The Wolf and the Prairie Dog

On a cold morning in the middle of January, in the Yukon territory as far as you can go, the clouds carried him.

A lone, innocent, scared prairie dog had been making his rounds in the red, red dust of Colorado when at once he was swept up by a dust devil of inordinate size and volume.

Away it did carry him, high into the sky above the clouds and into the jet stream and flew him North and then deposited him in a place most inhospitable to a prairie dog.

He fell like a stone on that blustery Winter’s day and luckily was deposited deep into a heavy drift of unpacked snow. Deep, deep he fell into the bank, ever-slowing his descent until he finally came to rest on a root.

He’d never experienced cold, but the one thing a prairie dog could do well is tunnel.

And so he began.

He tunneled and he tunneled and he tunneled some more. His nose had become numb, and his paws felt as though they would crack. But he sensed it was his only hope.

Tortured hour passed as the dog did work until finally, he arrived at a warm place. He smelled something foreign to him, but it made him tremble. Maybe it was just that it was foreign.

His eyes had become frozen and he could not see well, but he sensed some wriggling, and so he continued to tunnel into the warm place.

He felt fur, and so instinctively as a member of a pack, he began to snuggle into it.

The warmth began to thaw him, and he drifted into slumber.

Hours passed and he began to feel almost normal again, and his nightmare had begun to turn to a pleasant dream state.

He knew he would sleep until the dawn cooling and subsequent warmth of the sun would wake him, and so he re-gained his strength through sleep.

A Terror Begins to Rouse

MORAL: No one remains alone forever.

The Cardinal and the Crow

Fable, parable, moral and fun-play

The crow sat stoically and uncharacteristically, alone.

“They call us a Murder for a reason, you know?”.

“Always in a gang?”, quizzed the colorful cardinal.

“No. Actually not. Not always, as you can attest here today. No, we are called a murder because of how we protect our group when one of our own is fallen”.

“I’ve seen such a thing,” replied the cardinal.

“Yes. Even I find it a barbaric and ritualistic behavior. How crows do think as one mind, whether in flight, or when we dispatch one of our fallen soldiers,” thought the wise, old crow.

“But we protect our own,” said the black bird, sleek and shimmering, wearing an all-black coat like a pall-bearer.

“From what? From where I stand you kill your own,” in rhetorical inquisition stated the cardinal.

The crow thought on this one.

“How can I respond, when it is so obvious, and true?”, he pondered – taking sweet time to respond to the colored bird.

“Through the sacrifice of one, we save multitudes”, said he.

“But the sacrifice was not pure,” said the cardinal.

“Whatever do you mean?,” the raven replied.

“He did not choose it himself, the bird you murder,” pointed the cardinal.

“Ah, but he did, you see. He chose it when he joined the Murder. When he took off the old coat, and put on the new,” responded the crow.

The coat of the crow, it is said, would change once the individual joins the Murder. An oily sheen was applied, that would stay with the bird throughout its life.

In contrast, the cardinal was a chamelion sort of bird. In the Winter months, he was a dark grey and aside from his size difference, hardly distinguishable from his life-long mate. But every Spring he would put on his “cassacks” and the plumes would ignite with a flare of hues, red caps and red vests and besplinded like a Roman Pope, or an Anglican Arch-Bishop.

“Yes, when he joined, you are correct. But what say does he have in the moment of death? We serve a God who grants us free will and the worst of us may be granted absolution in our final breath, and the very best of us might turn away from God in his final moment on earth. Only God will know. But it is the Cardinal’s choice”, he said.

“Yes. And choice is evil, as you point out. We expect our own to live in the way, once they have put on the new coat. When they die in the moment (quickly, as we always ensure), they have not time to recant the rigors of their training. They die as they lived,” said the crow.

“Yes, as trained puppets. They are comfortable in their “training”, as you call it. Each year we Cardinals change. Each year, we grow in our faith. Each year we attract the same mate with our coat of colors, and we increase our family and our community. Each year, we improve to a glorious day when we go on to our promised own”, pointed out the Cardinal.

“So let us agree to this, Potentate Crow – that we both work for the same God. We both serve Him well, and he is likely pleased with our efforts. But we do it in slightly different ways. We do not sacrifice our own, but we do sacrifice ourselves, and it is good”.

And the Crow nodded in agreement.

The end.

Three-Way Switch: A Divine Comedy, Ethereal

“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart.”

“In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.

Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world.”
-Phantastes, George MacDonald, 

In the land of Nod, there were three types; they were “the On”, “the Off”, and “the In-Between”.

Nock Squeeze was in-between.

If presented with a choice between apples, oranges or a vile and bitter fruit, he would likely choose oatmeal.

The tart of the apple, the sweetness of the orange, or the puckering taste of the bitters was no contrast for Nock; he’d settle on the bland over the gamut in his inability to choose, perhaps for fear of regret.

“The On” were predictable; and so were the “The Off”.

But “The In-Between”, who could know?

They were like the indeterminate sot who was in the predicament of choosing for poor Schroedinger’s cat.

Observe the situation, and the cat is in-between the living, and the dead. Open the box, and he dies; for Nock, it was to walk away and leave it to someone else, the cat, his cat, forever in-between.

It is so much easier, to never choose a path – but in so doing, the path may be chosen for you.

Sprightly Jam saw nothing but good in the world.

She danced through the wood a slow jig, slothly animated like a molecule suspended at temperature – absolute zero. She manifest the sweetness of Jam, but also its viscosity.

She was a lightning bolt, striking through amber; a bullet shot through molasses.

Her hair was strawberry blonde, like the jam, but her movements were of a great and beautiful Queen captured with each strike of mallet against chisel in time by the painstaking carving of the sculptor.

She was fluid, but slow; positive, but determined.

She was always on, but somehow a bit off as well – but she was never in-between.

Formless Void was always one of “The Off”.

There was an utter darkness to his depths, and his path solid resolve.

Profound, and deep, he found nothingness in everything.

If Sprightly Jam slow-sung an ode to the sugar-rush awakening of a sweet orange at breakfast, or the tingling tartness in the slow savor of a Granny Smith apple at a noon-day repose, Formless Void would taste the bitter of the orange-peel zest, or dwell on the bland leather skin of the apple. He was the bitter fruit, and the pain of confronted reality.

Everything with Formless was countered from the baseless, cold-dark depths.

Between space and sky and the chasm of the deep like an oil, Nock Squeeze floated the surface, Sprightly Jam would glide the oceans, crack the surface, and rocket to the moon but in a time-lapse sort of manner that even a sloth would catch, and like kudzu-seaweed, Formless Void would blanket the floor depths like an oozing carpet.

These three individuals embodied the whole of the land of Nod, and together would forge a fabled testament to its existence in legend and lore.

Swim the Depths Before Diving From the Moon

Nock dives from the moon.

Have you tried to swim to the bottom of the deep blue sea? Buoyancy. It is such a problem.

Rocks are your best friend when trying to get to the bottom.

