harnessed would end the need for psychiatric medicine. Try to recall pain. I don't think we can. I can only remember the fact that it occurred. I'm unable to recreate the sensation. Why would I want to? On the other hand I can call up happy positive thoughts most anytime I want. With that being the case, explain to me why humans spend so much time frowning and not smiling. The girl in the green and orange striped dress possessed a classic smile as well.
I came back from getting a copy of H.B. 1017 and took my seat. I scooted over as another page headed out on a mission. The next thing I know someone sits besides me and says, "Hi, I'm ___." (lest you think I can't remember her name, I can. I don't use it to either protect her privacy or my emotions.)I turned and it was the girl in the green and orange striped dress. Instead of stammering and stumbling over my words I introduced myself. We spent the rest of the day talking about nothing of consequence. She knew kids that I knew. We'd end up going to the same junior high and high school. We made fun of people, told jokes, and learned how our state government worked. In less than eight hours we had become friends for the day. We might not ever see each other again but on that one day things were swell. Kids can do that. At the end of our day we said our goodbyes. I didn't see her again until the first day of junior high.
As an adult I've often wondered why things don't come that easy for me anymore. If I meet someone and I think that "wow-worthiness" is there I don't trust my instincts anymore. I have the need to mull it over in my head, dissect, and analyze it until I'm no longer confident of the initial perception. By the time I can make the decision to act the object of my contemplation is long gone. Maybe that's why I'm still a cart monkey.
Which gets me back to why they call us cart monkeys. After the movie you could sense how it had effected all of us. I wasn't the only one absorbed with the deeper meanings. Connie saw herself as Dorothy and the rest of us..well somebody has to be a munchkin. We each had new theories and insights to the movie and we needed to discuss them. After arguing for ten minutes about where we would go we settled on Dug and Edna's because they were open late, it was dark(the walls were painted black) and the wait couldn't be too long.
On the drive over Clooney was very silent. I thought he was focused on the road until, driving he missed one red light but it was late, after midnight, nobody noticed. We were driving down Westlawn on the divided section when he slams on the breaks and pulls over to the side of the road and blurts out, "Cart monkeys, get it cart monkeys! We are just like those flying monkeys doing the bidding of others. In that part when they flew into the woods and tore up the scarecrow and scared everybody one of them was pushing a little cart picking up pieces." He laughed his patented Clooney laugh and pulled back into traffic. "Cart monkeys...sweet."
To the point: I have a bag of writing. When we moved I found it again. I am going to start posting some of it. I want it understood that these short little pieces are like poems to me. Faulkner claimed a good poet could say it in as few words as possible. I just say it and hope I don't make anybody mad. This story is a combination of several and helps to explain some things. I'm posting it because just recently I'd thought of the girl in the green and orange
striped dress and when I got email about a class reunion she was on the committee. Here goes...
Cart monkeys and the wisdom of Oz
They call us the cart monkeys. I can't remember who put it on their name tag first. It must have been Clooney. Everybody thinks he looks like that actor. I don't see it, but most all of the others on the crew do so Clooney it is. He became using the term officially on a Saturday during the Christmas season, not holiday season, no war on Christmas here. Actually if you think about it that business, is just that, business, so that someone can get outraged, shout, get on the news and in the paper. Sometimes it isn't follow the money but follow the ego. The period of time from Thanksgiving until January 6th or so is the holiday season, the holidays. I grew up in a church that didn't celebrate Christmas. No mention what so ever yet we still thought we knew more of what God wanted us to know. If he didn't mention Christmas then we didn't. We didn't dance either so to this day I can't. I still look to the sky for lightning when I start tapping my feet. If it is cloudy I can't honestly enjoy music no matter how great the beat is. Happy holidays and back to my point. Why we are called cart monkeys.
On Friday we all got together at Moochie's. Most of the crew made it. Me, Mooch, Clooney, Richard not Rick, Dick, or Rich, Connie and Dusty. The only person that didn't make it was the professor. He had some play or concert to go to downtown. Dusty had read in a magazine how to sync up a video tape of Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon so that the music matched. It was going to be so cool. After a half dozen tries we got it to start working. We tried it with a record but it was scratchy and Moochie's apartment bounced when you walked across the room and made Pink Floyd skip.
Moochie lived in what we called the Pleasant Quarters. Mr. Pleasant owned the house and Moochie lived upstairs in an apartment that resembled a miniature hobbit hole. It was a regular apartment but two thirds the size. Being in the quarters was like making a transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary. The light fixtures were smaller than normal and only took 40 watt bulbs. You could reach them to change bulbs with your out stretched arms. The kitchen was complete but the size of a closet. One bedroom actually was in a closet. It was furnished with couches and chairs that seemed normal but were actually scaled down. Mr. Pleasant was a warehouse manager for the school system and he knew how to do everything, even make little furniture that looked store bought. It was just about our favorite place to hang out. The only normal sized room was the bathroom. It was as roomy as a stateroom on the Titanic. Commode wise it was as comfortable as any I've ever seen or sat. The tub was an old deep claw footed model that you could swim in. It would hold two people easily. Clooney made Moochie work late weekends just so he could sneak in and prove it. The only bad thing was that the Pleasants' downstairs controlled the heat and the AC. If Dusty and friends got too noisy the climate would adjust accordingly and you either got quiet or called it a night.
Once we switched to an old Floyd 8-track that would just go round and round repeating, the movie was magical. I'm not sure how it works. My mind can't even understand little things how could it explain a magical relationship between a stoner album and the most famous movie of all time. Masons, that's what it was, Masons! That night it fit perfectly and Dorothy and the witch and the flying monkeys made more sense to me than ever before. Watching the movie with the record was more fun than the first time I saw it in black and white hiding behind my dad on the floor. The black and white part made me cry. I felt the lion's inner pain and for the first time I felt and understood the tin man's loneliness at a primal level that left me depressed and contemplating why no one loved me for days. I didn't have a wizard to give me a watch so what shot did I have.
It made me think about a little girl I met when I was a kid. I was in fifth grade and for a day I was a page at the state house of representatives. Fifth graders aren't mature enough to be obsessed about what other people think or if they will embarrass themselves. At that age you are a kid living in the moment, being here, and focusing on right now. Buddha would be proud. There were other kids there from all over the state. Because I lived in the state capital I could only be a page for a day. I wanted to make the most of it. We got paid two dollars a day, excused from school, and if you were lucky the reps might tip you a nickel or a dime. The job consisted of sitting in a chair waiting for the call light to come on. Whoever was in the first chair went and ran the errand. It might be getting coffee, copies of a bill, or putting change in a parking meter. All day long I had my eye on the girl in a green and orange striped dress. I can still the dress and how it looked on the girl. We were only in fifth grade, but she looked like a model to me. I was smitten, but at the age of 11 I'm not sure I understood what it was I was feeling. To that point in my life I'd never seen a cuter girl.
Who can explain why anyone is attracted to someone else. You could spend a month in a library studying and still you wouldn't have the answer. In my life I have never been involved with any woman for any length of time that didn't start with that spark, that irrational instant judgement without contemplation that makes us stop and go, "wow." Wow-worthiness is subjective and unexplainable. All true romantics are hit by it multiple times in their lives. I wasn't always just a cart monkey. There was a time in my life when I had nearly everything that I wanted. Even then if I wasn't in a steady deal( Why can't men call a relationship a relationship? Why is there that need to live behind a secret code of colloquialisms? Could it be that we want to deny the truth of our emotions? ) at that time I couldn't help but travel backward through my life's record and think of those moments when I was hit by the blinding explosions of awareness. I think we choose to remember those moments because the positive nature of the event causes a surge of a chemical deep in the brain that if harnessed would end the need for psychiatric medicine. Try to recall pain. I don't think we can. I can only remember the fact that it occurred. I'm unable to recreate the sensation. Why would I want to? On the other hand I can call up happy positive thoughts most anytime I want. With that being the case, explain to me why humans spend so much time frowning and not smiling. The girl in the green and orange striped dress possessed a classic smile as well.