Fill your pockets full, and down you go.

It is different when diving from the moon.

You need momentum. A running start.

Propelled like a circus clown from a cannon.

And so it was with Nock.

He decided that he would do a graceful dive from the moon and land somewhere in the Mediterranean sea.

So he concocted a plan.

In one of the largest craters of the moon, he tied off bungee cord like a spider’s web, and carefully stretched it to the crater’s core.

There, he tied it off to a rope fixed to a moon stone.

A big moon stone.

Each strand he walked to the bottom of the pit, and there with mechanical aid, he stretched the bungee and tied it to the rope.

Strand, after ever-loving strand.

Eventually he had a web of strands that were practically side-by-side and covered completely the crater. Not even light could get through.

He decided that by fashioning more bungee, woven through the stands and it too under tension, that he could increase the tension on the giant slingshot.

He made himself a suit that was heated, and little-by-little he poured water across it until it looked like a very large mass of ice.

It would freeze quickly on the moon, as long as he kept it in the shade of the bungee.

Soon it became quite large.

He had learned of a magic trick as a lad where there was a slide that was fashioned under a lid in order to slide a quarter into a matchbox that had not previously been there when examined by the audience.

He made such a slide through the ice and down, down into the heated suit.

It was there that this projectile would propel him to the Mediterranean sea.

He would roll down the slide and into his suit and the mass of ice would be his cannonball escape from the moon and send him into his dive in the sea.

It was a brilliant plan.

The ice would melt in the earth’s atmosphere, and away he would go, down to the warm and waiting sea.

Everything had to be perfect.

He had to shoot at the precise moment so that the timing of the earth’s turn and his descent would line him up for the beautiful sea below.

He had the time and date down to the millisecond.

A timing device with a razor on a spring-arm would cut the rope, and away he would fly — screaming through space.

He just knew it would have to work.

And it did.

Dark is the Wind

Memorial days were like this for her.

She loathed them.

“What point is it to place beautiful, living and now murdered flowers (for that is what they are when they are cut) on the ground that covers the stench of bare, rotting flesh? That decaying detritus that was once a man should be ground up and used as fertilizer, since in life that is probably all they amounted to,” she would quip.

“Make something useful of the useless, and likely, formerly the same”.

To say that she was callous would be gross-extreme in its level of understatement.

Once she made this, one of her favorite among scant few observations, at the funeral of a “friend’s” child (someone, like most, who has learned to just tolerate her) – and within earshot of the grieving Mother (one of her “besties”).

“People should grow some skin,” she would say “before they become like the kid in the ground on whose bone no flesh may grow”.

Dark, Oregon is a timber town due East of Portland.

It is a rumored mythology (perhaps) that the town was founded by a gold-miner who had set up a camp between the convergence of two jutting peaks, where just below, two streams joined above the Harris Canyon to form a major tributary which flowed into the Deschutes River that later goes on to help form the mighty Columbia.

The town of Dark lie North East of Moro, near the mouth of the Harris Canyon and below Gordon Ridge.

Herodenus Taylor-Greene (Odie), was the grand-daughter of a lumber magnate, Sharp Taylor, whose daughter, and Odie’s Mother, Athaliah married a foreman in the lumber operation, Micah Green.

Sharp liked to name his children after biblical characters. Thing is, they were the lesser-known. Dark sense of humor had ol’ Sharp.

Micah was deeded a portion of the operation by the Old-man Sharp.

Sharp liked the foreman, and even more that his daughter married “in the circle” (may it be unbroken).

Sharp was an oddly religious man, but in many ways rather common.

His religion was based largely in his own ethos, and covered by a thin veil of Methodism.

To say he wore it on his sleeve would be less than grandiose, and Sharp was anything but.

Like many successful men, it had sort of gone to his head.

He’d become prototypical, at least in his mind. Treading ground no man had before seen.

The Nation was expanding; and with it, the voracious appetite for building.

A Family Tradition

Herodenus came by her surly demeanor through a lineage that while familial, and taught through experience, it seemed almost genetic.

Some folk realize the vicissitudes and weaknesses of their parentage and rebel against it, and in a good way.

Others will embrace it.

Odie was of the latter.

It was said that Sharp Taylor was so renowned in his evil ways, that even the District of Columbia had heard of his exploits.

A family of Russian immigrants had moved into a parcel that bordered one of his strip mining plots, and because he hated Russians he saw to it that the banks would lend them no money. They would dam a small stream on their property in the Spring and Early Summer months to irrigate the barley corn crops they were expert in growing (they were from Northern Russia, near Manchuria), and he would wait until the crops were close to coming in before dynamiting their dam and claiming an infringement. The dam, he claimed, he had the right to bring down in order to restore environmental harmony down stream.

It was about the fishies.

Eventually the family moved to Tennessee.

Odie was of a like mind as her beloved Grandfather.

There was a rival girl from her youth who had taken a boy Odie was mildly interested in.

She carried this loathing into adulthood and had the girl’s family homestead torched. After they pulled up stakes and moved, Odie had a sewage plant built where the farm once resided.

The popular saying around town was that it was safer to be Odie’s kitten than one who threatens her in any way, whether real, or simply perceived in her psychotic mind.

People learned that one had to play gruff and cruel in order to remain on her good side.

Fortunately it was all for her benefit, and only a few in the town actually adopted her way and became a compatriot.

Most remained as far from Odie as possible.

Thom Milton

His family was of mixed heritage. His father was Webb Augustus Milton, a blacksmith in Pineville, just South of Slayton Spur and due West of the great Ochoco (best muskie, wall-eyed pike and crappie in the lower forty-nine).

He came from an excellent working stock of men, who had all been travelers from the East.

They had traced their roots back to Kentucky, and from there to Scotland (Rosbroch, – they were “rievers”).

A tough lot, who were experts in keeping their noses clean, yet still taking care of business.

A story was related about how Angus had clipped the horns of a an old, Belgium-Red he’d bought off his neighbor. He got her crossed up in the stall, and Angus jumped up on her back and sawed the horns off with a hack saw he had laying around the foundry.

Angus, it was said, was a short, stocky fellow. Five and a half feet of testy sinew, muscle and bone, and meaner ‘en hell, with hair the color of the cow’s flank. Red, like flame.

So the Milton breed had a history (like most people in Oregon).

Thom got his abbreviated name from his Uncle, Thomas Milton, husband to Susan Brassfield of the Salem Brassfields (Oregon; but it might just as well been Massachusetts).

The Dark Side of Dark

Everyone has one.

And face it. People like to personify.

The town had that facet to it.

Hell, it is said, is a conflagration. A burning place.

And the very light of God is perpetually portrayed as a cool, blue, soothing light forever shines on all.

And what emanates from below…searing hot.

Light.

It encompasses all.

Light to becoming light.

Like eddies and whirlpools, it surrounds us. Even the fires of hell, with its glowing red ember radiates it.

But there is the time AFTER.