I came back from getting a copy of H.B. 1017 and took my seat. I scooted over as another page headed out on a mission. The next thing I know someone sits besides me and says, "Hi, I'm ___." (lest you think I can't remember her name, I can. I don't use it to either protect her privacy or my emotions.)I turned and it was the girl in the green and orange striped dress. Instead of stammering and stumbling over my words I introduced myself. We spent the rest of the day talking about nothing of consequence. She knew kids that I knew. We'd end up going to the same junior high and high school. We made fun of people, told jokes, and learned how our state government worked. In less than eight hours we had become friends for the day. We might not ever see each other again but on that one day things were swell. Kids can do that. At the end of our day we said our goodbyes. I didn't see her again until the first day of junior high.
As an adult I've often wondered why things don't come that easy for me anymore. If I meet someone and I think that "wow-worthiness" is there I don't trust my instincts anymore. I have the need to mull it over in my head, dissect, and analyze it until I'm no longer confident of the initial perception. By the time I can make the decision to act the object of my contemplation is long gone. Maybe that's why I'm still a cart monkey.
Which gets me back to why they call us cart monkeys. After the movie you could sense how it had effected all of us. I wasn't the only one absorbed with the deeper meanings. Connie saw herself as Dorothy and the rest of us..well somebody has to be a munchkin. We each had new theories and insights to the movie and we needed to discuss them. After arguing for ten minutes about where we would go we settled on Dug and Edna's because they were open late, it was dark(the walls were painted black) and the wait couldn't be too long.
On the drive over Clooney was very silent. I thought he was focused on the road until, driving he missed one red light but it was late, after midnight, nobody noticed. We were driving down Westlawn on the divided section when he slams on the breaks and pulls over to the side of the road and blurts out, "Cart monkeys, get it cart monkeys! We are just like those flying monkeys doing the bidding of others. In that part when they flew into the woods and tore up the scarecrow and scared everybody one of them was pushing a little cart picking up pieces." He laughed his patented Clooney laugh and pulled back into traffic. "Cart monkeys...sweet."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
If there aren't any fairies, what about the quarters?
If there aren't any fairies, what about the quarters?
The little girl wasn't trying to just to start a conversation. Her question had been on her mind for several weeks. Ever since the day after she got money for a tooth that came out while eating an apple. At recess a boy that wasn't in her class that she didn't even like told her there was no such thing as the tooth fairy or any kind of fairies for that matter. Fairies are made up like God and Jesus. The boy's parents were librarians. Lot's of what the boy said was pure foolishness, but the fairy question vexed her.
When the constant interior debate concerning fairies became too much for her she decided to check with her ultimate source of all knowledge both good(Guess who's coming to visit?) and bad.(Your puppy probably didn't even feel it.), her father. His oracle-ness looked down at the little girl and said, "Princess what are you talking about? I can promise you that in fact not only do fairies exist, I even know at least one."
Her father worked for the government. He had explained to his daughter that his job was to, "think up stuff." When she asked what kind of stuff he pretended to zip then lock his lips and throw away the key. Top secret government stuff is what she figured. The little girl hoped it had to do with rockets or new inventions or maybe fairies. Anything would be okay with her as long as it wasn't government war stuff. Even at her young age she hated war stuff. Maybe her dad was working with fairies to see if there was a way to stop all the wars. Fairies could use their dust and their wands as anti-weapons and stop the wars. Her dad and his friends at work would get medals from President Kennedy for stopping all the wars. She'd never been to Washington, D.C. It would be a fun trip.