A time of darkness. And no one likes to talk about the dark.

It existed before creation.

It is the place of our childhood fears.

Imagine a place where there is no light. But the dark has being. The dark engulfs.

You have a sense of complete isolation. There is no other being.

No devil.

No God.

Only isolation.

When damnation is eternal, but God overtakes…the realm of the un-holy no longer burns, no longer glows the diminishing red light from the burning coal.

He promised to destroy it – hell. But NOT the damnation. It persists.

The damnation lives beyond the warm glow. It is perpetual.

Sentience with no other being, other than the dark, to share it with.

The glow winks out, and all that is left is consuming dark.

Like a pool of sludge from which no soul escapes.

The township of Dark was like a manifestation of this on God’s green earth.

A place forgotten by all.

Well. Its future, that is.

For during Odie’s terrible reign, it was a semi-thriving place.

What lay in its future was from some Russian novel – something the people of Dark had no inkling of.

But there are always signs.

A devil’s cult, a break-away religion, had bet in the woods beyond the lumber camps.

There are always whores and wannabes where men gather to work, and they surrounded the camps.

Some, it was said, were members of this Satanic cult, and some of the whores, its witches, and they lorded over by the dreaded Kikimora.

Attie’s Oven

She fell pregnant during the Fall of that year.

Athaliah remembered, and often posited that Herodenus was an horrific child from the moment she was conceived.

The morning after her splendid night with Sharp, she fell ill with a fever.

She always thought it a miracle Odie was born at all.

It is the one and only time anyone saw Sharp — nervous.

A slight inkling to a sensitive side he always kept hidden in the dark recesses.

In October, around solstice, she ventured from darkness to light (as every baby does).

How the light must sear those sensitive blue eyes. And how red they become with age.

Joy Riding After Christmas

It hit 65 today.

An old friend called; a biker chum.

No, not the gang type.  We are too old for noise, and leathers and chaps.  We ride the pedaled variety.

Great ride!  There were people.

There are always people.

People with make-shift muzzles on make-shift dogs.

Strollers and joggers in tight pants (walking). Girls with jewelry piercing places that make old men cringe.

Like a Spring day in Winter. A requiem for a winsome Winter pause.

Someone once told me that days like today are to remind one that the dead of Winter does not last forever, nor the repressive heat of Summer when a cool breeze blows.

Nothing lasts forever.  Nothing.  Well.  Except those things promised (and, I believe, delivered, like a breather, during a harsh time; promises delivered both now, and even more, on one sweet, sweet day to come).

Stopped off at the grocery to pick up some items for a pie I will bake for work on Monday.

Last time I will see some folks (at least for a while).  I want them to know of my fondness for them (as if they did not already).

New chapters require a new swagger. Go out as you always are, but come in as you were, plus how you are going to be.

A new style; a new panache.

Speaking of panache, you should’ve seen the kid skateboard down the hill and through the four-way stop tonight, just up from Calamity Corner.

Man, was he ever getting it.

After he “breezed” through the stop (hardly a California Coast – more like a monsoon, or a California Clipper), I decided to drop the new car into low and screech the tires for him.  Something to tell his girlfriend about, or his best pal Petey.

It was a lazy day in the park, in a small town, where nothing much crazy happens.

Save for kids on skateboards, and dogs with shoestrings tied around their snouts.

Rules and regulations.

Good thing I did not bark the tires as the kid was careening through the four-way.

That could’ve been bad (for he, and me).

But it turned out well.

Fishermen kept fishing in our little pond on Pistol Creek, and flocks of ducks were flying against the afternoon sky.

The wonderful aroma of Spanish foods wafted through the air at the dam, and people idled around like some painting from some far-distant past, skipping on paths like flat stones across still water – and chirping, murmuring about nothings, like song birds who sing about their day.

The Lord has gifted us richly, here.

First in the sacrifice, of course, but then in the blessing of the humble; of the meek who live and prosper in our humble little town.

Life just perpetuates, and in such simple, comfortable fashion.

Always does in this, our version of happy-ville.  Like a million others on our blue marble.

Life just keeps streaming along, like the fish meandering down the gentle flow of the creek.

And joy and happiness abound.

Here.

Here in our little town.

The Pawns of Parham Hill

Mother MacRee: Eddie!  You know you’ve got to deliver the morning prayer Sunday in church.  You gonna have to get your rear in gear in the morning.  And don’t spend all day down at Freddie’s shop, you here…Eddie?

Eddie: Yes Ma, I hear ya.  I’ll probably go fishin’ after I get done at Fred’s.  I’m thinking about a flat-top this time.

Mother MacRee: Eddie…you’re going to scare all the girls.  You have fun down at Winky’s pond, but be careful.  Agnes Molloy said her boy got bit by a Copperhead over there a few weeks back.

Eddie: I heard it was a Cotton-mouth Diamond Back Black Momba.

Mother MacRee: Whatever Eddie.  Just be careful.  Those snakes are vicious, and I’d like to keep my son around a while.

[The scene darkens on Eddie’s bedroom, and the dimmed kitchen from left stage where his Mother was chatting with him, darkens.  Eddie moves to stage right and the lighting in his bedroom falls, but not to black.  Eddie is in a soft spotlight (each time he speaks to the crowd)].

Eddie: You know, that is the way it is here in Murrysville.  No real excitement, and you can count on things.  I’ve stayed here for that reason. You can count on your friend, your neighbors.  Sun always comes up on time, sets the same.  Things just don’t change, much.  Every Saturday, I’ll either get up real early and head to the pond to see if I can catch a few “off the nest”, or I’ll head straight to the barber.  Fellas ’round here been getting crew cuts for some time now…sort of “our thing”.  We’d had enough of the long-hairs back in the 60’s and 70’s. Yup, things don’t change much.  I’ve kept my job down at the foundry, and I’ve just never wanted to leave.  Got my degree from the local college here in town.  Studied political science.  Not much use for a political scientist in Murrysville.  But it does make for good conversation over at Fred’s on Parham Hill.  The Parhams.  I remember my Grandfather told me once they were a big deal around here, once.  Over near Brick Hill. Yup.  It’s a nice pace around Murrysville.

[Light fade to black.  New scene opens on a barber shop.]

Fred: Well, look what the cat dragged in.  How you doin’, Eddie?

Eddie: Great Fred.  You still cuttin’ hair?

Fred: Boy, what do I keep tellin’ you?  Not much else to do around this old place, and we ain’t in the business of collecting hair.

Eddie: Damn.  Did you hear about that shooting up in Chicago ?  I heard there were fifteen people killed.

Fred: This world is going to hell in a handbasket Ed.  Sons a bitches are just killing each other left and right.  Better keep their asses outta this part of the world.

Patron: Y’all handle things different down here do ya?

Fred: Let’s just say we don’t cotton to our boys and girls kicking up their heels like that.  Round here, that’s not the idea of a good time.  Worse thing I ever saw happen was when Old Man Phillips barn caught on fire, but that was some squabble between he and his son.

Jenkins: Yeah.  They were dating the same woman.  Got real “messy”.

Eddie: How you doin’ Jenks?

Jenkins: Real good Eddie.  You been fishing this morning?

Eddie: Naw.  Rough week.  This hot weather and that damned mill don’t go so good together.

Jenkins: Gets hot around that molten metal, doesn’t it?

Eddie: Yeah, it do.

Fred: I heard there will be a layoff ? Any truth?

Eddie: Hell, Fred.  Them SOBs is always talking crap like that.  You know how it is.

Fred: Yeah, but it really hurts my business when you boys walk.

Eddie: Your business.  It never hurts.  You haven’t raised your prices in fifty years.  During that strike back in the 70’s your business kept cooking like a tea kettle.  You ain’t never hurt for nothin’.

Fred: Shit.  I was hurting when I had to go out there and work that time.  That place is hell. I don’t see how you stand it.

Eddie: Hell, son, I’ve got metal in my blood.

Jenkins: What do you reckon motivated that fella up there to kill all them people?

Fred: Probably living there.

Eddie: Chicago ain’t that bad.  I knew a girl from there once.  Saundra, I think.  Nice girl.  Had a real good time when I visited up there.  People treated me real nice.

Fred: Yeah.  I bet.  Dijou [did you] come home with any money?

Eddie: Spent most of it on her.  I remember, there was this one place…had the best damn chow-chow I’ve ever tasted.  It was an Italian-soundin’ name.  Giroddani’s, or something.  And popcorn…man, Cracker Jacks has got nothing on that bunch.  Nice town.

Fred: Yeah.  Great place to be buried.

Jenkins: Hey.  I had some fun in Chicago once.

Fred: Case of the crabs doesn’t represent “fun” in my book, Jenks.

Jenkins: Hey, Fred !  That’s outta line, buddy.

Fred: Okay, Okay.  Sorry Jenks.  I know your mom wouldn’t appreciate me talking about ya like that.

Jenkins: Damned right.

Eddie: Well, it ain’t like you don’t get around, Jenks.  Who you dating now?  The girls lacrosse team?

Fred: I saw him hanging out over at the dorms at Murrysville College.  He likes them Yankee girls.

Eddie: Jenkins?  Is it true?  You gettin’ all “cultured” on us?

Jenkins: I was over there painting one of the dorms.  Those girls are too young for me.

Fred: Too young, and too smart. [Bell rings and the door to the shop opens.  Several patrons move down “the prayer bench” to make room]

Fred: Come in, come in.  I’d say I can get to you in about 20 minutes.

Jenkins: Hey Rowdy! How you and Eilleen gettin’ along?   You still treating my girl good.

Pete: Your girl?  And what’s this Rowdy crap.  Thought you guys had decided to quit using nicknames.  She’s good, she’s good.  Swelling up like a pumpkin, but good.  Complains all the time.

Eddie: Don’t they all?

Fred: Hey.  Tell your momma that.

Eddie: How are things between you and sweet Mother MacRee, Fred.  You are still taking her to fancy restaurants aren’t ya?

Fred: Taking here over to Becky’s.

Jenkins: White’s Mill Chapel?  Man, they got one of the best hamburgers.  It is the rye bread. That’s the secret.

Fred: Hell son, that ain’t no secret.  Everybody in town knows it.

Pete: Yeah, everybody but the half-backs.

Patron: Half-backs”

Jenkins: Yeah.  You ain’t from Micheegan, are ya?

Patron: Nope. Florida.

Fred: Oh hell.  Gator fan?

Patron: Seminole.

Fred: Oh, well then, welcome to my shop.

Patron: You not like Gators?

Fred: Eat ’em every chance I get.

Eddie (to patron): Halfbacks are the people from up Nawth who move down to Florida, start back home, visit here and decide to stay.  They leave Florida ’cause the taxes are so high.  Settle here ’cause we ain’t got no taxes.  Then they start complaining about the services that are offered here (schools ain’t what they expect, they don’t feel like running to the dump on Saturdays to tote their garbage. You know, all the modern “conveniences” that taxes pay for.  Hell, go back to Florida.

Fred: yeah, so anyway, they are halfbacks because they move to Florida and only make it half-way back to Yankee-ville.

Patron: So you guys don’t like Yankees.

Jenkins: It is not really that.  We’ve been dealing with them as tourists for years.  I almost married one outta high school (Joy-see (Jersey)).  She was German.  Blonde.  Blue-eyed.  Gorgeous.

Eddie: Until she figured you out, right Jenks?

Jenkins: (chortling) yeah.  Suppose so.

Eddie: Anyhow, Mister, what Jenks is trying to say is, we don’t really hate them, hate them – we just hate taxes.

Fred: Yeah.  Damn revenuers.

Patron: Oh, from the moonshine days.

Jenkins (under his breath): Like they are gone.

Fred: Yeah.  Old man Naventhol still runs some shine.  It’s up at Butterfly Gap.  I wouldn’t trust that old geeser though.  I think he’s East Latvian or something.  Kinda got an edge to him.  Like he hates everybody, or something.  Probably mixes it with radiator fluid.

Jenkins: Yeah, likely.  I hear the best shine comes up Green Briar way.

Eddie: Well, it’s the water.

Patron: The water ?

Fred: Oh yeah, best shine is filtered through peat.  Gives it an earthy taste.  Good stuff up there.  Lot’s of old hardwood.  Water gets filtered really well, and so the still…they spring fed up there.  Good water.

Eddie: Yeah, good shine is always in the ingredients.

Jenkins: But no, mister.  We don’t hate Yankees.  We like ’em.  They got money.  They like to spend it.  We like to collect it.  Kinda works for us both.

Patron: Well, that’s good to hear.  My wife and I were just through here on vacation and decided to stop.  Nice place.

Fred: Yeah.  The people are friendly.  So’s I hear, anyway.

Eddie: Yeah.  Friendly (sarcastic).

Jenkins: You hear about what happened up in Nosey Holler?

Eddie: Perkins was telling me on the golf course the other day that he was hopped up on something.  That would explain it.

Fred: It was that damned crack cocaine.  Them guys get crazy with it. What’d Perk allow?

Eddie: Stan said it was domestic.  They got into it over some woman he was slippin’ around with on the side.  I reckon she blowed his brains out.  Perk said it was a real mess.

Fred: Well, he deserved it.  What if it’d been your wife?

Eddie: I ain’t gonna have a wife.

Fred: You keep taking them to Mickey Dee’s and you won’t.

 

 

A Trellis for the Rose

It stood on the West side of their house.

My Great-Grandfather was a thin, lanky man – and prone to placing his hands on his sides, elbows at attention, left and right, and there in that position, he would ponder.

In his button down and slacks, he looked like Oppenheimer, and I always thought him some great and mysterious man.