One night as the little girl's father was smoking his last cigarette before going to bed his wife asked him, "Honey, why would you tell Myra that silly stuff about fairies? I mean, I can't disagree with telling her they exist, but to say you know one, honestly."
He inhaled deeply, the tip of the cigarette glowing, and exhaled, playing with the smoke, inhaling it back through his nose and ending with a smoke ring blown through a smoke ring. "What would you say if I told you that I do know a fairy, that I work with one?"
She looked at her husband not quite comprehending his meaning. She thought she understood, but wasn't sure if she believed.
"Yeah, he's one of the guys in our pod. That's what they are calling our task groups now, pods. What a crock! Where do they get this junk? I think they must have another pod that is assigned to constantly create terms and acronyms just to keep us on our toes. When he transferred in because I'm his pod master... I'm kidding. It was a joke... Anyway I had to read his folder. It didn't say anything outright but at the same time it was pretty clear. I don't think anybody else knows and it doesn't matter to me. You'd never guess it. He seems just like a normal person. He's not swishy or anything. He's very good at his job."
"Who is it?"
"I'm not gonna say. It doesn't matter." He smashed the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray and got into bed. "See, I wasn't lying to her."
MORE TO FOLLOW
The little girl wasn't trying to just to start a conversation. Her question had been on her mind for several weeks. Ever since the day after she got money for a tooth that came out while eating an apple. At recess a boy that wasn't in her class that she didn't even like told her there was no such thing as the tooth fairy or any kind of fairies for that matter. Fairies are made up like God and Jesus. The boy's parents were librarians. Lot's of what the boy said was pure foolishness, but the fairy question vexed her.
When the constant interior debate concerning fairies became too much for her she decided to check with her ultimate source of all knowledge both good(Guess who's coming to visit?) and bad.(Your puppy probably didn't even feel it.), her father. His oracle-ness looked down at the little girl and said, "Princess what are you talking about? I can promise you that in fact not only do fairies exist, I even know at least one."
Her father worked for the government. He had explained to his daughter that his job was to, "think up stuff." When she asked what kind of stuff he pretended to zip then lock his lips and throw away the key. Top secret government stuff is what she figured. The little girl hoped it had to do with rockets or new inventions or maybe fairies. Anything would be okay with her as long as it wasn't government war stuff. Even at her young age she hated war stuff. Maybe her dad was working with fairies to see if there was a way to stop all the wars. Fairies could use their dust and their wands as anti-weapons and stop the wars. Her dad and his friends at work would get medals from President Kennedy for stopping all the wars. She'd never been to Washington, D.C. It would be a fun trip.
One night as the little girl's father was smoking his last cigarette before going to bed his wife asked him, "Honey, why would you tell Myra that silly stuff about fairies? I mean, I can't disagree with telling her they exist, but to say you know one, honestly."
He inhaled deeply, the tip of the cigarette glowing, and exhaled, playing with the smoke, inhaling it back through his nose and ending with a smoke ring blown through a smoke ring. "What would you say if I told you that I do know a fairy, that I work with one?"
She looked at her husband not quite comprehending his meaning. She thought she understood, but wasn't sure if she believed.
"Yeah, he's one of the guys in our pod. That's what they are calling our task groups now, pods. What a crock! Where do they get this junk? I think they must have another pod that is assigned to constantly create terms and acronyms just to keep us on our toes. When he transferred in because I'm his pod master... I'm kidding. It was a joke... Anyway I had to read his folder. It didn't say anything outright but at the same time it was pretty clear. I don't think anybody else knows and it doesn't matter to me. You'd never guess it. He seems just like a normal person. He's not swishy or anything. He's very good at his job."
"Who is it?"
"I'm not gonna say. It doesn't matter." He smashed the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray and got into bed. "See, I wasn't lying to her."
MORE TO FOLLOW
Friday, October 23, 2009
What do friendship bracelets really mean?
What do friendship bracelets really mean?
Another tale of dismemberment and love...