To a little kid like me, tossing about at his feet, he seemed a giant, framed against a blue sky that was punctuated by the zig-zag of a lattice that seemed from my vantage “rolling” on the grass beneath his wing-tips some tremendous, white and pristine sky scraper. It was a frame to the hundreds of red savior-soldiers which climbed this jacob’s ladder to heaven.

I’d watch his every move, Great-Grandad.  I’d watch him load the canister with some white dost, and then pump the handle to charge it with air.

Then he would spray this powder on the roses.

He’d do this, early of the morn, before we went to church.  Mom and dad would leave me there on the weekends as they went “out” with their friends.  I’d spend the night, and get up early to follow at my Great-Grandad’s foot.

The early morning dew would fade, and behind the evaporation it would leave “spots” of the dust where the droplets once stood.

A vanishing act.

But a trail that was left behind (cookie crumbs, I suppose, for others to follow).

Great Grand-dad’s name was Thomas.

Thomas Milton Shepherd.

He died when I was very young, and my memory is served only by the time I spent with my Great Grandmother as I grew up.

Very fond memories of the house, but few of Thomas Milton.

But I remember the shed out back, and copper-colored “dust gun” he used to spray the roses.

And I remember his wing-tip shoes and how he would also squeeze my shoes to check for fit.  I remember my father would glare at him.

He was always cognizant of the responsibility a family entails.

When I got much older, and was on my own, his son, my Uncle Emerson died.

At the funeral, my Aunt asked me about my Masonic affiliation.  I affirmed for her that yes, I am a twice past Master, and that I have enjoyed my time in the lodges.

“You know, it saved his life, don’t you,” she inquired.

“Oh, how so,” I replied.

She went on to explain to me how they had divorced all those years ago.

How my Grandad, Floyd, went to work in the brick yards to support the family.

He was eleven.

She said they would have starved had it not been for my Grandad.

She said Thomas Milton, my Great Grandad, had been quite the gambler (and rouster) in his youth.

I sort of smiled inside.

The day came when he joined a lodge.  She said he gave up drinking, and gambling, and (I’m betting) “consorting” and tried to re-establish his affiliations with the family.

He and Myrtle got back together.

I’m guessing it is where he got his interest in shoes.

They were important to him, symbols of family and of the responsibility of a father to his progeny.

And then there were the roses.

I often thought, why would a man who had been such a rouster raise these red roses?

She was much, much younger than he, my Great Grandmother.

Mother told me she left her home at a very young age (maybe 15, or 17) to marry my Great Grandfather.

Apparently she had an unhappy home life, and that is about all I know on the subject.

It was said she was very close to her brother and loved him very, very much.

I have a picture of the two of them when he came here to visit, long ago.

You would think that two siblings, so close and who cared so for one another would be ecstatic to see one another.

Not the case.

In their photo, they look more as two who had just been to a funeral, rather than a happy reunion.

But she was always that way.  I was always very scared of her.

So, I think I finally figured it out – the roses.

He grew them for her.

She took him back, after his wild, and wicked ways.

He came back to the family, to support them…to raise them.

It must have been terribly hard for the couple, losing their son like that.

My Uncle Morrison, you see, he was killed as a lad.

Going out for a pass in sandlot football.  Who’d have ever thought this would have mortal consequence.

But he didn’t see the kid on the swing, and the kid did not see him.

Uncle Morrison was looking over his shoulder to catch the pass, and the boy on the swing was “pumping” just as they met.  He’d extended his feet and legs out stiff just after reaching the apex of the back swing and was coasting through the arc.

They collided, he and my uncle.  It burst Uncle Morrison’s stomach.  He died soon after.

It had to be hard on a couple.

But they did get back together.

And my Grandpa – he raised the roses (and we kids).

I remember looking at his wing-tips and thinking how sensible they seemed.

And the roses.

I was a kid who loved the grass, and the roses and the sky.

And my Great Grand-dad.

They would hang there against that white trellis, against a white house with green shutters.

They looks sort of like a kaleidescope of crucifix, hanging there against the wall.

I imagined how each rose seemed the Master’s head.  I wondered if they gathered the thorns for his crown from the stems of the rose.

It was all there.

The buds that had not yet bloomed hung their heads like a dying man on a cross must.

Others, although, had gone to full bloom and rose in their glory like Christ at ascension.

And for the love of my great Grandmother, he raised those roses and we kids.

I will be forever in their debt.  My Grandfather, his children and his grandchildren.

He taught us all very well, and we have grown up a good family.

Like the roses on a trellis to the sky.

I am forever indebted to them all; saviors, providers, lovers but most of all, the men and women of my family who my life so.

And to the roses.

Thank you Thomas Milton…

…for the roses.

A Rattler’s Death for the Radical

Can it be?  Are “they” finally in their “final” days?  Is this the end of batman?  Stay tuned.  Same Bat time, same Bat channel.

Okay.  Cheesy, granted; but what article here has not been.  Especially since the advent of the “chosen one”.

You know who “they” are, don’t cha?

They are the fellas and gals who are constantly causing EVERYBODY trouble.

They are the smart-asses from class, disrupting everything and ruining everyone’s education (along with their good time).

They are the radicals.

The hippy-dippy, DT-laden, tune-in, turn-on  and drop-outters.

The bong-heads.

Pot heads.

Morons.

Morons like Keruoak, Joni Mitchell (Help ME ! I think I’m fallin’, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yadaaaaahhhhh (now I got this earwhig in my stinkin’ head).

Oh well.

They are like that, you know.  Like a song you can’t get out of your head.

They never cease.

Never die.

Or, do they?

With the latest on Hill-Baby, things ain’t lookin’ so hot for the radical demon-rat.

But what about the radical Republican?

Where is he?

Is Ted Cruz their only counter-weight?

We know it is not Boehner.

So who challenges the radical today?

Where is Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon when you need them?

Well the spirit do live.  Just not very “aggressive?”, of late.

But methinks the spirit is beginning to…stir.

And by-golly, it needs to.

 

Seeking the Divine Through a Monocle of Forgiveness

And so it came to pass that a great Captain, of a great sailing ship, from a great, sea-faring Nation saw among his crew two men fighting, rather than focusing on keeping their ship in, well, ship-shape!

And because the men were brutes (they were from the rigging crew), he sent his largest mid-shipmen to break up the fight and deliver the men to him.

Once there, he scolded the men and asked “what was the brew-ha-ha all about, lads?”.

“We got in uh foite ov-uh who owed you more money.  And we’d been gambling, ya see, to keep you paid your monthly amount. Also, I had loaned him moneys to pay you, and he has not paid me back.  What shall I do but take it out of his hide? “.

“What, indeed,” said the Captain.

“I’ll tell you what. I will forgive both your debts if you can prove to me that you can both be stand-up men.  What I need from you, as Captain of this Queen’s fine vessel, is for you to concentrate more on the efficacy of this ship, and less on quarelling with one another.  Agreed?”.

And the two men agreed.

Unfortunately for the Captain, he had been so busy attending to the matters of the crew that he failed to notice a ship bearing down right on them – about to split them apart!

What shall he do?

“Ahoy there,” he yelled at the Captain of the oncoming ship, “move aside ya dark ringer; what do ya think you are a doing – you’ll scuttle us, boy”.

He continued to yell and curse the frigate, but to no avail.

Finally he came to his senses and realized the oncoming ship would not turn, and so he veered his own in just the nick of time.

As they passed, they noted that it was a ghost ship, and there was no Captain aboard.

He was angry at an empty ship.

Now, the two crew, who had before gone about their business and were attending to the ship began to quarel once again.

As it happened, the one crew member owed the Captain much, much more than the other.

And, as it turned out, the lesser of the two (who owed the Captain far less) was angry that the debt forgiveness was not more equitable.

So the Captain had them broken up again and returned to him.

“What is the meaning of this contined fighting?”.

“But Captain,” one of the men spoke, “I only owed you a dollar.  This man owes you stacks of money.  How is it a good deal when he walks away from his debt to you, whe I hae worked so hard for the money I have earned, and now he spends it like water?  How is that fair?”.

The Captain had to think long and hard about this one.  After much contemplation he proffered this:

“The other day, I almost rammed another ship in my anger.  I wanted to over-run it and its captain, as they were in my lane. But I thought ‘the ocean is large’ and there is no need for this sort of bicker.  So, at the last minute, I veered my course and found that the oncoming ship was pilot-less.  I was yelling at an empty vessel.”

“But you boys are not empty vessels.  Both are captains of their own lives.  As such, you may choose to spend your moneys as you please.  But do not get upset when your investment has proven fruitless.  Better to learn from this never to invest in such scoundrels.  It is a good man who pays his debts.  But an even better man who can forgive.”

“Had I rammed that ship yesterday, both ships would have been without a Captain.  Reason prevailed, and after chasing off the sea-wolf of anger, I came to my senses.”

“You boys must come to yours as well, and just as I have forgiven you both, forgive one another.  Oh, and one more thing,” the Captain said, pensively “it is a good and decent man who pays his debts; but it is a divine man, chasing after the heart of God, who may forgive”.

“To quote the good book: ‘For, it is in forgiving that we are forgiven, in loving, that we are loved, and in giving that we receive the greatest gift of all – eternal salvation’ “.

And with that, the men went back to attending the needs of the ship, and of their mates.  Wiser, gentler, happier.

Moral:  There is a waste that comes from yielding to the monster, anger.  Better to show class, forgive, and move on; but in so doing, doing so more wisely in the future to avoid scoundrels who refuse to pay their debts.

Grey Lady Down; Black Queen Trumps

The land was defined by its patchwork of fields and pastures that from promontory gave the land a mosaic look, and thus its name, Mosaichron.

A witch oversaw the land. The Grey Lady was her name, and she ruled the land by casting spells over the Mosaichrons whereby there was a total acceptance of anything she put before them.

People trusted her as the source for all information, and the Grey Lady would bend the minds and souls of the average person in this community.

But a Black Queen one day arose from the ranks of the Mosaichrons, and the time of the lies was soon to end.

For the lies had outrun themselves, and no longer could the Grey Lady cover for brash antics, and cruel endeavors of the Black Queen.

Soon, the Queen grew wise of the Lady’s ruse.  She turned on them, and the lies, the became the truth!

But, alas, the truth also became the lies.

And the lion layed with the lamb, and course existence was the way of the land.

But then, one day a great lion of truth rose from the East like a star, and happiness was again to take over the land.

For no one could question this truth.

And the lies of the Grey Lady, and the Black Queen were no more; for in their avarice, and their lust for all things of this world, they consumed one another in a fury of lies.

And what was left was a simple truth, from a simple man.

When one practices certain things, he will be undone by them; but with only a smidgeon of belief, erring in the side of Truth – then all things became possible for man.

And man came to understand that he was truly divine in that he could differentiate the dark cloud, and the dark queen from the way of light.

And people were kind to one another.

And there was goodness throughout the land of Mosaichron.

The patchwork field turned again to green, and the creeks and rivers ran like liquid silver.

moral: do unto others

Money for Honey, and Moe’s Repose

Ain’t it just like that?

She would talk of her aspiration.

Breathy.

Literally.  She would talk about what she would one day be.  And her breath.

Like her aspirations for life, it was faint when she would launch into these times of faraway eyes.  As if “saving room” for the future, and imagining it at the same time.

Yeah, life can be just like that.

Moe, on the other hand was more grounded.

His breaths were deep.  It was if he was sucking in every remaining molecule of life-giving fuel.

His brain would fire on every node, and he would feel more alive than ever there, watching her wispy breaths and imagining the dreams that must flow through her head.

The supple wine skin was now swollen with a mature stock,  and it took on the presence of a hind in Spring; its eyes like that of the young maiden – full of dreams of skipping fawn and frosty Spring morns with vapor rising on an amber field of grain.

Moe poured her another glass, and squirted a drink from the skin right down his gullet.

“So romantic,” she posed.

“Yes, saves on fluted glass, ” Moe returned, laughing deep.

He was already drunk with her beauty and needed no old wine.

While she saw the field, all he saw were her eyes.  He was fixated.

Like drinking in the precious oxygen, he drank in her radiance until inebriated beyond measure.

She would smile.

“What are you looking at,” she’d ask.

“A small place in heaven,” he’d reply.

Theirs was an existence complex.

Hardly understood by friends and family, yet there was more a respect between the two; one that yielded magnificent adoration.

She fully understood his lot; and he envied what lay in front of her.

For he well knew, life was that way.

All in front, or all in back – but always, always in the moment.

And this was a moment for the ages.

Even angel’s rejoiced.  For they knew at last Moe had again achieved what he’d only known in long-past prior.

“You know there is such a thing as heaven on earth, don’t you Maggie?”, he asked.

She looked up in surprise, as if shot by an arrow.

“What exactly are you saying, Mr. Moe?  Have you achieved Nirvana?,” quipped Maggie.

He laughed uncontrollably, with a deep, deep laugh.

“Perhaps not, but something closer to it, and better,” he answered.

“Better than what,” she asked in nervous anticipation.

“Better than being there.  It is the approach, my love, not the attainment.  For the attainment is an eternity of bliss, and the approach – only a brilliant anticipation of what may come.  Sometimes, Love, the dreams are somehow better than the reality.  But of course, once attained, who will then require dreams?”, was Moe’s soulful answer.

It left her far-away eyes even farther on the horizon of space, and Moe wondered what she saw there.  In the distance.

And a warmth like a fire in Winter overtook his heart, and at once their mutual aspiration was equal.

 

 

A Non-Essential Morn

Waking before the sun is always a treat, especially when there is much to do.

So many are depressed.

Posse Comitatus has that effect (on some).

Napoleon was hell-bent on taking the entire world.  You know, it was not for the sake of control.  Not with Bonaparte.  And maybe others with similar ambition (but those trying through the back door are most-assuredly suspect, even by the pestilent enemy).