Many years ago I met a girl. At the time she seemed like the perfect girl for me. As I sit and type I can see her face as clearly as I could on the day we met. Emotions flood me that are no different from that day in Goodyear field. She gave me a friendship bracelet. It was a leather cord. The friendship bracelet had 2 turquoise colored beads about the size of a gum balls. Between the beads was a small bell made of cheap pot metal. It came from India. That's what she told me. The sound it made couldn't honestly be called ringing. It was more the sound of the clapper hitting the shell and sound stopping. When you would expect to hear the ringing tone of a bell you heard nothing but dead air. It reminded me of the sound a cotton ball makes when you drop it on a concrete basement floor. The girl told me she gave the bracelet to me to prove something. She never told me what that something was.
Looking back it seems unusual that you would find your soul mate in Goodyear field. Goodyear field was our field, our domain and why would anyone expect to find a stranger, especially a Catholic stranger that didn't go to public school in our field. It was a thing totally unexpected. It must be remembered that the girl haunted me then and still does today.
We lived on the west end of town. Our street ran east and west. To the east was the rest of our town. To the west was a handful of houses and then our street crossed the west most street in our community and dead ended at the fence to Goodyear field. The field went west down a hill to a pond and some woods and then up a hill and across a pasture where it ran into a dirt road and then rolled on toward the rest of America. Everyone in the neighborhood considered Goodyear field to be our playground. I was never sure who owned it. Most of my friends said it was owned by a Mrs. Goodyear. We had ever seen her or knew where she lived, but knowing she was out there, somewhere, made us behave and take care of her field, our field, as if it was our own. We didn't want her to put a better fence up that would actually keep us out. We didn't like to see kids in our field we didn't know.
The day I met her I broke some of the field rules. I didn't make a fire or dig a hole or anything stupid that would get us banned from the field. I did show her stuff. I showed her the bike trail that ran through the park the old lady built. The old lady wasn't Mrs. Goodyear, but another lady, granny age, who had a fenced in garden next to an area with trees that was always well kept even though we never saw anyone mow it. We called it a park because that was what it reminded us of.
One day the summer before we were taking turns seeing who could ride a bike down the trail from the path that started behind the houses next to the field, across the dip and then down between several trees in the park and stopping just this side of the old lady's fence. On my third turn as I went at least twice as fast as anyone else, I looked up for a split second with a smirk of pride, which took my eyes off the trail and ended with my biking running into one of the trees I was supposed to avoid. They say that when I hit the tree my bike stood on one wheel as I was thrown off my bike up into the air only to smack the tree with my head over six feet off the ground. I left a mark. Dazed I landed on my back knocking the wind out of me. I was down for nearly 5 minutes. I stood up, vomited and walked home. I made my brother bring my bike.
I also showed her the woods that were near the pond. In the winter the pond froze and we rode a car hood down the hill hoping not to hit the tree trunk in the middle of the pond. What we called a creek ran from the pond into the woods. In the woods was a tree someone had tried to hollow out. They had started a fire in the trunk and scraped the burnt wood out. We didn't know when it happened. One kid who had old parents and big brothers out of college said it was there when his brothers were little. Three people could fit in the tree easy. Sometimes if we got cold skating we would go to the tree and pack as many kids as we could hoping to generate warmth. I can't say that it worked. It was fun mushing kids in though. She and I stood in the tree. We both fit and being in the tree with the girl that gave me the friendship bracelet was just about the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I told the girl about the time we thought we saw a flying saucer land in the field. Four of us set out early the next morning after we'd seen the lights in the sky. We trekked past the pond and up the hill and across the pasture that opened onto the west. We found no evidence. I even took her to where we found the hobo fort the summer before. We think a patient escaped from the VA Hospital and made a camp before he found his way to the interstate that he could have taken him to California. We found some newspapers and empty cans. They weren't very old. For the next few weeks we didn't go to the field alone and after dark we watched out for each other just in case he was still around. Some kids across the street and 3 house down thought they heard him knocking on the basement windows one night. We checked the window wells, but couldn't find any clues.
As we walked back toward my street I asked her where she lived. She told me an address closer to downtown near the university. She was visiting her mother's aunt who lived near my school. She walked to the field because she didn't have anything to do. She told me that as she walked she was certain there was a reason for what she was doing. I wanted to kiss her. I didn't. Maybe I should have in the tree. We were only in 6th grade. She had a green and gold striped jacket. I can still see it in my mind. As we walked toward the fence she held my hand. Before she let go I asked her why she gave me the friendship bracelet. All she said was. You'll never forget me. She ran off through Goodyear field to a faded pink house where an old lady with mean dogs lived.
She was right. I remembered her. I remembered her eyes and the smell of her breathing. I remembered what was like to stand next to her in a burnt out tree. That might have been the top thing for me.When I was 24 I fell in love with her. She didn't know it was me. I knew without a doubt that it was. I still have the friendship bracelet in my good luck box. I guess it worked. She was the most important woman in my life until I met my wife. I like to remember her in the field the best. That might have been the best day we ever had. If you don't count the day in the field we had about 1273 decent to good days together. No about, about it. I counted them once after I moved away. That was hard. We did some mean things to one another so we could be apart. Even when you both know apart is best it doesn't make the accepting any easier. I don't like thinking about the awful hateful things that happened back then. We were adults and should have known better.
I wish she had told me what a friendship bracelet should prove. I'm over 50 and still don't know.
Another tale of dismemberment and love...
Many years ago I met a girl. At the time she seemed like the perfect girl for me. As I sit and type I can see her face as clearly as I could on the day we met. Emotions flood me that are no different from that day in Goodyear field. She gave me a friendship bracelet. It was a leather cord. The friendship bracelet had 2 turquoise colored beads about the size of a gum balls. Between the beads was a small bell made of cheap pot metal. It came from India. That's what she told me. The sound it made couldn't honestly be called ringing. It was more the sound of the clapper hitting the shell and sound stopping. When you would expect to hear the ringing tone of a bell you heard nothing but dead air. It reminded me of the sound a cotton ball makes when you drop it on a concrete basement floor. The girl told me she gave the bracelet to me to prove something. She never told me what that something was.
Looking back it seems unusual that you would find your soul mate in Goodyear field. Goodyear field was our field, our domain and why would anyone expect to find a stranger, especially a Catholic stranger that didn't go to public school in our field. It was a thing totally unexpected. It must be remembered that the girl haunted me then and still does today.
We lived on the west end of town. Our street ran east and west. To the east was the rest of our town. To the west was a handful of houses and then our street crossed the west most street in our community and dead ended at the fence to Goodyear field. The field went west down a hill to a pond and some woods and then up a hill and across a pasture where it ran into a dirt road and then rolled on toward the rest of America. Everyone in the neighborhood considered Goodyear field to be our playground. I was never sure who owned it. Most of my friends said it was owned by a Mrs. Goodyear. We had ever seen her or knew where she lived, but knowing she was out there, somewhere, made us behave and take care of her field, our field, as if it was our own. We didn't want her to put a better fence up that would actually keep us out. We didn't like to see kids in our field we didn't know.
The day I met her I broke some of the field rules. I didn't make a fire or dig a hole or anything stupid that would get us banned from the field. I did show her stuff. I showed her the bike trail that ran through the park the old lady built. The old lady wasn't Mrs. Goodyear, but another lady, granny age, who had a fenced in garden next to an area with trees that was always well kept even though we never saw anyone mow it. We called it a park because that was what it reminded us of.