No.  It is like climbing mountains.  Conquering.

After riding the lightning, black dogs come to visit (for what “next-big-adventure” tops the one you just finished ?).

It is like unrequited love.  Who really cares ? Well, the couple, that’s who.

Boo-hoo, pal.  It didn’t work out.  Life goes on, and there are other psyche-mountains to conquer.

The biggest one is that of living with one’s self. Once that is conquered, living with others is a snap.

THAT is a mountain.

What being, save for those most callous, does not visit self-examination from time to time.

Question is: after that reflection – is there change ?  And then, does it have a positive effect ?

Oh, I can hear the detractors.

“Positive, by whose standard ?”.

Well, it is simple, isn’t it.

If self-reflection is for the self, then so is the definition.

Of course, if you quibble over the definition of existence, you will never get anywhere with the reflection.

One presumes it is for the benefit of both self, and through self-improvement, that of the greater “good” (mankind).

That is making a big assumption that mankind can be good.

But if you are going to default, why not default to the positive ?

Catch a pretty girl’s eye and then pursue her heart; let the devil take mankind, right ? Love can be self-serving like that.

But love itself is what is essential.

Throngs of people can do beautiful things.  You see a glimpse of it when they pray for a single player like Gehrig, when the chips are way down, but the player never will be.

We plan, we scheme.  We have “goals”. Sometimes we come together and hold hands.

Neighborly affection.

And to what end ? White picket fences ?

Building a mansion in the sky ?  Showing to one another that we can be nice ?

Well, it is not in our hands, is it.

Always the darn builder.  But in this case, there will be no complaints.  This builder only builds temples of perfection.

No cracked plaster, no curved walls; no cross circuits.

All is perfection in the houses built by these hands.

So when contracting, it is essential not to contract a virus, or a builder who builds facades.

They take time to overcome. But, once overcome, the temple is stronger.

Death, where is thy sting ?

Life is that way, when you are in the way that should be walked.

And the essence?

The essence is staying in the game.  Like Gehrig. Honoring the life that is conferred, even when it ends too short.

There is no greater victory than that of living a life that is worth living.

None.

So really, no morning is non-essential (and neither is any human).

But then…there are those exceptions.

Brutality.

You want a non-essential, there is your non-essential.

Who needs it, brutality ?

The frail, the weak.  Those with mental disorder no maid on heaven or earth can scour and cleanse.

No scrubbing that one clean; have to scrub so hard that nothing is left. The godliness in it is that that the scourge is no more.

He can no longer harm others.

Of course, although, there are those who are perpetually “harmed”.

They perceive all these atrocities committed against them.  It is an empty closet that is full of angst.

Demons, created only by a mind that has no attachment to decency, and is detached also from any semblance of reality.

It is a “snap”; a disconnect.

And from these it is almost an imperative to remain detached.

Engagement, I suppose, is the sincerest form of love.

To love that which does not love itself is a divine act; to show mercy for one whose spirit is crushed.

Broken by life, but mended by life-everlasting.

Like a crack in plaster, all is made well by a patch.

A cut healed by a band aide.

And now on this non-essential morn – I will take a non-essential walk up a non-essential hill; at its top, I will find my essence and return home to spruce up.

Our essence is up and down that way.

It is the memory of the mountain top that keeps you going.

Loves gone by – and hope.

It is a smile that wells in the soul, promises mansions built on foundations stronger than church.

 

 

On the Banks of Bhopal

The lower lake had an almost other-world red glow.

Sawjai (sah-jhway) had never been to the Ganga-Satluj Ka Maidaan (गँगा सतलुज का मैदान), or the River Ganges, but he was vaguely familiar to the custom of “floating the dead”, and he imagined a river dyed by blood and red like the morning sky and its reflection on the Lower Lake.

He was a Christian, and reared in a home in which as a minority he was at the lowest end of the caste system.

Even though exposed to so many cultures and religions, he still found the practice very foreign.

Sawjai was self-educated, largely through the internet (which he was only able to get on periodically at the i-cafe, thanks to a benevolent owner who took an interest in the young man – probably due his wit and intelligence).

The local priest also allowed him time at the church, in order to feed his desire to expand his knowledge.

It was almost Christmas.  December 2, 1984 when the sun began its descent in the Western sky beyond the city where it painted the lake with a radiant glow filtered through an atmosphere usually refracting the blue,  but on wondrous occasion such as this from the red to the purple, to the blue.

As a Christian, he was excited in the season of Christmas-tide.

c o n t r o l

Christians here did not have a lot to look forward to, and this time of year was special to them all.

He was happy after laboring all day to this treat sent from God; a special gift to lighten his load somewhat.

In the nighttime hour, Sawjai was awakened by the laborious coughing of his grandparents, who slept in the room next to his.

They had windows, and Sawjai’s room was sealed, dank and dark.

His Father, Aadesh was a trader in fabric and commanded Sawjai to wet towels and line the seams of his door, which he promptly did.

Muffled, and only making out every other word, Sawjai realized something was terribly wrong.

His grandparents were in obvious and dire distress.  In just a few moments her heard from outside his walls in the streets people screaming.

It was as if a saboteur had found a means of mass destruction through the air they breathed and initiated an evil so overwhelming that it was a foreshadow to an ultimate vile deed in the selfish and the self-serving.

Sawjai felt the walls close in, a helpless prisoner in his own home.

Yet who or what was the warden of this cell ? Who the architect of this prison?

How long, he thought, could he lie indifferent to the suffering of others ?  Trapped in this dark enclave, this vacuum he had now created for himself on his Father’s command.

He knew the day would come when he would have to ignore the orders of his father.

When his own humanity would not allow him to lie in selfish covet of life itself.

And the cloud also rises

Morning was about to break that day, and the horror would then clarify like lungs purging of a toxic brew.

In the streets women had made it their industry to rend garments meant for sale and were now fashioning them into face masks then to be used by those in covet of filtered air.

Panic had set in.

At the railway station, where the crux of the plume had wafted and settled, thousands were waiting to embark and disembark on the train.

They were going about their daily lives when the pestilence of man’s making descended on the station.

Many had fallen like stones from the temple.

How it is that all things are of “man’s making”.

He builds his temples only to see them destroyed by what he deems acts of nature.

Some acts certainly are human nature.  Others are condition-based.  Like the volcano of Vesuvius, for example.

What hand did the evils of man have in this?

Probably plenty when it comes to their sins, the biggest of which and perhaps from which all others are born is his proclivity to covet life.

Especially when it is his own life he covets; a virtue it would perhaps be if the covet was in the preservation of other’s lives, but when it is only of one’s own, it then becomes much more sinister.

But in reality, putting life above creation is itself a sin.

But a glorious sin that is argued away. Not living by bread alone, but by every word of God.

To taste of those living waters is true life.

A life Sawjai could only dream of.

But he had enough of this isolation.  It was time to break free.