One day the summer before we were taking turns seeing who could ride a bike down the trail from the path that started behind the houses next to the field, across the dip and then down between several trees in the park and stopping just this side of the old lady's fence. On my third turn as I went at least twice as fast as anyone else, I looked up for a split second with a smirk of pride, which took my eyes off the trail and ended with my biking running into one of the trees I was supposed to avoid. They say that when I hit the tree my bike stood on one wheel as I was thrown off my bike up into the air only to smack the tree with my head over six feet off the ground. I left a mark. Dazed I landed on my back knocking the wind out of me. I was down for nearly 5 minutes. I stood up, vomited and walked home. I made my brother bring my bike.
I also showed her the woods that were near the pond. In the winter the pond froze and we rode a car hood down the hill hoping not to hit the tree trunk in the middle of the pond. What we called a creek ran from the pond into the woods. In the woods was a tree someone had tried to hollow out. They had started a fire in the trunk and scraped the burnt wood out. We didn't know when it happened. One kid who had old parents and big brothers out of college said it was there when his brothers were little. Three people could fit in the tree easy. Sometimes if we got cold skating we would go to the tree and pack as many kids as we could hoping to generate warmth. I can't say that it worked. It was fun mushing kids in though. She and I stood in the tree. We both fit and being in the tree with the girl that gave me the friendship bracelet was just about the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I told the girl about the time we thought we saw a flying saucer land in the field. Four of us set out early the next morning after we'd seen the lights in the sky. We trekked past the pond and up the hill and across the pasture that opened onto the west. We found no evidence. I even took her to where we found the hobo fort the summer before. We think a patient escaped from the VA Hospital and made a camp before he found his way to the interstate that he could have taken him to California. We found some newspapers and empty cans. They weren't very old. For the next few weeks we didn't go to the field alone and after dark we watched out for each other just in case he was still around. Some kids across the street and 3 house down thought they heard him knocking on the basement windows one night. We checked the window wells, but couldn't find any clues.
As we walked back toward my street I asked her where she lived. She told me an address closer to downtown near the university. She was visiting her mother's aunt who lived near my school. She walked to the field because she didn't have anything to do. She told me that as she walked she was certain there was a reason for what she was doing. I wanted to kiss her. I didn't. Maybe I should have in the tree. We were only in 6th grade. She had a green and gold striped jacket. I can still see it in my mind. As we walked toward the fence she held my hand. Before she let go I asked her why she gave me the friendship bracelet. All she said was. You'll never forget me. She ran off through Goodyear field to a faded pink house where an old lady with mean dogs lived.
She was right. I remembered her. I remembered her eyes and the smell of her breathing. I remembered what was like to stand next to her in a burnt out tree. That might have been the top thing for me.When I was 24 I fell in love with her. She didn't know it was me. I knew without a doubt that it was. I still have the friendship bracelet in my good luck box. I guess it worked. She was the most important woman in my life until I met my wife. I like to remember her in the field the best. That might have been the best day we ever had. If you don't count the day in the field we had about 1273 decent to good days together. No about, about it. I counted them once after I moved away. That was hard. We did some mean things to one another so we could be apart. Even when you both know apart is best it doesn't make the accepting any easier. I don't like thinking about the awful hateful things that happened back then. We were adults and should have known better.
I wish she had told me what a friendship bracelet should prove. I'm over 50 and still don't know.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The reason they cut my eyeball out
The reason they cut out my eyeball was because I got it stuck on a coat hanger. I know that sounds painful and it is a frightening image but it wasn't all that bad. True, it was the pointy end of the thing that got me but at the time it jabbed my eye everything else had already knocked me out so I didn't feel it. I don't think?
Folks need to remember to never mess around with fertilizer and diesel fuel. I wasn't , but my stupid neighbor, Donnie Johnson was. Donnie was 17 at the time of his death. To be fair he really wasn't that stupid as he could follow directions when he wanted to.
He'd read in a book from the library how to fill a bag of fertilizer from Wild Willie's( a midwestern precursor to Wal-Mart) very slowly with diesel full to create a bomb. The only time that Donnie Johnson ever followed any instructions was the time he copied them painfully and slowly from a book at the library. It was a place he seldom visited except to look at pictures in medical books on the shelves almost hidden by the stairs.