As he opened his door, he heard his Mother’s wails.  His grandparents were now gone to be with the heavenly host.

He inquired of his father and his Mother said he had gone to the train station to help with the sick, dead and dying.

Sawjai knew he had to follow suit.

Once in the light of day he saw in the streets cattle roaming amongst the dead.

A lady friend of the family asked where he was going, and when he told her to help his dad, she handed him a mask soaked in the clear waters of the Lower Lake.

He thanked her.

In the pink sky of the dawn he placed his mask over his face, secure it, and made his way to the life of the living at the station and to his Father.

A Grand Day in Macky’s Hell

Mackenzie “Macky” Edradour had been known throughout the parts as a man of the mountain.

There are bulls of the wood, hairs of the dog, and the scorn of woman-kind – but there have hardly been many men of the mountain to top old Macky.

A member of the Grand High Order of the Illustrious Peaks, Macky was practically a myth in these parts.

When (and if) he came to town, people who did not know him on sight did not actually believe it was him.

With his salt and red pepper side burns, red mustachio and coiffed goatee, he looked like a refined version of General Custer – only his locks were more red than blond.

He was a fiery cuss, and full of wizz and vinegar.

Spry as a newborn deer, he could climb these ridges like a slew-foot bear.

On this particular day, he had found himself downstream (which usually translates to trouble, with a capital “T”).

Downstream means  closer to the lowlands; closer to the towns.

Closer…to vice (about the ONLY thing ol’ Macky misses about town; “good Trouble”, he called it).

It was early Spring, and the trout were making their run.

Like all good trout fishermen,  Mackie started upstream to kick up the salamanders and crawdads (meaning the spawning fish were in a frenzy by the time he made it downstream).

He would eat like a King tonight.

Or, so he thought.

An Unprincipled Conductor

“Ahoy friend.  Catching any? ” .

The intrusion caught Macky off guard, and he suddenly remembered he was now in the more populated low lands.

“Aye, aye.  Got a mess on my hands here.  Dinner should be good tonight”, he responded.

“You a fisherman by chance”, Macky asked.

“No.  Train Conductor by trade.  Would love to learn how to fish.  Can’t seem to get away from the rails long enough.  On furlow, and hanging out in this here town. Anything I can do to help? I am always up for a learning experience,” he politely offered.

“Why shore,” said Macky in his mountain brogue.  “Tell ya what, when I catch ’em, you take this here net and land ’em.  We catch a mess and you might just eat with me tonight”.

The conductor accepted, almost gleeful.

“Now be careful taking them out of that net when I catch one.  These puppies are slippery as a snail’s tooth, and we don’t want to throw any back,” Macky instructed.

“Why, yessir.  On me, in all things with confidence, you can rely,” he replied.

“Say what shall I call you, conductor.  You prefer just “conductor”, or have you a Christian name”, Mackenzie inquired.

“Oh, sorry fella. I am James.  James MacFarson. But you can call me Jim.  My friends all do,”  Jim replied.

“Well, alright Jim.  Let’s catch some fish! “.

The afternoon was filled with chatter about experience, about the rail and about the mountains.

And the baskets?  They were filled with fish.

And so they set up a makeshift eatery, equipped with the finest outdoor fire pit, where fish would be fried, and corn-pups would round out the platter.

“You know, the one thing that would polish off a meal like this would be a fine taste of scotch whiskey, and good cigar,” Jim offered.

“You know,” responded Macky, “I am inclined to agree.  Say, there once was a saloon below the hotel in town.  Are either still there?,” Mack inquired.

“Oh yeah!  I am staying at the Hotel,” Jim offered.

“Well, well.  Does Maggie still run the bar?”

“She sure does.

Platitudes of Self-Help for the Self-Deluded

I always hated platitudes.

As a space traveler, I can’t help but be reminded of a Black Hole when it belches.

Literally.

They belch.

I don’t know what is going on in their gut, but I suspect it has something to do with ingesting an errant platitude.

One that got mixed up with their cabbage and beans.

Take this one, for instance:

It is what it is.

Yeah, but…

What if it is not?

As a pilot, I can’t get near a black hole unless I am traveling at un-Holy speeds, so in truth – no one really knows what is going on in its gut.

But I do.

My gut reels every time I read or hear something like the statement above.

Can you possibly use more trite words to say even less?

Let’s break it down.

The most basic component of the universe is the Atom.

Or is it?

The greek philosophers pondered on the concept of “essence”.  What is something really?  At its core.

If you chip everything else away, what is the thing?

Remove a man-bun and voilá, you have a man.

Well, we now know the Atom is NOT the most basic building block.

In fact, they are comprised of a multitude of particles which launched the phrase “sub-atomic”.

Are they its “essence” ?

Of course not.

Like a personality, they are composed of more than just a compendium of particles.

The particles can be non-descript and present in the atomic structure of numerous elements.

It is sort of about their arrangement.

The individual is comprised of ALL the individuals he has met.  His personality is a composition of all his experience — PLUS; he is also that very personality that was initially sparked in the womb.

But what was he before?  Just a roaming set of particles?

Ney!

Physicists say the black hole absorbs everything, even light.

A personality does much the same.  Some good.  Some horrific.

How very unfortunate the black hole can not seem to absorb all the platitudes.

Well, we see the effect, and the reason.

Humongous as it is, even its belly cannot digest the platitude.

What doesn’t kill me will only make me stronger.

Yeah, right Nietche.

You got it babe.

My guess is he died of an over-dose of dowly platitudes.

He and Trotsky are probably playing some perverse form of wordsmythe one-upmanship in a dire plane no one in heaven dares speak of.

To do so would be to upchuck a platitude (and that is socially unacceptable in heaven).

It is what happens to those who take platitudes to heart.

Poor devil.  Belly’s just burst with over-indulgence.

But in truth, ANY indulgence of platitude is over-indulgence.

Best President Money Can’t Buy

Hmm.

Now if money can not buy them, what can?

I am going to stick my foot out here and say it is anti-money.

Anti-money is anti-capital.  Anti-capital is radical pinko-communist. Anti-capitalist.

Platitudes.

They define us.

They define us for what we are.  A big pile of nothing-ness.

Like a black hole, only more dense.

Well, some of us.

The thing is of itself.

Now this simple, declarative statement has some ring of truth.  Does that separate it from the usual fray?

Methinks so.

Certain things are of themselves.  They are not platitudes. They are true essence.

A compendium of particulate matter that, well, matters.

Shallow, and difficult to digest is the platitude.  But a word of wit is pleasing to the pallet and agreeable to the gut.

Some dollops take a deep dive straight to the gut and then provide rib-sticking nourishment.

They are absolute, and delectable in every way.

One bite contains pure wholesomeness, and one walks away satiated like a sleeping black whole; it contains all, and all is useful, and nothing escapes.

If only it were so easy to escape the mindless, and the mindless platitude.

Now.  Set the drives to WARP.  I’m coming home (where the heart is).