If he could have rushed even a tad I might still have an eyeball and Donnie Johnson might still be around. Instead he read the instructions with focused intent, multiple times, I'm guessing, and he paid special attention to the section on the fuse or cap or whatever cause it to ignite and blow up. If he hadn't I might still be watching 3D movies in 3D. Even with the new digital 3D one eyeball just doesn't cut it.
Donnie followed his instructions, created his bomb and placed it between our houses. What he did next makes it hard for me to forgive Donnie. He lit the bomb or whatever it is called that starts a bomb doing its thing, but he failed to run away. One can only guess he wanted to watch it go bang which is really something best heard blocks away. When the bomb, bombed, it blew a hole in our wall and then sent me flying along with most of the stuff in my room. I was knocked out by the concussion or the blast or the flying toilet, and luckily blown up enough that I didn't feel it when the pointy part of the coat hanger snagged my eye.
Donnie ended up all over. Lots of him landed in the sycamore tree in our front yard. For a week the ravens and other carrion favoring birds roosted in the tree feeding on globs and bits of Donnie. I don't know how much they found of him. It was a closed casket and besides my vision was only half as good as it had been before his last science experiment a few days earlier. Over the years I've wondered what Donnie might have become if not for the following those instructions that summer. It might have become a doctor and fixed my eye so I could judge distances better at night. It's something to think about.
Folks need to remember to never mess around with fertilizer and diesel fuel. I wasn't , but my stupid neighbor, Donnie Johnson was. Donnie was 17 at the time of his death. To be fair he really wasn't that stupid as he could follow directions when he wanted to.
He'd read in a book from the library how to fill a bag of fertilizer from Wild Willie's( a midwestern precursor to Wal-Mart) very slowly with diesel full to create a bomb. The only time that Donnie Johnson ever followed any instructions was the time he copied them painfully and slowly from a book at the library. It was a place he seldom visited except to look at pictures in medical books on the shelves almost hidden by the stairs.
If he could have rushed even a tad I might still have an eyeball and Donnie Johnson might still be around. Instead he read the instructions with focused intent, multiple times, I'm guessing, and he paid special attention to the section on the fuse or cap or whatever cause it to ignite and blow up. If he hadn't I might still be watching 3D movies in 3D. Even with the new digital 3D one eyeball just doesn't cut it.
Donnie followed his instructions, created his bomb and placed it between our houses. What he did next makes it hard for me to forgive Donnie. He lit the bomb or whatever it is called that starts a bomb doing its thing, but he failed to run away. One can only guess he wanted to watch it go bang which is really something best heard blocks away. When the bomb, bombed, it blew a hole in our wall and then sent me flying along with most of the stuff in my room. I was knocked out by the concussion or the blast or the flying toilet, and luckily blown up enough that I didn't feel it when the pointy part of the coat hanger snagged my eye.
Donnie ended up all over. Lots of him landed in the sycamore tree in our front yard. For a week the ravens and other carrion favoring birds roosted in the tree feeding on globs and bits of Donnie. I don't know how much they found of him. It was a closed casket and besides my vision was only half as good as it had been before his last science experiment a few days earlier. Over the years I've wondered what Donnie might have become if not for the following those instructions that summer. It might have become a doctor and fixed my eye so I could judge distances better at night. It's something to think about.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Hello and Welcome
As part of my duties here at JT Doode & Associates I've been working to enhance communication. Luckily for me that means looking at lots of cool things in the cloud. All of the Web 2.) apps get me excited about access for students and everyday people, or folks, as we call them around here. Many of the programs floating about here could give lots of power and voice to anyone you can hit the Internet. Any who, I think I have finally found the medium I might choose to use to disseminate the information I want out there. I intend to share it all before it is over. Be prepared. Many things will be explained.
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